gardening & grief

Gary and I planted our summer garden this weekend. It was a lovely way to spend time together as a family- working hard, and getting dirty in the sunshine. I'm grateful that Gary works really hard to make our yard a happy place for our family. And Juliet loved it. I can't wait for my summer tomatoes, my very favorite of the summer crop. We also tried a couple new things this year- I'm eager to see if the corn does well.

As I pulled out our supplies from the garden shed, I found a big bag full of seeds, with a note attached from my mom. My mom- the organic gardening queen, who was raising her own vegetables, fruits, and even chickens, decades before it become hip and chic. Ahead of her time in her own special ways. When I worried and grieved that she hadn't been able to leave anything behind anything special for us, for me, I was wrong. It didn't come in the expected way, but this is what she left behind- a note that was 3 years old, but came at just the right time.

I miss her to the deepest depths of my soul. I feel the grief creaking in my bones like an unwanted visitor tip toeing up an old staircase.  It makes my stomach drop to the floor.

This garden, and every garden that Gary and I plant, is in her memory and her honor, and so my daughters will have a little piece of their grandma in their backyard. It's a special place. A sacred place.

On the eve of my Mom's birthday

When I was 10 or 12 years old, I would occasionally have a severe pang of anxiety that something terrible had happened to my mom.

This would happen when my mom would go out for an errand on a weekend afternoon, saying that she was going to the grocery store, and "would be right back".  We weren't being left alone or anything; my dad was home too. But an hour would pass, and then maybe another, and my mom was still gone.

I would sit at the kitchen window, nervously awaiting the sound of her car driving up the cul de sac. And I would convince myself in those moments of waiting that something bad had happened, that maybe my mom had been in a terrible car crash and was never coming home for me.

I never told anyone that I was scared about this until mentioning it to my mom a couple years ago.  I suppose because I felt embarrassed. Because she would inevitably come bouncing through the door with bags of groceries, and it was clear that she had taken just a bit longer than expected to run another errand while she was out.

Well, something terrible has happened to my mom. And she's not coming back for me anymore and it still hurts like hell.

Tomorrow would have been my mom's 57th birthday. We visited her grave today and left my mom some flowers and talked to her for awhile.  I picked out some orange freesia that smelled wonderful. It's weird leaving flowers for someone who's passed away.

I sobbed at her grave for a little bit while Gary stayed with the girls in the car. And then we brought the girls to her grave, too.  Audrey sat on the cool marble slate that has her grandma's name, birth, and death written on it. Juliet happily bounced around clutching freesia blossoms in her hands.

I used to love having my birthday fall so closely to my mom's. (Just 1 day in between; 2 on a leap year.) Somehow it made me feel special to be connected to my mom in that way. I guess it still does.

Last year, mom came home from stroke rehabilitation on her birthday. It was a bittersweet day, welcoming her home after 5 weeks in the hospital. Her body and mind had been so badly damaged by the tumor and the surgery and the strokes. But my sister still made a birthday cake for Mom anyway. And the following weekend, we had a birthday party for me at our house, and I have a beautiful photo of my mom holding Juliet and smiling.  This year, I wrote a card for my Mom and Juliet decorated it with stickers and crayons.

I want to honor my mom with bright freesia and joyful children, instead of drowning in the grief. But this isn't the easiest of days.

Christmas Eve's Eve. Spent weeping in Gary's arms. I miss my mom so much.

Mom and Dad, Christmas 2008

Christmas traditions

As Christmas rapidly approaches, I am thinking a lot about tradition, and memories. I want my children to grow up with warm and fond memories of this season.  I am finding some solace too in honoring my mom through continuing these traditions- so that I can tell my daughters, "This is how Grandma did it for me, and now I do it for you." And I guess that's what life is all about.

When we were kids, my parents allowed us each to open our stockings up as soon as we woke up. This is pretty much my fondest memory of Christmas morning. We didn't have to wait for my mom or dad to get up (which I'm sure was there way of holding us off another precious hour or so!). I have the best memories of sitting in the living room with my sisters and each opening up our stockings and enjoying those small stocking stuffers together and eating our Christmas candy, until Mom & Dad stumbled out to start their coffee.  All the gifts would be set out from "Santa" during the middle of the night, so the bottom of the tree went from being empty to being stacked full of gifts when we woke up. Each gift to the girls was from "Santa", but as we got older, it became undeniable that the handwriting on the gift tag matched my Mom's (until Christy took over gift wrapping duty as a teenager!). 

There are a lot of other fond memories but I don't have enough time to write them tonight. But I'm looking forward to Audrey's first Christmas, and Juliet's second. We are hosting all the family for Christmas dinner at our house, and I suppose that will become part of my children's memories- our house full of family, food, and joy.  I can't wait for a couple more years when they are old enough to pad down the hallway in their pajamas and happily peek into their stockings while Gary and I try to catch a few more minutes of sleep. These are sweet times.

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

p.s. This was my attempt at trying to get Juliet to sit still near the Christmas tree for a photo. oh well!
p.p.s. Because we all know that Christmas really isn't about the gifts, or shouldn't be anyway-- I am trying to think of memorable ways to incorporate giving and service into my family's Christmas tradition. I'd love to hear your ideas on that too.

grief

Feeling heavy with grief for my mom this week. Anything that happens- whether good or bad, something to celebrate or something to struggle with - is punctuated by her death.

"Audrey smiled at me today!".  And my mom is dead.
"I walked 45 minutes to the park with the girls, and Juliet learned to go down the slide by herself". And my mom will never see her go down a slide.
"There are gourmet food trucks in the parking lot of Troy high school tonight." My mom would have gotten a kick out of that. She probably would have found it silly. But I will never eat a meal with her again.
"I'm tired, and want to curl up and take a nap but the babies are up and need mama". My mom was a napper. She slept on the couch in the living room. I will never walk in the front door to see her sleeping there again. She took her last breath in a chair in that same room. We were all surrounding her, crowding up that room with our sorrow; I was at her feet. The chair just sits there now, punctuated by her death.

I miss you, mom.

2 month reflection of grief

My mom passed away on July 31, so this weekend marks 2 months of time since she has been gone. My sister just wrote about her grief and how she is handling it on her blog, just as I was sitting down to the computer to do the same. I guess our heads are in the same space- trying to enjoy the beauty of our children while also watching the calendar tick by and missing mom with a desperate longing.

Two months have gone by, and I still haven't visited her grave, despite it being just a couple miles away. Despite driving literally past it on several occasions. Each time I accidentally drive by (it's off a major road here), my eyes flood with tears and my hands shake against the steering wheel. I had to pull over to collect myself once.

The only time I have been to her grave was at her burial. I felt like a crazed, injured animal and wanted to run away as fast as I could. Instead, I hid my tears under a pair of dark sunglasses - it was a hot, sunny summer day - and quietly sat and held my sister's hand. I'm not ready to go back. I don't know if I ever will be.

I miss you, mom.  It isn't getting easier to accept that you are gone yet. There are so many moments that you are missing and it's just not fair. I'm not feeling like looking at any of the bright side at this very moment. I so often tell people, "Yes, it's hard, but there have been blessings too..." but that's really to make other people feel better. The truth is that it is a terrible thing that my dad doesn't have a wife, my daughters don't have a grandma, and I don't have a mom. I don't think that's ever going to go away.

Kim Guth, 1955-2011

Kimberly Ann Guth was born on February 27, 1955 in Chicago, the second child of Evelyn and Robert Arthofer. She grew up with 3 sisters, Laura, Sue, and Karen, and 2 brothers, Bob and Kurt, in a suburb of Chicago called Hoffman Estates. 

Kim had a generous spirit even as a young child, giving selflessly and caring for her younger siblings. Her sister Sue fondly remembers that Kim would walk her siblings to the store to each buy a candy bar, and share hers with them instead of enjoying it herself. Kim’s love of sewing began at a young age as well, and as a teen, she once sewed her mom an evening gown for her parent’s anniversary and surprised them with tickets to a dinner show.

In high school, Kim met her sweetheart and future husband, Jim. Jim was friends with Kim’s brothers, and Grandma Arthofer loves to recount the stories of how it took her a while to figure out that Jim was starting to drop by the house in hopes of visiting with Kim instead of her brothers! Their first official date was to a local mountain to ski, and Kim trusted Jim to take her to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately she fell and ended up with a compound fracture in her leg and ended up needing a cast up to her hip! Even still, their romance bloomed and Dad took Mom to the junior prom and they soon became inseparable- even today, their car license plate reads “JimKim1”.

After high school, Jim attended Notre Dame and Kim went to nursing school in Indiana, remaining sweethearts throughout. They married in a free spirited wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral in May 1976. Kim wore a flowing white linen dress and a white floppy hat and they danced to Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel Like I Do”. 

Shortly after marrying, Jim and Kim packed up their run-down Ford with their modest belongings and traveled across country to sunny California. Kim marveled at the warm winters and the plentiful fresh fruits and vegetables (especially avocados!) and she would become a lifelong lover of gardening.

Kim continued with her nursing career in California, working in Labor & Delivery at University California, Irvine and finding a lifelong passion in caring for newborns and mothers. She trained as a midwife and believed deeply in her mission of helping mothers achieve natural childbirth, opening a home birth practice in Santa Ana and delivering hundreds of babies throughout Orange County.

Kim had four babies of her own, all girls….Jennifer was born in 1980, Jamie was born in 1982, Susan in 1985, and Christine in 1988. Kim was a natural mother who deeply loved each of her daughters. She was the type of mother who always seemed to have a baby on one hip while happily cooking and talking to the others in the kitchen. Her children and assorted neighbors and friends would gather at the house with an “open door policy”, and she always welcomed everyone for swim parties, slumber parties, and trips to the stable to visit ‘the horse’. 

Kim taught her daughters through actions, and it was evident that her family was most important. She lovingly cared for her mother through breast cancer surgery and treatment. She hosted every holiday at her home with warmth and a casual hospitality. She danced joyfully in her slippers at her daughter Susan’s backyard wedding, she welcomed her son-in-laws Brian, Gary, and Daniel into the family with open arms, and she rejoiced in her youngest daughter Christy’s recent college graduation. 

Kim wasn’t afraid to make her opinions known and get involved in causes she believed in. In 1996 she campaigned for, and won, a seat on the Fullerton School Board. She also was involved with the Orange County Republican Party and enjoyed lively debates about both local and national politics.

As her children grew older and more independent, Kim returned to her love of nursing. She completed her Masters in Nursing at CSUF in 2004. She excelled in her program and was the founding President the CSUF Nursing Honor Society. In 2007 she traveled to Morocco with fellow nurses to help train maternity nurses. For the past several years, Kim worked in the St. Joseph Mother-Baby Assessment Center. She loved her work and it was a great source of joy and pride for her. 

Kim’s expertise of all things baby-related became very useful in 2010, when her granddaughters were born. Eva (daughter of Jamie and Brian) and Juliet (daughter of Jennifer and Gary) were born just 3 weeks apart, and Kim flew between Honolulu and Seattle to make sure she was present for both births. She taught her daughters how to be mothers, helping them through labor and gently showing them how to nurse their newborns. Kim delighted in her granddaughters and we are blessed in having her as a model of what a mother should be. 

Kim was the center and soul of our family and our grief at her passing feels endlessly deep. Our solace is in knowing that she had an unwavering faithfulness in God’s promise, and that she is resting in the arms of her Creator. We love you, Kim- beloved wife, mom, daughter, sister, and friend.

Kim Guth, 
February 27, 1955 - July 31, 2011
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I miss you, mom.
(originally posted 8.07.11)