Monica

My friend Monica died today. I didn't know how serious her condition was.

She was my childhood friend, we went to church together and junior high and high school. She was always smiling. She taught me how to set the volleyball, and she was really good at it, smooth as can be.

I remember kids in junior high being mean to her. I know their names, they're on facebook. I want to write them now and chew them out. I don't care if you were 12, you were mean, and she never gave it back to you. She was kind, she was happy. She was probably happier than they were. I'm mad at them today. I'm mad that they get to be parents when she doesn't.

I 'm crying that she had to leave her babies. She wrote me last year after Otto that she had lost a little girl, and when I asked her what happened, she said it was because of cancer. And being in the state I was, I didn't look into further, just looked at the picture of she and her husband and little boy and thought she looked so happy. She lost her little girl, and now she had to leave her family.

Already having a day of "what does it all mean?", this pushes it further. Her little boy's name is Kai. I have another friend who's little boy died when he was 10, and his name was Cai also. I know someone who feels the pain of never meeting her mother, who gave her up for adoption, and now in her 40's she feels this so deeply. And she feels my pain, the pain of losing my son, my little one.

I feel like we are just here, breathing, and that's all I know. All I know is to breathe and feel the earth, and I feel something of love in that, something of God, but are we here just to be? Like the grass? Like the trees? And then to die? Am I making it so much more complicated than that? It is so hard to leave love. And I know, love never dies, love always is, but the act of giving love is not the same, the act of receiving, is not as easy.

My friend, I send you love, I send you peace, you are so brave. I send love to your son, to your husband who is being so brave right now. I send him so many angels to hold him up.

And I wish you joy in the moments when you finally get to hold your baby girl, and be with her as spirits together, in pure love. I love you.

Flowers

There is a plant outside that I put in the ground last year, and I waited a little too long to plant it and it kind of shriveled, and didn't do too well through the summer and then REALLy didn't look good with all the frost this winter. It died. It looked thoroughly dead.

It was a clematis, a pretty climbing vine, and I was bummed because it was twenty bucks and I wanted to see it bloom on the trellis.

And this spring, without us even noticing, it was green and climbing up the pole, it had come back, regenerated.

So nice to get a surprise, a good surprise. Its broad pink flowers are all over the place now. Sometimes things grow better when you don't obsess over them.

There are second chances and there is new life. And you never know where it will pop up, and you can't predict it, or expect it really.

That plant is full of good future stories for us.

And so, now, after 12 weeks, I can finally include our little Lima Bean in this blog. It's been hard to not write about her ( I call her her because I need a personal name, not it, and who knows?) so I just haven't written much.

We have a new baby growing, due around Thanksgiving. I feel Otto and I feel her, I take walks with two invisible children. They are always with me. I weep for the loss of Otto, I celebrate little fingers and toes growing, I talk to them both. I walk the fine balance of life.