Remembrance - 9/11/01

I wrote this on September 12th, 2001. It was meant to soothe children when things - big or small - go wrong. The song does NOT address the event that evoked it.  I have no clue how to encompass the hugeness of that loss in a song. It has a melody to go with it.

When the world breaks in two -
now, I don't want to scare you
but skies always blue
are in stories alone -
well, you get out the glue and
you patch things together.
That's what you do 
when you have to move on.

Though your life's rearranged
and your smile may falter,
The stars will still shine in the sky.

With a crack in your heart,
or a scratch on your finger,
toys all in parts
or a friendship gone wrong -
Morning will come and
you'll pull it together.
One step at a time, you'll go on.

When the world breaks in two,
with my love as the glue,
you'll get by.

Authors try to help kids process big events.  Here is a list of books written about the terror strikes on 9/11/2001.

Remember. Look for the helpers, as Mr. Rogers' mother always told him. And whenever you can, be a helper.

Good grief

 

The wind BLEW on Monday.  It reminded me of the picture book (The Wind Blew) by Pat Hutchins. The night before, recycling bins all up and down our street gave up their contents to the howling gales. Cans, plastic lids and newspapers shuffled and tap danced up and down the sidewalks all night long.

On Monday, the sky was bright.  The sun shone. So we, D and I, took Little Blue Bunny to the playground for an ordinary windy day adventure.

UNTIL...I, known as Nana, suddenly felt years younger than I am and tried to dismount the climbing tower via the monkey bars. I landed on my face. For a second, I worried that my glasses had been crunched. No, they were fine. Then, I worried that my nose was going to bleed. No, that didn't happen either. I managed to pick myself up and sniffling, just a little because of the shock, I found that D had not noticed my clumsy fall - not at all. Good grief. I was relieved and at the same time disappointed.  I FELL DOWN.  HARD.  FROM A GREAT (not) HEIGHT!  And it HURT! and no one noticed at all.

I have to admit that I have been feeling ever so slightly sorry for myself ever since. I grieve for a younger self who might have been able to jump from the tower without falling. I miss that woman.  Never all that athletic, she was still able to jump without tumbling. Sigh.

Grief. We delegate that term to major losses - most particularly the death of a loved one. We grieve for large catastrophes - house fires, earthquakes, the loss of a home, even the loss of a job. Yet, every day we lose things, things that we become nostalgic about, things we find ourselves pining for.

D is changing. Every few days, she looks and acts like another child. The words that come from her lips are words of a much older person than I think she is. I find myself missing her four-year-old self, five-year-old D, six-year-old D, at the very same moment that I rejoice in her understanding and skill. Heck, I miss the D of last week.

At 12 years old, I looked out the kitchen window and realized that the hillside I saw would change. (A house sits there now.) My breath caught in my throat when it hit me that I could never return to younger times and younger perceptions.

Even earlier, no older than D is now, I tried to duplicate the magic of a cartoon I saw. I spread a map on the floor and took a hop, a skip and a jump. But no matter how often I did it, no matter which direction I took, the map remained just a map. I never entered the land of talking animals. My best toy friend did not come to life. I ran weeping to my bedroom. I forgot the disappointment the next day. Lesson learned; life resumed.

At 12, the realization was deeper. The grief, though not accompanied by silly tears, was real. It was the beginning of grieving for things that no longer are.

We have so much to anticipate. Why look backwards with regret? We should remember those bright days that we "grieve" for and view them as harbingers of more wonderful days to come.

I am fortunate to have good memories to mourn. I can relive the good times - even the tumbles - until my memory fades.  Good grief. 

Going Underground - Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia

Clayton Byrd just lost his grandfather, a blues musician/"magician".  Clayton's Mama, Ms. Byrd, just lost her father, a man who was never around for her.  Grief is a funny thing.  Ms. Byrd wants to clear her home of Cool Papa's influence.  The Blues were never good to her and her mother.  Clayton wants to hold tight to the best friend he ever had.

When Ms. Byrd takes away Clayton's blues harp, he fights back.  He skips school and heads out for the park where his grandfather and his friends played.  On the subway, he meets beatbox street - or it is train? - performers and is bullied into joining them.  Things only go down, down, down from there.

Clay is lucky to have a father (Mr. Miller) who wants, more than anything, to be present for his son.  Throughout the book, Mr. Miller tries to support his family even though Clay's mother wants ultimate control.

Let me tell you, I cringed at Ms. Byrd's attempts to get Clayton to stop falling asleep in school, or playing his harmonica by using punishments.  Any Mom you know ever do that kind of thing?  This one did.  And that control thing?  GUILTY AS CHARGED!!! 

So, though this book is written for kids, maybe it could be handed to control freak Moms on occasion.

Kids won't get that.  They will feel Ms. Byrd's unfairness.  They will understand that Clayton just can't explain what's going on inside him. 

Clay's adventure gone wrong will appeal to young readers, too.  So many of us got to "act out" and "break free" just by reading about others who could.

Here is another book about grieving, loss, and recovery from that pain.  The world is never the same again.  It's also a coming of age-ish story.  Good thing Clay has parents who love him and can change just a little when it's important.

Jellyfish in the Sun

It's happening again!  Books with similar themes end up on my list right next to each other.

The Thing about Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin is narrated by Suzy who can't believe that her oldest friend could just drown.  "These things happen" is NOT an acceptable explanation.  Suzy becomes convinced that a rare jellyfish is responsible for Franny's death. 

Suzy is a fact person who inundates the reader with math and facts about jellyfish and the people who study them.  But this book also chronicles the all too frequent trauma that occurs when one person outgrows another - as Franny outgrows Suzy by the end of 6th grade.  This relationship break makes Franny's death so much harder for Suzy to accept. 

Her search for someone who can understand the horror of jellyfish - as she sees it - leads Suzy to start out on a dangerous and possibly illegal journey.

Her parents, her older brother and an unexpected friend help Suzy to move into a life without Franny.

Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff    Ok.   In fifth grade, Trent killed someone during an ice hockey game.  Total accident.   Trent's parents and older and younger brother seem to think Trent should move on.  Trent's Dad, especially, has little patience for Trent's surly attitude.  Dad's new wife is expecting their first child any time now.  So, it was an accident. Get over it already.  (Not actual words from the book.)

Trent reacts to the guilt and the anxiety he feels by making sure he gets into trouble at school, and with his Dad.  He even refuses to enter into prank wars with his little brother.

Luckily, Fallon, a girl at school with a noticeable facial scar befriends Trent after she peeks into his Book of Thoughts and sees the pictures he draws there - pictures of what the boy he killed might be doing at that very moment.  Fallon wants Trent to draw a picture for her.

How Trent manages to make things worse and then how he manages to make them better - with the help of sympathetic outsiders - makes an engrossing and emotional read.

These books have totally different styles, despite their similarities - see below.  Jellyfish is awash with facts and musings on facts - the type of book that will lend itself to STEM curricula.  But there is an immediacy to Suzy's pain, even as she carefully plans her science report and her journey,  and her need to find explanations for her friend's death.

Sun, on the other hand, concentrates on Trent's emotional struggles.  Trent speaks in a matter-of-fact voice, referring to the accident almost casually.  And all the time he is seething and unable to see that he is till a worthwhile human being.  

Here is a list of other similarities:
New friends:  Both of the new frends have problems of their own that they seem to have overcome. 
Older brothers: Aaron - yeah, both of them.
Nice teachers:  Suzy likes her science teacher right away.  Trent hates everyone but his homeroom teacher really is pretty old.

Read 'em both, except you might want to read other books in between.  OK?

Sunday sadness and peapods

I don't really know why I haven't blogged lately.  The garden, housework, writing, all of that has suffered, too.  It's as if anything I wasn't being "paid" to do just wasn't important enough.  Doldrums?

Today, I stayed home from Meeting.  Allergies gave me a headache and I had a restless night coughing and blowing my nose.  I wanted to go to Barnes and Noble with Hub and look at books. 

I should have gone to Meeting.  On Friday, a family there suffered an enormous tragedy - something so sad, I don't want to share it here.  An email went out last night to ask us all to come to Meeting to hold that family in the Light.  I didn't open my email until after Meeting.

Not my peas, but pretty darn close!

The tragedy has put my "doldrums" and my aches and pains in perspective.  What right have I to put off chores that must be done?  How did I become so "special"?  So I cleaned today and dug in my weed and rabbit infested garden.  Miracles of miracles!  I even have peas.  Rabbits and too much rain cannot keep seeds from sprouting.

And I hold all those who grieve in the Light.   I wish them peace and hope.