Don't Wait Until I'm Dead to Tell Me You Love Me

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting? 
~ Stephen Levine

In August, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Blogging Challenge.  The theme this month is: Hot.

B

etter to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.  Or as John Mayer put it, “Say what you need to say.”

Why do nasty hurtful words flow out of our mouths like a spring-fed waterfall, but our tongues become dry and tangled when it comes to telling someone we love them?  Is it the same emotional block that enables us to remember every word spoken in anger or hate as if they were precious diamonds, and to immediately relegate anything said out of love, encouragement, or praise to the back of the costume jewelry box?

The Little Mourner 

Frederick Sandys, 1862

My favorite aunt, who died last week, loved me immensely and considered me her favorite niece.

But I never knew that until yesterday.

She had a family of her own, with all the worry, stress, and occasional insanity that comes with it.  And I can’t throw stones: I’m guilty of allowing this grand adventure we call life turn into more of a hamster wheel than a roller coaster ride.  Guiltier perhaps because I know better, and waste more time chasing my proverbial tail when I could be staying in touch and telling loved ones how much I care.  So I’m not blaming her.  Not completely.  Yet it hurts and comforts me at the same time, to know how well she thought of me.

Because now it’s too late to respond in kind.

The lesson here is not to wait for someone else to say “I love you” or “I’m impressed with what you did” or “You are an inspiration to me.”  It’s a lesson that I forget all too quickly and need to be taught again and again.  Say it first.  You never need someone’s permission to say positive things.  Just a heart willing to be vulnerable. 

I love you, Ginny Lee.  You were my favorite, too.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The greatest wisdom is to love without needing to possess, and to give without expectation.  Who can you encourage, build up, or tell you love them today?

Death: The Unwelcome Guest

I know she isn’t coming back, but I still think that she will.

Nothing can make that go away.

We figure out what death means when we’re born, practically,

and we live our whole lives in some kind of weird denial about it.

~ Lauren DeStefano, Sever

In August, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Blogging Challenge.  The theme this month is: Hot.

D

eath makes me uncomfortable.

After my aunt P called to say that Aunt G had died, neither she nor my mother carry on the conversation.  My sisters and I call the women on my mother’s side of the family faucets ~ because their eyes drip every time something big or small happens to them.  My father’s side of the family are all stoic Eastern Europeans, so I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen my father cry.  Ergo, my sisters and I fall somewhere in the middle.  I compromise by crying where no one can see me.

Today I am not crying.

Image Credit: Albert Panin 

It’s not that I’m cold or didn’t care about my Aunt G.  She was in fact, my favorite aunt.  The fun, crazy one who would drive us to get ice cream, or plug in her “singin’ machine” and belt out Hank Williams, Sr. songs.  Who would sit outside on the front porch in the dead of winter just to smoke her tenth cigarette of the day.  Who loved Krispy Kreme like a religion, and cooked ham and biscuits better than my mother’s (but never as good as Grandma’s).

But I don’t like to think about death and I hate talking about it.

My default role, in both my family, and among my friends, has been that of the strong defender.  The one who knows the right thing to say, who would drive hundreds of miles to be with someone who needed a shoulder to cry on, or who answers the phone at three a.m. because you couldn’t sleep and needed to talk.

But I turn into an idiot zombie when someone dies.

Any words of wisdom I could say fade faster than the flowers on a tombstone.  And any strong hugs of comfort I could give turn into mutual cry fests.  Or worse, with the bereaved comforting me instead!

When I was younger, I wrote a book report on Kubler-Ross’s book on dying.  I became a teenage expert in grief counseling.  But all these years later, I’m less scientific about it, and closer to the raw reality of death.  Probably because I’ve experienced more losses in last ten to fifteen years than I did when I was a teenager.  When you’re young, you’re immortal, and there is all the time in the world to live your life and accomplish great things.

But by the time you’re thirty, you realize that you don’t have an eternity here, and the time you do have left, well, someone seems to have pushed the fast forward button and the damn thing got stuck!  I can still remember being told back in seventh grade that this would happen.  For some, it happens earlier.  For me, I didn’t wake up until I moved back to my hometown two years ago and realized my parents weren’t young anymore.  Ahhh.  And there it is.  The real reason death makes me uncomfortable.

Now I am crying.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you with talking about death? 

La Belle's Hobby Farm: Know When to Fold 'Em

Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.
~ Paul Simon

A

nd sometimes, words cannot be found to describe the pain.

When this year began, I told myself it could only go up from here.  Famous last words.  I really need to stop saying such things ~ Murphy and Karma seem to team up when I do, pulling the rug out from under me with a gleeful and sadistic gleam in their eyes.

Which is a long way of saying, sorry I haven’t written lately.  My family life is taking a beating right now, and as always when that happens, my creative well goes dry and soaks up every tear that falls.  Meanwhile, I curl up inside my head with a good book, or my imagination, and escape from conflict and confrontation.  Someone else’s drama is always more enjoyable then your own.  Throw in a few werewolves, mages, vampires, and magic, and I can stay in my little world for quite some time.

So pardon the silence. 
But have no fear.
Once the storm is over,
A new crop of stories will appear.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

When life gets overwhelming, what do you do to ease the pain?  Talk it out? Ignore it. Get angry? Or do you just retreat and read?

La Belle's Hobby Farm: Same Dream, New Chapter

Don't smother each other.  No one can grow in the shade. 
~ Leo Buscaglia

 

W

hen I first planted my tommy toes, I overwatered them.  They drowned in my care, unable to breathe and become what they were born to be.  And my basil plants grew so large and beautiful, I hated to take too much.

But the purpose of a garden is to both enjoy beauty and to share it.  If you are blessed enough with a bountiful harvest, but you keep the fruit on the vine (as I did with my basil), it will wither and die and give joy to no one save the worms.  I had to step back and seemingly neglect my garden in order for it to grow.  Funny how a little dehydrataion can make them shoot up and reach for the sun.

Now in mid-October, there isn’t much left.  But despite the chillier nights, the tomatoes stubbornly keep producing, and the plants continue to creep over the edges of the garden onto the lawn.  I pick the tiny red and yellow fruit and wonder if they feel like I do.

Trapped.

In many ways, I have found myself either dying on the vine or being "overwatered" with family issues these last few months.  All of a sudden, the dreams I cherished last fall began to close around me, suffocating my creativity.  Some is due to a long commute; a lot is due to the constant rub of a critical spirit tearing me down more than I can build them up. 

In the end, I have become one very drained, unhappy, and under-productive plant.  

But these are my dreams, my story, my garden.  And so I have the power to change the plot line, the dialogue, the scenery, even the boundaries.  My actual garden isn’t going anywhere, and I do have plans to expand it next spring.  It's just that I may be traveling to it once or twice a week to tend it instead of walking out the back door.

And that decision makes me (and my creative spirit) breathe a little easier.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The farm post is feeling a little metaphorical today!  What other meanings does your garden (and nature in general) hold for you?