The Fourth Full Moon Has Passed: The Sturgeon Moon

The fourth full moon has passed since Dad died beneath the Flower Moon on May 1 and considering it has only been a week since the Sturgeon Moon, it feels as though an entire season has passed in those few days. The semester has officially begun, but before that came faculty development week, too many meetings, and all the frantic preparation that marks the end of summer whether you are ready for it or not. And then, in the middle of all of that, there was the moon. On Thursday night, I got up around 12:12 to see the lunar eclipse. I stood outside looking up, sleepy but determined not to miss it, and it was beautiful and poignant. Four full moons ago, I began paying attention to the moon because Dad died beneath one. Now I find myself marking time by it, measuring the distance between then and now in moons instead of weeks.

The next evening, I gave a historic tour beneath the Sturgeon Moon at Hollywood Cemetery. It was a big crowd, but a wonderful one. They were friendly, kind, and incredibly helpful. There is something strange and lovely about walking through a cemetery beneath a full moon, telling the stories of people who have been gone for decades or centuries while carrying the absence of someone who has only recently gone. Then, on Saturday, my friend Miako took perhaps the biggest risk of the weekend by agreeing to go with me to the James River to try Stand-Up Paddleboarding. There are several things you should know about this decision. First, I have pretty terrible balance. I have Ménière’s disease, and it is an ongoing joke that I walk into walls because, well, I pretty much do. Second, I hadn't put on a swimsuit in two decades and actually had to buy one specifically for this adventure. Third, my wobbly legs were giving me some fairly reliable information that standing upright on a floating board in the middle of the James River might not be where my particular talents lie. Naturally, I tried anyway.

inspiration illustration

I got a little brazen and attempted to stand before I was ready, and into the James I went. I had not planned on swimming with the sturgeon as part of this particular full-moon adventure, but there I was. And no lie: there was an enormous splash right beside us. Sturgeon live in the James, so naturally we decided it had to be one. I choose to believe this. Getting back onto the paddleboard became an adventure of its own. Miako paddled us closer to shore so I could get some footing in the shallower water, and somewhere in the process I lost my hat and my sunglasses, but wow, did we laugh. Because apparently falling into the James wasn't enough, being on the water also made me completely seasick. I am not the best representative for Pisces. Eventually, I accepted my fate and converted Stand-Up Paddleboarding into Sit-Down Paddleboarding while Miako actually managed to stand. Somewhere between falling in, losing my belongings, getting seasick, laughing until it hurt, and sitting on that board on the James, I realized that all of it was part of the adventure. This is what acknowledging the full moon has become for me. It isn't really about accomplishing something, and it isn't even entirely about the moon. It is about interrupting the ordinary march of days long enough to notice that another month has passed without Dad. Instead of letting that passage happen unnoticed, I do something that reminds me I am still here. And, as Miako said, the goal was getting together and getting in the water; we accomplished just by participating. 

After SUP, we ate lunch at the marina. I ordered a grilled cheese and some absolutely amazing hush puppies with berry butter. I'm basically a child. Apparently my version of conquering the river is falling off a paddleboard, losing my hat and sunglasses, getting seasick, and then celebrating with grilled cheese. But those hush puppies with berry butter were amazing, and sitting there with Miako after everything we'd just done, laughing about the ridiculousness of it all, felt like part of the full-moon ritual, too. Maybe acknowledging another month without Dad doesn't always have to be solemn. Maybe sometimes it gets to taste like berry butter.

Then the semester began, and the moon disappeared back into the background of my life. I've had a stress-induced eye twitch for the last few days, and I keep going to my family home to take out trash and recycling while my Babushka works her butt off clearing out that place. I'm angry and I'm sad. For a while, I wasn't really crying, but for the last few days, I have been. I'm exhausted almost all the time, and work is stressful. Higher education is changing, and "academic transformation" sounds clinical until you remember that it means real people may lose their jobs. Things I have spent years building and believing in suddenly feel uncertain. My fella keeps reminding me of Cookie Monster's philosophy: "Cookie happened." That's probably more of a paraphrase than an actual Cookie Monster quotation, but I understand what he means. Cookie happened. I got to teach amazing literature. I got to sit in small groups and have conversations that mattered. I got to live and breathe in the humanities. Those things happened, and whatever comes next cannot undo them.

And I got to have a Dad who was pretty darn amazing. That happened, too. I got an entire lifetime of being his daughter. I got childhood and adulthood and all the ordinary days in between. I got stories and jokes and frustrations and memories. I got a father worth grieving, and now I get to clean up the mess… literally, in many cases. There are trash bags and recycling bins and belongings that have to be sorted. There are decisions about what stays and what goes. There are objects that meant something once and objects whose meaning has disappeared with the people who knew it. There is an entire physical life that somehow has to be reduced, distributed, recycled, donated, saved, or thrown away. I'm trying to do that with grace. Some days I probably do and some days I probably don't, but maybe grace doesn't require doing this beautifully. Maybe it just means continuing to show up.

The next full moon is the Harvest Moon. I have another cemetery tour planned, another volunteer gig beneath another full moon, but this time I don't have a physical adventure waiting for me. No sound bath. No bicycle. No paddleboard. No planned plunge into a river. And I think that may be right because harvest is different. For the last four moons, I have been going outward: walking, riding, paddling, searching, trying something new. But harvest is about gathering. It is about taking stock of what grew, what survived, what can be carried forward, and what has reached the end of its season. Maybe this moon doesn't need an adventure. Maybe it needs a basket. I recently bought a huge old basket, and I've decided to fill it with papier-mâché apples made from old newspapers that come from my folks’ house. There is something about that idea that feels right for where I am now: taking what is old, what has already been read and used and might otherwise be discarded, and turning it into something that symbolizes harvest. After months of trying to mark grief by doing something new, perhaps the Harvest Moon is asking me to look at what I already have.

I have a few plans.

The Third Full Moon Has Passed: The Buck Moon

The third full moon has passed since Dad died beneath the Flower Moon on May 1. I wasn't sure when I began marking time by the full moons that it would feel cathartic, but it has. I don't look forward to these full moons. In fact, as they approach, I find myself becoming more anxious and emotional. But having something that encourages me to move through my grief, both physically and symbolically, has helped. Instead of letting another month simply disappear into paperwork, probate, and the endless work of clearing out a house, the full moon gives me a reason to pause, go somewhere, and remember Dad in a way that feels intentional. This month's moon was the Buck Moon, and after the heaviness of the last few months, I wanted to do something fun that reminded me of him.

Dad and I both had fond memories of our family vacations from when I was growing up, and some of my favorite childhood memories are of riding bikes together while we were on vacation. I hadn't ridden a bike in more than twenty years, so deciding to join the Full Moon Bike Ride in Cape Charles seemed wonderfully symbolic, completely ridiculous, and scary. If something is scary, you should probably do it, right? 

I rented bikes from Make Fast Cycles, and I ended up changing the reservation several times after it became clear that Babushka wasn't going to be able to ride with me. JD could not have been more patient. He rewrote the rental agreement, changed the drop-off location, and walked me through everything without ever making me feel like I was creating extra work for him. Acts of kindness like this will stay with me, especially during seasons when even small accommodations can make an overwhelming day feel manageable. By the start, community riders had gathered for a fun evening ride dressed in colorful clothes, flashing lights, and even a tutu. My ride approach was much more serious. First, I didn’t want to fall because now falling means bruises that won’t heal for months and possibly a broken bone or two. Second, I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I’m not sure why I even care about that. And lastly, I didn’t want to weep. It would not only make riding a bike hard, but I didn’t want to change anyone’s mood.  My tears are emotional releases, not that I am simply sad. It’s complicated and I need to cry sometimes.

My bike was an e-bike, another first for me. I was so intimidated by the idea that I barely used any of its electric features. I spent most of the evening gripping the handlebars far tighter than necessary, convinced that one wrong button would send me flying down the streets of Cape Charles. It wasn't until nearly the end of the five-mile ride that I finally gathered enough courage to try the pedal assist. After all that worrying, I discovered it simply made the ride easier. I could have laughed at myself because it felt like a lesson I probably should have already known. Sometimes we carry more than we need because we're afraid of the very thing designed to help us.

The ride began at the LOVE sign on Bay Avenue, where families, friends, and cyclists gathered as the Buck Moon rose over Cape Charles. There was something comforting about moving together beneath the moonlight. I kept thinking about riding bikes with Dad when I was a little girl and how naturally those memories returned the moment I started pedaling. 

I was so focused on staying upright that I hardly noticed anything around me at first. Then, as we turned onto one of the roads, someone called out, "Hey, check out the moon!" I looked up and there it was, hanging low over Cape Charles. It was enormous and absolutely stunning. At that point, the ride got a bit easier (emotionally! I had forgotten that my butt would hurt from the bike seat.) 

After the ride, Babushka and I walked out onto the pier together. It was a breezy Eastern Shore nights where the wind keeps you cool, and the sound of the waves crashing against the large rocks below was oddly comforting. There were many families our fishing together. We stood there for a while, watching the Buck Moon over the water before heading back.

We stayed at Fisherman at Cape Charles Tiny Livin', and I cannot say enough good things about Eric and Sylvia Hawkins. We arrived early enough to meet Eric while Sylvia was outside painting a beautiful grapevine mural that she continued working on throughout the day. Their tiny home community reflects exactly who they are. They spent years living the tiny lifestyle themselves before creating these restored homes, and every detail shows the care they have put into the property. There are games scattered throughout the grounds, including darts and bean bag toss, what everyone now calls cornhole, and a huge cauldron-shaped fire pit that immediately caught our attention. By the end of our short stay, it felt as though we had been welcomed by friends rather than simply checking into a place to spend the night.

After checking in and before the moonlit ride, I had made an appointment at Moonrise Jewelry. We actually arrived almost an hour early because, as usual, I was worried about getting there on time. They were incredibly accommodating and invited us right in rather than making us wait. I had been thinking about this bracelet for days and knew exactly what I wanted. I designed a permanent bracelet around the twelve full moons that will mark this first year after Dad's death. The bracelet begins with three tiny sequin links that reminded me of miniature moons, representing the Flower Moon, the Strawberry Moon, and now the Buck Moon. A single black crystal separates those first three months from the nine moons still ahead. The remaining nine moons are attached to what had once been Babushka's anklet chain, allowing something she once wore to become part of something entirely new.

There was enough of the anklet remaining that we made matching bracelets to represent what has become our shared journey over these past three months. I truly cannot imagine navigating Dad's illness, his passing, the memorial and now the overwhelming task of clearing the house without the Miller family. Every donation run, every trip to the dump, every unexpected crisis has somehow become a little more manageable because they were there....

Since the Strawberry Moon, my days have been spent sorting through a lifetime. Babushka has made trip after trip to churches and charities so that nothing useful is wasted, while I have become a regular customer at the county dump. Just as we began making progress, a hickory tree fell onto the house. Tony came to the rescue with one of Dad's old chainsaws, cutting the tree apart piece by piece. The limbs are still waiting to be hauled away, which may explain the recurring dreams I've been having about baby copperheads hiding in the garage. They feel symbolic of everything that still lurks beneath the surface, but they're also strangely literal. Probate still hangs over me, there is still so much work to do, and my academic life is about to begin again just as this season of caretaking begins to wind down.

Summer break has not really been a break. It has been a season of burial, probate, sorting, cleaning, paperwork, and trying to honor Dad while preparing for life to keep moving. Tomorrow I will be speaking at the Virginia Writers Club Symposium at Randolph-Macon College. On Tuesday, Haunted Virginia Colleges and Universities is officially released, and that evening I'll be collaborating with the Haunts of Richmond on their Creepy Tales on Campus tour. It all feels wonderfully exciting and completely overwhelming at the same time.

One moment before the end of the Strawberry Moon will stay with me forever. At six o'clock on the morning of July 29, I received the notice that Baby Joseph Pajka's gravestone had finally been installed.

Not once did we visit Dad’s father’s grave without Dad telling me about Baby Joseph and stopping to pray for him. Dad was just a little boy when his baby brother died in their home. He was there in the kitchen with their mother when it happened. Their father was already sick with tuberculosis and would die only two years later. There simply wasn't money for a gravestone, and Baby Joseph rested in an unmarked grave for seventy-nine years. His grave is unmarked no longer. Before what would have been Joseph's eightieth birthday, before the Strawberry Moon had passed, that small promise had finally been kept.

The Buck Moon is named for the time of year when young bucks begin growing new antlers. They are not fully formed yet. They are still covered in velvet, still growing into what they will become. I find comfort in that image because grief isn't something we finish. It changes us slowly, month by month, moon by moon. Three full moons have now passed, and while I still find myself crying without warning and missing Dad every single day, I can also see that something is quietly growing alongside the grief. It isn't replacing it. It never will. But perhaps, like those new antlers, it is teaching me that healing and remembering can exist together.

The second full moon has passed: Last night was the Strawberry Moon

The second full moon since Dad passed arrived with heat, the kind of June heat that slows your walk and reminds you humidity makes it hard to breathe. We’re in a drought here in Virginia. We’re in voluntary water restrictions so it makes it hard for me not to tell the young girl at bookstore cafe to not let the water just run for nearly 3 minutes. I don’t want to be that kind of person who fusses but this heat has been testing me. Why when I give you $20.40 for an $8.38 charge, do you not know how to return correct change. $12.10 is not the correct change. When I return the dime, you say “Well, I guess I’m keeping a dime.” So, I say, “No, put it in the till. I’m assuming you don’t have pennies.” Confusion on your face. I think “get off my lawn kids, I don’t always want to pay with a credit card.”

I walked the labyrinth Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg in the middle of the day, when it was hottest. There were no trees to shade me. The sun pressed down and I tried to focus on it, the way it burned my skin, but in a good way. Something grounding. Something real.

I’ve never been good at meditation or yoga. Once, during a class, I fell asleep and woke up to someone snoring. That someone was me. So, when Leigh encouraged me to try the Calm app, Be present. Be in the moment, I tried. My mind is usually racing.



As I followed the winding path, I kept thinking about how much life has happened since the Blue Moon, the first full moon after Dad passed. Probate. Estate paperwork. Three trips to the dump. More than forty-five bags of trash and donations from the family home. Learning to hook up, tow, and even backup a trailer into a driveway, something I didn’t think I would need to know. But fortunately, Babushka’s husband and I go way back and he taught me in the same way that Dad would have—calmly coaching me and letting me take risks. Grief, it turns out, comes with paperwork, muscle aches, and dump runs because my family home is in the country where there has never been anything like trash pick-up.

After the labyrinth, I headed to the recreation center before my friend and her mother, who is 88, arrived. I set up a comfy chair for her and held two yoga mat spaces for us. The guide for the evening handed us a page explaining the symbolism of the Strawberry Moon: “The Strawberry Moon is a time to notice what has grown. We spend so much time looking ahead that we often forget to notice how far we’ve come. Like strawberries, growth doesn’t happen overnight. It ripens quietly through ordinary days.” Quiet growth in ordinary days. That phrase stayed with me.

The reflection questions asked: What has quietly grown in me during this season of life? What am I ready to release? What promise will I make to myself before the next full moon? I stared at the last question for a while before writing: I promise to keep making promises to myself. I promise to keep looking for joy and connection. Yes, I will clear the house. Yes, I will bury Dad. By the next full moon, my journey through mourning will continue. Those promises felt both impossibly large and surprisingly ordinary.



The Lambert ladies and I settled into the Strawberry Moon sound bath. The room filled with singing bowls and vibrations that made the room feel fuller. After, we gabbed in the way Southern ladies do. Leigh is one of my oldest close friends. There’s a lot of history there and I love that we can live our lives and then come back together like it’s the early 2000s living in Charlottesville. When I drove home along Route 60 right as it intersected with Rout 249, the road I grew up on, I caught my first glimpse of the full moon hanging low above the road. Once I was near my current home, I managed a quick photograph while stopped at the light before turning onto my own road. It felt like the perfect ending to a day built around paying attention.



The guide reminded us that the Strawberry Moon celebrates what has grown. I realized I haven’t cried every day in quite some time. I’ve learned things Dad always knew how to do. I’ve made decisions I didn’t want to make. I’ve designed his gravestone. I’ve begun making sure forgotten family members are remembered. I’ve carried on.

Growth doesn’t always look like cheery happiness. Sometimes it looks like competence born from necessity. Sometimes it is simply showing up. Sometimes it looks like learning to back up a trailer. Thanks, Tony!

Yesterday the daylilies were blooming. I suspect they always will remind me of the Flower Moon, the moon that watched over Dad’s final day. That connection hasn’t faded simply because another moon has passed. It has deepened.

The Victorians understood that mourning changed with time. They marked it in stages. I will be measuring mine by moonlight. The Blue Moon taught me that grief had begun. The Strawberry Moon reminded me that life continues to grow alongside it.

Next comes the Buck Moon, a moon named for antlers growing stronger almost imperceptibly each day. Perhaps that is what grief is asking of me now. I am simply supposed to keep growing.

One full moon has passed

A writing retreat and a painting: there will be signs

When I arrived at the retreat yesterday, I was not exactly impressed by the décor simply because it isn’t my own aesthetic, and the focus of the retreat is on my research about witchlore in Virginia. And, since Dad died, I have been extra fussy with the Catholic Church because it is made up of people and people really get to me sometimes. So, noticing the painting upon arrival, I registered it as a religious scene but I didn’t stop to process any of it and how it is strange hanging in a writing retreat in the South, depicting a Catholic Mass because growing up there were maybe three Catholics in our school and my best friend and I were two of them.

 I’m writing this during my lunch break, which strikes me as funny since this week I’m at a writer’s retreat. I have a detailed itinerary, and so far, I’ve stuck to the plan, meeting all of my writing goals this morning. Today is my first full day here. Yesterday was filled with travel and research before arriving practically exhausted. I’m not going into detail where I’m staying because I’m still here for the rest of the week and as a woman traveling solo, I’ve known from an early age not to share my travels until I return. This was true even before the days of social media and blogging but I digress.

After my morning writing, I sat down to eat lunch and I glanced up at the painting after trying to clear a phone alert on my iPhone. If I ever miss a call or text, it’s because I cannot stand to have the alert remain. It will eat away at me until I remove the alert. While I was trying to do that with a call, I started clearing old messages and then I saw that I had deleted a bunch of nonsense connected to medical blah blah for Dad. Then, I saw his messages. I willed myself not to click on any of them or hear his voice because I didn’t want to sit here and cry. I set down the phone determined to be quiet when I noticed the palms in the painting. This piece depicts Palm Sunday. The piece is by Alexandre Grégoire (1922 –2001), a Haitian painter “who typically depicted scenes of Vodou, daily life, and historical events in the naïve style.” (Thanks Wikipedia)

There will be signs, he said.

Palm Sunday was at rehab. A volunteer came around handing out palms. Dad set his by him on the bed and we started talking about how Palm Sundays were always my favorite memories of Mass because we got to go outside. As we were chatting, I folded the palm into a cross thanks to a YouTube video. Dad kept that palm-folded cross like it was a prized possession. He moved with it to assisted living and then to the hospital and then to hospice with that palm. He said that he would put it behind the cross when he got settled.

For his visitation, I accepted the crucifix that was placed above his pine coffin. It is gold and completely from one of those funeral outlet shops but I knew that I would put the palm behind that cross and place it somewhere in my house. It’s still sitting, the cross and the folded palm, at home in a box. I cannot even sort through the hospital belongings, how in the world will I ever sort through his house, his garage, his cars, his…

But the little glimpse of this sign reminds me that Dad is close wherever I am and I don’t have to hear his voice or touch something that he touched to know that he is here with me.

 

Remember Me

For my birthday, I asked for bobbles from the Vintage Glass & Pottery shop. Dad and I had planned to go on my birthday and he said he "knew exactly what to get [me]" but he wasn't feeling well that day and we postponed the trip.

When he was in the hospital and it was pretty clear he wasn't heading home, I asked him if he wanted to tell me what bobble he had planned to get me from the vintage shop. He smiled. I remember saying that he didn't need to tell me so that we could keep that hope that maybe we would still make it. He brought it up one more time and this time it was clear that he was going to the grave with a mystery [I should note that that is very Dad/me and the not knowing is part of the magic.] But he also said, "There will be signs."
Today I dropped in because I was feeling down. I wanted to pick up an old sugar spoon but I browsed because it's an amazing glass shop. This piece called to me before I even read the wording. There was just something about it.

This Victorian beauty is an Early American Pressed Glass Motto Mug from Campbell, Jones & Company in Pittsburgh, PA. This mug was introduced c1877. It reads “Remember Me.”

This piece closely aligns with the memento mori tradition, where everyday objects carried themes of memory, mortality, and remembrance. Like mourning jewelry, memorial hair art, and sentimental keepsakes of the period, the mug’s inscription served as a gentle reminder of enduring affection and the desire to be remembered after separation or death. Its floral motifs and sentimental wording reflect the Victorian fascination with emotional symbolism, especially the “language of flowers” and remembrance culture that surrounded mourning practices of the era. While softer and more domestic than earlier skull-and-hourglass memento mori objects, the mug embodies the same underlying idea: preserving memory and emotional connection through material objects.

We always think there will be more time

It’s been a bad week. The kind of week where grief arrives in layers and ordinary life keeps demanding things from you anyway. On Friday, my dad died. And somehow, in the middle of preparing for a funeral visitation, a neighbor we have barely spoken to in eight years decided this was the right moment to cut down the trees separating our properties without even discussing it with us first. The trees were ours! They sat on our property. They were old privets we inherited with the house, and one of them held an active catbird nest. What followed involved police reports, lawyers, and a surveyor who will cost another thousand dollars just to formally prove where our own land begins and ends. It all feels exhausting and absurd. Death paperwork. Property disputes. Bills that need to be paid all before grief has even had a chance to settle.

So, when I walked into a local watch shop today before heading off to cancel my dad’s phone, internet, and landline accounts, I was not expecting much from the day. My dad used to joke that we had “Pajka luck,” and to him, that mostly meant bad luck. I never really believed that. Life is hard sometimes, but I have always thought of myself as pretty lucky. I had good parents. I was loved. Even in difficult moments, things have had a way of working out even if it wasn’t necessarily the way that I thought it would. Of course, hindsight lets us reinterpret our own stories. 

My dad was 87 when he died, and despite the difficult ending, he believed he had lived a beautiful life. We said everything we needed to say to each other. That matters more than people realize until they no longer have the chance. Still, the final months were difficult. There were hospital stays, a heart valve replacement, rehab that often felt more dehumanizing than healing, and an assisted living facility that cost more than eight thousand dollars a month yet somehow still failed at the most basic responsibilities. After two falls, I found him lying on the floor after his third fall and after he had been on the floor for two hours. I pulled the emergency cord in his room and no one came. I remember standing there stunned, realizing how strange it is that people spend their entire lives preparing financially for old age only to discover that money cannot guarantee dignity, care, or safety. After another hospitalization, I arranged for him to move somewhere I hoped was better. I signed more paperwork, paid another enormous deposit, and convinced myself there would still be enough time for him to settle into a new place. But sometimes we simply run out of time. Dad moved from the hospital into the new assisted living with hospice and only lived two hours before I received a phone call. Many people had shared that Dad was probably waiting for the “right time” when I could step away and he wouldn’t have to pass in front of me. 

Near the end of his life, Dad kept repeating a phrase. We always think there will be more time. He said it casually sometimes, almost as an observation about human nature, but I think he understood it was something he was still struggling to accept. We build our lives around the assumption of later. Later we will make the trip. Later we will ask the questions. Later we will organize the papers, repair the relationship, take the photo, sit down for the conversation, wear the good watch. We move through life believing time is renewable until suddenly it isn’t.

This week, while sorting through drawers full of paperwork and photographs, I found several of my dad’s old watches tucked beneath his high school yearbook and my parents’ wedding pictures. The drawer smelled exactly like my parents’ house, like old paper and dust and time itself. One watch immediately caught my attention. It was a 1967 Bulova Accutron Astronaut, an M7. I did not know much about it except that it looked impossibly futuristic in that distinctly mid-century way. The watch had belonged to an era when people genuinely believed the future would be bright and sleek and full of possibility. Dad loved old science fiction and this watch feels a bit like that. He appreciated objects built to last.

In recent years, though, his skin had become so fragile that he could barely wear watches anymore. Even a pillowcase brushing against his arm could tear his skin. I eventually found him a cheap silicone slap-band watch that he loved because it did not hurt his wrist. At one point, he laughed and told me I had “given him a little time back.” Like so many things he said, I know he meant more than the literal words.

Dad always wore his watch with the face turned inward on his wrist, something he may have picked up while serving in the Air Force around airplanes and machinery. As a child, I thought that was simply how watches were worn. After finding the old Accutron, I decided to take it into a local watch shop to see whether anyone still carried the special battery it needed. The owner warned me not to expect much. Watches like this usually require extensive restoration before they run again, and repairs for a watch like this can cost more than fifteen hundred dollars because the parts are so rare.

Then he installed the battery and we waited. The shopkeeper smiled as the watch immediately came back to life.

The owner looked genuinely surprised. He told me he almost never sees one start working again so easily after sitting unused for years. I stood there holding this small object my father had once worn, this watch that had survived decades tucked away in a drawer, and all I could think about was Dad’s words. We always think there will be more time.

That phrase has followed me everywhere this week. I thought there would be more time for him to settle into the new assisted living place. More time to hear his stories again. More time to ask questions about the Air Force years or my grandparents or all the small details that vanish when someone dies. More time to watch him laugh and tell bad jokes. More time for ordinary afternoons that never seem important until they are gone forever.

Ever since I was little, Dad and I talked about how if one of us died first, we would somehow send signs back to the other one. A few days after he died, my reddest roses suddenly bloomed. Dad loved red! And usually, my red plants aren't quite in bloom at this time of year. 

Then, after I finished writing his obituary, I walked into my bathroom and saw that my Phal Haur Jin Princess (Phalaenopsis) orchid, which has not bloomed in five years, was flowering again. I cannot prove these are signs that meant anything, but I also cannot disprove that.

And now there was this watch. This object designed to measure time somehow becoming a reminder of how little control we actually have over it. Standing in that little shop, exhausted from grief and paperwork and all the earthly responsibilities that follow death, I found myself smiling for the first time in days because I could almost hear my father saying We always think there will be more time in the hum of the tuning fork in the piece on my wrist. I guess Dad gave me back a bit of time today. 

Astronaut Leroy Cooper wearing the Accutron Astronaut. 

During the 1963 Mercury-Atlas 9 mission, astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. wore a Bulova Accutron Astronaut aboard Faith 7 as he completed 22 orbits around Earth. When critical onboard systems failed during re-entry, Cooper relied on the Accutron’s precision timing to manually guide the capsule safely home. He later credited the watch with helping save his life, giving new meaning to the idea that just the right watch can give you more time.

Muddle through somehow

Yesterday, I placed my mother’s glasses in their own antique glass casket that I bought at a local antique shop. The salesclerk was certain to tell me that the crystal had a crack in it and that it was discounted because of that. I had just had a car kick up a rock, strike and crack my windshield on my way home from helping my father so this seemed about right. 
For a dark and macabre treat, read this piece on the original lyrics. I admit that I rather like them. 

Dad always talks about “The Pajka luck,” but I find myself to be lucky and very fortunate. Life has a way of tossing lemons that I have made into lemonade slushies. Rocks are thrown. Glass breaks. Crystal breaks. This is all part of life. 

It's been a challenging year. I am so f*ck%&g tired of saying that. I’m tired of quietly asking for grace from others and myself. I’m tired of telling myself it’s going to be okay when what does that even mean. I use my words. I dissect my words. I want my words to matter and not hurt anyone including me. 

My mother called me many names. Stubborn was one of them. I’ve always tried to transform that into perseverance, a characteristic that I have always admired in others and myself. No matter the difficulty or delay in fruition, I have muddled through somehow. Just like the lyrics from one of my favorite Christmas songs—“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
It may be your last.
Next year we may all be living in the past.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Pop that champagne cork.
Next year we may all be living in New York.
No good times like the olden days.
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who were dear to us.
Will be near to us no more.
But at least we all will be together.
If the Lord allows.
From now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Life isn’t all stars and sunshine! Judy Garland knows.

Since April, I have been driving around with my mother’s glasses in my car. What do you do with something that had been so precious and necessary to her life? She read two hundred books while in memory care through these glasses. She looked at her family for the last time through these glasses. For the last few years, I have cleaned them for her several times and upon her passing, they ended up in my car where they have remained. I was unable to move them.

Now they rest surrounded on a bed of dried flowers including hydrangeas and various wildflowers. Not quite a #spelljart but still a manifestation sent into the universe.

Dad and I have kept going. Muddling through without a clear check-list that we each like to keep in our planners.

When research circles back to family history

This blog post discusses suicide so some readers may wish to skip over this piece.

My cousin Scott, who I learned today went by Brando for much of his adult life, was my favorite. He was seven years older than me and the oldest of all the cousins. For a time, I was the youngest and it made so much sense that we connected. More than anything, I remember his smile and his laughter. I don’t think I ever saw him frown but his family lived in Michigan so we only saw each other twice a year- at Christmas and during the summer when my folks would drive our old camper van to the suburbs of Detroit and park outside of their house.

I remember that he loved to snuggle with me and even when the thought seems slightly uncomfortable today as I am not a touchy-feely cuddly kind of person, I was always comfortable with him. I remember random things. He played football and once when he cut the grass, he asked me to paint his football number in sunscreen on his back so when his skin tanned while being outside he would have his number on his back even without his jersey.

I don’t remember him playing music as a teen but that could have come later. When my mother’s mother died, her brother died soon after, and then my mother stopped speaking to her entire family and I lost contact with all of my family members until much later when my grandfather passed and I went to the funeral. I’ve never reconnected with his family though or my cousins. Well, I did reconnect for a short time with a couple and then realized that there were some clear reasons my mother cut herself off from family. I used to think I would reconnect with Scott though, maybe in adulthood. He, like me, was an English major in college. He became a teacher too. Then, he died in 2010, or rather, he intentionally shot himself.

I wasn’t surprised when my dad told me. My one other male cousin attempted suicide unsuccessfully. He shot himself in the foot. It’s okay; you can laugh. I find it ridiculously funny too and he isn’t a very nice person. I’ve long suspected that my brother might also have the suicidal tendency gene ,whatever that may be called. That would mean that all the male cousins have it. 

This has come to mind perhaps because I never think about family suicides or suicide attempts. I think of friends having killed themselves. I even collect their death certificates online and carefully read the words, not to be morbid but to make sure that I have all the facts. Adults lied to me frequently when I was a teen and people love euphemisms surrounding death. 

They say: (Fill in name) died accidentally. 

I say: How in the world was that an accident?

I never think of Scott having killed himself and today I started reading some historical true crime, I guess you would call it that. The male cousin who had a romantic relationship with his cousin to the point of getting her pregnant, killed her and called it a suicide. The way she lived was as much on trial as he was. While he was in jail and on trial (he was a lawyer himself), he wrote a book about his ordeal. He even uses the line privilege in the first few lines. 

The book was published in 1887 here in Richmond. It's in the public domain and the scanned Google book image just happens to come from a library in Michigan.

Today I went out (again) to find her grave. I've been reading so many true crime stories about her and also listening to podcasts. They use the same picture from Find A Grave. Has no one gone out to visit the grave? 

Finding this one was a challenge because at first, I didn’t have the grave location and it turns out that the cemetery is 176 acres. Someone did not do her research before getting sunburn. I walked around the cemetery for a few hours earlier in the week going off a lead that the grave was under a tree. I think I went to every tree in the cemetery except this one where she is actually buried.

I called the cemetery yesterday to see if they could give me any information about her father’s grave, which is a larger stone and I figured that I would have a better chance of spotting it. Even with the lot number, the cemetery isn’t well marked so I wandered and wandered and when I had given up and decided to go look at something cool, there was her father’s grave… and there was her grave.

When I came home with plans to write, I researched my own family history in the newspapers. And here I am with two stories swirling in my head.  I'm going to tell her story another day. Right now, I found an old YouTube video that was posted of my cousin singing at someone's house. He's nearly twenty years older than I remember him but his eyes still sparkle when he smiles. He's surrounded by people and he appears happy, which doesn't mean that he was. But, maybe he was happy in that one captured moment. Certainly more happiness than what was captured in the newspaper article. I wonder if they ever set a record. It's funny that he was planning to be part of that in 2010 because I was part of the largest gathering of people dressed like vampires and we set a world record in 2011. Cousins aren't that different, I suppose.