Two years ago on your 57th birthday I sent you our favorite cake in the form of cupcakes, wedged between foil in Tupperware containers. Dad put a pink candle in one and took a picture of you holding it. I love that picture, despite how bittersweet it felt even a month later.
It seems funny that I only spent 29 of your 57 birthdays with you. I always did have a hard time believing you existed before me. Despite how narcissistic that may sound, I had not seen a single day in this world without you until last September. It was impossible for me to believe I'd never have another.
And still, it is the thought that crushes me, just as it was the fear of it so soon after that 57 birthday. When I can stay in the sun of a warm November day or get lost in a memory of you smiling, laughing, and living, I am with you again. I can celebrate with you again today as we've done for so many years. And I can feel your excitement and pure joy in knowing that your granddaughter will be a big sister sometime next summer. Our little family, the one I feared would certainly shatter when you left us, is growing Mom! You have a son-in-law and he and I have a new niece, born the Friday after our wedding. And our wedding... Mom, you were everywhere!
And so I will celebrate your 59th birthday today with you while I bake the white cake with chocolate frosting, sprinkles, and pink candles. And I will stay with you here in today, just as it is, so I can spend one more November 14th with the person I still cannot imagine living without.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Sunrise One Year Later
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
A Strong but Gentle Wind
Where the cusp of summer meets the fall
There is a stillness now.
It settles into this fragile branch
and rests beneath its bow.
It was a year ago this breeze swept in
to leave me restless with a knowing,
that much to which I clung so tight,
would vanish with its blowing.
Such a heavy grace that I recall,
its patience strong and steady,
a messenger who sat quite silent,
and waited at the ready.
Amidst the bluster and bluish sky,
it stung my catching breath,
I recognize its gentle hand
that wisely gestured death.
When summer's sky lends to a fold,
And the sun's warm earth begins to chill,
memory balances outside the window,
and sits upon my sill.
Just like clockwork, it sidles up,
with a lonely persistent stare,
and waits for me to realize
that it is still standing there.
There is a stillness now.
It settles into this fragile branch
and rests beneath its bow.
It was a year ago this breeze swept in
to leave me restless with a knowing,
that much to which I clung so tight,
would vanish with its blowing.
Such a heavy grace that I recall,
its patience strong and steady,
a messenger who sat quite silent,
and waited at the ready.
Amidst the bluster and bluish sky,
it stung my catching breath,
I recognize its gentle hand
that wisely gestured death.
When summer's sky lends to a fold,
And the sun's warm earth begins to chill,
memory balances outside the window,
and sits upon my sill.
Just like clockwork, it sidles up,
with a lonely persistent stare,
and waits for me to realize
that it is still standing there.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Few of Your Favorite Things
Walking through life without you a phone call, email, or road trip away, I find myself mesmerized by your love of life and your salt of the earth needs and desires. People tend to remember others as saints after they die, and I know just how disgusted you would be if you thought I'd speak of you in such a contrived, superficial manner. You would laugh and say something like, "oh, yes, I am your sainted mother" in the holiest of tones.
That said, the image of you that I carry from a magical, clumsy childhood, as an obnoxious, out of control teenager, and through the eyes of a disillusioned, stumbling adult, is one of warmth and a love that cannot be expressed in words. Your image in my mind and in my soul is one of genuine, complete, and imperfectly perfect humanity. I know what it means to smile on the inside and I feel it every time I see one of your favorite things.
You were thrilled by the color the sky turns and the way the clouds move right before a storm... just as the last of the humid air gets swept away by a changing wind.
Chester, the yellow lab on the corner of East Hill Road and Gracey, always gives Dad the most love and affection, but you were the one who sought him out and called his name on long walks.
You loved our small town and would have lived there happily for a thousand more years... on the top of a mountain where no one delivers pizza and every bicycle ride starts on a terrific slope and ends with a tired push of the handlebars.
When Jeff and I were young you would make us pancakes for dinner when Dad went on business trips and tell us to never let you get too serious, or we'd have to remind you to "live a little".
There was nothing like a nap after work on the worn out couch with a worn out old comforter or our Christmas night campouts under the tree between opened presents and balled up paper and bows.
Even after you fractured your ankle on Jeff's "killer bee" skateboard going down the driveway, you insisted on showing me how you could jump up and click your ankles together twice on that icy walk in the dead of winter... and still laughed about it in the Emergency Room afterward as they taped that same right ankle.
Although the idea of having house guests made your hair stand on end with anxiety, you always said as they were leaving that we should have people over more often.
And the hamsters, rabbits, and pets we begged you for growing up always ended up in your care and somewhere deep in your heart... like the hamster with gangrene that you took to the vet for 48 stitches only to die the next day, or the turtle I caught that you set free after putting me to bed because you couldn't stand to think of it out there in its box all night.
These are the things that I think about and remember most from day to day... the littlest things that made you smile... fresh sheets from the clothesline, swimming out past the waves in the ocean, walking barefoot through the yard and across the broken brick walkway to the front door... washing and waxing your first and only new car (that is now mine) in the driveway, eating the best cheeseburger on the island with me in Chincoteague for days in a row, staying in your PJ's until noon and making us the world's best sourdough pancakes...
Most of all, you loved us. We were your favorite things and you told us and showed us quite often. At the end of the day, when I hear the "All Things Considered" music and smell my own dinner cooking, it is not the memory of the past that resonates as much as it is the awareness of a love so withstanding and so breathtakingly perfect that it will forever be in my present.
That said, the image of you that I carry from a magical, clumsy childhood, as an obnoxious, out of control teenager, and through the eyes of a disillusioned, stumbling adult, is one of warmth and a love that cannot be expressed in words. Your image in my mind and in my soul is one of genuine, complete, and imperfectly perfect humanity. I know what it means to smile on the inside and I feel it every time I see one of your favorite things.
You were thrilled by the color the sky turns and the way the clouds move right before a storm... just as the last of the humid air gets swept away by a changing wind.
Chester, the yellow lab on the corner of East Hill Road and Gracey, always gives Dad the most love and affection, but you were the one who sought him out and called his name on long walks.
You loved our small town and would have lived there happily for a thousand more years... on the top of a mountain where no one delivers pizza and every bicycle ride starts on a terrific slope and ends with a tired push of the handlebars.
When Jeff and I were young you would make us pancakes for dinner when Dad went on business trips and tell us to never let you get too serious, or we'd have to remind you to "live a little".
There was nothing like a nap after work on the worn out couch with a worn out old comforter or our Christmas night campouts under the tree between opened presents and balled up paper and bows.
Even after you fractured your ankle on Jeff's "killer bee" skateboard going down the driveway, you insisted on showing me how you could jump up and click your ankles together twice on that icy walk in the dead of winter... and still laughed about it in the Emergency Room afterward as they taped that same right ankle.
Although the idea of having house guests made your hair stand on end with anxiety, you always said as they were leaving that we should have people over more often.
And the hamsters, rabbits, and pets we begged you for growing up always ended up in your care and somewhere deep in your heart... like the hamster with gangrene that you took to the vet for 48 stitches only to die the next day, or the turtle I caught that you set free after putting me to bed because you couldn't stand to think of it out there in its box all night.
These are the things that I think about and remember most from day to day... the littlest things that made you smile... fresh sheets from the clothesline, swimming out past the waves in the ocean, walking barefoot through the yard and across the broken brick walkway to the front door... washing and waxing your first and only new car (that is now mine) in the driveway, eating the best cheeseburger on the island with me in Chincoteague for days in a row, staying in your PJ's until noon and making us the world's best sourdough pancakes...
Most of all, you loved us. We were your favorite things and you told us and showed us quite often. At the end of the day, when I hear the "All Things Considered" music and smell my own dinner cooking, it is not the memory of the past that resonates as much as it is the awareness of a love so withstanding and so breathtakingly perfect that it will forever be in my present.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Good Stuff
There's so much of it... so many days and years of memories that I can capture with all of my senses so strongly. I'm afraid to fall asleep sometimes or shift my thoughts, as though I might lose one more piece if I do.
I think to myself constantly that I need to write them down... and then I don't... because every time I have a perfect memory you are here with me, and then I have to lose you all over again. Maybe I can make those moments more lasting if I do put them in writing, though, and that is worth the sadness that finds me wherever I go anyway.
When I close my eyes and think of you, I always picture your hands first. I'm not sure why. You used to tell me that you would look at your mother's hands as she grew older and it took you aback to see them age so much. Maybe I see them because they were the only the things that stopped changing when you got sick. You still held my hand as tight as you ever did and your hands were always beautiful. I'm glad that mine sometimes remind me of yours and even those deep ridges in your fingernails... I used to run my fingertips against each of them. Now I can reach down and feel every groove on my own hands.
And with the change of every season, you are everywhere. When we opened the windows this spring I was hit with the best of deja vu. I can feel myself in that tiny twin bed in my old room at home, lazily sleeping in beneath cool sheets. And you come climb into bed with me, like always. It's ridiculously small for two people and I have to grab you tight to keep from rolling off the edge. You love these mornings and, as much as I hate to wake up, it's always been my favorite way to inch out of dreamland.
Coming home last month made all of this more real. I guess there is some part of me that always thinks I'm coming home to you. And the closer we got to Christmas Tree Hill, the more the lump in my throat throbbed. I can see you running down the front steps in your bare feet to meet me at the car. I can feel you hugging me and telling me at least once every three or four minutes how glad you are to have me home. And I can hear your voice... and how you say my name... "Meg?" "Megan Began..." "Megan Liz!"
You're at the kitchen sink and you're biting your pinkie nail with your wrist twisted backward on the blue chair in the living room. You're up at night reading when I get home from Esther's or Caitlin's and you can't wait to talk... even at 2am. You're yelling from another room for me to help you find your glasses or singing in the kitchen and begging me to come sing with you, even though you knew I'd get so embarrassed to sing aloud.
And you're not sick in my memories... not the good ones.... not the ones I intend to keep forever. You're always bouncing around or snuggling with me. You're smiling and laughing and telling me how proud of me you are, even when I do something stupid. You laugh and tell me how much I remind you of you.
I can see you perfectly, Mama. When I wear the purple shirt I got you for Christmas years ago... the one that says "Not all who wander are lost", I can smell your smell... like the inside of a wooden chest with the permanence of home. When your hands reach out to me, they don't grab me like they did so many times when you were sick and so frightened. They hold me tight and they rest on my cheek lightly on a spring morning. That is how I remember you best... frosting me head to toe in sunblock on the beach in Chincoteague, brushing my hair and telling me how lucky I am to have such "gorgeous hair" until I squirm away and yell at you for brushing my ear. I see your hands rolling the sweet roll dough a few days before Christmas, putting out nectar for the hummingbirds while you balance on one foot over the deck railing, reaching out to slam on the non-existant hand brake on the passenger side when I drive too close to someone. I can hear you calling for "Jeffrey Paul, Boogsie, and Jamesy" from the bottom of the stairs with grocery bags in both arms, so happy to be home from work and with your family. And I can see your fingers wrapped around a wine glass, opening a cupboard or the medicine cabinet, unwrapping a Christmas ornament to put on the tree, and doing that 70's finger thing you do when you like the music... your glasses perched on your nose and your lips tight with a mysterious smile.
You're right here with me tonight and always.
I think to myself constantly that I need to write them down... and then I don't... because every time I have a perfect memory you are here with me, and then I have to lose you all over again. Maybe I can make those moments more lasting if I do put them in writing, though, and that is worth the sadness that finds me wherever I go anyway.
When I close my eyes and think of you, I always picture your hands first. I'm not sure why. You used to tell me that you would look at your mother's hands as she grew older and it took you aback to see them age so much. Maybe I see them because they were the only the things that stopped changing when you got sick. You still held my hand as tight as you ever did and your hands were always beautiful. I'm glad that mine sometimes remind me of yours and even those deep ridges in your fingernails... I used to run my fingertips against each of them. Now I can reach down and feel every groove on my own hands.
And with the change of every season, you are everywhere. When we opened the windows this spring I was hit with the best of deja vu. I can feel myself in that tiny twin bed in my old room at home, lazily sleeping in beneath cool sheets. And you come climb into bed with me, like always. It's ridiculously small for two people and I have to grab you tight to keep from rolling off the edge. You love these mornings and, as much as I hate to wake up, it's always been my favorite way to inch out of dreamland.
Coming home last month made all of this more real. I guess there is some part of me that always thinks I'm coming home to you. And the closer we got to Christmas Tree Hill, the more the lump in my throat throbbed. I can see you running down the front steps in your bare feet to meet me at the car. I can feel you hugging me and telling me at least once every three or four minutes how glad you are to have me home. And I can hear your voice... and how you say my name... "Meg?" "Megan Began..." "Megan Liz!"
You're at the kitchen sink and you're biting your pinkie nail with your wrist twisted backward on the blue chair in the living room. You're up at night reading when I get home from Esther's or Caitlin's and you can't wait to talk... even at 2am. You're yelling from another room for me to help you find your glasses or singing in the kitchen and begging me to come sing with you, even though you knew I'd get so embarrassed to sing aloud.
And you're not sick in my memories... not the good ones.... not the ones I intend to keep forever. You're always bouncing around or snuggling with me. You're smiling and laughing and telling me how proud of me you are, even when I do something stupid. You laugh and tell me how much I remind you of you.
I can see you perfectly, Mama. When I wear the purple shirt I got you for Christmas years ago... the one that says "Not all who wander are lost", I can smell your smell... like the inside of a wooden chest with the permanence of home. When your hands reach out to me, they don't grab me like they did so many times when you were sick and so frightened. They hold me tight and they rest on my cheek lightly on a spring morning. That is how I remember you best... frosting me head to toe in sunblock on the beach in Chincoteague, brushing my hair and telling me how lucky I am to have such "gorgeous hair" until I squirm away and yell at you for brushing my ear. I see your hands rolling the sweet roll dough a few days before Christmas, putting out nectar for the hummingbirds while you balance on one foot over the deck railing, reaching out to slam on the non-existant hand brake on the passenger side when I drive too close to someone. I can hear you calling for "Jeffrey Paul, Boogsie, and Jamesy" from the bottom of the stairs with grocery bags in both arms, so happy to be home from work and with your family. And I can see your fingers wrapped around a wine glass, opening a cupboard or the medicine cabinet, unwrapping a Christmas ornament to put on the tree, and doing that 70's finger thing you do when you like the music... your glasses perched on your nose and your lips tight with a mysterious smile.
You're right here with me tonight and always.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Quilt of Life... Mama Marian's Square
For the McLean Hospice Interfaith Memorial Service & Reception ("Legacy Quilt")
"Creating the Quilt of Life... A Remembrance of Our Loved Ones... A million fibers connect us..."
Saturday, March 13, 2010
I Hate that You're Not Here
I can't stand this anymore. I cried so hard on the way home tonight that my nose bled all over... and then my contact got balled up and lodged in the back of my eye. And the dog's been whining ever since I got home but I can't stop crying. I'm a big mess and nothing makes it any better. You're the one person I want to talk to, to sob all over, to hug me and tell me "this too shall pass". Mom, where are you???? I hate that I'm so alone, that everything feels so small, like it will never be enough, it will never be you. I don't know what to do with myself on these days. I'm trying to keep busy... working, going to the gym, planning this wedding... but the quiet and the emptiness squeeze themselves right on in between. And I remember the realness, the permanence, the absolute heartache of the hole you left behind. I can't believe you're gone. I can't believe I don't have a mom. My days are filled with constant reminders of you and us. I'm trying so hard to remember how lucky I am to have had a mom like you... but it's not enough sometimes and I can't help but fall apart.
You were too big, too important to just disappear. You were too much of my everything to just suddenly not be. I've lived for so long just knowing you'd be there; I never had to wonder what would happen when you wouldn't be anymore. And, even if I had, there was time left... plenty of time... for you to be at my wedding and at the birth of my children, for us to snuggle under the Christmas tree on Christmas night like we've always done, for three hour long phone calls and the annual "girl's weekend" in DC, for life and everything that is left to see and do. I look back on pictures of us just a little over a year ago and am so jealous of those people. I want that life back more than anything I've ever wanted. And the frustration of it all just comes back around when I realize once again that there isn't a thing i can do about it.
I'm going to keep on doing everything I can to heal, to keep on living, just like I promised I would. But this is really hard, Mom and I miss you with every part of myself.
You were too big, too important to just disappear. You were too much of my everything to just suddenly not be. I've lived for so long just knowing you'd be there; I never had to wonder what would happen when you wouldn't be anymore. And, even if I had, there was time left... plenty of time... for you to be at my wedding and at the birth of my children, for us to snuggle under the Christmas tree on Christmas night like we've always done, for three hour long phone calls and the annual "girl's weekend" in DC, for life and everything that is left to see and do. I look back on pictures of us just a little over a year ago and am so jealous of those people. I want that life back more than anything I've ever wanted. And the frustration of it all just comes back around when I realize once again that there isn't a thing i can do about it.
I'm going to keep on doing everything I can to heal, to keep on living, just like I promised I would. But this is really hard, Mom and I miss you with every part of myself.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
One of Those Things
I have something to tell you... all the time. I know this is going to crack you up and we will laugh about it for years to come... Only YOU would appreciate this... So, remember that time?
Quite honestly, this happens at least 30 times a day. I go to talk to you, to call you, to email you. I push aside little thoughts and observations to tell you later. I know exactly how you'll respond, what you will say... how you will feel.
And then there comes that hollow again. It's like an echo in an empty house, a drop-in-the-bucket kind of sensation that feels just as unreal as it did five months ago.
Those moments are the absolute worst of it, Mom. They don't always last long but they are always the same size. They hit with the same force. And suddenly what all of those people kept saying makes sense... It doesn't get easier it just gets different.
I'm amazed by how much I hurt. And the irony in what I want most makes the hurt like a cut that won't heal, because it's you I need to tell and it's you I want to know.
You would be so sad for me, Mom. You would hurt for me just as you have always done. And we would slowly start to hurt less as we carried the pain together. For some reason, it's always been easier to let go when I see you try to carry the weight... Only then do I understand that it cannot be carried by either of us and so we must put it down together.
Mom, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing a lot of the time. I'm still doing it, though, just like I know you would want. Sometimes I think about those old women who never learn to drive or balance a checkbook until they are left stranded when their husbands die. I always thought to myself that I'd learn to do everything I could along the way so that would never happen to me. And then I lost my best friend. Suddenly learning to balance a checkbook at the age of 85 doesn't seem half-bad.
Some days I'm like a fish on a bicycle. And I have to remind myself that a whole is more the sum of all of its parts. I can be whole no matter where you are.
Quite honestly, this happens at least 30 times a day. I go to talk to you, to call you, to email you. I push aside little thoughts and observations to tell you later. I know exactly how you'll respond, what you will say... how you will feel.
And then there comes that hollow again. It's like an echo in an empty house, a drop-in-the-bucket kind of sensation that feels just as unreal as it did five months ago.
Those moments are the absolute worst of it, Mom. They don't always last long but they are always the same size. They hit with the same force. And suddenly what all of those people kept saying makes sense... It doesn't get easier it just gets different.
I'm amazed by how much I hurt. And the irony in what I want most makes the hurt like a cut that won't heal, because it's you I need to tell and it's you I want to know.
You would be so sad for me, Mom. You would hurt for me just as you have always done. And we would slowly start to hurt less as we carried the pain together. For some reason, it's always been easier to let go when I see you try to carry the weight... Only then do I understand that it cannot be carried by either of us and so we must put it down together.
Mom, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing a lot of the time. I'm still doing it, though, just like I know you would want. Sometimes I think about those old women who never learn to drive or balance a checkbook until they are left stranded when their husbands die. I always thought to myself that I'd learn to do everything I could along the way so that would never happen to me. And then I lost my best friend. Suddenly learning to balance a checkbook at the age of 85 doesn't seem half-bad.
Some days I'm like a fish on a bicycle. And I have to remind myself that a whole is more the sum of all of its parts. I can be whole no matter where you are.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Dear Mom
Sometime last month, shortly after our first snowfall, I found you again. For the first time in so long I was able to close my eyes and not see you dying... I could settle into bed without feeling the searing pain and desperation. And I began to feel you everywhere.
It took a few weeks for me to realize that the flashbacks and the trauma of the last year had begun to fade. I had grown accustomed to the ever-present emptiness during the daytime, only to be replaced with terror and sadness waiting on my pillow at night. The release was not anything I expected or have felt before. And there have even been moments since in which I have felt so filled up with you that my loneliness and my doubts seemed suddenly weightless.
When I think back on these moments there is a peace that I feel, no matter how frightening and heartbroken the hours before might seem. And I know that you are real and forever in a way I could not have imagined. It is not what I thought and it is not what I had wanted, but it is right and it is real in itself.
I've been sketching my memory of you every day since and there are times I want to write it all down in case it takes on the fade of an old photograph over time. I know that it's not possible to do, but there are things I cannot bear to lose and I refuse to believe that my children will not see them as vividly as I. Your voice, your laughter, the feel of your smile all around... the way you seem to almost bounce instead of walk through many memories. Of course I remember the other parts too... anger in your eyes, desperation in your words, fear that shook you to the core at times; but now I can remember beyond the sick and terrifying days of last year and that is a gift in itself.
Somehow, we survived Christmas. Taking out the boxes of ornaments, artifacts from Jeff's and my childhood you'd kept, and everything wrapped and marked with your writing made your absence so real all over again. I remember coming home from the hospital that Saturday last November when you were diagnosed, feeling so exhausted from sobbing and holding onto you so hard. I went to lie down on your side of the bed and I thought I might go crazy right then and there. The thought that our house would not be our house without you, your bed would not be your bed... how could I continue to be alive if you would not? My life exists because of you and your life... so how, how could it be that I might go on if you had to stop? Decorating the house for Christmas this year was like lying in your bed that day, except I couldn't do what I did last November. I couldn't get in the car and drive right back to you and hold on for dear life. Instead I grabbed onto what I have of you now and promised you that I would hold on anyway for you and for me, for Dad, and for Jeff.
I like to think of what you might say to me in any given moment. Most days, I believe that I know exactly what it would be and just how you might say it. That keeps me going, Mama. There are things that I can only do for you when I can't do them for myself and they always end up being the right things. No matter how difficult that is some days, I know that I can do it for you, just as you did it for me for 29 years.
It took a few weeks for me to realize that the flashbacks and the trauma of the last year had begun to fade. I had grown accustomed to the ever-present emptiness during the daytime, only to be replaced with terror and sadness waiting on my pillow at night. The release was not anything I expected or have felt before. And there have even been moments since in which I have felt so filled up with you that my loneliness and my doubts seemed suddenly weightless.
When I think back on these moments there is a peace that I feel, no matter how frightening and heartbroken the hours before might seem. And I know that you are real and forever in a way I could not have imagined. It is not what I thought and it is not what I had wanted, but it is right and it is real in itself.
I've been sketching my memory of you every day since and there are times I want to write it all down in case it takes on the fade of an old photograph over time. I know that it's not possible to do, but there are things I cannot bear to lose and I refuse to believe that my children will not see them as vividly as I. Your voice, your laughter, the feel of your smile all around... the way you seem to almost bounce instead of walk through many memories. Of course I remember the other parts too... anger in your eyes, desperation in your words, fear that shook you to the core at times; but now I can remember beyond the sick and terrifying days of last year and that is a gift in itself.
Somehow, we survived Christmas. Taking out the boxes of ornaments, artifacts from Jeff's and my childhood you'd kept, and everything wrapped and marked with your writing made your absence so real all over again. I remember coming home from the hospital that Saturday last November when you were diagnosed, feeling so exhausted from sobbing and holding onto you so hard. I went to lie down on your side of the bed and I thought I might go crazy right then and there. The thought that our house would not be our house without you, your bed would not be your bed... how could I continue to be alive if you would not? My life exists because of you and your life... so how, how could it be that I might go on if you had to stop? Decorating the house for Christmas this year was like lying in your bed that day, except I couldn't do what I did last November. I couldn't get in the car and drive right back to you and hold on for dear life. Instead I grabbed onto what I have of you now and promised you that I would hold on anyway for you and for me, for Dad, and for Jeff.
I like to think of what you might say to me in any given moment. Most days, I believe that I know exactly what it would be and just how you might say it. That keeps me going, Mama. There are things that I can only do for you when I can't do them for myself and they always end up being the right things. No matter how difficult that is some days, I know that I can do it for you, just as you did it for me for 29 years.
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