Greetings All,
Firstly, thanks for still tuning in, for those of you who
are still reading, still interested, and still on our journey. A lot has happened in the last 6 weeks, most
of all school started up again, and I entered the extremely fun, totally chaotic,
and ever eventful tumble-dry year of teaching middle school. I’m teaching a new course this year, Computer
Education, and the time/attention it takes is truly overwhelming, not to
mention the fact that the 7th graders that I (mostly) teach are just…. 7th graders. More on that later.
The next reason it’s been so long is that I wanted to delay
the next post until our super-special reveal was ready to go. Today it is, and
we can pull the curtain away on it. More
on that later.
I wanted to start by riffing a little bit on some things that have been bouncing around my head. We started back at Ele’s Place two weeks ago, and I’ve really enjoyed the conversations going on this time. Not sure if it’s me, if it’s the people in our group, or what…but it’s no longer as taxing to me to go to the sessions. We’ve had several really good discussions about things over the last few weeks that I feel like I’ve been able to make valuable contributions to, and get little nuggets from.
A woman in our group made the comment that “It never gets
better”, in regards to losing a kid. I
disagreed, vehemently, but I’d never say that to her in that setting. To me, it’s always changing, the grief, if
you let it. It’s always a different
thing, week to week. I miss Amie more
than I can ever explain, but at the same time, I can hold a simultaneous
thought that I’m truly glad she doesn’t have to go through the treatments
anymore. She’s free of that. But she’s also free of being able to spend
time with Shelley doing crafts at the table, and playing silly games with Anya,
or riding on top of my shoulders, playing with the wispy remains of my hair.
To say that it doesn’t get any better, to me, seems to not
let it change. To not let it flow
through you, and recognize all the facets, and all the variables that it can
take on. If you hold on to it so damned
tight, squeezing it for all it’s worth…you don’t let it change, you don’t let
it free. I’m not saying I’m anything
even close to an expert at this whole grief thing… I just know what is working
for me. Letting things happen, and
trying to be totally present to the way I feel…that works for me. Honoring the feelings I am having, and
letting them happen, not fighting them…that’s what works for me. Crying like a little baby at a movie, at a
commercial, at a tv show…that works for me.
The other thing that’s been bouncing around in my skull is
the idea that there is a price, and a benefit, of pain like losing Amie. The price, of course, is the hollowing out
that happens. This is the stuff of
nightmares, the anxiety in the middle of the night about what the rest of your
life looks like, with this on your shoulder.
This is not good. But it
lessens. (see above paragraphs)
But there are so many things that are happening for Shelley
and I, and to Anya to a lesser extent, as a direct result of the grief, and the
hollowing out. The running is one such
thing. We’ve been actively running now
for 9 weeks. Shelley has gone from
running 90 seconds the first week of August and really (REALLY) hating it, to
running 40 minutes today, and really starting to enjoy it. She ran her first 5k this weekend. I ran my first 10k, and did it
in 52:20. I’ve dropped nearly 30 lbs.
now, and have an entire area of my wardrobe available to me again.
I could go on and on about the running, but I don’t want to
be annoying. I realize that running is a
lot like my other passions (Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, random
RPG video games, etc), whereas it’s a small group of people who are WILDLY
passionate about it, and most other people just look at it in slightly amused
confusion. I say all this just to say
that it’s something that’s working for us, and never, ever would have happened
had we not been given this massive kick to the soul this past year.
As a final thing, I see how much better of a teacher I am
becoming because of this. Not 100%,
because I think my patience and tolerance of off-task silliness has really
suffered…but my ability to work harder, work more, and push myself and my
students further in pursuit of making themselves the best version of
themselves….yes. YES. This.
I see what I’m asking them to do, and it’s so much more, and
deeper, than I was doing previously. I’m
pushing them in content, yes. But we’re
also writing more. I’m grading them for
grammar and capitalization. For
reasoning, and backing up their statements with fact. I’m pushing them to be more rational, and to
be more questioning. I want them to do
more…because Amie couldn’t, and wont, and can’t….and I think that’s a net gain
for them, and a net win for me. This
probably sounds self-serving or something… but it’s good to know that I can do
that again, and can find the place within me to push push push, where it needs
to be done.
Ok. Enough about me.
Anya is doing fantastically, and is really growing into a
“big girl”. She’s slowly, slowly
becoming her own little adultish person, in that she no longer lives for our
adulation. She just wants to read, and
do it all the time, and does a fantastic amount of work to get out of doing
anything but reading and dancing around the living room. Good story:
She hid behind a piece of furniture this weekend, in her room, to get
out of doing some random chore that she perceived Shelley was about to ask her
to do. It nearly worked too, until
Shelley found her, and then Anya told her why she was doing it. I wanted to laugh, but that would not have
been the winning choice in that moment.
I heard her say all this, and I said to myself that her doing that was
so fantastically and amazingly normal….and what else could I have asked for her
to be doing 8 months after Amie’s death.
So good, in a normal, normal way.
So, the grand reveal.
Amie’s birthday is in 13 days.
October 18th. The
first birthday that she isn’t with us.
We have been pondering what we wanted Amie’s
gravestone/tombstone/isthereabetternameforthis for a while. I wanted Shelley to take the lead on what it
would look like, because us having a site was her primary desire. When we returned from out west, we began to
work in earnest on what it would look like, and it wasn’t clicking. We went in to talk to the representative from
Brewer-Bouchey Monuments, and they mentioned being able to replicate pretty
much anything that existed, as long as we could provide a picture. That got Shelley thinking about Amie’s art,
and her name that she loved to write so much.
So, we played around with it, and after a few trials and errors, we have
this to show all of you. We think it’s
about as perfect a marker as we’d ever have hoped to have. Without further ado…
So, for those of you who want to visit it, here are the
directions on how to find it:
- Use Google Maps to find Lakeview Cemetery.
- In the cemetery, go here, to Babyland:
- In the westernmost area of Babyland are the new sites. Amie’s gravestone is site 294.
The only thing we ask is this. Bring a rock that you think
is cool. For Jewish families, bringing a
rock to a grave marker is tradition. I
just did a ton of reading on it, and there’s no definitive reason as to
why. Lots of explanations, but none of
them are canon. I liked the idea of the permanence
of stone, and the idea that the memory of a person, like a rock, will persist
long past their passing. That made me
exceedingly happy, and tied into our adventures out west this summer.
So. If you visit Amie’s
grave, bring a rock that you find cool, that you find beautiful, that you find….anything.
It’s the most beautiful place in Howell, and I think that’s
fitting for the girl that I find the most beautiful that the city has ever
seen.
Night all. Time to
head home and get ready to teach my socks off tomorrow.
