Mother’s Day 2013

This post is for me really, but to any mothers who stop by for a visit, my heartfelt wishes to you all on Mother’s Day. 

There are some of you, though, who will do what I have done . . . go quietly to the cemetery to leave flowers at the grave of a child you may be missing.  Whether your conversations are with yourself or others who go with you, I hope there are words spoken that make you smile after the tears.

~ 

Gram: Want to go with me to the cemetery to take some flowers to Mom? 

GN:  Nah, you can go. 

Gram:  Ok, I am going now.  I won’t be long. 

GN:  Grammy?  Can I just tag along and sit in the car? 

Gram:  At the flower shop or the cemetery? 

GN:  Yes. 

Gram:  Sure, Honey. 

GN:  Can I choose my own flowers? 

Gram:  Sure, Honey.  From the car? 

GN:  No, I’ll come in with you. 

Gram:  Ok.

GN:  Grammy?  Does it hurt more or less for you? 

Gram:  It hurts the same, just longer . . . 

GN: Grammy?  Would you care if I went to a sleepover? 

Gram:  Before the cemetery or after? 

GN:  After. 

Gram:  Okay. 

GN:  Can I use your cell phone, Grammy? 

Gram:  Sure. 

GN: (on the phone) Gram said I could sleep over, but I gotta go to the cemetery first.  We are taking some flowers to Mom and then I will go right home and pack my stuff for the night ok?  Hang on, I gotta go for a sec.  We are almost at the cemetery.  Talk to you in a minute.

GN placed her flowers where they needed to go, then stretched her arms to the sky and said:  Mama?  Could you ask Grammy to lighten up a bit and let me be a teenager? 

Gram:  Sorry, Sweetie.  Mom wasn’t listening to you.  She was busy talking to me.  She was just wishing me a happy Mother’s Day and thanking me for taking such good care of you.  She also asked me how I’ve been managing for so long. 

GN:  What did you tell her?

Ready to go pack for your sleepover?

~

Conversation with a Yellow Balloon

It was hiding, really.  I didn’t notice it until I went in the house through the front door.  Behind one shrub and underneath another, I spotted a deflated balloon.  It wasn’t easy to miss.  It was a bright yellow balloon. (BYB)

My first thought was that GN needed to pick up after herself when she played with balloons in the yard . . . but as quickly as I thought my first thought, my second thought replaced it.  She had not been playing with balloons.  Frankly, at 14 years of age, it’s probably been some time since she’s played with balloons out on the front lawn.

I stepped into the garden and intended to pick up the yellow rubber garbage, but as I reached down to grab it, I was struck with my third thought . . . the one that remains.  So I stood there a moment, amazed frankly, then had a chat with BYB.

Gram: Well hello there!

Gram:  I get it.  Not enough air left in you to even hiss a greeting, eh?

Gram:  Where did you come from?

Gram:  I get it.  You are sworn to secrecy by the Balloon Code, right?

Gram: Was the person who let you go crying or smiling?

Gram:  I get it.  You’re not going to tell me.  Very honorable of you. 

Gram:  Were you let go accidentally or intentionally?

Gram:  I get it.  You don’t want to talk.  Are there any loopholes to the Silence Clause in that Balloon Code of yours?  I was just curious.  I’m most familiar with the intentional letting go of your balloon friends . . . .

Gram:  Did you come from a graduation party?  A garage sale sign?  The cemetery?

Gram:  I get it.  My garden wasn’t your destination and there’s a Need to Know clause in your Balloon Code too.  And I don’t need to know.

Gram: Did they watch you until you disappeared – up behind a cloud, downwind until they crossed into another state, or straight into the sun, too bright to stare – and then hope you would eventually get to Heaven?

Gram: I get it.  Yeah, yeah, I’ll write a letter to your supervisor and tell him you didn’t utter a peep.

Gram: Do any of you balloons ever make it to Heaven?  I mean . . . I’m asking on behalf of my granddaughter.  I never thought to ask any of your balloon friends before, but It’s come ’round to July, you know, and balloons and letting go have been on my mind.

Gram: I get it.  If you had gotten there to see any of your balloon friends, you wouldn’t be back here to tell about it.  Angel isn’t coming back either.

Gram: I was watching fireflies on the other side of the house last night.  Did their light guide you down?

Gram: I get it.  If the fireflies were on the other side of the house, how could you have seen them, right?  I was just curious.  They were flying much higher than I’d ever seen them  fly before.

Gram:  Did you hit my house before you landed or was it a peaceful fall into my garden?

Gram: I get it.  You just want to rest.  You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.  It’s the least I can do.

Gram: Would you mind terribly if I told my granddaughter that her mother sent you?

 BYB did not utter a word during my entire chat. 

As usual, when it comes to balloons and intentionally letting them go, I had more questions than answers.  But . . . that’s ok.  I could do worse than to have a quiet chat with a yellow balloon that found its way to my garden.

When I finally walked into my house, I couldn’t help but think of all the balloons GN and I have released in the nearly nine years since her mother passed away.  Oh sure, I’ve given plenty of thought to where they land.  I know the wind has carried them swiftly and scattered them because we’ve watched until we could no longer see them.  But until my chat with BYB, I never gave a thought to the possibility of them landing in the garden of someone else who may have the same respect as I do for wayward balloons . . .

Mother’s Day Garden

I’m grateful that it knows without any reminder from me . . .  My Mother’s Day Garden has been very kind to me that way.

There’s a section in my garden that bloomed in time for Mother’s Day – not everyone’s Mother’s Day, of course, but I know I’m not the only one either.  My Bleeding Hearts and Forget-me-nots expressed their silent respect for the holiday that gives me a sad lump in my throat.

I’m grateful for their company, frankly.  They sway gently in the breeze and fill the garden with a welcome movement.  I let them do the speaking – if only to me.

I think I’d like to add a weeping willow, too.  They seem to ‘weep’ so gracefully, whereas I do not.

The Language of Grief – Verb Tenses

Do not touch me gently on the sleeve today.  The tender gesture would but distract me from my thoughts and kind tho’ it may be, the moment is not affordable to me.

I have pondering to do .  I’m pondering the language spoken by those who know loss and grief.

I have done my duty as a grieving mother and given in to all the proper verb tenses: had a child, raised a daughter, held her in my arms, lost a life, kissed her good-bye.  How helpless to give in to tenses when speaking of one’s child!

Given the choice, I would rather smile at her, call her on the phone, and eat my meals with her.  I would sew more dresses for her and attend more movies with her.  I would laugh with her and listen to her dreams.  Sadly, those verbs have taken on the past tense, too:  smiled, called, ate, sewn, attended, laughed, listened . . . .

I am pondering today, because my granddaughter slips into present tense from time to time when speaking of her mother.  I notice it, but never correct her.  On a very rare occasion, I slip, too.  I correct myself, but only because I find it so glaring after all these years.  It happened often early on.  The heart is not so willing to give up present tense verbs, I’ve found.  It is only my mind that finds it a glaring error.  My heart considers it normal.

One present tense verb remains for me, however, and for what days I still left have to count as mine, it will lift my heart above the sadness of the verbs lost to the past.  Love.  I can still love – her.  I can always love my Angel. 

For the rest of my days, as more verbs let go of their final grip from do to done, I still cling to ‘love’ in its present tense form and expect so much more because of it. 

Baby’s Breath, A Rose, the Long Walk, and Officer Friendly’s Turtleneck . . .

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that the anniversary of Officer Friendly’s death comes just days before the anniversary of Angel’s birth.  On the one hand, we get slammed with an overload of emotions in such a short time.  On the other hand, we get a lot of ‘reflection’ out of the way in a short period of time.  It is what it is – and I’m just grateful I didn’t have to listen to “Taps” at a national cemetery on the day when my heart called me to a different cemetery.  Yikes, eh?

Goodnight’s heart knows it’s time long before her head does.  It surfaces as an unease that turns to misbehavior.  The moment that happens, I call her to me, hold her close and remind her that she’s not really uncharacteristically naughty, but that her heart is looking for a way to express its loss.  I remind her that we’ll go out to dinner and celebrate her mother’s life because without having had her on this earth, Goodnight would not be here either.  I can feel the wave of relief that runs through her body when she realizes what time of year it is and she can name what was gnawing at her unconsciously.

Then the graceful behavior comes . . . grief has its own beauty, I believe.  She asks me where we will go out to eat.  She asks me if she can wear one of ”mama’s’ necklaces.  Then she goes to her room for a while – to put the necklace on and stare in the mirror, I think.  Looking for her mother, but hopefully finding it in the features that were passed on to her.  I hope she sees the differences as good too, and not defiance of any sort.   Through it all, I have come to a deep appreciation of what any human soul must endure and an absolute awe and respect of what can come from so much pain . . . . not only hers or mine . . . . but anyone’s.  I think her wisdom comes from that place.  So does her kindness.

So what has all this to do with the title of my post?

The other half of the Goodnightgram equation is the Gram.  I ponder things in my heart and decide to keep on . . . breathing.  I make my visit to the cemetery in private.  I take Baby’s Breath – because I was there for her first, and her last.  I also take a rose in honor of that little ‘bud’ she left behind because it reminds me of my promise to raise that bud to full bloom.

The long walk isn’t long in distance – it’s long in emotion.  As I approach Ange’s niche, the emotion is for what I lost.  As I leave, the emotion is for all the work I have left to do.  The pain passes and I just . . .  breathe.

We do that, don’t we?  We keep breathing.  I think I exhale some more of the pain each time, and then breathe in fresh courage to go on.

At the end of these days, I dig into the closet where I’ve kept two of Officer Friendly’s turtleneck shirts.  I bought them for him – because I was cold, I think.  He was over a foot taller than me and a very large guy.  His shirts are not my size, but I’ve kept them anyway.  I slip my favorite one on and crawl into bed – remembering him, and Angel and “Taps”, and cancer, and the tri-corner flag they hand to a widow, or the empty squad car that parked outside OF’s memorial reception, with the doors open and the lights flashing their silent reminder that an officer is down.  It feels like madness to handle it all in less than a week – to know the difference between the precipice of grief and the valley of despair in which we have to make our lives new again.

But . . . we do go on.  We tuck the turtlenecks away for another time.  We tells happy stories about OF and Angel over dinner out, we find ways to be who were with them, even though they don’t walk beside us any longer.  And then we . . . keep breathing.

Goodnight will have more sleepovers and I will forget for a while that I don’t much like being a widow and will design another outrageously fun Super Scarf.  For these few moments in time, however, we have turned intensely inward.

At the end of it all, I find myself walking a little taller, and stepping a little lighter for the struggle.  We are nearly at the walking taller and stepping lighter part . . . . .