Yesterday we headed back to New Hampshire from a job in Albany, NY. A job which has taken up a great deal of our time and energy over the last month. We were winding things up last night but there is still stuff the family (and/or someone) needs to do on the project. It’s one of those things, you’re done but it’s not done. Which makes it all the more draining.

Our immediate reason for heading back to New Hampshire was my first gallery opening so things were positive on that end. I’ve never had my work hung in a gallery before. I had no idea how any of it works. I wasn’t even really planning on trying to get my work into a gallery. That was just something that hadn’t even occurred to me.

What happened was I messaged Jeanne’ McCartin, who writes a gossip column for Seacoast Online, about our book. She messaged me back saying, That’s funny. I’ve been meaning to contact you. About my photos, as it was. She manages a gallery in Portsmouth and was interested in my work, specifically my little creatures.

The inspiration for those little creatures sort of grew out of two things. My Something Beautiful (10,000 Photos) and the passing of my grandfather last March.

The music of NeedToBreathe, specifically their album The Heat and song More Time, got Jeff and I through the writing of Skeletons Don’t Sleep. We actually sat up late nights writing and listening to that song over and over until we finished the book. So, when we were done the book and I needed something positive to focus on to augment the darker subject of child sexual assault I started taking more photos. Then NeedToBreathe came out with the song, Something Beautiful.

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, ’cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I’m in reach
‘Cause I am down on my knees, I’m waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

I felt like the lyrics were meant for me. It inspired me to try taking photos of *things* every day (people had always been my subject of choice) things people go about their days and miss. Things that were/are beautiful but we often miss. I took photos of landscapes, flowers, stars, snow, trees, paths and so much more…

Then when Grampy passed. I started looking even closer. I took close-ups not just of the flowers but felt a drive to capture the bugs on the flowers too. As I saw the uniqueness and beauty of so many different creatures I had before overlooked. I got a little obsessed. Now it’s become sort of it’s own project. In the beginning it felt as though Grampy (who wanted to be an entomologist when he was a kid) was whispering in my ear… Hey! Come here, check out this one or Oh, this one is great. Can you get closer? Now my kids and Jeff and everyone really help me find the bugs!

So, here we were driving back to New Hampshire for the purpose of going to my first ever (serendipitous) gallery opening and the conversation between Jeff and I drifts to Grampy. We both miss him so much. About three minutes into the conversation Jeff says, Do you want to stop by and see Barbara later in the week? Barbara is Grampy’s wife, my step grandmother. I replied, Yes, I think I’d like that. I think she would like that.

No sooner had the words parted my lips than a song began to play.

I was so caught up in the conversation I had completely forgotten we even had the radio on. Then all of a sudden it was all I could hear. I felt it in my whole body, my soul. Tears began to well up in my eyes and slowly it built by the second verse, I was in full sob…and driving.

And the water is risin’ quick
And for years I was scared of it
We can’t be sure when it will subside
So I won’t leave your side, no I can’t leave your side

Kelly? Are you okay? You’re starting to scare us here.

I love you. I’m sorry. I’m okay. It’s okay.

I came back to earth, though I’m not entirely sure where I went. Or what it was that came to me but it felt so wonderful, powerful, and beautiful, I can’t begin to do it justice with the limitations of my words.

We met my parents at the opening. My mother was having such a nice time she didn’t want to leave!

Next time I’ll send out the info beforehand so lots of folks can join us for it. Since it was my first time I didn’t know if an “artist reception” was just for the artists or what. Now, I know how it works and would love to have more people come to the next one. For now if you are interested in seeing my work (and a lot of other cool artists’ work, including Philip Cohen’s awesome Portsmouth photos) you can stop by 100 Market St in Portsmouth, New Hampshire from now through the end of October. If you like a piece drop me an email and it’s yours.

Right now I feel so incredibly blessed with opportunity and surrounded by people that love me. All three kids opted to come over and they gave me a fortune cookie. My very own, filled with love.

It’s truly all, Something Beautiful.

Peace,

Kelly Halldorson

The past few days have been difficult ones. I have been struggling with the loss of my grandfather. I spent much of yesterday crying…not nonstop…I had plenty of smiles and laughs in between but the sadness kept creeping up…in little waves. I am working hard to acknowledge the flood.

I have dealt with a lot of death in my life.

My grandmother died of breast cancer when I was 13. She died with her family surrounding her at home through Hospice. As horrific as it was how the cancer ate away at her. I have always remembered it as a beautiful death. She died with all the family sleeping under that roof crashed on the pull out sofa, the floor, and all around her.

I lost my friend Donella to a car crash. I lost my once close friend Marcia to asthma. I hadn’t talk to her in over a year which made the loss that much harder. Two ex-boyfriends died of drug overdoses. My step brother (really my half-brother’s half-brother) died in a car crash less than a year after I met and connected with him, my father died ten years ago…and the list goes on. I feel like as though nearly every other year since my grandmother’s death someone significant *to me personally* has died.

It has helped me to accept death. It really has. I feel the sadness for those closest to the ones lost. I feel the loss of the person’s presence in my life but I’m okay with it. I think experiencing that first death in such a beautiful loving way provided me with something powerful.

I was doing okay with Grampy’s death. It has been painful and sad but I have been okay. I really have. I had one *crazy* moment. Which I’m not quite ready to write about but suffice to say it lasted mere minutes but in that moment I did not feel in control of myself. Thankfully Jeff helped me out of that moment and back into the practical present…and since…I’ve been fine. Actually I’ve been a bit better than fine. I’ve been good. Sad yes, but good.

Now yesterday was hard. I was accidentally forwarded an email. There was content about me, money, our life choices and an issue we are having with poor Wolfgang’s braces. (That’s another story. When we finally get it taken care of it’ll be a blog entry for sure.) The email was hurtful because - well - it was not meant for me. They actually discussed never speaking of any of it to me in the email. It’s not even so much the email that’s so painful for me as it is the timing. It has made me question everything I thought I was a part of. I’m trying to keep a positive perspective but it just makes me all the more sad for the loss of Grampy…because I’m feeling as though he was the glue that held the family together.

Right now it feels like it’s all crumbling. Either that or it was all just an illusion to begin with.

I’m working on finishing my writing from the days at the hospital (which is turning into an actual book about grief)…the days following the Trip to the ER. The thing is my writing paints the picture of another beautiful death. Sad. Tragic. Unexpected. But beautiful in the way the family came together.

Today I’m struggling to find the beauty in any of it. I know it’s there. I’m sure I will see it again. But for now I’m grieving not just for the loss of Grampy but for the loss of something beautiful I felt a part of.

Today is my birthday.

This morning I woke in the middle a crappy dream. Not a nightmare. Just one of those stupid dreams that remind you of all the shitty things that are going on in your life…or all the shitty things that *have* gone on in your life.

It sucked to wake to a reminder of that.

I had a difficult time shaking the mood despite near heroic efforts made by Jeff. What is it that makes misery so difficult to shake sometimes? Don’t get me wrong I think I’m able to redirect pretty well…pretty fast. I mean it’s now late afternoon and although I’m not dancing on the rooftops at the moment I’m no longer sobbing at the bottom of a well either.

I’m sure part of it is the grief. The rollercoaster of emotion. The questions of why? Yes, he was 84 but it really seems more and more like this was senseless. I wish I didn’t have these questions. Do I need the answers? I mean to what end? It’s not like he’s coming back. It’s not like we can get him back. It’s done. He’s gone.

Then there are the hormones. As much as I wish it wasn’t a factor, it is. I’ve struggled with sometimes severe PMS for as long as I can remember. What it amounts to for me is an inability to properly manage intense emotion. I’m snappier than usual, unpredictably sensitive and can even be mean. I work hard at being mindful of this but my efforts are not always effective. It seems if I notice the timing of the month and realize that is a piece of what is going on I’m able to acknowledge it and in turn cope better.

The problem is sometimes it just catches me off guard and I have to witness myself reacting to something in a way that I don’t even understand. Then…Ahhh Ha!.

The third big factor with me is my Thyroid medication. I have hypothyroidism. That means I have an underactive thyroid. I take medicine to help keep my TSH level in a normal range. I am supposed to take it daily. I very often forget. I don’t know why. I’ve come up with a gazillion different ways to try and help me remember. The best one being just keeping the medicine in the car…but then something happens and I just plain forget for as much as a week.

Then my levels get off kilter and so do my moods. Hormones…they really get the best of me.

All those other things that are often factors for other people with their moods…sleep, eating, exercise really seem to have little impact on my ability to regulate emotion. My mother and my aunt would argue against that…but I’m convinced those things really have little impact on me. It’s the hormones that I struggle with.

I need to find a way to find balance when my hormones are not in balance.

Maybe I just need to step up the things that do calm me in these times. Take more pictures. Write more words. Give more hugs. Ask for more hugs.

Today didn’t turn out to be one of those days. At least not so far. Although, it started out kind of crappy with me semi-stuck in partial misery. BUT Jeff would have no part of that…he gave me hugs, whispered sweet nothings, made me coffee, told me I was his best friend and that he was lucky to have me.

Right now I just feel lucky, period. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to breathe the cold wet air. Lucky to look at my beautiful daughter. Lucky for my sons. Lucky to have friends. Lucky have enjoyed 37 years with people that love me. Lucky have learned from my pain. Lucky to drink a green tea. Lucky to be able to write. Lucky to be able to do what I love. Lucky to take pictures.

Lucky to be able to put some of the pieces together. Lucky to be able to come to some understanding and acceptance.

Lucky to have been able to have such a wonderful man, Grampy, as part of my life.

Lucky. Lucky. Lucky.

& incredibly grateful and happy.

Peace,
Kelly

They say there are stages to grief. A process to mourning.

Maybe for some people.

I think it’s all an individual process. If there are stages we all go through them at a different pace and each person may get stuck in one or more of the stages or even cycle back and forth between them.

Then there is the complication that we still have to interact with the others…in the emotionally unstable state….and often the others are also grieving.

Then there are all the other variables. How old was the person? Was the death unexpected? Was someone at fault? Was it an accident? Was it just nature? Did they have a good life? Were they a good person? Did you have things unresolved? Did you feel good about the relationship you had with the person passing? And just sooooo many more things….more questions….more variables….

I feel we all just grieve in our own way, at our own pace and with our own various emotions. All we can do is walk through it at attempt to be as compassionate as we can to everyone else around us…who are all just trying to walk through to get through themselves.

For me writing has been the focus. I can’t stop. The words are just flowing through me. Its like a never ending stream of consciousness…floating in at a steady pace…it’s all I can do to get it out as fast as it is pouring in.

We found a good use for one of the pieces of the heart wood. I feel so good about it.

It will be the center of a birdhouse urn for Grampy. Jeff is making it with Grampa Ernie…right now…as I type this…

It’s going to be beautiful.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

peace,
Kelly

It was a good day. Jeff, the kids and I went to one of our weekly homeschool gatherings. Zoe came home from a three day visit with Nana and Pepere. We were gifted two half gallons of raw organic cow’s milk which Jeff turned into a yummy soft cheese.

The next morning Jeff and I had plans to go fix a roof, nothing big just a small job for a friend that would help us pay for some life essentials.

We finished off the evening drinking Jeff’s fresh lemonade, eating homemade bread and watching the extras on the Last Samurai DVD. It prompted a great family conversation about movies, story adaptations, historical context and accuracy and gave us all a little inspiration for later research.

Knowing we needed to get up early and run out to do the roof job, Jeff and I decided to go to bed uncharacteristically early. We had one of those perfect off to dreamland talks, complete with giggles and sighs.

The last words I heard before I drifted off to sleep were I love you so much, Kelly. You mean the world to me, thank-you for being my friend.

I am so grateful for those words. I am so grateful for those words. I am so grateful for those words. They helped provide me with the strength to make it through the next day 48 hours.

I rarely have our phone next to the bed at night. It is rarely charged and we generally don’t get a strong enough signal to receive calls at home. But this night the phone was charged, the signal was strong and the phone sat on our bedside table, only inches from my pillow.
Ring ring ring

I woke with a start and fumbled around for the phone. The brightness of the screen was glaring. I had to squint to read it.

Why is she calling me? It was my mother she never calls this late. Wait what time is it? I felt like I had been asleep for hours it had to be close to midnight or later. What could possibly …

Her tone was matter of fact. Grampy was in the hospital. She informed me of the events leading up to the hospital but all I managed to absorb was…Grampy – hospital – ambulance – she had called Linda, Ellen and Donna – Donna not be able to drive – come to hospital – call Donna first.

What’s going on? Jeff inquired. You going to fill me in?

Just wait. It was my mother. Grampy is in the hospital and I have to call Donna. I might have to go get her.

Why?

I can’t remember any of what she said. I – I just have to call Donna. I’ll fill you in after.

Are you going?

Please, Jeff I’ll fill you in I just have to call Donna. I don’t know what is going on.

I caught a glimpse of the time. It was 11:30. She would never call this late. It must be serious, I thought.

Andy answered the phone when I called. I offered to go pick up Donna and drive her to the hospital. He told me not to bother because she would be fine. She was drinking a cup of coffee and she would want to have her own car anyway. Are you sure? I really don’t mind coming up to get her. Again he assured me she would be just fine and I should just meet her at the hospital.

Do you want me to go?

Hold on! I snipped at him, took a breath and finished. Let me call my mother back first. I don’t know what’s going on yet.

Okay, just tell me what you want me to do.

I really didn’t have an answer for him. I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that this might be a - we *need* to go situation. I called mom back.

I’ll be there in a little bit. Okay? Bye.

So, do you want me to come?

I still don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Let me go check on the kids.

Zoe was still up reading, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I shared with her what little I knew. She asked, Do you want me to come with you?

Do you want to come with me?

Yes. I’d rather go with you and know what’s going on than sit here and have to wait to find out what is up with Grampy.

Okay then. I would love your company.

I walked back into my bedroom. I wanted to crawl back under the covers all cozy and warm with Jeff. I didn’t. I got dressed. Zoe poked her little head in the doorway, Griffin and Wolfgang want to come too. Is that okay?

Wait, how do you know that? Did you talk to them?

Yes, I told them.

Jeff sat up and started getting ready himself. Well, I’d say we are all going then. The boys poked their heads in the doorway and not more than 20 minutes later we were all in the car on our way to see Grampy at the hospital.

Grampy is 84, a really young 84. I remember him showing me a printout of his test results from a physical once. The doctor had written - Great!! – in red ink at the top with a crescent drawn under the dots to look like a smiley face. He carried it around like he was a kid and had just aced a test and wanted to share the results with everyone. She told me people half my age would be thrilled to see results like this!

He walks daily, chases squirrels, laughs heartily and never ever sits still. In my entire life the thing I remember him sitting still for the longest was my father’s memorial service. I still have the handkerchief he gave me that day. I’m sure there were other occasions (funerals, weddings, christenings) but that is the one that stands out to me personally.

There was really no reason for him to come to my father’s service. There was no love loss between the two of them. My father had gotten my mother pregnant when she was just a teenager and left her but not because inflicting a great deal of pain and heartache for years.

Grampy, didn’t go to that service for himself. He went for me. He went to show me he loved me. He went to show me that I had other fathers and he was one that would always be there to support me. All I had to do was turn and see him there. That remains in my mind as one of the kindest things he ever did for me.

A few years ago Grampy had some routine blood work done at a physical. It showed he had an elevated white blood count. There were no other symptoms or any kind of complications. He was offered some testing help to try and figure out the cause of the elevated levels. One of the tests was a bone marrow biopsy. He went ahead with the testing. It was relatively uneventful. They found nothing of serious concern and were able to rule out leukemia.

They continued to monitor the blood work for the next few years but remained a background curiosity as he still had not other troubling symptoms or problems.

With the more serious and only potentially life threatening cause ruled out. There was little need to probe further into it. They decided to just wait and see how things unfolded and continuing to monitor the blood cell levels through the routine testing.

Then his red blood count rose too. He still had no other symptoms to speak of but he and the doctor decided together to do another bone marrow biopsy. The other one had gone fine, there was no reason to think this time would be anything different.

His wife, Barbara wasn’t feeling well so he told her to stay home and rest while he went in to have the treatment. He drove into Dover by himself. Everything went just fine. He smiled, joked and told them he needed to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Then he waved to the doctor and headed home.

On the drive home and after his stop at the grocery store he experienced a sudden pain and intense nauseous. He pulled over and he sat in the car for a short while in an effort to regroup then continued the drive home.

When he got home the pain was excruciating. Barbara called the doctor’s office and they suggested Tylenol for the pain and a prescription for the nausea which they figured was caused by the pain. She was told not to leave Grampy alone. She called my mother and asked her to pick up the prescription for the nausea medication.

In the meantime Grampy’s pain was increasing. Barbara called and asked a neighbor who is a nurse to come over and help her decided what to do with him. And by the time my mother arrived with the medication it was pretty clear to all of them that he needed immediate medical attention.

They called an ambulance.

A few hours later hours later I found myself standing in a hospital room waiting for my aunts Linda and Donna arrive. I played catch up with my mother, Barbara and the doctors while Jeff and the kids sat in the ER waiting room.

Grampy wasn’t coherent at all. He was sleeping, snoring loudly with his mouth wide open. I was grateful his breaths were so loud. He seemed so tiny under those covers. He was being given fluids, pain meds and medication to raise his blood pressure which had dropped dangerously low. The doctors were doing their best to get him stabilized enough to move him upstairs to the Intensive Care Unit.

He was in critical condition. He was bleeding internally. The assumption was that bleeding had something to do with the bone marrow test but they weren’t entirely sure. For the time being they were waiting and hoping the bleeding would stop on its own. The options available for finding the source of the bleeding were not good and the means of stopping it if they did find it posed even more troublesome questions. Would he need surgery? Would he be strong enough for surgery?

Donna and Linda arrived not too long after I did. The doctors brought them up to speed. Time was surreal; both whizzing by at lightning speed and ticking away slowly at a maddening pace.

My Grandfather, Donald Patrick Fitzmaurice, had four daughters. My mother, Ann, is the oldest. Donna, who is a year younger, comes next. Then there is an eight year gap to Linda. One year after her comes the youngest, Ellen, who is 10 years younger than my mother. They had two pairs, Ann and Donna then eight years later Linda and Ellen.

Now here is the odd part, eight years after Ellen was born my mother got pregnant, at 18. I was born when the younger pair were nine and ten. My mother was unmarried and my father played little part in my daily life. As an infant my mother and I actually lived with her parents for a short time until we moved to public housing about four miles away.

My grandparents watched me while my mother worked. We ate dinner at their kitchen table nearly every weekday evening. Grampy who worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard helped my mother enter the Apprenticeship program at the yard.

When I was five years old my mother became deathly ill with pneumonia and I went to stay with Nana and Grampy. I just spent so much time with the both of them they became my second (and stable) set of parents. Linda and Ellen were my older sisters. I became the fifth Fitzmaurice girl.

The doctors told us they wanted to insert a catheter. We could stay in the room if we wanted but we decided to all leave the room. While we were in the hall the doctor gathered us together to discuss the unthinkable.

I’m sorry, but I have to ask you about his wishes. Do you know if he has a DNR?

We had only just got to the hospital couple of hours ago. How could this be happening so fast? Why was this even being discussed?

He has a living will. It’s at home… Barbara’s voice quivered as she spoke.

My Nana passed away at 56 years old from breast cancer. My mother and I had recently moved into a trailer and my mother was dating and it was serious. Ellen was off at college and Linda was living at home but working multiple jobs and going to college. I spent all my summer days at the house with Grampy. He would pick black raspberries from the bushes in the backyard and make us muffins every morning. A sucker for anything sweet we called him the Cookie Monster.

Grampy and I played cards. We talked. We played with the neighborhood cat, whom we affectionately called One-Eyed Jack. We watched TV. I went on errands with him. We spent a lot of time together, just the two of us. I will be forever grateful for that time.

He wasn’t always happy. He took Nana’s death hard. He often talked of a neighborhood couple who died shortly after each other. That is the way to go a broken heart in his sleep he would tell me, I wish that would just happen to me.

No! Don’t talk like that. You know how sad we all are without Nana? We would be that much more lost without you.

I like to think being around helped keep Grampy in the present and kept the daydreaming of death to a minimum. Maybe not so much my words, but having me there every day reminding him he had family that would be crushed without him. Physically keeping him company when Linda wasn’t home and nobody else was around, helping to ward off the loneliness.

Finally with some prodding, from many people that cared, Grampy started dating. I was so happy because was so sad without Nana in many ways. He had so much love to give he needed a partner to share that love with. We all wanted to see him happy again. I wanted to see him happy again.

Enter Barbara the wonderful caring woman he fell in love with. She had two daughters of her own between the ages of Ellen and I. Barbara and Grampy married and with that union he gained two more daughters.

The younger of Barbara’s daughter Anne moved into the house. I was a teenager by this point and deep into my own teen-angst-rebellion. I spent little time at the house. I spent little time with any of my family really. Regardless I knew I could always count on Grampy’s help and support. He always gave support with compassion and guidance but never judgment. On more than one occasion I called him for a ride out of a bad situation, when I didn’t feel comfortable calling anyone else. He always dropped whatever he was doing to come and take care of me.

I can go get the paperwork if you need it.

No, that will be alright. You told us that is really enough…

It was clear this nightmare was real and serious. He was in critical condition and the next 24 hours were very important.

Grampy had bled so much internally the blood was pooling in his abdomen and putting pressure on his organs. A vascular surgeon was called in to give us his take on Grampy’s condition. Was there anything he could do?

It’s a tough situation. We could do… he explained there were a few options but none of them really any better than waiting and literally everything was a gamble. What we would normally do would be a blood scan but you just don’t do that in the middle of the night, here. Maybe if we were in Boston…

He gave us another option that involved injecting a dye in attempt to find where the bleeding was coming from. The problem with this procedure was his records indicated he was allergic to iodine, although nobody knew what kind of an allergy it was.

Barbara thought she recalled him getting a small rash after having an area cleaned for drawing blood. That was good news. If it was only a small topical allergy we might not have to worry about injecting the dye.

If the allergy was more serious, the dye could cause kidney failure and there was no guarantee they could stop the bleeding even if they found the source. At the same time if we didn’t do anything pocket of pooled blood and the pressure it was putting on his organs could cause his kidneys to fail anyway.

You are between a rock and a hard place. There is always the chance that he will stop bleeding on his own and begin to recover.

We talked. We called Ellen. We talked more. There was so much information to process and seemingly no time to do it in.

The doctors came out and let us know they were going to move him upstairs to the Critical Care Unit. The kids would have an opportunity to go in and see him once he was settled in his room. Jeff headed up with the kids and the rest of us followed Grampy and his team.

We set up camp in the Critical Care Unit waiting room we wouldn’t end up leaving for 31 hours.

Barbara was a perfect match for Grampy. She shared his inquisitive and sometimes adventurous spirit. They went to dances together. They shared a love of books. Grampy loved sweets and baked goods, Barbara cooking them. Their interests complimented each other. She loves to garden and Grampy loved bugs.

The last few years he signed up to help tag Monarch Butterflies. He caught them after they hatched from cocoons around their home in North Berwick, Maine. He would then affix a little circular sticker to the wing, log them then free them for their journey south. Scientists would use the data to track Monarch migration patterns.

Last year the kids found three moths. Two were huge, a Cecropia and a Lunar Moth. We froze the moths with had planned to give them to Grampy as a gift. It turned out to be one of those things that never quite worked out the way we’d hope.