Slipping Away

The thing about moms is- there aren’t always a lot of pictures of them. They’re usually the one taking the pictures.  It was no different with my mom.  Lots of things were different about my mom- but I know she did love me- very much.

And she loved my sister and my brother.

But perhaps even more, she loved our father.

So, just a month and a day short of four years after his death, she joined him. 

While we had almost a year of saying goodbye to Dad, Mom’s final take-off seemed to collapse into a one, short week.  In a way, we’ve been saying goodbye to her for years, maybe even for all of our lives.  For some people the world is just too much- too loud, too demanding, too busy to nurture a shy, fragile, brilliant girl.

When Dad launched I knew he was happy to be on his way to a new adventure. But with Mom, I’m not so sure.  There weren’t as many signs.  She was gone before we knew it- struggling and laboring for days and then, with a small, quick, exhalation, gone.

Happy Birthday, Dad

September 27, 2009

 

We go on without you…    

We remember the good times….

The wise and wonderful things you taught us…

But it isn’t the same. 

    We miss you swell, Dad.

It’s All A Blur…

It’s all over too quickly. Babies to boys to men.

  But this new phase, this Man phase…it’s pretty cool. 

Having a Lovely Time, Dad- Wish You Were Here!

It's almost time for Christmas vacation. I won't be back at the nursing home for 3 weeks. "What will we do if there's a...well, um..." The social worker's voice trails off and she give me an apologetic smile.

"Emergency?" I say, supplying the word she doesn't want to use.

"Well, yes," she says, sighing. "Three weeks is a long time."

I smile at her. "If something goes wrong around here, call me at home and tell me to get up off the couch and get down here."

I tell her this because this one home tries very hard to do their best for their residents and because of this, I don't mind if they call me. They won't be trying to cover their liable tails after some neglectful incident- they'll be trying to avert a crisis.

I tell her how hard I know they are working- how I see it every time I visit and it makes me feel good. And then I confess I can't go back to the home we both left because it is too hard. "I feel so guilty about it," I say.

Jan shakes her head. "You can't, you can't, you can't" she murmurs over and over, until I realize she is also telling herself.

I stand up, ready to leave but I don't go because I know there's one more thing I need to tell her. "I know this Christmas will be hard," I begin. "At best, strange, without your dad."

She nods. Her dad has been gone for 7 months and mine a year and almost 3 months. I know how much she loved her dad.

"We took flowers to the gravesite yesterday," she begins but breaks off and shakes her head.

"But he's not there, is he?" I whisper.

Tears fill her eyes. "I know he's in a better place," she tries. "But I feel mad, too. So much has happened and keeps right on happening. I want to say, 'Why'd you leave me to deal with this?' But I know it's not his fault."

She begins to cry. "It's the weirdest things. Like he had an old Plymouth Volare. Thirty years old with 54,000 original miles on it. He did all the work on that thing. Then when he got sick, he couldn't work on it anymore but he wouldn't sell it." She pauses a moment, gathering the strength to talk. "We sold it last month. We had to. You can't hang on to everything and Mama needed the money. Anyway, the man came by the other day and that Volare looked so good. He said he'd put 24-hundred dollars into it and it looked perfect. But things like that...they just tear me up."

I know. I tell her about cooking with the Eldest Unnamed One, just like I used to do with Dad. "Even though it's neat to see the generations continue and see my Dad in my boy, it still hurts because I miss my dad and it's not the same."

I am dangerously close to losing it myself but I "hold the tail," so I can stick with her. But later when I walk to the car, it is all I can think about, all I can feel.

I miss my dad but I live on, trying to follow the things he taught me. Doing it, in part for him because that is what he would want, I think. He would want me to pass the essence of who we are and what we are about on down from one generation to the next. He would want me to let the love he gave me flow on to my sons and their children and the host of others who will follow us.

But it just isn't the same as having him here.

Don't get me wrong- I'm having an exceptionally good time with my boys and my friends, but I'm just aware of how much he would enjoy all of this and how much I would like one of his hugs.

Homesick Halloween...

Halloween is a holiday. I realize this now.
It is a holiday with traditions. And my family is big on tradition.

We have birthday dinners in the dining room with crepe paper streamers and balloons. The cake comes on a red plate with white lettering that reads "You are Special Today!" We have silly Bert and Ernie napkins and plates- even though the Eldest Unnamed One is turning 19. We do this because "It is tradition."

Somehow I thought the Eldest Unnamed One would leave for college shaking off our traditions like toilet paper stuck to his feet in a men's room stall, unwanted and unnecessary. I thought he would be too "cool" for traditions.

As usual, I was wrong.

The silly, sometimes serious, little things we do on each holiday really matter.

I found this out when a little bird told me he was having a bad day yesterday. Something about a test grade not living up to his expectations...I listened to his words but there was more behind them. And then I realized...It's Halloween.

On Halloween we string orange and purple lights everywhere, eyeballs flash from behind branches, pumpkins glow with garish smiles. We plant the fog machine behind the pumpkin and the Youngest Unnamed One blasts billows of smoke out across the brick walkway just as the tricker treaters are within range.

Bags of candy are given out, costumes and ages critiqued, pleasant mischief is afoot...and the Eldest Unnamed One was in Chapel Hill and for the first time in his life- not a part of it all.

"Are you homesick?" I asked finally.

"I guess," he said.

And then, I was too. Homesick for my baby. Homesick for my entire family all piled up together, laughing and hugging, teasing and fighting.

It seems if one of us is homesick, we all are homesick.

This weekend the Eldest Unnamed One turns 19. He'll be back from Chapel Hill and we will drag out every sappy, tacky birthday decoration and I will bake a chocolate cake with thick gooey chocolate icing and we will serve it on the red plate in the dining room and this weekend no one will be homesick.




We will recharge, like worn batteries needing a lift. We'll do this with laughing and teasing and hugging and good food and remembering...But even more importantly, we will be weaving the invisible, unbreakable strings that tie us one to another forever.