On my best days I am a bad gardener, so there’s no chance you’re going to catch me out there pulling weeds and hoeing, even if the crab grass clutches me around the throat and threatens to strangle me to death.  That means the bulk of the garden falls to Brian, or as I am trying to convince him, someone we hire.

Right now, Brian’s out there looking like some kind of futuristic geeky sex god. He’s wearing red earmuffs to protect his hearing, an out of date and well-worn navy blue polo, beige cargo shorts, and……black dress socks and roan deck shoes.

When I look at him, he makes me laugh.

I love him, and this is one of the things marriage is about, the man who comes home from days of diagnosing intricate bio science machinery, and who, because you ask, weed wacks the yard.

Four days ago, you married a really good man, and just before your wedding, I asked if I could use the parental card to say something.

You said I couldn’t make you cry, so I didn’t. But now, in the privacy of my home, and of your home reading this, I can say to you what I wanted to say then.

I love you more than my own life, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I want you to know I think you are an amazing woman. You are kind, compassionate, funny, intelligent, and you have strength and character that many do not possess. I am so very proud to know you, and to be your mother.

Before I stood beside you at your wedding ceremony, I was aware that a year ago on the same date you and I had returned from California to New Zealand shattered, broken, and drained.

Chris is God’s redemption in your life, and by proxy, in mine, because he is the man he is, and because he loves you, and because his love and support for you is healing, and because your well being is important to me, it makes me happy.

You and I have travelled several paths together as mother and daughter. When you were young, and then as two adults.  As your mother, I made decisions for your younger self, but as an adult, I cannot think of a better companion with whom I’ve travelled.

Mich, you are a brave woman. Had I been required to take the same journey you have, I don’t know how I would have fared.

I am so thankful for you.

I think of you at different stages of your life and I laugh, because the one word I have always associated with you is joy, and joy is what I wish for you, my darling, joy in life, joy in love, joy in your new marriage to that awesome man who showed up at the right time.

I want you to know I love you in ways I can’t describe. I know you know the ways a mother loves their child, so all I can say is, I am glad that God gave you to me.

Love, Moo

Today the two of us took all the dried petals from the flowers we were given after Kyle died, and new roses from our gardens to Te Mata Peak in Hawkes Bay to commemorate Kyle’s one year anniversary.

We planned to memorialise him by tossing petals to the wind, the same as we had when we left Morro Bay after he died, but somewhere between thought and action, Murphy and his law took over.

I can’t help but wonder if Murphy was aided and abetted by Kyle, and by my friend’s son, Brent.

The scenario : Mich and I carried the box containing the dried petals up to the best point on the peak. We had a 360 degree view of breathtaking scenery. It seemed a fitting place to be. The wind was blowing and the day sunny. Mich took photos of a solo peregrine falcon riding the air currents below us, and the river wound silver between lush green fields. It was all pastoral and peaceful. We had the place to ourselves.  Michelle left for a moment to get water from the car.

What happened next was, well…..unbelievable.

While I was standing at the top of the peak overlooking God’s creation thinking about Kyle, Michelle’s flip flops caused her to slip on the grass, and she fell, then ROLLED ass over teakettle down a small embankement. If it hadn’t been for the boulder at the edge of the embankment, she’d have continued rolling into the middle of the parking lot.

I was oblivious and knew nothing about it because Michelle was lying in the grass laughing.

Finally our moment of solemnity.

We opened the box. Michelle took photos of the dried flowers and we lifted the tissue paper they were in out in one move. We prepared for the pain.

 ‘Do you want to throw them by the handful or all at once,’ I asked.

‘Let’s do them all at once.’

We looked at each other, the scenery, the flowers, and we heaved, both of us anticipating spiritual symbolism as the petals were carried over the valley by the wind.

What we got was a resounding ‘plop’ as all the flowers fell out of the tissue onto the ground on the other side of the safety barrier.

We stared at each other for the longest time, and at the mound of dried flowers at our feet, then back at each other and back to the dormant flowers , expecting, I suppose, for  them to do ANYTHING but lie there on the ground.

We started laughing.

The wind blew.

‘Thank God,’ I thought. ‘The wind will lift the petals’.

Nothing. The  flowers still lay there.

“Maybe they just need a prod,’ I thought.

I looked for a stick. I couldn’t find one, so I collected my umbrella from the car.

Michelle staggered around laughing hysterically. 

I returned with my umbrella and poked at the flowers through the fence, urging the petals to catch the breeze.

I decided I was using the wrong end of the umbrella, so I started whacking the pile of dried flowers with the curved end. I dislodged divots of grass, but the dried flowers stayed put. A woman came up the peak, saw me leaning over the security rail whacking at the ground with the umbrella, and left.

Michelle laughed harder.

By then I was unable to breathe myself. I was afraid I’d wet my pants, I was laughing so hard.

‘Let’s do the live roses,’ I suggested.

These roses were fresh, tender, fragrant things from our gardens, and they had been sacrificed out of love.

We picked the petals and held them in the air. The wind caught them and carried them six inches over the barrier.  We gasped in anticipation.

The petals fell to the ground .

By the time we finished, the verge was littered with rose petals, but only a few had made it into the air over the valley.

The ridiculousness of it all was such a Kyle thing. We could almost hear him laughing . It’s the kind of thing he would have made a parody of.

Finally we left, satisfied that we had passed a point in our process that needed to be passed.

All I have to say is when I go back to Te Mata Peak in a few months, those freakin’ flowers better be gone.

This is the last letter I will write to you on a public forum because I believe it is self indulgent to advertise one’s grief, but I can’t let today go by without acknowledging you.

A year ago at this time, you were alive. You and your friends were having a BBQ, laughing, dancing, and having fun. Several hours later, you were gone forever, a statistic at the bottom of a cliff, and the catalyst for a lifetime change for your mother and I. 

I choose to believe Angels were with you at the moment of your death.

What I hope people will remember about you is your life rather than your death, and that they will remember your gentleness, your humour,  and your kindness.

I miss you every day of my life.

I want to thank you for the Peregrine Falcon that I see each day on my way to work. It reminds me of you, and the way you have broken free from the boundaries of this world, and the way I imagine you soaring in the other world.

Life is different without you. I don’t laugh as much as I used to, nor do I take life for granted. I’m not as tolerant of snivelling as I used to be. I have no time for people who  moan about the superficial. It’s a good thing I was led to Hospice work , because it is the only work I find meaningful.

I don’t think I will ever visit California again. The thought of Morro Bay or Cayucos leaves me wanting to retch. Also, without you there, there is no reason.

I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’ve seen people suffer far more than you or I have, and in a weird way, I’m grateful your death was immediate. There are plusses and minuses in that kind of thing. I’m grateful you didn’t linger for months requiring care.

My regrets for you, my lovely boy, are that you and I didn’t have enough time.  I was so far away from you. I console myself in the fact that I took took every opportunity to be with you I could.

And  now  it is one year since you left us, and the void inside me is still wide. The emotional bleeding has stopped, but I wonder if the ache of your absence will ever cease.

I just want you to know  that I love you with all that I have, and I will always do so. I look forward to the day we embrace again.

Nana

I never planned to get something that required me to stand in the rain in the middle of the night whispering, ‘Piddle, little puppy’, or which demands that I remain on poop alert lest I be ambushed in the hall on my way to the toilet.

In an unscripted moment, while I was in the pet shop buying bowls for my bird aviary, I made my impulsive decision, a decision that has added 30 minutes to my day, which has cost me more than I thought to spend, and which requires me to take the Shih Tzu to work with me, an act which causes me to obsess over whether or not she’s getting enough time out of the crate vs. whether or not I’m spending too much time taking her out to pee when I should be tending to my work.

I can’t explain it. There was something about those brown eyes that reminded me of another pair of brown eyes, and there was something about being able to hold something so small and vulnerable in my arms and inhale the scent of it plus the melting moment in my chest when she snuggled in under my chin that stopped me in my tracks. The moment said,  ’This is life. Live it.’

And so I did. Brian wasn’t impressed, but because he’s tolerant and because he loves me, he’s adjusted. In his way, he’s living it too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear the sound of a puppy needing to go outside.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought all the death and dying could make for a sad or morbid environment, but I was wrong. In line with the Hospice message, the staff are also ‘Living Every Moment.’ We laugh hysterically, have black humoured moments when we plan our own end-of-life care, and we recently have had a ‘crazy tights, funky shoe, and Royal teaparty’ day. We’re all passionate about our patients and their families, and the work hospice is doing. Recently, when we finished our new ‘Relax’ bath and spa room for the patients, we couldn’t wait for the first person to get into that oversized patient accessible tub and start up those bubbles. Bath bubbles that is. Our youngest, a 21 year old, got the privilege of breaking in the tub. How cool is that?

We treated her like the Queen.

It’s not all hiliarity, though.

When I come into the building and see the candle burning at the front desk, I know one of our patients has died, and I feel sad. We form relationships with these people. I know if the candle is burning, the person is still in the building. We burn a candle from the time of death until the patient and their family leave. I make it a point to go into that patient’s room and say goodbye no matter the time of death.

It’s my way of saying, ‘You mattered to me.’

I’ve also heard a lot of stories since starting at Hospice. I’ve been into homes with grieving widows and heard about relationships that spanned 60 years. I’ve heard stories of celebration of life and birthday toasts in hospital beds. I’ve prepared children for the death of their only parent, their mother, and I’ve supported a young wife with a young son as she comes to terms with the early and unfair death of her handsome and beautiful prince. I’ve showed up at a farm home an hour from town and found a patient in the middle of anaphylactic shock due to chemotherapy, and have had to argue to let me call an ambulance, an I’ve waited until it arrived.

Not your usual counselling task.

Hospice work is sacred and privileged, not morbid.

 I am so lucky to hear the stories and the wishes of those who no longer need to pretend. I meet families at the most vulnerable times of their lives, and I walk with them as they navigate their sorrow.

If any of you out there have ever considered volunteering at a hospice, please do. I don’t know how you’ll be rewarded, but I can tell you, from the lady who irons patient’s clothes, to the one who sticks tabs on reference books in our library, it is blessed and sacred work.

My father-in-law, who has been staying with us since he and my mother-in-law’s home was cracked like an egg in the Christchurch earthquake, has refinished the window sill in the dining room.

It’s a good thing my cockatiels and budgies are outside, else they’d be legs up on the bottom of their cages.

This posting has nothing to do with varnish, birds, or fume intoxication. I was just thinking about the sometimes delicate balance between creative counselling therapy and pure derangement.

When I was in Christchurch doing post earthquake counselling, I had a ten-year old boy who was afraid of taking a shower because he thought the water was contaminated. He said it smelled bad. The news was rife with warnings about the need to boil drinking water, but it offered nothing about shower safety. This kid’s family was lucky they had running water. Many didn’t, and still don’t. According to Mom, their water was okay, and it didn’t smell, but the boy was definitely showing signs of anxiety and trauma.

 He and I faced off over a table on which there was a bowl of gummy worms. As we talked, I could see him eyeing the last gummy in the bowl, and his longing for it was profound. Acting like I didn’t notice, I waited until he dipped his hand into the bowl and had the worm near his mouth.

‘I licked that,’ I told him.

The incredulity that crossed his face was a beautiful thing to see.

‘Did not,’ he said, eyeballing me.

‘You’ll never know,’ I said, eyeballing back.

In one quick move, he jammed the gummy worm into his mouth and started smacking.

‘Tastes good with my slobber on it, doesn’t it,’ I said.

‘You didn’t lick it,’ he said, convicted of the truth of his statement.

‘You’re right, I didn’t,’ I answered. ‘So let’s talk about the shower. What’s the deal there apart from the fact that you’re a ten year old boy, and boys don’t like to shower which is why they’re mostly stinky.’

He gave me his reasons, and I thought about them while he folded up some paper. I knew I wouldn’t want to be in the shower when a big aftershock hit, but I didn’t want to pander to his fear. I wanted to give him something that could help him get into that shower with less anxiety.

‘Know what some American Indians do when they think something is contaminated,’ I asked.

‘What,’ he said, looking around for more gummy worms.

‘They burn incense to cleanse the area. They believe the smoke takes away all the bad stuff. Do you think if your mom got you some incense and she lit it for you and stayed with you while you waved it around in the bathroom, it might help you get in the shower?’

‘Does it look like a sparkler,’ he wanted to know.

‘Indeed,’ I said, ‘and it’s got powerful smoke. But your mom has to light it for you and stay with you while you wave it, and she has to put it out, because we don’t want you to burn down the house.’

The idea of waving that incense stick around appealed immensely. His eyes were alight.

We talked about other things, and we laughed, and I found him one more gummy worm to fuel his hyperactivity, and he and his mom went off to find incense sticks in a city that was in rubble.

After he was gone, I wondered, ‘Did I help him, or did I make him obsessive-compulsive? What if he develops ritualistic behaviour around showering that includes the burning of five incense sticks? What if he can’t separate this event from everyday showering? What if……..?????

All that to say, sometimes we grasp at straws, incense sticks, magic wands, and we go with our knowledge and gut feelings, but we still wonder.

The night before I left Christchurch to return home, I watched the news which showed the unfolding of the Japan earthquake and tsunami. It left me stunned.I still don’t know how to think about it. It seems like too much to take in, and all that devastation is unimagineable.

When Christchurch had its earthquake, Japan was one of the first nations to put its hands up and to send rescue workers and sniffer dogs. And now, most of the USAR teams going to Japan were just in New Zealand. Some probably went from here to there.

 I can’t even imagine how tired those brave and dedicated teams might be, and Japan offers weeks of intense searching. 

 Even with my trauma expertise I can’t imagine how to defuse the Japanese people. When one has lost everything, what good does teaching the physiology of trauma, or the expected stages of disaster recovery do? In this case, damned little, I suspect.

For a while after Kyle died, I did nothing. I took time out to reflect, to create bad art, to drink way too much wine, and to think deep and reflective thoughts that weren’t always helpful to me. I even went through a period where Willie Nelson’s ‘Seven Spanish Angels’ and ‘You Were Always On My Mind,’ were always playing on my iPod. I didn’t go as far as to play ‘So Far Away’, the Amici song we played at Kyle’s memorial, but I came close.

There were days when I was angry.  There was a hollowed out recognition that California no longer houses the one I love. And then there was that embarassing moment when I broke down in the carpark at the grocery store because I had put a Christmas ornament in Kyle’s name on the Hospice tree. 

But with those things, and with others, I’ve also recognised a gentle moving, a slow healing, an upward rise, and the hand of God in my life.

Soon after my return to NZ from the States, a job opportunity at a local Hospice was advertised. I knew I could do the job, and I knew I had the heart for the job. I just didn’t know how well I’d do with all that grief, all that crying, and all that mirroring of the pain of my own loss . So I didn’t apply, but I kept thinking about the position, and the fact that kind of opportunity doesn’t present itself often. You see, I believe bereavement work is sacred, and I didn’t want to muck it up.

So I prayed. I flicked off a request that if the job was to be mine, it would hold.

A month later, after the position had been closed, my daughter came home and said, ‘I think you should apply for that job.’

(I think she was tired of seeing me moping and watching me flounder.)

So I did. And the next day I got a call. Seems the counsellor who was appointed pulled out. Seems the general manager had been praying God would provide a senior counsellor with leadership abilities. Seems she thought I was the answer to that prayer. I thought if the job had been held, I might be.

Long story longer, I am now about to take the position. I’m still a bit stunned about it all, but somewhere in it all I can hear Kyle cheering, ‘Got your back, Nana. Go for it!’

So I am.

It’s been 9 weeks since you left us, but it seems like a lifetime. Since you’ve gone, we’ve had Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

There didn’t seem to be a whole lot to celebrate at Thanksgiving, but your mom, your grandad and I, independently of each other, brought home stuff that ended up becoming a Thanksgiving dinner. We thought of you, and I wished I could have done a cheesecake in your honour since it was your favourite, but your mom is tender right now, and cheesecake has gone off the menu. Did you know that on the day we heard you had died, I had brought home a cheesecake to remind us of you? However, your mom your grandad and I were still able to give thanks for all the years we had and loved you.

Christmas came and went quietly. Your mom put on a brave face, but I could see her struggling. Your soccer picture, the one your former team gave to your mom at your memorial, is sitting on the fireplace.  They are all in black and white, and they’ve made sure your jacket is in red because you always stood out. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve hung a red Christmas ribbon on it. I also hope you like the special Christmas ornament we bought for you. I’ve decided this will become a Christmas tradition for us and we’ll get you one each year. I’m thinking a cowboy ornament next year. Your mom put some string angels near your photo, and I set up a Nutcracker figurine to keep guard nearby.

Kyle, my love, your absence is profound.

Your grandad carved a limestone monument in memory of you. It is a Celtic cross, and it has two poppies entwined, your mom and I. There is a butterfly flying free at the top. You. He wanted the poppies to be fresh, indicating that there will be life and light again. He wanted the butterfly which represents you to be flying free since that is what you are doing now. We’ll put it in the garden amongst the ferns. I think you’d like it a lot.

It made your mom and I cry.

A lone monarch butterfly has been flying around our garden for the past several days, and every time your mom and I see it, we think of you. Let’s hope the cat doesn’t eat it.

On New Year’s Eve, your mom, your grandad and I went to a New Year’s party. They had lots of great food and music and wine. And guess what? At one point in the evening they had some dancing.

And that’s what I wanted to tell you. For the first time in 8 years, I danced. I danced for you. I danced in honour of you, and I danced because I remembered how much you loved it. I remembered my words to you at your memorial that I hope, that wherever you are, in heaven, or this vast universe of God’s, that you would dance, and I knew too, that if you could speak to me, you would say, ‘Dance, Nana, dance.’

And for a brief moment, it was as if you and I were dancing together.

Then, it was 2011. A new year. And your mom, and your grandad, and I  missed you. When your mom and I got home, the heavens were filled with stars. We stood in the yard, my arms around her. We looked at the heavens and said, ‘our boy is up there.’

We miss you more than we can say. We love you. We wish you were here. Yet we know you are still with us.

If there is a New Year where you are, I hope that it will be a good one.

Love you heaps,
Nana