Life is Weird: When Worlds Collide

 

Sunday, Tim took Margaret down to college to get set up in a new apartment. In another life, I would have gone too, helping her organize her closet, treating her to lunch, maybe taking Charlie for a walk around a local winery. You know, grown-up, empty-nest stuff. 

Instead, I was on Andrew-duty. I'd hoped for a sweet mother-son day since he's been really busy with outdoor camp this summer. While he still loves me, he hasn't been trying to climb back into my uterus like last year.  Instead, he has become friend-obsessed. To his great disappointment, all the neighbors were either on outings, at the pool, or out of town. I remember this developmental stage with Jack, when he would peer out our kitchen window to see if his buddy across the driveway was awake. He'd run out the door in his pj's to greet him, often forgetting to put on shoes. Margaret was more content to stay home, or participate in whatever fun Jack drummed up.

So as Andrew and I rode scooters up and down the street, looking for someone to play with, I thought about how weird life is. A tired, sweaty 51 year old on her dead son's Razor scooter, trying to keep up with her 5 year old on his new, entirely too-fast one. Hours later he would smash his head on a driveway, at the exact spot his helmet did not protect, but that is a story and a worry for another day.

I remembered how Jack considered it a good day when his special friend was available, and a bad day if  he wasn't. I remembered how the worst day of all of our lives was a day that same little boy was available  when he normally wouldn't have been. And how playing outside that late afternoon changed everything. 

I realized how if it weren't for that moment, we wouldn't be experiencing this one.

I could feel September creeping into my bones. The dread and weepiness, largely kept at bay, but arriving early this year. Maybe because of menopause or the fact that Andrew is about to start Kindergarten. Maybe it's due to a year and 1/2 of worry, weariness, grief and disruption because of Covid. Yet most likely it's because the 10 year mark looms. 

I hesitate to write about that creeping feeling, because I don't want dear ones who are early on their paths of grief to recoil and feel they are doomed to despair so far down a road that seems almost inconceivable to them. For now they must operate in the day by day, and the hour by hour. Secondary losses will pile up in their own time, and no one needs my gloomy rumination to take them further into the pit than they already are. My passion and privilege these past 10 years has been showing that healing, peace, and even (real, unforced!) joy are possible after great loss. I'm a regular, flawed person who keeps showing up for life-- not the one I thought I'd have, but the one I do have. And I am utterly convinced that Jack is happy and he is right here with me. 

Most days I am even grateful to be parenting a little one, but it's something I have to dig deep for. It's no joke to parent again right when your nurturing and caregiving hormones have exited the building, and when your friends are "finding themselves"-- in new careers, relationships, or exotic locales. It's harder than I thought, and I thought it would be pretty hard.

Anyway, because I'm a woman and can keep 1,000 tabs open in my brain at once, all of these thoughts were on my mind as I walked, scootered, and watched for cars. A young man left my neighbor's house and climbed into his car. I had Andrew pull to the side so the car could pull out. The young man flashed a mega-watt smile as I waved him past, and all of my weird worlds collided at once. 

He wasn't just anyone; he was the special friend, the one whose days with Jack were his very best days, until the one that was everyone's worst. I don't know what the chances were for this encounter after so many years, in a different neighborhood, right at the moment I was pondering the intensity of young friendships, the potential (no, the certainty) of pain, and wondering if I'd have the strength to navigate it all again. I wondered what the young man was thinking, especially when he saw Jack's mini-me. What did he remember from those hot days so long ago? What did he make of me, a decade older, once a daily presence in his life, but then suddenly no more, because I needed to deal with my own family's trauma and let others tend to his?

I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, but kept on. We didn't find anyone to play with, so we ended up going to mini-golf, the ice cream shop, and the dollar store. Our very long day was a mix of highs and lows-- loneliness, hurt feelings, a tantrum, a scooter crash, deliciously sticky fingers, and a hole in one. 

I think in the coming weeks I will try to emulate early-grievers and re-learn to take things hour by hour and day by day. 

*********

IMPORTANT: If you subscribe to this blog by email, that feature is being disabled by the blog company in a few days. I do have your emails and will try to send posts to you that way, but it will no longer be automatic, and I am technologically impaired, so I can't promise I'll figure it out. I'm usually over on facebook at An Inch of Gray and Instagram @annawhistondonaldson and would love keep in touch that way too. XOXO

Busy Bee

Last week was a challenge, with Tim traveling, Andrew getting a cold that quickly turned to croup and landed him in the ER, and the painful lead-up to Jack's 19th (yes, NINETEENTH!) birthday on Sunday.

There were many bright spots too.

Andrew and I were playing on our hill when he made a bee-line for the garage in search of something. He came out with a toy shovel and started heading toward a neighbor's house. He'd spotted their enormous pile of mulch and wanted to "help" shovel it.

These kids notice everything, don't they? The only thing that got him away from their mulch pile was his fortuitous discovery of a balance bike in the garage I'd bought at a yard sale for when he was older. Much older.

Here he is all tangled up in it. It took some serious restraint not to untangle him, but I could tell he didn't want help, "I OKAY! I OKAY!"

Today, he was at it again. After some time lovingly embracing our local fire hydrant, he saw the mulch guys show up in a big truck, and he wanted part of the action.

This time he got his wheelbarrow and took it down so they could all compare equipment. He wanted to be sure they knew his wheelbarrow has ONE WHEEL, so please get that on the record.

So glad he's on the mend. I love seeing how his mind works. Now Tim and I are trying to teach him to sleep on his own after being sick...

Parenting my Heart, 5 Years Later

For a Parent on the Death of a Child

No one knows the wonder

Your child awoke in you,

Your heart a perfect cradle

To hold its presence.

Inside and outside became one

As new waves of love

Kept surprising your soul.

Now you sit bereft

Inside a nightmare,

Your eyes numbed

By the sight of a grave

No parent should ever see.

You will wear this absence

Like a secret locket,

Always wondering why

Such a new soul

Was taken home to soon.

Let the silent tears flow

And when your eyes clear

Perhaps you will glimpse

How your eternal child

Has become the unseen angel

Who parents your heart

And persuades the moon

to send new gifts ashore.

Written by John O’Donohue and published in  “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings”

Thank you, Jack, for all the gifts you have given me in life and in death. Loving you is an honor. I choose joy every day, and I bet that makes you proud.

XOXO, 

Mom

And She's Off!

Praying that this wonderful girl has an awesome first day of school and field hockey game afterward!

We are focusing on this momentous first day of high school with our cutie, and not doing anything special as a family to commemorate the 4th Crapiversary of losing Jack. One of our friends will be planting a beautiful tree at the cemetery for us, and we will go see it in a few days.

I have no wise or beautiful words, but I will say that life is complicated and I'm grateful every day for your love and support.

Three Years Today

Three years ago today, we weren't perfect, but we had a rhythm; the pieces of our family fit together so precisely, so genuine a complement, one to the other, that to imagine one of the pieces gone would have been an impossibility. 

We felt on the cusp of something good. Was it a great year ahead in school? Was it, with the grueling business of raising tiny ones behind us, that Tim and I could just be in wonder for a little while, really enjoying the neat people our kids had become? 

Instead, we lost Jack that September 8th.

The balance is gone from our family, our lives, but we move forward each day. We eat family dinners. We watch America's Got Talent and the Amazing Race, just as we always did. It has been three long years since we've seen our son, touched him, heard his perspective on things. If he was not a loud kid, why are things so quiet around here? Still, at least once a week, I'll think, "Wait until I tell Jack this!" or "What's Jack going to do while Tim, Margaret and I are at soccer?" as if he has just been in another room all along.

It would be hard to pinpoint what I miss most. Because in my mind's eye, Jack is no longer 12, but is now 15, so I also miss things that I don't even know how to recognize or name. Glimmers of a teenage boy and early manhood that were just an idea when we lost him.

I guess the thing I miss the very most is the way I could just grab him, whenever he walked by me and give him a hug or a kiss, and he'd let himself be pulled close, let his hair be ruffled. Perhaps he'd be balking at that by now, twisting away from my gentle grasp. But I don't know.

It gets easier. It does. One truly can have hope and joy and laughter and growth after such a loss. Tim, Margaret, and I are walking, living, breathing proof.

But that doesn't mean I don't still wonder sometimes if all of this has just been a bad dream.

Jack,

We Love You. We Miss You. We'll Never Forget You.

Long-ish Recap of the Crapiversary Weekend With Photos to Hold Your Attention?

Last Thursday night was the worst. Even though Thursday, the second day of school, wasn’t the actual DATE of the crapiversary this year, it felt like it was. It was like one big flashback from hell.

Every moment of that day took us right back to that Thursday a year ago, but we were helpless to change the outcome. A rainy morning. A day of work. Conversations with colleagues. The drive to the school carpool line. The humid air was heavy, as were our spirits. As five pm turned to six, I thought, “Why couldn’t we have been eating dinner like we usually were? Like we are now? Why did the electricity have to be out? Jack wanted to upload his Lego projects from the camera! Didn’t the other kids have homework that day?”

We went to bed remembering how it felt to climb into bed a year before, little Margaret in between us, hoping that sleep would erase the horror of the previous hours and bring our kid back to us.

Friday was hard, but not as brutal.

When Saturday and the actual date of September 8 arrived, we felt much better. Peace surrounded us. I’ve learned not to question this, but just to appreciate and accept pockets of peace when we get them.

Cards, flowers, new blue ribbons all over town and even on our local boys’ football helmets, emails, and many acts of love like Jack’s dear friend Courtland coming to mow the grass let us know that no one was forgetting what day it was.

When I stepped outside to get the paper, I saw hundreds of origami birds in the tree in front of our house. Our bird feeder tree. Our Easter egg tree. Cranes, geese, and many other birds swung in the breeze, celebrating our own Rare Bird and taking us back to his first word—uttered at a freakishly young age--when he saw the origami birds above his changing table.

The day felt covered in prayer, and indeed, so many of you were praying for us. My lovely Monkee sisters at Momastery wrote Jack’s name on their hands as a reminder to pray all day long. Photo after photo of “Jack” on hands of all ages and colors lifted us up all day long. I wanted to grab the tiny chubby ones and give them kisses and squeezes. It felt like the burden was spread out and shared all day long.

I’ve thought so much about this communal aspect of suffering.

If we—Tim, Anna and Margaret-- have to suffer no matter what, being separated from Jack, does it make sense to have others suffer with us? Would it be better to spare them? Saturday we experienced what it feels like to have a part of this burden carried by someone else and someone else and someone else all over the world. And although it may have felt a little like we were asking too much of others, it also felt right and holy.

We went to the cemetery to see the newly installed bench. Which turned out as well as something so crappy could. We laughed, we talked, we said a prayer. After that we made a run for the border to sit in “our booth” at Taco Bell. And yes, I tasted my first Doritos Locos Taco in Jack’s honor.

If you saw us, joined by my sister and her kids, you would have noticed a lot of laughter and silliness and fun. His name came easily. We remembered him with love, not pain, which has been an inexplicable blessing since day one of this nightmare.

We headed home right before a Tornado warning kicked in. Yep. Seriously. Out of nowhere, the sunny day turned dark and windy and violent rain poured down. And even with that, our shitty neighborhood creek remained empty, just as it has been all summer. Well.

Hunkered in the basement playing Apples to Apples, of course we kept thinking of that storm exactly one year before, but still we laughed and played. We did a puzzle in Jack’s honor.

Afterward, we started an early movie. While we were inside watching “The Hunger Games,” our neighbors were preparing a stunning surprise for us. Luminaria lined the long driveway. Each paper bag had a note about Jack on it. His teachers, friends, and neighbors shared memories, and it was beautiful to read that others could see what we saw in him.

We walked up and down the driveway reading, enjoy the now crisp, cool weather and feeling the LOVE. The love of so many people. The love of God. Jack’s love. And then, our neighbors showed us photos they had taken while setting up our surprise. Photos of a beautiful sunset -—pinks, purples and blues--right over the creek.

In the other direction, directly over our house, was an enormous double rainbow.

Yes, while we were inside watching a movie about kids competing in a match to the death, our dear friends were being lifted up and encouraged by God. We don’t get a lot of rainbows in our town. I’ve rarely if ever seen one here in my 40 plus years. Photos flooded in from friends across the country, of amazing sunsets and rainbows. Reminders of God’s faithfulness. Reminders that life does not end. And we felt grateful.