My sister visited and the two of us carried my Father’s old chair from the rec room to the curb. Letting go and closure are not lines in the sand, they are like storms that blow across Lake Huron. Come and go.

I am laughing to myself now as I imagine my one of two Michelles, in a canoe paddling and singing “The Colours of The Wind”.

What a beautiful song.

What a beautiful friend.

What a beautiful friendship.

During the time that the chair had been vacant, a mouse had built a nest in the chair’s pocket, a home made of Kleenex and shredded up pieces of cardboard from the boxes of macaroons that my Dad, the man that said every kid deserves a chance, would feed my dog Otis who would grin like an ass eating thistles.

 

Memories wrapped in memories.

Loss wrapped up in loss.

And the mouse.  Always the mouse.

I laugh again as I think of the picture that the same Michelle posted privately on Facebook and commented she “doesn’t know why but she thought immediately of me.”

       artwork: http://www.sadanduseless.com/

I love my friends and I love my family and I think mice are rather nice.

We, meaning my family and others like us, that live with a caring heart, an intelligent mind, and a nature that is kind, feel sadness deeply in our hearts, in our minds and in our soul.  That is also how we feel love and how we experience joy.

It is the only way I know to feel emotions.

The price you pay to love is the pain you feel to lose.

And here I am in the now. Not lost. Found. In the rec room of the home I grew up in. 

The walls are made of barn wood and dappled with pictures of Ralph, Northern Dancer, Secretariat and other friends of the family along with medals from the wars. They all surround me.

Thoroughbreds and heroes framed in tender love and care.

To be healed, you have to have been wounded.

To die, you have to have lived.

What am I doing here?

I am banking online.

That’s not what I am really doing.  That is the illusion.

I am watching Season Three of Homeland with my Mom and after much debate we decided to save the last two episodes for tomorrow night.  I don’t want to say goodbye to Carrie Mathison and Brodie and the distraction they captivate me with. I love who they are, who they helped me become.  I do not want to say goodbye.

That is not an illusion.

I am enjoying life.

I am happy again. 

To be happy again means I was happy before and then I was turned unhappy.

By others and by my self.

That is the journey of life.  It is my health journey.

I fall.

I get back up again.

I trip on my own laces.

How many times now have I been told that I would die soon?

Three.

How many times did I feel that I will?

Always.

Because I am here.  I am here. I am here.

To be here means, one day you must go there.

Confronting mortality makes one richer.

I know exactly where I am and who I am.

I am a person with nothing to hide anymore and the desire to care and what I am feeling is the feeling of being here and being now.

Returning again to home, to heal, same old story, just the mice are different.

I

AM

HERE.

I am getting stronger.

I will never let anyone kick me when I am down again.

I will stop being hard on myself.

I am good and God is nature.

And the mouse and I are wondering: what are you wrapped up in?