3.5 months, 3 years, 14.5 years...reflections and scrambles in a body

Hello, my loves.
Today is Zuzu's third birth/death day. Daddy gave me his phone to download some of his pics, and the image you see here was one that came across. All scrambled. As if it were developed badly in the dark room. Bits and pieces of a puzzle that is put together in such a wrong way.  And yet, it was the one that spoke to me.  I told Daddy I thought it was stunning, and he smiled, saying, "You always do like the weird ones."

It got me thinking about this weird life we've cobbled together from fragments and pieces.  It reflected some sort of bodily experience I've been having all week.  And then it dawned on me.  Oh.  Yes. This was Zuzu's week.  I feel the reverberations of that disorientation.  Not the same as it was in the moment back then.  But some echo of it.  And there are still echoes of your littlest brother who was born dead just three and a half months ago, too.  I am disoriented even while seeming to walk a straight line.

My bones ache with missing all of you.  And at the same time, there is a part of me glad you never had to live this life.  The chaos of planet Earth is ... well, it just isn't something I'd wish on anyone at this point.  It can be an adventure, interesting, fun, even Light in the ways your Daddy is learning about through meditation and stillness.  But always at the edges, there is suffering.  Always dancing around the most still of beings is the chaos of the relative world.  I'm happy you did not have to go through this world.  If rebirth does exist, I hope you've found your way out of the cycle now.

For your day this year, Zuzu, I think we'll spend some time near water, the beach, something.  Even if just for the afternoon.  We'll watch the birds and boats.  We'll take in the immense nature of the large body of the Puget Sound.  I'll imagine that huge body of water as one being who is staring back at us, two specs on the shore.  A being who wonders who these two small creatures are and why they are here.  If I see any starfish, I'll send Reiki to them for you, Zuzu.  If we come across ripe, wild blackberries, we'll eat a few for you.

In the scrambled picture of the life we are still living, we'll be loving you this day.  Like we do every day.  But through and through in the ache of my body today.

You boys take care of each other.
Love,
Momma

What is seen and unseen...

Well, my dear sons, you are joined in your other-world by another sibling. Amid the big transitions your father and I were making early this year with the move back across country to come home to the island, we discovered we were pregnant again. I hardly dared touch joy. I held my breath.  We told no one.  And in the first tri, soon after starting to re-nest here on the island, the blood came and wouldn't stop.  We were not pregnant anymore.  For weeks, we told no one.

Even your Nanna-Memoo and your living brother and sister heard weeks later.  And at that, I found myself typing on chat or PM with them to tell them.  I seem to have lost my out loud voice with the death of your most recent sibling, loves.  I'm sure you know already, but Mimi died on Easter morning, too.  Your world over there is getting more populated than my living world in some ways.

Before this baby died, I was already clearing space in my life, trying to shift as many things away from me as possible to open space.  I have wanted to do nothing but focus on the work I'm doing with Auntie Cath and then have space and space and space.  Our new house share here on the island is perfect for that.  It is often quiet and sunny in the backyard with lots of growing greens and lovely creatures.  Even when we hear our housemates, it is so quiet and full of love and space.  There is a very deep, resonating chime hanging next to the house, so with the wind each day, I feel I'm hearing the ring you'd hear at silent retreat.  I knew I was wanting quiet, calm, space for this baby brother or sister.

As it turns out, I am wanting that quiet, calm, and space for myself.  For mourning his/her death.  For pondering what karma is playing out as each of you has died.  For sitting with what was probably my last chance.

It has all left me with a need for huge swaths of time alone and in silence.  It has left me very hesitant to make too many plans each week.  It has left me wanting to just have open days -- as many in a row as possible -- to spontaneously do (or not do) whatever feels ... ??? ... right? good? okay? inspiring?

It has all left me incredibly grateful for the paths I took in life to end up married to your father.  To find my way to self-employment so that I can have days as I wish.  To find my way back to this quiet island so there is space, large bodies of water, and gentle creatures who aren't afraid to approach me.  Incredibly grateful.

Odd.  Third child dead.  Heart broken with grief.  Again.  And yet.  Incredibly.  Grateful.

I miss you each so much.  I wish I'd had more time with each of you.  I will always love you.
Your Mama

Punker Skellie and love...

Hello, my lovie loves.  Been thinking about you boyz so much, and Erin, too, as we've been preparing for our transition back home to the island.  As I'm pulling items off the fridge door, I seem to newly see the photos of Erin and can't believe -- all over again -- that she's dead now.  I do hope both you boyz are able to spend some time swimming like little fishes with her wherever you all are.  I used to love swimming with her and her sister in the summers.  Certainly seems we are all a family of water beings.

As I was pondering your butsudan, trying to figure out what to take with us in the car and what to pack for the movers, I couldn't decide and so sat there doodling a little.  Out of my pen came this punk rockin' skullie.  :)  It struck me, Kota, that you'd be 14 right at the week we move.  I wondered if we'd celebrate your birthday during the whole trip home?  Maybe we'd pick 14 things along the way to stop and see?  Maybe we'd head out to the coast and throw 14 stones into the ocean and wiggle our toes in the water as a celebration of returning to the water?  Gawd, I miss you boyz so much.

Zuzu, it will be wonderful to get back to your Cedar Grove and sit with you for a bit in the silence and wind and with the birds.  I wonder if anything was developed off the back of the grove? The last time we were there, it looked like they were gearing up to build back there.  Hope that whatever has taken place hasn't disturbed you at all.  Or that you've had fun with all the diggers and stuff :)

Well, just a short note for today, loves.  Just wanted to share the punker skullie with you really.  And tell you that I love you and miss you so much.

xoxoxoxox's,
Momma

Starts and fits and stops...

I cannot tell you how many times I've started this post, deleted it.  Wrote it again, deleted it.  Started again, leaving a draft copy on the server with just the image saved and all the words deleted.  It isn't that all of you, my loves, my sons and you, my goddaughter, have not been on my mind since mid-December when the dozen pairs of toe socks in this image were donated.  In fact, Erin, on your birthday in mid-December, they were donated, as a gift to and from you to some young girls in a local domestic violence shelter who really need some color and spark and fun, not to mention some warmth for their toes.

It's just that on the very same day, I began to feel...well...just not right.  Physically.  My immune system went into over-drive, my nerve endings caught on fire, my need for sleep was unquenchable.  While I know the body is physical and I can't just blame myself for feelings that were "negative" that might cause "sickness" because frankly, I don't think it is that simple... but I know that much of the fire coursing thru my nerve endings was the fire of sorrow.  Of simply missing you all.  And missing Unkie, too.

My body felt haunted.

And as I spent the next 6 or so weeks, more or less in bed, taking frequent naps, trying to sort out some of the *knowings* I was having in body and consciousness, I began to see that haunted-ness reflected in the physical space around me.

I was in bed for your daddy's birthday, boys...I was in bed for Christmas Day.  I saw your father haunt around this house with no real community to turn to with me zapped out of it.  I saw that where I knew nettles would help exorcise some of the bodily ailments, there was no one here for me to work with, but rather I was online to Auntie Jane back on the island.  I had a moment of sitting in front of your butsudan and being haunted by the fact that your ashes, Kota, are here with me, but your brother's remains are in the sacred cedar grove on the island.  And there is also just the sort of bottom line:  As much as I miss all of you who are dead, well, living this far away from the living loves makes it feel like everyone is dead.  But they are not!  Time to be a bit closer to some of our living loves again.  Though I do have moments where I wish we could live in all three - West Coast, Mid-West, and East Coast - as we seem to be all spread out across the North now.

So it is, loves.  Another big move is in the works.  I've edited my schedule so that it can accommodate lots of naps and heART-making dream time -- I'm grateful for the visits all of you pay me in those reveries of art making in the studio, by the way.  We are slowly putting the pieces together to return to the island this spring.  Kota, I'm thinking about taking some of the dirt from your brother's burial site and adding it to your marble jar.  Or giving him his own space in a beautiful little something so that I have pieces of you both in the butsudan.  I can't believe I came this far away without an handful of his dirt.  I need to go back.

Anyway, just like the starts and fits and stops and re-starts of this blog post over the last 6 weeks or so, it seems life is the same way.  Begin again.  Remembering things like what your Auntie Sherene reminded me of the other day:  No matter how long you walk down the wrong road, you can always turn back or turn off to another road.  Try again.  Take the next breath.  Allow for the learnings.

I'm grateful for my time here for many reasons:  I got to try on a different hat.  I got a good sun fix.  I got the chance to see the difference between depth healers and plastic shamans.  I got a chance to create in cooperation with your Auntie Cath and learn how much I love being self-employed.  I got to see how integral community is so that I don't take it for granted next time I encounter it.  I got to see that stereotypes exist for a reason; there really are people who think the Civil War ended badly; and I really am a liberal, peace-nik, Northern who needs a LOT more practice at being tolerant of those who are not.

What can I say, my loves?  I, your mother, am just a messy human being, living a messy life, knowing death comes all too soon.  And I can't let any more time pass without trying to begin again, to try a different play, to re-start again in gratitude for all that has passed and not taking for granted anything that will come.  Even more importantly, to re-start again this moment with a breath, a conscious listening to the needs of my body and soul, and a gratitude for love however it is expressed this moment.

That said, in this moment, I thank you, my dead loved ones, for teaching me that, no matter how much time we have here, death will come too quickly.  So don't miss this moment to live with as full a heart as possible.

Love your incredibly flawed, human being, mother...
xoxoxoxoox

My little sprites...

Hello, my little holiday sprites.  Miss you so much at this time of year.  Impossible to go out -- or heck, even stay in and be on social media -- without seeing all the scenes with kids.  Teenagers and toddlers.  Everywhere.  And all who leave me wondering what you would be like this year.

Have had so many lonely moments recently thinking about the holidays now that your cousin Erin is dead, too.  I have felt so far from she and her sister for so long, and yet, my heart knew I was making my own family on the other coast.  I felt a trust and love for the family I left back on the East coast, knowing that they raised me with love and care, feeling they would all do the same for Erin and her sister, too.  I felt freedom enough to be on the left coast and make my family now.  But my family here doesn't look like I thought it would.

It's not that I don't feel the two of you here.  I do feel you like holiday sprites buzzing around me, trying to tickle me out of my reluctant spaces -- much as I might be doing for you if you were here as a reluctant teenager, Kota :)  But at the same time, well, you just are not *here* either.  This house doesn't feel or sound or look anything like what I thought it would.  And, yes, it's true, I practice just letting all that go so that I can be present in what IS the house now.  It's a fine enough house.  I'm grateful for the roof, meditation space, art-making space, time and light.  But I admit that when I get a peak into your sister's house with her three young kids making the very structure brim over with growth, I ache for all that we missed with you.

And I just miss you. Period.
And I find myself this year thinking about all the spaces back home that will not be the same now that Erin has died, too.  The world is so full and yet there are so many spaces that ache under the weight of empty.

Sending you love -- and wishing you were here to discover oranges in your stockings and roll your eyes in teen fashion and say, "Mooooom, this is *not* a gift," which would allow a whole other discussion to ensue.  :)
Love you, babies.
Momma

With and without...

It continues to be odd, my loves.  To have so much, to be with such love in this world, and still be without the two of you here.  And now, this year, as the holidays approach again, to also be without your cousin Erin.

With each experience of death and grief, I remember that this is all so fleeting.  To love with my whole heart means risking, means knowing that the very same heart will break when death comes again, knowing that death does and will come.

Your daddy has been doing a lot of Buddhist study in the last 6 months or so.  I'm fascinated with the idea of the differences between conventional reality vs. ultimate reality.  In conventional reality, there is birth and death, you are here or you are not, there is dead or alive, there is being or non-being.  But in ultimate reality, you see that Being IS Non-Being.  There is no difference.  You see that being alive means you are dying every moment with thousands of cells ending and you are being born with thousands of cells starting every moment, too.  In ultimate reality, I can't just point to the ashes of your remains and say, "That is my son," because you are more than that -- and you are not that at all either.

Haven't exactly made sense of it all in a way that translates yet.  But when I began hearing the dharma talks about how time is made up of non-time elements --  or death is made up of non-death elements -- or being is made of non-being elements...something in me just sang.  Took me back to Tao translation Mitchell did where he talked about how we use clay to make a pot to hold something precious, but it is actually the space inside that holds what is precious.

Something in there about my heart being made of muscle, tissue, blood, body, matter, but it is the space that opened after death broke my heart -- that is the space where I hold you two boys -- and now, Erin, too.  This is the space where I choose what I will carry forward of each of you.  This is where you continue, even in the present moment.

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” 

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Can't send enough love to really say how much I love you both...please hold Erin's hand and give big hugs to her and to Unkie, too.
Love,
Momma

Of firsts and seconds and thirds...

Hey loves...
Kota, I thought you wouldn't mind if I take some space here to collect my thoughts and letters, not only to you, but also to your baby brother.  Zuzu's (your father has decided Mizuko's nickname would have been Zuzu) 2nd birth/death day was today.  It's been both a suckfest and just another day on planet earth with its rounds and rounds of monkey mind, cracked hearts, and moments of nothing but mussed up courage.

Zuzu, lovie, missed you bunches today.  Had a lovely check in with your Auntie Lynndee yesterday where I realized consciously for the first time, that I had not done a single bit of new art since May maybe??  So as your birthday rang in during the wee hours last night, I sat to sketch you a little something.  I had nothing in mind when I started.  Just a blank page.  It was the first page in a new journal, and I had the thought that it would be funny to page mark it "2" since it is your second bday.  And then the three little flowers were just sort of, you know, two candles and one to grow on, like you'd have had on a birthday cake.  And the heart is just my heart reaching for you...it is outside the body of the mother in the image because that is still how it feels here.  My heart is always out of place here, reaching for you and your brother.

I can't stop thinking of you two lately.  Daddy has changed so many things recently.  Quit fire smoking, has begun meditating, given up any food that once had a face.  I can't help but think you two probably would have always had a lean more toward veggies anyway...you'd have been breastfeeding while I was eating greens like crazy.  :)  But I sort of laugh watching how all the changes are upheaval for just us alone, and I can't help but wonder what you, still a little terrible two'er and your big bro who would be a roudy teenager now, would make of this house now?

The days like today -- well, if I'm honest, every single day -- simultaneously go too fast *and* feel like a barren land.  Auntie Lynndee helped me re-check to figure out even how to hear what the days call me to now.  Some days just feel so lost -- especially since your cousin Erin died last month -- that my head won't stop hurting, and it just seems easier to sleep and wish it all to be gone.  Of course, you can imagine that makes Daddy ache as he wants to have full days together and steal every moment dry of all it has to offer.  I always have been more of the Eeyore in this family.

Baby Boy, I miss you terribly.  I wish there were more to do for you from here, other than build cairns out on the trails.  The present moments we have, are...well... just are.  But they are always also without you.  And with you.  But I do wish they were moments with you here in a more physical way.

I would have made you avocado chocolate pudding or brownies today.  Sending them in spirit.  Get messy and eat them up yummy, love.
xoxoxoxo
Momma