remembering.

It was the second Presidential election I voted in, but it was the first where I felt like the future of my country depended on the outcome in a deeper way than any other election in my lifetime. A few friends gathered, all in their early to late twenties, for enchiladas and margaritas and conversation while watching election results. I had to stop myself from preventing two friends from entering my home as they admitted they hadn't voted. Hadn't voted. I wanted to stand tall and say the words of President Andrew Shepard, portrayed by Michael Douglas in the movie The American President:

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free."

I wanted to say, "Don't you get it? You have to vote. You. Have. To. Vote. In this country, we can vote. We must." But, I didn't say those things. I didn't say those things because the truth is that voting is a choice. And they had exercised theirs.

That night we sat there and watched the states turn colors. Red. Blue. And we listened to Tom Brokaw and his rumpled, smiling colleague, Tim Russert, tell us that Florida was going to be key.

Florida.
Florida.
Florida.

Can you see those words written across a simple whiteboard?

It started to get late in my Indiana home. People started leaving one by one. Those who stayed started to fall asleep as they waited to see what would happen in Florida, Florida, Florida. Earlier the blue folks in the room…we had started celebrating, thinking that sunny state had gone to our guy…Al Gore. But then Tom Brokaw had to tell us that they had given it to him too early. We knew we were in for the long haul as our eastern time zone clock ticked later and later. Finally, I was alone and I pulled out the sofa bed so that I could see the results throughout the night. I fell asleep with a heavy heart thinking George W. Bush was the new president. When I woke up to see that rumpled, smiling man on The Today Show, he was wearing the same clothes and had the same level of enthusiasm he had displayed when I had first tuned in the night before, when my guests hadn't even arrived yet. His words gave me hope as he explained that there might be a recount in Florida…that we didn't know who the next President was yet.

Florida.
Florida.
Florida.

At work that day, my coworkers were talking about that whiteboard and how strange it was that we didn't know who the new President would be. I guess what probably went unsaid because we were all so focused on wanting our specific candidates to win was how that man with the round, kind face had clearly explained everything in the midst of a dizzying night in the world of American politics. He had been in his own classroom teaching the citizens of his country how this confusing process would work. He had explained possibilities and then what would happen.

I remember wondering if he ever slept as I saw him morning and evening throughout those weeks as we waited for the decisions to be made…as we hoped and prayed and crossed fingers and toes…as our country was shaped by decisions made by one person and then another. Tim Russert was there explaining it all.

So, I guess it was during that time that I made the decision to invite Tim Russert into my home. To unofficially ask him to be part of the family and my teacher.

Although I didn't always tune in to Meet the Press every Sunday, when I did, I always learned more than I imagined and always sat in my living room in awe at his ability to get the answers he sought. I must admit that I didn't always tune in because when he had on people from the current administration, I would find myself yelling at the television. Not at Tim, but at someone…well, as Andrew Shepard said, " whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." But, when I did tune in, my view, my understanding, all of it was shifted in some way.

I certainly paid attention and voted and hoped and followed things during the 2004 Presidential race, but not like this year. This year, Jon and I have been glued to the television watching history unfold before our very eyes. Through it all, one person would cut through all the drama and just tell it like it is. So, we would turn to Tim Russert and the folks at MSNBC, especially as the Democratic race got a bit uglier. I just wanted someone to tell me the simple truth; someone to explain the numbers and how the process works instead of getting so wrapped up in his own beliefs that I couldn't understand what was being said. That person was always, always Tim Russert.

On Friday, Jon made us lunch and then turned on MSNBC. After a few minutes, a phone call came in and I muted the television, and as I often do I left the television on muted and got so involved in my work that I forgot about it. As Jon left to go meet with a student at school, I looked up and realized Tom Brokaw was talking. In the middle of the day. On MSNBC.

I unmuted the television and sat there stunned as I heard him talk. Thinking I misunderstood, I used the DVR's rewind button and went back the 30 seconds or so I had missed. I heard him tell us his friend was dead. As I listened to him say those words and speak in his gentle but clear Tom Brokaw way, as he tried not to cry, I started crying.

I called my mother.

This is what my mother and I do. Do you have someone you do this with? We call each other when someone famous has died or some other shocking news has happened. We always do this if the person is someone, like Tim Russert, that we both admired. She called me while driving to tell me about Teddy Kennedy's brain tumor. I called her to tell her about John Denver. She was driving again Friday when I called her to say Tim Russert was dead. She was as shocked as me. I don't think she believed me at first. I had to say, "I am watching Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams both try not to cry as they are talking about this. Right now. Brian Williams is live from Afghanistan and they are talking about it."

My mom and I have this shared love for politics. For the advanced citizenship that is America. We have watched The American President a lot. I mean a lot. We can basically quote the movie. The same is true with the movie Dave. And to say that we were fans of The West Wing…that we wanted to vote for President Bartlett in 2000 and 2004, well, that is an understatement. We are believers in this country. We believe. And, because we believe in the Constitution and all that it stands for, because we both read about and study…just for fun…the Founding Fathers and the former Presidents… we have both, in our different ways, felt a bit…I think the word is maybe heartbroken…at what has happened in the last eight years. I can only imagine how it must be for my mother's generation though as they relive 1968 and the Nixon years and other events that I can only read about.

My mom and I both knew we had a kindred spirit in someone like Tim Russert. He got it. He talked up to the viewer while educating. His enthusiasm was contagious. He loved his country and his wife and son and his dad and baseball and the Buffalo Bills. He seemed honest and kind. He was the kind of man you wanted to invite to dinner, who you wished was your uncle, who you wanted to call friend.

As I watched MSNBC Friday afternoon, I listened to Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory talk about this man. I listened to them talk about a man they so obviously loved. I felt honored to listen to their conversation. I was so impressed by the way MSNBC didn't take any commercial breaks. They just let these people talk. When Brian Williams began to recap for people just tuning in, he started to break down. David Gregory picked up for him and read statements that were coming in from people who had heard the news. I realized what good friends Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert had been. It wasn't just that they seemed to be friends…they were. I thought about how strange it must feel to be on television in the early minutes of grieving. But, perhaps because it was his calling, it felt comforting to him. I know that it was selfishly comforting for me…and perhaps that was the bigger picture and the point.

Even though it might seem odd to some that I felt so affected by the news of his death, I felt honored to watch the colleagues of Tim Russert talk about him. To hear their stories and honor their grief. I am glad that the powers at be gave them that gift of letting them talk as MSNBC focused on Tim Russert throughout the day. I didn't watch the coverage all day, but did tune in again later that evening. All I kept thinking was that these people get it.

Watching the news over the last few years has seemed like a circus at times. People yell. A lot. I don't tune in to some programs because I don't like all the yelling. But, the people at MSNBC and Tim Russert's colleagues…people he mentored…they get it. And, I feel like I know this because they let me see inside their grief…even if just for a moment. They were real people on Friday…at least to me.

They talked about their friend Tim Russert and the amazing father he is and how much he loved his job and America. They talked about this good guy. This good guy.

One person can make a difference…can change the world…can invite others to look at themselves, their country, their families and think. One person can do that while being true to himself and his roots and what he believes in.

Thanks for teaching me that Tim Russert.
Thank you.

It's father's day. A good day to reflect on these things I suppose. A good day to call my dad and say I love you. And to then call my mom and say the same. And to thank them both for what they have done to shape who I am and what I believe and what I stand for as a person in this country, in this life.

today. perspective.

This morning I woke up while in the midst of a dream. I was trying to visit my grandparents but I couldn't find them. In the dream, I knew my grandmother was going to die soon, but there were many obstacles—from family to travel plans—preventing me from getting there.

I woke up crying and when Jon came back into the bedroom to kiss me good-bye, I held him tightly wishing he could come back to bed and hold me. About an hour later I realized tears had been sitting in the corner of my eye since that moment, but in my sleepiness and need to get started with work to move my mind onto something else, I hadn't noticed.

It is so gray here today. The happiness and contentment found in the smiling blue-skied yesterday has been replaced with a gloomy blue feeling to match the dripping white-gray skies. I decided to get out of the house to work. One of the local cafes has floor-to-ceiling windows that let in lots of light. And, so it is here, next to these floor-to-ceiling windows that I sit.

Sometimes days like this just happen. Days where I feel that bluish gray inside and the missing nags at the middle of my chest and tears pinprick the backs of my eyes. They can happen on sunny days too of course; grief has no understanding of seasons, maps, or calendars. It just is…

I always appreciate the kind comments that are left on my posts where I mention the grief I feel about my grandmother's death three years ago. People recognize their own grandmothers in some of the words I write; they want to somehow invite me to feel better with their kindness. I never really write much about her though; I write more about the feelings of missing her. We did have special relationship but she wasn't quite that grandmother who represents all good things and has a kind and open heart. She was not quite that kind of grandmother. And, the truth is, my grandmother was a really bad mother. Truly. I am sure she had a few bright shining moments as a parent, but I'm not sure if her children would remember them because the many bad moments have a way of causing such large, overbearing shadows. Although I did not witness many of those moments, I have always seen those shadows. Things were different with me though. I am not sure why that is; other than that obvious point people make that "things are always different with grandchildren." And, I see that in the way my grandmother loved me. It is different from a parent's love. A grandparent doesn't feel the weight a parent does; I mean that weight to guide, teach, protect, and so on. A grandparent probably experiences less fear and therefore the love is somehow lighter. This is my experience as a daughter and granddaughter though…so what do I know. But, this is how it felt to me because this is how it felt to love her. There wasn't the fear of letting her down or not living up to my potential or being too loud. It was lighter.

I tried to explain how I see this irony of my relationship with my grandmother versus the relationship her children might have had with her in this poem I wrote last year.

I'm not sure why I am sharing this today, but these are thoughts I've had during the last few days, and today they have just bubbled up until they are knocking to be let out of my mind. I suppose part of the reason is this understanding I have that even though yes, I am sad my grandmother is dead and yes I miss her so very much, I also know that this isn't the full weight of this feeling I have on days like today.

The weight of this feeling is really the deep understanding that when someone dies they are gone. Totally gone. One minute you can talk to that person and the next you can't. Ever again. At least not in the way you want to right now.

It is pretty fucked up.

I don’t think you can feel the weight of it or understand it until in one moment in your life you suddenly do. That moment came for me when I saw my grandmother totally still in the funeral home. As I stood there willing her chest to move, my own chest began to ache as I felt my heart break right in two. And, I felt that ache for almost two years. Every day.

I stood there with the broken heart of someone who felt let down by life, god, other people, all that I knew to be real until then. Death broke my heart. The realization that I would never be able to talk to her again, and that this is what would happen, this feeling, when I lose people throughout my life…that is what broke my heart. I think it is one of the deepest heartbreaks we experience. The heartbreak that death delivers in the form of grief. The heartbreak that comes with suddenly understanding something more than we ever wanted to grasp.

On the surface it all makes sense I suppose. I mean we do understand to some extent the idea of death when we are young at some point. Though it is a murky understanding for most I think. Something tells me I probably learned about it on an episode of Mr. Rogers, but I remember feeling sadness about the death of someone I knew for the first time when my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson, died the August before fifth grade. In my ten-year-old mind, I thought of her up in heaven and wondered if she felt happy or if she missed her children. But, I suppose I expressed my sadness about death in ways that seemed more tangible, like watching the scene when Catherine died on the show "Beauty and the Beast." I sat about a foot from the TV screen and sobbed with the deep heaving sobs of a dramatic almost teenager until my mother came into the family room and told me to pull myself together. And, Robert Redford's character's death in Out of Africa…I can still imagine myself in that theatre not quite understanding that he was dead.

My father's father died before I was born, and as a child I always thought about how I only had one grandfather. He never seemed like a real person to me, and at some point, in my mind I replaced an image of Frank Sinatra as a young man with what he really looked like in the one photo I had in my bedroom as a little girl. We never really talked about him. And, it wasn't until my friend Heather's father died when we were in our mid twenties that I even began to think about the reality that my father had experienced what Heather was experiencing. It wasn't just about the truth that I had never known my "other" grandfather. It was the reality that my father's father was dead. It was the reality that my father and my mother would die some day…on a day I would have no control over at all.

That murky understanding of a child becomes the lesson death hands you in a moment at some point in your life. For me, the moment I stood facing my grandmother in the funeral home, and that moment mingled with the grief I felt over her death. They are two lessons merged in one moment.

This understanding is why it sometimes feels so heavy. Life…breathing…moving forward…letting go…grieving…it can feel so heavy because the reality is what it is. And it is maddening. But, it is what it is.

All I can do is live until it all ends on a day I will have no control over.

All I can do is dance in my life until that last moment and try to be my best self even while I make mistakes. All I can do is take in the little things to see why this life is beautiful. If I don't notice those little things, if I don't try to open my heart to joy, the deep understanding that it can end…that it will end…that the people I love will die on a day I cannot control…might knock me over.

I listen to The Weepies sing, "Red dirt clay/stuck in my heart/clogging up the way the tears come through. I'm blue, just blue." And I think about the red clay in the backyard of my grandparents South Carolina home and I miss them…I miss her. I miss those days when I could have grabbed her hand and pulled her outside and we could have kicked off our shoes and run around in that red clay while holding hands and twirling. No, we never did this exactly, but I miss living in a time when we could have done this. I regret we never did this. I miss her smell and laugh and seeing her in her robe in the morning as she made another pot of water for coffee. I miss the jelly jar of clovers and violets sitting on the kitchen windowsill. I miss walks by Lake Edwin Johnson and skipping rocks together. I miss being five and thinking about how she is my best friend in all the world. I miss sitting in my childhood home at Thanksgiving with everyone even if it wasn't perfect but just feeling so happy to have my family around me. I miss what might have been. I miss…I miss…I miss.

And, as Deb Talen sings, "I'm missing you, and there's not a thing to do. I'm blue, just blue, just blue," I know that this is part of it, part of living in this life. Feeling is part of it all.

So, on these days, we have to take care of ourselves. Today, I have to take care of me. I sit here in this café and let the little bit of sun coming through the clouds caress me through the window. I drink my latte and write lists of things I need to do and things I've already done just so I can cross them off and feel good. I work and write encouraging notes to authors and send emails. I listen to my iPod and sing along in my head and allow myself to sway from side to side in a very tiny dance while sitting in a chair in a cafe. I think about having a nice evening with Jonny and Millie. I dream about what is to come. I live in this minute.

It is okay isn't it?

Yes. It is.

(Lines from the song "Just Blue" from The Weepies' album Hideaway)

what springs brings...

"Grandpa wants to know if there is anything you might want."

How do you decide what it is you might want after someone dies? I have heard so many stories about how families become divided over money when someone passes. Or how someone's great aunt promised them a special vase and then their sister-in-law suddenly said she was promised the same and the person telling the story decides it just isn't worth it even though she was the only one in the family to come over each Saturday with daisies to put in that vase for her aunt. You know these stories.

The funny thing is though, when you have distance, when the fullness of the missing sets in, you realize all you want is one more minute with that person while they are breathing. Heck you would even be fine with one more minute with them in the funeral home. It is a strange thing to deeply understand that previous sentence.

So, when my mom called me in December of 2006 while she was visiting my grandpa and asked if there was something of my grandma's that I might want, I paused and immediately had this thought: I just want something that was really hers, that she used, that she touched, that she lived inside. I said that all I really wanted was something she had worn and wondered if the grey sweatshirt with the chickadees, the one we gave her years ago for Christmas, was still in the house. By the time I finished trying to explain, worried that I sounded so odd only wanting an article of clothing, my eyes were blurry with tears and I couldn't say anything else. The deep truth that I would never touch her again, hear her voice again, see her wear that sweatshirt again had taken over.

My mom said that there were a few things in the closet and she would check.

She called the next day. She had found the sweatshirt.

She had found the sweatshirt.

And a few other things and she was going to send them to me.

I have mentioned this before, what it was like opening the box and seeing the sweatshirt and the memories that came back to me when I saw my grandmother's blue windbreaker.

What I haven't said is that I promptly put everything into the trunk that we use as a coffee table where we keep sheets we use on the couch when we have more guests than the little guestroom holds. I could not handle looking at all of it. Seeing those clothes rocked me for a while last January. Last summer, when we started the (not-yet-finished) great cleanup/organization of 2007 (and 2008), I opened the trunk wondering what the heck might be inside it.

Crap.

Right. The clothes. For some reason, I took out the grey sweatshirt and moved it to the bottom of my pajama drawer. Then, I quickly closed the trunk. Moving on.

In October, when we moved the dresser to the family room in anticipation of the new bed with under the bed drawers (the one that pottery barn screwed up the delivery of so many times that we finally had to cancel the order and hence the stalling of the great cleanup for the last few months) and I had to clean out the drawers, I moved the sweatshirt to the top shelf of my closet.
Yesterday, I noticed it again.

Today, I took down the grey button-front sweatshirt with the chickadees on the front and put it on. I put it on and went outside to investigate what spring had brought into my world today.

I put on that grey sweatshirt that my grandmother wore whenever she was around me and my brother as if to say, "I remember. I see you. I know you love me. I love you too." I put on that grey sweatshirt and I went outside with Millie. And, I walked around the yard.

Like she would do every morning.

I walked around the yard to see what had happened since yesterday and if nature felt any different because she suddenly lived inside spring.

I put on the sweatshirt and went outside to visit with spring and to feel just a little closer to someone I will never see again.

I put on the sweatshirt to remember that she lives inside me.

This weekend, Jonny is going to put up the new hooks we bought a few weeks back to put just inside the front door. Hooks where I will hang this sweatshirt so that I can put it on each morning before I go outside to see what gifts nature has brought overnight…so that I can put it on and move forward just a bit while holding onto the best of her.

home

The return

You are
the sliver of blue behind the grey
the yellow stripe on the crocus
the pungent plum tree blossoms
the insistent call of the plump chickadee
the arching green tulip leaves

Today,
I whisper prayers of gratitude
to Spring
as she awakens
and brings
you

.today.

I listen to these words…

Where have you been,
My long lost friend?
It's good to see you again.
Come and sit for a while
I've missed your smile*

and my heart aches.

Today, I would have picked up the phone.
The feelings stacking up inside…pushing up into my chest and throat.

anger. whys
sadness. fears.
confusion. assumptions.
grief. truths. untruths.

I wanted to just say it. All of it. Out loud. To you.

As I drove away from Starbucks with my chai latte, trying to find warmth for a body that has never so hated the chills of the wet weather here than it does this day, my heart cried to tell you, to tell someone, all of it.

Instead I drove home.

I drew a bath, lit a candle, and sat in the hot, hot water with my hot chai.
My body found warmth.
And I told you all of it.
Without the phone or your voice or your presence.
I came back to my practice.
The one that sometimes creates winding paths of tears.
The one that forces me to speak the truth.
I came back to my practice and told you everything.
All the stacked up feelings poured forth with the tears and snot and truth.
I sat in the warmth and told you everything.
I hugged myself and dipped face first into the water.
Releasing one hands grip on fear.
And sat up and sang a lullaby to me.
Then I found my breath.
And stood and salt-scrubbed through to the next layer.
I chanted winding, repeating rhythms to Ganesh.
And held onto the hope of beginning and pushing through.
Pushing through all of it.

Tonight, I sit here, listening to these words

A sense of joy fills the air
And I daydream and I stare
Above the tree and I see
Your star up there
And this is how I see you
In the snow on Christmas morning
Love and happiness surround you
As you throw your arms up to the sky
I keep this moment by and by**

and my heart aches.
The ache of truth and missing.

I try to find my center in the midst of the ache, in the midst of the confusion, sadness, assumptions, untruths, and all that cannot be.
I try to find my breath.
I try to find my truth.
I try to find my center.

I breathe in.
I breathe out.
I breathe in.
I breathe out.

*lyrics from "Stay" sung by Alison Krauss
**lyrics from "Wintersong" sung by Sarah McLachlan