Get your fire back.
It’s not over until God says it’s over. Start believing again. Start dreaming again. Start pursuing what God put
in your heart. ~ Joel Osteen
I’ll admit I have fallen into a bit of a slump lately… the
cold weather – and earlier the ceaseless flow of ailments – paralyzing my
meager running efforts, a general malaise that affects my mood like rain on a
wedding – where I “feel” somewhat happy, but not fully content, and a certain
degree of anxiety that leaves me feeling at once exhausted and jittery. Perhaps it is
too much coffee. Perhaps it is something
more.
I’ve been feeling agitated by the constant flow of speeding
vehicles past our house, whizzing by at 50 or more mph in a 40, that less than
a tenth of mile becomes a 25. I’ve been feeling
uneasy by yet another legal issue that is, in essence, just business, but still
requires my attorney. Again. I’ve been feeling pissed off by the
interminable blizzard of “treats” at school, which not only present a health
issue for my daughter, but places me in the unwanted and difficult position of
either allowing her to “be like everyone else” and eat that crap that will keep
her blood sugars well above 200 for hours, or saying “no” and making her hate
her diabetes even more because she’s not
like everyone else. And a little
perturbed that it’s going to be ME, the one who hates conflict and stirring the
pot, that is going to have to throw the cauldron into the fire.
I’ve been feeling discouraged by the length of time it has
taken me to get this far in my online coursework, and how hard it is to stay on
target. (Word to the wise: never take an online course unless you have the
discipline of dog with a bone.) I’ve been
feeling overwhelmed by all the things I want to accomplish, and by the way time
vanishes like water down a drain. I’ve
been feeling the heartache of missing someone who should be able to come home
every night, and knowing that sometimes the drive is just too much. I’ve been feeling frustrated over the
obstacles that make change seem so very far off. And more than a little melancholy every time
I remember how old I am.
Last weekend I went to Baltimore, where the other half of my
family lives. It was not a pre-planned
trip. I had already been there mid-week,
because I really love visiting with the in-laws (under the cover of alleviating
Todd’s strain of driving home two more days in a row). I made
an executive decision to drag my brother-in-law and his better half out to a
local favorite pub so we four could spend some time together. It was a nice evening. Had some illicit foods and drank a couple of
IPAs. Life is going swimmingly for them,
and it was a joy to see that. I do so
love happy endings.
Anyway, later that evening I learned that Todd and I would
be returning to Baltimore on Saturday for a funeral. It seemed that one of his former, and valued,
colleagues had finally lost his wife to cancer.
I had met Jim months earlier in, of all places, the liquor store we like
to go to for “restocking.” We were
perusing the expensive liquors (translation: the ones locked behind glass
doors) when we bumped into Jim, who hugged me like an old friend as we were
introduced. Todd asked how things were
going, and to my shock I learned that his wife was in the hospital, fighting
her way through round 4 of cancer. He
said he felt so guilty for being there, as she lay in the hospital, as he hasn’t
left her side for weeks. She wasn’t
going to beat it this time. He hadn’t
known it then, the impact he’d left on me.
I walked dazed and glassy-eyed through the rest of the store, no longer
interested in the craft beer I’d wanted to pick out. What I felt was something stronger than words
could describe, and I fought back the tears until we finally left the store.
So we drove down to Baltimore to the most beautiful church,
and we turned onto a side street in a beautiful historical neighborhood just
around the corner. I heard the sound of bagpipes playing outside and
momentarily regretted my decision to drop Zoloft 3 months ago. And, damn it all – I’d forgotten to grab a
handful of tissues to stuff in my purse.
I’m such a ridiculously emotional person. I dug my fingernails into Todd’s arm as we
passed the man in the kilt, silently chastising myself for feeling the wave
rising within my eyes. Don’t you DARE cry, you blubbering idiot,
the damn service hasn’t even started yet.
The church was filled. Standing.
Room. Only. We
were directed to the balcony, where we were fortunate to get the last two seats
– in the last row. We couldn’t see a
thing, which was a blessing to my overly, embarrassingly tearful self – I fixated on
the back of this woman’s head and focused on being reverently detached.
The bagpiper reprised Amazing Grace as he entered the
santuary . Then the reverend began to
speak…and his mouthpiece wasn’t working, so all we heard up in the balcony was:
“We… to… -ship… and… cel-… life… Jul-” and the little old lady running the
audio board just a few feet from us began frantically adjusting knobs and
buttons. I wondered how long it would
take the minister to realize what was going on.
This was one of those moments when I also have to focus on something
other than the humor of such a scenario, lest I break into some silent, and
highly inappropriate, laughter.
The two reverends delivered a wonderfully poignant service,
and through them I learned that they had not only married Jim and Julie in this
very church, but had baptized their two children, and watched the family grow. It was all going very well, that is, until
Julie’s son stood up to speak. I braced
myself for the emotions. It wasn’t too
bad. He described their last Christmas
and how he wheeled his mother around as he helped her decorate the house. Something about the tears rolling down her
cheeks…. I don’t remember much more,
since I was trying to swallow the lump in my throat, and began to really wonder
why no one had thought to tell this woman in front of me, with 3 inches of
white hair tipped in that weird unnatural shade of brown, that she was
badly in need of haircolor.
Julie’s daughter spoke next.
Going well, I thought. Both children
are grown now, and their eulogies were very touching. I admired another woman's hair and briefly wondered
how my own hair looked. Julie’s daughter’s
words reached me still, blind in that balcony, even as I started thinking about
my grandmother’s hair – still “brown” at 87 – and wondered how and when I would
one day stop coloring my hair so that I actually looked like a real 80-year-old
woman.
A daughter’s worship
of a beloved mother, who gave her strength and wisdom and so much love, and how
she couldn’t wait to one day be the mother that her mother was. I guess this is when I thought of Ava, and
how attached she is to me, and wondered how terrible it would be for both of my
children, if I died so young. And then I
noticed the other women in the balcony, blotting at their eyes with tissues…. And then
I had no other choice but to frantically start digging like a groundhog for
a tissue in my purse, before the overflow hit my cheeks and the snot just inside the tip of my nose performed a slimy cliffhanger. I pulled it together just long
enough for Jim to take the podium.
I knew that what Jim had to say would send me into the kind
of body-quaking tears that are caused by the attempt to “hold back” the
hysteria. Jim is apparently a gifted
speaker, and I could see where the children drew their ability not only for Herculean
strength but also for eloquent monologue.
He acknowledged each and every one of the people inside that church – as
they sat here today because Julie had touched their lives in some way. He recalled a conversation he’d had with her
months ago, as she laid in that slow wasting of cancer’s clutch, where she
asked him – “how can you kiss me?” And
his response – “how can I not?” I felt every
muscle in my body tense against the wave of grief I felt for him, and for her,
and Todd glanced at me and squeezed my sweaty hand.
He told us of his nickname for her, Do, “just d-o,” because
Julie does what Julie wants to do. In
essence, she lived her life solidly and fully.
She was active in life, family, and community. There was nothing she couldn’t do, if she
wanted to do it. I won’t ruin such a
beautiful, and heartfelt eulogy with my lame attempt to further paraphrase it. Jim loved this woman, whom I never had the
fortune to meet, so fully and completely with his whole being… that it would
take a lifetime for him to forget, if he ever could. They were true soul mates. They lived an American-dream kind of life…
introduced by mutual friends, falling in love, getting married, having
children, leading fulfilling lives, surrounded by friends and family, for 20
some years… and unfortunately plagued by 17 years of intermittent skirmishes with
cancer. Not any more an unusual life or
better than anyone else’s. Just an
enviable life.
Todd said he always admired Jim’s ability to express himself
clearly. And that day, he said he
finally “understands.” Jim always speaks
directly from his heart. And then he said, “the way Jim loves Julie, is the way I love you.” He could not have understood that until we
found each other again… that that kind of love is once in a lifetime,
irreplaceable, and… ultimately, aches in the deepest reaches of one’s
heart. And suddenly, I understood it,
too. There
is no one else. No one.
And so, in reflection, I realized the gift that Julie left
behind in all of us who attended her funeral that day… was the gift of knowing what
true love is made of, but more than that… the motivation to live better, more
completely, and never forget to acknowledge our many blessings on earth. It’s kind of cliché, like all those Facebook
posts such as “you don’t always get what you want, but you always get what you
need.” Knowing that no one person’s life
is perfect, that we all have challenges to face and internal struggles, no one
has “everything,” and that life is way too short. Our choices lie in how we use the time we
have, and how we accept what is, and how we aspire for more.
Julie was 50 years old.
How will you use your time
here?
“We all
have choices, …. And it starts when you decide.” ~ Remi, Ratatouille
No comments:
Post a Comment