Tag: November

A Gift to Ease Your Grief

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As COVID-19 cases climb and shadows of worry and anxiety cast doubts, we stew in our numbness. We attempt to process the depth of our grief. It has no bounds.

Here in the United States, we prepare for a thankless Thanksgiving Day 2020 minus more than a quarter of a million Americans–gone, but not forgotten–who sat at tables beside us a year ago. Our hearts ache for them and their families.

Seven years ago grief consumed me as the first Thanksgiving after my mother’s death approached. Tom and I decided we needed a holiday getaway from our then suburban Chicago home. We needed to shake things up. To begin a new tradition in a place that wouldn’t spark the rawness of Midwestern memories.

Both of my sons loved the idea. They decided to join us for an extended Thanksgiving weekend in the Arizona desert. It felt as if the odds were against us when Tom developed pneumonia after raking leaves on a frosty early-November Illinois morning. But, remarkably, he rebounded quickly. We kept our plans to fly west.

On Thanksgiving Day, Kirk, Nick, his friend Stephanie, Tom and I dined outside at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. We enjoyed turkey and stuffing, seated around a courtyard patio table shaded by an orange tree.

Three months after that November 2013 trip, I retired from corporate life and began to feel a calling to write about my grief. I soon discovered that by honoring and answering my creative impulses, I could ride through the waves of tears and numbness and emerge whole on the other side.

As strange as it sounds, grief became the fertile ground for my writing journey. In 2016, I published my first book, From Fertile Ground. It tells the story of three writers–my grandfather, mother and me–and our desires to leave behind a legacy of our own distinctive observations of our family, our loves, our losses, our worlds.

In honor of Thanksgiving and those we’ve loved and lost, you can download a free Kindle copy of my book on Amazon from November 21 through November 25.

I hope reading it will inspire you (or a friend who is grieving) to find your fertile ground. To discover your voice. To channel your creativity. To emerge from the numbness. To tell your unvarnished story. Perhaps even to leave behind a brief review of my book online.

On Our Path

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She whispered November, though each step spoke September. No grey to brighten. No chill to thaw. Only cerulean skies. Proud pomegranates. Lonely lizards. Fading roses. Towering eucalyptus trees. Swaying suspension bridges.

In her Arizona embrace, we stood by banks of dusty monsoon memories. We crossed dry creek beds flowing with tears. We shielded our eyes from the sun. We moved ahead on our path. We listened to the language of lingering leaves.

Thankful

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There is nothing idyllic about life in November 2020. The best we can do is wash our hands, wear our masks, keep our distances, hug (only metaphorically) and pray for our loved ones, apply regular coats of hand sanitizer, disavow false claims of voter fraud, limit our exposure to anxiety-producing news items, contribute to our favorite charities, and find a way to keep living.

Even in this dark period, I continue to sing with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus. Most of our rehearsals have been conducted via Zoom technology. Recently, we have divided ourselves into small groups of seven or eight for in-person rehearsals on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursday nights.

I show up on Thankful Thursdays to practice holiday music. It’s a scene from a sci-fi movie. Individually, we check our temperatures at the door, fan out ten or more feet apart across a large room, wear masks and an additional layer of protection behind a face shield. Our artistic director and accompanist (also behind masks and shields) proceed to lead us from afar. The experience is as remote as it sounds, but in 2020, it’s the best we can do.

When rehearsal is through two hours later, we spray our chairs with disinfectant, turn the lights off in the room, walk out the side door into the Phoenix moonlight, return to our cars separately, and drive home.

We are rehearsing one of my favorite songs, Thankful (words and music by Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster, and Richard Page), for our December online performance. It’s a stirring piece I first performed in Chicago as a member of the Windy City Gay Chorus in 2012. It gave me goosebumps then, but the message is more universal and relevant eight years later.

I hope reading these lyrics will bring you a little peace. It’s a mental space I will travel to when I sing this song from behind my mask tonight. Even with all the pain and heartache in our lives, we have to believe we will get through this.

There’s so much to be thankful for.

***

Some days we forget to look around us. Some days we can’t see the joy that surrounds us. So caught up inside ourselves, we take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for what we know can be. And on this day we hope for what we still can’t see. It’s up to us to be the change and even though we all can still do more, there’s so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves, there’s so much sorrow. It’s way too late to say, “I’ll cry tomorrow.” Each of us must find our truth; it’s so long overdue.

So for tonight we pray for what we know can be. And on this day we hope for what we still can’t see. It’s up to us to be the change and even though we all can still do more, there’s so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences, there is a place we’re all connected. Each of us can find each other’s light.

So for tonight we pray for what we know can be. And on this day we hope for what we still can’t see. It’s up to us to be the change and even though we all can still do more, there’s so much to be thankful for.

Flickers and Fedoras

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I wince when wires obstruct the buttes before me. I suppose it’s a part of life I must endure. Just like the car alarm blaring outside my backdoor as I write this sentence. It supersedes the mockingbird I prefer.

Even worse, the woman walking her fluffy dogs in the park. She ruins the encounter by wearing a red cap I can’t stomach. The same slogan is emblazoned on the canines’ collars. I’m too angry to make eye contact with her. I prefer a campaign to Make Red Hats Wearable Again.

Life is filled with such irritations. Yet, as November winds down and we Americans prepare to gather around tables of all shapes and sizes to proclaim our thankfulness with too much turkey, stuffing, football, pie and impeachment controversy, I am grateful for other things.

Certainly, I am fortunate to have the love and companionship of my husband. Both of my sons are finding full and meaningful lives. I live in a country (admittedly, one deeply divided right now) where I can express my opinions freely. In my sixties, I’ve discovered new friends and reliable doctors in a warm community. I have health coverage and a comfortable home. Many people don’t.

I’m also thankful for the little surprises that appear out of the blue. Like the gilded flicker I spotted during my walk along the canal. This large woodpecker, complete with a splash of red rouge on either side of his head, is native to the Sonoran Desert. In the stillness, he perched high above me on a branch for a full minute on Friday and looked down as if to say “You’d better pay attention to me. This is the good stuff of life.” So I did.

Then on Sunday. Another rare sight to behold. Tom and I were writing and reading in a local coffee shop when a handsome man entered wearing a black fedora. (Actually, handsome men aren’t rare in Scottsdale, Arizona. But fedora sightings are.)

According to the website “History of Hats”, this wide-brimmed hat made of felt first appeared in 1882 in the production of a play called “Fedora” by the French author Victorien Sardou. It was designed for actress Sarah Bernhardt. Over time, the hat became popular for women’s rights activists.

After 1924, fedoras were adopted by men as a fashion statement because Prince Edward of Britain started wearing them.  Somehow, soon after, they appeared on gangsters during Prohibition in the United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, you saw fedoras everywhere on the heads of manly men on stage and in noir films (Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart). After that, the fedora fad faded. Informal clothing won the day.

In November 2019, without warning, one snazzy fedora resurfaced on the noggin of a smart citizen in a Scottsdale, Arizona coffee shop. Though I was pleasantly surprised, I was also observant enough to spot it in a sea of ordinary western, baseball and stocking caps.

Flickers and fedoras. I have so much to be thankful for.

For All the Soldiers on the Hill

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Every year at this time thoughts of my father resurface. Mostly because Veterans Day is drawing near. Dad served during World War II in the Battle of the Bulge. But also because he died in the eleventh month of the year. A second heart attack took him on November 26, 1993. It was the day after Thanksgiving nearly twenty-six years ago.

Now that I live in Arizona, it’s less convenient for me to visit Walter Johnson’s grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery south of St. Louis. But I have no difficulty summoning vivid recollections of him from afar.

I remember a tender moment between us sometime in the 1980s when he asked me if I liked the idea of him one day being buried in a national cemetery alongside other soldiers who’d served during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. (Unfortunately, the list goes on.) I told him I thought it would be the perfect, peaceful resting place for him. A proud patriot. A man who loved his country. A citizen who served it to the best of his ability.

Over the years, I’ve been inspired to tell Dad’s story. This unfulfilled poet of good intentions–this complicated, compassionate and troubled comrade, deeply affected by the horrors of war and bipolar disorder–appears in all three of my books in various forms.

Recently, I came across a poem in a file of prose I’ve written over the past thirty years. At the time I penned this one in 1996, my grief for Walter Johnson was fresh. I had just visited his grave. I was searching for answers. Still reeling from my failed first marriage. Doing my best to raise two young sons. Finally coming out of the closet. Beginning to connect the disparate strands of my emerging life.

As it turns out, the passage of time (along with greater understanding, acceptance and forgiveness) helped me heal my wounds, find my path, and build an integrated life. I’m thankful for that eventual transformation. Walter wouldn’t have understood all of it, but he would have kissed me on the forehead and loved me anyway. He would have cheered me on during these late-in-life writing years I’ve been fortunate to find.

I’m grateful for the poetic propensity that came from this one particular soldier. Yes, he is long gone. His physical remains rest under the shade of a large tree not far from the banks of the Mississippi River. But his imperfect imprint will always appear in my writing. This is for him.

***

The Soldier on the Hill

I talked with the soldier on the hill today,

We sat, we cried, we laughed, we prayed.

The bells rang true, the trees stood free,

A breeze swept past to welcome me.

 

Shadows filled the landscape then,

Tempers rose without his pen.

Snowflakes fell, the grass turned green,

All without a change of scene.

 

Now the soldier rests with them,

Hand in hand—all blessed again.

They greet another trailing soul,

Who makes the journey past the knoll.

 

August 27, 1996

***

More broadly, I’m thankful for all of the soldiers on the hill. Many of them lost their lives in battle and had little or no time to discover a path or realize their dreams. We must always honor their service and sacrifices, past and present.

Under Blue Skies and Pecan Trees

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One of my favorite lunch spots in Phoenix: The Farm at South Mountain. An impromptu meal of creamy tomato basil soup and half of a turkey sandwich with Tom. The best part? Dining outdoors together at a picnic table under blue skies and pecan trees.

That’s something to be thankful for any day. But especially on November 1 when it’s eighty degrees in the Valley of the Sun and other parts of the country are facing the harsh realities of raging wildfires or snow-crusted sidewalks and jack-o’-lanterns.

During November, I’ll be posting messages of thankfulness. Some will be quick observations like these about the warm place I call home. Others will be deeper stories of reflection and gratitude … mini-memoirs about people who have made a difference in my life or left an indelible imprint.

What are you thankful for?