personal

To the ones who said, “It gets better”

~ GennaClaire ~ 1 Comment

Sympathy Card Curly Girl Designs

When I lost her–my mother, my gypsy, my patron saint of love and kindness–the echoes first began.

“It gets better. Just wait. It’ll get better.”

I hated every person who offered me those words. For their guilty eyes and soft voices. For their pity. For filling my head with false promises of tranquility, impossible visions of peace.

How could it possibly get better?

Every day that passes I’m 24 hours more removed from the last time she held me in her arms. The last time she stroked my hair. The last time she spoke three infinitely more soothing words.

“I love you.”

Every day that passes my vision of her fades just slightly more. Her image fuzzes around the edges. Pixelates. Unnoticed from one day to the next. But combined, she’s becoming a blur.

I claw through my memories trying to find one of her laugh. One of her hum. One of her silly smiles. I feel victorious when a forgotten detail surfaces—in photograph or video or voicemail or dream.

But I know I have no ownership over those stolen moments. I know I’ll lose those details too.

Give it another day.

With each changing season, the things she’s given me age. Shirts, shoes, sunglasses, jewelry, watches, purses and more. I won’t leave the house without one of those priceless gifts. At least one thing. Maybe the Tiffany earrings she and my sister went in on together for my college graduation. Or the Tom’s sunglasses she gave me our last Christmas together.

Our last Christmas.

But those objects, those items, those physical incarnations of her love and generosity—they are not immune to the mighty arms of time either. Jewelry is lost. Shoes wear down. Sunglasses break. Every day I have less of her to weave into my wardrobe. To wear her love like a blanket on my skin.

How could it possibly get better?

My dreams—the ones where she’s still alive—they’re treasures. I experience her just as she was. I wake up surrounded in the warmth of her. And long to drift back to the place where she lives in my subconscious.

But every day that passes, I have them less and less.

It can’t ever get better.

Now as I wind through my second full year without her, I know the words I’ve hated for so long are true.

It’s getting better.

I wouldn’t call it peace, but time has given me something I didn’t know it could. As I try to balance holding on and letting go and moving forward while desperately clinging to the past, as I fight to forget nothing and even as I continuously fail, time still offers a comfort.

A new echo caressing my ears. Of “This is okay.” Of “This is what is.”

Of acceptance.

She’s not here. I’ll never not miss her. I’ll never not wish I had more time. I’ll never not want even one more day by her side. I’ll never stop trying to remember more pieces of her. I’ll never stop mourning them as they fade too far away into the darkness of my fragile, fallible, feeble human mind.

But still—even still—it’s better.

And I’m grateful to everyone who told me so.

And even more grateful that they were right.  

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Image Source: CurlyGirlDesign.com, maker of the best greeting cards in the whole beautiful world.

This Kind of Hate

~ GennaClaire ~ 2 Comments

I’m not black. And I’ve never been the victim of a hate crime. But I do know something about this kind of hate. The kind born from ignorance. From unintelligence. The kind that never learned how to evolve. Or how to think for itself. The kind that only regurgitated the hate it was fed its whole life without ever questioning its validity. Without ever assessing its merit, its truths.

When that 21-year-old boy’s father gave him a gun for his birthday, did he think about what else he’d given him? Had he given him the ability to know right for wrong? Had he given him his own prejudices?

Did he tell him the purest truths: That all human beings are beautiful? That all life is precious? That all places of worship are sacred?

What else was given to that boy before someone pushed a cool metal barrel into his sweaty palms?

We are not born with hate. But we breed it. We create it. We allow for it.

And now we all suffer the consequences of this kind of hate.

But I will not pretend I don’t have a role in this crisis; we are all a part of the world we create.

So let’s give our children the gifts of love and knowledge, not bullets and guns. Let’s arm them with the ability to question norms, not destroy what is different. Let’s give them the chance to be better than the generations before them. And pray they never know the hollow and helpless feeling that comes from witnessing this kind of hate.

roots and wings

~ GennaClaire ~ 1 Comment

Trees Uprooted as Hot Air Balloons Print

My childhood was rooted in the metro-suburbiapocalypse of Marietta, Georgia. I grew up next to the roots of the live Christmas trees we planted each year. (And I proudly named each one: Candy Cane, Cup Cake, Ginger Bread.) My roots stretched out beneath the small patch of strawberries that grew on the sunny side of the house…beside the earthworms I saved from drying out on the driveway after every heavy rain. My roots are in the grassy slope in the front yard where we put the Slip ‘N Slide each summer. And running under the single tree in the front yard where Dad insisted we put every last strand of 300-count ultra-bright Christmas lights one embarrassing holiday season.

I was planted there. It’s where I bloomed shyly, blossomed hesitantly. And before I knew how to stay put, I was carried away. Like pollen stolen by the honey bees.

My adolescent roots are just down the road from that little blue ranch house. In a bigger brick home with a smaller yard. Dad and I dug up all the seedling trees we’d planted at Milford Creek Lane and transplanted them to new house on Breconridge Drive. They were Fraser firs. Only a handful survived the move. But the few that did grow tall and proud there still today.

My roots are in the soft grass I ran over in the yard as I learned how to back the Mustang out of our crooked driveway for the first, second, and fifteenth times. And beneath the daylilies surrounding the front porch, which served as a backdrop for prom photos and high school graduation portraits. My roots are anchored to the honeysuckles that bloomed along our rustic fence in the springtime. And the jonquils planted around our sweet dog Sunny’s otherwise-unmarked grave in the backyard.

Some days, those roots still feel like home.

Then there was college, the place where you barely stand still long enough to let roots grow. From dorm to apartment to college house, my roots kept me coming back to family and familiarity on holiday weekends and breaks between semesters. To make sure life still existed the way I remembered, even as I was beginning to change.

After college, I left for Charleston. It was a temporary move at the time, but now I’ve been here six and a half years. My roots started tugging me into place in this coastal town—beneath the coarse sand, beneath the pluff mud, beneath the marsh grass—as soon as I arrived. Urging me to stay. Telling me this is the place. This is the place where I can flourish.

Now, having closed on my first home, I’m ready to buy my own Christmas trees for the yard…and give them good Christmas names, of course. I’m ready to dig into the Carolina earth and see what the dark soil below has to offer my Georgia-clay bones. I’m ready to be grateful for old, stubborn roots that kept me from running too far away from the people I love. And for roots strong enough to let me drift off to this place. The place where I’m finally ready to fly.

Image source: DIYdelicacy via Etsy

c for clarity

~ GennaClaire ~ 11 Comments

Between the V-(card) and the X-(boyfriend),

I found

C for cruelty—

Gift-wrapped

In cold shoulders, callous caresses, blank futures.

Between 22 and 23,

I found

C for confidence—

Opened cautiously

In distant cities, double-takes, second chances.

And that’s where I found you.

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christmas confessions (it won’t be the same this year…)

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

As a general rule, I start listening to Christmas music each year around September 15th. That’s exactly 100 days before December 25th, and in my opinion, it’s totally fair game.

In all the places I’ve lived and worked, the people around me have taken note: this chick loves her some Christmastime. I deck the halls with dedication and purpose, send holiday greetings the good ol’ fashioned way, and am notorious for my extensive Christmas music expertise. You could call me the sommelier of sleigh-worthy songs.

I’m the one to whom my friends confess when they sneak a listen to few carols before Thanksgiving. I’m who they call when they’re blaring “Run Rudolph Run” when it’s 75 degrees and sunny.

Yes, I’m that girl.

And yet, this year, somehow I’m not.

It was this time last year—December 16—when I got the phone call. I was told that Mom is not okay. Her pneumonia is worse than we thought. There’s a 50% chance she won’t make it.

And it was five days from now—December 20—that we lost her.

It was two days after that—on the eve of Christmas Eve—when I sat in a black turtle neck dress on the front row of the United Methodist church in Pulaski, Tennessee at her funeral. Surrounded by advent wreaths and Poinsettias and manger scenes.

This year, I kept waiting to get the unmistakable, relentless urge to listen to Christmas music. September 15th rolled around and nothing happened. Halloween passed, and I still wasn’t ready. Then Thanksgiving—the day when the rest of the world starts feeling festive—came and went. And I just felt numb. And empty. And lost.

Even the first of December didn’t offer a magic spark. Instead, I felt nothing.

And I knew then that Christmas had changed for me.

One of my favorite Christmas albums growing up was Vince Gill’s Let There Be Peace on Earth. For reasons I could never explain, my favorite song on the album was titled “It Won’t Be the Same This Year.” Written as a tribute to Vince’s brother who died from a car crash, this melancholy tune showcases how at the core of the holiday season are the relationships and memories we have with the ones we love:

“It’s time to pack our bags and hit the highway.

And head on out for Christmas holiday.

I’ll fall apart when I pull in the driveway.

It’s my first time home since brother passed away.

His favorite time of year was always Christmas.

We’ll reminisce about the days gone by.

Oh, how I wish that he was still here with us.

My memories of him will never die.

Losin’ my big brother hurt so badly.

It’s helped me learn what Christmas really means.

There’s nothing more important than your family.

We’re all the children of the King of Kings.”

Now, approaching the first anniversary of Mom’s death, I understand the words of this song. The pain of this loss. The power of this sadness.

And despite those feelings, I’ve decided to turn on my Merry-mas playlist on my iPod. I listen every chance I get, even though I’m never quite in the mood. I’ve decided to decorate. My first tree at my new house–with many of Mom’s sweet, beautiful Christmas touches scattered throughout. I’ve decided to buy the presents, to splurge on the good wrapping paper with real ribbon, to send the cards, to bake the snickerdoodles, to watch The Grinch, and to embrace the joys of the season.

Because even if Christmas won’t be the same this year, I’ve decided I still can be.

when christmas comes

~ GennaClaire ~ 4 Comments

IMAG1051

(Because some feelings will only be processed in writing)
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I tell myself I’ll be just fine,

When Christmas comes to pass.

I’ll wear a smile above my scarf—

With mulled wine in my glass.

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I’ll play the songs I love the most,

But there’s one I’ll dread to hear.

The one with words I know too well:

“It won’t be the same this year.”

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I’ll wrap the presents up in bows,

String lights around the tree.

I’ll hang the stockings in a row,

Place the nativity.

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But as the day looms closer still,

My thoughts will linger on.

It was 12/16 I got the call,

And in five days, you were gone.

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My toenails, they were sparkly green

At your funeral last year.

I looked down with misplaced shame

At their burst of Christmas cheer.

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Now coldness taps the windows.

Winter looms in sight.

And I’m not sure how I’ll manage

On this year’s Silent Night.

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If you were here beside me—

Avoiding all that’s Mary and bright—

You’d whisper words like magic,

And make everything all right.

__

Since you’re gone, I’ll just imagine

Those words that set me free:

“When you celebrate the memories,

You still celebrate with me.”

if at first you don’t succeed

~ GennaClaire ~ 8 Comments

I could tell you about the first time I was ever with a boy. He was 16 and I was 16 and we were foolishly, horribly, obliviously in love.

Or maybe only I was. After all, it’s hard to tell with 16-year-old boys.

But I’ll spare you that story as it’s anticlimactic (in more ways than one).

Life only gives us so many firsts. And often, those firsts don’t live up to our seen-it-on-YouTube, Instagram-filtered, hashtag-ridden expectations.

Which is why I never forget the ones that did.

Like the day I got my driver’s license. It was an unbearably sweaty Georgia-summer day. My dad and I drove to the DMV in dirt-road Villa Rica to avoid waiting in line at the more suburban locations near our home. And despite blowing past a stop sign toward the end of the test course, I managed to pass.

The first time I drove that cherry red ’96 Mustang with no adult riding shotgun, it felt like I’d just been born. It felt like freedom. I cruised through the fifteen minute route to my first lifeguarding gig—windows down, radio blaring Third Eye Blind—believing I was a brand new human being.

Or there’s the day I landed in Paris for the first time. The City of Light came with so many expectations. It was a movie for which the trailer was so good—too good—and you knew you’d only be left disappointed.

But I was not disappointed.

I turned 21 in France—eating fresh baked baguettes and cheeses with names I couldn’t pronounce and drinking cheap wine and gawking, wide-mouthed, starry-eyed, at the sparkling Eiffel Tower. Le Paris did not let me down.

Of course, there are the other kinds of firsts too: the first time I totaled a car (that same Mustang from sweet sixteen). The first time I flew alone (and managed, beyond all possibility, to actually board the wrong plane). The first time my heart was blown to bits (by the same boy from my aforementioned not-so-memorable first time).

Some of these were comical. Some devastating. Some embarrassingly legendary.

But all my first-timer mistakes were worth making. I learned something about me or life or choices or consequences. Definitely something about consequences.

So when it was time to drive again, I knew to make sure my foot was actually on the brake before turning into a parking space. When it was time to fly again, I knew to check that the plane at the gate was going to my intended destination. When it was time to love again, I made sure two hearts were ready—not just my own.

And it turns out that sometimes the second time is even better than the first.

be patient with the process

~ GennaClaire ~ 11 Comments

I can say without a doubt in my mind that December 21, 2013, the day between my mom’s death and her funeral, was one of the hardest of my life.

My sister and I zombied through Pulaski, Tennessee, with red eyes and runny noses doing all the things that immediate family members do when someone dies. We ordered flower arrangements. We visited the funeral home. We reviewed the drafted obituary. We picked out songs for the memorial service. We worked on a eulogy.

But the most difficult thing we did that day was visit her home. It wast difficult because Mom’s adorable house, situated at the bottom of a hill on West Jefferson Street, was perfect. It was a sanctuary. A reflection of the essence of her. Except the essence of her was gone.

Mom had remarried that spring and my sister and I went to her house that day in hopes of getting some of her things that held sentimental value and comfort and memories for us. To me, the most important of those things were her paintings.

Mom started painting about 10 years ago–mostly of angels or Madonnas. I loved her whimsical, vibrant style. 

redtennisshoes

When we arrived to her sunroom-converted art studio, we found a handful paintings stacked in the corner. I flipped through and recognized a few from her Etsy shop. But there was a particular one I loved that was missing.

I asked her husband–Tom–if he knew anywhere else that painting might be, and he suggested the small storage shed on the side of the house.

And that’s where we found it.

Not just the painting I was hoping for but dozens of them. Stacks and stacks of her work–most of which I’d never seen before.

We brought them all in the house and began revealing one after the other, lining them along the walls so we could take them in. So we could bask in them.

paintings

They were magical. They were beautiful. They were her.

In addition to painting, Mom was a writer. And many of her paintings included words. Sometimes names of the Madonna or angel she was painting–Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Other times just uplifting messages, whatever she felt inspired to say.

And as my heart swelled looking at those paintings born from her hands–the hands that raised me, the hands that molded me into everything I am–it was as if they were speaking to me.

A butterfly blinking the words “Joy is everywhere.”

joy

A beautiful angel offering up “Transformation.”

transform

A pink and purple tree, saying simply “Love grows.”

love

A skull surrounded by roses soothing, “I honour what is lost & found.”

lostandfound

A wavy-haired woman suggesting that “Grace makes us whole.”

grace

It was like she had put those messages there for us. To ease our pain. To hold us as we cried. To echo in our heads as we mourned the loss of her.

The largest painting, nearly four times the size of the others, was of an anatomical heart, pierced with several spears and bursting with flames.

heart_far

And written in Mom’s familiar handwriting in the top corner were these words:

“In sorrow’s stillness, a tear comes that prisms light, a sigh comes forth

and something that was broken breathes.”

I don’t know what Mom was thinking when she painted those words. Or who she had in mind. Or what angel guided her hand. But those words were exactly what I needed to hear.

Now nearly eight months have gone by. I’m past the phase where I forget she’s gone and am constantly t-boned by that devastating realization. I’m past the phase where I cry all the time. I’m past the phase where I can’t sleep at night, where I can’t sit still, where I can’t let my mind wander.

Instead, I’m in the phase where I just miss her. And I wish she was still around. To be my goofy mom and my sweet friend. Some days I can’t think about anything except her. And she’s all I can ever seem to write about, no matter how long I spend trying to think of another topic. And I get scared when I can’t remember exactly how her voice sounds or what her different facial expressions look like or all her amusing catchphrases.

Some days I feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of my grief.

And on those days, I know if she was here, she’d remind me of the words I found on another one of her paintings last December.

bepatient

And of course, I know she’d be right.