Kids and the School Shootings: 7 Tips Left Out of EVERY Article I've seen

I couldn't keep silent.

Tell your kids you don't understand, either.

There are some VITAL points being left out of EVERY article I've read about "how to talk to kids about the school shootings in Connecticut." Yes, my heart is heavy; yes, it's terrible, and yes, many of us are having knee jerk reactions about gun control, religion in schools, and so on.

But, as a widow and parent of a sensitive, resilient 8 year old, this is in my wheel house, it affects you TODAY, and it's important. So I'm just going to write about those bits that have NOT shown up in the many articles shared by my more than 2000 FB friends, on my neighborhood, PTA, official school, and church list servs.

In general, these tips will help you with elementary school age kids but they may be useful for your own emotional health or with talking to older kids or even adults. Every child is different -- listen to your instinct and your experiences about your own individual child and do what works with your own parenting style. If you recognize something negative about your parenting style from what I say... well, crises can teach us things, and today is a new day. 

So listen up.

1. Make your words honest and age appropriate. DO NOT LIE to your kids and do not try to conceal what happened. You WILL learn a lot if you listen well to their questions FIRST and this in some way works best if you talk less, and if you don't start the topic. You do NOT need to give them more details than they ask for. Many articles have been saying, "don't bring it up" and I hear a lot of parental discomfort with this point. Well, this does depend on the context. You may feel the need to control the story -- and at some ages, in some school situations, this may make sense. I find if I keep in mind that phrase -- honest and age appropriate -- it helps A LOT.
2. Be honest about your own feelings. OK, this is mentioned in SOME of the articles but it's too important for ANYONE to skip -- and it is the one, that, in my experience, parents are most likely to be uncomfortable with. One of our most important tasks as parents is to demonstrate to kids that feelings -- sadness, anger, fear, helplessness -- can be overwhelming. It is not their fault, it's not only them, and it's part of being human. As they grow, they will learn (from you!) how to manage this sense of overwhelm... which is VERY scary, especially at younger ages. DO CRY in front of your kids. If they don't like it... help them understand it's natural and you can't control it (or maybe, you might say, "it's dangerous to cry while driving. Mommy's going to pull over for a minute." It is also up to you to model for them how to handle this intensity. 
3. Share also HOW YOU DEAL with intense feelings. Do you hit, clam up, try to shove it down? Your kids can tell EXACTLY what you are doing. My daughter notices from tiny movements of my eyes or lips when my thoughts or emotions have shifted. Don't think you'll be successful at hiding your feelings from your child. If you're in a bad mood, you can say so. If you're sorry you reacted a certain way, say so. DON'T apologize for your feelings or for healthy manifestations of those feelings. Play loud music, go for a walk, have a comforting snack. Drink water to remind yourself to take care of yourself. Breathe to calm down. These are sophisticated tools peddled by gurus, but you know them. SHARE your good ways of coping with your child. (If alcohol is part of your coping, you probably want to hide that, okay?)
4. Depending on your child's age, share your uncertainty. An important part of your message is that you, as parent, are not able to control what happens outside in the world but you will always listen and you will always (poof!) be honest. Caveat: this is less useful for younger age kids who may feel scared. You should reassure them that they are safe and that you and everyone (school staff, police, local and national government) is doing everything they can to keep kids safe -- and that these terrible things do not happen very often. A side effect of providing this reassurance is that it may remind you, too, of a larger perspective and your real safety.
   If your child asks a question you can't answer, say "I don't know" or "I wish I understood, too" or share something from your faith tradition. DO NOT TRY TO CONTROL THE STORY and do NOT force your point of view (religious, political, whatever) on your kids. This makes you look "shut down" to them when you MOST want to be open to their questions.
5. Give kids time to process. Understand that kids learn things AS THEY GROW. We often explain children's grief -- and many other topics in emotional and cognitive development -- as "like peeling an onion." Children's feelings and thoughts unfold in layers. You may have a concise and terrific talk with your kids and they don't ask questions. You may be disappointed or push them. Let them lead you -- they may just want to go off and play. They will ask more questions later IF you make it clear that you are listening, not terrified of the topic, not reactive, do not have an agenda, and that you are fine with them being "slow to understand." (They're not slow -- but parents are often impatient). Big topics tend to unravel slowly, to be understood over time. New contexts, other developments in their lives, and the cognitive growth that is the main quality of childhood, will mean that they ask you similar questions over time (take each one seriously... they are actually asking something different). It will mean that a question pops up when you least expect it or when some rigid family member is visiting. You can handle it by being....
6. I'll say it again: HONEST AND AGE APPROPRIATE. Keep this in mind, because every few months, as your kids grow and learn, and the new questions come up, the meaning of "honest" and of "age appropriate" will change, too. 
7. Respect your own feelings and understand that your experience of this may be completely different from your kids' experience. It's okay for you to take care of yourself, too. Get comfortable with the fact that you can't control the world and that our own feelings can sometimes feel like "too much." Your comfort level will enable your children to "hear" that you are open to questions -- even though we know you don't want to handle this terrible topic AGAIN. Dealing with "shit that happens" (in all forms) is part of parenting and part of our world and you can handle it.

Okay, end of lecture. No, not quite:

I learned this stuff from being a widow and parenting my grieving child. BUT, the more I learned... the more it was really about my own spectrum of emotions and accepting responsibility for parenting in an uncertain world. Parenting a child through this kind of crisis is not all about "grief" -- a topic that too many people find intimidating or frightening. Most of these tips are really about life. When you really think about it, there is very little in our kids' lives we can control. But we CAN help them through it, and we can learn from them.

I know these tips are not concise. I know there is a lot of intermingling and melding and overlap between them. I wrote this quickly and when have I ever done that?

And it's not complete. I'm assuming you've already read at least 6 articles. I still hope it is helpful.

Please, share. 

Wordless Wednesday: 19 nativities and me

Clockwise from upper left: cluster of 8 sort of neutral colored ones inherited from Frances;
white soap nativity I used to make and sell by the dozens; menorah; teeny tiny,
itty bitty nativity from Puebla, Mx., with tapemeasure for scale
(poultry are invisible, do not know why Jesus and manger are separated);
scattered up from lower center is a big Mexican one we gave Frances;
Salvadorean one painted on bean cross sections;
red roof nativity and last loose bits nativity, mine from Mexico.
Plus misc. Mexican sheet tin angels, insufficient quantity of Hanukah candles
and the grave of a broken Chinese goldfish ornament made from a real eggshell.

Not even counting the nativities on the tree, the two that are sort of invisible in the picture, and two more types that I used to make and sell by the dozen (in addition to white and clear soap sets):

These were big hits. I sold at least 100 of each, for $25 (sardine cans) and $12 (matchboxes). If I'd stuck to it, I'd be the very young grandmother (perhaps auntie?) of the Crafty Bastards and this whole postmodern craft thing. It was a PITA, making our own market before Etsy, hell, before the Internet... we did it and loved it, but it couldn't be more than a hobby, at least, not the way I saw it then.

So, given my obsession: Do you believe me when I say I'm not a Christian? Do you think there's more to the nativity story? Does 8 years in infertility explain anything? A craving to repeat innocence? I see it as adoration... all loving through the eyes. But to say I understand it, or that it makes sense... does art need to? Does magic need to make sense at all? (Do only Christians believe in magic? Or innocence?)

I still love these, and looking over my vast empire, 19 tiny Bethlehems all on an endtable, and our decked out white glistening tree, it just makes me want to make things again.

Open House

So I went to an open house at the Divinity School one evening a few weeks ago. Over a meal, we introduced ourselves. I started off the third table of prospective seminarians:

“Hi, I’m Supa Dupa Fresh, I live nearby with my husband and young daughter. I’m an agnostic, but I am evangelical about three things: 1) Unitarian Universalism, my chosen religion; 2) technology and its power to connect people, especially small communities who would otherwise be dispersed; and 3) the incredible ability we each have to recover from loss, which I lived through when I was widowed nearly four years ago, when my daughter was a toddler.

“Unlike the rest of you, I have to say I’m not really sure WHO it was that called me… [pauses for laughter… hears crickets] but I’ve received a call to ministry very similar to what several of you have described and I think in a lot of ways it would be a terrific direction for me. I’m fortunate have the opportunity to explore new options at this stage of my life, and I thank all of you here tonight with me for being part of my journey.”

I told Mr. Fresh how my joke fell flat and how that, in itself, was funny to me. He tends to be very realpolitik about social interactions, which is a very gentle way, I think, to say that he thinks about war more than warmth.

“You have it all wrong,” he said (I expected that.) “First of all, they don’t know what a Unitarian is. I doubt many of them even know what you meant by ‘agnostic,’ and if they did, all they thought when they heard you was about the points they would get by converting you after dinner. You were just FRESH MEAT.”

As sweet as these future peer seminarians were (every single one an earnest Christian), I kind of think he has a point. But if I do go to Divinity School, I won’t be at all afraid: I know what I believe and that it’s a journey. I’m not attached to agnosticism – if anything, I’d like to be certain once in a while and maybe right a small percentage of those times.

At least around my husband.


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Another Memorial Service

Here's what I said at Amy's memorial service, held at our church, just a week from the fourth anniversary of my husband's memorial service there. Am I bad for putting all my energy into those that survive and not the spirit and memory of the woman who was once so vital, so here, and now isn't? Am I awful for "knowing" this world and how to navigate it, which no one knows, for remembering how poorly I did and trying to change it for John?

----

As I stand here, among the memorial quilts, I am called back almost exactly four years, to the memorial service for my husband. The day was so much like this one – I think it was a little hotter – and the room was filled with friends from all areas of our lives and music, just brimming over with love. I couldn’t wait for the service to be over, for what I was going through to be over.

I wish I could have bottled that intense feeling, love and support poured out by more than 300 people. I didn’t know that the next day would be not the end of my grief, but day one of a journey that I’m still on. I didn’t know it would be by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t know then, that I’d find a mission helping other young widowed people, many of them raising small children.

Because there were many days, just a few months later, when I looked around and saw no one. Where the hell is everybody? Everybody who who promised that day that they’d hold us up? I was alone, and it was horrible, and worst of all, I know it didn’t’ have to be that way. Those people did love us, and still do – but they were helpless not knowing what was right, and I was too tired to ask.

I didn’t know then that I wouldn’t ask well or that I’d get so little support. Now, four years later after sharing and learning from hundreds of young widowed people, I understand some of the simple things we can do to fix this gap.

So please don’t say to John what everyone said to me that day: “Let me know what I can do to help.” We don’t know. We’ve forgotten how to get to the grocery store; we certainly don’t have the capacity to organize our willing friends. That statement is our 3rd least favorite, after “he’s in a better place” and “at least you found someone to love.”

Just do something, anything specific, and above all stay in touch – call or email him when you’re hurting or when you’re happy. When you’re wrapped up in your busy life, call John. When you’re at the grocery store, call John. When you are remembering Amy or carrying out her good work in the world, call John. When you feel bad you haven’t called, call John. When you know you can’t do anything, call John. When he doesn’t call you back, call him again (we never check messages). When you have an extra hug lying around, call John. Call on their anniversary, the date of their loss, her birthday or his or the boys’. You won’t make their pain worse. There’s not really any “wrong” thing to say.

John, Adam and Bryan, if they are anything like me, will need your contact, but seeing them doesn’t have to feel like a duty, or be hard work. It’s mutually enriching, easy, fun. You needn't be strong or comfortable with emotional displays. You can cry, or not. It doesn’t matter if you knew him or knew her or hadn’t seen either in a while. Sometimes someone just wants someone else to come by and help fold laundry, or keep them company while they read.

These small favors, these connections with you, are what keep a grieving person afloat.

So please, do what you can, do whatever work you need to do on your own to get comfortable with it, and please stay close in a way that works for you. I promise it won’t hurt you and it really will make a difference for them.

---

And will my words make any difference at all for this loving man, still a husband, and his beautiful little boys? I pray, please, please. We can change our world, please, let's do it bit by bit and hand to hand.


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An abundant stump

I’ve been thinking a lot about the new-ish age-ish interpretation of “abundance.” I see and hear "scarcity mentality" in every nook and person of my church while we work to raise our annual half-mil, and it repels me. But I'm not qualified or secure enough in my own "abundance" to get everyone all at once, POOF!, to adopt this major shift of mindset. Yes, changing minds is hard... but despite my desire to move forward, some segment of my brain rebels because anything so easy has got to be bullshit, right?

But a way to understand that "enough is a feast," and "I already have everything I need" popped up as clear and true when we had some work to do in the garden, and my 6-year-old got it right away.

I could have explained taking down an old tree my old way, by poor-mouthing: "We had to remove this tree. Yeah, kill it. It was like 50 years old. It had been dying for at least five years and no one wanted to take care of it because did you know it costs like more than a thousand dollars to take down a big tree like that? Hard decision. But the insurance claims would be a way lot more if it dropped on our neighbor's roof!" We can talk about costs, death, risks, and it's all negative, even as you watch the skilled man dangling a chainsaw 30 feet up, better than any circus act.

My daughter, though, loved the abundance as soon as she saw the result of his work: "Look! We got a new stump! We can have tea parties on it, jump off it, and plant things on it AND around it!" She even knew her fish would want to watch the man climbing the tree with his stirrups and harness. We moved the fishbowl onto the windowsill so he could see.

My girl apprehends a whole, beautiful world with a new toy around every corner or at the base of every lost garden asset.

And it clicked just a bit for me then. One click.


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Kitty

It was an ordinary Sunday at church. (Not really, but let’s pretend it was.) Sunny and emotional. We had just sung “Morning Has Broken,” a favorite of mine from the summer camp I hated.

“Now is the time in our service when we share joys and sorrows, the significant events which have touched our lives.”

Up comes a young woman I know a little, with her mother. They have a joy to share, and a sorrow. The young woman has had several operations for a brain tumor, but has been stable a long time. She’s in college. The pair look down, then up, then seek each other’s hand. I brace myself.

“We have a wonderful cat who we love, I grew up with her, and she has had a good life. She’s nearly 16. Earlier this week she didn’t seem to be eating so we took her to the vet.

He said she has terminal cancer. We don’t know how long she has.

She’s been losing weight. She still purrs, and she still wants to go outside, but we can tell that she’s leaving us. It’s just very hard to watch her suffer.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself, this was exactly what it was like during the last months of Gavin’s life. I know the humanity of someone who is losing everything, cat or human, and I remember my husband still could purr, still would have chased birds if it had been his birthright. I’m grateful that even though the cat might understand what’s ahead, she isn’t asking them to say otherwise. I can see how this family is living with and sharing the dignity of not pretending there’s hope. I’m a little envious, I’m flashed back, and then I am just plain sad.


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We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming

I was supposed to talk about how, today, I planted some of my late husband’s ashes with a new elm tree. But it’s not my day. A young mom in my church community was killed in a pedestrian-car accident. The younger of her two sons had his first playdate with my daughter, who’s a little older, two years ago. He’s a ball of joy and talked about going to "Shortie's house" for weeks. Her husband gave me some important dating advice. They both did. We weren’t close friends, heck we tangled sometimes, but we were part of the same church family.

Holy crap. She organized the childcare for my late husband’s memorial service, which took place at church. That makes it hit home. I will never forget the warm honest hug she gave me a few weeks later when things slowed down. Almost four years ago.

No matter how many times I hear about a loss, now matter how much I tell others “what to say, what to do,” or how much I really do help widowed people and their friends and families, it doesn’t get any easier for me.

I think of all the other accident widows and widowers I know. Two people in my local support group lost spouses as pedestrians. If I take a step back, I can wonder at the shock when we all know that driving is the most dangerous thing we all do. But then, I am still transfixed and befuddled at how I faced my dying husband every day for two years without really seeing him. Some information just can’t soak in, it just isn’t right for it to be understood, we say we want it to make sense but it can’t. And I can’t take a step back from this one, yet.

The friend who told me, as I started to cry on the phone, mentioned briefly not wanting to tell her daughter what was wrong, why she had been crying reading her email. “Something really bad happened… uh…. with a meeting Mommy went to,” she joked.

No way, I would be honest and age-appropriate. My daughter is learning a little at a time and she’ll empathize, in some way, with a kid losing a parent. Crying, I went in to the bathroom. My girl was in the tub, doing some kind of mermaid rocking. A rivulet ran nearly to the doorway. Crying, grabbing at towels and throwing them on the floor, I told her the sad news.

It didn’t go the way one might expect. I should have known, we’d just talked about it the other day. I didn’t involve her in the ashes thing yesterday, I treated it very casually, because she’s been indifferent to death lately, uninterested in talking too much about it. Maybe it’s the same protective mechanism that we adults use every time we get in the car or smoke a cigarette.

My crying sounded, to her, like laughter. In trying to cry in front of her, an activity I used to avoid, I sounded like I was laughing. Same blubbering, wiping of eyes, only with my head down instead of back, I suppose.

No, no, I am crying, it only sounds like laughing.
But… I never seen you cry, Mommy.
Yes you have. You used to tell me to stop when you were little. It was very upsetting to you, so I used to hide my crying from you, but it’s healthy to cry and you’re old enough to see it now.
Oh yeah. Now I remembering. You are crying.

A minute later we were both laughing. The emotional extremes are so close together. She turned her back and started drawing on the back wall of the tub with a green soap crayon.

Why did she die? My daughter asks, from the tub. Do they have pictures? Did her body break in two pieces?
Honey, we don’t talk about things like that.
But what happened to her body?
The police might take pictures but they will only show them if there is a way to prevent someone else from having the same accident. We don’t look at that kind of pictures.
But I WANT TO SEE THE PICTURES!!!!!
(I know, it’s normal. She’s learning how the body works.)
Nobody can ever look at those pictures, I’m sorry if you want to, but we can’t do that.
(What happened to open, honest, age-appropriate?)

Death is always going to be a morbid business, even if we're open about it, even if it's part of the cycle of life. Not that I care about any of that today.

As she put on her pajamas, on her own, like a big girl without me, I cried for being a widow, for enjoying reaching out to people in pain, for being able to deal with it most of the time. But not now. All I could imagine was the two little boys and the man, bereaved, numb, receiving casserole upon casserole upon bouquet. And imagining them in the heat of summer, their feelings starting to come back. A bereaved Dad facing the questions from his little one, the same questions I've heard from mine.

There's no way around it. It just plain sucks a giant rotten egg every single time.


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The Widow's Mite = the Widow's Might

The parable of the widow’s “mite” (a small, rough-cut, nearly worthless coin) from the Gospels tells is usually mentioned in the context of fundraising and commitment. The story is that after all the wealthy and middle-class members of the church donate gold and silver from some portion of their income, perhaps even the glorious tithe (10%!), a destitute widow at the end of the line hands over two tiny pennies – all that she has. In this interpretation, it’s the person who has nothing who is generous, giving literally her last coin. (The story’s also interpreted lots of different ways, including as a justification for anti-Semitism ... hey, not everyone chooses to play nice with the Bible).

I've seen this happen, and I've done it myself. Folks who are poor often have no trouble giving – those who have, understand how to “spend” some on one thing, some on another, building a reasonable budget from categories. Those who have nothing know that things and categories are irrelevant. They’re grateful, and they have, literally, nothing to lose.

And so, a few weeks ago as I consulted with my own minister about the call I heard to serve in Unitarian Universalist ministry, to lend my skills and gifts to the church which has given me so much, and to which I’ve given fairly substantial financial gifts (when I was facing bankruptcy and radical economic straits myself), I found that she and I had come to a fork in the road.

She mentioned she was stunned to see three young widows in her own flock who’d gotten as far as I had. One was ordained last year, the first from our congregation to complete her training and don her own mantle; another enters seminary this fall, and I was at that moment sitting with her in a restaurant trying to find whether this direction is the one that speaks to me most clearly, the one where I can have the biggest impact.

My beloved minister marveled at the phenomenon. Of how many people called under her gaze? -- not dozens -- three have been women, widowed young. She wants to get us all together for a lunch or something, so she can observe, what is it that unites us? What is it about the three of us that makes us all think this next journey should be the one to develop us? Because ministry is a very difficult path. In a recent sermon, she called ministry hard, thankless, unremunerative work that asks us for our strongest effort, for sacrifice, for stretch and reach and flexibility.

But see, I don’t find us three remarkable at all. Because the young widows and widowers I know are extraordinary, unlike anyone other group of people I've ever met. Not only are we deep and hilarious, we have perspective, we’re tough, and like all mothers, we’re tender and warm at the drop of a hat. We expect hats to drop, and the second shoe, too. We love fiercely, we’ve learned what works for us, and we brush off difficulties more easily than we did when we were young. We’re hopeful and we are pretty sure things will never be as bad as they were. We’re always moving forward, even when we’re nursing injuries. I think of young widows as momma wolves.

I know the other two widows in this clutch and we’re all quite different in most other ways. We’re united only by loss, and thus by our stage of life.

Of course, I’ll plan the lunch, it will be fun, and I’m sure I’ll learn something. But I’m not surprised at all to find widows on this road.

With this emptying of her pocket, the widow’s mite becomes the widow’s Might. When she has nothing left, still she digs deep. She's already given her all, and found out there’s more. Something that’s been there, all along, that she can see once there’s no more static. We each find something different, but we’re all changed radically after loss.

Maybe breaking has helped us to tune in to the pain of all the world. Maybe we learned to rise back up, singing. Some find they have the power to lead others to light. The widow is sure she can hold her child through a dark night and laugh as the dawn comes. Grief has forged us and we burned until we began to shine.

A widow has found the riches within her, invisible to others. And sometimes, she may be moved to share, knowing that if others haven’t been tested yet, they might need to see that penny as proof. (And fortunately, they can buy one on QVC...)


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The Epiphany

Last night right after we’d eaten, our Russian orthodox neighbor stopped by to spontaneously invite us to a feast dinner. At the bus stop just now I asked her husband, Peter, which feast were they celebrating?

“Epiphany,” he said.

“Oh, I thought it was a week after ours? Except that we don’t celebrate the Epiphany anyway,” I looked up, trying to calculate. Everything I know about the Orthodox religion I learned from David Sedaris. His mother always complained that her in-laws’ faith celebrated late just so they could buy Easter candy for half-price. But a blogging friend, Alicia, is enthusiastic about the religion, so I’m curious to know more. Any religion that much into gold leaf has virtues greater than half-price Russell Stovers.

“No, it’s the same date, but Julian calendar is 13 days later.”

Multicultural me said, as we walked back towards our split-levels, “Maybe not later, just different.” I’m not sure he noticed.

A flock of robins was peeping wildly outside my house. What the hell do they know? Can spring really be on its way?

What would I give for midwinter depression to roll into some sort of epiphany, an exalted realization of the oneness of everything? A flash of understanding, deep in my soul, of what’s wrong with me?

I’ve had enough of them, lucky me, to know what it’s like to have the bleak grey cloud fall away. It’s not divine, it’s got to be neurological, and I’m sure I always suffer in all the Freudian ways before I get there. But dammit, I want someone to hand me the frickin’ key.

I should be bright, but I'm dull.

Tell me why I’m always behind. Tell me why I frustrate those I love. Why I pick fights and miss deadlines. Why I don’t take care of myself. What did they do to crush me? How I adjusted and survived, why I’m afraid to thrive. These situations I’ve worked out from hardened muscles over the years. But why am I still falling for it? "Tell me?" Do I really want to know?

A few days ago I read Jen Lemen’s Mondo Beyondo ‘zine to my daughter. The new agey language didn’t faze her a bit (Jen, you’re brilliant, it’s just an old thing of mine. Resistance.). Shortie’s wide eyes made my voice earnest. I followed Jen’s process a bit, thinking, maybe this year will be all about forgiveness. Maybe that’s the one thing I’m ready for, that I need, that I can actually pull off.

It’s a big idea. Maybe today it’s manifest in my urgent desire for oranges. "Late coffee and oranges in a sunny chair," it ain't. I’d rather be back in bed right now.

It’s never easy, but it never gets done any other way than One. Step. At a time.

One goddamn step at a time.


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Slouching Towards Bethlehem

I made scores of nativity scenes like these between 1993 and 1998. During this period I participated in several craft shows, not the usual kind that you used to see that were all dried-flowers-and-Amish-bonnet shit.

People would say, what kind of art do you do? Or what medium do you work in? You can hardly blame them, it's a polite way to respond to the provocation "I'm an artist." I'd say, "Um, er, I don't really have a medium... I do sort of postmodern crafts. It's not like the craft stuff you're used to. You'd probably like the stuff I make but you might not consider it art, which is fine with me. Instead of making one object for $1000 I do like 40 for $25. And my subject matters is usually religious or political stuff, often I make things that are funny or erotic. Yeah, not really fine art either."

I always mingled sacred with profane. Yes, it's a sardine can. And the matchbook has a Christmas tree on the other side. Undigging, moving, this is the first time I've had to photograph them, and these are leftovers, not my best samples. I'm also responsible for the Virgin of Guacamole and the Socks of Turin.

I gave up on any hope of making stuff for a living probably around the same time the real postmodern craft movement, the Crafty Bastards and Subversive Cross-stitchers, the stuffed tampon and artisanal teddy bear makers, was brewing. As breadwinner I needed to make real money.

So it was, maybe, a coulda, woulda, shoulda.

All my art was consumer-oriented (like the above) and a great deal of it had a sacred sort of theme, even though it was often sacrilegious. So I decided to go to business school. I could, at the least, design products to be made in India and China.

Did I mention coulda, woulda, shoulda?

It is peculiar subject matter for me, with my (lack of) religious background. I really wanted a child. Gavin and I struggled through infertility for nearly eight years. Maybe making dozens of little babies in straw, obsessing over sequined stars and miraculous conceptions while blasting the Roches "We Three Kings" in my garret was my way to cope with that emptiness. Planning to conceive governed all the decisions I made in my 30s, the big ones.

I finished b-school, got pregnant at last, delivered my daughter, and received my husband's terminal diagnosis in less than two years. At 39, I was a widow using my degree to keep my remaining tiny family out of financial catastrophe.

You can see in the artwork that I'm into the "reveal," the surprise, holding out. Peeling back the sky. I try to tell my stories this way, too.

"BASTA!," I cry, an Italian grandmother over a hot pot of caldo verde, underway for Christmas dinner. "ENOUGH!"

I think I've connected the dots, some of which only started to show as I got involved in my Unitarian Universalist church after Gavin's death. After I listened.

I think I'm meant to be a UU minister. I had a "call" last May and have been pondering it, trying not to write about it till I'm sure, thinking, dreaming. I'm considering divinity school nearby, which would allow me to keep writing part-time.

It's really weird to (1) have a direction, (2) find something like this that fits an agnostic New York punk rocker, (3) think about myself as a spiritual person and someone capable of caring for a community. It's strange to me to think of some of my "skills" as just that, when I've spent so much energy in my life trying to change. This choice wouldn't be possible, either, if I hadn't transformed myself a bit.

It had to happen this way, slowly, with detours. In some ways ministry doesn't fit at all, in other ways, it's perfect harmony that was waiting for me to find it.

I'm not sure. I'm never sure.

But sometimes great things grow from unexpected seeds. (Insert a better metaphor here.) (PLEASE.)

Merry Christmas.


* I know, it's Portuguese soup. So sue me. I've seen too many Fellini movies. My vegetarian mother is here and I don't feel like cooking, this is something that can stay on all day while I hide in the bedroom.


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Musical Monday: Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith

It had to be this song. Gavin found in Patti a muse, gazed daily at the postcard of her on his desk, a NYC Rimbaud, a true artist, a puzzle his own age. And Patti was mine, too, legend said she was at the root of the punk rock I loved even if she was a damn poet and easy to mock, Gilda Radner singing “Gimme Mick,” as she pulled out a hairbrush to work on her armpits.

Parody aside, we both could have been her. Beautiful, sexually ambiguous, her own woman.

Dancing Barefoot is a love song that’s not afraid of death. At its climax she reads:

the plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
the mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
grave visitations
what is it that calls to us?
why must we pray screaming?
why must not death be redefined?
we shut our eyes we stretch out our arms
and whirl on a pane of glass
an afixiation a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
the hands of he and the promise that she is blessed among women.

It just had to be this song: perfect. A eulogist, the best man at our wedding, and his wife suggested it to me when I was coming up blank.
We played it as the recessional at Gavin’s memorial service, a hot day 3 weeks after his death.
First the minister strode up the aisle, then me, nearly running, as the service thank God was finally over.
(I know. The service was actually short. We cut off the testimonials. But I really wanted to get out of there.)
Crying just outside the sanctuary, a hug from one of my oldest friends, and my wonderful minister’s warm arms and iridescent green robes.

For months after Gavin’s death I played Dancing Barefoot over and over again, part of a “weepers” playlist, as the start of my structured nap/alone time, when I could get it.

This celebration of life, cry of passion, meditation on big stuff will always be part of my mourning.

Thank you, Patti. You'd become part of him and his art, he loved you, and you helped me sing him out.


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Echoes: Another Husband Sent Home

I don’t know how people survive in this world without a church. When Gavin was ill, we got so much out of the personal announcements at the beginning of services. It was a great comfort to be reminded in human scale and real time of the great circle of life: not only were other people fighting disease, busy being born, and learning to appreciate the world around them, but smaller things happened too: kids would announce that they’d adopted puppies, seniors might share that they’d found tango lessons alleviate Seasonal Affective Disorder.

As we faced the worst, we felt part of a rich and wonderful world, one in which everybody hurts sometimes. As time went on I felt grateful to share good news many times with those whose eyes had met mine over and over when things were sad.

Today, nearly five years later, one of those announcements hit me just right. It had two parts and the whomp snuck up on me.

“We’ve just heard from Sue that Freddie Sampson will be sent home tomorrow... for hospice care.”

Freddie is a sweet fellow in his 80s who’d been hit by a car a few weeks ago. We’d been spared most of the updates but I know from my friends’ stories that multiple operations after a major impact like the one he suffered don’t mean that he’s expected to come out of it.

His wife, Sue, is one of those grandmas who always has a twinkle to spare: she’s Miss November, lifting a champagne flute in a soaking tub full of bubbles, in the calendar of nude church ladies we’re doing for 2010.

Yes, I advocate for hospice. I talk about end-of-life decisions and bandy cancer statistics about at cocktail parties (and yes, I do sometimes get invited). But it doesn’t get any easier to hear that this lovely woman will be joining our club.

Closing in on the longest night of the year, with flu season’s worst still ahead of us, waiting for our mortgage to be approved in the worst economy of a generation, all I can feel is very, very sad to share in this loss.

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My Anissa Post: Prayer Isn't Enough

[Background on Anissa Mayhew here or here]

Leave it to the widow to say what no one else will: Prayer and love are great. But they are NOT ENOUGH. Whatever happens with Anissa, and I hope as strongly as you do that the outcome is whatever is best for her, things are NOT going to be okay.

So I’m going to give it to you straight: Send up those winged hopes. But plant roots, too, please: add something like this to your prayers and posts and intentions: "Whatever happens, I will help her family for the long haul." They -- Anissa’s husband and three children -- are going to ACTIVELY need your positive energy (and time and money) for at least the next three years.

Kid Theology, Part 2

My daughter will only listen to women vocalists, and I make mix CDs for the car every few weeks so it’s not All Pink, All the Time. At 5, she comes up with some funny ideas about the songs, like in “Dancing Queen” she heard the lyric as “Cheetah girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing Queen” so we had to play along and refer to ABBA as the Cheetah Girls for about a year. (We did tell her it was ABBA at first, and she got angry. So PEH! And I kept the lie going, partly because it would save me from even being tempted to buy anything by the Disney act. We lived in dread of the day she’d find us out: sing “Mamma Mia” and come home pissed. That day never came.)

Like all kids, she’s very musical. And like all kids her age, she’s starting to wonder where things came from. Since age 2 or so she’s been fascinated by inventors, robots, and how things work. Now she’s beginning to ask what made the seeds that made the grasses, flowers and trees: “Mommy, I came out of your tummy, but where did the world come from?”

“A lot of people have questions about that,” I straightened up, pleased to have a “teaching moment” just show up. “And so they study science to learn about where seeds, and water, and even the earth itself came from.”

“Wait, Mommy! I know! God maked the whole earth!”

I shuddered involuntarily.

“Well, no one really knows the answer for sure, but that is an interesting idea. Yes, many people study religion to learn about how the world was made. So people can do work using science or religion to answer these questions,” I offered, without giving her creationism, I hope.

“No! God did it.” Sensing unnapped, late-afternoon ferocity on the horizon, I let her idea stand. That week, I think her image of God was an old man with a white beard that she’d heard about at school.

But come Sunday, I knew she had options. This year’s religious education program in our Unitarian Universalist church is about world religious traditions. In the past few Sundays she’s colored in Ganesh and Shiva, made a “stained glass” chalice out of tissue paper, and created a camel (part of a lesson on Islam) out of two humps of a paper egg carton and some pipe cleaners. And the questions, as you can imagine, are bound to keep coming.

And when she heard this song last week, she got very excited.

“If God had a name, what would it be
and would you call it to his face
if you were faced with him...?”

I’m pretty sure she thought the CD was reading her mind. “Mommy! What she singing is EXACTLY the same as what I am thinking!”






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Kid Theology, Part 1

When Short Stack was less than 2, with a vocabulary under 50 words, she learned to blow kisses.

And one winter night at bedtime she was gazing at the stars out her window. She smiled, brought the pinched fingers of both hands to her eyes and burst them out toward the sky. She laughed, facing the glass with open palms.

She had blown kisses, with her eyes, to the stars.

I still don’t have words to express that feeling more eloquently.


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Second of Many Shrines

There's clearly always a lot going on around here.

This niche was installed to heal Gavin and it was updated with his picture after he died. (The bottom shelf is worldly goods like stationery, not part of the invocation.)

Top shelf, far right: The card Gavin made for my birthday, which was the day after he was diagnosed, and which promised he'd be here for many years to enjoy together the hammock we'd just bought.

Center shelf, center: A virgin of Guadalupe I made of toasted pumpkin seeds, painted and glued to board, for a piece Gavin and I created together with a chef, who made a spicy nouvelle Mexican pepita soup, which was served as part of a Cuisine des Artistes evening around 1999. Maybe.

Flanking the virgin are: (pinned up) two Renaissance angel notecards, augmented with silly poorly fitting facial features by our dear friend, the greatest collage artist ever, (mid-height) angel by Gavin, devil by Mexico, (on shelf) Lord Ganesh in rosewood, one of the local Virgins, ceramic by the Aguilar sisters, purchased on our honeymoon. 

Strangely enough, I no longer have much to say about this assembly.


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One of Many Shrines

I have a tendency to attack idols. Not too long ago Abel Keogh, the first widowed blogger I found on my first search just after my loss, advised a woman that her widower fiancee was "not ready to move on" because he had not yet dismantled the shrines to his late wife installed in his home. Ridiculous, I thought. There are good reasons for keeping visuals with the memories. And anyway, it’s rude to display family photos outside of intimate spaces in your home. I consulted important Miss Manners entries (Advice columns? Are those like blogs?) and drafted a forceful reply.

Then I looked around. Oy vey, are there shrines. Disrespectful as I am, I also pay obeisance to the vague spirit I’d like to have round me. Our old, tiny apartment had a milagro heart on every door frame in thanks for Gavin's surviving open heart surgery and its complications; those tin shapes are hung in this home too. And when he was very, very ill I did put together several shrines, even though none of them included his image until he died.

Here’s one that I set up next to the dresser mirror:
-- A thrift store porcelain saucer (in Japanese, cranes are often used on wedding kimono because they mate for life).
-- A blue and green glass heart paperweight, not my style, but heck, a heart.
-- One of Gavin’s many Ganeshes.
-- Two stones from our yard, which I saw as male and female: one, half grey, half white; the second, red and ochre, porous, with a hole in the top so you can see that it’s hollow.
-- A shrinky dink necklace I made for Gavin’s 55th birthday party: “55, still alive.” We gave these out, red or green cords assigned you to a team, and we planned to play “Survivor”-style games. More than 100 people showed up, the barbeque was about 8 pizzas worth of calories short, so we managed to judge the sculpture contest segment before we decided to just hang loose.

On the other of the mirror was a similar niche holding a virgin sculpture (from Oaxacan honeymoon), something paper, perhaps a ticket stub, and Milagros for whatever parts needed healing at the time (kidneys, heart, arm). After he died, I carefully stuck his boy scout compass there to help me find balance, or North or something. It's all packed up now for the move.

It makes you think about people's homes and faiths: how many shrinelets do folks really have in their homes? I'm always kind of spiritual, and as a UU I have room for pagan object faith, but if Abel Keogh addressed it, is it really that common -- not just a special spot for family pictures but a little haven for the household Gods?

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My Testimony: Reforming End-of-Life Care

I’ve asked widows and widowers I know to share their experiences with the health care system in America. I thought we’d have unique perspective because many of us have had more experience than the average American with health care and end-of-life decisions.

You can see the list of testimonials here and please note, the project is ongoing. I’d love to have your participation using your own blog, Facebook, or another medium. If you need some help using the index linking service, or if you have other questions, please write to me direct (Supa DOT Dupa DOT fresh AT gmail DOT com).

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As for my experience -- I have a lot to say about health care in America, and how the system as a whole has served and failed my family. My husband and I were informed and intensive users of medical services for routine care, to manage chronic conditions, and in his fight against cancer. After 40 years’ experience in what I had come to think was a very “medicalized” life, I feel I can make the biggest difference by testifying about my experience with end of life care.

However: if you are interested in more evidence against the thieves and liars of the private health insurance industry, and their captive government regulators, I’m happy to provide the evidence offline. Just wink.

I’ll also say that a public option is a must: we were fortunate to live in a state that provided a way into private insurance for self-employed people with preexisting conditions. Despite its limitations, we would have been much worse off without it.

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The real story here is about death. The inevitable. The universal. Americans don’t ignore it: it’s in the news every day, and gosh we just eat up those vampire books.

But here’s the rub: No one should receive a diagnosis of a stage IV cancer without entering into a conversation about their final wishes.

Yes, you can fight, and you must. Strap on your Bernie Siegel and visualize away. Get everything you can from conventional medicine and stimulate your immune system with herbs all you want. (Nor should anyone be set adrift in a sea of unbelievably expensive decisions. Choosing a path for treatment should not be like choosing an entrée. I wish we’d been assigned a patient navigator.)

But understand at the same time that we are all dying. Gavin and I had had experience already; we thought we were more aware than the average bear. Patients with terminal illnesses and their families lose sight only occasionally of the black wings hovering over our shoulders. We revel in the deliciousness of this day and in gratitude. But that doesn’t mean we’re really dealing with it. Denial is complicated, and honestly, not entirely a bad thing. It can be pretty useful if you have a life to live in the meantime, and don’t we all?

But once you get really sick -- particularly after a catastrophic diagnosis like ours (which can bring on symptoms of PTSD) -- you really won’t want to cope with your will, wishes about burial, or plans for those left behind. Thank God Gavin’s advance health care directive was already in place, because I don’t think we could have done it while he was sick.

Nothing stayed the same for more than a few months. One therapy seemed to push the disease back a bit. Recovering from surgery (Gavin had two big operations) is a hurdle that requires you to build up energy and fortitude. It’s satisfying to have concrete goals. It was easy for us to forget that every step was considered palliative care from day one.

Please don’t get so far into positive thinking and manifesting whatnots that you forget you’re mortal, like we all are. Yes, you might get a miracle; but have a plan B.

At parties, we used to say that Gavin was just dying a little faster than everyone else. When we’d get in the car I’d point out he was at more risk from the daily road risks than from the cancer (especially if I was driving. But that’s another story).

For a time, even on the downhill slope, my dying husband and I were able to adjust to each lesson or new fact or change. But the last six months were a decline of breakneck speed punctuated by the brightest rays of hope: two new drugs were approved.

It didn’t matter. The first miracle drug destroyed his quality of life with fatigue that he couldn’t tolerate, despite the fact that it was working. But it looked like he had a second primary. Then one titanium strut supporting his spine broke. Then, mouth sores. Weight loss. Planning more radiation. Candida. Edema. Shingles. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. Whatever you do under these circumstances, you turn away from earth. We looked up, away from each other. And we got less and less able to talk about “next steps.” The wings were beating furiously, too close. Neither of us wanted to hurt the other.

I know his death would have been easier if we’d entered hospice sooner than 3 days before he died (even the experts didn’t think he’d go that fast). Maybe he could have been at home instead of spending most of the last 2 weeks in an ICU. We might have thought differently about the risks of that second, brutal surgery. I know that Gavin had interventions that were painful, destructive, and expensive – as well as pointless.

Studies have shown that patients have “better” deaths and families grieve differently if they have individual, realistic conversations about end of life care.

Yes, our medical team did the best they could reading our states of mind and the level of conflict -- with the end, with each other -- at each appointment for 22 months. I’m sure they intended to ease us into hospice. If only there hadn’t been so many twists and turns. Or maybe if we’d been more open.

It shouldn’t have been our choice. Maybe it sounds like “planning to die” to you but having this conversation is really the only way to balance your family needs, religious and ethical values, and the non-negotiable reality of biology.

I hope I’ve illustrated how often things can change: how mixed are death’s signals. You can’t really “plan” how it will work out, but if you have an existing relationship with a hospice counselor you can discuss how you’d like to approach different scenarios. An Advance Health Care Directive is just an outline, but it can provide a basis for making ongoing decisions that comforts you and your loved ones who really, I tell you, WILL be forced to make decisions that they will always have mixed feelings about UNLESS you contribute.

It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Having to think about “how” and “when” you might die, about radical interventions, telling your loved ones whether you want food, water, what. But I watched my husband die, and I want to say I’ll never be scared of any conversation again. Words don’t break flesh down to a wisp. Worrying about hurting Gavin’s feelings, or about jinxing his miracle, were inconsequential fleas of politesse next to the Big. Giant. Mortality.

Don’t wait until there’s no “undo.” It’s the process, the conversation, that matters. Perhaps after diagnosis is too late to begin the discussion. Maybe when we hit 50 we should all talk about death. Or 40. It certainly should be part of every pre cana. Maybe it could be included in a rite of passage, if our modern lives would allow such things:

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” -- Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)


There are dozens of ways to get comfortable with your own mortality: Art, music, poetry. Psychotherapy, film, faith. Structure, freedom, study. (Bonus: you get to sound "deep" at parties.) But you have just one “today” to begin.

Above all, keep those you love close as long as humanly possible by sharing your thoughts on the end.

* * * Read more testimonials about health care by widows and widowers here * * *

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A Poem for Rosh Hashanah

I didn't even know I was Jewish until college, but the Jews win, in my mind, for solemn holidays. (Of course, Christians win for festive and accessible. I worship Christmas though I don't feel the divinity of Jesus at all). I've never been to a High Holy Days service so I guess that makes it much easier to like, for all the wailing.

Rosh Hashanah is all about being aware of your mortality. This poem was part of Rev L's wonderful service today, about death. I don't recall if she mentioned it, but the book from which this piece is taken was written in grief after the poet's daughter was murdered.


Death Barged In
by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno

In his Russian greatcoat
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed
between us.

Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck,
From now on,
you write about me.
  


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What I Would Say at Seth's Memorial Service

Another damn young widow. I never met the spouses of most of my widowed friends; it's actual grieving, rather than just making friends, when a loss happens to someone I knew “before.”

Everyone wants to know how to help. This subject is the number one request on my blog. I'm sorry to have the occasion to answer them, but here is a first attempt, way too long, incomplete, hastily done. I'll keep refining materials on this subject, so your feedback is much appreciated.

If the opportunity comes up, if someone wants to read this at tomorrow's memorial service, I'd be grateful.

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I had not seen Jane or Seth, or their darling Eli, since they moved to Cleveland. I was preoccupied with my own battle for a child, my relationship with my husband, and then with his illness and death. In the three years since then, as a widow caring for a young child, I learned a lot about surviving, what people in crisis need, and now, about building a new life and thriving again.

I learned that while a memorial service is for the person who has departed, it's really for those left behind. Jane is not me, but based on my experience and understanding of the dozens of young widows and widowers I know now, I can share some basics about how to make a difference for the grieving wife:

1. There is no wrong thing to say. Nothing can hurt her more than this loss. So say what you feel. “This sucks” is a good start. Any day you have a memory of Seth, any anniversary, birthday, on any coincidence or whenever you wonder how Jane and Eli are doing, pick up the phone.

2. Know yourself. Grieving splits loving families and challenges the closest of friendships. Jane and Eli can’t afford to lose a single one of you. And you are all grieving – learn about the process, be honest about your own feelings, and then be open to listening to Jane and Eli. They WILL need you. Offer any distraction or company that you can: a play date, coffee, drop by with a meal. Invite them to your place and make sure Jane knows no one will be dressed up.

3. Please, I know you mean well, but DO NOT SAY “let me know what I can do.” I can’t speak for Jane, but I have met hundreds of grieving people and every single one hates this phrase: Why? WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE NEED. We have a hard time finding words, we can’t think on our feet. In time, we need so much we’re ashamed to say. Asking is incredibly difficult at the best of times! So: Offer something specific – housework, grocery shopping, a meal, money – or just give it without asking first. Don’t be ashamed if it’s not grand.

4. Be persistent. I don’t know one young widow who was good about returning phone calls, e-mails, or other communication. An acquaintance of mine from school stopped by (wearing sweatpants) and really listened one June day, a visit that changed the course of my first year significantly. If you’re rebuffed, try again later.

5. Think about the long term. You may recover from the feelings aroused by this service in a few weeks. But Jane and Eli’s loss will be a part of their experience forever. In October, in March of next year, a year from now. Two years from now. Three years from now. Their loss will be real, and they will still need you, even though the needs will have changed.

At our wedding, the minister asked every guest to support and uphold our marriage. But at my husband’s memorial service, I didn’t ask the congregation to help me stay alive.

Please, each of you, in whatever way makes sense for you, help keep Jane and Eli safe, sound, and strong in the coming years.

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