Happy Candies

It felt like a life time ago that I last sat in those chairs.  Sitting next to my cousin while we both tried to gain control of ourselves before we got up to speak.  One should never put two passionate people side by side with the same genetic makeup.  I suppose this should be a sad story, but for some reason I look back on it with comfort and curiosity. Standing over my grandfather saying goodbye with my cousin on one side and my sister on the other while our parents talked with the final straggling guests. We curiously stared at him and whispered about how he didn’t look like the man whose lap we sat in or the whiskery lips we used to kiss with the smell of tobacco.  The three of us stood there looking at this lifeless fragment of a man we loved until suddenly, his body moved.  We all looked at each other and I don’t think I need to explain how quickly we ran out of that room.  It took some time to explain that sometimes that “just happens” … okay…

                                                              

I found myself sitting in those same chairs this week.  This time we held our husband’s hands as we watched our own children take in the same scene for the first time. I watched as Julia curiously peeked through the crowd at the coffin.  She took it in stride, but I knew there would be a million questions later.  I sat back and observed the scene as I whispered to my sister in law to sneak the hand sanitizer from off the self … the same shelf I watched the kids in their Sunday best sneak the candy from the candy bowl.  I smiled at my sister and we just knew.   That candy bowl.  It was forever ago that we discovered that candy bowl … I’m pretty sure it’s still the same candy sitting in there.  My little cousin told the epic tale of how she was sad then she saw the candy and she was happy and henceforth named them the “happy candies”.  Are we really that resilient as children? Are we resilient or do we just not understand?  I don’t know because this same amazing little girl grew up to work in this same funeral home; preparing bodies, comforting guests and handing out “happy candy”.

 

Loss is such a surreal experience.  I watched my family’s broken faces as a husband, son, and grandchildren said goodbye for the last time.  I knew why I was there, but all I could think was … “I don’t get it.  It doesn’t seem real.  How can we be here one minute and then gone the next?”  I don’t know.  Matthew lost his mother years ago and every once in a while I check in with him.  It’s always the same answer … “I’m okay.  I miss her.  It’s not the same, but I love the life God has given me”.   I don’t think I’m ready to take on the discussion of death, but there is nothing like death to remind us of its polar twin; life.

 

How do we live life when bad things have happened?  How do we tuck something so precious into a piece of our heart and continue on?  I think that this is what I really want to write about …happy candies.  When something tragic or sad happens, we have no choice, but to face it head on.  Control has been taken away from us.  Sometimes we find ourselves drained, broken or overwhelming discouraged.  What has happened is truth and we can’t control it. It sucks.  However, there is this big bowl of candy sitting there. You may not be able to control what has happened in your life, but you have the choice to reach out and take one from the bowl.  It’s sitting there for you… if you want it.  All you have to do is reach out and take one.  It’s something you can control. Eating one won’t change truth, but it’s still nice, you know?  It’s nice of them to take your coat, have juice boxes in the family room and an endless supply of tissues next to every seat.

 

I guess what we do have in life is the choice to reach out and find our own happy candies.  My favorite happy candy is my faith…. Like honey on my lips.  I won’t be walking for much longer in this life, but Julia sure has a wonderful way to add some sugar … “Mama, you are going to run in heaven.  I can’t wait for you to die”.   I really cling to hope when my truths seem unbearable… unchangeable or when life just feels like it’s getting out of control.  We seek control.  We seek comfort. I’m really not a huge candy fan … I totally get how it hurts your teeth now that I’m getting older.  However, I do seek out happy chocolate.  Every once in a while, Matthew will give me a look and I just know he has hidden some chocolate under my pillow.  It always amazes me how he can sneak it there …. I must be a really deep sleeper… or maybe it’s magic.  Ya, I want it to be magic.

 

I really truly believe that when we keep our candy bowls full, we live fuller lives and we are better prepared to face what this life offers us… not that it can take the hurt away.  I think we are all as diverse as the plethora of sweets there are for us to choose from… I hope I’m not the gross mints that are always left over.  For some of you, it’s your job … you do it with such dedication… filling your spirit.  Perhaps it’s a team … a healthy lifestyle.  A drama club, reading, vacations, church, helping others. These things feed us.  They nourish us far better than candy … although, sometimes I really just rather curl up in a ball and give up.

 

I’m thinking back about times that I felt so comforted, whole and efficacious.  Sitting on a bench late at night Matthew told me that he was never going to leave my side.  Probably not the safest thing to do in an empty and dark park… When he kissed me for the first time I knew an overwhelming sense of hope, belonging and wellbeing.  The unwritten script of our lives seemed boundless and overflowing.  Not something we feel every day as our lives can become scripted, bound or empty at times.  So … how do we get that feeling?  When I first stumbled across these words by Ben Orki, I did not agree with him.  I was actually quite irritated by them. What the heck does this even mean? “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”  I kind of think that the most authentic part of myself is the dorky part that watches mystery shows, cries when I’m mad and sneaks chocolate before dinner when I already told the kids they can’t have any.  Is the most real part of us really strength?  I don’t know. I think what he’s saying is that the most genuine and accurate part of our self is our ability to love, grow and survive things we never thought that we could. Sorta like when you’re going to have your first baby and you can’t figure out how you’re going to squeeze a watermelon out of you and then somehow you actually do it … some of us even attempting it multiple times.  Our bodies are never quite the same again, but we live.  We overcome, we endure, we transform and we love.  It’s not so much that we are resilient like a child sneaking a candy from the bowl, but that we learn to enjoy the candy we do have.  We learn to enjoy it through hope, faith and love. Will- I -am sure knows this.  “Yeah, you can be the greatest. You can be the best. You can be the King Kong banging on your chest. You can beat the world. You can beat the war. You can talk to God, go banging on his door.  Standing in the hall of fame.”  You’ll probably never be in the hall of fame, but I bet your story can make you someone’s hero.

 

Eggs and bellybuttons

Sometimes I can’t get over how differently we all interpret things and express ourselves.  Last night my daughter was sharing with me about a new friend she made.  When I asked her what her new associate was like, I stared inanely at her and tried not to laugh, “Well, she’s a little brown with a lot of beige… and our belly buttons are identical”. I wasn’t even aware that the closeness of a bellybutton could be so descript of a kindred bond.  Where have I been? If I ask to see your bellybutton in the future, I’m not creepy.  I’m merely trying to see if we are compatible.

 

Do you ever have an argument with someone and it gets so heated even though you’re both actually trying to say the same thing?  I’m a pretty laid back person when it comes to other people’s opinions, behaviours and ideas… until you take advantage of anyone I love.  Then I will hurt you using only my words.  I rarely get angry, but you will calmly know exactly where I stand.  I remember a “debate” I had with several of my friends back in school.  They insisted on one thing, but I was wording it differently.  Emotions were starting to rise even though I think we were essentially and ineffectively saying the same thing.  In fact, I can feel the verbal boxing gloves coming out just thinking about the philosophical question, “can you feel hatred towards someone without hating them?”   Ummm .. how can you possibly feel hatred and not hate?  If you are hating someone then you are feeling hatred.   Let me tell you why I disagree. I would like to say, “let me tell you why I’m right”, but that wouldn’t be using my gentle words.

           

Emotions and feelings are not always based in truth.  We can feel something and effectively know in our head that it’s not true or maybe we actually do believe it is true.  “I feel like I’m a bad person” … does that actually make you a bad person?  “I feel like you aren’t listening to me” … does that mean that they are actually not listening to you?  Maybe.   Not necessarily.   I’m telling you, during that debate, I was starting to feel some hatred, but at the same time, I loved them like my own sisters.  My heart was mad enough to break my composure, but my head still loved them.  I suppose one could argue that I was feeling anger; not hatred, but is it not possible for emotions and beliefs to escalate into inappropriate thoughts?… unhelpful, but real feelings.  If there is one thing that I have learned over the past year, it’s that our thoughts, feelings and actions live in distinction as well as cohesion.  It’s kind of like an egg … you have three parts; the shell, the whites and the yolk.  The three parts are whole … it’s called an egg.  However, you don’t have to use all the parts at one time… personally, I usually throw out the shells.  Your thoughts, feeling and actions are a whole too … that’s called you. What we feel or think impacts our actions and vice versa; our actions can totally affect our feelings and our thoughts … but is it possible that changing one element of this closely knit triad could change an entire cycle? 

 

Just because I am feeling hatred, it does not mean that I have to think on it or act on it.  I can control my actions and thoughts and soon find my feelings following behind. I wouldn’t say it’s a science, but it kinda helps, you know?  I may even still carry some negative feelings in my heart … I am human… I think … but it doesn’t have to consume me.  I am learning that a thought can go through your head, but that doesn’t mean we have to make a guest room for it complete with fresh paint and a “rate your stay” card.  If a certain part of the egg is rotten, then toss it … I’d rather have an egg without the yolk than an egg with a rotten yolk.  I totally just made myself throw up a little bit.  So, there you have it …belly buttons are awesome and don’t eat rotten eggs….  It’s never helpful.