Backpacks for Grace!

Is this the backpack you'd choose? Or would purple be your favorite color? Would you be a tomboy and pick blue? Maybe, just maybe you'd be less like your sister and more like your own self. In that case, maybe you'd want a slingback bag or a tote bag or maybe even a brief case!

We don't know do we for sure, what kind of bag you might choose for your first year of school, for your first day of kindergarten...

What I do know is this? I have to take action. I have to do something because in three weeks, all the kids go back to school and all the 5 year olds are shopping like it's Christmas, buying school clothes, getting school bags, buying pencils, practicing writing their names.

So here's the deal, Grace! I can't buy you a backpack. I can't dress you up for school. I can't let you scream at me that you don't want me to brush your hair and you don't care if it's all tangly and you just want me to let you dress yourself in stripes and colors and patterns that don't match. And I can't walk or drive or follow you to school on the first day and sit in your classroom as you look around taking cues from your older brother and sister on how to act.

But, sweet child, here is what I can do:

I can go to the store and pick out a backpack and fill it with school supplies and take it to a school and drop it off for a child who maybe hasn't had the same chances as we have, who maybe won't get a new backpack even though she is here. What I can do is ask others to do the same. I can ask them to go to the store and get the following supplies:

1 girl's or boy's backpack
A supply box to hold pencils and crayons
1 box 8-large size washable markers
1 pair blunt-end scissors
1 box of tissue
1 box 24 Crayons
2 - #2 pencils
glue stick

You can buy those things and send me an email and I will come to you to pick it up and donate the backpack in Grace's name to a kindergarten class in the Spokane District 81 school system.

Or if you don't have time or live far away, you can send me a check for $25 and I will go shopping to purchase a backpack and school supplies in Grace's name for someone who might need a little extra something to get them started.

And who knows, maybe I can get 5 or 6 bags or a dozen or more and children around Spokane can carry backpacks on their shoulders and I can find Grace in them.

Ask and ye shall receive!

14 bags and counting. The world rocks!

More backpacks for grace...

Wow, and just like that, I have 10 backpacks either made or promised to me! So now, I'm going for a dozen at least! Thank you, all of you, for your support!

And incredibly, I just got a note from someone in New Zealand who is participating, and I've never met her! How amazingly cool is that! Thank you, Sarah! (really, her name is Sarah too!)

Fourth of July

Thirty-four days after Grace died, I got it in my head that we needed to get out of the house and we needed to go to Riverfront park and we needed to take Carver and Sophia to the Fourth of July Fireworks show. We brought a blanket, we brought snacks, and we sat on the grass looking up at the sky watching the fireworks. And I remember just staring at them, listening to the crackling and kabooms and looking at all the people around me, hundreds, a thousand or more people, and feeling lost in a sea of strangers.

Tears were streaming down my face, and Sophia was buried in my arms terrified at age two of the noise the fireworks were making. And Terry was holding Carver who was mesmerized by them. There were people everywhere, eating cotton candy, drinking icees, and I had never felt more lonely, more alone than in that moment, the sky above lit up and somewhere out there was Grace among the fireworks, lost in the air, and I couldn't reach for her, I couldn't save her from the sounds, I couldn't cover her ears.

And five years have passed, and just a few nights ago, we sat under the stars, on the same grass watching what could have been the same fireworks and it was a beautiful and glorious site, mesmerizing, transformative and Sawyer at two was on my lap and I was covering his ears and I buried my face against him and I said a prayer in thanks for his sweet, sticky self, for the way the icee was spilled all over his shirt, stuck between his fingers, and his hair hard and cracking from the sugar, a sweet, sweet taste of life and love.

...something is missing...

My daughter Sophia cried for an hour straight tonight. No, she didn't cry, she sobbed. And while she sobbed, Terry and I tried unsuccessfully to figure out what was wrong.

She had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion at about 5:30 p.m. on our bed and woke up an hour later sobbing.

We assumed she was discombobulated. We assumed she was hungry. We assumed a lot of false things on the pretext that we are the parents and we assumed we knew what was wrong. My talking made her crying worse. My leaving the room made her crying worse.

And finally after settling down, after drinking some water, after being cheered up by her older brother, she confessed that she didn't really know what was wrong, that it just seemed to her like something was missing. But she couldn't tell us what was missing. She just felt like something was missing.

She has done this before--started crying inexplicably and in the end can't vocalize what's wrong. And tonight I thought about it some more. Of course, this something missing she is going to carry her whole life.

I've felt it. Terry has felt it. Carver has felt it though he doesn't express it in the same way. Something is missing. Someone is missing, and I think that I need to be more aware of this as I help my children navigate through the complexities of this feeling. Because as Sophia grows up, as she understands the greater thing that she has lost, her grief could become larger, heavier, more complicated. She may in fact feel that missing sister more as she struggles to understand her place in the world sans Grace. It may be that as my grief settles and changes (never diminishing), as the children grow older, their grief for Grace may feel unsettled and larger.

And sometimes, I get too caught up in my own grief to allow anyone else to have theirs. I want to keep my grief for Grace and I want it to be THE grief for Grace and I don't always remember to let Carver or Sophia or Terry or even Sawyer have their own grief. And yet, here in front of me is Sophia reminding me that she has her grief too.

The last thing I want is for her to walk around with that hole being unable to express it, being unable to be okay with it. I know that hole; I know that sense of loss deep into my bones as deep as a five-year-old girl knows when she has lost her father, when she has come home from kindergarten to find her mother and her brothers at home crying and a whole host of friends, family and strangers walking around in her house and never understanding why her father decides to never walk through that front door again. And as she fails to understand all of this or describe it or even be allowed to express it, the hole just grows deeper and larger and darker until it disappears into a black hole only to be unleashed thirty some years later as she holds her lifeless daughter on her lap and in her arms.

And that hole, that something missing is what she's been trying to protect her family from unsuccessfully. And yes, Sophia, yes, something very large is missing, and there is something very fragile in that feeling, but there is also something very beautiful and delicate and full of love, and full of love, and full of love...

Gina and Sarah and Grace

Last week a friend moved away. She didn't move across the country or out of my life, but she moved across the state, and with her she took a piece of Grace. Last week we were standing on her porch talking, and she told me her story of Grace, her story of standing in her driveway, having a party during Artfest weekend and answering the phone and hearing the news and standing among friends with tears rolling down her face. And as I heard that story for the first time, it occured to me that there is a whole piece of Grace's story I am still missing.

I am missing the pieces of Grace that affected other people's lives. I have another friend who started a jewelry business after Grace died. And these are the friends that get it. They are not the friends who have lost children, but they have an innate understanding of my grief that most people seem to be missing. Why is that?

Why is it that some of the people I've known the longest, some of the people I grew up with, some of the people I've shared houses with, don't get it. They don't get that the grief doesn't ever go away, they don't understand that what I really need is for them to just say Grace's name, they don't get that it's okay still, after five years, that I long for Grace, that I think of Grace, that I miss Grace.

My circle has grown smaller. My circle includes the people that understand me, that let me be me in front of them, the people who say Grace's name outloud, the people who tell me their dreams about Grace.

I miss Gina already. I miss the familiarity of her presence, knowing that in a moment I could step onto her porch and be with her as she talks about Grace; I miss the security of having just one more person in Spokane who was here when Grace was here, who gets it and gets me and without saying anything else, I miss just being in her presence, in their presence together knowing that when I am with Gina, Grace is present and Grace is real.

the ocean

When you are standing in front of the ocean, when you are looking at the water with the eyes of a seven-year-old, you think that the ocean goes on forever, that the waves crashing onto the sand will fall back into the ocean and return again and again into forever.

When you are standing in front of the ocean, when you are looking at the water with the eyes of a two-year-old, you think that the sand and the water and the air and the sun and the noise are all exploding into a sensory overload of your head, your body and your soul. It is all too much at once and all too little and as you try to drink all of it in, you begin to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and you simply learn to delight in the what is there in front of you--first, the sand, then the water as if the rest of the world existed to make you become the water.

When you are standing in front of the ocean, when you are looking at the water with the eyes of a forty-one-year-old, you wonder how it is that you swam in this same ocean, that you slept on the same sand, that you walked along the same shore year after year for so many years and not once did you contemplate that it would only be yours for your childhood. That you would walk away from that ocean in your teens and not return again until well past your twenties. That when you returned, the forgotten days of childhood, the innocence of it all, the memory of it seems distant and fond and all with rose-colored glasses.

And when you are standing in front of the ocean as an adult, you realize how momentary it all is, how fragile it is and as the waves come crashing down and the sea salt sprays your body and the water touches your skin, you close your eyes and breath it in, breath it in so that this moment when it passes is with you forever so that like the conch shell you can carry it inside of you and hear the waves, smell the salt and feel the breeze at any given moment even when you are 1,200 miles away.

And you do the same with your children so that when they leave home whether at birth or as they walk out your front door and into their own lives, you can close your eyes and smell their breathe, feel their warm milkiness against you and their soft, downy hair that has turned coarse and altogether disappeared into forever like the ocean and the waves and the memory of the sand all at once warm on your body and stuck between your toes.

Foot Bridge

I went walking this week. I probably walked close to 30 miles, all over town, across bridges and up hills, through neighborhoods, past baseball diamonds, into parks, through fields and into the city. I walked across rivers and I stood on a foot bridge with the river splashing over the top of me until I was drenched, until my glasses were fogged and my hair was dripping and my clothes were soaked. Certainly the urge was there to get lost in the river. What I wanted to do was float, I wanted to float on top and let the current take me where it will. They say people die in rivers because they fight the current, that if you really fall into fast moving water, you shouldn't fight it, you should float it. That's not to say there isn't still a danger. Of course there is. Of course, there is still a huge risk but you have a greater chance of survival if you don't fight it, if you don't fight the current.

That makes sense because I'm guessing that people who supress their feelings, people who bury their grief, live a shorter life. This is not a scientific theory but it makes sense to me. After all, if you can release your emotions, if you can release your feelings, it's healthier for your physically, mentally and spiritually.

What if we took our collective grief and really did something with it? What if we took our collective grief and let it out, if we wailed in the streets, if we danced in the park, if we floated down the river.

Grace would be five years old tomorrow, on Sunday. And Grace is five, but she is five in a much more ethereal way then I ever expected. And of course I'd rather have her in a tangible way, I'd rather have her in a physical way. So I can mourn that loss, I can grieve that loss of her while I celebrate the presence of Sawyer, while I celebrate the presence of other things in my life.

Here is a list of first names of people I know because Grace isn't here:

Jill
Sara
Joanne
Kara
Hawk
Jo
Ellis
Aubrianna
Isabelle
Pam
Vanessa
Layla
John
Peter
Amanda
Beth
Grace
Payton
Tom
Micah
Liam
Russ
Olivia
Micah
Arah
Carolyn
Heather
Becky
Virginia
Ben
James

This is by no means a comprehensive list. But it is a list of people who have made me a better person in one way or another. It is a list of people, one or two who have saved my life, 5 or 6 who never lived more than a month but affected my life, many who have made my life better.

And so for that I am forever grateful and knowing that Grace is not here, I know that my life is still rich and my life is full and I am supposedly a more empathetic person. I am a person with a deep, deep wound that once in a while seeps. But we all carry our wounds one way or another and it is how we heal them that determines the size of the scar. I wear my scar proudly, and I remain wounded, but I am wounded with my heart grown larger and so the river still rages but eventually it will subside and it will flow more smoothly until another snowstorm hits and another thawing melts the snow and it may just very well start all over again to rage. But it will have changed and it will have evolved and it will have strengthened.

Chronos versus Kairos

In graduate school, I had a professor who often referred to literary references in novels in relationship to kairos versus chronos. Kairos time, he explained, meant 'in the time of angels.'

It was a difficult concept for me to grasp at the time because when I was working on stories, it was easy to think there was a beginning, middle and end. Time moved forward. But the more I wrote, the less time began to move in a forward direction.

While chronos is described as quantitative, kairos is described as qualitative.

My life used to be easily divided into segments of time: before I got married, after I got married, as soon as we have children, when we adopt a dog, 10 years into marriage, etc.

And then Grace happened and time as I've always known it, twisted and turned upside down. Time was no longer linear; time was no longer slow or fast, time became kairos, time became qualitative and I still find myself struggling to define time. When I tell a story, I often confuse the time period, I can't recall how long it's been since I've been on an airplane, or how long it's been since my last period. But I can tell you how long I have been without Grace and how long I have been with Carver, with Sophia, with Sawyer. I can tell you that Sawyer is 2, but really hasn't he been here my whole life? Haven't I always known he was going to come be with us. And it is in this time that I now live, with the angels, among the angels and because of the angels.

The River

If you live in Spokane, it is highly unlikely that you've missed the river of late. Even as it is rushing by, you cannot miss it, you can blink and it still appears rushing by. It is swelling, full, raging--it is all things I have felt of late. And still I am drawn to it, to its power, to its fullness. I walk by it nearly every day. I have walked across all the walking bridges in downtown Spokane, and I stand on the edge and look over; I stand on the edge and wonder about jumping and I don't mean jumping in the sense of losing life, but I mean jumping and swimming up river, swimming against the current or lying on my back and letting myself float downstream. What if you could wear some kind of body suit that protected you from the river's damage, would you jump? Would you fly over the edge? What if the river took you downstream and there sitting on the edge of the stream was a little girl, about to turn five, with her feet dangling over the edge, and you could swim and sit beside her and talk to her and ask her about her life and ask her about the life she isn't living. What if you could find her in the river, on the rock not worried at all about falling because she has already fallen. What if you were the one who had fallen and she was there to pick you up?

But then the river just keeps flowing and I keep going downstream and occasionally I try to swim upstream and I try to fight the current and eventually I return to floating on my back, to watching the sky above me and letting the river below me hold me, float me, and carry me. And on that journey, I discover new things about myself and others.

Fragility

Have you ever felt like you were walking on egg shells that were just about to crack? Have they ever cracked on you?

I am both amazed and frightened sometimes at the fragility of life. It can happen in a moment, a child darting away from you, stepping out onto a ledge, a heart beating one moment and the next, it stops.

Today Sawyer ran away from me. He ran hard and I chased him. He ran out into the street. Luckily there were no cars coming because if they were, well, I can't go there. But he does this often, he thinks it's a game and he dashes off, running at full speed with a good lead. It can be hard to catch up to him.

And shortly before this, Sophia went off to a public restroom with a friend. Carver never would have gone on his own and I wouldn't have let him. But now, my hands are so full with so many children that the younger two get away with much more. And so off she walked, dripping wet in her swimming suit, barefoot, into a public restroom. And then, I didn't see her come out. I didn't see her come back and head toward the fountain, the water fountain in the park where everyone was playing. And so I went looking for her and as the minutes ticked by, my heart beat fast, my head filled with blood and I started to feel woozy.

I've been holding it inside, all of this, thinking that if I breath, if I let out my breathe, something else might happen. As if my very existence could conjure up something terrible. I breath and my breathe holds itself up, as if falling, it might very well crush something. And so my chest rises and falls, and I wait, wondering, looking, feeling overwhelmed.

Plunging into the wild

Have you seen the movie, 'Into the Wild?'

Some might see it as adventure, as foolishness, as stupidity...I see it as loss, as growth, as discovery...The quote that takes my breath away:

"I fear for the mother in her. Instincts that seem to sense the threat of loss so huge and irrevocable that the mind baulks at taking its measure. I'd begin to wonder if I can understand all that chris is saying any longer but I catch myself and remember that these are not the parents he grew up with but people softened by the forced reflection that comes with loss. Still, everything Chris is saying has to be said and I trust that everything he is doing has to be done. This is our life."

And there it is--'people softened by the forced reflection that comes with loss.'

I suppose you have a choice, to be softened or to be hardened, but in choosing, one doesn't really consider those things on a conscious level. One just does what one has to do to go on living, and sometimes the living is the most difficult part, the getting up in the morning, the getting through the day, the getting to the end of the day.

And here I am, nearly five years out; in just a few short days, Grace would have been five. In just a few short days, I begin the re-living that starts again, that has already begun. It is not so much that the grief pales, but it does change, it does metamorphose and in that change, it doesn't always necessarily get easier. I feel like I've taken steps backwards as of late, steps in the opposite direction. I feel like I want Grace here. I have everything I've wanted. I have Terry, I have Carver, I have Sophia, I have Sawyer. I want Grace.

Why is it so hard this year? Why is it different than last and the one before that? There is Sawyer who is no longer a baby, but a toddler, a person coming into himself and love grows and love grows and Sawyer, I know, is not Grace nor would I ever want to put that on him. But in turning five, Grace would be starting kindergarten, Grace would be trailing after Sophia, looking up to her, looking for her approval, testing the limits. I want the tantrums, I want the hair cutting episodes with a pair of scissors under the kitchen table, I want the ponies lined up waiting for princes and princesses. I want those things that are out of reach, out of touch, out of sight. I don't want flowers on an altar; I don't want pity; I don't want gray images of my daughter with her eyes closed. I want Grace. I want the very thing I cannot have. I want to see the baseball land at my feet in the 9th inning with the bases loaded so that I can reach out to catch the baby that is falling; I want to catch the baby; I want to stop falling.

before you leave...

Go here, buy a song, buy a cd, take ellis home with you. And before she leaves town, I want to say thank you for coming back, thank you for reminding us what matters, thank you for your laugh and thank you, thank you.

It is much easier to get through the month, it is much easier to make it to June 1st. It's much easier to make it past June 1st. It is all just much better with you here.

Blessings, my friend!

The Anguish of Loss

This is the book on my desk next to me. Have you read it? If not, why? It speaks volumes around anything else I could say or write. And when I just want to curl up in a ball and cry, this is the book I hold. It is beautifully written, the art is stunning and what it says, says it all.

At our MISS meeting on Tuesday night, Sara and I gave out books to all the moms and grandmothers who came. It is a reminder of where we are, of what we share.

Mother's Day is on Sunday and for some of us, it is a reminder of what has been lost, of what is missing, of what we can't have. It is a reminder that we while not entering lightly into the task of motherhood, could not choose our path, could not have what we wanted, could not hold on to our children despite our best efforts to protect them, to protect ourselves from that which we could never wish for.

We are mothers still; some of us have other children that we can cling to; some of us are mothers despite the fact that our children are not here.

And so a challenge: What could you do for someone on Mother's day who is hurting, who is lonely, who might be missing their child? Probably nothing, but for us whose children are missing, in Spokane we are handing out Random Act of Kindness cards and we are driving through espresso shops all day on Mother's day and we are buying cars behind us a little bit of joy, a little bit of relief, and in the moment, maybe for just a few moments, someone will think of our children who aren't here, someone will wish for us the kind of peace that we might never have. But I will drive away from the window smiling, knowing that in that moment, perhaps someone can have a cup of coffee with grace, for grace and of grace.

Grief has a way...

Grief has a way of blindsiding you, of stepping into your day and turning it upside down; of showing up on your doorstep unannounced, rapping at the door, tapping, insistently until you let it inside, and when you do, it has a way of unleashing itself, of throwing itself onto you and not letting go.

This is how it has felt all month to me and today. An ordinary day, an April 30th, 2008 ordinary day. The three kids are tucked into bed, a cake is in the oven, the dogs are asleep on the floor and there behind the door I have refused to open all day is my grief, rapping harder and harder, pretending to be patient, pretending to be waiting for me as if it's not just going to break the door down and descend on me.

And here I am hiding, amongst my things, hiding behind a screen, in a room filled with papers and books, and dust. Hiding and hoping that eventually the grief will turn around and leave thinking everyone has gone away. But we haven't have we? Here we are, waiting to open the door, hoping at any moment instead of the grief, it will be Grace knocking on the door, running inside at the end of a day, an ordinary day where she might have played with friends, where she might have made a mud cake, climbed over sleeping dogs only to knock after her friend's mother has brought her home, only to say, "Here I am mommy, don't cry, here I am."

Only to say, "It's me, and I will grow up and be your daughter and find a love in my life and have children and you can see them and hold them and love them and they will have cousins and I will still have one sister and two brothers and the four of us, we will all be here with you and I will hold your hand when it's your turn to be held and I will still be here and I will still be here."