Thursday, December 31, 2015

Toast to Tradition (sort of)


Tradition.
It allows us to dance in the streets at Mardi Gras and demands a sacrificial turkey at Thanksgiving. It reflects culture, history and our personal stories. And of late, it has been on my mind.
This particular chain of ruminations was sparked by a casual encounter in the bank lobby a week or two ago. I was seated, waiting on a bank officer, when three women walked in: two in traditional Middle Eastern garb and one not.  I waved at the seats near me, commenting, “You might prefer sitting over here – if you sit in those chairs (gesturing to the other side), you'll be in the sun.” The woman not wearing a hijab smiled, sat down next to me and countered, “But I’m from Kuwait. I’m used to being in the sun!” 
We laughed and fell into conversation. With one bank officer on duty and half-a-dozen customers waiting, there was plenty of time to chat.
My new acquaintance shared that she had come for the wedding of a nephew and was reveling in the chance to spend time with her sisters, whom she had not seen in a while. Then she said something profoundly gracious. “I love that my first visit to your country happened during your Christmas. As a Muslim, I respect Jesus highly and think your traditions celebrating his birth are beautiful.”
My first thought was that she must not have gotten stuck yet in the madness of a sale-induced frenzy at the mall.  
But on the heels of that thought was appreciation for the ease with which she let me know “This is who I am. I see who you are. I respect your story.”  
When the bank officer called my name, I kind of wished he’d delayed a little longer. There was a certain delight in that casual, unguarded encounter of two people from very different traditions.
Thus, my current line of reflection.
Tonight, our tradition dictates that we restart the clock. Over the past 12 months we have filled the stage of 2015 and tonight, on the stroke of midnight, we are supposed to let it go. In the tradition I grew up with, we set fire to the stage on which we have placed our memories of the unforgettable, missed chances to fix the unfixable, and the failed certainty that those 10 pounds would never find us again.
Tomorrow will rise from the ashes, a clean slate, complete with resolutions with which to fill 2016.
Except that I already made my resolution before Christmas. I even blogged about it.
And I don’t really want to let 2015 go up in smoke. Even the painful moments are part of my story.
So tonight, I’m bending tradition a little. Instead of letting go of the old, I’m learning something new. (Or will, as soon as I quit procrastinating. Honestly, the tutorial for my something new is 4 hours long!)
Not a fan of black-eyed peas, I generally opt for the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes. But I’m out of grapes and the grocery store was too busy for comfort, so I'm bending that tradition, too.
I'm thinking 4 grapes per glass of wine should be about right. 
Happy New Year, everyone!

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Wishing you a very sticky Christmas



I know what Christmas smells like, and it isn’t pumpkin pie. It’s Scotch tape.

When I was a little girl, there were noises that meant Christmas - like the crowds and vendors in the streets and the bustle of the Tía department store in downtown Quito. There was the taste of ice cream in Aloag on our way back down the mountains. And finally, once we were home and scurried to our own little corners to wrap gifts, Dad would pull out the good tape. The Scotch tape with its own distinctive smell. 
 
Over the years, that smell came to mean home and family and excitement around the corner.

Over the more recent years, I have become a master at losing the tape.  Every Christmas I buy more, not because we use it up but because I’ve lost the tape purchased the year before. It simply disappears into the multitude of boxes and drawers of things “I’ll put away someday”.

As I’ve gotten caught up in the rush of work, of keeping up with friends and family, of always moving from one project to the next, one event to the next, the toe-tingling excitement of things around the corner is also often missing.

As my family has settled, each in our own pocket of the world, there’s no more dashing down a different stair in Tía so my brother won’t see what I bought him, or waiting till my sister leaves the room so I can wrap her present (which is in a super-top-secret hiding place under my bed). My children are grown and have their own lives, my parents have passed away.  

Someday, I want to sell my house and move to something a little less permanent.  I don’t like geographic roots. If you look around my house, you’ll find few pictures on the walls. There are several boxes that have never quite been unpacked. 

It occurred to me recently, though, that by never fully moving in I haven’t avoided roots; I’ve avoided a home. I’ve failed to truly live where I am.

So I’ve decided. In the spirit of Christmas and life renewed, this is my season to reset.  I’m emptying boxes, pulling out pictures to hang. Tomorrow, my kids and grandkids are all coming together for our Christmas celebration and excitement is starting to lap the edges of my toes. It’s time to make “home” a way of life, no matter where I live it.

And if inspiration to keep my reset on track is ever needed, all I have to do is look at the stacks of Scotch tape in my desk. I have Christmas in a drawer and plenty to share.

In fact, so far, I’ve found seven years’ worth.



Thursday, December 3, 2015

Panic and a can of spray


Just call me Slayer.

Early this morning I was sitting at my desk when I saw a bug wander across the papers in front of me. It looked like a “kissing bug” – you know, the kind that spreads chagas disease. Unsure of its identity, short on sleep and even shorter on patience, I grabbed the bamboo backscratcher from its place by my desk and brought it down with a mighty whack.

I’d forgotten that the borrowed pugs were underneath my desk.

Instantly, the air was filled with the sound of panicked pugs. Stella scrambled out and barked into the air, uncertain where the threat was.  Jake started sliding on the wooden floor, his little paws frantically trying to gain traction. He twisted and turned until he somehow slid into a slow, backwards circle. Stella stopped barking to watch.

As I laughed, I was struck by how often we humans do the same thing.  The more vulnerable we feel, the more we bark at imagined bogeymen, trying to gain traction as we slide in hopeless circles.

Late this evening, I was back at my desk for a bit. The exhausted pugs were in their kennel in the other room.

Suddenly, movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned. Skittering across my floor was another bug. (I’m seeing more of them lately and the culprit is me. It just seems silly to close the door every time I let the dogs out.)

This bug, however, was a cockroach. A really big cockroach. The kind guaranteed to give me instant heebie-jeebies.

I glanced around me. No shoes, of course; not in my house. The only things in reach - that were hard enough - were my favorite law dictionary and my external hard drive. I went digital and lobbed the hard drive at the beast.

And missed. The cockroach had a few heart palpitations and skittered in a different direction. I picked up the hard drive and threw it again. Missed again. I forced myself to stop and actually think.

Bug spray! There was some under the kitchen sink. The can promised that it “kills on contact”, so I wrestled with the top, took aim and sprayed.

The cockroach ignored it. 

I sprayed again. This time the roach slowed just a smidge.  At the rate we were going, it was a toss-up as to whether the roach would make it to the vent or I would run out of spray first. So much for death on contact.

Or maybe not.

Grabbing the spray once again, I snuck up on the slowing monster. Taking careful aim, I slammed the can down on top of it. Twice.

And that’s another thing about us humans. Once we let go of panic, we can usually find a way to make things work.

Even if it takes a back scratcher and a spray can.




Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Anthropomorphosis and common ground


The other day my son and I were discussing our culture’s tendency to anthropomorphize our pets.
 
On an intellectual level, I see the pitfalls of reading human expression into our pets’ faces, ascribing human emotions to their sounds, and otherwise blurring the lines between person and creature. It almost suggests that our love is dependant on finding common ground, speaking the same language. Then, of course, my intellect looks at our dysfunctional human relationships and how often we are loathe to seek any common ground all with our fellow man.
 
Intellect aside, I understand the blurry lines. After all, I am convinced that my dear Goofy Pooch herself thought she was human, and she didn’t seem far wrong.
 
At the moment, I'm dog-sitting. My friend is in the hospital and her pugs are temporary residents of my home.  Jake and Stella do not believe they are human.
 
Instead, they think I'm a pug.
 
When they put their heads together and make their little pug sounds, I suspect the conversation goes something like this: “Poor dear, she’s useful to have around, but she’s no show dog! Too tall, walks on only two paws, and - that nose! It’s as long as a terrier’s!”
 
My physical imperfections aside, they seem to like me. While I work, Stella stands beside my desk, staring off into space. Jake sits, tongue at the ready, in case something needs tasting. (When my son leaves the bathroom after a shower, Jake rushes in and ecstatically licks the air.)

Sometimes they sit on each other.  Sometimes they include me and sit on my feet. 
 
But despite my intellect and the pugs’ conviction that I'm one of them, to me Jake and Stella are the quintessential siblings on a road trip. “Mom, she looked at me!”  “Mom, he’s breathing on me!” 
 
I gave them each a rawhide strip. Stella took hers and wandered off to enjoy it. Jake took his, raced into my office, put the treat on the floor and prepared to defend it from Stella - who was three rooms away. When she finally made her way to the office, Jake fairly trembled with vindication.
 
In the end they ran off to play together, ultimately happy the other is alive.
 
That comraderie ends at suppertime.
 
While I fill their food dishes, Stella waits placidly, almost sleepily. But the moment the bowl is on the floor, she transforms. She attacks her kibble with singular focus, body quivering, snuffly sounds rising from the depths of her dinner until every last morsel is gone.
 
I'd been warned that they didn't eat well together, so the first night they were here, I put Jake’s bowl in the dining room. As soon as he saw me filling his dish, Jake leapt into the air with excitement. He made loops around me as I carried his bowl out of the kitchen and set it down. Then he, too, transformed. Suddenly blasé, he sauntered over to his dish and casually took a bite or two.
 
I found this hilarious.

Then the determined snuffling in the kitchen stopped. Stella had finished her food. Like a little wind-up toy, she came waddling around the corner and made a slow-motion beeline for Jake’s half-full dish.
 
Jake’s hackles raised. He growled.  Stella didn’t blink. 
 
Jake's growling got louder. His forelegs stiffened. Stella didn’t even pause.
 
When it seemed apparent that the pugs were on a collision course with no happy end, I stepped in. After all, I am their current human and therefore the alpha in their canine world.
 
“Stella, stop!” I commanded.
 
“Stella, stop, or you’ll be in time out!” 
 
Stella never even paused.
 
Jake started forward, stiff-legged, teeth bared.
 
Reacting on instinct, I swatted Jake with a firm “No!”, turned to Stella, bent down until our faces were level, and did the only thing I could think to do.

I growled.
 
I didn’t say “Grrr.” I growled. A full-throated, deep canine growl.
 
Stella stopped. She blinked.
 
Then, faced with this alpha response from her human, she turned around, found a corner - and put herself in time-out.
 
It seems that in our blurry lines, we found our common speech.
 


 

Friday, October 23, 2015

Reality Check

In the past couple of days I've posted a few things to social media. Light-hearted things, for the most part: travel notes, a comment here or there to someone else’s message. 

Reality is that my return to the U.S. was accelerated by a day so that I might desperately try to get back to Texas in time to tell my dying mother-in-law how much she meant to me.

This was the woman who was ready to love me for no other reason than that I was important to her son. She was the queen of instant and sometimes accidental quips. Her ability to listen without censure was legendary. Her laughter was quick, comfortable and often at her own expense. 

My mother-in-law had the ability to quietly shine her light on any and every one. You could not come within her orbit that she wasn’t willing to welcome you to her life. And this week that life suddenly began to ebb away.

Reality is that my flight touched down in Dallas around midnight and after a couple of brief stops I drove to the nursing facility, arriving just before 3 a.m.

Reality is that for the next 22 hours, my world revolved around that sweet, frail woman in the hospital bed.

And for those of us who sat with her, holding her hand, telling her over and over how much we loved her, sometimes Reality became too heavy to bear.

In those times, I would check out of my reality and visit yours. Your posts and pictures became little breaths of relief, a reminder that Reality is fluid and multiplaned.  

In the small hours of this morning, my beloved mother-in-law gently took her last breath.

Reality is, I miss her.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

On Cookies and Concerts


At the grand old age of 5-years-11-months, I made two significant discoveries. The first of these was Grandma.

We had come up from Ecuador to visit family, of whom I had no prior memory. I walked into this house and people were hugging my parents and siblings and me and this brunette lady gave me a squeeze and someone said, “This is your grandma,” and I didn’t believe them. At 5-years-11-months old I was a very good reader and the grandmothers in my story books always had grey or white hair. Always. Therefore, this brown-haired woman was an Imposter. I proceeded to tell her so.

My mother was mortified but Grandma just laughed and told me to go get a cookie from the jar in the kitchen. “I always keep some in there for your cousins,” she said. It was the right thing to say. In my story books, grandmothers always had cookies.

But that led to the second discovery: while I was off living my normal life, there were other children who also called this woman Grandma and those children got to raid Grandma’s cookie jar often, while I - because my parents had chosen to move to Ecuador - did not.
 
Over the years and on subsequent visits, I found that this life of parallel tracks had a lot to offer. In the U.S., there were Saturday morning cartoons and root beer. In Ecuador, I got to throw water balloons at strangers with impunity just because Lent was around the corner.

I had no complaints. Except one.

Living life on one track created gaps on the other. Where others had cultural references, I had blanks.

But we all have those blanks.  

It is the divergence of roads in Frost’s yellow wood.  Taking one path always means not taking another. Every road means a choice both to do and to not do.

There will always be places we didn’t go, things we didn’t do. And we can’t go back to fill in the blanks.

At least, not usually.  

I never went to a rock concert when I was a teen. Not a significant loss, perhaps, but a blank nonetheless. From Aerosmith to ZZ Top, the mega bands of my generation existed for me only in vinyl. I never stood in a large venue with thousands of fans and the heavy tattoo beat of a bass guitar.  

Last week, my friend Arline invited me to a rock concert. When the noise level allowed, she described the missing pieces, filling in the smoky haze and ubiquitous vendors of another era. Sure, in today’s version when we all stood up, our knees popped in unison. The only pills being fished out of pockets were not only legal, many were necessary. But it was a bona fide rock concert and I was there, filling in a blank.

That leads me to rediscover something else. Sometimes, we get a second chance to catch a glimpse of that other road, the one we didn’t take, and we appreciate that glimpse precisely because it was not part of our chosen path.  

Sometimes we get a little bonus.

We get to say “Been there.

"Done that”.  

Sometimes we may even get to buy the t-shirt.

 

Monday, June 1, 2015

Ashes to Ashes

We stood in the midst of tribal lands and committed my parents’ ashes to the earth as they had committed their lives to its people, and a memory pushed its way forward in my mind.

One of my chores as a child was to keep an eye on the trash fire. Trash pickup where we lived was not an option: we lived well outside any urban area.  Most inorganic trash was burned and someone had to keep an eye on the fire.

It was a wonder Mom and Dad ever let me have that chore. Especially after the Great Monopoly Smoke Out, when my bedspread fell victim to the candle I left burning too close in my zeal to finish the game. 

But trust me with it they did.  

One day, my mother sent me back out to the ash pit. This time, it was to gather the cold ashes left behind. She explained that ashes were useful in and of themselves. They could be used to create cleansing agents, neutralize orders, and serve as a nutrient for plants. That day’s ashes were bound for the garden, where they would boost new growth.

The hours-long service among the Tsachi people felt like an extended family reunion. We had the normal Oh-how-you’ve-growns (sometimes less about height and more about heft.) There were age comparisons, questions about family additions, and the inevitable How-long-has-it-beens with the equally inevitable answer: too long.  

Generations spoke. The dignified elderly man who knew my parents before I did; the impish young man who confessed to many a childhood detour to my folks’ place in the hope that Mom had made banana bread.

There was laughter. Pictures – oh, so many pictures! There was mention over and over of the work my parents had done, devising an alphabet, translating the Bible, helping navigate language barriers. But mostly there was talk of their love and service. 

Then we all piled into trucks, cars and vans and made our way to the tribal cemetery.  It was where the Tsachila – literally, The People – wanted Mom and Dad to be: forever among their own.

Friends, tribal elders and old neighbors stepped forward to join us four siblings and as we each shared words of memory that bound us together, I understood something about ashes.

For there to be ashes, there has to have been something else, first.

And when all that can perish to fire has been consumed, what is left is what could never be taken in the first place: the stuff that makes us grow.

Ashes to ashes and life to life.
 
Thank you, Mom and Dad.
 

Friday, May 15, 2015

On Fear and Flying


My seatmate on the airplane had a cough. It was a shallow cough, like he had something stuck in there. As the little instructional video played, the cough took on a punctuating rhythm: “To fasten your seatbelt…” (cough, cough) “pull tightly toward you…” (cough, cough).

I glanced over. He seemed distressed.  It would be a while before the flight attendants made their rounds with drinks, so I dug around in my purse and found a cough drop to offer him.

The man’s face lit up. He rejected the cough drop but grabbed my arm with both hands, thanking me over and over. My new best buddy leaned close. His breath should have come with a warning: keep away from open flame.  Eyes slightly glazed, he explained, “I cough when I’m nervous. And I’m absolutely terrified of flying.”

I nodded sympathetically, and my companion launched into his life story as we taxied down the runway. The faster we rolled, the faster he talked and the tighter he clutched my arm. With a little hop, we were airborne. Finally he turned, relaxed his grip and asked what I’d been doing in Ecuador. I explained that I grew up there and was visiting family. “Ah,” he nodded. “So you speak Spanish?”

“Yes,” I answered and switched languages. He stuck to English. He told me about his children. The flight attendants made the rounds. I had a glass of water. My buddy had two bottles of wine. 

“So,” he asked, filling the silence while he filled his glass, “what took you to Ecuador?” I explained again: grew up there, visiting family. “Ah,” he nodded. “So… did you learn any Spanish?”

The man wasn’t actually listening, just trying to drown out the fear. I smiled and nodded. He began nodding. The wine kicked in and he drifted off to sleep. I sipped my water and pondered the nature of fear.

I’ve never been afraid of flying. When I was little, I would undo my seatbelt on flights just to see how high the turbulence could bounce me. (Once, I flew so high that my head hit the console above me. I was too impressed to cry.)

On the other hand, I won’t willingly drive on tall one-lane overpasses.

If I find myself forced onto a high, skinny bridge, every sense goes on high alert. My heart pounds. My hands sweat. I creep along at a death-defying 5 miles an hour until I reach the crest and start the slow descent to solid ground.

Where my flight buddy feared what he could not control, what sucks the air out of my lungs is the sense that I might irrevocably and disastrously screw up what I do control. Either way, it’s fear. And the thing about fear is that the more we focus on it, the louder it becomes. Don’t try to explain why I won’t fall off that bridge – at that moment, I can't hear you. 

As I sat on my flight pondering the consuming nature of fear, we hit some impressive turbulence. Trays rattled. A sideways glance at my seatmate showed white knuckles gripping the armrest.

“Wheee!”  There was a sudden shriek of delight in front of me.

A little girl – maybe 5 or 6 – had her hands in the air, giggling wildly. “Look, Mommy!” she squealed as we bounced around.  “It’s making me dance!”

I wanted to throw my arms up and squeal right along with her, but this is the age of cell phone video. My own grownupness made me a little sad. When we don’t have control anyway, what’s a little dignity?

We landed safely. Once off the plane, I made a mad dash for Customs. There wasn't much time before my connecting flight. Once through security, I pulled out my boarding pass to check the gate. It was at the opposite end of the airport. My feet were beginning to hurt, I was hot and it was hard to go faster than a trudge, but I pointed myself in the right direction and started out. 

Beep. Bee-beep. An airport cart pulled up beside me.
 
“Do you need a ride--?” the young man started to ask, but by then my carry-on suitcase was on board and I was following suit.  

The driver was young and solemn-faced. He took his job very seriously and at full speed. We slalomed around other passengers and flew down hallways. We went so fast that the wind blew my hair back from my face. I couldn’t help grinning.

I thought of the little girl on the airplane and the little girl I was before I knew about tall overpasses; I thought of my seatmate and his white knuckles; I thought of how fear seduces our modern world into searching out every talking head and website that validates the terror du jour.
 
And as we sped down the halls of Miami International I threw jazz hands in the air and, mindful of my youthful driver’s dignity, loudly whispered, “Wheee!”

 


 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Redemption

In the garden of my will, you made me.

Like you, but not.
Steward, not God.
Authority given
through service required,
And yet I reached for more.
To be -
not like you,
but as you.
In that one, fatal grasp
at what I could not wield,
I settled for a lesser plan,
a smaller world.

In the desert of my choice, you met me.

Manna, not stone;
Service, not self;
Dominion laid down,
by authority owned.
My wilderness awash in wine,
You came –
not like me
but as me.
The sword I could not
lift, you raised
to sever bonds
that would release
a greater plan,
a higher world.

And in the garden of your will be done, I am remade.  



-cs ©2015



Sunday, March 22, 2015

Or

My seatmate on the flight from Miami was visibly confused.  She saw me pull out my book (in English), overheard me speaking (in Spanish), and kept shooting little glances my way that suggested I might be up to no good.  When we landed in Quito and were waiting to disembark she finally blurted out, "So - are you from here or from there?"

It's a question TCKs (third culture kids) hear regularly and to which we often have a variety of answers:
  ·   Both
  ·   Yes
  ·   It's complicated
  ·   When?
  ·   You want the long story or the short?
and so on. We can't help it; our worlds are not necessarily defined by the geopolitical boundaries described by a desktop globe.

I got to thinking about those boundaries and why we create them. Political power. Ideology. History. Family structure. Culture. Religion. You could probably add one or two.
 
The funny thing is, those reasons are reasons that are common to us all. Even our boundaries fail to fully divide.

When I was in junior high, my parents lived in a small town in the foothills of the Andes. I went to boarding school in the capital city, a three-hour bus ride away. There was one other family in town whose children attended the same school. On occasion, our parents would coordinate our travel so that the younger of us would always have an older teen to watch out for us.

After one particular holiday, bus space up to the capital was at a premium. The scene at the town square that served as an informal terminal for interprovincial buses was chaotic.  Mud everywhere, dogs underfoot, people heading to market, and in the midst of the madness attendants hung from bus doors yelling the names of their destinations.  "A Quito a Quitoooo!" "Esmeraldas, Esmeraldas, vamoooos!"  When a person's city was called, there was a push through the crowd to ask how many seats were available. You had to beat anyone else who might be pushing through the same crowd to claim the few seats up for grabs. So on that day, my friend Gwen and I stayed back with our moms and her brother Guy, while our dads did the requisite work to find us seats.
 
They could only get two seats on one bus that would arrive before it was too dark. Guy - our designated "older teen" - would have to come alone on a later bus.  Gwen and I were given the strictest of instructions to Stay Inside the Bus Terminal in Quito Until Guy Arrived.  Emphatic instructions. Repeated instructions. You'd think our parents knew us or something.
 
And so, we boarded.The interprovincial buses were all the same. Three seats to each side of each row meant there was always some stranger in close proximity. You hoped they didn't fall asleep on you. There were unscheduled stops along the way to unload passengers or pick up new ones waiting hopefully by the highway. There was always someone selling food, eating food or sharing food.
 
We got to Quito and the manager of the bus terminal told Gwen and me that our parents had called. Guy would be arriving in two hours. He fixed an authoritative adult eye on us and told us sternly to Sit Inside the Terminal Until Then. No Exceptions. 
 
As I'm not sure whether the statute of limitations on teenage adventures has yet expired, the rest of that particular tale will go untold for now. 

But yesterday, for the first time since high school, I rode an interprovincial bus. No longer confined to a series of little shop fronts on a busy street downtown, the Quito bus terminal looks more like an airport. A ticket agent pulled up the bus plan on her computer, selected my seat and took my fare with a smile. A young man in uniform checked my ticket before allowing me through the turnstile to the boarding area.

I climbed the steps into my bus. Two seats to each side of the row. Reclining seats. A small portion of the TV screen at the front of the bus showed the time, temperature, estimated time of departure and reminded everyone to ride safely.

What a difference time makes, I thought! It was a whole other world now, I thought! 

Then we pulled out of our bay and onto the open road.
 
Twenty minutes later, we reached a toll booth. The bus doors flew open. An attendant leaned out of the open doorway yelling, "A Baños, a Bañooooos!" Several people came running with their bags in tow. 
 
Food vendors barked offers of sliced mangoes, fresh empanadas and (of course) allullas, those little hard rolls that break apart, melt in your mouth and taste like home. 
 
I gained a seatmate, a highland Indian woman who seemed to feel that the seats were much too big. For the next hour, she rode snuggled against my arm. 

At one unscheduled stop, a large group of teenagers boarded. One sat down in the seat vacated by the snuggler. About ten minutes later, he turned and yelled to his buddies in the back of the bus. "Why are we going to Baños?" he asked.

Spurred by the same protective instinct as that terminal operator decades ago, I shot a glance at this unaccompanied cub. 
 
"Because!" came the answer from the back of the bus. He nodded, content.
 
I was overwhelmed with echoes. He was me, 40 years ago. I was now the resident grown-up. All the players were there; my role had just changed.

So perhaps my boundaries of time were as flimsy as the boundaries we create around space.

Perhaps, when you push aside age, politics and geography, you just find people.

Perhaps I should have told my neighbor on the plane: "There is no or".




Friday, February 20, 2015

02-20-05.....02-20-15


We've all been there, or at least most of us have.

We've all felt the earth stand terribly, terribly still.

Our brains do funny things when that happens. I knew John was gone the moment the ambulance driver told me it wouldn't make a difference which hospital we used. 

Family gathered at the hospital. Thank you, Family, for not smacking me when I announced - standing there by your dad, brother, uncle - that I was donating all his clothes to the homeless shelter. You couldn't know that all through the ambulance ride I kept thinking that John was a man who would literally give the shirt off his back to someone in need, and the homeless shelter had lots of someones in need.

My father, who had flown to Ecuador the day before, caught the next flight back. Someone made supper. My aunts called. The world hung suspended and time carved out a little place for us to bleed.

That night, I wrote a poem. I wondered how it was even possible that I could breathe when John wasn't.

I could tell you about the funeral. It's kind of a blur but I do remember afterward hugging anyone who came within my orbit, telling them how much John loved them. It was true, of course, but I'm pretty sure some people wondered where I hid the flask.  I could mention the teenager who stopped by the casket to slide his lip ring into the buttonhole of John's shirt. I could tell you about John's brother playing the harmonica and my brother reading the eulogy. But the family, the friends, the special songs -- you've been there, too.   

After the funeral, someone asked about my future plans. I have no idea what I said. Later, at home, I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to wrap my mind around even two more weeks. It left me nauseated. So I made a deal with myself.  The world might be starting up again, but all I had to do was breathe for one more day.

Days became weeks. Weeks snuck into months. One afternoon found me sitting on the same edge of the same bed, explaining to God for the umpteen-eleventh time just how badly death stinks.

And you've been there, too.

Then a scenario began to play out in my head.

I die (freak tornado, lightning strike, the cause of my demise isn't specific).  John meets me at the gates of Heaven and we hug.

  "Whatcha been doing?" he asks, and I say, "Missing you."

  "No, seriously. What have you been doing?"

  "Being sad." I say.

  His look says, "Good thing I love you, 'cause you're crazy!"

  "Breathing," I add, as if that's any better.   

  Now his look says, "And you can't multi-task?"

It's hard to win an argument with the imaginary specter of your dearly departed. Especially when he's right.

So I made a new deal with myself.  All I had to do was breathe for 10 more years - almost as long as eternity.

And life happened. My kids graduated. Old friends resurfaced. My firstborn got married. I took my kids and grandkids to see the land of my childhood. My youngest moved home. I got to know my cousins and found out they're a pretty wonderful bunch of people. You don't always know that when you grow up overseas, but God bless Facebook, I know it now.  My parents grew older. My parents died. My granddaughters grew up.  Travel, conferences, dinners with friends.

The rewoven fabric of life has deeper hues.

Today, I'm sitting on the same edge of the same bed.  It's been ten years.  I'm still breathing.

And you're here, too.

Thank you.