The Kitchen Window

I have always felt the heart of a home is the kitchen.

Not just because meals bring families together or that food is generally common ground for the ages. It’s because that’s where happiness settles.

Living rooms are places we watch TV.  Bedrooms are where we sleep, rest when we are sick, or sulk when the world is mean.  My kitchen is the focal point of our home. It’s full of light, open and welcoming. I have always loved my kitchen.

The kitchen window faces my backyard. It’s above the sink which is beautiful because I can watch the kids in the yard, stomping on marigolds, or as a football launches into my tomato plants. The large stock fence was never painted and is weathered from years of storms, snow, sun and gardening. I could look out that window to see the fruits of our labor as the cucumbers grew up the netting vine, the cantaloupe spread out as it grew flowers.  The rich green grass boasted of the love, tenderness and attention we spent growing it.

Where the kitchen was the heart, the yard was the soul of our family.

I was standing at the kitchen sink, admiring the fresh red spots I could see from the window indicating I had tomatoes ready to pick. The juiciness would mean a thick, savory sauce would be on the menu for dinner tonight. I was counting the number of red spots I could see from the window in the sea of green plants when the phone rang.  I sighed as I dried off my hands on the dish towel and took one more look out the window before I answered.

When you hear the words "your child over-dosed on heroin and is at the emergency room, come now because she might not make it" your life changes forever.

I spent countless days, nights, weeks and months trying to chase recovery for my daughter. By the time I realized that the one that should be chasing clean time, and a better life was my daughter and not I, my utopia in the yard had changed dramatically.

The tomatoes perished without the loving hand to water them and pick the ripened fruit. The mint grew wild, taking over and strangling the cilantro and basil. The cantaloupe's flowers wilted and died, not producing buds to grow into melons. The cucumbers shriveled and hung limply on the vine. The eggplant curled, and withered. Cooking with them now would produce a grainy, bitter, taste, much like the way I viewed my life.

Looking out the window in my broken-hearted kitchen, into the backyard with the tattered soul, was a reflection of our true selves.

My daughter would never be the same. My life would never be the same.

The love and attention I had put into my garden, I had also put into raising my daughter. No amount of love or begging would be bring either her or my garden back now.

Melanie Brayden 

Melanie lives in Danvers, MA with her life partner, her three kids, 
his two kids, two cats Diego and Blu and their dog Bud. 
Her oldest child, her daughter, is a heroin addict. 

Melanie began a blog, The Addict in My Basement, 
to chronicle her struggles as the mother of an addict. 

Suicide Surviving to Life Thriving

It was this morning eight years ago my knees gave out and I hit the ground. 

The concrete was the only thing strong enough to support me after the words landed in my life.  My brother had just walked toward me with his head held low.  I could see he was searching for something.  He took me gently by the arm as I asked him “John, what’s wrong?”.  He hesitated for a brief second, while I stood staring.  Then he lifted his gaze to mine and he said “Tara…..Dad killed himself”.

That’s when I crumbled to the ground.  I was half holding on, half begging for it to swallow me whole.  It’s the moment I heard my spirit break and shatter into pieces.

I don’t often let my mind wander to that string of seconds.  It’s too difficult to relive.  The powerful impact, a swift and violent punch to the soul, is still something I physically feel as if it’s happening all over again.

In eight years I’ve learned to revisit this moment sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

As I look back, I recognize massive shifts in my perspective and awareness.  Time is now measured by before and after.  Dad’s suicide the harsh beginning to a brand new reality.

In eight long years I’ve learned (the hard, bumpy, bruised knee and bloody knuckled way) of navigating Grief, living with Depression and managing two full-blown assholes called Anxiety and Panic.

In this time I’ve also learned how to patch my broken spirit back together into a mosaic puzzle I’m growing proud of.

It’s no secret that my family and I have experienced a great deal of loss that didn’t stop after Dad.  Tragic loss.  Unbelievable loss.  Too massive for our minds and hearts and souls to absorb.  Too big to hold on to and too heavy a burden to carry.

So what do you do with it all then?  If you can’t carry them, hold them or tuck them all away...where does it all fit?

Eight years ago I was certain I would drown in the murky water of it all.  I had no clue what my tomorrows would look like under all this heartache.  I had no space big enough to store it all.

Fast forward to today, after a tremendous amount of hard work and digging deep, the one and only thing I know for sure is that letting go of it, bit by bit, is the only option.  It’s not about storing it.  It’s about releasing it.

Release.  What an epiphany (when I allowed myself to have it).

Talk about true grit.

Each day I work at it.  I supplement the dark moments with memories that are lighter, happier and healthier.  It’s not always pretty.  In fact, it’s a hot mess.  Emotions swinging around like Kettle Bells, me doing my best to focus my energy on the positives and not feed the gluttonous negatives that wait anxiously in the wings.

I study.  I read.  I try my very best to be understanding and have compassion.  When I can’t do any of the above I turn the kindness onto myself and soothe the parts of me that ache.  In time, the gift I’ve been given in return for my hard work is Belief.

Belief that letting go is the gateway.  It’s where I will find the shift from surviving suicide and tragedy to thriving, one day at a time.

Each day I apply this practice I can feel myself healing.  My clenched fists begin unfolding, my sadness slowly lifting, my resentment tasting less bitter and my anger simmering.

Somewhere along the way I realized that surviving simply wasn’t enough for me.  I wanted more.  Thriving, in the face of it all, was my only true option.

So with that I decided I would let go, piece by piece, and set all those experiences ablaze on a trail of a life well lived.

Tragic loss, great love, mosaic soul patches and all.

:: Always from under the same sky ::

Tara

Tara Mazzeo Jackson

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective, 

Curator for Bohemian Living, Owner/Artist of Bungalow Wilde 

and Blogger at Bits & Pieces.

Tara is a lover of yoga, bleeder of words and a bohemian city-kid who has a knack for rescuing stray animals.  

She has a mean case of wanderlust and you’d be hard pressed to find her without these things:

a journal in her bag, a camera in-hand and sun kissed shoulders.

Tara writes from experience, pain, truth, triumph and that place, 

deep down, where the words simmer in emotion.

The Hardest Month

Hey July. 

I’m psyching myself out for you and I need to be ready. Somehow I’ve managed to lose more people in you and I will never get why.

Certain dates, forever seared into my mind, haunt me like a dark room after a scary movie. I know there is nothing in that dark room but the fact that I can’t see what is there is frightening.  

I can’t see what you’re up to this year and it’s quite possible you may be nice to me. I really hope so. But the not knowing sets the paranoia off every year since you started wreaking havoc on my life.

This year is worse than ever, for July, you must know about my possible at bats. The ones I will worry about even more now that you are here. My positive thinking will be harder than ever. But I will try.

While I have learned to cope with all the losses, not one day has healed me and never will. Please, July, be kind to me. Please, July, don't take anyone else that I love.

Please, July, please.

Melissa Sue Vieira

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective

Melissa wears many hats.  
Some are super colorful and some are dark, just like her stories.  

She is a mother, friend, writer, survivor, warrior, yogi, listener, talker 
and a lover of all things art.