Happy Halloween

Joe and I have a bit of a tradition when it comes to Halloween - one year on and one year off.  Last year we were definitely on.  This year is much more low key, but we still like to keep it festive.  Here we are as bank robbers, a sack of money, and a handsome teller who didn't stand a chance.

Let me point out a couple things:

1. I am fully aware that Ellie will look back on family photos and wonder why the h*#@

we made her wear a paper bag.  Never a princess or a fairy - every year she is but a cog in the machine that is the Hardie Family Costume.

2. Two kids later and I'm still rocking the leggings for Halloween - I think we can all agree this is a big win.

3. Is there anything cuter than a baby in a mask?

How about a baby in a mask who can....stand up by herself!

Thank you, Ellie for being such a good sport.  You worked that bag!

And thanks for sticking your finger in your nose at just the right moment.

This is family photo album gold.

Happy Halloween everyone!  Let us not forget that last year Halloween marked the beginning of a series of events that caused a major decline in the quality of life at the Hardie household.  Here's hoping that the curse on our house is broken after one year's time.  Muuuahh-haaa-haa-haa

Pulse Check

Ellie contemplates her morning smoothie.

Boy, does she look wrecked.

Remember how my last post was all about finding meaning in the loss, and it wrapped up with a nice sweet statement about a butterfly?  Well, a lot of life has happened since then.  And life can be awfully hard to boil down into a few words for a blog post.  So I'll just go a little stream of consciousness for a while:

The day after the big 6 month milestone, I was an absolute disaster.  Could not stop crying to save my life.  Finally had to break down and ask for help from the sweet women around me.  Women I didn't yet know well enough to let them see all the cracks, to feel comfortable with them seeing me so broken.  But like it or not - I couldn't hold it together anymore.

So they came, they took my children for the day while I slept and cried on the couch with an intensity that rivaled that very first night when my world came tumbling down.  Such a release was just what I needed for so many feelings and anxieties that had built up since moving here.   And then I took a deep breath and thought, "OK - moving on.  Time to get back to normal life."

Had a trip to the city recently.  It was great to see friends - so very wonderful.  And exciting to have so many photo shoots.  But taking a work trip with kids and without a husband is a recipe for disaster.  (as is sleep deprivation, the ill-timed menstrual experience, 7 friends in a 1 bedroom apartment for 9 days, and the observation of what would have been Mom's 43rd birthday)

Well.  When I write it out like that - it's no wonder I was a mess.  I wanted so badly for this trip to fix all of my woes.  Wanted the familiarity of friends and neighborhoods to cure my pain.  Instead I cried on the phone to Joe - like a kid at summer camp.  "I want to come home."  

That need to come home - it's such a recurring theme in my heart.

Wanting to be taken care of.

Wanting to feel safe.

It wasn't until midway through my NYC trip that I realized - Oh, I'm still depressed.  I prefer to talk about my depression in the past tense.  Something I experienced and left behind.  But it's not so.

In the time since my last post I've had multiple trips in and out of this gloom.  I haven't written because I keep waiting for it to be over.  I like to tell a story with a moral.  I like to know the end.  It's difficult to chronicle my life on the blog because it doesn't translate so well into these black and white words.  It's gray right now. Constantly shifting.  I feel as though I don't move along the same linear track as the people around me.  It's a little disconcerting, but I'm learning to accept it.

I'm trying to just be.

Still, my mind is never quiet.  I'm constantly composing in my head.  Searching for the meaning in this experience.  Sometimes words too raw to share here spill onto the pages of my journal.  Sometimes laughter wells up at the sight of my girls.  Sometimes tears follow my happiest thoughts. Everything is poignant these days.

I still have a sense of humor, too - it's just not as funny to other people these days.  Even in my deepest despair however, I think I am hilarious.

There are lots of things I want to write about:
 - the way that this grief has changed me - in ways I don't want to forget or forsake when the fog of sadness is lifted
- that you should never send a depressed girl to Target because all she can commit to is brownie mix and candles
- the flexible and unsteady nature of my faith.  The feeling that this experience completely hollowed out all of the things I had built up to be my belief system.  The way that this stripping process felt so meaningful at first, so full of promise that God would fill me with something better - but now it just feels empty.
- how hard it can be to wait on God
- how freeing it is to love without judgement
- how good it feels to talk kindly to myself (I hope everyone reading this practices a gentle inner dialogue)
- how kind and long-suffering my dear Joe continues to be
- all the books I've started and stopped.  (as much as I believe in the cause, I just can't read about the impending doom of climate change - not right now)
- when am I going to write that post about how to help a grieving friend?  I guess when I figure out how to define that exactly.
- that giving up cooking was the best choice I made for my mental health.  Who knew baked chicken nuggets and green beans from a microwave bag could be so good for you?
- the way it feels so good to give up all those unimportant things.  My list of important things (though it changes daily) is so much shorter than it once was.

Well, I guess I've written it all down now.  Sorry that it's not pretty or coherent or rife with meaning.  But it means something to me.  I think one of the reasons we suffer is so that one day we can occupy a comfortable place for someone else who is suffering.  I'm leaving these words here tonight (against my better judgement to hold the delete key), as a testament to the process I am going through to become that kind of person.  The path is murky and confusing as hell to navigate.  But I think that's where I am - and I haven't given up on the person I could become on the other side of this grief.

Also, please don't send the rescue teams after me.  The house is clean, the kids are clean and fed and snuggled and read to.  I am functioning - just differently than I used to.  Definitely more honestly than I ever have.  It might look like a cry for help, but it's not.  Just a desire to let you see me as I am.

(photographic proof of the well being of my lovies)

I took this photograph on the way home from blueberry picking this summer.  As we drove by these fields of sunflowers, I actually lost my breath.  It was like a dream.  A miracle.  A bit of magic.  How blessed I am to live in this world - to experience such beauty.

Today marks 6 months since Mom's passing.

Yesterday I got weepy in Wal-Mart (why does that place feel so much like home?) It was the laundry aisle that did me in. 

In the evening I gave myself a short cry in bed, followed by a nap while Joe played with the girls.

Today I saw a beautiful butterfly that struggled fiercely in the wind to fly above me for a long moment.  The way it beat its wings, was swept up by the wind, and fluttered back, determined to stay within my gaze - I could have sworn it was her.

When I see something truly beautiful, I sigh with sadness.  It's a shame she can't be here to see this.

Then I wonder vaguely if she can see all this.  If somehow she sees more than I can know.

That thought passes without an answer - just the sense that wondering is enough.

My heart holds so many things.  Sadness and hope and relief and regret and acceptance.  Today, though.  Today I feel wonder and gratitude for my butterfly.

Wren at 9 months

I blinked and it happened.  My sweet little bird is 9 months old!  She does a lot of growing on the sly, you see - not much fanfare for her milestones as they happen.  One day she was a sweet snuggly infant, and suddenly she's a ton of personality shoved into a tiny body, keeping up with all of us like it's no big deal.

It's hard to explain.  She just carves out a place for herself - doesn't need us to do it for her.  These photos say so much about the fireball she is becoming.

The sweet, traditional photo.  Thanks, Wren - this one is frame-worthy.

The worried look.  I'm telling you, she was born with it.

She loves to play peek-a-boo!

And she loves any attention from her sister.

Even if it's harsh fashion advice.

That bow's not really working on your head.

Even if it's just to serve as her pillow.

Especially if she actually let's her play along.

At 9 months old Wren:

- claps and babbles all the time (mama, baba, dada, a wide variety of hissing noises)

- crawls, climbs, and generally tumbles about

- has 8 teeth (holy cow, that's a lot)

- is a bit of a bruiser.  Seriously, the girl can takes serious hits without so much as a whimper

- hates baby food but enjoys the finer delicacies of canned vegetables, beans and cheerios

- chugs formula like a boss

- hulks out every time I put her in the car seat (contortions, hissing, spitting - the works)

- laughs more for Ellie than anyone else

- actually eats books.  Gnaws the spines, shreds the pages - it's barbaric

- is flirting with stranger anxiety (dear Lord, don't let it last)

- crawls up to me for the express purpose of biting

- smiles very easily 

- starts every morning with a sweet hug around the neck (and a good 5 min chew on the crib)

Did you catch the recurring theme here?

 I really think she's part piranha.

Are you sure these blocks are solid wood?

P.S. She has a fabulous physique.

And she loves to bury her face in that pillow.

P.P.S.  5 minutes after our photo shoot she got her hands on one of Ellie's markers.

You got a problem with that?

Sweet Summer Memory

Really, I can almost taste them.  Blueberry picking was one of the highlights of my summer!  Just looking at these photos takes me back to the field on that warm, muggy day.

Ellie's technique was to hold the bucket with one hand, insert blueberries with the other.

Come back, Great Grandma - you know you miss this!

(shameless tactic, I know)

Wren slept like a little angel the whole time (those eyelashes!!)

and woke up super excited for a hay bale photo-op.

And Into the Light

My apologies about the photos.  I wasn't focused on documenting the day as much as I was on being present in it.

Life has been full of firsts since Mom died.  I went to my first support group at the beginning of the month.  It was a strange experience - sitting with these other people who had suffered a loss similar to my own.  Not the same loss, (because no one experiences it in exactly the same way) but there was still an uncomfortable sort of camaraderie.  Not sure it was exactly healing, but it wasn't terrible either.

I'm glad I went though, because it was in this meeting that I learned about the Out of the Darkness benefit walk that was happening in Ithaca just a few days later.  I decided I wanted to do something to honor my mother, to feel like I was helping.  So I signed up to walk.  I put a little note up on Facebook, just in case anyone wanted to donate.

I was shocked by the feedback.  Moved to tears, really.  The outpouring of support from friends was more than I could have ever hoped for.  And I know they wouldn't want me to make a big deal about it, but I'd like to list them here, so I'll forever have a record of how many people showed their love and support in such a tangible way.

Jim Aronson

Rachel Erickson

Bea Ward

Jessica Hernandez

Holly Flanagan

Allison Barnes

Leila McCarrey

Deb Black

Sarah Hawks

Megan Trueblood

Carly Maready

April Dickson

Carrie Todd

Kimberly (and Matt) Teitter

Andrew Marshall

Derrick Turley

Caitlin Jones

And the three anonymous donations which I will attribute to every person I've ever known.

Because you are often surprised by the people who will help you when you need it.

And the people who couldn't donate, but still sent a kind thought in my direction.

I felt those generous wishes as well.

If I had a garden and a butt-load of money, I'd install benches with your names on them.  That is how much your kindness and generosity mean to me.  Thank you, thank you - from the bottom of my heart.

So the day came for my first suicide prevention walk - and I was a bit of a mess.  As soon as we got there I broke into tears.  I cried because I didn't want to have to be there, honoring someone I hadn't wanted to lose.  We were given colored beads according to the reason we were there.  Gold if you had lost a parent, red for those who lost a spouse, white for the mourning parents, and blue for those who were there to raise awareness and make a change.  I cried when they read the names of all the loved ones we were there to remember.  Far too many names.  Cried to see their photographs on the memory quilts.  Smiling faces with troubled, weary eyes.  The first part of that morning was so very hard.

Then, we walked.

There is something quite healing about the walk itself.  Feeling the fresh air and the wind on my face.  Spending time outside with my family, moving in a direction, allowing my grief to subside as I focused on the beating of my own heart and rejoiced that we are all still here together.

During the walk I told Joe that sometimes I feel like I don't fit in this group of survivors of suicide loss.  Because unlike the sudden and surprising act that took so many of their loved ones - the way she left was much slower in my mind.  Almost an eventuality at the end of her steady, years-long decline.  We discussed that to really honor her memory, I'd like to do some meaningful work in the field of addiction.  For it was a combination of addiction and depression that plagued my mother for so many years, that eventually led to her premature passing.

We talked about planting a tree, about making final arrangements for a headstone, about how we could continue to honor her as the years pass, about how important it is for those of us still here to feel we have a connection to those on the other side.  She is fine, I know.  It's the rest of us I feel for.

After the walk, everyone's spirits were brightened.  We had hot dogs and listened to talks by the people who sit on the other end of that phone line - people who give their time because they really do care.  That was a strong theme of the day.  That people care, and there is always somewhere you can turn to find a listening ear and an understanding heart.  Over three hundred of us walked that day, and together we raised more than $13,000 for research, for outreach programs, for the hope that the future can be brighter than the past.  What a day!  It was hard and it was beautiful.  And it felt so good to do something.

Getting Our Feet Wet

Just here to check in with everyone. Yes we made it to Ithaca, and it is the place of our dreams!  There hasn't been time for blogging because we are too busy soaking in everything this town has to offer. We've visited the farmer's market, local waterfalls, botanical gardens, free music in the center of town, and just today we went blueberry picking.

Don't worry - there's a whole post lined up about that.

I wanted to let you know all know that we are busy settling in and we're all happy and excited for our new adventure. The walls in our apartment have a new coat of paint, and I even planted my own little balcony garden. Really, life is full of the most remarkable beauties. I feel blessed to see them each day.

Wren has been soaking up the time with her great-grandma.

I've been wearing the friendship bracelet Holly sent me, 

to remind myself that good friends can be found anywhere.

Look at my little beans! I am so proud of them.

And now a quick question for my photographer friends out there: The last two posts have featured photos from my new camera (hooray for upgrading!) and the file sizes are so big that when I size them down for the blog they seem hyper-sharpened.  They look digi-sharpened.  I like a bit of a softer look - or at least I'd like to still have a reason to use unsharp mask now and then.  Do you guys notice this?  Have you had any similar experiences?  What is your advice?

I'll be back soon to check in.  Meanwhile - come visit me!  I promise you'll love it here.

Saying Goodbye

This post has been running through my head for days now, but I'm not sure how to say it.  I'm not sure I can condense it down enough so that anyone would be interested in reading.

How do I say goodbye to this place?

Well, first let's start with why.  I had plans to make an official announcement on my blog months ago, complete with the film images I shot of us apple picking upstate last fall.  But the roll of film is still undeveloped (go figure).  So news spread a bit at a time and now a lot of you already know, but I'm still going to brag about it here.

This guy...

(always looking for an excuse to post a handsome photo of him)

...was accepted to Cornell University!

Not just accepted, but offered an amazing fellowship as well.  I am so very proud of him.  I was proud of him for the job he landed that brought us here, and now I am proud again for his achievements, his drive, and his overall amazing-ness.  But this move - it is very hard to make.

I will miss New York City more than I thought I would.  It's only been two years, but already this place feels like home in so many ways.  I'll miss our neighborhood - the sweet Jewish couples on either side of us, even the somber rabbi that Ellie called Santa a few months ago.  I'll miss the woman down the hall with the beautiful sleeve of tattoos and her charming curly-headed daughter.  I'll miss Bennett playground with the helicopter parents that have become so familiar.  The old ladies sunning in the park who bless my children as we walk by.  On a bright, breezy day there is no place better to walk than our little neighborhood. I'll miss the cabbies on 187th and the smell of laundry on the street.

Of course there are lots of smells and sights I will not miss when we leave here, but why spoil a good post by mentioning them? (I'll just remind myself of those things when I'm buried in snow upstate)

I plan on posting a list of my NYC favorites, but it's not the museums or parks or anything else that has made living here completely unforgettable.  It is the people. They are what we will miss the most.  What is it about this city that attracts the most vibrant, interesting people in the world?  How were we lucky enough to know so many phenomenal human beings in our short stay here?

Ellie even found love in NYC.

Oh Bea.

There are lots of photos of her here.

An entire post could be devoted to how much this woman means to me.

But I know she hates sentimental goodbyes.

So we'll just leave it at this:

My girls sure love her.  And so do I.

Our friends here have been like family in so many ways.  I love each of them and we have all shared so much in these brief two years.  They have been companions in adventure and helping hands in times of need.  There are far too many stories to recount here.  So much laughter, a fair amount of tears; hugs and meals and advice passed across the mother's lounge.  The give and take of everyday life that makes a friendship well worn and comfortable - how readily I found that here.

I think it's hard to imagine leaving because I feel that here is where I really began to grow into myself. 

I remember standing at the top of the subway stairs when we first arrived here, completely lost as to how I should get myself and my baby down to the platform.  Now I lift the stroller without hesitation and feel the strength of my arms and the determination in my gut.  I am more sure-footed than I was two years ago.  More comfortable in my own skin.  More open to experiencing all that life has to offer.  NYC has taught me that I have the strength to do it alone, but also that it's a small miracle to rely on the kindness of strangers and passers-by.  It's here that I worked up the gumption to birth my baby at home, to chase a dream, to wear jeans that taper at the ankle.  So much LIFE has happened here and I will take it with me.  I'll pack it away within my heart and take the pulse of the city along as I go.  Turning toward the next adventure, I feel so grateful for everything this place has taught me. 

My home is wherever these people are.  And now that we've made it in NYC, I can't wait to see how we'll make it home, wherever we are.