Fly Piece

Gillian completed her second round trip to Florida via airplane today. We went to visit my brother Jim again. By some miracle, my sister and her boys came too. It was the first time we had all been together in 7 and a half years (since Sean and I got married).

It was a rich visit-the grandchildren of my parents together for the first time; Jim having both his sisters with him; Gillian and her cousin Evan's first trip to the ocean; my niece Amber and I sitting at the breaking seashore at night talking...I forgot how the warm air blows off the ocean, and with no lights on the beach, the clouds look white against the sky and the breaking waves are incandescent and magical. Jim had found a video of our family at Amber's first birthday-that is the only video I have of my mother (and I only have a few photos of her). That is so precious to me-to see her alive and happy to be a grandmother for the first time. I can almost imagine she would be so happy to celebrate Gillian's first birthday with us next month. Jim is less well than when we saw him last month, and the video is invaluable and bittersweet to me for him being in it-it captures him as a young father. He was playing the same games with Amber that we do with Gillian, and beaming with pride at her burgeoning self, like we do. He was young, and beautiful, and funny, and well. It made me sad to watch him watch that video, bedridden and paralyzed, and dying..remembering when he could be a real husband to his wife and and active father to his daughter. How do you reconcile death at 40 years old? How do you make peace with God for the unfairness of it all? How do you go quietly, leaving behind your young wife and daughter, and trust that it is all happening the way it is intended? I have moments of anger, and bitterness. I find myself trying to make sense of his horrifically slow, agonizing death and this tragic, painful way to slowly lose someone from our lives. It is so obviously cruel, and it tests my faith (see the Inductive Argument from Evil) and my ability to endure the loss of yet another person close to me.

Gillian won't remember Jim the way he is now. I will show her this video I brought home to copy. She'll see images of her grandparents (my parents), and Jim busting with living and with joy, celebrating the little life of my niece, just beginning. That will be the most she knows of them, the saddest part of this for her. But Jim said something profound to me. He said "I thank God every day for Dawn and for Cancer. Dawn because she is my life, because she really loves me; cancer because it taught me how every single day is precious." I can't wrap my head around that..as much as I struggle to. It's so cliche and convenient to say that is what his dying is teaching me, but the truth is, I will only realize the value of my days on this earth, really value them, when I am faced with the reality that they don't have to continue. I want to tell you that I feel deep in my gut that every day is a gift, and I know that it is, but I don't know that it is. I still find myself taking moments, precious moments, for granted. I still find myself preoccupied by meaninglessness. I have not mastered living in this moment. I am not yet entrained in mindfulness.

I could tell you about Gillian's adventures on the airplane; about her holding up her tiny little arm and orating to the masses in an amazingly loud voice for a good bit of our flight- her "Fly Piece", as it were; about her peaking through the chairs to the man in red behind us like she found a delightful secret hidden there, and it was him; her inexplicable desire to kiss and touch the little girl sitting next to us; about my absolute exhaustion after my emotional week trying to keep my wiggling and ever more curious and mobile daughter engaged for two long hours today on our flight home by myself (and keeping everything out of her reach...unfortunately, in spite of these efforts, an entire glass of water and accompanying ice made it onto my lap half way home). And all these things are so incredibly sweet, and she did so well, but they are overshadowed by this looming sadness.