Rambling Sunday Thoughts

It's been eight years today since we lost our son. It's hard to believe it's actually been that long.

On Friday, I went to the Student Art Sale and bought two pieces of pottery. I've been pondering how much long I will keep this ritual/collection going. The rituals of grief do change during the years and it may be time to let this particular ritual go. Life seems to be an ongoing process of figuring out what works for you, noticing when the thing you figured out is no longer working for you, and then adjusting your course accordingly. I've been really deep in that work lately, though I'm not sure I am making any measurable progress.

I kept this piece for my desk at home. It's holding a portion of my various colorful pens I'll be using in my planner/journal. I'm trying to color code things. Sometimes the different colors seem chaotic to me. Color choices in my planner/journal doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. It's one of those distractions that I need to dig a little deeper into, and ask myself a few questions. For one thing, what more complicated or difficult task or decision am I avoiding by spending so much of my time and energy on choosing colors for my planner/journal?

When I first considered choosing this piece, it reminded me of one of those beehive drawings that show the hive hanging from the tree. Looking at it now, it also reminds me of the pot my mother used for baking beans! I think she probably still has that old pot.

I looked up beehive symbolism and found this. It's more about bees than beehives and I'm too lazy to dig any deeper into the accuracy of the sentiment but I like it very much and aspire to be more like the honey bee in my own way thinking. Lord knows, we certainly have enough (too many?) ants and spiders in our current world.

The other mention of bees comes from Frances Bacon (1561-1626). He uses a parable of the ant, the spider, and the honey bee to describe the best method of attaining knowledge. 

The ant, he says, works hard, collects data, and makes a big pile of data. The spider takes the substance from within and constructs a beautiful web - a pure theorist with little regard for empirical evidence.

Bacon claims that we philosophers should not be like the ant or the spider, but like the honey bee that goes out and collects data, mixes it in with his own inner substance, and then spits it out to build a gorgeous honeycomb of knowledge. 

We brought Christmas flowers yesterday. I like the basic arrangement but felt like I could have used some ribbons or bows around the base of the arrangement. I'll tuck that idea away in my little head for future times.

Flowers and hair, I am no good at arranging either. I suppose I am learning as I go. I've figured out to handle my hair. I go to bed with it wet and let it arrange it's own self. I'm sad that I've been forced to learn to arrange flowers for my son's grave. That's one trick I never would have bothered learning on my own. 

Circling back around to Frances Bacon, I found his quote here.

“The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.”

― Francis Bacon

Remembrances

(from our weekend, 12.08.17-12.10.17)

Earlier in the week, a friend mentioned the possibility of snow over the weekend. There was none of the usual hype when there is a possibility of atypical weather events for us. I'd read it was going to snow around midnight (one hour), and again around two a.m. (for about two hours). That was a precise prediction. I doubted we'd see snow. 

My husband's alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m. (long story). I woke up and told him I was going to the bathroom and then I was going to check to see if it was snowing. It was! I delighted! 

This is the scene that greeted me that morning. And there was more! It snowed. It stuck. We were enveloped in the silence and the brilliance. 

I took the photos below were taken after daylight arrived. I'd forgotten how satisfying it was to walk in crunchy snow. It was hard, leaving my footprints on the pristine ground. I had a little talk with myself, telling myself that the snow was a temporary experience. I admonished myself to enjoy it right now, in the present moment, accepting that it would all melt away. Like life itself. What, you don't have talks like that with yourself?

 

The snow arrived in the early morning of December 8. We were there in the woods to remember my son's death six years ago. The last texts and photos I received from him were about the snow and sharing the snowman he'd built. I still have them on my phone. He was in Pennsylvania at the time. I asked if he'd sent the photos to his sisters. This was the day before he died. I never got an answer. And now, here, six years later, we had snow on the anniversary of his death. 

It felt to me like a gift. I was grateful.

Grief Rituals

Grief often brings surprising little rituals. Rituals that help us cope with the changes in the lay of the ground we walk after a loved one has died. Every December, I go to the student art show and buy at least one piece of pottery to honor my son's memory. I started doing it in 2012 but it wasn't until 2014 that I realized I'd created a ritual of doing this. I can be dense at times!

This year there was a new color among the pieces--the color red. It stuck out more to me since they had several pieces of that color displayed together. And when I saw the red pieces all gathered together, I knew what my color choice would be. All I had to do was figure out which piece I was going to buy. The choice comes down to price and personal aesthetics. There was a lovely red platter that appealed to me, but the price was too steep for me.

After much debating with myself, I ended up with this red bowl. You can just barely see the lighter color at the top edge. It's basically half red and half that lighter color.

Some years, I go later in the day and there isn't much left to choose from. I went early this year and they had plenty of mugs for sale. That big red platter (shallow bowl?) in the upper right corner of the photo was the one calling my name. But because of my budgetary constraints, I resisted its siren call.

Here is a sepia tone version of the photo.

Friday will be the sixth year. It doesn't seem possible. Now there are more smiles and laughter at the memories, and fewer tears. I'm grateful.

Chance Encounters of the Sacred Kind

I've started back to doing Morning Pages again. If you don't know about Morning Pages, it's a practice from Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. Basically, you get up and write three handwritten pages every. single. morning. You just write whatever is in your head, going in a stream of consciousness style (which isn't hard for me to do). You keep your hand moving and if you can't think of what to write, you write "I can't think of what to write." It's supposed to clear your head of all the piddling things that run through it (and make room for creativity to flourish). Or something like that. Anyway, that's become part of my morning routine.

I've been thinking I'd also like to develop a meaningful evening routine, something I'd do, creatively speaking, that would be non-negotiable. I'd thought maybe I'd write a little short story about something that happened that day, or something I've noticed, in a journal. As it so happens, I have a story for tonight...

Maggie was out somewhere and ran into Brian, the guy who owned the skating rink that my kids and their friends all frequented when they were younger. They made their small talk and he asked her how Tyler was doing. She had to tell him that he had died 5 years ago. It was awkward and sad. They talked a bit about the memories. Brian went on to tell her how he always called her brother Bobcat. We all knew this, but we never really knew why he got that nickname. Today Brian told her. It was because of the way he pounced on the puck when he played roller hockey.

Quoted below is a piece of a poem by Rumi. The smell of Tyler has long been gone from his shirts. Sometimes, if I try real hard, I can remember how he smelled. Oddly enough, I was thinking sometime today of how I'd like to be able to hug him again, really just to sit and talk with him a bit. Things like the encounter Maggie had today can be sad. We are made aware again of our loss, an awareness that never really leaves us. Time doesn't heal that grief. But you can learn, through time, how to walk the changed landscape of your world. And these chance encounters where we have to deliver the news to someone who does not know can also bring joy. We have our family stories of Tyler, we talked about him on Mother's Day. My mom said, and I agree, that Tyler had an "old soul." Today we learned a new story about our Tyler. That makes me happy. It made Maggie happy. Other people's stories about the ones we grieve are a sweet gift. Today I can see Tyler pouncing on that puck.

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob, blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his son and can see again?

But don't be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you. . . .

(Rumi)

Today was our 42nd wedding anniversary. Burying a child is hard on a marriage. We've managed to walk together through our grief. I'm grateful for our continuing survival. 

At Least I'm Not Depressed

Yesterday I got the urge to walk up to my grandparents' house to poke around. It's been steadily falling down after Hurricane Rita dropped a tree on the front porch in September of 2005. My grandmother was already gone by then, my grandfather had passed years before.

I don't think I'm clinically depressed. I do believe I am very sad. For one thing, the holidays can be tough times for me, as I know they are for many other people as well. And the current state of our nation weighs heavy on my mind. But here's the thing: I've had enough tough times to know that they do pass. It seems the light does manage to return. Or small pockets of joy can be experienced even in the midst of the tough times. Oh, and here's the other thing: sometimes things get worse before they get better.

For some reason, it's sometimes comforting to go see the decaying condition of their house. I walked around in the yard and felt some strong feelings of love and sadness and loss. I picked up a small thing or two and came back feeling somewhat better.

One of the things I picked up was this frame from my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration. When I cleaned it up a bit, I found a photo of them.

I heard my grandmother's voice saying "You kids stay away from that well hole!" For years, I believed if I messed up and step in it, I'd slide right down and never be found again. You can't tell from this picture but the "hole" is only about two feet deep. It seems to be filled in with dirt and pine needles. But you couldn't pay me to step off in it to test that theory! No sirree!

This is the back entry to the kitchen. The curtains are still holding onto what is left of the window. And there is some sort of ceramic painted picture still hanging. Just out of view is the spot where the kitchen table was, the place where my grandfather and I ate the peach juice after everyone else had left the table. The window was the one we checked to see who was coming up the road when we heard a car. The chicken yard was back there, and the barn, and in earlier years, the outhouse (I know, ugh).

This is the view into the living room. A bedroom and the bathroom are in the piles to the left of the photo. I don't know how much longer what is left will stand. It's not safe to go in anymore. Occasionally I find myself tempted to push on one of the walls just to see if it will all tump on over. I'm afraid it would kick out and take me down with it so I keep my hands to myself.

My sister is having surgery tomorrow. She's had a rough row to hoe with her colon cancer. She's still sporting the temporary illeostomy. She's had anemia, infections, gall bladder pain, blood clots and all sorts of tough stuff to deal with. The surgery is to remove the gall bladder. It seems the stones have plugged up a bile duct and so she is jaundiced. Her liver enzymes were up. Please pray for her if you would.

This is the time of year it was when my brother went into the hospital the last time before he died. We just never know how long we have.

And December 11 will make five years my son has been gone.

Tomorrow will be my last day of work and then the Thanksgiving holiday.

Life goes on.

For the Mourners Among Us

There is a clinic where I work and they treat young children. There are often chalk drawings out on the sidewalks. Sometimes A,B,Cs, sometimes a hopscotch grid and sometimes a drawing. Children play here. It's a happy thing for me when I see their games and drawings.

It's a poignant thing for me when I see a tiny tombstone with no name, but just a word, "Baby." I think even the most dull among us would recognize the loss of hopes and dreams that is carried in this small space.

And let me be clear, it doesn't matter how young or old a child might be when taken by death, it hurts, and "you feel like the days you had were not enough."

On the evening of the first day, you lie down praying it's all a dream, that you'll wake up and your world will be righted. But in the morning you wake again to the hard truth: your child is gone. This continues for some time until eventually, you mostly get your head wrapped around the truth. As I've said before, the topography of your ground has been forever altered. But gradually you settle in to your "new normal."

Then a friend has a niece who is experiencing the loss of her son. You imagine her days and you remember how it was, all the waiting to know, the planning for the services, the raw grief of your loss. You relive your own grief, but from a stronger position than in the beginning. You feel everything again, but this time it's not about you. It's about this new mother who has been inducted into the club no one wants to join.

And you can't quite figure out what to say to your friend because words aren't worth much on occasions like these. Presence is. But you're so far away. All you can think of is how hard this is going to be. You count the loss, which can never be counted. You hold the friend in your heart. You hold the grandmother in your heart. You hold the mother in your heart. What else can you do? It's one of the hardest things a person can ever go through. No parent is supposed to bury their child. But it happens. All the time. You pray this mother will survive her loss.

I read this quote recently. It would not have comforted me in the early days of my loss. It's part of a larger article on connections between the child self and the adult self, where she is musing over a photograph of her and her older sister, who is deceased. She herself was much too young to actually remember the day of the photo, but she says this, and she asks questions--

A person whom one has loved seems altogether too significant a thing to simply vanish altogether from the world. A person whom one loves is a world, just as one knows oneself to be a world. How can worlds like these simply cease altogether?  --Rebecca Goldstein

Apart from what I believe about eternity and life after death, one thing I have appropriated for my own comfort is that my son is alive for me as long as I am alive. I carry him deep in the muscle memory of my heart. It's not the same as him being here in the flesh, but my memories of him do bring me comfort, as do the stories we tell each other as a family when we are together and remember him. This is the hope I have for this bereaved mother, that one day, and it will take some time, the memories and the stories will bring comfort and a smile, that she will find her way in her grief, and eventually walk again on steady legs. The loss will never go away. That hole will always be there. For right now, I know that hope seems nearly impossible. I don't know that it gets easier. Most of us learn to live with it. Most of us learn a new way to walk. Some don't. 

Just today I learned that a friend of my eldest daughter lost her brother Friday in a bicycle/automotive accident. Just a couple of weeks ago, I ran into this friend's mother. We hadn't seen each other in many years. We weren't ever close friends, just allies in raising two girls. But we talked a good while. We talked about my son. We talked about my breast cancer, and she told me about hers, about how it'd been nearly fifteen years and now they were seeing something suspicious. We went our separate ways, comrades in breast cancer. And now we are comrades in that club no one wants to join, those parents who have buried their children. Another cycle of grief begins. I don't know that I will make it to the visitation or the funeral. My good intention will be to check on her in the coming days, to be present with her in her loss.

In October, there is always another little boy I remember. He was a childhood friend who lived in our neighborhood, born two years before me, and died in 1969. He was 11 years old. I think of his mom and dad and his three sisters when October rolls around. His parents were among the first ones to come to my parents' door when my brother died, saying they remembered my parents' kindness when their son died. They were years into their grief journey, evidence that one could survive the unthinkable.

I think of these sons, and daughters, too, and I wonder what might have been.

Gobsmacked by Grief, Again

"Love can only be found through the act of loving."

Paulo Coelho

(I could send a letter to you. But how would I know it had arrived?)

I’d lost, and then found, my planner from last year. I was going through it, just remembering things, and I came across this piece of a quote, “…the intelligence to tell a disappointment from a disaster.” I need more of that “intelligence” (I would call it wisdom). The sentence was in a book called Kayak Morning, written by a father after his daughter’s death. Kayaking in the morning was one of the ways he coped with his grief.

I couldn’t remember if the daughter’s death was sudden and unexpected or due to an illness, and expected. It makes no difference, either way it is hard and you are never prepared.

But here, in my son’s birthday month, I thought about when I was pregnant with him. I was put on bed rest. I think it was somewhere in the middle of July. I was having small contractions and they monitored them from home, from my bed. I questioned the idea that I was having contractions so soon. The nurse laughed and said, “Yes, you can call yourself in labor.” And we joked about the record setting length of my labor. There was nothing for me to do but lie in bed and rest, waiting and hoping I’d not give birth too soon.

And then, because of my wondering about whether the author’s daughter died suddenly, I thought of my son’s death. On the surface, one might say it was a sudden death, or unexpected death. But because of his illness, his dying was like my birthing him—it was an extended (and sometimes scary) process. In the joy, those trials are forgotten. But today, in my sorrow, I remember.

And that's how grief is. You're just bopping along, minding your own business and bam, you're in another space and time, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, and always, longing for presence, for touch, for one more conversation, just a tiny moment longer, please.

(Could we just sit together a minute, one more time?)

(It is his birthday month, this year will make 5 years, one of his friends posted something on Facebook about thinking of him and the tears falling as she worked, my youngest daughter and I dreamed of him on the same night. This is grief: the memories and tears flow, they mix and mingle with the rest of my life's current. The grief does not consume me. It does add a wash of color here and there, changing the landscape of my life, like the seasons of nature change the landscape of the earth.)

 (If I could find the entrance to get to you, would I enter? 

Truth is, you are not gone. I stand on this shaky ground holding you in my heart.)

(My thoughts on the "You Are Loved" card.)

Grieving a Friend I'd Never Met

Dear Jim,

I hate when my voice inside my head tells me to do something and I do. not. listen. For months now, I'd intended to email you and see how you were doing. This past week I got the idea to check your Facebook page and I found your obituary saying you had died in April.

Upon hearing you were gone, and not having followed my gut and contacted you, I did the next best thing I could do. I perused all my emails and comments you made on my blog over the years. You were an encouragement to me, Jim. You often pointed back to my spiritual roots and the strength that could be garnered in them. So many times I was grateful for the reminder. Our friend Cheryl remembered the way you always spoke to us with grace. I felt that too, and needed it.

Among my notes I found a place where you quoted from "A River Runs Through It,"

"Each of us here today will look upon a loved one in need and ask ourself the same question: We are willing to help, Lord; but what, if anything, is needed? If the Word is true, we can seldom help those who are closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourself to give, or that which we have to give is not wanted...And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love them completely, without completely understanding." Norman Maclean

I've come to understand this quote so much more than I did in 2005 when you first mentioned it. This was another of the things I enjoyed about you, your ability to pull references from other works and to present them at just the right time. I've checked "A River Runs Through It" out from the library at work. I think I've probably mentioned to you at some time that one of the perks of working at a university is that I get to keep library books for a full semester. It's a short book but I won't be pressured to read it too quickly. You'd probably be pleased to know that one of my work friends just "happened" to have mentioned the book and movie last week, before I knew you were gone, before I was reminded of your reference to the book (in that dark and learning time in my life that taught me so much about the power of love, and what love could and could not do), so I'm sure there is some wisdom there that I can use for this present time in my life.

I've also had the copy of Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim on Tinker Creek" on my bedside at the country. We wrote during the years of how you enjoyed her work and I started reading the book years ago but never finished it. I'll be picking that book up again as I remember you and grieve your loss.

I often dreamed that one day we'd get up that way, or you and your wife would come somewhere close to us, and I would get to meet and visit with you in person. It never worked out, but I'll keep you in my heart for a very long time. Your presence in my life was a blessing and it feels way too soon for you to have had to leave. I'll remember your wife and daughters and grandchildren in my prayers. And I'll pray for the others who will carry on your work in the rescue mission and in the juvenile detention center.

Oh, Jim, now I'm reading about how you were the dance king of the high school where you worked, for jitterbugging around the cafeteria! Why am I not surprised? How I would have loved to have seen that! 

 Jim Filer

10/13/41 - 04/21/16

Four Years

It's not my son, but except for the man bun, it could be. He had a similar blue shirt he wore a lot and he was a skateboarder. This guy, he made me lonely for my son when I saw him.

That light. Those shadows. Memories. Vignettes from a dream. 

Every year, I buy a piece of pottery from the December Student Art Show. It's my way of remembering my son's life and honoring his memory.

12.08.15

Four years.

I was recovering from surgery. Weak and vulnerable.

Flashbacks.

I am rendered unable to write complete sentences.

So much shadow.

So much light.

Vignettes of loss.

Longing.

Joy.

 

Gratitude. 

 

Love.

 

 I've heard it said that the pain of grief is the price we pay for love.

There was a time when I would have said I'd just as soon not love or be loved

if I could escape the pain of loss. 

I know now that too would have been a sort of death,

and not at all the the life I would have wanted to live.

Yes, I had a son, and loved my son.

Yes, he is now gone from me.

I have lost.

But also, I have loved.

And it was a good strong love.

I'll carry his love forever in my heart.

And the memories will bring me comfort.

Today

 Today, he would have been 28.

While doing some cleaning and reorganizing

I found a couple of his long-sleeved t-shirts

and held them to my face,

searching for his scent.

It was not there.

And I came across a pair of plaid shorts,

plaid like a country kitchen table cloth.

I smiled and took them from the drawer

to hang in my closet,

a tangible reminder of my grief

and life too soon gone.

Today, I'd get myself to the store

and I'd buy the cheesecake and the Pepsi

(as I did on that day).

Today, I wear my invisible badge

of grief,

invisible in that

it's not a badge everyone can see-

it is a badge that some do not want to see.

But for all who do see,

for those who speak words of kindness over me,

and sit with me,

even after all this time,

I am ever grateful.

For you who do not have to wear

this badge,

who have not been thrown unwillingly and with no gentleness

into this rough club,

whose sons and daughters still walk this earth,

I exhort you to

savor their days.

Do not take lightly the privilege of witnessing the unfolding

 of their lives,

 for there are no guarantees,

even to the young.

RIP, Charlie

I went yesterday to Houston to have my port flushed. I was a little annoyed that they were not able to set it up so I could have this done at home. It is, as you probably know, about a five minute procedure. But I determined to make the best of it and to treat it as an adventure. We had a good trip. Afterwards we met my aunt for lunch at Pappasito's. On the way home, we stopped at the new Buccee's in Baytown, where I had my picture taken with Buccee. Go me! Adults in costumes make me a tiny bit nervous. The thought occurs to me now how it makes some people more comfortable to be in costume, and suddenly I am thinking of all the masks we humans tend to wear. In looking at it that way, costumes don't make me as nervous. I am familiar with, and somewhat accustomed to, masks. Though I am working hard to strip most of mine away. But that is not at all what I came here to write about.

I had a friend years ago. We worked and lived together for two summers, part of a young staff at a church camp. We kept in touch a few years after the summers ended. I spent some weekends at her house in-between working at the camp but we eventually lost touch and didn't even send Christmas cards. This was before widespread internet. When we got a computer and internet, and I learned you could find people on the internet, I searched for her. But I couldn't remember her married name. Finally I found that out and looked again. After a few tries over a few years, what I found was her obituary. And I was saddened by the fact that I'd kind of just missed being in contact with her again. She was a good friend with a dry, sassy wit, a delight to know. Why do we allow ourselves to lose touch with people we love?

When I found her obituary, I was more savvy on the internet and I located her older brother. We'd met a few times when I was staying at her house and we'd talk a bit about poetry writing, as each of us was dabbling in that at the time. For a short while, we'd connected on that level and we shared our poetry with each other. I'd written my friend a letter after she died and I sent it on to him. He seemed to have enjoyed that and shared it with his family. We might have emailed a couple of times more after that. He was an intelligent guy with a lot of different interests and after the poetry discussions, I'd always wished I could have connected with him on a more consistent level but he was way older and I never had much opportunity for interaction with him.

So, yesterday, my husband showed me the picture of the sister I'd been looking for. She is a friend of a friend on Facebook and I was glad to find her. She was only a couple of years younger than my friend and I. Her brother must have been about fifteen years older than we were. Anyway, as I was looking on the sister's Facebook page, I saw that her brother had died last December. I hadn't actually seen him in years so it was a shock to me to realize he was 73 years old. In my mind, I saw him as young as he was when we first met. I was saddened again. 

My friend, her brother, her younger sister--these were people who occupied very short spaces in the time frame of my life, but they left warm memories and indelible marks on my heart. 

RIP, Charlie. Tell Ruth hello for me. . .

Show and Tell

For the last two weekends, I have been spending much of my time sewing in my room in the country. I made this prayer flag weekend before last and hung it on a rope across my porch this past weekend. I had the hand print squares left over from a project that never quite got off the ground. I think I'd made the squares to do a lap quilt for one of my children's teachers back when they were in elementary school (many years ago). I don't have a square for any of my children, so I'm not sure whose teacher this project was going to go to! I also had the hearts cut out for yet another project, and used one of them here to cover up the student's name.

I want to make some more flags to hang on my line and flutter in the breeze. While working on this one I thought about the nature of impermanence, and how it felt to work on creating something only to put it out in the environment to let it wear down and eventually rot to nothing.

And I thought about grief and mourning, about the families of the victims of the church shootings in South Carolina, and about the winding journey they will now have to travel. Grief does that to a person, it changes the landscape of the ground you walk on, and you then have to somehow manage to figure out how to walk that new ground.

In the meantime, between me making the prayer flag and now, a certain preacher has come under fire for intimating that some people are stuck in their grief, or desire attention, as though grief has a certain and predictable time table. Also in that time, I picked up my journal to write a bit, and I came upon a prompt I'd written down on a Post-it note. I'd been thinking about it, but hadn't written anything.

The prompt asked the question "What do your hands dream of?" I wrote a bit about my hands dreaming of creating things and being steady enough to have nice handwriting again, and then my mind (and my heart) went a whole new direction, and there was this--

And no, Mr. Feel Good Pastor, I'm not seeking attention, nor am I stuck in my grief. I'm living my life and I am acknowledging and paying attention when my grief seems to want my attention. It is a part of my life now, and I can't turn it on and off at will, nor would I want to. Thank God I don't have to look to you for support in this matter because you'd be about as useless as a side saddle on a jackass.

In other news, the other part of what I wanted to share was that I also worked the last two weekends on sewing together this quilt top. The inner strips were all leftovers from that teacher project I did not do (her loss has been my gain). I wasn't quite satisfied with how the strips came together and with a little inspiration from Pinterest, I decided to add the batik flower insert for a little extra interest. When I did that, my top was too long and skinny, so I added the borders on the side. I debated on whether or not to add matching borders at the top and bottom but have decided not to. My mother asked me about it and I told her I kind of liked quirky the unbalanced look, that it seemed to fit for me. I have no idea why, but both my parents laughed when I said that!

What Do You See, Little Stone Angel?

She walked into the cemetery clutching two bunches of artificial flowers. Flowers and hair-she's obviously no good at arranging either of them. But every single time she enters the cemetery with her carefully chosen artificial flowers, she has high hopes of hitting perfection with her flower arrangement. Most times she is disappointed. Today was one of those days. She had to walk away with an inner sigh and an unspoken "It's good enough." Some things are okay being good enough. She didn't sit on her grandmother's tombstone as she usually did. She didn't sit on her son's vault as she usually did. It was cold. The concrete would have been cold.

All she had was silk and plastic. How could she expect perfection?

All she saw that day was imperfection and impermanence.

There was a lone poinsettia stem nestled between two graves that had blown from a nearby Christmas bouquet.

There were dead branches from a plant that had long ago seen its better days.

There was a stone that somehow got moved from its spot on a vault, leaving virgin concrete as white as the woman's thighs exposed and shining for all to see.

And there was Golden Jesus, nestled between silk fern stems and red poinsettias, with his arms beckoning wide.

Last, but not least, there was this pouting angel. She may have been the one who took the walk through the cemetery, and the one who wrote this accounting of the activities of the woman who can't arrange flowers or hair.

It gets lonely in the cemetery. Sometimes she likes to think about the lives of the people who visit the cemetery. The living ones. The sad ones. She may have imagined the part about the woman sighing and thinking it's good enough but she did not imagine the woman's sadness.

(When I write about my grief, I worry that people will think I am drowning in it. I am not. But there are times when the feelings wash over me, and sometimes I deal with that by writing about it.

My son's best friend, the one he was working and living with in Pennsylvania when he died, came by to visit us before he left to go back to work in Colorado. In about a month, he is moving back home for a while. He was a very good friend to my son, and my son to him. We had a very good visit, talking a bit more about the night he died, and the days before that. We told a few stories and shared a few laughs and good memories of my son. That's the other way I honor my grief, by remembering the stories of his life.

My youngest went by to see the friend and she texted me to say seeing him made her miss her brother so much more, that it was like peeling a scab. It's never been that way for me, though I know it has been that way for my husband. But this time around, he seemed better able to deal with seeing the friend, and got to ask him a few questions about our son's last days, which seemed to help him. Healing does come, but the scars always remain.)

Random Thoughts on Grieving Openly

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath
     the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water
     to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
     the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering
     the small round coins
          thrown by those who wished for something else.

  -- David Whyte
      from Where Many Rivers Meet
      ©2007 Many Rivers Press

This is why I post on Facebook and write on my blog about my grief. There is often something to be gained from going downward into the black water of grief. I suspect I have friends, and maybe even family, who worry about me when I am so openly expressing my grief, that maybe they think I have no comfort for my loss. That's simply not true. I am comforted even as I experience and acknowledge my loss.

There are so many happy stories that I have remembered, so many times when we have laughed as a family at some of the things we remember. But we are here, and he is not, and in spite of my comfort and my ability to revel in the memories, the hole in my heart is still here.

I've said it before and I say it again, the very landscape of my life was inescapably altered when I lost my son. I am sad, I am happy, I am comforted, I am hurting. I walk in darkness, I walk in light. My son is gone, my son is in my heart.

I will not run from that well of grief. I will not stand at the edge of the well, and refuse to dip into the dark water.

September 22, 2014

He was born on September 22, 1987. I was on bed rest for a couple of months before that. They put me in the hospital a few days before he arrived. The night before I was to be induced, there was something a little different about the way I felt. It was supper time. I debated whether or not to mention anything about how I was feeling. I told the nurse, missed out on supper, and delivered my boy sometime around 9:30 that night.

He was a chunky little baby and he was a clinger. He would wrap my hair around his fingers and hold on tightly. We were tight. He grew into a serious, tall and thin man with the prettiest hands and the longest fingers (and toes).

He had a tender heart and a sensitive nature. There were many times when I could have pinched his little/big head off. He tried my patience and he taught me so very much about love in the too-short time that he was here with me/us.

He would have been 27 years old today.

How I wish I could hug him once more, and hear him say "Mama" in the way that he did. I can still almost hear his voice in my head.

Marking Time: One Thousand Days

We had him in a place he did not want to be. He was marking his time.

It was the place, the first of several, where the man who I thought surely was a real live angel looked me in the eye and said "You're not alone" and he told the boy who marked this time, "You are in a safe place."

And now there is a grieving man, the father, who continues the marking of time with a new number every single day in his journal. One Thousand Days. That's what today is, the one thousandth day. I told him it sounds like the title of a book. He reminded me of the book about John Kennedy (A Thousand Days).

I was curious. I asked him what he did. Did he write it out in a complete and painful sentence, "This is day number eight hundred and whatever" until finally, the thousandth day arrived? He said he just numbers the top corner of the page, each and every day. I've forgotten whether it was the left or the right corner, details sometimes get very important when you're grieving, I don't know exactly why.

I'm rather fascinated that my husband has kept track of this. I knew he was numbering the days early on (I only marked the months, and then the years, as they went by, clearly I am not one for such minute detail) but I did not know he was still keeping track.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand. Neither my husband or I are wallowing in the throes of grief all day, every day. But I do want it to be understood that losses like this stay with you forever. They change the very landscape of your life, they change the way you mark your time. When I write things like this, I am feeling my feelings, and I am choosing to share them with what I consider a trusted audience. Doing so helps me to remember the value and the love in my son's life. 

One Thousand Days, and still we grieve. In a thousand seemingly inconsequential ways, we grieve.

Thoughts on Gravity, and Grief and Living Fully

(I recently watched the movie Gravity. It was a thriller but it got real personal real quickly. This is my attempt to write about the feelings that were generated while watching this movie. It may not make much sense to anyone who has not seen the movie, I do not know.)

Someone suggested I watch the movie Gravity. I can't remember, in the name of all that is good, under what context she recommended it to me. It was in March and I just now got around to watching it. Perhaps I would not have been ready to see it in March.

I can't decide whether I am grateful to her or angry at her for giving me the heads up about the loss of the astronaut's daughter being a central part of the story. Had I not been warned, I wonder, would I have recognized the similarities to my own life in this story? I also wonder, do other people, who have not lost a child, see this simply as a story about surviving in outer space and miss the deeper drama about the loss of a child and how it sometimes makes you want to give up, and how sometimes, somehow, it ends up being your lost child that inspires you to go on?

I was there, this past winter. I didn't want to kill myself. But I almost wanted to turn off all the lights and just wait for death to come get me. It was not a good time and I am grateful to be in a better place today.

And of course, the thing about dying,--how we're all gonna die, and how most of us don't much think about that until we are faced with an imminent threat, like colon cancer (the thing that turned out okay that forced me to consider my mortality), or breast cancer (the thing that has hit a couple of my friends in the last couple of years, and thus far, they are surviving), or lung cancer (the thing that has hit a very kind acquaintance of mine, and she will not be okay--first it was six weeks with no intervention, and then, six months or so with chemo meant mostly to make her comfortable and maybe give her a little more time with her family)--that thing, our reluctance to think about our own mortality, it's a common reluctance, I assume.

Maybe I've done more thinking than most about death and dying, and what my life might be worth. In other words, what price might I be willing to pay to survive, even for an extra month or two? How hard would I fight? What would be the last things I'd need/want to do if I were faced with a fatal diagnosis and had a tight time frame? Who would I thank? Who would I want to spend some uninterrupted time with? Who would I want to help me navigate that passage? These are all questions I've considered and I have pieces of my answers sketched out in my head. I'm ready, if I have any advance warning of my impending demise. I suppose the next good question might be "How am I going to fully live before I die?" I already know I will die, it's just a matter of when will I die, and what will I do with the time I still have?

The threat of cancer, the loss of my adult son, these are two events that have shaped my life and my thinking in the last couple of years and they continue to shape my life and my thinking in ways of which I am not always fully aware. Sometimes things like Gravity trigger unexpected feelings of grief in me. I was warned, but I didn't necessarily need to be warned. My grief is an important part of who I am, and when it shows up unexpectedly, I do my best to honor it as I continue to live.

If you haven't seen the movie and are planning to, you might not want to look at the quotes below, which I've taken from the website http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/quotes. These are just a few of the quotes concerning the themes that ran through the movie that touched me.

Ryan Stone: I know, we're all gonna die. Everybody knows that. But I'm going to die today. Funny that... you know, to know. But the thing is, is that I'm still scared. Really scared. Nobody will mourn for me, no one will pray for my soul. Will you mourn for me? Will you say a prayer for me? Or is it too late... ah, I mean I'd say one for myself but I've never prayed in my life. Nobody ever taught me how... nobody ever taught me how...

Matt Kowalski: I get it. It's nice up here. You can just shut down all the systems, turn out all the lights, and just close your eyes and tune out everyone. There's nobody up here that can hurt you. It's safe. I mean, what's the point of going on? What's the point of living? Your kid died. Doesn't get any rougher than that. But still, it's a matter of what you do now. If you decide to go, then you gotta just get on with it. Sit back, enjoy the ride. You gotta plant both your feet on the ground and start livin' life. Hey, Ryan? It's time to go home.

Ryan Stone: Hey, Matt? Since I had to listen to endless hours of your storytelling this week, I need you to do me a favor. You're gonna see a little girl with brown hair. Very messy, lots of knots. She doesn't like to brush it. But that's okay. Her name is Sarah. Can you please tell her that mama found her red shoe? She was so worried about that shoe, Matt. But it was just right under the bed. Give her a big hug and a big kiss from me and tell her that mama misses her. Tell her that she is my angel. And she makes me so proud. So, so proud. And you tell her that I'm not quitting. You tell her that I love her, Matt. You tell her that I love her so much. Can you do that for me? Roger that.

Ryan Stone: Never mind, Houston, never mind the story! Ah. It's starting to get hot in here. The way I see it, there are only two possible outcomes. Either I make it down there in one piece and I have one hell of a story to tell! Or I burn up in the next ten minutes. Either way, whichever way... no harm, no foul!

[Growls]

Ryan Stone: Because either way, it's going to be one hell of a ride! I'm ready.

Reconciling the Story of Life and Death

(Grief is a strange thing. Don’t let anyone ever tell you time heals all wounds. Time lets you learn how to carry your grief, how to live with it without it smothering the life out of you. I’m walking my third year in grief and I’m learning. There are questions I still have, and times when I think it is all so damned unfair. This is one story I remembered from my son’s life after my friend helped me out a bit with one part of the story of my son’s death.)

There was once a tree in the center of my front yard. It wasn’t the only tree in my front yard—there are two live oak trees that still stand. The tree that is gone was a Bradford pear. It was given to me shortly after my brother died in 1994, a memorial gift. We planted it in the center of the yard and I imagined how pretty it was going to be when it was mature enough to bloom pretty white flowers and then to have the mottled red leaves in the fall.

The tree did not survive because one day, my son, who would have been around eight at the time, came careening around the corner on his bicycle, yelling, “Look, Mom!” He was riding “no-hands” and he curved into the drive way and hopped right off the bicycle. He thrust his hands straight up in the air in a victory celebration and we both watched as his bicycle kept on going as though under its own volition, right straight into the tender trunk of my newly planted Bradford pear tree. I imagine both of us were pretty wild-eyed looking, though for different reasons, I would imagine. 

I rushed over to see if maybe the trunk had somehow not been broken clean off at the ground, but that was not to be. The trunk was cut smooth off, right at the ground.  My son gathered his bicycle and was appropriately regretful but there was no fussing from me that day. It wasn’t really something we could have predicted. It just happened. Beyond the power of either of us to interrupt it.

When my son was older, we often had deep talks. Several times he indicated to me that he didn’t think he would live to be very old. I remember when he turned twenty-two, I breathed a sigh of relief that he’d made it past twenty-one. But I often told him that he could not keep doing the things he was doing, that one day his heart would just give out. 

This is basically what happened. His heart was enlarged. The coroner said his heart was like the heart of someone who had a history of untreated high blood pressure. 

I’ve wondered about this in the last couple of years. How could he or I know those things? Did we know them, or was it all coincidence? I don’t know. I wondered, at times, why my love was not enough to save him. I just don’t know. 

What I know is that I needed to somehow get these things straight in my mind. I needed a comforting narrative and it needed to better than something like “God needed another angel in heaven.” 

And one day, when I’d written the umpteenth email to a friend, trying to unravel these things, he said something that is so simple and yet so profound to me, something to which I think my son would totally nod his head and say “Yeah, mom, that’s it. It’s just like what happened with the tree. Beyond our power to interrupt it.”

(In my head, I'm hearing my son's voice saying this, and we are hugging each other. It is so real to me that I smell him.)

My friend said, about my son’s life, “It just played out—beyond the power of either of you to interrupt it.” 

Lord knows we both tried. And we both loved hard and fierce. I wish things had turned out differently and I miss him every day, but we did the best we could and this is how it all played out. 

Easter Wedding

Easter Sunday was also the day of my son’s best friend’s wedding,

a bittersweet event.

There were tears of joy, there were tears of grief and sadness.

People asked:

Why?
Why have a wedding on Easter Sunday?

Don’t they know people have other things to do on Easter Sunday?

Oh, how I love this young man. 

He hugged on me and loved on me and kissed me and patted my back 

and stomped his foot and said:

“Dammit, he shoulda been here.”

And we all cried at the poignant truth of his words.

Still, what better day than Easter Sunday to celebrate love and a new marriage?

There is so much good with the bad,

so much happiness with the sadness,

or maybe it's the other way around:

much bad with the good,

much sadness with the happiness,

I don't know.

What I do know is that life goes on.

Beautiful brides still smile as they hold the hands of their husband to be

and speak their vows of love.

Even as mourning mothers watch,

their eyes brimming with joy and sorrow.