i'm back!

I'm back!

I've missed you, my old blog. On my other blog, I decided to change my focus from spirituality to just, well, chatting about everyday life. I finally realized that I was trying to be everything to everyone, and in doing so, I was losing my voice, my authenticity, and my audience too. So I'm back, not just to my old blog, but to myself. Not everyone will like this. But I'd rather be true to myself (tempted to quote Hamlet but I'll spare you) than try to please everyone else!

(Photo: Minnesota state photograph "Grace" (Photo credit: Wikipedia))

I have a monster headache today, so instead of rambling on and on, I'm going to repost a little something I quoted for "The Little Things" that is worth repeating:

"You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
--G.K. Chesterton

(I've always loved this picture because it hung in Grandma Resch's kitchen for as far back as I can remember. I always think of her whenever we say grace before dinner...)

http://barbaramarincelthelittlethings.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/you-say-grace

seventeen years??????

My dad's funeral was 17 years ago today. It's amazing to think so much time has passed, when I thought I could never live without him. But I discovered that I can, because he is now a part of me and I am never alone, never without him, and I know that he will never be truly lost to me. St. Leonard, a member of the communion of saints. It's not that I don't still grieve, and sometimes I miss him so much my heart, literally, aches, but the grief has changed; gradually, the comfort of my memories and my sense of his presence has finally outweighed the pain. Most of the time...

Certain smells, certain moments when I feel unloved, certain aspects of the Christmas rituals, and hundreds of other ordinary details of life, will reopen the wound. But at least now I can let it bleed for a while and go on. At least now I can be open, not only to those painful moments, but also to the many joys of my life.
--Joyce Barrington

the red thread

This is going to be a very short post, just an update on our baby situation.

To make a long story short, we are no longer trying to get pregnant. As it turned out, I simply couldn't handle being off of my fibromyalgia medications. My muscle relaxers, Advil, Excedrin, and trazedone (a sleeping medication commonly used to treat fibromyalgia) are all, without question, definitely verboten for anyone trying to get pregnant. And without them, I've wound up in one of the worst fibromyalgia flares in years. I've been in too much pain to function: unable to dress myself, drive the car, cook, get myself to class, type on the computer. So, after talking it over with my husband and my physician, the three of us made the decision that, for me, pregnancy is simply not an option. (If anyone has any doubts about whether or not fibromyalgia is a real, debilitating chronic pain syndrome, check out the mayo clinic website or web md.)

I feel as though I have lost an actual baby, not just the hope of one. I loved this sweet, precious little child, our little red-haired girl; she was planted firmly in my heart and mind, in my very being, and the grief of knowing that she will never come to exist is overwhelming right now.

But I know that I will survive this. And George and I KNOW that there is a child out there, waiting for us, waiting to become part of our family. In a funny way, being adopted myself, adoption, rather than pregnancy, seems like a normal way of becoming a family. So that is the plan.

I'm going to close with a quote I have propped up against my keyboard as I write; it was sent by a good friend when she and her husband adopted a little honey from China, and I have a feeling it's going to be my mantra for some time to come.

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break."
--An ancient Chinese belief

Please keep us in your prayers, if you are so inclined.

a thought for the day...

"For life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limitation of our sight."
--Rossiter Worthington Raymond

i'll see you in my dreams

"I never knew grief felt so much like fear."
--C.S. Lewis

Lewis was right on target: grief does feel like fear. The same breathless, sickening sensation of a sharp kick smack in the middle of the gut; the trembly, disoriented, foggy feeling in the brain; the same clenching, harsh pain around the heart.

All summer--strangely, ever since my headaches started easing up--I've been dreaming about my parents, especially my mom. The dreams always follow the same pattern. I'm reunited with either or both of my folks, only to have them die right in front of me. Almost every morning I wake up, crying, to face another day of fresh, raw grief, as though they died only yesterday. It's as though I'm haunted. It's made me depressed and weepy as of late; I'm extra sensitive, so every perceived slight hurts all the more, and my self-esteem is swimming around in the depths of the toilet.

Obviously, I haven't processed my mom's death. As I look back over the past year, I realize I've dealt with my grief, in many instances, by not dealing with it. By focusing on having a baby, partly to fill the void left by her absence. (Yeah, my head knows that won't work, but I suspect my gut feels differently. I should point out that I've desperately wanted a baby for a long time; it's just that losing my mom makes my grief over not conceiving even more intense.) By distracting myself with the TV and books. By telling myself that hey, I'm forty years old now, it's time to grow up and stop yearning for my mommy. The constant migraines, I now think, were in part, my grief coming out sideways.

Oscar Romero once said, "As a Christian, I do not believe in death without Resurrection." And I do, it's the hope I cling to. But I can't bear the thought that I will never again in this life feel my mom's arms around me, or be able to rest my head on her shoulder. That she's not there to soothe my hurt feelings when I feel rejected or like a failure at something. That there's no one left to reminisce with about the things the three of us did as a family together. I want to get past the grief, to get on with my life, to focus on enjoying my wonderful memories of my mom and dad; I just don't know how to, I guess.

still here

Yeah, I'm still alive. I've been having a lot of migraines lately, which is the main reason I haven't been posting. I have one right now, in fact, so I'll just post a brief update:

1. I'm having a rough time coping with my mom's death; I've been really isolating myself and immersing myself in books and TV to avoid dealing with my grief. Not healthy, I know, and of course I'm missing her more desperately than ever now that Christmas is coming.
2. No, I'm not pregnant yet.
3. I'm also having a major identity crisis since filling for disability with my student loan provider. How do I rise above my illness(es)? I refuse to allow my sense of self to be equated with my disabilities--I'm just not sure how I can define myself anymore. And it's painful to accept the loss of so many of my dreams. There are many days (like today) when I feel basically worthless, that life is passing me by and I'm not really living, that because I'm not bringing home a paycheck I'm not an equal partner in my marriage (although George never makes me feel this way), that I'm not contributing anything to the world around me.
4. I am doing one thing, though--George and I are participating in the Basilica's JustFaith program. Actually I'm a co-facilitator. More on this later.
5. Well, two things. I'm singing with the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity Chorale again this year. When I manage to make it to practice, anyway. Our big holiday concert (Lessons and Carols for the Baptism of the Lord) is on January 6; we're also doing a hymnfest in April and singing at the Archdiocesan diaconate ordination in May.

However, regarding my mom, I came across a quote about grief today that gives me some hope:

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow. But this same necessity of loving serves to counteract the grief and heals them.
--Tolstoy


If mom's death has taught me anything, it's that broken hearts never completely mend, but at the same time they become infinitely expandable and more capable of love and gratitude than ever.

words to live by

Life is rarely what we expect it might be, but we need to look for the lilies. We need to do what brings us joy and what gives us a sense of purpose.
--Elizabeth Edwards


Words to live by, especially for those of us with chronic illness who live with pain and disappointment on a daily basis, spoken by an amazing woman from the depths of her own experience.

tragedy on the river

Like everyone else, I think I'm still in shock over the 35W bridge collapse. George was out for a run on the Stone Arch Bridge and actually saw the bridge come down. A cousin of mine drove over the bridge less than half an hour before it collapsed. I found out today that one of the deceased was a parishioner of a priest I was friends with back in graduate school. If the collapse had happened during rush hour next week instead of this, I might very well have been on it myself; I'm taking a class at The Loft (it's in the Open Book Building on Washington Avenue) next week and the 35W bridge would have been part of my route home. And I can't even begin to count the number of times I've been on that bridge, especially when I lived in south Minneapolis; I was probably on it three to four times a week, and when I worked for the Wellstone campaign that was how I got to work.

George is beginning to have a delayed reaction to the trauma of seeing the bridge fall into the river, and I'm still freaked out because he usually runs along the river road UNDER the bridge--he didn't Wednesday because it was so hot and he was tired, so he took a shorter route--but he could have been crushed under tons of concrete and steel. Fate is so random. We are all so vulnerable, at every moment, a fact we usually manage to forget, until a sudden unspeakable tragedy occurs and we are forced to face the reality that we aren't the ones in control after all.

I know we're all lucky as a community that there weren't more fatalities, but that must be small comfort to those who lost their loved ones that day. John Donne was right when he wrote "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." We are all the lesser for the loss of those beautiful people--each of them someone's father, mother, brother, son, daughter, sister--who died on Wednesday, whether we knew them or not.

All of this reminds me of what my mom always said: Life is too short not to say "I love you." Or in the words of Father Kevin McDonough at a prayer service at St. Olaf earlier this week:

We live only for a short time and are not promised tomorrow. Be grateful for today and be a blessing to somebody else.

Amen.

the fog begins to lift

The presence of that absence is everywhere
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

In a few hours it will be exactly three weeks since my mom died. For some reason, I can't get the memory of reaching over and closing her eyes after she quit breathing out of my head.

The last three weeks I have been mostly numb, stumbling around in some sort of fog. But the last couple of days, the fog has begun to lift, and I have to say that I really, REALLY miss it, now that the realization that she's gone, forever, that I'll never see that warm and beautiful smile, or hear her voice on the telephone, or give her a hug ever again is starting to set in. It's beyond belief, the pain is. My heart hurts, literally, actually hurts, like it is breaking and shattering into a million pieces, my eyes are red and sore and puffy (my whole face is for that matter) because I can't stop crying, and I feel like I can't breathe. I can't concentrate, can't sleep, can't function very much if at all.

I am dreading the next week. She would have been 79 years old on Thursday. And now I have another reason to dread Mother's Day.

I'm sure that someday I will be able to feel grateful that I had the chance to say goodbye, to be with her when she died--I've been haunted for years by the fact that my dad died so suddenly, always wondering if he really knew just how much I loved him. Adored him. That someday I will find pleasure and comfort in my memories, that the pain will recede, and I will be able to feel her presence. I know this, intellectually. But it's the kind of knowledge that hasn't found its way into my heart yet. All I know is that I've not only lost my mother; I've lost my best friend too.

I want to thank all of you who have been so supportive and thoughtful during all of this, and ask you to please be patient with me now. Your friendship means more to me than you'll ever know.

funeral today

I'm too exhausted to write about the funeral today...but I did want to write something in honor of the occasion. So here are the quotes I used in my eulogy:

"Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limitation of our sight."
--Rossiter Worthington Raymond

"We do best homage to our dead by living our lives fully even in the shadow of our loss."
--Jewish proverb

And mom's favorite prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith:
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
--St. Francis of Assisi

Francie

My mom called to ask me if Francie, the little russet-colored woolly puppy I brought her when she first went in the hospital before Christmas, could be buried with her.

Do broken hearts really mend?

Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
--Rossiter Worthington Raymond

maybe there's hope for me after all

"The process of becoming a person begins with a mess."
--Jung

the soul of the senate

Politics is not about money or power games, or winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives, lessening human suffering, advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and in the world.
--Paul Wellstone

On the morning of October 25, 2002, a small plane went down in the sleet and bitter cold of northern Minnesota, crashing into the swampy, densely forested earth only a few miles from the Eveleth Airport. There were no survivors. Among the dead were U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila.

I don't represent the big oil companies, I don't represent the big pharmaceutical companies, I don't represent the Enrons of the world, but you know what, they already have great representation in Washington. It's the rest of the people that need it. I represent the people of Minnesota.
--Paul Wellstone

I loved him. And four years later, I miss him more than ever. I miss his kindness, his compassion, his exuberance, his courage, his passion for the most vulnerable of our society, his idealism.

The year he died, Paul Wellstone introduced the Mental Health Equity Act, which would force insurance companies to give equal coverage for both physical AND mental health problems. My first day with the 2002 campaign, I told Paul my own story, about how my parents spent their entire retirement savings on my treatment for depression and post traumatic stress. He held my hand in his and listened, told me how sorry he was for what my parents and I had been through. I've had a lot of experience in politics, and I've told a lot of people my story, and I can vouch for the fact that Paul Wellstone genuinely cared. It wasn't just for show, it wasn't just an act he put on to win political support, his empathy for the suffering and the underdog was the driving force of his life.

There is a huge leadership void in the country...Self-interest is more than economic self-interest; it is also how you feel about yourself. Are you living a life consistent with the words you speak, are you helping others, are you helping your community or your country or your world? A winning politics is a politics of values that appeals to the best in people, that enables citizens to dream again to make a better America.
--Paul Wellstone

Shortly before he died, Paul Wellstone was one of only a few senators to vote against the Iraq war. Most of the pundits predicted his vote would cost him the election. But just a few days before the crash, Wellstone pulled ahead of challenger Norm Coleman in the polls for the first time that fall.

Paul Wellstone was the soul of the Senate. He was one of the most noble and courageous men I have ever known. He was a gallant and passionate fighter, especially for the less fortunate. I am grateful to have known Paul and Sheila as dear and close friends. Their deaths are a shattering loss to Minnesota, to the nation, and to all who knew and loved them.
--U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, October 25, 2002.

Running though my mind as I write this is a Jewish proverb: We pay best homage to our dead by living our lives fully even in the shadow of our loss. In my dresser drawer is a pin the campaign distributed after the crash which reads, simply: "Stand Up/Keep Fighting."

The future will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines. The future will belong to those who have passion and are willing to work hard to make our country better.
--Paul Wellstone

(Quotations from Twelve Years and Thirteen Days: Remembering Paul and Sheila Wellstone, by Terry Gydesen.)

the meaning of success

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

one day too many

Here's a poem about the ups and downs of living with fibromyalgia:

One Day
Too Many
By Jane Bauhs


I am
one day
a blessing
then one day
I am a drain


Two days
a joy to know me
then two days with me
a strain


Three days
you'll see me happy,
then three days i'll
be in pain


Four days
of peaceful being,
bring four more of
useless blame


Five days
with me are blissful,
or filled with guilt
and shame


Six days
you'll see me active,
while six days could
make me lame


Seven days
you'll find me restful,
filled with a hope and
faithfilled fame


Eight days
you'll think you know me,
but its all been just
a game


Nine days
of me and then
you'll see we all
are just the same