Crying in Cafes

Remember what it felt like to type on keys?

It felt like History. 

It felt like Hemingway and cummings. 

It felt like Gene Kelly.

It felt like soft gloves on the knobs of a safe whose combination was a secret yet every writer had a way and a chance to unlock the magic or life’s meaning or renown or everything.

I remember. 

The magic of smartphones lacks soul.

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The first time I came here alone I ordered the exact same thing: a ginger cookie and a mocha latte. 

I sat in the same spot except then I had my laptop and I was pretending I was someone else.

I was always pretending I was someone else then.

Now, I know who I am not.

Naturally that doesn’t mean I’ve changed.

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I make this cafe look good. 

I didn’t really think that.

I wanted to think it. And mean it.

I wanted to be that person who could sincerely think that. Just for a moment.

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I keep coming here because it reminds me of someplace else and I get to worrying that’s an unhealthy reason to drink coffee and write abstractly with a careful frown. 

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The new world makes me think in characters and take pictures of every moment.

Document every nuance.

Don’t live it.

Don’t experience it.

Parade it. 

Well, not this one. This time I’m going to just be here, take in the sounds. Gelato spoons banging out the last sticking drops. Chatter and laughter. Sentimental music. The hum of freezers. Cardboard boxes scraping together as they open - my least favorite sound. Cappuccino machines spraying. My own teeth chewing.

The absence of keys.

My hands are small, I know but they’re not yours. They are my own.

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Walking here I wondered what I’d do with only thirty minutes and just my phone.

Maybe I’ll just sit upstairs and cry, I thought.

I wonder if anyone would mind. Crying in cafés. I think that makes perfect sense.  The dim lighting. The whispers. The music. Why aren’t we crying? They’re made for it.

But I won’t. Crying is for the shower and parked cars.

Pretty girls - girls who took great care to look nice for no one on a thirty minute break from life - crying in cafés. Now, that would be a distracting sadness, no? 

After all, we’re so desperately trying not to cry in this cafe that we’re likely to resent the extra energy we’d need to ignore that well-dressed elephant.

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Alana Rozier Kuwabara

The Actor's Rucksack:: How Dance Was Born - An Excerpt From Today's Writing

The Passing of Grandma Pearl

Monday evening I received word that my maternal grandmother was in critical condition down in PA and all our family in the area was on their way to be with her.

She was 96 years old and had been talking about going to be with the Lord for probably a decade. Long enough that I stopped thinking it would actually happen. Intellectually, I knew she would die someday but in my heart I always thought, “She’ll live forever.”

I couldn’t imagine the world without her.

They transfered her from the hospital to her nursing home and I Skyped quickly with my mom and brother while they stopped in at home. They were expecting her to pass away but no one knew when.

I don’t really know how to describe what it feels like waiting around for someone to die, especially someone who had been, from your birth, one of the most influential people in your life. I owe so much of who I am today to her.

To add another layer, I reached 37 weeks of pregnancy Sunday. My midwife appointment just hours before grandma went into critical condition revealed that I wasn’t likely to give birth too soon. However, as 37 weeks is considered full term, it was feasible and so I spent nearly 24 hours waiting to see if my first child would be born while waiting to see if my grandmother would die.

I don’t think words could ever exist to express what it feels like to be caught in the middle of the cycle of life with no control and no way of knowing what would happen next. That sentence doesn’t even describe the description properly….

My husband was perfect. He stayed home. He made tea. He held me. He cried with me. He made me laugh.

Yesterday he had a doctor’s appointment. About a month ago, an MRI revealed a bone tumor in his leg. Recent X-rays reveal it was there as well. Somehow, this is nothing to worry about but when we first found out it was pretty scary. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want your spouse to ever have to break the silence of your concern by reassuringly telling you, “I’m not going to die.”

Those words are still ringing in my ears.

Not long before that, my paternal grandmother was, after many tests, diagnosed with Hodgkins.

So, you can see how the past two months have not been the best for me.

After my husband’s doctor appointment, he thought it was a beautiful day to hit up a park so we found one (our doctor is not in our city) and went walking, dipping our feet in the river, enjoying the sun.

We’d just spotted little train tracks for a kids’ train when my brother called to tell me our grandmother had just passed away. We sat on a bench at a baseball diamond where the field stretched out before us and the sky, with a sun peaking out through heavy clouds, was expansive. I don’t know how long I cried there. But I am so glad I was there, with the wind in my face and my husband holding me instead of at home. Somehow it felt right.

The nursing home staff - the nursing home where my nurse grandmother had worked decades ago, where she sent her son with MS to live (and eventually pass away) when I was in high school, where I didn’t want her to go because I called it “the place people go to die”, where she was happiest in her old, less-mobile age - had made her incredibly comfortable. Her living will requested that she not be kept alive artificially in the event of a situation like this so they just gave her morphine and an oxygen mask, no tubes. And she slipped away peacefully, possibly in her sleep though it was hard to tell if she was just non-responsive.

4:42pm Tuesday June 28th 2011.

And I wasn’t there.

And I won’t be there for the funeral because it’s too risky for me to travel 9 months pregnant.

All I can see are her hands. Her long bony fingers. Her silky soft, wrinkly freckled skin drifting down to long pointed nails. All I want, all I can think about, is just touching them one more time. Getting to hold that hand there on the bed and whisper “I love you” or not whisper anything at all.

She never came out of it long enough for someone to call me so that I could tell her I loved her. She was non-responsive so quickly. I kept texting and asking “Is she up? Can I tell her I love her?” But it wasn’t meant to be.

What is meant to be? Ecclesiastes 3 kept coming to mind.

Everything Has Its Time

 ¹ To everything there is a season,

      A time for every purpose under heaven:
       ² A time to be born,
And a time to die;
      A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
       ³ A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
      A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
       ⁴ A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
      A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;

Now is my time to mourn. I knew she was going to go soon. She told me so at Christmas and made me so angry because she said it just as my husband and I were leaving to travel back to Canada. But somehow I just knew that I would have my baby and I would get at least one picture of Grandma holding her great-granddaughter. I knew it. I had no doubt that it would happen. Sometimes I would pray about it for extra oomf - God, please let Grandma live long enough to hold my baby - but that was just an insurance plan. It was sure to happen.

Because my grandma was never really going to die.

So, while I was concerned for my other grandmother going through chemo I didn’t once think that I would get a call saying doctors were giving Grandma less than 24 hours to live.

My Grandma loved the Lord. And now she’s in His presence, pain-free and full of bliss. And I’m happy for her. She’s wanted to be with her Best Friend, her Maker, her Bridegroom for many years now and we can’t be selfish. She was loved by all who knew her - called mom and grandmom by many more than her blood relatives. She left a legacy of loving others and loving God, of changing people’s lives with her love.

I want to leave a legacy like hers.

It may get a bit easier once the funeral has passed but until then I don’t know how present I will be on the Internet. The funny thing is my mom changed her FB status before I did. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until now.

In the meantime, these promises from the Bible keep coming to mind so I thought I’d share them. They are how I’m getting through this - God’s unfailing love and peace and my husband’s love and care.

I pray for you reading this that you would remember how short life is - even if you live to be 96! It’s too short to put off God if you think He’s a good idea that you don’t have time for - or if you think He’s a bunch of crap because He isn’t. He is pure Love and Light and don’t ever let us fatally flawed followers get in the way of your view of His perfection and His love for you. It’s too short to spend stressed out and worried. It’s too short not to use your gifts and talents to the fullest in a place where you are valued, challenged and encouraged. It’s too short to settle for what you think you deserve because you don’t think you deserve much at all.

Tomorrow isn’t promised - cliched now, I know, but still true. Don’t leave anything go - don’t let loose ends dangle. Make amends. Give, give, give. Love, love, love.

Love is all there is. Love is everything.

1 Corinthians 13:13

¹³ And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Philippians 4:6-7

(Paul’s Letter to the Philippians)

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 1:3-7

(Paul’s letter to Timothy)

I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, ⁴ greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, ⁵ when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. ⁶ Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. ⁷For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

John 14:1-6, 12-18, 25-27

(Jesus’ words to the Disciples)

 ¹ “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions;if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
⁵ Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

…

 
¹² “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. ¹³ And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

¹⁵ “If you love Me, keepMy commandments. ¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

…

²⁵ “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. ²⁷Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.

(emphasis mine)