My friend Sue over at A Life Divided is doing a Blogathon this month, wherein she will try to post everyday during May. I'm not going to promise to do that, but I am going to try to post more frequently about what the day-to-day is like. (Think of me as the girl intermittently handing out water during a marathon. Not a runner...a water girl.)
Today, I have hit a wall. It was a hard weekend, followed by a short but busy week at work and I am wrung out. I had planned to accompany Dave to his out-of-town gig tonight but instead I am sending him off with Googled directions and a cell phone. I've been smiling and being alternately charming and competent and efficient for four solid days and my well is dry. There is laundry and raking and watering and mulching - all are calling my name. But also the final pages of Ann Hood's Comfort and sitting on the porch and watching Mojo roll in the grass. First things first.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Time and Lies and a Little Piece of Truth
Last Saturday, the 25th, was the fourth anniversary of Britt's death. It feels like forever. It feels like yesterday. At the same time. It is a forever of yesterdays ago. I have been thinking about time a lot lately: never enough of it; always too much of it; how to fill it; how to spend it; what to do with all the time before and after and since and until.
Time. I took time off from work, knowing that I would be distracted and ill-suited. Four days loomed ahead of me and I wondered how I would fill them. One day for Nothing. And I had it and I loved it and I hated it and I did not get dressed and I ate chocolate and drank wine and I cried and read and slept and I slept some more. Three more days that slipped by in a blur of manufactured busy-ness and chosen pauses. Sharp and bitter and sweet.
Time. And the lies that people tell you about it. Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn't. In time, you'll feel better. No, I won't. It will get easier, with time. No, it hasn't. Enough time. After a time. Given some time. In time. Time passes. Time haunts me.
And, then, last night, I finally read a truth about time, nestled inside Comfort by Ann Hood. I cannot really say I found comfort in the book (a beautifully written and unflinchingly honest memoir about losing a child), but I did find some words that rang very true. These were the truest: "Time does not heal. It passes. And carries us along with it."
Yes.
Time. I took time off from work, knowing that I would be distracted and ill-suited. Four days loomed ahead of me and I wondered how I would fill them. One day for Nothing. And I had it and I loved it and I hated it and I did not get dressed and I ate chocolate and drank wine and I cried and read and slept and I slept some more. Three more days that slipped by in a blur of manufactured busy-ness and chosen pauses. Sharp and bitter and sweet.
Time. And the lies that people tell you about it. Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn't. In time, you'll feel better. No, I won't. It will get easier, with time. No, it hasn't. Enough time. After a time. Given some time. In time. Time passes. Time haunts me.
And, then, last night, I finally read a truth about time, nestled inside Comfort by Ann Hood. I cannot really say I found comfort in the book (a beautifully written and unflinchingly honest memoir about losing a child), but I did find some words that rang very true. These were the truest: "Time does not heal. It passes. And carries us along with it."
Yes.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Along the Path Not Chosen
Some mornings I look around and really take notice of all the things in my every-day life that are new or changed since losing Britt. There is this house, which she would have loved for its old-fashioned quirkiness, its location on the stable grounds, its proximity to her favorite restaurant but which she never saw since it did not become home until she'd been gone nearly two years. A different car in the driveway and a new couch in the living room. Daddy has an iPod and we both have succumbed to Facebook. There is Mojo, our new dog...here just a year, and the absence of our Boomer - a valiant SuperDog until the end of his also too-brief life. There's her littlest cousin, Jack, who charms us every day and a growing roster of first cousins once removed. Our beloved Nana is gone. And, then, there is her father and me, reunited first by our grief and then, slowly, by the discovery that in the face of such loss it simply wasn't possible to bear the loss of each other as well.
In the lives of my nieces and nephews and the children of my friends, I hear the faintest echoes of the many things her life might have been: graduations and trips abroad, commitments made and lives being forged, all while I stand here holding my breath. I'm almost, but not quite, ready to exhale and start wondering what the coming years will hold.
In the lives of my nieces and nephews and the children of my friends, I hear the faintest echoes of the many things her life might have been: graduations and trips abroad, commitments made and lives being forged, all while I stand here holding my breath. I'm almost, but not quite, ready to exhale and start wondering what the coming years will hold.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A Different Kind of Christmas
Poor neglected blog. I really did think I've have more to say. I guess the words, like the grief, will come in waves. We'll ride that out, too.
Today is Christmas; my fourth without my girl. Much of the last two months has been consumed by thoughts of this day: what would we do? how would we manage? who would we see? would it still be so hard? Christmas stings especially because it had always been so wonderful. Christmas Eve dinner at the in-laws, midnight Mass, a few hours of sleep before we tumbled out of bed - too excited to wait - and dragged a way-too-sleepy Daddy to the tree. Presents (always too many, always beloved), breakfast, and then a large family gathering of grandmothers, brothers and sisters, and piles of nieces and nephews. In what I have come to think of as the 'good years' (and, no, I wasn't wise enough to call them that then) we hosted that gathering and the house was filled with laughter and love.
The first Christmas after Britt died, we opted out. Completely. No decorations, no gifts, no visits, no feasts. Just interminable hours wishing the day would end. The second year was worse. No longer marking 'firsts', reality was sinking in and the idea of Christmas after Christmas after Christmas with this huge gaping hole was almost more than I could bear. Last Christmas we decided to decorate, but I couldn't bear the thought of pulling out the ornaments she'd made or the Santa collection she'd loved. In one trip to Wal-Mart, I procured an entirely new Christmas look: blue and silver ornaments on a sleek and slender pre-lit fir, blue lights for the front porch, and a star to replace the angel who used to perch atop our tree.
This year, Christmas seemed to stalk me. Decorations started showing up in stores before Halloween, there was much tussle in the office about who was taking time off and who wasn't and what was fair; everywhere I turned, there was Christmas. And, really, I tried hard to be interested. I ordered wrapping paper and planned presents for the Little People in my life. I retrieved the Blue Christmas trappings from the attic...and brought down a few of our old things as well. There's a mercury glass Santa who looks gorgeous next to the blue & silver bedecked tree; some lovely spun-glass hummingbird ornaments that work nicely; even the chunk of lucite engraved 'Baby's First Christmas ~ 1985' found a place this year.
And yet. And still. Not so much with the 'spirit of Christmas.' That seems to have vanished along with my faith and it leaves an odd space to fill. When you have spent a lifetime celebrating the birth of Christ and you can no longer say with any certainty (or even any interest) that you believe God exists, Christmas becomes a bit of a boondoggle. Less about a celebration, and more about what to do with this day. This year, we tried minimal presents, a movie, and a nap. The seats at the the theater threw my back into a spasm and my nap included a heating pad...but overall, it wasn't a terrible way to spend a day. A different kind of Christmas, indeed.
Today is Christmas; my fourth without my girl. Much of the last two months has been consumed by thoughts of this day: what would we do? how would we manage? who would we see? would it still be so hard? Christmas stings especially because it had always been so wonderful. Christmas Eve dinner at the in-laws, midnight Mass, a few hours of sleep before we tumbled out of bed - too excited to wait - and dragged a way-too-sleepy Daddy to the tree. Presents (always too many, always beloved), breakfast, and then a large family gathering of grandmothers, brothers and sisters, and piles of nieces and nephews. In what I have come to think of as the 'good years' (and, no, I wasn't wise enough to call them that then) we hosted that gathering and the house was filled with laughter and love.
The first Christmas after Britt died, we opted out. Completely. No decorations, no gifts, no visits, no feasts. Just interminable hours wishing the day would end. The second year was worse. No longer marking 'firsts', reality was sinking in and the idea of Christmas after Christmas after Christmas with this huge gaping hole was almost more than I could bear. Last Christmas we decided to decorate, but I couldn't bear the thought of pulling out the ornaments she'd made or the Santa collection she'd loved. In one trip to Wal-Mart, I procured an entirely new Christmas look: blue and silver ornaments on a sleek and slender pre-lit fir, blue lights for the front porch, and a star to replace the angel who used to perch atop our tree.
This year, Christmas seemed to stalk me. Decorations started showing up in stores before Halloween, there was much tussle in the office about who was taking time off and who wasn't and what was fair; everywhere I turned, there was Christmas. And, really, I tried hard to be interested. I ordered wrapping paper and planned presents for the Little People in my life. I retrieved the Blue Christmas trappings from the attic...and brought down a few of our old things as well. There's a mercury glass Santa who looks gorgeous next to the blue & silver bedecked tree; some lovely spun-glass hummingbird ornaments that work nicely; even the chunk of lucite engraved 'Baby's First Christmas ~ 1985' found a place this year.
And yet. And still. Not so much with the 'spirit of Christmas.' That seems to have vanished along with my faith and it leaves an odd space to fill. When you have spent a lifetime celebrating the birth of Christ and you can no longer say with any certainty (or even any interest) that you believe God exists, Christmas becomes a bit of a boondoggle. Less about a celebration, and more about what to do with this day. This year, we tried minimal presents, a movie, and a nap. The seats at the the theater threw my back into a spasm and my nap included a heating pad...but overall, it wasn't a terrible way to spend a day. A different kind of Christmas, indeed.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
This Day
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the death of my cousin, Anastasia. She was a smart and beautiful young woman; a new wife and an even newer mother; a dancer; a dreamer; a librarian. Her death, at 23, stunned me. I remember thinking a lot about my aunt and wanting nothing more than to hold my own daughter close and keep her safe. There is comfort in not knowing what the future holds
Five years later, my aunt and I are an isolated group of two in our large and boisterous family. Inside our own griefs, we stand together and watch the rest of them and shake our heads. We ask questions there are no answers to; we keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And, on days like this - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays - we search for meaning and ways to both mark and pass the time that will somehow mitigate the pain, honor the lives ended too soon, make this day more bearable than the ones that came before. Each year we try something different: this time we'll stay home/travel/gather with a group/be alone/wallow/try not to think. And each time, I think, we come back to the same place. This day, like every other, we will remember.
Five years later, my aunt and I are an isolated group of two in our large and boisterous family. Inside our own griefs, we stand together and watch the rest of them and shake our heads. We ask questions there are no answers to; we keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And, on days like this - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays - we search for meaning and ways to both mark and pass the time that will somehow mitigate the pain, honor the lives ended too soon, make this day more bearable than the ones that came before. Each year we try something different: this time we'll stay home/travel/gather with a group/be alone/wallow/try not to think. And each time, I think, we come back to the same place. This day, like every other, we will remember.
ANASTASIA LYNNE IRWIN EDSON
August 16, 1979 - October 18, 2003
August 16, 1979 - October 18, 2003
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Everything Old is New Again
A few days ago, in need of distraction, I was browsing my bookshelves, in search of something I’d not yet read. In between the Hemingway and Faulkner, old friends that I’ve traveled with many times, I spotted a copy of T.R. Pearson’s A Short History of a Small Place. Catchy title, I thought, and I like Pearson. That’ll do.
I settled on the couch and dove in. Somewhere around page 75, I found a receipt from Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. It seems I bought this book on the same day I purchased Britt’s copy of The Odyssey for her sophomore Lit class. Small pause there, as that day came flooding back: classes for me in the morning, then off to work at the University Club. Britt walked from school to the club and spent a little time doing homework while I balanced out restaurant receipts from the night before. We skipped out a little early and wandered over the square; purchases were made at the bookstore, ice cream was consumed; we ran into my biology professor on the sidewalk and he was charming to my girl.
The clarity of that memory is startling to me, mostly because – to be frank – my memory is now most often like a fine Swiss cheese; there are holes big enough to drive a tank through and much of what gets poured in leaves just as quickly. That wasn’t always the case. Until Britt died, one of the things I liked best about myself was my ability to remember everything. Big things and little things and all the in-between things. I never forgot a birthday or a name. I could recite conversations verbatim, months after I’d had them. I knew all my projects at work as well as I knew my own phone number, both current and for every address where I’d lived since I was 16. This made me an excellent employee, a sometimes exasperating wife, and a formidable Mom. Now, I’m working on becoming a list maker and a note writer, and trying to come to terms with yet another side-effect of grief: trauma not only slams your metabolism into park, clouds your judgment, and steals your words, it short circuits your memory. Please don’t ask me to tell you where things are or what we did or when we did it. It’s a safe bet that I don’t have a clue and will only begin to recall after you’ve laid it all out for me.
Which brings us back to the Pearson. The book I’d never read, remember? Except, by page 264 things were feeling awfully familiar in those pages. And by page 370 I had remembered the ending. Of course, it ended on page 381, so that’s not saying much. Maybe this will get better and maybe it won’t: the literature is mixed and my doctor won’t commit. I suppose only time will tell. In the meantime, I own at least a hundred books I don’t remember the plots of, a shelf full of movies I can watch again for the ‘first time’, and stash of neon hued Post-It’s to help me muddle through.
I settled on the couch and dove in. Somewhere around page 75, I found a receipt from Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. It seems I bought this book on the same day I purchased Britt’s copy of The Odyssey for her sophomore Lit class. Small pause there, as that day came flooding back: classes for me in the morning, then off to work at the University Club. Britt walked from school to the club and spent a little time doing homework while I balanced out restaurant receipts from the night before. We skipped out a little early and wandered over the square; purchases were made at the bookstore, ice cream was consumed; we ran into my biology professor on the sidewalk and he was charming to my girl.
The clarity of that memory is startling to me, mostly because – to be frank – my memory is now most often like a fine Swiss cheese; there are holes big enough to drive a tank through and much of what gets poured in leaves just as quickly. That wasn’t always the case. Until Britt died, one of the things I liked best about myself was my ability to remember everything. Big things and little things and all the in-between things. I never forgot a birthday or a name. I could recite conversations verbatim, months after I’d had them. I knew all my projects at work as well as I knew my own phone number, both current and for every address where I’d lived since I was 16. This made me an excellent employee, a sometimes exasperating wife, and a formidable Mom. Now, I’m working on becoming a list maker and a note writer, and trying to come to terms with yet another side-effect of grief: trauma not only slams your metabolism into park, clouds your judgment, and steals your words, it short circuits your memory. Please don’t ask me to tell you where things are or what we did or when we did it. It’s a safe bet that I don’t have a clue and will only begin to recall after you’ve laid it all out for me.
Which brings us back to the Pearson. The book I’d never read, remember? Except, by page 264 things were feeling awfully familiar in those pages. And by page 370 I had remembered the ending. Of course, it ended on page 381, so that’s not saying much. Maybe this will get better and maybe it won’t: the literature is mixed and my doctor won’t commit. I suppose only time will tell. In the meantime, I own at least a hundred books I don’t remember the plots of, a shelf full of movies I can watch again for the ‘first time’, and stash of neon hued Post-It’s to help me muddle through.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Hey, Mister...Can You Spare a Minesweeper?
It’s been a long, melancholy two weeks worth of convention-watching here and I’ve been feeling the loss of my girl quite keenly. Even in the midst of the Democratic convention, where it was easier to get caught up in Hope and Change and History, I wasn’t quite able to escape the sharp pointy sticks the speakers had no idea they were wielding: Everyone kept reminding me that we do this ‘for our children and our grandchildren.’** Well. Hmmm. Okay, then…I’m off the hook? Nonono, not really. And, yeah, I know I could read that as a universal “our” and yes, of course, I can do it for your children and grandchildren and I’m happy to, really, and yes I can do it in the name of Britt’s legacy …but, to be honest, I wish they’d find another way to describe the future, at least some of the time. Because even when you don’t see the sharp, pointy stick, sometimes…ow.
A dear friend recently compared navigating another’s grief to walking across a minefield. I know that she’s right and one of the reasons I love her is her willingness to walk that minefield with me every day. Most of the explosions are just as big a surprise to me as they are to anyone and often I’m shocked (and sometimes alarmed) at what brings me to my knees, what hurts, what enrages me. It’s often a struggle to maintain perspective and consider both the source and intent, - even though I know I should - especially when people insist on saying the most ludicrous things.
No, everything does NOT happen for a reason…some things are just random, meaningless accidents; and No, I do NOT believe this all part of God’s plan, and if you do then I most definitely don’t want to know your God as he is surely an evil, vile being and I'm not even sure I believe in God anymore so can we just give the whole God-thing a rest already?; and Yes I DO have a child, she just happens to have died and that doesn’t mean I “don’t have kids” and it Damn Sure doesn’t mean I’m willing to forgo taking time off around the holidays every year; and…you get the picture.
It’s exhausting and maddening and sometimes contradictory and absolutely like dodging landmines. Another thing I love, in a world where so many things are wrong, is how often my friends are right.
[**It also did not go unnoticed that there was precious little talk of “for the children” at the RNC; I can only assume they are taking care of their kids and you and your kids are on your own.]
A dear friend recently compared navigating another’s grief to walking across a minefield. I know that she’s right and one of the reasons I love her is her willingness to walk that minefield with me every day. Most of the explosions are just as big a surprise to me as they are to anyone and often I’m shocked (and sometimes alarmed) at what brings me to my knees, what hurts, what enrages me. It’s often a struggle to maintain perspective and consider both the source and intent, - even though I know I should - especially when people insist on saying the most ludicrous things.
No, everything does NOT happen for a reason…some things are just random, meaningless accidents; and No, I do NOT believe this all part of God’s plan, and if you do then I most definitely don’t want to know your God as he is surely an evil, vile being and I'm not even sure I believe in God anymore so can we just give the whole God-thing a rest already?; and Yes I DO have a child, she just happens to have died and that doesn’t mean I “don’t have kids” and it Damn Sure doesn’t mean I’m willing to forgo taking time off around the holidays every year; and…you get the picture.
It’s exhausting and maddening and sometimes contradictory and absolutely like dodging landmines. Another thing I love, in a world where so many things are wrong, is how often my friends are right.
[**It also did not go unnoticed that there was precious little talk of “for the children” at the RNC; I can only assume they are taking care of their kids and you and your kids are on your own.]
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