Even still, feeling not alone makes feeling bad better. So maybe that alone makes saying “Good” good.
24 hours ago I was attending a family memorial. A beautiful blue sky enveloped the cemetery’s rows of seeming infinite, identical, perfectly symmetric, gleaming white headstones that buried infinitely unique stories of lives I will never know.
I came to honor the one I did.
Walking toward the huddle of people, some of whom I recognized as my family, the reflexive greeting was just that…reflexive.
“Good morning.”
“Is it though?” my brother asked under his breath. “Such an odd thing to say at a funeral. Not to mention asking people how they are. I mean how do you expect anyone to be? We are at a funeral after all!”
We are odd creatures of habit. And were I an observer, learning this language of English, I think it would be difficult to appropriately learn the customs versus the intentions of what our words mean in a moment such as this.
Even still, it felt Good to be together.
Good, like how it felt when I chose to wrap myself in this blanket 7 days ago.1
Now some of you may be wondering, of all the blankets I could choose, why was this the one I needed when I was bobbing, spitting, counting and worrying?
Besides meeting the aforementioned criteria-of-blankets,2 this blanket gave me what I needed when what I wanted was different than what was so.
My need to not cause distress was inhibiting my ability to express my WORRY. In the face of losing my ability to speak, my WORRY blanket blanketed me in permission to write what I was worried about. The knots felt strong enough to hold all that I was feeling so I didn’t feel like I had to hold anything anymore.
So I began writing.
The only piece of paper I could readily find was a neon orange sticky note pad.
At 5:15am, Andy’s alarm clock sounded.3 Like a synchronized swim team I tracked my arms into range, one hand holding his reading glasses, the other, the neon notepad.
Andy switched on his bedside light.
Without looking up he took hold of my offerings and read. Once finished, he took off his glass, looked up at me and said, “I see three options…”
Yep. That’s it for now. Except to say that more is to come sooner than some of you think and for others, what will seem far too long for those who are waiting.
Thank you for trusting, honoring, tolerating, and/or humoring my need to pause.
Wherever you find yourself, know that I am so glad YOU ARE HERE.
Great writing, Dawn!
I love your use of the Geode Worry blanket… Not to make the worrying worse but to allow it to surface, be acknowledged and better understood… Surrendering to worry doesn’t mean giving it more power, in fact, honestly facing our worries can lighten its fear-based grip on us. 🕊🙏🕊