Rerouted Tears

My tears are backing up. I want them to be shed. I am trying to cry, really, I am. They are backing up and I feel as though they are rerouting through my entire body, going every which way but OUT. They are being held in for some reason. Oh, indeed there are the morning tears, the mid-day tears, the evening tears, the seasonal tears, the middle of the night tears, all the tears of grief. But these tears, the ones that bind me up, bend me over, ache with pain, the big tsunami if you will, just races and rages and roars through my soul. They are following some sort of course within. They are brought about by the memories, the flashbacks, the changing of the season, this season which became her last, at least here on earth. They are brought about as I remember the excitement of a little girl and her sister who dressed up and waited for Aunt Kathy to come take them trick or treating. They are brought on by a young woman who bravely walked herself to a hospital, in pain, barely able to breathe, shoulder and back pain, coughing that would not stop, soon to learn of lung cancer. They are brought on by an image of a family coming home and hearing her say, as we crossed the Missouri line, home sweet home, where I am going to get well. They are brought on by what has been lost, but what has been gained. They are brought on by a sweet October, more beautiful in Missouri than I believe anywhere else, a near perfect month, ending in an even more surreal way. They are brought on by a celebration today of 33 years of marriage, and all that has taken place in those years. WE are stronger, wiser, and still together, despite the statistics...not just the statistics of divorces, but those of couples who lose a child. The silence, the ache, the pain, the loss can kill a marriage. We celebrate that ours is still alive. The rerouted tears are due, in part, because today is also the day God heard my cry and took my/our mother, grandmother, wife to her heavenly home. Sixteen years ago. A gift in the pain on our 17th wedding anniversary. For such a gift, there are still tears. They come every year and every year I think they won't. But they do.

These rerouted tears that go every which way but OUT stand for so much. They represent strength, dignity, sorrow, pain that cannot be described, joy, happiness, grief, even euphoria at times. They know no consistency. They know no reason. They are just there. They get tangled and caught up, sometimes in my throat, sometimes in my gut, always in my heart. I don't know how to live like this, but I don't know how not to...it is who I am, now. Sometimes they trickle from my eyes, sometimes they pour from every pore in my body, and always, they are screaming in my soul. They are God's way of providing a release. I used to say I am tired of crying. Now I say, I wish I could cry more. I want to let it out. I will. When I can and in due time. It might be when I least expect it, when I linger in the Target aisle looking, and even touching, Halloween costumes. It might be when my fingers trace her name on her beautiful headstone on a visit to lay fall flowers on her grave. It might even be when I look at the pomegranate juice in the grocery store. The tears come. Maybe not OUT, but they are always there. I cry for her, for myself, for my mother, for my father, for my sister, for my brother, I cry for a daughter, a husband, for what was to be, but will never be...I cry. Then I ask for God's grace, His mercy and His love, I pick myself up, I find my way to celebrate the day, honor this anniversary when perhaps I'd rather curl up with a good book, live this day to the fullest, walk my beloved Rex, plan for holidays with family, look forward to spending time with a living daughter, make her a home cooked meal after a hard week of work, spend time with those I care about, or who are important to me, help others when I can. I ask that these rerouted tears cleanse me and energize me to live and make a daughter, who resides in the heavens, proud. I ask that they release me from the bonds of pain and grief and to turn that into good and joy. I ask God to help me smile as I remember, and to focus on the good that came, not the pain, not the suffering. I ask God to show me the way He answers prayers, like the day He took my mother out of her six week coma and freed her from the bonds of living like she was...God is so good, God is so great. He hears me. And I am grateful.

The Sweet Whisper of Her Soul

Our hearts will always be connected, her and mine. I know this because sometimes mine beats so fast, it feels like it is beating for two...and it is. It's like that extra beat that occurs when we know our children need us, or are troubled, or are ill. It's also like the extra beat it takes when we have the love and pride that only a parent can understand, as we watch them spread their wings, graduate from college, find joy in their chosen profession, observe them as they find their way to happiness, maybe hold their own child someday or find someone to share their life with...whatever our child feels, we feel, only I believe, we feel it to an intensity that cannot be described, only felt.

My own heart beats so fast in these beautiful autumn days, each day more beautiful than the other in this month, October. It beats fast as I attempt to maneuver and find my way through the memories, the "flashbacks", the occurences, the diagnosis, the treatments. I have learned how to put each painful part in a compartment and visit it at an appropriate time, to hold on to it for a bit of time, but to let go and find some peace. I thank God for that peace that He has promised, that peace that passes all understanding. I will never understand. I am trying not to understand. It is a waste of time, because there will be no revelation, no explanation, no ah-ha moment. She is gone and just this morning I had to say it again, out loud, through the tears and the pain, she is not coming back. She is not coming home. She IS home.

A gift that has come, in time, and in the brokenness, is the whisper of her soul to mine. It is true that I have felt hollow and empty, sometimes fake and certainly phony, since she left. I have felt numb as I attempt to go through some of life's motions. Other times, not. Other times I am just so damn grateful for the moment that I don't want it to end. I don't want my days with Jennifer to turn to night, I don't want to take my sister to the airport, I don't want a quiet evening of drinking wine on the deck with Joe to end. But they do, and when the special moments bring me back to my "reality", it is the sweet whisper of her soul that moves me. She is there, always and in all ways. My greatest gift has become my new reality, she is gone, but she is part of me. Her soul whispers to mine and we are connected.

It's hard to describe, really. How can something so beautiful be so painful? I want her here, don't I? I want her in the photograph I saw the other day of some friends from the class of 2003 posted on Facebook. I still look for her there! She should be, she should not have died so young. I want her here as we plan for a cousin Christmas, she should hear of the plans and be there in the new memories we will make. I will look for her. And she won't be there. Yet, she will. Her sweet whisper to my soul will be even more magnified than her physical presence. She sends me message, gives me ideas, provides the courage, hope, love, and energy it takes to take each step in this thing called life.

As we head into the last weeks she was home with us we find even little observances like Halloween and evening walks with the dog can be painful. Everywhere I turn there is a reminder, intensified at this time of year, because this season was her last. How appropriate that God would keep her here through the beauty of a season, in preparation of a holiday, only to take her in His time, the dead of winter for us, but to Him, a place of no seasons, a place where she is free from pain and treatment and a place where she can live larger than life itself. A place where she is blessed and where the sweet whisper of her soul will never die. A place where she can be everything to every body, all at once, and all consuming. A place where the whispers never stop.

Her Hair

No doubt I have written about this before, but again, this morning, thoughts of her hair. For BOTH my daughters, hair and hair design defined them. Jennifer is an amazing stylist and color specialist, fulfilling a dream of hers that was almost squashed by you know who...ME. What? A hair designer, what about insurance, what about a good living, what about standing on your feet your whole life...didn't you do that mom, didn't you love what you did? A resounding YES, so here she is, and lovin' life! And there she was, styling and fixing and coloring her sister's hair and anyone who came to our makeshift salon in the basement! It is the courage of BOTH sisters that came to mind this morning, the bravery of one, loving older sister, cutting and shaving the head of her cancer ridden sister, the warrior who took it in her own hands to shave her head at the onset of some shedding due to chemotherapy. When it became apparent that she would lose that hair, there she was, attacking it as she did everything else, with a vigor and the spirit of a take-charge young woman who wanted to face whatever must be faced.

What most likely prompted my thoughts was a segment on the Today show of a woman battling cancer who did virtually the same thing...she even hosted a hair shaving party, and she was surrounded by love when it happened. Tears, sadness, pain, yes, but love. That sent tears streaming down my face, wondering if the "average" person really knows what goes into the shaving of one's head in cancer treatment. Did we know then what a defining moment it would be, did we know then that we would find strength for months and years to come from that one simple, yet complex, moment? Did we know then that we would find that we could do virtually anything in this life with Allison as our example, with Jennifer as our example, standing stoically behind her sister, very lovingly and gingerly taking the last of the hair off of a beautiful and bold head? Did we know that not much compares to watching two young women in what would become one of life's final moments of love and grace, dignity and determination? Did we know that the tears Allison went to shed in private would ring in our ears for eternity, but that they would be soon overshadowed by a desire to live strong and filled with hope? Did we know what a bald head signifies?

When I see the bald heads on men and women, now, I want to salute, take their hand, congratulate them, something!! I want to say much, but the words most often get caught in my throat. EVERY single time I see someone in "battle" I am brought to a place where it became my own daughter's to own, the shaving of the head, she took control, she didn't let it define her, she radiated and found her peace through the pain.

That is my lesson this day, to find my peace through the pain. That is my lesson every day. She taught me more than I even know and is still with me in all ways, always. I can put one foot in front of the other because she taught me how. It is sad, it is painful, I know nothing else like this, but her legacy lives, and that is how I do, her father does, her sister does. We have been blessed by an angel.

Yes, her hair once defined her. Every picture is a new design and a new color. Then there was none. And that only enhanced her beauty and her soul. What she found was she didn't need hair at all. Beauty comes from within.

Glorious Weekend

On this most glorious of all weekends, weather-wise, at least, I am reflective in my heart. Four years. Four years ago yesterday that we drove to Chicago to visit Allison in the hospital with plans to bring her home to recuperate from pneumonia. Four incredibly, long, yet short years. We packed a weekend bag and headed out on the very same type of glorious weekend, weather-wise, at least. We stayed almost two weeks and what we learned in those two weeks, every day, practically every hour took our breath away. Took OUR breath away, figuratively. Took HERS away, literally.

She was struggling to breathe. Her lungs were drained. She was on antibiotics for pneumonia, but all along, there it was, a tiny mass at first, until the picture, until the biopsy, and then it became much more. So much more. The raging cancer would take her from us in eleven weeks. She WOULD become the statistic of lung cancer, even though we never chose to believe she would. How could she? She was healthy, vibrant, a virtual non-smoker, and anyway, these things don't happen to us, to this family...or do they?

On a glorious weekend, weather-wise, at least, our world shifted and we were never intended to be the same. The crisp mornings, warm afternoons, chilly evenings now represent so much more, and with each turning tree, falling leaf, there it is...the memories, the diagnosis, the pain, the treatments, the no known cure. There it is, and there it was, and here we are. And I can honestly say, that in the beginning, I would never have believed that I would sit here, four years into this, four years of learning to maneuver a life that was numb and seemed to have no course of action, no light, no joy, no laughter. But that has changed. God has seen to that, and has used Allison to help me see to it, too.

It's a glorious weekend, weather-wise, at least. It's a glorious life, if we find our own true driven purpose from the loss, the pain, the devastaion, the loneliness. It doesn't come easily and it doesn't come with no cost. The suffering brings on a new meaning to life, and even brings on a gratefulness of the heart, that is, when I can stay focused and thankful. I get to choose gratitude. I get to thank God for the 21 years we had with Allison, and even the eleven weeks, for now, I can capture glimpses of those glorious days, days spent in talking, planning, understanding and growing. I get to be thankful that my pain must be only a shadow of the suffering she endured as a cancer warrior, as the brave soul who went into battle every day. I tell myself, so often, that I DON'T need to remember and remind myself of the time she "suffered" while here. I remind myself that where she is there is no pain, no sadness, no illness, no time, only freedom and glorious weekends. She sits at the hand of God, now, and while I cannot help but feel autumn in my heart, to my core, I know that life continues in the ever present circle God intended. Babies are born, Mason, and Mylah, and Maria and those too numerous to mention. Lives are lived. We capture moments. We try and we remain strong, and I ask God to know my heart when I don't know it myself. My heart cries, yet no tears come from my eyes. I don't know whether I am coming or going, or how we even got to October, but we did. We went places, saw things, experienced joys, found laughter, and I am beginning to learn how to dance with the cloak of grief.

It is a glorious weekend, weather-wise, and it is October and it holds too much to bear, at times. Then again, I am reminded of a spirit who has become my mentor, my guide, who never leaves me, my daughter whom I carried under my heart. I am reminded that God the Father looks at me as His child, not an adult, not a grown up with all the answers, but a child who will always need His guidance, love, mercy and grace. I am reminded that I have a choice, I can coil up and retreat, ignore the sounds of the children playing outside, pass up the opportunities that lie before me, miss out on the merriment of the lives of those I love. I will not take this lying down, I will be that warrior that Allison was, and is, I will find a way to my own light and shine it when I can. I will be all I can be as her mother.

It IS a glorious weekend, weather-wise, and all ways. All I am promised is right now, this day, this moment, and I affirm that I will do my best to seize it, remember with whatever conviction of the heart that comes my way, and move in a way that is pleasing and beautiful. I long to make this a glorious life, as I honor the one that left before me, my baby, my child.