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.

Everything I Ever Learned in Life, I Learned From My Mother

I learned that while Sunday dinner is mandatory; all other meals are optional.

I learned that even if your mostly Irish, if your last name is Ciliberti, you need to learn how to make sauce (even if you start with a can).

I learned that, eventually, the sound of the word “mom” said over and over again will cause temporary insanity.

I learned that phrases like “because I said so” and “she is not she; she is your mother” have an actual genetic component.

I learned that Neil Diamond can sing with the best of them, even if he is embarrassing to see in concert.

I learned to dance a tango, sing Christmas songs in July and how to take an ordinary event and use words to turn it into a story.

I learned that there is no greater parental punishment than quiet disappointment.

I learned that laughter is a requirement for living.

I learned that respect is an actual aura that surrounds a person.

I learned that loyalty is only second to love.

I learned that age is truly just a number and your mind determines how old you are.

I learned that stroking a child’s hair, no matter how old that child is, can heal all things.

I learned that sometimes it’s enough to want your children to have it all.

I learned that someone else's definition of happiness holds no bearing on the heart.

I learned how to love amidst pain and heartache.

I learned how to be a mother.

A Never Ending Winter

It is February and for the 41st time in my life (because I'm convinced I felt this way as early as when I was 2 weeks old), I am in the throes of the longest winter of my life. ENOUGH ALREADY!!!! How long can snow possibly stay on the ground? I'll tell you how long. Since December 26, 2010. That's how long.

I have plastic covering my windows, space heaters turned on, regular heat turned on and a heavy coat. The thermostat says 67 degrees but I simply do not believe that. There is something so fundamentally depressing about winter that the mere thought of leaving my house is too much to bear some days.

My arch nemesis Hurricane Schwartz came on the news back in November with his multiple teases to stay tuned to hear about his long term winter forecast. Then he promised us in all of his expertise, that we could look forward to a mild winter. WTF???

Then after a few snowstorms and cold spells that lasted upwards of 400 days, he comes on with teases about his "updated" long term forecast. Guess what Glenn?? If winter is half over and the snow keeps a coming, its no longer a long term forecast, its a 7 day forecast combined with a recap of what has gone on for the past 2 months. SURPRISE!!! We are now in for a cold and snowy winter.

Now Hurricane tried showing up at my 40th birthday party to make amends but too late sucka!!!! It's still cold and the snow hasn't melted! You're days are numbered....

So news of a warm-up this week is met with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. I'll believe it when the damn snow is gone.

10 of The 40 Moments of my Life - Part 4

And so here we are. My 30's. This is by far the hardest of the 40 moments to write. Mostly because I haven't had enough distance from events to have really processed them fully. It's much easier to laugh, cry or analyze situations that have occurred 20+ years ago. But the closer in time the events are to the present, the harder it is to reflect upon them. So bear with me.....

31. Moving Out and Moving On...Again: So I left my marriage and my 20's behind in the same month. In January of 2001, I moved all of my belongings into a studio apartment in the exclusive downtown Kennett Square apartment building known as 131. Thanks to my good friend Steve Warner, a spot in this very exclusive apartment building was made available to me. Complete with its own entrance through a sliding glass window that you stepped down into off the porch, this studio signified my new life as a single woman. I have to say the first few years of my 30's were an intermingling of healing a broken heart and a whole lotta fun. 131 was kinda like a college dorm for my friend Wendy and me. We lived 15 feet apart (she had the fancy 1 1/2 bedroom), were steps from the Kennett Square Inn and spent our evenings watching bad TV over the phone. We dated interesting (in the broadest sense of the word) men and drank a little like we were 22 years old. We had fun. And I needed to have some fun.

32. September 11, 2001: Just like our parents, we will always remember the moment the planes hit and our world changed. I am still dumbstruck to this day by my naivete as to the evils of the world before the morning of September 11. I was positive it was a huge mistake. I was positive it was a huge mistake even after the 2nd plane hit. It wasn't until they hit the Pentagon that I realized this was real. And I distinctly remembering that the world would never be the same. And it hasn't been.


33. Stephen and Max: One of the most life changing moments in my life is meeting Stephen and subsequently having Max. I had known who Stephen was long before we really knew each other. He used to wait on me and Mark when we would dine at the Farm House at Loch Nairn. And we loved for Stephen to wait on us. We felt special and taken care of when Stephen waited on us. So years later, when I went to work at the Great House (which is also at Loch Nairn) as a bartender I slowly came to know Stephen. He had forgotten about me and Mark until I jogged his memory. Apparently, he was in high demand and all of the requests run together. To make a long story short, we started dating and a few months later....surprise....I was pregnant. I will address this now because I get this question at least bi weekly; I truly believe Stephen and I are able to maintain the largely positively relationship that we do for the mere fact that we weren't together for long before we got pregnant. We knew we were taking a chance on each other. And we trusted each other. By the time we figured out that we weren't going to work out, we had developed a deep commitment to Max and each other as a family unit. Stephen is and always will be my family. God had a plan for us.

34. Motherhood: And then there was Max; all 9.6 lbs and 23 inches of him born after 18 hours of labor and an emergency c-section. I remember Stephen coming back from the nursery when I was still high as a kite and in recovery, and me saying to him in a panic and crying, "Where's the baby? You can't leave the baby! He's never been alone before!" I was instantly in love, an anxious mess and sleep deprived to the point of mental breakdown for the first 13 months. I suffered from some pretty severe postpartum depression that I didn't even recognize until I went postal on my boss. I have said it before and I'll say it again - Motherhood is hard; by far the hardest thing I have ever done (in fact I wrote a blog about it). But the rewards are beyond any measure. I have never loved another human being the way I love Max. He is the exact child I was meant to have. And I feel inadequate and honored every day.

35. Back to School: Having Max put many things in perspective for me, one being that I finally needed to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Becoming a role model to Max became the catalyst for going back to finish graduate school. I wanted to be the person I knew I could be but never had the nerve to be. I never had the belief in myself to move forward in a career in psychology. There are alot of reasons for that but ultimately I think I had an incredible fear of failure. After having Max I decided I couldn't be afraid anymore or I would be teaching him fear. So I went back to school and completed my Masters in Clinical Psychology. And then actually got a job in my field. Which is much more impressive than getting the degree.

36. Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone: About 4 months after starting graduate school, I had another falling out with the same boss (we had issues) and abruptly left my job. I stopped on the way home, grabbed the paper and started looking for a job. And there was an ad for a TSS. I had heard about TSS's but didn't think I had it in me to work with kids with developmental disabilities. I had this perfect little boy and I was afraid of how I would feel being around kids who weren't perfect (or so I thought). But I also knew I was working on facing my fears so I went and interviewed and got the job. And they sent me to this orientation with the county that my current boss at Devereux facilitated. I thought the whole idea behind the orientation was to train me on how to be a TSS. In actuality, it teaches you what a whole bunch of acronyms like IEP, PDD and ODD mean. On the second day, I raised my hand and asked, "When are you gonna teach me what I'm going to be doing?" I was assured it would be on the job training. And it was. But the most powerful and profound lesson I was taught on the very first day with my little 3 year old girl with autism was "Always Assume Intellect." And I did. And that lesson has served me well. It has allowed me to expect great things of people most others assume will never amount to anything. And I have never been disappointed by the abilities of those who are considered intellectually or developmentally delayed. They are some of the smartest, most adaptive people I know.

37. Moving Out and Moving On....for the umpteenth time: Over the years, Stephen and I drifted apart and it became clear it was again time to move on. Again - many people don't understand why we aren't together but we get along better apart than together. It is hard to break up your family unit and I feel like we were forced to make Max grow up faster for it. But we both felt like staying together for Max would send him mixed messages about what a healthy relationship should look like. We handled it as a family - proposing it as an arrangement in which Max would have 2 homes instead of one. Which he conveyed to others in a manner that implied one was our primary home and one was a vacation home. While he was and continues to be sad about the situation at times, he has done remarkably well with it. If I can give any advice to anyone going through a split when kids are involved it is this - your children deserve to feel loved, respected and complete in every sense of the word. If you make your shit your kid's shit, you are screwing with how they see the world. And they deserve better than that.


38. Losing My Brother: Many of you reading this probably feel like you really got to know me through the fact that my brother died. And I told everyone. All the time. And I still do. Losing my brother Ralph was the most profound loss I have ever experienced in my life. And you have to remember, I have experienced alot of personal loss. I lost my father, I have lost close friends, I lost my marriage. And I got through all of those things. But after Ralph died, I hit my lowest low. I have explained it before but I'll do it again; I oozed grief. It poured out of every part of me. And I didn't believe it would ever stop. The first year was incredibly hard and I will admit I still cry almost every day. I miss him. I took him for granted but I have needed to forgive myself for that in order to move on. Because there was one thing I knew about my brother. He believed in me probably more than any other person in my life.  He had a faith and a belief in me that never wavered. All of the doubt and fear I carried around was lost on him. He expected great things of me long before I had ever dreamed them possible.


39. Finding My Voice: I believe wholeheartedly that the greatest gift my brother gave me in his death is that I have finally truly found my voice. The night my brother died, I came home, went on to Facebook and poured my heart out onto a note and hit "share". In the midst of all of the grief, for the first time I truly did not care what others thought of me. At my most vulnerable, I laid my heart and soul out for all to see. And the response was overwhelming. One of my biggest fears over the years was being perceived as weak and vulnerable. But I was and I am. About six months after Ralph died I finally started this blog; something I had always wanted to do but was afraid of what others would think.And it goes deeper than that - I suddenly felt incredible free; freer to be me than I ever had been in my life. And I was happy again. Happy to know that even in tragedy you can be given a gift.


40. Count your Blessings: And here I am. At 40; a moment that I fully embrace and yet I'm faced with another painful realization that life is what happens while you are busy making plans. I had decided about a year ago that I just needed to get to 40 and it would all be ok. I could leave the pain of my 30's behind and start over new. And I would be happy and finally find everything I was looking for. I was shedding alot of old baggage and putting things to bed. I was planning a party to celebrate moving on. A few days before Christmas, my mother became ill. It came on suddenly and hard. High fever and very weak. My sister took her to an urgent care center where they did an x-ray. They discovered a tumor which has since been diagnosed as lung cancer. Over the past few weeks, we have learned that the cancer has metastasized and her treatment options are limited. The interesting thing is what sent my mother to the urgent care center that day had nothing to do with the cancer and she has since recovered. But she now knows that she has cancer and it is not going away.

Remember how I said this decade was the hardest to write? I struggled with even disclosing this. It is too fresh and too painful. Unlike the shock of my brother's death, my family and I are now left with the realization that we are at the beginning of a journey to a goodbye. And the fear is great, the pain is deep and we have to learn how to continue to live knowing that my mother will ultimately die. And she doesn't deserve this. But then I realized I had to disclose this (with my mother's permission) in order to begin to move forward in the process.

In my grief, which feels never ending at times, I have to learn to continue to live. I have to focus on all that is good and pure in my love for my mother and reconcile it with the imperfection of the relationship. And I need to forgive myself for being less than perfect in that love. And I have to count my blessings.

So anyway, when I conceptualized doing this 4 part blog, I never dreamed the last entry would be this. But it is. And I have to learn to live with that. Thank you for coming along on this journey. Thanks for being my friends. Thanks for listening.