Category: Life

Beautiful, big sky Montana

38 steps to my bed, but worth every booted step.

Life hasn’t been all sad, all the time, contrary to what I have written since January.   

A few weeks ago, I stayed in a tree house, and it was not sad.  My extended family was vacationing at a ranch in Montana —  22 in total, including 8 children ranging in age from 1 to 15 years.  I was the only one in our group who had stairs in their accommodations, 38 to be exact, and the only one with compromised mobility (at the time, I was still with the broken ankle, still with the boot).  Steps and all, I still think I had the best accommodations. Every single step of the tight spiral staircase, 20 to the main living area with floor-to-ceiling windows, a fireplace, and a bathroom with a soaking tub surrounded by windows that looked out onto trees, and 18 up to my bedroom, was worth it.  

Technically, it wasn’t a tree house, as it wasn’t situated in a tree, but was surrounded by trees and built on metal pylons that lifted it at least a story.  It had a treehouse feeling inside, with wide-plank wooden floors and floor-to-ceiling walls of glass.  In the evenings, while I was at dinner, housekeeping would lower the shades.  The first night I came home after dinner and saw the shades lowered, I was annoyed, as it no longer felt like a tree house. I spent the next several minutes raising the shades in the bedroom so I could look out at the trees, as it was still light out, even at almost 10:00 pm.  The moon was full, and after lying in bed for a few minutes, I understood why the shades had been lowered. It felt like a light had been left on with the brightness of the moon.  And so I began the process of lowering the shades to their previous position.  When I woke up, the process was repeated in reverse, one shade at a time.

My boot limited the activities I could do, but I was able to participate in the go-karts as a passenger with my son, Thomas, as the driver.  My doctor said no driving (the booted ankle is my right ankle), and I’m sure he would have also said no to go-karts in the same way he told me no to hiking, even after I added I’d only choose easy hikes.

After maneuvering my way into the low cart, Thomas helped me attach my seatbelt, a moment of reverse roles that took me back in time.  There have been more of those moments recently, in part because my sons have been taking such care with me in my grief and because I’m a grandma to their children, and with that comes comments like “Here, let me get that, Mom, or Do you think you should be doing that?”   It’s sweet, but also difficult because accepting help is not easy for me. I wanted to race around the track as the driver of the go-kart, waving to my sons as I passed them. I’m navigating a lot of new territory these days, and I’m doing it with a broken ankle, so yes, Thomas and Grant, you can carry the suitcase, the bag of groceries, the chair, and you can be the driver.  Thank you.

On one of our last days, our gang was shuttled by vans and then by a pontoon boat to a private island on a beautiful lake, where we spent the day. We had access to jet skis, kayaks, and stand-up paddle boards, as well as incredible views, all of which were off-limits to me, except for the views.  I enjoyed watching my boys from a front-row seat as they rode the jet skis.  I thought back to family reunions on Lake Barkley in Kentucky.  Being an observer rather than a participant also brought back memories of my grandparents at the city pool, watching Robin, Susan, and me swim from their spots on the opposite side of the fence, where they wouldn’t have to pay to get in. Their days at the pool with us always seemed to fall on the hottest, most humid day of the year…Kansas in August.  Grandma was always in a dress, usually dark, and Papa in a dress shirt and slacks, no tie.  They looked hot and miserable but would give us big smiles after watching us go off the diving board or do tricks in the water.

I was Grandma that day at the island, although I was wearing a swimsuit and not a dark, past-the-knee dress with hose rolled up and knotted just below the knee.  I waved, commented, took photos, and asked one of the staff who was eager to be busy for an iced tea because I wanted to give them something to do.  I told Brooke, my daughter-in-law, who was seated next to me, that as I watched Thomas and Grant, they became the grade school version of themselves on the dock at our family farm, where we’d spend many Sundays.  Although as adults they weren’t arching their backs and peeing into the water, with Emery right next to them doing the same thing while peeing down her legs, they were those two boys, and my heart grew two sizes watching them.  It also mourned for them that their sister wasn’t standing next to them.

We celebrated the 4th of July with an old-fashioned barbecue, followed by games and fireworks, although none of us saw them because in that part of Montana, it wasn’t dark until after 10:30. We heard them, though.  My grandchildren, with the exception of the two youngest, lined up enthusiastically for all activities —  sack races, the three-legged races, the mechanical bull, and a pie-eating contest, which for children was fruit and whipped cream in a bowl. It feels clichéd to say, but it was “good, old-fashioned fun,” and as their grandma, my fun was watching them race with their legs tied together or in a sack, or eating “pie” without utensils.  I am my grandma, sans the dress and the hose knotted below the knee.  I’m also probably ten years older than she was when I was my grandchildren’s age and she sat on the other side of the swimming pool fence, fanning herself and insisting she wasn’t hot.

We missed Emery.  She was the thread that ran through so many conversations and thoughts. 

We enjoyed a family chuck wagon dinner next to a river one evening, and as Thomas, Grant, and I stood at the river’s edge, Grant said, “Remember that time…” He didn’t have to finish.  We all knew what he was going to say.  “The time in Colorado when Thomas fell into the Snake River?” Granted, it was shallow, but it was cold and scary for all of us.  To that, I added, “And do you remember the pink girl’s bike we saw lying at the river’s edge and the story you both told Emery about the little girl who was riding it and fell off into the river? They did. Brothers being brothers.  It’s one of the reasons Emery was so strong and fearless.  I loved that the same memory came to all of our minds at the exact same time, and I know Emery would have been right there with us, also thinking about Thomas’s fall into the river.  Maybe she was…in the rush of the water, in the trees, in the birds flying overhead, and in her Mom and her two brothers’ recollection of our family vacation in Colorado and that pink bike on the banks with the made-up story that went with it. 

On the 4th of July, each home was given a white flag, paints, and brushes for a flag decorating contest that night. All of the grandchildren, except the one-year-old, gathered on the porch and got to work on the blank canvas. It was painted without a plan or design, but with great enthusiasm.  Our flag, which involved no parental participation short of the cleanup, flew alongside the others, many of which looked like they had been created by a graphic designer.  I told one of my granddaughters we hadn’t heard yet if we won or not, and  she said, “Laudie, I’m sure we didn’t because ours was a mess.”  But was it fun? I asked. “Yes.  It was a fun mess.”

Our family’s flag didn’t win.

We missed her.  We missed her with every fiber of our collected being, but we also had fun, laughed, told stories, and ate too many s’mores. 

Grief waxes and wanes but never leaves the room.  It does, however, slow the pace enough that things that would have gone unnoticed before now catch my attention. 

On our last day, Brooke, Katie, Lilah, Muna, and I made individualized body and hand cream at the spa.  We were seated outside, with the beautiful backdrop of the Montana sky and mountains surrounding us, and jars with oils and herbs in front of us. The employee who guided us in our creations had laid out four jars of herbs in the center of the table and asked if we knew what each one was by their scent. Muna knew all of them were without hesitation.  The employee was surprised by her knowledge. Brooke told her that she was the daughter of an herbalist. Muna sat up a little taller.  We all did.  As we began the process of adding the herbs, oils, and scents into our individual jars, Brooke pointed out something I hadn’t noticed: a red-tailed hawk had joined us, circling as we incorporated our knowledge of herbs that we got from Emery into the small jars in front of us.  

We felt her presence in her absence.

Some of the stories…

I’ve kept journals for as long as I can remember.  Most of them have January 1 as their first entry and trail off mid-March or so, leaving half of the journal blank. I’m a Virgo.  I like January starts, new journals, pens fresh from the pack, and the hope that comes with blank pages and intact spines. My journal entries, brimming with enthusiasm on January 1, usually fade by spring.  When the next year rolls around, I start all over again with new journals, because I don’t like starting fresh in an old journal.  That has left me with a box filled with quarter-to-half-filled journals. The writing never stops though, but the journaling takes a break, at least until January.  I’ve found I prefer writing on my computer, but still love the idea of a journal and continue to buy them. I’m the family-appointed, self-proclaimed keeper of the stories in my family.  I’d be hard-pressed to put my hands on last year’s personal property tax bill, but I can tell you when and where Thomas lost his first tooth and how long my friend, Cath, and I swam around the bottom of the shallow end of the pool in search of it. We came home without a tooth, but recounted the story in a letter that went under his pillow instead.

The only journals I’ve filled are the ones about my children, all of them beginning on the day I saw a plus sign on the pregnancy test.  When I look at them now, I see them as a monumental task, yet one that was met with ease for me, as writing about my children always came easily. Daily entries, even when time was scarce, felt endlessly important because they were of the moment. If I didn’t capture the moments when they happened, I was afraid I would forget them.  In rereading a few of the journals recently, I was right, some of the most memorable ones, I had forgotten.

Within the pages of sleepless nights, long days with short tempers, and the many recorded firsts are the gems that have become threads to a growing blanket of memories that offer me warmth, security, and the all-important laughs. The value the pages hold for me today is immeasurable.

Yesterday, I found this:

Thomas, age 7

“Wouldn’t the world be a nice place to live in if everybody had the personality of  Emery?  She’s always so happy.”

Those words hold far more weight today than they did in 1993, when Emery was three.  I didn’t write my response to what Thomas had said, but I am guessing it was an enthusiastic yes, because I knew he was right.  And today, I can confirm that with everything I have.  Emery was happy, in a way that was deeper than her outside expression.  People were drawn to her joy and warmth. 

There is an overriding theme of letting go that began in my journals and progressed into letters I wrote to my children, especially with Emery, as she was my last. I’m writing the same words now, but through the lens of loss, disorientation, and an unrelenting battle with reality.

High School Graduation, 2009:

     From the time the technician with the sonogram monitor in front of her told me you were a girl, I knew you.  I knew your energy because it was my energy, and I could feel it while you grew inside of me.  I knew your eyes would be curious and your hair wild, and we’d connect on things that were so ridiculous that they’d not even be worth trying to explain to other people.  I knew you would sing made-up lyrics with poorly executed accents in between sips of tea from imaginary cups while we got gritty, sweaty, and happy in the sandbox.   I knew that because I could feel it.  The little girl in me was anxious for you to come out and play with the little girl in me.  

What I didn’t know was the pain that would come when I’d have to let you go and find your duets with other people who were not me.  It is what I had been preparing for all along, yet now that it is really happening, I feel like I’ve forgotten the wings part of my teachings and can only remember the roots, and that the whole process is making my heart hurt.

Maybe it’s not that unusual for mothers to express fears of separation from their child, from the first day of school to the emptying of the nest.  The letting go is hard because it means unlearning all that I have intuitively known about being a mom from the moment I saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test.  First, I held my babies to feed them or comfort them or because I didn’t want to set them down. Then, I held their hands while trying to keep them safe and close by. Finally, I held their things, as moms always do, even after telling them not to bring what they couldn’t carry.  They’d ask with drawn-out e’s in their please, and I’d shake my head no, as I hoisted more cargo to my already full arms because I’m a mom and that’s what moms do.

Unknowingly, I had started letting go the first time I held on because that is how life and love work.  How could I have known that the words I wrote about my fears of letting go would go much farther than my tearful goodbyes on Emery’s first day of school? Or unloading overly filled cars with far too many clothes for a small dorm room closet, then driving home and not seeing her car in my rearview mirror,  both of us missing each other before I even pulled out of the dorm parking?  Or seeing her walk down the aisle, towards her soon to be husband on her wedding day?  Letting go, one moment at a time, is what I did.  It’s what every parent does. Until January 4th, when I had to let go for the last time, yet my arms are still holding on six months later.  The missing that I will endure for a lifetime is the gift I’ve been given for having loved so fiercely and so deeply.  As a mom, as Emery’s mom, I would rather miss her than have her miss me.  It is the last pain I can carry for her because I couldn’t step in front of the metaphorical moving train to save her.

Holding on while letting go is a balancing act I’m trying to learn.  Right now,  I’m just trying not to fall and break my other ankle.   Grief has rewritten my map of the world, and I’m learning to find my journey between the past and what comes next, all while remembering how to move when so much inside of me has stopped. I’m purposely getting lost while asking my purpose to find me.

On an ordinary day, at the beginning of a year that ended in a five, which are usually lucky for me, the unthinkable happened. Ordinary turned to tragedy, and there I stood, in the mess of it all, knowing with certainty that January 4th had become the day that would be my marker of before and after.  It is the forever marker to all who loved Emery.

I write daily letters to Emery with my morning coffee. I write to obtain clarity.   I write to share what I would have texted or called her about.  I write to unburden myself.  I write to understand and to discover who I am and the journey I’m on.  In those early childhood journals, I wrote to remember, but also to remind myself that I was a mom and a very good mom.  My reasons for writing haven’t changed, but has grown to include my ongoing understanding of grief and that it is not to be feared or avoided or ashamed of, but rather, it is to be embraced, as its origins are love. I need to welcome it while feeling its sting, and offer it a place at my table, with a cup of tea or a shot of tequila, depending.

My words have been collected in books I’ve made, in journals, on sheets of paper that sit in piles in a large trunk, and on my computer.  Someday, I will gather them all up and put them in one place, but for now, I find what I need when I need it rather serendipitously. 

March, 2009 

 On our flight home from Peru, after a month of volunteering and three weeks of travel (Emery’s reason to graduate from high school a semester early), Emery said,

“No one else will ever understand the value of our time in Peru, Mom, and how it changed us,  but at least we will always have each other to carry the memory and when the time comes, when we need to, we will share it together.”

As the guardian of those stories and so many others we shared, I will preserve every laugh, every tear, and every moment of wonder for Arlo, Muna, and everyone else who loves Emery. Our stories are my treasure, and I will safeguard them in my heart, and when I can’t remember what I’ve forgotten, I’ll find them in the notebooks and computer files where they live.  They are me.  They are who I am, who I was, and who I am becoming. 

Most people would tell me it was a terrible idea.  I did it anyway.  I would probably say the same thing to someone who was in the stage of grief that I’m in, that watching Steel Magnolias would not be considered a good idea.  Not now.  And maybe, not ever. I could hear both of my sisters saying, “Seriously, Laur?  Do you really think that’s a good idea?”  And I’d say yes, but in a voice so high-pitched that they’d know I wasn’t sure.  I did it anyway. 

It was released in theaters in 1989, when I had a three-year-old and a two-year-old, and going to the movies was out of the question, unless it was animated and less than an hour long and even that was iffy. When the movie eventually made its way to television, I had three children, more chaos, and no time to indulge in movie watching. The wedding preparations at the beginning of the movie were familiar, but nothing else.  I’m guessing I started watching, but turned it off when one of my three children needed me and never returned to it.  It’s probably not the only movie that I didn’t finish.

I didn’t go into this blindly.  I knew the ending, but only learned about it recently.  I met with a friend a few months after Emery died, and was trying to describe to him the huge swing of emotions I had been going through, from deep sadness to raging anger, never knowing which one would hit and when. He told me there was no way he could possibly understand, as he hadn’t experienced what I had, then asked me if I had seen the movie Steel Magnolias.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I guessed someone died in it.  He confirmed my guess, then got out his phone and started scrolling. He told me he was sending me a video but didn’t want me to watch it until I got home.  I don’t always follow instructions when it involves waiting, but I did as it didn’t seem like something I should be watching at a stoplight.

Once home, I sat on my couch and pulled up the video.  It was Sally Field’s deeply emotional scene with her girlfriends in the cemetery. Although I hadn’t seen Steel Magnolias in its entirety, I knew what I was watching was the crux of the movie and likely the scene that most viewers remembered.  It not only showed the raw grief of a mother dealing with the death of her daughter, but also the beautiful bond she had with her friends as they gathered around her to offer support with love and unexpected humor.  The scene brought me to my knees.  The anguish and heartbreaking grief on display were so familiar, and that familiarity gave me comfort.  I watched it again. I sobbed again.  I didn’t feel so alone in my emotions.  

A few years ago, after discovering the book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, by Susan Cain, I was relieved to know that my tendency to seek comfort and relief in what some might call the “dark side” was a recognizable trait that was neither crazy nor due to depression.  The book validated my love of rainy days, gloomy music, and sad movies, not because of a depressed mood, but rather, because that is where I can connect deeply to my soul.  It makes sense that I wanted to watch Steel Magnolias in its entirety after seeing the brief clip. I needed the connection.

I have friends who have lost children, but I don’t know anyone who has lost a child who had children. Sally Field’s character, M’Lynn, had a daughter who died, and her daughter had a son.    I knew she was playing a role and it was not real life, but as I watched through my tears, I found a relatable connection, and in that moment, it was no longer fictitious.  It was as real as the tears that flowed down my cheeks, and I found solace in our shared experience.

Her words were my words. 

“We turned off the machines…I just sat there.  I just held Shelby’s hand.  No noise.  No tremble.  Just peace.  Oh God, I realized, as a woman, how lucky I am.  I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life, and I was there when she drifted away.  It was the most precious moment in my life….I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do. I want to know why.  I want to why Shelby’s life is over.  I want to know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was.  I want to know why.  I wish I could understand. No.  No.  It’s not supposed to happen this way.  I’m supposed to go first. I was always ready to go first.  I don’t think I can take this.”  (Sally Field’s monologue in the cemetery scene from Steel Magnolias.)

I couldn’t help but wonder how many others in the thirty-five-some years since the movie came out had sat through that scene with the same reaction of deep anguish, laced with a sense of comfort in the shared pain that I had? The constellation of my life forever changed in 2 1/2 days. Trying to make sense of that and my existence without Emery has become the tapestry that all of my life is now woven into.  

I recognized Sally Field’s words, even when she checked her hair in a compact mirror and acknowledged that her daughter was right and her hair looked like a brown football helmet.  I understood and I laughed because Emery had once made the same comparison with my hair and she was right.

Grief is a homing device that finds its way to other grief because that’s where the comfort lies. I don’t seek out the sad movies that mimic what I’m going through, but sometimes they find me, if only for a five-minute monologue. I’ve returned to that clip countless times, not because I want to sob uncontrollably, but because it feels like company to me.  And when you’re going through the hardest thing you’ve ever been through in your life, company with someone doing the same thing is what you want.

I know less than ten people who have had a child die.  Although I couldn’t begin to understand the depths of what they were going through, or what to say to them, I  thought their grief was something they would slowly move through, eventually making their way to the other side. That is now very unsettling to me, to have put their grief into a linear process of healing, assuming they would reach the other side, but how would I have understood until I experienced it for myself?  A family member told me shortly after Emery died. “I now know how to respond to other people’s grief in a much more empathetic manner.”  It’s been a terrible way to learn empathy, as well as the depths that grief can reach.  To those to whom I thought my condolences were enough, my sincere apologies.   I was wrong.

“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be,” Joan Didion, from her book, “The Year of Magical Thinking.”  It sure isn’t, although I never anticipated what it would be.  And to Joan Didion’s observation, I’ll add, it’s also not being continuously hunched over with head in hands and a Kleenex box in front of you (well, sometimes), or not being able to get out of bed (again, sometimes), but rather, it’s learning how to adjust to the new reality that’s been thrown at you while learning to process the change one minute, one hour, one day at a time. 

Some days, the reality of grief is a closed fist coming straight to my heart, and other days, I muster up the strength to look the other way, but only after I throw some obscenities in its direction first.

I live in two worlds. One where I pretend everything is alright, because that’s what everyone wants and needs for me right now, and the other, where my heart is silently screaming in pain.  Neither world feels comfortable or normal or remotely like home, and sometimes I have a foot in both.  It is a precarious balance that feels like my shoes are on the wrong feet with slick soles and unsure terrain.

Grief also feels like homesickness to me; the craving and need to step back into the place that holds familiarity and comfort. I’m still trying to figure out where I find my home while circumnavigating a huge crevasse in the center of where I live.  I feel like I’m walking on tip-toes, peering into deep holes until vertigo hits, then backing up and stepping back into my life, pretending it is normal, and buying tomatoes and basil at the store because I forgot there was a planting season this year. I try to smile when the cashier asks me how it’s going, while adding another chocolate caramel to the conveyer belt.  

I get up every morning, make my coffee, open my computer, and write. I write daily letters to Emery (the texts and the phone calls I can no longer make) and fill pages on my computer, where one emotion easily turns into 1,700 words by the time I finish my second cup. My typed words are how I try to make sense of something that is impossible to understand. 

Grief is a hole, a void and a space of what used to be that becomes the placeholder for a constant replaying of what could have been and will never be.  My daughter, Emery, died and my heart and my life have been shattered. Even if it were possible to put all the pieces back together again, it would never be the same. I like to think of the Japanese process of Kintsugi, where the cracks of something broken are filled with precious metals. In the repairs to myself, my heart, and my soul, there would be a tangled roadmap of silver lines, intersecting and crossing over each other in the Kintsugi method of repair. Maybe it would be beautiful or interesting, but not the same as it was before.  Never the same. I’ve been given the unexpected task of learning how to live in a world that is missing one of its biggest anchors, and it feels unstable and empty. That feeling of instability is being played out in front of me, literally, with a broken ankle, as if I needed a real-life visual aid of confirmation.

I’ve had an ache in my chest, a shortness of breath, a clinched jaw that I don’t realize is clinched, and tears that roll down my cheeks without me realizing I’m crying.  The physical symptoms are difficult, as I’ve never navigated anything like this before. Still, I’d rather have the physical symptoms than the emotional.  The profound anguish, the hopelessness, and the confusion as to who I am or who I am becoming are more painful than any of the physical symptoms.  I can find temporary relief with my ankle, with ice and elevation and two Advil, but the emotional aspect, the reality of my life without my beautiful daughter, Emery, is a much different kind of pain.  I’d rather wear the boot and take the Advil.

Grief has become my tricky sidekick, who shows up unexpectedly and without warning or invitation.  I’ve gotten used to that.  I was having dinner a few weeks ago with one of Emery’s dearest friends, and we were seated at a table in a corner, with my seat facing into the restaurant and her’s to the entryway where no other table could see her.  We were recalling a story about Emery, and I started crying.  Ashley graciously offered to change seats with me so I wouldn’t be facing the many tables in the room.  I told her I appreciated her offer for my privacy, but that I had become comfortable crying, even sobbing, in public.  I also told her that I was sure Emery would have shaken her head at the way I was now styling the stamped silver barrette that used to be her’s. I needed Emery’s help. I glanced down at what I was wearing. I got the outfit right though, didn’t I?  Emery was right there with us. We drank flutes of champagne and in between tears, we laughed.

Never did I think crying in public would be something I’d become comfortable with, but when you do it so often, it’s no longer a unique, isolated incident.  A few weeks ago, when I was in Sedona for a week with various therapeutic practitioners, the sobbing in restaurants happened often, but became more of a spectacle as I was alone. I was exhausted at the end of the day, as digging into one’s heart and soul takes a tremendous amount of energy.  By the time I’d be seated at a restaurant, at the very unfashionable hour of 4:00 or 4:30, I would look like I had walked myself there with shoes on the wrong feet and clothes that were inside out and backwards.  It felt awkward.  I felt awkward, like nothing fit right.  Then, to start crying when a song began to play that evoked a specific time and memory, only made me more of a spectacle.  Or perhaps no one, short of the server, even noticed.  Either way, I no longer cower in embarrassment with displays of sadness and tears.  I just keep the dinner napkin in close reach.

Grief has become my unlikely teacher.  It is teaching me how to slow down and live with a presence that is new to me.  I used to multitask my life,  often resulting in less-than-desirable outcomes, and frequently having to redo what I had done so quickly and haphazardly the first time.  My brain can no longer operate that way.  I have learned through the many books I’ve read lately that grief affects the brain’s ability to perform tasks in the manner that had once been easy and routine.  The brain is using much of its capacity to figure out the enormity of what has happened, leaving less space for the daily tasks.  For example, I brought my knitting to Sedona, thinking I’d knit in the evenings.  I didn’t.  I’m usually a proficient knitter, but lately, I have spent more time unraveling and re-knitting to the point that the yarn is frazzled and tired of being worked.  On one of my last days in Sedona, I took my knitting out to the lovely deck of my hotel room, with a view of the red rocks in front of me and a gentle breeze coming in from the side.  I took the yarn, needles, and pattern out of my bag, with the hopeful anticipation that a new project always brings.  I realized I had brought not only the wrong needle size, but the two needles were different sizes.  My brain is not operating at full tilt.  I can’t even be trusted with knitting.  

I have cut storm drains and landscape rocks too close when parking, resulting in the need to buy two new tires in the past several months due to irreparable damage.  I’ve ordered clothing online and received two or even three of the same item because I added the item to the online shopping cart multiple times, and that is exactly what was sent — multiple items of the same thing.  I did that three times.  This has forced me to slow down to an almost stopping speed in order to get things right, and I’ve got to say, I don’t hate the new, slower, more in-the-moment version of me. I know this would also make Emery happy as she was constantly telling me to slow down and do one thing at a time. It is in the quiet, unfettered moments that I connect to Emery and feel her presence. If that means I accomplish less in a day because I’m moving slower and doing less, so be it.  I have to be present to win. 

The following words on grief popped up on my social media, who knows me well, even correcting my spelling of morning to mourning. It was as good an explanation as to how I feel right now as I’ve seen.

Grief is like surfing.  Except you’re blindfolded. In a hurricane.  And your surfboard is on fire. And the people on the shore are shouting surfing strategies for a storm they’ve never surfed.  And then shaking their heads at how you handle the waves.

I think of this every time I place my hand on my heart for comfort, but also to ensure that my life vest, which my family and friends have so lovingly put into place, is still there.  

Random and unexpected things and places have become significant recently,  as they evoke memories of my 34 years with Emery. She was so woven into my life that it’s hard for me to know who I am without her. My search for her continues, even though I know she’s gone. It was Emery who asked me to leave Kansas City and move to Boulder, knowing only her, Miles, and baby Arlo.  It was Emery who bought me bone broth every day after my knee surgery, braided my hair, and remade my couch bed and instructed Arlo and Muna not to get too close to Laudie’s bandaged leg.  It was Emery who drove me to my colonoscopies, my four rounds of gum surgery several years ago, and brought food and flowers when I had COVID (3 times) and FaceTimed daily during the lockdown.  After delivering bags of groceries to my porch, always with flowers, we would stand on opposite sides of my yard, maintaining a safe distance, and talk. We’d both be in tears when we said goodbye.  She once told me we were so intertwined that sometimes she didn’t know where I ended and she started. I had thought only moms said things like that. Not only does it feel like a large part of my heart is gone, but it feels like a part of my very being has also left.  The memories, often surprising, are tiny sparks of connection that I either grab onto to absorb what they have to offer, or I avoid them, as I don’t feel emotionally ready. Videos of Emery fall into that category. I still can’t watch them.

Sometimes the nudges of yet one more thread that has started to unravel in the way Emery and I were woven together come unexpectedly, as well as the tears that follow.  I was at the doctor’s office earlier today to see how my ankle is healing.  Before meeting with the orthopedic doctor, a nurse came in to go over my information.  She asked if Emery Golson was still my emergency contact.  I bit my lip and said, “No.  I’ll change it.”  She didn’t comment, but why would she?  She didn’t know or need to know why Emery Golson was no longer my emergency contact.  A few minutes later, when Dr. Kramer told me my ankle was worse and I needed a different boot, one that came to my knee, and would need to wear it whenever I was upright. I asked, “Even in the middle of the night…” and he interrupted me before I could finish. “Yes, when you go to the bathroom,” adding it’s the first question patients ask. He added that if it isn’t better in three weeks, we would need to talk about surgery.

Tears started rolling down my face.  It wasn’t the surgery that brought on the tears. It was doing all of the hard stuff without Emery; without having Emery to call on my drive home, who would tell me it would be OK because she’d be there for me every step of the way.  Without Emery to bring the bone broth and anything else I needed because I was also told I can’t drive (it’s my right ankle). I had not seen Dr. Kramer initially, or he would have said no to my drive to Sedona. Instead, I went to Urgent Care, and they said the drive was OK, and also put me in the wrong boot. I had driven over 1,500 miles in the past few weeks, likely not helping my injury, and now, I’ve been told not to drive – not even to the store. Dr. Kramer noted the tears, then went on to tell me that although the recovery would be longer, the surgery would be pretty simple.  I nodded and thanked him.  He told me there was no need to thank me as he knew he had just ruined my day.  I thought about the woman at the bar in Santa Fe who saw my boot (my very short and incorrect boot ) and said, “You just never know, do you?”  No.  You never know. Those words have become my mantra.

Another memory took me by surprise yesterday, and I followed the nudge to understand it further. I was coming home from some errands, and passed a park that had a teeter-totter.  It’s not a piece of equipment commonly seen in parks now, as they have been replaced with climbing apparatuses and structures far cooler than the plank on a fulcrum.  I slowed down for a better look.  I don’t know why.  I pulled into the parking lot, still not sure why, but felt intrigued by the sight of the bright orange teeter-totter on the blue metal base.  I followed the lead of a teeter-totter that became a door to so much more than a piece of dated playground equipment.

I recalled a park where Emery and I used to go when her brothers were in preschool.  There was a playground area and a trail that went around a small lake.  After she had had enough of the swings and slide, we’d walk around the lake, with her in the stroller or her stuffed animals in the stroller while we both pushed it.  There was a teeter-totter in the playground area, and she was curious about it and wanted to “try it.”  I put her on one end while I gently added weight to the other, lifting her slowly in an up-and-down motion.  She was not impressed.  I slowly released her to the ground so she could get off and make her way to a piece of equipment that was more interesting.  My thoughts on the teeter-totter were similar, but I was more afraid of the piece of equipment than being bored by it.  I don’t remember the specifics of what brought on the fear for me, only that I was knocked to the ground when the person providing ballast on the other side exited without warning. I’m sure it wasn’t as dramatic as my words might indicate, but when you’re a small child and are not anticipating being dropped to the ground, it’s scary. Teeter-totters only function if someone is on the opposite end and there is an element of trust that they won’t leave you up in the air or worse, won’t drop you when they’re done.  Without the other person, the piece of equipment is useless.  

So there I sat, in the parking lot of a park, completely devoid of children, focused on a piece of equipment that I had grown to hate as a child. 

Playgrounds.  Memories.  I let my mind wander and thought about Emery and me as adults on a teeter-totter, with me having to adjust my placement as she was the lighter one.  Of course, this wasn’t a memory as Emery and I had never been on a teeter-totter together as adults, but the visual came to mind. The teeter-totter was a picture of how I feel these days.  It feels like Emery abruptly left the teeter-totter, leaving me to crash to the ground unexpectedly.  She is no longer on the other side of the plank to offer ballast.  I’m on the edge of the teeter-totter,  my knees bent up to my shoulders, looking up at the other end where Emery should be, but she’s gone, and no one is there to help lift me off this spot where I’ve crashed.  There are things you have to carry solo, and the grief of a mother losing a child is one such thing.  A hug, a phone call, a FaceTime, or an attentive listener who hands over a Kleenex mid-story, are all beautiful and helpful, but at the end of the day,  I am navigating this journey alone.  It is a solo job.

Nothing makes sense, including me sitting in the parking lot at a park staring at a teeter-totter that is conjuring up memories and made-up stories. Yet, in the stillness, where I live now, I see what I need to see: the pieces to a very large puzzle whose placement of pieces has become a daunting task, not knowing what that something will ultimately become. It’s hard to put a puzzle together, knowing that a significant portion will be missing. Emery once told me while we were working on a jigsaw puzzle, “Border first, Mom, then the rest will be easier.”  She was good at putting puzzles together, a skill her son, Arlo, also has.  She was also good at denying she was good with puzzles or even liked them, for that matter.  Well, Emery, I’m remembering what you told me regarding puzzles (whether you liked them or not).  I’m searching for pieces with straight edges that will serve as a frame for everything else, then the rest will be easier.  I don’t think the teeter-totter was a border piece, but I know it fits in there somewhere.

Two more glasses of ice would be brought before my dinner was over.

I ate at the restaurant next to my hotel,  not because it’s good, but because it’s easy.  It was closed for the past six days for renovations, and now, on my last night, it has opened again.  I ate there my first night a week ago and bookended it with my dinner tonight..  The food is not great, but the ease of not having to get into my car to drive somewhere is a huge gift for me tonight. However, the closure all week got me out and about to better restaurants, one in particular where I could watch small planes taking off and landing from my seat at the bar.  I’ve eaten there three times this week.  It also happens to be in a vortex, one of four in Sedona.  They are places where the Earth’s energy is particularly strong and is said to enhance spiritual growth and healing. I didn’t realize it was in a vortex when I went the first time, but I liked the restaurant even more for not advertising the vortex with specialty vortex drinks, or vortex vegetable of the day. The Mesa Grill felt comfortable to me, and I loved being able to watch small planes taxi to their tie-down spots so close to where I was eating at the bar.

Now that the restaurant attached to my hotel has reopened, it was the easier option tonight.  I’ve spent the past five days immersed in various forms of therapy, very little of it traditional talk therapy.  I’ve had equine therapy, where the horses co-regulated their nervous system to mine, leaving me with a feeling of peace and a broken ankle that no longer hurt.  I’ve hiked, well, given the circumstances, walked a short distance, to a vortex site where the practitioner brought me a chair to sit on and we talked, listened, and absorbed our beautiful surroundings.  I’ve been introduced to a form of healing breathwork that is paired with specific music and learned about the native teachings of the medicine wheel and its significance to the seasons and the elements of the earth, all while honoring Emery.  It was a ceremony that began with a coyote standing in front of the practitioner’s car as he drove us to a parking spot at Crescent Moon Park.  The coyote stood in front of the car long enough that Jim put the car in park, while he explained the significance of a coyote’s presence.  That coyote and Jim seemed to know, and so I listened and watched, and it was five minutes of a coyote looking at us, not moving, that I’ll never forget.  So, tonight,  I’m exhausted in the same way I feel after being in a writing workshop, but without the social element.  It has all caught up to me, and all I want to do is sleep.  That being said, I opted for the marginal food at the restaurant I could walk to from my room at the Wilde Hotel.  

I asked my server for a glass of ice as I could see the margarita I ordered felt thin on ice, and I like to be able to sip through the cubes.  Did she notice I was in a different headspace than the rest of her customers, including the man on the opposite side of the patio who also had a boot on but seemed to be doing just fine with it and life in general?  I don’t know.  But she brought me a glass filled with crushed ice every time she was near my table.  Crushed ice is barely ice, but I thanked her, and the glasses filled with ice melted as I made my way through my salad.

A mother and a daughter were seated next to me.  I know this for a fact as I heard the younger of the two refer to the older woman as Mom.  They wore similar shoes.  Our tables on the outside patio were very close to each other, and their feet were in full view for me.  I wondered if the daughter had told her mom about the shoes and the striped pants she wore, which seemed bold in contrast to the rest of her outfit. I’m guessing yes.  As I’ve said in many posts, I’m a self-proclaimed snoop, and I couldn’t help but overhear that it was the mom’s birthday.  The daughter took photos of her mom and showed them to her.  The mom didn’t like any of them.  I understood.  It was Emery and me, right down to the striped pants on the mom who rejected every photo but then said they were all fine, because that’s what moms do.

The daughter discussed an upcoming trip to Paris, mentioning that she might stay.  The mom was hesitant about that idea.  I wanted to insert my opinion and tell the mom to respond with unbridled enthusiasm.  She can always visit, but I didn’t think the daughter was serious, and I think the mom knew that, simply because moms know, sometimes even before the daughter knows.

I noticed the daughter was wearing an engagement ring and had to wonder if the two of them had shopped for a dress, found a location, or had made any decisions together. Were they local to Sedona?  I didn’t think so.  Maybe they came up for the weekend from Phoenix, or one of them did, and the other flew in for a mother/daughter weekend.  My mind goes wild when I’m seated alone and spying on the table next to me.  Sometimes it’s for entertainment purposes, but tonite, it felt deeper, like I needed to step into a time I no longer had access to.

My server brought me another glass with ice.  She’s trying. When she left, I looked at my phone because it seemed like the right thing to do, rather than at the mother-daughter duo next to me. And because of my shifting algorithm, a post on grief appeared first.  It offered tips to calm your mind when logic doesn’t work.  It instructed me to run through the alphabet, coming up with three words for each letter, with a free pass for “X.” I counted cars in the parking lot in front of me instead.  There were too many white ones.  I returned to the alphabet exercise, stopping at J, while feeling annoyed with the letter J because so few words start with J.  Grief is a strange animal.  It had me angry with the letter J.

The server came to ask me if everything was okay, awkwardly, then quickly backed away from me because I was crying. I knew she was referencing my food and not my frame of mind, but I could sense her uneasiness with what she had just asked me.  Is everything Ok?  People crying, even silently and quietly, are scary.  I couldn’t blame her as I would have done the same thing.  I’m a tough customer these days.  After wiping the tears and composing myself, I asked her for the check without making eye contact.  She kindly asked if I was a local, and I kindly responded, no.  When she set down the check, she told me to have a safe journey, to which I smiled and said, “Thank you.”  My server is afraid of me.  I’m also afraid of myself. 

After five days of intense therapy, very little of it involving talk therapy, I had been ripped open and exposed to the elements.  I probably should not have been out in public.  My soul has gone through an excavation, as I picked through the layers of sadness and grief.  I’m terribly vulnerable.  It feels like I’ve had open heart surgery and am walking home from the hospital.  That doesn’t seem like a good idea on any front.  I left my server an inappropriately large tip.  Maybe she’ll understand I meant well, but walking home from open heart surgery is a difficult journey, even more so in a medical boot.  If neighboring tables didn’t see the tears, they for sure noticed the boot, as, regardless of how carefully I step, it makes an awkward clumping noise. 

As I was exiting the patio of the restaurant, I made eye contact with the man I saw earlier who was also wearing a boot, but his boot, also on his right foot, extended to his knee.  Mine only goes to several inches above my ankle.  We looked at each other and smiled.  He said, “Looks like you’re getting around fine despite the boot, huh?”  To which I answered, “Well, at least my boot doesn’t go to my knee like yours!”  He smiled, and I walked away thinking that my point of gratitude this evening was that my boot didn’t go to my knee.  It feels like bottom feeding for positives, but I’ll take it, with both arms outstretched.

I knew I should give them space by the meditative way they were standing; six people, shoulder to shoulder,  on the beach, at the water’s edge, flanked by a dog doing the same. I was close enough, but not too close, to see they weren’t talking, but instead, had their focus on the sea in front of them.  As I got closer, still with respect for their space, I could see there weren’t six people, but seven.  A younger person, maybe a teenager? with a yellow raincoat sat on the ground in front of the group.  I was drawn to them — their stillness, their reverence, their focus on something I couldn’t see and the connection they had with each other,  with arms interlaced and hands held. 

 I continued my beach walk, trying to notice other things, but turned around every few minutes to see if they had moved.  They hadn’t.  Twenty minutes passed and they still stood, side by side, facing the sea. 

As I got further away, and began to lose sight of them, my focus changing. I noticed that almost everyone I passed had a dog and almost all of those dogs had a couple with them — not a single person, but a couple.   I did a visual 360 on the sparsely populated beach to confirm that yes, it appeared I was the only one that did not have a dog or a partner.  And right then and there, I said to myself, not even in a whisper as there wasn’t anyone around to hear me, “table for one, right here, right now, on the beach.”  I smiled at my observation.  Last night at the restaurant, I asked for a table for one, something I’ve become accustomed to in my solo travels and was mindful to not add the just to the one.   If I had been walking with someone this morning, I doubt I would have found the intrigue with the six people standing at the water’s edge,  shoulder to shoulder, with the yellow rain-coated woman in front of them.   I’m more tuned in when I’m by myself — more curious, more observant and ready to fill in a story that I know absolutely nothing about.

Their stillness reminded me of the man and his dog that I’ve seen just about every evening, standing side by side, while they wait for the sun to drop.  Were these seven people waiting for something or were they just not ready to leave.  I had my own version of the story.    I thought about the person who remains in the pew long after the funeral has ended or is still standing graveside after the ceremony is long over.  They can’t leave because of the finality of leaving. You only get one first goodbye.  The next time, it will be a recollection of memories and a goodbye afterwards, but not the first goodbye.  That only happens once.

My hunches were  confirmed when on my walk back, I passed the group again, and saw the man that was on the end squat down and hand a box to the girl in the yellow raincoat.  She stood to receive the box then held it to her chest and her head dropped. I was still a respectful distance away, but didn’t feel like I was supposed to be watching, so turned my back and observed  a small flock of sanderlings running back and forth on the beach instead.  When I turned around, the box was back in the man’s hand and the girl with the yellow raincoat was drawing something in the sand with a long stick.  When she was done, she set the stick down and the man returned the box to her.

I feel like I know this story as to why the people had gathered and the significance of the box, but I don’t. I’m only speculating.  Maybe the box was a lunch box with a half-eaten sandwich inside and the yellow raincoat girl was hungry.  But I don’t think so.  It was not what her body language was telling me, nor what I saw in the sand after they left, single file, the girl in the yellow raincoat last.  When they were out of sight, I walked over to see what had been drawn and saw a heart and below it the letter “A” carved into the wet sand.  The letter before the “A” had been taken away by the tide and all that was visible was a vertical line, maybe the outside leg of an “M.”  I began to speculate but redirected my thoughts to the heart instead.  It told the story the letters didn’t.

Maybe it is me being nosey or maybe it’s the storyteller in me trying to find fodder, ( the later sounds less creepy), but I’m drawn with fascination to groups of people sharing —secrets or moments, with arms entwined and hands held.  I want to move in closer.  I want to hear the words, but know that gestures can sometimes be louder and more articulate than words.

As I watched the seven of them and the dog walk away, I thought of how blessed the person was who they were there to honor and celebrate (as per my made up story).  I was touched by the reverence and presence I witnessed, whether that box contained someone’s lunch or the ashes of a loved one.  I started thinking about my own family,  and whether on mountain top with a vista, or at the edge of the sea with the roll of the waves underfoot, (both would be nice, kids…), I hoped they would show the same honor, love and affection I had just witnessed.  Then I shook my head and said to myself, not even in a whisper as I was the only one in ear shot, “Of course they would!”  And my mind began to paint the picture.  Arm in arm, while my family quietly observed the magnificent shows of nature I had become so fond of in my life, the stories would start to unfold; memories shared, each told with an individual slant and exaggeration by the teller.  Then someone would say what everyone was thinking, but no one had yet said, and that would be what a curious snoop I had become in my advanced years.  Because I’m the one writing the story, someone else would add, “Maybe not snoop,  but a story teller, always in search of a story and making one up when one didn’t exist.”  And with that, the real celebration would begin, the sun would start to dip below the mountaintop and the clear sign of a heart carved with a stick would show up in the sand.

The end.   And also, the beginning.

My top odometer reading of any car I’ve owned. Seeing the 9’s turn into 100,000 isn’t near as fun on a digital monitor as it is on analog.

Final photo.

I have never cared much about cars —their make, their model or how many horses are under the hood. I only cared if it started. In my early driving years, my love went as deep as the thoughts I had when I put the key in the ignition, while quietly reciting the mantra, “please oh please oh please, start.” If it started, and I’d say the odds were about 70%, I loved the car. If it didn’t, I hated the car and would have to think where the nearest pay phone was so I could call Dad to bail me out, which he always did, without fail. If I was at home, it meant scrambling for a ride or going for my last ditch option of calling in sick. That was as far as my caring went for cars went. I didn’t have a car when I was in high school, but had friends that did and that worked out fine because I really didn’t like to drive and preferred being a passenger over being the driver. I don’t remember buying my first car, a VW beetle (1968), but the price tag of $400 comes to mind. This seems like it should have been something I would have remembered, but I don’t, proving my point of not caring much about cars.

The first car I do remember purchasing was in 1977 and I remember it because it was my first introduction to financing. It was a light blue ’74 super beetle, and yes, adding the “super” to the car’s title was significant. It meant it had a dashboard instead of a flat panel where the instruments were located. The back windshield was also larger and the car was two inches longer than a regular beetle – hardly enough to market the extended leg room. It was $1500 and I financed it for two years, with payments of $65.00 a month — an amount that gave me a pit in my stomach.

Dad took me to Olathe Ford to help me find a cheap, safe, used car that I could afford. That meant having to walk past the shiny new Fords with stickers in the windows to get to the not so shiny used cars that were parked a football field away. It was like walking through a department store with beautiful clothing and heading straight out the back door to stacks of old clothes at someone’s garage sale. One day, I thought, I’ll be able to stop and look at the new cars and maybe even buy one.

When we spotted the ’74 VW, I was thrilled. It was an OK color (light blue), wasn’t very expensive and was relatively new (three years old) and because it was a VW, it was familiar. I learned how to drive in our family’s 2nd car, a white 1964 VW so knew the ins and outs of the car along with the quirks, and with VWs, there were many. It looked perfect and I was ready to flag a salesman over but Dad told me not so fast. He thought he recognized the car as being the same car the vice principal at the high school where he was a guidance counselor had driven. I didn’t see the problem. If he knew the previous owner, all the better as he’d have more information as to how well the car had been taken care of and why he had traded it in. He agreed, but it wasn’t that simple. Because the vice principal of the school holds the disciplinarian role with the students, they often become the recipient of pranks during the weeks before senior graduation. I still didn’t see the problem but Dad thought it would be a good idea to stop by and have a chat with the vice principal, Dr. Burns, to get more information about the car. This was the beauty of growing up in a small town. To stop by someone’s house, without invitation or warning, to obtain details on the car he had traded in, was not considered odd or invasive in the least. And so we did just that. We left Olathe Ford and drove the short distance to Dr. Burn’s house. He confirmed that yes, the ’74 light blue VW had been his and he had taken meticulous care of it since buying it as a new car a few years earlier. However, the car had been lifted up by a group of seniors and returned to its parking spot upside down. When Dr. Burns found his car at the end of the day in the parking spot where he had left it, but upside down, he took it in stride and found a handful of strong boys to return it to its upright position. He said other than that, it was a good car. Somehow that story made the light blue VW even more desirable to me. It had an interesting history that I would be adding to, although I doubted it would become the subject of pranks under my ownership.

I had a lot of history with that car. I loaded her up with all the possessions I could squeeze into its small interior and moved across the country to Phoenix. One of the guys I worked with at King Radio had a luggage rack he said he’d be happy to donate to the cause, which I gladly accepted but only if he’d agree to attach it. I strapped boxes onto the precariously attached rack and realized several miles into my journey that it had been a terrible idea because it slowed my already slow speeds down to a top speed in the low 50’s. It also added a background noise of wind whistling through it the entire journey. The car was not turned upside down by students under my ownership, but I did have my share of adventures with her.

I owned that light blue ’74 VW for six years, four years after my final monthly payment. The last two years I owned it, I commuted daily to the University of Kansas, 45 minutes from my apartment. Because I dealt with car issues more than once during those two years, my fiancé worried about its reliability and safety and bought me a Subaru. The next week, I sold the VW to the first person who responded to the ad I put in the paper. He gave me $200 less than the $700 I was asking, but I was happy with the $500. I’ve never been good at negotiating. I did not consult a blue book for pricing but rather based my price of the car on the cost of the wedding dress I had chosen ($500) and added another $200 for a rehearsal dinner dress and shoes for both the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. Later that day, I went to the bridal shop and put twenty five twenty dollar bills on the counter and walked out with my wedding dress. The rehearsal dinner dress and shoes for both, had to wait.

I still don’t care about cars, at least not much, but what I realize is that I develop strong attachments to the vehicles I own, maybe in part, because I don’t trade them in on a regular basis. We are usually together for at least four years, a long enough time to form bonds. Last week I traded in in my well-worn 2016 Rav 4 with 113,572 miles on it. I owned it for eight years, a personal record for me. I was at the dealership for a routine tire rotation when I purchased the new car. It was an impulse buy. For readers who haven’t read earlier blog posts, I once impulse bought a condo when I went into the bookstore in Frisco, Colorado to buy a book. I’m not good at making decisions but am good at impulse buys, which shortens the decision making process to something that doesn’t even feel like decision making. I started thinking about a new car in 2020 but was told by my brother, who is in the business, that it wasn’t a good time to buy as inventory was low. I assumed things hadn’t changed when I went in for routine maintenance and I saw a shiny, bright, white Rav 4 in the parking lot. I have to back up a bit here and share that while I was doing my physical therapy at Boulder Orthopedics, my view from my exercise bike on the 2nd floor, was the Boulder Toyota dealership. I watched new cars come in and go out for test drives. So maybe it wasn’t such an impulse buy. Maybe my intentions on a new car had been set while I was working on a full rotation on the pedals with my left leg. The day before Thanksgiving, I ended up driving home from the dealership in a new car and left my old car behind. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was someone on an exercise bike in the physical therapy room watching. I’m guessing not.

Before handing over the keys to my car, I told my salesman that I needed a minute to say my goodbyes. He understood, or at least he pretended to understand. I sat inside the car that I had just spent nine hours in the day before when I returned from Kansas City after celebrating my Mom’s birthday. I thought back to all of the trips I made in that car. It took me back and forth to Kansas City four times a year for the past four years, except for the one time I flew so I could see the new airport. Filled to capacity, she moved me from Leawood, Kansas to Boulder, Colorado and listened to me sigh and cry all the way to Salina, Kansas then, as if a switch had been turned on, finished the journey with hope and anticipation. A year later, I made the drive to South Egremont, Massachusetts by way of Kansas City because it was fall of 2020 and quarantining had kept me from my sisters. I missed them. I drove through eight states to get to Massachusetts, and with each state line crossed, the Covid protocol changed, from the span of full on masking outside while pumping gas, to mask shaming and denial that Covid was even a thing. She took me to countless trailheads in the Boulder area and my first hiking meet up group where I was reluctant to get out of the car, but eventually decided to put my insecurities aside and go for it — a decision I’m still grateful for. She helped me find my way around my new town, which wasn’t nearly as hard as I anticipated and got me back on the mountain roads that I had driven so often during my time in Frisco, Colorado but in the flat lands of Kansas, had lost my edge. I came home from the hospital with a new knee in her (with one of my sisters behind the wheel) and experienced the intense pain of getting in and out of her the first few weeks after surgery. I felt nostalgic and a little sad to tell her goodbye, knowing that several years from now I’ll be sitting in the car I had just bought with similar feelings of nostalgia. She’s a Toyota, not a Ford, but that day of walking past the new shiny cars with stickers in their windows some 46 years ago, did not go unnoticed.

My last car was never named, but I’m into naming things these days, which started with my new left knee. I named her Loretta. My 4 year-old granddaughter suggested Sparkles or Sprinkles or Cupcake and my 6 year-old grandson was pushing for Bud, but she looked like a Loretta to me. Loretta and Laurie… here we go. Let the road adventures begin.

I’m several days out from my 50th high school reunion, which means I’m still in the energetic flow of conversations I had, faces I tried to remember and hugs that took me back to times when the self that I am now was still forming. I have to grab my words before the event loses its sense of urgency and life returns to my present day normal.

Spending two evenings in a roomful of people who are the same age as me and share many of the same memories, some dating back to elementary school, is powerful and becomes even more so with time. With the exception of my siblings, my cousins and my parents, there are no other people in my life that can say they “knew me when…” and that alone gives this group of 65 or 70 people a weighty connection. Some I only talk to at reunions and others, when I see them, I’m reminded of how lucky we are that our friendships are still holding strong after more than five decades. We are not the same people we were five decades ago when we walked across the floor of our overly packed high school gym in steel blue gowns and mortar boards to receive our diplomas, but those teenagers still live quietly inside of all of us. For many of us, it’s the only age we are remembered by in this group of people.

So many of the people I surrounded myself with on Friday and Saturday night hold parts of my memories that I have forgotten. They were witnesses to parts of my life that I sometimes wonder if I’m remembering correctly or if they even happened at all. They can give me clarity — where I was, who I was with and did I look happy? They are still able to confirm my presence at the party, the dance, the sleep over or waiting tables at Denny’s. They can also tell me that I wasn’t there, even though I wanted to be, so much so that my memories may have penciled me in, because I was grounded or had family obligations. Sadly, the grounding happened on a pretty regular basis in my later years of high school. I didn’t do well with rules. I also didn’t do well with being grounded and devised my own escape routes, but that’s another story for another time.

Four of us, from four different parts of the country, all stayed with Terri and her husband, Lawson, at their beautiful farm house in the suburbs of Kansas City for the weekend. Mornings drinking coffee in our pajamas at her kitchen island, quickly rolled into afternoons, still talking, still with more stories from so many years ago. We are five women who have been friends for over 55 years. It’s a gift that grows in value with each passing year. As I sat in that kitchen rehashing not only the night before, but decades ago, there were moments that I looked around the room and we were 16, not 68. Time disappeared.

For the Saturday night event, we had name tags that had our senior picture on them next to our name. Even without the reading glasses (that most of us needed), it was easier to steal a glance at a photo than try to read a name. At the Friday night event, we only had name tags that we filled out and attached, although not everyone complied, which meant for some awkward comments of “of course I remember you” when of course I didn’t. It felt like an appropriate time to lie.

I saw a classmate who I easily recognized even though I hadn’t seen him since the last reunion 10 years ago. I approached him, called out his name and came in for the hug. He responded appropriately then discretely began to move his head to the side like he was looking for something — the something being the rectangular white badge I had affixed to my shirt with my name written on it in bold black ink.
“ You don’t know who I am, do you?” I asked him.
When he was close enough to read my name tag he said my name out-loud with surprise and gave me a big hug. There was more grace in not remembering or recognizing classmates at the 50 year reunion than at past reunions. After all, 50 years is a long time and very few of us looked like we did in high school. I had brown hair at the last reunion for starters. There were a few who hadn’t changed, or aged it seemed, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time to ask those few exceptions about their skin care regimens during our brief time together. Time was short. Too short.

These people, some of them friends since my early grade school days, hold parts of the stories I’ve lost and I do the same for them. For the most part, none of it matters as it’s been such a long time, but to have a touchstone to my past that is as real as the person in front of me is a gift of time that I cherish and the reason I’ve made it to every reunion so far. I came close to almost missing this reunion though and was still on the fence four days before the Friday night event. I would only be one month out from a total knee replacement the weekend the reunion was scheduled. When I told my doctor I was hoping to go to my reunion at four weeks out, and make the nine hour drive as I knew it would be too soon to fly due to the risk of blood clots, he was apprehensive. He gave me one of those “let’s wait and see” answers, which I learned growing up usually meant no. He doesn’t know me though or how hard I will work towards a goal of something I want. I had an appointment the Tuesday before the reunion weekend and he told me he was amazed with my determination and setting my sights on my 50th reunion had worked. He said it was a go, told me to have fun and not forget to elevate and ice when I had the chance. As he was leaving the room, he turned around and asked me how many years on the reunion. I proudly told him 50, then realized how old that sounded. 50 is a big number and even bigger when talking reunions. We’re past middle age, but not ready to claim “old” or “elderly,” which is more in line with my parents. We don’t know what to call ourselves.

I’m home now, after taking two days to make the nine hour drive, to make the journey a little easier on my knee. I’m usually a barrel through, eat in the car kind of road tripper (ask anyone who has ridden right seat with me), but this time I was forced to slow down and stop every hour and a half to walk around. Given that it was pouring rain for most of the journey, a lot of those walks were through truck stops, the bigger the better. I was wandering up and down the aisles with shelves lined with camo gear for so long that one of the employees asked me if he could help me find something. I told him no. I was just browsing. I looked suspicious. Who browses up and down each aisle for 15 minutes in the hunting section of a truck stop?

My house that is almost always quiet, seems exceptionally quiet now. Unlike the two nights I spent staying up until after 1:00, I was tucked in by 8:00 on the night I got home. Granted, it was 9:00 central time, but it was still early. I was exhausted and my knee was not happy with me. I apologized to Rhoda (my new knee) and reassured her I’d be more mindful of her care once home.

I miss my high school friends. There is a fragility that lingers long past the goodbyes while wondering what the next 10 years will bring. Or are we at the point, given that we’re 68 years old, that the space between reunions should be shortened? The poster with the 60 plus names of classmates who had passed was hard to look at and hard for me to take my eyes off of. We are all the same age. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who wondered who in that room Saturday night would be added to the list of names on the poster the next reunion. Reunions are a rare visual of the passage of time and it seems like the accelerator pedal is being pushed a little harder than I’m comfortable with.

When I was 14, Terri, who was hosting me all weekend, gave me a journal. It was larger than the typical journal with 8×10 pages and a black cover with gold embossed trim. It was by far the fanciest journal I owned or had ever seen for that matter. On the inside cover she wrote, “Blank pages await your inspiration.“ I remember being very moved by her gesture. She knew I wrote and I’m sure I shared some of my work with her (bad poetry that makes me cringe), but it was her seeing and acknowledging something inside of me that had begun to percolate, that was so touching. I filled every page of the journal that resides in a trunk packed to the brim with other notebooks and journals filled with essays and letters. When people talk about what they’d grab in a fire, I think of myself hoisting the large trunk down 28 steps, hopefully with a knee that is stronger than it is today. Before I left on Sunday, she gave me a journal she bought for me a while ago but had forgotten to give to me. Just like the one she gave me 50 plus years ago, this one will also be filled in time. It is just one of the countless threads of connection I was reminded of throughout the weekend. Threads that have woven themselves into my beautiful tapestry of life, one memory and one row at a time. I added a few rows to that tapestry this past weekend. The colors may not be as bold as they were 50 years ago and you may have to move in closer to see the true beauty, but it’s still there in all of its glory. Row after row, memory after memory. “Blank pages await your inspiration” — for living, for writing, for life. I’m still holding onto those words.

To all of my classmates who had a hand in shaping the person I am today and showed up in person so I could hug you and share memories with you, thank you. You are my “I knew you when…” friends and that, holds a lot of weight… more with every passing year.