As we live and die

  I was thinking about how we are all connected. I was contemplating how Life revolves around opposition. Love and hate. Well, they are related. Maybe love and the opposite is not caring at all. Life and death. Happiness and grief. Yesterday I wrote about the happier part of my life. I don't want anyone to think there is something wrong because their life isn't all peaches and cream. Life is about the sour milk too. It's about love. It's about loss. It's about validating where you are, while still reaching for something bigger, or "better". It's about living knowing that death is coming for us all. It's about loving, even though that's what leads to the greatest grief.
  Two days ago my husband's mother died. I want to tell her family: I pray that your feelings of love will swallow up your feelings of sorrow. And yet the love is what causes the deep grief and sense of loss, right? I didn't spend a lot of time with Valrae, but that didn't stop me from loving her. The first thing that drew me in was her generosity. Even when I first met her she was starting to slow down. Usually I saw her during a visit with Ron in his parent's living room, which at the time was a three hour drive away from Nevada to Utah.
  Every time we visited Valrae would give me a gift. She wanted me to have something from her. I was looking at her stack of books, and she wanted me to have one. I crochet, so I admired a new pair of crocheted slippers that she had on the table. She insisted on giving them to me. I couldn't say no, she was so happy that I would have them. It was her way of reaching out to me, to feeling connected.
  She moved into a rehabilitation facility because she was having trouble getting around on her own. She started to color her hair a brilliant blue that almost matched her eyes. I loved seeing how she was determined to have some fun. The woman had spunk. Man, I am now using the past tense. It doesn't feel right. She has spunk. Where ever she is.
  Valrae was put under hospice care last December. I don't have the best memory, but if I have it right it was almost a year ago. Then in February (or March?) Ron's daughter called in tears because she was told that her Grandma would not last more than 48 hours. Well she showed them. I wonder if Valrae just wanted to be stubborn, to show those doctors a thing or two. Did she said to herself: I'm not letting those yahoos tell me when it's my time. I'll show them how little they know. I'll go when I'm good and ready. The premise of hospice is that they are predicting you have six months or less left of life. Valrae has been cheating death for a while now. May she rest in peace.
  Then it makes makes me think about all these expressions about death. Passing on. You're time to go. Never waking up again. Taking your final breath. Those kinds of things. It happened to be the same time I was figuring out how to introduce the idea of death in the new island world that I am creating with words. Death means a million things to a million people. So this means that the perspective of death is a choice. Right? I choose the perspective that she is "in a better place now". I have seen people deal with death in many ways. I have heard many stories too, including when I volunteered with a hospice group for a year. There are the people who have a celebration party of the person's life. There are people who wear black for a year or more, to show they are mourning. There are scientists who say that we humans are made of energy that was never created so it can never be destroyed. Just transformed.
  It makes me think about how we are (depending on who you ask) anywhere from 55% to 70% water. So that means that over half of us evaporates back up into the air, like the water in a puddle.
Part of us becomes atmospheric water vapor. Then those molecules rise up and become a cloud, travel across the sky and become rain in Cuba, helping a flower to grow. That's another phrase we hear: the circle of life.
  But it's not entirely a choice either, is it? Sometimes we simply believe what we believe. Some people know that their loved one went to Heaven, and that brings comfort and peace. Some people believe that we are dust to dust, that we have one bright flash in the eternities and then it's entirely over. And so they feel death is entirely tragic. Some people believe with all their heart in reincarnation so they appear kind of practical about it. And the list goes on.
  In honor of Valrae I resurrected the first character that died in my book. At first my Goddess controls it all, when the children are born and when the adults die. Then she sees how it's just not feasible. She has close to infinite knowledge, but not infinite understanding. She has close to infinite power to make anything happen, but not infinite energy to sustain everything she thinks she wants. But in the beginning, no one has to die before their time. What does that really mean though? That it was "their time to go". All these things we say to try to make sense of something that is still so mysterious. In the book the Goddess determines "their time". In real life, it's never so predictable.
  Maybe I will actually publish this book I'm writing just so I can dedicate it to our parents. Those that are still here, and those that are some where else. Because that's my belief. Valrae and her husband Lamar are still who they are, just in a place where my eyes can't see them. Only my heart can feel them.
  I wrote in my blog today, in the evening. A few hours later I tried to go to sleep but my mind was with Valrae. I was compelled to get out of bed and put on my black and purple leopard housecoat and write some more, to give expression to my thoughts that keep me wide awake at bedtime. I think Valrae would love this housecoat. I love that she would love this silly housecoat of mine. That's the thought I want to focus on as I try to go back to sleep next to her son.