This morning I’m humming the song Mariah.  There are two songs from my childhood: Que Sera and Mariah.  Steve points out I’m humming again which is curious because after a beautiful day, last night hammered in as a tough one.  

My son and his wife, Chris and Frieda, adopted a rescue Keeshond a few years ago.  Velvet’s owner had passed away and Velvet is a light in their lives. She is one of those enlivened beings who lifts you in a smile. She loves life and her huge brown eyes shine bright.  Spirit pours through.

When they got her they found out she had cancer but they thought surgery got it all but it’s been a battle and the sweet little thing has once again been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment.  Today they’ll find out if there is no hope and they need to put her to sleep or if she can be kept alive a month or two so they’ll have time to prepare. She had another transfusion last night.

They’re not ready.  I understand. I’m not ready either and I don’t understand why it’s so painful and hard.  I’m once again caught as though I’m in a hammock or on a trampoline and I’m struggling to get out or off.  I need a pause, and I know I’m the only one who can create one. My brother passed 73 days ago, and I wonder what it is to navigate this thing called “fun”.

Katy and I shared a wonderful day yesterday, had brunch at Cavallo Point and again a Great Blue Heron stood watch.  I sit with it now, this pain of letting go. I want to understand. I’m trying to be compassionate with myself, and then, a voice comes in, “Can’t you move along? What’s wrong with you?”

Last night Frieda posted what BARK – Bay Area Rescue Keeshond had posted on Velvet – Vellie – people are praying for her, and I think of connection, and how these people are praying for this bright spirit of a dog, and how the little dear came into our lives to give us what we need, the ability to allow even more tears, tears of love, compassion, and connection, tears of liquid love, to fall.

When Chris was in second grade, his fish died.  It was one of those fish you “win” at a fair. He needed to go to school as it was a nation-wide test day but when I drove him, he wouldn’t get out of the car.  I went in and spoke with the teacher and she said it was important to honor his grief, to take him home and be with the loss of the fish. There’s always another day for making up what’s missed.  I feel like I’ve given myself time, and then it’s like there’s another hit, another need to mobilize and honor the complexity of this amazing world we share.  

I’m with that now, with sensitivity, and grief.  I know grief carves out more room for joy. I know this, but some days, and this is one of them, it’s tough to mobilize on that knowing and now I remember a jewelry box I had as a child.  When I opened the lid, a tiny ballerina spun around on a point on a mirror.  

May that be me today, a ballerina spinning on a fine point as we take the ferry to the city knowing there are many prayers in the air for Little Vellie. I trust the love she gives and the fighter she is, and that, she, too, that little fur ball, with many shaved places for surgery and insertions, has her own path, and there is love.

My niece Katy is here.  Last night we talked and cried, hugged, talked, and cried.  I slept peacefully and well, woke with a fullness that’s been elusive since my brother’s passing seventy-two days ago.  There is a hearth of healing, a family light.

My brother passed 71 days ago.  This morning I’m out early watering on a beautiful day.  I see how different are the plants in my yard, different colors, sizes, and types of needles, petals, and leaves.  They have differing water requirements. Why then do I think each day will be the same as to how I handle grief?

Today there is sorrow and a weight to grief, and we’re gathering again, a smaller group, but still there is gathering and group.  There is the pain of letting go, and awareness of transformation and growth.

I was raised not to cry in public.  When I came to Rosen Method, I attended a memorial, and I held my head straight, shoulders back, and tightened the muscles in my neck and jaw, and I didn’t cry.

The next day I couldn’t turn my head.  It just happened I had a Rosen session scheduled, and I pointed out I couldn’t turn my head.  What do you suppose happened when I got on the table? I cried and cried. Tears are lubrication.  They oil our fears and separation. They say, “We are the ocean. We’re one!”

The tide is going out – the beach is exposed.  Crying together and hugging, my brother’s wife and I learned we have each been trying to protect and care for the other.  Today we surrendered more clearly to the grief we both feel and share. The tide comes in; the tide goes out, and sometimes it’s gentle and other times fierce, but all is held by the ocean floor and the tender rise of sky.

I’m with this poem of Tennyson’s. The bar is so clear here by the sea and invites the salt of tears, the sweetness of shared grief.

Crossing the Bar

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Sunset and evening star,

     And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

     When I put out to sea,

  But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

     Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

     Turns again home.

 Twilight and evening bell,

     And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

     When I embark;

  For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

     The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

     When I have crost the bar.

And so my brother has, and when I’ve learned enough, so will I.

I’m grieving.  Yesterday I almost choked twice because my throat is so tight.  I sit and look at waves, watch birds fly. There are trumpet flowers outside the door.  This is the year I turn 70. I trumpet that I’m of an age to know and proclaim grief. If not now, when.  There’s nothing to ignore.

I text Jan, Gar’s wife, and she comes over and we cry and cry.

I’m looking out watching morning light come to the marsh, harbor, and ocean.  Yesterday was a perfect ash-releasing day. We each had our cup of ashes, Yankees cups, since Gar loved the Yankees and we each released in our own way.  Bob and I entered the waves and allowed our cup of ashes to release and be carried out on the perfect wave. It takes awareness and timing to ensure the dip into the water is when the waves are going out not in since they tend to intermingle but we did it and the water was warm, a warm embrace.  We enjoyed the bubbles waved by a mother to her young son and the surfers paddling out to catch the waves.

A Great Blue Heron stands guard in front of where we’re staying.  Pelicans abound.

Eleven of us enjoyed dinner at the Moss Beach Distillery and paused to savor the sun entering water and clouds.   The foghorn blows. Pelicans swarm. I’m still weighed with grief, but it’s lighter now, moving in and out with the waves.  In this moment, my heart is a halo embracing above and below. I’m grateful for life, family, and friends.

It’s 68 days since my brother passed and today I pause, slip between the seams.

It’s been a busy week.  Last night we attended a meeting of our local Tam Design Review Board.  We have local say on development in our area, and it felt comforting to gather with thirty or forty neighbors most of whom have lived here, as have we, for many years.  We moved here in 1978 when Chris wasn’t yet one, and Jeff just turned four. At the time, many of our neighbors had moved here after the end of WWII and literally built their own houses.  They’re gone now, passed in their homes, and now, here we are, attempting to hold the fort on greed and environmentally disastrous development. We live on a non-county maintained road without street lights and sidewalks in an area called Little City Farms.  All of this is obvious when people move in but then some want to change the character of what we oldsters love.

When I walked to my neighborhood book group Tuesday night, I spoke with a neighbor, Paris, as we looked down into her yard.  A doe looked up. Paris said there are two fawns and a bobcat who spotted looks similar to the fawns living there.  Harmony.

I sit here now balancing like a teeter-totter on that space between up and down, feeling a tender ache in my heart. We gather tomorrow to scatter the second half of the ashes of my brother.  Knowing that, feeling that, I pause and gather myself together and reflect. I wonder how one captures a pause in a photo, and there’s that word capture.  In this moment, I’m setting all photons free, and allowing them to wave my mind-body within the comfort and curtain of fog.

Yesterday my friend Marlene and I walked around Lake Lagunitas, a reservoir, to come to the bench she donated in her sister Bambi’s memory. We sat and talked. We talked most of the way, with some times of silence to listen for the Pileated Woodpecker and to honor the newt crossing, currently unnecessary.

We spoke of friendship and death, complexity and simplicity, when to hold on and when to let go. We examined our part in what happens in our lives.

This morning, I look out on summer fog, feeling light, lifted, as though I dipped into the lake like grebes and ducks, sang and flitted in the reeds like Red-winged blackbirds. We were accompanied by the landscape; we were the landscape. Healing happens. My brother passed sixty-seven days ago, and today, this moment, my heart sings.