Death by Sugar

10:56am                          Writing Practice                               56°  Boise

Too breezy today for my taste but sunny and clear. It will warm up later and be a fine day, I'm sure. I don't have any plans for today. I hardly ever have plans for my days. I met Stephanie for breakfast on Wednesday and that was my big plan for the week. Then yesterday I dropped in to see Janna at work and caught as she was leaving for lunch, so that was lucky. Then I went to Vicki's last night and had a session; she did my birthday reading and I ran her some energy, but I still owe her more. Her birthday is next week, I'll get her a card made up and then get her the rest of her session. That will work. And I just had texts with Pam and we'll talk tonight. So that's a good week, I've had contact with all 4 of my best friends this week! Yaaay!

I still haven't bought any plants for the front yard and Vicki said that was a good thing, all the plants left over will go on sale soon at ShopKo when they close their garden center. Cool! So I'm late but saving money. I like that.

I have to pay my credit card bill as soon as I finish here and then see how much money I have left. After big expenses in April and May (taxes, my car, new desktop computer) my savings needs so help. It's a good thing I didn't buy a new car yet. I'll need to wait several months before I do that. Maybe in the fall I'll be ready again. Plus there's still so much to do around here. The deck. That leaking bathroom window. More insulation, but that can wait. A carport. And the yard. Sometimes I think I should sell this place and move to a rental but then I remember how much I hate renting, can hardly relax in a rental. I'm so comfortable here. I really am, more comfortable than ever before in my life. And beings this is the hardest part of my life, having a comfortable place to live has made all the difference.

I have a EFT class scheduled for June 12, I need to confirm a venue and then create an event notice on Facebook in the next few days. I hope a few people will want to attend. I hope we can use Pam's office space. I didn't like how Midge got everyone onto her stuff --- she should have told me she was going to do that. She had more contact with my students to begin with than I did and had them off on other things. It made for confusing energy and harder to get gathered up and begin and connect. I didn't appreciate that, I don't want to use her space anymore.

Yesterday I began watching a documentary on Netflix, Sugar Coated, about the toxic nature of sugar and how it's promoted by the sugar industry. How it's causing the the health crisis in America and how it's killing people. Yaaay! I knew all that but it's got great research. I can use that. Because then I got a title and focus for the story of my mother:

Death by Sugar

How My Mother Killed Herself With Sweets

I fought with my mother for the last 3 years of her life. I pleaded, I begged, I belittled, I had no sympathy, no compassion for her at all in the years after my dad died. I don't know exactly when it started, when she stopped eating real food and decided to only eat sweets. It may have developed over a period of years. In 1997 I was visiting in Hermiston and she and I and a friend of hers walked a high school track near their house one morning, so it was after that. At that time she was still trying, still cared about herself. Then she came to visit me in Morro Bay in 2001 and she was angry and hated everything. So it happened in the four years between 1997 and 2001. What happened in their lives in those years? Well, I'll tell you --- my dad's health went bust, he could no longer work at all, couldn't bring in any extra money, and my mother reacted poorly to this turn of events. But it began a few years before that, too. Dad had open heart surgery in 1996, the night of the full lunar eclipse, Sept 26. I stayed with Mom at a room provided near the hospital. That was the first time I had spent any time with her alone in many years and she told me of an experience she had, where a click went off in here head, a switch was clicked off, and after that she no longer cared about Dad in any way. We talked about it a lot in those days I spent with her in Seattle but we never spoke of it again after that. That's got to be important information, though. I'll explore that.

So what I'm going to do is practice my memoir writing skills by doing the exercises in my Handling the Truth book, which should arrive today, the copy I'll get to mark up, and tell the story of my mother, all I can remember, and maybe discover why she gave up on herself and refused to eat and finally died. It was a strange journey she was on. She wasn't quite right in the head in many ways but after years of a sweets-only diet, she had wrecked her brain completely. There was no dealing with her, no reasoning. I think this could be a compelling story to share with others but if not, it can be a story just for me and Nathan. 

As much as I wanted to write about what happened to Stephen, I'm simply not ready. I have processed what happened to my mother and I wrote to her and about her for 9 months after she died. I have all that in my notebooks at the studio, and I had a resolution experience with her that is worth sharing. I can still feel it. I think this is the story to tell right now, the one to start with. And so I shall.

Kinzu and Camp 5

8:40am                           Writing Practice                               52°  Boise

On Monday I wrote about Dad feeling like a failure at the end of his life and then I took it to a different format and edited it to be something I could publish on FB as a note. And so I did publish it and it gave me such a feeling of possibility and accomplishment! I have a new memoir How-to book from the library and it's proven to be so inspiring and helpful, I ordered my own copy. It arrives tomorrow and I can't wait to begin marking it up and doing some of the exercises. There are chapters and instructions about smells, food, sounds --- all the details of life that occur as we go along but that seldom get added to a written project. Like the sound of the motorcycle that just dashed by outside, how the YouTube video I'm watching with the ocean scenes and relaxing music has to be a little louder today because it's chilly in the house this morning and I have the little heater on. Are these details that will add value to this entry later on? The author also suggests practicing writing about the weather and I'm happy to say that I've been doing that for years. So many of my journal pages begin with a weather report, it was my warm up to the page, my way in to the day's writing to talk about the weather at that moment. For instance, today is bright, clear and sunny if a little chilly. There doesn't appear to be any breeze at all, which means it could get warm later on.

Sometimes I sit here and imagine that my house is in a small mountain town somewhere. The view out my front window from this chair lends itself to that idea and I like it; something about the idea of living in a small mountain town soothes me. Maybe because my mother grew up in one and I spent time in my very young life in a few. Kinzu, now not even a trace left behind of its existence. Camp 5, where Granny and Gramp lived when I was almost too little to remember. In reality, I don't remember, I have snippets, flashes that are more imaginings from the stories told to me of my doings at the time. Such as when I found Granny's scissors and cut up all her fabric. That was at Camp 5. There is no one left to ask, no one who would remember a little blond girl doing such a thing or when or where she did it but I do have that tiny snippet of memory and so I shall add it here. And now that I've written it down, it becomes reality, a permanent part of my history even though there's no way to confirm it. Also, there's no one left who would care to know such details. How all the roads in Camp 5 were dirt roads, all the houses were shacks or cabins and the trees towered over all of it, a constant presence, the sound of the wind through the trees when all was quiet at night or early morning, the scent of pine that I now love and crave, and the coverings of pine needles and drips of pitch on everything. That's all that's left at Camp 5 now, the trees. No sign of human life remains. I'm not sure anyone is alive who even knows where it was. I wouldn't know where to begin to look for it. Except in my memory.

So many details of my life I want to write down, write about. Some of the memories hurt or are bittersweet. Some are embarrassing. Some are totally mortifying and I can't imagine writing them down because I can hardly stand to remember them. The amazing thing is, I have such a great memory! I feel like my head is stuffed full of thousands of home movies and they cue up and play at random moments, creating their own montage. What a delightful feature, I never really appreciated my memory before. Now that's all I want to do, play with my memory as if it's a new device I just acquired and am learning how to use.

I didn't write yesterday or the day before. It's been a while since I took two days off in a row. I'm fidgeting here, I may be ready to wrap it up. Too much to do, as usual. It was payday yesterday and so I now have money to go buy some plants for the beds in the front yard. I need to wash my car and blow the crap out of the back yard. And then there's the work at the studio, the writing of books. How can I be expected to write and keep up with the details of life at the same time? I've pondered selling my house and moving someplace with little or no yard work. I don't enjoy yard work although I do enjoy a pretty yard. But it all seems so pointless now. I go in and out of that attitude of pointlessness but less so lately. I'm feeling better then I was for those few months between Stephen's birthday and my own. That was some pretty bleak times, I'm very grateful to be back, or at least heading back from that.

I don't write about him much but just so you know, Stephen is seldom far from my thoughts. I don't obsess about him like I did but I still miss him all the time. At times, it still slaps me up side the head that he's dead. How could that be?! A mother can't just set aside all the hopes and dreams and memories she has of her child and go on. Life is a ridiculous exercise in futility these days --- who the fuck gives a shit about anything at all? My child is dead! Everything else is white noise. But I am trying and I do feel better. I intend to continue to feel better so that I can get these stories written. I must write these stories! I have everyone's stories and I can't leave this world with the weight of all these stories on my back.

Life: Success or Failure?

9:50am                                 Writing Practice                         55°  Boise

Got a text from Sue first thing, woke me up. I would have been up by then by I had gotten up to pee and take my ASEA at 4:40 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I ended up reading for a while, turning off the light again at 6:30. So I was sleeping soundly when her text buzzed my phone at 8:45. But I'm up now, not quite as perky as a normal morning but at least the sun is shinning and the breeze is slight. The air is fresh and full of the scents of the high dessert that I love so much in the summer. It promises to be a gorgeous day out there, a perfect day to get some yard work done. But I may have to drive to Baker.

Sue has finally had it with that puppy and what a ride it's been this past year. I made the mistake of taking her with me out to Ginny's place to see the puppies last July, never once thinking ahead to the possibility that she might go crazy and want one. She got the puppy in September and it's been one thing after the next ever since, as you can imagine with an unstable person who has never had a dog before. There was no talking her out of it last summer, I tried. I knew it would end up like this but some things have to be experienced in order to be understood.

As soon as I typed that last sentence, it hit me. That's why I had to move to Hannibal in 2006. That's why I had to marry Bob and then John, why I had to birth Nathan and then Stephen. That's why I had to have two suicide attempts and undergo addiction issues. Some things have to be experienced in order to be understood. So is that why I have to have this experience of losing a child to suicide? To really understand the final piece in the puzzle of depression, mental illness, self-medication and addiction that all leads to self-harm, ending in death, sooner or later. Well, all life ends in death sooner or later, it's just a matter of quality and what we do with the life we have.

At the end of his life, my step-dad, Richard, declared himself a failure. What makes life a success or failure at the end? I'd really like to know because I'm tempted to declare my life a failure as well even though it's not over yet. It can't be about material acquisitions and that's a good thing. Is it about family? Connections? Contributions to the collective consciousness? Is it about love or kindness or what? Maybe it's up to each one to decide how he feels about his life when it's about to be over. Will it be a relief? A sinking down with a sigh of, finally, at last, I can relax. This trying every day is taxing and on some days, a tad boring.

When dad said that about himself being a failure, I scrambled in my head, trying to think of things to offer as proof that he was wrong. That makes me sad, thinking of that. Because I couldn't think of much, except that he had provided for his family; we had always had a home and enough food to eat. He had always been there. But he had not been there for us, if you can see the difference. He had taken an active role in Mark's life with fishing and camping and I'm sure they talked, but he had no role in my life, just a presence. Would I have wanted him to love me, be there for me, be a real dad to me? Heck yes! Do I still miss the fact that he wasn't able to be that guy? You bet. But does that make him a failure in his own life? In the big picture, no, of course not. He was kind and helpful and sincere. I think he was locked inside himself in many ways but he did love us; he loved deeply, just too deep to access on the surface. He had no outlets for creativity, no hobbies. He liked yard work, he enjoyed puttering around. He kept himself and his stuff organized. He was steady and solid, never moody, although he was fairly quick to anger and he tolerated no flare-ups in others, joyful or otherwise. He hated indecision and confusion, what he called a Chinese Circus. But he didn't write or create or leave anything of himself behind for posterity. I doubt if anyone left on Earth thinks of him at all. He's gone, erased from existence. And I get the idea that he likes it that way.

But was he a failure? Was Stephen a failure? Was my mother? Or my brother, Gerald? I think they all thought so at the end of their lives. If I was coming up to the end of my life, would I feel like a failure? I've found value in so many of my life's experiences but what have I done with it? I've shared on a limited basis. Stephen left his music and his photographs, Mom left her songs and recordings, her voice, and Gerald helped so many people get and stay sober, he inspired others who were at the bottom of the barrel. He cared about people who had no one else on Earth to care about them. He saved lives. Of all of us, I think Gerald would be the big success story and isn't that ironic. In order to make my life a success at the end, I have to aspire to the example Gerald set --- he was Brother/Father Harth, he provided a safe haven for weary addicts and he did that for over ten years. He may have thought he was a failure because he didn't attain the worldwide recognition that he thought he should have, but he did great on a daily basis for many years. People still remember him and speak highly of him. His example of a sober life continues to inspire and his story is one worth telling.

So is that the scale with which to grade oneself? To end up with a story worth telling, where people remember you or at least enjoy your story? In that case, Dad was a failure. If he has a story worth telling, no one knows it. My mother has a story worth telling and I know enough of it to tell. Plus there's her music. I can work with that. And of course Stephen left a story to tell and I'm working on that daily. His story is tied to my story and I have at least 6 books to write that will include all of it, Gerald's, Mom's, Stephen's and mine. So my story is huge! Will it be valuable? That remains to be seen, but it will all die with me if I don't find a way to tell it. And then we'll all be failures.

So that's it then. If it's about stories, it's up to me to get in there and spend the rest of my life writing it all down so that we can all be successful. Including you, Dad. I'll find a way to write your life as a success. I promise.

Staying Alive

8:57am                   Writing Practice                         49°  Boise

Dark and wet again this morning, although it cleared up yesterday and the afternoon and evening was gorgeous. I've got the little heater running here in the living room and the cats are cranky and pouting but I've got my ocean video on the TV and I'm loving it.

Cousin Joe came to Boise to pick up his lamps from the ArtZone 208. Debra, the owner, was cool at best but the contract was up. Whatever. I never could get on the same page with her. Truth is, I don't like her very well, she seems phony to me, an angry, bitter person trying to appear encouraging. Or maybe it's just me ... there is that. Whatever. I'm done with all that, except I did tell Joe to have anyone who wants a custom piece to call me as his agent, at which time I'll listen to their idea and then tell them no, Joe is an artist and doesn't do custom pieces at this time. He liked that idea.

Still drifting around, wondering what to do with myself. But I got a new title last night while watching Glee (there's not one episode that I don't cry at some point, more on that later). It was disco night, they were singing songs from Saturday Night Fever and when they came to Staying Alive, I realized that that's exactly what I've been trying to do all this time since Stephen died. Stay alive and find meaning in this experience. The new title idea came easily:

Staying Alive After Suicide

This is not just a title, it's also a focus. I did an Amazon search and that title is not in use. I can use it as the title or the subtitle: 

I AM ; still here

Staying Alive After Suicide

This title pulls it all together, makes it my story and a self-help book at the same time. I can tell stories about Stephen and also my own struggles with suicide. So what story should I start with? I could start out with

The Mother Crow and Her Baby

8:20am                        Writing Practice                        56°  Boise


Up early because of Rocky. 6:50am and he wanted something, he kept at it long enough to keep me awake until I finally got up about a half hour ago. It's a rainy day, gray and dark and chilly. I've got relaxing music on the TV along with the ocean scenes and sounds. That's my favorite so far. This is the Pacific by California, out where Stephen is. I should move to the ocean again. I would really like to move somewhere ... anywhere ... else. But I can't seem to muster the energy to sell my house and pack up to go. I don't want to give up all I've worked for with this idea of security and then lose my mind and be drifting and homeless. Like a crazy person. Like who I think I'm becoming.

If you could see, what it's done to me, to lose the love I had ..... I woke up with this lyric running through my head while I was laying there ignoring Rocky. Moody Blues. I'm doing OK and yet, I'm lost and adrift. If I can't find a way to move forward on my own, I'll have to get a job or go back to St Luke's. I'm getting mighty tired of wallowing.

I had a memory this morning of something that happened while we were living in Hanford, on Colonial Drive, in 2000. It was morning, must have been spring, and I heard a terrible ruckus out by the patio. I ran out to see big flapping black wings and a mother crow attacking Toby, my manx cat, as he was focused on attacking her fledgling baby. Toby had him trapped in a corner by the garage and even though the mother crow was cawing and flapping at him, he was determined not to be sidetracked, he was having that baby bird. I don't remember exactly what I did to break it up --- I probably picked Toby up and put him in the house and let the mother crow coax her baby to safety. But afterward I thought about the symbolism of that situation and how very like that mother crow I was with my fledgling Stephen, how I felt just like that mother crow, helpless and flapping against a foe I couldn't stop and didn't even really understand. How prophetic. That's when I first realized just how dire our situation was, that, in fact, we could lose him. I believe I wrote about it in my journal, I treated it like the warning it surely was. And still, I lost him.

It's no wonder I'm traumatized. In many of the suicide stories I read, the parents didn't have a clue that their child was having problems or was depressed or being bullied or using drugs. The shock and horror of the suicide is understandable, it was an unthinkable thing to have happen to their child. Not so for me, I knew for many years that I could lose him that way (although I never thought of him jumping off a building). I had at least 13 years warning of what was to come, plenty of time to take action to turn it all around. And I did take action! Why wasn't I able to change the final outcome?

Is this the story I need to tell? Is it possible that I knew all this was coming from the moment I met John Sandknop that night in Hawaii in 1981? Even at the time, I could tell something momentous was happening, something had clicked into place, I was caught in a preset time line and all I could do was play it out. And 32 years later, it all came to a head and I had the experience of a lifetime, but not in a good way. Such a story to tell, but so many details, where to start and what to tell, what to leave out?

Test

Just testing this out by using the iPad mini and the keyboard. I would like to use this at a restaurant and be more mobile and more social. So far, I can tell that this will work just fine and may get me out of the house and out of my funk. Yaaay!

OK, off I go to get ready for the gym with James at 4pm today. But first, Walmart for gum.

See ya.

Meaning

8:42am                      Writing Practice                         50°  Boise

Meaning. In order to be worth it every day, life must have meaning. There has to be a reason to get up each day and move around in the world, take care of things, engage with others and keep on going or else why bother. I seem to have slipped away from my meaning in life and I'm not sure how to get it back. I woke up this morning feeling empty and bored. I thought maybe I ought to find a job or go back to the hospital and do transport, but that would just be delaying the issue. I need to explore meaning in life and find out where mine went and how to create some more of it.

First of all, I think a lot of my life's meaning was helping others and having the intention to help others with my writing and workshops. I put everything aside in January intending to write books and when I hit a bumpy patch that hurt too much, I stopped working on that but didn't add anything back. I continued to hold space for writing even though I wasn't doing it. So I've been living in the void, missing Stephen, missing family, missing everything but unwilling to get up and do something different. Meaning has drained away from my life and that's what's making me feel so lost and drifting.

I still have my studio and my home here, I haven't given any of that up yet but I've been thinking about it. Without meaning, I'm getting bored and for me, there's nothing worse. And without Stephen, I'm finding it hard to care about anything. Life in this perpetual sadness is hard to bear. Although I've been feeling better the last few weeks, not nearly as horrible as I had been between Stephen's birthday and mine. I've been waiting for something to come along that I could care about other than myself, my cats, and my house. I've been casting about wondering what might attract me next. Anything? Denise came to town and needed at place to stay for a night and I pitched in and got ready for her. I cared about that. Now my house is clean and I could actually do some things around here, clean up the back yard, plant stuff in the front beds, hire someone to help with the deck out back --- it needs work. But I don't feel like posting a workshop or casting anything at all out into the future.

OK, well, now I've written it down and know what the problem is. All I have to do is keep an eye out for something to care about and see what happens next. I'll practice being open. I'll practice non-judgement. I'll practice keeping my vibration high enough to stay in gratitude and appreciation while I wait for something to love again. I'll go to the gym this afternoon whether James shows up or not and I'll keep doing that. And I'll go to my studio and also find a place to hang out, a third place. Maybe Quinn's or someplace like that. There's a Denny's up by the airport ... hey, that might work! They have a counter. I could go up there and watch people work while I sit on my ass. Sounds like fun to me! I can take my iPad mini and the little keyboard, write in this blog and see what happens.

OK, I just went and plugged in the keyboard for my iPad mini.   The good news is, I'm not angry anymore. Or at least not right now. All in all, I'm sort of OK right now. The big uproar has passed and I'm ready to do something again. I really wish I could write books and I certainly won't give up on that idea, I just don't know when it will happen. Or what it will be about. In the book I'm listening to, Imagine: How Creativity Works, the author says that the single most important thing about creativity is perseverance. The determination and willingness to show up every day. And hey! I do that, every single day I show up right here or in my journal notebook and write. I do it every day and only miss occasionally. Eventually, surely something will come of all this. And if it doesn't, at least I have all these words I've written to leave behind for Nathan to discover. Who knows, maybe he will think of something to do with all of it. If I don't before I die, that is. I'm still holding out hope, I haven't thrown in the towel yet.

Dear Stephen ... 133 weeks

10:15am               Writing Practice                         56°  Boise

Chilly and windy this morning, but the sun is shinning. It feels like spring has been lasted forever this year, like it started the first of March or even earlier and it's still working on it. I love the slow way the seasons creep along around here. Although sometimes summer seems to slam into spring in a day, as if it were an oncoming train carrying heat and change and it knocks the pleasant, slow moving spring off the tracks and into the ditch for the rest of the year. Winter can arrive that same way after a delightful fall that has lasted for months. Maybe that just the way to the seasons. Spring and fall are the transition seasons and summer and winter have the real power. Interesting. I used to be a summer person but now, here, at this time of my life, I like all the other seasons better, especially the transitions.

I had dinner with the POMS last night (Pissed Off Moms). There are four of us, each with a different experience of our sons and drugs. I'm the only one with a lost one. Janna has Kaelen in prison right now, CarlaJean has two who are doing good after years of using and then prison, and Sharon has her one son who is in the thick of it still ... after prison and now in a relapse that involved a suicide attempt last month. Turns out it was his 4th attempt and we all know what that means now. It's only a matter of time until he succeeds unless he can be turned around somehow.

Sharon asked me what I would say to him if I could sit down and talk and I got confused in my head. What if I make things worse? After all, I was talking to Stephen as he jumped off a building! Then she asked me a question that has me kind of inspired: "What would you tell Stephen right now, knowing what you know? If you wrote him a letter, what would you say?" All the way home, I imagined sitting down to write to him and maybe even formatting our book with letters like that. Also, on the way to the dinner, I listened to a program on NPR and they had a segment about the power of listening, ending with a story about Mother Theresa. When asked what she said in her prayers, she answered, "I listen". When asked what God says, she answered, "He listens". Right then, I decided that I had to become a better listener. And then Sharon asked that question and now I have to figure out how to write to Stephen and really listen. I believe he can help me find the words to help others, whether it's the person in distress or the mothers, the parents, the families, the communities, all the hundreds and thousands of people who are affected by suicide of a loved one.

Dear Stephen,

It's been 133 weeks today since your last day on Earth, a little over 2½ years and so much has changed since you left, new information, new experiences --- I feel certain that we could have found the help you needed if you had just stayed a little longer. I understand that you were miserable and felt hopeless down to your very soul, I felt that coming off of you in waves those last few days of your life. I even told your dad earlier that day, "What are you waiting for?! Get down there, he can't take much more!" Since then I realize that you died of much more than suicide, you died from lack of respect as well.

Friday

8:49am                       Writing Practice                      58°  Boise

I was wanting to write with my pen this morning but I'll do that tomorrow if I get time. I have company coming to stay the night tomorrow night and I've got some cleaning to do --- an hour this morning and an hour tomorrow morning, maybe a little this evening if I'm not too tired. Denise Godfrey is in town visiting her best friend and she's going to stay with my one night so that I can take her to the airport early Sunday morning. We'll have tomorrow evening to visit and have dinner. I've been wanting to talk to her about creating workshops together. We were a team, I think we could do some good work. I want to see if she still has her powers after the craziness of the past few years. I could sell my house, move to Carson City and she and I could teach healing workshops all over California and Nevada. I know that there are still plenty of people who would be interested in entry level energy work, increasing their psychic skills and who knows what else we could teach together. I know, it's just an idea that has cropped up a few times so now I'll get a chance to talk to her about it, right here in my own house.

Yesterday I went to the studio but spent most of my time making my photos in Waterlogue pictures. I have the idea to print them right on the heavy printer paper and skip the cut and tape step. I could only do the note card size, but I could get 2 up with the good paper, 100 cards per box, that's only 15¢ per card ... not bad at all. The cost per card ready to go would only be about 50¢ total, each. And that would seriously cut down on the labor and handling. Not sure about glitter yet, too soon to tell.

Anyway, I did sit down with my journals for a bit and look for The Pause but as I scanned the pages and read some of the stuff I wrote in my heartbreak, I cried a little even as I purposely kept myself light and skimming. I didn't find it, of course, but I do know that those journals are chock full of material, if I can only think of a way to use it. I think next time, I'll start with the days right after he died and scan from there instead of the random method I used yesterday. I really don't want to go back there and I know I don't have to, but I'm not ready to give up yet on the idea to write a book about this experience. Other moms have done it --- but those moms had more support than I've got. I just heard that in my head. Those moms have husbands and other children, extended family. I've got none of that. I do have another child who apparently can't stand to talk to me.

Well, I'm going to get off a here and get the vacuum out, clean the toilet, get some things done before I meet Pam and Burma at Quinn's, if that plan is even still on. I'll go check e-mails to find out.

The Pause, Last Words

9:06am                       Writing Practice                      61°  Boise

Still too breezy out there for my taste but warmer, at least. I woke up at 6:40am, got my ASEA, peed, but didn't get back to sleep. I laid there wandering around in my mind and it was nice and relaxing. The horror, grief and stress that was afflicting me for weeks seems to have vanished and I'm finding myself like a ship wreck survivor washed up on a sandy shore, bruised and weak but alive, coming back to consciousness by noticing the sound of the ocean, the feel of the sea breeze, the smell of the salt air and the clear blue sky whisked clean by the storm. After all I've gone through, I can now crawl up the shore, find a way to stand up on all twos (as mom would say) and figure out where to go from here. I should watch Castaway again, I can relate in a whole new way now. As in that story, my continued survival is not assured just because I've made it this far. There will be more storms and a whole new way of living must be created. I have to become resourceful, make unlikely friends, find ways to tell one day from the next and continue to care for myself.

So as I lay there in my bed exploring options, I thought again about how to start telling the story of Stephen and what came to mind was the early morning, Oct 29, being woken by the cell phone ringing. I wrote that all out in my pages long ago and have tried to no avail to find it again since. I called it, The Pause. In those first few moments of life on that day, I still had hope, an assumption of continued life and efforts toward healing and repair. It was dark, just after 6:30am, and I had left the cell phone on the coffee table in the living room. I didn't answer it, assuming it was work calling, wanting me to come in, and I never said yes to those requests. But then I flashed on the night before, the last conversation with Stephen and how he had left me hanging, and I stumbled out of bed to go see if he had texted me in the night, as he sometimes did.

I have this all written in my pages, I'll go to the studio later and make a concerted effort to locate it. It was very raw, the words came out with lots of tears, but I'd still like to read it again and see if it can be the basis for the beginning of the story. Because that moment in time, before Stephanie said the words and after, was when my whole world split apart. The life that went by in the few seconds of her pause was all the life worth living, worth remembering. In that pause, Stephen was still alive, not laying on a slab in a morgue refrigerator at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, where he had been all night while I slept, not knowing that was gone.

It's the last things you say to someone, not thinking that they are to be the last, that come back and haunt. In a normal passing, you always imagine expressing love. My dad told my mother he loved her, they were his last words. My mother didn't say it back to him, she had been mad at him for over 30 years and even on his deathbed she couldn't tell him she loved him. And she paid the price of that stubborn refusal to forgive by being haunted by it for the rest of her life. She never recovered her health or her mental state after my dad died even though she lived another three years. But that's another story for a later date.

The last words Stephen heard me say were, I'm sorry. I also said, call me back. Get yourself together and call me back, call me back, I'm sorry! In the heat of the moment, as he was crying and wailing, that's what I said. He didn't say goodbye, he didn't say he loved me, he just cried out in agony and then he was gone. I didn't know what happened, but I knew something bad had just happened. I was a thousand miles away, it was 10:00 at night and all I could do was run around my house screaming and so that's what I did. I didn't have anyone to call at that moment. There was no one, no help, for either of us. I dialed his number again and again and then I started texting him. No response. Those were the worst moments of my entire life. I will never again feel so utterly helpless.

My mind is filled with that last conversation, what he said when he first called, the energy that was in his voice and the questions he asked. I want to write it out in detail, all that I can remember. But it all hurts so bad! How can this be it? It's not it, I know that. He and I have had many conversations since that last one but none have satisfied my need for him to be alive in the world in order for my world to be OK.

So I'll go to the studio soon and look for the pages where I wrote out The Pause and get them transcribed into the computer.

Wednesday: Action!

9:32am                         Writing Practice                      51°  Boise

Don't know how long I can sit here today, I've got a dull ache in my left thigh about two inches above the back of my knee. Last night it was really hurting and it woke me up aching this morning but I moved around and it stopped. Have I been spending too much time sitting in this chair? I'll take my work to the studio in a bit and see if that helps. I have a card order to prepare and mail. Hopefully I won't be bothered by this ache in a different chair.

I have so much to do around here, I need to make a list. Wash cars, dig weeds, blow the back yard, buy plants and get them planted. It's been so chilly the last few days, I haven't gotten anything much done. I went to the gym with James yesterday and that was wonderful, as usual. We'll go again on Friday. I'm really feeling so much better, I expect to get myself moving soon and tackle these projects. I would love to get the peeling paint chipped off the concrete on the front porch and fix it up out there, make it more inviting. Then there's the back deck ... sheesh. Too much work to do and some of it takes money. I'm glad I didn't buy a new car a few weeks ago! What with the taxes I paid in April and my car repairs in May, I'm a little on the squeaky side until the next payday comes. However, I do have almost $3000 in savings, I can't complain and I can use some of that if I want to or need to get things moving forward.

I keep getting interrupted over at Facebook, messages ping through the iPad mini and then I have to go look and then get sidetracked. I need to let that be until I finish here. I know, easier said than done but I will do it.

Yesterday I got the idea for a self-help book to help others through their suicide grief. (There, a ping from FB, now another ... shit. I'm not going, I'm staying here!) In the afternoon I got a title that I like and I wrote it down: The Survivor's Guide to Suicide. I checked Amazon and that title is not there but there are plenty of books about suicide, seems to be a hot topic right now. That's good and bad, at the same time. I bought a Kindle book, another mother-written story of her son's suicide by train ... him standing on the tracks in front of an oncoming train. I've threatened that one before and now when I imagine Tim doing that, I can hear Stephen's wail of despair and I wonder if Tim did that, too. Or if he just stood watching the train come and stepped onto the tracks at the last minute. What a horrible way to die! I'm reading the story, Without Tim, a son's fall to suicide and a mother's rise from grief, on the Kindle. They had a mainstream family, Mom and Dad were both there, they had a stable life, no harsh moves to endure, no new friends to have to constantly make. Tim had two brothers and wasn't gay, none of them were. I have to read more to figure out what happened but I've now read two stories written by the mothers (Stephen's Moon is the other, I borrowed it from The Compassionate Friends library at the last meeting) and neither expressed the level of disruption our family endured, all the moves, Dad gone all the time, parents abusive and freely using alcohol. Stephen's Moon wasn't a suicide, or at least they didn't think it was. Driving into a tree at 3am at high speed sounds fishy to me but then, that's not my story. Tim and my Stephen left no doubt as to the causes of death.

OK, reading those other stories has given my courage to write my own and all I have to do is calm the fuck down and start in. Less drama, more story. I'm feeling less fearful and more inspired today. I've got the ocean and soothing music via YouTube on my TV and I love watching that. I'm going to wrap this up and get going. It's only 10:50am and I need breakfast and then some action!

New book focus, writing program

9:42                        Writing Practice                          49°  Boise

Up and writing. Bed is made, cats are out playing. I've got my coffee and my gum and I'm ready to lay down some words on the page. This morning was the fourth morning in a row where I listened to the Love and Gratitude track first thing and then a few more as I lay with the ball under my neck and did my breathing. That ball is making a huge difference in the way my neck feels. In a few years, I expect to have healed the curve of my neck completely. Wish I had known about this before! And the breathing is keeping my lungs healthy despite the grief.

Listening closely to the CD tracks, I heard them in a different way this morning ... I heard more details that had eluded me before. The music is more powerful then I imagined! There's no doubt that I feel better then I have in weeks, lighter, more perky, willing to laugh out loud and move my body. The depression that has had me captured for so long and was wanting to claim my life has been beaten back with our ThoughtBeat technology. I wish I could see what the brain is doing when those tracks are playing and what the different tracks do to different parks of the brain. I'll bet Heidi would help me with it if I were down there. But now my ears are ringing. That didn't happen the other times I've listened with the headphones. I wonder what's up with that?

I've been sleeping great the last few weeks, going to bed early and getting up earlier. I've been sleeping straight through the night, not waking up to pee or anything. The other day, Sunday, Rocky woke me up at 5am wanting to snuggle. He was purring in my ear and licking my arm ---  I have no idea what was up with that. Maybe he had a dream and woke up friendly. Anyway, I was awake and feeling fine, so I got up at a little after 6am and had my whole day without a nap or a fade. I was sure ready for bed at 10pm but it was a good day. Surprising! As I'm typing right now, I can feel a fade and wouldn't mind laying down for a bit. It's these ears and the ringing. My ears have been terrific since the last time I cleaned them out. I'm sure tired of this ringing already.

So what else. Yesterday was really windy so I didn't go buy plants or work in the yard at all. Late afternoon I ran a few errands and then came home. I've been watching my diet for the past week, hoping to see results but it's too soon to tell. I've lost 4oz in a week, which will be a pound a month if I keep up what I'm doing, which is only allowing one small dessert after dinner. Yesterday I ate too much bread at breakfast and the night before, I had a big hamburger and French fries with Janna at Carl's Jr for our Mother's Day dinner. But no cokes. I haven't had a soft drink in months. No milk at breakfast. No candy, no snacks with carbs. I should see results soon and I'm thinking I can live with this, that it's a sustainable diet. I may have to step it up some in order to lose the weight I need to lose by the reunion in July. But for now, it's good. I'd like to lose a pound a week but we'll see what I have to do to make that happen.

Today is the gym. James hasn't met me there in over a week. I went alone last Friday and I'll go alone again if I have to but I sure enjoy it more when he goes too. I really look forward to our gym visits. I've gotten very attached to that man --- what a heart he has!

Well, I'm done for today. Nothing deep or sad, just a day in the life. It's 10:10 ... smile time. I used to have such a great happiness practice. Losing Stephen sure changed all that. I went from practicing happiness to trying to survive my life in one swift moment. In a way, I did fall with him and I crashed hard. Suicide is a real mother killer. Who knew?

I met a woman yesterday, another suicide mom, Anne Moss Rogers. She lost her son, Charles, last year on June 5th, her one year is coming up. He hung himself. She is vocal and writes well. She has a blog and has a GriefHeart Project. I introduced myself to her yesterday and who knows what will come of it. I told Janna and Pam both that I was waiting for something to come along that I could care about. Anne does speaking and is working on a program through a mental health organization. I told her I was interested in participating with a program like that, speaking and educating about mental health, addiction and suicide. So who knows, maybe she's the one who will give me something worthwhile to do, get me some focus and direction. Or at least point the way. So far, Anne and her story is the closest to mine, we certainly have a lot in common. So we'll see. I found her when I Googled, Suicide ends a life, not a story. I found an article in her local newspaper. But maybe there's something in that sentence that would have value for me and for others. Maybe I could develop a writing program to help other parents and families of suicide to tell their stories and help them connect and heal. The writing of our story, of Stephen's story, has helped me survive, maybe it would help others. But that sentence sounds like a tag line. What would the title be?

I AM ; still here

Suicide Ends a Life, Not a Story

I could write my own stories and then have writing prompts and exercises at the end of each short chapter. That way I could be writing our stories and also a self-help book for others. I could use the book, The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron as the model --- short chapters of personal musings and then the prompt. It could be a guided writing program. With the book I could grow into workshops and speaking programs.

So, is that it? Is this what I've been looking for? Will Julia Cameron inspire me to get going, get writing, yet again? I like it but I remain guarded. I've been inspired before but I've never had an actual book in my hands to model before. Will that make the difference?

We'll see. So there, I did have some inspiration today, it's wasn't just drivel. Yaaay! Off I go for my day. It's hair wash day and I've got a little time and a few things to do before I jump in.

Stephen aged 9, the dream

9:23am                        Writing Practice                       49°  Boise

Windy and chilly out today after a pure perfect day yesterday. But at least it's sunny. I've got work to do in my front yard but there's no way I'm likely to go out there in the cold wind, I don't care how sunny it is. I went with Janna to Lowe's yesterday to look at plants and I was inspired enough to come home afterward and weed a whole flower bed, the one out by Stephen's tree. It took me about an hour. So now I have two beds cleared, one front one left to weed and then the one bed that I left untouched last fall is overgrown and a monster out there. I can split up some of those plants and use them around in the other beds and fill in with some of the pretty things I saw yesterday and that should be good. At least that's a plan to get me started on something springish and get me outside and off my ass in this chair. But as I cast my gaze out to Stephen's tree and watch the wind whip it around, I know I won't have to do anything about any of my plans until later. Later today, later tomorrow, later this week for sure. I'm a big fan of Later!

Well, I have to say that I'm finally feeling better, lighter, less prone to bleak prose and tragic analogies. And not a minute too soon, I don't know how much longer I could have taken that. A few days ago I began listening to our Love and Gratitude track on the Practice Happiness CD first thing in the morning and I had the third session with it today. It's certainly true that gratitude heals. I really do love my life here in this little house. I must, I'm still here and there are no packing boxes in sight, no plans to move or sell.

However, I will admit that it's the cats who keep me here, mostly. I think, left to my own ideas, I would have moved to the Oregon Coast last year, bought a 5th wheel trailer and left all this behind with a renter. But these cats kept me here and so I'll stay until I think I can manage a move that includes them. However, this is their home, this is my home, we all know what to do here on a daily basis. I just need a few days away and I think I'll get that next week when I go to Baker. I'll stay the night with Jodie and Keith and then drive up to Sumpter and maybe stay a night up there. I just want to be someplace else for a while and I need to find a place to donate something for our reunion raffle anyway, so that's my excuse.

As I go along in my days, thoughts of Stephen and memories come unbidden but always clumped into specific locations. My memories are all pre-grouped into the houses where we lived and I think that would be a good title --- The Houses Where We Lived --- don't know the subtitle yet. But I did just get the line, Suicide ends a life, not a story. And in the end, all lives end, but stories can live on, if it's a good story and well told.

I dreamed of Stephen this morning, in the early hours before waking. He was young, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, 9 years old, just poised to bud out into a teen and outgrowing his chubby, adorable stage. Although he was never really chubby, not by today's standards. He had a mouth full of snaggle teeth but he wasn't old enough for braces yet. That would come a few years later and alter the very shape of his face, creating the handsome young man he became and forever erasing the weak and receding chin that would have been gawkish with the strong nose he was bound to possess. I have a video of him singing with his music teacher at age 9, That's What Friends Are For. I really should figure out how to get that on digital and uploaded to YouTube or saved to share somehow. At the time, I thought it was an odd choice for him, it didn't fit somehow, but he loved it. Maybe it's because he didn't have any friends and the very idea of a life where friends love and encourage each other, stand by each other, trusting that they can count on each other, was so appealing that it inspired him to sing it.

I wonder what he would be been like had we not moved from Florida. Would he have made friends, found a niche for himself in that grade school where he went Kindergarten and 1st grade? Being in the same grade school K-5th hadn't helped me at all, I was still weird and mostly friendless by the time we moved to Baker in time for 6th grade. In that case, staying in Florida probably wouldn't have made a difference. His best friend was Kim Kline, a very sweet, mentally challenged girl who thought he hung the moon. I'll bet I have a photo of them somewhere --- or maybe John has it. Kim fully accepted him and he did the same with her and that must have been the attraction. They were both too different for the mainstream and so they stuck together. He never found another friend like her, she was the one and only in his young life.

I enjoyed seeing Stephen in my dream but it was just a dream, not a visit. I would certainly welcome a visit and maybe I'll get them more often if I can start feeling better and stop blocking him. I'm working on it, Stephen! Don't give up on me, please!

Not long ago I had an idea that there is no time where Stephen is and so I don't have to worry about a time factor. He's not judging me or worrying about anything at all. That vision I had where he showed up to take me to the airport but I wasn't packed yet, was in fact surrounded by so much stuff that I couldn't find what belonged to me and I was too confused to get packed. But he was patient, not hurrying my along at all, waiting for me while watching TV, cool as can be. When I'm ready, we will leave but I have time to get myself together, find my things, sort my priorities and then walk away from that too-stuffed house with Stephen to guide the way. He's waiting for me. How soothing.

Forgiveness and Goodbye Donna

9:53am                     Writing Practice                      58°    Boise

Up and ready. It's a fine day out, no wind and brilliant sunshine, the promise of a perfect spring day and probably hot this afternoon. This would be an ideal day to go for a long hike, I can imagine Stephen saying. This is the kind of day that summer dreams are made of, and boy, didn't that kid love summer!

I have successfully stopped looking for a new car. Yay. Yesterday I spent the late afternoon at my studio getting Donna's photos uploaded to the folder she sent me. I hope never to hear of them again. I have two prints to send to her parents and I'll get them ready and mailed out today with a little note. After today I will be done with them all. I feel that the harm they all caused me is now healed, it's over and there's no need to continue with them. There is no new closeness to draw me in, no connection has been made .... there is nothing for me there and truth be known, there never was. She never did like me. There was no respect for me in our friendship, it was all me liking her and chasing her. I was used to living without respect all my life, I saw nothing wrong with it. Not so anymore. This photo session attitude has shown me that there is still no respect and there never will be.

So, at long last, Goodbye Donna Warden. I forgive you for leaving me behind all those years ago and for breaking my heart to the core. I see now that you didn't even know you did it, I didn't register on your radar at all, I was invisible to you. I'm ready to admit that you didn't care for me, not in any meaningful way. We were day and night to each other and we still are. Only now it's OK. I can move on knowing that I'll be fine without you, something I didn't know at all last time we broke up. You were my first true heartbreak and I will never forget you but now I can forgive you and let you go.

OK, moving on. I weighed myself this morning and it seems that I've put on 4 lbs in the past 6 months, almost a whole pound in just the past month. Horror! If I'm going to fit into my summer clothes, I have to do something about this starting today! I've already cut out sodas, milk, tortillas, and my dinners are much smaller. I have cookies at the studio, I just bought them yesterday. They need to go! And the chips, too. I need to slow down on the carbs and increase the protein. I laso need to increase my activity level. I need to get to the gym 2 or 3 times a week with or without James and then stretch at home more. I would like to lose 6 lbs by the reunion in July. As of today, that would put me at 136.6 and that would actually be ideal. Low carb will also give me a flat tummy and I like the sound of that. I hate this pudge! I can tap on that, it's a tappable issue.

I also need to continue on the process of forgiving myself for Stephen's death. Just typing that sentence made tears stir behind my eyes, I know that this is a huge issue for me. My chest has constricted, breathing has altered. Small changes in my body and I noticed them as soon as I typed that sentence. My manta has been, "While I prepare to forgive myself, I ask to be forgiven." By that I mean forgiven for the horrible things I did to Stephen when he was little. The attack on the stairs comes readily to mind. The yelling at him on the way to school, telling him what a fuck up he was. I didn't use those words and I only did it that once, but I sure do remember it. The time I came downstairs at 10am after he had been up for hours and seeing the cookbook open on the counter. He was watching TV and I asked what the cookbook as doing open on the counter and he came bouncing over and leaned into it, saying, "Doesn't that look good?" pointing to a picture that went with a recipe. I like to think I reached over and petted his head and said out loud, "My baby is hungry! Let's get you some food." I know I thought it but did he hear me say it, hear me feel guilty about neglecting my child? I swore to do better after that and I think I did for the most part. He was not 5 years old at the time and I don't know if that was before of after the tumble down the stairs.

I need to forgive myself if I'm going to find a way to tell our story. I can't continue to be plagued by guilt and shame and have a hope of getting anything meaningful written.Seems to me, if I can forgive Donna Warden, I can forgive myself. At least I know I loved him and I know how hard I worked at becoming a better mother. I worked on it for many years, many more years then I actually abused or neglected him. Because of Stephen, I changed my entire life around, I read books that tore me up with the truth of my actions and I wrote daily. I gave up alcohol and became sober, began to recover a sense of my real self so that I could share that with him. He was the reason I tried, he was the reason I did so much of what I did but I never told him that. Did I? Did I tell you how much you meant to me? How I would have laid down my life for you, Stephen? How if I couldn't have stopped you from jumping, I would have jumped too? Do you know that? And what a failure I feel like now, that after over 20 years of life-changing effort, I still ended up in this spot, alone, with my child dead. Who's the big fuck up now?

So now I need to lose weight and forgive myself for my part in Stephen's death. Funny. I wonder if those two are connected somehow? I'm creeping up on it. As I prepare to forgive myself, I ask to be forgiven. That mantra is paving the way for me to begin. I'll get there. Forgiveness is a practice, not an event. I know this. So I'm preparing to practice.

On another note, I was at the bank yesterday and I asked my loan guy about the proposed payment on a 15 yr loan refinance for my house. His initial numbers were stunning! I need to talk to a loan expert and see if he was close because he figured $400 a month for principle and interest and then about $100 for escrow. Are you kidding me?! I could get a $500 a month house payment and be done with it in 15 years?! I know! I'll call Mark Onen, the guy who helped me get this loan. I'll ask him and see how close Pasqual was with his numbers. Because if it's true, I'm going to refinance!

I got in touch with Mark through Facebook and we'll see what happens next .... stand by.

OK, talked to Mark and my guy was all wrong. So, I have to pursue an appraisal and get the PMI taken off my loan. Somehow.

Donna and the Photo Session

9:57am                Writing Practice                  58°  Boise

I've been writing in my notebook by hand lately. It's soothing the write with a pen on paper when I feel empty and lost like I've been for the past few months. I'm not at all sure where this stage is coming from but it's beginning to feel like a transition and I'm ready for it.

I want to move. I want to pack up half my stuff, ditch the other half and store what's left while I take off in my car. I spent weeks shopping for a new car only to put over $700 into Sybil for a new fuel pump, yet again. This one ought to work though. But still, she's no match for the ambitions I'm feeling for travel ... or maybe it's running away that I want to do. I've been here in this house for way longer than I ever believed possible and still I haven't created anything solid. Although I've had a stable place to hole up while the tempest rages around me and that's a blessing I want to acknowledge. In a way, I feel that I'm about to shed my skin and what will emerge is still unknown.

I'm unraveling. Thread by thread my life is loosening and fraying at the edges. I'm slowly falling apart, slow enough for me to watch it all with very little interest. Rather than try to stop it, I wonder if I should embrace it and step into it, see what will happen next? I have an online writing class I've signed up for, Pam is doing it with me. I'll use that and see where it takes me. Whatever comes, I'm cool with it. I'll begin the first lesson later today. Maybe I'll go to the studio and write. I haven't been over there hardly at all in a month.

Besides, I need to put all of Donna's photos on a CD and mail it to her. I've hardly heard a word from her since I did that session. None of them have thanked me in any way or even acknowledged my efforts at all. Last night Donna and I had a few messages back and forth about it and I said I could tell that none of them liked the pictures and she protested, asked how I knew. What had happened, she wanted to know. I said nothing had happened and that was the point. None of them had liked or commented on any of the photos I had posted of their session. Not one. She sent a message this morning saying she wasn't surprised, that was just how they all are. Like that's acceptable. What it is is rude. When someone goes out of their way to give a gift that big and asks for nothing in return but a donation, the least they can give back is some appreciation. Unless they didn't like the pictures, in which case, silence is at least understandable.

But hey, I'll fix it. I'll put those edited photos on a CD and mail it off and that will be that for Donna and her stuffy family. I'm ready to let her go again, we have nothing in common and our personalities don't mesh at all. But then, I don't mesh with anyone these days so I know it's not her fault. But still, I'm ready to back off. We've been reacquainted for over a year and nothing is coming of it. What little past we had has been hashed over and I'm ready to be finished with it. There's nothing there to go forward with. Just as well leave it and move on. With love, of course. As much love as I can muster these days, anyway.

So off to the studio today. I'll pay my bills and go to the bank after breakfast and then go to the studio and see how that feels. I can leave the back door open for the cats or get Rocky in and let Milo stay out. I'll let them both out this evening so they can play and be free. Poor Rocky, I just can't stand to leave him out alone when I'm gone. He's the one thing I can actually feel love for right now. I want him to be safe.

OK, well that's it for this Monday Monday ... 131 weeks and still counting. I got an idea in a dream last week that I would be 89½ when I died. That would be October 2042, 26½ years from now. That's a long time to be sad and lost, so I hope this transition works to get me right side up again in some form. I've got work to do, if I can ever get to it.