Tag Archives: Cole Bent

Living Between The Lines

18 Aug

I have had the opportunity, these past few years, to live out my burdens upon this blog.  And by doing so I have received comfort and condolences from family, friends and strangers alike.  When going through a hard time, some find assistance, solace and comfort, in the spoken word–oral communication.  For me, the calm silence of the written word has been the soothing provision to my soul.  I think we are funny, us creatures of humanity.  We have so many offerings we can reach for, to guide us through whatever it is our journey presents.  In fact, from the moment my son entered the hospital back in March 2011 I have been given a multitude of resources.  Several are grief specific and a few are literary pleasure reads.  The ironic thing is that for as much as writing sends my soul to the moon and ignites within me an excitement for living, while in the pressure cooker of life (at my son’s bedside and beyond) I cannot ingest the writings of others.  I can’t explain it thoroughly except to say it is as if I am using every ounce within me to live out my own story, that to take in the story of another, fiction or nonfiction, to the level a book extends, is more cumbersome to my being than helpful.

Now some of my reads are soothing just by their title alone.  Others not so much.  Maybe from one I extract a morsel from a page, others the back cover does the trick.  But all in all I am at a standstill in reading, at this time.

books for the soul

Soul Fodder

read is FUN

Library in Waiting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t normally keep books in such a disheveled manner as my photos suggest.  But upon receiving the gift, I think my head was so clouded by grief that the idea that I am one who falls within the category of the target audience irritated me.  I mean have you ever been included in a club that you had no interest in being a member?  I am there.  I am not interested in being a member of the “I’ve lost a child” club.  No, I want him back and I want a normal family life…two children, two dogs, one husband, a house, a family, a life with grandkids down the road.  So as the books on grieving were given to me, in earnest love and attempt to soothe a difficult loss, they inadvertently served as a reminder of just that–loss.  And with that word comes irritation, so I just piled them atop one another.  Yet interspersed between my literary counselors are a few gems that for some reason lift the burden momentarily, if only because their placement is so out of line with the others that the irony tickles my fancy.  Eats, Shoots & Leaves for example is one I have been “borrowing” now for over five years.  I have read and re-read the first few chapters and can’t seem to get through to the end.  But I think it is a brilliant writing as it makes punctuation the protagonist while using satirical humor to drive its cause home.  As you can tell from my overuse of the comma, I am a slow learner.  But the fact that this particular writing is stacked between such titles as “I’m Grieving As Fast As I Can” and “Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love” I find more soothing to my grief stricken state than if I actually pick the resource up and read it (the other little outcast on the works of  Robert Doisneau is equally as comical).  In the same vein, the other stack of heartfelt reads is topped by a ridiculous writing titled, “Managing the Millennials.”  It is not ridiculous because it is a poorly written resource, just that its placement among the others deems it so.

So here I am living between the lines.  As the stacks of books suggest, I bounce between places of joy and sorrow, fear and courage, peaceful waiting and restless anxiety, all of which are bordered by the lines of loss that have defined our family.  Just this summer alone our family has been touched (along with others) by the loss of a dear young friend, untimely and abrupt–just as our son.  I can see her beautiful face, streaming with tears, as we hugged on the day of my son’s funeral.  Now we grieve her passing as well, and hurt alongside her little girls and husband who grapple with their new void (though the youngest will likely not remember her mama).  We also have news that another young soul, our neighbor and father of two wee ones, is not long for this world as his cancer is not responding to treatment.  Our fervent prayers for a magical miracle remain intact and our souls (Brian and I, for we can’t bring ourselves to tell Esther) are heavy under the burden of this reality.  My brother and his family are facing the cancer intrusion in the life and lungs of his mother-in-law, a vicious disease that has already claimed the life of her husband.  These are hard, tough aspects of life.

And yet, simultaneously upon us is the elation of new life.  New adventure and the continued momentum of the living.  Our family has the good fortune to celebrate a couple of expected births come next spring.  Our niece came to live with us this summer (she just left to return for her senior year of college yesterday) and our family felt more whole with her here.  Our daughter is getting ready to head off to her university, 2-1/2 hours from home, on August 28th.  Far enough for her to experience the freedom to grow in her own direction, yet close enough that we can still be of real physical and emotional support.  I am moving into my second year working within an environment that is well suited to my natural calling and Brian’s art, clothing and lifestyle is gaining consistent momentum (I am still hoping he makes me a woman of leisure this side of Heaven!).  We had the pleasure of attending the wedding of a young couple this past weekend and we have another nuptial celebration coming next month.  Our god-kids remain a bright spot for us (though we haven’t seen them much this summer), being participants in their lives is an honor we hold dear.

So we move and groove within the space between the lines, the matrix if you will.  For the borders represent our loss, the void of the one not here.  And though the natural motion of the in-between forces us to touch the outer edge, as the laws of physics mandate, we bounce back to the middle because the lines are inhabited with a repellent within its system–a force which prohibits a long term stay.  So on to the next, whatever the next happens to be.  Books on grief will have to wait.  The middle is available and its offers of joyful enthusiasm help assuage the deep pain of each margin.

I believe scripture calls it, “beauty from ashes,” (Isaiah 61)–nothing new under the sun, just living between the lines.

 

Ironic Living

Bent-style irony

 

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Stress Relief Lotion

12 Jul

I am tired of my sorrow.  Aren’t you, the reader, ready for me to move on from it?  The question is neither rhetorical nor literal.  The question is shameful.  Shameful, how is that?  The question implies that the author (me) considers the reader to be in a state of consideration of the writer.  The very essence of the question is full of the self centered entanglement which is a common secondary condition of a grief-filled state.  In other words, or more plainly written, it is difficult to think outside of oneself, when the one-self is hurting.  The pain inside is ever encompassing of the soul, it clouds the view of the outside and angles the lens toward the infliction.  The last time I wrote a blog post was May 27, 2014 and I haven’t wanted to hear my inner voice since then–I still don’t, though at this moment I am having a hard time ignoring it.

Quite frankly, I am exhausted.  I am struggling as result of jet-lag, returned this week from a foreign land, and the time difference has my sleep cycle completely turned around.  Consequently, I’m tired and my defenses are down.  In this past month and a half I have thought of writing.  I thought of a blog post when I went into one of our kitchen cabinets to put something away and found the 1950’s rocket-shaped ice crusher we bought for our son when he was a teenager.  We have one ourselves and he grew up loving it.  At about the age of 15 (or so) he announced his desire to have one for himself for his future home/life.  So my husband and I kept a lookout for one for him every time we would pop into an antique shop.  We did eventually find an exact copy, though the color scheme was different from our black and white model, as was customary in the 1950’s.  His rocket-ship, ice crusher is iconic robin’s-egg blue, translucent style.

1950's ice crusher

Crushing ice, space aged style.

I pulled the saved item from the cupboard and showed it quizzically to my husband.  Thankfully, my ever loving spouse has learned to read my mind and he gave me an answer without having to hear the auditory version of the question.  What do we do with this now, this additional reminder of our hopes and dreams lost?  Well without conversing on the matter, we both decided it was more hurtful to have it saved away for the day that would now never come, so Brian removed our black and white model and in its place, in honor of the son we love still, hangs the robin’s egg blue.  That was a blog post I didn’t feel like writing at the time it happened.  As I sat at the computer to translate my feelings, I couldn’t abandon the thought of how heavy my sorrow is for me, and how I don’t want to continue to share its burden.

Yet here I am sharing.  And why?

I don’t know, and perhaps the answer is as simple as, “I can’t sleep.”  I think, too, I haven’t had the strength yet to offer encouragement to others.  And encouragement for this road of life is what we need most.  Lamenting with me over and over again is brutal–exhausting–stagnating.  And it is the stagnation that keeps me from creating works at the level I inwardly hope to achieve.

And yet, in the suffering is a profound beauty–a blossom–a light.

Today I had such a wave of memories flood over my soul.  Memories of my son’s childhood, memories we shared together.  When memories flood in, their goodness is always overshadowed by the cessation of the hope of tomorrow.  Not my tomorrow directly (though most definitely, indirectly) but by my son’s tomorrow.  True, his tomorrow is infused in a glorious, peaceful eternity, but it is grief from our (my) loss of which I write, and so we will not confuse the matter by focusing on the heavenly realm–funny how my hope is in Heaven and my faith hinges on me spending my eternity there, but having my loved ones attain it before me is not something to which I favor–the paradoxical side of living.  …sorry, I became distracted.

The beauty within my sorrowful day was that of  the simple gesture of kindness from my husband.  My daughter had a routine doctors appointment today and I was to accompany her.  I announced an hour ahead of the scheduled time that I would meet her there, as I intended to arrive by foot.  Her appointment was with her pediatrician, my son’s pediatrician, the doctor who stood by Cole’s side from his earliest days as an infant to his last days on earth.  I was already emotional, flooded by memories of summers past so what the heck, a trip to the doctor would be no big deal.  And by walking, I would have time to get my emotional self together.  About 5 minutes into my departure I hear a loud noise coming up from behind.  I knew the sound well, a skateboard.  I turned and there was my husband, Brian.  My love who loathes a walk, especially a long walk, especially in the heat of the day; all of which were exactly what he was facing by being by my side.  He reached me and got off his board, took my hand and walked with me as I cried.  You know what?  I haven’t stopped crying all day and now it is after midnight.

Oh to be at a place where I can offer you, the reader, a more positive message.  A message of “go for it” and “be all you can be!”  How I would love to uplift rather than invite you into my sorrow, again and again.  How I would love to selfishly be above it myself.  Above the hurt of loss.  But I am not there yet.  The desire is sparked, to be sure, though the follow through is lagging a bit behind.

 

“Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead; And with my child my joys are buried.” ~W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Act IV, sc. V

 

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Pushing Up Daisies

27 May

I have visited my son’s grave twice now in the last 24 hours.  Yesterday Brian, Esther and I decided to drive to Miramar for Memorial Day–it seemed fitting as Cole is buried in the National Cemetery there.  And then again today, by myself on my way home from work.  I was compelled to stop by mostly to see if the flowers we left graveside were still present, after all I pass by the exit twice daily so stopping by is an easy affair.  I can report to you they are, including the floral heart on the grass at the base of his stone, created by his sister from daisy petals she plucked from the bounty.

Yesterday, in honor of Memorial Day, the cemetery was bustling with activity.  They held a service at 1:00p.m. and families were gathered a plenty in all parts.  This evening, however, I was alone.  Alone with the wind and the rows of marble headstones, one of which bears the name and details of my son.

On Sunday I actually did what I had set out to do, according to my last post, which was to “get at it.”  I ventured out and met up with a couple of friends whom I had put off for over a year.  We had a nice visit and took a small walk together around the Newport Beach back bay.  It was a lovely time and I enjoyed it.  But upon my drive home, I caught the view off to the east side of the freeway, of the orange balloon of the Great Park in Irvine.  And memories of my time with our family of 4 came flooding back.  We went together, after Cole’s surgery and when he was well and able enough to manage a slight excursion, to the Great Park and together braved the heights of the hot-air orange balloon.  Seeing the ball suspended as is its custom, and feeling the loneliness which instantly was upon me due to the vacancy of the passenger seat to my right, my longing for my son returned anew and my previous resolve to get a move-on in life, away from my grief, flew out the window and more than likely landed-SPLAT-on the large orange sphere.

So today when alone, alongside the marker on the green, I couldn’t help but want this undeniable truth to go away.  All of me wants to dig him up and out of his silent grave.  Not because I wish him back to a place of continual and constant suffering, but because I miss him.  I miss my son.  And I’m not ready to let go of that just yet.  I still want to live out the fantasy that he will return.  Or the preposterous idea that the reality which I face does not, in fact, belong to me.

Do you know that it is more natural for me to drive in the carpool lane than it is not?  I had the honor of caring for my son the last two years of his life and as result I was always, “two or more.”  I find myself on auto-pilot, engaging my blinker and maneuvering toward the carpool lane entrance until I, at just the last minute, catch myself and pull out.

Yes, I pray daily for strength.  And yes, I have a goal to “get at it” for the sake of others and to honor, in my living, my Heavenly Father as well as my son.  But for right now I’m just not ready.  I am not assimilated to this new reality, more time is required apparently.  Now I can tell you that The Bent 3 are ever committed to living life without being ruled by fear.  And I can also tell you that this is no easy task.  Especially after a difficult loss.  For it is common place to want to cling tighter to those around you, fearful of loosing even more of that which you hold dear.  But we know too well, if we give fear even an inch, it will take over, and a paralyzed and ineffective life is what remains from its admittance.  So we press on, even as fear attempts to coerce our attentions, we press on.  And I assure you, I am pressing on.  But…

There is no timeline in grief.  Yes, I would like it to magically be one year.  And yes, the first year is most difficult because every celebration and/or significant date on the calendar reminds of memories past which previously were shared with the loved one lost.  And yes, as the second year comes around there are different memories to focus on.  But to think and to strive to adhere to the one year rule is not realistic.  Not today; though on Sunday a glimpse of progress shone through.

Blue dyed daisy petals, shaped into a heart, lie at the base of a headstone…there is no getting over it.

 

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