Dandelion Breaths

Today’s sermon is tea too cold to thaw the wind that ruffles a buzzard’s feathers as it stares through my kitchen window daring me to deny mortality. Today’s sermon is the sound of a television in the other room providing sound to fill empty space. Today’s sermon is a sweatshirt that smells like my daughter, gray sleeves helping me feel what I can’t hold. Today’s sermon is a picture on a shelf where she smiles from a photograph urging me to keep my eyes on blue sky. ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ Today's Sermon

We were four souls in a U-Haul watching snowflakes dance across the windshield.  Change doesn’t often provide confetti, but on that winter night my husband, two small daughters, and myself were given the gift of magic  that glittered us into a bond that could never be broken. With goodbye still stinging our lips we felt like the only ones the moon had forgotten as the truck’s headlights struggled to give us eyes in the blizzard. Out of the crackle of the dashboard radio words sang, “You have to believe we are magic nothin' can stand in our way”. In that moment Oliva Newton John  gave us our hope song, our love song, our family song, our forever song. On an icy Missouri road mapped with a journey to Texas “Magic” told us it would keep us whole even when grief would leave us broken.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 Cynthia Dawn took her last breath to the song "Magic" on January 26th, 2022...the magic continues What's Going On? ~ Magic  

My daughter, Cynthia Dawn and her fiancé, Daniel Daniel Bobby Blanchard JUNE 19, 1974 – SEPTEMBER 22, 2019 Cynthia Dawn Clevenger February 21, 1974 – January 26, 2022 Your faces sit in every room except the place where I sleep. In that place of dreams, you visit me where impossible has no chair. Daylight so often has me standing before your photographs never certain if I will cry or smile, or attempt to hear you speak from ink trapped beneath glass. I drift between memories and present wondering if I’m losing my mind. Does grief have a map to guide  me back to whole? Each day is an envelope I must open, a letter telling me you’re no longer here. Perhaps being strong is simply taking a step trusting I won’t fall.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ Elegy

April promises days without frost, riots of blossoms erasing the gray of petals sacrificed in winter. My walks through the woods  are Monet’s paintbrush dipped into shades of wild violets, emerald moss, and bluebird wing writing a path to its nest. From my window I see my front garden exhale in shades of pink and yellow roses. Their sigh of joy helps me step out of my shell of grief to imagine my daughter singing from her favorite chair on the porch. My eyes spot the first butterfly resting on a dandelion and I am encouraged by their determination to find space to grow in a horizon of concrete.  Oh April, I’ve needed you this year.  My ashy sweater of grief loosens another button. Today feels less like I’m holding my breath  while trying not to drown in undone.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ April Dawn Singing Someone to Watch Over Me Cynthia Dawn Clevenger  2/21/1974 - 1/26/2022

                               Walls of ocean blue welcome me every time I open your bedroom door. It was the color you chose amongst all the swatches that slipped through your fingers. There must have been fifty shades of sea and sky you pondered before you found the one that spoke of waves and splashes of joy. I roam amongst your things in a dream state traveling from when you were a little girl until spring brought flowers in vases earmarked with condolences. Broken doesn’t seem to be a bold enough word to describe how I feel, yet I feel shards of longing splinter my ribs where my heart lies scarred by hours of yearning to hold you. Oh sorrow, you are a conundrum. It is both tears and joy. I cry from your absence and sing because of your freedom. I stumble and I dance getting through what I’ll never get over. Dear Dawn, my precious daughter, I am trying to be strong in my weakness, be a light when I’m bes...

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation. ~  Rumi «    St. Patrick's decorations ~ My mother's maiden name was Nellie McCleary. ( There could also be some Scottish ancestry...shhh). The small bit of decorating I've done for seasons and occasions has helped me so much. I feel doing what brings happiness and joy heals and blesses the spirit.  Love never dies. In fact I believe it grows stronger even in loss. Dawn continues to be part of my life as she will always be. Even in all the pain she experienced, we (her family and friends) experienced along with her, there were such beautiful moments of laughter, and life that lives on with us and in us.  loves deep roots of green burst through our heartbreak winter urging us to bloom  ©Susie Clevenger 2023