MAY: Rest in peace.

I could never have predicted what this month would do to me. But here I am closing out what has got to be the longest sustained period of trauma in my life. The icing to these last few remaining days of May has included Covid and a summons for jury duty. I don't need to write fiction. I cannot make this stuff up.

To be human is to understand life is just a series of storms, that the same eerie green sky and the tornadic winds which carry more dirt than you can even comprehend will eventually break and leave you with a breathtaking sunset. All you can do is stare and wonder, what was that?

It will be a long time before I understand how my mother survived a massive heart attack on a Tuesday and my oldest brother slipped away from us two days later. 

It will be a long time before I understand how my youngest brother was able to get up off the floor after trying to revive Kelley and find his way to the hospital only to let me fall to a different floor with him as we cried together over a loss none of us saw coming.

It will be a long time before I piece together my sister's biblical day taking my dad to chemo on a beautiful morning and surviving and epic dust bowl-like storm en route home, only to encounter another storm, one filled with loss of buildings, of power, of our brother.

It will be a long time before I am brave enough to ask my sister-in-law Leslie, to tell me in words how scared she was watching my mother have a heart attack knowing she lost her own mother and did not get to say goodbye. 

It will be a long time before I can make sense of my nephew, responding to EMT calls at my parent's house, twice in once week, how he will be able to be at grandpa's house after so much pain.

It will be a long time before I shake my mother's face, her painful wail, and the grief bestowed upon her with two words, "Kelley died."

It will be a long time before I am able to sort out the tentacles of trauma within my family that were created in these last few weeks. It's important, though. To recognize each one means to say, it matters. This happened to you and it matters.

Right now, all I can really do is think about where I am in my body. The gift of illness is to be painfully present. And so I am in my chair, typing with a raging case of tinnitus, the last of my Covid symptoms making their way through me. My body feels loose, a bit untethered, and it's not clear what I should cling to. All that feels solid is one breath and then another and my fingers on this keyboard. 

The sun is gentle and the birds don't recognize my feelings with their insistent cheer.

And so here I am clinging to moments.

A friend has walked over another warm container of food. She is caring for us in a way I cannot get used to but am quickly just working to accept. 

Ben is outside helping Bob in the garden. I can hear distant chattering and then a low rumble of music, Kendrick Lamar. Soon, an enthusiastic dissemination of his Pulitzer prize winning music begins, and I don't follow any of it. I wonder if the retired neighbors will cast glaring eyes our way, but I don't care. Father and son are using their hands and their voices. I am grateful to be aware of this moment, this connection.

Despite this storm, there is deep gratitude. I never thought it possible to love more, but I do. I love my broken family more than I ever thought possible. We will never be the same, and this is not all bad. As awful as this world is, it seems worse to shut down and miss the tiny gifts of food on a doorstep, daily no-strings attached check-ins, hugs sent via funny photographs, popsicles delivered for a sore throat, kitties clinging to you while your tears fall, a sweet note left in your mailbox, an abundance of prayers though you admittedly aren't religious, your kids checking in on you, a hubby willing to just sit with you for as long as you want him to, the sound of your mother-in-law's voice after a 6 week absence, and the clouds. 

I stopped for a cloud today and it stopped me. There is beauty everywhere, even in ruin. 

For a moment or two, it's tempting to get angry at blooming flowers. How can you? I want to shout. But then it's like, Oh, yes! You will bloom no matter what is happening. Or despite what is happening. And isn't that something? To notice?

 I think this is the trick. I think this is what will sustain me, sustain all of us, really. 

 Stay aware through the pain. Keep looking for gifts when it seems there are none.