New.

new week, new routine, new everything.

I slept for a solid 24 hours. I feel human. I need to go get my back cracked, but I think it may work itself out. Stress leaving, things settling and the like. Feeling much much better.

Lent begins tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite times of the year and I feel unprepared and rushed. I’ve thought off and on about what I want to do with the time. It is a time of reflection for me, and not necessarily a time of giving up potato chips or whatever most people use it for. But usually I have given a goodly amount of prayer and thought to this and quite frankly my prayer time and thoughts have been focused on livers and broken hearts and orange balloons and new friends and new thoughts and new lives. So…

New.

That seems to be my theme.

I’m still meditating and praying on it. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it rolls out.

It’s time to get out in the garden and dig in the dirt. Our weather here is sublime this week so I’m going to take advantage. Onions and whatever else Bonusmom tells me I can plant early.

I’ve got a big test this week, and since I slept through classes last night, I may well have a test next Monday night. If I can get the professor to respond to my email. I wish he was as great as my other professors. He just isn’t.

Time to wash last week out of my hair, and get ready for class. Time to hit the grocery store, the seed store and the bank to pay bills that are incredibly late.

Time to get up and Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Cindy just left my house.

After spending time with friends at the zoo yesterday, she was too tired to make the drive so stayed one more night. We watched Downton Abbey, and ate fro yo thanks to Lynn, and just kind of puttered around.

The house feels sad this morning.

Lonely quiet.

We cried and hugged tight and, well goodbyes kill me anyways, but this one truly sucked.

Knowing that we have to get on with it.

She has to get on with the sucky drive and get to Hooper (who I dreamed about I just remembered) and I’ve got to get some Robinson Crusoe read before 3:30 and knowing that we have to continue on with life.

The celebration is over. Friends have gone home. Family has gone home.

And now we all have to figure out how to navigate this life…without Chris.

She gave me a few of his books.

The Steve Jobs biography, a book on writing and a book that his best friend quoted at the memorial.

I treasure them…and I treasure her.

I had a few hours yesterday afternoon after Talaura had gone to Stillwater, and Chad had gone to the airport and Cindy was at the zoo with sweet Quinne, and I watched St. Elmo’s Fire.

I always wanted a group like that. A group that had been friends forever, each person playing a specific role, adding their element to the workings of the group. I loved 90210 for the same reason. I alway always wanted that.

Yesterday, for the very first time, I realized that I had it.

The tears are far from over. The pain is still fresh. We’ll still feel stabby and angry and empty. But we’ll also feel thankful that we had him for the time that we did…

We’ll hold each others hand, keep steady while we learn to walk again, smile again when we begin to dance…

We will dance again.

Because the beat goes on.

 

The sound of silence…

some hate it.

today I love it.

Chad, Cindy, Talaura and I unloaded the car of what had to come in, called a pizza and crashed out by 9:30 last night. Breakfast with more of Cindy and Chris’ friends this morning. Talaura is off to see her family. Cindy and Chad are stalking Wayne Coyne and then getting Chad to the airport.

and I am here.

yesterday was as good as it possibly could have ever been. There were a few speakers that got up and I wanted to Gong and Hook…but whatever. It was just part of it. Reuniting with friends, laughing, hugging, feeling the spectrum of emotions. . . I think it was for everyone, what they needed it to be.

It was one helluva party.

I need to make copies of the slideshow for those that have requested it. I’ve got a house that is making me crazy, laundry and dishes that are taking over…but they can wait. This weekend my house has been filled with laughter and grief and joy and strangers that were at once forever friends. It’s been my honor to host, and to help.

I’m going to just lay here on the couch, in the silence and enjoy some DVR and Kikimama.

 

 

This village has really come together to put the memorial together. People who didn’t even know Chris. It wells up inside me, this love and connection and I just know that Chris is watching this come together, and is probably as amazed as I am.

The magic is in the details. And in being able to say yes to offers of help, and to ask for it when you’re so far out of your element you’ve circled round and are back in your element. Oy.

The programs are being re-worked by Carey, who gave me my treadmill. I know him face to face exactly twice. for all of 20 minutes combined. But he is a friend through Trish, who burned me two cd’s full of potential music to use and drove up from Norman to deliver. I got a call from Macie offering any or all of her stuff to cater the reception. We decided on the table cloths and later I got a text that said, “I just bought 12 yards of orange fabric.” Michelle is going to outfit me from her closet. I need a jacket to somewhat cover up my t-shirt so as not to give people seizures. Jack is meeting me at USAO to work the slideshow and music and do a tech run after we pilfer through the USAO archive photos. His bride, Sarah has been constant support with offers of food, and her husband. Jen E wrote the obituary. Beautiful words. Perfectly Chris. Friends are sending photos, Todd hacked into Chris’s computer and send me file after file of music that he had. I spoke three times with a friend of theirs from Atlanta yesterday who just found out. He may well sleep on my couch if he makes it for Saturday.

JC and Katie have been so generous with their time, getting this venue set, Jan offering to play the piano…it’s just almost too much to take in.

It’s been a beautiful thing to watch unfold, worth every minute of phone time, email time, text time. Worth every minute.

I think we’re going to have one awesome celebration.

—————————————————————-

meanwhile back at Brokedown Palace, I’ve got a short story and paper to write before class today. And Great Gatsby and the first third of Robinson Crusoe to get read before Monday.

If anyone has any extra hours in their day…I’ll take them please.

The Celebration of Chris Maddera will be Saturday, February 18th in the Davis Hall Little Theatre at USAO in Chickasha, Oklahoma at 2:00pm with reception to follow. Come share your stories, and join in the laughter that will surely follow.
In lieu of flowers the family asks that you make a donation to Heifer International or Kiva.Org.

http://usao.edu/driving-directions

 

Step by step it’s coming together, this celebration of the man we loved.

Piece by bit by corner by section.

It’s going to be a great party!

I’m switching gears, getting focused on homework, paying the middle of the month bills, keeping the dishes and laundry caught up.

You guys, I didn’t even know it was Valentine’s Day until it was halfway over today.

I have only one last thing to confirm and then I will put out the announcement for the memorial celebration.

also, let me just tell you this:

Trader Joe’s is the best place ever.

Their Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup is stupidgood. I am sad that I only bought one carton last weekend. I will be stocking up next trip. only 100 calories per cup serving, which is great with a sandwich. It’s my new favorite thing.

I love that Chris would have loved how much I love Trader Joe’s.

Lotta love.

And so it goes, the sun sets, the sun rises.

We see our breath from the cold, and laugh until we are once again, warm.

The weekend was full of moments like this. The drive with my co-pilot, each of us starting the conversation in the middle of a sentence, dropping away silently to cry awhile, remembering and anticipating what was waiting for us at the house marked 1413.

Tears were overlapped with smiles were overlapped with snorts of laughter and guffaws and tears and so on and so on. We were together, dealing, questioning, understanding more of the story as it was told to us.

We spoke of ideas and containers and music and photos and words to put together that will describe a life that, in everyone’s opinion was well lived. We sat silently, checking out of reality and into the interwebs when we needed a break. We made magic in the kitchen and bought lottery tickets and more than once rolled our eyes at the absurdity that abounded.

The business of this, all of this is…what is it? Detailed. Necessary. Needed. And we’ll get to all of that. We’ll work this week, and things will come together and we will reunite again, and celebrate this thing called life. (cue Prince song)

But for now, we each are on our couches, in the quiet, working through the voices, thinking about the weather, thinking about tomorrow.

We roll on.

Together.

 

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

 

Our beloved Chris decided to peace out this morning. His mother was there. Cindy told him to go, find peace, don’t hang on for us. The pain was bad. It was time.

As with all of you who have experienced profound loss such as this, I am aching. My bones ache.

I seek solace in the fact that so many of you, some who had never even met Chris, are sending your love and condolences to Cindy. To the tribe. For we are all connected. We are all loved and we are all hurting a bit.

Chris taught me so much about living.

LIVE THIS FUCKING LIFE.

and I know that I’ll write more about that as the days continue to roll on. Unbeknownst to me how that happens, how there is an entire world out there that continues as if nothing has happened…yet it does.

But for today…I celebrate him. I celebrate the legacy that he leaves behind. There isn’t a person who met him, that didn’t smile.

We should all live this life so well.

Somewhere, in a galaxy far far away, I hope he’s walking into the cantina and ordering a pint. And I hope instead of bar nuts, there’s a giant bowl of bacon.

Godspeed my beautiful boy.

**photo by S.P Eaton

 

 

I’m working on focusing this week. I’ve been fuzzy and out of it till today. I’ll chalk a lot of it up to the weather, as it finally has decided to act like winter here. No snow, but cold and grey.

I ask, though, for a special focus. Focus your thoughts and energies and prayers. Chris and Cindy need that from us now.

I’m not going up this weekend, as sometimes too much support is just as bad as not having any at all. Next weekend, however, I’m going and Amy is going with me. Talaura is coming in.

 

Love.

Prayers.

Energy.

Focus.

 

I’ll get my shit together eventually. But for right now, let’s focus on them. It can help. I know it.

Last night, I dreamed I was at my grandfather’s funeral. It was a downsized version of the actual event, and no cousin there to make me laugh at the appropriate time. There were cardboard hearts with fancy cheerleader writing in place of flowers, and I would just sob and sob and sob and I would wake up sobbing. I would wake myself up and say, “it’s just a dream” and then go right back into it.

I was on a loop with it.

Eventually it went to me at my mom’s new house, which was in dire need of a swiffer in one room only and an overflowing toilet that flooded an entire wing of the house. That toilet kept overflowing and no matter how much I mopped and cleaned, it kept coming.

I switched then to my house, which was considerably bigger, and my treadmill, which is in my the back of my car right now, and it was awesome. It wasn’t janky and did everything I needed it to and suddenly I was a fabulously skinny version of me.

What the hell is happening with my subconscious???

I slept in this morning,  because I could, and though my eyes are swollen and crusty from crying all night, I feel pretty good. I’m going to have some more coffee, and read my British Lit. Do another load of laundry and vacuum up the cat hair. I’ve got some hair to bang tonight after class, then home to read more Eudora Welty.

Don’t be jealous.