Doing What It Takes

Well, my friends...I have yet to kick the Altoid habit, but I am doing a fair amount of butt kicking around here. Not because I suddenly channeled my inner Yoda and am now adhering to all sorts of impressive, self discipline techniques. No. I enrolled myself in an online publishing class, so that Teacher Christine could kick my butt for me. And it’s working out quite well. In just three weeks, I’ve learned to write in three different genres for publication, as well as how and where to submit such pieces. I have been up until midnight on occasion, and cranky and snapping-turtle-like with the kids some mornings, but I do possess a new sense of satisfaction that I’m really doing something.

And here’s the thing about life, that I am finally grasping: we can do all kinds of wishing and praying and hoping and magical thinking for the things we want in life, but no number of dandelion seeds blown into the atmosphere are going to bring it all about. We have to work for it, my friends. (You’re like, Shanny—duh.. But guess what? We need reminders, friends—don’t we?) We sometimes forget that dreams come about by hard work. That Martin Luther King marched a gazillion miles for his dreams. We have to work hard. We have to read a stack of publications two feet high before we can actually write for them. We have to fall asleep with our laptops on our laps. We have to get up before the birds. We have to play more "Phineas and Ferb" for the kids so we can meet assignment deadlines. We have to bitch. And moan. And schlep around feeling a bit sorry for ourselves at times. And then pull up our bootstraps. And eat more chocolate – and of course, more mints. We have to negotiate our time, see less of our loved ones. We have to do what it bloody takes.

My friend Matt, a regular down at Sabino’s coffee shop, where I often write, is always repeating the same advice, as he stirs the sugar into his coffee: “Gotta do what it takes. One day at a time. Keep on pluggin’ away…” He sings it like a song. And I find myself grooving to the melody because it’s some of the best wisdom I’ve heard, over and over again. The life we want doesn’t parachute into our laps or land sweetly on a daisy petal like a floating dandelion seed. No, we have to suffer for it, make sacrifices. As my wise friend Joanna says, “Everything has a cost.” Nothing is for free; and if we think it is, we will only be disappointed. I still hope for fairies of goodness and grace to alight along my path, but my vision is enlightened by the acceptance of what’s required of me.

So what am I thankful for in the season of thankfulness (which is scandalously shortened by retail craze, as we are urged to practically skip the thankful-for-what-we-have season and move right into the getting season -- a whole new post, perhaps)? Well, my thankful list is ridiculously long, but at the moment, I am thankful for knowing it’s going to take crazy work to be a writer and a mother at the same time. I am thankful for my online class, Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff. I am thankful for my partner in life supporting me in this endeavor to complete the picture of my life – and for building me a shack to do it in. And for my boys loving me, even when I’m not a not-so-sweet Shanny-pie. I’m thankful for the people who share in my excitement, who cheer me on. For friends who think I can write and publish like Catherine Newman (Thank you, My Dear Mrs. Fenscik). For readers of my words, I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving All, and if I may: Let's draw the thankful season out as long as we can.

For You on All Souls Day

On this

The Feast of All Souls,

I feasted for you.

For you, I strolled vacant sidewalks slow,

absorbed October rays of sun.

I drank morning, Eucalyptus air.

I twirled the stem of a Maple leaf.

For you,

I wandered hand in hand with my son

into a sun-drenched Café;

I gazed long into his chocolate brown eyes,

rejoiced in his pastry-flecked cheeks.

For you,

we lingered over cocoa;

we wore whipped cream mustaches.

We giggled, wild, our mouths still full.

For you,

we strolled again, even longer.

We conversed with cats on lawns.

I listened to my son’s sweet meow.

For you,

we gathered up handfuls of fallen leaves –

fuchsia, delicate as tissue.

At home, we put them in a glass bowl.

We lit candles, and stood your photograph on the mantel.

I feasted all I could today

on this little life of mine,

for you.

*This poem is dedicated to Mrs. G and Steven Taddei -- two dear souls lost in 2010.

Jedi Writer

Let’s see if I can name off all the stupid things I did today instead of write. First off, I tried my hair up three different ways: a twist, a side braid, and a low ponytail—none of which was the least bit captivating (I’m having a midlife hair crisis, for which I think the only cure might be the royal blue Bake Sale Betty bob I’ve been fantasizing about for some time now). What else? Oh, I bought several attractive, succulent plants at The Home Depot. Upon returning home, I ate a shameful number of Peppermint Patties – seven, maybe eight (I know what you’re thinking, but they were the mini ones). Also, I chewed way, way, way too much gum – like thirteen pieces (and there’s my first, public confession of the shameful gum addiction). And never mind that I have TMJ and shouldn’t chew gum. Not to mention, I’ve recently taken it up a notch, since I started wrapping Altoids inside pieces of gum and then chewing it all up together in one glorious, crunchy, juicy, flavor-packed mass. Let’s see…what else did I do? Oh, less exciting, and only slightly less shameful, was me on the sofa folding laundry in fake slow motion (also Grey’s Anatomy happened to be on the giant flat screen). Later, I ate leftover green beans and chicken, then made a cappuccino, then emptied the dishwasher, then crunched some more Altoids. I did try some earthy, green paint samples on the external body of the writer’s shack – does that count? But in the end, I did everything but write. And my head is hung quite low, good friends, quite low.

Somewhere around four in the afternoon, when I was on my ninth peppermint patty, the following thought came to me: I am a woman who says she wants a writing career; a woman, who, in fact, wants nothing more than to be a fully blossoming writer, with her creative petals facing to the sun…publishing articles, books, giving interviews with Oprah…but what am I really doing about it? And why, in the name of all that’s holy, am I feeling so stagnant now that I’ve finally cleared some space in my schedule for the pined-after writing life?

Maybe because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Some weeks back, some friends inquired with furrowed brows about why I wouldn’t be teaching art at school this year. I explained I’d cleared room in my schedule to become a more serious writer. Oh, wow. Freelance? How do you do that? They wanted to know. And that’s when I said to myself: Holy Shanny! I don’t think I even know how we do that. I mean, I’m fairly confident in my writing skills, but entering the writer’s market…that’s a foreign endeavor altogether. Bringing home some bacon with my words…how do I even make my first penny? The truth is, I’ve been mothering so long, I don’t know the first thing about freelancing. It’s daunting. It’s new, and overwhelming. So instead, I eat Peppermint Patties.

To illustrate the awkwardness of the transitional phase I’m in, here is a conversation I had with my child’s teacher yesterday:

Me: I’m sorry, Mrs. G, but I decided not to be a weekly volunteer for the time being because I’m trying to work part time.

Mrs. G: Oh, what do you do?

Me: I’m trying to write for a living.

First of all, do you know how lame that sounds? And second of all, what is this business of trying? As our wise friend, Master Yoda says: Do, or do not; there is no try. But Yoda! I think Yoda would have no tolerance for my whiny, gum-chewing ways. He’d slice me up forwards and back with his giant, green lightsaber. Much of my time is wasted wondering why my career goals or passions can’t be more straightforward. Like, why don’t I want to fight fires or cure the sick? I confess to envying those with well-defined occupations, like my R.N. husband. Lately, I even envy my friends with work schedules, regardless of the nature of their jobs. I picture them in the still-dark morning, drinking their Joe, listening to NPR’s morning edition, then crossing the dewy grass to their cars in a pair of polished little work shoes, and speeding away to their work lives, where they have desks, coworkers and appointed tasks waiting just for them. They clock in; they clock out. It all seems like a much neater package than mine at the moment. I know what you’re saying: The grass, dewy or not, is always greener, Shanny. And you’re right. But I’m just trying to figure out which damn patch of grass I belong on.

I suppose everyone has changes they’d like to make in their lives, risks they need to take…big ones, small ones... But I’m curious – how long are we willing to stay miserable before we choose to make a change? How long do we feel sorry for ourselves instead? How long do we fantasize about who we want to be or what it is we want to accomplish? I mean, really – how many Peppermint Patties do we have to eat before we’re ready to get to work? I don’t know how long it takes to get a butt like mine in motion, but I have to thank you for listening, because I must say – all of this speculation about how long it’s going to be before I get myself going makes me want to do my hair up Princess-Leia-style and get out there and make Master Yoda proud (which, incidentally, might also solve the current hair crisis).

Sweet Sweet Progress

Well, C has torn up the rotting section of the floor and hauled home the fresh wood for the new floor. We're on our way.

The Shanny Shack is Back

Well my sweet and savory friends, I’ve decided it’s high time we get the writer’s shack in motion. Remember the writer’s shack – from my very first post, back in June 2009? The 10 x 10 backyard cottage, the “room of her own?” Well, talk of the longed-for land shack is back. For a little over a year now, this cyber shack at Parallel Light has served as a rather satisfying (albeit virtual) “room of one’s own.” But a lot has changed since that post in ‘99. I’m ready for more! Among other things, we bought our first home, and it came with, shall we say – the skeleton – of a writer’s shack, right out in the back yard. I can still hear my realtor when she stepped into the backyard, and called into the house, Oh, look, here’s Shannon’s writer’s shack! For five months now, I have stared longingly out the sliding glass door at this 9 x 8 dilapidated structure, fantasizing about its eventual colors and carpet…its possible skylights and windows and jasmine vines trailing over the frame…But it’s time to stop staring out the window, already! And it’s time to put my fantasies to rest and face the music that Nate Berkus is mostly likely not going to feature me on his show and send his construction crew out to the Shanny Shack (though I did submit photos of the shack and plead my case at nateberkus.com)! So, I have said to myself, Shanny Girl, let’s get this show on the road!

Maybe it was having a fellow thirty-six year old friend die unexpectedly over the summer that cause me to reexamine every minute of how I spend my time; to connect more seriously with my dreams. Maybe it was my friend’s mother, a fresh voice, pushing me not just to write, but to sell my work, to get somewhere with it – which, of course, has long been an aspiration of mine. Or maybe it’s just time for the next step in realizing the dream. Whatever the case, inspiration has struck and changes are being made to pave the way toward a real writing career. Already, I have advocated for scaling back on our commitments as a family. We are going to slow down so there is room for what’s important. Not only are C and I erring on the side of more sanity and downtime for our family in general, but it’s no secret that my career goals have been easily lost in family life, in extra-curricular activities, in volunteer work, various committees, and in Chad’s crazy twelve-hour work days. It’s a tricky balancing act, as you well know.

My first major decision was to take a sabbatical from granola. Bottom line: my passions do not lie with oats, but with words, and since neither one is very lucrative, I choose words. Next, we made a unanimous family decision to eliminate Boy Scouts from our schedule; something in the extracurricular department had to give. Finally, the most difficult decision of all was the one not to teach in the volunteer art program at school this year. I am temporarily suffering from the “guilties,” over not volunteering for the first time this year, and I keep asking, why can’t we have thirty-four hours in a day so I can do it all? But reality is undeniable and life has proven otherwise these past few years, and it’s time to live according to what’s real. As my friend J says, There is always a cost to the decisions we make. If something is added, chances are, something must also be subtracted to make the equation of our lives work. The changes above feel bold to a people-pleasing, do-it-all gal like me; but I am making them nonetheless. I make them in faith.

So, you’ll love this. This morning, I went out to the skeleton of a shack, and started tossing the miscellaneous crap we had stored inside (from our move back in April) right out the shack’s two double doors. There were chandeliers landing in the vegetable beds (woops), shelves slamming against the bricks, and cans of spray paint rolling down the steps. I think I looked a bit like a madwoman, slinging items carelessly into the yard (my two year old thought so – he stood there in his diaper, big furrowed brow, Mommy!? What-a-da-doin, Mommy?). Man, was he perplexed! But I had the fever! And I LOVE it when I have the fever, because I so often don’t.

Strange how the soul works, isn’t it? The way inspiration strikes…out of the blue and with no regard for things like circumstance – at least one of the three children has been throwing up at all given times since Friday, not to mention my husband is lying flat in his bed (when he’s not violently retching behind closed doors). And here I am, converting our backyard into a landfill, delving head first into this insanely large project… Furthermore, it’s – what is it – 95 degrees outside today? 100? Normally I detest such extreme heat; normally I turn positively bitchy in such heat…wilting, melting and all the rest. But this morning, I was governed by a force that overpowered all of my aversions to heat, and headed straight to the backyard right after a bacon and shredded apple sandwich to power me up (oh, you so need to make this breakfast sandwich –

http://www.oprah.com/food/Almond-Butter-and-Bacon-Sandwich). Anyhow, so I put on my special grubbies, slapped on my orange baseball cap, and charged out the sliding glass door with a bottle of ice water.

At first, I was discouraged, what with the ten thousand rat turds and spider webs, the unidentifiable insects, as well as something of a bizarre species of white mold growing in one corner of the shack; there is also a buckling floor and some water-damaged walls. But as I started tossing items out – baskets, buckets, brooms, shovels, shin guards and shelves…I started feeling empowered. Swabbing sweat from my forehead with my t-shirt every few minutes became a rather self-congratulatory ritual. Damn, Shanny, you're working hard! I said to myself. And I kept going until the shack was totally empty. And by the way, if you ever feel like you're not accomplishing anything, or getting anywhere with your goals, I recommend emptying something completely in 100 degree weather: it's utterly satisfying.

I have found that when something is vacant, a vision for it comes more easily – the shack, my schedule…I have found that space creates possibility. For the first time ever, the writer’s shack fantasy born early in my twenties seems possible. Staring through the open doors, I imagined all the possibilities of the shack’s identity: do I want a sassy shack, with purple walls, hot-pink shelving and a fancy gemstone chandelier? Or do I want to go with an earthy shack: sage-colored walls, cork board and jute rugs? The shack lovingly calls to me from its dusty, cob-webbed corners; it asks me if I am ready to furnish this place and move in with my writer’s ambitions. And I wonder…am I? Am I ready to fill the empty space I have created with the hard work that dreams are made of?

Diary of Grief: Notes from Week Three

*This post is for Chrissy, who attended her mother's funeral today. From one grieving heart to another.

8/15-8/21

Forward

I wake up cold the day of the funeral, and wander to the kitchen wrapped in a blanket. Standing in the middle of the floor, I find myself baffled by the day, and oddly frozen. My usual morning routine escapes me – normally, I am firing up the espresso machine. Instead, I head over to the mantel and light the candles inside the lanterns: for warmth; for light; for something…

I am truly dreading the funeral, in a way I did not expect.

The fog hangs in the valley outside our picture window: ominous but accurate for the day of a funeral. I end up sipping some tea, nibbling some toast, but the restlessness in my gut overpowers any sensation of hunger, and hovers there like a hummingbird over a feeder: madly flapping in a single spot. I am aware that each passing minute brings me – brings us all – closer to the service. I imagine Steve’s family this morning…lifting their bodies out of bed, slipping into black clothing, the clicking of their shoes on the pavement as they head to their cars…and I am struck anew by what little control we actually possess in life. The funeral approaches whether we want it to approach or not; the red hands on the kitchen wall clock are oblivious, inching clockwise toward a time when Steve’s death will be spoken aloud, the reality of it acknowledged from a pulpit; where the life he lived for 36 years will be remembered; where the life that ended will be grieved by everyone in the room.

I ponder my dread over the funeral. Aren’t funerals supposed to bring closure? Aren’t they a means of saying good-bye? Maybe that’s just it: I don’t want to say good-bye. I don’t want to close the door on my friend’s life. So perhaps for me, and for many attending Steve’s service today, the dread is about the funeral making Steve’s death undeniable: we will no longer be able to fool ourselves using the tricky, intricate trap doors in our brains, in our hearts; no longer cling to the sliver of denial that suggests Steve isn’t really dead. Furthermore, there is the also the terror of the feelings that await me at the funeral, the feelings I will have to face. Forward, I tell myself: left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe, as my favorite writer, Anne Lamott writes. She says this is the only way miracles ever happen – by putting one foot in front of the other. And I think surviving the death of a loved one is a kind of miracle.

The breathing part of Lamott’s mantra has been especially hard, ever since Steve died. Instead of the even flow of breath, the air wants to gather like storm clouds and hover in dark corners of my body – suspended there. It seems I’ve lost my breathing rhythm and find myself periodically forcing large pockets of breath out in long, extended, often choppy, exhales. The moving part is hard, too. I feel frozen, rigid…stuck. Maybe I fear that if I move, everything will hurt. That if I even breathe, I will feel the pain. That it will vibrate through me like the clapper of a bell. And it’s probably true. But we must feel in order to move, and move in order to feel. This is how we travel forward from something potentially paralyzing. If we hold still, avoiding the pain, if we pretend it isn’t there, then we are unable to carry ourselves forward to a time when it will finally feel different – maybe even better. Not necessarily to a time when we don’t miss our loved one or when it doesn’t hurt anymore, but perhaps to a time when our breathing resumes its regular rhythm again. So in the spirit of moving toward a miracle, (a miracle of survival) I will get up and go. I will put on my purple dress and my black shoes. I will step down each of my porch steps, climb into my van, turn the key in the ignition, rest my foot on the gas pedal and go.

Diary of Grief

Notes from Week Three: 8/8 - 8/14

I visited my therapist this week, a woman who has suffered more losses than many. She speaks of grief as an ocean wave. When you’re at the beach, she says, observe the pattern of the waves. I get her meaning. Grief seems to pull back a little, at times, giving relief, then breaks on the shore of your soul again, without mercy, when you least expect it.

A few days later, C and I are strolling barefooted along Pismo Beach, the children running in three separate directions across the vast expanse of sand. I have the peculiar sense that I am looking at the sky for the first time; it feels boundless and encompassing at the same time; so blue, so wide and so good. My breathing is easier in the salty air. And my heart feels freer, lighter, lifted somehow. Riding a gentle crest of the wave, perhaps.

On the beach, thoughts of Steve surface readily, since my fondest memories come from the beach house our families rented together all those summers. A memory plays: Steve and I are tanning on the beach, his skateboard propped in the sand near his head, the boom box playing George Michael. Another: Steve gliding flawlessly across the ocean shores on his skim board. The memories don’t gnaw too deeply, but instead seem to nibble at the edges of me, leaving me pensive as I walk the shores alone for a while, watching determined pelicans swoop down across the ocean’s surface, looking to satisfy a compelling hunger.

The next morning, at the hotel’s continental breakfast bar, a preteen, skater kid helps my six year old with his too-heavy tray; and for a second, the kid is Steve. It’s him twenty-four years ago, back in our skater days – his skater bangs, his skater Vans. There, at the table, with the bagels and Cocoa Puffs, I slip into a whirlpool of sadness. And it hurts all over again. The loss cuts across my heart at sharp, acute, angles.

Then: wild sobbing.

Just like that the wave has come. The wave has come, and crashed hard.

-------------------------

Later, after a trip into town for clam chowder, C takes the boys to the game deck, giving me some alone time with my laptop. At the desk in the hotel room, I write this poem:

Seeing

Sometimes, when

someone dies, you

start seeing them

everywhere—

their face suddenly

in every crowd.

You are

in a crab shack,

in Pismo;

he’s in line

in front of you –

his profile,

his hair.

And for

a split

of a split second,

you’re in a world

where this is possible;

where he isn’t gone;

where it’s all been

a universe of dream.

You’re in a world

where you can

touch him

on the shoulder,

where you can

embrace him

the way

you’ve so

desperately

been needing

to do.

Diary of Grief: Notes from Week Two

Today, grief meant polishing off a one pound bag of peanut M&Ms, while driving in the minivan. I just kept reaching for more, with a robotic compulsion, that could, in retrospect, almost be considered comical: because I think I looked like a rodent shoving nuts into its cheeks, real fast-like. Anyhow, I got lost trying to find Wolf Camera, which I’ve been to a zillion times. The brain, on grief, doesn’t function as it should. I felt almost desperate in my mission, which was to scan photos of Steve for his family before leaving for Palm Springs tomorrow. I feel desperate to do anything for them. Anyhow, I drove like twelve miles in the wrong direction, and had to double back, the whole while reaching for more M&Ms. I think it was a message to grief, inhaling all that candy: stay the hell away from me today. I’m tired. After fourteen days, I’m tired of grieving.

It didn’t much work – eating all those M&Ms. I think they just got piled up on top of the grief. Not to mention, when I finally arrived to Wolf Camera, I feared I might vomit onto the scanner bed. But the man who helped me in Wolf was an angel with a gold front tooth and a Romanian accent. I’m sure glad these people exist: the-nice-just-because-they-want-to-be-nice sorts – and right when you need them. Right when you feel like you might come unglued and spill your insides out in every direction if someone so much as speaks to you in the wrong octave. Right when you’ve been lost for miles and might barf up a bag of M&Ms – that’s when you need the kind souls of the world around. You need that sort of grace in a time like this – extra kindness and goodness and love.

Speaking of grace – and kindness and goodness and love, friends of mine watched my three boys for three hours so I could go to Wolf without the entourage and so I could finish writing my speech for Steve’s memorial service -- which I also needed to accomplish before leaving for Palm Springs. When the family first asked me to speak, all I could think about was how I was going to sob through the whole thing, like hyperventilating and convulsing and the whole nine yards. But so far, just writing the words down has been the hard part. Hard because I got stuck in sadness, writing about dear old Steve. It took me all week, but I think today, in those hours of blessed solitude, I finally finished. And afterward, when I went to collect the boys, the same kind friends served up some homemade mac and cheese, which I found exceedingly comforting.

And tonight, we came home to the yawning, empty suitcases that needed yet to be filled with a week’s worth of wardrobe. And then there was the business of what the hell do you wear to a funeral? Do people still wear black? Is that passé? Is it required? Do I have anything black? So I googled what to wear to a funeral and the advice was all over the place, like, make sure not to show any cleavage and wear the deceased one’s favorite color. Utterly confused and too exhausted to make a sound decision, I called my friend, D, because the last thing I want to worry about when we drive in from Palm Springs the night before the funeral is what I’m going to wear. So D came over at nine o’clock at night (more kindness and goodness and love) and told me exactly which dresses in my closet were appropriate; she’s good at this sort of thing. Then, she looked me right in the eye and asked, “Which dress would Steve have liked?” And I knew immediately he would have like the plum dress, so I’m wearing that one.

It feels odd to be going on vacation, right in the middle of all this grief. I would not have planned it this way. But you don’t plan death; and least of all a death like Steve’s. So I'm heading out in the morning, with my family, and I think the trip will just become part of the journey: the arduous journey across the foreign landscape of loss.

Diary of Grief

One Week: The Way Through

The only way out is the way through. --Howard Neberov.

Herding everybody out to the mini van this morning for church, C says, So it was a week ago today you heard the news about Steven, wasn’t it? I make a heavy sigh as I answer: It was. I can hardly believe it’s only been a week, when the news feels as fresh as hours. When, if, and how the grief gets better I don’t know. My friend, C, who lost her mother to MS recently, says, Time being a healer sure made for a lovely Eva Cassidy song, but hasn’t been true for her. Another of my friends, K, who lost her dad to brain cancer last year, says she still cries on the way home from work. I think that loss is loss; that there is no way to reframe it into something that feels better; no way of reshaping it into something that makes sense. It is one of the more painful mysteries of life. I’ve tried to create scenarios in my head, in which Steven has not really died, like instead, I have just awakened from a bad dream. But I return with regret to the reality that Steven is really gone. I agree with Neberov when he says, The only way out is the way through. But the way through is agony.

I don’t even know if the wounds that emerge in loss are meant to be healed. When a person leaves a hole in your life, the hole remains – does it not? The uniqueness of each person in our lives is just that: unique; there is no replacing him/her. But do we find healing balms that will soothe our wounds? Do we find the strength to survive? Do we find grace? And hope? Are we able to experience joy again, even in the midst of such deep sorrow? I think all of these things are possible, but the when and how of it remains an enigma to me. I marvel at people who endure loss – parents who outlive their children, in particular; I’m in awe by the way they merely survive. Steven’s family, and all people of loss, are my new heroes; but not because they want to be, or chose to be. I am humbled by their will to carry on. And I wish them every strength and grace in doing so.

Entering the sanctuary on this Sunday, my priest seeks me out with one of her famous hugs; I contacted her with the news about Steven earlier in the week. Underneath her heavy, white vestments is a heart ablaze with love. I am comforted; and don’t want to let go. And for a long moment, I don’t. For a long moment, the universe of pain stops, and it’s like coming up for air.

In the pew, I fix my eyes on the circle of stained glass above the altar. Each week, I watch the white morning light pour in through the glass, illuminating the pieced together shapes of glass and their vibrant colors. Here is where I come to piece together the shapes of myself, and my life, where I hold onto the hope that the pieces, however irregular, can still come together and form something beautiful – like the stained glass. Here in the pews of Holy Cross Episcopal Church, where I have brought every worry, every concern, every burden for the past two years, I sit with the incomprehensible loss of Steven’s life. I bring here my questions, my anger, my deep and consuming sadness. Here, in the house of my spirit, the tears fall freely. I let my chest rise and fall as it will. I cry openly.

My grandmother has always said that God puts our tears in a bottle, that somewhere in the scriptures it says so. I try to imagine the number of bottles it will take to empty my grief, the grief of Steven’s family, and all those who knew and loved him…I imagine a thousand mason jars, filled with tears, lining a window sill that stretches across the entire universe…the sill between eternity and now.

Diary of Grief

***Pictured at the right: Shannon and J.Taddei, Steve's sister**

Day Six: Together

The day begins with a fight. Right after breakfast, Chad and I launch into our goals, including the project of crafting a mosaic, garden stone for Grandma B’s birthday tomorrow. But within minutes of opening the kit, we are arguing. Chad and I rub each other wrong; we send the kids outside to play so we can talk it out. It’s tense. We’re both strung out – he, from being overworked at the hospital this week, not to mention a challenging month on the home front: first, a wife with a hideous eight day flu, and a now, a wife who is grieving. He’s having to pick up extra pieces; he’s feeling taxed. And me, I’m submerged in my grief – today, I can hardly see out of it. I feel like I will suffocate. Today, grief is twisting, gnawing on, pulling at my insides – insisting on itself. But it feels as if there’s no room for it. My family needs me; my life needs me. I’m overwhelmed. I know it’s vital to allow the feelings their rightful place inside of me, but right now, I hate grief. I resent the space it tries to occupy in my life. Grief will not be robbed, my priest told me the other day. I am only six days in, but this feels utterly true.

Chad and I sit silently now in the kitchen chairs; tears drip freely into my lap. Chad reaches over, rests his hand on my knee; I take hold of it. We have heard each other out. We’ll be okay. By grace, we’ll be okay. It’s all just harder than I want it to be.

Not fifteen minutes later, my mom phones. As soon as I hear her voice, I’m bawling into the phone. She understands what I haven’t even said: it’s a difficult morning with grief. Her words are soothing and kind. She knows; and grieves alongside me. I am going out to A’s house, she says, and you’re welcome to come along, if you want. I’m going to bring some soup and things. I don’t want to make things worse with Chad, so I decline. But after hanging up, the option of staying home to mix cement with three children sounds absurd. Traveling, instead, toward the center of the grief is what feels right. Furthermore, while much of my grief is owed to Steve’s family, and the terrible way in which they now suffer, there is an instinctive longing to be them, to offer whatever I can offer.

Grief is demanding. I never knew it was so demanding.

Unable to see clearly through my emotional clutter, I utter a confused prayer: I don’t know what to do. Show me what to do. So as casually as possible, I say: My mom’s going to visit Steve’s family today… and then I let the words hang awkwardly in the open air. And God bless Chad, who turns to me and says, You should go. I want you to go, and then opens his arms so that I can fall into them. After a minute, he adds, But I’m not doing any mosaic projects. I laugh and let him know I don’t expect him to be arranging gemstones in cement while I’m gone.

Upstairs, I pull my hair into a bun, throw on some denim, and head out to my yard to clip a bouquet. Ordinarily, arranging bouquets is something I do rather well, but just two plants in, and the bouquet is looking pathetic…Japanese Elm branches, a flowerless stalk from a Birds in Paradise…I look at the thing with great spite: it’s totally not working.

Back in the house, I whine to Chad: I want to bring something to them…I have no flowers, no soup, no nothing…what do I bring? And Chad pauses but a second, then quickly settles the matter for me: Just bring yourself.

And so I do.

The drive to Orinda is unexpectedly cathartic. Passing through the Caldecott tunnel, I find heavy sobs escaping from way down deep inside of me – loud, primitive, contorted-face kind of sobs. I realize that I belong right here, in this car; the drive to Orinda is a grace. The time alone has opened the door to my grief; a door I’ve kept mostly shut in order to survive my days; grief, refusing to be robbed, finds a way out at last.

At the house, I wrap Steve’s sister and Steve’s mom in my warms and squeeze – it feels so good to be in their embrace. I don’t want to let go. We gaze into each other’s tear-filled eyes and there is a beautiful sort of knowing between us. It is the first time this week where no explanation is needed for why I feel the way I do. It is one of the first times this week that I don’t have to pretend I’m okay when I’m actually not.

The time spent with Steve’s family feels like an earthly sort of heaven, especially for grievers: it is togetherness; it is raw and true; it is love beyond words; it is a painful, but perfect kind of warmth. It is not the awkwardness around death that I feared. It is intimate. Rather it is the wound open wide, for healing. Although it’s unforgivably difficult to see the friends I hold so dear, suffering so profoundly, I rejoice in being with them. I am honored they have welcomed me in to their sacred place of grief.

Something else happens that I didn’t know could happen in times of grief: we laugh hysterically. Peering over one another’s shoulders at old photo albums, filled with moments from Steve’s life, we howl at our mothers going braless in the seventies – what gigantic boobs they had; and at Steve’s dad, in his impossibly tight pants, his unbelievable afro; and at Steve, who at age four, is dressed in a mustard colored leisure suit. Steve’s family tells a funny story about Steve getting sandwiched in a foldout sofa when it retracts unexpectedly, his feet wiggling in the air over the cushions as he yelps for help. We laugh and laugh and laugh – until we need to cry. And then we cry.

We tell the best of the Steven stories: the memories shared between us, and even stories that are new to one another. We talk about death. We talk about life. We talk about God. We talk about wishing we could talk to the dead. And I remember now why these friends are more like family: it’s so easy to be with them. We can say anything or nothing at all; we can laugh or cry. We can share thoughts embedded deep in our souls about the way things are. And were. We can be as we are. Today, I feel profoundly thankful -- that Steve was in my life for all of those years. And that his precious family still is.

Diary of Grief

Day Five: The Journey

In the car we’re silent. It’s 3:30 and Mom and I are headed downtown to visit the place where Steve breathed his last breath. A certain trepidation pulses through me. But given the circumstances, I can’t think of another place I’d rather be going in this moment. And I am so grateful to be making this journey with my mom.

We don’t know precisely where we’re going, so we end up parking the car, trailing around a bit, then re-parking and trailing around some more. Where we park the second time, we slip past a cyclone fence and explore an empty field of brittle, brown grass. We peer over the field’s edge into the creek below and scan the length of the bank. We are looking for any sign of the cross that Steve’s family has placed in the ground. But so far there’s no sign of it and I feel a sense of panic: what if we don’t find it? The desperate need to be at the place where Steve died is difficult to explain: it is a need to be close to him again in any way possible. I whisper some prayers to Steve: Help us find it, I plead with him, show us where to go. I feel as though he hears me.

With no luck, we head out of the field and back to the car, driving another several hundred feet or so. We park near an abandoned red shopping cart and somehow, it feels like we’re close now. Mom and I head toward the freeway overpass. The most likely place for a cross seems to be at the bottom of a steep hill that leads under the overpass, composed of loose dirt. I hand my camera, as well as a giant memento rock that I’ve been carrying, to Mom, and tell her I’ll head down and check it out. Just ten unsteady steps in, and I can see the very tip of a black, wooden cross at the bottom of the hill. My heartbeat picks up and I turn toward Mom: We found it. It’s down here.

On the way down, we pass a shapeless mound of stiffened blankets in the corner, between the overpass and the dirt path. I begin to note the details of this place that is already sacred to us, this place, where, for whatever reason, Steve ended up visiting on the day he died. There is a caged area along the top of the hill, a few plaid shirts scattered in the distance, bright tagging on the beams that uphold the overpass, a mattress...

I head to the cross first, Mom following behind. Be careful, Shannon she warns. But just a few steps in I slip, throwing my leg up into the air in a wild act of balance, just in time to catch myself. I wait for Mom, and we are on the hill side by side now. On the way down, we cling to one another for balance as our feet slip and move beyond our control. We hold onto one another’s arms and hands more tightly than I can ever recall. In fact, this may be the tightest we’ve ever held one another. Each of us is concerned about the other falling. Mom looses her balance and I grab onto ever part of her body I can find, and try to steady her.

At one point, maybe a third of the way down, journeying in this loose dirt with my mother, there is a moment that occurs to me so suddenly and so briefly, I don’t know it even qualifies as a moment. First it, is a feeling, like something washing over me: a baptism of goodness. Something precious, and fragile and unexpected comes to find me in this otherwise grievous of moments: it is connection; connection with my mother. We are, here and now, despite whatever has come before us, (and for mothers and daughters, things do come) connected to each other by something larger than ourselves. It is a grace, a gift of unexpected origins. And I accept it so gratefully here on the slippery and perilous hill.

The second beautiful thing to wash over me is this: I see Steven (not literally, but with the eyes of my soul) smiling at us, Mom and I. I see him loving us in this moment. I see him as the center of this celebratory connection between my mother and I. And knowing he loves us both, I feel connected to him, too.

We finally make it, sort of galloping without choice down the last bit of that steep hill and there, wedged into a space between boulders, the black cross stands, with fresh flowers beneath it. It means everything and nothing to be here in the place where I know Steve died: everything because it’s the best the way I can find to be near him again, to honor him, to find him who cannot be found – and nothing because Steve is still gone, and visiting this place has not filled the hole that’s inside of me. I don’t know what I expect: to see an apparition of his face on the underpass walls? Or to hear his voice echoing across the creek? Maybe it’s difficult to avoid such fantasies in the midst of grief. But the spot is peaceful and that is something; not an apparition, but something. A generous sunlit wall under the overpass forms the backdrop for the scene and occupying the area just below, is a shallow body of water that connects to the creek further down. The water is so still, and beautifully lit. I think of Steve’s soul, still like that. And light. The line from the Nicene Creed, God from God, light from light, comes to mind. To think of Steve reunited with the very same light from which he came is comforting to me.

Mom tosses a colorful bouquet into the spot near the cross. It’s clear I cannot toss the ten-pound rock I’ve made for Steve, so I make the precarious climb over the boulders and lay it down.

The photo of Steve and I in Disneyland, sporting our Mickey Mouse hats and two giddy smiles, is decoupaged on the rock’s surface. In Sharpie, I have written: To my first friend ever, Steve. I love you always, Shannon. And I do. I loved him then and I love him now. And always.

Diary of Grief

Day Four: Quicksand

For whatever reason, the fourth day ends up being a living hell; a weird, frozen-in-time, isolated sort of hell: like I’m stuck in a quick sand of grief. I’m home with the three boys today, and I feel like the three of them are tiptoeing around the quick sand. They sort of circle around me, like little black birds, pecking at their cheese and crackers, pouring their apple juice, looking up the weather on Google, making their beds...

When I first woke this morning, even before I hoisted my under-slept body out of bed, I resolved I was going to take the kids somewhere special, like Fairyland, and spend the day reconnecting with them. I have felt so absent this week. But the hours of the morning pass – and pass – and pass, and I tell you this, my dear friends: I simply cannot do it. I am stuck. Deeper and deeper I sink, hardly able to travel from one end of the house to the other, let alone, to Fairyland. I feel guilty for being so far removed, for not being able to fake it very well with my family this week. But it also occurs to me that if my children are ever going to be prepared for grief in their own lives, well…it will be through what they observe of the experience. There are no how-to lessons on grief: there is just the wretched, raw experience of it. And I don’t think we are asked to overcome it, but merely survive it.

The dishes pile high today. The laundry, of course, is also in massive, possibly composting, mounds. And apparently, the mail is piling up, too. The mail carrier came up to the door today with our mail. I can’t fit any more mail in your box, he says, it’s all jam-packed. He seems annoyed. I take the mail from his hand and speak defensively: We had a death in the family so I haven’t been checking the mail. He remarks, Oh boy, and heads back down our front steps. I can feel that I’m especially on edge.

While clearly I’ve not been much for mobility today, I have been thinking a lot. About how death is an enigma that haunts us all – how not one of us can escape it; about the way death perplexes our delicate and limited human intellects, and challenges our spirits to their innermost core, no matter what the circumstances around it happen to be; no matter what we believe comes after. Because in death, the living feel forsaken.

At some point, I coax myself to the backyard and sway in the hemp chair a bit. From the swing, I spot the cross that hangs on our fence: it’s a mosaic composed of irregular shards of bright-colored ceramics. I think about how we’re all broken like that; some of us in more pieces than others, perhaps, depending on our story. I think of Steve, broken on earth, but now whole. This is maybe the first soothing thought about death I have arrived at on my own, since Steve’s passing: that each of us longs to be whole our entire lives, and in dying, we finally are.

Finally, finally, around 2 p.m., as the quicksand nature of my day becomes unbearable, I convince myself to do two things: seek out some company to get me through the evening, and to get us all out of the house. After herding the boys into the mini van, I head to the end of our block and sit there, immobilized. I have no idea which way to turn because I have no idea where we are going. The boys are buckled confidently in their seats, trusting that I have a plan, as always – a destination. But I absolutely don’t. Even more perplexing is the fact that I can’t seem to make a decision that requires so little imagination. Finally, I turn left and head toward downtown. But I have second thoughts, so I make a u-turn and drive back the other direction. I head over Fairmont Drive and into San Leandro. We end up at Michael’s Arts and Crafts, which ends up a ridiculous nightmare of a shopping trip, with Henry opening packages of beads and rolling them down the aisle. He also broke two piggy banks. We buy a mosaic garden stone kit, some stupid dollar toys, and head home.

On the way home, I am unusually agitated and realize that I failed to eat again today. So I drive the mini van through Caffino, and order a mocha. Food simply doesn’t appeal. The boys talk me into a whole variety of indulgences: strawberry banana smoothies, cookies and cream shakes, chocolate milk: I am a pushover, too strung out to defend any point of view. And that’s okay for today. I laugh to myself, thinking they could have easily persuaded me to order chocolate croissants, muffins and cookies, as well. Pulling out of Caffino, I realize I am precisely one block from the place where Steve's body was found. Tomorrow, Mom and I will visit Steve's site together.

I am actually looking forward to having somewhere to be; to having a destination that feels exactly right.

Diary Of Grief

Day Three: Distraction

It’s hard getting started, as usual, this morning, but I manage to stomach some coffee; and praise be to God, Chad is home today. Chad defends my need to play George Winston to the boys, rather than Lady Ga Ga. He is tender and sweet all through the morning, asking me what I need. And mostly, I don’t know what I need – until my cousin knocks on our front door: she’s crazy in love and is here to tell us about it. I pour us each a glass of sparkling water and add some lime slices and sprigs of lemon verbena. We sit out on the deck in two anorak chairs, soaking up the day’s generous sunlight. Tell me all about it, I say.

I don’t realize it at the moment, but really, I am asking for a distraction. I am asking to be elsewhere, outside of my grief. It has occurred to me, as subtle and silent as it can be, grief is hard work; it is exhausting; depleting. It is work I have been committed to for days; and the road ahead feels long, yet.

My cousin’s vivacity explodes in every direction – like fireworks, her being ablaze with her first true love. I relish the display – every minute of it, in fact: her hands pressed upon her heart, her dark eyes widening as she speaks, her shiny, black hair swaying in a delicate breeze. I invest my mind in the stories of the amazing first date, the magic kiss, and all of the Rumi poetry a girl could want. Love indeed. I delight in this vibrant twenty four year old sitting before me. Simultaneously, a question from somewhere in the depths of me whispers: what about Steve?

The thing is about the grief, it never actually leaves; instead, it occupies a ghostly sort of space beneath the conversation. Underneath the sensation of seltzer bubbles on my tongue, beneath the scent of lime, beneath the sound of my own voice, my own laughter, the grief remains, somehow insisting on itself. There are even a few moments where I feel I am betraying my grief by soaking up these rays of sunshine. But I let these thoughts pass, figuring this entire process is foreign to me; figuring I am going to need to be led some – by unexpected visits from cousins in love and the like. So I allow my cousin’s stories to infuse me with a contagious sense of joy and hope and wonder – things I haven’t felt for days.

I have decided that at least for today, distraction is a grace, for which I am very thankful.

Diary of Grief

Day Two: Sinking In

This morning I wake feeling pinned to the sheets – so I decide not to get up. Instead, I lay diagonally across the bed, peering out the window at the camel-colored hills, and the silvery fog draped over them; I think of Steve. A hawk swoops over some cattle out in the distance and some beautiful words written to Steve on his Facebook Memories page come to mind: The heavy blanket has finally been lifted and your spirit is free to soar.* I try to imagine Steve’s spirit soaring like the hawk: free: unencumbered: whole. And it’s to this image I cling. My own heart is so heavy. Not soaring. Not free. Or light.

Chad has a work meeting today, so it’s just the kids and me again. Maintaining composure with the boys feels like it will be impossible. The intense feeling of restlessness is worse than it was yesterday – like lightening bugs trapped in a jar. I find myself ducking into different rooms of the house to let the involuntary tears fall. I notice, though, as I allow the tears to fall that the restlessness finds relief – like the fireflies are finding their way into the open air again, one at a time.

In the kitchen, after trying to eat a piece of toast, but composting it instead – after making the coffee required too much effort – after doing a couple of aimless laps around the house - I scribble the following on a note pad:

Grief doesn’t let you

make your bed in the morning

or even sleep in it

during the night;

no—grief keeps you

awake

into the early hours

of morning, poised on the edge

of you don’t know what;

awake to

the fragility of

e-v-e-r-y-thing.

Grief immobilizes.

I let the boys watch extra videos today, and draw myself a bath. Submerged in the comfort of hot water, I recall that tonight I’m supposed to host a dinner party. Will grief let me host a dinner party? Should I cancel it? Friends we have not seen in nearly a year will visit; I decide to keep the plans, concluding that as fragile as life feels at the moment, it’s important to connect with friends. So after the long soak, I gather up the boys and head to Trader Joe’s. I make it as far as the parking lot, but we are near the place where Steven was found; we are on the very street, in fact. Behind the wheel in the parking lot, I collapse into tears again; after a few deep breaths, I turn and speak to my three boys: Listen, I say, I’m feeling very sad and the sadness makes it hard to do the things I normally do. Do you boys think you can be extra well behaved and helpful in the store?

The world in Trader Joe’s feels divided in two: those who know Steven died and those who don’t – which makes it lonely. The boys, who know my soul’s sad secret, are angelically helpful; and I am so grateful. I feel rather zombie-ish, tossing bananas and bread loaves into the cart. I watch the faces move past us in the aisles, going about their shopping: alive: inhaling and exhaling, laughing, speaking and texting. I feel oddly disconnected from the living. It feels strange and surreal that all things are still in motion, when this beloved old friend of my mine is not.

After loading the groceries into the van, I find myself turning left out of the parking lot, instead of right. I am looking for the place where Steve’s body was found. I drive slowly, frozen groceries and all, an obvious aggravation to cars trailing behind me. What I’m looking for is important; what I’m hoping to find, my soul needs. As human beings, physical in nature, when faced with death, with the nonphysical realm, I think we grasp for something that can connect us – that can help us feel less lost from that which we mourn. I think I understand now why a cross at the roadside or flowers on a gravestone, or even a Facebook Memories page, can all be vital for those suffering a loss; it’s part of how we make sense of our grief; how we move on; how we comfort ourselves. It’s how we stay connected with whom it is we love and grieve. We believe they are with us in a new way: admiring the crosses we’ve stood in the ground, smelling our flower bouquets, and reading our words, from whatever mysterious place now holds them. After traveling up and down the street a few times, I realize that with the limited description I have, I won’t be able to find the sacred spot I long for today.

Maybe tomorrow I will find what I'm looking for.

*compliments of J. West

Diary of Grief

Day One: The News

I arrive home from church feeling restless. The three boys and myself have a wide-open Sunday sprawled out before us, with Chad at work until late tonight. I circle the kitchen island like twenty two times: plenty of dishes to be done, pictures to be framed, the usual laundry and vacuuming; heck – there’s an entire garage to be unpacked yet, from our move back in April. But I feel a restlessness I can hardly describe: like the long moment when you’re at the top of Great America’s “The Edge,” waiting for it to drop.

I call Chad at work. He reports he is drawing blood; I report that I am circling the yard, aimless as a chicken. Later, I eat some tuna out on the deck and glance around the yard; consider that my herb garden is missing mint. How did I forget to plant mint? I flip through a cookbook, seeking out a recipe for the friends coming to dinner tomorrow night. I brew some tea, put Henry down for a nap, walk around in some more circles. Then – the phone rings. And just like that, my day is transformed.

In just the two words she utters – Hi Shannon – I can hear in my mother’s voice that something is seriously wrong. What’s wrong, Mom? She sighs heavy: Steve died. Steve was my very first friend on earth. He has been a friend of mine literally since birth; we grew up together, our families like blood relatives to one another. Incredulous and horror-stricken, I ask all the usual questions: how, when, where? – and underneath it all, the silent question of why already lingers. Mom tries to relay the story, but her words get lost in a sob-choked voice. Steve’s body was found a few days ago. He collapsed on the ground, and died instantly, right here in my hometown. I am sick from the inside out.

As soon as I hang up the phone, my heartbeat picks up, racing and pounding. There is an ache in my forearms, an ache that travels down into my fingertips and throbs beneath my fingernails. My chest tightens and twists. Breathing gives way to panting, and rides the edge of a long wave of sorrow and horror, all just waiting to break on the shore with a heavy sob; but it doesn’t. Instead, it builds, rises, and remains there in the depths of me. The restlessness I have felt all day gives way to full blown anxiety. I am lost. In my kitchen, I am lost. For a while, I pace the wood floors beneath me, just panting.

Within twenty minutes of the news, I am crawling through the attic out of raw impulse, trying to unbury the right box of photos – I need to see Steve’s face again: now. It’s been several years since Steve and I have seen each other. I’d kept up on the major news of his life via my mom and his sister: his joys, sorrows, endeavors, recoveries, relapses, loves and losses; he was often on my mind. At the kitchen table, I sit and sort: at the moment it’s all I know how to do. There is a Steve pile and all the rest. With my pile of Steve pictures, ranging from birth to late adolescence, my breathing slows again.

Nestled in a blanket on the couch, I flip through pictures of a friend I literally began my life with. There is a photo that has long been half-magical to me, one of Steve and I sporting typical, infant, layette getups, parallel parked in our infant seats, not too many weeks old. The origins of our friendship will probably always amaze me: back in 1973, two best friends in high school (my mom and Steve’s mom) get pregnant only one month apart from one another. And strong women that they are, they birthed us both at age seventeen and raised us together like brother and sister. In the years to come, our families grew; I gained a brother and Steve gained a sister; and our families did everything together: weekend barbecues, camping, Disneyland, Santa Cruz, Hawaii, Mexico, Easter, Christmas, Fourth of July…It was like having extra siblings. I cherished Steve and his entire family so very much. Though our lives have been farther apart in recent years, nothing ever alters the past: the joyful years spent with one another remain the same and will be with me always – like a gift I’ll hold until my own death.

My six year old comes to the sofa’s edge, What are you looking at, Mommy? I explain the sad story of my friend, Steve, and he says, You must feel very sad, Mommy. I tell him I do feel very, very sad. And bewildered. We were born together; we were supposed to die together; to have similar life spans. The fact that at thirty-six, we are nowhere near done with our lives, and yet Steve is gone, feels all too wrong. That I’m sitting here on my blue sofa, and his body will never again occupy a sofa, haunts me.

I think I am only at the beginning of my grief.