I can't decide if this calls for an attitude adjustment or a playful butt slap.

Such is August. Rather fickle and well, kids, I've really done it this time. I jacked my body up, acquired an enviable suntan, lashed out irrationally and almost face-planted in front of a Catholic priest, all in a matter of days. Some people might be worried, but not I. This is me playing a game of chicken against life and can I just say, WINNING. However, I'm getting ahead of myself.

This month's update is nice and punctual, partially because I'm awesome but also because the first two weeks have been crammed full of stuff...great stuff and sad stuff, enough for one post. Aaaand also because it's probably better that someone write it down as documentation. Insurance reasons, we'll go with that.

We began our month with Stillar Family StayCation, shoehorning all 13 of us + two dogs into Mom and Dad's house at Long Lake. We'd taken a poll and decided to tent it, everybody will pitch in and work like the responsible adults that we are, no water balloon fights like last year... The only one who might not want to participate is Molly, but she's over there playing Angry Birds while the twins try to judo chop their way out and she isn't really in the mood, if you know what I mean. The decision to sleep on the ground was a naive mistake, certainly not the brightest idea I've ever had. But this is the real reason why I keep my siblings so close, they're full of "great ideas".

And so began our week of bliss, aka the day we discovered I'm getting old. I'm serious. First day in, I was playing tube wars with my sister the hot toddy, and came home with bloody canvas burns and a firm I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. I woke up the next morning convinced that I needed to go to the ER like, right now. The days wore on, we boated, we swam, they fished, we played volleyball and games and ate lots of food. Then mom sat on the small dog, Alex threw a live fish at his wife and we officially declared mutiny.

Some days are just a lot like a hormonal woman. I would know.

In typical fashion, Mom assigned meals and chores across the board. Aforementioned mutiny fell on my day, in fact I kicked off the opening ceremonies when Grace stared at the food on the counter in front of me and said WHAT IS THA-YUT? so I told her: turkey, pear and brie for paninis. And she said OH MY GOSH THAT'S DIS-GAAAWS-TING! Well, you can make her own damn dinner and also, go away. She declared she was only there to help, the chore chart says so, and I was all HUH. WELL, YOU SUCK. GOODBYE. And that's how I got to preparing dinner all by myself.

I'm only good at sharing the kitchen when you offer to help and also to cut the running commentary. My ex-boyfriend was perfect at this. He also loved to cheat at Bananagrams by making up words and never telling anyone, and it never occurred to us to question him. Sneaky bastard.

Things we learned:


- 25-year-old bodies do not bounce (or bounce back) as well as 15-year-old bodies.
- "Poop" smoothies, appropriately named for the damage they cause, should not be consumed by 13 people all on the same day.
- Women who are seven months pregnant with twins are much easier to get into water than they are to get out.
- Dogs will throw up when they want to. It doesn't matter if you are in the way. 

Overall, this year seemed much less eventful. Maybe it was a sign of things to come. We'd no sooner resumed normal life when Coocum (my grandmother) began to go downhill fast. She'd been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in January, was given months to live, suffered a series of strokes in June, and had been in and out of hospice and various care facilities ever since. We lost her on August 12th. I've grieved many things, but this version is a first. In fact, it would seem there are various breeds, each their own form of difficult and beautiful all at once.

As with everything in my life, I knew from the start that I was to let myself feel it. Nothing terrifies me more, for while it means less trouble down the road, it also means being misunderstood, falling apart at inopportune times (all over unsuspecting people or worse, those who can't handle it), and making some really poor decisions in the meantime. I have never been able to weather difficulty with grace, in fact it ends up being most unattractive. While I know I need to do it this way, I never claimed to know how. Flying blind, as it were, is scary shit.

Maybe it's the artist in me, or maybe God just lost a bet, but I feel in very great capacity. I use lots of adjectives, I express myself, and thankfully, I'm also self-aware. Feeling colors life in deep shades but also makes it very hard. People are always telling you to calm down, this isn't a big deal, you should be over it by now, the list goes on. And I can confess, I try to do just that. But like anything, there is a plus side. I am able to experience life, art, laughter, celebration, successes, and also pain... all at once. And much more radically. While I am gradually learning to be okay with this truth about myself, I find that I can't ask people to wrap their mind around something they will never be able to see. It is, I am convinced, my greatest privilege and blessing in life, but also the thorn in my side. It's what allows me to worship the way that I do, dance the way that I do, make creative things with my hands, teach my students and make them laugh, and feel insurmountable pride at the things they accomplish. I know, by the grace and peace of God, that I was not created to feel any less than I do. Problem is that people want part, but not all of it. They appreciate and respect the way in which I worship, but they don't understand how and why my feelings are hurt so deeply by a careless individual. I don't have a choice in my circumstances, I can only control whether or not I will live at a higher level of living. So despite the fact that I desperately want to endure this loss without distraction - it's not happening. It was never meant to. What I want, what I desperately strive for, is that He be well pleased. My failures outnumber my merits but at the end of the day I am still desperate for Him, and through His grace I am learning.

But that is my own piece. The family, they are handling it an array of ways. Good and bad. They are learning via trial and error, just as I am. And though it still remains to be seen, I am so encouraged by their reflex ability to take one step that much closer to eachother, and feel with eachother just what this situation means.

I am reading 'A Severe Mercy' (S. Vanauken), and just as the shit hit the fan in our life, I read this. 'Grief is a form of love... I was having to bear the unbearable. If I must bear it, I would...find the whole meaning of it, taste the whole of it. I was driven by an unswerving determination to plumb the depths.. to understand why she had lived and died, to learn from sorrow whatever it had to teach.. I would not run away from grief.. Let all be according to His perfect will.'

And later on: 'It had never occurred to me that I was having a right response to death by being merely, though of course immensely, sad. Grief unalloyed.'

I am so thankful, so utterly thankful to be surrounded by people who love my family. Those who, when they heard the news, came in swarms to be with us for the services and the final goodbye. Not because they knew her, necessarily, but because they know us. Friends attended the mass and were treated to our own adaptation of Death at a Funeral as my cousin's phone went off, I was kicked off pallbearer duty for not being buff enough, and Molly's dress was hiked up her butt as she stood to take communion. We are, however, convinced that Jesus loves us too.

Cue the few days of family time, overshadowed (and yet redeemed in that it brought us together) by the death of Cook. We ate fried chicken, drank our weight in 14 Hands, and called it a day. Then cousin Jen had a birthday.

Some backstory: your great-aunt's are certifiably insane. Ask anyone. They love to do things like stick maxi pads to their foreheads. Or walk around the house with a camera and take pictures of everyone's cleavage for a fun game of 'Name Those Jugs'. Once, when they were younger and also before the invention of 911, they pranked their friends by leaving my newborn cousin on various front porches with a note that said I'M AN ORPHAN. MUST BE BREAST-FED. So it should come as a shock to nobody that they only got weirder once you throw in the need to cope with death.

As we speak, they're on their way to North Dakota, where they will lay Coocum to rest later this week. On their last night here, we hit the local dive bar scene, which though disgusting and probably the cause for its fair share of venereal disease, is culturally entertaining and also makes for excellent stories. My roommate the hypochondriac started hyperventilating before we even made it inside the first complete wreck of a joint. (BUT -- they had Jaegermeister on tap, gold star for them.) My aunts were toasting the world, Riley was regaling the bartender with stories (I don't know, all I really caught was the occasional F-bomb) and Jen was showing off her signature dance moves. Then the karaoke began, and I consider my horizons sufficiently expanded. It started with Total Eclipse of the Heart, turned into Sir Mixalot's Baby Got Back, and you have no idea how upset I am that I can't share with you THAT audio assault. Best hour and a half of my life.

And that's how we do it. We party, we grieve, we party some more. We stick close together and we discover new levels of obnoxious. Just another month.