I was just watching Mad Men. (Couple seasons ago – we rent.) And something about the way Betty was talking to her daughter about the first kiss…
The moment went from “I don’t want you running around just kissing boys,” to “the first kiss is very special… it’s where you go from being a stranger to knowing someone. And every kiss with them after that is a shadow of that kiss.” And they are looking at each other, seeing each other, this mother and this little girl.
And I thought of my first kiss with M, which was at midnight, on New Year’s Eve, such a new beginning. I had no idea what marvels lay ahead. And I thought of having that kind of conversation with the Fox someday. About kisses, or something else. The important conversations where you are looking into each other’s souls. There are so many of those ahead of us. And I thought of friends Steve and Katy and Maggie, who are losing their cat of 12 years tonight to cancer. I am sending out my love to Makita. And to them, as they figure out how to explain this to a two-year old while they grieve.
You see? It has already begun. These important moments. It would be so easy to imagine that the important stuff, the first kiss type conversations are ahead of us. It has already begun.
But I thank my friend Robin for this tidbit, a moment at Diana’s grove, when I was three months pregnant and had no idea what marvels lay ahead. And she told me about her 17 and 22 year old sons.
“They are so close, and then they grow up. And they break up with you,” she laughed a little. “That’s just exactly what it feels like, to lose someone you love so much, lose them a little.” She looked at me. “You have so much ahead of you. I would give anything to have one of my boys small again, just for a moment, when he sat in my lap and his head tucked under my chin. Anything.”
I had that today, the Fox still in my lap, his weight and his smell and his shape. It feels like being whole. There is a lot about now, about being so responsive all the time that is very hard. I give myself that. But there is so much here that I will never have again. At moments like that, it would be easy to want him to stay just this way, just this height, fitting into my lap with his head fitting under my chin. And yet there is so much ahead. So much soul and grief and those moments where time stands still and there is something more in the room. Tonight, I am very grateful for M and the Fox, for my many friends. Goodbye, Makita, brave and loved kitty. Goodnight Maggie. Goodnight Fox.
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"...And yet there is so much ahead. So much soul and grief and those moments where time stands still and there is something more in the room."
ReplyDeleteExactly. Isn’t the power really in the pause? And then there is the next moment. Which I’m beginning to think is as powerful as the pause in its unique ability to tell us not to take ourselves so seriously, and to listen.
The air was heavy as Steve and I tried to explain as briefly as possible how all that we had been experiencing the last month, particularly this last week had culminated in the night. That Makita’s body wasn’t living anymore. That she wouldn’t get better. And that today we would bury her. “YEAH!!! I WANT TO BURY MAKITA!!!” I almost burst out laughing. I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting grief or freakout, but I also wasn’t expecting THAT or the happy dance that went with it. And so it is…we take another step in the journey. This journey in which we have no idea what we are doing, and either does our little two-year old guide. We do it anyway, step by step, making the best we can and hoping to pause long enough to honor each precious moment. And we know that we are learning as much as she. Death is now an ongoing conversation in our house, so the question of how to talk about it has become entirely moot: Made redundant by living. We had a burial and a memorial and we have daily two-year-old conversations launched by, “I’m sad that Makita is dead” or “Makita was a good kitty” or “Mama, come get me out of the closet and give me medicine. I’m your kitty” or “It’s okay horsey. You are old now and we are going to bury you.” Yikes. I guess right here is where we are meant to be, in all its simple joy or complicated messiness.
I don't know of better guides in the journey of "right now" than your Fox and our Magpie. Thanks for your wishes and love.
You are a gift.