a fresh start

i've been wanting to brighten things up but lacked the time, inspiration, motivation, and, ironically, the motivation to procrastinate. today's circumstantial recipe provided just the right mix for such a change.

i trained a new employee for 4.5 hours this morning and felt totally drained afterward (could have something to do with the 4 hours i've spent training every morning this week). so i checked my email and some of the sites i love that aren't censored (yet). then i resolved to freshen the blog. a few forgotten images on my hard drive and some "save picture as" from Anthropologie's site later, here we have it. you like?

and yes, i ghetto-edited the header using PAINT. when's the last time you thought about that old graphics program? i must be the only girl on the planet without Photoshop or Adobe or Lightroom - and i take pride in that. i can make a decent-looking banner using PAINT. what kind of old-school hottie am i? if you really wanna know, just ask my boyfriend :)

in the middle of creating this place anew, a patient's widow came in. i settled in for the long haul because i could tell she needed to get some things off her chest. she's in a bad living situation and in total despair about losing her best friend. i listened for 45 minutes and as the conversation came to a close (if it was up to her, we'd talk for hours), i let out everything i'd been wanting to say.

sympathy is a tricky business. i think grieving people are very kind not to sucker punch all the well-meaning people who mistake empathy for sympathy. i've learned that you pay your dues by listening, absorbing, and taking on their burden. when you've abided with someone in their sadness for a certain amount of time, you've "earned" the right to speak to her grief. it's like anything else: if you aren't experienced, you don't get to tell your superiors how to do things; if you do, any potential respect they might have had for you disintegrates.

now in the course of just one conversation, this "earning" has to happen rather quickly, which means your listening and abiding skills have to be top-notch. (i'm not trying to portray sympathy as a strategical enterprise, but i work in a medical office. i have to seamlessly incorporate grief counseling into my already cluttered day. if i didn't know how to move things along, i'd be unproductive at best.) every grief situation is different --- but once i can sense i've been given the position to speak, i say something like this, like i did this afternoon.

i'm sorry for taking your time, she said. you must think i'm crazy, but i still talk to him every day. i just can't even see a future without him. i still haven't been able to bury him - i don't have the funds. he wanted to be cremated, and his ashes are at the funeral home. they have these little gold urns . . . she showed me the size with her hand. she couldn't say anything more because she was crying.

i don't think you're crazy, i started. i don't think you're weird. you're grieving the loss of this person who is so important to you --- whatever it takes. and you may talk to him every day for the rest of your life, and that's okay. it makes sense that you'd be sad --- i'd be worried about you if you weren't! so don't let anyone tell you that's wrong.

as for the future, you don't need to be able to see it right now. you don't want to be so sad that you're unable to function, but you also can't stuff it all inside and expect to move on without dealing with your feelings. your concern right now is getting through this minute, or this hour, or this day. one day you'll need to think about what things might be like 10 years from now, and one day you WILL be able to see that future. until then, all you need to do is take one day at a time. you have to be braver than most people on the planet right now.

she laughed bitterly. he was much better at being brave than i am.

but those parts of him, i said, have rubbed off on you. you were together so much for so long that those things have become a part of you just like he was a part of you. he isn't your dad, but you've inherited those things from him - he's passed them on to you. she looked at me doubtfully. we never see the best parts of ourselves, you know? i continued. we always look down on ourselves. someone else can see the good parts of us better than we can. so you may not see it when you look in the mirror, but i'm telling you what i see in you. and i don't say things i don't mean just to make people feel good. sometimes it takes someone else telling us what we are for us to finally know.

her tears hadn't stopped, in fact they'd increased, but she was silent. i knew she'd heard me. and if i didn't think i'd burst into tears of my own, i would have said, his bravery is in you and that's how he stays with you. he's made you brave, and see? this is how he made sure you'd never be without him. this is how he never has to leave you.

instead i said, i miss him, too.
and there were no words after that.
and really, how could there be.
let our tears of remembrance speak for themselves.

rest in peace
JM
september 7, 1949 - november 8, 2007