For RayRay

My goodness but you're growing up. And you're so beautiful and smart. I'm very proud of you.

I saw you recently and really wanted to say things to you but the time wasn't right. You were with your friends and I know 14 year olds don't want to hang around with their old biddy aunt, especially when with their peers.

But let me try now. Take of it what you can, make of it what you will. Know it comes from the heart.

But where do I start?

I missed a lot of your growing up. That is not only regrettable, but entirely my fault. In choosing to distance myself from my brother, your father, I ended up distancing myself from you. And I'm sorry about that. Maybe I'm being idealistic or self righteous or naive, but maybe I could have helped you if I'd been there. He didn't make life easy for you, either, but you seem to have come through ok. I hope so, anyway.

I grew up with a lot of terror and fear and scars from you dad. I distanced myself because I had to. Because I could. One day after a call from him I decided I'd had enough. I not only wrote him off as a loser, but wrote him a letter and told him I was writing him off as a loser. Not a pleasant thing to do. But done is done.

Your dad lived with a lot of demons, and I inherited a few of them as well. His drug abuse and alcoholism was beyond his reach by the time you came around. I think he wanted to be a better person, a better father, but he didn't know how - wasn't capable. I'm not making excuses for him, just sharing my views. Forgiving someone doesn't make them any less of a liar, any less of an abuser, an less of a violent, twisted person. Forgiving is for the forgiver. And I forgave. Eventually.

So years passed and your dad died. We all had mixed emotions, I think. Certainly you and I both did, I'm sure. So Tip took care of things and got Kelly's ashes and you know the softball field where we drove up and watched you play that Saturday? You know that stream that has a bridge over it right there? Well, I hope this doesn't freak you out but that's where we put them. Your dad's ashes. Tip and mom and dad and Angela and I met up there and went on the bridge and I was going to put them in the water because I thought he'd like that. But first I felt moved to say a prayer - that's what you do. And I have to admit that when I started saying the prayer I was saying it for mom's benefit. She was so overwrought, so sad and upset. I wanted to comfort her. But as I spoke, I felt the truth of my words and they weren't just for her, just for everyone else. They were for me and they were the truth.

I said, in part, "Dear Lord, I feel certain that as my brother saw death approaching - as he knew his time was up - he called out to you to forgive him and because you are a loving and forgiving God, you did forgive him and took him in your arms and took him to heaven." And RayRay, I knew it was the truth. I felt it in my heart. God always forgives and God always answers prayers.

You think I'm rambling now and maybe I am. But I have a point. Saying and believing those words healed me. Helped me. Cured a huge part of me. They helped me become a better person and a better daughter. I don't know why or how. Maybe it was just because my heart got a big bunch of cobwebs wiped off of it. But anyway ...

Months pass and we discover that my mom is sick. She has lung cancer. She goes into the hospital on April 1st (what a lousy April Fools joke, huh?) and dies on May 2nd. She'd spent a couple weeks in the hospital, a week in rehab (to no avail) and a week in Hospice House. When she moved into Hospice I moved in with her.

Are you familiar with Hospice? It's an organization, sometimes a place, where people who are dying can die with dignity and without pain. The nurses who work at Hospice Houses are angels on earth. Consider yourself lucky if you ever meet one.

Mom spent the better part of that week in Hospice in a drug induced coma, pretty much, beyond the first couple days she felt nothing. She was peaceful and calm and I was at her side the whole time. I spent those days and nights holding her and brushing her hair and making sure her lips were moist and praying for her and singing to her and telling her, "You let go whenever you're ready, Mom. There is nothing holding you here - we'll catch up with you later."

When mom took her last breath, I was there, holding her her, looking into her eyes. I felt her last breath, I saw the last glimmer in her eyes before she saw her Savior. I cried out "Thank you Jesus, for taking her home."

But see, I don't think I would have had the patience and desire and ability to spend a week at my dying mother's side had I not had those cobwebs wiped from my heart. I fear I would have done what the rest of my family did ... choose not to deal with it ... escape it somehow.

My week in the Hospice House, my exposure to those angels, made me realize not only that I had the patience for the dying, but that I wanted to be part of that fine group of humans. So I became a Hospice Vigil volunteer. I sit with dying patients and ease them on to the other side. I hold them and sing to them and tell them "you go on whenever you're ready ..."

I've kinda lost track of what I wanted to say, RayRay. That happens ... let me just try to pass some "words of advice" on to you ...

a) Believe in Angels - you are surrounded by them ... your dad and my mom, included.

b) Believe that you deserve all the love in the world - because you do.

c) Believe that God's Grace will touch you when you least expect it - and when you feel moved to reach out - to forgive - to build a bridge or tear down a wall ... follow your heart.

And know that I love you.

Be strong, speak true and love like there is no tomorrow.

Always, Aunt Lynnie

Purity

My dad had surgery today. It didn't go quite as expected, but everything is ok. In the Ambulatory Surgery Center the prep/recovery rooms each have a framed photo on a wall - always a flower but each room's flower has a different word ... "love," "gratitude," "sharing." The flower in my dad's recovery room said "Purity."

I watched him sleeping ... looking so peaceful ... and was touched by the way his face would light up and a smile would appear if I so much as touched his forehead or squeezed his shoulder. Even drugged and mostly asleep he knew his baby girl was with him.

I had never noticed before how much my father and my no-longer-with-us brother, Kelly, looked alike. It was shocking, actually. Kelly's been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of reasons, and for long surreal minutes in recovery I was drifting between comforting my dad and comforting my brother. Surreal, to be sure, but also cathartic.

Kelly died alone. I had chosen years before to cut off contact with him. As time passed and word got to me of his illnesses as well as his troubles, I started feeling guilty. I'd help a stranger on the street but had turned my back on my brother. He was sick, weak, living in public housing in North Carolina and Christmas was approaching. I was thinking of him one night and felt the hand of God on my heart and felt moved to reach out.

I went Christmas shopping for my brother. I hadn't seen him in years, hadn't welcomed communication from him in years, but I remembered what he liked. I bought him a Summer Sausage (boy, we both used to love those), a jar of mustard, a carton of cigarettes, some stamps and envelopes and paper, and I packed it all up and included a card. I couldn't break down all my walls at once and was hesitant to face being rebuked, so the card simply said "I'm here. Merry Christmas."

A couple weeks later, shortly after Christmas, my brother's body was found on the couch in his apartment. My other brother, Lewis, had been keeping in touch with Kelly and trying to help and was contacted by the apartment management. Lewis went up to NC to take care of things and talked to people who lived around Kelly, his friends, and they said he'd been happy recently. He'd gone all over the complex telling people he'd gotten a Christmas present from his baby sister. He was proud and happy - I'd remembered what he liked. It had taken so little to brighten his life. And I cried and cried and cried and still cry.

So I'm in the recovery room, comforting my father and he gets an expression that looks just like Kelly. Just like Kelly. And he's sleeping but he's smiling because I'm there. I start to cry silently and this time it isn't the hand of God I feel on my heart. It's the hand of my brother, comforting me.

Too little too late, but ... I'm so sorry. And I do feel you with me. And I love you.