No special occasion required

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

A special “welcome” to all those who are new around here and a hearty “welcome back” to my loyal readers.

Thank you for engaging in my vulnerable post from last month. I read your responses with tears in my eyes as you shared about your longings also. There is beauty in being known and relief that we are in this together.

Speaking of beauty — I have been reminded again how it can be a balm to our battered and weary hearts. When my thoughts are swirling and my stomach is tied in knots, focusing on the beautiful releases the relentless grip of anxiety and grief. There is no denying all that is not right in the world, but it is also true that there is extravagant beauty to be noticed. We can hold both.

I am sharing another essay this month which I hope you can also relate to.

I had to unlearn previous decades of conditioning. Still, the first time felt wrong, immoral even. I hesitated, the boundaries had been in place so long and I was about to cross them.

I am currently thousands of kilometres away from home. In a few days I will take a train from Toronto where I am visiting my daughter, south to Sarnia to stay with my mom. She no longer lives in the house where I grew up nor the home my kids remember as Grandma’s. It will be the first time I visit her in the senior’s apartment where she lives. This is her first time living alone. She is 85 years old. My dad, still very much alive, no longer lives with her because Alzheimer’s has taken too much from him. He lives in a nursing home across town which I will also see for the first time on this visit.

I suspect when I walk into my mom’s apartment, it will not feel like home.

With each move they’ve made there is less stuff. Fewer knick-knacks and photo albums, little to remind me of the home I grew up in. The vintage tin mom kept full of cookies is gone, along with the doilies and brass lamps that had been on the end tables for decades. What I will miss most is my dad’s collection of replica fire trucks (he was a fire-fighter most of his life), his tools, and the crossword book open to the current puzzle next to his spot on the sofa. These little absences spotlight the chasm left by his absence.

I am sure my mother feels it too.

Recently my husband and I were at the lawyer’s modifying our will. We will donate our organs to someone in need and our bodies to science. We were influenced on this decision by our youngest daughter, now also our executor. Her favourite class in university was anatomy, where she and her classmates had a cadaver to dissect. His name was Albert. Maybe one day another student will have a Sue on their table. They will learn I have one half of my thyroid, no appendix, and bones healed from breaking in my right foot. I wonder if they will be able to detect the stretch marks on my heart (a little reference to last month’s essay, its here if you missed it.)

It was during Lent that we did this, a particularly fitting time to consider life’s end by voicing our wishes should we be incapacitated, and where our assets will go.

The last visit with my mom, I brought home her silverware. When I was a child, it was kept in a polished wooden box, then moved to the velvet lined drawer in the china cabinet when my parents purchased their first dining room set. Each piece was lined up neatly in the drawer waiting for the next special occasion. Many years passed and she found she no longer needed the silverware, no longer hosted the family for Christmas, Easter, or other occasions that were deemed special enough to use the good silver.

I packed up the silver knowing I was going to break all the rules. These utensils would not be quarantined from the rest of my cutlery— the basic stainless sort purchased from Canadian Tire. I did not reveal this fact to my mother.

Back home, I open the cutlery drawer and, with a twinge of guilt, lift out one of the precious spoons stamped with Community and “South Seas” on the back. There is a small flourish at the top of the handle that looks like the waves of the sea. To use them on an ordinary day for the humblest of meals feels like both an act of rebellion and love.

Now I use the good silver every day. I eat my yogurt, berries, and granola in the mornings with the large-sized spoon. I’m not waiting for special occasions anymore. Isn’t each day a gift? Each day on the calendar is worth celebrating and noticing the beauty held in those 24 hours. Writing a will and observing Lent remind me that life is both precious and short, so I’ll use the good stuff.

Recently I noticed the green shoots of my oriental poppy, and iris poking up through the remains of the snow and the layer of leaves left over from fall. The delicate fuzziness of the poppy leaves are like the chin of a young boy before his first shave. They are bright green against the brown garden. Stopping to notice is also an act of rebellion and love. Rebellion against the ways of our world that tells us only certain things matter; only large moments and grandiose gestures. And love of the small and delicate, the often unseen and ignored gifts each day brings. This plant came as a gift from a friend who left this world too soon. This too reminds me how marvelous, beautiful, and unpredictable life is.

What if all we ever had were the “ordinary” moments? Could we see the grace in them? As Frederick Buechner says,

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Even in noticing all that is missing in my mom’s home, in our lives, we honor what has been lost. We hold it up to the light, admiring its beauty, grateful for the time we had. We relish in the memories and tuck them away in our hearts. We are the lucky ones.

Further reading:

I am thrilled to tell you I had a poem published in the beautiful The Way Back To Ourselves Literary Magazine Spring Edition. If you have ever felt the weight of other people’s expectations and wondered if there is another way this is for you. You can read it here:

https://www.thewayback2ourselves.com/journal/bloomwhereyouareplanted

Each poem and essay in this journal is thoughtful and real. I encourage you to read through its pages for encouragement and hope.

For your viewing pleasure:

This short animated film called Visible Mending explores what a creative pursuit like knitting can offer us when life as we know it is unraveling.

With this installment of A Capacity for Wings, I will be signing off for an indefinite amount of time. Our family has received news that has left a boulder in our hearts. We are numb, stumbling in the dark, and find ourselves gasping for breath and grasping for hope. This is not fully my story to tell, so I will be holding the details close and sharing sparingly. We are trying to live moment to moment, unsure of what is unfolding in front of us, not wanting to carry all the what if’s of looking ahead. It is a struggle.

I know I will be writing, but likely not sharing publicly.

If you are a praying sort, please remember our family.