Looking out my Backdoor: Una semana muy dificil

The first week in October is always a difficult week for me. It marks the anniversary of the death of my baby. He’d been alive that morning. He died that night when he was born.

Still a girl myself, I’d been married only a year and a half. My family did the thing they did best. They hid away all the pain and hurt. I thought that is what everyone did. Stuffed the grief into a hole and covered it with concrete blocks. Or heavy weight of a sort.

Of course, over the years, the pain, still alive, periodically exploded through the concrete, generally in inappropriate ways, cutting and bruising anybody nearby, causing me even more grief.

Eventually, with professional help, I learned to look head-on at my hurts and deal with them in healthier ways, knowing they never go away.

Yes, this past week was difficult. Grief came calling. We had cups of tea and fresh bread. Examined the scars. Talked about things. I held my baby whom I never got to hold in my arms.

Painful, certainly, but I didn’t have to wallow in it. I looked for balance. There is always balance. Some days it is harder to find than other days, but it is there, waiting for me to see it.

I canned tomato/apple catsup. Neighbors would ask me how many jars I put up. Enough, I answered. I didn’t count them. I made one batch for give-away. I took around a jar for each neighbor.

Living here where every food is fresh daily, I’ve not much need for canning. But pickles, jams and a decent spicy catsup are not available in our little town. So I make my own and enjoy the making and the eating.

I sat on the patio a lot, reading, visiting neighbors, reading, just sitting, reading.

More than the usual number of bed-sheet butterflies wafted by. They comfort me, make me smile, always. That’s my name for them, not the scientific name, but when you see one, that’s what you’d call it too. They are huge, flap those big white wings like sheets on the line in the Montana wind.

I put away my sewing projects and dumped the pieces of a new puzzle onto the table. Crin gifted me this puzzle. She knows I like difficult jigsaws. When she told the cashier she was buying it for a good friend who loves puzzles, the cashier told her that maybe when I tried to work this one, I’d no longer be her friend. We laughed.

I’m still her friend, but holy smokies, I see the point. This mess is very monochromatic, a line drawing, crowded, not much to differentiate one section from another. I still have five missing edge pieces and I’ve fingered every piece numerous times. With luck I’ll finish by Christmas.

The government clinic in town has flu shots this week. Went and got my jab.

Leo drove me to Oconahua to visit Ana and Michelle. I had made some large hot pads for their barbecue table, took them some jars of tomato/apple catsup. Michelle always brews a cup of her special cappucchino for us. We tell more stories of ourselves, laugh, get angry at the same foolishness, laugh, gossip, laugh, trade garden secrets and laugh.

We’ve got a bobcat roaming the place. I don’t know if that affects to the balance or not. But the wild feline adds to the excitement. He or she marked territory out by my avocado tree the other night. I recommend you avoid bobcat urine if possible. Made me sick to my stomach.

Lola The Dog somehow had sense enough to stay hunkered in her Dog Mansion and never even whoofed. Snowball next door, a tiny morsel, is still alive and all Janet’s cats are still catting around.

Hurricane Orlene covered us with heavy clouds and never brought us a bit of rain. It’s hard to judge which side of the balance scale that sits on. Depends on perspective, I would say, but don’t most things?

Life surrounds me, life for the living woven with memories of those gone on. As Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.”

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].