We have the assurance that even though people and life aren't perfect, we can live life abundantly and happily. ~ Grandma Simmons

A few weeks ago, Rodney, Adela, Heidi and I searched a Chico cemetery for Rodney's brother.  Look for a small headstone that sits near the intersection of two paths, his mother explained over the phone.  And so we looked and looked, kicking up the grass, our pant legs wet and mossy.

I carried Heidi, swinging her infant seat against my legs, hefting her up and over the short stone walls while watching Rodney and Adela search together in the distance.  We knew his name, we knew the year of his birth, but the gravestones gave us no other clues.

We wandered for an hour, then Rodney and the girls piled into the car, ready to go.  I'll search a little bit longer, I said, and they followed me in the car as I paced the rows, reading faded names.  Find the flowers, Rodney called out to me.  My mom put flowers next to Stanley, he said.  But, the flowers did not lead us to Stanley.

I found three children, each of whom lived one day, one year apart.  Keep walking, I told myself, feeling heartbroken.

Finally, it was time to give up.  The girls were getting restless and hungry.  We had covered the entire grounds of the cemetery except for the front section near the gate.  As I turned to get into the car, my eyes landed on Stanley's name.  I found him! I shouted.  Rodney and Adela tumbled out of the car.  As we huddled around Stanley and I felt myself grow close to tears.  He'd died before any of us were born, but I knew the life he left.  Look there, we pointed. White flowers, just like Grandma Lois said.  We looked around for other markers that would help us find him easily the next time: tall trees, gravel intersection, a short distance to the front gate.  We noted what could be seen from across the street.  Adela knelt down and put her arms around the stone. Rodney and I stood in quiet harmony for a moment, appreciating each other, before signaling to Adela that it was time to go.

 That night, I dreamed of rows and rows of crumbling stone.  And a search. Just like I knew I would.

Last week, after learning of Grandma Simmons' passing, I went looking for her old letters.  I hadn't touched them in years but knew right where they were, tucked away in my rose-patterned box.  A sheet of lined white binder paper had a note scribbled high up in the corner saying she'd written the letter a year before but hadn't had my mailing address.  She'd held onto the letter until she knew it would find me. In another, she shared stories of her husband's mother, saying she was so talented it confused her....much like me, she supposed.

She wrote to me about her love of nature and her need for harmony and beauty.  She told me to enjoy life, to take things moment by moment if needed.  To appreciate kindness and smiles.  I can imagine her sitting at her dining room table, our holiday gathering place, steadying her pen, concentrating, looking out her window.  I imagine her pausing, thinking carefully about what she would write, maybe even stepping away to open the door for a breeze.

When her husband of many decades died, I sat next to her at church, my sister to my left.  I remember feeling stiff, young, unsure of what to do or say.  I was twenty, on break from school to attend my grandfather's funeral, so unformed and awkward.  I wasn't sure if I should touch her or speak.  What is the right thing to do in this moment, I wondered...eventually doing nothing at all.

She didn't cry, or reach for anyone, or crumple into the pew.  She stared rigidly ahead, listening.  Back at their home, where we met to share our respects, I watched her and her sister sit by the window, their heads together.  I wondered what they must be saying.  After all, what do you say after your husband has died?  In her way, she let us know she was ok.  It was time to keep on living.  And so she did, for twenty more years.

My sister moved in with her to care for her at the end.  We finished all of her projects, Tracy says now, so she probably felt at peace.  There was nothing left to do. But now her chair sits empty, her beloved garden damp and sparkly in the cold, a sweet marshy smell rising from the nearby river.  Tracy walks the grounds, her camera slung over her shoulder, capturing spiny meadow grass, tulle fog, long-fingered crows and tilt-a-whirl mushrooms.  Remembering, I can hear the screeching hawks, feel the gravely crunch...

I close my eyes and I am 8 years old, listening to her stories as we snake through the oaks together.  I kick buckeyes carelessly, thinking their smooth white caps look like skulls in the weeds.  Tracy is there, always there, and my dad is coming to pick us up later in the afternoon to take us home.  But not before we get to kiss her weathered brown cheeks and hold her hands with our searching little fingers.

This week, juggling my busy existence, I felt grief settling over me like a fog.  It's just not time yet, I found myself thinking.  She hasn't even met Heidi -- there has to be a way to stop this, to slow this down, to give us time.  But, that's not the way things work.  She was ready, my dad and my sister both say.  She lived a long, strong, steady life, filled with the beauty she cultivated, the natural world she adored, the light she turned her face to when she kneaded the soil with her hands.

If she watched my oldest daughter grow, she would be proud.  She would recognize in her a kindred spirit, one who possesses mindful clarity and a deep and abiding understanding of herself.  Heidi is too young to show us more than her calm and tender disposition, but I am sure grandma lives in her, too.

I am not ready to say goodbye so I will not.  I will continue to hold the grief just inches from my heart, where it can't make contact just yet.  I need to be in her space, her home, looking out of her windows into the grove of trees she tended to and loved like children.  Her voice is still there, the one that soothed me and lulled me when my childhood worries took hold.  I will listen for it.  And then, surrounded by my family and those who knew her, I will read her eulogy and I will say goodbye.

"And somewhere the blue damselfly
sleeps in the reeds
it flew back to when it left my wrist,
its tiny lungs
inhaling, exhaling, its eyes
staring east where the summer moon
is rising,
brushing over the dark pond,
for all of is, the white flower
of dreams."
- Mary Oliver

I love you grandma.  Thank you for leading us here.  You will make the gardens of heaven bloom, no doubt, especially for the the little children.

~ Katie
Little Sister Pond by Mary Oliver, American Primitive, 1978

Small, safe, warm and welcoming, we recognize our pinpoint human matchlight against the mammoth chaos of the dark. Back again to our good child's sleep. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

On Adela's 7th birthday, 7 days after learning I was pregnant again, I began to miscarry -- or so I thought.  Hunkering down into that cavernous emotional space that held me safe during my first miscarriage, I told Rodney it was happening again.  He cried and I carried on and made an appointment with the doctor to get everything "taken care of" once more.

Three days later, we sat in quiet awe listening to an echoing heartbeat.  I can't believe it, I said.  Rodney laughed.  But then the doctor found a mass in my neck.  Yes, we have a baby in there, he said, but there's something else we need to look at.  And we need to hurry.

A week later, my doctor called with an urgent request.  The imaging results were in and I needed a biopsy.  Soon enough, I was laying on another table, watching a needle enter my neck.  The results were inconclusive.  After another round of imaging, more tests and appointments, and 6 more months of pregnancy, the specialist said we'd need to remove most of my thyroid to determine whether or not the mass was cancerous.  If it was, they'd remove the entire system during surgery and I'd need radiation.  Don't worry, he said, we'll wait until 4-6 weeks after delivery.

The first month after hearing the heartbeat and finding the tumor was otherworldly.  It's a complex equation for the body to take on -- growing a life and carrying the unknown.  After too many sleepless nights, I decided to focus on the pregnancy.  I wanted to give the baby and her tiny development all of my energy and thoughts.  The dark spot in my body, the scary mass, would not receive my care or attention.  Naturally, I wanted the baby's body to grow and thrive, even at the expense of my own.

Heidi was born at 5:07pm on August 19th to a room full of people who will love her always.  She is now 4 weeks old.  On Thursday, we will begin peeling back the layers of this next mystery...and we will schedule my surgery.

There are few things I want to do less than have surgery while caring for a newborn.  This phase of my life really isn't about me -- it's about keeping our tiny girl going.  I feed her, I soothe her, I put her down for her naps.  Really, I haven't stopped to think about myself or my own needs in quite a while (which presents its own challenges, certainly).  So, why the extra attention?  Why now?  There is no space in my emotional mind for the fears to re-enter.  How will my girls fare if I am sick?  And, even though the chances that I might die of this are remote, my own mortality skirts the periphery of my vision, teasing out even greater fears.  It is not possible for the heart, mind, or body to reconcile delivering and then caring for a new baby, raising a 7 year old, loving a partner, working for a living....and contemplating death.  I'd rather not do it....and so I don't.

But, the practicalities of what lie ahead are daunting.  I wonder how I will move my exhausted body through even more medical intervention.  Will I still be able to nurse the baby after surgery?  How long will I be in the hospital?  How will my family handle the possibility of radiation?  Too many questions, too few answers right now.

Today, I set out for a quick trip to the local grocery store.  What should have been a 5 minute drive took me into the foothills of Chico.  In retrospect, I was giving myself some perspective.  Relax, let go, aim higher, and just keep breathing.  That's all I can do anyway.

And so, as I have during the many transitions of motherhood, I am settling in to the still slightly uncomfortable "new normal" of our lives, piecing together the fun, happy, laughing moments into a picture that looks and feels like real home.  Occasionally, I struggle with the baby blues, slipping into the bedroom for a quick cry in the afternoons, but I let the exuberant laughter of the new big sister, whose transition is sometimes heartbreaking in and of itself, carry me over and through the troughs.

It is life, I remind myself.  Messy, chaotic, loud, boisterous, unpredictable.  It is fragile.  And deep down, under the shadowy moments that sometimes cloud the surface, it is love holding us together.

I resolve to do what I need to do.  If that means surgery, I will do it.  If that means facing down an inconvenient and frightening absence from my family, I will do it.  Truly, if I have learned anything over the past 7 years, it is that the best way to care for my children is to care for myself.  Though this lesson is flying high above me, kite-like, tethered to my thoughts by only a thread, I will reel it back in soon enough to find the topsy-turvy balance I know is under all of this tumult.  Really, when I think about it, that is my greatest challenge.

One foot in front of the other.  The rest will follow in due course.  All will be ok..... :)

~ Katie

Title quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From The Sea, 1955, p. 97

Come live with me and be my love... ~ Christopher Marlowe

Tonight, with the spring breeze blowing gently through the windows and Adela running wildly in circles, exuberant over being let in on the secret, my best friend asked me to marry him. There was nothing triumphant or cathartic or particularly memorable about the moment -- it was just another moment in our lives. But that's what made it so beautiful and so precious: after I said yes, Adela came up behind Rodney and hugged him while he hugged me, and then we went on with our night.

In thinking about this marriage and this life, and in navigating the undercurrent of change that runs through each one of our days, I am constantly amazed by the sense that there are already deeply defined footprints in the sand ahead of us -- indications that we've been here before, perhaps in my dreams, and have carefully marked our course.

We've traveled this path together. We've been here before, and we're okay.

Last year, as Rodney and I recovered from our loss, we had to find new ways to share our love and trust and vulnerability again as our grief receded. It was a more difficult journey for me; his pain came from my unreachable isolation. But gradually, as I was able to tuck the miscarriage into the folds of my mind and my heart, safe and protected and authentically mine, I let our friendship lead us forward. We know what we want, we're in this together, and we're up for the challenge.

What I love about this life is that even though he's just asked me to marry him, we're sitting side by side in the living room, next to the open window with the darkness outside, both silent and content. There are no bells and whistles here. Adela is sleeping soundly in the next room and soon we'll be off to bed. He knows I don't need anything fancy and he knows, as I do, that this is an ordinary night that will eventually blur into the busy chaos of our lives. And that's okay.

What he's asking for, and what I want to give us more than anything, are as many of these nights as possible, filled with the craziness of our days on the fray and the friendship and love we feel for each other right in the center of it all. It will take work, as anything worth having does, but it's work I've always wanted to do...and work I want to share with him.

We didn't do anything spectacular tonight -- we simply cemented what already feels solid and whole: our family. Tomorrow will be another day much like this one, packed with work and school and the familiar juggling act we'll never quite perfect no matter how hard we try.

But it's our life, and I can't think of anything worth having more than that.

~ Katie