One year

And missing you is just a part of living,

missing you feels like a way of life.

I'm living out the life that I've been given

but baby, I still wish you were mine.

-Amy Grant


and

Peace, peace!  
He is not dead, nor doth he sleep- 
He hath awakened from the dream of life.

-Shelley 

Around here

Here's a little bit about what our life is like right now, written in response to a general invitation by Ali Edwards.

Around here, the weather is transitioning from summer to fall.  Mornings and nights are chilly, and daytimes have ranged from bright & nippy to blustery to rainy to sunny & hot.  That means putting away summer shoes, bug spray and garden hoses and bringing out jackets, gloves and the hot chocolate mix.

Around here, our schedules are transitioning into the school calendar activities: classes for kids (including the first year of high school for our son) and subbing for me; band & choir & dance & music lessons; youth events & Sunday School; the frequent question, "Can ___________ come over after school?"

Around here, Ramsy's name comes up a lot as we approach the first anniversary of his death.  We love to remember him, to tell the stories connected with him, to see pictures of him.  Lots of times we laugh or smile, and sometimes we cry.  It's dauntingly difficult to know how to parent these three very different kids through their grief.  Sometimes I feel assured that it's going well, and other times I'm positive that I'm doing everything wrong.  That's how it goes.  We are preparing for an event we have planned for Saturday to mark the day, and that helps give direction to all the memories and feelings swirling around right now.

Around here, I'm spending a good chunk of time each month on memory-keeping.  Last year I chose a new format for keeping our photos, memorabilia and stories all in one album.  I felt that if I did not consciously make an effort to do this as a project, I would lose a whole year of memories- it's hard to drum up any "I wanna" feelings for taking your first family photo when one member isn't there anymore.  I am delighted with the results, with all the little conversations and events written down in this album, and with the fact that I periodically find the kids paging through it.  I'm absolutely going to continue doing it this next year.

Around here, we are reading lots: The Five Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary Chapman, vintage British detective fiction, and James Herriot's vet stories (me); Margaret Peterson Haddix, Suzanne Collins, John Green and Fox Trot comics (the kids).  We are watching The Mentalist and YTV's That's So Weird and anticipating the next season of Downton Abbey.  We are listening to Anthem Lights (Katy), Taylor Swift (Jane), and a lot of vocal and instrument practice.  We are eating delicious cherry tomatoes brought to us by gardening friends and (new discovery) mango-peach applesauce.

Around here, life feels pretty normal a lot of the time.  We're thankful for that.

Mish-mash, flip-flop

Since I began writing this blog in 2010, it has been rare for me to feel that I couldn't compose a post.  This last month, though, I have felt like that.  I really haven't had the same feelings consistently for enough days in a row to write about any of them.  I do much of my draft writing in my head, before I ever sit down to put words on paper (or screen), and that requires me to stay in the same mental space long enough to observe myself and recognize things and ponder them.

This summer's schedule turned out to be fuller than I had expected, with some travel and lots of chauffeuring, the kids' friends coming over, and some visits with family.  Most of that stuff kept me engrossed in the present, which was fine but unexpected.  Sometimes I felt like the one-year anniversary of Ramsy's death was speeding towards me; sometimes I felt it was lurking just at the edge of my range of vision; sometimes I felt happy and contented; and sometimes, out of the blue, a friend would ask a question or make a comment and tears would instantly choke me.

It's so strange to me that we have the capacity to host all of these vastly diverse emotions in ourselves in the same space of time, and yet most of the time they don't actually occupy the same space together.  The "real-life example" that most reminds me of this is something I am really new at: photo editing software.  I am new enough at it that I'm not even sure if different programs use different concepts for this- I only know Photoshop.  (Uh, kind of  know Photoshop.)  So this is the concept, as far as this newbie can describe it:

You open a blank canvas, like opening a blank document in a word-processing program.  This blank canvas is your background layer.  On top of that, you place a digital photo.  That's your second layer.  Then you can add, on top of the photo, different items like text, little illustrations, or whatever.  These items are in still more layers.  Down the side of your screen, you have a little menu of all the different layers, and if you click on one of the menu items, that layer will pop up on your screen, with all the others out of sight behind it.  They are all still there, but you can only see one of them at a time.

See where I'm going?  That's how grieving has been for me lately: all these feelings and thoughts and moods and so on are all here inside, but even I can only see one of them at a time.  Sometimes it looks to me like the others have gone away, and this puzzles me.  But then something will happen (a question, a memory, a kindness from someone) that clicks on a different layer in the menu and up pops this other completely different emotion.  So after a couple of months of this, and a very wise comment from a woman I met this summer (thank you, HH!), I have come to a place of acceptance that this is so.  When I feel one way, I don't need to waste my energy asking myself why, why, why I am sad instead of happy or peaceful instead of distressed; it just is what it is, and I can be sure that it will change again in a short time, or even a longer time.

So that's where I am right now: all over the map.  OK.