In the last month, I’ve lost my step grandfather and my pseudo mother in law. It’s been both a heart wrenching and brilliantly beautiful couple of weeks – filled with unexpected trips (to Seattle and South GA) and family reunions. Brimming with celebrations of long lives, surrounded by unseasonably beautiful weather, and riddled with cloaked lessons.

“With every goodbye we go to seed again, this is how we come to make family from strangers, this is how we learn ‘always’, we are candles lit from each other.”

I’ve butchered a poem that held me enraptured in my teenage years, one that resonated with me and made my bones vibrate with an understanding of grief I didn’t realize anyone else was capable of. Here it’s like cheap beef stew meat in a styrofoam boat – still delicious but not nearly as much as if you’d been given the entire mess of meat to do admire.

Just the same, the words are still there. Sixteen years since I lost my mother, fourteen since I lost my father. Now I stand on the sidelines of life’s gymnasium – watching people I love find their rhythm in the dance of the mourning. I’m just the awkward girl with the glasses, the lazy eye and the ill-fitting dress, they’re the football quarterbacks trying to figure out what to do with their hands and attempting to look relaxed.

We all suck at this. We’re supposed to. It’s not supposed to be easy or come naturally, it’s supposed to ravage us and spin us around, and when we get our equilibrium back in check, when we can focus on the horizon again without tipping over, we’ll see a present there with pretty little bow.

If there’s one gift those I’ve/we’ve recently lost have graciously and silently granted, it’s their example of this: live. Work hard, and live the life you want to live.

Bill spent the last 20 years on a lake almost every day, fishing. He shared his passion and his love with his grandchildren, his friends, and his wife of 60 years. Karleen spent the last 16 years cooking, baking, visiting with friends and family, and driving her sister half mad (*giggle*). She died in the same house she was born in – the house her father built, on the farm he owned and worked, and it was exactly how she wanted it to be.

While I’m still trying to figure out how to balance the greedy “want” from the soul filling, world rewarding “want” and what that means for my actions, activities, hobbies, etc., I’ve found yet another quote to pin to my mental lapel (in hopes others will see it even without seeing it):

“I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.” – Ernst Fischer

I find myself both festive and funky during the holidays. Our loft is already over decorated: red velvet accent pillows on the couch, giant artificial red mums in a fantastically large silver vase on the dining room table, a wee tree (twee, thank you) decorated with little red velvet bows and tiny silver stars on the kitchen island, pre-lit garland wrapped around the tall palm I’m shocked is still alive, more garland and fake poinsettias donning the window baskets on the patio – all this in 1000 square feet.

Turning on the television has always been the first thing I do when I get home, but right now it’s lighting over priced and festive smelling candles in jars from a store in the mall I’m ashamed to admit I went to.

There’s cinnamon and a hint of pine wafting through our space and it. Is. Delicious.

At the same time, I’m preparing for the weeks of solitude that mark the span of time from my birthday to the new year.

I’ve done this for years – this sabbatical thing. Since my mother and father passed at during my 21st and 23rd years, respectively. During my 25th year, after my first major crash and burn relationship, my sister (seester) sent me a book that introduced a new dance step to my routine: one that taught me dancing alone can be fabulous and wild and magical and mysterious, and needn’t be cause for pity from onlookers.

With one foot in each place, I’m on the edge of the holiday dance floor wondering which I’ll choose this year, or if one will choose me.

I get all geeked up about buying or making gifts for loved ones and beat myself up at their always inadequate wrapping jobs as well as what they are. Always heartfelt, I question their reception – like the year I sent my siblings each a framed reprint of the only photo I have of us together as children with my parents and heard not a word.

If nothing else is certain, this is – I’ll make my Irish Crème and consume it by the liter, I’ll ponder my navel and catch up on the movies I meant to see this year but didn’t have the time for. I’ll devour a pile of books I’ve been hoarding and avoiding and maybe I’ll even write.

It’s a special time I look forward to with great anticipation and over hyped expectations every year, and every year something different comes of it. A break in my exile to see friends, an unexpected road trip, a technical project or shooting spree (cameras, not guns, silly)…or nothing at all.

So don’t mind me as a I waffle and wane, as I abruptly jerk between giddiness and gloom. It’s just the holidays and me missing my folks, my siblings, my innocence and my youth in a place called “home” that no longer exists.

I’ve made a number of bad decisions in my life, some attributable to youth and ignorance, but more are attributable to a simple sense of mortality.

As a child, an adolescent and later a teen, my father would jest “I’ll be surprised if you live to see 30.” As children we’re apt to do with adults, I believed him. He was wise and knowing with the touches of grey at his temples and his big, round, smiling, baby blue eyes.

I have a picture of me in a box somewhere I’ve lost track of, I’m curled up and passed out on his chest in my wee footy pajamas. We were on one of the overstuffed brown leather chairs in our living room, and around us you can make out the red shag carpet, the wood (not wood panel) walls and a few artifacts only family members would recognize. In the picture my father is also K.O.ed – with a book in his hand, and me draped across his shoulder and side like a well worn blanket.

I was a clumsy child (still am. Both clumsy and a child.), which to an outsider may have been what sparked the comment, but it wasn’t. I ran through life with wild abandon and reckless enthusiasm. Through my 20’s – after he left me – I did more of the same. I was at life’s Suck Buffet, trying a little of everything: dating/marrying men who didn’t respect me, spending too much money on things that didn’t matter, jogging/walking solo at night on dark city streets in questionable neighborhoods. Mostly though, I ran from ghosts.

I finally turned 30 and held my breath. With eyes clamped shut so hard my nose wrinkled, I peeked with one eye, hoping I’d see it coming. I didn’t, and next came 31, and 32 and 33. I was still waiting for it. When I found my first lump/got the flu/had a toothache I though it was his prophecy. It wasn’t, and I came to understand this: I’m wrong a lot.

What the lump was, what his joke turned scar was, is this: a point of clarification. Live with intent. Choose carefully. Be kind – to yourself and to others.

I listened, though the truth is I’m still waiting for “it”, 6 years after 30. It’s lingering around like that final utility bill from years ago that hasn’t caught up to you yet but remains in limbo, angry and unpaid.

Until it tracks me down, I’ll be out here somewhere. Chasing dreams, smiling so big you can probably count my nose hairs and going on measured but daring adventures. I frequently imagine my father peeking out from around corners at the most perfect times and winking.

I get it.

My family had what I can only assume was a standard tree decorating day somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My folks and the four of us kids would gather around and we’d pull our ironicly fake tree out of the box and color match the branches to the holes. We’d help dad unravel the lights and run them down the hall from the living room to the end where my parents bedroom was, one by one trying to find the broken lamps to replace. We each had our favorite ornaments mom would hand us to hang, and the last step was my brother Brian’s little electric train – complete with engine, coal car, freight car, passenger car and caboose – that would round the bottom of the tree.

On Christmas eve, we were allowed to pick one present from under the tree to open, and I’m sure my parents hoped; to silence us enough to sleep.

Christmas morning the first act of the day was to “find” baby Jesus (he stayed in one of moms decorative woven Indian baskets until then) and carry him to his manger while we sung happy birthday. The nativity set is brown and ceramic, with my parents initials etched with the date in the bottom of Mary, Joseph, and the manger. They made the set when they were first married, before children, before relocation to Alaska and before the electric train.

The tradition ended as my family dissolved somewhere older than five and younger than thirteen. The gap solidifies that I will never be asked to recount our family history at a reunion.

I still have some of the ornaments, but I’ve long since stopped putting up a tree, this year I got more festive than I have in years past and bought a rope of garland with lights built in. I wrapped it around my banana plant/tree and piled gifts around.

It’s the first year in many that the nativity isn’t out – it’s somewhere in the back of one of our storage units – and that I won’t be carriying baby Jesus to his manger…but I will sing and I will close my eyes tight to remember those years of innocence and to reflect on what the holiday was intended for.

I’m thankful for what’s left of my family and for the new family I’ve formed with The Mc and my friends. I’m thankful for my health, my home, and most of all I’m thankful for Gods grace.

Tomorrow we’ll go to a movie, maybe have a beverage at Limerick Junction (as we did last year and the year before with friends), dinner at Atkins Park or a trek for Chinese. There may be lime sherbert and Creme de Minthe to sip out of fancy glasses in the afternoon, like my dad used to make (looking to my siblings to tell me if we got the Creme de Minthe too…?) and a lot of lounging about in pajamas. Tonight I’m going to roll around in the darkness and take snaps of Christmas lights.

What are the traditions you’ve hung on to? What are the new ones you’ve created?

It’s been two and a half months since we lost Amber, and while we haven’t healed yet, Grayson is chomping at the bit for a new friend to run his spastic kitty azz ragged.

Two weeks ago we went and met the kitty who will be his new little brother, yesterday we went for another visit during day one of Errandpalooza ‘08 and I managed to snap him a few times. He remembered me from our previous visit, came straight to me and burrowed himself in my lap.

Isn’t he adorable?

We think so too.

Now, what do you think we should name him?

1grace
Pronunciation: \ˈgrās\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin gratia favor, charm, thanks, from gratus pleasing, grateful; akin to Sanskrit gṛṇāti he praises
Date: 12th century

1 a: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
2 a: approval, favor barchaic : mercy, pardon c: a special favor : privilege d: disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency e: a temporary exemption : reprieve

You know that part in the movie Signs where the alien has the kid in his arms and Mel Gibson has the flashback to his wife, dying? She’s pinned between a car and a tree and she says “tell Merrill to swing away” and he thinks she’s out of her mind (dying, obviously) until that moment years later when it all hits him smack in the face in the living room with the trophy baseball bat?

If you didn’t remember, maybe you do now.

My mom used to call me two things that went beyond the expected variations on my nickname or even *gasp* my real, full name. All three of ‘em. Beyond Megret, McGarrett, Meggers and the like were these two: Clyde and Grace.

Clyde was because I’m a “heavy walker”, have been since I was a tater-tot dipped in ketchup and loaded with salt and pepper. I also had big feet for my age, calves that – in relation to my thighs – resembled a Clydesdale.

Grace was a slam she used on both my sister and I, one I can only imagine she picked up in the 50’s. “Way to go, Grace. I like the way you knocked that entire rack of Funyons over when you tried to be sly about grabbing one in the first place.”

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” – — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

I believe, my friends, I’m aging.

December 29th of 2004, I was in the bedroom of my apartment during my Christmas sabbatical. I’d read Blue Like Jazz and Lamb over the course of that week, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt Grace. It’s something I’ve been hesitant to tell others that I knew wouldn’t understand, or those that were outside of my immediate circle. There were a few I IM’ed or emailed about it because I knew they’d understand, I remember as clearly as I can feel this sub-dermal zit brewing on the bridge of my nose that Becky was one of them.

Nearly four years later with the onset of my existential crisis, I’ve been reading again. I’ve been seeking. Exploring. Groping in the dark for the light that will help me find my way. Everywhere I look, everything I read, every conversation or tweet loosely related to my journey brings me back here: to Grace.

I am admittedly a fuckup of epic proportions. I was a horrible student, have binged and purged when it comes to caring about my career, was more times than not a complete headache to both of my parents, and have failed at a million things without even including marriage. I struggle with depression, refusing to medicate for it, I have a hot temper at times and vacillate between a fiery, quick tongue and a jaw clamped shut when it shouldn’t be. I swear too much. I talk to other cars in traffic when I get frustrated.

Of all the things I’m not though, I am not a hypocrite. I know my flaws better than all of you combined and I beat myself up for them regularly.

How fitting; then, that Grace keeps coming…the reminder of what it is, and the peace it brings me and the want and drive and compulsion I have to be a better person every day. To speak from the heart when it hurts and the inherent (and problematic) want better in the lives of everyone I know. Learning to love freely, and accept love without question. To work and work and work to show compassion and to understand those it’s difficult to wrap my feeble little mind around.

A few months ago, Mary Jac and I reconnected after a year apart. I won’t go into details about that, but what’s important is that we each arrived back in each others lives at just the right time. We were in the same spiritual and psychological black holes, and together, we could pull ourselves out. We could lean on, lift up, fireman carry, counsel, coddle, and just flat out hug the stuffing out of each other while the bad man 30 feet up told us to put the lotion in the basket.

It happened over coffee before a cardboard box visit, one of us said “I want a new tattoo” and the other yelped with glee “me too” and when asked of what, the answer was “grace” followed by another “me too”.

So this last weekend when it was burned in us so hard and so fast that our eyes bled saline and we held each other in the dark (both physically and emotionally) I knew it was time. I knew I didn’t want to go a day for the rest of my life without thinking about it and feeling it.

I’m a transmitter. Sometimes I’m sending the signal, but more often, I’m receiving. And my mother? I like to think she was trying to tell me something then, even if she wasn’t. Because it stuck right where I needed it to, in the vulnerable places where I have no choice but to admit my flaws, and to try to do better.