How to Lose Your Faith, Or Find It

Many of you know that I started this blog after Kate died. This will be my last post on here.

Today I sat in a room full of chairs, across from a counselor, answering questions about why I need help.  And as I spoke, I heard my voice saying all the answers and I felt my body and I saw myself clearly for the first time in a long time.

We discussed some dates and she said, so you feel worse around the anniversary.  And I knew that was true.

She didn't die in March, but March is an anniversary of sorts.  Two years ago, my sister-in-law Pamela, Kate and I drove out to a clinic in Indiana.   By that point, Kate could walk but a few feet at a time due to intense pain, she weighed only 90 pounds, couldn't control her bodily functions and had an unnatural thirst that was never quenched.
She asked me to drive her out to a place that had promised to treat the cancer in her lungs, while claiming that her pain was caused by a broken tailbone, not the cancer that the recent MRI had shown spreading throughout her pelvis and femur.
Then when I refused,

"You don't want to drive me because you want me to die."

~~~~~
Probably wondering why I'm writing these deep personal things.   Out there into some place, maybe I can try to make sense of loss.  Even though loss doesn't make sense.

~~~~~

So, we drove out to Indiana, in the snow, in fear, trepidation...while she just got worse.  And she wanted me to leave her out there in the hands of people who were charging thousands of dollars to shoot I still-don't-know-what into her veins.
Within two weeks of returning home, she went into the hospital and was told affirmatively that the cancer was throughout her entire body, brain, legs, lungs, hips...


But those months, weeks, days, minutes that she wouldn't leave the house except to go to a clinic pumping poison into her body  haunt me everyday.  Even though I know there was nothing I could do to change the outcome, I still wonder if only...then maybe.

And those thoughts and those words, "because you want me to die" can eat a person up inside.
I am empty.
I look into the mirror and I don't know who I am.
 I push away people that I love, because why would anyone love someone who could make her mother think that she wanted her to die.

Since March of two years ago, I've wondered who I am.  Where I am going and I wonder, did I want her to die.

And rationally, I know she didn't really think that.  But I will always wonder...
There were questions about how spirituality fitted into my life, but I lost my faith a long time ago.



I felt it today though.  As though there may be light, there may be a way for me to find some peace, or else learn coping mechanisms so I'm not some walking festering wound of a person, who cries everyday and sobs after leaving Target.  And I want to hold onto my Mom as I remember her when she wasn't sick. And I need to learn how to block out those visions of her body as it slipped away, because that is stuck in my brain and I am stuck in life.


I hope that I can learn a new way to live and I can find my faith again.

Kate loved Aretha and wherever she may be, I hope that my she says Prayers for me. 

It Is Time...

I always feel a little bit lonely on Sundays...

One year ago today I was waiting. 

BUT...but...but...I am tired of writing about grief. 

I want to write about LIFE.  

There is this constant pull in life, a joy, a sorrow, some symbiotic tandem working together, always.

The bigger picture pervades my brain most of the time.  I suppose I don't live a "conventional life".  

Growing up, I spent almost the entire Sunday at church.  I learned about theology and God and Jesus Christ.  How there was a specific "holy way" to live.  But I didn't really see it put into practice.  So, I decided to not live that way anymore.  I just want to be the way God made me, I am all light and all darkness.  Isn't this true?  All good, all bad?  Paradox? Maybe.

                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She's there somewhere in the ether of time. Floating above me. Watching over those she loves.  She's here in my heart, in the heart of those who knew and loved her.

Today I spoke to my Grandma.   We spoke of how she never knew her father, since he died when she was only twelve.  He was ill for many years while she was growing up and she never had a chance to ask him things.  Like what his favorite food was, or stories about growing up.   He passed away in May 1947 and she still grieves his loss to this day.  I understand that.

I cannot grieve anymore.  

For thirty-three years I had a mother who loved me.  A mother who watched her younger siblings have babies, and feared she would never have a child...then I came along.

A beautiful woman, who taught me to sing hymns and praises to God, read character building stories, sewed little dresses for me to wear, made me french toast and teddy bear pancakes.  And that was just when I was young.

She only wanted the best for her children. I have so many memories, ALIVE in my heart.  

Kate was not perfect.  She could be sarcastic and biting at times.  

Because we spent so many years together, she knew me so well and I knew her so well.  When she was leaving us many times all she would say was, "ask Sarah, she knows what I want."  I knew because I knew her.  She never told me what she wanted.  She just knew that I knew. How's that for a symbiotic psychotic relationship?

And as I watched the body that gave me life, wasting away some little bird-like creature...

 I knew her favorite food, her stories, her laugh, her belief, her hands, her hair, her legs...

I hold them within to be shared someday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I cry now, they're not sorrowful tears.  

Kate feared one thing.  Leaving behind her children.  She told me that she was most worried about me.  I don't want her to be.

We can only do what is right for ourselves.  I truly believe that when we learn to move on, to embrace life, even though life can be a sadistic motherfucker, we can really be where we are supposed to be.

I've got my plans.  I write them out, because I KNOW there is no prescription for true happiness.  We are all mites of insignificance at the foot of some vaster master plan.

Follow your heart, sounds trite and stupid right?  But it's true.  Do what you need to, love...hate...kick out your feet...grab life by its balls and just do what you want.  I know people  who act like their life is over.  They choose to stagnate and cannot free themselves from sorrow.

It is time for me to stop my sobbing...the Kinks say it best:

I will write about life, live and be happy.   I won't live in a box.  It is time for me to live.

Le Changement

Time changes everything, we change everything, yet the only moment we are in is right now.

On this day, one year ago, I woke up and couldn't stand.  I fell down.  An old injury in my knee had been exacerbated to the point of excruciating pain and I didn't know what to do.  I willed myself to stand, and it's a good thing too.  Later in that day I would find myself riding in an ambulance to Morristown hospital, not for me, but for my Mom.  My life changed after that day, what I knew to be true became a reality.

One year ago...time changes lives.  We lose people.  We gain people.  We change. We grow.  We make choices.

You may be reading this across the ether wondering what I'm writing about, or you may be thinking, yeah I know what she's saying.

Choice, is the beginning of any change small or large.

Such as,

I choose to open my eyes.

I choose to get out of bed.

I choose to be happy.

I choose to eat healthy food.

I choose to eat another donut.

I choose to open my heart.

I choose to spend the rest of my life with this person.

I choose to sell my house.

I choose to be a loving parent.

I choose to be a drunk.

I choose to be sober.

I choose to love myself.

I choose to change myself...

Why is choice so very important? The ability to choose makes us human.  Many times we are influenced by others, but from the first moment our mother takes us in her arms and we cry because we're hungry, we are choosing to live.

Of course choice gets a bit more difficult the older we get.

Some choices require risk.  Maybe the riskier the choice, the more longterm benefit we get in the end.  Or perhaps just the opposite.
Maybe playing it safe is the way to go...
I think it is a personality thing(flaw?) that causes certain folks to make certain choices in their life.  Fear keeps us from doing so much. Damn you fear!
Fear of:
judgement
pain
loss

Anytime I feel something, I try to turn it around and say the opposite to myself.
If I fear judgement, I will tell myself that I love acceptance.
Sometimes this works, but not always.  There are moments when the fear just turns inward and becomes self-sabotage.  Of course I'm a classic self-sabotager...but sometimes I find there has to be some collateral damage in order to achieve certain goals.  Anyone else get what I'm saying?

If there is no risk in action, what's the point of that action?  The fear of loss is what holds folks back the most.

I think Bob Dylan said it best when he said, "When you've got nothin', you've got nothin' to lose."  Thanks Dylan, that sums up pretty much every aspect of my life.  When you're at the bottom, the lowest of the low, the only place you can go is up.  This constant scramble for something more authentic in life.

I took a risk, some call this faith.  I don't think so.  I just know a few secrets about life. Shhhh come in close and I will tell you...

1. Never forget how short life truly is, try to enjoy everyday for good and bad.

2. Love others.  Not for their beauty, or fame, or intelligence or even for what they do for you.  Love them for the innate humanity that lies within each person.  Love them for their flaws, and remember that everything we dislike in another is really just what reminds us of ourselves.

3. Time continues, even when we do not.

4. Money comes and money goes.  It is not everything.

5. We choose how we feel.  If we are miserable that is our choice.  If we are happy that is our choice.  Choose your life, create it, make it what you desire, listen to your inner wisdom.


Okay Peeps, that's all I've got for today.  Sorry if it was kind of abstracted...enjoy your days!

And remember even if you're sad or miserable, those are just feelings and all feelings change in time.

Ch--ch-ch-CHANGE

I type into Google “2013 year of change.”

I return such entries as:

2013: A year of Change for you?

If you experienced dramatic success this year tell us…

2013 Is Year Zeroe for Climate Change

The victories of 2012 demand we double down in the fight against global warming.

2013 Was the Year of Women at the Box Office

Amy Chan: 2013 A Year to Change Your Karma

 I clicked on the last one and read “Be Open. Judgment can blind you from seeing the greatest beauty people.” And “Say yes to adventure.”

In a few weeks, I will wave goodbye to the most difficult year of my life.

I’ve been reading Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  I’d read the first book and it got me thinking about some of the themes in the books, the theme of the quell and the reaping.

This past for me has been a deep reaping of change.  I am comforted to know that I am not the only one looking forward to 2014.  2013— the year of the snake, how apt that we shed the old skin and put on something new.

I’ve been thinking of how so many others I know have been experiencing great changes this past year, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease…”  these words speak to me of the intensity that 2013 has brought for those I love. 

These difficult times we’ve been through and as they continue…I thought that maybe I would catalog them, but then I realized I don’t want to do that. 

I want to focus on the miracles of 2013.

I hold on to this belief that life will get better.  Many have lost parents, jobs, children; losses small and large, several friends have gone through divorces, grandparents have passed away, a friend recently released from incarceration, another with a very ill infant, all with struggles so real so deep.

In each one I see strength. The amazing human ability to perservere, to keep striving for something better, this hope we hold in our hearts is worth more cataloging than all the sorrows combined.

How in moments over the past few months, I will spontaneously break out in tears and spend twenty minutes or more in the bathroom at work.  Waiting until my sobs subside, or I stand at the sink washing a dish, tears drop down out of nowhere onto my hands.  I can now welcome these moments embrace them, and accept the fact I am more vulnerable now than I have ever been in my entire life. I know that I am not alone.

We’ve got this great ability to shoulder loss, to reach out and love each other.  

Because love is the only way to get through any real great loss in life. 

I think of my pets. And perhaps we could say that they don’t really love, but I don’t believe that.  Animals have a way of communicating on a primal level, they do not judge.  They are open to the beauty in all people.  I think that is the “inner beauty” not some outer thing that is going to crumble and fade.  I need to remind myself of this when I get so caught up on the outward nature of others.

Some are like me, they struggle with the details in search of a larger purpose in life, the ability to serve others (or at least make a difference in another’s life.) And if you’re me, the struggle to nurture my self without being completely self-absorbed or selfish.

I always have hated the question,”Where do you see yourself in five years.” Because I always wanted to say, “Well, I just want to see myself enjoying life.”  But that is the wrong answer because I got fired after giving that answer to someone.

Everyone has been telling me not to take on too much, to allow myself to grieve.  I am impatient.  That I have to get used to a “new normal”.

Join a gym?

Give to charity?

Have a baby?

Get married?

 I  wasn’t “normal” before taking care of Kate and watching her die, why should I be any more normal now?

 So I’ve given myself six self-absorbing months to search my own depths and see what lies within there.

More changes…

I’ve started acupuncture

Spin class for my rage of emotions

Meditations with Deepak Chopra

EFT(emotional freedom technique) with my essential oils

“I’m in the here and now and I’m meditating but still I’m suffering.  But that’s my problem.” –Van Morrison, Enlightenment.

I tell myself forgive, nuture your spirit, embrace the changes.

It is alright to suffer…because it is human and real and true.

Many is the time I’ve been mistaken and many times confused

yes and I’ve often felt forsaken and certainly misused

but I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m just weary to my bones

still you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant so far away from home

so far away from home

and I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered

I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its’ knees

but it’s alright it’s alright for we’ve lived so well so long

still when I think of the road were traveling on

I wonder whats gone wrong

I cant help but wonder whats gone wrong

and I dreamed I was dying

I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

and looking back down at me smiled reassuredly

and I dreamed I was flying

and high up above my eyes could clearly see

the statue of liberty sailing away to sea

and I dreamed I was flying

Oh we come on the ship they call the Mayflower

we come on the ship that sailed the moon

we come in the ages most uncertain hours and sing an American tune

And its’ alright it’s alright it’s alright

you can be forever blessed

still tomorrow’s gonna be another working day and I’m trying to get some rest

that’s all I’m trying to get some rest.