that's all

six months ago my friend callie left this world. it was unexpected. it was shocking. and it was her choice. 

callie's bracelet was on the table.
when i held it, from her wrist to mine,
it was like feeling the pulse of her life.

six months, in the big scheme of things, when you look at a whole entire lifetime, is not that long. 

when you look at a baby and the growth and development from the moment they're born until they're six months old, six months' time is tremendous. 

when you look at it not day by day or even minute by minute, but breath by difficult breath, it can be an eternity.

it can be a nightmare. 

and unfortunately, it can be a reality.

i spent some time recently with callie's mother. we cried a lot. we laughed a lot. how she laughed, i don't know. we listened to each other. we taught each other things we didn't know about callie. we held each other. 

sometimes it happens that we are gifted with the presence of another person and we don't know why it happens when it does ... we might not even think about it. but afterwards we know that it was necessary. that's all. we can feel that we needed to be sharing life with each other at that moment.  life. strength. love. 

as i sat with callie's mom and felt her love and heartache, there were times when her laugh or her words would sound exactly like callie.  it was amazingly freaky and comforting at the same time.  i stared at her in a way i never have before.  i remembered how we first met and how we never would have imagined we would be in this position now.

after holding each other and breathing the same breaths with our faces touching, she got up to get something to give me.  i had not come for anything and certainly did not expect to leave with anything. she knew this, and she placed a bracelet in my hand.  a bracelet of callie's.  i held it in the palm of my hand, i held it to my face, and couldn't let go of it.  again it was like the pulse of her life.  the pulse of the universe.  i put it on and have not taken it off even for a moment.  when i first had the experience which i wrote about, of sitting next to the man on the airplane, taking pictures of his bracelets representing suicide prevention, not knowing that it was just hours after callie had left us, i had no way to fathom that i would be the one wearing a bracelet of the same heartache ... same yet different ... 6 months later.

there are some things that are never the same.

no one's life is ever the same as another's.

no one's grief is ever the same as another's.

and a mother's life after the loss of her child is never the same as her life before.

it isn't an experience that she ever "gets through." 

it isn't something that ever becomes "normal."

as mothers we often questions ourselves when it comes to our parenting:  should i have done that differently?  did i get that right?  was i wrong about that?  did i handle that in the best way?  was that a mistake i just made?  am i screwing up my child? over and over and over.  

a mother who has lost her child to suicide has her own set of additional questions that no one else has. 

i am grateful for callie's life.  i am grateful for the ways she touched so many lives around her.  for those who know callie, they know what i mean, and they know that i am not sanctifying her.  i am grateful for her mother, without whom callie would not have been the person she was and remains to be, to so many others in this world.  

as i sat with callie's mom i could feel not only her heartache and her struggle, but also callie's strength and tenacity.  i could feel callie.  and regardless of anything else, i was so proud of her mom.  not everyone grows up to have such a positive lasting effect on so many others.  not everyone grows up to be a giver.  not everyone grows up and asks that their mother live near them when they don't have to.  not everyone lives with the fearlessness of callie bradley mooney.  she exercised her right to make her own choices, that's for sure.  and her legacy will live on in the hearts and minds and lives of countless other people.  and that will then trickle down to the other lives that those people touch.  and callie would not have done that and been that, if her mother had not been her mother.

i knew while we shared this time, that there were no words i could say that would make anything better.  we both talked in circles with no logical thought patterns, just whatever came to mind and came out of our mouths.  i knew there was nothing i could do.  and i can't explain why or how, but i also knew i needed to be there ... we needed to be there ... at that very moment, having that very experience.  that's all.

you know how when someone's life is over, you have things you wish you had said, things you wish you had done ... it always happens, whether you knew the end was near or whether it was a total unexpected event.  yeah i have those things too ... 

i guess at this moment, with callie's pulse on my own wrist, i just miss her.  

that's all.

suicide prevention lifeline

survivors of suicide

american foundation for suicide prevention
cards callie would love LOL

november 23 is international survivors of suicide day.  click here to get involved:
international survivors of suicide day 2013

and her light will continue to shine ...

 ♥ the inspiration of callie mooney ♥

friday morning, april 12, 2013:  little did i know, that while i was reminiscing about our friend callie, she had just taken her own life the night before.  

my heart is broken.  for callie.  for callie's husband.  for her family.  for his family. for all of us who knew her.  nothing is making this seem real.

all of us knew callie in a different way, just like we all know people in the way that we relate to them and the specific dynamic of our particular relationship.

i know that we will each treasure her in many similar ways and at the same time also many different individual ways ...

i loved callie … my children loved callie … and we have beautiful fun memories to keep like treasures in our pockets and in our hearts.  

discussing legos.  serious stuff. 

but among all of these memories playing through my mind like a home movie, i have been thinking about the most significant way in which callie inspired me.  

callie liked to party and speak her mind and didn't give a rat's behind whether you agreed with her or not.  but this is not the way i am thinking of. 

she could be loud, she told it like it was, she made no apologies.  she loved the zombie movement, was so excited to be part of organizing the charitable Fredericksburg Zombie Walk, and found true friends she loved and said she never wanted to leave, in the Mean Mommies Club.

she declined the Facebook friendship of a friend's teenage son, explaining to him that she uses language and content that she felt was inappropriate for him, and although she very much appreciated knowing him, she didn't want him to see her Facebook world in his newsfeed.  

she played both online games and board games with my children, staying up until 2am on some summer nights, yawning and laughing ... and winning … 

these aren't what i am referring to either.

what i am thinking of is that callie inspired me in a way that no other person has … to love without boundaries.  even though our personalities were very different, she was living confirmation of my beliefs of loving from the inside out.  she made me think about the love that i have for others, about the different kinds of love, different kinds of relationships, and i had to question that love … in a good way.  was i loving someone as completely as callie was?  was it the true inner essence of a person that i was loving, beyond all human accessories, gender identifications, and multi-faceted make up?  if someone i loved changed their identity, would i still love them the same way?  because of who they ARE?  not because of who i think they are or who i want them to be, who the world sees,  or what they have to offer me and my life?

if callie loved you, she loved you in this way.  what an honor!  i can't think of a more important inspiration or contribution to the life of another human being.  my thinking and my heart was opened to this because of her, and i was forever changed.  i can honestly say i never knew another person who loved like callie did.  her love capacity was greater than anyone i had known, and was in fact, unbeknownst to me in terms of capability.  i challenged myself to love as greatly as callie did.  it became part of who i am, and i am proud to say that my own capacity, my own heart, grew like never before.

friday morning, april 12, 2013:  i was sitting on a plane with an empty seat beside me.  writing my previous blogpost "handle with care" about callie and my son.  at the last minute before take off, an elderly gentleman came and sat beside me.  he wore glasses, his hair was very thin, his clothes were of muted color, and he was totally quiet.  i noticed that on his left arm were two rubber bracelets:  the flat kind that are usually colorful and have words embossed on them.  i was taken with this because i typically do not see this older generation wearing these kinds of bracelets.  they stood out against his plain appearance.

i noticed that the words on one bracelet were:
TREAT DEPRESSION.  STOP SUICIDE.

and the words on the other bracelet were:
www.afsp.org  OUT OF THE DARKNESS

and i felt loss or emptiness standing out against his chest.

i typed them into my post so i wouldn't forget.  i wanted to look them up later.  i felt so drawn to do so and couldn't explain it, yet didn't feel the need to.

i wanted to ask him who he had lost because i felt that he had lost an adult child.

then when he closed his eyes i took a picture of the bracelets.  even though i had written down the information, i wanted to capture that feeling in that moment.  i wanted to be able to bring back the power of that moment to my own chest.

we never spoke.  i wanted to, and i looked at him many times, but he never made eye contact with me.

these bracelets and their messages walked around inside my head all day, tugging at me as i repeatedly put them aside for later.

i woke up the next morning to the news of callie's passing.

i was out of town and couldn't reach anyone, and nothing seemed real.  i was in loving hands, but no matter how disoriented i was, i knew that it was nothing compared to how callie's inner circle was feeling.

since that very moment, things have been a bit of a blur to say the least.

ryan, her husband, said to me, "i don't know how to do this ..." 

i could only reply, "i don't know how to do this either.  i only know that we do it together."

i don't even know how to stop writing this except to offer the following link, from the bracelet beside me on that flight:

www.afsp.org

https://www.afsp.org/out-of-the-darkness-walks/community-walks

and to invite you to please contribute any helpful resources that you know of.

and to please, please share this story of callie's heart …

if we can each love another the way callie did … even just one person in our lifetime, her light will continue to shine ...

                                               

     callie came to all of my son's art shows.  her support made his heart super happy...

lego brick fair fist bump.  it is cute, how obvious callie's hand is!

this is not callie's plate but i saw it on my way home from the airport.  one of her nicknames was bunny.

first fridays 

<3