What is it I am made of? I hurt like old worn shoes..but I am still here, living and loving every day. At night I still find time to cry into downy feathers with a storm in my heart, but in the day I often laugh, and in spite of myself, I still see joy wherever I look. Babie's eyes connect in passing, as if we share a secret or two - and I send them off with a blessing of long life, no harm! Wonderful friends, old and new, approach with kind words or warm hugs. People I never would have met, had it not been for Caleb, are now cememnted in my life, and together they help to rebuild me , to piece me together like the scarecrow in the "Wizard". I am grateful for each day that Caleb and I stroll the streets of Wellfleet, arc over the avenues of life and meander through the meadows of our minds . I am learning so much from this journey..how to be grateful, how to be forgiving, how to look at things with a fresh outlook, not to sweat the little things. It is so dificult to not look back, to not yearn for my "lost Boy". It takes every ounce of energy I have each day to stay focused on what is, rather than what is not, or what could be... I miss him so very much...I bleed sometimes from the loneliness of him..These feeling are like verbs..they create action in my system and pain me. But I crawl out of the shawdows into the daylight and I feel that I must trust in the unknown,in the mysteries of life. What is it I am made of? I hope it is of dreams lost and then dreams found.

I was on my way home to Ohio for a visit with Jan and the boys, and called home somewhere in Pennsylvania to update my arrival time, only to find that my mother was dying. She had suufered from diabeties related diseases for some time and this was her final hurrah. I was a young mother, not fully equipped to be without her at that time. The thing that I remeber most about her as I stood by her bed were the sounds she made, so similar to the sounds Anne had chorased at Sky's homebirth where I stood like a sentry with Cedar by my side. So death's sounds were a rebirthing . After the shock of her death and after I rolled into acceptance of it, I too had a rebirthing of sorts. My mother and I had suffered through a difficult ( at best) relationship. After a year or so had gone by, I actually realized that I was free in a way that I never had been while she was alive. Free to be me. Now please don't get me wrong..I do not think it was mother who limited me, but myself. I could have been brave enough to break through the barriers of who she expected me to be ( or who I thought she expected me to be) but I wasn't. So I had finally woken to the realization that I could be just the woman I wanted to be...and the debilitating beliefs I held about myself could die with her.
I now am looking forward to yet another birth - that of Kai, Max and myself. We must find a way to find acceptance with who it is that the Universe has called forth for Caleb to be..and all of us along with him. I do not get to go through a single day without heartbreak, nor a single night without nightmares, but I also do not get to pass through the day without opportunities to grow and to love and to choose differently for myself. The sun is out and I am filled with the warmth of possibilities..that I might become a forgiving, kind heart; that I might finally learn to love myself more; that I might reach for the best possible thought when the choice are vast and temptation rears; that I might discover my reason for being and laugh with all the tenderness and abandon of someone who has followed the path that was intended for them. That I might be as helpless as a newborn whose eyes scan the suroundings for the very first time and think " bring it on!"

Much like an animal, Caleb lives in the present. When I am present and in the moment, I too do very well..it is when I vassilate between past and future that I get into trouble. I have not written in a while, and thank you for noticing, because at times even I become fatigued with my dribbling on and on about sadness and confusion and life and I get sick to death of hearing myself...so how could you not was my reasoning? Thanks for not ditching me!
Max has gone to Costa as of last evening to see his sweet Lara, and now Caleb and I remain on the homefront..me a bit disheveled and uncertain, and Caleb a bit bored without the constant coming and goings of his entorage. I have been particularly pensive about my life lately...it's as tho life is force feeding me stillness- not something I have ever done well. Caleb's accident brought life as I knew it to a grinding halt, Jan's suicide caused me to stop and ponder all that I thought was real, and a simple thing like my injured arm has made me focus on my caregiving since I can't possible run around and "do" all the things I do to keep me busy and totally preoccupied so that I don't have to think about things that I don't wish to think about. . So in my stillness I scrutinize all I have done in my life which I regret, and all the things I have loved, for which I have no regrets, and all the hopes I have for the future, where I hope regrets will pack up and mosey on by.
I am on the waxing end of life now - I don't know where or when exactly that that turn of events transpired...from a young girl full of promise and hopes, to a young woman raising children to where I am now, but I know now that I am looking at my mortallity in a way that I never have bothered with before. I watch the moon hovering above and realize that I too have cast shawdows that have kept out the light. I am illuminated by all that I have learned in the course of my years...and I am encouraged by all that I did not do well, because it humbles me and makes me human.
And I take great comfort in knowing it is the same moon that shines down on all of us.

Every family has it's own sounds; makes it's own music. When I walk into Anne's it is the sound of folk music seasoning the greens frying in the cast iron kettle. Wooden floor boards strain under the feet and a trilogy of cats purr out a melody, while tea cups collide.
In my house it is the sound of coffe pouring and crakling fires, that is if they can be heard over Etta James or Ween belting from the sterio. The clock announces each minute and then barks out on the hour as if I need to be reminded of how time flys. The funace burns out a tune each time it fires up and Caleb wakes and begins to blow at his mobile's above, while Spud announces company and the cat whines for food.
Caleb and I share the house now. It is just the two of us and I laugh at the sounds we make. Like a little ole couple who are wrinkled with time and know eachother well......we sing a familiar tune. The skuffle of his slippers, the comforting breathes from his room, his good morning chime, the complaining when dinner is late, the softness in his voice when he is sad..........
accompanied by the clucking of a mother, the urging in a voice, the bewildered sounds of not knowing what to do to make things better, the amped up anger that spills in the middle of the night when she is sad.
What lies ahead for us?
It is said that most of us go to the grave without knowing our own music.... So if by some chance Caleb lived his first 26 years fully and has now chosen a different path, a path which bonds Kai and Max and I eternally and makes us question everything we ever knew.....
And if by some chance we have been thrown into a world of new desires which forces us to grow new skin and causes us to shed our old thoughts of how things are....
Then by some chance we will lean to compose a new kind of music and delight in one another....just as we are.