The Plan

The Plan

Dear Ian,

Here is a new thought...... 

Before this life;

Before you were my son and I was your Mom,

 In another place in time.

We planned this chapter of our story. 

Stood together and imagined all of this into being.

 Set our intent together toward a hard task with love and so much devotion to God. 

I lean into the ease of it,  

  Accept the missing puzzle piece.

Of Love expanding.....

I like the sound of the word "Expansion", it feels good my mouth. I like the visual of you expanding with each breath. All the lovely attributes of the person I knew as Ian. I like the idea of your humor, your generosity, fearlessness and compassion....reckless curiosity and obnoxious honesty; placed within you for a purpose and destined to grow. I can imagine you now expanding like our universe after the Big Bang. 

What an ironic thought 

Because you, my beautiful boy endured a

 Big Bang here on earth.

This is not to be flip or creepy, or dark about the nature of your leaving. 

I proclaim that great creations begin with sudden upheaval;

violent transformation,

A turning over of the apple cart......

Less a gentle nudge  than with a deep breath and a 

Painful

Unsettling

Seemingly Chaotic birth

It is an interesting and ancient notion that God allows us to craft our own stories...that He or She or We are all fired by free will, the very blood of a living God, coursing and pumping in unpredictably predictable ways.

Your story is forever changed on the other side of leaving us, Biggun. I see the truth and the power and meaning of it. I think I can begin to sense some of our plan, especially how your outrageous and unexpected act might be generative rather than destructive; a dynamic and planned event that means something. Was worth something. Was in fact, a beginning, not an ending.

In my insides

I do know you have taken me along with you. 

I gripped you as we went to warp speed

Just enough time to grab a breath as we plunged into the deep.

My insides know, too, that all this was just as purposeful as a forest fire, whose acrid char brings the popping and sprouting of pine cones. Brings forth life and is as ruefully necessary as a whale, beached and gone, feeding all manner of bird and beast and bug.

It is a more honest accounting of how this all works than fairy tales about rainbows and butterflies. These too are  beauty born of fracture and division.

So here I am, Ian, working the rubrics cube of my own remaining plan and imagining how to do this....

Trying to remember how we are knitted together.  Just let the momentum of the Big Bang move me until I find my next natural point of orbit in the service of God . Drift like the stars that float in the aftermath until laws of physics find them again. 

Agree not to judge myself or others so much,

Be kind when I can manage to be, 

Accept all of this mess softly

See beautiful things

Pet my dogs and save insects.

Kiss Hudson's head

Bow before the littlest joys

Which are expanding the true nature of God

I would never want to let you down, so I promise to try. 

And I am looking for other travelers like us.

 Those who come here determined to leap instead of crawl; those who write epics, not cliff notes....symphonies not jingles; Those who love large,

Imagine big 

Explode

Trail blaze....

Like freaking Lewis and Clark

and Captain Picard

                                                                                                     Love,

                                                                                                                     Momma

Coursing (Archived 1/2/19)

Coursing

The day dawns, 

the one rued,

  the turning of the wheel;

 A final heaving sigh. 

December 26, 2018

Dear Ian,

At the cusp of this odd day is this odd thought....

You loved an scavenger hunt; you loved Easter and Advent....the pickle on the Christmas tree....even Hangman games where you earned a letter for doing chores. You couldn't pace yourself....your brother and sister gave up as you cleaned the entire house to win the letters and scoured the freshly decorated tree to find the glass pickle everyone had already surrendered to you. Relentless, joyful, determined....if you were a young lion, heaven knows you would feed your pride (except that you might bring that antelope home and convince your people to bring her into the fold instead).

In a more macabre way, I've been on a scavenger hunt of my own for the last year. For one whole turning of the dial, I have been trying to grab up any clue that I could; tiny bits of you. Tiny hints and postcards from you. Material and earthly proof that you still hum and vibrate with some kind of life. I look.

Little bits of magic, bits of hope

Bits of you, bits of us. Colored Ribbons, my love.

Honey, in my raging grief, I pay attention because I don't want to miss one single message from you. A lifetime spent  practicing my third eye has been a help. I force my eyes open, even when I don't want to; lifting my chin toward a warm moment of sun, even when all I really want to do is tuck my head under my wing and die.

On this anniversary of your leaving, the sky raised her hackles and began to complain. Grey and blustery, wind coming in all directions at once. Misty droplets,  then sheets of rain,  and then breaks of plain grey sky. Wind. The kind that that whirls and spins, transforming entire fields of tall grass into a living lion's mane. Aunt Nita and I went south driving right through it.  

That straight road to the coast you and I and your family have driven so many times.

Instead of my darling blonde boy, curled up in a blanket in the back seat, I brought my grief and binocs along instead. We all loaded up to see where we could go; see what we could see....scavenger hunting. The weather spoke.

To say God was giving voice to my grief is an understatement. It was as if all that makes up this Earth was solemnly removing hats and bowing heads. Wind gusts as hymns of remembrance of your life lived.....your life over....gone. As strong and real as another funeral viewing.

Clouds in violent motion, not stuck still in the sky, but boiling and coursing.  More A dirge across the face of this day than a funeral. This day 365....more than a year since I last touched you.....

You told Elijah that I should "Hang stockings and celebrate Christmas, Mom, then grieve for me on the 26th." 

Mainly, I just drove and watched. Scavenger hunting, coursing myself. Memories stabbing but calmed by the dark and rowdy agreement from nature that this is the shit....No sun or hope or syrupy promises of renewal. Fuck no. Fuck that...Just weeping and sobbing from the wind. Such a sweet testament of the loss of such love. I did see so many other things, Osprey and birds and an occasional moth. I felt you there, as I knew I would.

Then between 4 and 5pm, my sister and I opened a beer and sat facing the Mother of lagoons, and watched the grey gauze of cirrus move swiftly over the still bay. Behind the clouds, shocking moments of the brightest french vanilla-colored sunlight, just before it set. And with it, an unblemished bright blue sky peaking through. Astonishing but not surprising. 

Sun punched through at the very hour one year ago, when your precious blood spilled out and that fine, solid mind and beautiful heart slowed and slowed and slowed. And stopped. I was not there when your heart stopped,  but I am now.

The sun knew, the grass and thorn thicket too; the murmuring of Chacalaca ceased their noise for a few seconds. Wind shadows moved across the water giving form and fingerprint. I didn't see angels weeping or God's hands stretching wide in a giant " amen", but I did feel every bit of the wind, I saw every particle of light, in all the colors offered. I finished the hunt on this sad ceremonial day and I never looked away.

And I never will. This little courage I offer is for you, my baby. 

I love you,

Momma