Reiterations

Email sent today to all that received updates at any point before Nora was born, during her life or after her death:

If you are receiving this email, you are one of those who wished, at some point along the way, to be kept informed of the progress of our family through the journey of our daughter and sister Nora Lynne’s new life and illness (or you were on our annual letter list or are close family or friends and we didn't give you a choice!). Throughout that seven month period and especially around the time of her death, we were sustained in part by the meaningful expressions of support that many of you offered. It became clear that Nora’s life and spirit affected many who came to know her either in person or through our communications, the knowledge of which has been, in and of itself, one of our greatest comforts. Though we have not consistently remained in touch with all members of this electronically organized community, we suppose that that makes sense and is understandable from both sides of that communication equation.

June 4th marks exactly one year since Nora had to leave us. We are acknowledging this anniversary with various acts of remembrance, some personal and some rather more public: For those who wish to and are able, you are invited to our place in Keezletown on June 5th to gather with ourselves and others for a time of remembering Nora and our moments with her, and perhaps to reiterate some of what she and those moments have meant for us.

We realize that some of you receiving this email find yourselves on the other side of the globe! Please know that we send this mostly wishing to be in touch once more with the net of support that helped sustain us during Nora’s life and in her dying. We don’t expect persons to travel great distances to be with us physically but wished for you to know of this gathering and to know that you can join us in spirit in your own way even at a distance.

Below is a poem that I, Jason, have been developing over the past few days as I have been preparing the ground for planting in the memorial garden we’ve established for Nora.

Reiterations

A father’s love ignores the border
death presents. I worked for you in every way I knew, now
what to do with this: my aimless drive to help, my hoeing the abyss?
There’s nothing you could need from me; I’ll turn my hoe toward earth
and let the rocks and soil absorb my effort, and I'll wait for birth among the
blooming celebrations. I can work on these reiterations.

And so we put together what we can: we scrape
the weeds aside and mark a place where, when it needs to huddle
with the memories, a heart may hide. We’ve caught a hold on changes
in the calendar and seasons, have made spaces full of time: ad hoc
creations. We’ve established these reiterations.

I think it helps a little. Do I need to see reflections of my baby
girl out there exposed to wild, swirling air to keep me from forgetting? Maybe not, but
there is satisfaction in the knowledge that in moments when I need to whittle down
into the quick of loss, or glory in parental, proud elation, I can turn to these reiterations.

Thank you, child! You never read the clock to know the shame
of dallying too long. Your fingers never curled around a cent. When it was time
for you to go, you didn’t worry, you just went. Your heart and mind and palms were full
of room; your presence was a balm for wounds we couldn’t feel. How many repetitions
of your memory will be required for me to heal? What is my hurry? If I sit awhile in a
place, perhaps an insect sipping from a bloom will show the way to freedom from the
hectic expectations. I’ll depend on these reiterations.

I didn’t know I feared a fading of your presence, but I found that when I cleared
the soil space I knew relief, anticipating sprouting seeds. Your memory’s alive, and here
is how I know: I’ve seen it grow! How can this be: while thinking of the years ahead, a
smile? I’m eager to be watching all you were to us becoming what it is, what it will be,
and relishing your place within our family. Our love is strong, so time will find us
living out a leafy incarnation, still repeating these reiterations.

Jason Myers-Benner
May 24, 2009

Don’t let such lofty words mislead you…the Memorial Garden is far from a finished state. It still exists partly in the mind. However, by June 5 we will be ready for and do welcome any perennial divisions from your yard. For those who feel an urge to contribute to the endeavor but for whom distance or other factors preclude your making a gift of a perennial division, you are free to follow your own creative inclination (communication is always a welcome contribution) and there is also a monetary option: we are planning to place a stone bench and solar-powered fountain in her garden, and welcome contributions towards those purchases. We mention this possibility only for those who genuinely feel they wish to participate in this way. The placement of the bench and fountain do not depend on your financial participation.

Thank you all for your support all along this way!

Remembering

Last night at our family meeting I put on the agenda to talk about ways we together as a family want to spend time together remembering and sharing about our time with Nora over the next number of weeks. It feels sometimes like the busyness created by the list of tasks to be done (even if many of them are to prepare for the event June 5th to commemorate her life and death), keeps us from being as intentional at creating spaces to be together with our memories. Kali wants to look at the few video clips we have, Jason is most interested in looking at pictures, and I'm eager to listen to the remainder of the one tape recording we have of the time she was with us and her little noises. Hopefully we'll do all of those things together. Kali's other idea that she initiated was for us to go and look for a baby outfit to buy for her dolls - not doll clothes but a real baby outfit, she clarified. When asked a bit more about this she said it would make her think of Nora as she picked out her outfits. We'll likely be making a trip to Gift and Thrift soon...

We haven't taken a lot of space here on this blog or in our various updates to share the ways that many other family and friends are finding ways to remember and help keep memories of Nora's little life alive. The ways are varied and yet the purpose seems shared - finding ways to both grieve and celebrate, to weave together significant things in their own lives to their remembering of Nora, and to share with us that they are remembering her with us. I could not list them all here but name a few (and happen to have pictures of one!).

Yesterday my sister Karen ran a race that went past our driveway. They dedicated the mile that went past our home to Nora. Kali was thrilled to be present and be the chosen one to take her aunt a water bottle and give an energy boost kiss for the final 2 miles. She also has been playing "party" ever since then with the purple and orange balloons that got to come home with us.

Other things include, but are not limited to, planting trees in her memory, naming a vitamin mix after Nora that will be used to help many children, lighting candles in her memory, and writing poems. What can't be summed up easily here are the times when someone has shared a memory with me or a story or a way that Nora's life has impacted theirs.

One of those emails came recently from a graduate student in our program. A student from a different country and from a faith tradition different from my own. Someone who I have watched with admiration. In an email correspondence about something completely different, she added, "I also learned many lessons from Nora. Whenever I feel weak and under pressure, I just remember her; her strength and patience. Then I feel strong and patient too. Her presence & her memory has helped me many times to overcome difficulties in my life in the US." We did our best in our final hours with Nora to tell her how strong and patient and loved and brave and beautiful of a little person she was. But I could not, at that time, know the ripple effects of her presence. In this case, this student would have seen Nora more than probably any of our family members did during the weeks I was taking Nora to work with me.

We've been working outside a lot these days. This is good for my unused muscles (that I'm feeling right now) and for the spirit. We are spending most of our time working to prepare the area around Nora's garden for additional plants. It is good to work together or at least side by side on various projects in the yard and garden. I find myself getting uptight about not having it "ready" for the event for Nora and feeling the need to have it be "perfect" (what is that?). Then when Jason asks for more detail I find the anxious feelings tend to be pretty nondescript and I can't pin down what needs to be done or fixed just right. He then gently reminds me that more likely these are "anniversary" feelings that aren't so easily pinned down, confined or easily described. And while I know that having things in a state of disarray would be more typical for what we experienced last year, somehow I want it to be right this time - what I have to challenge myself to look at is whether this is for me or for Nora or for whom?

We are also watching with great interest what is happening on our porch - a Carolina Wren chose Kali's bicycle helmet for her nest and is currently incubating 6 eggs on the nest. It is a reminder to me that at a time when my mind goes more easily to memories of loss and the end of a life precious to us, that there is new life springing up all around us.

Ten good years!

Today marks Jason and I's 10th wedding anniversary. One decade together, and hopefully many more to come. We have spent it at home - the place that houses so many of our hopes and dreams for this next decade together. And we have spent it as a family. I continue to be addicted to picking lamb's quarter in large quantities to freeze and Jason worked hard breaking the sod and preparing the next garden bed where we hope to plant tomatoes tomorrow. Kali chattered and "helped" occasionally. She was a bit unsure of going out initially when she saw the 4-5 foot black snake crossing our front walk and then I discovered another one sunning itself on the dirt bank above the walk. I can tell I'm going to need to be a good example on this one, so we went out together and looked at it up close for awhile - familiarity will hopefully breed comfort for the ladies of this family.

These markers (anniversaries, not black snakes) in our family life often take my thoughts to Nora. As much as today has been beautiful, her absence is felt. Kali got her garden clothes on and came out to me saying, "Today I'm wearing Nora things...Nora shorts and a Nora t-shirt, they are both orange." She is on our minds a lot. And this morning at breakfast, it seemed that Kali was a bit more pensive as we talked about the annivesary of her death and various ways we might like to commemorate that and remember her together.

This afternoon, Kali and I went for a walk to check the mail and the cows and the horses. On our way home one of the cows in the pasture had blood all over its face. It looked gruesome, to be honest. I felt like I had to do something. It didn't seem overly concerned with its predicament but it was a lot of blood and it felt cruel to not at least try to let the farmer know about it. I had to make a few phone calls to find the owner of the cows in that pasture and was finally on the phone with Sharon, a very sweet woman that we see occasionally driving in her pick up truck to one of the fields where they raise cattle. We've stopped and talked just a handful of times in the almost 4 years we have lived in Keezletown.

I learned that they had recently dehorned some of the cows. She would go check on it, but assumed that it must have just rubbed it on something and got it bleeding again. Clearly she was much calmer about it than I was, as I tried to describe how horrible it looked (I won't get graphic here).

When there was nothing more to say about the cows, she paused and said, "I don't know if this is okay to ask, but I know the last time we talked you were expecting a baby and were a bit concerned about how the pregnancy was going...did everything turn out okay?" It wasn't long before both of us were crying on the phone. It was about the sweetest, most heartfelt gesture of care I have experienced for some time - a near stranger showing how much she has wondered and worried about our family. She noticed that she wasn't seeing us much on the road and then noticed that I was never out walking with the new baby when she did see me out. She thought maybe she had seen me with a baby once but wasn't sure. She told me how she worried that something had happened and had hoped that things were okay. I couldn't helped but soak up the chance to tell her a little about Nora, as she seemed genuinely interested. She recently became a grandma (just before Nora was born). It was one of those unexpected, beautiful, authentic human interactions. I think the tears were as much from that as anything. Yet they also came from being reminded, in such a short span of time, of the many emotions associated with anticipating Nora's birth, her life, her death and how we find ourselves getting into rhythms once again, but without her.

Mother's Day

I packed a picnic lunch for us to enjoy together outside after church today. The weather was too beautiful to not be outside and a picnic at home would have been nice too but the "to do" list at home makes doing much other than working that down to a reasonable size difficult. So we went to the JMU arboretum, which Kali really enjoys and we do too. It just happens that the last time the three of us took a picnic there was the day we chose to tell Kali that she was going to be a big sister. The feelings today as we sat there were quite different. Mother's Day has not tended to be a holiday we have celebrated in any grand way in the past and this year was really no different. But, emotionally, it felt different: catapulting me back to last year, learning Nora had pulmonary hypertension. And it was a day in which I remember feeling so uncertain about how to mother our girls. I end today feeling some similar feelings as I journey with Kali. We've gotten linked with some amazing people and some amazing resources (most notably Alfie Kohn), that have shed some light for us on how we wish to be interacting with Kali and other children that we have opportunities to care for. Yet on days like today when my emotions are high, I end up mothering in a way far from my ideals. My patience gets used up so much faster. And Kali seems to continually be able to absorb my/our tension like a sponge. But tomorrow will be a new day. I'll end this one cuddling up to Kali in bed for the first portion of the night at least...