It Is Time...

I always feel a little bit lonely on Sundays...

One year ago today I was waiting. 

BUT...but...but...I am tired of writing about grief. 

I want to write about LIFE.  

There is this constant pull in life, a joy, a sorrow, some symbiotic tandem working together, always.

The bigger picture pervades my brain most of the time.  I suppose I don't live a "conventional life".  

Growing up, I spent almost the entire Sunday at church.  I learned about theology and God and Jesus Christ.  How there was a specific "holy way" to live.  But I didn't really see it put into practice.  So, I decided to not live that way anymore.  I just want to be the way God made me, I am all light and all darkness.  Isn't this true?  All good, all bad?  Paradox? Maybe.

                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She's there somewhere in the ether of time. Floating above me. Watching over those she loves.  She's here in my heart, in the heart of those who knew and loved her.

Today I spoke to my Grandma.   We spoke of how she never knew her father, since he died when she was only twelve.  He was ill for many years while she was growing up and she never had a chance to ask him things.  Like what his favorite food was, or stories about growing up.   He passed away in May 1947 and she still grieves his loss to this day.  I understand that.

I cannot grieve anymore.  

For thirty-three years I had a mother who loved me.  A mother who watched her younger siblings have babies, and feared she would never have a child...then I came along.

A beautiful woman, who taught me to sing hymns and praises to God, read character building stories, sewed little dresses for me to wear, made me french toast and teddy bear pancakes.  And that was just when I was young.

She only wanted the best for her children. I have so many memories, ALIVE in my heart.  

Kate was not perfect.  She could be sarcastic and biting at times.  

Because we spent so many years together, she knew me so well and I knew her so well.  When she was leaving us many times all she would say was, "ask Sarah, she knows what I want."  I knew because I knew her.  She never told me what she wanted.  She just knew that I knew. How's that for a symbiotic psychotic relationship?

And as I watched the body that gave me life, wasting away some little bird-like creature...

 I knew her favorite food, her stories, her laugh, her belief, her hands, her hair, her legs...

I hold them within to be shared someday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I cry now, they're not sorrowful tears.  

Kate feared one thing.  Leaving behind her children.  She told me that she was most worried about me.  I don't want her to be.

We can only do what is right for ourselves.  I truly believe that when we learn to move on, to embrace life, even though life can be a sadistic motherfucker, we can really be where we are supposed to be.

I've got my plans.  I write them out, because I KNOW there is no prescription for true happiness.  We are all mites of insignificance at the foot of some vaster master plan.

Follow your heart, sounds trite and stupid right?  But it's true.  Do what you need to, love...hate...kick out your feet...grab life by its balls and just do what you want.  I know people  who act like their life is over.  They choose to stagnate and cannot free themselves from sorrow.

It is time for me to stop my sobbing...the Kinks say it best:

I will write about life, live and be happy.   I won't live in a box.  It is time for me to live.

Like A Butterfly...She Flies Away...

I don't eat much, and then I drink too much vodka. I throw up.

I am alone in my dead mother's house, in her bed, in her room and this sadness is too extreme. 

I am not  in my own body.   This is NOT my life.

I am disappearing.  Just a blob of raw open wounds.

Eleven months. My own insignificance in the face of all things holy.

I think...
how her body grew smaller, until it ceased to exist.
How I was not ready.
I sob.

No, I weep like I haven't allowed myself in these past few months.


I let go, no one to see, no one to hear...my grief takes over.  And I fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~

My heart has turned a corner.  It took me eleven months to allow myself to hit bottom.

The Holidays were not terrible, I smiled for Mother's Day and cried a bit on her birthday.  But now there is only one more milestone.  Her death day.

The month of June is full of weddings, anniversaries, christenings, communions, graduations...all these milestones.  

Tomorrow my niece(Beepboop, Bebe, Bee, Beeper, Beatrix) is getting baptized.

We mark time through events.  

I am tired.  Tired of being tired, of not having any answers in life.  Tired of living in a dead woman's house, of pretending that I am fine.  Pretending that I am strong and vital, that I don't need people, that I don't need the sacred marking of time.

Dying people are like butterflies.  In Auschwitz they found drawings of butterflies all over, but aren't we all just butterflies really?  We start as one thing and life, love, grief, what happens next in our cocoon?

And dying people are here to teach us something.  They are here to teach us to live.

To live as though we are the dying, because we are. 

I am raw.  I am vulnerable.  I'm accepting this.

My thoughts are on the sacredness of all things, my niece tomorrow will have a Priest baptize her into the Roman Catholic Church.   I am her sponsor/godmother, and I take that role to my heart.  I pray that I can share with her the beauty that was her Grandmother.  I hope that she will know Kate through me.  I pray that she will love the sacred things in life.  Birth, and death--are the same just reversed.    

And Beatrix, I cannot wait to see what a beautiful Butterfly you will be.

Tomorrow, in a holy place, I know my Mom will be there with us.

Songbird was played at my Mom's memorial...it's brought me healing over the past few months.

Ready, Set...

I know, I write so much sad stuff on here.

I won't apologize.  Here's why:

There is something most of you DON'T know.  

In writing this, I am opening up my shame. 

Almost three months ago, my father was arrested.  I cannot go into details, but he will be spending about two years in prison.   I have not seen or spoken to him since March.  

Eight months.  I lost a mother to cancer and a father to...himself, prison? stupidity?

Yes, I am now an orphan in many ways.  My nearest family is two hours away.

Each year on this day, I think about my life.  I stare at my hands, observe the lines, the creases, wonder where they will be next year.  Isn't life just a bunch of anticipatory acts?

We are always almost tomorrow, next year, I mean I think of the future far too often that sometimes I forget to live in the moment of this very second.

I got paid today.  Money was put into my bank account.  I got paid for something that I wrote. Sure it wasn't a lot of money, but I don't even care.

Before she died, my Mom told me that she was sad because she wouldn't see my success.  She told me that I am meant to write.  She understood it.  Even if I was a puzzle to her at times.

Writers are a strange bunch of people.  When people used to ask me what I want to do with my life, I never have been true to myself. I've always felt that I need to give an answer that makes sense to their query.  Because of my innate people pleasing drive, I haven't let myself be who I am.

Cannot remember the first story that I ever wrote.  But, I do remember being eighteen coming home after work and sitting at the computer in my old family room, the faux wooden panelling, the green of the woods coming through the windows, the way it smelled so balsamic in the afternoon sun.  I wrote my first story.  It was forty pages long.  I lost steam, I didn't know where it was going to go.  But in those moments sitting at that computer(and this is 1998 folks so you can just imagine the size of the computer.) I was so happy in the process of writing.  My mind was in another place.  I began to see the people I was writing about as real people with motivations beyond my own imagining.

I don't know what defines good stories vs. literature anymore.  I just know that when I read something and feel something, that's a good story.


Recurring dreams of giving birth happen to me all the time, I see my babies in my sleep.  These are not real babies, I know that now.  They are the gift of my imagination.  I am standing on a precipice waiting to take flight, I've just been too scared until now.

We take our pleasures where we may, I take mine in writing.  I disappear at times into my own mind, worlds I can create.  This year I learned something very important.

When writing I used to worry about what people would think about me through my writing.  Now, I just don't give a crap.  Love it? Fantastic. Hate it?  Brilliant. Think it is disgusting? Now we are getting somewhere.

Hiding isn't for me.  My writing is in a process right now, birthed from sadness and my own hopes.  Besides, even if I never get paid again...I will keep doing it.  Because like Stephen King says, "Why do you assume I have a choice?"

Tomorrow I enter my 35th year on the planet.

Orphan. Paid Author. Aunt.   I became all those in the past year...just can't help but wonder what this year will bring to my plate.

Many Faces, Many Phases

Each day I am evolving into someone, something new.

June 27 was the day that nothing would ever be the same.  And see in that moment, I knew it was all different.  Not different like most would think, but different in the way the world looks at night versus how it looks in the morning.

See  how life ebbs and flows,  we believe that we are changing things, but really we are the ones who are changing.

I am not a thinker.  I am a feeler.


I feel things.  I see a person crying, chances are I'm going to start crying too.

Since my own ordeal, I've come into contact with folks who are experiencing loss in varied ways.  I tell them, ten days or ten months, there is no limit to grief.

Here's my list of things NOT to say to a person grieving:

1. You really should go to a counselor.

Damn!  I wish that I had a dollar for each time I've heard this over the past year.  Chances are if I am going through a rough patch, deep sadness, no hope for the future, near suicidal depression, an aching longing for a person who no longer physically exists, talking to a counselor may help.  But I know that.
You know what people deep in grief really need?  A friend who doesn't make them feel as though they are just some broken toy who needs a quick psychological fix.

A grieving person, needs two things.  Validation that it is OKAY to be sad, and probably a nice hug.  Yeah hug someone in pain, it does amazing things.  NOW after doing the above things and coming alongside a person in deep grief, then saying to them maybe it would help if you went to a counselor, they will be more apt to accept that.

But let me tell you there are only two people out of the ten I know who have suggested that to me where I haven't immediately regretted even letting them know how sad I really am.  Advice like that just makes me want to isolate in order not to feel judged.

Counselors are a great tool, but they do not have a magic wand which will automatically make me un-sad.  It just doesn't work that way.

2.  It's been ....blah blah blah so long since etc. or this person I know was better in six months.

Everyone is different.  I bet that person you thought was doing great was probably just pretending because they were tired of others acting wanting them to stop grieving.
The vulnerability for those in grief is very high.  Grieving people don't WANT to feel the way they do, but loss is tricky.  There are triggers.
You see that person who has died/left in places all over.  A song.  A smell.  Certain foods.  Special days...
Grieving people have constant reminders of the one who is gone.  There is no limit to healing, certain losses will ALWAYS be there.  They don't go away.

Please don't judge those who are going through loss.  For most of us depending on the vastness of the trauma just being able to crawl out of bed and feed ourselves(sometimes I barely do that) is an act of sheer will.

Feeling sad, missing someone, trying to deal with the aftermath of a death, executing a will, selling an estate, making plans, getting rid of a dead person's clothes...these are all extremely exhausting undertakings.

Throw in many other stresses, such as money issues, and you have a perfect storm.


3. People who are grieving, are not just grieving the loss of a person.  They are grieving the future that will never be.

Here's an interesting example of how different people are.  My sister and I both lost a mother last year.   We share the same grief, but we are grieving different losses.   She grieves her son's grandmother who almost got to see him, but didn't.
I grieve knowing that when I get married someday she won't be there.
See how those are different but kind of the same?

We both grieve memories that will never happen now.

4. "I know what you're going through, I felt... when my Grandma/Great-Aunt/Cousin etc died. " Grief is not a competition.  

No. You don't know how I feel.

Please don't tell me how sad you were when your Great-Aunt Whatsherface died.  I'm sure your Great-Aunt Whatsherface was a wonderful person, and I'm sure that you were very sad, I can understand that and I will grieve with you, but I don't want a comparing of losses.

Folks trying to one-up someone's sadness, is narcissism to the extreme.  Just like I don't know what it is like to go through a divorce, lose a husband, or have a seriously ill child, unless you too have lost your mother or father, a parent, don't patronize me.

If you have lost a mother don't be afraid to tell me, we can share that together.

5. Grieving people are not downers, they're just sad.

After I had found out that my Mom's cancer had returned I was talking to someone when a "friend" came into the room and told me to stop talking about such depressing things.

That person is no longer one of my friends.

Suffering is real.  We are such complicated creatures.  So afraid to let others know if and when we are suffering, because we don't want to appear weak.  I like to say that I have a fragile strength.

If you're suffering physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are not weak.  You are human.

Watching someone die, losing anyone you love to Alzheimer's or death or moving away or anything can really take a toll on your emotions.  But don't shut down.  Allow the sadness, but don't forget the bits of joy in each day too.

How to reach out to a sad grieving friend? Acknowledge their suffering, offer them kindness, never judge their progress, and don't indulge their sadness.  The last one is tricky.  I've known folks who are truly incapable of having a positive thought, but guess what??  It isn't your job to change them!!


OKAY.

So those are just some simple observations I've made over the past year.  And
no, I still have not seen a counselor
yes, I am sad
no, not everyday
yes, I have fragile strength
no, I am not going to pretend anymore.


Hopefully, this will help anyone who has a friend or loved one experiencing loss in their life.

Between the Lilacs

A Course in Mom Cookery

My Mom, Kate was not a good cook.

Not that Kate was a bad cook, but her scope of meal preparation was limited.

And I can say this now, because she’s dead.

There were certain dishes she could whip up with mighty skill, all Italian in nature, which meant my siblings and I ate mucho pasta.

An occasional steak or burger was thrown on the grill for good measure.  Some Sundays she’d make what she called her, Yankee Pot Roast, a roast thrown into a crockpot with some beef boullion, potatoes and carrots. 

 It was Yankee-fied because Kate was a born Maine-iac. But, Kate had learned how to make tomato sauce from a real Italian woman who’s daughter was a friend of mine.

However, Kate's sauce never contained any red wine, and rarely chopped meat. Kate didn’t like alcohol.  Occasionally, she would grab a Pina Colada flavor wine cooler and sip it on a warm night. 

Those big pots of tomato sauce transferred into: baked ziti, lasagna, eggplant parmigiana, chicken parmagiana, stuffed shells or manicotti (Mrs. Leone also taught her how to make her own manicotti shells.) Even her meatloaf, contained a helping of that sauce. My first flavor profiles included vast amounts of oregano, garlic, parsley and basil.  And she did make some killer manicotti.

One rule existed in Kate’s kitchen.

NO onions.

Once she had taste tested a recipe and received a good response, she would make that dish every week, for a month.   I can no longer eat Honey Mustard Chicken for this reason.  Two words for my brother Erik. Moroccan Chicken.

Sometimes, Kate and Betty Crocker would bake some brownies.  She was not a baker and she knew it.  Every Thanksgiving though she would cook down a pie pumpkin, make the filling and throw it into a ready-made Pillsbury piecrust, she would do the same for her Apple Pie(Steve’s favorite) except she’d cut up apples, season them and throw them into a ready-made Pillsbury piecrust and cover it with another ready-made Pillsbury piecrust.

Christmas she’d make her favorite peanut butter cookies, but she said that she just didn’t like to make cookies.  Instead she would whip up some Julekake, (Norwegian Christmas bread).  OR one of my favorites, she'd make some real whipped cream and throw in a can of Fruit Cocktail...yummy.

My father, Steve used to rave about my Kate’s skills, but this from a man who displayed his culinary acumen for me only one time…he fried up some Steak-ums and threw them on a roll with Kraft American cheese.  Yeah, the one in the plastic.  He liked to make cheese sandwiches.  A few slices of cheese between some white bread.

Steve traveled a bunch on business while I was growing up, and oh boy when he was gone then the really fun food would get made. 

Her culinary style was what I call Mom food, quick filling and probably cheap.

Fish Fingers,(with their friend Tater Tot) Kraft Mac N Cheese, Turkey Tetrazzini and one of our favorites  something  she called, “Tuna Noona Casserole”  most people know it as Tuna Noodle Casserole.  She would only make that when Steve was away.  He hated the smell of canned tuna, and he even convinced me for many years that it was cat food and I refused to eat it.

What made Kate’s Tuna Casserole, different than all others were two things:

First, she used Cream of Chicken soup, not Cream of Mushroom.

Second, she never added the peas.(I kinda like the peas though.)

I’m just surprised she didn’t throw in some tomato sauce, although it probably crossed her mind.

Today as I was going through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, trying to figure out if I will ever be able to properly make a nice Hollandaise,  I was smitten with hankering for Kate's Tuna Noona Casserole. Well, I know that these are the types of dishes that Europeans mock us for, but I don't care.

  It was just as deliciously disgusting as ever.  I don't even want to know what the nutritional content of this is, but at least it's got tuna and peas.  It reminded me of nights at the kitchen table in West Orange, windows open to the sounds of the neighborhood, waiting to watch Little House on the Prairie with Kate, wearing one of my Papa's clean white t-shirts as a nightgown, sleeping in my Mom's bed while my Papa was away the sheets cool under my toes and my cat Teddy curled up at my feet.   

Nostalgia.  Campbell's induced nostalgia.

Kate’s Tuna Noona Casserole

1 can Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup

`1 bag Manischevitz Egg Noodles

2 cans of white tuna in water

½ cup of milk

pepper

Saltines

Preheat oven to 375 F

Cook the noodles.

Drain tuna and add to large casserole dish.

Add can of soup and milk.

Stir.

Add the noodles and stir into mixture.

Season with pepper.

Crunch up the saltines and sprinkle on top.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until it looks ready.

I add ½ a can of peas to my recipe and use breadcrumbs.

VOILA!!!  You have now Mastered the Art of Mom Cooking.  Bon Appetite!!

Again

"Tell Pam she's got a good screamer there."
I hear this voice in my head, my Mother's voice and I tell Pam, laughing because I don't know if it's me or some ghost of my Mom talking to me.  Or maybe it has finally happened.
I've lost all sense of sanity.
We were trying to get my niece to sleep, she has this habit of waking up at 11:30PM and not going back to sleep until oh you know 3:45AM!!!

So maybe I hear her voice due to my lack of sleep...who knows.  It's no the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last...I hope.

As I write this I am watching Beatrix crawl around on the living room rug, playing with her new teapot toy.  In moments when I speak to Bebe or buy her things, I think about what Kate would've done.  The dresses and cute toys she would have gotten for this little lady.  I try to see if there is anything I recognize of Kate in Beatrix and there are flashes of her stubborn nature, but mostly I see a baby Erik.

I am trying to go easy on myself these days.  To not be saddened by the past events of this year, some who read this know the extra sadness...some don't.

Palm Sunday
Pam, Beatrix and I found ourselves in church Sunday night.  I could not remember Easter from 2013, I believe that I was at Morristown Hospital with my Mom, but I cannot recall huge chunks of time.

We sat in the beautiful church, listening to the singing(Bebe sings along now).  There is something peaceful in religious services, a calm, a certain sense of what will come next.  And this is strange for me because for someone who was once so connected to a God, a Christ I no longer feel that connection in the same way.

This is the week of celebration of death. We celebrate a death on Friday. We are supposed to embrace the suffering of the Christ, hope in His risen self.

I've read that they believe Jesus began his ministry at age thirty and died at thirty-three.  I am thirty-three, this past year has been one of my own death, I am only beginning to understand this now.
How or what it means to be resurrected.
I watch as Bebe has been pulling herself up to my coffee table, she can almost stand, but is not steady on her feet yet.
She takes a tumble, maybe bumps her head but within minutes she is up again.  Anastasis is the Greek word meaning resurrection Ana means again, or anew and Stasis means to stand.  To stand again.

I am learning to stand again.  My niece and I are learning the same things.

In 2013, I witnessed a death and a birth.  Perhaps I could say two births, because I too am climbing out of my own egg shell, learning Anastasis--to stand again.

My own life, or I should say, my hopes of what my life would be, have been put to death within.  I have been trying to learn how to accept this new life.  I am a baby, or a wee chick emerging from that egg.
At thirty-three, I do understand a bit of the suffering of Christ or how the mystery of holy things pervades my thoughts.