One year ago...

A day of much remembering. A week of remembering. A spring of remembering. We have been so grateful for some moments set aside to be more present to our memories and our grieving. We spent several days in WV this past weekend with family and for Jason and I to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We visited Blackwater Falls twice and Jason and I spent two nights at Douglas Falls B&B (which is right near a river and several waterfalls). We also were able to enjoy the little tree my family planted on the knoll above the swing set at the Mountain House in WV.

Together as a family we spent time last evening listening to a tape recording we made of Nora (like we had created with Kali as a baby) that we had never listened to together. Hearing her almost laugh with Jason brought back memories of the best of times we savored together. It is good and sad to hear her voice.

Today was another day with time set apart, and once again near water. Jason and I spent the time during Kali's school day in a pavilion at Riven Rock Park along the Dry River. The sound of the rain and the water was soothing.

Among the hardest things on our minds were the memories and awareness of the impact of Nora's life and death on Kali. She has seemed very tender the last few days, and for a 5 year old this also means more prone to emotional "meltdowns" (prolonged outbursts). Last night while listening to the tape we were talking about missing Nora. She initially said she did not miss Nora, but then rephrased it to say that she does miss Nora but she doesn't think she misses her as much as I seem to.

Jason and I reflected today on wondering whether we will ever regret not having Kali with us at the time of Nora's death and right after. She did not know when she last held Nora that it was the last time she would hold her. That was hard for us to think about then and even now. Though we can't quite imagine navigating through that night and morning with our own emotions and all the decisions to be made with another little one whose needs are equally important and whose understanding of all that was unfolding would require our full presence with her. So we did our best with finding ourselves in a place we didn't wish to be and knowing Kali was in loving hands.

The rain is still coming down now and looks like it will until about the time we gather with some family and friends tomorrow evening. Several have reminded me that this weather seems fitting for a time of remembering Nora, who left us amidst rain and lightning and thunder.

Coming back home from being away today felt good, and so did receiving various phone calls, emails, notes from friends and family also remembering Nora on this day. Words aren't flowing very easily for me in clear sentences today; I'll end with a poem that Nora's Aunt Christie wrote. Christie shared this day with us last year and so was in our thoughts a lot today too as we relived many of those early moments after Nora's death.

The Death Economy

The other day on the radio, a grieving son said, simply,
Death is for the living.
And certainly, Nora’s thunderstorm departure,
a year ago today,
was crowded with rapt spectators.

But what do we do with our gift, death?
How do we spend it?
Display it? Preserve it?
How many times can we tell the death story?

She lived.
I thank the loving universe for that.
She lived straight through every constraint
her fragile body gathered to itself.

Her life was hers; her death, ours.
I cannot spend her life.
No morals pop up, no lessons about living--
I do not have the right to parse her life.

But her dying day, the structured collapse
of my hopes for her future,
the handfuls of sorrow, baskets leftover . . .
I am still sorting through all this,

arranging a rough parataxis, cluttered taxonomy
of her death
and of mine.

M. Christine Benner
6/4/09