Life After Losing a Child

I've been thinking a lot about my friend Michelle. About a year ago, she lost her four-year-old boy to DIPG (a rare brain tumor). Michelle and I weren't terribly close--she came into my life as my realtor--and I only met her son once. But her story affected me profoundly.

I have children, one 9 and one 2. That's probably why I feel so affected. It's why crappy movies on Lifetime can bring women to tears--it's way too easy to imagine how your whole world would crumble to dust if the light brought by your children were extinguished. I've been following Michelle's journey through her grief on caringbridge and on facebook. I keep wishing for something I can do to ease her pain, even knowing that, were that grief my own, there's nothing anyone could do.

Without you,
my child,
there's no joy in a yellow punch buggy
glistening in the sun,
no wonder
in a green moth
clinging to our screen door,
or dark clouds
drifting across a full moon.
Without you,
a squirrel eating a nut on our deck
can burst through the patched-up dam
of my heart
and drown me anew
in tears.

How to Let it Go

I had a horribly stupid, dumb accident last week. And it's gonna cost us $1000. I feel sick. And I can't seem to let it go.

We bought a new TV. An awesome one. I don't really understand all the terminology--I'm techy, but not quite that techy--but I know it had something to do with 1080 and it meant that when I watched blueray movies it looked like I could walk into the TV and participate. We had it less than a week.

And I broke it.

It was a dumb accident, not really my fault and also totally my fault, because who else's fault could it be? I was trying to be good and work out. My current favorite workout is EA Sports Active on the Wii. If you've ever tried to do EA Sports Active on the Wii, then you know that the cord connecting the nunchuk to the wiimote is the bane of your existence in this "game."

In short, the two devices banged together, the battery cover flew off the wiimote, the batteries went flying and one hit the TV. BANG! A spiderweb impact and a black zone of nothing and rainbow lines down the middle third of the TV.

I think I cried for most of the afternoon. Even after it was obvious that my husband recognized it as an accident and wasn't at all put out with me.

Yesterday, the hubby wished that we had been able to do our original plan and make the downstairs TV into an upstairs TV. We have houseguests and he was looking for a little time to himself. I melted down as if he had accused me of breaking it on purpose, which, of course, he did not. He was just being wistful.

So, trying to figure out how to let it go. It's done. It can't be fixed. There's nothing to be done, but keep making the payments on a lovely new toy that is destined for the garbage.

Random Acts of Rudeness

So, I'm walking my dog this morning, in my neighborhood, where I always do. I have my plastic bag in hand. I'm one of the good ones, who cleans up after my dog.

O'Neill does his business in the yard next door. I'm standing there, bag in hand, waiting for him to finish, when some man I've never seen before comes out on the porch and yells, "You better pick that up!" I'm thinking the next door neighbor got a boyfriend and he's a rude old fart, but I'm nice, I wave my bag and say, "I always do."

Now, what I also always do is bag up the poop, then leave it curbside and pick it up on my way home. I don't see the sense in carrying the stinky bag with me for the rest of the walk. The guy comes running out again and yells, "And take the bag with you!" I felt ridiculous having a yelling conversation across a yard, but I didn't want him yelling up the street after me, so I yelled back, "I'll pick it up on the way home." I ended up having to scream it three times because he must also be deaf. Then he finally waved me off and I finished walking my dog.

So, after I got back home, I couldn't quite just let it go. So, I left O'Neill at home and walked over and rang the doorbell. Turns out the guy is house-sitting and that my neighbor had been upset at some point because someone left a bag of poop in her yard and didn't pick it up. I wish I had been able to keep my cool more and get through. I did tell him that his behavior was rude and unnecessary and clarify that I always clean up after my dog. He didn't quite apologize, other than being worried that I would tell the house-owner that he had offended me. What I couldn't get across, though, was that yelling at random strangers in the street is no way to deal with a problem.

I'm wondering what makes a person think that storming out on your porch and yelling at people is the solution to anything. I wasn't even guilty of what I was accused of and my dander was up enough to want to enact violence on his person (I said "want to"--I've never actually enacted violence on anyone). He was behaving like that stereotypical grumpy old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. He didn't know me. It wasn't even his lawn. It was just a knee-jerk, rude reaction that will not solve the problem.

Maybe it's just me, but I thought you were supposed to *talk* to people when you have issues: directly and calmly. I thought we were grownups.

Berry Picking: Small Pleasures

I took my husband, my daughters and a friend berry picking today. It was a perfect morning of small pleasures. The bigger daughter and her friend picked like mad. They're such little capitalists. Within minutes of beginning, they had plans to make jam and smoothies and muffins to sell. They set goals for how quickly they would fill their bucket.

My husband could reach the tall branches and gathered by the handfuls and slipped his blueberries into the girls' bucket, to help them reach their goal all the faster.

The littlest one (age 2), stretched to reach the lowest branches. We'd pull them down and hold them for her and she'd pinch her tiny fingers and tug so carefully and drop her treasure in the bucket (or maybe in her mouth, with a wicked grin to follow). She was so proud when she found a big one and so quickly learned which ones were blue enough.

And me? I picked a little. I watched a lot.

It was a morning of images that will stay etched in the sunnier patches of my mind to revisit on cloudier days.


(For any locals who wants to check it out: It's called Cedar Grove Blueberry Farm, on N86, about 15 miles north of Hillsoborough. They had a swingset for distractions when little ones got bored, lots of shade, buckets you could use if you didn't bring one and free ice water. It really was great.)

Wakes and Reunions

The oddest thing about all this has been how much time I've spent laughing with people I don't normally even see.

In the past few days, we've attended a visitation, a funeral, a funeral reception, a family-only vistitation, and two high school reunion events.

Funeral events and reunion events are a lot alike. You talk to a lot of people that you haven't seen for a long time, some that you don't remember that well. The conversations are all about memories. Your spouse wants to be there to support you, but is probably half-nervous and half-bored all the time. Your children run around wild, not really knowing or understanding what is going on or just giving in to their childish escapist abilities. You laugh more than you expect to and cry at odd moments.

This must be what they mean when they talk about an emotional roller coaster because I think I'm fine then my stomach drops out again. I'm distracted by the view, then remember why I'm up there just before I fall.

Goodbye, Fred

I've been working on how to say this for a few days now and I still don't know.

My father-in-law died Wednesday morning.

The Green Eyed Monster

I'm very jealous right now. A friend of mine in my writing group has gotten her novel published. Really published. By a publisher. Like, where they paid her, and she'll do readings in book stores.

(Sigh)

Really, you should check it out. I haven't read this yet, but I am reading what she's writing now and I can tell you that she is fabulous. I'll be buying it at one of her first readings.

http://thewetnursestale.com/index.php

So, I am happy for her. Really and sincerely.

And, also, really and sincerely I am jealous. I want to be a writer. I've *always* wanted to be a writer, like since I was 6 and realized that people do that as a job. But I know that wanting to "be a writer" as in make your living from your writing is kind of like wanting to be a rock star or a professional baseball player. It does happen. For a very few, very talented people who are also very lucky.

Maybe someday that will be me, too.

But for now: color me green.