Author: Lynnette Bukowski

Daddy’s Shoulder

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I was startled awake this morning by a vision of Steve reaching down to pick up our daughter in the aftermath of a little girl catastrophe.
The memory pulls at me like a secret, whispered in a language I do not quite understand.

I stumble out of bed, brew an espresso, collect tennis balls and Spike and try to ignore the very real detail that Sheri is overseas and the entire world is on fire.

It matters not that I am distracted or half asleep. Our tradition is to stop on the memorial brick path to the beach for a moment of silence in reverence for the beloved souls remembered here. As I lean down to unleash Spike, I read aloud the inscription on the paving stone beneath us:

“Dan —- September 16, 2010 – ‘Dad, I miss your strong shoulders.’”

My intuition is relentless.

My rational mind thinks it might be easier if messages from Heaven or the Universe arrived as ink on notepads or lipstick on the mirror.
But my intuitive moments – like this – nourish me, tickle every nerve ending awake and flutter kick at my heart. When I open myself up and make space my intuition is an excited puppy nipping around my heels to let me know in vivid sunrise detail that Sheri is looked after from Heaven as on earth.

And once again, life is rich and juicy and fascinating.

Deployment Note written to our then 3 month old daughter:

“One day your Mom is going to teach you about love and how to walk in high heels. I’ll teach you how to spit, shoot a gun, repel down a cliff and stare a boy down. Perfect these lessons and the world is yours, baby girl.  And when you’re afraid, just reach out. I will always be holding your hand.  Love, Dad” ~Steve Bukowski

Deeper Than Words

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I like to dance deep in the woods down trails where people on mountain bikes pass me yelling “On your left!” and I laugh out loud with a wavelike rush of joy as they slow and turn their heads and nearly crash into trees because, really, who dances to no music and laughs out loud at nothing?

They peddle away and I realize deeply that my breath is the only thing I want to keep up with.

It is enough that I like to eat ice cold orange wedges and let the juice run down my chin and sing out loud in the car with all of the windows open and wear red high heels with nothing special and paint sky’s the color of lemons.

There is Grace in the sunlight through the canopy of green leaves and I continue my dance.

“Hover over Me God”

This is my prayer when life becomes deeper than words.

Make a Promise – Pass it On

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 4 Comments

In special honor of my friend, Brenda’s earth birthday, I am reposting this story about a promise I’ve made and my memory of her and all she held dear. There is a tremendous call right now for youth and adults across the globe to step up and teach our world’s children that they are all significant and loved. The book I’ve chosen this year for the “older” kids on my list is Powerful Peace: A Navy SEAL’s Lessons in Peace from a Lifetime at War. Copies of the book can be purchased at all the normal places, but signed copies are available through http://powerfulpeace.net

Our children are our future. They deserve a chance at Peace.

Twelve hours before Brenda died she called to tell me she was in Heaven.

“You’re there now?” I asked, slightly distracted with scissors in one hand, tape in the other. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder thinking I’d continue to wrap Christmas presents while we bantered about the gorgeous male nurses who administered Chemotherapy in Colorado Springs Medical Center. The young men were a favorite subject for Brenda and the tales she weaved were hysterical. A weak, throaty laugh echoed through the phone, “I do believe I am.”

The words, although breathless, hung in the air like a solemn, heavy mist. I dropped the wrapping paraphernalia, held the phone tight against my ear and walked outside to our deck. For just a moment, I tilted my head and looked into the cloudless aqua blue sky – a mirrored reflection of the water – expecting to see my dear friend waving. “Hey…” I began, stumbling over my thoughts, “everything okay today?”

“Picture this,” she began, “I’m tucked into an over-sized arm chair by a big picture window watching fat white snowflakes silently fall from the sky. Next to me is a fire blazing in a huge stone fireplace and I’m holding a steaming mug of that jasmine tea you sent me and…” she paused, took a short breath, “I’m surrounded by books and books and books.”

“Oh, it really is heaven, Bren,” I closed my eyes against the wheezy softness of her voice. Just last week her voice had been robust and full of laughter. The tropical paradise before me disappeared and I imagined I was right there with her.

“I’m choosing books for my kids,” she sighed, “well…the proprietor is choosing books; I’m just describing the children. I can’t seem to find my strength today. But I called… I called now because I need to ask you to promise…” The words faded between us.

Brenda’s kids were not actually her kids. Rather, they were her friends’ kids, at last count –18 in all — including mine, from ages 2 to 17. Each year at Christmas and on respective birthdays, each child would receive an age appropriate, award-winning book with Brenda’s personalized inscription. It was in my kitchen that she’d thought up this tradition. “Books,” she beamed, “are the doorways to the world!” I could picture her, eight years earlier, her smile lighting the room. Now, the enormity of her courage – laced with Chemo, fighting cancer, yet still concerned about her kids – it bruised my soul.
I cleared the sob from my throat, “Brenda, whatever favor you need, consider it done.”

“Lynn, I can’t tell you what the favor is just now. There are too many parts, but I’ll have Michael send it to you in an email.”

“Okay…” I could hear the whine in my voice and willed it away, “but how will I know what….”

“You’ll know,” she interrupted, a slip in comportment so foreign for Brenda that it stunned me.

A fear of imminent loss closed around me like a dark tunnel blocking the sun. I wanted to fight with her, chase the seriousness from her voice and words. Hadn’t we talked endless hours over the last eight months about her strength, her will to live, her young age of 60 and the importance, or lack thereof, of breasts? What about the pros and cons of shopping for new breasts and the fun she’d have interviewing men on the perfect size and shape? Our weekly phone conversations always included the future, her pending visit to our home on Sunset Beach in Oahu as soon as she had the strength to travel. I wanted to scream at her, “Buy the ticket now, Brenda!” but the words stuck in my throat.

“Hey beach broad… you there?” This was her new tag name for me and hearing the wheezy voice attempt humor made me laugh.

“I’m here. I’m here… just rolling over to tan the other side,” I choked out, “So… what are you reading?” This was always the absolute second question of every conversation.

“Reading?” she sighed audibly, “Everything I possibly can.” A long, silent pause filled the phone line and seemed to stop the breeze. “I have to go now,” she continued, breathless, with just a slight laugh that felt like a kiss against my ear, “I’m on someone else’s phone, and the angels are restless. Plus,” she coughed, “God invited me to dinner and I have to decide what I’m going to wear.”

“Funny. Sticking with the theme of the day, I see. I love you, Bren. Hey…I’ll call you tomorrow morning… see how that dinner date went.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, sweet, full, hearty; the sound of Brenda, “Love you too.”

I held the phone close to my chest and let the dial tone drone into a maddening beep. Even then, I was reluctant to disconnect, to give in to the sense that I would never speak with my lovely friend again. Instead, I sat down on the steps with my memories.

On the day we met, I was busy corralling and cajoling four young children and a baby at a fast-food restaurant. Brenda was at the table next to us reading Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. The fourth or fifth time I apologized for the noise level, Brenda got up from her table and sat down with us. She spoke very quietly until one by one; each child – even the baby – stopped chattering, and sat captivated as she recited a Hans Christian Anderson story.

Days later our home became her second home and she visited often at odd hours. We talked books, analyzed the work of the masters, laughed over love scenes. Her weakness was a good romance novel, but she grew serious when she talked about the importance of children knowing the magic of sitting still with a story and letting their imaginations soar. She loved all of our children, but paid special attention to our foster kids and spent endless hours engaging them in conversations about books or organizing special reading days where she would sit with them in a circle and read with all the gusto of a skilled actress. When those children left our home, Brenda made sure each of them had their very own book to take on their journeys.

We were unlikely friends, Brenda and I. I was a military wife, a young mother, a struggling author, full of creative energy and love and not much else. Brenda was fifteen years my senior, held a PhD in Philosophy and Education and Masters’ Degrees in Computer Technology, Theology and Mathematics. She was also the mother of a grown son and the widow of a military man who took his own life.

I was fascinated with Brenda, but I often felt inadequate as a friend. In quiet moments, usually over wine, I would allude to our differences. What did she see in me? The first time I broached the subject she waved her hand through the air and referred to her varied degrees as an addictive hobby. She was philosophical with the sorrow aspect, stating simply that our lives are preplanned and this was her lot. After that one speech, the subject was off limits. “Pointless,” she would say, and then she stared at me, straight on, with serious, thoughtful eyes and asked me what book I was reading.
This was our glue then and now: books, words, and children.

I sat on the porch step until the orange ball of sun set and the ocean glittered into the night.
When the phone rang at 4:00 AM the next morning, Michael, Brenda’s son, apologized for the early hour and went on to explain that his mother insisted I be the first one he called. Through my tears, I told him how sorry I was and asked if he needed anything, but the conversation was blurry and surreal. Just before he hung up he said, “Check your email.”

This is what it said:
My dearest friend, the promise I asked of you has to do with the long document attached to this email. Here it is: please continue sending books to my kids. I’ve written a little something for each year, for each child, with all the pertinent birth date information and addresses, but please find more children to add each year. Everyone at age 18 or upon graduation from high school should receive Dr. Seuss’, “Oh! The Places You Will Go!” Thank you, forever.
P.S. my dinner date was heavenly. God says hi. All my love, Bren.

Most of the original kids are grown now, but I continue to keep my promise and send books to a growing special list of children each year.

In loving memory, pass it forward.

by Lynnette Bukowski
© 2000

Stand Up For Our Troops and Our Veterans

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 3 Comments

I am a woman of great strength and great love. I have been given divine gifts of words, keen discernment and an intuitive force I use to empower and inspire others to take their own gifts and use them for the good of all. I believe in human connection, basic human goodness, common decency, common sense and “applied” peace. If I am naïve at all in this second half of my life, it is in my continued faith in truth and justice.

And I am fiercely loyal to a Brotherhood to (and with) whom the other half of my soul dedicated his entire life.

It is now appallingly obvious that the current administration and their media cohorts have launched an assault on these Warriors for political gain. I urge all of you who want to return to a place of common sense in this world to stand behind our Troops and our Veterans. They serve and suffer even as the assault continues. So – peacefully – do what you can with what you have where you are.

As for me, hell hath no fury like a pissed off SEAL’s widow.

“I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.” MV

Sharing Strength

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 12 Comments

 Iron sharpens iron. As one man sharpens another.  (Prov. 27:17)

This is the miracle of human connection: we do not need to be in the same room, the same state, or the same country to reach out our hands and lay bare our hearts and say, I stand with you stunned – in silence and prayer, I will hold your hand, I will share your tears, I will take the impact of your pain as my own and bear it with you. We are all one. I feel this loss because this too is my brother, my child, my beloved. And I will stand with you – the left behind, the living – and share my strength.

Two years ago (tomorrow) the world lost 30 brave men and Bart, a Warrior Dog – all heroes – aboard Extortion 17 in Afghanistan. The families, friends and loved ones of the fallen are scattered across the country and globe and while it is impossible to reach each of them in person or by phone, for the past week entire communities came together to raise funds, show support and share in the grief of loss.

Today, hundreds of people – many who do not even know these men and their families – join virtual hands in support and prayer via Facebook and Twitter to uplift and share strength.

There is such comfort in knowing we are never really alone.

It is a poignant reminder of the first time in my adult life I learned this lesson.

On September 25, 1978 I began my drive to work from Coronado to San Diego.  Half-way across the Coronado Bay Bridge, a perfect 230 feet above water, sun glanced off my windshield and created a tunnel-like view of a small plane as it clipped the underside of a passenger jet and dropped from the sky.  I slammed my foot on the breaks and stepped out. As cars on the bridge screeched to a stop behind me, I stood and watched with horror as the jet banked away, paused, and began a nose down dive.  The sky shrieked wildly until it didn’t.  For one brief moment I imagined the plane was landing, until it hit the earth and exploded into a pluming black cloud.  Movement around me slowed to half speed, then quarter speed, as if the air in the blue sky had thickened with sorrow.

Those of us watching from the bridge began to scream; the sound inhuman, swallowed whole by the eerie howl of a sudden hot wind.  The heat roiled in my stomach and I bent over where I stood and vomited.  A man, a complete stranger, came to me and held my head, smoothed my hair back.  He made kind sounds, non-words that echoed through the blood buzzing in my ears.

I don’t remember the drive to the crash site.  I do remember following my stranger’s silver Mercedes as though it was a lifeline, a reality I needed to stay with.  We parked blocks away, but we felt the heat, even then, as he took my hand.  We ran, or he did.  I stumbled beside him, keeping pace with the sirens, praying, passing stunned people who staggered into the streets.  A wall of heat and smoke stopped us and we stood, useless.

My stranger fell to his knees then, pulling me down with him, crushing my hand to his chest while he wept; long crawling gasping sounds.  We huddled there in the street on our knees, and between sobs he told me that he’d been running late, on his way to the airport to pick up his daughter.  She was 25, working in LA and coming for a visit.  Surely, she’d forgive him for leaving her stranded.  He whispered the last words and I put my face close to his, looked into his eyes and took the full impact of his words.

I felt then like elderly people must feel when they forget who they are, where they are, what shoes are for, when each gesture calls meaning into question, unbuttoning a button, breathing.  I was 20, a mere child, but I forced myself to understand we were taking turns, as people do, in sharing strength.

I learned later that the 727 was carrying more than six tons of fuel, much of it in the wing tanks.  The news reported that from the moment of impact with the Cessna, it took just 17 seconds to transform PSA Flight 182 from a fully functional airliner into a mass of burning wreckage encompassing four city blocks.  The crash destroyed 22 houses in North Park, and killed 7 residents, as well as all 144 people on board the jet and both pilots in the Cessna.

Jeff told me later that he knew his daughter was on the plane the moment he witnessed the impact, but that tending to me and having me with him gave him the strength he needed to “keep the fist out of his gut long enough to know, without a doubt, that he couldn’t save her.”

Jeff and I remained friends from that day on. He was finally able to go home to his daughter in September, 2002.

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as true strength.” ~Sales

Aboard Extortion 17 that day were 17 of my husband’s brothers – U.S. Navy SEALs. It is this brotherhood of men and their families who sustain me today as the widow of a veteran Navy SEAL. And I know without a doubt that on August 6, 2011, my husband Steve welcomed all 30 – and Bart – into a brotherhood that lives on in Heaven as a Platoon of Warrior Angels. Such Grace.

There is tenderness in the presence of true strength; it fairly grips the soul and stays long after the moments fade, years I think. Perhaps even a lifetime.

Lynnette Bukowski ©2012

Lynnette Bukowski is a freelance author and artist and the Founder/Director of LZ-Grace (Landing Zone Grace) Veterans Retreat. (www.lz-grace.com)

Changing Hats

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God knew as I
before I came to this world
my hats would run out
The dirty Easter bonnet
The Black Beret’ with Sass
The lovers timid veil
Designer Ribbons flare
A Mother’s backward cap
A Wife’s honorary Trident
A widow’s brimmed ache
so liquid now it melts
around my hair and eyes
and down into my soul
and there I am like Jonah in the whale
folded in half
with prayers so thin they are
whispered until I am
the string between two tin cans
rusted with regret I cannot find

What now does the Mother
of a dying son’s hat look like?
Oh, Mother Mary hold my hand
you know this part

all of the imperfect in me is naked and I am left
with nothing but a leaky love
that drips through my final hat in hand
onto the dusty floor
and scatters with such missing
that I am afraid
I may not gather enough love to
fill another cup of life.

Lynn Bukowski
© September 11, 2011

No Longer… Sleeping With a Terrorist.

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 1 Comment

Author’s Note: 4/19/2013 –  I wrote this article in obvious response to political gesturing by the present Administration in 2009. It was published then in Stars & Stripes, and local newspapers.  It appears this Administration keeps repeating itself like a broken record, issuing a new version of the “same” report every few years. They simply change a few studies, update the latest craze in “terrorism” lingo and keep pushing an agenda that includes our brave men and women… not as heroes, but as threats.

I believe in honoring  – not disparaging – our Warriors who so bravely fight on against the “actual” Terrorists. To that end… I present a re-posting of my 2009 article:

In 2009…

I went to bed last night with a hero and woke up with an extremist – a potential terrorist. Imagine my surprise.

For 30 years I’ve enthusiastically climbed into his bed, helped him raise three children and fifteen foster children, prayed for and with him, cried, fought, laughed, moved the household around the world and country – all in support of his job as a US Navy SEAL.

As an intelligent and intuitive woman, mother and wife, you’d think I’d know who I’m sleeping with. Not so, according to Janet Napolitano and her Homeland Defense team.

Sarcasm aside, I’ll just say this straight up. I know this man. I know many, many of his fellow SEALs. I’ve fed them, cried with them, buried them, and commiserated with their families. Not for one moment have any of them – active duty and retired – forgotten these words: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Let me climb out of bed and get up on my pedestal so I’m equal to you when I ask this: Which part of that oath don’t you understand, Secretary Napolitano? Between you and me, Janet, woman to woman, words hold meaning.

I noticed in your feeble mea culpa to our Military Veterans your reference to only the wording of a footnote regarding the Department of Homeland Defense’s assessment entitled, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. Please note that Page 7, Section (U), is not a footnote. Read in its entirety, the memorandum (which was certainly not written for us silly citizens to read) refers to sociopaths like Timothy McVeigh, violent Neo-Nazis, and white supremacists in the same sentence as… “the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.

How dare you disparage the men and women of the United States military to further your own political agenda. There are indeed real terrorists out there among us, but they are not made up of our military men and women or our veterans.

For 32 years my husband, alongside his brothers, endured the rigorous, constant training of Special Forces, lived the life and perfected the skills that are second to none in this world. He took an Oath and by GOD, by our love and support of him and his career choice – this entire family has lived that oath for all these many years.

I’m guessing here, but I do not think a certain Merchant Marine Captain would liken the special ops men who saved his life with the pirate terrorists who nearly murdered him.

You, Secretary Napolitano, and your DHS Team, by accepting the memoranda as truth, albeit a few unfortunate words, have equated our brave men and women to sociopaths.

Indeed, there are a few sociopaths who have managed to serve and train with the U.S. military over the years. All walks of life endure such people. Ironically, though, when I researched the definition of Sociopaths – those who are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others – I was startled to note that the behavior of a large majority of Congressman, Senators and members of our current administration exhibit several symptoms of a Sociopaths mindset, to wit: not learning from experience, no sense of responsibility, inability to control impulses [especially with our money], lack of moral sense, lack of guilt, self-centeredness, just to name a few.

But I digress.

As a military wife for 30 years, allow me to say this straight up: You most certainly are tracking ideological differences and where it does not suit the administration’s agenda, you are labeling it extremism… or a threat. Therefore, your attempt at an apology is not accepted. I do not want to shake your hand or discuss this. I am an American, Ma’am. I am not politically correct and don’t want to be. I’m on God’s side, the Country’s side, the People’s side and as such, the Military’s side… If loving this Country, supporting our military and believing in God is now labeled as Extremism, I give.

In 2013… 

I no longer have my very own extremist to sleep with. He’s dead. He served this Country his entire adult life with honor and integrity and I will not — for one moment — think of him as anything but the hero he was.

In addition to giving up my husband to this Country, I will make one other concession: If I gladly accept the label of being an Extremist, will you step down and take the entire administration, democrats and republicans alike, with you? I’m sick of all of you and quite frankly, consider the lot of you a threat to My Country.

© 2009 Lynnette Bukowski (updated 2013)

Lynnette Bukowski is a freelance writer, the founder and director of LZ-Grace Veterans Retreat and the proud Widow of a Veteran Navy SEAL. She presently lives in Virginia Beach, VA

Memo from the Department of Just Showing Up

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 2 Comments

DSC_0003 (2)How is it that I find myself at 3:30 in the morning on my back porch with an old box of matches?  I ask this aloud to Spike.  He does not answer.  Instead, paw on my leg, tennis ball in his mouth, his brown eyes look up at me, hopeful.  The print is faded, but I can make out “Subic Bay Christian Serviceman’s Center” and on some dare to the full moon, I slip out one match, strike it, and marvel at the spark and fire, the sharp, pungent smell of thirty-three-year-old sulfur.  Spike is not impressed with this magic.  Still, my spontaneous grin ignites a full body wag and thumping tail and I cannot help but throw a high curveball into the moonlight and watch as he ducks under the fence and chases across the pasture.

Surely, it is no accident that on this particular night I woke up to rummage through a drawer for warm socks and came up with a memory so potent that time slips away in decades. I am so entranced with my memories that when my captive audience of one returns triumphant – ball in mouth – I cannot help but tell him the story.

In 1976 I lived in Coronado, California with my parents in a high-rise condominium overlooking the Pacific Ocean.   I attended college and worked as lead vocal in Whitefeather, a top-forty, all-girl band.  We played military base clubs and private parties four nights a week and I was rarely home before 3:00 AM.  It began in October that year, each morning at dawn – with only two hours of sleep – I woke to a crude, slightly entertaining mantra emanating from a group of men dressed in blue and gold t-shirts, tight tan shorts and combat boots.  They ran in formation down the beach, chanting their cadence, replete with original and rudimentary rhyme that echoed up six floors and into my head.  Most of the time I was intrigued, but after one particular week of very little sleep and finals looming, I leaned my head out of my open window and issued a stream of oaths.  Without breaking stride, every single man waved at me in unison, mocking my sunrise angst.  Thus became our morning ritual.

A neighbor educated me about these supercilious behemoths.  All were trainees or instructors at BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition School), a brutal training course for specialized commandos known as U.S. Navy SEALs.  It was several weeks before I had my first close-encounter.

During a private gig, and mid-way through my rendition of Moondance, the most ridiculously handsome, arrogant man I will ever meet, walked right up onto my stage and asked me to dance.  We spent the next year in heated debates disguised as dates.  During one such date he dared me to marry him.  I accepted the dare.

Years later, when he arrived from a mission just moments before I gave birth to our daughter, I yelled at him about his lousy timing and party-crashing habits.  He laughed, kissed me square on my panting lips and said, “I didn’t crash your party, I simply showed up to the rest of my life.”  The sweetness of that moment may have been lost to labor pain, but I digress…

In October 1978, Steve and I were married at 10:00 o’clock at night at the Christian Serviceman’s Center in Subic Bay, Olongapoe, Philippines during a monsoon.  Picture this: me in red Candie high heels, (I had them in every color) climbing alone into the back of an open Jeepney(a Filipino taxi) in rain and wind that sliced the sky open. When I arrived, the electricity was out but Steve was there, along with Sixteen Navy SEALs (slightly intoxicated), and a Navy Chaplain who stood wearily between my travelling companion and Steve’s best friend.  I stood at the entrance, charmed by the glow of the votive candles they held.  In unison, they began their own off key version of the wedding march. The room smelled of matchstick sulfur, wet clothes and grain alcohol, but I was delighted by their goofy smiles and I think I laughed aloud as I sloshed my way down the aisle with mud spattered up to my knees and rain dripping from the hem of my cotton dress.  Steve smiled that cocky, edgy smile, leaned in close and whispered, “See, all you had to do was show up.”

Exactly six hours later Steve and his platoon left for a three-week excursion.  Middle of the night exits and unannounced returns became the rhythm of our existence.  During our first year of marriage, we spent exactly 98 days together, no more than 15 consecutive days at a time. I found it fascinating to drill him on details about his trips and quickly learned that even my best methods of persuasion only worked for short clipped versions of his days (so to speak) at the office.  Eventually, we found other things to talk about. Every two to three years from 1978 on we moved across the street, the country or the world.  We lived in seven different states and four different countries.

Independence, while slightly force-fed, taught me how to run our family on my own for months on end.  And it never failed that just about the time the kids and I learned a new language or adapted to a new culture, Steve would show up on the doorstep and we would begin again the next adventure.

This is no sad story, I tell Spike.  He lifts his head, having long since curled himself around my bare feet, and looks at the small box in the palm of my hand. It is not a treat or ball and his obvious disappointment makes me laugh through my tears. Death is nothing at all.  Even now – so many months after Steve’s passing from this earth – he is urging me on to show up to life without him. This, I announce aloud, is beyond measure, a legacy much larger than our little universe of dog and broken woman in the wee hours of dawn.  This ancient little box of matches is a gift full of brilliant love and serendipitous moments.

Steve was right. Life is not complicated.  Rather, it is a sequence of surprises, both excruciatingly painful and full of glorious adventure mixed and stirred up in moments. We mere mortals too often obscure the steps and miss the moments, when all we really need to do is just show up.

 By Lynnette Bukowski © 2011RED
Lynnette Bukowski continues to show up to life each day as a freelance writer and artist. She is the Founder and Director of LZ-Grace Veterans Retreat and is always available to correspond with military widows and families of our fallen warriors at ljbukowski@gmail.com

Rainy Morning Letters #495

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 10 Comments

golden memoriesIt is the perfect morning to lie in bed and cuddle with the memory of you.  Through the window glass the trees shush, their leaves yielding to clear drops, one after the other, sometimes two together, as though you are watering my heart from your Heaven.

The roof dulls the sound for a moment until it spatters over the eaves and creates blistering drops on the deck, like sizzling bacon.  I think: bacon and three fried eggs and a sliced tomato.  A lazy weekend morning and I serve you one of the few gifts you would accept from me.

At this moment – right now – I feel your solid chest against my back, your right forearm and calloused hand resting on my hip, your knee pushing gently against the back of my thighs.  You are right here.  If I turned, I could lay my head against your shoulder, push my face into your smooth neck and know.  The knowing of nothingness and everything.

My eyes squeeze shut at the ache of pure sadness.  The missing your physical presence makes the windows shudder with a stomping rush of falling rain.  Is this your universal answer to my tears? You were never this dramatic on Earth.

You whisper: Get up and write this down.  I stretch against your memory like a waking child. I say: don’t tell me what to do.

If you were here to make me coffee I would hear the sound of six level scoops.  Water pouring – like this morning rain. The aroma of your love for me would seep into the bedroom like a stealth warrior.

I get up, wander into the kitchen and put six rounded scoops and one-half more, which I know would cause a morning spat.  Why do I so blatantly break the making coffee rules?  Because I like the way our spats end: You grab my hips and spin me into a bear hug and ardent kiss that even now – in the memory of it – leaves me breathless.

Still – probably surrounded by a Platoon of spirits – with each cup of coffee you pour – you add cream, a teaspoon of sugar and while you stir, you grumble to the cup, I can’t believe she is still such a rebel. They all chuckle.  I can hear you, you know, as though the words form a red neon ticker tape of commentary circling the tongue and groove pine of the kitchen ceiling.

I ask God: Do spirits laugh?  And I have this vision of you sitting around with God and Buddha, a few Mystics and all the Team guys who have so recently passed over.  You are all telling stories, animated hand gestures and colorful language and the laughter is so huge it sounds like thunder rumbling through the trees.

The passion with which we lived still resonates.  My ego starts to dream up God deals.

I’m sipping coffee laced with licorice tea.  I know… the oddity of me.  And I begin:  rainy coffee

Dear God, today is the 495th day of this infinite deployment and really, I need him back now.  Here’s the deal….

God sighs… the infinite loving sigh.   No Deal.  He says this in capital letters.  And like I’m watching a You-Tube short I’m given a glimpse of you – vital and healthy, slipping through narrow gates, holding infants, holding moons, philosophizing with Emerson and St. Francis, building lavish parks, bending to take a toddler’s hand, telling sea stories with your Team mates, trimming your mustache, building houses, studying in a library that is endless and everything.   You are full of Joy.

When you stand, turn, and stare at me, through me, hands on hips, blue-green blazing eyes near maximum intensity I can hardly breathe through the realness:  I’m writing again, I say. The answer to the question you have not asked.

About damn time.  You think it.  I feel your thought and see it glisten through you just as the sun peaks through the cloud.  It’s your rare, reserved smile spilling over me.  I laugh aloud because even in Heaven you’re a smart ass.

It’s all about the Love… I hear you say, standing at the stove stirring your beef bourguignon and reminding me each time I walk into the room that it’s all about the love.  I wonder if you even had an inkling then of the absolute greatness of that simple lesson?

You wait patiently then – so unlike you – until my soul fills with a boundless blue love.  The rain begins again and it is here in this moment I feel your energy leave me – for now – standing in the perfect memory of you.

rainy morning sun

Lynnette Bukowski © 2011

Keep or Toss – Sorting Memories

/ Lynnette Bukowski / 4 Comments

us footlocker
At 3:00 in the morning I decide to confront a certain foot locker that a year ago took two men to move from the barn to my bedroom. Until now, I did not have the nerve to open it, but I cannot lie in bed and look at it for one more moment.

I turn on a light, pry open the lid and laugh at the perfectly organized assortment of goods.

Now, the rule for this 22nd move in 34 years is to sort every last thing and either keep, toss or give away. Since I’m moving 3000 sq. ft. plus barn into 1600 sq. ft. and a shed, the 3 pile strategy is an absolute must.  But in the wee hours of the morning I am suddenly and adamantly opposed to rules.  And, it appears, I’ve developed a situational case of A.D.D. with a twist.

This is what actually happens…

I don a starched camouflaged jacket, roll up the sleeves and go in search of a bottle of wine and a sturdy glass.

I wander around with an over-sized baggie full of elaborate screws, nails and attachment thingies that appear to be 10 years old just to see if I can use them anywhere. I can’t.

I marvel at an assortment of creative weaponry to include an ancient, but recently sharpened Bolo knife and feel just a little bad ass.  Because I can.

I attempt several PT moves listed in a notepad full of handwritten lists of PT workouts. 4:00 AM Fail.

I wonder: what the hell is a brand new spring miter clamp used for in daily life?

I clip on an ammo belt full of shot gun shells (which would have been useful a few months back when two yahoos entered my yard!) and decide it’s a good O-dark-thirty look.

I am perplexed at the myriad issued green flip-pads held together with rubber bands containing notes to the kids, notes to me, meditation notes and quotes penned in the margins. The man hated to write, which is how he talked me into writing and typing hundreds of papers straight through his MS. Now I’m a little bit pissed.

Then I find a boot box stuffed with every card, letter and note I ever penned to lettersSteve dating back to 1980.

I make coffee, settle in and read every word.

When the sun comes up it finds me sitting in the middle of a circle of memories and smiling from ear to tired ear.

Keep.

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it…I would discover that it hadn’t washed me away.”
~Lamott

Lynnette Bukowski  © 2012