Wednesday with Jen

Wednesday with Jen  8/22/12

It had been a few months since I visited my old friend, Jen in her assisted living residence (aka nursing home) in Hillsborough, NC. I don’t know how the time passed this spring and summer, but it did and in the meantime, Jen had turned 81. I felt bad about not visiting all summer.  I had an appointment at UNC Chapel Hill in the dental school, so I decided I would just head to Hillsborough following that.  Guilt came along with that decision, since it was my twin sons’ 14^th birthday and we had a dinner party planned for that night.  I knew I would be racing against the clock to make it home for dinner in time, but something pulled me towards my visit to Jen and there was nothing that could stop me, it seemed.

I always get this nervous feeling as I approach a residence like this and I daresay, the fact that I have to go into the Memory Impaired section, a locked unit, makes me even more anxious.  But, there was Jen sitting in a wheelchair at the nurse’s station.  She had shrunk even more since I last saw her and with her sunken deep set eyes, grayish skin tone, and swollen feet and legs, she appeared frail. I had been warned by my friend, Lesley (who visits weekly) and told that Jen really was “ready to go.” 

So, immediately, Jen recognized me, lit up and hugged me saying, “Oh Ann, I’m so happy to see you. Let’s go outside!”  Okay then, I thought, and I pushed her wheelchair to the outside garden, pulled up a chair and sat close.  Looking into Jen’s lovely grey eyes, I saw a glaze and a blankness that I didn’t remember being there.  She told me frankly that she was tired and ready to die.  I asked her what that felt like and she said that the TIA (doctor jargon for “small strokes”) were taking their toll and that as soon as she would get back her memory and word recall, she would be hit with another TIA.  “I cannot tell my children this,” she said, “because they want me to live and they are afraid of my dying, so I don’t tell them, but I am telling you.  My daughter in Connecticut thinks she cannot go on without me and that she won’t be able to make decisions without me, but she is smart and I reassured her that she would be fine.”  I sighed and some uncontrollable tears rolled down my cheeks.  I fought hard to be strong and just listen, unbiased and unemotional, but that proved impossible.  However, I really was accepting of what she was telling me and she seemed to appreciate that. And then, we moved on and our conversation grew cheerful and sharp.

We spoke of fashion and of shoes and of styles. Of I Miller shoes and how she wished she had a good pair of size 10’s but that she was sure they were out of business by now. They are indeed, and have been since the 1970’s.  We spoke of my sons and their problems.  We gossiped about people we knew from Raleigh and Jen would just cover her eyes, head in hands over the most outrageous of the behaviors. Then, when she was finished with her moment of disbelief, we would throw our heads back, laughing.  She remembered the minutest details.  We spoke of the widowed deacon whom I suspect many older women hoped to become involved with.  I did not realize that Jen had brought him dinner a few times.  “Yes, she said, “he so clearly did not want to get involved with me.  Why I even brought him salmon for dinner and well, that was the one time he invited me to sit down and share the meal.”  We spoke of the rector from the church we’d both attended and how her life had so drastically changed as a result of a stroke as well.  Jen confessed that in actuality she never really felt as though she was in the inner circle of the rector and her close friends.  It was indeed, a popularity contest, we agreed.

She raved about the women who come to visit her every week and the “small sandwiches they bring.”  “After all,” she said, “who wants to eat a big meal when you’re just sitting around?”  I agreed. She told me that they are fun and nice and care for her and that it means so much to her. Then, she said to me, “Don’t ever feel bad about not coming to see me often.  It is really okay.  I know you care. And, I know you “always show up.”  This has been our mantra of connection.  We have both always respected that about each other – we knew that at every event, at every funeral or wedding, we would both show up.  We would look at each other and nod in acknowledgment of “Yep, you showed up again and so did I!”

I asked her, “Jen, what do you miss most?”  She sighed, closed her eyes and said, “I guess my freedom would be it and my car and driving. But I am really okay being here.  I am not angry and am not fighting it. It is okay. I have had all these strokes and this is how it is.”  I asked her about her husband whom I had never heard of.  They have been divorced for a very long time and when I asked her why, she said, “He really didn’t care about me at all.  He is 86 and has Alzheimers now.”  She smiled a smile of irony.

Jen told me that when she heard about a family moving to Raleigh (in 1993,) coming to her church from Southampton, Long Island, she thought to herself, “Wow, they must be very rich and very chic.”  She was surprised to find that we were neither!  One thing we can always laugh about is the fact that when she came to help me with my newborn twins in 1998, she asked where the babies’ cribs were. “Cribs?” I asked.  “We don’t have cribs. We co-sleep.”  She never got over the shock and never stopped relating this story to others.  We have laughed about this many times and yesterday she said, “Truth be told, I couldn’t believe that you didn’t ‘crush them”  I roared laughing this time.  “Crushed them???  Oh my!” I said.

We talked some more about our old friend the deacon to whom she had brought a salmon dinner and how eloquent he is.  He was an English professor and I believe that he is almost tortured by his mind and his language that is so far beyond the average person.  Jen said, “I used to use very big words, but there is no one here to use them with, so now I am forgetting them.  “Oh no,” I said, “let’s think of some big words and use them right now.  So we did, and we laughed some more.  We decided that we were two very sophisticated women simply by virtue of the fact that she moved from Connecticut and I moved from Long Island.  We really liked that about each other. It was simple and it was pure… just two women, many years apart in age, admiring each other.

We talked about the fat socks she was wearing and of the wrapping on her legs to stop the swelling.  “It is my heart” she said, “it is not working and the water is building up in me – 40 something – liters? Quarts” I don’t know but it is a lot. I looked at Jen and wondered, just when does one begin to deteriorate this way?  When do a woman's breasts deflate or move down to join the belly? Does it happen on a certain day or always gradually?  "I am closer now to my children, because they come and visit me a lot and the daughter in Connecticut is coming soon. My daughter who lives here is so loving, and we struggled with our relationship for years.  But, not anymore. I love her so much,” she said. "I have a great son who I love as well and he will come to visit me soon too.”

I began to worry about traffic as it was getting near 5 pm and I had a long way to go.  “Oh Jen, I said,  I need to go for Sam and Will’s birthday dinner.”  “Of course, she said, “You do need to go. I understand. It is fine. How could those little babies be 14?” I wheeled her back into the nurse’s station area and asked a woman who walked by to take a picture of us.  I hugged Jen so tightly and held her hand. I love the photo!  The woman who took our picture turned out to be the director of the facility and I said, “My friend Jen is a very smart woman.  Be sure and involve her in things that make her have to use her brain and her great vocabulary.”  “Sure will, “ she said. Jen said, “Oh, I love that.”  And then, I hugged her again and made note of the fact that we had matching green lizard watch straps!  We looked deep into each others eyes and I said, “Oh Jen, you’ve been such a good friend.”  She said, “We really connect with each other. We always have. And, I love you.”  “I love you too,” I said, “Goodbye Jen.”  I knew.....

I drove home feeling guilty and rushed and had to take all kinds of detours to circumvent one traffic jam after another.  Instead of 45 minutes home, it took an hour and a half.  I got home in time for dinner and a birthday celebration, so it was fine.

I know now that God led me by the hand to show up one more time on Wednesday.  I am so grateful that I did not wait.  Jen had a major stroke this morning, is unresponsive and is in Hospice care this evening. I will show up one more time, and it seems it will be soon.  Farewell, Jen.  I have learned many things from you……

Crazies in Raleigh

CRAZIES IN RALEIGH

I saw more than enough mental illness this morning.  I mean, it was in full bloom as I stood on Wilmington Street, in front of Café Wilmoore, waiting to meet my friend for coffee.  There was a quick drug exchange hand to hand. There was a yelling woman who sat on the ground saying she was tired.  I was a bit scared of her as she looked at me and said, “Don’t you dare look at me, sister, I’m f’in tired!”  She sucked deeply on a cigarette butt that had little or no tobacco left.  Smoking on a filter. I looked away.  Then, a man with terror in his eyes and very long dreadlocks, lit up a cigarette and came face to face with me and said, “They found my cousin last night. They found her body, but not her clothes. She was 26 and they found her in Wilson. She’s dead. Somebody killed her.  My relatives are coming from New York. I don’t believe in violence but well, they have to kill the guy who killed her.”  “Oh dear,” I said.  “I drank a bottle of vodka last night because you know, I was crying.  This is a crazy, crazy, angry world,” he said.  I looked at all the keloid scars on his chest that looked like old knife wounds, agreed with him about the crazy world and felt so sad.

The streets downtown, are full of crazies and I wonder why there is no place for them to go? Why is there not a place for help, for beauty, for state of the art help to nurture and help these folks back to life?  Why are the powers that be talking about making a big park on the old Dorothea Dix property?  It was once a psychiatric hospital and should be again.  One that is the envy of the entire country.  One that restores the sanity to the broken and lost.  One that hires all the smart and caring talent who can do just that.  How can we think of doing anything less? Where do I begin?  I know that the bureaucracy will drown me quickly, but don’t I have to at least try?  I’ll give it a try…..

Helen Gurley Brown

               

No one told me Helen Gurley Brown had died a couple of weeks ago.  I am not sure how I missed that.  Oddly, she is one of those infamous women who I Google periodically and often checked her images to see how she was keeping up her looks as she aged.  It wasn’t pretty and frankly, she was odd looking. sort of all pieced together.  But, I think I knew where she was coming from. A desperate attempt to keep up an image of the “The Cosmo Girl” she had created was required, even when there was not a shred of “girl” left in her.

The 1970’s were my apex.  I was in my twenties in the 70’s, and I was abloom in all ways.  I had graduated from The Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in Buying and Merchandising.  At the time, if you wanted to become “anything” in the fashion industry, this was THEE degree you coveted.  That is precisely what I wanted to do in New York City and in the world. Check. 

I held a job all through high school and college years beginning, in the children’s wear wholesale district.  Although I worked for a depraved, bipolar woman named, Priscilla, I learned important techniques of designing, displaying, selling, and accommodating buyers from large department stores all over the country.  Priscilla had us underlings making these tuna salad plates, for the buyers when they would come to “market”.  I remember plucking out the white asparagus from a can with my fingers, along with cornichons next to pimento on the side, with a plopped can of white tuna in the middle.  We served Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies for dessert with some pink petit fours.  None of this was assembled in any sort of sterile way, but then, food in New York, even in some of the best restaurants, never really is.  Sanitation Grade standards are different for New Yorkers, I suppose.  Anyway, Priscilla would ooze and gush emotion with her customers to the point of making me nauseated.  She was a big, boisterous Jewish New Yorker who would effuse this odd, Texas accent of a petite southern belle, when she felt it appropriate.  It never was.  The firm was Texas based and so this was the connection she made.  Buffy and Jody of Family Affair television fame, were dressed in the company’s Betti Terrell clothing which made Priscilla feel like even more of a celebrity. She would have these mood outbursts where she would go from being your biggest fan to acting like she planned to tear you to shreds.  It was very scary and very unpredictable. Being as I’d lived with a bipolar mother, working with a bipolar woman was not exactly foreign territory for me.

After my children’s wear foray, I found myself much happier in the accessories industry.  All things ethnic were booming, along with bullet belts and Marakesh handbags.  I worked in the showroom for Michael Murray Designs and was involved in some of the jewelry, scarf, handbag, and screen-printing creations.  The head designer was Larry, a drugged out clone of Stephen Tyler, but he was kind and very talented. He and I put bullet belt samples together until our fingers bled and until we had enough samples for the accessory buyers in Macys, Altmans, Lord and Taylor, Saks, Henri Bendel,  Bergodorf, Bloomingdales, and Gimbels. The whole accessory market was a more normal venue and one where I could really learn design and sales in a thriving industry. 

Finding my way in the 60’s and 70’s included getting my own apartment in Richmond Hill, Queens, NY.  I lived alone in a two family house at the age of 16, before I finished high school and continued to live alone in other apartments in Queens for the next 10 years.  I read every fashion magazine and I loved the changes that were happening for women in that turbulent time.  Cosmopolitan was the magazine I waited for each month and devoured from cover to cover.  The Francesco Scavullo photos on the cover were mesmerizing for me.  These were hot models, not celebrities and they were about the same age as me.  I too, loved wearing tight clothes, mini skirts, my favorite pair of “see-through pants,” platform shoes, and anything else that was sexy and fashion forward.  The articles in Cosmo were racy, but not nearly as they became in later years.  They were more typically about “how to hold onto your man” than vivid and detailed descriptions of how to please your man in bed. 

So, Helen Gurley Brown became my guru.  I hung onto her every word.  I loved to listen to her, to emulate her, and to follow her escapades in successful journalism. 

She espoused having it all, but not wanting it all—in that, she never wanted kids, just money, success and sex.  Although she promoted multiple partners, it seemed she had one solid marriage, to David Brown.  So, maybe she was just merchandising an idea or “do what I say, not what I do,” but it sounded so good to me, and it was just where I wanted to go.  Although I was a big fan of Gloria Steinem’s and less so of Betty Friedan (just too hard to look at) and a card carrying member of NOW (National Organization of Women)I think I was somewhat torn. I learned to ask that car doors “not be opened for me,” and requested the saleswoman in Macys stop calling me “Dear” (not sure now why this was an issue.) I still adored the mantras of Helen Gurley Brown.  I was sort of betwixt and between the glamour-girl-say-yes-to-anything-a-man-asks, and the “Hey, stop whistling at me when I walk by” type. I suspect I was not alone in my yin and yang. 

I read “Sex and the Single Girl” from cover to cover.  I bought, Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girls Cookbook” and produced nearly every recipe she suggested. There were some for enticing your man and some for getting him to leave as quickly as possible. I remember getting fixated on “Braised Adriatic Green Beans” – oddly nothing remarkable.  It was a green bean in olive oil recipe and I actually produced this dish as a centerpiece for a party I threw for New York Hospital’s Gift Shop volunteers and staff.  They must have wondered…

I aspired to be, or believe I was, that Cosmo girl and since I had no desire to have children, this fit in well.  I followed HGB so closely that in fact, I believe this is the reason I have a hyphenated last name.  This of course dates me, since most women do not do that any longer and I often think that I should at least drop the hyphen in the hopes that my age will be slightly less obvious.  Even HGB no longer used a hyphen. Of course my wrinkles will continue to give me away.

So speaking of wrinkles, Helen had far less than typical for her age and perky breasts that were uplifted at the age of 72.  She lamented “her tummy” in her 80’s and still wore high heels, nearly toppling as she walked.  This was a woman who poo pooed Anita Hill’s complaints against Clarence Thomas, saying she should have been “flattered by the flirtations.”  She also diminished the dangers of HIV-AIDS and its sexual transmission. She encouraged “having it all” yet really didn’t have it ALL since she avoided having children, saying she just didn’t have the time.  She espoused trading sexual favors for material goods and believed that money and power were the goal in all cases.  Are these the choices I look up to?  Hardly.

I am far, far from my days of being the Cosmo Girl.  I married the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful man in the world 34 years ago and have six sons who I adore.  I have lost one of my children and feel that to have loved and to have lost in this capacity is the deepest of all possible emotions.  I am a woman who works to help other women and cringes from the loss of feminism in many young women who instead embrace the likes of Rhianna, Whitney,  or similar airhead celebrities who allow themselves to be used and abused.  

But, nevertheless, I learned a lot from Ms. Gurley Brown and I grew when and where I needed to grow.  I also gained some cooking skills, which are never a bad thing, though I haven’t tried those Adriatic Green Beans in awhile.  Thanks Helen – and at 90 years old, I would say, you did a good job offering another perspective and helping us all sort out just who we wanted to be in an era of great change and curiosity.  It was indeed, a learning experience.

Bad Karma All Around Me

Maybe it was the hair color and cut I got with the Groupon a few weeks ago.  The 21 year old stylist who had just moved from Utah who took  3 ½ hours on my hair, were both screaming red flags and I should have run for my life.  Who goes to a random stylist on a Groupon anyway and when the stylist clearly sounds as dumb as night, who doesn’t flee?  And, if one is stupid enough to stay, how could one expect success?  You know though, somehow we all think we can beat the odds and finding a great hair dresser is a life long mission.  So, she put in 40 foils instead of the five the offer covered (loss for the shop?) and she talked non-stop. “Oh, nice toffee color” she said.  I thought, “Toffee??” “What are you favorite movies?” she chattered.  “What kind of food do you like?”  And then, she cut completely randomly here and there and it was as clear as day that she had no idea what she was doing.  You could see the complete panic on her face as things went from bad to worse.  “Oh, you’ll look just like Meryl Streep in Prada,” she cooed.  Meryl Streep???!!!  When she got really panicky and we were heading into the fourth hour, she started using hairspray to get some height and to get some definition in what was now a distinct cross between a helmet and a bowl.  I was the one REALLY panicking and finally said, “Stop, you must stop.  I have to leave,” I actually gave her a $10 tip out of pity or horror.  When I left, there was a complete downpour and I stood in it hoping the torrents of rain would shed mercy. They didn’t, and when I got in my car and looked in the mirror, I was completely repulsed and cried all the way home.  I was especially upset knowing I was leaving for my lactation conference in Florida the next day.  There I would see my colleagues and friends and they would stare at me in disbelief, for sure.

Maybe it was that when I got to the conference on that Tuesday, I realized the meetings didn’t start until Thursday but that, in the cesspool of my kids’ major problems, I had not even been able to think clearly enough to choose the right day.  Even at dinner that night with about 10 colleagues, I felt quiet and out of sorts. The restaurant was also obscenely over priced and that always makes me feel bad.  The friend next to me kept insisting I order the molten lava cake for dessert.  Sweetie, I said – no dessert I could put in my mouth is worth $35!!   I hate being ripped off and I cannot ever afford it anyway.

Maybe it was my run in with a rude vendor who raked me over the coals in front of my friends and colleagues in the exhibit hall for a comment I had made about his company online.  His products were constantly failing my clients and the customer service of his company was horrendous.  My email had been mysteriously forwarded to him. He was completely outraged and on a mission to retaliate.  He was the new president of this ailing company and embarrassed me beyond a shade of pale.  Through the strong encouragement of my friends, I attended his focus group that night but went with my tail between my legs feeling humiliated and small.  I was uncharacteristically silent. 

Maybe it was that I felt very much on the outside throughout the conference.  I never really did find my groove or my stride and was very annoyed by the huge egos that were blooming in my field.  After all I thought, we are not neurosurgeons saving brains and lives.  We simply help mothers and babies breastfeed.  Let’s maintain our humble place in the world. There is however, a group of more successful authors and lecturers in the group and then there are all their groupies who flock around them.  So, it makes me twitchy to watch the egos that are growing out of control in my sacred field.

Maybe it was the colleague whose son had died a few weeks prior and who I hugged so tightly when I saw her.  Feeling her pain, I listened carefully and bore witness when there is in fact, nothing else to do.  Her pain was palpable and when she asked if she could share her phone photos of him dying, I said yes.  It was wrenching and made me cry and I was shot for the rest of that day.  At meetings she had that numb/angry/nebulous look that I knew and remembered in the pit of my gut, so well.

Maybe it was that I came home very, very tired and depleted but felt there wasn’t anyone waiting to hold me and reassure me and restore some of my sense of self worth.  I wanted the maid in “The Help” to say, “You is good.  You is smart. You is pretty.” I know it is not anyone’s job, but my own, but hoped for that nonetheless. 

Maybe it was that I had my tooth pulled the week before I left.  It was an old “temporary” filling that had lasted 28 years that suddenly upon meeting a cherry pit, decided to shatter. The dentist said there was no saving what was left and sent me to an oral surgeon who offered three options for numbing before extraction.  I was so depressed by that time, that I just said, “Just give me Lidocaine and get it out.  I can get through 20 minutes of anything.”  It was in fact, the loss of a body part and it made me feel even more ugly, older, and deteriorating.  I will need to remain toothless for the next few months while the socket heals and then decide whether I can clean out my life savings to get an implant. 

Maybe it was that I needed so badly to have this weekend off but I acquiesced to a very unraveled mom and spent two hours with her in my office instead of having a whole weekend off, followed by another two hours with another mom and baby.  I am not sure why I did that, but once they both left, in fact, I could not stop crying.  Exhaustion.

Maybe it is because before I left, my old friend’s sister descended into sheer hell.  Her two daughters and ex-husband were in a landslide in Canada and all perished at once, buried under many feet of mud.  I became very involved in following the search and then, the period of rescue changed to recovery and then, that ended as well.  I could not imagine her deep grief or out of control panic or arms reaching, reaching, reaching, looking for her children.  When I got to my conference, they had both finally been found, dead.

Maybe it was because my 91 year old aunt who I love deeply has been isolated by her psychotic son from her entire family, including my sister and me.  There has been nothing short of insane cruelty going on for reasons that remain completely unclear.  But, on the one occasion that I did get through to her on the phone and tried to explain to her what was going on, my conversation was heard by the crazies, possibly recorded and it made for a much more difficult situation by her adult children, my cousins.  They were working hard through legal means to re-establish connections and I made that more difficult.  I felt very ashamed for having caused further frustration in a situation that appeared it could get no more maddening!    

Maybe it is because I had a confrontation at work on Friday with of all people, a formula rep.  I was reprimanded by one of the doctors because a patient complained about my “rudeness” and then, I was yelled at by the office manager.  It was a completely ridiculous, misguided experience and of course, it happening during World Breastfeeding week, made it all the more poignant. 

Maybe it is because school starts tomorrow and I feel like we haven’t really been on a whole family vacation together—just the four of us.  Or, maybe because I haven’t heard from my son who is ill and not taking action to get some help.  I have come to let go of that, completely, but it is no less wrenching.   We are about to celebrate his 28^th birthday and that is so sad for me to witness, as he continues his decline and delusions of curing his own addictions without help.

Maybe it is because I am hearing the vicious mantras of my mother that she left emblazoned on my heart, more than ever. When in a weakened and tired state, they all begin to dance and rise again to feed me messages of failure, “mean person”, cruel, fake, controlling, etc. I have absorbed them all these past two weeks.  These mean spirited serpents love any opportunity to make a cameo appearance. 

So, for whatever reason—I cannot sleep, I want to sleep, I cannot smile, I want to cry, I cannot think my way out of it, I cannot make plans, I cannot reinvent myself and I cannot shoo away Ms Daring Depleting Depression, Ms. Antsy Arguing Anxiety or Ms. Supreme  Sick Self Doubt.  Waiting for the change to come because fortunately, I do know it usually does… but now, am in the deep, dark hole looking for the Exit sign. 

A few days later, sitting here in downtown Raleigh at the Wilmoore Café which in my humble opinion has the very best coffee anywhere on earth and for $1.75, the best egg and veggie burrito, I am found again.  I am peering out of the hole.  I pick my sweet nieces up at the bus stop from New York in a few minutes and I am feeling hopeful, cheerful and well. 

Though I would love to stay in this place, I am not feeling enough terre ferma to know it can last for long. 

For now, it is a lovely day in downtown Raleigh and all is well.  Later, there may be more demons waiting. 

Landslide and Root Canal

Feeling vulnerable today.  Feeling stunned as well.  Wishing I could still smoke cigarettes, though 34 years have passed since I did. Need to take that long, deep drag on a cigarette that is like the deepest you can inhale. I’ve never been sure why taking a deep breath of fresh air just doesn’t feel as satisfying.  I am a jangled mess today for many reasons, some more trivial and some completely heartbreaking. 

The trivial one first.  My tooth broke over the weekend.  I bit down on a cherry pit and whammo – the temporary filling I had for 28 years shattered – tooth face and all!  When I was pregnant with my second son and lived in the Hamptons, Dr. Frost said I shouldn’t have work done on my teeth while pregnant so he installed this black temporary filling, that I believe was made of cement!  It has served me well, albeit ugly and noticeable in photos and I stupidly, never addressed replacing it over all these years.  My come-uppance has arrived and now, I am faced with a costly, painful, scary dilemma. I got into see my often depressed, kind of quirky dentist this morning and he winced when he saw the tooth and shuddered when he viewed the x-ray. Alas, there is nothing left but some filling and I am clearly missing a tooth when I smile, so I refuse to remain toothless. My choices are grim, running from hundreds of dollars for something temporary to $6000 for an implant. I feel old and falling apart and scared to death of procedures like these, not to mention, at a loss for where I will find this much money.  Not a good start to my day.

However, I am keeping it all in perspective, because I have been weeping since last night and not over my tooth but over something far more wrenching. 

I have known my friend Mindy (whose real name is Michelle) since I was in kindergarten and although we have never been very close, we have been with each other for most days of the year through all 12 years of school, in every single class!  Mindy had a little sister named, Lynn Ann when we were growing up in the ENY projects.  She was a few years younger than us so we never bothered much with her.  She was cute enough but she seemed to be always doing something with her mom when we were hanging out dreaming of Paul McCartney and George Harrison.  Mindy had one of the fanciest apartments on the first floor of her building in the projects with clear vinyl covering the couches and a lot of fringe dangling from the lampshades. Her parents were Clara and Jerry and they were an attractive active couple. The expression of the day for mothers who worked was “She goes to business.”  I believe that Clara went to business. 

I don’t remember much about Lynn Ann after those early days until a few years ago I shared a Marriott room with Mindy and our friend, Susan at a reunion in Long Island.  It was then, that I first heard about Lynn Ann again and about how different these sisters had turned out (is that not always the case??).  And, I remember Mindy telling us that she had a close relationship with her nieces, Dianna and Rachel.  She described how they lived in wilderness areas in Canada and this seemed very different to Mindy. Lynn Ann actually sounded like she had grown up into someone I might really like to know. 

About four days ago, Mindy posted on her Facebook page that there had been a landslide in British Columbia and that some residents were being searched for.  She was unsure if her nieces were a part of this. Day by day, it has gotten worse and more harrowing. I did not even know what a landslide was but thanks to Facebook and Youtube, I sure did learn what they looked like and the rampage of damage they cause.  In fact, so much so, that I have watched the live footage over and over and like an awful horror movie, I cannot get these images to keep replaying in my mind’s eye.

Apparently, Dianna, Rachel and their dad, Valentine were having breakfast outside their home, overlooking the most ideal, paradise-like in Johnson’s Landing on the lake. I don’t know if a landslide happens in seconds or in minutes.  I don’t know if it is a roaring, loud sound or if is more subtle.  I do know that it takes all dirt, mud, trees and houses with it with a force the likes of which I have only seen in Tsunamis, and apparently, the Webber house was taken and smashed and cracked into pieces, and then buried in mud.  For the three-day search, it was felt that the two girls and their dad had taken to the basement and needed to be rescued.  I wondered how long one can go without food or water but convinced myself that both were supplies might be in the smashed basement with them.

Lynn Ann arrived in Vancouver on Saturday, the third day and was frantically trying to convince the rescue to speed up.  There was literally no way to rescue anyone since the mud was compared to “quicksand” rendering it impossible to get to the smashed home.  I became completely fixated on updates, on watching helicopters try to get to the home, and on keeping track of the latest news. I also texted my friend Mindy who when asked how she was passing the time, shared that she could not stop crying. 

It was last night when the workers stopped being called “rescue workers” and became “recovery crew.”  In the morning, they found Val, the dad buried under about 3 yards of dirt.  The girls are still missing. I remain more involved than I should be.  There are many reasons that my emotions run haywire over this sort of thing.  The main one is probably that I cannot bear to think that any other mother in the universe would ever have to feel the agony over losing a child. Losing two at once is not comprehensible.  Suffocating in mud seems very similar to me as the nightmare of drowning and suffocating in water. I become consumed wondering if they suffered, if they tried to breathe or if they were knocked unconscious immediately from all the falling trees.  It is amazing that they were together since the older girl lived in Los Angeles and the younger was to be a senior in the local high school in this remote area. 

Then, after I know someone cherished has died, I spend days thinking of all they will miss.  At Yoga tonight, I imagined that they will never again get to do yoga. When I got coffee, I thought the same and when I looked at the Carolina blue sky today I realized they would never see that either.  No graduation this year, no weddings, no having babies, just a funeral.  

My Cathedral

THIS IS MY CATHEDRAL

I listened intently to the sermon Sunday, because it began with the story of the birth of twins, so of course, it caught my attention.  However, the thread about the twins was not actually what kept me enthralled.  It was one statement that made me stop to catch my breath.  It was the story of Cardinal Thuan Van Nguyen and how he had been imprisoned for 13 years in Viet Nam.  For most of the years, he had been in isolation and of course, deeply depressed.   

This prisoner in horrific conditions managed to get some wine and some crumbs of bread. 

They sent me a small bottle of wine for Mass with a label that read, ‘medicine for stomachaches.’ They also sent some hosts, which they hid in a flashlight for protection against the humidity. The police asked me, ‘You have stomachaches? Yes. Here’s some medicine for you.’

I will never be able to express my great joy! Every day, with three drops of wine and a drop of water in the palm of my hand, I would celebrate Mass. This was my altar, and this was my cathedral!

He describes many things about his life in prison and of how he wrote notes on small, dirty pieces of paper.  He shared these notes with other prisoners, with cruel guards and others.  They contain words of such profound spirituality and faith that they have been combined into a book. 

In our country there is a saying: ‘A day in prison is worth a thousand autumns of freedom.’ I myself experienced this. While in prison, everyone waits for freedom, every day, every minute. We must live each day, each minute of our life as though it is the last.”

But, what caught my breath the most in last Sunday’s sermon, what made me stop short and hear almost nothing else, was “This is my cathedral.”  So, for me it is this.  Everyday in every difficult, wonderful, heartbreaking, thrilling, mundane, boring, challenging, lovely, hideous, frustrating, satisfying, angry, tolerant, kind, cruel, empathetic, confusing, dull, exciting, mystifying, logical, rewarding, disappointing, frightening, fearless, doubtful, faithful moment, THIS is my cathedral!  So, when I have been wrenched away from love by the death of my precious child or when I have danced with my oldest son at his wedding; when I have witnessed the agony of disease or the satanic grip of addiction or thrilled to the accolades of my children graduating; when I have looked into the eyes of my beloved in my wedding whites or buried my father’s wasted away body; when I have held the thousands of newborn babies in my grateful arms or held their tearful and yearning mothers, all of this IS MY CATHEDRAL!  Every day in every moment in every way, no matter how small or how grandiose, I am where I am meant to be!  

The Pizza Room

There were two whole slices and one half eaten slice in the still open pizza box.  The cheese was congealed in the way that cold pizza typically morphs.  I stared at those slices of pizza as if they were the aurora borealis.   So mesmerized was I, that now 17 years later, I can still see those pizza slices. 

At the same time as I was meditating on pizza, Dr. Parker was telling me that my two year old who lay in the next room being air bagged, would not live until morning.  Perhaps, this is why I chose to focus on cold pizza. 

I could see the white-coated doctor’s mouth moving, but I couldn’t really hear her.  She could not possibly be uttering the words that I thought I was hearing.  Not possible.  Focus on the pizza.

She said to be sure and summon all my children to the hospital, as soon as possible so that they could say goodbye. She was crying.  Shep and I weren’t crying yet. We had years of crying ahead of us.  Why start now, when instead, I could keep staring at the pizza and leaving this room in every possible metaphysical way?

We stood and walked into the room where my baby was dying.  How did we walk? I suppose we walked in the same way that a prisoner, taking his final steps down death row, finds the strength or the rote memorization to put one foot in front of another when every bodily fiber is screaming “STOP!”  It is like walking into the cauldrons of hell, knowing clearly how much agony lies ahead in the burning flames.

We had no choice. We walked on.  We stood at the bedside sobbing, begging, pleading with those trying hard to keep my baby alive, to keep on trying. They did not look back. They never met my eyes. They knew it was hopeless. They knew hell was waiting anxiously for us and hopefully, that heaven had already embraced my dearest child. 

So sometimes, even today, why this very morning in fact, I end up back in the “pizza room.” It can often happen willy-nilly with no rhyme nor reason. Likely, it happened this morning, because this day, was the last day of my life as I knew it. Tomorrow, begins the death remembrance as the day of the drowning. The panic begins tomorrow morning and resonates through every fiber of my being.  Then it ends at 6 am the next day.  I begin to breathe again.  It is done.

When I unconsciously and randomly enter the “pizza room” the door slams and locks. My heart pounds and I beg to get out, but it’s hopeless.  I am stuck there now and no way to get out no matter how hard I try.  I have to stay until I am done. When I get out, I am usually stunned, but I do get out and look at the brightness of the sun and the blueness of the sky, or the peace of the night and the  shining of the moon and know that I am still here, but he is gone.  The pizza remains.    

May 2, 2012