More Than One Kind of Eclipse

Totality.  It really is a misnomer.  Some things are so powerful that even when they totally cover an object, the object can not be obscured.  It can be changed and altered, but it can not be obliterated. 

Totality is something that can not be explained unless you experience it.  Childbirth, seeing the 
Grand Canyon,  being with someone when they die, seeing a bird hatch from an egg, watching whales spout in the ocean, hearing a symphony play a favorite piece of music, walking through a museum and happening upon a favorite painting. 
Words are insufficient.  

But once you do have the experience, you are forever changed. 

We went to see the Total Eclipse.  The Total Experience is life changing.  During the hour and a half dozens of things become apparent.  

1. It takes a while to develop but seems to recede more quickly.  

2.  While the light remains eerie, it is still there.  It doesn't take much to light up the world.  Even a tiny bit is impressive.

3. The sun actually heats the earth efficiently.  Even when it is half-way gone, it becomes much cooler, quickly.

4. During Totality, it is possible to see the edges of the shadow of the moon.  You feel like you are under a bowl of darkness with dusk around you. 
5. Even at the darkest moments many of your friends provide much-needed support and light. 
6. Seeing the stars midday reminds you of what is in plain sight, if only you are in the right place to see them. 

7.  The Corona is much more than a flash of light. It is magical, powerful and the memory won't ever leave you. 

Sort of like having a Cancer Kid.  Parents can't ever explain what it is like. It never goes away. You live in uncertain darkness, not knowing if it will return.  The world looks the same, but there is a chill in the air. 

You are trapped under a bowl with no way to reach the edges and enter the light.  Even when Cancer "left" for good.  Despite how close you are to reaching the edge, they keep moving it.  The worry and long-term side-effects haunt your dreams and your waking moments.  There is no way to ever believe the monster will not return.  It is hiding ready to spring back if only we knew where to look and how to look for it.  

Both are an experience that changes your life forever.  

This is my Cancer Kid taking photos of Totality.  She had already been changed forever.  This was just one more thing and a great thing. 

Vigils....

We wait, we wonder, we watch, we fiddle, we pace, we glance over our shoulders, we wait some more.   We check our phones, we check our Facebook, we look for new e-mails, we look for new text messages, we look at Twitter.  Somewhere deep in our souls, we know what we are waiting for, and we don't want it to happen, but we can't stop it.  We can't change it.  We just wait.  

Two weeks ago Allistaire left Seattle Children's Hospital for the last time. Sometime early this morning she took her last breath.  True to Allistaire's sense of self, she fought for those last few breaths. 

Allistaire was not ready to go.
Sten wasn't ready for her to leave.
Jai never imagined she would have to leave so soon.  
Solve was certainly not wanting to lose her baby sister.

I don't even know what to say. So I will do the next best thing.  

The Allistaire I knew and came to love believed in magic..... She found it in her short life. 

The vigil has ended. 

  

Allistaire

Sad:  Me

I have been looking for the words to express the feeling when you know someone you have buried deep in the special places in your heart is not going to remain in the physical world.  To learn a six-year-old girl, one you have grown to love is dying, make me Sad.  

Sad. A simple three letter word.  A word with long meaning within our lexicon but still,  only a word.

So I look for meaning. 

Oxford English Dictionary Etiology of Sad

Old English sæd 'sated, weary', also 'weighty, dense', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zatand German satt, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin satis 'enough'. The original meaning was replaced in Middle English by the senses 'steadfast, firm' and 'serious, sober', and later 'sorrowful'.

The original meaning of sad in Old English was ‘having no more appetite, weary’. The word comes from the same root as Latin satis ‘enough’, the source of satiated, satisfactory, and satisfy (all LME), and the idea was similar to our expression fed up (early 20th century)—of being unhappy through being too ‘full’ of something. The word then developed through ‘firm, constant’ and ‘dignified, sober’ to our modern sense of ‘unhappy’ in the medieval period. In the 1990s ‘You're so sad!’ became the refrain of every teenager in the land, often to their parents. This use, meaning ‘pathetically inadequate or, was not completely new, and had been around since the 1930s.



Shakespear:

sad (adj.) 1 serious, grave, solemn

sad (adj.) 3 downcast, distressed, mournful, gloomy

seriously, gravely, solemnly

“how sad and bad and mad it was - but then, how it was sweet” 

Robert Browning

Sometimes it is okay to sit with the sad.  The tears that come, the moments of pressure on your chest so heavy it inhibits your breathing, the need to eat something chocolate.  

I will take a deep breath.  I will light another candle. I will try to help in some concrete way.  

It is so hard when it is one of our own.  
Another Deep Breath. 


Every Moment of Light and Darkness is a Miracle.  Walt Whitman