I am a blubbering mess today. It all started with two tiny leaves.

Actually with 6 leaves 5 months ago.

A resident at the senior retirement home where I work has an amazing collection of African Violets on the carpet near her patio doors. They were all blooming in the spring and I was reminded how I used to have good luck with African Violets.

She brought me 6 leaves from her violets, so I could start my own plants. I bought African Violet soil, so I would be doing it right, planted them in a plant six pack and put them near the skylight in my bathroom so I would see them often and not forget to keep them moist.

Every few weeks she would ask me about my cuttings. I would tell her they were perky, shiny, bright and looked very happy. But no new growth was appearing.

I took a photo to show her how perky they were and she agreed they looked healthy.

After about 3 months with no sign of progress, I broke a gardeners rule and took one out to see if it had any roots or any signs of growth. I figured I would sacrifice one for my curiosity. Instead of lifting it out of the soil I broke off the leaf.

So much for satisfying my curiosity.

I simply could not throw the leaf away, but embedded the base of the leaf in the soil, feeling very sad about what I’d done and hoping it might somehow survive.

Still no progress with the other five leaves, although they remained perky and bright and healthy looking. The leaf I broke off even continued to look perky to my surprise.

When my friend would ask about them I would shake my head and say, “Still perky but no sign of growth.”

Finally, I decided to try moving them to my kitchen window where I used to grow my violets with northern exposure to light. That has been over a month and no sign of change, although they still looked healthy and happy.

This morning getting ready to go to my grief support group I thought I would go take a peek and see if there was any sign of them responding to the different light setup.

At the base of the leaf… the broken leaf, were two of the tiniest green leaves you could imagine. Smaller than a pencil eraser. Maybe the size of a barley seed. New life! New growth! Two!

I immediately thought one for Danny and Cherie… Danny, my oldest son who died of AIDS thirty years ago and Cherie my youngest child, my daughter who died of a ruptured aneurysm 18 months ago today.

Suddenly the tears came. Tears of thankfulness for new life. Tears of missing my two wonderful children. Tears for those two tiny leaves that broke through the soil for me.

I cried through my support group, learned from the others, as always, and cried as I shopped at Walmart later.

I think I am finally beginning to come out of the functional fog that is grief and realize that my precious daughter is gone. Really gone, like her brother, and my mother, and my father and my mother-in-law and father-in-law. Like so many I have loved and lost.

Somehow, life continues in spite of pain and new friendships are found and relationships formed with others who understand raw grief, loss and mourning.

Somehow life blossoms and grows and we grow through our pain and reach out to others in a new deeper way than ever before, like those two teeny, tiny leaves.

I have an ongoing love affair with clouds. I think it started when at only 4 or 5 years of age my cousins and I would lie on the grass and look up at the big Phoenix sky and search for shapes in the clouds… A lamb, a tree, a puppy dog. ever changing, leaving room for imagination and to pretend.

Life happens, our focus lowers to the necessary, critical and mundane. We forget to look up at God’s ever-changing art display above.

When my beautiful daughter suddenly died two years ago, I found myself searching the skies in my pain, wondering if she was now free up there, beyond the clouds, looking down on us. I began to take photos with my phone when a group of clouds impressed me. The glorious Tucson sunsets, the monsoon clouds taking my breath at times.

I took photo after photo, scrolling through them on dark days reliving their beauty, finding comfort in God’s handiwork.

Recently a vivid sunset, fiery with pinks and oranges, forced me to stop my car to capture their beauty. After five or six frame-worthy snapshots, for some reason I turned around to see what the sky behind was doing during all this brilliant display.

Oh my goodness, it was grey, dark, gloomy and no sky between their cloudy billows. I could not believe this was the same moment, standing in the same place, and totally opposite the flaming beauty of the western skies.

The same sky, same street corner, same moment in time, but the view totally changed by the location of the sun and where I chose to look; my perspective making all the difference.

So very much like our lives…the position of the Son and where we choose to focus our view.

There may be dark, gloomy cloudy days, but there can be hope and glorious beauty if you look around and change your perspective.

January 10, 2018

Heading to Phoenix for Ray Northern’s Memorial.  Ray is the husband of Neva’s younger sister, Sherry (Nada Cheryl Northern).  I booked a room in Littletown and Julie told me not to stay there (it was 2**’s) … Yikes!   Then I booked a room in Peoria (3 1/2 stars, I think)… but twice the money.   Then Burla called and told me I could stay with her!   Thank you, Lord.

I’m waiting for an oil change at BrakeMasters… I’m at El Potosino eating chips and cheese and guacamole.   Very heavy clouds all day… They are expecting lots of rain… I’m not!   I’m praying for a safe trip to Phoenix.  This is the first I’ve taken my Kia on a road trip (I think).   Left Tucson about 5:15pm.

Heavy clouds and warnings all the way to Phoenix, but not ONE DROP of RAIN and no wet roads!  Praise God.

Arrived at Manuel’s to meet Tim and Jessica, but they had already eaten.  I wasn’t hungry, but just wanted to see them before going to Burla’s for the night.

I slept at Bob & Burla’s, in Bobby’s room.  Great bed!   The next day she drove to the memorial, but we had been sent the wrong address, my phone was dead so I couldn’t GPS it, and I’m not good on her GPS (iPhone).  So, we were 45 minutes late for the memorial.  (Maybe bad information is the reason Livengood’s are always late.  I’m just saying…)

We did, however, make it in time to eat and visit with Sherry, Neva, Roxanne, Diana, Gudrun & Tim and Bill Cohea, David and Shelley, and meet Sonny, Sherry’s son and family.

I stayed three nights!  The only time Aimee could see me was on Friday morning.  And I just hated to leave and go home, when I finally had some time with Burla.   She is soooo sweet, like my Mom was, but maybe even more sincere.  Just precious.

Good visit with Burla, Bob, Bobby and Elexa/Lexie/Elsa/Joy… still in name transition.  She seems so much calmer (medication) and more kind, not so demanding or babyish as I remember from before.  Very sweet.   She taught me to play the train game with Dominos, and a cute buggy Jenga game.

Got up early to meet Aimee at IHOP on 44th St. before she went to work.  She is a sweetheart.  She is dating someone from her church.  I went back to Burla’s after breakfast and crawled in bed and slept until noon!

Burla took me to the cemetery on Friday with a lot of flowers she had already bought and we put them on Aunt Mae and Uncle Billy’s grave, Michelle’s, and my Mom & Dad’s.   Beautiful clear day for this.  My Mother’s birthday is next week and Aunt Mae’s too.

Came home Saturday morning, took an hour nap and then went to work feeling like I had been on vacation, very refreshed!

Mycobacterium avium intracellular. MAI. It was throughout Danny’s body. In his testicles, in his toenails. In every cell.

That is what killed him at the end. A bacteria that would not affect you or me. Something only a person with compromised immunity could get. That is why his toes turned black.

And he was so debilitated at the end that even the bacteria had nothing left to live on. That is why some of his toes had started turning pink again. Similar to cancer, if we could allow the patient to get so malnourished that the disease had nothing to live on, the disease would die, but in the process, we would have killed the patient too.

The lymph nodes by his spine were so distended with the bacteria it had cut the circulation to his feet causing his toes to be horribly painful and turn black. The doctor had told me that if the hair on his toes went away, he would then lose his toenails and at that point his toes could fall off, This is why pink coming back into his toes was such a good sign.

We learned this after the fact from the autopsy.

Amazingly, Dan’s band members, Darrel and Spanna have reached out to me this last few weeks and they have released a digital album “If… Forever” on a newly created Dan Hill Memorial Facebook page, and on my Facebook page.  I am overwhelmed by their words and actions in this process.   What beautiful young men they still are!  Nothing blesses this mother’s heart like hearing her son’s name, music, memories or praise.   They have given me (and the world) all of that and more.   Dan always felt that selling music was like prostitution, somehow, so for this to be a free download for the world is absolute perfection!

Yes, I miss him terribly.  Yes, I play his music often.  Yes, God blessed me with amazingly gifted sons, Dan’s gift being music, Ron’s ironwork and Tracy’s endless creativity.  And the most tender, loving, funny, beautiful daughter. Yes, I believe his sister, Cherie is in heaven with him enjoying the glories that we can only imagine.  Yes, Darrel and Spanna have proved and provided that we will never forget him.

I love you, Danny and always will.

Cherie — if you are reading this you have survived — PRAISE GOD! That means you will soon be coming to get your kids and start a new life in Arizona — or that you are settled and well in Lake Isabella and I am bringing them back. That is up to you and Bob.

This is ONLY until you recover — until you are up and about and well. Temporary – Laura & I.

You have been at the doors of death since last Friday — and been through two brain surgeries, an ambulance trip and helicopter trip to Bakersfield.

We have watched you lie in a coma with a machine breathing for you, and tubes keeping you hydrated, nourished and drains relieving the pressure in your brain.

Your beautiful hair will grow. 😦

You have survived and people all over the country have prayed for you. You are a miracle.

I love you.

Laura & Mom

Note: This is a letter I left with the night nurse in ICU at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in California the evening Laura and I left to return to Tucson, bringing Cherie’s two children with us, Shane, 11 and Bobbie, 10. My stomach was in a knot with the thought that she might wake up, and learning that her kids were with me, think I had taken them away from her. That alone could have killed her.

The letter was put in her medical chart, a copy on her wall and instructions given to be sure she read (or heard) it if she regained consciousness and coherence to read/hear it.

(Sadly, it was never needed.)

Laura and I had driven over Friday afternoon, February 19, after the call from her husband that she had collapsed in the shower and been rushed to the hospital. She was now on life support and had pneumonia.

I had raised her two older children, Brian (now 20) and Laura (now 19). Even though she gave up guardianship, in fear that the judge learning she was pregnant with Shane would take him too, she had always looked at it as though I took them from her.

She had a ruptured aneurysm on the right side between her eyebrows and had been in a coma ever since. First a medical coma, to let her brain rest, then when taken off the medication that kept her asleep, did not wake up. Eventually she did open her eyes, but it was not the good sign we had hoped. First her eyes did not focus together, then when they did, she was in absolute terror and distress.

The doctor told us that the right frontal lobe and both rear lobes had been destroyed by the bleed. This meant that if she recovered, her memory and personality would be hopelessly impaired. Our loving, funny, caring, curious Cherie would no longer be inside this shell of her body. She would be in a vegatative state from now on.

Her dad, when told, said people could live without a personality, after all, he had for 75 years.

Her older son, Brian flew to be with her, while she was still in a coma and needed support when she opened her eyes with such anguish. I went back over to California and stayed until after she was extubated and only then, relaxed and breathed on her own and rested.

Not bearing to talk on the phone to people, but desiring prayers of friends, I used Facebook to post her status and ask for prayers. Replies of love, prayer and support flooded in from friends as far as England and Africa. Facebook turned out to be a great tool for this.

She was moved to a private room and although basically non-responsive, several times changed her breathing patterns drastically, seeming to take part in our conversations, with approval or exclamation points.

Brian and I were discussing moving her closer to the side of the bed so we could lie beside her and hold her. Not wanting to ‘disturb’ her, we discussed if we should or not. Finally, I looked over to her, lying there peacefully breathing slow and steady and quietly, and said, “Cherie, do you want Brian to lie down with you?” She suddenly gave three huge, loud sighs and Brian said, “I’ll take that as a Yes.” So we moved her and both had chances to lie beside her and hold her.

Brian barely had left the room since she was moved from ICU. He finally went to the Hope House where we had a room, to take a shower and a short nap.

Laura was caring for the two younger children and knew Cherie was dying. We learned that their dad, when asked by them how Mommy was doing, had been telling them good or fine. He didn’t want to hurt them, understandably, but they were being misled.

We got them on Facetime with their dad so he could prepare them for her death, with Laura standing by for them, to comfort them and the Hospice lady with us to guide Bob and me.

I had been sitting watching her breathe, slow and steady, during his talk with the kids. When Brian opened the door to come back in the room, old blood came from Cherie’s nose, and as I wiped it away, Brian asked “when did she stop breathing?”

And she was gone.

It seemed that as soon as her smaller children knew the truth, with Laura beside them, and Brian walked in the room, her family circle was complete and she could leave.

Our beautiful, fun-loving, deeply caring, precious Cherie was forever gone.

No longer in pain from crushed vertebrae in her back. No longer addicted to drugs. No longer dealing with emotional pain from her fathers abandonment. No longer decrying her brother’s shame and anger at her. No longer feeling guilt over absolutely everything she was powerless to change.

Free to see her brother, Danny in heaven. Her grandparents, Floy & Richard, and Annie & Berlin. Her great-grandparents and more she had never met. Free to be with Our Lord, who had walked her path with her, always reaching out to help her and loving her.

We now get to bear the pain, of losing an amazing daughter, sister, mother, wife; looking at her photos in her phone to see her world from her eyes. Noticing the color lime green, every time we see it, because it was her absolute favorite. Wanting to buy every pig, stuffed or ceramic that we see, because she loved them so and we always bought them for her. Listening to the Fight Song by Rachel Platten that we so wanted to help her fight to recover. Listening to songs by Lauren Daigle reminding us that we can “Trust in You”; Citizen Way reminding us the though ‘Everything’s not fine, I’m not okay’ that we still could come to Him for His love and comfort.

Its been hard to listen to Danny’s music, since she’s gone, since we kept it playing by her bedside her last two days. She missed him so much, and it seemed comforting to her (or to us) as we sat with her, counting shallow breaths and loving her.

We put together a beautiful memorial for her, using the words of songs that spoke to my heart, a paraphrase of a poem to a daughter that I found on a coffee cup, of all things, and a slide show of photos from her phone. Our Pastor Mike read the paper I wrote him telling of her life, in its entirety, that becoming her eulogy. He preached a beautiful sermon of God’s love and forgiveness. He told us that drugs won’t keep us from heaven. Bad things we do won’t keep us from heaven. Only NOT believing on Jesus will keep us from heaven, and Cherie totally believed in Jesus. Those other things will just make our life here more miserable, but with faith in Christ we can overcome them, because He paid it all for us.

I was able to video the sermon on my phone in 6 segments (I was afraid I would run out of storage and lose it all) and post it on You Tube. I was able to turn her slide show into a Quick Time movie and post it on You Tube. Lauren Daigle’s team gave me permission to use her music with the slides!

Laura and I share custody of Shane and Bobbie until their dad can sell their house and move out here. The struggle is real, as they don’t really respect Laura as an authority figure (and me sometimes) and she’s hurting from losing her mother, as well as the hope of more time with her someday. Her significant other has been non-supportive, not understanding why it is such a loss for Laura, since her mother didn’t raise her. This has caused even more pain for Laura, because you really expect your closest friend to care for your pain.

My work has been supportive for me, letting me bring the kids at times, as long as they aren’t disruptive and no one complains. The residents love them, they bring young blood to the place and fresh faces.

We started attending Tu Nidito (Your Little Nest), a children (and adults) grief support group, and I think it has much healing in it’s walls for each of us. I hope for Laura to attend their young adult group.

Life goes on, I find myself at the computer looking at her slideshow over and over. Writing about Cherie gives me comfort and release, as well. Maybe now I can write my book.