An angel on my shoulder

Well, we're off! I have left my parents' house in the capable hands of a company called "3 Nun's" to organize and ready the place for an estate sale this weekend! Wheee.

Today, I took it slow. As the first day off, officially, from worrying about the house and it's contents, I did laundry, catching up with my daughter's stuff and mine. Geez. Getting there. When I ran errands it was as if my parents' traveled with me. Everyone was super nice to me. And today - as well as yesterday - I was held up in traffic waiting for funeral lines passing in front of me. Today it was an especially long line of cars.

I went to the bank to deposit all the quarters that we got from busting the old plaster pig my aunt and uncle gave us years ago. My dad put only quarters in it. Do you know that when we cracked it open it held $50. Not $47.50 or $29.75... $50 even. The guy at the bank told me he could take them but that the quarters would need to be shipped to another location to be counted. In 2-3 days it would be credited to my account. Really? When I mentioned Coinstar the dude said..."or you can roll them. Here, I can help you"....so I stood at his window and we rolled the quarters. At flippin' Bank of America! That never happens. In the post office, a gentleman offered me his packing tape and helped me tape up my stuff. Sent some fun stuff to my friend, Ellen, that I found in my mother's den. I stopped in at "Bucks" to grab a coffee and when I got back in the car, CBC Radio played a piece and talked about how it had been written to accompany a nobleman "drinking his morning coffee.." (I kid you not) At the grocery store an older woman approached me to tell me how "beautiful" I was today. Truly! At all places that play music - stores, car radio, etc.. ALL playing hits of the past and all were my favorite songs.

Really...it was a little freaky. OKAY MOM! I get it...and you're welcome!

Nice to have a day relatively free of worry.

AND I had a yoga class this evening to make up the one I had to miss on Monday to work at my folks' house. And it's raining! Love to go to sleep hearing the rain.

Perhaps I should have bought a lottery ticket today!

And I love you both so very much. Thanks again, guys!

Like a tidal wave....

I have to describe what has happened to me today. I have just come in, from the car, and walked right upstairs to my computer to capture this feeling. Grief is fascinating. It is like the stomach flu.... Huh? you say???? It's like this. You think you are over the worst of it and then, like a tidal wave from within, it all spews out of you with such force.

I just attended an amazing yoga workshop taught by Desiree Rumbaugh and it was really wonderful. I came into this room at a local church - lovely room too - filled with like minded people. Maybe about 50? We spread our mats and Desiree started. I was there for my body and hoping it would settle my mind. I am in the final stretch of preparing for this estate sale at my parents and I have been filled with grief - spilling over into the thoughts of my old friend, Kimber, who passed away two months ago. Thinking that yoga would help quiet my mind and improve my spirit, I put down my mat and got into it.

Now, I am a novice in yoga. Many years ago I attended classes regularly. Today, I am not fit and am working toward getting back some of my vitality. The poses were hard but that was okay. There were people there much better than me in the class and that was okay too. My teacher was there to help and encourage me and she was great. Desiree worked with several people and it was amazing. I know that I have far to go.

Something started to slip, in my mind. The carillon started to play several hymns and we could hear it clearly as someone had slipped open a window for a little extra air. I started to cry. At first, I could hold it in but then we had to work with a partner and try handstands. I knew I could not speak to anyone without bursting out into tears which would certainly confuse them. My teacher did come over and work with me and I tried to be a little more together. It just got worse. As we got into Savasana I could barely hold on. The lady, on the mat next to mine, left and came back carrying a handful of tissues. That kindness almost undid me.

At the end of the class, Desiree spoke and mentioned that the funeral was probably over, next door. The carillon had been playing "Softly and tenderly...Jesus is calling.." I had been picking up on the vibe.

At the conclusion of class, the lady next to me spoke to me and offered a hug. I left and had to sit in my car for a few minutes,overwhelmed with sadness. I went full on into what Oprah refers to as the "ugly cry". The emotions overcame me and I felt the cover come off a very deep well of grief.

I know there is no way past this emotion I feel over the loss of my dear parents and my dear friend. As I say in "Lion Hunt" - a call and response game I play with my Montessori kids... "Can't go over it...can't go under it....Gotta go through it."

I am grateful that I am in emotional pain and not physical pain because it means that I can go through it and not have scarring. I know this pain. It is as deep as it was when I went through a horrendous divorce. The pain was suffocating, at times. I lived through it and, later, was able to meet and marry the most wonderful man who is an amazing parent to my daughter. I know I can get through this too. It's just very damn hard, at present.

What will meet me on the other side, I wonder?

As I walked out through the church office something caught my eye. It was a black and white copy of a baby's hand and foot with the handwritten message.."Thank you for being my hands and feet. I love you more than you can imagine. God"

I turned it over and the article printed on the back was entitled "Inspired Breathing". Here is an excerpt from this sheet.

"Do something very courageous, very bold, very exhilarating, and pass the energy along. Be infectious. Lower your voice and lean in to tell someone how awesome it is to move halfway across the country with no money, no job, no place to live. (Freaky, eh Michele??) Breathe in, breathe out, breathe into another. Tell another woman how you left a suffocating job - so she knows she can do it. Tell a young woman about the thrill of traveling around the world alone, so she knows she can try it. Be as healthy, as vibrant, as beautiful, as authentic as you possibly can be, in a way that speaks silently to to her. You can be this, too," Rachel Synder encourages us in her illuminating book of meditations, 365 Words of Well-Being for Women. "Smile at other women's dreams and their hopes, and reassure them that they'll survive whatever black hole they're currently navigating."

Today some woman around you is bound to need a little inspirational CPR, so don't stop breathing. Your own life may depend upon it.


Namaste.

Things

Lovely, aren't they? These are some of the things that will be included in the estate sale at my parents' house next weekend. The official dates are October 22,23, and 24th.

So strange that October 23rd would have been their 65th wedding anniversary. I am celebrating by selling their wedding gifts.

Ouch.

I know this is all normal...so why do I feel like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?

Sigh

Solace

SOLACE

Verb: Give solace to.

Noun: Comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness: "she sought solace in her religion"

This is a picture taken in the living room of my parents' house. I took alot of "before" pictures. Needless to say, this room does not look like this anymore. My parents loved "things" as well as what that stuff represented. Books were a way to travel, to educate, to stimulate, to look out and be a part of the world. Records were a way to feel the sensuality of life, the goodness, pureness of human emotion, the feel of silken culture on the ear. These things were important to my parents and their home reflected that.

Now, they are both gone from this world and all these things are left for me to go through and decide about. I have written here, on numerous occasions, about my fear of letting this all go. Their house - bought in 1955 and where my brother and I grew up - was the once place where my parents could be felt. Going there and looking through their things helped and I was increasingly nervous to lose access to the house.

My mother passed in November of last year, my father in April of 2006. I have had a really hard time with the idea of them being gone from my presence. I felt solace when I went to their house and was among their things. It felt as if they were on a long vacation and would be returning soon. I felt weird going through their drawers and closets, looking under their beds, removing their books and records. It was as if I was anticipating a scolding for messing things up.

I think about this project all the time. I go to the house and work for a couple days in a row and am overwhelmed. I take a couple days off and try again only to have to stop ..again. And I worry. I have some time but what about at the end? It was so hard to see those books leave the house. The records I had to turn over to my husband. I knew I could not bear to be there.

Now, almost a year after my mother's death...I am of a new mind. I have battled within for a couple of months and have come up with one key word - SOLACE. My friend came over to give me his opinion and help with this project. My friend, Robert, is a rare fellow and a great person to turn to when you need another opinion. He is smart, educated, talented and empathetic. In short, I trust him. I needed him to look around and tell me his thoughts. Basically, I feared I was just lazy, I see now. That was the reason I could not accomplish emptying this house. I was giving up way too easily. It was not that hard of a task, right?

He set me right. By looking at what was really there I was able to recognize that I no longer was getting SOLACE. Going to the house was now painful. Mom and Dad are not coming back. Are never coming back. There is no one place to stand, on this earth, where I can ever "feel" them again. I can stand in the chapel at church, in front of the columbarium that holds their ashes, and know that their remains are close but they are not there either. There is no SOLACE for me anywhere anymore.

Now, their house and its contents are a burden. The lovely things are just that. Lovely things. I have my own lovely things. I have already moved out several things that make me feel good. The chair my father always sat in, their coffee table that was always buried in Smithsonian and Bon Appetite magazines. These things bring back the familiar, if only for a moment. The other stuff.... is their stuff. Not mine. (Reminds me of a George Carlin routine. Whatever happened to his "stuff" after he died, I wonder?) Their stuff will not enhance my life or make it easier to continue on as an orphaned adult. These things form no barrier against the big bad world. My parents were that barrier. In the flesh, they were the people who stood between me and Time, aging and the worlds' indifference. They are no longer able to provide that support for me. Their things are a poor stand in.

I no longer find SOLACE in their house.

I know that my mother would be very sad to know how much her things are burdening me now. I owe her for alot she provided me in our time together but I do not owe her suffering. That is a gift she would never have welcomed from me. I do not honor my parents by worrying over what to do with their things, honoring their things, working with their things, selling their things. No amount of money would help.

I honor them by making appointments with estate sale companies. I honor them by taking up Yoga again where I am constantly reminded to "let go" and to let the "light of my heart shine forth". I honor them by performing and uplifting people by the music I can make, using a talent nurtured and encourage by my parents. I honor them by telling stories about them and maybe, someday soon, sharing my mother's stories as she journalled them all those years.

Grief is hard, hard, hard. Adding on to it is the grief I feel for my friend, Kim. Her second grand baby was born a couple of days ago. I grieve for her daughter who can never celebrate with her mother the joy of this event. Writing this makes me see that is it still my grief taking over. How I would have missed my mother so badly if she had not been there when my daughter was born. But she was there, both parents were there to hold Mal just minutes after she was born. Grief can be confusing as it spills over into your life. You keep wiping up the spill but where the hell is the big leak???

I'm working on the leak and well I know it will never truly be fixed for good. I can see, down the line, that the drips will be more manageable. This has been a big process for me. The solace that I looked for, after my mother passed, eluded me. The solace I looked for in their house was minimum and now eludes me.

I think I need to look somewhere else. Perhaps at a lovely Fall day, as I think how my parents loved this season. Maybe at a concert when I have moved people to their feet, as I know how my parents enjoyed being at every performance of my brother and I that they could attend. Certainly at a good meal as my parents loved food and the social aspect of sharing it with friends. Daily when the feelings I have toward my husband and my daughter remind me that they modelled that loving behavior for me my whole life.

Experts say the first year you lose someone is particularly hard. The anniversaries you have to celebrate without them, the seasons that pass without the normal activities you once shared, the daily need to pick up the phone to call and share with them some anecdote or to ask for advice or....solace.

I am a work in progress. Here's what I can do. I can daily seek solace in these moments and work to avoid looking for it in things or events. Some days I will do well...other days I will allow myself grace. This is my parents' gift to me. Their love has given me grace to love myself and to do otherwise would be to disrespect their memory.

I am the "thing" they loved most.