Running for Kristy

EARTH ROOTS

2010-11-19T01:01:00.000-08:00

Kristy and Jack

Today is your birthday, and I would rather remember your birth than your death. I know your family and friends are all thinking of you today Kristy. This last year was another milestone - and you would have been 33 today. Who knows what you would have accomplished? Each time I look at your photo I feel as if I am looking into myself. It's as if I am holding all my memories of you in one hand and there is so much love. One thing is certain - no one who knew you will ever forget you. You are connected to us all.

What are Earth Roots, my daughter asked
when she was just a child,
examining each flower in its home.

Earth Roots are a special connection,
a sacred thread that joins our spirits
to every living thing, I said. Earth Roots
Join me to you, and you to birds and flowers.

In her hand my daughter held a sparrow
with a broken wing. She said:
Can Earth Roots make the sparrow fly again?

The sparrow can become a rose, in time,
just as the rose takes wing, I said.
Earth Roots make all things possible.

My daughter did not understand these things
until she had a daughter of her own.
Then she saw the way Earth Roots join
The sparrow to the rose.

- Earth Roots, by Nancy Wood

P.S. Jack sends you his love. He misses you.

MY PUMPKIN PIE

2010-08-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

Sweet thoughts today of you eating pumpkin pie. You would scoop it right out of the pie crust - savoring each bite. But you never ate the crust. You used to apologize for it but after awhile we would just give each other that knowing look. Your eyes would practically roll back into your head as you ate. You were transported.

I call my two small dogs "pumpkin pie" - it's a term of endearment that seems to make sense to me. It's all wrapped up in feelings for you and of watching you enjoy yourself. It made me so happy to watch you.

I will always be watching you.

MY CHOICE

2010-07-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

Each day before rising
still and loose in my sheets
gently floating in my
moment of freedom

I remember the game
where a dark tunnel loomed
and we held our breath
straining to reach
a childish beacon

The intrusion of light
does not change my path
plodding ever forward
falling ever backward
my breath a volcano

But Hiroshima explodes
and the Nile rises
their strained duet
blinding and hot
demanding their revenge

Finally my eyes open
a hand is before me
my morning coffee
the reaper's bone
or the farmer's plow

ILLUMINATED TRUTH

2010-07-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Kristy's sister Laurissa came into town and we laid Kristys's ashes in the cemetery. We decorated the space with flowers from the back yard. Next to her ceremonial is the plaque we had made with a photo and the words from one of her poems. Laurissa and I were surprised at how cold it was as we sat holding each other.... We spent the next 5 days together, making it a total of seven. Later Laurissa wrote this beautiful poem:

seven psychic days

of mother and daughter

holding sister

and daughter

still

learning

this walk

without her

within

flesh and blood

smile, hands

and eyes

shout of the limb

torn away

and then

there is

beyond

don't know if I will ever

have daughters to gather

to my body

but my sister is gone

I will be alone

that is the dark fear

but never alone

illuminates truth

I tend to my plants all my days

though it is not I or me

nor mine

whisper the soft green breezes:

be gentle with your love

A PERSONAL AUDITION

2010-06-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

How do we know when we are truly interacting in a "spiritual" world. I like this explanation: Knowing you are no longer expressing yourself but feeling one with yourself. For it is a longing to be united within that drives us forward. But what mask do we wear?

The spiritual fulfillment of a man depends on how he is able to project himself into the spiritual world as he performs. He really doesn't perform for the third parties who form the audience. Rather the audience becomes his personal self. He tries to express to himself his own conceptions about the spiritual ideals that he sees... He is able to do so behind the (his) mask because he has lost his personal identity.

Sam Gill on the use of the mask in Native American ceremony

STRANGER

2010-05-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

A stranger walked into our garden a few days ago. That evening I was reading Sophie's World (by Jostein Gaarder) and I came across this passage: "Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other - and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived." Later in bed I could not help but reflect....

She asked me about the stone in the garden. She smiled and said she liked the painting of you in my studio. But I couldn't tell her about your death, for I have learned what it does, this terrible truth. I could have said my daughter is dead. I could have said, "My daughter was killed." I could have said my daughter was beautiful in every way, for these were all true for a brief moment in time. And yes, this stone bears her picture and her words. But no it does not contain her ashes. She walked these garden stones, she watered these plants...sometimes with her tears, but also with her laughter. She was here one day and now only as a thought.

Thank you for thinking of her. I have only gratitude. Tears are not enough.

BROKEN CROWN

2010-03-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

My hands are dusty and white
as I sift through the dark blue box
holding your ashes

They are heavy and gritty
as I look for a piece of you
scraping the ashes free

A small metal cup
it's the lining of your new crown
The one I worried about

I tried to get you to go back
to have it done again
I thought it would cause you pain

I am typing these lines
thinking of your broken teeth
my fingers covered in you

MARSH MELLOW ENVY

2010-03-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I cleaned your room. Seems like just the other day we sat on your bed talking. Traces of you still remain. An ear plug, a barrette, a smudge on the wall. But my heart smiled when I moved your dresser and saw one lone marsh mellow gathering dust.

Instantly you were standing over the stove roasting your booty. You craved marsh mellows and I tried to make sure I had a generous supply at all times. That impish grin was on your face. Your treasure was golden brown and oozing around your fingers as you popped it in your mouth. Somehow this lone marsh mellow escaped....and you would have been the last to touch it.

Envious, I picked it up and felt it's softness.

BITTER AFTER TASTE

2010-03-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

I am so used to this feeling. A deep well of loneliness where I try to tread water. Sometimes I give in and feel myself descending. The cold watery hands are always buoyant and gentle....I am floating. But the primal urge to breathe always interferes without my consent and I am at the surface again...gasping. Ready for another try at release. That short pause after descent yet before ascent is my salvation. I can't bring her back but I can dream her face and for an instant forget. She can still run, she can still fly, she can still shine. Yet she can still die....over and over.

Two years ago when you died I became a different person. It was a way to survive I think. I was broken open - my old self shattered into a million pieces. I will never be able to get them back. And I don't want to. Slowly I am examining my life. I am so used to walking around with tears in my eyes and feeling invisible. For the first year I thought if I exhausted myself through running everyday it would make life bearable. It did. my mind let go while I was running and I was able to feel again. When I stopped running and stood still I found the same questions were there. Where did she go? Will I ever be with her again? How do I go on?

So far the greatest peace I have achieved has been while sharing with others who have lost their own loved one. It's good to know others have survived having their hearts ripped out. And yes, they do grieve just as much as I. Why is this comforting? I don't want others to suffer. What I think is that trying to comfort another actually comforts yourself. It's what your heart is secretly trying to achieve in the back ground while you are busy grieving. I have heard myself saying things to someone else which have totally surprised me.

I have cried for hours alone in my room. Cries which were really screams. Primal screams - urgent - rasping - desperate. I have screamed until my throat has pounded raw and beaten within my core. Somewhere inside me I thought it would make a difference. Maybe it did, but it didn't make me feel any better. What it showed me was a depth of desperation so full and terrible that I knew there were parts of me I have never seen before.

Today my mind recreates images of Kristy all the time. When I least expect it. A few days ago I was dazzled by the bright sun light and a girl stepping into my presence. Her silouette was so familiar. The same strong legs, confident stride...same hair pulled back right to the nape of her neck. She was graceful and assured. That moment exploded in my mind. The joy of being in Kristy's presence was so over whelming. The after taste so bitter, I burst into sobs. Why can't I come to accept your death? What part of me am I giving up if I do? What part of me am I giving up if I don't?

MY GENTLE GENIE

2010-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

You are my secret love
like a stone in my pocket
I take you out to see your beauty
Sometimes at night
I feel quickly to see if you're still there

Always on my lips and in my heart
you live steady and silent
like the smooth caress of a worry stone
Your touch is cool
reminding me to breathe

You can soothe me
the invisible touch is our secret
we walk hand in hand
My gentle genie
and I am ready to dream again

BEAUTY AND DEATH

2010-01-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

The desert was shockingly cold. The wind scraped at my face as I propped myself up and rested my elbows on the back of the pickup truck. The camera lens was nearly frozen shut. Rocks everywhere covered in a light blue frosting of snow. The only glimmer of warmth was a fleeting orange gap in the slowly dissolving clouds. The shutter made a crisp sound as I took the last photo. The day ended and I thought of you. I am back inside the truck now and we continue our trip home.

More photos of the desert

DEVOURED

2009-12-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

The air was heavy giving birth to your memory
A hackneyed hope, a seminal sign, a righteous rebellion.

Born anew a brilliant beggar reaching to inhale

I wait to soak in their bloated beams

Yet in the end

I am deliciously

dependably

devoured.

KNOWING PICASSO

2009-12-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

Today I was at our lake, Kristy. My new friend Cindy and I were walking with Jack and talking about you. I told her stories about our trips to the lake. How you ran while I rode the bike. How you pushed me up the hill when I finally said I had to get off the bike to walk. I told her stories about you and Clas, your boyfriend. How when he was not feeling very strong you would take him on short walks to the lake and take me along for good measure. Of course Jack came along as well.

I was smiling when I got home and realized Cindy has never met you. All she knows about you lives in my memory. But through my memories you have come alive. You have become a real person to her. She asks questions about you and you come alive in all your glory. And this is the truth of it, even though I have never met Shakespeare, Lincoln, Picasso or even Amy Tan I feel as if I know them.

During these long walks I have also met Cindy's mother. I can feel her mother's love as Cindy talks about her. I too can see her through Cindy's eyes. Even though Cindy's mother is no longer alive. Cindy and I have both shared our loves with each other and in so doing have received comfort in the reliving. For you are alive in these moments. It is as if you have never left me. There is a gentle comfort in talking about you, my darling. There is so much to tell.

Yes. In these moments it is as if you have never left. And someone whom you have never met knows you and carries your memory with them.

THE SHAMAN'S CIRCLE

2009-11-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

A year ago I wrote to a Pueblo Shaman about you.

I asked the Shaman

why you died

He said you went

so another could enter

my life, my love

I am waiting with tears

with outstretched hands

I open my heart

expanding the circle

Ever present and changing

Just how many are needed?

When is the circle full?

It is ever turning,

ever mine

LINT

2009-11-17T09:30:00.001-08:00

Another cold morning and you sit on my throat

you see my breath as I hide in my coat

Last night's dreams are like lint in my pocket

Soft and ghostly as the image in my locket

Dreary days gray and blue slip between sighs

soon another birthday comes and another milestone dies

In my dream you smiled your love as wide as the sky

I sheltered you in my arms while asking you, "Why?"

In your eyes, in your eyes, the sweetness of youth

tempered only by cries of persistence and truth

Though today I am cold in my pocket I find

love conquering death in my heart and my mind

UNTIL WE DIE

2009-11-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Where I do all of my thinking.

TWO PARTS

2009-10-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

On my last trip to New Mexico the sun split the rain

clouds and a rainbow formed.

While I was running this morning these thoughts came to me. My love for you is like two parts of one puzzle. If I had not loved I could not have felt your loss so cruelly. If I had not mourned I could not have recognized your love so completely. I am sharing this journey with you.

For you

my heart did sing.

For you

my heart did die.

For you

my heart will live.

For you

my heart cries why.

Thank you

LITANY

2009-10-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

Love is stronger than death she said

as I reached to find her near

a breath, a look, a yearning smile

are but mirrors from the dead

THE SHELTERING TREES

2009-09-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to see the memorial that was made for your grave site. It includes a beautiful photograph of you in porcelain and part of a poem you once wrote. I then wrote this for you.

The day is tiring and long

I'm going to sit here and rest

I'll stroke your memory in song

and hold it to my chest

It's raining outside I said

and our inner worlds did meet

with tiny hands of lead

driving a dreary beat

I stood again on the ground

where you will soon be laid

and thought about the sound

our laughing voices made

I'm falling to my knees

and the mist and you are one

just under the sheltering trees

where the rain is never done

"Shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing." Henri Nouwen

SLEEPING BEAUTY

2009-09-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

The lake was beautiful today.....

TO THE LIVING

2009-09-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

Inspired by James Ellroy

The dead claim the living

and mark their decline

before and after become

a narrative in time

You had her before

and now she is gone

her death begins then

and drags you along

The dead claim the living

and bestow a sad wreath

we are powerless to control

our hopelessness and grief

You cannot predict when

or where grief will come

but you know that the loss

cannot be undone

The dead claim the living

and tell us how we should live

if we stop and then listen

we may have to forgive

You want to move forward

with her love as the goal

to show her that death

cannot conquer the soul

The dead claim the living

an urgent call be not lost

so you honor this child

you seek good at all cost

Your love of her presence

cannot vanquish your fears

and the beauty of her life

is nourished with tears

The dead claim the living

through visions yet seen

of the horror they endured

and dreams they won't dream

Yet your love is so precious

so solid and real

through memories of her

your heart dares to heal

DREAMING OF PICKLES

2009-09-24T01:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Kristy,

How's things. Today was pretty boring until the postman came to the door and gave us the mail. You know how that upsets me. It didn't use to bother me but Karma started barking at him and it really seemed like the thing to do. Now I can't stand it and we really bark loud. Is that bad?

You know what's strange is that we still get lots of mail with your name on it. Mostly nutrition catalogs and advertisements. But like your mom says, it's nice to see your name. It's a sad kinda sweet thing.

Oh yeah and here's something I was dreaming about last night. Remember when we spent the night at your house. There was this big black cat named Pickles that kept trying to get into your room. The door was closed and we could smell Pickles under the door. None of us got any sleep that night. Sorry we kept you awake Kristy. In my dream we caught Pickles and we did something I'm not too proud about. Maybe some day I'll tell you.

Hey, time to eat. Love, Jack

PEEP THIS

2009-09-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

So I'm not sure everyone knows we have a music video out together. Just you and me. It's pretty rad and I love to watch it over and over. Here it is in case anyone wants to take a peep.

NOSE BITE

2009-09-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hey Kristy - look at us! Remember when you used to carry me around all the time? Yeah I was pretty relaxed about it for sure. I just found this photo of us. You look so happy - but then when we were together you always did.

You're wearing your Choctaw T-shirt and it looks cool. Hey, you know how I would always chew on your nose? I never did it to anyone else but you. Even your mom tried to get me to do it but I never would. It was our little thing.

Some people think dogs don't remember. But we do. I dream about you all the time. In my dreams we are at the lake. Once you took me there and I got to run with you. I didn't do so well because I kept trying to jump on you instead of just running forward. I was only trying to tell you how happy I was. Now we will never get a chance to get it right. But I still have the memory.

Here's a big bite on your nose,

Jack

NEW FRIENDS

2009-09-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

I'm missing you today

Dear Kristy,

Today I thought about you when I was on the back deck sunning myself. It's not too hot now so I get to lay out every now and then. Remember how sensitive my skin is? I still can't use any of that flea stuff so I have to get washed lots. Yeuch.

Guess what? I met some new dogs! They belong to Chris and they are even smaller than I am. But the great part is one of them is a girl. Yep - she likes me. Actually she's crazy about me. But you're still my number one.

They came over to play last night and we got to run around in the back yard when it was dark! Kinda like a party. If you were here I know they would love you just like I do. So where ever you are - here's a big kiss from me.

Oh yeah I remember what I wanted to tell you. Remember when you used to bring us special treats you got at Trader Joes? That was cool. And remember when you used to throw me back and forth on the sofa and the big stuffed chair like I was a rag doll? And I pretended like I was going crazy and ran around and around in a circle?

Those were the days. Jack

MY RED SWEATER

2009-09-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Me - in one of my many sweaters.

Hi Kristy - it's Jack again. I was thinking about you again while I was lying on the couch with my human. She misses you too. Sometimes I know she is sad and I think that is why she cries so much. I just try to look cuddly so she will hug me and that seems to make her feel better.

Anyway I was thinking about the red sweater you gave me. I still have it! It is one of my favorites. It used to belong to your stuffed moose and then you gave it to me. It used to belong to another dog for a short time - Sonya. You told me all about Sonya but I never did meet her. Thank you for telling me stories about her.

You were one of the few people who treated me like an equal. Even though I was on the street and ended up in a shelter you took pity on me. I will never be able to thank you enough. You changed my life! If I could smile I would, because you make me feel good.

Well gotta go. There are cats walking around the house and well - you know.

Jack

YOU KNEW

2009-09-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Kristy,

It's Jack. I miss you. Remember when you used to come over all the time and make fun of me? I really didn't mind because I know you only said those things because you loved me. Even when you would call me Pee Rag because I wasn't potty trained and someone who will remain nameless put a diaper on me. Those were pretty scary days, huh?

Anyway did you find the dog toy I left beside the side of the road for you? It was the little purple one that you used to tease me with. Yeah, the one that looks like a girl's toy. I didn't mind when you said that either. You knew so much about what dogs like it was great.

Remember when you took me for a walk and let me off leash for the first time? I ran after some cows and you thought for sure I was gonna get kicked in the head. I remember how fun it was when you chased after me. After that you put the leash back on.

Even though I am just a dog I want you to know I loved you with all my heart. You made me happy when you gave me so much attention. I don't really know where you are but I think about you all the time. There are lots of pictures of you in the house. That's good.

Well that's all for today. I have to get caught up on my nap time. I will write more later.

Jack

POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE

2009-09-18T02:04:00.000-07:00

Jack and Karma are our two dogs. Kristy loved them very much, especially Jack who was our rescue dog. When she was away they would both send emails to her. Here is one from Karma expressing her frustration over Jack (in the red sweater above):

KRISTY - HELP US. NOBODY WILL PLAY WITH US NOW THAT YOU ARE GONE. THEY KEEP US LOCKED UP IN THE HALLWAY ALL DAY. I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT A PAIN IN THE BUTT THIS JACK IS. ALL HE DOES IS BITE MY ASS ALL DAY. HE NEEDS TO GET A LIFE.....SOME DAYS I JUST WANT TO KNOCK HIM THE HELL IN THE HEAD. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN??

LIKE HE THINKS HE IS SOOOO CUTE. ALL HE DOES IS BITE THAT CRAZY WOMAN AND THE GUY ALL THE TIME. YOU KNOW THE ONES THAT LIVE HERE WITH US? YEAH, THOSE TWO. THE ONE WHO TALKS LIKE WE'RE BABIES ALL THE TIME. I HATE THAT SO MUCH. WHY DO YOU THINK I AM THROWING UP ALL THE TIME? ANYWAY, JACK JUST KISSES UP TO THEM ALL THE TIME SO HE GETS ALL THE TREATS AND STUFF. BUT GUESS WHAT! ALL THE POOP THEY FIND IN THE CORNER - LET'S JUST SAY ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS. REVENGE IS MINE KRISTY. I WILL GET THAT DIRTY JACK. HE CANNOT ESCAPE MY WRATH.....

NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION. WHAT ABOUT TREATS? HAVE YOU GIVEN ANY THOUGHT LATELY AS TO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BRING ME? MAKE SURE IT IS WAY BIGGER THAN WHAT YOU BRING THAT BRAT JACK. KNOW WHAT I MEAN? GIRL POWER AND ALL. AND MAYBE, JUST MAYBE I WON'T POOP IN YOUR ROOM.

SERIOUSLY - WE NEED A REAL REALITY CHECK HERE.

LET US OUT. WHAT AM I SAYING - LET ME OUT. (BLANK) JACK!

SKY CRY

2009-09-17T04:51:00.000-07:00

So the sky came to claim you

as you opened your eye

now I know where to find you

and I hear the sky cry

EYE IN THE SKY

2009-09-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

I remember the times we'd play

"I spy with my little eye"

I'd guess what you were

you said you were sky.

AN INFINITE SCALE

2009-09-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

The following is from a Newsweek essay written by James Ellroy. It is about a young girl who recently died. To me it is profoundly accurate and articulates the power of the dead over the living.

The dead claim the living and begin the process by marking their departure in time. Before and after become crucial narrative lines. Hypothesis runs crazy as enforced logic fails to explain the viciousness and banality of fate.

The dead claim the living and extend the process through the imposition of grief. It is the juncture of powerlessness and harrowing loss. Byroads of guilt and rage lead to the assignment of blame, the desire for vengeance, and the embrace of the preposterous notion of closure. Bereavement is inherently ambiguous and unique to each carrier of grief. The time lines vary. The emotional arc is wholly unpredictable. Powerlessness and the corresponding sense of loss obliterate all attempts to blame and all planned forays of vengeance. This is entirely as it should be. This is the living telling the dead how much they are loved and how irretrievable the loss of them is. This is communion of the highest spiritual form.

The dead claim the living through imagined repetition of the horror they endured. This is shock therapy as higher calling. The loss of their corporeal love teaches us to love on an infinite scale.

The dead claim the living and tell us how to live. It is imperative that we listen and adhere to their sanction. We are required to work toward probity and comport ourselves as though our lost ones are there with us. This call to virtue proves efficacious over time. We send messages to a spirit and get no material answer. There is only the assumption that she is there and we are here and we must not falter at our task. There is no human terror that the persistent application of love and devotional consciousness cannot transcend.

SUCH AS TODAY

2009-09-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

On mornings such as today I find myself a little lost. My heart aches for my daughter. For a brief moment I can hold her in my mind and heart and remember what it was like to have her by my side. I still have that swell of pride just thinking of her goodness. Her beautifully tender heart and brutally blatant drive to achieve the impossible. Her joy was to let go of conceived limitations and do what her soul told her she could. She relished the fight.

These feelings come to me so strongly every time I remember Kristy. The way I have coped with her loss has been to escape to the nearby lake and run. Being surrounded by the awe of nature has been a sort of substitute and a way of prolonging this feeling of being in her presence.

Some mornings like today are perfect with clear blue sky and lazy new sun. And I can't explain how some days I am guided back to the lake and some days I fear it. Today the lake looms large and I suppose I am just fearful it will not offer the solace I seek. I feel weak and disappointed with myself when this happens.

When I am weak I now know it will pass. This is what I have learned.

THE DANGLING ROOT

2009-09-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

small snapshots of time and loss

today I was able to laugh at a joke

I am now able to do many things

yesterday I dreamed my daughter

and she was again alive

I am inching back into a routine

climbing steps that do not lead to you

I am someone else now I realize

there is so much I need to learn

about this new person

I am not exactly a ghost

but part feeling and part asleep

part dead and part alive

the dangling root of a former life

dragging along crumbs of the past

THE TEMPLE

2009-09-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Your body is the place of every memory,

A privileged place, the junction of Matter,

Energy, Spirit, and Conscience,

The entire universe is in your body,

your body is a Temple.

- Amazonian oral tradition

MY SINGING SATELLITE

2009-08-31T03:09:00.000-07:00

This haunting song reminds me of Kristy each  time I hear it.

I have changed a few of the words to make it personal.

Hear the tune and watch the video.

My love is like footsteps in the snow, baby,
I follow you everywhere you go, baby.
The pain as light has come to wake you
And you forever realize
That you inspire the dreams that guide me baby.

You're a half a world away
But in my mind I whisper every single word you say.
And before I sleep at night
I pray to you, my lucky star, my singing satellite.

You follow the winds that bring the cold, baby,
You light a fire in my soul, baby.
The lightest touch of feathers falling
Your love may be invisible
But you inspire the dreams that guide me, baby

You're a half a world away
But in my mind I whisper every single word you say.
And before I sleep at night
I pray to you, my lucky star, my singing satellite.

NO END TO PASSION

2009-08-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the desert of New Mexico

Last week I traveled to New Mexico and spent a week with my sister. The purpose of the trip was to drive to Santa Fe and attend the Indian Market. For the last two years I have driven the thousand miles to Santa Fe to sell my paintings. This year I did not sell at the market but decided to go and experience it as a "tourist". I'm so glad I did. I was not able to walk around and visit all the artists in previous years as the market strongly suggests you be in your booth at all times. But this time I did and saw so many beautiful things and met so many talented people.

A few years ago Kristy helped me to prepare for my first market. I set up my booth in the living room and we hung all the paintings. She had a good eye. She also helped me name each piece. She took her time and made sure everything was ready to go. Unfortunately she had a race during the same weekend but we often talked about her coming with me in the future.

Now more than ever I think of our conversations about the future. Her passion - triathlon competition, and my passion - painting. We were committed to helping each other to reach our goals. When I say reach I really mean surpass - both of us knew we would never be satisfied but would always strive to achieve more. You can never reach the end of your passion. It is always there to drive you on. It's what keeps you going.

As my sister and I drove through the vast New Mexico desert we spoke about Kristy. She was present with us every step of the way. I can never forget her strength - I find it is always there if I open my heart and listen.

DREAM INTO YOU

2009-08-27T01:43:00.000-07:00

For a long time I have been afraid to fly in small planes. The turbulance always makes me nervous and I dread what could happen. Yesterday I flew in a small plane as I returned from my sister's house in New Mexico. I wrote this as I looked out the small window.

I can still remember when I was afraid to fly

Tightly strapped into this plastic cocoon

Immobile as larvae and conscious of nothing

Waiting for the silent signal to breathe

The fear remained a nameless passage

A constant travel companion with no identity

Always lurking and watching for a chance

To set out upon its dark journey with god speed

But my companion no longer lurks in empty bags

Or travels silently speaking its false name

For I am transformed by you my love

And this sad fellow has no more grip on me

My hands do not get sweaty nor my face pale

I do not hold my breath or bargain with fear

For I am never closer than when he appears

And I am dreaming myself into you as we soar

A SECOND DEATH

2009-08-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

The sun set for my sister and I on Monday evening. We watched as the sky slowly exploded into an orange yellow soup. The next morning I wrote you this poem and tried to tell you....

Another eternal sun sets

When we are together as one

What once was blue is scarlet and gold

Suspended hope with suspended dreams

Bound by moments of changing beauty

You - as blinding as the dying sun

As vibrant as the rising moon

Everything and anything can bring you near

Yet even this will fade to black

As a dying rose drops its heavy crown

I never tire of your laughing eyes

I wait each day to relive the memory of you

If I am not dreaming you how can I remember?

A second death would but follow the first

An endless fall much darker than the one I know

OVERTURE

2009-08-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

The following poem was written by Laurissa

HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED

this moment of presence is infinite
in it’s fleeting, elusive permanence
all directions radiate out from center
from Now all connections with all beings
alive even in this silky silence
where full moon light scarcely penetrates clouds
and bats circle me without sound

a house holding me
me holding space solid as stones
weightless as feathers
of which I am the same
I would release every thing
every thought, every memory, every belief
that forms me
let sunlight be my name
until water claims me again
for desire I cannot release

who would it be that I am
imagining looking so deeply into me
whose eyes can hold my untamed gaze
and let me enter without resistance
leaving past and future, stress and projection
leaving the scurrying mind
in the center of a wet spring meadow
in glorious rich greens
where they shall consume themselves
as we turn and walk without looking back

I do not know the name of what comes for me
nor why I resist
I know the sounds and memories that ache and echo
and that rarest beauty emerging from inconceivable loss
but I don’t know if anyone hears
the songs we sing alone
nor how far I shall wander to receive the seeds
my body will transform and birth
into still other forms of intelligent light
I do not know how I became this dance

so I walk the river at night, denying sleep
because an awakening demands it’s moments
feeling the effortless rise and fall of my chest
as I take and release the invisible
in all these words my lips remain together
I endlessly circle around the One
I will not utter or write
for tonight I fear to reduce
the miraculous to banality
the mystery of all presence united
by gossamer filaments of indestructible
indefinable actuality
I reach out for words as forming
shapes in the air before me
to convey and comprehend these waves
undulating through the space I am
and then lay them aside
as they fade back to formless

returning to the ancient symphony
where all space and time
explode in wonderment

KEEPING SECRETS

2009-08-24T17:18:00.000-07:00

I know what you mean

when you talk about the flashes

of strobes and rapid fire

blinding with feelings

you see... that day

I watched you from across the road

as I watched everyone else

while my soul took them all

searing bullet after bullet strobe

of images of chaos and confusion

my body she immobilized

for spending our time

was best a secret

the way she liked it I knew

and even now I try

to indulge her

but you know

that its too late for me

because with her

I already let myself loose

E.J.

RAGING AGAINST THE TAR

2009-08-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

Photo and verse by Elliot

I like to suffer says the madman

as he walks out the door again

suffering is my home he says

when wild winds rage the sea

or pounding tar machines

race to hurl themselves at me

leave nothing i can see

except bitter sweetness

of life and memory.......

MY BEACON

2009-08-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

"Finished in Beauty" one of Kristy's favorite paintings

Wide shoulders
Thick legs
Veins that have been a beacon
He says it is his vision
that is good
He says
I
am
his girlfriend
He asked if it hurt
I bit his cheek
I show him my pallor
My softening legs
He lowers his eyes.
My wine glass remained full
as I drank.

And I felt wanted?

by Kristy Gough

STOLEN BEAUTY

2009-08-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Collage by P.S.

Don't speak.
Don't laugh don't smile
Let the merry go round wind down
Whispers of childhood are all I can allow

I only hear within myself
My voices cry a chorus
of timeless plays
and fading colors

You think these perfect?
These deals I've touched
But I can see no beauty
You stole it when you called out
Love - but didn't know it's name

I thought my grip was strong
But my calluses were worn thin
And my blood was warm and red
It hurt when I saw it puddle on the ground.

CANDOR AND MIRTH

2009-08-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

What is your name and where were you born?

How many other children do you have?

Did she make any money when she won the race?

How long did she live in this and that place?

Please keep yourself from smiling at me

Don't tell me any more little jokes

Don't say you are sorry my daughter did die

And too slowly wipe a tear from your eye

You have a family too I would think

Those that you guard from all that you fear

Should I presume to speak with such candor and mirth

Can you please prove to me just what that is worth

There is a world and a justice too she said

And not one of us here is walking alone

Look around and see clearly where you are going

What you now reap is what you've been sowing

MY LOVE AND MY LIFE

2009-08-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

I sat down at the table while she looked at me

"Do you have anything you would like to say?"

My throat constricted - I felt weak and sick

Like I would either throw up or start screaming

The words raced in my head and fought back

Anything? Does that mean everything or nothing?

For I am an empty shell, a scratch upon the floor

a mast without a ship, an open mouth panting

A man spoke for me in a brown honey voice

"Thank you for coming here," was her reply

I show them I have been writing to you each day

Words I cannot swallow - ripe and rotten with tears

This was her favorite sketch I hear myself say

She said if she were a child she would admire it

The trees are like ghostly green shells

Disappearing into a spider's darkly woven horizon

I am walking out now down the carpeted hallway

Back to my prison reeking of grey-green and black

I turn to look and you are profiles huddling together

Someone murmurs - "I see they were very close"

I am holding on to so many memories

Greedy hands rip them out page by page

They are poked and prodded again and again

Once more they ask - "How do you define

My Love, My Life?"

A FRAGILE PEACE

2009-08-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

So many have helped me through the past year. I could not have made it if not for their love and compassion. I do not have the right words to thank you, so let me just say I love you.

You are there when I need you

I know you understand the pain

You don't have to ask me

again and again

It's the small talk that sees me though

You ask me of my day

We talk about the dogs awhile

How they sleep and how they play

You are another part of me

You've taken much of my grief

For when you've shown such love to me

You've harbored a fragile peace

Can I live within your calming grace

Can I dwell within your banks

Can I tell you how you've meant the world

Can I offer you my thanks

A TINNY BEAT

2009-08-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

Three days after Kristy died a woman called to tell me her son had died five years before. She offered me her experience with the pain of losing her child.

You called to say you knew

about my pain and grief

For your son had also died

5 years you struggled for relief

You darkly spoke his name

while recounting all the years

which lead you to announce

There would be no end to tears

You kept his phone alive

to hear its tinny beat

though others thought it odd

to you a simple feat

They offered me money you said

As if it could give you peace

But the blood dripped from their hands

and offered you no release

She's been dead for three days, I said

My thoughts can find no rest

You never will, was your reply

As his phone beat in your chest

MUSICAL MUSING

2009-08-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

Kristy had a great love of music. She enjoyed all types. I would regularly make copies of my new CDs (don't tell anyone) for her. She is the one who turned me on to the Lilith Fair series. Later, I got the individual CDs of each artist and we enjoyed them together. Any music with violin, cello or even banjo was always a hit! She loved chamber music and Cajun. I was thinking about this when I wrote the following.

we both loved the cello

with it's throaty lament

and joyous rhyme

earthy inner chimes

reaching skyward

naked with longing

like a dog

chasing after its bone

P.S. If Kristy were here she would be wishing her big brother Val a happy birthday. She loved her big brother very much.

WHAT ARE YOU SEEING?

2009-08-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

I walk the same road but I do not feel

I see the same sights but I do not connect

If you were here instead of me

What would you be seeing?

I am you and now you are here

You are my eyes seeing what I see

Our fish bowl lenses glaring

And your heart beat blocks the sun

Sometimes when I do the simplest thing

I pretend that I am you

I am still here waiting for you I say

Tell me what would you be seeing

For if I knew I could make it happen

I would do all of your bidding

I could go forth with all your heart

And I would know what you are seeing

DID YOU SEE IT COMING?

2009-08-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Did you see it coming?

That split second

When you thought

I must get out of the way

This can't be happening

You lay on the road like a rag doll

Tossed aside like an angry child

He cradled you in his arms

Your splendor had been rewarded

With a broken, ugly crown

Sometimes when I close my eyes

I feel the car's impact

The searing pain and drunken darkness

Most times I feel the shock

This was not supposed to happen

Did you fall asleep peacefully?

Did you know who and what you were

Did you dream your life again

Or did your body fight on without you

While you looked down from above

I felt you close for days and days

As if you didn't want to leave

The wind was you, the sky was you

You were everything and nothing

But ..... did you see it coming?

MOON SHADOW

2009-08-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

Eyes like two comets

hands like an anchor in my heart

oh to be drifting

like a drunken flower beast

beating my wings against the comforting breeze

Do you see me now?

are you piercing through the night

with a thousand glittering eyes

or a moon shadow watering the ground

Your heart the tangled forest

damp and swollen, nearly bursting

speak to me again my love

breathe yourself into my heart

let me rest my head on your shores

I THEE WED

2009-08-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

A whisper echoes in my ears

I'm waiting for you

I can make your life easier

I only want to help

I am small and bent

I cannot bear the load

Today I stopped and I knew

I could weep no more

For my eyes are dark with tears

My throat is tired and sore

A volcano lives in my chest

It is over flowing

So I took you in my hand

With this pill, I thee wed

To honor and obey

From this moment forward

And for my part in wedded bliss

I ask to sleep at night

I ask to lay my burden down

For one tiny solitary moment

Let us be together every day

Let us renew our vows each evening

As the solemn ceremony unfolds

With this cup I take you in

And as I lay me down to sleep

I pray the lord my soul to take

And with this pill I close my eyes

If I should die before I wake

PLEASE TELL ME

2009-07-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

Kristy and Jack 2008

To my friends and family: Please do not take this poem personally. It was written with but one person in mind. This is part of the clutch of poems I wrote yesterday in a fit of honest emotion. They show feelings I have not dared to voice. I am just hoping it may help others know they are not alone. When I heard the poems of the woman who lost her daughter 6 years ago I realized I was not alone in my thoughts and it comforted me.

Please talk about her

Please say her name

This doesn't hurt me

This doesn't give me pain

If ever you want to know

How to make me smile

Tell me how you loved her

Let me see her for awhile

I see you don't have time

To ask how things have been

She was a part of you, you say

So how can you defend

The fact you don't have time

Although you loved her so

For we are but a link you see

Leaving me is letting her go

DEATH SAID

2009-07-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was listening to NPR as I painted. A woman named Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno was talking about a book of poems she had written called "Slamming Open the Door". These are poems written about the death of her daughter who was murdered six years ago.

As I listened to her poems I immediately identified with her descriptions of death, loss and grief. At a break they played a song which was played at her daughter's memorial. It was her daughter's favorite. I somehow knew when they said it was by Coldplay that it would be the same song we played at Kristy's memorial. It was the song Yellow.

The poems she read were brutally honest. They took me back to those first days when death is palpable - a living, breathing entity. I was inspired to sit down and write about how I felt. It has now been over a year since Kristy's death and I have learned to control my grief so I can function. Nevertheless I felt I needed to write something that bears more of my soul and my struggle to survive.

Today I sat down and wrote 6 poems. I did not stop to search for the right word. They were right there on the tip of my tongue. This was the first:

DEATH SAID

He was not wanted nor was he invited

You must bow to me now he said

I will never leave you alone

I will always be with you

And with that

the world changed

There was no discussion

There was no argument

At first a tightening grip

You think it hurts now?

It has only just begun

I am on your right hand

I am in your left ear

I have taken over your heart

I will live within your eyes

I will be your next breath

You are mine and I am yours

When you weep I am your tears

When you scream I am your voice

When you sleep I am your dream

And when you wake I am your love

I have taken that which you cherished

I own that part of you

You can look the other way

But I know no boundaries

There is no end to my desire

EXPANDING EMBRACE

2009-07-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

At the lake yesterday I ran and thought of you. Each place I passed a landmark of past treasures. When I relived them it made me smile. I hope to do the same today.

dappled sunlight
like birds in flight
polka dots
green and gold
green and gold

is it safe I asked
of course you replied
your smile like a rock
a cloud, a river

severed thoughts
fragmented time
i feel your love
an expanding embrace
within and without

heart like the sky
fierce
blind and tender
a flapping of wings
and a perpetual song

MY HEART REVOLVES

2009-07-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Almost out of the sky, half of the moon

anchors between two mountains.

Turning, wandering night, the digger of eyes.

Let's see how many stars are smashed in the pool.

It makes a cross of mourning between my eyes,

and runs away.

Forge of blue metals, nights of still combats,

my heart revolves like a crazy wheel.

Girl who have come from so far, been brought from so far,

sometimes your glance flashes out under the sky,

you cross above my heart without stopping.

Wind from the tombs carries off, wrecks, scatters your sleepy root.

The big trees on the other side of her, uprooted.

But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel.

You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves.

Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration,

ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything.

Longing that sliced my breast into pieces,

it is time to take another road, on which she does not smile.

Storm that buried the bells, muddy swirl of torments,

why touch her now, why make her sad.

Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything,

without anguish, death, winter waiting along it

with their eyes open through the dew.

Almost Out of the Sky by Pablo Neruda

ENDURANCE

2009-07-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

Kristy told me not too long ago that I should read Alfred Lansing's book "Endurance". I finished it a few days ago - I could not put it down! This is the true story of Ernest Shackleton's incredible 1914 voyage through the Antarctic Ocean. It is a story so full of seemingly insurmountable obstacles that you cannot help but feel the agony of those who battled the ice and wind for 10 months while being stranded in an ocean of frozen bergs. The whole journey lasted a year and is pieced together from the logs of the men who were there. This book was written in 1959 which allowed the author to interview all the surviving members. What I read made me realize we are capable of super human feats when when we feel there is no other choice.

Kristy knew about pain and endurance. She talked about how she liked it when the pain came so she could enjoy the challenge of riding it through. She wanted to push her body to the brink of what it was capable of and then keep going. She loved this book - and I'll admit I did too. I even took it to the gym with me and read it while on the bike. I just couldn't put it down!

Endurance. Don't give up. I could feel this message from Kristy loud and clear. And I won't give up. I will keep on. I will face the wind and the rain, the pain and the heartache and I will keep going. Somewhere out there Kristy knows and she is cheering me on. At least her spirit is because it can never die. It is alive in me.

BURGUNDY SHOES

2009-07-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

Kristy 2008

Kristy told me about this incident the day it happened. She must have sat down and written this poem shortly afterwards. She didn't show her emotions easily but nevertheless her feelings ran deep. Although sometimes disappointed in love I know she was also transformed by it. In her own words she said she knew there were others who were "made from the same piece of soul".

Did you see me?
Did you know I was there?
That military stance is seared into my head.
A still portrait.
I don't know what I saw before or after.
Your heels together
toes outward for support.
Slender ankles
You have lost your softness.
Your many earrings
and the new darkness of your hair.
Her expectant face turned upward towards you
hanging in an eternal joke

I was fifteen feet from you!
Fifteen feet.
There's a world somewhere
a justice too
Where I could walk to you
Move slowly to your ear
and tell you you're with me everyday.
That I love you.

I can only say before I forget
like any intense emotion
that seeing you jolted me so entirely
I became senseless to time,
etiquette, place, myself.
For that period of time, I was so
close to you that I felt as though I was
in your heart, in your burgundy shoes
and the warmth of your browned skin
was my own.

SLEEPING IN YOUR SOUL

2009-07-15T08:54:00.001-07:00

YOUR BREAST IS ENOUGH

Your breast is enough for my heart,

and my wings for your freedom.

What was sleeping above your soul will rise

out of my mouth to heaven.

In you is the illusion of each day.

You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers.

You undermine the horizon with your absence.

Eternally in flight like the wave.

I have said that you sang in the wind

like the pines and like the masts.

Like them you are tall and taciturn,

and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.

You gather things to you like an old road.

You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices.

I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated

that had been sleeping in your soul.

--Pablo Neruda

You are with me today as always.

WASTED

2009-07-04T04:25:00.000-07:00

More of Kristy's earlier prose (are you listening Sonya?)

By what right was sin defined?
Is it not a greater sin to be bound without feeling.
Than to be true to the blessed innocence of passion?
They have passed through ages without question
Tradition has sealed their fate.
Their sightless eyes hold only an accusatory stare
Their tombs await their wasted bodies
The same bodies they sacrificed
for the imagined salvation of their souls.
their bland devotion to the truths their fathers laid before them
Will eradicate their ability of independent thought.
The path they have tread is deeply worn,.
No deviation is permitted.
The tomb they have decayed in will be passed,
like their traditions, to those who learn to stifle their questions.

(My interpretation of the mentality of the community in which Hester and Dimmesdale live) Kristy Gough, 1994

A WORLD OF MATH

2009-07-03T04:35:00.000-07:00

Kristy's English teacher was not amused by this poem. Needless to say, Kristy was not too amused by Math. One thing about Kristy - when she didn't like something she was the first to tell you. And if she didn't tell you then you were really in trouble!

Brick by brick, it's layered high
Equations, radicals to the sky.
An unmovable wall made of shit
The wall surrounds and becomes a pit.

I claw and claw at the crud,
and soon my hands are a mass of blood.
But I am not the first I know.
I watch the heap of corpses grow.

My brain is sore, my limbs are weak
Never will I each that peak.
The clouds have gathered, dark and gray
I will not reach the end of day.

They burst open and begin to pour
The blood of those who died before.
It tinkles down this wall of shit.
Into my personal, hellish pit.
The walls collapse, the worms are free,
To take this pain away from me.

Kristy Gough - 1994

HARDER

2009-07-02T03:53:00.000-07:00

The winners - Clas and Kristy 2004

It's becoming harder,
at first I just desired him,

wanted him,
wanted him to desire me
appreciated that he could appreciate me
loved that he could love me.

Then it traversed my expansive ego.
Now his words trigger my thoughts,
my feelings, my tears.
He must be happy
I can say truthfully, that
he was made to be happy and content.
It would break my heart to think that
he does not love me with the same
wonder and familiarity that I love him.

I'm happy with the syrupy sweet sadness.

He's so like me - from a different time and
a different place - our nature's are so similar.
As I sit here I still believe the words he told me
with that look of deadly earnest.
You can have what you want.
It's so hard to do right by him, and
I can feel the time when I must begin

drawing myself together.

by Kristy Gough

A FORGED SECURITY

2009-07-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

Kristy's brother Gabe

What of buildings and corporations and bosses?
They elicited no respect from me
I saw greater possibilities in life
Than they in their vaults of forged security.
they required that I sacrifice my natural freedom
To enjoy the comradeship of their ranks.
They prod and poke at a diseased heart
in hopes of implanting obligation,
the ruiner of men.

Don't misunderstand me-
I am not the messiah of an unacheivable morality.
I was a man, and a mouse,
There was nothing noteworth in my existence.
Except that I questioned.

It is beyond humans to change fundamentally
in time that can be passed in a handful of lives.
I can only hope that my optimistic pessimisn
will be captured by another mind, in a time more forgiving.
I don't claim any false pretenses to having suffered
in the name of my principles.
I cannot lament what had no substance to be abused.

My life was a nameless speck,
created in the interest of continuation.
There was no weightly meaning to it.
I was created and proceeded to decay.
I saw what little there was to see,
And nothing more.

(In the style of Biff Loman, a character in Death of a Salesman)

by Kristy Gough 1994

GIRL LITHE AND TAWNY

2009-06-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms
the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds
filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes
and your mouth that was the smile of the water.

A black yearning sun is braided into the strands
of your black name, when you stretch your arms.
You play with the sun as with a little brook
and it leaves two dark pools in your eyes.

Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me towards you.
Everything bears me farther away, as though you were noon.
You are the frenzied youth of the bee,
the drunkenness of the wave, the power of the wheat-ear.

My somber heart searches for you, nevertheless,
and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing voice.
Dark butterfly, sweet and definitive
like the wheat-field and the sun, the poppy and the water.

Pablo Neruda

LESSON IN HISTORY

2009-06-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Kristy was one who was very concerned about what the world was coming to. She hated pollution, she always recycled, and she bought second hand items all the time. Whenever something was not needed she would simply put it in the front yard with a sign on it that said "free". She gave away lots of things this way!

She embraced Obama, although she did not live long enough to see him voted into office. But she did vote for him in the primary. For as long as I can remember Kristy always tried to leave a small footprint. She did not waste and she did not want. She wrote the following:

Most of us yearn for a simpler life. We try to compensate ourselves by taking up gardening, or we take the family camping, all the while wishing that these things were not hobbies and distractions, but the core of our lives. It borders on irony that these feelings exist in almost exactly the same form, if not with more vigor and enthusiasm, than they did over a century ago. It is a lesson in history brought to life.

Just because there is dissatisfaction, there is no reason to believe there will be action. We hear of it historically all the time, we wonder why no one did anything to change the environment; but nothing brings it home like when its happening in our own time.

Who knows, perhaps when our time becomes a "creed outworn", it may be a historical quandary why we let rampant industrialization take over our lives and environments. More likely, this time will be looked back upon with envy, compared to what our future may hold.

Kristy Gough 2000

And she was so right.....

JUNE 21 BIKE RIDE

2009-06-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

On June 21 a group of cyclists, including Kristy's team from Third Pillar, rode a portion of the route Kristy took on the day she and Matt Peterson were killed. They asked me to ride with them and I did. Click on the above title to see a short video of the ride. The link will direct you to the Mercury News video web page, where you can pick out the video entitled "Memorial Ride".

A SLIPPERY FEE

2009-06-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kristy and I play with stray kittens we rescued

Kristy got an A for this poem which was written when she was 17.

Armageddon makes me laugh, don't you see?
It was created to extract an annual fee.
Luckily, these chains have no control over me,
I know that death only releases pee,
And yummy corpse juice, hee hee.

There's no afterlife with noontime tea,
Only a moments shocked regret for faithfully paying the fee.
If you happen to open your eyes and see
Accept my apology in advance, it's free.

Keep them closed, the truth's too bright, said he
If they knew their life was for your comedy,
Gee!
They could withhold my slippery fee.

You're a greedy bastard, but I admit and do agree.
It's opportune that you do not function from the we.
For an honest life can be so lonely.
A question, though, if you please:
How did you escape the fervor, and why me?

Inspired by Anon
written by Kristy Gough - 1994

A PIECE OF MY SOUL

2009-06-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

This is such a sad poem so full of longing. I want to cry each time I read it. The last few lines are so beautiful they haunt me and I catch my breath as I hear them in her voice in my mind. She will always be held close and I join her longing each night.

Say no more
Say no more
The words from your mouth
fall on the floor.

Your liquid brown eyes
they hold me at night
My heart beat only
under your sight.

Summer and fall
winter and spring
Each season has passed
I've heard not a thing.

And then there came light
just as you were dark.

Read many books and
wrote reasons down
why I was so lucky
you weren't around.

But my heart has no eyes
nor ears to hear
My words that I sang out
so crystal clear.

I'm forgetting your face
The touch of your hand.

You've got a heart just like mine
from your birthing day.
You've got a piece of my soul
down beneath the waves.

Oh, but I need you
Ah ah ah, I need you

Take me away in the night
to my motherland
Show me the wind in the trees
hold me with my own hands!

-- Kristy Gough

HONESTLY SPEAKING

2009-06-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

When I was at the Lake a few days ago I wrote down feelings that came to mind as I was walking. I was having a very difficult week and was very down. These ideas seemed so important and crystal clear at the time. Today I read them again and they seem to come from the deepest part of me. I am sharing them as this is part of my journey, and it may be a part of yours.

Don't want others to see me distressed. Would have to say why and how could anyone bear the pain? I feel so alone in it when I talk I try to hide my pain. I am constantly swallowing large, hard lumps. No matter how I try to frame it I know you were not ready to go. How can I let go of what was when without it is emptiness?

The ones who cry with me are the ones who have loved and do love so deeply. It's this all consuming love that allows us to grieve. My tears are still love, with echoes of you.

It was moving underneath my feet but it did not speak to me.

AND SHE WAS

2009-06-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have found that being completely open and honest (especially if it's uncomfortable) is amazingly liberating. Kristy Gough, 2/2008

AS YOU WERE

2009-06-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Images of Kristy and me at an Ironman Race together

I REMEMBER YOU AS YOU WERE

by Pablo Neruda

I remember you as you were in the last autumn.

You were the gray beret and the still heart.

In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.

And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Clasping my arms like a climbing plant

the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.

Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.

Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:

gray beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house

towards which my deep longings migrated

and my kisses fell, happy as embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:

Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!

Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.

Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

Your face is my sky and I sip at your memory. Your eyes are everywhere. ----Mom

WHAT IS DEATH?

2009-06-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

Kristy and Laurissa all dressed up

This is a comforting poem. I would like to get to this place. But of course it was written by someone who was still alive. How do we really know what death is? Do some people really have an extra sense? I think Kristy's sister Laurissa may. She is convinced she will be with Kristy again. But it still does not keep us from missing her and what was.

What is Death?
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.
~ Henry Scott Holland

PERSEVERANCE

2009-06-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

In February 2005 Kristy sent the above post card to her Aunt Kim

Hi Kim!

I was thinking about you today. I'm so impressed with your perseverance in school! I wanted to take a moment to lay out a couple of facts:

1. You are awesome

2. I'm here (somewhere in this picture) working toward my own goal. %+) I think you would really like it here. The people here are generally very 'outdoor-minded.' We do some open water swimming around the boats I circled in the picture. Many of the bike routes go up and over the hills and ridge that sit over the bay.

We (my boyfriend Clas, and I) will be heading up to Taupo on Wednesday. Clas is racing Ironman New Zealand on March 5th. He was 2nd last year, and this one promises to be exciting. Check out Ironmanlive.com if you think about it. Hope you are doing well and hope to see you soon!

Love, Kristy

What Kristy didn't mention is that she was first in her age group the year before at the same race. She also set a course record. Even as an amateur she had been faster on the course than any female before her - professional or amateur. It was not like Kristy to boast. She was in fact very proud of her Aunt Kim who had gone to school to get her Masters in Business while working full time.

Kristy admired perseverance. She had a Masters Degree in it.

OWN IT

2009-06-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

Kristy underlined this passage in Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

You just can't fly on off and leave a body he tole me. A human life is precious. You shouldn't fly off and leave it. He meant that if you take a life, then you own it. You responsible for it. You can't get rid of nobody by killing them.

This concept has many implications. What I chose to believe is that we are all connected. What you do and what you say have a lasting effect. You get out of life what you put into it and you are responsible for your actions. There is a consequence for everything. This is the law of the living and the dead, the good and the bad, the conscious and the unconscious.

We are not walking alone.

TOUCHED

2009-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Kristy and Tanya ride together in New Zealand

Kristy sent me this poem. When I read it now it is of course about her. There are many others in this world who have been touched by Kristy. Our lives will never be the same.

People will forget what you said,
People will forget what you did,
But people will never forget
how you made them feel

- Maya Angelou

AN ENDURING WILL

2009-06-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

Only weeks before she died, Kristy wrote this to her fellow cycling team mates. She was winning all the races she entered, and winning big. Besides her phenomenal physical abilities, she had cultivated an iron will. When she was a teenager it was not always helpful, but when she channeled it into racing it was everything. This was her edge - she never gave up.

"So I've got this bag of tricks, or I should say trick, which I use at every race. It consists of an early "attack" and then a couple hour time trial. Each time I've done this the pack chases closely for exactly 30-40 min. I am fascinated by their effort, but even more so by their giving up. I'm of the belief that a group that can sustain an effort for 30-40 min can carry on much longer. They simply lose the will. What they might not get is that at each of these races I consider giving up because I am going unsustainably hard, but not making much time.

Point being, the rider putting the hurt on you, even if he/she seems twice as strong is always hurting themselves, and a more enduring will can go a looong way towards bridging the gap."

- Kristy Gough, 2/24/2008

I read this and I was reminded of the Kristy I knew so well. The force of will she had cultivated kept her focused and it never allowed her to give up. All of her life she showed an iron will in everything she did. Even when she didn't do something, it was because she willed it so. When you know how to demand this of yourself it provides a way to "cut out all the jewelry".

Kristy never used adornments. Her beauty was what she was inside, what she had accomplished for herself. Kristy was a force so strong and determined she exuded confidence to everyone with whom she made contact. Not an arrogant confidence, but one clothed in humility and grace. There is such a difference. Never content with what she had accomplished, she was constantly setting the bar higher and higher.

Keep it going Kristy.

LIVING AND DYING

2009-06-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

In Toni Morrison's book, Kristy underlined the following:

"But if I'm caught I'll just die earlier than I'm supposed to - not better than I'm supposed to. And how I die or when doesn't interest me. What I die for does. Its the same as what I live for."

Kristy died on her bike doing what she lived for. And in the end it was what she died for as well. I think of you out there somewhere, one with the wind. You are still racing - and in my mind you are strong and focused. You never take your eyes off the goal. You never think "I can't do this."

I remember the story you told me of your first Ironman competition in Hawaii. The wind was so strong and fierce. As you rode your bike over the barren lava fields, it blasted against you mile after mile. People were being blown off the road it was so bad. In the back of your mind you were looking forward to making the turn and having the wind at your back. But when you finally made the turn and started back the wind shifted! It slammed you hard - right in the face. At first you were stunned. Then you told me something I will never forget. You lifted both your arms and with clenched fists you yelled at the top of your lungs, "Bring it on!!" You said you were laughing out loud like a deranged person.

I can see you now. And now that I am heading into the wind I need your strength. I have never loved so much nor have I ever lost so much. Strange that you should have taught me both. With your short life you have shown me both how to live and how to die.

WANNA FLY?

2009-06-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

A spectacular sunset in New Mexico

I just finished reading "Song of Solomon", by Toni Morrison. Kristy had told me I would like it but I had never gotten around to actually reading the whole book. I could hardly put it down. I finished the last sentence just as the plane set down on my return trip from visiting my sister Kim.

Kristy made a notation of this passage, which I thought was so like her. She was still a teenager when she read this book but even back then she knew what she wanted.

"All Jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

Kristy had certainly given it all up. And man, could she fly!

GETTING WHAT YOU WANT

2009-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Kristy was a profoundly gifted person. Not only in her athletic endeavors, but in her mind and heart as well. In this quote from one of her letters it shines through:

"Say you teach yourself to fish in the most pure, untouched waters and you catch beautiful fish with the most delectable flesh. But what happens between meals? And what if something completely out of your control (or the fish, for that matter) happens- A flood, a drought, a foreign algae invasion that wipes out the fish? Only you will remain,the fish and the waters will come and go.

Maybe it's not about where or what you "fish", but more about what's going on inside you when you get what you want, and when you don't."

- Kristy Gough, 2008

How seldom do we get what we want.

NEW LEVEL

2009-06-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

"Never taking off the gas is relatively easy when you know it's the only way to the finish, but when there's no finish line--that takes a whole new level of commitment." Kristy Gough, 2008

INDESTRUCTIBLE

2009-06-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Sometime earlier I wrote about how death is seen differently by a mother who has put a child in the ground. I remember also saying I felt "indestructible". When I thought back on this statement I felt it was a little strange and could not quite articulate why I felt this way. When talking about Kristy at her memorial I suddenly just blurted it out. I did not intend to say it. I think this poem explains it better than I...

You have made me indestructible

because with you

I do not end in myself.

Pablo Neruda

POETRY IS

2009-06-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Poetry is memory bathed in tears.

Miguel Angel Asturias

DIFFERENT LEVELS

2009-06-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

Perhaps reality and unreality
do not exist.
Perhaps it is only a question
of different levels of reality,
some which we do not perceive.
Or of different levels of unreality,
of which we perceive only a few.
Or of different levels
of some unique thing,
which sometimes we see
and sometimes we don't.
-Roberto Juarroz

Elliot - Thank you for being the unique thing you are and for showing it to me.

SUITS ME

2009-06-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

your room has a chair
it sits in the corner
small and light
used and battered

you found it one day
and took it home
one of your few possessions
you used it often

you gave away your things
but kept the chair
I wanted to know why
"It suits me," you said

SHINE

2009-06-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am reaching for you

tears glisten and sparkle

they frame your face

and you shine

VIOLINS AND CELLOS

2009-06-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

There is a time of evening

when the prairie is about to say something.

It never says it.

Or perhaps it is constantly saying it

but we never hear it,

or we hear it,

but it is as inexpressible

as a piece of music.

- Jorge Luis Borges

This feeling happens to me when I least expect it. And I am filled with love and longing for you. I grasp for a fleeting glimpse of you and if I am lucky I do hear the music. It always comes with violins and cellos. Sweet and clear, with all the longing of a heart so young and strong. The beauty and strength of you will never leave me. I look forward to the next time I am under your spell.

SWEET AND SOUR

2009-06-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

The berries are ripening at an alarming rate. I am tending them carefully, for these are the berries Kristy and I planted together. They were running rampant in the garden so we dug them up and planted them in large planters. The first year they didn't give much fruit, but now in their 4th year - they are giants.

Kristy was so protective of these berries. She loved their sweet, tart flavor. I think of this each time I put one in my mouth. Each time I pass by I pick one. I don't bother to wash it or even inspect it. We use no pesticides. If I eat a spider, I guess I'll...... How does that little ditty go?

I think of you and let the sweet-sour taste sting my tongue. We are in the garden together now. You are telling me something funny. I love to hear you laugh. You are happy and confident. You show me something. Now you are going. But I wait, for you will surely return. I see you everywhere.

A SERIES OF BEATS

2009-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Clas and Kristy celebrate

Time is no longer succession

and becomes what it originally was and is:

the present,

in which past and future are reconciled.

-Octavio Paz

The one consolation to grief is it's tie to the future and the present. Facing current and future loss helps me to view them as the same. They are but one part of the same face. If I can get through today then I can get through tomorrow. If I can at some point accept today then I can at some point accept tomorrow. If I see my heart as a series of beats and not as a lifeless organ I drag around with me - I can project the possibility of change. If I think about laying down my pain in the future it gives me hope.

YET TO COME

2009-06-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Then

grief was cold and terrible

a heavy weight on the head

A lurking beast

ready to claim it's mark

Like a thousand needles

raining down without end

my shoulders too numb

to mount a defense

Now

grief is an old coat

familiar yet unwanted

smelling of hopelessness

and tears yet to come

I still need you - Mom

THE PURPLE ORCHID

2009-06-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Karen,

A few days ago Elliot came in the house with an orchid for me; it is unique and different from other orchids I have seen. Elliot said he had been talking to you earlier in the day and somehow, I was brought up in the conversation. But I must backtrack.

Elliot loves Kristy and misses her deeply. A couple of months ago, he showed me a portrait that you had recently painted of Kristy; she is wearing a cape with a collar that stands up and frames her face. It is a beautiful portrait of her. Elliot told me that Kristy didn't like receiving flowers, but once he had found this beautiful purple orchid and had to get it for her.

Anyway, the day he spoke to you he stopped by Trader Joe's for a few things and there, in the store, was the exact same purple orchid he had bought for Kristy...it was a sign, so he bought it for me. It's an unusual orchid, one that I have not seen at the florist. It is such a deep color purple, that at first, it almost looks black.

I've put the orchid in the east window of my bathroom and have thought about Elliot, Kristy and you every day since. As this orchid has blossomed and opened its wings to the sun I suddenly realized that its outstretched collar looks just like the collar you painted on Kristy's portrait! It's amazing, the same feeling I had when I saw the collar you painted on Kristy is the same feeling I have had watching this orchid open up to frame the body of this precious, unique flower. You painted Kristy as the beautiful orchid that she is!

I continue to keep you in prayer....

Jeannie
Elliot's Mom

NO PITY

2009-06-02T08:52:00.001-07:00

Yet my slings are whirling.

I am here,

I scream,

desire.

My strength and my pain,

in the night.

I want it.

My strength is my pain,

in the night.

I want it.

I must open this door.

And go through it.

I must defeat it.

My stones must reach their target.

I scream.

Cry.

Desire.

--Pablo Neruda

Was he speaking about grief and sorrow? The sorrow that feeds upon itself and rewards the weary heart with renewed determination, like a sadistic cannibal licking it's lips. A sorrow oozing desperate desire. The scar that never heals as it is tended and cared for only to break open each night. Each new stone seeks its mark.

Like a raging river,

like an endless fountain,

like an echo singing it's loss

over and over.

What is on the other side?

I dream the journey each night

but my desire shows no pity.

MEASURELESS

2009-06-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

We return through the body to the beginning,

spiral off stillness and motion.

Taste, moral knowledge, finite pause,

has beginning and end -- and is measureless.

-Octavio Paz

Why does this make me cry?

MY SIX FEET UNDER

2009-06-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

This memory came to me last night before I finally fell asleep. It was a discussion I had with Kristy about the beauty and shortness of life.

We both loved to watch the program "Six Feet Under". It was about a very unconventional family and their struggles individually and with each other. I remember telling Kristy she needed to watch the last episode with me. I had already seen it but it had been for me an epiphany. I remember I actually used these words.

The scene was of the youngest daughter lying in bed. Only she was now an old woman and she was dying. At the same time she was looking at all the beautiful photos of her family surrounding her on the walls. Each one held a separate memory. She was old and frail but we could still see it was her. The light shinning in her eyes was the same light as when she was younger.

The scene suddenly changed to her as a young woman. She had approached a pivotal point in her life. She had made her decision and she was in her car speeding away... She had decided to leave home, launch herself into the unknown, and become what she knew she had to be. It was a great sacrifice to leave those she loved behind. It was a decision that changed the whole scope of her life. She was crying and smiling at the same time. The music was haunting and beautiful.

As she sped away, you could see her again as the old woman lying in bed. Her life had passed by just as quickly as that speeding car. It was here and gone in the blink of an eye. This was my epiphany. It had never hit me so hard, how truly short life is. My body felt tingly all over and I knew I had caught a glimpse of something so large that it made me feel a part of everything. As if I wasn't here or there but everywhere.

Time is so very short. I don't know what lies ahead. But I know I am speeding towards it so very, very fast. I hope I have time to review all my precious memories before departing, just like this woman did. But if not I know I am the sum of them all. "Because I bear in me not my little life, but all the lives, and I walk steadily forward because I have a thousand eyes." (Pablo Neruda)

WHILE WE SLEEP

2009-05-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

While we sleep here,
elsewhere we are awake.
Thus each person is two people.

Jorge Luis Borges

One of Kristy's favorite authors was Paulo Coelho. I once asked Kristy if she had a book I could read while traveling to see my sister Kim. She picked out the book, "Eleven Minutes" and gave it to me as a present. The girl in the book, Maria, says of herself that she is not a "body with a soul, but a soul with a body." Even though we are essentially both I think sometimes they seem to get mixed up. The line gets blurred. When something extraordinary in our lives happens, whether it is good or bad, our world can shift. We can change "bodies".

There seems to be no way to survive the sorrow of death, except to escape to that other part of oneself called the soul. But this is a curious paradox because to gain entrance to the soul I have found it takes a great deal of the body to accomplish. When I have been running long enough I feel as if I am able to distract my body to the point that I am allowed entrance into this other part of myself. The part of me that is awake. The part of me that can still see what my body no longer can.

It is inside this part of me where Kristy now resides.

CHANGES

2009-05-25T18:53:00.001-07:00

Dear Kristy,

Today I finished the garden patio area. Your hot tub used to be here. But I really don't use it anymore and I found a great family who were glad to have it. I wish you could be here to sit and enjoy the shade with me. I remember how you told me the garden would make me a "slave" in the summer. It's true. Everything needs to be pampered when it gets hot and dry. I've added a special wind chime. When it makes music it reminds me of you.

I miss you. The seasons are changing yet you remain the same. So alive and so full of beauty.

BABY TEETH

2009-05-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

I am working in the garden this morning. As I attempt to pull the weeds I was suddenly reliving a past experience with Kristy. It was so sweet, I just had to come inside and make sure it was written down.

When Kristy was about 4 or 5 she was losing lots of her baby teeth. One day she came running down the stairs yelling, "Mommy, Mommy - LOOK! I lost my tooth!" She jammed it in my face and said, "I am going to put it under my pillow for the tooth fairy right now!" She turned and ran up the stairs as fast as her legs could go. Just as she reached the top she tripped and fell to her knees. Luckily she wasn't hurt, but as she reached out to grab the stair railing she dropped her precious cargo.

There were many tears. And we looked up and down the stairs for what seemed like an eternity. No tooth. Heart broken, she said, "Do you think I could just draw a picture of it?"

Well, being an experienced "tooth fairy" I had a sudden idea. I went to my jewelry box and dug through the various treasures my children had given to me throughout the years. I finally found what I was looking for. Way in the back was my stash of baby teeth. Surprisingly I must have had at least ten. And as I grabbed one I was hoping Kristy would not realize it was an impostor.

I ran back down the stairs and yelled, "Kristy I found your tooth!" She came pounding down the stairs so quickly I thought for a moment she might fall again. Grabbing it out of my hand, she inspected it and pronounced it her tooth. She had the biggest grin on her face. I can see it now. She turned and walked back up the stairs as if she was carrying a glass full of water. I don't think she breathed until she got to the top.

Later that evening before going to bed I crept into her darkened room. I replaced her treasure with four quarters which was the tooth fairy's going rate at the time. As I slowly left the room I remember smiling to myself. I couldn't wait to see her face in the morning.

HER GIFT

2009-05-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Kristy, Suzanne and Laurissa celebrate life

I look for you and seek you out
In tangled lines of thought
Your presence was my string of pearls
Your beauty left no doubt

I find it strange to be without
Your sweet beguiling ways
Condemned to walk without you here
What’s left of my todays

Yet when I hear your voice in me
And remember how you laughed
At anything and everything
That didn’t need to be

I want to keep this piece of you
And never let depart
The truth that life’s most precious gift
Is loving with one’s whole heart

THANK YOU

2009-05-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone for your kind words. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me. Sometimes I feel very alone with my grief. I am just beginning to see how much beauty may still await me.

It is the beauty of compassion that cannot be overstated.

SOMEDAY WILL COME

2009-05-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

I heard this morning someone said, "Death is different to someone who has put a child in the ground." It was a mother speaking of her impending death (she has terminal cancer) and the death of her son years earlier. This is so true I thought it was a universal truth understood by everyone. It was a revelation to the interviewer - so it evidently is not.

So I think it is worth sharing this dreadful yet beautiful truth. When your child has died your life changes in many ways. Some foreseen and some unforeseen. But it is true about feelings of one's own death. I do not think of death as I did before. When I think about death I am strangely at peace. Kristy has already gone before me and there is a comfort in knowing this. I do not believe in a life after death and that I will "see" her again. But I do feel close to her in knowing we will share this one last experience together. For when my time comes, it will be her face I see as I close my eyes.

Time has not and will not lessen my love for her and her importance in my life. She is not alone, as a piece of me has already died and is now with her. Someday we will be reunited. I look forward to this moment.

FIERY RED PEPPERS

2009-04-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

The Marion Berries Kristy and I planted
are just starting to flower. Soon they will
bring forth large juicy fruit. We loved to
eat them right off the bush.

I worked in our garden today Kristy. I saw you
everywhere, and when the sun went down I
came inside and wrote these words to you.

I step out onto the deck and you are there
Bending over the boards as you sand each one
I step into the house and you are here
Riding a floor sander in jerky pirouettes
I'll never forget what you said
"There's allot of love in these floors"
When I sit in the garden I see you still
On your knees laying stone upon stone
So proud of your fiery red peppers

Now
I close my eyes
And step back into my world
Your memory is very much alive
Yet I am very much
alone