Guardian Angels

In my life, I have been fairly lucky to not have known too many people who have passed away. Both of my grandmothers are still alive, and I never knew either of my blood grandfathers. My step grandfather on my mother's side is also still alive, and all three of these grandparents are still very much alive and well.

When I was younger, I thought that there was a life plan to be followed. That you went to college, graduated, worked, fell in love, married, had children, and grew old together. There wasn't ever discussion of the other challenges that would delay this path, or disrupt it completely. No one mentioned difficulty finding a job you loved, or even finding a job at all. The man of your dreams was just going to show up one day and sweep you off your feet. Where he was coming from, that was never an issue. As a teenager, I was naive to thoughts of divorce, infertility, or even death.

I do remember the first person who I ever knew who died. I was in eighth grade. Over the summer, several of us had spent a week doing a peer counseling training. We were trained to be able to work with other students at the school to help resolve situations without having to involve the adults. The woman in charge was pregnant. She was boisterous and connected with all of us (hard to do when most of us were seventh grade girls in the height of hormones and puberty). When we returned to school the following fall, we had our first counseling meeting. It was there that they told us she had passed away during child birth. I don't remember them telling us speficially. What I remember was that evening. I spent the entire night curled up on my bed, with a strange feeling stiring in my head and heart. I was so upset. My grandparents were all still alive (three still are), and I had never experienced death before. This was a new emotion to me, and I didn't like. I am sure my mother thought she was done for that night, because I wouldn't talk, wouldn't eat, wouldn't come out of my room. I just wanted to be left alone. I am not even sure I ever told her what happened that day at school. When you are in eighth grade, any number of things can cause this reaction, so luckily, she probably wasn't too worried.

Over the years, I have experience death only a handful of times since then. In high school, a brother of one of my friends was killed after rappelling from a power lines tower, and catching one of the lines. The entire community mourned him, and I still think of those days as some of the hardest of high school. My best friend's grandfather died before we went to college. We cried together in the upstairs bedroom of a ski lodge, and then again at the funeral. I was crying more for her than for him. He had led a good life, but death will always be the hardest on the people who are left behind. My grandfather died when I was in college. I had met him once, when I was an infant, but it still hurt to know I would never know that part of my life, my family history. It was a different kind of loss, and I mourned for my father and his pain. A close friend from high school died several years ago. I didn't attend her funeral, but it helped me to be able to talk about the fond memories we had when we were in school together. She had struggled in life so much between high school and her death, and I really believe that she is in a better place.

In 2004, Chris passed away. He was killed in Iraq. I will never forget the night I found out. I was sitting on the couch in Manzanita, our apartment at camp. There were 6 or 7 other instructors eating dinner with me, and I had a voicemail. When I heard Joy's voice on the message, I knew something was wrong. I knew instantly it was Chris. That night I took 15 5th graders on a night hike. We hiked and hiked and hiked and I sat in the dark with them, watched the stars, and thought about death. I had seen Chris only months before, and now he was gone. Chris' funeral was packed, there were people from his entire life in one room, celebrating this amazing man. I sat in that church completely humbled with how many people one man can touch, and how he gave his life for the rights that so many of us take for granted. I think about Chris and his family every March. And I know he is somewhere, drinking a beer and laughing like he always did.

Only 3 months later, I woke up one morning found myself sitting at breakfast when our director came out to tell us that one of our grounds staff had passed away over night. We were all shocked. Moose was such a gentle guy, with a wicked sense of humor, and he had been at camp for years. He had been at a party the evening before and had walked past me, tickled my foot (which was up on the edge of a couch after a knew injury had put me on crutches a few days before), and given me a wink. Three hours later, he laid down in bed and had a heart attack. His death shook us all, and made it hard to go on and teach that week. He reminded us all that we were a family, and that when someone passes away, you have to lean on each other and come together to help each other through it.

And then last year, there was Suzy. Suzy's death, like the woman from my middle school days, was hardest perhaps because it was so sudden and unexpected. When someone passes away from sickness or old age, there is a certain semblance of relief. There is also often some warning. When I was told Suzy had passed away, I was numb. I think Jessica had to repeat herself four times. And even then, my brain wouldn't let me understand that she was talking about Suzy. Our friend Suzy. The happy go lucky woman who had given birth three days prior. We were in a room at work next to the main ballroom. I still can't go into that room without getting upset. I just stared at Jessica for awhile, and clung to her as she cried. She had known for several hours, and had come to work to tell me. It was 8:15am, and I was 15 minutes away from addressing a room full of college students and starting a 2 day program for them. That talk never happened. I stood in the middle of the room for a little while with Jessica and we just hung on to each other. The tears didn't arrive immediately, but I am more more apt to cry when someone else is crying, i think out of pure emotion for that person, so once the tears arrived, they flowed freely. Suzy's funeral, much like Chris', was packed. The overflow room was to capacity. Pictures of her smiling face ran on an overhead, as part of a slideshow. We sat, an entire row of her coworkers and friends, and cried for the world's loss. It has almost been a year since Suzy passed away, and I still miss her and think about her. Every single day. I think about what she would say to me now (and oh would she have a TON to say to me these days), and how she would make me laugh, and tell me not to worry about anything. She was always happy, and always smiling. Sometimes, when I am sad, I try to channel her positivity.

After losing special people in your life, you do start to think about your beliefs of souls, heaven, and angels. I am not religious, per se, but I definitely have spiritual beliefs. And when you go through something like what I am facing, you begin to have to lean on these beliefs more and more. And so, I find a lot of solace in the ideas that the people that I have lost in my life, or even the people who died before I was born, are out there, somewhere, watching over me, taking care of me, and carrying me when I can't carry myself. These are my guardian angels. And recently, when I get into bed at night, these are the people I think about. And the people whose memories calm me down. And who make me feel safe. And for that, and that alone, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to know these amazing people, to have shared time with them in my life, and to hold them in my heart (oh the irony of that statement) as I make it through this challenge in my life.