reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: grieving


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every falling leaf. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

in my son’s first year at lawrence university, i had the joy of visiting the campus fairly often. one of those times there was a comedian on campus and, along with a group of his friends, i went to her show.

it was fall 2011. tig notaro was about 40 then – though she looked way younger. i was 52 or so, not a heck of a lot older. following her bright career for a bit, it was difficult to see her deal with complicated and dangerous medical issues, the abrupt death of her mother, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, relationship breakup.

hundreds – maybe thousands – of shows in the growth of her success later, we watched her on anderson cooper’s – stunning – grief podcast “all there is”.

we stumbled upon this just a few nights ago – after you-tube-ing the news until we could no longer take any more in. anderson was visiting with ken burns and the show was titled, “the half-life of grief is endless“. there is nothing like an honest, open conversation about mortality and loss to draw you in. i repeated the words aloud: “the half-life of grief is endless” before realizing that quote had been – aptly – chosen as the title of that episode.

it feels true – in my opinion. the half-life of grief IS endless. and in that space we inhabit – that space that loss always shields with an impermeable membrane – we find so much meaning, so much life, so much right-now.

though well-acquainted with loss of dear people around her, tig spoke specifically of the loss of her friend, poet andrea gibson. she described the feeling of andrea nearby her. she read bits of her poetry. anderson cried. i cried. i think d cried too.

i never could understand how – when my big brother died – the world could just go on. i wasn’t a child. i was 33 and pregnant with my second child. but i still couldn’t grok it, even as i had lost others in my life, even as I could cognitively understand it. it was a gut-punch, yet i could feel him – wayne – nearby. i could sense his humor, his brilliant mind.

in the love letter that andrea wrote to their fiancée, they wrote “dying is the opposite of leaving…” and in the same, their words, “ask me the altitude of heaven and i will answer ‘how tall are you?'”

i cannot hike in the woods without stopping. there is so much to take in, so much for which to gently hold space, so much to be grateful for. just to see it all…washes over all the grief and enlivens all the grief. both.

and then there is this: “every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see, held by the part of me in charge of making beauty out of grief.” (andrea gibson)

*****

LAST I SAW YOU © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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particularly now. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

we were on the phone and she said, “we all just need to check out a while.”

i couldn’t agree more.

it has been a lot. more than a lot. and it just continues on and on and on – this farcical nightmare of politics. there is nothing like watching an incoming administration poking fun at every single serious issue out there, lining its own pockets and the pockets of kakistocratic cronies, maniacally ranting and raging and seeking revenge, raising up the uppers and cruelly disempowering the middles and the lowers. it is utterly exhausting and disrespectful to the core of this nation.

but this is me…checking out.

so as we are tending to this holiday season, looking for gifts – the things people may need or wish for – and shopping, i know that there is one thing that we simply cannot buy – for ourselves or anyone else:

hope.

and so we’ll do our best to make people smile, to engage people, to let them know we are thinking about them and holding them close – particularly now, when so many others have disappointed us and them, particularly now, with the emotional whiplash we have felt as a result of the loss of positive possibility, particularly now, grieving the burial of any goodness from the top down, particularly now, overwhelmed by the stunned surprise we have felt watching those we care about wholeheartedly support this horror.

i know that we cannot buy hope. and i know that right now it seems far away, especially if we are actively paying attention to the intentional bullying and destruction of all we know as this democracy.

but that doesn’t stop us from yearning for it, from seeking it, from creating it. together.

we won’t check out on hope. particularly now.

*****

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what is real. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

i told him the other day I wasn’t sure if i had anything left to say. in the lostness following this horrific election, i still feel all the things i have already written about – truly gutted.

i would imagine that there are many of ‘me’ out there. heart-broken, infuriated, exhausted, confused, feeling betrayed.

and in that wanderland of grief sit the questions of “what is real?” and “who is real?”. they nag at me – wherever i am. we escaped to the trail and they followed me – sitting heavy on my heart, ponderous.

real (adjective): 1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact: not imagined or supposed. 2. (of a substance or thing) not imitation or artificial; genuine.

and

real: behaving or presented in a way that feels true, honest, or familiar and without pretension or affectation.

and so i look at life now and think about what is real and who is real.

the “real” i knew would have stood by me, by my family, by values i assumed we shared, by the lifting up of humanity.

the “real” i knew would have been morally aghast by the cruel, devastating intentions of the new maga-regime.

the “real” i knew would have pushed back against all of it – leading with goodness and kindness.

but i guess the “real” you wanted me – and everyone else – to see wasn’t really real. and i will now admit, you fooled me.

i suppose – like many others will – that i could pretend it doesn’t matter. i could act like it doesn’t matter. i could interact like it doesn’t matter. i could just go on as if it doesn’t matter. but it does. it matters. it’s real.

mary oliver wrote, “you can fool a lot of yourself, but you can’t fool the soul.”

so even as i fight the internal fight – trying – irrationally – to hold onto what or who is really not real – my soul knows.

and, like many of you trying to process this soul-knowing, i am deeply sad.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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outraged. and weeping. [d.r. thursday]

Weeping Man copy

weeping man (reverse threading, april 23, 2020):

…this global pandemic is just that – global- and is not discerning of your privilege (or lack thereof).  it does not care.  it can take anyone.  and so we weep.

if there is a painting that depicts the face-holding grief and prayerful yearning for hope, it is this painting WEEPING MAN.

i wonder if he weeps for those who have fallen ill, those who have died.  i wonder if he weeps for those who refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of this pandemic.  i wonder if he weeps for those on the front lines, helping.  i wonder if he weeps for those who have hidden in extravagant bunkers underground in far away countries.  i wonder if he weeps for our isolation.  i wonder if he weeps watching people intolerant of the isolation that will protect others, people who are selfishly and arrogantly protesting stay-at-home orders.  i wonder if he weeps for the unrelenting non-discrimination of this contagion or if he weeps for the divisiveness of responsibility-taking, the it-doesn’t-affect-me attitude.  i wonder if he weeps for the continuance of humanity.  or if he weeps for the loss of humankind.  or, if he weeps for the lack of humaneness.  i wonder if he weeps because, in the middle of this trying and profound now,  Next will come.  i wonder if this painting is tomorrow’s tomorrow and he weeps with relief and hope.

today:

i am outraged.

where have we come since april 23 of that writing?  we have been cautioned.  we have been advised.  we have had the benefit of science, the benefit of research, the benefit of funding, the heart-wrenching benefit of experience.

we have lost 150,000 people.

and we stand to lose many more.

the shifting quicksand of the pandemic threatens to overwhelm our nation, this country fraught with division and a dedication to entitlement.  people argue for their “right” to do-what-they-want because, well, they want to.  the “we-didn’t-get-to-do-this-so-we-get-to-do-that” mode of thinking.  a warped sense of deservedness, i’ve heard it time and again.  to hell with masks, with physical distancing.  to hell with recommendations about gatherings.  to hell with self-sacrifice.  to hell with responsibility.  to hell with leadership, with facts, with example-setting.  to hell with it all.  people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country are left-and-right touting their deserved-rights to live as they wish, to gather as they wish, to travel as they wish, to do what they wish.  and the overwhelmingly whiny justification-among-justifications is because they didn’t get to do what they originally wished or planned or wanted.  wow.

and the pandemic continues.

and the people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country live as individuals more dedicated to their own desires than to the actual good of the country.  to hell with all those people dying.  to hell with all those sick.  to hell with the sanctity of each and every living human being.  to hell with all those lasting repercussions of this disease.  to hell with a spirit of helping.  to hell with a spirit of community.  whose idea was that anyway?

and so we continue to destroy ourselves – in so many arenas.  and the weeping man watches from the sidelines as the divided people lash it out in the stadium, gladiators of precisely what?

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit WEEPING MAN on david’s gallery site

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WEEPING MAN ©️ 2015 david robinson


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a long while. [k.s. friday]

last i saw you

a long while.

since last i saw you. and you. and you. it is dizzying. the yous and the longwhiles.

it makes me want an RV, updated map apps and a little bit of time.

i’m finding myself talking to people these days – people who have gone on to different planes of existence like my sweet momma or my poppo.  i ask them advice.  i tell them tales of the day.  i bemoan the challenges of our world with them; i wonder with them.

twenty-eight years ago today my big brother crossed over.  the transition of here to there is something of great ponderance for human beings.  we don’t know.  we profess to knowing, but we hardly know.  we only know what it feels like to be left behind, missing and yearning.  i will forever-and-ever yearn to be within embracing distance of my parents, my brother, and loved ones who have no tangible form but whose silken threads-of-being are eternally wrapped around me, always reminding me.

it’s like that for people still here on this very planet, people who we have not seen, people who we pine about when last we saw them.

truth be told, i spent the last couple of days in tears.  not slow-motion-tears that quietly weep down my face.  but the kind of tears where your ribs and your back hurt the next day; the kind of tears that swell your eyelids and make mascara application undoable.  the kind of tears that remind you how much you love someone and how much you miss them.  for me, this time, this was about my children.  it’s impossible to really explain what this missing feels like.  i can say it is wrapped up in the act of breathing, in every aspect of living a day, in the darkening of light.

the pandemic has brought exponential pain to people in our world.  suffering its disease, we worry about those who have been diagnosed, we grieve those who have succumbed to its ugliness, we wrangle with the illogical, implausible, grossly inadequate response of our land.  we are floored at those who are picking fights over this monster that is on a path of destruction which has unfathomable fallout.  we cannot understand the division and the planting of flags-of-the-ridiculous when peoples’ very health and lives are at stake; what truly matters more than that? it’s insanity: how can so many people be so lost? we try to sustain good attitudes and do the right thing.  we try to protect each other.  we try to avoid being a reason that this pandemic is spreading.  and we miss everyone we love in the process.

we wonder:  when?  when will “last” be now?  when will we see you?

and we hope, with great desperation, that it is not a long while.

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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LAST I SAW YOU ©️ 1997, 1999 & 2000 kerri sherwood


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“a little normal would be nice.” [merely-a-thought monday]

normal with frame

normal is up for grabs.

in the middle of my meltdown yesterday, i’m sure i uttered, “i just want normal.”

but normal is subjective now.

there is a deep schism between the normal of the of-course-i’ll-wear-a-mask-maskers and the it’s-against-my-constitutional-rights-to-make-me-wear-a-mask-non-maskers.  a deep schism between the sides of the aisle.  a deep schism over this global pandemic, the economy, healthcare, equality, blatant racism.  a deep schism over confederate monuments.  a deep schism over basic respect.  a deep schism over truth.

a chasm of difference.  it makes me wonder what, if anything, can bridge it, what can create a common story, what can make us a populace that cares about each other?

scrolling through facebook is depressing.  there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country doing normal stuff:  eating at restaurants, having drinks at bars, gathering with friends, going on trips, boating, fishing, at the beach or the pool, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.

driving downtown is depressing.  there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country just-down-the-road doing normal stuff:  eating inside and outside at captain mike’s, gathering at eichelmann beach, hanging out at the lakefront, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.

trying to plan anything is depressing.  we need to go to see david’s parents.  i desperately need to see My Girl and My Boy.  there are so many details to keep each other safe.  there’s nothing normal.  it’s freaking confusing.  we plot the trip west, a roadtrip, thinking about 19 hours across the middle of the country, thinking about arriving at my at-risk-in-laws’ house, having not picked up any additional possibility of passing covid-19 to them.  where do we stop safely?  where do we get gas?  where do we use restrooms?  how can we be sure they will not be recipients of anything we bring along?  we care.

and yet, there is the rest of the country – the ones screaming at city hall meetings, the ones seeking judgement against requiring masks-for-safety, the ones who throw pointed word-daggers arguing against the danger of this pandemic, the ones arguing for other causes of death, the ones voting out all precautions for the state of wisconsin, the ones who stand in front of the entire country and arrogantly (and without a grain of truth) state, “we’ve flattened the curve!”  how is it that the leadership of this country gets away with this?  no wonder half of the country wears no mask, states and does whatever they damn well please. WHAT pandemic?

it’s depressing.  missing the moments that make up life – chances to easily be with family, friends.  chances to have a bite out without worrying about aerosols.  chances to sing with others, to sing for others.  chances to go to concerts and plays.  chances to gather around a kitchen table or the island at your best friends’.  chances to stop and hug your decades-long neighbor.  chances to hold your grown-up children and kiss them and make them roll their eyes.  happy hour with friends crowded onto a deck.  parties in the backyard.  normal stuff.

it was on a marquee outside a store, “a little normal would be nice.”

i couldn’t agree more.

i told tom i had a really hard day yesterday.  he said, “you have to grieve.”

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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with to without. [k.s. friday]

in a split second

it was but a mere second – nigh unto 4:30 in the morning – when my sweet poppo was on this planet and then wasn’t.

i said a wee-hours-goodnight to him, propped in a hospital bed at home in their house.  he whispered back to me.  i tried desperately to memorize his face, the love in his eyes.

and before the birds woke up in the morning, that morning eight years ago yesterday, i went from with to without.

three years later, we left my sweet momma sitting on the edge of her assisted-living-bed, grasping onto the blue-notebook-that-documented-their-moments-in-europe, her expression dancing with excitement, waving to us.  i tried desperately to memorize her face, the love in her eyes.

it wasn’t but a couple weeks later, on the road back again to florida, around the time the sun is highest in the sky, i went from with to without.

suddenly, i was orphaned.  suddenly i was without the two people who gave me life.  suddenly i was without the two people who could answer any question i had about my growing up.  suddenly – in a split second – nothing was the same.

100,000 families.  in the past few months, due to the global pandemic decimating our country, 100,000 families have desperately tried to memorize a loved one’s face.  they have held tightly to the memory of love shining in their beloved’s eyes.  they have moved from one split second into the next.  with to without.

and last night, on the solemn occasion of this number passing from 99,999 to over 100,000 – that one second – one person- one life – one with to without – i expected, foolishly, that something would change.  that there would be gut-wrenching acknowledgement.  that there would be communal nation-wide mourning led by the person in the highest seat in the land.  that there would be kind, generous, thoughtful words spoken, grief-filled heart-soaked empathy for all that the withs-to-withouts have gone through.

and nothing.

we need remember.  all of it.  these are our split seconds.

”…in a split second, our lives can turn around…”

they have.  they continue to.

this is real.

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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IN A SPLIT SECOND from AS SURE AS THE SUN ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood


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hear you whisper. [k.s. friday]

hear you whisper song box

missing comes in many shapes and sizes.  colors too.  i’m now at that age that i hear this song in the context of too many people i know who have lost loved ones.  whether their beloved has moved on to a different dimension or a different life, it leaves behind someone grieving.  “you’re so here though you’re not here.” 

i occasionally browse through facebook and i am struck by the number of acquaintances or friends or family members who are remembering a loved one, this group of people unknown maybe to each other but bonded invisibly by a mutual intense emotion.  my heart responds to their pain, their determination to keep going, their day-by-day stepping back into the world.  it’s indeed a “crazy maze” that they are navigating, that i have navigated as well, that we each navigate at some point in time.

although moving on to a different life presents other extraordinary challenges to live through, losing someone to dying often leaves so many unspoken words, so much un-lived living-together.  “i hear you whisper, hear you cry, hear you call my name at night, over many miles and many distant skies.  i hear you whisper, hear you cry, hear you call my name at night, and i believe it’s not goodbye.”  like many of you, i, too, have listened intently to the universe, to the night, waiting to hear, believing that just-on-the-other-side is a whisper, on the wind, wafting its way to me.

purchase the CD AS SURE AS THE SUN or download HEAR YOU WHISPER on iTUNES or CDBaby

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HEAR YOU WHISPER from AS SURE AS THE SUN ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood


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you’re the wind. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

mom and dad youre the wind

it would be 75 today.  75 years since the day my sweet momma and poppo married.  and so, i am sharing two videos here today – the first is a dedication and the other is my song YOU’RE THE WIND.  because i know you are.  the wind.  to each other and to each of us here on earth who miss and love you.  always.

on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH3ZNJjYOpQ&t=2s

on youtube: https://youtu.be/jt7Fk0p2jgs

for other songs and music, visit iTUNES or www.kerrisherwood.com

YOU’RE THE WIND ©️ 2005 kerri sherwood