Every once in awhile

​​Every once in awhile I am just a normal everyday person. Today was one such day. I awoke and went for coffee at my favorite coffee shop, Petals and Perks. I went to Crystal Gardens to buy plants for my sweet husbands newly discovered appreciation of perennial gardening. I came home and mowed the back yard and set up the patio for a bbq for the daddy’s in my life. I watered flowers and made Father’s Day cards for each and every daddy in my beautiful family. I cooked brats and cut up veggies. I waited for the family to arrive. I basked in the sun and the warmth of those I belong to. We talked of Isaac in happy memories of days that have passed without hesitation or melancholy. I hugged his daddy, my daddy, my husband. I had not one moment of sadness. I did not cry for myself, for Isaac, for Phillip, for Joshua, for my father. I loved and laughed and played and absorbed. I was just a regular person. I was not overcome with grief. It was the first gathering at our house since my birthday last year and everyone was happy. I was just a woman with a swarm of people who love me and who are loved in return by me. 

I cannot speak for the ache of the men who may have felt the void today. I cannot pretend to know how being at our home with the absence of Isaac felt to them. I only know that Grace allowed me to participate joyfully in honoring these men and sharing happiness with them and the  women and children and dogs that are my family. 

Today was a good day. 

It’s either ironic or aligned, as the men in my life seem the least inclined to labor over their lamenting over loss. Today was not heavy, for me, and I can’t help but think and thank the masculine energy that plays a role in my life on the periphery. I lean toward the feminine– but beyond my sacred sisters, sistas, tribe and mamas, I often feel a strain to belong in the company of women; I raised a boy who was more like my bff and before him my best friends were primarily boys, my best friend now is probably my 11 yr old nephew…I am always at home with boys, and though I am very much a girl, boys soothe and assuage and pay no mind to my temperamental ways. I can be a clown and a weirdo and because they don’t pretend to understand me, I can just be myself. I love women; I strive in all my relationships with them, in earnest and fulfilling ways, but with boys there is no striving.

I like the idea that this day could be simple and free. I welcome more days like today. 

The more girlie parts of me would’ve probably made a gesture; a toast, a need to stake a claim, to strive. To say “you men and boys are balm to my soul”. But the ease, so familiar to me from my easy and breezy and comfortable relationship with Isaac, made today not so hard. I dont think I have the words for it, but I do have a heart full of gratitude. And that seems fitting for all the “men of few words” that I hold so dear. 
I feel happy today that once upon a time I had a child who helped me understand that not everything needs to be said in order to be felt; that some things just are.

Happy Father’s Day to the beautiful souls who continue to love me and show up for this life I’m living. I hope today was as easy, free, and loving for you as it was for me. Thank you for your steady presence that doesn’t require any pomp and circumstance beyond a good beer brat and a glass of sun tea. Your simplicity inspires me. I see you and I hold you in my heart. 

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                  i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

–ee cummings