My best friend’s baby passed away a few days after Christmas. I wrote this during the days following and was honored to then share it at her funeral this past Friday. I am posting it here since I have had a few people ask to read it again. Ultimately, I hope to share the lessons I have learned from this amazing and (to quote her mother ) oh so “remarkable” child. (Please note that I have omitted any names to protect their privacy since my blog is public.)
There is a spider that lives in my shower. I had meant to get it out of there while cleaning my bathroom months ago. But I hadn’t. So there he lived, minding his business, affecting nothing.
The day I found out that my friend’s baby had Trisomy 18, I stood soaking in my shower and hating that spider. Why? That spider was likely to outlive this new life. That seemed more unfair and impossible than any other fact of life I had ever experienced. I hated that spider with every part of me. I wanted to swat it down from there and be done with it. But I didn’t.
A handful of days later, I arrived at my friend’s apartment with my bag and my heart in hand. I stepped through the door and found the sounds and smells of warmth and home. There was joy and children laughing here. Voices, hugging, coming and going and comfort. And there, by her sleeping daddy’s side, nestled deeply in the coziest wrappings of blankets and and all of this wonderful love around her was the baby.
I was pretty selfish about her right from the get go. Give her to me. I needed to be with this baby. But I wasn’t the only one. Over the next few days, people came. Family, friends, letters, emails, phone calls, Facebook comments, small packages, enormous tin-foiled servings of food, flowers, people and more people. All of this and the love they stood for arrived to that very same apartment. We were all pulled into orbit around this perfect wonder, who stared up from her wrappings and watched us all.
I’m not sure she knew what the fuss was about. You see, this girl was more concerned about just being a baby. She slept, she cried, she fussed when she was hungry, she gulped down milk while propped up in loving arms, she needed burping, she needed changing, she smiled in her sleep, she carried on doing the very important business of a baby. She also watched her mama. In the wee hours, she (like any newborn with their sleeping and waking wildly mixed up) was wide awake and mesmerized by her mother’s voice. Alert, eyes wide open, tiny lips in an “O”, she stared up at her and punched her arms a bit and stared some more. Her mama amazed her.
So, while being very busy at the business at being baby, this child somehow stirred up all that had settled in our souls. She awoke and re-energized our hearts and brought love and joy sharply into focus. While we gathered and her heard story, our lives were forever shifted on their axes, driving us to think carefully about all that we cherish in this very moment. With dark eyes watching, she inspired everyone of us to look inward and kick the dust off our joy, reminding us what we so easily take for granted.
Did you ever notice that her fingers were crossed? Even this sweet trait of hers inspired me. “Fingers crossed that you get what I’m trying to say here, Auntie. Fingers crossed you are loving your life and all you have in it.”
I do.
So, back to that spider. I haven’t been home to see if that spider still resides in my shower but I suspect that he does. But here’s the thing about that spider. During his lifetime living in the corner of a ceiling affecting nothing, he will never EVER conjure up, create or inspire the kind of love our wonderful girl did in 40 days. In fact, how many of us could say that we have done what she has in the many years of our own lives? It doesn’t matter how long you have, it is what you do and you give that matters.
She was a precious gift. She was pure joy wrapped in a blanket. She was our reminder to love, right now and everyday after this.
In her honor, I will do everything I can to reach deep down and keep that soul of mine and the love I have in my life dusted off, held up and celebrated. 40 days, 40 years, 80 years, it is what I choose to do, not how long I have to do it. I hope I can keep this up for you, sweet baby. I will certainly do my very best. Fingers crossed.
In the past, I thought forward. I considered and dreamed about my so very dear adult-life. The man I would marry. I wrote lists of names for my children. I sighed about where we would live. I would wonder how they would look. My so very perfect, just-so life.
And I said I would take my children to The Nutcracker someday. When *I* was a mother. And they would, of course, love it as much as I did.
That day came last week. My son had seemed interested so now, at 8, I decided it was time he went. But at 38, I try not to get too caught up in romanticising what I will do with my children anymore. Things change, kids don’t like what you did a lot of the time, real-life isn’t so make-believe. But I bought the tickets and I took him. We held hands. We walked along the Riverwalk before the show. We sat and read the program and ate cough drops together and giggled about how we couldn’t stop coughing. When the lights went down and he heard the music, he smiled. And he turned to me. He got it right away. He loved it like I had. This was something special for him, too.
Suddenly I became far too aware that the future that I had day-dreamed about for so many years is happening right now. There are no more second chances, there no do-overs. This is it. My life. My adult life. And these are my children doing some of the things I dreamed and many that I didn’t.
This Christmas season has brought lots of difficult news. Apart from some things that I have written about, two friends have been diagnosed with breast cancer (one being one of my closet college friends), there are friends with very sick relatives, some with new concerns about their children, others who have had miscarriages, and others who have lost jobs. And while things remain blessedly peaceful and healthy in my life, there is a lot of coping and getting through the season happening all around me.
Again, it is very clear to me that every hope and dream for the future is so very very uncertain.
So, I don’t want to look forward so much anymore. I don’t want to think about what will happen in my dreamy little grown-up world. And I don’t want to think about what could have been or how things used to be. I want to grab hold of the present and BE entirely in it.
I want to tie myself to this very moment and experience it and let every taste and sound and feeling sink right on in. I don’t want to miss a thing, I want my eyes wide open to it all.
There will never be another first time I get to take my oldest child to The Nutcracker. So I sat in the theater and held his hand and watched him watch and laugh and listen and clap loudly. It was perfect and everything right now needs to be.
This, my life, is happening right now. This Christmas, this time when both of my children still believe in Santa and shamelessly dance “Christmas is almost here” dances in the hallway together, in Spider-man jammies… this is happening RIGHT NOW. 8 and 5 turns into 9 and 6 next year. And on it goes.
I cherish every Christmas past. I hope for many Christmases in the future. But I am living and breathing this Christmas present. I have what I have right now — and it is a gift.
To inspire little boy smiles for our family Christmas card, we pretended to pick my 8yo’s nose.
(Now I kind of wish I had “picked” this one for our card… har har.)
It’s almost to the point where I can’t turn on the news any longer because it might terrify my kids. Or. It might terrify me.
I put $10 in my tank at a time. Not like that’s the smartest strategy. Because there are reports that it will climb to $4.00 at anytime. So gas is actually “cheap” now. But $10 is what I can do sometimes.
My front yard grass won’t grow. It’s a lot of dirt. It gets tracked into the house all the time. I’m trying to fix it. But there are bugs trying to eat it and the stupid chemicals I don’t want to use aren’t really working so far.
Speaking of bugs, I think we have termites.
We left out the huge barrel of meat sauce that I made and my kids love. That was supposed to be our leftovers for awhile. Into the trash.
My best friends live far faaaar away. And I really need miss them.
I think my hot water heater is about to die. Along with my garage door opener that already died in a puff of smoke a couple months ago. And I am whistling past the graveyard that is my refrigerator. Let’s not even talk about it.
And you should see the peeling paint on the front bumper of my car. Long story, came that way, not our fault, hassle to deal and I just haven’t been mean enough to get someone to pay for it. So there it peels.
I’m not patient enough with my children. Just because they track dirt in or toss the chicken I cooked for them or tackle me from behind while I’m tying some one’s shoe or fight fight FIGHT over who gets to play Club Penguin. Just because they do those things does NOT in ANY way mean I should be so pissy with them.
Little things tweak me and poke me and nudge me into a scowling, grumbling, totally self-involved, bad mood.
But what a waste. They are only LITTLE things.
We are actually so good, really.
Why, WHY waste energy on the things that don’t really define my life at all?
Last weekend I was with my brother. I woke up in a state because a small freelancing job I am highly underpaid for was driving me batty. And, while screaming little boys with very little sleep tore madly around the house, we still had a Chuck E. Cheese party for my nephew to get ready for. Dark clouds had gathered over my head.
But leave it to my brother, who knows me and knows how to make it better. He rescued me from the kids and had me come get the birthday cake with him. He said we have to go find our sense of humor. Along the way, we picked up a box of Girl Scout Cookies. And he played old school R&B like Keith Sweat and KC and JoJo and we crooned and ate cookies and LAUGHED and took our time.
This morning, I was very lucky to happen upon a fantastic Ani Difranco concert posted on her Facebook page. If you need a little Ani, go here. It’s great. Really. But I also heard the song “Smiling Underneath” for the first time in awhile. Once again, her lyrics get me where I’m at.
And I thought of my brother and I, without the kids, eating Girl Scout Cookies in his car, singing badly, just being, noticing that the sun was shining and that life was fine.
It seems, even when it is practically against my will, I can shake it off and recognize the small stuff for what it is. Just… small.
I don’t mind waiting in line
no, no
I don’t mind if the bills pile up and the work is slow
I don’t mind the gas or the groceries or the drive
As long as I’m with you I’m having a good time…
…I don’t mind spilling my hot sauce on my white shirt
I don’t mind that twinge when I walk in that knee that I hurt
I don’t mind my gums peeling back or my hair getting thin
long as I’m with you, I win
long as I’m with you
We could be stuck in traffic for over a week
with a car full of Quintuplets who are all cutting teeth
and around my neck could be a flaming Christmas wreath
and I’d be smiling under
smiling under
smiling underneath
Perspective.
Screw the termites. Seek out your most loved ones. Then find cookies.
This is what happens when I finally tackle cleaning my own closet while the boys are at school. And while standing under the closet’s fluorescent light, in a nest of dust bunnies, between piles of old clothing ready to be heaved, I find stuff and get distracted.
Like an enormous bag of tattered nursing bras that need to be (not given away but) thrown out. Oh but sigh. Remember when I wore these everyday? Remember when my babies were so little and sweet and snugglie? AND MY BODY NOURISHED THEM? And then I stare at that nasty bag of bras and get all philosophical about the many meanings and miracles of life.
*heaving wistful sigh*
Or how about the pin-striped, sear sucker suit my oldest boy wore to my best friend’s wedding when he was just one year old. He couldn’t even walk yet, and there are still grass stains on the knees.
Or my graduation hood or an old dress of my mother’s or pictures and letters and wrapped presents (I wonder what they are?) and toys I heaved in there because my boys were fighting over them and the shirt my husband wore on our first date.
And then, out of nowhere, drops a sweet, fluffy winter cap my first born wore when we lived where there was real winter. A dear little powder blue cap, with pom poms, and flaps for his ears and a snap for under his chin.
This is what happens when you find that stuff.
You grab your child when he gets home from school, squeeze that infant’s hat on his head and force the snap together under his grown chin and make him stand there for a picture. And then you clutch them to you and blubber about how grown they are while they squirm and demand to see the picture and have a good giggle before yanking it off and bounding out of the house to go play zombies with the kid across the street.
This is what happens when I clean.
And it’s not pretty.
(…What is WITH me and all this nostalgic closet cleaning??? But my logic was that if I could do 3 closets and 13 bags for my mom, I could do it for myself too. And what satisfying results! Still. *eyeroll* Get a GRIP woman.)
My father travels a lot. I’ve never sat him down and counted exactly how many countries and continents he’s been to because I’m not sure that we could do it. There are far too many. However. As one of his many family members, we have all grown used to receiving all varieties of fascinating gifts upon his return. Tapestries, woven baskets, carved chests, coral jewelry, endless unusual things.
Cool right?
Not so fast.
This year he out did himself. He spent 6 months in the Philippines this past year and, amongst a few lovely items, he brought home some… other things… for his grandsons.
I almost feel bad posting what they are. It may be very offensive for some. For real. It is pretty damned disturbing. But of course the boys LOVED them, the oldest planning to store his tooth fairy money in them from now on.
But then again, they are too insane NOT to post. So here I go. But brace yourself. And yes. They are “real”. With googly-eyes.
GAH.
My apologies.
But you only have to live with this post. I HAVE TO LIVE WITH TWO OF THEM IN MY HOUSE. EVERYDAY. And my children TOSSING them at me, because they think my reaction is FUNNY.
We are back from an exhausting 8 hour 5 day road trip to Atlanta. We stuffed our two boys and two selves and an excessive amount of travel gear into the back of our Kia and made our way up there earlier this week. We arrived at my brother-in-law’s home in a tumble of hugs and booming hellos and screeching children while the dogs leaped all over them. Without a second thought, we immediately piled our everything into such a mountain that it blocked their entrance way. And then, little by little, we spread it all out over their lovely house. Yes, we became that family that came to stay this Thanksgiving holiday.
After we were finished with our hellos, we riled up their dogs some more, overtook a guest room, unpacked our groceries, shoved it all into their space, and put our feet up on the couch.
We kidnapped, over-stimmed and then coughed our collective colds all over their brand new three month old baby boy. And then I talked about how much he was – or wasn’t – like *MY* babies years ago. I exclaimed loudly what *I* did to get the baby to do A, B, or C. And had she tried that yet? Had she??? And then dumped a pile of well-loved hand me downs at her feet.
We exclaimed we would make dinner to “help” and then hassled our family about where this or that was. And didn’t they love our recipe? Of course you do! Yum.
We took the dogs for walks and proceeded to let go of one because I thought letting my seven year old walk one would be a fun, new experience. Both dogs eventually made it home.
We let our kids loose in their backyard where they whacked balls off the siding of their house. And the neighbors’. We tracked boatloads of grass and dirt in and out of the house. We left the door open a lot.
We made noise when the baby slept, particularly when one of our boys would emerge from the bathroom and regularly announce his “work” from the top of the stairs. We praised him back loudly, of course. And flushed with a flourish and sang songs while we washed his hands all while the baby napped.
Although the baby had trouble napping.
We left toothpaste blobs dried to the side of their sink, finished up the TP and used their baby shampoo.
We took over their DVD player and played kids movies whenever the need arose. We plugged ourselves into their wireless connection and distracted ourselves with online obscurities while they tried to talk to us.
We left only once to a playground but then hung out the entire rest of the week, you know, in case they missed us.
We left toys around the house and stacked kids books here and there and left pointy shaped Transformer Happy Meal toys on the floor to be stepped on.
We took pictures constantly and video taped things when least expected. And then posted it all on Facebook without a second thought.
We tried to quiet our fighting wrestling kids with even louder threats of “Do you want a Time Out? DO YOU?!?!?!!!!” We knocked over dog dishes while dragging our children to their laundry room for Time Out where my four year thought pushing flashing washer buttons would be a fine punishment.
We “helped” with Thanksgiving dinner by having no idea how to really cook in any official way. We tasted stuff with our fingers and didn’t always wash our hands before handling most of it. We coughed on all of it too.
We laid around. We slept in. Or we were the first ones up making the most noise. We dirtied dishes, we forgot to do dishes. We ate. We ate their stuff. We drank. We left glasses around the house. We used and did not replace.
We assumed their casa was our casa.
And then we packed up with more noise and chaos and searching and upending and dumping and screams of “I don’t want to go!!!” We emptied their pantry of whatever we brought and stole things like plastic spoons and maybe even one of their Cheeze-it boxes.
We took more pictures.
We hugged and squealed and coughed all over that wonderful baby as we said our good-byes. We hugged some more and stuffed ourselves back into the car and waved and even teared up a little and lamented the whole way home how much we wished Atlanta wasn’t as far away.
Because we love our family. And really wish we could do that so much more often.
Cheers to family for being family and letting family just be this way. Nothing could be more wonderful.
Over thirteen years ago, I met a guy in a bar. Amongst crowds of friends and sticky table tops, he sipped his beer and smiled down at me. He was nice, I loved the way he said my name. And he was also the kind of tall, dark and yummy that had me at hello. He spent the evening listening to me over pitchers – both of us considering how we came to be where we were at 23 years old.
But he was also far too good to be true for someone I might find at a local college bar. So I didn’t expect much.
Still, I called him back a few days later. I wanted to see him again because I liked him. Because until the other shoe dropped revealing whatever it was that made him not so great after all – this was fun, this was good.
It was September and we were both living in western Massachusetts. He often met me at a local bus stop wearing frayed jeans and flip flops, fresh out of the shower. The fall air was sobering and the breath I expelled clouded my judgment. My heart raced, there he was.
On those nights, I’d jump into his old Chevy Lumina, the maroon plush interior covered in dog hair and McDonald’s wrappers. He played the alternative rock station loudly, gassed his car through stoplights and told me about his day. He was dreamy.
What was I doing?
Reckless and giddy, I had leapt off some sturdy ledge I had built for myself. And fell. This time I disregarded all common sense. He wasn’t going to be this great after all. He couldn’t possibly be.
But no matter.
I spent my days hoping to see him again and again, adrenaline charging through my heart, waiting to find the Lumina parked next to our bus stop.
I had no appetite. I couldn’t sleep. My voice hitched with every breath.
Sheryl Crowe sang on repeat behind counter tops, across college greens and in friends cars. “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.”
It can’t be.
The fall leaves had never seemed so bright, so electric. With winter’s promise, they blew past my feet and the cold gasped life into my lungs. Caution had been whipped cleanly away, everything had changed.
And I paid no attention.
Because during those fall and winter months in 1996, I lost myself in our days and nights together, evenings at coffee shops and local bars, walks around town with his leashed dog urging us forward. This guy, this too good to be true person who clearly adored me for whatever I was, and who drove a beat up Lumina with athletic equipment strewn all over his backseat, had filled my soul and stripped me of any common sense.
………….
Ten years ago today, I zipped myself into a white gown, adjusted my fingertip veil and walked down an enormous aisle towards this very guy. This guy I had met in a bar and who was not supposed to be as wonderful as he had seemed.
He was, in fact, that wonderful after all.
Common sense had disguised itself inside some possibility of fate. This was supposed to be. I had followed what I felt because I was meant to. And now, ten years later, there is a family. Two boys and a marriage. Alive. Amazing. As it should be. So very good and so very true.
Happy 10 years to the love of my life.
Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.
-Emily Dickinson
(Read at our wedding by my father, October 7th, 2000.)
After two weeks of living on a sandy peninsula void of much online access to anything however surrounded by national seashore, some combination of visiting family, far too many fried seafood joints, and my very content although browned, mosquito bitten, bathing suited children - I am finally packing up.
Vacation time is just about over.
In a few days, I will be depositing my summer boys with their dad and so many hugs and kisses before they all head back to Tampa. But I’m not heading back to Tampa with them. Not quite yet at least.
Where could I be headed you ask?
After a blogless, wifi-less, nature filled, sandy footed two weeks far from the hustle and bustle of anything much at all, I am leaping head first into the very antithesis of this wonderfully unplugged time out.
I’m headed to BlogHer in NYC.
Hundreds and hundreds of bloggers and dear friends and so so many people I want to see but may not get to or will possibly in passing with humming laptops all logged in with endless tabs open and twitter convos underscoring every panel discussion alongside meet ups in lobbies and coffee spots and karaoke bars and parties and this and that and who knows whatever the hell else all while camping out with two blogging besties in the Hilton in New York City which already has enough hustle and bustle thank you very much to make my over-sunned mind totally and utterly stim out.
But I’m not complaining. Surrounding myself with smart, interesting people in NYC is exactly what I need before I leap into the usual routine of school days, car pick up lines, baseball practice, homework, and mac n cheese dinners.
Will you be there? Post here so I know to look out for you.
My mother died a year ago last Monday. When someone so close to you passes away it seems the world should shudder to a stop. Or come crashing down with loud, harsh fanfare that rattles you to your core. It seems the world should sense this enormous loss, recognize it, quiet down and wait. But it did not. The cars passed by and the birds chirped outside my mother’s home the day I stepped into her bedroom. She had been taken out of that very room only 24 hours before. But the sun shone in. The breeze blew by. Her recently planted bulbs fully bloomed swayed in the yard below.
****
I inherited my mother’s camera after she passed. And I still have not deleted the last pictures she took. They were of branches strewn across her yard. They were also of a tree. An enormous tree in front of our house had been the object of her recent frustration. This tree, one that towered over and awed me as a child, was not well. The root structure was compromised and the city had been pruning it on the street side only. She knew it was not viable. And so in her usual determined way, she pressed the city, wrote the mayor and rose as much of a ruckus as she could about that damn tree. They never responded.
****
This past Monday I was on Cape Cod, with family all around. My aunt called me. “How are you today?” she asked. I was ok. I figured this was the best place to be to honor her that day. I just wished I could get some sign from her, you know? Just so that I knew she was still around. She understood. She told me she loved me and we hung up.
****
An hour later I stood in front of my mother’s parents’ grave. And my fathers’ parent’s grave. Both are buried in the same cemetery here on Cape Cod. I dropped a hydrangea bloom on each stone and packed the kids back into the car. We were on our way to collect my father from the airport.
****
I stood in the wind at Race Point on Cape Cod, the northern-most tip of this peninsula. There was a small airport and we expected my father’s Cape Air flight at any moment. And at the top of the visitor center I finally found cell phone reception. “What do you mean the tree is down????” My brother had just called. There had been a terrible storm a half hour earlier and the tree – my mom’s tree, the one I still had pictures of on my camera in my bag – had fallen into my parent’s home. An entire telephone pole had snapped in half too. Wires were down and alive in the yard. The entire root structure exposed. No one could even see my home. No one knew the extent of the damage. There had been a great deal of fanfare this July 25th. Thundering crashes, traffic blocked, the everyday was stopped for the time being, total chaos.
****
My father was on the phone. We were all gathered in the living room of my family’s Cape cottage listening to him on the phone with my brother. “Who is there? Channel 7???… The Mayor????” We stared at each other. With live wires still sparking in my parent’s front lawn and the downed tree blocking the entire view of the house, the Mayor had arrived and had just held a press conference. Right there. At our home. He promised the city would be taken care of and that power would be restored.
****
The tree is off the house now. The power lines are being restored. The damage doesn’t seem to be anything desperate. I think it’s going to be ok.
Dusty, creaky, familiar sounds from decades before. Comfy couches, National Geographics, the TV stand next to the brick fireplace. Slamming screen door, daddy long legs, pails and shovels left on the front stoop. Family pictures hung on the wall, chipped dishes from my grandfather’s cupboard, knotty wood beam, pink tiled bathroom floors. Musty, quiet, flashes from the lighthouse cross the night sky. Leaves shifting, squirrels leaping through undergrowth, towels hung on laundry lines, moss and lichen climb the trees, weeds wisp past my calf. Sand on the floor boards, sand on the rugs, sand in my bed. Same old bed frames, same old sheets, same rusty faucet, same clinking latches on the doors. Same certain sense that my family is here, just over my shoulder but out of sight, whispering welcomes and bids to stay awhile.
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