elsewhere

I just finished reading Elsewhere I found the book at Target, I was looking for some summer reading for Noah. I am sure this is his "reading" summer. The girls both had a magic summer just like I did when they discovered how to fall into a book and not come up for air until dinner time.

I passed the book up once then went back to it like a magnet. Noah started reading it and loved it so I started reading it and I fell in love with it. It is about a girl who dies and what happens after.

There were too many moments in the story that made the book feel personal. I know authors write what they do for what ever reason and it has nothing to do with anyone else but themselves, it is their art and it is personal only to them. Issabelle Allende and Jodi Piccult have both said that a story finds them, they listen and write it all down. I can almost believe that someone whispered this story into Ms.Gabrielle's ear so that one summer I would find it on a shelf when I needed it most and it would help heal my heart a little.

I had a dream a while ago that the date 7-12 was important. I think it might be still. Next month The Time Travelers Daughter will be released at theaters. This was one of Stevie's favorite books. The movie was set to be released earlier (much earlier) but they had to make a ton of post production changes, I heard through the grapevine that the ending had to be changed.

So next month I will be able to see this book come to life...I am taking Stevie with me. I will leave an open seat next to me for her. I will bring one of her sweaters and put it on the seat so everyone will know it is taken.

It's fathers day. We are going to take the boat out to the delta, it should be about 85 degrees with a little more wind than I like but it could be a nice day.

There is so much more I want to write but I will have to save it for another day, Steve and Noah are getting itchy to leave.

wrapping night around me

I've been writing in my journal more and more. I forgot how good it feels to create letters with a pen on paper. I make lists. I am a list maker. Writing it all down in neat little rows makes me feel like I am making progress towards being more organized, I am not sure it works that way.

Today's list:

Finish the laundry (I didn't)
Get Noah of to school and remember to pick him up at 12:30 (I did)
Finish the little paper birds for the shop (almost done)
Go for a nice long walk after dinner (I did the dinner part)
Register Noah for drama camp (I forgot)
Make Polenta for dinner (I did but no one ate it)
Get my Rx refilled (done)
answer emails (read them, did not answer them)

Am I the only one who does this?

I have been doing a lot of research, it is easy to lose hours doing reading. I am obsessed with reincarnation. So many people on this planet embrace the idea but here in the West we are still scratching our heads.

As with most ideas that are a outside our little box of comfort we first question how it will effect mainstream Christianity. I listened to two parents with a child who has offered a great deal of strong evidence that he was a reincarnated air force Pilot shot down in WW2. I loved what they said, "This has not changed our faith it has strengthened it" It would be so much easier if most people wondered more about how integrating a new idea would enrich their belief system instead of fearing discovery.

I have my obvious reason for being curious but the more I learn the more interesting it becomes. In India almost every child talks about the life they had before they were born and parents listen, they are interested, they do not question it. In most cases the memory fades by age seven as the child learns to love his current family and rediscovers childhood.

The late Dr.Ian Stevenson studied thousands of these children. He evaluated the cases after much investigation. The stories that unfolded were mysterious and beautiful. He reunited children with past families, the children recognizing siblings, knowing where toys were kept and remembering how they died.

I wonder why it is such a difficult thing for us here to believe. We rationalize, tell ourselves it is something people created to ease the pain of loss and calm the fear of death. Don't we do that anyway with Heaven?

If we observe nature a tree grows from a seed, it gives fruit that is eaten, the seeds are carried off and grow into more trees. The leaves on the trees fall in Autumn and the tree sleeps for the season. The fallen leaves turn into mulch that protects and feeds the trees and in spring new leaves and fruit appear, year after year.

Energy can not be destroyed. Tree's do not disappear in nature. Tree energy remains tree energy and human energy must remain human energy. When we die we simply sleep through a season and wake when it is warm again. It is a thought I kinda like.

Tonight I am fighting the urge to bake a cake. I need sugar, everyone has a vice and sugar is mine. A homemade lemon raspberry cake is calling to me like a siren...

Stevie was my partner in crime, we are desert queens. If she was here I would make it and not even think twice, or she would, either way I would get stuck with the dishes.

I might just swim instead, the sun has gone down and the sky is that deep bruisy lavender before dark. It is kinda sad but I like it. I like watching night happen, stars appearing one by one. Night is magic, it is another world. I use to be so afraid of the dark, now it is a comfort. The sky feels like a big sparkling blanket. I remember reading once about stars being tiny windows people made in heaven to keep an eye on us. Heaven must be well lit and there must be a whole lot of heavenly people keeping an eye on us here.

Graduations and Pity Parties...

Ashley and Stevie were born two weeks apart. Ashley's mother Sandy and I were close at the time. She was married to my cousin Ron and as children he and I were close. My family was big back then and all the cousins spent a great deal of time together. Ron and I were close in age and I got all his hand-me-downs.

When Ashley was born I was at the hospital, and Stevie was with me, all snuggled up in a baby sling. Stevie was a great big baby with huge cheeks and Ashley was a lean baby with big eyes. The two of them spent a lot of time together in pools, back yards and at parks. They climbed trees, played dress up, and got drunk once at a family party on fuzzy navels.

We took our first trip to Disneyland with Sandy, Ron Ashley and her little sister Megan when the girls were still little. I cried on the Peter Pan ride and the girls got sugared up and crowned with Mickey ears. I still have a photo of Ashley kissing Stevie on a ride that day.

Ashley called today to thank me for a quilt I gave her for graduation. She graduates from college this year and I am very proud of her. She is going to be a teacher. I knew she would be from the time she was little. Ashley was playful, responsible and patient. She was guided gently and has always been the first one to snatch up a baby or sit on the floor with a little kid to play. She is a hard working girl who loves her family with her whole heart. She loved Stevie very much and she was at the hospital the day Stevie died.

Ashley is good to me and it hurts. She is doing all the things Stevie would be doing, getting all the milestones, and she deserves all the happiness it brings but it reminds me of all the things Stevie will never be able to do.

I am an asshole because I should be grateful to have Ashley in my life, grateful that she is so loving and caring. I am grateful but I also let my loss get in the way of expressing that and being closer.

When Stevie was sick she pulled away from everyone and the last Easter we had together she cried because she wanted everyone to leave. It was hard for her to let go but that was what she was doing, it hurt her so much to be in a bed sick, without hair, unable to walk. It was hard for her to know that she would never have anymore holidays with the people she loved most.

I am not sure everyone understood that and they broke into her room any way and loved her up. She was pissed. I think it was mostly because she knew she had to leave...

Today I am falling apart because I am remembering all of this clearly, it is playing in my mind like a movie...I can smell the Easter Bunnies, feel the warm day, and I remember the way Stevie sobbed as my sister held her.

I promise on most days I am normal but on the days I feel heavy and broken I come here and have a little pity party so I can sort out all these feelings, cry and make room for deep breaths and new moments.

My girl graduated early and she moved away to start her new life. It is far away and she can not be reached by telephone or mail. I just have to trust that her new life holds great promise(s), unending love, adventure, bliss and a place for me when I graduate.

Hey baby girl,

It was a warm May day, the sun is setting, I missed all the colors but the sky is still beautiful. Noah and I watched "That Thing You Do" and I kept thinking of Briana when Liv Tyler had a little camera time. I never met Briana but I feel like I know her a little. Iva must feel the same way about you.

I keep smelling you in your room late at night, just for a moment then it fades.

I moved stuff around in the store, doing that thing I do and play a constant game of Tetris with my space until everything fits just right. If you can't arrange your life, arrange furniture. It looks good. Lana came in today to help me roll up ribbon, she even got her husband to come out and do some heavy lifting if it needed doing. I don't know how to recieve kindness, it makes me feel akward and emotional, another something to work on.

I am moving the studio back into the garage and having new carpet put in the sunroom. I feel like I am taking up too much space in a small house. I don't work at home much so moving back into the garage makes more sense.

(The new carpet will be refreshing, remember when someone spilled spaghetti sauce out here and we could never quite get it all up. In the summer when the room heats up it smells like underarms and oregano. It will be nice to have that gone but hard to give up another thing that you touched, that was a part of your life here.)

I am let my hair grow long, and letting it be as curly as it wants to be. Silly. I am too old to pull this off but I want to grow it one last time and finally have long hair. You will have to keep me from going out and cutting it like I always do when I get tired of being a slave to it.

Tonight I made ravioli and arabiata sauce and a big salad you would have loved. I made a lemon dressing that was really good. I was remembering you in the kitchen making ravioli from scratch (you savage) ever the purist, always the finest ingredients. I ate way too much bread, so much for the diet. I also ate a million ginger cookies at work, what is it about ginger snaps that tastes healthy? little tricky cookies!

I am going to go out and soak under the stars after I write this. Orion has moved out into another part of the sky and I feel like I 'm lost, I'll need to find another reference point, maybe the little dipper will be my guide for a while. The moon is almost full, I can see her face. I pretend that you can see her too and it is one thing we can both be a part of in the same moment. What was that old song...

"Even though I know how very far apart we are it helps to know we both are wishing on the same bright star and when the night wind starts to sing her lonesome lulliby it helps to think were sleeping underneath the same bright sky"

Aly is leaving soon to the South to visit with Hunter. She is pretty excited. Keep her safe.

I am reading one of your books, I had to take a break because there was a part that turned me upside down. I am going to read a little bit more of it tonight, it is a good story and you have always had excellent taste in authors, among other things.

Remember when we met Jodi Piccult in San Fransisco, we were standing behind her and she was ordering Starbucks just like a regular person. The book she spoke about, the one she was writing at the time is the one I am reading now. I am not crazy about all the prison stuff but I can understand her fascination with this world inside a world. In the book a young girl needs a heart and a man on death row wants her to have his.

I have always said that there were a million people who could have died, why you? There were child molesters, rapists, and serial killers all sitting in prisons... I would have removed a heart from anyone of them with my bare hands if it meant saving your life...

God just sees people as people, souls as souls no one more or less valuable than the other. I guess it is how I should see it, and I do but I miss you and need you here with me so I can have someone to tell all my secrets to, to talk to late at night, to watch grow, to be proud of, to learn from and to feel connected to.

You were my person...

Now I am getting all sappy so I better stop righting and get into that water and under those stars.

Let's go look at the moon sweetness,

Mom

So here we are...the 19th.

My mind wants to race back to this moment in time two years ago, the synapse bridge has been built and it is an easy leap but I can't or I am going to try not to at least.

The memory of that day is as painful in this moment as it was then.

What I have to do is create a new bridge...

I'm not sure how to do that yet so I will have to stay as numb as I can today.

There is no forgetting any of it really.

Maybe forgetting isn't the answer but surviving the remembering is.



Stevie,

I am up with the sun this morning, I waited for you last night but instead of a visitation I had a deep restful nights sleep. Maybe God is offering a consolation prize but I will keep waiting anyway.

This morning I am going to clean up, open the store for Colleens class, run over to Joe's and buy every Daffodil they have, then I will go to Micheal's and buy and armload of yellow silk tulips. I will talk to you on the long, long drive to Oakmont, cry all the way up the hill, and find a way to accept that all this is real as I cover your body with flowers.

I listened to three people who claimed to have died, gone to heaven, and returned to tell about it. They all said that they didn't want to come back because heaven was so beautiful; the colors intoxicating, the sound of music transcending, the feeling of pure love and peace overwhelming. the experience changed them forever.

On the other side there were beings of light, loved ones, and the presence of a God they could not describe without reverting back to their own religious frame of reference. They were all told it wasn't there time, that they still had work to do and were sent back. Every person felt that had a message.

I listened to other people tell stories of angel sightings, visitations from the other side and messages left on answering machines, tape recorders and in the form of orbs and streaks of light on film.

Every well meaning person I know promises me that you are someplace better than here, at peace, in heaven, waiting for me. They are confused because I can't simply believe that and feel comforted. If it were their child they would be standing in the same place I am, no matter what church they belong to.

Yesterday I was in your room placing a beautiful vase of tulips that Teresa sent me next to your picture and I yelled at you. I said, "Damn it Stevie, I don't care if you are having a party with Julia Child every night, I don't care if I bum you out, you must come and see me and tell me you are OK, you have to, don't leave me here alone to go crazy with grief."

It is the first time I felt angry. I am not angry at you, just frustrated because I feel that I have been waiting so long, holding onto bits and pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together. I gather signs, and coincidence, and make a story out of something that moves me not because it is real but because I need so badly for it to be real.

I must have been on a roll because I had it out with God that day too. The things I wrote in my journal I won't try and write here. I wrote word after word, page after page until I was empty. It all comes down to faith and I am tired of faith, tired of trying to hold onto a belief that is betraying me.


I know I am suppose to wake up on a morning like this and thank God for another day, watch the sun come up, marvel at how the trees that have filled in with magical shades of green, the hills have been covered with a downy coat of grass, and count how many birds have found there way into the garden this year.

I did this but I also listened to how quite the morning was, and how lonely this place is when the person you loved best isn't here, sleeping in her bed, dreaming of coffee and sweet faced boys who sing about tangerines and trampolines.

A color leaves the spectrum, everything is still beautiful but it has changed.

Anthony spent the night, he is sleeping on our sofa. Dad, Noah and Aly are sound asleep. In an hour this house will be noisy, I will cook breakfast, Dad will start hammering away at the wall and door he is building so I can move back into my old studio. It will be another day for everyone else on this planet but it will be a wormhole in time for me, just a visit, no ability to make the changes I desire.

Noah, Aly and I watches a documentary on Time Machines. Aly didn't want to watch it she thought it would be too cerebral and she hates physics. I made her press "Play" and about ten minutes in she got up and stomped into the kitchen, angry because she couldn't get it. I followed her and explained to her that time and space were another dimension that would could see or follow with our five senses but it was real and it operated like a membrane or a piece of fabric and if we could find a way to manipulate it (the planets do all the time) then we could create a little tunnel, a short cut and move through time and space in a different way than we do now.

She got it. She is so smart Stevie but she gets frustrated too easily. There is a moment when you hit a wall, the trick is realizing that it isn't a wall as much as it is a door. Yesterday she walked through that door.

It made me think that I am doing the same thing...I am stomping my feet and wailing at God because I have hit a wall. I am trying to feel around in the dark for the door sweet girl but my Aly-apple didn't fall far from the tree...

I am not giving up, I am just circling Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's wheel of grief, she never said how many times you would visit each of those places and for how long but I am far from finished.

I am rambling because I don't want to face the day...I am a big sad baby.

Bunny of mine, twenty four months doesn't mean a damn thing. You still have all of me. Today I am yours take me where you want me to go, show me what you need me to see, teach me how this has to be. You can yell at me if you want.

I put the fountain were you told me to, I will turn it on today and maybe if I can get myself to do it I will put new plants in the garden. You hated gardening...I tried so hard to get you out there but you just were not a fan of dirt and sweaty labor.

It is inevitable, the day must begin, another day...

Stay close to me sweetness.

Mom

Crucimation

Hey sweet girl...

It has been a very hard week. You would think that going to Paris would turn me into a happy person for just a little while but the end of the trip was the end of the trip.

There were great times and it was beautiful. It is hard to travel with someone who has a completely different personality that you but I think we did OK. Sarah needs more than I do, or she just needs different things. I am a little more quiet, I like observing, exploring, figuring things out in a slow way, letting them happen the way they should. Sarah likes to go out and get what she wants, no is not an option, she is in control of her life and her outcome. She always gets what she wants I am just not sure she gets what she needs. I think she might feel I was too passive or lazy but I don't feel like you ever need to push that hard if it isn't really that important.

You taught me what is important, at least I am clear about what I think is important now. It is just the seconds lived in a way that is true, being a good person, observing and learning. It isn't what you can fit in your pockets it is what you fill your heart with.

I would have been happy in flea bag hotels and days spent seeing more instead of driving more. I went with the flow the first week. I always had the opportunity to speak up but there were things that were important to her experience that didn't take away from mine. The second week we had a home base so we were free to explore on our own.

The most memorable moments were walking through tiny villages, spending hours in cathedrals and the museums, oh the museums.

Stevie I must have looked silly crying...but there I was standing in Rodin's Museum surrounded by his work and Camille's and I was overwhelmed. I remember a similar feeling when I went to the legion of Honor to see his exhibit and later in art school learning about Camille and seeing her face. I know it's crazy thinking but I always felt I was Camille in another life. I have dreamed of Auguste so many times, I know his face like I know my own. The funny thing is that I am not in love with his work as much as I am in love with idea of him.

The Louvre was something I won't forget. Arriving at the square, entering the pyramid, walking with a sea of people from all over the world. I felt light headed. The paintings blew me away, the baroque rooms did not, and the scupture, well I almost fainted. I spent the most time with the marble. I wanted so badly to touch it. What is it about three dimensional art that moves me so?

I took photos then had to stop because I knew that I was wasting time looking at everything from behind the lense of a camera when what I really wanted to do was stand there in a narrow shaft of light and remember every detail with my own eyes, and I did, I stayed until they asked everyone to leave.

Paris has an energy all it's own but like any other place after a while it loses it's shine and it starts to seem a little more like Disneyland. I hate seeing the zipper on the gorilla suit but you and I both know it is inevitable. I walked for hours getting as far from the center as I could, I ate in places that most people don't and I am not sure if you had something to do with this but I found what must have been the only Thai cafe in Paris.

Stevie I was the only customer there and I had the most incredible bowl of soup I had the whole trip. It was full of veggies and spices, the broth must have been fish-based. It was served in a deep bowl that was taller than any soup ball I had ever eaten from. It was steamy and warmed me inside and out. I stayed there for a while, wrote in my journal, and listened to sing-song- Asian-French. I was very happy that no one brought me a basket of sliced baguette, you know me I love bread but the baguette got old very fast. It was a surreal day and I knew that if you had come on the trip with me, we would have found this place.

The plane ride home was long but Sarah booked us in Business class so it was comfortable. I watched the Secret Life Of Bees and there was something about Dakota that reminded me of you at that age. Remember how skinny you got after radiation? The last of your long blond hair turning auburn, your eyes so blue and haunting. You gave and gave and when you finally spoke it was always something so profound. Dad use to call what you said "Pearls" I like the image of pearls falling from your lips.

I understood the depths of May's sadness. I related a little too much. The wailing wall seems like a beautiful tool for grief, I wonder where I can find a billion stones to build one.

I am stressed out. There is so much to do. The business has a pulse now and needs constant attention. I am learning everything the hard way and just when I think I may have made a mistake by being so compulsive and opening a store without any real planning...well, people show up and make me think it wasn't as unplanned as I thought, just not my plan.

Noah is happy I am home but I have been sad. He tries to find me past that sadness, he needs it to go away so I can belong only to him. It won't go away and he will learn something beautiful from that. I give him all that I have, I see him, I am just a little broken. I am learning to be a different kind of mother and he is learning how much mothers love their children. He is such a happy boy, such a good guy Stevie, you knew it, you knew that he would be here after you were gone and you were afraid that I would forget you, that he would fill up your space. He has a place in my heart, his own place and you my sweet have yours, I will never forget, you are still my bunny, my best friend, my sweetness.

The 19Th is fast approaching and we have no plans. I think after the first year most people are over the hump and would feel more comfortable if I was too. The bulk of their grief has passed but I will live with mine forever. It doesn't mean I stop living it just means I learn to live and grieve.

I plan to go to the cemetery and take hundreds of daffodils. I will spread them all over your body, a sea of delicate yellow petals. The deer will come and nibble them and I am sure that will be more than OK with you. I am going to lay next to your body and sing favorite songs terribly, tell you how much I love you and how 24 months has meant nothing, it was just yesterday that you and dad were going to Berkeley to see the Format and I was doing your hair. I remember helping you get your make-up right and telling you how beautiful you were, how grown up you looked. I remember kissing your neck and telling you that you smelled so good, that you always smelled so sweet. What I would give to smell you, all fruit, flowers and knowing.

When you were little I use to nibble on you, all the fleshy places, I would inhale you, wrap myself around you, I thought I could keep you safe, my love felt strong and powerful, and you felt like you were mine.

We celebrated Easter the best way we could. I asked Noah if he believed in the Easter Bunny and he tried to fake it, he knew what was on the line. I told him it was OK, that a six foot Bunny dropping eggs in our yard was very Donny Darko and he was off the hook but in order to get a basket he had to tell me what Easter really was. He said, "Oh I know, it is when that guy who looks like Uncle John, the Jesus guy, he gets crucimated" Ding-Ding-Ding, Noah got a basket.

I got up at four and left a small basket for Aly in her car so she would have it first thing before work. She was very happy that I kept the tradition. She knows she is too old but there is comfort in some things not changing.

Spring is here puddin. Your Cherry tree has tiny green nubs, a million of them and there will be even more cherries than last year. Remember the mystery tulip the lone pink one that comes up every year under the walnut tree? This year there are two. The red tulips and garden daffs and the lilac are gone but the tree's all have their leaves again. This year I will try to plant a good garden. It is the right thing to do and it has always given me such pleasure I need to find a way back to it again.

So much to do honey, sometimes it feels like to much to do. I want a break but I need to stay busy. I need to have one of those dreams, the one where I can see you and touch you and it is all so real that waking up is confusing. Send me one of those dreams sweet girl.

Well, this tired mama has a house to clean, a garden to plant, and a business to run. I also have a sleepy little boy who deserves a good breakfast on his first day of spring break.

I miss you everyday, and I still count the minutes that you are not here.

I love you so much baby girl,

Mom

France

I am in France.

It doesn't seem real.

I went to a beautiful Bascillica in Verasay and spent the morning in meditation. I stayed for a long time, long enough for my toes and bottom to go cold and numb. I lit a candle for Stevie at the alter for Mary. I cried and asked for strength. The church is magnificent and I can't believe that God isn't moved.

This trip has been a learning experience. There is so much to see and time to contemplate. I am in the country this week following a trail of Chataux, small hamlets, good food and roads that wind through the greenest meadows and fields of grain.

It is breathtaking all of it. Next week I will be in Paris where it will be a lot different but exciting and interesting. I am traveling with my SIL Sarah who held me up after Stevie left. Now she driving me through France helping me find myself.

It is late in the evening, I have eaten too much and my bed has a thick duvet that I plan to crawl under and sleep deep and late.

I had dreams last night that I can't recall but I do remember laughing...

Stevie, all the things I dreamed about the night I went flying I have found here, all of them. I love you so much.