A long day...

It is almost 11, and I am soon to bed. Thank God. This is just the kind of day that I would have emailed to tell Kit about. I miss her so much, more now than when she died last winter. She understood me, and that I am a person with weaknesses, but still loved me.

I am feeling all those weaknesses tonight. I am so tired that it seems a chore to get out of this chair and go to bed. Abby sits in the other chair in my office, doing her homework. She is a nightbird, no doubt about it.

I worked really hard at my job today, playing catch-up from being sick with a tummy bug yesterday (even though I did do some work from home on the computer). Had lunch with Shirley, Barb and Carol K. at Panera -- soup tasted perfect and was good for my upset tummy!

I left work, drove to North to get Abby. We drove to Redbud to have dinner with my mom and Betty. Then, I drove Abby to Hobby Lobby to get facepaint for her acting class doing "Living Statues" at the Farmers Market Saturday. Then to Bloomingfoods to get her Lotus tickets. Then to the library to return her CDs. Then I dropped her off at home. She let out the dog and took a nap, while I went back to my mom's to go over some information with her. (Mom was very anxious that I look at her papers and her plans for her funeral; she is having heart catheterization on Oct. 10 and is worried about it.) Then I went to Kroger's to get trash tags so the trash can get picked up tomorrow morning. Then, at home I took out the two trash cans, added some stuff. Then I got inside and talked on the phone to two moms whose daughters are coming down to visit Abby for Lotus this weekend.

Now I am going to read a novel for a few minutes and fall gratefully asleep. As I was writing, the thought of Kit never getting to be involved with her kids, never being overwhelmed with stuff to do, never laughing over the trials of our lives together again...

Well, she would have laughed with me over a day like this has been. I would have quoted my old boss, Shirley, one more time: "Thank God, Lynne, for your messy, busy, demanding life. It's what has made you flexible and able to laugh!"

Good night.

Amalia's new haircut!

Ruth Goldstein -- a tribute

One bummed-out mama

Adam has been sick this past week.

And that has made me realize how primal the parenting experience is. And how things can seem OK, and then suddenly one can be turned into a sniveling, miserable mess.

Because Adam has been sick. And Adam is in Washington, D.C., and I am here. Rather, we are here. And so Adam has been the recipient of a bunch of worried-parent calls, from both of us.

The frustrating thing is that we had just dropped Adam off in D.C. and had left to drive back home to Indiana, after a really fun weekend there -- spent with Linda and Peter, having brunch with them and our friends Deb Galyan and Mike, Dylan and Liam Wilkerson, helping Adam move in and shop for the apartment in Silver Spring where he is living with three other interns...and by the afternoon of the day we left, Adam called and said he felt feverish and sick.

Linda, a friend of mine for -- let's see, for at least 28 years, ended up taking Adam to a doctor, and because they wouldn't accept the Anthem information over the phone (I had forgotten to get an Anthem card for Adam to have in Washington) Linda paid almost $300 with her credit card, got his medicine and juice, took him home -- and then Saturday night, when he was still sick, took him to the doctor again -- rather, the emergency room -- and was with him till almost 1 in the morning! (None of the tests showed anything, which means he has a virus.)

Just knowing that my friend would do that for our son -- in a way that made me feel wonderful because she is wonderful -- but I had this deep, clutching feeling, too. I understood the phrase "my stomach was in knots." I fell asleep crying Saturday night.

I felt guilty over Linda having to do all that. Really, really guilty.

I felt so worried about Adam.

I felt so helpless.

I kept thinking about how, many years ago, I was supposed to pick Linda up after an evening spent table-sitting at the movie China Syndrome, where she was passing out anti-nuclear literature, and how I forgot to go and get her and she had to call me. I kept thinking "She's a better friend than me!" Omigosh, that was so many years ago! It was really verging on the ridiculous to keep bringing that up to myself -- Linda got over it years ago -- obviously we are still friends.

I had a fight with Jordan over all the stuff in the garage.

I realized that being upset over Adam was the cause of the gut-wrenching anxiety and all the negative thoughts and feelings were stemming from that...

Still, glad this weekend is over. Contemplating what to do to thank Linda and Peter for the upheaval in their lives. And Adam --- I called hiim this morning at 7:20, and asked "Are you on the train?" (to start his internship today) He answered "No, I'm sitting in front of the GAO."

Whew.

column by Lynne

This was in the HT last week.


Thinking about Religion
Kaddish: A prayer to bless

By Lynne Foster Shifriss lshifriss@heraldt.com
July 14, 2007

The Colorado mountains are a good place to reflect on God and life. Lynne Shifriss | Courtesy photo

Let God’s great name be blessed forever and ever...

— from the Kaddish prayer

It’s pretty easy to feel close to God in the mountains of Colorado.

And while on vacation here, I am filled by thoughts that reinforce the meaning of the circle of life:

• A couple of days ago was the yartzeit (anniversary) of my father-in-law’s death.

• Just a few weeks ago I went to a memorial service for a friend — he was only 59 and had been an exuberant dad, a mentor to us when we were all young parents.

• We are staying with an old college friend and his children — his wife, Mary, died six months ago. She and I were kindred spirits since our freshman year in college in 1972.

• Our 20-year-old son sits with his grandmother in the hospital today, where he has taken her so that she can get a needed blood transfusion. Then he will go and play chess with a very elderly friend.

• Yesterday, one of our oldest and dearest friends, at age 57, married a wonderful man in a small beach ceremony in San Diego.

• I have much time to think on this vacation as I knit a blanket to welcome a new baby to the world.

Generations.

Death and life.

Grief and joy.

Mourning and ... going on with life.

That, to me, is the essence of the Kaddish, a prayer that Jews say after the death, and on each anniversary of the death of a loved one.

The Kaddish does not talk about death. Instead, the prayer extols the glory of God and the promise of peace, the goodness of life.

The Kaddish is supposed to be said only during a religious service in which there is a minyan — a group of 10 adult Jews.

Perhaps this is so, I think, because those rabbis of old realized that mourners really need the support of a community (but that’s just my theory, and I’m not a clergyperson).

And yet my husband, daughter and I found ourselves, on the yartzeit of my father-in-law’s death, standing at a 360-degree outlook off Timber Ridge Road, a little above 12,000 feet high in the Colorado Rockies.

There above the treeline, we wore fleece and shivered in the fierce wind, though we had been in shorts and T-shirts down in Estes Park.

We were surrounded by the alpine tundra — tiny blue-purple, yellow and white flowers pushed through the hardy grasses and scattered rocks, a reminder to me that beauty exists even in the harshest conditions.

And that life’s goodness comes back, even through the most painful of memories.

Generations.

Death and life.

Grief and joy.

Mourning and ... going on with life.

I took a copy of the Kaddish prayer from my purse and there, on top of the mountain, we three recited the words in memory of my father-in-law, praising God, praising life.

It was a very holy place.

From the road...

(Written on Thursday, June 28)

Riding on I-70, headed eastward. Crying as we drove over the Missisippi, because I had just put in a disk in the computer and discovered that it worked. It was a disk of photos that a very kind woman had put together, a slideshow of photographs of Penecost programs at Grace Church, all programs that my good friend Kit designed. There she is, in her element, surrounded by people, butterflies and balloons. Carol Nuss put together the slideshow and they showed it at Grace Episcopal on Pentecost. Dean Sally told me that people watched it with tears in their eyes, but laughing, too. I was so relieved to see that the disk worked in my Mac, because she had put it together with a Windows program. And it worked, just fine. After we came down from Pike's Peak the other day, we drove to Carol's house, up by Garden of the Gods, to get that disk. (She's making a more edited one for Phil, with the music of James Galway playing "Wind Beneath My Wings." She showed it to me when I came to get the CD, and we held hands and watched it, both with tears. I never met her before but we were bound by our caring for Kit...)

I'm going to use the photos to make a notebook for each of the kids and Phil, and one for me, with the beautiful photos of Kit at church, and also the material from her application to become a deacon....an autobiography that she wrote and the answers from the committee which evaluated her application to become a deacon. It's lovely stuff, to keep and treasure. I never realized what a big deal it was, her being accepted to study to be a deacon.

I checked the other night; a plane ticket between Indy and Colorado Springs is only about $229 round-trip. Why didn't I go to see her more often? It makes me sick to think that I could have and didn't.

I hope that both my girls can join me to go out for the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival, the first weekend of November. I wrote to another old friend of Kit's and asked her if she could come as well, perhaps with her daughter.

We are now 220 miles from Indianapolis, so will arrive home late tonight. It's 7:10 Indiana time.

We are driving home a couple of days early because my mom was in the hospital this week, getting blood transfusions. I don't think they know what caused her anemia and to have some internal bleeding, evidently, but the situation seems to be better. She has had an EKG, a colonoscopy and an x-ray of her colon. So, she is back at home at Redbud Hills.

She knows that I will not be over to see her till tomorrow morning.

My emotions are so on the surface, after spending time at the Webster house. Phil and the kids were great, and we felt totally at home and had good times with each of them. But, I realized that I had to face Kit's death head-on, being there. It was somewhat easier at home, to pretend that she didn't die.

Phil and Jordie got along great, which made me feel good. We hiked and had meals togehter and hung out...Maddie and Abby and I went on a "ghost tour" at the haunted Stanley Hotel in Estes Park (the hotel inspired Stephen King to write "The Shining"). We all went on Timber Ridge Drive, beyond Estes Park, up to the fierce winds and glorious views much higher up. And I felt so good that I did a bunch of hiking....even though I was short of breath, I consciously breathed slowly and deeply and felt OK.

Time together in the car is even good. Just hanging out.