Here

I am still here.   I haven’t gone anywhere.   This blog has been pushed far from my mind though.  Each time I’d try to find the time to write, I’d be too busy doing other things.  That was my excuse.  Truth is, I have not been inspired in a long, long time.  I won’t say my spirit is broken, but there are fractured lines of heartache and discontentment running through it like a dry riverbed that begged for rains that never came. 

2019 was not kind to me.  Unfamiliar demons came calling and at times, I was afraid I’d run out of dragons to send to fight them off.  When it was quiet again, I’d start to wonder if maybe it was the dragons that needed slaying instead. 

In the middle of March, I lost my beloved dog Griffin in a tragic, horrible way.  I cannot bring myself, will not bring myself to write about it in detail but I will say that it changed me.  It cut me so deep that I thought I would never feel joy again.  I sank like a stone to the bottom of my normal and everything was raw. 

It was show season and I found refuge behind the flame of my torch.  I didn’t listen to music while I worked, I just melted glass and pushed all thoughts out of my mind.  I sat there, trance-like, making bead after bead after bead until my shoulders were on fire and my eyes were dry. 

The art shows that followed took a toll on me.  It was bad enough that I was in mourning, but the weather was a real bitch and took much delight in elevating my stress level and laughing at my attempts to make the best of it. 

The worst of it happened in early May at a show in Central Florida.  Mid-afternoon ushered in a micro-burst nobody saw coming.  Tents went flying.  Many artists lost work worth tens of thousands of dollars.  Some lost everything they had under their canopy.  I suffered a bit of damage too and while my trusty tent did not take flight, it “walked” to the left and pedestals hit the ground.  Down went several show pieces, shards of glass swimming away in the gutter filled with all that rain.   Rain that came too early but much too late for my dried-up riverbed. 

Two back to back shows were cancelled due to weather in October.  All in all, I lost 6 show days that I had paid for.  Frustration slapped me in the face time and again.

...

One month ago, my Mama took a spill at the Nursing Home in the wee hours of a Saturday morning and broke her 89 year old hip.  I was in St. Augustine for my last out of town show for the year.  My siblings assured me that surgery went well.  By the end of the day however, hope was getting scarce.  I decided to pack my booth at first light on Sunday morning and leave before the show opened.

I lay there that night listening to silence, unable to sleep, wondering if I was an orphan yet.  I prayed I’d make it in time.  Hold on Mama. 

Please hold on.

At 3:41, I heard a text message come through and I reached for my phone.  Full of dread, I didn’t look at it for several seconds.  It read…

“Robin, mom is up and talking, prayers answered.”

Relief swam over me as I dialed my brother’s number.  He answered right away and I could hear my Mama and my sister in the background.  On speaker phone now, we had a ten minute conversation, all four of us.  She would most likely be transferred back to the nursing home the next day to heal.

In light of this, I decided to stay in place and finish the show.  Even with no sleep, I felt renewed.

It was a gorgeous, bright Sunday morning, but there were 30 mph gusts that forced the show to close two hours early.  This time the weather worked in my favor.  Grateful for the head-start, I headed back to my hometown with plans to go straight to the hospital to join my brother and sister at my sweet Mama’s bedside. 

…

I got the news with 100 miles to go, crawling through snarled post-Thanksgiving traffic on I-10.  She had taken a turn for the worse.  Hope became a stranger again.

I curled up in a chair and stayed there in her hospital room along with my sister that night.  I laid awake in the light that crept from underneath the door and listened to my Mama breathe.  I counted each breath and knew I needed to sleep but I did not want to miss one moment of still having a mother.  I wanted to catch her last breath and breathe it in as she floated up to heaven and I wanted her to take a piece of me with her because I still needed her so.   Even if dementia had taken her from me years ago, she still knew I was her daughter and she still had a shoulder I could lay my head on when I needed to.  And I still needed to.  I still need to.  I will always need to.

We buried her that Thursday.  The sun was bright and there was a calm, warm December breeze.  Standing room only, Amazing Grace, comfort food after the cemetery, long drive home with a peace lily in the back of my car that I’ll try to keep alive for as long as I can.  Because I need to.

...

I wish I could go back to 2018 and change the next year’s events that haunt me so.   Keep my Griffin from going outside that day.  Keep my Mama from losing her footing and crashing to the floor.  Keep her from the cold, hard ground. 

I can wish all I want but they aren’t coming back.

And neither is 2019.

This horrible year is about to expire and I am glad.  I need to heal.  Maybe I am broken.  But one thing is for certain…

It's a brand new year

and...

I am still here.