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I was sitting at the table tonight with my family and we were laughing and smiling so huge that it felt like heaven opened up and swallowed us into it’s embrace. I immediately felt my eyes fill with tears and my throat tighten as it dawned on me the significance of this moment and the impact that it was making on my heart. Thankfulness for my husband, his smile, his heart. Thankfulness for my kids, their laugh, their unique sense of humor. And thankfulness for my place in this family, my role of mom, wife, and friend… the thankfulness overwhelmed me to the core. The truth that this moment would fade away all to soon was not lost on me, for even now reflecting on it and trying to find words to tell of it, seem to diminish its heart affect. I am so deeply thankful and so deeply grateful, that mere words cannot express…. but if I were to try to describe it… if I could pull the words together into some order, it would be:
Love love love came swirling around me today like a soft whisper wind, and joy laughed at my cheeks and echoed in my ears that my spirit had to try to grasp the tail of this helium balloon moment that was floating and dancing away and taking my heart up with it into it’s fruition in a chorus of a song in loud Braille with a melody full of effortless love that was imprinting itself inside my heart.
Today and yesterday I’ve been able to be a stay at home mom, literally. Adair hasn’t felt well enough to go to school, she’s tired and has some aches, and she’s congested, but most of all, she’s just tired. I’ve been reading up on the H1N1 and wondering if she has that or some other type of random virus. Interesting reading it was though, let me tell you. I learned there is a class of individuals that is known by the community of immunologists as the “superspreaders” and surprise surprise, school aged children are in that group, along with their well meaning parents or guardians. Superspreaders, sounds generous doesn’t it? Not so much if it’s talking about viruses. Another term I learned was about your “herd immunity”, which is where if the elementary school does a school-wide vaccination for all the children, then we as adults even if we haven’t been immunized would receive benefit because of us residing in the same herd as those who did get the vaccination. Interesting isn’t it? Another new thing I learned is that there is a whole subset of people who in their spare time are “flu trackers” and they study the immunology, and waves of illness. Isn’t that interesting? Did you know that the illnesses come in waves? H1N1 has. Wave 1 occurred early last spring, and we are now joyfully entering Wave 2. Fun! I hope I don’t catch the wave, I’m really not that much of a surfer.
Anyway, today there was snow, and my little girl is resting. I’m on the computer logging the moment into record so that we all know it occurred. Tuesday. Girl. Sick. Snow. Home. Love. It’s all there for you, just not necessarily in that order.
I’m home… where I feel like I was meant to be. Tomorrow though, I’ll find the courage to return to work, knowing at least that it means if I do, that my little girl feels all better.
What to do with the cacophony of emotions that come about when someone you love is nearing the end of their life? It doesn’t seem to matter to my heart that this person I love has had a long and wonderfully rich life, filled to the brim with experiences, of which I was able to share some of. It doesn’t matter that this person I love lives hundreds of miles away and the last time I saw them was three or four years ago. The doesn’t matters don’t matter, my heart feels raw and the inner depths of me feel like it’s going to implode on itself with the rest of me to follow into the smallest black hole abyss on the inside that I didn’t realize had the power to suck me under and in.
Maybe the impending death of a life so richly lived is a reminder to the lack of permanence we all have. Or it is a window to unresolved grief for others that I have lost, or those I am afraid to lose in the future.
It is bittersweet and I navigate a path and tension between one part of me that celebrates a life well lived and another part mourns what this significant loss means to me and all those involved.
I know I will go on. I know all others involved will go on. I know I am better for having loved this person. I know that a legacy has been set into motion that will always live even when they are no longer here.
But right now, before this person dies, I want to voice that I’m going to miss them, and dare say I already do. I want to say I’m sorry their end is near and will come. I want to say that I am with them even though I’m hundreds of miles away. I want to say thank you for all that you have poured into my life. I want to say that I recognize that you encouraged and supported me, and that I am forever grateful for it. I want to say so much more but I can’t because I’m imploding, and this imploding hurts.
I don’t want comments…
I don’t want “I understands”…
I don’t want platitudes…
I don’t want you to tell me later that you read this post…
I’m putting this here for me…
I’m scribbling this out to describe what I’m wrestling with…
I just want to write this moment out for my mind, my peace, my presence and my heart….
as if it will help the implosion go somewhere instead of the inner inside and away with a force that could sweep the rest of me with it.
with the rain, those poor little worms have no choice but to get out of that saturated soil and make a run for it… little do they know, the birds are singing “Yay its raining, its pouring, the worms are soon to cover the flooring…” as they lick their beaks.
++clearing out some posts that were sitting in my draft box.
