**Griot** Bone and Mud

I recently went through a painful life situation. Some people disappointed me with their behavior and morals. Other people disappointed me with their apathy. So I spent a few days lying around in the dark, crying and asking God all kinds of questions that I probably don't really want answers for. Then I remembered a time several years ago when I was in the same kind of situation and feeling the same feelings. My mother was there for me then and she comforted me with some motherly love and wisdom.

My mother was not an educated woman but she was very wise. I came out of my recent hurt-feelings funk by remembering some of the things she told me about dealing with disappointment in others.

One of the things Mama told me was that a lot of the time it's not other people who disappoint us. It's really ourselves we are upset with. We are upset that we care too much about a situation or that we expect so much from others. I was always a very sensitive person. "Feelings like tissue paper" is what my mother would say about me. Mom would remind we all see the world differently. Some of us are tougher than others. Not everyone has your heart, she would remind me. And I know that my mother sometimes wished I could be tougher-shelled, but she was never sorry that I wasn't.

What had me so upset recently was that someone passed away. The other people in his life closed ranks to keep me cut off from even the basic information about the death. These are "Christian" people, some of them daring to stand in pulpits on a regular basis and they behaved like the coldest and hard-hearted people I've ever known. I'm not shocked by their behavior and I guess I kind of expected it. However, it still caused me a great deal of pain.

The only way I was able to pull myself out of my hurt and sorrow was to remember my mother. I could hear a memory of her encouraging me to pray and forgive and move on. When I went through something similar all those years ago - mourning someone I loved while the ugliness of family politics raged around me - my mother told me to stay out of the fray. She reminded me that my only concern should be honoring the dead and dealing with my grief.

I think I have said here before that Mama always said that death and funerals bring out the best and worst in people.

This time around, I got through the initial pain and grief by remembering my mother's advice. It went something like this:

Don't be upset with the way people are behaving. Maybe this is the only way they know how to deal with their pain. All you can do is to behave the way I have taught you. Remember the deceased, honor them, grieve and miss them. All this ugliness going on around the situation doesn't mean anything to the dead. The person you are grieving isn't concerned with the ways and things of this world anymore. All that's left of their mortal being is bone and mud. They no longer care about who is mad at who or who is being petty. Their time for worrying about the living is done with. You just behave in a way that honors their spirit and memory. The Bible tells us that "Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." (Isaiah 57:2 per NIV)

That's what my mother would say. I know this because, like I said, this is how she comforted me in the past. Just thinking about my mother calms me. I think that I will be able to sleep well tonight and not wake up crying.

I'm calling this a Griot post because my mother would want her grandchildren and their children to know how to deal with this kind of situation. She would want this advice passed down and shared.

Peace
--Free

The Beautiful Mattie Powell

When I am heartbroken, my instinct is to write. Today my heart is in pieces.

My mother's best friend (and the woman I claimed as my Godmother) passed away on this past Friday.

Mrs. Mattie Powell ("Miss Mattie" to me) was one of the sweetest and most beautiful women I ever knew. I'm talking beautiful inside and out. My siblings and I always called her "pretty Miss Mattie". You read in fiction about women who only getting more beautiful as they age, but Miss Mattie was the real thing.

Miss Mattie and my mother went through a lot together. I'm not privy to a lot of what they talked about, but I know that my mother (who was a very private woman and who didn't easily use the term "friend") trusted Miss Mattie more than anyone else I knew.

Miss Mattie's husband passed years ago. He had taken such good and loving care of her that, although she worked outside the home, she had never had to drive a car. She didn't like to drive, but she finally had to learn at a later age, it was my brother Chubby who taught her how. She never did like driving but she had the cutest little black and silver PT Cruiser that was perfect for her. The colors matched her hair and I always thought she should have personalized her plates to read "Silver Fox"!

My sister, Mike, adored Miss Mattie, as did we all. After Mama died, Miss Mattie was the one friend of Mama's that Mike held close to. Miss Mattie never called my sister by her nickname "Mike". She had her own nickname for her of "Mikey".

When Mike passed away, Miss Mattie was fighting her own health battles but she came to the service and she spoke. I was in such a daze of grief then, whether people could see it or not, that I barely heard much of what Miss Mattie said. I do remember that she shared how whenever she came to our house to visit, my mother tried to make her eat. If Miss Mattie wasn't hungry right then, Mama would still insist that my sister send her home with something for later. Miss Powell remembered this as my mother always instructing, "Mikey, make Mattie a plate."

Now that my mother, Chubby, "Mikey", and Miss Mattie are gone I can rejoice that they are all in Heaven together. At rest and with no more pain or tears or suffering. That is the only joy I can get out of losing the people I love. Like I said, right now, my heart is in pieces but those broken pieces are in Heaven.

I am praying for her family and know that they will be okay because they had a queen for a mother, as her daughter said, and their mother is with the King of kings now.


Peace
--Free

Things No One Told Me (About Grief)

As I get ready for church this morning, I am feeling low on faith and strength.

I saw a quote yesterday: "A woman without her sister is like a bird without wings."

No one ever told me that I would feel this way after losing the person closest to me. When my mother passed away, that was a different kind of grief. That was grief shared. With Mike.

Unlike other women my age, I didn't spend a life with husbands and kids of my own. I spent a life with my sister and my mother. We always lived with or near each other. We were a team of the family women.

After Mom passed, Mike and I became more than sisters. We became a team of two. We were each other's strength when relationships failed, when job stresses overwhelmed us, and when life did what it does and went into little surprise tailspins.

At one of the loneliest times of my life, when a marriage had failed, I remember looking out of the bedroom window at the sky. I was thinking of how big this world is and how orphaned I felt - in a strange state with an abusive husband and no family of my own around me. I was thinking that I had one thing on this earth that would get me through: my sister. She was somewhere on earth, under the same sky, and that made everything bearable.

No one ever told me that grief would ebb and flow. That I would go from feeling numb to feeling new every sensation of emotional pain that ever could be felt. No one told me that I would sometimes feel paralyzed by my loss, unable to function, barely able to breathe. I didn't know that I would catch scent from one the hats Mike wore or catch sight of some of her belongings and then just die a little.

Last night, I sat looking out the window, thinking that I no longer have Mike somewhere on this earth and under the same sky.

So, I am going to church this morning, feeling orphaned and wingless.

No one ever told me this is what grief feels like.

Peace
--Free

Living in Honor of Love

This post is for everyone, but especially for some people in my family. It's such an important and urgent post that I am attempting to do it from my phone since I can't get to my laptop.

When my sister died last week,  I explained to people who asked  how I was handling it that I am fine. And I am. I am grieving, yes. But I am not grieving in guilt or remorse. There was nothing unresolved between me and Mike. As a matter of fact, I let my love for her heal my broken relationships with others.

Mike's passing reminded me of what we should all know about life: that we are all Born to die. Some of us won't die of old age and linger long enough to give or receive apologies and speak all the untold feelings of love. Some of us will go quickly and unexpectedly.

Our family has lost so many people I  the past several weeks, from the teenager who had so much life left to live to one of our Grands who was blessed with many years. We've lost members to disease and to old age. Death will come, eventually, for each and every one of us - some sooner than later.

The time for resolution of any problems is now.

The time for forgiveness is now.

The time for saying "I love you" is now.

For everything in life, any time other than right now could be too late.

Someone I know and love is still living with deep hurt and a spirit of unforgiveness. A friend of theirs asked them a profound question about this: What positive thing are you getting from holding on to your negative feelings? What good is it doing you?

That's deep. Though it wasn't directed at me, I decided to remember to ask myself that question anytime I am tempted to hold onto something negative.

The sweetest gift my sister gave me when she passed on was my relationship with some members of my family. I had held onto some grudges and pain that I was immediately released from. I wasn't holding those negative things,  they were holding me.

I lost my sister, but I gained back some of my neices. That was the sweetest gift Mike left me with.

To Amanda and Tierra: I love you.  You are my family.  I am blessed by that and I am going to honor my sister Mike with my love for you. I am going to honor myself and my life with that love.

To anybody wanting to hold onto (and be bound by) their negative feelings: I pray for you. I will not push you to forgive, but I'll remind you only once,  right here and right now,  that if you claim love for even one person who believed in love and forgiveness, you can either honor or dishonor their memory with your choices.
Your love - my love - for anyone only matters right now while we are still here to give it. And I love you.  I may not always like you, but I love you. That's a choice.

Forgiveness is hard, love makes its easier. Forgiveness is not forgetting. It's not some magic eraser of pain or disappointment. It is simply not being enslaved to negativity.

Last of all,  I will say to anyone who claims to love God: if God loves us,  and He does - even when we hurt Him by hardening our hearts towards others - who are we to not love each other?

Thank you, Mike, for teaching me that my past does not have to be my present out future.  Thank you for being such an example of love.

Peace,
Free

We Called Her Mike

As I get ready to write my sister's obituary, I realize I need more than a few paragraphs to tell the world about her life.

Her name was Sandra Kay. We called her Mike. A friend of my grandparents did some work for them and the only payment he wanted was that they name the next grandchild after him. I think he might have been joking but, when my sister was born, she was nicknamed Mike.

She had her Thanksgiving reunion with family

I called her my big sister and we were always very close. After our mother passed away, we held each other up, we held each other together, and we just held on. My mother had taught both us of a lot before she passed away, but it was Mike who continued teaching me the things I hadn't always been ready to learn when Mom was around.

Mike taught me to cook - not just throw things out of a package and into a pot and call it a meal, but to put some heart and soul into the food, She taught me how to get past bad relationships and how to nourish the good ones. She was there when I needed to cry, laugh, be silly, or rant and rave. She was my buffer against some of the worst things life threw at me. She was there when I was sick. I was there when she was sick.

She was often sick in the past several years. First came the kidney failure, but there was dialysis. Next came the leg amputations, but there were wheelchairs. Then came the cancer, but there was chemo.

For dialysis, you need an access for the transfer to take place. Mike had a fistula in her arm. That was the safest option of the very few she had. The fistula was becoming worn though.

With family in November 2014

When you are in a wheelchair, you are plagued with sores and the breakdown of flesh and bone.

When you have chemo you - well, you know most of this: sickness, more weakness, more infections, etc.

Mike never complained much. She would get tired, of course. Getting around in a wheelchair isn't easy or that much fun for someone older and weaker. But, as tired as she got -tired of it all - she focused more on being an encouragement to the people around her,

Even in sickness & pain, she was a light

If Mike knew someone needed it, she would comfort them. There are young people all over the U.S. and around the rest of the world who were blessed by her- friends of the children she birthed and the children she raised. She gave them advice when they needed it, fed them to show love, held them when they cried over various things, and laughed with and teased them to brighten their hearts.

If you were her friend, you were her friend for life. She remained best friends with her ex-husband (who had been her high school sweetheart) for over 40 years. He called this week to find out what day he needs to be here for her memorial. He lives thousands of miles away in another state.

When the staff at the dialysis center where she received treatment learned of her passing, I personally called some of them and heard them break down in grief. I heard that others were absolutely heartbroken at the news.

Mike had known those people for a long time, but that's not why they reacted the way they did. They reacted the same way that anyone who met Mike for more than a minute would react at the news.

While she was in the hospital, nurses and staff that knew her for less than 2 weeks, felt a sincere joy at having met her. An anesthesiologist visited her after one of her surgeries just to say hi and have a moment's chat with her. For no reason other than he thought she was an amazing woman. He's right, she was.

Mike and D.J.

Before her last surgery, she sent me on an errand. "Go to the store," she told me. "Pick up something nice for the nurses." I had no idea what to get, but Mike suggested coffee or chocolate because "Nurses work so hard, so they can always use caffeine."

There was a patient in the room next door to Mike on the Renal Ward. When Mike noticed that this woman never had personal visitors, she had me make a point to speak to the lady at every chance. "Don't forget to say hi to the neighbor," she'd tell me any time I was leaving her room for something.

That was my sister.

So beautiful & always smiling

One day, when she was undergoing yet another session of poke-and-prod, I stood by, trying to be the comforting little sister. I held her hand and stroked the top of her head. After about 5 minutes, she waved my hand away and said, "Girl, if you don't stop stroking my head like I'm a genie..." I stopped and we all laughed about it.

That was also my sister.

When my sister ran into sudden and unexpected complications after a last surgery to create an access for dialysis and was moved to the ICU, she was weak and very, very tired. She didn't talk much, but she'd search my face to see how I was doing. Even at that point in her fight with Death, she was worried about me. We'd hold hands and, just because I couldn't help myself, I'd stroke her head. I'd kiss her face and tell her I loved her, She try to tell me the same.

Mike had a restless night on Friday, At some point very late into the night, she was given something for her pain and was able to rest. I moved away to sit on the sleep chair the hospital provided for me. I was just going to sit there and let my sister rest. I wasn't going to sleep.

Some time later, I don't remember the time, I woke up to the nurse's voice as she tried to rouse Mike. I ran over and tried to wake my sister. I held her hand and she seemed to be squeezing mine just a bit, but she didn't wake up. Her heart was beating but she was already heading away.

I called her kids - the ones who were here already in town - and told them to come say goodbye. And I watched the monitors that told me Mike was still breathing, having a pulse and heartbeat, I watched those monitors and realized that they mean nothing to a soul who belongs to God.

My sister belonged to God. I'm thankful that He gave her to the rest of us for 63 years, but I know that she was ready to go to Him.

One of the hardest things I have ever done so far in my life was to kiss my sister goodbye and tell her what she and I had told my mother on her deathbed. I told my sister that if she was tired enough, she should just go Home so she could rest. I told her that I would be okay, her kids - all of them - would be okay, and that everyone who loved her would be okay.

While the kids and I sat around her, holding her hand, touching her face and trying not to ask God for her to remain, I watched those monitors. Then something made me turn my head to look toward the windows. I looked out at the view of the mountains, just for the shortest moment - maybe long enough to take one breath. When I looked back at my sister, the kids were looking at the monitor. There were no more lines and graphs tracking anything, There was just a clock.

My sister is gone, but she's not. Everything beautiful that she brought to this life is still here. Mike is dead but she is alive. She's somewhere none of the rest of us can fathom. There is no music, there are not words, there's no scientific theory, and no creative imagining to even let the rest of us glimpse the glory she has gone home to.

I can't fit all this into a newspaper obituary. I can't fit in all the names of the people she is leaving behind. I can't describe how so many people who loved her dropped everything and flew into town just to attend her memorial - or how those who could not be here have been calling and sending flowers and cards and paying their respects by phone and email. I can just tell you that she was loved, is loved, and will be missed and remembered by us forever.

We called my sister Mike. She was born in Texas on December 27, 1951 and she died on February 28, 2015. It doesn't matter what she is called now. She is resting.

Peace
--Free

What's Hard About Dying

I'm sitting here, taking some time to pray and reflect while my sister is fighting several medical issues. Everything in this post is something I would normally share with her during one of our talks. I decided to share my thoughts here.

What's hard about dying is being the one left to live without a loved one.

It's hard to accept that the person will be gone, that you won't wake up with them here.

What's hard is not being selfish; being able to let them know that it's okay to let go. Hard not to make all the bargains with God that you have no right to make.

It's hard to suddenly come face to face with the idea that we all are born to, eventually, die. Life is temporary. We know that and we hear it in whispers every time we hear about the death of someone else's loved one, but we hear it as a roar of grief when it's us that's saying goodbye.

No matter how hard life is, death is harder. Life in hard for the individual, sometimes by their own choices. Death is hard on all the ones who love you, need you, and think they cannot go on without you.

What's hardest about death is that it's so easy.

I am loosely repeating something I once heard: "Everybody wants to meet Jesus, but nobody wants to die."

Support Beams

I want to thank all my online buddies for there encouragement and prayers over the last several days.

This is the loneliest, scariest, most faith-testing time I have ever had to go through. I've gained some strenght and some character, I've cried and rejoiced. I've learned that this life is like a building. There are parts of it that are purely for decoration, but the most important parts are the hidden support beams.

I have had to find where my strongest support beams are. I have learned that there are the weaker ones too. They are there in the talking but not in the doing; there to be noticed, but not there when that earthquake hits.

I also am learning that the way a lot of people behave at the possible approach of Death has nothing to do with the way the behave at funerals and memorials.

Most important - and hardest of all, but the best - is that I have learned more about myself than I have about other people. I have learned that I am stronger than I knew, that I am often weaker than I ever thought. I have learned that I am tough. I have learned that I love harder than I realized.

So, thank you for your prayers and positve thoughts. Keep them coming. This battle is not over yet.

Peace
--Free

Taking A Break

I have some urgent stuff happening in my life right now. Until things get back to normal, I will not be able to post often.

Keep me and my family in your prayers and thoughts.

Peace
--Free

Grief Prolonged

Today was one of those days. It was a decent day, but so many little things bothered me that I just felt worn out by noon.

And I'm missing Perry so much still.

I've been listening to a song that reminds me of him and our friendship. I'm surprised that I didn't know how much he meant to me until he was gone. He meant everything.

It was Perry who kept me on the safe side of sane when I was going through the worst of my sickness and life turmoil. He could make me laugh if that's what either of us needed but, more than that, he could let me cry if that's just what I needed. I hope I was there for him like that too.

I know that people can die of heartbreak because I can literally feel my own heart aching every time I want to see an email or get a phone call from my buddy. He's not here anymore and that just hurts and hurts and hurts.

Thinking of you, my friend.

I wish you were.

I know what you'd probably say if you were here. You'd tell me to go ahead and feel all the bad stuff - just for a little while though. Then you'd tell me to find at least one blessing to count. So I'm going to sit here and feel sad for a little while, then I'm going to continue a challenge I've been given to name 3 blessings a day. I'm on Day 4, but it's harder to count through the tears I'm swallowing.

Peace,

Free

Monday, Monday

You know how, sometimes, when something important happens in your life - like you meet someone special or something awful and life-changing happens - and later on, you can't forget how you were made to feel, but you can't remember the day of the week that it happened on? I've had that a lot in my life.

I can remember meeting my first serious lover and I can remember being asked for my hand in marriage, but I can never remember the day of the week it happened on. Of course, that's what calendars and diaries and old cards are for.

I won't ever forget, though, that it was on a Monday that my big brother died.

Saturday is my day to do laundry and change my bedding. It was on last Saturday that I was putting in my second load of clothes when my phone rang. I had a strange feeling. My stomach fluttered and hot saliva filled my mouth.

My sister was calling to tell me that I needed to get to the hospital. My brother, Chubby, was doing way worse than he had been the night before.

For some reason, I took the few minutes to finish setting up the washer for the second load of clothes - my whites - and putting the first set into the dryer. When my jeans were tumbling and my whites were suds-ing, I ran around to get my purse and keys. I drove like a crazy woman to the hospital.

I don't remember much about that Saturday or Sunday except that I was irritated by everything.

Monday, when we all had to realize that Chubby wasn't going to get better and that he was in a lot of pain, I left his room and took a walk around the parking lot. I got into my car and went home. Two hours later, someone called to see where the hell I was at. I was home, finishing my laundry.

It seems like a crazy thing to do, to go and change clothes from the dryer to hangars and drawers, from the washer to dryer, from hamper to washer. It seems crazy, but it was soothing and normal and like everyday living.

When I did get back to the hospital, I only stayed long enough to go and tell Chubby, once again, that I loved him. This time, he didn't squeeze my hand or look at me like he knew what I was saying. This time, he just slept or dreamed or was already breathing his way home to After.

I left and went over to my niece's house and held my great-nephew.

DJ didn't know that something was happening that was hurting so many hearts. He was tired and wanted to cuddle while refusing to actually go to sleep. He just lay in my lap with the back of his head against my chest, reaching back to put on of  his warm toddler-hands to my face while he sucked a bottle of milk. He didn't see the tears I was trying to hold back.

Some friends came by to bring cold drinks and paper plates and stuff for sandwiches and salads. They stayed long enough to let me know they cared.

My sister called and told me that Chubby was gone. She said that he had been given enough medicine so that he wasn't in pain when he left. She didn't cry - not then - because my sister is very, very strong and knew that I couldn't have taken her crying just then.

That was on Monday. I won't ever forget that my brother died on a Monday.

Peace
--Free

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” 
― Anne Lamott


“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” 
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent