memoir
now browsing by category
Empty garden
A few days ago, I told a friend I hadn’t seen in a while about Jake being missing since May 1.
Aghast, she asked, “How are you still sane!?”
Moms always ask me this. Because, you know, they get it. I think every mom imagines this horror a thousand times before her child is a year old. I remember flying up north to see my mother when Jake was 7 months old. In the airport bathroom a stranger offered to watch my son while I went in the stall. A chill prickled over my skin and my brain froze for a second till I remembered that I had him right there with me. He wasn’t even gone but I’d imagined all the possibilities in that second.
Empathy always comforts me. It comforts me when you hug me tightly and tell me you keep me in your thoughts.
Yes, yes, I always want you to ask about Jake.
I saw a post from little *Kylie Rowand’s mom today that reminded me to pray for her. She states,
…it is important to us that our child be honored and remembered. It is our biggest fear that our children will be forgotten. They so easily fall off the radar because they aren’t here to engage you anymore. This breaks my heart. If you know of a child who has passed away from cancer, today, please honor them. Say their name. Talk about them. Send a quick note to their family that they were thought of today. That one simple act can change that parent’s entire day.
This is the picture of Kylie I hold in my heart:
This is what has reminded me to take peace and contentment where I find it.
That little baby — I still weep for her, and I don’t even know the family. I don’t know her mom.
But her mom’s faith made relax my grip –well. The grip I thought I had, the control. No, what do I mean….
It made me unclench my fist. The fist that both holds tightly and expresses anger.
Her mama’s faith inspired me to trust God when my son stopped talking to me. With her baby in one arm, that mama held out her hand to push back death, but she also trusted that everything would be okay. Kylie would be okay. She would be okay. Even if Kylie was not healed.
It’s so much … muchness.
Neither Kylie nor her mother ever lost their muchness. And in this whole ordeal I saw the grace of God.
So. Now.
Now my own muchness has been on the line.
I’ve not been insane, but I’ve been contentious, and I’ve felt glued in place in the face of a slowly encroaching mudslide. It’s still coming, and I’m still stuck, although, frankly, with this heat (115!) you’d think the glue would’ve melted. But no. The heat only makes me crabby.
Jake’s still missing.
I’m still grieving.
And I have this line from an Elton John song on repeat in my head: “Hey, hey, Johnny, won’t you come out to play in your empty garden?”
I’ll be okay, but half my garden is empty.
*Read about Kylie in this Huffington Post article.
Read her aunt’s blog here.
I hope you will remember her, too.
Grief slipstream
The past couple of days have been difficult.
I’m not always skilled at knowing what I’m feeling. And sometimes the feelings have a delayed arrival, so that further complicates things. It’s taken two days for me to recognize that I shifted into the Bad Mom space, my parallel universe. I’m in the slipstream of grief, and all it takes is a small rock in my path to knock me out of right now into the other.
I discovered in a rarely-used gmail account an email from people who were putting huge effort into finding Jake. It was a request for my input on a map of Jake’s known haunts. They had one small misconception (an old address that is not relevant).
I answered as soon as I read it, of course, but as Jake’d say, that train sailed.
I had to drive to campus yesterday, something I’ve been avoiding without really knowing why.
I understood when I got to Cole Road in Calexico.
Denny’s on Cole Road is where I left Jake. Where I didn’t know I was saying goodbye for longer than a couple of days.
My line of sight was blocked by a mongo semi, and it was my relief at that that made me realize 1) why I’d avoided coming to Calexico, and 2) that I needed to find an alternate route to work.
So now that I’m all current on my feelings I’ve been noodling on what my youngest said about Jake cutting me off three years ago. (I wrote about that when it happened, here. )
With his extended absence, I waffle between thinking he’s dead, thinking he’s homeless and delirious, or thinking he’s a nomad out to find himself. The ache’s the same, but the excavation I did three years ago [see link above] is unnecessary this time. This is all mom stuff.
So: navigation. You think you know how to make your way through things.
Love bears.
I gave a baby up for adoption 32 years ago. [You don’t know what I did there, so I will tell you. I first wrote that I’d given a son up for adoption. I changed it to baby because I’m ambivalent about calling him my son when I didn’t raise him.] Strange, that. Feeling like I don’t have permission to call that baby my son? I don’t even know what that is. When is a child yours?
Ever?
I wrote about the adoption years ago. Distilled everything down to the two days after delivery. Love bears, is what it comes down to. Love bears all things. Bear the baby and let him go, at birth, or 27 years after.
When Jake was born, four years later, I said, out loud, “I get to keep him.”
Vanity.
Your kids never seem to remember what good stuff you did for them before age 10. I know I don’t remember a lot of what my mother did (but I’ve always thought it was because, you know, she didn’t do much good stuff.) (Wrong-o!)
Mine don’t remember a lot of my being present: holding Jake’s arthritic knee under warm water when he was a toddler crying from pain; playing hide and shriek in the dark; laying out on the lawn and looking at the stars; cuddling when he’d let me. Not a cuddler, that one.
Or: Swimming in mud. (Not me, thank you.)
Taking a break from mud play for a picture.
They knew they loved each other, once.
I hold these still frames tightly, the way I can’t hold my boys. I fooled myself for a while, but now, acceptance is trickling in. Or, well, resignation right now. Real acceptance’ll be later, I guess.
I am counting on this:
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NASB
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Bears all things.
Endures.
My boys: I love you.
This is me, hoping.
The cat must be fed
“The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is above all else a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.” Margaret Halsey
I’m in this godawful weird place where I don’t know how to live my life. I don’t know where to look for my son, I don’t know what waiting looks like, and I still have responsibilities. I just got a reminder that I need to order books for my classes this fall, another reminder that I have to set a date for an upcoming Kiwanis installation, my cat wants food AND snuggles, and I have a pile of things that require my attention. It’s all my stuff. None of it’s bad. It’s just stuff I need to do.
And yet, when I take shaky steps forward, practice being present, small black shards splinter off inside me.
My youngest son said yesterday, “Mom. You forgot that last time Jake cut you off, he wasn’t going to tell you then, either. You found out by accident. Remember?” I haven’t really processed this statement. I don’t even know how. Is Jake being a nomad, or is he dead? Is he all right? Does he have enough to eat?
[See painting and info here.]
Reality is…all the shards.
Kitaro therapy
When the boys were little, I’d put them down for their naps in their cribs and play this album. Being Mom was simpler.
What is this sadness I feel?
Jake has not been found; I can’t be mourning his loss. Yet.
So is this fear masquerading as grief?
No. Fear travels on the skin like cold water.
Grief squeezes from within.
It’s a clenched fist wrapped tight around your stomach, whereas fear is a hard cold finger right between your shoulder blades.
And anyway, this is an ache, so it’s neither.
Recently someone said, “No news is good news!”
I’ve been trying to deconstruct that phrase for a week, now.
1. No news is…no news. It is neither good nor bad.
2. No news is terrifying. Given our recent reconciliation, I can’t grasp why my son would still be silent, other than that his body has simply not yet been found.
3. No news is better than confirmation that he’s dead.
4. No news is worse than knowing he is safe.
5. No news sucks.
I deconstruct nearly everything in my head now.
I think I’ve always done this, but I have misplaced my ability to multi-task, along with the desire to do so.
So: some silences.
Not right now.
Right now I’m residing here, in a tiny space of almost not-ness, but enveloped by the warm memory of toddler boys napping to Kitaro while I cross-stitched medieval letters and delicate leaves.
Blog of Missing: Day 39
3/1/2016 1:41 PM to CMTN GRDN/CA (310) 345-#### 1 min.
This line of text kept me up last night. That, and the fact that I didn’t know my son needed to hear his friend’s voice.
Of course he did.
And I didn’t know how to create a space that encouraged him to grieve.
I’m bugging my own self here, now, because his grief is private, is supposed to be private, and I’m putting him on blast while I deal with my own grief, and how fair is that?
I’m opting to do it anyway because the subject is typically verboten in our fussy society. Grief is messy, and no one wants to see your splotchy face and raw emotions. Keep it under wraps, please. I myself am not dealing with anyone putting the stomp on me, but I wonder if Jake did. Or if he dealt with some invisible pressure to keep a strong face…. Or maybe that was his interpretation. Did he feel like he wasn’t allowed to show sadness?
If so, why?
I want to hurry through sadness, or to avoid it entirely.
Sadness, and fear, and unknowing. I’m in the space of all three at once.
Is my suffering caused by my expectation that I should not have to deal with these things? (Seriously, though. I have had enough, I think. There should be a cut-off point, at which time anything that goes over that line should be diverted like run-off to the sea. –> Nope, no room in this drain, off you go.)
Last night I got up after flopping and tossing, and if I could have tucked my ache under my husband like a blanket, I would have, but instead I Linus’d it to Facebook, where I came across a post in my feed that led me to this quote:
If I’m feeling a very difficult emotion, maybe anger, or deep sadness, and I try to focus on my breath, isn’t that a way of avoiding my emotions?
Usually people lose themselves in a strong emotion and become overwhelmed. That is not the way to handle emotion, because when that happens you are a victim of emotion. In order not to become a victim, breathe and retain your calm, and you will experience the insight that an emotion is only an emotion, nothing more. This insight is very important, because then you are no longer afraid. You are calm, you are not trying to run away, and you can deal better with emotion. Your breath is you, and you need alliance with your breath to be more of yourself, to be stronger. Then you can handle your emotion better. You do not try to forget your emotion; instead you try to be more of yourself, so that you are solid enough to deal with it.
- Breathe.
- Retain your calm.
- Emotion is only an emotion. Nothing more.
- Be solid enough to deal with your emotion.
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, wherein travelers discover that the grass of heaven slices into their feet because they’re insubstantial and heaven is real. The longer they stay there, the more substantive they become, and eventually their feet are no longer pierced. I will stay present.
I get it. I learned young that emotions were unwieldy and threatening, and I can’t think of anyone in my family who learned how to navigate these waters with grace, so I have to learn to *sail this train on my own.
Still.
Nothing’s wrong with me.
Something’s got to give.
You know the rest.
*One of Jake’s favorite sayings: Dude. That train sailed. [In other words, Let it go.]
And my song today: Dear Younger Me
Surface narrative
No news.
38 days now.
I’ve gleaned a surface narrative from Jake’s phone records over the past year.
From May 2015, when he apparently purchased his phone, till mid-September 2015, many of Jake’s voice calls and texts were to the number of his friend who died in September.
There are four one-minute conversations to that number on October 1. If Dave had already passed, those calls must have been to his friend’s voice mail. Or perhaps to his friend’s wife.
I’m sorry, Jake. So sorry for your loss.
I don’t have the records yet for December 13-Jan 12.
On Jan 14 he called my old number, then he called and talked to his brother. Then to his best friend.
This was after he’d driven to Texas in December and then come back.
He did not call me on my current number till Feb 4.
His calls and texts to me grow in duration and frequency, till the last few days before he disappeared, when I’m the last person he texted and called, with the exception of a brief call to T-Mobile.
And just now I see, on March 1 at 1:41 pm, a call to his friend’s voice mail. 1 minute.
I can’t remember Jake ever saying he was grieving. He acknowledged sadness when I pressed, but he never went further than that. I wish I’d known how to navigate that terrain. But I can barely navigate the terrain of my own grief, and it’s not the same, anyway. I just wish I could have somehow comforted him.
I saw a little boy today who reminded me of Jake.
Jake’s not a little boy any more.
I know this. I do.
I really do.
I’m just–Mom of it all.
And little boys remind me of how much I love him and his brother.
Timeline tiptoe
I’m constructing a timeline of what I know about Jake’s life from the past year, ostensibly to gain a better understanding of his mindset leading up to his disappearance, but honestly in order to be doing something.
It’s been hard to just get started; I’m afraid of the grief simmering under my skin, and I’m afraid everything will point to my worst fears. Plus, doing this timeline means making phone calls and connecting with people in Jake’s life; it feels so invasive that I have the urge to tiptoe. Does it do me any good to understand his grieving over the loss of his friend? Does it do him any good for me to understand it? Whatever the case, I’ve found a site that helps me: http://www.whatsyourgrief.com.
This page has given me plenty to noodle on.
Photo Grief might be something I want to explore later, but for now, I’m taking this route: the 30×30 nature challenge.
(We’ll see how that goes, eh.)
A friend delivered flyers to the SD police department today, and she was so touched by the response she received that she called to tell me about it. “I gotta be honest with you, Stacy,” she said. “I fully expected to be brushed aside and have the flyers forgotten on someone’s desk, and frankly, I wondered if this was just a waste of our time. But not only did they not brush me off, they pointed me to the precise person to handle this, and that person was kind and worried for Jake, too!”
I’m thankful for those who have helped, and for those who are praying.
It’s because of these people that I am not this:
No 30-day guarantee here
A lot can happen in thirty days.
We have 30-day guarantees, 30-day cleanses, 30-day health challenges.
One month. The sun has risen, and set, thirty times since I last knew Jake was safe.
Tom and I went to the Rock church in San Diego yesterday. When I realized a football player was going to give his testimony I wanted to be elsewhere. The beach.
I was surprised by how his story resonated in me.
He was interviewed by Miles McPherson, the senior pastor of the church, who also opened it up by talking about 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul states that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak to shame the strong. (I am particularly intrigued by this: God has chosen the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are.) What things are not? 
Thinky things are distracting and welcome.
So. The interviewee was Danny Woodhead, and his journey of ups and downs reminded me that God is always working behind the scenes. No one has the big picture. This comforts me (sorry, Danny) because I’m flying in the dark lately.
Later in the bookstore at the Rock, I saw an art print about faith:
Faith is the bird that sings in the dark knowing that dawn will come.
…which reminds me of a song by Bryan Duncan:
Lyrics found here.
The sun rises, all right. Tomorrow will be 31. It rises, and yet it’s dark.
I just want him to be safe, you know.
But I couldn’t ensure that in the days before he disappeared, either. What is it exactly that I think that knowing will accomplish?
D5 Creation