returning home

I was born and raised in Alaska. My children were all born there. In many ways, Alaska is in my bones and heart and soul. It's usually good to go home, where you feel like you can breathe in what makes you you from birth. It is good to see old friends and people who knew me as I was growing up. To drive the streets that are almost part of my DNA. There's China Garden, still. The Tastee Freeze on the corner by our old house. Still. So much sweet. But this trip was bitter, too.

I went for the funeral of my oldest friend who had died suddenly. We had spoken by phone on the day she died, and she asked me to speak. I said I would, but I struggled all week in coming to terms with her death and the task of talking about her life and the plan of salvation. I had been trying to be more present in my daily activities--and now I was divided: part of me doing what I needed to do but part of me grieving, my chest constantly aching with the pressure of holding in my sorrow.

So, I returned home to send my friend off to another home. We had agreed to attend our high school reunion this coming summer together. Neither of us wanted to go, but we agreed we could go together for mutual support. Now I will attend without her. She has a different reunion to attend.

So much was familiar. The weather was cold--but it had been colder the week before, so the trees were gorgeous, robed in thick fleecy ice, starkly beautiful against the bright blue of the sky. This was my welcome. My breath made clouds every time I breathed, and my nose tickled when I inhaled the cold air: ice crystals forming.

I was driving to visit friends when a large moose walking beside me along the road startled me. This photo of a moose in the airport has to substitute for the one I saw as I couldn't pull off the road to take a photo of the one that was much bigger than this one. No need to take a chance and risk its wrath. Or to identify myself as an outsider. When I mentioned the sighting to my friends, they nonchalantly said a large one had just been in their yard. "They are really around a lot this year with the deeper snow." Oh yeah. I remember that. 

I remember the long days of summer and the long nights of winter, but I found that my inner clock wasn't adjusted to that rhythm anymore. I attended the 9:00 meeting at our old ward building, a building where I taught seminary on early mornings, where we spoke in sacrament meetings, and where our children were blessed. It was 9:00, and this is what it looked like: pitch black as night.

I parked in the hotel lot facing south and was reminded of the sun's rotation in winter: the first shot is the sunrise (about 11:30), the sun just above the horizon in the southeast. The second photo is the sunset (about 4:00, since we are a month past solstice) with the sun just above the horizon in the southwest. The winter sun makes a short arc above the horizon for about 4-5 hours this time of year, and there is the start and end of it. My inner clock felt shaky--what time was it? I never could quite feel it. How much of that was the shifting daylight and how much was the difficult purpose of my visit? I don't know. 

I gave the talk I had to give, aching and hoping it provided comfort to my friend's parents and children, slid my way on icy roads back to the hotel and cried hard alone in my room. Grief is like that, isn't it? Coming and going like tides. Maybe like the days in Alaska--long at times and then short. Ever present and something we get used to until we aren't used to it anymore and it hits us, makes us feel like a stranger in our own home. 

I am home again now. Home to my husband and my life now. Home to remember my friend who returned to her eternal home last week. We will both be home again someday to a place that will feel familiar, I hope, and welcoming.