Author: ferylfiles

Grief is heavy. That’s what I thought to myself after I picked up a few groceries at the Albertsons out at Eastgate, walking toward the car. Grief is so heavy.

Yesterday was my oldest brother, Todd’s birthday. Herbert Todd Jeremy Moore. 8/9/66 He would have been 57 years old. His passing hit me like a ton of bricks last October when I was already weighted down by a separate ton. Grief doesn’t wait. Grief doesn’t respect previous grief. Grief doesn’t allow you to process all your other grief first. I’m not sad that it was Todd’s birthday, just sad he wasn’t around to celebrate it. I’m so thankful he was my big brother. Have mercy he could drive me bonkers in only the way a big brother can, but I knew he had my back. And he’s gone. How many times have I wanted to text him about what’s going on, to ask questions, to share laughs and recipes.

Our family was a family of six. Now there are just three of us. Emi, Craig, and me. All three of us hurt, but it’s really only fair for me to talk about mine. Every loss feels like all the other losses get piled together. Grandparents, Aunt Trudy, Mom, Dad, Todd, Bryan, Kyle each loss compounds the previous ones. The hurt is always there. Always.

Maybe that makes it clearer why I strive so hard to find and create beauty. In a weak moment of waxing poetic I told a friend “I am a joy nugget miner in a cavern of despair.” It kind of sounds like a line from a country song. I give permission to anyone to use it. HA! But it’s also really true. Gratitude, beauty, joy in small things, love, music, friendship, laughter–they don’t lessen the weight, but they help me forget for a little bit.

And here’s a song Todd liked and put on a mixed CD for me once. Enjoy!

Yesterday, my friend James popped over for a few minutes while he was in town. He’s a dear friend of ours/mine. We had a nice chat and caught up on all kinds of things, emphasizing what’s good in our respective lives. In the midst of this chat, he shared with me a term in a psychology context that I’d not heard before–congruence. Congruence in common parlance is harmony, compatability, matching. In psychology, it’s not much different except that it focuses on how our thoughts, our emotions, our words and our actions correlate and the aspiration to have those things be authentic to our lived experience.

Last summer on the very day I took Bryan to the hospital, we had been at Miles Away Farm, visiting Jennifer Kleffner to pick up our portion that we had gone in on of a locally-raised and regionally-butchered beef. Walter and Danielle did us a solid and got it out of the car parked at St. Mary’s and delivered it to our basement freezer. While Bryan was sick, I wasn’t doing a lot of cooking for more than just him and the hamburger was the easiest. Flash forward to now, and I have a lot of cuts of meat that I’m not going to eat all by myself.

For Sunday dinner, I invited friends that I got to meet, know, and love through their original connection with Bryan. I made pot roast and mashed potatoes and gravy. They brought all the rest–salad, baguettes, wine, peach pie, and ice cream. Bryan and I used to love entertaining. Some of you may remember meals, parties, porch gatherings, and cookouts at our house. This was a big part of us.

Now it’s me. And I have to rediscover who I am by myself. It’s fascinating, painful, hard, scary, and ultimately good, too. I love to cook for others. I love to entertain and make folks feel welcome in my space. I love the conversation and dynamic that is created over a table of food. This IS me. And while the person I long to be and the person I behave as have a lot of incongruity, yesterday, my mind, my heart, and my actions were in harmony and it felt really good.

Bryan and I loved telling the story of how we met and started dating. It’s funny and silly and so perfectly us. I think it’s worth writing down.

At the beginning of September 2008, I started a job at Whitman College after moving to Walla Walla from Yakima (all of that’s a much longer story for a different day). I worked in Memorial, the main building on campus with the clocktower and the grand steps, as the administrative assistant to the associate (?) vice president for Development. The school was ramping up for the public phase of a capital campaign and they were fleshing out the Development department to accommodate that. My friends A’ala and Leesa were hired around the same time and while we’ve all left Whitman, I still count them as dear to my heart.

One particular day, this incredibly handsome fella in jeans and a long-sleeved white pull-over came in to get something signed by Nancy Jungmann, the executive assistant to the CFO and Controller who also happened to be a notary. He also had to sign something so he bent over her desk. The view was priceless. Anyone who knew Bryan Lubbers knows EXACTLY what I mean. At one point, he looked over at me and smiled. I.Was.Lost. He turned back to Nancy and I looked over at Leesa, wiggling my eyebrows, smiling, and nodding. She shook her head no. And I kept nodding yes. This part still makes me smile. I had no idea who that handsome guy was, but I knew I’d like to get to see him again please and thank you.

As I had just moved to Walla Walla, I wanted to meet new people and was hoping to date. The best advice I got was to do activities I really enjoyed in order to meet folks who shared my interests. Gals in the Development Office encouraged me to join the Whitman staff choir that was gearing up for a Christmas concert. Perfect. At that very first practice I noticed that really handsome guy over in the bass section.

According to Bryan, he also noticed a new face in the soprano section. Apparently when he managed the help desk he knew everyone on campus, but once he moved into his new position in Maxey, he didn’t have the same awareness of new people coming to Whitman. He said he leaned over to Mike Osterman, a fellow WCTS colleague, and asked “who’s the brunette in the soprano section?” To which Mike asked, “Jesus, Lubbers, are you always on the make?” And Bryan said a very resounding, “YES!” All this was happening while Paul Dennis was trying to direct us.

Bryan and I compared notes frequently about this meeting and I learned that he had some techniques for finding out if a woman was interested. He explained that he knew when he was interested, but the key was to find out if the woman was. So, with that in mind he would ask a woman her name, not offering his. If she asked for his, then there’s a “buy in signal” (his term). But one of the things that consistently happened between us was that I threw curveballs at every turn. At the end of practice, Bryan came up to me to ask my name. I smiled and told him. And then said, “And your name is Bryan because it says so on your shirt.” He was wearing one of his WCTS staff shirts. Thwarted.

We had a number of practices and a bit of flirting before we had the dress rehearsal. Shannon Shearer, another colleague and friend of mine from Development, was going to be my ride home. At the end of that final practice, I turned to Shannon and told her she wasn’t my ride, if she caught my drift, which she did as Bryan was approaching. He asked me for my number, and in my nervousness, I gave him the wrong one. Poor guy. Thwarted again. But I did ask him for a ride home to my apartment at Clinton Court. On the drive home, I asked if he had had dinner and he said no. So I invited him up to an apartment with laundry on the couch and very little options to eat. What was I thinking? Come to find out, he had eaten before dropping Mary off at youth group, but I didn’t learn that until much later. He said he wanted to learn more about me and he wasn’t about to turn down being invited up to my place.

I had eggs, cheese and some pico de gallo for omelettes and fixins for a salad. I put Bryan to work on making a salad with VERY poor tools–no peeler and dull knives. While he was busy, I took the clean laundry back to my bedroom so he wouldn’t notice the mess. When I got back to the kitchen, I observed he was whittling a carrot with the worst knife in America, so I teased him. He said “you can’t ask me to do a job and give me bad tools and then tease me for it.” “Oh yes I can.” We sat down for dinner and I noticed he talked a lot. I don’t remember a thing he said because all I could think was “I have this hot guy in my apartment eating dinner and WHAT WAS I THINKING, but damn, he’s really good looking and he seems to be enjoying himself and man he talks a lot and wow. Wow. Wow.” We finished dinner and he did the smoothest end of a first date I have ever experienced. He shook my hand, pulled me in for a half hug, kissed me on the cheek, and was out the door before I knew what happened.

Hot damn! That just happened.

The next day at work, I received an envelope that said “Campus Mail–Becci Moore – Development. Inside was a potato peeler with a note attached that said: Becci- Thanks for dinner last night–Now it’s my turn… Best- Bryan (I absolutely saved that note.) I laughed and was so delighted. The perfect gift. The perfect note. The perfect indicator that we would have more meals together. There’s something so elegant about our beginnings involving music and cooking. Of course I messaged my roommate, Heather, who was working at Coldwell Banker First Realty, the property management company and real estate office that takes care of Clinton Court. And I’m sure I let the gals in the office know too. Delighted. Absolutely over-the-moon delighted by a potato peeler and the promise of more time with him.

The evening of the concert came and I had a pencil skirt whose slit kept ripping. Awkward. And of course he noticed. Bryan invited me to the Marc after the event was over. As we were walking outside, Donna Ledford, who I didn’t know well, but was connected to Heather and Coldwell and Bryan from his time working at Banner Bank, looked at us both and said with delight, “You’re the potato peeler guy?!” Bryan looked at me with a little curiosity for how quickly news traveled and I was mortified because of course everyone in this town knows everyone and news like a romantic potato peeler makes its rounds. We had a lovely evening at the Marc and soon after Bryan invited me to a Christmas party out at friends in Waitsburg about a week and a half away from that evening. It coincided with a childhood friend’s band playing that same night at what was once the Jim German Bar.

That week and a half was interminable. He didn’t call or email. And neither did I. I remember going down to Cheri Ruzicka’s basement office in Mem to lament over my inability to eat or sleep and the constant nerves. And she just listened and smiled. She’d known Bryan for years and she was such a comforting and loving friend and the perfect person to complain to. The evening of the party came and it looked like snow. Bryan picked me up in his old blue pick-up, Squeak, aptly named. We had such a lovely drive and great time at the party. Then we headed into Waitsburg and listened to my friend’s band play. At the bar, with those gourmet cocktails, Bryan and I were talking and laughing and he got this look on his face and said “hell with it” and kissed me. Our first kiss was one we talked about with hushed and reverent tones ever after and it could not have been more perfect.

Bryan took me home and we made out a bit in the pick-up before I left to go up to my apartment. We always chuckled about it because the next morning Mary said to her Dad, “Dad, it was so cold last night it frosted INSIDE the pick-up truck.” He and I were pretty much a sealed deal after that.

I mention all these people to show just how much our courtship and marriage were intertwined with the beloved members of our community. Bryan would often quote Frank Herbert with “Beginnings are such delicate times.” They were delicate, delicious, and so wonderful.

Yesterday, I walked my bicycle to Allegro for a tune-up. This is something Bryan typically did. The handlebars need to be re-wrapped as the bright pink wrap he put on for me is starting to flake off. The tires need to be checked out–possibly just filled with air. I think the gearing is fine, but the professionals will give it a thourough going over.

Bryan bought this bicycle (Matilda) from Allegro Cyclery for me as a gift when we were just dating. He didn’t have a lot of disposable cash at the time, but he wanted us to have that experience together riding the foothills of the Blues and among Walla Walla wheat fields, the “Batman Loop.” He was endlessly patient with me. Having taught spin classes at the YMCA, preparing groups of riders for the Seattle to Portland ride, guiding new cycling enthusiasts to better safety techniques, he found himself next to a woman who does.not.like being told what to do. Like I said, endlessly patient. He taught me so much about myself, about grit, about digging in, about how headwinds are God’s training aid. (Laugh with me!)

On some of those early bike rides, I remember starting out on flat terrain thinking “Crap, I’m out of breath and tired already. I can’t do this.” Bryan could read me like no one else. “Becci, give it about 15 minutes, you’re just warming up. Then we’ll settle in to the ride.” He was right. He was often right. He could be annoyingly right. But mostly, with me, he was so gentle in being right. Invariably, I would settle in and we could do a 15 mile to a 50 mile ride.

After Bryan passed, I experienced shock and relief from the white-knuckle-gripping-for-dear-life I had been engaged in for the previous four and a half months. Exhausted. Breathless. I do not want to be on this ride. But here I am anyway. And I can feel the transition into settling in–settling in to the weight and consequence and grim reality of his absence. “Just don’t stop pedaling, Becci, you’ll get mored tired if you do. Just keep pedaling. You can do this.”

Yesterday, I was angry. Furious. Rage-crying-in-a-hot-car angry. This particular moment was not centered around my grief for Bryan, but I’ve been thinking about anger a lot. I’ve not really expressed that emotion in the process of my grief for many reasons, I think.

I’ve witnessed the long-term health effects of unchecked anger on people I love and have loved dearly. Unchecked, it becomes poison. I’ve seen and heard the ugly things done and said in anger that I don’t want to participate in. The emotional marks are permanent. I want to be so careful. But I know anger repressed is also poison.

I love Pixar’s Inside Out because it explores anger’s role in our full humanity. It’s a key piece in our emotional and mental health. Anger directs our passions and helps us fix wrongs that need to be righted and needs that should be fulfilled. And yet, my own terrifies the ever-loving stuffing out of me.

With cool piano jazz playing in the background of my nearly-cleaned kitched (those two pans on the stove are kinda staring at me), I don’t feel that hot burn at the back of my neck and legs, the drop in my stomach, the bursting energy in my chest. Nevertheless, when I think about what my girl and I have been dealt, this home without his vibrant life filling it, the gross unfairness of an athletic, zestful-for-life man, to be taken down by not one, but TWO kinds of cancer. Yes. There’s anger there. But this anger can’t be channeled into fixing that fact so what am I supposed to do with it?

Maybe that’s my error. I think I can do something to fix or outrun or to placate feelings instead of just having them. Feeling them. Letting them visit, be a part of me, and then leave like wanderers stopping by for tea, waving as they become just a memory of a time and place.