Last week was my daughter’s 17^th birthday. So much goes through my mind when I think about how quickly my children are growing up. Mostly, I think about how they’re doing so without their dad. It’s tough parenting without Kevin, but not nearly as tough as growing up without him must be. They've both done so very well, despite so much loss around us. I am grateful that they have family and friends to comfort and cheer them.

For her birthday, my daughter wanted to have her nose pierced. A few of her friends have small gems on their noses, and she thought this would be a way of setting herself apart. She’s a pretty quiet young woman, and I think small ways of declaring her independence and individuality are important to her.

So off we went to the piercing salon. We first drove to the tattoo parlor which also does piercings. I know because I had my ears pierced there last year. Before that, I was there to get a tattoo. I shared that experience with my son. Just one week into his college freshman year when his dad died, he returned home over a crisp fall weekend and told me that he was getting a tattoo. I know he was a bit surprised when I didn’t argue, and even more surprised when I said I would join him. I had never previously considered getting a tattoo. In fact, I thought the process to be dangerous and frightening, and the end result to be unattractive and too permanent.

But my outlook and opinion on nearly everything changed after Kevin passed away. Then, a tattoo became a permanent way to mark his impact on my life, our life together, and the memory of him that I wanted to hold onto. I knew that I may someday remove my wedding band (which I’ve done), and a tattoo would be something that couldn’t be removed. My son would have the words “Living it Up” tattooed onto his chest, over his heart. Kevin’s nephew also joined us, and had the same words etched into his side along his ribcage. I had them written in a nice script, just above my right ankle, along with a hummingbird. 

Kevin had a very close relationship with my uncle, G.W. Bailey. G.W. was one of the strongest, sweetest men I’ve ever known. Whenever anyone asked him how he was doing, that was his reply: “I’m living it up.” He maintained that reply even through ten long years of progressively worse Parkinson’s disease. Uncle G.W. died just after Kevin’s first diagnosis, and Kevin felt it important to make this cheery response a part of G.W.’s legacy. He committed himself to responding to everyone that he was living it up, even on his worst days. He named his carepages blog Living It Up, and told the story of Uncle GW whenever anyone asked. So it was only fitting that we would have those words inscribed onto our flesh with a needle and ink. In addition to the tattoo itself, there was certainly something about the act of the tattoo—especially the pain involved—that felt good. And it was certainly, aside from childbirth, the most painful hour I’ve ever endured. So many times I had wished to take just a bit of Kevin’s pain. Taking it in this way was only symbolic, but it was for me, a powerful and welcome symbol.

It was also, in an odd way, a good bonding experience for my son and me. It was a way, I think, of telling him that I understood a little of what he was experiencing, that I would always be there for him, that I wouldn’t let him get away with everything, but that I would support him “to the pain” and share my own pain with him. I’m glad I did it, and glad that we did it together.

My daughter is considering a tattoo when she turns 18. It will also say “living it up.” But for now, she was happy with the nose piercing. We lacked the sufficient ID to get the piercing done at the tattoo parlor, so we headed home to get her birth certificate and then to the piercing salon closer to our house. We walked into the brightly lit salon on a busy Ann Arbor street just after rush hour. The requisite large, bearded man with many posts and hoops through various appendages was there ready to explain the process and the necessary follow-up care. 

I waited outside the tiny room, unable to watch the needle pierce her skin, and considered whether this was a good thing or not. As body art goes, this is pretty small. When she goes on college or job interviews, or meets her first serious boyfriend’s parents, she can easily remove it and it will look like nothing more than a freckle. But I still questioned whether it was the right thing to support her in this. And of course, it is only my decision—there is no other parent with whom to consult, debate, weigh the options of letting her do it versus having her not speak to us for weeks. The decision is only mine.

I worry sometimes that she and I spend too much time together. I want her and her brother to be ok with leaving home and trying new things. I want her to live every moment of her life fully, starting now. And yet, the thought of my children moving on weighs heavily. It does for most parents of almost-adult children, I’m sure. But it’s not just about having my babies grow up and establish lives of their own. For me, it is one more loss; one more thread to Kevin and to our old life that is fluttering in the wind. All I can do is stand and watch as it floats away. It is also one more reminder of all that he is missing; of all that we are missing together as a family. This year especially, as she enters her senior year of high school, my heart aches that her dad isn’t here to share in her last dance performances, her college acceptances, her prom and her graduation.

Seeing my little girl sit up from the padded table on which she was laying, with tears rolling down her face (“I’m not crying, it just made my eyes water!”), and smiling when she looked in the mirror, I’m glad I was there for this little experience. As she grows older, there will be fewer times when she wants her mother along on her adventures. I’ll continue to work on my ability to nudge my children from the nest, hoping that these times we’ve spent together—both the good and the challenging, have created a relationship that they, as much as I, will want to nurture forever.

I don’t know what happens when we die. My thoughts exist somewhere between the unshakable belief in an afterlife/Heaven of many of my family and friends, and that held by Kevin that once our brains stop thinking and our hearts stop beating, nothing more happens.

The feelings are complicated and involve faith, cultural mores, and now, experience. Shortly after Kevin’s death, I posted on his Carepages blog that I had received many “signs” of his presence and I chose to believe in them because Kevin’s spirit and soul--when they were here on earth, manifested in his body-- were so strong that they couldn’t possibly just end. I still believe that. I believe that love, a fierce desire to go on living, and a fate that ends that life too early, all make for an active afterlife.

Since Kevin’s passing, I have been visited by many signs. They bring me comfort and hope, not only for Kevin, but because this entire experience is nothing if not a daily reminder of my own mortality.

The morning after Kevin passed away, someone poured me a cup of coffee, which I took out to our front porch. It’s a large space, that porch. Our builder had to revise his cost estimate after he realized how big it would end up being; it was really an outdoor room. I sat on the porch where our family ate most dinners from May to October, and stared out into a void. Quite soon, a hummingbird ducked under the roof of the porch and came to me. It hovered just above my knee, as though preparing to drink nectar from the red flower on my pajama bottoms. I smiled. We had many hummingbirds around the yard, and Kevin would sit and watch them for long minutes. They battled over territory and a spot at the many feeders that Kevin and our daughter kept filled through the summer. I now have a hummingbird tatooed on my ankle and you'll notice a hummingbird on this blog.

A friend later told me that Native Americans believe hummingbirds carry the soul of the deceased to the afterlife. I’m ok with that.

I’ve had owls hoot as I sat in our hot tub, but they only come and make noise on special dates: our anniversary, my birthday.

In the year after Kevin’s passing, I saw fourteen shooting stars. Fourteen. In twelve months’ time. Whenever I would sink into despair about things done or not done, things left unsaid, or silly arguments I now wish we hadn’t had, I would ask Kevin to let me know that he was ok, that we were ok. Almost without fail, a star would shoot across the night sky. It brought a flood of tears, along with a sense of comfort that nothing else could bring.

Once, a snowy owl, maybe two-feet tall, landed in the road just in front of my car. I hit the brakes, the owl didn’t flinch.

It took a great deal of strength for me to venture into the garden that Kevin and I had worked so hard to maintain. I finally headed out one day, maybe a month after his death, and began pulling weeds, the act becoming a release for much of my pent-up anger and sadness. I cried the entire time I sat among the vegetables and flowers. Soon I noticed a hawk circling above me. My first thought was that an animal carcass must be nearby. But the hawk never lighted anywhere; it just kept circling and circling in the sky above my head, floating on the currents. I began talking to Kevin, giving sound to the angry, depressing thoughts, the unanswerable questions. Realizing that I couldn’t wipe my tears with muddy gloves, I gave up and returned to the empty house.

As I walked into our bedroom, a feather lay on the floor next to our bed. I wondered if the cat had somehow gotten out and the rest of the bird was under the bed. But no, no other sign of any wildlife was in the room that day, just a large, brown feather that I still have in my bedroom.

There have been other signs, too:  things gone missing that turn up in odd places, rainbows, a note that had never come to light despite three moves suddenly appeared in a room that we were clearing out to paint, as though it had been lying on the floor in that room for the past twenty years; the re-appearance of an old, deleted text message that showed up on my phone as I was delivering my Master’s thesis reading.

Some signs I plan to never tell, but to keep just between Kevin and me. There have been fewer in recent months, which causes me to wonder whether I was seeing what I wanted to see in the throes of grief. Or perhaps there is a settling of the soul in some place after which contact with the living lessens. I must live with the fact that I just don’t know. I know the strength of our love, our partnership. I know the force of his determination, and the strength of his wish to never be forgotten. I believe those things will continue to manifest themselves in my life. I hope they do.  They do not solve the mystery but they do ease the pain.