This week, I was out of town for work.  I had a nice time, and accomplished the purpose I was meant to at the meetings.  I also paddle boarded.  I parasailed.  And yet, I was disappointed to find how socially awkward I still am.  At an event where you network, and at every table, and break and meal you are seated by people you mostly don't know, the natural thing is to talk.  The perfunctory "where do you work what is your job" soon evolves into the things we all really care about like "where do you live do you have children?"  That is where the trouble begins.  There are two options, for most folks, but really 3 for us.  Tell the truth.  Lie.  Tell what feels like a lie but is mostly the truth.  The easiest for everyone else, is the hardest for me. 

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.

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.

2011 was something of a black hole.  I struggle to find memories of anything before about May, and I don't know if the memories were made, and then vacuumed up in moments of loss or if the record button just never got pressed. 

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.  

I don't know why one day is harder than another, sometimes.  Last week, I had one of the hard ones.  Okay, I probably set myself up, by starting my day with 2 cups of coffee and Andra's homework binder.  Sitting on the floor.  Next to her bed.  With only the best intentions to constructively move a few things around in her room (which is quite a different thing from the furtive picking up and putting down I usually do).

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. 

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.

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.

Along this wandering path, someone said "I love that heart. I want a necklace of it."  Since I just need people to tell me what to do these days, I went ahead and made Melissa a necklace of the Andra Heart.

I made some extras.  If you want one, you can buy one, and $20 from each necklace (that's the whole profit) will go to support the Andra Heart Foundation.  The Andra Heart Foudnation is a 501c3 we started to help us save the world.

A photo, or two.  Either email me at jenine@andraheart.org or else go straight to Ebay CLICK HERE  (item number 110726664918) to buy on credit.

Necklaces are red or stainless, and are $40 each.



The necklaces are about one and one half inches wide, and comes with an 18 inch chain. 



Thanks to the artist, Melissa Borrell, who helped us with the creation!

Imagine one day you are driving home from work, thinking about what to cook for dinner, and you blink and then BAM! you are in the middle of the ocean.

You know when you jump into the ocean, and it is cold and the water shocks you, your lungs contract and you panic until you realize you jumped.  You picked this.  You'll be ok.  This isn't like that.  You didn't jump.  You didn't see the black water coming and you can't breathe.  For a long time. 

Once you calm down, you realize you can sink or swim.  And your first reaction is to swim, to swim like hell.  But swimming like hell wears you out.  And you can't see land.  And you really don't even remember why you are swimming anyway.  And the water is cold, and it seems like an eternity before you will feel ok again.  So you sink.  It is easy to sink.  And sometimes, even if you think you are ready to swim again, you just can't.

Today I couldn't swim.  I cried through church.  I cried through the grocery store.  I violated Grace's three cry per day rule. A couple times.

We wrapped up our evening sitting on the back porch, watching it rain and grilling burgers.  We had burgers, with a beautiful greek salad, tzatziki sauce for the burgers and chips and ice cold water.  Then we did yard work.  And went swimming in a 90 degree pool.  We got out, and sat poolside to watch a beautiful sunset. 

And Grace turned around to look at me and said "We had a pretty good weekend, Mom."

And just like that I'm swimming again. 

As we enter the dog days of summer, I realize how much I have blogged in my head, and how litte I have actually blogged.  I thought I would take pictures and keep track and post all these journeys of our summer so you all wouldn't worry about us.  Some days I couldn't.  Some days I tracked, but didn't post.  So I will rewind, quickly through our summer, since SCHOOL ALREADY STARTED.

Here is the first day of school, Thursday.



Before that, we played with cousins:





Grace went to an amazing 8 day summer camp near South Lake Tahoe with Anni and Kiki - and we celebrated official pigtails day as we dropped them off!



Over the 4th of July we went to Disneyland.  Grace rode a very special horse on the carousel.



Wherever we went we were surrounded by love. 



Andra was never far from our minds, this summer, as we did some of our same old summer things, and tried some new summer things.  We are mostly holding up, and continue to be grateful for all of you holding us up when we can't do it for ourselves.  Love may never end, and while it is still a million degrees here, some things, like summer vacation, do come to an end.  Hope yours are wrapping up nicely.

This first of many Andra Heart days, please look around for all the wonderful things Andra left us.  In addition, you can look for some new things, too. 

There is a fresh, new beautiful garden, full of sun and dirt and tall sunflowers.




There are Ben's Bells, Andra Heart style.




There are postcards, and donations and pandas (and manatees). 



There is love, all around us.  Keep looking for it, and when you find it, give it away.