Ciao (Hello/Good-by), Autumn

“The human soul is slow to discover the real excellence of things given to us by a bountiful Creator, and not until the shadows of death begin to gather around the object that we love, do we see its worth and beauty. Autumn is the dim shadow that clusters around the sweet, precious things that God has created in the realm of nature. While it robs them of life, it tears away the veil and reveals the golden gem of beauty and sweetness. Beauty lurks in all the dim old aisles of nature, and we discover it at last.”

Northern Advocate

I’ve looked at autumn differently since last year, although it has never been my favorite season. As beautiful as fall foliage appears against a cloudless blue sky on a balmy “Indian summer” day, autumn heralds the coming winter. In my part of the country, the colors of autumn give way to several months of grays and browns. The sky will be gray, clouds will be a steel-gray, the ground will be gray-brown and, worst of all for me, the leafless trees will be a naked gray-brown. Something inside of me also feels gray-brown until leaf buds again appear and their spring green colors contrast, and eventually cover, most of the gray-brown tree branches.

The green 2012 spring that ended with Brandon’s death was in many ways like living autumn. We watched as a vigorous, vital man in his prime became more vivid in many ways. Yet we also observed as his body revealed that he would soon have to “let go” of his branch on the family tree and drift from his physical body.

I look at the changing color on the trees covering the hills of my beautiful Ohio River Valley, and I’m more aware of each individual leaf – aware that the life of each leaf is coming to an end. Walking a path in the Great Smokies National Park a few weeks ago, I got caught in a shower of yellowed ash leaves newly departed from their tree branches. I felt the touch of each separately as leaves rained down on me. Never before have I been as acutely aware of how the vibrancy and vigor of life is juxtaposed during autumn with the beauty and desolation of death.

Nature prepares us for a leaf’s death by clothing it in vibrant, awe-inspiring color, making one take notice as it clings to the branch, and then as, still beautiful but already dead, it lets go and flutters to the ground. Awe is replaced by a kind of sadness when that same leaf turns brown, no longer allowing for the illusion of colorful life. Yet, in spite of witnessing these changes, winter somehow seems to sneak up and come as a surprise.

There is an amazing kind of beauty in being part of a dying. There is beauty in the bones of the sharply etched facial features and the slender fingers of a body emaciated by a disease such as cancer. There is a unique vibrancy in every word uttered, every breath completed, every movement made, every touch experienced. Even until Brandon’s last breath, I “bought” the illusion that he wouldn’t die, because it simply was unimaginable that someone so loved and so full of life could no longer be part of our landscape; at the same time I was much too aware that soon all would turn gray-brown.

In spite of living autumn that spring of 2012, winter still snuck up and came as a surprise. 

Eternal Flame

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Buddha

I’m not sure when or where I first read the analogy of comparing a mother’s ability to love more than one child to lighting candles, but I think it was in a woman’s magazine years before I had any children.

As the story goes, an older child felt jealous of a new sibling and was acting out her frustration. The mother took the child aside and asked, “Let me show you how Mommy loves you as much as ever but also has plenty of love for your new brother (sister).”

Holding the older child’s hand, the mother walked to a table on which several candles stood. The mother lit one candle. “Imagine this candle is me, your mommy, and the flame is all the love I have.”

The mother lifted the candle from its holder, and using that candle, lit a second one. “The flame on the second candle is the love I have for you. Look at how bright and big my love for you is! Yet the candle that stands for me still burns as brightly as ever.”

Continuing to hold the candle, the mother again used it to light a third candle. “This candle flame stands for the love I have for your baby brother.” Pointing at the candle representing the older child, the mother said, “The flame on the third candle is as bright as that on your candle, but your flame – the love I have for you – shines as brightly as ever.

“And look at me, look at my candle,” the mother said, gently directing the child to focus on the “mother” candle. “It has lit two new candles but its flame, the love I have to give, is so great that I can light, I can give my love to, all of the candles on this table and my flame will not change. I will still have as much love to give another and another and another. No matter how many candles I share my flame – my love – with, it will never change how much love I have for you.”

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 This analogy works for me. The love I have for each of my children is as intense and as unique as each child, although each has had times when she or he needed more of it. With the addition of significant others and grandchildren, love continues to be shared without diminishing love for the others. What a wonderful thing.

It is easy to take a candle’s flame for granted. It continues to burn steadily. That is unless or until the wind threatens the flame or extinguishes it completely.

My children are adults and I’ve never found it to be sad or a problem that each has his or her own life. I’ve never expected each to call me every day. They don’t expect I’ll intrude or meddle, unless I’m invited to do so. (When invited physically or emotionally, I’m definitely more than willing to walk through that door!) In spite of embracing their adult selves and our “empty” nest, or perhaps because of it, my relationship with each was never in jeopardy, and the siblings only grew closer. It was a good feeling to know each new flame I’d helped light years ago had become bright and confident enough to now share his or her flame with others.

Brandon about to blow out the candle on his 35th, his last disease-free, birthday

Then the wind came. At first it seemed to be nothing more than a rather stiff breeze, ruffling one of the special flames within my family circle, but quickly moving on with all flames still burning brightly. Or, it seemed to me, each burned even more brightly and all more deeply appreciated the light and warmth of the others.

However, the wind was not finished with us. It was merely playing a cruel game.

I hope none of you must ever hover at the bedside of one of your babies, knowing his next breath may be his last. Knowing that even if the next one isn’t his last, that last breath is going to happen soon – not in years, months, weeks or days. It is going to occur within hours or, more likely, within minutes.

Brandon’s last breath literally sounded like the snuffing out of a candle. Yet in one of life’s strangest paradoxes, his flame remains as bright or brighter than it was prior to that last breath. I can’t see it as before, but I still feel and need its warmth.

That’s the thing about love. Once shared, it can never be snuffed out. It never burns down. It is the only real eternal flame. 

Friday Night Fireworks

A Friday night home game. Win or lose there will be fireworks afterward, but tonight the Cincinnati Reds win. A burst of fireworks and the blast shatters the air. We think the big display is about to begin, but there is only the one burst and then silence. My husband turns on the T.V. The fireworks were to draw attention to a ceremony honoring “Big Red Machine” legend Joe Morgan following the game. From our veranda we can see the lights of the stadium as we watch the ceremony on television. The lights appear to be brighter during the ceremony than they were during the game.

The ceremony doesn’t last long. As soon as it ends, the usual Friday night home game display erupts. I love living this close to “my” Ohio River and I love living this close to “my” Cincinnati skyline. I never grow tired of either no matter the time of day or the season. And I never grow tired of these fireworks. Actually, I think I love such them more the older I get. Fireworks are chemistry and magic mixed together. Tonight’s display, and particularly the “grand finale,” was particularly beautiful.

Fireworks from our veranda

My husband and I stand on our veranda in the dark, each with an arm around the other’s waist, enjoying the spectacular streamers of color and their mirror images on the water of the Ohio River. 

Where do tears suddenly come from? Big blobby tears that first accumulate in my eyes and begin to roll down my cheeks. I do nothing to stop them. Some continue to roll and roll - past my mouth, around my chin, down my neck.

I marvel at the beauty while also feeling overwhelmed by sadness. The presence of both at once is no longer a dichotomy. Joy and sorrow have joined hands and taken residence within me in some sort of companionable coexistence. I think they plan to be long-term inhabitants. 

Happy World Normal-Feeding Awareness Month

As August comes to a close, I’d like to recognize August as World Normal-Feeding Awareness Month – or as many call it – World Breastfeeding Awareness. I'd also like to acknowledge that my job, my calling, my vocation is a bit different, but it's definitely what I am/was supposed to do! For several decades I have done what I can to help new mothers breastfeed, including working as a certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) for the last two-plus decades.

Yes, yes, I know quite well that a mammal mother’s own milk is something truly magnificent. In addition to providing optimal nutrition for an infant’s growth and development, only human milk offers the immunological support that has allowed our species, Homo sapiens, to survive and thrive. However, even as my head understands the statistics involved with that equation and gets that “shit happens” within the complexity of the human body, my heart often feels cheated and cries, “Brandon had nothing but his mother’s own milk for more than six months! How could this happen? How could he have developed a disease in which his immune system didn’t recognize and kill these f’n mutant cells?”

What I don’t feel cheated of, what I wouldn’t trade for all the riches on earth or in heaven, what is worth everything and more is the relationship he and I shared through breastfeeding. I doubt I can adequately convey the intimacy of the breastfeeding relationship – the communication that develops between mother and child during and because of it. It is unique with each child. It is often difficult to achieve, but once achieved with one child, a mother will scale any metaphorical mountain to experience the breastfeeding relationship with each child.

Brandon (and me) at 6 months

Brandon was my second baby. I had scaled a couple of metaphorical mountains to breastfeed his older sister, and I couldn’t imagine it could be more exhilarating. I simply couldn’t imagine I could come to love another infant/child as much as I loved my first. Then he was born, and it was love (for me) at first sight. Still, life is life, and our breastfeeding relationship had its ups and downs, especially in the first month. Once we crested the mountain of that month, we soared. All mountains afterward seemed miniscule in comparison. He and I were très sympa, a French phrase for which there is no good English equivalent.

To really breastfeed is to let go as the adult, the mother, and trust the immature baby to set the pace, which is completely contrary to most of so-called “modern” parenting philosophies. Yet it is in this letting go, this acceptance of the unique infant-/child-paced daily rhythm that one really gets to know this infant/child as an individual. To really breastfeed is to appreciate and celebrate that rhythm. And when both mother and baby are enjoying the uniqueness of their own special breastfeeding relationship? Well, for that brief period of time, whether for weeks, months or a few years, a mother truly knows what it is to be the goddess of the universe. It is beyond magical.

Brandon and I enjoyed a close, a very special breastfeeding relationship for his first 27 months. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the time from when he was first diagnosed with “poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma” until his death was precisely 27 months. I cannot believe this is coincidence,

So I bid adieu to World Normal-Feeding (Breastfeeding) Awareness Month – not to World Human Milk Awareness Month or World Lactation (Synthesis of Milk) Awareness Month. As I do so, I thank the Creator of all for the gift that allowed me to let go and share in the awe and the responsibility of divinity as the short-term goddess of the universe for Brandon and for each of my infants/children.

Everything else Brandon and I shared over his life on this earth began with that first, that special breastfeeding relationship. I wouldn’t trade our 27-month breastfeeding relationship for anything. No, not for anything.

That was then, this is now...

Last year at this time:	This year:
Please, invite me to anything, anytime, anywhere. Please, distract me as much/as often as possible. ("I'm dancing as fast as I can!")	Happiest in my shell (again)
Difficulty concentrating whether reading books, multi-tasking, etc.	Same as last year
Find weird comfort in Facebook (Fits short attention span?)	Same as last year
Going from feeling fine to crying in 1 second	Same as last year
Didn't know there could be so many tears - not just teary but rolling down the cheeks tears	Same as last year
Making guttural noises I didn’t know could come out of my mouth	Same as last year
A basket of Sympathy cards on a table in the hall	Still on hall table - untouched
Profound sorrow, missing the person of our Brandon (at all ages/stages)	More profound/deeper
Appreciate the gift that is each of my children	Stronger than last year