Curious Hiddley

Heartfelt thanks to all who attended Nora’s memorial service on Saturday the 7^th of June, and all who were there with us in spirit. It was a wonder to us to see so many friends and supporters from so many different facets of our community of connections. Some friends traveled substantially to be there, and that meant a lot. We also felt lots of gratefulness towards all those who participated in the service, and we regret that we couldn’t include everyone who we would like to have, due to time considerations and the short-notice nature of the event. Janelle and I commented to each other that in some ways it felt like a wedding except that we had only three days for planning (and many different emotions associated). Still it was a very meaningful event for us.

One of the cards we’ve received in recognition of our family’s loss of Nora’s presence stated that those who have lost a loved one know that the real grieving starts after everyone goes home and everyone goes back to normal life except the bereft family. That seems to be a useful approximation.

Fortunately for us, we are experiencing the transition from having people around to not having them around gradually, as my youngest sister Emily has been staying with us since the memorial service on Saturday. Her attentive care-giving for Kali during the day has been a relief to us as we try to get oriented to our new life. Janelle returned to work yesterday and is trying to be patient with herself as she starts the process of catching up and feels like she is working at half steam. Both Janelle and I have been experiencing what Janelle referred to as “blah” feelings yesterday and today. Being aware of the cauldron of emotion roiling under the surface, I suppose it is not surprising that it’s a little hard to feel just one thing at any given time. Humor helps, and so do the waves of sadness; there is comfort in feeling something distinctly.

I often think in metaphors, and I’ve been floundering for an appropriate one for this stage. Dorothy’s tornado? An earthquake? A long, communal dream? An exact metaphor eludes me, but here’s the circumstance: I feel as if our family has undergone some kind of hair-raising journey that has taken us far from where we were, with no chance of going back. Oddly, however, everything from our old life and homestead is more or less arranged as it was before except that it’s been shaken up, and we are coming into it as people who have been gone for a long, long time. Our task is to remember the patterns of living we used to employ to inhabit our life, and then re-employ or re-shape them to fit our current reality. Most things, including our relationships with each other, feel as if they need to be actively reaffirmed and mended. I’m very glad for Emily’s presence, because Janelle and I need a little more time before we engage this task fully.

Of course, we miss Nora like crazy. We think of her and the details of relating to her frequently throughout the day. For Janelle the ache is strong, and we both have a hard time believing we’ll never hold her again. For both of us, thoughts of Nora bring smiles and warm feelings along with the hurt. Janelle mentioned to me last night that though it sounds unbelievable, she feels as if she is going to start to look back on our last stay in the hospital with sweetness. The fact is, circumstances at the hospital made it such that we ended up having long hours of joint quality time with Nora, with medical support that reduced the sense of anxious responsibility we’d had at home for the long months of Nora’s growth restriction and subsequent pulmonary hypertension diagnosis.

Kali misses her, too. Getting her to talk about it straightforwardly isn’t exactly easy, and we don’t push her to do it. But those comments that do come out and her fragile emotions indicate that she’s feeling the 4 ¾ year-old version of what we are. She has said, in the context of one of the precious discussions we have had, “I miss everything I used to do with Nora.” This is heartbreaking for us, but clearly healthy. If there is anything we have learned from this, it is that loving is worth it, even with all the pain that can accompany it. If we can locate the strength to continue facing the difficult facts of our recent past with straightforward openness, maybe Kali will absorb that lesson deeply into her being.

Thank goodness for Curious Hiddley. Most of you have not heard of this little fellow yet, if I remember correctly. He is a white lop-eared rabbit with brown spots that has just joined our homestead, and has quickly hopped and nibbled his way into our hearts. We had been planning to get Kali a rabbit (vegetarian pet!) for nearly a year now as a “big sister” present, and the time had never really been right, though we had visited the SPCA once to check out options. One of the first things Janelle and I had decided on Wednesday, the day of Nora’s death, was that the search for a rabbit would move to the front burner. Wednesday afternoon Kali, my sister Christie and I headed out to the SPCA to see what had shown up since last time, and were pleased to discover a stray, sweet-tempered lop. After making a few arrangements at home and picking up some fresh rabbit feed, we were ready to pick him up Thursday. He was an immediate success, and he and Kali have spent long hours together in the portable “play pen” I made for them. By getting Kali her first non-fish pet so shortly after Nora’s death, we were not attempting to fill the love void in Kali’s or our hearts, but rather to provide something positive to focus on when a distraction is needed. Of course we fret that something tragic will happen to old Curious H. (as Christie calls him), rabbits being notoriously finicky about staying alive, but if we allow fear of tragedy to dictate our lives then we haven’t learned anything from this long tornado ride we’ve been on.

So things will be hard, of course, and I don’t wish to minimize that. Reading your kind cards and messages of support over the months helps. Looking at pictures helps. Remembering Nora’s smile helps. Talking about it helps. Writing about it helps.

Thanks for listening, Jason