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I had suspected coming home would be difficult but thought I’d adjust fairly quickly. Fall into old patterns. Routines. Go back to the way things had been before. Go back to the way I was before. I should have realized that was impossible. Pain changed people. I couldn’t go back to the way I’d been, because I wasn’t the same person who’d left.
Sandi Jones liked this
I wanted to be the best mother I could be to my little girl. That meant I needed to find a way to heal my troubled heart and mind, so I didn’t turn out like my own mother, who’d been lost somewhere in a haze of anger and grief for decades, oblivious to anything but her own pain.
While on earth, it’s the job of us guardians to tend to the trees, nurture them, and gather their love to bake into pies to serve those who mourn, those left behind. You see, the bonds of love are only strengthened when someone leaves this earth, not diminished. Some have trouble understanding that, so it’s the pie that determines who’s in need of a message, a reminding, if you will; it’s the love in the pie that connects the two worlds; and it’s a tree keeper who delivers the message.
promise me you’ll never marry a man who doesn’t respect the importance of your roots. For where your roots are, your heart is.
“Do you believe the local legend that the pies will make you dream messages from dead loved ones?” He scoffed. “That blackbirds actually sing those messages—notes, as the writing on the soffit indicates—into the pies?”
No matter how far a guardian roams, she will always return, and while away she will never be settled, as her soul is tethered to the roots of the trees. She’ll never be truly content until she’s home among the roots, comforting and healing once again.
“We survive on sweet tea and complaining, plain and simple. Mostly the sweet tea, if I’m tellin’ it to you straight.”
maybe I could finally put the past to rest and find the peace I craved. Until then, I’d keep breathing deeply and taking one day at a time.
If all went as it should, in less than an hour the blackbirds would emerge from the tunnel between the mulberry trees and sing songs—messages from the Land of the Dead—to those who ate pieces of pie today. While those people slept, they’d dream the message meant for them, sent by people who’d loved them.
Grief was a capricious companion. Sometimes distant and aloof. Sometimes so overwhelming it was hard to think a straight thought. Its mood changed at whim, making it emotionally exhausting to keep up.
“Grief can change a person to the point where they become someone they don’t know, or even like very much.
If I didn’t know him so well, I’d have sworn he was lying. But he didn’t lie. It was one of his traits I loved most.
Imagine having the conviction to say that so surely about your father?
The engine coughed like an asthmatic at the perfume counter in a department store
I felt that in my asthmatic lungs, ha!
There was absolutely nothing I could say that would help him in any way—I knew that from my own experiences with grief and trying to get on with life. But, as he showed me the other day, sometimes all it took to provide a little comfort was to just sit and be with someone else.
I liked that he didn’t try to console me or talk me out of the notion. He wanted the evidence. It was easier to focus on the details than the emotions.
“Sometimes people lie to protect the ones they love,” Cam said. I narrowed my eyes on him and said sharply, “And sometimes people lie to protect themselves.”
“I can’t abide liars, no matter how much the truth hurts.”
Seems to me there’s a whole lot of people around here carrying around a heap of pain tied to the past. Might be time to start letting that go and start healing.
sometimes love has a way of sneaking up on you. Keep that in mind, so you’re not startled when it up and taps you on the heart.”
As I headed upstairs to take a shower, I could only shake my head at my strategy to keep people at arm’s length. It had proven impossible. I’d done the complete opposite. I’d become a hugger.
I pulled in another breath, ignored the squeezing in my chest, and knee-walked along the grass, counting the weeds I pulled to keep my brain occupied with numbers instead of things I couldn’t change.
Hmmm, is this why I'm constantly counting things?
The past can’t change, but people can. Going forward, I’m taking the lessons I learned from all that pain with me, but it’s time to leave the pain behind.
I admit I’m sad that there might not be more pies, but they’ve already given me the lesson I needed to learn from them.” “What’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious. “That a person you love is never truly gone—they’re always there, whether it’s in a memory … or a dream.” Or in a heart. All of you will always be in my heart, and part of me will always be in yours. That’s a damn good legacy, if you ask me.
“It was a choice. I could either keep dwelling on what had happened, letting it define me, or take the valuable—and sometimes painful—lessons I’d learned from the relationship and move on.
“I run away. It’s what I do when I can’t handle the hard times. Not only do I run, I also push away people who care about me. My therapist says I do it to protect myself—I remove myself from the painful situation. It’s taken me a long time to realize that running away doesn’t protect me from anything—it just takes me that much longer to deal with the real problem. I’ve been working on new coping skills, but old habits are hard to break sometimes.
Good God. I’d become a hugger and a ma’am-er. How in the world had this happened? But … I knew how. Wicklow had gotten hold of me but good.
