Forever Here

 Fifteen years ago. Everything changed.

The morning was pleasant. Working on a Dream was released. Bruce was going to sing at the Superbowl halftime show. The kids were at pre-school. I was at the Verizon office, and then out to lunch Jessica for her birthday.

Then Kathy called.

Jeff had a stroke.

My flight was booked. The kids would go with the ex.

Buffalo was in the midst of a snowstorm. Chuck picked me up at the airport. We went straight to the hospital. I lugged my suitcase in, up the elevator to the ICU. Everyone was in the waiting room – Cor, Cliff, Jim, Mom, Dad, John, Dana, Lynn…

Jeff. On life support with a breathing tube, swelling in his brain, bleeding.

Everything changed.

It’s okay that I’m sobbing. It’s okay. It means that I loved. That I love. That love exists in this world. It still exists because I feel the pain of my siblings, my mom. I hurt and love all who love Jeff, who remember him as a solid, vibrant, laughing, generous, broken soul.

Forever changed. Forever carrying grief in my heart like a tattoo. A tattoo that spreads to my head, swirling in the madness of loving and losing, wanting, and needing, disguised by time, cracked open in moments like this when I allow myself to remember, to feel and taste the pain again, to grieve.

It will linger through the day, through the rest of this month and next month. The memories of those six weeks when he was in the hospital, fighting for his life, offering hope and dismay, and hope again.

The smell of the hospital room, the tension in the waiting room. The notebook where we shared our thoughts. The doctor whistling in the elevator, the tune: “If I only had a brain”.

The kids greeting me at the hospital, their little suitcases trailing behind them. Their faces as they tried to understand why mommy was so scared, and sad, and hopeful, all at the same time.

My headphones playing Queen of the Supermarket, marveling at the line where her smile blows the whole fucking place apart.

The waiting room sofa where I attempted to sleep; across the room from Cliff.  When we gave up trying to sleep and getting a cup of black coffee in the early morning hours. Scared. Aware that something big had shifted, that maybe we’d never go back to how it was. How the family was whole. Intact.

The days that followed and then the weeks, and then plans for my birthday weekend. I would spend it with my brother in the rehab facility. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

That Tuesday morning. The phone call from Mom. Falling to my knees and screaming “No.”

Maybe it’s not healthy to dwell. Maybe it’s not healthy to recall all these painful memories. Maybe it’s not right to know that even fifteen years later the pain is just as piercing, just as present, just as new as it was then. The pain of loving and losing and knowing love. Always secure in knowing that I hurt because I love. And because I love, I’m living. And because I love fully, he’s still living. In my heart, in my head, in the pain that grips me now.

He’s here and he’s still alive.

                                       

Walk On

As soon as we got home from our quick trip to Buffalo, we hugged the dogs, Tony hugged the couch and said, "I missed you couch!" and they turned on the TV and vegged out.  I unpacked the truck, put the Sahlen's hot dogs in the freezer and the BBQ chicken in the refrigerator.  When I opened the fridge, I saw an ice cold Heineken Light beckoning.  I cracked it open and sat on the back deck with my feet up.  (There is nothing like a cold beer upon returning from a long trip).  I raised it into the air, looked at the image of Jesus in the trees and said a thank you for another safe trip back.

Then I thought about the weekend and the purpose of the weekend.  I felt small for a moment upon thinking about the magnitude of the Susan G. Komen walk.  One sister dedicated her entire life to finding a cure for breast cancer because she made a promise to her dying sister.  I, along with 8,000 other participants, wore myself out on Saturday in order to partially fulfill that promise.  I love walking in the race.  I love that both Tony and Paige got to be a part of it.  I hope I never have to do it again.  I hope that the next time we walk that walk it's because we are celebrating the cure for breast cancer.  I hope that we can throw our Ford scarves in the air and say, "Yes, it is done!  The cure has been found!"

Wouldn't that be nice?

I got to spend some time with my mom.  It is tough to be in my parents' kitchen for a long period of time, especially when it is not my usual hang-out.  They have a full wall of pictures - each grandchild in an individual frame and serendipitously, a picture of the entire family with their spouses (minus mine - we weren't married when the picture was taken) suited up in dresses and suits.  My brother Jeff stands in the back, his hand on his hip, towering above all of us.  We are all smiling.  On the refrigerator, there are pictures of Jeff and a huge one above the refrigerator where he is wearing his chef's uniform with the background a smorgasboard of his work.

I glance.  I avert.  I glance again.  I avert.  Finally I stare straight on and the tears are inevitable.  The shock is inevitable.  I look at my mom, she catches me looking and her own eyes well with tears.  And so I avert again because sometimes her pain, her sadness, is too tough to take.

At one point, a moment like this occurred.  We didn't say anything because we both knew we were thinking the same thing.  We sat across from each other at the table, caught eyes and both kind of smiled at each other.  She moved to get up, and winced and touched her upper breast.

It had escaped my conscious that she had just gotten an operation not too long ago for the cancer in her breast.  At the time, I was thumbing through a signed copy of Jill Kelly's Messages for Hope book and I must have given my Mom a sympathetic look.  She said, "I don't know how people do it.  I feel weak and tired since Jeff died and this,"  she gestured to her breast, "feels like a cruel joke.  I don't have the strength."  The sentence in the book that I had just read and was going back and reading over and over again was that sometimes things happen because we are required to see the face of God in it.  I shared it with her and said, "You are not weak Mom.  You get up every morning, put on your clothes, plan your day, buy things for the grandchildren, talk to your kids and laugh.  Every day you laugh.  You are strong."  She was indulging in a little self-pity (and rightly so) and it just so happened that I was there to help her through it.  (If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else). "If you were still in bed, cradling yourself in pain, then I might be worried, but you're not.  You're sitting here with me."  I could tell that at that point she was hanging on my every word and that they were giving her even more strength.  (I know the moment so well because I have been there many times). 

She was crying, and that sadness in her eyes is unreal, indescribable and like a vice on my heart, squeezing out my own tears.  We silently cried together.  We cried for what was, for the memories of laughter and wholeness, for the inevitable length of each moment stretching into days, stretching into weeks, stretching into months, and for the anticipation of when it will all be okay again. I think we both concluded that it would never be the same again.  But we also got through another moment of darkness.  We helped each other through it and found that upon stepping away from it, we were both a bit lighter again.

And that is life.

I am sure that Nancy Brinker (Susan G. Komen's sister), who created this unbelievable life force toward the cure for cancer, steps back from all her accomplishments and still aches for the sister that she lost.  What is she to do in those moments?  Give up? 

No.  She'll get up every morning, put on her clothes, find laughter in a day and anticipate visiting with her loved ones.

She'll walk on... walk on....

And that's all we can do.  Walk on and try to find the face of God in every moment.