Location, location, location.

This past weekend, Marty and I joined 200,000 other Minnesotans heading somewhere for the long Memorial Day weekend. We spent roughly five days preparing for a three day weekend. We packed clothes and food, chainsaws, a 200 hundred gallon fuel tank(don't ask), tools, a four wheeler, weed whip,  electrical supplies, plumbing supplies and an over-weight Basset named Molly. It is hard to tell who was more excited about the weekend. Marty or Molly. We pulled out on Friday night under an ominous looking cloud-cover, we arrived at our destination just before dark , we turned into a driveway that was completely underwater and a lake that had somehow risen enough in a week to cover the dock. We were home.

Then there is this: Twelve years ago Marty and I decided we would try to find a place on a lake. We started looking with an extremely limited budget in a housing market that would soon see record high prices. We decided to set a compass point and try to find something less than 2 hours from home. For an entire year we drove around on weekends looking at lake lots. We traveled into the neighboring state, we went south, north, east and west. I contacted Realtors all over the place, gave them our criteria and hoped for the best. Some of them were encouraging, most said "good luck". I wasn't fazed. Real Estate was a hobby of mine. I loved to read the ads, I looked at the houses, cabins and raw land and tried to picture myself there. I watched the fluctuation of the market and there was a time when I would have said I was pretty knowledgeable about cost vs. value. The first time I layed eyes on the property we eventually bought, all I could do was gasp. The realtor sent us out with directions, didn't even take the time to join us. It was early spring of the year, the ice had just gone off the lake. The lot was completely obscured by cat-tails and brush, the driveway was under water, there was garbage everywhere and an old trailer that had birds living in it. We had been looking for a year. It was all we could afford. Hard decisions had to be made. We signed on the dotted line.
For 12 years we have cleaned, fixed and hauled away truck loads of garbage to the local landfill. We pulled abandoned fish houses out of the lake, in total we removed 4 fish houses from the property. We have purchased permits to lay fill on the driveway, we blocked up the abandoned trailer, gutted most of the inside, built a roof over the top and a screen-porch on the front. We have chopped brush, created a lawn, removed countless snakes and ran a serious trap-line for mice. We have a sub-standard lot on an environmental lake.
In real estate there is a phrase, "location,location,location." That is where this lot shines. The lake has only 12 developed lots on the entire lake. The same people have owned these 12 lots for as long as we have been there. Three-quarters of the lake is state owned property. We have caught some good fish, the lake is big enough to water-ski, it is perfect for kayaking and canoeing. There are geese, 3 loons and this year a pair of swans. At night the sky is so dark, the stars stand out like fairy frost. I have seen some of the best Northern lights standing in the driveway. They undulate across the  night sky like wildfire.

This is what I know: In 2006 I gave up on reading real estate ads, I also gave up on the lake. I had spent 7 years side by side with Marty creating a sanctuary. I had spent many weekends there working harder than I have in my life, the reward came when I put up my feet on the porch and felt peace. From the day we signed on the dotted line, Marty and I knew that someday we would give the place to Mike. Mike was only ever there in the winter. He never once canoed or kayaked there. He ran his 4-wheeler over the trails and he helped his Dad clean, clear and build. But if ever there were a place that belonged to Mike, this was the place.

For the past 5 years the lake lot has waited for us. I would drive over mid-week and stand on the shore of the lake, I would pray for peace.The sound of the loons was the sound I couldn't shut off in my head. I fell asleep countless times on the love seat on the screen-porch letting the sun warm what I couldn't warm myself. I built campfires and spent hours starring into the flames. The tears I cried there were loud and anguished, it was the one place I knew I was alone. I didn't go on weekends and if someone else was there mid-week I avoided them.
This sub-standard lot has become what no one could have predicted. It had every reason to fail as a place to make memories but instead it has become what is was always meant to be. We ride 4-wheelers there, we launch Mikes duck boat. The grand-kids fish from the dock and jump screaming with fear from the pontoon. We build day-long campfires, play cards, read books and rest. We listen to music, take long walks, we talk about nonsense and we talk about the deep pain we are all trying to carry.
One of our daughters got engaged there, one of our daughters honeymooned there. All of our daughters have worked hard there. It is neutral territory, it's like Switzerland because it doesn't belong to any of us, it belongs to Mike.
By the time Marty and I leave this world we hope to have built a small cabin there. It is our intent to never sell. This lake place will someday go to Mikes sisters and eventually his nieces and nephew. We are going to see that a trust is formed and it will be family property for generations. The taxes and upkeep someday will be paid through the wise investments of Mike. It will be a legacy he left, that we never got to tell him about.

I have bought 2 houses in my life, I have built 1 house, I have inherited 1 house and I have bought the lake lot.
In 2006 when I couldn't make myself buy a cemetery plot I gave up reading real estate ads for good.
When Mike died I couldn't even talk about cemetery plots. I had spent the better part of my adult life reading real estate ads never knowing that a cemetery plot is real estate too. I stand in the cemeteries my Grand-parents are buried in and I think is this the place? I know where my parents have chosen, I think is that the place?  I visit the local cemeteries and hope for some kind of sign. It is still about location, location, location. There are city cemetery's and cemetery's in places you would swear the world has forgotten. I may have been able to choose for Marty or myself, I can't choose for Mike. Mike belongs everywhere. He needs to be free. I have stood in countless cemetery's trying to imagine if this is the one. I am going to leave that decision for the next generation. I can leave the lake place, tied up and secure, I know in the deepest part of me it needs to remain the family oasis. I have made many hard decisions, I have made them and tried not to look back. But  there is  a piece of ground that measures four by ten that I simply cannot buy.
Yesterday was Memorial Day. I didn't stand in a cemetery on that day. I stood at Mikes house, on Mikes land after returning from Mikes Lake. The Fallen Firefighter flag flew proudly in the yard. It was one day for the world to remember what many know you can never forget.

small rural cemetery, the hardest real estate you'll ever buy.

till next time.

I loved you then, I love you now, I'll love you always.

This afternoon my oldest Grand-daughter and I went to a wedding. The day was warm, the sun breaking in and out of the clouds, the threat of storms hanging on the horizon. We dressed up and spent the afternoon in the company of strangers. I knew two people there, I recognized others, it didn't matter. I was as comfortable as I have ever been at an event like this.
I first met the bride roughly 18 months ago. I stalked her from the window of the quilt shop where I was working. She was parked in the lot of the nearby restaurant and what I noticed was the decal she had in the rear window of her truck. I went outside and walked over and knocked on the glass of the passenger side window. She rolled the window down and I was immediately sure that I knew her. I had sat next to her at a grief seminar roughly 2 years prior. She showed no sign of recognition but she smiled and said Hi. I asked her about the decal, not the story of the why, the story of where. I wanted to know where she had ordered it, I had been thinking of something similar. She told me she couldn't remember the web-site but if she did, she would drop the information off at the quilt shop. The next day, that is exactly what she did. I think I sent her a brief thank-you but that was the end of our time together, until 4 months later when I stalked her into the local grocery store. I remember the day perfectly. I went to town and couldn't remember one single thing I came to do. I wandered around attempting to accomplish something. The town felt like a landmine. I dodged people everywhere I went. I looked like hell, I felt like hell. My last stop was the grocery store to buy food I didn't feel like eating. I parked in the lot and just sat there. I simply could not get out of the car. I saw this woman pull into the lot. She left her truck and entered the store. On that day, she was my last hope. I opened my door, went into the store, I didn't take a cart. I walked each row until I caught up with her in the potato chip isle. I called her by name and she turned to me and this is what I said, "I need a friend". She has become that, she is my friend, my confidant, she has introduced me to other amazing women. What drew us together no Mom wants to consider, what keeps us together is that bond but so much more. She has given me two of the dearest friends in my life, it is a gift I try hard to re-pay.

Then there is this:  Marty and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary 13 years ago. The kids threw us a party at the house and all of our family and friends came to celebrate with us. We ate and drank and danced the night away. It was a good memory. Before the party, in the late afternoon, the kids met us at the Catholic Church in town where we had asked the priest to bless us. We pulled up outside the church and no one was there. The priest had forgotten and gone uptown for supper. We waited for awhile, at first it seemed funny and then...not so much. Just when we had given up hope, our priest came driving down the street. He saw us waiting and jumped out of his car. He really didn't apologize, he kinda was the guy that flew by the seat of his pants. He had a rather dry sense of humor that was an acquired taste. I remember when I called him, he asked me if we wanted to "re-new" our vows. I said no. I told him we had said it once in front of God, we did not need to say it again. We walked together into the church. Father put on his vestments. The lights in the church were turned low, what started as something we wanted and he forgot became magic. We stood in front of Father Norm. Melissa, Mike, Katie and Heidi stood along the railing. Marty and I turned to each other and spoke. This is what I said:
"Twenty-five years ago we were children. We stood before God and made life promises. We spoke of forever and honor reciting the vows thinking in our young love that it would always be easy. We place high value on loyalty and I have always been honest and true. Did I understand the price that comes in trying to live up to promises made for a lifetime? No, but we have both worked very hard to grow together and not apart.
Today we stand together again. This time we are surrounded by four of the most honest and loving humans I know. They are our strength, and we are theirs. It is in their eyes and yours that I look and see God and know that for whatever reason I have been blessed.
I know now that love is not what is written about in songs. It is not what is written in books. It is not what is portrayed in the movies. It is not even close. It is waking each day with the same person willing to try to share yourself. For the rest of our lives what I will ask of you is taken from the Prayer of St. Francis. Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is despair in your life let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, only light and where there's sadness only joy. I pray that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console. To be understood, as to understand. To be loved as to love with all my soul.
I will hold your hand tightly when the sun shines in our lives and I will wrap my arms around you when the dark days come. Go where you must go and in my own way, I will follow. Say what you must say and I will respect you. Do what you need to, I will not let you down. I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you always."

This is what I know: I have been to many weddings in my life. The couple is usually  young, full of hope, completely unaware of what lies ahead. I think there is a feeling that if the day and the ceremony are perfect, somehow life will be perfect.
Last November, my Mom and Dad celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. Last week Marty's parents did the same. We come from a long line of love. Commitment is a family legacy.
I spent the entire ceremony today trying not to cry. My throat was clogged with unshed tears as was every single person in that church. My friend and her husband have been knocked down in life, they have had the highest of highs, they have endured the lowest of lows. They held tightly to each others hands and said many of the same things to each other that Marty and I said 13 years ago. My friend told her husband in her vows, "You loved me when I was Unlovable." They have earned the right to be proud of their love.
In the past five years I have hurt Marty more times and in more ways than I can tell you. I have been unlovable. When you lose a child the odds of your marriage surviving are stacked against you for a reason. When you cannot hold yourself together, there is simply no way you can help any one else. I have not been a channel of any ones peace, when Marty felt despair, I could not bring him hope. When he felt sadness, so did I. You can't console, when you need consoling. I couldn't understand him, I could barely understand myself. What I wrote in 1999 no longer applied. I have begged Marty to leave me, I have tried as hard as I can to rid myself of responsibility for anyone Else's happiness. I let go of his hand and never once wrapped my arms around him. The words I said to him on that night of magic I failed at. But here's the thing, what I failed at Marty didn't. I spend alot of time trying to carry my sadness. I write, I quilt, I read, I talk with my friends, I try so hard to find ways to honor and remember Mike. Marty goes to work and he comes home and he trys to help me hold it together. In a moment of perfect clarity I realized that what Marty does to honor and memorialize Mike is this: he loves me. I am Mike's Mom, Marty loves me, even when I am unlovable.

My Grand-daughter was so grown-up today. Somewhere in the future the wedding I will be at will be hers. I would like to think I would have something to tell her but whatever it would be would only be words. Marriage is ever-changing and all-consuming. You are not the person 5, 10, 35 or more years into it that you were on the day you married. Today I would say this, "when you find the guy that doesn't leave when you tell him to go, who when you say I hate you, he doesn't say I hate you too, when you let go of his hand when you promised you wouldn't and he just holds on tighter. Marry that guy."

I loved him then, I love him now. I will love him always.

till next time.

You don't know, what you don't know.

Last week I traveled across the lower edge of the Northern part of the state. When I entered the town of Brainerd I noticed that the demolition of the State Hospital was still in progress. I had driven by last winter and that was when I noticed they were tearing it down. I had thought it was still a functioning hospital. I was wrong. I remember thinking "if these walls could talk". The demolition had an eerie quality, for some reason it is being dismantled brick by brick.  It is many large square buildings. The windows have been removed creating a vacant eye kind of look. There are large lots where some of the buildings are gone but many more that still need to come down. For a brief moment I thought about taking a picture. I didn't. Looking at it with the naked eye was enough I didn't need to capture it forever.

Then there is this: In 1980 Marty and I bought 40 acres in Northern Minnesota. We were two kids from a moderately sized town that had a dream of an adventure. Marty was 26 and raised on a dairy farm and I was 24, always a kid from the city, we knew nothing of "frontier living". I had the knowledge of years spent camping, Marty had the knowledge of a lifetime of fixing things and building. Together we thought we could do anything. We bought raw land at the end of a dirt road in one of the poorest counties in the state. I look back on those years with a form of amazement. We "moved North" and for the next 2 decades we built a life from nothing. For the first year we lived in the north woods, Marty continued to commute to his job in the cities. I applied for and was hired as a nurse at the old State Hospital in a nearby town. I had worked in the nursing field since I was 16 but nothing and I mean nothing prepared me for this job.
When you are 24 you think you have seen and heard.....alot. You don't realize the naivety that is still a part of everything you think and do. I went through the rotation of each and every department, unit, cottage and floor in that hospital. I was assigned to the admissions unit for the mentally ill, it was 4 years of an education that absolutely nothing in my life had prepared me for. I had grown up in a home of security and love. I never had to fight for anything. My role models were balanced, productive and intelligent. I was sheltered. I thought I knew, what I really didn't know.
The admissions unit was just what it implies. It was the first stopping point for a number of personalities, many of whom showed no signs of actual mental illness. It was the start of an education of a side of life I didn't know existed. I never once felt superior, I spent four years feeling deeply humbled. It was nursing in a way I had no experience with. It was court ordered medications and 72 hour holds. It was the stripping of dignity and power from people that had never felt either dignified or powerful in their lives. It was the sheltering of the vulnerable, protecting the innocent and allowing space and independence to people that felt caged. I learned an important lesson early on and I never once forgot it. If you back someone into a corner, either physically or even mentally and you keep them there long enough. They are going to come out fighting. It is not a matter of if. It is always a matter of when.
My unit housed a large number of young people that had lost the will to live.They were between the ages of 18 and 30 and they were depleted. Exhausted of life. They were admitted and monitored. Guarded so they could do no harm. Not to others but to themselves. They were cutters and jumpers. Kids who had overdosed and tried to hang themselves. There were serious risks and others that just wanted or maybe needed to be seen by someone....anyone.They were survivors of circumstances that they could no longer endure. The trick for all of us was trying to figure out, who was who. I personally had no concept of the desire to die. I had never once in my life given thought to anything other than trying to live, as long as possible. It was an arrogance of the purest kind. When something is so foreign to you that you have no mapping point, you make up a theory, you create a bias, you decide you know what you really don't know.
Her name was beautiful. She was beautiful. She was young and vulnerable and broken. She came into our care a high risk. She spent her days curled in a fetal position, she spoke to no one. We pulled out all the stops, we cared for her to the best of our ability. She got better. She smiled and laughed. She was kind to everyone. She had a family that loved her and cared. She went to all her therapy, she took her medications. She talked the talk and she walked the walk. After months of hospitalization she earned a weekend home. I can still see her as she turned to wave good-bye as she walked off the unit. On Sunday afternoon she walked willingly and purposely into the rotating propeller of a small airplane.

This is what I know: Until 2006 I held fast to what I thought I knew, that I really didn't know. Many years had passed since my days at the state hospital, I had grown up alot but still held on to theories that were preconceived and arrogant. I would have said I couldn't understand suicide, that it left those left behind holding what couldn't be held. That is was a cowards way out. I didn't know, what I didn't know. In 2002 dear friends of ours lost a son to suicide. I knew this boy since the day he was born. I loved this boy. He was funny, out-going and happy. I tried to console them with inadequacies. Everything I said to them I am ashamed of. Everything I thought I knew that would help was me thinking I knew something. I didn't. Somewhere inside this boy he reached the limit of endurance. I think if he had tried to tell anyone what he was feeling, he would not have been able to relay the right feeling.He had reached the end of not what he should be able to take but what he really couldn't take. Maybe there aren't words for the emptiness of hope.

In 2006 Mike was killed in an accident. It started me on a journey of trying to live.My whole life of optimism and happiness was erased. I had lost someone I couldn't live without. It erased my desire to live. I went from my arrogant attitude to complete understanding with the loss of one life. People would tell me I needed to be strong for Marty and the girls. This feeling was deeper than that. It was personal, singular and entirely mine. It was an individual decision that only I could make. It transcended me as a Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister or Friend.  For months and even years I was consumed by confusion. I couldn't think beyond each day, sometimes each hour. I was in lock-down mode of a sort I had never before experienced. For two years my hands were clenched so tight I would lay in bed each night and slowly open my fingers to let go. I felt inside, shattered. Unable to believe that I could figure out how to continue to live. I wrote a letter to my dearest friend, a co-worker from my State Hospital days. I told her that I now knew what back then I couldn't even imagine. I was empty of hope. Each day I pretended. I tried for normal but I no longer remembered how to do it.  It was life running against the clock.

Last week a dear friend lost her Grand-son to suicide. She poured out for me a story of anger and loss. Sadness so profound. Confusion and disbelief. The story was hers but it may also have been her Grand-sons. I listened, I said nothing. The story I would maybe tell her is the one written above. For this boy and for my friends son, we don't know what we don't know.

At the end of everyday, it is Mike who saves me. It is the knowing in the deepest part of me that I will see him again someday. It is the knowledge that if I arrive one day, one second sooner than my destiny, Mike would be sad. Mike was all about life. What people should have told me was not so much that I needed to live for Marty and the girls but that I needed to live for Mike.

I was only ever physically in the State Hospital in Brainerd, one time. I spent four years caring for the mentally ill in another institution. The walls of those buildings contained the absolute rawness of life. I wonder sometimes where those people are. I know where they are, they are where we all are. They are living and trying and sometimes they are leaving for reasons known only to them. We don't know what we don't know.

Marty told me once when I was so low, so full of despair, empty in a way that causes desperation. When I said, "I can't do this", he didn't call anyone, he didn't hover over me, he didn't watch my every move. He knew the individualness of what I said, that the decisions we make are our own. He knows me better than anyone on the face of this earth. He said three words. "You have to."

till next time.

My heart....times two.

My laundry pile

my helpers laundry pile

It's Friday. I hit the ground running this morning at 6am. At 7:15am the front door flew open and my 2 year old grand-daughter arrived. She comes in and takes the house by storm. She is the youngest of three and has been treasured by all since the day she was born, as a result, she has the confidence that comes from security, tolerance and love. Every other Friday it is just she and I, my Grandson is with his Dad. All the ideas for the day, all the playing that is done, every conversation that is had is just she and I. I do my best to hang....but by 7:30am, I am exhausted. Two year olds may be the most relentless people on the face of the earth. Their passion for repetitive sentences is legend. You simply can NEVER answer correctly. They don't understand the period at the end of anything, frankly there isn't an end that will satisfy them. The word why, covers most of their talk and if you ignore them, they just amp up the volume. Having said that tho, this little gal, is an easy keeper. When it is just she and I she follows me around and mimics what I do. The laundry you see piled here is a case in point. She absolutely loves to fold clothes. When I hang things on the clothesline, she takes stuff out of the basket and shakes it out (in the dirt and grass) before handing it to me along with one clothespin. When we are in the house, she takes the clothes and shakes them, spins them around, makes an effort to fold them and then just balls them up and tosses them on the ground and says "there". She is up for any household chores I want to do but she has the attention span of roughly 2 minutes, so I had better be fast.

Then there is this: Occasionally we have the opportunity to have all of the grand-kids at once. They are four strong and they get  along great. When they are here together I just have to sit and watch for damage control. They chase each other around, build forts for hours. They hang off the monkey bars of the swing set, set up massive homes in the playhouse, they ride their bikes in the summer and shovel snow in the winter. If one of them gets hurt, they all immediately stop what they are doing and converge on the injured to assess the damages. The door of the house opens roughly 1000 times, and often never gets closed again. The toilet flushes....constantly. We go through juice boxes, juice bags, bananas, sandwiches, ice cream and fruit snacks. Everyone is always hungry. At the end of the day, after their parents have arrived and they have gone home. I pour a glass of wine and collapse in a chair. I thank god for every second of that day.

This is what I know: There is a saying that to have a child is to have your heart walk outside your body for the rest of your life. It is true. It may be even more true for grandchildren. I tried very hard to be a good Mom. It was all I ever wanted to be. Oh I had ideas of jobs and careers and hobbies but if I could have only chosen one thing, I would have chosen to be a Mom. I got the opportunity to parent 4 times. Four times , a miracle. I was never disappointed. I remember when the kids were little I would worry. About everything. When they were all teenagers I remember asking my Dad, "when can I stop worrying". He said, "never". He was right. But here is the thing. There is worry and then there is paralyzing fear. I understood one until Mike died,  then I became intimately familiar with the other. I am not the Grandmother I would have been if Mike were still here. Before I knew that death really could come, not just to the neighbors house, not just to someone from your old hometown, not just to someone you read about in the newspaper or on the Internet, it could come to you. It came to me. In five years, I have never answered the phone that I have not thought, "it has come again". I no longer look at my daughters, my husband, my grand-children, my parents, sisters and brothers, my son in laws, everyone I love without fear,I know that in a split second they could be gone. Fear like that changes you, it changes who you are. It makes you be that person that repeats "be careful", so many times that the grand-children look and me and say "Nannie"!!!! I can't help myself. I irrationally think if I remind them constantly, if I keep as close a vigil as I can, somehow, I can outsmart God. Never again will he take from me someone I can't live without. I have walked the edge of that cliff, I have looked over the side, it is a paralyzing fear.
In an hour I am going to school. I will pick up my two oldest grand-daughters. When we come home I will prop the ladder up so they can climb the tree. I will watch as they ride their bikes within 5 feet of the road. We'll walk down and look at the creek and on the warm days like yesterday, we will take off our shoes and socks and wade in the cold spring water. I will try as hard as I can not to say "be careful", I will try to show...no fear.
Their Mothers and their Aunt Miss and Uncle Mike are my heart, it has been walking outside my body for over 36 years. The grand-children are my heart times two. Mike lived life, full on. Seems as tho I was always saying "be careful". He chose a profession racked with danger, he took chances that needed to be taken, he did not hold back. I was and am so very proud of the choices he made and the life he lived with such passion. On the day Mike died, I wasn't worried...at all. He had gone to do something he had done a thousand times. He went to hook a trailor to his truck. It was that one second of time, that one second where nothing lined up right in the Universe. That one second where I couldn't stop what was going to be. All my worrying didn't keep him safe. He would be the first to tell me, it will be OK. He would be the first to tell me, you can't outsmart God.

                                                        No Fear
He would be the first and maybe the only person that could tell me. Let go.

till next time.