Mourning Dove

The birds are acting differently lately; starting to sing and chirp, flitting and circling each other in the air and just being more visible in general. They must know something that the rest of us in Maine are only hoping will come again as we dig ourselves out from under another big snow storm that got covered with freezing rain and turned everything into an impossible ice block.

Spring, and renewed hope and rebirth. But today I am dealing with another death; our friend Reg died yesterday morning. Brain cancer beat the best again ... when it's a grade 4 it always seems to win eventually. A good friend asked me if this was giving me flashbacks. Yes, it is. And I'm grieving again for my friend, his wife, G, and his entire family that includes a ten year old spitfire of a boy.

On my early morning run today I came upon a bird kill; an explosion of feathers in the middle of the trail. No blood spots, no tracks so I suspect the predator to be the Red Tailed Hawk I've seen on several occasions in this area. I looked closely at the feathers, some kind of song bird .... and as I hovered over this mass of feathers, with the downy ones blowing away over the hard crusty snow, I heard the haunting Oo-wah-hooo, hoo-hoo of a Mourning Dove. How perfect, a Mourning Dove on this day when my tears are freezing to my cheeks. As I hunker over these Dove feathers I'm enchanted at how beautiful they are; one is small and brown with a dark eye-spot on it, another, a wing feather, is black on one side of the hard center vane and white on the other side ... the yin/yang of life.

Morning .... with the dove feathers scattered at my feet and a few in my hand ... mourning.

Jim use to hear that mournful call and say "Morning, Dove". I whispered this call to the lonesome dove calling from the tree line as the sun began to rise. I whispered to Reg to say hello to Jim for me. I whispered to my fist full of feathers how sad I was feeling with this new mourning.

Loving you all back,

Mary

Grief and Gifts continued

Magoo is the nickname my oldest sister has given our 21 year old niece. I'm going to refer to her with this name for her privacy ... even though she's given me permission to write this and to use her real name. Of course everyone who knows her will know who this is about but I'm sticking with Magoo.

Magoo is the youngest of three in my middle sister's family, and the only girl. She is also the only one who was born in Nashville. The family would come home to Maine in the summers and we would get to see how much the kids had grown, what teeth were missing and begin to hear the twang starting to seep into Magoo's dialect. At four years old she would sit in her car seat and wave a tiny hand saying "Bah, bah, y'all."

One summer day, when Magoo was maybe five, I got to babysit her for several hours. We went to a playground, we went to lunch where she entertained me and the waitresses and we stopped for ice cream on the way home. Sitting in the front seat (this was before mandatory car seats), not tall enough to see out of any windows, she looked up at me and said "Aunt Mary? I love you." That was it, this kid - who has the exact same eyes as mine - had stolen my heart.

This family soon moved back to Maine, to a small town two hours north and into the inherited family farm. There the kids became busy in all the school activities. During these years we headed north to see the school musicals, headed north so Jim could play ice hockey on the pond with the boys, and north to witness and celebrate the high school graduations. Magoo was around a lot more then her brothers, but usually we were there when my very large family gathered en mass so connecting was difficult. Close family ties and all, I had lost knowing who she was.

Until Jim was in Hospice.

When we went to Hospice friends and family circled the wagons; those who could take the time would come and go in order to be with us for the days we were there. Friends cooked dinners and brought them over so we could all sit in the dining area and eat ... while Jim drifted away in his room. I had such a hard time leaving that room, leaving him, watching him leave me.

Magoo was in her final exams at school and had several days when she didn't have to be back. She asked me if she could stay and be with me in Hospice. Her mother added, "Mary, you'll find she is very helpful!" My response was, of course you can stay! And you should just show up in the morning and hang in the room, don't wait to see if it's OK to come in, just come in, camp out and you will soon become part of the ebb and flow, the rhythm, the pulse in the intricate energy of the room. And this is exactly what she did.

Jim went to Hospice the first week in May, with the days warming and daffodils popping. During those days I could only leave the room for short periods of time; to sit in the sun, to eat a bit of food, to see friends who were gathered outside and wanting to see me. The days were incredibly long and yet timeless. On most afternoons Magoo would look at me as the shadows were lengthening and the sky was turning pink and say "Time for a walk Mary."

"I don't know, maybe I should stay and ..."

"Nope, let's just take a short walk around the neighborhood. It's really nice out. We won't be gone long!"

And thus, she would get me out and she and I would talk about what was going on in her life and not talk about what was going on in mine.

Magoo had to leave while we were still on watch in Hospice. She had to go back to school and take her last exam. The day she was getting ready to go I went looking for her and her mother. I was told they were out in the parking lot so I ran out to find them. Magoo jumped out of the car and came running, literally, into my arms. She was crying and shaking and bubbling a verbal stream of consciousness, "I don't want to go ... I want to stay with you ... I want to get to know you and I wanted to get to know Jim and I wanted to be able to hang with you when I finished school and get him to help me learn photography and maybe travel with him and now he's gonna be gone before I even get back and I'll never know him and you have so many friends and I want to be a friend even though I'm family and I'm just gonna be around now and I hate to have to go, this stupid math exam and I'll never see you again and .... "

"Whoa, whoa! Hey, I'm still here! I will still be here when you finish this damn math exam and you are welcome to come be with me at any time!" Never have I said words that were more true. We were both crying now. I hugged her and said, "come say goodbye to Jim." As we entered the room I asked other family members if they would mind leaving for a few minutes and went with her to Jim's bedside.

"Magoo, I truly believe he still hears everything, even at this point. So say what you need to say to him ... he loves you. No regrets, OK?" And she did. And then she left ... and I missed her horribly.

Jim died two days later on May 7th. I went into robot-like motion that allowed me to do all that needed to be done to celebrate the life of one amazing man. All that needed to be done to bring our amazing circle of friends and families together to put closure on a life that was so big, so full and ended so early. As some of you may understand, things are too busy at the end. But then the dust begins to settle, people go home and you're left alone with that hole that you try to walk around all day long but keep falling into regardless. And this is when Magoo came to be with me. She moved into the TV room and asked nothing of me. She and I would sit and read over coffee in the morning and she would allow me to stare into space for short periods of time before she would say,

"Hey, what do you want to do today?"

"Huh? Oh. I don't know"

"Well, how about we go .... " and she had ideas, and she got me moving and off the couch and got me out ... again. She was just there, just being with me, just getting to know me better and allowing me to get to know her better; a small piece of joy in my not so joyous life.

She's still here. She's doing her student teaching in Portland and staying with a friend of ours just down the road who has an extra bedroom. She calls me up to see if I'm around, comes over to make cookies, have dinner with me, help to move a wood pile, sit by the wood stove and read.

She is a real gift. In all the horrible things that were going on for me in May of 2010, she is the biggest gift Jim brought back to me.

And with this said, I have to add that all my nieces and nephews have rallied around me in amazing ways. They all loved Jim and they reach out to me; another niece, JW, asking me to do acupuncture and attend the birth of her little girl, my grand-niece (that was amazing and a huge honor! That little one was born one day before my own birthday ... we may find she and I are a lot alike!). They all are helping me in far more ways then I can mention here and being there for me in just as many ways.

So, there are gifts that come from cancer and from the death of a loved one. In all that darkness there are tiny beams of light. And many of them are in hindsight ... but many of mine are here now in the present, and I cherish them all.

Thanks Magoo,

Mary

PS - the photo is of Magoo and her two uncles, Jim Daniels to her right and Jerry Sanders on her left. The little sentry in the back was a friend who was visiting.

Just Show Up

I've been working really hard on maintaining all the connections that have been made over the past two years of Jim's illness. I admit, it's hard for me. Jim Daniels was the one who made connections quickly and easily. As Joni Mitchell once sang "He makes friends easy, he's not like me". That was my Jim.

There were many lessons for me living with Jim - and during the course of caring for him with brain cancer. I learned to respect and love that man even more then I thought possible and I learned the power of the love that man offered, not only to me, but to his friends as well. Jim was so incredibly loved by so many people. And as I reflect on this I realize it's because he loved and connected with people on a deep level. Jim wore his heart on his sleeve and, though it made him vulnerable, it also made him available, open, honest and very free with offering his love to you.

I want to keep these connections that he helped me to make. I want to go to the parties I've been invited to even if I don't know many people who will be there. How many times would I try to wiggle my way out of going to such a party with Jim only to have him look at me and say "Mary, you might enjoy yourself", or "Mary, you will really like so-and-so, I know you will." He was always right too. So many of my dearest friends and connections now are from those "you will really like .... " moments.

Did I say it's hard for me? I'm a born-and-raised Mainer. You may know what they say about Mainers ... we might have a tough shell that's hard to crack but once you're taken in as a friend it's deep and lasting. There's some truth to this. And I'm an introvert too. Not an easy combination at times, a pretty tough nut to crack.

But I'm trying. I find myself thinking "what would Jim do?" ... and it always will be to make that effort, to reach out and connect, to just show up. I can hear myself saying to him, "why do you think you are that important to that person?" .... but I realize that it wasn't that Jim felt he was important; it was because that other person was so important to Jim! And he would show up, always. Years ago, long before his own illness, he drove to up state New York when he heard that one of the Maryknoll Priests that he knew was sick with cancer. Even though this man told Jim not to come, Jim got in his car and drove to sit by this man in the hospital. Jim Daniels showed up because that person was important to him ... and it became very evident how important it was that Jim cared enough to be there. People knew that Jim cared about them, and that always feels good.

Jim wanted to get on a plane and get to the wedding of our dear friend in Seattle, but this friend told us of the wedding only a few days before it was to happen. The timing was bad for us, but sure enough, Jim did cartwheels trying to figure out how to make that trip happen so he could be by the side of his friend when he got married. The trip just coudn't get pulled off. I remember being so amazed that Jim actually was going to try to do it though; not because Jim was so important but because Bill was that important to Jim

A woman who I met through Jim asked me to go have a drink with her this week. She hardly knew Jim but was deeply affected by his cancer and had reached out to us over the course of his illness. I agreed to meet her so we organized it. I was nervous about going, worried we might not have much to talk about or that I, in my inabilities to make small talk, would be found boring. "What would Jim do?" ... so I went ..... and we both had a wonderful time and agreed that we wanted to put the effort needed into staying connected and create a deeper friendship.

Just show up. Regardless of the outcome, just show up and remain open to whatever gifts might come. A lesson Jim taught me so well.

I do know that I'm not going to be as good at this as Jim was. I know there are going to be some connections I won't be able to maintain, and I know this is just human and the way of the world. Lives need to intersect somehow, like a spiders web, the glue that binds it all together loses it's strength without the necessary maintenance. But, damn, Jim was able to keep so many webs connected to him. He easily and wonderfully tended those delicate strands. I marvel at this now.

My plan is to just show up, as often as my energy will allow. Just know it's not always easy for me but, what would Jim do?
He'd show up.

Loving you all back .... in my own way,
Mary

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Actually, I like rain. It offers new color schemes to the day - all the variations of gray. Henry Beston wrote of the sea and the sky as "pewter gray" in his book The Outermost House. I've always loved that description of gray.

But in November the gray is so complete, so stark with the leaves off the trees and those bare branches clacking together. Todays rain doesn't fall but rather flies sideways in thick sheets with a howling wind. Dressed in my yellow slicker I use to walk down to the beach on days like this. I was a wild child loving the energy of a storm, head bowed to it's fury I'd walk to the ocean to witness the waves crash on the rocks and feel the raw power in my solar plexus.

That wild child chased adventure, she didn't need anyone else, she was strong on her own and capable of walking directly into the northeast gale. Lately I find myself looking for this girl in my woman's being. Too often I feel lost and unable to do this alone. This morning this wind and rain has me feeling caged and trapped, unable to adventure out on my own.

Today I wish for someone to come look for me, who holds me most dear in his heart and notices when I've headed out into the storm. I miss this feeling of being special to someone and knowing they need and want me by their side. But it takes a certain person to allow this wild child her freedom, to honor her adventurous spirit. There were few who were able to keep stride with her in the howling wind and to share a love for it as well.

Today, I'm missing that kindred spirit that I found in Jim Daniels.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Morning sunrise

My crows are arriving, I can hear and see them fly into the Oak trees in my yard. The sunrise is a tequila cocktail of colors on the horizon as the morning star fades. Another day ....

Mornings are far better for me then the nights. Jim use to say that I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and he wasn't far off from that. This is no longer my truth, now I will lay awake in bed with a head full of worries, thoughts of Jim; memories from when he was sick and wondering if I could have done things better for him, memories of before his illness, memories of his laugh, memories of his body. Thoughts of all that I must do now, things that must be taken care of ... and fear seems to lie crouching just under the bed hoping that I'll give completely over to it so it might devour me.

I do not fall asleep when my head hits the pillow anymore.

People tell me how strong I am and I truly do not understand this, I don't know what they mean. I feel anything but strong these days. I feel like I'm trying to set sail without a mast, without a compass. This house is now all mine, and all my responsibility. This life is all mine, and my responsibility. I really liked sharing all this before. There was a feeling of a safety net before, a support system that Jim and I would construct for each other. A feeling that we could weather anything, we could survive anything .... except brain cancer ... and loneliness.

Oh it's all such unchartered territory for me. I'm not one who ever minded being alone. I would love it when Jim needed to travel for a couple weeks, love the feeling of being by myself, watching whatever I wanted to watch on T.V., not needing to tip toe around in the early morning as I would get up to go for a run and he was not going to join me. But now, this solitude is an entirely different beast. What I would give to be asked if we could watch the Red Sox game.

The light is turning white as the sun gets higher. I've got a lot of busy-ness to do today to get ready for a friend arriving from the west coast and a weekend of gathering for the annual reunion of my gal-pals I went to acupuncture school with. I will soak up the feeling of being supported by this group of amazing women. I will push the fear back under my bed and lock the door as I leave for the weekend ... maybe it will shrink down to size while I'm away.

My crows are sitting on the branch directly in front of my vision reminding me that they are there and they are hungry.

Another day.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Sweat Lodge - chapter one

I'm realizing this whole event needs to be done in chapters, there's just too much to try to put into one blog.

On Wednesday, September 1, all 6 gals rendezvoused outside of Fort Collins, Colorado and in 2 cars we made the journey towards Lander, Wyoming. The sweat lodge was scheduled for Thurs. Sept. 2. We were told to plan on arriving at Stanfords house between 12:00 and 3:00 on the 2nd in order to cook dinner for everyone (this could mean up to 35 people - many will gather for a sweat lodge) that would be consumed after the sweat. In addition we would purchase things that Lisa Jones had told us were favorites; Fanta orange soda, diet and regular soda of any flavor, pesto, Kool light soft packs, to name a few.

The six of us had a wonderful morning of exploring Lander, lunch and then hit the grocery store timing it so we would be at the Addison's by 3:30, which we were. The initial "welcome" was very confusing ... nobody seemed to know we were coming and seemed surprised there was going to be a sweat. Stanford was off in another town running errands. Uh-oh. Luckily a couple of my gal pals weren't intimidated by this, started unloading the car saying "well, we've brought dinner and we're going to get it cooking for y'all now". This was fine, no problem. Stanford would be back around 5:00 or 5:30 and the sweat would, indeed, take place by sunset.

There was a lot of just hanging out, walking to the horse corral, walking to the river, all kinds of people coming and going with kids and dogs appearing and disappering. It's literally a beehive of activity. I was struck by how no one really introduced themselves. They would say hello and give big, warm, welcoming smiles but names did not seem important at all.

Stanford arrived and we helped unload the car that was filled with supplies. Stanford waved hello to everyone, drove his wheel chair up the ramp and disappeared into the house to have a cigarette. We slowly made our way in and all introduced ourselves and were told that it was still too hot for a sweat so it would wait until sundown. Molly (my niece) and I decided to take a walk down a cow path. We were immediately joined by 2 young boys who, they told us, were cousins. They had just returned from town with plastic guns that shot tiny, hard, bright green plastic BB's. Great, I thought! These 2 never asked our names and we didn't ask them theirs. They were our warriors and all set to protect us ... once they understood that we would not be intimidated and taken hostage that is! I never knew so many rattlesnakes could exist just out of sight on this cow path. There seemed to be one every 25 yards .... or so these boys said ... and they had to be shot at to scare them away - of course! And then there were free range bulls behind every bush. We were told to "RUN!" but when we didn't we were told that it was OK, they could protect us. Phew.

By the time we got back to the house with these two young warriors they were asking us our names. Ah, getting to know you and understanding how you are as a person is far more important then a name. I liked this, and felt delighted when our new friends now wanted to know how to call to us.

Stanford was driving his wheel chair out to the corral just as we got back to the house so we followed along. After the horses seemed to accept a few of us there with Stan he turned to me and said "Mary, when did you call me?". I walked over and said "well, Stanford, I called you back in April initially. I am the woman Lisa Jones talked to you about. My husband had brain cancer and we agreed that a sweat for him would be good. Then I called you in June to tell you that he had passed away in May but that I still wanted to do a sweat and we agreed on this date, September 2." As I was talking I saw Stanford start to remember all this and I continued to say "I didn't want to bug you and call you again to remind you as I thought you'd probably remember," and then I added with a laugh "but I guess not huh?". Stanford laughed with me and just said "yeah, I screwed that one up!"

The afternoon wore on and since nobody had watches or cell phones we never really knew the time, just that the sun was getting lower in the sky and it was beginning to cool off quite a bit. We all agreed that just being with this family was very much part of the whole adventure. I was sitting on the small porch just off the kitchen when Stanford wheeled out and parked right beside me and started chatting with everyone who was on the porch at this time.
"So, Mary, how many people did you bring?", he asked.
"Oh, about 2,000." He laughed pretty hard at this. The whole family, including Stan, have a wonderful sense of humor and are very easy going so it was not hard to just hang around for all these hours waiting for the sweat.

The fire to heat the rocks had been started and constantly attended by a couple men for awhile now and these same men were now using shovels to carry these rocks to the pit inside the lodge .... it was almost sweat time. Others told us that usually there is a sweat on Wednesday nights but there had not been one last night - Wednesday the first - so everyone was excited that there would be a sweat after all.

The six of us from Maine had many emotions, all mixed, about this sweat lodge that was getting prepared for all of us.

To be continued ....

Sweat Lodge

One week from tomorrow on August 30th I will be heading west with an entourage of 5 other women. I have mixed feelings about all this, but mostly excited. If you go to the April 2010 posting and scroll down to the post titled What's Bad is Good you will read about Stanford Addison, an Arapahoe medicine man who lives outside of Lander Wyoming on the Arapahoe reservation. I have contacted Stanford and shall be journeying to do a sweat lodge with him. How this came about is pretty amazing.

If you read the post, What's Bad is Good, you will read about the Eagles that circled Jim and I one morning and how I whispered into Jim's ear to send his prayers up with those Eagles. This is a quote of Stanford's that came out of the book Broken written by Lisa Jones. After this breath-stopping experience with these circling birds I wrote to Jones a few days later. She lives not far from the town in Colorado that Jim's sister, Donna, lives in. Somehow this made Lisa more human and approachable to me since, "hey, I know where you live!" To my surprise she responded to my email that inquired whether Stanford was still alive and gave her a little information on the fact that my husband was living with brain cancer. Her response to me was "Due to your circumstance I'm going to cut the normal rigamarole I give to people who write asking about Stanford. Here's Stan's direct number. I'm going to call him and tell him you'll be calling".

WOW!!!! The next morning she emailed me again and said she had spoken to Stanford and he was expecting my call whenever I was ready. I called him that afternoon asking him if a sweat lodge would be appropriate for Jim. He confirmed that it would be very appropriate and he had run sweats for many cancer victims. We agreed that the end of the summer might be good timing and that we would talk more in a couple months.

After Jim died in May I contacted Stanford in June and told him. I added that I was still interested in heading to Lander and doing a traditional sweat with him. I now believe that perhaps this is what the Eagles saw as being needed .... and that perhaps this sweat lodge is now happening for my own healing and purification.

So, I'm going. I have arranged to do this sweat with Stanford on September 2. Jones has been wonderful in sending me lots of information on how to be a "Helpful Honkie on the Rez" as well as maps to get to the reservation from Lander and other information that assists in making this whole trip a little easier .... because so much of this is just unknown! And I am traveling with 5 other amazing, wonderful women - one of them my 21 year old niece who, I believe, is a gift that Jim left me with when he passed. My niece has not been in my life to any great extent until the hospice experience and then she waltzed in and decided she needed to be a bigger presence in my life now. She is so very right about this. And I invited her to come on this huge adventure with me ... to my delight, she accepted. The other women are some of my dear friends who have been here through thick and thin ... mostly thick.

A little history ... I know that there was a lot of press regarding the sweat lodge gone amok recently where the leader of the sweat didn't allow any of the attendee's to leave the lodge and thus ended up killing many people. This is pure stupidity. This is someone who was conducting a sweat lodge who had no business doing so. Working with Stanford Addison is working with a Native American man who has conducted countless sweat lodges for over 25 years ... all safely!! Through Lisa's web site I read where Stanford was in disbelief that someone would run a sweat and not allow anyone to leave the lodge if they felt a desire to get out of it! I may have nervous feelings about how well I can handle the heat of a sweat lodge but I have NO fear that the expertise of this medicine man who will be running this knows what he's doing and will take good care of all of us involved in his sweat.

One more thing. I'm coming up on another big first .... Jim and my anniversary is this week. This might also explain why my weekend was so hard .... surf was up and the waves hitting me were pretty big ones. I think it's good I have this trip coming up to be focused on.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Wired

It's been four months, which doesn't sound like a long time but feels like an eternity. I'm surprised at how hard this is to accept. How sometimes it feels like this can't be me? This really can't be what has happened to Jim Daniels .... of all people!? I must be caught in someone else's bad dream. It's not possible that this is mine.

A good friend emailed me recently who understands this kind of loss. He said that he read somewhere that the brain actually becomes "wired" to another human being when we are with them for a long period of time .... like 31 years of marriage. And that when we lose that person then the brain has to actually go through a whole new re-wiring to remove this person from our brains programming.

Grief is a biological process.

This makes a lot of sense to me. This explains why Jim could frequently speak the very thoughts I might be having more often then not. And that I could channel what Jim needed to say when he had lost his ability to talk ... amazing him sometimes. We were totally wired to each other. Totally in sync. Totally in love. And I'm totally lost now.

My friend, Hannah, has been telling me that the brain needs to heal from all this trauma and that this takes time and needs lots of rest to accomplish this task. Ah, the process of re-programming my life without Jim in it. Yes, it's going to take a little time and it may explain why I can just run out of steam so fast and only want to lie down and read or close my eyes. It also explains why I get hit with the tsunami of disbelief still. Perhaps these waves must happen to rattle my brain into creating new pathways of thinking. I certainly have to find new pathways of being.

On my birthday my dearest friends were offering to take me out to dinner. I kept telling them, "I'm not into my birthday this year". They didn't listen. They were all at my house when I got home from work; Todd had the grill going, Matthew was at the stove steaming up muscles, chilled white wine was popped and Alice poured me a glass. And we had a wonderful dinner party. They were right, it was nice to celebrate and I appreciated all that they did for me that night! But when they all left I sat at the kitchen table and opened all my cards that had been mailed and a few of the gifts sent and had a complete break down. I use to think my birthday was all about me. I now know it's not. It was about JIM being with me and how he would celebrate me and adored me so much and made me feel so special. No one else can do that like he could. Rewiring .... next year will be a new program.

I went away over the past weekend up to my sister's camp 3 hours away. She and her family gather with their best friends each summer. This summer I was invited and I had a blast. WIth 5 kids ranging from ages 8-14 and all of them so much fun to be with, so open and funny and able to communicate verses shy away from the adults like we have the plague. We swam, mountain biked, fished, played board games until late into the night and laughed a lot. They completely threw my schedule off as I told them "wow, you all have breakfast at lunch time, lunch at cocktail hour and dinner at bed time!" But it was good to throw me out of my routine. Of course, I would have thoughts of Jim and would miss him horribly, but I didn't get hit by any big wave and have to leave the group in order to go dissolve in a heap somewhere. At least not until the drive home when I felt lonely and wished Jim was driving and we could relive the weekend together. But I didn't need to pull over to the side of the road. Progress, I guess.

As I re-wire my thinking and being I can be a little ADD. If I have failed to respond to an invite, an email, or a phone call then send me another one! I meant to get back to you at some point but may have just spaced it out. My brain is rewiring .... and my heart is trying to mend.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Observations

I'm noticing some things these days that I want to share. First, if you read my Summer Storms blog then you read how all the boats in the harbor were a shocking white the night of the thunder storm. Today (well actually, yesterday, but let's stay present) I'm noticing that the same boats are still out there on their moorings but one sail cover is red, another one blue and not all the hulls are white .. one is even black! But the other night during that storm ALL the boats and ALL the sail covers were brilliantly white!! How does that happen?

I'm also noticing that my patience is very low these days ... I tend to snap at folks too quickly and too easily. It's quite annoying and I feel so horrible afterwards but can't seem to always stop myself. It's like having turrets syndrome! I hate doing this. Hate how it makes others feel ... how it makes me feel. Today I've been thinking about it and just wonder if it's because for 16 months I had to be incredibly patient with Jim; walking, communicating, bathing, entertaining him and on and on. I admit that I didn't always love doing all these things and there were many times over the course of a year and a half that I truly lost it and would go outside and slam sticks into rocks, or throw logs off the wood pile as far as I could heave them to blow off some rage. Jim and I always knew it was the cancer I was raging at, it was our situation that we both had been thrown into without giving permission to be there that I was raging at and Jim would do great at not enmeshing in my tantrums ... inside that broken body and compromised brain was the same wise and wonderful Jim.

But I'm honestly not sure this is a good enough reason to have this irritable nature now that just rises quickly and bursts out with no warning. It's not my true nature, it's not really who I am or how I usually operate in the world.

So, I just want to say to all my friends and family that I have an awareness of it. I know when I do it, and I hate myself for it. And if you have been in the line of fire when the shot goes across your bow I want you to know that I'm trying to get a handle on this and do better .... and I probably didn't really mean it but I understand this may not help to know when under fire.

Is this also part of grieving? There are so many alleyways to this process and no map!

Loving you all back ... even when I'm not that good at acting like I do ...
Mary

Summer storms

We had an amazing thunderstorm in Portland, ME last night. Torrential rains, tornadoes in some towns and crashing and banging that shook the house. Provided everyone stays safe I am one who loves the energy and drama of a good summer storm. My mother use to sit in the middle of the living room with her sneakers on ... rubber for it's grounding properties ... during a thunderstorm, while my dad would take all us kids out to the front porch. He would sit and look at his watch, timing the the minutes or seconds between the flash of lightening and the boom of it's thunder. He would then yell "GO!" and the four of us would run out onto the lawn in the rain and dance in little bouncy steps or run around with our airplane arms out until he would yell "BACK!" when we would sprint back to the porch just before the next flash and crash would hit. During all this dancing and running my mother would be yelling from inside the house, "Jay, bring those kids back inside!".

Dangerous? Of course. But this was an era when you got a BB gun on your 10th birthday, rode on the tailgate of the pick up truck and all piled into the station wagon without seat belts on.

Last night, when the rains stopped and the black sky moved out towards the open ocean, the light became absolutely incredible. The boats in the harbor took on a surreal, bleached white color that was blinding in their contrast to the asphalt gray of the ocean and the pewter gray sky. As the storm moved out to sea the sky still flashed with lightening and there were periodic streaks of jagged bolts that would almost hover for that split second as though stopping time at that very moment before it all went black again.

Jim was a professional photographer. He taught me about light. He taught me to say "the light is so gorgeous right now". It was always about the light, about capturing that moment, about how quickly that light will change and it will be a different moment.

If Jim had been here last night he would have grabbed his cameras and gone to capture those shocking white boats on the black sea. He would have grabbed my hand and pulled me out to dance on the lawn in the rain. Jim had the unique qualities of seeing beauty in the light of the world through a mans eyes and the ability to live his life with a child's enthusiasm.

I miss him like hell.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Saturdays, sometimes

I spent almost the entire day, Saturday, on the couch. I blamed it on the steamy heat of the day that kept me from wanting to get out into the garden and be in the blaring sun to weed. I blamed it on the hard bike ride I did with a friend that morning (and to my cycling community - I rode up Mountain, Dutton and Long Hill with my brake pad rubbing, thus effectively riding all these hills with my brakes ON! My friend said with a laugh, "you're awesome!", I said "no, I'm a bonehead!"). But mostly I blamed it on my state of mind.

I knew if Jim were here he would never allow me to spend that time not grabbing life by it's tail ... even one day. He would be calling friends, he would be doing projects around the house, he would do the drive by and stop in on friends. So I, timidly, called a few friends, sent out tiny little white flags in emails, but everyone was busy or away ... I was on my own, and unable to get out of my own way. My state of being these days.

Kay Redfield Jamison in her memoir titled "Nothing Was the Same" is very eloquent in her description of her grief stating "my mind was not right, but it was not deranged. I was able to reason and to imagine that the future held better things. I did not lose my sense of how to navigate the basics of life ... "

And this is how I feel. I always thought that when Jim died I would be in the fetal position with the curtains pulled down, opened and half eaten bean cans littering the kitchen, mail and newspapers piling up on the doorstep and friends coming in to force me to shower, force me to move, force me to live. But this is not my grief. I believe I look and act pretty normal most days. My grief hits in tsunami waves. One minute I'm thinking of something unrelated and the next there is a memory of Jim and the reality of his absence is crippling. As Jamison states "I learned to live in expectation of assault".

I haven't really learned this yet ... but certainly understand what she means.

I have a little something planned today, Sunday, which I'm learning is important to get me out and doing. I'll go watch the annual Yarmouth Clam Festival cylcing race put on by our bike shop, Cyclemania. This year the club - whose owner, and many of the club riders, are good friends - is devoting the race to Jim. They are even giving away one of Jim's photographs to the winner of the "preem" .... the sprints set up in the race. Jim would be absolutely proud and so honored by this. I'm hoping I can keep my eyes dry through all this, but perhaps I need to learn this doesn't matter either.

Stoic is no longer a sign of strength.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Snow Island

For the last 5-6 years my entire family has gotten together on this island owned by a friend of our family. He, miraculously, lets the entire Lello clan take over his private spot. There's a lot of us too, 28 or more depending. We don't arrive quietly, we fill his converted lobster boat with bags of needed personal items, baby fold-up cribs, food ... so much food ... and all of us. It's quite a big production, but we have so much fun out there from Friday to Sunday.

This past weekend was the island weekend. Last year Jim and I got to stay in one of the guest rooms vs a "bunk house" sleeping arrangement due to Jim's condition. Jim was improving at that time, getting stronger and able to walk with his cane by throwing that right leg ahead of his left, his right arm useless, rigid and held in front of his body. He had lost some of his ability to speak at that time too ... yet, he was such an incredible spirit and always pushing himself harder and farther. Dodge, the owner of the island, had a new double seater kayak last year and with the help of several family members we were able to get Jim into this kayak so that he and I could paddle around. Others joined us in the single seater kayaks, and a small motor boat came out on the pretense of fishing ... but really to stay close in case anything happened. Jim was smiling and kept saying "this is great".

This year it was very different. This year I had the freedom to sit and read rather then tend to Jim, I didn't have to leap up and move when he wanted to move in order to help him over the uneven terrain. I could lay down and nap without asking someone else if they would be with Jim so that I might just close my eyes for an hour. I confess, this isn't the Jim I miss and only a small part of the Jim I remember.

Before the cancer when I was with Jim I was always "home". It didn't matter if we were at 17,000 feet in the Himalayas or meeting villagers of the Kachin state in Burma, I felt at home if Jim was there. And as much as I love my family there are always times when I feel a little lost around them ... it's hard to explain or perhaps it's not that unusual, just a family dynamic. But Jim was always there to find me, to check on me, to just be with me. I got a little lost this weekend at times.

Saturday had been a day of swimming and jumping off the rope swing and running in from the rain showers that hit periodically. But Saturday night the showers had stopped though the sky was still a milky gray. Everyone was sitting around the fire we had blazing waiting for darkness so we could set off a few fire works that I had been gifted with for this weekend. We all got talking about Jim; how he had water skied behind one of the boats one year, how much fun he would have been at the rope swing today, how he was the only one that seemed able to sail the little day sailer without tipping her over. And as we talked about him the thick clouds that had hovered all day opened up and the setting sun blasted through in rose and gold colors, igniting the island in the most amazing light. I said "well, here he is" and Adrian lifted his glass in a toast to Jim. We all got real quiet after that toast and watched this sunset continue to awe us with it's deepening reds, purples and gold as the sun sizzled into the bay.

We all felt Jim's presence with us at that moment.
And I felt very alone and a little lost.

Loving you all back,
Mary