In A Phrase

I considered a number of words for my "word" for this year. None felt right. The words that came to mind made me feel like I had to work at something, to change or get better or resign myself and give in. After all the thoughts I went through to let go of the past, I wanted to give myself a chance to feel where I am now. I want the feelings to keep flowing, no matter what they are.

So I settled on a phrase for this year: keep moving. Get on the treadmill, play with the grandchildren, get out of bed, make the phone calls, keep going. I remind myself that I don't have to produce something new or accomplish something big. If I move my body and keep my brain working and let my emotions move through me, then I am doing what is best for me right now. 

I didn't know three months ago how much I would need those words. In May I really missed my mom; I was sad and angry that I was still feeling such grief. I reminded myself to keep moving - let the feelings come and move through me as many times as they needed to. 

I often feel stalled and indecisive. Keep moving. Put in a load of laundry, rearrange furniture, make a simple meal, go for a drive.

I talked last month with my osteopath about the anxiety I was feeling. As she worked with my body we talked about how I was getting stuck in my head and that I can move into my body instead, deep belly breathing and grounding through my core. There are exercises I can do to stretch and balance and improve my flexibility.

Keep moving. Do what I want to do and not what I think I have to do. Find enjoyment in the simple things. 

I can't make big decisions right now, about what's next or where I want to be beyond the next few days. There are dates on the calendar to spend time with grandkids, which are times to look forward to. 

I hear from others at this same point in their lives that they are asking similar questions and feeling the same uncertainty. We can listen to each other and know that we are not alone, which helps me immensely. I commented on Jacqueline's blog that the silence and solitude has not helped me. Her most recent blog post beautifully reflects on the questions she has been asking herself.

Today I saw a quote on Instagram that spoke to me: Not every day has to "count." Some days your purpose is to make it to the next one. That counts too.

The journey continues....

Summer Wrap-Up

Last week we had our first days of fall-like weather. Tuesday started off with clear skies and cool temperatures, and by noon it was pleasantly warm. Then clouds moved in with showers by late afternoon. This summer was one of the wettest summers anyone can remember. Two-thirds of the days in June brought rain and better than a dozen days in each of July and August. 

Luckily it did not rain the last weekend in August. That was the time my family decided in May that we would get together to celebrate my mom, their Grandma Ellie. I had some ideas about how the weekend would go but knew I needed to stay flexible. With my sons and their families and my daughter with her daughter, we had four kids ages two to nine and seven adults to consider. We were all in and out on Saturday and together for dinner, where I proposed a toast to my mom and remembered how fond she was of my kids and their families. 

The weather cooperated both days. Sunday we had tickets to a Portland Sea Dogs game, the minor league farm team for the Red Sox, and an event that my mom would have enjoyed as much as we did. The seats were perfect, and there was enough action and food to keep the kids happy. We didn't realize it was a double header until the end of the first game, so we had twice the fun. The day closed out with dinner at Applebee's, where I commented that my mom would have enjoyed the day and I thought there was a good chance she had a hand in how well everything worked out. 

It was the perfect way to wrap up the summer. 

June had been a time to work through so many thoughts and feelings I'd had over the past year, putting words to my grief and frustration so I could see it all in one place. For me, writing is a way to make sense of what I don't understand or connect what appears to be unrelated.

In July I was ready to create an album of the photos my mom had collected since she was a girl. I made new pages for an album she had and cross-referenced photos so each one was labeled and dated. The process of finally getting the photos mounted had been months in the making and felt like such an accomplishment. It was a way to bring together the people and events in her life that made her happy, that she wanted to remember. 

In the process of putting all the pieces together I had time to think about how my relationship with my mom had changed over the years. Neither one of us gave up on trying to understand the other. It wasn't always easy and there were times that we knew the other was frustrated and unable to see a different perspective. I realized that we had come to forgive each other for the hurt we felt, the misunderstandings and disagreements. We didn't ignore the past, but we were able to see that it was the past and we couldn't change it. 

In my Mothers Day card to my mom just days before she fell and was hospitalized, I wrote:

We stand where we are/ Because our steps brought us here/ Thank you for walking the way with me. 

I have that card now and am grateful that I had the chance to share what I felt. In recognizing the growth in the relationship with my mom, I have had time to think about the things in my own life that I wish had been different, decisions and choices that I would make differently now. Then I applied the meaning of forgiveness to my own life, giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.

With that, in July of this summer, I forgave myself. And like I've heard so many times, when the student is ready the teacher appears. For me, in so many ways....   

On July 31 I read a quote by Alden Howlan that someone posted on Instagram:

"The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise."

The journey continues....

Forgiveness

The word forgiveness can evoke a variety of emotions. Fortunately, through the years I have discovered authors, Anne Lamott among them, who write about forgiveness in the vein that it is something a person does quietly for themselves. It's not something you say to someone else ~ it is introspective, personal, and something that has been hard for me to name and define for most of my life. 

I have practiced the intention of forgiveness for many years without calling it forgiveness. I forget that until I run across something written or work through what I'm struggling with until the "aha" moment when I think, "Wait, that's forgiveness," which is what happened this past week when I found a saying on an undated slip of paper in a drawer.

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." It gave me chills. I had to google the saying to see who to credit with the wisdom ~ Oprah's name is attached to it. 

I had been struggling with something for days, tearing up at night when sleep wouldn't come. When I found the slip of paper, so many things fell into place, retroactively and in the present....

So I pulled out a journal I started 25 years ago. It's called a Journal of Gratitude and has a place to write a few lines under each day of the year. I use it to record quotes that have meaning for me, words of wisdom from movies and television shows and books and people I know. Last week I wrote this definition of forgiveness under the date December 6. 

That's the date my father died in 1996 from a sudden, fatal heart attack. My mom found him when she returned to the house to have coffee and talk with him; she had finally moved out that summer when he slapped her for the last time. Ten years earlier I had written my father a three-page letter informing him of my boundaries as far as he was concerned. It boiled down to three things: he could visit my home but he could not argue with my mom or hit her when he visited; he could not raise his voice to me or my children; he was no longer allowed to smoke in my house. With the help of an excellent therapist I had given up the hope that the past could have been any different with my father. I set aside his past behaviors and set forth the parameters for future expectations in my home and in the presence of my family. He chose not to visit for ten years, and when he did come to the state he did not stay at my house. I didn't engage when he talked about the past or justified his behavior. 

In 1986 and 1996 I didn't call my action "forgiveness." That would have sounded uppity to me, like I was somehow superior. That's not how I felt. Instead I felt like I had surrendered. I remember feeling desperate to do something to save my mental health, and this was all that was left. I knew what I had decided would impact my relationship with my mom.

And it did. She could not comprehend what I was doing. She did not understand what I was doing to protect my children. Again, with the help of my excellent therapist, I came to understand that my mom had not protected me and my siblings from my father, which my therapist explained was the job of a parent. I fought that idea tooth and nail for weeks, but I had to connect my anxiety and panic attacks to the kind of mother I was, a mother who was not a mother like my mother was. To get healthy and be there for my children I had to be a different kind of mother, and to me that meant that I had to admit that my mother did not take care of me. I did not say that to my mom; for decades I talked around that by explaining that it was what I had to do to take care of myself and my family.

Through the decades after my father died my mom and I worked through the process of letting go of what we couldn't change from all those years ago. In 2007 she had a stroke and sometime around then was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. She had remarried in 2003, moved to West Virginia, and stayed busy with him and part-time work. After the stroke it took years to find the best medication and get the correct dosage regulated. With the health issues she had started feeling anxious. She shared with me that she never understood what I was going through all those years ago, and that was an opening for us to talk more honestly about a range of experiences and feelings. She didn't hide her anxiety from me, and I was able to share the strategies I used to cope then and now. Those conversations added a new dimension to our relationship. We continued to talk honestly with each other right up until she died.

Within my sorrow in the last year has been a deep sadness that my mom had not been happier in her adult life. I do miss her - the cards she sent, our phone calls, and the sporadic in-person visits. My sadness was about more than that; as I've looked through photos of her with family and friends in her first 18 years I see a girl who is loved grow into a young woman who laughs with friends and enjoys experiences with family. She graduated from high school, got a good job with the federal government, and shared an apartment with a friend. 

As I have written posts this month and started putting my mom's photos in order, that sorrow has been front and center. What I realized this week is that where my mom is concerned I had given up the hope that many things in our past could have been any different. However, deep within my grief and below my consciousness I have been mourning the life she lost when she started the life with my father. Once that realization rose to the surface I considered what that means, what I could do to relieve the pain I have been feeling. Then I found the slip of paper ~ forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.  

Can I forgive my mom for staying with my father for 41 years? I am getting there.

The journey continues....

Make The Trip

Last Saturday I took a trip to central Massachusetts. I had been preparing for weeks to drive 200 miles to the small town of Turners Falls, and I decided that the predicted heavy rain would not keep me from going. It took an hour longer than it was supposed to, and I felt a sense of accomplishment when I arrived. The purpose for the trip was to donate fabric, satin binding, yarn, and pattern books that were new and usable, things I had had for years or had inherited and hadn't used. There is a small shop in this small town that is making a name for itself in that it offers sewing/craft materials that will benefit from finding homes with people who will use what others have donated. They also offer classes and opportunities to gather for sewing, knitting, and crafting. The place is not on my way to anywhere but it was worth the trip.

From Turners Falls I headed to the Boston area to catch up with my sons and their families for Fathers Day. My sons are a pleasure to watch with their kids. I could not be more proud of them.

I decided years ago that when I got the idea to go somewhere I should go. I love to drive. I love to travel. If I make plans, and I am able, I follow through. 

Sometimes things happen beyond my control. Then I wish I had made the trip earlier, which often wasn't an option, but I feel sorry still. 

In early 2022 I made plans to travel to West Virginia in the summer to see my mom. My younger son and his family were also planning a trip to visit. In fact, from the hospital I talked to them about moving their trip to later in the summer until Grandma Ellie was settled in a rehab facility. The last time we'd visited was 2019, and we had scheduled different weeks to go to spread out the socializing for my mom. I have wonderful photos from those visits and am so glad we went when we did. The pandemic put off travel for the next two summers but last year we felt secure enough to plan the visits. Best laid plans....

I have been thinking this week about two other times my family has lost someone important to us, just as we were planning a visit. In 1982 Ken and I and the kids were going to Maryland for Thanksgiving. Ken has a large family and we were looking forward to seeing everyone. Just a few days before we were due to leave we got the call that Ken's mom had had a sudden fatal heart attack. We were devastated. Of course we all gathered but that day and all the gatherings after that felt the loss of Grammy. 

Just three years later we lost one of the most important people in our lives, a dear friend of Ken's family for decades, the man who started as a neighbor and became a mentor and friend to 12 year-old Ken who introduced him to travel, specifically to the state of Maine. We couldn't have been closer to Linwood if he had been a blood relative. When we moved to Maine we chose to live in the city where he had a home and started a business when he retired. We still talk about how glad we are that we had the years we did with Linwood. We spent holidays and birthdays with him and ordinary days in between. In 1985 I was home with my 6 year-old daughter and 3 year-old son, getting ready for Christmas and waiting for Ken to get home from work; it was Christmas Eve and we had plans for dinner at Linwood's. The call came that Linwood was with friends when he had a heart attack and died before anything could be done. We cried for days. All these years later we remember fondly our times with Linwood and share stories with our kids and grandkids.

The lesson for me through the years has been to take the trip, make the visit, and listen to the inner voice that says, "Go." I've never been sorry I listened.

The Thread

My daughter shared a poem "The Thread" with me several years ago, handwritten on a light pink piece of cardstock. I set it up my desk, on one side by the calendar and then the other by the pencils. I stick it in books I'm reading so I will come across it at random. This week I found it in the back of my day planner. I have read it many times over the years, and each time the meaning I find reflects what is happening in my life at that moment. Today the idea of the thread as grief occurred to me. The loose thread is a garment of grief that has unraveled and is slowly taking new shape as something different. A thought to ponder....  

Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads
finer than cobweb and as
elastic. I haven’t tried
the strength of it. No barbed hook
pierced and tore me. Was it
not long ago this thread
began to draw me? Or
way back? Was I
born with its knot about my
neck, a bridle? Not fear
but a stirring
of wonder makes me
catch my breath when I feel
the tug of it when I thought
it had loosened itself and gone.

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

From: The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov

Heavy

Going along and going along...and then wham. Today I was tired and my back was sore. Mid-morning I couldn't be up any longer, so I laid down on my bed just for a moment. I fell asleep for an hour. I can't remember the last time I laid down during the day without being sick. I only do that when there isn't anything else I can do. And today was one of those days.

I've been meaning to look through the books I have of Mary Oliver's poetry because the perfect one always shows itself. Tonight was no exception.

Heavy

by Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it--

books, bricks, grief--

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled--

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

Living and Dying

 A designer, an organizer, and a psychologist walk into a house....

No, this is not a joke. This is the basis for a new show on the Peacock channel [streaming for a fee which is well worth the money] called "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning." What in the world?! It is narrated by Amy Poehler, which just added to the questions I had. I watched the preview and was intrigued. If nothing else, I wanted to know more about it so I started watching. 

I have now watched each of the eight shows at least twice. Real stories with real people, all in Kansas City in these episodes, that have in some way dealt with death. Each situation is different. There are tears and laughter and poignant moments that touch me every time.

This is not a show about death. It is a show about living, how to continue living when you lose someone close to you and/or how you make room for living in a cluttered life. 

I have to admit that I was also in a place to receive the wisdom of this show in April. It was a comfort to see people working through a really tough time with the gentle, which is a key word in their practice, help of three professionals trained for just this situation, a time of being stuck and in desperate need of someone(s) who knows what they are doing. These three Death Cleaners are all about life, and they make it clear that it is not their job to make anyone get rid of their stuff. Just the opposite. They see their mission as helping people find their own way beyond the place where they find themselves.

So many of the stories spoke to me about what I've been doing in the past year ~ cleaning out my mom's trailer and storage unit; bringing home the things that have meaning for me and integrating them into my household so they are in use; clearing out the things in my house that no longer serve a purpose for me or my husband; and organizing what I keep so I can find things when I want them. Truthfully I have been working at most of this for two years, and it was easy to get rid of things in the back of the closets or buried in boxes that haven't seen the light for years. It gets harder to pare down what you don't use or don't really like but hold onto for sentimental value. 

After my mom's death it was time to get down to the nitty gritty. The bottom line is that I will not leave a mess for my children to go through and clear out.

That is some of what "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" is about, thinking about what you will leave behind. It is also about what has been left to you, how you feel about that, and what to do about that after you are aware of/process those feelings. 

The three Death Cleaners are gentle and honest, good listeners while able to get to the heart of the matter with compassion and humor.

One aspect of the show that caught me off guard is the element of celebration of the person who has died. I feel emotional now just thinking about it. I realized that I had not celebrated my mom's life. 

In WV before and after my mom's death I was with one or two siblings but never with all three at the same time. We were all coming from away, and we all had commitments. My older brother made two round trips to/from eastern Virginia. My sister traveled across an ocean. My younger brother drove into a terrible storm in a car he wasn't sure would make the trip in the first place. There wasn't anything that any of us could do once our mom was is hospice. We said our good-byes when my older brother left for home and work, and I didn't expect to see him again; his plate was full with the legal and financial obligations in his role as executor.

There was no time to plan any part of what happened after my mom fell. It was all unexpected and things happened too quickly. All we could do was react.

So we didn't have the time together to celebrate our mom's life. At the time I talked about finding a way to gather in the summer of 2023, in eastern Virginia, where my mom talked about wanting to live. I had the idea of putting a bench in a park or garden and inviting family and friends to gather with us to remember Ellie. Last June there was no interest from the others in planning anything, which I understood because a year seemed a long way off. My kids liked the idea and were talking about planning some vacation time so they could make the trip to Virginia.

So in January this year I mentioned it again to my brother so family and friends could begin to make plans. He is not interested in that idea. Then I mentioned that I want to do something in Maine with my kids and grandkids in my own yard with flowers and a granite stone. He said to let him know and maybe he will make the trip north....

There is an episode about the topic of celebration, and I cry each time I watch it. The person was caught up in the immediacy of what was happening; and on top of that they were dealing with their own health crisis. It didn't occur to them that they hadn't taken time to celebrate...because really, who thinks of a celebration while you are in the midst of grief.

The Swedish Death Cleaners think about that and so many other important aspects of living and dying. I am grateful that they've found a way to share their wisdom with the world.  

June Has 30 Days

Two weeks ago I wrenched my back. I have strained my back a handful of times in the past 35 years. I have never so seriously twisted it. I have seen my osteopath twice in the last week, which is another first. I am still moving slowly but I think I am on the right track to recovery.

When I saw the DO for the second time on Tuesday she said she hadn't seen me in such bad shape before. We reviewed what had been going on in the last month. The first week of May I drove 1200 miles to Philadelphia and back with my granddaughter and daughter, for her job. I walked and walked  all over University City with Maggie while my daughter worked. Then the two of them had a day at Hershey Park as we headed north, while I had a lovely visit with a dear friend. It was a wonderful week, beginning and ending with stop-overs near Boston to visit with my sons and their families.

When I got home I started taking things out of my bedroom to prepare for fresh paint on the walls and trim. I left just the bed. I took my time so it took a week to prepare the room and several days to paint. Through the whole project I was careful not to twist and lift, careful to secure my footing on the ladder, sure to take regular breaks to rest and eat, and I didn't push myself to finish. All went well until the last evening, when I put non-skid coasters under the bed...and on the lift of the second corner I felt the pop. Uh oh. I thought I had strained my back and it would take a few days of taking it easy to feel better. I already had an appointment scheduled with my osteopath six days out and surely by then I would be in better shape.

No such luck. She worked and worked and everything hurt. She did all she could in one treatment and told me to call for another appointment if I didn't feel better in three days. It was a holiday weekend so I left a message Monday evening and I went in again Tuesday. She could tell right away that things were still twisted. That's when she went back through all that I had done in May. Then she asked if there had been any additional stress.

It took me a moment to gather myself. I answered that last year these were the days when I was with my mom in the hospital in West Virginia. I have been reading through the notes I took during that time in a journal filled with dates, times, phone numbers, conversations, doctors' reports, tests done, mom's condition, questions to ask, and next steps. There is very little about how I was feeling. There was no time to process all that was happening ~ I needed to stay present to be there for mom. That's when my doctor reminded me how busy the rest of the summer was. She asked me if I have taken time to process the feelings. I told her I had been trying to reframe that experience; and as I have gone through decades of photos I have also been trying to reframe how I think about my mom's life. She said she could feel a shift in my body as I talked. Ah ha. There's something else to think about and process.

When I left the doctor's office on Tuesday I did feel a bit better. Today, June 1, I am moving more freely and with less pain. That's true for my feelings as well. The best way I know to work things through is to write.

June has 30 days. That gives me thirty opportunities to write.

Let me end with a poem by Lemn Sissay, shared by Anna on my last post:

"How do you do it?" said night
"How do you wake and shine?"
"I keep it simple." said light

"One day at a time."