Year of Loss and Love

The end of a year- a year of great loss and surprising love. Time to welcome the new, but to honor and remember the old for its lessons and gifts.

This year, I lost my Mom. She died November 18, but the losses started months before, back in July, when she was first diagnosed with her brain tumor.  First, I lost her speech. Her stories. Access to all the things I meant to ask her someday.  Time ran out for that sometime back in early July, but I missed that day. I didn’t know. I was busy.

Later, we lost the ability to go out together.  Walking was so hard for her. I remember our last outing,  just to a local taqueria for burritos and to Great Clips for a haircut. Getting to the restaurant from the car and later from the salon to the parking space right outside was nearly impossible for her. Just months before, she had regularly walked two miles a day at a nearby park. She loved greeting other walkers on the path; she loved the baby geese.

I lost my son’s little boy voice this year. He’s grown so much. His feet went from a size 8 or 9 to a size 13. Sometime right around Mother’s Day, he got taller than me. One morning, I woke up and his voice had changed. I realized after a frantic hunt through my phone videos that I couldn’t find any recent recordings of it. Of how it had sounded just weeks before. I didn’t know that it could change overnight. I thought it would take time. It didn’t know it would just disappear.

I lost my portable massage table. We don’t have a garage, so when we are in a hurry and leaving to do errands, I often take it out of the back of the car and lean it against the fire hydrant right across from our house. It gives us more room. We live on a dead-end street, well off the road in a small mountain town.  I didn’t realize it was missing until the next day, when I left to do a massage for a friend in her home. I put up signs at the post office, the café, the general store, offered a $50 reward. No luck.

Loss upon loss.  Things that I took for granted, things that were gone.

Except.

In the midst of all this loss, people showed up. I was never alone. Not one minute.

My sister, my niece and I walked together through my Mom’s illness. Also, my husband and children. My friends. My friends ignored me when I said I was fine, that I didn’t need anything. They visited me when I was staying at my Mom’s house. They visited her, too, and talked with her about things she loved, whether it was game shows or her San Francisco Giants. They brought bags of the season’s first mandarin oranges and Brie. I had never even liked Brie before. They brought books for me. They brought themselves.

After my Mom passed away, these same friends rallied. They took over the food for my Mom’s memorial service. They designed and printed the program. They came to the church to help serve, even when I told them it wasn’t necessary, that there wasn’t much for them to do.

They showed up. They showed up time and time again. They found things to do. Boots on the ground.

Also, after they saw the notices about my missing massage table, two people in my little community called to offer me their massage tables for free.  They had tables in their sheds and garages, and they would be happy for me to have them.

One of my mentors reminded me just yesterday that God shows up where we are. That God is in our joys, but also in our losses.  Every one of them. Small and large.

In loss, great love.

Happy New Year to all of you, my friends who have read this far. You are the ones who have shown up for me. I am so grateful.