Darla's Mom

Darla and I have been designing fabric. Here is our store of designs that you can order https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/darla_duckie

our friend Sally has been sewing them and has her own website http://www.gomaskurself.com

Her friend is fostering kittens and we got to go help

Her lower back hurts so badly she can’t move her legs easily so the nurse line said to come to the ER.

Here we are, waiting whole she quizzes me on Batman and D.C. Comics facts. She knows how to use the glossary and the index. At least she’ll be well prepared for research projects.

Today is the last day of Darla’s third grade. We made it through and she did well. I’ve had to work so sometimes she’s been hanging out by herself

We are in almost constant contact through the telephone, through Alexa, and through the webcam in my room. But sometimes I see things that just break my heart and I wish I could be there with her. It makes me want to quit my job and just stay home.

And Darla has always gotten nosebleeds. And today it just started while we were talking through the phone. Trying to talk her down and into the appropriate way to deal with a nosebleed is quite the adventure. I’m sure my house will look like a murder scene. This is on top of the nose bleed she had at midnight last night.

My poor baby.

Just before the pandemic shut down the schools we had made a trip to the Chumash village museum. Darla built a little Chumash town with applesauce and things but then it died when the cats came and Darla ate the rest of the applesauce.

Today we rebuild because it is the last week of school and it’s basically now or never. She is using peanut butter cookie dough and spaghetti.

Not exactly historically accurate, but fun!

Loss and Sorrow are old friends of mine. I suspect you know them too. They are always around at gatherings and whisper to us as we fall slowly to sleep.

When they speak it is never frivolous nonsense. Their soft voice rumbles, tumbles and thunders into conversation and transforms the world.

Loss and Sorrow have deep pockets where they hold our soft and delicate memories. When they sit with us, those memories are gently displayed and placed into our trembling hands to hold and examine.

Their whisper of death is a storm in the world now. Sorrow comes sliding in tears and pooling between our toes, around ankles, rising in currents and rivulets to our knees and slowing us so much that every move is like swimming in molasses.  The tide will recede though some of us are deeper in the water than others. Some will never be fully dry again, nor will they want to be.

Tears are holy water, this pain of loss is a gift. We have loved, we have lived and we have laughed while among those who caused our hearts to sing songs of unimaginable joy. The silence is deafening , broken only by sniffles and cries where laughter had been hours and days before. And so we tolerate the pain. We observe the ritual of grief. We share the memories.

We celebrate the uninvited Sorrow and remember what Loss has taken from us.

We can’t open the door to life, our mothers must do that for us. We do not know who will open the door out and back to Heaven or how long the door will remain locked to us. When someone we love cracks open the door of Heaven and slips out beyond our reach it feels like we have died also. The pain is a reminder that we remain.

So Chase, my most wanted and dearly loved cousin; my loud chef, and sweet man – I will grieve your passing. I will love on your family and pray extra hard. Do not rest in peace. Dance and sing and tell all the angels about your girls. Find Grandpa and tell him how hard you tried to have a daughter born in his honor on his birthday. Drink and eat and cook while you endure the very long wait for your loved ones to find you again.

And I thank God for your life and for being the occasional visitor therein as I sit and remember you with my friends, Sorrow and Loss.

I don’t know…. The quarentine has gotten to her . She made Lemonade with fresh lemons and dug out this dress from preschool.