Dragonfly…out in the sun…

It’s Multitude Monday! I skipped a couple weeks of blessing-counting, so today I’m going to try and come up with 20. Today, I’m grateful for:

11. My new tattoo!

It’s a memorial tattoo for Ely. See his name on the body, and the dates on the wings? I’m especially grateful for Adam, the artist who did such an awesome job.

12. Marianne Williamson. Almost 20 years ago, I read her book A Return to Love, which was her take on A Course in Miracles, and which sparked my spiritual journey. I’ve just rediscovered her and am reading The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for Living Your Best Life. I think after all these years, I’m finally ready to tackle the Course. I just ordered it on Amazon, and will be writing about it here in the year to come.

13. That my daughter Chelsea made it safely to her spring break destination and is having a wonderful time.

14. Chopped All-Stars. SO entertaining.

15. The delicious bowl of sausage-pasta soup I just ate.

16. That spring is only a week away, and the worst winter of my entire life is almost over.

17. That I figured out a way to put lotion on my tattoo with the back of a long-handled spoon. Necessity is the mother of invention!

18. My little blue car.

19. That I received an unexpected profit-sharing check from Ely’s job.

20. Good tippers.

21. That Logan finally learned how to tie his shoes! Yay!

22.  The Daily Love.

23. Kittens.

24. My beautiful red oak kitchen table, which my son Zach made me in woodshop his senior year of high school.

25. Facebook.

26. Reconnecting with old friends.

27. Silence.

28. That my checkbook always balances to the penny because I am just that good.

29. The library.

30. New magazines in the mail!

Have you ever noticed how the Universe likes to test us? Like for instance, the second you say you’re going on a diet, your neighbor shows up with a plate of cookies. Or you decide you’re going to cut down on drinking and you get invited to a bachelorette party. Or say…you decide to start a blog about living joyfully no matter what, and you suddenly get a huge, steaming pile of No Matter What!

I’ve come to believe that this is no accident. It seems to me that the Universe (aka God, Goddess, Spirit, Source, Deity) is listening intently whenever we make a self-improvement proclamation, and says Wow, this is awesome! Denise wants to take another step toward spiritual growth! I’ll just check and see if she’s really serious this time….

And you know what? Half the time, it turns out I’m not serious and I scarf down the cookies, or drink ’til I’m cross-eyed, or complain and rant about everything that’s going wrong, and say screw gratitude, and the Universe says Yeah, that’s what I thought. Whatever, Denise, get back to me when you really want to change.

It’s never Grace that turns away from me, it’s always the other way around.

So it was, briefly, when a perfect shitstorm of unpleasant events rained down upon my life this week. I started to revert to my usual modus operandi: complaining, venting, drinking, moping, spending money I don’t have, bingeing on junk, snapping at people I love, and various other self-destructive outlets. I wrote an angry post on the widow’s forum. I came this close to hooking up with my hot but completely wrong-for-me-in-every-way neighbor. I almost went to go buy a big honking bottle of vodka last night—literally had the keys in my hand and was walking out the door.

But, miracle of miracles, I actually stopped myself, took a deep breath and had a cup of tea instead. Well, actually I think I had a little divine help. Yesterday, when I felt things spinning out of control (it’s happened to me so many times in the past I can feel it coming, like a gathering storm) I prayed for help. I’m a little rusty with the whole praying thing, so I started out praying to Jesus and then to any guides and angels that might be hanging around, then to God. I even asked Ely to put in a word, just in case he’s got connections. You never know.

Whether it came from somewhere within me, or from somewhere Out There (it’s probably the same thing anyway) I managed to find a little inner strength and run the Self-Destruct Train right off the rails. And from the slightly higher vantage point I have today, I can see that this is just a crappy week, no big deal, we all have them, next week will be better. Everything will work out, like it always does.

I have an issue with one of my teeth that I’ve been ignoring for a long time. Over a year ago, my periodontist told me that one of my front teeth has a severe defect in the root and that I would eventually lose it. At the time, he said to me, “If I were you, I’d be proactive and have it replaced with an implant sooner rather than later.”

I hemmed and hawed for months. An implant would be expensive, plus how did I know for sure it would ever really fall out? Maybe they were just trying to get my money. I tried to pin him down to a time frame: “Am I going to lose it next week, next year, in five years, in ten years….?” He said there was no way to know.

I talked it over with Ely, who was definitely not down with having a wife with an impending missing tooth. (He was terrified by any evidence of aging in me or in him.) “Get the implant!” he said. He was ready to pull money out of his 401k to pay for it.

But still, I procrastinated. I was scared. I didn’t want to have a permanent tooth pulled, didn’t want to go through the whole year-long process of bone-grafting, didn’t want to have a temporary flipper tooth put in. It was all scary and upsetting and I avoided thinking about it.

Then Ely died and I couldn’t think about it.

But it was still there, just under the surface—a low-grade anxiety about that damn tooth. Every now and then I’d feel a little tingle in the root and think, Is this it? Is it about to come out?

So today I went in for a regular checkup and cleaning, and I saw a new dentist, a woman who was just subbing today. I decided to ask her opinion about the whole implant idea. She took one look at my x-ray and said, “Oh yeah. That tooth is hanging by a thread.” She showed me the big dark space on the x-ray where bone should be. “You should get the implant.”

Still not wanting to face the inevitable, I said, “But that tooth isn’t even loose yet! What happens if I wait?”

She said, “Then you’re going to show up here just like the woman who came in before you: crying, with your tooth in your hand.”

That’s when I finally realized I still had a chance to make the empowering choice. I could man up, and take matters into my own hands. In other words: be proactive, like my periodontist advised a year ago. Or I could continue to avoid the issue out of fear and someday soon lose the tooth anyway, biting into a sandwich.

I chose to be brave, and just git ‘r done. “Okay,” I told her. “Let’s do it. Let’s get the ball rolling on this.”

She smiled. “Now that’s what I like to hear. A decisive woman!”

Funny thing, too, about making a decision: all the anxiety about that tooth evaporated. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t relish the idea of having a tooth yanked out of my head—but now that there’s a plan in place I don’t have that niggling little worry in the back of my mind. I’ve been living with that worry for over a year. It feels good to have it gone.

I’ve learned the hard way that sometimes shit just happens, and all you can do is react. But other times, you’re lucky enough to get a little heads-up, and it’s possible to have a modicum of control. Anytime you have a chance to steer your own life, grab the wheel!

A joyful widow. Isn’t that an oxymoron? How could I possibly be focusing on joy less than four months after the sudden death of my husband?

Because there’s no other choice. Joy is the only option.

My husband died, but I’m still alive. I’m blessed enough to be sitting here on my couch, tapping on my keyboard, listening to the dog snore, sipping tea out of my favorite mug. It’s miraculous! Why doesn’t everyone see how miraculous it is just to be breathing on this planet?

I miss Ely. I miss him so much sometimes that the ache in my chest is unbearable, and I’m blessed to be able to feel that, too.

I always knew in my head that life is fleeting and fragile, but it’s so easy to forget. Until something like this happens, and then we remember. A lot of people don’t want to remember, don’t want to be reminded that we’re all headed toward the same thing. We’re adrift in little boats without oars, there’s a waterfall up ahead, and it’s getting louder. It gets louder every day. We’re not going to survive the plunge over the edge, not a single one of us. Nobody gets out of here alive.

A lot of people don’t want to remember, but I will never forget. My husband took his last breath right in front of me, while I was screaming his name. I’ll never be the same again.

All I know for sure is that we may only have today. One last day to hug your kids, one last day to listen to your favorite song, eat a piece of chocolate, laugh, cry, say “I love you.”  One last day, and then it could all be over.

Joy is the only option.

It may not seem like it, but this is a radically spiritual idea. To love life, to feel joy and gratitude for everything, no matter what–it’s downright subversive. Whatever your religious persuasion (or lack thereof), you might have no problem feeling grateful and joyful when things are going well, but when your house burns down, or the cancer spreads, or you lose the baby, or your husband drops dead right in front of your 8-year-old son…..well then it gets a little challenging.

I’m a member of a young widow’s support forum, and there are a lot of people there who are struggling with their faith. Some have lost it altogether. They have no use for a God that would allow death to come into their lives.

I feel their pain–boy, do I feel it–but here’s the thing: Death comes to us all. It’s a natural part of life. I would even go so far as to say that without death, life would be meaningless.

To allow joy to bubble up, and to find things to be grateful for, even in our darkest hours, that has to be a conscious choice.

It was while my thoughts were percolating in this direction that I came across this book yesterday:  One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

The author, Ann Voscamp, also writes a beautiful Christian blog about finding grace in the everyday called A Holy Experience.

I haven’t read the book yet, but an entire community has sprung up around the title premise of listing 1000 things in your life for which to be grateful. Every Monday, participating bloggers add to their lists and post them to share with others. I can’t think of a better way to stay oriented toward joy than to start my own list of 1000 gifts. Even in loss (especially in loss) there is so much to be grateful for.

This week, I am grateful for:

1. The 15 years I had with my husband Ely. He brought so much fun, energy and laughter into our lives!

2. My amazing children–Zachary, Cody, Chelsea, and Logan.

3. That Logan has been playing with his friends all day, freeing up time for me to write this post.

4. My sweet old dog Buffy.

5. My pretty new couches, which I got on sale.

6. My neighbor Leslie, who generously gave her entire Pokemon collection to Logan.

7. Ann Voscamp’s blog.

8. The life insurance and Social Security, which buys me precious time to figure out what comes next.

9. Green tea with honey.

10. My waitress job.