… so much I cannot think of today, a team of white birds lifting off a shoreline and disappearing into the sun. Billy Collins
A lifetime ago, when both of my children were here and healthy, I started a book group. I invited a diverse, interesting mix of my friends to join, none of whom knew more than one or two of the others. Memoirs of a Geisha, Angela’s Ashes, Cold Mountain. We read so many books that remain with me still. Of course we picked our share of dogs, too. Novels too silly or boring to get through. One month, we took on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time, which proved to be one of the densest books I’ve ever read. Or more accurately, the roughly 100 pages of the 768-page tome, was some of the slowest going I’ve ever encountered.
But if you asked me to pick one book that epitomized our group and that time in our lives, it would have to be Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. I could no longer give you an overview of the plot or name any of the characters, but I will never forget the secret international club, with branches in Hong Kong and Bangkok, the main character belonged to. It was called C.R.A.F.T., which stood for “can’t remember a f*cking thing.”
It was the perfect description of life with a husband who traveled four days a week and two little ones who were busy and loud and constantly in motion. Those were the days when if I didn’t write it down, it wasn’t getting done. Of having to remind myself who was where and what time everyone needed to be picked up or dropped off. What birthday treats needed to be made and what day and time I was volunteering in the classroom.
Life is calmer and quieter now. Dan no longer travels for work, Molly is designing her life as a young adult and Jimmy is more than a decade gone, taken from us by the brain cancer we couldn’t cure or control. But I’m still a card-carrying member of C.R.A.F.T.
I am reminded of the club every time I dip my toe into Apple News and quickly get overwhelmed by everything that is happening all at once. Even when I try to stay with a single story, I have trouble retaining the details as dozens of other events intrude into my thoughts. It’s a helluva world we’ve got this time, as my father used to say more than 25 years ago, whenever something crazy or horrifying happened.
Yet unlike those exhausting, joy-filled days parenting young children, I can step away from my over-stimulated, too-full brain and find some moments of peace. I don’t avoid the news altogether, and I do have a general sense of what’s going on. But these days, I’m more comfortable sitting with what I don’t know and willing to wait until more is revealed. I’m less concerned with judging and more interested in understanding. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with how broken the world feels but harder to walk by a ruby red liquid amber leaf Lucy and I find on an early morning walk.
There are days when I don’t recognize this current me at all. Loss has tempered my tongue, worn down some of my resentment and rage. Jimmy’s voice, nudging me to be kind, is loud in my ears and not easily ignored. I still have the snarky thought but more often than not can’t find the energy or wherewithal to express it. I am more easily distracted but more likely to notice the kind act of a stranger or the quiet wonder of a Gray Fox crossing the trail in front of me.
When Jimmy died, I thought there would be a sameness, an unrelentingness to my grief that would persist year after year. But to my surprise, I have found every year to be different. Instead of a well-worn path, I am finding my way as I go. The pain endures, but time reveals new sources of it, along with small bits of joy and more space for the memories of my boy at all ages. The holes in my memory are proving to be a blessing as they sift out the slings and arrows, capturing the love and light that remains.
