Eclectic Muddlehood

In a quiet moment of realization this evening, I glimpsed the amazing bittersweet wholeness of my life in this day.  This mostly ordinary day. 

 Last weekend was the mad dash to haul everything out of our apartment and across town to our new home.  I now sit surrounded by mountains of boxes and baskets and bins filled with the assorted junk our family has collected over the years.  Because of the short timeline for our move, we did not make even the most remote effort to sort through things while packing up, so that process has begun on the other side of the move as I begin to sift through boxes.  Some boxes were packed hurriedly just last week.  Others have been patiently waiting for me to cut them open and rediscover their contents for eleven months now, resting quietly with the silverfish in our apartment’s detached garage.  I am taking great delight in opening these packages full of long (okay, relatively long) lost treasures.  It is not even so much the tangible objects themselves, but the joyful memories they trigger that come washing back over me and filling me with beauty and peace.

About twenty months ago, I was struggling to sense that beauty and peace.  Apollo and Artemis were just barely four months old and at least one of them demanded every ounce of me every second of every day.  My mother-in-law came to help for two weeks and we completely wore her out.  As her visit wound down, she offered to take us to brunch at IHOP one morning and we all jumped at the chance to avoid cooking and the cleaning that comes after it.  Patris Maximus and I sat across the table from each other, each eating with one hand and cradling a momentarily sleeping infant in the other.  Our eyes met, our minds merged and our voices spoke as one.  We had to get out of Northern Virginia.  Three kids.  One income.  A job that was killing my husband.  A mortgage that was killing us both.  And one day all three of those children would be in college at the same time.  That one exhausted, desperate conversation led to months of research.  Where could we go?  Where could Patris Maximus get a good job?  Where would have a better cost of living to average salary ratio?  Where those places also homeschool friendly?  Once we had a short list of locations, he went job hunting.  The job he left for is not the job he has now.  And the city we landed in was not where we pictured ourselves at first.  But here we are.  Last Monday night, after all three children were snoozing away in their new room and new sibling bed, Patris Maximus and I sat at the kitchen table across from each other.  With both hands free, we each sipped a glass of wine and sighed.  Still exhausted, but no longer desperate.  Contentment permeated the room.  This.  This was what both of us saw in each other’s mind’s eyes, at that IHOP, months and months ago.  This house.  This job.  This homeschool community.  Our family.  Happy.  So last night, with the deep power of the New Moon flowing freely, I lit the flame and blessed our hearth, welcoming the prosperity, knowledge, courage, and love that I know will fill our days here together in the heart of our new home.

 Amidst this overflowing ecstacy, as is the nature of this Life, there is a ribbon of piercing sorrow, as well.  The last of my grandparents, my paternal grandmother, left this Life for whatever lies Beyond this week.  My family has known that moment was coming for some time now.  But even when we have notice of its arrival, Death still manages to surprise us all when it finally does arrive.  She was a strong Irish American woman who lived a long full life.  I am grateful she got the chance to meet the twins at my brother’s wedding two years ago, but I am even more grateful for a glass of iced tea she and I shared on her front porch about five years ago just before I crossed the threshold of motherhood.  It was a warm late-March-in-Texas kind of afternoon.  I was newly pregnant with Athena and Patris Maximus, along with thousands of other American soldiers, had just crossed the Kuwait-Iraq border the night before.  She and I sat in silent sunshine for some time before an ambling sort of conversation began to thread its way through our afternoon.  At some point we stumbled upon the topic of death and dying.  She shared with me the fact that she knew exactly how close she and Death were getting to crossing paths and that she was ready whenever that chance encounter should take place.  Until then, she laughed and said she would be grateful to enjoy every day God had left to give her.  Carrying that conversation in my heart, I have known for the last several years not to fear the inevitability of her passing; that it would come and she would meet it, secure in the life she had lived and in her faith.  That is not to say there is not sadness today.  There is also deep reflection.  A special friend gave birth to a precious, healthy baby boy this week as well, in what I hope was a healing natural birth after the traumatic cesarean birth of her twins.  Throughout the last few days of her pregnancy, she radiated with strength, love, beauty, truth and peace as she bravely walked the path towards her new son’s birth.  One death.  One birth.  Without any real conscious effort on our part, the wheel continues to turn, bringing the full range of human emotions to us with each awe inspiring revolution.   

As the details of funeral arrangements have been set, I found myself realizing that the funeral itself will not be a time for me to say my own good-byes.  I will be unavoidably focused outward in several directions.  Athena is filled with challenging questions about death and dying as well as, inquiries concerning ancient and modern rituals associated with the end of Life.  I know these questions will continue to pour forth throughout the weekend and will continue to require my mindfull attention.  Apollo and Artemis will be their delightfully annoying, uncontrollably wiggly selves and will need quiet tactile distraction and redirection.  My father could certainly use his family’s focused loving support as he finds his own way through his and his sister’s grief.  This leaves little energy left for me to turn inward myself.  So while the funeral Saturday morning will not be the time or place, the Rosary service Friday night feels like the perfect opportunity.  When I was a young girl, my grandmother gifted me with a stunning pale blue Austrian crystal and gold rosary, a sort of coming of age gift.  Although, as a teenager and young adult, I stepped off the narrow path of Christianity to explore and experience a wider range of spirituality, that rosary has always been a gift I have cherrished fondly.  Tonight I am in the process of excavating this beautiful, tangible piece of my grandmother’s own beauty and strength to bring with me tomorrow night. 

Patris Maximus and I have agreed that I will attend the Rosary service alone without him or the children and that will be my moment to turn inward.  To all at once hold close and let go.  To meditate on and connect with the powerful cycle of this Life.  I will offer up my gratitude for the life she lived and the gentle ease of her actual moment of passing.  I will embrace the power of the dance that Life and Death perform together for us day in and day out.  I will celebrate my grandmother in death and the new life that has graced my friend’s family hand in hand.  And we will all know peace.  On that, another mostly ordinary day.