To the Mom who Buries her Child Today

I am so sorry.  This should never have happened.   This is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

But you are still upright. That’s the completely surprising thing.  Whenever you had imagined losing a child - and every parent of even the most healthy child puts themselves through that exercise if for just the most fleeting second - you imagined yourself flat on your back, completely unable to function.

Today you find yourself stronger than you had ever imagined you could possibly be.

Today you are astounded by how much you are loved, and how much your child was loved.   You are discovering that your child changed the lives of people that you never knew.  Disregard the length of your child’s life; he or she matters eternally. 

Today you discover that you are an amazing parent who many have looked up to from afar.  Today you understand just how much you and every member of your extended family matter to each other.

Today you are face to face with your own limits.  You would have given your very life to stall this day.  But this day is. 

Today you take comfort, perhaps, in familiar rituals but encounter an incarnate God in a completely new way. It is God’s spirit in the long distance plane ticket purchased; the Spirit’s presence in the casserole delivered; Eternity hinted at in the flowers.  

Today is the seed of the challenge to move forward.  Maybe it is the responsibility to move forward. 

Today is the beginning of something brand new.  There is pain in it.  Absolutely.  But somewhere, buried deep…    is hope.

The Big 5-0

It is a very fortunate person who lives to 50.   I don’t want to lose the miracle of it.   But philosophy has its limits…   So I did spend about two hours of the big day with my hairdresser getting highlights.   I NEVER do that.  I am a Hair Cuttery/Revlon Color girl all the way.   I won’t say it was fun…  but it was a perfect indulgence. 

I also had $50 in gift cards from some folks that I work with.   Can’t take those to Goodwill – which is my typical first stop for shopping.   What fun to shop for Lavender bath products.   Happy Birthday to me!

My sing-along birthday party is planned for this weekend, but the actual day was yesterday and I took the time off from work to just let the day sink in.  This is my first birthday without my mother and my fourth without my daughter.  And there were moments – just moments – when I felt the universe breaking through to me.

I walked out the door and the tulips had finally bloomed – bright red and yellow; I sensed Molly in the blooming.  A small inheritance check from my mom that had been anticipated but would simply not show up, arrived in my mailbox just in time to deposit. A cardinal – always a vivid memory of my grandmother – entertained me on my morning walk, and so did a family of deer who seemed to not understand that in the general scheme of things humans prey on deer.  A friend of Molly’s stopped me at Starbucks to chat.

It is as if the universe wanted to remove any doubt.  My mother, my grandmother and my daughter have not forgotten me; their love extends beyond death.   And it is my confidence in the eternal endurance of love and my conviction that living this long is a blessing - that compels me to celebrate – really celebrate – this weekend.

Sudden Death

My mother was killed in a car accident last week.  I can't believe it has been a week already.   My parents were returning home from a funeral, their car slipped on some ice, and my mother was killed (I hope) instantly.  My sister and I saw the car.  It has to have been instantly.

Although my mom was very intentional about preparing her three children for her death, this was completely unexpected.   If the call had been about my dad - the same dad who has survived open heart surgery and West Nile Virus - it would have made more sense.   This seems so completely random.  My mom and I were supposed to be in the same nursing home together.  She got room 406; I had room 202.  No need to be on the same floor.

So now I am spending a month with my dad while we try to figure out what comes next.    I know more than I would ever want to know about grieving...  so maybe I am a good partner for that.  My cooking skills are sketchy, however, and I am hoping I can remember how to drive a stick.  My dad taught me how to drive on a stick... maybe that counts for something.

Weight Watchers

I am aware that this borders on the cliché….  Join Weight Watchers over New Years; lose weight just in time for the 50th birthday.  Let’s just say it has been done before.

In fact, without the New Years thing or the 50th birthday incentive, it has been done by me before!  About two years before Molly died, when she had been admitted to a new school (with a scholarship!) and was settling in nicely after a rough start, I joined Weight Watchers and lost about 30 pounds.  I found the process of losing weight dovetailed nicely with the confidence I was feeling that Molly was thriving in a new environment.

The calm before the storm.

You are never really supposed to go off of Weight Watchers; it IS more of a lifestyle than a diet.   And I don’t want to blame Molly for anything – including the fact that as we went through her eventual downward slide and subsequent death I re-gained those 30 pounds.  But the fact is that my jeans don’t fit,  I hate looking at myself in pictures, I am on blood pressure medication that I could probably get rid of if I could eat differently and something needs to change.

It has been almost 3 years now since Molly died, and I am adamant in a new way that this weight come off.   I am wiser than I have ever been in my life (which is probably not saying much).  I feel stronger than I have ever felt.  I am more sure that the world is a good place than I have ever been.  And I want my body to reflect that confidence.

It is hard won. 

The Joy and the Pain of It

I am a mess.

We are not doing Christmas “up” this year in any big way, but there are still cookies to bake, and a tree to decorate.  I have a few presents to wrap.  And our schools are open this week, so there is substituting.  To add some distraction to Christmas itself, we’ve invited neighbors over for Christmas Eve afternoon, so I have a small get-together to plan.  And then on Christmas Day itself I am flying to my sister’s, so there is a bag to pack.

All of this is fun and do-able.  Everybody figures out how to make it work.

But I also messed up my alarm clock, so I overslept today.  And I shattered a glass while I was decorating.  And my head hurts.  And I am actually in a downright grumpy mood.

Which surprises me.

No doubt the work of grieving never ends, but it is easy to underestimate the toll it takes.   Unpacking ornaments that celebrate Molly’s childhood, or visiting with the  college students of neighbors who are home for break, or listening to some of the holiday songs that are on my iPod only because Molly liked them are on some level nurturing activities.  Warm holiday moments.  But they are also reminders of how much is gone from my life.  

Forever.

Oprah’s Favorite Things

I’ve learned a lot from Oprah Winfrey.  I value her rock-solid belief in a bountiful universe.  I am inspired by her challenge to Live Your Best Life – and I sense that there is a divine hand in her life story.  She is the right person for a lot of people at the right time, and God is in all of that somewhere.

She is also a great gift-giver.

So this year, I entered her Favorite Things Sweepstakes Giveaway.  Every day for 12 days (think “12 Days of Christmas”) I went online and typed my entry for the chance to win over 70 gifts personally selected by Oprah and others in her network. 

 

With the best of intentions I’ve perused the gifts for weeks, sure that my sister would enjoy Cat Cora’s Ugg Slippers and my neighbor (who has four kids and no income) would enjoy the indulgence of the Egg-Shaped soaps.  Another neighbor, who is facing his first Christmas without his wife of 40 years, was going to benefit from some of the food items, and I was going to keep the bags.

I admit that I was going to keep the bags.

Is that the problem?   Is that why I didn’t win?  I was really looking forward to being the sensational giver that one simply cannot be when one is substitute teaching to supplement unemployment insurance.  I was looking forward to being able to make the grand gesture.  But I also wanted a little fun for myself.

I didn’t win.  That‘s the up and down of it, and I am oddly disappointed.  I always knew the odds were nil – surely hundreds of thousands entered.  And I am going to throw the open house anyway – it will simply be more of a potluck than an extravaganza.  No gift table required.

I don’t really believe in coincidence.  I am sure that the twelve winners are exactly who the twelve winners should have been.  I just wish that one of them could have been me.

Art

I am NOT an artist.  Far from it. 

But yesterday, somewhere between finishing up a school paper, cleaning up a dinner party and answering phones for public television, I spent some time with my art supplies. 

It was a curious hour and a half or so.  I started without inspiration – beyond the fact that I wanted to do something holiday related.  Picture me with an air of frustraton paging through holiday cookbooks and children’s books in a struggle to find something I might be able to work with.  I settled on Christmas stockings. 

Great.

And then, as I spent more time with the stockings, I realized I wanted to capture loss – and the unshakeable belief I have that death does not get the last word.  And in the process, for the first time, I understood art as meditation. 

Surprising.  Not planned.

A gift.