Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 53

Love and Sticky Date Pudding

I wanted to share a previous blog but I can't find the entry anywhere (I believe it was on a web site that no longer exists). John Peters will be buried in Austrey, England, today and this was one of his favorite pieces that I wrote. I have copied it from the original Word file:

On my second trip to Australia, I was in a Melbourne restaurant with several friends for dinner when one of them, an Australian, went with me to pick out a dessert. There was this gloppy mess of a cake and I asked Susan what it was. “Oh, that’s very Australian,” she said. “It’s sticky date pudding.” As she would later say, it’s mostly made up of butter and sugar (plus some dates). While looking quite like a messy cake, and obviously very sticky, it’s a wonderful dessert that I easily fell in love with.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

I met John and Jean Peters the year after my dad died at a conference in Killarney, Ireland, where I was spoke at a conference. John, a Welshman, emailed me periodically after that because he too had lost a loved one to suicide (his son) and wanted to see change for the suicide bereaved. As my profile rose, particularly after I became president of the American Association of Suicidology, he hoped that together we could make things happen. And we did with the publication of a book called A Winding Road: A Handbook for Those Supporting the Suicide Bereaved. I also went over to England multiple times to speak at conferences that John planned and stayed with him and Jean at their home outside Birmingham.

A Run and a Float

I signed up to run a second 5K the same day I ran the first 5K in March, and a week before my mom died. I had grand plans because the weekend before she died I actually got on a track and did mile repeats. My hope had been to retrain my brain for mental toughness, a way to challenge myself that I hadn't done in a very long time.

But between the grief of losing my mom and then losing John Peters, the co-author of my book, A Winding Road, who died last week, the last thing I wanted to do Sunday morning was run a 5K. While I run each morning, the idea of going to a race with thousands of people (there were over 2,000 in the timed 5K I ran) didn't sound inviting. 

50 pages in the face of grief

The sounds in my house have changed.

I'm not sure my mom ever got used to me shutting my office door so I could work and write. I did it because it was often the only way I could focus. Now without my mom here, it's almost silent except when Nestle and Gidget think they need to bark at something that isn't outside.

About ten weeks ago when I started my writing 50 pages a month, I did it by getting up earlier and getting to my desk by 7:45 am. While it isn't foul proof that the phone calls won't start (and I have to not look at my email), I found that I was more productive. I don't like getting myself out of bed at 5:05 to run and run the dogs plus shower but I know that I am much happier by putting something that is so important to me first in my day.

While writing more is writing more is part of this, so is writing better. When I leave it for the end of the day, I rush through it and I don't enjoy the process nor do I believe I create a quality product.

The dog on the corner

About a block from my house on my run this morning I encountered a dog. I have been chased and bit before so I always try to keep dogs at a safe distance from me until I know they aren't running toward me to hurt me. Although it was still dark, I quickly realized it was a friendly dog but appeared to have no tags. 

I knew then I wouldn't get through my morning routine as quickly as usual if the dog stayed where it was at. And it did.

There was a period of time in my neighborhood where I was the person to call if your dog was lost beacuse the chances were your dog was at my house. Chaco was always a good magnet for loose dogs: they only came to me because of him. 

The Reality of a New Refrigerator

On Saturday, a new refrigerator was delivered to my house.

While this might sound like I am sharing a mundane detail of my life that isn't worthy of anyone's time, it's much more than about putting a new appliance in my house.

Although I was excited about getting a new fridge, something that has been on my list for quite some time, I didn't think about much more than that until I started to put the items into the new unit. At that point I began to realize there are memories around such things as jars of horseradish.

My mom loved horseradish and always had to have it on her sausage. The little jars were never enough and I bought more of it in the past few years than probably in my entire life. I found two jars although one was seemingly empty. If I had to guess, she put it on the list but kept the old jar in case I didn't buy a new one in time and she could use scrape the liquid off the sides of the old one.

The Highlighter in the Fridge

My dad died eight years ago when I was working on my doctorate and nearing the end of my coursework. There was another woman in the family studies program, although she was further ahead than me, and at the end of her dissertation. Her mom died during the process and she once told me in email how she couldn't find the highlighter she was using and then went into her refrigerator to retrieve something only to find she had somehow placed the highlighter there.

I have always thought about Marie and the highlighter in the fridge, knowing that as we process grief, our minds are not always right with us. Losing a loved one is an adaption to a different life than we had before. It's as if our physical and emotional selves are walking journeys, each different, and they aren't always in the same place.

In the month since my mom died, I have found myself doing things I am scratching my head over, then remembering that I am grieving and it's a process that won't end overnight. While I haven't left the highlighter in the frige (yet) I have found myself walking into a room and not remembering why I went there (and, yes, I know several of you are laughing and saying you do that all the time but it's not something I usually do!). I spelled someone's name wrong in my Naperville Sun article yesterday. I think I catch all the mistakess but later I find out that I haven't. 

What We Share When We Are Open

This morning I had to take care of several financial tasks related to my mom. While it is a beautiful (although turning windy) day here in New Mexico and my life goes forward, I never know when grief will appear around the corner. I know this road well and as I traveled between the second bank and Trader Joe's, I thought about Mom and how Easter passed and what my sister said– that we can't just pick up the phone and call her when we want. Or for me, I can't find her around the corner to share something with her. As I was thinking all this, the song "Jungle Love" by The Time came on the radio, one of her favorites. and I smiled, knowing she was letting me know she is with me.

Because I shop there weekly, I know several of the cashiers including the one that helped me today. He asked me how I am, to which I replied good, because really I am good. No matter what I'm going through, today is still a good day. And then he asked me what was new.

I looked at him, unsure what to say so I asked, "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," he said.

So I told him that my mom had died a month ago.

His reply? His dad died three weeks ago.

Return to the Surf...Finally

My latest trip to Los Angeles had been planned well before my mom died three weeks ago. My boyfriend Greg asked me if I wanted to go for his spring break from teaching and I grabbed the opportunity to show him where I surf and introduce him to my Los Angeles friends and life. 

And after Mom died I knew the trip would be especially important in my grief as I process it and go forward. More than anything, I needed to get on the water where I find so much peace. Catching the waves isn't as important as just being on the water.

I also needed to let go of my January trip where the swells were the largest they had been in thirty years and so much stuff was stirred up in the ocean from them that I developed a double eye infection the only day I attempted to surf.

Indifference

It's hard to believe but we are more than halfway through the Lenten season. 

I wrote when Lent started that my goal was to learn to let go of outcomes. While there are aspects of my life I can control, like my reactions, I can't control the actions of others. And while there are many goals I would like to accomplish in my life, what I'd really like to be doing is making the biggest difference I can. And to do do that, I need to be open to possibilities.

I obviously didn't know that my mom would die in the middle of Lent. throwing a curve ball into my life. At first I felt annoyed that I my life was being thrown off its course because I would have to grieve. But as the days went by, I began to remember how important faith was to her and if I continued on my spiritual journey, that would make her happy.