Sept 22, 2016

i have learned that the weeks and days coming up to the anniversary of your death are days to be very gentle, careful...navigate with eyes open...heart soft.  watch out for the distractions and interruptions...be slow to speak, slow to make big decisions.  make sure to get enough sleep, eat well, stay hydrated.  talk short about the stories that are near to the surface...be careful yet real.

don't try to answer the question ahead of time---"what do you want to do on the 27th?" when asked because I don't know..and even if i think i know, i will probably do something else that day...as i am trying just to get through this day.

i have learned that i want to be in the Cinque Terre during this time, every time...not here.  i feel lost in this land when it didn't happen here...it happened there and here it feels like i am a stranger...without any map or place to go that feels like it honors you...holds you...not that others don't deeply miss you and grieve so much and life is so changed for them too.

since i have been there, the images of that place swirl all the time...the air, the water, the town of manarola, riomaggoire, vernassa, all of them...the people, the food, the smells...the walkway, the stairs up and the stairs down...and the garden and the statue, the church, the compass...the steps we sat on, the playground, the flowers and the bushes, the bench, the view...the flag...the harbor...the statue of that beautiful woman holding the grapes...so naked in her beauty...and her story.

the plaque, the flowers, the bottle with sand and treasures from our beach...the vase that holds your picture...and then the memories of sitting below before the ceremony...hearing horns playing....wondering what and where that music was coming from.............

so, here seems so foreign...so distant...far from the heart land...

so glad we got to go back...Rick with me...my sister and aunt...so dear and near every step...every day...and they have their own grief...their own journeys they take every year...each season...seeing it all over their faces too.

grief...

sorrow.

loss.

just today.
today...i will keep breathing, walking slowly, eating well, sleep well, hydrate...have hope in heaven.

this year, Harry is gone...he was so close to me after you died...and now he is gone too...

never get better at doing this.  never were supposed to.

heaven. so glad...can feel it....sense it, love to lean into the soft, thin veil...feel and sense...

how to end this...well it is just today...will stop today.  missing...

Now this is a big heart rock.....

Sarah C...you never do anything small...never...hahahaha

You always walked with a firmness, even little with an authority that commanded attention.  You filled a room--with beauty and presence.  I have silently asked the Father for a touch from you in these very tender days of your death month...a touch to let me know...somehow...you are....you are fully alive...fully living in the kingdom...fully all you will ever be.

I miss you fiercely, your presence...your beauty, your fullness in all life.

Your dad and I were sitting on the beach last night watching this sunset...it is fall and the season is changing...

As we sat on the log...you can see it in the middle of this pic, I saw the top of this rock only.  I am always on the hunt for heart rocks to give away.  I could only see the top 2 inches of it.  As we sat there, I wondered if it would be a heart rock or like so many others, not. 

As we got up to leave after the sun had fully set, I walked over and brushed off the sand...and WOW!!! It was the biggest and best.  I laughed right out loud...it was like...wow!!!  Never have I seen or found a rock like that...hahahahahahahahaha...and knew somehow you sent it to us...to kiss us and encourage us...press on to us...and sending the love and hug...and kiss....

I am touched so very deeply Sarah....God....thank you...

from a sore momma's heart.

thankful today....

2016~9 years almost

September 2016

the month of my loss is here again.  I find myself up early-not sleeping well.  I don't have these days often like I did 9 years ago.  I forgot how to sleep during the days after you died.

My mind is handicapped again and I am looking and searching for the things to help me navigate these days again.  

I have tried to prepare myself again to walk carefully through these days that bring too many memories that are to difficult to handle again.  

I just want to get on a plane and then a train and go--go to this place of pure beauty that you lost your dear young life.  To smell the air, feel the breeze, see the waves that mounted and destroyed you...to try to understand how...

I am so far away...so very far.  There is no place to go that helps me right now, I find myself getting so restless.  So much fragmented.  No words.  Many remember and come nearer and seem to sense this place and want to help.  I am so sorry...I don't know what to say and how to help you when I can't help myself.

I miss you dear, dear Sarah.  I can't even begin to tell you how much.  You were just my joy...heaven seems too far for me today to hope for.  I know it is to come...but seems so far...yet I will continue to hope.

I was laying in bed thinking this month I should wear a handicapped sign somehow--something that would warn others that I am more fragile, I can't trust my mind with things I say or do.  I don't even want to think too much and surely the things I do and think have this coloring of this loss that is too big again...swirling in my heart and mind.

I want to do better, yet again it crashes over me--and seems to want to destroy me.  I hang on...center my mind.  Avoid the thoughts and memories that can take me right out.  Seeing again...the horrors of it all.  I can't live here, so try again to push them away, yet they slip in...like a blown head gasket...dripping all over me and my eyesight..then down over my heart...and leave this oily stain that only lots of tears take away.  Tears that seem to have again built up and need release in the worst way...tears that heal yet hurt.

my sweet girl...this blog holds so many memories...so many pictures..so much.  I am thankful it is still here when the night hours betray me and I come in the dark again to find this page...a place to leave some of what is drowning me.

tragedy...i see it on faces and know it.  Rick and I went to see the movie Sully a few days ago--I cried through most of it.  they lived.  you did not.  my memories revisited bring no new ending...just sorrow.  I am careful.  I don't know how many pictures this year I can post of you.  I don't know what helps this time or what will lead me to that place I get lost.  I hate that place of lostness.  Unsafe.  

Centered...Focused...Jesus...heaven...hope....held.  Recalculate...recalculate...

loved.  You were deeply loved and cherished.  I wonder if my mind will bear me ever trying to write this story.  It is so tragically beautiful with so many treasures that i hold so close to my heart...so many wonderful parts...just wish you were actually still alive to share and laugh with.  

Sarah C...my dear girl...Just a touch through the veil this morning to you.  I am actually right in the spot we held over and over again for the last time as I write this--the night we said goodbye....I think you just are letting me know that somehow...I do remember how we held and held..and said goodbye.  over and over...like somehow we deeply knew.  sweet one, sweet girl.  beautiful woman...well loved.  how i love you.  how i miss you.  

I wake today with sorrow in my heart.  I will be meeting in a few hours with my oldest friend from my childhood whom I haven't seen in 45 years...she lived around the corner from me and we lost touch shortly after high school.  We were best friends in grade school and after that, stayed friends but not that close then.

I moved away and lost touch with many friends after my divorce and then returned back home 16 years later....and didn't reconnect with many.  Just life changed...but back here where I grew up.  I have reconnected in the last few years with some friend, but never could find Annie....tried over and over.

At my class reunion last year, I finally found a friend who knew where she was...but she told me this dear friend had lost a son in a shooting in California with drugs involved when he was fleeing the police--shot in a high speed chase 3 years ago...and she was not doing well.

We connected via email...the posts were short....things like...I know you lost a son from me.

I know you lost your daughter from her.....big gaps and meaning in those short sentences.

we haven't spoken yet...but we will meet today, both driving 45 minutes from home.

my heart is sore.  She is just celebrating the 3rd anniversary last week.  I am not many years past that, but seems this morning as tender as then.

What a life.  What a journey...

i posted a painted I have done--it is copied from a much more famous one requested by my daugher in law--from Chris...his new wife...and it is release of grief...it somehow touches my heart today as I go....

may we both release more grief, while we lean, hold hands...touch lives.