Bittersweet Mother's Day

I need to read over what I have written so that I don't repeat myself.  Being the procrastinator that I am, I haven't bothered to actually do that yet.  If I am repeating myself and anyone can tell the difference, I'll bake you a cake.  However, I'm pretty sure I have not written about this before.

My brother was born the day before Mother's Day in 1968, on May 11.  She always joked that he was the perfect present.  When he grew up, his only child, a son, was born on my mother's birthday, Nov. 1.  It was pretty special, and by far the best birthday present she ever got.  This formed a strange kind of triangle for  us all when she died on May 11, 2004.

That day I called my brother and he spent his birthday driving as fast as he dared on a motorcycle for 3 hours trying to get home in time to be there.  He didn't make it in time, and I spent those hours feeling horrible because I hadn't called him sooner.  I should have insisted he come sooner. I should have known this was it.  I should have.......if only..........maybe I could have............well.  It's just a thing I have, a heartache you could say, that is still tied to my raft on the river of life.  I've let it out so that it follows a distance, I've set it on fire and even filled it full of bullet holes, but I have yet to cut that particular heartache loose.  I am working on it.

That was 9 years ago, and yet every time I pick up the phone to call him on THAT DAY, it all comes back to me.  I tell myself that I just have to keep doing it, and eventually it will not be strange anymore.  Eventually we will have more memories of it not being THAT DAY, and it won't be strange anymore.  Because I'm THE OLDER SISTER and our dad never could remember our birthdays, even when we were little, and I cannot just let his birthday pass without calling. That would be.........unacceptable to my mother.  This is what I tell  myself, and I think it's probably what my brother tells himself, too.  After 9 years it's still hard for me to make the call, and I am afraid it's still hard for him to get it, because usually I leave a message and he calls me back.  The next day.  I guess we will never get over THAT DAY, but I also know that on THAT DAY we are both aware, every second, of what day it is.  We have no need to actually talk to each other, we are brother and sister.  No words are necessary.  

Thankfully, I have 4 children, plus a bonus daughter and 2 pretend grandchildren who made my Mother's Day this year much easier to get through.

Friday night the boys and my other "adopted" 4th son decided to help my get some limbs cut and make a bonfire in the backyard.  I did pretty well when I came out to find one cutting limbs that the other one in the tree above the limb.  I took it in stride.  Don't look a gift horse in the mouth is my motto, so I acted like it was all normal.  It was a big jump, without the lower limbs, for the one up the tree, but boys will be boys and  there were no injuries.  It was a good day.  We roasted hot dogs and made s'mores and sat around the fire till late, when it had burned down so that we didn't have to worry about setting the neighborhood on fire.  Those boys told me that was my mother's day present and I told them it was THE BEST present ever!

The next day I made meatballs, marinated in the blues by Stevie Ray Vaughan, and took them to my bonus daughter's reception for graduating college. So exciting!!  The Beautiful Redhead was supposed to be at the reception, but was not, despite repeated text messages.  Just as I was about to leave she called and said she had fallen asleep but was awake now and wanted me to come there.  This is so.........her.  And I love her.  And she is my only daughter.  So I drove to her apartment and we went to the Olive Garden, even though I had just eaten, and we had a really good time, just us girls.  She had to work Mother's Day anyway and couldn't come home for the actual day, so this was good.  It was good mostly because I was really tired, had had a late night, early morning, busy day, and still an hour and a half before I would be home and able to collapse.

This brings us to Mother's Day, when The Rock Star was coming with his beautiful and wonderful girlfriend. They brought me candy and we got some time at home without the house being full or me having to cook, which is the perfect Mother's Day in my book.  

After they left I sat and drank in the quiet and realized that I could relax now.  It was over. I told Mom I had made it through another one, but that it was just never going to be the same as it used to be.  

She smiled her quiet smile and said "That's true. But you already knew that a long time ago, babe."

That's what being a mother means.  Going on, even when you don't want to, carrying all your memories and making more and never letting anyone know any different.  It's just the way life works, when you're a mom.

Letting Go: Teddy Bears and Baggage

I did a rather dark piece last year for Father's Day, and this is the other side of that particular tunnel for me. It was hard to do, but I'm glad I did and I have felt rather badly about just leaving it there, because of course  no broken heart just stays broken.  They mend in all kinds of interesting shapes, none of them perfect.

The other night I was lamenting the fact that I still haven't gotten through the Beautiful Redhead's childhood toys on her shelves, and I spied this guy.  The whole world stopped, and my mind started whirling, and I ran to get my camera and even managed to take some pictures in focus.

This is Leo, on the left.  Leo is my first real love.  He used to be a lion with a music box.  I have no memories, or pictures, of Leo when he still had a mane, or fur, or whiskers, but he has a scar from where my mother had to perform surgery on him to remove the music box. ....after she had washed it.  Laundry would be a demon my mother would wrestle all of her life.  She fought the good fight but could never overcome what she called "the bleaching gene".  I have no memory of the music box and as far as I know, I never missed it.  I was just glad he was all right, sewed up tight and still with me.
 He used to sleep with me every night.  I had a lot of stuffed animals that slept with me every night, and it caused me a great deal of anguish trying to decide how to arrange them in my bed.  I had room for about 3 rows of stuffed animals that I could fit in my bed, and I worried that only the ones on the top row would be able to breathe.  I tucked the covers under the arms of those on the top row that had arms that would bend.
My mother pointed out that stuffed animals didn't have to worry about breathing.  She *may* have even said "um, honey.....you do know they aren't real, right?" (wondering, no doubt, about the definition of "obsession").
I knew this in my head but it was my heart that was the problem, and I knew this, too.  I was about 7 when we had this conversation/revelation.
Even then I was more worried about my skills as a mother than the more practical things, like the fact that my "babies" did not breathe.  My mother did not believe imagination was a thing to be squelched in children.
But always Leo was beside me, closest to me.  I loved him the best of all.  Leo had been with me since I was a baby.

Soon after we moved to this house in 2001 and put up the shelves in this room, I must have come across him while unpacking and put him up here for safekeeping.  Here he has sat, next to the pig that my daughter loved when she was 3, for 12 years.
There is a black spot on his hand from where I threw him up, high in the air, after being warned not to do that again by Big Grandma, who was trying (desperately) to spray paint some TV trays (Remember those?) when he landed smack dab in the middle of her fresh paint.  Big Grandma was mad!!  I was in trouble!!  She did not spank me.  Maybe because I was almost as tall as her, but maybe because she didn't have to.  I knew better than to do it but I had not realized I would be putting Leo in jeopardy.  I was maybe 8.  You might think that's kind of old to be carrying around a stuffed animal but it would have been the summer my dad left.  Leo was there for me.  We went through it together.  Where I went, so did Leo. It threw both of us  into a panic thinking that Leo had been mortally wounded.  Not to worry, most of the paint came off, and what remained we both thought added character.  Big Grandma had her demons, but laundry was never one of them.

When something terrible and irreversible happens to you as a child, it is right before sleep that your heartache will find you.  Once you are alone and everything is quiet, it will well up out of you.  It becomes a daily ritual.   During the day you can "not think about it", and keep your mind off of it, but it knows where you sleep.  Every night Leo slept crushed to my chest, and every morning there he would still be, and on I would go.
As a teenager he was always on my bed, and usually slept with me, but you will be glad to know that I did not have to carry him around anymore.  I did not cry every night anymore by then, either.  The self-centered-ness of puberty had staked out that ground, and many nights I spent obsessing over acne or what to wear to the dance instead of crying. Some time around the age of 18 I realized that I had not been crying every night for quite a while.  My heartache did not come for me as often, but when it did come for me, Leo was still there.
I got married and moved away from home, Leo tucked into my cedar chest from Nana along with other treasures and keepsakes.  I got divorced and moved back home, went to college, had apartments and parties, had jobs, got married again, had kids, the whole nine yards, Leo was with me always.  Tucked away in my cedar chest until my children got old enough to be careful with stuffed animals.
Sometime in my early 20's, I realized that it had been a long time since I had cried at all, or  felt sad, or even thought much about my heartache.  It was a shock, and I thought I outgrown it.  It wasn't done with me yet, but I treasured the possibility of peace, and started working toward it.
When I was pregnant with twins and at a psychologist's office for one of my children (I thought), I surprised and embarrassed myself by bursting into tears when the man asked about my parents.  Then I got mad at him when he said it was obvious I had some "issues" with that.  Not outwardly mad, (Thank you LORD), but inwardly mad, which is less embarrassing but more humiliating, on a personal level.  That was when I finally broke down and asked for help.  From God, not the psychologist, nice man though he was, he was still, well, .....a man. Plus let's not forget my prejudice toward taking pills.  I'm against it, generally.  Let's just say I had issues in more than one category but do not worry, God could handle them all.
Then the years flew by and one day I saw Leo on the shelf for the first time in such a long time that I had almost forgotten Leo.
HOW could I forget Leo, who was my first "baby" and my staunchest friend?
And I realized that Teddy Bears are really just like baggage.  It was an epiphany.
We carry them so close, our heartaches,  they become so much a part of us, that the thought of getting rid of them hurts as much as cutting out a part of ourselves.
We (I) often (used to) sit around whining about our burden but eventually your realize that YOU are one who is crushing it to your chest, holding on so tight that you are never going to be rid of it until you let go.  It may have even grown into you by then, like those poor people who weigh so much they die in their chairs and only then does anyone know their skin has fused with the fabric!! It's ugly, but take heart, because it's also easy.  All you have to do is let go.  That's it.  Just let go.  One day your head will know that it's time and it will be all right to let go, but your heart will not be convinced.  Listen to your head.  Sometimes, the head must rule.  When it's for your own good, and your heart is paying the price, listen to your head and just let go.
Nothing will happen.  You may think at least a good, resounding cymbal crash at least, is called for, but odds are it will be quiet, and nothing will happen.  No one else will know a thing.  No one else is inside your head, seeing the tragic opera that plays on a constant loop, unless you tell them.  The only change will be the peace in your heart, which will most assuredly make itself known in your face when you smile.  You will be better than you have ever been.  More, even, than you have ever been, and grateful for the lessons you learned on your way to that place.
I have had quite a journey with both Leo and my baggage, but unlike Leo, who I kept safe on the shelf, at some point I cut my baggage loose and let it float on down the river of time.
Perhaps the hurt finally scarred over.
Like arthritis, it didn't hurt all the time, but when it rained there was a deep ache I could live with but not forget about.  Dan Fogelberg did a song that has always haunted me, that describes it much better than I can write, Hard To Say.

"Lucky in love,

 well maybe so,

 there's still a lot of things you'll never know,

 like why each time the sky begins to snow 

you cry"..  

The lyrics can be found here and I think they are brilliant.  Thank you for your service, Dan Fogelberg.  You might have just been writing about a break-up, but I see both myself and my father in this song, and it has touched me deeply.

It's the unexpected tears that you need to investigate and run to ground.
You learn to live with it to survive, but to learn to forgive it is truly an act of mercy, and will bring you grace.  Enough grace to share.
I tried a lot of things, learning to live with it. Denial, Anger, Derision, Blame (others), Blame (self), oblivion, attention seeking....the list goes on.  I thought I needed to mend my broken heart but really I think I needed to just learn that I wouldn't die from a broken heart, and trust God that it would heal in His time.
It took a lot of years but I finally got to the point where, when I could look at my dad as a child, from the standpoint of a mother, (haven't I always been one?) I could see that it was okay to love him and accept him for what he is without expecting him to be the person I thought he was, once upon a time.  His mother, my own Nana, helped me it this by pointing out that this is how God loves us.  We all have children that may disappoint us, do hurtful things, sometimes we may even feel that we don't like our own children, but we always love them.  That doesn't change, no matter what the kid has done, how long ago the end of the rope you were trying to hold onto has slipped through your fingers, or how much it's going to cost to save them.
Parents are just people, too.
Some things just aren't ever going to happen, and your life will be easier if you can accept this.
You see, I still love him. Can we ever stop?  I don't think so.  My answer is no.  Nana's answer was no.  Everyone gets to answer that for themselves.  Does this mean that I invite him up and volunteer to meet more wives?  Good Lord no!  Even Nana drew the line at that!  But at least the kids are old enough now that I am not trying to find an explanation.  For some things, there are no explanations and we have to accept that.  But I do love him, and wish him every happiness, and I have peace with that.
Everybody has their own journey, and I don't think any of them are easy.
Love what you can and keep your expectations realistic.
You have your own life.  Enjoy it and realize how much love is all around you. There are all different kinds of love, all of them good.  Stop letting your heart be broken. You really are in charge of that.  You can still love a person even if you know their patterns and have learned what will probably happen next the hard way.  Choices have consequences, and consequences must be reckoned with one way or the other.
It is always in your power to take the bull by the horns, (and that can be much less violent than it sounds), by just asking God to give your broken heart some peace and help you understand what is next, with grace.
If you can just do that much, it will help.  You will have to do it a lot, and it may take some time, but it's your journey and there is no time limit or shortcuts.  Keep your head up and your heart open to healing.  It will come from some of the last places you would ever expect, and one day, you will just feel..............fine.
You will not cry anymore.  At least, not about that old heartache.  Life may bring you others, so guard your heart wisely.  I hope you will even smile, after your baggage floats off. It will sink under it's own weight soon enough.  Let it go and be at peace.
If you are going through it right now, or just still dragging it around, I hope this helps you.  Just let go.  I think you will be glad you did.  Even if you just let the line out a little, so that it follows at a greater distance, that still counts as progress.  Don't be surprised if, after you think you cut it loose, you turn around to find it following you.  Wish it peace and turn back around.  It's in the past, where it belongs and you will face the future.  You will be uncertain of what will come next, but you won't care all that much because whatever comes next will not involve the same old circular path that was your heartache.
I burned a lot.  I am a burner, an Aries, fire is my sign, I am a ram blazing a path that burns from the friction, dragging Leo along for the ride.  He supports me unconditionally. It's what he does, It's his destiny, and he has fulfilled it heroically.
Do it your way, but do it. Do it today, at least make a start, and it could take quite a while.  You should not have to ask me how I know this, ahem.
What am I going to do with Leo? He is going to keep sitting right up there with the rest of the treasures.  I'm too afraid to wash him and The Beautiful Redhead will someday, eventually be forced to deal with her stuff.  When that day comes I will put him on my own shelf until the day when he will probably be cremated with me. It seems only fitting, as he's been there for everything else.  Leo and I will blaze into heaven, our journey not yet complete, and I expect we'll either be given a sword to fight more battles or go directly to the baby room.
Either one will be just fine with me.  I can do both equally well, thanks to everything I learned on my journey, so far.  Let the journey continue.

Trees....

I love trees.

I love them in cemeteries. 

I love them by themselves.

I love them covered in snow. 

I love them when they grow in bunches.

I love them with no leaves, the bones revealing a beauty much deeper than when adorned.

I love it when they bloom

I love it when the petals shower down

I love them when they have their new little baby leaves peeking out

I love them when they are in full leaf

I love them when they turn

And I love the music they make when they fall.

Even after that I love the sounds they make scooting down the street.

Most of all I love the way they look from the inside.

They make a secret space where all you can hear is the wind and maybe some birds.

Sounds float up from below.

Everything looks different at that remove, perspective can be regained.

Sometimes the leaves sing to you.

Sometimes they busily rustle amongst themselves, seemingly talking to each other, intent on unknown purposes.

Sometimes they sigh and moan.

Always they stand watch, ever vigilant, mute witnesses to whatever comes.

Sometimes they whisper to you, sweet nothings like the noises your mother made to you as an infant.  You don't have to understand the language to know you're in the presence of an older, wiser, nurturing love.  A presence that has seen many things, and endured all.

Sometimes, on lazy days, they make no noise at all, instead bowing their heads, and listening to the music of the raindrops skipping down, down, down,
 and falling to the earth with a splash,
 content to rest,
 sheltering small beings,
 who also rest,
within their steadfast branches.

The cadence of the drops soon turns into a blanket, covering all with a quiet,
rhythmic lull.

A time out.

  A time out of time.

The whole world stills.

As a child I spent a lot of time up trees.

As a mother I often wished I could just climb a tree, attaining a little space for myself to breathe while at the same time keeping an eye (or at least an ear) on my children playing below.

Having the best of both worlds.

I always imagined that would be what it was like to be God.

I still am happiest there.

Not that it happens often anymore, but when it does.........

Ah

Awe

Peace

  Quiet

  Perspective

Strength

Rest

Connection

Resolve