aging

hi dad.

today tim is 48.  It's hard to believe that he's almost 50.  50 seems so old when life is still so slippery, so hard to digest.  like grandpa told me a year before he died, you never stop needing to grow.

texas continues.  when (and how) will the adventure end?  sometimes i'd just like to hit the pause button, other times i want to rip the dvd out of the player and chuck it out the window to be crushed when the trash truck comes.

i still can't bear to contact mrs. cherry.  seems i can't fathom it unless tim can come too.

i continue to be amazed at my limitations for living extended times without tim in the room.  8 days has come to be my natural, near comfortable limit.  what sucks is that he can go for weeks in a well-adapted solo rhythm, buying groceries for himself, fixing chicken dinners, running, working 10 straight hours a day, taking out the trash, not locking himself out of the house.  his main glitch seems to be washing the striped, fitted sheet to the king sized bed.  not bad, all things considered.

i like not thinking about you every day. the dying you, that is to say.  i like not feeling the constant weighty presence of fresh grief.  but forming instead is a vague new longing.....a sense of all that could have been had you been a 60-something HEALTHY dad.  along with the sadness is a frustration, for despite my obsession with fiction, i have a terrible imagination.  i wonder if i should nurture the ability to create mental scenes of what will never be, or just leave well enough alone.

i can't wait for the day when photos of the sick you seem completely foreign to me.  and photos of the healthy you take me back to the simple joys of growing up with you as my dad.  it was a privilege to live so close to such a hopeful, optimistic, honorable man.  i do so wish you could still be here.  i'd build a new, spacious room for you in my heart.  Create a sensibly luxurious spot for you in our tiny studio space -- the moment you would ask.  i'd happily share my life, my space, my time, my skills.  sick or strong, i promise i'd try REALLY hard not to hold back.  just come back home to me.

if heaven can wait for all of us here, it could wait again for you.  i wouldn't keep you here forever.  just a year or two, or more.  we have a lot of birthdays yet to endure, and i'd really rather not do them without you.

a couple little things

i never thought i'd be the type of person who would need to keep in some sort of odd touch with the dead.  but, i guess i never really thought about what it would be like to live without a dad.  we didn't rely on giving each other updates when our lives were criss crossing here.  but somehow i must have known that dad always bent his ear, never rushed me through my vocalizations.  especially as a little girl.  i remember the bike rides, how i would petal and he would run beside my purple banana seat bike.  it worked well for both of us, i guess: because i had to go kinda slow (my front wheel would wobble sometimes), i had plenty of air in my chest cavity to do all of the talking, and since you had to go kinda fast to stay in step, you had only enough air to say "uh, huh" ....which was all the encouragement i needed to continue on.  occasionally i'd wonder at your interest, because you weren't saying much, but then you'd look my way, and smile, and i knew you were all mine.

so, here are my updates:

* my kindergarten teacher contacted me.  One of the most influential women in my whole childhood, one who nurtured me solidly onto a trail of continuous-feed learning. my heart is so full of, i don't know, just so full, that i begin to choke up with tears just thinking that she can still be in my life after an entire childhood has come and gone, and all of my early adulthood years as well.  i know without a doubt that she was the firstI knew that heros could exist beyond moms and dads.  I was taken, to my core, with admiration and the strongest urge to make her proud.  well she contacted me via email, can you believe it, and she lives in Tucson.  i just cannot wait til i can pull myself together and go give her a hug from the deepest place of childhood love.  and sure enough, she's proud of me, and you, and all we did together as you died.

* tim has taken a job that has given us an unbelievably exciting new-life adventure.  we get to live in texas too!  it's very cool.  i think you would love to do a tour of the manufacturing "plant" -- huge office, really, where they build their boxes, the ones that sniff the air for toxins.  I think you'd be fascinated, and would ask tim such best questions that he would actually begin to feel that it was him that was so fascinating.  I loved how you could do that.  tune in so well that people felt better about themselves by just having a simple conversation wtih you. 

* on Saturday a guy broke into our back office and started stealing our Arcadia computers.  then for some reason he started coming into the house via the pantry door at the same time that i was walking toward the pantry.  I wasn't sure what I was seeing until I was looking at him through the glass door that I apparetnly had just slammed in his little dark hoodied face.  i won't bore you with the details.  but i guess the take home message is that i finally get why you men think doors should be locked.  here all this time i thought you were being hypervigilant, because maybe you all were forced to give up playing cowboys and indians a couple years too soon.  Tim rushed to the airport to catch a flight home to commence the Security Summit (I really do love how men think)...but was waylaid by some trouble of his own.  i'll wait to let him fill you in on that bit.  but overall, the experience has left me properly chastised for my resistance to door locking, and a firm believer in non-monitored alarm systems.  i'm afraid you and your sons and your son in law have so carefully influenced me to embrace the DIY movement.  you could NEVER get me to pay someone money just to be sure i properly maintain my alarm, i'd be working from them every day, having to drop all my bags and race to the alarm so as not to disturb the poor alarm workers.  give me my pellet gun, and let's go glue glass shards along the back yard.  i'm not sure that if you were here i'd be all that interested in your opinion -- you probably wouldn't be so keen on the "rogue" approach.  But maybe if i got on my bike and you got on your running shoes, i'd at least fully understand how i feel about it by the time we've gone our 5 miles, and you'd be smiling, to watch your daughter come to a place of confidence just through her own time to talk out loud in the ears of a dad who never belittled or judged.

* Roxy died on the 5th month of your death.  Two weeks before, I had started calling her my hospice dog as i knew the only way i was going to take her in to the vet was is she was clearly suffering.  not suffering, her, but me suffering, yes.  everytime i reached down to scratch her little chin to see if she was alive, i felt what it was like to be reaching for you, to see if you were still with me.  I so wanted more of you -- and so little of her.  Everything else about her dying was like re-living yours.  Small scale, of course.  I had to keep it in a box because I was just getting to a place where thoughts of your dying process, and our current loss, were not at the foundation of every day. Its been nice to be able to breathe a little, to tackle my job and this new two-life-project with some recent energy.  I couldn't let a little weinerdog take me back under.  But whew!  Thanks to our true blue friend ulisses, Roxy was in good hands.  just today we learned that ulisses' other half, Nicole, was there for the service and some gentle words were given on her behalf.  And she is place north to sough, face and paws toward the west, to keep her eyes on the house.  God rest litlle dauschund soul.

*Arcadia business continues to improve.  If you were here, you'd be so good to ask about our growth, and we'd talk about numbers, and I'd probably get into the excitement of finally having a solid block of girls who want what we can give -- lots of classes and companionship, and help to structure their work so they don't get out of balance or overwhelmed.  I truly love this work.  and as I say this you would say something about how you think I'm good at it, then I would ask why, then you'd pause to think, then, well,  hmmm, we'd find some angle, some spin on your thoughts that would leave me feeling that i was probably a great pic to try just about anything, after i spent time with you when we would speak about work, I always had this sense that you truly, deeply believed in my competence to tackle anything.  That often meant the conversation had kinda come to a natural conclusion, and so tim would come in and disiss me.  and then you'd be off in la-la-happy plane land.  Two good ment.  Giving eveything their skilss would allow to nurture the girls they loved.

- Spanish class continues.  Love it.  will be over May 10 so I will  be so ready to get to extend our texas visits to about 10 days.

*that's about it for now.  friend is staying with us, til her house sells.  learning is a good thing.

so i have typed past my sleep medications picking in ....can't wasit to see what awaits me in the mornign.

ahhh...the day is here

oh my goodness.

i'm in a plane headed east.  in just a couple hours tim and i will land in washington d.c. -- truly, the place that we Philip Bruces have soundly decided is HOME.  which is not easy to do, as a military family, to name the place to house our roots.

i could not be more excited that dad's final resting place is in the nation's capital.  after all, he's the one that etched the truest form of patriotism into our familial heart. 

and further: for his body to be placed at Arlington National Cemetery, amongst the sea of men and women who have given themselves to America.  WOW.  takes my breath away.

and yet further: to be an observer of the greatest honors a country can bestow one of their fallen

don't love what i see

ok, so in re-reading my last two posts, i gotta say i'm not loving where this is going.

somehow, dad, i thought i'd always be able to keep this space all about you.  yes, my presence, my signature sense of things, is allowable here, sure, but only as a medium to show people the kind of man you are (pre 9-11) / were (post 9-11).  but it's weird, at least for me, how the "grief process"  -- i still prefer the word "process" over "grief"; who wants to grieve? -- it somehow becomes more about me than you.  how i'm feeling, what you meant to me as a dad, what it means to be here without you.

i remember when grandpa died, and i couldn't do a thing with or for myself -- no process, all grief.  it wasn't cool, how i would spontaneously burst into silent, desperate tears when a tender thought of him crossed my heart -- but at least i didn't have to drag myself through the self-analysis that your death, or rather, my place in your death, seems to be bringing before me.  they say you can't run grief's show.

ugghhhh. 

well, dad, it was 2 months ago tonight that you breathed your last.  hope it wasn't painful or too hard.  seemed pretty workable to me, what your body was asking you to do as you passed.  certainly, it was nothing like what life had asked of you in the weeks and months, maybe even years, leading up to your death.  i remember i wrote that it was a gentle death, complete with your signature twinkle.  it was also kinda open-minded, just like you...how you seemed gone, then you weren't, then maybe it's now, then i guess not yet....now?  no, not just yet.....................the breaths kept coming, even when we thought surely this one was the last.  even laura, our hospice nurse, waited five minutes to call your time of death because she wanted to be sure.  your final breaths were, well, remarkably flexible.  just like you.  whew.  people die the way they live, i've come to say.

sister cheryl was the one who checked in with me today.  funny, how aware she seems to be of the dates and the times.  and how clueless i am.  she says it took her weeks to get through a saturday night without reliving pieces of your passing.  me -- symbolic dates kinda sneak up on me, they're haphazard and arrive without fanfare.  i'll be one of those post-stroke patients who is never fully oriented, no matter how much self-insight i display! 

i hope cheryl never stops checking in on your anniversary dates.

well, dad, we miss you.  that much is clear.  and, as anxious as i am about being in a "good place" when we put your body to rest a week from monday,  i am sure looking forward to experiencing the honor of your resting place.  and seeing your beautiful flag-covered casket once again.  you make me so proud.  truly you do.

hope you're finding heaven to be as delightful a place as everyone envisions it to be.

always, k.

xoxox

a little word looms large

so, here's the post i placed friday night into hellogrief.org.  love the peppy way i talk around the utter fatigue that grief brings?  me too! 

as i wrote and edited, one thing that i thought carefully about is the phrase at the end:  "as i rebuild my spirit in the wake of my father's death..."  i considered two things:  one, am i overdoing it, to suggest that one's spirit falls in disrepair after sustaining the death process with a loved one?  nah, don't think so.  not in my case, anyway.  the second:  what does the term "wake" really mean?  and does it fit here?  so here's what i learned about the different nuances of the word (complements of dictionary.com):

WAKE: (n) 1-a watching, for some solemn purpose; 2-a vigil by the body of a dead person before burial, often involving feasting or merrymaking; 3-the state of being awake.

seems to me there's some paradoxical stuff going on here.  one, that a solemn purpose (watching over the body of a dead person) would involve a party; and two, that the opposing concepts of "awake" and "dead" would be intertwined in the same word.  makes me think of dad's spirit: when it was all said and done, his death process likely brought to him both awakening and merrymaking. 

yes, in some odd way i think the word is a perfect fit -- and hidden within it must  be some keys to the resolving of that utter fatigue.  a little bit of fun, anyone?  ahhhh, for sure, when the proper time has passed.

============================================================

Interesting.  Tonight I ran across a journal I'd started on my birthday two years ago.  Apparently, I was preparing a year in advance for the beginning of a new decade.  I love to take time every so often (usually at New Years -- my favorite holiday) to step back and take a look at the global picture of my life: what's working, what's not, what I value, what I don't.  I love to get a visual picture of what I'm hoping for, so I know what to work toward.  The end of one era and the beginning of another can be especially delightful.  So...what better time to take stock in things than a year before the "expiration date" of a great decade?!  At least that must be what I was thinking that night as I placed my thoughts on the page:
_____________________________________________________________

My 20's:  I created and established the adult me. 

My 30's:  I discovered and labored within my life work.

My 40's: FREEDOM and JOY ----- and lots and lots of FUN !  (I have one year to figure this out.)

_____________________________________________________________

Well...................
Ok, so I'm now one year behind schedule.  Not bad. 

Freedom and Joy, actually, are always with me.  They define the deepest part of who I am (thanks to all that hard work in my 20's).  But -- FUN?!?  Even worse --- LOTS AND LOTS of fun?!?  What planet was I on?  What foreign substance was coursing through my veins? 

Tonight, as my eyes arrive at that simple birthday wish of two years ago, I feel the Grief Haze heavy over me: I'm reading a language I studied as a kid and I can't quite place the word.   

fun?   
FUN?   
F - U - N ?    
"F" as in Frank, "U" as in Underwear, "N" as in Nancy?    

What exactly is it?  A person?  A place?  A thing?  A feeling?  An idea? And what does it have to do with me?  Or my future?  Did I really want it?  Think I needed it?  Deserved it?  Nothing better to do with my time?  My heart?  My life?

The calendar on the corner of my computer catches my eye.  It's Friday.  Count the weeks: October 22nd, one week.  October 15th, two weeks.  October 8th, three; October 1st, four.  September 24th, five weeks; September 17th, six; September 10, seven.  Seven weeks ago tonight, Dad had one day left to live.  Seven weeks ago tonight, my sister had just flown in from Canada and we were soaking up our father, knowing our time together was coming to a close.   Birthday wishes?  Who would want them now?  Fun?  I couldn't think of anything more frivolous if you paid me a million bucks.  Lots and lots of fun? Ok now we've entered the realm of the obcene.

Could it really have been me that night, wishing for an abundance of such an innocent, idealistic, unneccesary 3 letter word?!?  A woman all of 38 years of age?  Seems like something an eager adolescent would ask for, not some well-established, mature, enlightened adult.  Could this really be the same woman who had, for countless hours and days of each year of her life, been brave to touch and tackle so many grown-up things?  Did she really fall in love with the man of her dreams?  Figure out how to stay permanently and gloriously in love with the man of her reality?  Start, re-start, and finally finish schooling?  Start a business?  Keep a business? Nurture friendships?  Build a home?  Care for her beloved Grandfather as he died a slow and careful death?  Help her baby brothers grow to become amazing young men?  Follow the antics of five nephews, one neice, no two, no three, make that eight adorable neices and nine precious nephews; with more who are sure to join the fray?

This woman's been to the moon and back, in her own unique and marvelous way.  So why would she now, nearly two full decades after her big adult life began, want to capture something so very very small?  How did she find the place inside herself to wish for it?  From whence did that youthful energy and ambition arise? 

Actually, to tell you the truth, I can't exactly remember.  I don't remember why.  And I certainly don't remember how.  But I think I can wager a guess.  I think my yearning for that simple, three-lettered something has everything to do with being a kid again.  Because living large and all grown up isn't all there is to life.  Sure, I wouldn't want to give up my home, my work, my friends, my memories with my Grandpa, those awesome years with my brothers -- and for sure, you couldn't pry that priceless husband of mine from my heart if you tried.  But...I can only be an adult, a responsible, reasonable adult, for so many years on end before childhood comes knocking at my door once more.  I don't mind the heavy decisions and the gut wrenching sacrifices that brave adulthood brings.  In fact, I see them as a privilege and a gift.  But it's those blasted grown-up expectations of others and myself; its' those responsibilities and commitments that come because I didn't think to dig a little deeper.  Life doesn't have to be complicated.  No need for grandiose.  Just a simple soaking up of life.  To see the happy moments and linger there for just an extra moment or two. 

As I gradually rebuild my spirit in the wake of my father's death, I'm sure I'll be ready once again.  Maybe not this month, maybe not next year.  But when the proper time has passed (and surely before the next decade rolls around) my youthful ambition will return.  And then I'll be READY.  Ready for lots, and lots, of pure and simple, soul-refreshing FUN.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

FOR MY VISITORS AND FRIENDS:  Thanks for reading my post!  So, I'd love to hear about you.  What do you feel like you've lost?  What do you hope will return?  How long do you think it might take? 

=========================================================
p.s. tonight is the last time i get to say "last month my dad died."  from here forward, his death becomes, increasingly, a thing of the past.  funny how even the littlest of things can require one to work at letting go...ready or not.

a whole new world arrives at my door

this week i stumbled onto a new community that has already meant the world to me.  it's a place built for children who are learning to live with loss.  specifically, the loss of a brother, sister, parent, grandparent, or other key person who played a crucial caregiving role in their life.   drownings, alcoholism, heart attacks, suicides, car accidents, death.  death, death, and more death.  all these tender spirits who have sustained the crazy-heavy blow of loss.  Not just any loss, mind you, but loss of the one they relied upon for all of the basics of their life: food, clothing, shelter, love.  or in some cases, it is actually a cocktail of loss.  take one of my new friends for example:  at 13 she lost her grandfather who took care of her, because at 5 she lost her father, and at 4 she lost her mother. 

so many awful stories.  so much pain and sadness.  and yet, to spend time there is to feel this oddest lifting of the spirit.  when i'm there i find my insides fill themselves with hope, with goodness, with fun.  hard to imagine isn't it?  i guess you gotta see it to believe it.

http://www.hellogrief.org/

its the online community of a not-for-profit group that puts on camps for children who are grieving.  pretty cool, what this organization has created.  and how it helps those kids. and their parents.  and the volunteers.  and me.

it's inspirational, in the largest sense of the word, to connect with these precious kids and young adults. to learn from them how to balance the past in all its frail glory into the future with its endless demands of growth.  they gather themselves together, and they do it.  they tackle their futures,  those countless big, first-time grown up things:  they graduate from high school, attend their first class at college, collect new boyfriends, buy new houses, walk down the aisle. birth their first child.  each and every new task that life brings to them, they do without their father.  or their mother.  or both.  their courage empowers me as i begin  to craft my dad-less frame of life.  their friendship humbles me.

Soooo....

not only have i started "friending" people, and creating updates and commenting on the forums and posting cool photos, but i've fleshed out my profile and created an awesome memorial page for dad (if i do say so myself).  and what's more, i've found a whole new way to honor dad.  i've begun to blog.  and as i write, i find myself almost supernaturally filtering my thoughts and feelings in a way that allows me so soon in my grief to avail myself to a kid who might be able to learn from the story i have to tell. it's the most remarkable thing.   i'm speaking honestly.  yes.  i'm honest, vulnerable, raw.  but the me that finds itself on the page is a PG version of me.  it's the same me that found her voice here, but its a gentler, softer me.  


wait.  you don't feel the wonder of this gift that has found its way into my lap?  well, then -- perhaps you've never stared grief between its beady eyes. 


grief, i am sad to discover, is a twisted, unwieldy beast.  it doesn't surrender itself to chirpy wishes or soften when offered a vanilla-flavored dose of vague sentamentality.  it refuses even to bend itself to a heartfelt desire to remember the dead through a pure and simple lens of kindness.  oh no.  grief is not generous, steadfast or warm.  it is a fickle friend, at best; at worst, it is that enemy you must keep closer than a friend. 


so now do you see the beauty of this thing?  i have found another safe place to share my pain.  as i enter the world of these courageous children and teens, i find myself able to use my words to connect.  i don't have to water down the cold, cruel facts of my heart and thus weaken my sense of the truth.  my spirit, on a path all its own, is softening the message to match the heart of my intended audience.  and because it is, i am free to fully connect with them.  my ugly scruffy grief, when brought to the place where children live, is willing to take a gentler stance.  all brutality is set aside as i paint for them pictures of my father.  and me as his daughter.  thank you, grief.  you nasty tender bastard, you.


if i've learned anything from my arcadia families and all my precious neices and nephews, i've learned that kids must be given the truth in a way that nurtures their unformed curves.  their tender developing selves cannot absorb a truth in a form that crushes or cripples.  Our imperfect stories -- yes, even pieces of our darkest, saddest stories, can and should be given to our children as humble gifts of love, but they can only be delivered in the best possible way.  life's hardest lessons colored in gentle, lighter, warmer shades of the harsh, original hue.  of course.  that's where we get baby blue.  and pastel pink.  and lavendar. and lemondrop yellow, and seafoam green.

*              *               *                *                *

so what to do with this space here?  well, perhaps, in order to keep this as my permanent dad memorybook, i'll reprint my Hello Grief posts here.  and perhaps, in keeping with the me that flows like an extension of my body the moment i sit down at this screen,  i'll attach a prefix or a postscript for you.  if i can, i'll add an unfiltered, true-blue take on the topics i'm tackling for myself and those brave souls in my new young world. 

what a great place this is

wow!!  what a great place this is.

over the past weeks, i have been collecting multiple ways to stay "tapped in" to dad and the amazing process of living within his life and death story. 

* Grief Share (a church-run support group that friend jen introduced me to.  which, by the way is very cool in that it is in the back office of a church run coffee house.  never knew that coffee houses had back offices complete with sofas, dvd players, and tissues for tears.  as if coffee houses needed another reason to be cool!)

* Books (still loving the two i found during my quiet days right after dad's passing: Awakening from Grief, by john welshons and A Beautiful Death, by cheryl eckl.  And have spent a few moments in sister cheryl's all-time fav, Heaven, by randy alcorn)

* Tim (turns out, he's got sadness issues of his own to muscle his way through, as a result of his love and care for dad during his final days)

* Dinner Dates with dear friends (whether half the night is all about dad, or i receive just the briefest moment of dad-specific care as a friend imagines my months of pain...you just can't beat surrounding yourself with people you love who made tough choices to walk through loss alongside you)

* Mom and Me, at our new ESL -- that's English-as-a-Second-Language -- class at her community church (ok, dad, this one's not directly about you....but i miss working with mom to tackle your story.  so, in your absence, here's something that i just know you would have been so supportive of.  you always got excited when you thought of things that mom would be so good at doing.  which was often...you always held her in such high esteem!  as a young kid, about 5 or 6 it seems, i actually felt sorry for you -- i had this sinking feeling you just weren't the sharpest tool in the shed.  we can say this one's got YOU written all over it, dad....you were always contrasting mom's brilliance with your own, well, not-so-shiny skill sets.  it was spelling, and english, i think, that did you in.  course within about 7 or 8 years i began to see all that flying of the planes, and all those shimmery buttons on your mess dress uniform, as evidence to the contrary.  what a clever way to help your kids admire their mother!! and -- outside of your design -- in time, it helped your kids come to admire their father, too.)

Tonight, I find myself back here. 

Here, at the place where i went each night to clear my heart in preparation for what lay ahead when i awoke again to a new dad day.  the past several weeks, i've not come to visit.  i guess my heart was spinning in other directions and it didn't seem right to bring it back to relive the details of dad's passing.  but tonight, i come to check just one small thing and before i know it, i'm back.  not fully immersed, but fully partially immersed.  it's September 11th, and September 17th, and the 5 posts in between, that fully partially capture me.  i don't need to relive my sensations (i'm not that very far removed yet) and i don't need to comb the place for new insights (i'm still stumbling over the ones that are already staring me down).  even after hanging out here for an hour or so, i guess i still don't think i need to be here tonight.  But....i must say...MAN IS IT NICE TO BE HERE AGAIN!!! 

i'm kinda surprised:  i'm not reliving the pain, i'm reliving the love.  maybe someday i'll take the time to get back into the heartache etched in all my many words.  but tonight...what amazes me is the love. 

wow.  i remember again why those impossible days weren't unliveable.  the connections made here were powerful.  sustaining.  God's love passed through His people's online presence.  karli, jen, gail, cheryl, D, jb, beth, and so so so  many other good kind souls.  107 comments all told.  pretty wild-cool.

ahhh, i love how God, how He lets life advance, and new things take hold.  new, big things that touch us all...squishy-techy things like blogs and facebook love.  and new, medium-sized things that touch a few.  like gifted authors, and coffee house secret spots, and ESL.  and new, small things -- big things -- that touch just me.