Anniversaries

A year ago today, my best friend died.

I don't actually believe in ghosts. I do believe in an afterlife. Quite firmly. I have solid reasons, reasons that are as convincing for me as the evidence of gravity that we all have any time we drop a glass and wind up with milk spread all over our floor.

My grandmother had Alzheimer's. Long before her actual physical death, she had mentally left her body. She was alive but absent. And yet there were times when I felt her in my life, when I knew that even though she was actually trapped in a nursing home, a prisoner of a body that no longer worked, she was with me. I felt her presence in a room. And I knew it was ridiculous, because she wasn't there. But I felt her love for me, her affection, nonetheless. And then she died, and I stopped feeling her. She moved on.

My grandfather died much sooner. But he left behind one of those plastic circles with a rough surface that you use to open jars. It held the name of his hardware store. It was a promotional thing, just a piece of plastic. Except when I couldn't get a bottle of pickles open, I could say--can still say--"Boomie, give me a hand,"--and the jar would open after having been stuck for minutes. Okay, sure, it's ridiculous. It's psychological. It's just some subliminal thing that lets me think that those words mean something. No one with any sense would believe that he's actually helping me. But I feel him with me in those moments and he is helping me. Sometimes he's laughing at me, not in a mean way, but in a loving way. So, okay, it's just some quirk of psychology. "I feel" proves nothing.

My father-in-law, Malcolm, didn't believe in life after death. He was a wonderful human being. At his memorial service, people talked about what a curmudgeon he was. Yep, he was a curmudgeon. It didn't stop him from being wonderful. He was filled with energy, with life, with persistence, with joy. He wasn't perfect, but no one is. I think, if he could have gone back in time, he would have been a different kind of parent. But he did the best he could with the information he had available to him at the time that he had it. Malcolm was...oh, love is such a strange thing sometimes. Malcolm was technically my ex-father-in-law--I divorced his son. Realistically, he probably had lots of people in his life that he loved more than he loved me. Except I don't think so. Honestly, I don't think so. He had four sons. I think his life would have been different if he'd had daughters instead. He probably should have had daughters instead, but he loved me like a daughter. And I was lucky to have him, to know him.

I'm not actually easy to love. I'm kind of a pain in the ass. I'm rigid, I'm stubborn, I'm opinionated, I tend to be sure I'm right. Malcolm and I had one final conversation, in which I said to him, well, we'll see. He knew that death meant dead, gone forever. I knew that he was wrong.

The day after he died, I woke up to weird light. The sky was strange. I went outside and I didn't see it. I knew that something was odd, but I didn't know what. I went back inside. Then R went outside and called me to join him, his voice hushed. A double rainbow was spread across our house, starting at one side, ending at the other. I absolutely believe, one hundred percent, not a doubt in my mind believe, that Malcolm was responsible for that rainbow. That his spirit broke out of the shell that had been trapping him for so long and danced across the sky. That he found my mom--who had died exactly one month before him, to the day--and said, come on, let's paint her a picture. You don't have to believe that. It's okay if you don't. But I know, absolutely, that Malcolm and my mom painted me a double rainbow.

Michelle died a year ago. I've felt her with me. And she's mostly exasperated with me. I can feel her kicking me. I know she's telling me to get over it.  I hear her voice saying that I should use the time that I have. I know that's what she wants from me.

But I miss her.

I called tonight. I've been thinking of doing it for ages, weeks, months. Chris hasn't changed the voice mail. It's still her voice.

Grief for the 10,000th time

I started using a site called OhLife last year. It's sort of a diary -- it sends you an email every day and you reply and it saves your messages and then sends them back to you. The ideal scenario is that five years from now, you see something you wrote and feel charmingly nostalgic. Oh, I remember that, what a good choice I made, how fun that was, whatever.

Holy bad words, I picked the wrong year to start using it.

Yesterday, we worked on cleaning out the house. It had to be done. I have no argument with that. It should have been done nine months ago. Maybe a year ago even. I think a year ago I might have cried my way through packing up my mom's things for Goodwill with resolution and dignity and sorrow, but not despair. Yesterday, not so much. I want to keep it all. Everything. She cared about those things. She valued them. I look at them now and think, this was from the trip they took to Russia and they bought this in New Orleans and we got this together on our trip to London and she loved these dishes and I am just unwilling, unable, to let anything go.

I hate clutter. But I miss my mother.

So today's OhLife? Said, "Michelle's tumor is back. She's having surgery on Friday. Pretty sure that's enough said, but until I found that out, it was a nice day. I feel...numb. Not sure there are words, really."

 I stayed numb for a long while. I wish I was still numb. The hardest part is the moments when I think, I am so, so, so sad, I should call...and there I stop. Because I should call my mom or I should call Michelle. They are who I reach out to when life is simply unbearable -- my mom for the unconditional love, Michelle for the unconditional support.

And they're gone.

August 5th

I sort of anticipated that tomorrow would be bad, but today. . . today has been not good. Unexpectedly not good. After about my fourth cry, I finally went outside and swam despite the weather (what's a little rain when you're in a swimming pool, right? it's just the lightning you've got to watch out for) and finally managed to get away from my relentless brain. And then getting out of the pool, I thought, "damn, I'm just so sad, I really need to call Mom, she always..." and then there I was again.

There ought to be a word other than "anniversary." Anniversary sounds too positive, too festive. Anniversaries are for celebrations. But I can't figure out what the word would be.

Birds

A year ago Saturday my mom went into the hospital. She never came home again. This year, my dad got married on Saturday. I suppose it was a better way to spend the day than the way we spent it last year. But...yeah. Anyway, my brother and his daughter came to visit for the wedding so there were many photo op events -- the wedding, the reception, dinner at my house, a picnic and inner-tubing at Kelly Park, the Science Museum, that kind of thing ... but that's not what I want to write about.

On Monday morning, I was sitting on the patio when suddenly, "thunk." A little dark blob whizzed across my line of sight, and hit the ground. The dog immediately investigated and her level of curiosity and excitement was so high that after a minute, I followed suit, despite thinking it was a big bug. It wasn't. It was a bird. Maybe a baby, maybe not. It had hit the spinning fan and it was sprawled on the ground, clearly hurt, its wings a mess, its feet curled oddly, but still breathing, still in distress.

What do you do with a hurt bird? I had no idea. It was the damn baby rabbits all over again. I picked it up and set it on the side of the grill, so that it was away from the dog. I watched it lying on its side, struggling to breathe, its heart beating fast, its eyes closing and going from dark beads to cloudy white orbs. The feathers were so soft, but I didn't touch it after I set it down, just talked to it and grieved as it died. I couldn't bear to bury it right away, so I took the dog for her walk and did my morning chores and then I went back out on the patio to deal with the body. I didn't look at it -- didn't want to see it -- until I'd found the trowel. I figured I'd bury it next to the two baby rabbit bodies -- my little garden is turning into quite the cemetery. But when I finally came back to it, it was in a different position. Eyes closed, it was huddled small, but on its feet, and as I watched, I could see its heartbeat.

Huh.

Great. So it was going to take a long time to die. Lovely. Just what I needed. But I bent over it and its eyelids fluttered and then closed again, so it was clearly not ready to be buried.

I went back into the house and found a little bowl and brought out some water and put it next to the bird and then we went off to the park and did our inner-tubing and our picnicking and the whole time, I kept wishing that I'd added some sugar to the water. I'd brought out some millet, too, but it was only after we were on our way that I realized that the shape of its beak meant that it was a nectar drinking bird, not a seed eater.

We drove home, and I came into the house and I dreaded looking out onto the porch. I knew there'd be a little brown shape huddled on the grill and I knew that I would feel helpless and indecisive and miserable, not knowing how to help it. But no. No shape. I went out with such trepidation -- had it fallen off? Had it tried to fly and landed on the hard ground? Why hadn't I put it someplace soft? But I went out and looked all around and it was gone. Just gone.

It lived. It must have. It must have recovered, and then flown away.

It was such a surprise. Such a delight. A little miracle. For the rest of the day, I could be happy knowing that the bird was out there somewhere, maybe bruised, maybe sore, but at the very least able to fly.

Then two days later, I was driving home from the vet -- $160 poorer but with a dog that I could stop worrying about -- when the car in front of me hit a baby sandhill crane. HIT IT. The car saw it, slowed, and then fucking drove into the bird and drove away. The bird crumpled to the ground, but it was still alive. It was struggling to move, spasmodic twitches of its wings and legs.

I was on Dodd Road, which is a crappy road. Two people died in just about that spot ten days ago. There's a curve and no place to easily stop on the right. The car next to me -- a minivan -- pulled over into the turn lane, but I couldn't. Plus, I had the dog in the car. So I drove home, crying all the way. I'd never seen anything so callous and cruel. The person who hit it -- they saw it. They slowed way down. And then they kept going. Who does that? What kind of sick person sees a two foot tall baby in the road and then just decides to run it over? (That's a picture swiped from wikipedia. Sandhill cranes are a protected species, only 5000 left in the wild according to wikipedia, and if I'd been smart enough to get the license plate of the car, the driver could have been fined.)

The moment I got home, I called the vet and asked if I went back and the bird was still alive, if I could bring it to them. She told me to call Birds of Prey, a bird rescue place in Maitland, so I found their phone number, grabbed a sheet to wrap the bird in, and headed back out. 

It was gone. Totally gone. But two adult sandhills and a baby stood in the grass on the side of the road.

I don't know whether the person in the minivan took the bird somewhere but if he or she did, it must have been alive. Or maybe that baby by the side of the road was the same baby and the car had knocked it over but not hurt it. But either way, I drove home with at least hope that the second bird of the week would survive.

Can I call it a weird week? Two birds that I thought were dead, not dead. It's . . . nice. Also a very odd set of coincidences. One bird is just a nice small miracle. Two? Feels like a sign, except I'm not at all sure of what.

Mother's Day

I didn't sleep last night. Really truly didn't sleep. I was still wide-awake at 4:17 at which time I resolutely stopped watching the clock. I was awake by 6:45. The mosquito flying around my room was the most persistent, determined and agile bug I have ever, ever encountered. At 4AM, I decided maybe there was more than one. Maybe there were two. Or five. Or ten. But my bed was not littered with dead mosquito bodies when the room finally got light, so I'm thinking not -- just one seriously hard-working little pest. I actually told it -- yes, out loud -- that I didn't care if it bit me 100 times if it would just stop whining around my ear. It did not listen. I suppose mosquitoes don't really speak English.

Anyway, Mother's Day. I can't remember last year's Mother's Day but I wish we'd done something special. I wish I'd bought my mother flowers and written her a sappy card and cooked her a fancy dinner. I don't think I did. I told a therapist last summer that I didn't think I'd have any regrets: my relationship with my mother was strong and loving and friendly. She was, in so many ways, my closest friend. She was the person I called when I felt good and when I felt bad, or when I needed advice about cooking or cleaning or health or shopping. She was the person I did things with -- Saturday morning garage sales and shopping for clothes or shoes. I talked to her more often and about more than anyone else in my life. But we never did much to celebrate Mother's Day. She knew I loved her and I knew she loved me. I think I felt -- and I think she felt -- that the way we lived was a regular recognition of how important and special our relationship was and that I didn't need one day a year to tell her she was wonderful. But I do regret -- so much -- that I don't have a special memory from last year to make this year more bearable.

My sister's kids sent me chocolate-covered strawberries. My delightful son brought me tea in bed, and an omelet, and a bagel -- not just one breakfast but two. Today, we're going to see The Avengers together -- it's the first time, we've gone to a movie together since . . . ugh, I wanted to say years, but actually, we went to the movies together on the day my mom died. We needed a distraction. I suppose that's what today's movie is, too.

Today would probably be easier if I'd slept last night.

Grief yet again

My birthday is in two weeks. Last year, we went to Red Lobster for dinner. Rory impersonated a giraffe and everyone laughed and laughed. It was the first family meal after Dad's heart attack and I remember reminding myself to treasure the occasion, because we'd only have a few more years worth of them.

I think it was the last family dinner we ever had.

I want so much to talk to my mom today. So much. And I try to imagine it, but all I can picture is how annoyed she would be with me if she knew how hard I was crying.

OhLife

The strangest part of having started OhLife when I did (last April) is that my reminders wind up being all about grief. Or almost all about grief. Today's OhLife message:

"Spent the day hanging out with Mom at the hospice. It's almost the end. And the whole thing is surreal. You want the last moment to be right -- to be reading a psalm or saying I love you or being focused on her face (most beautiful as it happens, she is lovely in her last moments). And yet -- what the hell, eventually listening to Britney Spears is just a fucking relief."

Eventually, a decade from now, the days could all merge together. Maybe in ten years worth of February 17ths, there will be some good, some bad, some uncertain. Instead, though, I have a year that's almost all about dying. But hey, listening to Britney Spears is still a relief.

Grief

Grief is such a weird emotion. It underlies everything I do. I can't say hello to the checkout person at the grocery store without knowing that it's there.

And then sometimes it comes in waves, huge sweeping waves that just wash over me until I feel like I might drown in it if I don't scream. I never do and it passes anyway.

Yesterday, I said about journaling that maybe it always reveals something, but if the writer can't handle the pain, maybe it's not the right time. I was talking about clients, but for me, writing is sometimes a spiral downward into depths I don't want to reach. Sometimes it's just easier to not be thinking.

Things I know that I wish I didn't

You can always hear it in the voice, always.

Words are almost unnecessary.

I heard it in my dad's voice yesterday, when he asked a question.  He knew the answer. He just didn't want to know.

And I heard it in Chris's voice this morning, when he left a message on my answering machine.

He told Finn on Friday. I won't imagine that conversation. I don't want to. But he said that Finn said, "I didn't know. I didn't know."

Maybe he didn't. But probably he did. He just didn't want to.

I knew.

I was crying even before I picked up the phone to call Chris back.

Tomorrow, it will be six months since my mother died. She was the only person I really wanted to talk to today.

A distant connection

Pam called today. It's such a rare occurrence that of course the first thing I said was, "Is everything all right?" Not so much. Her friend Mindy died on Friday night.

I barely knew Mindy. But she's been a friend of a friend for the past twenty plus years. That's a long time.

If we graphed out our friendships and relationships, tried to chart them, I think mostly they would look like tangled spiderwebs. The social networking tools like Facebook and Linked In and Twitter show those threads in all their complicated glory. Right now, it feels like one of my threads snapped on Friday night. While it wasn't one of the threads that keeps my web stable, that holds me up and sustains me (yes, I've made myself a metaphorical spider), my web feels emptier for the loss. I'm sad.

I also feel a little angry. I'm not sure at who or at what, whether it's god with a capital G or simply arbitrary fate. But it seems like my friends are all taking some serious hits this year and--ah, of course. Anger, as it generally is, is a cover for fear. Between Judith's death just a few weeks ago and Jason's brain tumor, the world is feeling like a very scary place. I feel too young for this. But maybe everyone always does.