Dancing with a Limp
As a writer both by profession and passion I thrive on using my skillset to help tell a client’s story, to bring awareness to their purpose, or increase their business. I have used my writing skills in some way, shape or form across my entire career. What’s fallen behind a bit, is using my writing for my own personal comfort, processing, and expression. I haven’t been taking the time to express my personal thoughts, my daily life doings, and my feelings. While living aboard our sailboat Zephyr full-time (yes, in the winter - in Maine) I had lots of content for our blog and I loved having that outlet to express myself, tell the crazy tales of liveaboard life, and process through our dreams and plans. It’s been a while since I’ve sat to face the blank page of a blog but I am here to admit I am suffering a great loss and with it a lot of emotion and I know that writing through it will only help to start to heal my pain. So here goes…
Her name is Peggy, or should I say was…because I lost her early in the morning of October 12, 2019. She was my Mom but beyond that she was my person…my best friend, my confidante, my travel companion, my fellow “chardonnator”, my sister in joy, my partner in sorrow, the only person who truly cared about the most inane minutia of my daily life. She was my model of what it means to be a strong, independent woman, an entrepreneur, a wife, a solo traveler, a mother, a captivating energy - she was my hero. She was my world and now I am supposed to go on living without her. Seems awfully strange that that is how life works - we must continue to live with a hole in heart, our life moves on without the someone who gave us this life.
Mom had metastatic breast cancer - it was the same breast cancer she “beat” when I was four that came back in her liver 32 years later. A real F U if you ask me. She ‘beat’ it…she battled through horrific chemo and radiation, she proudly came up to my dance recitals in a wig, she fought off incessant nausea to be at my brothers little league games, she faced her own mortality with a strength and fearlessness that still takes my breath away. And yet, cancer came back for her. This time it won. I am still deeply struggling with the questions of fairness, with questions of what if and why her but everyday I try to let a little of that go because it does not serve me nor honor her. I will write more here about metastatic breast cancer in time as I think our awareness of this deadly form of cancer is way lacking and I have learned and witnessed a lot in the last three years of mom’s battle as her caregiver and confidante.
When it came time to write Mom’s obituary my brother turned to me and said, “you’re the writer in the family and Mom would love you to do it.” So there I went using my writing skills once again, this time for the hardest assignment I have ever been given - putting an indomitable spirit into words. I wanted Peggy’s obituary to inspire anyone who read it, even those who never met her. Her love for life, unadulterated joy, and her incredibly infectious spirit is something that needs to be shared far and wide…so here is the obituary, but I like to call it “A Love Letter to Peggy.”
It’s been an incredibly poignant time in my life as I suffer through this grief journey (again…I lost my Daddy to Alzheimers 4 years ago). I keep telling people there are strides and setbacks and there sure is no roadmap for this journey. I have days where I feel a glimmer of joy and lightness and then there are days where it’s hard to even get out of bed. The thing with grief is that it needs space, it requires oxygen, it takes up room in your life…this blog is my attempt at giving grief light and air. Rather than hide alone in my pain and sorrow or stuff it away I am choosing to open it up and share it, to bear witness to the hard things in my life in the hopes that others can feel the freedom to do the same. I am struggling to learn to live with pain and it’s a daily practice. I read this quote from Anne Lamott on my drive to Mom’s wake and it totally resonated with me…
So little by little I am learning to dance with the limp. Some days the dance is merely a toe tap riddled with pain other days I can muster a twirl and I do hope that one day I can sashay and spin because if nothing else Peggy expects me to live with joy, embrace every day, be grateful for life, and dance, dance, dance!