The Cat and the Cart
In 2024, Thanksgiving happened only six days before December 4 – every seven years the two dates are in close proximity. Thus, her three children gave her a surprise 50th birthday party over the Thanksgiving weekend. Her second son was home with his girlfriend – both were in their last months of
Air Force pilot school.
On December 4, 2024,
my second child was 50 years old.
Where have the years gone?
Precious Memories
I had shared my nursery geranium shopping pic from the day before.
My texting precipitated two pics
of her birthday celebration
the day before.
As I was getting out of the car to go into the house, Pure Joy, a solo piano piece that I had recently discovered, began spontaneously playing on my phone.
I stood in my breakfast room gazing at the photos with “Pure Joy” resonating in my ears
and “Precious Memories” flooding my heart.
Tears of joy flowed freely from my eyes for this ‘normal’ time of sharing photos
and texting back and forth while remembering her birthdays of many years.
Joy instantly evaporated as a tidal wave of sadness and grief spontaneously washed over, in and through me. And then another wave surged, pounding into and through my heart – anger came roaring to surface due to the lack of relationship and connection that has grown larger over time. I was not invited to be a part of the 50th celebration. We live across town from each other. The sadness that my grandchildren did not invite me because of our estrangement amplified my grief.
This roller coaster of emotion then brought forth another memory from 50 years ago – and a happening surfaced from deep within my depths. A herniated disc had accompanied my daughter as she appeared in the world: within weeks my back and left leg reacted. Within six months of her birth, ankle and knee reflexes disappeared and within a year, the first of two back surgeries occurred. Continued pain from these two failed surgeries led me into the Beyond seeking help. I fortunately uncovered another ‘medical perspective’ that provided relief, help, and answers. My life thereby slowly turned in a different direction.
The juxtaposition of unadulterated joy and profound sadness and grief within seconds of each other allowed this deeper, repressed, emotion of anger to surface…along with a question. What would my life have been if I had not given birth to this second baby that herniated a disc in my back, initiated many years of physical suffering and evolved into a ‘bone of contention’ between this innocent baby’s parents?
I did not follow my attorney husband’s eventual ultimatum of ‘learn to live with the pain’ as he served divorce papers. My female attorney reacted and we countersued. My husband’s response still echoes in my head now and then: “I don’t want a divorce! I was just trying to ‘shape you up.” He failed to ‘shape me up’.
The years transformed me into a Seeker that led not only into the Beyond but also made me stronger in my own integrity. I ventured out of the Box onto a Road Less Travelled. I was dismissed, ridiculed and blamed – initially by my husband and later by my daughter as she became a woman.
Intensified Gratitude for where The Beyond took me in the face of a devastating prognosis
rose up from these same depths of my Soul, overpowering all other emotion.
The surprising blessings that have been showered upon me all of these years recovering from
medical traumas could never have emerged if my life had not hand-delivered this suffering.
– the evolution of blessing and wonder
…as amazing as the birth of a child.
What do you do with Desmond Tutu’s ‘warp and woof’ of life when life-changing events descend upon you? Pema Chodron has another name for this kind of happening – a ‘squeeze’. When placed between a rock and a hard place, the doorway to radical growth opens.
And I watched myself distancing Self from Me, becoming an observer of ‘Myself’ with a wide-angle lens. All of this happened in an instant as I walked in the door from the nursery on a Sunday afternoon on December 1.
I was thus transported into another Beyond
– standing on a hill overlooking my life;
– the 50th anniversary of a life that has produced both a joyful blessing and a profound sadness.
– the mother and creator of a life filled with amazement and anguish.
Will there ever be any
connection except by blood?
Communication depends
upon two people being Present
in, with and for interaction.
If this cannot happen,
there can be no connection.
Can the door to a heart
be opened from the outside?
Speculation and Supposition
The week after the Cat and the Cart encounter, a “First” in 50 years occurred! The outcome of a treatment by my local osteopath completely alleviated the pressure in my spine at L5-S1 – the site of my spinal fusion. And furthermore, the left hip (with the bone graft for the fusion) no longer produced ‘sensation’ and ‘awareness’. Would this last more than 24 hours? Irregardless of how long this change remains, the bottom line in this kind of release/treatment is that the body has remembered how to be without this symptom. And if it can function for a few days, hours, or even minutes without this pressure sensation, then the door has opened for further recovery and progress.
What do I do with ‘hope’? I don’t go there – I float in groundlessness.
After 50 years of awareness of my lower spine, I’m elated the next morning when I wake up and my pelvis didn’t say hello. And, yes, when/if it returns, I’ll be irritated. The Knowing that this change is even possible – after so many years and at my age – will sustain me and propel me forward – a source of amazement.
And all of this emerged after the interchange with my daughter over a cat on a nursery cart. Her birthday was on Wednesday. This happened on Thursday. Two weeks ago, I had invited her to have lunch to celebrate this special birthday; this was the twelfth year of invitations that have never materialized into lunch. However, to my pleasant surprise, this time there was acceptance; we’re meeting on December 15.
Perhaps a Prelude to a magnificent new opus is being composed – on the anniversary of her birth and the origin of the injury? Is the door to a heart starting to open?
Her birthday gift was mailed on December 16.
The birthday lunch failed to happen; she was not feeling well and cancelled.
I extended another invitation for celebration between now and my birthday in early February.
Will our birthdays be a time of new beginnings and connection in 2025?
Fast forwarding three months to the end of February, the answer is no – there are no new beginnings.
There was no birthday connection yet again.
There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness,
some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable
and what is most exquisitely alive.
– Francis Weller