Jump to content

Author, Historian, Storyteller

On Religion

Live and Learn, MothersView all 2 comments

I have never been a religious person. I would say that I have some spirituality in my life, but none of it is directed toward an organized religion. In contrast, I have spent the vast majority of my life vehemently anti-religious. Specifically towards Christianity. This is largely because my mother was a devout Christian, and despite this faith and devotion to her god, she was stricken with an absolutely god-awful disease. Despite her years of devotion and, I can only imagine, a multitude of prayers, she still withered away into nothing and died a slow and absolutely miserable death, after years of living in misery. Growing up with this constant reminder of the crappier side of life, made it next to impossible for my young mind to accept concepts like an “all knowing, all loving father.” I saw none of the purported love, and therefore couldn’t find the faith that others around me seemed to find so easily. Instead of faith, I found anger. Whether she was angry or not I don’t know, but I was mad at my mother’s god both for her and for me. Any god that would allow suffering like that in the world, was no god of mine. Therefore, I had no god.

In all honesty, I found much more sense in the Greek and the Roman gods. They were selfish, spiteful and vengeful. This behavior fit my life experiences much better than a Christian god. Even so, I was much too pragmatic to accept that canon. I was steadfastly non-religious and I wore my non-religiosity like a badge of honor. The faithful would try to convert me, so I would argue with the faithful and try to convert them to my way of thinking. I took great pride in shaking their faith. I know for a fact that I sent a couple of devotees to their priests for ecclesiastical clarification and reassurance. I quickly lost track of how many times I was told that someone was, “going to pray for me.” I am no longer proud of these actions, realizing that they were simply desperate attempts to release some of the boiling anger I had inside. It never worked.

goodwithoutgod

I’m sure that at this point, some of you are expecting me to announce that I have had some miraculous change of heart and have found god. Nope. That has not happened. In fact, when I first started seeing my current therapist she asked me if I wanted to address the obvious issues that I have with religion. I let her know that under no uncertain terms was I interested in doing that. Apparently that particular fire is what keeps me warm at night and I can’t address it without fear of freezing in the dark. She acknowledged my wishes and we moved on to other topics. After all, I was suffering from PTSD at the time, we had PLENTY of other things to deal with. However, once we got that in hand, she questioned my spirituality, and how I maintained that if I didn’t have a god or larger entity of any sort. No judgement, just curiosity. This conversation ended in her recommending a book to me – Autobiography of a Yogi.

I think she wanted to expose me to a non-Christian faith, and journey to find faith. I have finally gotten around to reading this book, and in all honesty, my bullshit meter has been going off a lot! Especially all of the instances where he talks about his guru divinely healing someone, or meditating to find a cure to an ailment. I’m sorry, I don’t care how long I meditate, or who puts their hands on me and wishes me well, if I eat a bunch of bread I’m going to wind up in the hospital. No amount of wishing or believing is going to change that, just like no amount of wishing or believing could change my mother’s life. Until I see it with my own eyes, I will never be able to accept that tenet regardless of what religion you’re talking about. I can’t take that leap of faith. I don’t have it in me.

bth_bullshit-meter-011

I did not find this surprising. Either the presence of healing stories within the book, or my inability to accept them as true. What did surprise me, is that early on in the book the Yogi, on more than one occasion, refers to a Christ-like disciple. At first, my hackles went up. What was Christ doing in my Hindu book?!? I kept going. The next thing I know, the book is discussing Genesis and Adam and Eve in both the Christian sense and the Hindu sense. I have actually lost track of all of the Biblical references in this book about a Yogi. Color me flabbergasted! Not only did this Yogi read the Bible, he was encouraged to study and learn from it by his guru. He obviously was not encouraged to become a Christian, but that didn’t stop him from studying what they had to say. The next thing that I knew, I was following along and I was interested. For the first time that I can remember, I was thinking about Christianity and I wasn’t mad. Huh? I still don’t believe in god, and I still have absolutely no faith in divine healing, but for the first time I can feel some of that anger slipping away. Who knows, maybe that is divine healing?

It Takes a Village

Live and Learn, Loss, Love, MothersLeave a comment

I would hazard to guess that when something bad happens, or something goes wrong the majority of people have the same thought, “I want my mom.” I’m basing this theory off the fact that this is the reaction of my friends, and it is also my reaction. The former makes perfect sense. Some of my friends have absolutely awesome moms. The latter makes no earthly sense whatsoever, because I didn’t grow up with a mother. Yes, I physically had a mother until I was twenty. There was a woman with that title in my life. However, because of her disease she checked out mentally and emotionally over a decade before she physically died. Therefore, when I was upset, sick or injured it wasn’t my mom providing comfort. I honestly do not have a single memory of my mother comforting me. The truth of the matter is that she was often the cause of the upset, and the comfort afterwards had to come from me, myself and I. So if MY first reaction is that I want my mom, then I have a feeling that the majority of people have this reaction. I think it’s a societal training thing. Society tells us that mothers = comfort, therefore even if that isn’t your own experience that is still what you want.

Mom

Then it occurred to me last night, that while I didn’t get that comfort from my own mother, I can vividly remember times that I got that comfort from my friend’s mothers. Mary Kay wiping the dirt off of my face after a fall instead of simply pointing me toward the bathroom. Tammy genuinely offering to help me set something right and giving me a big hug because she knew I was upset, and no one else seemed to care. Lori teaching me how to make a meal from scratch, so I didn’t have to serve a Hamburger Helper at my first ever dinner party. Deb understanding that I had an emotionally impossible decision to make, so she told me what to do so I wouldn’t feel guilty about the choice. Amelia telling me not to be stupid, if I had to have surgery I obviously would stay at her house until I got better. Susan telling me that clearly I got the crazy from her side of the family.

I don’t know if they remember any of these moments, but they meant a lot to me. I didn’t have a mother, I had several and it has taken me years to realize that. To realize that they are the ones that taught me what I need to know. They are the ones that I want when something gets scary and I want my mom. I’ve had a bit of a rough year, and therefore I’ve wanted a mom on several occasions. None more so than this week. My fur baby, Bubba, tore his ACL. Not just torn, but severed completely. Surgery or a horrible limp for the rest of his life are the only options on the table. In my heart, I knew without hesitation what I wanted to do, but my brain needed that reassurance that can only come from a mom, that I was doing the right thing. I didn’t call all of my moms, that would be a bit excessive, but I did call one of them. I wanted my mom, and I got my mom. So thank you to all of ‘my’ moms for filling in where my own had to be absent.

Keep-Calm-and-Call-Mom-848800_621x320

Operation: Do All the Things

Happiness, Live and Learn, Loss, MothersView all 3 comments

I have decided that this year is getting the code name, Operation: Do All the Things. Why? Because I have decided that this is the year that I am going to do all of the things that I have been wanting to do or get done. Why a code name? Because as Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring spy adventure, or nothing.” (At least that’s what she would have said, if Anne Sullivan would have let her play spies when she was kid.)

This is what she actually said . . .

This is what she actually said . . .

So far, I do believe that I am off to a good start. In the first month of this year, I have, in no particular order:

  • Rewritten/polished the first quarter of my novel (130ish pages) and sent it off to readers
  • Delivered my second children’s book to the printer for publication
  • Maintained my blog schedule (okay mostly, I’ve been slacking on the poetry)
  • Got a diagnosis and game plan to get my ankle fixed
  • Hired to do a series of articles with the possibility of future projects
  • Formed an LLC
  • Read the first two plays in Shakespeare’s canon (I want to read all of them)
  • Reorganized my bedroom/closet
  • Cleaned out my car (My trunk still had stuff from my move 2 years ago . . .)

Needless to say, I have been busy. Beyond the obvious benefit of getting things checked off my to-do list, it has also been a wonderful distraction. Distraction not only from my aunt’s death in December, but also from the anniversary of my mother’s death . . . which was Sunday . . . and I didn’t realize that until last night. I missed the anniversary. My initial reaction was to immediately feel guilty. What kind of daughter forgets the anniversary of her mother’s death? The guilt however, was quickly replaced with joy. For the first time in 12 fucking years, I didn’t spend all of January, and the first half of February bogged down by residual and remembered emotions. For the first time in over a decade I didn’t start off my year as a complete mess.

Okay, I was still a bit of a mess, but I wasn’t paralyzed into inaction. I wasn’t stifled or hindered. Instead I made strides and moved forward. I moved on with my life. Which is both bittersweet and fantastic all at the same time. I feel like I could use a good cry and then a cheers with good friends and a bottle of wine. I’m not forgetting my mother, I’m choosing to leave the pain behind. I’m not living for my aunt, I’m living in her memory. Therefore, I am going to do all the things. It is time.

do-all-the-things1

My Favorite Word

Fathers, Mothers, Right vs Wrong, SistersView all 2 comments

My sister once said to me, “For someone who has the biggest vocabulary I know, you sure say the word ‘Fuck’ a lot.” I took this as a complement. She had not meant it as a complement. Truth be told, she swears very little. I can’t even remember the last time that I heard her swear. I, on the other hand, tend to swear like a very well-educated pirate. What my sister doesn’t comprehend is that I don’t swear for the shock value, or because I can’t think of anything else to say. Trust me when I say, that I can think of a plethora of other expletives to fit any number of situations. But using a swear word, one of those “taboo”, “inappropriate” words has a power behind it that still exists even if you are all alone.

Lalochezia

That power is given to those words from the moment that we start to learn language. Kids get in trouble for swearing. They are told that those are naughty words or only for adults. Which of course means that by the time you hit fifth grade you’re uttering every swear word you can think of with your friends and then giggling incessantly if a teacher or parent should walk by and almost hear you. At least this is what is was like with my friends. But then of course, I grew up in a very small mountain town where there wasn’t much to do. So maybe giggling at swear words was our version of hanging out at the mall. Who knows. At any rate, swear words take on this aura of rebelliousness. For most kids.

I was not one of those kids, because I didn’t get in trouble for swearing. When I was about nine, my mother scolded me for saying the word ‘shit.’ I pointed out to her that she said it all the time. Sometimes in different languages. I also told her that I didn’t buy the whole argument about adult words vs kid words especially since adults used those words around kids. So she made me a deal. She said that she wouldn’t swear for the entire week, and if she slipped up then I would be allowed to say that word with impunity. By the end of the week I could say them all. Needless to say, dad, who worked in the school district I attended, was not overly thrilled with this deal. Especially since I’m sure he imagined getting reports about me swearing in class. So dad added an addendum to the agreement: I could say any word that I wanted to, but if I got in trouble for my particular word choices, I was on my own. It was up to me to take responsibility for what I said.

Sailor

Herein lay my first lesson in the power of words. I was nine years old and allowed to say anything I wanted free of reprisals from my parents. But I had to learn not where certain words were appropriate, but how they were received and whether or not I liked that reception. For example, swearing at school out a recess with my friends was fun and daring. Swearing during class in front of the teacher got me trouble. Obviously I liked the first, but not the second, so I kept swearing in the first instance and never swore in the second. It was in this way that I developed the ability to switch my vulgarity on and off. Around older adults (who appear to be the type that would not appreciate it), or children, I don’t swear. I turn the pirate off. Around my friends, and heck even sometimes in my writing, the pirate gets turned back on.

Quite frankly, I prefer it and I’m more relaxed when the pirate gets to come out. I swear, because I choose to swear. It provides a lovely release of frustration, or surprise, or anger, or whatever emotion tends to be surging. And I’ve even seen studies that show that people who swear regularly are healthier and in general more honest. Don’t know if I believe that, but there you go. So for those of you who were offended, or “put-off,” by the f-bombs that were dropped in my last post, I apologize. However, I’m not going to start mincing my words. I do have an extensive lexicon, but as my sister so adroitly noticed, ‘Fuck’ happens to be my favorite word.

Knowledge is Power, but Ignorance is Bliss

Life, MothersOne comment so far

My mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when I was two. Eighteen HORRIBLE years later she died a few weeks before my 21st birthday. The progression of her disease was swift and unrelenting. She started out with the worst possible kind (which is rare), and therefore she never had remissions. There were times that the rate of increasing damage slowed, but it never went away completely. It certainly never reversed! I learned several things with great clarity watching my mother die.

  1. It is the quality of one’s years that matters most, not the quantity of those years.
  2. Ignoring something bad does not make it go away. It actually makes the situation worse.
  3. My worst nightmare is being diagnosed with MS.

I was always told that MS was not a genetic disease and therefore my odds of getting it were the same as everybody else’s. However, I have since come to learn that many doctors/scholars disagree with this belief and there is plenty of evidence that MS does indeed run in families. So my odds of having MS are a little bit higher. Then last year someone else in my family was diagnosed. That’s the beginning of a run. That’s one more blow to my odds. That means that if this were a bet in Vegas, the smart money is on me being diagnosed with MS in the next few years.

Bookie

Needless to say, this has preoccupied a large part of my thinking for some time now. Then recently, my aunt asked me if I had been tested – you know like the breast cancer test that they have that shows if you have the genetic marker showing a predisposition to the disease. I of course told her that I hadn’t, because a test doesn’t exist. But this got me to thinking, maybe I was wrong. So I contacted an MS Center and asked them if there was a test. I was right, the answer is no. However, because of my family history they said that I could/should be screened by a neurologist who specializes in MS.

Silence

They could even help me find one in my area if I didn’t want to drive down to the center.

You could hear a pin drop.

 

Now I don’t know what all is involved in this screening and whether there would be definitive answers. I always thought that the only way that doctors could tell if you had the disease was after it was already full blown and wreaking havoc in your system. I had assumed that the only option open to me was to sit it out and let time tell. Apparently I was wrong. But now I’m left with the quandary of whether or not I get screened. The way I see it, there are only a few probable outcomes.

  1. I don’t have MS and will never develop MS.
  2. I don’t have MS right now, but it might develop later.
  3. Results are inconclusive, only time will tell.
  4. I likely have MS, but no damage is evident yet.
  5. I have MS – worst nightmare realized.

So the question becomes will screening make me worry less or worry more? I’m not a doctor, so I realize that there are probably a lot of other possible outcomes, but since I can only work with what I know I’m going to work with these. If I get screened there is only a 1 in 5 chance that the screening will remove my worry and fear. However, there is a 3 in 5 chance that the screening will not only do nothing to allay my fears, but it might make them worse. These odds aren’t really in my favor. I know that knowledge is power and it is always better in the long run to know what you’re dealing with so you can react intelligently. But ignorance is also bliss. If I’m not going to start having symptoms for three years, will the quality of those years be better with me not knowing, or will they be better with the knowledge that there is a rain cloud on the horizon just waiting to sweep over my life?

head vs heart

My head knows that the prudent choice is to get screened and face whatever it is that needs to be faced head on. My heart isn’t sure that it can survive one more wrenching ache and prefers to stay ignorantly hiding from it all. I don’t know. Do I listen to my head or to my heart?

What would you do?

A Letter from Mom

, , , , Life, MothersView all 3 comments

Dear Kat,

I know that you’re frustrated with yourself and feeling down. You haven’t been able to string together more than 4 days in a row of feeling well since before Thanksgiving. Because of this you’re falling behind on deadlines and don’t have time to spend on the things that you want to do because all of your extra time is spent sleeping. You’re sick and tired, both literally and figuratively. However, you’re still going, you’re still moving and you’re still getting things done. You have not given up.

Not only have you not given up, you’ve set up appointments with specialists, you’ve cleaned up your diet – what little was left to be cleaned up – you have explored every avenue that you can think of that could be causing the malaise. You have taken an active role in trying to feel better. You don’t yet, but you will. So give yourself a break.

dog-nap

Don’t begrudge yourself the nap, enjoy it. Realize that while goals are important, they are actually detrimental if looking at them causes large quantities of stress instead of inspiration or motivation. Realize that goals can and should be changed if they no longer fit your current life. Maybe instead of beating yourself up over not being able to accomplish 3-4 workouts a week, you change your goal to 3-4 meditations a week and use that time to center and find peace. Peace is more important than toned abs.

Do what you need to do for yourself and forgive yourself of everything that falls by the wayside. Things that fall are not lost, they can be picked up and carried once more when you regain your strength. Forgive what you perceive to be short-comings. Forgive what you perceive to be weaknesses. Forgive that you are not perfect. No one is and trying to live to that standard is as futile as Sisyphus and his rock. Forgive yourself and focus on what is good.

Focus on what you have been able to accomplish thus far. Focus on what you will accomplish, in good time. Focus on all of the people that love you. Forgive yourself and focus on what is good.

Forgive yourself and focus on what is good. If you can do that, then all will be well.

Love,

Mom (Okay, not really from my mom, but what I hope she’d say right now.)

Mother Nature is a Bad Ass!

, , , , Life, Live and Learn, MothersView all 2 comments

As many of you probably already know, unless you live under a rock, an earthquake hit Los Angeles early Monday morning. This is not the first earthquake that I have ever been in. However, it is the first earthquake that I have:

1. Not slept through – my sister still gives me shit about the one I slept through in Alaska – and

2. Realized that it was an earthquake before it was over instead of just assuming that I had the shakes from too much coffee.

Therefore, I felt that it warranted a post. Especially since I seem to have my earthquake reaction all wrong. During the quake I called my dogs to me and they snuggled under my arms and stopped barking.  I guess they figured that if I wasn’t upset they could calm down. Which my number one question for them is, why doesn’t that work in normal life? They will bark and howl their fool heads off regardless of what my demeanor is or whether their under my arm on any other day, but by God during an earthquake they are monkey-see, monkey-do! Maybe the next time they start barking I’ll pick them up and shake them really hard . . . well, that’s probably not the best idea . . .

At any rate, during the quake I was totally calm.  Then after I looked around my room.  A couple of things had fallen over or fallen off their perches, but other than that, no damage. My roommate poked her head in my door and once we had ascertained that nobody had been crushed by a falling object, we both went back to bed. Yes I went back to bed, and yes I was able to fall asleep. Really my only hindrance to sleep was that Bubba was still a little skittish and wouldn’t lay down until I grabbed him in a bear hug and made him lay down with me. Then he fell asleep too. No muss, no fuss, 4.4 is not that big of a quake.

By the time that I finally drug myself out of bed I had to rush to make it to work on time, where I was met by an onslaught of social media about people freaking out about the earthquake. Freaking out and doom and gloom about “The Big One!” I didn’t get it, we live right along a major fault line. Aren’t earthquakes sort of expected? Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit around gleefully waiting for an earthquake to strike, but I guess I figure there are better things to get freaked out about than an earthquake that didn’t even cause any damage. Or so I thought until I got home from work to discover that the big brick planter in our courtyard now looks like this:

IMG_20140317_184611_734

Crazy right! Then I went upstairs and really took a look around my apartment. In addition to the couple of things that I knew had fallen, every picture hanging on the wall was now crooked. One of them had fallen off completely and was lodged behind the bookshelf which is quite a feat since there isn’t enough room between the book case and wall for it to fit. Which means that the bookcase was rocked out from the wall far enough for the picture to slip through. How cool is that?!?! That’s when I really started to look around and discovered that everything on my desk had shifted almost half a foot. Look!

IMG_20140318_234958_947

Yes, I know, I’m a horrible housekeeper. I have better things to do than dust, and quite frankly if it weren’t for my bad housekeeping we wouldn’t have this shot! And yes, I have dusted since then, so all of you in the peanut gallery can keep your comments to yourself. The point is that I am so in awe of Mother Nature right now. She is a certifiable bad ass!  Beyond bad ass!  It’s like she sits on her throne – does Mother Nature have a throne? I’d have a throne if I were her. Were gonna go with throne. – and laughs at all of our pathetic attempts to prove that we humans are greater than our surroundings.  Can outwit and humanize the natural world around us. So every now and again, she throws down something like this just to prove that she’s actually the one in charge. Now that I think about it, she kind of reminds me of my sister. How every now and then she’ll knock me to the ground and pound on me a bit just to remind me that even though I’m half a foot taller now, she’s still the big sister. It blows my mind and humbles me. She is so amazing. Mother Nature I mean, not my sister. Well my sister’s pretty amazing too . . . and has a mean shoulder throw.

http://www.murphyillustration.com/

http://www.murphyillustration.com/

Burning the Candle

, , , , Life, Live and Learn, MothersView all 3 comments

My dad always used to observe that I was happiest when I was going Mach 5 with my hair on fire, and then in the next sentence he’d warn me not to burn the candle at both ends.  He was right, and it was a valid warning.  Not one that I’ve ever been able to take to heart, but valid nevertheless.  Lately, I feel like I have not only been burning the candle at both ends, but that I have cut it in half so that I have access to two additional wicks.  Oddly enough, this was completely intentional.  The beginning of the year is always very hard for me.  Toward the end of my mother’s life, my father signed her DNR and the doctors gave her a week to live.  This was at the end of November.  The doctors were wrong.  She didn’t die until February 8th.  We’ve all heard stories of loved ones hanging on for one more holiday, or birthday, etc, so it didn’t seem that odd that she lasted until Christmas.  But when the new year hit, and she was still hanging on, an anxious dread descended. Every time my phone rang I expected it to be the call – “Pick up your sister and come home. Mom just died.”  But January came and went and there was no call.  I was a ball of nerves.  Always on edge, not sleeping, doing anything to occupy my mind with something, anything else.

I had plans to go home on the 8th.  That morning my dad called to ask me to pick up some dog food before heading up the mountain to get home.  I said okay, hung up and hopped in the shower.  I was picking out clothes when my phone rang again, and for the first time in over a month I didn’t jump.  It was dad, but I assumed that he needed me to pick up something else.  I was wrong.  “Pick up your sister.  Mom just died.  Oh, don’t forget the dog food.”  She died while I was in the shower.  I will remember that shower for the rest of my life.  It was in that shower that the dread and tension finally released from my body.  Whether that was because I knew that I was heading home when I got out, or if someone how my body instinctively knew that it was all over, I have no idea.  But after that shower I was relaxed for the first time all year, until that call.  Then I was just numb.

Every year since then, I spend the month of January as a ball of nerves.  My body’s yearly vigil of grief. By the time that February rolls around, I have to consciously remind myself to relax my shoulders from their permanent position up around my ears. I usually try to take it easy at the beginning of the year and do things for myself.  It never works.  I’m a ball of nerves through Valentine’s Day.  This year was different.  If I’m happiest going Mach 5 with my hair on fire, then why in the world should I slow down during my hardest time of the year? So this year I over-scheduled myself.  I not only cut the candle in half, I borrowed a couple of extra candles and burned those too.  And it sort of worked.  Did my shoulders still take up residence around my ears? Yep.  Was I still a ball of nerves? Yep.  But I actually got things done – I fell behind on stuff because of my over scheduling, my blog for one, but I got a lot done.  My dad is right.  I’m happiest when I’m getting things done.  Starting tomorrow I’ll be able to breathe again, because the anniversary of her funeral will have passed and all of those years ago it was finally at her funeral that I truly cried and grieved for my loss.  It’s my yearly gauntlet and it’s almost over.  Tonight I burn the last candle.  Until next year.

Candle

Are There Degrees of Loss?

Life, Love, MothersView all 2 comments

Losing a loved one is never easy.  But a conversation that I had the other day has really gotten me thinking about whether or not there are degrees of loss.  Are there circumstances that make a loss easier or harder to bear?  I know that past experiences can make a big difference.  The loss of a dear pet, if that is the first death a person has encountered, can be devastating and debilitating.  On the other hand I had lost all four of my grandparents, a couple of great aunts and my mother by the time that I graduated from college.  When my childhood dog died I was sad, but since I had been through worse several times before, I was able to grieve the loss while remaining fully functional.  In essence it’s the same loss, but received very differently.  It doesn’t mean that I loved my dog any less, I was simply more accustomed to the processes involved in loss and I knew first hand that the profound ache deep inside does eventually lesson and in some cases fades into the background.

grief

But back to this conversation that I had. A friend told me of her aunt who suddenly passed away due to an aortic rupture, leaving behind college aged children. My heart immediately went out to not only her, but her cousins whom I have never met.  Especially her cousins who found themselves in the same shoes that I walked in ten years ago.  However, I feel like their path is even harder than the one I took. When I said this to my friend, who knows my history, she assumed that I meant that it is easier when you can see the loss coming instead of having someone ripped away from you with no notice.  I was taken aback by this, because that hadn’t even crossed my mind, although there may be something to be said for that.  What was in my mind was that these girls had known their mother, had sought her advice and counsel. They lost the person that comforted them when they were sick and celebrated with them when they had victories.  My mother had not been any of those things to me, she’d been too sick.  So in essence I lost the construct in my mind of what a mother is, not the physical embodiment of a mother.

To me, this seems like an easier loss to bear.  Yes, it comes with its own complications and heart aches.  I’ve had more than one person look at me with grief-wracked eyes while uttering that “I lost something that I never had.” Which is true.  When I was home sick from school I not only took care of myself, but my mother as well.  I never confided in her, I never sought her advice.  When something in my life goes horribly wrong, I don’t wish that my mother was with me, because the last time that she provided me with comfort and security was so long ago that I can’t remember.  So when she died, I didn’t lose these things.  I lost the dream of what I had always wanted her to be, but deep down I had always known that that was never possible anyway, so I don’t know that I can even count it as a loss.

These girls did lose all of that.  My best friend who lost her mother several years ago lost all of this.  She lost her best friend and her soul mate.  They stuck together through thick and thin and when her mother died, a piece of her died with her.  This kind of loss seems to me much harder to bear than the loss I experienced.  The same loss, yet different degrees of loss.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, maybe it makes sense to you.

A Request to Parents

Fathers, Life, Love, Mothers, VoiceLeave a comment

My father sent me a framed picture he came across of my mother in her senior year of high school.  Looking at that photo a bittersweet melancholy fell over me.  She was so young with that spark of hopeful anticipation in her eyes.  She had her whole life in front of her.  Little did she know, she had already lived almost half of her life.  Little did she know, a disease would so drastically ravage her body and mind her children would never get to meet that woman in the photo.  At her funeral, I sat and listened to people talk about a vibrant, head-strong woman I didn’t know.

My mother didn’t get to see me graduate from college.  She was not there to tell me how proud she was when I won my Emmys.  I will not have the opportunity to ask her what she did for her something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue when I get married.  If I have kids, they will never be held by their grandmother.  However, these are not the things that brought about the melancholy while looking at her picture.  It was really much simpler than that.  The melancholy was caused by the fact that I don’t know my mother’s voice.  I don’t mean the actual sound of her voice, but her personality.  Was she sarcastic, was she witty, was she a straight shooter?  What were her dreams and aspirations for herself?  For me?

So to the mothers and fathers out there I have a request.  Write your children a letter.  Not on the computer, but by hand.  Write them a letter.  Tell them that you love them.  Tell them how proud you are of them.  Tell them of your hopes and aspirations for their success and happiness.  Tell them of your hopes and aspirations for your own success and happiness.  Tell them of your dreams.  If you haven’t achieved them yet, tell them that, but you’re working toward them.  Tell them your favorite music, movies, sports, board games.  Tell them the story of the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.  Tell them of the bravest thing you’ve ever done.  Tell them a joke.  Tell them of the things that are important to you.  It doesn’t matter what you tell them, just let them see your personality.  Let them see you.

I pray that the letter will never be needed.  That it will go unread tucked away and forgotten in some drawer.  But life is unexpected and sometimes all too short.  Give your children the opportunity to know you, whether through your actions or through your words.  Write your children a letter.  I wager it will turn into one of their most prized possessions.  Even if it doesn’t get to their hands until after you pass away peacefully in your sleep at the age of 100.

Love You Quote