My friend Nancy

I put down these memorandums of my affections
In honor of tenderness
In honor of all of those who have been
Conscripted into the brotherhood
Of loss....
~ Edward Hirsch

Those of you who know me, know that I navigate my life through words. Through trying to find the exact sentiment that will convey what may be beyond description. I do this with deep conviction in a world that sometimes simply can not understand. I'll try again today for someone who only entered into my life three years ago but will never leave it.

I met Nancy in August of 2008 on my first day at Devereux. I have limited memories of the actual encounter because I was high as a kite on Vicodin after being on the losing end of a battle with a blender two days before. With 21 stitches in the tip of my finger, I listened as I was introduced to the world of Devereux Human Resources by a woman named Nancy Murphy. You couldn't help but like Nancy. I guarantee there isn't anyone out there that didn't like Nancy. In fact, I'm guessing most of us would go so far as to say we loved her. And she loved us back.

I worked in the community and Nancy worked on campus, so my initial interactions with her were rare but always positive. She emanated joy, even if she walked by cussing under her breath (which I loved about her). Nancy was the type of person you wanted to get to know. You wanted to be her friend.

At my 90 day mark, I made an appointment with Nancy to go over benefits. This was exciting for me, since I really never had a job with these kind of benefits. It was quite ceremonious. But shortly after the appointment began, Nancy and I stopped talking business and started being friends. I found myself seeking her out under the guise of an HR related issue. She'd motion me in, we'd shut the door and talk. It was like I always knew her.

About 10 months after I went to work at Whitlock, my brother passed away of a heart attack. As you all know this just about destroyed me. I started having alot of anxiety about making sure I had my "affairs in order" and scheduled with Nancy to discuss my life insurance policy. When I sat down in her office, I looked at her and began to cry. She started to cry too and told me that she had lost her brother too; young from a heart attack. In that moment, I found someone who inherently knew my pain like no one else. And it bound us. When I felt I had outstayed my welcome in the grief department with my other friends, I knew I could call, email or just show up in her office and we could have a brief cry, followed by a good laugh and move on.

This past winter, Nancy and I again had a parallel experience when our mothers were diagnosed with cancer. We confided in each other in a corner during happy hour and checked in on each other now and again. My mother lost her battle in March and I found myself standing in the door of Nancy's office pretending to have a question about retirement (we must have had 15-20 "retirement planning" meetings before I ever signed a single paper). Nancy listened as I told her the story of losing my mother with tears in her eyes. She gave me the time and space to do what must have been excruciating for her to hear. And then she looked down at her desk, shaking her head and said "Carol, I have to tell you. I feel this special connection with you that only you and I can understand. I know exactly how you feel." And she did. And there are very few people in this world who can say that and mean it. I will never forget that moment.

So, even though we were connected by parallel loss, I will always remember Nancy for "who she was" in the greatest sense of that cliche. She was a joy. She had a laugh and a smile that was infectious. She was lucky enough to have children and a family she absolutely beamed about when she talked about them. She was authentic and real and good and pure.

I will miss my friend.

Shining a Spotlight on....John

With all of my recent entries being of a melancholy nature, I was really looking to write about something or someone fun. When I went back over my entries from the past year, I found my Shining the Spotlight Series to be a fan fav (even though I only did two before now). Anyway – it just so happened that the other night my friend John called me and we got together for a few drinks and from that evening, my latest blog entry was born.

I usually give a bit of a life story on my Spotlighter so here's what I know; John grew up in the Washington DC area but moved up to Chadds Ford when he was in 11th grade. That was in 1970. That's right....BEFORE I WAS BORN, as I love to often point out to him every time we meet. He is one of many (I'm not sure how many) Irish children and they are a close family who genuinely seem to like each other, which at times feels like a novel idea to me, an Irish - Italian sibling. I just think the Irish are a culture that exhibits love through actually treating each other well, while the Italians show it by screaming at each other.

So anyway, I met John a million years ago, when I was about 19, waitressing at the Kennett Square Inn (let's face it, everyone I ever met of any real substance in my life, I met at the KSI) and he was a 38 year old divorcee. That in itself could be cause for scandal but I am sorry to disappoint. John was always a gentleman and we became good friends. I think, and I'd guess he'd agree, there's a bit of a kindred spirit relationship between us. Must be an Irish thing. But for a few years, we carried on platonic relationship that I will always view as a positive part of my life. It's always nice for a young girl to learn the lesson that she can be treated with respect by a man who doesn't necessarily have to treat her that way. 

Eventually, John went off and fell in love and got married and I did the same. We lost touch for many, many years but occasionally, I would wonder “What ever happened to John?” So fast forward those million years and about four years ago, I get an email from the Unionville Alumni website stating that someone is looking for me. Now this is before I had fully embraced Facebook as a form of connection with people from my past so I really couldn’t figure out who could possibly be looking for me. The best part is when I clicked on the link to connect me I was prompted to pay $25 to find out who was so desperately seeking me out. After weighing the pros and cons, I figured anyone who actually took the time out of their day to “seek me out” was worth the 25 bucks for me to find out who they were. I must say I was completely surprised (pleasantly, nonetheless) to find it was John “seeking me out”. We got back in touch, very occasionally but it wasn’t until my 40^th birthday party this January that I finally saw him face to face after those million years. 

I put this reconnection in the same class as many reconnections I made over the past 2 years. In losing 2 of the most important people of my life since June of 2009, I regained numerous friendships that I really took for granted to simply be “time and place” relationships”. I learned that John, among others in my life, is much more than that. These are people who came into my life long ago for a reason, and came back into my life all these years later for a reason. I have learned that time means nothing when you connect with true friends over the course of a lifetime. And John has been a testimony to that.

But, the spotlight wouldn’t be complete without a story so I leave you with this one that I did not witness but had a profound effect on my life nonetheless. In 1970 (before I was born), John was elected Senior Class President of Unionville High School after a hard fought battle and subsequent runoff election. Given the social climate of the times, it only makes sense that John, as president, would have to enact some change in order to earn his place as president. So, John set up an appointment with the principal, Garland Hoover. Personally, the fact that Unionville’s principal name was Garland Hoover is enough for me but there is more to the story. So John went to the principal with 3 demands. Number one: the student body was demanding a smoking lounge. Number two: the student body was demanding that they be allowed to leave school during last period if they had a study hall scheduled. And Number three: given the previous year’s shooting in the NYC hotel during the senior class trip, the senior class was requesting the trip be changed to Williamsburg, VA. None of John’s demands were met that year but as I said before, his demands affected my life many years later. The following year, the smoking lounge was put in place. This courtyard is where I first spotted my friend Jed Demajistre 15 years later and thought to myself “that dude is a total head” (see Spotlight on Jed blog). I enjoyed many a smoke there myself throughout high school. And eventually, some bureaucratic bullshit put an end to the smoking lounge (although I’m really not complaining). 

The subsequent class was also able to enjoy early dismissals if they were scheduled for a study hall last period; another labor of love for John and his policy makers. By the time I got to UHS, they had done away with that policy but I must admit, I never spent an entire day in school my senior year. It appears that if you park just outside the principal’s office and act like you are supposed to be leaving at 1:30pm, no one questions you. 

The final demand was also eventually succumbed to, but not without a good fight from Mr. Garland Hoover. When John sat down with the principal Mr. Garland Hoover to explain the student concerns about being in a hotel where gunfire had erupted the year before on the class trip, the obviously Republican principal replied,

“You know John, coming from a rural setting like we do, something like that can be of educational value.” John’s senior class enjoyed a gunfire free trip to New York City that year but eventually the trip was changed to Williamsburg per his request. And by the time I made it to UHS, the pansies sent us to the happiest place on earth, Disney World. Talk about a change in social climate.

So thank you John, not only have you affected my adult life. You have affected my youth too. And you didn't even know it.

Two Years Later

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." Soren Kierkegaard

I made a commitment to myself and my brother in the early morning hours after his death. I promised him and I promised myself I would not let him be forgotten. I was panicked by the very idea that there would be a day, even a moment that my brother and who he was would be forgotten. He had no wife. He had no children. Ralph's legacy was fully in my family's hands. And, if you haven't noticed, I take that very seriously.

On what would have been my brother's 52nd birthday, we marked the 3 month anniversary of my mother's death. And in that moment, I realized that the imminent grief I was experiencing needed to be separated from the loss of my brother if I was going to keep my promise. Now, this doesn't mean that I have to parcel out my grief in small packages but the confounding effects of the last few years have left me not knowing which way is up most of the time.

I still grieve my loss of my brother. Every day. This may make some people uncomfortable but I speak the truth regardless of other's comfort. Mostly, because this is one way I can honor my brother. And also, because its my blog and I can say what I want, when I want to. So there......

Dare I say, the loss of Ralph has had a profound effect on the direction of my life in a way that losing my mother can not or will not. We all expect to lose our mother; as incredibly painful as that may be. And it's been painful. But the loss of a sibling, while expected, unearths deep feelings of pain, sadness and heartache about a person who has stood by your side as you've built your life story. From the very beginning of time, for at least one of you. Ralph was 12 years older than me; but I hadn't ever lived a single day when he wasn't my big brother until the night I got that phone call. That experience of loss changes a person on a fundamental level in a way that you cannot explain, unless you have experienced it.

A few months after my brother died, I wandered into a library desperately looking for a book that would give a voice to these deep feelings of loss I was experiencing. And I was shocked to find them. In a book called  The Empty Room: Understanding Sibling Loss, the sister of the infamous "Boy in the Bubble" (yes - he was an actual person) complied interviews of individuals from every stage of life who had lost a sibling. As I read the book I found a single sentence that has been burned into my memory everytime I think of a way that I can possibly explain what it feels like to lose your sibling. "What he was saying was, how do you describe the way someone fit into your life, if they have always been a part of it?"

In many ways, that sentence has both haunted and sustained me over the past 2 years. In the beginning, I was so desperate to figure out how to define and clarify the deep impact the life and death of my brother had on my life. But it felt like nothing I said was good enough, clear enough or deep enough to give what he meant to me justice. I felt like I was forever failing his legacy. But I'm stubborn so I kept trying. I kept writing. I kept talking. I kept laughing. I kept crying. I just tried to keep him. And it helped.

Last year, as the first anniversary of Ralph's passing approached, I wanted to take that opportunity to write about what I had learned about myself and those around me as I had gone through that difficult journey. And I learned so much. I came out on the other side of 365 days a stronger, deeper, more determined person. Not perfect. But happier in many ways, which sounds bizarre in itself. I had learned to embrace all of those less than perfect things in myself in a way that would have made my brother beam. I have said before, if I knew nothing else about Ralph, I knew this one thing; he believed in me in a way that no single other human being ever had in my life. I have no idea why. I remember knowing this from a pretty young. age. And I paid him no mind. I gave it little thought. But there I was, on the other side of a single year, without that undying support holding me up. And I was still standing. And that propelled me in many ways. I would have never run a 5K after 12 days of training without knowing that my brother assumed I could do it. I would have never taught a college class without knowing that he just assumed that I would someday do it. I would have never pissed endless people off by saying exactly what I thought without knowing that living in my own truth was my brother's expectation. I would have never started this blog.

And then my mother got sick. And then my mother died. And the winds were completely knocked out of my sails. I was devastated and vulnerable. And for a little while I forgot who I was grieving. I mean, of course, I was (and continue to) mourn my mother. Everyday, I think "I'll call Mom." followed by a sinking, empty feeling. But 3 months later, I am standing on the brink of another 365 days since I lost my brother. And I'm left thinking, what have I learned? And, how can I keep his legacy alive?

So most of the day today, I thought about a man who taught me about music, loyalty, truth and family. It was suggested that I spend his birthday, which was Sunday, doing something he loved and the only thing I could come up with was having a few drinks, singing Beatles songs and quoting lines like "Book 'em Dano." I'll admit, I did none of those things but that's what he would have done. And then he'd have spent the next day with us (my sisters, the kids and my mother) eating spaghetti and eating birthday cake. We had this thing we did every year. Every birthday, we would call each other just to say happy birthday. And then we would always have cake at my mom's. Not every one of us 6 kids did this but Ralph and I did, along with a few others. It felt very juvenile in some ways but it was a tradition. And it hurts to know that we can't do this again. And that I can't call him on the phone number that it is still saved in my phone 2 years later.

But this is what I can do....I can continue to talk about my brother. I can continue to write about my brother. I can continue to learn from a life, while short, lived full. I can continue to let him lift me up in the way only he knew how.

A Social Commentary on Corporal Punishment

I want to preface this with "I do not beat my child." I have swatted Max on the butt maybe once or twice in his life for a life endangering action such as trying to run in traffic. As a behavioral health professional, I do not endorse the use of corporal punishment. It simply does not work in a positive behavioral support plan. You cannot teach a child with an intellectual or developmental disability, or a child with a mental health diagnosis (which includes things like ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Disruptive Behavior Disorder, etc.) to behave by taking a hand, a belt or a broom to them. It is a waste of time. I can pretty much guarantee that. And what I am about to comment on is not "beating your child".  Child abuse is a real thing. There are life long consequences for those children who were hit on a regular basis; children who were used as their parents battering bags. Those parents should be shot. No child deserves that.

But there was a time and a place in our history when corporal punishment (aka spanking) was a culturally acceptable form of child rearing. Millions of children were on the receiving end of a belt or a open palm to the butt. And the large, large majority of those children look back and laugh when they tell the story of their parent chasing them through the house with a broom. These are not people who were damaged. These are not people who have grown up to be abusers.

I am 99.9% sure my mother never laid a hand on me. I have a very vague memory of my dad swatting me as I walked up the walkway of my house when I was about 4. I do have memories of my father being physical with my older siblings, especially the boys and quite honestly it did effect them. Intent and perception are intertwined in an undeniable way. I am not pretending to tell my siblings story.

My mother on the other hand, loving as she was, would every once in a while lose her mind. Let's face it, a mother of 6 can only take so much. We pushed her beyond her limits over and over and quite honestly, I can't believe she didn't beat the crap out of one of us on a weekly basis.

I have one very distinct memory of my mother losing her mind. It was a late morning one summer when my sister Crissy was a teenager. While I'm happy to say she has matured, at the time Crissy was a total, spoiled brat. She was arrogant and entitled. And she decided to push my mother's button on this particular day. I don't remember what she said but the visual plays out like a slow motion replay at a sporting event. Crissy was sitting in an armchair with her leg swung across the arm of the chair and for some reason I feel like she was eating a soft pretzel (she ate alot of soft pretzels). After she said what ever it was to cause my mother to snap, I watched my mother lunge forward off of the sofa like she was being catapulted by some medieval contraption. She took hold of my sister's neck and actually lifted her off the ground. The chair she was sitting in flew backwards. And my sister just stood there, in my mother's grip, in disbelief. I stood there in disbelief. My mother yelled and screamed like a lunatic and then let her go. It was awesome.

I say it was awesome for the following reason (which gets to my whole "social commentary" thing): My mother loved her children more than anything. But she was not going to tolerate our shit. Especially when our shit involved disrespect. It just didn't fly. And my mother was real. She lived in the real world and reacted in real ways.

When I was teaching Developmental Psychology, the whole idea of corporal punishment came up as an area of discussion. Remember, I was teaching 18-22 year olds who were raised by baby boomers. Baby boomers as a generation do not believe in corporal punishment. I have my own theory on that (augmented by some actual research). Baby boomers were born to what Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation". These were the WWI and II era adults; the no bullshit, pull yourself up by the boot straps generation. The Greatest Generation worked their asses off so that their children would have a good life and be afforded opportunities more easily than it was afforded them. And they had a crap load of kids (hence the boom....). The boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. The top end of the boom came of age as Vietnam was threatening to take our young men to war in a far off land. These kids were accessing higher education more readily than previous generations and the social climate was one that was counter to the one their parents had grown up in. It was all about individualism, choice, peace, love and equality. All of these things had a collateral effect on parenting.

Baby boomers believed children should be nurtured in a manner often in deep contrast to the way they were raised. The family became more of a democracy where everyone got a vote. Self esteem wasn't earned through hard work and personal achievement. It was a birthright. The baby boomers are the ones who came up with the brilliant idea that every kid should get a trophy. For everything they ever did. For breathing.

The interesting thing is that it was during this "de-corporal punishing" of America that the family unit fell apart. As kids self report of self esteem increased, their actual personal achievement decreased. A sense of entitlement has permeated an entire generation. If a parent grabs their child by the arm, the child can threaten or even on many occasions, speed dial 911 to report abuse. And parents believe that their kids have them by the balls. Cuz they kinda do.

So when I explained to my class of Gen-whateverers that I grew up in a world that didn't perceive corporal punishment as abuse, therefore in many ways (except for when it was), it was not abuse, they were dumbfounded. How could it ever be ok for a parent to touch a child? Then I told them about contemporary cultural differences in corporal punishment. Current research shows that African Americans as a cultural group largely embrace the concept of corporal punishment and believe they are delivering it as part of a loving and caring responsibility to the child. For example, if an African American child disobeys their parent, the parent believes spanking is a way of saying "I love you enough to push you in the right direction literally." And the research also supports that because the cultural context in which African Americans deliver corporal punishment is a loving one, those children have better outcomes than Caucasian American children who's parents spank them. Because culturally, White American parents tend to use corporal punishment in a "I'm going to punish you" manner. These are 2 distinctly different messages. So the research shows that white kids who have experienced corporal punishment are more likely to be aggressive, get involved in drugs, break the law, etc. than their black counterparts.

Back when my mother would on occasion, lose her mind, and grab my sister by the neck (really that only happened once), it was couched in an environment of love, acceptance and understanding. But my mother was my mother. Not my friend. Not my equal. She was my compass. She guided me on a path towards adulthood; towards parenthood. And I never once questioned her love. Even when she threatened to beat me upside the head.

What I Gave My Mother

I am doing some grief work. Proactively planning for this journey in a way I wasn't afforded after my brother's death. This is a different grief but when coupled with the loss of my brother less than 2 years ago, its all intertwined and difficult to handle some days.

So anyway - this time around, I have a little bit of an understanding of the stages and what I need to do to take care of myself. I find ways to laugh more than I did in the early days after my brother's death, when any moment of joy felt like a betrayal. I am trying to let go of some of the useless pain that will get me nowhere. That's a hard one for me. I have a tendency to hold it in until I explode which ultimately leaves casualties in my wake.

But the one I struggle with the most is the guilt. This one sent me over the edge with my brother. And it wasn't just guilt about our dynamic, it was a pervasive sadness because I believed that if he had only done it "my way", he would have had a better life, more joy, etc. "My way" conversations often led to big blowups and accusations. And Ralph never did it "my way". He did it "his way" and I had to learn to live with and honor that. And that was hard. The only thing that made it any easier was a powerful belief that my brother lived his life on his own terms. And he was okay with that. So I had to learn to be okay with that too.

So here I am, realizing I'm sitting with some guilt about my mom. Which I've come to learn is normal and expected. Unless you are the one experiencing it. Then it feels heart wrenching and all consuming. My mother and I had many "my way" conversations; far more than I ever dared to have with Ralph (partially because he often stuck the proverbial "talk to the hand" in my face). From a very young age I felt a responsibility for my mother's happiness. She never put this on me; I owned this one completely for many, many years. I knew exactly what it was that my mother needed to do to be happy. And she never did a single damn thing I told her to do. That is until the last weeks of her life (but we'll get there later). I often felt torn between my complicated family life and a strong desire to walk away and start new. Find my own happiness in a place that wasn't tainted by so much pain and loss. But I wanted to bring my mother with me, out of all the heartache and the drama. But my mother wasn't going anywhere.

I wanted her to sell the house. I wanted her to quit her job. I wanted her to say no to my siblings. I wanted her to plan for her future. I wanted her to want to make things easier on all of us by taking care of all of the details she refused to take care of. I resented her for that. And then she got sick. And I wanted her to fight. And I wanted her to try. And I wanted her to get out of bed. And I wanted her to want to live.And this is where it gets tricky....because I started to not know what is was she wouldn't do vs. what it was she couldn't do.

The "my way" conversations took on a new meaning after my mother's diagnosis. Because they were tempered in an enormous amount of guilt for all of the previous ones that ultimately didn't matter. And that's when she started to try. I begged her to get on antidepressants to no avail for the first 6 weeks but it wasn't until she told me she was afraid she would die of a heart attack before the cancer ever got her that I was able to say to her "Mom, I walk around ready to explode in fear every minute. You aren't having a heart attack. You are having an anxiety attack." She called the doctor for the antidepressants the next day. Closer to the final days, after weeks of begging my mother to get out of bed and walk around so she didn't get any weaker, she called me and said "I'm doing what you said. I keep telling myself, Carol says I need to get up and move around." At this point, she could barely walk more than 15 feet. She was dying and I thought she need to get some exercise.

Seven days before my mother died, she fell and laid alone for over an hour before anyone found her. She became delirious. Her liver was failing. And I said to my sister that day "If I knew this was the end, I could handle this. But I can't tell. I can't tell if she is just giving up or if she is dying." I found out later she was dying. I had to do alot of forgiving of myself in those seven days.

I was lucky enough to have a few hours alone with my mother 3 days before she died. She had been told she would be going home on hospice the next day. She was more calm, serene and coherent than I had seen her in months. In fact, she was so coherent, my sister did not believe me when I told her about the conversation we had that night. My mother told me she didn't feel like she was going to die. She told me she wanted to get her hair done over the weekend. We talked and laughed and for one last time, I had my mother back. And she had me back. This is where I truly believe that people who are going to die (whether they know it or not) have some unconscious understanding of what will come to be. Several people, including me, had similar conversations with my brother in the weeks before he died.

So the purpose of this blog was to figure out what I gave my mother, which is difficult in the midst of all of the things she has given me over the years. But I think that I learned that I gave my mother a looking glass into possibility; even if it was never meant to be her possibility. Like my brother, she was perfectly okay with her life. It was me who wanted more for both of them. I told my mother one night close to the end "I just always wanted more for you. I wanted you to be happy." And her response to me was "I had everything I ever wanted. I was happy." How do you argue with that?

Mothers and Daughters

A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self.  And mothers are their daughters' role model, their biological and emotional road map, the arbiter of all their relationships.  ~Victoria Secunda

Today was a hard day. Two months ago today, I sat with my mother in the darkness and listened to her labored breaths begging God to take her quickly. It isn't until most people are much older that they are faced with the reality of losing their 2nd parent and yet, on that day I became an orphan. While for some of you that may sound incredibly dramatic, those who have stood over their dead parent with a distinct feeling of a free fall, there is nothing dramatic about it. Because you don't need to be 10 to be an orphan. The only requirement is the moment your mother or father takes their last breath leaving you standing on top of a family tree, literally out on a limb. 

Just like when my brother died, I am struggling with a new family constellation. And its all too quick and too soon and too much grief to process at the end of the day. I have had many people tell me that I am a survivor. And its true. But that doesn't mean that I want to be. Or that I'm good at it. Surviving, on some level, is my truth. It has defined much of my life. Just like it defined my mother's. 

On the one year anniversary of my brother's death, I wrote a blog outlining what I had learned in the 12 months after his death. The following excerpt was the first lesson I wrote:

- I learned my mother is a much stronger woman than I ever believed. When I was 11 years old, my father died, leaving my mother widowed at 44. Having been a stay at home mother and wife to a domineering Italian businessman, my mother did not have the self esteem to believe that she could go out and start over. It was years before my mother ever got a job and the recurrent themes of a Irish Catholic housewife never really went away. I truly believed my mother could not survive the death of her own child. But she has. She has gotten out of bed and continued to live her life the best she can knowing that she has buried her son. She still laughs and keeps Ralph's memory alive through allowing all of us to celebrate who he was (warts and all). She has helped the grandchildren through losing Ralph by meeting them where they are in the process, even if it means having to read the newspaper article my 7 year old nephew wrote shortly after Ralph passed announcing his death (literally - it read "Extra....Ralph died").

 In my heart, I did not believe it was possible for my mother to survive losing my brother. But she was a survivor. I remember calling her and crying every night saying over and over "I'm just so sad. I've never been this sad in my whole life." And she listened. And comforted. And she stood by me when I almost lost my mind with grief about 6 months after he died. I had no idea how she did it knowing the kind of loss she was enduring herself. 

But now I sit, almost nightly with an 8 year old little boy who cries for his "Mombo", the person he refers to as "the nicest person I ever knew." And I give him the space and time to grieve his own loss. Recently he said to me, "why don't you cry all the time?" I thought about it for a minute and said "Max, I am sad and I cry everyday. You just don't always see it. I miss my mom but I know if she were here, her biggest concern would be if you were okay. So I'm just making sure you are okay." And that's when I figured out how my mother managed to listen and comfort me not only through the loss of my brother but through losing her too.

Motherhood is a powerful force in the universe. It doesn't seem fair that anyone should have to endure the loss of a mother.

And Through Eternity, I'll Sing On

While I'm sure it wasn't God, Jesus or the church's intent, I found a piece of my mother's legacy on Good Friday.

While I had deluded myself into believing that because I knew my mother was dying that I would somehow be spared the deep despair I felt after my brother's death, it came anyway. The loss of my mother is distinctly different and as someone wrote me in the hours after her death " There is a pain so primal, so deep, so alone when you are suddenly motherless." That primal ache has only surfaced in recent days, realizing that I can't pick up the phone to tell her what Max said or did, or just to say "What are you doing?" I can't ask her what is was I said to her a day many years ago that made her laugh, or cry or mad. Those memories are buried with her.

Knowing Easter was coming brought anxiety to my sisters and me as we tried to figure out what to do. Mom always cooked the food, which wasn't anything fancy but the recipes were her's and she never wrote them down. So I went out today to buy the stuff we'd need and played a scene of my mother making potato salad over and over in my head as I tried to remember how it was she made it. By the time I made it to my mother's house I was inconsolable, knowing I could never ask her what the recipe was. And my timing was perfect because I walked in on two of my sisters crying basically over the same thing.

Which brings me back to Good Friday. I sat last night with Max in a Presbyterian church listening to an acoustic collaborative called New York Hymns, which had complied old poetry from the 1500 and 1700's that outlined the Stations of the Cross and set it to reflective acoustic music. I admit, I've never been to Good Friday Mass (as us Catholics call it) so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

As I sat and listened to the music, the theme of sacrifice and death overwhelmed me and I started to hear and see my mother's own journey through life in the story. My mother's whole life was about sacrifice. She gave up any sense of individual self the day my oldest sister was born and began to merge her life and identity into her children. She embodied motherhood in a way only certain mothers can or do. And she did it with little complaint. I say little because once, about 20 years ago, I remember my mother having a bit of a breakdown and yelling "I'm not your mother (as we argued with her, starting every statement with "MOM"), I'm Joan!" And I knew that in that moment, she was trying to figure out where we ended and she began. And I can honestly say, I'm not sure she ever figured that one out.

A few months ago, as my mother tried to come to terms with her impending death, she told me the story of watching her own mother die when she was 15 years old. In the last moment of my grandmother's life, she opened her eyes, smiled as if she had seen something so beautiful, closed them and let out a big sigh. And at the end of the story my mother said to me "And my mother was so perfect. She was everything a mother is supposed to be. She was everything I wasn't." And she started to cry. And I began to cry to because my mother, a woman who lost her husband at 44, raised the majority of her children alone, never remarried, and had one of her children living with her at some point in time until the day she died, believed that she wasn't a good mother. My heart broke for her in that moment because I realized that in all of the day to day of life, which is hard and thankless at times, my mother failed to realize that everything we had in life was owed to her.


So the pain is primal and its very lonely when you realize something as simple as your mother's potato salad recipe may be gone. But I worked at it tonight and I think I got it as close as I could have. Without it being my mother making it herself.