The past week or so, a blog that I like to follow, Momastery (http://momastery.com),
has been collecting other blog posts
. . . with people writing about their messy, brutiful, life. I actually
submitted the post I wrote for Christmas to be shared with others. I had not
written something just for it. But it did get me thinking about what I would write about my own life . . . and I realized at that time I had nothing to write.
Then yesterday, I opened my emails. LinkedIn suggested that
I connect with Chris, and that keeping in touch with contacts can be valuable
in my job search. This has happened at least once before. The first time, I
cried about it. I mean, not once while he was alive, did it suggest that I
connect with Chris. Why would it do it now? Yesterday, I took the opposite
approach . . . I laughed. I had all sorts of crazy thoughts dancing around in
my head. Even shared on facebook about it . . . “I figure I only need to be really concerned if LinkedIn tells me he has been looking at my profile." As one
friend suggested, maybe it was Chris’s way of letting me know he was here. Sort
of a way for him to say “hi.”
Total side bar here . . . I can admit that I have questioned
my faith for years. Is there a God? Is there a Heaven? What happens when we
die? Are there Angels? Is there a parallel spirit world where our loved ones
are looking out for us here on earth? Is this all there is? Really, all the
same questions I think humans have asked for millennium, and given time, each
person comes to their own conclusion. It is, after all, extremely personal. I
can tell you now, I do not have all the answers. (No one really does). What I
can write, is that in the last 17 months, my faith has surprisingly grown
stronger. I do believe there is a Heaven, and that I will see Chris and other
loved ones when we all get there. I also believe that our loved ones do keep an
eye on us, and from time to time, let us know that they love us.
Yesterday was just one of those days. It began with the
email, and moved on throughout the day. Little things, like finding a card that
he had given me, that was tucked away in a random corner. Realizing that there
are certain things of his that I have yet to move. You know how you can be
blind to something that is right there in front of you, because it has just
always been there? It topped itself at the end of the day, with a song.
For those that know me, I pretty much have music on in my
house all day, every day. We don’t have a tv on the main floor, so to keep
myself company while working, cleaning, sleeping, etc, I put music on the
stereo. Most times, I have the radio on. When the girls come home they usually
put on an iPod and create playlists that they want to listen to. When the
oldest gets home, he likes to listen to classical music, or NPR.
When the girls came home from school yesterday, they decided
they didn’t want to listen to the radio. So MK put on the iPod, and decided we
needed to listen to Sweet Caroline. Now this song has an incredible amount of
memories associated with it for me. Not all of which I have ever shared with my
children. I recall times with my family and friends out boating in the summer
when I hear this song. I can feel the wind in my hair as we raced along the
water. I can recall nights in college when friends would sing along with the
song . . . whether people thought it was a great song, or a corny song, there
is something about it that you just sing along. As an adult, I now have fond
thoughts of giggling, silly dancing, and singing this song with my children. So
we began our afternoon with this song. I soon realized, that MK had set up the
iPod to play the songs in alphabetical order beginning with Sweet Caroline. So
we had quite the mixture of songs as we went about the rest of the afternoon.
Fast forward to the night. I had driven to dinner, dance, baseball,
and back again. Since we were rushing to get everywhere on time, no one took
the time to turn off the music. So it just continued to play for the rest of
the evening, in alphabetical order by song, and it was still playing at 10:00 last
night when the children were going to bed after the baseball game. Not really
paying attention to it, other than to note that it was still playing, I sat
down at the computer to get some work done.
Part of my work last night included trying to narrow down
thousands of pictures of my 5th grader to just three pictures to be
used by the school for a special event. As I went from infant to now, there
were too many thoughts and memories jumbled in my mind. There is a distinct
break in the pictures . . . the pictures taken while Chris was alive, and
pictures taken after his death. Even though he isn’t in all the pictures from
when he was alive, his presence is felt in the pictures, and is poignantly
missing from those after November. I confidently (ha!) narrowed my options to
10 pictures, and decided I would narrow it down further in the morning. It was
after all close to midnight, and I really should try to get to sleep.
It was while I was beginning to stand after shutting down the computer, that
the song playing caught my ear. What the World Needs Now is Love. Have you ever
had a moment when a memory paralyzes you? I was suddenly back in time, taking
ballroom dancing lessons with Chris in California. We wanted to have a waltz be
our first dance at our wedding reception, so we took lessons to make sure we
didn’t look completely foolish. We didn’t have the song that we wanted with us,
so the dance instructor had us practice to this song. I lost count of how many
times we listened to this song. And even though we used a different song for
our first dance, this song has a wealth of meaning. I felt as if I froze for a
lifetime, when in reality it was probably only a heartbeat. I was going to turn
off the music, because it was just really too much for one day. But as I moved
to the stereo to turn it off, I thought to myself, no, that is not what we do
when this song comes on. When this song plays, it is time to waltz! And so I
did. And I cried. Then I laughed. Because I’m pretty sure I was not keeping
time to the music, but Chris always did. And so as I cried, and laughed, and sang
along to the music to myself, I danced as another song suggests, as if no one
is watching. Yet, I knew, as the signs had been there all day, I wasn’t really alone.
