may 24

sometimes movies (and television and books) pull us out of our real lives in a way that can distract us from living deeply.

but other times, they give us just the tools we need in a moment to help us open up and feel and move through and be right here.

each time i watch the last movie (or read the seventh book) as harry potter walks through the forest with his parents + sirius + lupin believing he is walking to his death, and sirius points to his chest and says, "we're here you see" (in the book he says, "we're part of you"), each time my heart heals a bit more because i choose to believe he is right...

*** 

(as the tears began to fall as they always do when i watch this scene, i was inspired to pick up my camera in this moment by this week's prompt in Meredith and Kristin's Now You workshop.)

just keep writing...

a little over a year ago, i wrote this short poem and shared it in this space:

today,

as i sit inside the missing

spring brings with her each year,

i pretend all of who you are

has arrived by chickadee wing

and your chosen path

is to slowly blow open

each petal of the crocus

As the rain falls while I write and answer emails from women who are opening their hearts to healing through creativity and sharing their stories, my own stories keep coming up and for some reason I thought of this poem.

Spring is all about my grandmother. So often as a child I would visit my grandparents in South Carolina during spreak break. Almost everything would be in bloom. And she would constantly comment on every single blooming plant we would see in their yard or driving in the car or walking by the lake. She was always chattering about the plants and the trees and the birds...and now I see she was always teaching me.

She died on a day in April seven years ago. And when I stepped out of the airport in South Carolina and stood on the curb waiting for my mother, I was forced to see that everything was in bloom. Everything. Purple. Red. Yellow. Orange. Fuschia. Light pink. Dogwoods. Azalias. Violets. Tulips. Redbud. Everywhere. When my mom drove me to the funeral home, I felt almost blinded by all the color that was such an over the top contrast to my cracked and starting to feel like it was crumbling heart.

When I returned home after her funeral, I didn't really notice Spring and how it gave way to Summer in my corner of the world. I was in the deep well of grief. But somewhere in that well, I found myself tumbling across a blog and then another one. And a bit of light started to get in. I started to carry my camera with me. I began to take notes about what I was seeing in the world. And the grief was thick. But I kept practicing yoga and taking photos and writing so I would not drown in it. And light kept coming in to those cracks in my heart that somehow did not crumble.

Almost a year later, I found myself somewhat bewildered that Spring would arrive without my grandmother's voice telling me about the flowers she had found blooming during her morning walk around her yard. Yet, Spring returned. And those flowers still bloomed across the country in my grandfather's yard. On the anniversary of her death, Gramps and I talked about how much we both missed her, and he told me the lily of the valley were almost ready to bloom.

On a day in March the following year, I remember sitting in the leather chair in my home office, looking out the window, and thinking about how the tulips were just pushing upward outside in my yard. And the missing hit me so hard I couldn't breathe for a moment. I just sat there with my heart hurting and my brain remembering. And I heard the chickadees singing in the cherry tree outside and this image came to me: Perhaps all that she was that is scattered in the world...scattered because of each breath, each conversation, each life path that crossed hers, each person that her children and grandchildren touched...that all of who she was is now part of the spirit that reminds each tulip and crocus and dandelion to bloom. 

I had the thought that perhaps she has just become part of Spring. Maybe she even is Spring now.

I sat there in that chair and wrote this poem:

On this day,
when the sun slips through the gray
and I hear the tulips push upward,
I know this:
Though I ache to lay my hand in yours
and walk around your yard
listening
as you name each stretching green shoot,
you are happier dancing in the wind
whispering
grow, grow.

Today, as I sit here in a coffee shop writing as the rain falls and the tulips begin to bloom because Spring has arrived again, I am thinking about how this image of my grandmother reminding Spring to begin keeps finding its way into my writing and my poetry. I am thinking about how this image is like a prayer that is helping to stitch my heart together in the way that life does because we make the choice to keep paying attention and living and noticing how simply brilliant it is.

And as I sit here thinking about how Spring has returned again, I am thinking about how I am here doing this work, living this life, because I spent time in that deep well of grief and found my way out through breathing and noticing and sharing the stories and listening. And I kept walking the path, and with each turn there would be someone else standing holding her story like a lantern saying, “Me too. I know. Yes. Me too.” And I found my way. 

I sit here watching the rain and wanting to get so damn mad at Spring for appearing again and reminding me of the deep missing, but I can I hear her whispering “grow, grow,” and so I just keep writing and finding my way.

the missing

ellie jane and great (great) aunt honey

today, as i watched my daughter sit on your sister's lap, the missing caught me in its clutches. the missing. as she made the funniest sounds to get ellie jane to laugh, i began to silently will myself (with every cell) to be standing in a family room in south carolina (a family room that now belongs to another family). i thought that maybe i could just will myself to be standing in front of that rocking chair that i can just see in that photo from my first christmas. to be standing while watching you hold my daughter and purse your lips to vibrate them to make her giggle. her smile would heal you. this i know to be true. her smile would cause your heart to almost hurt with the joy you would feel in that moment when you would look up and catch my eye and we would be able to see the love between us. 

in this moment, as i sit in a quiet house looking at this photo, my heart hurts with the missing. i can actually feel a pain in the middle of my chest as i sit here. the missing. almost six years. it gets softer. it becomes like the train that whistles in the distance a few times a day that is just always there but not so loud that you notice it daily or even weekly. it is just there until the moment when you are dancing in the kitchen as neil diamond sings, "she got the way to move me, cherry" and then the playlist suddenly ends and it seems so very quiet until you hear that train call from miles away and you find yourself paying attention again. it catches you. and then you notice it each time for a while.

i know (oh how i know) that i was so lucky to know you, to call you my grandmother, my friend. i see the beauty in all that time we had together. i see the beauty in today as i think about the joy in the eyes of a 91-year-old woman holding a seven-month-old little girl as she giggled. and the missing is so much softer now. but in this moment, i take a deep breath and close my eyes and i say the truth: i want more days. i want more time. i want it to have happened differently. in this moment, i wish (for you. for me. for her) that i would open my eyes and find myself in a little house in south carolina. and you would know the little girl sleeping down the hall who heals with her smile. and i would hear your voice again. in this moment, i would hear your voice.

inspired by ::one good thing::

view from ellie jane's PICU room . july 2010

so this post is really about my shop...well, not exactly...

this post is really about this idea i have about how to give in a one specific way this holiday season...and how one story inspired me...but there are some things that lead up to it all that i really want to tell you...so please read on:

jon and i have been trying to figure out how to give to others this holiday season as we sift through the bills from ellie's surgery and continued care, my surgery and ellie's birth, and millie's surgery that are stacked in a not so small pile on the kitchen counter. as i was thinking about this over the weekend, we received a few calls asking us to donate money to various children's charities. there is always a story that the caller begins to tell, and for the last few weeks, i find myself stopping them and saying something like, "actually, we kind of are one of those families right now, so we won't be able to give this year." i feel so odd saying it...as though it is some excuse...but then i realize that it simply is the truth.

this year, i have sat in a doctor's office, holding my five-week-old daughter while her doctor explained that we must leave for the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). right now. and we cannot stop for anything from home. she will meet us there in 20 minutes. and then she will be using a defibrillator to try to get our daughter's heart, our five-week-old daughter's heart, to find its way back to sinus rhythm. and then it didn't work. and then the fog rolled in completely. except for my head. my head stayed out of the fog because my brain had to work in order to understand and make decisions and sign papers and hope...

and then we did it all over again when a surgeon cracked open her heart in order to repair it.

i keep thinking about the PICU. i keep thinking about how the fog rolls in when you are watching your child unconscious in a very small little bed hooked up to machines that you only knew about from watching er and grey's anatomy...i keep thinking about how the fog rolls in to provide you with a very clear path for moving forward. one breath. one decision. one moment. one prayer. (please.) repeat repeat repeat.  

i keep thinking about the woman in the restroom at seattle children's the day after ellie's surgery. i walked out of the stall and began washing my hands. she was putting on makeup. it was maybe 6 AM. she saw the badge that identified me as a parent. she was wearing one too. she wanted to tell me her story. honestly, i didn't want to listen. ellie's first hospitalization taught me not to look anyone in the eye and just walk to and from her room. i do not want to take on your story too was my unspoken wish. i cannot nurture you. i cannot be a sponge and be there for my family. i cannot help you. my daughter is not okay. please don't ask me one question. but here was this woman telling me that she printed out huge photos of her daughter and put them on the walls of her PICU room so that the doctors would see her as a person and not this unconscious teenage girl who had been flown in from alaska. "she is a real person who laughs and plays soccer," she told me. as i type this, i am right back there in that moment. trying to breathe (right now, i try to breathe) as this woman told me her story and then waited as i shared just a few sentences of ours. "only four months old?" she said. "yes." "i am so sorry," she said quietly as she reached out to hug me. me too. for you. for me. dear god why does this have to be the way it is for families. why. 

i keep thinking about the taste of the oatmeal cookies in the cafeteria. both children's hospitals ellie was in had them. they were the only thing that pushed me out of the fog for a minute and reminded me that i had senses. 

i keep thinking about the parents of children who are in the PICU right now. wondering if their child will live to see her first Christmas. wondering if they can make it through the next minute; knowing they must because this is their one job right now: get through the next minute and the one after that because they are their child's voice. i keep thinking about those parents who have been awake for hours...who don't have their toothbrush or clean clothes for tomorrow or someone to hug them. i keep thinking about those parents who are standing at their child's bedside hoping...praying...breathing through that fog.

*****

yesterday, this kind of perfect storm happened that brought me to this place where i am now writing this post. i was up early and watched the news while ellie was sleeping. i wanted to weep with each story of how we are hurting each other in this world. i decided to pound the words "seek peace" in metal that would become a necklace as my voice in the midst of that hurt. 

then i noticed a link to a blog post that a friend from high school had posted on facebook. i clicked. and i found myself reading about hudson. i found myself reading one woman's brave truth that she is writing as she walks the path of grief after her one-year-old daughter died earlier this year. and reading about hudson and her mama's wish that we do "one good thing" in honor of hudson's birthday this week deeply inspired me.

because here it is: i have dipped my toe in this world that this woman lives in. just dipped my toe in it as i watched the doctor use the defibrillator. as i waited for the pager to go off with updates throughout the surgery. as i stood outside sobbing when no one would explain why the surgery was taking hours longer than we had been told it would. as i take my daughter to the cardiologist each week. i have just dipped my toe in the world of the fear of the possibility that my child would die because her heart just couldn't do it anymore.

and reading mandy's beautiful words about hudson inspired me to have this idea:

instead of offering a discount in my shop this holiday season like i had originally planned, i am going to take 15% of the profits i make from items in the shop from today until the Solstice (December 21) and donate that amount to the PICU at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. this is the hospital here in Tacoma where Ellie spent five days in July. 

and, instead of offering a free soul mantra necklace with purchase, i have put the "seek peace" necklace in the shop and will give all the profits made from that necklace to Mary Bridge. (i have enough supplies to make quite a few seek peace necklaces over these next few weeks.)

and when we donate the money later this month, i will let them know it is:

in honor of Hudson.

in honor of our friends whose children have died

in honor of the families we do and do not know who won't have one more day with their child

in honor of each day we have with Ellie Jane

*****

thanks for reading...i honestly didn't expect to write this much when i came to this blank screen earlier tonight. in some ways, all that i have written feels a bit dramatic. but this is our life. and instead of making this a shorter post or edit out the parts that seem like too much, i am going to let it be what it is. because as you read my words, you are helping me heal. because maybe someone who needs to know they aren't alone will read these words. because sharing our stories matters.

thank you for all the support you give me...give us...through your words and prayers and orders and emails and thoughts. thank you for seeing me.

just like that

this spot once held the beginnings of a steam-of-consciousness post. a post where i began to list in sentence form the reasons why the post would not be full of sparkles or something that would make you smile. how it would instead be full of truth and realness and sadness. there is so much i was going to say in that post.

but life kept interrupting. repeatedly. every few words. 

so in this moment, i come to this spot hours later and will say this instead:

millie, our other child who happens to be a golden retriever, almost died friday. just like that. the doctor was not sure she would survive the night. she then had emergency surgery saturday. and tonight, she is curled up beside jon's feet while he grades. just like that.

on friday afternoon, when ellie and i drove to the emergency vet clinic, a few minutes behind millie and jon, i explained why mama was crying. telling her that sometimes we cry when we are really afraid. explaining how mama loves millie very much and how she is my friend and how in my love for her, the thought of her dying made me scared and sad. and then i explained how millie has been my constant companion through some of the darkest days i have ever known. how she came into our lives in a very unexpected way and, just like that, she began to walk beside me through the deepest grief i have ever known; she began to walk beside us and taught us even more about love. i explained that this is what love is all about.

tonight, as i try to wrap my brain around having another patient who is healing in the house and now two notebooks full of feeding/medication schedules that sit side by side on the kitchen table, i find myself wishing upon wishing for a break from it all. wishing upon wishing for someone to walk through the front door and say, "i've got it right now girl. you can just rest for a while."

tonight as i type this, i take a break and turn to david whyte to try to remember the truth of what i know. his poem "the well of grief" does that for me. those words remind me of what i know about the truth of standing in this moment on my path. the truth of choosing to see all of it. the truth of living with my heart wide open.

tonight, i take a break for just a few minutes and turn up joshua radin as he sings into my ears and close my eyes and choose.

i choose.

i choose.