TheBanyanTree: Finding Finds

[Maria Gibson]

Our family of three is soon to become a family of five.  My eldest son 
and his wife are moving in next week.  My youngest son and husband are 
on their way to Iowa to see family and I am here, alone for a week, to 
organize all the piles and piles we have accumulated over the past 
several years.  We have rearranged every room of the house, dispensed 
with a dining room never used to become a family room we can all use.  
Randy ran all the wires and cables, moved heavy furniture upstairs, 
other heavy furniture downstairs and some heavy furniture right out the 
door.  It has been a week of merely rearranging a house and phenomenally 
rearranging lives.

I thought I would be resentful.  I thought I would be stressed at the 
thought.  I am instead joyful and anticipating and refreshingly without 
angst.  I am hopeful and relieved.  I think this is a second chance at 
being a parent and, finally, to one who has matured and has a better 
perspective of his own.  We all have re-shaped our perspectives.  I find 
that a lot is happening, both physically and mentally and like a rock in 
the current I am just enjoying the silky ripples and rhythms of the 
stream, even as the water is surely rising.  For the first time since 
moving here I am actually doing some decorating and enjoying this house 
I have disliked, at times intensely.  I forgive you, house, for being 
bought in a time of enormous stress.  I forgive you for representing for 
so long the beginning of the beginning of my present life and being the 
white elephant of my lost and longed for former life.  Forgive me for 
taking seven years to come to some sort of grip.

November 20, 2000.  That's the date on the x-ray envelope of Socks, my 
sweet and dear departed cat.  It was unexpected, coming across this 
sharp and tangible evidence of a tiny life lived.  It made me cry for 
him again and say 'hey, he was just a *cat*' and then 'hey, you *loved* 
no....*love* that cat.'  And, stamped on the envelope, Dr. Stanley's 
name....loved; dead and gone just as surely as the cat.  Taking a moment 
to cry for the cat and the vet and then for the twin towers because any 
date for me is either -before- or -after- the terrorist attack.  And now 
I have three reasons to cry for loss that has previously been grieved 
and previously been a huge lump in my throat and chest that for long 
periods of time didn't go away.  They all still hurt so much.  I can get 
past them but they deserve a moment of my sadness and grief, not to be 
downplayed, not to be swept away.  I need to feel the pain just to 
remind me of what I have lost.

And then get back to moving forward.

Maria