August 2001 - Oh so Mortal

She looked very beautiful.  Hair perfect as always.  Her favorite golden earrings and the gold and diamond Parker brand pendant Papa had the goldsmith make for her.  She was radiant in red silk.  I had pondered her clothing carefully.  I knew she wanted to wear her grey chiffon formal.  Somehow red brought out her passionate side, her fun side, her sometimes outspoken side.  I opted for the red and hoped she would forgive me.  In her hands, a small bouquet of pansies.  The favoured flower - one of her best friends in the garden.  On her left hand, her wedding ring of fifty-six years and a gold and diamond ring Papa had given her for their 25th.  She adored jewelry.

I sat close beside her.  My hands on hers.  I sat there for a very long time, saying all the things that were knotted up inside me.  They poured forth like smooth farm cream.  I needed to say the words out loud - all of them.  She needed to hear them.

I wrote a letter on violet paper, the colour of her wedding dress.  I placed it in a violet envelope and tucked it into a crack at the side of the coffin.

She didn't look dead.  That was the whole entire problem.  She looked so very much alive - just peacefully sleeping.  The funeral parlour had done exquisite work.  I simply wanted to wake her up.  I was having a very hard time saying goodbye.

Papa sat patiently waiting for me in the lobby chatting with the funeral home owner.  He wouldn't allow me to come alone.  Very rarely in my entire life did I go to difficult places alone.  I didn't appreciate it then.  Oh how I miss it now.

I stood up - wanting to walk away into the lobby.  My eyes were unable to leave.  My body seemed to have become part of the floor.  I felt Papa's hands on my shoulders.  We stood there for a long time.  No words spoken.  Then I felt a strong warm hand take mine and we moved away, slowly turning as we moved forward.  Walking together, just the two of us, out into the warm August night.

I didn't think about my own mortality then.  Mama was 93.  I was 56.  It had not occurred to me on a soul level my time would come.  This birthday, I will be 68 and my own mortality is staring into my eyes, holding my gaze.  I can no longer look away.  I absolutely understand time is of the essence.  Over the past year or so, I have found such a true part of myself.  The Artist who has been hidden away in some dark corner unable to acknowledge she is there and she is good.  There was a time when my Papa and I were alone in a room of stained glass windows I had made.  He quietly took my hand, looked into my eyes, and said, "Donna, you are going to be famous some day."  That really meant nothing then as I had no self worth.  Now I hold on to those words like precious artifacts.

It's never too late to live my dream I tell myself.  That's what I'm doing at the moment - living my dream.  I'll continue to do so for as long as I am able.  I do not want to leave this life with my music still in me.

* On being grateful ...

Inspired by “THINKING”!  After reading the first chapter of “Life is a Verb” by Patti Digh, and some of the writings of Juliana Coles.  Who knows where it will take me next!

It is my belief I chose this life at this time on this planet with all the lessons, happy, sad and downright painful that come with it.  Why then have I been grieving?  Why am I feeling this deep sadness, anger and sometimes downright bitterness.  I know I’ve had some tremendous wallops - enough to flatten anyone ... I think it’s time to get up and get going.  I think it’s time to be grateful for everything I have received, over the top happiness, the middle earth root bound sadness and grief, and the day to day small wonderful things which I do love so very much.  Therefore I am writing the following, straight from my heart in order to connect with my story, accept it, be grateful for it, and move forward. 

“The Declaration of Gratefulness for ALL of my LIFE, every teenie weenie bit of it”  by Donna Parker, February 7, 2012

I am so very grateful for my life .. all of it.  The joy, the tragedy and the broken heart.  Because of it, I have become the woman I am in the present moment.  I ‘get it’.  I am compassionate and because of all of it I have found my artist ... hidden deep within forgotten crevasses, now exposed and basking in the light.  I am so very grateful for those who have hurt me the deepest, especially my family.  I now know what it feels like to feel empty, alone, wounded and unloved.  I understand what it is to be broken ... to have the pieces scattered so far and wide, I may never find them all.  I am becoming stronger because of it.  I am growing because of it.  I am finding myself because of it.  I want to thank my parents who loved me and protected me so much I could not function.  I want to thank my brother and his family who are the source of so much of my pain and sadness.  I am most grateful to my husband who taught me to be who I was.  Who opened me up to such a depth I am forever changed.  I want to thank him for leaving me when I needed him most.  I want to thank him for teaching me about true love, deep love, everlasting love.  Without him, I never would have known what what it felt like to be cherished, what it felt like to find toothpaste on my brush every single morning of our togetherness.  I am thankful for the twenty years he was able to so freely give me.   Thank you to my dear friends who have left me.  Thank you for those friends who saw me as a mirror and ran.  Thank you for family who have abandoned me.  Thank you for my spiritual children who loved me beyond my wildest dreams and are no longer able to be here for me.  Thank you for my own spirit, who I constantly struggle with and challenge for growth, perhaps at a faster speed than it is capable of.   Thank you for Mexico.  Thank you for the loss of my fortune.  The experiences here have changed my life.  The experience here has hurt me deeply. 

On the other side of the coin - Thank you for all the time I need to heal and grow back the missing parts.  They will be new and better.  Already, I know they are stronger, more compassionate, more loving, less patient, more angry, more outspoken, and have an incredible ability to take care of ME.   Thank you for the Artist within, thank you for allowing me to find her, hold her and love her.  Thank you for the beautiful atmosphere here where she can nurture herself and grow her creativity.  As I heal I develop the ability to survive.  I am grateful for that.  There were times when I thought survival was not possible. 

All of this is learning and growing. That’s why I’m here.  That is why I chose this life.   I accept it now with a knowing and understanding I have not been able to find in the past.  Life is gifting me wisdom.  I am becoming a wild woman, a chrone, the woman I was meant to be.  It is also gifting me an anger and fierceness and a new kind of happiness to deal with it. I had not thought this possible.  I am forever changed ... forever.  I AM GRATEFUL. 

I honour who I am.  I honour the gifts I carry with me.  I am able to use them now.  I am able to share them.  I am able to allow them.  I am able to accept them.  When I look back to where I began, I have traveled such a very long way.  I am a better person for all of it. Every teenie weenie little bit of it. Life amazes me and for that, I am grateful.  Really.  I am.

* On being alone ...

Tonight I find myself cooking fried new potatoes and onions.  I'm craving the way mamma used to cook them on the wood stove in the kitchen of the old house where I spent the first 15 years of my life.   Sometimes the three of us would sit around the stove, cut the potatoes into thin slices and place them on the iron top until they blistered.  Then the best part.  Peel them off, salt pepper and butter and pop them in our mouths.  Don't eat many potatoes any more.  Night shades ... bad for arthritis you know.  Made rice pudding last night for the same reasons.  Craving a taste of the past.  Wanted my heart to stop aching.  Did everything just like we used to.  Didn't taste anywhere near the same.  The rice is different in this country.  It went into the garbage today. 

I'm at a loss as to know what to do to comfort myself.  I am broken. So many horrific things have happened this year.  I haven't spoken to someone who has loved and cared for me all my life in such a long time.  Sometime it just hits me and I think I can no longer bear the thought of being here on this earth all by myself.  At sixty five, not to have a family member hug me, or an old friend to have a drink with and talk about our childhood, our memories, our antics while growing up, our history.  What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?  There is something terribly wrong with the order of things in my life.

Papa was ninety seven when he crossed over.  He was in a loving relationship for fifty seven years.  Mamma passed away three years before he did.    Oh, I'm not saying things were perfect.  There was trouble, and lots of it in our family.  But they still came.  They still dropped in.  The young ones still stopped for supper sometimes or a drink in the afternoon, when perhaps no one else knew they were there.  He still had kin.  He still had friends.  He still had a hug and a touch from someone who loved him dearly every day of his life until he died.  I never realized what a comfort that must have been.

On my sixty-fifth birthday took account of my life.  An accounting of loved ones in my life.  Everyone I cared for and whom I thought cared for me is gone. The biggest loss?  My husband, best friend, lover.  No old friends who I knew from childhood to talk of old times with.  No family.  Even the few friends whom I have a history with are in lands far away.  A phone call once in awhile has to suffice.  My step daughters?  No.  Not there either.  They have their own families.  I sat in my chair frozen.  Unable to celebrate with any of the people I have met here.  Unable to even utter the fact it was my birthday.  I simply couldn't face life that day.

Sometimes I think if I don't get a hug or a touch from someone who really cares very soon, I shall surely die.  I remember distinctly the last time that happened.  I will hold it in my heart forever.  I recall every detail and if I close my eyes I can almost be there.  But then again ... I'm not there am I.  How do people live without caring touch.  I have no idea.  It was such an important part of my life.  Now nothing exists.  I am now an untouchable in so many ways, for so many very weird reasons. 

It's not an easy situation to face or god forbid to accept.  If I had to explain it all, I really could not.  I don't understand most of it myself.  I know my heart aches.  I know I am a lone.  I have no idea how to fix it.  I have no idea how to live with it. I have no idea how to create a support system at this stage of my life.  Not a meaningful one anyway.  Do I live superficially from this day forward?  Talking about the price of tomatoes and the cost of living?   Not likely.  Not who I am.  Dear God, how superficialness bores me.  Why has this happened?  Part of being an only child.  Part of the deep resentment, bitterness and hatred which permeates the family who are left.  The wall is so thick, no army could blast their way in.  I used to think I wanted to.  I used to think I would do anything to fix it.  Now I realize how stupid that would be.  Now I realize how very very stupid I have been most of my life.  I have lived as part of a facade, as part of a lie which for so many years I thought was the truth.

Old friends?  Dear friends?  The facade they wore was a good one.  I ignored it.  They lied to survive.  Couldn't talk.  Wouldn't talk.  Unable to face the truth.  Couldn't work things out.  Finally without a word, one day I was blocked from a relationship I had been part of for over sixty years.  How pathetic.  How pitiful.  Life is too short for any of this crap as far as I'm concerned.  And then, I suspect to speak of it all with other old friends. Such gall.  A situation I protected. one I held so close to my heart for fear someone would know and misunderstand. Something I considered private between the two of us.  Something I wouldn't share in case it might shed a less than bright light on my dear friend. I still had enough respect for that. It was so personal, so sacred, WHY? WHY! would they talk to someone else about it when that person is unable to hear 'the other side of the story'.   AND to top it all off, have the other old friend believe there is only one side to this fucking story.  STORY!  That's exactly what it is.  Made up and fertilized for such a long time it grew into some personal nightmare because they were AFRAID to TALK!  What the fuck is that all about?  We can negotiate with huge companies over a little bit of shitty money or the right to pee three times a day in a clean toilet, but we can't negotiate with an old and oh so dear friend to save a life long friendship?  FUCK NO.  Couldn't do that.  That would take courage wouldn't it!  It's all beyond me.  Bitter?  You bet!  If I look at it from a personal growth point of view, from a spiritual point of view, these people have 'shown me who they truly are'.  What I see is not pretty.  Why would I want them in my life anyway?  Good question.  Simple answer.  Because I LOVE THEM.

Having this knee surgery in a foreign country alone was one of the biggest tests I have ever endured.  Why didn't you ask for help you might say to yourself.  Well, I did.  I swallowed my pride and asked for help.  Did anyone come?  NO.  Why?  No one really gives a damn.  Another huge lesson for me to absorb.  It will take time.  Had I been asked by those same people to come to them I would have been there in a flash. I would never have said 'maybe' or 'we will talk closer to the time', or 'I need more information'.   My credit card might have been a little hot, but I would have been there.  That's how important it would have been to me.  Going through this procedure here with no one who loves me has been a tremendous emotional blow.

So how did I get so screwed up?  How did I end up totally alone at the age of sixty five when most people are surrounded by family and friends?  Life style for one.  I never had very deep roots.  I understand some of the reasons, and some have been my own choices.  I'm just not sure I can live with the consequences.  I'm not sure I can stay under the circumstances.  I'm not sure I want to.

* Saying Goodbye to Granny

Note:  See part one, "The Memory Weaver".

I looked at Granny one more time before I went to bed.  Laid out on her butterfly quilt, the piece of muslin tied in a bow on the top of her head.  I looked for a long time.  I knew I would never forget.  I was five.

"What will happen to Granny now?", I asked.  Jeannie and I were climbing the narrow curved staircase to the bedrooms.

Mama was too busy to put me to bed.  Jeannie was always there when Mama was too busy.

"Well, they will come with a car, and take her body to a funeral home."

"When will they come?"

"I don't know exactly.  Soon."

"Will you tell me when they come to take Granny?"

"You will be asleep.  I will tell you in the morning."

"No, you have to tell me tonight.  You have to wake me up.  I want to know when they take Granny away.  You have to promise.  Promise me you will wake me up.  Promise."

"Alright, don't worry, I will tell you, I promise."

I climbed into Mama and Papa's bed, under the yellow flowered comforter Mama had made.  It was stuffed with sheeps wool and tied every few inches with pieces of knitting wool.  I loved that comforter.  It smelled good.

I said my prayers.  Jeannie kissed me goodnight and gave me that extra little hug she always had for me.  The light went out and she turned to leave.

"Promise me, Jeannie.  Promise me."

I fell asleep quickly that night knowing someone would wake me and tell me Granny was gone.  I needed to know.  It was important.

My eyes popped open.  It was light out - morning had arrived.  I felt anger.  I jumped out of bed and ran down to Granny's room.  It was empty.  She was gone.  Only her butterfly quilt remained.

I cried.  My hands grasped the quilt.  But they promised!  They promised!  I needed to know.  I wanted to know.  It was important.  Didn't they understand it was important? 

* The Memory Weaver

Where are they, those little tiny pieces, those moments in time, those snipits.  Find the threads, the scattered scraps, the left overs.  Gather them together.  Don't let them go. Go to your loom and weave the memories.  They are important and your stories need to be told.

I struggle to remember my Granny.  Small snipits, little bits, smidgens, threads.  I find them, I cherish them, I weave them together into the fabric they once were.

"Wash together, dry together, be good friends for ever and ever."  We stand by the old white double porcelain sink in the house where I was born.  Home.  The view from the window is an old log cabin, once a new soddy, now tumbled down and used for the storage of grain.  A huge wood pile is stacked near by.  This was my Granny's first home.  This is where my Papa was born.  She and Grandad built it together, one log at a time.  

I hear the water swirling down the drain.  I dry the last piece of silver ware and together, like a well orchestrated team, we fold the dish towel neatly and hang it in the cupboard under the sink.  This was our nightly routine, Granny and me.  Sometimes we would sing "You are my sunshine".  I would giggle, Granny would smile.

Sometimes Granny would read to me from the pink floral chair in the corner of her bedroom.  I would sit on the floor and lean my arms on her knees while she read me tall exciting tales from one of my favorite books. 

I loved my Granny's bedroom.  It was the largest of our five bedrooms.  Full of light, it was an airy room with big windows covering two walls and built in bookshelves.  How I adored those little nooks full of books I had no idea about. 

The windows looked out over the land.  Family land, Parker land.  The plum trees which grew close to the porch, and farther away, the high poplars which protected the yard from prairie winds.  The other window looked out over a seasonal pond, full of ducks and frogs in the spring.  Our springtime orchestra, Mama used to say as she tucked me into bed.  Beyond the music we looked out over the pasture where fat cattle grazed.

Granny's bed fascinated me.  Made of dark wood the headboard had a piece of burled walnut set in the middle.  And my very favorite thing in Granny's room - her butterfly quilt.  All bright beautiful butterflies appliqued onto muslin by hand.  Always there, always beautiful, always on her bed.

Granny used to mash my potatoes when we ate dinner.  It was a big deal.  I loved it.  Thinking back now, perhaps it was when I came home from the hospital and she was trying to get me to eat.  Mashed on my plate, patted into a square or a circle, whichever I wanted.  Butter was then applied before they were cut into bite sized squares.  She would feed each little square to me on a fork.  It made me laugh.  I remember.

Granny died one day when I was five.  She died in the bathroom while my Papa raised her head and put brandy to her lips.  She was gone.  I cried and cried that night.  I sat in a corner of the dining room on a red hassock with my feet on the old wrought iron heating grate I loved so much.  I stared down at the intricate pattern as Mama and Papa carried my Granny to lie on her butterfly quilt.  She had flown away just like a butterfly.  In silence she had invisibly transformed.

I sat at my Mama's knee by Granny's pink flowered chair and cried.  My Mama cried too.  Our tears fell for a long time.

Friends and neighbours, the women of the community fussed around, preparing Granny for something.  I wasn't quite sure what.  They put a long strip of muslin under her chin and tied it in a bow on the top of her head.  She wore her pretty flowered dress, the one I loved the best, long black stockings and her sturdy black shoes with laces. 

* The Beggar

I stumble, I fall, I bleed.  Tripping over roots and boulders of the past in search of acceptance, surrender and the grace to move forward.  To live in the moment.  To find my happiness once more.

I search and seek
in forests damp and dark
where memories lurk
and pull at me
from deep caves and caverns.
I see no light,
One measly crack would do.
Why can I find none.
Why can I not break away
from the pull, the magnetism
of the darkness, of the past.
It sticks to me like
dried dung.
Like an animal I roll
and wallow in it,
covering myself in its smell
it's imprint.
My childhood roots cling to me,
Wrap themselves around me,
Wrenching me back in time
Like some horror movie.

The pain is too great to bear.
I beg you, allow me my freedom.
Release me.
No good can come of this.
These tears, these howlings,
These broken pieces can
Never be made whole.
Loosen your grip.
Unwrap yourselves from me
And let me crawl away
To lick my wounds in peace.

Must all healing come
from such shattered pieces,
From such brokeness,
From such hell?
My connection with the Universe is gone.
It's shattered.
Null and void.
My soul severed by some unseen sword.
I am split in two
Forever searching for the other half.

I beg for healing.
I beg for wholeness.
I beg for peace.

* This moment in time ...

This moment in time
I have forgotten completely
what friendship and love
feel like.
Did I ever really know?
Was it all an illusion?
I am uncomfortable.
My tribe is far and away.
I scatter deep sadness
And anger in my wake.
Do not come near me!
I am dry,
I am empty.
A cavern lives within.
It is cold,
There is no fire.
Tears pour forth
from the river which
runs deep under middle earth.
No touch of human mind or body
exists in my reality.
I have forgotten their blessings.
I am barren,
An empty shell,
Nothing to share.
A bitter old woman,
Who once longed to
be a loving crone.
The bitterness spills and
sticks on others.
Stay Away!
It will stick to you
like silt in the dessert.
Stay away I say!
Not one step closer.
My loved ones disappeared
long ago and only
now do I have that knowing.
My spirit shakes with
anger and betrayal.
Questions seep from
deep cracks
and dark damp holes.
Fear possesses my body.
My guts have turned to muck.
I am afraid to cough or
spit in case I
shake it loose
and simutaneously explode
spreading small particles
to the far reaches of the earth.
I could not fix it alone,
And I am alone.

So keep yourself together
bitter old women.
Hold on tight
For if you let go
You will fly to smithereens.
There are no insane asylums
No one cares if you can't find
all the pieces.
So don't let go,
or do you want to die in
some dark damp alley way
not knowing your own name?

* So many questions

Oh fate!  Such tricks and evil jokes you play on me as you dance and twist and spiral around.  Amused that I, your prodege, have the energy of the young, after such long and painful Rumpelstiltskin years.  Now, the gift of energy abounds.  The mind, a creative explosion of ideas irrupting regularly, like old faithful.  Yet, you have bestowed pain and limits on movement.  I grimmice and winge as I put a foot forward.  I cry and make a wrinkled face as I attempt to stand.  To feel pain and want to hide it, to pretend I am fine.  "Oh no.  No problem here."  And as the tears find their way from my eyes, the idea machine in my head is on fast forward.  Wasn't this supposed to happen in the youth of my years?  When I was young with body fit, my soul was broken, my spirit sad. Only sleep would surely bring comfort.

Now my bed is not my friend, and even as I try to rest and heal, my mind turfs me out from under the comforter to create.  Create what I sometimes wonder.  Everything that has been there and invisible to me for the last 64 years?  It's all there now, at the surface.  Bubbling and boiling, pushing and shoving and rioting to be next in line to emerge from the darkness into the light. 

Why now?  Why at this last moment?  Did I always wait for the last minute to get things done?  Do I have to hurry?  Is there time?  A voice told me "You have come here to die."  Is it true?  Or is it as I hope .. the old me fading away and dieing as a new me emerges. 

The pain stops me.  I move slowly, carefully.  Still it beings me to my knees.  The muscle in my side gives me sharp jabs and jolts as I try to ignor the fact I am wounded.  It will not allow me to forget.

The dust of this high dessert town, the heat and the silt which respect no closed door has got me down.  The grit on my hands as I attempt to work, read a book, or take a paper from the drawer.  It is May, it is hot.  It will be over soon, people tell me.  Accept?  Any of it?  The pain or the dust?  Not today.

* Searching for my Wings

Time passes quickly now.  They are growing old.   They will leave this earth with a bang not a whimper.  Hundreds will attend the wake of these two, for they are from an old family.  One of the first to settle this community.  People will come together to grieve and celebrate their lives, lived the very best they knew how.

I will never know when they are gone.  I will here no details of their passing.  I will never have the privilege of saying goodbye and thank you for whatever they could give me.  I will never grieve and celebrate with loved ones.  I have the deepest of sadness for this thought.  They are my only close blood, my kin.  We come from the same stock.  We share the same roots.  And yet, it is their wish to never see me again.

They scream these needs in loud defiant silence.  Sign language indicates "No Trespassing.  We will Shoot".  Leave us be.  You are not one of ours.  Never a word has been spoken.  They cannot bear to hear their words appear in front of me.

Bitterness and contempt is locked away in an old barristers trunk.  It takes three keys to open that one.  The keys were lost so long ago.  No one will ever understand for sure what's inside.

It's fermented and rotten.  It bubbles and boils.  It causes illness.  Still they keep it hidden and cloistered from view.

I set you free.  It is your own truth, not mine.  Dance to the rhythm of your drummer, to the beat of your bitterness.  You are old and hard and unbending.  Stiff from anger and pain.  You bleed and yet are unaware.  Go with my love and my blessings.

Myself?  Another question.  Huge for me.  Am I able to free myself.  Will I allow myself to fly, to leave my dearest hopes and dreams behind?

Harder than it may seem to leave my blood, my kin.  I know the truth.  There is no love.  My box of hope is still full.  To empty it is a frightening thought. To face the cold and the hard and the difficult. The facts.  I don't want to face the cold, the hard and the empty box.  Despair may quickly fill the void and then what?  My mind won't let it go.  My spirit longs to heal.  The pain gnaws at me, raw and unyielding.  It claws and scratches relentlessly, creeping into my dreams even as I sleep.   The truth?  The cold harsh raw truth?  I don't have a family.  And really, I never did.  How very harsh those words are to see in black and white.  How will I ever face it?  How will I ever heal?

* The Hope Chest

"Can I come with you?"
"No."
"Oh please can I come with you?"
"No."
"I'll be good, I promise."

It was dark out.  It was cold.  It was just before Christmas.  Billy had built Connie a cedar chest, a 'hope' chest.  He was proud and excited.  He was taking it to her in the back of the truck.

"PLUULEESE.?
"Oh, alright, but you have to stay in the truck!"
His voice was gruff.  He had given in.  He didn't want me there.
I went anyway, happy for any morsel of himself he was willing to share.
A short drive.  Not a word spoken.

We pulled up in front of the house.  The lights were on.  It looked warm and welcoming inside.  The cat was laying on the cot beside the front door.  I could see Aunty Molly.

The door slammed.  The hope chest taken in.  I stood up so I could see better, but I wasn't witness to the giving, the love.

I waited.  It was cold.  Finally the door opened and Billy climbed in.  We drove home in silence.  I took what I could.  I put it safely in my heart.  I stored it there along with a box of hope.  I was five.  I knew it would be alright in the end.  He would love me.  I just knew it!