Life went downhill after Wednesday.  I don't have much to say.  I'm sad again.  Really sad.  And I don't really know why.  I hate that.  I like knowing what, where, how, when and then acting on something.  The last time I remember feeling this helpless was in the middle of giving birth to my son.  I wasn't real fond of that either.  But there is no way out but through, so there ya go. 

People come along at odd moments and kind of save me.  Today I couldn't decide what to do, couldn't decide about going to church, couldn't decide about what to eat...who cares about eating anyway?  really?  All I could do was cry.  Then Lulu looked so desperate that I took her for a walk around the farm.  We picked up a lot of ticks in the process, but while we were walking a friend called and wanted to bring her son and another friend by.  Yes, please.  In showing them the house and shop and farm I got my feet back under me and was able to go on with a reasonable picture of a day. 

I am hoping this guy can finish the last project David started.  We designed it and then picked out and planed the wood for a wall unit for the TV and books, but it never got made.  I like his energy, I think it would be good to have him do this work. 

I have a friend who rescues dogs, a lot of dogs, and she got one in this week that needs at least a thousand dollars worth of medical work.  She didn't hesitate to take the dog.  She put the story out there on facebook and in less than 24 hours she had the money.  But I know she would've spent her own money to care for this little pup.

It's such hard work and I am getting tired. Sometimes I just want to have a do-over. I remember feeling that way in labor too. I changed my mind about the whole natural thing, but by the time it felt too hard to go on it was almost over. The nurse told me I could do it and I did. Someone saved me and didn't even know it. And then I had this child and he saved me too, and didn't even know it.

We save each other all the time.  Sometimes we don't even know we are doing it.  Sometimes, we are just a kid wanting to see the farm and suddenly someone can breathe again because we showed up.  Sometimes we say yes to whatever or whoever shows up and life gets a little better.  I get so lost sometimes that I can't bring myself to say yes to anyone or anything.  I appreciate the folks who only let me go so far with it.  And I appreciate the times I take the chance and let someone save me a little. 

For a couple of days now when I get quiet, I feel David's presence and I keep hearing the words, "I gave you roots, the next person will give you wings."  And he feels happy and excited, like he knows something I don't know.  I want to believe this is true.

Today I kept remembering Thomas Merton's quote, "It's impossbile to tell people that they are walking around shining like the sun."  We come from light and to light we return.  We live in light too, but we spend our time here on earth trying to remember that.

When I get sad or angry that David is gone and I am left behind, I forget the thing I know is true.  What I know is true is that we are all one and we are all of the light.  He is not gone, he is not seperate from me.  We are a part of each other, always.  Not just David and I, all of us, everywhere.  We are each other and we are shining like the sun.  It's so easy to forget.

And I forget that time is not really a linear thing.  There is no begining or ending.  Time, light, love are all a sphere that has no middle, so everything is center.  (another Carrie Newcomer line) 

When I can remember these things and live into them I am okay.  Not just okay, I am living in peace. I am happy.  The work is in remembering, opening up the space to remember what is true. 

Today is our wedding anniversary.  It's been a hell of a day.  I knew it would be, I just didn't really believe it would be this hard.  Sobbing on my knees again hard. 

Then Peggy brought the boys by and we went creek walking and threw rocks and found a crawdad and it felt good for a little bit.  Children are saving me these days.  Sometimes I think I should get one of my own. 

Then a friend called and I told her the day was hard and she asked about our story.  So I told her and it helped me smile again.

We got married because my car insurance was due.  We were sitting on the back porch when I opened the bill and David said it would be cheaper if we were on the same policy.  Only, we found out you had to be married to do that.  So we kind of looked at each other and said, "do you want to?"  We had sworn off marriage but money got the better of us, or love did.  Here at the farm it was the middle of Haying Season, the time that waits for no one.  We took off a couple of hours one afternoon in our work clothes; dirty boots, sweaty shirts, cut-offs, and took a ride to Marshall, a small town not far away.  We traced down the right paperwork, found the justice of the peace just at lunch time.  No business happening for an hour, we came back at one o'clock, after lunch.  He looked at us and said, "do you have rings?"  rings?  nope.  "How about witnesses?"  We need witnesses?  nope, none of them either.  He sighed, went across the street to the local bank, and brought back two tellers to witness for us.  Done and done.  We went home to haying.  And we didn't tell anyone for about three months. 

David's brother died and when they asked about how to put us in the obituary David casually mentioned that I was his wife.  Some people have yet to forgive us for the secret.  But we loved it.  It was ours and suited us perfectly.  Occasionally I regret not having any photos, but the image of us that day is so clearly imprinted in my mind that mostly I like it just the way it is. 

Thank you Anna, for asking the question.  It opened a door to happiness that I was not able to do on my own. 

I have spent several nights this week crying in the hammock under the full moon.  I do okay during the day, read a bit at night, turn off the light and then my body and mind betray me.  Or maybe they breathe a sigh of relief that they can finally get on with their work.  I don't even know why I cry, it just comes and lasts until there is nothing left and then I can fall asleep. 

I woke this morning thinking about dying.  How I walked with David through the process until I had to let him go.  I thought of my father, dying this time last year, alone.  With his half moon of whiskey fifths around his recliner.  They took him against his will to the hospital and finally hospice, alone and defiant.  No one should have to die alone. 

Maybe I am crying this week for myself.  Who will take that walk with me?  Who would I even ask to do that?  Someone is always left behind, hoping I suppose, to find someone to walk with them when it is time.  Or do we even think much about it?  Maybe in the dark night when we are afraid and alone.  Maybe then. 

It's a great chain of living and dying, walking with someone and passing on the walking to the next in line.  But I think in this country we break the chain too often.  So many of us die alone, in hospitals or nursing homes, someone we barely know, if we are lucky, walking with us distracted and hurried, doing a job.  I have recently heard of death doulas and I see the need.  Someone to be with us, someone committed to the journey.  But I hate that it's someone we have to pay to be with us. 

It is a truly awesome gift to walk with someone in their final days, and we have lost the awe of it.  Like so many things that are difficult or messy or take time, we push it aside, pretend it isn't there.  Birth, death, raising children, working for our food, truly learning another person's soul.  We let others do this work for us as much as we can.  The rest we numb ourselves from, create distance, try to ignore.  Until in the deep of the night, finally when we can ignore it no more, our bodies and minds breathe their sigh of relief and get on with the work. 

This was in my inbox today:

To believe in the future with someone you love takes courage. None of us has any guarantees. But to say it and to speak it and to create that hope with our love and with our hearts and with our honest truth-telling and our hard work is what makes this life sacred and holy. It is what we were put here for, and the reason why comfort exists in any form.
Today if there is anyone at all in your life you know who might worry about being lost without you, will you say out loud your decision, your holy choice to always be there? Maybe you're getting along with that person, maybe you're not. Maybe they know you love them this much, maybe they don't. But if the truth of your heart is to stay, if that is your honest intention, take a chance and let them know.
Who knows how much suffering is going untended in the world, simply because we did not state what we felt, what we assumed was a given, what we had no idea the other did not fully understand or know.
With love and love and so much more love,Jen (hopefulworld.org)

I've got nothing to add to this, except one thing:  Go...Now.  Tell someone they will not have to live without you, that you love them, that you will stay.  Dont' let them wonder.  Okay, so that was more than one thing, do it anyway.

I walked into the bank today and paid off the mortgage.  It made my stomach hurt.  A lot.  In fact, it scares the hell out of me.  Six years ago I owned one pot, a couple of plates and forks, no computer, no TV, a lot of books and an oldish car.  Now suddenly I own land and a house and a woodshop and two cars and way way too many dishes and pots and pans.  How do people do this?  How do they live with this much responsibility?  I'm so afraid of doing something wrong and messing up. 

I've been getting together with new people too.  I've never been great at making friends, I'm an introvert and it takes a lot of energy to be out there in the world.  I had gotten very comfortable with David and the farm family.  It was more than enough to fill my life.  But I find myself wanting someone to share things with, go places with, explore new ideas with.  So I have been putting some energy into getting to know folks.  It doesn't happen easily, I work with young children and don't have a lot of that easy interaction with adults that happens on many jobs.  People my age are paired up and living the same kind of involved lives that I was living with David.  I tend to work on the farm, hike, swim or practice yoga; none of those things encourage interaction. 

I'd forgotten what it's like getting to know someone.  So much conversation to fill someone in on who you are, where you've been, who they are, where they've been.  Finding ways that your lives might intersect, learning easy spaces and hard ones.  When I'm feeling tender and scared and uncertain, as I so often am these days, it can be overwhelming.  When I'm feeling strong and positive it can be wonderful and exciting to open my life to the new...well, everything....that seems to always be right around the corner. 

Six years ago, I could never have imagined who I would be today. If anyone had told me where I would be I would've said they were crazy.  Never in a million years.  So...I wish I could peak ahead to the next six years, just for a second.  But because I can't, I'm gonna go with:  It will be great.   Way opens, life changes.  All will be well and all manner of things will be well.   In the meantime, I will try to see the gifts in these new experiences and breathe deeply.

Last year this time I was receiving a phone call from Florida.  My birth father was dying.  I had only met the man three times in my entire adult life.  I didn't even know he existed until I was a teenager.  And now I was the only person to call.  Father's Day has always been hard for me.  I never really had a loving father.  To my biological father I was a throw-away, or so it seemed.  The man who raised me was a sadistic abuser.  As a child I would go to sleep at night and pray, not exactly for him to die, but for him to just not be there any more. 

My son's father, no surprise, was a combination of the two.  A sadistic drug dealer I had to sneak away from in the middle of the night.  He called when my son was a bit older and said he didn't ever want anything to do with us again.  No great loss, as he hadn't had anything to do with us to begin with.  But I had hoped, until that point, that somehow my son would have his father someday.  I didn't want him to grow up as I had, not knowing who his father was. 

To be fair, a dear friend stepped in and became a father figure for my son.  To this day he calls him Dad and his girls think of my son as a brother.  I am grateful for his kindness, generosity, and genuine love for my son. 

I know David was not the father he wished he had been.  I did not know him then but I think he suffered, as so many men of his generation did, with working too much and trying to make a good living for his family, and not being any happier with his choices in those days than women were with theirs. In his old age it was one of his greatest regrets, that he had not been the father he wanted to be. 

I'm melancholy today.  No father, horrible father, father's death, my birthday, David's and my anniversary, all rolled into one great big fat week.  YAY!  I think mostly today, it's never having had a daddy.  And not even knowing how, when I was twenty three, to find someone to fill that role for my child.  I am grateful I learned as I got older, I suppose that is the positive in this.  I wonder what I will feel in a few days when the trifecta hits: boom boom boom:  birthday, father's death, anniversary.  I am planning now to take some good care, but wouldn't it be enough to simply grieve one thing at a time?  It doesn't seem to work that way.  Life is kind of like a tangled necklace, all connected and wrapped around itself.  Patience and deep breathing, when what I really want is to hand it to someone else and say, "here, you do it."