Simple gratitude, for persistence's sake

For Ally, with all of the lovey love.
***********************************************************************

I don't remember if it was the second or the third time that I had come home to a note on my door written in beautiful, clear handwriting, something to the effect of "would love to get to know you and your kids, lets get together for a playdate." It was another note I placed on the table inside and went about my day, back in the relative safety of my house, nursing the fresh wounds of having made yet another move in a short period of time.

We had just moved back to Seattle, leaving our newly-settled life in Cincinnati for a return trip to a city that I loved but didn't want to leave friends for, to a house on a block in a neighborhood that, at that time, would change my life in ways I couldn't comprehend.

And here was this note, again, from the cheerful and lovely mother my own age down the street, beckoning me to come out of my shell and into the light, to make friends, to start living my life where I needed to be instead of living in the last life I didn't want to leave. Patient, persistent, loving, kind with just enough pressure to nudge me. Those early days of Ally knocking at the door of our friendship were the traits that have run deep and abiding through a relationship that has spanned the past 11 years.

It's impossible to describe what my friendship with this woman has meant to me. This morning I was scrolling through past Facebook Instant Messages, looking for a nugget of wisdom that she had shared, past dips and turns in each of our lives, alongside words and advice so profound I savor them every time I read them today. But it's always been like this, after I got over my initial resistance, be it sitting on her leather couch drinking wine while our children played in her playroom or marking miles around Greenlake, those physical presences shifting into digital spaces where we could both write our advice, consolation, cheerleading, handholding whenever things got good, bad or indifferent, a digital Room of Requirement where the advice I need to reflect upon seems to magically reappear.

She is wise, this woman, and fierce and loyal and loving and creative. She's the Ally of the chocolate cake. We have an odd sisterly synergy, often experiencing the same things on parallel tracks, our timing slightly before or after the other so that we can lean into one another's experience. Tapping into her spirit is like getting onto an electric grid where you are fed a stream of low current love. Always, you always know she is there, consistent power on reserve. And she creates a space for you to share your energy with her and with others. She's at once a conductor and a generator. If you know her, this idea makes total sense.  She's electrifying and stable at the same time.

As I am writing this, I'm thinking of too many things to write at once, all the while with tears streaming down my face in simple gratitude and the overwhelming feeling of being so. damn. lucky. to have collided with such a generous and loving spirit who kept at it at a time when I needed it in ways that I didn't even understand. I trust her with my very heart and soul, this girl, and am so very blessed.

I love you, sweet friend. And thank you.

Little That is Noble

My mother's biggest fear was going old and senile, of losing her marbles before her body shut down. She would, from time to time, remark that she wished there was a bottle of that "special Tylenol" in the top of the cupboard, referring to the Tylenol cynaide scandal of the early '80s, just in case she started to slide into dementia. Those jokes were kind of half jokes / half wistful thinking living in a state where any sort of assisted suicide would be seen as punishable to the greatest extent of the law.

My mother, brave and strong and tough as nails, weathered some of the greatest heartaches life had to dole out, the final coup being a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer one week shy of her retirement. She dug in, for us, and tried to stave off the cancer that would inevitably kill her. She tried, beyond probably her own desires, to stick around as long as possible.

And the end was a shitty one. The entire process, honestly, was a shitty one of doctor's appointments and side effects and loss and not knowing, really, when to say "when". She did it for us, true to her form of putting her own desires last, loving the people who needed the comfort of a few more months or days more than her own need for peace.

We talked through the "special Tylenol" options, downloading Final Exit only to discover that the options were to put her physician friends in professional peril or die of suffocation, her worst nightmare. I remember sitting on the ottoman of the big chair where she spent most of her time, walking through the options with my sisters, her shaking her head at each one. That was about the time when we decided hospice was the best option and things went downhill on icy skates.

In my mind, there is little that is noble about the way we treat the dying in this country. There is little noble about asking someone to suffer a horrible end or to be drugged nearly unconscious until her/his body fails. There is always the question of when to say goodbye, because there is always false hope. There is always the question of what to do, how to be, what to say, who to involve. I brought David and Ava in to say goodbye to my mother in the final days of her life. Ava clung to her father's neck crying "That's not my grandma! That's not my grandma!" while David buried his head in my waist. I don't know that I can forgive myself for that failure as a parent, for giving them that fearful last look at someone who loved them so deeply, who was hilarious and full of energy and love all of their lives. Instead, my mother was a shadow of herself, incoherent and frightening. 

What a beautiful thing it would have been to have had her pass on her own terms, our small family with her, her having said her goodbyes in her own way. She could have kissed and hugged all of her grandchildren, she could have had a final drink with her sons in law, she could have given each of us girls a special kiss on the cheek and held our hands as she did in quiet moments. Yes, that night would have been one of the hardest in all of our lives, but she would have gone out strong. She would have been herself. For those of you who knew my mom, you know what I am talking about. On her own terms, just like she lived her life.

I watched this video from this beautiful young woman who is now living in Oregon so she can end her life with dignity, vibrant and true. People faced with a terminal illness want and deserve a choice in the matter of how they live out their final days. I can't say this much better than it's described in the video, but I honor her choice as it may some day be my own. 

That's it, every day.

I sit here at my computer and 10 feet away he sits with his guitar across his knees, seated on a zigzagged ottoman that accentuates how much he's grown in the past few years. He's knees and elbows and huge brown eyes and a gorgeous smile. As we were leaving the orthodontist's office today, I kept telling him how weird it was when he turned 6, when he went into first grade, that first grade was the first shred of proof for me that he was going to grow into a young man. "And, today here we are, amore," I said over my shoulder with a smile. "Today and you are a middle schooler and we are on to braces." He smiled his gorgeous sweet smile and leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder, which would have been his head if the distance of the seats had not been such.

This boy is a favorite teddy bear wrapped in an enigma. He's honest and disclosive in one minute, difficult to gauge the next. He prefers, almost any day, to recline right on top of you in the cold Fall wind. He hasn't figured out that that's uncool. He's just starting to sense what is uncool. I don't know when he's going to grow into that uncool thing and I alternately feel like I haven't done enough to middle school him up and thankful for the buying of time that his sweet nature has given us.

He converses easily with adults. He's building his own style of humor that he tries on with his sister, dad and me at every turn. He loves a turn of phrase or a double entendre. There is no bad fart joke. He cracks up when he talks about butts. To match that, I showed him Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and he spent most of the next day commenting on the fruit, and less on the back, or being a little "uhhhhhh, that was weird" regarding the ardent appreciation of the female form through Sir Mix-A-Lot's voluptious stylings. I think the giant buttcrack was perhaps the biggest hit. So it goes at this age, I've kept reminding myself. So it goes.

This is the kid that still likes me to tuck him in at bedtime, who is happiest when he can reach across and touch your hand. He is tactile and yummy and stinky and kind. When I found out I was having a boy, I thought "Good, I know nothing about what it's like to be a boy. I can see him for himself, in all of his dimensions, without clouding my

[Ok, so he just walked over as I was typing this, gave me an enormous, lingering hug]

without clouding my view with all of my own stuff." And that's it, every day. He's still a mystery to me in so many ways, such a beautiful thing to unwrap, like sitting waiting quietly for the birds to come out. They come and you get to see beautiful things, but sometimes it's just the stillness that brings them, the moment of breathing with whatever is there. Or, the time that those same creatures catch you unawares, explode into view, fill you with delight and catch your heart with laughter. That's what D is like. He's deep and sweet and hilarious.  He is golden. I love him so.

Grief is a Sneaky Thief

Sluggish from the cold and cranky from not eating, I bolstered myself for the inevitable acres of ugly shoes I would find on the other side of the department store door. I was looking for shoes for a trip the next day, my least favorite past time when "shoes" meant boring, flat, uneven-pavement-appropriate foot coverings that also had to work with suits. Bah.

The ugliness of the shoes did not disappoint. Laps and laps around tables of tricked out clogs and pilgrim-buckle flats was proving to be fruitless and frustrating until I heard the sound of laughter coming from a section of chairs. I looked over to see a grey-haired woman in her mid-60s walking away in a pair of shoes, her daughter near me with a half-laughing, half-exasperated look on her face.

"She can be so difficult with these things," the daughter smiled. I looked up again to see this woman, so like my mom with her jeans, her silver-top short hair, her sweater and vest, sparking eyes and great smile taking another lap to test out her selection. My breath caught and a lump swelled in my throat. "Your mom reminds me of my mom, actually," I said. "My mom's been gone for two years. She was a handful too." It was all I could do not to add "Treasure these moments because you never know what is going to happen next."


The jealousy I felt for that daughter in that moment was completely overwhelming. I walked away, trying to fight back the tears and compose myself, all of the angry thoughts about my mom dying too early rushing into my mind and heart. I wanted to run out the door, leave so I could get rid of the visual as quickly as possible. Instead I circled back around and struck up a conversation.


True to my initial perception, this woman was every bit as spunky and fun as my own mom. We complained about the ugly shoes, talked about how people don't dress for work any more, giggled about how shoe shopping in such conditions nearly drove one to drink and agreed that a drink this early in the day would surely be fodder for the gossipy nature of our smallish town. And then, they picked up and walked out with gracious goodbyes, a twosome together on to their next stop.

It was, for a moment, a strange sort of contact high. In a parallel space, my brain kept saying "It's like I can be with my mom, but not really. This is like being with my mom just for a minute. Is this good, or is this bad?", both taking me out of the moment and drawing me deeper into it. I bought my ugly shoes and stumbled back out into the rain, a bit fogged as to what had just happened.

I sat with these mixed emotions all night, trying to talk myself through the roller coaster of feelings I was having. It was an unusual night, my family away and friends that I usually turn to not available. For the first time in a long time, I had to sit with it on my own and deal, just deal, with my feelings and sadness. I just had to be with it.

Grief is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's a rubber ball let off in a room, zinging and flying all around without any sense of continuum or trajectory. Sometimes it's a sneaky thief that catches you unawares and tries to take something from you. Most times, you have to fight the urge to run away from it, instead standing with pain borne of loss, but borne of good memories and deep longing. Standing with grief, leveling with it, exposing yourself to it is the journey of anyone who has suffered loss. It's the path to recovering from that suffering. It's the way to begin to heal and move forward. It's a bitch of a job.

I like to imagine that at some point in a department store in Oklahoma City many years ago, someone else had the experience I did yesterday with a woman and her three daughters and the laughter and love that showed through. I like to imagine that the woman and her daughter I met yesterday somehow knew that they made a difference in my afternoon. I like to imagine that we provide spaces for each other in this reconnecting to things we have lost along the way. I like to imagine my mom would have found a certain beauty in this story.

So My Heart Could Be Free

I can't remember how old I was, I can only tell by the span of the small waist and length of crushed velvet to the floor that I must have been five or six. The fabric was supple and soft to the touch, a rich brown that meant cold weather and fancy occasions. I was so proud to have this dress, excited at the prospect of my Grandma making something so beautiful for me with her own hands. I remember standing stock-still in her basement while she worked at pinning me up with her gnarled hands, smoke rising from her lit cigarette that burned my eyes. I remember the turned down collar trimmed in lace, the formality of the skirt, the way I felt that I had never owned anything so lovely in my entire life.

My grandmother was an amazing woman, soft and kind, generous, always stylish, a fabulous entertainer, a woman gentle with her words and always with a glimmer in her eye. My brain still smells the rich aroma of mushrooms cooking in butter, the treat of a special goose for Christmas or the simple pleasure of her legendary dinner rolls. She was a woman that did things from scratch, who worked to create good things, who taught me about quality. She's say "hold out for the real McCoy, Frances", meaning it was better to spend money on a few high-quality things rather than waste money on things that would quickly break or ruin. I wear her beautiful gold bracelet today, the smoothness worn by her own wrist now touching mine. I can feel her in these moments, this woman who was a refuge for me in every way. Thinking of her and her absence in my life makes my heart ache.

I rode to work with a friend today, telling her of some of the sadness and loneliness I'd felt during my elementary school years, trying to explain the complexities of my life in a small town and being from a family with a certain name. The rest of my day was speckled with reflections of what brought me through that time and about what a child needs to feel loved and secure in the world. My grandmother provided a calm stability in my life. She bought me stacks of books to escape into and spirited me away to New Mexico so my heart could be free in the purple mountains and fire-orange sky. She taught me how to hold my head high when I felt defeated and to knuckle through rough times knowing that things would get better. She was optimistic and thankful for the good life she had, the family she loved and the friends that gathered around her table. She saw the best in people, would always lend a gracious hand, appreciated what she was given and was generous in return. As a child, observing her way of being in the world gave me hope that one day I would be the same kind of lady that she was, through and through.

I look at my sweet Ava, the lean and lanky size nearly a perfect fit for my faded brown dress. I think of how precious and tender the heart of a six year old can be. I think of flashing blue eyes, white hair, the color of perfectly red lipstick. I think of warm comfort. I think of love. I am thankful.

(Ava G original alongside my treasured gold bracelet from Grandma Loosen)

 

Set Me Free

Lisa's iPhone was on shuffle as we started the road trip back home, first Emmylou's voice ringing out sorrowful and true, then Jim Croce, then Tracy Chapman. Each song a well-worn groove in both of our minds, tracing back to Mom, to Dad, to Hunter, to Grandma, opening a space to reconnect to our stories, to process our losses, to make sense of the lives we have been given and to look forward to the futures we are writing individually and collectively. We had been together for a week of family camp where she wrangled her two small people through activities, the dining hall and the sandy walk from the cabin to everywhere. She was, in her usual way, calm, composed, organized and stellar.

When I think of spending time with my sister, an image pops to my mind of her swimming towards me, pushing a small blue raft while I tread in an ocean of water. She's talking to me as she approaches, acknowledging how tired I am but encouraging me to hold on, to keep my head up, to alternate using my legs then my arms so that I have strength to last longer. We lean our shoulders and arms onto the raft that she's brought, letting our bodies float and release in the shared time...stable, cool, relaxed. And then it's time for her to go again, and as she swims away the raft becomes smaller, but big enough so that I can tread, then lean back and float, tread, then lean back and float, tread, then lean back and float on my own with what she has given me.

This is the essence of my sister: pushing the raft out, tired herself but speaking words of encouragement, a song in her heart for the journey back, swimming, swimming, varying her strong strokes to make progress against the sometimes tremendous waves. Watching her move makes me want to be a better swimmer, to take pleasure in the cool water even though its rough. To meet the challenge but not be consumed by it. To have grace moving through the water.

I love you, Lou.

Checking in

Day three in the hospital down in the Big Easy and things are going really well. This experience is so different than the last. I feel safe and secure, comfortable with what is happening. And, the weirdest thing is that I have boobs again. Seriously, it's weird. You get used to what you have, what has happened, what you know. I'm not sure how they did what they did, but they are less Frankenboobies than I thought they'd be. We'll see. I came here hoping I'd have a Mardi Gras-worthy rack :)

So, things are going well here. Thanks for all of the love, support, positive vibes. Lisa comes in on Sunday, Nick goes home for a few days.

Holding On

"You know, I really like this song," Dad said as he reached over to turn up the volume. It was Blondie's The Tide is High, a groovy beat with instrumentation that would have totally appealed to my dad's love of big band music. And, Blondie was one of my favorite bands so the thought that Dad and I had a connection through this song was a bit of a trip. We sat there for a minute just really enjoying the song, driving together as we had for so many years, sometimes talking, sometimes just staring out the window.

Moments like these were big for me as a young person. My dad was a very complicated man and for as big of a personality as he had, he was actually a pretty internal person. He was a guy that went to church every Sunday but sat in the back, often not with us and I never knew why. He loved his kids like crazy, but sometimes had a hard time building a bridge between the way he was raised and the way things had become...and when I say that, meaning that kids could be seen and heard. Reflecting on him now, I see how many conflicts he had and how he handled them. As an adult and a parent myself, I feel compassion and a sense of loss more now than I ever did as a child.

Looking back, I realize that my dad was really the adult in my life that "got" me most. He's the first person I called, crying hysterically, when I found out that I had failed freshman algebra. Crammed into the little payphone booth in the boarding department, I sobbed for a good 15 minutes while he sat and waited for me to calm down so that he could tell me that he himself hadn't done well in school, that he expected me to raise my grades and get some help working through the process, but that he loved me and was proud of me. He was empathetic and kind, which I wasn't expecting but really needed. Later he confided that in those minutes he could hardly breathe, fearing that I had been raped or something worse, willing himself to just wait and let the news come.

Dad was the one that would palm me money under the dining room table before I went back to boarding school, or would come to the Father's Dinner celebrations at school and take me out on the town with my best friend Sharleen and her own crazy, complex Papa who was a kindred soul to my dad in so many ways. We had such a great time together in those moments. He was always my father, but was an ally, someone who understood me even if he wasn't a fan of what I was doing (insert vision of multi-colored hair, etc., etc.).  Mom always said that we were too much alike and that's why we fought when we did. I agreed with her and still do. But I think that is what drew us together, what gave my dad the ability to listen and be a safe place for me to turn. He knew what it was like to grow up where we did, to have to live life in a very small community with a heavy family name and all of the baggage that went with it. We were both dreamers, Dad and I. We liked thinking big and letting someone else figure out the details. He taught me a lot about possibility, belief in yourself, not letting people get you down. They were all things he struggled with himself. I'd love to talk to him about it now.

Like it was yesterday, I remember my 16 year old self walking down the hall of the dorm when one of my friends told me that the hall mother, Millie, needed to see me. Millie was as eccentric as they come, but she *loved* her girls and we had a special bond (because I was a trouble maker, truth be told, and she liked to take the feisty ones under her wing). Millie said "Fran, your mama called and needs you to call her back." "Oh, Millie," I said, "Mom's on a trip to Hong Kong. She left yesterday. This is an Oklahoma number. There must be a mistake." And Millie gave me that Millie-don't-fuck-with-me look and said "Go call her, Precious, she needs to talk."

Dad had nearly lapsed into a diabetic coma and was in the hospital. He needed triple bypass surgery and things were touch and go. Mom told me the news pretty matter of factly and said "I'm going to keep you updated, don't go far. I love you, honey."

I couldn't believe it. I was so angry, so hurt and so distressed...but mostly just really damn angry. So angry that I sat down and wrote a 10 page letter basically laying it all out for my dad. I told him everything I felt from the way he took care of himself, to the way I wanted life to be, to how much I loved him and needed him in my life. My mother said he kept that letter next to his bedside the entire time he was in the hospital and read it often. Seeing and being with my sisters and brother, knowing how deeply he loved my mother...all of these things were the propellant he needed to make major changes in his life. His recovery was amazing and the care that he took of himself, after such a close brush with death, was unbelievable.

And the feeling of being completely robbed when he died 8 short months later from appendicitis is something I think I will never be able to overcome.

I have really been unable to pull all of these threads until now. So many memories that are so good, but were so painful. I think it was easier for years just to ignore the fact that he was gone or to dwell on the times that things were not easy between us. Because losing your father at 16 is quite possibly the worst time, as if there is ever a good one. So I'm going to sit with this feeling, write down the things I remember, celebrate and mourn my dad and what he was and what could have been.

Grief is not a straight line, it's a rubber ball let off in a room. And it doesn't rest for a long time. The tide is high/but I'm holding on...

Solidarity

My bonus mother-in-law Ginny had that Ginny look on her face...the one she gets when she's got something to tell you or share with you. "I have something for you," she said as she slid a black bag across the table. We were sitting in the sunshine, drinking wine and enjoying the afternoon on Federal Hill. "Open it and tell me what you think."


I opened the bag and the box inside to reveal a thin wire bracelet bearing a medallion with a breast cancer ribbon etched on to it. When I looked up, she held up her wrist which bore the same bracelet. "I bought them for us all," she said. "Pat, me, Maryann and Lynne, Katie, Alyssa, Jenn...we all have them. We all just feel really helpless because we aren't there with you during all of this. This way we are connected to you every day and you know that we are with you too." Katie held her's up, as did Jenn and something passed between all of us that remains deep in my heart.


So today, hundreds of miles away, I'm thinking of those special women and how incredibly lucky I am to have them in my life. I'm thinking of how my life is enriched by the time I spend with this family who I was so lucky to gain as part of the excellent husband deal I got. Today I am feeling really lucky.