Death Out of Order

 

This weekend, as I sat with a friend looking at photos of her 5 year old nephew who died last year after a lengthy cancer battle, there was no point to holding back the tears.   He will be mourned and remembered and celebrated by his family for generations.   For those who loved him,  there is nothing that will explain or make sense of his death.

 

And yet, the fact is that children do die.  Every day.  And so do young parents, and emerging geniuses, and insanely talented people who could make a difference for good in the world.   My mother used to tell me that the death rate, no matter what anybody says, is 100%.  For me, it is that certainty that life could end at any moment that makes it so very precious.

 

Those that have died too young, or with unfinished work, or before they had a chance to explore their talents offer a challenge to those of us who live: don’t waste a day; explore this world; take it in.  My daughter’s death is a challenge to offer the best I possibly can to the world on her behalf; my mother’s death is a constant reminder that my own death is a certainty. 

 

To say that I miss them does not begin to express my daily loss of their companionship, but it is also true that their deaths have increased their impact on my life.  Exponentially.  They live on in me, and where ever they have gone, I will be heading to in time.  Even the longest of lives is short.

 

Who knows?  I have no idea how life and death go together or how we are all connected to each other.  But I do know that death, especially death that seems out of order, offers a connection to eternity and a challenge to those of us who remain behind.  The challenge is beyond painful, perhaps some days beyond exploring, but somewhere in that challenge is everything – everything -  that makes life worth living.

Hurricane Isaac and Changing Plans

If life went according to plan, I would be in Key West, FL this weekend:  playing in the waves;  eating fresh seafood;  drinking too many sugary drinks with little umbrellas sticking out of red maraschino cherries.  That sort of thing.   Hurricane Isaac kept us home.

 

It is disorienting to have long-made plans simply change in an instant.    It is also a bit scary.  I don’t need a professional to point out that I keep myself busy so that I don’t have time to ponder.  It is the pondering that leads to long nights on the verge of tears as I simply experience the grief that I am carrying around.

 

This summer, I finished two courses for my masters degree and taught summer school. I spent one weekend in Phoenix, another in Dallas, a couple with my grieving Dad in Chicago, and a few days in Atlantic City.  I was busy.  Although there are only 5 days between turning in my final school paper and starting back to work as a substitute teacher,  I had NO INTEREST in keeping those days free; to be given these days without time to create a plan leaves me vulnerable.

 

Unscheduled free time is a very sharp double-edged sword.  It is rich in opportunity – I get that.  Perhaps I will make banana bread.  There will be no excuse to avoid exercise.  I have even finished a book.  But free time brings up the ghosts.  Even the dreams are different when I am not mega-busy:  the depth of my grief haunts me if my mind is not distracted, and I end up pulling myself out of traumatic dreams full of grief and regret.

 

Free time is also a vital indicator.  Am I well?  Can I handle it?  For a girl like me – a girl who likes to ace tests – it is painful to know that this is a test I am barely passing.  I do not understand.  I agonize over the loss of my daughter.  I miss my mother.

 

Only one more day.  It will be great to head back to work on Tuesday.

Catching Up

Today I am in the middle of some version of gratefulness.  Not the full-on Oprah version, but my own sort of muddled take on it.  Like – hey.   My car is fixed.  I only had to take it back twice to the repair shop, and it cost WAY TOO MUCH MONEY but at least I have some confidence that it is going to start tomorrow morning.

And I need it to start tomorrow morning because I am teaching summer school.  For kids who have special needs.    I SIGNED UP to be an assistant – you know, basically show up and be helpful every day.  But something happened and they were hard up (very hard up, evidently) and asked me to teach.  So, I am working with my boys and they all have emotional disabilities and I may not have a degree that says so, but I am actually doing a pretty good job with them.  I think.  And I thank Molly for that because for almost 17 years I navigated her emotional challenges and carved out ways for her to be successful and maybe I can at least create a space where these kids can practice their addition.

I am overloaded with my own course work this summer since I had to drop out last semester to be with my dad after Mom’s death.  And – somehow – I got a fairly decent first draft done on the major paper that is due next week.  Now, if I could just figure out how WORD handles footnotes, we’d be good to go.  Please feel free to comment if you can help.

And my ever-present Weight Watchers challenge is going well.  Last week I got on my wii FIt and it did not tell me that I was overweight. First time ever.  I am down close to 40 pounds and feel the better for it.

There is a fly in the ointment everywhere I look.  Life is not perfect.  But somehow I no longer expect it to be, and that leaves room for my own little glimpse of gratitude.

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.