A Day to Know

By Demi Pirpiris

It came down to one question: Do I want to live?
I had to believe that my life meant something -maybe not to me, but to the people who loved me. Now, came the tough part: I had to hold myself accountable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781329579637

Book preview

A Day to Know

A Day to Know

Cover/Book Art for A Day to Know by Jenna Kroon

Goddess of Pure Light Art Design by Maggie Terrone

Symbols/Icon Art for demipirpiris.com image design by Maggie Terrone

Cover/Book Art for Justin’s Cross Final Judgment: The Vision by Dave Bernard

Editor: Vicky Seton

Author’s Photo: Geoffy McCrudden

Copyright  2013 Demi Pirpiris

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used in any form or reproduced by any means without written permission from the author.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pirpiris, Demi.

A Day to Know / Demi Pirpiris.

ISBN 978-0-9919502-0-1

Dedication

For my family

What We Will

When it first came to me that this story would be told, I was holding my baby son and pacing the bedroom floor.  The pace was scattered but solid –directionless yet focused.  It set itself firmly in the clearness of a spring morning, with the sun streaming warmly onto the places where my bare feet moved.  It was as if this sunshine had beamed in with an idea that felt complete from the start –yet shattered at the same time.

I knew this was something I had to do.  I knew without a doubt in any part of me that this was a message that was coming from the only place I would come to trust.  I didn’t know about trust all that much, at the time, but every piece of my being was nudging me into this place of giving it a chance.  If I could give it the chance it deserved, then maybe this is where I might begin to learn that the only thing worth trusting in this life is: the hope for a dream our heart carries for each of us during our lifetime. 

Mostly, I felt exposed and I didn’t like it at all. I’d been closed for so long and, with the exception of my children, nothing else had ever given me much joy.  Joy was an emotion not very well held by me.  Joy was one of those things that I dreamed about and, when I held my children and looked into their eyes, it was the closest I felt to it.  But for joy to come from me and through me, no –I can’t say that I had ever had that connection before.  So when the light of the sun hit me, although it felt warm and safe and guiding, I felt panicked.  Yes, this is a word I can use with confidence because this is the one emotion I knew well.

I turned from the sun for the bed I shared with my husband, Geoff, while still holding my son Jack –and, with my free hand, I began to make it.  The panic was steadily rising as I pulled at the sheets on one side, then on the other, and all I could hear was: make it perfect –make it perfect –make it perfect. It was only when my daughter Marcia, who was seven at the time, walked into the room when I realized that I had been thinking out loud. 

Mommy?

I think mommy has to tell her story, I said running my hand over the pillow I had just set in place.

I watched as she followed the light to the window that overlooked the trees in the garden.  She’s young, I thought. She doesn’t understand.  But one day she will because she’ll remember. We all remember.  All of us remember.  I finished at the bed and walked over to the window. 

If that window could talk, it would tell the story of how the three of us had shared time there looking out during the sunny days of winter. We loved how the sun’s magic glittered upon the snow, reflecting its light in the rainbow spectrum of color.  You could also find us there watching the snow fall without any sun to sparkle it.  We took great pleasure in spotting the snowflakes as they swirled softly to land upon the window ledge.  When the wind was blowing, it was always something to watch the grand white pines sway from side to side. We adored the trees that surrounded our cedar home, and felt protected by them.  And in summer, under those same trees, we knew a safe place to play.

In fall, we had delighted from that very window in tracking the leaves as they twirled from their branches to join the piles of golden yellows, burnt oranges, fiery reds and crisp browns in their solemn surrender for ground cover, where the only good thing about this was that we could make great big piles with them to jump in.

The house was still new to us, with this being our first spring here, since the move at the start of summer the year before.  I had insisted on a place in the country before Jack was born, convincing Geoff that we’d soon outgrow our first home with the arrival of the new baby.  He was reluctant at first because a bigger house meant a bigger mortgage, and as an entrepreneur, with only the business as a source of income, money was a concern.  But I won with an agreement from him in the end.

Our street stood in the shape of a horseshoe, and was quiet with a spring-fed lake beyond the equestrian and foot trail behind us.  The walk afforded in these fields and in through the woods was just the thing to make us feel that the move had been worth it.  And with a new baby to welcome, it had seemed just the right time to make the fresh start.

The warmth of the sun’s beams through the window revived me.

You know? I said.  This is one of my favorite things to do.  Looking out this window with the two of you.

Maybe we can see a robin today, Marcia said looking up at me.

I held tightly to my son in my arms and to my daughter at my side.  I stroked her gold-spun curls as my eyes filled.  I wonder who’ll spot him first this year? I said trying to push back the tears.

Maybe, I will? Marcia said raising herself on her tippy-toes, in search of the little bird that would excite us each year.

I tilted my face upward in search of a branch cradling the blue, or anything worth turning her attention to, but the timing was far off the mark of concealing the very thing I had always wanted to protect her from.  Her smile had already fallen when she asked, Mommy?  Why are you crying?

I love new beginnings, I said, having just lost against the strength of this pure and simple gift of a moment, with us in it.  And spring is a new beginning.

My eyes flooded for just a hint of a nest, or a glimpse of an egg, or the bird so full of a vibrant red breast, but there was only a rustling among the leaves of the maples and in through the needles of the white pines. 

Robins are a peaceful way of marking new beginnings, I said quietly.  Beginnings marked with hope.

Uh-umm, Marcia said as her eyes held me through the glass.  I like robins.

I drew her close and managed to push back the last bit of heaviness.

I like them too, I said.

The baby looked on absorbing the exchange between us.  His solid, chocolate-brown eyes were very good at holding all expression. He was happy and fulfilled, and all the things a mother hadn’t much to worry for, but he was quiet and more serious for it on the whole.  So, really, one never knew what he was feeling unless he was wanting for something.

And I like when we first see them –in that very second, it means spring has just begun for us, I said, reminding her of the Native Indian legend I’d learned of years before.  Maybe we’ll spot one on our walk with Nala.

Can I hold the leash? she asked.

"Yes, you may hold the leash."

Okay, she said and off her sunbeam she stepped, and out of the room she skipped.

Where are you going? I asked after her.

To watch cartoons.

Something awakened on the sunbeam that morning.  Something I wasn’t quite sure of, but knew of.  I knew of it, as it had always been a part of me only it had failed to bloom until that exact, warm moment.  A moment where I recognized that this journey might prescribe a healing that would also serve as the key into the life I had always imagined.  An imagined life that held the beauty of a sunrise, and the beauty of a smile, for as long as I wanted to hold it –and maybe it could all be real one day –and maybe I could call it mine.

The moment of daydream recalled a piece of writing.  I set the baby down on a sunspot of his own and tore down the hall to the desk, to retrieve from it the file I would return to often.  I grabbed it along with a toy car from the nursery and raced back to meet him. 

Jack was a sitter and a very happy sitter at that –as long as he had something in his hands to keep his mind moving. I settled next to him on the bare wood and pulled from the folder the piece I had written, while the house had been quiet.  I knew not of its origin, but in all effortlessness, and before I was ready for it, it had found its way to the paper. I read it again and again, and all the while I was trying to understand how something so beautiful, and so full of promise, had come from a place inside me.  It has remained untitled, and although I have tried to name it, as well as edit the lines to somehow make it better, I now know that it must remain unchanged.  Over the years, I have come to receive the poem’s message as one filled with hope.  Its offering of light is pure.  Each time I read its words, they nurture and inspire just as they’re meant to.

I can recall a time when the bird’s song nestled upon the ledges of my heart

This type of happiness is truly blissful and alive

It awakens the soul’s longing for song

It embraces the very core of life

This happiness reflects Spirit’s dream for peace in a world so unsure of where it’s going   

To believe that we are just that, beings with purpose for kindness and acceptance and compassion

To surround oneself with this truth is freedom

Freedom for an unwavering journey toward the pursuit of all that is good

The realization that Heaven and Earth are one

The other writing gathered in the same file is also inspired of this place, I knew not of then, but now know of very well.  It is best described as a place where all good things grow.  A bad thought should not exist here, for if it did, the clarity of sanity would only be darkened under its thickness.  And if such thickness dared to be cast in sanity’s clearness, then all that I had ever hoped for would never have come to light.  Without a bad thought in it then, and with intentions of only good, I was learning that all I bring with me to give is all that I shall ever receive.  So I began to believe that goodness lived in me despite past mistakes, past hurts, and past failings. I began to realize that I could never move forward to a place of dreams if I insisted on locking into what I had allowed to become real within me, from that which had been born of pain.

What I nurtured thrived in me.

What I believed manifested. 

So it is only with good thoughts and good intentions that I began to move in the direction of my dreams. My dream was to know a life without illness. And maybe when I began this writing I didn’t quite know what I would find at the end of it, but I did know that my heart had summoned me to trust in it.  It was in this trust, for the intention of good put forward, that the telling of my story would help me to realize my dream. A dream that I owed to the life I had lived –to the life I was living. Somehow the dream of getting better would help me to understand that no matter where I had been, no matter what I had lived, no matter why me, that it had all been worth it.  Worth it to learn that my place here was a gift.  Worth it to learn that gratefulness helps us believe in all things possible. A possibility set against all the impossibilities of the world I had come to know.

When It Hits: Part I

Mommy, I want those, Marcia said, pointing to the grocery shelf stocked full with baked goods. 

Okay, I said as I tried to bring into focus the plastic bear container filled with her favorite cookies. 

I knew that whatever had taken hold, had also hung my senses out to dry. Almost, in an instant, my body had felt worn as I spun into the blurriness around me.  I knew I was in trouble. I had to move out of that aisle and out of that supermarket.  I knew that my order was only partially filled –but it didn’t matter.  I swiped at the plastic bear container knocking it into the rolling cart and barreled toward the cashiers.  Passing out and leaving my helpless four-year-old stranded, with strangers, was not an option.  If I could just stay long enough, so that I could steer us away from hitting the cold, concrete floor, then I might have a chance.  I paid for the items and managed to lift her from the cart, and with two bags in one arm I took her hand with the other, and staggered for the exit. I could see the parked cars just beyond the store’s sliding doors and had convinced myself that once outside and in the fresh air, my breathing that had become shallow and rapid, just as suddenly as the weakness that had taken hold, would resume its natural rhythm. 

But once outside, I fought harder for each breath.

I paced my footing so as not to drag my daughter –she was already running just to keep up.  I spotted our car in the distance and felt helpless in my attempt to reach it, so I summoned up a will from a place that held my strength in prayer.  I knew that I was now lifting away from my body, for somewhere between the cookie aisle and the parking lot, it would seem as if I had left it, but when I looked down my feet were still there pounding out one footstep, then another.  Just as I began to recognize that they were a part of me, I was already securing Marcia into the child seat.  I slid the door shut and drew a deep breath to assess the damage –it was critical.  I gasped for the air that could no longer fill my lungs and was now praying out loud, as I held the wheel.

Please just let me get home –please –please just let me get home.

I repeated that line, and each time I did I felt a little closer to safe.  I hadn’t much of anything else to go on except those exact words, at that exact time, in the morning of a day that had come to find me.

I turned left at the boulevard that would link me to my cross street as I grabbed hold of the rear view mirror and brought my face in close.  It was pale and drawn.  I recalled that if I could just stay with the chatter coming from the back seat, then maybe I would make it home in time.

Mommy?

I searched for her little face in the mirror, and offered what I could after having just confirmed my condition again, only to learn that my lips had now lost all color.

Yes –sweetheart girl –we’re almost home.   Mommy just has to lie down.  I just have to lie down.

Mommy?  Mommy?

Yes, darling girl.

Can I have cookies when we get home?

At the light I signaled and turned onto the cross street –we were almost there.  If I could just stay with the drive for a minute more, then I would arrive to find Geoff in his office.  Maybe he would look at me and know that whatever it was, it was not good.  Maybe he would know without me having to tell him.  Maybe he would know everything right then and there.  Maybe in that right then and there, he would take me in his arms and tell me that everything was going to be okay.  Maybe he would say all those things so I wouldn’t have to share the secrets.  All the secrets I could never share with him.  All the secrets I could never share with anyone.  All the secrets that were mine to keep buried and out of sight.  If I could just keep them out of sight, then nobody would ever learn what I had become.

Today was different, though.

Today was the day that the secrets would begin to tell a story very different than the one I had edited for real life.

Mommy?

We’re almost home, Marcia, we’re almost home.

The little boy from around the corner had come racing up the driveway as we pulled in.  Billy had been round to our place for the last couple of months, and, at first, we thought he’d been coming to play with Marcia, but we soon learned that he’d been coming for me.  Poor thing had developed an almost crippling crush, and in all his innocence, he’d inserted two words at the beginning of each sentence, along with the same two words tagged on at the end.  These two words were: You’re pretty.  So Billy’s sentences ran something like this:  You’re pretty –I swam in my pool yesterday afternoon with my friend Joey –you’re pretty.  If Marcia or Geoff happened to be present, while Billy and I had been engaged in this sort of feverish-tagged conversation, they would try their best to keep from laughing.  To which I would later say, after my little admirer had gone, We must be very sensitive!

I have to admit that I wish there were something I could have done to distract from his affections, but really there wasn’t.  This would just have to run its course, and soon I would be but a faint and mostly dissolved memory of a schoolboy’s infatuation.  In the meantime, he would remain a trusted companion, just like our brand new puppy, Nala.

I turned off the engine and tried for another breath –it was still bad.  By this time Billy had parked his bike by the house and had made his way with his quick paced feet to the window of the driver’s side, with a face that always held three questions.  In his thrill to see me, he fired away the most important one first: Where were you?

Hi, Billy, I said, glancing at him and then returning my eyes toward my lap, to keep with the steadiness I had found since arriving home.  Groceries.  I have two bags in the back.  You can bring those in –if you want.

I hadn’t wanted to alarm him, but he could see for himself that I wasn’t looking too pretty today. So, instead of his most tried, tested and true three questions in a row:  Where were you?  Can I come in?  What do you feel like doing today?  He asked, Are you okay? To which I replied, I don’t know.

I leaned forward to rest my head at the top part of the wheel where I could feel him at my left side.

Don’t worry, Billy.  I just need to lie down.

Do you need help getting out?

I shook my head and said, I’m strong enough to get out –but I don’t know how strong I am to carry in these grocery bags.  Then I turned towards the back and instructed Marcia to find her father as soon as I had released her from the car seat.

The walk around the mini-van was unstable but doable, as long as I supported myself against its sides with my hand and, when necessary, my upper body.  The spinning, although having subsided, was still enough to distort my senses. 

I set her free and propped my back against the open door.  I held myself against it to watch the spunky, little girl with twisted, platinum-blond, bouncy curls holding the cookie container, as if it were some kind of prize, skip up the walk.  Billy followed close behind with the two bags in his arms. 

Geoff was already at the door.

Are you okay? he asked.

I have to lie down.

He instinctively reached to take me from just outside the door, to which I lifted my hand in signal for him to stop. Once past the threshold, I balanced myself against the wall in the entrance, and in my wobbled lean I heard him ask, Do you want to go to the hospital?

I don’t know, I said, not wanting to hear it. No –no hospital.

I continued into the front room towards the sofa and, when I reached it, I moved for the middle to recline into the lying position I’d wanted from the start. My breathing was still fast and shallow, and although I was lying down, I could still feel the effects of the spin in my stomach.

Watch over her, I said.

Are you sure you won’t see a doctor?

I can’t think –just need sleep, I said.  Where’s –Billy?

The little boy was already preparing to leave by the front door when from around the corner his face appeared.

I’m here.

Thanks for your help, Billy.

Yup, he said looking down.

We’ll give you a call later, sweetie.

I hope you feel better.

I’ll be fine, don’t worry.

The bay window afforded a sprinkling of relief only because of the graceful summer day it held. Geoff cranked open both sides for its freshness, while Marcia followed, stopping just before she reached me.  My eyes were heavy, but I had to settle her before I could rest.

Come here –darling girl, I said as I extended my hand to receive her.  Don’t worry.  Mommy’s just tired.  Daddy will pour you some milk for your cookies.

Geoff brought a glass of water and set it on the coffee table.

Drink some –you’re probably dehydrated, he said.

Mommy? Marcia said holding my hand in hers.

Yes –princess girl?

I love you.

I love you, sweet girl –so, so much.

I watched as Geoff took her hand and led her to the kitchen.  A tear trickled onto my