We’re doing well these days.  We have family, friends, work, and interests that keep us connected to what’s so now.  This is the stuff of time passing and nodding our heads to our memories.  We nod a lot.

It’s May and this has been a (now) traditionally hard month, leading up to June (the hardest) for us for five years – the years since Owen passed.  Without an actual death anniversary date, we have looked on the months of May and June since 2007, as a time of remembrance, hope, misgivings, words unspoken, words spoken, and a heaviness that is only lightened by the lives we live now and our memories of Owen’s voice, his laugh, his unique way of seeing the world.  Each year offers a new level of lightness, of hope for the futures of our loved ones, and for each other.

Nat works with me, not for me.  He works at the same company where I am the head of HR.  This is a dance.  Both of us walk a fine line between family and employer/employee.  We make decisions based in the employer/employee relationship while at work, and always with attentiveness to how our work decisions might affect our family relationship.  Tango, not square dancing.  In square dancing, there is structure.  In tango, there is nuance.

People (mostly poets) have told me it’s dangerous to write about a mother’s relationship with her son(s).  I’ve never really understood why that is so.  They (the poets) tend to think of mother (and other) love as something that is likely to become altered in an unnatural way.  I think of mother love as something that is pure of heart.  I used to think of myself as a poet.  I now think of myself as simply, a mother who loves, and writes.  Are the poets I read and talk with writing from deep grief and twisted memories, abuse, or misuse?  Perhaps.  And, I nod my head to their memories that end up on the pages of books I buy.  I write from a deep grief, purpose, and pure intent.  I long for the days when I didn’t ask myself these questions.

Nat is still in San Mateo, CA, finishing up with Maker Faire, our company’s biggest event of the year.  The first time I called him today with a question about hours worked and lunches missed, he sounded exhausted, but still “in” the energy of the event.  This was an amazing year for Maker Faire – more exhibitors than ever, more press, more people, more, more, more.  Better.  Better is how I see us in the aftermath of losing Owen.  We are better than we were when he departed.  Not less sad for his loss, but better for the lessons he taught us.

Nat is what Dave and I used to call a “shift slut” in the days when we were working in restaurants and the only way to make more money was to work more shifts.  We worked more shifts.  We had five children to support.  We worked like not working might mean writing bad checks for groceries (in the days when you could still do such a thing!).  Nat works like his next meal and those of his family will depend on his sweat.  It does, and, he rarely complains.  He loves what he does.  He loves his family – poets and their odd, and sometimes off-center ways of illustrating deep love, be damned.

If you are a poet, take notice.  Writing about love is not always something that makes people cringe.  Love is often, if you give it half a chance, something that makes people go “ah”.  In a good way, a very good way.  (Am I reading just a small sliver of poets?  Surely, others write of this gift of love.  How have I missed them?  Surely I have read them.)

I love my memories of our time with Owen.  I always will.  I love my time in the here-and-now-and-the-many-years-gone-and-yet-to-be with Nat.  I always will.  It’s May.  Soon, it will be June.  Time will pass, and it will be 2013, then 2023.  Time, huh.

Dance, because you can.  Because, you may.  And, if you are living in the present…you will.  The joke is on me.  RIP Robin Gibb, your words are alive.

Being a hopeful person with a bag full of reasons to ditch hope to the curbside, I hope that you find meaning in your loss.  Each loss is unique, whether devastating or beautiful.  Oddly, loss can be both.  I know this like I know that the sun will rise tomorrow (god(s) willing and the creek don’t rise).  If you are new to this time and place of losing a child or another loved one that holds unfathomable and insurmountable grief, my words may sound vapid, empty, hollow.  At times now, I am amazed at the fact of my family’s rebounding abilities.  We not only survive, but we thrive in the unending gap that losing Owen left behind.  We see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and learn with new hearts and minds.  We continue to continue.  We not only observe our changes, but examine the questions, the answers, and the space which holds no tangible relief.  We find new meaning.

How do we navigate the gates to the “other side” whether we are the one walking through, or the one letting go?  In our own ways – ways that no one else can know from our perspectives.  We do it all because we are still here living from one day to the next, from one birth to the next death, and from one simple moment of awareness to the next moment of realization, and in my case, this evening – from one birthday to another.  Humans are relentlessly hopeful.  I am one such human.

I just flew in tonight from the beautiful state of Washington, where I was visiting with Nat’s and Owen’s godmother and my best friend, Lea.  Driving around Bellingham, where I couldn’t hold myself back from choosing streets where Owen once walked, played guitar, engaged others in an afternoon’s game of hacky-sack, or where my memories took me to the utterly sorrowful memories of “the last years”, I became aware of another aspect, another piece of the puzzle, another gift of grief.  I was aware (again) of time passing, the duplication of memories layered on top of memories, and of time and no-time.

I like numbers, but not math.  As of tomorrow, there will have been 1,737 days between the day the sheriffs came to our house to tell me Owen’s body had been found in the Petaluma River and my 57th birthday.  I can’t quite grasp this number, yet, I accept that it is true according to our linear and inadequate calendar.  I see numbers as meaningful, and math as a complex system of trying to make sense of those events which often don’t.   I like numerology, because I like connections to things present, past, and future.  Math tells me that there may be finite answers to problems.  I don’t believe math will solve this puzzle.  I do believe that symbols will continue to find a home in my heart.  Owen liked numbers and understood math in a way I never could.

Tomorrow will serve as the number 9 for me.  I see “what’s next” as my response to humanitarian efforts, an acute attention to acceptance, and a view from the balcony.  I have always loved my time on the dance floor (minus that night Dave dropped me in a spin and I went flying onto the hardwood!), yet, in my choreographer’s role, I see the big picture.  We’re all there dancing together.  How will the dance look from above, from the cheap seats?

Just the way we always imagined it…the jigsaw falling into place.

Owen back in the old days, at Stuart's Coffee House. Thank you, Carla.

Where we go from here…almost two years ago…Nat and Anna’s wedding.  Happy Anniversary on March 17!

My intention for the outing was to find reminders of how nature illustrates her own healing and in that, mine.  Before we got to the white picket fence of the gardens, Dave and I drifted off into our own worlds, me with my camera and Dave with his curiosity.  Our walks overlapped on a few occasions and we talked about the contributions Burbank made to agriculture and beauty.  Mostly, though, we just wandered.

I spent time with roses, of course, noting breeds I would most like to have in my yard and those I already do.  I was drawn into the brilliant colors of a wide variety of poppies, especially as they contrasted with the nearby cacti.  Several squirrels entertained me, one frantically munching on the fruits of an unfamiliar tree, her pregnant belly protruding over the branches.  Usually not a big fan of insects in close proximity, I felt somehow drawn to them as they feasted on the nectars of small, white, star-shaped-bell flowers.  I kept thinking how odd it is, that this place of wonder is surrounded by the traffic and noise of a bustling downtown – all of which disappeared into a silent backdrop of those things that don’t matter when nature speaks to me.  I listened to her voice and she said simply: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Nat dropped by for a visit in mid-evening. We sat on the patio in the warm sunset breeze and talked of our trip to the gardens; he told us about work and showed us photos of Ruby and their baby chicks, teenagers, already (the chicks, that is). We were aware that everything is moving along in time. We acknowledged the date, though briefly, had a laugh on Owen’s behalf, and made plans for a Memorial Day barbeque this afternoon.

Yesterday marked the fourth year anniversary of Owen’s last day on the planet.  Turn, turn, turn.

Photo: “Fruits” 5/29/11

Tonight, in doing my laundry, I lost one of my last tangible gifts from Owen – a butterfly pin he and Lea gave me on my 52nd birthday – the last birthday I spent with him.  I left the pin attached to a sweater I wore a few days ago, that I washed tonight in preparation for a business trip to New York this coming Saturday.  When retrieving the sweater from the dryer, I lifted one wing, then another out of the cylinder drum.  I searched the floor for the other two wings, and as grace would have it, found them.  I now have four pieces of metal, that used to signify, when in a single piece of art, my own transformation, predicted by my son, my family.  I was destroyed, at first.

I had to let go of my attachment to sacred “things” tonight.  This took some time, you understand.  Things do not make my life whole.  People do.  My relationship to the earth, and all that that entails makes my life whole.  I could get micro here…dirt, creepy crawlers, and the fishes that swim in the sea.  Not to mention the one-legged plants, the four-legged animals, and those entities I cannot see.

I was fortunate to spend time with Nat this evening.  Just seeing his face was enough.  But, in hugging him, I was reminded, yet again, that what makes my life whole is my relationships with my family and friends.  He is my family and my friend.  He is the beauty in any given day.

Sacred objects are just that – objects.  They signify memories, wants, desires, prayers, omens.  Yet, they are not the invisible convergence with souls, nor spirit.  They are reminders.  Reminders are fleeting, yet poignant.

The butterfly is my reminder of transformation, freedom, and courage.  What is the butterfly for you?

I had a beautiful night with classmates recently in the woods just south of my home.  I invited them to use their bodies as drums, to beat their hands on their legs, their arms, their chests, in communion with music.  I remember teaching Owen how to pat his hands on his legs, on the table, on the door handles of the car, to always be with the music.  I thought it would save us all.  It saves me still.  This was the music from a few nights ago…

Song for the night:  Joni Mitchell, River (Owen never asked me to change the channel when Joni was playing.  He knew how much her music meant to my path…and his.  Songs of “joy and peace”.)

Our house was full of family and pumpkins last night, all of us gathering to carve our jack’o’lanterns for tonight – 14 of us - Nat, Anna, and Ruby, plus Dave’s girls, husbands, and kids  - wielding knives and scooping spoons, careful to keep the little ones entertained just outside our work spaces.  Jordan, an old friend of Owen, is staying with us for a while, and he joined in the fun, surprised that he could feel so comfortable in a room full of people he’s only met on occasion, some not at all.  As happens, the memories washed over me throughout the night.  I couldn’t help but miss the old days, noticing how much energy I expend creating new memories.

Jordan finished his pumpkin this afternoon and Dave carved two more.  I was outside doing some yard work when I heard “Mad World” on the piano, the theme song from the movie, “Donnie Darko” – Owen’s favorite movie.  Jordan was picking through the tune like someone just learning a new piece.  I had a hard time staying in my body, thinking about the synchronicity while remembering.  I asked Jordan later, and he had never played the song before, just thought about it and decided to give it a try.

My senses were on overload today – in and out of tastes and smells of pumpkin bread, drawn in to the light of candles, and listening to music that makes my heart ache and my face smile.  My mind’s eye was full of pictures from the past, things we said and did, things I had wished would come to pass.

Last summer, I picked juniper and sage in a New Mexico forest where no tree stood taller than about ten feet.  We gave offerings to the trees and bushes before clipping small bunches for use in ceremony.  Our ceremonies, although reminiscent of many Native American rituals, became unique to our group.  Since then (this trip was the end of a weekly gathering that lasted for over two years), my ceremonies have taken on their own feel, rituals, and intentions. When I took my herb pouches out to begin my ceremony, my mind became still and I no longer felt overwhelmed.

I first sprinkled blue cornmeal in the pumpkins on the front porch.  I lit a fire in the living room, along with twenty candles.  I sat on the floor in front of the hearth, sniffed the sage and juniper, and sprinkled the dried plant pieces over the open flames of the fireplace.  My hands brought the smoke over me and through me, and my spirit lifted.  My intention was one of letting go of grief, while retaining the sweetness that was Owen in this life.  Once I felt myself truly feeling the ground beneath me and my connection to Mother Earth, I left my spot and went upstairs where a braid of sweetgrass sits on my dresser.  I lit the braid and smudged my bedroom where I have a few of my favorite photos of my boys.  I then walked across the hall to our office, where many of Owen’s possessions lie in rest – no sounds from the guitar strings, no pen scratching across the pages of his journals, no singing, no yawning, no footsteps on the stairs, no hair twisting between his fingers.  One of his mantras was “positive vibrations” and I sat with him in that room, lighting and relighting the sweetgrass with my shaking fingers, until my tears could no longer contain his wishes for us.

The trick-or-treaters have all come and gone – the princes and princesses, the ghouls and goblins, the astronauts and aliens, the bees and the butterflies.  It’s time now to light the twenty-first candle, the candle that signifies what is to become.  My house has been cleansed and my heart is full of positive vibrations.  Happy Halloween!

NAT, ANNA, RUBY - THE DANCE BEGINS

Bittersweet, the word that kept coming up for me and others, is so very limited in its expression of how we put together our thoughts and feelings that day.  Yet, that word, that sentiment, truly fit the occasion.  Like dark chocolate, you know…it’s best served with Irish Breakfast tea and a spot of honey,  in my opinion.  The wedding was best served with love, laughter, embraces, dedication, tears of joy, and a pint or two.

Nat and Anna’s ceremony was narrated by the telling of their love story, a beautiful one, indeed.  From their childhood memories – together and apart, to mature longing for lasting kinship, to Owen’s passing and beyond, their story is all of our stories. Love abounds, children are born, games are played, mysteries unfold, loss becomes part of life, and love carries on.

Owen’s words were included as part of the testimony, “This kind of love only comes around once in a lifetime, Nat.  Fly your freak flag high.”  He was referring to Nat’s concerns about being in love with a girl they’d both known since childhood, and the close family relationships they all shared.  Nat remembered this conversation as the turning point in his contemplations about pursuing the woman of his dreams, with all the known and unknown hardships, all the known and unknown joys.  Nat has certainly, flown his freak flag high.  He won the girl, became the father of the child, and lives to honor the hardships, the joys, and every moment in between.  He is the boy who became the man, and I’m proud to be his mother.  I’m proud to know my sons supported each other’s dreams.  I’m proud to be the mother of these two brothers.  I’m privileged to be a part of Anna’s and Ruby’s family.

Ruby danced in a world of change that Wednesday afternoon, and thankfully, was held in the arms of a loving family and the coming Spring.  Her face was full of wonder, her eyes set on her parents’ hearts, and her hopes cast to the new dawn.

Song for the night:  Carry On, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (“…rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice, but to carry on…”)

Yesterday was Halloween here in the U.S.  I ate little, went to work on a Saturday (because I needed to finish up some things of a timely nature), and thought of Nat and Owen throughout the day.  I thought of them in their younger years, I thought of Nat in the present (he spent his day painting the halls of the building in which I work), and I thought of Owen in memories, recognizing that there is a part of him that will always be Here with us.  I didn’t cry until I talked with Lea, and said, “Happy Halloween”.  Those words alone will take me to the place I miss Owen on Halloween, relegate me to the loss, diminish my resolve.  Too, those words, will make me smile and remember the frantic hours of costumes and excitement before the evening comes on October 31.  Near day’s end, I ate candy.  Harvest, of a personal kind.

I also thought of nature.  Just that.  What of the trees, the grasses, the insects, the birds, the small critters that lay wasted in the road –  victims to the overwhelming girth of oncoming vehicles, what of the rocks and dirt, what of the sky, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars?  I acknowledge them all.  I talk with them as though they know me, can hear my fare-thee-wells on my long and short drives through the countryside, my thank you’s for remaining visible, the urban mundanities of my days and nights.  To know them is to love them in their own experience of this particular physical reality.  Or, so I think when I’m alone, but not so all-alone, as I am among them. 

Sometimes I read about the historical events from different cultures surrounding this time of year, the holidays and celebrations that honor harvest, that honor the dead.  I find it uniquely odd that many cultures both honor sustainability and death in the same season.  Maybe that makes the most sense, the two extremes.  I’m not a very good student of history, it simply wouldn’t support my idea that time as we think of it, is more unknowable than real.  But, I do honor the harvest.  I do honor the dead.  I do acknowledge joy in times of abundance.  I do acknowledge a conscious realm outside of this physical one.

Ruby portrayed the “Queen of All Bad Witches” last night for her Halloween costume.  I was so happy that she could feel the hugeness of being a queen, and that she chose to be the queen of something that does not cause her fear – a witch.  She’s 6, so I’m not likely to delve into her choice of costumes as an investigation of whys and wherefores.  She has an imagination that takes her to places only she can know.  She’s an innocent, and she cackled like an old woman within a child’s sense of mystery throughout the event.  She took to the streets, parents in tow, and trick-or-treated as only a child can.  Complete abandon – joy in time and space – the mask of adventure, of imagination, on her face, in her heart, and in her soul.

I felt physically ill most of yesterday, recognizing that my own interpretation of reality, my own idea of consciousness, felt bereft.  I ate dinner with Dave late in the evening, and my sense of loss was relieved for a while.  I did not sleep well, I rarely do.  When I finally drifted off, I slept like a rock, and upon waking, knew that rocks want for rest, too.  

Some of us honor saints, known and unknown.  Some of us honor souls, here in our presence and outside of our knowing.  Some of us honor those things that we believe can sustain us in the here and now.  And, some of us honor…the unknowable.  I honor them all.  I honor you in your beliefs.

Owen loved cartoons.  He loved fantasy.  He loved those of us who do not fear our futures, our lives, our deaths.

Song for the night:  This is Halloween, Nightmare Before Christmas (I can’t watch this movie without smiling, laughing, at the old days…Owen loved this movie, this fantasy.  Ruby watches this movie now, heir to Nat’s and Owen’s love of fantasy.  Thank you, Anna, for recognizing Ruby’s love for the fantastical. )