In the Margins--Words of L. Phillips Thune

First November

     Everyone experiences first days:  first birthday, first day as boyfriend and girlfriend, first day as a ballerina, first day as a teacher or a mother or a widow or a widower.  For my family, we're in our first days and months of life without a daughter and sister. 
     The holiday season has been a joyful time for us.  We've made trips to pumpkin farms, or when time didn't allow, the grocery store, to pick out just the right shape for daddy to carve.  Peter and the girls were very good sports to smile through my stress of taking on Martha Stewart every Thanksgiving.  I've collected recipes, glazed turkeys, and designed menus--and still cut open the turkey to reveal a blood-raw interior.  Charlie Brown was our seasonal guest...with his search for "The Great Pumpkin" and then that lovely, haunting melody..."Christmastime is here..." symbolizing the season for me, all warmth and love and family.
     But this was still my first Thanksgiving without Annie.  I looked out into the morning, thinking, "so this is how it looks--still beautiful":

It was so quiet...looking like a storybook fall--or perhaps one imagined by Monet:
 
                                
...and like that mysterious train appears in "Polar Express," a fire truck, soundless and red, went right past me...like on the day she left.  Minutes later, an ambulance turned out of the cul-de-sac three houses to my right and went, away from me, out of the neighborhood, also without a sound...like the day she left.  

     It felt warm and comfortable as I walked around the house, sharing the morning any way that Annie wanted to. In that uncertain light on that certain morning all my own, I was able to give thanks for the depth of my grief that mirrors the depth of my love, our family's love, for Andreanna. 

 
     Then it was time to get packed and take a portable Thanksgiving to Dallas; Tiera was waiting.

Multiplying Ideas

     Just like rabbits, my dabbling with writing, refining a process, creating a plan, is begetting dozens more ideas and plans yet I have only the same 24-hour period in which to fit them all, reminding me of how I managed to fit a family of seven, with luggage, goodie bags, pillows, blankets, dolls and/or stuffed animals, cooler with food and drinks, grocery bags with snacks, paper towels and plates and plastic silverware and cups, my books, magazines, sewing (maybe)--oh, and whatever Peter wanted to bring--into one Dodge Caravan...you get the picture.
     As I see myself torn between being the eternal mother and becoming an internal writer, doing the research, spending more and more time alone, doing the work of writing is like finding holy water--calming, cleansing, cooling.  Two of my writing mentors/coaches, Ron Seybold and Saundra Goldman, have been guiding the way with encouragement and recommendations for study, for growing those bunny ideas.  My mailbox now becomes like Santa's burgeoning sack of toys as I expect new literary magazines and books and newsletters to arrive.  Reading begets thinking begets dreaming begets writing needs more reading wants more writing...
     Here's a jewel I found today, in a literary magazine, PMS poemmemoirstory. Actually, it feels like it found me, this poem written by the wonderful Lucille Clifton:
 
ALABAMA

i think about you
almost as much as you
think about me

oh memory
oh four little girls

i had four daughters
once     they are leaving
one by one

oh memory
oh time
oh all my

daughters
________________________________________

What treasures the world has been hiding...that there are others out there feeling just like me.  Thank you, Ms. Clifton.
As always, to my girls:  Mwah!

 

Three Sunday Miracles or "What I did after I saw 'The Pit Boss' and 500 Pit Bulls"

     As perhaps the only person on the planet who has been severely bitten by a dog that's known for saving lives and looking great wearing a mini-keg, it was a bold and brave move I made to support my daughter, Asha, and her organization, EmanciPet, at an event today that attracted hundreds of pit bulls. Although my brain's cell memory refuses to release the sensation of a St. Bernard's teeth chomping into my thigh, today I wasn't at all afraid of the wonderful, well-behaved, and loved dogs of various kinds but mostly pit bulls. I learned about "The Pit Boss" and his rescue efforts, the generosity of "Give Realty, Inc.," and most importantly, how to pet any dog without losing a hand.  My own Miss Ellie, a 50-pound, Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, would have had a fun day had I actually been brave enough to take her and trust that she'd not get that "vibe" that turns her into" Miss Hyde."  It was a lovely afternoon in the sun.

          
            
     The miracle?  Annie, our daughter and sister to Asha and Halla, loved all dogs--she really loved pit bulls.  As her dad and I walked around the park, we felt how much Annie would enjoy the day, too.  Then, the band played "Brown-Eyed Girl," the Van Morrison song that was performed at the end of Annie's memorial service a few months ago.  After  leaving the park, Peter and I went to visit Annie at Lou Neff Point on Lady Byrd Lake. 
 

 (Memorial stone given by Peter's co-workers at Flextronics)

     As we sat there, I realized how glad I was that a commemorative stone near hers had my dad's name, Andrew, on it--as if she weren't alone; he had died just months before she was born twenty-five years ago. Then we found other stones with our names "Peter" and "Linda" and even my family name, "Phillips," all within a small radius around Annie.   For a few moments, we were overcome.  Someone was sitting behind us; we were trying not to disturb him as he worked on a piece of jewelry.  When he packed up to leave, I said, "Oh, you don't have to go...I really am done crying!"  The cyclist-jeweler smiled and assured me he was leaving anyway; we weren't a bother at all.  I proceeded to tell him about our Annie and the "Andrew" stone nearby.  He said, "That's my name--Andrew."  Miracle #2.  
     After I OMG'd him for a while and introduced Peter, I asked about his jewelry, told him how we have five daughters that I love to shop for, and one especially (Asha!) loves jewelry quite a bit, did he have a website, etc.  He said he wanted to show me a piece he was working on; he looked for it a long time; we tried to help, and just about the time we were giving up, he found it: a lovely pendant loop of yellow-sand-colored agate with sparkling bits inside the loop and a gold wire wrapped in and around it all, holding the agate safely inside its frail-looking golden shimmer. I told him it was really beautiful.  Andrew then said that it could be a reminder of the day.  As I reached out to give it back to him, he said, "It's yours."  The lovingkindness of strangers...
     Another young man had arrived at the Point and overheard some of what had occurred.  As he was leaving (Peter and I were now alone, sitting on our bench), he looked at Annie's stone and read her name aloud.  I told him we called her Annie; she just died at Easter.  He said he felt stongly that she was our daughter when he first arrived and that he'd say a prayer for us.  I reached out to shake his hand and told him our names.  He said his name was "Phil."  I said, OMG--that's almost my middle name--Phillips.  I told him about my dad, Andrew, and the Andrew stone and our new friend, Andrew...that it was all so special.  He then told us, with sincerity and gentleness, "I hope you can know that this is an affirmation that Annie is in a better place and that she's well."  He smiled and walked away. Miracle #3.  Even though we started to cry again, we were crying because it was true.

 

      The miracle isn't in the coincidence of these chance meetings or songs or sights hapening in one hour on one day...the miracle is the love that can fill the air when we let it and the lives that love connects every moment of every day until they can touch each other again forever.

         We love you, Andreanna.  Mwah!

        For Andrew and Phil and, as always, the girls

Family Ties

     I have often looked at my girls and thought how amazing it must be to have lived on one street most of your life--to have a "hometown."  As a child of the Army, I don't remember a home surrounded by extended family members; I remember temporary housing on military bases--even though they felt like home at the time. Peter and I moved to Texas when our own children were eight, six, four, and two.  The oldest remember their birthplace, Colorado, and still feel a strong connection to the Springs and the mountains, their blurred memories of Garden of the Gods and Cheyenne Mountain as familiar as a warm favorite sweater that has been stored away because it's no longer cold enough.  But the younger ones don't remember the street on which we lived in our first house on Aspen Glen Lane (a sweet harbinger when the lot was for sale since Peter and I were married outside in an aspen grove).  The fifth baby was born in Texas--with all her sisters and mom and dad and neighbors growing with her.
    I've wondered how special it must feel to have a group of people that are your own...a family that forms a net in which you can forever fall.  Recently, a beautiful surprise arrived in my mailbox--a reminder of the people to which I belong:
 
 My paternal grandmother stands in front of seven of her ten children after my grandfather's funeral.  My daddy, Andrew, is in the Army uniform in the far back.  I'm told my grandmother was part Cherokee...a whole other history to explore.  I know my Aunt Irene, on the far right, became like a mother to me in the future beyond this photograph. To her right, my Aunts Arnetha and Louise, came to my wedding in the mountains those decades later.
  
 I've yet to learn more about my other aunts and uncles:  my father is on the lower left (isn't that a smile from heaven?); my Uncle Wilbert is on the lower right...they're so beautfiful.  I remember visiting my cousin, Evelyn, Wilbert's daughter.  Since I was nearly an only child, seeing Evelyn was like having a sister for a few days; Uncle Wilbert is my dad's brother I remember most; he once called me "one of his girls"--a long time ago.  
      I'm honored and proud and blessed to realize that I do belong to part of someone as I hope my children feel blessed to belong to part of me.  And like looking in a mirror within a mirror within a mirror, we can go backwards--and perhaps even forwards--through hundreds and hundreds of hearts that beat within my chest at this very moment.   I love you all.

For Wilbert and for Andrew, my father and light in the dark.
      
Mwah.