grief – Nancilynn's Blog

Until we meet again…

Sunday in Church , I prayed for an end to my sister’s suffering. The cancer and the treatments had ravaged her body. She was afraid to die and very sad. I could feel the passing would be soon.

I was already very sad as it was it was the anniversary of my oldest son’s death.

I paced from room to room. I paced around the church.

I cried.

I prayed. At bedtime waves of

anxiety overwhelmed me as I lay on my bed in a fetal position.

Dreams of my parents who had gone before and my long lost son chased me through corridors of another dimension.

I woke up with a start at 3:32 for water or to relive myself.

I shuddered remembering my dreams. I prayed again for comfort for my little sister before collapsing back into fitful sleep.

When daylight filtered through the moon window above my bed, I dared look at the phone on the nightstand.

The call had come, muffled by the sound of artificial waves that rock me to sleep each night

The call I’d dreaded and expected.

My little sister was no longer wracked with pain.

Her smile returned-accompanied by Angel wings.

Austin TX

Heavenly

The scent of this morning’s

Fresh plucked Magnolia blossom

Fills the room tonight.

One of my favorites…

One I cannot explain to my own satisfaction,

Much less to another.

Tonight, I am reminded of the first time I smelled Magnolia and how the adrenaline swelled through my body while Angels infused the air.

Spring.

Charleston.

Lemon scented paradise…

It’s different tonight . I cannot lose the lump in my throat no matter how much I swallow.

The scent of Angels this Spring will remind me of my sister who lays dying

Bravely fighting the cancer ravaging her already frail form. Tears scald my cheeks as

I lift the bloom-filled globe to inhale the smell of Heaven that awaits her.

Nancilynn Saylor 2 June 2018

Another broken morning

They did not know
when they brushed their teeth and washed their Sunday morning faces …

To join with their friends in worship
To be in a house of the Lord

As they filed into their small white
unassuming, country church
greeting each other with smiles on a bright Central Texas day
Men shaking hands
Women nodding to one
another or hugging
Maybe slipping recipes to a neighbor
before worship service was called
By the organist's opening notes.
Teenagers cast glances at their friends in other pews and innocent smiles…
No, they did not know
as they gathered together this day,
a monster lingered near.
©Nancilynn Saylor
5 November 2017

Heartbreaker

Such a difficult decision to make; no easy choices and no right answers. An 8 pound male puppy coming of age in a house with a three pound Chihuahua in heat

The alpha male in our home is Romeo. Tiny Chica is his emotional service puppy and the fight ran for months stretched from weeks on end…

It became the.Elephant in the room-every room.

I begged to have her spade. He would not hear of it- his poor little baby. I reminded him that Chachi would grow. He became Egyptian-and the waters of his denial ran deep. The friction of this dog fight shook the very walls of our little world.

This past week I scheduled the tiny, already now pregnant Chica for surgery.

I also posted a request to re-home Chachi in our neighborhood web log.

By the end of the day, on Friday, both occurred. As Chica softly moaned on the sofa, a lovely new angel rose up in our lives. “I never go to that group,” she said. She’d not had a dog in many years. The picture, below, she said, made her call.

Two very sleepless nights, Romeo lamented. The missing pup infiltrated his dreams. Tears wracked his aging body. Not to my credit, I seemed callous. It had all driven by him. His anxiety led me to contact the new momma owner to enquire about their bonding…was she as happy on Sunday as on Friday? I told her my alpha male had anxiety issues.

She just left our place, with Chachi, after spending over an hour here. He had been to Pet Smart and on several 30 minute runs. He has learned to sit on command. He was a calm pup truly enamored with his elevated status and his new mom.

Our lives were touched by this wild dog. He fed on the anxiety in our home . He is thriving in his new environment. He lives next door to a park.

I loved him dearly.

I loved him enough to let him go.

©Nancilynn Saylor 09 July 2017

Inner turmoil

Time races forward towards June.

Soon it will be here,

the worst month of each year

when my Pied Piper

answered a whispered call,

he could or would-

not turn down…

I feel anxiety stretching taut

over me

head to toe

over me

like the five tiny kittens I once saw swaddled in

plastic

and tucked in a deep freeze

sometime after I went to bed…

It is my annual season of depression

when there are endless days I feel

I can’t continue here.

I feel the tears and pain of Mary

when she lost Jesus

well, sort of

I am without doubt not Mary-

and you were not really perfect.

It is not even June and I am in this dark space…

I daydream…

somewhere in the great beyond

you’ll journey by, in that other dimension

on a unicorn, your favored steed-

and chuckle…”come on now Mom

it has been ten years

We are all good here

don’t be sad

you’ll see me soon enough”.

Just now, Romeo calls to me!

come see the mystery revealed

again…

our first Black Swallowtail Butterfly

of the season has

hatched from her cocoon…

Life, on

The sphere on earth,

continues.

Out of the blue

January 2, 2014

Today, quite unexpectedly, I received a Christmas letter from a dear friend. It gave my heart pangs of grief as I attended her funeral on December 17, exactly one week after the funeral of my father.

“Jinger” and my dad were nearly the same age. I first met her when she was a patient at a hospital where I worked. There was instant magic and attraction as if our souls were comfortable old friends. I would visit her each time she was a patient -she began announcing in the Emergency Room upon arrival to notify me she was in the house. Afterwards, when she released, we would visit her in the care facilities she moved to.

One day, after learning that my mother had passed some years before, Jinger announced that she could be my mom-my second mother. We agreed it would be a good thing for us-I even told her real daughter and her son of my “adoption”. Another of my friends and I would go as often as we could to the Assisted Living facility where both she and her husband resided. Although on different units, they visited each other often. They brought great joy to our lives, to each other and to the residents and staff . When her beloved husband passed away she told us she often saw him in the empty bed beside her in the room as she lay sleeping. We were at her side for his funeral.

My friend and I had planned to visit her Saturday on the week she died.

Sitting in the memorial chapel for her funeral just weeks ago, my sorrow seemed almost overwhelming. It was so hard to lose your mother and your father…and to lose my “adopted mother” so quickly after my daddy seemed nearly unbearable.

The Christmas letter I received today was dictated in October, prior to becoming sicker and going on Hospice Care. She spoke of her declining health but also of her hope to be better in the new year. She thanked everyone for their visits and kindnesses to her in the year just past. Her daughter was kind to mail it to the recipients on her list. She had already signed and stuffed them into the envelopes-ready to go!

My heart is still reeling from the numbing grief following this month of heartache and sorrow. I will miss my dear sweet friend who one sunny afternoon saw inside the heart of this middle aged woman; only she was seeing the heart of a girl who grieved the loss of her mother and reached out to comfort me.

I will never forget the mark she left on my life. I know that I am a better person for having known her.