As a kid every Mother’s Day morning I would sneak outside before breakfast for a specific mission. For as long as memory exists for me I knew about a tiny patch of buttercups along the side of the stream behind our house that would always be in bloom for this occasion. It was a tiny gesture that was intended to show my mom how much I loved her and those flowers captured how she felt to me; a bright yellow beacon in a world that was just waking up to color again after a long grey winter. On April 30th I woke up to the sound of howling wind and sideways rain battering my bedroom windows, and two missed calls from my mom’s nursing home. When I summoned the courage to call back, the nurse on the other end of the line didn’t sugar coat or mince words in letting me know that my mom was gone, and asked for me to figure out the next devastatingly bizarre steps that come after death.
It’s been over a week of holding this and not knowing what to do or to say about it all. I know that the little world we grew up in lost a giant within the community, one who everyone knew and who shaped their lives just by being her unapologetic and beautifully quirky self. So often it seems we try to be as different from parents as we can but come to learn how much of them we carry in us. Today I can say that I’m glad I have some of her in me. I think being a mother is the hardest work there is as a human. Giving up so much of yourself for the care and survival of others is selfless and worthy of so much more acknowledgement than a Sunday in May. I can see her now in a more human light than ever before. I think that’s one of the strange gifts of death, so many of the layers between us seem to drop like the petals of our own flowers, falling away in order to allow growth into something new and beautiful.
I miss my mom so much today as this new reality sets in. Photos tell me that buttercups are in bloom up here on her birthday, which seems just right to me. I’ll be on the lookout for them, and think of her every time they come. If you happen to see a buttercup in your travels today, tell Joddy I said hi.
A remembrance will be announced in the days to come 🤍
Last year I gifted myself a trip to Oaxaca when the urge to flee took hold. I find it challenging to give myself much of anything outside of utility or necessity, so this was a practice in the surrender to splurge. 13 years of life had passed since the last time my feet carried a wholly different version of me along the cobblestone streets, navigating alluring markets stalls, climbing endless sets of stairs, savoring every piece of fruit encountered, listening to the enchanting rhythm of the city... Upon arrival that deeper feeling of the passage of time felt monumental. The Oaxaca I knew up to that point was seen through two sets of younger eyes, my own without dusty memories stashed away in the nooks and crannies of these old buildings and a loud silence walking alongside of them. Those eyes didn’t quite get the inevitable realization that everything changes with time and space between just yet. The experience as a whole felt akin to an impassioned roller coaster ride, covering just about the entire spectrum of emotions & senses throughout. The highs were cosmic. The lows immensely tender. I ate just about everything I saw, talked to a hundred strangers, and after a rough start eventually got into the fortuitous flow that travel so often fosters when you trust in chance. There were subtle and not so subtle signs just about everywhere my eyes and body led me, metaphorical bridges between the past & the present that served as a reminder of the magic of being alive to know any of this. I know that this state of being is something that can be available anywhere we are when the present moment remains in focus with a firm grip on gratitude’s innate wisdom. But I also see how traveling so effortlessly brings it right to the surface in a way that always takes me back home to what attracts me to wander in the first place. Almost like a back door into awe and wonder and joy. Something I lived into so much alongside Liss and her adventurous spirit on our travels together. As I am getting ready to head back to those vibrant streets I live with hope in my heart that this experience will be different and, if I’m lucky, as rich as the last one 🍀
41 years ago in the darkness of the early morning hours, on the cusp of the longest night of the year, Liss came into this existence and began stealing hearts. I think when we’re born is indicative of the big gifts we bring with us into the world. I find that all fellow Sagittarius folks seem to hold a special torch that can’t be so easily seen but surely can be felt. We tend to the winter with a warmth that holds within it a knowing that there’s sweetness to be savored even in the most bitter & cold of seasons. One of the big things (of the too many to list things) I’ve learned from her is just how important it is to love the darkness as much as we love the light. Within our shadows we can and do find deeper connection, true healing of the wounds & traumas that feel almost certainly too big for us to do alone. And as we lean into them we find that somehow we do have the tools we need right there waiting. One of Liss’s many mantras that keep coming back to me as life keeps unfolding.
I intend to lean into the light and joy of this day, as best I can. To be here in the present honoring the big beautiful wave of a world she left in her wake.
I’m so glad you were born.
I’m so glad you existed.
I’m so glad you loved me so 🕯️
2 years ago today I found a short piece of burgundy thread next to Elissa on her hospital bed. Without a rational thought to tether myself to, I tied the string around her finger. Some part of my brain knew that it would be the last time I would ever see her hands. With my own trembling ones I made the best bow I could muster, placing a physical & spiritual reminder to forget me not. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be with her wherever she went. It was my first taste of what unthinkable grief feels like. A few days ago I realized that she parted ways with our physical plane during the peak of the gemenids, a cosmic kismet where over a hundred shooting stars an hour soar through the dark winter skies. Last night the clouds parted just enough for me to catch a handful and I couldn’t help but smile thinking of her being sent off in a show so rooted in wonder and awe and light. I’ve recently heard a question wondering if signs are the poems that the dead can write to us. Drifting off into the cosmos with a thousand shooting stars lighting her path sounds like poetry to me.
I see signs everywhere and feel like I’m a certified and licensed for them at this point. Maybe there’s signs all around us that go unnoticed unless we are really trying to connect? What I know is that whenever one materializes I feel like I’m on the right path. It’s the one lined with heart shaped everythings that keep emerging like the next clue to this waking life. I keep looking and they keep showing up. I hope they always do.
I think the words she would offer me today would be in line with some of the last ones she shared with me. Just be here now. Find yourself in the present moment, with all that this brief speck of time has to offer. I know she would want me to find joy in the present, to lean into happiness, to let myself revel in expansiveness, to let my heart be my compass… (Cont in comments…)
Celebrated 42 in an antiquated fashion. And since 42 is the answer to everything I have substantial expectations. I’ve already been feeling lots of love and that means the world to me ❤️
14 years ago a plan was hatched as a guise to spend an evening alone together, using the convenient excuse of a super moon on the cusp of spring equinox as an auspicious chaperone. We were adults by all means of the definition but I can look back today and see that we were actually just kids. Kids who foolhardily opened their hearts up to each other and started something bigger and deeper than they could have imagined. What followed suit was a uniquely-us testament to love, trust, and ultimately surrender.
It’s hard to find words to express what lives in folks like me around days like these. It often feels like a language separate of the ones we collectively communicate with. The heavy luggage in our hearts is carried with us in everything we experience, good or bad. Last year I reconnected with a client who had lost her husband and I was able to let her know what I now knew. She confided in me that it took her a year before she could feel sunshine on her face again. I’m grateful I was able to feel sunshine sooner than that. I know you had a hand in that, along with so many other things. And while this still doesn’t feel real sometimes, I know that what we created together is as real as sunshine. And that lives on forever, etched into time itself. In recounting the tale of how we met to a friend last night, I felt the joy in sharing about that moment running through my veins. I teleported back to that moment right there in that little cove, bathed in moonlight, waves lapping at our feet, placing the first bricks of our foundation between us… And what a home we built. I’m certain I’ll live the rest of my days with deep gratitude of that home. It’s made me who I am today. I know that the relationship I’ve found in it, bolstered by walls thickly insulated with grief, is healing me in ways that allow me to move through this world with all that I carry. I also know you’ll be right here with me floating through time & space while the journey continues, wherever my path takes me.
To the moon and back Liss 🌕
You left an insurmountable hole in the fabric of this island, in the core of your community. Your warmth, your kindness, your rascally laugh, your irresponsibly magnanimous heart will be missed more than I can really tap into in this moment. When the shock wears off and we all come to realize that there is no fix to this I think we’ll all know how big that miss really is. Deer Isle won’t be the same without you Larkin 🕯️
We’re in the middle of December and the two old maple trees outside of our bedroom window are completely bare, save for a few curled up yellow leaves that haven’t fell yet. Since they emerged as spring buds they’ve tasted the sweet air, been bathed by sunshine, held by fog, seen relentless winds, sideways rain, hail, and even some snow. They’ve also witnessed me in my entirety, silently watching as I walked through this strangest of years from their vantage points in the canopy overlooking King Row. Somehow, they remain steadfast holding onto the very same branches that both gave them life and also asked them to let go once their worldly task was complete. I can’t help but think they are holding on just for me at this point. It’s been exactly a year since I was asked to let go of what my entire life was built around. And I can’t help but feel kinship with the ones that haven’t let go of what created them in the first place. Their conviction feels comforting. Their stubbornness soothes me. Love is perhaps the most stubborn thing alive, and I can see more clearly now than ever that it is indeed greater and stronger than death. I’ve come to know love as something that is its own entity, something that lives within us but is not actually ours to possess or control. It’s something that has a life and a mind of its own. We can’t own love, but we do live with it and live very much under its influence. I think the same can be said about grief. There is no one without the other. When we sign up for love, we are also purchasing grief. It’s built into the contract, right there in the fine print.
As I write this I’m seated on Elissa’s couch, a soft blue loveseat that lives in our bedroom she loved so much. It sits right in the middle of the round turret and is flanked by windows all around. I often find myself here when I want to see the world through her eyes, and feel closer to her. She spent so much time here during her cancer journey pondering life and all the mysteries and truths it holds. It’s amazing the things I’ve done this past year to feel some sense of closeness. Some of them feel downright insane (continued in comments)
