water is everything

The recent Butte fire was so devastating to Calaveras County with 71 thousand burned acres, and 500 people losing their homes.  Three hours west in the Bay Area, people barely heard about Butte fire, and the Valley fire from Lake County got more attention.

When I got back from a week’s evacuation, I ‘unfriended’ people from my facebook account because they didn’t ask what went down with my family’s evacuation.  I am no longer interested in facebook friendships.  People who care about me would let me know they cared about how we dealt with the fire.  Maybe that’s not true.  Oh, well.  I’ve got fewer ‘friends.’

My ‘blood’ sister from over 55 years ago was one of the ones I cut from the list, though I barely hear from her anyway.  After a couple of weeks, she did call, and surprised me.

She told me her grandson was fighting California fires, and they send him everywhere.  He was injured with flaming branches and kept going.  My unfriended friend’s grandson is now my hero.  He may have saved my town.

She shared small progress in dealing with her adult son’s drowning that happened two years ago.  She managed to come back from fetal position mourning that took her a year.  It’s a miracle she could climb out of unspeakable grief, which comes and goes.  She had a meltdown at her kitchen sink the other day when she turned on her faucet, and thought:  ALL water is responsible for her son’s drowning.  There was no way to escape water, and its responsibility for drowning him.  She didn’t know what to do with that feeling, and it almost drove her mad.  She needed to talk.  All water was to blame for his drowning.

I blame water, too.  I want answers, and by God, I’m going to the source of who to blame.  Blame all of it.  Blame water.

Pain can turn into compassion, for all sorrow and pain felt by everybody going through hell, if we can only manage to listen to each other.  I tried to get out of my own anger and listen to her deal with rage.

If we blame water, where can we go?

She described how she got through the madness, with meditation, medication and very loud television.

We both concluded that hating water is not the answer.  We can’t hate water because he drowned.  He drowned.  We have to accept the horror.   So painful to live with each day.  Hating water will not bring him back.  We need water to live.  He drowned over two years, but anybody experiencing sudden death knows two years is nothing in the scheme of life.

I’m not ‘unfriending’ my friend anymore.  She’s still going through her own hell.   She needs to trust someone, and maybe I’m the only one who gets it.