Census

Yesterday in the mail was a form for the town census.  Listed are the names of everyone in the household.  Phoebe's name is not there.  I read over and over in disbelief, searching.  Someone just hit a key ...delete!  That was tough for me to read.  The number 8 sits at the bottom of the form. Eight people in our household.  Poof!  She's gone.  Once it read we were nine.  No longer.  Life marches on, numbers ebb and flow, people move on ... even us, simply because the sun continues to rise and set, rise and set. 
I can't really figure out what place I am in right now.  A bit at sea, I guess ...trying to make sense of this world.  I am big on things making sense.  Spontaneity is not one of my characteristics, so the script I had for a long time is being rewritten, needs revision ...but I don't have too many ideas.  I'm familiar with talking my kids through revisions, rewrites ...something they've all thought to be ridiculous, unnecessary.  Why isn't the first draft good enough?  they ask.  Well, the key to good writing is rewriting.   Ideas develop, particular words emerge, an essence begins to take over ....what you write takes on life, as you work with it and yourself and how you express your thoughts, ideas.  For many years I taught college students, encouraged, sometimes demanded they rewrite their work ...producing something better, stronger, original. 
But, life can't be rewritten, there's no first draft, not even a second.  You can't even write in the margins.  One shot.  We get one shot with each moment, day ...child.  One.  I feel like I missed my shot with Phoebe.  I lost. I can't say I struggle with guilt, right now anyway.  Maybe one day.  And I can't say anything would have made a difference ...ever.  But I wonder.  I see things in myself, parts of me that are less than ideal.  My mothering, though I give it my all, could use some polishing, finesse.  Even if Phoebe would have died anyway, I wish I had given her a better piece of me in every moment.  Maybe she would have stayed.  Maybe not.
Lazy and hazy ...that defines where I am right now.  I don't have any ideas for rewrites. 
I talk to God, but its more like sputtering. Fleeting moments of conversation with Him, trying to trust Him, accept His will.  Mumbles spill out, not quite sure what to say, what to ask.  I say my prayers, keep my routine, but it feels weak.  Bead by bead, I think.  I emerge from this bead by bead ...my rosary, always my rescue.  If I didn't truly believe the promises of the rosary ...I would have stopped saying it.  But I do and did, plenty with Phoebe over the years.
It's like I'm walking through a forest.  All around me is incredible beauty.  Stare at a piece of bark on a tree for a minute ...and see the intricacies of design, the perfection.  Underfoot, a beautiful green moss, bunches of fern, the soft noises of wood life, sun rays shining through a dense canopy of leaves.  Of course it is all beautiful, and I want to take it all in, but I have to find my campsite, my fellow travelers before dark, before I get lost even more.   I've lost base camp.  Others are depending on me to find it, to lead us to safety.  The burden's not all on me, thankfully.  I have a husband fully invested ...and a big son ...fully invested ...and all my other cherubs following along.  Together, we'll find a new base camp ...a "new normal" as the professionals say.  But the truth is ...that stinks!  I don't want to find a "new normal."  I want my old normal.
 If I were more spontaneous, I might say "hey, this is great, we'll find a new site in a place we wouldn't have even considered before.  We can make this a great adventure."  But I am neither spontaneous nor patient.  Bad combination for the particular situation I'm in.  Is God saying "lighten up ...relax!"  Or, is He just asking me to trust Him ...to wait.  Just trying to make sense.
Too many late nights, what if conversations have my mind hazy.  I'm trying to grab hold of Phoebe, keep her close.  Moving on feels like leaving her.  They say that's the problem for many ...they feel like they are abandoning, somehow rejecting their loved one's.  Yeah!  That's true.  It does feel like that.  I would never leave my daughter behind.  How can I now?  Even knowing she is safe, where she was created to be,  I just can't leave her.  So how do I move on without leaving her behind?  I guess that's where I am, why I have no ideas for my rewrite.  The census bureau can just highlight her name and hit the delete button. Not so easy for momma here.  And don't have to delete her, but to make her a part of my everyday will take time, patience ...and trust. It will take me a lifetime, but its what I do along the way that will make the difference.  Martha Whitmore Hickman, author of Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working through Grief, reflects on Anne Morrow Lindbergh's passage I mentioned a few days ago. 
It is over shaky ground - this journey between the relationship we had when the person was alive and the relationship we come to have with the dead.  We don't know what to expect, don't even know what we're looking for.  Are we fooling ourselves, conjuring up the possibility that we can have a relationship with someone who's died?
Perhaps it is a little like a first time parent who, anxious that something may go wrong, has to keep going back and checking on the baby.  Is the baby all right?  Still breathing? Still peacefully sleeping?
After a while the parent becomes more confident.  The baby really is there, and safe, but as with other miracles, this miracle of birth takes getting used to.  Perhaps in like manner comes the slowly dawning confidence that in the mystery of living, it is possible to have an ongoing relationship with the dead.
I get all that.  I really do.  But it has yet to settle in my heart. 
When I look at our Catholic Faith, it becomes even richer.  All the souls living and past that have found their way to Heaven - the Church Triumphant, or have the promise of Heaven - the Church Suffering, as they spend time in Purgatory, along with those on earth who strive to live the faith and share it, the Church Militant, are bound together.  I know Phoebe is part of this ...she is part of the Church. 
I am blind to so many treasures like this all too often these days.  But once again, God's generosity puts the people in my life with the right words in the right moments ...and I am somehow, not so alone anymore. Treasured words hear and feel over the phone as a dear friend listens to me tell her that Phoebe wasn't on my family's list of names from the census.  She knows ...because it confirms for her too, that our Phoebe won't be sitting at the counter in her kitchen, won't be on her patio eating ice cream and giggling with her two daughters, two of her three best friends.  And my friend knows that with each visit home, her girls are missing their companion, a bit at sea themselves without the girl so much shorter than them, but so tall in personality and character.  Phoebe won't go to their camp, ever again ...because she is no longer counted.  And as much as I don't want anyone to be hurt, it helps me to hear the tears, the sadness, the missing ...because I don't feel so alone ...or so afraid. And I know, we are not alone in rebuilding our lives. 

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.