Some months have gone by since my last entry into this chronicle of Gunner’s life. He’s already more than 5 months old and in all honesty, these months have felt far longer, while they also felt like they were rushing by – like a train. It is almost August, now… so deep summer here in AZ and my husband and I are anchored into our drama free life in the desert.
Gunner is now home on Maui! His parents are elated and, initially they were a bit frightened by the immensity of what was before them. Especially Sarah has been 24/7 with her baby boy, keeping him fed, bathed, changed and loved. Jacob is the consummate father; working every day, coming home and helping with whatever is required and being a rock for both his wife and son. Impressive, to say the least. More on all this later, for now I’ll return to February 25, 2022.
Tiny hand holding pre-surgery.
The morning of Gunner’s 2nd surgery dawned with anticipation and fear. Anytime someone you love goes under general anesthesia, not to mention major surgery where loads can go wrong, any self possessed human would have some trepidation. We all did.
At this point, we had secured a condo in a high rise downtown and loads of homeless people wandered around night and day. Not a vacation spot or in possession of exceptional views of the ocean, but comfortable enough. Jacob and I woke up early to make our way to the hospital (only one person could stay overnight with Gunner, so his papa tried to get the sleep he needed, as did I).
Sarah was getting herself emotionally ready for the surgery, while she tended to Gunner along with the attendant nurses. Much occurs prior to surgery, so in Gunner’s case Sarah wanted to give him as much ‘skin to skin’ contact as possible (her instincts & anxiety gave her so many alarm bells, she insisted she to do this with him). Lab work commenced around 4 am and medical team had to put in a new IV (the former one had already been removed a few days prior). This took some time, but as much as Sarah could manage, she insisted on skin to skin snuggles with her boy. The possibility he wouldn’t make it through this 2nd surgery caused his mother to savor every moment she had with him and she steeled herself for all the possibilities inherent in a week old child going into another major surgery within a week of being born.
By 7:30 am, the surgical team was ready to take him down to the surgery theatre and left his mother behind, crying in the NICU halls. As a mother myself, my memories of how I felt regarding protecting my babies when they were so young and vulnerable, rushed into my consciousness. It took a mighty detour for Sarah to allow this precious, fragile child of her’s to be wheeled away.What a fucking warrior my daughter is!
Jacob and I got to the hospital right when the team took Gunner to the surgery area so the three of us gathered in the cafeteria where Sarah and I ordered two dirty chai’s, a big cup of coffee for Jacob and some grubby food. Then we all settled as a cautious, huddled group of worried, yet hopeful humans.
We were all pulling for Gunner to make it through this surgery which, if successful, could help him immensely. Putting the two ends of his intestines back together could have one of two effects. One would be his small intestine could begin to grow and extend. The other it would not. Either way, Gunner had an uncertain future, but completely vital in every way, aside from his intestine. His body was strong, healthy and all his major organs worked perfectly.
When Jacob and I arrived at the hospital, Sarah had already been getting Gunner ready for this next stage in his life. She was so tired, in every way, yet her spirits were steady. As steady as a mother can be under these incredible circumstances. At 7:30 the team came to the NICU to pick Gunner up and take him away.
savoring every minute with him.
Sarah dissolved into a million bits and a cascade of tears streamed down her cheeks, but she mustered up her faith in him; that Gunner would not only survive, but thrive with this experimental surgery.
This procedure was not generally done so soon. Reconnecting the two ends of the severed intestine is normally conducted after many weeks of being earthside, but the lead surgeon told us he kept ‘thinking’ the best course of action was to connect the two ends of Gunner’s small intestine right away.
To me, spirit was moving through this pragmatic and scientific human’s mind and urging a radical intervention for our boy. This old witch just smiled knowingly as I listened to this man – close to my age and experience in life – mumble about how he didn’t know why he thought this was a good idea, but how sure he was that it was. My inside voice said, ‘Alhamdulillah’ (“praise be to God” in Arabic) to this news and the way Source is such a sneaky resource to us humans.
Lab work began around 3:30 am, a new IV had to be installed into his tiny body (which was no easy feat), waivers and documents needed to be signed, loads of information about the procedure explained and as much as she could, Sarah insisted on skin to skin contact with her boy. The idea that he would be cut open again was staggering, yet the faith the 3 of
Papa post surgery with his brave little man.
us had was in equal measure.
We made our way to the cafeteria where we talked, we cried, we felt loads of emotions and I mostly listened to these young parents. They were so new at being parents, yet so skilled at being in that position already. They both KNEW they needed to be incredibly brave and full of faith in the process they found themselves in. Their courage was so inspiring to me, as I have NEVER faced this level of the unknown with an infant.
If I could only be so brave in life, I thought.
In a few hours, word got to us little Gunner was out of surgery and doing well. He was ALIVE and he made it through another trial. Sarah & Jacob rushed up to her NICU room to wait for Gunner’s return… and Tutu went about the business of gathering up what we needed to keep going in Honolulu, HI.
We just kept taking one step, then another…and this became how our days went. Inside of a week we were becoming accustomed to the trauma informed life we were leading. Looking back, I can still recall how I felt in the early months of 2022. Fractured, hollowed out, frightened, sleepless and so utterly grateful for all the tiny moments I had with this tiny little human named Gunner.
When I was barely 22, I became a mother for the first time. The few years before, my life had been quite difficult. Between the ages of 14-20 a lot happened; my parents divorced, my sisters and I went to multiple schools, suffered multiple moves, experienced constant betrayal, parental (father) abandonment occurred and I experienced abuse, rape and assault.
One of those events could’ve been enough to throw a sheltered, entitled kid from the SF Bay Area into a life long trauma response, so maybe the list of them forced me into a state of such incredible – ‘wake up, dummy!!!’ – I actually did.
Wake up, that is.
Of late, the phrase ‘woke’ has become a big negative for some, but truly – in my own experience – waking up to our connection to everything and everyone is a good thing – as long as you consciously avoid becoming an imperious asshole. But, I digress…
Becoming a mother shocked me into what is required to give life and sustain it with the sense of complete surrender to my child’s well being, rather than my individual self. This event also changed me from a broken, traumatized human, into a fierce, curious and directed woman. In that shift, I found a deep well of spirituality I have NEVER lost. This spirituality is something which remained informative and dynamic through all the decades of my life, since then.
At the root of parenting, is compassion and humility. None of us know how to be great parents when we start, but if we remain humble and open, our children show us the way… if we so chose.
Memories of how my instincts were naturally activated when my first daughter was born rushed into my consciousness when my second born, Sarah, was completely overcome with the same instincts the moment her Gunner was born. She just went through the exact same transition I had gone through 40 years before, but my precious daughter had an enormous mine field of ‘how do I keep this child alive???!!”questions, inclusive of multiple and significant choices she & her husband had to make for Gunner to survive.
They didn’t know anything medically, but they did know Gunner AND they did know they wanted a chance for him, but ONLY if he had the possibility of having a life worth experiencing. If keeping him alive meant he would not have any of the joys of being human, but artificially hooked up to machines in order to be here… A life they DID NOT want for him.
Their love for their son was obvious from the second he was born and it was so strong, neither of them required he remain with them, while both of them were willing to do ANYTHING – if he wanted to be here. The most powerful messages they received were from their son, as each day that went by during the first week of Gunner’s life, gave them one promise after another that Gunner was fighting to be with them as much as they were fighting for him to stay alive.
Such a wondrous time; but the tears!! Oh, SO many tears and wails from our hearts due to the vast unknown in front of this little boy & the daily ups and significant downs he had. During those first weeks, his mother shared her fears and joys with me, as I was the primary person with her for the first weeks of Gunner’s life when Jacob was on Maui working.
My heart broke every time she lamented the normal joys she’d expected and couldn’t have; nursing him, cuddling with him and his papa, taking him outside to feel the sunshine, showing him off to the world, sleepless nights sitting in soft light and cooing with her perfect child… and even sadness for things she hadn’t even imagined she would miss. My heart broke with her over and over and I had to keep reminding her that he was still here and THAT ALONE, was a fucking miracle. “One step – then Another. One moment – and another” was all she could possibly do. Cry for the losses & the broken dreams… and as the tears streamed down her face, I asked her to celebrate the miracles.
She did it all.
My first night on Oahu was completely out of body and weird… Hannah and Jacob secured a pretty shitty hotel room near Waikiki Beach; the only room available on such short notice. All three of us squished into that room and went directly to sleep. As weird as it is to imagine sleeping in the same room as my daughter’s husband, I don’t think anyone blinked an eye. We were all that exhausted and frankly, sleeping hadn’t been all that easy for anyone in our family for many long nights since February 18th.
My ‘three hours ahead of this time zone’ body got me up before dawn and I decided to slip out to rustle up some coffee for everyone and do SOMETHING about the fact that I only had fluffy UGG boots to wear (remember when I mentioned earlier about my packing job?).
If you were to spend a few days with me in a metropolis, you’d see I’m not wonderful about knowing where I am. Often I’ll head in the opposite direction I’m directed to, even with GPS help. It’s curious, as I am pretty good at navigating larger areas – even vast, multi-dimensional ones, but I am utterly dreadful in cities. That morning was no different and it was so early, none of the coffee shops I had found were open yet. Giving up, I found my way to a canal and sat on a bench to call my husband. We both cried a bit, but it was SO good to hear his soothing voice that morning. Another small/huge miracle, this love I have and I believe it helped me manage my day and acclimate.
In Hawaii, there are these touristy shops selling everything a traveler may require called the ABCStore. They tend to be on every other corner, open early and late so I bought a pair of slippers (or ‘flip-flops’ as mainlanders refer to them) with the word, ALOHA, written on the sole with tropical flowers on a black background. They were $4.99, ridiculously ugly and totally sucked to walk in, but I honestly didn’t have the time to get something better. After I acquired those babies, I found some great coffee and bought three big cups to share with my Hannah and Papa Jacob. Once I found my way back to the hotel, the day launched quickly – and without food – while my feet began to blister from my new slippers. We had to get back to the hospital AND move into another hotel, where we would be staying for another week or so.
The first week of Gunner’s life was topsy turvy, all over the place. As I settled into life in a hotel, in a city, surrounded by millions of humans, my daughter stayed with her baby – day in and day out – ignoring her own physical pain, which was nothing compared to the pain of losing him at any moment. Her feet were swollen (she lamented they felt like floppy boobs), the incision hurt, her back was on fire and her heart felt like it was literally bleeding. Every day was a gift, while they brought little in the way of certainty for Gunner’s long term survival. He seemed to be handling life without a small intestine, but the prognosis was grim due to the severity of his condition.
Usually, this sort of situation occurs in premies, but after they are born not in utero and it’s often due to a birth defect or when the intestine hasn’t developed enough. What occurred was Gunner’s intestine twisted up (a ‘volvulus’) a few days before Sarah started labor. This situation caused the blood flow to his developing intestine to stop, which created ‘necrotizing enterocolitis’. Completely rare in utero and often not detected in already born babies, who typically die of sepsis because the symptoms are throwing up and diarrhea, both of which can be considered ‘normal’ behavior for an infant. In the cases where the parents aren’t seeing the symptoms for what they are, the baby will die from sepsis very quickly.
In most ways, Sarah and Jacob’s journey into birth was a boon to Gunner’s survival. Had she not given birth as early as she did, the dead cells of his intestine would most certainly have caused him to die prior to birth and possibly impacted Sarah’s health as well. At the end of her pregnancy she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, causing baby to get bigger, faster. This was also a good thing as Gunner was very well developed at birth, even though he was many weeks from being fully gestated.
Still, his situation was presenting to the doctors as ‘unsurvivable’ and those first days of his life were incredibly difficult. On one hand everyone was elated that he was still alive. On the other, his tenuous hold on life was significant, especially according to the specialists. They didn’t mince their words about his situation and his parents were constantly thrown around emotionally with the grim reality that their boy may not ever live anything close to normal, would be unable to take food in by his mouth, may never swim in the ocean, play with other kids or ever be without a backpack full of intravenous food 24/7.
Sarah and Jacob had to listen to all these dire prognoses from knowledgable and experienced experts AND kept making decisions considering what they were being told with their knowledge of their boy and HIS desire to live and thrive. To say they were incredible, is quite an understatement. They showed us all what an obvious exercise is faith looks like.
Aunty Hannah & Gunner in his first days of life. Snuggling.
During the first surgery Gunner had, the surgeon removed all of his small intestine and sewed what was left (called ‘stomas’) to the outside of his body. Generally, the surgery conducted where the two stomas are connected inside the gut doesn’t happen for a few months, or 6-9 weeks post birth. In this case, the lead surgeon told us, during an impromptu visit outside the hospital, that he kept thinking about Gunner and feeling like he should reconnect what was left of Gunner’s intestine right away. He considered it a way to take advantage of the natural growth little babies do between gestational weeks 35-40.
Even though Gunner was no longer in utero, this growth could occur, or at least this is what the surgeon kept thinking about. Maybe doing this surgery now would help Gunner develop a bit more small intestine… and wasn’t it worth a try?
As the quiet grandmother, providing solace, meals and running errands for the family, I simply watched Gunner’s father urge the doctors to ‘think outside the box’ for his son. While Sarah was keeping Gunner alive through presence and touch, she was also racked with fear about his situation and wasn’t always capable of the same process as her husband; mentally. Jacob listened and respected the specialists, but also challenged them to do things specifically for his son, not what was ‘normally’ done.
Nothing about Gunner’s situation was typical or ‘normal’ and I wonder whether those dialogs inspired the doctors to take unheard of or tested actions for our Gunner. Looking back, it seemed these choices have made a big difference in his survival and current condition. At least this is how I see it.
We will NEVER know the how’s or why’s of Gunner’s ability to thrive in the face of such an intense physical condition, but certainly every step of the way the medical intervention and energetic support (prayers, belief and faith) of hundreds of family and extended community members, worked together to help this little guy, who clearly wanted to live.
Mid week of Gunner’s life, it was decided to conduct a 2nd surgery on his little body to connect the two ends of his intestine. The medical team scheduled surgery #2 for that Friday. So we soldiered on…
Sarah and Jacob were a united front and we all followed suit.
One moment. One step. One hurdle at a time – then another.
The night of February 18th was a long one. Initially, I was full of elation with the arrival of my grandson, Gunner. Then I had complete, gut wrenching sorrow at the news he could not live. The bulk of that night was sleepless for me and I left my ranch early in the morning to catch a flight out to Oahu.
Although I had already booked a flight to Maui for February 23rd, I bought another ticket for the next flight out of Flagstaff without canceling the first one. No time to do that. At first, I wasn’t sure where to go; Maui or Oahu. If our little wonder boy was going to die, shouldn’t I head to Maui to be with my family there and wait for Sarah, Jacob and Gunner’s casket? Ultimately, Chelsea and Hannah, who were already on Oahu, asked me to fly there to be with them. They believed it best for me to be with Sarah as quickly as possible; she would need me.
Usually I have something to write on when I travel, but the packing I did for this trip was abysmal (to put it mildly). In addition to not bringing the right shoes, clothes or any of the items I’d already been excited about bringing to Maui for Gunner’s birth (presents, cards, scarves… crystals and sage), I neglected to bring my notebook. All I had was Diana Gabaldon’s latest book, “Go Tell The Bees That I’m Gone” (which must’ve weight 20 pounds) which I somehow thought I would be able to read. The shit we do while in shock, is shocking! Still, it did provide some beautiful empty pages for me, so I wrote to a little boy I wasn’t going to meet.
Did I mention how scared I was? The idea I would only be able touch child who was no longer alive and never see his vitality – his soul – in form really frightened me. How would I possibly keep it together for my daughter? I knew I was traumatized but also, I realized I was very, very scared.
Writing was soothing, acting as a balm for my tattered heart on the first flight out of the desert. & then again on the long flight from Arizona to Hawaii. Over the decades of my life, writing has helped me process emotions which seemed too hard to manage. For the entire time I wrote, I felt I was actually speaking with Gunner, feeling him and ‘knowing’ he was right next to me, or more honestly within me. My primary message to him was to do what was best for him and I would still love him and remember his spirit. Writing like that gave me a tangible glimmer of faith in the process we found ourselves in. Somehow we would – I would – grow from this suffering. Some way, I would.
The man sitting next to me asked me a few times, “What are you writing?” I told him I was writing a love letter to my new grandson, Gunner. Tears fell for me, but he didn’t seem troubled. He said he would pray. It was hard to keep writing through my tears, but I did.
Jacob and Sarah, Gunner’s parents just a year before they conceived our boy.
“February 19, 12:30 pm MT – Gunner, you were born yesterday and you forgot something you need here! Your body is mostly perfect, but for the small intestine. I’m talking with Source about this, in case we can somehow make the oversight of that – um, right. I know honey, it’s a long shot, but we were all so happy you were finally here – it’s really hard to say goodby already. Your Tutu (that’s me, this time) is really feeling very human and I’ve been crying because I just wanted you here – so MUCH. We all do; a whole big family of weird ones. Seems you’d fit in easily! Whatever is the very best for you, I will accept, but I AM saying – if you can stay with us and have a fair shot at being a healthy boy – I hope you can. We already love you A WHOLE LOT! …
“2:15 MT – Gunner!! I just talked with Aunty Chelsea. She told me things about you that are, quite frankly – FUCKING MIRACULOUS! Even the doctors are excited – I mean, who doesn’t LOVE miracles?! So, they told us you couldn’t survive, even for one night. But, you aren’t just surviving; you’re peeing, breathing on your own and making them (those doctors) AMAZED! Your mama, my Sarah is with you and your papa Jacob is too. They are fighting with you, kid! So, I’ve been able to stop that ache in my heart and I’m glad. Thank you for staying and doing your best … and listen; even a few days of you will be a gift. But, get this! Even though it won’t be easy – AT ALL – who knows what science will do! Five years go by and MAYBE you have a big surgery, but it could make life really possible buddy!
“6:32 MT – Well Gunner, I’m crying here and there, so I wonder – How are you? Are you still with Mama & Papa while your Tutu flies like a bird to see you? I’m sitting next to people who live in Houston, TX, but they are originally from China. I told them about you (because they saw me writing this letter on my book – and crying a bit), but I couldn’t tell them too much. I guess I’m a little selfish and don’t want to share with anyone… My teacher, Vicki who I felt to reach out to when I got the news of your troubles, she and her friend Jonathon, both astrologers – like me – looked at your chart. After all the years of being an astrologer, I have never seen one like yours! They said not to get my hopes up but medical intervention could play a big part in your survival! Also, 2 hours, 16 hours & then 10 days into your life will bring new information. So… I’m almost to your island little boy and in the meantime, I’m doing what I do in the energy field and feeling grateful for your little self. I love you more than I can say.
“7:14 MT – Hey Gunner! It occurs to me how you changed me today.
One – life is too short to be unkind. Two – let the tears flow while I find grace in the losses.”
My flight arrived late, due to God knows what, but there I was in a long metal can filled with humans, for a while as we taxied to the gate. It was so late, Chelsea had already flown back to Maui. Hannah picked me up alone, and I honestly can’t remember if we cried or not, but I was SO GLAD to see my baby girl… So, so glad and I held her tight. (Must’ve cried… )
The smell of Oahu is the same as any city I’ve been to. Flying into Maui is like flying into a garden of flowers… Just that stark reality alone, felt like a harbinger of what the next few weeks would be for me. As we drove to the hospital where Sarah was, Hannah filled me in on what had occurred in the past 7 hours.
Oh my GOD!! Prayers being answered has usually been a multi year process. This was hours!!
As Hannah had left the hospital, our Gunner was being held, skin to skin with my darling Sarah!
The common desire we all have is we want peace in our lives; physically and emotionally. Because of that desire, we tend to shy away from pain and suffering, yet sometimes shit happens and you find yourself in the middle of an emotional and physical nightmare.
This was my experience a few months back. At the time, I realized how quickly the soul steps in, rallying to support you when you are shocked into a reality you can’t fathom.
As my daughter’s new boy was whisked off to another island in the Hawaiian archipelago, she was prone in a hospital bed with a huge incision across her lower abdomen and numb from the neck down. Even though she is an adult, my mother’s heart was lamenting the nature of her struggle and wished with all my being I could do SOMETHING. The only action I could take, from 3000 miles and an ocean away, was be with her energetically.
Some call it prayer, some ask for God’s intervention. Me… I called on the power of my love and all the Universal energy available to us, to do whatever they could to help her.
As Rob and I unpacked the car and I went about getting a flight for the next day to Hawaii, we were distracted with what was happening to the extreme. Given we could do nothing practical, we set about calming ourselves and putting things away, making some dinner and I googled; ‘bruised abdomen in newborn’. A futile endeavor… There was nothing.
Have you ever found yourself going in circles, unable to settle and just moving for the sake of action of some kind? That was me for hours, while my phone pinged and rang with news from 6 pm to midnight… Every step of the way, we were informed about what was happening at the hospital. They were taking Jacob on the flight. Gunner was admitted. They were prepping him for surgery. He was in surgery. We would know what the next steps would be soon. All of us thinking he would be fine, while fearing there was something more in store for us…
And then I got the worst text I’ve ever received in my life around 1:00 am which read, “SOS, he’s not going to make it”.
In our little house, in the middle of absolutely no where an old grandma got news of her newest grandson’s impending death. I threw the phone on the couch and howled like a crippled animal, then crumpled on the floor.
This couldn’t be happening. My beautiful daughter’s only desire for most of her life had been given to her. We were all elated as everything had progressed perfectly. Until that moment… Her dream of being a mother was being ripped away the same day it had been realized.
Jacob had been waiting at the Kapiolani Children’s Hospital for news from the surgeons operating on Gunner. Once they opened his perfect little body up, the display of necrotic tissue in front of them was shocking in how extensive it was. There was no medical reason for what they saw but Gunner’s small intestine had twisted about two days before, cutting off blood flow to his intestine and killing the tissue. The damage was so extensive, the surgeon came out of the operating room to ask Gunner’s father what he wanted them to do.
They could simply put the necrotic tissue back, close him up and make him comfortable OR cut the bad stuff out and stitch the ends to the outside of his body and make him comfortable. Either way, the necrosis was so bad they believed the infection had gone further into Gunner’s system and he would not survive. This is what my son in law was told.
All at once, this perfect, much wanted, just born child, would die all in the same day. Jacob asked the surgeon to take out the dead tissue and make him comfortable…
Crying, all alone and in so much pain, Jacob called his wife to tell her the news. “Sarah, he’s not gonna make it.” Their boy would not live, but they would make him comfortable.
Then the surgeon could be heard through the phone, speaking with Jacob sitting in the waiting room, while Sarah was on the line. “The likelihood of life without his intestine is grim and anyway, usually this level of necrosis develops quickly into septic shock and we are unable to resolve that. Do you want us to keep him alive so Sarah can get here, or make him comfortable and let him die?” They offered no indication he had a chance of survival. Not one sliver of hope for these new parents.
Sarah and Jacob discussed how they didn’t want to keep him alive for their sake; to soothe their own pain if that meant he would live a horrible life. Instead, they asked the surgeons to keep him alive until Sarah was able to hold him one more time. She wanted to say goodbye to her precious, delicious boy. Decision made, they ended the call.
Then Sarah looked up to the nurse who was hovering over her and asked, “what am I supposed to do? My baby’s dying.” The nurse told her this, “You take one moment, one step, one thing at a time….“
So Sarah told her sister to help her get up and leave the hospital. She was going to get on the next plane to Oahu to be with her husband to say goodbye to Gunner. The staff at Maui Memorial said she couldn’t leave the hospital until she peed so she managed that and walked out of the hospital. Only a mere 12 hours post op, Sarah was in shock but determined. She had to get to her husband and son.
Hannah, my youngest daughter, got her out of the hospital and my youngest son, Tyler, picked them up and brought his sisters to the oldest sibling, Chelsea’s house, where everyone was waiting for news. The whole family was gathered at Chelsea’s; husbands, wives, their littles and Sarah’s siblings.
As Sarah came in, she was calm, in shock, clear as a bell, and strong as fuck, “I will keep going. I owe that to my son”. For years, Sarah struggled with addiction and our worst fear was she would relapse back into that nightmare, but her resolve indicated something different. She told them all she intended to use the memory of her son to rise above and told them all, with perfect clarity, “I can do hard things, so I will do this now.”
At some point they called me and pleaded with me to get to Oahu. Sarah would need help, as would Jacob and they thought that was the best plan, so I scrambled to get my flight arranged and finished up packing. My heart was broken, my confusion overwhelming and the sense of unreality pervaded everything. This could not be happening.
Sarah was afraid to go to sleep because she didn’t want to lose the support of the shock she was in, but given the state of her own body, she laid on the couch with Hannah, drifting in and out of sleep, murmuring this could break her husband. She thought she would lose him too.
As morning approached on Maui, preparations for getting on a plane to Oahu began. Sarah began to take things out of the suitcase she’d packed for the birth… Any thing in there which was something for a long term stay; her toothbrush, baby blanket, even clothes, were all removed. ‘I’m going to bring home a dead baby, so I don’t need this shit. Then she and her two sisters got to the airport to get on the 6:00 am flight to Oahu.
Sarah refused the wheelchair and limped down the long terminal to the gate.
On February 18th, 2022 Gunner James was born. His parents, Sarah & Jacob, had tried for 8 years to get pregnant, surviving through numerous and grueling IVF treatments that gave them several pregnancies, but the same number of miscarriages. They had one more embryo and this was their last chance.
To say he was welcomed into his parents’ lives – is a massive understatement. Yet, we (the women of our family) were scared… with no reason. We had a sinking feeling we couldn’t shake, couldn’t discuss, couldn’t fathom and yet, we had trepidation. No obvious cause, as Sarah’s pregnancy was straightforward and all the ultrasounds and tests were perfect. Aside from late in her pregnancy when she developed gestational diabetes, there were no complications.
As Sarah’s mother, I knew her desire to be a mother began when she was still a child herself. To see her go through so much difficulty getting pregnant tore me apart, but I had to manage that on my own. We are very different sorts of humans. I am an intuitive healer and astrologer and my daughter is pragmatic, practical and self proclaimed rule follower (when it makes sense).
We love each other deeply, but often didn’t fully understand each other. We struggled relating about her desire to have a family because I had been TOO fertile in comparison. If I had any issues with fertility, it was the opposite of her challenges making me unable to perceive just how difficult her journey was. That and other factors troubled our exchange as mother and daughter, but we respected each other, she helped me wrap my heart around her situation, we talked things through – ALWAYS – and our love was a gentle wave we have always ridden together. There is room for differences, but only when everyone involved creates space and remains kind inside it.
A few years ago, I had a clear understanding about one reason WHY they couldn’t get pregnant; which wasn’t scientific, but energetic. To both their credit, Sarah and Jacob understood what I ultimately shared with them and how to overcome it (which they followed), while they continued to use medicine and test tubes to create their child. With an abundance of courage, they implanted the last 3 saved embryos they had left… and Gunner’s first cells began to grow within her body. In 16 weeks, they announced to the world they were expecting a child!
At the turn of 2022, I made plans to fly to Maui in early March to spend time with Sarah while she was still pregnant and I would then be close by for the birth.When February rolled around, my husband and I made plans to drive to Tehachapi; about 6 hours drive from our ranch in AZ. After two years of being cooped up – as COVID forced all of us to do – it was our maiden voyage into civilization together. We were excited for our road trip and took our time driving there.
During our drive we got out for a walk with our Salukis, out in the deep wilds of Southern California, when I ‘saw’ something trying to hurt my grandson; punching him in his tummy. It felt like this ‘thing’ wanted to kill our boy, so I turned to my husband and told him as much. We both immediately & automatically sent protective love and it seemed as though my system worked on getting whatever this was, away from my beloveds.
In truth, I’d hoped I was just seeing things.
Two days later, we were driving home and Sarah called, saying she felt weird. She just wasn’t sure what was happening that day and promised to keep me close. Eventually it was clear she was in labor.
There was still over a month before Gunner’s due date which was concerning, but we were alsoexcited. As the day progressed, the calls kept coming in from Sarah. Something wasn’t right and they kept having to relax their ideals for the birth, surrendering to more and more intervention. Then, after hours of labor, the contractions began to put Gunner into distress, so it was decided to do a C-section… THE OPPOSITE of what they wanted, but they both felt it was best for their baby. Still, this little man, born so early was a big 6 pound boy with a healthy pair of lungs on him!! Everything seemed fine. He was strong and he was BORN!!
Within minutes though, the doctors noticed significant bruising on his lower abdomen… which may be a minor issue, but not wanting to take any chances, they whisked him out of his mother’s arms and into x-ray.
Sarah reflected on the one perfect moment she had when she heard his first cry; a split second of joy and knowing her dreams were coming true, engulfed her heart. She cried bitter, sorrowful tears, as she told me this recollection, but also remembered how soothing and magical it was to hold him for the first time. Gunner’s first cry gave her the briefest of seconds where she knew all was well. She thought to herself, “He’s here… everything will be fine!!”
But there was a huge problem…
Within a few hours, it was decided that Gunner needed to be airlifted to Oahu where the hospitals were better equipped to diagnose what was going on and manage it, if it was serious.
Jacob remained near Gunner, while Sarah was prone, just out of surgery and still numb from the neck down. The realization that her child would be taken away from her and FLOWN to another island and they wouldn’t take anyone else on the helicopter was a staggering proposition to them both. Their tiny human would be taken from the only voices he would recognize … and things just kept happening.
For several hours, the hospital worked to get a flight for Gunner. Once they were situated and at the last minute, the transport team offered to bring Jacob with them. Such an enormous relief!Sarah couldn’t move, but Gunner would have his papa with him.
One miracle and another, peppered in with one trauma followed by another. We were all on the roller coaster of our lives, especially my daughter and her husband.
Gunner James being transported to hospital in Oahu
From 11 am, HI time on, the phone was always buzzing. Our big family were all communicating via text and calls, while the local Maui Ohana were busy gathering up stuff for the little family, while one sister stayed with Sarah in the hospital. Rob and I arrived home and we never stopped praying. Things felt really otherworldly for me, as though time was standing still and rushing by all at once.
Once home, we settled into our normal evening routine & I pulled out my suitcase so I could get ready to go meet my new grandson, only to have our lives and hearts completely shattered.
Over the years of life, the one thing I continue to find is that I am often incorrect about what’s ‘right’ and what’s ‘wrong’. Generally, given time and faith, the truth will emerge, but generally it’s difficult to be honest and people will hang on to what they believe, spread rumors as fact and keep narratives alive about someone’s character, long after they have outgrown something.
As a young mother of 5 in the middle of the 90’s, I finally decided to leave my marriage. There wasn’t a specific ‘reason’ to leave, but years of broken promises kept pointing me towards the door to divorce. Namely, my marriage suffered from a lack of truth and both of us were guilty of it.
What happened next was hard. In my quest for freedom, I engaged in incredible amounts of magical thinking, side stepped compassion towards my former husband’s feelings, bumped up against tremendous gossip about me and my lifestyle and struggled to keep my children safe from all the adult missteps and childish behavior.
It was a mess and in looking back, I was responsible. Sure, my kids’ dad had a part, but I found what he did or didn’t do made no difference in the long run. My life was up to me, so the sooner I took responsibility, the sooner I would have peace.
This was a hard won perspective to cultivate.
The dream of ‘happily ever after’ once I married my husband, was destroyed less than 6 months into our relationship. With a broken heart, I slogged through and kept re-emerging again & again, into our slowly eroding relationship.
In truth, that was the beginning of the end for me, as the faith and trust in our love totally dissolved. We had a messed up relationship based on expectation, not truth. And we did genuinely love each other… madly, but we lost trust.
Without mutual respect and an honoring of our commitments to each other, all we were left with were empty promises and assumptions neither of us could satisfy for the other.
My method for handling the divorce was terrible, but I didn’t have a play book for this. My own parents’ divorce was an exercise in abandonment by my father, who fell in love with my coach and left my mother and all his kids without a backward glance. Then he proceeded to blame my mother, make her 100% responsible and gave her nothing to help raise their 5 daughters. That was what I’d lived through and my response to my own divorce was initially informed by my history.
Subsequently and over time, the only way I could rise up from the flames of my life was through admitting to myself where I was ‘wrong’ and take full responsibility for my life. When it no longer mattered what ‘he did’ or ‘what he said’, I reclaimed something profound. Personal agency.
One of my kids is going through a divorce, with all the attendant struggles divorce brings. He made a slew of bad choices while married and has the result of those choices to sort out now. Although I have a great deal of love for his former wife, I have chosen to remain 100% available to my son, to help him recover, while maintaining my availability and love towards her.
Through all these months, I have watched people within the family, old friends and many other members of the extended community, persist in placing the responsibility for the end of this marriage squarely my son’s shoulders.
If the entire community involved were focused on healing, not blame, how would all this shake down? Would both my son and his children’s mother heal and recover? Would the children be embraced with consistency at every turn? Would the community experience healing?
What has occurred, instead, is a great deal of ‘new age’ magical thinking, blame and deflection, tons of secrets and lies; all of which have the opposite effect. The fall out for this, is peace for the little ones. The offspring of this union.
My granddaughter how she feels about all this and had tears in her eyes, as she talked about her Papa and how people treat him. People she loves.
After a moment of disbelief, I realized my job was to be myself — and no one else, so I listened and comforted her. Not by making people ‘wrong’ but encouraging her to continue to love everyone anyway. My prayer is she knows it’s key for her to recognize that what feels best to her, is best for her.
In truth, I was horrified and my heart ached for my son.
Yes, they both made a ton of mistakes, but the public crucifixion of my son is so typical and so hurtful. Are we going to limit each other entirely? Is it reasonable to allow everyone a chance to grow and heal and move forward with a new form to relationships with love intact? In this scenario, it appears we must have a villain and a victim.
In truth, my son is healing. He is learning where he stepped ‘wrong’ and is moving into better ways of being. He knows this is for his own good & why he is doing this.
No one is blamed and everyone is allowed the space to grow.
As in my own experience, I know both of them have a part in the end of their marriage and both have changes to make. For now, I have to continue to encourage my child to be responsible.
In divorce, no matter who did what to the other, none of it is important. What’s important is to keep the children’s needs in focus. Ultimately, I had to suck it up and find the love to care enough for my kids’ father, to put aside all the things he did that hurt me. Deep down, I had to remember that he was my children’s father and both of us being in their lives was important. For them.
Time is often the best medicine, while accountability the balm for healing. We learn, hopefully, how to be better in life. Yet, I see so many humans avoid growth to remain ‘right’.
In this life, I’ve learned that being ‘wrong’ and owning it, has been far more expansive.
This year, 2018, is coming to a close. My lover and I took to the western to midwestern highways for a visit to his family and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this past year, which has been many things.
Several of my children have had impactful and harrowing times of depression, illness, loss and betrayal (when one has many children, there are a lot more opportunities for growth). There are a number of people I’ve known for many years, who I’ve discovered, are not people I want in my life in a deep way. The personal, up close stuff and it often seems the world is unraveling in a significant ways.
There is a thread of consistency in 2018 that points to uncovering infection and clearing the debris away. Clean and clear methods for moving, but not without some deep introspection on best actions to take for expansion.
There’s another phenomenon I’ve noticed this year, more than other years prior to this. The onslaught of “experts” in teaching and direction towards “alignment” and “psychic attunement”.
After a weekend workshop, or a six week course… or maybe a week long “immersion into the 5th dimension”, now thousands of neophytes are suddenly experts and can charge enormous prices for their “expert” coaching.
Really?!
After almost 4 decades of study, experience, life and teaching the skills of awareness, I don’t consider myself an expert in YOUR life and cannot — in good conscience — portray my work, or myself in this way. But now, there are those in their first decades of life who are confidently presenting themselves this way.
Much like the current president, who has NO experience as a public servant, but portrays himself as a leader to lead all others, we have this in my profession also.
There is a danger in this kind of offering, in that without years of experience, practice and study, one is not able to offer true clarity to others and can do great harm to seekers of truth by inciting their fears of unworthiness, while promising “healing and awareness” with that edge of “complete alignment” to others.
Trendy, shallow and a dangerous direction to follow, in my opinion. This kind of off handed understanding can do much more harm than good. First of all, being a spiritual guide or “energy reader” does not mean that lighting some sage and doing a “clearing” will rid your clients of anything, other than a little bit of surface tension.
Nothing of merit comes from someone telling you the main problem you have is that you’re “out of alignment” or there are evil energies surrounding you that are taking you off track.
Then paying sometimes 10’s of thousands of dollars for their advice is ludicrous, yet it’s all over the internet. And worse, many people are taking this as all they need to become their own expert and offer up the same shallow and uneducated perspective to paying clients; forget that they’ve still not been able to resolve their own shit yet.
This is no different than hiring someone to do an important job who has little to no experience ever truly doing it. Can they know what’s troubling you, when they can’t decipher their own spiritual failings? Are they simply regurgitating others’ information with a few tweaks here and there, to make that information seem unique?
Being psychic is no fun, if you’re truly gifted with that skill. First you’ll deny it, hide from it, minimize it and avoid it. Mostly, you simply want to fit in to society, but when your inside voice is muddled with other people’s voices, it can make you feel like a total crazy person.
Everyone has empathy. EVERYONE… so deciding that this is a gift, unique to you, is absurd — yet according to many online sites, this is your ticket into psychic attunement…
Bullshit.
Becoming more aware is important but it’s not and shouldn’t be a marketing angle to take after a few hours of study. You are not an expert and are being irresponsible when you tout yourself as one.
What if your client is truly suffering from an energy invasion? Do you really have the connection to Source to help them, as this is how that’s accomplished not by you — EVER. And when confronted with something dark, can you confidently state that you know what to do about it?
In this profession, I’ve had clients who needed something different than my teaching and I referred them to other professionals. They were clinically depressed or anxious and needed psychiatric care and, at times, pharmaceuticals. My ego wasn’t involved, but my experience in this work was. Sure, I lost a paying client, but if my work is to actually help people — my loss was small. Their gain was huge — as time and time again, I’ve had these clients come back to be and offer a great deal of gratitude to me.
This new rash of ‘psychically attuned professionals’ are completely unable to override their lack of experience to identify exactly what’s needed for their client. Rather than pointing them towards the help they need, they bumble around with this affirmation or that ritual as the healing needed, sending a sincerely needy person into deeper despair — now coupled with financial stress from paying out the nose for their shoddy advice.
Integrity is key, no matter what service you have to offer. Being trained and having enough experience work together in this work, as we don’t have standards to go by. We must be aware of what we can do and stop allowing for marginal knowledge to be our new standard for expertise.
Keep learning and offering up the true healing for Source to accomplish. To those interested in working with me, I make it abundantly clear that I am like a PVC pipe for the Universe and all gratitude is to Them. Look for someone to help you who has skills and integrity, not just marketing savvy. They do not have what it takes to help you achieve your “next level”, but are merely capable of taking your money and running off at the mouth at how great they are at visualizing their abundance (and therefore able to do that for you) in their next social media post.
Yes… a bit of a truth bomb this morning!
As our planet moves towards the longest night, reach for the light and uncover what’s true so 2019 delivers a more honest, more capable, more powerful you.
Another school shooting just happened… just like the many, many school shootings lived through directly (if your kid attended, was injured or killed in it), or vicariously and now viscerally as fellow Americans feeling the empathy multiplied by zillions for the families of the many schools where people are being shot to death at an alarming rate.
When Newtown happened, I though for sure we’d do something… those victims were mere babies… But no. Still crickets and ridiculous nonesense about gun rights. It stands to reason that if schools were uteruses there would certainly be some new laws passed ASAP to protect the kiddos inside them, wouldn’t there? The right to own a semi-automatic gun is more important than our kids, I guess.
In the circles I run in, we are… Horrified. Angry & SICK of it.
Given that there’s no value in pointing out the fucking obvious, as far as what could be done in a practical sense, I want to share what YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW if what you’re feeling is utterly powerless.
Notice that you’re feeling horrified & outraged. Simply notice it.
Stop talking to everyone about it & stop posting on social media your outrage. Just stop.
Notice how that sorrow and negativity feels inside your body — the hateful, blaming, negative energy. Notice it & follow the steps below to finally do something different.
Transform your understandable anger into something entirely new. Move into LOVE.
Sounds just a little ridiculous I bet, but hear me out.
Love is the ONLY solution to this & I’m not talking about “loving” the horrible stuff. If you haven’t noticed, all the vitriol and blame is not working. Is it? To affect change, suspend your feelings about the situation as you perceive it and focus on the area around your heart. It’s called the heart chakra, or 4th energy center. Go there and breathe into it, while you sincerely work on activating a positive emotion. One of love, care, compassion or simply focus on something beautiful.
Heart Center
Focus on the area around your heart and breathe in for a count of 5 while you activate a positive emotion, then release it for a count of 5. Keep doing this breath continuously, until you sense a shift in the energy of your body. It will feel like an opening and there will be some movement throughout your entire body. Allowing yourself to activate a positive emotion, while you slowly breathe into your heart will shift things quickly. It doesn’t take long for this shift to happen, but will add years to your life over time. Three minutes is all you’ll need to sense a shift & you can do this breathing technique many times a day on the really rough days, like now.
Our hearts are the main communicator to the rest of our bodies. Additionally, there’s a brain in your heart that sends signals to your brain as you activate it. If you maintain the negative feelings, your body will continuously send stress signals to your body that there’s something to be wary of, so it bathes your body in stress hormones, which do tons of damage to your system. With this concerted effort to transform the energy in your body, you are supplying your body with hormones that do the opposite.
We are being called to shift our awareness to love and care and as a collective. With practice, we can individually make a difference; first in our own lives and by extension, the world around us. It’s easy to maintain outrage right now, but that doesn’t do anything but maintain the same negative perspective that’s driving our world towards more of the same hateful, negative energy.
Remaining an active resister to abuses of power, hateful rhetoric and the dehumanizing of others becomes far more powerful when you are conscious and focused on solutions that start in your own physical world. We are more energy than matter, so we can address these difficult times by being more determined to lift ourselves up to greater perspectives and better futures in our minds and hearts.
If you are seeking greater support in this behavior, find a practitioner like myself, who can guide you towards better methods of being with these difficulties and transmuting them.
You are capable of great things and the world needs you to be your whole, remarkable self right now. Just think. If you start transmuting the negativity today, you’ll become empowered and by extension, an example to others. The more people who take the initiative to shift, the better. Whatever we are focused on, we get more of. Cultivate energy around the Truth of your being every time you feel inspired to bring more negativity to consciousness. Nip it in the bud. Doing this won’t stop you from being an activist, it won’t mean you don’t care about it either… but it WILL inspire better actions to take to change our situation.
Recently, I read a book by Brene Brown, “Into the Wilderness”. Dr. Brown is a social scientist, which means she does a lot of research to confirm how us human creatures actually feel.
She hits the nail on the head about the Wilderness. It’s the lost, alone, “I’m always disconnected” place most people experience — some of us more than others — and generally where we make stories up about who we are but also a place where our truth lives.
A few months ago I experienced a ‘deep wilderness’ day, sandwiched between a bunch of other similar days, where my only companion was my little Saluki, Madeline. What occured activated every freaking one of my “I’m not wanted” feelings, threw me into an abyss of pain & sadness and was generally a “Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” (a string of ‘em).
Still, I could feel it coming & in a few ways, I was prepared. The ‘pain’ was actually comical when my husband, just minutes from the Yosemite Natl. Park entrance, plowed into a cow.
You read that right… A two ton cow.
First of all, what was a cow doing there? Secondly, why did he have to hit it?We had just parted from each other’s company after two blissful days hanging around the hot springs in the eastern Sierra mountains. My trip home was well on it’s way when I got a call from him. His truck looked totaled. He was fine. The cow stumbled away & he couldn’t imagine she was ok…
He was gifted a room at a swanky hotel because they were awesome (he hit the cow right in front of the hotel) and I stayed in a shitty La Quinta in Las Vegas to see if I needed to turn back to help him out. All in all, the event was shaping up to be just another money drain. We didn’t know how the cow was, but we knew what was required & he wasn’t hurt — Needless to say, I may have slept better at a rest stop and he would’ve slept better, had I been snuggled up next to him in his fancy room.
The reality “pain” was more about the deductible we have to pay & another delay in his 6 year endeavor to do the impossible on El Capitan in Yosemite, yet the uncertainty, vulnerability & exposure was intense. The following week, the pain involved being removed from a position I volunteer for and LOVED.
The abyss of “I’m not wanted” played over a few times in my poor little head and sucked. This took some doing to transcend, especially once I discovered that due to my commentary on the organization’s behavior towards me someone lost their job. Fuck!.
The year 2017 was “gut wrenching, loss strewn, possessing eloquent sorrow” kind of year. Top these personal things off with the real world fuck show & you could consider me one hot mess.
Or not.
As a long time consultant, mentor, mother & spiritual resource, I am no stranger to hard earned growth and the true difficulties it provides. As hard as it is to go through, I almost welcome the bumps because of my long experience with transitional events & what profound change they CAN bring.
But let’s not forget the significant outpouring of judgment from others when we are going through shit storms —People who actually say things like; “If you’re so spiritual, why is your life such a mess?” or “We must be aware of consequences & you know, what goes around, comes around (meaning, “You’re an ass, so you deserve this shit & my judgment)” and the stuff like “When you are one with God, none of this will happen anymore. You just need to be saved and everything will smooth out.”
My term for this is “spiritual tyranny”. A suffocating & hateful response from people we ought to be able to depend on for compassion & support but instead are served up this bowlful of bullshit. Brene Brown talks about the importance of belonging and how, when we can find no belonging anywhere, we are in the “wilderness”.
So what about those who feel like they live mostly in the wilderness? The outcasts, the non-accomodating sorts who rarely fit into a social norm for long, yet remain unique and even somewhat attractive…
They are extremely adept at navigating the challenges of life with grace and power even when the folks in their world judge them, talk shit about them or shun them. You will rarely find a complainer in this clan as they tend to be profoundly hopeful and eager for life. They will get the message if treated with judgement or hostility & step way back from intimacy from someone who contributes to forcing the wilderness on them, yet will rarely offer the same treatment. Forgiving… they will be, but they are not foolish. And these are the folks who tend to relate honestly with everyone, even it it’s unpopular.
Now this is the crazy part… Given what’s been happening all over the place, there are more and more wilderness people than ever before!
Outcasts, Misfits and Gypsies may end up being the norm!!
How many people have been “outed” publicly lately? How many people are stepping into the extremely unfamiliar shoes of rebellion, resistance or defiance? How many people have suddenly chosen to step away from toxic relationships, even if they are “family”?
Maybe you’re one of these outliers yourself, or are aspiring to be one because you realize that your integrity is way more important than you previously thought and if you don’t act — you’ll lose it.
Ah, life… it’s a meandering journey and we are all in this together so it’s time to celebrate your unique self & in that way, make a difference. The wonder of your life is never measured by what you own, who you love, what your credit score is or what kind of car you drive. It’s measured by invisible qualities, your actions and reactions to others, your willingness to make mistakes and ability to give something back.
And here’s something amazing; being out cast from the tribe brings freedom. You keep your integrity AND there’s room to fail. You suddenly stop being limited. We tend to fail our way to greatness anyway, so chances are you will try more things, take more risks & feel more gratitude — in general.
It’s time to welcome the Wilderness, rather than shun it. We can be available to others, but no longer a doormat and we can achieve great things because our focus is not cluttered with concern about what other’s think of us…
Not sure where to start this. My heart is so heavy, yet in a way I was prepared for this day. How does one prepare for the unthinkable? Time & awareness were my tools for this preparation. We knew our Red dog was suffering and we were fighting for his life to continue, yet it didn’t. He died on Earth Day.
It’s taken me a few days to settle into this reality, even though I was right there when he died. Just me and a few strangers were witness to his simply falling over and dying.
Death is so final in this physical reality. The core of physical life depends on the heart to pump and the breath of life to course through the little body, or the heart of that life leaves. The soul ascends into non-physical and all that’s left is the shell of the body. A beloved body, but it’s no longer alive.
Just a few years ago, our other Saluki, Mahina died suddenly. Her heart stopped while she was sleeping. My husband woke up with her in his arms, but she was gone. Her warm little body had gone cold. We thought that was enough suffering for one family, until we stumbled onto more when we found out that Red’s heart was double the size it should be this past February. We did all the medical and nutritional protocols to keep him alive, but we had only two more months with him. Still, we felt like he was going to survive for a while longer, even though the prognosis was grim. Dogs are experts at hiding their maladies. Unlike us humans who revel in our weaknesses and wear them like a badge of honor, animals do the opposite.
It’s normal to go through the “could’a, should’a, would’a” scenario of his last moments. For me it’s been, “If I’d only turned left and gone home, but no… I had to stop and walk him around at the Ghost Ranch.” Or, if he’d just stayed home and I remained on the road with our little Madeline, who had gone into heat. His instincts would naturally force a boy into a frenzy of love for her & put unwarranted strain on his already compromised thumper.
But, no… it was his time to go.
My consolation prize is that he went out smiling. He was looking up at me, expectant and loving… walking around the little museum at that ranch where Georgia O’Keefe had lived years ago. He wanted to hump me and I snuggled him, rather than allow for that activity. Took his head in my hands and kissed him between the eyes, then turned away for a moment and he fell over, right there and died. I held him in those moments, disbelieving what was obvious, hoping he’d return and it was just a seizure he was having. Still, in those suspended moments, I knew it was his death I was witnessing. That image is etched in my heart and haunts me now.
Rob & Red, a few days after our Mahina died
Just moments before, he was warm and vital, being my boy, my boy dog. He had this way of prancing next to you, while he looked up at your face. He had just done that with me outside the museum. So full of life and even though we both knew he was compromised, he was totally happy.
When Mahina died, Red’s heart took a terrible hit. She was his girl, his companion, his everything. Much like Rob and his relationship with Mahina. Our ranch is named after her; Mahina O’hana U’i, or “Beautiful Moon Family” … Now, maybe I should name it the Red Moon Family… but I digress. Red is now with her, running after celestial hares. Running like the wind.
Over the past several months, his ability to be himself disappeared. His days were spent lolling on the bed, struggling to breathe some days. He was often listless and quiet; not himself. Not the strong, capable athlete he’d always been, but we fought for him to live with daily medicine, herbs, special food, (literally shoved down his throat) and plenty of filtered water… And of course, constant love. One or the other of us would just hang out with him, while he rested.
Obviously — for the long term, that wasn’t a way for him to live. Our efforts gave Red and both of us, just a few more weeks together. God, we soaked it up! Every walk was meaningful. Every good day was celebrated. Every time he seemed more himself, we were joyous and so hopeful that he would live a few more years.
Red & Mahina in the Sierras 2015
My efforts at making money waned. While projects at home got done, as that kept us grounded. Rob’s family came for several weeks and they witnessed how much these dogs mean to us; that they are like our children and never thought of as “pets”. The eat with us, they sleep with us and the rhythm of our lives centers around what’s ideal for them.
Today, I know that if Red wanted to remain here, compromised as he was, he would’ve. I’m sure of that. He loved us more than anything and gave us a new life. Single handedly, this boy gave us the desire (& willingness) to move to a place where he could run without bounds. We are here now, but without our boy running next to us. Strange how that happens. You listen to what you’re guided to do, only to find that the object of your initiative dies.
It’s my greatest struggle to continue to have faith right now. Lately, I’ve been struggling to believe that there is some order while the world is becoming more and more unrecognizable. The bombing, bigotry, hatred, the complete dismantling of this country’s legacy of fairness… All the checks and balances that are there to conserve our dignity as a country — not to mention the stability of our world — being ignored and discounted. How is it possible to keep faith in the invisible, when things I care deeply about are being taken away?
The jury remains out on all that today. It will be enough to live another day a cry just a little bit less. My eyes & head are sore.
Red – 4 months old
It’s quiet here right now, but I expect the wind to pick up here soon. Lately it’s been relentless and I’m hating it. The feeling of desolation is strong, so the wind makes it feel enormous. These days have been long and difficult and I imagine they will continue. Even though I’m not prone to self medication, I would like to drink a lot of alcohol… and I wish I could. God, it would be wonderful to escape my reality right now.
But that’s not happening. Escape, that is. I’m very present for the loss this morning and my heart feels broken — again.
My daughter said the other day that we all choose our time to go. It’s conscious, even if it doesn’t seem to be. She would know, as she has made that choice a few times. She remembers one time, while in the hospital after another diabetic emergency, her decision to stay put. When my youngest son, Tyler, was born I had the same choice. Either go into the void, where there was no pain, no suffering, no human reality or stay. She and I both chose to stay. Red didn’t.
He looked at me, after saying good bye to Rob and Madeline a few hours before, pranced and snuggled and then he just left. No fanfare, no trumpets, no streaming light of God filtered down on us. He just left me sitting there on the floor of a random museum, pleading with him to stay with me… Stuck in place in the middle of nowhere with only strangers around… Loving strangers, but people who will never have ongoing meaning in my life, other than they witnessed the end of my boy dog’s life.
Then I began my long drive home, completely alone.
A few miles up the road, I stopped, opened the back of the car and sat on the tail gate. The flood gates opened and I just cried and cried. Right there, with cars zooming past me I wept for a long time, while holding my dear boy’s still warm head. There’s an un-reality I felt, like I was watching myself from above and not connecting completely with the image. Maybe I was seeing the scene from Red’s place, as I feel him everywhere still.
Red and I, 2010
It’s possible that people will continue to accuse us of being ridiculous about our dogs. That they get too much attention. “For God’s sake, they’re only pets!” has been muttered behind my back numerous times. Unlike when a person dies and you get a few “passes” to manage life. Not so when you lose “just a dog”. You just keep feeling the sorrow and move through it as time passes.
The same devotion was delivered into my kids’ lives and I have zero regrets. No one paid me to love my kids the way I did, or show up the way I did… No one gave Rob anything to be a solid presence for them, either. That was just the way to be with beings who are loved in our minds… and the pay back is impossible to measure.
My children were the people I reached out when Red died. Tyler first… as he brought Red home. Then the rest of my kids were called, one by one and each of them felt like divine anchors; human witnesses to my unthinkable sorrow… None of them flinched or judged. They cried and expressed their love for Rob and I, as well as their own sadness. Red touched all our lives.
Tyler Quinn & Red – each other’s favorites
All the years of giving them all I knew how to give was returned to me the other day in a few hours. Few people will ever show up in your life so completely… and in my mind, they are worthy of all my attention. Red did and that’s what he received.
My husband saw a golden eagle a little while before Red died. He was dropping into a huge valley when he saw it and watched, in wonder, while it flew next to him for a time. One of those moments in life where something magical is present. Was it a portend or some mystical happening or just a big bird having some fun racing with a car? Who knows, but there will be other signs of communication from Red in his non-physical position. At least I sincerely hope that’s the case.
People rarely give me a sense of comfort, unless of course, they refrain from pitying remarks. The one friend I did call made jokes about the absurdity of driving with my dead dog in the back of my car. “Who does that?!”, she said and then went on to tell me about the time she had her dead kitten in the front seat of her car, while she drove around delivering burritos in New Mexico and I was driving in New Mexico when she made me laugh that day.
Life goes on, doesn’t it? Today I’ll have work and figure out how to navigate my day without my Red Dog. Tomorrow it will be much the same, until I don’t wake up feeling him so strong — and consequently missing his solid form, soulful eyes and remarkable presence.
Until I’m free from the pain, I’ll live with it. Then one day I’ll have his memory and only smiles. This is the way of grieving and although it’s one of the hardest things we seem to do as humans, we all do it and most of us keep on going.
For Red’s memory, that’s what I’ll do. Starting today.
One of those events could’ve been enough to throw a sheltered, entitled kid from the SF Bay Area into a life long trauma response, so maybe the list of them forced me into a state of such incredible – ‘wake up, dummy!!!’ – I actually did.
My first night on Oahu was completely out of body and weird… Hannah and Jacob secured a pretty shitty hotel room near Waikiki Beach; the only room available on such short notice. All three of us squished into that room and went directly to sleep. As weird as it is to imagine sleeping in the same room as my daughter’s husband, I don’t think anyone blinked an eye. We were all that exhausted and frankly, sleeping hadn’t been all that easy for anyone in our family for many long nights since February 18th.
began to blister from my new slippers. We had to get back to the hospital AND move into another hotel, where we would be staying for another week or so.
wanted to live.
Ultimately, Chelsea and Hannah, who were already on Oahu, asked me to fly there to be with them. They believed it best for me to be with Sarah as quickly as possible; she would need me.
cried… )
when you are shocked into a reality you can’t fathom.
In our little house, in the middle of absolutely no where an old grandma got news of her newest grandson’s impending death. I threw the phone on the couch and howled like a crippled animal, then crumpled on the floor.
boy would not live, but they would make him comfortable.
For years, Sarah struggled with addiction and our worst fear was she would relapse back into that nightmare, but her resolve indicated something different. She told them all she intended to use the memory of her son to rise above and told them all, with perfect clarity, “I can do hard things, so I will do this now.”
As Sarah’s mother, I knew her desire to be a mother began when she was still a child herself. To see her go through so much difficulty getting pregnant tore me apart, but I had to manage that on my own. We are very different sorts of humans. I am an intuitive healer and astrologer and my daughter is pragmatic, practical and self proclaimed rule follower (when it makes sense).
During our drive we got out for a walk with our Salukis, out in the deep wilds of Southern California, when I ‘saw’ something trying to hurt my grandson; punching him in his tummy. It felt like this ‘thing’ wanted to kill our boy, so I turned to my husband and told him as much. We both immediately & automatically sent protective love and it seemed as though my system worked on getting whatever this was, away from my beloveds.
Sarah reflected on the one perfect moment she had when she heard his first cry; a split second of joy and knowing her dreams were coming true, engulfed her heart. She cried bitter, sorrowful tears, as she told me this recollection, but also remembered how soothing and magical it was to hold him for the first time. Gunner’s first cry gave her the briefest of seconds where she knew all was well. She thought to herself, “He’s here… everything will be fine!!”
