CHAPTER 1
Shaping Memories
This is what I want to say. My son died four months ago,two weeks after my mother died. Two deaths: both suddenand unexpected, yet fought and feared countless times. I havelived with loss and I have lived with gain, but this time is likeno other.
If I was a world in orbit it would be as if the continent of mymother and the ocean of my son had been removed like giantcones taking all my gravity and leaving me teetering on theedges of my emptiness.
If I was ever whole, in a pretty dress, soft, with a little makeup,and moving freely among people with a smile that wanted toshow delight, now I am a line of India ink. I am a black linethat traces the back of my head, down my spine to my heels.I am like a computer image, and there is only white, endlessspace surrounding me.
After the first wave of grief, I remember lying on my bedand experiencing utter freedom from fear, that once constantcompanion. It didn't last very long, but it is a place I canrevisit, a God moment, a window into how He wants me tolive. Lately I have noticed that embarrassment is just a luxuryemotion now that I have been laid bare by profound loss.
A couple of months ago when I was still spending most of mydays in bed, I found I was grateful for the smallness of the spacewhere I lay flattened, immobilized. What must they experience,those whose families are torn from them by genocide, war anddisaster, those who radically suffer, fleeing across newsprintwith nowhere to rest but in the paper image? I could rest onclean sheets in a house I owned where everything was familiar,but inexpressibly altered, alien. That small space held me like ahammock for a burn victim. Maybe only my eyes were alivejust so they could stream with tears, then stare at a world I nolonger knew. Stunned, I'm still stunned, but the inner vibrationwas more noticeable in the earlier weeks. Today I need to bevery still to feel it.
On Palm Sunday I missed the shiny, green palm fronds.A lifetime ago in a different world I wrote a poem aboutpalm fronds and at least one about Easter. I have been manythings, worn many hats. Now I have no goals left. The futurehas no relevance for me, only heaven. There are moments ofgreat freedom. I enjoy simple pleasures. But there is the eversilent return to an oscillating pool of memories that measuresloneliness by eons.
My story, my world, is all I know and that only in glimpses as ifby an onlooker. It is "now" that I want to talk about, but thereare shaping memories.
My father's father died two weeks before I was born. Thatsort of placed me in time, a story to tell, a defining momentthat was to prefigure my father's death three weeks beforemy own daughter was born. Six weeks later she nearly diedof pneumonia. There seemed to be many deaths as I grew up.I had to sit still with the grownups, all of us in stiff-backedchairs, the only warmth coming from a stream of illuminateddust. The air is thin and musty smelling, like cedar and oldbrocade through that key hole to my past. My first ambitionwas to be a clown, then an astronomer, an opera singer,philosopher, and last a poet. On and on, fast forward to 1956,Christmas vacation our senior year of high school, the rip tidethat drowned my best friend and washed me to shore; we were18. Life as I knew it came to end there on that wet, reekingsand. Then followed debutante balls and drinking, marriage andprecious babies, miscarriage, the prison of anorexia, depression,hospital, divorce, former husband murdered, coming to knowGod, or to know at last that He knew me and loved me.
If I am me sitting in a room on a chair at a table where I cansee my body, I am aware that starting from the middle of myforehead upwards in an arc as far as my right arm can sweep,there is a void stretching to the end of time, as if only a portionof me is grounded in the place where everyone else is living.I can see the place, but my remnant body seems filled withNovocaine, numb as wood. I want to tell my son Clax's storybecause he was extraordinary. We were alike in so many ways.We shared not only a creative spirit but also similar heartaches.Yet uniquely he knew rapture and he suffered. He was so brave,valiant, a knight errant, full of love that longed for a way out.But I am too pressed down and stunned to move beyond thetiny part of me that is left in the present moment.
I think it was after missing the palm fronds in church that theimage came to me—a suspension bridge of wooden slats andrope stretched between two worlds. I swayed wildly with onlythe handrails to keep me upright. I needed this image to getmy bearings, to find things I could hold onto now that I wasmore or less out of bed and functioning as an ink black line ofa person.
With everything changed I came to be certain of only twothings in my seeing, breathing, teetering self: the love that mydaughter and I share, and my relationship with God. Here inthese two certainties my reality resides. It is enough.
CHAPTER 2
My Handrails
In my bedroom one night, maybe early April, I picked upour little cat, Dandy and cradled him. He's a frail, older cat.How I longed for God to cradle me. I knelt by my bed andprayed. The anguish was so great that I got up and sat on thecedar chest at the end of my bed. It is on top of this chestthat I keep the box of Clax's ashes. I placed my hands on thebox's deep blue velvet cover and through my open door sawhis empty bedroom at the end of the hall. As I was crying fromevery cell in my body, there came a peace. It wasn't gradual, yetthe suddenness didn't startle. Though I soon thought of gettingup, I knew I needed to inhabit this space. Holy God, otherthan I, gave me the gift of consolation. Now I have anotherplace to revisit that is more real than writing. A meeting withthe Father who met my heart's desire and cradled me.
The image of the suspension bridge began to show me that thehandrails were made of many things. They were not just ropes,but palm fronds, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, wearingsomething red on Pentecost, the colors of the Church calendar,green and purple and red and white, confession together ina setting of worship. Part of the grace has been to challengeand plumb my own resources for staying close to God. Him Iurgently, constantly need and long for, knowing that He is mylodestar.
CHAPTER 3
An Open Door
I want to express myself because my core life isGod-breathed. As I express, new life breath is given in arhythm known to God. At times, though, long times, I am asif under water, holding that breath. I become a moist, emptygourd while my interior runs away, trying to make a break forit.
Now let me begin to tell you about the core tragedy thatdefined my early life and how God, in his mercy, redeemed it29 years later. What happened to me will hopefully make senseof all that I have to say to you. It was December 29, 1956: mybest friend and I were 18 years old. On a lark one afternoonwe went to Half Moon Bay in my convertible. On the beachthe shallows stretched out like city blocks of ankle-deep water.We waded far out. She suggested we go back, but I said, "Let'sstay just a little longer." All of a sudden, the floor of sanddisappeared from beneath our feet. We were sucked out andunder, aware only of a wall of water. Giant, monstrous wavesrose to bury us. They even blocked out the sky. Then beganthe battle to surface for air before the next wave, over andover. We became separated. All I could do was pray the Lord'sPrayer again and again. Somehow I was thrown onto thebeach and survived, but her body was never found. My parentsand hers were told about the accident and that the girl whosurvived was tall and thin with dark brown hair. This describedboth of us. My Father raced to the medical office where I'dbeen taken and found me. I only had sand in my lungs anda few broken ribs. Later, back home, her parents came to ourhouse. How I dreaded their first sight of me, revealing thefull horror of which tall, thin girl lived. Our family physiciangave me a hypodermic shot. The next day my parents keptthe newspapers from me, because the tragedy was front-pageheadlines. My mother knew that the favorite hangout for myage group was a local diner, so she took me there to lunch.My dear mother stood out like a rose among cabbages. When Iopened my hamburger, I saw a fly grilled onto the meat. I feltso sad for my mother. She had tried to do a happy thing forme in a place that was so out of context for her. Looking backit appears that the fly might have symbolized Beelzebul, Lordof the Flies, evil that perhaps had it's moment but would bevanquished in God's own time.
Survivor's guilt had not yet become a phrase or concept, butI lived it nearly to my own death, haunted by the "why" ofit and the date "29." The riptide was so terrifying and thesurvivor's guilt so all-consuming that I spent the next quartercentury-plus constructing a persona to bear my name. My"me" had drowned with my friend and was laying somewhereat the bottom of the sea.
Twenty-nine years after that tragedy, in 1985, God entered mymemory of surviving the drowning accident and said to me,"This is why, because I love you." Immediately I put on myseat belt for the very first time, because I sensed that somehowI was precious. I was to think about this moment and relive itfor the rest of my life. I didn't understand why I survived andwasn't even thinking about that accident, but I recognized itwas God who knew all these years how my very soul had beencrying out, "Why!" and He answered me. I was filled withincomprehensible love and peace. I was also assured that myfriend who died was alive and with God.
This happened while driving my daughter through thePresidio on the way to shop for school supplies. As we arrivedI experienced an ethereal lightness and yet a profound love foreveryone I saw. I wanted to hug them and tell them how muchthey were loved. Restrained only by convention I continuedwith our shopping. At each store the bill was $2.90 or $29.29and on and on till I laughed inside. You see, for all those yearsthe number date of the drowning accident had held mehostage, like a magic spell or curse. I was now set free withgreat, yet gentle humor.
In the car with my daughter, from that moment on, Heavencame to live in me, extracting the poison of that memory,though I would never forget.
It wasn't until this writing that I realized the interval betweenthe drowning accident in 1956 and the moment when Godspoke to me in 1985 was 29 years. February 3, 1985 Godspoke of his love for me. Thirteen years later—on the very sameday, February 3, 1998—my beloved son died of an overdoseof heroin. Thirteen years separated two dramatically differentmoments. What is God saying with such precision? I can onlyacknowledge and retreat to the foggy, reverberating, teeteringfragment of solid ground on which I can lay my half head.
And now only a few months from his death comes a call, akaleo from within my church community, to write of myexperience with God. And this just when my own deathlooked like the best thing on the horizon for me, to be finishedwith it all. Part of how I defined "call" in the Kaleo Group wasthis: It is the door through which we find Christ. We can come in andout because we have a new sense of home. My mind can still comeup with this stuff. It sounds good, but I can't get up from thismisty lowland. I find here the paradoxes of my being: to stayhidden or to be the center of attention, to be loved or to love,to die and be done or to soar ecstatically. One day a few weeksago I began praying and I could hear the familiar, phony ring.I just asked God to help me speak honestly, simply. And in thebreath of my asking was His reply, the gracious image of anopen door.
CHAPTER 4
Swaying to the Dirgeof Brokenness
The love for my children was a gift to be unwrapped atbirth, anticipated with wondrous expectation. There is thestaggering separateness of human babies already loved morethan my own life; yet it is only utter infatuation, the first stagesof love, compared to what it becomes. As I write, this lovefor them seems identical, the identical twin of my ongoingrelationship with God. But the solid ground of this reality isprofoundly invisible, so vast, so near, the manifold ways Youhave touched me, Father, deep in the rooms of my interior.
As I slowly emerge from paralyzing grief I see my identitycrisis as Mother, believer, ink black line swaying to the dirgeof brokenness. I discover that I do not want information orattempts to answer why Clax died. God has shown me that Iam His and He is mine. This is all I need to know. God fulfillsme.
Several months before Clax died and as his addiction deepened,I began to sleep with my Bible always next to my body underthe covers. I expected no magic, I just needed it touching me.After he died I stopped sleeping with it, that very night. I don'tknow why, perhaps because my hope died too.
CHAPTER 5
Bound withCords of Love
For a long time after Clax died I just didn't know howto pray. All the people I used to pray for fell out of mymind. I just cried. In a while, I relied on the prayers and versesI knew by heart. They were among my first handrails. I prayedthem over and over again as though I wanted to fasten myselfto God. They were my rope. Maybe there were a dozen ofthem that I prayed in silence and far from perfectly. Othersdribbled in by drops, living water. They protected me fromthe onslaught of grief 's intractable pain. I can see that what Ithought was my own rope was actually God binding me toHimself with the cords of His love.
So much is lost to me from the first days. My mind movesover the contours of what I can remember. Tomorrowis of no importance. The past fills a God room in my heart.It's contained there, I don't have to worry about losing it. Iexperience this moment, bound to the Father on that bridge ina freeze frame walk, holding tight to the handrails. All I knowis that I need help. I never want to be away from God in thisradical present. I want to blanket myself with Him in bed, inthe kitchen, in the car, the market, the garden. At times, evenin my garden there is so much to be aware of that I retreatbehind my eyelids, in my God blanket, and listen. With closedeyes there is still so much to see. Hearing becomes the onlysense I can bear, the birds, the rustling trees, even the silence ofthe sunshine. God babies me.
I have had great pain in my shoulders and neck and headachesduring these past months. I don't hate the pain. It gives menatural limitations. It keeps me in the present where I find Godnursing me. So many images of Him, but how can a single onedescribe God, Christ, my Savior, my nurse, my comforter, mypeace. These names help me to see what He is doing and totaste the intimacy.
I still experience boundless grief. Even that is a gift becauseultimately I have nowhere to turn but to the person ofmy eternal Father who is always here in the moment. Thisintimacy waits for me, embraces me as I fall into His arms. Myburden is not separate, it's a part of me. I bring all my weightand emptiness. He is the only one strong enough to hold me.
The paramedics had cut Clax's blue shirt off so they could tryto revive him. I guess it was the coroner who cut off his pantsand removed his socks for the autopsy. They were just rags withurine and vomit on them. After they were returned to me Iwashed them and have laid them in a dresser drawer on top ofhis christening gown.
I was driven by the dear wife of my cousin to the AlamedaCoroner's Office. I was touched and surprised that my Berkeleypastor from several years ago was there waiting for me. I haveno recollection of how I got from the car to the sterile office.I came to identify Claxton but I was only shown a Polaroidof him that had been taken moments before we arrived. Inthe photo he was as he had been found. The autopsy had notyet happened. The officer wouldn't let me see him or keepthe picture. I held it hard against my face and begged, pleadedwith him to take another picture and let me have this one. Hesaid, "No." I sensed that Clax was right in the next room andall I had to do was charge past the officer and push open thedoor. The fierce mother lion who had once sent Scotland Yardrunning from our door in years past had been felled.
