Karla's Cottage

Always remembering my boy

When Ryan died, people were so generous with their gifts and responses.  I was moved by each and every card, present, memento, story, etc.  Each was cherished, each meant that Ryan wasn’t forgotten.  

Maybe because he was a guy who was shy, hesitant to stand out, and often overlooked, knowing that people cared about him and reached out helped.  

I cried over armfuls of envelopes when I carried in the mail.  I read and reread the notes.  I planted the trees, hung the wind chimes, and overall, cherished all of the gifts.

Many people sent flowers, and I kept the blooms going as long as I could. I shared some with family to take to their homes, and spread the rest around ours.  I trimmed the stems and changed the water daily to make the flowers last.  Then, when the freshness was past saving, I dried what I could, and filled a cabinet with the vases.

But I did not want them to become a forgotten stash of unwanted glassware to eventually be donated to Goodwill.  Instead, I decided to do something special with them, and on a few, I am attempting mosaics. (I don’t have good grouting skills, though, I will have to work on cleaning a bit more off of this one).

Others, I have decorated and filled with garden flowers and given away on special occasions. I’d like to  take an embellished vase filled with iris that Ryan planted into the nursing home he worked at, on the anniversary of his death next spring.  


Thank you to everyone who offered hope to me with kind words and thoughtful expressions of care.  I was moved and heartened by your gestures.

 

 

 

 

Tiny, Baby Ryan

My pal, Sandy, brought some old photos to our high school  reunion.  One was of little, baby Ryan (and little, baby me).

Not long ago, I had found something I wanted to add to the special album I had made with Ryan’s photos.  It was ideal to glue a picture to and hang from the book. I thought to myself that I’d add one later when I got another, because I’d used all the pics I had.

Then it hit me.

I would never have another new picture of my son.

Those are the moments that hit the hardest.  When I forget.  When I think to myself that I have to tell him something funny, or that a new season of one of our shows is starting, or show him the dog’s new haircut.  To simply share joys or jokes with him.  

That is when I tearfully write him a letter and fold it up with a kiss and tuck it safely into the urn.  And miss him all anew, with a fresh pain.  At first, it is pleasant to forget and to think of him like he is still here, but then, the ache that slams into my heart when I remember that he is not,  just about knocks me to my knees.

I was thrilled to get this new photo.  And to see how my baby was looking at me with love.  

I miss seeing that expression, he was a loving guy.

 

A framed stained glass mosaic by Shanna- Thanks, Shan!

This lovely surprise was created by my good friend and Artist, Shanna Wagner.  I love everything she makes, but this one is even more wonderful because it is jam packed with meaning.

I can just picture his reaction, if he’d seen this.  He had an appreciation for artwork.  And for kind people.

The heart in the center is a fused piece she made in her kiln.

It is surrounded by roses, iris,  hydrangeas,

and two bluebirds of happiness!

It was made to fit this antique frame, that is just perfectly wonderful itself.

And it is created to hang either in a window to let the sunlight through, or on a wall, with lights behind it.

Ryan loved red roses and purple iris.  Funny, I’d known him forty years before I knew how much he enjoyed flowers.  We’d stop to look at them along our walks.  There were iris growing by the pond we liked to circle, over and over, and he commented every time when the purple iris were in bloom.

There was so much I learned about my boy in his last few years, I wonder what else I’d have discovered if I had more time with him?

Shan isn’t just generous with her art, she is with her time, home, and materials too.  She invites friends into her studio weekly to have a mosaic day.  Here is my piece in progress.

I saved the vases that flowers were delivered to us in after Ry Guy died.  I hope to cover them all in mosaic glass to use throughout our home and his apartment.  And I know that he would have said, “Wow, Mom, that is cool!”

While there is much I will never get to discover about him, I love it that I know enough to hear his voice in my head, picturing what I know he would say to me about something like these mosaics.

 

A memory book

When Ryan died, I cut up a canvas that hung on a wall of his apartment and turned it into a book cover.  Filling the pages of that book meant weeks of happy memories as I sorted through photos and wrote down stories.

There were also many slow tears dropped onto the paper.

And other times when the sobbing was so hard, I found myself needing to lay down on the cement floor of the studio, in the bits and pieces of fallen scraps and trimmings.

That photo album has become a treasured piece for me.

 Since crafting his book, two close friends lost family members too, and I made books for them.

And this week, I put together this album for another friend’s birthday.  

She lost her mom a couple years ago.  At that time, I wasn’t making these memorials, but after seeing their meaningfulness, I wanted her to have one.

Each book that I build is a mix of photos (usually taken from Facebook), blank pages to add more pictures later, note paper to write on, with pockets and envelopes to store tokens and trinkets.

I try to use colors and styles of paper that I know my friend will like.  



And each has some doodling type artwork inside.

Mostly simple flowers, vines, or other small sketches.

And each becomes, almost a meditation for me as I assemble it.

I take time to think about the people in the photos, and feel their happiness and their loss.

Constructing these books has been good for me, an exercise in caring and time to lose myself in being creative.

Sadly, I have one more to make, and wish that there wasn’t a reason to need another one.

But since there is, I hope that the art journal can bring some comfort.

 

 

 

Pretty stones

When Twinkle passed, I brought her home from the vet’s office to show her to the other dogs.  I knew they would look for her if I didn’t.  You might think it’s odd, but we showed Ryan’s body to our pets too. They were overly excited about a room filled with paramedics and other professionals during a pandemic when they hadn’t been around many people, so it wasn’t exactly a moving moment. 

But at least they knew why Uncle Ryan wasn’t around for ear scratches and walks any more.

It would’ve been easier to have Twinkle cremated, my husband was out of town and it was 100 degrees that day.  But I hated to think of the other dogs always looking for her and not knowing where she was.

I buried her next to Ryan’s memorial tree.  

A dear friend and her daughter had engraved and painted rocks for me and I’d been planning on placing them by this oak.  I am glad I hadn’t done it yet, they were just what I needed to top Twinkle’s grave.

I used some of the rocks in planters too.  

Ryan is never out of my thoughts, but I still like to have little trinkets and mementos of him around me.

 

 

 

 

He cared so much about things that made me happy

We had lovely remembrance moments for Ryan.  On Sunday, some exceptionally wonderful friends brought over dinner and wine.  

We sat on the patio, and we all cuddled pups before I spread some ashes on the Uncle Tree and gave an egoogley (Zoolander for eulogy).

The Sugarbabies thought the get together was all about them.

Well, typically, everything is.  But my pals were very kind and considerate about honoring Ryan. 

It was a small, but meaningful group.

Ryan’s legal time of death is the 24th, but we feel like he died the night of the 23rd, so we did something both days for him.

On Monday, we tried to get as many of the family as we could together for a walk on Ryan’s favorite trail, dinner at a place he loved, and squeezed in between all of that, an 8th grade concert.

The day we found him, we had planned a big, family walk on the trails he loved.  

But that didn’t happen.

We took a walk there a year later in his honor, and I brought some ashes to sprinkle.  I wasn’t sure where I would do it, until I saw this perfectly mossy heart!

I can almost hear the excitement in his voice, if he’d been with me when I found it.  He cared so much about things that made me happy.  We often took time to stop and exclaim over tidbits that I found, or just to watch the red wing black birds in the pond.  

“He cared so much about things that made me happy.”

That sums up a lot about Ry Guy.  I was beyond blessed to have a person in my world who wanted me to smile.

 

 

One year today. No words

Honoring my grief

I have had a rough few weeks emotionally.  It started with thinking I’d lost a bag of Ryan’s ashes that I wanted to spread in Indiana while stopping there.  Luckily, I found them (put away safely, that is always a mistake, isn’t it?) Then on our visit to my hometown, no one there mentioned Ryan, so it didn’t feel right to bring up sprinkling ashes.  

We didn’t have a funeral for Ryan due to quarantine. At the time, I was too wrecked to care, and was almost glad that I didn’t have to deal with it.  But over the last year, I have begun to feel as if Ryan was cheated out of something he deserved.  He spent his life quietly in the background without many people knowing just what a great guy he was.  Was not having a ceremony another instance of Ryan fading into the background?  And is it too late now to have one?

Part of Rich’s family had a small ceremony at the Lake House last summer, and I treasure the wind chimes we made together as each person had something to say about Ry and clipped their piece of the chime together.  It was lovely, and so thoughtful of them.  I didn’t realize how much we had needed that at the time.

Thinking that I’d misplaced the ash made me remember every single bad mom incident throughout my boys’ childhood.

Then, I was overwhelmed by having a shivery cold snap hit us after three weeks of camping and needing to winterize the camper to prevent frozen pipes (while still traveling with it). We had to scramble to find alternate lodgings and between Easter weekend and spring break, plus traveling with three dogs, there just weren’t any to be found.

Seriously, it wasn’t a big problem, and it got solved, but I was irrationally upset about it, beyond the scope of the actual problem itself.   Since then, my attitude had been getting worse, and my sadness was building too.  

The anniversary of Ryan’s death looming over me has been almost more than I could handle and I let other stressors feed on that pain.

This might sound silly, but watching the season finale of the Walking Dead without him and knowing the series was ending soon, about wrecked me.  A new season of Top Chef starting, without RyGuy next to me to watch it was rough too.  The shows we watched together were important to us.  We’d pick apart details of the programs on our walks and talk about what we thought should happen next, who should be eaten by a zombie or pack their knives and go.

Thinking of the soon to be born litter of pups coming without Ryan by my side had been causing me torment instead of the joy I should have anticipating all those sweet babies due soon, too.  It was beginning to feel like everything was a reminder of how sad I was.

Everyone needs time to grieve and to acknowledge those raw emotions.  But letting them take over was not healthy, and I needed to get control of my world again. 

I will always miss my boy, nothing will change that.  Living with grief will be something I cannot change.  But dealing with grief and loss by appreciating what I have is something I can do.  Letting my raw nerves run my life certainly wasn’t helpful.  


So I took action.  

I had a sincere talk about issues that had come up with someone I cared about, who also had major worries of her own.  

I wrote a long, long letter to Ryan.  For months after he died, I filled his urn with notes and messages, but had gotten away from “talking” to him that way.  I gave myself a full day of just missing him, looking through the journal I’d made for him, (hugging it tightly against me and sobbing), watching shows he loved, writing to him and going for a walk like we used to together.  Instead of letting that underlying unhappiness brew inside me and make me antsy and sad, I let it rise to the top of my emotions and didn’t try to hide it or pretend I was fine.  

I painted.  And painted.  Pour paints are sooooo soothing.  Watching those colors glide and swirl is good for the soul.

I made plans with friends and family. I’m sharing a paint pour day with friends, having a craft day, and having a family dinner night with my fairy flock. 

Most of all, I honored Ryan by just missing him. And missing him a lot.  We both loved springtime, but he isn’t here to enjoy it, I’ll need to show my appreciation for the season enough for both of us.

 

My husband took a trip to Omaha to watch his nephew compete in jr college wrestling nationals, and I used that time to organize the studio and garage, gather supplies, mix up paints, and then dove deeply into swirling those colors around on a few canvases.

Acrylic paint pouring is an expensive hobby, but such a relaxing one.   I look forward to having a couple play dates with family and with friends.  It will be just as mesmerizing to watch them tilt and twirl the paint around.  I find the process healing.

Grief will never leave. But how I choose to have it in my life is up to me.

 

 

 

 

An Estate Sale in Ottawa, KS that opened some floodgates for me

My friend, Angie called me to say she had someone cancel on her and she could use a couple hours of help at an estate sale she was running.

(304 E 11th Street in Ottawa, half price on Saturday the 19th)

While there were plenty of vintagey goods, practical items, and tons of tools for sale, the star of the day was the house itself.

Throughout the day, I explored all of the excellently preserved details of this pristine old house.  It made me feel nostalgic for my mom’s house in Sioux City, IA.  Hers was from the same era and style, also had that great woodwork and arched entryway doors.

Mom’s home didn’t have the original potties, though.   This house had delicious tiling and the baths were updated but not gutted and redone.  The rose and black might have been my fave.

(Delicious might not be a good word to describe a bathroom, but, honestly, that color is pretty dang tasty!)

But, no maybe this room is my favorite color combo- the soft green with a hint of lilac?  How springy and delightful!

The woodwork throughout was magnificently crafted too.  And filled with French doors.  My mother took her French doors off and stored them in the basement for some odd reason.  Maybe so my crazy, wild boys wouldn’t ride a tricycle through them.

They weren’t the only kids raised in that place, it was also the childhood home of Ann Landers and Dear Abby.  I have a feeling the advice sisters weren’t as rambunctious as my kiddos, but then not many were.

Luckily, this was marked NFS, or it would’ve been in the back of my pickup, and I do not need it. 

I sure WANT it.

The basement was filled with the original workings of the old place, and that again brought back memories of Mom’s house on Nebraska Street. There was a laundry chute here just like the one my sons threw all of their toys down.

Visions of two year old Adam dropping trucks down onto four year old Ryan’s head in the basement were bittersweet.  And I laughed out loud with tears in my eyes as I recalled running down the hall and screaming, “Noooo!  The dog cannot go down the chute!” Just in time to save that poor little schnauzer.

It has been a rough week for me, I definitely needed this day out to work with Angie. The added bonus of spending the day in a home that brought so many forgotten times rushing back was good..

May is coming up, and it is filled with land mines for my heart.  My birthday and Mother’s Day were dates that Ryan never failed to make me feel treasured on.

Then the end of May brings the anniversary of his death.

It is still April, but the mere  thought of May has been wringing tears out of me while anticipating the calendar page about to turn.

And horrifically, some dear friends recently lost their son. I spent a week making a journal/album for him and feeling their pain with each drop of glue I used.

On top of that, I’ve had someone I trust turn on me and flip my view of our relationship up and twist it around.

Memories can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.  All I can do for now is roll with the emotions, enjoying the stories that play in my mind while missing my boy.

Bad things happen, sadness continues to occur, but I need to hang out to those good memories and think about those funny little boys with the giant pile of toys under the laundry chute in the basement.

Or I will never survive this.  Those memories need to be my lifeline.

 

 

 

Trying to be creative

The malaise of 2020 is spilling over into 2021 for me.  I have made efforts to be creative and busy, but haven’t had any project consume me, like they have in the past.

Lots of embroidery happened, because it’s kind of a mindless task, just to keep my hands busy in front of the TV.

I’ve had some studio time, but it is all a lot of simple projects, like doodling on this tag.

Or trying to make my own dog tags.  I have also painted a lot of things, repaired and reorganized. But most were “one of”.  Nothing prolific, as I have always been in the past.  Typically, if I make something, I can’t stop and next thing you know, there are twenty of them.

I made a scrapbook for Ryan, fairy wings with the grand fairies, and added a vinyl floor to the closet/laundry room.

That was a long delayed job, and has made the floor much warmer.

I even decided that I’d start grooming the dogs myself.

At least the little dogs.

So, I’ve kept busy.  I’ve gone for long walks, had socially distant visits with friends, and stayed active.  I think the unease and uncertainty in the world because of the virus, and the unimaginable loss of my son who was also one of my best friends has dampened my drive. 

We have a camper trip planned, and I hope to clear my mind and refresh my soul with some sea air.  When I get back, I’d like to work on reopening my shop.  It’s not exactly closed, but it is ignored right now. It would be good for me to revamp and restock for spring.

It has been important to me that I don’t lose myself to the sadness, that I keep crafting, creating, contributing.  And while nothing will ever be the same, I am slowly trying to rebuild my world.