Weirdness

I learned the other day that my mother's death certificate says that the cause of her death was Alzheimer's Disease.

This is fascinating to me.  My mom was given multiple diagnoses for her physical and mental decline in the five years that she was sick, ranging from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's, to not-Alzheimers, to other weird forms of dementia we had never heard of, to generic "decline."  That period of time was characterized by confusion and questions, by us figuring out over weeks and months that doctors, in general, don't know very much about the brain or its problems.

We've had two close family friends who also received Alzheimer's diagnoses.  Both of them exhibited textbooks signs of that disease like forgetting family members' names and their relationships to them and gradually losing the ability to converse. While mom experienced intense confusion sometimes and was clearly dealing with some kind of dementia, she never forgot who she was, who her family and friends were, never forgot names. She even remembered more than most of us sometimes: she could remember how she met a person or details from events far in the past.  She repeated herself a lot, but she could still carry on a conversation with us, and she asked questions about grandkids and jobs and other goings-on of life.

I remember when she died, we had to decide as a family whether or not to have an autopsy done.  It was the only way, we were told, to know definitively if she had suffered from Alzheimer's or not.  I had stopped expecting medicine to provide us with any answers, and my vote was NO, we didn't need that to happen.  Most of us agreed, and we didn't do it.

But someone, somewhere, decided to fill in the box on her death certificate with a specific answer, as if that were a thing that could be known for sure.  Who made that decision? Why? What purpose does it serve?  How is that information used, and by whom?

One the one hand, it doesn't feel very consequential.  On the other, I find it so strange that such a personal question -- how did she die? -- has apparently been officially answered when the actual, most true answer is that we don't know for sure. 

How trustworthy are official documents in general?  How do historians evaluate documents like this when they are doing research into famous or historical figures?  Seems like a giant guessing game to me.

That is all.  I just think it's weird and wanted to take note of the weirdness in writing.

Untangling Knots

A few weeks ago, my daughter Tallulah found one of her favorite necklaces, a sweet silver angel with a rhinestone heart, in a jumbled tangle under the passenger seat of my car. She asked me to fix it. “Sure, yeah, just stick it on the dashboard.” I may have a habit of saying “sure, yeah, later” to my kids and their 47 daily requests for me to do something for them.

Days went by, and I made no effort to fix it. Driving to and from work, grocery shopping, picking up girls from soccer practice, I would look at the small lump in the corner of my dash and push it out of my mind. It took me a few days to realize that I wasn’t merely putting off a mundane task.  I was actively avoiding it. Why was that little thing taunting me? Why did the sight of it fill me with something like dread?

A few more days went by before I realized it was because of Ann.

* * *

Ann and I met when I was 13 and she 14. Immediately, I realized that she was basically good at everything. She knew how to ride horses, and taught me how as well. She got better grades than I did (than nearly everyone did), and helped me in my classes. She trained me at the deli where we both worked, and where we first met. She was confident and humble, and I looked up to her, even as we became good friends.

A couple of years later, she had her driver’s license, a brown diesel Volkswagon Rabbit, and a sense of adventure bigger than mine. Powered by Ann, we went to the Sonoma Coast, on hillside hikes, and to exotic San Francisco, always exploring. I followed her everywhere, literally and figuratively, and I relied on her for many things, large and small.

Among her many talents, she was particularly good at fixing tangled necklaces. Such necklaces would have gone to the top of my dresser to die if not for Ann. Lacking as I did the patience to fix them myself, I would save them up for her, my more patient and optimistic friend.

“Ann’ll do that for me,” I’d half think to myself before tossing them aside. And she would, always. She never seemed irritated or bothered. She went about the work of untangling knots as if she had all the time in the world and no more important thing to give her attention to. She is the reason my necklaces survived my teenage years.

In many ways, she is the reason I survived my teenage years, my college years, my 20s and 30s and 40s. As one of my closest friends, she eased my fears and insecurities for decades. When I needed to study, she helped me buckle down and focus. Ever the caretaker, she knew that I didn’t eat much when I was stressed, so she’d show up at my house with apple fritters drowning in butter. Later, as a doctor, she helped me understand the medical issues faced by my children as they grew and my parents as they aged; I would often call her after leaving a doctor’s office to get The Ann Translation, because I knew she would tell me what I needed to know, with the perfect metaphor to help me understand, and that she would ease my anxieties over the health and well being of my family.

She even once pulled a tick out of two-year-old Lola’s neck, because I was just too completely freaked out to do it myself. Never mind that she was all dressed up for her own daughter’s baptism, never mind that she had a house full of people to host. She responded to my plaintive “Aaaaaannnnn!” by whisking my child up to the bathroom and applying her tweezers and surgical skills to the nape of Lola’s neck. In no time, that tick was surfing down the toilet drain, giving rise to yet another opportunity for me to say: “Thank God for Ann.”

Ann died of cancer in July of 2017. I can’t call her anymore to ask what some weird medical thing means. We won’t be going on any more jaunts to Goat Rock beach. I can’t indulge with her in chocolate chip cookie dough or apple fritters. She will not be talking me down from any more social-anxiety ledges.

And I can no longer save up tangled knots for her to fix.

* * *

Last week, I found myself at a soccer field, waiting for a notoriously over-time coach to finally call the end of practice. As I sat there simmering in mild annoyance and thinking uncharitable thoughts about the coach, my eye fell upon Tallulah’s necklace. This time, I didn’t push it out of my mind. Instead, I pulled it and so many memories of Ann towards me.

“OK, dammit, I can fix this stupid thing,” I thought as I tackled the job of picking the knots apart. With no small measure of bitterness, I looped pieces this way and that, followed dead-end paths, and stubbornly tried again. I stared at clots of chain, willing my eyes to pierce the mysteries of which lengths went where. More than once, I chastised Ann for leaving me to deal with this mess without her.

After countless fruitless tugs this way and that, one loop finally got a little bigger and pieces started sliding through. As I worked, I found myself warming to the task, and concentrating more willingly and hopefully on my goal. More spaces opened up, knots resolved one by one until at last the angel was free. It probably took no more than 20 minutes, but I lived a lifetime in those minutes, a lifetime of thinking about all ways I miss having Ann in my life.

Something else happened too: I caught a glimpse of her spirit, of the way she did a job with purpose and single-mindedness -- and without self-interest or complaint. It seems too flippant to say I was channeling her, but I was bringing her to life for myself once more, by doing a task the way she would do it. As I worked at the tangles, I grew calmer and less bitter. Knowing how happy my daughter would be made me experience something like joy in the process. Realizing that Ann once did these things for me, and now I would need to do them myself, made me want to do this job and do it well.

This is is how she will live on for me: not merely by my remembering her or thinking about the things we did together, but by embodying her way of being in the world and making her present in the actions I take each day.

Hopping in the car after practice, Tallulah noticed her newly liberated angel swinging back and forth from the rearview mirror and happily exclaimed: “My necklace! Thank you! You’re so good at fixing tangled chains, mom!” With her words, I realized that I have adopted a little bit of Ann to take with me into the years ahead. Tallulah will probably save up her jumbled necklaces and shove them in my direction for the next several decades, and I will welcome them. Each one will bring with it another chance to have Ann by my side.

She once helped me smooth every tangle and resolve every knot; now I know that she will do that forever, from deep in my heart.

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Don't Miss This Opportunity

Yesterday, I found out why I've been experiencing muscle pain and muscle fatigue for the past several months: turns out I have a pretty severe Vitamin D deficiency.  How delightful that my inability to move is not a character flaw!  How delightful is health insurance!  How delightful that, with Vitamin D supplements on board, my children might remember me for something besides collapsing on my pillows!  I am so looking forward to feeling better.

This discovery is a good reminder that we should listen to our bodies.  I've been ignoring my collection of symptoms for a long, long time, assuming that it was just a matter of not getting enough rest, or just because I'm getting older, or just not important enough to pay attention to.  I would never have ignored the ongoing, chronic aches and pains of one of my children; why was I willing to ignore my own?

Think about your own body: are you ignoring anything that you maybe should give a little credence to?  Anything worth asking a doctor about?  Anything worth feeling better for?  Don't miss this opportunity.

* * *

Yesterday, I read a New Yorker essay by Roger Angell* that moved me to tears.  (Updated: The link will take you to full article; The New Yorker posted it in its entirety today.)  So much of my day is occupied by keeping up with my computer and responding to my smart phone that I think some of those tears were due to spending a few minutes with the slick, weighted pages of a good magazine, but most of them were because Angell's writing is exquisite.  His ability to weave back and forth between the personal and the universal is captivating.  I miss reading and I miss writers, and I can't wait to read more and more and more.  Why and how did I ever lose that habit?

Think about your nightstand: does it hold books and magazines you have been meaning to read? Are you making time for Downton and Duck Dynasty but putting off Didion, Diaz or Dos Passos?  Is there anything there worth spending time with?  Don't miss this opportunity.

* * *

Yesterday, while I was ranting on Facebook about mistakenly buying cilantro instead of parsley and being severely disappointed that I couldn't make the dinner I was planning, a family in San Diego was mourning the loss of a 20 year old son, killed while skateboarding by a young drunk driver who fled the scene.  I heard about it, mere moments after my silly FB post, from a friend of mine who knows the family.

There aren't really words for losing a child.  It's too painful to imagine or express.  So many things are unimportant, so many daily annoyances and inconveniences distract us from what really matters.  I read the article about the family: there was a photo of 7 or 8 of them, gathered on the beach facing a makeshift memorial of balloons and flowers.  They stood in a group, shoulder to shoulder, leaning and holding on to each other, keeping each other upright in their grief.  One of them was missing.  One of the people who belonged there was not there, could not help with the holding.

Think about your family and friends: who belongs there?  Are any of them missing?  Can you go grab one and hold him up for awhile?  Can one of them do the same for you?  Do you need to leave aside minor annoyances and tell someone you love them?  Don't miss this opportunity.

* * *  



*Thank you Kelly Corrigan, for the Twitter recommendation for Angell's essay.

Death and Life

My son asked me the other day how long it takes to get over the death of someone you love.  There is an inherent hope in that question, that getting over loss is possible, that everything will be OK at some point in the future.  I didn't want to answer him, because...well...who wants to tell a child that there are things you never get over?  But I answered.  I told him that you never get over a death, that you always miss a person whom you love, and no one and nothing ever can take his (or her) place in your life.  It's also possible, I told him, to go on and live a wonderful, full, exciting and happy life, to meet other people that you end up loving very much, to be joyful and to enjoy your life to the fullest.  But you don't get over death.  You don't ever go back to the way you were before a person you love dies.

My other son asked me questions today about 9/11.  He asked how it was possible for a small plane to bring down a building as big as the World Trade Center.  He had it in his head that the terrorists who flew into buildings that day were in small two or three seater planes, and had just taken off from wherever and flown to their targets.  I watched his face as I explained that no, actually, the planes were as big as the one he flew on to his cousin's wedding, that the terrorists were not the only people on board, that there were passengers on those planes as well.

Then he asked me about the field in Pennsylvania: why did the terrorists want to crash into a field?  Again, I watched his face as I explained that they actually wanted to hit another building, perhaps the U. S. Congress, and that some of the passengers fought back and caused the plane to crash into a field, and that by doing that, they saved the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who would have been killed had the plane reached its target.

I cannot describe the look on his face when I explained those things to him.  Horror, disbelief, rejection... Rejection comes close.  He didn't want to know this about the world, I could tell.  He thought he knew the story of 9/11 -- I thought he did too.  But the details, as one learns them and lets them sink in, are freshly tortuous each time, for each person.  I watched those details torture him today.

I turned my face away from him, because I teared up telling him these things.  I felt like the hijackers were making me hurt my son by showing him that these things are possible, that people can really do unspeakable things, and that people are faced with impossible choices.  He couldn't respond to me in words.  He had no more questions.  He just sat there, looking stricken and sick, and we drove on to the field where he would be playing in a soccer game in another hour.

* * *

9/11 gave us devastation, pain, suffering.

9/11 gave us the knowledge that people can do evil.

9/11 gave us dust covered faces and falling bodies.

9/11 gave us goodbye voicemails.

9/11 gave us a scorched Pennsylvania field.

9/11 gave us widows and orphans, and 3000 unfillable holes.

9/11 gave us sorrow.

9/11 gave me, gave Rick and I, something else, too.  9/11, five years later, gave us the deepest, fiercest kind of love, the strongest and best thing two people can produce together, 9/11 gave us Little T, in all her defiant and radiant glory.

She turns 5 as the country marks 10.  She'll wake up tomorrow overjoyed that this is her day, that she was born, that she is to be celebrated, even as the country wakes up to remember, soberly, lives that were lost to dust and steel 10 years ago.  She sees tomorrow as the greatest day ever in the history of the universe and in the history of every person ever born...because this is a kid who loves life like few people ever will.

When she said good night to me tonight, she asked about her Fruit Loops, since we let the kids eat sugary cereal on their birthdays.  I told her I still needed to go to the store and buy them, and she asked if I would be going tonight, or tomorrow morning very early.  When I told her I wasn't sure yet, she said, in that crazy cartoon voice of hers: 

"Well, if you leave tonight, and you think I'm asleep, and you leave without giving me a hug or a kiss?  Well, you can still hug and kiss me, even if I'm asleep, because I really don't ever want you to leave without giving me a hug and a kiss.  And sometimes, when I wake up and your car is gone, I think you should have given me a hug and kiss before you left."

And then she hugged me, with her strong and spindly arms and legs, and I felt her small frame pressed against mine, and I felt her smooth cheek, and I thought to myself there is nothing as purely good and right as the hug of a little kid.

She is --  all of my children are -- my hope that love will triumph over the evil done on 9/11 and the pain and suffering that reverberate out from that day.  She reverberates too: a resounding and repeating song of grabbing life with both hands, jumping in with abandon, and hanging on for the laughter filled ride.  

9/11/01 and 9/11/06 have given me the very same thing, namely this lesson:  hug and kiss the people you love, each and every time you leave them.  

* * *

Reflection, Not Rejoicing

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The single response that makes any sense to me comes from the Vatican. Please click through and read the link below. It doesn't matter if you are Catholic, Christian, animal, vegetable or mineral. Death is always devastating for someone.

Article title: Vatican says bin Laden's death cause for reflection, not rejoicing

How do we explain fist-pumping celebrations to our children?

* * *

Someone's Morning Cup of Coffee

The News Hour on PBS is airing a series this week called Autism Now. As part of that series, the great Robert MacNeil is sharing his grandson Nick's story, which is an important and moving glimpse into the life of a child and family living with autism. Please click here and watch the video; it will probably be the most valuable time you spend with a screen this week.

* * *

On the way to my pediatrician's office yesterday, I had one of those moments where I realize how much I have to be thankful for. Actually, I had several of those moments.

Lola had a crazy, weird full body rash on Sunday evening, and that, combined with a handful of other symptoms, had us off to the docs to rule out strep throat. (It has since been ruled out.) I was stressed because we were running a little late. With no traffic, I can get to the pediatrician's office in about 25 minutes, and I left the house with only 20 minutes to spare.

I had to choose between the freeway or the backroads. I chose the freeway. I chose unwisely this time.

We ended up in three separate traffic jams, caused by three different accidents. One was fatal. The scene was gruesome and terrible and scary. The other two were not as bad, but still created a snarly, chaotic mess on the freeways.

Accidents in the Bay Area, especially bad ones like that first one, create an incredible ripple effect. The unending lines of bumper-to-bumper cars, across 5 lanes of traffic, puts me in mind of all the missed appointments, late arrivals, and changed plans caused by the crunch and crush of metal and steel. Thousands of people were no doubt using their cell phones to call with the same message: "Traffic is awful, I'll be there when I can..."

But at least one person got a very different kind of phone call. "There's been an accident..."

Whenever I see an accident, I think of the people involved, about how they didn't wake up this morning knowing that their lives were going to turn upside down. Someone's mother had her morning cup of coffee unaware that the taste of it would still be in her mouth when she received a call with the worst news imaginable.

I'll take the delay. I'm not sure I could take that phone call.

I was 30 minutes late to the doctor's office. We arrived whole, three laughing girls playing the "Pick One" game: Blue or green? Country of city? Beach or mountains? Apple pie or brownies? The endless game kept them giggling and bubbling for the entire crawl through broken glass, bent fenders, and emergency vehicles.

Finally past all the accidents, we passed the hillside again, the one I've written about twice before. According to the sea of white crosses thrust into the ground, the death toll in our wars with Iraq and Afghanistan -- the US military deaths only -- has reached 6003. The hillside is getting crowded; I wonder how many more deaths that space can hold. I wonder how many more our country can stomach. And I wonder how many more deaths are not reflected in that number: enemy combatants with mothers themselves, civilians, children.

My children have been sick like crazy this week. They've been sick, and demanding, and loud, and whiny. They've been throwing up, and coughing, and ripping away at strange rashes, and asking for tea in buckets. They have been fighting with each other, with me, and with their dad, and leaving ungodly messes everywhere they go.

They are wonderful and alive and here with me, making me work and stretch harder than I ever have, making me feel like screaming and running away 10 times a day, until I have occasion to want nothing more than to run straight into the messy, noisy, stressful, imperfect, impossible tornado that is my family.

* * *

Full Heart

I have lived a lifetime since my last post.

Halloween in all its glory.

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, which, in this house, was attended by mayhem, chaos, joy, and madness: the full range of crazy, beautiful baseball emotion. And baseball is nothing if not emotional.

The loss of a pet. A small, jumpy fire-bellied toad named Bella, who escaped her terrarium and upended my entire afternoon. The last hour of my day, between 11 and midnight, was spent soothing the young man who fed and cared for dear Bella. He was distraught over her loss, and his young heart was breaking with grief right there on my couch.

And then.

Today. A greater loss. Today, the world lost a wonderful woman to cancer. She taught my four older kids in their Kindergarten year, retired this past June, and discovered two and half short weeks ago that she had cancer. Her family was probably still getting used to the diagnosis, just starting to figure out how she (and they) would fight the disease. Instead, she passed away in her sleep last night or in the wee hours of this morning. Gone before we could all get used to the idea that she was sick.

She was dear to me. She always made me laugh and smile, and she, having raised 10 children, always had the right perspective on my modern version of a large family. She hugged me and told me she loved me every single time she saw me. She also swore like a truck-driver, not a common characteristic in a woman over 70.

She did more than make me laugh and smile. She made me relax; she was proof to me that love is strong and powerful and greater than any suffering. She told me I was doing a good job as a mother, and she is perhaps the one person on earth who could make me believe it.

I am fairly overcome with sadness at the prospect of a world without her in it. It is not right. It is not fair. It does not make sense.

Last night, while I was soothing my son over the loss of his beloved pet, I tried to answer his repeated question: "Why did this have to happen to me?" Feeling the weakness of the only answer I could provide, I told him:

Sometimes, things happen that are so very hard, and so painful, and they don't make sense. There is no good answer to why this happened. It didn't happen because of anything you did, or didn't do, or could have done differently. It was just an accident, a plain old bad luck thing that no one wanted and everyone is upset about. And it really, really hurts right now, but someday, you will think about Bella and you won't think of how you lost her. Instead, you will think about what good care you took of her, the joy she gave you, how wonderful you felt when you got her for your birthday, how proud you were to show her to friends, and how special she made you feel. Right now, just let yourself be sad and mad and upset, and don't talk yourself out of any of that. It will get easier, I promise.

Little did I know I would need those words myself today. Like my son last night, I feel this crazy incoherent, unacceptable scream inside, a righteous objection to events that take away the ones we love. It's a terrible place to be.

Bad things do happen, and they hurt like hell. I love you, Pat, and will miss you. You better keep watching out for me from Heaven, because even though you are gone, I still need you every bit as much as ever.

* * *

Sad Today

Today, I learned that a beloved teacher at my kids' school passed away after a long battle against cancer. We are a sad family today, and our community is suffering a great loss.

We have been close to death too many times in the past few weeks: my mother and father will have been to four funerals by this coming Sunday.

My nine year old asked me this morning: "Is it dying season?"

No more than usual, my son. We just seem to be in the midst right now. There is much to learn from this sadness and loss, starting with patience for those we love.

I am awash.

* * *