Initiations

My daughter, who is brave and beautiful and precocious decided on Monday that she was ready to see her first corpse. We had to go to our friends wake, and were trying to find a babysitter for her and she said, "Why can't I come too?" Well, I gave it some thought and figured she might be a little young for it yet. Yes, my son had been to wakes from when he was very young, but at that time, I had no one to watch him for me. I have more readily available babysitters than I used to. With more options I thought that I'd leave her home to avoid her questions and fears, but she said she was ready and it's my experience, if a child thinks they are ready, maybe they are. So I told her she could go to the waiting room and we'd see how it went.

She waited in the waiting area with my husband while I went first. When I came back, she said, "When am I going to see?" I stuttered and stammered and sighed and decided to let her take a peek and see how she felt. We stood by the doorway together and she said she was ready to go in. The face she made was one of curiosity and slight distaste. She said, "Are you SURE that's Stanley?" I said, "Yes." She scrunched her brow and tilted her head and just wasn't sure about my answer. She said it didn't look like him. Well, it did and it didn't. I tried to explain that a body in death doesn't always look just like the person did when they were alive. She said, "So why do they do that? Why do we see the body at all?" Good question. I told her that sometimes we just need to say goodbye, and this is a way to do that. She came over to the family with me and as I talked and they tried to converse with her, she kept peeking around and looking at Stanley...still with the scrunched brow, I might add. I don't think she knew quite what to make of it. Hey, I'm 46 years old and still don't know quite what to make of it!

She never mentioned it again that whole night. I thought for sure she might wake up frightened or have bad dreams...but that never happened. Last night at bedtime she was laying there and she said, "You know that was so weird." I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me she was talking about the dead body. "It made me feel strange." Well, she's right on the money...wakes make me feel strange sometimes too. They aren't easy to attend, that's for sure, and this initiation into the world of life and death had to happen eventually for her. I was putting it off for some reason, even though I thought she would handle it just fine. Things just don't really gross her out, not like they do other kids.

She pondered this in a way I didn't think she was capable, the idea of life and death and what we are "made" of. She asked me how we are formed, and by what...like silly putty or clay or stone...what WE are made of. I told her we had best ask her doctor for more accurate answers because when I told her God made us, she rolled her eyes and said, "That's not what I meant Mommy!"

Maybe she will be a doctor someday...hmmm....these little initiations bring us just one step closer....

Dreams and dreams

Bird dreams. So many bird dreams last night. I wish I could remember them all. One had a baby crow clinging to the back of a larger one....the larger one was being held by a man who was quite threatening, even though his demeanor wasn't. He was trying to seem friendly. The bird was trying to tell me otherwise. Interesting.

There was another where they were all gathered in a large tree just outside our window...I can't recall if it was my house or my mothers...but there were crows in every branch...in every place they could possibly perch. It was nighttime...they were getting ready for sleep.

There may have been others...I can't recall. I've been told to keep a dream journal...not sure why I don't. It would make sense since I usually have such vivid dreams with conversations remembered and details that most people may not recall.

I usually love my bird dreams. Last nights...well...I have mixed feelings on it. I just wish the sun would shine. I think it would help. This gloom is bringing me down.

Seems to me

It seems to me that life is too short, that friends don't live as long as we need them to and that our landscape is ever changing and it's annoying the crap out of me.

Last weekend I attended the memorial service of a friend who has been a part of my life since I was born. He was elderly, and frail and tired, yet his passing was just as difficult for me as if he had been 30 and had the whole world ahead of him. He was a part of MY landscape...MY life, and he's gone. Things don't seem quite the same to me. It's almost as if my life were haunted by this loss...and that everything I look at seems slightly altered in the most impossible ways.

Just a week later, another friend, yes...elderly and ill, has passed from this world and again I feel this loss as much as I would any other. He wasn't old to me. He was just Stanley. No number or ranking attached. Just Stanley...and he was a great guy, always there when you needed him. He was a rock for my mother, a true friend when she needed one, and for that I will be eternally grateful to him for his calming and strong presence in our lives. Again, things don't seem quite right to me. My landscape is altering, yet again, and I am powerless to stop it. I am haunted by these changes, both emotional and physical. I am helpless in the swirling waters of my life. That's how it feels. Even if I'm NOT technically helpless, it feels that way. I wish it didn't.

How do we learn to cope with these inevitable changes? Do we ever adjust to it? Do we ever come to expect it or like children, do we hold this secret hope that someone...just one person that we know...will not leave us...that they will be forever? I tend to think that realistically we realize what is unavoidable, yet we choose to put blinders on and just live our lives because if we didn't...if we remained conscious of the changes that will surely come, we would never be able to say goodbye, even if just for a moment because we would be too frightened of what might happen in our absence. We could never be casual again. We would live on guard, and that might not be living at all.

So, here I sit, watching my landscape shift...feeling a bit lost and small and wishing my friends a happy journey into the next world. What more can I possibly do?

With Embarrassment I Say...

With much embarrassment...I say that I have read the Twilight books...yes, I have done this horrible thing. I have read them willingly, AND watched the movies. God, I can't believe I am admitting this! It started out with someone at work telling me how entertaining the books were, and I figured, hey, I like entertaining. I can do that! Well, I tried to hide the books, slunking in corners in the semi lit bathroom reading them as fast as I could so I could do it, but not get caught! I am somewhat of a book snob, and rarely read popular fiction or anything that is considered trendy. It's just what I do. Alice Hoffman is as trendy as I get. Danielle Steele, well, forget that...I'D RATHER DIE! That's one literary place I won't EVER go! I still have my standards...despite this lapse in reason. I am still reading the third book, and want to get to the fourth quickly so I can see what everyone keeps telling me I will see. That the relationship between Bella and Edward will make SENSE to me. I can't imagine it, but I have to see for myself. I care too much at this point. I need to have it make sense, because right now, it doesn't. This stupid young girl so eager to give up life for this boy (her very first boyfriend, I might add)....ridiculous! She has no goals beyond becoming undead. She has no interest in girlfriends. She has no interest in a career. She hasn't even given one tiny indication that she even has a brain in that head. She's so busy obsessing over Edward, and he's so busy obsessing over her...well...it's mind boggling. I am finding it difficult to really LIKE Bella. I don't really see what the fuss is about, how she has caught the attention not only of a 100 year old vampire, but also a teenage werewolf. She's nice enough, don't get me wrong, but I fail to see these redeeming qualities that make her so special and sought after. Will it make sense to me once all the books are done? Maybe not, but as I said, I have to know. THIS. IS. PERSONAL. I've invested 2 days of my time trying to figure out the attraction the mass public has had with this couple, and I need to see it through. When I'm done with the last book, I'll give my final opinions and conclusions. Until then I'll continue to hide in darkened corners with these borrowed books until I'm done. I'll eat later!

IMISSMYDOOR

This word you see as title of this blog is a word I hear in my head most days. You may think it's a made up word, fabricated in my cubicle drained mind, but it's not. It's a word with a meaning. Imissmydoor. It means, in simple terms, that my head won't unclog. The noise.... phones, voices, footfalls, clearing of throats, coughing, bracelets jangling...it all clogs up my head and imissmydoor. It's a word that says it all. Since we moved to this new office, it's been difficult not to feel that imissmydoor EVERYDAY. It's something I have just come to live with...that desire to feel solid wood and brass door knobs in my hand and just shut my DOOR! Hey....I don't have a door! I used to. I loved my door, and now imissmydoor. I say it so often and so fast, it all comes out into one jumble of letters and made a word...and it has become as real to me as the word "draft" or "data" or "form." Imissmydoor SO MUCH! I know if I could just feel that solid wood in my hands and touch those little panes of glass...my heart would be lighter and my head would unclog and this cubicle would be nothing but a thing of the past, a bad dream that left me shaken. Imissmydoor. I wonder if it misses me, too.