Genesis

I started running consistently four years ago.  There was a lot going on in my world four years ago, but of all the things that went on in that time period, the one event that changed me more than any other event or factor was the death of my cousin, Amber Kathleen Cremeens.  I am sure there are many people in my world and just adjacent to it who would say the same thing.  It was re-defining, that moment in time.  It caused an entire shift and recalibration in my focus and my intentions on the planet.  

It was 2009.  

I didn't know really what to do with the confusion, the grief, the unnameable emotions that were circulating inside, so I ran out the door.  Literally.  I opened the door and started running.  Running away from home at first.  Running away from the realities of life.  Running to exhaustion and rearrangement, so I could just be different, feel different, see different than when I started.  

I signed up for my first race that year -- a half marathon.  I remember registering -- late registration, the night before the race -- sobbing.  Poor registration guy probably still has PTSD from dealing with me.  I was pretty convinced I couldn't do it, but desperately needed to try.  I'd never even run 13.1 miles before.  I went straight from sobbing registration to uncontrollable digestive disorder all night long.  Who was I kidding?  There was NO WAY I could run 13.1. 

The next day, though, still with horrible stomach upset and still crying, I started running.  And almost 2.5 hours later, I was done.  And crying.  

Within four weeks, I'd signed up for a full marathon.  But this time, I knew I'd need some help.  So I called for some.  What came to me was this: 

  
It was a little charm of my cousin Amber's that had been worn by a friend of hers in the Boston Marathon and then sent on to me for me to wear in the LA Marathon.  I wore it like a vestment -- it seemed sacred, powerful, energized.  And as I cried -- again (really sobbed, I have to tell the truth) before the start of the marathon, its presence around my neck gave me comfort and strength, like a sacrament.  And it carried me through all 26.2.

But it wasn't mine to keep and I knew that and there were more people who needed it for their running odysseys.  I wore it for a while after that race and one day when I did, a friend (APH, I'm talking to you) approached and told me she owned a machine that made those exact charms.  She was kind enough to come let me make (a few) look-alike(s).  Then I finally felt free to let the original go...I had one or two made in its image.  I would be okay.  

So I sent the original on.  I've seen it in pictures around other people's necks as it has carried them along their running ventures.  I'm so happy to know it lives on.

Cut to 2013.  This year, for my 40th birthday present to myself, I signed up for a 50K.  And again, I knew I'd need some help to carry me through.  So the day before I left for the race, I dismantled a few perfectly good necklaces to make a new necklace for my look-alike charm.  It was great!  The perfect length.  Great materials.  Good clasp in the back.  I wore it from the minute I finished it until....

...well, I'm not quite sure.  All I know is it started the race with me, and it may have finished the race with me, but I have no recollection.  I can't remember taking it off or putting it in my bags.  I can't remember seeing it or feeling it except for once along my way.  

And so me, the penny finding runner...the girl who cries before races and sometimes after...who's lucky enough to find angels on the trails or at the race starts...well, I seem to have lost an angel out there, too, among the beauty of the foothills.  I'm not sure how to feel about it.  I do keep searching.  I don't feel done with that charm yet, but maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe she carried me as far as she could, and the rest is up to me.  Maybe it was time for her to be free.  Maybe it was time for me to let her go.  Or as my friend said, maybe, just maybe, it was an appropriate resting place.  Finally.

Living Lessons

I'm a goal person.  Single-minded when it comes to accomplishing something I set my sights on.  Self-serving and selfish, really.  When I buckled down and decided to finish school and sit for my exam -- well, my kids only saw the back of my head for months as I poured through books, studied online, ran out the door, just one more time, to pull another  marathon 'well woman' clinic day.  I got tired of hearing myself say, "Just one second.  I'm almost done with this question."  I told all my boys we were taking time off sports and extracurriculars -- there wasn't time for their interests and mine.  I remember amid that chaos, when I decided to take a weekend off, one of my boys baked a cake in celebration.  

For what it's worth, my boys seem to have not acquired this trait of mine.  Perhaps it's best they haven't.  I can't imagine a house where everyone (or even more than one) is focused to the point of exclusion and delay.  We'd never eat dinner, I guess.  We'd all be hunched over whatever the object of the day was ignoring each other and perseverating.  
  
And so it is with this in mind that I'm happy to announce the come-full-circle, cross-the-finish-line moment of my latest running odyssey:  The 50K.   

Every run -- training or race -- is chock full of lessons for me.  I think that's why I love being out there...my body is busy enough and my mind is quiet enough that I can see, hear, experience the lesson life lays out before me.  And almost without fail, what my MIND tells me the lesson will be before I start -- well, it hardly ever ends up being the lesson.  My mind does not know all apparently.  It is not a crystal ball.  

So this run, it didn't disappoint.  Lessons were everywhere.  

I think I asked no fewer than five people if they had any interest in running part of the race with me.  I'm NOT that way.  I'm a lone runner.  I don't run with people for a reason:  I like quiet.  So for me to ask was odd.  For me to find NOT ONE PERSON available or willing?  Well, it seemed harsh.  I've always had boys at the end of a race or people I knew in the race or something to keep me tethered.  This race had none of those things.  It was far from home.  I was anonymous.  And alone.  More alone than I was thinking I'd like or could stand.  50K...that's a long time to be by oneself.  Even for me. 

I stayed with a friend the night before the race, and as I was walking out the door that morning I was expressing my fear about being alone with my thoughts all day.  Her response?  "You're going to be running 31 miles.  I'd think your only thought will be, 'Please, don't let me die.'"  I had to laugh.  

And so I left the house, traveled to the race, believing my lesson would be how to endure 50K alone.  How to endure my mind for hours and survive.  How to travel 31 miles, up hills and down, and not quit -- in spite of wanting to.  And doing it all alone.  A lesson in meditation, solitude, aloneness.  

But as luck would have it, or maybe because the Universe is Kinder than I expect, I wasn't alone.  And at times -- hey, lady in the bright orange shorts, I'm talking to you! -- there just wasn't ENOUGH quiet.  

Races can mess with my head.  I've said this before.  And I'll say it again.  It is like a high school reunion or one of those alumni magazines where people parade their accomplishments and greatness.  Running is no different.  I purposely showed up just in time to grab my number, trying to avoid those horrible conversations.  But, alas, I couldn't avoid them altogether.  I heard people all around me -- men and women -- comparing previous race results, listing races they'd run in, speaking casually in pseudo-humility about their challenging training schedules or their rugged racing line-ups.  It's enough to make you want to vomit really.  Trust me.  

But it gives me a priceless opportunity to refine and fine-tune my focus and my mindset.  You see, I'm just there for me.  To be.  To be in the minute.  To put minutes together to make hours.  To put steps together to make miles (or kilometers in this case).  I'm not there for glory or greatness or cash or prizes.  And so these minutes, enduring people's egos and grandiosity, it gives me a moment to re-group.  To remind me to be right-sized and right-minded.  

I have to pare down all the arguments in my head about my lack of...lack of training, lack of experience, lack of endurance.  I have to carve away the weight of your greatness, because I'm only strong enough to carry me, my body, my doubts, my mind across the miles (or kilometers in this case).  I don't have enough nutrition or hydration, strength training, or mental fortitude to carry the onus of your accomplishments along for my day.  

In the first few miles, as all the runners filed through the singletrack, overhearing people's nauseating conversations was unavoidable.  I wished desperately for loud music and earbuds to drown out the lunacy.  I couldn't decide if I should fall back or push harder to get away from all the talking.  And yet, as Universal Kindness Rules, the talkers disappeared.  And what was left behind was just a lone woman.  A lone, quiet woman.  And she wasn't me.  

We introduced ourselves somewhere before the 4-mile mark (or 6.4-kilometer mark in this case).  I asked her up front how long it would take her to complete the race.  Her response?  She had NO IDEA.  She was just out to have a good day, have some quiet time, do some running.

Sole-mate.

I learned a fair bit about her over the miles.  We jockeyed back and forth, sometimes even moving along together.  Other times, one of us ran ahead while the other fell back.  She was casual.  Humble.  Quiet.  We ran along with each other for miles (or kilometers in this case) hardly saying anything.  She was graceful and rugged and common-sensical.  She barreled through water-crossings -- knee-high, frigid water-crossings -- without batting an eyelash.  She hiked up hills with incredible speed.  She jogged along, sipping water, eating salt tablets.  

We separated for good around the 20-something mile mark (yes, or the 32-something kilometer mark in this case).  And while I ran along this thought occurred to me:  The Universe is Kind.  If I'd had my pre-arranged running mates, I'd have missed this angel on the trail.  I had to have the missing to have the finding.  And so it is...and is often...the thing that looks like loss is actually the open space for gain.  The thing that looks like emptiness is really full of living...overflowing life.

Life is good.

And PS...if you are a blogger and you leave an unpublished post on your desktop on Valentine's Day, you might find this from one of the loves of your life:

mom, i love you no matter what. thank you for being my mom.

I say again...Life. Is. Good.  

High Clouds Kill Runner

High Clouds Kill Runner.

I keep imagining this as the headline in the paper when they find my body.  High Clouds Kill Runner.  It's the lesson of this winter so far.  Or one of the lessons anyway.  

I've headed out several times in the last few weeks to run, bundled as much as I can stand -- gloves, beanie, tights, two shirts.  I run for freedom, so being bound up in winter-weather-wear -- well, it's anathema.  

I go out the door and start on my way as the sun is coming up.  The skies are clear.  The morning is coming alive.  It seems full of possibilities.  And then.  High.  Clouds.  All hope of warming temperatures...gone.  The idea of sunny rays penetrating those frigid mornings...gone.  The only thing alive is the reality of miles ahead in the dimmed light of a muted morning.  What was once full of promise turns to something that merely exists.  And what was anticipated -- a run in the sunshine of a new day -- becomes something more like work -- logging miles because miles need to be logged.  I'm sure I'll freeze to death.  Hypothermia.    

So what keeps returning to me is this:  High Clouds Kill Runner.  The haziness of life.  The in-between.  The undefined.  The lack of direction.  The failure to set a sight.  The haphazard wandering.  The absence of a plan.  The point where clear-sightedness succumbs to the high clouds.  Vision suffers.  Energies are spent.  Movement without going anywhere.  Life loses purpose.  Temperatures drop.  The body takes the brunt of the reality, but the spirit and mind are not far behind.  

And then a friend sends this article about searching for happiness versus searching for meaning, and I'm reminded of the value of purpose in one's life.  And I'm again remembering the hazard of high clouds, hazy vision, lack of clear-sightedness.  

I remember reading one of the books referenced in the article -- Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning -- a few years back.  The book was a product of his time as an inmate in a concentration camp in World War II.  It's serious business about the nuts and bolts of humanness -- what allows us to survive, persevere, make it through impossible conditions, difficulties, unimaginable horrors.  

I read it  at a time in my life when I was in the midst of the redefinition of self.  It feels lonely in those times when all the usual landscape has lost its markers.  When your life has high clouds.  It seems as if the great expanse of unknown will surely drop you into the abyss.  You'll never be found (by yourself or anyone else) again.  You'll lose you.  

And I remember a passage from the book...Mr. Frankl recounts a cold, dark nighttime journey.  While he marches through the darkness, he remembers his wife.  And as the sun comes up, and darkness turns to light, and hazy vision gives way to clear-sightedness,  he finds purpose and joy and contentment even amidst those most horrible of conditions.  He writes, "Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."  And it isn't the romantic kind of love.  It's the giving kind of love.  And if he can find it there, in that minute, in those conditions...I can certainly find it here in my high clouds.

And so I'm reminded that even my days of nearsightedness or farsightedness or no-sightedness will give way...I bet to an Orange Sky. 

Locum Tenens

Locum tenens...pretty much, a place holder.  A place holder.  Wow.

A few months back, I had the opportunity to work a few days at a low-income, high-volume clinic.  As a locum tenens.  Place holder.

I had to laugh.  You see, years ago, when my oldest was kindergarten, he was working away on his family unit in school.  When his teacher asked the normal questions about family -- who, what, where, when, why -- my little guy had a lot to say.  She asked about who was in our family, where we lived, what we did for our work.  My little one's answer?  His dad, well, he worked at a store.  His mom (me) -- well, I waited.  And no, not in a restaurant...I was not a waitress.

I waited.  I waited for him to get up in the morning, so I could make him breakfast.  Then I waited to take him to school.  After that I waited for him to get home from school, so we could do homework.  Then I waited some more until we had dinner.  To top it all off, I waited a bit longer until it was bedtime, when I, again, waited for him to wake up, so we could start all over again.

I think if he had known Latin, he would have said, 'My mom, she's a locum tenens -- she holds my space until I occupy it again.'

For years, I was offended.  Now I see his wisdom.  Yes, I do.  I wait.  And I hold a place.  This is my life's work.

People who know me have heard this speech before.  Sorry.

Years ago, I was given a copy of a book called Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef.  I really can't tell you all the things it was about in detail, but I can tell you after I read it, my perspective shifted.  It's almost a without-the-right-words-to-explain type of shifting -- like some forms of art where you mustn't focus right on the piece, but rather lose your focus on the piece in order to understand it.

Let me try to elaborate.

The go-away message for me was that as a woman in America, it was no longer sufficient, nor even desired, to try to succeed in the male way of doing things.  It wasn't about breaking the glass ceiling; it was about REDEFINING the glass ceiling.  It wasn't about earning as many dollars as a man, but questioning the value we place on earning dollars.   It was about looking at the inherent feminine strengths and labeling them as valuable, worthy, socially enhancing traits.

My life's work embodies the exact message of Women's Reality.  As an midwife, I create a space for women to experience being women.  I recognize their unique strengths and encourage them to showcase their inherent assets.  I listen, I share, I observe, I demonstrate.  I witness couples turn to families, women turn to mothers, personhood come into existence.  I've been privileged to work with birth and make it woman-centered, woman-driven, empowering.  I'm a part of the redefinition and reclamation of this sacred act.

And in my role as midwife, I spend a lot of time waiting and I spend some time being a place holder.  I have to fine-tune the art of patience.  I have to be keenly aware of a woman's readiness to step into and bloom in this new role as mother.  It takes time.  So I wait. 

Providence

I write best in the early morning.  NOT the middle of the night.  This is unfortunate as I've had more than enough middle-of-the-night awake hours, and hardly any peaceful early morning hours.  You can imagine all the raucous ruckus a house of four boys brings in early morning hours.  There is an overwhelming bounty of non-sensical noises and an equally impressive utter and complete lack of peaceful quiet.

Perhaps I should've raised them with religion.  Then we could have practiced morning devotionals.  In silence.  

So all the words, well, they just sit inside unrecorded.  Except for these.

The miles have been passing quietly.  I crave intense silence these days.  Gone, for now, are the days of blaring music.  I want to hear the measured pace of my breathing, my footfalls, that chorus of welcoming nature sounds out there in the dirt.  I'm going down my mental checklists as I trot along...where are my arms?  Am I moving at the elbow or the shoulder?  Are my shoulders back?  Head upright?  Am I relaxed?  These questions are such a welcome relief from the questions of life.  They're easily answered.  Corrections can be made.  It's simplicity.  And I'm clear, these small corrections, these details make me able to endure longer hours and more miles with less effort, less energy expended.  It's like an equation for living, not letting this life energy slip out in sloppiness and inattention.

And I signed up to endure -- 25K -- so these miles have been spent training to do just that.  Peacefully, quietly, happily.

I found I grew increasingly introspective, reflective, quiet as race day approached.  All the places I look for inspiration, support, encouragement...well, there was a block there.  My house was quiet.  My boys gone.  All except one.  The day before the race was rainy.  I worked -- typed -- quietly, surprised at the depth of my need for solitude.  At some point, I suffered a crushing paper cut and thought this was sufficient reason for pulling out of the race.  In some minutes of quiet, the head can come up with the most absurd ideas that seem completely logical.  Which is why this girl occasionally needs to break the silence.  Get input from outside.  And before this race, this is what that outside grace sounded like:

If for some weird apocalyptic reason I could only have one song to accompany me on this life journey, especially this running odyssey, I'd want it to be this.  It is my life anthem, I think.  I'm sad I didn't write it.  From its opening, it makes me perk up and pay attention.  I am that person, out the door, going forward, not in a straight line (my life has taken turns), all the while a chorus of voices (perhaps mostly in my head) signing their disapproval.  I am the girl with long hair coming down my shoulders, tired, feeling so much older.  

And my life, it has come down to the women for survival.  Don't get me wrong, boys and men are fabulous.  I love them and think they're great, but in my life, I look around and easily see the profound efforts of women carrying this society along.  How could I not?  I'm a midwife.  I watch women all the time dig deeper than they ever knew existed inside their very own selves and come up with making the impossible possible.  I see them in the midst of the truly singular journey surrounded by their loves, but accomplishing something that only they can accomplish.  It's humbling to bear witness to such strength and perseverance in the face of doubt, exhaustion, fear.  It's more humbling still to see the results of their efforts.  And it's even more humbling to stand in their presence after their transformation...from woman who didn't believe to woman who did.  

Quite logically, you can see how these women are my inspiration and my drive as I pass the miles, take the next step, continue on a path that seems impossible.  I hold them close to me and carry them along the miles.  They are better than any sports drink ever.  They are my aid stations.  

So as I drove to the race -- this 25K race -- I wondered to myself why I run.  The answer seems to evolve as the days pass.  I add new answers as I grow up and grow older.  I run for relief, for solitude, for fitness, for spiritual rearrangement.  But I had to ask myself the other morning, do I run for penance?  It was rainy, cold, muddy.  The run promised to be harsh.  And for what?  Was I running as a form of amends for trespasses against others?  To reconcile trespasses against me?  Was I running from?  Was I running to?  

And I had to admit, I run to leave things behind.  I leave behind those bits of me, the aspects of living, the ideas that hold no more promise.  I leave behind the sadnesses and the heartbreaks.  I leave behind the the seeds that have no hope of sprouting flowers.  Surprising things happen out there as I shed the obsolete.  A new world opens and for everything I leave behind, I replace it with something plucked from along the path, something creative and life-giving, something reliable and sure, something new and steady.  

And so this is what I found on the trail that day, as I hiked up wet, slippery hills, got pelted by rain, and endured the wind:  I'm running WITH these days.  I'm running with me.  I'm running with life as it is.  I'm running with certainty in uncertain conditions.  I'm running with peace.  I'm running with quiet.  I'm running with people -- the ones I carry inside, and, surprisingly, the ones running alongside me.  I am there, a part of a whole and whole being apart.  

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.  

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have 

occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, which no one

could have dreamed would have come their way.  

                                                                                        -- W. H. Murray

Cultivation

Birthdays.  They're not my favorite.  There are too many in this house.  And spaced poorly to boot.  I should've been Jehovah's Witness when it comes to birthdays...I'd rather skip them.  I crumble under the pressure of providing a sense of celebration or fanfare.  Presents are always difficult.  I hate spending money for the sake of spending money.  I'm not a buyer of wants...I'm more of an as-needed shopper.

So this is what I offer:  Dinner of your choosing.  Cake of your choosing with our neighbors.  Presents: TBD by birthday person.

I love offering birthday meals.  The food I make -- I put love and good feelings into it.  It tastes good. I choose my ingredients with care and consciousness.  I put them together not by measurements, but by feel and by intuition and, most importantly, by taste.  Our time together around the table is another kind of gift in my book.

And cakes -- I love the birthday cakes of our past.  Each one has been a testament to where each boy was in his life at that time.  We were stuck in Batman for many, many years.  Honestly, I'm glad those days are mostly over.  How many times can a person make a Batman cake?  How many different ways?  Batman.  The Batman.  Batman Beyond.  Lego Batman.  You name, I made it.

My personal favorite birthday cake?  Glad you asked.  It's simple.  No brainer.  Carrot.

Which brings us to carrots.  One of our favorite books in this house is The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss.  If you haven't read it, here you go:

We first heard about the book from a song.  It's available here.  Well worth the listen.

So we've been reading this book and I've been thinking about that type of dedication to an eventuality that has yet to reveal itself.  It takes faith.  It takes determination, perseverance, effort.  The cultivation of something from almost nothing; the regular maintenance of a patch of blank, with merely the hope that something develops; the every day exercise of plucking out that which isn't fruitful to make space for that which is -- the task is daunting.  

And so I ask myself:  What am I cultivating?  Daily in this life, I know I'm making strides in a direction.  Most days, I'm not sure where to.  Hourly, I'm course correcting, redirecting -- my energy, my focus, my attention.  Each minute, I'm aware that there's effort involved; trudging along feels like work.  

But I found my carrot -- one of many -- the other day.  It popped up right before my eyes.  And it looked like this...

My morning was busy and full of errands.  Groceries for birthday dinner.  An agreed upon present to be bought.  More groceries for glorious cake.  And in the middle of all those errands, as I was walking to my car, my cart full up of ingredients for a life well-lived topped off by a huge, gift-wrapped, luxurious present, I passed a man.  With a sign.  "Hungry.  Homeless.  Anything helps."  We made eye contact, with a knowing head nod, as I passed by to my car.  

As I started unloading my goods into my car, the conversation in my head sounded like this, and LOUD:  I am the single mother of four boys.  I have three, four jobs.  I work tirelessly to provide for my family.  What is my obligation to him?  Am I only feeding his dependence on hand-outs if I give him something?  Should I give him food instead of money?  What's my responsibility here?  To my kids?  To a stranger?  What's the right thing to do?

I turned from the cart back to my car when I heard a voice.  "Boy or girl?" I looked back.  There he stood.  

"Excuse me?"

"Boy or girl?  The present?  Whose birthday?"

"My son."

He reached for his pocket.  Retrieved a dollar.  

"No," I said.  

"Yes," he replied.

"I can't," I insisted.

"You must," he responded.  "I want to do it."  Stuck the dollar under the ribbon on the huge purple package.  

"No," I repeated.

"It's what I want to do with what I have.  Makes me happy."

I stood in stunned silence as he turned and walked away.

Carrot.  A bigger carrot than I could have ever hoped for.  That day's yield...far greater than expected.  

Revelations

I remember one of my boys, when he was tiny, and not wanting to meet strangers, would say, "I'm shy of you."  I used to think it was cute.  Now I know what he meant.  I'm shy of writing.  She's like a dangerous stranger to me.  Only worse, because it's like we used to know each other and know each other well, and now...well, we're strangers.

I have always heard "write what you know" and that's what I do here -- at least until I realize what I know is merely what I knew, past tense.  Life is like that for me...one day it's true, the next day not so much.  I'm constantly examining and re-examining, chucking the old and fetching the new.  It's trouble for people associated with me -- my ideas and approach constantly shifting.  It's got to be maddening to interact with someone as fickle as I feel.  And I can honestly say, it's no cakewalk being this way either.  When I'm in the middle of whatever it is -- a feeling, an idea, a belief -- I'm all there.  In that minute, I'm clear, committed, a true believer.  And when the winds change -- another perspective is shared, time passes, emotions settle down -- well, I'm all there, too.  Equally committed to exactly the opposite.

So writing.  I was all in.  Until I wasn't.  And it wasn't because I was at a loss for things to share.  More so because this writing, this space felt too revealing and too exposed.  And that's when I retreat.

I'm amazed and thankful there have been people, and continue to be people, who write down their insides, the workings of their minds, the details of their existence.  We, as a people, have benefited greatly from this kind of sharing.  From novels to scientific endeavors (successes and failures) to religious and spiritual texts and beyond -- I'm grateful there was a need and way for people to write down what was going on.

But that's not me.  I'm not revelatory in that sense.  I'm always aware that you're reading this.  I'm haunted by the idea that my mother, my workmates, my kid's teacher may be looking in on my insides from this vantage point.  When all else fails, I revert to what my high school boyfriend's mother used to tell us:  Only do and say what you'd want Jesus to see you doing and saying.  

This is what Jesus can see of me.

I remember 24 years ago like it was yesterday.  Better than yesterday, in fact.  I remember climbing out of a car in a parking garage, being met by my brother there in that dark, exhaust-filled space.  It was a Friday, late afternoon.  I remember him telling me what he had to tell me:  They say she won't make it through the weekend.  They were right.  I remember that brother, that bearer of news, that brother who now has theys of his own, telling him news of his future.  

I remember what I was wearing...black cut-off sweats.  Everyone wore cut-off sweatpants then.  The ultimate in relaxation or sloth or slobbiness?  I'm not sure.  I had a light green shirt with ducks on it.  Said something about being different.  I had my period.  The news felt insulting.  I had my period, in my black cut-off sweats, with my green shirt, and you're telling me she won't make it through the weekend?  As if.  

I remember sitting there that afternoon, by her bedside, as they came in to take blood.  I had come of age in that hospital, among those people.  I had watched small people come into being only to leave just as suddenly.  I had witnessed young people come and stay so long that falling in love and getting married, there in that hospital, seemed logical.  I watched people fight and struggle -- mostly the family members.  The patients seemed at peace.  Nurses -- their names, their lives were -- became like extended family.  

I remember that blood draw.  I'd seen them dozens and dozens of time.  And yet that blood draw was different.  That blood draw made me swoon, lightheaded, dizzy, faint.  I remember my conversation in my 15-year old head debating the meaning of it all.  What was going on?  Why was the world spinning uncontrollably?  Could I make it stop?  

I remember being present when the doctors came in and brought the news to her.  I remember as they told her that they refused to perform surgery on her.  I remember her objecting.   I remember them explaining in horrifying, life-ending detail what would happen if they tried.  I remember the lone tear that slid down her cheek, her eyes too swollen to open.  I remember the doctors' tears, too.

I remember sleeping in a room of strangers, still in my black cut-off sweats and green duck shirt.  We were strangers in cots covered in scratchy blankets linked by the sadness of loss and losing.  I remember waking in the middle of the night, because in times like that the clock doesn't matter.  I remember the sense of panic that I might have overslept, might have missed my last minute with her, might have missed what she had to offer.  

I remember lotion.  Some people crave absolution.  She craved lotion.  I remember the feel of her skin, the softest skin you would ever touch, the result of years of lotion.  Lotion.  More lotion.  I remember our last conversation, the minutes we shared.  I remember apologizing and I remember her asking me not to.  I remember her thanking me for always treating her just as horrible as I treated anyone else.  She was like that.  We laughed.  Cried. 

I remember retreats to the cafeteria where I drowned my loneliness and disbelief in dark purple grape juice and donuts.  I still can't see either, smell either, consume either without spending time back in that cafeteria.  Those days.  All those days.  How many days in that cafeteria?  

I remember golf.  Golf?  Yes, I remember golf.  Golf in the background, lotion on the feet.  I remember her losing consciousness.  I remember the methodical, meditative state of applying lotion to her feet, her legs and back again.  I remember feeling the slightest of movements under my fingers and looking up to see the sweetest of smiles on her face.  

I remember that moment of disbelief when it happened.  When the theys became right.  When she was gone.  Sunday afternoon.  That minute when you want to take it all back and start over again, not wanting the way it is to be the way it is.  The panic at the unchangeable.  Sunday afternoons still inspire that sense.  Sunday, 4:15, sadness.  

I remember riding home with that brother, the bearer of news.  I remember what he said:  She would have helped you pick a college.  I can help you pick a college.  You have to go to college.  I'll help you get to college.  Go to college.  

I remember getting home and taking off those black cut-off sweats and that green duck shirt.  Packing them in a box.  You can't get rid of the clothes you wore the last time you saw her.  Right?  Pack them away, with the grape juice stain, the smell of strange cots, the tears woven into the fabric.  

I remember all of it.  And this year marks the shift...she's been gone longer than she was here.  That's how my life clock has been calibrated.  By that day.  The marking of time in relation to the end of her.  

And yet, these days, she's here more than gone.  I see her in the eyes of my boys.  I see her in their tenacity.  I see her in the way they angle their heads or purse their lips.  They embody her having never met her.  They remind me how close she is even when she's so far.  

I see her in my life's work, as I hover in that space between beyond and living.  Living and beyond.  Those days, that day, she led me here.  Comfortable in the space between.  

Last year, I picked up my cell phone and tried to call her.  A cell phone.  Her.  I remember the conversation in my head that happened at lightning speed.  What was her contact info?  Work?  Home?  Why have I not talked to her in so long?  A cell phone.  How profound the disconnect between heart, head, logic, and reality.  

I remember that day, that 24-years ago day.  I remember that bearing witness to someone going from being to beyond.  I remember.  

How could I forget?