Back to School

The blue Honda Civic pulls down the gravel driveway.  Our youngest son enthusiastically moves away to college for his last year.  A bit of gravel dust floats in the air above the road as I stand waving till long after he's out of sight and tears push at the insides of my eyes.  Now what?

This might have been his last summer at home.  Of course we want him to graduate, get a job, find love, success, happiness, joy, community, and financial freedom.  We are, after-all, supposed to raise our children to leave us.  Right?  That's the plan, the design, the goal.

I sit on the couch with the sleeping dog at my feet inside the quiet house.  For a few minutes I feel sort of sick inside.  Its too quiet.  There really is only the sound of the mantel clock ticking and the air conditioning fan.  

And then, bam, the front door opens and he's back!  In all the packing, he has forgotten his wallet.  So he's in the house, running up the stairs to his room to find the wallet and zipping back down stairs with a smile.  He accepts my extra hug and shoots out the front door into his car.  He's gone, but he'll be back for many more hugs on many more summer days.  He just won't necessarily "live" here.  Or maybe he will.

There are job market issues for many college grads.  There are boomerang kids.   We may or may not have those issues.  But today we've said goodbye and experienced the last "back to school" event for our family.  So we hugged and waved and had another moment when the tears wouldn't stay away as the dust again floated in the air above the driveway.

He's gone again, back to school.

Perfect and Priceless

Mom's gone.  She passed away, passed on, expired, moved on, left us, ceased to exist, gone to meet her Maker, bought the farm, assumed room temperature, kicked the bucket, in a better place, pushing up daisies, singing with the angels - died.  There's no good way to say it.  And yet I forget.  In an exciting moment I'll think: "I've got to tell Mom!"  But it's actually, "I've got to tell M....."  Then Sadness.  Deep Sadness.  Shocking, paralyzing, deep, painful sadness.  She was my Mom and was perfect and priceless to me, and she's gone.

Reality requires that we must deal with death.
We must continue to live, while a big part has died.  A big part.
So we deal.
We live.

Living means dealing with the stuff left behind.  Mom is gone, but her stuff isn't.
Dad needs help so we're going up there next month to help him deal with her stuff.
It's painful to think of going through her things without her.
She has a lot of very nice things, none of which she designated to be given to a certain person.

Mom was an artist and had a lot of nice paintings.  She collected china, glassware, baskets, antiques, books and more.  She also had a lot of fine jewelry.  That's where this process gets emotional for me, but not like you might think.

Mom has already given me everything that I could ever have wanted or needed.  She loved me, taught me, believed in me, cherished me, loved who I loved even when I was weak or immature.  She coached me, honored me, waited for me, cheered me on, questioned me, held me, disciplined me, cautioned me, helped me, directed me, demanded of me what she knew I could give, grieved with me, surprised me, advised me, showed me, saw me, heard me, had patience with me, and gave me everything I could ever have needed.

But if I could have one thing of moms, it would be the pearl bracelet that our precious daughter-in-law Brittany wore when she married our son Andy last Spring.  It was Brittany's "something borrowed."  Mom let me borrow it when I married Tom too.  Dad gave it to Mom on their wedding day 61 years ago.  I would want that pearl bracelet, but not for me, for Brittany.  Its perfect and priceless in a way that's hard to describe -- just like Mom, and she's already given me everything I could possibly need.

Life and death

On a Saturday morning while I worked in our yard in VA, my brother called from ND with the news that Mom was unresponsive this morning.
Just before the airplane doors closed, my brother's text said, "they've called it."
How does a person go on living without their mom?  I'm not sure I can do that.
Mom was the pole that held the family flag, the spine from which all nerves emanated, the main stem, the theme, the force, the fire, the source. And now she's gone.
Dad has weakened dramatically since she departed on 3/30/13.  He has faded, failed, diminished, and slid.
And every day I have thoughts, questions and I just want to ask Mom.  The void is ridiculously large.  It's an ocean of space, loss, sadness.
  But she's gone.
It hurts so much worse than I imagined it would.  It hurts so bad.
Not sure what to do.

Harvest Happenings

The big trucks roll at high speeds down the 2 lane highways loaded with sugarbeets.  The drivers range from experienced CDL drivers to rookies still learning to manage the transmissions in the trucks they were introduced to only days ago.  There are more wheels under them than they've ever had before and more tons behind them than most of them can fathom.  For two weeks (or so) the 24 hour a day frenzy of people moving produce to market in North Dakota and Minnesota takes center stage to almost any other activity.   It truly takes a village to complete this harvest.  The mailman helps when he's done driving his mail route.  The barber helps after cutting hair all day.  The minister takes a shift and earns the respect of the locals and gains fodder for future sermans even though he's a less than average driver.  Family members fly "home" to support their family's farm at a time when every able bodied person supports this all out effort to complete the harvest.  The goal is to keep the sugarbeet harvestor lifting beets into the trucks.  The trucks need drivers... and that's where I come in.
I'm a farm girl and grew up driving tractors and trucks and loved every minute of it.  When I was young, I couldn't wait to get out of school to ride with my mom to watch the whole operation, whether it was grain, potato or sugarbeet harvest.  She was a pro and could drive in the fields, under the harvestor, back up the truck, raise the hoist and dump the truck wearing pretty lipstick on her smile the whole while.

Wild Ride

The earthquake we experienced on Tuesday, along with the aftershocks, reminded me so much of our days living in Southern California in the mid 80's.  I quickly recalled what that unmistakeable shaking was but had to "shake" off my disbelief that we were having an earthquake in VA.  The epicenter was about 30 miles south of us and it really shook us here! Fortunately, we didn't have any damage, but I cleaned up a lot of books that fell off shelves, drawers and cabinet doors opened, linens and fabrics fell off shelves, but nothing broken!  The classy looking ladies at the hair salon turned into world class sprinters as we all headed for the door of the salon while the ground shook.  It was amazing to see women in various states of "hair do" sprint for the door and then hang out in the parking lot with their protective smocks on and hair all foiled up for color and highlights.  We're lucky it wasn't worse.
Speaking of worse, the hurricane affectionately known as Irene is heading up the coast.  It's scheduled to make landfall in NC tomorrow and work its way up to NYC and beyond.  We'll get smacked by that to a lesser degree than those closer to the coast.  What a week with an earthquake and a hurricane!  It's a wild ride and we're not through it yet.
It's all good and yes, it's a wild ride!

Making a difference

My kids have lead me a lot of places, the most interesting to date is to the ranks of Military Mom.  When our oldest son left college to enlist in the Marine Corps I couldn't breathe.  It was so hard to "allow" my young adult son to choose danger, run willingly towards it, accept the charge of military members to die if necessary for our country.  When asked if he could be talked out of joining the Marines, my son clearly said, "I want to make a difference" and he sure has.
His decision has changed him in so many ways that are good, but the adjustment for me has been interesting.  When he left for boot camp I searched for support from other military moms and found the Virginial Military Families based in Fredericksburg.  This group of ladies invited me to their monthly dinner and got me breathing and even laughing again.  They hugged, listened, and taught me that life can go on.  They encouraged me, they shared stories of their active duty sons and daughters, and they were consistent.  These women are amazing and are bound by intense love for their own children and the need for support if the unthinkable should happen.  Tragically it does.
One of my friends lost her son, a Marine.  The loss is beyond painful, it's unthinkable, it's too hard to process.  It's been more than a year and it still hurts too much to think about.  Another friend's son is physically wounded, and his life is forever changed.  They made a difference.

Book Club

My book club meets today. We are discussing Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See this month and I look forward to the discussion. There are so many characters, issues, relationships and events that will spark our discussion. The ladies of book club are wonderful! I've known them as long as I've lived in Fredericksburg, because whiletaking a break from unpacking boxes in June or 2006 I stopped by Targets book area. I saw a nice smart looking woman selecting books and asked her for a recommendation. After an hour of visiting right there in Target, she recommended a number of Jodi Piccoult books and invited me to join her book club! I've been going ever since! Today I'll be wearing the black capris I bought at Talbot's yesterday and a new summer (not tucked in) top. I'll find some whimsical jewelry to add a little flash and some flip flops for comfort. It's going to be 90 + degrees again today! I hope the heat or a hot flash doesn't cause my mineral powder foundation to slide off my face. : )