Returning home after.

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Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

The floor boards of this little cabin are cold. The door latch is frozen, requiring me to use the dead bolt to keep it closed. The whole world has shifted into a creak, popping into sharp rearrangement. It is Monday. As though that means something, I enter the day like a new stage of grief. I’ll call this stage “Returning Home After.” It is another day of navigating life without Carl. It is after Christmas. After my grandpa’s funeral. After spending the better part of a week with my grandma, not just as her granddaughter, but also as two women who have lost the men we’ve given our hearts and lives to. There are not enough tears in the entire universe for this. I’m still dogged by the edges of this migraine that seems to have become my constant companion. A toothache has angled its way in, too. I’m chilled all the way to my center, not from sickness, but from the lack of warmth that crawls from my slippered feet and into my bones. My eyeballs feel like they’ve shrunk, become smaller from too many weeks of crying and trying to see what I’m supposed to do next. My grief habit of rubbing my brow has shifted to rubbing my eyes. The structure of mortality has taken on a physicality that I’m not entirely comfortable with. I am made up of tendons, skin and two eyeballs. Somewhere inside, yet beyond my precarious placement of bones and breathing is my spirit. My spirit gets curious, feels hope, gets out of bed to let out the dogs and feed the horses. I am acutely aware of the way my body is put together and, even in all its weakness, I feel like I will live to be a very, very old woman. This thought does not bring me comfort. However, in suspended moments, I see a glimpse of my future self. The woman I see is much older than me now. She is a bit timeless, grey-haired, her body and face have taken on new contours. Mostly, what I notice is her smile–a sense of contentment and satisfaction–that illuminates from the inside out. It’s a smile held in her eyes and her whole body. Anchoring her being is a vast aquifer–her life experiences–the depth and breadth of an entire ocean. It is as though she could hold out her arms and embrace a whole life of love, care, and meaning. There are a lot of young people in this image…as though her strong arms might gather in a whole world of children whom I love.

This image comes to me at random times. It’s always brief. Just a glimpse. Last night she visited me as I read a book in the bathtub. Another time when I was driving. Once, while in the tea aisle at the grocery store. She has been weaving herself into me all along, but I notice her more lately. She’s cute and I like her. She knows I need her. She makes me smile even when I don’t think I want to. She pokes my ribs and is equally willing to wrap her arms around me. I know I’ll meet her someday, because I’ll be her. I already am her, partially. I just don’t recognize myself yet.

I am rubbed raw from missing Carl. Saying I miss him doesn’t convey the actual experience. He hasn’t truly left me. Like today. Today I feel him near. Even so, it is not always easy wearing one’s spirit so close to the skin.

I looked out the window this morning, watching the horses walk through the woods. Colorado comes to the fence first. I am mesmerized by how much I’ve loved that horse all along. I told Carl that I’d always want Colorado to be a little bit more “my” horse, even if he is the bigger, more skittish, less trained of the two. I wanted Carl to ride Dakota, despite him being twice my size and her being the smaller of the two horses. With more brazenness than I actually possessed, I announced that I would ride Colorado even tho the truth is that I was too scared to (and still am). Carl said he’d be happy no matter which horse he rode. I loved that about him because he meant it. He just loved the horses. And he loved me. My silly ideas were nonsense all along. It’s taken me a long time to truly bond with Dakota, but shortly before Carl died, I realized that it was happening. The deepening began to occur. It is still occurring. She has soft, worrisome eyes. And, lately, I find myself worrying about her, too. My heart is drawn to her. My heart is drawn to both of them. We are all like snowflakes. Even the horses.

Today, this cold makes me feel cleaved open. Smooth, like frozen stone, old parts of who I was have completely worn away. There’s somehow room in this for something new. I move the milk house heater closer to my feet. I wrap Carl’s raggedy old quilt around me. I cry. I write myself back to life.

I feed the horses at sunrise, their eyelashes and muzzles covered in frost. Dakota lifts her front hoof up high in gratitude (her daily habit of thanks). Colorado eats up his sweet feed, tosses some hay around and then attempts to stick his big nose into my cup of coffee. I laugh at him and let him smell the warm brew, telling him “yeah…you’re my horse.” Colorado in front of me, Dakota behind me, Carl all around me. Slowly, I warm to the possibility of things I do not yet know.

I love you, Carl. I love you for showing me the woman I want to grow to be.

{originally published Dec 29, 2014}

all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…

This has been the roughest, toughest, saddest, most awkward Christmas I’ll probably ever know. This video makes me wish I could learn guitar so that I could make music like this for Henry. Humpty Dumpty. Tonight I find myself wishing that there was some way to put life back together again.

We love you, Carl. And I miss my grandpa, too.

{originally published Dec 27, 2014}

first christmas.

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I love you, Carl. There is never a day you’re not with me. I’ve always loved Christmas, but my appreciation for it has shifted into something of a watershed, a place where all the love, like water, has come to gather. There is so much I wish I could write about this morning…but it will have to wait. I’m leaving for Brainerd so that I can finally wrap my arms around my grandma and tell her how much I love her. Just a few days before my grandpa died, my grandma sent me a handwritten card. She wrote about how very hard it must be for me to have lost Carl and that, when you love someone that much, you are one…like her and my grandpa after 67 years of marriage. She wished she could wave her magic wand and make all the pain go away, but that life is simply not that easy. She ended the card by saying that, always, grandpa and grandma are there for me.

I end this year in unexpected ways, but one thing I know for sure is that it is filled with love. Carl, I miss you today. I missed you last night. I’ll miss you tomorrow and the next day and the next all the way into forever. But more than anything, I am grateful. In this life, I have been blessed.

Merry Christmas friends and family. I love you all very, very much!

{originally published Dec 25, 2014}

calling all angels.

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My grandpa passed away this morning. Peace be with all of us. Peace and more peace and God’s love.

I loved my grandpa. Dearly. We all did. I loved his phone calls. I loved our playful jokes and the way he cared and could fix anything. He’s never been anything less than constant in my life.

This is, quite honestly, my worst nightmare…that he would pass away so soon after Carl’s death. He went into the hospital 5 days ago when he dislocated his shoulder after a fall. When my mom finally got ahold of me that day, I nearly had a panic attack. His situation wasn’t life or death, but I got scared. I got swallowed by that wave.

This morning, with my grandma and mom at his side, his heart gave out and he slipped from this world into the next. I am shedding a whole new ocean of tears. I also feel blanketed by a surprising amount of peace. Yes, I feel peace. I feel his peace. Wholly. I feel Carl near me. Wholly. I feel his hand on my shoulder, his reassuring presence, telling me that it’s all going to be ok.

It is Monday. I was going to try my best to ease back into life. To begin tending to the things that need tending. And now? Here I am. Tending to the most precious thing life contains. I am tending to love.

Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
We’re trying, we’re hoping, but we’re not sure how
Oh, and every day you gaze upon the sunset
With such love and intensity
Why, it’s ah, it’s almost as if you crack the code
You’d finally understand what this all means
Oh, but if you could, do you think you would
Trade it all, all the pain and suffering?
Oh, but then you would’ve missed the beauty of
The light upon this earth and the sweetness of the leaving
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
We’re trying, we’re hoping, but we’re not sure why
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
Walk me through this one, walk me through this one
Don’t leave me alone
Calling all Angels, calling all Angels
We’re trying, we’re hoping, we’re hurting, we’re loving
We’re crying, we’re calling
‘Cause we’re not sure how this goes
~excerpted from Calling All Angels by The Wailin Jenny’s

I love you, Grandpa Nelson.

{originally published Dec 22, 2014}

mapmaking.

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How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?

I read these words yesterday, from a book given to me for my birthday from Carl’s sister, Christine. We were sitting on the bleachers of an indoor pool watching her kids swim when she gave it to me. For an entire hour, we were suspended. Held in an 80 degree tropical paradise. The white noise of splashing kids, an industrial air system and a whole pool full of water sounds. I wished I could bring a thick pile of blankets and pillows and books and stay there forever. I would have liked to make my new home in the far corner of the upper-most bleacher. But eventually we were spit back out into the cold winter night. It was a nice reprieve while it lasted. And anyway, now I had this new book to carry back into the world with me. It looked good. It held promise. It’s title? One Thousand Gifts (by Ann Voskamp). The cover has an image of a woman’s hands cradling a nest with two pale blue eggs held in its center.

Yesterday. Yesterday was a soft, but privately dangerous place. Dangerous only because I felt no desire. For anything. I ate a few chips. I repeatedly crawled into bed. I stayed in my pajamas all day. When I finally took a bath and got dressed at 8pm, I ran an errand and then went back to bed in my clothes. Ok, fine. Some days are going to be like this. But something inside of me knows that this can’t go on forever. It’s a comfortable place almost safe from panic, but creating its own form of anxiety, the kind that grows until it’s capable of locking its jaws around you. It’s a place where, if you stay there too long, things begin to die. This is, of course, the exquisite danger. It is a pallid place.

But inside this dangerous landscape I found something good. It’s a barren place stripped of all pretense, false ambitions and external expectations. Nothing matters and I realize that there is a tremendous amount of freedom in that. Since Carl died, there is only me, the shell of me. In all this nakedness, I am stripped even more bare. There is only one thing and that is the ground beneath my feet (if even that). There is also the great expanse of my future. Everything needs to be rebuilt. I have nothing. This can look any way I want it to. But first I need to be willing to build. It’s up to me to decide if I want to live fully or just empty.

Living empty is easier. Or maybe it’s just the best place to start. From this empty place, I am crying myself clean.

I can do this, right? I can pick myself up and move on. But first I need to extricate myself from this sticky web of grief. Herein lies the conundrum. At least for now. And in this now, it seems I am only capable of one thing…and that is surrendering myself to this quiet mapmaking. I’m impatient to get control over my life again. It’s impossible. I have bills to pay and animals to feed. I get scared. I don’t know how to tell this story. It’s too intricate. It’s too simple. It’s too beautiful. It’s too pathetic. For now, I’m caught in an actionless Neverland, a middle-of-nowhere. The only way out is to give myself what I need. This requires exorbitant amounts of faith (sometimes more than I have). It requires, more than anything, that I keep one finger, or even one strand of hair, on the pulse of hope.

Over and over and over my mind finds its way to the incredible plans that Carl and I had together. I can feel something inside of me, something that was inscribed onto my spirit before I even entered this world. It tugs on me even when I want to be left alone under the covers. It’s been running the course of my whole life and holds the same story that led Carl and I together. It is made of steep mountains and risks. It is bigger than either one of us. It always was. And we both knew it.

I want to run towards it and away from it, all in one breath.

I play with the threads of this pull. I unravel and braid and weave entirely half-crocked scenarios of outcomes and possibilities. It’s pointless and good. It’s like the weather. There’s a lot less control over it than we attempted to believe. We wove a sail, little more. We pointed our boat in the direction we hoped to go, but the rest, all along, was up to the wind.

As I write, I begin feeling like I’m talking gibberish. It’s all gibberish until I bump up against something real. And what’s real, anyway? My love for Carl is real. This unseen phenomenon that I feel pulled towards, that is real.

Last summer, Carl and I went on a trip to the farthest reaches of northern Minnesota. We took back roads all the way there and back and everywhere in between. We reveled in being such good traveling companions, both favoring the roads less traveled. We sometimes drove slow to make it last longer. He looked out his window looking for blueberries. I looked out my window looking for strawberries. It was a hot dusty day, windows down. We laughed when we realized what the other was doing. We had driven far off the main roads onto dirt roads that led us off the map and, from there, we bumped and scraped our way down unused and overgrown logging trails. We loved it. There was a sense between both of us that this is what our whole gorgeous life would look like…this open-hearted willingness to explore, fearlessly, together.

And so we are. Even after death, so we are.

I have work to do, but I’m still map-making. I write my way to acceptance of this. And I know my clients will understand because I’ve attracted them into my life for a reason. I cry with gratitude for their presence and their understanding. As I write this, I take a deeper breath than I have since visiting the pool.

Again, I ask myself, “How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?”

And I realize that I’ve been doing it all along. I lean into a dream that I had yesterday. It was early evening when, after being struck by the gravity of that question, I felt a sudden need for sleep. In the dream, I was talking with God and Carl. Their voices were soft, optimistic, calmly eager, gently smiling, as if making great plans while trying not to wake the baby. I don’t remember what they said to me, but it was good, comforting. I was a hundred percent in on it. It was, very definitely, the best dream I’ve ever had.

I took this photo during that summertime adventure with Carl. But now I’m realizing that was only the beginning. We’ve already traveled far, far, far off the map and, in my heart, I know I need to rest up for whatever is ahead. I need to heal because this is going to be a very incredible journey. It’s a journey that started a long time ago. For now, I just need this resting spot. Just for a moment. Let there be this peace. Let there be this sense of believing. Please God, let my energy return.

I love you, Carl. You…who is always with me, always watching out for me, always ready for the next adventure.

{originally published Dec 20, 2014}

marvel and dispair.

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This morning I sat on a bale of hay and quietly watched the horses for over an hour. I wore Carl’s jacket over my own and so, despite cold temps, I was warm. While the horses gratefully ate their sweet feed and then started in on the hay I had put out for them, the dogs (Louie, Ella and Henry), moved together in a perfect triangle, noses touching, sniffing the ground and happily gnawing on frozen horse turds.

I thought about how, when these horses, Colorado and Dakota, came into my life, it was made divinely very clear to me that they would teach me about love.They would teach me how to love and be loved. Before Carl, I had never experienced a *truly* healthy relationship with a man. After getting divorced, I was single for nearly three years. Then one day, while standing in the kitchen, I looked out the window and, in my mind’s eye, got a flash of what true and good and healthy love looked like. I don’t know where it came from, but the vision stuck with me as clear as precious crystal. In truth, I didn’t think I was the kind of woman that could have that sort of relationship. Such are the limiting lies we sometimes tell ourselves. But during this time, every day, I was outside with the horses watching their movements, their give and take, their love, their care, their soft compromises for each other. They moved through the woods and the pasture, always with one eye and an ear watching out for the other. They moved as one entity, even with occasional distance between them. Their tenderness for one another was remarkable.

I observed and learned and spent an entire year untangling burrs from their manes and tails. My relationship with them grew deeper. I lost much of my jumpiness and got more comfortable in their presence.In the process, this endless untangling slowly built a bridge to a better relationship with myself, too. In learning to trust the horses, I learned how to once again trust myself. I found a solid and dependable place within myself that I had never before known. From this place, my friendship with Carl grew into deep love and mutual respect. I began to realize that he was the good man I had gotten a glimpse of that morning I looked out the window so long ago.

Carl and I talked about the horses every day. He loved them and was as interested in them as me. They became “our” horses. I loved sharing them with him. We made space for them in the possibility of every plan we made together. He knew how much they meant to me and would have done anything to make sure they would remain in my life, no matter what. I began to dream of moving deeper into a life with horses. Carl was, through and through, a part of that dream.

If it weren’t for the horses, I would not have ever stayed in Bemidji for as long as I did. I would have returned to Minneapolis full-time or maybe even moved somewhere else entirely. Had I done that, it is quite possible that our paths would have missed each other. I have always thought, since the beginning, that it was these horses that created the meeting ground for Carl and I to come into each other’s lives. God and the angels that surround us knew all along.

And so this morning I sat and watched Colorado and Dakota, reveling at how much alike they are to Carl and me. Plump, warm tears rolled down my face. I whispered Colorado’s name and he looked up at me with the sweetest, gentlest eyes. Like Carl would do. Carl cared so selflessly for me. And I for him. I remembered talking with Carl over the phone about how Dakota panics when Colorado is out of her sight. He said, “Just like you panic when I’m gone for too long.” His words were so true. Carl had an easier time with the miles that often separated us. I sat on that hay bale watching the horses and wondered: why am I the one who got left behind? I am the one who gets scared. I’m the one who has a harder time being left alone. And yet…I would never wish for him to be the one to be left behind. I love him too much. Never, never, never would I want to see him this sad, this lost, this scared.

Last night I dreamed that Carl and I went to find a wedding band. We were at Ken K. Thompson Jewelry where Dean, a very dear and old family friend, stood behind the jewelry counter helping us create our very own design. Dean was so thoughtful and caring. These weren’t the usual circumstances. Even in the dream, Carl was with me, but in the spirit realm. Somehow, Dean was aware of this. We decided on a simple band. On the inside was an inscription in delicate cursive lettering, “Until we meet again.” The outside had a single tiny star-shaped diamond, a reminder that Carl would always be my north star.

With the daylight, I wonder how I will ever find my way out from under this dark cloud. This morning’s gift, despite everything, is relief from yesterday’s horrible anxiety. Upon waking, the dogs were excessively snuggly. Kissing, kissing, kissing me until I could barely breathe. More love, it was a good way start to the day. While outside, I brushed a few burrs from the horses manes. I made coffee and put it in Carl’s thermos to keep it warm. I marveled at the amount of tears that flow from my eyes.

I marvel and despair over everything, a dependable and oscillating pattern that, if I can just find a way to allow myself to surrender to it, will lead me somewhere wholly true and good. These horses, as always, remain my teachers. In powerful ways, they continue to instruct me in love and trust, of the deepest kind.

Yesterday, while going through cards and stacks of mail, I came across the memorial program from Carl’s funeral. His sisters chose a bible verse that was included beneath a photo of him. It reads…

“Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.”
~John 14

Everyone keeps telling me how strong they think I am. I am not.
But, because Carl would want that for me, I try.
I try.
I try.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. Until we meet again…
I love you.

{originally published Dec 18, 2014}

awful, perfect prayers.

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I am so grateful for these photos and for this irrepressible need to capture my life visually. I walked the fringes of a panic attack yesterday when I thought I had lost a whole pile of files containing photos of Carl and my first months together as a couple. Yesterday was hard for a lot of reasons. I got slammed back into a wave of grief as intense as that very first week. I stood in the shower. Tears turned into a howl and then a wail. There was no bottom to the well of sadness I was standing in. I reverted back, once again, to the “Please God, please God, please GOD…help me!!!!” prayers. I would have started screaming that prayer if it wasn’t for not wanting to scare my ever-loving and vigilant dogs, who were waiting for me in the next room. To scream wild, desperate prayers out of shear despair while trying to do nothing more than take a shower is a torture I wish on no one.

But these awful, perfect prayers work because, eventually, I feel an ever so tiny increment of peace come over my heart. I text a good friend and ask if I can come over for an emergency bawling session. Without hesitation she says yes, yes. She’s a professor in the final days of finals week and so her gift of time truly is selfless and great. I get dressed, disregard make-up and drive over to her house immediately. After a good cry and good talk, a half hour later I walk out to my car. I return a call to Carl’s mom. I go to Target to refill a migraine prescription (these stupid edges of a migraine that I haven’t been able shake since all this happened). From there I go to the AT&T store to set up a new phone. These places are anchored in a real world. They are outside of myself. I am a figment of the real world’s imagination but as my small actions synchronize with it, even if only in a sharp-edged surreal haze, I realize that I am surviving. I come home and cry some more. Little moments of peace show up in the form of texts and messages from friends. I make orange-spice tea. I read. The story is about the dysfunctions of an impoverished family in Nigeria. The writing captures me. My cat snuggles in closer. When darkness comes, I begin to get tired, even tho it is still early. I have a good conversation with Carl’s sister-in-law, Carmita, who lost her baby only two weeks before Carl’s passing. In our own sisterly way, we pray together. We find that we feel better. A moment later, I am invited and welcomed into a grief group for widows and widowers.

To be widowed. Such a strange thing to be included in this category. Carl and I were not yet married, but our spirits were and always will be–from before the time we were born or locked eyes, we were somehow inscribed with this love that is made of something Infinite. I find peace in the depth of this knowing. While he was living, Carl made sure that I always knew that. I find it incomprehensible that Carl is, in fact, gone from the world in the way I once knew him. He’s not going to call, not going walk through the door, not going to squeeze me in his arms the way he once could. More than anything, I want to hear his voice. My brain doubles back on itself. I find it impossible to escape the looping confusion.

His voice. Yesterday, and for the better part of a week, I have not been able to remember his voice. Carl loved talking. He was also a good listener. He called me twenty times a day. There were certain nuances to his voice, always consistent. He had certain things he always said. His voice and his mind were so unique. He had a certain way of everything. I’m not the only one who loved that about him. Yesterday, forgetting his voice scared me beyond reason or measure. It is too soon to forget. It will always be too soon. I panic. Another wave swallows me. While sitting in the Target parking lot, over the phone, his mom reminds me that I will never forget because Carl now lives inside of me. I become grateful again. We both find relief in the conversation. Constantly, this ebb and flow.

And the only thing holding me, us, it together is this long string of prayers. Unending. For this, I am thankful.

I look at this photo, one of the images I was afraid I might have lost. I simultaneously feel peace and deep longing. I cry big tears. I feel peace again. I feel held. We were having breakfast at Minnesota Nice, a sweet little cafe in Bemidji where everyone truly is nice. It was our favorite thing to do. Everything about our relationship felt so old-fashioned and good. Maybe that’s why we liked that place so much. I savored every second. He would always finish my food.

Today I feel him close to me again. I still can’t quite remember his voice, but I am accepting grief a little more readily for what it is. I let today’s wave carry me a little more gently. I let Carl’s hand hold mine.

I remember. I love. I cut Henry’s shaggy Yorkie bangs so he can see better. His eyes are cute. He wants cheese and so I give him some. I write. I breathe. I watch the snow falling.

I am here. I let Carl lead me to heaven, the way he was always meant to.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. Forever and always and infinitely. I love you.

{originally published Dec 16, 2014}