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Archive for the ‘Loss’ Category

I Don’t “Heart” Math, but I Know What I Need

Posted in Loss, love, Men, tagged on September 13, 2010| 11 Comments »

Way back some years ago, I wrote a post on what women want in a man in reaction to a list some guy had posted. It was theoretical at the time, since I was happily married and expecting to stay that way.

As we all know, shit happens and life forges its own way when we’re busy making other plans, so not long after those words hit the blog I was forced to take a refresher course in want … and should have reread my own words.

Here’s the list published then:

1. He should look like he could care less about what he wears and not spend more than 30 seconds on his hair.

2. In reasonable physical shape, showing evidence of enjoying a good meal and the occasional ale is required.

3. He can be clumsy and goofy as long as he has a good laugh.

4. He must be good at listening AND hearing. (Eye contact is important, too.)

5. He shouldn’t smell like anything that can be purchased through Duty Free other than a good Single Malt.

6. He must be passionate about something.

7. He should not be whiny, ever have his mother do his ironing or freak out at the sight of bugs or snakes.

8. Loving kids and animals and being gentle goes a long way to making up for lost hair or other mere physical attributes that may be less than perfect.

9. An addiction to the written word is vital.

10. He must have honor, never lie, and be ready to protect those he cares for with his life.

The guy who totally failed at numbers 4, 6, 7 and 10 didn’t last long at all and I have to strain to remember his name, him being referred to as “Blip” for a while, then totally forgotten by the radar.

A few men have satisfied requirements for the short term, but circumstance didn’t allow for taking things much further than interesting flings and long-term friendships over great distances.

One … yeah, the piñata man … scored very well on out-of-ten, and it took almost two years for the deficits to add up to me having to let my head rule my heart for the first time in my life. He was an absolute champ at 1, 2 & 3, more than fair on #4 … I can negotiate on 5, so that was okay … OWNS number 6, only slacks off on 7 when the opportunity to have someone else do his ironing presents, but is fully capable of keeping himself pressed and clean, and stunned me with his rendition of 8.

Unfortunately, 9 was lacking and 10 was beyond him.

Eight out of ten! Not bad!

Well … that’s what kept me going for almost two years: eight out of ten.

For quite a while I ran with the thought that 80% of needs met was enough … more than enough … and about all I could ask of a relationship. Drifting on a sea of his passion gave me moments … amazing moments … and the times the plug was pulled and the air went out of the dingy sending me to the depths seemed almost worth the effort it took to resurface.

More than a dozen times I opted out, and each time he pulled out the stops, trotted out the one-thru-eight where he scored highly, and each time I chose the 80% over the 20 that wasn’t happening.

Until I didn’t.

I may not be good math … and I fully admit to being crap with numbers … but 20% can wipe out 80% and reduce it to zero.

He tells me I shouldn’t expect more than 8 out of 10, that that’s as good as it’s ever going to get, that 100% of nothing is nothing. Perhaps he’s right and he’ll be able to prove that to himself someday.

For me now, though, having 100% of my heart must be better than giving half of it to the keeping of someone who can’t come up with the necessary 20%.

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Backstroke in the bog …

Posted in Loss, love, Men, Poetry, Writing for a living on September 12, 2010| 10 Comments »

When the going gets tough
all rocky and rough
It’s nice to be able to verse it.
Although life doesn’t rhyme,
not most of the time,
tweaking words can help make it less worse; it
keeps the heading on course,
does a lot for remorse,
and allows me to swim through the horse shit.

“My Heart was His Piñata”

My heart was his piñata
all terra cotta fragile
cartoon-figured baby
Está para usted, hombre
“Those sweets inside, they’re
mine, all mine” …
Blindfolded, cannot see,
but strikes
and strikes again
seeking flaws
sensing weakness
Precise, controlled
(no wild blows at this party)

My heart was his piñata
strung up well within reach
twisting in the wind
full, too full, with goodies
meant for sharing
He’s happy. He loves it,
makes music he sings
as he swings,
We laugh with the joy of it
Come the final crack,
shattered shell, empty hope
spilled treasures
Mi corazón está quebrado

My heart was his piñata

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“Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~Marie Curie

Posted in Cambodia, Children, Family, Health, History, Hopeful thoughts, Loss, love, Men, Religion, science, Sex, Smarten up, World politics on September 10, 2010| 2 Comments »

Continuing on from yesterday’s post where I’ve been taking conversations about maleness for a wander around the blog.

I titled this post with a quote from Marie Curie because it was thoughts of her that tugged me toward today’s tangent.

After hours of researching testosterone-driven aggression, infidelity, abuse, slavery, torture … pick a term for what happens to millions daily, any term … I settled in to do some light reading on patriarchy, the history and manifestations of this man’s world we live in.

Although historically, male domination of societies has prevailed … unevenly often, as is evidenced by ancient differences between Greek and Egyptian cultures and such modern poles as, say, California and Kandahar … prehistorically, matriarchies ran the show for something like 40,000 years.

Matriarchal societies are now virtually nonexistent, although a bare few are still functioning in remote corners of the world. The Mosuo of South East China, for example, a culture in which women rule the roost and the word “rape” doesn’t exist.

Few Mosuo women will have more than one partner at a time, even if they are not expected to do so. Mosuo women can change partners as often as they like. In fact, they practice “serial monogamies”, and some relationships can last for a lifetime. So they are not a culture sexually promiscuous as one might think.

Google “mass rape” and see how different the patriarchal world is. From Bosnia to post-WWII Europe, to today’s Congo, rape is not only an active verb in the vocabulary, it’s a living outrage committed by millions leaving millions of victims.

Add in feckless mates, absent fathers, violent crime in general and we get a whopper of a messy man sandwich that’s causing a global bellyache none may end up surviving.

Can we, for just a moment or two, try to imagine a world where women were able to maintain their ancient power?

Okay. Maybe that’s too much.

Can we imagine a world where the power western women have today, limited as that still is, was allocated … what? … maybe 200 years ago?

Back to Marie Curie for a moment.

Maire Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 … the second year prizes were awarded. (She also won the prize for Chemistry in 1911.) In total, a Nobel has been given 41 times to a woman. (Five in 2009 alone.)

What have they won for? Here are a few examples …

Marie Curie: for her discovery of radium and polonium

Irène Joliot-Curie: for their synthesis of new radioactive elements

Gabriela Mistral: for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow: for the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones

Nadine Gordimer: who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity

Aung San Suu Kyi: for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights

In the same period of time, 765 Nobel Prizes have gone to men, also for some great stuff that has made a difference in the world.

And here’s where we get to the imagining bit …

What could our world be like if … even just for the past 200 years … women had had the same opportunities to contribute?

In a bit more than 100 years, look what just 41 women who struggled like hell managed to do.

As Marie Curie, two-time Nobel Laureate was forced to admit:

I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy.

Did anyone EVER ask her husband, with whom she shared the first award, that question? I’m betting NOT.

Has humanity been served by an ancient shift that left women powerless and put men firmly in control?

What would I know? I’m just a girl …

Further reading for the interested:

http://www.japss.org/upload/8._Sharmon%5B1%5D.pdf

http://www.musawah.org/docs/pubs/wanted/Wanted-AW-EN.pdf

j-dv.org/writings/essays/witch.pdf

http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her62/62catton.pdf

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Balls and Bats …

Posted in Island life, Loss, love, science, Seychelles, tagged on September 4, 2010| 5 Comments »

(Apologies to international readers unfamiliar with baseball lingo and a pledge that this post has little to do with the sport, being actually about fruit and furry flying animals, but needed a segue … or two … as I work my way back in to blogging.)

Yeah, yeah … another strike out. So goes an inning on the big diamond of life. Still have my balls, though, and am happily stepping up to the plate. I’m ready to send any curves, sliders and sinkers lobbed toward me up, up and over the fence, yet patient enough to take a walk if that’s what will score and get me home.

Yes, hope, like baseball, springs eternal, and with Spring on the way here in the Southern Hemisphere it is a perfect time to concentrate on things home, rather than away games, ignore crowds adoring the opposing team with little respect for fair territory and tag up.

Thankfully, bats are deffo not lacking.

Another ripe jack fruit in the tree at the bottom of my garden is the venue for flying fox fests that infuse the tropical night, typically tranquil, with a rollicking, rambunctious racket that have many a Seychellois thinking curry chauve-souris for dinner could kill two bats with one stone.

I am a big fan of Pteropus seychellensis … the Seychelles fruit bat … and NOT on the plate. They put on one hell of a show of aerial acrobatics on a daily basis and add an element of drama to sunsets and rainbows. They’re also so cute.

Seychelles Flying Fox

I know there are some who suffer from chiroptophobia and am guessing pointing out that fruit bats don’t fit the designation the fear of bats has in the Latin won’t make much of a dent in any phobic armour constructed over the years from bad movies and worse stereotypes. The fact that they have sweet little faces, not the monster-like visage of some of the more perfected insectivores since sonar isn’t their guidance system, does have me going all awwwwww over them, but others might be just a tad put off by the leathery wings thing.

No matter. Even the most vampire-fearing reader should appreciate how interesting these animals are.

The Seychelles is rather poor in the amount of endemic mammals. The two endemic mammals treated here are the two endemic bats of the Seychelles. Coleura seychellensis, Sheath-tailed bat. A small insectivorous bat (10g) that reside in caves. Present on mahe and Silhouette island. An extremely rare bat with possibly less than 50 individuals.

Pteropus seychellensis seychellensis, Seychelles fruit bat. Almost black with rusty brown face and ventral side, and black/brown muzzle. A fructivorous species.

Being the only endemic mammal in Seychelles, you’d think bats would be held in higher regard, but currying … unfortunately not with favor, but flavoring … seems to be the top praise they garner.

The Seychelles fruit bat or Seychelles flying fox … is found on the granitic islands of Seychelles. It is a significant component of the ecosystems for the islands, dispersing the seeds of many tree species.

The huge jack fruit tree now serving as smorgasbord most likely began its germination in the gut of an ancestor of one of the cuties now scuttling across a branch, as did much of the fruit growing wild on this island. We can thank our little furry friends for making almost any hike on Mahé come complete with a snack somewhere, should one feel the need for a fructose boost.

I’ve known a couple of bats as pets, and although I far prefer to see them flying free they can be mighty cuddly and they like to lick. (Since bats can’t take off from the ground, if a young one falls from its mother, it’s doomed. Occasionally people find fallen babies and raise them up.)

In researching info on our bats this morning, I found an answer to a question friends and I have asked many times while Anse wallowing over the years: Why do these guys tempt fate in daredevil dives seaward that see them skimming the surface of the Indian Ocean so closely that one false wingbeat will trap them?

Over the past few years there have been anecdotal reports of Seychelles fruit bats flying low over the sea, apparently drinking. These reports, by a number of different observers, always describe a single bat flying down from a hill or mountain and dipping down to the surface of the sea. In none of the observations could it be determined for certain what the bat was doing and it was assumed that it must have been drinking. Observations have been made from the islands of Mahé, Silhouette and Aride in different months of the year (including January, March and October) but always when the sea was calm.

On 15th March 2002 a fruit bat was observed descending to the sea at Anse Patates, Silhouette island. The bat was observed from a boat approximately 300m off shore, and was estimated to be 150m away from the boat and an equal distance to the shore. Sea conditions were calm, with no air movement. The bat dipped down to the surface of the sea 4 times in the space of 2 minutes (13:07-9hrs). Due to the proximity to the bat it was possible to see that as the bat descended to the surface of the sea it dipped its breast into the water. The head was raised slightly, preventing the mouth contacting the sea. The behaviour was observed frequently in 2003; several times off the coast of Praslin and in March 2003 at least 8 bats were seen dipping down to the sea at Anse Mondon on the north coast of Silhouette. This included one bat making three repeat flights to the sea. All these bats were roosting in trees along the coast.

From these observations it is clear that the bats were not drinking but were deliberately immersing its fur in the sea. Salt-water immersion may be a strategy to remove parasites which would be expected to be abundant in a social mammal. Although this may be an effective way of removing parasites, bats using this behaviour may be at risk of falling in the sea, a risk which would be minimised by choosing exceptionally calm weather.


Blog and learn … unfurl the wings … turn a page …

(Photo credits: Wiki & Sam Benoiton)

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The gravity of the situation

Posted in Loss, love, science on August 31, 2010| 8 Comments »

A comment on a recent post starts my day off as dawn cracks on the rock this morning and sets me to contemplatin’. It’s from Lisa Thibault Pietsch, a dear friend and former editor, one hell of a good writer who has known me for years and has great observational skills she’s not one bit shy about sharing.

Sandra, you live life with so much passion that the ups are WAY up and the downs are WAY down. I don’t think you could live any other way. If there is one truth I know about you, it is that you cycle the ups & downs like clockwork. I take comfort in knowing that your passionate soul will attract something even better that takes you higher soon.

Lisa has firsthand experience with my passion since trying to rein it in on work I was paid to write and she was paid to make palatable to a fractious audience provoked some heated debates, so I’m listening to her, trying to take on board her perception on the cycle of up ups and down downs I lose sight of while traversing this apparently inevitable parabola.

Lisa thinks I can’t live any other way. Hm. That’s worrying. It’s also unintentional. Call me unaware, but I have no recollection of setting any course meant to send me hurtling toward space, then drag me back down to crash and burn.

The way I see it, I’m a plodder; I go day-to-day trying to make it through, maybe even get ahead a bit. I’m not a good planner, since that’s never quite worked out anyway, so although I do set goals and strive to reach them, I’ve had few that came with any clear path. Given my background, I have a certain flexibility and the dexterity to sometimes intercept the errant grenade lobbed in my direction, but I almost never see them coming. I can take a direct hit and prepare for the next … it’s true that just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do … and when a joy presents itself, I can embrace it.

I neither expect nor anticipate jubilation or despair … both have come as bolts from the blue … but try my best to live and learn in the moment (I once wrote, “What is life but a series of moments?” … I believed it then and believe it now in this moment.), following the advice of that well-known smart guy, Mr. Einstein, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” I care for my kids, treasure my friends, work when I get it, brush my teeth, pay my bills … plod along.

So, is this my “passionate soul attracting”, or simply the fact that life on Earth comes complete with gravity? What goes up, must come down and we’re just along for the ride … that’s a law, isn’t it?

Or is it true that gravity is a myth … the reality being that Earth sucks?

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Waxing and whining

Posted in Loss, love, Men, science, Sex, tagged , , on August 29, 2010| 8 Comments »

I’ve been pondering lately what it means to be a woman. Some might think I’d have a grip on this, given how long I’ve been one, but there are times when the convolutions of gender are illusive.

On one hand, reflections of my womanhood are simple and typical; I love my kids, only feel comfortable with body hair from my eyes up, enjoy chilled white wine and am okay with crying my eyes out when prompted to do so.

On the other hand .. well, I’m confused, because on the other hand is the OTHER gender and the spanner interaction with that half of the population throws into my works leaves me at a loss … of a whole bunch of stuff. As some have gathered, yet another relationship has ended, this one after almost two years, and I’m trying very hard to figure out what portion of this painful termination I could ever have hoped to control … after all, life is supposed to be a learning experience … and how much woman-ness vs man-ness influences processes.

So … do I just know how to pick ’em, or were men put on this earth to disappoint? Is it the woman in me that forces me to demand sweet things bring joy with the calories and not be fatal? Does the other sex have as little control over a compulsion to put the “man” in manifest destiny?

There’s no shortage of information on the biological imperative, that overripe old plum (and here I can’t help but envision a scrotum … sorry ’bout that) insisting men are driven to conquer, and conquer often. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been told I should understand “a fuck is just a fuck, but love is love”, well, I’d be able to fill a sack that could leave a nasty bruise upside a head.

A quick search leaves no doubt that I’m far from the only person pondering, as questions like “Can you love someone and cheat on them?” are asked, and answered, often … and not just in the depths of a soul.

Does it make sense for guys to go along with the idea that they will never have sex with anyone else ever again, when the biological imperative of the male is to mate with as wide a variety of partners as possible.

At the same time, the biological imperative of the female is to find a man who will stay with her and provide for her children, and a man who is mating with other women may be tempted to instead provide for the children he has with one of those other women.

So what is love? Love is the insane state of the male to agree to violate his biological imperative to meet her biological imperative. So by this definition, if you’re willing to have sex with another woman, you can’t be in love, but OTOH, if you’re willing to give up the opportunity to have sex with other women, you’re insane.

Citing the Coolidge Effect, it could seem we … women, that is … are doomed to disappointment.

Human males experience a post-ejaculatory refractory period after sex. They are incapable of engaging in sex with the same female after ejaculation and require time to recover full sexual function. In popular reference, the Coolidge effect is the well-documented phenomenon that the post-ejaculatory refractory period is reduced or eliminated if a separate female becomes available. This effect is cited by evolutionary biologists as a reason why males are more likely to desire sex with a greater number and variety of partners than females.

Considering that a great deal of the research establishing this “well-documented phenomenon” was based on studies of rats … well … you get my point.

In case you don’t, it’s this …

Humans have … theoretically … evolved beyond the base drives of rats and dogs and pigs. Men have managed to learn not to pull down their pants and shit every time they feel the need (although peeing can still be a bit of an issue), and most can walk down a street without threatening every male passing through “their” territory. Men can create beautiful music, art, literature, spiritually project themselves into dimensions of peaceful contemplation of the wonders of the universe, plumb the depths of grief and comprehend and incorporate the emotions of those around them.

So, is it simply a blood flow problem? Does even the most insignificant penis require the full essence of a man to stand at attention? And must that attention preclude every other important detail in a life? (When it comes to human bodies rather than celestial, “waxing” has such different connotations for men and women.)

In the words of the immortal Dorothy Parker:

Woman wants monogamy
Man delights in novelty.
Love is a woman’s moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?

What earthly good? Indeed …

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An illustrated woman …

Posted in Children, Family, Health, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , on August 8, 2010| 11 Comments »

At a dinner the other night, as often happens someone noticed one of my tattoos.

“Are you a big fan of auto racing, or something?”

Easy to spot, the Corvette racing flags on my right wrist could give the impression that I’m proud enough a sports fan to permanently ink a symbol into my skin, but as with all my tattoos the meaning goes much deeper.

At present count I have eight tatts, not one a butterfly, fairy, tribal strip, Celtic symbol, dragon or anything else lifted from the Great Book of Body Art folks rifle through at tattoo parlors the world over, looking for something pretty … or pretty ugly … they’d like to live with for the rest of their days.

My ink IS my flesh.

The first tattoo I had done is of a heart. It’s on my ankle. I got it in Singapore after being released from hospital following yet another tinkering on my ticker as it seemed a spare might be a good idea. It’s red, heart-shaped, and includes very visible bypasses … a good representation of the one still beating in my chest. Below it, the Chinese character that translates to ‘long life’. Both of these were modified last year … a boom time for tatts on me … when Jaren’s name was inked into the heart, and my other children’s were written under Long Life.

I had a musical heart done after anther hospital visit in Singapore. (And, yes, there’s a symmetry to getting tattoos in that ancient port city where so many drunken sailors have been inked that appeals to me.) That was Ernesto-inspired, although he is no fan of ink. That’s what happens when I’m alone for such trauma and drama; I make a point of it … or a whole bunch of points as the case may be.

The racing flags I don’t consider a tattoo at all … it’s a scar.

After Jaren died many of his friends had the flags done on their bodies as a tribute to him. Mine are a tribute to those friends, and placed as they are a constant reminder of the love my boy gave and got … a touchstone, if you will.

My tribute to my son is across my upper back; four bars of his music that I am proud to wear. Somehow … and I’m not compelled to examine my motives on this … having this translatable bit of him on me makes it easier to carry the parts of him I miss so much in me.

I had two new tatts done for my birthday last month, both just for me … standards to bear leading me into the rest of my life.

On my right wrist:

Arcum tenderi Veratum decere

Although the explanation of this … two-thirds of a motto Karen Blixen, one of my literary heros, used to open “Out of Africa” … has long held deep significance for me, it’s the basic reminder to “shoot straight, write true” that has it in front of my face every day as I sit at my keyboard.

Running out of spaces on my body that can still hold ink without wrinkling or sagging, I resorted to a tramp stamp for my last tattoo, this one inspired by one a friend gave herself for her birthday.

Quoconque jeceris stabit

Which means: Whichever way you throw me I will stand. This curves over a wonky heart and proclaims my determination to make it through whatever life … and love … can toss in my path.

I’m well aware that wearing my heart so obviously on my sleeve … or wrist or leg or back or whatever … opens me to comments and questions. Sometimes I’m just … yeah, yeah … a big fan of snazzy Chevys, but there are occasions I welcome the opportunity to let my tattoos tell some of my story.

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June 2nd … One year gone

Posted in Children, Family, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged , , on June 3, 2010| 8 Comments »

I’m not up to writing about how it felt to mark one year since Jaren’s death; I’m crap enough at sliding identifying gels over the emotions without coming close to slapping words on them.

What I can do is yack a bit about how I spent the 2nd of June and post a few photos. Yes … I can do that.

Thanks to circumstances, and Ernesto, the opportunity to avoid the dismal prospect of passing the day alone on an island I’d grown weary of, instead visiting a vibrant, exciting city I’d long longed to experience more than the shitty airport of with the man I love had me jumping in that direction.

So, I was in Paris on the day.

Since I could not be in Paskenta where my son is buried beside my father and ancestors galore, Paris seemed a reasonable option Jaren would approve.

You see, there is symmetry in a cemetery there, to which I was drawn like a mother to an eternal flame.

Jim Morrison's grave ...

Pere LaChaise Cemetery and the grave of Jim Morrison … who died in the same year Jaren was born … offered what seemed a vital pilgrimage to a mom half a world away.

I paid my respects to the Lizard King, then strolled the ancient paths between graves feeling my son beside me.

Chopin ...

We gave a howdy to Oscar Wilde, hummed a few bars at Chopin and noticed a shitload of names that made me smile big.

No doubt ... Jaren found this one!

All in all, it was a good horrible day.

Oh ... the jokes ...


Yeah ... this one, too ...

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Grief: I’m not doing it right

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Health, Island life, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged on May 18, 2010| 11 Comments »

As the first anniversary of my son’s death approaches … on the 2nd of June he will have been gone for one whole year … it becomes increasingly obvious that I’ve not done the greatest job of proper grieving.

Not that there is a wrong way or a right way to mourn; individually and culturally, there are as many ways to deal with death as there are people who die, and that’s about 10,007 humans per minute on this planet, so a lot of variety.

Death rituals can be part of the process when folks are lucky enough to be afforded the luxury of time to conduct them, when death happens by ones and not by thousands and in situations where the rituals themselves don’t deplete resources to the point of costing more lives.

It occurs to me as I write this, that today’s post prompted my first Google search of grief .. an indication of just how not right I’ve been doing this, and in the course of composing a fucking blog post attempt to face my grief, I’m compartmentalizing, as I’ve done from the time I was told my son was dead.

I know why I went to great lengths to encapsulate each wayward bit of grief, then swallow each whole without letting anything touch the sides. There was so much to do … get Sam and Cj sorted out so I could fly to the other side of the planet. That started it. There was no time to fall apart when packing and making sure my kids and my house and my animals would be cared for for the month I would be away, and getting myself from one airport to another had to happen, and being alone meant just that; there would be no one to hold my hand on a 16+ hour flight, and transiting in Dubai could not happen in a puddle.

Once I arrived, there was more to sort out … more than anything I’d ever considered I’d have to consider … the details of death. Jaren’s dad was there, going through this all, too, and my daughter and her family, and much of my family, and friends, all trying to cope with the loss of him.

Again, a reasonably rational mind was required.

I would go through the motions, do what needed to be done. I would meet with Jaren’s dad and stepmom, my daughter and her husband and others as we all tried to understand this sudden tragedy. I went through what was left of Jaren’s apartment, attended memorial services and let others arrange for his body to be transported to the Northern California town where we would have the funeral.

And at the end of each day, I would go to my room, cry and tell myself that if I fell apart, I would not be able to get myself back together.

Once up north, I stayed with my mother, picked out a casket, wrote stuff for the funeral. I hadn’t been in Red Bluff, California in more than twenty years. It was where Jaren was born.

Since Jaren’s dad did not object, it was decided that he would be buried where much of the family has gone, right beside my father in a lovely little cemetery in the foothills. I wandered the grounds for a while, talking to my son and hoping he was happy with the choices made for him.

I spent time with my mother and some dear old friends, and each night I went to my room alone knowing that there was more to do the next day, deciding again the time was not right to slip into grief.

There’s no doubt that I was afraid. Falling apart in an empty room seemed too much like standing on the edge of a dark precipice knowing no one was there to stop a leap, or to catch when I hit bottom.

So, I didn’t. And it got easier. Much easier to keep swallowing the pill instead of chewing the bitterness of it and experiencing all that nastiness.

Now, almost a year has passed and what I find is that through the process of getting good at keeping the pieces of my grief well separated, my whole bloody life is fragmented. I can no longer grasp big pictures, but only shards of here and there. When I find a sliver, I can gaze at it, examine it, ponder it, but I can’t see where it fits.

This doesn’t work so well.

And it seems bottom has hit me whether I jumped or not.

I’ve been told recently that I need to grieve, to move myself higher up my priority list, to start doing things that make me happy again. Okay. But how do I do that? (Writing has been suggested, and I’m feeling shitty enough to go with that thought, hence this post.)

It seems to take far too much energy to talk to people, to explain, so I shut down and stay home. If I lived somewhere else, I could join a support group or go into therapy, but those aren’t options here.

It’s so frustrating being this sad and not knowing how to grieve.

Some random thoughts …

On my facebook page this morning, a photo of Jaren posted by his friend Francisco under the heading: He’s still here. In the photo, he’s playing the guitar that now sits downstairs in my office hopefully protected from this climate by the case on which he had written in duct tape, “No talent”.

I started crying one day, and Cj said to me: “Mommy, you’re sad. Did Jaren die again?”

When Ernesto is here I feel better … or maybe I’m just diverted … but he’s not now, and it’s worrying that I’m so crap at being alone.

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Not Dead, Yet

Posted in Children, Family, Health, Loss, My Chinese Checkered Past on May 16, 2010| 13 Comments »

Still tickin' over ...

I have some deep contemplation to do today … some evaluating, some appreciating, a few James Stewart “It’s a Wonderful Life” moments to ponder … so if I’m pensive, there’s a reason.

Tomorrow, you see, will be my eleventh Not Dead Day.

Eleven years ago today, I was in Singapore enjoying day two of the first holiday I’d taken in years. There were plans to visit the zoo in the afternoon, but the morning was to be passed in the company of a cardiologist who could evaluate my meds and send me back to Seychelles knowing that I was on the right track pharmacologically.

That was the theory.

In reality, however, my quick consultation morphed into a series of tests my body failed miserably, and instead of sharing a banana with my favorite orang utan in Singapore, I was admitted to Mt. Elizabeth Hospital and prepped for an angiogram.

What was discovered during that less-than-pleasant procedure was a blockage in my left descending coronary artery, and what I was told, as I was shifted from gurney to bed with the admonishment that assuming any position but flat on by back could be fatal was:

You have between one and thirty days to live … unless we perform coronary bypass surgery immediately.

So, the next morning they did exactly that.

Mark was there, and spent the time before surgery praying to the wide range of gods on offer in this Asian city; the Buddha of Four Faces in Bugis Street got many oranges and joss sticks that night, which is why one representation graces my house to this day.

The now-ex sent his offerings up with the request that cracking open my chest and tinkering with my heart would give me another ten years. (He now says he should have wished for eight … )

It’s been eleven, so I’ve been swimming in gravy.

There’s something about being able to put a date to the time you might have died that lends itself to mental wandering down that path that leads from then to now, and a lot happens in eleven years.

Had I gone then, I would have died a happy, content woman, secure in home and hearth, loved and cared for, with two grown children and a mother and brothers who’d have grieved the loss of me along with many dear friends.

Apparently, however, the lessons weren’t over.

Of course, Sam and Cj are the biggest bonus my extra years gifted. Missing out on them would have been a loss too huge to let myself consider. I would also have missed my granddaughter … the beautiful bit of my mitochondrial DNA that marches forth in time.

I’ve written a few words over these years that may resonate for a while, and somewhere in the big book of my life those count for something.

And I’ve had many amazing moments, and since life is nothing but a series of moments I’m grateful for each brilliant spark illuminating an hour or a minute or a day.

I have no idea when my last moment will come, but having scored the millions played out since my bypass I’ll not be too disappointed when it does.

Death is a door, and when I do pass through there will be no shortage of people I’ll be happy to see again, and hanging around waiting for others to join … as is inevitable … won’t be a lonely endeavor.

So … while you can … wish me a happy Not Dead Day as you enjoy your moments.

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