Forgive Yourself

When I saw this poster, with its words of wisdom, I instantly teared up. My therapist has been saying these things to me for a long time. The last time I thanked her for investing in her ongoing education, because it impacts our learning and growing, she thanked me for being willing to try something different than the survival patterns I've used all these years.

Years ago I was in a Bible study group with all elderly women. My children were all preteen at the time and I would listen to these women talk about their grown children, and the sometimes shocking choices they were making, and I wondered what age a person had to be before they didn't take their children's behaviour personally. I was very much into seeing my children's choices as a reflection of myself. That only added to my inclination to be a very controlling mother. After all, my reputation, such as it was, was at stake. I had no idea that my unresolved trauma history was impacting my parenting in ways big and small.

It turned out that the age one had to be was the age you were when your adult child made one of those life decisions that makes you cringe. It took that decision by Youngest Son to be willing to pry my fingers off the edges of my adult children's lives.

I know now, in a visceral way, that all my kids have their own trauma history to work through. My unresolved trauma impacted my mothering deeply. I was often not the mother they needed and I have deep regrets. People have a hard time picturing me as a verbally and physically abusive mother yet I was. I was bound determined I would never be an alcoholic like my mom either, but I went down that path, too.

Motherhood was the catalyst for my recovery on many fronts. It was what gave me courage to reach out for help and be steadfast in my search for healing even though that search has been a winding, and sometimes, not so pretty path. Only Daughter tells me every so often that the work I am doing in therapy and the changes I have made over the years, are impacting her life and her children's for the better. It's a reminder that today is not the end of the story.

All those words of wisdom in that yellow box up there are closer to being my reality than ever before. At least I am able to entertain them as truth, now. Although I think my regrets will always be there, I think it is possible to forgive myself for them, too. I inch closer to that every day.

A few nights ago I mused aloud to Dearest One that I wondered what age a person was when they decided to be at peace with what they believed and how they lived their life without feeling like they needed to defend it or apologize to anyone for simply being themselves.  I told him I was much closer to being that person than I had ever been and maybe now was as good a time as any.

Spring Chickens

Trigger warning: sexual abuse.

My mom would have had a milestone birthday today. I think she would've been surprised and wondered out loud how could she be that age already. Where had the time gone? She'd tell me again that I was a Spring Chicken at the age of 56. I don't feel like one these days.

I've been wondering what she would say about my time off work right now. I seriously wonder about that. She was an integral part of why I was put in the situation that ended in rape and continued sexual abuse for the months that followed. If she was alive I would've told her exactly what happened that lead to my being on an extended time off work. Yet she was so fragile at the end. Would I be obligated to protect her from my reality? What is fair? And to whom? Will I always feel like a bad person for feeling such anger?

I never allowed myself to feel angry about it while she was alive. There's still that frown of hers that I can picture in my head and the very real comment she made me to when I was 13 that what goes on in our house stays in our house.

There were many things that she didn't think should be brought out from the shadows and into the light of day. I don't think she ever experienced the freedom that speaking the truth can bring. I don't think she ever got over the boatload of mother guilt she carried. I'm guessing at these things because we couldn't have an honest conversation about the guilt although we came close way back when. She admitted that day to being an abusive mother. It cost her all she had to voice it. It was so much more than anything her own mother would have admitted to being or not being. There's that.

But. She knew he was a predator. Knew he bragged in the bar about the young women he got. She let me/sent me there to babysit anyway. I intuitively knew she had her own history with him. Intuition is a bitch sometimes.

She knew things were going on between him and I. I found out later that she rationalized that I was old enough to handle it. I remember thinking to myself , as I shoved blood stained underwear into the back of my jeans, "where are the adults and why isn't anyone rescuing me from this?" That I didn't feel like I could go to anyone is a sad reality. Let's take a detour down a back road and keep you there for hours. Tell you I'm not done with you yet when you try to get dressed.

It took years of therapy to see that he was always in a position of power in any encounter we had. That my voice meant nothing. My "NO!" eventually fell silent amid anxiety and fear. I thought it was all my fault for decades. To this day there are moments when my instinct, if you touch me without permission, is to want to throat punch you.

Motherhood is such a winding path. The baggage you bring with you into it. Baggage you don't even know you have. It can drag you down. The baggage that accumulates while you are actively parenting. She had enough to make one shudder. But still. There is no excusing not protecting one's own daughter. Not even doing the best you can in the circumstances.

If I indeed, am a Spring Chicken now at 56, she was a real Spring Chicken at the age of 41 when all this happened. I wonder what her milestone self today would tell her 41 one year old self if she could.

Not For The Weak Of Heart

**Trigger warning sexual abuse.**

Six weeks ago I was driving along, minding my own business, when I had a flashback of a rape I experienced when I was 17. A tiny detail surfaced that I had totally forgotten about in the rape that took my virginity. That left blood on a couch. By a married man twice my age. The first of many rapes by him over a six month period that only ended when I moved across the country. But didn't stop him from trying again the first time I saw him on my return. The asshole.

I was nearly to a set of lights when the flashback happened and half a block from a parking lot. I pulled into an empty parking spot and momentarily forgot which pedal my foot was on. I pushed my foot down so hard that I lurched forward when I came to a stop. It was work to remember to put the car in park.

Once I did that, even though I knew Comforting Therapist was on a plane travelling out of country, I texted her. I texted Dearest One next. I asked him to come get me as I was too shaken to drive. I couldn't drive for days afterwards.

While I waited for Dearest One to get there I kicked the inside of my car. I totally understand why people, in a fit of rage, kick the shit out of their vehicle. Had I not been in a public parking lot I would've gotten out of my car and done the same.

I looked around and tried to ground myself by noticing as many things on the spectrum of the rainbow as possible. I reminded myself I was safe. That I'd survived the rape. I used every coping method Comforting Therapist has taught me while I waited to hear back from her. There were tears.

I have worked with my therapist long enough that I could have almost predicted what she would write. Things I needed to hear and be reminded of but my initial reply to her text was "oh fucking yay." That is my initial reaction to many things in life. I followed by saying that my aching for healing remained as strong as ever. That I was committed to doing what I could to facilitate that happening.

What followed was two weeks of slow unraveling to the point where I got sent home from work one day because I wasn't coping too well with the question, "How are you?" When you're the first point of contact for students and the public and you can't stop crying it doesn't bode too well for your ability to carry out your duties.

Later that day I had a moment where I almost lost my shit on a trio of boys who I thought was bullying one of the group. It was a saving Grace that stopped them from hearing me ask, after I rolled down my car window, if everyone was okay. I had a sliver of clarity where I realized I was in a public place and was about to lambaste unfairly, the boys I thought were being bullies, for every time a male had invaded my space in a sexual way from the time I was 8 until I was 19. I told myself to roll up the window and drive home.

It got so that I had to negotiate with Dearest One on a daily basis why I was okay to go to work the following day. I kept listing all the tasks I needed to complete before I could think about taking some time off. I spent a good deal of time beating myself up for letting such a tiny memory derail me.

Eventually I made a deal with Dearest One that after a conversation with Comforting Therapist, I would make a decision about taking time off. She told me that my executive functioning skills were impaired by the flashback. Those are some pretty basic skills one needs in order to do life in any reasonable way. After my appointment with her I made a call to my family doctor.

I've had the same family doctor for 20 years. I have never cried in his office, not even when I got my cancer diagnosis. I cried in his office this week. According to him returning to work is months away. I have these moments when I think to myself, "oh I could go to work and be just fine." Never mind that my daily goal at the moment is to have a shower and get dressed.

I've been assured that there are more flashbacks in my future. We are working on coping tools for when that happens. And even though I feel quite secure in those coping tools.....

You know when you want your kid to look at you while you talk to them and they look everywhere but at you? Even when you place their face between the the palms of your hands and they still manage to keep their eyes away from your eyes? That's how I feel when I think about facing another flashback.

Healing trauma is not for the weak of heart. Or spirit. Or body.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Softening the Edge

I've been talking with my therapist about edges. In particular, the edge I have to my very own self. The one that puts up with no BS and tells it to you straight. The edge that I was proud of and judged you with if you didn't have one. 

I thought it was authentic. 

Turns out it was a coping mechanism. 

Somewhere I read that our coping is rooted in wisdom. 

And so it was with my edge. 

I developed it to protect myself from more abuse. 

It didn't matter if you weren't intent on hurting me. 

Or that you simply wanted to love me. 

You got the edge any which way you showed up in my life.

Dearest One and I talked the other day about when I developed that edge. Grade 7. I was bullied and then by the end of the year I became the bully. 

Calming Therapist is quite sure that, in time and with practice, I won't need the edge. That a softness will replace it. Assertive yet soft.

I'm pretty sure the first time she mentioned it, my face said, "fuck you" in return. 

But I heard her and something, possibility perhaps, opened up just a smidgen within me.

I'm learning that my being is tender beneath the edge. I've been practicing asking for my needs to be met. Doing so makes me feel vulnerable and exposed, imagining all manner of things that could hurt me. I can't yet ask without tearing up or facing an inner dialogue that accuses me of being demanding. 

But it turns out I really want the softness. Want it bad enough to keep trying with safe people. Practicing.

Today Calming Therapist and I talked about the me that existed before the edge. 

I forgot there was a me before the edge.

She was kinder.

She can be again.

*found on Pinterest

Odd and Ends

I decided the other day that since we are closer to Christmas than not, I would leave up my nativity set that has sat on the fireplace mantle since last December.

My mom had little joy in January and February every winter. She hated the gray days that seemed to never end. In retrospect I would've benefited from taking a leave from work this past January and February. Mentally I just wasn't in the game. Grief zapped my energy in every which way.

I was cleaning out my car the other day - well the laundry basket that sits on the front seat with an extra blanket and odds and ends of things I think I might need. Nestled in between the blanket and the wall of the solid basket were two parking stubs from January of 2017 - hospital visits - the day before my dad died and the day he died. I peered closely at the times on the tickets. I relived a bit of those days in my mind.

Last month I stayed in my childhood home sans my parents. Blocked out the sorrow for the duration. It was the best I could do. This photo seems fitting, especially when I think of the nativity set sitting there gathering dust.

Gritting My Teeth

I've been going swimming several mornings a week for over 6 months now. Ahead of tests that will determine whether I need oxygen for night or not, I decided I would try and get in shape as best I could. I started out being able to do 5 minutes worth of (slow) laps.

Over time I've been able to increase it so that now I can do 30 minutes. I savor every single moment of it. I can't put my face in the water and hold my breath due to my issues with oxygen but I can do a slow breast stroke keeping my nose, not unlike a dog, above the water as I go. I love the water like I have never loved it before. I feel free and relaxed. I feel no body shame. For an introvert who spends the bulk of her day interacting with students and the public the quiet of those 30 minutes is wonderful.

There's a small handful of regulars that brave the weather and early mornings to swim. You nod and say hi. Occasionally you talk. I haven't gotten past the nod and smile and wishing someone a good day phase except for a retired husband and wife couple who I've known for 20+ years. After my laps I wade into the hot tub and feel like I've found a little piece of heaven.

Today, in the relaxing space of the hot tub, I was reminded again how hard it is to be content to be me when it comes to my spiritual life. I talk to God mostly when I'm driving my car. At times I must look to passersby like someone with road rage the way I pound the steering wheel and throw my hands up in the air all the while talking a mile a minute. The remainder of my prayers are mainly silent.

One of the retired couple came over to talk to me in the hot tub recently. They relayed about how they'd woken up a few days ago with a sore joint and how after two days, and the help of a brace, 'ta-da' there was no pain and the good Lord had taken care of it. How wonderful was that? they asked me.

Inwardly I gritted my teeth. I smiled. Well, it felt more like a grimace. I shut down when someone talks to me like that. It feels like an affront. It makes me grit my teeth. I immediately distrust when someone gives God the glory for their problems being solved like a magician waving a magic wand. I wonder what they do when it doesn't work out quite like that.

There's also a part of me that envies people who have a free and ready voice to give God the credit for every little and not so little good thing that happens. There are areas of my life where I do this. Big things. My sobriety. My marriage. (that story includes praying my first novena and is literally a miracle but I'd be hard pressed to tell it to anyone.) The fact that my grown kids talk to me.

Sometimes I wonder if not being vocal about my faith means I am ashamed of it.

Yesterday I watched a clip of  Brennan Manning saying that everything is grace. I believe it is.

My spiritual life continues to be a paradox.

**I initially wrote this  a year ago and never posted it. I ended up needing a CPAP machine, not oxygen, for night. Who knew it was possible to wake up rested?! I still go swimming. The retired couple still come to the pool, too. All of the words up there, and the passage of time, have brought me no closer to any conclusion.**

Looks Like In Heaven

It's a snowy winter land out there this morning. For many mornings in a row I've woken up to the song above going through my mind. I'm guessing the grieving goes on even while I sleep.

Simply Human

Today is my mother's birthday. The first without her. I've had such an up and down week emotionally. All these firsts for both my parents. I think I'm finally to the point where I can acknowledge I have little or nothing to give. My older sister suggested to me the other day that I tell people that I need to be on the receiving end instead of the giving end in this season of my life. So many protesting 'but, but,  buts...' rose up within me. Maybe I can allow myself to simply be and stop expecting so much of myself. I don't know who I am trying to impress.

The other day a friend I hadn't seen in a while told me she thought of me, in respect to all that this year has held for me in terms of crisis, as super human. She said it in a way that left me with the impression that she'd said it to mutual people we know. I shuddered. I'm simply human. The more people in my life die the less I hanker after pedestals, for myself or others. I feel haunted by watching my mother die. (that last line reverberates within me like a needle stuck on a record, around and around it goes.)

Not long ago I thought of a woman who I've looked up to in a motherish kind of way for years. She doesn't know that. I've long been aware of my tendency to see her this way. With my own mother now gone I realized the reaching for mother approval was finished. If not now, when?

It's a weird stage of life. I look to the grandmothers, aunts and my mother behind me and to the daughter, daughters-in-law, and two granddaughters in front of me.

13 minutes and 46 seconds

The last time I talked to my mom on the phone our conversation lasted 13 minutes and 46 seconds. She told me she felt 'like crap.'  She was sitting in her chair, the phone cradled to her ear, a cooking show humming on the TV across the room.I could tell by her voice that conversation wasn't high on her list of things she felt like doing so I cut our conversation short. I looked at my phone as I hung up and noticed the time. Our regular Saturday afternoon conversation had been cut short by an hour.

As the day wore on and my sisters and texted and called, we hemmed and hawed as to whether or not it was time for me to come home. My mom had been diagnosed with kidney failure in late January - the stress of her diagnosis being what we thought had led to my dad's stroke and then death two days later.

My mom liked to say she had nine lives and during our last phone call I told her she'd used up 27 of them. That night I booked a ticket home and was at the airport 6 hours later.

My mom passed away 48 hours after I got home. It's still too raw to write much about but I will say that sitting with someone as they do the hard work of dying is a sacred experience.

August

As my feet hit the floor this morning I thought, "I'm always going to hate August." My dad's birthday is coming up in a few weeks; the first without him here. He wouldn't want me to hate it. Not that I do really, I just hate that he is not here to celebrate it. He loved being alive. He had a curiousity about the world around him right up until the end.

The first time he appeared in a dream after he died he was telling me that the world spun at a specific speed not known to everyone and if we knew the secret we could come back and be born again. I don't know how to make sense of that dream but I did like that it was a sunshine filled day with us in a prairie landscape when he told me this. His face was radiant with light.

My dad and I never talked about religion or faith. It was one of those taboo subjects in my family. I was going to say right up there with politics (except if you were drunk) but my family has long discussed politics and even with a great span between us having faith and no faith I've found that our politics are largely the same. I don't know what to make of that, either. If we had a mantra I like to think it would be 'treat people right.'

I've been reading quite a few books lately about death and dying. It's made me wonder what I will be remembered for. After my dad died my siblings and I were cohesive in what we felt our father's legacy was to us in terms of how to navigate the world around us. One of them was that he didn't care what we did for a living but he sure cared about how we conducted ourselves while we did it. It's amazing to me that when we put everything in the obituary, when we saw it all in black and white print, how much of a drive there was to make him proud that we were his and were living up to the values he espoused.

Today is my youngest son's first wedding anniversary. They've weathered miscarriages, emergency surgeries, and cancer and more cancer this past year. The future looks uncertain. My dad made the trip up here to attend their wedding. When we went to take family photos my dad stood alone with my son and his wife and pulled himself up as straight as he could before looking directly into the camera. That action said so much about him.

One of the songs we played at his memorial service was Humble and Kind. I hadn't been able to listen to it since his service when Dearest One played it for an overnight guest in our home the other day at the breakfast table. I buried my face in my hands and cried.

I did not expect to miss my dad this much. I've called home every week for about a dozen years. Ever since my mom was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Outside of his birthday or a call about his beloved Roughriders,  I rarely talked to my dad, relying on my mom to ferry pertinent information to him after our calls.

Every trite saying there is to be said after you lose someone rings true now.

Notes From the Bottom of My Computer Screen

"We must bear patiently not being good....and not being thought good." ~ St. Francis of Assisi 

I can bear patiently not being good but not being thought good is the harder part for me.

"God sometimes looks like someone finally, finally telling the truth." ~ Anne Lamott

Another little bit of wisdom taped to the bottom of my computer screen.  I like to think of myself as a truth teller. I'm humbled at how blind I can be to the truth. Particularly when it comes to myself.

"Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it. If you can't find it, create it. Some days this may be hard to do. Persevere." ~ Lisa B. Adams

Lisa passed away from metastatic breast cancer over 2 years ago now. I keep her words where I can see them.

Today I am doing my part in planning my dad's memorial. Even though he passed away nearly 4 months ago we put off having his service until the weather was warmer. The majority of my family is buried in a tiny little church cemetery in the middle of a field. Up the road is the one room school house that my mom attended. The community has worked hard at its upkeep so that at times like this, people can use it for the luncheon that follows a funeral.

It didn't matter what life looked like for my dad as he aged he always said that it beat the alternative.

Domino Effect

My father in law passed away just over a week ago. I told Dearest One I couldn't let myself think about this new reality as I haven't processed my own dad's passing yet. We are over 125 people in just my husband's immediate family of siblings and nieces and nephews and the like. The community support was incredible. Someone voluntarily feeding any and/or all of us every night for a week. We are exhausted.

My father in law's death wasn't pretty. It looked like damn hard work. Dearest One took care of him around the clock in the days preceding his death. Two sights will stay with me forever. The first was when I saw Dearest One lean in close and cup his dad's face in his hand before speaking to him, his voice full of compassion. The other was the look of devastation as Dearest One saw in hindsight that medication needed to be increased and his dad had been suffering unnecessarily.

We seem surrounded by hard things in our family this year. Daughter in law with chronic health issues that make daily living a challenge, including daily time spent in a wheel chair. Son in law facing open heart surgery. Son needing two emergency surgeries including an air ambulance ride to get one of them. His wife is in the midst of chemo. Dearest One has been off work over 6 months as he does the hard work necessary to heal from long standing PTSD. My mom, stubborn, tenacious woman that she is, navigating whatever remaining life she has on her own terms.

I lost my emotional footing the other day while sitting in a parking lot eating my lunch. All these things seemed to catch up with me up and life seemed overwhelming. I called my doctor's office and am grateful for time off work so I can begin to process what feels like the click, click, click sound of dominoes falling.

We covet your prayers.

Can't Quite Go There Yet

Today is three months since my dad passed away. Just typing that made me tear up. It's funny how when people ask how old he was and I say 86 I get the impression that they think it's not so sad because he lived a long life. He wanted to live to be 100. But what he really meant by that was just how much he loved living.

I've been surprised by the depth of my sadness.

I want to write what it was like to get in the car at 4 AM and drive for 11 hours trying to make peace within myself that I might not get there before he passed away.

How my younger brother, who I have nothing to do with unless we happen to be home at the same time, came and kissed the top of my head when he walked into the hospital room and saw me holding our dad's hand.

I want to write about what it was like to go see my dad in the hospital an hour after he had died, the warmth of his body fading. How when I made the sign of the cross on his forehead that I was taken off guard by the speaking in tongues that burbled up from within.

How I couldn't bring myself to sit in his easy chair after he passed. How I watched my older brother almost do it and then say, 'nope'.

But I can't quite go there yet.

The months since he died have seen so many health challenges within my own immediate family that it feels like a shit show. I told my kids and their spouses that we've used up 2017's quota of ambulance rides, emergency surgeries and other health crises in the first 2 months and let's be done with that okay?

It really has been one thing after another and those things aren't complete yet.

But my dad. He'd want me to embrace it all. He'd harrumph with a twinkle in his eye and a good deal of compassion and tell me that it was rough for sure. Whatever his aging challenges were he always said that they beat the alternative.

He's come to me in dreams several times. Full of light and vitality.

He kept a globe by his chair and my mom said not a day went by when he didn't put down the book he was reading so he could check on the globe where the story was set or where a particular place mentioned in his book was on the globe.

I have my own globe. I take my 3 year old grandson's hands and point out where we live. I rub his tiny fingers over the surface so he can feel where the mountains are. The other day he went for a drive with his mom and when she pointed out the mountains he said, "Just like on Nana's map."

There is no road map for this season of grief and loss.

Snow White

A few weeks ago I was sitting in the chair at my hairdresser's when I noticed an elderly lady, with this lovely head of snow white hair, walk in. As my hair dresser continued to cover up my grey roots with hair dye I told her that I wanted to have a head of hair like that one day. She tactfully told me that I already did under all that hair dye. Who knew?

I noticed my first grey hair when I was 25. I didn't dye my hair until I was well into my 40's. It was totally for reasons of vanity. My husband didn't have a grey hair on his head and was in a job where people continually thought he was in his mid thirties. I didn't want them to think he was married to an older woman never mind the fact that I am younger than he is!

My mom used to say she would stop dying her hair when she became a great grandmother. She was in her early 60's when that happened and that was just too soon for her. She's in her late 70's now and just recently gave up colouring her hair due to health issues. 

I'm not making any promises. I'm very curious to see what my hair looks like underneath all this camouflage. But not curious enough to really see. 

Healing Waters

Up early this morning and to the swimming pool. Doing so was an act of the will. My body really wanted some extra sleep but I know how fickle I can be. Miss one morning because I don't feel like it has the potential domino effect of a continual I don't feel like it until getting up early becomes a thing of the past.

I've been surprised at how much swimming nourishes me in body, soul and spirit. I've never been big on swimming. No swimming lessons as a kid other than my dad standing in the shallow lake water holding me under my belly, a few instructions, and then letting go to leave me to sink or swim. Eventually I swam.

Last May I purchased a mastectomy swimming prosthesis and a specialized bathing suit to hold it. I started out small. Five minutes in the pool was all I could do. It took 6 months to build up to swimming laps for half an hour. As a plus sized woman I love that I feel no body shame in a bathing suit.

I hope your day goes swimmingly. 

Messy Relationships

My father-in-law has a milestone birthday today. Milestone enough that he most likely doesn't know who I am anymore despite our worlds colliding for the past 35 years.Sometimes I feel guilty that we live less than an hour away from him but don't make much of an effort to see him or my mother-in-law. My parents live 600 miles away and I see them more times in a year than I do Dearest One's parents.

Occasionally I look ahead to my elderly years and wonder if I will befall the same fate. I can't fathom that my children, their spouses or our grandchildren wouldn't visit us. I wonder if that particular karma really will be a bitch. I work at my relationships with all of them. Does that mean I can expect anything in return? No. But I can hope.

We heard about my father in law's milestone birthday celebration being held next weekend through the grapevine. People may be surprised to see us show up as we passed on attending the Christmas get together last week. We've become those unpredictable no show family members we used to talk about in judgmental tones at Dearest One's very large family gatherings.

As I do my own aging I get choosier and choosier about who I spend my time with. Obligation doesn't seem to fuel my action like it did once upon a time. On days like today I can't decide if that's a good or a bad thing.

Dedicated Space Thanks To St. Lucy

I've thought a lot lately about coming back to blogging. Moving away from social media. I miss writing. This past year I have done next to none of it and I want to change that.

I spent the past few days clearing out my home office. This space of mine has looked, for longer than I care to admit, like a hoarder who loves paper, inhabits it. The problem of a person who likes to stack paper on every surface and deal with it never later.

Dear Sweet Boy was a two year old when he surveyed my office, and proclaimed - 'this place is a disaster.' As I sat down to write this I see his three year old self was in my office this morning and left a gift of Lego on my desk.

We had a young man living with us before Christmas and I found that his early mornings and mine didn't work well for my Centering Prayer practice which I do in my living room. Yesterday I set up my office with a comfy chair and now have a dedicated space I can use no matter how many extra bodies are in our house. We have this young man and another coming to live with us for a while starting tomorrow so that encouraged me to tackle the surfaces covered with paper and make some order out of chaos.

Perhaps I can think of my blog as a dedicated space again as well. As my friend Annie wrote today about missing having a creative community, I do as well. I used to visit all my favourite blogs every morning and now find I check FB instead. Through blogging I felt like I knew people as they often left their real lives on the page.  FB is a sanitized version of myself and my guess is it is for many others, too.

As I tidied up my space I found the cards from two of my friends who had breast cancer before me and who have since passed away. I woke up this morning and thought how blessed I am to see another year. Although my writing practice is rusty I still feel I have a gift in it and I don't want another year to go by with me not doing something to nurture it.

Many moons ago I got myself a saint for the year. I did so again yesterday and got St. Lucy - who, among other things, is a patron saint of writers.

St. Lucy pray for us.

Good, Kind, No

This is a a fitting picture for today. It reads like a soap opera to tell the tale but the short story is that we let an old friend and his new girlfriend stay overnight.  They were moving back to our community from afar. Met online a few months ago. Had been together for the few weeks that it took them to reach our house. At supper that night my spidy senses went berserk.  Too many bits of her story didn't add up.

I ended up telling them after one night they couldn't stay at our house. That was hard to do. I had one of my kids come and change the lock codes on our doors as a precaution. I felt like I was being a bitch. A tape runs in my head that says Christians don't turn anyone away.

A few days later she took off with his car, identification and money without warning. We were out of town and when we got home he called from a homeless shelter where he'd been for several nights. I told Dearest One to go get him. He went to the police. Pressed charges. Cops asked him if he'd learned anything. Said he probably wasn't her first victim. Our friend looked broken and haggard and in need of mercy. (Aren't we all?)We tell him he can stay until he gets on his feet.

Fast forward a week or so. Dearest One sees her with the car and calls the cops. Turns out our friend and her are back together. He wants to see if he still has feelings for her. (insert sound of my head banging on the desk.) He gets his belongings and identification back. The money is gone though. Yesterday she sends desperate plea to Dearest One wanting to stay at our house again because she is sleeping in a car and has no food. We couldn't do it. We couldn't let her back in our house.

And I felt guilty for saying no. "Jesus where are you in her," I asked myself. She says she knows you. I would hate for people to judge me, by my at times awful behaviour, as I did the healing inner work through the years since becoming a Christian. I am a super slow learner. Hindsight is 20/20.

I've been trying to find some compassion. I've only been able to find a smidgen of it. I can't seem to find any mercy. I know people (both of them) only do these things out of desperation. I've done some stupid ass shit in my day. (like the time I went to a stranger's house and he locked the bedroom door by placing a butcher knife high up where I couldn't reach it between the door and its trim. Lots of people don't survive that shit.)

My sponsor yesterday gently said we were not responsible for fixing this woman's situation.

I just needed to hear someone say it.

Lord have mercy because I can't seem to find any.

Still Here

I know there are a few people who still come and check to see if I have written anything new. I am still here. Which is in itself, a gift. My cancer diagnosis back in 2012 continues to remind me what a gift it is to be alive.

Health issues are cropping up again but hopefully they won't be serious. Funny how that is. Looking at the prospect of being on oxygen for night doesn't seem like that big of deal compared with the possibility of my cancer coming back.

Two women who were my biggest and most honest support during my breast cancer journey have both passed away from metastatic breast cancer. That is the only kind of breast cancer that kills. Early diagnosis is no guarantee against it, either. I could write much more but suffice to say look at this site for more information on that. I feel I owe it to the women who have died to educate people about this. It could be me one day.

The biggest joy in my life at the moment is my marriage which is a long, unbloggable story of it nearly not being intact just 9 months ago. I give God the glory for the healing and depth of relationship we enjoy today. I don't use the word lightly but it feels like a miracle. One priest I went to for Reconciliation during the wretchedness of it and then later went back to so I could share what happened told me I'd experienced Easter early this year.

That journey taught me that there is no time limit to the healing that can (and in my case, needed to) happen. I waited 35 years for that healing. My spouse waited 35 years for it to happen. He'd already found a place to live when it happened. The healing went so deep that I believe it happened on a cellular level. There is no other explanation for my long held coping mechanisms dissolving, in an instant, like a vapor. "God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves."

The other huge joy is being a grandma. That is a delight nearly beyond words. Who knew I was capable of such love?

Life is good.

Beloved

Several weeks ago I walked into a tattoo shop, hardcore rapper music playing loudly in the background, and had a brief conversation with the tattoo artist who, yesterday, put the above tattoo on my wrist for me. As we talked at that initial meeting he seemed to be trying really hard to connect with us. The conversation seemed a bit stilted  and I wondered if we were not his typical clientele and if he was feeling a bit rattled. As we talked every single preconceived idea I had about tattoo shops was shouting in my head.

I liked that he maintained eye contact as I was trying really hard to read what was in his eyes. In the vein of trying to make conversation I asked if he had ever done any tattoos on mastectomy scars. I think his ears heard me say vasectomy scars by mistake. Oh, ouch. No. Never. He didn't say that but when he asked me to repeat my question my hand went to the empty side of my chest and he understood instantly. No, he hadn't ever but he was all about doing whatever people needed in order to feel beautiful about themselves.

Beautiful about themselves. I've worked so hard on feeling beautiful about myself and when his words pierced a deep wound I wasn't even aware was there, tears sprang instantly to my eyes. His eyes immediately softened and I was able to see such a depth of kindness there. Dearest One kept talking with him while I left the shop and stood and sobbed on the sidewalk.

Yesterday I walked into the shop and the music was truly awful. Long time readers know I have my very own potty mouth but there was something jarring about f bombs and other indelicacies being shouted out in time to a very heavy beat. I did some deep breathing, some praying, anything to distract me from being bombarded with the noise. At the same time, because I believe that art, all art, speaks truth to us, I respect people's rights to express that in whatever way speaks to them.

I wondered if the tattoo artist would remember our conversation about mastectomy scars. Well, what I really wondered was whether he would remember my reaction to that conversation. He did. He told me he was honoured that I would consider having him do such a tatoo.

The whole appointment to get my tattoo lasted about 30 minutes. We had the nicest conversation that included how he has a tattoo of his mother's name on his own wrist as a reminder to make his mother feel proud of him by his actions and morals. He's a loving father of a little girl and the best part of his day so far had been spending time with her.

It's such a gift in this world when our preconceived ideas get shot full of holes.

Kindness often springs up in the unlikeliest places.

Sitting Right In The Ashes

I had to put my blog to private because my anonymity was breached. Enough time has passed that I felt I could change the settings back. I hope this is a sound move.

I've had a good, full-of-people summer. Grandchildren, children, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and long time friends in face to face communion. However, after three weeks of not a lick of solitude, I felt relieved to go on a week long silent retreat.

The first night is a communal supper where you can talk all you want, ahead of being assigned to a spiritual director. At supper I sat at the same table as a woman who radiated a warmth that was both solid and real. She also had a sparkle in her eye. I prayed she would be my spiritual director and then let go of that desire many times in the space of the next hour. After all, there were many spiritual directors to be had. But darn, I really wanted it to be her.

And it was.

The week that followed was a gift that comes from the blend of grace and hard work. Do those two words even belong in the same sentence? I don't know. My spiritual director has spent much of her life working with people in recovery. She was such a delight.

I like to complicate things, any thing, even a silent retreat, and had forgotten that it is enough to simply show up.

During the retreat I let go of trying to connect dots, even the dots of my journal ramblings and let them speak for themselves, without needing to come to a single conclusion. My spiritual director was content to let them be as well. It is a mystery how growth can come out of this. Not one tidy package to be had. Imagine that. And yet I feel changed.

Here is a quote from my journal which spoke to me during that time:

"The poor ego is always looking for an easy way out. Deep in the wintry parts of our minds, we are hardy stock and know there is no such thing as a work free transformation. We know that we will have to burnt to the ground in one way or another, and then sit right in the ashes of who we once thought we were and go on from there. But another side of our natures, a part more desirous of languor, hopes it won't be so, hopes the hard work can cease so slumber can resume." ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With The Wolves

Songs came unbidden to mind the whole week. I trusted that they came from somewhere beyond me.  I was surprised with where they took me and how songs from decades ago could filter in and impact me.

Most days I went for a long walk that took me from countryside to city and then ended up at a creek on a mostly abandoned road.  There I dangled my legs over the side of the bridge while I sat and watched the water converge as if every drop of water was fighting it out for first place.

One night we had a communal penitential service followed by private confession. As we entered the chapel there was a basket of rocks with a sign asking us to pick one. The chapel lights were dimmed so I couldn't do my usual looking-through-the-whole-basket to find the perfect rock ritual. No, I picked up the first one my fingers found. As I sat waiting for the service to begin the rock felt heavy in my hand. My fingers searched its surface like they were reading braille when they found a ridge that ran through the middle of it and I smiled to myself at its appearance.

During the service we were invited to either place the rock in a basket at the altar afterwards, symbolizing a letting go of all that weighed us down, or to go out in nature do so there. Throwing mine into the creek, where it would take years of water coursing over it to smooth out that ridge, felt like the perfect place to let go of all that had surfaced for me during the week.

Too Soon Too Late

Against my better judgement today I made homemade french fries. I've been sick with the flu and haven't been able to eat a full meal since late last week. I ventured to work this morning after the holiday weekend and was home again by lunch time. Too soon to venture out. Too soon to be fed. Too soon.

Dearest One was home so we sat and visited with one another before he decided he better go to the office for a bit. As he was getting ready to leave I looked at him and said, "Guess what I'm craving?" He joked about all sorts of foods he had been teasing me about eating earlier - foods that made me look for a container to throw up in - visions of canned spaghettios not one bit appetizing. (It's okay - he has a warped sense of humour and after 30+ years I've learned to laugh, too.)

I was craving homemade french fries. Even when I'm well they sit in my stomach afterwards like a lead balloon. A delicious lead balloon. However......

all my growing up years when one of us kids was sick my mom made us homemade french fries. It was our very favourite food - so favourite that in good times she stood at the stove for a very long time making them - giving us each a turn to have first dibs taking the biggest helping that came out of the fryer. When we were sick she just wanted us to feel better, tempting us with our favourite food in hopes that she could breathe a sigh of relief that we were truly on the mend. I don't recall that any of us ever regretted eating homemade french fries when we were sick. When we were faking we were sick she never cooked them(!)

Food has always been my mom's love language. She and her idetnical twin sister would sit on the phone, even though they lived just a few miles apart and watch cooking shows together, oohing and ahing over both what the chefs were cooking and what they were cooking food in.

Both of them had been drooling over this special cooking pan that all the food show chefs were using. They were hard to find and expensive. I finally found one for my mom for her 75th birthday and all us kids chipped in to buy it for her. She raved about how delicious the french fries were when cooked in her new pan. No need to cook them twice like she taught me growing up. They browned so nicely the first time around.

I always regretted not buying her sister one at the same time. But eventually I found another one and my mom told me she'd pay for it and give it to her sister as a surprise. I brought it home a few months later and my mom ,who doesn't have a much more than lick of spontaneity in her, was so excited to surprise her sister that we made an impromptu trip down the road.

When my aunt unwrapped the pan she looked at my mom and cried. She turned and hugged me. It was Christmas in the middle of summer. My aunt was in too much pain to be able to lift the (heavy) pan to the stove. Just a few days later her husband passed away unexpectedly. A month later she was diagnosed with bone cancer. A month after that she was gone. The pan never made it to her stove top.

Not long after the funeral one of my cousins brought the pan back to my mom and my mom told me she was setting it aside for me. I'd been home most of the summer and wasn't expecting to be there again for a year. My mom eventually had to cover the pan with a tea towel because it hurt too much to look at it. This past Christmas we made a last minute trip home and it was one of the things I brought back with me.

This afternoon, as I sliced the potatoes and skipped soaking them in water to get out some starch, I felt a weird kind of comfort.  I thought of my mom and her sister as I watched the potatoes turn the shade of scrumptious brown my mom said they would. I sprinkled them with vinegar and coarse sea salt and devoured every last one.

Years ago, after I'd made french fries for supper, I phoned my mom later that evening only to find out she had made them, too. Now every time I make them I call her to see if she had them today or yesterday or was planning on having them tomorrow. Ninety-nine percent of the time we will have made them within a day of each other if not on the same day.

Tonight I will call her and ask her what she made for supper. If I can find the courage.

All is Well

That spot on my face was pre cancerous. I'm grateful it was so easy to fix. And I'm glad I went with my gut and asked for it to be removed. My doctor had said on a previous visit about it that it was just a patch of dry skin. 

All my other tests were good, too. I graduate now to yearly cancer checkups and I am very aware that not everyone makes it to this milestone. 

Spring appears to be coming early to our neck of the woods. The winter seemed much more bearable which I think was due to no longer having a one hundred mile daily commute. No worrying about road conditions, no getting up an hour earlier. That part of living in a city is quite wonderful.

Doing the Spiritual Exercises has brought me back to doing Centering Prayer. That is always a positive in my life. 

Like my mom said to me in our weekly phone chat yesterday - there's nothing much new to report. I think of my whole breast cancer journey and how I longed for regular life. I will take it.

Awful Shit and Grateful Milestones

Dearest One has spent the better part of all his free time these last two months at the bedside of a friend with terminal cancer. Yesterday this friend passed away. We feel both relieved and sad. He wanted so much to live and struggled mightily to do so. Two days ago I was sitting at his bedside so Dearest One could get some rest. There was a point while sitting with him, looking him in the eyes, his suffering so great that I thought to myself, "it's like looking into the face of Christ." Awful shit to witness, I can only imagine it's a thousand times worse to be the one actually going through it.

I had my last 6 month post cancer check up last week. Today I had a biopsy to rule out a spot of skin cancer on my face. Next week there is another test for other post cancer issues and the week after yet another. Having the doctor stop cold while doing the breast exam was a little disconcerting even though I knew the lump he was feeling was there. We are both quite sure it's a cyst but it will be good to have that hunch affirmed. I'm always a little puzzled when people say to me things like, "it's just one thing after another." I want to say, um - that's life - especially as we age. More deaths, more stuff, more. I have a quote by Richard Rohr that I like which says, "To accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is." Does reality suck sometimes? It surely does.

In a few weeks I'm giving a talk to a group of university students about my journey through breast cancer. I shared that with my doctor and he said that the most memorable talks he remembered from his medical school days were the personal stories patients shared in lecture theatres. He asked how I felt about this being my last 6 month cancer check up. Was I scared? I told him I wasn't; that considering the people I knew who have died of cancer in the last 6 months I was grateful to reach this milestone because so many people don't get to and I named a friend that we both knew who died a few months ago.

I have signs hung on the wall on both sides of my computer screen. The one on the left says, "Be here now." The other one says, "Hello courage." Both needed to accept and forgive reality for being what it is. Lord have mercy.

Be Open To Seeing

"I don't think the way you think." ~ Isaiah 55:8a (The Message)

Can I please have some peace about this? ~ October 20th Ignatian Exercises journal entry.

Yesterday I spent the day sick in bed and read Kerry Egan's book Fumbling, an account of her journey walking the Camino de Santiago. The best books are ones that speak to our common humanity and I know I read to find myself in the pages of another`s story.

Those of you who have journeyed with me these past few years, through the suicides of friends as well as my breast cancer diagnosis and recovery know how shattered my faith has been. Deep, gut wrenching grief has darn near immobilized me at times. I have a print of an icon on my wall where I can see it as I type in which Archangel Raphael says "Take courage! God has healing in store for you." I keep it there to remind me that today is not the end of my story. Even if today was the end of my life, the healing would continue.

Towards the very end of this book Kerry Egan meets with a spiritual director who tells her that she herself tries to watch for the Spirit in her life - to see how God works. She says she tries to pay attention to it. This baffles Kerry and she asks how do you know it's the Holy Spirit. Her spiritual director says, "Well, I guess what other people call coincidence, I would call the Holy Spirit."

Kerry had bumped into three people in one afternoon who directed her to this woman for help with her spiritual journey. In a matter of hours the first person suggested her, the second person knew of her, and the third person worked with her and gave her the phone number.

You know how I feel about connecting the dots like that. It's about made me puke at times. Kerry herself questions this, too and her spiritual director says, "You'll just have to start paying attention for yourself. Just see what you see, and let yourself be open to seeing."

I read that line and thought to myself, 'Okay I think I can do that. I can let myself be open to seeing.' It felt like a small step towards God. Towards considering that I can trust in the unknowingness of life and perhaps even trust God again.

And then Kerry Egan goes on to talk about her problems with grief and her problems with God. Although our grief comes from different places there I am smack dab in the middle of her story so clearly that it leaves me sobbing:

"If prayer is the attempt to understand God, then grieving is the deepest form of prayer, rising from the body and soul and mind, asking God and really and truly wanting to know, no matter what the answer: Who are you? Why did you create a world with pain? Why is life this way? What are you? Because you are not what I thought you were. (emphasis mine)
Grieving, at its deepest level, is to acknowledge that creation can be cruel and that people suffer. To look at this truth, to allow yourself to feel it, you are forced to consider the nature of this world and this existence. you ask how this can be and who set this up and why this happens. To grieve is to ask God the hardest questions. To grieve is to ask who God really is. It's to change your perspective on all other human beings and their relationships to one another and to you and your place in this world. To grieve is to start over, to be re-created. (emphasis mine)...... 

Why suffering? Why grief? And why grief and God?
I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does." ~ Kerry Egan, Fumbling

I read this and think to myself that I can see glimpses of being able to live with that. To find some peace about the unknowingness of who God is and how God works. To be okay with not having answers. It feels like seeing a faint light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel after repeatedly kicking the walls and telling people who are shining flashlights in your eyes that there is no fucking light, okay? Because in your blinding grief you couldn't see any.

At the end of this passage she quotes Isaiah 55: 8 and 9. The verses twig at my brain. Hadn't I just read those verses a few days ago. I pull out my journal and find  the quote I typed at the top of this post.

Okay, then.
I think I saw something.

Encaustic

Could the reader that sent me this encaustic please email me? In a flurry of emptying my inbox of emails I inadvertently deleted the one with your new email address.  Thank you.

Isn't this a lovely piece of art? It's titled Skinless Soul and is from a friend in honour of my breast cancer journey. I have it hanging where I can see it every day.

Naivete et al

So much going on. I keep thinking I need to send this person or that an email and fill them in but seem to have no energy to actually do it. I've felt that way for so long.

Lots of wonderfully good things. Like having our grandson for the night once a week every week. He's not quite walking yet and spending time with him is just plain fun. And hard work. His smile lights up my world. Rocking him to sleep is lovely.

Only daughter had her first baby just over a week ago. Wonderfully exciting. I spent the week with her and it was a privilege to care for her and to hold her daughter again and again and again.

I am keenly aware that were I not in recovery and had not continued to do the hard work of inner growth through the grace of God, that being invited into my adult children's lives and the lives of their children might never be. I was not the mother I wanted to be but by God I can be the grandmother I want to be. And I'm serious when I say, "by God." There is no other way. I know this. Not everyone in  recovery is this fortunate. I've heard people in meetings say so. Years of unpleasant behaviour held against them decades after they've changed. Lord have mercy.

This month is the month of anniversaries of cancer diagnosis and surgeries and life changing happenings. I read an article the other day that had a line in it that resonated - cancer took what was left of my naivete. Too true. In the vein of this being Breast Cancer Awareness month and you are bombarded with pink everything please keep in mind that the research dollars need to be going to finding a cure for metastatic breast cancer not for awareness. We are aware already. Statistics show that early detection does not save lives. Surprised by that? You can have grade 0 breast cancer and still experience metastases. Mine was grade 2, stage 2. It's going to hang over my head for the rest of my life. Here is a link that says it well.

Spiritually I've felt afloat for most of the past two years. This month I started the 19th Annotation - doing the spiritual exercises of Ignatius over the course of the next 8 months. In the short week since I've started I've come face to face with how deeply in need of grace I am. I'm horrified really. I mean who else reads Psalm 139 and writes in their journal in response 'utter bullshit." It bothered me that that was how I felt. I wanted to write something so much different than that. Thankfully a day later I returned to this psalm and felt more kindly to it. As if it would take much to feel that way! I have avoided personal scripture reading for the past few years - unable to get past pat answers that reverberate in my head when I read it. Since making this commitment to doing the exercises I have a feeling it's going to change me. I can avoid the hard conversations with God much more easily when I stay away from scripture. But scripture is living and breathing and I run smack into God when I spend time in it. Do I truly want change or do I want to pretend to change? I want change. I have to show up. It's going to happen.

Dearest One is facing potentially serious health issues. There's a part of me that says - now wouldn't that just be unfair - as if fairness was our birthright. Diagnostic tests this week should help pinpoint the problem. We are thankful for a family doctor who listens and takes action. Much better than the ER doctor who advised taking acetaminophen for pain - as opposed to our family doctor who ordered a stat CT scan to rule out a brain tumour. Huge difference, no? There are all kinds of worrisome symptoms. I keep reminding myself to stay in the day and not run towards tomorrow.

Work - what can I say? Days of an inner mantra "I will not quit my job." Then taking an opportunity to be gracious instead of vindictive to the one who causes me the most angst changed our relationship overnight. How bizarre it is. I don't like her any more than I did and certainly don't trust her any more than I did but things have changed and it continues to intrigue me.

Throwing Words and Things

Thirty three years ago today Dearest One asked me to marry him. We'd been together for a week, meeting face to face, after having started out as pen pals when I was a very young teenager. The odds were certainly against us. I give God the credit for us making it for the long haul. Had we not become people of faith our relationship would have crumbled long ago.

Because we spent such little time together before we married - after we got engaged he went back home across the country and I stayed put to finish college - he had no idea I might have a drinking problem. I didn't get drunk until 5 days after we married in a most embarrassing social situation for him which could've cost him his job and which resulted in a blackout for me.

In those early years of marriage and well, well into sobriety I didn't know how to communicate how I was feeling other than to throw words and things at him. He didn't know how to communicate his feelings other than to go silent and sometimes literally run the other way. At least once - no twice - it's a very good thing what I threw didn't hit him.

My sponsor and I are working through the steps. We're on step four -using the Al-Anon step four book. Something happened within me shortly after we began working the steps - a keen awareness and desire to be a better human being. A realization of things that both surprised and humbled me. A voice within that insistently said, "If you get nothing else right in this life - be kind to this man."

My summer was spent mostly away from home and after going on a silent retreat I met Dearest One in a campground for some 'us time'. I don't know if it was because I came from six days of silence or whether our prolonged absence from one another made my awareness keener but a few days into our camping trip I said to him, "You know what I've noticed? I'm hyper critical and super bossy of you." He told me that he had noticed it, too and that it wasn't much fun. I apologized and told him I was awareness and working on it. I felt no defensiveness about my actions - no need to justify a thing. He was matter of fact when he confirmed that my awareness of my actions was not my imagination.

Such a better way of communicating than throwing things and words. Thanks be to God.

While It Was Still Night

This was not the summer I thought I'd have.
I spent most of my time away from home due to multiple deaths in the family (plus a wedding.)
I spent more nights in my childhood bedroom in the past seven weeks than in my grown up one.
There was a week in there where I went on a silent retreat.
I went to it heavy hearted as a dear family member lay dying in a hospital in another province.
There were surprise breakthroughs during the retreat that I am grateful for.
If I'm hanging on to resentments I cannot find gratitude.
If I accept what is then it's easier to embrace what is in front of me rather than pine for what I'd hope would be.
Stuff I knew on a head level but were felt deep within the heart.

An unexpected comfort was this verse:

"While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed." - Mark 1:35

Huge gulping tears recognizing that even though within me it is still night, I don't have to wait for dawn in order to pray.