Dear Mom,
So much has changed and happened in my life since Christmas.
Life seems to continue to speed up and occur at a breakneck pace.
Cris and I put an offer on a house on December 23rd, and
ended up buying that house in Edmonds.
But of this news, I am sure you know.
There are times where I can feel you with me, so intensely.
I ask you questions, request help, or just cry and say I miss you. Other times,
days or weeks go by when I don’t really feel you at all.
After we put the offer in on the house, we got the call that
we likely were not going to get it, and that the homeowners were going to go
with another offer. We were told they hadn’t 100% definitively made up their
minds, but that the other real estate agent wanted to, “let us down easy” since
I had written a letter about the awful year Cris and I have had.
I hung up and said out loud to you, “Mom, I need your help.
Go change their minds. That is our house.”
I know you heard me.
Not even an hour later, we got a second call:
The house was ours. No one ever knew for certain why they
changed their minds.
I do.
Thank you.
----
The first call Cris and I made upon learning we got the
house was to Dad. Not 30 seconds into telling him this incredible news, I broke
down. It was a combination of a release of massive anxiety that we actually got
the house, but mostly, as I said on the phone it was, “because she isn’t here.”
Dad started to choke up and said you were watching and that you would be so
happy and proud.
Cris told me that you were responsible for getting us the
house and were here and a part of this.
The tears still fell down hard.
--
--
In the moments that I found myself being able to catch my
breath, I spent most of my time crying.
Buying this house has been the most bittersweet thing that
has ever happened to me.
Why?
Because you always wanted me to move home, to leave Seattle
and move back north to be closer to you.
And I never did.
And then I finally did, but now you aren’t here.
And it makes my heart hurt so much.
So, so much.
Every time I have said this to someone, mostly Cris, he, and
others say that you wouldn't be upset. That you ARE so proud. That you are
watching and are here. Cris constantly reminds me that you were the reason we
got this house.
How can anyone truly
know?
The guilt, regret, and just plain sadness ebbs and flows.
--
In February, we spent my birthday in Fiji. I booked the trip
before you died, but I knew when I booked it that you wouldn't be alive. I
couldn't bear the thought of spending my first birthday without you at home. I
just couldn't do it.
So instead, I planned to run away to Fiji and skip over my pain,
as if the plane could transport me through time as I sailed over time zones to
a time and place where I didn’t miss you and things weren’t hard.
Well, I was wrong. The plane wasn’t a magical grief skipping
transportation device, as much as I like to think it is.
The trip was still hard, but the sharp pain was softened
ever so slightly by being in a beautiful place I know you would have loved. I
wanted to skip my birthday altogether this year, but what I have come to
realize and learn over the last few years is:
You can’t skip over any of the hard stuff. People can
temporarily numb it and shove it away, with food, or alcohol, or shopping, or
drugs, or gambling, or whatever things people do to avoid pain and grief.
But at the end of the day?
The saying really is true:
The only way out is through.
--
As if you were trying to grab my attention and force me to
recognize and celebrate my birthday, shortly before leaving on our vacation, I
was moving books and unpacking book boxes. As I was unpacking, a birthday card
from you from my first birthday after your diagnosis fell from the pages of one
of the books.
I had no idea it was there.
I don’t even know how or why it was even there.
I dropped to my knees to pick up the card. I simultaneously,
very hesitantly and with an incredible ferocity, took the card out of the
envelope. The rest of my body quickly found its way to the floor as the words
pierced me.
I wept and screamed and was just so sad.
The words were what I needed to hear, but were so hard
nonetheless.
You said and wrote many things, but the one that hit me the
hardest was:
“You are one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given.”
I weep now just thinking about it.
I got the message – I couldn’t skip over my pain and my
birthday.
In an attempt to avoid skipping over my pain entirely, I had
a much more low-key birthday, and didn’t celebrate with the family until March.
After spending 12 days in Fiji, I finally felt like for the
first time in years, just a little bit lighter. I felt like I had really turned
a corner, ever so slightly. It felt like the long, cold, and dark winter was
finally starting to show signs of spring.
And then, as we celebrated as a family and everyone gathered
to sing me happy birthday, your song, Sherry Baby, came on.
I think at first everyone thought, how RANDOM and what in
the hell are the odds that THAT song would come on?
But then I thought, no. Not random at all.
There you are, I
thought.
If ever we all wondered if you were around, in this moment
we all knew you were here.
I took a deep breath and steeled myself against the tears I
could feel forming.
Jennifer whispered, “How cool, it’s her song. She is here.”
Uncle Tom said, “You know that means that she is here
looking out for you, always.”
They all sang me happy birthday while your song played in
the background. It was perhaps the most somber and bittersweet singing of happy
birthday in the history of happy birthdays.
Thank you for the birthday hug.
--
In the almost year since your death, and really since your
diagnosis, I have reached for ways to help me process and understand my grief,
and death. My absolute favorite writer on grief and loss, Claire Bidwell Smith,
started an incredible podcast called, “Sunday Mourning.” On one of the
episodes, she interviews a psychic medium. In researching and writing her
second book, “After this: When Life is
Over, Where Do We Go?”, she explored the idea of what the afterlife means
for different cultures and faiths, among other topics. She also went to
multiple psychic mediums; many of whom she said were clearly frauds, but one
shook her to her core. In reading her experience with this medium, and later
re-hearing it on the podcast, I just wept. It was insane. The medium, Fleur,
explains that in her communications with the dead, she finds that they are as
anxious to communicate with their loved ones on earth as those left behind are
to have some kind of connection or communication with them. She said that they
try to communicate, but that not everyone pays attention, or has the courage at
times, to see things for what they are. These things are not just random occurrences,
but their loved ones desperately trying to tell them:
I am here.
I see you.
I love you.
Her words have stayed with me in the months since I have
heard it. I just couldn't let them go. And in the months since your death, SO
many strange things have happened, that I just can’t chalk up to randomness.
I hear you.
I see you.
I love you.
--
Something about your song coming on while I blew out my
candles, and things with work and the house finally slowing down, I felt like that
corner I thought I had started to round had disappeared and things start to
cave in on me.
I found myself one evening at Hobby Lobby. Literally
wandering the store with an empty cart, looking for and needing nothing in
particular. As I wandered the empty aisles, I realized I was doing it again:
Trying to skip over my pain. Avoiding my reality by
wandering the aisles of a store I have moral issues with.
It suddenly dawned on me that I had been shopping nearly
everyday after work when Cris was at work; something to fill the time so I
didn't have to be alone in that house.
Not because I am afraid of being alone, but because I was
afraid of being without you, by myself.
I abandoned my still empty cart mid-aisle and rushed to my
car. I didn't stop to put on my coat even though it was freezing outside.
I could feel myself quickly melting down as the cold air
shocked me into being more aware of my surroundings.
I didn't even make it into my car, just outside of it, when
I had an epic breakdown.
I slowly slid down the side of my car and cried.
First, silent sobs as the tears fell down, and then finally,
I let out a deep, guttural cry.
I quickly realized someone might call 911 or think I was
attacked or something, so was able to gather myself together enough to get into
my car and attempt to drive away.
I drove past grocery stores and the gym, places we
frequented together.
I sobbed.
Trader Joes, tears.
Safeway, tears.
LA Fitness, tears.
A random ass gas station we went to once, tears.
But more than the flood of memories, the flood of the plans
we made that were never to be overwhelmed me.
I, and you, had always imagined that someday I would be back
living in this area, and we would grocery shop together, go to Costco together,
shop at the mall, and go to the gym together again, just like we did when I
lived at home. We would go to the park with my kids, and you would stop working
and I would pay you to watch them while I worked.
I suddenly became ferociously angry.
At you, the universe? I still don't know.
I screamed while I drove, “I miss you.”
“I can’t do this without you.”
“I miss you so much.”
I suddenly heard you, so clearly as if you were sitting next
to me in the car, and you said:
“I know. I know. I miss you too. It’s ok. It’s ok. I am
here. I am always here.”
I was simultaneously comforted while feeling like I had
taken a bullet.
My only reply to you was that I wanted to see you, in
person.
--
Since then, something shifted inside of me. I still cry, a
lot. I still miss you, a fucking shit ton. Hell, I am crying as I write this.
I talk to you on a regular basis, and think about you,
always.
Always.
However, I feel comforted and confident that you are here,
and are trying to communicate that to me.
Like when shortly after my breakdown at Hobby Lobby, your
old purse fell out of my closet. It is still full of all of your old things.
Every time I have opened it up to attempt to sift through your life, I just
haven’t been able to do it. So, it remains, like a tomb of your former life.
It is also full of a shit ton of cards. Hair appointment
cards, massage appointment cards, loyalty cards, credit cards, so many cards! I
mean TONS! It actually makes me laugh when it doesn't make me cry. Echoes of a
former life.
Of the what seems like hundreds of cards, three randomly
fell out of your purse, onto my bedroom floor as your purse tumbled down.
And what do you know, those three random cards that fell,
out of the many in your purse, were:
Trader Joes
Costco
Victoria Secret
I laughed and cried simultaneously. I don't even know why
you had all of those in there. I said, “thank you, I get it.”
It was as if you were trying to tell me:
I am here, we can still shop together. Always. It just looks
different than we had planned and hoped.
I decided to spend those gift cards, but with hesitation.
But I decided if you flung those shits out of there, you wanted me to use them.
I hosted Easter at our new house. It was at times
excruciating without you there. The planning, the thinking about the first
Easter without you, preparing food without you. My very first holiday I hosted
for the family…and you weren’t there.
As part of the Easter prep, I decided to buy some of the
food for Easter with the gift cards. I thought you would like to have contributed
to my very first holiday I ever hosted. So, I hesitantly used them, and when
each checker asked, “Do you want to keep the gift card?” I replied with a
resounding and emphatic, “Yes!”
They now live in my top drawer of my nightstand, so I can
see them every night and remind myself that you are always, always here.
Even when I can’t see you. Even in moments when I don't
think you are.
You are always here.
I also bought two daffodil plants and one hibiscus plant as some
of the items from Trader Joes. I planted them last weekend in my new garden, so
that every spring I can be reminded that after the long, cold winter, there are
always signs of life, if we have the courage to look for them.
And as Audrey Hepburn said, “To plant a garden, is to
believe in tomorrow.”
I love you.
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