So many Elizabeths

Joanne, Marilyn, Jessie, Ethel, Jennie, Lottie, Mary, Nettie, Salome, Theresa, Carmella, Catherine, Elizabetta, Maria, Elizabeth, Sarah, Anna, Isabella, Rosa, Isabelle, Anna, Mary, Anna, Freny, Anna Maria, Maria Elizabeth, Martha, Lillian, Elizabeth, Abigail, Elizabeth, Abigail, Louisa, Lydia, Experience, Mary, Elizabeth, Margery, Mary, Rebecca, Phoebe, Ann, Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Elizabeth, Ann, Martha, Louise, Caroline, Barbara, Sarah, Cristina, Brita, Maja, Johanna, Kjersten, Lias, Anna, Elna, Anna, Catharina, Butvi, Lisbeth, Gertrud, and Catharina...

I'm all about connections to the past and how they relate to our present. I gave myself an early Christmas present of a renewed subscription to Ancestry.com. This month has been spent diving into the files upon files of antique cursive where forgotten ancestors' births and deaths are recorded with startling lack of penmanship (I mean, seriously? Can you not separate and define your letters?). My house has been filled with my shouts of  "Oh my gosh! Look! Here is the actual town in Sweden your 4th time grandfather was born in!" or "Both the father and mother died on Christmas day after drowning in a river crossing...how horrible!" Responses to my exclamations are met with every type of response from "That's so awesome, Mom," to "You can't cry for everyone, Mom. They've been dead for over 2 hundred years."

Those names up there? They belong to my mother and to all of the other mothers of everyone that has led to my existence (that I can find so far). These women all loved and hoped and dreamed for their babies. Some were probably amazing mothers and others may have lacked, but each and every one of them holds a link to my past. I cannot explain how important it is to me, right now and always, to feel this connection to the world. Continents are crossed and centuries are spanned and it all still leads back to me, sitting in my kitchen in Illinois, raising my own 3 children. Living for a moment before I also pass on into what will someday be thought of as the distant past...

It's incredibly humbling.

*"Experience" wins for the most awesome name of all...so far.

This Sucks

I've written every emotion I've felt over these past 4 months. I've written them in my head, and never managed to get them onto paper or screen because it's just too much. Too much pain, too much anger. Too many nights screaming in the van until I'm hoarse because no one should have to watch someone they love die like my dad is dying.

So many tears. I cry regularly, and at the drop of a hat. Every drive to visit him, and every drive home, I play the memories of him over and over in my mind, trying to retain them and mark them somehow. Sometimes I'm lucky, and he will be in that in-between state of consciousness where he can nod or smile when I talk about memories or what our family is currently doing. Sometimes, he'll look at me and actually SEE me and the hours of crying on the ways there and back are worth it for that moment of clarity where I can say "I love you" and he will smile and kiss me. 

I'm so tired of this present stage. I'm so tired of him being here, but not actually BEING here. I want nothing more than more time with my dad, and that is what makes this slow death so painful to witness. I don't WANT him to die, but I don't want him to live like THIS. 

I wish so much that I could have one more real moment with him. His last truly lucid moments were agonizing as the pain was so intense that nothing else mattered. Now that the pain is being "managed" with heavy medication, and the cancer is working its way through his brain, it feels like we get to watch him die in a thousand tiny moments...

This is excruciating.

I drove home last night, sobbed at a few stop lights, and screamed several obscenities. If I live long enough, I will have to go through this pain countless times. How many people do I love? Like, really, truly love. Twenty? Thirty? Is this how it will feel each time someone I love passes away? Is it more intense because it is so damn slow and painful? How many times can a person withstand this level of emotions before they crack?

I want my Daddy. I want him to hug me again and call me Ta-ta-wa-ta and make stupid, punny jokes, and tell me where the best sales are at. I want to go to his house with all of his grandkids and listen to them ask for popcorn and ice cream; I want to hear them yell and laugh with excitement over all of the cool ice cream bars he always has. I want to listen to him and Patrick rib each other over their golf scores and marvel that my dad and husband get along so well. I want to see him sitting in his chair on Christmas evening, as all of us are crammed into the living room at their house, presents piled in towers of gleaming colors. I want to take a picture of him taking a picture of me across the room, and know that he is hiding one of his presents under the chair so that he can be the last one to open a present on Christmas day. 

This stage really sucks, but I am not ready for the next one. Not really. But I don't have any control over it. It's coming, and I can feel how close it is every time I say goodbye. Soon, I will live in a world that he isn't in, and there isn't anything I can do about it.

Remembering Grandma...

Driving in the car with the windows open, sun (finally) shining on my face, I can't help but reflect. My mind wanders. Memories surge.

My grandmother passed away when I was 8 years old. My mom was only...God. My age? Younger. She was younger than I am when she lost her own mom. That's baffling to me...

I have a few real memories of my grandma. Strong ones, like sitting behind her, brushing her hair, even though she would pay to have it set at the salons. (Or did she do her own, but do it so well that I couldn't tell?) Either way, she let me and my sisters brush and comb and put in "fancy barrettes" without much fuss. How generous a heart she had. How kind...

We (my younger sister and I) used to "sneak" her romance novels and move her bookmark to a different chapter. We'd then ask her if she wanted to read for a while, giggling behind our hands. She would always gasp "in surprise" when she'd realize that "someone" had moved her bookmark... It wasn't until much later that I actually understood how sweet she was about our little pranks. She adored us and didn't care if she had to reread a chapter more than once.

I can distinctly remember sitting on her bed in the mobile home she and my grandfather lived in. She collected beads and sequins in a large bin and would let us sort through them to our hearts' content. There are still a few Christmas ornaments on my own tree that were constructed by her crafty hands made up of stick pins, sequins, and beads all arranged in a truly perfect order around styrofoam balls. I don't know how she did that; I tried once, to recreate her designs... It's not as easy as it looked. The patience and artistic talent she must have had makes me smile whenever I see them reflecting the lights on our branches.

She cooked the best spaghetti with... rabbit meat. Seriously, if you've never had it, I cannot describe it. I probably only had it a few times in my young life, but the memory of that smell and taste is one that has stuck. I've tried to cook it with chicken instead; the sweetness of not only the meat, but also her hand, is lacking and the sauce does not compare.

There was an assortment of magnets on her refrigerator that were somehow exotic to our little minds. It was truly FUN to spend our afternoons arranging the dimestore flowers, vegetables, and random doo dads into scenes that would then hold up our drawings. The magnets always seemed to just "be there" but I wonder, did she scour the flea markets in her free time, picking up new ones here and there so that we would be surprised on our next visits?

My God, I was only 8... Younger than Corinne is now. I try to not focus on the memories of her final months, but she was so sick, so fast and I was so little. It was scary, despite my parents' efforts to shield us from her disease. When they removed her larynx in an attempt to get rid of the cancer, she couldn't talk anymore, but she still found a way to write out how much she loved us... As a kid, that paper didn't impact me as much as it does now. What kind of effort must that have involved to hold the pencil to the paper and shakily write for 3 little girls?

Driving today, it hit me again how much I owe to all of the women before me. My mother, her mother, and all of the mothers before them... The women who have held their babies and loved each generation, raising them in one continuous line until it reached me...and extends beyond me. I cannot feel alone or disconnected when I count the mothers before me. The mothers who will come after me. the babies who become women who become mothers, all because of the love and hope of those who surrounded them.

Springtime never fails to remind me of renewal. No matter how empty a field, how barren a tree, or how gray a sky, the spring always comes.

Keening

As is usual, the family was all over the place last night. We sort of fall asleep where we may and it works for us. Last night ended up with Patrick on the couch with Evan and me sleeping beside Corinne upstairs. I took a moment to just stare at her profile and couldn't resist stroking her forehead, cupping her cheeks, and marveling in the beauty that is my 10 year old girl. I am so grateful that I can still sleep beside her and hold her in her sleep. It's the one time that I can hug them to my heart's desire, and she is the last one that still fits into the criteria of being ok to sleep beside. Trust me, no 13 or 16 year old boys want their mom to crawl into bed with them for a full body hug. 

Good God, I miss them, though. I miss that closeness that can only come from an extended embrace. I miss the familiarity of their skin and breath. 

Have you ever keened? It's a longing that literally cuts through your heart, into your stomach. You can FEEL the ache in every cell of your body...and I keen for my babies. Last night found me gasping sharply at the memory of Justin, age 3, curled up beside me in our too-small full size bed in the attic bedroom of our first home. His absolute trust and complete love for me... I had to hold my breath so as not to wake Corinne from my cries when I pulled up a perfect memory of Evan's sweet voice asking me to sing "You Are My Sunshine" just 'one more time, Mommy' as I laid beside him on his big boy bed in the big boy dinosaur bedroom... 

I miss my babies. My body rejects the knowledge that they are pulling away with a quickening speed. My mind understands it, but my cells... I can't breathe for thinking of it. I honestly can't catch my breath and the keening is fierce.

It's a struggle to not smother Corinne. I don't want her childhood to be full of memories of me saying only "I miss when you were little!" as though I am not enjoying the present, because I AM. I love these moments deeply and fully. They're flying by, and soon, they will be over, and I will be a mother without anyone to mother. 

Memory Moments

So many moments from this weekend of our 3rd Listen To Your Mother in Chicago are burned into my memory. Even more of them are already fading. It's one of those tricks of fate that causes the moments that you actually DO remember to become even more precious, I suppose.

Coffee at my table before I woke up the boys.

Curling my hair and having it actually all take and hold.

Watching the temperature gauge on our van rise and rise and rise and DINGDINGDING on the way to the theater, and trying to not lose my shit over what we would do if the van died. Call a cab to pick up me and my family and several bags and boxes of supplies in addition to the awkward music stand? Call a cab and leave said family behind on I94 because they didn't fit into the cab with all of my paraphernalia?

Walking through the doors into the auditorium and seeing that massive, empty stage. Knowing that in just a few hours, hearts would be touched by the stories we had chosen to showcase. Knowing that in just a few hours, the 2014 Chicago show would be over.

Seeing the variety of excitement/nerves/fear on the faces of our cast.

Calming some tears.

Hugging some friends.

Running through details. Smiling for photos. Laughing and laughing and laughing.

Holding the curtain for traffic-bogged latecomers...

Watching the curtain rise and feel like I'm floating through the show. Smoothly and happily and without any monumental hiccups.

Seeing so many alumni faces and realizing, during a group picture, just how many lives we've already touched... feeling floored at the knowledge that the stories we put on stage continue to touch and move and change countless viewers on YouTube. Knowing that I'm a part of something so vast and important and monumental... it moves me. It absolutely rocks me to my core.

I can't wait to see the posed pictures of all of the cast in attendance!

Meeting a sweet baby cousin for the first time and holding that tiny little soul in my arms. Remembering the moments of my own babies and how they seem to have just slipped away like little bits of mercury; the more I reach out to touch them, the further away they race and divide and disappear.

Seeing a set of pink boots that used to belong to my daughter upon the tiny feet of a friend's toddler. Remembering their walks to the park and the trees that they climbed; wishing I could still be a part of the future adventures they have yet to experience.

the little pink boots in 2008...

All of the moments and all of the feelings and all of the slippery bits of mercury rolling away from my memory... All that and a ball of wax.

An imprint

I grew up on a small block in a large subdivision in a medium sized town in Illinois. Baby trees flanked both sides of the streets of sprawling ranch-style homes. My block consisted of 11 houses with 22 children, all of whom were supposed to stay on our block and not cross the streets. Needless to say, I had quite the selection of friends to play with.

Behind all of our backyards was a quaint Lutheran church and preschool along with 2 enormous baseball fields, a smallish playground and a "sledding hill" that butted up against the church's side. (As an adult, I now recognize that the "hill" was actually a large drainage ditch...)

There were no fences for anyone for many, many years except for that one, exotic, childless couple who lived on the corner. (They had a fence and a large dog and an endless supply of small candies, pennies or freezer pops for me and my friends whenever we'd pick the wife handfuls of the dandelions that carpeted the baseball fields.) All of that open space led me to believe that I truly had freedom, despite the fact that my mother was always within eyesight or earshot. Entire days were spent in the fields of dandelions and clover, narrowly avoiding the bees beneath my bare feet. My best friends and my sisters and I OWNED that church yard. We knew every stoop and step, every tree that provided the perfect shelter for our castaway/pirate/orphan adventures (why did so many of my imaginative play games include or revolve around a catastrophic abandonment??).

Every few summers, the parking lot beside the church would get repaved or patched up. The patch-up years were our favorites. We'd race barefoot and breathless across the fields on the hottest and steamiest of July afternoons just to dare one another to stand on top of the asphalt patch as it liquefied and bubbled in the endless sunshine. It was a matter of PRIDE that I would win as many contests as possible, despite the scorching pain and unavoidable follow-up bath that would result when my mom would witness the sticky pitch footprints on her linoleum. But it was WORTH IT for I was the champion of Blacktop Standing...
~~~
One winter, the snow fell and fell and fell and fell on our town. It coated everything and stopped traffic and cancelled schools and freed the children from books and papers and sitting and behaving. We hauled our sleds to that "hill" and flew down the slope towards the church's brick walls. We'd dive off before our skulls crashed into the windows but the pastor didn't think we were quite as precocious as I know that we WERE; he traipsed outside in his boots and reminded the neighborhood hooligans, AGAIN, that this churchyard was not for playing in and to please leave. (We knew he wasn't there all the time. It just required a little patience and we'd be back on that hill again.)

The "Big Boys" from around the corner came by the church after the plow trucks had pressed and compacted the snowfall into the edges and corners of the parking lot, leaving a massive collection of perfect packing snow. Those middle school boys spent an entire day digging and tunneling; excavating rooms and hallways and doorways. They created a fort that towered over my 8 year old head and we wanted to play inside of it soooo badly!

Only because one boy, a friend of the family, vouched for us were we allowed to explore their fort. With strict instructions to NOT TOUCH ANYTHING, we entered what was then, and still is today, the most amazing and magical winter fort I have ever seen in the entire world, EVER. It was a memory I've always retained and I'll always remember the boy who let us in and his kindness to a bunch of little girls on a cold and snowy day, and how, only a few years later, he passed away in a tragic car accident. It's funny how we make marks on people's memories, though. Would it comfort his mother to know that I still retain this sweet memory of her son, after more than 25 years have passed? That he left an imprint in my life?

Read more Just Write on Heather of the EO...

I Remember A Time

I remember a time when my eldest would happily count from 1 - 12 in Spanish at the top of his lungs from his seat in the Target shopping cart. Shoppers would grin at him and his bouncing white-blond curls as he purposely "forgot" to include "cuatro" between "tres" and "cinco", simply so that he could pretend to have lost the number four. I have many a memory of him shouting "Cuatro?!? CUAAAATRO!!! Where are you, Cuatro?!?"

Today, he is a baritone teenager who towers over my head and knows everything about every single gaming or computer system in existence but couldn't count to 5 in Spanish to save his life.  "Squat down!" I scold him as I pull on his long and brown curls, "I can't see the top of your head to check your shampooing skills."

I remember a time when my middle son would win over every crowd with his enormous brown eyes and perfect little face. Always a smile and a hug for even strangers, he was the baby to bring to a party. Want to feel good about yourself? Hold this baby for 10 minutes.

Today, he is 10 and lanky and still adorable in that way that lanky 10 year old boys are. Elbows and knees and feet are growing faster than seems possible. And for as awkward as his growing body is, he still has that smile and hug for strangers; though he tends to follow the smile with a mischievous, sarcastic remark or joke that will either have you busting out laughing or shocked at what has just come out of his seemingly innocent mouth.

I remember a time when my baby girl was actually a baby; curled perfectly into body and arms in her rocking chair,  I'd weep as I sang "Silver Bells" with her on countless winter nights. Her ridiculously young toddler voice would lisp the lyrics of both verses... She has always had an astounding ability to remember lyrics.

Today, she is a stunning, athletic 6 year old who prefers singing the incredibly inappropriate lyrics to that annoying LMFAO song. Thankfully, she can still "kind of" fit into my lap where I desperately kiss her cheeks, smell her hair, and attempt to memorize this current stage before it, too, fades into a mere memory...

Someday, I'll remember a time when my children were 13, 10 and 6. I'll remember the craziness, the fights, the laughter, the struggles... It will all be a memory, someday.

Red and Yellow, Green and Blue; these are the colors over you...

I figured that if Information couldn't help, maybe the newspaper might be able to. I mean, I knew that I couldn't be the only new mother in Illinois in February of 1999. I couldn't be the only person so desperate for a new-mommy comrade that I trekked through the 15 square blocks of my very small town, subjecting my newborn to sub-zero temperatures in his Evenflo front carrier, all in the name of Finding a Friend.

Lo and Behold, there, in a 2x2 ad on the back of the local sales insert, was the purple and green lifesaver I had been searching for.

Gymboree.

Dear readers, the isolation was so intense that I paid a huge portion of my monthly salary to drive 45 minutes away to the nearest Gymboree Play Place. Forget the fact that he was a newborn, incapable of movement or distinguishing his house from an expensive play land. Forget the fact that this was not my neighborhood and I did NOT live in a fancy, newly-built home in one of the most desirable towns in the US. Forget the fact that I was a working mom who just happened to have Wednesdays off, who was walking into a building of stay at home moms. Despite all of that, and much, much more, I still carted my teeny tiny baby boy into a room of 20 other teeny tiny girls and boys.

Unceremoniously, I placed my son on the floor in the circle of blinking, immobile babies and stepped back to find 20 other women, staring back at me. A room full of shell-shocked, lonely new mothers who all managed to hear the cheerful song of Gymbo the Clown.

Thank God for that ridiculous clown.

It was because of Gymboree that I met 4 other women with babies born that winter. 4 other women who were looking for friends. 4 other women who understood what I was going through.

Those 4 ladies became my first playgroup friends and I will be forever grateful for their friendships. The weekly playdates where we finally cleaned our houses and had mac and cheese for the kids and casseroles for ourselves. The women who provided the first friends for my young son who was the only grandchild and only young child on his block. We camped together, blew out birthday candles together, celebrated second pregnancies, family emergencies and difficult births. They were there for me when I needed a tribe and I cannot imagine those early years without them.

Me and Justin, first row, far right. Back when he was smaller than I am...

Naturally, Life happened. Preschool and job transfers and multiple children made it impossible to continue with our weekly meetings. And though it's 13 years later, and I no longer see those women, some of them are still in contact via Facebook and Christmas letters. It makes me smile to see how time marches on. The children may never remember the impact of those relationships. They probably wouldn't know each other if they met on a blind date (wouldn't that be something?). But the impact of those years and connections will always remain.

Thanks, ladies. You know who you are.