May Hill

Many of you reading this may know that Jerry has laid down the gauntlet and chosen the fast track to ascending from this world.  He has stopped eating and drinking.  We are counting days now, verses months.

Bleeding Heart

Monday the family gathered and there was a bit of magic sparkling for all of us.  Jerry was having an incredible day.  Many of us canceled all appointments on this Monday and gathered, the grandchildren were brought over and filled the day with laughter as they played on the swing that Jerry and Dave had built last spring.  Jerry was up and engaged all day.  It was, simply, a wonderful day.   

Someone reminded me of this saying, "God only gives you as much as you can handle" ... I say really?  Then God is running things a little heavy handed lately!  And "if it doesn't kill you it will only make you stronger", right?

I could probably take on Atlas by the end of all this then.

This really is a bit too much for one family, I feel.  And yet, there is grace and there is joy and there are some really wonderful family dynamics starting to bloom that had felt like they might never flower again.  This is a bit of what Anne Lamott calls in her book,  Traveling Mercies, the miracles in the everyday.  

And I guess it is this God that I acknowledge and can turn to.   The one that still offers these miracles in the everyday, the tiny little moments of joy out of all this grief.  With this too-large bag of shit comes the smaller gifts that one can feel and recognize because the breast bone feels cracked open and the heart feels unguarded and vulnerable .... but wide, wide open. 

It is this moments that grief is turned to joy ... and back again.

Jerry was sitting in the sun in a hammock on Monday with his morphine pump always with him now.  It was just he and I there for a brief moment and he looked at me and said with a smile, "if it wasn't for this cancer I'd feel pretty good".  We both laughed and I replied, "if it wasn't for your cancer I'd feel pretty good too".  He looked over and smiled a knowing smile at me.

"Laughter and crying,

you know it's the same release... "

Joni Mitchell

My dad died in May.  Jim died in May.  My friend Reg also died in May.  And now Jerry.  My sister, Sara, reminded me of "May Hill".  There is an old wise tale that if you are sick, weak and/or elderly if you can make it over May hill you will have a bit more time on this earth.  My dad had said, he wasn't going to make it over that hill.  Jerry said the same thing to me on Monday, "May hill .. I'm not going to get over that hill".  

As the world blooms, the earth warms and softens, it calls those who are weak and tired home .... I guess.

The tears offered, again, this May are enough to water the emerging flowers.

Loving you all back,

Mary