Three Gifts Grief Gave Me

On the first anniversary of my dad's death we celebrated him

Six years ago today, at this time, I was running errands around town. I had cramps. That evening my dad came to take my son James to his guitar lesson, and when he brought him home again, I probably said, "Bye Dad! Love you!" A few hours after that, I stood in my dad's shed with my mom, a couple police officers, and an EMS guy or two. My dad sat there too, hunched over his work bench. He had slipped away. That is what the police officer in my parents' driveway told me when I arrived. Lights flashing on the ambulance in the road. Me hoping the quiet that greeted me meant everything was okay - no rushing, no emergency here.

How can it be that something that has been true for six years still seems like such a shock sometimes? So unreal. So NOT true?

Grief is full of surprises. It hasn't been shy about sharing its tricks with me. It also brought many gifts.

First, grief doesn't go away. There is no "getting over it". Grief beats in my chest like my heart. It is always there, even when I'm not aware of it. Sometimes, I am tuned in to my grief. On days like today, I deliberately, mindfully tap into it. I take its pulse. I listen in, wondering how powerful it is now - is it moving forcefully? Gently? Most of the time, I'm not thinking about it. I'm so used to my grief at this point that it is like any other part of me. My eyes, my nose, my grief. The truth is - it has always been there. I've been losing and grieving those losses since I first claimed anything as mine. My dad's death forced me to feel grief in ways I had never let myself feel before. And now, I cannot unknow my grief. I am grateful for its presence and the way it has allowed me to feel deeply, intensely, without censorship, judgment, or expectations that it will go away some day. It's so much less intimidating now. We work together.

Second, "until death do us part" is mere poetry. Love lives on, way past the time the body holding it expires. And the Spirit was never really contained to begin with. My dad's love is a constant, like grief, moving in me, around me, and through all the people and places my dad touched. And, also, through the people and places that touched my dad. It is in my children even if their Papaw is but a faint memory. It gives me so much comfort to know in every morsel of my being that even in the absence of his body, my dad's Spirit lives on. Eternally. Not that doesn't keep me from wanting one last hug. I'd still love to see his face. Hear his voice. And, at the same time, I feel his Spirit. I relish in the cardinals he sends to check in, the guitar picks he leaves in random places, and the pennies he sends us from heaven. He is all around.

And finally, I was wrong in the hours, days, months, and years I spent feeling all alone in the world. Feeling damaged and broken, unworthy. I was always wondering, waiting, needing, and wanting confirmation that I was being held in some way, by some one. I didn't know it but, I was (good) enough all along. I was wise. I was whole. I was loved from the moment I became but a twinkle in my mother's eye. I have never been alone. Nope. By virtue of my humanity, I am deeply rooted in Creation. Connected to the Source - our Creator - and all living things. I am of the dirt, the sun, the stars, the moon, the lakes, and the seas. I am in the wind and the rain. My ancestors who came before me hold me still. We are all part of a Collective. We are one. And as the Earth spins on its axis, so do I, a magnificent microcosm of all that is, was, or ever will be. What a relief. I am not alone. I am whole. I carry all I need to know within me. I always have. I always will. And, the same is true for you.

There's more. Grief gives its gifts freely. It has taught me at least 100 other lessons in these six years. And, there's still more to learn. There always will be. In all ways. On all levels. The learning never ends.

And so, I thank Grief for what it came to teach me. I still wish it had been another way, and I know that was never a possibility. My dad's death was an important part of his journey, his contract. I am forever grateful for his legacy and for his love, which remains in our midst.

Peace to all the grieving hearts, aware of the losses, that devastate and leave us wondering why. Peace to the grief that lives within us, teaching us what it means to feel. Peace to all. xo

My dad, my sister Sarah, and me

My parents and their grandchildren, except little Aedan who arrived later

One of my favorite photos of my dad

My dad's work boots, bandana, and gloves

You Are Held. For real.

Some Thoughts on Pain and Suffering (with love)

There are many stories I want to share about the surgery I had on July 27, but they aren't ready to be told. Among them though is this new, unexpected, sister story that I really do want to share. Now. Even though it may not be ready either.

It started a couple weeks after my surgery. Everything went well with the surgery and initially I felt great. Then my body (specifically my skin) moved ahead with its own agenda. 

I quickly developed wounds where my skin refused to cooperate. Two weeks ago I had a second procedure. My skin is stubborn. So now, this is how it goes once, usually twice each day: I work up the courage to change my dressings. I peel back the existing dressing on one side of my body. I peel back the existing dressing on the other side. I apply ointment to non-adhering transparent gauze and then place that gauze, ever so tenderly, over my wounds. I cover that with regular white gauze and adhere it to my body with surgical tape. Finally, I adhere a surgical pad over the gauze with more tape. I am very well padded.

There is wincing. And often tears. There is curiosity, wonder, doubt, fear, and occasionally regret.

I have restrictions. I cannot do the things I want or need to do and I've grown weary from asking other people to do them for me. I am walking a fine line between sustaining the strength I know I need to sustain to properly care for myself and withdrawing into my warm, cozy bed. Indefinitely. I cry a lot lately.

I miss the things I can't do now. The things that normally bring me comfort and joy. Bear hugs, bubble baths, and yoga to name a few. Believe it or not, I even miss my ability to do laundry - to carry heavy things.

And every single day I think about the other people. The people who have been doing something just like this for weeks, months or even years. For themselves or for someone they love dearly. I think about how those daily rituals affect these other people. I wonder how they keep going? If they keep going?

I often think about what goes on under our cleverly cloaked faces and bodies. The pain that resides beneath the surface is no stranger to me. I carry it frequently. I know anxiety, depression, trauma, loss, and grief from all of it. It creeps up when I am not expecting it. I wonder who is in it with me - at the grocery store, at my son's soccer game, on Facebook. I know there are others. I feel for them.

And now I have a new understanding of another kind of pain that nobody can see. Wounds that are dressed and then dressed again for protection - and hiding. The wounds we don't discuss when we see friends around town. The wounds we carry all by ourselves. 

In these moments I think about the way we treat each other on this planet. I think about the ways we can be so quick to criticize one another. I think about the ways we so carelessly inflict pain on each other - with words, with our bodies, and with weapons. In our own homes, on the playground, in the board room, on the field, and all around town, we hurt each other. Often. It is usually on the defense. We want to protect ourselves from each other's choices, actions, and beliefs. We hope none of it is contagious. We don't want our kids to catch it. We lash out. And we have no clue about how the other person came to these choices, these actions, or these beliefs. And we don't even care. We lash out anyway.

These thoughts have been lurking in my head for days. I write to process things. These thoughts and this experience are things that need to be processed. I kinda don't want to process them though. They aren't easy for me to face. They are heavy. So why would I share them? Why today? Because this morning I woke up to learn that today is World Suicide Prevention Day. And I thought about all those people I know are out there suffering in silence and I wanted to tell them (you... us...) something...

You are not your experience. I am not mine. I am not my wounds, my pain, or my suffering and either are you. I don't care who you vote for or whether you vote at all. I don't care who you pray to or whether you pray at all. I don't care if you kneel before altars in churches or build your own altars on the beach or at home. I don't care if you use your when you mean you're. I don't care where you went to school, where you work, or where you live. I don't care what kind of car you drive or if you even drive at all. I don't care if you swear like a sailor or speak with the eloquence of the Dali Lama. I don't care if your body is covered in tattoos or moisturizer. None of that matters to me (although some of it is really interesting to me and I might want to talk more about it later... Without judgment.). The only thing I do care about is that you don't hurt yourself because of the stories - the lies - you've come to believe about your situation. And, I ask, please do not hurt others.

Ask for help, even if it is hard and you think you might have worn out your welcome.

I will too.

Sit with what you need to for as long as you need to, but please don't suffer alone in silence. It's not necessary.

I love you. God loves you. The Universe loves you. Mama Earth loves you. You are lovable and worthy of all the love you can imagine. It's true.

Heading to the doctor now... letting the tears flow. I'll be the one with the runny mascara. 

xoxo

Be gentle with yourself. 

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. 

In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. 

- Max Ehrmann

an old favorite

 

Hope in the Holes

Looking Up

I was in eighth grade when I first considered suicide. I decided on pills. That is as far as I got. In the space between knowing without a doubt that the people in my life would be better off without me, and swallowing pills, I found the holes in my story. I saw hope in those holes.

There have been times since then when I have imagined dying. About four years ago, after my dad died and all the pain I had stuffed deep down inside came rushing out and over me, I wanted to disappear. I thought about how the people I love most in the world would go on without me. I knew they would be happier. They would have less to worry about. Their lives would be more peaceful. They could move on. I imagined being shot. Getting hit by a car. Having a heart attack on the treadmill. These were times where I felt hopeless. Helpless. I knew I had to snap out of it - suck it up and get on with my life, and I didn't know how to keep going.

Can you imagine being that desperate? In so much pain that I would even consider welcoming the possibility of leaving this behind?

My people.

It is an infinite amount of pain.

It is painful thinking about it now. I cannot even imagine being in such a dark place now, and yet I have been there. Sitting here in this moment, I am at a loss for words to describe my gratitude for the people I love. I am grateful for every second I spend with them. I know they love me. I know I am blessed. 

In my darkest moments, I still lose sight of the beauty that surrounds me. It is truly unimaginable now - when I am grateful and at peace - sitting in the sunshine. In the darkness, I feel lost. Hopeless. Helpless. Worthless. I lose faith.

There are numerous triggers - things that happen that can send me down a dark path. I run anxious and I always have. In an average day any of the seemingly small things that a person faces can stress me out. Things like social situations, having to make small talk, returning items to the store, driving in heavy traffic… Depending on what else is happening in my life, I might fall into depression.

Mostly, looking back over my life, my depression occurs when I believe I am falling short. It comes from the belief that I am not enough. It comes from my certainty that other people also believe that I am not enough. All the lists of the reasons that I am not enough compiled in my head are the impetus for shame. As I grew older, and especially since I've become a wife and a mother, there was guilt. There is always something to feel guilty about.

With a lot of soul searching and some anti-anxiety medication, with time and yoga and writing and art, with therapy and life coaching, and the support of my husband, I cleared space to come up for air. For the most part, anything that was ever a source of shame is now just a piece of me and my story. It has been rendered powerless. In retrospect it is usually an opportunity to transform into something meaningful. Something beautiful.

I try not to stuff the pain anymore. I don't like to let it fester. I sit with it. I feel it. I look for lessons in it. I thank it. I let it go.

None of this is easy for me. I am not always good at it. It is messy. It can be really ugly. The process of working through it though makes all the sweetness waiting on the other side even sweeter. The beauty is more beautiful. The glory is more glorious. I can appreciate all the goodness in a much richer way now that I allow myself to experience and move through the pain. I am grateful I can say I know what it's like on the other side of the pain. I am grateful for the courage and support required to look up, to move on and out of it.

I haven't solved anything. I'm not cured. Living and working through my depression is a process. Life is a process for me. It is a practice. With practice and knowledge and support, I get stronger. I bounce back more quickly. Things don't look quite as bleak as they used to. I have faith that there is something bigger than me at work in the world, and that I can be of service to that force. I know I am loved. I try to keep my blessings in focus - when I acknowledge those blessings it is harder to fall down the rabbit hole.

This, obviously, comes in the wake of the death of Robin Williams, another great talent gone too soon. He was one of my favorites. I'm taking this opportunity to share a bit of what I know to be true. That even when things look fine on the outside, it can be a facade. Behind the scenes there might be turmoil. 

This is a truth that more of us are coming to accept as we see past the misconception of neat packages, nice clothes, good hair, pretty faces, hot bodies, successful careers, power, money, big houses, and fast cars. Behind it all, we are just people doing the best we can. 

A lot of us are encouraging those who suffer with depression to seek help. I think that is sound counsel. And, I also invite each of us to be a little kinder to each other. To be more compassionate. To search for the beauty and the love and the sweetness in the bramble of the berry patch that is life. The good is in there and there is a lot of it - enough for everyone.

Suicide is not a selfish act. It can feel that way to those of us left behind. Suicide is a desperate act. Of course, it isn't something that can really be generalized. And yet, I feel confident in saying that a person who takes his or her own life is not doing it for selfish reasons. I believe suicide occurs when the victim thinks the world would be a better place without them.

It is an infinite amount of pain.

It us up to each of us to prove to one another that we are each here for a reason - to enjoy the uniqueness of one other and the beautiful experiences that life has to offer. The world is a better place because of us, not in spite of us. That is our challenge actually - to accept that it is better because of us, and to keep working to make it even better. And better. And better.

It would be fun if we did it together.

************

My sister is a social worker who works with Veterans at the VA Hospital in Ann, Arbor, Michigan. I asked her to share some of what she and her colleagues use as a safety plan for clients with suicidal ideation. While seeking professional help is the very best option for those who need it, I thought this might be of use too:

Very General Components for A Safety Plan

1. These are the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that describe how I am experiencing...
2. These are things I can do to feel better, or to distract myself from these thoughts…
3. These are people I can talk to when I'm feeling down (make sure to have contact information handy)…
4. These are the professionals I can reach out to… Include the National Suicide Prevention Line, and keep in mind that loved ones can call support lines for help too: 1-800-273-8255 (also include 911)
5. What can I do to make my environment safe...
6. How will you ensure you use this plan? (where will you keep it, etc.)

Consider signing it to seal the contract.

XOXOXOXO

It's Worth Celebrating

I was so shy when I was a child that I used to hide behind my dad's legs when he introduced me to someone new.

I wanted nothing more than to stay hidden in the safety of what I knew.

A little over four years ago my dad died, and everything I thought I knew was called to question. I didn't feel safe. Nothing helped me to feel safe.

I had friends who had lost loved ones and yet we rarely talked about it. I always knew that someday when I experienced a similar loss it would be awful, but I never knew how awful. Until it happened. Even knowing that there were others like me, I imagined I was all alone.

This is a truth about grief - that even though there are many of us trying to make sense of the world after a significant loss, we still feel so alone, and we don't talk about it. Each of us will experience loss in a different way - in our own unique way, and at the same time we can relate to each other. I have experienced that understanding - the connection that comes from acknowledging a shared story between two - and while there is some comfort in knowing that I am not alone, instead of feeling better, I usually end up feeling sorry for both of us.

After my dad's death I wrote a lot to help me try to make sense of it all - of life and loss and what comes next for both the living and the lost. Writing about things is the way I've always tried to make sense of them. As I wrote and made discoveries, I felt called to share what I found along the way. That is how I came to this place in my life - a place of creating and sharing. Sharing is rarely easy for me, but I keep doing it because I know there is a chance that something I say or write or make could help someone else feel less alone. As much as I would have liked to stay hidden, I had to come out from behind my dad's legs...

As soon as my dad departed and the funeral had passed and our friends and family went back to their everyday lives, I was left wondering "WHAT THE HELL? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?" As I continue to move away from my dad's departure there are still no answers to my questions. There is no way to know whether it is normal to get pissed four years after a loss because all of a sudden I remember that my dad isn't coming back.

After a life altering incident, you hear a lot about the "new normal" and for some people maybe that makes sense. Maybe the promise of a new normal is comforting to them. Some of us, however, were okay with the previous version of normal. We dig our heels in and refuse to accept this new version of life as normal. It will never be "normal". What I now know is that there is no normal - new or otherwise. The unexpected surges of grief, the anger, the sadness, the joy in memories that come to mind - none of it is normal or abnormal, it just is.

I try to deal with whatever comes up as it surfaces. The gift in that is that I get to decide what to do with it. I can write my own guide book on a daily basis.

My parents would have celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary today. My mom and I are together with my family in northern Michigan and we talked a bit about whether a widow could still celebrate her anniversary, even though her husband has passed. We decided she can. And, she should.

She dipped her feet in a fountain…

We toasted love and its legacy over a beautiful lunch with our sweet friend Suzanne...

We did some shopping, and my mom even picked out a beautiful turquoise ring as an anniversary gift! Here she is pointing to our location on a map of Michigan…

And we topped it all off with some ice cream…

Isn't she the cutest?!?! Look at her beautiful new ring!

I have actually come to love the fact that so few of the answers I sought were available to me after my dad's death. It gave me an opportunity to look within, and to decide what was true for me and what was not. As I trusted in my own authority, I was liberated - bound only by my own self-imposed limitations. 

My mom and I could have decided that it isn't necessary for a widow to celebrate her anniversary once her husband has passed, and that would have been fine too. Even without my dad though, June 30, 1972 marked the beginning of something that continues to be worth celebrating. I am so grateful we chose to celebrate it.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! Cheers! xoxo

The Rest of the Story

My son Alexander turned 8 years-old today. I have told his birth story before. In short, my pregnancy was without incident. He came earth side fast, like he was on a mission. He was purple when he made his debut. He had severe meconium aspiration. My poor little buddy. 

He was rushed off to the NICU rather quickly after a very brief plop on my emptied belly. We hadn't even named him yet. We were leaning toward Henry. It all happened very fast. My husband Dan named Alexander in the NICU in a moment of knowing that our little guy needed name. Once Alexander was settled into the NICU I got to see him again. He seemed to be nestled in a forest of machinery. A nurse asked me if I wanted a priest to come and baptize him. His little life was in danger. It was awful. A few hours later Dan and I squished together like spoons in my hospital bed. Sobbing. 

Alexander was transferred to a different hospital as a candidate for ECMO - a heart and lung bypass procedure that might help his lungs to recover. My midwife discharged me several hours later so I could join him. Alexander was in a small plastic incubator when I saw him next. He was in a medically induced coma under a maze of tubes. We were instructed on the acceptable ways to touch him. On the top of his head and the bottom of his feet. I remember staring at his little body in utter disbelief. There were tubes everywhere. And needles. My heart was broken. 

In the end Alexander didn't need ECMO. Three days later he returned to the hospital where he was born. His new NICU bed was one with fewer contraptions and the first order of business, according to his new nurse, was to be held by his parents. We were elated. 10 days after Alexander's birth we welcomed him home.

Baby Alexander and his big brother James

What I haven't really talked about is what happened once we came home. Things must have looked pretty normal. We were a happy family - a young couple with a pre-school son and a newborn baby. Dan had missed a lot of work while Alexander was in the hospital. He had to jump right back into his job. I was at home with my two little guys. Life moved on. Two years later we welcomed a baby girl, Sophia, into our family. 

When I look back, I can't say I was unhappy. I loved my life. I'm not going to lie though, as anyone will tell you, it isn't easy being at home day after day with three small children. It is an emotionally and physically challenging undertaking - to grow people. No, I wasn't unhappy. I was numb.

I operated on auto pilot for another two years. I think I lived most of my life feeling more anxious than the average person. I didn't know I was "anxious" because that word wasn't even part of my vocabulary. I worried a lot, and mostly about things that would never happen. I felt things deeply as a child. I was told I was too sensitive, too nice, too quiet, too shy. I learned to adapt. I learned to hide my feelings. I learned to smile when people looked at me. It is amazing what one can hide behind a smile…

I felt incredibly lonely at times, usually in the midst of friends and family. When I felt uncomfortable - sad, angry, scared, and so on - I stuffed those feelings way down deep in my soul.

Next month it will be four years since I lost my dad. His death was a huge shock. It felt like everything I ever knew to be true came crumbling down around me. My dad's death was devastating, and what it stirred up inside me was painful too. Every little hurt I had ever buried, rose up and out of me. A miscarriage before Alexander was born, then Alexander's birth, and truly every bit of heartache that came before that. It all wanted to be healed.

My grief in the face of losing my dad gave me space to feel things I hadn't allowed myself to feel before. I couldn't stuff another hurt. I allowed myself to feel the pain of loss. It was really hard for me to feel AND to function in my daily life. I remembered a dear friend telling me about how she had started taking an anti-depressant. I'll never forget the way she looked at me as I told her some of my own stories about living with depression and anxiety (I had learned those words by that point). She said, "Anna, you don't have to live like that."

I come from a long line of Polish women. We are tough. We suck it up. When my dad died, I just couldn't suck it up anymore. I felt weak and tired and sad and I had no shame about any of it. I no longer felt the need to put on a happy face. I didn't care at all what anybody thought about any of it. I wasn't going to pretend that everything was okay. I marched right into my doctor's office and said, "I am sad and my husband can't sit here holding my hand anymore because he has to go to work. I have three little kids to take care of and my entire support system is grieving. I need help."

I started taking medication for my anxiety. At that point I didn't consider how it might impact me, I just wanted some relief. What I experienced was a newfound ability to be the me I always wanted to be - calm on the outside AND the inside. At last! My exterior reflected my interior. I wasn't faking it. I felt like a miracle was occurring within my very own body. 

I know I was very lucky and not all people have a positive experience like mine. I know that if they do have a positive outcome, it might come after a lot of trial and error. It can be a long, painful, confusing road. 

I am eternally grateful for my stroke of medicinal luck. Easing my anxiety about every little aspect of my life freed some space for me to dig deep into what needed to be healed with a therapist and in my own soul work. It may have even helped me to let go more and to reconnect with my creativity, which has been a very large part of my journey. Am I healed? I don't think it is that simple. For me, healing is a practice. Every day I try to do something that soothes my soul. I can't always get to it. The longer I go without it, the more likely I am to begin to feel anxious, and eventually depressed. 

So, no, I'm not suggesting that if you are feeling depressed, you should absolutely get medicated. Not at all. I share this story here because I believe that in this time of celebrities overdosing on drugs and non-celebrities overdosing too, I think it is more important than ever to understand two things about being human. 1) Things are not always as they appear; and 2) It is actually a sign of strength to ask for help. Asking for help is one of the strongest, bravest things a person can do.

Please ask for help if you need it. Ask for help even if you suspect you might need it.

I am off to get the birthday boy off the bus. One last thing before I go - the greatest gift I receive in allowing myself to really, truly feel my pain is the opportunity to also really, truly appreciate my joy. Celebrations are sweeter than ever before.

With so much love… xoxoxo

9/11, Depression, and the Meaning of Life

Many people are remembering 9/11 today. It's hard not to remember. So many of us can recall exactly what we were doing when we first heard the devastating news - for me it was that a plane crashed into a building in New York City. I remember a group of students gathered around a TV screen in one of the Social Work buildings. It was one of our first day of classes. I wasn't sure what they were watching, but I cruised right by already late to class.

We moved our desks into a circle. There were a few people frantically pushing numbers on their cell phones. The instructor had the affect of someone trying to maintain calm. It turned out that several of my classmates' families were in New York and my classmates were trying to reach them. As the beginnings of the story of 9/11 unfolded, we exchanged looks of shock. Our professor asked that we stay for the full 2.5 hours of class. We thought she was crazy.

I remember going home and watching the news all day long. I remember going to bed terrified. I couldn't snuggle in close enough to my husband and I finally fell asleep wondering what kind of world I was bringing my firstborn into as I thought about him sprouting from a little seed inside my belly. Earlier in the day I had wondered if our new insurance plan would cover my pregnancy - we had just moved to Michigan from Arlington, Virginia. That seemed like a non-issue at bedtime. I couldn't stop thinking about how I had driven past the Pentagon every day on my way to work when we lived in Arlington. I couldn't begin to make sense of what had happened in our country - the land of the free and home of the brave - that day. Nobody could.

It is National Suicide Prevention Week. I saw a post on Facebook yesterday about a group call To Write Love On Her Arms. According to their mission statement, this is a  "movement is dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide..."

Yesterday's call was to write the word "LOVE" on your arm to help raise awareness. So I did that, knowing that finding hope and help for these issues specifically is a cause that I hold close to my heart.

When I woke this morning to stories of 9/11 and LOVE on my arm, I began to think about graduate school and how I had diagnosed myself with almost every mood disorder I learned about in class. It was actually quite liberating to learn that there was an entire vocabulary for the feelings I had struggled with my entire life.

In a different Facebook post yesterday, someone I know shared a picture of LOVE on her arm. She included a note to her dad - I gathered he had committed suicide. I thought about my dad's sudden death about 3.5 years ago. He didn't commit suicide, but before we knew the cause of his death, the possibility that he did commit suicide wasn't out of the question. With drugs and alcohol, he certainly found other less severe ways to escape the pain he felt in his life.

After his death, I pretty much fell apart. With three little people to care for and my husband back at work, I knew I needed help. I decided to take anti-anxiety medication. While my grief intensified my anxiety and symptoms of depression, it is true that living with anxiety was something I had been doing my whole life. I didn't have words for the constant feeling that something could go wrong at any second until I learned more about anxiety and depression in graduate school. I thought I was "too sensitive" while the truth was I felt things really deeply. Maybe more deeply than other people. When the pain was too much bear, I looked for ways to hide it or dull it. 

When I finally decided to take medication for my anxiety it was in part because I remembered a friend saying to me "Anna, you don't have to live this way" referring to my constant state of anxiety. I never wanted to take medication, but at that point - after my dad died - I didn't think I had time for therapy and I knew from my studies that it would help me. It was a very small dose, just enough to take the edge off and not enough to keep me from crying my way through a year's worth of contacts in way less than a year's time.

The thing about living with anxiety and depression that is so hard, and can be debilitating even, is that you feel so alone. So hopeless. So isolated. And on top of all that, you can feel ashamed of feeling that way. You think the only way out of the pain is to stop it. People try stopping the pain in all kinds of ways.

I would never, ever tell anyone that the key to happiness is to take medication. That is a choice you have to make for yourself based on your own history and your own present situation. What I would do is to say what my friend said to me - "You don't have to live like this." You have options.

See, I have come to realize that while there is immense pain and suffering in this world - and while I am not immune to any of it - we are not here on Earth to suffer. We are here to enjoy our lives and to live them peacefully. I don't know what that means for everyone, but I know that it is true. I don't have any proof, you'll just have to trust me.

Sometimes I wish my medication would numb me to the pain I feel, and that's when I know that it is time to take it up a notch in other areas of my life. When I want to escape what I'm feeling, I have found that writing helps me to feel more grounded. Yoga reminds me to breathe and helps me to stay present. Meditation helps me to quiet my "monkey mind" - the what-ifs that can spin out of control if I don't stop them. Being outside soothes my soul. Taking walks and running (or trying to run...) helps me to clear my mind. Spending time with people I love helps me remember who I am - not a condition, but a soul doing its best to enjoy this human experience. When I can return to myself and what is most important to me, I can better handle whatever life throws my way. 

For me, art is a cure-all. Creating connects me to my core, the Creator, and all things created. I try to create something every single day. Sometimes it's just dinner (usually it's not dinner...). I have been keeping a Blessings journal for a while now and I love it because I can do just a little bit of creating very easily every day AND reflect on the things and people for which I am grateful. 

Yoga, art, and meditation are some of the tools I use to get to break away from the every day and get back to what matters most to me. 

We all have those tools - those things that can help us to slow down and re-focus on what matters. For a lot of people prayer will do the trick. No matter how much pain you are in, you must remember that life is not about the pain. Life is about JOY and you have the right to live in peace.

So, how do we get back there? What will it take to get you back to the peace? Here are a few steps you can try to take...

1. Breathe
2. Think of one thing that brings you peace
3. Take one step, make one stroke, write one word, recall one memory, or reach out to one friend at a time - whatever it is that will take you to peace
4. Keep breathing
5. Keep going
6. Get there

The only way through anything is to go through it. Seriously. Sit in it for as long as you need to. Feel what comes up for you. Yell, scream, cry, stomp your feet. Get as angry or as sad as you need to be. 

And then remember that you don't have to live there. You don't have to stay in the darkness. Let it - whatever it is - flow through you, then you too can go with the flow. You can move through whatever it is. It might take hours or days or even years. Choose one thing that brings you joy or peace and take one little step in that direction whenever you can. You will make your way out of it. And, know you're not alone. If you need help, reach out for it. It's okay to ask for help.

This world - one where true heroes sacrifice their lives to save others, where slowly we are raising our voices around issues like depression and suicide, where communities come together in times of despair to help one another, and where we recognize that we are all connected - this is the world I brought my now eleven year-old son into. It is a world filled with war and hate and hunger and pain and suffering, and it is a world filled with beauty and peace and joy. We have to learn to live with the good and the bad. It's not an either/or proposition. 

When you are suffering, you don't have to stay there. You don't have to live like that. You have options. My hope is that we all choose PEACE and JOY and do whatever it takes to get there.

With all kinds of love and big Anna hugs... xoxoxo

What's Love Got to Do With It?

Yesterday was the Boston Marathon and there were bombs. People died and were horribly injured. Most injuries were lower body injuries. Legs. At a marathon. It's sickening, really, and it doesn't make any sense. I only looked at a few photos from yesterday, and honestly from the looks of it, it seems like a miracle that more people weren't injured or killed. I am so sad for the victims and the people who witnessed such a traumatic event. Lots and lots of people are very sad and angry that something so awful could happen right under our noses. In response to one of my friend's Facebook posts about the incident, someone wrote "Wake up America!"

It's true. It is definitely time to wake up. It's time to keep waking up. For some of us, waking up is a process. I think when people say "Wake up!" they are often calling upon us to DO something. And often what a lot of people DO, is turn to our leaders and say, "What are YOU going to do?"

In tragic times it is completely normal to look to others for answers. When a violent crime takes place, we look to others and we wait to see how they will respond to the violence. We turn to others to bring forth justice. We want the perpetrator named and blamed. We want all that. I think that's normal.

BUT...

Here is what I propose we do:  First, if you are sad and angry because of something that has occurred, sit with that feeling for a bit. Let yourself feel the sadness. Let it fill every cell of your body. Feel the anger. Let it sink it. Simply be with it.

And then, take responsibility for your sadness and your anger. You are not a victim. You are a warrior and it is time to fight back. If you are moved to sadness or anger, you really must do something about it.   None of us can afford to witness the violence we see in our lives each and every day and do nothing. Yes, it's time to fight. It's time to revolutionize the ways in which we do sadness and anger.

What? You have no weapons? Okay. Good.

We are heading into this battle armed with nothing but love. Love. Mmmhmm.

From all I know to be true in this world - from knowledge gained being a painfully shy and overanxious child, from reading countless books, from graduating with an MSW, from attending seminars, volunteering, and becoming a mother; from talking to people, and listening to people, from living, and from experiencing heartbreak and learning how to put the pieces of my heart back together, I know that love is the answer.

If you are awake and ready for action, then love a little more. Give a little more grace to the person who cuts you off on the highway, to the mom who never seems to have it together, AND the one who ALWAYS seems to have it together. Give more grace to your children's teachers and the PTO president, to your neighbors, to the people who take your orders, your boss, and to our leaders. Give more grace to the people who disappoint you and the people you disappoint. Give more grace and love to your partner, your children, and your dog. Give yourself more grace. Just a little to start, see how it feels, then go full throttle when you're ready.

I know that it is true that like attracts like. It is true that what you put out into the world returns to you. You really do reap what you sow. It's all true.

Love more. Those who bask in the glow of your love will follow your lead. Soon the love will go viral. The entire planet will be LIT UP with love sweet love.

Believe me when I say that I know love isn't all lollipops and rainbows. Love mirrors life in that it can be downright dreamy one day and a freakin' nightmare the next. In a second everything can change. It happens all the time.

It hurts to love sometimes. It can be really hard to love. When my dad died a few years ago I kept wondering whey I had to love him so much that I would allow my heart to break in his absence? When I watch my children in their most tender moments, I think "Oh MY GOD! It hurts me to love you this much." Sometimes I watch my husband laugh with our kids and I think, "OUCH. I love you so much that it is downright painful." To love someone so much that I know if anything harms that person, I will die - that is scary.

The awareness that to love something means to open myself right up to the possibility of pain can be so frightening and maybe that is why we often choose not to love so freely. Maybe that is why we will only love with conditions. Maybe that is why we choose anger or sadness - to start from a place that can't get much worse.

What if we made LOVE our rock bottom?

Start with love and where do you go from there? What makes itself known to you? Grace, mercy, freedom, fullness...BLISS?

I'm on a bit of a mission to love like crazy and to open myself up to being loved. We all are really. The mission is OURS should we choose to take it.

Choose love.

Love has EVERYTHING to do with it.

xoxo

He's in the Shed

We turned onto their road, the only road I ever knew as their road. They lived in the same house for 37 years. It was out in the boondocks, as we used to say, the boonies, way out in the country. Years earlier, after my future husband Dan and I visited my parents together at their house for the first time, Dan told me that he had been nervous on the drive. Webberdale Road, flanked by two neat rows of once identical ranch style houses, seemed to appear out of nowhere after a series of winding, hilly, dirt roads. On that first trip there together, Dan wondered where I was taking him. He wondered if it was legit. By this night, some 17 years later, Dan could have navigated those roads with his eyes closed. He knew where to let up on the gas pedal because the hills were steep, where to look out for cars coming the opposite way because the road narrowed to almost one lane, and where the road twisted around so sharply, it was possible to drive right into the swamp if he did not turn carefully.

It was raining and probably had been for days. Potholes covered Webberdale like chicken pox. Every few bumps, I felt my stomach lurch up into my throat. I remembered driving those roads when I was pregnant, anxious that if Dan wasn’t more careful, I might go into labor. I looked back at our three sleeping children in the backseat. Dan gave me three options after he told me that my mom had called while I was out. After he told me that my mom found my dad in the shed. After he told me that she thought he was dead. She was a nurse. If he were dead when she found him, I knew she would know it. My options were: 1) He could go to my parents’ house; 2) I could go to my parents’ house; or 3) We could wake the kids up and take them to my parents’ house. I hated the thought of waking the kids, and ordinarily I wouldn’t have chosen that option, but this didn’t seem like an ordinary situation. It was dark, it was raining, and I was on the verge of hysteria. I couldn’t imagine myself driving safely to my destination. I needed Dan. I couldn’t imagine hearing the worst news I had ever heard without him by my side. I couldn’t imagine facing the loss of my dad without the knowledge that I had to be okay because I was a mom now. In a strange and selfish way, I also needed my kids.

My parents’ house is halfway down the street. As we approached, I saw an ambulance. The lights were flashing and the back doors were flung wide open, but there wasn’t anyone around. The driveway was filled with my mom’s Subaru, my dad’s gray Ford pick-up truck, and a police car. I decided to go check things out while Dan waited in the car with our sleeping beauties. When I stepped out of the car, I sank in mud. I hated the dirt roads when I was a kid, I abhorred them as a teenager, and I wasn’t a big fan as an adult. The mud rose up around my feet to greet me as if it held a grudge for all my years of hatred. My parents’ driveway could barely fit the width of a car, and I struggled to walk around the cars that were there. I had my head down, trying to keep the rain out of my eyes. I heard a man’s voice in the dark.

“Are you the daughter?” he asked.

I looked up, searching for his face, but it took me a second to register his question. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m the daughter.” I replied.

“Your mom is in the house, and the MSP is in the back with your dad.”

The MSP was in the back with my dad. “Oh. So, is he okay then?” I pictured him in the shed telling jokes to the MSP, whoever that was.

“Um, I hate to be the one to tell you this, ma’am, but your dad slipped away.” The man’s voice trailed off, it too slipped away. His words hit me like a punch in the gut. The blow blasted through my trunk, leaving a hole in my heart.

“Oh.” I said, trying to swallow the boulder forming in my throat. I can picture the expression on his tired face. He looked unsure, maybe even a little fearful of how I might respond to him. He didn’t know what I would do next. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my dad, and yet he was the one who told me, even though he hated to, that my dad was gone. I looked down at the car next to me. I was using it to keep my balance. It said Michigan State Police across the side. “Oh,” I said again. I was catching on. “And the MSP is the Michigan State Police?”

“Right,” he said softly. “Do you need help?”

Nothing seemed certain from that point forward, but one thing I knew was that I did not need help. I did not want help. The man who told me that my dad slipped away headed out to the road, and I made my way to the house. I opened the front door and yelled for my mom. The smell of my parents’ house swallowed me whole. It still smelled a little like woodstove to me, even though many years passed since my dad took the woodstove out of the house. And it smelled like my dad. He had an earthy, musky scent. His smell was everywhere. The house was dark, except for a light glowing dimly in the kitchen. The entry way was cluttered with my dad’s boots and my parents’ slippers. A hat rack stood next to the doorway with a funny-looking hat from my dad’s collection on each branch. I sometimes thought his hats were funny looking, but they were simply unique, like my dad. There were books and remnants of collections and projects piled on tables and on the floor. I sighed, wondering how my parents found their way through their clutter. Wishing, like I had so many times as a little girl in this very same house, for a clear path out of there. I searched the whole house yelling for my mom, but my mom never answered.

I opened the sliding glass door in the back of the house and saw flashlights and what looked like people crowded in the door of my dad’s shed. Woody’s World. He carved a sign out of wood and hung it on the door to his shed. His nickname for many years was Woody and the shed was Woody’s World. Truly, the shed is a work of art to me now, but then and in the years leading up to that moment, I thought it was ridiculous. It started as a little gazebo type building kit. Then my dad added on to it. Then, I think he added on to it again. In the end, it appeared to be almost as big as the house. Almost anytime I called to talk to my mom and asked what my dad was doing, she would say, “He’s in the shed.”

I yelled out the door, “MOM?”

“ANNA! Oh Anna....” my mom wailed in a voice I never once heard in 18 years of living with her, and 37 years of knowing her. I tried to make my way to the shed as quickly as possible, but I kept hitting patches of ice and slipping into the mud surrounding them. It was March 11, 2010 in Michigan and we were between the deep freeze of winter and the promise of a thaw in spring. The ice was starting to melt due to the recent rain, but in the dark I couldn’t tell the difference between ice or mud or solid ground. It was still raining, my mom was wailing, I was slipping, and flashlights were shining in my face. It felt more like an episode of CSI than it did my own life in my parents’ backyard. The men surrounding my mom formed a line to help me to the shed. It seemed like there were hundreds of them, but really there were about four. One by one they grabbed my elbow and guided me forward.

The last man in the row stood in the doorway of the shed. He had been shining his flashlight down to light my path, and he stepped back so I could step into the shed. It was very crowded. My mom stood next to a police officer that looked just like my cousin Greg, and my dad sat peacefully at his workbench.

My dad was hunched over with his eyes closed, and he looked very ordinary, like he had fallen asleep on my couch, waiting for my mom to gather her stuff so they could leave my house. The book that he was reading was on the floor next to him. He must have dropped it. His long, soft, shiny white hair was pulled back into a ponytail and other than a few extra layers of clothing that he must have added when he got home, he looked no different than he did hours ago when he really did leave my house. He didn’t look dead to me, but he did look as if he had slipped away. He looked like he had slipped away from his body, like a snail when it dies and leaves its shell behind. The shell becomes but a souvenir, a remnant of the life lived inside it. It seemed as if my dad did that too. Maybe I should have been grateful that my dad left his Earthly body and moved on. I couldn’t look for long. I had to look away. I wanted to hug and hold my sobbing mother.

By that time Officer Greg had gently suggested that I take my mom inside the house. Again, nothing seemed sure then, and I really had no idea what would be the right thing to do, but I knew that nobody could make my mom go into the house if she didn’t want to go into the house. Officer Greg didn’t know whom he was dealing with. Just to be nice, and possibly to avoid being arrested for disobeying an officer, I asked my mom to go inside with me. She said no. I wasn’t surprised.

I turned my attention to the shed around me. My dad had hung parts of his collection of antique saws from the ceiling. He had posted a few notes on the walls of the shed. One of the notes said something about the edge of darkness. I felt like I was on the edge of darkness. It was as if my dad had left that note for us. My eyes shot around, trying to process the darkness of the night, the saws hanging from the ceiling, and the notes my dad left behind. I tried to keep it all together. I was traumatized. I knew this moment would leave a scar on my life. I knew my path from childhood to adulthood had ended. Abruptly. From then on, I would be my mom’s primary caretaker. Never again could I melt down in her arms like a child, as I had so many times. But still, even though I stood in my dad’s shed as a grown woman, a wife and a mother of three, a childlike voice inside me wondered what these men thought of my dad and his shed. I wondered if the saws hanging from the ceiling made them uneasy. I wondered if the scene looked suspicious to their discerning eyes.

“Mom, you can stay as long as you need to, but I can’t stay here with you. Dan and the kids are in the car. I need to tell them what’s going on.” I looked at her, trying to read her, and she looked at me and nodded. She wanted me to do what I needed to do. One of the men gave me his flashlight, and I slowly made my way back to the road where my family waited. I told my husband that my dad was dead.

I knew my dad would die someday, of course, but I never expected it to happen so soon. In fact, I had more or less determined that he would be in his 80’s when he died. I imagined him at graduations and weddings. I imagined him continuing his bond with James, my oldest son. I knew they would have a long future together discussing aliens and outer space. I knew James had many years ahead of him attending guitar lessons, maybe even with my dad taking him, and most definitely with my dad reminding him to trim his fingernails before he left for the lesson. I knew no matter how much James practiced his guitar, it wouldn’t seem like enough to my dad. And usually it wasn’t enough. It never occurred to me that my children would lose a grandfather while they were still kids. I never imagined that all the dreams I dreamt for my children and parents wouldn’t come true. I was happy to see that all three of them were still asleep when I went back to the car. Dan held me as I sobbed into his shoulder as the rain fell around me and all over me. Dan took our children home, and I walked back into my parents’ house.

It wasn’t long before my mom joined me. She didn’t want to leave my dad, even though Officer Greg had assured her that he would stay there with him until the coroner arrived and that he would keep my dad safe. While I believed in my heart that Officer Greg and his cohorts would gladly have given my mom what she desired, to stay as long as she needed to, I also knew they had work to do. It was cold, rainy, and dark where that work was to be done. There were saws hanging over their heads and words taped to the walls. They needed my mom out of the shed to do that work, and as frightening as that seemed to me, I understood their motives.

Later my mom shared that she had asked Officer Greg if he would make his own mother leave his father in a situation like that. Greg shared that his mother had no choice but to leave his dad when he passed away because she had small children to care for. Greg was one of those small children. I pictured a young woman, a mother, finding her husband dead in their home with no choice but to leave his side. The ache in my heart grew as I pictured her returning to her children. How did she face them? What did she say? How did she possibly go on? And yet, here Officer Greg stood, living proof that even after the most unimaginable tragedies, people live on. I was being initiated into a new society, reaching a new milestone in my life. I joined the ranks of children who lost a parent. I graduated to a new level of understanding life and death that night, even though there was still so much left to try to understand. The image of Officer Greg’s mother leaving her dead husband’s side to care for her small children haunts me. It wasn’t long before we counted the fact that my mom’s own children were grown when she lost her husband among the many blessings for which we were grateful.

Before my mom came into the house she prayed with my dad. This quiet moment with him allowed her to make peace with needing to leave his side. I recently listened in as she told my oldest son what happened the night his Papaw died. James was dubbed “Mr. Questions” within minutes of arriving at our hotel at the start of one of our vacations. He asks a lot of questions. We like it when we have answers. My mom told James she thought my dad was sleeping. She said, “Shields? Did you fall asleep?” She began CPR as soon as she realized that he was not sleeping. She made her way back into the house to call 911, my sister, and me, and then she went back to his side. I can hardly allow myself to imagine what that must have been like for her. Waiting, in the house, for her husband to come in to share the dinner he left on the stove while he ran out to his shed. Waiting, wondering, when would he come in? He had to know she was home by then. Then, making her way out to the shed – in the rain, through the mud and the ice, thinking he might be sleeping and finding that he was dead. Trying to bring him back, all the while knowing that he was gone. After all that, the time she spent in prayer with him was essential to beginning the long, impossible process of letting him go.

When she came inside, I was sitting on a beautiful old green fainting couch that my parents had inherited from my Baba, my dad’s mother. It was my favorite napping spot when I was a little girl visiting Baba, and really my favorite piece of furniture at her house. The fainting couch and I went through a lot together over the years. We conspired in acting out very dramatic fake fainting spells right into my teenage years. The beautiful green couch was there, first at Baba’s house, and then at my parents’ to comfort me when I needed comforting. When I was too old to run to the arms of my grandmother or my parents, I went to her, the fainting couch. The green slope cradled me like a huge soft arm. It felt right to return to her then, and to let that old, green lady couch cradle me in her arm again. Eventually my mom and I sat there together, side by side, but facing each other, looking at each other, neither one of us quite sure what to do. I held a pillow embroidered with Santa Claus in my lap. Never mind that it was March and in most houses Santa had made his way back to storage. I can still picture my mom’s face in that moment. A dullish gray tone had taken over her sparkly blue eyes. She looked frightened and tired, and old. She had never looked old to me. She said, “Anna, you girls think I’m so strong, but I’m not. I got all my strength from your dad.”

I was horrified. My mom is a very private person, but what I knew of her life was that it wasn’t always easy. It was rarely easy. Despite the challenges she faced, at every stage of her life, she persevered. She kept going, living wholly and even with an open heart at times.  I am quite confident that she is by far the strongest woman I have ever known. I didn’t believe her, but I was afraid of what might happen if she was right. I was afraid of the possibility that somehow I had missed her bluff and that all these years she really was getting all her strength from my dad. But I knew in my heart that wasn’t true because there were times when my dad wasn’t even there to give her strength and she persevered through those times in the same ways that she continues to persevere now. I think my mom was making an advance plea for forgiveness. She needed me to know that she couldn’t be strong. She needed me to know that she could not be strong then, that she wasn’t feeling strong at all, and that she didn’t foresee feeling strong anytime soon.

Another officer came inside and asked us if we needed anything. He did not look anything like Officer Greg. He surprised us with his question. We glanced at each other. My mom and I didn’t know what we needed.  “What do people normally need in this situation?” I asked.

“Well, some people request a priest. Something like that...” The other officer meant well, but his good intentions were lost on us. We looked at each other, dumbfounded. We both knew we didn’t want a priest. My dad wouldn’t have wanted a priest. I thought of something.

“We haven’t been able to reach my sister,” I told him. He seemed relieved to be able to help us and told us that he would send a state trooper to her home in Ann Arbor. I pictured Sarah riding to my parents’ house in the back of a police car. I was so desperate to reach her that I was relieved to learn there might be a way to get through to her. She and her husband didn’t have a landline at their house. As her older, less tech-savvy sister, I thought that was really irresponsible and was often frustrated with her lackadaisical attitude about missing my calls. “Oh sorry, my phone was off.” she would say in her singsong voice with a maple sugary giggle that usually took my frustration away as it moved through the room. I was beside myself with all different kinds of emotions resulting from not being able to reach her, and I knew she had to be reached. Officer Not Greg was on the job. When she finally called us she asked whether she should come to the house. An unfamiliar voice spoke to me, telling me that I couldn’t answer that question for her. I should have just said, “YES!” Instead I told her that was up to her, knowing that she knew she wanted to be there but not knowing that she needed some type of affirmation that we wanted her there. It was an awful experience for her and her husband to find a state trooper pounding on their door so late at night, shining his flashlight into the window. It was another horrifying, surreal scene straight from CSI.

Sarah really wanted to see my dad before the coroner took him away, but we were running out of time. I looked over my mom’s shoulder, from the living room where we stood, to the backyard and the shed where my dad’s body and all that surrounded it were being examined. Flashes from the coroner’s camera lit the dark, rainy night, and a slight wave of panic washed over me. We didn’t know what caused my dad to die. This was an unexpected realization. Of course, nothing that happened that night could have been expected, but anytime I stopped to consider the circumstances of the night, my only conclusion was that it was all so unusual. The one thing that made sense to me was that my dad died in his shed. It made perfect sense to me. He built that crazy shed with plywood and 2x4 boards and his own two hands. His shed and his silver-grey Ford F10 pick-up truck were probably the places where he spent most of his time. As ominous as the shed seemed to me that night, I knew it was my dad’s escape from the outside world and that he loved it for that. The shed was a clubhouse for one in a forest of trees. It seemed so appropriate that my dad slipped away from inside his shed. I don’t think he would have had it any other way. In that same conversation with James, my mom said she wished she had been with my dad when he died. James said, “Maybe Papaw got a message that he was supposed to die alone.” It might be true that wiser words were never said.

As the coroner’s camera flashed, I wondered briefly whether my mom was a suspect in my dad’s murder. A fear that he may have committed suicide crept through my mind. There had been a space heater in the shed with my dad, and we wondered if it malfunctioned and poisoned him. The people I knew who had died, did so in accidents or in hospital beds. I couldn’t recall a story where someone had died in his or her home like my dad did. The dynamics of this type of death struck me as odd. It reminded me of my son Alexander’s birth. He was very sick when he was born and was whisked away by nurses and doctors shortly after he arrived. Days later, Dan and I held him for the first time. Even though he was ours, he wasn’t really ours. It felt like he belonged to the hospital. I felt so powerless and completely at the mercy of the doctors and nurses who so swiftly and competently (thank God) cared for him. I felt powerless again the night my dad died, as the police officers urged my mom to leave my dad and the coroner stood in the shed with him taking pictures of his body and the space that surrounded him. I would love to know what he captured that night. I wonder what he was thinking and what became of the pictures he took. It is strange, yet a little refreshing, to think that to the coroner this might have been just another night on the job.

Officer Greg knew that we wanted Sarah to have the opportunity to see my dad before he left. The coroner had been running late already and was anxious to leave once he finished his job. It was getting really late on a cold, dreary night and there was the aftermath of a bad traffic accident he needed to tend to. Minutes after Sarah arrived at the house with her husband and baby daughter, we stood on the front porch as a stretcher moved from the backyard to the driveway. On the stretcher laid a large body bag and even though I knew what was happening, I could not wrap my head around the reality that it was my dad’s body in that bag. In the same way that Alexander had been mine at birth, but not mine to hold, my dad was ours, but no longer ours to hold. Never again would I feel safe in the hold of his long, strong arms. I kept trying to remind myself that the body, my dad’s body, wasn’t really him. Even with this understanding, I was developing a deep attachment to my dad’s body. I didn’t want to let it go. Officer Greg convinced the coroner to open the bag so that Sarah could see my dad. There he was, still looking so peaceful. We each touched his face and wished him well on his journey. Then they took him away.

***

That's the bad news. The good news is after all that, and a whole bunch of other stuff, losing my dad woke me up to the opportunity to live a more meaningful life. It is indeed a process, but it is well underway. Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I appreciate it.

***

It's been three years since I saw you last... I miss you every day Dad. I miss your voice and your hugs and the ways you loved my children. I miss your sense of humor and your passion for life and for your art in all the forms it took. I miss your music. I miss seeing your face. I miss your Carhartts and work boots. I miss your flannel shirts. I miss the mess you left behind when you made coffee. And all your hats. I miss it all. I hope the lives we're living here on Earth are enough to make you smile. It's really hard to keep going sometimes. We're trying. I love you, Dad. 
xoxo love, Anna