Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

Fear: What to do When Someone is Suicidal NOTE: ARE YOU SUICIDAL? THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. CALL 988 RIGHT THIS SECOND.  Are you afraid someone close to you suicidal? Read on. This post is for people who are afraid their husband/wife/kid/parent/friend/roommate/family member is going to kill themselves.  IF YOUR PERSON IS IN CRISIS THIS SECOND, CALL 988 FOR THE SUICIDE HELPLINE. CALL 911 AND ASK FOR A WELLNESS CHECK FOR YOUR PERSON. They can connect you to whatever local resources are available.  Okay story time.    So on the 4th of July, a couple of dads in our cul de sac went ALL out. We put our folding chairs on the driveway and lit our tiny sparklers and sat back to enjoy the show. My neighbor-bestie (I shall call her T) took one look at the other neighbors’ DIY Cul-De-Sac of Fire Rocket extravaganza and said, “I hate fireworks!! I know it’s stupid, but I always think they’re going to burn down my house! Sorry!! I know I’m being paranoid, but I just can’t!!” And s...

My kids are getting big. I have evidence for this: today, I decided to make a pot of tea, put some cookies on a plate, and read a book. I got all cozy on the broken (comfiest) part of the couch, put a quilt on my lap, and started to read. And, like cats, the kids quietly gathered. Makani had volume one of Heaven official's blessing-- I silently cheers-ed him with my book, since I was reading volume four. He cheersed back solemnly, and settled into the squashy chair with his tea. Maile appeared and settled next to me to read the I-Ching, and then sat on the carpet, casting oracles with three coins. Yin, Yang, like binary code, conjuring scraps of poetry and fortunetelling. Liko, not to be out-classed, helped herself to tea and cookies (rejected my strawberry kit-kat, thank goodness), and read Junie B Jones And The Stupid Smelly Bus, which is her very first chapter book. The lights were on the christmas tree, the cat curled her tail around her neat toes and blinked at us, the wind ...

 The other day I didn't feel grief. It was so strange. It wasn't all day-- it was just for a few minutes, but it happened. I felt, for a moment, whole.  It has been five and half years since Matt's suicide. That's how long it has taken for time to soften this grief. So yes, it's true that time heals all wounds. But, hah. Think of geologic time, pals.  I am happy-- I have amazing things in my life. Cool smart talented kids, kind and loving friends-- I have plenty of rice and plenty of books and plenty of herbs and plenty of beet greens and a rattly old piano that's only missing one string but it's in the lowest octave so it's not too much of a nuisance.  I am happy and I have been breathing grief-oxygen for five years. I am happy and I have been wearing grief skin. The other day, I was briefly free and clear of it. The sun shone through the clouds and I looked around at my life with pleased surprise. Oh! I'm okay! Wow!  Today the normal pain of grief ...

Death is Stop It's a shock every time how complete the end is no loose ends for the dead. They left their luggage on the train. I have not cried enough for my grandma So last night I dreamed her funeral again  every pulpit talk and choir and cried "I don't believe it" I sobbed to my dad in the pew as I dreamed him grieving, too. I dream often of Rising tides Salt water lifting its soft cheeks up towards the sky the moon leaning down like a grandmother to kiss

Betty Jo Page Davis, born August 4, 1931, died at home peacefully and surrounded with love on October 23, 2021, at the respectable age of 90. She was a rosy-cheeked farm girl from Pleasant Grove, Utah, who could milk cows and drive trucks and bake the world’s best orange rolls. She was also a polyglot globe-trotting adventurer who could fly an airplane, ride a motorcycle, tame wild horses, and domesticate sullen teenagers. She could wail on the saxophone, hold forth on the viola, and astonish on the piano. She composed poems as gifts and odes as offerings, and the most anticipated moment at every family event was Grandma Betty Jo shyly standing up to read a hilarious and touching original poem scribbled in shorthand on a receipt or the inside of an envelope. Her fanclub is worldwide. Today, people from Maine to Oregon to Hawaii to Germany are mourning her passing, remembering the infinite ways she delighted in the world. She is survived by her sister Margene Page Edwards, who was her f...

First, things are fine. Everyone is healthy and alive, and mid-pandemic, that is not something to take for granted.  Second, grief is an unfolding thing-- like a comically long devil's contract unspooling across the carpet-- you never signed it but are stuck with anyway, smeary black ink and a bloody handprint sealing the deal. And I'm mulling that over and want to chew on my thoughts, here, longform, in bloggerspace. It's a cliche that there are stages of grief. It's a given, a known, almost a punchline. In graphics describing the stages, they are as neat and orderly as a flow chart. First Denial that morphs into Anger, as you shake your fist at God. Then you beg and Bargain. But nothing changes-- God's face is impassive. You sink into the miserable, neverending reality of it in stage Depression, and then eventually you wash your face, and emerge bigger and better, sadder maybe, but wiser into the stage of Acceptance. Something about this tidy taxonomy makes me gri...

Right after Matt died, a well meaning neighbor smiled sadly and told the kids, " your daddy is your guardian angel now!" Maile responded in her flat jaded 6 yo way: "he is definitely not an angel." We all agreed. Angel Matt-- not a possibility. But then Maile considered it for another moment. "He's a more of a spirit." Vigorous nodding. Yup. Definitely more spirit than angel. * I don't know what I believe about the afterlife. If you asked me 20 years ago, as I was preparing to go on my mission, I would have been really clear about it. We are spiritual beings having a human experience! We persist in the next world, and serve others by teaching them the truth, and eventually maturing into greater and greater spiritual beings, and eventually even godhood! Ten years ago, my answer would have been just as definite. Nothingness. The electrical silence of the brain is the end. We only persist in the sense that the matter that made us and passed ...