Loss

Coming home from the playa I had so much emotion in my soul. I was feeling so healed and ready for my future whatever that holds. I left behind the expectations and the pain from the past, said goodbye to relationships that didn't matter anymore, was full of love from my playa family and was looking forward to coming home recharged and ready.

Until Sunday night, when I found out that Dale, a man who was the kindest, gentlest, best person I have ever known, had passed away. It was a shock. I knew he was sick but Dale is a strong man and up until last week when I left, was still out on the baling tractor working the alfalfa. I didn't see this coming. I feel like somebody just opened my chest, ripped my heart out and left a huge dark cave where once was a soul.

Today I spent remembering. I couldn't do anything. I can't bring myself to go to the farm. I can't bring myself to make the call. I can't face the reality that the one safe place in my entire life is gone. He is gone, and soon, she will be gone to. I am unprepared for the fact that I don't have a center any longer, no stability or anchor in my life. I feel like I am about to set into a drift with no directions and it scares the hell out of me.

When I was fifteen, my home was so abusive that police and child welfare intervention was necessary. The day I left was the scariest day of my life. I ran and hid in the bushes from my stepfather as he raced his motorcycle up and down the street trying to find me. I would like on the ground with my baby (his child) under me so that he couldn't see us. He had threatened to kill us so many times that I have no doubt, he would have, that day, had he found us. Eventually though we arrived at the police station. The fear was immense. They took little Jayme from me and had a woman watching her while I went to another room and was interviewed for hours by the detective. The humiliating pieces from the past three years all came out. . . one by one. After that we were driven to child welfare, the office where i work now .. . . specifically in the same office that my supervisor is now in . . . . at that point, I began to realize that not only was I not going home, but that there was nowhere for me to go. As a teenager with a toddler, no home was certified for us both. I didn't know what that meant but I knew I was scared. Scared for me and my baby girl.

We went back to the center we had originally been at. There it began to come out that I was going home with this little white haired lady Marsha. She wasn't a foster parent but she came out fighting for me. I remember the detective stating to her that I was in very high danger until my stepfather was caught. Marsha smiled and said "I have a big shotgun in the closet, a son on one side and another on the other side . . . nobodys gonna hurt these kids". With that, she loaded Jayme and I in her car and home we went. I was terrified. I saw a Jesus sticker on her car and hoped it would be ok. She told me she had a husband. Dale. I was more terrified then ever.

As we pulled into Marsha and Dales home I gasped. So many times I had drove by their home and wished for a life like that. The sweet white farmhouse, acres of green growing hay, the cows and chickens. I cried and told her. She welcomed me home. She set about making a space in the room for me. What I didn't know, is that she had never taken a kid home before. She took a risk for me. Her husband, Dale, allowed that risk.

I met him soon. He was tall, cowboy hat, a farmer to the core. Dale didn't speak much and I was terrified of him. My experience with men wasn't very good and he was very big. He never said much, but was polite. A few days later they called me to see a birth of a calf. That calf died, and Dale was concerned for the mother. He went to buy a baby calf at the auction and invited me. I was terrified and refused to go. He sensed my fear . . . he was soon back with a tiny baby cow and let me watch as he introduced her to the grieving mother. He was so gentle and concerned.

Over the next twenty years, Dale and Marsha were my anchor and my rock. They would come to visit, come for the holidays. One year there was a flood and rats kept coming through the sewer lines . .. . for Christmas Dale bought me a huge rat trap as a joke. He was kind and funny. On my graduation from high school when everybody forgot me, Dale came in from the fields and took me to dinner to celebrate. He loved my children and I in a calm and safe way that nobody ever had before. He could be moved to anger though. One particular time I was stuck in a very unsafe situation with a man I had been dating. I couldn't find my way out and was scared. I called Marsha and Dale answered. He knew right away something was wrong and said "are you safe?" I wasn't . . . and he knew. Within moments him and Marsha were there to help me once again and take me home, to the farm. He had a few simple choice words for that young man but we all knew he wasn't joking.

Home. Thats what the farm is. When my life was in turmoil at fifteen . . . it was home. When my mother brought my stepfather back into my life at sixteen, I ran away in the middle of the night in a snowstorm with my daughter and hid while Marsha and Dale drove an hour to pick us up . .. and take us home. I lived with them for months, building money, skills, and letting my heart heal . . . before I could move on again. When my heart was broken, I went home, to the farm. When my marriage ended, It was Marsha and Dale who healed me again. Sitting at the table with farm food being served, Dale drinking his milk, Marsha fussing over me. I was safe there. Probably the only place on this planet that I was safe, that is consistent, that is solid. I can go in the middle of the night, on any given day of the week. I can call when my world is crashing or when something exciting is happening. Most of the last ten years I have spoken to them daily, sometimes good, sometimes rocky, but always there. They parented me. They raised me. They encouraged me to do better and knocked me around when I was spinning out of control.

Now, he is gone. No more farming the fields. No more watching the tractor weaving in and out. No more laughing as my children climbed onto his lap and got their first tractor ride or jumped in the pickup to head out to a far field. The farm is going to be sold . . . I can't imagine my life without walking in the garden or picking clusters of grapes. The thought of never sitting at that table and sipping tea from Marsha's teacup collection or being teased about my fear of the basement is terrifying.

So little of my life has ever been solid, I don't hold connections or keep grounded. I don't carry on traditions. I don't have a safe childhood home I long to return to. I float like a crushed dandelion in the wind. When I crash, hurtling in a downward spiral I land at the farm. Now . . . that is gone.

Without Dale, Marsha won't make it for long. She has been suffering from a host of problems for awhile and dementia is beginning to settle in. She needed Dale to care for her. She needs the lifelong patterns of gardens and chickens, church and quilting. Without them she will begin to lose everything . . . and then I will lose her.

I am scared for me. I am scared for my children. This is the anchor, the rock, the solid place in my life and its gone. Nobody to ask my questions of any longer. Nobody to cry to, or to share joy with. Nobody to listen when I am confused. It's gone. The only solid thing in my life, is gone.

I know I shouldn't be selfish. Dale is in a better place, I believe that. Marsha will join him soon and if anbody on this earth should make it to heaven its them. But, im here, and im scared. I panic and get lightheaded when I think about my life now. How do I recharge? Where is my safe place going to be? Who is there to care at all now? To guide me and pull me back into line? There is nobody. I'm alone . . . completely alone. I am so scared.

This week I have to face his funeral. I don't think I can. The children want to go and say goodbye. I can't say goodbye. I cried and sobbed so hard this morning I drove the wrong way and had to stop on the shoulder of the road. My sobs led to wails, to a primal level of pain and release, to shaking and heaving, sobbing, hysteria. I had to come home and tell the children. Katie stared at me blankly . . . she hasn't connected yet. Makiah crumpled and began sobbing much the way I did . . . . Jayme, sat silent for a moment and then the tears came . . . . Hannah and Jacob cried . .. we all are feeling lost.

I always have to be the strong one to get everybody through. This time, I don't know if I can. I don't know where that strength is. I feel vacant and empty. I'm tired of doing this life alone. Now I am more alone then ever. Im so scared. I feel like that lost and lonely kid the first day I was taken away . . . knowing that home is gone and no longer an option but without any clue what is there to take its place. I'm lost. I'm scared. I want my parents. They are no longer there. Home is gone . . . im afraid I'm gone with it.