50 Shades of Red

Posted on February 13, 2015 by curibe2014

A few weeks ago middle son informed us that he was “going away” for Valentine’s weekend with his girlfriend of more than a year. As a consummate planner, I appreciated the heads up so that I could get him his traditional valentine’s gift before he left. Last week, I dropped in on SEES’ candy between errands and bought my boys the traditional small box of candies, a tiny gesture of my affection that I hope is obvious to them every day of the year.

In truth, I don’t like Valentine’s Day, it implies a certain kind of giddy, silly love I don’t particularly care for. Love to me is serious, profound, and always life altering. Notice that the color of love is red, its shape a heart, its flower a red rose. Red is also the color of stop signs, blood and fire; the heart is the singular most important organ in our body and the rose is as prickly as it is beautiful. Love to me is present in the smallest actions; in the cheerful manner we greet each day, the gratitude with which we do our jobs, the enthusiasm with which we listen to each other’s stories, the attention we give to each other and the space that surrounds us. Words and gifts to me are meaningless if not accompanied by the daily actions that make the sentiment irrefutable. The “intention” to love is not enough, there is no lasting evidence of “intent” but the smallest daily action will stamp love all over your heart and soul forever.

Gus was in the habit of leaving notes for us everywhere. I love you dad is scribbled on an orange metal bucket he had in his room and on a piece of foil that was once used for now indeterminate purposes. Sometimes, when we came to bed, we’d find a note on our pillow filled with his love and gratitude for all we did. Upon arriving from work daily, he’d ask me how my day had been and then sit with me while I made dinner. He attached himself to his brothers as though he was another appendage, draping a leg over each of them as he sat between them in the car or on the couch. Gus’ ten years were packed with so many little gestures that spoke of a love so strong we can all still feel it even in his absence.

I did not buy my boys (men) cards this year because when my office moved to another floor late last year I remembered seeing Valentine’s Cards that I had bought one year as I was likely planning for the next. It broke my heart to pull them out yesterday as I prepared to write the notes that would accompany their candy, I discovered that I had bought them when I still had three boys living not just two.

My notes and candies were left on the hutch yesterday so that middle son could take it on his trip, just in case we did not see older son over the weekend and for my husband just to be fair. I don’t wonder if I will receive anything in return because evidence of their love for me is everywhere. Older son dusted the family room the other day, middle son did the dishes and husband works tirelessly never forgetting to squeeze my hand when he finally ambles into bed long after I’ve been nestled in. I don’t need 50 Shades of Grey when I have 50 shades of Red.

Spirit knows best

Posted on October 16, 2014 by curibe2014

As seen from the couch.

Last week I got uncharacteristically sick. Oh, I get a cough and sniffle occasionally, but I don’t get dropped to the ground by viruses and bacteria, I am too strong for those pesky micro-organisms, or so I thought. Despite attempts at visualizing myself well, something or likely everything turned me into a body aching, feverish mess that did nothing but lay on the couch. I am a terrible patient because illness makes me angry. I growled around because I had things to do, books to read, ideas to write down, and I had a great party to go to on Saturday that I had to miss! I had no choice but to do what any normal terribly sick person would do – watch T.V.

On my worst “sick” day, one of the cable channels was playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and I watched it sideways from beginning to end. At first it reminded me that I planned to start reading the series to Gus when he turned eleven. Up until then, he’d only dabbled in reading, a Percy Jackson novel here, a partial try at the Hunger Games there, and he picked up the middle book in the Lemony Snicket’s series (who does that?) and quickly put it down (phew!). Reading bored Gus or as he said “it made his eyes tired”, the only thing he every really got through was the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Bone graphic novels and anything that I read to him. That fall was going to be different though, I had great aspirations, no more graphic novels, no more tired eyes, I would lead him to the Harry Potter holy grail and he would love to read on his own, I’d done this before. As I drifted towards sadness a new thought gripped me, the good world had spared me from marring an otherwise wonderful memory.

The Harry Potter series is a cherished memory from a time before Gus. Back then, I had two little boys, oldest aged 10 and little one 8, who didn’t bother to dabble they just hated reading. I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone out of desperation. I declared it a new nightly ritual to replace the half hour of cartoons they were allowed only if and when they finished their homework. The first time I picked up the book, they nearly fainted from the idea that they would have to sit there while I got through the very thick book. To distract them from its length, I offered to limit the reading to a single chapter a night. They leafed through the book and seeing that the chapters were not too long reluctantly agreed. Within a week the boys were asking for “just one more chapter” and then moaning and groaning because I had to close the book for bed time. We flew through the first three books this way and then had to wait a year sometimes two for the next one. It was a magical time although it wasn’t until the movies came out that we realized I read some of the names wrong like Hermion – instead of Her-mi-o-ne (sorry I’d never of heard of that name) and Hay-grid instead of Haa-grid.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the first book they wanted to read on their own. I bought several copies of the book and we each read our copy sprinkled around the family room. We read the next two books the same, discussing it at the dinner table and teasing each other with the next surprise. The boys were in the middle of high school when the last book was published and they read it at Boy Scout summer camp while I read it at home. I was sobbing when I closed the book but not because of the book but because I knew my time with the boys was coming to a close. They would soon be off to college and the rest of their lives.

It is tough to bridge back to happy memories when everyday is a reminder that we are making new memories that Gus is not there to share in. Particularly difficult however, is to go back even further to the time before Gus as though failing to limit my memories to only the time with him is some kind of betrayal, but as I lay there watching the movie I was grateful to the Spirit for keeping the Harry Potter time safe from the sadness of loss. The Spirit always knows best…..

Planning “The Way”

Posted on April 16, 2014 by curibe2014

Months before we sat across from each other picking out urns and niches, my husband and I sat next to each other convinced that we’d dodged another bullet. We’d just returned from San Francisco from a second round of radiating Gus’ entire body benignly called the “MIGB treatment”. It was not a painful procedure, just incredibly boring and uncomfortable for all of us. After receiving a high dose of radiation, Gus spent his time trapped behind a lead wall, while just outside his room, we sat on a padded chair that was provided and an office chair we stole, shoved into the corner of a small area between two patient rooms and the emergency exit. Gus’ bore his time with his usual good humor, chatting with his friends through his plastic covered i-pad and although we could get up and go at any time, we strapped ourselves into the chairs in solidarity. It might have only been ten days that we lived like this but when the time finally came to go, we pealed out of the parking lot as though we were breaking out of prison. Before we’d left, the doctor had filled our tank with hope. He’d announced that the “lights” (tumors appear on scans as lights) that once filled his body as though they were stars in the night sky had all gone out. Comforted by total darkness, we sped home towards a healthy future.

At home, we played what Gus wanted to play, watched what Gus wanted to watch and when we weren’t doing that – slept. On a rare Sunday that was not interrupted by cancer center check ups, we did what we used to do on Sundays, stayed home in our PJs and had a “lazy day”. Gus tired himself out that day trying to “prestige” on Call of Duty and went to bed early. For the first time in months my husband and I sat down to watch a movie of our choosing. We chose “The Way” with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, a movie I’d picked but had not had a chance to watch. We almost turned it off immediately when in the opening scene the son, played by Emilio, dies sending his father, Martin, off to Spain to pick up his body, but we stuck with it because there was something alluring about all that walking. As a semi-practicing Catholic, I’d heard of the Marion sites like Lourdes and Fatima and seen the pilgrims arrive on their knees at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, but I’d never heard of a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and when the movie was over, my husband and I promised each other that when the boys were gone we’d go on this pilgrimage ourselves. I wonder sometimes if we’d not said that out loud if the future would have unfolded differently because what we didn’t know then was that Gus would leave us on different Sunday. As it was six months later, with Gus’ passing and the older boys on their own – our boys were gone…

We began flirting with the idea of doing the Camino again. It was just a thought at first that took root and seemed to be confirmed that the universe was pushing us to do it by everyone we met. We met a man who would be doing it on bike in October and another who said he had a friend who’d done it and others who were thinking about it themselves. By December of 2012 we’d decided to walk the Camino for Gus starting Easter of 2013. I should mention now that Gus was not our only loss that year. On June 14, 2012 just ten days before our Gus, his grandmother Robyn Deppe would leave us a victim of lung cancer and seven months later my grandfather would join them after a long bout with Alzheimer’s. Walking became a necessity.

If we were going to walk 135 miles in ten days from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela and then on to Finisterre we would need the right gear and lots of practice. We went to REI for backpacks, shoes and clothes. We practiced walking first up and down small hills, then on and around hiking trails and finally on two consecutive days just to get the feel for it. We took Gus’ prayer cards with us and left them everywhere we could. For Christmas that year, my brother-in-law made us little crosses with Gus’ name for us to leave on our trails and my sister gave us a pack with the words “Live for Gus” stitched in yellow. When we boarded the plane on March 28th last year bound for Spain, we wondered if we could do it. Could we actually walk thirteen miles a day over ten days? Over the next couple of weeks I will reprint the blog that was originally published just for family and friends. It is hard to believe that twelve months have passed since we walked the Camino.