Seeing Some Light

More than a year into the pandemic, we’re seeing some light. 

A Year of Loss

During the year, I’ve written about loss, about what it was like to trade off with my sisters in living with our parents in order to provide them care. I don’t know whether the universe has decided to respond to my year of pleas and questions, but on March 15, I had a strange collision of events. 

On that date, my mother’s ashes were interred alongside my father’s in the Miramar National Cemetery. This happens to be in San Diego—land of sunny beaches. And yet, in a year of severe drought, it rained like all hell, and the blasting wind drove the rain sideways right into us. The benches under the roof of the otherwise open shelter were soaked, so we huddled around the ashes, which were on a tiny table. National Cemeteries are on tight schedules, giving the mourners a 15-minute ceremony. We all drove away immediately so didn’t see much of my family, but my husband, sons and I, along with one niece, were able to have an outdoor toast to Mom. 

The Irish priest said rain at a funeral is a good sign–tears of joy from heaven for the new arrival. Afterward, I talked to my aunt, who lives in Pennsylvania and is unable to come to California for both pandemic and health reasons. She verified that my grandmother always said this. Blessed is the corpse the rain falls upon. My mom would have liked that the priest was Irish and played up his accent. Though she had a complicated relationship to the Church, she would have appreciated both the priest’s and nature’s blessing. 

Both my parents died in 2020, as did a beloved aunt as well as my steadfast hiking companion, our old Labrador retriever. Three weeks ago, my sister-in-law died unexpectedly of heart failure, and I’m having a hard time placing her outside the land of the living. My mind is very much on the permanence of death. I’m not a particularly morbid person, but there are so many losses . . . eight close people and two dogs in the last three years. 

Creating in Times of Grief

I’ve been writing essays about grief. One essay was published two weeks ago—the same day of my mom’s interment, which was also the official publication date of my collection of short fiction, Acts of Contrition. It was a day I felt the universe was speaking to me, if only to say that writing the darkness is as necessary as writing the light. The essay is called “Silt” because it discusses how my environment helps me to process my grief. It’s in Newfound Journal. The editor called it “devastating, yet hopeful,” and I think that sums up the past year for many of us. If you are grieving—or just contemplating nature—you may enjoy it. 

I’ve written a long braided essay about the deaths of my parents, which were complicated by the pandemic lockdown of their assisted living apartments. My sisters and I registered there as self-employed caretakers in order to have access to them. To care for our mother, whose mind had been ravaged by more than a decade of dementia; to ease our father through his death so that he wouldn’t find himself alone in a nursing home at the end.

The 2020 holiday season was overshadowed by my mom’s passing on December 8. However, I had a sense that while my grief was active, the things causing that grief were coming to a close with the new year. Vaccines were available for healthcare workers, and I could imagine the time when my opportunity for immunity would come. The depressed job market that had affected my adult kids was looking up. But on March 5, my husband received the news that his sister had died of heart failure. It was as shocking as if she had been swept away in an accident. I think now of what I can do for my niece and nephew in remembrance of their mother. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I often sew pieces for family members. My feeling is that my remembrance pieces for her will be created from fabric. 

Life in Bloom

So my progress toward peace of mind in 2021 has been slow. As always, I go outdoors to walk off some of my sorrow. Being outside and moving is an effective antidepressant for me. The earlier in the day I get moving, the more I can manage later. Unfortunately, irregular sleep over the last year plus has kept me awake during the dark hours, and I fall asleep about the time I should be getting up and going. This pattern had an unexpected benefit this week. 

The weather warmed up a few days ago. Temperatures ranged from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. As I walked in the afternoon warmth, scents of blooming plants perfumed the air for the first time in many months. Sage mixed with the vanilla scent of the Jeffrey pines. In natural areas, I’ve seen tiny blossoms on native plants for a few weeks. Now, in the perfumed air, I walked past the bigger blooms that announce true spring: clusters of bright orange California poppies, followed by grape soda lupine. Island bush poppies in full yellow bloom. The four-cornered California rock flower. The hedgehog cactus is displaying its scarlet cup flowers. Out, too, were the small creatures. The mating lizards, the gray squirrels ducking in and out of trees and burrows alike. And the cottontails, everywhere in groups of two and three, feasting on their new garden with little concern for my approach. 

Messages from Kind Strangers

Yesterday I needed to shorten my walk so I could make it to an appointment on time (yes, because I again had a bad night and overslept in the morning). I decide to walk on a little paved path. I had gone east for a ways and was back to my starting point where most walkers park their cars to get on the path. As I crossed the street that interrupted the path and headed west of my starting point, I felt a bit of gravel scratching my foot. There’s a bench on the corner, so I decided to stop a moment, rest my foot on the bench and dig out the tiny pebble. 

In the middle of the bench sat a smooth river rock, painted and glazed, the words, “The BEST is Yet to Come” across its face. I wanted this message to be for me. My heart leaped as I cradled the stone with its pink rose. I wondered if it had been left on the bench so that someone would pick it up or just so anyone who sat down would see it. If not for the gravel in my shoe, I would have walked right past it. 

I cupped the river rock with its encouraging words and walked on, absorbing them. I went another half mile and then turned back. When I arrived back at the bench, I felt I’d soaked up what inspiration the stone was meant to give me. I set it back on the bench for the next passerby, one who might have had an equally bad, or, God forbid, worse year.

I know that both good and bad will alternate as we emerge from this sad year. Perhaps the best is yet to come.