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Sunflowers and rainbows 

Starting the morning off the right way sets me up for the entire day. We had some bumps in the road this morning – couch surfing is difficult and even more so is getting used once again to the early morning *go* routine of school. I was running about in the kitchen at Mom’s while Jacob was getting ready to run back to our place to grab something he forgot when Mom came over and grabbed Jacob. They took off and after a few minutes he came running back telling me that Jenna and I needed to drop everything and run over there.

So, even though we were late, we did. On my way over my cousin texted me telling me to look outside. I read her text as I looked west and saw the most glorious rainbow doing a complete arc over the mountains.

From where I was standing, the rainbow ended directly into Mom’s sunflowers which somehow managed to survive the snow and the cold we have had the past few days.

God’s glory. Sunflowers reminding me of Dad.

An amazing happiness moment. We live in a beautiful place and I feel so blessed that I am able to breathe this in and let it flow through my soul. 

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When a door closes, another one opens. 

This morning  I went out for my last sunflower walk here at the Tamaya Resort. I very intentionally went “backwards” so that I could walk halfway, stand at the Rio Grande and say thank you to Dad, to the river, to God; and then walk the last part of the path guided by Dad’s sunflowers.

To my initial disappointment, when I arrived at the river there was a lady already standing there. She looked like she was happily enjoying the view, but she was at my place where I had important emotional things I wanted to do. 

Then that lady and I made eye contact and I realized it was Susan, a woman I had shared lunch with a couple of days ago. Every once in a while you meet someone you just click with and I felt that click over lunch. We have a lot in common, but also are very different. Whatever the case, we had that click of a friendship. 

We stood at my spot at the river and hugged and chatted a bit. She was heading in the direction I had just come from and I asked if I could join her and walk together back to the hotel. 

It amazes me when I just  meet someone and already feel so comfortable with them. We talked about our lives and our journeys. When we were at the house of hummingbirds, she said she was taking this course in part in search of her tribe. Right away my ears perked up. I have been actively seeking out my tribe too. I think we may be tribe members. 

As I was packing up I was thinking about having run into her. She said it was interesting how we kept crossing paths (it’s a big place and I’m not a part of this course) and how it must mean something. I thought of how my intention had been to go have a really emotional moment of gratitude at the river for the healing it has offered me. How instead of that intended moment, I walked forward into a new friendship. 

My moment of happiness and of deep gratitude.  I feel every day like I’m making steps ahead on this journey, but big spiritual stuff happened for me these past few days. Fitting that I again was guided on how to move forward instead of standing still with the past. 

Good bye New Mexico, you hold a blessed place in my heart. 

  

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Tears from heaven 

I’m finding as I move further into my understanding of who I am (with the help of my Ayurvedic studies, my meditation, my yoga, my increasingly closer relationship with The Source) that I am loving my sacred quiet morning times more and more. They are what gets me on my path for the day ahead and the more relaxed and at peace I can be when I start off, the better my entire day is.

This is how we started the morning on our terrace at the Tamaya Resort, so quiet and peaceful and warm. 

After helping Mom get ready for her course I headed back out along my Sunflower Path to clear my head and stretch my legs. As I began walking I was impressed with how quiet my head was. I was congratulating myself on how unstressed and uncluttered I was as I strolled along. Of course, no sooner did those thoughts come than my emotions were all like oh yeah? You think you’re all zen? Here, let me show you what’s really going on inside. And suddenly I was filled with rage.

By the time I realized how completely angry I was, I was at the halfway mark which looks out over the river towards the mountains and towards one of Dad’s sunflowers. So, I stood there and mind raged at the Dad-sunflower. 

Now, it was cloudy when I left for my walk, but I’d been out for about a half hour and although it was a bit chillier than I had thought, it was just overcast.

As I reached the peak of my mind-yelling at sunflower-Dad I started crying. Thank goodness I’m getting more comfortable with this whole bawling my eyes out in public thing (it helped that the path was quiet and I had this space to myself) because my eyes really let ‘er rip with those wet tears.

I was standing there bawling with a huge rock on my chest and a big lump in my throat as my mind-yelling turned into deep sorrow and I realized I was more really sad than really angry. At this exact moment it started to rain. Tears from heaven.  I stood there crying in the rain for a few minutes just allowing all the emotion to flow out of me and into the rain, into the river, and towards sunflower-Dad.

Then I was done and so was the rain. I felt the weight leave my heart and clear my throat. As these grief and sorrow feelings flowed away, the rain stopped. I waved to sunflower-Dad and walked back to the path to finish my walk. The second half of my walk was lined with the rest of the sunflowers and I had the strong feeling it was Dad reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

When I came back to the room I turned on the TV to listen to while I organized things. The channel was on The Doctors and they had some guy on talking with Vicki from RHOBH. She lost her mother a few months ago and she was getting messages from her through this medium. Then he went on say that so often people who have passed on are trying to contact us, but that we have to remain aware of the signs.

I smiled and thought how much I appreciated that Dad made his signs pretty easy for me to see. But, he loved us like that – he would try and make it as easy as possible for us.

I turned off the TV, rolled out my yoga mat and spent some time in quiet body stretching reflection.

My happiness moment: my tears joining with Dad’s tears from heaven. Because happiness isn’t always rolling on the floor belly laughing. Sometimes it comes from a deeper place in the soul.

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May it be

I have always been a big fan of having a personal theme song. I’ve had a few throughout the years – Don’t Stop Believin’, Rebel Yell, Say Hey (I love you), The Sound of Sunshine, Alberta Bound (this got me through the last year. The kids and I chanted it over and over and over… and look where we live) being a few of them.

Only a very few times has a song just completely captured my soul and it has sung out this is my song!! Stop and listen to it!! The first time I heard The Gayatri Mantra by Deva Primal my inner being swooned with love. I didn’t know who she was or what the words meant, but I knew that I had to listen to that over and over and over again. 9 years later it’s still something I listen to on almost a daily basis.

Today a song came up on my playlist that I’ve listened to many, many times over the past couple of years and my soul has always yelled that one. That is an important song. Stop and listen to it. Stop and listen I would, but I never knew the name of the song or really understood what the lyrics were saying. Today I stopped and pulled up the lyrics and followed them while I listened to May It Be by Hayley Westenra. And I realized that this has been the theme song of my life for the past few years as I’ve been reaching for better things.

May it be an evening star
Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

I started listening to this song when I was so far from home in every sense. Physically we were so far from home and our loved ones. I was so far from the home of my centered being, struggling to find myself in my storm of the dark night of the soul.

Mornië utúlië ([Quenya:] Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornië alantië ([Quenya:] Darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadow’s call
Will fly away
May it be your journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

It was exactly what I did. I just kept believing (although it was while I was humming Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey) and I started to find my way.

When the night is overcome, you may rise to find the sun. I feel like that’s where I’m at now. Like I’ve just awoken to the gift of a beautiful sunrise of life.

A theme song that has been guiding my path out of that dark night of the soul and I wasn’t even aware. I guess that’s the great thing about reaching for better feelings, that I don’t have to control or worry about where they come from, just reaching for them is enough to make them come to me.

My happiness moment today was a re-walking of yesterday’s happiness moment, but with my Mom. We talked again about the sunflower picture that is in the bathroom of our hotel.

the photo is horrible, but the with the lighting in the bathroom there is only so much you can do. It’s a beautiful picture.  But, you get the added bonus of seeing me trying to hide in the corner of the photo 🙂 

Yesterday morning before my walk with the spirit of Dad, Mom had commented on how beautiful the sunflower picture was and how much Dad would have enjoyed seeing it and the inspiration he would have gained for his own photos. As we were out walking in the desert among the sunflowers Mom said it’s like Dad saying I told you I’d be in New Mexico with you. It was a beautiful and peaceful moment to share with her. I said that some people say that departed loved ones come back as butterflies and rainbows, but Dad comes back as sunflowers. Very fitting for who he was –  I knew immediately he was with us.

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Sunflowers and memories 

Sunflowers always make me think of Dad. All wildflowers do – he spent hours and hours taking us out in the fields as children and then as adults (as well as his grandchildren) and patiently teaching us over and over again the names of the local flowers.

But sunflowers…. it seemed every time he saw a sunflower growing in the garden he was dashing off to get his camera and take the perfect photo.

This trip to New Mexico has been so much more difficult than I anticipated.  Last summer when I was home, I watched Mom and Dad spend a great deal of thoughtful time on their applications for Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation. Mom was accepted, Dad was not. With that,  the hope still was that he would accompany her here. Because Dad so wanted her to take this course and thrive in its growth. By the time I moved back home in March, we knew he wouldn’t be coming here, but the dream was that he would be home and mom could share her trip in the evenings on the phone with him while I was along in person to help her out.

And then he died.

After a summer of the family prodding and pushing and lovingly supporting mom, she bravely decided to come here.

And even with all that as background, I still didn’t think this would be so hard. 

I dropped mom off at her session this afternoon still thinking I was ok. I had a few minutes of sadness this morning, but in general had felt pretty stable. But, as soon as she went into the conference room I felt like pulling a Sadness moment from Inside Out and lying on my back with my leg up in the air for Joy to pull me around while I coloured all my memory balls blue. However after standing there in the (public) hall leaking grief from my eyes I realized I also had to be my own Joy. 

I took myself outside for a walk. It’s beautiful here at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa. Not only that, but it’s so soul warming and peaceful. You can see the effect of the place on the smiles of the people as they move around.

As I was walking down the path all I could think was I miss Dad so much. I wish we were walking here together. We loved walking together, it made us so happy. I miss him… I miss him… I miss him.

I came around a turn and I saw this:


  Sunflowers. Just hanging out in the desert. As I stopped to look they were  everywhere.

Every time I turned…    There was the spirit of Dad walking along with me.

(A tree of sunflowers!! A tree – how cool is that??)
  I got to the banks of the Rio Grande (yet another one of those cool places I thought I would never get to) I stood there with Dad in my heart and looked across to the mountains. My happiness moment.

I knew I had to turn around and come back, but as I stood there in joyful sorrow I felt peace and love. Look in the left corner – there’s sunflowers there too. 

There’s a lot of healing that could happen in a place like this. I’m not sure how to describe it, or even exactly what it is. But this is the kind of place that can help heal your soul.  I’m grateful Dad came along for my afternoon walk so I could share this with him.

Even with the sorrow and grief of today, I am so grateful that we are here. Life does go on, and no one loved to really live life more than Dad did. He would want us to live, laugh, cry, love, experience all that life has to offer. I deeply feel the best way to honour his memory is to keep stepping ahead. Sometimes with smiles and sometimes with tears, but living and loving with a full heart.

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I can see clearly now 

  
I was out walking with Jenna this afternoon and looked west and thought I can see clearly now. 

Like an onion (thanks Shrek) this thought had many layers. I literally could see clearly now, we have had insane smoke from the Washington fires all week and we haven’t been able to see much of anything. In my life I am starting to see things more and more clearly than I ever have. I have had a man help guide me to this clearer way of thinking, a man I never met but one that had huge impact on the blossoming of my new life. A man who wrote the book I can see clearly now – Wayne Dyer who I found out as I started writing my blog passed away today. 

I looked on Facebook before blogging and saw a post from a dear friend that her step dad had passed away last night, that post was followed by Wayner Dyer’s page making the announcement of his passing. So I sat and cried for a little while. 

When I realized a couple of years ago that I needed to start reaching for happier feelings and for better things, Wayne Dyer and his writings found their way into my life. Though he need knew who I was he held my hand and helped walk me to a better place. I deeply appreciate the gifts he gave from his spirit. 

On my walk, before I had my moment of standing and seeing clearly, I had been thinking of Dad. I had thought of other friends who had lost parents and how gut wrenching it is. I had been contemplating how I was handling his death and how and if I would heal those wounds. As I stood looking at my mountains I felt it all just was ok. Not that I was ok about his death, but that the process was ok. It’s just part of the path. The joy and the sorrow mix together. 

The happiness moment was standing looking west and seeing clearly. 

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On top of the world. 

   

As I was finally getting dressed today (I can’t even say this morning. Don’t judge, slow mornings are awesome and too rare), the song on top of the world by Imagine Dragons came on my playlist. I love this song and know it only because of my continuous play of a Pandora station when we lived in VA. 

As the song was playing I felt my spirit begin to pick up a little bit. I hadn’t been in a bad mood, but joy wasn’t radiating out of me. While I listened to the lyrics I realized that if I’m not now on top of the world, I’m climbing those last few peaks. 

Even with all the heartache and trauma of these past few months, I really feel like big changes are happening to me. I feel like I’m finally starting to hit my stride. 

I have paid my dues to the dirt, been waiting to smile, been holding it in for a while, and absolutely been dreaming of this since I was a child. I feel like finally I’m starting to live the life I’ve dreamed of. The one that somehow I felt I never deserved. I deserve to be happy (we all do). 

My happiness moment began at 5 am when I woke up. I looked outside to see a giant, orange, glowing, full moon peering in the window at me. It was beautiful. I carried that image with me until I stood on my cousin’s deck and we stared west to the mountains – each taking a big contented sigh as we expressed gratitude for where we live and the lives we have. 

These sunset pictures I took when we were here at Christmas time. I live in a place filled with such beauty and flowing with such love. The fact that we have been able to come full circle and restart in the house where my family truly started here over a hundred years ago is a blessing I am thankful for every day. 

I keep wishing dad was here to share all this with me. I know he’s around in spirit, but I sure could have used him around for more of the journey. 

 Lyrics for On Top Of The World By Imagine Dragons

If you love somebody

Better tell them why they’re here ’cause

They just may run away from you

You’ll never know what went well

Then again it just depends on

How long of time is left for you

I’ve had the highest mountains

I’ve had the deepest rivers

You can have it all but not til you move it

Now take it in but don’t look down

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

Waiting on this for a while now

Paying my dues to the dirt

I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ey

Been holding it in for a while, ‘ey

Take it with me if I can

Been dreaming of this since a child

I’m on top of the world

I’ve tried to cut these corners

Try to take the easy way out

I kept on falling short of something

I coulda gave up then but

Then again I couldn’t have ’cause

I’ve traveled all this way for something

Now take it in but don’t look down

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

Waiting on this for a while now

Paying my dues to the dirt

I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ey

Been holding it in for a while, ‘ey

Take it with me if I can

Been dreaming of this since a child

I’m on top of the world

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

Waiting on this for a while now

Paying my dues to the dirt

I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ey

Been holding it in for a while, ‘ey

Take it with me if I can

Been dreaming of this since a child

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down

And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground

Get up now, get up, get up now

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down

And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground

Get up now, get up, get up now

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

I’m on top of the world, ‘ey

Waiting on this for a while now

Paying my dues to the dirt

I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ey

Been holding it in for a while, ‘ey

Take it with me if I can

Been dreaming of this since a child

I’m on top of the world

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Giggles 

Today’s happiness moment happened when I was upstairs doing yoga. I was lying  on my mat, stretching into good feelings when I heard thumping and banging and giggles coming from downstairs. Jenna and her cousin were playing together in the family room. We have so much smoke here from the Washington fires that going outside isn’t all that enjoyable. 

I heard them giggling and bouncing all the way through my practice and during my meditation. When I finally came downstairs I discovered they’d made a survival course made of cushions through the “lava” on the floor – yet another use for our indestructible red carpet. They pulled me in and I too was hopping from one cushion to another. Sadly I drowned when I failed to balance on the corner of Jenna’s blue yoga mat which was “water”. Fortunately they rescued me before continuing on the course. 

Having done so many quiet years when we were away – times where the kids didn’t have that strong core of friends to hang out with – I am so thankful and grateful that they both have BFF’s right across the yard. Their mom is one of mine as well – bonus happiness and gratitude. 

It is so important for me to keep reaching for these happiness feelings. I still have those punch in the gut moments that dad is really gone. I had another one today driving with Jenna. She mentioned how josh had wanted to share a video he had made with dad. They never had that chance, but josh won an award for the video. Jenna mentioned how proud dad would be of him and how he will he watching him get the award from heaven. Gut punch. Cry. Gratitude that I had him as a dad. 

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Like it used to be. 

Tonight we had a moment of life like it used to be. Which is kind of what life is becoming again now that we are home, but in a different way – life in the new normal. 

My cousin was home visiting from Rome with her family for the last few weeks. Tomorrow they head back to their other home, which is nice for them because they have a happy life there, and sad too because it’s so far from this home. 

We went over to my uncle and aunt’s house to hug and cry goodbye, and ended up sitting down and having a really enjoyable visit instead. It was a visit like it used to be.  Back before we moved, before everyone got busy doing all the things we do. A visit where we knocked on the door and when it wasn’t answered we just walked in. The feeling you have of being safely and securely at home. Even though things are different. 

One of the things we chatted about was how dad taught us to canoe on Scott Lake and how terrified we all were they the canoe would capsize. The bottom of that lake is covered in blood suckers and we all had a good healthy fear of becoming blood sucker supper. It was nice though, to bring a happy dad memory into the conversation and for that to be ok. I miss him, but I want to be able to keep sharing memories of who he was and things he did with us. 

My happiness moment today was sitting around visiting with family. We are blessed in our lives. 

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Melissa means honeybee 

Today was a missing Dad kind of day. I’m not really sure why – it was no different than any other day. 

I woke up at 3am because the house is 10 million degrees and we can’t open windows because Ella the Cat tries to jump out the second story (no screens). So I lay there thinking how ironic that it was probably only 10C outside and yet I was sweating away. Remind me of that in a couple of months when it’s -30 and I can’t get warm enough. 

I started thinking about Dad in the present tense and then had that terrible reminder that Dad in the present tense exists as an angel. That was a horrifying moment. I lay there thinking how surreal  the last few months have been. I even wished that I could go back to that afternoon in the hospice after he died when we were all gathered together. Not because I want to relive that moment, but because in that moment I knew it was real and now I keep pretending that it’s not. 

I dropped Jenna off at her camp at the SPCA and as I was getting ready to leave I ran into the mom of an old friend. They were a family we did Pony Club with and we spent a lot of time together in my teen years. She asked (naturally enough) how my family was doing and my brain responded with well, dad is dead so I’m not sure how he is, the rest of us are doing ok I suppose. I think my mouth gave a more politically correct version of that truth. 

I find I can write about it here, I can tell the banker about Dad, but when I have to tell someone close to me, I completely lose my shit. I really enjoyed the rest of our visit, but the entire time I felt totally shaken by having to say those words. 

So, thoughts of Dad hung around the rest of the day. When Jenna and I went to Community Natural Foods to do some shopping after camp I saw this:

  
Dad took a family favourite photo of a bee flying out of a sunflower that we have hanging over the door at their place. This doesn’t do justice to his photo (I don’t have the mad skills he did and this was taken with my iPhone) but it grounded me. For a few moments Jenna and I just stood there and stared at the bee in the sunflower and felt peace. It was a powerful little moment and I felt like I was being reminded of all the love and good times we shared and all the wonderful things to come. My happiness moment. 

Staring at the bee – in Greek, Melissa means honeybee – I felt loved and safe. 

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