A-Z April Blogger Challenge: O is for OBSERVATIONS

I think most people have no idea how good they really have it.

I think illness is the body’s way of reminding you that you’re still alive and that you might still have a chance to change things for the better.

I think all men should know how to cook.

I think all women should know how to make basic repairs to their car.

I think real love is the only thing worth fighting for. Everything else is negotiable.

I think divorce is rampant because we rely on everything being disposable, from paper cups to cheap cars. Nobody wants to work hard anymore.

I think John is the most amazing man I have ever met.

I think having children is much more of a responsibility and a joy than anyone could ever explain to you when you’re young.

I think bleeding once a month is a small price to pay for the privilege of being a woman.

I think the public school system really IS leaving our kids behind…and that homeschooling should be a much more popular option than it currently is.

I think all children should be taught self-sufficiency from the time they are very young.

I think dogs are really the best friends you can have, unless there is a wild animal or fresh meat that is distracting them. Then they can be total assholes.

I think I’m actually a much better person than I give myself credit for.

I think I look pretty good for my age.

I think our country isn’t any more of a mess than it’s ever been.

I think it’s about time we normalized relations with Cuba.

I think it’s time to stop using oil and convert to renewable energy.

I think a little socialism isn’t always a bad thing.

I think someone is going to leave me a nasty comment because I mentioned ‘socialism.’

I think capitalism in the United States has reached its ceiling.

I think it’s a relief that combat troops are finally OUT of Iraq.

I think it’s ridiculous that we’re only NOW fighting the war in Afghanistan that we needed to fight 10 years ago!

I think the fact that I can grow things that my family can actually eat is a miracle.

I think the fact that most people DON’T grow their own food anymore is a sad consequence of modern life and should be encouraged.

I think organized religion is the downfall of humanity.

I think art and music make life so much more beautiful!

I think that life is so much easier than we make it out to be.

And I think we are our own worst enemies. 

A-Z April Blog Challenge - N is for: Namaste, Baby!

i honor that place in you

where the whole Universe resides.

let me love you

widely and deeply.

I have been so blessed

let me share my abundance.

draw from deep inside me

for i have enough to give,

more than enough

for you to share.

you need never suffer again

not sadness nor fear .

distance need never keep us apart again

for we can exist inside one another.

when you feel like you're lost and alone,

like you are drifting and falling,

burning in the atmosphere,

i am around you.

in the very air you breathe

and before you fall to earth,

i will catch you.

Mosul 3504

The phone is ringing, the baby is crying, the dog is scratching to go out. I glance at the caller ID to see if I really need to answer and I realize it's out of the country. Baby is on one hip; I pop a pacifier in her mouth for a moment's quiet so I can get the phone.

It's not my husband because the country code isn't the same. 035 - it's from Italy. Oh no. Oh no. My husband's command is based in Italy. There's only one reason they would be calling me and it's not a good reason.

All of that flashes through my head in a millisecond.

I answer the phone. Hesitantly.

"Is this Mrs. L." says an unfamiliar female voice.

"Yes." I swallow hard to push the lump forming in my throat but it doesn't help. "Yes it is. Who's calling?"

"This is Col. Whatshername. Do you have a few moments to talk?"

"Yes. Yes!"

It's the wing commander and she's calling me for some reason. My heart is pounding so hard I worry she can hear it through the phone.

I strap the baby into her bouncy seat and flick on Sesame Street and hope that keeps her happy for just a few minutes until I can get to the bottom of this. I fling the door open and let the dog out too. I just want some quiet so I can hear the Colonel over the roaring in my ears.

I wander a little ways away from the sounds of Elmo and sit down. "Is everything ok?" I ask her. Note to self - do not ask questions if you don't really want the answers.

"We wanted to inform you of an incident that occurred in Mosul earlier today, about 10 am their time."

"I'm assuming this involved my husband." My tone is flat.

"Yes, ma'am. Maj. L. was involved in the incident. As far as we know right now, his injuries are not life-threatening...." her voice trailed off.

Injuries????

At least he wasn’t dead.

Ok. Focus.

"Can you please tell me what you know? What happened?"

"Yes, ma'am I can tell you all I know, which isn't too much. At around 1000 hours there were two trucks travelling in a caravan through downtown Mosul. Maj. L was in the follow vehicle, rear driver's side seat. The caravan was ambushed by an improvised explosive device which took out the lead vehicle. At that point, gunmen opened fire on the two vehicles. What we can discern is that the four individuals in the lead vehicle were injured but able to vacate the vehicle and make a run for the vehicle still in operation. Maj. L. opened his door at that time to allow the team to enter the vehicle and several shots were fired inside. All we know is that he sustained injuries at that time, but the team was successful in entering and securing the vehicle and they immediately returned to base."

Someone shot my husband. That's all I could think.

Some mother fucker shot my husband. Who the fuck did he think he was shooting my husband? What did he do to him? Yes, I know it's a war, but suddenly it seemed so......so PERSONAL.

Why are you shooting at him? At our friends? What the hell is wrong with you that you just randomly shoot people you don't know? They're riding around in your country protecting your citizens and you try to kill them. Why?

Even as a well-read individual who is well-versed in the geopolitics of the Middle East, I am still having this very basic, visceral reaction.

My blood turns to ice in my veins as I envision what she is telling me.

"Is he hospitalized?" is all I can think of to say.

"It's unclear if he has been treated and released or if he is being flown to Landstuhl (a very large Army hospital in Germany where the worst casualties of the war are taken and treated) We have no information right now as to the extent of his injuries."

Suddenly I picture my husband bleeding from everywhere; I imagine the worst possible scenes, of bullets entering the truck, of him being struck and his blood bouncing off the glass. I envision it tearing through his skin, the skin I know so well. How could someone do this?

"When will you know more?" I am asking annoying questions, I'm sure, but I need to know.

"I'm sorry ma'am. This is all we know right now. As soon as we know more we'll get back to you. I'm very sorry." She sounds genuinely sorry and it turns out that we actually know her and have had dinner with her before. I just don't remember right now because I'm preoccupied.

"Ok, ok. Well, thank you so much." I hang up, bewildered what to do next. Do I call someone? I think of calling 911 but realize of course that is insane. Who do I call? Should I call his parents? My parents? I have to tell someone! I have to get more information. I run to my laptop to see if he's online. Sometimes I can catch him on instant messenger. But he's not there. There are no emails either.  All I have is this phone call, which has fallen in my lap like a bomb.

The baby sees me and starts kicking. She spits out her pacifier and I can tell she wants "up." I pick her up and sit on the couch rocking her in my arms. Then I begin to cry. It is one of the first times I have cried since this deployment started. I haven't had TIME to cry. I haven't had the energy to cry; I have two young children to care for and who need me desperately. But now I unload months and months of tears that have been building behind my eyes. It is so bad that I've developed a lump on my eyeball that no one seems to be able to figure out. I figure it's just my aneurysm finally starting.

The crying feels almost good, a release that I badly needed, but I can't seem to stop and get a hold of myself. The baby doesn't notice, but I still feel guilty crying all over her.

These are weird thoughts. But my brain is straining to make sense of what's happening. I am so disturbed and anxious and agitated that after my son gets home from school, I pack up a small bag with some of our things and drive to my parents' house for a long weekend. I need something, some support, some love, someone to tell me this is going to be okay. I have NO IDEA if it's going to be okay since I have NO IDEA what kind of injuries he has. And I feel so fucking helpless because there is nothing I can do. I don't even know where he is.

I don't DARE tell my son! I just tell him we are going for a nice visit to see Nana and Pop, to spend some time with them and get a change of scenery. I hope this doesn't shake his routine too much and cause him anxiety but if I don't do this for myself, I won't be much of a mother to him or his sister, and that will be MUCH worse than a disrupted routine. He has been devastated by his father's deployment and we have to have an elaborate routine for all of his daily needs; everything has a little ritual, like he's OCD. It's a coping mechanism that he needs right now and that's okay, because he's coping.

At bed time, we kiss daddy's picture goodnight and he listens to daddy read a story on a tape that daddy made before he went away.

On his nightstand is a big plastic jar filled with exactly as many Hershey kisses as there are to be days to daddy's deployment. Every night, he gets a "kiss from daddy". As time goes on, he gets a visual of how much time is passing and how long until daddy comes home. The jar is getting lower and I had been feeling lighter, as if we were just about in the clear with a little over a month left. I guess I got too cocky. Karma has decided to kick my ass.

Anyway, going to my parents' turns out to be a good idea. My mom and dad heap the love and attention on the kids, knowing my nerves are shot. They baby me a little with seafood takeout from my favorite place. They seem inconsolable, however, that they can't do more. They know they can't take the pain away. They know I just want to know what happened to my husband.

But right now, all I can do is wait.  

Letting Go

I've worked hard to dig out the root of  the fear in my life and to let it go. I've identified some key moments in my life that I think are the cause of much of it ; just recognizing that is a breakthrough. But I took it a step further and did my best to forgive myself, forgive those who have hurt me and to take a deep breath and let GO of the things that have hurt me in the past.

You see, the thing is, I can't afford to live there anymore and I can't afford to have all of it coming forward blanketing me in negativity. Suppressing it is not the answer; bringing it out into the light, staring at it, letting it hurt and then saying, "It's okay, it's over now." -- THAT goes a long way towards healing.

I refuse to stay stuck in old patterns. Instead, I stand ready to remain open to all the love in my life, which is present in so many forms. I am creating the reality around me that will bring me that which I seek...and in fact, in many ways I've already done that. I've discovered that I am the soul I've been seeking, I am the soul I've been longing to connect with. Everything I need and everything I could want is already inside me.  It’s that way for all of us, we’re all self-contained, perfectly proportioned units of everything we could ever want and need out of life. All we need do is look INSIDE rather than outside for our own answers.

Releasing an attachment to outcomes is extremely difficult, but if I'm to stay emotionally honest with myself then it's time I exercised this power; or rather, that I relinquished such tight control over how things turn out. I don't have the power to determine how anyone else feels about me or about the circumstances of anyone’s life. What I do have the power to do is to open my life to possibilities, to stand ready to embrace whatever comes, to remain unattached to the outcome by trusting that God or the universe actually does know better than I.

My conviction is thus: I will surrender to the flow as life begins to unfold before me. I am at peace. I am complete with who I am and where I am in my life even if I am sad or suffering,. This kind of inner contentment has been a long time coming.  I am grateful, ever so grateful, for all that I've been given. No matter what happens, I refuse to fear and I refuse to place my fears (in the guise of expectation and disappointment) on anyone else. This life, when all is said and done, is all about love. Love is meant to be unconditional, unobstructed and unending. It is not based on any pretext or subversive desire; it is founded only in the power of what is good...because where there is love, there can no longer be fear.  So today I am letting go. No more fear. Only love.

Joey

JOEY

In the scheme of things, this is not my loss to grieve. There is a family. There are children. And a wife. There are brothers and parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews and friends and all the usual acquaintances. This is THEIR loss to grieve, not mine. Yet there is something unique and grievous that I feel, something quiet and simmering that doesn’t deserve a card or sympathy of any kind. Rather, it is the kind of loss that tugs a little stronger at the heart than the usual evening news and leaves behind a little hole of silence where once there was a small flutter.

Joey was my first love. We all have one. Joey was mine.

Joey was killed in a car accident yesterday. He was horribly and violently ripped from life and thrust into whatever comes next, probably before he even realized what was happening. In doing so, he leaves behind an entire life of people who will need to grieve deeply and learn to function without him. I have no such pretense. It’s been 20 years or more since I’ve even seen him. But his memory occupies a space in me that died just a little with him and it’s not something I can easily ignore.

There was a group of us, all friends in some way and we watched each other grow from children into young adults. Joey was part of that group. To me, he always stood a little taller than the other boys, always looked a little different, always gave me a different feeling. Only when I became a teenager did I realize it was because I had a raging crush on Joey. Everything about him made me swoon. He was a little bigger than the other boys, broad shouldered and tall and muscular. He had blonde curls and a wicked smile. He was a little devious, intense and secretive, but when he let you into his world, it felt like you had won the golden ticket.

I remember the way he made me feel more than I really remember HIM. It’s been so many years that many of the details of him have faded. The man he had become is vastly unknown to me. There were some vague reconnections across social media and through mutual friends over the years, but nothing broad or deep or even that direct and, to be honest, I had no expectations otherwise. But deep inside me, there still lives the boy who made me swim in lust and admiration and excitement and fear. There still lives in me the young girl who leapt at him and drank in whatever he was willing to share.  He was the one who made me feel things that I didn’t know I was capable of. He was the one who introduced me to what it felt like to be a woman. He scared me and made me a little crazy and he left something of himself in me that transcends time and distance. 

Through time and in this real life, I never expected to see him again. But somewhere in me is still that girl that longed, just for a moment, to feel again the way I once did in his presence. First love is personal and universal all at once. It’s beautiful and fragile and it lingers on inside of us long after the feelings have subsided. It leaves an opening to that moment when we discover that love is so much more than we ever imagined; it leaves behind tiny footprints of who we were that show us the path to how we 've become who we ARE. First love is tragic in its essence because it almost NEVER lasts, but it does live forever inside of us.  It breathes the innocence of youth. 

The finality of Joey’s death takes something away from that. It locks a door that has always been left slightly ajar.

With Joey goes a little more of my youth, a little bit of optimism, a little bit of the expansiveness that first love brings. Joey’s death brings a familiar but sad reminder that all of life is fleeting and that the moments we cherish never actually do come around again. It reminds me that it’s important to tell people how they make us feel, especially when those feelings are loving, rather than waiting until they’re gone. It reminds me that, if I’m being honest with myself, none of us actually really understands why we’re living this life in the first place. It forces me to stare down the black hole of uncertainty that surrounds life and death and ponder the nature of why we’re here, why do we feel such joy only to lose it just as quickly? Why do we live moments that we never get back again? Why do we long for a past that we can embrace no more than a thin fog? This is the luxury of thought that comes with the type of grief that doesn’t rock your entire world, but rather refocuses life through different lenses.

My heart aches for Joey’s family. I’ve been through my share of sorrows in this life to know well how loss tears the fabric of your life into shards. The simple act of restitching your life back together takes the effort of Sisyphus, constantly pushing the boulder up the mountain only to have it roll back down again. And when you finally reconstruct the pieces of you into something resembling a life again, you discover it doesn’t resemble anything you’ve ever known before. It can be good. It can be bad. It can be emotionally eviscerating. For Joey's family, it will hurt forever. Over time, my sadness over Joey’s death will level out and I will stop coming back to it 100 times a day. Maybe next week, I’ll only think of it 50 times a day, and the week after only 20 times. But when I come back to visit that place inside me where Joey and my first love reside, something will always be missing.

Rest in peace, Joey, and know you were loved.