December 31st, Two Thousand Ten

Two Thousand Ten. As we begin the process of ushering out this year to make way for the new year on the horizon, I find myself in that familiar place again; that place of deep introspection, taking stock of the days gone by and surveying my performance in this thing called Life. Did I accomplish what I set out to do this year? Is there anything I would have done differently? What did I learn? Did I challenge myself? Did I GROW?

Collectively, 2010 may not have been what I expected or even planned for, but I believe that it unfolded exactly as it was supposed to. Did I have moments of success and elation? Of course. Did I have moments where I fell and skinned my knees, only rising to find myself bruised and worse for the wear? Absolutely. It has been a year filled with both the predictable and the unpredictable; a year filled with accomplishments and failures, love and joy, sadness and celebration. It has been a year filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but each and every one of these moments were all laced with wisdom and experience, continuing to shape me, mold me and build me into the person I am still growing to be.

And I'm not done yet. I'm not done growing.

I have always considered myself a work-in-progress; this self-proclamation has not changed, and I suppose this very idea is what fills me with such HOPE. Hope for the future...hope for the unknown...hope for what is yet to be.

This year, I've sworn off making any "resolutions" because they hold nothing but a negative connotation (and let's call a spade a spade: resolutions never stick). In the new year, I am focusing only on growing and improving my relationship and walk with God; everything else will fall into place.

* * *

So on this Friday evening - the last day of 2010 - at almost 7:00pm Hawaii Time, as I am sitting here on the couch in my PJ's, sipping on a glass of overly-priced (but oh-so-delicious) Cabernet Sauvignon (secretly happy that our New Years Eve plans to attend a cocktail-party fell through) I am relishing in the fact that I get to spend a quiet evening with the Love-of-my-Life, planning and preparing to embark on another year of Life and Love. Together.

Happy New Year, friends. Wishing you all happiness, health and prosperity in the new year. May the best of 2010 be the worst of your 2011.

xo!

Looking Up

Merry-Week-After-Christmas, friends. I hope this week finds you all happy and healthy and filled with exalted anticipation for the new year on the horizon.

I had grand plans to post about the direction I hope to take my blog in the new year, but the last few days have been especially difficult and I haven't been able to motivate myself to do so. I'm trying---really trying---to stay positive, but it is hard. It is hard when this time of year is focused on faith and family and joy (and rightfully so), but what I find myself wanting to do most of all is to just burrow my way deep under the confines of our down comforter while nursing my wounds.

The last few weeks have been filled with highs and lows...but Monday was a new "low". I had the day off work and spent most of it in bed, wallowing, thinking, crying. Tomorrow will be exactly one month since Nick's passing. And I just miss him.

I know that grieving in solitude like this isn't healthy, but it is part of the only process that I know. Just when I think I am strong again and able to shield myself from the sorrow, my protective armor is ripped away from me and I am vulnerable once again. Grief is hard. But (and there's always a "...but") it is fascinating to me how God always has a way of keeping things in balance for me when I feel like I have lost complete control. I am reminded of His love in the various gifts around me; my family, my husband, my friends, and all of His creation.

* * *

The day after Christmas, Phil and I met some friends at the beach on the South Side to relax in the sunshine. Honestly, I was not up for the socializing, but in my valiant attempt to "try" I rallied and showed up. And I was present. There is nothing like being surrounded by friends who love you and who can make you laugh when you really feel like crying.

The hilight of my day was the moment I looked up. As I sat soaking in the beautiful, blue sky, freckled with tufts of cotton-like clouds, I paused. I was speechless...and in that instant, I felt peace.

God is good.

Mele Kalikimaka

Tonight when I got home from work, I raced into the house, peeled off my work clothes and slid into my PJ's (priorities, people), grabbed my camera and went back outside to capture the sun as it made its way further West. It has been hazy and gray here, in that quintessential, almost-Winter, evening-before-Christmas-Eve kind of way, and despite the thick clouds blanketing Haleakala, a small pocket opened up in the sky just enough to allow the burst of orange rays to shine through and say goodbye to another day.

When I am able to steal moments like this, by myself, surrounded by a silence so undeniably still I can hear the sound of my own heartbeat, I feel closer to God. And I am grateful.

I am grateful for eyes that allow me to drink in the daily visual splendor of a sunset against a blank canvas. I am grateful for ears that allow me to absorb the symphony of everyday life, while still being able to appreciate the slivers of silence in between. I am grateful for Life. And Love. Family and Friends. I am grateful to experience--truly experience--emotion. The happy and the sad. Because if I can feel, I'm alive.

Life is filled with infinite goodness, but it can also be hard sometimes. I am still nursing a broken heart and although some moments in the day allow me to feel like my old self again, I am just as quickly reminded of my reality and my family's loss. I'm not going to lie; it's hard. But I am trying with everything in me, to see only the good in everyone and in everything around me. And I am rarely disappointed, because really, it's everywhere. My heart still beats...and I love.

I love that tomorrow is Christmas Eve and that despite The Hubs and I being away from our families on the mainland, we still have one another and our own Christmas Eve and Christmas Day steeped with our own traditions, to look forward to. I love the idea that for many, these days are filled with happiness, merriment and delight...how amazing would it be if we could all carry this kind of Chosen Joy every day of the year?

* * *

Merry Christmas, friends. Or as we say it here in Hawaii, Mele Kalikimaka. Wishing you all a joyous holiday. Thank you for the love, support and friendship you have all given to me in the few short months I have been blogging here.

Love & Aloha to you all!

Joy in the Mundane

It's been a good couple of days; a good weekend, for that matter.

We didn't have a huge To-Do list to tackle and we certainly don't have a list of accomplishments to show for the last 48 hours, but we did have a lot of "us" time. Just the two of us, sleeping in, breakfast in bed (thank you, Phil), a whole lotta laying around and just..."be"-ing. Together. It's nice.

We decorated our tree earlier in the week, so we have been able to relax in a home lit only by the small, white, twinkly lights framing each window and wrapped around our artificial - yet beautiful - tree (live trees + curious kitty = vomitous puddles).

We light candles that smell of vanilla while playlists on Pandora stream through the speakers throughout our home.

We savor our low-maintenance, delicious dinners of leftovers because they sustain us and they are made with love, and we retreat to our "own" activities, but always in the same room with one another, because it's nice to be in one another's space, doing something and nothing...together.

And lest you think we are both lazy sloths and that our entire weekend was shot, we did get around to giving Grace a bath (which she did not appreciate, but she smells so yummy and citrus-y right now), we did attend an evening get-together last night to support some friends and I did make it to the gym today, where I ran 3-miles after taking 3-months off. And it felt great.

Tonight, I'm making a salmon dinner with roasted mushrooms and asparagus. The first actual "meal" I've cooked in over two weeks (I so love and appreciate The Hubs for voluntarily picking up the slack when it counts); I'm slowly getting back into the saddle of Life and finding joy in the mundane again.

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Friends, I can't thank you enough for the lovely and supportive comments you have left me over the last week. I am trying to respond individually to each of you, but many of you have disabled the email feature in your Blogger profile and all I am left with is the "no-reply@blogger.com"...please know that I have read each and every comment and that I am deeply touched by your kind thoughts. For all the new visitors and first-time commenters, thank you for saying hello and introducing yourselves...it's nice to know you're out there and reading along. I love and appreciate each and every one of you!

Much Love & Aloha...xoxo.

That Thing Called "Closure"

It has been just over two weeks since Nick's passing. In the grand scheme of things, sixteen days is a mere *blip* in time, but for me, notsomuch. It has been a L-O-N-G two weeks.

It's good to be back home on Maui; I am slowly getting back to my normal, everyday routine, but it has been hard. I have had both good and bad days. Good, when I can keep it together and not think about my grief long enough so that I can actually laugh while watching a re-run of "The Office", and bad, when sitting down to a meal with Phil and listening to him say a blessing over our food is enough to make me burst into tears. Literally. I haven't figured out why, exactly, this particular act (eating) does me in, but if I had to venture a guess, I believe it is because food is both a necessity and a gift; it provides our bodies with nourishment and pleasure, and without it, we could not survive. And then my thoughts go back to Nick and how he will never experience this simple pleasure again.

[watching the sunset from our living room window]

But things are getting better. Despite the sadness that hovers above me like a little gray cloud ready to rain down at any given moment, I still find reasons to smile, because I am blessed and my life is good. The sun still shines. I have everything I could possibly need, and I want for nothing: I have God, my husband, my family and friends, a home, a job and food. My life is filled with abundance.

And of course it helps when you have one of those serendipitous chance-encounters that take place, gently coaxing the healing process along, leaving you feeling mystified and loved and seemingly enveloped by a warm embrace from God, Himself.

* * *

I had a dentist appointment - my regular 6-month cleaning. It was a dreaded appointment that I had planned on canceling because (a): I abhor the dentist and (b): I just wasn't in the mood (not that I ever am) to have anyone tinkering around in my mouth. But as fate would have it, I didn't even have the energy to call or make up an excuse, so I rallied. And I went. And I'm so glad that I did.

It was only the 4th time that Robyn (the dental hygienist) worked on me. I don't know much about her, other than she is pleasant and makes me feel comfortable in an otherwise uncomfortable situation, which is the precise reason why I have become accustomed to requesting her. There is something very soothing about her presence.

Within the first five minutes of laying in the chair, she is asking me questions and I am half-heartedly answering them; we are exchanging the standard pleasantries of each visit. As she sat down next to me, she made some comment about "living a life with purpose", and my eyes started watering. And that is what started it.

She looked at me silently for a few seconds and said: "Oh, honey. Someone just died. Who was it?"

So I tell her in four short words: "My little brother, Nick." And just like that, I'm sobbing again.

And she actually starts to cry with me. She is hugging me and I am letting her - because human contact is necessary, and it feels good to be comforted - and I am not even caring how completely awkward/inappropriate this might look to anyone passing through the dental office. She is telling me how sorry she is and then says: "You know he's here with you, right?"

When she asked me this question, I took it as one of those spiritual, off-handed, "such is life" comments and not necessarily one in the literal sense. And so I nod in agreement, but she says it again: "No, really. You know he's here with you...right now."

At this point, we are talking like two friends; we are crying, her gloved-hands holding mine, and she is saying things that are simultaneously comforting, yet scaring me at the same time. Sensing my discomfort, she explains that there is an overwhelming aura of "trust" that she feels from me, which leaves the conduit open for her to receive these messages. And she starts sharing with me all these facts about Nick's life which are ALL TRUE, including exactly how - and what he did - to take his own life (we don't share any mutual friends, but somehow, she knew everything). She is telling me that he is so happy right now; he is free from pain and finally at peace and that as angry as I am with him (but won't fully admit to - also true), that I will forgive him for what he has done.

And the real clincher in all this is when she finally says: "He's telling me right now that you've been writing about this. And that is exactly what he wants you to be doing: to keep writing, because this is how you are going to heal. This is how you are going to help others."

Here is a woman who, only moments before, knew absolutely nothing about my personal life, but still manages to pinpoint the exact.

I wish that I could articulate how this chance-encounter makes me feel, but my words would do the experience no justice. I can only say that I am comforted in a way I did not think was possible. I am humbled that I was given this gift. And I could not help but smile while I was re-telling the story to Phil. I am happy.

I have closure.

* * *

I know my posts have been heavy-on-the-heart as of late and while I won't apologize for this, I will say that things are changing around here, and I'm excited to see where they take me. Tomorrow is a new day, where I will start something that fuels my passion for Choosing Joy.

Facebook Status Update: Choosing JOY

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12/13/10 - 9:45pm:

Angie on Maui...is finding JOY again. Finally decorated our tree tonight, enjoyed a glass of wine, dinner and a foot massage courtesy of The Hubs, and now he is making me chocolate chip cookies.

Love him. ♥

Letting Go

Nicholas  1983 - 2010

* * *

We are in Denver, Colorado right now; we had Nick's funeral this afternoon and as emotionally taxing as this day has been, every bit of it was equally beautiful.

In death, nothing is more comforting than being surrounded by family and friends who not only share in your grief and pain, but who also celebrate the life of the loved one lost. There is a natural flow to emotional events like this; at the heels of the hugs and the tears and the quiet apologies, there are words of encouragement and hope and peace. In between each layer of the grieving process, there is also the gift of laughter, when stories and fond memories are exchanged and offered to one another in the true spirit of a shared love. And all of this is so incredibly healing. I was SO moved by the 150+ people who showed up at his funeral today - so filled with gratitude for their presence and so touched by their words of love.

It has been said that a funeral or memorial service gives closure to the tragedy of loss. While I see the truth in this statement, I'm still trying to find exactly that: closure. Because at the moment, I don't have it. I'm still trying to understand. I still have unanswered questions. And the guilt...oh, the guilt. I am still struggling with the nonstop litany of thoughts lamenting his absence: all the things I would have, could have or should have said and done. Intellectually, I know these thoughts are counterproductive, but in my heart? It's what I feel.

I am sad. I am heartbroken. And honestly, I'm also a little angry. I'm angry because I did not see this coming. When someone is in such a desolate place that taking their own life is the only solution they see, you can't help but ask yourself why or how you could have possibly missed all the signs.

I share this piece of information not so that you might be a voyeur to my brother's cause of death, but because this tragedy has opened my eyes; it is my hope that my experience might raise your awareness to the pain of others. That we might all be a little more tuned-in to those in our lives who may be hurting but might not necessarily know how to ask for help. That we might all be better equipped to recognize when our loved ones are trying to navigate through dark days; to be their beacons of light and to reach out and offer our hands and our hearts so they know they aren't alone.

My brother was an amazing person; he was warm, caring, compassionate and so generous with his time, his love and his friendship. He was awesome...and crazy good-looking! He had an incredible spirit about him; he was lively, animated, extroverted and always the life of the party. But underneath this shiny and vibrant exterior, clearly, he was hurting. I deeply regret that I never suspected he was capable of doing the unthinkable, but I take comfort in the fact that he is resting now, at peace and flying free with my big brother Tony.

I love you, Little Nicky. I miss you, but I'll see you again someday.

* * *

Never waste an opportunity to let your family and friends know that you love them. Tell them. Often. Hug them. Tightly. Cherish every moment you have with them, because Life can change in an instant.

Friends, thank you again for your thoughts, your words of support and your continued prayers. I definitely feel them. With God's grace and your kindness, I am finding strength, comfort and peace.

Denver is beautiful, but cold (29 degrees today)! I am happy to be heading home to Maui tomorrow; if you wouldn't mind, please say a prayer and/or think positive thoughts for safe travels - I really, really, really detest flying...please and thank you!

Much love and Aloha to all of you. xoxo.

In Sorrow, Love Abounds

My heart has led me back here, tonight. I did not expect to be posting so soon, but I am a creature of habit and writing has always been therapeutic for me.

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Where do I begin? It has been two days since the death of my brother; I am emotionally exhausted, mentally drained and numb (save for the massive migrane I have been nursing for the last 48 hours). I have learned how to ride the cyclical wave of emotions - moments of debilitating, jagged sobbing which are then quickly balanced by God's Grace and I am given an equal moment of peaceful silence. Though I wish they were, these feelings are no longer new to me; I have already been through this experience once before.

I grew up the only girl in a family of boys - four brothers, to be exact. Much has changed. On Mother's Day in 1996, I lost my amazing older brother Tony, to a fatal car accident. He was only 25. I don't feel it is necessary to relive the experience here in this post, but suffice it to say, the immense sadness and immeasurable grief resulting from this loss is not something I expected to experience ever again. But I did. And I am. My little brother Nicholas passed away on Tuesday and I am heartbroken.

I have spent the majority of the last two days in bed, identifying the "triggers" and consequently wrestling old demons. I recognize the all-too familiar fog of depression and sadness that threatens to wash over me, but I am fighting it with every fiber of my being. I refuse to give into it again; I so desperately want the healing process to be different this time around. And this valiant effort of mine, though ungraceful and peppered with moments of resigned weakness - it's a mere faint bit of hope but all I have within me right now...and certainly, something is better than nothing.

Despite my conscious shift in perspective, I am still human. It has been only two short days and sorrow doesn't have to go very far to find me. Sorrow finds me in the shower, when I am shampooing my hair and I am suddenly struck with a wave of heartbreak that brings me to my knees. Sorrow finds me in mid-conversation with Phil; he put a bowl of soup in front of me last night, coaxing me to "please, eat something" and I picked up the spoon, only to then promptly sob right into the bowl. Sorrow finds me at the mailbox, when I see the latest issue of Runners World magazine and I am reminded of a conversation Nick and I had comparing mileage. Sorrow also finds me late at night when it is dark and quiet, weaving itself into my thoughts so that I can do nothing but lie awake, counting the hours until daybreak while the rest of our neighborhood is slumbering soundly. Sorrow weighs heavily on my heart.

But where there is Sorrow, there is also Love.

Love is in the countless emails, texts and Facebook messages I have received from the most amazing and supportive friends all over the world. Love is in our kitty, Grace, who curls up in my lap and purrs while I cry. Love is in every moment throughout the day when I pray to God for strength and He answers me, enveloping me in tangible peace. Love is in the dear friend who called me all the way from Israel and cried with me. Love is in the precise moment of 4:15 a.m. this morning, when I awoke sobbing (because Sorrow still finds me in my sleep) and The Hubs, though he could have just reached over, instead got up, raced around to my side of the bed and crawled under the covers to spoon me while I wept. Love is everywhere, in everything. And I see it so much more clearly this time around.

In Sorrow, Love Abounds.

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Thank you all for your incredibly loving and supportive words (especially to you first-time commenters). I so deeply appreciate your kindness and your prayers; you have no idea how comforting they have been for me to read.