the chosen one

I asked my mother if she'd like me to do a prayerful meditation on her behalf.  She said she'd love for me to look into how she may help my father treat her more as his chosen one, to look into her eyes in a way that says she is his most beloved.  He shares this look with other women, though not with her.  It is so easy for us to forget the sacredness of being our partner's chosen one, and instead feel like cohabitating roommates.  The daily details distract us from connecting with one another.  How sad. 

This conversation with my mother strikes a chord for me, as I've been going through similar feelings in my marriage.  I waited for my partner to leave the room before admitting to my mother that my partner and I have attended our first marriage counseling session this week.  I had recently remembered my desire to be cherished and appreciated, seen and heard, by my partner.  And I have not felt that way for a long time.  I told myself often that "what is good for me is good for my family.  Taking care of myself is taking care of my family.  Happy wife make for a happy life."  I had asked my partner to read Men Are From Mars with me, though he made it half a chapter in and called it quits due to gross stereotypes.  I didn't have the tools to make this relationship healthier on my own.  The realization that my desires and reality were so far apart led to counseling.

In the counseling session, I saw that my partner and I love each other very much, though we have our emotional attachments, patterns, and defenses.  Our counselor helped us to see that when we discuss money, what really matters are the emotions below the talk.  As an adult from an abusive childhood home, I have extra defenses such as shutting down and putting up walls when something doesn't feel safe or loving.  I shut down a lot.  My partner has now spent the last week responding to my verbalized feelings with "I can see why you may think that, yet..."  And then he laughs and I loosen up a little.  This one counseling session has been one baby steps on our journey to restore an open love between us.  And this meditation for my mother is a small step for her marriage as well.

*Author note: This post was written several years ago in reference to my now late partner M.

Creating a Home

When I was a little girl, I'd always wanted my own apartment, to live where and how I chose with my collection of plants and animals.  Three years into my relationship with M, I set off to find my own little apartment... cat in tow.  It was such a thrill to easily fit all my worldly belongings into a studio apartment and to immediately paint the walls a bright yellow.  Next to the big open windows I taped handmade cards that brought me joy.  I hosted craft nights and invited friends to join me there for dinner and movies.

Then I was ready to settle into committing to live with another human.  As M and I lovingly created a home, yellow paper lantern walls and all, we experienced some resigned compromise.  When we purchased our current home with his mother, her decor went into place immediately.  Our personal pieces took longer than planned.  After the first two pieces went up, it was another five years before we hung more, and three more before we painted a wall.

When M's mother died several years ago, all her decor stayed in place.  Now that M has devastatingly died, I am slowly shifting our home from his mother's tastes into my own.  Bookshelves now stand where wall scrolls hung.  Our books and photo albums are out of boxes and into rooms where we seem them each day.  Large photographs of great-grandparents are now in our prayer room.  Figurines and vases are slowly finding new homes.  Framed photos of M dominate our prayer room.  Photographs of our family of five fill the other rooms.  (No post-M photos are part of our collection yet.)  I am dreaming of painting walls vibrant blues and greens to match my mother-in-law's large Mediterranean painting.  I envision owning hand-blown sea glass light fixtures, crafted 90-minutes away at the Oregon coast.  I dream of renting out this beloved home so I get to go explore the world with our children.

While I would give much of what I have to go back to the day before diagnosis, I also finding pleasure in making my home my own, in releasing other people's treasures, in dreaming of the possibilities in the recreating of a home... and a life.

Saying Goodbye

Three weeks ago I said goodbye to my beautiful partner.  I chose to.  I had to.  Cancer left me few other options.  I said goodbye to the love of my life because his body couldn't stay alive any longer.  I lay with him several times in his last couple weeks in his hospital bed, starving, his organs shutting down, his humanness slowly devoured by cancer.  I rested my head against his and told him how much I love him, the ways I love him, how he has brought so much beauty into my life, that his children would make it through this.  I told him something he told me weeks before, that he would soon get to be with his parents again.  I held his arm, stroked his hand, put my hand on his forehead just the way he loved his mama to touch him.

I stayed in the hospital with my children for seven hours the evening he died.  We said goodbye again and went home for dinner, not knowing what lay ahead.  About forty-five minutes later we got the call that our beloved partner and papa had died.  My children and I wailed.  I said from deep inside, "This is the hardest part."  We held each other.  We brushed our teeth while wailing and headed back to the hospital to join my partner's family who never left his side.  Our daughter chose to spend the night with a cousin, our son chose to stay to participate in our Buddhist chanting ritual, our baby travels everywhere on my hip.  When I saw my husband without breath, I went to him, touched him, told him how much I loved him.  My son climbed into his daddy's bed under the covers, holding him around the middle, showering his body with love.  He said, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my papa you'll be."  It was so beautiful and so awful.  I hugged those around us.  Then I fled the room, wanting to be alone.  I sat alone and cried and cried.  My sister-in-law followed me.  All I could say was, "I am so f@#$%&g angry cancer did this to my husband, to my family."  It felt good to say it over and over, as a true expression of what I felt in that moment.  I'm still angry, though I let it come out in different ways now.

I returned to my partner's body's side.  His family and I chanted over his body for four hours with Buddhist monks, then sat and talked around him for four more hours.  We told stories of my partner as a child, as a dad, as a brother and son.  We laughed, we cried, we were quiet together.  Then we headed home for the night.  Cousins followed us home as guards for myself and our two sleeping children.  They stood at the garage door in the middle of the night as we said goodbye.  These cousins still have our backs in so many ways.

My two children and I returned to the hospital with an aunt and uncles the next morning to clean my partner's body.  His cornea have been donated to bring sight to others.  Nothing else could be donated because of the extent the cancer had impacted his body.

Cousins, siblings, our children, and a friend joined us for my partner's cremation.  We viewed his body, contributed things to the cardboard coffin (In & Out Burger bag with drawings of favorite foods, workout outfit, University of Washington clothing, letters and drawings, etc.), and said goodbye in our own individual ways.  My daughter didn't want to see him like this.  My son did.  "He looks worse than I thought he would," he told his aunt and uncle.  This was very hard.  After the viewing, he was taken to the cremation room.  We again said goodbye, then walked by his side as he was moved into the machine.  His children, siblings, and I pushed the buttons necessary to start the cremation process.

A week later we placed the large urn with his ashes under his parents' pictures in our prayer room.  His sister had ashes sealed permanently into a beautiful purple necklace, purple to show love for her brother and his love for the University of Washington.  My children and I now each have our own little urns of ashes.  These parts of our beloved partner/papa can travel with us wherever we go.  This may be a bit morbid, all of it, perhaps.  These little things help us to come to terms with the awful ending to our favorite man in the entire universe.  These mementos help us hold him here with us in our hearts and memories.

I continue to say goodbye to the man who was tortured by and died of lung cancer.  That was easier to do that what lies ahead.  Now as I come to terms with the large loss our family has experienced, I again see the man I feel in love with, the man I talked into marrying me, the man I loved and held for 18 years, for most of my adult years.  The man who joyfully fathered and raised his adored children.  The man who was there for us when we wanted him and needed him.  When I go back to seeing my partner as the man he was before his diagnosis and treatments, that has been the hardest part for me.  Harder than speaking about how deeply I love him to a room full of our favorite people.  Harder than letting his body be cremated.  Saying goodbye to my healthy, extraordinary partner has brought my biggest pain.

I continue to very intentionally focus on the beauty in my life, the gifts in my life as a result of being with my partner.  Our children are our biggest blessings, the three (out of four) biggest loves of my life.  I search for the silver lining, the miracles, the touching moments we shared.  The pain accompanies these thoughts, dragging behind like a dark shadow.  There is nothing to fill the hole left by the loss of someone so beloved in our lives.  I yowl like a wounded puppy, I sob, I sing, I talk with others, I take walks and create routines, I gather with those who loved him, I find quiet, I cuddle my children.  The only way through this grief is straight through.  There are no shortcuts here.

I miss my partner.  I miss my children having their daddy here.  I miss his voice.  I miss holding his hand.  I miss him saying, "my beautiful wife."  Nothing will change that.  Each day feels harder and easier in different ways.  I can pay the bills on my own now, though I yearn to see him more.  As I experience my sadness, my immune system echoes these emotions.  My children and I will get through this immense loss, one little step/breath/moment at a time.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Repeat.  We hold each other, practice our patience, humor, and determination.

I love my life.  I love this life I get to share with my children and my extended in-laws.  I love this world we get to create together.  I love finding the silver lining together.  I love naps, rest, reprieve.  I love togetherness and togethering and letting it flow in and out, expressing it as it comes, as long as it does not wound others.  I trust this journey.  I trust myself on this journey.  I am so very thankful for this moment in which I get to share what flows through me.  I am thankful for taking the next step into my life, hand-in-hand with these beautiful little and big people.  I am thankful to get to share it with you.  What a life.  What gifts.

What is family to me?

What is family to me?  This question has taken me a long time to answer.

In childhood, family was a group of people placed together by marriage and biology.  My parents provided food, shelter, education, boundaries, and safety from the world outside.  My family contained four people, very little time with other biological  kin, and the occasional guest for New Year's Eve.  My father used physical and emotional violence with us to keep his world orderly and controlled.  My mother survived through submissiveness and passive aggressiveness.  My brother fled our little pod because it was too painful and overwhelming to stay connected.

My definition of family has changed throughout the years.  I left my fractured childhood home after high school graduation to find my own way in our world.  I learned to create personal boundaries and to be a good friend.  I made many friends who were finding their own paths.  My parents and I mended our connections and I found safety in my own gentle strength.

Then I met my M, a loyal, supportive, family-centered young man.  He moved from Taiwan to the U.S.A. as a preschooler and was very connected to his Taiwanese culture, family, and practices.  Having spent a summer in France caring for my cousin's children when I was 17, studying three languages, and loving travel, it was such a blessing to connect with such a network of loving, extended family.

M became my family.  To my delight, he was a package deal, bringing with him his extended family.  It is so comforting to have the healthy love and support of M's family.  To know how much they love my children is priceless.

I miss my brother deeply, though I rest in knowing he is aware of my love for him and where to find me when he is ready to reconnect.  One day in this lifetime I look forward to reconnecting with my beloved brother, to seeing my children enjoy their uncle, my mother hugging her son.  As we all move to the beat of our own drums, I release expectation of specific outcomes and send love to my family near and far.

As I look back on my own evolution of family, I give the greatest of thanks for where I've been.  My own story has helped me feel deeply appreciative for where I now stand with this loving family by my side.

The Heart of It

Oh, to get to the heart of it.  Easier said than done.  Choosing to be with a partner is a constant learning experience.  A relationship and lessons I choose again and again.  My beloved partner gets to see my best and my worst.  Often.  When there's a break in communication, someone has their feelings hurt again, for me it is a matter of intentionally pulling each other back together again to talk about what happened.  "Yes, thank you for sharing your point of view.  Here's mine."  Even after being with my partner for 16 years, through years of various healing therapies, and now being a healer myself, my defenses from an abusive childhood are still present.  I have come so far, yet life is a journey and we are always growing toward where we want to be.  My partner and I are both well-intentioned, wonderful people, though this relationship requires our constant intention.  The more we put into it, the more we feel the love grow.

My point is this.  Love one another.  Find forgiveness by seeing their perspective.  Play together, find ways to laugh, spend quality time together.  Without children or animals climbing on your body.  Remember the spark you held together in the beginning, the love you had for one another, the details of your exciting courtship.  Find that spark.  Follow your bliss with your partner.  Fall in love again.

A Fine Balance In Marriage

Marriage.  My mentoring friend shared that the first 25 years of marriage were the hardest for her.  I am far from hitting that mark on my ninth year, so with young children I am in the thick of it.  I find in marriage it is a constant process of trying to balance and rebalance, to communicate and reconnect when it's uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient.  Talking about our thoughts, reactions, and where we need readjustments takes a lot of energy while also raising young children.  Yesterday I asked (not gently) for and received time alone to blog and shower.  Today I was alone enough to blog, open windows, and breath.  These investments we make into marriage come back to us tenfold.  With some time alone, I then had energy for cooking dinner, washing dishes, more laundry, and loving on my family.  These small treasures bring such a fine balance into the rewarding challenges of marriage.

Mom's Balance

Balance.  A simple word, a simple concept, so much more difficult to enact than to say.  I find new ways to describe my life as a fine balance.  Yesterday I used it to describe my need to have ambitions outside my full-time mothering of my delightful children.  My work-outside-the-home husband's life ambition is to raise happy healthy children who grow into good adults.  On a big level, I feel he (or our society's expectations) expects me to feel complete with 20 years as a full-time mother.  As a homeschooling attached parent, this requires even more of my role.  However, my life's ambitions are to grow, learn, and heal (self, others, and our world).  The child-raising side of my balance is quite fulfilled.

There are many ways to expand my world with children at my side, such as sewing, healthy baking, sour dough starter, homebrewing kombucha, and growing and learning aside my children.  The sorting of books, cupboards, clothes, schedules, and the organizing of craft projects keep me (more) calm while I ask my child for the 13th time in three minutes to keep food at the table.

If mothering is on one side of this pendulum of balance, the other side holds my time alone, child-free time with friends, and time to learn and grow as a student of various studies.  One challenge with this balance is I require my husband's time to find my own balance, as he automatically has my time for his own home-work balance.

As my children are now awake and chasing kittens as their papa catches that last bit of sleep, I conclude with this.  My life is awesome.  I am supported and appreciated by my husband.  I am here for my children, yet also I am here for myself.  It takes a team to find balance.  I love balance and I love my team.

I love my team.

Ode to M

Ode to M in Haiku

Dancer, joker, friend,
Balancer, listener, sweet,
Provider, lover.

Push, pull, play, relax,
Grow together once again,
My beloved M.