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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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Breathing in the quiet. 

Quiet is something I need, something I crave, and something I love. I know this about myself – and yet sometimes I find it difficult to sit in silence. To breathe in the quiet. My mind sometimes seems to think it needs to be entertained – even when my soul is saying shhhhhhhh just sit in silence. 

During times of anxiety I fight this inner battle even more. It’s a time when I really need quiet. A time when meditating and walking or riding out in nature really are the medicine I need. But, my mind instead says no, you should watch tv or play on the Internet or waste hours on Facebook. 

Its like my mind resists the thing that will help it most. I don’t understand this, but I know it to be true. So I try and remember to work with that. 

I’ve been meditating for a couple of years and it has brought great benefits to my life. When we moved home in all the chaos and the emotional upset I stopped. Even though it was a time when I needed it most. I couldn’t handle sitting in silence and hearing what was going on in my head. Even though meditation was what I needed to calm those voices of sadness and worry, I couldn’t break through the barrier. 

I’ve been meditating again and I feel so much better. I appreciate the silence I can sit in it again and breathe. I can feel it healing me. 

Last night as I was walking home I had to stop and listen. I was listening to nothing. We live near the highway and as the city grows the road gets busier and louder. Moments of true silence are harder and harder to come by here. Ironically, my moment of quiet here came because the highway was so busy it had come to a complete standstill – therefore no noise. 

This afternoon out on my cousin’s deck I noticed it again. A few of us were standing out there visiting – and we could hear each other. The road was quiet. We stood and watched child cousins play while us adult cousins visited. Saw the kids run through the field playing hide and go seek while we caught up on each other’s lives. My happiness moment. My sister was not with us, but I got to see her girl play with my girl and that was great. 

Yesterday I talked about how what I think about I attract – or what I believe I achieve. Specifically how I learned the Law of Attraction while riding I just wasn’t aware of what it was. No sooner had I published my blog than my niece and daughter called me to see I wanted to go riding with them. Of course I dropped everything and ran (skipped) out to the barn. I got to give an impromptu riding lesson to Jacob where I ended up explaining the law of attraction horse style just as I learned it. What you think about you attract.  It’s a fact. 

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Snowbirds

This afternoon we went out for a family walk. Forced family fun time with my monsters, my sister and her kids, and my mom. As we were getting ready my cousin texted saying the Snowbirds were about to buzz our house. They were at the air show in Springbank and could see them heading for our place. We dashed outside and had an awesome private show 

This was taken on my iPhone – it was much more impressive. I’m amazed at how they hold their formation.  
I mentioned to my sister after that if you were into planes it was the equivalent of us wanting to ride in the RCMP musical ride. I have a friend who did this – what a dream job. 

It was a happiness moment to stop and watch the planes dance past us over and over. Time was suspended and there was just us and the sky show. 

Before we went out walking we were talking about how every day without Dad just gets harder and harder. Doing all the things we used to do with him now without him is so difficult. But he loved life and loved us and I know he wants us to keep on finding happiness, so I will keep looking for it every single day.   

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Sunbeam yoga cat. 

 
After three months of emotional chaos I have decided it’s time to try and restore a bit of order into my life. I haven’t been following my proper routine, my exercise hasn’t been regular, and my eating habits have been horrendous. Granted, not as horrendous as before I started studying Ayurveda, but not great. It’s that sugar thing. Sugar and I have a difficult relationship. 

I can feel the lack of proper sleep and the lack of exercise and poor food choices wrecking havoc on my body. The last few days I’ve been making more of an effort to get my routine back. 

I’ve also been gentle with myself because in the last three months we have undergone huge change and I have every reason to have emotions out of whack. But I know Dad would want us all to look after ourselves. And I’m home and I’m going to celebrate every day. 

Since the weather has been nicer I’ve been going outside for walks with Dottie. But, as seems to happen at this time of year – wildlife is getting a little too close for comfort. And, I’m bear-a-noid at the best of times. I’ve decided to give the outdoor walks a little break for a while. Or until I find a walking companion who is much slower than I am! I’m still getting used to the more recent  presence of predators. I was so used to being able to walk or ride for hours and never worry about anything. Times change. I don’t. 

Today I used my elliptical and then was just going to do some gentle yoga stretches. But I realized my body needed more stretching, and that my meditation practice has been thrown out the window. So instead I did a downloaded yoga class followed by a 20 minute meditation. 

I rolled my mat out into the middle of the floor where there was a nice sunbeam and began my practice. No sooner was I on my mat and Ella raced over to lie in the sunbeam. She loves when I do yoga and insists on her belly being rubbed on every forward bend. 

I feel SO much better after my practice. Lighter in mind and body. It served as a reminder of why I do what I do and why it’s so important to me. My happiness moment for the day. My sunbeam yoga with my cat. 

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Ashes to ashes 

We picked up Dad’s ashes today. I am discovering that there are a lot of things about cremation I hadn’t thought through. But here we are, and we will hold hands and walk together through this part as well. 

I spent some time trying to figure out where to put the ashes in the car. Do I buckle them into the front seat? That felt weird. I decided on the trunk. Weird but hopefully safer. I felt kind of bad putting the ashes in the trunk of the car, and worried I’d get in an accident….. I’ve watched way too many bad sitcoms making fun of cremation mishaps I suppose. We made it home safely I’m happy to announce and I avoided any of those awkward moments. 

Even though I was completely pro-cremation and had been certain it was what I would want for myself, the reality of it is turning out to be much more emotionally difficult than I would have thought. I understand we are not of the body. I understand that the Dad part of Dad left the building way back at the hospice. However, the reality that the body now is also gone seems to be a little much. Like he was just erased or something. 

I don’t know, I suppose I will work that through in my heart at some point. It does interfere with my heart’s strong denial that Dad is anywhere but out for a walk, or out in the garden. Alive. 

Dad’s ashes had to stay at my place for the afternoon. It wasn’t until after supper that I packed up my laundry and the ashes and headed over to Mom’s place. I was standing in my yard – laundry on one hip, urn balanced on the other side – looking behind the barn where they were chasing cows, and then looked up at the sky and said just so you know Dad, this tops the list of the weirdest things I have done. Then I walked over to the house talking to him the whole way. It was weird and nice all at once. 

Today my happiness moments were served to me three ways: physical, emotional, and spiritual. 

When we came home from school I lay down on the couch to rest for a minute and ended up studying my eyelids for an hour and a half. Not only have we had an exhaustingly emotional few weeks, but I don’t  have blinds on our windows yet and it’s only dark from 11pm to 4:30am. Not enough sleep time. The nap brought me physical happiness. 

After supper I went for a walk along the ridge. It’s where Dad used to love to walk. Not only did I feel closer to him, but I had some awesome walking companions. My emotional happiness: 

   

The view from the ridge. 

 

When I got back from my walk Jenna had done some chalk art expressing her feelings about her Grandpa’s death. It gave me spiritual happiness.  

 

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Flower walk

Today I tried really hard to get out and do some normal life things. Spring, or the beginning of summer, was always Dad’s favourite time of year. Since the warm weather is here for such a short time, I felt obligated to take in the beautiful sunny day. 

My Uncle Gord has spent ages moving and organizing the opening of his parents’ home at the Cochrane Ranche, and today was the grand opening of it. I went because I adore Uncle Gord, and because I really wanted to go out and be normal. Which I was… And I wasn’t. 

There was a lot of extended family, so on top of Uncle Gord leaving the front to come and hug me and squish up my face (have I mentioned I adore him? Nobody else would ever get away with that), I had family coming up and hugging me and giving me love. 

Which was nice, and also not nice. Nice because I am so blessed to be back in my tribe with people who know and love me. Not nice because it makes this whole death thing more real. 

I had a lovely conversation with two cousins who shared their happy memories of canoeing with Dad. The love and the sadness on their faces was so deep. 

I was quietly shadowed by another cousin. I’d think she’d gone somewhere and she’s appear and squeeze my shoulder and say I was doing a good job. Any time someone new came to talk to me she’d reappear and make sure I was ok.

Talk about having my back. She’s always someone I want in my corner anyway. 

After I left the opening I had to drive into Calgary. As I reached the top of Cochrane Hill I had the strong impulse to turn off to Glenbow Ranch. Dad always loved walking there and looking at the wildflowers. 

In fact wildflowers were kind of Dad’s thing. From the time I was little, he’d take me out into the field and teach me the names of all the flowers. And he really knew them all too. We had little flower books and my sister and I would write down where and when we saw them. 

As time went on, Dad expanded from just teaching us the flowers, to our cousins, and eventually Mom and Dad’s friends. Dad would take a group of friends out on big long wildflower walks and tell them all about the flowers. 

All spring we scoured the field outside their house looking for a crocus – the sure sign of spring. There was never one to be found this year. Once I was at Glenbow Ranch, I decided to go walk the flower trail I had walked with Dad last summer in hopes of maybe seeing a crocus. Nope, but I came across something else 

Can you see it there hiding quietly in the grass?   

A lady slipper 

 One of his favorite flowers was the lady slipper. 

The park was busy, there were people on all the other paths. But for a few minutes I was the only person standing in this secret flower spot. It was the exact place I had stood last summer with Dad looking at Wood Lillies – my favourite flower. 

For just a few moments I felt him standing there with me on that ridge looking at the flowers. My happiness moment of the day. 

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Communion with family 

Today we were blessed with the gift of having the Eucharist brought out for us to share as a family. The minister, the temporary minister , and a very dear old friend of the family came out to share this spiritual ceremony with us. 

We were joined by my uncle, aunt, cousin (the recently-bucked-off-cousin), and his wife

It was incredibly spiritual and loving to be able to share this with a few of our tribe. There were special blessings and prayers for dad, there were also prayers said for the rest of the family. At the end I felt very strongly that we were held in the nest of love. 

I wasn’t sure how I was going to react, but since I hadn’t had my morning cry in the car, I  bawled my eyes out the entire time. Which is part of the new me who surrenders. 

Dad has always been a very strong guiding force on my spiritual journey. But he has been a much stronger guidance these last few years as we both have been actively seeking peace, spiritual fulfillment, and a stronger understanding of who we are and what our role in the world is. We have gone for countless walks together around the ranch – across the neighbor’s ridge – and shared our journeys with each other. His strong faith and his sharing his faith as he seeks his path have helped to shape me as I’m finding my path.

I consider it an incredible honour to have been able to participate in this ceremony that gives him guidance and love as he continues on his journey. 

My happiness moment was a walk with my sister this afternoon. We laughed, we cried, we shared memories of childhood. We appreciated our dad and how much he has given and continues to give to us. The strength and the kindness he has shown. The silent but constant and unconditional support he has shown as he stands firmly in our corner. 

We stopped and just appreciated the beauty of home   

 

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Well, you can stick around… But I’m outta here!


My happiness moment of the day today is also the thing that consistently keeps me in balance. My walk. It’s supposed to be my daily walk but lately, for one reason or another, it hasn’t been every day. Some days I haven’t gone for a good reason and other days the reason has been too tired or too windy. Although in my defense, those Chinook winds can be brutal and my blood is still set to Virginia temperature.  

Today though was a wonderful walking day. The sun was warming my soul. The wind wasn’t bad. The mountains were beautiful. Things are slowly greening up. 

When we got back, Dottie bolted around the back of the house in hot persuit of something. I assumed it was the deer who stare in my windows at me every morning. But when I followed her, it was my parents’ cat Flower in his alter ego state of Killer   Not sure who should have been more afraid. 

This evening we were driving into town and we were talking about what superpower we would want. I wanted to be invisible so I could vanish when people annoyed me and  both kids wanted to fly so they could get away from annoying people (introverted family you think?). 

Then Jacob said you know how it is when you just get tired of being in a conversation and you want to leave but you can’t – so then your brain goes to your body “well, if you want to stay here that’s fine, but I’m outta here”.
That is the story of my life. I find myself in conversations I don’t want to be in anymore and my brain just walks out and leaves my body behind. 

I’ve been giggling about it all night. Love that kid. 

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A social solitude walk 

 
My walks are a very spiritual time of the day for me. I need that solitude in nature to connect with the Universe and to connect with my inner being. 

I’ve always craved a certain amount of solitude although our years in Roanoke taught me that there absolutely can be too much time alone.  It’s all about finding that balance to satisfy my introverted self. 

My solitude walks along the road by our house seem to be balancing this perfectly. For example, today I headed out with my Dotted Dog and about half way through ran into my aunt. She pulled over and we had a nice chat. I decided I should turn around because I was going to go for a drive with my dad and the day was slipping by. On the way back my nephew and a friend blew past me in their truck. Soon after that a cousin stopped and we chatted for a while. I kept walking and ran into my aunt again who was pulled over visiting with another cousin and Jenna who were headed off to check calves. Chatted again and then kept on walking home. My nephew blasted by once more  and yelled out the window holy Auntie Melissa, are you ever a slow walker. Because of course by then all the people I’d been chatting with were gone and it was just me again. 

Solitude and companionship. Both are so important to feed my soul. My happiness moment for the day was that I got to perfectly balance both.   

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