Grounding

I'm crying again.  Eleven years ago I was crying at this time, late morning, on this day, November 10th, as I flew to Walla Walla for Mom to die.

The anniversary of Mom's death doesn't hit me the same way every year...some years it's full of struggle, other years it's poignant laughter.  A different kind of struggle for life.  You know...the way life is.  I'm glad it's that way.  But today I'm on the phone again.

Every year I work on a project at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas that involves phone calls to around 100 of the patients/families I work with.  And every year those calls inlcude women exclaiming how they'd forgotten it's nearly Thanksgiving.  They are so consumed with their spouse/parent/child/friend/ex's process through transplant, serving as the 24/7 caregiver these patients require, that loving toward life takes over the mundane things, like holidays.

The week after Mom's funeral was Thanksgiving -- we spent it with our neighbors, Truman and Nina, celebrating Thanksgiving a couple days after marking what would have been Mom's 52nd birthday on Nov 20.  God she was young.

As I go into this weekend, I remember...that flight back to Walla Walla, the yellow begonias at the front door that held on through the frost until Monday morning when she finally died, the smell of the bedroom, the cap on her hairless head...the laughter of Mom's voice as she talked on the phone, the reliability of her green car on the corner when school got out, the notes and lists as she planned holiday meals, her diet Coke on the desk in the kitchen, the beautiful papers at Christmas, the fuzzy black coat that now hangs in my closet, the box i keep of letters and cards she sent over the years, her brilliant blue eyes & glorious red hair.....

And so I'm crying again, talking to these patients because I know why remembering Thanksgiving is unthinkable, is not even on the radar, and how much the call from someone who does remember brings me back to earth.

And I welcome the ground.



©2011 Mindy Danylak