A Very Rough Draft

I risked a speeding ticket on my way to her. I ran into my car, rushed over the icy paths, and risked my life in order to reach her on time. Fear and panic blinded me - what if I didn't make it, what if she left without getting to say goodbye, what if? My eyes strained against the darkness as I drove the two hours to the hospital.

There were other Easter Vigils where we didn't sit by each other. But that separation was brought on by the importance of serving at mass or singing in the church choir - never had it been anything so permanent. Before, she would be looking up at me from a pew, smiling with an unending joy to see her only daughter participating in the mass that way. But now, just three days ago, she had accused me of kidnapping her, of forcing her to join a cult. At that moment I knew, if we ever attended another vigil together we would not be sitting by each other. I knew that I had lost her and I hadn't been able to say goodbye.

My mother, my best friend, entered the tomb of her own mind - the dementia has taken over and I'm afraid to roll away the stone and see what is left. The women who went to attend Jesus, they were greeted by angels...I fear the devil. I am scared to be with her. I am scared to be a daughter who can't handle this change. I'm scared that when I roll away the stone the tomb will be empty.

Mary and the others found Jesus. Yes, he looked different, but they knew it was him by the fire lit in their souls. Fear is blinding me to the flame that is my mother. How can I see the strong, fierce woman who raised me, when I am terrified of the weak body and mind in front of me?

Easter is a time of resurrection and joy, but now I only see anxiety and stress. I see hours of repeating answers, reminding her where the bathroom is, and the pressure to be the supportive daughter. Easter doesn't mean a time of celebration for me any more...nor does any other holiday. Now, now it is all darkness and my eyes strain as I drive. My destination no more clear than it was that night two years ago - but I keep looking, hoping to find anything that might, at least, be a tiny bit familiar.

Learning to lose

"The Art of Losing isn't hard to master."
No,
it's easy to lose.
Set your keys down and they appear somewhere else.
It's not losing that is hard -
it's admitting that you've lost.

That you've lost your phone,
lost the word
the thought
the name
your mind, memories
yourself.
To admit you've lost means to find defeat.

defeat in ever finding her again.
defeat in the idea of looking into her eyes and say -
there she is.
there's my companion,
mother,
friend.
defeat means knowing  to give up.

give up on the hope of progress
give up on the idea of sanity
give up until you run out of things to lose
give up until you can admit you're lost.
until you can admit your loss.

"the Art of Losing isn't hard to master."
Perhaps not, Elizabeth Bishop.
But learning it - that is the disaster.

Searching for Her

Where is she -
the girl I once was.
Did I give her away as I opened up?
Sharing everything, every thought;
she was selfish.
Where did she go?
Did I love too much-
until she learned to break?

I remember alone,
I remember happy - self-sufficient.
Was that so bad?

The lost child, the lonely child
Never the scared child.

Where is she?
If I try hard enough will I find she's still in me?

Do I want to find her?
Become her again?
Am I  happy with who I am now?
Who I might become?

But where is she?

A Letter to Me - A Letter to You

Strength.

We work so hard - pump iron, run for miles, swim until our skin is blue, all in the name of becoming stronger.

We fall in love, we create friendships, we put ourselves out there and are rejected constantly; all because we know "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Here's a secret about strength -  it never goes away. When we are young we are strong. Some of us develop this strength sooner than others, but we fall and we rise and we fall again, each time learning to be faster when we get back up.

This strength does not leave. You are always strong, but sometimes you're scared to be strong. Sometimes it is easier to say, "I can't do this, I'm not strong enough" and the world will admit you are weak. You can lean on the people around you until you find your strength again. And this is good.

The problem is when you forget that you are always strong. The problem is when you believe your strength only comes from the people around you. This is when you are weak.

You are weakest when you only know yourself through others. You are weakest when you can only be if the people around you create you. You are weakest when you cease to exist without people. You carry a strength inside you always - you are weakest when  you forget this.

But this is hard to remember. It's easier to lean on others than to admit you can stand alone. But you have to. If you can't stand by yourself then there is no reason to stand at all. You have to build your own strength, push yourself to do the extra mile, a few more minutes, to stand back up. And you can do it.

It's hard. Nothing is harder than believing. But you can do it - you will do it. Force yourself to forget about the snooze button, to put down the phone, to smile at a stranger. Force yourself until it is habit. Find your strength and force it to grow. Then maybe, one day, another person will lean on you and you can support them until they too realize it's time to find their strength again. Grow and share what you have done, how you've learned. Grow until the whole world is strong.

Training to run

I don't run.

I will walk, I will skip, I will crawl if I have to; but I don't run. Except for lately.

Now I find myself running all the time. Running from people who care, running from bills and every fear I have, running from myself. I'm exhausted and have no calf definition to show for all of my efforts. I run from my emotions, quite sure that if I keep going they won't catch up. I won't have the time to stop and think and find myself more lost than I've ever been. At least, if I keep running, it will look like I know my destination.

But my brain is faster and definitely used to moving quickly. Fueled by caffeine and anxiety, it races ahead of me - taunting me. I watch as it easily hops from conclusion to conclusion, the entire time I grow weaker. It's pointless to fight. It's impossible to escape. At every turn my brain is there, showing me ideas I don't want to see - ideas that terrify me and make me fall apart. But that cannot be my brain's goal.

The brain is a part of me, if I fall apart so does it. We need each other to survive...so perhaps I am in training. With actual non-metaphorical running your muscles are weak until they fall apart, but over time they grow stronger. They rebuild and are able to face any challenge - it's only a matter of time. Maybe I am in training.

Maybe I am learning to fall apart and break in order to build myself up and be stronger. Soon these ideas will just be hurdles that I fly over. Soon I will run for hours, brain in my head, and we will work together to face any challenge. We can do this, my brain and me. And this time, we have something to run toward.

You are My Sunshine: a Search for Understanding

Maybe the point of falling is to teach you to get back up. Maybe the purpose of losing is to teach you how to celebrate a triumph. Maybe the point of hurting is to teach you how to heal and maybe the purpose of goodbye is to remind you to cherish every hello.

There once was a couple who wished for a child. They prayed every night for a joyous little boy and every morning they woke to an empty crib. The world saw the grief this couple held and pitied them.

To the sun she cried, "Brother sun, it is I sister earth. See this family, so lost and in the dark, give them light - a bit of sunshine to hold onto."

Moved by the earth's pleas and the cries of the couple the sun agreed. That night, after the couple had gone to bed, the sun began to flare and collected his energy forming it into the shape of a small child. At sunrise the couple awoke and there they found him; their sunshine, the answer to their lost cause, their forever.

And I wish, dear reader, that this was the end of the story. I wish that the couple lived a life full of light, love, and sunshine. But we are told to write what we know and not what we wish. And I know too much about how this story ends, so I choose not to write the ending, but rather the middle.

In the middle, the sunshine boy was loved. Though the couples love for one another died, the little boy was never without love. His family encouraged him to grow and flourish and his light shined on the world. He was a boy filled with courage, laughter, music, and joy. All of which poured out from him and into everyone he encountered. He made friends with strangers and fiercely loved the familiar.

Though made of the sun, he was a child in every way. He played, he cried, he napped, he made turtles out of green beans and told silly jokes – which only caused his light to grow. He shined with such power that even now, with all of the darkness in ending, his light warms those who hold his memory. We are filled with his love continuously and he won’t let go. The boy was and shall forever be in every hug, smile, and laugh shared among people. The sun may set, but it is never completely gone – simply shinning somewhere else.

Maybe we are given questions so we can celebrate certainty. Maybe we are given tears to remind us to appreciate the smile. Maybe we get lost to teach us to love every moment we know where we are – and maybe we are given darkness. We are given darkness to turn our faces to the light.

Find Me

It's funny how quickly, in times of pain, you can lose sight of who you are. During these past six months she's watched her mother disappear into a stranger. A rare sighting of the woman she once knew leads to hope, a path that can only be followed by sorrow. But she was so distracted watching her stranger mother, that she hadn't noticed. She hadn't been able to watch herself become someone else - and now the stranger lived in her.

"Who is this new person? This woman who is so unsure, unmotivitated, and damn emotional?"

She wasn't fully aware of her possession until she found herself bawling over a diaper commercial. And suddenly she knew, this was not the person she saw in the mirror each morning...or maybe that person was no longer her. Maybe the body she saw reflected back was hers, but barely. Now it belonged to someone who was lost and searching for anything to hold onto, searching for anyone to hold her.

"Find me," she prays silently, "find me here, waiting and hoping. Find me and carry me away from all of this mess. Find me and find the one in me who is strong. Find the me that can continue to suffer without crumbling.. Find me."

Every day she pleas to the universe, to the trees, to the traffic. Every day she whispers it to the dogs passing by, the children laughing, to the clouds that fall. Every day she prays this to God, she prays this to her friends, to the world; to herself. She screams, she cries, she laughs, she keeps silent and prays. Knowing one day, one day she will be found.