photo by P. Cleary

Last year on the first anniversary of my husband's passing, friends and I planted a butterfly bush in his memory.
Here it is on July 3, 2009, the second anniversary--festive with blooms--just how Bob would love it.

Marking the second year was harder than the first. Of course, I wasn't numb this time around. A widow pal who had lost her husband of the same cancer called on July 3 around 4 p.m. (the date and time of death) to check in and let me know she was thinking of me. I told her I was doing okay, but my body had another reality. I cried myself to sleep around 7 p.m. and except for a few phone and bathroom calls, plus the noise of fireworks on Saturday night, I slept for 36 hours.

I've been walking my borough of Oxford, PA, pretending to be a tourist, with the intention of seeing it with fresh eyes.

This morning I walked by a professionally-printed sign standing in a lawn: Home Repairs, No Job to Big or to Small. I thought about taking down the phone number to request that the owner repair the sign. A small job, adding those missing O's. For me, it would inspire more confidence in the repair person. Then again, the errors reminded me, a recovering perfectionist, to lighten up.

Do you ever have a critic sitting on your shoulder, telling you what not to do, what not to paint? what not to write? what not to express to the world? My inner critic often sounds like my mother, who has been dead for 18 years. She was the mistress of the one-line zinger-- comments that could cut me off at my childhood knees. Two of her favorite sayings: don't rock the boat and don't give me any of your back talk.

The other day my sister and I were creating a list of our mother's zingers. One I had forgotten and my sister's favorite: We're Used to Hardships. This was my mom's standard reply whenever we asked (begged) for new clothes or dessert. It followed her No, as in No you can't; we're used to hardships. My sister says it turned out to be good training for these economic times. I say it blocks the flow of abundance and stunts creativity.

Now I have a long list of her sayings and can identify where many of my limiting beliefs came from. Yet, while awareness is key, it's only part of the struggle won. While we can wish these critical voices away and silence them for a spell, it seems they have a sneaky way of stopping us when we want to move forward in our creative self expression. So how do we talk back to them? What language do we use?

Try tapping with the set up phrase Even Though I don't know how to talk to my critic, don't know what language to use, don't know what words to use, I only know that I want to be heard.

See what comes up for you. For me, tapping on this topic is helping break a life-long silence and stand off with my mother. At last she's getting some of my back talk. She 's also getting some compassion. Opening the stuck energy has helped me understand her struggles as a single working mom rearing 3 kids. She didn't want her boat rocked any more than life had already done.

Even better and more delicious is how I'm going back to talk and listen to my younger me. I want to hear her back talk, all the way back to early childhood. I want to hear it all, no matter how it is expressed or in what language. I'm making a list of her complaints and will tap on those, too, as the energy pulls me.

About a year after my husband died, I noticed that the emerald from my ring was missing. I searched the house many times, turned up rugs, even dug through the vacuum cleaner dirt. I feared it had gone down the kitchen sink drain or down the toilet. I gave up my search and let it go, grieving again and hard because of its deep connection to Bob. He had worked with a jeweler to design the setting, chosen an emerald because he knew green is my favorite color. I blamed myself for being careless. I knew a prong was defective, but refused to take off the ring to get it repaired.

Recently came more loss and disconnection: A week ago, the kitty I had rescued for Bob when he became ill, died suddenly and without symptoms of congestive heart failure. She was only 3 1/2 years old.

This past weekend I went away to the Delaware shore for some R and R. And I began to find things. First my attention was pulled to a grassy patch by the driveway where I found a four-leaf clover. I tucked it into my wallet on top of my driver’s license. Later that day, while walking the beach and searching with intention for beach glass, I spied a well-worn piece of light green glass in an area of crushed shells and stones. I was delighted, even though I find 4-leaf clovers often, beach glass less frequently, and usually brown, not green.

Now this is the part of the green trilogy that has me mystified. On my way home Sunday evening, I stopped at a friend’s house. Sitting at the kitchen table, I opened my wallet and took out trip receipts. (I had picked up something for her and charged it.) After I had closed my wallet, my attention was pulled to the table, and there by my right arm sat a very familiar green gemstone. I’m still in shock. It is my emerald—it fits the empty setting perfectly. Assuming it fell from the wallet compartment where I keep receipts, bonus cards, business cards and grocery lists, how did it get there in the first place? Why had it not fallen out before? I’ve made hundreds of transactions from that compartment during the previous year. Why now?

I’m still puzzling over the incident. I didn’t find my emerald. It found me. It appeared suddenly and unexpectedly, as if out of nowhere. Yet all the while it had been tucked safely in my wallet, in my pocketbook, connected to me, but hidden. Like Bob is connected to me, but not in a visible or physical way.