god

calling all angels.

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.

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.

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.

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}

Oceans.

Sitting at the Miami airport and all I want to do is cry. I am worn and weary, smooth as stone. I play with words to avoid the jagged tears that have already begun to spill
over the edges of things. I let the sounds of song and surf soften me so that I might feel held closer to the center of something. And so…

2 things:
**this video of my last visit to the ocean earlier today
**this song that keeps me from drowning:

“Oceans”
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and you won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

I love you, Carl. Let me not leave without you.

{originally published Dec 10, 2014}

sipping coffee.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ~1 Corinthians 13:7

…a magic sea bean found on the shelf near my bed in this sweet little guest house I’m calling home for a little while + jungle strength, my view as I sip my morning coffee. Today is soft and raining. I am grateful.

I love you, Carl. Always, I am choosing love.

grief paced like tides.

Once again, I do not know where to begin. I have been away from the depth of this daily writing ritual for too long. Even just a few days of writing absence (replaced by short posts) makes me feel upside down and asunder. I’ve spent the past several days simply holding out for a quiet space to rest in. Traveling and Miami Beach did not offer such luxuries. There were other gifts, but time and space to give myself over to the untangling of grief was not one of them.

I am relieved to be far away from the commotion and noise of Miami. To witness my friend, Kristine, achieve such high artistic success, that is why I was there. To spend an afternoon alone at Art Basel, led by Carl through a maze of some of the most powerful artwork I have ever seen, that might have been the other reason I was there. Moved by art in ways that I have never been moved before. I was stunned into deepest silence, an inner place, at moments causing heavy orb-like tears to roll down my face. I will not forget that. It changed me, as though I were some kind of soft rock being so gently sculpted. And possibly, there are even other reasons that I was led to Miami Beach, reasons that I do not yet know or even understand.

Yesterday I picked up a rental car and got outta there. It felt good to drive–windows open–through a complicated urban jungle of Miami roads and freeways. But after awhile, even that became too much. I’m too sensitive for such loudness and movement right now. Even the air traffic flew too low and loud. Nothing felt real, everything manmade. Finally, finally, finally…the landscape gave way to a gentler kind of jungle. One made of greens and blues, golden yellows and cocoa colored browns, moss and palms, sea oaks and sunset. I found dirt roads, unexpected pastures of horses and cows, orange groves and overgrown gardens.

The roads led me all the way to a sugary sweet cottage appropriately called the Heart Bean House. On it’s front porch, in a white rocking chair, sat my dear friend, Cynthia, waiting for me. I don’t even know if we said hi, but what I do remember is that I got out of the car and she wrapped her arms around me, her hand so tenderly holding the back of my head like a small child’s, and I let myself cry in her arms until the Christmas lights adorning her house became remarkably bleary and bright.

We gathered ourselves and then walked the block and a half down to the ocean to watch the moonrise. Dear God. The heart is such a small vessel in comparison to a full moon just beginning its ascent over such a salty sea. I felt peace. Utterly. The ocean, so full that it seemed a miracle that it didn’t just completely overflow. And it did. We walked along the moon bright beach for a long time, until the incoming tide began washing all the way up to our legs. A mysterious lunar pattern of waves…coming in just a little higher each time, then rushing back towards the moon with dizzying speed. The motion, much like Carl’s current presence of spirit and, at the same time, so similar to his swift exit from this earthly place. An ebb and flow. The tide, a rhythm that simultaneously, contrastively buoys and then steals the ground out from underneath. We walked and, as we did, I accepted this motion for what it is. It is what it is. I felt peaceful. Somehow held by something uncontainable. How that much salt-swelled water doesn’t just spill over its edges is a terrific wonder. How I (or any of us) survive this much love and loss is the greatest mystery I’ve ever experienced.

There are a certain kind of tears that I have been avoiding. I have mentioned this several times and, until losing Carl, I did not know there could be such an extravagant difference between the tears of profound grief and those that reach even deeper. You see, I have done my fair share of crying. I understand the great need for letting grief flow through me. So that I can heal. So that I can experience this fully. So that I might be made whole, both now and moving forward. But there is a certain place of tears that I have not been ready for. They will come. It’s unavoidable. But the tears that I flounder to prepare myself for, the tears that I sometimes must avoid…they are a place of God. They are the tears that reach all the way to heaven. They are a place of such extreme depth and BIGNESS that only angels can bear the expansiveness of it. It is the tears of great Love. I am too frail for this. Surely, going there will break me. To cry from that place is to experience God. Completely. It is no wonder that it’s written:

“You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.” ~Exodus 33:20

And so my grief is paced like the tides. My tears come often, sometimes in dry wracking sobs and other times in fat watery drops. And then there are those moments that I just need to bolster myself to the weight or numbness of things, doing whatever it takes to hold myself to some form of steady. Other times I smile or talk, eat or even walk in a way that resembles something of a normal person. Teetering somewhere between vastness and being held, day and night, time and space, sun and moon, heaven and earth, ebb and flow.

The photo is one that I took last night. An outrushing tide. My heart being sucked out to sea, but also an old friend at my side.

And so we make our way, however precariously. My dearest Carl, I love you. Thank you for bringing me so close to God.

{originally published Dec 7, 2014}

grace.

“To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace.” ~Brennan Manning

I’ve been doing a lot of grace seeking these days. It’s become a full-time job. It’s an awful upside down full-time endeavor. The edges of things have begun to fray, a frightening concept if I didn’t have such a deep need to discover what is at the center of all of this. I’m hoping for the impossible. I’m seeking a reason for all of this. I’m not asking WHY Carl died, only God knows the answer to that one, but I am steadfast in wanting my love for Carl, his love of everyone around him, and the pain we all feel in losing him to hold meaning in our lives from here on out. Something real. Something that, someday, I will look up from this vast ocean of grief and realize how it’s brought us all somewhere that we could not have arrived at otherwise. I speak in terms of everyone whose Carl’s life and death has affected, but there is a very deep seed of desire for *something* that is also completely personal. Yet even in this private need I sense a ripple effect that craves to travel well beyond my own self-seeking needs. Whether I want to or not, I keep breathing into this mystery. Or perhaps this mystery keeps breathing into me. I am choosing to not have lost so much for nothing.

Over and over, I travel away and towards this “choosing” on an almost constant basis. I’m unwavering and thoroughly floundering in this commitment, all at once. To find purpose in the unthinkable. I am not at all certain that I’m made of the right material for what this life is asking of me. The details are still too unknown, the pain too palpable, turning these moments of optimism, so easily on its head.

But this strange conviction keeps returning. I fumble with a sense of faith that won’t seem to leave me alone.

Yesterday I went to church with Carl’s sister-in-law, Carmita. I have not gone to a real church since I was in high school, and even that was at the demands of my parents. But when Carl’s new-born niece recently passed away, just two hours old, something shifted inside of me. Carl and I went to the funeral service only two weeks before his own passing. It was beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. Anna Claire’s death gifted me with a knowing that I had found a home in my spirituality, a place within myself that I could count on for comfort, a place to hold me when nothing else made any sense or things seemed to be falling apart. It was the first time in over 30 years that I attended a religious service and was able to find exactly what I needed in it. The pastor read the most beautiful scriptures and then admitted that he didn’t have all the answers. For this reason, I immediately liked him. I told Carl that I wanted to go to that church and he whole-heartedly agreed that I should go with Ervin and Carmita sometime soon. I was (and am) awe-struck that such a tiny person, who had barely breathed into this world, could change the lives of so many, so completely.

Carl and I talked ALL the time. But what I loved most were the spiritual conversations that were weaved into everything we lived or did or tried to plan, everything we experienced or attempted to understand. I can’t even tell you how many times a challenge would arise, making life difficult or causing impatience (a truck would break down, or we would be delayed in seeing each other, or an issue with business or another person would come up, or our plans to move to Alaska would be postponed, or we wouldn’t be able to live together as soon as we wanted to, or…) and every single time, instead of getting hung up on the problem or set-backs, we would both genuinely be amazed and find ourselves saying: “WOW! Isn’t it cool how [something good] happened because [something else] went wrong?!” We got good at seeing how the rearrangements of life’s details kept leading us somewhere better than we could have gotten to if things had gone the way we planned. With each challenge we became closer. With our whole hearts, we trusted that we were being divinely guided–and we let ourselves be guided by that trust, wholly.

I have never fit into a spiritual box of any sort and yet somehow, together, we created this beautiful bridge to a space of shared faith. Carl was a constant source of fresh perspective for me and my spirituality expanded in ways that I find difficult to explain or summarize. We learned so much from each other.

Yesterday, when I went to the church that I had wanted to visit since Anna Claire’s passing. The service began with song after song of good music. I immediately felt Carl’s presence with me. There were guitars and a stand-up bass, a big hand drum and several gorgeous singers. I NEVER sing along (ugh, I hate sing-alongs!), but wow, that music invited breath. I found myself a part of that music in a way that I wasn’t really expecting. I felt Carl standing beside me, holding my hand. In my mind’s eye, we looked at each other and smiled. I felt him thoroughly enjoying the service, too.

The music was wonderful, but the part that really floored me was the scripture. It was the exact same scripture that was read at Carl’s funeral. A synchronistic fluke. I cried. Not for the words, but for the knowledge that, all along, it was meant for me to be there. How could a two hour old baby lead me to such a gift? Somehow these strange synchronicities give me comfort in my own loss. Carmita and I both experienced the service, each in our own way, and I was glad for her presence in my life. If we had known when we first met, nearly a year ago, how deeply we would need to lean on each other, I’m quite certain that we both would have ran for the hills in opposite directions. But instead, there we were, sharing a package of kleenex, somehow helping each other to remember to breath.

In this life, I have given my greatest offering. And that is Carl. I am letting him go (an offering) from my heart to God and, in doing so, I find myself in need of the deepest kind of grace. I am broken.

In writing this, I struggle to bridge that gap between the myriad of beliefs that make up this world and even this circle of readers. This is not about church or religion. It’s about something much more beautiful and profound than any of that.

But, yes, yesterday I went to church. I cried; I found meaning in the music; I felt Carl’s presence and held his hand; I sat next to the woman who, in heart, is now my sister, too; I met beautiful people. And whether in church or outside of it, I find myself pulled over and over and over again by a desire to keep living this life as fully as I had planned to do with Carl.

I do believe that this was always meant to be. Right now I just pray for the strength, confidence, trust and energy to make myself available to whatever it is I’m here for. There’s really not a whole lot of room for doubt or complacency if I’m going to live this out the way I feel I’m intended to.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. I love you, sweet baby, Anna Claire. Thank you for leading me to this view. May grace be with us all.

{originally published Dec 1, 2014}

good lord, show me the way.

Stop. Drop. And selfie. + a black dog photobomb. A moment today that included a genuine smile.

…and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too.

Nearly impossible to summarize the past few days…North Dakota, being on the road, the sunsets, the immense amount of work, the roller coaster of emotions, the amazing help, the late night trip home, the exhaustion, this day of gratitude…

I don’t know where to start and so I’ll start right here. With this moment on my kitchen floor. This moment when the Thanksgiving festivities were all over and we all missed Carl and I felt a little consumed by how many days ahead of me I have without him. I came home and put on his old flannel shirt. I was all alone and not knowing how I felt about that, but ended up smiling because my dog Ella attacked me with love and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too. Which leads us right here to the present moment.

And all the while I’ve had this song playing over and over and over in my head…for over a week. I dream it, I wake up to it, I hum it, I pray it, I fall asleep to it. I hear it while I drive or tend to tasks. Over and over it keeps playing like a song that Carl is sending me, just like he always used to do.

Good Lord, show me the way.

silence.

This morning, I am suspended in silence. The sky is grey and it is snowing. The horses are purring as they eat their hay. It took them a moment to give into their current contentment because I forgot to go to the farm supply store to buy more sweet feed yesterday. These small, but seemingly impossible tasks, they seem to add up. Even so, the horses are forgiving. As I brush snow off their backs and rub their muscles, they bend their giant, gentle necks so that their head can rest against mine. Their eyes are soft. They’ve been particularly sensitive towards me since all of this happened. Sometimes I think they’ve transmuted into elephants, the profundity of their sentience has grown so large.

Horses. They’ve become my healers for the past several years, in significant ways. I reached out to wild horses and started to build a life around them. It didn’t take long and then these two horses, Colorado and Dakota, unexpectedly walked into my life. Again, I reached out to them; I fed and watered and brushed them and, in exchange, they breathed some newfound life into me. Their trails started carving out new paths in my life. The most significant trail led to Carl. If it weren’t for these horses, I’m pretty sure our paths might have missed each other. Or rather, these horses were brought into my life because this was going to happen all along. I feel like this story was written long before either of us could have ever known–our marriage of spirits and Carl’s death and whatever is to come. There is a word that has whispered itself to me often since falling in love with Carl. The word is “Maktub,” an ancient word that means “it is written.” Our relationship has felt this way, to both of us, since the very beginning. We trusted in it completely.

I still trust this. But I’m not yet up to the task of healing. I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, staving off this horrible feeling of anxiety that continuously keeps creeping in around the edges. Even so, the horses keep reaching for me. Their reach is so soft and unassuming that the near-imperception is powerful beyond measure. This reaching–from friends and family, strangers and animals–causes moments of lightness and lets the peace sneak back in. Sometimes I even feel Carl wrap his arms around me. He lets me lean backward into his spirit and says: “I love you, baby.” He repeats this as many times as I need to hear it. He tells me to follow my heart. He tells me that I’ll know what to do. But I can’t always feel him and, when I can’t, that’s when the anxiety comes. I plead, “Please God, please God…help me.” And, somehow, maybe these and everyone else’s prayers are working, even when I’m not sure of it at the time. The depth of my grief causes me to clench every muscle, every thought, every movement. But eventually, a softness occurs…my body isn’t built to stay frozen forever.

Even so,
This silence…if it doesn’t already exist, sometimes I create it.

Carl and my life together was always alive and connected with phone conversations and texts and sharing music. It was constant. In the most painful moments, I attempt to hit the mute button, a survival technique that doesn’t help at all. Eventually, the music will want back in. I can’t yet listen to it. Carl filled my life with music, our life together was built of it. For now, for today, I’ll just try to listen to the directions of a friend and attempt to enjoy the snow. I’m grateful for her suggestion. It allows me a way to be at peace with this silence. I love snow. These snowflakes, they are gentle, like Carl.

**the photo of Carl playing mandolin in my studio while i painted. i loved it when our creative spirits found a place to be together.

{originally published Nov 19, 2014}