Nostalgia

This season puts me in a constant state of nostalgia. I'm nostalgic for people that are no longer in my life (not necessarily dead), for homes that I used to occupy, the bellies of the pets I used to scratch, the schools I once attended, a wood fire that I never had, down comforters that swallow me, piping hot apple cider that burns my tongue, homemade pumpkin pie with a mountain of whipped cream... Nostalgia isn't those things in particular; it's the feeling associated with them.

This season makes everyone nostalgic. I use “everyone” loosely. Those who hate autumn would just prefer not to feel nostalgic. Time is changing in autumn and changing times remind us of what once was, what may never be again and the life that continues on; we keep growing older and the ones we love are doing the same. It's no wonder people relish in the feeling of summer when the air is thick, campfires rage until the small hours of the morning, and the smell of grilling burgers fill the air. Time stands still in summer. And when autumn strikes, and it does nearly every October of the year, we begin the countdown to March when the flowers begin to bloom and the delusion of stopped time emerges again.

Autumn: a period of maturity or incipient decline.

I associate Autumn with cooler weather and longer nights, I'm sure you do too. It's when I shake off my heavy sweaters, dig out my flattened boots and put flannel sheets on my bed. Autumn is when I relearn how to be okay with the “incipient decline” of the Universe, including the actual lives of people past and present. I never particularly like sitting in my “period of maturity” but I find it's as necessary for me as breathing is because I hate complacency and stagnant movement.

I hate missing things as much as you do, believe me, but there’s just something about nostalgia. I have to allow myself to long for the past that has happy personal associations because there's a satisfaction after the terror of the missing that is unlike any other satisfaction. For one, it means I get to experience, for a brief moment, what it feels like again to sit at the kitchen table on a blustery fall day with my mom, watching her wrap her hands around her blue coffee cup to warm them. She is in her pink bathrobe, preparing for chemo or maybe preparing to live and telling me to dress warm for school. John Lennon said it, “Life happens when you're busy making other plans” or something like that.

Another thing I relive in autumn is my brother, healthier than now, sitting in his red Probe (was it a Probe?) singing along with the Steve Miller Band. We are sitting in the parking lot to Hollywood Video, the one that was down the road from Columbia Heights High School, on the corner of 49^th and Central. We were having a brother and sister day and I was barely big enough to see over the dashboard of his car, my feet swung to the beat of “Joker.” We browsed the aisles for a movie to watch at home, I pretended to be looking because I was going to watch whatever he wanted. After all, my big brother was spending his entire day with ME and it didn't get better than that. Until, of course, he found me in my aisle of Disney movies and said, “Let's go to the theater.” We didn't know what was playing, or the times, so we went to Apache on a whim. He smoked a few cigarettes while we waited for our show and among my glory, I still can't recall the movie he took me too.

Among other feelings that I experience in the season of nostalgia is the excitement of building a home with my past boyfriend and father of our daughter. I remember the waiting-to-be-landscaped yard, the hours of elbow grease we put into the kitchen, the men who sanded the floors so they shined just enough to see your own reflection, and collapsing on a mattress on the floor among mountains of boxes. It was my first home that I made as a family. It is difficult, no doubt, to remember what was because the family I created is no longer together in that home but that's the complexity and perplexity of life: things don't last. I have moments of sadness that wave over me from time to time and I know they always will. It's called grief; the learning to accept the end of the life of my six year relationship with someone I still adore to this day because he is a good man. But happiness doesn't ride on the coattails of being a good man any more than it rode on the coattails of me being a good woman. Abigail Thomas said it best in her book Safekeeping: she loved this man she had been so unhappy with. I think he'd say the same about me.

These memories embody some kind of pain; I can't share blustery fall mornings with my mom, my brother's health is declining in his addiction, and my family of three is growing in opposite directions than the dreams we once shared. But if that's the “incipient decline” of the coin, than here's the “period of maturity”: I'm okay without it (if “it” is what I'm missing) or I'm okay with it (if “it” is what I have to live with missing). Tomato/Tom-ah-toe, I suppose. Bottom line is: I'm okay. The moments with my mom paved a road to appreciate what happens now, and not what I want to happen. The memories of my healthy brother plants seeds of hope in an often bleak forecast. And perhaps the greatest lesson is the one involving my past relationship: the end of something that didn't make us happy, created ownership of our happiness.

Some photos for your viewing pleasure: 

Nothing brings me more pleasure than colorful tree lines streets

What screams Autumn more than the color orange?

It's Time

You’re right; I changed the look of things around here.  I’m looking for change these days and hoping for improvement. 

The whole idea of ‘change’ started a few weeks ago when I quit smoking.  Unfortunately that’s where it stopped, until now, with the change in my blog.  You didn’t know I started smoking, did you?  Well now you know I stopped too.  I thought if I change some external things, than the internal changes would happen too.  Like happiness.   

Potential Master’s degree aside, the question that lingered before I ever applied for my graduate program still resides: what am I going to do with my life?  It’s unsetting.  Quit you’re bitching, you’re thinking.  And you’re right.  I already know people would kill to have the education I’ve been given.  I already know that I’m lucky to soon have the credentials that I’ll have but that doesn’t necessarily make a person happy.  Does it?  So perhaps the better question is: what am I doing to make myself happy?  I think this is the question that we all live to answer.  Happiness is the bones of life, the driving force, the reason, the meaning.  We search for happiness when we marry, have kids, own homes, pets, boats, cars, T.V.’s, luggage, and in my case seek more school.  But those things don't make us happy.  My schooling, as appreciative as I am to it, doesn't make me happy.  

What makes me happy is in between the lines of mommyhood and career.   It’s this, right here; pushing white buttons, deleting, reading, rewriting, highlighting, deleting again, copying, pasting, cursing, thinking, reading, rewording, cursing, paraphrasing, pushing more white buttons, and deleting again. 

The irony of this entire post is that I started this entry on a piece of notebook paper in the middle of a lecture at school titled, “Issues in Research Design.”  I love research and I live and breath school but if it made me happy I wouldn't be furiously scribbling and scratching and bypassing everything that is being taught in this three hour class for the simple joy of writing.  Being a counselor seems to fit like my favorite pair of Rockstar skinny jeans from Old Navy.  But it's not the jeans that make me happy, it’s the boots I wear with them.

Broke down more simply: maybe if I wasn’t spread so thin, I’d be happier.  Maybe if the lecture wasn’t so boring, I’d be happier.  Maybe if I wasn’t done with this program in December and worried about having to be an adult, I’d be happier.  Ironic, isn’t it, that life can throw me a child (the most beautiful child I never dreamt up in my wildest mommy dreams) but when it comes to the rest of life I feel entirely inadequate, unprepared, and unready. 

So I'm going to write, instead of worry. 

I thought I’d change my blog and hope to spend more time pushing these buttons and deleting and cursing.  I used to write “biannually,” I say, about subjects like my dead mom and dad and struggling brother.  But I’m making changes and starting fresh.  I’m going to start living in between the lines; write more.  About less morbid things.  Because it makes me happy and it’s a good start. 

****************************************

So far, not so good a start.

I know you know how hard it is to make changes.  I know you know. 

I wrote this post a couple weeks ago, typed it a week ago and it’s been blinking “post me!” all over my computer screen ever since.  The problem is, if I post it, it means I have to start making some changes.  It means I have to stop saying I will and actually do it.  It means less time for reading, more time for writing. So here goes holding myself accountable, throwing caution to the wind (whatever that means) and finding happiness therein.  And maybe a good pair of boots too.  

Dear Mom...I have some Questions.

Dear Mom,

How did you raise me to respect myself and love myself?  Do you know how many people don’t?  How was I one of the lucky ones?  What did you do that was different than other mom’s?  Is it because you were dying and you knew the importance of time more than anyone else?  What if you weren’t dying throughout my childhood?  What would have happened than?  Who would I be today?  How would I have turned out?  Where did my resilience come from?  Who gave it to me?  You?  Probably. 

I never wanted you to die, I need to get that straight.  I never wanted dad to die either. 

But I’m scared to know what my life would look like if you didn’t die. 

From the earliest of ages, I knew I didn’t have a choice whether you had cancer or not or that dad had MS or not.  Death was a normal topic at home – like “what’s for dinner?” is normal in most homes.  Like graduations, marriage and grandchildren is impending in most homes; your death was impending in our home.  Death was impending on our trips to Duluth, in the car, while mowing the grass, baking Christmas cookies, at the library, while showering, etc.  Long before you died, I knew my college graduation was going to be a motherless one and then you missed my 16^th birthday by one day so my high school graduation was motherless too.  Your journal proves your realism when you wrote: I just want to make it to see Travis start college, Taylor graduate high school and Breanne get her license.  I was the only goal you missed.  I also knew dad wouldn’t be alive to meet my children – much less you be around – but I had the wishful hope that he could wheel me down the aisle on his lap on my wedding day.  I guess some things just suck but, yet, I’m still not sure I would change it.      

Not changing it means you and dad would still have to suffer.  Not changing it means you and dad would still have to die.  Not changing it means bald heads, chemotherapy, hospitals, medical bills, colostomy bags, catheters, Hospice, wheelchairs, aggravation, humiliation, frustration, tears, funeral planning, cremation, picking out your plot and headstone for you and dad…  And, yet, I’m still not sure I would change it. 

What would holidays and birthday’s be like?  Imagining your house full of 5 grandchildren, diapers and pack-and-plays seems like such a dream.  Would you buy your grandchildren gifts that I asked you not to get?  Would you be one of those grandmas!?  I think you would.  I can hear you saying, “Oh relax Breanne.  It’s just a drum set, not a gun.”  Would you get on the floor and play with Nollie?  Run through the sprinkler with her?  Surprise Nollie with lunch at school?  Send her “penpal” letters in the mail?  What would you think of Kaden!?  His size?!  The presence of dad that he carries?  And I would love to know which one you think will inherent their father’s traits: Tanner or Makayla?  What would you think of KayKay’s sass and “mothering?”  Would she remind you of me when I was little?  And Tanner, I already know his gentle heart would win you over.  I think he’d be your favorite, but of course, you wouldn’t have favorites.  I would give so much to see you hold precious Arianna, your 5^th grandchild, and tell Travis how much she looks like her mother, just to push his buttons. 

It’s a big deal that you’re not around.  It’s a big deal because you have five beautiful grandchildren that will never know their amazing, liberal, crazy jewelry wearing, self sufficient, powerfully presenced grandma.  These families that Travis, Taylor and I have created…maybe they wouldn’t be our families today if you were alive.  And so, that is why I wouldn’t change you and dad’s deaths. 

Would we sit at the table and discuss religion and politics?  I think we would.  We would sit at your kitchen table and I would think you are wise and bold and your thoughts are beautiful, and I think you’d think the same of me.  It’s hard to imagine the little things, the day to day things that we would do if you were still alive: the last minute coffee dates, day trips to Duluth, organizing family dinners (“What should I bring?  How early should I arrive?”), the frantic phone call asking you to pick up Nollie at school because I am late (and you so happily oblige and take her for a Dairy Queen blizzard), the frequent weekly stops that I make at home without calling, the hugs. 

Hugs.  I can’t feel those from you anymore.  But what I can feel, is the way I used to rest my head on your lap when we sat on the couch together and your hand, always ice cold, rubbing the hair off my forehead until all my hair was a wave of golden brown across your lap.  When you were finished, your hand would rest across my chest and I would hold it with both of my hands.  These are happy moments that fill my eyes with tears.  I still wish I could feel your hugs. 

I don’t like that my life goes on without you because it’s hard to know I’m a happy person, even when you’re gone.  It’s called guilt.  I feel the guilt creep up on me every once in awhile…it’s a slow creep but when it hits, it hits hard.  My guilt is like a bottle of maple syrup – I wait and wait for it to come and when it does, it’s a flood of unwanted sticky shit.  My guilt comes from the idea that I should be unhappy or miserable without you – and I’m not.  I don’t like that I only had you for 16 years of my life.  It’s the one thing I can honestly say I loathe about my life.  I feel robbed of a mom because a mom is a mom to their daughter even when she’s 25, even when she’s 65.  Those who are lucky enough to still have mother’s at 65, would have had their mother 49 years longer than me.  To imagine having a mom at 65 is like imagining being able to receive a text message from you when you’re dead.  It’s unfathomable. 

The most painful of all thoughts though: A mom is a mom even when her daughter has a daughter of her own.  It’s a big deal that you and dad died because I have missed seeing you beam at my successes as a mother, a student, a lover, a friend, a sister, your daughter.  It’s the biggest deal that you aren’t alive because my heart never got to melt at seeing your eyes stare into Nollie’s for the first time.  But mom, I wouldn’t change it.  I lost you, the most precious thing to me, but your life and death created me who wouldn’t be the me I am today without your death, and the me today created Nollie who I wouldn’t trade for all the tea in China. 

I love you Mom,

Bre 

MS = Opportunity

MS=Opportunity.  Opportunity to not take my abilities for granted: to pay attention to my buttons and zippers, the way my wrist turns when I flip pancakes, the ease in which I bring food into my mouth, the way my feet follow one another without a moment's thought and how easy it is to use this instrument that I call a body.

I don’t know the facts of my dad’s Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis.  Unlike my brothers, I don’t have vivid memories of an actively moving dad.  I remember watching a movie when I was 4 in the basement with my mom when he came home early from a sailing trip because he was having vision problems and it was scaring him.  He was wearing red suspenders when he walked through the basement service door.  This memory of red suspenders is my ONLY recollection of my father walking without any kind of assistance.  I don’t know where all the other recollections went because everything before this was a dad I didn’t know and everything after this was canes, walkers and wheelchairs.  It’s as if this memory suspends itself above all the others just so I won’t forget it.  It is so vivid: my dad walking with red suspenders and weird waterproof shoes.  He walked so beautifully.  You won’t see your parents walk beautifully until they lose the ability. 

For some reason, the majority of us have an optimism in which we feel we are immune to disease.  It’s okay to admit it.  I have no business even acknowledging my naiveté with the genes I’ve been dealt, but still, I remain hopeful that I possess something no one else does that will keep me safe from disease.  Why?  Because I don’t want it, I’m not ready for it and it scares me.  I can’t imagine my dad ever thinking that at 51 he would be dead from Multiple Sclerosis.  I imagine he thought what we all thought – I’m strong, I’m healthy and those things don’t happen to people I know. The facts are: he was strong, he was healthy, he did take care of his body but he was not immune.  The 12 years of boxing he fought, the games he battled on the football fields of Columbia Heights and St. Thomas and the softball games he played recreationally were but tiny pieces of drowning flickering light after his diagnosis.

Let’s consider the life of an individual for a moment.  Some people manage to live to 80 these days, the lucky ones live into their 90’s and the miracles live to be 100.  In the infinity that life has on earth, 100 years is but a blip on the radar screen.  The people that live long enough to maintain their ability and health until old age when knees and hips and backs have problems because the human body is not meant to exist much longer, are considered lucky.  Then there are people like my dad, whose abilities get stripped earlier when their minds aren’t ready for it.  I wasn’t ready for it either, nor were Travis, Taylor and my mom.  Five lives changed forever after his diagnosis.  My dad lived to be 51, his diagnosis came at 38 which meant he had 38 years to live free of disability.  38 years is short.  When my dad was diagnosed he had a 10, 8 and 4 year old and he had only been married for 11 years.  38 years is a blink. 

My dad was talented, strong and smart, just like you reading this.  He had things going for him – me, for one.  He managed a couple of companies, worked long hours and he knew his shit (and if he didn’t know his shit than he knew how to talk his way into knowing it).  He was a coach for my brother’s sports teams, a divine breaded pork chop maker, a bit of a short fuse, a bragger, a flirt, a deep laugher, a chocolate lover, a prankster, a hard worker, etc.  He had passion, pride and gusto for life and a personality to beat.  And he loved my mother fiercely.  He was never shy about his emotions, assertive and gentle.  He was often misunderstood and sometimes much too abrasive and he never knew when to shut his mouth. But what my dad isn’t, is a man defined by Multiple Sclerosis. 

Why I am really writing this, on the week of March 14 2011, is to make you aware because it could happen to you. 

It’s extremely difficult to talk about losing our abilities.  Our abilities are what keep us and allow us to work, talk, have sex, eat, play – not to mention wipe our asses, smoke cigarettes and turn the channel on the television.  We have this incredible instrument that allows us to pursue our wants and needs without having to think about it.  Our brain tells us to punch a key on a keyboard and our body does it.  It’s a small miracle I am able to type this essay without thinking about the keys I’m actually pushing.  When we are stripped of those wants and needs, we suddenly realize how valuable being able to tie a shoe or take out the garbage really is. 

I can try as I might to imagine what may have gone through my dad’s head when he lay in bed, completely helpless, and listened to my mom and brother scream at each other into the wee hours of the morning.  MS physically confined my dad to a bed and trapped my mom into isolated parenting.  I can also try as I might to imagine what he really thought when I had to remind him four years later that his wife was still dead.  MS robbed him of a short term memory.  I can try as I might to understand how far low his self-esteem dropped when the friends who played softball with him, called him to share beer, sailed with him or just talked business with him suddenly vanished when the wheelchair became a burden.  And I don’t want to imagine what it felt like to be in a nursing home at age 48.  He lost his license to drive from MS.  He lost his job from MS.  He lost his ability to walk and it eventually took both arms right after it robbed his fine motor skills. 

My dad couldn’t feed himself, brush his teeth or even smoke a cigarette.  He couldn’t change the channel and on multiple occasions he would watch Looney Toons until someone would notice and help him.  On more than one occasion he lost control of his bowels and bladder.  If he had the flu or if he ever had to throw up, he had to do it on himself because he couldn’t stand up to make it to the bathroom.  It took 2 hours for him to get out of bed in the morning, assisted by a nursing aid.  Strangers (nursing aids) showered him so my mom could have a break.  Eventually, because my dad remained motionless for so long, he developed sores on his back and butt and one was so deep near the end of his life that you could see his tail bone.  Are you uncomfortable yet? 

Let me flip this paragraph to drill home the point: You can’t feed yourself, brush your teeth or smoke your cigarette.  You can’t change the channel on the television so you watch Looney Toons because you’re too embarrassed to ask for help.  On more than one occasion (uncountable occasions) you lose control of your bowels and bladder.  Where?  Driving the car, in church, at work, at the bank, at your son’s baseball game, etc.  What happens now?  You get a “bag” – a catheter to catch your pee and you’re only 45 years old.  If you feel sick, make sure you turn your chin to your chest and throw up on your shirt because it’s less of a mess.  Your damn legs just won’t make it to the bathroom fast enough.  It takes you 2 hours to get out of bed in the morning so forget about the TODAY show, the scrambled eggs and the cup of coffee because by the time you make it to the kitchen, it’s almost lunch.  People you don’t know will be getting you naked, putting you on a seat in the shower and washing you because you can’t do it yourself and because your partner needs relief from caretaking.  Yea, it’s not easy taking care of you but don’t feel like a burden.  And how do those huge sores that will never go away feel on your ass?  Pretty painful, right?  Don’t try to move to relieve the pressure from them.  It’ won’t work. 

The paragraph above is what MS did to my dad.  I did not think of him as disabled or unable nor did I feel sorry for him.  He taught me lessons that no one would have been able to.  He never gave up.  He never felt pity despite the loss of friends (and family) in spite of his disease.  He always smiled.  He always laughed.  Despite his motionless body, he continued to interact with the only two grandchildren he would ever know.  He never, ever thought of himself as unable and he never thought less of himself.  When people stared or when children pointed, he took it as an opportunity to show him what it means to be human.  He tried.  But above all, he always felt himself lucky because he had a beautiful family, he was alive, he had a working mind, he could still enjoy chocolate and he still knew how to love.  My dad taught me what it means to truly live. 

Disclaimer: I just want to make a note to point out that not all people with MS will die from it. In fact, most don’t.  And not all people will become paralyzed from it.  In fact, most don’t.  But it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. 

From the Archives.

I found this post, buried in the "dark days of 2007" (February 21 to be exact).  It's a reminder of how far I have come but the shadow of her death still creeps around from time to time.  It's a painful post but one of growth.  I found it particularly interesting to read now that I'm studying addiction.  My words than ring so true to the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from the disease of addiction.  I could sit and psychoanalyze every word, every sentence and every emotion but I will let it be what it is: a stepping stone in my journey to hope and of course, my journey into my future....    


Today I needed you and you weren't here.  Today I saw him weak and tired and scared and mean and you weren't here.  I waited for this day because I knew it would come but mabye, somehow I was hoping that I wouldn't have to see him without you.  My stomach felt what my heart couldn't anymore.  I was so nauseous when my eyes met his.  He's not who he was six months ago.  He's not the person behind his name.  He's not my brother.  He's not your son.  You weren't there when I needed you more than I have since you've been gone, but that's okay.  He looked into my eyes mom and all I could see was darkness, all I could see was a funeral, all I could see was nothing.  I was filled with fear and I still am mom.  I just wish you were hear to unload this heartache from my body.  All I can feel is fear.  I don't know if my fear is for him or for me, without you. 

Sometimes life without you seems unbearable.  I know everything I am handed in life is bearable but your absence makes it feel different, like it takes more work to make it bearable.  Sometimes I want to stay in bed until you come back.  Sometimes I realize I'd be a waste of a human being and other times I still think you'll come back.  Even going to Target is unbearable.  I know you are laughing, and I know you might find me to be ridiculous with the whole Target thing but let me explain...Our Target in Fridley got demolished and rebuilt.  We, you and I, went there a lot, right?  Right.  Well, I can't walk through the new Target doors, ever, without thinking you haven't walked through those doors.  It sucks mom.  Most times I have a bitter taste about it, other times I just go to a different Target.  I wonder when these buildings will stop having significance just because you're dead. 

If you came back, the drive to Megan's wouldn't be as boring anymore.  There are shoppes all along 65 now.  Megan's my best friend now mom.  She's both our best friends.  Sometimes I wonder how awful my life might be today without her.  I wonder too, if you and her found each other in life for me because I wasn't going to have anyone after you die.  It's wierd to think about.  I miss our drives to Megan's no matter how much I complained.  Even when you're 13 years old 20 minutes feels like an hour but I knew our time on that drive was time I spent with a "time-limited" mom and I always cherished them. 

He's empty.  He's not who you named, he's not who you loved, he's not even who you kicked out of your house, yet he's all of that, just empty.  His life is gone now.  All I can do is resist my heart from aching because I can't lose another one.  It's not easy without you mom and it hurts like hell right now.  It's not easy to be alone but it's what you did for 8 years with cancer.  I shouldn't complain to you.  You knew you had people, just like I know I have people, but regardless of the support I have...I'm still alone in my fight against his emptiness.  How do you fill a person with life when he kills all the life he has left?  You don't.  You can't. 

There are days I'm mad at you mom, not for dying but because you were the only person that got what I got.  Maybe I have fictionalized you in my mind so we agree on everything, so I have something to talk to and someone to hear me.  In my mind, you see how I see.  I am you in a sense.  It's funny how I've become you and only know it because your friends tell me.  Maybe you gave me this ability to stay strong.  You gave me an ability to go on when I'm hurting.  I can't believe how sad I am, yet I feel so rewarded.  You gave me something that has allowed me to go on with my life despite your death.  I'm okay without you mom.  He's not. 

You fought so hard for your life so you could watch us grow into adults.  You fought so hard for your life because you believed in living even in pain.  He doesn't.  He's fighting his life for death.  There is nothing so lonely to watch than a man with more hope for death than life.  He hates himself and I love him but it's not good enough, it's not strong enough, it's not perfect enough.  My love can't be stronger than the drug. 

I'm not ready to be alone mom.  I'm not ready to be without his emptiness no matter how much it hurts.  I know I can remain strong and I know I can see this hardship through no matter what the outcome.  I'm just not ready for another crack in my heart.  Not yet. 

Belief.

I recently went to a funeral that was too soon.  I'll always find a reason for any death to be "too soon" but this truly was too soon.  I'm pained that this happened to one of my sweetest and dearest and warmest friends.  One of those friends that sort of blindsides you on a thursday afternoon.  The one that you passed here and there and think, "We have NOTHING in common" and than you're sitting in class talking about life and she's as deep and powerful and brilliant as anyone I would love to call "friend".  I'm already a very terrible funeral go-er.  I hate them and I think they're horrendous.  But this one was especially difficult because #1: it's that gem of a friend I'm talking about and #2: I've never had to witness what it looks like to have someone I love lose the same thing I lost.  My friend's mom's death has nothing to do with me, I never met her mother, in fact I didn't even know what she looked like.  But life and death makes a person think about life and death and naturally, I've been brewing in a hot cup of religion ever since.

I have to ask you now to stop worrying because I'm crossing that bridge into religion.  I'm not crossing that bridge.  Seriously.  I'm not.  There will be nothing political about the following paragraphs:

The funeral I went to was at St. Charles Bartholomew.  My mom used to run her tiny little legs up and down the sidewalk outside of this church when she was just a young girl and come to think of it, so did my friend's mom, whom I attended the funeral for.  I can picture my mom now with her jet black, stringy, thin hair and much too short bangs running to catch up to her older siblings with a school bag two times too big.  She was the youngest and the youngest always gets the "too big for you" hand-me-downs.  St. Charles was my mom's church where she was taught the ins and outs of Catholicism.  She went to school there too.  She was locked into closets by nuns, slapped across the wrist by rulers and even pulled the fire alarm to get out of her fifth grade speech.  The church is epic with the tall beautiful blue ceilings, the crown moldings that look meticulously carved, the pews that slant just enough to feel like you're reclining ever so slightly and the enormous steeple that when you stare up into you wonder who built it and how long it took.  It is breathtaking to sit under it's roof.  The pictures of my mom's wedding day in this church don't do the place justice.  I don't think any picture could. 

My parent's raised me Catholic.  I was baptized and confirmed under the dogma of Catholicism.  Looking back now, I'm not sure how much I believed of my following.  The things I were taught never quite made sense to me but to question what I was being taught as the truth never occurred to me.  Church was an every Sunday event and it was never an option of whether I could stay home in pajamas or not.  I followed my parents orders and held my mom's hand during the service, yawned, played silent games with Taylor next to me, yawned more, fell asleep on my dad's shoulder and asked multiple times if we could leave after the Eucharist (communion): the answer was always, "No and don't ask me again."  

In seventh grade I had a nun for a teacher.  She was magnificent.  I knew exactly how to get back on her good side if a bad grade proved I might not be in her good graces: bring an Almond Joy for her.  The best thing about this was she knew exactly my intentions when I showed up with that chocolate candy bar wrapped in blue and she was totally okay with it.  She was delightful and funny and told the most wonderful stories.  She was the one who told me every time I hear sirens I should pray.  I've never been one for prayer.  It's never made me feel full or relieved or satisfied so instead I would think.  Instead of pray I would think about the family who might have just lost their loved one in a car accident or in a drowning.  I would wonder how they were going to make it through their night, if they were going to be sitting in the hospital for 3 weeks or if they would be planning a funeral the next day.  And than I would get hopeful and think that maybe the ambulance was responding to something minor.  My teacher was also the teacher who told me every single snowflake is different and we should relate people to snowflakes because we all fall into the same pile of snow yet we are all different.  Yet I sat in that same classroom and learned about a religion that I was supposed to belong to and told about a belief that was right and true and naturally I got to thinking, "If someone else doesn't believe this religion thing is right and true than aren't I separating myself from the rest of the snowflakes?"  

I've witnessed firsthand what belief and faith can do for a soul.  My mom believed, more than I am comfortable with, that there was a God.  Her journals prove that every bit of her fiber was doused in spirituality and belief.  And I've also witnessed what a community that works together can do.  They can feed the hungry, build homes, move entire cities and stir up dirt.  A Higher Power is one of the greatest reasons Alcoholic's Anonymous works: take your addiction and hand it over to "someone" else (God, Allah, Buddha, a doorknob).  When you put the spirituality and community together you have a religion in the name of something.  There have been many wonderful things that have spawned from religion and there have been many awful things too.  Nope, I'm still not getting political.  I have just always wondered if people can do good together just for the sake of doing good and not in the name of anything higher or bigger than us.  

I lived in apartments my freshmen year of college and two of my roommates were Muslim, both of them from Malaysia.  They were two of the most gentle women I have met in my life.  They were intellectuals and intuitive and they were strong as tacks.  I watched people insult their religion and I heard tears from both of them as they comforted one another from the snickers outside our door.  They believed, with all of their heart, that their religion was right for them but I never once heard them tell me that what other people believed was wrong.  I watched in awe as they prayed and fasted and sang.  One night, I sat on the countertop in the kitchen while they made delicious food and listened to them talk about their religion.  Everything they said made sense to me and the passion they spoke with was infectious but I realized something that night: that I have never felt that passion for my own religion.  And another thing: I was okay with it.  I could not sit there and tell them, with all that fire in their eyes for their belief, that they were wrong.  

I stopped attending Church after that and started questioning my beliefs.  I started reading about Atheism and started dating a man (and father of our child) who fiercely believes that death is the end of life (period) and that when you die, you stare at the back of your eyelids and you feel and think nothing.  The soul does not do anything, in fact, I'm not sure a soul exists by his beliefs.  "So" I asked him one day "that would mean my mom is...nothing?"  "Yes" he said to me "your mom is nothing.  But you know what?  She lives in your stories."  Well that was sweet and maybe I could live with that but I tried it and I can't.  I found recently that I don't like Atheism for the same reason I don't like organized religion: it claims to be just as "better" as all those religions that claim they know the "truth."  I can't seem to win.  

The only church services I have been to in the last 8 years have been for weddings, funerals or baptisms.  Sometimes I sit and listen to the Bible readings and wonder why all the followers relate the Scripture to present day, sometimes I sit and think the story is beautiful but leave it at that and sometimes I'm angry because I believe in the goodness of people regardless of religious rules and regulations.  I have a dear friend who grew up behind me who is the epitome of what I believe to be a good Christian.  She's a treasure to me (another one of those friends).  She believes with all her heart in Christianity and when we have conversations about it and she knows exactly where I stand (and it's not anywhere where she stands) I never feel inferior.  She listens to me and nods her head and smiles and she believes this is what's right for me and Christianity is what's right for her.  I've paged through a book she created while in Discipleship Training School and felt the same awe I felt when I listened to my Muslim roommates speak about their religion.  These have been some of the few moments that I have never felt like I had to defend my beliefs.  

So I sat at St. Charles the other day and watched the ritual of my given religion with new eyes because one of my truest friends believes her God has a plan for her deceased mom and I believe her belief in that.  I listened to people saying the prayers of the rosary as their fingers played with each bead that signified a new Hail Mary and observed an incredibly old woman pull a rosary from a small leather bag and keep it pressed to her lips for minutes.  Just by observing this woman I could see that she truly believed in what she was praying for.  I watched people at the front door dip their fingertips into holy water and make the sign of the cross, they genuflected before taking their seat, we sat, stood and kneeled more times than I cared to count, they received the Eucharist and we offered each other a sign of peace.  I listened to the woman sing at the alter and I was captivated, not because I suddenly believed in religion for myself, but because her voice was magical.  All of these rituals have a long history of meaning and they feel right to those who practice them and they do it beautifully.  

I was a disaster after the funeral of my friend's mom.  My eyes filled with tears faster than I could wipe them away.  I selfishly left immediately after the funeral because I could not pull myself together for the life of me.  I was consumed by grief, something I have learned to live with since my own mom died, but having to watch my friend live what I've experienced killed me.  I went to the cemetery immediately following the funeral and cried harder at my mom and dad than I have since I was 18 and realized something while I drove home.  She (my mom) is who I have faith in and I believe exists even though I can no longer see her.  I feel the same way for my dad.  I'm not sure where they reside other than my heart because I don't believe in two separate places when we die.  I like the idea and I like the story of heaven and hell but to me and my beliefs, it's just not reasonable.  While I sat at the end of the funeral service and observed the family of my friend and listened to the prayer for her mom's safe arrival to heaven, I believed for them in what we were asking and hoping for.  I may not believe in religion (for myself) or the Jesus Christ my mom believed in or one single and all-knowing God but I did believe my mom was sitting right next to me with her arm around my shoulders across the back of the pew.  And I do believe she grabbed hold of my friend's mom's hand and said, "Sit back and relax - this new life is a breeze."   

St. Anthony Parkway and my dad.

I write for a lot of reasons but one of them is so I don't forget.  And recently, I forgot.  

I forgot that I had a "secret route" to the hospital when my dad was at North Memorial for 3 months.  It's a not so secret route, as people take it every day to various places, but it was my time of solitude away from the hustle and bustle of 694 and 100.  It weaved through St. Anthony Parkway, through a Camden park and up Memorial Parkway.  It is a beautiful route, one in which I would get lost staring at houses, driving down this street or that to avoid the hospital where he was fighting for his life.  Now I know why I forgot that route.  

I live right by St. Anthony Parkway and as I was driving down it today with my daughter asleep in the backseat, I had a flashback of me in my maroon Geo Prism.  I had been here before and it made me sad.  I felt like I was in a prime-time drama: uncovering something that I kept hidden away because when I felt it, I didn't like it.  I followed my intuition, over the train tracks, across Marshall, over the River and that's where it hit me.  The long parkway to the hospital where his leukemia diagnosis was waiting for me.  I forgot what it felt like to pull into the parking ramp with the always familiar face smiling at me when I took the card from the automatic machine, the same face who would be there four hours later asking me to "have a nice day" when I left.  I forgot about the walk to the elevator where I would repeat the number of the level I was parked on.  Only 4 levels but after an emotionally draining day, the level in which my car was parked on was the last thing I remembered.  I forgot about the gigantic revolving door on the left after I stepped out of the elevator, the one that always awaited a discharged patient fresh from having babies or an oncology surgery.  I was always envious of the person pushing the wheelchair, knowing they were the "next of kin" and anxious to be able to kiss the hospital and their overpriced cafeteria food good-bye.  I forgot about the gift shop on the right and the deli on the left with the divine blueberry muffin and turtle mocha that I could always trust to walk me the rest of the way to my dad's room.  He changed rooms so frequently that on more than three occasions I went to the wrong room, knocked on the wrong door and walked in on the wrong ailment.  Once I found him, he would be sleeping, waiting for nobody.  But the great thing was, he was always surprised to see me.  I was a surprise party every time I crossed the threshold into his room except I didn't come with balloons and confetti and presents.  Afterall, this is a hospital, not a place of celebration.  After staring at the white walls, the same television, complaining about the showers that he had to take, the dressing changes he had to have and the bed he had to stay in, I probably felt like Muhammad Ali to him.  I was always going to be his surprise and I liked it.  

I forgot what it felt like to see him in his hospital bed.  I was never sad but looking back now, I'm saddened that it wasn't painful to watch my dad suffer.  His suffering and agony was all I knew.  

You won't hear me speak of my dad in the same way I do my mom.  I love them equally, yes, but I grieve them differently.  She, although her fight was far from over, was ready to accept her fate.  He, confused and bewildered, probably felt relief from the life he was leaving but didn't know why.  My mom was my mother and I still need her every day.  Almost nine years gone and she still knows how to make my bad day good because she left me with these memories:  When she reached for my hand in the middle of church and rolled her eyes at the lengthly homily or the bunny rabbit birthday cake that I requested she make four years in a row.  And on the fifth year, she refused.  She was the best at tucking me in at night and the best at being careful not to wake my dad when I was supposed to sleep on the floor in her room instead of in her bed with them.  And even four days to her death, she was still mom, reassuring me how similar we are and that I don't see it now but I have to let my brother's live their own lives.  That I have to not worry about them and that it would be my lifelong struggle to stop carrying around the weight of their pain along with mine.  She saw the adult I was going to grow to be and as she reached for my hand and closed her eyes, I could feel her satisfaction.  

I know he was not always this way but as long as I can remember my dad was completely dependent on my mom.  My dad and I vied for my mom's attention.  We even fought over television programs.  I don't have many memories of my dad as a caregiver or as his responsibility.  I know he was always proud of me and loved me unconditionally because you could see it when he looked at me.  The part I struggle with is the memories.  When I reach into that vault of happiness, I more often reach for my mom.  Except there's this one that is always waiting to be reopened: It was March 27th, 1992.  I was in room 100 at Immaculate Conception School and we were having show and tell.  I sat in the circle, ready to share my purple wand from Disney World when I saw my dad's cane and legs through the window.  I remember being flustered when it came my turn to share because I was sure I saw him.  Soon enough the whole class had shared their goodies and there was a knock at the door.  My Kindergarten teacher told me to answer the door, at which point I was sure the legs and cane were not my dad's because it had clearly been hours.  I was not catching on that it was him at the door.  When I opened it, he was there on one knee with six red roses.  I shut the door because I thought we were in trouble and I went back to the circle with cheeks as red as those roses.  He opened the door and the classroom erupted in gasps and than my teacher insisted it was okay he was there.  I ran to him, asked him who the flowers were for (duh) and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck.  He leaned on his cane for support and I shifted my weight to balance, his mustache grazed my cheek and everyone heard the whisper that was meant for me.  

And there's this one too:  When I was in fifth grade I purposely dove face first to slide across a patch of ice on the playground.  The bell had rung and I had gotten careless, worrying about not making it to the line and being scolded for putzing around.  I dove, my chin hit the ice and I stood up with an "ow."  My friend Joe Roith had witnessed the entire thing and put his glove under my chin to catch the blood, "You're bleeding" he said.  I knew it hurt but stitches, I thought, were a bit extreme.  The nurse called my dad who told him I needed to go to the emergency room, that the gash was deep enough to see bone.  I waited in the nurses office for his phone call from his car phone.  Stairs had become too much of a hassle at this point so if he picked me up from school he called the office to inform them of his arrival and I had a personal escort to his car and in this case, it was the nurse.  She leaned into the car after I had hopped into the passenger seat, "I can't believe her pain tolerance.  She was ready to put a band-aid on it and call it a day."  My dad laughed and patted my knee.  We said thank you and goodbye and we drove off in his Lincoln Continental through the empty parking lot.  We stopped at the exit onto the one-way and he pulled a Snyder's bag from the glove box, "Here, let's throw these on there" he said.  "What are they?" I asked.  "Butterfly stitches.  Same thing as a regular stitch, sort of" he said as he applied the sticky white strips to my chin and concluded, "Wanna go to Circus-Circus?"  

Unlike my mom, I miss what he could have been.  And of course, I miss who he was.  I will always wish to have had an adult relationship with both of them but it's my dad who I wish I could have been his little girl because the years I experienced being his little girl were so minute and short.  My child always morphed into adult because the circumstances called for it.  Our dynamic was unique, discouraging and sometimes painful but it was "us" which I can settle in accepting.  In spite of all the hardships his poor soul endured, he always smiled.  Any terrible diagnosis was forgotten within minutes.  No grudges were held or bad blood was shared for the friends and relatives he lost in spite of his diagnosis.  He was a fighter from the beginning to the end.  "Same shit, different day" was his motto and oh how true it was.  His view of life was extraordinary and In the words of one of my favorite musical artists: He had no other offers or options.  Monotony was his life but smiling broke it up, especially to the average person who couldn't fathom a smile in his condition.    

Rather than mourn for the dad he couldn't be, I will celebrate the dad he was which was couragous, optimistic, funny but most of all proud.  He was proud.  Proud that even though they didn't work: he had legs.  Proud that even though he thought his address was his childhood home: he had a memory that could remember every football game or boxing match.  Proud that even though she was gone: he married his best friend.  Proud that even though he couldn't be the dad he wanted to be: he helped raise us, loved us and knew we would carry his legacy with us just by being the people we are.  Dad, I wouldn't trade the short years I got to have you as an active dad for a lifetime of one because those short years taught me the value of a dad, the value of a childhood and the value of a life.  You are remarkable dad.