Barnmaven

Waiting on Spring

The recurring theme of my depression must be getting old for you, it certainly is for me.  Holy smokes, but its bad right now.  I was driving to work on Tuesday and as I went through the part of town where my folks live - they're snowbirding it in Yuma right now - I thought to myself how much I was looking forward to them being home, and pictured us spending time together, sharing meals.  And the sudden recognition of the jagged hole in the tableau of my family was like being punched in the stomach.

The situational depression and the seasonal depression are an overwhelming combination.

I've never tried so hard to conceptualize what happens after death as I have this last month or so.  In my heart I know my brother is in a better place.  Sometimes I can feel him as if he's just this close.  I get a strange sensation in the top of my head and it feels like if I just reached out my hand I could actually touch him.  And I realized that he's OK, its just that I am not because I have to go through the rest of however long this life of mine is going to be without him. 

There was always the four of us.  Many branches, many relatives and friends, but at the core of it, us four.  For good or for bad, we know each other better than anyone else.  All those years together,  loving, fighting, growing.  Sharing meals.  Sharing triumphs,  losses, experience.   Four corners.  Four posts holding the roof on the house that is our little family.   With one of the posts missing, the ceiling tilts madly, dizzyingly and feels as though it might just fall in.

That's when I have to try really hard to just stop thinking about things.

There are antidotes to this.

They DO help.

Trying to capture some video of Gizmo wrestling with the big dogs and laughing hysterically because I simply CAN'T post the bit where he's taking advantage of Roscoe being distracted by T-Bone and frantically humping him as fast as he can.  Gizzie simply doesn't grasp the fact that if either of those boys had a mean bone in their body he'd be the hors d'oeuvre they choke down before dinner.

Having Juliet adamantly pl0p down on the keyboard of my laptop because she has decided its time to stop working and start petting. 

Watching my husband rock I'm So Excited on Just Dance 3 for the Wii and laughing until the tears come.  Its so sweet and touching and completely hilarious all at the same time. 

Being cuddled at night by a dachsund, a Chihuahua AND a cat, all under the covers and all pressed so tightly to various parts of my anatomy that I can't move.

Joking with my dad on the phone.  Hearing my mom's voice.

Drive-time conversations with my children.  The hugs that seem to never end and yet don't last quite long enough.  The "I love you too's" that always come, even when they get a little exasperated with me telling I love them every five minutes.

When the moments come when I feel overwhelmed by the I don't understand WHY's and the sensation of falling and the choking sobs, these are the things that pull me back up and into the daylight. 

So I'll watch the dogs play and I'll pet the purring cat and I'll hug my kids and dance with my husband and talk to my mom and dad.  Spring is coming.  I'll get through this.

Where happy lives

I've been on a Buck Brannaman kick lately.  I've watched the documentary at least three times, and blew through his biographical book The Faraway Horses in about two days.   My trail riding partner Michelle and I are making plans to go watch him give a four-day clinic this June.  We've signed up for the incredibly long waiting list to ride, knowing that we likely won't get to do that, but also knowing that just watching him work with other people and their horses and listening to him teach will benefit us a lot in our own horse journey.

Buck's observation that whatever issues a person has in other areas of their lives will be reflected in their relationships with horses.  There are some incredibly concrete examples of this in the movie, and I'm sure many more on the 300+ hours of tape that hit the cutting room floor.  I see it in my own life. 

The mare I bought on a whim was sensitive.  More than sensitive - she would bolt at the touch of a feather.  If it was evidence of my own troubles that I added a horse to my barn that was drama personified, it was at the same time evidence of the working of God (or the spirit or the universe or whatever name you might give to Him) bringing me the challenges I needed in equine form to help me become a more balanced, calm and compassionate human being.

My standard approach simply did not work with her.  I had to learn a whole new sense of feel.  If all it takes to get your horse to respond is a half pound of pressure on the lead rope, why would you start with fifteen pounds?  And so I had to learn how to start with the smallest amount of energy and increase it only to the point where my horse responded to it.  I had - and continue - to learn how to recognize exactly when that response came in order to reward with a release more immediately.  To help my horse be able to make the connection between those two events.

And I took that mare as far as I could, and then my gelding entered my life, and while not the flight risk that little mare was, he is still a sensitive soul.  The only way to help him - and me - grow was to continue along that path.

And as I have worked on my issues through my horses, I have seen the results carry through to my home and work life.  I am not the same person I was two years ago.  I am a better parent, a better partner, a better employee, a better boss.  I'm not in such a hurry anymore.  I don't feel this frantic sense of urgency, I don't feel the need for everything to be resolved or understood NOW NOW NOW.  I am more in tune with others and how they react to me and to the way life unfolds around them.

Still, there are challenges.

The loss of my brother and the annual winter doldrums have brought a sluggishness into my days, a lack of desire to get out of bed in the morning, a heaviness of heart that makes doing the things I love seem less inviting.  And so I am learning that in order to keep the happiness in my life growing, I must apply some discipline.  In the same way that we make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy so that our horse can learn in the safest way possible what it is we want from him, I need to create pathways for me to continue to do the things in my life that create joy and not those that simply lay waste to the potential of my life's moments.

I know that the terms "discipline" and "joy" might seem mutually exclusive, but I'm absolutely certain that there is a relationship between them. 

If I want to maintain a level of fitness that keeps me healthy, that provides the endorphins I need, that gives me the energy and mobility I need to be an active parent and to enjoy my horse, I need to be disciplined. 

If I want to make sure that my relationship with my horse continues to grow and develop, I can't just get on him once every couple of weeks and expect that's going to benefit either one of us.  I have to have the discipline to get out there a few times a week, even if its just to do groundwork or give him a good grooming.  He needs to have my attention, he needs to feel useful in order to be truly happy.  The time I spend with him is incredibly beneficial to me, it is one of the foundation stones of my own happiness.

Spending time with my husband and my children makes me happy.  But sometimes, especially when I'm feeling pulled under as I am lately, it seems easier to give my attention to a book or a social media stream or an email I want to answer.  Finding the joy in my relationships means applying discipline to the amount of time I spend online or disappearing into a novel.

Sometimes it is as simple as saying, Stop doing this and start doing that instead.  Sometimes I need to be even more authoritative with myself and schedule time for my joy.  Put it on the calendar, make a date with my husband, make plans with my kids or with a friend. 

And most important of all, I must take the time to savor those moments with the people I love, doing the things I love.  Death reminds me that life can be brutally short, that there might not be another time to express my feelings to someone, to hold their hand, to wrap my arms around them and hold them tightly.  Death reminds me of the pricelessness of moments spent doing meaningful things, even things as simple as stroking the small dog on my lap --  and of the futility of time wasted over pointless drama or feelings like anger and bitterness, jealously and resentment.

There is no time but now, but not everything needs to be accomplished right now.  Happiness waits to be found in being mindful of the way that I spend my time. 

This post was written in response to the question How do you plan to create happiness in 2012? from BlogHer's Life Well Lived section.  

Goodbye, hello, and letting go.

I can barely recap the month of December without feeling exhausted.   I will say, attempting to not sound trite, sappy or maudlin, that like so many prior years in my life, 2011 started with much promise and contained many surprises, both pleasant and not-so-pleasant.   It was a watershed year, year of epic change. It is a year that I am more than happy to put behind me.

I am sitting on the floor of my living room, coffee cup on my left and mimosa on my right, trying to shake off the effects of last night's wine.  I consider, as I do every year, what it really means when we flip the switch on the ball and a new year begins.  Dates are something artificial that we have imposed on our world to maintain the fiction that we actually control something.  Still, the seasons turn and the earth dies and is reborn every spring.  That promises us that something hopeful is around the corner, even as we suffer through the withering and dying of the winter months.

I had such expectations for 2011, such hope.  And because it is my nature to be hopeful, I have hopes and dreams for this year.  But because I am older and because I now understand more viscerally the nature of life, I feel the need to be cautious as well.  I tighten the reins on my hopes, hold them in check.  And yet...

I have been working with my horse on his collection and his need to charge forward.  He is young and full of energy, and you learn over time that although it seems counter-intuitive, holding your horse back is the surest way to make him feel as though he needs to go faster.  Because he is a prey animal, the more you try to trap him, the more he will try to get free of you.  Over time, if you allow him his freedom, guide him with your legs and your seat and your voice, trust him to be himself, he will trust you enough to relax when you release him and to allow you to check him when that is what you want from him.  He will trust that when you are done needing him to stop that you will let him go.  You will find, together, a harmony and a partnership wherein you don't need to hold him back and he doesn't need to get away from you.  And inside that bond of trust and respect, you will both grow.

In the documentary Buck, Buck Branaman says that our relationships with horses reflect the issues in our lives.  As we develop our skills to read and respond to our horse and our ability to establish his trust and his respect, so we hone our maturity in all other areas of our life.  If you can stand on the ground with nothing in your hands and ask a 1500 pound animal to back up with nothing but your energy and intent, and he does, there is nothing in your life that you cannot approach with the same energy and intent.  The first thing that is needed is that you know what you want your horse to do.  The second thing is to understand how you tell him that in a way that he will understand.  Lastly, you need to apply only as much pressure as is required to convey your request.  The moment that he complies, you release the pressure and reward the horse.

So it is in our everyday life.  Know who you are and what you need to accomplish.  Apply as much energy and intent as required and relax that pressure when it is not needed.  How much time have I wasted in my 46 years apply pressure to situations when it was not necessary? 

Something within me wants me to be cautious about my hopes and expectations for this year.  The child within me who was given away, the woman within me who struggled to find herself within a marriage that was wildly out of control, the woman who suffered unexpected and devastating loss, they think that they need me to hold the reins tighter on my hopes. 

The woman within me who has learned to appreciate what is good,who has experienced unexpected and incredible joy, and who has learned to release the pressure gathers them all close and tells them, "it will be okay.  You can let go."

Yes, there will be sorrow.  There will be pain.  There will be days when I fail to do and fail to be.  There will be great loss.  But there will also be great love and great joy, great success and great contentment for me, for my husband and children, for my family and my friends.  For us all.

And so I let go of the check and I allow the hope to blossom fully.  I will not temper it with caution.  I will hope.

I let go.

 

Different and the same

Christmas this year outdid itself in being a reflection of pretty much all of this year - a study in contrast. Joy and sorrow, tremendous love and tremendous heartache.  With and without the people we love.

I did not send Christmas cards this year.  I had created a personalized card with our wedding photo and some pictures of the kids, and had printed them out the morning of the day my niece found her dad's body.  When I came home I could not even bear to look at them, much less mail them to other people.  They are still in a stack on top of the printer.  I don't know when I will deal with them, but I'm assuming at some point I'm going to want to use the printer again.  Maybe I'll just move them to another temporary storage location for a while, perhaps the top of the toilet tank or underneath my stack of incoming-and-undealt-with mail.

Our first Christmas together as a married couple.  That was awesome.  It was the first Christmas of the rest of the Christmases of my life without my brother.  That sucked.

The kids had an awesome Christmas.  I cleaned both of their rooms thoroughly beforehand, discarding old toys and organizing bookshelves and shampooing carpets.  I gently put the gifts they had gotten from their uncle last Christmas in their respective places (Ken, I said it then and I'll say it now -- a BARBIE MAKEUP KIT for a nine year old?  REALLY?  But you're right, she DID love it.  Fine, I'll shut up now.) and the heavy rock that's been sitting on my chest since three weeks ago got suddenly harder to bear.  And then on Christmas morning, in standard kid-fashion, they ripped through the wrapping paper on a few hundred dollars worth of toys and then inquired if those were really ALL the presents? in a most incredulous tone of voice.   I laughed, and then sobered as it occurred to me that there would have been two more presents underneath that tree.   And then I spent the day enjoying the sound of them enjoying their loot, even if it was tremendously annoying to have to get up every five minutes to help assemble something, put batteries in something, or keep one or more dogs from DIS-assembling something.

I had a hard time making phone calls and I didn't call everyone I should have, because if I hadn't already talked to them about my brother I didn't want to have to go through any of it again.  I wanted to only have to say things like "this is really hard" to my mom and dad, because it required no additional explanation, and "I'm doing okay" to my sister, because mostly I was and I knew she would accept this and not push me for more.  And yet there was good news to report also, some awesome successes for my son on an anxiety-reducing medication that has in just a short two weeks made a world of difference for him (more on that in a post to follow).

We spent time with the family that was here and missed the family that was elsewhere. 

Where in Christmases past I have taken whole rolls of pictures (and made you look at them all, too), I took maybe four or five.  Some of the kids opening boxes, and some of dogs being tortured with reindeer antlers (T-Bone thinks you ought to call the ASPCA and turn me in).

It was...almost exactly what I expected it would be.  Easy and hard at the same time.  Different than last year, different players, different in some of the mechanics, but similar in our traditions and our enjoyment of children and family.  Just like all the Christmases of all my life have been.  Different and the same.

I keep talking

I at least know when I'm not doing OK, and I at least have the sense to get a little help when I need it, so today I had an appointment with a counselor to process some of my feelings about Ken's death, and I have another appointment on Friday to do that some more, and then probably another one after that.  And then we'll see.

At one point in the session, as I was talking and talking and talking about facts and details and random bits of trivia, she asked me, "What will happen if you just stop talking?"  And of course I knew the answer to that.  WHICH IS WHY I KEEP TALKING.  Talking will keep me from feeling that sick hollowness in my chest when remember that Christmas is Sunday and he will not be here for the annual Wii baseball challenge (followed by the annual day-after-Christmas dose of ibuprofin and application of Ben Gay - we got old, didn't we?)  Talking will keep me from remembering that I can't just pick up the phone and hear his voice on the other end.  Talking will keep the sadness and the tears and the wishing and the what-ifs at bay. 

Talking will keep me from hitting my knees from the stab of grief that drives itself through me everytime I close my mouth and allow myself to FEEL.

I'm not seeking attention.  I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me.  I'm processing this unbelievable, unbearable loss.  I need to understand what makes no sense.  I need to try and push these blocks into different shapes and orders, construct, deconstruct, reconstruct and tear them down again until finally I wedge everything into a shape that makes everything clear.    Clearly just mashing it together into a small hard ball and covering it up with work and words isn't working out so well.

I went back to work that first day and I didn't want anyone to look at me or talk to me or acknowledge my existence in any way.  I felt like one enormous exposed nerve.  I didn't want to have to explain anything, or have people who didn't know what happened wonder why I was spending more time staring at the floor than working.  But eventually you have to open your mouth and talk, and then you tell people the awful thing that's eating you up and you wonder if they think you're just hoping for sympathy, you wonder if they think "thank god it didn't happen to me," you wonder if they think you're too sad or not sad enough or maybe you shouldn't have worn that red sweater yet because its too festive for having just lost your brother.

I wonder if he knows how much I miss him?  I wonder if he knows how glad I am that he and I always ended every conversation or visit with the words "I love you" so that I am very sure he knew without a doubt that he was indeed loved.  I wonder if he knows how much it meant to me when he came over to help me out with the kids or just to spend time with us after my ex moved out, how much it meant that he listened when I was hurting or angry or lonely, that he cared enough to be honest with me, that he was compassionate enough to just hug me when I didn't need words.  I wonder if he knows that I considered our friendship to be beyond the fact that we were brother and sister, that I was honored to be his friend and that I felt he was one of the best friends I had.  I wonder if he knows that I never saw the fact that we were adopted as something that separated us but as something that made us the same.

I wonder when it starts to change, when I stop obsessing about his last days and how he died and when I stop compulsively picking through the pictures that I took out of every photo album and stacked up in my kitchen to scan.  I wonder when I will be able to think about what happened without my mind going in a million different directions. 

Stop talking. Start feeling.

Easy for YOU to say.

Fewer words, more photos

After you've been through a really sad experience, its good to go to the beach -- even if its freezing and spitting some Seattle rain at you.

It eased my heart to watch my kids play on the beach I played on when I was very small.

There's something irresistable about sliding down the middle of a very big fish.

We got in the the car, chilled and shivering, and made the long drive home.  Yesterday, we retrieved all of the dogs from the kennel.  We are now a four-dog family.  One thing I know my brother would have wanted was for his beloved Tasha and Gizmo to be as well cared for as possible, and Lord knows this is the house for it.

They had a traumatic several days, I hope they know how loved they are and that they are safe here.

I'm kinda guessing they do.

They've been snoring on the couch next to me while I typed this out.  I worry about Tasha - she is 17 years old and she has tumors which the vet identified as cancer and said had metastasized.  She seems energetic and her appetite is good, though, so we will keep her spoiled, comfortable and loved for as long as she remains with us. 

Ken would have wanted it that way.

 

Said through tears

The only writing I've really done in the last few days was to complete this, at 2 A.M. Saturday morning. 

 

I used to say that Ken didn’t have a chip on his shoulder….he had two.  And a tattoo of the Tasmanian devil, just to cover all the bases.

There were many years it seemed Ken lived life on fast forward.  He would take on any circumstance chin forward and fists swinging.  Some mysterious force within him seemed to tell him constantly to just go forward, charge ahead, consequences be damned.   It seemed to me sometimes that Ken simply had no fear.  It wasn’t until I grew older and wiser that I understood that his fear was as great or greater than anyone else’s, it was just that his response to it was to drive faster, fight harder, stomp on his fear and shut it the hell up. 

Ken loved to go fast.  Too fast. 

He would think that you’ve never truly lived until you’ve gone moonlight driving on dark country roads, pushing the speedometer until the needle flatlines, gaining the curves, not knowing if the next turn will bring you smack into a deer or a tree or the county sheriff.  There was a reason the vanity plates on his 240Z read “CRAZZZY”

Ken was the living embodiment of the term “oppositional defiant disorder” long before science coined the phrase.  If you told him to go left, he would go right.  North, south.  Every Christmas he would ferret out where Mom had hidden our Christmas presents and carefully unwrap each of them, not necessarily because he wanted to know what he was getting, but simply because the act of hiding them from him was a red flag to a bull, a gauntlet thrown down.

But he had a deeply sensitive and loving side to him as well. 

My brother could – and would – have a friendly conversation with anyone.  He loved to talk to people, not only talk, but connect.  He made friends in the most unlikely places, and he had an uncanny knack for accepting people right where they are.  He never considered himself to be better than others, he seemed to know instinctively that we are all swimming in the same soup.  He would meet your eyes and flash you that brilliant and devious grin, and you instantly felt recognized and liked.

As a child, I adored him.  I drove him crazy, always getting into his things.  He didn’t understand that I simply couldn’t help myself – he was my sun, moon and stars.  Sure, we did our fair share of fighting, but our relationship truly gelled when we hit our teens.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and it was not long before we realized that we shared a common enemy.           We bonded finding ways to keep our parents from finding out the things we knew would get us grounded for the rest of our natural lives.  Ken used to joke that he cleared the way for me, because he was always in so much trouble that no one had time – or even suspected – that I might be up to no good. 

Of course,  we eventually – perhaps miraculously, especially in my brother’s case – grew up.  Maybe one of us grew up more than the other, but I’m not naming names. We both got on the marriage-go-round, and so there were marriages and divorces and babies and more marriages and divorces and more babies.  He started his family early so I could learn what NOT to do by watching him, and I started my family late so he could laugh at me while I over analyzed every aspect of parenting.

The last years were difficult for Ken.  Every life has its share of suffering and struggle, and sometimes it seemed that Ken somehow got a bigger portion than he deserved.  Injury and illness slowed down the man who loved nothing better than to go fast.  He settled down more, gave up getting in pool hall brawls for instilling fear in every Dungeness Crab in Puget Sound.

 Where we might put up a confident exterior for the outer world or even sometimes for our family members, it was never so between the two of us.  My brother and I entrusted with one another our secrets, our sorrows, our hopes and our dreams.  I can tell you without reservation that he loved his family deeply, that he treasured our parents and the times we got to spend together as a family, that he was ever proud, ever hopeful and always unconditionally loving of his children.  It agonized him to see any of you struggle, and even if he could not tell you in so many words that he would have cut off his own arm if he thought it would help you, you must know that he would have.  He lives on in the three of you.

Ken was like a rocket, blazing fast and high to the sky, finally slowing and settling back to earth in a gentle and much slower arc.  I just never thought that he would hit the ground so soon. 

It is incomprehensible to me he is gone, my big brother, my trusted friend and my partner in crime.  He was one of the foundation walls in the structure of my life, and I cannot picture spending the rest of my life without having him to call in times of joy or in times of need. 

Hunter S. Thompson wrote “Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.”

I had no idea the man knew my brother so well.

I want to say this is not about me, but the reality is that grief is almost always about the mourner.  Whatever demons tormented my brother, they torment him no longer.  Whatever pain he suffered is mercifully gone now.  He died far too young, far too lonely, far too sadly.  The hole he leaves in my life and in the lives of my parents, his children, his friends, is enormous.  It was the ultimate of ironies to have more than a hundred people attend his memorial service yesterday when he spent so much of the last year or two alone.  He just didn't reach out.  I know that this was the choice he made for himself, but that doesn't make it any less tragic. 

We last spoke on November 16th.  We talked about Thanksgiving.  He was going to spend it at his daughter's house and planned on coming to have Christmas with me and the kids, as was his habit the last few years.  He asked what the kids wanted for Christmas in the Costco toy aisle.   We talked a lot about adoption, about the search he had undertaken for medical reasons.  We talked, as we always did, about when he might be trying again for a transfer to the local Costco.

I told him, as I always did, that I loved him.  He said, as he always did, "I love you too, Sis."  We hung up. 

I would give anything to hear his voice again. 

Doing the unthinkable

In two days - no, make that one day, since its past 1AM so technically its now Saturday - I will be doing something I never thought I would do.  Or at least, if I did have to do it, it wouldn't be for another thirty or forty years.

I will be delivering my brother's eulogy.

My big brother died sometime between December 1st and December 7th, most likely sometime around the 2nd or 3rd.  Because he lived alone and because geographically he and my parents and I are far apart and because he doesn't always see his grown children every day, we did not know that he was gone until his daughter found him on Wednesday.

I can't go into details, it is so personal and so private.  He did have health problems, but we weren't aware of any that were so bad that they would be fatal.

My brother and I were each other's trusted friend and confidante.  There was much he would share with me that he would never share with anyone else.  As we grew older and our familial bond grew deeper, we learned to lean on one another and to hold a common front with our parents and our kids and our various spouses.  We planned and we hoped and we dreamed.  We cherished family time, whether it was with spouses and children or just the two of us and our parents.  In fact, I loved those times when it was just the four of us, just like it was when we were young, sitting around the table, sharing the same space, talking about our lives. Telling my dad to shut up.

I can't believe he is gone.  I can't believe I will live the rest of my life without my big brother to lean on, to reach out to for support and advice.  This is just...incomprehensible.

So I'll be gone from here a few more days. 

In addition to our parents and my children - who are devastated, they LOVED Uncle Kenny - he lives on in the essence of his three beautiful children and his three darling grandbabies.  Life was often a struggle for my brother but he had a unique and beautiful soul, and he was always always there for me.

I'm not ready to say goodbye.