God's Daddy

“Why does everyone think God is up in the sky?” Sage asked the other day as we were headed to the airport for my aunt’s Celebration of Life,  the details of death and funerals and God weighing heavily on all our minds – big and small alike. I look out the window at the vibrant blue sky, a couple fat cumulus clouds floating in the ethers, and start to answer with: “Well, lots of people think heaven is above us, up in the clouds . . . “ I pause momentarily, thinking through how I’ll explain this, wanting to make sure I get it right.

As I mentally prepare for my unrehearsed, heaven elevator speech, Sage interrupts my train of thought. And with a knowing, well-duh! tone to her voice she answers, to what I did not know was a rhetorical question:

“Yeah, but God could be everywhere, all around us, right now!”

And as Jeff drives, eyes straight ahead, and I sit quietly, pensively, in the passenger seat, I think to myself, “How did I get so darn lucky?? I love this girl so much. So unarmored. Yes, I’ll keep her FOREVER. She’s that lovely. She’s that good.”  (And even if she wasn’t ALL THAT, I’d keep her still – of course I would! - but she makes it so much infinitely easier to lay that claim when she repeatedly takes my breath away with her wisdom and smarts and self-assurance.)

I say to her, “Sage, that is so smart of you and I couldn’t agree more. God IS everywhere. In every beautiful, living thing. And so many people forget this . . ."  I’m about to really get up on my soap box. I’m thrilled. She gets it. She’s speakin’ my language.  But then, she interrupts me again.  Doesn’t need any long, drawn out, grown-up version of God this morning. She’s got her own answers and her own, more pressing questions.  Like the one she interjects in mid-sentence:

“Yeah, OK mom, but another thing . . . I’ve been wondering, what does God LOOK like anyway?  And yeah . . . where did he come from??”

It’s hard to be a wise, old sage in a 7-year-old body, with a child’s mind and a mystic’s soul. There’s so much in there, wanting to know, wanting to share, as yet unfettered too much by the thick layers of life and loss.  As of yet, she is not too much of anything.  She is enough of every good thing and she believes it - I am so thankful for that.

Sage’s dad, my husband and partner, replies to Sage in his true, charming, genteel Southern fashion with this: “God came from God’s daddy!”  So you see what I’m dealing with.  No punches. No pulls. No smoke and mirrors here. Just a good, solid, clear-cut answer to a child’s simple question: “Where did God come from?”

But Sage is not so easily swayed (that’s my girl!).  Nope. She needs more. And she’s not afraid to say so. “No really.  Where did God come from?” It’s a great question. It’s a tricky question. It’s one I’m going to need to think on for just a while longer before I can give her my (in)adequate answer.   I tell her so. “Sage, that is a great question.  God is LOVE and energy. Embodied in everything. He is everywhere . . . “

But I haven’t answered her question. I’m skirting the issue. And she knows it. And I know it. And frankly, that’s just the way it’s got to be because in this moment, it’s the best I’ve got.

I won’t always have all the answers.  And I’m honest enough to let her know that.  And honest enough to tell her that some of that, she’ll have to decide for herself. Honest enough, too, to tell her she can trust what she knows and believes is her truth to believe. She has that God spark within her, feels its warm flame, speaks its truth in myriad ways everyday. But some of that God stuff, it’s simply too big to get our heads around today.

Nevertheless, Sage has her questions. And she is seeking her answers. Asking anyone and everyone: “Who’s God’s daddy?", she is her father’s daughter: sweet, down-to-Earth, straight-forward. She is her mother’s child: unarmored, full of beauty, a whole-hearted seeker.

She is, and will forever be, my wise Sage.

(Thank you God . . . And God’s daddy! I am so thankful for my girl.)

Need To Breathe

 

“You exercise EVERYDAY?”, someone recently asked me.  And my answer, “Mostly, but not because I’m crazy or compulsive about it . . . in years past, perhaps.  But now, I do it because I have to. I do it because I can. I do it because to not do it would be to dishonor my body, heart, and mind.  I do it because it’s like a prayer to me. It feeds my soul and gives my days balance, and me, room to breathe."

Simply put,  I head outside (to run or walk or ride my bike) everyday because I need to inhale. I need to inspire and be inspired. I need to breathe. And breathe deeply. No shallow, mini ho-hum breaths but deep, gulping, filling-up-every-inch of my body breaths. Breaths that go past my alveoli deep in my lungs, all the way to the perimeter of every teeny, tiny cell in my body.

I love the notion of “inspire” meaning both "to take a breath" and "to motivate" and wondered what Webster might have say. The first definition, “to inhale”, was a no-brainer.  Another: “to stimulate energies, ideals, or reverence” started to speak my language. And yet a third: “to breathe life into”. Indeed, that is exactly where I find myself when I am outside and moving; I live these definitions. Breathing. Taking life in. Absorbing the present moment to my fullest capacity. Swallowing it whole. Owning it. Owning my life. My thoughts. My choices. My body. My perfections and imperfections – mine, all mine!

And giving thanks for this body’s abilities – to move, to run, to push me through this space and time. Thankful for my healthy lungs and heart, which work so beautifully together – perfect synchronicity to allow me each step, each heart beat. The cadence of my feet – left, right, left, right – their rhythm centers me. Energy out. Energy in.  Energy out. Energy in. (Much more than just physical!)

Being outside, with the solid Earth beneath me and the sky’s expanse above, is the very best place for me to lay my miles down and put everything in perspective: I am reminded of my smallness and my bigness.  I sense my power and my powerlessness. I balance my strengths and weaknesses. It is the active pause in my day that reminds me of who I am.  A child of God.

In the midst of those big, deep, gulping breaths, my expiration date recedes into the unknown future and my inspiration grows, knowing no bounds.  Three more definitions of “inspire” say this:

1. To affect, guide, or arouse by divine influence.
2. To fill with enlivening or exalting emotion.
3. To stimulate to action; motivate.


While I am out there huffing and puffing, pacing myself, counting my steps, affirming my good, the only expiration I know is that of my outgoing breath. Worries about my own mortality cannot linger here. Not when I’m this alive. Living fully in the moment. Taking no prisoners, requesting no mercy, save the kindnesses I need to extend to myself. Just pushing on and negating any bad thought I never wanted to believe anyway.  So ha!

Out there, I know I am whole, complete and perfect just as I am. Just as God made me. I thank God for my strong thighs, muscular calves, nimble feet. My new running shoes – like Christmas four times a year! Strong core –thank you, planks!! The clean, fresh air I get to take in. The safety of my community. The flowers along the way. The beauty all around.

You ask me why I exercise everyday and I’ll tell you: to embrace myself and my world. To move my body to show God my appreciation for this great gift. My health. My love for the life She has so generously given me. It’s not about the distance or the size of my rear or how many calories I’ve burned during my morning jaunt. It’s the sense of renewal, freedom, appreciation, and awe that awaits me, beckons me, and is mine for the taking. That carries me home.

Another day I’ve been given. My breathing - deep and hard and true - is my prayer. My thank-you to God.  I am using my body. Keeping it healthy. Celebrating it. Loving it still.

On a recent treasure hunt through a box of old *stuff*, I found a Nike ad I had torn out of a magazine 25 years ago that so inspired me back then.  I remember how it made me feel at the time: understood, seen, acknowledged. It hung in my college dorm room, followed me to my first job where it was pinned on a bulletin board, and eventually came to rest in a box that mostly represents a version of me from a lifetime ago. Yet when I read the ad again the other day, I realized it had no expiration date. Same feelings. Same affirmation. Like coming full circle, home to myself – inspired, yet again.

Got Love?

 

Grief and loss, and the unraveling and stitching back together of our lives, is not for the weak of heart.  Nonetheless, it is the price we pay for being human.  And, as most of us can attest, it can bring out the very best, and the very worst, in people. Whatever the case may be, the trick to it all seems to be in  remembering everyone is simply doing the best they can with what they’ve got. (This isn’t to say that even when you know this, you don’t wish for something different! Just that self-awareness has the potential to make you more generous and compassionate toward yourself and with your people and their bleeding hearts.)

We’ve all been there. Some folks have strong coping skills; others . . . not so much.  Some would rather live in denial.  Others rail against the world, asking “Why me God?”  Many feel anger, guilt, or resentment.  And some still are able to embrace their losses and the lessons they have to teach - sometimes in the immediate aftermath but often after some deep soul-searching and sadness and coming-around-again-gladness for their very own lives and their many blessings.

The thing is, we can’t make or wish anyone to be anything more than what they are. Unfortunately, our expectations can get very big and unbending.  And what I’ve learned time and time again about expectations is that it is so much easier if we simply EXPECT LESS.  People can only be what they can be no matter how much we want to push, pull, and drag them to our way of thinking and being.  If they are not able, we can’t wish them there no matter how powerful we believe ourselves to be.
I think the best question we can ask of ourselves and others, in times of loss but at any critical juncture in our lives when our fear and self-doubt buttons are pulsing bright red, is this:

“Got Love?” 

If we can simply come from a place of love and compassion – for others and ourselves - instead of worry, fear, or judgment, we’d save ourselves from a lot of frustration and disappointment.  But unfortunately, we often can’t get out of our own way.  More times than not, we get stuck in our own little worlds, thinking our small little thoughts; we are hard-pressed to be bigger and think, “What would Love do here?” 

I know this. Love didn’t come to live a life of quiet desperation. Love came to live out loud. So, ask yourself, are you here to do your work or God’s?  The work of no religion but the unassuming work of goodness, compassion, wholeness and light, as you lovingly carve your path and make your way.
That’s who you are. The truth in each of us.  The lesson every loss and death is here to teach us.  We don’t need to find ourselves. We don’t need to desperately look to others or any religion or any magical *thing*. No, the treasure we most seek is buried deep inside ourselves.  It is our truth, our own deep knowing that we are all made in love – of love – of goodness – of God stuff.  That we are already whole, complete, and perfect - exactly as we are.

Unfortunately, the undoing of this inborn knowledge comes surreptitiously over the years. As children, we believe we are worthy - Loved and Loving with a capital “L”.  But then, layer upon layer stealthily it’s laid, a full coat of armor until we no longer know our own truth. Until we have forgotten the only answer to the question, “Got Love?” is:

Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Seeing and looking for any other validation is our own confirmation bias, hard at work. It comes from our own small thinking by way of fear/anxiety/worry and leads only to the dead end of disconnection and a longing for belonging that whines, whimpers, and eventually howls its presence.

But that God, SO crafty, keeps giving us lessons until we get it. Those challenging life experiences? Gosh darn it if they don’t keep showing up! Different clothes, different job, different city, perhaps, but each is just a roundabout circling to a similar lesson. The Universe, oh-so-patient, waits UNTIL WE FINALLY GET IT.  And when, at long last, we can answer “Yes!” to the question God keeps posing, when we can come from a place of love for self and others, well then we get to get off that same, old, tired carousel.  And we get to move on.

Be bigger, God calls. Take the road less traveled, Frost urges. Forge a new way of being, your spirit implores. Summit your own fears, insecurities, worries and doubts. Only then will you see your very own face reflected back to you in the shimmer of the sun’s warm rays; you will come face-to-face with your God self and realize, what you’ve been waiting for, it’s been inside you all along.

Then, when you thrust your flag of enlightenment deep into that peak and shout “Got Love?”, your answer will be so obvious - in everything, everywhere - a soul-deep knowing that love is the only language we all can speak and understand. You will bless and be blessed. You will have found your truth and be made whole. You will remember who you are. You will be set free.

Rumi says it all in the poem "Say Yes Quickly":

Forget your life. Say God is Great. Get up.
 You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray. 
You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many. 
Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar. 
Reach your long hands out to another door, beyond where
 you go on the street, the street
 where everyone says, “How are you?”
and no one says “How aren’t you?”
Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight, 
thrashing in the dark. Inside you
 there’s an artist you don’t know about. 
 He’s not interested in how things look different in moonlight.
If you are here unfaithfully with us, 
you’re causing terrible damage. 
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love, 
you’re helping people you don’t know
 and have never seen.
Is what I say true? Say yes quickly, 
if you know, if you’ve known it 
from before the beginning of the universe. 

YES! YES! YES!

The Questions Themselves

The hardest part was picking out his boxers and socks. Standing there in that small, dingy trailer where my dad had lived every summer since he and my mom divorced in 1986.  No electricity, no phone, no running water – “off the grid” as he liked to say – with just his small trailer to sleep in, his organic garden, an open-air outhouse and his teepee close by.  And there I stood, inside that same trailer, next to the unmade bed where my father had had a heart attack the night before, looking through his drawers for a pair of boxers and socks he could wear at his funeral.

“This is real,” I tell myself. “You are standing here, your father’s clothes he had on just last night are at your feet.” Old worn-in Levi’s, 36x30’s, the leather belt Chris and I gave him one Christmas, his comfortable leather moccasins.  I stop looking for a sock without holes momentarily so that I can pick up the Levi’s from the floor.  I press them to my nose and breathe deeply.  Suddenly, he is there – cigarettes, coffee, and his warm musky skin smell fill me. Isn’t he nearby? Where has he gone? Why am I standing here with one threadbare sock in my hand, looking for a match without holes? I think to myself, “ Chris and I would have given him new socks for Christmas this year . . .” Thick wool socks to keep him warm, to soften the bitter cold of another frigid Michigan winter he would not have to bear.

Instead, I am looking for just one sock without a hole that my dad will wear to his open-casket funeral.  A thing so against anything my father would have wanted, it’s almost laughable in a sick, sad, mean way.  Had my dad made his wishes known, he’d rather we put him in a canoe and push it down the Manistee afire than have an actual OPEN-CASKET funeral at a local funeral home, a month before his 55th birthday.

You can’t ever be ready, can you? I mean even those individuals who have time with someone before they die, to say the things they need to say – to say good-bye . . . Can you ever be totally prepared?  Being the first to find out did not help my situation – like being hit be a Mack truck and then expected to get up immediately and walk down the sidewalk as if it were any warm, early fall afternoon. It was any warm, early fall afternoon up until that point – up until 3:58 p.m. on Friday, September 4th.
My Labor Day weekend had started early, having just finished nine holes of golf with the man I was dating at the time. And as we headed back to his house, I asked if I could borrow his cell phone to check my messages. Though a bit garbled, I heard a man’s voice say, “Yes, this is Trooper Rodriquez calling from the Cadillac State Police Post in regard to Gerry Mundy. If you are any relation to him please call us at 616-775-2433.”  My immediate thought – “Is this a joke?” and then on that thought’s heels: “Perhaps my dad got a DUI??”

I turned to David and said, “It’s a police officer from Michigan calling about my dad . . .”  I quickly dialed the number and waited for someone to answer, trying to remain calm, to not let my fears run away with me.  Someone answered on the second ring and I explained that I was responding to a message left earlier for me and I identified myself as Gerry Mundy’s daughter.

The officer that answered said they had been trying to reach someone all day and he was glad I had called.  I was anxious as he spoke, wanting to cut to the chase – for him to tell me what I needed to know. He began, “Ma’am, we don’t like to do this over the phone . . .”, letting the sentence dangle like words over a cliff.  To which I answered, “I’m his daughter . . . you can tell me.  Whatever it is.” He hesitated, asked if there was anyone else he might speak with, wherein I reiterated with more vehemence, “I’m his daughter . . . you can tell me.”  To this he replied, “Your father had a heart attack this morning.” I heard that. Believed it. I could deal with that. It settled in, a feather dropping to the ground.

“O.K.” I responded. “Where is he?” Again the officer said, “Ma’am, we don’t like to do this over the phone  . . .“, his pause pregnant with foreboding,  I held my breath, could sense something treacherous about to be unloosed. I didn’t want to hear the next words out of his mouth, knew they were going to be bad by the tone of his voice. But I’m good with silence. I waited. I made him say it. All the while my hysteria mounting.

“He died this morning.”

“Oh my God, NO!” I screamed.  “Nooooooooooo!” I threw the offensive phone down and as it bounced on the floorboard I could hear the distant officer saying, “Ma’am, please don’t hang up . . . ma’am?”  And then the no’s began in earnest.  A thousand times no. “No, no, no, no . . .” This I could not take in. Would not take in. Pinching, scratching, my hands pressing the ceiling of the car.  Sobbing uncontrollably. Thoughts like bullets shooting through my shocked brain.  Too much. Too much. Too much.  Noooooo.

If I could just say it enough, couldn’t I will it to not be true? Hadn’t I always been able to make what I wanted happen? Wasn’t it my dad himself who told me, “You can do anything. Be anything. You are so bright, smart, beautiful. Anything you want you can have. The world is yours.” But this world wasn’t mine. I didn’t know it. And I certainly didn’t want it. Couldn’t push it away hard enough or fast enough with the no’s or by the force of my own will.  My thoughts ran around inside my head – looking for comfort, security, a safe place to hide.

There wasn’t any. 

Only the reluctant return – again and again – to the knowledge of what a faraway police officer had just informed me of over the phone: my dad was dead. And then the continuation of the resounding no’s – echoing varying degrees of my shock and disbelief; my unwillingness to accept the fact that my father had suddenly died.

David – having pulled over as soon as I threw the phone down – tried to console me. But how do you console the inconsolable? What can you do but be there, listen and watch – witness to the greatest grief a soul will ever bear. What could he do for me other than hold me for those few brief seconds when I’d allow it, until I would have to pull away as I attempted to crawl out of my very own skin. Not wanting to live there for another second. How could I with this newfound knowledge wreaking more dissonance on my brain than I could withstand? But as hard as I pushed, it would not go. The knowledge was lodged there as tightly as a newly-turned screw.

I knew in that moment my life would never be the same.

_______________________________________________________

As scary and hard as my father’s sudden passing was, there have been more gifts and blessings than I can count over the past 16 years – because of his death, in spite of it, as I muddled through those first few years. And as much as my dad’s death has shaped my life and perspective, so too have the many gifts and blessings that have inspired me, sustained me, and helped make me whole: my family, my friends, quotes, books, songs, prayers, writing, being married, having children, nature, spirituality, exercise, and the list goes on and on.

One quote in particular, by Rainer Maria Rilke, has buoyed me during the most challenging periods in my life when I am overwhelmed and clamoring for control amidst the seeming chaos:

I beg you to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you could not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it but take whatever comes with great trust, and only if it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.

Other writings, like the inscription in the leather bound journal my dad gave me for my high school graduation, inspire me to live my biggest and best life:

 . . . I have been trying to think of something so special for you. Everything seemed inadequate, but Walt Whitman must have had this in mind for someone like you.

Meaghan –
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body . . . The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready, ploughed and manured . . . others may not know but he or she shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches . . . and shall master all attachment.”

Now I’ll stop being heavy, Meg. If I could. Congratulations but your work has just begun and never ends. What fun you’ll have.

Love always,

Dad

Sometime read Rumi, Kabir, and Mirabai. Never stop drawing your dreams. When you’re sixty, oh my.

Nothing my dad ever gave me or wrote me was inadequate. Indeed, I return to his writings, letters, books and music time and time again.  They feed my soul and keep him close – no matter the time or distance between us.  They ground me and give me both roots and wings with which I continue to forge my life and story.

What I know for sure: Life is a lesson in letting go. Of accepting what is. Of opening ourselves to try new things. Of embracing change.  Of trusting and being patient.  Of living one day at a time into our answers.

My dad’s sudden passing taught me many lessons but perhaps the most important is this:

EACH DAY IS A GIFT.

And I, I am forever grateful for this hard-won lesson.

(Thank you Dad.)

Forget-Me-Not

At my favorite place for the third time this summer, and you’d think I’d be writing about a heart full of grateful.  And maybe I am. But first I need to clear the clutter to get to the grateful and with a lot of layers to uncover, it’s a bit of an excavation dig – bear with me because I think we’ll get to gold (or at least Forget-Me-Not flower purply-blue).
My heart is heavy and it’s probably because the leaving – which I’ll do in two hours – is always so very hard. And because we had my Aunt Sharon’s Celebration of Life yesterday – which turned out so lovely and was the perfect tribute, in the perfect place, for a gentle, compassionate soul who is now at peace.

And also, it is the 16-year anniversary of my father’s death this week.  And though 16 years sounds like a lifetime to some, at this time of year it comes back to me like yesterday.

All of this weighs on me and the strong feelings make it hard to unravel words on paper into something meaningful – believe me, I’ve tried for a couple weeks now. It’s such a mixed jumble: happy to be at our cottage amidst family I love, who drive me crazy, who make me laugh, whose history I know and share; sad because my aunt’s Alzheimer’s was mean and unrelenting in what it took away from her and her family, leaving us with sweet memories that include her contagious giggle, devotion to dogs, classic style, steadfast modesty and genuine kindheartedness.  And her, with no memory at all – a clean slate of a spirit, released of her human accessories, as ready an angel as she’ll ever be. Pure and innocent and unfettered . . . ready to do God’s good work.

And the longing for my dad, well, it’s palpable at this time of year.  An open ache of what might have been as my life and family continue to unfold and his tangible presence is missing from my and my children’s lives. It’s like at some cellular level my body remembers how swiftly he was ripped from my life: a “now you see him-now you don’t” kind of cruel trick you can’t believe is possible.  Until that reality and kind of knowing sets in.  And though the ache becomes less frequent and more manageable as time goes by, there are times I REALLY miss him.  Early September is simply a given - a coming-around-again moment that deepens each year.

Held at “The Dell” in an open, grassy space in the middle of the Northern Michigan woods, my aunt’s Celebration of Life was also a coming-around-again moment.  Coming full circle, her memorial service occurred in the very same spot where she happened to get married some 53 years ago. And as the minister made his remarks, he stood where my aunt and uncle stood at their marriage ceremony.  A passage from Job 12:7-8 was quoted that echoed my Aunt Sharon’s love for animals - especially dogs, deer, and birds:

7“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you.
Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
8Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you.
Let the fish in the sea speak to you.

This notion of connectedness rings true for me; that God created all creatures and that we are One, all part and parcel of the same family. Native Americans give each animal symbolism and speak of animal totems or spirits that guide individuals in their lives and on their spiritual paths.  Though Native American spirituality was more my dad’s schtick than my Aunt Sharon’s (by a very long shot), perhaps the baby fox that was found dying under one of the tents early on the morning of her memorial service could have been one of my aunt’s spirit guides?

For those who knew my aunt, she hated having attention brought to herself. Never wanted her picture taken. Wanted to blend in and not have a lot of attention made on her behalf. And when I looked up the meaning of the fox in Native American traditions, one phrase really stood out:

“the art of camouflage”

Described as blending into one’s surroundings and having the ability to keenly observe, I can still picture my aunt sitting unobtrusively in the red chair on the front porch of the cottage quietly taking it all in. Fox medicine also illuminates the Oneness embodied in camouflage; it is believed that if a fox appears, it may be asking us to see the many possibilities of Oneness inherent in any situation.  I’d like to believe that fox that passed on the morning of my aunt’s Celebration of Life was there to remind us of our Oneness – to each other, the animals, each living creation - that we are all connected, that none of us are alone as we make our transition from this life to the next.

As a gift to my aunt’s many friends and family who attended her celebration of life, a small packet of Forget-Me-Not flower seeds was handed out to each attendee. My aunt’s love for flowers was well-known and a trip to a nursery in the springtime filled my aunt’s cup – the vibrant colors and smells and hope inherent in each blooming bud spoke to her. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The Earth laughs in flowers.”  Anyone lucky enough to hear my aunt’s giggle or happy laughter might just envision a red gerbera daisy: bright, happy, full of life.

The Forget-Me-Nots, they are a perennial and will come back each year in true coming-around-again style.  A quick google search said this:

Forget-Me-Nots are easy to grow. They will bloom profusely in shady areas, and do not require a lot of attention.

My aunt was a vibrant bloom – in sun and in shade, in her happier years and through her valiant battle with Alzheimer’s.  She never wanted to be the center of attention. She was adept at the art of camouflage. Except when she laughed. Then, it was a profusion of flowers and a vibrancy that could not be denied.

Forget-Me-Not, indeed.