Pink Sun…

The Sunday after the memorial (August 16th)I decided that I would take the next day to myself. Jamie was due to go back to work, and this would be the first real day I would have alone in the house, and I needed to write. Write about what I didn’t know – I just knew I needed to spend some time writing.

After sending Jamie off to work on Monday, I began to question if taking the day off to write was the right thing to do. Perhaps I just needed to bite the bullet and head back into the office. As I sat on the covered deck, alone and in silence the sun began to rise. Something inside of my head said “get the camera, this is going to be good” The voice was not wrong.

I love the early mornings, and one of the reasons is watching the sun rise as the day comes to life. But never had I seen anything like this sunrise! I sat in amazement as the sun turned from a flaming red to pink. I knew that yes – today needed to be mine. I needed to take the day to write. The pink sun was my confirmation. How I knew that I don’t know, I just knew.

I wrote, and wrote, but not a single line on paper nor on computer. I wrote in my head. I walked through each step, relived each moment, and recorded everything in the pages of my heart. What I wrote, you have read over the last little while. That Monday I put it all together — and then posted later in the days that followed.

I did question if I would put everything on my blog or not. I knew what was there was pure uncensored emotion, grief and heartbreak. I knew that some that read the words would back away in fear and others would relive their own moments — but in the end I decided it didn’t matter. I needed to put the words there. Perhaps one day they would help someone walking the same path…. But more than anything I was writing for myself.

So here we are blog readers, pretty much caught up with today, and from here we will move forward.

Thanks for the Sign Mom…

One of the hardest things that I have had to deal with since my mom’s passing (and believe me when I say one, as there are many – of which over time I will write about) … is knowing how to help my dad through this. It is so hard to watch this tremendously gentle soul of a man so broken so lost. I just don’t have the words to help him through this. I do try, but in the end I know my words have not helped, I can only hope they have not made it worse…

But I am getting ahead of myself here, as I have not finished up where I left off with my last post, and I do need to finish.

After the memorial service Jamie, Our children, grand children, my dad and my brother, my cousin and his very sensitive wife and I gathered at the graveyard and it is here I took out the extra piece of ribbon I had brought from home, as crumbled as the first, with shaking hands I asked Jamie to hold my purse. From there I went to the tree which was close to where mom was and tied the pink ribbon on the tree. It was something I needed to do, something that I… well just something.

As I stood there looking at the spot where my mom was, next to her twin sister – my heard cried a million tears as I looked over to the spot where one day my dad would be. In that second I just wanted to be alone – I wanted to run and never stop…

From the graveyard we came back to our house where the dinner that Jamie and I had spent the day before putting together was waiting to be put on the table. Thinking back on it now I have a hard time remembering what there was. I do know the table was full of food but beyond that I don’t remember to much. The house soon filled up with people and I busied myself making sure people had food, coffee, tea. I made the expected small talk, and managed to hold it all together. It my mind it was the last dinner I would do for my mom… it was a haunted, hollow echo in my mind. The words I had written for the memorial that Fred Massey had used for the service, the dinner, the family wearing pink – had I done it right? Was it something that my mom would have liked? Did those that were there understand what I was saying? Doing?

”I need to sleep” I said to Jamie many hours later, as we sat out on the big open deck watching for the meteorites. “I don’t think we are going to see any” I said to Jamie as I headed towards the house — and just as I said that, one flashed brightly over head.

When I walked into our room … (there is something you need to understand about Jamie and Mines room. It is painted royal purple, walls and ceiling, it has blackout blinds and heavy royal purple curtains on the windows – It can be the brightest of days outside but our room it so dark you cannot even see your hand in front of your face. Due to migraines – I designed the room specifically for this purpose) … but that night when I walked into our room and closed the door behind me, saying again to myself — I hope it was ok… I looked up and the room was full of the brightest white (a white I cannot even describe as it was beyond white) twinkling lights. These lights were about the size of a golf ball with no defined edges — they just, well the closest I can come to describing them is they twinkled. My writing cannot do justice to the sight so you will just have to take my word for it. As I stood there looking into the room – I thought nothing, just felt a huge relief of peace. As I walked through the lights to the bed I remember only thinking to myself… Thanks for the sign mom, and for the first time since my mom had passed I slept through the night with no disturbing dreams and no middle of the night waking.