Death of a Loved One Day 115

Lists of reasons to not write are long, most of them written by people on deadline. This past week, in order to avoid doing my work (writing) I cleaned out folders on my computer and finally (this is really digging deep) the supply closet in my office. Stuck in here and there among the dusty old floppy discs and transparencies were pictures of Stephie, pictures hastily filed in the closet when new ones arrived. There was always an endless supply. I didn't intend to invest hours grieving this week. I intended to work. Pictures are loose boards on the bridge of intentions.


Cleaning up computer files is less dusty work. Move. Delete. Make New Folder. Delete. Delete. That's the easy part. The time consuming part is looking through the pictures. It's like trying to walk holding hands with a toddler -- you want to go one way but you're getting tugged in a million directions. What I relish in these family photos are the smiles, the open eyed, pure happy, sometimes toothless, sometimes covered in frosting, smiles.

A friend wrote a bit ago to express belated condolences and I told him the problem with losing a child in the family is that we love them with such reckless abandon, holding nothing back. Kissing their toes, sniffing their necks while we hug them until they almost pop. (Exactly the same parent/grandparent behavior that drives kids crazy). An investment that is guaranteed not to bottom out.

Until one day, the missing board. The water rushing beneath. The sharp intake of breath as you catch yourself and try to not fall into that hole. And you remind yourself that others have suffered worse losses, whole families have been sucked into nothingness. You remind yourself of all that is good and hang onto the railing, stepping very carefully.

Our family photos taken this past summer still show us smiling for the camera -- at the pool, at the birthday party. But something has seriously changed about everyone's eyes. Each and every pair of them. Less giddy. More watchful.

The Teacher's Life

Mrs. Henderson, my sixth grade teacher, had sensible lace up heels, salt-n-pepper hair and permanently embedded chalk in her torn and ragged cuticles. I remember studying them when I would be summoned to her confused desk for a conference. We repeatedly conferred about how messy my desk was, we didn't do any writing to confer about. It was the height of the baby boom and she had 35 of us at Berkley Elementary School; Mrs. Henderson stuck to worksheets. The school is gone now, replaced by a parking lot for the high school. Along with the building went the worksheets, the ditto machine and (in all probability) Mrs. Henderson. RIP

I wonder what she did for peer support? Surely she didn't turn to Sherk the Jerk, (the fifth grade teacher). I can't imagine Sherk being any more supportive to her peers than she was to us. Zero.

I wonder if she could have even imagined a world in which she could pop in ear buds and get professionally juiced through a podcast? How about an international Teacher Life nation? She probably only had one electrical outlet in the room so she could occasionally use the film strip machine -- how could she have even have dreamed of what Bobby Norman, (second grade teacher, AZ) is so skillfully putting together?

Follow these links to some really cool teacher connections!
The Teacher's Life Blog
The Teacher's Life Nation


Sign up for new podcasts.

Now, look at all the kids in your classroom as the school year begins and try to imagine the communities and communication systems they are likely to create after -- after -- well, you know.

American Prayer

Educational TV

“Kids just don’t know how to work,” I hear my friends complain. They have no desire to learn nor do many of them have the desire to do much of anything beyond staring at some kind of screen, complain the teachers.

The first teacher professional book I ever read was The Disappearance of Childhood by Neal Postman where the author points out that prior to television, adults were the storehouses of knowledge and (hopefully) at least a little wisdom. Responsible adults would pass this learning along to children at the appropriate time and childhood was one long apprenticeship to adulthood. How to use a chain saw, fire a weapon, cook a goose, lessons were given on a need to know basis, complete with new words and real reasons to learn. Life and death issues taught as they came up.

Such was the way of learning throughout the ages, Postman pointed out, right up to the advent of the television. Some might argue that it really started with the Little Rascals, but I suspect those shows were not created just to entertain kids, and were certainly not developed to be a vehicle for selling products to kids. That came later.

Of course words, reading, and books factored into the learning process. But this type of learning was also scaffolded in accordance with the maturity of the kid, the difficulty of the text precluding most second graders from mastery of quantum physics at the corner library even IF (big if) the librarian let would allow the kid into the adult section.

So, along came television, effectively changing the direction of the knowledge stream. And within a couple of generations of sitcoms, Roseanne, Archie Bunker, and Maude came along to replace I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best as broadcast parents who dispensed knowledge with no deference to the viewer’s age or need to know. While parents were working somewhere out of the sights of their kids, kids took to learning on their own from fake parents first, and then simply from each other.

At some point, Madison Avenue went from being in the business of selling during breaks in the television shows to driving the programming for children. Can’t you just see the lightbulb going on over the pink power tie of some ad exec after a focus group for Sugar Pops.

PING! Kids don’t like parents around. Let’s take the parents out of these programs – kids will like the shows more and we can sell more cereal.

Bingo. The advent of the Disney channel, one of the most successful sales vehicles to traverse our screens. In shows such as The Suite Life and Hannah Montana, knowledge is imparted by peers. The vocabulary is limited, the topics narrow. Work is never modeled and viewers are never asked to stretch beyond what they already know.

Responsible parents restrict their children to this kind of programming thinking they are doing a good thing by not letting kids learn how to party hearty with a beer bong on MTV or commit a sex crime ala CSI.

But is it a good thing? Really? When the only adult role models students see in their fictional TV literature are ineffectual, plainly idiotic, or absent entirely, why are we surprised when our real life kids give us no respect? From three to six hours per day, PER DAY, kids are being schooled that adults are dumb and it is their peers who have all the smarts. The days and plots of their lives revolve around avoiding any interaction with adults.

I have this discussion with my daughters all the time. I know they think I’m annoying (and I probably am) complaining about the Disney channel, but there is something about my grandkids watching this programming that makes my teeth itch. The way they depict young women? The shallow values? The insular lives that rarely venture outdoors? This type of learning can never replace what adults can impart to kids.

It can be argued that television has replaced teachers and parents as the greatest educator, but even with the shows featuring murders and Springerized paternity tests blocked, what is most children’s programming really teaching kids except that adults are simply the straight guys and the joke is always on them?

Oh, I know the response – what the heck. That’s just the way it is. Yeah, it is. But up until about the last 30-50 years, guess what? That wasn’t the way it was. Kids actually learned from adults.

Am I getting old and cranky or what?

Olympic Obsession

I love the Olympics. Particularly the summer games. I hear that music and it is like a trumpet call to make popcorn, sit down and go "WOW." The training. The years. The hours. The sports I never heard of. A handful of contenders in their forties! One might think it would be a call to go out and get it in gear to soar to great heights at record-breaking speeds on my own.

One might.

Nah.

As the athletes discipline themselves, so do I. My discipline involves not letting myself watch during the daytime hours. So far, I'm reaching for the gold in that category. I've actually been focused on a revision of a novel, maybe not with the intensity of Phelps in the butterfly, but pretty intense.

Marge Piercy says to become a writer, you have to like it more than being loved. I have never had the desire to push it that far, but I suspect the Olympic athletes face similar choices. Such is the intensity of their commitment. I don't think I made anyone not love me this week, but I might have been teetering on the edge. So, Wednesday we took off to take Scottie to the county fair where he was very impressed by the chickens and corn dogs and not so impressed by the smell of manure.

After the fair, we made a bee line to Michael's parent's pool to wash off the ambiance of pigs in pens, where Scottie and his step-cousin Edison practiced synchronized diving. Even without seeing their faces, any spectator can see they are loving it. So, how many more dives before they get this down?

Five Hours

Three days in Albany at a Writing Conference for teachers -- a wonderful opportunity to share ideas for ten whole hours with third and fourth grade teachers. A luxury of time. Enjoyed every minute. Even arriving at the airport early was a welcome event -- new book by Anna Quindlen, Rise and Shine, time for dinner. Uh oh. Delay. Oh well, what's another hour? And then that hour turns into three, four, more hours. The only travelers left at the gate are those who are headed home -- the missed connectors are all rebooked for tomorrow. The holiday travelers went back home for the night. The rest of us know the score. How long has the plane been on the tarmac? Can't go over 3 hours or they have to turn back. How long has the crew be on duty? What time will they max out? We are all weary, one deranged woman is screaming at the desk clerk while the rest of us roll our eyes. We don't care about the food vouchers or if they want to charge us for blankets, we just want to get home.

Many of us wired to outlets, eyes too tired to read, minds to spent to think. We are now a community. We collectively groan as each delay is announced and the warning is made every 10 minutes to not leave our bags unattended and then we watch each other's stuff as we take turns leaving our bags unattended.

Finally, it is announced that the plane has left Newark and will arrive in 25 minutes. The community cheers. But wait . . . could it be? Yes! Storms in Cleveland. Any minute we will board the plane not knowing if we will face the same fate as the last passengers, stranded on a tarmac until the weather clears. What we do know is that the crew will max out at 1:00AM and it is a 1.25 hour flight west.

At the conference we talked about the importance of leisure time to foster writing -- but what good is leisure time when eyes are tired and dry and brains are mush?

Image compliments of explodingdog.com. Go there and buy this guy's stuff -- he is more than a little twisted and totally amazing.

Update: Mechanical difficulties. This is a phrase you never want to hear after being seated on an airplane. And they didn't mean the overhead light above my seat that didn't work either. They meant the de-icer on the left wing. So the airline had to bring a maintenance crew in at 10PM and fix it -- we didn't take off until 12:30 AM arriving at CLE at 2:00AM. I don't know why I am even recording this story -- it is so common. A five hour delay. Ho hum.

What's five hours? We get almost 5 of those segments everyday. I can wait for a plane for five hours, but I couldn't bike for five hours. It's a short time to sleep, a long time to stand. Five hours would be a short work shift, but a very long time to not work during that shift. Five hours is a time period that has been on my mind lately.

I was seated in the same seat, 3A, that I was seated in as I flew back from Atlanta after receiving the call 3 months ago that Stephie was beyond critical and in crisis. Three months ago today. The window of the airplane was like a movie screen to me last night -- a series of tragic images reflected in the cloudy night sky.

What happened to July?

Kelly snapped this picture of Sara Kelly this week and it perfectly captures my image of July 2008 -- peeking out. I can't believe it has been a month since I've posted a blog. The month went to biking, triathalons (Michael competes, I stand on the sidelines and say "go michael"), beach walks, Walloon teacher camp, gardening and occasional walks. A LOT of private time, occasionally peeking out.

I was all set this past week to really get down to some serious (or not so serious) writing, but on Sunday we all decided it was time for Kelly and the boys to come so we could fill up each other's tanks with love and support. It was just time. So that's what we did and I'm soooo glad that we did.







Walloon was the greatest. It is a summer camp run by Harvey (Smokey) Daniels & Co. where teachers go to recharge, review and learn anew. Serious talk, new data, new ideas all mixed together with (frankly) corny songs and a rockin' sock hop. Here I am rockin' out with Steph Harvey.



Here is Michael, still smiling, heading into the final segment of the Fairport Harbor Triathalon, the 5K run.



July 2008.

Everything you ever needed to know about relationships you can learn from picking raspberries

Everything you ever needed to know about relationships you can learn from picking raspberries.

Don’t be fooled by all that greenery, there is more there than meets the eye. But, be gentle lifting the branches to see what’s underneath. The good ones may fall or something might get broken, spoiling future growth. While the lifting can reveal amazing clusters of sweet surprise, watch out for the thorns. Be careful, but don't let those little things send you running.

Those showy sprouts? Not productive. Cut them down to size.

If you have to pull too hard, they are not ready. Berries are best savored one at time, right off the vine. Flavor is lost with the addition of refrigeration and other mechanical devices. Without a human touch, some will mold on the vine. Pile them up in a bucket and many will lose their integrity and become mushy.

Always leave some behind. Those are for the birds.

Death of a Loved One: Day 46

"Keep the machine running." This is a quote given to me from Michael and to him from a veteran machinist. When Michael asked the older man (back in his machine shop days) what the secret was to his reputation for high production, he advised, "just keep the machine running."

This has become a joke around the house, the perfect answer to substantial progress against a frightening blob of laundry, clutter, yard work, or phone calls that need to be returned -- one of us has really bent to the task and kept the machine running.

At first, when death doesn't knock politely, but kicks through the door as it did with Stephie, everything stops. Details to be taken care of: necessary arrangements, who needs to be called, who needs shoes for the funeral, what do we do with all these flowers? The machine just runs, by what power, who knows. But it does run.

The sputtering starts weeks later. Brain sputters trying to answer email. Heart hesitations. Knee weakness in the grocery. For my part, I haven't been able to write at all except for a few blog entries. Poetry demands feeling, and I can't risk it (see above re: knee weakness). And I spend a lot of time wrestling with the what-ifs and I worry about what is: About Katie. About Doug. About Kelly. A lot about little Scottie.

Granana, will you turn on the TV for me?

You can do it, sweetie.

No, only Stephie is allowed to turn on the TV.

When he was shown the video about Ben before Granny camp, his response was:

Is Ben dead, too?

Visiting Michael's mom: "I remember when we came here last summer. That was before Stephie got dead."

Scottie is four. He doesn't even know what forever means and developmentally he won't for another two years. He still believes in Santa. He thinks that Spiderman can save the entire city and that being a pirate is just as serious job aspiration as becoming a fireman. His daycare provider pointed out to Kelly last weekend that if someone were to tell him Stephie would be back tomorrow, he would believe it. His entire life revolved around doing what his big sister wanted him to do or negotiating a way NOT to do what his big sister wanted him to do. At night, when he lays down his head to sleep on Stephie's pink princess pillow, what does he dream?

How will this play out in his life? Will he have trust issues? Will he be angry? Will this keep him from caring because caring sometimes hurts? Who knows?

Who knows?

The day after the funeral, the day formerly known as Wednesday, as a family we backed out of the drive and turned separate ways into the unknown. We talk all the time, but ultimately we each need to find our own way and there are no maps, no single directive that is right for all. Little Scottie, like the rest of us, will just have to find a way forward.

A teacher at the Ohio Writing Project at Miami University asked me last week why I blog. Some of is it very personal, she observed. I don't remember what I mumbled in response, not sure it made any sense at all, in fact. My lips were moving, but my brain is still sputtering. As I think about it, I guess I blog because writing prose is like swimming the sidestroke compared to writing poetry. I'm all caught up with the laundry and my garden is doing well (see lettuce and strawberries above). We are all fed, bills are paid. I'm being a bit more reclusive than normal and have a tendency to turn the other way when I see someone I know. It's getting a little better and I'm sure (hope) that the part of me that can focus on book commitments is going to kick in here one of these days. Meantime, every morning and several times each day I just remind myself of the wisdom of that old machinist.

Granny Camp: A Retrospective

Fill your hat
with water
dump it on your head,
watch the sunset
fall in bed.

Kick the horse
to make it go,
hike and sing,
explore and show
off your
painted shirt,
and decorate
one of Sophie's gourds,

eat mac and cheese,
gather
tadpoles,
rocks
geez
110 degrees
is really hot!
How 'bout a swim?
Do your ears hang low?
Can you see Saturn?
How far are we from Mexico?

Road Runner,
Jack Rabbit,
Coyote, Owl,
Turtle,
Mountain Lion,
who's on room checks?
Hang your suit and towel!

Granny campers are bold.
Granny campers are brave.

We stay on the path
and watch for bats
in Colossal Cave.
Hayrides are bumpy.
FIRE ANTS BITE!

Limestone
dripping down
becomes
stalactite.
Wear hats and sunscreen
and we won't get burned.
These are some of the facts
we never stopped to learn
while covering ground
at Granny Camp,
instead we picked them up
on our desert run,
mining unknown trails,
where
we struck FUN.

LOST EMAIL

What I want to do is blog about what a fab time I had at Granny Camp and visit with the Ohio Writing Project at Miami U (very cool), but first a bit of Grumpy business. I have been on hold with my email server for a total of 80 minutes today -- after the first 25, no you need to talk to the business server, no your email box is too small, we'll make it bigger, no you'll have to call back, no you need to talk to us when you are in front of your home computer, no, you need to talk to . . . oh, you get the picture.

Bottom line, all email I received or Kelly received at Kelly@saraholbrook.com, between Sunday June 22 and Thursday, June 26 has been lost in cyberspace and I am not happy about it. The server changed servers, or some such thing, and poof. All my email that was hung up out there has gone away.

Please, if you sent me an email and you read this, please resend.

What a pain!

Live: from Granny Camp

So far we have visited the Desert Museum and the Colossal Cave. We've gone horseback riding and written in our journals. We've sung camp songs and given ourselves desert names (Ben's is coyote, mine is fish hook). Why fish hook? That's a kind of cactus and it seemed appropriate since we all got stuck trying to fish a hook out of one. Granny Debbie had all the supplies put up and man have we been eating them. We must eat 8-15 times a day. We take turns with chores and do crafts. We've decorated T shirts and plates and Granny Sophie helped us decorate gourds today. We made gourd name tags and each decorated our own little gourds (grown my Granny Sophie). I've been having computer troubles -- and still am since I am now learning how to use a Mac. Big leap.

Tonight we sleep under the stars after an astrologist comes to explain the sky to us with her big telescope. More pix to come.

Way too much stuff to do to sit in front of the computer. Oh, and for those who are wondering, it hit 106 today!

The Sparrow has Landed

Ben arrives for Granny Camp. Next stop, Tucson.
We'd like to thank our sponsors: Kid provided by Kelly & Brian Weist
Transportation provided by Continental airlines.
Good weather provided by Mother Nature.
Headline and photos provided by Salinger.

Batter Up!

Back in the day, when Scottie was two, he knew how to grip the bat, address the T, smack the ball, drop the bat and run in a circle. He had the game down. Granted, there were some nuances to learn, a batter's glove, cleats and hat to acquire, but he evidenced a deep understanding of hit, drop, run in a circle almost before any of us grownups who were too entranced by his curly hair to realize what the boy was doing. For oh, these past two years Scott has prepared for today. Practiced with whiffles, padded aluminum bats and woodies. He has a mitt with his name in permanent marker, an unarguable step toward lifetime committment. For two years he's watched his dad play baseball. And Scottie's talked it up. (and anyone who knows Scottie knows that phrase "talked it up" also means talked it down, sideways, up and across because our Scottie does love to talk).

Two years would be a long time for anyone to wait for a first real game, but when those two years also mean half your life -- that's an investment.
Heavy investment.
And then when the field is so much bigger than the backyard
and there are so many extra players you never met before
and when the coach is someone you don't know from a bad guy who passes out candy,
even the Babe might cave on his first game.
Might have missed his first at bat thinking it more prudent to study the underside of his mom's arm. A kid could just walk away from the game, even.
The pressure.
The pressure.
But not Scott Lufkin, Rookie of the Gray Socks team. When he finally took his last chance first time at bat, Coach said it was the best hit of the day. Hurray!

I wasn't there as I was at the airport collecting his cousin Ben (subsequent story to follow), but fortunately I WAS able to get a detailed play by play, complete with behind the scenes negotiations from the sideline coach, AKA mom (Katie).

One small step for his baseball career, one gigundwonda step for Scott.

Dreams take the day's events, twist and bend, turn and tumble with hopes, dreads, obsessions and skinny-eyed suspicions. Presto! Out comes a distortion, not really real, but a temporary living space, sometimes more memorable than the day itself.

Almost anything seems possible at 3AM, almost any dread seems probable. And if floundering around in possible probabilities causes you to stir in your sleep, the dog will sense that you are awake and insist on being let outside. Reality has a way of nudging its way back into even the most fantastical dream.

Like the dream I was having two nights ago about turning the back of the garage into a work of art. Erected in 1955, it has only a coat of red stain and one layer of a sprayed on latex cosmetic of grey paint. We've been waiting for the wicked witch of the west to drop a house on it for years, but like the crows that are supposed to come down and pluck out the eyes of your enemies, she didn't arrive on cue. Frankly, we were prepared to wait her out, but we like our neighbors too much to let the decay go any longer. And they're republicans.

The west side of this garage is a true testament to the damage lack of sun screen can effect. Up until this year, the back side of the garage was the site of our compost of decaying grass clippings. We just didn't go there except to off load yard waste. But this year, the area has been transformed into a lettuce, spinach, pepper and tomato patch. How cool would it be to have a wall of art assembled on a clean canvas of redwood siding overlooking the garden? Perhaps a poem lettered there, found objects attached to the wall. Dream. Dream.

Fourteen hours into scraping the paint off the wall, that dream began to wane and I suggested to Michael that maybe we really should have the reality encased in environmentally unhealthy vinyl siding. He is all primed for painting.

I hate to call out a hackneyed phrase like "lipstick on a pig" when the garage has really never done anything swinish or hoggish or even let out a snort of protest over obvious (oblivious?) neglect. All it has ever done is stoically house our bikes, lawnmower and snowblower. It is too small for a car, too squeezed between the house and the limits of the lot line to be expanded, and too stubborn to fall down.

Last night I was back to dreaming about a weather report predicting heavy storms and high winds.

A Kiss is Just a Kiss . . . (cue orchestra)

When the suitcases come down from the attic, when the bike comes out of the garage, when one of us goes searching for car keys or a water bottle, we meet for an exchange of lips. Just in case the plane goes down, the kid texting on his cell doesn't see the cyclist, the car goes off the road. Just in case I don't come back, or Michael doesn't come back, or the world blows up and there's no place to come back to. It's a joke and that we seal with a kiss. (You MUST remember this!) Not a kiss that expects to be followed by another, it doesn't even require eye contact, sometimes exchanged mid-sentence. A kiss totally without expectations -- except that unlike in Casablanca, the other will in fact return.

Today was a two kiss day. One before Michael went off on a run into the soggy sweatbox of late morning. It was a day worthy of building a bridge over the river Kwai. Lawrence of Arabia wouldn't have gone for a run on a day like today if they had Lake Erie humidity in the desert. A day that was giving me palpitations. These are the palpitations I am prone to in heavy heat + pollution, accompanied by shortness of breath, which means I should use my inhaler. Unfortunately I always forget that the inhaler is what I need until I have half convinced myself that I've developed a heart condition between the bedroom and the kitchen.

"If you drop dead in the heat, don't call me because I will kill you for even attempting this," I rasped.

Kiss.

He returned.

"Are these the suitcases that go in the car?"

"Yep." And I was off for the airport. Kiss number two. I bumped to a landing in jaw clacking jumps through powerful clouds over Kansas City, MO. Heavy shouldered clouds that looked perfectly capable of transporting me to Oz in a flying house. But instead, I was safely transported to the Marriott in a black cab.

Millions of these kisses are exchanged between loved ones everyday. Thoughtlessly. Almost a reflex. Do we do it because (morbidly) it might be our very last chance? If so, we ought to make it more of a Hollywood moment. Or is it more of a superstition, that this little lip buzz will keep a body safe?

Death of a Loved One: Day 29

There are no words.

So many notes, books, poems all offered with genuine, hopeless chagrin: There are no words . . . Still we seek to find them. In many ways we are recrafted by each death – how we place our feet on the floor the morning after on foreign carpet fibers and confront in the mirror an alien face with swollen eyes, unable at first to lay hands on the distant toothbrush hanging as usual and so strangely in its holder. An exile in our own life, we wander through clouds of chaos trying to find our way back to our formerly functional selves.

Death. Sometimes it comes creeping in through the pores of our knowing like the sun steadily warming, nothing to take particular note of until afterwards when tender shoulders let you know that you’ve been burned. My mother’s death was like this. Lung cancer. The diagnosis wrote the program and we could read “The End” at the bottom of the chart. Still, in the dusky hours of that grey February morning I was surprised that the sun had the strength to rise. So much goes on in this world without the aid of a human hand. I soothed the burn with friendship, folding sheets and filing forms.

Twenty years earlier, when my first husband died 3 months after the wedding of Hodgkin’s Disease I got the news from Marcus Welby (old time TV doctor). A young man with all the symptoms that Bob had received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s and everyone acknowledged it was a death sentence. But at the end of the show, the diagnosis was incorrect – happy ending. People in general weren’t so upfront then, and I asked at the hospital the next day if Hodgkin’s was what we were dealing with in Bob. Everyone danced around the word. The waltz ended on a blowy December night. I learned afterwards that depression was just not caring if the sun came up at all. But even then, in my self-centered early years, I knew that my pain did not compare to his mother’s. She taught me that grace is a buttress and true strength has no sharp edges.

This death was followed by my maternal grandmother’s. Gigi. Her love for me was so pure, I didn’t want to let go, even as I negotiated for days with the hospital to turn off the machines. I still needed her. I was nearly forty and not nearly grown.

My father’s death dropped like a stone. A car accident. A phone call from my uncle that my dad was headed over to his dad’s when he didn’t make it. Aw, I replied. My grandfather was 100 years old, his passing was sad, but such a long life. . .
No. (Words interrupted) It was Dad.
Scottie was dead.
His Escort had been run over by a Cadillac blasting through a red light. I flew to Florida, picked up his gasoline soaked wallet in a zip lock bag from the hospital and drove with my uncle to tell my Grandfather the tragic news. Dreading this conversation, weeping in the elevator, my uncle told me it would be all right. “Dad is a good soldier.” And he was. A few tears that didn’t even last long enough to reach his tight jaw and determined chin. The driver of the Cadillac received a $68 traffic ticket. I settled the estate in self-concious grief.

Don't ask me why (no words) but I've been revisiting these deaths as I try and find my footing after losing our Stephie. Part of me feels myself coming out of the fog, but I’m not sure I want to come out where the sun shines so clearly on reality. Still having trouble talking to friends on the street. I like being around people, I just don’t want to explain how I am feeling – can’t find the words, don’t want to pick at the wound.

The following poems have been sent to me by friends who went looking for words. In one of the best movies of all time, II Postino , an Italian postman steals the poems of a famous poet (Naruda) to woo his beloved. The poet confronts the theft and the postman replies, “a poem does not belong to the poet, but to the person who needs it the most.” So, forsaking all copyright laws, I share these poems for the next time you find yourself without words.

From my daughter Kelly:
I carry Your Heart With Me
by E.E.Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

From Jane Yolen:
Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

From Georgia Heard:
Song by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Pain will cease, do not grieve, do not grieve--
Friends will return, the heart will rest, do not grieve, do not grieve--
The wound will be made whole, do not grieve, do not grieve--
Day will come forth, do not grieve, do not grieve--
The cloud will open, night will decline, do not grieve, do not grieve--
The seasons will change, do not grieve, do not grieve


From my friends at Fremd High School in Palatine, IL
Excerpt from A Grief Observed, by C.S.Lewis

“There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man’s life. I was happy before I ever met H. I’ve plenty of what are called ‘resources.’ People get over these things. Come, I shan’t do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this ‘commonsense’ vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.”


From Pam Munoz Ryan
Sonnet XCIV by Pablo Neruda

If I die, survive me with such sheer force
that you waken the furies of the pallid and the cold,
from south to south lift your indelible eyes,
from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.
I don't want your laughter or your steps to waver,
I don't want my heritage of joy to die.
Do not call up my person. I am absent.
Live in my absence as if in a house.
Absence is a house so vast
that inside you will pass through its walls
and hang pictures on the air.
Absence is a house so transparent
that I, lifeless, will see you, living,
and if you suffer, my love, I will die again.

And from several people, attributed to different authors. My best attempt at research is that was written by Ohio poet, Mary Frye (but of disputed origin).

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

Screen Staring

Screen staring is not writing. It is not research. It is reading every news report you do and mostly do not need to know (cute animal videos, a cure for graduation blues, the size of Angelina's bump) and then re-reading them. It occasionally involves scrabble or other time sucking games, definitely involves graphics, shopping for free photoshop brushes and costly everything else. Deep into screen staring you start to page through old emails and actually read the lame jokes, read blogs of people you don't know, and check out Google Earth to see which car is in your driveway.

I have a large computer screen. It is the size of a flat screen TV, but I have managed to convince myself that staring at this flat screen is more productive, more intellectual, more educated than staring at the flat screen in the living room. This self-duping falls into the same column with tried and never true adages such as "the calories don't count if I'm standing at the counter" and "look how much I'll save if I spend."

Screen staring is like being kidnapped while being overcome with Stockholm syndrome -- everyone on the screen becomes more like your true friend, much more important than the real people orbiting the house or the real dog holding a leash in her mouth. It is an antidote to exercise, smart eating and other activities that will lengthen your life (I know this because set my computer to stumble on healthy lifestyles).

Screen staring can turn otherwise thoughtful people into statues. It is what I resort to when I am too tired, too uninspired (too sad?) to deal with the real world. Addictive and harmful to my mental health. Time to go.

Head to Head Haiku at Bay Middle

The haiku poet
speaks sincerely into the mike,
holds heart in clenched fist

The Haiku emcee
invites the poets to bow
from waist in respect

Each greeting is met

with reverberating gong

as the poets bow.

The audience is
silent as the fallen snow.
Words glisten. Applause!

Gong Girl misses cue,
sneaks in a few extra bongs.
Incurs Emcee wrath.

We write what we see.
Peaceful poems heal our hearts
when we share the words.

Haiku takes a hike at Bay Middle

Says it all about the end of the school year, eh? Wednesday and Thursday Michael and I hiked and wrote with the Bay Middle School sixth grade as part of an outdoor experience planned for the last full week of the school year. I have written countless poems during and after hiking around the woods adjacent to Bay Middle -- this is my old neighborhood and it felt good to be back walking the familiar root tripping trails. Thanks to the kids for helping me find my way, thanks to Salinger for the photos.

Windows of the school

look out on the grassy lawn.

Minds go out to play"

Birds with yellow beaks

winging across the courtyard.

Can I fly with you?

Crosswalk at corner

students writing on the grass.

Watch out for the cars!

Yellow goal posts reach.

Green field lies flat on its back.

Scoreboard is empty.

No players run.

Lacrosse net outlined in orange.

Who will score next goal?

Four bases in the dust.

A raised mound for the pitcher.

Who has a baseball?

Midgies are annoying.

I walk across the field in spring.

Bugs get in my hair.

Bubble in his mouth.

Now it has four pink sections.

He sucks it back in.

Now a wrecking ball,

swings from a string of gum.

It hypnotizes.

No Parking, Fire Lane.

Keep off the Athletic Field.

Way too many rules.

Bikes thrown on the ground.

Not chained up to the bike rack.

Free! Ready to roll.

Cars parked in spaces,

mini vans, wagons, sedans,

waiting at the gate.

One bird on a wire

looks down at me on the field.

We make eye contact.

Students on a log.

they write Haiku in notebooks.

Save today in poems.

Crowded bushes sit

shoulder to shoulder, crunched close.

No grass grows beneath.

Leaves above, below.

Is that plant poison ivy?

Don't touch, just in case.

Domenic won't write.

He says that he is too bored.

Boredom? Writer's friend.

Quiet. Caw! A crow.

Fat bellied robin whistles.

Songs bounce through the trees.

Park bench holds five friends.

They sit, hip to elbow and

try to find Haiku.

The branches open.
A window for the warm sun.

Light falls in sprinkles.

Tree roots in the path.

I sniff the honey suckle.

Whoops! Forgot to watch.

Still water muddy brown.

Tip toe across the round rocks.

Oops! Yish. Wet. I slipped.

Bandanna, blue jeans,

sweat shirt, sneakers, and back pack.

This is middle school.