I woke not so much disconnected just that I’m uncertain if a little day trip will “work” today. Will it help? Do I even need help today? How can I go hiking when my dad is dead? Just get on with life when he didn’t? Couldn’t? Isn’t this the time to really do it?
I think it’s not that I’m looking to connect with nature like some say, it’s that it was so much a part of me anyway my connection is loosy goosy. I am more actually plugged in than I normally am. I’ve had to zoom,Webex,FaceTime,ClassDojo,insta this and that. All so unseeable to me. I don’t want to be trendy and connected to people’s faces I can not touch. It has become so much that I catch myself trying to zoom in on things not zoom in able. Taking my fingers and trying to make the paper Ameren bill bigger to see the numbers better since I can’t see as well but can’t have my vision corrected without accidentally stabbing my eye, leading to an eye emergency where I can discuss better vision.
I know it will work. To get out of the wired walls full of wires to bring us all together behind wired walls. I know it will work to not escape from, but to. Not run from, but to the one thing that wires me.
I worry too much about this wiring. All of it. The wires of community. The wires in walls. The wires of myself. Wires wires wires. We are always looking for ways to bring it all together. Digging trenches through earth, high above and over waters and land to string us all into one. Sometimes when I get too “lost” in the woods I will find these massive poles with wires as a way to lead me out. It’s a no fail. You can always seem to find something man barreled through land to make sure someone across the land knew someone else was across the land. They have gotten me back to service roads or main roads eventually and once even to fellow line workers working on the wires.
I need to just get a few things back in place really soon. I can see it in my wiry writing. Work on my own wires. The desperate desire to reconnect with myself. To work on my own wires a little. To find them, follow them and lead me back to a road. To feel less wired to walls. I’m starting to analyze and reconfigure things. I’m close to un wired wrong. I need re wired right.
Will it be enough to just go even though my dad died? Do I feel him saying go? No clue. He is too soon gone to feel the feeling he is speaking to me in a gone way. He is too soon just here telling me to go. Yet is gone. So I should go or stay? It’s unclear seeing as how he is dead. When will he tell me what to do from his after land? I will have to listen the most listening to myself as I ever have to be able to hear him speak through the noise. Because he won’t actually be talking. It’s a feeling. One that I isn’t wired in yet since the new wires of just died are too new.
Fresh new wires laid out I don’t understand yet. I need a good chat with an electrician. Or my therapist. Or myself. To sort all the wires and make them make me work. Wired well. I have to stop saying wired. Starting now. Go. Says me.
Can you be in the midst of a storm and feel…not the storm your in the midst of? Not stormy? Feel a sense of calm surrounded by chaos.
I’ve come to some conclusions about myself. Weird things that needed concluded. You can’t come to these without first having a conclue. No not conclue, without unresolve. No, a problem. The word for what a conclusion brought you from is a problem, like a word problem. In conclusion….I __________. Fill in the blank. I don’t even remember what these things were. My conclusions I came to seem to have come from no real problems. No real word problems to be concluded.
Earlier today I thought I had come to some big resolution of who I am. Now I think I just worked myself in a circle. Which is coming to a conclusion in itself.
In conclusion I renounce the decision to have thought I found a conclusion.
I retract.
I found a day of peace and quiet. A day that I felt unbored and no desire to unground. No desire to entertain any thoughts to distract me from the feet on the ground moving me forward. The breath I remembered to take when I stopped to pause. I busied myself like a bee. My job demands it. Especially now as so many turn to plants for therapy. I’m a therapist.
You know that saying gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. I’m the supplier. I’m the place. Im the one with the hours to see people through. I don’t have my own garden so I garden the shit out of everyone’s else’s gardens. We will garden through this!! It’s my own bandwagon to jump on. I’m carrying many followers in my wagon, with no bands, because we have the plants to make the tomatoes.
In conclusion I am a therapist.
Once, I stopped and cried. In a private place. Then stopped. Not caring my face showed it. I want to wear my grief out on my sleeve like I do my fear. So I can see it to get through it.
In conclusion I’m wearing grief today like a badge of honor. I lost someone special and there is no reason to hide this.
Once I swore I heard my dad talk. He was a loud talker. Like me. Our inside voice only knows an outside voice volume. Our outside voice is very quiet. I feel like I need to be heard in closed places with buildings and people noise. Which includes my own noise I creat. When outside I want to be quiet so I can listen to so much more. I heard the birds today. They didn’t annoy me. I was able to listen long enough to block out everything but them. They were singing to me.
In conclusion I can listen, if I’m quiet enough to let birds sing to me. Just me. I am also just louder than most. To be heard.
This voice wasn’t my dad, he is dead. It was a man that on first glance looked so much like him I nearly ran to him to embrace him in the middle of a social distancing nightmare. I restrained myself. I knew it wasn’t him. I also wouldn’t have ran to my dad in a warm embrace under normal circumstances. Just under imaginary ones where I embrace a stranger we aren’t allowed to be within 6feet of. I would have used my inside outside voice so he knew I was close. So he heard me. My eyes were tearing up. Both sides. Both my sides of my brain were struggling to make this stranger not be him or be him. He looked at me and stared. I apologized and said he looked like someone. He said he must have been someone so special to cause the look he was given. I wonder what he saw? Was it pain? Or love? Or both?
In conclusion they are one and the same.
My conclusion was that I made myself believe I was calm and not bored by circling all the way through it. Just to get through today. In conclusion I need to come to the conclusion I can be ok with being ok or not, each day by looping through strange scenarios and stories to come to a conclusion that feels like a neat and tidy way to feel…concluded. It’s ridiculous.
I want to wake up and feel_______?fill in the blank.
I don’t know what I want to feel when I wake. Not just awake. How do you describe awake? Not asleep? Alive? Up but tired? Up but not tired? Vertical? Horizontal? Concluded?
I want conclusions so I can move on. With answers. Even if it’s a fairy tale story to get me through 9 hours. I’m reaching deep down daily to do this. Really reaching. So far I’m digging in the ground under fences to come to another side that I prefer the view ahead over what I came from, and even enjoyed the wiggle in the earth to get to it. It’s a little tale of two minds. One that feels bored from lack of being engaged and the other firmly with a tight grip with one foot on the ground of reality. As this side is engaged. I work with two sides that often can’t cooperate without proper conclusion. I story to include them both. Both the what if? and then what the f***? one side is logical and a bit forward and the other in never never land.
I tend to constantly stay out of the logical side. I’m right brained. I always wonder if you are extremely creative and don’t use as much of the left side does this cause more movement to each side those sides control of the body? Like if I am dominant right brained does my left side get used more? I’m right handed? Is that not associated? No. That makes no sense. But if I’m more creative than logical wouldn’t my left side that’s being ran by my right side be over worked? And vice versa.
If I don’t sit around and do math word problems and make conclusions from logical thinking wouldn’t one side of my body lag behind? Are we supposed to think of this? Exercise the sides of the brain? Not just the brain? Why don’t I know this? My dad always said to do math in my head. Simple math. I do. When anxious. Not in ways you would think but just adding license plates or road numbers. Driving makes me anxious. So I do math while I’m driving. Is this distracted driving or exercising the part of my brain that a good driver benefits from exercising?
I could hear the explanation now.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention when I hit the mailbox, I was doing math in my head. You know, adding or subtracting or multiplying the posted speed limit signs to try and make the number match the time on the dash, sometimes I have to divide the radio station numbers and add them in, it depends.”
“I’m exercising my logic and strategy to be a more controlled and defensive driver”
“No,I haven’t been drinking.”
“No, I wasn’t on my phone.”
“I’m trying to find a simple conclusion. So I can keep moving forward. My right brain needs engaged I have concluded. My foot in reality is coming loose. I conclude. Is it the left one or right one? Which ones driving today?”
I was given an assignment. Oddly from my therapist. Yes I have one. I’ve had 2, 3 and once 4 technically. It’s my team. I believe I need a team to be a successful human. I also believe they need me. That if I get “better” what will they do? Who will they look at sideways and quizzically and suggest that maybe you felt this way for a reason, with a little nod. As if it’s both a statement and a question. The first time I went to therapy I said very little. I was asked questions that seemed so personal. It’s what therapy is. Personal. Dirty business.
Then I felt I was over sharing. What’s too much? Can you share too much? Sort of. If you share enough that is deemed harmful they have to break rules and reshare. To protect you from yourself. Other than that, it’s my chance to overshare so I don’t accidentally do it randomly to a stranger in line at the store. Which today is 6 feet away so I would be shouting to make up for the space they have between us so I might as well be sharing with everyone.
Today I over shared with someone. A stranger. I told him about a baby I lost once. That it was not alive. That in my head I named him Nathan. I lost him in the shower after I was told I was losing him. He just fell out of me. Then my mother had to pick him up. My husband not there. Then I had to go to work the next day. I over shared because he did it first. He started it. I blurted out next, my dad died. I just kept going. He didn’t even seem uncomfortable with it. He didn’t stop me and I couldn’t stop myself.
I’m bored.
I told her, my therapist, I was bored. I don’t feel I can access my lack of bored. My ability to entertain myself. She said, in a classic therapist line, “let’s explore this, see where it goes.” She assigned me to explore my thought that I am bored with reality. Is that what it is? She said I seem to use this word to describe an emotion I can’t name. Am I saying I’m tired? Is tired an emotion? Am I sad? Yes. My dad is dead. But am I describingly bored sad. Like bored-sad. Bored slash sad. Am I blessed and bored? what emotion is messing with me in a way that I’m convinced I’m bored? Or am I settled? Calm? Ok? Am I bored because there is a lack of real chaos in my mind. That it is chaotic and also somehow not. I’m accepting the chaos leaving me with voids that feel like boredom because they aren’t full of chaos that is chaotic. Is bored less chaotic?
I wonder off in my imagination so much that right now I can’t. Not just physically but mentally. I can’t leave reality and wonder off. Its probably good for me right now. To ground me. I need to have one foot in the ground right now. If not both. The harsh reality is real and is our reality. There isn’t an escape and it is the realest it’s felt in my whole real life. I can’t climb a tree and escape, I can’t climb warm rocks or wonder through water. I’m not bored. I’m grounded. Which is exactly what I need to be to keep from kiting away too far. I say kiting like a verb. It is when my kite runs out of string and keeps going. It’s not let go so much as it’s being pulled away. It was snatched away and taken too far out. The string gone. Snapped off somewhere and floating away. It couldn’t keep me grounded. I’m kited. Both are words. They just likely mean something other than the action of a kite.
I am supposed to be exploring my boredom. I think it is not wanting to sit with myself. Who wants to? It’s the most painful thing ever to pass the time. I’ve done it. It’s not boring. It’s work. To listen to yourself. To not. To feel the time just ticking. To have to breath for no reason. Just to breath to sit? Who does that? It shouldn’t be so hard that it requires a thought to breath. Yet it is.
Entertaining my boredom? Or am I bored with my entertainment? I’m just a little bored. It could be lack of curiosity as all my outlets to explore are blocked. Or Im bored with the daily topics. The press reaching daily to creat new ways to say the same thing. I’m bored with it. It doesn’t pertain to me as much as they want it to. I can’t seem to care to read about the ramped up tweets from the leader of the free world that is currently in lockdown. Not free. I also am not a tweeter. Or twitter? Or twaut? I like the bird as the symbol that’s it.
I’m bored. If I say it enough I go to lumber. I’m stiff as a board. And bored. If I say it enough I want to find out the first person who was bored. What did they do once they found the word to match their hidden emotion? How did they become unbored? The word I’m sure derives some a hidden meaning all on its own. I would sit on my hands not to explore the rabbit hole of the word bored yet I’m typing so I’m keeping them busy while fighting the urge to open a new browser and browse for meanings of life. I’m bored but not that curious.
I’m going to become more mindful. That’s my goal. It doesn’t make any sense at all. My mind is full. Why would I seek comfort in my mind being full. I would love to know what it is like less. Mindless. Except I get bored from using my mind less. “See my problem?”Therapist number 2. I would love to explore my boredom yet it is boring to not be entertained, but my entertainment is boring.
I’m relieved my kids aren’t returning to school for the year. I would rather make a routine out of no routine than to get back into a routine of a new routine for just a few weeks only to fall into a new routine that would be sort of like the older routine but not. I will keep them bored with me. We can entertain boredom until we get bored.
I found I can come out of a rabbit hole. Twice. Last week I came back from the past and also returned from the future. I stayed in my mind in both places just long enough to torture me but not too long that I couldn’t return. I’m not actually time traveling although it feels like it. I swear I can smell certain things from the past just by thinking them. It’s a far stretch of the imagination but that’s how far imagination takes me. To the place I want. So I’m entertained and not bored. But not stuck dead in a rabbit hole.
I came back and found I couldn’t breath if gone too long. Settled myself back in front of myself and had to catch my breath leaving my chest feeling physically tight. Maybe I needed to see I would be ok. Tip toe a little ahead in time with one foot and see the lessons learned and reasons of maybe from the what if’s that happened. Maybe I went back to see how I and that I survived and found my through. Even if it felt like it was through snarled wild roses and water and terrains of unknowns. But I found the place under the fence that opened up to the path of least resistance. To get to here. The clearer path not necessarily the easier one, the one made for me.
If you were little like me you have squeezed under fences like Peter the rabbit did to get to yummy veggies. I wasn’t going into others gardens(sometimes) but often just leaving land that was fenced to land that wasn’t. Escaping. By crawling under. I rip clothes and skin if I go over. But the feeling of burrowing under in the cool damp soil is entertaining. Then you pop up, dust yourself off a little to look presentable, wipe your sweaty brow to only smear mud on your face and breath in the openness in front. The sun looks and feels brighter and warmer. The wind moves the grass in songs. The air is easier. It’s a ditch of course but behind was rows of corn that scraped my arms to get to the edge to crawl under to find the other side.
Where did that come from? It felt good. To just remember a little of a time life was simple. I could almost feel the sun. I feel a tear forming in my left eye. I sometimes just leak tears from one side. I believe it’s the other side of my brain responding to an emotion. Since the rights side controls the left my right brain side is emotional today. The other side is more logical and controlled. I wipe my left side tear and just feel a little more… less bored today. I am unbored. If bored was my word for an emotion I can’t seem to name properly or describe it’s probably that I’m describing calm. I’m calmer today.
I made it to today. I’m not sure why today seems so important to have made it to but it’s here and so am I. I’ve died a few times over in my head this last week. So the reality of waking to today seems nearly impossible. Yet here it is, today.
I woke with old cheerleader cheers stuck in my head. I’m not nor never was one. But they never go. You hear them a hundred times during a football game you have to sit through with band over 20 years ago and they surface quicker than I did out of bed 20 years later.
“Be aggressive, B E aggressive.” And thats the only words I know to this one. There are healthier outlets than aggression. It led me down the path to make sure I could still recall not just that cheer but all of them. I can. I won’t now. I don’t need to have them recited all day long. It will be like all my least favorite people cheering for me for the day. It makes no sense. They never would have then and would not today.
I wonder if I could still pick up my drum sticks and play? I’m sure I could. I played drums for years. And the flute, and the baritone, once the oboe. The trumpet. If I could play flute I knew I could pick up and play piccolo pretty easily. The saxophone wasn’t much different from the clarinet which wasn’t much different form the oboe. I just played what I felt like playing, filling in in places in the band that were missing. But mostly I liked the drums. The beat and rhythm of the band. I tap out old cadences from the drum line when I’m nervous.
I should have gone into music. I could have. I wasn’t great at any one instrument just passionate about them all. Music written was more like books than books were. The little drawings of a note on lines that made sound. It was fascinating to me to be able to take something you see and turn into something you can hear. Then love. Just by playing what you see.
My dad was passionate about music. I just grew up with it. Every instrument he could play. He could play them all. He is mostly a piano man. He walked around singing as if he was an opera singer. I would wake to cantoring. I knew his mood based on the music blaring from the speakers. I knew if the new world symphony was loud enough to hear down the road from the bus stop life was good. I am humming it now. Life is good. Life was always good. My dad has put this tune in my head for me today. Because I made it to today. This was his cheer song.
I’m not sure I didn’t go into music for any reason other than my passion for plants grew faster. Once I went into a greenhouse for the first time and left that big brick box of a school I was never going back. As soon as I discovered that my childhood love for dirt, trees and the outdoors could be something bigger than playing I did something bigger than play. I grew. I never thought of math with letters again. They weren’t needed to make plants grow. I never conjugated a verb again. And never really did when I was supposed to. I also stopped playing music. It just blew away. I walked outside one day and everything hard just blew away and what came simple filled me up. My passion for what came naturally to me outweighed my passion for what came naturally to my dad. It’s in there. Part of me. The love of music is his part of himself that is part of me. I’m full of music. I just keep my music very close to me. It is very personal. Every song has a memory. Every note was a story I was read. Every time right now I think of music I feel close to my dad. Who is going to use it to help me cheer through life. Not with aggression.
How cheerleading took me to this is impossible to even reroute. I showered this morning and tried to think of what I needed to think through but was full of cheers. I was cheering for myself? I dislike that thought that I’m my own cheerleader but I am. I can see them lined up on the sideline in my mind right now. A row of me in cute skirts and pompons cheering for myself. With no football game in the background. No one else in the stands but me. Watching me. I’m not going to be aggressive. I think I just like the beat to this one. I like the ones where the shout out to spell something important.
All week I was cheering for myself. To make it to today. None of the other days seemed to matter except this one. It’s just a plain old Friday. In my work Friday doesn’t mean a weekend off it means everyone else gets the weekend off needing me to keep them digging in the ground all weekend. Friday doesn’t mean more or less of anything. It was just in my mind Monday that I sure hope I make it to Friday. I don’t usually like to rush through life but I would take a free pass to blink to about June right now. Just skip this all. Hurry up and grieve, hurry up and open the world back up, hurry up and live for tomorrow. But today is what matters. Because it’s today. I spelled it out in my cheer even in the shower. Give me T!!! And then the rest of the letters came. With the ponytail swinging with ribbons tied, pompons held high and tossed in the air. And splits. There is always splits. Which hurt. And I can’t do. But I am imagining I can. Which still hurts.
I walked through the valley of the shadow of death….no, that’s not where that was supposed to go. I walked through the woods. I took the path least resisted. Is there one? Which way was it? Can I even be here? What are the rules? Is the air safe? Should I be wearing a mask to protect me or the animals? I just want to walk through the woods. Not the shadow of the valley of death which is a song? Or a psalm? I don’t know my psalms. Barely my songs. Why am I not in the woods? I’m in a church. Trying to find the book of psalms in my head. It won’t be there. That’s not a book I know. Leave the church, you aren’t supposed to be here either. Get back inside. Inside?
I was thinking of trying to trick myself through a story of a peaceful place. I can’t find a peaceful place. So many are closed. To control my breath. It’s getting harder to breath. My chest is sore from lifting weights in my mind. Grief is heavier than all the other weights. It’s getting too heavy. It’s weighing me down at night. I thought of getting a weighted blanket once but now I think I would die from me too weighted. Too heavy. I don’t need a weight to sleep anymore.
I dreamt of panicking going over a bridge with water flowing over it. I will be carried away? The driver was getting too close to the edge at one point where we had to turn a around. Who is driving? Why am I not driving? I would be certain to stay away from dangerous flooded roads that will carry me far far away. Pull me under. Drown me. This water felt so real. I woke soaked. It took me more than 4 minutes to untangle and realize I was not being pulled from a flooded river. It was sweat.
I can’t trick myself into calm. Deep breathing hurts. It physically hurts. I love when people say, take a few deep breaths. They mean well. I want to say, take them for me. They look like they need to take them for me. I will have to suffer through this. There is little I can do. The sheer fact I know that weighs me down even further. I don’t know what will happen when it becomes too much which is creating a panic all on its own.
Could I draw? Not today. I would break pencils. My grip too tight, my arms too heavy. Could I paint? Not if anything needs opened. Can I bake? The memory is too sharp and painful of years my dad baked. I never want to see flour and butter again. For today. Can I work? Barely. They want me afraid to be anywhere right now. They couldn’t have picked a more opportune time. I’m sacred to death already.
I want to protest. To join a group and rally against these times. Safely with a mask from my car. What would I protest? Be fighting for or against? I don’t even think we know anymore? I want to jump on a band wagon. Where did that saying even come from? Form ally’s and unions to show support. For what? I want to feel part of something bigger than me so I can feel teeny tiny once again. I’m too big. Too swollen with grief and the world has consumed me in one clean bite. I’ll drown.
Why can’t I write about something made up and pretend with no questions asked? My imagination is not busy enough. It’s getting bored with reality. It’s getting lazy in these times. They are trying to steal my one solid coping skill. To escape in my head. To a place no one knows. So I can breath.
Breath in. I hear the interstate. It is right here in my kitchen. Are they planes? Did they switch to planes? Why are they so loud today? My sink settles. It makes noises it seems it shouldn’t. Will it fall through the cabinet one day? It seems secure yet makes a noise like it’s being properly placed still. My turtle is banging his head against the side of his tank. I feel ya turtle. He wishes to explore beyond but the water gets too solid and hard in every corner and he can’t get through.
Once I thought I would take him out. Like put him in a bucket of water and put him in my car, find a small place of water tucked up from a little creek and let him play. I want to take my turtle out for a little day trip. To see a world bigger than him. I wouldn’t be able to buckle him up in the car. He would go flying through the wind shield. Maybe. I don’t know how hard that shell really is. He would love it. I’ve seen it. He is a brave little turtle. He likes to walk around in the house, explore the carpet changing to hard floors. He ventured out onto the patio once, he gets stuck under the couch, he just kind of goes. But he has to get wet. That’s the kind of turtle he is. He gets played with by my daughter. She will dip him in water occasionally in the sink. Then go and tuck him in a little bed in her dollhouse or a crib. I can only imagine what he is thinking. Except today. I can barely imagine being a turtle. A brave little turtle.
Breath back in. Then out. I didn’t hold it. Was I supposed to count? Why is the turtle trying so hard to get out? Does he need something? Is he afraid? Does he need to explore? Maybe he can’t see well either? A turtle with glasses? Cute. Too cute.
I check my senses too often. I make sure I can smell and taste. I’m eating constantly to assure myself I can taste things. I can’t see well. I see kind of ok but can tell a difference. I can’t see an eye doctor. Not literally but in reality. Unless I get stabbed in the eye or one is falling out I can’t go to see to drive or read a book. I thought maybe I could get an eye injury just to correct my vision. I would be able to see better but need a new eyeball from stabbing my eye to be able to see better. Weird world.
This is getting worse. This virus mess. It is not going to get better. I fear. They will force us to wear masks and not get to ever leave home. They will try to give us a false sense of safety by covering and disguising our fears.
Don’t they know? It’s best to wear them right out on your sleeve. Be proud of them. To show your fear. Do it anyway. Be proud of your girlish screams not of delight but blood curdling fear. It’s ok to be afraid. It’s ok to have a few days where it hurts to breath. Where your too heavy is too heavy and full. The world has consumed you and you feel you could drown. That’s where it comes from.
Brave. It’s a far reach right now. It’s not like being brave to go to the dentist. You can’t. Unless you have teeth emergencies. It’s not like being brave and going to the store. Too many arrows on the floor to follow. It’s not like being brave and riding that bike. This is bigger. Being brave and living. Being brave and being brave again. Somedays hurt to be from being so afraid. Feel the pain, they say, when you run. Feel it burn. Let it push you forward. Why can some do this and some fall? Why am I a fall and get back and keep running? Is that braver than the ones who don’t fall? Or can I just not see as well? I pick rocks out of my knees and keep going, blood dripping down my knees. Breathing easy and through. My face turns red. I can feel my blood moving fast. My eyes are watering. My legs are numb, yet burn. Just do it. Kind of. But be brave and be ok that today is not being less brave. It’s more afraid and still living. Breathing even if it’s hard. But not drowning. That was a dream. This is life, little turtle.
I’ve been preparing for this. Or I’ve been preparing for this? Question mark.
Five years ago I could have never gotten through any of this. Not just the virus, the death of my father. I didn’t have any of the skills I have now. None of the tools. Someone else had them for me. Told me what to use and how to use them and sometimes just to never. We are all preparing for loss we don’t want to prepare for? Unbearable loss. We are learning the tools we will need to die ourselves even. The ones to be brave in the event our last breaths are challenged. For me it’s each one. Breathing each breath is more brave for me than running into a burning building to rescue others. I wouldn’t even hesitate. I wouldn’t even think about it. In fact I may have thought it through that It could happen before it did. Walked by a building and determined it was possible it could catch on fire. What would I do? Yet I sit and have to remind myself to stay put in the moment so I can breath and not die years ago. My fears are contorted and confused. I shouldn’t be so afraid to breath deeply and stay here in the now.
I am backwards today. I’ve gone back in time to see if I could survive something I’m currently surviving. I’ve thought through the thought that I would die. Am I doing this to feel the certainty that I’m better off now? That now that I have control of my tools I’m good? Why would I think to a point I am gone? When I’m right here? The certainty is absurd. Because I’m not dead. I put myself in a difficult place to be able to help myself get through difficult things. I left so I could be the one to prepare me for things I needed to prepare for. All along I’ve been preparing to die but I haven’t. Or preparing for my dad to die. And he did. And I am ok. Just ok. Not great but not dead. I don’t want to join him in his never never land. I don’t want to drink into oblivion. I don’t want to not think about it. I don’t even want to escape. Run. Which used to be my go to escape. To escape.
I’m taking each day as best I can. Some harder than others. Some still hard even if they aren’t hard. I’m drinking water. Eating more than usual really. I have fallen in love with the ease of an app to order food. Specifically because it tells me little hints that my password contains this and that and also a symbol. It helps me remember, so I keep buying food from them and having it brought right to me. It’s temporary I’ve told my kids. Enjoy it for a while. I want the extra time to sit and read and watch princess Sophia with my daughter not destroy my kitchen and think of measurements and tasks like feeding little people. Not when the chipotle app can.
I was able to help write my dads last story. No one wanted to. Even me. But I had been thinking of it for weeks. What to say. How to say it. The fact that it should be told as if he wrote it himself. Most people think he did. I could have written it with my eyes closed. Five years ago I would have been dead apparently and not been able to. Which is ridiculous. Except true. Except I am not so it’s not.
I lost my pruners. I’ve had them for 20 years. Same pair. They are red, they have a leather holster they have worn through twice. They never aren’t with me or on me. They are my side arm. They form my hand perfectly. They are made of metal yet somehow seem worn to my grip like the insole of a shoe. It’s not likely possible until I lost them and used someone else’s. They just weren’t my hand.
I assumed someone stole them. I would never lose them. Never be this careless. But one day my dad died and I had to clean his yard. I was wearing sweats with no belt loops. Because sweats with belt loops doesn’t make sense. None of this day made sense. I carried them around to trim plants from the year before. It started to rain. I cleaned up and took them inside where I put them in my daughters backpack to remember them. I thought. I looked for days for them. I borrowed my dads in the meantime. Same exact pruners and holder. They just weren’t for my hands. They were for my dads. Close. I felt close to him and also like a child trying to use his tools for the first time. Like my hands weren’t big enough for this. I used them for a few days. Then one day my daughter comes out with my leather holder. She said it was under her bed. Which meant that’s where my pruners were. Which they were. Like all strange things are. Under the bed is where things are. I don’t like to look under the bed.
My oldest daughter with Down syndrome likes to hide things and I often forget to ask her where things are. Until I find strange things in my pots and pans cabinets like socks that bother her. Or toys she doesn’t like of her sisters under the sink. Or behind beds. She is coping in her own way? I put my pruners away and am going to keep using my dads. His seem…more used. But less. They need to be kept being used so they don’t forget they can be. I want my hands on the handles where for years his were. We can hold hands like I’m 2 and crossing the street, while I work as an adult who wants his help across the street still. I need his tools to help me. Mine are right and fit but his are his. Better. I know how to use them. I’ll be fine.
I’m trying so hard to bring myself back to today. To get out of years ago. It’s one thing to go back and reminisce over past times but I have stayed too long and even changed the outcome making today seem too difficult to breath. I died several years ago in my mind. I’m trying to teach myself that my body can only successfully breath today. Not back in time or forward in time.
It snowed today. I love late April snow. It’s so confusing to people. They freak out on the roads as if it’s our first snow of winter with inches and days of it to come. This is just a reminder that nature is in charge. People see this and cover plants. I’ve been asked if people should cover trees. Cover daffodils emerged. They just have to intervene and protect somehow. All will be ok i remind them. Enjoy the look of the confusion of Mother Nature. She is also coping right now. A little snow in spring is a simple reminder to let go .
I love the look of spring popping up though the remnants of winter. It’s encouraging to know that the daffodils will be ok. That a little snow won’t hurt. That’s how it works. It snowed April 15, the not tax day because that had been extended due to a global pandemic, and I’m still alive. I didn’t die years ago. I just assumed I would have and it’s trying to wreck my current spring snow day. April 15. My daughter has announced its time for me to get pants on and go clean the snow off the car. Snow makes her gag. Literally Who is she? Laugh. Literally. Time to get to today. April 15.
Cronyism-appointing or hiring of persons to positions regardless of abilities because of friendships.
Malfeasance-official misconduct violation of public trust or duty
Fideism-philosophy that knowledge is dependent on a fundamental act of faith
Erudite-scholar learned
Obscurantist-a person who is opposed to progress and the spread of knowledge
My dads last words. Just a handful of them. His very last one was this:
Ephah- equivalent to a bushel
He used to just write out words in a notebook. He would write them down and then go back and write the meanings later. He always had a pencil. A mechanical one used for drafting.
He was a man of many words but really so few. He spoke very little of them. He thought them all. He wrote what spilled over.
Towards the end of the notebook his writing changed. It was sloppy and you can barely read it. His body was stopping. He was writing in print instead of cursive sometimes. Likely to show his severe desire to concentrate on the task.
Our last conversation on the phone was the night before he died. We talked about almost nothing. I told him I thought this was all too hard. That I didn’t know what to do all day long not working. He said. “Take care of yourself, your kids and keep writing, reading, and if you run out of books I have one on the laws of physics.” Then laughed. Then he had to go because a nurse came in to do his respiratory beatings he called them. Where they pat on his back to break up things stuck in his lungs. I said goodbye. Then he died.
Will I relive this every day? Do I want to torture myself? Am I afraid I will forget? Why do I want to remember such painful things? Are they that painful? It was comforting that I was able to chat the night before. To be able to say goodbye. I knew deep down it was coming. Not even deep down it was right in the surface. I made the phone call in case it was the last. That’s how I function, always. I am a run back and hug tighter, longer, better to the ones that matter one last time before they leave person. I hug and say things so I have that memory before I go. In case I don’t come back or they don’t. It’s the most horrible thing and also not.
At the end we all just sat there around him. My sisters, my mom and I. It was horrible for me. It was too weird sitting there around a dead person, especially that the dead person was dad. I kept thinking of his body inside shutting down. The actual process. The fact that his skin was getting yellow from the lack of liver function. His heart wasn’t oxygenating his blood anymore. What color does it turn again? Or does it change? His nose hair isn’t moving? His chest wasn’t moving? Of course it’s not, he’s dead. Why is one eye open? Can’t someone close it for him? He can’t close his eyes anymore, he died. My mom was holding on to his hand that looked like it was getting too hard and I pictured them having to break it to get her to let go and leave. The nurses were busy cleaning around us. They kept coming and going without saying “hey, he died, visiting hours are done, forever, goodbye.”They didn’t have to say it. I already did.
I had to go. I needed to get to my kids and hug them. Tell them. I had things to do. Places to be and one of them was not sitting here over my dead dads body. He was gone. I wanted to play pretend that this wasn’t true but it wasn’t something you can pretend isn’t true. They have things to do. People who need this room. He needs to go and be put away so we can go and be put back together. Why was I in such a hurry? Because it was too hard sitting here with my dead dad.
I started nesting. Gathering things and tidying up. I found his pencil. His notebook and read his last words. He was given his last rights and words. He was given permission to expire. Who was supposed to give us permission to leave? Where were those people? The ones to say. “He wrote his last words. Said them all and now he is done. Goodby.”
No one wants to say it. Maybe they could write it down. Just leave us a little note under the door.
What would you say? Goodbye. That’s it. That was my last word. It made sense. It was simple. I don’t have any thing else. It sums up the end of hello. The beginning of the end. The last word from me.
I don’t want to relive this everyday. I want to live every day. Not relive the ones before today. It’s not that they are too painful. Or too hard. They interfere with my day to live today. They single handedly catapult my into the future. I go back and forth. I look back and relive a moment that somehow makes me move past today to tomorrow or forever from now with no answers to the questions from my relive thought. I jump from back to forward and miss the here and now when I’m too anxious. It exhausts me. I can’t think of how to breath or even if I should. I can only take a deep breath by yawning and pretending to yawn because I’m not tired. I need the big open muscles and movement of a yawn to open the airways blocked by the leaping to and from to the past and future.
I can’t control the outcome of anything. I usually know this. Occasionally I just don’t. It makes some days difficult to get through because I’m in a different day and my body doesn’t know how to breath beyond the one I’m supposed to be in.
But I got through it. And today is today. I woke and wanted to replay my dads last moment with me. And I found it didn’t push me into the next day. Or even farther. I have my coffee, his notebook of words and today. I can breath today. I’m aware of the breathing and the thoughts trying to run ahead and behind. It’s like a race of words. They just go and go and go and then they go back. Then forward. I can’t stop them. But they are there. I can listen to them. Write them. They don’t become less they become more. They can consume me but not always. I can’t sort why some days I can and some days I can’t. What matters is that I realize some days I can and some days I can’t. Goodbye.
4:30. A.m. I don’t want up. Not yet. I am not ready to do this day without my dad.
I woke hours later. I felt like I ran a race. That’s not quite right. I’ve ran a couple of races and my breathing was controlled and when I was done I just felt done running a race and had a red face. And I was hungry. I didn’t feel anything in my chest. People say this? I felt like I should run a race.
Can I pretend to run a race to control my breathing? Why can’t I do it when I sit but I can when I run and walk miles? I sat and tried. I’ve tried before. I wake early and sit and say the pledge of allegiance in my head and breath. It’s harder because I don’t want to say the pledge allegiance and breath. I want answers for things that aren’t answerable. Not, why did he die? Not, what if they did this? It’s. What will life be like now? What will happen to his tools? His pianos? What will I be like? How will life be without him? And I don’t want to think these things. But what am I supposed to think? I’m supposed to be in the moment. In the moment I am in the future. Working through a life without my dad. I’ve worked through him dying a million times over my life. But I didn’t properly prepare myself for him actually dying. The after, for me with the tools I have. Are they enough?
I’ve never felt so alone. Even when I think of the millions of people who deal with shit worse than this or even the same. I just don’t care. Or I care too much. I want a project. Someone else to think of and save. I’m not sure I’m saveable from this?
At 4:30 every morning I’ve been writing since I started this place to write specifically to see in a single place what I go through. How I go through? So I can go through. Today there feels like no through.
At 4:30 every day now I have to write about my dad not being part of my through. He is thé through Im trying to get through. Without him to help me get through. Is it enough? The things I’ve learned the past few years. Do I have the right tools? I just barely know me. The me that can get through. Is it enough to tell myself that for a day there is nothing to get through? Is it enough that I can tell myself I can get through a single day when there is never a certainty you can get through a single moment?
Why can’t my lungs fill up? A shortness of breath is a symptom of this nasty virus. Maybe that’s what it is? My mind knows better? It is not a virus? You can’t breath because you are forward thinking. And normally that’s not so bad. You can look forward and see your plans you have laid out. Look forward to trips. Look forward to dinner. But now you look forward and there is a void. My lungs can’t fill up from my erratic thoughts of the future I can’t control. I’m not a stranger to this. I recognized it. I just am not sure today what to do about it. That tool seems lost.
I’m furious with all packaging. Nothing opens right. It may be why I don’t love some holidays? All the packaging required. I’m not sure what kind of job this is? Is it an engineer? A packaging engineer? Are these people who sit around planning on how to make us not be able to get into things? So they laugh at some of them? Ha! Try and open that! Do they have to test them themselves? I’m not an engineer, if they can open cereal boxes with perfection it’s because they know the secret to opening it, they created it. Do they bring in small children to test it? Are they looking to make it not be opened by toddlers or just to be secure enough for preservatives, freshness and shipping? Why do some require perforated type lines to follow but the cardboard seems to rip to easily and destroy the perfect can shaped hole left. Margarine? You pull in the middle in hopes you can release one stick at a time like a vending machine. Mine smashed the butter trying to open it. I can never get the last coffee pod from the corner without shredding the box. Shouldn’t it just open fully for a full sized hand to get the last one? Not a toddler hand. It doesn’t matter the engineer says. By the last one it’s now a recycled box.
Maybe an engineer is the wrong job? I don’t know what an engineer does really other than think. An engineer would probably make it easier. Or provide a little tool to go with it? Or not be involved at all. Maybe it’s just a designer? Someone who designs just is that. Like clothes designers. They don’t always wear their clothes. They dream them up for others. Buildings? Designed by thinkers who may never have to try and open the strange door they dreamt up. Or try to clean the windows they designed to creat a specific look of the light pouring in. They create packaging they will never open. Cookies are opened on top now. It’s not easier. It’s just on top. Before, I opened the side and the cookies went into a jar. Now I open following the rules and they can’t be put in a jar without touching them all. But if you try to open it the old way it won’t do it right. Now they go in a ziplock baggie to assure freshness after destroying the weak packing system. They changed even the ends of the package not just the top.
Why is it just some cookies? Oreos seem to be better if they are too hard to get to the ones in the corners under the packaging, shoving cookie pieces into your nails to reach? Why are the generic brands not opened this way? Am I paying more just to open? Why do I even care?
Packages brag; “easy to open, enjoy this new way to open, same taste, new frustrating way to taste it, try and get this out!, might as well just rip this open with your pruners you won’t be able to follow the rules…”
I suppose I need it to say; “tastes the same, packaging tested by some of the most anxious people we could find, you are anxious? Here is your food unpackaged. Enjoy the ease of just not opening anything, it’s fruit.”
I don’t like the waste in toy packaging. I have ripped doll hair out trying to get that stapled in plastic piece they somehow got through the head to the box. I’ve pulled legs from sockets on Barbie dolls. Ripped their ball gowns, shoes flying across the room. Barbie still smiling and ready to play with one leg and no shoes.
Now, is the new LOL’s which have 10-15 single foil packages in a little plastic ball also wrapped in plastic. None of which open but when you finally cut them all they hold something when put together is the size of a golf ball. A lipstick the size of a sprinkle on a cupcake in a package like a bandaid. Can’t open puzzles. They use the picture of the completed puzzle to also be part of what secures it. Opening can lead to ripping the picture.
I need someone to open things for me. Someone who will see the bag of sugar or flour and imagine the mess that might come if it’s not done for me. This is permanent. It’s not going to get better. I’m too anxious always to open anything carefully. I personally don’t care. I can clean up flour. I expect to. I’ve not opened the bag well all my life. My father knows this about me. “Wait, you’ll just rip it down the middle.” “Here, let me open that.” He gets his Genuine Gerber multipurpose functioning tool and calmly opens everything in my life. I need more tools? Or to run a race? Or to play barbies maybe? I just won’t try to open anything today. Just breath today.
This is how I chat with my daughter with Down syndrome. In simple sentences. Except I leave the last word blank for her to fill in. That’s a sentence now. A simple sentence. My dad is dead. It’s so simple it’s not. When I fill in the last word I come up with all the things he was. Not is. He isn’t anymore. He was. He will never be was dead. He was a man, was a father, was alive. But now he is dead.
We write her social stories to help her comprehend very simple and very difficult things. She loves her social story about her grandpa being dead. It’s so simple. She giggles and holds her hands excitedly over her chest or mouth when her favorite parts of the story come up.
“Grandpa loved spending time with Anna.” We say with excitement.
“But now grandpa is gone, he died. Anna won’t see grandpa anymore, but grandpa loves Anna.” She loves this part.
She holds her belly and says “belly hurt?” During thé part that says “grandpa was very sick.” Then she says “not anymore.” And shakes her head. Then she asks for chicken nuggets for supper. Anna’s day revolves around making it to supper. She asks as soon as she wakes.
“Chicken nuggets for supper?” Or “cheeseburgers?” Or “spaghetti”
“Yes, Anna we will have supper tonight.” I don’t promise as I’m thinking, if we make it to supper. It’s not a guarantee we do. My dad didn’t make it to supper. He is dead. My dad won’t be making Easter supper. He is dead.
The finality of something so simple is just final. It’s too final. There are no negotiations to make to change it. Death is our final offer. We negotiated and manipulated and tempted life until the final offer was made and it was just so…just, final. He is dead. It is final.
You sign papers and everything. These are not the deal makers. These are the final papers people. The ones that then have the certificate that says you finally lived and now it’s finally over. There are no more deals to be made. You are now officially finally at peace. Because life is just not that peaceful. The negotiating through life is painful, it’s expensive, it’s struggling for words for a today. Because it’s too complicated and I prefer simple sentences. Life is hard. Life is struggling. Life is painful. Life is love. Love is painful. Death is final. Love is forever. He is dead. Dad loves me.
He is gone. Final. Finally. He was very sick. He struggled with life. Just the mechanics of having a body do it for him. His body won. It made the final deal and it was accepted. Finally. It is a relief. He is dead. He was in pain. He is not anymore.
His mind always said “do, live, be.”
His body said. “I wasn’t quite made right to do all this being.”
He did, he lived right through the pain. He forced his body to just do it. He lived and worked deals with it all his life. I wonder in the end if his mind mind was quiet? Was he still fighting and trying to make deals? Or did he just listen. Finally just listen. Did he finally just say enough and listen.
You can keep a mind going, you can keep breathing artificial. You can even run machines that are hearts when yours goes. But when your gut says it’s time. It’s time. That’s why they call it a liver. It’s your live. Everything below the liver is your real life. In the end his gut lost blood flow from a blood clot in his bowels. Ischemic bowel disease. He went septic. His gut died. Then he died. He is dead.
My gut that morning said he was going to. I had a gut feeling. My gut has always talks to me. It said to call him the night before. Not because he was doing so well, it was in case it was the only chance I had. I was right. I started hugging him weeks ago. In case. He joked we aren’t supposed to. We also rarely did. But something in my gut said to. Listen to your gut. Not just your heart and your mind. Some people make decisions with their heart, some with their mind. I make mine with my bowels. It’s all digested to there and the feeling is made.
I was asked yesterday how I don’t gain weight with my bottom less pit appetite. I think my calories off is what my dad always said. I don’t work them away. I think so quick and often it all just flows right through. I barely have time to absorb required nutrients from food. I’ve been deficient of vital minerals and elements. I have been dehydrated most of my life. I get so hungry but can’t get full. But can’t eat large amounts. I graze. I spend all day long with food in my hands and mouth. I keep snacks everywhere. I will get shaky. Weak and irritable. I struggle with my sugar balance. I love sugar. That’s not quite right. I love things sweet. My teeth are apparently to blame. I have a sweet tooth.
My dad was this way. Was. My dad is dead. It’s child like to keep reminding myself. It’s also easier than working through the whys and what ifs that come naturally to me. Is this a healthy coping skill or an I developing an avoidance mechanism to avoid the difficult? Now isn’t the time to change and add new coping skills except my coping skills can’t be accessed because they require places that are deemed dangerous right now. Nature is also coping. I must give her the space she is demanding too. For me, it’s not a place it’s feeling. I can probably get close to it if I really calm the rock tumbling enough to, if I just sat. Quietly. And listened. But. My dad is dead. He was alive. Now, just dead. It’s Sunday. It’s Easter. It doesn’t mean he is. He isn’t. He listened. And died. It’s final.
If you don’t tell your story someone else will write it for you.
What can I say?
I lived my life.
I was born to Lloyd and AnnaJean Ballinger on January 12, 1952. I worried my mother sick as a child. I was not expected to live. Yet here I am, was?
I was 1 of 6 siblings to Lloyd, Kathleen, Nancy, Bryan, and Russell.
I married the love of my life, Betty, my wife, my soulmate, my nurse, my everything on September 29, 1973.
We raised 3 darling daughters Jessica, Heather, and Courtney. “Oh, my darling, oh my darlings, oh my darling Clementine…” because everything leads to a song.
I was grandpa to Amber, Timothy, Clay, Anna, and Coal. Papa to Mollie.
I lived life with purpose, see above.
What have I done all my life? What haven’t I done? I answer questions with questions.
I was a carpenter with the local 63. You’ve seen my work if you’ve seen Clinton Power Plant, Mitsubishi Motors, Diamond Star at the time, various culverts and houses.
After years as a carpenter, I left the trade to begin a new trade. As a sick child I was limited to activities. With no sports, I turned to music. I’ve played them all. I’m a piano player. I sang in the Donald Armstrong Choral Ensemble. I love all music. Allison Krauss and John Prine both of whom I’ve met are my favorites. My love of music led me to learn the dying trade of a piano technology. I was sent to New York to train at the Steinway Factory in New York. I worked for Horine’s Pianos Plus, where I made long lasting relationships with customers. I tuned for churches, both university’s, and Ewing castles.
My wife and I spent 5 days canoeing the Boundary Waters in Quetico Provencial Park. I was currently working on building my own canoe at the time. We camped, visited the Florida Keys as a family, toured rivers, white water rafted, been to Colorado, South Dakota, San Diego, Missouri. We’ve chased tents flying away, canoes tipped, and seen the Cumberland Falls. These are a few great words to look up; stultiloquence, sycophant, arcane. I was a man of many words. Have you ever talked backwards?
My health began to deteriorate. After years of battling health issues with no answers, I researched a facility to help me. We went to Denver, Colorado where National Jewish Medical Center found I had Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Alpha-1 is an inherited genetic disease that affects the lungs and the liver. For more information: https://www.alpha1.org/.
As a result of this deficiency, I struggled with lung and liver diseases, my liver wasn’t producing the protein to protect my lungs. As a non smoker I developed COPD. We tried protein replacement therapy called Prolastin. With little success. As an unusual complication I developed primary hepatocellular carcinoma.
The treatment would be a new liver. One option would be a living donor. Family members were not an option, some of them shared the genetic mutation. Several family were not matches. It would now be out of my hands. We waited. I was put on the UNOS transplant list.
I don’t wait well. In the time we waited, we continued to live a great life. In case it was going to end. I spent time in my shop building my canoe to pass the time. I spent time with family. Gardening, home remodeling projects, making wine and making music..I continued to work as a piano technician.
I baked, I read, I solved math problems. I taught my girls to be great stewards of the land, to canoe, hike, sleep in tents, to build character. I watched grandchildren grow. What more can you do, but live?
How do you put into words the chance for a second lease on life? Why me? Why now? It takes a selfless dynamic individual to just decide to give life while also living their own. It’s difficult to write. Difficult to believe. But it happened to me.
We met Nikki, a coworker of my oldest “Juicy-Jessica”, Nikki, who’s name hasn’t been changed for this story, it’s Nikki. With her permission, Nikki is part of my story. My second lease on life. She gave me 60% of her liver. June 1, 2005, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in Chicago. I we would undergo my liver transplant. The doctors would remove mine and be shocked I was even still alive. It shouldn’t have been able to sustain life. My will to live outweighed my bodies desire to retire. If you saw my purpose of life above you would have lived to.
My life was made not just longer, but also a richer and fuller life, so my story is much longer. Because of Nikki. Donate Life.
I became an active swimmer, I participated in the transplant games in Kentucky, my wife and I took a dream trip on the Camden Harbor to sail away, sail away, sail away. 5 days on the schooner Lewis R. French, first launched in 1871. I was there for my girls. I was able to continue my work as a piano tuner. I was there to see my son-in-law, Geoff receive his own gift of life, his new lungs. I was learning to play violin, I was learning Spanish, I spent my mornings at the Coffeehouse with my coffee house friends, I was restoring violins, I was a cantor in the church choir, I read books about physics, for fun. I was watching my youngest grandchild Mollie, I worked in my shop. I baked. I lived and I lived longer. I was infinitely curious.
Here we are today, amidst a global pandemic crisis. I went in sick, with pneumonia, we would test for this virus, who’s name shall remain nameless to my story, we would wait. My wife, Betty couldn’t be with me as she always was, I am a difficult patient. I was getting worse. I was negative for this virus. Then I was better. I was able to connect through the very technology that I often dis-like with my family. I was getting better. I was tested again. I was still negative. They couldn’t look past what they believed it to be. With it being on everyone’s mind it is easy to see why. I was scared. If I would have gotten this virus it would have defeated me, maybe even my family. Like I tell my girls, “If it’s too easy, it’s likely wrong.”
I’ve never done anything simple in my life. I made my exit my own way during a global pandemic. It didn’t get me. I was able to be given my last rights and be with my wife and girls in the end, while my music played close to me. Betty held my hand. The girls chatted around me as if it were just any day. I had my pencil.
If you are reading this, I am gone, my story is being told through my family, by me. As I would have wanted. I lived my life for them and it is their story to tell now. How can you sum up a person who is unsummable? How can you tell your story if you don’t know it’s over? Or is it? What do you think?
Where am I going? My last ride to Chicago will be to the Anatomical Gift Association where I will be studied. Given to science. To be used to figure things out. To educate our future medical professionals.
To quote John Prine:
“Please don’t bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I’d rather have ‘em cut me up
And pass me me all around…”
What can you do?
No need to send flowers, to slow the spread of this virus, send thoughts and prayers.
The cat Samson also eats floral arrangements.
Are you an organ donor? Give the gift of life. Don’t just want to do it, register to do it.
Pay it forward, buy someone coffee at the Coffeehouse when this pandemic eases, my coffee guys will be there without me.
Be kind.
Spend every moment as if it is the last. Live with purpose.
Memorials may be made to my family to follow through with my wish to be transported to Chicago.
At a later date, when we can all meet, when we can all be together, let’s be together and we will listen to my choir sing, we will listen to words spoke by Father Greg in a mass at St. Mary’s Church.
Peace be with you. And also with you.
Me, my sisters and my mother wrote this through tears, laughter, anger, distractions, a bottle of wine and our broken hearts. He would have been furious with the grammar and lack of editing. But in our defense we were grieving and he didn’t write it. Just gave us the tools, words and life to put it together for him. It’s his story unedited.
In the end we write our stories. By living them. His story could have been summed up as I lived until I died. Everything in between was what we called life. The sum of life is insurmountable. An edited version would have been inaccurate simply because of it was that. Edited. Every time we went back we didn’t look for errors we were looking for more life to put in between the beginning and the end. Their were no errors to us.
It’s not going to get easier, nothing ever does. It becomes a different more complicated sometimes interesting kind of hard. You adjust. You don’t get to go back and edit. You get to move forward and add more life.
Aspenleaf 