"forgive life"

Bunny hasn't been around of late.  if you remember, she's retired.  her mom, me, no longer works at Build-A-Bear - sad, sad thing with her store closing for economic reasons.

now i sell children's shoes.  tough life there.  been written of.  no need to rehash.  nothing's changed.

but Bunny wanted to write to all of her readers.  she's never spoken before, written in her own words.  she's always allowed me to speak to her life.  but she wanted to - for the first time ever.  so here she is:  the Bun

hi.  it's me, Beach Bunny, Bunny, or just the Bun.  it's been quite the adjustment being left at home now.  i hate to see mom go off alone, out there in the world.  she has to drive so very far from home.  and i worry, especially when she has to close the store and it gets really late at night.

 one night she didn't get home until after 2 in the morning.

she was so tired and, here's a secret.  it was the first time i actually slept with mom.

she usually has me sit in my special place on my special pillow beside her bed, next to Dragon,

but she was so tired that night, and filled, literally filled to the brim with anxiety, that she held me close, and cried a bit, and had me sleep with her.

i comforted her all night.  after she was finally asleep, i whispered out loud in her ear so her heart could hear, about how much i love her.  about how much her children love her, and especially about how much her Dragon loves her.

so what does a Bun do alone in the home?

ears up and i help my mom.  i vacuum for her and i plump pillows.

 i take care of my pony friends my mom made. i love them so much.  they are a fun group

and we run around the apartment like crazy chasing mom's scotties.  exercise is very important. 

 i have quiet times, too, sitting and reading to my own little puppy, Snowball.

 and i wait for my mom to come home, home where she's loved and is safe.

see my eyes?  see the anxiousness i hold in my heart when she is gone?

i'm going to tell you something, maybe it's a secret, i'm not sure, but mom read this short story.

mom reads to try and relax and she's going through a lot of old books of hers.  Oscar Wilde is a favorite.  she just reread "The Canterville Ghost" because, as she told me, "Bun, there is poetry hidden in the prose."

her favorite part of the book is Sir Simon's soliloquy about death.

"Death must be so beautiful.  To life in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to the silence.  To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.  To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace."

 mom read that part to me out loud and then she was quiet, not reading, not talking, just thinking.  and then she said this to me, "i miss him, Bunny.  i think about him all the time.  i'm not sure if i'm supposed to, or if i am to fight that.  but i can't fight any longer.  i'm not a fighter by nature.  i'm a re-router.  i do things my own way.  i have to.  'to thine own self be true.'  Shakespeare told the truth on that one. you can't lie to yourself.'

i stared at her in my own inscrutable way and she said, "no, i'm not thinking about dying dying, like, you know, dying, but i do think about being with him when my time comes.  and i think about being at peace.  i'm searching for it and i have come to sort of believe that peace is our journey, or at least it's mine.  i have moments of peace, but not a life of peace.  i wonder if anyone does.  i do have things that i am upset about - things that have happened to me throughout my life and that's the part of Sir Simon's speech i was thinking about.  forgiving life.  'to forgive life.'  i need to try and do that."

so i have spilled the beans.  mom is a deep thinker.  she is always trying to be a better person as she calls it.  and she is always thinking philosophically.  about everything.  even me.

which is why she went ahead and let me write this time.

because mom and me, we're sympatico.  we're kindred souls.

just like her and her Dragon.

btw, he's a truly lovely person.  i know that for a fact.  i've met him; seen him when he checks in on mom.  she doesn't know.  she's not really looking for signs.  she doesn't think she deserves them so she doesn't anticipate them.  but being the Bun, you know, THE BUN, i have that special gift.  

i've become Real, as in "The Velveteen Rabbit" Real.  and with becoming real, you get special gifts.

seeing the Dragon is one of them.

so to anyone out there who grieves, i hope you believe me when i say this. 

you are loved.

you are watched over.

you are being waited on.  {or for.  i can never get that one right.}

as mom sometimes writes,

peace to all who read.

peace and light to all who grieve.

far too tired ~ part 2 ~ the search for peace

i am struggling.  worries and fears overwhelm me at this time.  i've got things going on at work.  things going on in my personal life.  too much and i am so very tired.

sleep, when it comes, does nothing for me.

personal life:  i've written the VA about my new position, the raise, and i've heard nothing.  i called late last summer and was told that since i wrote the letter, they will process and send me a letter letting me know of any adjustments.  i've still heard nothing and suffer severe anxiety each month, waiting to see if they send me my stipend.  it's going to end.  i know it.  but living in limbo is crushing me.  i struggle and do nothing ~ I DO NOTHING extra.  no movies.  no clothes.  nothing that is not absolutely crucial to my existence.  and i miss fun.

personal life:  i wouldn't mind a friend but the alternative to that is being afraid to find a friend.  haven't had any luck down here with friends.  i'm too poor.  i'm now too busy.  i'm too exhausted to be any good to anyone.  

personal life:  i'm lonely.  i miss him.  i haven't taken off my wedding rings.  i see men coming into the store and i feel nothing.  they are not attractive.  they are not interesting.  nothing stirs inside me.  i miss HIM.  i love him.  i trusted him.  he knew everything about me.  he was too much of everything my heart desired.  he was, flawed as he was, he was too perfect.

personal life:  still working on that quilt.  so much work.  i need to get up the courage to ask her for more money laying out the amount of work she has added to this.  i call this quilt Sisyphus.  i thought i was close and it came rolling back down over the top of me.  so much more work  

work:  i've got a girl who is a part time manager who has become arrogant and a finger-pointer when anything goes wrong.  and it's all her.  at the core of every drama, it's her.  when i speak to her she instantly becomes overly agitated and loud.  she paints herself as a victim and i hate that.  we're going to have a BIG meeting with my boss and my boss's boss, and my other two managers.  it's going to be a meeting of whose going to throw everyone under the bus as far and as fast as she can.  in other words, i think i might have my first drink of alcohol since my diabetes diagnosis immediately after this meeting.

work:  long drive.  longer hours.  young people who have no work ethic.  it's disheartening.

and i am not ungrateful for my job.  i love it.  but this are thorns on roses.  puppies nip.  to make those beautiful flowers grow it must rain.  life is good but people can suck.  love is great and then they die.

i search for peace.  i take too heart too much what people say to me.  i'm not complaining.  i'm relating here what i would curl up beside my beloved husband and say.  i have no other recourse.  it's a way to talk it out and see it.  i read back over what i've written and i can say, "okay, it's out there.  someone knows.  he knows.  i'll find my way.  i'll find guidance, support, my path."

death is an artist.  i wrote this on someone's blog or on Facebook somewhere.  but i think of death now as an artist.  it is a sculptor changing our minds, our way of thinking, molding us into different people than we were before that horrible moment when we turned about and went home alone.

death is a whittler.  it shaves off and out of our lives the people who have closed minds.  it whittles away the people who refuse to understand, or who refuse to stay beside us even while they admit they don't know what we're feeling.  not being able to feel what we are feeling is fine.  admit that and stay with me.  listen to me.  hold my hand.

bring me a cup of hot tea and be silent with me because, as long winded as i can be,

sometimes it still hurts to much to talk.  or worse, i don't know how to put in into words.

would that i had a place where i could go, a shrine or altar that i had created that was simple and profoundly sacred.  i could go there and sit and just be.  not think.  or think.  pray.  sigh.  not read so much as remember poems, psalms, words of wisdom drawn from the myriad of places i've gotten them from.  but i have a place i go to.  that room up there is in my head.  when i close my eyes for even a moment, if i need this place, it's there for me.  i pretend it's all mine in my fantasy house.  i go downstairs and look out the windows at the ocean.  then i turn and light the candles and i contemplate peace.  i try to empty my mind of all the anguish and just focus on the good.  him.  my children.  my dogs.  what i am thankful for.  i try to re-center myself to face all the drama and the worries of THIS world.  

one foot here in this world but my eyes on the later.  i read a book i won't speak to here. it has changed me.  changed my opinion of a few things.  me mostly.  i'll write about it some other time, after my thoughts about it are more cohesive.  

for now, the search for peace continues.  

i wish it for all of you.