the basement files

as most of you know, my mom died in february of 2008.
i cleared out her house, and then sold it.  in the meantime, i bought my first home.
which meant i had an empty basement to fill: with all of my mom's belongings.

it's been a busy five years since mom died - i bought a house, moved in with M and A, was pregnant, had a baby, and now have been a mom for 4 years.

so i'm still sorting through mom's belongings. actually, mom's papers. the belongings are mostly sorted. i am finding all kinds of interesting/upsetting/inspiring/intriguing/disturbing things in the mix. my mom saved all of the cards and letters friends and family sent her over the years. i found a birthday card with this saying that i really liked:

I do not wish
you joy without
a sorrow
nor endless day
without the healing dark
nor brilliant
sun without
the restful shadow,
nor tides that never turn
against
your back.
I wish you
love,
and strength,
and faith,
and wisdom,
goods,
gold enough
to help some
needy one,
I wish you
songs
but also
blessed
silence,
and god's
sweet peace
when
every day
is done.
Dorothy Nell McDonald

Loss

I’ve been thinking a lot about loss lately, for a few reasons – it is the season between the day my mom died and her birthday – about a month and a half apart - in which I am perpetually confused about if I should be grieving, remembering, or celebrating her life – or some combination of the three. And then I just finished Barbara Kingsolver’s amazing new book Flight Behavior. This was a book about so many things, but one of the themes that really stuck with me was loss – loss of habitat, of species, of naiveté, of innocence, of comfort, of kin, of home. And it’s also Lent. Which is a season of remembering – what we’ve lost, what we are yet to become, who we really are.

In Flight Behavior, the main character, a mom of two kids, makes her young son repeat after her, “It won’t ever go back how it was.” And doesn’t that just sum up loss? No matter what happens, I won’t ever live again in a world where my mom is here physically with me, where she can give me a hug or I can call her for advice. And this child’s life will radically change (his mother had just told him some big news, which I won’t share here – no spoilers! Read the book!). And what I have experienced, and seen happen to others, is that in these situations we typically rush to try to make it better: “It’ll be Ok.” “God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle.” “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” “She’s in a better place.” “She’s not in pain anymore.” These are some of my (least) favorites that have been said to me and to others.

 This is why the character in Flight Behavior is so incredible. Instead of trying to make it “better”, she just tells the truth. In another part of the book, when she is gazing on the butterflies that have inhabited the land near her home – due to climate change – she says, “The hardest work of all was to resist taking comfort.” What she means, I think, is that although something may be beautiful – or appealing – that we would be better off to walk through the wilderness of the truth. That the butterflies are there because their normal habitat was destroyed due to climate change. That they may or may not survive. That the only way out is through. That we must struggle, and grieve, and be angry, and act, in order to grow into the person we are yet to become and are meant to be.

 It’s incredibly hard work, this seeing the world with clear eyes and the grieving that inevitably comes, but I think it’s also where we (collectively) find our strength. It’s where we learn who we really are. Hard work can also be gratifying. It’s where we figure out what “home” is. If home is not a place, or a person (these things change or leave us) – what can we find inside ourselves or in our community or family that is our definition of home? How can we build a world where we all feel at home, where there are more of these spaces or moments – physical, emotional, spiritual - where we CAN see clearly, grieve, yell, and scheme together?

Ani Difranco - Paradigm

i've been thinking about mothering, and memory, and trying to raise

a righteous kid. this song seemed appropriate. here are the lyrics.

10 things i've learned during my first year of motherhood, in honor of zora's first birthday on saturday!

1 Any woman who gives birth without pain medications is a total bad ass. (Yes, I am.)

2 Breastfeeding hurts. (As Patty the lactation consultant says.) Even when you're doing it "right," for many women the first 4-6 weeks are hell. We're talking sore and cracked and sometimes bleeding nipples. It's not all it's cracked up to be! (Ha!) It is worth it, though, if you can manage to get through the hard part - the benefits to your baby are awesome!

3 Newborns sleep a lot, at first. As they start to wake up, they start to cry. It's perfectly normal for a newborn to cry many hours a day just for the fun of it.

4 There is nothing wrong (and in fact it's quite normal) with not feeling overwhelming gushes of love constantly for your baby during the first few months. Your baby is a peeing, pooping, crying, hungry mess who can't even smile at you or say thanks for not putting her out with the garbage when she kept you up the whole night. They key is to not put your baby out with the garbage. You will come to ADORE this little being, I promise. You will feel love like never before. (If you are still not feeling this good juicy love in a reasonable amount of time, you might have postpartum depression and should get some help. It happens to a lot of women!) In the meantime, if you think you MIGHT put your baby on the curb with your recyclables, hand her to a responsible adult - or if that's not possible, put her in her crib, and walk away. Get some rest, drink some tea, breathe. You can do it! It will all be worth it, and then some!

5 There is nothing wrong with nursing your baby to sleep every night if that's what works for you. Ditto for co-sleeping. Other people love to give advice about parenting, but you are the one living it, and you've got to make decisions that are going to work for you and your family.

6 It is possible to work full time and be an attentive, loving mama. I said possible, not easy!

7 Being a working, pumping mama ushers you into a secret society whose members recognize each other by the big black bags and back packs, and small black square coolers they are lugging back and forth from work on the train and the bus. The members of this society discuss such topics as "keeping my supply up", electric vs. hand pumps, single vs. double pumps, the most interesting place you have been forced to pump (tie between federal courthouse and bible school classroom for me), how to find time to pump during the work day, what is the best storage container for breast milk, what was your worst breast milk spill mishap, how many ounces can you pump at one time, hands free pumping, and so much more!

8 There is something mystical about devoting your full attention to one task, to really losing yourself in the joy of it, to losing track of time, to a clear mind. I'm talking about being with Zora. It is an otherworldly feeling to be fully with her, to ignore the to do list and the dust under the couch. On the other hand, there is also something incredible about a parent's ability to multi-task. In the early days, breastfeeding and checking my email at the same time allowed me to meet Zora's needs for nutrition and closeness and my needs for connection to adult loved ones and a sense of sanity. To say nothing of the joys of breastfeeding while sleeping!

9 Mothering without your own mother is hard. Really hard. My mom died two years ago this month. I miss my mom every day and the grief is compounded by my love for Zora. I want my mom to meet her beautiful granddaughter, to hold her, to rock her, to kiss her, to give me all kinds of advice (the good, the bad, the unasked for, the solicited...), to talk to me about how I was at that age. I want Zora to get to spend the night with my mom. I want to see Zora's face when she realizes that I am to her what my mom is to me.

10 The only thing that remains the same is that everything changes. So I am trying to soak up and savor every moment of this amazing, precious gift. Thanks to all of you who have been such a big support to me, to Mike and to Zora over the last year.

one year and 37 weeks

it's been one year since mom passed on from this world to the next.
it's been 37 weeks that bean has been getting ready to enter this world from the womb world.

i am celebrating both of them today.

i am remembering mom today - not the mom who died in hospice a year ago, her body crippled with multiple myeloma, but the mom who mothered me for 62 years. the mom who taught me what unconditional love feels like. the mom who was always my champion. the mom who taught me the value of true friends and community, in good times and bad. the mom who provided endless opportunities for fun and play, and knew how to have a good laugh. the mom who, whether working or not, always put a home cooked meal on the table and insisted we eat together as a family - even if this meant dinner at 8:30pm. the mom with the green thumb, whose yards were always beautiful and whose houses were full of plants. the mom who knew how to use coupons and look for sales and stretch a little money into a lot of groceries. the wordsmith mom - with her intense love of crossword puzzles and the way she could command a room during her trainings. the mom who spoke her mind. the stubborn, fierce, my-way-or-the-highway mom. the mom who could talk about her children endlessly to friends or strangers.

i believe that one of the best ways i can honor mom's spirit is to (attempt to) bring some of what i learned from her about being a good mother to my relationship with bean. i have felt her spirit with me strongly in the last few weeks, and believe she's going to be with me during my labor and my early journey into motherhood. i am very excited about bean's arrival, and hope that the love that mom offered to me during her time here on earth will nourish bean and our new family.

i appreciate all of you who remembered me today with emails and phone calls.

over and over again

one thing i'm learning about grief - it's not a process that ends.
it's a process with peaks and valleys, but one that i can't imagine being over anytime soon.

we said goodbye to my mom's house a few weeks ago.
it was achingly, terribly, viciously hard.
we had a lot of help, so the physical part of packing up was quick and easy, thanks to mom's web of good friends. this meant that i had time in the weekend to truly grieve leaving the last place her earthly body inhabited.

i sat in her lovely backyard, with its tall trees and birds singing, and wept. and wept. and wept.
i asked for a message, some guidance, something...and what i heard was: it's ok to let go of her house. her spirit is with you always and doesn't reside here. i also swear i heard her laughing that the house is finally clean!

mike and i are now moved into our new house, so i am unpacking things from mom's house that i packed back in march when we started the process of packing up her house. it's alternately like opening presents at christmas (wow! this is beautiful! i forgot about this!) and walking through a minefield (i remember when mom used to make us iced tea in this pitcher when we were kids)...

i am learning to make space for really feeling these feelings.

stuff

today i donated over 25 pairs of my mom's prescription eye glasses to pearl vision, who will send them on to the lions club. the lions club then distributes the glasses around the world on "optical missions." the woman at pearl vision looked at me a bit strangely when i handed her the large bag. mom had eye glasses, and prescription sun glasses, stashed all around the house. i imagine what happened is that when she got a new prescription, she put the old glasses in the back of a drawer, and there they remained until we started cleaning out her house.

m, my brother, his wife and i have been cleaning out mom's house since she died. it has been at times harrowing, heart breaking, funny, boring, exhausting, frustrating, sweet...pieces of mom's whole life were in that house. her mother's keepsakes were also in the house so i felt as i was pawing through things that i was looking through generations of things not just mom's things.

we are nearing the end. we are hoping to have the house cleaned out by the end of the next weekend we are there. i have ordered a dumpster. as i have mentioned in earlier posts, my mother, god bless her, was a pack rat. she went back and forth from defending herself ("this is how i like things, having my things all around me makes me happy, i need visual stimulation, etc.") to feeling shame about it ("i'm a horrible housekeeper."). when we first started cleaning out the house, we had multiple piles: Keep, Trash, Glass Recycle, Plastic Recycle, Aluminum Recycle, Paper Recycle, Donate, etc. the last time we were there i just walked around the house with a trash bag. i talked to her as i was throwing things away - i felt this was necessary because otherwise i imagined her rolling over in her grave!

i am going to miss her house - it is the last place that i can feel her presence in. she liked things just so, and it is sad to leave the place she made home. i am hoping that filling my new home with her things will allow me to feel her spirit as i make my own nest.

deep connection

this weekend i went to my 10-year college reunion.
surprisingly, i really enjoyed myself.

i find, these days, that i can't- or maybe won't - put up a front.
when i'm feeling sad, or angry, or frustrated, or exhausted, you'll know about it.
i have less patience than usual and less ability to fake it.
when i'm tired, i'll cry at the drop of a hat.

so here i go, off to see people i haven't seen in 10 years and some other people
i've kept in touch with only off and on.

and they all ask me, "how are you? what's been going on?"
and what i want to say is, "well, my mom died. she died in february. she was
diagnosed with cancer in august and she was dead 6 months later. it's been a horrible year and
i can't believe i survived it but i think since i did that i must have this well of strength
somewhere that i'm choosing to believe will continue to carry me through as i try to heal
from this horrible thing that happened. how are you?"
but instead i settle for, "well, it's been a rough year but overall i'm doing great."

and suprisingly, i am able to tell people who want more than the typical reunion soundbite what happened. and i connect, with close friends and acquaintances alike, about loss. they tell me about the premature death of their mother. about a stillborn baby. i hear about other parents with cancer diagnoses. and it feels like maybe this is life.

and it feels so good to connect with other people who have experienced these terrible losses and survived. it gives me some hope. and it 's comforting that they get it. they get the exhaustion, the insanity, the depression that are a part of this thing called grief. they get dark humor. they joke about the stupid things that people say to people who are grieving. they get that these stupid things are better than silence. they get shock, and denial, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. they get incredible feats of strength at surprising times. how did we do all that the week after she died? and they get that all we have is each other. and so we have long, intimate conversations while those around us are doing the location-and-job-and-repeat game.

happy mother's day!

happy mother's day to all you incredible moms out there.

i've been thinking a lot lately (in anticipation of mother's day) of what my mom taught me about how to be a good mother.

here are some of the things that made my mom a spectatular mom:

• amazing listening skills. my mom could listen to ANY story i told her, from thrilling to boring. she always made me feel heard.
  
• remembering. my mom always remembered the stories i told her, and would ask me follow up questions the next time we spoke. this made me feel very important!
  
• she always knew who my friends were, and why i loved them. this was a great way for mom to know more about me, my values, and what i might be up to on any given saturday night. she also taught me through her actions the value of good friends.
• my mom always let me know how proud she was of me. this made me feel very confident and self assured.
  
• trust. my mom allowed me to do insane things because she knew she had raised me right and even if i found myself in a jam, i'd figure out a way to get out of it. my mom trusted me even when it pained her - even when she was scared to death. i think her deeply faithful nature helped here. especially when i declared in my junior year of high school that i was going to zimbabwe.
  
• leading by example. my mom never sat me down and said, "it's important to find a way to work towards justice in our world." she just did it, and i learned from her example.
• ritual and tradition. holidays and weekends were special. mom knew how to make ritual and do tradition - with food, with music, with decorations...
• being her own person. although mom was incredibly proud of her children, and talked about us at length whenever she got the chance even to strangers, she also had her own life. she had her own friends, her own interests, her own dreams, her own life.
  

here's to moms -- biological and chosen.

the line in this poem about "risk[ing] my significance" makes me think of the way my mom always put me first and gave endlessly of herself.

I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear,
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as bloosom,
goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

gratitude

the sermon in church this morning was about how we are not orphaned from god, even when we feel orphaned by the circumstances in our life - be it a divorce or the loss of a loved one or some other great tragedy that makes most people feel alone.

the sermon really struck me today - because in a sense i have been "orphaned" by the death of my mother but have felt so incredibly held by my community that while i have felt deep sadness i have not felt alone - and amazingly even now, even as i expect that everyone will forget that i am still grappling deeply with this incredible loss, i am reminded (and for some strange reason surprised) that people have not forgotten, that i am still being held by that amazing web that i felt so strongly right before and right after my mom died. just a few examples of love i have received recently...

cj who sent me a kick ass care package which included SIX, count em SIX cds, all for the different moods that one who is grieving finds themselves in. dad who calls faithfully every weekend. lj and tim who ALSO sent a kick ass care package with delicious ginger snaps and yummy coffee. the person from mom's church who sent me a tape of mom's funeral. jenny who sent me a book of poetry. the people at my church who eagerly wanted to know this morning how last weekend's garage sale went. mom's friend who came over last weekend with food and helped us manage the crowd at the garage sale. another friend of mom's who invited us over to dinner on sunday after we had had an utterly exhausting weekend - who fed us nourishing food and then sent us promptly to bed. people who have called multiple times with offers to listen and sweet messages even when i haven't returned their calls. and those friends here in my life in philly who listen and sit with me while i cry. still.

i am aware that this process of grieving and healing has just begun and i am so grateful to feel the love of all of you so constant and strong that allows me to take my time, unhurried and sure in the knowledge that the amazing web is strong enough to hold me.

fear

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense.
Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen.
It gives life a permanently provisional feeling...Up till this I always had
too little time. Now there is nothing but time.

...

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense.
It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become
habitual.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

my mom and brother at his wedding

thanks to cj for lending me A Grief Observed.

i'm going to have to agree with C.S.L. here. grief does feel like fear.
and i am experiencing the frustration of those habitual impulses.
it's easter. on easter i call each of my parents to wish them a happy easter.
today i called my dad. and then sat in a chair in my bedroom. and moped.
because i couldn't call my mom. at least not in the conventional sense.

my mom and i haven't lived near each other since i was in high school,
so most of our communication was done on the phone. we'd call each
other when something great happened in our lives, or something we
wanted to bitch about. we'd call each other when one of us was lonely.
sometimes we'd just call to talk. before my mom was diagnosed with
multiple myeloma in august, we spoke once a week. since august 2007,
until february 10, 2008 when she died, we spoke every day, with only
a few exceptions.

it is frustrating, indeed, not to be able to call her today and wish her
a happy easter, to hear all the gossip from church, to find out how
her weekend went, to tell her about the beautiful sunrise service
at the park i went to this morning and the lovely breakfast at church
afterwards. i know she'd want to know how cold it was at the service,
how long it was, how i got there, what i made for breakfast, who i talked
to at breakfast and what i did when i left. and she'd remember to ask
me about mike, how his concussion is doing, and when his next doctor's
appointment is.

we miss you mom. happy easter.

booties

this post is dedicated to jess, a true lover of booties.

i decided a little light-heartedness might be in order, after the rather heavy
post from last week. there will be plenty more sadness to come, i'm sure, so
here's something a little different.

i've been considering the things my mom enjoyed and/or did well in her life.
there are many things. one of the things she excelled in was saving things.
some might call it hoarding, or a certain tendency towards being a pack rat.
call it what you will.

one of the things i found in her house the last time we were there cleaning
things out was this.


this, my friends, is a box of handknit booties. f.pea, eat your knitting heart out.
these booties were made by mrs. kearns, a woman who lived down the street from my mom when she was a kid. the box actually has my grandmother's handwriting on it, which is even more impressive - my grandma saved them after they moved away and passed them on to my mom. i never did get the full story on why mrs. kearns made so many booties. all i can tell you is that everytime i was at my mom's house in the winter with cold feet, she'd offer me a pair.
and tell me to take them home with me. jess, who at that time was living with me instead of in lovely oaxaca, took a liking to these booties. she being one who also gets cold feet. so the next time my mom came to visit us in philly, she brought jess a few pairs. allegedly these were the last pairs in the house/that my mom owned. jess and i (yes, i got a few more pairs as well) were so happy.

so imagine my surprise when i came upon a whole box! m and i have decided that they will be the perfect thing for our new house - we'll have a basket at the front door for guests. maybe we'll even let a few booties walk off into the night...

her strength is in her principles

per steve's request, here's a close up of the card.

it's been a month since my mom passed away.
i miss her a lot.
this is an altar i set up for her in my bedroom.

the angel in the back is named courage.
the old woman on the card is titled "her strength is in her principles."
the ceramic tile is something that was hanging over her sink. it says,
"those who hope in the lord will renew their strength; they will run and not be weary;
they will walk and not faint. isaiah 40:31"
the cross is also something that was hanging in her house.
and the other cards are prayer cards from her funeral service.

as i continue to grieve, i will be thinking about how and what of my mom's life i want to carry on through the way i live.

where's the manual?

like most big events in life, there doesn't seem to be a manual instructing the unschooled on what to do when a loved one dies. too bad i don't own a television - i hear six feet under is a pretty good education in this stuff.

when mom died, i had no idea how busy we'd be in the next week.

we scheduled the wake, funeral, and burial; chose a casket; chose the concrete box one is required to buy for the casket to go in (!); decided on a design and prose for the prayer cards; wrote her obituary and decided to only have it published on one day and in one newspaper; picked out clothes and jewelry for her to be buried in; found a new home for her cat; decided on and purchased the paper for the funeral program; planned the funeral service with her pastor; created two displays of pictures of mom for the wake and funeral; chose flowers for the top of the casket; met with a lawyer to start the (long) estate process; notified friends and family of her passing; and tried to remember to eat and sleep.

one moment, i felt perfectly fine and at peace. the next moment, feelings of deep sadness, panic, and/or exhaustion would overwhelm me. this is the way my grief continues. coming back to my "normal" life, but without mom, has been extremely difficult. i hear that this gets easier; right now it seems to be getting harder. i'm confident the grief will become something easier to understand, to grapple with, to mold and shape into something i can handle. right now mom comes to me when she will - at night, on the bus, at work, during yoga, whenever and wherever. i'm just trying to ride the waves of grief and not fight too hard against the current.

from my mom's friend corrinne

here is a message from my mom's friend corrinne about walk she is doing in mom's honor...

A couple of years ago my daughter, Julie, started telling me I could/should run a marathon. After all, there were many women who were over 60 and running their first marathon. Being older and wiser I knew this just wasn't going to happen. Then in August 2007 my friend Ginny Gilbertson was diagnosed with myeloma. Julie took the opportunity to suggest that I could/should WALK a half marathon in honor of Ginny. She was getting older and wiser too since this was definitely a possibility.

So Julie found the Country Music marathon/half marathon to be run and WALKED in Nashville on April 26, 2008 and I could train with Team in Training. For those of you who don't know, TNT is associated with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society who Julie used to work for and who trained her to run her first marathon several years ago.

Last November when I visited Ginny and mutual college friends in Albany, NY, I studied with her the info from the Leukemia Society about the drugs she had begun taking and we both learned about her disease. I saw how grateful she was to have been contacted by people from the Society, including the buddy she was paired with. I saw the pain she was already beginning to endure. I saw her sitting in her dialysis chair for 4 hour stints. I told myself I didn't want my current health issues to take over and put me that situation so I committed to walk this half marathon for her and for me. It seemed like a win win situation to me.

Last December 28 I met Ginny at the Tampa airport where her son, Andy, who lives in St. Petersburg, pushed her in a wheelchair because already her back pain was so great she couldn't walk long distances. We drove down to Venice where Ginny had a condo next door to the condo of another Albany friend and we spent several days by the pool (and hours at the dialysis center) and saw the New Year in with much laughter and loving friendship. We both returned to our colder climates, she to her dialysis/chemo/pain coping routine, me to my training and regular work routine.

On January 28 Ginny went to the hospital with severe back pain and paralysis in her legs. The dialysis wasn't working to clean her system. Her heart wasn't behaving. Her children, Sue and Andy, and their mates came to be with her and her Albany friends kept vigil. She spoke with her pastor. On February 10 Ginny left this world for the next with Sue and Mike, Andy and Bonnie, and dear friend Anne by her side in a peaceful Hospice room at St Peters Hospital. We will miss her greatly. Less than 6 months from diagnosis to her passing; this should not happen to anybody.

I am walking this half marathon in Nashville on April 26 in memory of Ginny, and have pledged to raise $3000 for the Leukemia Society to help find a cure for myeloma and to give comfort to families and patients with this and other blood cancers. Please help me by donating whatever you can to this wonderful organization. My website to receive donations is www.active.com/donate/tntnca04/walking4hope.

p.s.

i can't believe in my last post i forgot to mention the amazing homemade ginger snaps and tofu spinach pie. it's only because as soon as we got back from the funeral and burial we ate them all while watching a project runway marathon. i know everyone handles grief differently, but i highly recommend tofu spinach pie and project runway.

"people are SO nice"

for the last two weeks i have uttered some version of "people are SO nice, this is crazy. i can't believe it" countless times. i'm going to try to give you a snapshot of the overwhelming generosity i and my family have been the recipient of lately.

people have cooked/baked/brought amazing quantities of food including the best brownies i have ever eaten in my life, baked root vegetables, vegetarian chili, a fruit bouquet, a fruit basket, a complete valentine's day dinner including fettucini alfredo, ceasar salad, wine, and a (prepare yourself-morbid humor coming) to-die-for chocolate cake, cheese and crackers, beans and greens soup, pizza, cherry pie, foccaccia, carrot salad, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and bags of groceries. as if this wasn't enough, i've also been treated to dinner out. and coffee.

i have also received a cd with calming music, a massage gift certificate and flowers delivered to my home in philly. the thoughtful, heartfelt sympathy cards just keep coming. many, many people made donations in my mom's name to the committee at her church that works with refugees (which she did for many years).

at the wake and the funeral, we asked people to write down a story or memory they had of mom. many people shared hilarious and/or touching stories about times they had shared with mom. and lots of hugs. lots of phone calls. my cell phone bill is usually $60. this month? $281! i mean lots of phone calls. and don't get me started on flowers. gorgeous arrangements. and plants. and friends who made time in their schedule to travel to albany to support me at and after the funeral.

and then there are the all the many acts of kindness done during the last weeks of my mom's life. mom's friends who came to her house to clean, to make sure she was eating, and who did her errands. mom's church family who drove her to doctor's appointments. the friends who responded when the lifeline service called them to tell them mom was in trouble. the friends who called me to let me know mom's condition was worsening. my childhood friend, who is going through chemo herself, who came over to the house and made me laugh for a few hours. the friend who came to relieve me in the morning at the hospital after i had spent the night. the friend who, when we were trying to find a place for mom to go to rehab, called everyone she knew to figure out which places were good and which we should avoid. friends back in philly who organized themselves to make sure i had someone to talk to and cry with each night while i was with mom. the nurses who held mom's hand, hugged her, comforted her, and took excellent care of her. the techs who lovingly bathed mom. the transportation aides who gently moved mom around the hospital. the social workers who helped mom to understand and process what was happening to her. friends who came for visits and handled mom's hallucinations with grace. the staff at the hospice inn who gave us so much privacy during mom's last hours and then so many hugs after she passed.

I have felt a great deal of support. Two different friends sent me emails with images of the support they were hoping I had – one was of feeling the wind at my back, that I could get through this not solely by my own power, but rather by a feeling of being sustained and carried by the support around me. The other envisioned lots of pillows put all around me by friends so if (when!) I needed to fall down, it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Both of these ring true. I thank all of you.

back to blogging

everything has changed since the last time i posted.

i remember in high school, after my grandfather died, reflecting on how i'd survive without my mom. my mom in particular, and moms in general, are central. if you're lucky, your mom is the person you call when you have a miserable flu and need to be comforted. your mom is the person you want to tell first when you find the love of your life, or are pregnant, or get a promotion. your mom is the one you call when you have that knitting, sewing, home repair, cleaning, parenting, relationship, or, in my mom's case, training question that you know she'll know the answer to.

moms are where we all come from. in most cases, moms have some (and most of the time A LOT) part in bringing us up to be the intelligent, caring people we are. we owe a lot to our moms.

my mom passed away on february 10th, 2008 at 6:45pm. her death certificate says 7:01pm, but i know better because i was there when she took her last breath. i'm hoping to use this space to share some of the experiences i had directly before and directly after her passing.

here is a picture of her and i celebrating her 60th birthday. she died at age 62.