Supermarket Flowers

"Has Mom heard this song yet? " I heard Trevor ask Kelsey as we were driving home from dinner.  We were listening to Ed Sheeran’s new album and Supermarket Flowers had just started playing.  I knew Ed had written the song after his grandmother died but I had not brought myself to listen to it yet.   My mum’s been gone almost 14 years and as we drove in the darkness the lump in my throat was palpable.  

"I took the supermarket flowers from the windowsill

Threw the day-old tea from the cup

Packed up the photo album Matthew had made

Memories of a life that's been loved

Took the "Get Well Soon" cards and stuffed animals

Poured the old ginger beer down the sink

Dad always told me, "Don't you cry when you're down."

But, mum, there's a tear every time that I blink"

I remember going to the nursing home a couple of days after the funeral...we found Mum's few possessions piled on her wheel chair that was parked in the utility closet.  I can still picture my mother's shoulders shaking as she was pushing the wheel chair out to the car.

"Oh, I'm in pieces. It's tearing me up but I know
A heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved"

I always find myself missing her more in the spring.  Lilacs, the Boston Marathon, and her May birthday make me misty.

"So, I'll sing Hallelujah,
You were an angel in the shape of my mum
When I fell down you'd be there holding me up
Spread your wings as you go
And when God takes you back
He'll say, "Hallelujah, you're home."

Your relationship with your Grandmother is always less complicated.   Grandmothers aren't challenged with the difficult parts of parenting. They just get to play the role of your biggest fan.

"I fluffed the pillows, made the beds, stacked the chairs up

Folded your nightgowns neatly in a case
John said he'd drive, then put his hand on my cheek
And wiped a tear from the side of my face"

Since Mum died our family has drifted apart but the week of her passing we were all together pitching in and comforting each other.  Stories of our shared memories filled the hours as we made her final plans.

"I hope that I see the world as you did 'cause I know
A life with love is a life that's been lived"

I treasure the things she taught me to love...gin rummy, a thunderstorm, Make Way for Ducklings, and a good tuna salad sandwich with pickles.

"Hallelujah,
You were an angel in the shape of my mum
You got to see the person I have become
Spread your wings and I know
That when God took you back, he said, "Hallelujah, you're home."

I was almost 36 when Mum died and I was so lucky to have her as long as I did. She got to love Kelsey and Trevor and while their memories of her are a little fuzzy, they knew Ed's song would resonate with me. 

Don't Miss Your Water's Edge

Living near the water was a huge part of my life growing up.   My grandparent's house is on a lake and swimming, ice skating and swamping the row boat were every day occurrences.    We also were lucky enough to have a Cape house on the bay.  Summers also included riding waves, bonfires and salty skin.   My first job after college was in Boston and my commute took me along the ocean for 20 miles.

When my husband announced he was offered a position in land locked York, Pennsylvania I started to panic.  We made a trip down and I was so relieved when the rolling green hills and wide open spaces calmed my anxiety.    I knew in my heart moving here would be OK and as it turns out it was one of the best things to happen to our family.

We make it back to Boston every summer and sometimes as I soak in the ocean air I get a lump in my throat and watching the sun rise over the harbor as we drive away always leaves me misty.

Last year I discovered the song "Noel" by Brandon and Leah.  There is one verse that really spoke to me:

"She lies awake and thinks about the water's edge...it's where she always thought her home would be.”

I missed the water so much even though I love living here.  One night sitting with friends "Noel" started playing.   I told them how much that verse resonated with me.   Our neighbor Matt looked at me, tilted his head and said "but you do live at the water's edge”.    For a second I had no idea what he was talking about...and then it hit me.

Our house sits at the edge (and I do mean edge) of a creek.  I love to sit on the deck and listen to it babble by.  Sleeping with the windows open is way better than a sound machine and my kids have gotten to spend summers racing little boats and catching crayfish.

Sometimes we just need to reframe our thinking.  Yes, this little creek is not the Atlantic Ocean but it is still pretty amazing.

"She lies awake  and thinks about the water's edge...it's where she always thought her home would be".

And so it is.

Trying Not to Lose Hope

There has been a lot of loss from addiction lately.   Young, beautiful souls that will never grow old.  I see how hard it is to get and stay clean and I am once again so very grateful to those I love who fight the battle and live to see another day.  Please keep fighting the good fight and telling your stories.

I wrote this thank you note almost 3 years ago.  Something I had prayed about for so many years had come true.   During this sad time I am trying to focus on hope and recovery and how beautiful it can be.

Dear Friends,

We are celebrating a big anniversary today.  Dad has been sober for 1 year.  He will probably not acknowledge it…will act like it is no big deal but we all know what a big deal it is.  And we owe so much gratitude to all of you.  For listening and listening and listening.  For offering advice.  For not offering advice :).  For showing up when we needed you.

He arrived with so much anger and resentment and hate inside and out.  He spent his days and nights in a dark room listening to books on tape.  He could not be around people and people did not want to be around him.  Every single thing that came out of his mouth was negative-EVERYTHING.   There is a line from a song in the movie Crazy Heart called The Weary Kind…"Whiskey has been a thorn in your side that doesn't forgive…a highway that costs your heart inside."  My Dad was so very weary.   The right medication, some love and some tough love have all helped in this journey.

It did not happen overnight but with little moments that made you go hmmm.  One of the kids commented that they heard him whistling one day.  Another time we were all in the kitchen and he came in and touched Dave on the shoulder to welcome him home from a trip.  Every time something like that would happen it would be like somebody pressed pause and we would all stop what we were doing and just stare at each other.  On his way out to the deck he would pause in the family room and ask the score of the baseball game.  After we exhausted all of the CDs at the local library he let me start to download books onto the iPad and he figured out how to press the play button and move from one book to another.  He turned a TV on after at least 5+ years and now every night you can find him watching Jeopardy at 7:30.  I like to think my Grandmother had something to do with that part of things :)  We have often likened his basement bedroom to when the astronauts return from space.  It was his decompression chamber.  He had to re-acclimate to life.

In the end it was not any one thing that made the difference.  It was all the little things.  All the little parts of life that we take for granted.  Having a schedule.  Knowing that somebody is going to put a meal on the table at night and people are going to sit in their same seats. Grace before dinner.  Watching a teenage boy let his mom hug him.  A brother and sister negotiating over cleaning the kitchen and walking the dog.  A bonfire.   A Thanksgiving table with prayers and laughter and even disbelief when half the people rush through dinner to get back to the football game.  The smell of a real Christmas tree.

But most of all it was the power of prayer and the grace of God. We do not know what tomorrow holds…for any of us, but just for today we are truly thankful.

Peace and lots of love.

To gray or not to gray

That is what I keep asking myself lately.  I have not yet had to use any permanent color to hide the truth... highlighting has kept the few stray grays camouflaged, or so I thought, until my girlfriend plucked a gray hair out of my head the other night while we were talking.  I think the jig is up.

I am conflicted about what comes next.  A couple of years ago I tested the waters with my friends casually mentioning that I was thinking I would just let the grays arrive as they may without trying to hide them.  Their reaction was swift and firm--NO!   

I wondered this morning is coloring gray, to some degree, covering up the truth?  The years tick by and time marches on but I know very few women who are gray.  A childhood friend who I "see" on Facebook took the plunge a couple of years ago.  I look at her pictures and I see total truth and freedom.  Other people may look at her pictures and think she gave up and threw in the towel.

I am noticing my few strands multiplying as the days go by.   It is especially noticeable  in the car when I look in the rear view mirror.  I see what used to be a lone gray soldier has decided he needed back up and the troops are starting to arrive.

Covering gray  reminds me of the Whack-A-Mole game.  At first things are somewhat calm...it is easy to whack that mole back in the hole before another one pops up but before you know it you are whacking everywhere like crazy, anxiety coursing through you and it is almost impossible to keep up...kind of like aging.  At first a stray gray hair, then a wrinkle, then more grays and more wrinkles popping up like the moles in the game...and what does winning at Whack-A-Mole get you?  A bunch of tickets that will never be enough for the huge teddy bear...just maybe a few stale tootsie rolls.

What I am beginning to realize is it isn't hard to age, but it can be  hard to see yourself age.  My grandmother would tell me she felt 18 inside until she looked in the mirror.   I look at these pictures of my grandmothers two of them 80 and one 99 and I can see they too were a camp divided.

I think of my friends who never got the privilege to age and I wonder what they would have done.

So, as I head off to the salon,  I find myself in another gray area.  Literally.

What do you WANT to do?

A new year is kind of a like a new semester at school and we are a few weeks into January so you know what that means...  It's add/drop time!  I have decided that we all need to incorporate add/drop into our lives.  A time when we re-evalute what "classes" we are taking and really think about if we want to continue in Whatever 101.

I am trying to embrace the idea of the more things change, the more things DO NOT HAVE TO stay the same.   I have been in Book Club for years and I have loved it!  I adore the other ladies and I will miss them dearly but my heart just wasn't in it anymore.   My life is completely different than it was years ago when I joined.  I work at an office now and I do not have the same free time or flexibility I once had.   I find myself falling asleep at night trying to get through a book.   As the days tick by and the date to meet approaches I am constantly calculating how much I have to read per day in order to be finished on time...this last book was 800 pages and I was only 30 pages in with 12 days to go. Time to drop!

Tennis is another love of mine although I was off the court for years due to a neck injury.  This past spring I was asked to join a tennis group in the fall that met on Thursday nights.  My neck is better so I thought "Why not?! That will be great and I have wanted to get back on the courts." Fast forward to fall and Thursdays have become the afternoon all hell breaks loose.  Having that pressure on me stresses me out all week.  I start repeating the dreaded "what was I thinking".  And I realized that I should not be thinking of playing tennis as a HAVE TO.  Time to drop!

Some of what was keeping me stuck was my fear of what people would think.   If I left book club I might upset the other members.  I was embarrassed to admit that Thursday night tennis was not working for me after I had been so gung ho.   I know that I want my friends to find joy in what they do so I am letting myself off the hook.   This year I will honor what I REALLY want to do.

Monday late afternoon Yoga with one of my favorite teachers and down the street from where I work? Sign me up!   How about a Binge Club where we can talk about the moment that Hank realized Walt was Heisenberg or the fact that Dean Strang is dreamy.  Add it in!  Instead of getting a pit in my stomach when I look at my kindle,  I want to start a Mother-Daughter-Daughter Book Club to see what interesting views 3 generations can have on the same material.

So if it's Thursday night you will no longer find me on a tennis court. Instead you might try looking for me at a Bistro sharing Pho with my sweet senior boy who will be leaving in a few short months...or maybe steeping in the tub I swore I would use more when we replaced it last summer.

The one thing I know is it will be something I WANT to be doing.

Celebrating Epiphanies

This blog has been sitting in my laptop waiting for me to come up with the perfect first post. I realized that day may never happen and it has been waiting long enough. While this post may not be perfect, it is in perfect harmony with life.  Realizing that life is not black and white...there is a lot of gray involved. Getting used to and being at peace with the gray is my goal.

It is January 15th and I am finally leaning into the new year. There were so many years that I believed if I didn't have my act together by January 2nd all was lost. I had already failed at my commitments to move more, eat cleaner, etc...I was so lucky to get to work with the brilliant and beautiful Jen Yost who helped me to understand that January is the perfect month to rest and recharge. To reflect on the past and look forward to the future.

It has proven to be a very timely Epiphany. This year I spent time enjoying the Christmas tree a week longer while sitting with a beautiful new calendar to plan the year. This morning I was looking out my kitchen window at my favorite hydrangea and all the plants and trees in our yard. It struck me that they are resting too. In order to bring us joy all spring, summer and fall they need to take time and be still, as do we.

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I named this blog Streaked With Gray because there is always gray peaking out at us in life.  For some of us, like me, we see the streaks of gray in our hair when looking in the mirror--despite our trips to the salon.  We can also see the gray now, with the wisdom that comes with those streaks, as we are put into situations that appeared black and white when we viewed them with younger eyes.

With younger eyes I thought that if I didn't have my act together by January 15th, the year was lost and I would have to wait until next year. Through my gray streaks I now see that I am not finished for 2016, I am just getting started.