June 4 has come and gone again...

Yesterday marked 6 years since Nora's death. After working on one of the most recent anniversaries, I determined that whenever possible I'll spend those days (the days marking her birth and death) with my family.  It's just where I want to be on October 30 and June 4.

I was grateful for some moments on June 3 during Alida's nap to look at the slide show her aunt Anna had made about her life for the memorial service.  I was grateful for tears.  And I was glad for the few moments I have spent in her garden in recent days.  It's growing so beautifully and as I sat on the large rock (our only seating...thus far), some of the words of a poem Jason wrote about creating her garden came to mind, and have a number of times since: "...we scrape the weeds aside and mark a place where, when it needs to huddle with the memories, a heart may hide..."

Jason and I had talked about how we wanted to spend the anniversary day, other than together for as much of it as possible.  We had decided on some more "rock hauling grief work."  The summer Nora died, we (Kali, Jason and I) spent hours and hours hauling rocks from the old rock pile in the woods to our main parking space.  We built it by hand, together, sometimes talking, often silent and grateful for physical labor that required very little thought and was predictable and we could see notable progress and it just felt good to hurl rocks!  So Alida joined us this time around and we got started on another parking space that we have been slowing working at with bucketfuls of rocks from the garden as we extract them.  Two trailer rides and loads of rocks later, we determined that it would no longer be fun family work if we didn't transition to brunch (which became lunch) and a nap for the littlest!  And as Jason spread out the rocks that we had collected, we were not all that far from our final goal. Thankfully (since our gardens are a lot bigger than 6 years ago), this parking space will not be nearly as involved as the last.

In the evening we hosted another blood drive at Virginia Blood Services, a tradition that has become quite meaningful for us and also a pretty fun time!  While our percentage of donors able to give wasn't quite as good as sometimes (I had thought we were 9 for 15 but upon a closer look at my pictures we were actually 11 for 17), it didn't seem like many of the workers there were sitting around.  Or maybe I would not have noticed if they were since it was quite the party. I think there were about as many kids there as adults so we had quite the cheerleading squad, or probably more accurately stated the snack eating crumb spilling crew.

I'm so impressed with the staff there who seem wonderfully accommodating to us taking over the snack area and with kids going from play area to checking on a parent donating and back again.  I remember fondly being treated kindly and getting treats when I went with my dad years ago, so I can only imagine how much more memorable these blood drives must be with a handful of friends to hang with and a whole table filled with snacks and people laughing and talking and enjoying being together (and getting stuck and maybe helping someone in dire need of blood while we're at it!). 

I have had quite the run of disappointing attempts to give and so was really hoping for a good experience.  It didn't start out great when we got there and realized that I had remembered the book about Nora, her memory box, all the snacks I had made, both kids, and the camera but not my wallet with my ID cards.  Thankfully we found some satisfactory ID with our car registration information and so I passed that hurdle.  And my iron was 12.8 with the cutoff of 12.5 so I made it past the second hurdle.  Now if only they could find a good vein - where have they all gone?  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was pretty nervous on our way into town.  I don't exactly have a warm and fuzzy feeling when I think about needles. I've been stuck a number of times lately for blood work as I'm trying to figure out if some of my odd physical symptoms have any cause that should be reason for concern.  And the last number of attempts at giving blood were frustrating in that my iron was too low or they missed my veins (in both arms on one recent try).  So I needed a good experience to "get me back on track."  I normally like to go first at the blood drives to "get it out of the way" but it got busy fast and there was such a buzz of people that before I knew it I was the only one that hadn't checked in. I had been so occupied talking with friends, getting hugs, holding the youngest little one present for the evening, eating snacks and taking pictures that I had lost track of the time.  I had also gotten less nervous.  I felt uplifted by the energy in the room and the wonderful people creating it.

I checked out fine, got the most experienced staff person who said she was going to "pull out all the stops" for me, knowing the last few times had been rough. She got things rolling, for just a moment, and then lost the vein and after a number of minutes (they were long minutes) of digging around decided it was not worth continuing.  I was near tears but could tell how very disappointed she also felt that it had gone this way.  i didn't want to make it harder on her by bursting into tears so held it in...A number of them encouraged me to not give up trying just yet, and I don't plan to.  But I definitely felt discouraged and sad and was experiencing a greater flood of emotions to contend with than I had faced up until that point in the day.

It just felt kind of pointless.  They wasted all kinds of things on me - all the disposable medical supplies - and I gave enough blood to make me ineligible for another 8 weeks but not enough to help anyone and left with a bruised up hurting arm making it uncomfortable to have Alida anywhere near where she might bump it. Clearly the intended goal of the evening, for me personally, had not been met.  But the event was much bigger than just me.  At least a few folks would not have been there at all giving blood had it not been for us hosting the event in memory of Nora (one friend hadn't given since about 1999).  I got to reconnect with a friend that I hardly ever get to see.  Hopefully lots of future blood donors were being inspired and seeds planted through watching their parent or friends donate blood and have a good time while doing so.  

I realized when we got home that while there were many ways I could spin the evening positively, I was having a strong desire (could it even have been a need?) to wallow just for a bit in my sadness.  I was feeling some of the emotions that became so familiar at various points in Nora's life.  It was hard to not feel like a failure while mothering her.  It sometimes felt like no depth of desire or no outpouring of effort was good enough to help her to thrive - nursing her hourly around the clock did not compute into the weight gain she needed so desperately.  Tough, tough stuff!  It's much easier to focus on the positive memories, the ways Nora contributed to our family in such beautiful ways, the community of people that surrounded us and supported us during those months and to turn all of that into energy that leads us to want to extend ourselves and give of ourselves to others in need.  I like to see the flowers blooming in Nora's garden and most of the time I want that to be what gets my attention - the beauty and new life springing forth.  Yet I also want to allow myself space to continue to experience the hard emotions too, as it seems to me that that process is also part of my ongoing healing journey. 

When we got back home, our Tangly Woods crew, along with a few other close friends, watched Rivers and Tides about Andy Goldsworthy's art.  The first time we saw it, the documentary reminded Jason about a number of lessons that Nora's life made more real to him.  The one that stood out to me last evening and since is the whole notion of not holding onto things too tightly.  He invests himself fully into various artistic expressions only to have them washed away when the tide comes in or a wind blows. It seems to me that once again it offers a call to me to be fully present to my surroundings, to deeply engage in the place where I find myself, to allow the process to be more important than the end product, and to be open to the unexpected.  

On the eve of the anniversary I looked at pictures in and read the book to Alida that my mom created about Nora's life.  And we talked some about it together.  The next day I was reading her some library books and she was very intent on not reading one.  I didn't know why not and wanted to see what it was about.  Well, I wasn't past the first page when I understood her hesitation.  The mother had just recently died and the children were grappling with Christmas approaching without her physically with them.  This prompted another conversation with Alida about death and I talked about how the mother was very sick but that in most cases mommies live for a very, very long time.  Alida replied without a moment's hesitation, "that's what you are gonna do."  I hope so!  Because sometimes I'm not a very quick study.  These important life lessons seem to take a long time to sink in, but I'll keep working at it!

P.s. When we got to the blood drive I realized that we did in fact have a family member sporting Nora's favorite color - thanks to Alida's sparkly shoes!