I made a clay basket with a twisted coil handle and a pinched edge. The handle shaped like my life now, strong, but twisted. The pinched edge, the home made pie crusts my mother used to bake with yummy crisp-brown scalloped edges.
My Mother died of brain cancer on April 11 last year. Since her diagnosis on Christmas Eve, I found myself reaching out to care for her and, at the same time, drawing within to make sense of the world around me. Mothers dying brought up all the "stuff of life:" What is my center? How much is enough to give of myself? Is death to be feared or embraced, or both? Stories tumbled from my basket.
On the
night before Mother's funeral, we had a Celebration of Life service instead
of visiting hours. The evening sun poured into the church, making the place
warm, even with her cold coffin in view. Brilliant azaleas reminded people
of the vibrancy of my Mothers life. The evening breezes were warm, like
the breath of life, and we truly celebrated who my Mother was.
The next day the clouds rolled in, and it rained off and on all morning, throughout the funeral. As we drove from the church to the cemetery, the rain pelted harder, and as we got out of our cars and stood around the grave, the heavens opened. Cold gray emptiness soaked our souls as the rain poured down through our coats and umbrellas. My Mothers good friend Bonnie said, "You know she sent that rain! She wouldn't want us to be at her grave. She would have wanted us to get on with living and spreading joy." My Sister said, "Well, the way I look at is, you have to have the rain to have the flowers of Spring."
Compared to the brilliance of the night before, the rain said to me that Mom died too young, and while we could celebrate her life, she shouldn't have died; even the heavens wept with us. Each of us had a story to tell, each with its own meaning. None of them were right or wrong; they all needed to be heard.
One evening at flood stage, I walked my dogs by the river. We found picnic area flooded under five feet of water. The river swirled gently there, slowed by the layered cement. My dogs went in over and over, having a grand time fetching and swimming and playing.
Farther downstream, debris piled up against a dock. The dogs were romping along the rivers edge and evening settled in. Without thinking, I threw the ball in one more time for my Labrador, Quita, and being a puppy she went charging after it. Suddenly Quita was swept away in the current, swimming hard with her webbed paws, forced up against the pile of floating logs. I called her, thinking I could encourage her to swim harder. She turned to face me and kept pawing at the water, but moved nowhere. I kept calling her, trying to gently encourage her, but the strength of the water began to show and Quita's yellow head sank lower and lower in the blackness.
I thought, Ill wade in and pull her collar so she gets out of the current." As I slipped in the water, quickly edging myself along the log block, the coldness of the water startled me. I saw Quita trying to swim for me.
As I reached Quita, she lunged for me. I tried to grab her collar and push her toward shore, but her flailing paws were scratching my face and I knew that Quita would drown me if I didn't get away. As I pushed away from Quita, I was forced under water. The swift dark current pulled me under the logs.
Dark roaring cold surrounded me. I flailed, letting precious air go in a torrent of bubbles. I heard my Fathers voice, warning us as children to be careful of getting our feet stuck in between rocks in the river bed. Then my Mothers voice warning us against playing in unknown waters. I struggled to force my way up through the logs, but they were packed against the dock, solid as cement above me. I thought about Paul on the river bank and what a horrible empty feeling he must have, knowing he couldn't do anything to help me. I wondered what my body would look like when they found me, swept up against the dock. Time stood still.
"Lord, please help me, I want to live!"
Immediately my flailing stopped and I held my air. The cold blackness around me grew quiet. I let out my air slowly and used the logs above me as a ladder, slowly working my way to the edge of the log pile. I grabbed the last log and pushed my head up through the surface. Air!
Eventually I pulled myself on top of the logs and scrambled back across the top of them to the shore. Quita had been swept under the logs and carried along by the current to the other side of the log jam. She got to shore where we pulled her out. We were both freezing, quaking, too scared to cry, but alive! As I reached the shore, I was overwhelmed at the sheer stupidity of my actions -- to jump in a raging river in flood season after a dog! I walked in a daze, overwhelmed by the power of the river and my shame.
Even with that warning, he did not hold my story very safely by referring to it casually in front of others. So, I kept the experience inside me; perhaps I was the only safe container I knew, as the meaning of being in that cold darkness turned from shame to life-marrow. A year went by. A few times I found myself wanting to share the experience with people, to work through it with words.
Not long after Mother died, I was walking with three dear friends, kindred spirits, as Anne Shirley of Green Gables would say. We walked up Embassy Row in Washington D.C., watching all the flags and chatting about life. I felt safe, knowing they would honor my sacred story. As I spoke the words to well-tuned ears, the meaning became clear. The shame I had felt before turned into a sense of awe. I had looked death in the face and found peace.
I feel a strange power that comes from accepting my own death. It is still true that my own stupidity lead me into the river. It is also true that God used those minutes under water to give me time to wrestle with the logs that held me under, to wrestle with the trap of thinking I could hold onto this life.
What is amazes me now is the is the importance of friends to hold my story. Through their listening and honoring my story, its meaning became clear after months of letting the story ferment inside me. I longed for people to be safe containers, not giving advice, not "I've heard this already," but people honoring my story as I told it and what it means in my life. Now I know some of what the clay basket held.
Tiffany Montavon worked in student affairs at Hanover (IN) College before returning home to care for her mother in Alexandria VA.