The Wind

The day after Thanksgiving and the chimes ring loud and clear.
It's warm for this time of the year, and the wind sighs,
carrying the souls of the children, too young to die,
upward, lifting them to the stars,
where they dot the night sky like candy.

Gratitude

After Nik died, it was difficult to be thankful, count my blessings, or be grateful for anything. November is gratitude month, and with the passage of years, I can say that my cup runneth over. I have a warm fire and plenty of wood for winter, furry horses and a barn full of hay to keep them fat and sassy, an assortment of indoor pets that keep me entertained and feeling full of love, wonderful family and friends, music, words, the colors of fall, a car that runs, a truck with a plow to move winter's snow, and soft toilet paper.

Of course, right after Nik died, the month of November felt like a bitter burden, and I couldn't recite the Lord's Prayer or the Serenity Prayer. But I got out of bed every morning and made the drive to school. I moved to Sagle right before the weather turned, and had a new to me house to organize and put together. At the time, I didn't know how I could manage, but now I'm grateful I had something to keep my occupied, so I didn't always dwell on the emptiness Nik's death left, and the ever present missing.

If you are newly bereaved, I can testify that with the passage of time, the emptiness and the missing becomes lighter, and I have come to a place where I am better able to let the little things go, to stop and count my blessings, and to laugh and cry with wreckless abandon. My path has widened, and I have more than I can say grace over.

Playing With Time

In two minutes, the clock will fall back. Funny. I've already changed the time piece in my bedroom, and wait for the magic moment when my cell phone and computer will magically go back an hour. It used to confound and confuse me, this messing with my time lines. Now, I think I'll watch the ticking, try to figure out how they manage it, so I can turn back the years, and save your life.

Rain

A long drawn out Autumn falls flat and rain cascades from a gray sky. The garden has been put to bed, the horse fence fixed, the hay covered, the greenhouse dismantled, the wood cut and stacked. Each piece of wood could hold a memory--good, bad, or indifferent, haunting and hallow or happy and hypnotic. I'll burn them in the wood stove, and watch the flames reach for the stars. I reach for you in my dreams, perhaps we dance, perhaps we talk, I hope we hug. 

Blue Wings

Stand Tall

Nik used to look into my face as if he were memorizing every line. He scooted along the floor like a turtle, rather than crawl, and he would stop in his track, raise his head, and peer at his surroundings. We called him turtle for a short time. He adored his big sister, DaNae, and she would hold him up on the couch and cuddle him. They had a strong bond, those two, strengthened by years of love. Fighting and bickering, a regular occurrence only seemed to tighten the bond, rather than breaking it.

DaNae had just turned 20 when Nik died, and her biggest problem was discovering that many of her friends refused to let her deal with his death. It was simpler for them to ignore the elephant in the room. It’s not that they didn’t love her, it’s that they didn’t understand the grieving process. They didn’t know what to say, how to act, or how to be there for her.

Time, I think, has softened the rough edges, and perhaps, decreased the size of the hole Nik’s death left in her heart. She misses her brother, and dreams of him often. She wears a Nik necklace at all times, and has his name tattooed on her foot, because he always helped her stand tall.

The Harvest

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I harvested green tomatoes from the garden, rescuing them from a killing frost, rubbing them dry and stuffing them into a brown bag. They sit in the darkness to ripen red, and then I’ll freeze them whole, and use them in winter stews and soups.

Nik didn’t like gardening so much, but he loved to cook. Together, we made fried green tomatoes, green tomato jam, and chutney. We didn’t appreciate the fried green tomatoes or the green jam, but the chutney had a unique flavor that tasted good in eggs, curry, chicken, and beans.

Although I continue to garden, relishing the dirt underneath my fingernails and the observance of life, I can’t seem to get myself to turn my bounty into canned goods. The process, heavy labor, is lonely without my son’s glowing smile and his daring cooking antics. When he died, my ability to can died with him, and the glass jars we used to fill with our produce from the garden sit in a shelf, collecting dust.

I’ve learned other ways to harvest the garden goods. The herbs I dry in the green house, and I freeze corn, squash, tomatoes, and this year, basil and peppers. The pumpkins I still render into pumpkin gook, so that I can make Nik’s pumpkin pie during the holidays.

Blue skies touched by a wisp of gray clouds hovers outside my window, as I finish my morning coffee, and prepare myself for another day of garden clean up. I miss you Nik, every day.