West Virginia without Nora...

The rain is falling gently outside and the thunder is rumbling around us. Kali and I arrived in Harman, West Virginia with my Mom yesterday afternoon and will be here until late on Tuesday. Each year after the Summer Peacebuilding Institute/SPI ends, we hold a “curriculum camp” with the faculty from my work at CJP (the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding) to review the past year and think ahead to the coming one(s). In the past I’ve done all of the logistics and food preparation and escaped the meetings and taking minutes! However, as my job shifts and changes, it feels more essential that I also take part in the meetings. So, as you can imagine, as this year’s faculty retreat was approaching I was having a hard time imaging how I was going to do all the food preparation, take care of Kali and Nora and be part in the meetings. Even with Jason in tow, this seemed like a big stretch. So, as she has done MANY times in the past, Mom came to our rescue. She would come along to help with food and Kali , while Jason cared for Nora. As it turns out, Mom is here to help with food and with Kali as previously planned and Jason is at home in a very empty and quiet home, other than the noise he is making as he works on the final pieces of the front room construction project.

Mom, Kali and I decided to come Friday and do most of our food preparation together, and to have 2 quiet days here together in which I could focus primarily on lavishing love and my undivided attention on Kali. She’d like me to not be taking a break to type this letter and is energetically chattering around me while she “buys” things from the Mountain House to play with. She has been quite a “mommy’s girl” and we have spent a good deal of time at the swings in the last 24 hours. Because Mom is about twice as efficient as I am in the kitchen (i.e. when I came downstairs at 8am this morning she already had all three kinds of rolls mixed up and most shaped and ready to go in the oven), I’ve had the luxury of slowing down for the first time since Nora’s death.

Sometimes slowing down feels like a luxury, and sometimes the emotions that tumble around inside of me feel uncomfortable enough that staying busy is more tempting. It feels strange to be here without Nora. This was likely going to be Nora’s first trip (other than the road she traveled between our home and Charlottesville). While, no doubt, I was wondering how we were going to deal with the complexity of her care and all the oxygen equipment, it feels sad to not be introducing her to this place that has already housed so many special memories and lots of fun for Kali.

As I watched pieces of the memorial service DVD with Kali this morning, I almost felt relieved to feel fresh tears streaming down my face. It’s the first time I’ve cried much since the memorial service. Most of the time, my feelings are not so clear or straightforward to me. It’s almost a relief when I feel one emotion at a time – even if that emotion is a huge wave of sadness and grief.

Thursday evening Jason, Kali and I attended the final community meal and dance for SPI. It was the only one, out of the four, that we were able to participate in. I had mixed feelings going as I’m not feeling real up for large social gatherings. But as I sat there and watched Kali dance with persons from around the world, I felt genuinely happy and blessed. The thought of Kali having memories of dancing next to CJP alumni Ali Gohar from Pakistan makes me feel like her childhood is full of richness. For a moment I got a glimpse of things feeling right in the world and it felt precious.

Then the next day when we were trying to pack and get ready for our trip and Kali started melting down about everything and anything and her emotions just seemed to be bubbling up from some deep place in her, I felt such a level of loss and sadness. I wondered how we’d ever be able to put the pieces of our lives back together again.

Some days it is hard for me to believe that it hasn’t even been 2 weeks since we were at Nora’s bedside caring for her around the clock. Our lives had centered around her care and needs for 10 months. All of a sudden that came to a grinding halt. If it weren’t for the flowers around the house, the photos of a sweet and tiny baby, the remaining baby things sprinkled throughout the house, the milk starting to flow from my breasts when thinking about her, and the ache and emptiness we all feel inside at times, it could almost feel as if the 10 months we just lived through was just a blip on the screen of our life’s journey – here and gone again. Sometimes it would almost be easier to approach it that way; to try to make things go back to “normal.” To somehow forget that we had ever expanded our family from 3 to 4…

I’ve found that that is impossible and not desirable either. I want to make sure that Nora’s life was not in vain. I want to do my part to make our memories of her stay alive and the lessons she taught us ever present. And Kali will help with that. Nora is still so much a part of our conversations, and Kali often picks purple things for herself and orange things for Nora. But I think it doesn’t sink in to us a lot of the time that Nora is really not coming back. Maybe that is some kind of self preservation technique, because we miss her. Maybe I’m not quite ready for it all to sink in fully.

Over the last week I’ve told Jason I have about four different things I want to explore in writing. I want to spend some time reflecting on the ways that the births of our two daughters and Nora’s death were similar and different (and I could do a more light-hearted version on the comparisons of planning a wedding and a memorial service). I also told Jason, I had another update bubbling inside with a title of “we are not perfect.”

Sometimes it feels crazy to me that there are so many people sending words of encouragement, notes of amazement at Jason and I as people and parents, and sharing with us ways that our journey with Nora has enriched there lives and enabled them to be better people. I’m so grateful! But how is it that all that can happen during a time in my life when I’ve never felt more out of control, more in need of help and unable to take care of my family and house and work, and struggled to have patience for myself and my family members. When I read emails about friends savoring their children more and feeling less impatient when parenting requires much of them including disrupted sleep, I smile and feel a bit ashamed at all the times when I felt anything but grateful to be up for the sixth time in one night.

So then I start to wonder what people are seeing in me/us that I’m not seeing. Or if we are putting on a front of some kind and haven’t been authentic enough in our writing. Or if what people are drawn to is not some level of perfection that they see in our walk but in our humanness. Whatever it is, the emails and cards have been a huge source of support and encouragement. And whether or not what others are noting about us and the way we journeyed with Nora is completely accurate, it has strengthened us and helped us through some dark moments and I think also motivated us to be the best we can be for ourselves and each other during this time. So for that we are grateful!

The rain is still falling, Kali is now talking with her Daddy on the phone and I’m out of thoughts, at least ones that I know how to articulate. Love, Janelle