The Journey to Goodbye.

My dear friend was clearly preparing to leave this world. The time out of time for saying goodbye was ever present during the past several days, hanging like silvery morning mist as the earth exhales the cooling November air. 


Tuesday night felt heavy and anxious, so I lit a votive candle in the beautiful natural rock crystal holder that my friend had given me last Christmas. 'Christ - The Light of the World' the enclosed card had read. It burned well past midnight...

On Wednesday morning, I knew that this was the day. 


I resolved to make my way to my friend's home after the morning ritual of driving my son to his bus stop. No rush, no urgency, this wasn't a time for rescue. It was a time for honoring a sacred passage. A time to be present and to help hold a space for gratitude and grieving and goodbye. 


On the morning's journey, the sunrise went from a familiar kind of pretty as we left home to a sudden and breathtaking display of bronze, copper, rose pink, magenta and violet as we were lined up in traffic on the approach to the river bridge. Unable to stop or pull over, I pointed my camera out the open car window, and with one hand on the steering wheel and two eyes on the road, I shot four pictures, trusting that I would capture the images I was meant to get. 


What I got was eerie and beautiful, just like the feeling in my heart and deep in the pit of my stomach - the visceral sense that time stopped for an imperceptible instant. That the stars blinked as a soul shot past them, leaving a never ending arc of light in its wake. I knew my dear friend was crossing a bridge then, too.

After dropping my son off, I made my way to my friend's home, stopping briefly nearby to take a couple pictures of a large carved stone statue of Christ that I passed every time I drove to her house.
I had always intended to do this small thing, somehow this seemed the right time to do it. The statue's hands were particularly evocative, and as I framed one of them in the lens of my camera, I reflected on my friend's loving intention of offering her hands to do the work of making a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor in Haiti, where she and her husband supported many initiatives, and are building an orphanage and elder's home. 

As I got back into my car, my cell phone sang out - it was my friend's dear husband, telling me in a soft, heartbroken voice that she had just "gone to Heaven..." if he was surprised when I told him I was just minutes away, he didn't say so... 


It seems that our entire life is, among many other things, a journey to goodbye. I am forever grateful to my dear, dear friend for sharing some of her incredible journey with me, and for showing me that one can travel, even to goodbye, with love and trust, with dignity and humor, with purpose and kindness... 


Godspeed, my dear friend. We shall meet again.

Rerun.

It had rained overnight, the still-dark streets were shiny wet. We followed the now-familiar route of ten miles from our country home to the Park and Ride bus stop, the first leg of my son's daily journey to school. Garbage bags and bins line the streets. It's trash day in the city. We are avid dumpster-divers and trash-hounds, we believe in lost treasure. So today - garbage day - was particularly full of possibility. 
But mostly this time of year it's tons of leaves (as though they are trash...) 


Then I spied it - even in the dark it was unmistakably the shape of a small horse. lying in a heaped tangle of metal piping and angled tubes with big springs. I turned the station wagon around at the first chance and circled back. "Poor baby!" I cooed as I flew out the door and gathered the small figure up in my arms and loaded him gently in the back. My son rolls his teen-aged ayes in mock disdain. I know he'd do the same (not the cooing, but the rescuing!) if I wasn't here to do it. So would his dad. We know lost treasure when we see it. What redeems a human more than to save a helpless creature from destruction? With a thrill of excitement, I realize this beauty is now mine, all mine. I always wanted another horse.

I marvel at the detail of the once-beloved toy, left abandoned on the curbside. I think he's neither very old nor very new, but truthfully I have no idea when he was made but he is sturdy and beautiful. He has wavy mane and tail, a curly 'B' brand and a fancy western saddle. Roy Rogers or The Lone Ranger would've been proud to ride him into the sunset on the tiny TV screen in my childhood living room  His only visible fault is the places where he once attached to the springs are now worn and broken. That's OK - he'll be a free horse now.

I dropped my son at the bus stop and smiled all the way home, stopping to take a few pictures of the rain-washed honey-colored sunrise on the way, and marveling at my good fortune.

Think I'll name him 'Rerun'.

Blue Cowboy.

Funny, the little things that can catch you by surprise 
and break your heart...                                         

Take this small blue toy cowboy (or is he an outlaw?) 

I was minding my own business one recent autumn day, cleaning up a bit around the garden near where my son's sandbox and fort had been until earlier this summer. 

I was already at a serious disadvantage in this encounter, reflecting as I worked in a sort of melancholy way on all the happy years he spent digging and playing, creating and destroying entire worlds with his own hands. Sand, water, rocks, twigs and some "guys" (his word for any small figure, human, animal or otherwise) was all he needed for a whole day outside, summer or winter. It all went by so fast I kept thinking. 

I miss my little boy. (Don't get  me wrong - I love the young man he is becoming - I'm just struggling with passing time, change and transitions...)

This spring we dismantled and sold the fort to a cute family with a animated three-year-old boy. He was so excited, I think he could feel the accumulated energy of this little wooden world. Then my son and his dad built a small circulating waterway, waterfall and pond from free and cheap craigslist finds. It quickly became a bustling destination for the local critters and others we rescued and re-homed throughout the season. 

So there I was, working and reminiscing. I absent-mindedly brushed aside some fallen branches and there he was, handgun drawn and a stance that meant all business. What could I do? I burst into tears. 

Damn it all. Ambushed by a plastic cowboy. I didn't have a chance.

(I left him there at the scene, a fitting testament to a happy childhood, and perhaps someday a welcome find for some young explorer. I suspect he's not biodegradable...)