Dreams. Drama.
Fit for a Queen
This week we have been sorting and cleaning, and I have gone through scores of kindergarten journals, and papers - and have had so many sweet memories. Andra wrote about finding a rock that "lookid like a pes of meat" (looked like a piece of meat) and Grace wrote about getting in trouble for biting Andra, because Andra "called me an Ityeit in prescool" (called me an idiot in preschool).
We laughed, and we loved all kinds of goodies from years past and then we took that sweet pink crown, and repurposed it to be more appropriate for a big girl. You might even say we made it fit for a queen.
The best laid plans
We picked rocks, we picked trees. We planned flowers and bushes and planted them where we wanted them to grow.
Just after our first planting, things went missing. Holes were dug. And we realized that javelina and rabbits rule in the unfenced front porch area. So I did research, and studied to find plants that would not only attract butterflies and hummingbirds to liven up my background, but would be resistant to wild things that want to eat them. I ordered at will, and reordered the things no one ate - things likes catmint, and sage, oregano and thyme - I called them the hot and smelly garden plants, because they were xeriscape friendly. They smelled good to us, but not the animals who we would cook as a main dish with the plants as seasonings.
We were on our way to the plan. But then we had volunteers. For those of you without a clever mother who married a wise farmer (without whom I would never know this term), a volunteer is
"A plant that is growing from an unintentionally included seed, a seed that is shed or dropped by a previous crop."
There were unintentionally included seeds everywhere. Something about roughing up sterile dirt, rocks and uninhabitable ground makes it workable - and volunteers were up everywhere. Palo Verdes by the dozens, creosote, desert marigolds, brittle bush. Plants that one of us loves (we don't love the same ones, unfortunately) so depending on whether Phil or I do the weeding, the volunteers stay or go.
Right now, our front porch looks lovely. And as I look at it today, with yellow spring flowers blooming from any number of different volunteer plants, and the carefully selected purchased plants growing in behind them to bloom through summer and fall, the porch doesn't look at all like I expected it to. The trees aren't as big as I thought they might be by now, but the flowers are much more showy and widespread than I could have imagined. As a backdrop, while not what we originally planned, it is still lovely and a measure of our lives.
Lately, I think often about the path our lives take. The ones we plan, and the one we grow into with the volunteers that pick us. It is a reminder that we don't end up where we wanted to, much of the time. Things don't turn out how we expect. People we planned on having forever leave before we are ready for them to. I can't see spring flowers without expecting to see Andra with her camera, taking photos to print for her walls, or edit on her ipod. That makes me sad for the flowers, who are trying so hard to fill in the space on our front porch, getting ready for their close up.
It may, however, be those same flowers that are also trying to send us a message. Even when your plans fall through, volunteers kick in to fill in and help along what you started. There are still flowers blooming. They aren't the ones we planned on. They don't look like we expected. But if you didn't know what was missing, it would look like a pretty nice place.
This isn't the life I planned on. But if I didn't know what was missing, it would look like a pretty nice place.
pause
Today, I caught some song lyrics I have heard a million times that I never really heard (this happens often to me these days and usually with poor results) but today it was where I was, in a hopeful and very grateful kind of way. So a little Pearl Jam (not at all what you expected, huh?) that made me grateful for all the volunteers that grow in our yard (that's you).
Just Breathe.
Reflections
These days, it seems like it has been long enough that we shouldn't miss Andra as much as we do. These days, it seems terribly strange that it doesn't seem so strange anymore. But we do, and it is.
Last week when we were on vacation in Seattle with my Mom and sisters, I noticed all of us doing something that make me think of Andra, and I thought to myself, "There is so much of her in each of us." Whether she got it from us, or we got it from her is irrelevant. She is with us. We're like her.
Friday we went to the cemetery with some of Andra's friends. We piled flowers on her grave, and we left love notes in the secret compartment we built in for love notes. And while I have debated posting a photo of the headstone, here is the shot that changed my mind.
Although faint, you can see the reflections of Hailey, Lily and Tiffany in the finish of the headstone. We didn't plan it that way, but there they are.
Not only is there some of Andra in each of us, but we are all a reflection of her goodness and love.
Making a Plan
When my Dad was first diagnosed with cancer, we talked about doing a "Live Like You're Dying Tour" - a poor man's version of the Bucket List, if you will. But the reality was that he was quite concerned with being uncomfortable or away from his doctors, so we stayed pretty close to home. I wondered at the time if it wasn't better to do the "Live Like You're Dying Tour" when all was well in your life.
A couple summers ago, when all was well in my life, I teased the girls that I was going to buy a woody station wagon and take them out of school for a year and we would just tour the country and I would home school them. However, they weren't entirely on board with that idea so I let someone else buy that beautiful station wagon dream.
I was sorry I missed both of those opportunities to plan something wonderful.
But in recent days planning is hard. I struggle with it daily. Planning anything, from dinner to lessons to having to just about be anywhere but work or home is difficult. Even harder, is planning to actually GO somewhere, not to mention somewhere out of state. Somehow, we managed to travel quite a bit last year - but I packed the night before and was lucky to have most of what we needed.
This year, I am Making a Plan. (deep booming voice)
Somewhere between a full out Live Like Your Dying tour and the way we live regularly (if there is such a thing) is where I hope to fall out.
So far, we have sent the dog to training, made additional dog training appointments, made a golf lesson and invited Levi to dinner. We received the unbelievable gift of a piano, and we are planning piano lessons (thanks Bill and Rena!). Grace is playing basketball and doing dance. She's selling girl scout cookies. Lots of plans.
We bought tickets to the rodeo. Made hotel reservations in Seattle for a girls weekend. Scheduled a San Francisco Spring Break trip for Grace and I. We won a trip to Texas (travel date TBD), we are talking about going to Hawaii and to Mom and Earl's over the summer. Plans, plans, plans.
Phil and I established a non profit called the Andra Heart Foundation, and just sent 315 Valentines to announce it. I am working with lots of amazing people to do more cardiac screenings. So. Much. Planning.
It feels good. Really good. And I intend to execute my plan now whether anyone else is on board or not, while it still seems like a great idea to me. And if I need a reminder of why, I refer to the wise gentleman George S. Patton:
Dear Mick,
Phil and I have discussed the issue - because inevitably, when you tell the whole truth, you often feel awful that you did. But when you the lie that is like the truth (leaving Andra out and saying you have one child), then you feel awful too.
The first night of the trip, I was standing by a beautiful campfire on a small island in the Florida Keys, talking to a gentleman who is just about to retire. As we were discussing his future plans, he turned to me and asked me "Are you lucky?" Am I lucky? It is an interesting question. Here is my final answer:
Dear Mick,
Tuesday night you asked me, across a lovely flickering fire in the warm air, if I was lucky. I think, in hindsight that you were asking me if I knew I was lucky to work where I work. I do know. I am very lucky to work with great people. Not OMG! Like you are so great! great, but the kind of great that changes lives, creates jobs, and provides a whole bunch of people the opportunity to grow families and friendships. I want to be like them, I am exactly where I am meant to be and in that regard I am very lucky.
Of course, right now, any reference to being lucky makes me immediately think of my personal life, which on a fundamental level doesn't feel lucky right now. I am sorry I cried, but I suspect since you have lived a good life that you have seen women cry before. People who live good lives tend to experience joys and sadess, and tears are part of both.
However. I wanted to tell you what I want to believe.
I am lucky. I have always been lucky. I have worked very hard to gain the things that make me feel lucky - my job, my family, my home - but some things just come to me, like love, my friends, and my parents and sisters. I am lucky Phil picked me, and that Andra and Grace picked me too. I have amazing friends and I have been supported through this year by unbelievable people, including the people you were probably asking about.
I am sorry it took me getting all the way home before I had the whole answer, but I think more clearly when I am here.
Yes, Mick. I am lucky.
Thanks for asking.
Jenine
Sidebar: As part of my socially awkward behavior, one issue I have is that I can't help but bring Andra up in every possible conversation. This makes other people uncomfortable. I know this. I can't stop myself. Nonetheless, I have a story about Andra now. Once when I was taking Grace to the doctor, the doctor walked in and told Andra "Your mom is very lucky." at which point Andra turned around and violently spat out "She is NOT Yucky!"
Not yucky indeed.
Fear Factor(y)
I have spent so much of the last year being terrified that I have gotten quite used to it. Every phone call, or lack of a phone call, or anytime someone calls and I miss it or they don't answer when I call - these all start me thinking. Sometimes, thinking is bad.
New things start me thinking. Like dropping Grace off at school, or not knowing if she is running in PE or wondering if Phil has updated his contact information at the gym or if everyone knows I love them. Thinking. Worrying. Fear. I am afraid if I don't stop emailing Grace's doctor he will change his email, and stop giving me free advice on how to manage my fear.
I used to say that "Worry is a wasted emotion" but apparently, I have lots of emotion to waste.
This week, I am headed to Florida for a work conference. And I am slightly less afraid than usual, which, of course, scares me.
It was just weeks before Andra died that Phil and the girls went on a hunting trip together, and usually, that would leave me worrying the whole time about all the awful things that could happen, but that time, I opened my heart and said to myself "Stop worrying. This doesn't happen to people. This just doesn't happen to people." And I honestly felt like I was letting go of the fear that had plagued me. You all know how that ended - and having lost all faith that things I don't want to happen won't, I am back on the fear train, and how.
I am hoping I can travel without hard liquor (my flight is before noon). I am hoping I can focus when I am supposed to be working, and that I can relax when the water beckons. Maybe there will be something calming about a place that has a high temperature, a low temperature and a water temperature that are all about the same.
Plus, if I were really smart, I will be investing some extra energy worrying about running in to my loser ex boyfriend who lives in Florida - that would be really scary.
2012.
I do know that every time a tsunami wave of grief knocked me over that I lost about a half hour, and maybe the waves just kept coming last year so there was scarcely a memorable moment left.
I do know that the waves still come, and will come forever. More days run together without big waves, but the waves are out there, and roll to shore without warning. But the waves only hit to my neck now, and usually, I can stay on my feet. With each wave there is a constriction of the lungs, and a gulp of air and a stabbing in the heart that drifts up to the head - the heart feels it first, and then the realization dawns on me. It still hurts each time, but I am used to it now. Its awful, but its mine.
During 2011, I respected the process. I let myself live it. I was patient with myself (kind of). I lay around when I wanted to do nothing. I drank more than was respectable. I cut us all a whole lot of slack, and spent a lot of money if I thought it would make us feel better, even for a second. I did learn stillness in 2011, which I think I will keep practicing. Sometimes, sitting still turns out to be just fine. I never knew that before. Which is funny, because in general, I feel like I know a lot less than I used to know, about everything. The funniest part is that I now know things, that I can't remember why I know. So I can answer a question quickly, but then I second guess myself - how do I know that? Is that true? Did I just make it up? Oddly enough, I am right as often as I am wrong, which makes the whole thing worse because I don't trust myself. I suppose trust is one of the hardest things to win back, when you are as betrayed by your sense of the universe as we were.
In any case, in the dawn of 2012, I feel a little lighter. I think I need to do a Susan Powter, and remind myself (screaming if necessary) that "You gotta eat, you gotta breathe and you gotta MOVE!" These are all important. I will try all 3. I will also try to cut back on spending. I probably should request a new credit nard number, and one that is very hard to memorize while I am at it.
I will try and write, again. When I can. Grace asks why I am not writing, and for the first time in my life I am not writing. I found a notebook I have carried with me all year that has one page that says "2011", one page that has 4 lines of description of the excruciating first camping trip without Andra and one page that has a grocery list. Sometimes I think I should be writing, so I have it all down in case I want to use it someday but I can not thing of a single useful thing that would justify me reliving this pain. And since I don't want to live it, I can't imagine why you would want to so I have rationalized not writing to you either.
There are some good analogies I spout, that maybe I should get down - like "Grief is like an onion, one layer after another and they all stink." or "Losing Andra is like losing a color. Everything still looks structurally the same, and everything still works but it looks completely different without blue." Hopefully, I will remember those if I need them.
But for now, I will start with eating, breathing and moving. And when I have those off my list, I will try writing, too.
Thankful, every day.
I have been feeling like I should tidy up her room a little. I don't know why. We use her room all the time. Grace wants it to stay just the way it is. It is certainly no sterile shrine to her - Grace pulls out clothes, and jewelry every day, we have used it to stage heart screenings, and Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes, and Andra heart Ben's Bells. We are in and out of it all the time. People stay there. Sometimes people hang out in there, just to be close to Andra.
Maybe last Sunday, I got a little too close to Andra. Sitting there, going through her notebook, I was living her quirkly life, reviewing what she was learning, reading her writing assignments and just feeling her energy buzzing through the notebook that she carried every day. I can hear her, clearly. I can see her - and more importantly, the real her. Not the her at the end, which sometimes overpowers the real her in my mind. I am so thankful for her, but sometimes when I feel her with me so clearly it breaks my heart all over again into such itty, bitty, tiny pieces that you can never hope to put them back together.
Right now, I feel like we may have swept the pieces into a pile. That's progress. We may have found some glue. That's progress. But we are still walking around barefoot because we can't remember to put on shoes (or else Rex the wonder dog has carried them off) and we find splintered pieces of our own broken hearts with our feet that cut and bleed. Sometimes, we can just tend to the wound and go on, but sometimes we stumble and knock over that already fractured pile and the shards spray out and have to be swept up again, with tears, woe and a renewal of disbelief. How can you knock over a pile that shouldn't even be there? There shouldn't be pieces. My heart should be whole.
Last week, Andra's headstone was set. It is beautiful, and at the same time the most awful thing I have ever seen. It knocks over the pile every time I think of it. Thankfully, this Thanksgiving, I can look back with awe at my early grief's wisdom. When I had it made, I knew. I just knew that I would need to be reminded.
So I had this carved into the back.
"I will be thankful every time I remember you."
And with the reminder, I am.
October. Ow.
As we started last week, rocketing forward towards the first anniversary of the worst days of our life, I was surprised to find that the whole week was dragging us down in sympathy for the days at the end of it.
I expected, and planned for it to be difficult. I didn't really expect the flashbacks and the recurrence of thoughts and images I have learned to manage - that now again, I can not manage.
But through it all, we did last week what we have done all year. Protected ourselves, surrounded ourselves with people who love us and who loved Andra, and kept busy with things that honor Andra.
Last week, we dedicated the garden at the Children's Museum Tucson. It is beautiful. And a very positive place for remembrance.
We had an open house. We painted beautiful Andra Heart Ben's Bells. We packed 20 shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. 
Our sweetest member battled pneumonia.
And yet, we survived it. The year. The day. The day after day heartbreak of missing someone so much it actually hurts.
And honestly? We couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.
Small Surprises
Some one told me that he thinks of his son in heaven as God's right hand man, making sure John sees good things in the world. Sometimes, I think he is right.
This summer, while Jacki and I strolled a flower farm, I smelled a rose. And then jumped, because there was something in the rose. It was a good thing, and not at all what I expected.
Yesterday, after going to the zoo I was reflecting on how difficult it is to mingle with all the life going on around us, all the evidence of the continuance of the universe, all the display of the basic human experience (babies, toddlers, couples, thirteen year old girls). It really is an exercise in pain, somedays to see other people living. I can't help but over relate all that living to my experience, to my story. I have a had time seeing that other people have anything else to their story, because I am so absorbed in envy of the appearance of their family.
We stopped at the store after leaving the zoo, and for the first time in a long time, I talked to the man in front of me, offering him a funny comment after I let him cut in line since he only had a bag of bread rolls, and then he called home to tell his daughter to listen to her Nana. I told him how once Andra told me she always listened to her Grammy, she just didn't listen to ME. He proceeded to tell me his story - that he had recently returned from Afghanistan, where he was a Marine. That he recently received a phone call that one of his good buddies who was also a Marine, in Afghanistan, had returned to the states, gone on a date with his wife who was 9 months pregnant, and they were both hit by a semi truck and killed. The baby survived. With his three big sisters, 5, 7 and 10. His buddy had left all 4 children in his will to the man in front of me. Who already had a 7 and 10 year old.
So 5 months ago, he was a guy, who got his own kids every other weekend and was going back to college after serving his country. Today, he has 6 kids - 5 girls and an infant boy, and he is trying to make sense of his unexpected situation. He is trying to understand how an acquaintance leaves you their 4 kids without telling you. He is grappling with the knowledge that when faced with just living the life he picked, but knowing you were breaking up a family, he chose those kids. It struck me that I am trying daily to make sense of the quiet of my life, and it was a stark contrast to the noise this man was going through.
I wish him great luck. I hope for those children. And I am reminded that everything is not always what it seems - sometimes, a guy buying bread has more to his story than it appears. And I hope when he steps back some day he sees the frog in the rose as a beautiful thing. I was glad for the reminder that other people have a story too.
