Awaken and Dance

My husband Thomas and I are creating a workout room downstairs and in order to do so, we must sift through boxes which have been sitting dormant since we arrived in Charleston years ago. We have found everything from bad old novels to scribbles created by our children and sacred only to us. But hidden among the rubble was a treasure; a container filled with poorly labeled VHS tapes. When our grown children were with us over Christmas, Carll, our oldest son hooked up the old VCR and we started going through the fruits of our archeological dig.
There was amazing footage of all three of our children at various ages, as well as other family members looking oddly thin and hairier, all their well-earned wrinkles ironed out. Thomas appeared in one, with a cool eighties doo and a yellow sweater that was seriously frightening. I was seen hosting some Christmas gathering in a red taffeta blouse and hideous dirndl skirt that he couldn’t stop commenting on. Frankly I thought the yellow sweater was far worse. As my friend Sue says, “Taste takes a holiday!”

It was my first Thanksgiving away from my children after the divorce. My friend (now husband) Thomas, invited me to spend this lonely holiday with he and his daughter, Brittany. I ambivalently accepted and found myself travelling with them to the top of a mountain in upstate New York. I watched amazed to see footage from this very holiday. Sweet little Brittany was a blond-haired blue-eyed doll baby. How sad and lost I appeared, walking aimlessly around his family’s lovely home. I remembered they graciously welcomed me. His beautiful mother Maggi, was busy in the kitchen preparing the turkey, his brother stirred the gravy. The meal was a well-choreographed dance of intricate design and the conversation, easy and sprinkled with wit. But I was out of step and didn’t know the lines. And suddenly, there was Bill (my husband’s father), showing me around their beautiful home. Thin and dapper, he draped his arm around my slumped shoulders and bolstered my dreary mood with his mischievous sideways smile. No wonder Maggi fell for this warm and wonderful man. His son has that same little grin.

Another archive revealed daughter Abby (now 25 and married) running freely through fields, over fences, petting horses, singing and laughing, always laughing. So free and lovely. Such a spirit that blessed our lives.

Christmas ended and our grown children went back to their own busy lives. Thomas and I continued to view and label these videos, so that they may never disappear for so long again. Last night we popped one in. It began with my ex-husband Huck, following Carll around a vacant house which we had just purchased. “This is my house!” the bright-eyed three-year-old told the camera in his cartoon character voice. His words were clear and well enunciated as he explored the rooms asking incessant questions. I had forgotten that my ex was kind and patient with our children. Funny, what we forget, or choose to.

The scene changed and there he was…my Jesse. Our sweet baby boy. His skin pale and glowing, his eyes taking it all in. “Make your brother laugh,” Huck prompted. “Laugh Jesse,” Carll responded unenthusiastically. And so a large hand reached into the screen and tickled the chubby baby, who delighted us all with his touching smile.

So much of my memory was shifted to a place in the shadows after Jesse died. I’d forgotten how much of a person a six-month old child is. I watched breathless as Carll interacted with his baby brother and the memories flooded back. I felt my mind struggle to form a cushion of shock to hide behind. But there was no getting away from the sight of this cherubic baby boy. It had been so many years since I’d laid eyes on him. And there he was, lying on his belly on a blanket watching as his vibrant, capable older brother played with his new train set at Christmas.

“Your voice sounds different,” Thomas said. It did…it was younger, newer. I had not yet been touched by the tragedy that would come only a month after this video was taken. I watched as I held his precious little body in my arms. Who was this young woman?

The video went blank and I knew that there would be no more footage for many years. The years when I walked alone in a storm, with only my small and wonderful Carll’s hand to occasionally hold as he travelled past me in a whirl of motion. And then came Abby, unexpectedly; her vibrant spirit pulling me out a bit further from the fog and into the light. Huck and I would lose each other in that fog. Even heaven couldn’t find me for a while. My family was there, along with my friends, behind the scenes with hugs and kisses to renew me. And one day, I would emerge again because of the love.

As the screen went blank, I felt Thomas’ arm tighten around my shoulder. I held him close and then I stood and began doing the nightly chores around the house. Dishes in the dishwasher, laundry from the washing machine to the dryer. I had reentered the cushion I dwelled in for years; the shock which my body and mind know how to do so well. The brain miraculously functions without allowing unwanted thoughts to invade…but there were those images. Place the dishes on the rack. His deep blue eyes. Wash my face. How chubby and healthy he looked. And later came the tears. The images took over and he held me in our bed, in the beautiful periwinkle room we created together. And I talked to him about my feelings and we cried together.
Today I woke and stepped into my life again, grateful for all the gifts Jesse gave me. Grateful for my living children, my home, meaningful work, my writing, my family, friends and community. Grateful for the videos which we shall quickly convert to DVD’s. I am who I am today, partly because Jesse came to Earth. And I shall see him again. I have a great deal to do before I join him. There will be no day that slips by unnoticed, no hand I forget to hold, no words left unspoken. Thank you God for second, third, and forth, chances. Every day we get another.

Murphy

Murphy was a complex guy. He was a scruffy looking fellow with a rather large head, and truth be told, he was quite quirky. Rarer than the Panda Bear, The Glen of Imaal Terrier originated in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. They were bred to help eradicate badgers and foxes from these regions and proved tenacious and fearless.

When first I found him, I knew nothing about his fearsome nature, but thought he rather resembled a stuffed animal. Once he joined our family, life would never be the same. As sweet and gentle as he was with children and babies, he would not abide any other four-legged creatures in his territory, and harbored a particular dislike for frogs – of which there are many on our property. He chose odd pathways (rarely a straight line) when fetching a ball, attacked his bed before resting and loved a good party. Our friend Mary Lisa described him as having a comic dignity.

Two years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer and given approximately 6 months to live. His zest for life and indomitable spirit carried him through blindness and well past his allotted time. Murphy did not grow gaunt and never ceased barking heartily at the neighboring canine, whenever they had the nerve to announce their existence. He survived two falls into our fish pond, sightlessly emerging unscathed. On the day he died he played tug-of-war with my husband, Thomas, and ate a full dinner.

This past weekend, Murphy succumbed to the illness and died in our home. His passing taught me a few things, and that’s saying “something” for a Grief Therapist. Late at night, he began breathing laboriously; I felt his generous heart pounding wildly beneath my hand. We called an all-night clinic and were about to bring him there. Having been acquainted with the end of life for many humans – I took his big beautiful head into my hands. “It’s okay…Go, Murphy”, I told him, “Go and run in the fields with Sullivan.” (The only dog he’d ever liked.)

This wonderful fellow locked gazes with me. A while later as he lay collapsed on the floor, he heard his master’s voice speaking on the phone to the clinic and gathered all his strength to pull himself up and make his way over to where Thomas stood, once again collapsing for a final time. I stroked him as he breathed his final gasps and his spirit fled the tired body that imprisoned it.

It was a spiritual moment for me, his departure. I felt honored to be included in this, his last adventure. We all leave here at some point and I only hope that when I go, I do it like he did, surrounded by my loved ones and quickly without too much suffering

Thank you Murphy for sparing us the clinical setting and the decision for death which I’d had to impose on beloved animals in years gone by. He went out like he lived, a rugged, earthy Irishman. We will surely miss him for all the days to come.