Three Months

Three months. How can it be that long already? How can it be that short? Strange how it seems like a lifetime ago that Edd passed, and yet it seems like just yesterday, all at the same time. I still surprise myself with how quickly I can go from completely normal and carrying on with my day, to a sloppy, tearful mess. Like the other day, when I walked into my mom’s house and suddenly a wave of grief washed over me, out of nowhere. Their house. The place where Edd lived. The place where I held his hand and watched him die. The place where they carried out his body for the last time. The place where his ashes returned to rest, for now. The place where there’s still a closet full of his clothes, and walls full of his memory. 
I know I’m nowhere near the end of the “grieving process.” I find myself shoving feelings down—pushing them back through the cracks when they threaten to spill out. Memories flit across my mind sometimes, especially the dying ones, and I force myself to think other thoughts, because it’s still too much.  Whenever I sit down and try to write about it, I realize how much I’m still NOT close to coming to a place of peace. I avoid this because I break down every time. I miss him. I wonder where he is. I relive those gut-wrenching last breaths—the way, just seconds before he breathed his last, he opened his eyes for the first time in days, turned his head, and looked straight into my mom’s eyes for several seconds. Like goodbye. It was electric. And then he was cold, and gone, and it’s all so final, and even though I see it in beautiful ways sometimes, other times it just feels frightening and unfair and unreal and like too much.
My mom tells me stories of this beautiful love that the two of them had. It was positively magic, and the way he planned and prepared and organized during his life is still evident now, even after he’s gone. You do that when you love someone, you know? One time he told my mom, “I’d rather have cancer and have you, then not have cancer and not have you.” Wow. I want to love like that.
So I guess on this day, exactly three months after Edd’s spirit went on from this world, I just wanted to say that we still miss you so much, Edd. Do they have Internet cafes in heaven? Can you read this, and know?  You and I never had the affectionate kind of relationship—you were brilliant and an engineer and afraid of seeming “creepy.” But I knew you loved me, and my mom would tell me things you said. Towards the end, when you really weren’t you anymore, you told me that you always wanted daughters, and now you have them, and then you laughed sheepishly. I know that was you, shining through. I love you, Edd. You make me not afraid to die. Thank you for the way you lived.

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A last photo and a last word

The other day I was looking through folders of old photos on my computer, and I found an especially meaningful one that brought back a flood of tears and memories.  The lighting is terrible and it was never meant to be a good picture, per se, but I had stopped by my mom’s house shortly after purchasing my new 5D, and I was just sort of snapping away. This was the very last photo I ever took of Edd.

I remember him well in that spot. He was often sitting there when I’d come over to visit… reading the paper or a magazine or watching a show on TV. He’d say “hiiii Jenni,” or get up and come sit at the bar to talk to me. Whenever I go over to my mom’s now, I like to sit there in Edd’s spot, where he was in this picture.
It’s funny, the memories in a place. How a particular piece of space can hold such strong memories of a person that was there at one point in time. Like that old saying goes… “if only walls could talk.” If walls could talk over at my mom’s place, they would speak of so much love, you can’t even wrap you head around it.
One memory both Matthew and I have of Edd made a deep impact on both of us. We were over for dinner one night, and Edd was sitting in the kitchen at a bar stool and we were all chatting as my mom cooked dinner. I don’t remember how the conversation reached this point, but I remember this so vividly. Edd’s face was red and broken out a bit from chemo.  His body had really been ravaged, but there he was, with tears welling up in his eyes as he said, “yeah, I have cancer, but I’m really happy.”
I attribute much of that happiness to the fierce love between him and my mom—the way they gave each other strength when one thing after another was taken away from them. Sometimes maybe it’s a blessing when all you have left is the love.
And it really makes you think, you know? If everything was taken away from you, all the things you have no real control over, what would be left? I think I’ve found that the answer to this question is 1. your spirit (the part of you that doesn’t die), and 2. your relationships. And it makes me think about what I’m really “nurturing” in my life.  Really makes me think.
I tend to boil everything down to lessons learned in Harry Potter (ha ha), and one quote by Dumbledore always stood out to me. He said, “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.” And that’s so true, don’t you think? Edd’s life and death was proof to me that cancer and dying isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a person. But a life without love and friendships and close, healthy, meaningful relationships that transcend time and space and pain and, yes, even death? That would be the worst of all.
“Yeah, I have cancer, but I’m really happy.” What is in your life that brings you joy, even when life isn’t perfect? How can you build on those things, those relationships?
Just things I’m thinking today. Happy Tuesday. :)

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Sunday Thoughts

I’ve been having stomach issues for two weeks now, and it’s gotten to the point that I’m sort of a wreck… tired and lethargic all the time due to lack of nutrients, and grumpy and quick to anger because I’m always hungry.  Earlier today I was sitting on the couch with Gracie and Cooper, when Cooper took off running and barking towards the front door (as he often does, for no reason… I joke that “he heard an earthworm moving a mile away”), and then Gracie, who was partially on my lap, followed suit and bolted after him, knocking my water glass out of my hand and sending its icy contents flying.  Well, an event like this one would have normally pissed me off, but this time it sent me into a rage, and I was probably screaming expletives and definitely slamming kitchen drawers unnecessarily as I went to find a towel.  Point is, some stuff’s not right inside my body at the moment (and don’t worry, I’m going to the doctor again tomorrow).
However, during these last couple weeks of mild suffering and my first time ever experiencing real, lasting hunger, I’ve been humbled to think of just how my problems stack up to that of others’.  Yesterday my mom tearfully recounted an exchange between her and Edd in their bathroom, when he was just so overcome by the effects of his chemo, which included intensely painful mouth sores on his lips, inside his mouth, down his throat and, we learned later, also out the other end.  The cancer and the treatments were merciless to Edd, and this was just one of the many horrible side effects he endured in his last months.  It made eating very painful and obviously no longer enjoyable, if not impossible.  Another of life’s pleasures snatched away from him.
Edd was saying to my mom, “I just don’t know what to do… I don’t know what else to do.”
And since he never seemed to, ever, bring this up or even consider it a possibility, my mom said to him quietly, “you could stop taking chemo, you know.”
She said Edd blinked a few times, and slowly some sort of realization washed over his face.  Like he’d never thought of that before.
After a moment, he said, “…But then I’ll die.”
And they cried there in the bathroom together.  It was the first time they’d considered that possibilty—giving up—letting the cancer win. 
That story touched me so deeply, and like I said, humbles me.  The things that man endured.  The reality he lived. 
And the things we complain about! It’s disgusting. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself praying the feeble prayer that God will take away my stomach virus or bacteria or ulcer or whatever the hell it is that’s causing my issues, but then I caught myself.  I don’t know if I want to pray for God to take away my suffering anymore, now or in any other area of my life.  Or maybe I still will, but I think I’ll understand a little better if he doesn’t, and I’ll be a little braver.   People all over this world are experiencing far more unthinkable pain than you or I will maybe ever feel, and it puts things into perspective when you see that.  When you watch someone live it.  When you know it could happen to you, or someone you love.  It helps you to not take things for granted, and to live a little more in each moment. 
I have a feeling that Edd’s cancer and his suffering and his passing will be teaching me things, and also giving me courage, for many years to come. 

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Some words, some pictures, and a song.

I’m feeling strangely stifled this morning.  I woke up excited about a new day and a new week… ready to be honest and open about my feelings and share a little more about Edd’s passing 4 weeks ago tomorrow.  I wrote it all out. It was cathartic, and I cried… a lot… as I typed. 

But then I couldn’t hit publish.  I read what I wrote over and over again, and it just wasn’t enough.  It was just a string of sentences tied together by commas and periods and ellipses. It was just facts. And it didn’t fully express what we experienced… what EDD experienced.  It felt too private, it felt cold, and it felt not good enough.

So I guess right now, until the time comes (if it comes) when I’m ready to write more about the enormity of this thing that happened and that changed me, I just want to acknowledge that no matter what I write here, no matter what kind of sunny posts you see (because those are so much easier to write), it still hurts.  I’m still working through it, as I know my mom is and my step brothers are and everyone else who was deeply touched by Edd’s life and death.  I imagine it will all come out in bits and pieces over the next months and years, and even though it goes without saying, I’m sure, I just wanted to say that even though we carry on and live our lives and eat out at restaurants and take pretty pictures and laugh sometimes, there’s always a part of me (and my family) that’s grieving.  You learn to live with that grief, because there’s no other choice.

A wonderful reader named Sam left a comment a while back that really stuck with me, and I wrote it on a little piece of paper and left it on my mom’s pillow the night before Edd’s funeral, and she even read it at the service.  It said, “someday you’ll walk around the hole in your heart instead of falling in it.” 

For now, though, I think we’re all still falling in it.

One last thing… I found this quote the other day, and it really blew me away.  I wanted to share it here too, for anyone who might need to hear it:

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying 'write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep', and 'cheer up' and 'happiness is our birthright' and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say 'Quick! Move on! Cheer up!' I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word 'happiness' and to replace it with the word 'wholeness'. Ask yourself 'is this contributing to my wholeness?' and if you’re having a bad day, it is.”

Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social researcher

I like to think that all of this is contributing to my wholeness, and for that I am grateful. 

1. Gracie baby
2. .25 cent books from the Austin citywide garage sale yesterday
3. My gorgeous necklace by Megan
4. Coop.
5. Cute grandparents
6. The prettiest little egg we found in our backyard
Hope you have a wonderful Monday…

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Your soul has a body

The way time marches on after a loss is stunning at first. It’s jarring—to log into Facebook, to watch the news, to go to the grocery store. Everything else carries on as it was before, except for you.  You are changed. 
The world doesn’t stop and wait for you to get it together though, you know?  Last week was such a blur.  Edd passed away Tuesday, his body was removed from the house shortly after, the visitation was Thursday, and the funeral service Friday. It was all so fast. There were flowers, emails, cards, tears, and wonderful words from wonderful people. It was amazing to hear of the reach Edd has had in his lifetime. But it was all so fast.  And now family has trickled back to their respective homes, and this week we carry on.  Sometimes numb. Sometimes not.
It’s Monday morning of a new week and here I am at my desk, sunlight streaming in through the window beside me and my trusty little laptop before me.  I’ve had coffee and a bagel and half an apple, and now I’m sitting down to do something I’ve done a thousand times before (write a blog post), but it feels different now.  More important.  Because last week was game changing…  Totally and completely game changing.  But how do I make people understand that?  What I saw?  What I felt?  What I’m still feeling?
Maybe it’s too early for this.  Maybe I’m not quite ready yet.  But I feel this need to carry on—this urge to do things that would make Edd proud.  To get moving on this life thing.  Because it’s precious, and it’s fragile, and it ends. 
Last Tuesday I watched a life end.  Or perhaps I should say I saw a body die.  Because what hit me like a ton of bricks that Tuesday at 11:35 AM is that we are not our body.  We are something else.  We are what lives inside our body as long as it’s still breathing, but what makes you YOU is not your body. Your body is the shell of you, and it really is a fragile shell. I didn’t grasp that until last week, and it was a real revelation for me. Seeing someone’s shell, with the person missing from it, is the most surreal experience, but also an important one.  We spend so much time fretting about what’s on the outside, and not nearly enough time worrying about what’s on the (proverbial) “inside.”  The part of you that doesn’t die. 
I have a feeling that last Tuesday and the week that followed will be the single most defining time in my life.  It really put things into perspective for me, and I hope I can hold onto that perspective. 
There’s more I could say, but it can wait. I’ll leave you with a piece my mom read at Edd’s funeral…

When death comes for us,
may our lives be already safely stored away
in the minds and hearts and memories of those we have loved,
and in the happiness and well-being of all we have helped,
and may death find no life to take from us
but shuffle off defeated,
having relieved us only of our dying.

                                                                -- Robert Brault

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Edd.

At 11:35 yesterday morning, the world lost one of the best and brightest and bravest of its men. He was surrounded by people who adore him, and he was a testament of strength and true love until his very last breath.   I am forever humbled to have known him, to have been a part of his life, and to have been a part of his death.  Edd, thank you for teaching me true selfless love even in the face of cancer and more suffering than most people can imagine. You lost a lot of things—almost everything—but you didn’t lose yourself.  Cancer couldn’t take YOU.  And it never will.
At 5:07 yesterday evening, our 15 year old family dachshund, Nicky, went to be with Edd.  They were best buddies, and it seemed appropriate that they go on the same day. Even so, my heart is broken into a million tiny pieces. A chapter has ended… a long and hard one, but full of characters I truly loved. I’ll miss those two more than I can express.
For the rest of my life I’ll strive to be someone like Edd, and I’ll strive to be the girl he always thought I was.  Rest in peace, Edd and Nicky, and a most heartfelt and tear-filled thank you for all you’ve given to my family.  You fought the good fight. Thank you.

If you’re new to this blog, you can catch up on Edd’s story here.

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Update on Edd

Those who’ve been around for a while may remember back to late November when my step-dad Edd spent a good amount of time in the hospital for seizures, among other things.  It was a really rough time for my family, and we didn’t know if he would make it until Thanksgiving, much less Christmas.  If you want to catch up on this story, feel free to look through old posts here (they’re in reverse chronological order, so it’ll make more sense to start at the end).
Anyway, I’ve owed you wonderful people an update for a while now, but as I said the other day, sometimes it’s just hard to write about, and I’m never quite sure what to say.
I guess I could start by saying things aren’t the same anymore.  Whether it’s the cancer or the seizures or the cyber knife treatments a while back, Edd’s mind has been affected. Often he seems really present and “himself” and will say something very Edd-like, but he is also often distant and confused. He’s considered under in-home hospice care now, and while he’s doing much better physically than he was a couple months ago, he’s not taking chemo treatments anymore (a major reason for some of the physical relief).  Edd’s cancer is in his lungs, liver, and brain, but since they’re not treating or testing anymore, it’s impossible to know what the progression has been lately.  The waiting must be excruciating for my mom.
Edd is the sweetest man I know, and has been so good to her.  My mom thinks of this as an opportunity to give back to him some of what he’s given to her.  Unconditional love. Safety. Kindness. Tenderness. Sacrifice. I’ve learned a lot about love by watching the two of them.  I’ll never understand why our bodies were created with what could easily be perceived as flaws—why they turn on us.  Why someone so good and undeserving would be dealt such a rough deck of cards. (rough? there just isn’t a word strong enough for what he’s been through.) And yet Edd never complains. He was the favorite patient at the oncologist’s office.  His only regret is breaking my mom’s heart.
All I know is that people like Edd put the rest of us to shame.
Honestly, I don’t even know what to ask for when it comes to prayers, anymore.  But thanks so much for your kindness and support and for caring about my family.   I’d give every one of your a big squishy hug if I could. :)
Have a happy Thursday!

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