Life’s short

January 17, 2016January 17, 2016 by Karen, posted in family, good grief

So, this year there will be a February 29th. This is significant for me because my mother died on February 29th in 1996, 20 years ago. We sort of joked about how kind it was for her to pick a day that only comes once every four years so we wouldn’t have to be sad every year.

Ha. Ha.

the fam in billerica — The family in the early 70’s.

The irony of it is this: there is not a leap year every four years. Did you know that sometimes leap year skips (leaps? 🙂 ) its year? Yep.

Anyway, she was 55 when she died. Two years older than I am now.

She did have two years warning, but sadly, she was very sick from chemotherapy side effects for a lot of that time.

Today, I’ve been thinking. What if I only had two years left? How would the next two years be different for me if I knew they were the last two?

Of course, the lesson here is that none of us knows how much time we have. The reminder is that we can always choose to enjoy this day that we do have. Today.

What are you doing today?

Message from Mom

July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, good grief, He and me

So I had a visit last night from my mother. She died in 1996.

She visited me in a dream. She was wearing a long white dress that was cinched in at the waist with a sash that I think was also white. I should note that she never dressed like that in real life. Anyway, it was a slimmer, younger, healthy version of her (she was quite ill when she died) and she came to tell me something. When my mother comes through to me in my dreams, she never actually speaks out loud; she communicates with me through thoughts. Anyway, she came to give me a message and in the dream, I had the thought that this must be very important information for me to know, since she made the trip to tell me this, and that I better remember it.

Later on when I woke for the day, I remembered the dream very clearly. I remember my thoughts about the message too. What I DON’T remember is this: WHAT THE MESSAGE WAS!

I tried over and over to get it back, but it’s gone.
I told my husband this, and as I was telling him, the tears started.

He: Why are you crying?
Me: I don’t know! Because I can’t remember what the message was!

He: Don’t worry. You got the message. Just because you can’t remember it consciously doesn’t mean you didn’t get. It’s in your subconscious. You have it.

I immediately felt the truth of what he was saying. Every so often, my husband says exactly the right words to me at exactly the right time.

And then he sort of shuddered.

Me: What was that?
He: I got a chill.

So now I get it. That was my mother there in the car with us.

🙂

Rocks rock!

May 20, 2015May 20, 2015 by Karen, posted in Crystals, Functional Health, good grief, Metaphysical healing

Confession: I love rocks.

I always have. When I was a girl, I collected rocks in shoe boxes which I shoved under my bed. Full disclosure: I also did this with salamanders.

🙂

Recently, I was at a (free!!) Crystals Workshop (at the Portsmouth Regional Hospital! I know!) and I had an epiphany. Crystals are just fancy rocks! Rocks that come in beautiful shapes and colors!

So, now, I love crystals, too.

I read that sleeping with certain crystals near your bed (like clear quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, others) could facilitate having more vivid dreams and promote dream recall.

So, I put some on my nightstand. Clear quartz, rose quartz, a moonstone, and pink something or other.

At first, nothing happened. Then I kicked it up a notch: I started using different combinations of crystals. Moved them around a little. Moved them closer to my bed.
And then I forgot about them.

On the third night, I realized that I’d had vivid dreams (with bright colors! and some of my dead relatives showed up!) 3 nights in a row. I also had 3 dreams that I could remember from the same night.

I’m wondering about the significance of that number 3 now…

Be brave; give it a try! I’d love to hear how it works for you!

Missing my mother

May 10, 2015May 10, 2015 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief

It’s Mother’s Day, and I am missing my mother.

My mother died. Nineteen years ago. Sometimes I am embarrassed by the tears that can suddenly overtake me when I realize that I am still missing her so much. Really? At almost 53 years old?

Really.

Sometimes the emotion sneaks up on me so fast and is so strong that it takes my breath away. But it’s been so long, I think. I shouldn’t still feel so bad, I think.

The truth is that I didn’t appreciate her enough while she was still alive. I left her in a million ways before she left me.

Now that I am the mother in this complicated mother-daughter algorithm, I have insights that I lacked then. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized all the ways that my mother was there for me that I didn’t even know about.

We are connected forever to our mothers. My mother carried me inside of her, and now I carry her inside of me. Whenever I wonder if she is still with me, I get a huge rush of feeling-love?- that assures me of her continued presence in my life. Just like when she was still alive, she is always as close as I will allow her to be.

The Song of Karen (or whoever)

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief

I went to the Crystal Harp Healing Session at The LoveLight Center with an open mind. I wasn’t sure what the ‘healing’ part was about, but I have heard Cheryl play that instrument before, and that was worth going back for.

There were about 9 of us seated in a circle. Shoes were shed at the door. The sequence was this:
1. She played for the group.
2. She then played an individual melody for each person present.
3. She closed with another song for the group.

It took about half an hour. It was free.

What was it like? Well, you know how when you have a massage or acupuncture session, sometimes there is an emotional release? It was like that for me (full disclosure: so okay, I was crying).
Right before Cheryl said that she was guided to play ‘my’ song first, I was sitting there thinking:

I wonder if my mother is here?

One moment before the music began, I suddenly felt like she was standing right behind me.

Is that you, Ma?

My mother Mary died in February 1996 on Leap Day. She was only about two years older then than I am now.
Then the music started.
Then the tears.
Yep. It was her.
Thanks, Cheryl.

Telling our story

December 8, 2014December 14, 2014 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, knitting, The write words at the write time

I was at a craft show a couple of weekends ago. The weather was awful–freezing rain coating the icy snow on the ground that fell overnight. As soon as I got through the door, I stopped to shake it off of me. The first thing I saw was a table of scarves and hats, and the small dark-eyed woman standing behind it caught my eye.

I took a minute to look at the items on the table. I noticed a black and white scarf that I knew would make a great gift for a number of the people on my list.

I asked, “How much is this?”

“Fifteen dollars,” she replied, “and you can pick a free cookbook from the box,” she added, hopeful, hands clasped in front of her.

I looked down. The ‘cookbooks’ were some old cooking magazines from 2008.

Well, all-righty then.

As she was wrapping it up, I was looking through my bag for my checkbook (note to self: Clean this damn thing out!).

I asked, “Did you make these?”

“Yes. Well, me and my daughter did. And then after she died, I made some more myself,” she told me.

What? Oh, no.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her, and suddenly found myself hugging her. “Yes, it was hard,” she said, and proceeded to tell me about how her diabetic daughter who couldn’t feel her feel very well had a blood sugar drop that caused her to get into a car accident. “She went through the windshield and died instantly, the…the….” she trailed off.

“Medical examiner?” I offered.

“Yes! Yes, the medical examiner said. She didn’t feel anything, he said, and that made me feel a little better, but I was still pretty sad. Until my birthday,” she said.

This is what happened on her birthday: She and her husband were having lunch, feeling the feelings only parents who have lost their child feel. Suddenly, her glass of water slid across the table. About four inches. By itself. “I said, ‘Did you see that?’ to my husband. “‘That’s her wishing you a Happy Birthday,’ he told me, and we both teared up. Then I felt much better. I knew she was okay.”

Sometimes, people just need to tell their story.

Even if they aren’t writers.

Long time no see

May 30, 2014 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, good grief, Midlife Crisis, no fear

I went to see Melissa at Deep Blue Truth in Kennebunk today. I go every year (at least once) near my birthday as a present to myself. I always get messages from one or more of my friends and relatives that have died, and today was no exception.
When they come through, they always talk about something that is personal to me and to them. Something that helps me know that it is really them. Something that no one else would know. They give some kind of a sign.

Today, someone named John came through. Okay, so John is my dad, so that’s a no brainer. Melissa told me that he kept telling her to say ‘matches’, to talk about striking matches.

Last night, I was talking to my husband, telling him I needed to get some more matches to light candles, that I was down to my last 2 books. I joked that I was just coming to the end of my dad’s stockpile of boxes of matchbooks that we found in his house after he died…in 1998.

Pass the kleenex.

Pi(e) Day

March 6, 2014 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, good grief, Karen's Kitchen, Life in the cube

National Pie Day was January 23rd this year. I missed it. The “other” pie day is March 14. This Pi Day, the math Pi Day, is the second chance for those people who missed the first one. You know, like me. Like I do every year.

Every year for the past several years in the weeks leading up to January, my friend and colleague Sheri and I have talked for days about how we should make pies for Pie Day, how we should bring them in to work and share them with everyone. How we should get everyone else to make pies and bring them in too. How we could make both savory and sweet pies and have it be a potluck meal. How much fun it would be!

And then we didn’t do it.

So we’d start talking about the March Pi Day, the do-over chance, and why don’t we do it that day instead?

And then we didn’t do it.

Things get in the way. We’re too busy. We’re too tired. We don’t have all the ingredients. Yada yada.

This year I have been thinking about Pie Day alone, because my friend Sheri died last August. I toyed with the idea of making pies myself this year in January.

And then I didn’t do it.

As March 14th approaches, I decided that my heart wasn’t in it and I was going to let the day pass unobserved, just as I usually did. Except then my daughter came home from school and announced, “Mom, we’re going to make pies for Pi Day.”

From the mouths of babes, right?

Cardinals

January 26, 2014 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, Life in the cube, restaurants

I recently spent a few minutes (okay, hours) trolling the Facebook news feed and something caught my eye. Someone (sorry, I have no idea who or what or when exactly) posted that every time you see a red cardinal, that is a sign that a loved one that has died is saying hello to you, or something to that effect.

That’s nice, I thought.

Then a funny thing happened. I started noticing red cardinals.

My friend Christine at work has a tapestry hung up in her cube that depicts multiple red cardinals.
I went to the movies to see The Nut Job (skip this one-see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty instead) and the bad guy’s side kick was a red cardinal. A squat, mean, nasty caricature of a cardinal, but still a cardinal.
Today, I went to brunch at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth and there in the foyer was a fake tree with cardinals all over the branches.

So, maybe this is just that phenomenon that happens to you when you are pregnant and you suddenly start seeing pregnant women everywhere you go.

On the other hand, this is the time of year that my mother and father died (mom 2/29/96 and dad 3/15/98) and so I am already thinking about them.

Maybe they are thinking about me, too.

Still becoming

January 5, 2014 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, Midlife Crisis, movies, no fear, relationships

When my mother was 51, she was busy getting ready to die, but she didn’t know this yet. Well, maybe she did know it on some level, but she never talked about it with me pre-diagnosis so I really can’t be sure. Certainly none of us, her children, her husband, knew it yet.

I’m 51. At 51, I feel like I am still becoming who I am. At 51, her life was drawing to a close.

Seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has me thinking about things like this today. Walter Mitty is about many things. It’s about living your life, but also it’s about how you live it. You can spend it offsides, thinking about what you wish you were doing or imagining all that you’d like to (someday) do. Or, you can, at any time, decide to actually do the thing(s) that you thought you could not ever do.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

In the movie, it was a fine line. Walter Mitty crossed it. I don’t think that my mother ever crossed it. I am wondering if I have crossed it.

Interwoven throughout Mitty are images of his past that are meaningful to him. They are there to let him know that a) he is on the right track and that b) both of his parents, his dad who had died when he was 17, and his mother who was still alive and baking clementine cakes for him, were there supporting him every step of the way.

For me, the real message of this movie is this: No matter what, we are always our parents’ child.