Resilient Splendor

May is undoubtably filled with many hard anniversaries for my life.  Scattered throughout the 365 short days that compress to what seems like a long year, are  beautiful yet difficult dates of remembrance due to loss and life challenges.  For those grieving, there are incomplete emotions intertwined with specific dates and I believe this will always occur to a certain degree.  For me, May is difficult because of Mother’s Day, Mikey’s birthday, Carlleena’s accident date, parallel universe entry date and birthday…and my breast cancer diagnosis date.  It is a tough month emotionally but I am honored to embrace the sometimes difficult benefits of loving so deeply and growing more resilient.  Although it is a heavily memory triggered month, it serves as a reminder at how precious and short life truly is and the benefits of having loved so much

On this day 4 years ago, Carlleena was in a hit and run car accident that could have and probably should have ended her life on this day.  God decided that she needed a little more time on earth with us, so she hung on for 19 more days before her passing.  I remember the phone call…her voice on the other line was strong yet scared.  She said that she had been in a really bad accident and she was stuck in the car.  She couldn’t get out and the guy that hit her ran.  I asked where she was and told her that i loved her and I was on my way.  That is one drive that I don’t recall.  I don’t know how fast I was going, I remember my heart feeling as though it was in a tight hold by something I couldn’t see.  I called Uncle Kevin because I knew chances of him being close by were great, and he was.  He was actually home that day.  I called her when I was about 5 minutes from the accident scene and what I heard on the other end was unidentifiable communication.  She was speaking but it was garbled and seemed of another language.  I couldn’t understand a word she was saying because she was getting ready to pass out.  I hung up the phone and was enraged at the thought that those sounds could be the last words I would hear from her. I remember beating on the steering wheel because I knew it could take it and it would feel nothing like I did at that moment. I screamed.  What exactly, I don’t know but it seemed needed so I followed through. I prayed and cried intently along that drive.  I didn’t want that to be embedded in my memory as the last words.  And thankfully they are not, but they are still a memory.

As I drove up to the accident scene the ambulance was pulling off.  I followed and all I could see was the rear of her car, I never saw the front end damage.  I know she had her bike on the rack on her roof and both the bike and roof rack were thrown off during impact. That day she was taking her bike to the shop and going to deliver a painting “Have U.N.E more Pull” to the Mint Museum Uptown where it was going to be displayed for an art show.  Regardless, neither item made it to its destination.  The painting is on my living room wall with minor damage and the bike hangs in my garage with damage marked in blue painter’s tape.

That night we got home from the hospital and as I was getting Carlleena settled in for what rest she could capture, she wanted to tell me about the accident.  She believed it was supposed to happen.  I am normally a believer of similar sorts, that everything happens for a reason, but this I wasn’t agreeing with.  I listened to her story and understood how she believed it was supposed to happen but I didn’t understand the reason at that moment.  I since have learned that when bad things happen to good people, the reason may not always be for us.  The reason may be for someone that we have never met.  The reason may be for the guy that hit her and then fled the scene on foot.  They later found him via helicopter.  Carlleena originally thought that he ran because the car was on fire.  It wasn’t until he stopped and turned around after his initial take off and locked eyes with her that she realized he was fleeing the scene.  I met him 7 months later as I spoke to him in court.  After the hearing, his very pregnant girlfriend was outside and we locked eyes.  I could tell that she had already been crying and I wasn’t sure what the reason, but in my mind, I felt the emotions falling off of her from the thought that I lost someone important, her seeing him knowing he would be there for a while longer and her flowing off of the gut wrenching emotions I just expressed behind those doors.  As I began to walk toward her, I remember her looking down at the floor as if she wasn’t sure what I was going to do.  I walked to her and hugged her and she cried.  I had tears in my eyes.  She said she was so sorry.  I looked at her and said God Bless her and her baby and I walked away.

A few days after the accident I had to go to the junk yard and obtain the personal items from Carlleena’s car.  When I walked up and the man told me that was her car, I hardly recognized it.  I guess walking through viewing all the other cars that had damage and my mind wandering to the condition of it’s owner had me in a fog.  I do not see how she made it out.  The jaws of life had to be used to get her out.  As I walked to the rear of the car to get the license plate off, tears streamed down my face and I began to sob.  I remember the gentleman who walked me through the yard looking over at me with grief in his eyes and I looked to him and said you must see this quite a bit.  He said yes ma’am I do.  I drive past the accident scene often, as it is 3.5 miles from my house, so it is kind of hard to avoid it.  But I’m not someone that likes to avoid the difficult stuff.  The first couple of years I would stop at the accident scene and place roses from my rose bush and have a few moments, but the nice people like to stop and ask if I need help with my car lol…politely interrupting my moments.  Those roses are in my house instead of on the side of the road today.  I am thankful to have had 19 more days witnessing her strength and creating more memories.

 

My claim to be love in action is nothing but pure truth. I consider myself a well rounded individual and my balance within is absolute. It doesn’t surprise me that I have the capacity to love a man just as much as I have loved a woman…but it has surprised some others lol.  Oops…sorry, not sorry lol!  To me, love is love.   I understand that some people are only attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex, both or whatever other label society indicates, but it doesn’t mean that I follow that same path.  I honor and respect all journeys and continue to nourish my own journey. I have always been attracted to both men and women. I’ve always known about my attraction but I didn’t know how to explain it to others without them assuming that I was just confused or that it was just a phase.    Having spent the majority of my adult life with a woman until her passing in 2012, my journey to unveiling this root knowing with the world has been extraordinary.  I feel so alive in every aspect.

When I lived in Hawaii (’85-’88), I remember being attracted to an older girl in the neighborhood and also being attracted to my sister’s male friend. I remember finding the female Hula Dancers just as intriguing as the male Hula Dancers.  I was in tune enough to know the distinction between just thinking someone was pretty or handsome as we often do and actually being able to identify that I found them attractive on a romantic level.  I was young, so I was confused on how to express my feelings but I was never confused about what I was feeling.  I was never physically exposed to anyone that was openly “bisexual” in my youth, so I didn’t have that experience to help navigate my feelings.  I had boyfriends in middle school and high school and all of those feelings that generated the relationships were true.  Although there was other female attraction, I didn’t have the courage to journey through a same sex relationship until I met Carlleena though.

When people started asking me when I was going to start dating, it was like  a foreign language!  I would just reply that whoever wants to date me is just gonna have to show up on my doorstep lol.  That did kinda happen, but anyway, I was not going out looking for love.  I kinda felt like I would never love another woman like I loved Carlleena.  Not because I didn’t want to, but because I know that what she and I had was unique and solid. I felt like I wasn’t sure how to build something like that again.  I tried a couple times and those relationships were enlightening and awakening to this shift that has occurred. They were beautiful in their own light.  They were part of my journey and I am forever grateful for the reassurance in my feelings and knowing.  I’ll admit that I did lean toward just dating women because that is what presented and that is what I was used to…That is what my peers were used to associating me with.  I put myself into a societal category and tried to strictly label myself as identifying with being a lesbian because that is the type of gender identified relationship I knew and experienced the longest.  I’ve dealt with myself in that regard and in some part, in my journey, I felt that there was never going to be another love for me other than Carlleena.  We were going to grow old together so I accepted the label.  I knew (and Carlleena knew) that I wasn’t attracted to only women but I  found myself struggling to express this as an adult.  It got to a point where I knew I had to not care what others thought and honor myself , my journey and what only a few people in my life knew about me…that I truly am an equal opportunity lover 🙂

I have run these feelings into the ground, cried them out on the yoga mat, meditated, wrote about it and  I am confident within my peace and knowing.  If that makes you uncomfortable, then I believe you have some soul searching and ego clean up to deal with.  I am attracted to what I receive from someones energy.  I can easily find the physical attraction, but the energetic, dynamic, magnetizing attraction comes from the energy they exude gained by their own life experience.  To me, that is divine and alluring.  The untold story I have yet to hear as our eyes offer a window of insight,  presents opportunity.  I fell in love with Carlleena not because she was a woman, but because of all she encompassed, just as I am in love with Philip because of who he is, not what he is presented as in the physical.  My dynamic and powerful connection to the universe is so magnificent and sometimes hard to express with words, so I will continue to express how I know best….by being love in action…by being Marcy Kaye…Warrior Goddess…Wonder Woman lol!    I honor the spiritual connection that we are capable of in this earthly existence and I embrace all that God has planned.  My love has no preference on gender.  It’s only preference is honesty, laughter, understanding and reciprocity.

Love is Love!

 

 

The most difficult thing for me to navigate after Carlleena passed away was creating a new normal. Developing a new normal in the reality of learning to live without that person is quite a soul makeover. I showed myself how strong I truly am and unleashed parts of my essence that few people got to witness.  I showed myself what I was made of!  She was 32 when she passed away.  In 2012, I was 33 and a widow.  I know “they” always say “never say never” but I really NEVER, ever thought I would be a young widow.

While your life continues, that person is missing in the physical and now the task is to figure out how to make a new normal with the fresh, vacant time that exists.  You have to learn how to live without that person with so many  physical reminder of their existence within your home and in 20 years of memories. You develop new patterns and  will have to push your self out of an unfamiliar door as you face the world while navigating within your grief.  Sometimes that time until you feel like a semi normal human being again takes months or years.  Grief is a continual process and in some ways, lifelong.

Everything is different…every single minute in my day is now foreign within this immediate grief.  Waking up alone, eating meals, no laughter in the distance as she talked on the phone…the anticipated phone call or text during my day were no longer fulfilled.  Reaching for someone that is no longer there…Going to work, coming home from work, going to the grocery store, going to important places that cause memory triggers.  Going to sleep at night…it was full  of deep breaths and tears.  I cried every day for a year. I never hid my tears.  I cried in some very public places, IKEA was one of them LOL.  I ran out of a restaurant a few months after she passed because “our” song was playing.  I cried at work, I cried when I went running which is not the most convenient time to cry, but grief doesn’t wait for convenience.  I cried in the frozen pizza section at Harris Teeter once.  I still cry some days.  The tears now are filled with appreciating for knowing, loving and having been loved by such a magnificent person.

I remember the first day that I went back to work after she passed.  It was difficult to know that this large chunk of my life, going to work everyday and coming home from work would forever be different.   It would no longer be a normal moment for me to come home after work and greet her in her art studio (our garage).  Everyday for about 8 months, I came home from work, locked the door behind me, took off my shoes, placed my bag on the chair and walked through my living room, through the kitchen and into our garage looking for someone I knew would not physically be in there painting or doing research on the computer.  The day that I broke that routine, I was proud.  I knew I had to change my pattern to make my own new normal so I can continue healing.

I had many moments of being proud for making it through certain tasks.  If you are grieving, it is so important to be patient, and praise yourself in what seem like the small victories because they really are huge!  Be proud of yourself for taking out the trash after not taking it out for 16 years – we had a compromise LOL.  Be proud that you drank one of her favorite beers or you picked up one of her paint brushes.  Be proud that you burned the last of the Nag Champa incense left in the studio.  Be proud that you rearranged some furniture.  Be proud that you had moments in your day that you were happy and felt good.  Be proud that you allowed yourself to finish a whole pizza and at ice cream (yep I did lol).  Be proud that you were in charge of the grill now 🙂  Be proud that you finished off that jar of Nutella that she started.  Be proud that you sold one of her paintings.  Be proud that you can look at pictures of the two of you and no longer cry.  Be proud that you no longer ask why…Be proud for waking up and making breakfast.  Be proud that you ate that breakfast alone.  Be proud that you finally had their cell phone shut off.  Be proud that you stopped wearing her favorite shirt.  Be proud that you finally took that trip alone.  Be proud that you no longer smell that perfume bottle everyday.  Be proud that you laughed, that you watched a favorite movie.  Be proud that you thought someone else was attractive.  Be proud that you had the universal blessing to have felt love so deeply that it hurts this badly.

It is what you do with that time that truly heals.

My mindful participation with the rest of my life is my savior.

 

Maya Angelou once said that “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  I agree…

One of my goals is to share my private literature with the world in hopes that I can encourage and inspire someone in need.  Here goes…

Resilient is my favorite word.  It’s meaning resonates within my soul.  Being resilient is part of my essence, my fire, my core…but it is only a small part of the foundation of who I am…all that I am…Marcy!   Resilient:  “The ability to work with adversity in such a way that one comes through it unharmed, even better for the experience.  It means facing life’s difficulties with courage and patience, refusing to give up.”  Splendor is a great beauty, brightness or luster…something splendid.  I like to uphold myself as a resilient, splendid being…hence the tag “Resilient Splendor.”  For those of you that know me, you are familiar with some of the challenges I’ve met alongside life, so this may be repetitive to you.  The choice is yours to keep reading or not. But you should keep reading 😉  For those of you that don’t know me, or if you are looking for inspiration, I am a survivor.  A life survivor and a young breast cancer survivor…a survivor.  My name means “war like”, so I guess you can say that I was predestined to be a warrior…a warrior goddess to be exact.  You can compare me to the likes of Wonder Woman if you’d prefer, as she is an icon in my world.  My friends donated the legendary, branding of “Wonder Woman” to me after they witnessed life trying to knock me down and instead I embraced my resilience coming to light.  No one has ever seen us in the same room together so my claim to be Wonder Woman has yet to be refuted 😉

Before I get into details of random life events that have unleashed my resilience, I’ll share a little bit about myself.  I am love in action.  I am independently owned and operated by a brilliant light, guided by my essence and conviction that will birth realities I cannot yet see.  Graced with the ability to live both in the now and through memories embedded in my spirit, I acknowledge that I must have been born in the belly of a star.  That star was filtered in tenacious light ready for the unfolding of what life has prepared. My anchor point is to live in my strength and reflect when I am resisting the calling to surrender.  My intention in life is to let my energy heal (self and others) and create room for those I love to become what they envision, all while continuing to keep that same light shining on myself. The world seems bigger when you look through it with a broken heart, which I have done many times for many different losses and challenges…we all have. (In case no one has told you lately, I am proud of you for standing back up after life tried to knock you down!)  I am humbled that strength has blessed me to walk in my vulnerability, holding out my hand to this old friend.  I trust in something I cannot see, but it is something that I know.   I humbly carry this gigantic view of the world and embrace the beauty and love unfolding.   I am revising the belief that “time heals all wounds” and instead point out that it isn’t time alone that heals, it is your mindful participation with life during that time that actually heals.

I walked around the halls of my high school with a hand written message on my book bag that read “love with your heart, not your eyes.”  That message still rings true in my spirit.  I don’t like labels that society creates, so I prefer not to categorize myself as “straight, lesbian or bisexual”…I am an equal opportunity lover.  The energy  you exude will tell me all I need to know to spark a potential interest.  I appreciate the beauty in all gender and races. Love is love.

I am mama to my awesome pupson, Kaipo, a Siberian Husky, Lab mix.   I love to travel, laugh, be a friend with nature, learn, share and heal!  I am an artist, a reiki practitioner and I am fluent in the languages of Love and Sarcasm 🙂  Obviously there is so much more than this that has shaped me into this thirty something warrior goddess,  but this is just a snippet.   My family and friends keep me sane and the  unspoken knowing keeps me grounded.

There is too much war in the words of my silence, so I will continue to share my story by walking in my vulnerability, nurturing a stronger side of myself and hoping to inspire those open to receive it. I hope you will continue reading my story and sharing your own.