Take It Easy

                                                               

"Don’t confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them..." ~Jackson Browne from These Days

http://youtu.be/TJ6kzfj0tRM [Bright Baby Blues/Jackson Browne] *

* Indicates the Holy Trinity of Jackson Browne’s songs for me. The last one is at the end of this post. They are all, however, perfect gems, each in its own right.

I love music! I’ve a varied taste for it, and, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become more important to me. It outweighs the television now in order of importance. I can hear my mother saying "Wow!" as she reads that statement, but it’s true. Music, at this point in my life, is a soul provider; a nurturer; a healer; a comforter; a celebratory tool; and, a good source of entertainment. There are many artists who are on my list of favorites – those "go to" people I seek out when I need a lift, a peaceful, easy feeling, a comfort, a momentary diversion....whatever the need, I fill it with their incredible music.

I have been known to pull into my driveway and sit in the car while I finish listening to a favorite song, regardless of the ice-cream melting in my backseat grocery bag. Some tunes you just can’t cut off in mid-stream. I don’t know, it just seems wrong. There’s one man whose songs, when they come on, if I’m in my car, and find myself nearing my street, make me change course and drive a little longer until it plays outs. The funny thing is that my husband knows this is my practice too. The singer is Jackson Browne. Case in point, Sunday we were coming home from the movies [Snow White and The Huntsman [fabulous movie that gets two thumbs up from our household] and were just about to turn into our development when The Load Out/Stay came on the radio. It’s a longer song, and I knew we’d not even get to listen to a quarter of it, given where we were in correlation to our house.

"Shoot!" I muttered under my breath.

Without missing a beat, Tom glanced over and said. "You wanna drive around for a bit?"

I looked at him and smiled. "Yes, please!" I replied, happily.

And, we did.

As always, his music didn’t disappoint. It brought about a smile and a sway and a softly sung "join in", on my part. When we finally pulled into the driveway just as the song was winding down, I sighed, content and said, "Ah, that was good!"

Moments like that–the peaceful, easy, good vibration kind–are ones that we must take when they are presented to us, because there isn’t a vast surplus of them hanging around. They’re more like grace notes to be taken as a special blessing when offered. Whether one takes them or not is entirely up to one’s discretion, but I find myself taking them more and more the older I get when they’re made accessible to me. I have no qualms about stopping whatever is going on in my life, just for a brief moment, and indulging in the feel good that comes with such a blessing.

I waited 35 years to see Jackson Browne in concert. I started listening to his music when I was 10 years old. He’s one of a special few who have staying power, in my opinion. I know it’s a grand statement to make, but it’s a true one: he’s the one who brought me the most comfort on the night my father died.

I’ve written about this before, but some things bear repeating, and some stories merit a re-listening, if you’re so inclined, and I hope you are. For me, this is one of them. I hope you think so too. As I said, it took me 35 years to finally have the opportunity to see Jackson Browne in concert. I’ve often heard that anything worth having is worth waiting for, and the longer you wait for something, the better it is. I can honestly say that both of those statements hold true in this case. So, we begin:

In March of 2009, it was announced that Jackson Browne would be in concert in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 4^th, which just so happens to be my husband’s birthday. Tom was sitting on the love seat working on his computer when the announcement was made via the television. He glanced over at me and saw my eyes light up and widened as large as saucers. My birthday is nine days after his. He knew what I was thinking.

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Do I?" I replied in a do birds fly tone, then offered. "But, it’s your birthday."

"I wouldn’t mind seeing Jackson Browne on my birthday," he told me. [I was going to take him to a baseball game.] "We can postpone the game for a few weeks."

Is he a GREAT guy or what? Yeah. I know. I’m lucky.

My hands dialed that phone number quicker than a speedy mcgreedy, and I had those tickets ordered [good seats too] within 15 minutes. Oh, I was a happy girl!  I couldn’t wait.

The remainder of the story, I’ll condense, and if you’re interested in all the little details, you can find it in my blog entry from last August called "A Joyful Sound". In a nutshell, my husband and I were vacationing in Maine, when my mother called to let me know that my father was in the hospital. He had been taken in the day before. Immediately, I responded by telling her that we could be there in a few days. She encouraged me to finish out our vacation in Maine and come as originally planned, which was at the end of July. Something gnawed at me for a day and a half, and we ended up cutting the trip short, driving home and doing laundry so that we could re-pack the car and head out for Jacksonville. It was July 4^th when we left Maine – one month to the day of the concert; one month before my husband’s birthday; and, one month that my father had left to be on this earth. Little did I know how fortuitous that gnaw in my gut turned out to be. Always listen to them when they come to you, because they’re whispers from God to pay attention. Danger could be lurking. Misfortune could be hovering. Change could be coming for which you need to prepare. It’s an awareness signal. I was so thankful~grateful that I’d taken heed and listened to that gnaw in my stomach. It told me to go even though the situation didn’t appear initially to be a dire one.

It is a gift when we are given time with a loved one whose time is suddenly limited. It is an opportunity to right all the wrongs that have happened between the two of you, and say all the things that need saying, and forgive all the wounds of hurt that need addressing and express all the love and appreciation that needs to be the final say on the relationship. It is a golden opportunity. I would not trade that month for anything. It was a time of complete reconciliation with my father – complete honesty and open conversation. It was a heart song-heart healing month! As Dickens wrote, "it was the best of times and the worst of times", because we knew what was coming, and it wasn’t a finish line that any of us wanted to get to no matter how much a part of life it is. My father offered his last advice to me over the course of those few weeks, before he slipped into that place of twilight where he had one foot here and one foot in the next place, teetering between the two worlds.

The concert had all but been forgotten until a week before its scheduled date in Virginia. Late that Tuesday night, my mother heard my husband and I talking about it, trying to figure out a way that someone could get into our house, take the tickets off the refrigerator and go see Jackson Browne on us. My mother, who at this point in my life doesn’t interject herself into our-my business, budinskied. She had remembered how excited I was the previous March when I squealed to her about those concert tickets. She knew how long I’d waited for that moment to finally get to see him live and in concert. She knew how much it meant to me, and how much I’d wanted to go. She spoke up.

"You’re father wouldn’t want you to cancel those plans," she gave us her food for thought. "You’ve done all you can do here," she told me, as I began to softly cry. "You know it’s just a waiting game at this point, Jhill. You don’t need to stay here waiting for that, and you’re going to have your hands full making arrangements when it comes time for us to bring him home to rest in the family plot. I think you should go to your concert, and I know your father would tell you to."

After a lot of crying, considering, soul-searching and honest evaluation, I listened to my mother, and we left on August 2^nd after stopping by Hospice to visit with my father one last time. I knew I wouldn’t see him again in this lifetime, and it was hard to leave! I did what I knew my father would have encouraged me to do [what my mother already had encouraged] - I looked ahead and moved forward with my life.

I remember late into the night of August 3^rd, praying fervently to God to please keep my father twilighted for, at least, one more day. I wasn’t thinking about the concert. I was thinking about my husband’s birthday, and how I wasn’t certain we’d be able to bear up under the harsh reality of my father leaving us all on that particular day.

On the morning of my husband’s birthday – the morning before the concert, Tom and I spoke of Daddy and wondered how he was doing? I didn’t want sad thoughts to detract from his special day or permeate into it, when there was nothing we could do to make that situation any better. Still, he urged me to call my mother and check on how Dad was doing. She told me that my father continued to hold his own, and that she and my sister were there with him. She spoke to Tom to wish him a Happy Birthday, and reminded us to have a good time. We’d speak the next morning, or so we thought at the time.

Off we went to take Tom for his birthday lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant. Within the hour, my father had taken flight and left for his return engagement in heaven. The phone call came just as we were walking out the door to leave for Charlottesville. I saw my mother’s number on the I.D. window and took a deep breath to brace myself. Even a steel brace isn’t strong enough to support one from hearing the news that one’s father has died, on their husband’s birthday no less. Surreal doesn’t begin to describe that moment then or now, nearly three years later.

I remember on the drive over, mentioning to Tom my grand idea: that if Jackson Browne sang my favorite song of his, For A Dancer, then I would know that Daddy was safe and sound. Tom wasn’t comfortable with the odds of that statement, because that song wasn’t one that JB typically preformed in concert. He’d begun to perform it in recent years, but it wasn’t a given that it would be part of the set offered that night. Tom didn’t want me to suffer another painful disappointment for the day.

"Sweetie, why don’t you pick another song?" he gently broached.

I knew what he was doing, and I loved him for it.

"I’m not expecting him to sing it, Tom!" I replied, praying that he would, even as I said it. "I’ll be okay if he doesn’t."

"What’s your second choice?" he pushed a little.

"Don’t have one."

The discussion on that particular subject ended there.

It was a beautiful summer evening when we arrived at the amphitheater. It reminded me a lot of the Wolf Trap venue further north where we’d experienced many other great concerts. It was an indoor-outdoor setting. We had great seats indoors in the first section-center stage. I remember Tom getting me situated before he went to purchase me a program. The night was cool and clear. When mountains surround you, even in early-August, the evening is a wondrous time of day – cool. The sky was a lovely shade of bluish-gray with lots of white, fluffy clouds. No one could have believed from looking at that setting that something sad and life-changing had happened earlier in the day. No one that is except for me with my puffy eyes, and my husband with his heavy heart.

But, when the music began, it chased those sorrows away for the briefest of moments. I felt a peace come to me as the sun began to set on the day. I felt a heaviness lift as Jackson Browne’s music soothed and comforted my broken-hearted soul.

Do you believe in miracles? I know I’ve posed that question before. I do. I believe in the mighty awesomeness of God, and I believe in our darkness hours, spectacular gifts can be found if we’re open to the receiving of them. When I heard the first chord of For a Dancer, I gasped with a squeal as tears came to my eyes, and I grabbed my husband’s knee, crying, "Oh, my God!"

My husband repeated the sentiment back to me. We looked at each other briefly, tears in our eyes as I smiled at him, then nestled against him to listen to the song that was about to tell me that my father was okay and safely home.

As if that moment wasn’t glorious enough, the sun and its rays did a move that can only be defined as divine. The setting sun was behind us, and in that moment when Jackson Browne began to sing For a Dancer, rays shown down on him for the entire duration of that song! It was unbelievable to witness that sight and the glorious sound that came from beyond it.

I don’t know who squeezed whose hand harder – me or Tom. I just know that we were both in awe that this moment that I had asked for, dreamed of and hoped would happen, not only happened, but did so in such brilliantly spectacular format.

As the saying goes, "oh the comfort....the in-expressible comfort...."

I never hear a Jackson Browne song now and not think of that moment.

I guess that memory has been on my mind especially these last few days because, he’s coming to Richmond the end of July. I’d like to see him again without a heavy heart~we’ll see. I’ve also been thinking about it because Father’s Day is just around the corner, and how could I not? I think the main reason I’ve been thinking about it, though, is because a family friend lost her father a few days ago. He’s blazing his trail of glory homeward now, and we’re going to his viewing tonight. I wonder if there’s a special song that would bring his daughter a modicum of comfort and peace as she embarks on this life-changing moment that she’s just entered? It’s made me remember mine.

A friend told me that I should write to Jackson Browne and tell him this story. I haven’t a clue how to go about doing that –reaching him, and it’s not my practice to chase down a celebrity. They get enough of that from the paparazzi! It’s enough to know that it happened. It’s enough to know that he was part of something so much more profound than his profoundly penned lyrics. That being said, I hope someday he learns of the inexpressible comfort he gave to a good man’s daughter on the night that he left his life and jumped aboard that blazing light of glory that connected heaven to earth–the one that shown down on Mr. Browne as he sang a song to my father’s grief-stricken daughter, while she rested her head against her husband’s shoulder as we celebrated not one but two birthdays - my husband’s earthly one and my father’s birth into heaven. And, I hope that one day he learns that there’s a woman in central Virginia who will not turn his music off until the song is completely sung. When I find myself in a car close to home, and a Jackson Browne song comes on the radio, I do two things: I take a drive, and I take it easy...

http://youtu.be/IU1rZa8Ur_Q [For A Dancer/Jackson Browne]

Exhale

　
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home...
~from Intimations of Immortality, William Wordsworth

                                                  Tammy on the right with her sister Kayley.

Have you ever noticed that tragedy seems to come in threes? I don’t know why that is? It’s a mystery, but it never seems to fail: when you hear tragic news and then a second bit of sad news comes, there always seems to follow in the wake of it all, a third. Such was the directional course of today.
I should probably go to bed. It’s what I told my mother a couple of hours ago that I wanted to do: put this day to bed. When bad days come, the first inclination is to want for them to end quickly before any more damage can be done. Damage had the upper hand, at least in my opinion, today. Yet, somehow, my brain has gone into shock overload, and I know that sleep will evade me, if I try for it right now. Writing always seems to help me relax my overburdened mind. And, so, tonight....I reflect, and I write. I make no promises of how coherent these thoughts will be, but I need to get them out so that the grief of this day doesn’t swallow me up. Tears have consumed me a dozen times since the early afternoon, and I need relief...release...If only I could give that to the families of those whom I write about tonight...
The day started out positive enough: Saturday. It’s the best day of the week for most people, because it’s the first day of the weekend. It was also reported here the last few days that central Virginia would see our first bit of snow for the year today. Tom and I were excited about that - me, because it’s the first snow of the season, and I love to watch it fall. For Tom, he’s been itching to try out a new snow blower we recently bought for him. We put the snow anticipation on the back burner and went about this day as we normally do: errands, lunch out, grocery store.
We got home in the early afternoon, and sure enough, the sky began to rain snow. It was a glorious sight for the brief time it fell. I pressed my nose against the window pane of our French Door and smiled as it fell, while Tom whoop*whooped, because he would get to try out his blower tomorrow. We’re kids that way - finding a childlike wonder and an anticipated childlike joy from something simple like the falling of snow. It was a great moment. However, just as suddenly as that giddy feeling came, it rapidly dissipated.
News came that a friend of mine’s young daughter had died in her sleep.  I didn't know the particulars, just that bit of information. When you hear something that seems improbable, there is a stillness that comes as your mind begins to decipher the meaning of each word to see if, somehow, someone made a mistake in the re-telling of a fact. When you realize that the statement stands as an unbelievable truth, you blink. Then, you blink again and again. Blinking allows that fact to touch-down in the part of your brain where your understanding lives. Shock can’t settle in until that touch-down occurs.
Shock, when it comes, truly is like running full-speed into a brick wall. That’s what it felt like when I got that news today. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. The awful disbelief of realizing that a beautiful, young woman had her life interrupted and would not be here to live it out took a horrifying and upsetting hold of me. My thoughts immediately turned to her mother, my friend, Peggy. I know what it is to lose a baby, in my case, two. I don’t know what it is to share 27 years of life and its experiences with your child, then have that child abruptly taken from you. There is no word for it - the abrupt taking away of a beloved someone. Cruel comes to mind and, while close, is still a gross understatement of the true reality of that experience.
The reaction that shock leaves your brain to handle and deal with is one, simple word: no. NO! I don’t want to hear this! NO! I don’t want this to be true! NO! I can’t bear this for my friend! NO! It’s not right! NO! It makes no sense! NO! It’s too awful to contemplate! NO! NO! NO! The unfortunate thing about screaming NO so loudly and with such force is that it’s regrettably irrelevant to the equation. You cannot make something so, simply because you loudly verbalize a negative response to it. All that is left for you to do is to wail against the truth of the matter.
That’s just what I did. I had the ugly cry – the one where not only your face but your entire body contorts with the pain and knowledge of something awful, as it simultaneously tries to digest it.
Peggy is an incredible mother and her girls mean the world to her. I couldn’t imagine this for her. I didn’t want to. The only thing I could do in that moment was weep for her, her husband and their remaining girls. I went to her Face Book page to express my immediate condolences. There, I saw Peggy’s photo albums and looked through them as I tried to regain my composure and collect my thoughts. One photograph was of Tammy with her sister Kayley. I looked at Tammy’s beautiful face - the chocolate eyes she had that are just like her mother’s. I saw echos of her mother’s face as a younger woman staring back at me through Tammy’s countenance, and the sorrow took hold of me yet again with a trail of new tears.
Peggy is a special friend. Even though we live in separate states now, time and distance has not changed that fact. I remember the first time I was in her home - it was 10 years ago this month. It was a good day – a Saturday not unlike today except for the tragic part. A group of friends met for lunch then went over to Peggy’s for coffee, dessert and more fun-filled conversation and laughs. The blue backdrop of that February winter’s day began to change to gray as the day grew late, indicating that night was soon approaching. It’s amazing how quickly friends can lose track of time when laughing and having a great time. When the children began to come home as the dinner hour approached, that’s when we all realized it was time to head home to our own families, after sharing a great afternoon making wonderful memories. Memories are the gift that remains of experiences shared with loved ones. I have great memories of that day.
Months later, Peggy offered a friendly comfort to me at a time in my life when I really needed it. I will never forget that. Nine months after that gathering at her house, a dear childhood friend of mine, died at the age of 38 from cancer. It was a devastating loss. Several of my friends, Peggy included, had been praying for Sheri. A few weeks after Sheri’s death, Peggy called to check on me. She could hear the "down" in my voice and suggested that we meet at The Cracker Barrel for lunch on Saturday. I did. I was so glad I went. We talked and laughed and laughed and talked. We had apple dumplings for lunch. It’s great when you have a friend who has a mind-set like that: Let’s have apple dumplings for lunch! My response to her thought: I’m in! We spent a couple of hours doing nothing but talking and laughing. Then, we roamed around the country store, where I found an ornament that was meant for Sheri’s father. It was so appropriate to something that Sheri and I had shared as kids about our fathers. We called them "marshmallow men". The ornament was a SMORE’s. I laughed when I saw it. It was a marshmallow man standing on a chocolate step on top of a plastic graham cracker base. I think he was wearing a smaller, square hat that looked like a mini graham cracker. I knew it had purposely been put in my path to send to Sheri’s father for Christmas, because I believe in signs like that. I told Peggy the story about it, and I remember her gently patting my back then giving my shoulder a little squeeze. I wish I could gently pat her back right now and do the same for her shoulder. There was a comfort in the gesture, and I know right now she probably could use all the comfort she can get. The best I can do is pray, and that’s what I’ve done on and off all afternoon: pray for her and her family.
No more had I gotten myself under control and managed to stifle those tears, that I saw a flash of news on Twitter that Whitney Houston had died. My brain, which was already numb, stared at that name and wondered, for the briefest second, if there was another Whitney Houston that wasn’t the Whitney Houston that my brain had pulled forward in my mind’s eye? It was a true, "huh" moment. I don’t know if my mouth had been agape since getting the news that Peggy’s daughter, Tammy, had passed or if it had momentarily closed in the re-gathering of my bearings, because that news was horrible enough without this added "Oh my God!" sentiment barreling through on top of it. All I know is that my mouth had dropped down again and was wide open in more harrowed disbelief. I don’t remember if my brain thought the word "no" or I actually said it? I just know that the room spun for a moment, and I felt dizzy.
My fingers began to fly over the keyboard as I typed her name into the search engine. Up came a news report that was three minutes old. Quickly, I opened it and read another devastating story of loss and reports of a death that had come too soon. My hands formed an immediate prayer sign as my lips came to rest against them, and I closed my eyes as more tears came.
Whitney has been a staple in my life since I was in my early 20's. Her songs–her music has been a mainstay among my easy listening preferences. The news took the worst feelings of the day to a whole other dimension.
I’ll never forget in 1987,  [December 2] my mother and I going to see Whitney in concert in Jacksonville, Florida. We had great seats - row 8. It was amazing to listen to her. It was good fortune to be that close to such a gift - that voice–that spirit. At the time, she was in the very beginnings of her career. She sang for a couple of hours, and it was magic – pure magic. It was grace in motion, hearing her voice climb and reach for notes that you didn’t think were humanly possible to hit. Yet, she did it with seeming ease. Not only did she hit them, but she held them–caressed them for long seconds before she offered them back to us. It was pure gold, and I remember thinking that there are certain things that make a person know that there is a God, because that voice could have only come from some higher place where glorious things are created then gifted. Her voice was stunningly beautiful. It was a chill producer. When she hit those high notes and held them in perfect pitch for those endless seconds, it was 24 kt., pure gold. And, if you can believe it, that wasn’t the best part of the experience. The best part was when she let her band take a 20 minute break, and she remained on stage and sang gospel songs a cappella. Think of the best thing that you can possibly imagine, then magnify it to the nth degree. THAT was Whitney Houston singing gospel songs a cappella. My mother and I looked at one another knowing we were in the presence of something truly beyond worldly. It felt like we were at a concert where an angel had been plucked from heaven and placed before us to perform. That’s what that voice is: angelic and heavenly.
I called my mother back to see if she had heard the news about Whitney? She was as stunned as I was. She replied that disbelieving "no"! We talked a little about the concert we’d been fortunate to witness. We spoke of her greatness. Then, I couldn’t talk anymore because the day’s sorrow that had all but taken me to my knees, had caught up to me again, and I felt more ugly cries approaching.
My husband and I watched the new coverage as this tragedy unfolded. I remembered the last time I saw Whitney. It was the interview she did with Oprah. I remember the song that came out of that time: I Look to You. It’s a song that has brought me great comfort the last few years as I’ve battled and struggled with my disability. There is hope in that song, and renewed strength. I took comfort in it–her singing of it. I remember the first time I watched her sing it, I prayed that Whitney was realizing those hopeful declarations that were contained in those lyrics, and I prayed that she was on her way back, bringing that golden voice–that gifted voice back to those of us who yearned to still hear it. Some have said that her voice was no longer the instrument that it had once been. Maybe so, but when I heard it, I still heard the power and the beauty of it. Singers in the current music industry should be so lucky on their BEST day to sound like Whitney Houston did on her worst. She, quite simply, had one of the best voices this world has ever heard. That statement, like her voice will withstand the test of time.
The news reporting tonight has been delicate in discussing Whitney’s troubles of the last 15 years. It’s been appreciated. No one wants to hear negative thoughts or comments when people are grappling with the suddenness and shock that this tragedy has created. Whitney Houston had problems– more than her share of them. We all have troubles; we all carry our own, private demons. The only difference is that Whitney had to live hers out, while the public watched, sometimes joked and often times criticized. I won’t remember Whitney Houston for the demons she struggled to overcome. I’ll remember her for that incredible, God-given instrument that she played like a Stradivarius. It was a sweet, glorious sound, and it shall be missed.
It was a good thought to end the night on, or so I thought. But, no more had that thought come to me, when the phone rang again. It was mother telling me that the daughter of one of her friends had died unexpectedly today too. What are the odds that a mother and daughter would both have a friend who would unexpectedly lose their daughter to an early, untimely death? Again, my mouth fell in that wide-open position of gaping disbelief. Three women gone too soon. Three daughters taken before their time. My knuckles turned white as I griped the phone.
I’d not seen Gay for probably 30 years, but I remember her well. She was between my sister and me in age. My sister is 51 and I’m 48. I asked my mother to express my sympathies to Gay’s mother, Charlene. Beyond that, I couldn’t think of anything more to say? My brain was shutting down. I could feel the "blank" taking hold. I told my mother that I couldn’t talk anymore because I was so close on the cusp of tears yet again. It was too much! I could feel my voice take on a shakiness as the tone fell out of it. When I hung up the phone, I looked upward with arms lifted in surrender and cried "uncle". No game. No fooling. I had reached the end of my rope on this day, and I knew I was about to be standing on my knees before the day was completely done. It would be no easy feat for me either.
I’ve been in physical therapy three times a week since the end of December, as the result of a bad fall I took on Christmas night. Still, as I held my hands up in surrender, I cried, "I give! I surrender! No more! I will get down on my knees right now God, but please, God! Please, God! Please, no more...."
It comes in threes – tragedy. I don’t know why that is? I just know that it does. This night, when I say my prayers, my thoughts and sentiments will be with Peggy and Tammy; Cissy and Whitney; and Charlene and Gay. And, my thoughts will be with Whitney’s daughter and Gay’s children as well. The circle of life sometimes doesn’t circle in the expected way that we anticipate, when we think of the natural order of things. Parents aren’t suppose to bury their children! Young children aren’t suppose to lose their mothers before they have the opportunity to fully understand and appreciate just who the incredible woman was who gave you life. Any way you look at it, and remember it, February 11, 2012 will always be a sad, unexpected day for the world yet it has more personal sorrow for me because of Tammy and Gay’s passing as well. As I sit here, trying to conclude my thoughts for tonight, this lyric popped into my mind:
Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry.
Life never tells us the whens or whys
When you’ve got friends to wish you well
you’ll find the point when you will exhale...
Today is surreal, and I am at a loss. Perhaps, in a few days, when the reality of this all settles, I can revisit these thoughts and maybe make better sense of them–maybe not. I don’t know? Tonight, these are the contents of my heart, sad as they are.....Still, I find myself holding on to my breath, afraid to let go of it. It’s odd. I’ve spent the last few minutes just staring ahead of me at nothing, listening to the wind in a low-pitch howl outside my door. The screen is whipping against the door as I think about the news of today and three women who are in blazing mode – trailing clouds of glory as they head back to their eternal home and realizing that we will probably never fully understand the why of how life’s end came for each of them. New normals are like that sometimes: they make no sense. Even when you’re given the pieces of the puzzle to fill in the blank places of the picture, it still makes no sense, and there is nothing that anyone can do about that. It is an exhale moment, and I just did.
Three women’s stars are setting elsewhere tonight. Those who knew and loved them, will never forget them. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to say, because my mind is in that tired and numb place that minds tend to go to when shock and sorrow have unexpectedly given a sucker punch not once but three times in one night.
I have no thoughts right now except these that are all jumbled up in my mind, and I’m typing them as they occur: Bittersweet....Memories are all that is left...Sometimes we cry, as we try to find that point where we can exhale...Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all...If somebody loves you, won’t they always love you?...Winter storms have come and darkened my sun after all that I’ve been through...who on earth can I turn too. I look to you...after all my strength is gone, in you I can be strong. I look to you...I get so emotional, Baby, every time I think of you...Yes. Jesus loves me....Yet, to their family and friends, and in one case, to her millions of fans....we’ll always love them....always...
Godspeed Tammy, Whitney and Gay~Godspeed...and Rest In Peace.
Below, I’ve listed 7 of Whitney’s songs. It is the number of completion. Yet, nothing is ever really finished...

http://youtu.be/H2GbvEML1yE [Where Do Broken Hearts Go/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/ydPXZlwvgNY [The Greatest Love of All/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/7d_ToCL9nSY [Exhale/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/5Pze_mdbOK8 [I Look To You/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/0YjSHbA6HQQ [I Get So Emotional/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/cd-CFI4EhBU [I’ll Always Love You/Whitney Houston]
http://youtu.be/ZNqAHrNNLqA [Jesus Loves Me/Whitney Houston]
　

This picture of Whitney brings me peace; it's the light behind her.  We will all step into the light when our time on earth is done.   I hope it's as beautiful as it appears to be.  In my heart, I know it is...

Child of Mine & Puppy Dog Kisses

Elmer Javier Bosher-Perran

Came to live with us on September 19, 2009

"You are my sonshine...."~Author Unknown

*Please take a moment to listen to both songs; I dedicate them in memory of our son, William.

http://youtu.be/33Zd8fEsQAk [Fly - Celine Dion]
https://youtu.be/8Gwitx5SXN8  [The Day - Babyface]

Today is a milestone day for me and my husband. It is the day, had the doctor’s predictions been accurate, that our son, William David Bosher-Perran, would have turned 13. Thirteen. That’s a big number in a child’s life~it’s when they’re on the cusp of young adulthood. Thirteen years is also a short lifetime, and that’s what we’ve missed with our son: his short lifetime. We’ll also miss his adulthood; his middle age and so forth. Our son never touched down on the landing pad, so to speak.
He took flight half-way through my pregnancy in 1998 and went back to heaven, from where he came. He trailblazed it back. He was our little shooting star miracle, and he was a miracle, if only for that brief moment. Who knows why it happened? Perhaps, he heard the news on television through my stomach one night and thought to himself, "No way do I want to be a part of that! Sorry, guys, but I am outa here!"
If that was the case, really, who could blame him? It’s a tough world we live in, and it gets tougher by the year. Vitriolic. Harsh. Maddening. I worry about the children growing up in this cesspool of disagreement, stalemate, and bleakness. I worry about their futures. I don’t have to worry about it for my children, however. Is that a blessing? If I’m honest, which I always try to be, I’d say it was a mixed one. Nonetheless, I would have liked the chance to try and give them both a good life - to parent; to teach; to nurture them. I would have liked to have left some legacy behind that said Tom and I were here, that we loved each other...
Something greater than me had other plans. The doctors said my body fought like hell [their words] to keep William viable. There was a modicum of comfort in that thought, at least. Still, it didn’t escape me that the only tug-of-war I got to have with my child, is one that I lost. I never was very athletic. But, I am very philosophical. He wasn’t meant to live here with us. I don’t know what he was meant to do? The lesson of him coming and going like that, is something that I haven’t quite figured out, and I probably never will. Trust me, it haunts me sometimes...
In any event, losing my sweet William was the first of two such blows for my husband and I. I’ve taken some hard knocks in my life, but that’s one I’ve never fully risen from. It was a brutal hit. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I don’t think the greatest boxers in the world could get up from a blow like that. It not an attempt at grandiosity. Anyone who’s gone through this, will tell you the same thing. It’s brutal and devastating! And, there’s a lot more upset involved than not getting a big, solid gold, bejeweled belt at the end of the go-round. Unlike boxers, though, mothers and fathers who’ve lost their children through miscarriage and stillbirth know how it feels to simultaneously have the stuffing knocked out of us, while the rug is yanked out from beneath us for good measure. I mean, common wisdom would dictate that if the cosmos is going to level you flat like that, the world, at least as we know it, should shatter. Losing William felt just like that... There was a shattering of hopes and dreams.
I think a lot about that sometimes: why some people who desperately want children are deprived of them? Why others, who could care less about them and treat them like garbage; who toss them into a bag with duct tape over their mouths and bury them in the woods behind their houses, in cold, shallow graves with no markers, as if they were nothing more than an unworthy, inconvenience, are allowed to even have them in the first place? It’s a mystery. On the fairness scale it teeters somewhere below the zero mark. But, such is life. It’s filled with cruel ironies and unfair disadvantages and bitter pills...
The loss of William and his sister, three years later, are my bitter pills in this lifetime. They are my regrets – my do-over wishes...you know, the wishes one makes when they fail at something and ask for a do-over, because they know in their heart that they can get it right, if they just had one more shot at it. I stopped asking for do-overs after my second miscarriage. Should I have tried, one more time, for "the charm" of a third time? I wasn’t brave enough. I can take a strike or two, and I have. But, I don’t like the words "you’re out!", unless, of course, I’m at a baseball game, and it’s directed at the team I’m not rooting for...I was rooting for us.  I didn't want us to have to hear the "I'm so sorry" words again.  It was the best I could do for the home team at that point.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that life is a series of ups and downs – wins and losses. I’m not good at losing! I’ve got a competitor’s spirit. I get it from my parents. Who knows? Maybe, I should have tried again, but after the second loss, it just kinda felt like the cards were stacked against me–us, and I regretfully told my husband, "I can’t do it!" It’s not that I’m afraid of taking a risk. Lord knows, I’ve risked a thing or two in my life, but I’m very protective about my heart and my husband’s. I know how much they can take, and I don’t think either of us could have gone down a third time.
It was one of our "for worse" moments that the wedding vows we took together alluded to. He never blamed me for not wanting a third go round, and he never held it against me that I couldn’t give him the children that he would have been great at fathering. I remember one time when I apologized to him for not being able to carry them to term, he wrapped his arms around me and told me he had all he needed "right here,". He was referring to me standing inside the circle of his enclosed arms. I rested my head against his chest, and thanked God for gift of him. My losses have been great, but so have my gifts...
I don't take them for granted.
We so wanted children. We could have given a child a lot. [For those of you thinking adoption, at this point in the story, that’s a story for another day....] Anyway, we could have done that for a child - given him and her a lot - love, education, security, fun....we should have been able to try.
As I think of how we should have been able to try, I hear that haunting lyric in the chorus of that Rolling Stones song "you can’t always get what you want...",  echo in my mind, and I know it’s just the way life works sometimes. Sometimes, you get the gold like I did when I got my husband. Other times, you don’t even place, like what happened with our babies.
Then, when I think about that last line, [yeah, I think a lot...] Marlon Brando’s words from On the Waterfront come to mind: "I coulda been such a contender!"
I feel a long sigh release from me, over that thought. Oh yeah. We coulda been such contenders in the good parent department. I believe that. It seems a waste that two children lost out on all that love and nurturing. It is a deeper chasm of loss that we feel by being cheated out of that privilege. Does that sound bitter? Well....there are moments, ya know?....I’ve previously copped to that personal struggle. I work very hard to rise above it - that bitter pill. Some days, like this one, I think I’m more entitled to feel a little cheated and be a little more bitter over this particular loss.
I'm human after all.
My husband and I were talking about William yesterday. Thirteen.
"God!" he gasped when I brought it up. "Has it been that long already?"
It feels like a long time, but the pain of it is still yesterday. Not the crying every moment pain of it, but the raw, open wound of it...every year, at this time kind of pain. Actually, it happens twice a year, this particular pain – the day I lost him, and the day he was scheduled to be born. It’s when the scab knocks off of the wound, and it opens again - gaping open. The longing for and wondering of what we don’t have and what we missed out on are the predominate "ouches". Just for those days, it really "ouches" all over again! Okay, maybe Halloween and Christmas and Mother & Father’s Day and....well, you get the picture. Otherwise, we think good, happy thoughts of our angel, William, who’s making his mischief in heaven and giving my father and Tom’s parents a run for their money.
I wrote a poem about him years ago that’s called the same thing as this blog entry minus the "Puppy Dog Kisses". Our grief counselor suggested that I put my thoughts on paper about what this loss meant to me right after it happened. Yes. We went through several months of grief counseling. Some losses, require a little extra help coming to grips with. This was one of those losses. Anyway, she’s the one who suggested that I do it. She knew I was a writer. She thought it would be theraputic for me. It was. She was good at counseling. Her name was Mary, and she cried when I read the poem to her in our following session. She apologized to us for doing that, but she was a mother, you see, and she understood the magnitude of grief that comes along with losing the possibilities that come along with having children. I appreciated someone outside of our family shedding tears over William’s loss. I can’t explain that other than to say that it felt like someone other than us regretted that the world may have lost another Johann Bach or Albert Einstein or Georgia O’Keefe or Kate Chopin with the loss of our child.
She hoped I’d do something with the poem to help other couples and especially women who were in the situation my husband and I are in. I was never quite sure what to do with it? Perhaps, I’ll share it some day.
In the meantime, my husband and I were reflecting about what this young man of ours would be like at 13. It’s hard to imagine? I like to think he’d be an avid reader, like me. I like to think he’d be great at math, like his Dad. It’s hard to imagine what he’d be like - who he’d be like? Still, we do. We always will...
Then, two years ago, God put something in our lives that put a BIG smiley face on this day. My sister-in-law, Kathy, was in cahoots on this. She found a brother for Chuey, our Chihuahua puppy, and she brought him to us. We met in Baltimore, Maryland on this day in 2009. It was a gorgeous day, just like today. Kathy, God bless her, brought Elmer into our lives...our little cowboy puppy, who’s all snips and snails and puppy dog tales. Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose. Do we have stories to tell on him! [Another day...]
He is a pure light, genuine, feel good, bundle of love. He gave me a snuggle-cuddle after he was placed in the arms where our children would normally reside for snuggle-cuddles. He [and Chuey] fill that void in very fun, wondrous, happy ways. It’s no where near the same thing, as having our children here with us, but I think William approves.
I imagine he’s been up in heaven for a lot of years now hollering the way young boys do when they get fretted over something: "Please, someone! Give her something to hold and love! Give her something that will slobber her face with wet kisses and cuddle with her in her chair and make her think that she’s the best thing since Wonder bread...."
Well, Baby, you got that wish! Not once, but twice. I’m loaded down with snuggle-cuddles, wet, slobbery kisses and little ones who think I’m the best thing since Wonder bread! Isn’t symmetry ironic at times?  Two bundles of love fill my arms...
Then, in my mind, I hear him protest, "Mom! I’m NOT a baby!"
And, I follow through with the words my mother always said to me whenever I said that to her. "I don’t care if you’re 80 years old, you’ll always be my baby!"
That’s a tug of war I win...always...
So, these are some of my thoughts for today.
I’m attaching a picture of Elmer [one of Chuey will come another day...] so that I can share his sweet, funny, munchy self with everyone. There’s love in his eyes....pure love and light. It’s a simple thing but so necessary on a day like today. I’m a proud puppy Mama! Something sweet has helped replace the bitter. Coupled together, it equals bittersweet. It’s an apt description of what this day has become. Yet, when I think on it now, I chuckle a little over the irony, because this day gave me a sweet, funny little boy to love after all. Tender mercies...you learn to take them where you can get them.
Elmer and his brother, Chuey are tender mercies. They both help fill the void of significant losses in my life. They are blessings, and I am grateful.
This isn’t to say that I don’t still shed my share of tears today, but the last couple of years, it’s ended with heart smiles and lots of puppy kisses to make it all better.
Does it? Nothing will ever make it all better or make it okay or empty the sad place in our lives where our children would-should be. But, they’re safely tucked away in our hearts where love abides, and they’re in the happy place, over the rainbow where all things are bright and beautiful.
I’ll dry my tears now and sign off. I’ve got a puppy – scratch that....make it TWO puppies who want to play as our son up in heaven gives two thumbs up.
I listened to my sweet William’s songs today that are listed at the beginning of this entry. Yeah, they made me cry. Elmer and Chuey, however, don’t put up with that for long. They do whatever they can, short of standing on their heads to cajole the tears out of me and chase them away. Then, after they’re certain all is well again, they pounce, urging me to play. I fall for it every time.
In case you don’t know, playing with puppies – well, it’s kinda like falling in love. Hearing them bark and playfully growl as they wiggle their tails, dance all around me and try desperately to lick my face, is kinda like hearing angels laughing from up above...and God...God continues to bless me by adding sweet - a whole lotta sweet into my bitter...

                                             Picking up Elmer in Baltimore, MD~9/19/09