Tag: grief (Page 2 of 2)

i miss him most on days that end in “y”

December 2, 2013 / jeanne / 1 Comment

JeanneDaddy

thirteen years. it’s been thirteen years since daddy died – and while it seems like the events happened yesterday or maybe just this morning, in my heart it feels like he’s been away forever. i must’ve been a better person then because i told him it was okay to go, okay to die, and i knew it was the right thing to do. but now . . . there are days i merely second guess myself; other days i despise myself for that. why didn’t i tell him not yet, to stay with us, that i still needed him?

i still talk to him, you know, writing him letters – sometimes carrying on conversations right out loud. every year on my birthday, i pen him a letter saying simply “daddy, you were once the age i am now – what would you like me to know?” eventually i will be the age he was when he died. people in his family are bad to die young and in december (a trend i fully intend to break). this year, on my big birthday, he told me to live – to cut loose and flat-out live. “what have you got to lose?” he asked, “the things you want to do don’t hurt anybody, so go on, doll, do ’em.”

other times i ask for other kinds of help – like a week ago today when i implored him to hold off the predicted freezing rain, sleet, and snow at least long enough to give us time to make the 8-hour round trip to pick up my son, his fiancee, and mother and deliver us all safely back atop the mountain for a week of thanksgiving togetherness. he obliged. on saturday when the congestion started, complete with sore throat and chills, i asked him to please make it so i’d feel better the next morning when the travel started to return everybody to their respective homes. even though i thought that request quite impossible, i woke up yesterday morning feeling fine and have ever since – no more coughing, no more scratchy throat, just enough congestion to allow me to sing my favorite songs without having to jump octaves. he still takes good care of me, daddy does, though i try not to impose too often because each request seems like i’m calling him in from the playground early.

NewDaddyCrawford

it’s true: i can talk to him any time, but i want him here. i want him sitting at the table eating turkey. i want him touching his shoulders to his ears as he lets loose a belly laugh. i want him beaming with love and pride at kipp’s wedding next may. and don’t try telling me “he’s there” because i know he’s here in spirit, but i want to touch him. i want to feel his arms wrap me in a hug like nobody else on earth can do. i want to sit next to him and have him tell me his plans for the future and listen to mine, giving me his support for those he considers good ideas, candidly expressing his doubt or dislike for ideas he considers cockamamie. i want to talk to him, laugh with him, hear him tell me stories.

twice i’ve felt his rough, pudgy hands in dreams, and though it’s not nearly enough, i’m grateful for those two visits, hoping, hoping, hoping for more every night as i close my eyes.

CrawfordObitPix

he’s enjoying his life now, wherever he is – he’s told me as much in a variety of ways – and i know that i’m supposed to be happy about that . . . and i am . . . but oh good lord how i do miss him. right down to the cellular level there this deep, profound ache that varies in intensity, but never really totally disappears. i miss him part of every minute of every hour of every day, and i miss him most especially on the days that end with “y”.

[ ::: ]

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is not ashamed to tell you that she will always be her daddy’s doting little girl, and that her daddy will always be her Hero. Always, I tell you.

Pull Your Soapbox Right On Up To The Table

September 11, 2013 / jeanne / 9 Comments

TreeBeauty

9/11.

A day we Americans stop and pause in a moment of silence, in a day of remembering.

Let me be clear about this: I mean no disrespect when I tell you that as much as I enjoy the stories of where you were and what you were doing when you heard, I want more. I want to remember with a wider lens. I want to move forward as we look back. I want . . .

I want to know what you learned on That Day or because of That Day.

I want to know how you changed since 9/11. I want to know if it’s a lasting change or was it a well-intended but short-lived change.

I want to know how you think our country changed on That Day and if you think it changed for better or for worse.

I want to know how you think the world changed on That Day, and again – did it change for better or for worse?

I want to know why countries and people can’t leave each other alone to live according to their own belief and economic and political/governmental systems. I want to know why people don’t just move to another location that suits them better rather than strike out in a desire to take down those who would not be, think, or worship like them. I want to know why it’s not enough to live with Epictetus’s notion in mind that a noble life is one spent being the best woman, the best man you can be. I want to know what it will take to end the conquering mentality, the arrogance of my-way-or-the-highway mindset.

I want to know how we teach people that the way to change an undesirable life is to push up your shirtsleeves and get to work changing what you don’t like about your current situation. Will that be easy? Most likely not. But since when do we turn away from hard work? Which reminds me of another thing I want to know: when did “earn” become a 4-letter word?

I want to know how – on a community level, state level, national, continent level – we instill in ourselves and our children open-mindedness, and not just a tolerance but a love for difference and individuality. How? Tell me how. Please.

So much of what we hear and read today will be about lives lost on That Day. I want you to tell me about your loved ones (people and/or pets welcomed) that have died. Maybe they died in that horribleness we’ve come to call 9/11. Maybe they died somewhere else for some other reason on that infamous day. Maybe they died before the tragedy, maybe they’ve died since. Tell me about them. Tell me why you miss them and how they touched your life. Introduce me to them and tell me why you wish I could have known them. Tell me and know that your missing them today does not in any way diminish the tenderness we feel for all those who lost their lives and whose lives were irrevocably changed on That Day.

[ :: ]

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers has a wildly inquiring mind. Always has.

I Don’t Know if This Is Going To Make Any Sense at All

December 23, 2012 / jeanne / 5 Comments

Cicles2

It’s been years – eons, it seems – since I felt anything resembling Christmas spirit. Every year I make half-hearted attempts to try to figure out why, but I mostly just keet putting one foot in front of the other to get through, pasting on that smile and doing what I think will make everybody else happy. This year, though, I feel an ole’ familiar flutter, a stirring, a quickening that I vaguely recognize from many years ago. I pass a mirror and am surprised to see myself smiling. I play and dance and I even sing Christmas carols.

Yes, really.

I feel peace and I feel contentment, and I’ll take those two things over happiness any day of the week. On the way home from a glorious day spent in Asheville with my husband and our children and their friends, I think about that, pondering what’s the difference. Wondering what magic ingredient is here this year that’s been absent the past umpteen years. What’s different? Maybe it’s an age thing – there’s no doubt my clock is ticking – but I think it’s mostly something else.

This past year, you see, I kicked the shutters off my heart, opening up to the sorrow I’ve long been trying to outrun or shove aside or leave on the side of the road. I sat with the sorrow. I went to bed with it and I woke up with it; I spoke to it and I listened to it. I stitched it and wrote it and invited it to tea. I grieved, and I grieved long. And hard. And deeply. It was a generalized grief and a broad grief, a mourning for those lost, for time wasted, for loss of my space, both physical and personal. I missed my daddy, my Aunt Rene, and my children, Alison and Kipp. There was a deep well of unspent grief for me to draw from, and though I did keep functioning (on most days, anyway), I didn’t rush my way through it, and you know . . . I think it’s that opening to sorrow that has made all the difference.

Oh don’t get me wrong, sorrow is still with me, quietly accompanying me, popping up when I hear Silent Night (the song we sang as we exited Daddy’s funeral) and when I realize that I’ve lived over half the Christmases I will ever know. Tears are precariously near the surface as I hear my children poking and kidding each other and laughing with their friends; when they stop what they’re doing and walk over to give me an unsolicited hug; when they ask to do something the way we’ve always done it. I think about how they are young adults living their own independent lives now, and I’m touched by their willingness to leave some of the burdens of adulthood at the door and come into the world of being a child again. I see them looking at me through different eyes, and I imagine them being impressed even if just a wee little bit to now see their mother as an independent woman who devoted a big chunk of her life to them and did so willingly and lovingly. Their dad comes over in the midst of the delightful hubbub to kiss me, and we linger in the embrace, knowing that we brought these two amazing people into the world. Satisfaction. It wasn’t always easy, and it still isn’t, but we did good. There’s a sorrow there, and there’s a gladness there. Both.

I can’t explain it, and maybe I don’t need to. Maybe it’s enough just to enjoy and appreciate the peace and contentment that swaddles me. Maybe there doesn’t need to be a reason, and maybe I couldn’t articulate it even if I knew perfectly well what it is that caused the shift. But my bones say it has something to do with opening the shutters to sorrow, that somehow in opening to grief, I also opened to peace. That in giving space to the sorrow, I laid down the notion that I’m somehow defective or broken or less than because I feel sorrow.

However it happened, I feel Whole and Genuine and more Right than I’ve felt in an awfully long time.

Time and Timelessness, both

December 2, 2012 / jeanne / 1 Comment

MovingStudio

Today my studio moved at about 70 mph. I’ve this new-found dedication to my creativity, you see, a new-found commitment to studio time.

JeanneDad 1

My daddy died twelve years ago today, but grief doesn’t wear a watch, you know. Oh how I wish I had that shirt and tie he wears in this picture (isn’t that a fabulous tie?), even a pair of pajamas or those khaki pants he wore when I was a wee little thing – something, anything he wore that I could stitch out my grief on, something I could wrap around me.

Grief Doesn’t Wear a Watch

December 2, 2012 / jeanne / 20 Comments

JeanneDad 1

We walked into the hotel lobby last night to find it all decked out in its Christmas finery. As we walked past the brightly-lit tree on our way to the elevator, I felt something I’ve not felt in I don’t know how long – Christmas spirit. It’s been twelve years since my daddy died – his side of the family is bad to die during the holidays, and that’s why what little decorating I do now, I do it outside so I can see it, but only from afar.

This past year, I’ve allowed myself to grieve for Daddy and others, to grieve things that I cannot attach a noun to. Instead of trying to outrun the grief, instead of brushing it aside or turning away from it, I sat with it. I went to bed with it. To paraphrase Naomi Shihab Nye, I spoke to it till my voice caught the threads and I could see how big the cloth is. I’m not done yet, and I miss him now just as much today as I have every day of every year since.

HoldingBabyJeanne1

That’s me there in Daddy’s arms – I’m the one wriggling my way out of his lap.
Oh what I wouldn’t give for a do-over right about now.

I talk to him, you know. Write him letters, cry on his shoulder, try my best to remember the way it felt to have his arms wrapped around me. Sometimes he would hug me so hard, he’d bite his lower lip from the effort. With Daddy’s arms around me, I could be both vulnerable and invincible, knowing I was loved and protected and supported. I like to think he still does that – still loves me, protects me, supports me, though I try not to pester him with requests for assistance too much because it’s clear from the dreams I’ve had that he is quite content in his new life.

I know you pretty much read only train magazines, Daddy, but if you happen to look over my shoulder and catch my blog, know this: you still own real estate on my heart. And that hole in my heart? It’s packed with stories and smiles and love like you wouldn’t believe.

a mosaic of updates and offerings

September 14, 2011 / jeanne / 5 Comments

Lotus

Well now I told you it’d be today or tomorrow, and the way it looks right now, if all goes according to plan, you’ll be back here tomorrow for my first Red Phone Story.

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A Rhonda update: Rhonda continues to be silenced by a computer and talk-to-text software that refuses to play nicely. Her husband is tenaciously working on it, though, so stay tuned. And hey, thank y’all again for continuing to leave affirming comments for Rhonda.

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You don’t want to miss these posts:

My friend and writing partner Julie Daley has written several thoughtful, elegant posts of late filled with beautiful, affirming, peaceful, healing words.

and

My friend Angela keeps us updated on her precious dogs while she pens her memoir behind the scenes. Whether you like dogs or not, you’ll want to visit and read about Max and Gracie.

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And last but definitely not least, I want to be sure you know and help me spread the word about this:

Alana Sheeren and I met via the ethers a couple of years ago. She tweeted out a question about schooling young people, and being somewhat passionately opinionated about this, I tweeted a reply. We tweet-chatted a bit more, and a friendship was born. Since then, Alana has experienced the loss of a stillborn son named Benjamin, and she writes frankly and fearlessly about the unimaginable grief she’s lived in the past year at her blog, Life After Benjamin. Her words have fortified, comforted, assured, and amazed readers, and now she has more to offer those who are grieving their own particular loss.

Alana created a beautiful ebook called Picking up the Pieces. It’s filled with luminous stories of grief and growth penned by women you might know or have heard of. It is truly, as so many others have said, “a gift of musings and magic,” and I hope you’ll finish reading, then trot right on over and download a copy for yourself.

But that’s not all our Alana has been up to . . .

In her newest book, One Hundred Names for Love, Diane Ackerman writes:

“There is spread over everything a vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss.” Yes, that felt right. An atmosphere of wrongness. I was stirred by the power of Lewis’s grief. And yet, his experience, despite his referring to it as “mad midnight moments,” didn’t lead to madness. His was a mind that could cushion itself when faced with trauma, without becoming callous, neglectful, or numb to soften the pain. Despite not knowing if what he felt from moment to moment would pass or last forever, he entered fully into his shifting states of violent rage, self-pity, longing, heartbreak, cynicism, without losing the ability to think about what was happening to him. That took courage, I thought, living with the suffering in a mindful way, as an artifact of being, neither good nor bad.

Knowing firsthand that “vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss”, knowing firsthand about “living with the suffering in a mindful way,” Alana is hosting a Picking Up the Pieces Retreat Retreat in beautiful Ojai, California on September 25-29, 2011. She’s gathered an impressive group of resource folks, and a schedule to provide balm and healing for the bruised and grieving soul. If you are grieving, treat yourself to this special offering designed to support your body, mind, and spirit. If you know somebody who’s grieving, promise you’ll tell them about it and encourage them to go. If you have any questions or comments, if you’d like to contribute in some way, email AlanaSheeren (at) gmail (dot) com today.

grief is messy

December 2, 2010 / jeanne / 45 Comments

ten years ago today, my daddy died. if you have a minute, read about it here. it’s a pretty amazing story, if i do say so myself. (hint: scroll down and start at the 10th paragraph. i spent the first 8 paragraphs linking the post to that day’s prompt (a year later, i don’t bother), and the 9th paragraph, well, we’ll call it a segue cause honestly, i have no idea how that made it to print.)

i shed tears as prayers of remembrance and gratitude
i chide myself for wallowing.

i crave darkness
i turn all the lights on.

i spew words and send emails to people who rock as my rocks
i scold myself for letting people see me like this.

i long to crawl back in bed and sleep the day away
i choose to honor daddy and my self by leaning into this tender bruise.

i am tempted to stay in my floppy flannel pajamas all day long
i hear the ole familiar “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”
and know that
only pretty girls can get away with such indulgences.

i forego today’s walk
and eat cookies
and do little
besides reading
the occasional blog.

i ask myself:
did i do all that i could do?
was it wrong to give him permission
to go?
should i have knocked on
door after door after door
until some physician eventually healed?

one thing i do not do
is make my daddy more in death
than he was in life.
he was not perfect.
i wouldn’t ache for him so
if he had been.

~~~
This post is (loosely) (or maybe creatively sounds better) written in response to today’s #reverb10 prompt:
Q: What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
A: Lately everything contributes to my writing. And nothing – nothing at all – was gonna’ come between me and my writing on this day.

currently in progress

November 21, 2010 / jeanne / 24 Comments

i am living the story i want to tell you. yesterday afternoon, my husband got a call from his brother: his oldest daughter – my first niece – walked in from work the night before to find that her partner had shot and killed himself. it’s sunday morning as i write this, the 21st of november 2010, and i’m flying to colorado in just a few hours to see my niece.

sounds so simple when i write it like that.

i married into a small family of doctors and engineers. linear thinkers who are quite sure about the way things are and should be. they have degrees from highly-regarded institutes of higher learning. their practicality, clarity, and confidence intimidates a writer and slow cloth storyteller gal like me. their consistency eludes a constantly changing creative like me who also has a graduate-level degree, but finds it hard to focus on one thing long enough to develop a reputation as anything even approaching an expert.

[i struggle to type the word “creative” in the sentence above. it takes several minutes before i finally mash the “c” key. same goes for the word “expert”, but the hesitation is for different reasons.]

i begin looking for flights right after we hang up. even though we don’t know the funeral arrangements yet. even though there’s nothing, no specific assignment of something we can do. even though, even though, even though.

about an hour later, i call my brother-in-law to check in, to see if he wants me to call their aunt. they are a small family, my in-laws, my family dwarfs them in sheer numbers, which is to say, i’ve buried way more loved ones than they have. i think about things like the distraction of notification, about the salve of collective love.

[i am having trouble writing this. the censors chirp and caution me against being too uppity, getting too big for my britches. they remind me i’m not the only one who is empathetic and caring. they ask if i’m really, seriously trying to say that i’m good at being there in times of death, dying, and grief. they point out that i have no degree, no letters after my name signifying that i’m qualified and competent enough to do this kind of thing.]

“that would be great if you’d call aunt ginny,” he says. “i didn’t even think about that, and i don’t have her number.”

“happy to,” i tell him. “we’re looking at flights now,” then i hurriedly add that my son kipp who also lives in denver, will pick shuttle us to and from the airport, my way of assuring donn that we will be no trouble.

“you don’t need to come,” he says.

“we want to come.”

“but there’s nothing you can do. we’re her nuclear family. we have friends, and she has a lot of friends here.” he rattles off all sorts of reasons to defend his position that we should not come, then he delivers the sucker punch: “you’ll just be in the way.”

you’ll just be in the way.

let me be really, really clear here: there was no malicious intent in those words. he did not stop and think before he said them, they just tumbled out. which, to an armchair jungian psychologist like myself, gives them added impact. without knowing it, donn has just ripped open my tender place and poured a barrel of salt into the ever-gaping wound.

i think of myself as a committee, and now the dissident, snarky committee members go into full volume yell, starting with “i told you so.” his words, their words form a chorus that sets me back and the questioning of self begins:

Q: what will you do out there, anyway?
A: i don’t know.
Q: then he’s right: you’ll just be in the way.
A: maaayyybbbeee.
Q: don’t you have other things to do?
A: yes, but nothing better.
Q: it’s thanksgiving week. have you considered that?
A: yes, but that doesn’t seem the point.
Q: donn says she’s coming home this week and that maybe you can see her then, right? doesn’t that make sense?
A: it makes sense to that particular part of my brain, but my heart . . .
Q: oh, pshaw. why don’t you think about somebody besides yourself for a change?
A: i thought i was. i only wanted to fly to colorado and give betsey a hug.
Q: what will you say when you get there?
A: probably nothing. words haven’t been invented.

so in just a few hours, my daughter and i will climb into that big chair in the sky that will deliver us to denver. we’ll rent a car, meet up with my son, and tonight or maybe tomorrow, i’ll walk into a room and see betsey. i will try not to get in anybody’s way, try not to take up too much space as i make my way to her to deliver the only thing i have to offer: a hug with all the love i have coursing through me, seeping from my arms into her gentle, bruised, grieving spirit.

i’ll let you know how it goes.

~~~

many thanks to karen for putting these support stories. i am honored to be asked to participate and to be the company of such compassionate writer people.