It's mother's day. It's perfect. And somehow on this morning that I was meant to sleep in, our whole family is up at 5:30 a.m.
In this moment I am in bed with my husband, who just brought me coffee and the Sunday New York Times. We are reading the paper -- not the iPad -- a true Sunday luxury. The sunlight streams in. I look over at him and the photo in the Times magazine that is startlingly beautiful. I hear the sound of our daughter playing downstairs joyfully, and fall in love again with his face, that face I fell in love with over 20 years ago. His hand holding the paper, that hand that caresses and holds and makes and comforts, and I don't ever want this moment to end. I want to keep this moment, this feeling, forever. I want to box it, hold it, treasure it. The best Mother's Day gift ever. If only that were possible.
Grief makes me feel sometimes like life is just going so fast, its all too fast, I want to hold on, make it stop, freeze, save, collect, maybe even hoard. Aha. Now I get the fascination with hoarders. Perhaps our desire to pin/Insta/tweet every moment. To pin it down, literally. To hold on. To make it stick.
This week is the premiere party for season two of Orange is the New Black, on the anniversary of my dad's death, at The Ziegfeld, his favorite theatre in the world.
Two days later I get to be a maid of honor (and pray my mascara is really waterproof, and yes I am considering breaking down and doing semi-permanent lashes) and joyfully witness my baby sister get married to her soulmate -- God my daddy would have loved him.
Oh, and if you could see the flower girl dress my daughter is wearing, and her excitement at her task and title, which I am surprised she is able to contain without bursting like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka. Frankly I am surprised my own heart has not exploded yet.
All amazing, joyful, magical, spectacular, heart bursting moments.
All treasured, dreamed of, remembered forever moments.
And a part of me is dreading it all. Ok not really. But sort of. Maybe just a little scared of it all. Scared of the big feelings of loss? No. Of grief? Sort of. But really of fullness. Yes. Perhaps grief is not about empty, but full. The full breath of life that includes death. The completeness, the cycles, the depth, the richness, the process, the continuity and the treasure of the moment that is gone the second you are aware of it. We cannot capture these -- it is impossible, as hard as we all try.
And I want to remember in this moment, in all the moments of this week: No picture will make it stick. No # or @ or RT will make it stick.
Breath will make it full and delightful and perhaps very teary as well, and that's ok. Let the tears flow. They are part of being fully present. So, where is that phone number for the glam semi-permanent lashes again? If I can't make a moment stick, at least I can get eyelashes that actually do.