sudden as opposed to drawn out -

my mom died suddenly; the process actually was about 5 weeks - but from the time we knew she was so ill, to the time she died was about 5 hours. we thought she was going to be fine - a surgeon was going to fix her up - and then she was gone. snap, shut, closed, done, just like that - no goodbyes, long or otherwise. and a part of me has wished that i could have had that time, not so that she could suffer, but to have some kind of sweet time that now i can't even imagine.

but a warehouse friend who lives in colorado, his wife is dying of pancreatic cancer, she will be gone within a few months. she's young and she is leaving a 16-year-old son and twin 13-year-old-daughters. M loves his wife so much - she's so lovely and very much the glue of that family. and M can see what's coming to him, and he cannot avoid it, no matter what he does. the loss his daughters are going to experience - it makes me catch my breath. because as bad as he thinks it's going to be, it's going to be much worse than that, by far.

when i think of different people's situation, i evaluate this and then that - like there's some kind of a score from 1 to 10 on what devastation looks like. and for M and M's family, i think this will be off the scale.

christine

a good weekend

i spent this last weekend in langley, washington on whidbey island - the langley murder mystery weekend - 9 of us, friends and family of friends, spending the weekend playing games and wandering the town in search of who killed the victim - victor mills.

the last time this (basically) same group of folk and i hung out was for halloween weekend up at cama beach on camano island - and i was pretty sad the whole time - at its worst, i would feel just this sheet of "sad" sliding down over me and i would have to put on shoes and leave to walk hard, until i could stand it again. this last weekend, i was bracing for some of the same. some nice family dynamics were there that used to be mine and are no longer - and make me yearn for something i'll never have here on earth - something so sweet that it causes me pain to witness at the same time it heals my heart.

something i spoke about today: if there's one thing i want people to know about me right now is that even if i am laughing and having a good, good time, i am still missing my mom, even now, 10 months later, and the same will be true 12 month, 24 months; there won't be a time that i'll be "cured" of this. and i don't want to be. to be cured means, to me, that the loss of her in my life won't matter to me, and it will always matter to me.

but for this past weekend, it was pretty-near as good as it gets for me just lately and for that i am grateful today.

love

christine

a few things percolating in my brain

1. the idea that by losing a parent, there is opportunity for personal growth that wasn't so apparent or so available or so SOMETHING while they were alive. i've been mulling this idea over for a week now. again, i'm thinking the price of this opportunity for personal growth is too high - but it is so inevitable. i read somewhere that all we have is our response - we do not control this ride, but the one thing over which we have control is how we live our life to those unexpected parts. what do i want to be remembered for. and how can living my life make my mother proud when she's not here.

2. i feel parts of me waking up again - sorrow and grief put the screws to some parts of my life, but not totally and not forever. i've been thinking of the movie Fearless - do you remember when jeff bridges' character eats that strawberry at the end and he has that cathartic moment? he almost dies because he realizes that he is alive. great stuff.

3. _____________________________________ - i can't put it into words at this moment - needs further percolating, evidently.

thinking, thinking
christine

hawaii a year later

it was a year ago my mom and i were in hawaii - and i've been horribly hard on myself about some things during that trip. but as i've been looking thru all the pictures i took, i am remembering things, and not the times when i was impatient, but the two of us (i liked writing "the two of us") sharing good times - excellent meals on the cruise ship - not at the all-you-can-eat feeds, but at the French, Italian and Japanese restaurants; looking at some amazing water and feeling such warm, warm air on our faces. there was such grace in those 12 days - especially that final day in waikiki - that is a time that i replay and replay - i know for a fact how happy she was in that moment in time - unallayed joy at being in the sun, in hawaii, in very comfortable beach chairs and with ME. if i don't remember anything else in my life, just remembering that day will be enough.

aloha

christine

a quickie

people on the warehouse - a few of them have had very very good things happen to them this week - not just a neutral state where no bad things have happened to them, but actually positive things, items to put in the PLUS column. when counting my blessings sometimes, like just now, say, i am listing the fact that meteors haven't hit the planet, i haven't been laid off, the people i love all seem healthy and without life-threatening illnesses. and to really understand what i mean, just put the word "yet" at the end of each one of those phrases. and you'll truly see where my mind is at tonight.

keeping it a quickie

christine