On Presentations & Pilgrimages

This one gets a little graphic, I guess. Not bad, I don’t think, but my graphic-o-meter is busted.

I’m feeling a bit Kermit-the-Frog-ish right now. I’m not green, but I’m me, and being green and being me are in the same “It’s not easy” category.

It’s been a long time—months and months—since I’ve had a weepy run. Streak’s over, folks. I cried in church, I cried in Sunday School (multiple times), I cried on five separate friends’ shoulders (one of them in WalMart, of all places). Today, I just couldn’t keep it under control. I’ve cried more in the past 30 hours than I care to admit, but here I am, admitting it.

That’s kind of my thing, this “honesty in grief” writing style. In fact, it’s a good deal of the titular presentation, which I’ll give Friday afternoon in Denver at The Compassionate Friends national conference.

*freak-out time-out*

Yup. National Conference. My presentation is one of more than 100 offered, so not really a big deal. I’m just getting nervous and tangled up in my head. Maybe nobody will show up, and I can’t decide if that’d be good or bad. My presentation is partly about the importance of finding your people—your safe, warm and fuzzy, honest, indefatigable, patient, hard-to-spook people, partly about those crucial connections we make with other parents who truly understand, and partly about sharing those connections (among other things) through writing. Okay. I’m all about connections and writing and helping, but still . . . nervous and tangled up in my head.

And then there’s Denver (and beyond)—the pilgrimage. From the day I knew I would attend the conference, whether or not I presented, I knew I wanted to venture beyond Denver. This is where the crying comes in.

In May of 2020, three months before he died, Cooper went to Colorado. His destination was Nederland, and he made it. My favorite 2020 photo of him has mountains in the background. He left home without his water bottle or any shoes other than slides, drove for more than 24 hours straight, ended up in a Boulder hospital because he had an episode of psychosis at his Nederland hotel, got back to Nederland, and met his friend. He. Made. It. I will make it.

As an aside, we didn’t learn of that bout of psychosis for another month.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about the pilgrimage part of my trip. I want to go to Nederland, to see the mountains he so loved. I’ve booked a room in a Nederland lodge, and I’m taking Coop with me. I want to leave a trace of him there. It seems right. So I’ve poured a bit of Cooper into a jar, and he will travel with me this week.

I’ve poured a bit of Cooper’s ashes into a jar. Now what? Everything about my son being ash in a jar is wrong. Coop’s ashes have stayed in “his” room on the farm. I wear a tiny urn around my neck, but most of him has stayed on the farm. Now I have a jar of ashes and what the hell—what the actual hell—am I supposed to do with those? The jar is clear. Ashes aren’t as . . . ashy . . . as you might think, so I don’t really want to put him on the table for a few days. Clearly can’t leave things in my car (and wouldn’t, in this case). Put him in the suitcase days before I leave? Seems wrong.

Oof.

So I’m walking around with some Cooper in my purse. He’s safe in a cushioned lens case, but he’s in my purse and if you think that doesn’t mess with a mom’s head, you are wrong. You’re as wrong as this entire situation. I picked up his urn yesterday and was surprised all over again at the weight of the ashes, but he was a big guy. On the other hand, how is it possible that’s all there is left of my child? I know he’s gone. Obviously. But the truth is, almost three years into this journey, there are moments when I cannot wrap my head around this unreal reality, around the absolute wrongness of Cooper being dead.

Still, the trip will be good. I am looking forward to the conference—it will help me but also enable me to help our local group. In a completely different way, I’m looking forward to the pilgrimage. I need to see what Cooper saw. I need to send him down a mountain stream, let a little more of him escape my grasp and drift toward peace. I need to take my camera and his ashes, and just wander until I find the right spot.

Yeah, I’ve cried SO MUCH today. I’m crying now, but maybe it’ll be easier tomorrow. I’m completely operating on faith, but that’s pretty much how I roll these days. From the first day of our local chapter of Compassionate Friends, I’ve said I’ve never felt so led to do anything in my life as I felt starting our group. This trip—the conference, the presentation, the other parents, the mountains and ashes and tears—is a continuation of feeling led. I’ll do it and I’ll survive.

I still sympathize with Kermit the Frog, though. It’s not easy.