Holy Now

 "This mornin' outside I stood / I saw a little red wing bird / Shining like a burning bush / And singing like a scripture verse. It made me want to bow my head / I remember when church let out. / How things have changed since then / Everything is holy now."

- Excerpt from song lyrics to "Holy Now" by Peter Mayer

Burning bushes glow fire engine red at peak season, and are highly visible now in the West due to our warm and sunshiney October. When I was in Montana last week with Mom, we saw a few burning bushes as well as maple trees and highlighter yellow larches. On my walks I did not see any red wing birds, but we had a family of deer rest each day in the shadow of the house, just outside of the basement windows and easily observable from the living room. My sister calls it "deer day care."

My favorite vista was Mama deer sitting a cautious distance from her three little ones, back turned to them and huge long ears on a swivel to catch any possible danger. The youngsters sat with an eye on Mama, turning their heads to stare at us whenever they heard foot falls or voices from inside the house. Mama wasn't too worried about us but she did jump to high alert when shots were fired across the bay. The echo of their hunting-season clarion call carried, and Mama eventually sat under the rose bushes against the house while her babies retreated to shelter under the buck brush. 

The Mama deer, with her combination of devotion and "leave me alone" attitude, resonated with me. I remember the days with little ones, days full of miracles and minutiae, when I wanted to gaze at my children with awe but also to escape for an hour or two. I wrote a blog post headed by Peter Mayer's "Holy Now" when the kids were in elementary school. The beautiful lyrics capture how we can see everything as miracle, and the song lyrics reached out and grabbed me in the car yesterday, tying those early days with young children to this special time with my Mom.

Spending long, quiet minutes with people you love, with space to appreciate our shared existence, always feels miraculous to me now. I loved the time with Mom, soaking in histories, laughter, jokes, walks. On our last walk we saw the deer family out in another yard, and one little guy came close to check us out. We got a photo of her head lowered in our direction, bright black eyes staring unblinkingly as her soft ears twitched. Then a noise spooked her and her thin legs and shiny hooves scrambled for purchase in the landscaping as she bounded away.

It was hard to say goodbye to Mom, to the special quiet moments. I had to leave her in the Missoula airport, water bottle at her side and cane in hand, to wait for my brother. I wanted to ask the TSA agents to look after her, just as I asked them to watch over Aden on her first solo flight. Time and the people we love are precious and fragile, and every time together seems like a miracle.

Mr Moon Shines Bright in Montana

 "Oh Mr. Moon, moon, bright and shiny moon / Won't you please shine down on me?

Oh Mr. Moon, moon, bright and shiny moon / Won't you come out from behind that tree?

Oh my life's in danger and I'm scared to run / There's a man behind me with a big shotgun

"Oh Mr. Moon, moon, bright and shiny moon / Won't you please shine down on me?"

-Lyrics to Mr. Moon song and nursery rhyme, unattributed

Last night I lay in the spare room bed in my parent's house, spotlit by the full supermoon beaming through my window. Toasty under my electric blanket, I watched the illuminated clouds pass by and remembered nights in this house with our babies, catching a blessed few hours of sleep in the dark and quiet while they slept (at last). The lyrics of "Mr Moon" came to mind and I was startled to remember the man behind the tree with a shotgun -- was there ever a time when that was appropriate for grade school? My third-grade class used to belt that line, singing out of tune with gusto, but that song would never be in the curriculum now.

I dreamt of coaching swimming, urging my swimmers to kick (an activity they do with reluctance) and woke myself up by flutter-kicking my heavy covers off the bed. Though my feet were imprisoned I had apparently been carrying on with some urgency, as I woke up sweating. After a chuckle at my foolishness I went back to dreamless sleep.

My siblings and I are rotating through visits with my incredible Mom, who is here recovering from a stroke that put her in the hospital in early September. She's doing well with her recovery, walking 5000 steps a day, eating a normal diet and working on her enunciation. Yesterday she used so many elite vocabulary words I felt like I was back in my Harvard English classes! 

Our visits here are a gift of time and presence, backlit by the beautiful scenery of upstate Montana. I have two robes on now, as it's only 60 degrees in the house, and the heavily frosted grass outside unmarked by deer hooves or geese's webbed feet. Yesterday we saw a brilliant full rainbow as we drove into a storm by the Mission Mountains and took it as a lucky omen for both the time together and the future. Under the benevolent gaze of the moon and double rainbows how could the time be anything but blessed?

Bottomless Joy

We've just returned from spending four days with my family in Montana, a state where both my parents were raised, where they met, married and later retired. They built a lovely home on Flathead Lake where my siblings and I, our spouses and children, have gathered for twenty-plus years. My father was a city councilman and mayor in their small town, and when his health declined, my mother nursed him for seven years, largely in the house and town that previously knew them as a power couple.

When our group of twenty-two gathered for a singalong last Friday evening, Mom was the brightest and most festive voice, the loudest clapper. My brothers danced a jig around a red solo cup as we sang the songs we've adopted over the years as family anthems: the Proclaimers "500 Miles" with its da-da-da-da chorus that we smother with "Clav-a-det-scher"; with John Denver's "Wild Montana Skies" and with the Georgetown fight song (my father, my brother and my nephew are Hoyas).

As I looked around the circle, every face expressed emotion: those who were leaving early the next day had tears in their eyes, the youngest grandchildren were wide-eyed and perhaps a bit horrified by their fathers' boisterous vocals and crazy dance moves, and the spouses were good-natured, singing along with not an eye roll in sight.  But Mom was my favorite to watch, her smile beaming and her blue eyes bright, not a tear even threatening - only joy. It's as if the many years she spent accompanied by sorrow carved out a hollow that is now full of happiness and light. I've never seen such capacity for happiness, such joy reflected back on the people who co-created it.

My brothers, my sisters and I are so blessed in the luck of having two strong parents who made their love known to us throughout our childhood, and we are impossibly blessed now with a strong mother who put a an impossible load of caregiving on her back - only to stand without bitterness when she was relieved of it, ready to fill that space with more love, with light and with joy.

An Irish Wake at Flathead Lake

 "Those we love don't go away, They walk beside us every day, unseen, unheard, but always near, Still loved, still missed and very dear."  - Prayer on an Irish Headstone

Five days in Montana were not enough to celebrate my father's life, share stories in which he figured prominently, laugh over my uncle's tall tales and weep at the cemetery From joy at embracing my brothers and their families again, to awe at my grown-up nieces and nephews, to tears when an unexpected picture of Dad caught me unawares, I flew up and down the roller coaster of emotions.

Dad was a devout Catholic and we celebrated Mass for him in the shadows of the mountains, just up the road from the cherry tree orchard where we used to go and pick buckets of the ripe red fruit. I passed out cotton handkerchiefs in Dad's memory because when I was a child, he always had a clean and pressed hankie on hand. When I could barely see over the ironing board, I helped Mom spray and iron those squares and swelled with satisfaction when my stack was done. 

My brother Michael read from the Old Testament at the service, not looking up to meet the eyes of his family until after he was done, when the tears came. Crying turned to laughter when he sat in the pew and his five-year-old daughter, Mae, leaned in, asking in a stage whisper, "When's it MY turn?" 

The next generation provided wonderful comic relief but also tender support. When my youngest brother, James, stepped up to the lectern for the second reading, and broke down when trying to speak of Heaven, his three-year-old son grabbed him in two little hands and tried to kiss his tears away. Having our families around us felt true to Dad's legacy, and seeing his oldest brother, Greg, age 90, in church brought more tears and also gratitude. Greg later told me how much he had wanted to come when dad was ill, but his own infirmities kept him at home on the East Coast, "until it was too late." But he took great joy in connecting with each of us and sharing new tales of his times with dad both in childhood and in New York City, when they were young professionals together.

The next day, representatives from the VA came out to the cemetery where my father has a headstone. They set up a podium with an empty helmet suspended over empty boots, and presented my mother with an American flag in Dad's honor. Dad was a Specialist, 5th class, in the Army, and when the white-haired, bewhiskered gentlemen formed a line and did rollcall, they shouted his name and rank. "Clavadetscher, Julius!" No reply. "Clavadetscher, Julius!" Again, no reply. The silence was unexpectedly agonizing, and two of the men in our midst had to whisper "Here" in Dad's absence. Yet they called once more, "Clavadetscher, Julius!" and only then received a reply. "He's not here, he's gone to the great Commander in the sky."  An old soldier played taps while John and I each put a hand on Mom's shoulder and handkerchiefs flew up to our faces like birds startled into flight.

At our celebration of Dad's life, I tried to speak coherently of Dad's influence on our lives, his insistence on effort, on service to others, and his adventurous streak that left us children in many harrowing predicaments, halfway up mountains or horseback in a thunderstorm. He was not dull and he had such a strong moral compass that his legacy was never in doubt. William commented when we left Montana how grateful he was to have gone because now he understands more of what a life should be.

But we also laughed and sang and danced - a true Irish wake for the son of an O'Malley. Our cousins stared in amazement as the entire group belted out John Denver's "Wild Montana Skies" in chorus, and as I grabbed James for a jig, his boys' eyes grew wider than dinner plates. I hope the younger generations saw joy in a life well-lived, in the triumph of love and the strength of family bonds. As we drove off to the airport yesterday, they said "We love your family, Mom," and I reminded them it was their family, too.

A few more lasting images of the visit: Mae first standing up on a paddleboard in the lake. She got her little feet square on the rubber mat, leaned forward with two hands searching for balance, then triumphantly stood tall, lifting her fists in the air like an Olympic gymnast who had flown high and stuck the landing. Our flotilla of inner tubes, paddle boards, floaties and chairs gave her a perfect ten and a wet ovation.

Another image: Uncle Greg holding court on the back porch as a rainstorm blew in from the lake, telling us about his love of the nuns at his Catholic school, and the punishments he earned from his German father. The afternoon on the lake, cousins branding each other with water balloons in the front yard, Mom sitting with her brother and sister at church. Thank God for family, for travel, for reunions. We all pledged to do it again soon, whatever the occasion. Thank you, Dad, we love you so much.

Wild Montana Skies

Each morning at our rental house in West Yellowstone we were awakened by a pair of trumpeter swans which flew directly overhead, emitting their odd call as they passed. The kids, waking up to the whoosh of wings and the trumpets, named the birds "Alarm" and "Cluck." On a morning in a middle of the week I also heard the unearthly bellows of an elk bugling in the woods not far away; the odd brass section of elk and swan echoed along the ridge and mesmerized me. Ten days in Montana also brought multiple bald eagle and bison sightings, encounters with plenty of geothermal marvels, and an unforgettable canoe trip down the Missouri River.

On our last day of vacation we took our two oldest children down the river in canoes; I piloted with our daughter aboard and Rob captained the vessel with our older son. Both paddled well, though still struggling a bit to get the oar in the water at the proper depth and over the edge of the boat without clunking their arms or torquing their small bodies. As they weigh substantially less than we do, the front of the boat could act like a sail, catching the wind and blowing ceaselessly to the shallows. Needless to say, it was a good workout for the adults in the family, and that was before the wind picked up and the lightning flashed in the distance.

As the storm rapidly bent down on us, my husband called for our trio of boats (his brother and girlfriend were also with us) to get off the water. With some difficulty I made to join them; it is hard to steer and paddle with storm blow against you! My daughter and I left paddles, socks and water bottles aboard the canoe, dragged it out of the water and went to join the rest of our team in a make-shift tent. We had a tarp which we anchored in between the other two canoes and underneath the rippling, crackling tarp we stayed mainly dry. The kids' eyes went wide as saucers and they teetered between glee and fright. The needle tipped to fright when my husband and his brother peeked out of the tarp to see our third canoe blow right out into the river - and flip over. "We've lost it!" yelled my brother-in-law, and my daughter burst into tears. "My socks!" she said.

I assured her that we could buy more socks, and we played "I made a cake but I made a mistake . . ." while their dad went abroad in the storm to find the canoe and bring it back, if he could. As the wind died down we felt better, though I battled with my worry about Rob outside in the rain and lightning. (This happened ten years before at the same family reunion, though upriver, and he had stood beneath the river cottonwood trees during the storm. We all thought he would be crushed by falling branches, but he didn't move. Stubborn, for sure).

In the end, the canoe was recovered with the help of a kayak in our larger party, and Rob half paddled, half dragged it more than half-mile upriver back to our hiding spot, where the storm was finally ending. With glee we resumed our journey, even spotting a final bald eagle in the last hour. The canoe trip put an underline to my thought for the week; being out in the park and the big sky areas of Montana makes me feel small, and that feeling is not unwelcome. It's a relief to recognize how little control we actually have in this world; the best we can do is prepare like crazy and then go with the flow. I need to carry this thought, and this feeling into other areas of my life. At home, in my house, where a storm might bring a power failure but little else, we rule as demigods and then are surprised when things don't go our way. Outside in more untamed parts we are reminded that Nature has the upper hand.

Something to keep in mind as we head up to camp at 10,000 feet this weekend and hike a 14,000 foot mountain - I'll let you know how that goes.