Wedding Week

Yay!  Abby's wedding is almost here.  I really need to watch Father of the Bride so I can appreciate how well it is going, and how much easier this has been--not having a wedding planner and all.  Abby is very relaxed about it all, now that they have the marriage license!  I trust that Ian and Louie will make fantastic food and Gita will do beautiful decorations and Leticia will spiff my house up (she wants to clean the china and silver doodads in the curio cabinet...I looked at it and thought, who will see THAT, behind the door?)  Abby will look like a princess and Nate will look like a (Scottish) prince.  How fun is that?  They love each other and have been through so much already in their year together.  It will be a fun day and the beginning of their commitment to a life together.

heart deflated

I know that I have not been writing anything.  (No one else has been either...!) But every time I sit down and open up the 'new post' tab, nothing important comes to mind.  Everything just seems so...trivial.  Not that there isn't lots of good stuff going on.  Namely weddings and grandbabies...but my heart just feels...deflated.  Although the loss of Aiden, and of course that is the overarching loss of all, is huge, the loss of relationships with people I had cared for and felt pleasure in and committed to is a big part of my apathy about writing on a blog.  Even as I write that word, blog,  the intonation in my head says it with a tone of dismissal..."blog"...I feel let down and disappointed and who wants to read that?  My surface mood is up and down and very normal, enjoying the company of my grandchildren and the flowers in my garden and breakfast with my friends, but the underneath mood is very flat and not very interesting.  A lot of mental energy is being taken up with the struggle to put my faith into some kind of sense.  Heaven--just can't see it as a streets paved with gold surrounded by our loved ones who have gone before us kind of place.  God--personal? Just how involved is He?  Does he really orchestrate every detail of our lives?  If that is true than why, why, why the bad stuff?  I have in lately years come to feel that God set everything up, put the rules in place, the conductor of the orchestra, but each musician is playing the music themselves, free to follow or not.  But then I can't figure out the role of prayer.  Do we really have the power to change the will of God?  I want, want, want to believe that this earthly life is just a tiny part of our eternal life.  But I can't come up with the shape of that eternal life.  We are made in the image of God...and that has got to mean the spiritual image, the emotional image.  The being who recognizes beauty in nature and love for each other.  And anger.  And disappointment.  And humor.  He KNOWS us, but we don't know Him except through our own window.  We see through a glass darkly. And so what IS the point of this brief life?  Why not just skip it and go directly to the eternal life, the one that counts? I hate to let my thoughts go down that black hole, the one that says this is all there is.  But I have to let my thoughts occasionally  slide down there in order to reaffirm that yes, I do, I HAVE to believe that all of creation has meaning. And purpose, even if I can't grasp what the meaning and purpose are.

Oh my goodness, whiny, whiny, whiny...and questions with no answers.

One year ago tonight was the last time we got to hear his voice.  I do not like this new reality of the world without Aiden.  But no one ever gets to choose their reality...

It never ends.

Twice this week I have had to endure conversations with kids at school about Aiden.  Although I like to talk about him, even when it makes me sad, these conversations are so hard.  I was on playground duty and a little boy who was in Aiden's class came up to me and asked me where Aiden was.  This is a little boy who I have spoken with many times about Aiden and I tried to brush him off, change the subject, but he just wouldn't drop it.  Where IS he? He was in my class last year and he is not here now, so where IS he?  He was very insistent. Finally I said, He is in heaven.  The little boy said, That is creepy...and ran off.Then one of my own students, a little girls whose brother was in Aiden's class in preschool and in kindergarten, met me first thing this morning at the door to the room and said, Mrs. Newkirk, my brother's friend died yesterday.  Oh, no, I said, what happened?  He was in my brother's room and he had something the matter with his brain.  And I am scrambling to pull my thoughts together, thinking, how could something like this happen again.  In Mrs. Phillips room? I ask.  Yes, L says, he was my brother's friend.  Finally, I ask, what was his name?  I don't know, she says.  Are you talking about Aiden?  Yes, she says...He was my grandson, I say.  I know about him.  It is sad she says.  And into the room we go. It turns out Abby ran into her mother at Home Depot and she asked how Aiden was enjoying being a big brother.  She did not know about Aiden.  So Abby had to have this conversation with the mom in Home Depot.

Amazing Race

Ok, I have applied for Amazing Race...AGAIN!  This is the fourth time.  I didn't really intend to apply, though.  This is how it happened.  On Tuesday, Denise was in the teacher's room sharing stories of her fun trip that she just came back from...10 days in Hawaii.  She went ziplining and tubing and everything you can do in Hawaii.  And I have known Denise for 16 years and she is CRAZY!  So I said, Denise, I want to go on Amazing Race with you.  Then I forgot I even said that.  Now the thing is, Denise's husband just died after a motorcycle accident (she was on the back...I told you she is crazy...) so she needs distractions and she went home and looked up the application for Amazing Race.  Guess what?  WEDNESDAY was the deadline to apply. She came to school on Wednesday and said, Jen, I have the application all filled out, you just need to come to my room at recess to film the video.  The next thing I know we are sitting there doing a video (which wouldn't upload).  Later she came over and we did the video again and uploaded it, and now we are waiting.  We kind of played up the grieving aspect...maybe it will work.  I am a l i t t l e nervous about not being able to physically do the Race.  I don't expect to ever hear from the show.  Having been through this a few times before...

Beannacht by John O'Donohue

Thank you, Sheila, you didn't know when you handed me this beautiful blessing how fragile I was feeling and how much it would help my heart.  Here it is for anyone else who might need a blessing...

                                                                         Beannacht

("Blessing")

 

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

 

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

 

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

                                                                       

Graduation

So, Gita's big graduation day is here.  I am so glad that she found the thing that makes her happy.  Nurse Gita!  I remember reading all the Cherry Ames books and the nursing life seemed so exciting and full of possibilities.  I hope Gita finds adventure and satisfaction, making in a difference in one life after another. Congratulations sister!