The Business At Hand

This past week has been difficult, at best, reluctantly walking an altered path divergent of the planned road. Long nights passed with family comforting loss. Trying to find reason in the unreasonable. Redefining purpose in every day. Normal life and routines halting; the overdone theme of my 2014. I have become familiar with carrying on in chaos and so studio business must go on as well.
 

While prepping for Baby I learned that I loved creating functional toys.  I have the privilege of working at Hendley Market in Galveston where we receive a daily crowd of tourists with children in tow. We pride ourselves on being a child-friendly destination where parents can browse while nostalgic toys keep the kiddos busy  The cashmere kitties (aka the Purrrrrrrrrrrfect Pet) have been a huge hit this summer.

Watching wee ones delight in the silly cats and carry armfuls around the store, tending to each one with loving coos, just melts my heart!  The studio mice crave the same attention and in honor of our lost wee one, Hand of Bela Peck will continue with a full line of affordable simple sweet toys.

 As for my daughter, she is taking life day by day and doing well.  She helps out in the studio from time to time and in those small stitches and patterns we will mourn what we have lost and celebrate what lies ahead.  In the hours we pass together I can keep my watchful eye on her, hugs and tissues at the ready.

 

 I was touched by the number of friends who shared their stories and shocked by the number of women I know who have suffered in silence with miscarriage. It is a deeply personal form of loss kept between the closest of confidences.  As I continue to create, to help my daughter heal, I will carry all of their stories with me. 

LOVE  &  HOPE



And Then There Is Silence

Silence.  That defeating distance between what should be and the reality of what is unfolding.  I've experienced this silent mystery too often this year- the slow motion dizziness of life as it turns upside down like a laundry basket emptying its contents tip-toppling to the end of a long staircase tumble.  There is no real remarkable noise.  It happens in hyper-speed and  leaves only blurry utterances of  actors adlibbing their way through the fall.

 

Two days ago family gathered for the excitement of my daughter's 12 week sonogram.  Even though there were only four of us waiting to hear the heartbeat, we were too much of a crowd for the tiny room and had to wait turns.  I went in first with my daughter and her boyfriend, all of us making our humorous cases for the boy or girl debate.

 The grainy image cleared into full view of the expected wee one. As the tiny picture flashed on the screen I saw my daughter's face.  Where I expected joy, I saw confusion.  There were a few questions, grasps for a different understanding, but like I said- the actors were stumbling;  their voices nearing inaudible as the room filled with the white noise of fear, desperate sadness, and loss. She knew in that instant that life had slipped away

 

There are no words to comfort a mother losing a child. The doctor's droll,  "I see this all the time" and "don't blame yourself" evaporate in thoughts of a sweet cuddled bundle already filled with a mother's, a father's, a grandmother's, dreams and hopes. And as my daughter pulled a brave face out of her pocket, I felt my knees buckle as I pleaded with the doctor to give me hope where no hope could be offered.

 

 

 

In my last post I wrote how some had thought my daughter too young to have a child.  She is 19. She has been to college. She has been across the US and Canada on a motorcycle with her Dad. She has played with tigers in a Thailand jungle. She spent her high school junior year summer recovering from open heart surgery.  Usually shy and quiet, she initiated a media campaign earlier this year to try finding the hit and run driver who nearly killed her father.  She has mourned the loss of more than a few key people in her life. She has the kindest, most gentle humanitarian spirit and her soul is an old one that will rise from this loss as well.

 As I wrote in my last post; we do not choose when life is to come and go.  Life opened the door in May, 2014.  On July 21, 2014, life left, closing the door as it went. 

~Rest in peace precious wee one.  You are loved. Always ~

 

 



And Then There Is Life

2014 has been full of the unexpected, the unforeseen, the unpredictable, the slow healing of time, the redefinition of priorities, and a necessary slowing of life lived in full speed. Studio doors have been closed, production reduced to bare minimum leaving nothing but the dull hum of stunted creativity.  And then, without warning.... suddenly, there is life.

 

I am going to be a grandmother!

 A new wee soul to brighten this uncertain world.  A tiny face to smile, a brand new person to hug and hold tight. All the possibilities of hope and love just 7 months away! 

The studio doors have flung open with a softer feel; up-cycled cashmere and tiny whimsical cotton prints drape the work table. There is laughter and excitement among the studio mice and the necessary rethinking of traditional patterns is taking place.

The studio mice will become larger for easier grasp in wee hands. 

Small parts will give way to embroidered features to avoid choking hazards. And time will be spent in the whimsical fabric stacks of childhood themes. Nearly 2 decades have passed since I needed baby themed prints and WOW!! There are so many brilliant designers out there! I'm not certain I can buy enough! 

I'd forgotten the love of small stitches in simple lines to create the necessities of welcoming new life into this world; soft blankies, diaper covers, rattles and bibs.  The splendid repetition of snipping corners, turning and pressing, all the while dreaming how this baby will impact our world.

Some have said we are too young to be grandparents, that our daughter is not yet ready to be a mother.  All I can say after the year we have had is that we do not tell life when we wish it to come and go.  That door opens and closes often without our consent.  Ready or not, life is coming. We are simply blessed to be here to embrace it together.

As for those with inquiring minds: we are sooooo ready!

 LOVE & NEW LIFE!

 

 

 

Back Road Healing

Healing has finally reached full speed and we know no better way to celebrate than to get back out on the roads less travelled.  Both my husband and his Ducati have been through rehab and are now reunited. But to err on the side of caution, Kevin is taking the road back on 4 wheels for another  two months.  At least for the long rides.

A soul needs to wander, to explore, and breathe in what the modern world deems outdated. On our first road trip since Kevin's motorcycle accident we headed from Houston to Fort Worth on what I like to call the "rural express". Texas Farm to Market roads are the best medicine for the newly healed.  Curvy rural blacktop goodness between pastures, small churches, and long-dried-up gas stations provide therapy not available anywhere else in the world.  Fields of wildflowers ignite the countryside in bright orange, purple, and red under a crystal blue cloudless sky.  If FM 339 could be bottled, the intoxication level would be 100 proof euphoria.

To our surprise, we rediscovered a farm we explored years ago and though we forgot its exact location it has been ever present in our minds.   A simple white farmhouse.  Small, but with high ceilings and a wide front porch with a sweeping view of endless green fields of corn. Two massive red barns hug the corner of the country road. Five years ago the property was for sale but being in such a rural location made it out of our geographical reach. Apparently it was never purchased and when we turned the corner and saw the tell tale barn our hearts soared, then sank. Mother Nature had our barn in a choke hold, having already reclaimed the house.

We took our time exploring the dilapidated structures, listening to the busy hum of bee colonies nesting in the walls, cautiously stepping to avoid hidden snakes, and romped through the broken house undaunted by a cranky screech owl nesting in the rafters.  An old piano sat vacated in the living room, yellow sheet music scattered by years of wind through the walls.  I imagined the soft keyed notes on the prairie air as I looked through the poured glass window panes.

There is magic in this place.  I knew it the first time I saw her.  I've never shed the belief that one day I will rebuild her sister on my own land.  Often I've drawn her from memory trying to relay to others this mythical house I crave.

Having to get to Fort Worth, I said a lengthy farewell to my muse.  From between the front porch columns, under the wary eye of the owl, I silently thanked God for the peace of this place and the gift He has sent me in keeping Kevin safe.  I understand the owl and her staunch need to defend what she sees as hers, her kingdom of peace, for I have done the same.

 

LOVE & WANDER

 

 

Healing Week 5

Five weeks of recovery is now under our belt.  We have learned to adjust to life in the slow lane- to linger over coffee, read magazines cover to cover, and put away the alarm clocks. Our home is like a time capsule. Kev's briefcase leans against his dresser- still unpacked from his flight home the night before the accident. That sofa I was reupholstering is frozen, mid-room, ghostly draped in muslin.  My studio door remains closed while healing takes top priority.

The final toll was heavy: 8 broken ribs, smashed scapula, dislocated clavicle, punctured and collapsed lung, pneumothorax, hemothorax, and the crushing blow of two pulmonary emboli.  The discovery of the emboli was nothing less than divine intervention. Had it not been for the tenacity of a student doctor to stand up to his supervising physician and push for c-scans Kevin would've been released with two time bombs in his lungs.

I have never not known this man.  We grew up across the street from one another, raided each others' forts, spent summer nights in homemade tents, and shared a first kiss playing spin the bottle in his garage.  The past two weeks at home have felt like those nights in the backyard tent- not sleeping close, but wishing we could.  Talking about dreams and childish wants until we fall asleep.  Words filling darkness, chasing away fears of mythical beasts, erasing uncertainty.

 

At times in the hospital I would see that 10 year old boy with eyes green as early spring moss blinking awake in an unfamiliar room.  Through the night he woke often, sometimes believing he was in Thailand, other times in Dhaka, and he wondered why the airline let us linger so long in this hallway. His days blended, confused in hydrocodone mists and blinding fury of pain. Those days are memories now and despite the trauma, Kevin has little recollection of just how much danger he was in.  For while he hallucinated, I hung tightly to the precipice of every breath, every lab result, every unmade memory for which I foolishly believed we had time.

What unfolds in these moments is the realization that life was getting the best of us.  Before the accident, days were planned according to outdated goals.  We endured weeks apart for the few days together between work, travel, and jet lag.  We became normalized to love in fragmented time.

Slowly we are reclaiming what routine has a bad habit of burying.  Perhaps we're that half full type of folk who see the positive shining brighter than the bad.  Maybe it's the scare of nearly losing life that sharpens one's focus and blurs out the frivolous.

 

 

Now as we reconnect, we see the disconnect and are not content to resume that mode.  In many ways the accident brought us closer than ever before.  Words left unsaid have been spoken and roads we've wanted to explore will now be traveled.  What lies ahead will be greeted together, with one voice, and hands clasped with the strength of every life past life we lived together.

LOVE  &  RECOVERY

Comfort in Trauma

You never know how it feels to be alive until you know how it feels to die.

I've sang these lines a thousand times while listening to Noah and the Whale in my studio.  Until two weeks ago these were just words. The moment I saw my husband hit the highway pavement, his motorcycle still spinning ahead of his limp body, those lyrics became my greatest fear.

Today is day 16 of my husband's recovery at Ben Taub Trauma Center in Houston. 

 

Time is amorphous in the hospital.  Foggy days, mixed up nights, stripped of every normal human routine.  Our section of a room shared with three other patients has no window.  Minutes dissolve into hours and drain away the days.  Progress is measured in tubes in and out, x-ray results, and ambulatory devices.  We have watched many roommates arrive and go home while we remain. Bunking with people with whom our paths would least likely cross, we all ride the roller coaster together. And perhaps most of us are better because of it.

In a trauma hospital there are few illness patients.  Our roommates have been shot, run over, stabbed and involved in horrific accidents.  Police officers sit outside many rooms waiting for the accused to heal and to take victim statements.  There are those in grave condition and those with mere wounds requiring a one night stay.  Some we have befriended through the curtains, others we couldn't wait to see discharged.  Though we are a truly diverse group, we share common bonds of pain and healing.

I have met two other women tending their husbands, remaining at the bedside to give comfort: one Asian, one Hispanic.  We don't speak the same language but we communicate through our expressions.   Looks of fear, worry, relief and sadness are universal and within these facial cues we lend one another support. Through the curtain we hear each other's cries, the sighs of relief, and laughter.  I know these women are like me refusing to leave the loves of our lives. Over the weeks we have learned basic greetings in each other's dialect.  We offer awkward hugs sometimes misread between cultures but in our need to not be alone we have found each other.  

Life changed without warning two weeks ago.  I feel I've lived a lifetime in between then and now. My husband is healing and soon we hope to go home, to regain a sense of truly living, to feel the sun escort the true hours of each day.  Life will never be the same.  In fact I believe it will be a more authentic, more tolerant, more understanding, more loving life.

 

LOVE & HEALING

Snippets

Accidents like this are recalled in snippets.  Sudden flashes that remind me it's all real.  Images that greet me before I even open my eyes in the morning, waking into another day of getting up, splashing water on my face, and getting to the hospital.  As I drive I remember what day it is and what the original plan was before the crash.  Hotel reservations never cancelled, road trip dates passed, and daily routines slammed to a halt.  It's all a blur as I make it from League City to Ben Taub Hospital in downtown Houston.  Though the days are long I carry on.  My husband is alive.  Everything else is insignificant. 

 

 

On February 19, 2014, Kevin was riding his motorcycle to Mancuso Power Sports to check out some bags for his new Ducati Mutistrada. He just returned from Singapore the day before and in three weeks he would be riding a motorcycle through the back roads around Cape Town, South Africa.  It was a good day. I followed behind him so we could grab some lunch while we left the bike at the shop for a routine check. Merging on to 59 South from 610 North in Belaire, my husband was blind sided by an SUV that made a crazy last minute, illegal lane change.  That snippet plays over and over. I see a car beginning to change lanes.  One car separates me from my husband.  Though I can't see my husband's bike I know there isn't room for that vehicle coming over. And then I see something like a ragdoll go up in the air and back down out of my sight. I know he's down.

There are other snippets that endlessly loop: my frantic screams, my husband unresponsive on the road, the stillness of traffic halted, the deafening fear in the silence of knowing this is life or death.

 

Angels also come in snippets.  It's amazing how many people stay in their cars and watch but then there are the few that come to help.  The man who sees everything and is first to call 911.  A complete stranger who prays over my husband and in that moment he wakes. A man who reminds my husband to breathe. The neurosurgeon just ahead of the scene who runs back to assess Kevin while we wait for first responders to make their way through snarled traffic.  Every driver who pulled aside to let the ambulance through.  The woman who gave me a hug.  I'll never know who these people are in their everyday lives but in their moments of stopping for strangers and doing whatever they could, they will always be angels in my heart.

 

Today is day 8 in the hospital.  These hours also play out in snippets though they feel like one uninterrupted sequence of lightless days. Emily, our daughter, and I take our comfort here.  We pass the moments with quiet pursuits waiting for the day we remember the healing journey in distant snippets.



LOVE  &  HEALING