Category: Days of light

“What Saves Us All Is Love”

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Shadowed by the deaths of little children and their teachers, the holiday season in Connecticut passed heavy with sadness. Thoughts of grieving neighbors tempered every day. As I moved through my days at the bookstore, acknowledgement was shared in the minutes spent with strangers while finding or bagging their books. These usually frantic exchanges before Christmas, slowed slightly by a connection of shared sorrow. The season, while bleak, had a poignancy. Customers were kinder. As if feeling the rawness and wonder: how do we go on after these unbearable losses?

Healing seems impossible. How will those parents ever again smile, feel any joy? Yet look: here is the face of the mother that last Christmas of 2011, who woke to a house in flames that killed her three beautiful girls and her parents. In these photos she looks beautiful, smiling, surrounded by her friends who all draw close to her, loving her. Yes, there she is, a year later, living life. In pain, of course — but surely glimpsing a light. For these past 365 days she has carried on with that unbearable weight of her horrible loss — as others have before her. How has she done this? How will the others?

Love, Madonna Badger, the grieving Stamford mother says, saves us all. When we are in the dark night of grief, it seems that light might be smothered, but somehow – lit it stays. This remarkable essence, this life, makes us extraordinary. Inevitably, we all will experience deaths of our loved ones. While quietly we are grateful that this time, this terrible story is not ours, that it is not our beloved, we glimpse the truth that it might have been. And so, a very little bit at least — it is. Helpless to make anything better, we still want to take action, to comfort. Even knowing there are no words, we reach out to our friends and strangers alike, sending messages – because in this world of grieving, no one is really a complete stranger, not for long.

Out of this longing to do something we shower the Newtown community, with toys for their children. Chances are, those families did not need more under their trees but the rest of us needed to do something. To show our love. We drive through blizzards to gather around parents mourning the death of their child. No words can comfort, but we can fill a room, our faces glowing with tears, we can acknowledge and share the one thing that we hope may keep our friends, our fellow humans going forward: love. It is what saves us all.

Going On


I find myself still looking at the stories and images of the mother who lost her parents and her beautiful children in a fire on Christmas morning. I study them as if I might identify what enables her to survive such loss.  Photos from the funeral captured the bewildered, distraught faces of mother and father watching the coffins of their daughters being carried into the church. Her face crumpled in grief, his raw with pain. How will they go on? How do us humans do it?  What is it that keeps us going, through those horrible minutes, hours, days, weeks, months? Perhaps only years will make the ache sear less.

Heartbreaking stories like this one can be found in some community, every day. This one haunts me because it happened only minutes from where I live.  They did not live in a war zone or a blighted ghetto – she had everything and still lost it all. If it can happen to her…

And yet I look at her and marvel: she bravely comforts the father of her children, sharing stories of her beautiful girls and making plans for their remembrance. Making plans. Carrying on. She will carry on with this business of living even as, (I can’t help imagining) she wishes she were dead. The human spirit is magnificent.

We lose the ones we love most in the world — and yet, continue to live. Most of us still find a way. Such losses can seem  impossible from the outside. Part of me wants to turn away from this terrible story, it feels wrong and voyeuristic to want to know more. But I cannot help wanting to, even as I observe with dread. As if I might see how to arm myself against comparable experiences. This same thing is unlikely to happen to me, but there is no escape from what life doles out to us and something else as terrible might again. How would I go on?

We all eventually lose what may seem to be the source of all love — a lover, a spouse loses their soulmate, a child loses a parent, and most horrible of all – a mother loses her children, and still find the will to live. Slowly, slowly finding moments of laughter, once again discovering the beauty in light and recognizing  the myriad of feelings beyond the numbing punch of grief that once threatened to end it all. How? Many have the comfort of their faith guiding them through. But even those of us without the clarity of belief in the wisdom or  master plan of a God, there is something greater than the fear of death that keeps most of us going.

I see around these parents, a beauty glimmering like a haze softening the curtain of anguish. Somehow, in the darkness of mourning we must sense something, some light of hope.  Or perhaps we see it reflected in those who gather to comfort us. In a New York Times article on the funeral a man who only shared the same church with the family called out to the children’s father as he passed by “Brother, I love you,” and according to the man the father reached over and said “I love you, too.” Perhaps that’s it – what drives us forward from our loss, just love.

Studio 70 Artists’ Retreat 2011

For the third year in a row, I am back in the Catskills with my “Studio 70 Sisters” for our own mini-artist’s retreat.  Studio 70 refers to the place where we all met as art students of Mike Skop when we were all in our 20s. Many years have passed but we all still remember how to give each other time and space — lessons Mike taught well on so many levels.

Right now I am sitting by the window in a patch of morning sun. With eyes closed, one might think it is raining, the rushing river across the way is so loud.

Yesterday, the four or us caught up on the year, gabbing on the porch, while making and eating dinner, drinking wine. We agreed this is one of our favorite things about this time: our dinners.  Last night’s meal was a salad of greens I picked from my garden before leaving Connecticut, and CSA farm cucumbers and onions, garlicky dressing and feta cheese. Diane sauteed Portabella mushrooms Cathy spotted at the farm stand down the road.

This morning, the house is quiet, each of us doing exactly what we want to be doing. (and that may include thinking about what to make for dinner!)

Bliss.

 

Beach Morning

I pushed aside the curtain to the yoga class and knew I was too late. Chock-a-block sticky mats only inches apart from each other, guarded by their owners in various twists or (my favorite) corpse pose, waiting for the teacher to start. With so many bodies packed together, the room already smelled. I left. Maybe later I will pick up another class to shake out kinks from a week of too much sitting. Instead, I headed to the beach.

Parking near our kayak launch spot, I zipped my jacket and pulled up my hood. A cloudless sky but a decent wind made for brisk walking and I headed over to the sandy beach, deserted but for a distant man with a fishing rod stuck in beside him.  It was still early – not even the gulls were out to explore the morning’s pickings. This beautiful spot is only minutes from our home. During the summer, we get down here whenever we can to paddle away from shore in our yellow kayak.  We rarely step on to this sandy stretch – the beach where swimmers and sunbathers crowd. I am drawn here only when I know it will be deserted – early or late or during a storm. This morning, the water like glass barely lapping against the tightly packed sand. No waves today, at least, not yet.  Looking out at the islands we kayak around, I was tempted to rush home and pull Rob out of bed to join me in yet one more outing on the water.  But we get wet in our flat ocean-kayak and the thought of sitting damp in a boat with a stiff wind blowing was enough to keep me on my sandy trek up, and then down again, the length of the beach.

At one point, with a nod to the yoga class I was missing, I stretched. Hanging over, my arms heavy, releasing my back and gradually loosening until my fingertips barely touched the sand, the moving tide seemed also to be trying to reach my toes.  Breathing in and out of my nose, filling my lungs with sweet air and releasing again while marveling at the beauty on my doorstep. As a child growing up in NYC, I longed for such access to nature. Just to go outside, I needed to ride the creaky elevator and although magnificent VanCortlandt park was just across the street, I could not venture into the woods for fear of scary men. Remembering this, I feel grateful for my world and the morning’s too crowded yoga class.

A Book to Read

I finished reading Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell two days ago and like a good book will, thoughts of it linger in my consciousness. Yesterday, as I walked by a stack of them in the bookstore, a woman about my age browsed nearby.

“This is wonderful.” I held the book up.

“Hmm. I thought it sounded depressing,” she answered.

I paused, surprised. Depressing. Yes, of course a book about the loss of your best-friend might sound like a downer.  Why was I surprised at her reaction?

“Oh, no,” I said. “Poignant, yes – but very beautiful – not depressing.” I wonder if she picked it up after I left.

Earlier in the day, a woman looking for a new parenting book called Little Girls Can Be Mean and I agreed how puzzling it is that girls are indeed, so often mean to each other -much more so than little boys.  Yet later in life, women’s friendships are so rich and loving – more than what most men get to experience. Boyfriends may come and go but our girlfriends remain anchors and our loyalty, fierce. Years have sometimes passed without contact with some friends but when we reconnected, it was as if no time or space ever separated us. My friends are now tightly woven into my life. During bitter times, they held me together, letting me cry, reminding me to laugh.

One dear one is as far away as Tasmania and another is  across the street.  Most precious of all is the friendship with my sister, Anne. We have the bonus connection of genetic understanding as additional cement. We get each other immediately and on every level. This is what Caldwell and Knapp had.

Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a loving glimpse into Gail Caldwell’s enviable relationship with fellow writer and dog-lover, Caroline Knapp (Drinking: A Love Story and Pack of Two)  who died while still in her forties, of cancer.  This gem of a book was borne out of Caldwell’s loss. Affecting, (I made the mistake of reading the last chapter during a lunch break at work) but not depressing.

I am fascinated by grief – or maybe not really grief itself, but rather, how us humans process profound sadness, the inevitable and dread part of the emotional spectrum of life. Gail Caldwell opens a door to this dark room and amidst the shadows of sadness you feel grateful for the experience – all of it: the pain, the love, life.

Slow Down Spring!

Forsythia is fading fast and daffodils are already shriveling. Last week’s days of summer temperatures seems to have fast forwarded us. I wanted to get into the weather car speeding us towards summer and put on the brakes.  Too fast!  The heat itself doesn’t bother me although I haven’t yet managed to do the seasonal clothes change thing (and I prefer this direction!) and so, spend such days, a little overheated. Much happier to be hot than cold, I never complain.  I feel like it slows me down to a more leisurely pace.

Still feeling behind in terms of the garden although I managed to plant some rainbow chard, kale, lettuce and peas last week.  The next morning, looked out the window to see a squirrel digging up the chard seeds – munching away as he looked around.  No wonder entire plantings from last year never even surfaced from the soil to be eaten by the groundhog.  Crazily, year after year, I plant again although I know this lumbering creature will climb the wall or dig a tunnel right into our little plot and devour what I plant.  Eyeing some seedlings at a garden store last week of red leaf lettuce and other beautiful leaves, I thought – a ready meal for the groundhog, and left them there.  I try and plant things he doesn’t want. Or just a lot of what he does so we get some too. We have onions and leeks and a big bag of lettuce seeds this year.  We will do battle again. And he’ll probably get the soybeans (love edamame!) before me, but I remain an optimist.

Day of Light

I  do not have the clarity that religion offers, but in my own way, discover spiritual moments, although – never in a church. Easter Sunday, we work out in the garden. R is tying up branches both fallen in recent storms and trimmed by us. Wearing gloves against the thorns, I prune the rambling rose bush and pull the dead wood out of the hydrangea plants. There is a woody vine that since last summer has laid claim to a stone wall.  I push my sheers beneath the dirt, snip out the roots, yank and cut. I know I did not go deep enough and suspect it will be back again within a few months when I get lazy and turn my attention to other parts of the garden.  But for now, it is enough.  Cleaning out the dead or undesirable branches and plants, clearing the way for new life.  Filling my lungs with scented spring air I am grateful for the day. That feels like a prayer to me.

The Importance of Lunch

The tiled walls of the PS 95 lunchroom magnified the roar of children’s voices. When the allotted eating time was up, we were herded out into the fenced-in tarmac.  The schoolyard. Venturing beyond the chain link fence was forbidden. The yard held no swings, slides, benches – only three basketball hoops without nets and in the opposite corner, fading lines for stickball games. A ‘thonk, thonk’ of Spaldings against the school’s brick walls punctuated the chorus of yelling children. Swarms of kids chased each other across the yard while others in small groups or alone, sat along the perimeter of the fence, using their metal lunch boxes for seats.  My friends and I hated recess and by 5th grade, our little group, too far away to go home for lunch, had schemed a daily escape.

Initially we ate in the laundry room of a nearby apartment building. Entering by the service door, we followed the sound of rushing water, down the labyrinthine hall to a steamy room with six washing machines and three dryers. We tossed our wooly coats on top of a humming dryer and climbed onto a machine or sat perched between laundry baskets on the lone bench.  Girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, so we’d carefully tuck our hems around our knees while devouring our peanut butter or bologna sandwiches.  There were three or four of us: usually Phyllis, Zeena, Denise and me. When weather permitted, we vied with the Yiddish-speaking seniors for benches in the stretch of green beside the reservoir. In fifth or sixth grade, Elise, a diminutive, strawberry blond with freckles like me, invited us to eat our brown bag lunches at her house.

She lived in one of the towering apartment buildings a block from school. On days when the wind blew fierce across the reservoir, the walk felt interminable as we chattered and laughed, clutching our coats tight.  We followed our friend into the warmth of her lobby and took the elevator up to her apartment.  No one was home at Elise’s house. Unlocking the door, she welcomed us into her quiet, sunny apartment, into the kitchen where we each had a chair at the table, like honored guests – no: like family.  To all of us, it felt like home.

The school bus ride from my apartment building at the far end of Van Cortlandt park to this neighborhood by the reservoir was the full length of a city bus line – starting a block from my building and ending near PS 95 – too great a distance to travel to hang out regularly with my school friends. Weekends, after-school and summers were spent with my friends-by- circumstance, kids from my block and apartment building. My school friends and I were friends by choice.  We were all  smart kids who liked to make each other laugh. I recall no memory of meanness between us.

Observing my daughter’s friendships through recent years, I am reminded of the cruelty that girls (including myself – memories of shame) are capable of and realize how sweet our little lunchtime group was.  And how generous Elise and her family were to let us descend upon their house each day.

I lost touch with these girls when I went off to a different junior high school and then moved out of state. Lacking the means of connectedness that our children have, my friends faded into memories that only now, over 40 years later, are coming back into focus. Although I am not usually one to knock on doors of the past, I did not hesitate to send Elise, our kind host, a message when I came across her profile on a PS 95 alumni page. There was a third name added to the name I knew, but I was sure it was my old friend.  Her Facebook page indicates she is a fan of my favorite off-beat public radio station, of Van Cortlandt park and that her political bent is left. Chances are, if I met her today, I would still want her for my friend.  I sent her a message and she answered within the day – excited to hear from me.  A few exchanged messages – short summaries of where we live, ages of kids, and we agreed to get together – to try and bridge those 40 + years since sharing lunch together, in person.  We’ll meet somewhere in between our suburban homes now far from the Bronx, to catch up on life.  I will insist on buying lunch.

Saving Daylight

Still trying to catch up from saving (losing?) that daylight hour and am slow to pull myself out of bed. The dark morning is hard but the extra evening light is worth it. Yesterday (Saturday), I worked for a few hours hosting the lovely author and chef Leticia Moreinos Schwartz with her new book The Brazilian Kitchen: 100 Classic and Contemporary Recipes for the Home Cook – a beautiful cookbook I had to buy myself after salivating over the photos and recipes like Red Pepper and Brazil Nut Pesto or Avocado Creme Brulee. Yum.  And the little sweet treats she brought for customers to taste – Brigadeiros – were scrumptious.  Food and good people – I was able to forget that it was a beautiful, first day of spring and I was inside.  And there was plenty of time in the remaining afternoon and evening to work in the garden.

When I got home, we leveled a Rose O Sharon shrub hovering over the corner of my vegetable garden for too many years.  I am loathe to cut down trees and shrubs where the birds might hang out. Not yesterday.  Without sentiment, we brought it down, opening up that corner  that has always become overgrown, blocking the sun from my tomato plants.  What bugged me most about this shrub was the shoots that spring up all around it – a flower garden next to the garage, the corner behind that we have been trying with little success to claim from the weeds and determined raspberry shoots.  Hundreds of little twigs that are Rose O Sharon offspring – they are poking out already, some tenaciously stuck in there, resisting my yanks. We worked for hours into the evening, the sky turning a deeper blue to dark with a sliver smile of moon up above. Ah, spring.

Spring

Daffodils poke their yellow heads out from under wooden steps added to the front porch last summer.  I thought I moved all plants and bulbs before construction but obviously missed these guys. Amazing that hidden though they are, they manage to get what they need to still bloom gloriously. I’ll try and remember to crawl under there this autumn and move them to another spot.

So much damage was done by the crazy storm last week that the schools in my city never opened. Yesterday, as I drove my daughter to and fro, the streets were full of kids – their tiny t-shirts and shorts, flip flops – already retrieved from their summer clothes stash, walking in groups, filling the playgrounds, on bicycles, skateboards. Did so many kids always live here or am I just seeing them now because I have one?  I pay more attention to children closest to my child’s age – so now the world seems full of high school freshman – other age groups fade into the background. I don’t always like what I see and remember being almost 15 and feel oh-so lucky (so far!) with my beautiful girl.

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