Stepping Up or Standing Down

There are a few things I wanted to share from the jumble of thoughts and emotions I've had since the Newtown tragedy last Friday.

The first is something my dear friend, Brandy Burt Jacobs, put so eloquently on Facebook.  She's given me permission to share it:

I can't possibly begin to imagine what the Sandy Hook families who lost their children are going through. None of us can. However, 12 years ago our infant daughter Emily passed away after being born with genetic disorder. Though our circumstances are worlds apart, I am sadly in the most unfortunate group of parents who have buried their child. The difficult weeks and months following are now a blur in many ways, but there are vivid memories that still stand out to me years down the road.

I remember the friends who didn't wait for me to "let them know" what they could do to help, they just showed up at my door and we figured it out.

I remember those who didn't assume that comfort could only come from those in my inner circle and reached out regardless, though it may have been years since we spoke.

I remember those who bravely stumbled on their words when there were none to say, rather than avoid me at the grocery.

I remember those that didn't avoid bringing up her name in an effort to not make me sad, rather brought her name up often, got a few tears out of the way, and moved on to happier topics.

I remember those who acknowledged the difficult anniversaries to come, not just the first year but in years following.

I remember those who recognize that even though we went on to have 4 amazing, healthy children, that everything we do is with an Emily-sized hole.

I do not know what each family individually needs on the road ahead, but I do know what stands out on my own journey through grief. I know that every act of reaching out is an act of kindness, regardless how awkward. I know that the smallest action far exceeds the mountain of good intentions. 

God Bless these families.

I have little to add to her beautiful words.  I'm so glad she said it!  Waiting for the moment when the "right" thing to do becomes evident often means letting the chance go by to do anything at all.  

When mom died in the accident, the people who just "showed up" are the ones I remember most vividly.  And the truth is, the people I thought would show up and didn't stand out as well.  

If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?  

One other thing started to take shape as I've read stories of the victims and the responses of the public to these stories.  This morning, I read Noah Pozner's eulogy, delivered by his mom.  It is beautiful.  90% of the comments to this were wonderful, positive, and supportive.  Then there are those who feel the need to question a mother's releasing this to the public - and that's putting it nicely.  The lioness in me wants to hunt those people down and claw them in the face, seriously.  When I read Veronique Pozner's words, I smiled and teared up.  I want to thank her for sharing her son with the world, because that's what this public eulogy does.  Noah will not get the chance to introduce himself to the world; he will be forever six years old.  It seems his mother's wish is that the world know and love him as his family did; that his life make an impression.  It has on me.  A child who wants to be a manager of a taco factory or a doctor couldn't possibly be anything less than a delight to have around!

I suspect anyone questioning how the families might (or might not) behave in public has, like the Grinch, a heart that is two sizes too small.

I am like Mrs. Pozner.  I choose to share my story and sorrow publicly, which some seem to think makes a person fair game.  I've read comments such as, "I highly doubt any family members are bothering to read comments.. blah, blah blah."  I read comments after the accident.  I needed to know, I just did, and sometimes the news sites had information I hadn't heard from the police.  I remember the person who wrote, "I guarantee you Mr. Jaguar was zipping in and out of traffic..." and said basically haha, they won't be driving like a jerk anymore.  (Mom was stopped on the shoulder and hit from behind).  It's not even the falsehood of the statement; it's the coldness of a total stranger making the most devastating event of my life into a punchline.  I once shared on a board my trying to forgive the truck driver and while most responses were beautiful and kind, one person accused me of dishonoring my mother with my "psychotic love for her killer."  I know that person is probably disturbed themselves, but it sticks.  It's another wound, and clearly one that I remember verbatim.  

I do hope that Mrs. Pozner is kept in the dark about these types of comments, because it does hurt terribly, when you reach out to share and are slapped in the face, even by just a few bad apples.  I don't think anyone of my single-digit followers would do such a thing, of course.  But it's always worth a reminder that we don't always understand the motivations and needs of others and to think before we speak or post.  

I have family members who would sooner walk naked down the street before sharing their stories.  I know other people who share even more than I do.  There will be people who never want to lay eyes on Sandy Hook again, and there will be people who will want to stand on the spot where their child last drew breath and close their eyes and walk into that day themselves, absorbing every bit of information they can.  None of these responses are right or wrong, or anyone else's to judge as such.  The best we can do is hug where possible, offer a kind word if it's in us, and shut the hell up when can't do either of the former and let these people do what they need to do to find meaning in life again.

Love and blessing to all out there.  And may the hateful ones experience something beautiful that makes their hearts grow three sizes in one day too.  Merry Christmas.

Blaming the Firefighters

Minneapolis mayor's line at the DNC this week, "pyromaniacs shouldn't blame the firefighter" does a pretty good job of conveying my feelings on the Republicans' blame of our President for the economic troubles of our country.

Seriously?!  The attitude: we messed it up something fierce, but let us fix it.  We'll ignore the fact that the recovery is real, albeit very slow.  Not only did we start the house fire, but when the American people fairly elected you firefighter, at every step of the way, we locked the doors and kicked you in the face when you tried to come in and put the fire out.  In fact, we flat out said that our priority was to make sure you lost your job as firefighter.  Not to help you clean up the mess and get the house rebuilt, but to make sure you didn't keep your job.  You'd think we would have cared more about the place that was on fire.  Once we stymied most of your efforts, we blamed you for the fact that only part of the fire had been controlled and now we think people will believe we're well qualified to put out the rest of the fire that we started.

I do think the Chief will be re-elected.  I only hope he gets some good backup in Congress so we can make some real progress this time around.

Absence is my new least favorite word - 18 months

Today marks 18 months without my mother.  I think that's the number where months stop counting.   Just like sobriety, they are all big in the beginning.  24 hours.  30 days.  60 days.  90 days.  Six months.  Nine months.  One year.  Then 18-months seems like the last stop before it's just years.  

I talked to my mom all the time so at first, it was shocking to me when I went a whole week without hearing her voice.  I thought I couldn't bear it.  But I did.  Since she lived far away, it was not unusual to go a few months without seeing each other. But after four months, five, six... I survived that too.  Sometimes it's stunningly painful to me that not only does the world go on so simply after her death, but I seem to as well.  

Numbers have always had a hold on me.  When on vacation, I like to think how many hours we still have left and usually know the halfway point exactly.  I'm revealing what a complete weirdo I am here, but that's okay.  After mom died, I found a website that calculated how many days she was alive.  So dates are kind of a big deal to me.

But back to absence.  I'm reading Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" this week.  It's about the sudden loss of her husband and the year following that.  Sometimes I feel like the world's biggest baby; after all, everyone loses their parents.  Why did this rock me so deeply?  It's not my husband, or a child.  It's the natural order of events.  I don't know why.  Maybe because she was really the only parent I had.  Maybe because of how she died, in an entirely preventable accident.  Or maybe just because she was my mom and I loved her and relied on her and feel so lonely and scared.  Because I know how pissed off she would be that she's not here to manage things and watch us all and play and laugh and.... live a while longer.

Joan Didion though... I get distracted so easily.  It's a very good read and her words on grief and the confusion and craziness it brings are far superior to my own.  There was a passage that struck me on absence.  Elizabeth Edwards also talked about absence in her book "Resilience" while writing about her son Wade.  Mourning is one thing, navigating the absence is worse.  

I have the sense that we've all suffered her absence enough and it's time to have her back.  Is this really the price she has to pay forever? That we have to pay?  Please don't tell me it was her time.  I really hate that.  That sort of thinking is crippling to me.  I read once that in an airplane crash, at least three things must go wrong for it to happen.  I have a mental list of at least six things that went wrong that morning and they are all so trivial.  This is the worst kind of non-acceptance, but it is where I sit, still.  Her permanent absence in my life is like a yawning, dark chasm that is always just to the side of what I'm doing.  Kind of like that scary drop-off in Grand Cayman when we were down in the submarine.   Absence is the emptiness that is never filled.   Though I know my mom would be proud of my sobriety, for example, or happy about my sister's wedding, that's just not enough.  "Would Be" doesn't help a whole lot when you're staring at an empty chair.  Just ask Clint Eastwood... but I digress.

Mom, I miss you.  All the time.   Tomorrow is the second back-to-school day she won't see.  As the kids start to remember less, and other people start to feel better, I'm a little more alone in the sad place.  

If you know the sad place well, I hope it helps you to know some people wander there longer than others too.  It's time to turn back to the room with the ones who aren't absent and love them while they're here.   I mean that literally - they're in the room watching "Sponge Bob" and we need to pick out first day outfits, load the backpacks, find the bus passes, and all the other exciting things that make up Day One of the new school year.  But it's not a bad way to go, figuratively speaking either.

Reminding myself why I crossed over...

As this election heats up, I find myself angry.  Often.  So each time I post, I'm going to address one reason why I vote the way I do know.  Background:  I was raised Republican in a very Republican town (Cincinnati, Ohio) in an ultra-Republican neighborhood (Hyde Park).  What little I "knew" was that the party represented lower taxes, was tough on "crime" and was what honest, hardworking people should aspire to be.  Democrats were poor, lazy, and most likely stupid and looking for handouts.  

After I moved to Minnesota, I fell hard for the ideals and positive outlooks of Bill Clinton and Paul Wellstone and I've slowly drifted ever further left.  My biggest disappointments in Obama are his failure to close Guantanamo Bay and to get the Dream Act passed.  I'm that liberal, for real.  

Yes, I also hope some of the people who I love and who sit on the other side of the aisle might read this and question whether they really believe what the current incarnation of "Republican" represents.  That's where I started - when the answers started to number "no" way more than "yes."  One woman I love dearly told me she was a Republican "because she's always been one."  Well, I would just ask them to consider these points, without judgment.  That's all.  I'm starting very simply and close to home.

MY DAUGHTERS, who will one day be women...

When my smart and engaging girls go out into the world, I would hope they would be judged on their merits and not on their sex.  The Republicans this year shot down equal pay legislation.  The message is that it's okay for men to make more than you do for doing the exact same job.  Sorry ladies.  That's how it is.  You. are. not. as. good. as. they. are.  And even if you are, this is how it's always been, who are we to question it?

There have been numerous comments by both Republican politicians and pundits such as Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly that Viagra should be covered by insurance plans, but birth control shouldn't have to be.  The argument they make is that Viagra treats a medical problem, whereas birth control doesn't.  I don't know, guys, I would call an unplanned pregnancy a hell of a problem.  Especially since they have as part of the platform the intention to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.  So naughty, nasty girls who (gasp) want to have sex for fun should have to pay for it and if they can't/won't, well tough luck for them and a tough life ahead for unwanted children born of this botched thinking.

Add to this slashes in funding to organizations that provide cancer screening and other preventive healthcare and weakened versions of domestic violence laws already on the books...

I'm not going to discuss abortion in depth because EVEN WITHOUT THAT CONVERSATION, these attitudes show a real lack of respect for and understanding of women.  I want my girls to know they matter, that they have a say in things, that they are equal and important.  

The women in the party who are their big stars are usually very attractive, and woefully misinformed.  Think Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.  They've actually got a genuine, smart, and tough woman in Condoleeza Rice, who because of her views on abortion won't even be considered for any sort of race.  Eye candy with a blank slate for a mind - that's the prototype.  Smart, single girls need not apply.

My daughters deserve better than this archaic thinking.  Everyone's daughters do.  

Tell me how you built that yourself...

I really want to hear it!

Tell me, child of poor immigrants who made good in this country, tell me how you built that yourself.  Tell me how you went to school though your parents couldn't contribute to the taxes that made those schools exist, walked or rode to school on public transportation.  Saw television.  Heard radio.  Had electricity.  Didn't die of cholera or malaria.  Tell me more.

Tell me, Mr. Executive, how you built that yourself, transporting your goods on roads built by all of our taxes, on airplanes that use our country's security to keep them safe, using law enforcement to protect your employees and your products from bands of criminals.  The corporate "person" that enjoys all these benefits pays less in taxes than you earned last year.  Tell me more.

To those who really think they did it "themselves" - please justify that phrase.  You were lucky enough to be born in or accepted by the United States, where you could take advantage of safety, resources, and infrastructure not available in many places.  Things that the government, by the people and for the people, provided.  Anyone who pays taxes helps you PAY for this success, and pays for its failures as well.  I personally pay to the tune of a hell of a lot more than Mitt Romney's 13%.  You did not do that your damn self.

the last day of normal

By calendar date, the one-year anniversary of mom's death is March 3rd - this Saturday.  But it feels like it's tomorrow - Thursday.  Because we live in a world that runs by days of the week, not dates.  We often take this week for vacation because it's not as busy as Presidents Weekend, but the kids have Friday off school due to conferences.  So it feels to me like today, one year ago, was the last day of normal.

And you know, we were really having a great time.  These are some of the photos my mom saw on Facebook that Wednesday.  We had landed in Salt Lake the previous evening and spent the day skiing at Brighton.

I thought about calling her after she sent me a text about the photos.  But I was on a chairlift and didn't want to drop my brand-new iPhone.  Then time just got away from me, in that way that time always gets away from everyone.

I'm trying to track down the firefighters and EMTs who were on the scene.  I want to send lunch to their stations.  I'm not sure how many responders were there - it looked like a ton from the photos.  A woman at HFD is trying to get me names of two guys in particular who I could see were really instrumental and who looked, I don't know, so somber, so careful, so thoroughly present in what they were doing.  I just want to say thank you to them.  What a difficult, wrenching job - I would think a job that would be easy to compartmentalize and to turn off the human factor when you're dealing with a fatality.  But I looked at their faces and saw guys who cared.   Now I find that when I see more than two emergency vehicles in one place, I get pretty anxious.

I'll probably call Officer Cooper tomorrow - Thursday.  For months I couldn't think "Thursday" and not jump to, "my mom died on a thursday.."  That's going away.  Some things are going away.  Other things, other words still jump up and bite out of the blue... Fog.  Blunt.  Jaguar.  Pipes.  Loop.  Rhythms.  And all the initials/acronyms -  MVA. HPD.  DWLS.  TXDPS.

My aunt will be with us this weekend.  I had wanted to go to Des Moines, but Lydia has basketball and is on FIRE this season, having scored ONE basket!  Go Girl!  I think we'll go to tea on Saturday; mom loved tea.  The closest good place is Lady Elegant's, in St. Paul.  Isn't that a terrible name?  I told Auntie Syd that it sounds like a second-rate gentlemen's club.  Mom and I went there a few years ago for a Christmas tea and laughed the entire time because it was a Charles Dickens theme.  Great idea, right?  EXCEPT they had actors there.  Still - great idea, right?  Actors who did A Christmas Carol.  In its entirety.  For almost three hours.  Walking around the tables, while you're trying to pour your tea and have a scone, so you couldn't even talk to each other.  That was a really long afternoon, but fun, because mom and I thought alike and were just rolling, watching these overwrought performances, in a TEA ROOM for God's sake.  I miss her so much.

I like to think she saw this photo and thought, "Shannon looks pretty happy."

She worried about me.  A lot.  With reason.  I could tell stories... I probably will tell stories in the future.  I caused her a lot of grief.  It is a huge blessing that at the time of her death, she and I were in good territory together and she was proud of me and not worrying about me.  We'd seen her at Christmas, were supposed to see her the very next day.  Just 28 hours more and she would have been in Utah.  I'd booked tickets just 10 days earlier to spend the kids' Spring Break at her house in Boca Raton and she was planning to come up for Owen's 5th grade graduation.

My heart breaks for those plans and all the endless events in the future that she doesn't get and that we have to do without her, but I'm happy she knew how much we all loved her and I know she was really excited about the next day, and about the future.  Really, it's all most of us can ask for from each day.

The Last "First" Holiday

It's only 25 days until the one-year anniversary of my mom's death in Houston and I am dreading it in so many different ways.


Valentine's Day is coming up and it will be the last "first" for us.  All the family birthdays have passed for the first time without gifts, cards, or phone calls from mom.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, the first summer at the Lake without her, 5th grade graduation, the New Year, my sister's engagement... the world has marched forward and mom stayed 64 forever.  My mother loved holidays and always sent my sister and me boxes with decorations, goodies for the kids, and cards.  Have you wondered who buys all the holiday knickknacks at Cracker Barrel - the embroidered shirts, the stuffed animals, the wooden hearts, pumpkins, etc.?  Leslie did.  I imagine Cracker Barrel's sales suffered in 2011.


Last Valentine's Day, I got my last holiday box from mom.  Before they moved their operations to Texas, the boxes always came from her company, Tarrah.  I wonder sometimes, when was the last time I called her at work rather than on her cell?  It would have been in December sometime.  If I'd known when I punched in "101" for Leslie Campbell that it would be the last time, how would that have felt?  It didn't feel significant then, that the business was moving, but now all those everyday things pull at me.  561-374-5995, ext. 101.  That's gone now.  Her cell phone number too.  I called it several times after the accident to hear her speak.  Now I'm starting to forget the exact wording of her outgoing message.  Is it crazy that I want to write down all her numbers?  All her addresses?  That I can't stand the thought of forgetting anything?


Last year's Valentine box contained giant chocolate bars for the kids, cards for all, and three $10 gift cards to Starbucks.  I told my Aunt that now I couldn't spend them and she responded, "well couldn't you spend two of them and save one?"  It made me laugh - mom would tell me to go get my coffee and stop mooning over a piece of plastic.


Here is the card we got, David and I, from mom:

I'm glad I'm a pack rat and have a mountain of cards from her.  I bought a cedar chest just to hold a fraction of all my "mom" things. I just opened it looking for those Starbucks cards and am feeling kind of panicky that I can't locate them.  I also have two "mom shelves" that have some of her favorite things, a plaster cast of her hand, and her ashes.  I've been buying seasonal plants or flowers to brighten the area and these are her Valentine tulips, which can be replanted.  Once it warms up, I have some Thanksgiving mums and a Christmas pine to plant too.

So why such dread of the one year mark?  For one thing, it just feels too soon.  This just happened, didn't it?  It hasn't really been a YEAR!  I don't want to mark time without her in years.  First it stopped being "days since mom died" and then weeks, months... "years" is just too much.  It was hard enough to know her life was over.  But the way the world just keeps marching forward feels so brutal sometimes.  This must be some kind of non-acceptance.  I don't WANT to accept this because it's simply UNACCEPTABLE.  I am reading a book called How to Survive Losing a Parent and one of the patients being profiled lost her mother to a car accident too and the therapist tells her an accident is the most difficult of all deaths to accept and move past.  HA!  I knew it!  What do I win?  Oh right, nothing.  Nothing at all.  I admit that sometimes to fall asleep I imagine what I could have done to change things and to save her.  Could I have called at 8:18 and then she wouldn't have pulled over?  What if I'd called when I woke up that morning for the first time, at 7:10 Mountain Time, nine minutes before the accident and just called to chitty chat? It still humbles and frightens me that the thousand tiny choices we make in any given day can end like that.  It's random, it's cruel, and I just want to change it.  Knowing that I can't change it doesn't seem to help.   Since I can't change it, it only seems fair that I get a do-over on our last phone call, which lasted 9 seconds and consisted of us each saying, "hello? hello? are you there?".. and so on).  


I'd like the chance to call back and say, "by the way, I love you more than I've ever said and more than you can imagine, Mom."  I'd like to go back to Christmas and run back over for one more hug goodbye.  I'd like another first, not another last.


One of the things that's talked about in the book is this fear of going on.  When mom died, it felt like the end of the world.  I couldn't imagine this point, almost one year later.  Yet here we are - life did go on.  I didn't drink or end up in a hospital.  I laugh, I am exercising, I like to cook, I see friends... and it sometimes feels disloyal.  If I have a good time, then it means it's okay, and then she is really and truly gone.  I wasn't ready; none of us were ready.  How do you decide when it's time to let go?  Is it 6 months, or a year, or two?  How do you snap out of it when it feels like yesterday?  


I just go back to the same answer - putting one foot in front of the other, breathing in and out, and trying to do the next right thing.  I tell myself there is good, great good, and beauty in this world, even if it's missing something dear.  My optimist mother would like that.  

Are you there, God? It's me, Shannon

If you are one of those people that can't abide someone questioning God, stop reading.  Now.

I have struggled for years in my fitful starts at a relationship with the Almighty.  My mom and I would have long conversations about what we saw as the hypocrisy of many of the so-called faithful.  Please understand, I do believe.  It's just that my belief is extremely imperfect.  Wildly imperfect.  Nothing sends me into a tailspin more than trying to express my thanks to God for those things for which I am grateful and here is why:  God seems to get a pass.  God gets to have it both ways, and it rankles me.

When good things happen in my life, I'm to be thankful.  Thank you for sunsets, for my health, for my kids' laughter... all the good stuff that makes life worth living and believing in.  But... when bad things happen.  Oh, when bad things happen.  How do you look at one mom whose child has died of a brain tumor and expect her to understand the other mom whose child survived the same disease and who credits God's grace and love?  How does one say that one hopeless alcoholic found sobriety through God's grace when another fails time and again to maintain sobriety?  Is God against him?  How do you tell a person (me), whose mother died underneath a semi that God "protected" someone else who walked away from a seemingly deadly crash?  Because if you ask me to believe that God saved one and let another perish, then you are asking me to believe that God wanted one dead.  So, if that IS all part of God's plan, why on earth should I thank him for the good things?  He's doing what he wants whether I approve or not, true?  The good, the bad - it's all part of the plan, right?  He doesn't need my blessing and neither asked for nor followed MY wishes.

That being said, I actually do try to say thank you, even when it's accompanied by a "but..."  I went to church yesterday and cried, as usual.  One of the hymns was How Firm a Foundation, which was played at my Uncle John's funeral in 1992.  My Uncle John was awesome - funny, handsome, kind.  He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and died from an Agent Orange-caused lymphoma.  My mom adored her brother-in-law, and that song was one she learned on the piano after he died.  So I cried again that both of these wonderful people are no longer in my life.  Then, Owen leaned over.  My dear, sweet, sometimes-clueless little Asperger's guy says in this huge stage whisper, "Mom, are you sad?"  (What was your first clue honey?  The snotty sniffling, the wet cheeks and puffy eyes?)  And I nodded.  He asked again, rather loudly if it reminded me of something and I explained (quietly).  He nodded vigorously and said, "Okay.  That explains it."   So God, Mom, if either or both of you are listening, here is what I'm thankful for, out of the havoc her (your) death caused:

My son, through witnessing true grief and healing, has become fairly empathetic.  Mom would take such pleasure in him - though she always did.  Asperger's kids say really funny things sometimes, usually when they aren't trying to be funny and she LOVED Owen stories.  But what a gift to him, and to us, to have him offering comfort and understanding when he recognizes someone's hurting.

I've gotten really close to my aunt and my mom's best friend Melanie.  We laugh, we cry, and we talk and I get to see mom through their eyes and see even more why she loved them both so much.

I've gotten better at saying, "this doesn't matter, that does.." Not sweating stupid, petty things.  Better, not best - yet.

I've made new friends in many places.  I would never know Officer Cooper in Houston who is one of the great guys in law enforcement.  I count as a friend the truck driver's wife.  I'm still undecided on him.  It's still too raw.  I wish him well, but... I'm still mad at him too.  Maybe that will grow in time.

I'm thankful for these things.  I am.  But... I would give these gifts back if God would turn back the clock and put my mother back on Earth.  So thank you God, sort of, I think.

Love,
Shannon

The First Hour (and the last accident post)

It is hard for me to think about and write about that day.  But I think about it every day anyway, even though it makes me feel sick.  I read recently that people are at much larger risk of heart attack in the hours immediately following a sudden loss.  I remember calling a friend the next morning and she commented on how fast I was breathing, how fast I was talking, that she was afraid I'd collapse.  I don't know where that rush comes from.  I couldn't stop moving and couldn't stop talking.  Oh those wonderful friends - some who sat and sobbed on the phone with me.  One who knew my mom for 33 years and who couldn't speak through her crying so I had to hang up and call her back.


But back to the minutes after the phone call...
Ugh.  I can't do this.  It's not a linear story.  It's not a story at all; it's a crushing reality.  It's the worst day of my life.  The absolute worst.  Once upon a time, I remember the worst day being when Owen was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder - which has come to be just part of who he is and not a tragedy at all.  This will always be a tragedy - and a travesty.  It's so big sometimes that I feel like it has swallowed me.  


I know that I called my mom very soon after, probably within 10 minutes.  In fact, I could tell you exactly when.  Because I have her iPhone.  I have listened to that message many times since.  After I asked her to call me, that there'd been a mistake, I forgot to hit the end key.  There's a four minute recording of crying, static, wailing, I don't even know what.  It makes me feel faint when I hear it again, but I can't delete it.  I listened to the other messages, those from people who were looking for her that morning.  


And part of the reason this is hard to write about is privacy.  Clearly, I'm not a private person.  I'm a very open person, love it or hate it - it's not for everyone.  But lots of people are not, lots of people in my own family.  We come from good old-fashioned Midwestern stock.  I don't want to tell what other people did, or guess how they felt.  Some of the worst nightmares and imaginings have to do with what happened to my mom, and I know that's private to her and not for the world to know.


I called my best friends.  I called close relatives.  I called distant relatives.  Then not-so-close friends.  I could not sit still.  I sent David out for cigarettes and O'Douls and then I paced, I talked, I smoked and I drank fake beer.  For days and days.  I'm an information seeker and always have been.  I have to know everything, about every situation, all the time.  So by that evening, I'd looked up the story on Houston's news websites and seen the first photos.  In the morning, I made the first of many, many acquaintances in Houston, some of whom I still talk to.  Vehicle crimes - I talked to four different people.  Medical Examiner. Houston Fire Department.  That was just on the first day.  It was just what I had to do.  Over the next several weeks and months, I ordered every possible scrap of information I could and was on a first-name basis with people in most of those offices, in addition to Public Safety, probation officers in two counties, and the District Attorneys office.  It was a way to stay sane and keep busy for me.  Not necessarily a healthy way, because there are things that can't be unseen or unlearned.  Part of me felt like someone should know "everything" but really, I don't know if that's right.  My mom would have told me not to take in too much about it.  Here's an example of what she was like:


  Once we were talking about aging; I don't remember the circumstances.  I told her if she became unable to care for herself, she could live with me.  She looked at me like I'd grown horns and said, "oh my God!  Don't you dare!" She told me to put her in a nursing home - a nice one, but a nursing home - and that I'd better not bring her grandchildren there to see her in that state or she'd be furious.  So she would say, "don't see me hurt.  Don't see me like that.  That's not me.."   Which makes me cry again.  I know what she'd say, but she wasn't there anymore and couldn't know for sure what we needed to let her go, to say goodbye.  If I have one regret from the immediate aftermath, it's that I didn't fly to Houston that night and see her, hold her hand.  That's no longer necessary, despite what they show on TV.  She would have said "don't" - but I know she would have done it had it been one of us.  It's really strange because some things from those days and weeks right after are seared into my mind, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about what I might have worn, when or what I might have eaten, even - God-forgive-me - what my kids were doing much of the time.  It was like living in a bubble - a big old hell-bubble of a Groundhog Day in which every morning I woke up, not to "I Got You Babe" but to "your mom died in a car wreck this morning."  


I used to wonder how people survive tragedy with their sanity intact.  I don't thing they do survive as the entirely same people.  I've always know bad things can happen.  Of course.  I've HAD bad things, really bad things, happen.  But this was so very, very much worse.  Certain things are turned off, maybe for good.  Other things grow.  But it will never be the same; I will never be the same.  I watched Castaway the other night, and thought this quote was appropriate (but I'm changing it a little):

 "I'm so sad that I don't have (mom). But I'm so grateful that she was with me... And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"


My next post is going to be all about Washington D.C. and the great fun we had there last month.


I posted what I needed to about the case back in September.  I've relived in writing the awfulness of the first day.  Saying goodbye and seeing her for the last time in Iowa... I'm not ready to share that and might not want to ever.  My precious mommy.  But for now, I need to put one foot in front of the other and keep breathing.  That day is over; it was the worst day, but it was one day.  There were thousands of good days with mom.  There are good days still to be had.

A new year...

Happy (?) New Year!


David is back to work.  He is working at .... Thrivent - again. Luckily he hadn't unpacked his boxes yet so it was an easy move.  He even got the same phone number back.  We took a last minute trip to Washington D.C. after Christmas.  I think I'll do a longer post about that later.  


The worst part of losing mom is of course the fact that she isn't here.  She made life more interesting.  Truly, the world is flatter without her in it.  My head, my heart, are always near bursting with thoughts of her, memories of her and a sickening feeling when I think of the words "never" or "dead" or "over."  It's crazy-making sometimes and the how and why of it all has been maddening.  I don't know if my experience with this loss would help anyone else, but I do need to sort it out a little more and let it go (the accident itself) so if reading it makes anyone else feel less alone, then that's just a bonus.


I've had to give up on the idea of going to the Grief Support Group on Thursdays because of conflicts with 3rd grade choir, swim team, piano, and life in general.  I occasionally try to look through my books and pamphlets.  I constantly rifle through the images in my head.  Every day, I relive to some extent March 3rd itself, probably some kind of PTSD thing.  My mom is as large as she has been, will always be.


Grief part one...the News


One of my books said that sometimes when a person gets the news of an unexpected death, it is normal to yell at or hit the person delivering the news.  I remember hearing some weird stories of things people I know have done.  


Here is what happened to me.  Maybe if I write about it, I can stop thinking about it.


We were at my sister's in Salt Lake City.  David, the girls and I were at the house and Kelsey and the boys were at the bank.  I was packing groceries for our drive over to the house we rented in Snowbasin after looking up directions online.  I thought, "mom is going to have a terrible time finding this place tomorrow."  She was flying in the next day and would drive straight from the airport to the house.  The directions were crazy difficult and I was thinking we'd better get a move on so we wouldn't have to navigate in the dark.


It was 2:42 Mountain Time (I checked David's cell phone later; for some reason numbers became kind of an obsession).  I'd finished the pantry - granola, fruit snacks, cookies, etc. and remembered to shut the door because Deso, the world's best dog but most devious stealer of people food, would wreak havoc if I didn't.  I had my head in the refrigerator when David's cell phone rang.  For months, when I heard that ring, it would take me back.  He had a weird ring tone then.  I assumed it was work calling him; they often did around that time of day.  The market had been closed for almost 45 minutes, just a normal check in.


I heard David say hi, but not to whom and then he went into my niece's room and closed the door.  Well that was weird, and work had been stressful, so of COURSE I walked right over and listened.  He said, "oh my God."  I opened the door and walked in.  He held up his hand to me.  Several "okays" and "ummhmms" followed.  My first thought: something had happened to someone he worked with.  Or a family member of someone he worked with.  He hung up and I asked, "what?!"  in that way we do when something has happened, but not to us, to someone else - almost anticipatory, not dreading; I am ashamed to admit that.  He just looked at me.  He looked literally pained. My brain slipped a notch at that point, and I made this mental leap that it hadn't been Mike at work, but Mike our neighbor (this really made no sense because I never heard him say "Mike" at all) and that it was closer to home than I thought.  I asked again, "what?" and he continued to stare at me.  I said, "Tell me!  Say it!  What!" and steeled myself for the news that either Tasha - our friend, babysitter and house sitter - had been in an accident (and he looked so awful she must have died) or maybe, better, our house had burned down.  At the last second, I think I knew, it was worse even than that, and I stepped backward away from him.  He said, "your mom died in a car accident this morning."


It was immediate.  I know they say that you go into denial or shock or something, but for me, that was the truest, most pure acceptance in this whole thing.  The brain hasn't had time to create its defenses yet.  I immediately said, "Get away from me!" - but I didn't shout it.  It was this weird, strangled voice, like I didn't have air.  I ran.  Straight to the front door.  I slipped on my shoes (Dansko patterned clogs) and ran out the front door.  I wasn't crying but I was gasping.  My plan: run up to 700 East (about 3 blocks) to collect myself before talking to the kids.  My sister's porch has steps that go down to a small landing where you can either jump down 18 inches or so to the grass or turn right, go down a few more steps, and end up on the driveway.  I jumped.  I fell.  And I'm not sure what happened because I didn't get back up.  David was right behind me though and was in the grass immediately where I was curled up, like in yoga's Child Position, but with my hands laced over the back of my head, and I screamed, once, like a damn banshee.  Then I started to say, "it can't be true" and I couldn't stop saying it.  By then I was crying, hyperventilating and really, I had no control.  At all.  Which of course was when my sister pulled up with her son and mine.


She saw that something was completely amiss and later said she thought I'd had some kind of complete breakdown, that it looked like I was throwing grass at David.  Maybe we were playing some weird game of tag?  That's the kind of thing your mind does when you see something that makes zero sense.   She told the boys to GET INSIDE and David had to break the news all over again.  


Of course, it wasn't work on the phone.  It was my stepfather.  He couldn't, couldn't, COULDN'T call Kelsey or me and say those words directly to us.  Poor David.  Poor everyone.  So shocked we didn't even think to ask what the HELL had happened, that came a short time later.  


That's about all I can do in one sitting.  


But there is this:  the joy and the continuance her grandchildren bring to life...
This morning I was driving Owen to school and I told him it was supposed to get colder today.  He asked, "any chance of precipitation?"  We've had the worst winter (if you like winter) with NO snow, warm temperatures... yuck.  I told him that they were expecting from 1/2 inch to 3 inches of snow and he said, "an inch of snow is like winning $1.00 in the lottery..."  and I laughed and told him I might use that on Facebook.  He said, "well it's actually from Calvin and Hobbes.  Calvin said ten cents though so I adjusted because they were like in the 19-somethings..."  I love that kid.  My mom adored the stories of the things her grandkids did or said.  I can hear her laugh in my head.  She had a great, unrestrained laugh that just burst out of her.  I have it on videotape.  Maybe that should be my ringtone.