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Posts Tagged ‘death’

Memory Soup

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the
foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know
when you’re going too far. (Irish Blessing)

 I like to create meals, not throw a piece of baked chicken and microwaved potato on a paper plate and call it dinner. Nothing wrong with that. Sustenance is sustenance. However, in everyday life I prefer adding the attitude of gifting to my daily preparation: a color, a spice, or a hidden nutrient.

On those rare instances when my husband is out of town or has other plans for the evening, my spark fizzles. I have no interest in planning a surprise party for myself, no one else invited.

Sure I could “should” all over myself about how eating well is not pampering. But, it’s like going to the movies alone—no one to share the story with after the show.

In time either Jay or I will be alone; it’s inevitable since invincible isn’t part of the human condition. I’m meeting with a friend this week who knows that experience. Living alone. Grief. Cooking for one. Recalling the past. Walking into the future one baby step at a time.

So, I decided to share—soup, for me, for my friend. Besides, a pot holds as much liquid as I am willing to give it. And, I can save a portion for my granddaughter Ella.  She loves my homemade chicken soup. She absorbs it: through her pores, into her hair, over her shirt, spilled onto the floor. Soup Ella-style is more than a meal. It is an experience.

For this pot I will add all the usual ingredients: water, Amish bouillon, garlic, onion, pepper, and simmer it in the Crockpot for hours. I will also add prayer and good wishes, a willingness to accept the present as it is, leave the past to itself, and embrace the future. I have regrets. Don’t we all? But living there doesn’t change anything.

Each batch of soup tastes slightly different. I don’t use a recipe. But then life doesn’t follow rules in any exact order either.

For all, may this day bring unexpected blessings, and blend them with both the rare and precious.

for you

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Confusion, The Positive Side

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen. (George Saunders)

The lectern at the church is too high for a woman like me who has slipped under the five-foot mark during the past few years. I smile, exaggerating my tiptoed stance. After all, it’s obvious that my father’s oldest daughter inherited his wife’s height.

Years ago when I acted as lector at another church, there was a wooden stool that could be pushed back and forth for the shorter readers. There isn’t anything like that here. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a stage; I’m delivering a eulogy. I have five minutes, but hope to relay my message in less than three—not sure my tear ducts will hold out any longer. Now my balance threatens to give up, too; it doesn’t take long before I give up the façade of four-inch high heels and stand flat, my chin hidden as if I were in a bad photograph.

I have decided to be bold and speak as my father, a few octaves higher perhaps, and thank my siblings for the gift they were to him. I may be close to the ground, but my gaze reaches over my brothers’ and sister’s heads. No eye contact now. I’ll save that for later, when tears won’t create a domino effect and flood a perfectly lovely church.

As the service progresses, memories fly through my mind like drunken fireflies. I look to my right to see who is sitting in the pew where I was when my mother died. I recall my father’s quiet slump. Then I’m in a second-grade classroom and back again in the church, in the back, ready to walk down the aisle. Dad is at my side. Forty-one years have dissolved and it’s 1971; I’m about to be married.

In the next moment it’s time to go to the choir loft to lead a simple song based on Psalm 23. I’m uncertain because I haven’t practiced with the organist. I flub the words in one line of the second verse. Not too bad. Can’t let the fumble stop me. I want to be like my sister Claire who has sung Schubert’s Ave Maria so many times, she once sang it accompanied by an organ that sounded like an old-time organ grinder. Her first thought was, Where is the monkey? Yet, she didn’t miss a beat!

I look into the congregation and see my oldest granddaughter Kate staring up at me: the time gap between us is 58 years. Time. Space. Real, and yet illusion. My thoughts are as organized as tossed confetti. And yet . . .and yet . . . despite the sadness I feel a beauty that transcends the moment and embraces eternity.

moment of value Positive WoRdS to LoVe by

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So Long, See You Later

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it.  (Mother Teresa)

When my mother lay unresponsive waiting for her heart to stop on another December day, I tried to fill the vacuum with something positive, something that could transcend loss. I crawled into the middle of my bed with my guitar and picked and strummed Christmas carols. Silent night, holy night. . . The moment felt silent and holy enough, but lacked calmness and brilliance.

I felt a deep reverence for Mom’s transition into another dimension although I never had a best friend relationship with her. When I was born there was a hole in my umbilical cord; it severed some larger maternal connection before I faced daylight. Mom never had a chance to count my fingers and toes until I was ten-days old.

Even so at Christmas time as I grew older  we harmonized as we washed and dried the dinner dishes. I sang soprano and she added the alto: The First Noel, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, We Three Kings.

Harmony, it can’t be accomplished alone, in music or in life. And a lot of dissonance intrudes along the way. Some of it can be rearranged; some must be discarded to make way for patterns that work. Eventually, I learned who my mother really was. And I finally grew up and stopped fighting shadows.

Years later, this November and December, I observed my father’s silence and jerky sleep in the nursing home. His decline was in process.

“Hi, Dad!” I  kissed him on the forehead. The noise in the elevator and dining room was enough to jar anyone. An alarm went off in the hall. He grimaced—but the response was pain. I could only guess what he needed.

Eventually his final days arrived: twenty-four hour hospice care, lowered blood pressure, less blood flow to his extremities, a sudden change of color, from pink to waxy white, his breathing paused and threatened to stop.

“I love you, Dad. I always will,” I told him. “But it’s okay to join Mom now.” One more kiss on the forehead. One of my brothers, my husband, and an ex-sister-in-law joined in a few silent tearful goodbyes. I turned around. Dad’s hospice aide also wept as his spirit departed.

Back again in the center of my bed, guitar as a companion, I play and sing as if I had an audience of two: one woman who would have been 91, and one man who would have turned 92 on the first of January. She joins in with the alto and he grins, completely happy. “Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.”

my parents on their wedding day 4/4/45

mom and dad

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