Good grief.

Grief is a funny thing. Not funny in a ha-ha way. Funny in a wow this is fucked up way. If funny can be fucked up, that is.

This isn’t really starting off right.

Since December I’ve been pushing forward, moving quickly, embracing distraction. I took Christmas on in beast mode. I managed double the workload from my office when my boss’ estranged father died unexpectedly and she left the country for over a month. I hosted Easter dinner and made festive, Spring-y side dishes with peas and asparagus and puff pastry. I handled the end of the school year and birthdays and summer activity sign-ups. I have carpooled my ass off, completed a cleanse, celebrated a wedding anniversary, exercised and vacationed.

And every month on the 13^th day, I pause and think “It’s been another month.”

And any place I go, if I was there this time last year too, I pause and think “I shouldn’t have been here last year, I should have been with her.”

And every time Eleven acts Fourteen, I pause and think “If only I could call my Mom and ask her what to do.”

And everywhere I shop, I see owls and penguins and lemon-scented whatnots and I pause and think “Oh, I need to get that for her birthday” but halfway through the thought I realize there are no more birthdays.

And then I have to pause and think “Just breathe” so I’m not that woman who cries alone in the store.

And lately I am pausing and thinking, I need more pausing and less thinking.

Survival mode got me here and I’m intact. So is my family. But I feel a strong push to be still and quiet. Sometimes I just lay without moving and stare out the window. That feels about right to me these days. I was stronger than the pull of grief for a long time, but I’m getting wrapped up in it’s web now and it’s slowing me way, way down.

I want to escape by reading, but I can’t read anything except non-fiction right now. I’m cynical and bitter and can’t pick up a book and get past the synopsis without sweating sarcasm as I think, Sure. Why wouldn’t the characters be named Lark, Hope and Stella? One is a lighthearted free spirit who is hiding a secret. One is broken but trying. And one is perfect but about to crumble. It’s August in some beach community in South Carolina where there just happens to be a hot, thirty-something mechanic who has a bright smile and a dark past. And the author always seems to live in some Shaker town back east with her husband and parakeet named Einstein (or the cats, Poe and Adverb, or some other horrible names that they say and then chuckle to themselves for being so clever and writer-ly).

I put the book back on the shelf, and continue to silently mock the author. Of course you’ve published a book about your tired characters with their already-told story. Your idea of a good time is talking to your husband about the cunning way Einstein tilted her head today while you were watering your spider fern. Fuck you AND your ugly sandals AND your book.

See? The insides are twisting and turning towards a slightly hostile place.

So then I think, Well, if I can’t read, maybe I should write. But all the big blogs I read are written by broken women. One is clinically depressed, medicated, divorced. One is a recovering addict, who almost got divorced. Another is so perfect that you couldn’t even write a country song about how perfect her life is. She bakes and homeschools and blogs…oh my!

I’m not addicted to anything and I'm not divorced and I'm not clinically depressed (at least I don't think I am). I don't have any tattoos that express how deep and authentic I am. I don't have any tattoos at all. I'm not really broken, I’m just bent. Bent all the way over these days, actually, but is that enough to be blogging about? Do we have to be broken to be fascinating? Do we have to be fascinating at all? Is this what it means to be broken? Who breaks over losing a parent, seriously? This shit happens every day. Worse shit happens every day.

This is why I haven’t written in a while, I think. I internally dialogue myself out of the running.

I don’t want to make dinner. I don’t feel like answering questions. School forms and the linen closet and the laundry all stare at me and I feel no impulse to tend to any of it. Nothing at the library intrigues me (obviously). The treadmill bores me after 20 minutes.

I want to watch the wind blow the eucalyptus leaves around until it’s too dark to see the wind blowing the eucalyptus leaves around, and I want to do it alone, and in silence.

As you might gather, I’m super fun to be around these days.

I’m going to sit with this funk for a while and see where it takes me.

I’ll be back.

45 and 11.

The first week of May used to be completely joyful, I swear. It’s my birthday! It’s Mother’s Day!! Spring has sprung!!! Nothing better than babies and flowers and the blessing of another year to celebrate (and lots of exclamation points), right? I don’t know what the universe is telling me, but this time of year has overwhelmingly become the Bermuda triangle in my life.

Let’s back up.

Last year, on May 3^rd, I celebrated my birthday. On May 6^th, my Mom went into the hospital for an outpatient procedure. There was an issue that caused her to bleed out on the table, which led to a Code Blue. They brought her back, took her into surgery, and thus began her long, painful, slippery slope. Two days later was the anniversary of my sister’s death, which I commemorated by basically begging her spirit not to take our Mom from me yet. And then came Mother’s Day, which after the prior several days, was emotionally supercharged to say the least.

I say all this now that I’m through it like I’m just ordering breakfast (I’ll have a Code Blue, a bleed out, and a dead sister please. Oh! And coffee.) but if you’ve been accosted by any number of the above things, you know just how much of a jolt each of them can be individually, let alone stacked up in a matter of days.

So this year, on the cusp of that memory-filled week, I find myself feeling funky and pensive. It’s kicking off with an interesting birthday because when my sister died, she was 45 years old and her daughter was eleven. It hits home more now than ever before, because in a couple of days I’ll be 45 years old too, and Eleven is, well…eleven. Eleven going on 16, but that’s another post entirely.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where Laura was in her life when she died, where I was in mine, what we had in common, and where I am now that I’m as old as she was when she left us. It’s an ongoing monologue in my head, filled with unanswered questions, hypotheticals and regret.

And as I consider my life and everything that has been keeping my head and heart heavy, something has become very clear.

I spent my entire 44^th year in emotional shackles.

Right after my birthday I had two days of decent, followed by seven long months of high-strung fear and fragility, where I fluctuated between worried, panicked and hysterical. Mom dying marked the end of that period, and also catapulted me into what has now been five months of wandering around in a grief-induced haze.

I think it’s safe to say that last year sucked balls.

I think it’s also safe to say that the universe is trying to open my eyes and shift my focus to something bigger. Or maybe something smaller. Or possibly just something ELSE.

Mom is gone, yes. I’m shattered by the loss, yes. I miss her every time I go to call her, yes. And when I call my Dad, leaving a message is nearly impossible after hearing her voice on their machine.

My sister is gone, yes. I am different than I would be if she hadn’t died, yes. I mourn the loss, and everything she’s missed, and everything I am missing about her, and it’s not lost on me that I am now where she was, at least in age and motherhood, when she died.

But. They are together. They are safe in heaven and they can see me and my niece and everyone else in the family from where they are.

Last year, I spent most of my time desperately trying to prolong someone else’s life.

This year, I think the universe/my Mom/my sister is telling me to spend most of my time trying to drum up a whole lot of happy.

I have the chance to do what my sister didn’t, which is see my daughter turn 12 while I enjoy my 45^th year. I have the opportunity to respect my body, and love the life it holds, the lives it’s created, and the life I share with the traveling husband. I am able to celebrate, and while the past year has held more dread than party, it’s time to Footloose it up and start dancing again.

I will still worry, mostly about my sweet Dad, and a little bit about the impending birds and bees talk I need to have with the girls (GULP).

But I will try this upcoming week to see each milestone as a chance to quietly acknowledge, and then purposefully step forward from, the sadness and heartache they bring. It’s with me, but it’s no longer all of me. I think I need to start year 45 with a renewed Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose mentality.

Also, cake. And maybe a teeny hangover.

Happy birthday to me.

xo

Head in the clouds.

"For a second I was almost jealous of the clouds. Why was he looking to them for an escape when I was right here beside him?" ~ Kamila Shamsie, Kartography

My mom loved clouds. Whenever I look at the sky, I think of her, whether there are tons of clouds, or just one, or none at all. She was always taking pictures of clouds wherever she went. Usually at sunset, frequently with palm trees in the foreground, almost always with a pink blur in one of the corners - her finger.

Yesterday I was on a plane for the first time since losing her. I was in a window seat, which is rare, but fitting, because as I looked out the window while we soared into the sky, through one layer and then the next of cloud after cloud, I suddenly thought, "I wonder if this is how she felt when she left?"

Until then, I'd been mostly terrified every time I thought of that moment when she finally let go. I always think how scary it must feel to exhale for the last time and silently slip away, knowing what you're leaving behind. Knowing what you'll never see or feel or touch again. And not knowing where you'll go.

But then the thought creeps in that maybe at that last minute, that last breath, somehow you do know exactly where you're going, and it's amazing, and that's what helps you release your grip on this world, and turn toward whatever awaits you in the next.

So when I looked out the window and saw all white, and realized I was completely within a cloud, I wondered about her. I wondered if at her last moment she inhaled deeply and smiled and said "Finally!", outstretching her arms, tipping her head back, and letting go as her spirit found it's buoyancy again and she soared, leaving behind the frustration and the pain and the cage that her body had become.

A friend of mine sent me a card and inside she put a poem. It describes the departing soul as a ship with beautiful white sails, gliding towards the horizon. And as she sails, everyone who watches her slip further and further away says quietly, "There she goes." And those beyond the horizon wait expectantly, and when they see her coming over to their side, they cry out in jubilation, "Here she comes!"

I keep that card with me in my purse, and I read it from time to time. I'm comforted by the reminder that she is not alone. It helps me step outside of my pain and realize that in order for her pain to end, she had to go towards the horizon, towards the unknown. And that the second she let go of this world, as I crumbled, she became whole. She took hold of my sister's hand for the first time in eleven years. The joy she must have felt to be reunited with her first girl lifts my broken heart up, and while it doesn't heal it, it gives me a soft place to land when I stumble and fall.

When I returned from my quick trip, Nine, Eleven, and the traveling husband all welcomed me with bright faces and open arms. I breathed them in and looked up at the sky knowing that as my Mom has become the clouds, I have become her. I want her with me like my girls want me with them. And while I can't have what I want, I can give them what they need, and I know that my Mom is watching, smiling, finally, from a place of peace.

We are both home now.

We are both home.

Lost and found.

It’s been almost exactly one year since I last wrote here. And in that year, my life has changed a whole lot. Some for the good and some for the not-so-good. I’ve learned some very hard lessons during the last year, a couple of which I could have happily done without.

I decided not to write anymore. And then, months later, I decided I needed to write, but could no longer find my voice.

Over time, the fog has begun to clear, and I think I am starting to hear my voice again, so I’ll begin here.

It will be my group therapy, except that I’m not paying for it, it’s by no means private, and I can’t see anyone else sitting in the circle with me, nodding their heads as I tell my side of the story.

But I know you’re there. I can feel you. Okay, I can’t feel you, but the site tracks visitors, so I’m pretty sure you’re out there somewhere.

Here’s some of what I’ve lost, and what I’ve found, over the last 365 days:

I found that moving your family to Southern California during a 7-week bout of walking pneumonia is hard work.
 

I found that kids are as resilient as people tell you they are, but that doesn’t make starting over at a new school easy. It’s like putting a puzzle together in the dark, every day, for months on end. Every so often there’s a bright spot, but it’s more like being at the eye doctor than it is dancing under a disco ball.

I lost my Mom. It is the very reason the axis my world spins on has tilted forevermore, and why possibly my voice has changed like a warbley teenager’s. Everything has just gone deep. Many a post will come on and around this very sad subject.

I lost myself on the way to losing my Mom. I knew I was getting lost, I could feel that I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t recognize myself, and I wasn’t genuinely connecting with some very important people in my life. I was there but I was not present. But I couldn’t stop it from happening and I couldn’t find my way back until Chicago gently helped me see that not only was I losing my Mom, and not only was I losing my way, but that those very important people around me were losing too. They too were losing my Mom and they were losing me. They were losing times two. And that realization is what helped me fight my way back home.

I found out how liberating it feels to cut ties with someone who has proven herself unworthy of holding the other end of my heartstrings.

I found that I could save a young life with my bare hands.

I lost a few pounds. Just kidding. I gained a few. More than a few. I blame the comfort foods and the sadness. It’s hard to burn carbs when you have to remind yourself to breathe.

I found that friends who love you and know your heart instinctively do the right thing when they hear/feel/see it breaking. The right thing looks like texts, emails, calls and cards. It looks like your favorite flowers showing up unexpectedly. It looks like local friends who innately know that I will say no to lunch and a visit, so they don’t ask if it’s okay, they just show up with chopped salads and gentle smiles. And it turns out the right thing looks like a hand-written letter and a pair of leopard print wedge heels. Who knew?

I found that in a sincere (if highly misguided) effort to Be Super Mom While Sitting At The Bedside Of My Own Dying Mother, ordering one hundred poinsettia stamps does not in fact ensure the mailing of Christmas cards. Secondarily, I found that sticking said poinsettia stamps on bills in February is sort of depressing.

I found that the puppy still wants a walk even when it’s the last thing I want to do, and that taking him is good for us both because it forces me to inhale and outhale at a time when holding my breath and clenching my jaw seem to be more the norm.

I found that Nine and Eleven are hungry, and have homework, and want to laugh with me, and that the traveling husband needs me in more ways than one, and that cooking, helping, giggling and connecting are all better than worrying and crying and staring off into the distance.

It’s not a short list, and it’s not a complete list, but there it is. It’s a start. A step forward, which for me at this point is a pretty big deal.

I’ll be back, as there is a lot more to write. After all, it’s not every day that free therapy lands in your lap. And when you’ve spent the better part of a year getting lost and you realize you’re finally somewhat found again, you should probably take advantage of any therapy you can get.

I think I can feel you nodding your collective head.

See you soon.

xo

Forty

I was in bed last night thinking about this post, and I was going to get up and type it all out, but I couldn't because horizontal is the new black, and if you know me, you know I'm all about the fashion.

So I'll try to recall all my thoughts now that I'm awake and caffeinated.

My Mom has been weighing heavily on my mind, because as we all know, I'm a worrier.

Oh! And I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, because the other day Eight told me she's "just worried about stuff". I was all, what are you worried about, whether you'll like hot lunch, or if you'll find a way to avoid an emotional meltdown so your electronics won't be taken away? But either way, I don't begrudge her the worry. It may be small to me, but she's small too, so whatever it is must feel big to her. Like mine does to me.

And speaking of big, Ten asked me the other day "Mom, how come Moms like you all have such big butts?".

Let's pause for a moment so you can read that aloud and consider your own, personal feelings, should your firstborn utter those words to you one day. Yeah. Ready to move on? Okay.

On the one hand, it's nice that I'm not alone in my big buttness. On the other hand, too bad for you Moms Like Me out there.

Which takes me back to my Mom. (See? This is how my thoughts are when I'm falling asleep. They sort of roll around my mind like tumbleweed, bumping into other tumbleweed and getting stuck together.)

I've written before about her health issues. She's fragile. The lady has had some shit go down, let me tell you. Back surgery. Neck surgery. Blood clot in the lung. Heart attack. Another back surgery. May have been a hip surgery in there. She's been overmedicated in recovery. She's contracted MRSA. She's been in an induced coma so she could ride out some horrific pneumonia that was discovered late. And she has neuropathy, which basically means you're in pain all the time. Did I mention the breast cancer? Really, that's just like half of it. I can't remember the rest because babies. Also, if you'll remember, I worry just a touch, so there may be some blacking out of details happening.

Suffice it to say nothing is simple anymore. She'll go in for a hangnail and end up spending three weeks fighting an intestinal infection that I can't pronounce. Shit. Going. Down. Chicago tells me that my Mom is like a cat with nine lives, which is really how it feels. We figure she's only on life six or seven now, so we'll get a few more close calls out of her. Exciting.

The latest thrill is that her blood pressure has been unstableable. Is that a word? I'm no writer, but I think it should be a word. It's fun to say and makes me feel better about the fact that she goes from high blood pressure to low blood pressure several times a day. Because right now, it's about ME feeling better, obviously.

(What will make HER feel better about the fact that I'm blogging publicly about her personal health issues? I don't know. But the chocolate-covered macadamia nuts I brought back from Hawaii for her will be a great start.)

Back to that blood pressure. We need that to stabilize. Turns out it's not the medication or the dosage, it's a festive little blockage in the left side of her heart. Similar to the adorable blockage she had on the right side nine or so years ago. So she's going in for a "procedure", which in our family, given her history, could mean anything. (See note above about the hangnail leading to the indecipherable infection.)

So, I'm going to Vegas. I really wanted to leave on Sunday, so I could spend some time with the folks before she goes in for her infection-inducing procedure Monday morning, but you guessed it! The traveling husband doesn't get back into town until late Sunday night. So sweet boy that he is, booked me on a 6:00am flight, which drops me into Sin City about midway through her angio-whatever she's getting done. I'll grab some good, strong coffee for me and my beloved Dad, and head straight to the hospital, where I will charm the socks off the nice nurses and threaten the rude ones with their jobs.

(I got that fierce bitch gene from my Mom and I have absolutely no problem using it to her benefit. Don't mess with my people, people. I will cut you. Not really, unless my tongue is a knife and you're an asshole.)

And all this week, I keep thinking (and praying) about my Mom. I have a slideshow running through my head of pictures of her with my Dad, and with us kids. And I'm knocking on wood and crossing my fingers, and reminding myself that I'll see her in a few days because she is more than a slideshow. But in a moment of weakness, I reminded the traveling husband that if I lose her, it's not going to be pretty over here, because this baby girl will fold up and close shop for a while. Can't even write about it now without getting choked up.

She is the one I fought to separate from when I was a teenager, and the one I began to cling to again when I became a mother myself. She is the Mom who put on her son's baseball uniform for parent game day at Little League, and the Mom who put in hours at the snack shack. She is the face in the audience right next to my Dad at every dance performance I had over the course of 20 years or so. She loves doing laundry. She can type faster than anyone I know and always told me if she could type my costumes, I'd be the best dressed dancer around. She cooks with exactly three spices: salt, pepper, garlic. She loves lemon - from lemon cake to lemon kitchen soap. She has always told us kids that she loves us more than life itself, but Dad comes first with her (and she means it...and he deserves it). She loves owls and penguins and cats. She throws her head back when she laughs, and her crinkly eyes get even more crinkly when she cries. She's had one of the toughest upbringings of anyone I've known, yet she's somehow ended up with one of the softest hearts. On vacation she used to wear a muu-muu and a flower behind one ear with her hair pulled up and twisted into a bun, and I would do the same, so I would look just like her because she was so pretty. I have her freckles (the bitch gene wasn't all I got) and her love of family and her nose and her ears and I know I have a part of her heart and she has mine. She. My Mom. It's not just that I love her though. I need her. She's who I call to break news to, knowing she will always be the audience that gives me exactly the response I need and want to hear. She sides with me when I'm hurt, and then rebounds back to happy when I do. And more than she is to me, she is to my Dad. They are one, essentially. (If a Jewish secretary from the Bronx can be a Presbyterian engineer from Indiana, that is.)

The point is, Mom, if you're reading this, let's make Monday an easy day, shall we? Be strong, be focused, and be well. I mean, I will kick ass if I need to, but I don't want to have to kick YOUR ass. So get in, get 'er done, and get out. Then we can go home, and feed the cat, and do puzzles, and take naps in between watching bad TV. Deal?

I love you so much, Mom. And I'll be there soon as a personal reminder of all the good things you have to live for. I will kiss your pretty, freckled face and hand you chocolate-covered macadamia nuts when the nurse turns the other way.

I might even let Dad have one. But his life is sweet enough, because he has you.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Thirty-three

This is entry number thirty-three in this here blog, and that number has me thinking.


My mom was thirty-three when she had me, her last child of four, her second daughter. I was thirty-three when I had my first daughter. Three is my favorite number, so two of them together is good, right?


Plus, one time when Nine and Seven were just Three and Two and we took them to Disneyland, Belle told Nine that "Three is the most MAGICAL number" (and then Aurora nodded with a knowing smile). I don't know if you've ever heard Belle speak in person but that girl is convincing. Her voice sounded like a kiss from an angel and I found myself nodding furiously and shrugging my shoulders and getting choked up as she said that to my girl. I was all, she's right, this IS magical, it's all magical, we're all covered in fairy glitter dust and the world doesn't exist outside of Disneyland and this moment and I can barely see straight enough to take my 249th photo because the silver lining is so bright right this very magical second.


But this week hasn't been quite so magical. I'm hoping as I write that I find my way to a magical place again. Come along if you aren't already wondering what in the world my point might be.


(And by the way, don't judge me or my Disney princess moment. You can look down at me from your anti-princess pedestal, hating what they stand for and blah blah blah, but when you see one of them look at your baby girl, or your niece, or your friend's kid in the flesh, you too, will forget that she is just a student {with some sort of tattoo under that satin gown} trying to make a Hyundai payment so she can take her cheating boyfriend to Subway after work. You will forget all of that and you too will think that girl eats berries brought to her by bluebirds and that she farts butterflies. You will.)


Back to the real world.


This week, my Mom had a procedure done, and as seems to be par for her difficult course, she had complications afterward. The kind of complications that sent her screeching back to the hospital in an ambulance and sent the ER doctor running out to make sure she was going to make it into the hospital at all, what with her blood pressure hovering at 233/80 and her pupils constricted to pinpoints.


She couldn't breathe, it seems. She'd been overmedicated to the point of overdose. She needed oxygen and blood pressure medication to stabilize her. She stayed in ICU for three days, where a lung infection took hold, so she was put on antibiotics as well. She's now in a regular room and we hope my Dad can take her home today because her vitals look good and she's starting to be a bitch again, which in this case, means Mom is BACK. When she's endured a health crisis, we know that once that fire gets stoked again, we're in the clear.


As you might guess, this isn't the first time we've had a close call. We've had enough medical mishaps with that lady that I am now convinced she is actually part cat. I'm not sure how many lives she's burned through so far, but I do know she's got at least a couple left. 


Which is a very, very good thing, because I need my Mom. My Dad needs her too, and my girls, and my brother and the rest of the family and her friends, but I need her most. Me. This one typing right here. I do. I don't know how those of you who have already lost your Moms live your life with that Mom-shaped hole in your heart, and I hope I don't have to learn that route anytime soon. 


I think my Mom feels the same way about me. There's something special there. 


She called me from ICU a few days ago, as I was driving Nine and Seven to school. I saw the call was from out of state, so I figured it might be her, or my Dad calling from the hospital, so I handed my coffee to Nine, picked up the phone and pulled over because I had a feeling this wasn't the conversation to conduct on speaker with the kids in the car.



She said: "I didn't overdose." And I said "Mom, I know you didn't." but I was thinking, What, no crack hit in recovery? Dad didn't provide you with your usual dose of heroin on the way home from the hospital? Duh.


But that wasn't what got me. 



Because then she said this: "When I couldn't breathe, I was so scared, and all I could see was you. All I saw was you. And you were dancing and dancing, and I knew I was going to be okay. And then when I got to the hospital, I couldn't see anything."


In that moment, where she felt like she was facing her darkest fear, she saw my face. And when she told me that through her tears, her voice sounded like the kiss of an angel and I melted into a puddle of my own quiet, salty tears. It was me, sobbing into my cell phone, with Nine and Seven in the back seat holding my coffee watching everyone else drive by on the way to school, asking me "Mom, why aren't you driving, we're going to be late again!?".


So I don't know if my Mom is part princess or part cat or part bitch or what configuration of magic she is, but I do know that she is alive and kicking and headed back home to my Dad within the next 24 hours, which is a lot better than where I thought she might be headed a few days ago.


I thank God that He let her stay here. I get more time to have her love me and to love her back. When I see her, she will look at me with lovesick eyes and I will let her. I will lay my head in her lap and let her stroke my hair, and I will inhale and outhale and try to burn the moment into my brain as deeply as it will sink into my heart.


She tells me I am her sunshine. I will keep doing my best to brighten her day the way only I can, and I will hope and pray for more and more days to do just that. And I will hope that a very, very, very long time from now, when she is gone, that I will still be able to shine bright, but I have a feeling I am only a reflection of her and that I may go dark. I can't bring myself to think about that happening, so I won't try.


Instead, for now, I will picture her face and hear her voice and feel her touch, and I will burn bright for the both of us, for as long as she needs me to.