ANOTHER SEASON OF MOURNING BEGINS

Looking back on it now, the weather seemed oddly appropriate.  The first day was sunny and bright and warm.  Not warm by some standards but warm for those of us use to cooler temperatures.  On the second visit,  it rained and although it had stopped in the afternoon, it remained gray and overcast and dismal.  In Western Washington we are use to such days but on this day it was not just the dampness of the day, the mood of the city seemed to have changed.  Or perhaps that change was only reflected in those of us that loved her.

The first day I visited there was still hope.  The chances of recovery were slim but when you have nothing else, you grab on to "hope" with both hands and hold on tight.

When my youngest daughter, Tiffany, called me and told me that Heather, her best friend from childhood, was in the hospital gravely ill, I automatically assumed it was a crisis that would be overcome and soon she would recover and get out of the hospital.  She was only 32 after all.  Young and strong.

Tiffany was not so optimistic.  She tried to prepare me for what I would see.  She told me that Heather's liver was in the end stages of liver disease.  She said that her kidneys had stopped functioning and she was on a dialyze machine.  She warned that she was bright yellow, swollen, and because fluid was accumulating throughout her body, it was also flooding her brain and she wasn't always lucid.

Her roommates had waited three days after she turned bright yellow and was in extreme pain before calling 911.  A decision that might have cost Heather her life.  By the time she got to the hospital, her situation was already beyond critical.

Heather was as much a member of our family as each of us were.  Growing up she seem to be at our house more than she was at her own.  Sometimes she would be there for weeks without going home.  The kids thought of her as a sibling and I loved her as though she was my own.

Our family was as different from hers as night is to day.  Two families could not have been more different.  Her family was distant and aloof.  Showing emotion was consisted a sign of weakness and although there was a lot of love, there was little outward affection.  Heather craved affection.

Our family, in contrast, is a huggie, touchy, verbal, love you forever, demonstrative bunch.  We adored Heather and she blossomed in our loving environment.  No one sparkled like Heather.  She was funny, witty, and full of life.

Son, Bobby, and I drove from the Olympic Peninsula to pick up daughter Stephanie in Auburn and then on into Seattle to pick up Tiffany so we could all go to the hospital together (thank goodness Tiffany was with us - Harborview Crisis Center is a maze of different facilities).   As soon as daughter Robyn in Arizona learned about Heather she immediately booked a flight home.  We would all be there for her as a family.  Her family.

Even though Tiffany had attempted to explain Heather's condition, nothing could prepare us for what we saw.  When we got to the Critical Care Unit, we had to sanitize our hands and then put on gloves and a gown before we could enter her room.  That was to protect both her and us.

I knew she would be jaundiced but I didn't know that she would be the color of a school bus.  The only thing white was her teeth which appeared bright white in comparison.  Her eyes seem to be floating in a pool of yellow fluid.  Her legs were purple and splotching and were about twenty times their normal size and were beginning to split.  Her abdomen was swollen and bloated.

All that  was hard to see but I could handle it.  What I was not prepared for was the agonizing pain and  suffering she was going though.  Because her blood pressure was so low, they couldn't give her any sedation for fear of her blood pressure  bottoming out.  Her body was so swollen that it was leaching the toxic fluids in her body out through her skin.  Because her liver and kidneys weren't functioning, she was septic.  They didn't want any of her body fluids to get on us because of the degree of toxicity.

While we were there they had to perform several painful procedures without pain medication.  It was all too horrible for words but she handled it with dignity and grace.   We were made to leave the room but Heather needed for Tiffany to be within ear shot.  Tiffany's voice soothed her and gave her strength.  I was amazed at how well Tiffany responded to her friend's needs.  She seem to know just the right things to say and do.

She was so pleased and surprised that we all came to see her.  "You're here to see me?"  There was no place else we would be except by her side.  It was sad that she didn't realize that.  She was and always will be our girl.

Even though she was in so much pain, she still managed to joke around and make us laugh.  We made plans to go camping at the lake.  We agreed that when she got out the hospital that she'd come stay with me so I could take care of her and nurse her back to health.

At one point she squeezed my hand and said "Momma, I'm so sick.  Am I going to get better?" I hesitate just a quick second  and then said "Of course you are Baby.  You just have to stay here until you're better."  She said "Pinky swear?" and extended her little pinky.  I linked my pinky with hers and it was all I could do to not break down in front of her.  It was at that moment that I realized this was the only promise I had ever made to her that I wasn't sure I could keep.  Bobby and Stephanie left the room so she wouldn't see their tears.

This was the last day our Heather was conscious.  That evening she went into a coma that she never awoke from.  She was placed on life support.  We were not made aware of this until Tiffany went to the hospital the following day.

After I got home that night, I was unable to sleep.  I alternated between body racking sobs and staring off into space.  Finally around 4 a.m. while it was still black outside, I went outside in only my nightgown to sit on the front porch - thankful for the cold, frigid air.  I was so empty inside that I wanted to feel something - anything.

While I was sitting there in the icy darkness just staring off into the trees that I knew were there but couldn't see, one side of the trees suddenly lit up as though someone had turned a bright light on inside each of them.  From the illumination I could see that a ground fog was rolling in.  It was such an unusual phenomenon that my first instinct was to run and get my camera; but something greater than myself, told me to quiet myself and remain where I was. It lasted only three to four minutes at the most but during that time I came to realize with a certainty that whatever was going to happen in the following days would be okay.

Soon after the birds began their songs.

Tiffany sat by her bedside day after day waiting for her best friend to open her eyes.  The nurses said they were baffled and didn't understand why she wasn't waking up.

Robyn arrived from Arizona.  Again we gathered the family, including daughter-in-law,  Rhiannon, and drove to the hospital on that gloomy, cold day.  We got to see her that one last time, hold her warm hand and tell her we loved her.

We learned from the doctor that her brain had been "showered with strokes" and the ventilator was the only thing keeping her alive.  Later that evening her parents would arrive and the doctor would advise they remove her from life-support and let her go.  A decision no parent should ever have to make.  It took them two days to finally gather the strength to let her slip away.  But in our heart of hearts we knew she was already gone - had left us during the night of that first day.

And thus another season of mourning began.  I longed for a thunderous rainstorm.  I wanted something strong and torrential to wash these feelings away.  The emptiness in our hearts and in our lives was so heavy  I could barely breathe.  The pain so unbearable that I wanted to fade away into nothingness so I'd never have to feel this depth of grief and sorrow again.

Initially I thought this type of grief was very different from what I felt when Christian took his life.  He was in such emotional pain.  He felt there was no hope, no future, nothing that could save him from the depression and despair.

Heather's drinking might have started from a desire to have fun but as her life unfolded it began to take on that same depression and emotional pain that Christian felt.  Heather struggled with self worth issues her entire life.  Issues only made worse by bad, destruction relationships.  She used alcohol to ease the pain.  I do not think that she ever thought that it would eventually take her life.

Regardless of the form their deaths took, they are both gone at the tender age of 32 and leave in their wake huge voids in our lives.  Where there was once sparkle and glitter, there is nothing.

THERE WERE TWO BOXES AND BOTH HELD MY HEART

"The human heart has hidden treasure, In secret kept, in silence sealed;  The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed" .....   Charlotte Bronte


Long neglected it sits there like a sentry.  The top covered in a thick layer of dust.  A box.... black,  cold, and heavy.  So heavy.  Made of granite.  On the face printed in gold is a lighthouse.  A lighthouse to show lost souls a safe way home.  A beacon in the dark.  The box is  forever sealed.  It will never be opened.  Its contents never viewed.

Why she would neglect it, not even she knew.  Perhaps it was because it was too hard for her to accept what it was, what it held.  Is that why she placed her son's picture in front of it?  so she wouldn't have to see it.  But yet she still wants it close.  Needs to know that it is there.  Inside she can faintly hear her  own beating heart.

On that day when so many decisions had to be made, this is the one that the most thought went into.  Nothing would ever be perfect enough but this seemed the closest.  The lines were simple and elegant.  Minimalistic.  Made of natural stone.  He would like that.

His eyes would have skimmed past the ornate floral urns and she felt certain they would have come to rest on the one she selected for him.  She smiled knowing that he would have preferred the silhouette of an elegantly dressed gentleman to the gold lighthouse.  Black on black.  Even if there had been time, she, of course, would never have found such an urn.  Funeral homes are more into symbolism.  So having no other choice, she had to take the lighthouse.

There were two boxes actually.  The cold, black one that sets on the buffet in a place of honor; and the slightly smaller, black box she carries with her in her heart.  That box has a lock and a key although she doubts the key will ever be used.  Mentally she has pushed the box to the far back corner of her heart.  Sometimes she will go there in the dreamtime.  She isn't always asleep when she dreams.  It sits in a dark, cool corner hidden from all the other things she has placed inside her heart.  This is her secret place.

She pushes aside the sheer curtains and settles herself down next to this object of light and dark mysteries.  She lets her hand rest on the cold lid.  Inside are all her memories - good and bad.  Tales of joy, tales of shame, tales of adventures, tales of all that is good in her life and all that is bad; and inside this box lies tales of death.  The memories are all hers.  She has lived each one.  She doesn't have to use the key.  She knows what is there.  For this is a box that she crafted herself.

Without opening the lid she pulls from the box her memory, at age five, of her father, a soldier.  She barely remembered him even then.  She had brief memories of him laughing and playing with her; and in one he was yelling - loudly.  She remembered being so frightened that she hid under the blankets on the bed upstairs.  Then he went away, she didn't know why, but she never saw him again.  It was okay because she still had her mother and that really was all she needed.

One day she came into the bedroom and she saw her mother crying.  Crying as though her heart had broken.  "Why are you crying Mother?"  She lifted me onto her lap and brushed my hair away from my face.  "Your father has died."  I was only five and didn't need to know more than that.  I was sad because she was sad.

One of my happy memories during that time was sitting on the bed with my mother and two brothers and listening to the radio.  Someone named Elizabeth was being crowned queen.  I didn't understand all of it but I knew it had to a wonderful thing because all the people were cheering and Momma was smiling.  Momma explained that what was happening on the radio was taking place in a far away land.  She said this was a very important day that we should never forget.  And I didn't.

I look deeper inside the box and memories of years far distant  fly by like the rushing wind.  There I am growing up, my Mom remarries, life is good.  A little sister and brother are born.  There's lots of laughter both at home and at school.  My step dad adopts my brother and me.  I graduate from high school.  I travel to Europe that summer and in the fall I travel across the U.S.  and back again.  I get a job working for the FBI while waiting to go to college.

I move away from home and at age 20 I get married.  Life is not good.  My husband is not the kind, loving man I thought he was when we married.  He is cruel.  In spite of all the ugliness, a beautiful, precious little daughter is born.  He adores her.  He goes away to Viet Nam for a year.  While he is gone, our first son is born.  When he returns, he begins drinking heavily.  He becomes an abusive alcoholic.  We have two more children, Christian and Tiffany. During those years our children are the source of my joy and happiness.  They are the lights of my life.

Looking further, I see myself sitting at the phone dialing a number.  It is Thanksgiving and I am calling home to wish my Mom and Dad a Happy Thanksgiving.  My sister-in-law answers the phone.  When she hears my voice, she says nothing but quickly gets my Mother of the phone.  How strange I think to myself.  My Mother's sad voice tells me that my father has died that afternoon of a heart attack.  I am heartbroken.   I didn't know anything could hurt that much.

More years speed pass.  I divorce.  My Mother remarries.  She marries a wonderful, funny, loving man.  The children call him "Grandpa Jack".  Everyone loves him.

More years pass and then one day I receive a telephone call from my Mother.  Her voice is strained. There has been a car accident she says.  Grandpa Jack is gone and so is his brother Don.  Black, black days.  So hard when you never get to say good-bye.  Now she has loss three husbands.

Time passes and I remarry.  His name is Patrick.  He is a good, good man.  He makes me laugh and shows me a life I never expected to call my own.  My Mother also remarries.  His name is Bob.  Bob Artz.  They move to Henderson, Nevada.  Bob is a true gentleman.  He and Momma are very happy and spend many wonderful years together.  But then he, too, dies and my Mother is alone once again.  I do not know how she endures such pain.  She cries a lot and often.  I know she will never be the same.  She has lost the love of her life.  She cries out to God, "Why do You take all the men I love?"

I thought Death was done with me.   Done with our family.  The idea of my Mother passing on is pushed as far from my mind as I can possibly get it.  But, no, Death is not finished - not yet.  He has one more tragedy waiting for me.  One far, far worse than all the rest.

He slipped in on a cold January morning and stole from me my heart, my sunshine, my joy.  He reached out with his icy cold hand, placed a gun to my son's head, and pulled the trigger.  In the box is the sound of a gunshot, the smell of gun powder, crimson red blood, shards of bone, and my precious son's lifeless body.  Never have I felt such pain.  How could I possibly survive this much anguish?  but somehow I kept on breathing.

My ex-husband follows our son in death four months later.  As the years had passed, he and I had become very close.  More so than when we were married.  Age had mellowed him.  I was still so numb from losing Christian that I felt nothing when I learned he had died.  It was as though I had no more capacity for heartache or pain.  I was empty and full all at the same time.

I wrap my arms tight around the box.  I place my cheek against the top.  Tears spill down and the box is covered in my tears.  I cry until there are no more tears to cry.  All of my memories are in that box.  All the mysteries of life and the mysteries of death.  I have lived them but I have yet to fully understand them.  Why so much death in one family?  in any family?

After Christian died, I cried out to Death again and again to take me; but that black-cloaked monster turned his back on me.  He would not return to claim me.  I would go on living.  Perhaps it was God's Hand that stopped him - held him back.  Perhaps my work on earth is not finished and I cannot leave until it is done.  Perhaps.

Please do not think that I believe that my son resides in either of the black boxes.  His ashes are in one, my memories of him are in the other; but his Spirit lives on.  That cannot be captured in a vessel - real or imagined.

He lives on!  He is in the sunshine that warms me; he is in the rain that makes the earth green; he is the colors in the rainbow;  he is in the power of lightening and thunder.  He blows in the wind and flies on the wings of an angel.  He lights up Heaven with his smile.  I feel his touch in the snowflakes that settles on my cheeks and on the tip of my nose.  I see him in the twinkling stars above and in the face of the moon.  He is the light reflected on the lake.  He is in the crashing waves on the shore.  He is in the snow on mountain peaks.  He is in the gentle breeze in the trees.

I see him when his sons smile.  I feel him in their hugs.  He surrounds me with his love.  He goes before me and prepares a place for me.  He will be there waiting for me when my times comes.

With these thoughts, I close my eyes and leave this secret, hidden place in my heart.  I put on my softest, warm pajamas, and climb into bed.  I lay my head down on soft pillows and pull the down comforter over me.  Tonight I will dream sweet dreams.

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From the "CITY OF ANGELS":

Seth:  Why do people cry?


Maggie:  What do you mean?

Seth:  I mean, what happens physically?


Maggie:  Well...umm...tear ducts operate on a normal basis to lubricate and protect the eye and when you have an emotion they overact and create tears.

Seth:  Why?  Why do they overact?


Maggie (pause):  I don't know.

Seth:  Maybe...maybe emotion becomes so intense your body just can't contain it.  Your mind and feelings become too powerful, and your body weeps.