On Death and What Is So Near

Things got a little scary for me, last week, at the lake. The girls are older, now (almost four and almost five-and-a-half), and--although they haven't yet taken swimming lessons--I'd come to trust them within the confines of the roped-in, kiddie area. They know to stand up if their faces get wet, and their legs are long.

Still, I watch them like a hawk.

Last week, they followed a couple older girls to the back side of the rope. I yelled for them; they didn't hear me. "Honey," I said to Cade, "go reel your sisters in a little. They don't need to be out that far." So my gentle darling headed lackadaisically in that direction. When he'd walked about halfway to the girls, I realized: Charleigh was in trouble. She seemed to be bobbing, panicking.

"Hurry!" I yelled to Cade. "Charleigh's in trouble!" So Cade dove, and swam. What neither of us realized until he reached Charleigh was that Clementine was also in trouble. Both girls were in over their head, literally; grabbing onto one another in panic; pulling one another under.

A few minutes later, I sat soothing a shaken Clementine in shallow water, and just that fast, Chip lost his legs. "Get your brother!" I yelled, and Cade lifted Chip out. At that point, I was done; all three of my little children had swallowed lake water. Through it all, the lifeguard hadn't budged. I believe my babies could have drowned, all of them, without his realizing.

I couldn't bring myself to leave the house, next day, but about what are we talking, here? We're talking about a mother whose job is to watch her children play, lakeside. Meanwhile, there are mothers watching terrorists snatch up their babies and lop off their heads. Meanwhile, there are mothers hiding terrified in the mountains: mothers who have no bread and water for their children.

***

My grandfather came to me once, many years ago, in a dream. He showed me the long, thin contrail behind a jet. "Tell Mary Ellen," he said. "Tell Mary Ellen: it seems like the sky has been divided into two parts, but it hasn't. The line between heaven and earth is just like that. I am much closer than she thinks. Tell Mary Ellen." 

"It was him," I told her, later. "I know it was him because you've never been Mary Ellen to me, only Ellie." She nodded, and I knew she believed me, but she didn't cry. She's been all cried out for a long-assed time.

***

"You can still talk to your mom. You don't need a phone," I encourage Jim, and I tell him my dreams: the one about Grandad, then the (second) one about his mom. She was pink: wearing a pink sweater, yes, but also awash in pink light. I'd thought her angry with me and this was making her laugh. Her laughter was high-pitched but gentle as a jingle bell, as if she'd never smoked a day in her life. 

"I love you so much," she said, laughing, and when she hugged me with force, I couldn't hear her breathe. "Take care of Jimmy." And she was light: just light as Glinda's bubble in her spirit...not as if she'd merely forgotten for a moment the pains of a lifetime, but as if they'd floated for good from her like some helium balloon, or as if she'd never known them to begin.

***

Robin Williams, and I don't know how to speak into your pain, or my own except to say that most of us feel it. Remember: anger is rarely the real emotion. What seems callous or ignorant or rude may well be a cover. Even if it's not, it's misguided.

Mr. Williams' light has gone from here; may it burn brightly in another place. May comfort descend. May we remember his tremendous talent with gratitude; it was a gift of his--our!--Maker.

***

This is what I do. This is what I do, having lost a close friend to leukemia and my mother-in-law to lung cancer, this year. This is what I do when I feel ill-equipped to keep my children alive at the lake: when it seems like death is everywhere (on the road, in the air, at the end of a belt).

I pray, and I teach my children to pray. (Clementine has, for the most part, taken over our praying when the ambulances race past.)

I express love as much as I can, as much as it's true.

I look for beauty. 

I try to appreciate the day: the gift of life, the gifts of my children's lives.

I try to generate a little light right where I am, right in my own community. It only takes a spark, sometimes, to chase away a lot of darkness. A little bit of kindness goes a long way, sometimes.

And I try to remember: heaven is not so far away. I can talk to and about my loved ones there.