awake

Though I don't consider myself religous, I love the ideas, I am a religous philosophy kleptomaniac. Stealing comforting ideas from Native Americans, the New Testament and others. One of my favorite ideas that I have thought of for years now since Clint took his life is reincarnation. I often think of him as the plum tree in my backyard. That tree took my fathers axe blow and new growth came unexpectanly out years later. His sister has touched the earth around that tree, caring for it, nourishing it. Kelly strews flowers under its boughs. She longs for the winter to be over. For everything in the garden to awaken. Clint and I were born at the end of Winter. I want to believe that his soul is around in the trees and the living rock. I see pieces of him in the children of our family. He could end his life, but he couldnt end his heart. It is with those who loved him best always. I eagerly await each year for him to come back to me...but really he never left.

The other day Cosmo and I were driving to the Great Salt Lake Marina to throw rocks and run around.

"Deedee how come we never go to Chanukah Castles?"

I thought feverishly for a moment... 'Chanukah Castles?'

It came to me.. Cosmo thought Saltair was a Jewish Temple and he was asking me why our family didn't go to church. That damned PBS has infiltrated his brain he has been watching that rabbit Buster videotape interviews with all sorts of kids...

"Thats not a Chanukah Castle honey... but it was really smart of you to notice the way it was built different than other buildings... and Chanukah Castles have a special name so remember they are called Jewish Temples or Synagogues and its not a Mosque either a Mosque is where believers of Islam go. Different people go different places."

"Why?"

"Well, because they want to. It makes them happy. Your Grandma Sara and Your Grandma Anita go to different places than each other called Churches they both believe in Jesus but not the same way. They don't go to the Jewish Temple or the Islam Mosque."
"Yes, yes... but where do WE go? Where do Mommy and Daddy and their Cosmo and their Kelly and their Deedee go?

What do you say about religion to a 4 year old? Does it matter? I think it does a little bit because this one is so very smart and he looks to me as a big sister to answer his questions. So this is what I said and I hope it sits well with his parents...

Some people go to the trees. You know how we love to get in the car and Daddy drives us up the canyons and we see the snow or a river. Some people go to rocks and lakes and canyons. Some people love animals. Some people love the sun or the rain or the snow. Our family loves flowers and trees and rocks and lakes and animals. When you blow out the candles on my birthday cake and you make a wish... 'I wish I could go to the Wild'.. that is a special moment. Remember when we saw that mommy and daddy fox cross the road in front of us and then they walked down the side of the car so we could see them, that they just stood still looking into our eyes. Oh! How we loved those foxes on the canyon road!... that is a special moment. And when daddy and mommy take you sliding across the snow... that is a special moment. We collect as many special moments as we can outside with plants, rocks and animals because it makes us happy.

I remembered myself at his age at Carmel making huge piles of seaweed that I would push into the tide at the exact time and tangle myself in as quick as I could and then the wave would wash over us, me and the salty gray green strands, dragging us out to sea. Or fishing with handsome cousin Frank up the mountains climbing up the trails and the trees. Or climbing up the mesas of sandstone looking for gila monsters with Kelly. Or skiing at night by myself. Or skinny dipping with friends.
I wonder if Cosmo, when he grows up, will want to go to the trees. Will he remember playing tennis on a snowy beach or throwing rocks or the joy of digging in the dirt by himself for hour after hour? I hope so. I hope he keeps the family faith.

i was thinking of my sister today...the time when we had built a tunel under the winter wheat in an empty field by the river...how it was our secret...no one knew where we were...and there were bones in the walls and i took my fathers toothbrush and we cleaned them off....how i told her they were a dinosaur bones because they were just huge...and oddly enough not 10 blocks away they found the bones of a wooly mamouth when installing a sprinkler system a couple of years later....but i never got to ask about our bones or show them to anyone.... because one day while scrambling out of the hole... the tunnel started to cave in with my sister still down below me....i just caught her hand as that clay tried to swallow her in its grassy maw..... i was screaming and she was spitting dirt and crying and retching and no one heard us.... no one at all...and i realized i almost killed my sister....almost took her life with my reckless adventure....and so did she...and that secret knowledge that she held over me became a liet motif of our future relationship.....'you almost killed me'....it was always in her angry eyes.
i was thinking of my brother today....the time when he was born and my little sister and i were sent to live with grandma and aunt mary...... when i came home and finally saw him how little he was and how dark his eyes were...so different than the bright blue of my sister and mine....and i went back to school finally and my best friend suzanne had been gone as many days as i had.....her family had went boating on bear lake.....there had been an accident.... she had fallen over board... she had never learned to swim.....she was drowning in the ice water....so her older sister dove in and saved her...but the cold got to her and she died.....she died the same day my brother was born.... i went to her house and in her room i saw all the funeral wreathes with her sisters picture....those big dark brown eyes....we didn't know what reincarnation was but we believed in it.....we were 8 years old....she loved to come and see my brother....'maria i am sorry' she would say...' i am sorry i killed you' and my brother would coo and smile....he was a happy baby.
the dramas of childhood follow you around like the demi train on a dress on a winters day like today.... remembering, the sadness has cooled to not quite a sigh.... they are gone... all gone.... only i remain...i remain wearing a silver star around my throat.,,remembering.