13. DONE

(today's word is DONE)

I steered my car up Cindy’s steep driveway and stopped it at the top, close to the garage.  Through the chilly snowy air I carried a pot of soup to the garage door keypad , balanced the pot with my left hand while the right entered the code, and I waited in the cold while the garage door rose.  I tapped on the kitchen door and  paused for a response. When no one answered I opened the door, as I often do, softly calling Hello as I entered.  I stepped through the quiet to the stovetop and set down the soup.  As I turned to leave a faint voice called, “I’m here.”

Moving toward the family room I found Cindy sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up under her, her head bent toward her heart.  The flicker of the fire in the fireplace reflected off the smooth skin of her hairless head.

“You ok?”  I whispered, some force restraining me from speaking too loudly or too much.  When she raised her head I could see trails of tears on her slender neck, and her eyes were red and brimming.  I sat in the soft brown easy chair before her and handed her a tissue.  We just sat.  Wordless. Then she whispered, “I think my body is done.”

“And by done you mean…” I responded, though I knew full well what she meant.  I knew she needed to say it.  Out loud. My heart throbbed at the realization that the words came out, that her reluctant walk to the gate was nearing its end, and none of us could stop the holy hinges of heaven from swinging that gate open for her.

In typical Cindy fashion, she reassured me.  “I’m fine with it.  Really, I am.  And I am so grateful.  But I just have a feeling that it’s time to let my body do what it yearns to do, and my spirit should stop fighting it.”

We have known Cindy a long time, long enough to understand that she has what some people call a sixth sense.  Because we are confident in the source of her premonitions, we recognize it as the Holy Ghost working through her.  If Cindy said she didn’t have a good feeling about something, trust me, we didn’t do it.  I remember her standing at my doorstep a decade ago, frustrated and emotional because she could not shake the feeling that she should not go on the humanitarian trip they had planned, a trip to Guatemala where their son Jason had served his mission.  My sister Libby and daughter Sarah were to accompany Reed and Cindy and Jason. 

“What’s bothering you about it? I asked her, and she replied that she had absolutely no logical reason to not want to go.  She just had a feeling.  And so, faithful as she was, she cancelled.  And the next day Reed had a heart attack and bypass surgery.  He survived, no doubt because he was in the hands of good neighbors and friends who were doctors who got him to surgery immediately.  Had they been in Guatemala, or on a plane to Guatemala…well, you know what I mean.  I’ve learned not to question Cindy’s promptings.

So there, before the warmth of her fire, she cupped her hand to her heart and surrendered.  In the most noble, courageous retreat I can comprehend, she allowed herself to turn from the battle and face her Lord with dignity and full consent.  We wept together.

“I worry about Reed.  I worry about my kids. “  The tears wove down her sallow cheeks, around her chin, and fell onto her blouse.  “And… she drew a breath, ending in a muffled sob…”I’m afraid my grandkids won’t remember me. “

There were no words to adequately comfort her.

“I am not really afraid to die.  I’m really ok.  But I am afraid to leave Reed, and the kids, and my littles.”  The fear, for people of faith like Cindy, is not the future  The fear is the separation. It’s a heightened emotion familiar to all scouts and Beehive girls that first time they go to a weeklong camp.  There is confidence in the fact that there will be a reunion, and that the adventure will be dynamic and exciting.  But the loss of the familiar faces of those we love is frightening.

I searched the air for the right words for her, the true and softest words to say to her, but I cannot recall what I said.  I don’t even recall how the sacred moment ended.  I try to keep it still, tucked away under my left shoulder, the same place I cradle my grandbabies.

Not long after, when her skin became yellow and her body swollen, she felt a profound need to visit her family in Arizona.  So Reed took time off work and they drove down.  I talked to her on the phone as they were driving back to Utah.  She was lying in the back seat as Reed drove.  I knew it could not be good, if she was not there in the front beside him.  Lib, Sherry, Dave and I went over Sunday evening, when they got home.  Kathy Kay was there, with her magical hands and sacred oils, massaging her swollen feet as Cindy lay on the couch, her profoundly compassionate spirit doing as much good as her hands.  I had brought a blueberry pie.  We cut it and nibbled as we talked.

“Well Cinny,” I said (that’s what we called her, an endearing name that has a story of its own). Well, Cinny, I used your pie crust recipe.  Only I added a tablespoon of vinegar. “ 

She looked over at me and smiled. “Then you didn’t use my recipe.”

And she is right.

Five days later she was gone. 

All the kids and grandkids were there, thankfully, and the passing was divinely orchestrated. We gathered at her bedside the night before, with our guitars and our voices, and we sang her to that gate.  But the holy moment, when she was completely and triumphantly done, was reserved for her husband and four children.

We sifted in and out in the coming days, those who know and love her.  The morning of her passing, while her flesh was still warm but her spirit risen, her three year old granddaughter Chloe took my hand as we walked from the living room to the kitchen.  As we passed by the hallway to GG’s room  (GG for Gramma Gardner)  Chloe stopped and looked.  She pointed and smiled and squealed, “GG!”

Don’t forget, Chloe and Treven, and Stella and Anton, that your GG adores you.  Look for her.  Look toward the things and the people she loved, and continues to love.  Embrace what she embraced, and you will feel her.  Follow her recipe, and since it is an especially wonderful recipe, don’t go fooling with it. Her finest ingredients were compassion, service, devotion, faith, commitment, laughter and love.  The most important ingredient, for sure, was love.  Never leave that part out.

The last words Cinny said to me, when she was really able to talk to me, were these.  I had bent over to kiss her, and she looked up at me, her voice weak and her eyes amber.  “I love you”, I had said, and she whispered back.

“I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”

I hear her whispering them to me now, over and over.  I love you, I love you, I love you.   As if the words could not be repeated enough.  I think she left them to me so I would repeat them to her treasures.

No one I know was more courageous, more gracious, more selfless in her journey. Most people were surprised when she left, because she had appeared to be rallying against all cancer odds.  And indeed, we had been blessed with many more months than we had anticipated.  But the final lap for her was kept for her alone.  Her and her Lord.  And maybe Reed.  Her last figurative steps were strapped with dignity and poise, so much that few knew it was near.

On that unseasonably beautiful winter day less than one month ago, we laid Cindy Gardner’s body in the soil, just east of the spot where our mother lies. Her body is done.  But her spirit…her spirit soars!

4. PERCH

(today's word is PERCH)

Each morning, after I have brushed my teeth and cleansed my skin, I stand at the large window in our bathroom and look out over the woods in the hollow behind our house. Our place sits on a rise, and the view stretches from that private woody spot over the rooftops of houses in our neighborhood, westward past the landscape of earth, and skims the glassy surface of the Great Salt Lake.  On good clear days the Oquirrh Mountains rise up beyond the water and appear to go on and on until the earth curves on the horizon. In an attempt at mindfulness, I pause from the natural tendency to move forward with daily demands.  I make myself breathe deeply, a full bellied inhale, where my chest rises almost painfully toward my chin, followed by a long, slow and purposeful exhale.  The exhale matters as much as the inhale, my body allowing used air to exit completely, making room for fresh air.  I have trained myself to practice this routine daily.  As I breathe I tell myself to let go of yesterday, and to delay the anticipations of today.  I allow my mind to view the trees, the watercolor sky, the water and the distant mountains, imagining myself floating out over all, imagining myself a bird perched on some distant branch of a far off tree, way out there where few human feet have trod. Five breaths.  It only takes five breaths, a small and do-able habit that I have been able to repeat daily.  It’s been rather life changing, this one little habit of mine. Morning mindfulness.

In the early hours of February 26 I stood at my window and inhaled, but the exhale fell in fits against the windowpane.  I pushed the old spent air out, and it splurted in sobs against the cold morning.  The woody bark of the scrub oak trees, finally freed from winter snow, spread lattice-like and barren, unaware of the sorrow on the other side of the glass. Usually, on winter mornings, I will watch as starlings flit in tiny flocks from tree to tree, dancing against the cerulean sky.  But there were no flocks this morning.  Fitting, I thought. I caught myself and requested that I let go of yesterday, but my throbbing heart kept pounding against my lungs.  We would bury our sister, Cindy Gardner, this day.  I told myself that this moment was sacred, that I should cherish it, this time when the air she had breathed was still available to us, where we could inhale and still smell her perfume, and hear the echoes of her voice.  Her presence vibrated in the unseasonal sunlight on that winter morning.  I searched for her, half expecting to see her, somewhere between the woods and the lake. Mourning mindfulness.

At my last breath I watched as one solitary bird flew from the west, straight toward me.  It landed purposefully on the branch of the scrub oak tree closest to my window.  She hopped on the perch and turned to face me, a large red-breasted robin.  Her head bowed, then rose, her steely eyes looking straight into mine, her plump rusty breast puffed out before her.  I stopped my breath, stunned at her presence, surprised that this spring creature would reveal herself so early in the year. “Oh Hello” I whispered, my tears rolling down my cheek and along my neck. The words strangely comforted me, trailing off in a long and calm release. I determined to stand there until she left.  I looked at her the way I look at Dave when I want to send him a message in silence.  I did not hear a voice, nor see anything but an early spring robin, but somehow I felt Cindy’s presence, whether real or remembered. I felt her silently looking at me, calm and whole and at peace with her place.  I saw her free of her cancer ridden body, sensed her satisfaction as she perched there , bobbing in the breeze on the branch of an ancient scrub oak. I heard but did not hear her singing,…all is well…. all is well. 

Inhale.  Exhale.  Time rolled into a ball and hovered like a star, still and twinkling.  I knew, in a flash of a moment, her peace.  And then, just as quickly as she came, she turned her head and flew toward the sun, circling back around as if to say, “I’m ok.  Now get to work!”

I released my last breath, then drew another as I turned. There was work to do.  I had arms that needed to lift and embrace, and songs to sing, and kisses to plant.  I had shoes to tie, and hair to brush, and meals to make and share and she would not have me wallow in my own sadness for too long.  

Cindy continues to come and go, dancing in and out of my consciousness like those flocks of starlings.  But really, she is more an unseasonable presence, a robin in the winter, who comes to perch outside my window when I am still enough to see her. She is peace and calm and comfort, and she is laughter and encouragement.  She understands our tears. But she will not have us weep too long.  That just won’t do.  She will weep with us, and gently nod from her perch, and then she will turn her head to the Son and lift her wings, calling back to us, “Now get to work.”