Edge of the Ocean (Stick Figure)

Today I Feel Like... indeed. March 26 is the six-month mark of Eric's death. All the feelings. Ack. I have watched this lovely 6-minute video created by John Teeto and E's other friends three times today, and I thought it might bring some comfort and joy here as well. We miss you so much, buddy... ❤️

I seem to have lost my concentration/focus for blogging.  Perhaps that means I'm experiencing healing to some degree, and don't depend on it as a coping mechanism as much as I used to?  Bereavement group every Monday sustains me, as does therapy every other Monday (I am making great strides sharing my honest thoughts as well as with EMDR).  I continue to express my gratitude for the best family-and-friends support system ever.  Regular get-togethers with Eric's pals (whether IHOP breakfasts or Bob Marley movie viewings) are lovely as well as comforting.

I am getting out of the house and engaging with others more often; still setting boundaries, being more discriminating as to how I'm spending my time, and not allowing myself to take on more than I can handle.

Besides the trip to see Dar Williams in Key West (early-February), I took another road trip with Nancy last week (this time to Brooksville) to visit our long-time friend Peggy-now-Maggie, who moved to Sweden many years ago and now resides in Finland.  We took her out to dinner, convinced her to spend the night with us at our hotel, and stayed up quite late talking.  Much hilarity as well as sadness ensued (her son William overdosed in 2020, so she "gets it").  I also gave her a pouch of E's ashes, as he has never been to Scandinavia... 🤣

Returned from there Wednesday night, went to Gary's Celebration of Life (he was a church friend, ran sound for the Labyrinth Cafe the last two years (2018-19), and coordinated the A/V at Eric's service.  An unexpected and altogether-too-sudden infection and death... 💔

Then Chico, Sarah, and I drove to Pensacola for my friend/college roommate Linda's daughter Rachel's (confused yet?) baby shower (a very long drive but well worth it).  We've stayed close over the years, and of course many memories were conjured, especially Sarah and I driving to Pensacola three weeks after Rachel was born, to meet her and to keep Linda and Craig company.  The Circle Game... 😍

An extra perk was that, on our way home, we stopped in Tallahassee to meet up with Melanie (Nick is in Texas tiling a bathroom!) at a local coffee shop for hugs and catch-up conversation... 💜

And now for Unpacking and Recovery!

P.S.  Eric's friends alerted me that Stick Figure was one of his favorite bands, and they are getting a group together to see them in August.

SONG:  Edge of the Ocean by Stick Figure

BOOK:  Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying by Ram Dass, Mirabai Bush

POEM:  Somehow by Dorothy Chan

For Norman

You visit me in a dream after passing,

            after I’ve been awaiting you for weeks,

because Chinese belief teaches us our

            loved ones will appear when we’re asleep.

It’s real when I enter the hotel restaurant

            in the middle of nowhere town I live in,

as the Midwest architecture transforms

            into Kowloon at evening time. We eat

bird’s nest soup, and I remember the time

            my father ordered me this four-hundred-

year-old delicacy at Hong Kong airport.

            Out comes the Peking duck, and I ask you:

“Why did it take you so long?” You answer:

            “I arrived once you were strong and ready.” 

Not to Make Loss Beautiful by Gregory Orr

Not to make loss beautiful,

But to make loss the place

Where beauty starts. Where

the heart understands

For the first time

The nature of its journey.

Love, yes. The body

of the beloved as the gift

Bestowed. But only

Temporarily. Given freely,

But now to be earned.

Given without thought,

And now loss

Has made us thoughtful.

My Son the Man by Sharon Olds

Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,

the way Houdini would expand his body

while people were putting him in chains. It seems

no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,

guide his calves into the gold interior,

zip him up and toss him up and

catch his weight. I cannot imagine him

no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,

get over my fear of men now my son

is going to be one. This was not

what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a

sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,

snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,

and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me

the way Houdini studied a box

to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.

QUOTE:  "It isn’t always easy to hold on, especially when the world keeps spinning, but it is easier if we hang on together. That way we are connected, linked together, and stronger than any one of us could ever be alone. It does not matter that we are from different backgrounds or different faiths: what matters is that we care with and for one another. The unraveling of reality only occurs when we let go, let go of our hope and our vision. When we hold on to what we believe, our diversity becomes a bond that cannot be broken. So if you feel like you are hanging on, you are, but never alone. Thousands of us are holding on with you." ~ Steven Charleston

"It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me… So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…" ~ Aldous Huxley

The Circle of Life (Elton John/Tim Rice, from The Lion King)

[thanks to my sister Mari for this picture she texted to me yesterday, the cover of Mom's funeral mass program.  We wanted to run the full-length photo, but the church made us crop out her shapely legs...  ;-) ]


Yesterday, July 19, marked 11 years since my Mom's passing.  I was less melancholy than usual, since we also celebrated my grandbaby Colin's 2-year birthday (which is actually tomorrow, July 21) and I will blog about that Wednesday.  It was a very Circle of Life occasion, and I know Connie was peeking in from wherever she is, taking in the joy and the chaos.  She would have loved this little guy!

How can so much time have gone by?  Seems like only yesterday I flew up to Atlanta from South Florida in May 2009 to go with Mom to a doctor's appointment (Mari had been diligently holding down the proverbial fort), Mom asked what phase she was in, and the doctor looked her directly in the eyes and told her honestly that "it was the beginning of the end".  We called my sister and brother on the way home to share the news with them, and convened a meeting at Mom's house for the next day.  Talked about all the options, and chose to bring in home hospice a day or so later.  At that point, what for me started as a two-week visit lovingly morphed into end-of-life caregiving.

Mari, Brad, and I quickly circled the wagons, and affirmed to do whatever it took to keep mom happy and comfortable, also bringing in her dear friends/neighbors Claire and Steve, Ann, and Rose.  We spread the word, and other friends/family scheduled visits, always careful not to wear mom out.  I got my nose pierced with a tiny diamond, to always remind me of her:  shiny and sharp...  :-)  We made, and checkmarked, a To Do List.  We grocery shopped and cooked, and Mari was in charge of Happy Hour.  Brad came over every Sunday to vacuum the carpets and do odd jobs, and then stayed for our Family Dinner tradition.  We started keeping a daily journal to log Mom's ever-changing medical routine (pills and nebulizer).  We vowed there would be no woulda/coulda/shouldas, and there weren't.  No regrets.

Her body betrayed her (pulmonary fibrosis), but Mom stayed alert until the very end.  She is in all of us, with so many special character traits, most especially joie de vivre.  I experience memory sparks every day:  a song, a movie, a TV show, a philosophy, a laugh, a smile.  Constance (Concetta) Elaine Izzo Driskell Maresco knew how to live.  Despite occasional friction, I loved my mom fiercely and am grateful for the lessons she imparted and the love she bestowed... 💖


SONG:  The Circle of Life by Elton John/Tim Rice, from The Lion King

BOOK:  The Circle of Life: The Heart's Journey Through the Seasons by Joyce Rupp, Macrina Wiederkehr

POEM(S):  Still Falling for Her by Sharon Olds

The phlox in the jar is softening,
from the sphere of it a blossom flutters,
and the whole sagging thing makes me think
of my mother’s flesh, when she was elderly, and it was
wilting, keeping its prettiness
in its old-fangled gentleness.
It’s as if I’m falling in love, again,
with my mother, through the gallowsglass of my
own oncoming elderliness, as if,
now that she has been gone from the earth
as many years as a witch’s familiar
has lives, I can catch glimpses of my mother, at
moments when she was alone with herself, and would
pick up her pen, and her Latinate
vocabulary, and describe what it
was like, on their last cruise, when she rose,
by invitation, from the captain’s table,
and stood beside the black, grand
Steinway, in the open ocean,
and sang. I do not need a picture to
remind me of the look on my mom’s
face, when she sang—extreme yearning,
a yearning out at the edge of what was
socially acceptable
on a ship like that, and you could also see
how happy her face was, to be looked at,
and you could see her listening to her own voice,
to hear if it started to go flat, or anything
she needed to do to get the music
to its hearers intact as itself, I am falling,
and I do not feel that there are rocks, below,
I think I may go on falling, like my own
flesh, for the rest of my life, and maybe I’ll
still be falling for my mother after
my death—or not falling but orbiting,
with her, and maybe we’ll take turns
who is the moon, and who is the earth.


Eagle Poem by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

QUOTE:   "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love." ~ Washington Irving

End of the Summer (Dar Williams)

As I've mentioned before, I've been on the Dar Williams discussion list for over a decade now... and one of the many cool traditions members have initiated (and perpetuated) are sending End of the Summer and February (tying in to her songs of the same title) cards (at the appropriate season) for whoever wishes to sign up - the greetings can be homemade or store-bought, and are imbued with various photos, poetry and/or quotes relating to these most transitional times, in whatever form...

The first year I participated in EOTS (1999), my daughter S was in her senior year of high school and just getting ready to go away to college... so the song, and sentiment, struck entirely too close to home - I didn't think I'd take it as hard as I did but I'd find myself, at the least provocation, bursting into tears... at the grocery store, on the soccer field, at work... whenever anyone would ask me what her plans were...

My "card" was an 8 1/2" x 11" collage of various images and phrases conjured by Dar's stunning lyrics, with the below-poem in the center - I still cry when I hear the song... and I still engage in the annual ritual of honoring the passing from summer to autumn, even if the segue here in South Florida is mostly metaphorical...

SONG: End of the Summer by Dar Williams

BOOK: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

POEM: 35/10 by Sharon Olds

Brushing out our daughter’s brown
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a moist
precise flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It’s an old
story—the oldest we have on our planet—
the story of replacement.

QUOTE: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference." ~ The Serenity Prayer