Tag: grief

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Fridays

Yet another piece from the archives (my “archives” being an old file folder in the drawer of my desk). I wrote this a few years ago.

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A phrase from a song is traipsing through my head: “nobody said it was easy…”.

Fridays are a day I look forward to, with anticipation and not a little anxiety. This is the day, where it is my intention- maybe no more or less than on other days- to give.

Like Jesus, holding loaves and fish in outstretched hands… or maybe NOT like him because I want to say “it’s not enough” or “you want me to do WHAT?” or “give me more”. Instead, at least on Fridays, I hold out that which I have received and I whisper a hushed “thank you”. And whether it’s enough or not, I really don’t know.

A class, Eucharist, then lunchtime. I sit across from Marian. She’s fighting something off she says and my impulse is to lean away but holding out my hands (the whispered “thank you” there in my head), I hope it is enough. My ears are filled with a deep unfathomable sorrow as I hear of a son (“my baby” she say, again and again) putting a gun to his head. Something rattles in her throat, I think it’s pain. I myself, cannot breathe for what seems too long. She has a blanket and pillow, says she sleeps in her car. I remind her to drink lots of water for that something she is fighting off. I go in search of a fresh peach to give her but find none.

A little after, I sit in a different room with a different woman, one of the kindest I have ever known, and I speak out shards of glass, telling her of my internal conflict and existential confusion. With her gentle listening and spare words she reminds me of the Middle path, a way through. I am patched up for now and can stand upright, even feeling a sense of what seems to be peace.

Then comes a drive across town to visit my sister, broken in mind. I am armed with chocolate and the taste on her tongue elicits a smile. She wasn’t perfect and somehow her mind still clings to this knowing. But who is, really? All I know is she tried as much as she was able with what she had. Like me. Loaves and fish. Can I forgive myself as I have forgiven her? I sing to her a few lines of Feelin’ Groovy and she hums along tunelessly. I kiss her forehead and tell her I will come back. “Really?” she asks.

On my way home I stop at the grocery to choose what might be constructed into dinner. I move too slow with my cart and seem to be in everyones way. I stand too long, holding- one after another- pints of organic raspberries, finally choosing one from the others for a reason I do not know. In the meat section I cannot see because the tears… then I wander aimlessly, picking out a few things that seem to be what’s needed. Whether it is enough or not, I do not know.

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what the sea brings

mostly pieces of

something

that once was

beautiful or

useful

now just shards sharp enough

to

cut

you

Sometimes

something

whole

a masterpiece created

by the

relentless pounding heartless crushing

sometimes

beauty

I give what I have found

I take what I have found here

I place it in the hand of a little girl

she looks at me eyes expectant

hopeful

thank you she says softly

I look away because in my eyes she might see the truth

in time

hope dims

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Big Talk

“I must confess that cancer ruined me for small talk.” I didn’t write that; Mark Nepo did, but I agree. 

I read something yesterday about losing friends to depression. To tell the truth, I was already angry when I read it and reading it made me angrier still. It seems that all of the pain and frustration and grief and loss I feel is living under the umbrella of this one emotion: anger. I’m finding it highly uncomfortable.

The subject of people going away on me is a hard one to write about. Truth: it’s happened. It happens still. And not just because of the mental illness challenges I carry around like a backpack full of rocks, but add to that the physical stuff and add to that the reality that I have been in a “faith crisis” of sorts for the last several years. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t share all of this. But I find I’m not very popular. It’s OK, I understand (sort of). And it hurts.

It’s hard to tell the truth, my truth. I’m ALWAYS too concerned about what others will think, how they might feel reading these words. But not telling the truth doesn’t make it less true. Pretending something doesn’t hurt, doesn’t lessen the pain.

I’d like to go back to making small talk, I really would. Yet life keeps calling me to the depths. My hope is that I can bring some comfort and hope to others that dwell here.

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2 Years Ago My Mother Died

(Following is what I read at her funeral)

My father’s wife of 61 years died last week.

My mom died.

Monica, Melissa and Cash lost their mom too.

Jessica, Kathleen, Nathan, Camille, Travis, Tiffany, Alexis, Sage, Sawyer, Hadley, Olivia, Henry, Abi, Ben and Jack lost their grandma.

Ethan, Adison, Violet, Juniper, Hunter, Evangeline, Alessandra, Sadie, and 2 babies on the way, lost their great-grandma.

And today that loss all but consumes me.

So I’m thinking of gifts-

The gifts my mother gave me.

Of course a few obvious things come to mind: she gave me life and 3 dear siblings who are my best friends.

But there are other things she gave me:

-the pleasure of cooking good food for those you love.

-an appreciation for nature and a love for being out in it

-a love of cookies and dark chocolate

-the serious business of collecting sea shells

-the ability to orchestrate the perfect picnic lunch

-a love for reading and reading aloud

-the ability to spell supercalifragilistic…

-a crazy love for newborn babies

-an aversion to hot weather

-attention to detail; sometimes too much attention to detail!

-a love of learning

-an absurd love for words ( i.e supercalifragilistic…)

-extreme fear of snakes

-an abiding appreciation for the humble petunia

-tenacity, perseverance and the ability to face into hard things

Yes, there is great loss represented here- in this place, on these faces, in these hearts.

AND there are the gifts that each of us has received from this woman, this wife, this sister, this mother, this grandma, this great-grandma -from my mom.

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Lost

Lately, as I’ve shared here some of my writing about my sister and her process of dying, I have had…I don’t really know what to call it other that Writer’s Remorse. Thus, I have delayed adding another installment. Yet, I am reminding myself, again, that this- this blog- is more for me than for anyone else.

Does that sound selfish? Arrogant, even? It’s not meant to but for most of my life I have been “The Quiet One”, the listener. And while I am still mostly quiet when in groups and I still prefer listening and observing to talking, I do have something to say. I can drive myself crazy wondering if my words are worth sharing, worrying about what readers will think. Yet, I am choosing and re-choosing to take the risk, share, use my voice.

So here is a piece I wrote 3 years ago. 

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Lost
A story will tell itself when it is time, says Jodi Picoult.

Five days ago as I sat in a dim living room, hundreds of miles from my own, it struck me- like a blow. She is lost to me. The silent tears, again, stream down my face. My husband enters and lays his hand gently on my head. He knows.
Yesterday a man on the phone asked me if I had ever experienced tragic loss in my life. When I was 17, one of my closest friends shot herself and our tiny private school lost one of it’s three high school girls.

“And my sister” I told the man.

Yet she is not gone. Just today I spent almost 2 hours, mostly standing with her as the flesh dissolves from her frame. I hold her impossibly smooth and birdlike hands. I speak to her as one speaks to a fretful child, attempting-without success, for the most part- to sooth a fraction of the fears and hallucinations that hold her captive in what seems to be a living hell.
No, she is not gone.

Driving home after my visit, the tears flowing once again, memories of her hands scroll through my mind. Watching as she rolls out homemade piecrust-undoubtably the best pie baker in the family (an honor I must admit has been passed on to our brother, or, possibly, my daughter). As a little girl I watch starry eyed as she plays barbershop tunes for the 4 high school boys that stand around the piano in our living room. On Christmas day one year, she runs her hands over the belly that pushes out her pale yellow bathrobe. We had finished with the gifts, so it was time to go to the hospital; time for her first of 3 children. As a young girl, I watched and learned as she pinned on the cloth diapers, mixed the bottles of formula. I’ve seen pictures of her pale hands speaking love to motherless children in Botswana. Then, gradually, I watched-horrified-as those hands faltered to do the simplest of tasks, writing legibly, shifting the gear stick in her car. The hands mirroring the bouts of confusion in her brain.

Today, I feel almost frantic. I hum to her, broken tunes, not songs really, not anymore. I try turning on the CD player and we listen for a few minutes to songs she used to love. She reaches out her hand, touches my hair, strokes my face. I look for a sign of recognition in her eyes, but find none.
And it starts again, in a piercing wail “Daaadddy! Where’s my daddy…oh he’s dead, he died, he died…Daaadddy!”. I wrap her in my arms, she does not struggle as I try to comfort the demons in her mind, yet she is not calmed.

So on that night 5 days ago, I dial the phone and hear the beautiful voice of my niece and in the background I hear her sister, and children’s voices- my sister’s grandchildren. My niece knows right away as I croak out the words, “I just wanted to make sure everything’s alright”. And she comforts me with her strength.

And we both know, everything is not alright.

Some things do not make sense. Ever. This is one of them. I think of words I have built my life on since childhood: a yoke that is easy, a burden- light. Umm, not this time. Yet, somehow, I don’t expect it to make sense.

Each night, I curl up in my bed, the little sister. Very aware that I am not the only one who grieves; far from it, we are a family in grief. I listen to a few favorite songs that bring some slight comfort. As the music ends, I struggle to get my C-PAP mask in place and I drift off, able to forget for a few hours. But I wake each morning to the reality that she is lost to me.

I love you sis. I miss you.

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These Words

The things I wrote while my sister was dying are true. And also hard to post here in their unedited form. Yet my desire is to remain true to my experience, my voice; to not hold back even though there’s great pain here, along with great vulnerability.

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Oh, my alarm clock did it’s job
yet I stay
craving the deep sleep of forgetfulness that is so rare to me.
It does not come.
My brain is set on Continuous Repeat of her words, THESE WORDS

“I just want to be somebody different”

“I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid!!!”

(why are THESE WORDS, the hardest words, the ones most clearly spoken?)

I try -because I am stubborn this way- to blow THESE WORDS away

with the soft speech of comfort and reassurance.

But THESE WORDS are at once sharp and viscous sitting heavy on the air.

And we stand in THESE WORDS considering our familiar faces

shared lives

the pain in both.

A daughter of mountains and forest and a logger,
I’ve had the privilege of being on many a precarious logging road. Let me be clear- these roads are not for the faint of heart!
Many of them, my father had a hand in building and I never felt afraid as long as he was driving.
Too frequently the roads in my life bear an eerie similarity-
narrow, winding, and a few, perhaps more than a few,
with sharp drop-offs at their edge, beckoning me to swerve ever so slightly and be embraced by empty air. To be done.
I didn’t swerve. Not once.
And here I am
on yet another unexpected winding road,
a logging road perhaps-
this one surrounded by
a clear cut of her mind-
leaving no life there,
as far as my eye can see.
Oh sis! The tears come thick and burning.
I want to take your hand,
swerve you into peace.
(Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy…)

There I said it: THESE WORDS of mine
perhaps the hardest to hear but I don’t care.
They are at once sharp and viscous
sitting heavy on the air.
I’m just trying to breathe

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Grief

As my sister was dying of Lewy Body Dementia, I wrote; trying to process the experience of watching someone dear lose the ability to be who they are. And trying not to lose myself in the midst of it all.

Over the weeks to come I will share some of this writing here. It’s still excruciating for me to read. Monica has been gone from my sight for over a year. The grief is still present, less raw, but a profound part of me.

In sharing what I’ve written, my desire is to honor my sister and to honor the pain of our family as we lost her.

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I took a cup of frozen yogurt 
to her 
and sat 
with her 
as it melted,

spooning bites
into her mouth

whenever 
she would begin her ever-present monologue 
“they are going to kill me….where’s my baaabyyy?” 

This is grief, 
living and breathing and dutifully swallowing frozen yogurt 
grief 
sitting beside me and residing within me. 
For all that is lost. 
For all that will never be. 

At some point 
amidst her halting speaking, I hear the words 
“I just want” 
then there is a pause, so I lean in and 
softly probe 
“what is it that you want, sis?” 
to which comes the almost too coherent reply 
“to be normal”. 

And, yet again
tears
rush and spill over.
I have never known a grief this raw,
well, maybe I have.
Even so, this feels like heart-tearing
soul- wrenching
breath-stopping
grief.

We try to spread it thin, share it,
my nieces and I,
my siblings too.
Yet it is so deep and thick
so all -about- me,
as I sit, spooning in the dripping, melting
frozen yogurt.

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The Title of This Blog

I have so much that is good and beautiful in my life. To name a few: I’m married to an amazing man and we have the privilege of being the parents of 3 incredible kids; I have a sister and brother who love me unconditionally; I have a small but priceless group of friends who hold space for me with kindness; and I have purpose.

So why “The 8th Hard Thing” you might ask. Well, it’s a long story and I will piece it together in future posts. But for now, I will give you a summary.

A few months ago, the blog title “A Treacherous Path Called Life” came to me. And while the words certainly ring true, it was, I don’t know, a bit dramatic.

Recently, one of my siblings was diagnosed with a serious disease. Now, my family of origin is no stranger to such events, but it just felt- like so many things before- like TOO MUCH. Too much hard, too much sad, too much pain. And yet life is asking of us to add this to the long list of what has already been endured. Thus, “The 8th Hard Thing” (though the number 8 is a symbolic rather than accurate adjective).

Please do not hear me say that my list of hard things is any worse than yours or that of someone you know. It’s not ever my intention to compare, or to minimize the suffering of someone else. The world is truly filled with stories of human pain. 

My intention is however, to share my experience here so that we can walk together. So you won’t feel so alone. And neither will I.



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