Waves

When I started this blog about a year ago, I wrote: "This is a journey about the love that two daughters, one wife and many others have for a man named Bill."

And that is exactly what this blog has turned out to be. I just finished re-reading all the 95 posts. From diagnosis to death, I chronicled. I had my computer in hospitals, at restaurants, in airports, in my bed. Tears fell on the keyboard. At times I'd sit and stare into the sky for minutes or an hour before I wrote a single word. Sometimes words poured out like champagne on New Year's Eve. This blog's been a way for me to process, grieve, share and remember. It might seem like something we'd want to forget. But death has a funny way of bringing people together and shining a spotlight on the joy in your life -- even when the joy seems to be like a needle in a haystack.

The themes in the blog have been simple and straightforward -- love, loyalty, family, humor. Also illness. Struggle and suffering. Change. I didn't set out with any expectations, and we weren't sure how the story would end. I feel good just knowing that I was able to keep writing throughout my Dad's battle with brain cancer and record our family's experience. I feel good not necessarily because we'll go back someday and read this blog. But because the act of writing helped me more fully live in the fleeting moments I had with my Father. It's that simple. What a gift.

A few months ago I started reading about Buddhism. My dear friend Jenny loaned me a book called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche, and I've read various other articles and stories. I'm a novice in Eastern religions, but it seems to me they have a healthy attitude about this collective life we lead. We are all inextricably connected -- to each other and to the natural world around us. As most people, I can buy into that.

Perhaps a more difficult concept to accept: impermanence. Look around you at the trees, your mini-van, your dog, your house, the coffee shop, your bicycle, even your family -- none of this will last. Every single one of these and all other concrete physical things will fade. They all lack a lasting, inherent, stable existence.

This sounds sad. But if you look deeper into both impermanence and interconnectedness, you find a great hope and, as Rinpoche said, "you will find ... (a message) that opens your eyes to the fundamental nature of the universe, and our extraordinary relationship to it."

Rinpoche goes on,

Think of a wave in the sea. Seen in one way, it seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn't really exist but is just the behavior of water, "empty" of any separate identity but "full" of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize every wave is related to every other wave.

I think this is a beautiful metaphor. I smile at its simplicity and profound meaning. It confirms my hunch that my Dad is with us. Everyone we lose is still here. Plus, its about water and waves, reminding me of Bill and his Beech Buoy.

I don't mean to get bogged down in any one perspective, but I know many religions have this same string of thought. And I feel I've summoned my own personal spiritual perspective. I've watched two parents die of cancer. Bodies, I know, deteriorate. We lose weight, we stop eating, our organs quit, our eyes sink into our faces, we curl up and die. Then people around us -- with bodies still intact, movable limbs, six senses -- feel that incredible sense of loss. We feel it in our core. We're hit with the reality of impermanence like a punch in the gut. But our core holds intense feelings for the core of the person we "lost." Our core is shaken, but our core endures. It does not die. Buddhists call this core "nature of mind," Christians call it God. I'll just call it the bridge to my parents.

So, Dad, I love you. Thank you for everything. I know on some level you still hear my words. I am happy to have spent so many good years with you, with our family. You've armed me with a way to live a good life.

My first blog entry was also called "Waves." This blog, like a wave, will end. But your story, like the wind and water, will not.

Spring

The red-winged blackbirds have returned. Mary Jane and I heard the first song of the season on one of our warm days here last week. It was just a few days earlier than Aldo Leopold's noted arrival of this winged harbinger in my wildlife phenology calender. Grass is greening, buds swelling, bulbs pushing up through cold dirt. In a few weeks we'll install a raised bed in the yard for veggie gardening. Our church will soon build a chicken coop and MJ and I will be Chicken Care Coordinators for a flock of 10 laying hens.

Soccer season is underway with Anna's team -- the Snarps -- having their first practice last week. MJ's yet-unnamed team will start soon, with Scott coaching.

Charlotte had her second birthday! They celebrated in style, and we'll do another celebration when we visit Maryland in just a week. Can't believe she's 2 already ...


Anna had 10+ inches cut from her hair and donated it to Wigs 4 Kids in honor of our dear, brave friend Ally Barnett. I am a proud mama. Also a sad mama as I bagged up 10 inches of THICK and beautiful sandy blond locks and sent them away. Mary Jane also got a short cut for spring to complement that cherubic face of hers.


Scott and I both continue to train for our respective races. He's doing a 20-mile hilly run at the end of May, and I'm doing a sprint triathlon in June. Scott will also soon build nice big shelving units for the girls' rooms. We're researching a new purchase, something close to Bill's heart -- cars. Looking at a hybrid Toyota, among others. As Bill would say, make sure it has "good safety record and performance!"

I have also been busy keeping up with several freelance contracts (check out the Driftless Food System project).

As a family, we're participating in/raising money for the American Brain Tumor Association at a Joggin for the Noggin race on April 17.

And plans are in place for summer camping and travel -- starting with Maryland on March 27 .

All this is to say, Life Goes On.

We work, play and make plans. I'd say I am doing well, but with a caveat. There's just an emptiness I carry in my heart. I don't want to go as far as to say there's a cloud hanging over me, but let's just say light fog follows me around. Or maybe I'm just in a fog at times. My Dad was such a big presence in my life. Almost everywhere I look, everything I think about, brings back a memory. He influenced me so much more than I realized. And now all I have are those precious memories and his legacy, which is large, yet it's not him ... As Heather said, "I just feel like I want to hug him."

Grief never goes away -- I still grieve for my mom, who died 9 years ago. But it does lessen over the years and becomes more of a dull ache versus a sharp pain. And you measure your happiness against it, appreciating life's goodness that much more.

I've so appreciated all the cards, phone calls, e-mails and friendship. They keep me grounded in goodness versus wallowing in a pool of sad. When I start to wallow, I think, "No. You've got it good. You had it good. You had two awesome parents." And I truly believe that. For almost 30 years I had a mother like no other. Sue Beecheler. For 38 years I had a father that could beat out the best. Bill. I do -- absolutely -- allow myself to mourn, to cry, etc. But wallowing, no. There are too many gardens to plant, trips to take, kids to hug, friends to laugh with, too much cycling and swimming and running, too many books to read and songs to sing, too much love to be had.

Sing, red-winged blackbird, sing!