cemeteries

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Weighted to the Ground

This morning I drove to my hometown to get my hair trimmed. I go every 6-8 weeks and I often find it therapeutic. My dear friend, Lisa, has been cutting my hair for over 20 years. We were co-workers and friends before she began her shop with her business partner, Tanda. So when I get my hair cut and my eyebrows waxed, it’s typically a fun time–a time to catch up and a time for both of them to laugh as I swear and yell as Lisa rips my eyebrows off.

I was listening to my running playlist as I drove towards St. Albans. I had a pretty good run earlier and I wanted to keep my good mood going. Yet just 2 miles after I left my home, one of my favorite songs, “Little Bird” by Annie Lennox began to play. I’ve talked about this song before. It’s one that my brother added to one of two running cds he made me shortly after I started running 13 years ago, and we were both huge fans of both the Eurythmics and Annie Lennox. Since my brother’s death, it’s become a song that reminds me of him. I remember singing it with him in the car, and just this morning, I remembered how we would sometimes run our hands and arms out the car windows like a bird.

I had forgotten that little memory.

And since today is the eve of Phil’s death anniversary, it triggered the memories of that horrible day.

I was in his hospital room again, watching him trying to tear out his IVs so we wouldn’t see him hooked up to many machines. I was at the foot of his bed again with my sister, as we looked at the chart on his wall that showed how little he weighed–just 140 pounds at 6’5″. I was there again, holding his hand, telling him we came to say goodbye and that I loved him and my husband loved him and his nephew loved him. I was there once again, watching him nod his head over and over, like he was saying, “I know, I know.”

And then I was driving. I drove about 2 miles with no recognition this morning. None.

Needless to say, I sobbed much of the rest of the drive.

Yet just before I arrived at Lisa’s, I remembered my mother on that day. At one point Phil’s partner, Larry and I, went to talk to Phil, to convince him that it was ok not to live this way. It was ok to let go because we knew that was what he wanted, but it must have also been the scariest fucking thing to decide. (I remain steadfast in my knowledge that I saw the most courageous act that day when Phil made the decision to die.) Once he nodded his head and made that decision to be taken off of his life support, Larry and I went back to the private family waiting room. I remember my mother looking up at me with what I can only view as hope and saying, “What did he say?” I’m not sure what I replied exactly, but I think it was something like, “He doesn’t want to keep going.” But I do remember Mom’s face crumpling and shaking her head and lowering it to cry.

When I left Lisa’s, I just wanted to be with my mom. I went to her grave which is also in my old hometown. Once I got to the cemetery, I was jarred by the fact that the large, beautiful tree in front of the cemetery was cut down. “What the fuck?” I yelled. I realize the tree was probably dead or dying and would have toppled over and broken headstones. That better be why because it was really upsetting. Without that shade and just the glorious trunk, leaves and branches, the cemetery looks exactly like what it is–a field of stones. If a place like that is possible to get more depressing, it did.

I parked near Mom’s headstone, grabbed a blanket from my car, knelt down in front of her stone and wept. I talked to her, told her how much I missed her and Phil and Dad. I brushed off her stone and laid my forehead on it. I wasn’t there for very long. I just needed to see her name and pretend that she was there.

I stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home, feeling a bit dazed. I walked slowly in, bought dishwasher detergent and Tide Pens and left. As I walked across the parking lot, I saw this guy walking toward the entrance. I started to wonder if his day had been anything like mine. Did he spend part of the morning crying at his mother’s gravestone, laying his head on the warm stone, kissing her name? Did he wish she was there just for a few minutes to hold him, to listen to his worries and his frustrations?

I hope not.

But you never really know what others are going through, do you? Like Lennox’s “Little Bird,” some of those people you see each day may be “a troubled soul who’s weighted, weighted to the ground” and are just not able to fly.

Friends, in honor of my lovely brother, Phil, my “person,” I hope you take a little time this weekend and do something to feel like you are truly alive. Do something you absolutely enjoy, something to make you feel good. In Phil’s last few years of life, he couldn’t do much, but tried to live through food, whether it was making a fun international dish, or just enjoying whatever he ate or drank.

Tomorrow I will be hiking with two of my best friends. Typically, my son and I do something together, but now that he’s 16 with a job, license, and boyfriend, he’ll be working then hanging out with his lovey. We’ll both be spending time with some people that we love and that’s a huge part of what it means to live well.

Please, my friends, take a minute to hug, kiss, talk with or just touch someone you love this weekend, too. (With their permission, of course.) You won’t regret it.

Hugs and sloppy kisses.

❤

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Quiet

Ever have one of those days where you just want to be quiet? Probably sounds like a silly question coming from a librarian, although in my public library we don’t encourage quiet. We encourage interaction and communication. But today was not a particularly busy day, and I was grateful for that.

Today I wanted everyone around me to speak in monotones and I said as few words as possible. I could still listen to people talk, but I didn’t want to hear any loud voices or screaming. Laughing was ok, though. My eyes felt partially closed all day and I felt like I was underwater….no. That’s not a good analogy. I’d panic if I was underwater for more than two seconds. Everything just seemed…fuzzy.

I think it’s Grief Vision. This is how I felt when I was in-between deaths and burials or funerals, or the weeks afterward. Grief Vision makes everything look kind of cloudy and I’m tired and a bit apathetic towards the world. Today I wasn’t tremendously sad, but I felt lonely. Lonely for the people who are no longer here. Not just for those that have died, but even for those I can’t see in person due to distance or disagreements.

I know this all stems from the fact that it’s Mom’s birthday today. She should have been 75. I’m at the point when I can remember her and smile or laugh at things we did together. I have residual disappointment from some of her actions, but the fact is those actions were not directed towards me which has always placed me in a weird place. I will love my mother until the day I die. I do wish I could have asked her a few questions, but to be honest, I’m not sure I would have. I was always afraid of disappointing her or having Mom angry with me. She rarely was, but that could be because I have the “good girl syndrome.” When you grow up in a messed up home, I think you choose a role to play or your personality pushes you towards a task within your family. Some rebel and act out, some stay quiet and hide, and others try to be extra “good,” hoping to make peace within the family. That last one was and is me through and through and it’s time to stop.

Is it a bad thing, being a good person? No, of course not. But if you’re always trying to be that good person for someone else, it’s not always good for YOU. I don’t regret many of the decisions I made in the past so I could be that good person for my family, but I’m trying to make good choices for me now.

One of those choices was to visit Mom’s grave. This initially felt like I was doing this for Mom, to be that good daughter who always did the right thing–visited on all holidays and every Saturday, kept track of doctor appointments and medicines to refill, placed her in a nursing home that dealt with Alzheimer’s patients. Ok. That last one was something Mom didn’t appreciate but I think it was the right thing to do. Maybe?

Anyway, I went to Mom’s grave because it was her birthday and she should have coffee. I bought a Dunkin Donut’s coffee…then realized I locked my keys in the car. Let me say I have NEVER done this. Not once in my 32 years of driving and car ownership. (Although someone may have another story that I truly don’t remember, so forgive me if my memory is faulty. It happens.) Unbelievably, I was extremely calm about the whole thing. I called my husband and asked for my spare key (we live 35 minutes away). I sat outside with my pumpkin spice coffee (sorry, Mom, but I’m drinking this) and waited. As I sat there, soaking in the warm afternoon sun in the crisp fall air, I had an epiphany. Can’t these long orangutan arms fit through the one partially opened car window?

Yup. They can.

I called the husband, told him I got into the car and I was off to the cemetery.

Each time I go to Mom or Dad’s grave, I always bring a blanket to sit on. That’s what I did today, and placed the coffee beside Mom’s stone. Then I laid my head on Mom’s name and started to sob. I don’t remember the last time Mom held me, but I imagined it this evening. I let the stress and tension and anger and fear and sadness drain from my body, or at least that’s what I hoped was happening. It was somewhat cathartic and completely exhausting. I sat up when I could cry no longer, and drank my coffee, apologizing to Mom for drinking it…and the fact that it was pumpkin flavored…and talked to her for a while. I laughed out loud thinking about what her reaction would be to my/her drink and I complimented her on the view. Mom has some pretty fabulous trees around her along with some of her friends beside her and behind her.

As I traced Mom’s name on her stone with my finger, I realized that this visit really was for me. It might have started out trying to do the right thing for Mom, but I think it ended up being the right thing for me. I needed to be near my mother somehow, and being in the town I grew up in and in the town where I knew my mother best, it was the closest I could be to her.

It wasn’t a hug, but it was something. ❤

by

Losses and Gains

  • My sweet Papa
  • Robyville Bridge
  • Denmark Flag treat
  • Just trying to breathe…

Today should have been Dad’s 80th birthday. I say “should have”, although he would probably disagree. He was shocked to make it past 70 and he was 2 months shy of his 78th birthday when he died. I also should have run my first marathon today, in honor of Dad. But neither of those things happened.

Yesterday, just like with Mom on Mother’s Day, I visited Dad’s grave. Since it was a Saturday close to Memorial Day, there were a bunch of people in the cemetery, which I hated. Dad would have waved to most folks that were nearby and say “How are ya?” (although it would sound like “Whyya”), but I just kept my head down and set up our picnic.

Dad used to make whirligigs, some were funny, some obscene, and some were just cute. I didn’t plan well enough but for the moment I placed a few small pinwheels, just to have something moving in the breeze. I brought my dad Cheez-Its, which were one of his favorite snacks. There’s an inside joke between my husband and my dad and they used to exchange a box of these crackers nearly every Christmas. It all stemmed from the time my then fiancé drove my dad to Pennsylvania for my graduate school graduation, and my father ate a whole box of Cheez-Its…and proceeded to have horrible gas…and they were trapped inside this little Ford Escort with hours left to drive. It was something they both used to laugh about and bonded over as only men can.

Once I set out snacks and my water bottle, I just sat in front of Dad’s stone and plucked the grass around it and ran my hands over the smooth stone. I could hear people around me, including a man about 20 feet from me laughing into his phone. I tried to block him and the others out, when I started to cry. I was angry and overcome with that loss again–that emptiness I feel when I realize I can never have another conversation with my father. But also the absurdity of the situation. I was bringing my father treats he would never eat again. His body was far beneath the ground I was sitting on and I know this because my sister and I helped put his body in that fucking hole. And all around me people are planting bushes and flowers to sit around these stones with our loved ones names carved into them. But…why?

I wiped my eyes and started to talk to Dad. I told him I loved and missed him. Told him we were all surviving, how tall my son is, how work is going. The usual things we discussed when he was alive. But Dad also liked to have deeper conversations. For a man that never liked to read, he did like to deconstruct thoughts or ideas. And I know some of what he’d say about his grave and stone. He never wanted to be cremated because he said, “I’ll be close enough to hell as it is.” He was traditional in some ways, hence the funeral home visiting hours, the church funeral, the burial. All the stuff that I hate, but the stuff that he and his wife knew and understood. But as I sat there, I also got it, I understood. In a way, I do like being able to “visit” my father. I like being able to still give him things, even if that’s just a plant or a plaque or mints (my father always had mints of some kind and I leave at least one wintergreen lifesaver every time). I do talk to him occasionally when I’m home or somewhere else, so I don’t save that for the cemetery. Honestly I usually get upset when I go to Dad’s grave in particular because I can’t feel him. I’ve visited his grave on days that I just really wanted to talk with him, and I’ve always left even more bereft then when I arrived because he’s not there. I always think that I’ll feel something, like his spirit is somehow there, but it isn’t. It really isn’t. But…I also don’t even believe in spirits anyway! See how confused I am?

I just want to believe in something because it’s too devastating to think my parents and brother are just…gone.

No longer exist.

Dead. Forever.

So…I continued to talk to Dad. Why the hell not? The cemetery cleared out, the breeze died down and the black flies started to swarm. “Dad, I’m going to go, ok? As you would say, the black flies are about to pick me up and slam me to the ground!” I kissed his grave stone and told him I’d be back next month.

When I drove home, I saw the sign for the Robyville Bridge–a historic covered bridge in Corinth. I had been there before but I felt the need to go there again. I just took a few photos, avoided the couple that was there as much as possible, walked then ran across the bridge. That need I felt to go to the bridge was like a need to feel alive, to experience something new. Even something as simple as looking at, admiring and running across a covered bridge fulfilled that need.

As I woke up this morning, the day I should have been running for hours and hours and had trained for for many months, I figured I might as well try to start training again. So far my leg is better (although I am now aware that could change at any time). My heart isn’t in it as much as before, but hopefully that will change. The run I took was just 4 miles this morning, but it was already 73 degrees and humid at 9am. It wasn’t a pleasant run for the first half. At the 2.75 mile mark, I had to walk (or shuffle) and drink more water. The sun was frying my brain and destroying my will to go on, until I heard the lovely tune of two geese squawking and flying in the sky just behind me. I have this thing for geese, and often wonder if it’s my family hanging out near my house. And today, after the geese flew over, the clouds rolled in and cooled things down just a tad and I immediately felt better. I laughed out loud and decided that my parents were giving me some support and urging me to keep going. So I did.

This afternoon, I took my son to an international food festival at the high school near where I work, and we ate SO MUCH. One or both of us tried a food from every single country they had (except for Japan because they weren’t ready). We couldn’t pronounce some of the foods, a few were things we had eaten before, and others seemed strange but were typically delicious. It was a fun experience and one that I know the rest of my family would have enjoyed. If food was involved, my father would have been happy. He might have been a meat and potatoes man, but he was willing to try just about anything. It was a great way for us to honor Dad today.

Then on the way home from the festival, I saw a turtle in the road. Over the years, my mother picked up many, many turtles and sometimes brought them home. I distinctly remember finding a turtle in our bathtub on at least two occasions. I always stop for turtles and try to shoo them to the other side of the road. Typically my son hates it, but today he helped me and we just walked behind the turtle, moving it along so cars wouldn’t kill it. Seeing the turtle felt like a little “hello” from Mom…if I believed in that sort of thing.

And now as I sit here, thinking about the days ahead, I am a bit relieved that there are a few weeks until Father’s Day and my brother’s birthday–they happen to fall on the same day this year. A double whammy. Maybe I’ll have a few more gains and pluses and good moments before then. Maybe I’ll have more bad days than good. No matter what though, I will keep remembering, keep running if physically possible, and keep my eyes to the sky. Because you just never know, right? You just never know.