9/9/2020

Today marks 14 years since you left. In terms of time, my grief is an adolescent, moody and angst-filled. I am sulky and vigilant in my annoyance of all that you and I have missed. Urban vernacular calls this FOMO (fear of missing out,) applicable to our relationship and your absence from my life. It isn’t the act of dying; it’s the being gone, the removal from a shared space with those you hold dear.

Years ago, when my grief was an infant, a counselor suggested that God provides a window for those who have passed, a view from above. I intellectually cold jumped her, using the rest of my 50-minute session to pick apart her attempt to be helpful. Was it a hatch window? Was it a bay window? Was it stained glass? Did the window open? Was there also a door? Was there a house? Was it single story? Did it have a yard? What about a swimming pool? Were there HOAs? She accepted my co-pay without scheduling our next appointment. You know how I can be sometimes, assaulting that which I can’t control.

While I subscribe to an afterlife, I’m not sure it’s as any of us imagine and if it’s heaven, looking down below at our world right now is surely going to be a rainstorm on your rapture party. 

Back when I was battling with the counselor, my anger stage was white hot. My hands were in a perpetual fist, ready to combat what had been decided without my input. You had died and there was no do-over. The permanence was rattling.

I am better now, assimilating my grief into acceptable mainstream behavior. 

I was at the farm today. Mr. Jesse is doing the mowing and the house looks good. I am sorry about your rose bushes and irises and all the things I haven’t been able to hold together, including our family. Perhaps if we sit down and talk sometime, I can explain how I’ve been the pattern breaker and that I take solace in being David to Goliaths. Biologically, blood is thicker than water. Emotionally, this analogy can clot and clog, choking out arteries, requiring a cleanse.

Thomas has fancy cows in the pasture and donkeys to ward off coyotes. I know, not just wild dogs; there are real coyotes there now. The cows are beautiful livestock and if you were alive and current with modern lingo, you would call that cattle, bourgeois, bougie for short. You’d like this term and using it would make us laugh.

Word has it that Miss C is sick. Hospice has been summoned. Look for her in the coming weeks. I can only imagine the reunion you’ll have with your high school bestie. Have a good time; don’t look out the window.

2020 has been a crazy year. A pandemic has swept the globe and many have become sick. Many have died. People were quarantined in their homes and we now wear masks most everywhere we go. There have been mixed signals and confusing rulings. Businesses have suffered. People have suffered. People have turned junk yard dog kind of mean. The virus will eventually leave but we will remain scarred. Rather than being united against this killer germ, our country has become divided and this plague has become socio-economic and political and personal and so sad. I hope there’s not a window for you to watch, if there is, close the damn blinds.

There aren’t many days that I don’t think of you or experience awareness of your influence. Many of my friends have struggle bus relationships with their mothers. I’m so grateful that you were mine and that you modeled how to live and love fully. You and I, we had joy in being together and that’s really something. I didn’t always get how special it was, but now I do. 

Your banana pudding is still a hit in all circles. I have employed it recently as a gift to neighbors, an act of unsolicited humanity through difficult days. It takes a long time to make your recipe and I am aware of what I stir in, love and hope making laps atop a wooden spoon. It pleases the palate and warms the heart, just as you intended. My friends call it “Manna Pudding.” I know that would make you smile.

This summer our community lost a friend and her dying wish in lieu of flowers or donations was to “pass on love and kindness to someone at every opportunity.” You understood kindness and how it was different from its Botox sister, nice. Kindness lifts weights, works out, shows up, isn’t into optics or accolades. Kindness tells the truth. Kindness is for real.

I sat at your grave for a while today. I didn’t have much to say. It’s peaceful for me to look at your chiseled name and know that you are close, not in that ground, but in the air, the plants, the stars, the fog, the twilight, the sunrise, the water, the protective donkeys, the world.

I carry you and you are light in my saddle, a bundled love that that has no end. You are remembered today and for always. Window or not, I see you, and that is enough.