Stephen
November 21st, 2009 by Karen
Today, was a difficult day. By far one of the hardest days of my adult life.
Today we buried Stephen.
He was my brother’s very best friend, so much so that Stephen was the brother he never had and vice versa. They brought out the good in each other and he’s been around for so very long that it’s hard to believe he’s really gone. Last Thursday evening, with his beloved wife Rosemary by his side, Stephen lost a long, hard fought battle with cancer. He leaves a hole in so many hearts…a testament to his undying and unwavering love for others.
Personally, I’ve always had a difficult time with my tears. I admit it…I cry easily. Part of it I’m sure is inherited from my mother, but part of it is that I can feel the grief of those around me profoundly. At times, I have set foot in hospitals and simply burst into tears from the overwhelming emotion that washes over me. Sometimes this is a blessing…I can tell when people are hiding their grief, but sometimes the constant tide dashes me against the proverbial rocks and I find it difficult to maintain my composure for any extended period of time.
This morning at the graveside, was one of those moments…from the first second I saw Rosemary until I got back in my car, there were tears on my face. I cried for her…for the loss of her beloved husband, that she won’t be able to grow old with him, that she has to experience widowhood at such a young age, for her broken heart. I cried for his mother and father, Marlene and Dave, that they had to bury their only son who brought so much joy to their lives, that they would never again go golfing with him or be able to hug him tight. I cried for his little sister, Christina, for the loss of her big brother, her hero. I cried for his grandparents, who I’m sure never considered that they would ever be burying a grandchild. I cried for his in-laws, who grew to love him as a son and a brother, for he filled a special place in their lives too that will forever now be empty. I cried for his adorable nephews, E and Marsh, who are so small that their memories of their uncle will be smudged by time. I cried for his friends, Charlie and Kate and Andrew and Daniella and Nathan and Eric and so many others, that they have lost their friend and confidant and with his illness and passing, some of their own innocence. And finally, I cried for my little brother, for his loss of his best friend, his brother by choice, his golf and baseball buddy and for his own unexpressed bottomless grief that I can see in his eyes and for my inability to do anything to fix it.
After Stephen’s funeral and memorial today, I had the long, quiet drive home alone in the dark to think. Upon reflection of this morning’s chilly mourning, the following words filled my heart and brought me a modicum of peace…I know Stephen is home. And in time, we will see him again.
~Karen
Stephen’s Goodbye
widow’s weeds
of grey and tears
glide quietly through the crowd of somber faces
weeping silently for vanished years
of tea and coffee
of crooked smiles
of grass and sky
of embraces
of growing old
as so many do
and some may not
grief etched deep
sleep lost
and ache more plentiful than clouds
heaped on empty bellies
and broken souls
Angels weep soft tears of their own sorrow upon
wife, mother, father, sister, brother, family, friends
and icy wind rips the unspoken scream
from dashed hearts
resounding across the empty sky
with a whispered wail
tempered only by the final sound
of God’s soft breath on chimes
carrying him home
on a single sweet tone
Posted in Family, Life, Poetry & Writing | 0 Comments
Adjust this!
September 16th, 2009 by Karen
Ok, it’s not that I fear change, so much as I’m stubborn. My mother will back me up with this one, I’m sure. If I find a way that something works for me, then it will take a lot of convincing for me to change my ways. Now, this doesn’t really apply to work concepts, since I love to check out new techniques and apps and such, but more to my everyday living.
When we go out to eat, I tend to get the same meal repeatedly. When I go to the grocery store, I always make the same path through the store…if I don’t, I always forget something. I have a morning ritual and an evening ritual. If those get interrupted (like by hubby shouting from downstairs for me to get up 30 minutes before my alarm has gone off), the rest of my morning is spent getting back on track with varying degrees of success.
When we moved here, I had a difficult time adjusting. It’s not my home, it’s unfamiliar, and filled with people that my hubby knows and I do not. People who greet me in the store by my first name when I have no clue who they are and tell me “Oh, tell your hubby I said hi.” Five years we have been here and if I were to count the people I knew well enough to call to go out for coffee, I wouldn’t run out of fingers. I haven’t adjusted to living here.
Recently, my youngest started school. This means that for nearly seven hours a day, I can work basically uninterrupted. I’m having to adjust to it and it’s been more difficult than I anticipated. There are times when I get a ton of work done and it’s only 11am and I’m suddenly stymied as to what to do with myself. I’m going through to-do lists like they are going out of style.
I’m liking the results, but it’s disconcerting to actually be able to crawl into bed at 10pm, long before I used to go to bed and be able to say “hey, I got all the housework done today.”
I’m sure, eventually, I’ll adjust.
Posted in Family, Life | 2 Comments
Want.
August 24th, 2009 by Karen
It’s a seemingly innoccous word, want. So deceptively simple even in definition: to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire.
But the answer to the question “What do you want?” is so brutally complex that it’s nearly impossible to answer definitively.
It’s a word common enough around our household…”what do you want for dinner?”, “what I want you to do is pick up your toys.”, “do you want a coffee this morning?”, “All I want is 5 minutes alone!”…but rarely do I actually ponder what I want in the long run.
Wishing
I could wish for a million dollars and it would never happen. As much as all those self help books say that visualization is the key to actualization, I say that you have to train the horse if you want to ride it, not hope and wish that it would become tame without intervention. We’ve been digging ourselves our of our American Dream pile of debt by hard work, blood, sweat and tears. Not wishes. I want to live debt-free. Wishing is daydreaming and while a nice pastime, not a way to get the things you truly want in life.
Needing
Needs are necessities like water, clothing, food, shelter. These are important and I guess in a way I want them, because to be without them could be fairly disasterous however so many people justify their purchases as falling within these categories. Paying for water bottles constantly rather than using the tap is crap. Buying a $300 designer ski jacket to stay warm when you live someplace that doesn’t fall below 30 F in the winter is crap. Purchasing expensively overpriced pre-made dinners from the grocery store is crap. Building a new house that is more focused on form than function is crap. I don’t need that. I need clean water, durable clothing, healthy affordable food, and a safe home for my children.
Craving
Cravings are difficult…we feel them deep in our bellies and they can be difficult to ignore or voice. I’ve found that most of my cravings though are actually masking what it is that I really want. I crave french fries, but not because I even love potatoes in the slightest. I want salt. I crave chocolate, but I want a glass of milk. I crave time alone, I want to listen to my own meandering thoughts.
Demanding
I will admit to having demands. Everyone does. I demand that you speak to me, not my chest. I demand that you treat me as my own person, not my husband’s wife. (Especially if you are billing me and I’ve been your dental patient for 14 years and he’s been to see you 3 times. Grrr.) I demand that you speak to my children with the same respect you require in return. I demand decent customer service. Unmet demands will be dealt with in a positive manner unless public humiliation is the only recourse.
Desiring
Desire is a tricky beast. It’s so often hidden behind layers of lust and sexual innuendo that it’s hard to see it as a valid want. We speak of desire in a coveting manner…desiring cars, and jewlery, and the latest hottie to grace a magazine cover or movie. Desire is not these materialistic things that make us happy in the short term. It’s not a ring from Tiffany or a shiny new car or even a satisfying roll in the hay. These only offer fleeting fulfillment and leave us feeling even more empty than before.
So what do I want? My innermost wish? Deepest need? My craving? Insistent demand? Heartfelt desire?
I want to be loved. For who I am. For who I was. For who I am striving to be.
Simple. And yet, so complex.
Posted in Life, Tuesday's Topic | 1 Comments
April 15th
April 15th, 2009 by Karen
Today is not just Tax Day when everyone over the age of 18 frets and worries and writes angry checks. Today is not just a day for Tea Parties and raging against the government that mismanages our money in such a way that would land an individual in jail. Today is not just the 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
Today is my sweet little boy’s sixth birthday!!
Six years ago, at 3 in the morning, I got out of bed and quietly sat in the kitchen, desperately trying to finish our taxes between contractions. About 4:30 am, Joel realized I wasn’t in bed and came looking for me. Let’s just say he was pretty upset that I was doing the taxes in labor without letting him know!! Luckily, I was pretty much finished and my Dad saved the day and finished them up for us and took them to the post office while we were at the hospital.
Suddenly, he’s a kindergartener, the class clown, reading beyond his ken, creating fractal patterns of anything he can get his hands on, and playing the World of Goo where he creates bridges to his little engineering hearts content.
I have no idea where the time has gone…my only regret with him is that it passed so fast. My girls will still snuggle into my lap but Alex has already started the eyeroll and the “moooom” when I try to kiss his cheek in front of his classmates.
You can’t wait for them to grow up and be independent, but it still smarts a bit when they do!
In any case, today he is six and beyond the blue cupcakes for class, his only request is to go out to dinner someplace they have calimari.
That’s my boy!
Posted in Family, Gaming, Life | 0 Comments
Rebirth
April 15th, 2009 by Karen
This past week, Stephen has never been far from my thoughts. Because of the amazing generosity of so many family, friends and strangers, he and Rosemary were able to travel to Houston last week for the battery of tests to once again battle the Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma still attacking his body.
If all goes well and he stays healthy, he will go back in another week or two for the medication and treatment to finally kill it and put him squarely in remission.
Knowing Stephen and his profound affect on my little brother and all his friends, the fact that this travel occurred during Easter Week is well, nothing short of symbolic. The last three years Steve has traveled a long road with his friends by his side…being their rock when they doubted, sharing his own fears and being lifted up by them in turn, losing faith and rediscovering it over and over. Taking chemo and radiation treatments, bone marrow and stem cell transplants with short lived success. And then this solitary chance arose, a place that has done so much good for so many in his situation. An opportunity to overcome the death sitting in his chest. He took this journey to Houston akin to Christ’s own trip to Jerusalem. It’s a trip he knows will change everything. His friends celebrated with him and rejoiced, but I know that in each of them is that deep rooted fear that none dare voice…the fear that he is slipping away where they can not go.
Everyone who knows Stephen has high expectations that he will finally be safe and free and he and his friends can go back to joking and playing and being the young twenty-somethings they are and talking about baseball and barbeques instead of these suddenly somber men who use multi-syllabic medical terms in their everyday chatter.
That medicine they are making this week in Houston for Stephen will make him violently ill and so weak he will not be able to have visitors. He won’t be able to see his family or cling to Rosemary’s hand for comfort. He will be denied the creature comforts of home in the interest of sterility and his decimated immune system. He will be completely and utterly exhausted from the retching and the pain of feeling his insides torn apart.
In that IV bag is liquid death.
But in its plastic confines is Stephen’s final chance for rebirth in this world.
Posted in Family, Life, Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Social Commentary
April 7th, 2009 by Karen
To say I am angry would not even begin to describe the blood that is currently boiling in my veins. I am at a loss for adjectives to describe how horrified and agitated I feel.
This morning over my morning coffee, I did what I always do…I run through my email, open my twitter, pidgin and skype for the day and then I hit Facebook and check the news headlines online at our local and regional papers to see what is going on in the world.
The first thing to greet me? A disturbing article about a new game out of Japan that is a rape simulator. Yes, you read that correctly. A video game that literally allows the player to tail and eventually rape an unsuspecting digital avatar. Whatever sick fucks programmed this thing need to have a little R&R at their local equivalent of the looney bin. A little shock therapy is more than in order.
Thoroughly disgusted, I flipped to the website for our regional paper to be greeted with the death of eight year old Sandra Cantu. Little Sandra went missing ten days ago from her home in a trailer park in Tracy. The police refused to catagorize her disappearance as a child abduction, so no Amber Alert was issued for the little one wasting valuable time in getting her back. This morning she was gruesomely found inside a suitcase in a farm collection pond.
I am sickened and disheartened that someone’s sweet little girl has been brutally ripped from their arms. My heart can only imagine the devestation her family must feel as their last shred of hope was torn from them.
When I was about eight or nine, I had a 10 speed bike and I was allowed to ride the bike around the neighborhood alone. I played with my friends, whose parents also let them wander the subdivision in the same manner. I have a daughter about the same age as Sandra and two other little ones and I don’t even feel safe letting them play in our front yard alone.
Why has our society become so violent against women and children? Those two groups have historically been considered worthy of protection…even in war raping, brutalizing and killing women and children is considered abhorrent behavior and is to be avoided at all costs. Why do we tolerate the sleeze in our midst that kills our children and rapes our bodies??
Call me intolerant, call me not understanding, call me cruel, but these men that commit these horrific sexual crimes against the weakest in our society do not deserve our pity for their childhood or our mercy in their punishments.
Christ taught us to turn the other cheek and to offer forgiveness to those who wrong us, but let us not forget that he also said “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)
Posted in Gaming, Life | 0 Comments
Saving Stephen
March 2nd, 2009 by Karen
The last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a side project to help out one of my brother’s best friends, Stephen.
Stephen is a 28 year old young man, husband, uncle, and brother. He is a musician, a friend, a God loving person, and overall a very good man.
Since 2006, Steve has been battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He has gone through countless chemo and radiation treatments with little success. He just finished a 20 day stint in the “bubble” at the hospital where basically he was in total isolation as they killed off his immune system once again with two different kinds of chemo.
There is a place in Houston, Texas called MDAnderson that has had great success with treating hard to cure cases like Stephen’s and it is our sincere goal to send him there. Only problem is that it is out of network for him and just to walk in the door is nearly $42K. Add on travel for him and his wife Rosemary and other expenses and it is nearly an insurmountable cost. As his friends and family, we feel it is our duty and our priveledge to help Stephen with this part of his journey.
“…during your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
~Footprints in the Sand
There is a high probability that Stephen will need a bone marrow transplant, so a drive has begun for that in addition to the drive to help him get to Houston for additional treatment.
Please visit SavingStephen.com to help.
Posted in Family, Life | 0 Comments
Surface
March 1st, 2009 by Karen
floating
like a forgotten blossom
on a wood ringed pond
making nary a ripple
bobbing slightly with the breeze
as the mist swirls tightly
all promise of life
lost in the chill of evening
and the depths of oblivion.
Posted in Poetry & Writing, Private | 0 Comments
Tuesday’s Topic - Finding Fair
February 27th, 2009 by Karen
Last Thursday, I received a call from my mother to tell me that my Great Great Aunt Louise had passed away. Sure, she was nearly 98 and yes she had been ill and confused for several years, but despite this, I cried.
I’m fairly certain that I was the only one.
Not because my family is cruel or because they conciously wished it would all be over. Just simply because “she had lived a long fulfilling life”. At what point do we cross over from death meaning mourning and death meaning absence of grief? How in the world is that fair?
Is is fair that she had to spend her final years locked in her own confusion about who came and went, who was really alive and who she believed still lived? Is it fair that only about 40 people came to the funeral? Is it fair that the discussion at her reception focused more on when the estate would be dispersed than her long well traveled life? Is it fair that the last of a generation should simply slip away with barely a mention?
Everyone went through the motions of what was expected…solemnly fulfilling their filial duties until it was appropriate to be finished. There was no fault to be found in the service itself. The flowers were impeccable, everyone appropriately dressed, the family mortician did a lovely job as he always does. But it was all flat. There was no sorrow.
The only person I spoke with that seemed at all moved was my cousin’s daughter who is only seven. In all the swirl of black clothing and Portland rain, she quietly went about her little way and ended the reception at my side. She was the only person younger than I and both of us the youngest there by a long shot. We sat on the couch and she showed me her DS and we ate little cookies together for a bit and then she asked if I wanted to see her room since the reception was at my cousin’s house. I said sure and she led me up the stairs. She showed me the sticker collection on her door (which I’m sure just kills my cousin who is an incredible interior designer), her collection of ponies and frilly dresses, and her books. She pointed out all the fun bric-a-brac that make up the world of a child then she turned to me in all childhood seriousness and said simply “You know, it’s too bad that Aunt Louise had to go to heaven. She was a nice lady.”
It was all I could do to choke out “Yes honey, she was.”
That small precious moment made up for all the unfairness of the day that had assaulted my heart.
No one else could see past the paperwork, the cost and the hassle of the end of a life, but a small child with barely an understanding of what it means to live did.
Posted in Family, Life, Tuesday's Topic | 2 Comments
Patience is a virtue…
February 12th, 2009 by Karen
This past Sunday when Joel and I renewed our vows, one of the readings at Mass was Corinthians 1:1-13 and although it’s oft quoted to the point of becoming trite, it’s still a lovely message. Love, unconditional love, is patient. It is kind. It endures always.
I am not the most patient person in the world. I have known this for a long time and regretably, so have those around me that I love the most. I come by it naturally I’m afraid. (Like father, like daughter!) I do not go through life with a happy and overabundant spirit. I usually start my day grouchy and impatient and I end it thinking impatiently of all the stuff I still have to do but have to wait on since it’s bed time. Impatience, perfectionism, and proscrastination are a bad combination.
Recently, my friend Mike suggested that I read The Tao of Inner Peace by Diane Dreher. Keep in mind that I DEVOUR books and can read 700 pages in a day with little trouble. This book has forced me to slow down and start taking things to heart. I’ve been reading it for a week and I’m only about 20 pages in. It’s frustrating and cathartic at the same time. It’s been a long time since I did serious self-discernment and examined my soul and boy…it needs some help.
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22
I have been striving towards several of these in my life lately, but I haven’t been particularly focused on patience. Joel can tell you, I sit in my chair and grumble away most of the day. The spam annoys me, the temperature of the house, the stack of bills, the constant “mommommommom” of our littlest one, the misplaced notes that are somewhere on my desk but elude me until I no longer need them. Each minor irritation has its tongue lashing or harrumph from me. He has the patience of Job to put up with me, I know. I would have up and moved my desk to another room by now.
The more I reflect on the idea of patience, the larger a concept it becomes. Not only does it encompass my day to day attitude and interactions, but it directly affects my joy, my capacity to love, my inner peace. My lack of patience prevents me from being the gentle and kind person I want to be and throws my self-control out the window, at least where things like chocolate are concerned. Patience does not mean being a complacent doormat, but being proactive in the face of difficult or annoying circumstances.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ~Ephesians 4:2
The last thing I want -ever- is for my children to be afraid of upsetting me or look back on their childhood and say “gee, Mom sure yelled a lot”. I need to learn to not sweat the small stuff, to take a breath before I criticize, to remember what impatience looks like through their eyes, because I was them once. I feel like I’m starting to make a little progress…seeing fragments of color flashing through my peripheral vision in a sea of gray and black.
It’s like patiently climbing a long spiral staircase, you can’t see the top, you can’t see the bottom, but you know each landing is higher than the last. If you’re patient enough and persevere, eventually you’ll see the sky.
Posted in Family, Life, Tuesday's Topic | 4 Comments
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