Being Back Here

I couldn't get the song out of my head once it started. It was 2:30 in the morning, last night, the night before my Mom's last memorial, which was earlier today. (That's what strung out feels like, kids. We were up for hours last night...)

The song was Still Fighting It, a bittersweet reflection on growing up and having children of your own, by Ben Folds.

"It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same things...
Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it,
we're still fighting it..."

Because at that moment, while I watched the Mama (my wife) hold and try to console an inconsolable stuffy Bryce (my youngest daughter), and Beatrice (my oldest) and me laid awake unable to sleep, I thought of my Mom and all the times she consoled and took care of me and my sister growing up, much of it without help with we were young children.

It's so weird to be back here...

Whether it be a cold, or the flu, or chicken pox, or allergies, or asthma -- Mom always took care of us and did everything she could to make it all better. Always.

Even the time I nearly ate an entire bottle of orange flavored baby aspirin and our family doctor at the time told Mom to make me throw it all up. Now that was a joyous memory. If you've tried to convince a young child to throw up for their own good, you know what I'm talking about. So no, I never did throw up that time, but fortunately it all worked out and all that yummy aspirin didn't affect me adversely.

I watched the Mama hold Bryce and remembered Mom and those are/were the memories that live now and forever in the tidal pools of my heart, a universe within universe within universe without forgetting once the "sunny days and rain" shared amid torrent and still water like glass.

Two weeks ago we said goodbye in Oregon, leaving Mom and Dad forever in the bay where they loved and lived in the end, where their souls reach to heaven...and today we said goodbye with local family and friends in Visalia where we grew up and where it all started for us, another tide rushing in to scatter memories from pool to vibrant pool...

Thank you for always being there, Mom. We were there for you as much as we could be in the end.

We love you.

The Most Important Thing

"One more song about moving along the highway

Can't say much of anything that's new

If I could only work this life out of my way

I'd rather spend it being close to you…"

--Carole King, So Far Away

So, how did we get here again?

We stood outside my parent's house in Oregon with Mom, her car I drove from Santa Cruz full of her and her little dog and much of her stuff, and waited for her friends to bring us a copy of her house key because the one we had didn't work. Twelve and a half hours of cramped but fairly smooth sailing on the highways and byways, listening to the sounds of the 70's and of my childhood, only to have to wait a little longer. (Thank goodness Ody keeps beating the Wreckers.)

She's so fragile, both physically and emotionally, grieving for the loss of Pop, or her well-being over the years battling with chronic illness and pain and a lifetime with meds. Going from my sister's house to mine and then back to Oregon over the past few months has been a mixed blessing, the emotional scars of family dynamics and a little dysfunction flaring up yet again.

And now we're here in their house where Pop passed away not even three months ago. The house is clean and tidy, their dear friends taking care of it while Mom was away. Most of her stuff unloaded from the car, tossed here and there for now until we can put it away, I sit and write, not feeling like we've gained anything from falling back, not even that elusive hour.

The incomprehensible burden of what we do next flattens me to the ground. But I have to get off it. I have to get off it and stand up and help Mom get acclimated to this interim world in Oregon, however temporary it may be. Getting her back to us is the optimal solution, but how to get there, I do not know yet.

I remember a car load from another time, a light blue VW bug that sputtered along, filled with a beautiful but battered mother and her two children and their stuff. A mother who's strength and courage survived over 12 years of domestic violence with two little kids to care for, my sister and me. A faithful servant of God for years, even in her moments of destructive doubt, inescapable grieving and her belittled will to live. She just reminded me of how good it is I'm here with her. I held her tightly in return. Sometimes that's all we need in moments like this, the assurance of warmth and safety in being held, just like she used to do for us back then.

The expository text may tell of how we get here, but the most important thing is that we're here. And what we do with it.