What dogs and salmon can teach us about resilience

The Angel Oak Tree in Johns Island, S.C. is estimated to be more than 400 years old. Photo by Carla Kucinski.

It’s been an unusually warm weekend for February in North Carolina. There’s an expression here: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few days and it will change. How true that is about NC’s climate, but also about life in general and the ever-changing shifts we experience in our own lives.

We opened the windows today and let in the spring-like air. What is it about opening windows that seems to help us breathe a little easier? Opening a window after weeks or months of being sealed from winter’s cold is strangely cathartic. There’s a release, a letting go that comes with such a simple action.

All weekend the sound of the chimes on our balcony have been tinkling. The sound is what I would imagine Tinker Bell would make, waving her wand and sprinkling fairy dust. The chimes are light and delicate with three small beaded Jade stones strung together and anchoring the center of the chimes. They’re so dainty that it’s rare they actually sway in the breeze and produce a sound that’s even audible. But for the last few days they’ve been constantly ringing, their sound following me as I roam throughout the house doing chores. Friends of mine from work gave them to me last year around this time actually. They came with a Bonsai tree that has sat neglected on my porch, its leaves dried and shriveled and transformed to a burgundy color. I tried in the beginning to care for it, but I was barely getting by taking care of myself during that time.

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about resilience, not just my own but of others close to me. Last year I began to understand that the bad things that happen to us almost always turn out to be gifts. The tough experiences I’ve been through taught me that. Because of those experiences and all that I had to overcome, it’s taught me how to reset and find my way back to center, my baseline, even after the worst traumas.

I thought of resilience last night as I was lying on the floor with my dog Molly. She is the toughest dog I’ve ever owned and has gone through so much in her almost 8 years of life on this earth. My husband and I were out of town for the night on Friday and got a call from the kennel in the morning that Molly’s eye was leaking some kind of green goop. By the time we had picked her up, her eye was red and swollen and she seemed to be in pain. At urgent care, they told us she had a faint scratch on her cornea, but that she’d be fine and her eye would heal on its own. Still, I felt so bad that she had to go through all of this. And now I have to squeeze ointment into her eye twice a day, but she is the best girl and trusts me to spread open her sensitive eye and squirt this stuff into her sore eye. Last night, as I held her face in my hands and kissed her snout, I told her how resilient she is and she thumped her tail in agreement. In the last five years, she’s had four surgeries—all of which were pretty extensive procedures and recoveries. She’s had two teeth extracted and also underwent emergency surgery after a stick punctured her belly while she was running through the woods. And then this past December she had a lump removed from her chest that had a smaller second growth on it that turned out to be cancerous. I guess that now makes her a cancer survivor. And yet she is still smiling, laughing, thumping her tail, handing out kisses and walking around with an inflatable doughnut around her head as if it’s the next hot thing in doggy fashion ware. My Molly is a fighter. I guess I am, too.

My smiley girl.

I thought this past week I would certainly fall apart. It was the anniversary of my miscarriage a year ago, and leading up to it, I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel when the day would arrive. To my surprise, I didn’t fall apart after all. There were a few tears here and there last week and a sadness underneath the regular day-to-day minutiae, but like Molly, I smiled through it for the most part. I had two social engagements with friends that I came close to bailing on, but I’m so glad I didn’t. My girlfriends Monday night were my solace, and Tuesday night at a friend’s going away party, I laughed so much my face literally hurt. I kept reminding myself of my intention for this year: choose joy. So Wednesday night I asked my husband to be spontaneous with me and get out of town for a night, and so we did. During our overnight trip to Raleigh, I didn’t care that we got stuck in traffic or that the Chinese food we had that night was terrible, I was just happy to be with Andrew.

My girls always making me laugh. This is them in downtown Greensboro exchanging freezer meals out of the trunks of their cars. Don’t ask. (Photo by Carla Kucinski)

Saturday morning, we walked to the nearest coffee shop and grabbed two wooden stools by the window that looked out to the street. It just felt good to be somewhere else. As I sat there sipping my tea and he his coffee, a young family with a dog sat on the bench outside in front of us. They were kind of a mess. The husband tried tying the dog’s leash to a pole, while the wife tried to console their toddler in the stroller who was looking pretty hangry and on the verge of a meltdown.

“That kid’s about to lose it,” my husband Andrew remarked.

We both laughed and then talked about how cute the dog was and watched him for the next 10 minutes. He was a black puppy, possibly German Shepherd, with pointy ears and one that flopped.

“I like how we’re more interested in the dog than the baby,” I said.

“Well, yeah,” Andrew answered.

A year ago, even six months ago, I would have sat in that window and started to cry seeing that family. But that moment became further proof that I really have returned to center. I really am resilient.

Salmon are regarded as one of the most resilient species. Over the span of five years, they’ll swim upstream 7,000 miles in order to return to where they began so they can reproduce and then die. Despite hurdles like waterfalls and bears that threaten their life, they still persist. Like humans, we push on when faced with adversity because we too are fighting for our lives and fighting to return “home” to ourselves.

When we came back from our trip the following day, the chimes continued to tinkle. I can still hear them now as I type this. Those chimes were a gift in the early days of my grief. They used to make me tear up when I’d hear them, especially in the beginning, but lately, they bring me a kind of peace. I’ve come back from losing what felt like everything. My journey has come full circle, and I’m finally home.

Be the light in the darkness

Photos by Carla Kucinski

It’s 3:30 on a Wednesday. Three days before Christmas. I am sitting in my favorite tea shop, sipping a cup of hot cocoa that tastes like a melted milk chocolate bar. I feel its warmth as it travels down my throat and warms my insides. These next two weeks are all about comfort and self-care. Pause. Rest. Reflect.

My eyes burn from the lack of sleep I had last night. I painted my eyelids with grey eyeliner and combed my lashes with thick black mascara to make myself look and feel more awake than I am. I stayed up most of the night with my dog Molly who had a tumor removed from her chest the previous day. It was a fatty tumor about the size of golf ball near her shoulder, with a smaller bump that had appeared last month. When we picked her up after her surgery, our vet was certain the smaller tumor was cancer and sent it out for further testing.

That night, I slept with Molly on the couch with our tower of pillows and piles of blankets and stroked her head as she whined through the night. Every time she whimpered I Googled: Dog, pain, surgery, whining—trying to find ways to soothe her. There’s nothing worse than hearing an animal suffer and knowing there’s not much you can do but be there—be her comfort, her security for all the times she has been yours. As I sat beside her on the couch, I propped my head up with the palm of my hand to keep myself from nodding off while I stroked her silky ears. I started thinking about earlier this year when she didn’t leave my side the entire time I was recovering from my miscarriage. She camped out on the couch with me, nuzzled her muzzle into the crook of my arm and slept with me for days. When I cried, she licked the tears on my face. Now it was my turn to take care of her.

Molly recuperating after surgery.

Fucking cancer. This year it already invaded the lives of three people I love, and now my dog. Eight days later, good news arrived. Lab results were in and it was in fact a mast cell tumor, grade II, but our vet was able to get the entire tumor, which meant no follow-up treatment with chemo drugs. “This is all good, good, good, good, news,” Dr. Fuller sang into the phone. I threw my arms around Molly’s big neck and wept. She celebrated with a Kong bone filled with peanut butter.

A two-inch scar remains where Molly’s tumor was removed. We called her Frankenpup for the first few days. We needed to find some humor in all of this as we waited to find out whether our dog had cancer. Over the last 10 days, the scar has changed from a jagged, angry red line to a faded pink scar. The fur where they shaved her is started to grow back in as if nothing ever happened. It made me think of a passage I read recently in “Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself 40 Ways” about finding beauty in your scars. “I see scars and I see stories. I see a being who has lived, who has depth, who is a survivor. Living is beautiful. … We may hurt, but we will heal … ”

My pup is a survivor. I suppose I am, too.

I can’t help but think of my own scars that I earned this year. 2016 has been challenging and exhausting. I am tired. So tired. I feel like I’ve been on a treadmill all year, and now I can finally get off and rest. I’ve been off from work since Dec. 18, which leaves lots of open days to just drift. It’s one of the rare times of the year where I let myself be lazy and quiet. My muscles ache. Even my bones feel tired. I thought maybe it was because of this sinus infection I’ve been battling on and off for the past few weeks, but honestly, I think it’s the weight of this year, still trying to hang on and drag me down. It’s like I’ve been carrying fistfuls of stones in my pockets this past year. But it’s time to finally let it all go. That phrase, “let it go,” has been a thread in this journey of ups and downs. I’m still not sure I’ve mastered the act, or even know how to begin. I’m learning.

Earlier this year my therapist, told me that I needed to decide how I wanted to carry this grief. What did I want it to look like? How did I want to feel carrying it? I think I started out holding this weight of grief, heavy like wet clay, in my heart and my stomach for months. Eventually the weight shifted and I carried it on my side, like I was holding a basketball that I could put down or pick up at any time. Some days my grief still feels like a boulder, other days it feels like a single stone. I want to pick it up and launch it into a lake, hear it kurplunk in the water, sink to the bottom, never to be found again. But it’s a part of me now, and always will be. I just need to learn how to carry it, live in harmony with it. I’m learning.

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Every year on the evening of winter solstice, my yoga studio hosts a ceremony that involves reflection and meditation with a few yoga poses thrown in. I went for the first time last year and found the experience cathartic and moving. The practice involves a “letting go” segment (there’s that phrase again) where we each hold in our hand a smooth, charcoal grey stone and breathe, meditate, and do a few gentle yoga poses while focusing on the things that no longer serve you and that you want to let go of. As I laid on my mat, the stone cold in the palm of my right hand, I thought about the past year and what I wanted to rid myself of. My cheeks became wet with tears. There was still so much pain weighing me down. All the “what ifs” and “what would have been” or “could have been” circled in my mind.

I found out on Christmas Eve that I was pregnant. I remember my heart racing as I looked at the two pink lines in disbelief. I flung open the bathroom door and yelled to Andrew, “I’m pregnant!” It was 5:30 in the morning. We had to wake up early for the 10-hour drive to his parents’ house in New Jersey. Andrew was half-sitting up in bed with a pillow propped up behind him, bleary-eyed but awake. I’ll never forget his smile that morning. I jumped on top of him and then Molly tried jumping in the bed with us. It feels like it was all a dream, but my heart says otherwise.

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I poured into that stone my sadness, pain, fears, uncertainties, worries and all of the hurt so many of my close friends have endured this year. I was one of the first people to drop my stone in the middle of a circle of flickering tea lights. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it. As soon as it left my hand, my heart felt lighter hearing the weight of it hit the floor. It was a release from this chaotic year; even if it was temporary, it felt freeing.

A few days after Thanksgiving, a tarot card reader told me I was in my Wheel of Fortune Year, which is characterized by upheaval and change that will be painful, traumatic and shocking. She described it as having no control as life spun out of control. And there’s no time to adjust to each change. That’s certainly how this year has gone so far—a series of traumas, losses and heartache. But she also said it was a year of tremendous growth and advised me not to stay stagnant, to shake things up, take risks and be open to creating new opportunities. I definitely haven’t been sitting idle.

“You’re lucky you’re alive,” a friend said to me the other day, looking me square in the eyes. She is Vietnamese and follows Chinese astrology. I’m a monkey, and this past year was the Year of the Monkey. I thought that meant it was my year. My friend told me it was the opposite: when it’s your year, it’s the worst year. The Chinese new year began on Feb. 8. That same day I found out we lost our baby. My year of bad luck had begun.

But the winter solstice ceremony helped me remember the bright spots in 2016. As my teacher asked us to think about the good memories, I closed my eyes and started to smile as images of this past year flashed in my mind. I thought of all the places I’ve been. Me and Andrew in Maine. Vistas. Walks on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. Lobster and warm melted butter. Atlantic Beach and its sparkling ocean. Reading on the deck. Sunsets. Sunrises. Laughing at Molly chasing birds in the water. Roanoke. The bitter cold. The wind chill. February. Valentine’s Day. Dinner and martinis. A rock show. Fire places in the lobby. The sun cutting through the trees. Asheville. Cocktails at a sidewalk café. Mountains. Us. Life returning to normal. Late night heart-to-hearts with my oldest sis on her couch in our pajamas and glasses. Sipping rosé with Gina and Marco. Laughing. Crying. Sharing our life’s stories. The sweet ending of summer. Swimming in the lake at Omega. Napping under the trees and summer sun. Meeting Janie. Meeting Janine. Facing my fears. Reading my work to strangers. Crying in front of strangers. Being vulnerable. The drive home. The Catskills. The Hudson–the magnificent Hudson. Lobster fest under white twinkle lights. Tasting my first oyster, a mix of salt and sea. Being the surprise at your best friend’s birthday party. Pajama parties. Cocoa. Laughing until your face hurts. Old movies. Balloons on my birthday. Snowflakes. Sunshine. The turning of leaves.

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Life can be ugly, but also beautiful. The two cannot exist without the other. The good still outweighs the bad, and yet, why is it always the bad stuff that seems to lodge itself in the forefront of my brain and loop on repeat? Why can’t my mind be flooded with the good memories?

Addison texted me the other day and said we were like the phoenix rising from the ashes. This year was an opportunity for me to grow. I came to some realizations about my future, and I’ve been making steps toward fulfilling my plan to create a richer, fuller life. When I look at myself in the mirror, I mean really look at myself, I see someone with scars but also someone who has chosen not to hide them. They are proof of my strength and resilience, a reminder of what I’ve survived and what I’ve lived. I no longer want to honor my pain and sadness and grief. I want to make whole this sutured heart of mine. It’s time I start honoring the joy in my present life and give power to that and not the past. No more looking back.

Kabir says, “Wherever you are is the entry point.” As I walk into 2017, I imagine myself digging my hands into my pockets and pulling out fistfuls of stones and letting them slip out of my hands as I walk forward and leave them in my wake. They are no longer coming with me on this journey. There isn’t any room. There’s only room for joy. I have to believe there is a greater path, destiny for me that I will follow. Grief made me feel trapped. Unmovable. And I think this is what these last few days of 2016 have been about for me. Sitting with my grief. Really sitting with it, embracing it, having a talk with it. I’m done with you. We’re breaking up. I need to come home to myself. This is my entry point into true peace.

The winter solstice ceremony closed with each of us lighting the candle of the person next to us until the entire room was aglow in candle light. I looked around at the faces in the room, glowing in the golden light, and I saw a diversity of expressions: peace, joy, sadness, pain. Me? I felt like my entire body was smiling. “Be the light in the darkness,” my teacher said as she lifted her candle. It made me think of the famous quote by Rumi: “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” In those moments of darkness when it seems no light can get in, I vow to find it and not lose sight of it as I head into the new year with an open heart and open mind. I owe that to myself. 2016, I’m letting you go.

Some of the bright spots …

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Nourish beginnings

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Yesterday was all about looking back, reflecting, processing. On the last day of 2016, I spent the morning at a poetry retreat at Healing Ground in Summerfield, N.C. and immersed myself in poignant and moving poems. This is my second year attending, and it never fails to move me. My friend, Jacinta White, who facilitates the retreat every year, always selects poems that make my heart ache. This year was no different. The poems, the sacred space, the people, the sharing from their hearts, it was such a gift to carry into the new year.

One particular phrase from Muriel Rukeyser’s poem, “Elegy in Joy,” has stuck with me: “Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.”

Today is all about looking ahead. This new year is a new beginning, a clean slate. When I woke up this morning, I felt different, lighter, hopeful, joyful. A new journey has begun. As I walked my dog through the woods this morning, I noticed how the sun was trying to push its way through the gauzy clouds from an earlier misty rain. Eventually, there was a crack, and the light shined down.

I’m a lover of rituals, but I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore. Instead, I set intentions for the year and try not to set the bar too high or too low, or create an extremely long list of things that I already feel defeated by because I’m trying to tackle too much. This year my intention is simple: Choose joy. In all things, I’m going to strive to do the thing that creates joy.

After my yoga class today, I stayed after to create a Do the Work Jar. As my yoga teacher described it, a Do the Work Jar “is a support system to help you move toward what you want. When you get stuck-physically, energetically, emotionally, mentally-pull out a slip from the jar for inspiration and motivation.”

On slips of paper, I wrote down simple actions I can take for when I get stuck this year. The idea is to help you stay focused and get positive traction, according to my teacher. As I type this, my mason jar of actions is sitting next to me on top of my desk where it will be in my view daily. (I spend a lot of time here.) All of the actions tie back to my intention: choose joy. It’s my joy in a jar.

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There’s another jar I keep in my bedroom that I call the Good Things Jar. Throughout 2016, I filled the jar with good memories-small and big. I dumped the slips of paper on the living room floor this evening and read through each one. I counted only 17 pieces of paper; 17 good things! There were huge three to five-month gaps in the year where I didn’t write anything. And then there were simple, little memories like warm, homemade blueberry pie on the 4th of July to a hoarse throat from screaming at my first hockey game. In 2017, I intend to fill my Good Things Jar to the brim.

This evening, I opened the windows throughout the house and lit a smudge of white sage to cleanse ourselves and our house of negative energy and welcome in new, fresh air and energy into our lives and home. Out with the old, in with the new. I walked throughout our home carrying the smoking sage into every nook and cranny while I repeatedly asked the universe to bless our home and its inhabitants. I already feel a sense of peace and harmony. There is a lot of power behind intention.

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At my poetry retreat, we read some beautiful poems about “letting go” (my familiar theme of 2016) and shared our thoughts and feelings surrounding that phrase. We also contemplated the things we wanted to carry into the new year. We were given a few minutes at the end to write a poem and then share it with our intimate group of 10. This is what I wrote.

Burying the Year

By Carla Kucinski

Bury what was

What could have been

What would have been

What should have been

All of the what ifs.

Unearth what is

Embrace it

Live it

Carry it forward.

Wash the residue of the year from your hands

Every last grain of dirt hiding under your finger nails

It’s time to let go of it all, everything that no longer serves you.

Say goodbye to your grief

Thank it for the gifts it’s given you, the lessons it’s taught.

Your sutured heart soon will mend

You know this because it has healed before.

You are stronger now because of it

A changed person.

You can taste hope in your mouth,

Smooth and sweet like a square of milk chocolate.

Take it in, remember how it feels—like your whole body is smiling

Then hold your head high as you walk into the new year with determination

An open heart

An open mind

Don’t worry, everything will be okay.

***

Thank you for continuing to follow Addison and I on our journeys, and sharing your own insights and journeys with us through your comments and emails. You words mean so much to us. We wish all of you love and light in the new year. Nourish your beginning. Namaste, dear ones.

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This is our place

Every day the sea

blue gray green lavender

pulls away leaving the harbor’s

dark-cobbled undercoat

—from “Tides” by Mary Oliver

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This morning I laid in bed and gazed out of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the sparkling Atlantic Ocean. Orange, blue and lavender layered the November sky. I laid tucked under the sheets, holding hands with Andrew and following the in and out of my breath. Good morning, sea.

I listened to the sound of the ocean, the waves crashing on the shore. When I need to feel grounded, I go to the mountains. When I need to feel free, I go to the beach. I think Andrew and I were both craving a sense of peace. We found it in the ebb and flow of the sea, in the endless walks we took along the shore several times each day, in watching our dog Molly chase sandpiper birds and plunge her black and white spotted chest into the sea’s salty waters. Free and unabandoned, she let her wild mild lead her. I think dogs were put on this earth to teach us humans how to let go.

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On our first night at the beach, Andrew and I walked behind Molly, hand-in-hand, our pants cuffed above our ankles. We walked toward the setting sun, a ball of orange thatslowly slipped below the horizon. Andrew always reaches out for my hand—on the couch while we’re watching TV, in the car on our way to our next adventure, in bed while we sleep. Our hands always seem to find each other. Hello, I’m here. I love you. Andrew is always there. Present. With me.

During these three days that seem to go by too quickly, I am in the present, living in the moment. I do not think about this past year or the future that will come. It’s as if it’s all been erased from my mind. Here, nothing matters. I read my book and hours slip by. We sip mimosas and stare at the ocean. We play a guessing game of time.

It feels like 8 o’clock.

No, it’s 6:30.

It’s always earlier than we think.

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When I’m here, I don’t wear makeup, even though I’ve brought my staples: mascara, concealer, lipstick. They sit in my bag untouched. I do not smear on concealer to cover the purple circles under my eyes. It’s just me. Raw. Uncovered. Natural. Authentic. No masks. No camouflage to hide my fatigue. No red lipstick to make me feel more put together than I sometimes feel. My hair is a mix of sand and sea and salty air. I do not waste time styling it. There are grains of sand between my toes. I wear yoga pants cuffed past my ankle and a hooded sweatshirt. Bras are optional.

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Atlantic Beach, this place, it’s special to me. The first time I came here was 2011, 10 months after I left my ex-husband. Back home, my world was falling apart. I came here to escape it. Three nights. Four days. Just me and my dog, Yoshi. My rock. My anchor. It was late April. We watched every sunrise and every sunset together. We explored seaside towns and drove with the windows down, taking in big gulps of sea air. I was inconsolably lonely. What I remember most about those days was how quiet it was in our hotel room. The silence was deafening. I didn’t speak to anyone for four days. I ate meals alone in my hotel room. Slept alone under the cold bleached sheets. Woke up alone to my room aglow in the morning’s sunrise.

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And yet, it was also one of the most nurturing times in my life. I came there to heal. I was taking care of me by allowing myself to toss aside all the rules I had written in my head about how I thought my life would have been or should have been. And I gave myself the freedom to wander, discover new places with Yoshi, get in the car and see where it leads me. What I found was so much beauty and peace. I vowed on that trip that I would never share this place with anyone else. It was mine and Yoshi’s sacred haven. Bringing someone here would create memories, and memories meant I’d carry them with me forever. I couldn’t endure another heartbreak. No, I couldn’t risk it. I was so afraid that the next man I allowed into my life would only bring me pain—just like all the others.

Me with my anchor. (2011)

Pals.

I remember crying almost the entire four-hour drive home. What did I have to go back to? An empty house. An empty heart. I didn’t want to leave behind this peace I cultivated over the four days. I didn’t know how to take it with me. When I came home, I climbed into bed and turned on the TV. Oprah was interviewing Shania Twain about her failed marriage.

Four months later, Andrew and I went on our first date. Five more years pass and here I am, happily married, connected in mind, body and spirit with Andrew and grateful for every moment I have with him. Several times a day, he’ll say or do something to make me pause and think I love this man deeply. He loves me deeply. Yesterday it was when he put his hand on my thigh when we were driving to the coast. This morning it was when we were lying in bed, holding hands, with the sun’s morning rays illuminating our hotel room with white light. I told Andrew last year, when I first brought him and our dog Molly here, how special this place is to me. I shared with him all of my favorite places, and together, we discovered new ones. We ate in a new restaurant that’s now our go-to, wandered in different parts of town, explored the edges of the coast. We honored my old memories, but also made new ones. This is no longer my place; this is our place.

My family.

My Grandmother’s House

I would like to walk into my grandmother’s house and be greeted by the scent of her tomato sauce bubbling on the stove in a tall metal stock pot. I’d like to see her standing over the stove with her apron caked with splashes of crushed tomatoes. I’d like to be able to hug her, have her cup my face in her hands and kiss me on the cheek, her lips dry and pencil thin. I’d like to sit down with her at the kitchen table with seating for four. The windows would be open to the street noise; a soft summer breeze would blow the sun-faded curtains that hang above the sink. The black and white TV on her counter would be tuned in to The Young & the Restless. She would bring me a plate of her homemade chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and a tall glass of cold whole milk, never watery skim like at home. Whole milk was always a special treat. She would ask me about my love life, and I’d share with her the heavy thoughts that have been weighing me down. She’d hold my hand and tell me everything will be OK. I could feel her veins in the palm of my hand, purple and blue, raised like rivers on a map. She always made me feel better.

My grandma, me and braces on the night of my first semi-formal.

When I think of my grandmother, I remember her hands the most, pushing and pulling dough across her kitchen table with a wooden rolling pin that looked like a stick of salami. Flour dusted her hands like powder. Ravioli, cappelletti, macaroni. She made the best pasta.

I still keep her olive green leather rain coat and winter swing coat—the one with the green and gold plastic buttons—in my coat closet. I shove my hands in the pockets from time to time hoping I’ll find a memento of hers left behind, something else to cling to. I bury my nose in her coats and breathe in the memory of her. It still smells like my Nonne, a mix of makeup, Aqua Net, Kleenex and her kitchen. It’s been 14 years since she passed, and each year that passes, I pray that the scent will not fade from her coats. I don’t ever want to forget what she smelled like. Scents are powerful; they can bring us back to our childhood, the nostalgia, the longing to return to what was before I had to grow up and life got harder. Life was easier as a kid. Wasn’t it? There was always grandma’s house, where all was right in the world the moment you passed through the door. I felt safe there, but most of all, loved.

Sometimes, on warm nights, the earthy smell of the air, the humid breeze, take me back to my grandmother’s TV room, where I’d sit with her for hours watching Golden Girls and The Lawrence Welk Show. We’d sit side-by-side on the couch holding hands; hers felt fragile like a bird. It was so hot you could smell the metal of the screen in the only window in the room and hear the sound of the traffic on the street, passing under the amber glow of the street lights.

Right now, I’m thinking of summer days on my grandmother’s porch and the metal glider that smelled like a box of staples. I can still picture her there in her favorite chair rocking, waiting for someone to pull into the driveway and lift her spirits.

I remember the two-liter bottle of red soda she kept in the house—Crystal Club’s Cherokee Red. It tasted like a carbonated cherry popsicle, and I loved it. She still offered it to me when I was older and outgrew the taste of liquid sugar in a glass, but I never refused it, and nostalgia made it still taste good.

My grandmother has been appearing in my dreams a lot lately. I never remember what happened in the dream, but I do remember her presence and her sweet face smiling at me. Her entire body glows like a white aura. I always feel so good when I wake up from those dreams. Is she visiting me to tell me everything is going to be OK? In the moments when I feel lost, I still talk out loud to her, asking her to guide me, send down some good stuff from wherever she is.

My beautiful grandma.

I realized just the other day that the anniversary of her death is coming up. She died on Oct. 21, 2002. I was 22. On Sept. 18, 2002 I wrote her a letter from the Midwest during the summer I graduated from college. I told her about my first visit to Chicago—grown up and all by myself—and how I was waiting back to hear on two newspaper jobs: one in Indiana, the other in Michigan. I wrote:

Just think, in about two weeks I could be living in a brand new state, my own apartment filled with my own things, my furniture, my pictures!!! How exciting! …

It is such a beautiful day today. I wish I could share this day with you. The sky is this amazing bright blue filled with feathery white clouds. It rained this morning and made the afternoon cool and breezy. … I wish I were there with you so that I could give you tons of kisses and hugs and watch the afternoon soap operas with you.

I week or so later, I moved to Michigan. My life as an adult was just beginning, and hers was ending. I never did get to see her again.

Yesterday my mom sent a link to an online listing of my grandma’s old house. My mom warned us that it was a mess, but curiosity made me swipe through the photos anyway. From the outside, the house looked tired and worn, the porch sunken. Inside, the walls were painted hideous colors of watermelon pink and lime green—very bad combo. It was kind of heartbreaking to see this house, that brought me so much comfort, take on a new identity. But then I reached the photo of my grandma’s kitchen and it was just as I had remembered it. The linoleum floors that looked like a mosaic of mustard yellows, olive greens and various shades of white. The original glossy, wooden cabinets and hardware, and the old-fashioned white ceramic sink. I could almost smell the containers of flour. In the photo, a ray of sunlight is shining through the kitchen windows above the sink, the only thing occupying the hollowness of the room, no sign of life.

Nothing remains the same. Not even houses. But the memory, the feeling it gave you, that doesn’t fade.

This is one of my favorite photos of my grandmother taken at Christmas. She is holding up VHS tapes of the Three Tenors and Andrea Bocelli.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

Author: CarlaK