Anticipating Vacation

Looking forward to anything is risky business.    It's an act of faith, really, to book a vacation in advance and then hope that the right pieces of life will fall into place: that the people will be well and the potential catastrophes of life will put themselves off long enough for the trip to actually take place.

But I am looking forward to our upcoming two weeks at the beach anyway. There won't be a hurricane.  I won't break my leg.  If  it is within my power to will this trip into a happy reality, I am on it.  

Since we are renting a house, we have to pack some of the things that a hotel would typically provide, and my packing lists are revealing.  I want high end toilet paper  - not our typical bargain brand.  And I will bring candles (even though I seldom light them at home).  I am picturing flowers on the table.  New sheets have been purchased.   I am going to indulge in some nice body scrubs and hair products.  Baking and freezing will start in a week or so - banana bread; pumpkin bread; chocolate chip cookies; maybe some soup.

The irony of course is that I don't have to go on "vacation" to create the lifestyle that my lists are anticipating. I can enjoy flowers on the breakfast table fairly easily.  Nice toilet paper is not prohibitively expensive.  I suppose chocolate chip cookies should not become an every day treat, but they don't need to be in the "two weeks a year" category either.    Perhaps more than simply having nice shampoo and the other simple upgrades on my list, I am actually looking forward to the time and emotional energy to deeply enjoy them. There is a difference between having and enjoying.

This trip is a big deal - it's paid for with inheritance money from my mother; we will surely be back to bunking with friends on extra couches next summer.  And it is a "re-visit" to a place that holds memories of many wonderful, lazy afternoons when Molly was a child.

It seems like I have arrived at a place where I can let myself look forward to having a really good time.  I can picture myself laughing, playing in the waves, eating great meals, sleeping in, sipping coffee on the porch.    I imagine  that Molly and Mom's presence will be felt  - and they will be welcome.    And THERE WILL NOT be any of the emergencies that seem to crop up with consistent irregularity in my life. The trip will be wonderful.  I am choosing to let myself get excited.  Just a few weeks to wait.

Matthew Warren

 

 

The pictures in my house, the bed that is not slept in, the phone calls that I do not receive.  I am reminded every day – more than once a day – that I am a suicide survivor.
 

But suicides that take place in even the dimmest illumination of the media always come with waves of renewed, almost primal, mourning.  Mourning for the bereaved family.  Mourning for myself.  Mourning for all of us because if well known people – with access to  every resource the world has to offer - can go through a suicide loss, then any of us can.
 

I heard Kay Warren speak once; I know Rick Warren offered a prayer at Barack Obama’s first inauguration.  I am aware of Saddleback Church.  My heart goes out to them as they mourn the death by suicide of their son Matthew; they have done incredible good in the world and I imagine that their good work will continue.
 

The Warren’s public profile opens them up to a judgment that I have already seen in online commentary: in their case, that Rick had been moving away from a strict interpretation of the Bible in his public ministry.  The implication being, of course, that the family deserved this loss or God sent it upon them to bring them in line.  The underlying thought being that there is some sort of protection from tragedies like suicide that comes from honoring God in a proscribed manner.  Rick has also been criticized for not supporting civil rights for gay people - the implication of course being that Matthew was gay and that Rick found that to be an impediment to unconditionally loving his son.
 

Such judgments may be publicly directed this weekend toward the Warrens, but they touch us all; it is the possibility of having to endure such hostility that makes silence so appealing.  We survivors can barely function after the loss of a loved one – to risk insult and injury is to risk a permanent derailment of any mental health we have managed to cobble together.  
 

It’s a vicious cycle, of course, since survivors are in a unique position to raise awareness and compassion around mental illness and suicide prevention.  Our collective silence practically insures that these heart-shattering deaths, which we do not cause and God does not visit upon us,  will continue with no regard for creed or race or social standing.
 

As the Warrens grieve, their loss is both a visceral reminder of Molly’s death and an unmistakable challenge to raise my own quivering voice with those who have endured similar losses and have found the courage to risk telling their story; it is our hope that each story  inspires research, medical advances and compassion on behalf of those who suffer from mental illness.

The Out of Darkness Walk

I am participating in this year’s Out of Darkness Walk sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. For the last couple of years I have followed the Foundation’s work on Facebook, and with this year’s walk coming to my home town, it just seems like its time to DO THIS THING.

It will be a 16 – 18 mile walk through Washington, DC, timed to begin at dusk and end at daylight. I love the imagery. The Foundation raises money to support research and we all know that research around mental illness is not just going to magically happen. And it is obvious – too painfully obvious – that there is untold research to be done. The topics of mental illness and suicide must come out of the darkness so that they can be studied in the light of day.

For me, the walk itself will not be the most challenging piece of this walk. More challenging for sure is the fund raising. Fund raising means revisiting and telling my story in ways that I have not been comfortable before. As you know, I don’t even use my real name in writing this blog. So this is a massive leap for me. Perhaps this is just the challenge I need as I continue, with life long commitment, to put a new sense of self together.

As new as this feels, I have been overwhelmed with the support I have received and reminded of how love surrounds us all. As a society, it seems we have gotten to the point that we know that something must be done to support those impacted in any way by mental illness. I am encouraged.

If you would like to join me in this walk – either in person or by donating – I urge you to visit the site. Even a brief skimming of AFSP’s webpages is a testament to the fact that, even as we grieve, we are not alone.

 http://theovernight.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=6675

The New Year

 

I am getting to know 2013 very slowly.  The path ahead is unclear.   I don’t see the doors or the windows or even the cracks.  I am not just sprinting in to it with abandon.

In 2012 I: lost 50 pounds (oh yes, I did); made great strides toward my masters degree which I will finish in May; chaired a local government commission; nursed my dad for a couple of months after his traffic accident (moving half way across the country to manage that); taught summer school and subbed during the school year; and travelled an insane amount.  I am preparing myself for SOMETHING.  A piece of me would really like to know what that SOMETHING is.

But another piece of me is cautious about the what the future brings.  The anniversary of my mother’s death is this week.   My daughter will be dead four years in February. I have no illusions.  I know beyond anyone’s telling of it that this new year is as likely to bring heart wrenching challenge as it is to offer life-affirming opportunity. 

The New Year, despite my ritual of welcoming it from the warmth of flannel sheets and comfortable PJs, offers neither security nor control.

So the best I can muster is cautious optimism.  Optimism because I have worked really hard to remain open to new opportunities and all of the good that the world offers everyday.  But caution seems like a reasonable approach when the path ahead can best be described as murky.

Practicing Christmas Spirit: Devastating Loss

I  subbed in a  kindergarten classroom this week. I am a mother who left her child’s body in a school. I am the parent of a child who suffered with mental illness and know how nearly impossible the diseases can be to correctly deal with. I am in public schools almost daily and the prospect of a school shooting is always in the back of my mind. My sister lives not far from Newtown, CT and her kids were in lockdown yesterday.

 

 

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, while not a personal loss for me, has left me in tears with fresh wounds and raw emotions.

 

It is Christmas.  I had planned to bake cookies today, and to finish decorating our tree.  If only to force myself to break away from the TV coverage, I followed through with the plan.  

 

The cookies, from my Great Grandmother’s recipe, were a life-long favorite of my mother’s, so I was making them partially to honor both of them.  As I rolled out the dough and cut the cookies out, re-living fun childhood Christmases doing the exact same thing and fragile from the coverage of the school shooting, my personal losses were tangibly present.  As I cried over the growing pile of baked trees, stars and snowmen, the smell alone was more pain that I wanted to bear.

 

And then decorating the tree.  Good God, what was I thinking.  Every ornament a memory.  Baby’s First Christmas, given to me by my Dad’s mom.  Molly’s arts and crafts ornaments.  Fond memories from vacations.  Some millennium  ornaments.   A New York skyline ornament that includes the Twin Towers.  Some incredible hand made pieces that my mom crafted.   I wouldn’t part with one of them; but I cried as I hung them on the tree.  Each one, initially selected to cement joyful memories, proclaimed a  loss.

 

Today I mourned.  For myself.  For the families in CT.  For all of us who are dealing with devastating pain.  And I reminded myself of a bitter Christmas reality: there is always loss in this holiday.  Surely, the Biblical stories don’t shy away from pain (see Matthew 2: 16 – 18 for an example.)  But in our time, too, we know that the peace and hope of the Christmas season exists squarely in the darkness and challenge of our own lives. 

 

The past comes to live in the present through memories, recipes and ornaments.  It’s not enough.  I want my child back.  But today in particular, I am convinced that mourning and celebrating are part and parcel of the same thing: an awareness that our short lives will hold both devastating loss and unspeakable joy.  The peace comes, sometimes, from recognizing the one in the other.

Practicing Chirstmas Spirit: Playing Hooky

 

I am playing hooky tomorrow.  I took myself out of substitute teacher circulation and will not be going to work.  This is a somewhat remarkable occasion; whatever else I am,  I am not a hooky playing kind of person.  I don’t know that I cut even one class in high school.  (But if I had, it would have been PE…..)
 

So, tomorrow is mine.  The plan is to do the final gift shopping, maybe even throwing in a gift or two for myself.  It’s the middle of the week, and I am hoping the stores and the parking lots won’t be gorged full and the store personnel will still be holding on to at least a sliver of holiday spirit.  If there is time, I’ll wrap presents too and maybe even have some hot chocolate (with Bailey’s!) by the fire.
 

But mostly, I will enjoy a brief sense of minor control over my own life.  When death has touched my life, it has been sudden and unexpected.  I know what it is to have life spiral out of control in an instant and I have been taught – brutally – that in most ways I am not in charge of things.  This second half of my life will surely have me practicing adjusting the sails more than futilely attempting to direct the wind. 
 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t control ANTHING!   Yes, the list of things over which I am powerless is infinite.  But tomorrow is a day to remind myself that there are a few things (like how I spend some of my time and how I take care of myself) that I can (and should!) control.  Let the hooky playing begin! 

Practicing Christmas Spirit: Planting Bulbs

When Molly died, a friend came to the house and planted literally 100s of bulbs as a memorial to her, and every year, he gives us more bulbs to add to the collection.  This year we added purple hyacinth.

Planting the bulbs is a bittersweet task: kneeling on the ground, burying the bulbs, hoping a miraculous transformation will take place in just a few months.  It’s also usually brutally cold this time of year, but the earth is spongy today in a springy sort of way that contradicts the fact that it is December in a part of the world that really should be frozen.

So, this morning, I planted bulbs.  And I immersed myself in memories of Molly and Mom and looked forward to the flowers that will bloom in the spring.  If the holidays celebrate hope and miracles and the idea that somehow God is always with us, then planting something – anything – expresses a holiday truth with candor seldom found in the carols, the cookies or the gift wrapped boxes.