Memorial turned misdemeanor

•May 4, 2013 • 2 Comments

Nat, Owen’s older brother, has memorialized Owen’s death by throwing flowers into the Petaluma River on his own birthday (Nat’s), every year since Owen died.  His body was found in the River on June 2, 2007, a few weeks after the two of them had celebrated Nat’s birthday together, and less than two weeks before Owen’s 21st birthday on June 13.  The police department was unable to resolve the case and closed it on October 31, 2007, Halloween, Owen’s favorite holiday.

This annual celebration of my son’s life is a sacred practice that helps Nat navigate an unmanageable grief.  If you haven’t lost a sibling or a child or any other close family member or friend in an unresolved circumstance, you might not be able to imagine how important these rituals can become.  Our larger family has thrown flowers into the River on June 2 for years now.  This is part of our healing and a way of remembering Owen’s life and honoring his death.

A few weeks ago, when Nat dedicated his flowers to the River, he was approached by a California Fish and Game Officer who announced that he was writing him a ticket for littering.  Nat explained his actions as a sacred practice in memory of his brother.  The officer called his dispatcher who elevated the issue to management, and the ticket was considered appropriate.

As Nat explained it to me today, the officer was visibly disturbed by the direction from Fish and Game management.  He said the officer’s hands were shaking as he wrote the ticket and he apologized for what he could not change.  Littering is a misdemeanor in our state, and Nat will have to appear in court soon.

While we are acutely aware of the effects of pollution in our waterways, and would not knowingly do anything to pollute our environment, we are also devastated that the Petaluma River is a dumping ground for shopping carts, car parts, dead pets, beer bottles, household garbage, soiled diapers, recyclable cans, and more.  We know because we spent plenty of time at high and low tides (the river is actually a tidal slough) searching for evidence associated with Owen’s demise. We used to look for his bicycle, his backpack, his journals, or any of the other missing items that might lead us to answers.  We never found them.  The Petaluma River is so polluted, it might make you sick to see the river bed.  We’ve seen it plenty of times, and can’t imagine…well…

There are no posted signs on the river’s banks stating the Fish and Game regulations about littering.  We don’t consider throwing flowers (plant life) in the river, in memory of our brother and son littering.  Perhaps, we are naive.  Perhaps, we are unaware of the detrimental effects of flowers on marine life.  But, we certainly can imagine that the garbage in the River has a tragic impact on the environment.

Are flowers more damaging than car tires, grocery carts, household garbage, beer bottles, or other debris?  I don’t know.  But, I know that Nat was only interested in creating a memory with an earth-based element.  California Fish and Game took that away from him by adding this new memory.  He now has a court date to determine his fine.

Who got the ticket for throwing Owen’s body into the River?  Our family still wants to know.  Was his body considered litter?  Who pays that fine?

Song for the night: InThisRiver, Zakk Wylde:

Because it just makes sense

•April 29, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Synchronicity is a phenomenon – an amazing convergence of time and space.  Often, we imagine how it might be.  And, then, our imagination is played out in real time (or what we think of as real time).  We consider what’s next, and we hope it turns out well for all concerned.  It always does in the end, but, do we recognize it when it happens?  Do we reframe the outcomes and create new experiences, new memories?  I hope that when synchronicity visits you, you find your new you.  People and circumstances might get in the way, but you are in charge of your future.  YOU ARE.

I have found the new me.  And, it’s a fabulous meeting of mind, heart, body, and soul.  My family found their new ways of being in the world after Owen died.  Owen found his new Owen when he died.  I trust that this is true.  I knew him.  He knew me.  We knew stuff that no one else could imagine.  We talked about the synchronicities in our lives, and said, “ah, right, I know that one”.

Song for the night: Synchronicity, The Police

The ‘Bohemian” article

•April 17, 2013 • Leave a Comment

No one who hasn’t lost a child can imagine how many times each day I think of Owen, and why I’m so proud to be doing work that honors his life and that of his brother, my older son, Nat.  Yes, certainly, every parent lives and breathes with her or his children – each time they learn a new word, fall down and stand back up, graduate from some educational endeavor, get a great job, quit a bad job, stand up for themselves in difficult situations, and reflect on the all-important moments we remember…and forget because time passes…no matter what.  We all die.  It just happens that sometimes, it’s unexpected, tragic, and/or complex.  Think Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.  And, remember.

I didn’t plan on working in thanatology – the study of dying, death, and bereavement.  But, after losing my dad when I was 10, and losing so many family members and friends over the years (more dead than alive now) – my mom, and Owen – well, really, how could I not think this study is a fit?  My day job is still in human resources, and you might not believe how often death is a part of the conversation with employees.  It is, because it happens as often as birth.  I love the photos of new babies that our employees send to my department.  I also spend lots of time with employees whose family and friends are dying or have recently passed.  The memorials, well, yes, I go to lots of them, too.  It’s an honor to be considered a part of our employees’ lives and their life events.  Ultimately, I’ve worked in thanatology since I was a kid.  I was one of the few of my circle who talked of death openly.  Thanks, Mom and Emmitt.

It’s a fit, thanatology, that is, because I couldn’t let my losses limit my ability to live fully.  I think of it this way.  If I’m afraid of death, my own and those of my loved ones, I’ll be afraid to live.  That just doesn’t make sense.  I want to live my life with a strong attraction to what makes us tick, how we get through what we get through, what’s after this life, what is consciousness, and what’s significant about our various paths toward that day that started at the moment of our own births.

As part of my PhD program last semester, I was tasked with choosing a “transformational project” that answered to a doctoral-level study in transformation.  Transformation is one of those words that often silences us out of an inability to accurately define what it is.  What is transformation to you?

My transformational project became Death Cafe Sonoma, and I’m pleased to add the link to today’s article in the “Bohemian” about our gatherings.

Do you believe in magic?  I do. I always have, even right after my dad died, when this song was released:

Starry, starry night

•March 5, 2013 • 1 Comment

Sometime long ago, I may have posted this song to this site.  It takes on new meaning tonight, with my friend’s stories of unresolved memories and pain of love and loss.  I remember what that’s like.  I have plenty of my own.  It wasn’t that long ago.

Vincent van Gogh and his brother, Theodore, left me with lots of stories of their lives that might relate to my own. They couldn’t have possibly known at the time, that their stories could benefit me and others like me.  We are all artists and observers, storytellers and listeners, touching and the touched.  We don’t always know in the moment.  I am thankful I observe, listen, and touch.

Song for the night:  Vincent – Don McLean: “..but, I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

Death Cafe Sonoma – In Your Honor, Owen

•February 28, 2013 • Leave a Comment

If Owen was still here on the Planet, he might be glad to know that I’m facilitating a conversation about dying, death, and bereavement in an open forum.  We talked of these subjects often.  We knew that others were afraid to talk about death, so it seems appropriate now.

I recently started facilitating Death Cafe Sonoma.  I found the parent organization by accident one night while searching for something for school.  Jon Underwood started this global movement in the U.K. after reading about Bernard Crettaz, a Swiss sociologist having done the same in Paris.  I’ve been working on it for a few short months and we’ve had three gatherings so far.

Not everyone will want to attend such an event.  That’s exactly the point – to bring the subjects of dying, death, and bereavement out into the open, into a commonplace conversation.

Song for the night:  This morning, I woke up with this song playing and replaying in my memory, and even though Owen wasn’t a fan of Sting’s, he did know his music well, including the lyrics.

This photo is of Owen and Lea Kelley playing guitars on our patio in San Diego, circa 2001.  He was about 16.  This day was not shot!

Owen Lea guitars SD patio

Spooky

•October 31, 2012 • 3 Comments

It’s raining tonight in Northern California.  It’s Halloween, and the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood were low in numbers.  Only the strong came out.  They were not afraid of getting wet.  Rain is just water, and I guess they got that.  Gimme some candy!

Dave and I waited with candy bowl in hand, and doled out the few miniatures to the children whose parents banked on the experience, rather than the weather.  I don’t know for sure, but if memory serves, my brother and I never failed to go trick-or-treating due to weather.  We were hearty kids, more focused on the night’s “take” than on weather.  Tonight, we have more candy in our house than we want to consume, so I’ll take it to work tomorrow.  Someone will surely eat it.  I will.  I love Butterfingers and Milky Ways.  Yum.

On my drive in to work today, before all my responsibilities kicked into gear, I heard this song on the radio.  I remembered my teenage years, when the song was released, and I remembered sharing this song with Nat and Owen when they were just kids.  On some levels, all of life is Spooky.  Don’t you think?

Classics IV: 

A pain too deep…no one gets in

•September 11, 2012 • 3 Comments

Ah.  Whether this was a wordpress glitch or an oversight on my part, the mother of Jordan’s email showed up just now and allowed me to approve her comment. Earlier tonight, I wrote the post below.

***************

I received an email referencing a comment made here yesterday.  The mother who wrote did not leave an email or website, so I can’t approve the comment.  I am posting it here (below) as evidence that Jordan (age 18) died, that she wrote, and that many of us who’ve lost children simply cannot imagine in the early days, a life after losing our kids.

I remember the early days.  I remember not wanting to get out of bed, to dress, to eat, to laugh, to remember how great it was to be a part of the family I once knew and loved.  I remember doubling over in an agony so deep that I didn’t know if I would ever be able to look on the sun or the moon again without wanting them to disappear, and thus, my life to dissolve into the void.

I was and am one of the lucky ones.  I awaken each day to greet new mysteries, to greet new memories out there for the making, and to greet new adventures in the hopes of reframing old ones as newjust in the living of them.  None of that was conceivable in the early days of losing Owen.  Five+ years later, I can say, yes, I’m here and doing my work on the planet and in the interest of moving forward and becoming part of others’ histories.  Owen’s stories are everyone’s stories, and I am here to tell them.  Yet, forward is not where I wanted to go in the early days.  Forward is where I am.

I don’t know what it’s like to lose my only child.  I have my older son, Nat, who sustains me along with my husband, Dave, my best friend, Lea, and my brother, Emmitt, and an extended family who support me in those times when I can’t imagine how we all got here.  I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to feel like no one is in this loss with me.  In the end, all of humanity is with me (past, present, and future), for all of humanity is made up of births, deaths, and everything in between.

To Jordan’s mom: I hear you.  I remember.  You have a community that’s larger than you currently imagine.  Stay the course.  We’re here, reading your words.

“My 18 year old son died after a very long illness. 30 days ago today. I rarely left the house for five years and honored his request of no help except pain meds. I am dying. I’ve lost27 lbs. 5ft5 and I weigh 95 lbs. My heart aches so deep sometimes I cant breath. the last 19 hours of his life I laid next to him and held his hand and talked to him. He would occasionally squeeze my finger when I said I love you. I will never forget the horrible sounds, the drowning in his own fluid. I was there as he took his last breath and I don’t think I will ever get over this. I am and have been alone through all this. No one came, no one could take hearing that death ratttle. I’m alone now and I don’t want people around. They don’t understant and they didn’t know Jordan. Although I believe he’s in heaven and free, I am here and the pain is so consuming. I’m sorry for your loss. Right now I can’t find anything to make it better. I haven’t even left the house or my bed for that mattter. How can anyone ever let go of their child. I can’t find any peace.. I am so lost without him.”

This song became my mantra after Owen died.  I send it out now to Jordan’s mom, whoever she is, in the hopes that she can find a new hope in the “light of the dark, black night”:

 
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