A Brick

Around and around in my head keeps floating the sentence:

It is just a brick, one single brick.

I want to say it to the student who is punching the desk yelling, "I don't know!"
I want to say it to my friend when her face lights up.
I want to say it to the girl whose eyes are starting to get that far away look as she slips into her cluttered mind.
I want to say it to my daughter when she feels afraid.
I want to say it to my husband when we look at each other as we say goodnight.
I want to say it to a co-worker who doesn't know what to do.
I want to say it to my son when he is contentedly staring at the stars.
I want to say it to my Mom when her words expressing her sorrow get caught in her throat.


I want to say it when the sun begins to rise earlier in the morning.
I want to say it when my approach was the right one.
I want to say it when nothing else can be said.
I want to say it when my brothers are laughing.
I want to say it when my Dad walks into a dream.
I want to say it when my head is hitting the wall.
I want to say it when my kitchen is filled with people.
I want to say it when the sun sets and knows it has put on a show.

It is just one brick.
One single brick in the life we are building.
Our house is never finished.
Every brick matters.
It saves a place for what is next.
It is the future's foundation.
It is just one brick
and soon another one will come.
This brick will be placed,
and a new one will come.

Finding Your Mirror

Loss doesn't end. I am not saying that to be pessimistic nor do I mean that it is always a horrific struggle. What I mean is this: When someone is in your life, they are a constant presence. So how can they not be a constant loss when they leave us? It just makes sense that they would be.

I have had a sad week. I am not saying that to gain sympathy nor do I mean that I haven't had some wonderful moments. But the past few days were some in which I was in the whirl of missing my Dad and it covered most things with a layer of grey soot.

However, the reason I entered this sadness came from something warm and moving. A photo my Mom had given to my daughter had been altered at some point. She added a heart to it and the heart reads: I miss you.

It made my heart stop when I came across it because she said my words. She said my feelings so simply. I knelt on her rug with my hands filled with her toys and scraps and crayons, trying to clean her always messy room, and I let the tears slide down my cheeks as I stared. I let the mess fall a bit, from my hands, from my lungs, from my heart, because really. What is the use of trying to pick it all up? Some just has to fall and stay down all around us. We don't have to carry every bit of loss with us.

I had been avoiding my mom as I always do when I am feeling sad. Always certain that the thing to do is not share it with her. And when I call her, kicking and screaming, and I hear her voice, I know I just have to tell her. And I know she just has to hear it. We both feel better after. Someone to mirror your grief.

Realizing the loss extends past me seems obvious, but I think we can get wrapped up in it, trying to contain it and layer it away in our own selves. Seeing the photo in Evie's room- her simple announcement to whoever should hear it- brought me back to the day I told her that her Da was dying. All my children had their significant reactions. Brendan just laid down on the floor when I told him I was on my way to say goodbye to Da. Colleen kept her quiet presence, afraid to move, afraid to cry. 

But Evie. She rounded on me with all the anger and sadness I felt in me screeching out of her. She was the mirror of the little girl losing her Dad with all the rage I would have never shown. When she pointed at me and said, her diaphragm shaking her words out, "You don't go say 'Goodbye' to him. You go there and tell him that I say 'Hello'. You tell him 'Hello!'" I wanted to scream and kick the stuffing out of my bed. I wanted to let my face get chapped and my hair get knotted and my sorrow to send me into a fitful sleep from which I would rise out of later, confused.

Thankfully, she did that for me, too, when I got home and told her that he was gone.

A friend wrote me last night about how she misses her mom. I was grateful for her words so I could share my sadness, too. She wrote how she thought that by now it would have lessened. We all hear that the pain of loss will get better with time, but I find that inaccurate having barely got my feet wet in this. The pain and the missing will happen always as the person we have lost will always be lost. It just learns to visit you at certain times. And in those times I am learning to poke my nose out of my hole to find someone else who is feeling it, too.

I miss him. I will miss my Dad for my forever.

Et tu, Undies?

Y'alls. My undies are too tight.

Yes, we know when the jeans are too tight and get up in our nethers. Or the shirt is too tight and reveals the muffin tops and bra squishouts. But when the underwear is too tight... it is like a girlfriend saying to you, while at a chocolate buffet or something, "are you sure you want to eat that?"
Complete.
Total.
All encompassing.
Betrayal.

Undies are your closest clothings ever. They are literally alllll up in your business. To have them leave a mark upon thy upper thigh/side butt fat pillows is a slap on the cheek, indeed. Or you bend and they just leave you hanging...
Crack is wack, people. Why would my underwear do this to me?

Look, I can see my fault in it. I don't use woolite. 
Admitted. 
Out there.
My "lingerie" drying rack holds....nothing since it is folded and wedged under some shelves. I throw everything in the dryer. (And before you try to help me, seeing me flailing out here in the wind- they didn't shrink. I pretended that already.) So it isn't like I am completely kind to my little tighties.

So, looking out the window at the soft cascading snow, I gave myself the little pep talk we all have. The one when we 

aren't in a disgusted mood with ourselves. A touch of 
reprimand. A touch of understanding. I took the animal instinct approach. We are like bears. We are fattening to keep warm. Of course I don't want to exercise, it is against my nature in Winter. Tucking in to warmth and food to survive the long winter....Less daylight to ensure resting up.


But, do you have to hide the chocolates from the kids so you don't have to share? No. That is wrong. Let the kids eat some. And it is time to buy the kids the treats you don't like so you will stop sneaking them. 
Yes. Yes. Yes. True.
And only ONE more Little Debbie Heart cakes. One. Then move on!
(or opt for commando)