Just another day. Just another holy day. Today was sunny and warm and beautiful.  In a state that just moved out of drought last year, and then only after unending months of record rainfall, we as a people are not entirely pleased with this January sun. We watch the evening weather report with worry and curse at the high pressure ridges that move in and send all our storms to Colorado. We love the sun, we do. We are Californians, after all. But these days, as we pass each other on the street, we say, “Beautiful weather!” and then quickly add, “But we need the rain!”

“We need the rain” is our continuing California anthem.  The fires that recently raged out of control in Southern California only reinforced this.

Today was another beautiful, sunny day without my Mom.  I have not fully accepted that all days will be like this now. I think of her often. Just the other day, when I burned my finger on the stove, I heard her say, “Run some cold water on that.”  So I did.

People out and about ask me how I am.  This is normal in our culture. “How are you?”  to someone in grief, though, is not a safe question.

At the Toyota dealer, the service advisor asked, “How are you?,” but only after telling me about himself.  “I am having a bad day,” he said, as I walked up to the counter. “People!” he said, as if that explained it.

I think this might be a service advisor sales technique.  Maybe he hoped that I was having a bad day, too, and that we could commiserate together about how difficult it was to be out in the world, dealing with the public, who were so annoying. Of course, I would realize that he didn’t mean me. I wasn’t annoying.  I was his unannoying friend. And if my friend the service advisor suggested that I would truly benefit from the upgraded service package (engine conditioner, anyone?)  how could I say no?

I think that he was surprised when I started to cry.

It is awkward to cry at the Toyota dealer service counter.

I am learning, though, that tears are a grieving person’s friend. They make space around you; people tend to look away from you and leave you alone. It’s embarrassing to cry in public, but it gives you breathing room.

In my case, at the Toyota dealer, my tears got me out of the upgraded service package. When I’m crying, I can’t speak. I can’t answer questions. There is only blubbering and snot coming out of my nose and mascara running down my face.  The service advisor dialed back his sales pitch. It was a blessed relief.

I’m thinking that it might not be a bad thing if we had a little more crying in our culture.  God knows there  are plenty of reasons for grief now. But all of us are trying so hard to keep it together. To look like we are OK and handling things very well, thank you so much. It’s what we share on Facebook and Instagram.  We are all OK. Better than OK, actually. We had fantastic holidays and traveled to beautiful places and prepared amazing meals.  We exercised regularly. We set goals and met them and are making the world a better place just by being in it.

But really? Is anyone OK? The planet is dying, the oceans are choked in plastic, our relationships are falling apart, we are in debt, we have a reality show star as a president, and there’s all this stupid sunny weather in what should be one of our rainiest months.

Not OK.

What would happen  if we stopped being afraid of our tears? What if we stopped hiding them?  What if we made it a point to cry in public, at least once or twice a month, especially when we were having bad days and feeling crummy or the president Tweeted about his big nuclear button? Maybe holding it together so well is part of the problem. Maybe the path out of the dark  starts with tears.

The end of a year- a year of great loss and surprising love. Time to welcome the new, but to honor and remember the old for its lessons and gifts.

This year, I lost my Mom. She died November 18, but the losses started months before, back in July, when she was first diagnosed with her brain tumor.  First, I lost her speech. Her stories. Access to all the things I meant to ask her someday.  Time ran out for that sometime back in early July, but I missed that day. I didn’t know. I was busy.

Later, we lost the ability to go out together.  Walking was so hard for her. I remember our last outing,  just to a local taqueria for burritos and to Great Clips for a haircut. Getting to the restaurant from the car and later from the salon to the parking space right outside was nearly impossible for her. Just months before, she had regularly walked two miles a day at a nearby park. She loved greeting other walkers on the path; she loved the baby geese.

I lost my son’s little boy voice this year. He’s grown so much. His feet went from a size 8 or 9 to a size 13. Sometime right around Mother’s Day, he got taller than me. One morning, I woke up and his voice had changed. I realized after a frantic hunt through my phone videos that I couldn’t find any recent recordings of it. Of how it had sounded just weeks before. I didn’t know that it could change overnight. I thought it would take time. It didn’t know it would just disappear.

I lost my portable massage table. We don’t have a garage, so when we are in a hurry and leaving to do errands, I often take it out of the back of the car and lean it against the fire hydrant right across from our house. It gives us more room. We live on a dead-end street, well off the road in a small mountain town.  I didn’t realize it was missing until the next day, when I left to do a massage for a friend in her home. I put up signs at the post office, the café, the general store, offered a $50 reward. No luck.

Loss upon loss.  Things that I took for granted, things that were gone.

Except.

In the midst of all this loss, people showed up. I was never alone. Not one minute.

My sister, my niece and I walked together through my Mom’s illness. Also, my husband and children. My friends. My friends ignored me when I said I was fine, that I didn’t need anything. They visited me when I was staying at my Mom’s house. They visited her, too, and talked with her about things she loved, whether it was game shows or her San Francisco Giants. They brought bags of the season’s first mandarin oranges and Brie. I had never even liked Brie before. They brought books for me. They brought themselves.

After my Mom passed away, these same friends rallied. They took over the food for my Mom’s memorial service. They designed and printed the program. They came to the church to help serve, even when I told them it wasn’t necessary, that there wasn’t much for them to do.

They showed up. They showed up time and time again. They found things to do. Boots on the ground.

Also, after they saw the notices about my missing massage table, two people in my little community called to offer me their massage tables for free.  They had tables in their sheds and garages, and they would be happy for me to have them.

One of my mentors reminded me just yesterday that God shows up where we are. That God is in our joys, but also in our losses.  Every one of them. Small and large.

In loss, great love.

Happy New Year to all of you, my friends who have read this far. You are the ones who have shown up for me. I am so grateful.