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.  

Hatin' on the Grievers

“When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time -- the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes -- when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever -- there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” 
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany


A Prayer for Owen Meany has been one of my favorite books for nearly 20 years.  I named my oldest child Owen, something I decided long before he was born and before Owen became a popular name again.  I even got mom to read it; she pronounced it "weird."  We didn't really have the same taste in books.  But I came across this quote today and liked it.  


I've been sporadically attending a grief group on Thursdays and I have a confession to make.  I'm terrible at grief group.  In fact, I might be a sociopath or something.  Last week, there was a woman there and she began to cry.  So I'm feeling very sympathetic, and then... she started to talk.  It turns out that she lost her mother two years ago.  Her mother was 91.  She talked about the amazing bond they shared.  She talked about her last weeks and her last words.  I started crying too, but I discovered that what I really felt was HUGELY PISSED.  I toyed with the idea of actually saying out loud something to the effect of "Oh my God!  Would you please shut the f--- up!"  Nice, right?


Because in my twisted mind, she was awfully damn lucky.  My last words with my mom were something like, "can you hear me? Hello?  I don't think FaceTime is working..."  We both had new iPhones and were trying to figure out FaceTime.  We got cut off and when I tried to call her back, it went to voicemail.  That was Tuesday.  Wednesday we were skiing at Brighton and she texted me "Great photo of the girls." I texted back, "Thanks.  It's snowing now."  That's all.  Thursday morning she died.  What would I give for some loving last words?  What would I give for TWENTY-SEVEN more years?  The list is long.  


Of course it's all relative.  One of my son's classmates lost his father this weekend to cancer.  46 years before 91.  What would his kids give to have them at graduation, weddings, births?  My friend Anne lost her 7  year old son to cancer.  84 years too soon?  Or my dear sweet Brandy, who lost her daughter at one day?  90+ years that Emily didn't get to have.  


I know it's not my place and it's not right for me to judge this woman's loss, but I'm just really jealous of that "extra" time.  There is something so awful about accidents.  Death from an illness is wrenching; I know.  My second dad suffered the last months of his life from prostrate cancer and it was terrible.  Somehow though, I feel like I can't argue with an illness.  The battle was fought, and the battle was lost.  It seems so utterly ridiculous and cruel that my mom paid with her life because of where she stopped her car that morning.  Because she stopped for doughnuts.  Because she took a different route to the airport.  Because, because, because....


Clearly I need to go to the grief group some more.  Some of us are a bit more in the anger and bargaining crap than others.  Let's just hope I don't smack someone.

My pretty mommy

I discovered last night that the slide show put together for mom's visitation is online.  I had no idea, but the funeral home's website has a link to it.  This is the type of thing one learns when they are constantly Googling his or her mother's name.

Link:
Leslie Campbell Slide Show

I think you'll need to then click on "View Video Tribute"

Many friends who wanted to be in Iowa for her funeral couldn't make it due to cost and so I'm putting this link up for anyone who wanted to see.  About the songs - Kelsey and I chose them.  One word about that - we don't particularly like Celine Dion but, honestly, the words to "Because You Loved Me" fit mom so well.  As I've said before, mom raised us almost completely on her own.  She was our constant and our home.  So we did choose an obvious, sappy, cliched song - deal with it.

It's been more than seven months since she died and everyone was right.  It hurts just as much.  I'm just a little better at doing other things while hurting.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as we did.  I haven't actually sat and watched the slide show since the visitation, so I'm going to do it at well.

Hello October!

I do not know why I feel so good this morning.  By all rights, I should not.  But I've learned, slowly, that when life feels good, you'd damn sure better sit up and take notice and appreciate it.

Mom's birthday is one week from today and I know that it's going to be really sad.  She'd have been 65.  It's another facet that feels so wrong to me - from now on our age gap is no longer fixed.  My mom will not remain 20 years older than I am; she will always be 64.  I hate that each day, she becomes a smaller percentage of my experiences.  Does that make any sense to you?  What if I don't want to move on?  What if it feels disloyal to not think of her very first thing, very last thing of each day?  It doesn't get easier, it's true.  But finding a way to live with it and just maybe, one day, finding a way to make it all make some difference, makes it tolerable.

This week I made an apology to someone I hurt in the past.  Sometimes amends are overrated.  I guess I was feeling so good about what happened in Houston and felt that anything was possible,  which is just not the case.  My warm and open feelings towards the truck driver and his wonderful family did not translate into this particular person finding much redeemable in ME, and it frankly hurt, which means I'm still not the magnanimous person I aim to be.  I wanted to defend myself, to expound, to say, "Oh yeah? Well what about this?  Did you know this?"  Being demonized is really not a lot of fun.  Dropping it is always a challenge for me.  My family says I'm like Claire on Modern Family - I always have to be right.  HUH UH!  Let me prove it to you..... haha.

I've done the best I could and I know I'm a passably good person.  If you can find me someone who, if his or her worst choices were public knowledge, wouldn't be ashamed, I'd be amazed.  I'm through letting my shortcomings and people who knew me from the darkest days of relapse define me because they never did and never will know the person I actually am.  Maybe amends ARE useful, if only for separating the wheat from the chaff in life's experiences.

I love my friends!  My husband!  My children!  My bigger family!  I am excited to be getting back on the horse of my life.  Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts,  library, reading, sunshine, exercise, grief group, recover, my dog!  Oops, I left out the cat.  Stupid cat.  Most likely I will end up in tears at some point today and that's okay too.  Most days I have a cry.  But if I start to have more hours without tears, that's a good thing and I'll take it.

Last night we went to watch this Champions of Tennis thing and got to see Agassi, Chang, Courier and Martin play and it was so fun!  Laughing, excited - and then tears falling when I remembered I couldn't call Mom later to tell her about it.  It just turns on a dime.  But for many months, I didn't even have the laughing and excited part happening, so it's a good thing.  Next week we have dinner with our excellent group of friends - Fall Harvest theme - and there is a lot to look forward to in the beauty of a Minnesota fall.  I'm going to bookmark this one to reread when I'm feeling like total crap next.