She is home.

Every year on Mother’s Day, I remember this quote from Brian Andreas at StoryPeople:

"There is no one who comes here that does not know this is a true map of the world, with you there in the center, making home for us all."

I think of it because I am pretty sure it was written about my own mother. She is the center of a true map of the world. Or at least, the map of my world.

If everything is going right, home is the place I want to be, because it’s the only place I know of where we can share in my joy. If everything is going wrong, home is the place I want to be, because it’s the only place I know of where I am safe.

As far back as I can remember, our home has been full of people. When I was a child, we had huge pig pickin’s and all our family members and friends and neighbors would come hang out in the back yard to eat and drink and relax.

When my parents split up, my mom moved in with my grandparents for a few years until she was able to buy a house of her own. Their house was a huge two-story home on a large lot with acres of woods and land. My sister, my mom, and I lived in this house with my grandparents and my Aunt Janice. My uncle, his wife, and my cousin lived in a log cabin on the land behind the house. Our neighbor, Julie, was my age, and was at our house every afternoon. My grandmother’s siblings and their families would sometimes come to visit and stay. No matter what time of the day it was, what time of the year it was, there were always people around. It was loud living, and I loved it.

My mom bought our house the summer between my third and fourth grade years. The neighborhood was full of children around our ages, and there was never a shortage of friends to play with. We had block parties for all occasions in the back yard. We pulled out card tables and computer chairs to make room for the entire family to sit during holidays. We don’t live in a big house, but somehow, there has always been enough room for everyone we love.

When I was older, all my friends gathered here. Annual birthday slumber parties were held in my bedroom, and my best friend down the street stayed here several times a week. I don’t know how my mom put up with the sounds of squealing and giggling teenage girls so often. My friends on the football team hung out here before games, energizing themselves with whatever food was in our kitchen. One of our dining room windows was missing a screen, and we would leave that window unlocked for anytime I lost my house key (basically, every day). I would come home from school and find two or three friends sitting in my living room waiting for me. We finally just started leaving the door unlocked so the cops wouldn’t get called if the neighbors saw kids climbing in through our windows.

During college, friends knew our home was always open to visitors. If someone couldn’t make it back home for a holiday, they could stay and eat with us. If we came home for a weekend and partied a little too hard, our house was the safe place where friends could crash to sleep instead of driving. One New Year’s Eve, the cops were called for a party up the street, but they showed up at our house instead because we had so many people spending the night.

When my roommates both moved in with their boys and I had nowhere else to go, I came home. And even though my mom never wanted pets, she let me come home WITH A CAT, who I had adopted during college. More recently, when my uncle had to move to Germany for work for a few years, my mom took in his Rottweiler, Summer. And really, anytime I find an animal in need of rescuing, it ends up here for a little while. I have brought into this house countless kittens, puppies, hamsters, fish, and even a bird, until we could find better options for them.

And though I will move on and out (hopefully sooner rather than later!), I know I will come back here anytime I need to feel at home. I will come back to wherever she is, my mother. Because she is home.

She is the center of the map of my life.

Happy Mother’s Day, Momma. Thank you for the safety and the noise and the open doors and the people and the love. Thank you for making it home, wherever we are. I love you!

Be young now.

i can’t imagine myself ever getting old

nope, not me

and not you either

losing teeth

colors changing

shrinking down

hunch back

skin folds

cotton mouth

and not from sex

it happens to everyone

but it can’t happen to us

we are too young

too able

to ever be ancient

but it happened to my parents

they were never old before

until they were

and today i found a wrinkle

on my own forehead

a crease in my skin

like a tiny mouth whispering

and it said time has passed

it will happen to you too

be young now

it will happen to you too

Walk beside her.

she doesn’t like twang and rhyme

but write her a song

soul words

six string heart chords

when she hears her name in a melody

it happens in that instant

she doesn’t like chains and shackles

but tell her she is worthy

lifetime material

forever goods

when she realizes she is significant

it happens in that instant

she doesn’t like diamonds and Godiva

but bring her things that matter

a first edition copy of her favorite book

a single sunflower

when she feels understood for the first time in her life

it happens in that instant

she doesn’t like to be pressured

but give her time

thinking space

a pocket of breathing air

when she feels safe

it happens in that instant

she will not be swayed

she will not be tamed

she will not be wooed

she will not be rushed

but in that instant

she will stop running

she will let you walk beside her

Nomads.

we got drunk at three on a wednesday afternoon

we flirted with the waiters

miguel, i like your eyes

chigo, let’s dance

and they stuffed us with free tequila

and we let them have our phone numbers

but we will never answer their calls

we left with some guy she met once

went back to his place

he introduced us to his roomies

and showed us the back yard fire pit

this is where the magic happens, he said

she kissed him a little

and then we waited until he went to use the bathroom

and we made our break for it

nice meeting you

we got thrown out of a club

we were dancing too hard

too many eyes on us

and she called the bouncer a douchebag

so he grabbed her by the back of her neck

dragged her to the door

kicking and screaming

we were crying in anger and laughing hysterically

and we bolted when the cops arrived

just another story to tell someday

you will be

never had leftover sick days in school

never kept one boy around for too long

never had a plan ‘cause we can’t stick to them

we are the ones who bail

the ones who disappear

the nomads of our time

like trying to make a flower keep its color

like trying to pet a stray dog who's been hurt

like trying to nail water to a tree

we are never cornered

its us against the world

runaways

Walk it off and get in the boat. [Five years, today.]

Five years. Five years since he’s been gone.

Year one, my life was falling apart. I lost my faith in just about everything and it seemed like nothing would ever be the same again. And it wouldn’t. I wrote, “People would tell me, ‘You just can't understand the way God works. He has a plan.’ And I think that's bullshit. Bad things happen to good people, and there's nothing any of us can do about it, not even God.”

Year two, the shock had worn off and I was just sad. I missed him with a dull and constant aching that never faded away. I wrote, “I don't think it gets easier like they say it does. I feel like my life has stopped in it's place, but the world keeps going around me.”

Year three, life was moving on and I felt guilty. I had stopped thinking about him every minute of every day, not because I didn’t love and miss him terribly, but because it was too painful to keep opening that wound. In quite the opposite fashion of year two, I wrote, “The sadness, it doesn’t go away. And no matter what anyone says, it does not get any easier. But I put it away and pretend it isn’t there most of the time, and I sometimes realize how much it hurts and I cry and feel like life will never be the same, and it won’t. But life, it goes on.”

Year four, I was struggling to remember all the details. After suffering such a grand loss already, it felt like the universe was rubbing salt in my wound as his voice and face faded more and more from my memory. I decided to make an oath of sorts, to him and to myself. I wrote, “I hope he knows I love him and I miss him and I think about him so, so often. In memory of you, Dad. I promise to never forget.”

Year five. Here we are. Doctors and scientists and professors say there are stages of grief. Some say five. Some say seven. I say, grief is a cycle. I have felt anger and shock and unbearable pain and guilt and peace, and I have felt each of them over and over again.

A friend of mine lost his father as well, and his mother wrote about spending time at the beach grieving. As she put it,

“I felt safe in the dark as I sat looking upward into the heavens as they overtook my sense of loneliness. I was not alone; I was being loved by God through the beauty of His creation. The song the waves played as they pushed toward the shoreline soothed me like a mother’s lullaby. I heard an unevenness in the wave song as some make a louder crack sound at times. It was here I realized what I had been saying was true, mourning comes in waves. Some waves crack harder than others, it is the motion of life. I find myself crying harder at times, sometimes less, and sometimes not at all. There is no guilt in the amount of tears and there is no set pattern. Everyone is different. Every wave is different.”

(As an aside, they should really give this woman a book deal. No one can put it into words like she can.)

In a most eloquent way, she describes the grief cycle as I have experienced it. Some moments are harder than others. The grief is constant but life is always moving. Waves come and go and the only way to cope is to ride them out.

I spent yesterday, a beautiful and perfect Sunday, on Jordan Lake. This was an impromptu fishing trip my friend’s husband came up with. We woke up nursing slight hangovers from Saturday night’s bonfire party and Chris thought it would be relaxing to spend the day fishing in the sun. We loaded up coolers and tackle boxes, put gas in the boat, and hit the lake. We joked around and cracked ourselves up and caught a total of two tree branches and nothing else. The sun started to set and we were all a little tired. We fished a little longer (still caught nothing) and in between a few bits of quiet conversation, there was only sunset and the sounds of the water lapping against the boat and the shore. I felt such peace.

As we were heading back to the dock, I told my friends what I knew. How this was the day before the anniversary of my dad’s death. How I used to come to this particular lake on this particular day to think about my dad. How I found it ironic that, one day before the anniversary, people who never knew my father decided we should spend our time on the same lake doing the same thing he loved to do. Chris said it was like a tribute to my dad, and I couldn’t agree more.

My dad was never one for tears. Even being the father of four girls didn’t soften him up in that regard. Crying was for the weak, and he could be heard telling his girls to “walk it off” or “dry it up” anytime we started the waterworks. So I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to sit on the side of the lake, crying to myself. Here is what I think he would tell me: Walk it off and get in the boat.

Life moves on. The grief never does. Both are like the waves. Some moments are harder than others. Some waves will wash over your feet like a healing touch, others will knock you to the ground and pull you under. Climb in your boat and ride them out, the good ones and the bad ones. Let friends and family and memories hold you afloat. Experience the pain and you will feel the peace that follows. “It is the motion of life.”

You are alive, so live.

I am a keeper of secrets.

People tend to tell me things.

Not just friends.

Even strangers want to show me little glimpses of their lives.

Happy memories.

Bad habits.

The shiny. The sordid.

I am a keeper of secrets.

Oh, if you only knew the things I know.

I think it has something to do with the way I read people.

I’m good at figuring out what it is you need.

If you must be surrounded by loud voices and excitement,

I will go a little crazy with you.

In the throb of the music, in the heat of the moment,

while we are dancing on top of a bar,

you will shout something to me,

something you never told anyone else before.

If you need a dark corner and shady whispers,

I will sit with you, still and silent, for as long as you want.

And I will turn my head so as to not look you in the eye.

If that’s what you need, I’ll do it.

And you will open up like a book. You will.

You will unlock the chambers in your mind,

and you will share things with me.

You will show me the hidden crawlspaces in your heart.

(Writing poems almost-daily has been a big fat FAIL so far. For me. But not for Amy Turn Sharp. She's still going strong. Still writing every day. Check her out on Facebook: A poem a day for a year. And one more linky link: I save all my most favorite things she writes to my Tumblr.)

The lasts.

There aren’t many worse things I can think of than getting old, except not having the chance to get old, maybe. But even that sometimes seems like a better alternative once people reach a certain place in their lives. And as I watch my grandparents deteriorate in front of me, I think a lot about the lasts. Because as their minds and bodies fail them, it’s hard and sad to realize that there are so many things that will never be the same again, for them and for me. So I think about the last time they said or did something and I wonder, will we ever experience that again? Or was that it?

I could blame this on the doctors who are always saying “six more months...” and “one last Christmas...” and “this summer is it...” but the truth is, I’ve been around death and the dying my entire life, so I’ve thought about these things always and often. Probably more than would be considered normal. Probably enough to be considered morbid.

I could also blame it on the fact that I work with children. Adults can get so caught up in the firsts, first smiles, first words, first steps, that we don’t think about the lasts often. But I do. I think about the lasts for children. I wonder about the last time they will crawl. And the last time they will drink from a sippy cup. And the last time they will ask for a hug from you because it can fix their world.

I could blame it on all the things in my life that ended so abruptly and left me wide-eyed and in shock. My parents separation when I was five, my father’s unexpected and deadly heart attack, friends that suddenly moved away. You might say that I formed a habit of looking back on the lasts in life. The last Christmas we spent together, all in the same house. The last Duke game I watched with my dad. The last time I snuggled up next to a particularly handsome boy before he left me at the end of the summer for bigger and better things.

I think about the lasts.

The other day, my grandfather told the new caregiver that he didn’t mind her being around as long as she didn’t try to take his keys. He couldn’t stand by as someone told him he couldn’t drive. When he says things like this, it breaks my heart a little bit and makes me laugh at the same time. Because, really grandaddy? You cannot see. You cannot hear. You can barely walk. Sometimes, you think that branch hanging from the tree outside is a goat standing in our yard, and sometimes you see the tall grass at the top of the hill swaying and you swear there are people standing up there, spying on you. Driving a motor vehicle? Out of the question. And I know it’s tough, this loss of independence. And I know the word tough is the biggest understatement of the century.

As I’m having this one-sided conversation in my head, I start wondering. I wonder when the last time he drove was. And I wonder where he went. I’m sure it was somewhere my grandmother ordered him to go. The drug store? Grocery shopping? McDonalds for a chicken sandwich and some apple pies? I wonder how long it took him to get into the car. It takes about three minutes just for him to fall into the passenger seat, so I’m sure getting ready to drive, the folding of legs under the steering column, finding and buckling of the seatbelt, searching for the ignition, it was probably an exhausting length of time. I wonder if he swerved as he drove toward his destination. I wonder if he slid into the wrong lane at some point, causing some other poor soul’s heart to leap a little. I wonder if they yelled at him, cursed at him, shouted gramps-get-off-the-road-you-old-bastard like I sometimes do when I’m behind the anonymous curtain that is my windshield. Did he remember where he was going the entire time, or did he get a little lost, like the time he went out for groceries and I found him driving up and down a new street on the other side of town three hours later? And did he know, somewhere deep inside, that this would be the last time he would sit behind the wheel of a car? Or did he hope for one more chance, even though driving now scared him, did he want one more taste of what life was like before? I wonder.

About all the smallest things, I wonder.

I think about all our trips to the old Hyco house, and I wonder about the last time we took the boat out on the lake. Was it just a short little trip before lunch? Did we have time to pull out the skis and knee board? Did we park near the power plant and jump from the edge of the boat into that warm water, and did he jump in with us? Or was he already too old, too fragile by that point?

When was the last time he made love to my grandmother? I hope they were already creaky and wrinkled, ancient and still wanting each other. I wonder if they were careful not to hurt each other, gentle and aware, like they were young again. I wonder if he held her a little closer, if he kissed her a little more deeply, if it even crossed his mind that this would be their last rendezvous.

The last time he mowed his own yard before my mother took over. The last day he lived without depending on a hundred different little pills to keep him breathing and moving. When was the last time he danced down the hallway like he always used to do? The last time he took a long flight of stairs? The last time he walked any distance at all without stumbling? I wonder what the last coherent and meaningful sentence he said was, or maybe, hopefully, what it will be. I think about the last time he will say my name, the last time he will recognize my face. And I wonder, will I know? Will I recognize the significance of this seemingly mundane occurrence? Will I know to treasure it, to thank God for one last time? Or will it slip by, unnoticed?

Will it leave me wondering, like every single other last did?