And another summer begins

I knew it was coming.  The summer of the "lasts" or the "firsts" or something like that.  I just knew these few words would start so many thoughts,  "This time last summer..."

..."we were with Dad on Father and Son's campout"

..."we were in Chicago for Memorial Day"

...."he went to the doctor"

..."we got the diagnosis"

..."chemo might give us 18 months"

..."the cancer was too aggressive for chemo"

..."hospice will meet you at home"

..."was his funeral"

..."seven weeks ago he was fine"

I've dreaded this summer since I endured the last one.

Grief has been my constant companion this last year  and I've learned something by becoming so close with Grief.  Grief has buddies.  They don't spend a lot of time together yet every once in awhile they decide they miss hanging out and want to catch up on each others lives.  And I know what happens when Grief invites friends over.  They throw pretty crazy parties.  He invites Despair and Hopelessness and Despondence.  He serves chips and dips and nacho cheese on everything.  Oh and for the big parties he makes sure Depression and Loneliness show up.  They get their grub on, turn up the music and dance all over my joy.  They trample my productivity.  They ruin my plans. 

I've been to plenty of their parties this year.  It would be rude not to go when they invite, right?  It's weird though.  Because right in the middle of all their mayhem, you feel nothing.  Their party theme is "SHUT DOWN AND FORGET THE HEARTACHE"  Don't feel anything.  Zip. Void. Empty.  Not typical party emotions.

I can do grief but these big shin digs he likes to throw, I can't deal with those anymore.  Grief ain't throwin' a "LAST SUMMER WE WERE __________" party here!

So I cancelled the invitations.  I changed Grief's plans.  I called the caterer and told them this was only a party for 3.  Just the boys and I, oh and I guess that thing called Grief in the background but he doesn't need to be fed. I've learned this year he really doesn't take much attention.  We just kind of let him be in the background.  So  I made sure the speakers weren't turned on.  I shut down the party even before the guests got excited to come over.  I told him we just didn't have the energy for Grief's friends.

That's not so say we won't party this summer.  We will. I'm just trying to come up with a theme for this summer's party.  I'm not going to lie to myself and say "THIS IS THE BEST SUMMER EVER" will be our theme.  But I'm also beyond "JUST SURVIVE, IT WILL BE OVER SOON".  The idea of a party theme of "SURE GLAD OF THIS CHALLENGE 'CAUSE LOOK HOW MUCH WE CAN GROW" just doesn't sound too festive.

So what can it be.....

Then I remember something Kirby said to me this week.  Actually, something he shouted at me.  He is my running coach.  (And me re-starting running is a blog in and of itself.)  Anyway, he was literally shouting at me when I was running for the first time in WAY too long.  One thing he shouted was "Mom, doesn't that feel great?"

And you know, it did.

In a mild-aged-lady, running-in-Phoenix, sweating-like-a-linebacker kind of way.  It just felt good.  It felt good to be alive.  It felt good to have time to run after school.  It felt good to be off the couch.  It felt good to be with my son.  I just liked feeling it.

So that's my summer party theme  "ENJOY HOW IT FEELS".  Now don't get all crazy and think hedonistic thoughts here.  Don't picture glutenous Greeks chowing on grapes.  It isn't going to be a "eat, drink for tomorrow we may die" kind of summer. 

This party theme means more than that.

This theme is the EXACT OPPOSITE of Grief's themes. 

We have been to too many of Grief's get togethers where we don't feel anything.  Not at this party.  We are going to feel.  We are going to get excited waiting for Leonard's friend to pick up the boys to go to Fathers and Sons campout. Not despair since our Leonard isn't here to take them.  We are going to feel joy when we plan to head back to the beach for Father's Day not sadness that our father is on the other side a bit earlier than we hoped.  We are going to cry on those big days like when we sell his house or pass the diagnosis day or endure the anniversary of the day we lost him.  But those are all feelings.  And we have to be alive to feel.  We have to be at our kind of party to feel.  We have to be in control to feel. 

So this summer will be "ENJOY HOW IT FEELS."

And we are just crazy enough to celebrate this summer of "FEELING" by kickin' our heads back and eating grapes from the vine 'cause who isn't happy when doing that?  We are.  

I can only imagine our Leonard smiles looking at his little family throwing a party where they were in charge of the invites.  He is probably eating grapes with us!

Let the summer begin!!

How I do it: The power of moms.

His biggest fear on June 13th was the doctor would still not have any answers.  I remember sitting in the waiting room of a world famous liver specialist and Leonard saying "What if they don't know what this is and I have to deal with this pain forever."  In those few short weeks between onset of pain and diagnosis, it didn't even dawn on him how much he had to fear.

But then everything changed.

"It's a cancer" was the doctor's opening line when he came in the door.  We asked a few questions, were given  a referral to an oncologist and then went to the van.  We sat there in unbelief.  Shocked.  Silent.  Dumbfounded really.  Surprisingly, a few minutes later, out of the side of our eye, we note the intern standing by the side of the van.  Leonard rolls down the window and he hands us Leonard's file.  He says "You better get your affairs in order."

What do you do with that?


I remember getting out of the van.  I remember thinking I couldn't let Leonard see what I was feeling.  I remember knowing I needed to be real with someone.  I remember feeling I needed someone to prop me up.  I remember realizing I couldn't do it alone.

So I called my mom.

And for the next seven weeks, she held me up. Like the stays in a corset, she allowed me to look strong, straight and true.

She let me be beautiful.

And I was. I had a strength to be patient with my Leonard.  I could roll my eyes at her not him when he went on and on about how thick the cream of wheat needed to be.  She took on my frustration so none of it went to him.

She watched over him when I stole a short nap, allowing me a quick respite with the reassurance that he would be loved when I slumbered.  She loved him so I could rest.

She marveled at his true nature that casual visits never revealed.  It wasn't until she moved in with us and held my hand as I helped him die that she could see the real him.  She pointed out the things I had just come to accept as normal.  She noted his frequent statements of love, his consistent, gentle touches, his expressions of gratitude.  All things he did all the time.  But to her, it was new and it reminded me what a giant he was.

She lost the "in-law" part of her title.  She truly became his mother too.  She doted on him.  She even got him to eat.  I came to learn that an aware death requires a mother figure.  He reached out to a entity he could associate with the creative force of mothering to soothe him to acceptance of his own passing.  And she had the strength to sit by him in his sick bed and be that for him.  She mothered him.

My boys were never neglected when all of their own mother's power went to their father.  Grandma monitored them.  Grandma sheltered them.  Grandma let them escape.  She even let her Leonard die without her in the room so his boys would be mothered.  She was me when two moms were needed. 

And then the hard part began.  The long, awful, lonely road of grief.  She took me to the beach to escape the missed rituals of Thanksgiving.  She stared at me in disbelief when I questioned if I had loved and served him enough.  She let me feel justified when I wanted to shout at God and scream "ENOUGH".  She casually mentioned how much she admired my strength.  She stated things about me like they were permanent and real.  Things like "faithful", "loving", "great mom" "capable".  Things I just couldn't believe myself.  Always my stay.

It's taken this long for the idea of her grief to even enter my thoughts.  Becoming a widow made me incredibly self centered.  I can only imagine her heart break might be bigger than mine.  Not only did she lose a son, she lost the peace of knowing what his void left in her daughter.  She lost the reassurance that her daughter was loved and taken care of.  She lost the feeling that her grandsons would be shaped into men by a great man.   She lost a complete and whole heart as she felt my heartbreak with me.  She lost the peace of all of her chicks being in safe nests.

But it never showed.  And that is the magic of motherhood.  We stand.  We support. We swallow. We make it so our chicks can be beautiful.

I want to go back to that intern when he stood by our van on that hot day in June.  I want to have a better reply to him when he says we need our affairs in order.  I want to reassure him.  I would tell him,

"We are going to be OK."

"Our affairs are just fine"

"We have Mom."

"All is in order"

I love you Mom.

Ooh, it hurts!

I burnt my mouth today.  Bad.  And now I'm sitting here eating diner and realizing how much it hurts.  It is one of those injuries that if you leave it alone, you can't really tell it is there.  But I don't.  Leave it alone, that is.  I keep touching it with my tongue and thinking "Ooh, that hurts", touch it again and think "Yep, still hurts" and then touch it one more time just to remind myself, I guess.

That is what my grielf process has been lately.  I keep doing things that remind me I hurt.  "If I'm tired, I cry so much easier SO let's stay up past midnight several nights in a row watching horrible TV to get good and fatigued."  "If I have a dirty house, I feel like a loser SO let's fire the house cleaner and let the dishes stack up."  "Eating poorly makes me feel icky SO let's see if I can eat three meals a day at Quick Trip." "Being alone in my mind makes me feel lonely and abandoned SO let's not answer the phone and literally walk away from friends when they try to talk."   Touch the burn! Touch the burn! Touch the burn!

Not only am I actively doing things to assure myself of sadness and misery, I'm not even doing the things that bring comfort.  "Being close the Lord brings me peace and comfort SO let's stop praying and reading scriptures."  WHAT IS THAT?

Madness is what it is.

OK, so my mouth is burned.  But I know it will heal.  In fact, I bet tomorrow morning, it will be mostly better.

I think that is what I've lost track of in my grief.  The assurance that tomorrow will be better. Or maybe it is even worse than that.  Maybe I know tomorrow the burn will be better and I'm aftaid of what "better" will bring.

Dang, that's it.

I want to be burnt.

Pain associated with his loss shows how much I love him.  And if the burn gets better what happens to this honoring him with my grief?

Holy cow, I'm crazy!

Glad I got that figured out.

But I hear him say "OK, but what are you going to do about it?"  Leonard always ALWAYS had an action plan for change, especially when we determined something to be amiss in our family.

I can't keep touching the burn.  I can't honor him with my grief.  I have to choose my memorial to our love to be something else.

I will honor him with my joy.  BOY THAT is GOOD!  (Sometimes these thoughts come out of my fingers so fast that this is the first time for me to read these words too!)

I will honor him with my peace by being close to my Father in Heaven.
I will honor him with accomplishment by doing those household tasks that make me feel productive.
I will honor him by taking care of my physical body so I'm not battling unnecessary complications to my grief.
I will honor him with joy by letting myself heal.

I will stop touching the burn.

Therapeutically manipulate

Leonard and I had a great trick in parenting.  I learned to call it "therapeutic manipulation" when I used it in my practice with students with autism.  It is pretty basic.  We would verbally assign attributes to our children that they might not currently possess but that we wanted to see in them.  For example, we might say "boy are we lucky we have kids who like to clean up after themselves" or "it is so nice we have children who get along and don't fight".  Magically we started to see the trait become part of their behavior repertoire.  Honestly, I think it might be called brainwashing in a more nefarious setting but we tried to keep our intentions on the up and up.

Today I pulled the same trick on myself.  I got up in front of a congregation of my peers and told them "I love my life".  This after the nearly hourly mantra of hearing myself say "I hate this" echoed in my brain over and over.  'Cause to be honest, I do hate this.  I hate not having my friend to talk through the aspects of my life.  I hate that my boys don't have a man in the house.  I hate the silence, the loneliness, the sorrow, the grief.  I hate it all.

But then I remember a silly little field in Texas.  I lived in San Antonio and did some service work for my church.  Missionary apartments aren't known to be beautiful and this one was no exception.  However, there was a field right outside which we could see from a tiny little window in our apartment.  And this field as fields are want to do in South Texas grew the most amazing wildflowers in the spring.  It seemed like every week we were blessed with another colorful addition.  This field helped me feel how much the Lord loved me.  I felt blessed. I loved my life. 

Then the spring turned into summer and the heat melted the colors of the bluebonnets away.  The flowers all died off and the field became void of all the magic.  But I don't remember feeling any less loved by the Lord.  I just felt like the outward manifestations of His influence in my life had altered with the change of the weather pattern.

So how could I feel that way now?  How could I hate my life if the flowers were gone?

I ran into a love note I had written Leonard when the boys and I left him to travel a few summers ago.  I said something to the effect that he was a blessing in my life for something pretty dang good that I hadn't remembered doing.  And he was.  I didn't deserve to be honored, adored, worshipped, loved and completed by him, but I was.  He was my crazy beautiful Texas wildflower. 

And now that wildflower was gone.

But I can't attribute this loss to a reduction in the love that my Heavenly Father has for me anymore that I could feel abandoned when summer took away flowers.  It is not the blessings that make me love my life.  It is the Father who grants those blessings that makes me happy.  Therefore, I had to say "I love my life."

I have to admit this isn't always true but it is an attribute I want to see in myself.  I want to see myself get off the couch again.  I want to see myself love my job again.  I want to see myself get up early to run again.  Heck, I'd settle for just being able to feed my children again.  And if I learned anything from co-parenting with my Leonard for 13 years, sometimes you have to manipulate, brainwash , remind yourself of whatever you want to see.  I love my life.

 

Lying on Christmas

I lie.  Not usually but sometimes.  Sometimes it really was me that ate the cookie.  Sometimes I didn't really forget the task, I just didn't want to do it.  Sometimes,  I used to think my favorite color was red but then my sister-in-law got this groovy phone cover that is a pale aqua and I'm afraid I like that color more now.  I try not to, but simply put, sometimes I lie.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I had said a pretty big doozy of a lie last night.  I told my family that there was nothing they could do to make "this better".  I just needed to sob as I saw my brothers get the "Dad" Christmas gift that would have been my husband's too.  I wept when I saw my two little boys unable to give their Dad some fancy way to barbeque while honoring the Cowboys. I cried without my sweetheart's shoulder to snuggle against as we opened the traditional Grandma jammies.  I felt devastated, lonely and broken.

I totally and completely sunk into my misery enduring my first Christmas eve in this new widowland.  Even when my Mom's eyes filled with tears,  even when my niece wrote me a sweet card reminding me how much we are loved, even when my son wrapped his arms around me, even when my sister-in-law held me when I cried, even when my nephew shared "Uncle Jelly Beans" with me, I thought they couldn't do anything to help. Nothing would make this better.

I lied.

I woke up this morning celebrating the birth of a dear sweet Baby realizing the error in my ways.  I realize that being here with these people right now is the only help I need.  They got snow to fall at just the right time to make things better.  They helped my son put a Christmas toy together to make things better.  They laugh at all of Leonard memories to make things better.  They have a 7 year old that thinks my 13 year old is the "most awesomest" to make things better.  They light a candle in remembrance of one of the greatest men who lived to make things better.  They have a 4-month-old squishy baby to make things better.  They make things better.

I'm so glad for the whisperings from across the veil between this world and the next that helped me see I'm a liar.  The nice thing is, these people, here, right now love me even when I lie.  And that is the best Christmas gift they could ever give.  They make things better.

It's everywhere

The door swings open and the doctor says "It is a cancer" even before the door finds its fullest extension.  Typing those words now makes my hands sweat. Even 26 weeks later.  How do '37', 'just played basketball', 'has 2 boys' and 'cancer' all go in the same sentence.   It still shocks, confuses, devastates me.

We went from healthy to pain so quickly.  Shortly after we got the news we ended up in the emergency room not knowing if that is what terminal patients should do but hoping for some relief. And it was in the middle of that night shift when we learned what cancer does.  It spreads.  Quickly, pervasively and everywhere.  As I looked at the love of my life asleep on a hospital bed, knocked out by some concoction pumping into his arm, I couldn't believe we hadn't known.  We hadn't seen the cells moving, finding home in his lungs, his bones, his liver.  We didn't know. We couldn't see.

It seems the same with grief.

Tonight, the coach gathered the young baseball players together to let them know one of their own has lost their father to cancer.  (Same exact story, liver, young children, and weeks between diagnosis and death).  I know there wasn't a door swinging open on the baseball field but I'm sure the words hit my son as quickly as they did his dad and I months ago.  Now the question is "How can '11', 'baseball', 'Christmas' and 'down-on his-knees sad' go in one sentence?"    It still shocks, confuses, devastates me.

My son went from happily throwing a ball in from center field to sitting in a van unable to walk inside due to his tears.  Seeing it happen to another family was too much for his system.  I don't need the emergency room doctor to explain to me how the grief has spread.  How, without me seeing it, this pervasive sadness has reached my son on the baseball field, touched him while he sits under a Christmas tree, and grabbed him while he sleeps.  It spreads.  Quickly, pervasively and everywhere.  As I watch this little boy resting on the couch, knocked out by how completely he misses his hero, I completely understand.  I have seen the sadness moving, finding home in his heart, his head, his soul.  I do know.  I can see.

Cancer taught me that much.  I can see the same metastasizing beast in grief.  But this time I have a chance to fight.  I wasn't given that gift last time.  Not this time.  I plan on fighting grief so that it doesn't completely overtake our system sucking the energy of life into its devious alternate plan.

Yes, my little precious 11 year old will cry.  My boy-turning-man, 13 year old will scream.  I will sob as I ache for my partner.  Those around us will watch as grief reaches into each system. Until our hearts, head and souls are suffocated by the sadness.

And then we will fight it.  We will remember what a gift it is to bear his name.  To be owned by him.  To be watched by him.  We will fight by being like him.  By sneaking cookies in church.  By playing sports until we sweat.  By having quiet whispers reminding us of moments we had with him. 

This time we will win knowing we only have to be separated from him once.  Someday soon he will meet us, gather us in his arm, whisk us away to the heavenly mansion he has prepared for us and get back to water gun fights and tag playing.  We will win.

Indescribably happy

Leonard preferred to be with people.  He could have quiet alone time when battling/enjoying his insomnia but for the most part, he preferred to have someone with him.  In fact, the night before we got married, his dear friend Mike took me aside.  He warned me that Leonard didn't self-entertain well.  I don't know if it came from being one of 8 kids all born very close but it was true.  He loved being with people.

And I loved being with him.

Another thing Leonard loved was to cut wood.  I think he loved the process almost as much as the finished product.  He loved planning the cuts, setting up his machinery and finding the most accurate way to get his desired results.  He would spend hours in his garage shop even in the dead of a Phoenician summer.  In fact, one of our favorite family memories is when a very young Kirby wrote a To-Do list for his Dad that included:  1.  cut wood and 2.  get sweaty.

Cutting wood made him happy.

And like pretty much everything in his life, he liked to share the activity.  He would set up a folding chair and invite me out to just be with him.  I would work side by side with him getting him his needed tools, listening to his plans, giving my opinion and helping where I could.

Truth be known, I didn't really like it.

I didn't like the noise, the dirt, the mess.  I didn't like the heat.  I didn't like how patient you had to be with the process.  I really only liked the finished product and I wanted it done and done quickly!  I don't have what it takes to be a master woodworker.

But what kept me out there and made me look forward to each of our projects was how much it made him happy.  His joy was infectious.  I loved the twinkle in his eye when he got a cut so perfect that the union of the two pieces would be seamless.  I loved how he planned and talked and reviewed each step.  I loved how much pride a well executed day in the shop made him.  I was happy because he was so darn happy.

And now I'm faced again with a process I don't really like.  I don't like being a widow.  I don't like solo parenting his children.  I don't like missing him so much.  I don't like the patience required of mastering this earthly existence.  I really only like the finished product and I want it done now.

Yet, truth be known, I'm pretty sure heaven makes him happy.  If I believe there is a paradisiacal existence with God after this life, I have to believe he is happy now.  Indescribably happy, I've heard it called.  I have to remember to be infected by his joy.  I have to remember what his face looks like when he smiles.  I have to be happy watching him be happy.

The thought of his joy brings me peace.  The thought of his joy helps me be patient with this process. The thought of his joy helps be emulate his workmanship as I finish my time here on earth. The thought of his joy just makes me happy, darn happy, indescribably happy.