Serving the Queens

Six

2011-07-06T22:57:00.013-04:00

The day passed as quickly as the six years we celebrated. I'm left here tonight; wondering where the time went--yes, still I wonder--even after all of this time that has passed within just a moment.

Six was hard, knowing that it was the end of Five. It hit me like the moment that I gave back the bassinet that I had slept in as a child; knowing that there would be no more of my children sleeping in it. I always said the years between three and five were my favorite; those years are gone now.

Already just in this year between birthday cakes she has lost nearly all of her words that were said incorrectly; the "w's" are rarely placed where the "l's" belong anymore. I remember the look on a friends face when I corrected her as she corrected Little A for saying "wike" instead of "like".

"No; it's OK--I hardly have any of that left," I'd said. In my mind there was a memory of that old wooden bassinet; my sobs as I hauled it down the stairs; there was a memory of how tiny she once was; how truly small her hands were when I held them in mine. Her sweet mispronounced words were the parts of that woven wooden baby bed that had remained.

She awoke today with a sense of age, "It is very different than five," she explained.

"How?"

"Mom, it's seriously so much older than five. How can you be an adult an' not know that?"

"Mumma knows that, silly." And her braid became tighter in my hands as all of her blond hair fell together into just a motion, a memory, a prayer. "Turn your head this way, baby." We turned away from the mirror before us, time and tears woven into a plait of hope and sunshine.

If I were to tell the absolute truth of Six, the first word would be this image:

It's one thing to write of her story here; it is another to open my hands and show you what I hold within them. For her end of the year project in kindergarten, they had to create a timeline and she needed a photo of when she was born.

"Is that me?" She had asked, her eyes focused upon the picture, confusion clouding the blue of her stare. "It is, buddy." "What was wrong with me?" "Nothing," I'd said. "You were just very, very tiny and had a lot of things that doctors had to work on for a long time." I explained that her body needed time to catch up to her soul. She smiled when I said that. "Well, I'm super fast so can you even believe how much I caught up to it? Isn't that funny, Ma? Isn't that crazy? How did I even do that so fast?"

The truth of Six is that I once thought Six would never come, just as I thought One would never come; just as I worried that one week, then two weeks, then a month would never come. The truth of Six is that despite the force that she is, she is also still that tiny prayer inside of a NICU to me. I held her in one hand and now I'm releasing her to the world with both. It's hard for me and I wish it weren't, but damn if Six doesn't make it so much harder than Five.

We were talking about her birthday a few days ago, when I joked with her (as I always do) that if she would just quit growing I'd feel so much better. "Ma, I'm gonna grow, OK. I have to. I need to drive a car and get groceries. But I'm gonna stick around, OK? You're gonna see me, OK? But I'm gonna grow, OK? Seriously, I have to."

Of course she has to grow. Of course I am blessed each day that she does. Of course I should have let go of Five with more dignity than I did and I should have greeted Six with a smile and an open door rather than sobbing on the phone with my sister hiding behind the door of my bathroom.

Six was the best birthday ever, according to her. It arrived as friends were pulling out of our driveway at midnight after a night of catching fireflies and making s'mores. We spent most of Six in the sun at the beach. I've been awake for most of Six, but I feel like only a minute has passed.

I asked her what her favorite part of the day was as I was hugging her goodnight. "Remember today when I was really afraid ta go in the lake and ya kept sayin' 'it's OK, Momma is here' and then you kept letting me ride on your back and taking little steps with me and then finally I was like, 'OK, people, I'm swimmin' and I started swimming? Do you remember that?"

"Of course I do, silly, it just happened today."

"Well that was my favorite part, when I was huggin' ya like really tight and ya kept sayin' 'you can do it' and then I did. When I did it, that was my favorite part. And now I'm a lake swimmer, of course."

"What was your favorite part?" she whispered. "When I watched you swimming away like such a big girl," I whispered back.

"Did I look like a really big girl when I did that?" "Like the biggest six year old ever," I said. "I'm really tired, Momma. I have ta go to bed now so I can swim tomorrow."

I hugged her as tight as I could and tucked her in between her two best friends. I smiled sincerely, with all of my soul, at them as I pulled the door shut. I rested my head up against it for a minute and stood there, softly closing a different door in my mind where a tiny baby that fit within the palm of my hand laid within a different bed, machines whirring and humming around her. It probably won't be the last time that I close that door, but I'm determined to try to open it less.

I can't keep worrying about what was and I don't have time to worry about what will be; I have a six year old to take care of now, ya' know?

----

The End

When I was one I had just begun
When I was two I was nearly new

When I was three I was hardly me
When I was four I was not much more

When I was five I was just alive
But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever;

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

A.A. Milne

Waiting On Hope

2011-05-24T20:46:00.013-04:00

"Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor."
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

--------

In my mind, I've written at least ten posts about L. I am surprised to come back here and find that I haven't transposed any of those words to this place, when I can read them so clearly in my mind.

The first post dedicated to him was when I first met him and he had no identification at all. "Your mom doesn't have a copy of your birth certificate? Your social security card?" He shook his head. "I got nothing."

He couldn't get his school records without identification. He couldn't get identification without two forms of photo identification. He couldn't get photo identification without some verification of his identity.

I carefully watched the employees behind the counter at the Secretary of State the day that I went there with him, a copy of a birth certificate in hand when we technically needed an original. "Please," I said and then later made jokes about what a good pair of hooker boots will do for you when really I knew to the core of my being that it was what someone with a good heart would do for you.

I have to make jokes, you know, because if I don't I feel overwhelmed sometimes with the emotion of it all.

"All of this," L said that day as I drove him home, "All of this just to prove that I exist?" I made some remark that made him laugh as my hands gripped the wheel as tight as they could and I choked on the sob rising in my throat.

About a month later, L. had an interview scheduled. The employer called me to tell me that they had filled the position the day before he was to go in; the day that I had left a message for her explaining that I was working with him. When L. called to check in about the interview, I had to tell him that the position was no longer open.

He didn't respond. "L?" I asked. And at the other end, I heard him weeping. There are not words to explain what that did to me, and still I urged him to hold on; that hope was right around the corner. And it was. That day.

L. has been working for nearly six weeks now. It took him all this time to save up $510 to pay off two tickets that he'd gotten in 2008. Before you make a judgment, let me tell you about the tickets. He was pulled over for a muffler that was too loud. A muffler that he knew was too loud, but that he couldn't afford to fix. He was ticketed for that muffler and for not having his proof of insurance on him. He couldn't afford to pay for them; if he could have afforded that, he would have fixed his muffler.

Again, with they cycles, the circles.

In Michigan, if your license is suspended, you have to pay your fines, a reinstatement fee ($150) and a "driver responsibility fee" ($600-minimum) to get your license back.

The bus doesn't go near where L. works, so he has to get off the bus a mile and a half from there and walk the rest of the way. He still goes. He believes that this is the way out from where he is from. I am not sure anymore if there is a way out, but I'm going to keep acting like I do. I don't know anything else.

When I found out about the additional fees today, I was struggling to compose myself when my phone rang. It was him. I delivered the news in fragments, in a way that wouldn't allow him to fully process it, and I knew it, but I don't feel like he can process it right now.

His counselor and I sat later today as she wracked her brain with ways to help and I mostly sat there watching her, nodding my head, running circles in my brain. There are a couple of possible leads, but they are small and unlikely. Probably as small and unlikely as the possibility of a kid who was raised in "the system", who knows nothing but poverty, who bears the demons of his father in the long and jagged scar that rises angrily across cheek getting up every day, hours before he has to be to work, to get to work.

He doesn't have someone in his life that has given him the example of holding a steady job. He doesn't have someone in his life that taught him to keep his social security card or who kept his birth certificate or who made sure he went to school. He doesn't have someone in his life who can even be relied upon to pick him up on time on Sunday morning when the bus doesn't run to help him get to work.

"Do you have a hero, L.?" The manager asked during his interview. "I'd have to say God," he answered. "Do you have anyone, like a person in your life that you look up to or that has helped you?" He looked at his hands and then said, "Just Jenn. She's about the only person that's ever helped me in my life, ma'am." And I made a joke about that not being a good thing, and we all laughed and the manager readjusted papers that didn't need readjusting and I shifted in my chair and I smiled at L. and we walked out and I told him that it would all be O.K., that this was the beginning of things changing.

I believed that when I said it.

I hope, with all that I have left in me, that I will believe that again tomorrow morning.

I hope that somehow his counselor (one of those evil, vastly overpaid civil servants that went into public service to become rich and live the high life off of our tax dollars--you know the ones--working extra hours, trying to make a difference on a smaller and smaller budget with a larger and larger caseload) finds an answer that has been overlooked; placed in a corner somewhere and forgotten; a ten dollar bill in the pocket of a coat that hasn't been worn in a couple of years.

I hope that tomorrow when I talk to L. that I will be able to tell him that things have been figured out and that all of his efforts haven't been for nothing; that he can finally quit waiting on hope and instead bask in the light of its' arrival.

----

"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable." Samuel Johnson

Thirteen

2011-03-05T19:39:00.006-05:00

Big A,

Thirteen.

You are thirteen; more improbable than this is the fact that I have a child that is thirteen; these are not the same thing although it may seem as though they are.

I say it so often, but I have to say it again: I have no idea where the time has gone. I now know firsthand the secret told in the glances of my grandparents and parents, my aunts and uncles: that there is no answer, that they stood there, too, in wonder of where time went, trying to sort out how the people before them looked so different than the people within them.

It's hard, I know, Big A. I must tell you I thought it would be so much easier. I thought that when Thirteen arrived that we would be the best of friends and would meld into one another, simple, curved shapes that were difficult to tell from the other. It isn't that, and that truth is hard. It's all sharp edges and muscles tightened from walking on tiptoes throughout our lives right now.

It's hard to be your mom when I want to be your friend...I am told that the friendship will come in later years, when the innocence and bravado of youth wears a little and shadows begin to fall on the knowledge of all that you thought that you knew. I cannot wait for that time, and yet, if I could shield you from that time, I would as well.

When I tell you that your entire life is before you and that each moment matters, it is because I ignored those exact words of those before me and I look back on that oldest truth with a mix of curiosity and regret--the truth that youth is wasted on the young.

If I were gone tomorrow, I would want you to know how very much I love you. How despite the tension now, that the moment each morning when I see your sleepy face, that each time I am overcome with how much I love you.

I would want to tell you to dive for every ball. To go for it, whatever it is, with all that there is within you. To not wait until you think it will be safe--safety is overrated and not as secure as you would believe. I would want you to know that I never regretted trying and not succeeding, but that I always regretted not trying.

I would want you to know that we really are all just hanging by a thread and that that thread is interwoven among mankind; all of us. That a second, even a part of a second, can make all the difference in the world. That the smallest act can have the most significant impact. That life as you know it could be life as you knew it within the blink of an eye. I would tell you to be the one to let go last when hugging someone.

Punctuation does matter and no matter what, there are two spaces after a period. Floss then brush. Think then speak. Guard the plate with two strikes and if it's close, you better be swinging. Make your free-throws.

Duke and The Yankees are of the same evil empire. Cloud-watching is an art. Be kind. Be true.

You are a love letter written across my soul, sweet girl, with words that I cannot express or understand, but know just the same.

Happy Thirteen, Big A.

Love,

Your adoring mother

On The Eve of 38

2011-01-14T20:35:00.002-05:00

The eve of 38.

Preposterous, no?

It is to me, when I try to imagine it; when I'm lying in bed, thinking of all that I want to do with my life and the goals that I have, drawn fresh on the chalkboard of my mind. And then I go to rise and my knees ache and the mirror reminds me that no, this is not an innocent fresh-faced woman standing, looking out on the world.

And I smile softly and say a silent prayer of thanks that I have this day, this life.

I recall being a child, looking at the adults around me and thinking how easy it must be, how there must be a day that it all falls together and your life hums softly along and you are happy with you and your insecurities vanish and you become a grown person, that it all must somehow work out.

Now, of course, on the eve of 38, I see things differently. I can see the strains that didn't make a blip on my radar; I can hear whispers outside, a hot summer night, cousins sprawled across one another indoors as a marriage was breaking right outside the rainbows on the ceiling of our youth; we were all oblivious. It's hard, I know now, to compose yourself enough to walk into a house and put on a smile and carry on. But you do.

I remember longing for things that I didn't understand.

I remember thinking that if I were a better person, if I were smarter, if I were faster, if I were something more, then I would matter and there would be a magical moment when suddenly all of the bottled up ache and frustration and sorrow disappeared and was replaced with love.

It's hard for me that I still think these things; it would enrage me, I believe, if rage were still buried within me. Time does that, I suppose; takes the rough edges and sands them down, little by little, until you become very careful, very suddenly aware, that with all the whittling away, there are very few breaks that you can withstand much more. And you begin to let go of the things that break you.

I think of those that I love and I wonder if our children look at us and believe this myth; this lie of perfection and I would express wholeheartedly with all that is left in me, "I hope not."

It's not what Big A wants to hear, I know, when I tell her that I'm sorry for this ever-increasing ocean between us; that I am not perfect, that I am flawed and that I do not know the answers and that I'm just trying the best that I can. Who wants their parents to be riddled with confusion when you are so riddled with it yourself? I remember the brink of 13, where she stands now, and that makes me feel older than my knees and my wrinkles and the realization that all of the songs that I sincerely love are two decades old.

Here, on the eve of 38, I can tell you that what I've learned is probably so much of a lesser thing than all that I don't know. I can tell you that I've lived through days that I could not have ever imagined living through, that there are wounds that are still as fresh as the day they were born, that there are miracles and sunrises and that there is so much beauty around me that it makes me weep, nearly on a daily basis.

I can tell you that there are people that I've met in an instant that I've known for a lifetime and people that I've known for a lifetime that I've never even known.

I can tell you that in my carefully crafted plans, 38 looked like a white picket fence and an accomplished writing career and an SUV with smiling children. It didn't look like this; what 38 really is.

And for that, I am so, so grateful.

It is the eve of 38, and for the first time in my life, I can sincerely tell you that I'm good with me. I wouldn't want to be younger; I wouldn't want to go back.

And that makes me happy and makes me sad and makes me wish that I could take what I finally know and bottle it up and give it away to all of the people, children and adults, that right now are waiting for that moment when it all makes sense. I would tell them, "The time is now" and hug them and send them out into a brighter day.

But it is the eve of 38, and I know where those silly little hopes and dreams belong. And I am smiling as I tell you that knowing that they reside within me still is by far one of the greatest gifts I've ever received.

Oh, 38. You've got nothing on me.

The Year The Queens Saved Christmas

2010-12-30T09:13:00.004-05:00

It was a very cold Christmas Eve, and Santa and his elves were about halfway around the world when Santa gasped, "Oh no! Oh no!" Tears sprung to Santa's eyes.

"What is it Santa?" his worried elves questioned. The reindeer had stopped mid-flight and suspended themselves in the air to await Santa's reply.

"I...I forgot to pack enough toys for all of the girls and boys. I meant to grab one last stack of things on my workbench but I forgot them. We don't have enough time to go back to the North Pole because if we did, Christmas would be ruined for all of the rest of the kids in the world."

They were quiet for a moment, when the reindeer looked down at the earth below them. They were above a home with many deer eating outside. The reindeer used their magic to talk to them and explained what was happening in the stars above them.

"Well," the deer responded, "There are some lovely Queens that live in this house. Why, they leave us food out all the time. They might be happy to help out Santa, but you'd better ask the cats outside."

Santa quietly landed his sleigh in the backyard of the Queens and walked up to the stray cats eating outside. "Well, Santa," they said, "The Queens that live here are very special people. They make sure we have food and milk at night. They probably wouldn't mind helping you out."

Santa, his elves and the reindeer whispered among themselves. Their whispers sounded like the softest of breezes drifting through the trees.

Santa used his magic to open the door to the Queens home, for he was very sad to have to do what he had to do and his magic only worked on chimneys when he was jolly. He and his elves quietly began to collect the Queens things that would make other children very happy.

Hank and Erin looked up at Santa and asked him what he was doing. Santa explained his mistake to them and the dogs looked at one another with sorrow in their eyes. They knew that the Queens would be sad to see their things go, but agreed that they would want to save Christmas.

"Better explain that to Babe and Ruth," they said, "Because those cats are mean and they might attack you." Santa found the cats perched on a shelf, waiting to pounce. He explained why he and his elves were in the house taking things instead of leaving presents for the Queens. Babe and Ruth climbed down from the shelf and curled up on the couch, hugging each other as they thought of their Queens.

Santa and his elves gathered up enough things to save Christmas for all of the other boys and girls in the world and walked back out to Santa's sleigh. They were racing across the sky when an elf cried out, "Santa stop!"

Santa stopped his sleigh and looked at the elf. "I made a mistake, Santa. I was just playing with it and meant to put it back, but I was so busy that I forgot." In his little elf hand, he held a baseball.

When Santa reached out and took the ball, a great silence and sadness overcame Santa and his elves, for when Santa held the ball in his magic hands, it allowed those on the sleigh to see what was inside.

They saw ballpark lights, a field with a "D" on it, children on their stomachs in front of TV's, families cheering in stands, sisters jumping up and down with joy, orange pennants and posters on walls and wonderful memories. They saw a childhood inside of that baseball and they knew that the Queen's mom would be very sad that the baseball was gone.

Santa held it for a moment and said, "There is only one thing that I can do, for we cannot stop or else we won't be able to save Christmas."

With that, Santa held the baseball out in front of him in both of his hands and it slowly rose above him, twirling magically. As it began to spin faster and faster, the elves and reindeer watched in wonder as the blue ink spun off of the ball and turned into the blue of the skies and the waters of the earth. The white on the baseball wove itself into the clouds in the skies and the snow as it fell like a blanket on the earth. The red thread of the baseball intertwined with the most beautiful sunsets and amazing sunrises and the skies when they turn a pinkish red that the Queens love so much.

"Now we've given it to the universe, and the universe will decide if the baseball will make it back there or not. If it doesn't make it back, I'm sure the Queens mom will look out around her and remember all of the good things that were inside of the baseball and smile."

The elves and reindeer felt better and were very happy when they finished delivering the last present to the last family on Santa's route. They all made it back to the North Pole, and although they were tired and cold and couldn't wait to lay down in their beds and stables to sleep for a few days, they were very glad that all of the girls and boys had gotten presents that year. Then they thought of the Queens and made a special place for them in their hearts where they would stay forever.

And that is the story of The Year The Queens Saved Christmas.
----
When I finished reading this to Little A and she realized what it meant, with tears streaming down her sweet cheeks, she put her hands on my face and said, for '"Well, if Santa needed 'demda other kids, 'dat's OK with me." She gives me more faith in humankind than I can express.

Imprint

2010-12-29T19:38:00.002-05:00

"Looking for something?" The white blazer pulled up alongside me, two elderly men sitting next to each other, awaiting my answer.

"A baseball," I replied with a smile.

One of the men punched the arm of his friend next to him with a warm familiarity, "I told you. I told you that's what she was going to say."

They both looked back at me. "Going to be tough to find a baseball out here." He paused as I nodded, "Snow and all."

"Right," I said. "Did someone tell you they threw it out here? That it's out here in the ditch?" I shook my head no and looked down at my foot as I made a circle in the snow.

I picked my head back up and told them that my plan was just to look for imprints in the snow that resembled a baseball. They looked at one another for a moment; I could sense that within their glance, they were silently deciding which one would talk next and that neither of them wanted to be the one to speak.

"It's going to be really tough, not even knowing if the ball is out here, you know? It's cold, maybe you should head inside."

I was hoping that my smile might belie my tears when I told them that I'd seen a lot of things that I wouldn't have believed possible.

"You're awful young to have seen something that big," the man closest to me responded softly. I could see the genuine concern in his eyes and I thought, for a moment, of my grandfather, of how he would tell the story of the crazy lady he talked to on the side of the road, looking for a baseball in the snow.

I laughed and said one of those things happened in 1984, in the bottom of the eighth inning and was cut off mid-sentence as the driver said, "I still can't believe they threw to him." "I know," I said, "I was doubled over with hope and fingers over my eyes when everyone in the house was yelling, 'They're not going to walk him! They're not going to walk him!' " Our laughter danced in the freezing air for a few moments.

Then he nodded slowly toward the land in front of me, "Better let you get back to looking, then. Never know what you're gonna find."

Holding Hope

2010-12-27T09:53:00.004-05:00

"I don't want to give you any hope," he said as he looked down at his report. He glanced up at me and then away again. I would have wanted to avoid my eyes as well, I know.

I smiled and nodded my head, unable to speak any further. "I wish I could think of something to tell you, something to say, I have kids too, you know, I wouldn't know how to explain this."

"I'll figure it out." I opened the door for him and wished him happy holidays and watched as he got into his police car and drove away, shut the door, locked it and sat down and wept.

For the first Christmas in five years, I was planning to go see my family and stay there for the entire holiday season. My sister and I were nearly giddy with the thought of time, real time for our kids to play and to sit and just be together.

I had grasped my grandmothers hand on Christmas Eve and told her that I'd be out to see her soon, because the girls and I were staying for a while.

While the girls and I were away, others were in our home. Uninvited, unwanted and most seemingly, utterly uncaring.

I wonder still, sitting here, what they were thinking as they unhooked the Wii, how they felt taking all of their games, their toys, their electronics. What was going through their minds as they took Little A's piggy bank and emptied the contents.

This year for Christmas, the Queens and I talked; we had a small season for each other and instead purchased gifts for those less fortunate than us; there are many--there still are, I know this.

I had asked my family to send money to those that I knew were in need rather than purchasing me gifts this year. On Christmas Eve, I was upset to see a gift with my name on it and looked at my sister accusingly. "It was too late," she said, "I couldn't take it back. I still mailed the money; I wanted to mail the money." When I opened her gift, I nodded and wept. A DVD collection of the Detroit Tigers history and crucial games, including their series win in 1984. I whispered thank you and tried to reign myself back in. I think I've told you before that if childhood could take shape, mine would be in the form of a baseball?

It is here, probably selfishly, that I am sobbing still. Sitting on the top of the bookshelf made from wood from my grandparents barn, in front of a photo of my grandparents, sat a worn baseball on which was scribbled, "To Jennifer, Go Tigers, Kirk Gibson". Not much from my childhood made it through the water damage and then the fire this year. Like most everything else from my youth, now that baseball is gone, too.

Because of the two insurance claims this year, I cannot make a claim for this. Rather, I can, but then I won't have homeowners insurance. I left my daughters with family to come home and try to sort out what to do, but there really is no sorting to be done. I look over at one of their three presents, a wii game and look to the empty spot and try to figure out how to tell Little A that we don't have her things anymore.

Big A, of course, compiled a list of everything we had from 200 miles away. Strong, steady, enraged and only a little broken, with her touch of sarcasm, "I bet you feel really bad about not getting us anything now, don't you?" I love her. She and I will make this OK, somehow.

But the thought of telling Little A what happened; I cannot do that. Her heart is too good; her belief is too sincere. She waited and waited and waited all year for Christmas. She swears Santa is her best friend. She, who halts and averts her eyes from strangers, ran onto Santa's lap and hugged him. I will not tell her that on Christmas, someone came into our home and took her belongings, so I'm planning to lie. Or rather tell her a story. She loves stories; always each night, "Momma, will you tells me a story from when you was a little girl?"

I looked up the prices for a Wii and controllers and laughed. I looked up the prices to the games that we'd had and cried. I walked by the bookcase and outright sobbed.

"When they realize that the baseball is worthless to them because it has your name on it, they are probably going to....get rid of it," the policeman said. I remember a noise actually leaving my throat at that announcement, but I quickly put my hand on my chest and smiled. I didn't know what else to do.

When he told me that he didn't want to give me hope, I didn't respond because I didn't think I could get the words out or get the quote right. I wanted to tell him that he didn't need to give me hope, because, for whatever reason, inside, I've always had it. After he left, I went to look up the exact words: Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. ~George Iles.

I don't have to look back too far to be grateful for what we do have, this year alone we've seen a lot of our possessions ruined by either water or fire. We still have a home, still have each other, still have our pets. And, I suppose, in some way, I still have that baseball, wrapped up tightly with the memories of my youth, barring a few scratches and a worn, red thread.

How To Change The World

2010-12-20T09:07:00.002-05:00

For any of you that wonder if anything that you do makes a difference at all....it does.

Living proof, right here, right now, of the possibility within all of us, and you still have time to help.

A fellow blogger decided to offer gift cards to twenty people in need this holiday season. When her personal limit was rapidly met, someone else jumped in, saying they would help the next person in need, and then someone else offered to help the next person in need. As of this morning, in less than a week, $22,000 in gift cards have been sent to total strangers around the world who didn't know how they were going to make it through the holidays.

As of this morning, there are still people in need and you still have time to help. It doesn't just make any difference, it makes all the difference.

Please, go here and do what you can.

Thank you.

A Letter to My Grandfather

2010-12-19T09:00:00.003-05:00

Gramps,

I know that once I showed you this place, and I watched my sitemeter for the clicks that were yours. Did you know it was possible to miss an I.P. address? I'm sure you didn't and if I'd told you that, you would have shook your head and said something like, "I don't get kids anymore", even though I'm not a kid and haven't been for some time now.

It's this time of year, you know, when I think a lot about being a kid, which of course makes me think about you and Gram. About magic. About mystery. About faith and belief and about what now remains.

The Tigers continue to walk to the edge and collapse, so there is that constant. I couldn't watch them, you know, after you were gone. I want to instill the passion for baseball and sports into my kids, but that year was too much. Like when you've left the water on a brisk day, and when you were in it, you were fine, but once out--the challenge of going back in seems crazy, dangerous even. You could get hypothermia in there. You could get a cramp and be unable to make it to shore. You could begin to weep and be unable to stop. So you don't go back in.

That's probably why, I think, I haven't been to your grave. It's hard to write that here, for I'm sure the first reaction of those that read it is my reaction within myself: selfish. No time to even go there and visit your grandfather's grave? I think you wouldn't think that, because of the things that I hope but do not know for sure, one of those hopes is that you hear each time I think of you and understand that I am visiting you in those moments.

A baseball game, blue skies, an orange push-up, a dirt road, a work truck, a piece of wood, a bad play during a game where someone wasn't "using their head", Silent Night, Amazing Grace, blue eyes, laughter.

I wish I'd recorded the sound of your laughter. I wish I'd recorded your singing. Big A asked me not to laugh before we went into a basketball game where she wanted to make a good impression. I'm not sure if the tears that stung my eyes were because it hurt me, or because I thought of you.

My dogs left, not long after you. You were right; they were like kids; they had souls; I won't be able to think of them and not feel like there is a rock in my heart. I remember our trips in the work trucks, the animals we picked up and saved, the cats you fed and sheltered. I've begun leaving cat food out at night for the strays out here. There are three that come now. They look in at me and I look back at them and I hope they trust me. (I really hope they trust me because my vet has agreed to spay them once I lure them into a cage.) I like being the place where the most innocent of souls know they can find a bit of food and some shelter. I know you know what I mean.

Big A is the athlete that we'd suspected she'd be. More so, than I'd thought. She doesn't have the patience to listen when I try to explain the logic, the thinking behind the plays; she doesn't want to hear it from me. I wish you were here to tell her. I know she wishes that, too. She's grown, nearly as tall as me. She's bright, brighter than me. She's harder around the edges and she doesn't like to show emotions and that's difficult for me and more so for her, I suspect.

Little A is growing and has a soul that is thousands of years old. She knows things she shouldn't possibly know, says things beyond her years; beyond the years of many. She crosses her fingers one over the other, picks at parts of herself until she bleeds, smiles fake smiles to cover fear, has to stand to do her work and doesn't like bright lights, loud noises, new people or new things, but she fiercely loves what she loves and when she feels safe she is the most alive and funny person I've ever met. I'm terrified of people crushing her. Terrified. She remembers you, which most would think odd, but not me. She recalls the last time you two shared a meal before Christmas. She remembers the bench you sat on. She remembers your plate and your discussion of what good food is. She says, "I remembers his voice, ma." And her blue eyes cloud over when we talk of you in Heaven now, but then she will say that she knows that Smoosh and Jessie are with you and I believe her.

Gram is a lifetime older. It breaks me each time I see her, which isn't enough. Her voice is distant and her letters are sad and it makes me remember the day as a child that Dzia-Dzia and I were swinging on that green swing in the gardens and he said that if he could have anything, he would leave the world with Busi at the same time. I didn't understand it then. I do now. Gram swears that she hears you and feels you; I believe that she does. I believe that we all do.

This month is hard for most anyone, I think. It was hard on Thursday when I finally sat down that night and looked at what the date on the calendar actually was. Your birthday. I choked back a sob. I keep waiting for the grief to not be so sudden and violent, but it still is most times when it sneaks up on me.

I'm blessed, I know. My life is good; I am doing a job that I love, my children are well, I have many wonderful friends. I feel like I should be happier, but I don't know how; I don't think that the idea of happiness that I have will come back again. Pure happiness, in my heart, is a girl with her head stuck out the window of a truck, grinning from ear to ear, remnants of an orange push-up getting glued to her face, the Tigers on the radio. I'm trying to create that girl for my girls; I think that is the only way and I wish that you were here to tell me I were right or that I think too much.

I love you still and miss you madly.
Jenn

Without Flight

2010-09-21T09:22:00.012-04:00

It was hot, that day. The kind of oppressive heat that wraps around you and makes it hard to breathe, even if you're simply standing. There was oil everywhere, oil in the water, oil on the fish, oil on the birds, oil on the news, oil on my mind. "Jesus Christ," I'd whispered to my sister earlier that week, "Have you seen those animals? I can barely stand to look."

The way that the office is set up is important to this post; it matters--the details, no matter how small; they matter.

When you walk into this particular office, there is a waiting area for the clients, a heavy half-glass window that a receptionist sits behind, a sign that says, "DO NOT TOUCH THE WINDOW. WE WILL BE WITH YOU WHEN WE CAN." There is a very heavy door, secured by a keypad that you cannot enter unless allowed. There is also a small office off of the waiting area with a desk and a couple of chairs.

I was told that was where I'd be meeting my clients that day. The receptionist came out and unlocked it for me. There isn't a lock on the inside of the door, only on the outside.

I walked in that morning and it was crowded already. The heat, the humidity, the looks in the eyes of the people there, the hopelessness was oppressive. I was meeting with twin sisters, the M's. They had just attained their C.N.A.'s and were looking for work. I'd never met with siblings together before, and I smiled as they came in.

We sat down and began going over the details (details, details) of what they were looking for when we heard the first noise. Someone speaking loudly, perhaps yelling at someone? I smiled. I continued.

So did the voice outside the door. "What, can't anyone else see this? Does anyone see them? We're all just sittin' here, waiting, those birds, they can't fly. Why is everyone just sitting here?"

I smiled and continued typing, my eyes glanced over to the window. "You can't open it from in here," one of the M's said. They're 18. They'd already looked for an escape route. I made some joke; it's what I do, I joke, I smile.

The M's uncrossed and then crossed their legs the same way, at the same time, their bodies ever so slightly touching. I thought of my sisters. I thought of a day under the sun at a beach, Counting Crows playing over and over; how my sister and I would move at the same time.

I thought of my daughters. I smiled and I glanced to the very small pane of glass outside of the office where people had begun to gather. It struck me then, the office we were in was possibly the only place to go? Was the exit blocked? Where was the receptionist? At the same time, I realized the door was unlocked. One turn of the knob and everyone would be in there, and then truly, we would have no where to go. I made eye contact with a woman outside of the window. She had on a pearl necklace. Details.

I looked back at the M's and smiled. "Here's what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to get up and you're going to come over here, OK? Then I'm going to let these people in and see what's going on out there."

"You're going out there?" Their eyes were wide. I made a joke about having two well prepared C.N.A.'s to help me if anything went awry. I was very calm; unlike even now--writing this, my heart again is racing.

I arose and they moved over to my spot. I calmly opened the door and motioned those standing out there to come in. I smiled. I looked at my hand, holding open the door. I was wearing a red bracelet.

I walked out to the lobby, where a man was pacing. "This is crazy," he was saying.

Slowly, I reached out to touch him, "Sir," I started and he swung quickly, his eyes red, something silver in his hands caught my eye.

For a few seconds, maybe five, I didn't look to his hand. In those seconds, I thought, "It's a gun." I joke a lot about losing my mind, about how it doesn't work the way it once did. I can tell you that in those five seconds, my brain had never been so alive.

I thought of my girls. I thought of my family. Of my dogs. Of the heat. I blinked and recalled all of the news stories that you see every single day, the randomness, the senselessness. I thought of the beach. "And Anna begins to toss and turn". I thought of training to work with wounded animals. "Keep eye contact. Move slowly."

I was not scared. Even today, as I write this, I will tell you, I would have been surprised, but not scared.

It wasn't a gun; it was his cell phone. I reached again to his arm, softly, "Can I help you, sir?" There were tears streaming down his face. "I've been here since they opened. I just want to see my counselor. Have you seen those birds? Have you? What are they supposed to do; they were just going about their lives and boom, all this shit everywhere and now they can't fly. What are they supposed to do?"

I walked to the desk and pounded on the window and was told that security was on their way. "I just want my job back," he said. I don't know what his job was, but I can tell you that some of the saddest stories, regardless how you feel about unions, are the displaced auto workers. They've gone about their lives, working in factories, for excellent money and then slowly things begin to unravel. No college training, no computer training, the mortgage is late, the electric is late, the mortgage is late again, the house is in foreclosure, relationships unravel, it goes on and on.

Security arrived and I told them he really didn't mean harm, he was just upset. They agreed to just walk him out. As they were leaving, the man turned to me and asked, "Can you help me?" I shook my head and whispered, "No, I can't. I'm sorry."

I walked back into the room and people filed out. "I said to them, that girl is crazier than that cracker out there," said an elderly black man. I looked down at him to meet his gaze. His eyes were bright, bright blue. He was missing two teeth. Details. Small things. "He's not crazy," I whispered.

I continued about my day, then finally broke down and sobbed, hard, for hours, when I thought what could have been; mostly because I had no idea what it would have meant. What does any of it mean? What would any of it have been for? I still don't know and I want it to mean something.

I try, mostly, to think of the people that I know that I've helped. I think of the really, really good people that I work with; how they work so hard to make a difference in the lives of the people that they serve--how much better the world is because they are in it and truly, how little gratitude there is expressed. For every person that is helped, I can tell you, especially now, it seems like there are ten others that are not, despite such excellent intentions and efforts.

It seems like there should be more, no? I suppose I believed as a child that eventually all the pieces would add up and make sense and there would be great meaning to all of this; to all of us. I don't know that now and it's unnerving at times. I want there to be meaning. I want there to be answers. I want to be able to tell my daughters, "This is why and this is what it means." But I think, perhaps, the answer is that we all have to make our own meaning. I can't be sure.

I think about him, still, that man. I wonder what happened to him and suppose it probably isn't good. Each time I think of him, I think of the M's, who are now working at excellent jobs, their lives, just taking flight--how their lives, if just for a moment, intersected with his. And I think of the pictures of the ocean; the birds flying above those bogged down, and I think, did those in the air eventually land as well, in that oil, or did they keep flying?

Lunch Box

2010-09-14T13:38:00.003-04:00

I'm going to start writing more again, I decided. Because I feel better when I write than when I don't, walking around, writing in my head. Plus my brain is getting totally full and there are hardly any spots left to scribble upon. I have about ten posts that I need to get out. But first, this one. Because it's the most recent.

Little A and I were waiting for her bus this morning. It's still hard for me, you know? Because I want to pick her up and take her back to the house and lay on the couch and read books to her all day. Because I want to make up for all the exasperated sighs that I wasted on her when she'd interrupt me for the 1,000th time while I was working.

We were standing there and I smiled down at her and asked her if she was going to sit with her new friend, B. She's been all excited about B, telling even the cashier at the store, "Yep, and I wide the bus and I sits wif my friend. Her name is B and she's my new friend."

A cloud washed across the skies of her eyes and she looked down.

"What's up, baby?" I asked as I knelt down by her.

"B don't wike me no more and she sayed 'dat I can't sit wif her no more."

"Why is that?"

'"Cause she wanted my lunch box and I sayed she couldn't have it and 'den she sayeddat I's not her friend and now she sits wif someone else and I sits by myself."

I put on my brightest smile, "Come on, I'll drive you to school! It'll be fun!"

"No, Ma. I wikes widing 'da bus. I's just sad when I see B 'cause she was my friend and now she ain't anymore. But I still wikes 'da bus."

We then turned our topic to the dogs and singing and then the bus came and I watched her little head walk down the aisle, get into a seat by herself, slide to the window and wave to me.

I waved back my most enthusiastic wave and watched the bus roll away, turned and let out a sob that surprised even me.

The mother in me wanted to chase down the bus, tell B that no, she couldn't have Little A's lunch box and how dare she! How dare she be so cruel at such a young age! I wanted to call her mom and tell her what B had said to Little A--tell her, it's too soon, they are too young--please, teach her love.

But I didn't. This is the part that I have dreaded. The part where I cannot control her environment, her surroundings, who she encounters. But I can hopefully impact how she treats those around her.

I hope, that if a day were to come that she should pass a "B" on the street and know just by looking into B's eyes that she needed Little A's lunchbox, that Little A would hand it over and never think twice. I will continue to try to raise her that way, despite my raging heart and despite all of my protective instincts.

So that means putting her on that bus, and a lot of other buses, over and over again and trusting that she'll do the right thing, no matter what the world throws at her, no matter if she'll have to sit alone.

And this is hard, people. So painfully hard.

Looking Back...We'll Have None of That

2010-09-07T10:31:00.006-04:00

They are both gone, today.

Big A, off to the seventh grade; still a breath shorter than I, but I'm checking, each night, for the dawn that I know will soon arrive. I've not decided yet if it is the knowing or not knowing that is the worst for me. I probably never will; neither of them are pleasant.

Big A was up at 6:00; I'd been up, of course; I don't recall sleeping. Her lunch was packed and I sat quietly at my desk, reviewing again her paperwork, waiting for her to call for me for something, anything, some sort of advice or help. She didn't. That means I'm doing it right, you know?

We chatted for a moment and planned our schedules--you have practice at this time, I'll get you from that, then a team meeting...finally she smiled at me, "Mom, you have to wake her up, you know."

I smiled my brightest fake smile as I slapped my hands on my legs and said, "I know! Let's go get her."

I felt as though I was dragging the weight of the world with each step. I thought to myself as each movement came upon me, "left, right, left, right." All these years, this moment coming and still, as I paused before I turned on the light, I was not prepared.

When the light hit Little A's face, she rubbed her sweet eyes and then smiled, a smile that could have lit the room had it been dark. "Today is the day!" I sang to her. "I knows, Ma! I'm goin' ta school." (I swallowed all that was rising within me, including the worry that she might step off the bus and not say, "knows" or "ta" anymore.)

We got dressed and took pictures and saw Big A off on her bus, complete with the humiliation of photographing her steps up the yellow wagon. I told her she'd appreciate it someday and thought of how very old I felt when I said that.

Little A and I made our way back in, ate breakfast, braided hair, snapped some photos and it was Time. I watched her blue eyes widen as we pulled into the school. All of her fingers were crossed as I unbuckled her to get out. "I's so excited Ma! I can't wait!" She squeezed me tight as I begged, again, for the world to stop, for just a moment.

On Big A's first day of kindergarten, I recall walking into the walls to try to get out. She had hugged me and kissed me and then turned and ran into her class--she never looked back. I remember thinking that no matter how my heart broke, that was the way I wanted it to be.

I didn't think Little A's transition would go so well. Big A never cuddled, Little A and I cuddle all the time; our hands are always entwined. She will say, "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma" and when I finally stop what I'm doing, she'll spell out "L-O-V-E." Big A will grab her stomach and feign nausea each time.

I was worried about her worries; worried about her quirks; dreading this moment with all that I had in me. Little A met her teacher, we hung up her backpack, and then she hugged my legs, looked up at me and said, "I love ya ma, but I gots ta go ta school now." And she turned and ran to her chair.

She never looked back.

And now I'm home; where I can finally actually work from home without constant interruptions, without Dora on the TV, without hundreds of requests to go outside, without her here to "help" me and run my shredder.

And the silence is the loudest sound I've ever heard.

Long live the Queens.

Five

2010-07-05T19:42:00.006-04:00

Five.

I am writing this on the eve of Five; assuming that like all of the dawns previous, tomorrow will come. I will greet it with a smile and with a sense of heaviness that I assume one day, should you have children, you will understand.

"I's not your baby, Ma." I can't tell you what those words mean to me, what they do to me. You've heard thousands of times already that you will always be my baby. You'll hear it thousands times more, for it is the truest of the few truths that I know.

Hope, Little A; you're also my hope.
Love, Little A; you're also my love.
Laughter and joy and all that is light; you are also those things to me.

I watch you carefully and quietly, trying to drink in all that is you, believing that since it was I that carried you; I that held you, that surely somehow I must be able to capture all of you and hold it tight to me. I know of course, that there is no holding light, no holding time. I know this, yet, each day, I have to learn it again.

I want you to fly. I want you to grow and run and be the force that I know you will be upon the world. I want these things for you.

I also want to hold you close; to stop time; to turn the clocks and stay here, now, when I am your hero, your "bestest mom in 'da world", still able to scoop you up and snuggle with you at night and make up stories and talk about dreams and dance with wild abandon without fear of who might see.

I see the look in your eyes, when you're staring out at something that doesn't quite exist, murmuring words that have been put into your heart, without you knowing how they got there. I know those words, love. I see what others do not, for I saw those things too. I recited those verses as well. And that scares me, Little A. There are easier paths than those of a dreamer. It's not that I want the easy path for you; it's that I want to shield you from certainly what is to come.

I look at you and see me so clearly that it sometimes startles me to my core. When you whisper your dreams to me in the dark of the night with stunning detail, I understand, and I remember what it is to dream. I used to love dreaming so much that I looked forward to bed; to sleep; to slumber--and I recall how hard it was for me to adapt when those nights of solitude slowly ebbed out of my life. I don't want that for you, Little A. I want you to always dream.

I don't want Five. I don't want you to know about the things that you'll learn. I don't want your sweet little heart to break over and over and over again while you will the world to change and greet each unchanged sunrise with a sense of surprise and sorrow and unhampered belief that today is the day; you will change the world today. And yet, I believe it is possible, Little A, if anyone will change this world, I believe it could be you, so I know that I need to set you forth and cheer you on and offer you what little I know. I promise I will do this with each breath that I take.

I don't want Five. I don't want The Magic to end. I want you to believe that you are magic always; that you have the power to do things that others cannot. I want you to know that this is true. I believe that you can make this true.

"Ma, my magic only works when I's with you," you said to me. Someday, you'll understand why I wept when I responded, "I know what you mean, Buddy."

For all the not wanting, Five, I know, is nearly here. I can feel Time making its' way into our home right now, silently slipping in with the dark as the light draws from this day. I will stay awake tonight and watch you sleep. I will count your breaths as I've done in the past; I'll rest my hand upon your chest and kiss your unwitting cheeks and will greet your awakening eyes with the brightest smile that I can muster.

Each day that I've had you in my life has been the greatest day I've known. I love you beyond love.

Five, Little A.

Five.

Flutter, The RePost

2010-04-20T07:23:00.003-04:00

I rarely re-direct you elsewhere, but these words....these words deserve to be read over and over again; they are that beautiful and haunting and heartbreaking.

http://byflutter.com/?p=1007

No Answer

2010-04-14T21:10:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure that anyone comes here to read anymore since I rarely come here to write.

It's a time thing.

But that is not what this post is about. I need to write this post so that I can get up in the morning and go do what I need to do. I need to write this post so I can quit crying and pull it together and remind myself why every little action matters.

If you're reading here, you know my clients; you know my work.

This is the story of S. She's 21. She grew up in your classic abusive home. She got pregnant young; she has a four year old boy that she loves more than life. They live together in their temporary housing at a local shelter.

Absorb that, as you settle into your bed, or your chair, or read this from your laptop or computer; if you can do that, then perhaps you can begin to feel what I'm feeling.

With virtually no supports, she attained her C.N.A. Within a week of working with me, she got a job offer from one of the top hospitals in our state. Today was her first day. She had to be to work at 7:00 this morning.

At 6:30 tonight, while I was with a different client helping her select clothes for her first day of work this weekend, S called twice and then left a voice message. Do you understand when I say that I was afraid to listen to it?

"Hi, Jenn, it's S. Today didn't go good. It didn't go good at all....it was awful. Can you call me?"

My heart sank and I anxiously waited for her to pick up the phone.

She explained that she'd left her house at 5:45 with her son, driven him to a friend's home who said she would put him on his bus at 8:00 so he could get to his pre-school. Her friend didn't answer the door or her phone. Her friend also didn't respond when S. began knocking on her windows.

So she began calling the few people she could call:

The father of the child. No answer.

A different friend. No answer.

A cousin. No answer.

Her child, tugging on her coat, "Momma, what's going on? Why you crying? Momma?"

No answer.

This woman, this girl, her child--all of her hopes, sitting in a driveway at 6:00 in the morning, just waiting for one person in her life to come through for her. Just one.

They didn't.

She called her supervisor, told him what was happening, and got her son on the bus, then reported to work, very late.

They let her stay.

Tonight, she was panicking, crying, rambling, "This is my dream job. This is my whole life. And I feel like I don't deserve it, you know? I feel like when any little thing starts to go good, I have this awful luck and it just falls apart. I don't think I can do this anymore."

I wanted to tell her so many things, but I couldn't. I told her this was temporary; that we'd coordinate help and if she could just get through this week, by next week, she'd be all set. She began to calm down. Then, a whisper, "But tomorrow? How do I get through tomorrow?"

I told her if she couldn't find anyone, I would be at the shelter at 6:30 and I would put her child on his bus and then we'd figure out a plan from there.

About one minute later, the client I was with came out of the dressing rooms, beaming, talking excitedly about work. Her mother met her there to take her to a celebratory dinner at the mall.

I hugged her hard and wished her the best and didn't make it to the car before the tears began to fall.

I had 17 voice mails today. S was just one of them. She was also the only one that I had time to return before 8:00 tonight.

And I'm laying here, exhausted in so many ways, thinking of S.; about her day, about her life, about those hours of panic this morning, about the challenges that she's faced already and how she's overcome so much and about how hope looks so different and sounds so different to all of us.

I made a choice today between the responses churning in my head; between the thought that ultimately, it's not my problem; that I've done my job and helped her out and then the thought of a young mother, her head on a steering wheel, sobbing in the dark, wondering where she would find help and how she'd get through this.

And when that young mother picked up her chin, wiped away her tears and checked her make-up in the mirror, her eyes were mine.

And that is why I do what I do.

And that is why I am going to change the world.

And that is why I am still lying here, weeping, waiting for an answer.

The Last of the Firsts

2010-03-10T08:53:00.006-05:00

"...and they lived happily ever after."

Tonight Little A and I are going to kindergarten round-up. I have no idea why it needs to be so soon; so early; why it's arrived so fast.

While filling out all of the required forms, I couldn't help but keep thinking of the day that she and I left the hospital together. The nurse rolled us out to the door and I stood up, her in my arms, terrified to leave the hospital, and yet, off we went, she and I, to the car together and out into the world.

She was so little for so long; always the tiniest one, the frailest one, the one that everyone coddled and hovered over; her little frame belied her strong spirit.

And now, oh now. She is the Queen of Everything and Everyone. She has a sense of humor that has people laughing constantly. She has a mind that forgets nothing. She has the ability to make sunshine out of rain.

I don't want this to end. I don't want her to go to school. I don't want to have her grow, and yet, of course, I do. I'm not ungrateful for this magic life, but if I had an opportunity to stop time, it would be now.

I don't want her to know of insecurity or think twice before she bursts out into song. I don't want her to feel like she has to dress a certain way or talk a certain way or stop the way that she uses "w" instead of "l" and "r".

I want her to always believe that she is magic, that she can turn the song on the radio by willing it so, that she can open doors by pointing her finger, for in many ways, I think when she realizes that isn't so, it will be the last of my magic as well.

Knowing my body will never bear another child, knowing that this is the last of the firsts, knowing that she is on the cusp of so many things, all of them pulling her further out into the world and from me; I can't describe this ache.

I believe that ee cummings said it best:
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

Twelve

2010-03-05T20:55:00.003-05:00

I wish I had words to tell you what this day does to me, but I do not.

I wish I had something to give you, something beyond my love, that was certain, but I don't. I know all too well that even my love doesn't feel like love most days, Big A. Angst is not lost on this adoring mother, though I know you believe otherwise.

I struggle now, more than ever. I want to give you the world, but I want you to know what it means to seek out your own place.

I want to teach you the importance of loving yourself while making sure you learn how to put others before you and the value of that; of recognizing more than yourself.

I want to be your compass, and yet, more than ever, it is you and Little A that are mine. "What would I want them to do?" "What would I want them to know?" "What if that were my child; how would I want someone to fight for them?"

So how does this work, you ask?

And all I can tell you after these twelve years of being a mother is that possibly, today more than ever, I don't know. I say possibly because I'm not sure. It doesn't go away, but I wish it did.

I see your insecurities, and they gnaw at me.

I see your strengths and they inspire me.

I see your frustration and your anger and your desire for this part of you to end, already, eyes to the finish line when you've just yet started the race. You are my child, after all.

I know you cringe when I speak of the moment ago that I was cradling you to my chest, so I try not to speak of it. I don't tell you to embarrass you, I tell you so that you know; to try to teach you that it does pass, love, so fast, so quick, so certainly.

The etches in the doorway; the three inches that you've grown, the three shoe sizes that you've gained--in just a year? I cannot keep up with you and for that I am ever so grateful and eternally sad. And that makes not one bit of sense to me, either.

It is not just you, though I tell you it is; I do hold you a bit longer when I hug you at night now. "Will it be tonight?", I wonder, "Will it be tonight that she goes to bed a tad shorter and awakens taller than I? Will this be the last time I know of my child being just so below my eye level?" I'm the tallest in my family, you know, so I have no idea how to look up at you, and yet, it seems I've been doing so forever.

I know that you believe if you hear once more of the day I discovered the last of your baby fat was gone that you will die of boredom. I do know this. I do hear you. I do listen.

It's just the shock of that; the pain of that; the keen awareness and foreshadowing of what was yet to come--it hasn't left me yet, Big A. I don't believe it ever shall. And I believe that is how it should be.

There is no stopping this thing called time; perhaps these are the longest years. I cannot be your friend. I cannot grasp you to my chest. I cannot shelter you from this world. I cannot follow you to be certain that you've donned your hat and zipped your coat and protected your lips with the chapstick that I seem to buy you daily.

I will never rock you again in the old creaky chair; never fall asleep again with you on my chest; never make you believe that I am magic anymore.

Santa is gone, the Tooth Fairy is gone, the Easter Bunny is gone; on some days, I know, even God is gone. I can't make you believe. I can't explain well enough. And I must be alright with that. And I will tell you that even now, that is hard, despite knowing it is how it must be.

There is no love beyond this love.

There is no breath that I take without you on my mind.

There is no thought not marked by your presence.

There is no beauty that does not remind me of you.

Twelve years. It might have been twelve hours and I still would not know where the time has gone.

Happy Birthday, Big A.

Milo Plots My Death

2010-03-01T20:20:00.007-05:00

If you look closely and if I had the skills of a fourth grader when it comes to Photo shop, you'd be able to see Milo the wonder-cat hidden within the confines behind my washer and dryer. Trust me, he's there, backed up against the wall as far as possible, plotting his escape. Seriously, he told me so:

ME: Milo, come out, Mr. Man. Kitty, kitty, kitty.

MILO: I am ignoring you. I've just survived a fire and the trauma of hiding in a small confined space there, and now, I'm here?

ME: Milo, it's me, Jenn, you remember me? All those nights you'd tap on my door with your come hither ways....all those nights we sat on the couch cuddling and typing resumes?

MILO: I remember you, Jenn. It's just that I'm a tad worried that you've gotten the wrong impressions from our time together.

ME: What?!

MILO: Look, I'm a free bird, I got lots-a girls. I thought we were cool until somehow I woke up here in your house. I don't know what you told my parents to convince them that I should stay with you, but just wait until I talk to them. And don't be goin' all Kathy Bates on me and trying to tie me to a bed and break my ankles with an axe.

ME: Milo, honey, it worked before, we can make this work again. Look, I made you your favorite dinner....albacore tuna fiesta. I even put it in this little dish for you.

MILO: Day-um, I am hungry. Saunters out, eats meal.

ME: Feel better now buddy?

MILO: Purring, well, I guess I could get in bed with you-but I gotta be clear--I'm a playa, this don't mean nothing to me besides having someone to get through the night with. You cool with that?

ME: Um, Milo, you're not allowed to leave the house, ever, so I'd think that would really impede upon your playa status.

MILO: That's only cause you don't know the skilz I have. Stray Cat Strut? They wrote it for me.

ME: I get it, Milo, I get it. You're the coolest cat ever.

MILO: Yeah, baby, you do got it. Now if you play your cards right, I'll let ya rub my back.

MILO: Don't be alarmed by the sinister swishing of my tail or the look in my eyes. Really. You're the favorite of my kitty calls honey. Just come over, pick me up and take me to the bedroom where we can snuggle like the old times. And when I'm gone in the morning baby, don't cry. Just smile when you think of me.

ME: Oh, Milo, anything for you.

(We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow, let's make it last, let's find a way.....)

Move Along

2010-02-26T22:09:00.010-05:00

About 99.9 percent of the time, I'm ready to give up and cash it in. I look at all of our things, take cold showers and dig through possessions and I feel mostly like it's impossible, what has to happen next.

Like it cannot be done. Like I just don't have it in me to do this.

But that's just how I feel, not the truth.

Because the truth is, we do it all over again every day, right? In one way or another, we do. It's all small steps.

I sat down yesterday and pulled up a news page; I had no idea there were more earthquakes. Looking at those photos of devastation, I felt ridiculously petty and small. What if everyone just sat down and cried and kicked doors and didn't do jack about what was around them?

I'm looking at this like I look at a run. The first minute thinking there's no way I'll make it today, I hate running, why do I run? Then by the second time I hear, "When all ya gotta keep is strong, move along, move along," I remember why I run. And by the "face down in the dirt, she said 'this doesn't hurt,' " I have it in me to laugh and remember that I'm glad to be alive.

A few posts back, I wrote that I believed this year would be better than the last one. I wrote something along the lines of, "I'm a runner, it's my turn to run."

I still believe that.

And I've resorted to child labor, because I think, hey, if Apple and Nike make it work, I can too:
Yeah, that's Little A, running a shredder. Thank Bank of America for that one since they feel at liberty to keep making withdrawals from my checking account and giving it to random strangers, thereby forcing me to close my damn account and do all the shit that you have to do when closing an account. I know it looks bad, but she has a high tolerance for pain and I think fingers are mostly over-rated anyway.

We've taken to walking on floors that are littered with nails no matter how many times I sweep, or state: "Wear shoes at all times." No one listens to me and now I have the awesome comeback line of, "If only you'd listened to me, you wouldn't have lost your foot to tetanus." Which is pretty much the ultimate "I told you so," of parenting.

So there's that. And I'll take it.

Now move along.

The Things We Keep

2010-02-26T00:39:00.006-05:00

I quit writing.

I quit writing on paper; I know; this isn't paper, but I quit putting it here. I was writing, always in my head, but time--time to write--if I'd have started writing, I may not have stopped.

So instead of not stopping, I never began.

What I was telling you in my head was that last year had been the worst of my life; that I'd lived through it.

I wanted to tell you that I awoke and found myself and then found my voice.

And that life can come and get me, and that I will be running right into it, as fast as I can.

There will be no more weeping in showers. I shall weep, make no mistake, but to hide and cower; no.

I don't remember the order, but I recall the crumbling.

I have to tell you, I might not remember much from what I write here tonight. I think the Ambien is kicking in; who knows; the post so long in the writing may never make it to post.

My house fell apart? Did I tell you that?

A sewer cap broke under the home and drained, for months, under the crawl space. The crawl space above my office. The crawl space above my office where I would sit those days in December and google the options the doctors had given me: leukemia, lymphoma, lupus. It was a trio I tried to turn into a word twister challenge.

I needed some fun.

The whole house had to be emptied out and many possessions parted with, replaced, of course, those that could be. Mourned, always, those that couldn't. The bacteria wasn't something you could just wipe away. The house had to be gutted.

While going through all of my belongings, I decided to make "The Box". The box you would grab after your children, the box with pictures of childhood you'd stolen from your mothers albums and lied about, the pictures of your children, worn and torn and faded yellow.

The letters from your brother, the letters from your sisters, the letters from your grandparents and the amazingly life-reinforcing cards created by your soul sister Beth. The box of things that you would keep, if you could only keep one. I kept thinking, if I had to grab one thing....

But I didn't.

It happened so fast.

I'd just gotten home from dinner; it was a night that I didn't have the girls; I was still in my boots and coat. I was reading a planner page and donning an eye patch and laughing, looking forward to Friday, the day I was going to see some of my dearest friends from childhood and help with their move; we'd made a joke about pirates and Orlando Bloom. I was laughing out loud.

The dog whined. I ignored her. She always whines. I began to cough. Not too odd; I cough a lot lately.

I began to smell smoke. I began to ignore the smoke that I smelled. "Could. Not. Be."

Within one minute, I heard the owners above me scrambling, yelling, calling for their pets. I ran to my door and as I opened it, C was standing there, yelling, "The house is on fire."

He was looking for their cat, their beautiful cat. I started to help him look, but after a minute it became impossible with the smoke. He ran back upstairs and I walked, calmly, through my apartment, grabbed my purse and walked outside.

I stood for five minutes when I began shaking, thinking about the box. Thinking what I'd been thinking as I packed it: "If I had to put my life in one box...."

I began to shake and weep as I thought of what I'd wanted to keep, on the floor in a closet; a cardboard box. I became sick. I tried to comfort the owners, but they too were in shock, murmuring about the wood fire and the fan and how quickly it started.

At some point, I called my sister A. That is almost the last thing I remember. I remember the fireman that had seen me weeping under a tree carrying out a box, cardboard, wet and walk to me. "I can carry this to your car."

The driveway is long; there were ten, fifteen fire trucks? I assume that I walked it. My other sister B was there, I know, I think. I think she was there with her husband. I remembered that, but then I didn't....I remember laughing about something and then crying and laughing and crying.

"I don't have underwear," I laughed and cried.

I tried calling the owners to find out about Milo, to find out where they are, to find out about the next step. I laid here and cried; thankful for the lives spared, terrified of what remains and what doesn't, a box, in my car, of what I would take with me if I had to put my life into a box and run.

And I'm running. Running right into it. Not crying in the shower; I'll just stand and weep openly. Life, you'll have to take this one kicking and screaming. Come hell or high water; so far, I survived them both.

One Year

2009-12-30T11:02:00.007-05:00

It's been one year since my phone rang and rather than answer right away, I looked to the sky.

I have that habit: don't answer, don't look, don't read, don't ask, then it won't be true.

I read a line in a poem once, "honesty doesn't change the truth."

One year has passed and I still ache now like I ached then, worse, sometimes even.

Like the surface wound has settled into my bones, a permanent ache that is trickier than the others. It isn't necessarily the rain or cold that brings it on, it's sometimes little things: an orange push-up, a dirt road, an accent, a baseball, an old church.

You never know where those little things lie in wait.

After my grandfather passed, within the year, my grandmother lost two of her brothers. She was telling me the other day, tears in her eyes, how she had talked to her cousin and out of habit, picked up the phone to call her brother.

It was all I could do to remain seated, to not run, to quell the panic in my chest, to instead just sit and reach out for her hand and cry with her.

Part of the pain of this grief is the grief that it causes the people that I love the most.

I miss him, still, incredibly.

I don't think anymore that this will fade or ebb or become easier. I hope that one day it will become manageable. I hope that one day I will be able to take an orange push-up into my hands and not want to weep. I hope that one day I won't so suddenly be taken aback by his loss that it renders me to tears, no matter where I am or what I'm doing.

I hope that one day I will only laugh when I recall him; his smile, his eyes, his heart. I know that is how he would want it to be.

And that is part of why I miss him so much.

Always, Gramps, until we meet again.

He had the gift
of stopping time
& listening well
so that it was easy
to hear who
we could become

& that was the future
he held safe
for each of us
in his great heart

you may ask, what now?
& I hope you understand
when we speak softly
among ourselves
& do not answer
just yet

for our future
is no longer the same
without him

Story People, Listening Well

Long Live The Queens

2009-12-17T22:48:00.011-05:00

Dracula's Lament

It's getting kind of hard to believe things are going to get better
I've been drowning too long to believe that the tide is going to turn
And I've been living too hard to believe that things are going to get easier now
I'm still trying to shake off the pain from the lesson's I've learned.

Having you here now I see things are going to get brighter
Feeling you here now I know I might make it through
Loving you this long has made me believe in forever
And with you these dreams I've gotten might somehow come true.

And knowing your grace this well just makes me want to be better
And knowing your heart this well makes me wish mine would grow
(Oh my love)
And loving you this long makes me want to write sweet songs forever
With a little luck maybe we could make it all on our own.
(How much I love you)

When I see your face I would swear to the Lord I was dreaming
When I hold your hand I watch time disappear against you
(Oh my love)
When I speak your name I can feel I just said something sacred
While the saints pray for heaven I thank God I'm already there.

Jason Segel

Long December

2009-12-14T15:24:00.028-05:00

"A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving
Oh the days go by so fast."

Counting Crows, Long December

* * *

Big A's great-grandmother passed away last week and today, in an old church in a small town, I attended her funeral.

I went to pay my respects to her fathers' family and, honestly, to see how Big A was processing, or not processing, her grief.

It wasn't until about two hours before the service that the knot in my stomach set in. The last funeral I'd attended in an old church was my grandfather's.

When I'm in public places and it's not appropriate to tap my chest or rub my neck, instead I move my feet incessantly, crossing my legs, rolling my ankles. In order to breathe, I need to be moving.

There are reasons I'm a vagabond right now, necessities in duffel bags, floating from home to home.

* * *

The thought of this Christmas almost paralyzes me; my grandfather gone. With absolute certainty, I know that everyone else feels his loss deeply as well; it is a testament to the man that he was.

It's just that sometimes I wonder if anyone else in the room is feeling the same way I am, if they are finding themselves walking down the aisles of grocery stores and suddenly, a memory, a scent and instantly the loss is so crushing that their next breath is painful.

If they are faking their way through smiles and politeness and days while choking back sobs when his blue eyes and distinct laughter come to mind?

* * *

I've always been like this; always felt a little off from the rest of the world; it's why writing here has been such a relief to me--to know that elsewhere there were people that as children were consumed with thoughts about the animals lying on the side of the road, moths with broken wings, the lives of the most deprived and tormented at school.

It's a blanket of comfort to know that other parents might find it perfectly acceptable that the loss of the last of baby fat might render you stunned; to find kinship among the world, people that feel the same, think the same, people that understand when I say sometimes I feel consumed with how fast this life is passing me by.

"Why would you even think about that," he said when I told him that what was wrong was that I couldn't get my mind off that little girl in Florida.

"How do you not think about that?" I asked.

* * *

Big A and Little A are vastly different when it comes to expressing their emotions. Big A boxes hers up and stores them away, Little A wears them on her sleeves and thinks nothing of suddenly changing topics from laughter to stating, "I miss Smoosh. I miss Jessie. I miss my grandpa up the hill." When she does this, Big A hardens and hisses at her.

I've tried talking to Big A about expressing emotions, but she comes by this compression honestly. Her dad openly admits he doesn't do this easily. I am relieved, to many ends that she has someone so similar to her.

The other day when I was driving, I glanced back at Little A. She was staring up at the clouds, her lips moving, her little pointer finger weaving magic at the world passing by. My heart ached; the thought of that dreamy life, what it might mean for her.

I don't want her dropping to her knees someday to grieve my loss, shattering glasses, staring out windows, weeping in showers.

* * *

"What's going on?" Big A asked me, about a month ago as I was standing at the kitchen sink with tears quietly streaming down my face.

"I miss Grandpa so much," I replied.

"Mom". It wasn't a question, it wasn't an annoyance, it wasn't her mocking me. It was a simple statement, like she could finally see me for me and loved me anyway.

* * *

And here we are, back to December. Back to an old church, a funeral in a small town, snow falling outside.

All in all, Big A did well. Following the service, her grandmother noted that Big A seemed to take it harder than any of them; she had barely wept. Her dad hugged her and said he knew it was hard to be sad around his family.

Part of me was relieved.

Mostly the part of me that walked out to my car, put my head on the steering wheel and wept about a man that I loved beyond words, a red truck traveling down a dirt road, a Christmas without him, a loss I cannot express.

I was tapping my chest as I drove away.

* * *

First Blood

2009-12-12T14:42:00.011-05:00

I'd be lying if I told you it was the first time.

The first time, it was Kirk Gibson. I was sick with grief for weeks, months, after the Tigers traded him--what was I supposed to do now with my childhood poster dreams?

Following that my aunt left unannounced for Florida; I still remember running as fast as I could up a dirt trail, choking back sobs, to my grandparents home after my mom told me, only to verify that what she had said was true.

Later my aunt sent home a picture with her and Gibson-she had run into him somehow. It seemed fitting, I knew even then through my tears.

* * *

When I met the one who would wound me next, I was eighteen.

It was a hot, sunny day and we were on a beach in northern Michigan. The introduction was also the end; the blue of his eyes shook me-my knees knocked, my heart raced, I had no idea what was happening, but I went anyways.

I left my innocence there, swimming in the waves of the beach of my youth--again, with the fitting.

I saved the piece of paper that I had written his phone number down on the first time he called me. It was barely legible, my hand was shaking that bad.

I remember, months later, laying in my cousin Mike's apartment, hazy from the booze we'd consumed and ears ringing from the music we'd danced to, smoke hanging on me like a gauzy shirt. Mike was laying on the floor, I was laying on the couch, with one leg hanging off, he looked at me and said, "When you love someone that much, no matter how it ends, it won't end well."

He had an apartment at that time that was right on the beach, his windows were open and I heard the waves pounding on the shore. I remember closing my eyes and the roller-coaster feeling, murmuring, "I know."

The waves grew louder.

* * *

Initially, we thought that there were ways around the end. I'd attend a different college, he could move to a different town.

There are things that transcend all probability and reason; I've seen them.
This was not one of them.

Each day after class, I would walk in the door and the first words out of my mouth would be, "Did he call?" I'm not sure who it hurt more, me or her, each time she shook her head no.

Until the day I woke up and stared at my ceiling and thought, "No more. I'm not asking today."

When I arrived home I chatted about classes and political science and papers that I had to write.

The air seemed heavier, but I ignored it when I breathed in. I knew, I know now, on some level, so it shouldn't have rocked me as much as it did that night sitting on the couch.

"What," I said, giving up, looking at her.

She didn't answer at first. A piece of yarn on the blanket, rolling through her hand. I knew, then.

"You didn't ask today." She looked up, finally, at me. There was already a tear streaming down my face.

"He called," I said. "Yes." She looked back down.

I don't remember what country was the destination point of the final letter that I mailed to him. I remember my knees buckling when I got the call that he was getting married; they'd always been my weakness around him.

There were not enough miles to run, stadium stairs to pound, boys in the intramural basketball league to chew up and spit out.

After that, it was I who did the wounding.

* * *

What does that mean today? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

When I was there for the birth of my niece last week and was told that I must wear a mask; if I kissed her it could kill her; I laughed to myself thinking I should have been wearing a mask my whole life.

Except maybe I was.

* * *

I remember his dad visiting me, years later...I was braiding Big A's hair. He said to me, "I'm sorry about him. I wish I knew what he was thinking." I laughed him off--it didn't matter anymore, I told him.

Do you understand when I tell you that I was sad that it didn't?

* * *

I don't have an ending for this, I just felt like it needed to be written, it was on my mind when I was staring at the ceiling.

I do know that if the woman that I am today were to meet the girl that I was on that beach, before I met him, with the possibility of sending her off before knowing the blues of his eyes, I would hug her and send her headfirst, running down the dunes anyway.

And I'd tell her to take better care of her knees.

A Jet Plane

2009-12-11T14:12:00.002-05:00

"My bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I'm standing here outside your door..." we sang this incessantly as children, no idea what it really meant.

I miss that unawareness.

My bags are packed, figuratively.

I want to see 10 ballparks next year.

I want to see Maine in the fall.

I am going to Sedona, hell and high water being nothing to me.

I'm tired of waiting until tomorrow; of putting off joy; of putting me at the bottom of what matters to me.

* * *

"People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

Rogers Hornsby

100 Words

2009-12-08T15:00:00.003-05:00

I accepted a challenge from a friend, write a story in 100 words or less. Here is my submission:

Born.

So many photos.

Real or created memories?

A barn with basketball hoops.

A dirt road.

A wood truck.

Forts and clouds.

A black mustang.

Aunts.

Uncles.

Sisters.

Cousins.

Softball.

Basketball.

Death.

Books.

Writing.

A line in the dirt, born from my toe stopping the swing the first time I didn't jump. I wasn't afraid of falling when I landed; I was afraid of what people would say if I fell.

Middle school.

The cruelty of girls.

High school.

The cruelty of "popular" people.

College.

The mystery of fate.

Career.

Children.

Love.

Nostalgia.

Regret.

Wonder.

Gratitude.

Fear.

What if?

Birth....

The Art of Living

2009-12-03T23:48:00.046-05:00

"All the art of living is a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

Havelock Ellis

* * *

I let go today.

For anyone that knows me, they may be surprised. I was surprised, initially.

I was listening to a client droning on about why he didn't accomplish the *two* things I asked him to, again, looked at the files piled up against my bed, and then glanced outside to look at one of my favorite sights: The bird feeder outside my window. The cardinals are back.

As he continued with his excuses, I flipped through his file, through all the work that I had done for him, and thought, "I don't need to save him. I don't need to save him to save me."

Each window outside our home has a bird feeder outside of it. I pulled back all the shades today so that I could see them. Most of them were empty.

The thing about the birds is that they are forgiving. Leave town for a week and return with feeders bare and no chirping to be heard, walk outside with sunflower seed and almost immediately, despite your neglect, you hear them sing.

You say it's primal, it's their own need to feed themselves, it isn't for me, personally. They are oblivious of me. They could care less who I am.

This isn't a new concept to me, I tell you. I know oblivious.

When I offer them things in my out-stretched hands, they sing their praise to me as they circle and finally land upon my fingers. That is something; they see me.

I've many gifts tucked away, gifts I haven't been able to give, things I crafted and perfected and offered, cautiously, carefully, eagerly--oh, when they see this, I won't be invisible anymore! And I pretend not to care when I return, hands still full, heart ragged and I smile and say, "it's not a big deal," and go to my office and turn on my computer and pull out a blue file: Who shall I help tonight?

Because God forbid the person that I help might be myself.

Until today.

Laying in my bed, my computer resting on me, him telling me the stress of having been up late on the wii and losing his bus pass and could I call him in like two hours because no, he doesn't have any of the 17 cards I've given him with my number on it, all those papers in the file!

All those hours of MY! LIFE!

That I handed over to him; far more than any other professional in my field would consider giving and he cannot program my number? He cannot return a piece of paper?

He thinks nothing to think not of me at all.

I told him I'd call him; knowing that I wouldn't, knowing that he wouldn't notice that I didn't.

Instead I wrote his closure recommendation and breathed deep. I would have been crying, before, letting someone go like that, writing I don't believe there is hope for them. Today I just breathed relief.

Within three minutes of sending that recommendation, the phone rang. I smiled at the number.

"Ms. Jenn!" She squealed; my smile spread quickly, too quickly it turned out; I forget the blisters from the fever still, and soon I felt the blood draw to the surface and grabbed a tissue and watched it turn bright red.

"Ms. Jenn! You won't believe this! I have four interviews within the next week! Four! Just like you said, give it three to four weeks and they'd call!"

She named the employers and I continued to smile; I know she will find work soon--good work-- and I know she will be grateful and I know from experience that a year from now, I could pass her on the street and she would stop and hug me and tell me how I changed her life. A stranger, really, she is to me and yet I know she would do this; she will always remember me. She will be shocked to know that I will so easily remember her.

I will hold her always, with many others that I know have genuinely wanted help and a chance and someone to recognize what they were holding in their out-stretched palms.

They are always amazed at my kindness, they say at our last meeting when I give them a card and a hug and tell them anything they need, they can always call. It's never my letter writing, my coaching, my gut-wrenching honesty, my driving them to interviews. It's always my kindness that they say they will remember.

I like that about me.

"I have no idea what the hell you saw in a fuck-up like me," one of my favorite clients said in our closure session. He'd been on the brink of disaster when I first met him; he was 97 days into full-time employment, with benefits, and his house payments were current again the day we said goodbye.

And breaching all protocol, my voice wavering, no attempts to hide the tears spilling from my eyes when I grabbed his hands, looked directly at him and said, "I saw myself."

"Fuck," he said, wiping his face. "I gotta go. Can't be late. Jenn would kick my ass." And we smiled and hugged and when he left, I looked at the tears on his paperwork. At some point this past year, he sent me an email with the picture of his newborn daughter and he told me how "fucking blown away" he was with her. I told him to make sure he told her this. "How could I not fucking tell her?" He asked. "I'm fucking living for her." I'll hold onto him always.

If I've learned anything of late, it is that there are things worth holding and there are things that you just cannot hold anymore because the weight is too much. It is time to dust off those gifts and give them to someone else; they are gifts; they do me no good here; perhaps they were meant for the new recipients all along.

* * *

“One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us.”

Michael Cibenko

Post Mortem

2009-11-30T18:32:00.022-05:00

I drove myself into the ER this morning having decided four days of 104-105 temps with a body wracked in pain was enough. (I remember my sister A had a t-shirt with a dead cow depicted, flat on its back, legs straight in the air. It said, "No really, I'm fine".)

Turns out I now have a severe kidney infection. Hospitalization severe, except I forgot that I had kids and wanted to come home. "How? How can I have this? Do you know how many anti-biotics I'm on?"

"You'll need to call your primary care physician, today. He needs these results."
In the meantime, IV Cipro, ten days of Cipro.

I'm tired now.

Not just in the physical sense but tired in a sense that I hate about me this year.

I was looking at my legs shaking on the table and realized how much muscle I've lost since my surgery. I haven't run much since. Hard to do when you are dragging a leg behind you. And I wondered then, "I wonder if he knew. If, in those last seconds, he put a hand to his chest and thought 'my body has betrayed me'."

When I was ten, my uncle died at the age of 26 while playing in a basketball tournament.

It was a cold, cold night in February and my parents had gone with my grandparents to the Valentine's Ball at the Lions Club. There were four of us then, four sisters. We were home with Aunt C when the phone rang.

A raced to get it and, still I see in slow motion, her pulling the phone from her ear, eyes wide, staring into mine, running to me. "It's Aunt M. She's screaming." She clung to my long nightgown, we had matching ones, as I pushed her behind me and turned to watch C fall to her knees, screaming, a howl I've heard from one human since.

I walked over to take the phone from her. M was still screaming on the other end. I quietly, softly tiptoed over and hung it up. C crawled to the couch and picked up her coat, "I need to go outside. It's OK, I need to go outside." And she smiled, a lie, in our honor, to shield us, to save us. It is now, recalling this, that I weep with her slow transition out of my life.

The Parent Trap was on. We watched the TV in horror, listening to her screams from our porch. I looked out at her, the clear sky, the bright moon shining down, on her knees, rocking, her breath visible in the air as it staggered, jagged and torn, from her chest.

I took the girls and I told them we were going to be OK. We would be safe. I got their pillows and our afghans and put them in the walk-in closet in the front room.

"Nothing bad will find us here," I promised. But it did.

My aunt M arrived, then another. Our parents did not. I directed the girls to change their prayers. The damn prayers of a Catholic. My parents were gone because I meant to run over A's foot with the Big Wheel. My parents were gone because I thought bad thoughts about my CCD teacher. I'm angry, still, that I didn't know a kinder God then.

"Please let it be anyone but mom and dad. Please let it be anyone but mom and dad."
Our hands clasped together, murmuring over and over, louder and louder as the sobs outside the door permeated within.

My mother walked in and got us out of the closet and put us into the bed that A and I shared. "Where is dad?" "He's here; he's outside." "What is happening mom?" She told us that our uncle was sick and kissed our foreheads.

A and I took turns crawling down the hall each time we heard a car, a new voice.

"The priest," She reported.

"A man with blond hair," I informed.

"They are talking about what to do with his dog and car," A whispered.

I crept down the stairs and finally saw my grandparents. She had on a long turquoise dress. She was shaking. We didn't go down again.

We laid in that bed, hands, arms, legs entwined, waiting. We didn't know for what, but we waited.

My mother gathered us in the morning and took us to the couch. "I have to tell you something hard. Something sad."

I try to imagine looking into the eyes of my children now, to deliver to them what she had to say to us.

"Uncle K is gone." We sat.

"Uncle K died." We wailed.

She gathered us into our afghans and rocked us all.

My father came out, finally, and we watched from the kitchen. A man of little emotion, a rock. He picked up the phone to call the subcontractors that worked for the family business.

"Yeah, Bill, we, uh, we won't be, we aren't..." And the howling, the piercing scream, I heard again as he fell to his knees and my mother took the phone.

We looked amongst ourselves and we locked legs under the table.

Now, as an adult, I understand what happened next. The thought, quickly pushed away, the thought of that loss; I understand now.

I understood not then as we were divided amongst our mom's siblings and taken to their homes, screaming, pounding the windows, "No! No! We'll be good. We'll be quiet, please, no!" My eyes went from mom to A, our palms on the windows, our eyes locked.

I thought I would never see her again. I was insane with a new grief.

We didn't know of death until then, so this was confusing. Young people died? Why not Busi? Why not Dzia-Dzia? Why him? Are we next? Are mom and dad next? Who is next? How do you know? How do you sleep again? What if we never left the house? Would you die then? How do you dribble a basketball ever again?

I went back to school ten days later, a shell, I know of what I was.

I was in the third grade.

My best friend, Lill, sat in silence with me on the playground for days until one day we laughed.

I was in the third.grade.

We had selected poems to memorize and read aloud in January, in a different time, a different world.

I had selected "If Nancy Hanks Came To Town", a poem about what Abe Lincoln's mother would ask of him if she came back as a ghost. The opening stanza:

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She'd ask first
"Where's my son?
What's happened to Abe?
What's he done?"

It was the first time writing made me weep. My teacher, her small frame belying her large soul, pulled me aside. "I thought that maybe you would want to read this instead. You don't have to memorize it, you can just read it and be done, OK?" I nodded and began to read:

Whose woods these are, I think I know,
His house is in the village though....

It wasn't until years later that I understood exactly what she had done for me that day. How she had probably given it so much thought, how she somehow knew that one day I would still love to read so much that I would discover his words, too, spoke of death, of what lies ahead.

I thought of her and wept at her kindness and for the girl in her nightgown eager for a night with Aunt C, when for the first time, in the first home that I owned, I painted by hand that poem unto my wall.

It took me days.

It took me a lifetime.

I wonder now, my body once one that was strong and hard and muscled, what he thought then. If he ever understood what had happened. I hope not. I hope he thought, "Oh God, I'm going to fall," and began to laugh, never knowing there would be no arising from this faltering.

On my last day of third grade, my teacher handed me a folded paper. "I thought that someday you might understand this. I will never forget you."

In her perfect handwriting, I read:

To An Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

It meant something then. It means something now. They are different, those things, but they still hold me.

So I wonder tonight, shaking as I type, unable to stop the chills, unable to not write, unable to sit on my left leg, unable to recognize the shape in the mirror. Lighter, now on the scale than when at my prime health and ironically, I feel heavier.

But I won't, always. No matter what it takes, I won't. One day, maybe not this week, not this year, not in the thaw of the next, but one day, I will turn from my driveway, my steady pace comforting me and think not of what lies behind, but what lies ahead.

My face will turn to the sun. I am a runner. It is my turn to run.

I got Kidney Stones for Thanksgiving & Other Holiday Miracles

2009-11-29T11:40:00.009-05:00

This year while my relatives were gathered over a fowl and ten different desserts, I was huddled under my blankets, chattering profusely, willing the narcotics to work already. Oh, and peeing into a screen; I don't mean to leave out the fun parts.

I've yet to eat one single piece of pie and I'm bitter, so bitter that I took a banana pudding cup and mixed it with cool whip and after two bites, decided it wasn't a great idea and gave it to the dog instead.

I bided my time between pee breaks by reading magazines, surfing the net and taking part in telephone conversations that I most likely won't recall, except for my conversation with my sister A, who said, "So you're not going to remember what I'm going to tell you then?" To which I told her yes I would and I typed up notes that now are quite humorous to read and were helpful in recollecting our little chat.

****

One of the last stops on the net that I found one evening was this one: http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Twilight_Saga_Characters

I went there because earlier in the week, I had watched both of the movies that are out and learned the following vampire "facts" from Adriana:

Vampires CAN go out during the day, but they have to avoid direct sunlight, NOT because they burn, but because they shine, like diamonds, and are easily identified from the beauty of the moment.
Despite my old school training regarding vampires, garlic, crosses and getting stabbed through the heart are not effective when killing a vampire or keeping it away. The only way to kill a vampire is to rip it apart, limb by limb, and then burn those limbs.

After sitting through the second movie, I couldn't wrap my brain around the concept that in both movies up to a pivotal point, vampires appeared to be very, very fast, could fly, and traveled the globe within minutes. However, in order to save Edwards "life"(?) they had to drive in a car, to an airport, after which you see a plane flying over the ocean, then drive a second fast car to the desired location. I told Big A I'd be OK with this if she could answer just one of these questions:

How did they get through airport security? On two continents?
Why didn't they just fly themselves, like through the air?
How did they get a rental car that fast, because we all know that is impossible?
If I agree to become a vampire, can I too own only very cool cars?

Anyway, back to reading that site: NOT a good idea when addled with narcotics and in a home completely alone. Just not. I doubt that the good vampires would be in my home when I have orchards full of deer that they subside off of, so I could only assume it would be the bad vampires coming for me.

****
According to my emails, I made only one on-line purchase during this three day period and actually needed what I ordered.

****

By Friday/Saturday early hours, my thought process was like this:

ME: Need to get up and pee.
ME: I am not moving again. I'll just pee the bed.
ME: How can I have the flu and kidney stones when I'm on a gazillion anti-biotics.
ME: Need to get up and pee.
ME: Fine.
ME: OMG. It hurts to move. Why are my clothes soaking wet? Did I pee the bed?
ME: From your fever, you asshole.
ME: I hope to God there are no vampires out there.

Exciting, I know.

****

My sisters that lack the mental fortitude that my sister S and I share went Christmas shopping on Friday morning with mom at like 4:00 a.m. or something. They openly admitted they accomplished almost nothing, to which S and I laughed smugly amongst ourselves until I reviewed my notes and found that A had to wrap Christmas presents, which meant that some were purchased. I suck at note-taking.

****

Today I am not taking any narcotics to see if I am actually still in pain or just high to the point of assuming I'm in pain, so then manifesting the symptoms of pain upon myself.

And today, the first person that revealed to me that there was a love more fierce than what I felt for those I loved the most turned eight.teen.

From this:

To this:

Without so much as a warning. A bit of wisdom for you Bosh, as you venture into this thing called adulthood:

It's not the vampires, it's Time.

Writer

2009-11-23T23:17:00.015-05:00

What it meant today was different than what it meant two weeks ago. This grief changes shape so easily while I feel so unable to move.

Two stones, in our yard. Two markers, covered in flowers picked from all of our tear-stained hands. Two stones, "Peace" and "Love". Two stones, anchoring a part of me that I've yet been able to express adequately. Two lives, loved so very much and gone so very differently.

One ripped from me by a force that still leaves me with one hand tapping my chest or rubbing my neck or twisting my legs somehow. Anything to avoid the still, the quiet, the knowledge that there will no longer be the "one, two, three. pause. one, two, three. pause" drinks from her water dish at night. There will be no more three circles and a black body cradled to me under the covers, just her nose reaching out for air.

She would sleep like that all night.

I wish I remembered now if I'd turned her three times before she laid to rest. That thought bothers me a lot. A lot more than it should, I know. But there are parts of my brain that don't stop working no matter how loudly I demand them to.

One broken, willing herself to stay, out of the sheer love that she had for me. I never would have thought that I had it within me--to hold the body of my best friend who doesn't want to leave and look into her beautiful brown eyes and know this is it, this is goodbye? I think now that I didn't have it in me, and I will be realizing that slowly, each time my hand reaches for her at my side, for many years.

She took many beautiful photos, but this was one of my favorites:

I titled it, "Constant Companion".
Wherever I was, she was as well.
Until the day I sent her from me.

What it meant today as I was facing down deadlines and calendars and thinking of the presents that I needed to buy was that for the first time in 16 years, there will be no gifts for The Smoosh and Jessie under our tree.

And there shall be no gifts for my grandfather under a tree hundreds of miles away, but that is another story.

This year meant to me a lot of loss; painful, wounding, sobbing on your knees loss. So much loss at times that I was afraid to face the next day, wondering what it would bring.

But still, I'm here. Not the same; I'll never be the same. But still, I'm here.

I feel that this year has written upon me "grief", over and over. I believe that I will recall this year always and feel cold and wrap my arms around myself.

I feel that this upcoming year, I shall write upon it instead "joy", over and over. I believe that I will recall next year always and tilt my face to the sky to greet the sun when I do.

I am a writer. And it is my turn to write.

An Open Letter to Rick Reilly & The Subscription Guilt People

2009-11-11T14:17:00.005-05:00

It happened again the other day. There, in my mail, in my nephew's innocent handwriting:

"Please, help our school."

By ordering magazines, mind you. Last year I told my sister that I already had 73 magazines coming to my house and besides, I didn't have time to read them all anyway. To which she exclaimed, "But Rick Reilly went to ESPN!"

I looked at her in severe doubt, debating whether this was an excellent selling tactic or the truth.

A little background on Mr. Reilly: He wrote for Sports Illustrated for, like, ever. He wrote articles that I would frequently rip out off the back page and tape randomly around the house.

Which initially really pissed off my dad, since I happened to be a child living in his home when that started and it was technically his magazine.

That he hadn't read yet.

A typical Wednesday evening in our home usually included the following quote from our father: "Where the hell is my Sports Illustrated?" I digress.

The point is that his writing moved me. He wrote of sports, and little people, and the way that sports moved them, what it meant to them. He wrote of kids dying in car accidents and fathers playing golf in their honor, refs that made bad calls that altered their lives, what he would do if he had a year left to live.

I thought of him this year on a particularly sunny day this past summer after I hung up the phone with my grandmother who had said, "Those damn Tigers...".

And suddenly, the thought of her there alone, in a home that once housed her nine children, countless grandchildren, a house where I'd spent a good portion of my childhood propped up on my elbows, watching the Tigers, a house so full of life now suddenly left with her as the sole occupant, watching the Tigers alone; that thought broke my heart all over again.

When the Queens and I moved, I would very randomly get my Sports Illustrated. Big A and I were quite sure that the neighbor living in his dad's condo was taking it. We spent a lot of nights plotting big plans on how to catch him.

Then, one morning, as I was loading them into my car, the neighbor said, "Hey, wanna know a sign that the apocalypse is gonna happen"?

Except he pronounced "apocalypse" like: ap-ock-al-lips-see.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Big A, smelling blood, stepped out of the car. "This Weeks Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us" is a small box in Sports Illustrated that features some remarkably idiotic act or quote by an athlete or someone prominent in athletics.

He rattled off something, to which I said, "Huh. I used to read that in Sports Illustrated, but I never get mine anymore." And I got into my car to face an extremely disappointed Big A.

Big A: Mom, you had him! Why didn't you just tell him you know he's been taking your magazine! He didn't even say the word right!

Me: Something about having read somewhere that the true sign of power is having the ability to crush someone and not wielding it.

Big A: Yeah, well you won't be reading that from Sports Illustrated. Don't ever talk to me again about busting him. Ever.

My Sports Illustrated came in the following week, and there was no Rick Reilly on the back page, which made the other pages a little less readable.

And so, back to last year, there my sister sat, telling me that Rick Reilly was going to be writing for ESPN. I ordered the magazine.

And called her every.single.time. it arrived in my mailbox without one Rick Reilly featured within it.

And then, one day, there he was, on the back page, a beautiful article about his father and golf and faults and lessons.

The thing is, the point of this entire post is, that was the last moving article I've read by him. I haven't torn out any back pages and taped them to the fridge. He's written things that have been funny (and I get self-deprecation and laughter as a shield, I really do) but nothing that resembles the man I loved to read.

Now he writes a lot about things big sports stars have said to him, how he had fun hanging with Lance Armstrong or Kobe Bryant, or how he totally sucked on his ESPN TV debut or how he was a mess announcing a horse race, but nothing about the little people so much anymore. Like we don't even exist in his new world.

I'm going to re-order ESPN, one more time. I'm going to give it one more year. Everyone deserves a shot at redemption, right Rick? Better yet, your chance at redemption includes helping out a school that my nephew, who loves baseball more than life, attends.

Please, make good on it. For all of us little people.

Goodbye, Again

2009-09-25T11:46:00.005-04:00

I don't know how to write about today.

If there are words for this kind of sorrow, I've not learned them yet.

I've willed her to go quietly in the night, but the constant companion and faithful friend that she is, she remains. Not who she once was, but still, who is?

I've finally come to a point where I cannot watch the indignity of what is to come any longer and cannot accept the pain in her life to delay pain in mine. Our vet will be here tonight, after her clinic closes, so that Jessie can be home with us when she leaves this world and so much of my world leaves me.

Until then, she and I are heading outside and taking in this perfect fall day together like we've done so many times in the past 16 years, slower, with less ground covered, but together, until Goodbye.

Five Feet Tall

2009-09-03T00:30:00.013-04:00

We've begun a tradition in our home: on the first of each month, I measure the Queens.

Little A: Yep. I weally tall ta-day. Wike so tall. Hey, Ma, 'member when I was a wittle girl and I went outside and I picked up 'da 'fing and 'den 'dere was a bird and I want ta go see Smoosh in Doggy Heaven, Ma, 'cause I miss her so much and you sayed 'dat she was 'dere and 'den I had-ed a dream and she was 'dere! And 'dere was so many dogs 'dere! And 'dey was so happy, Ma. Yep. 'Dey all had wings and Smoosh is gonna fly down from Heaven and see us. Yep. I tall ta-day Ma.

Big A: (Staring, appalled at the complete lack of structure and point in the above mentioned update) Well, I'm five feet tall.

Jesus Christ, what was that? No, what the hell was that? I recovered quickly from the sound of something moving within.

- - - -

I don't think that I wrote about my panic attack? How I calmly said I was going to drive myself to the ER, for I was certain I was having a heart attack and about to die and my feet and hands kept turning pure white and aching and I was sure that it was because my blood wasn't flowing properly and I kept telling myself that nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong, but my heart kept racing anyways and I could.not.breathe. and since I was able to tell myself that I knew I could physically breathe but still couldn't breathe, then I was probably in the throes of death and I should just get to the ER and hope I arrived in time for them to save me and I did and as I sat unable to stop wringing my hands and tapping my chest the doctor told me that no I wasn't dying that day and no I didn't have any auto-immune disease that was causing my feet and hands to do what they were doing and what I was suffering from was not a heart attack, but an anxiety attack and this is what sometimes happens to people who are under stress--are you under stress--are you depressed--have you had any life-altering changes lately--and a bitter laugh escaped with my tears and you should see your family physician and take these Xanax and you should try to sleep? No, I didn't mention that?

- - - -

That's probably because I'm ashamed of it, I think. Ashamed that I have this beautiful life and yet I cannot quit crying a lot of the time.

I remember the day that it started; it was cold and wintry and the sun was very bright and I was sitting on a bed, trying to weep quietly so as not to disturb anyone outside the door, but my niece came in anyway.

I was enraged with the concern, (my grandfather is fucking dead! can i not sit here and cry if i fucking want to! do i have to explain every detail of my goddamn life to everyone! can i not just have a few moments of peace where i can cry and not answer to anyone!) but I didn't say so. Instead I mumbled something and I buried it within me, and at times now I think that on that day, at that moment, I planted a seed and a monster has grown from it.

I had to keep myself in check, for Big A's eyes were upon me--if I acted as I wanted to, it would scare her. It would make her weep harder. It would make her ask questions that I couldn't answer.

And so we drove to the church that day, and I wept silently in the front seat and I sat in the pew and dug my nails deeply within me and bit my lips and pushed away the hand that was trying to hold mine because I was afraid of what would happen to me if I held it instead.

About a month later, one day I was checking my email and realized that, no, there would be no more messages from him; I hadn't even really been aware that I was still looking for them. I tried, I really, really tried to stay focused on the good, on all I had, on the memories--but at the end of the day--actually, the beginnings of the days, for that is the only time I could cry, protected by the sound of the shower and the fan and the closed door--the loss was a truth I didn't know how to face: I'd never lost someone that I had loved so much. I didn't know how to explain that I was sadder now than I had been then, and so I explained nothing.

It was a few weeks later that I got hurt and it took almost six weeks before I could have surgery, so in that time, I could blame my state on the pain--it was searing--and the drugs--they altered me. The length of my recovery and the well-documented pain that I would be in during that time provided an additional crutch for my tears...you'd cry too if you were in this much pain! You'd cry too if you had to take these medications! You'd cry too if you wanted to get off the medications and were dealing with withdrawals! You'd cry too if you had to go to rehab and be unable to even move your arm to your side! (You'd cry too if you weren't really sure why you were crying.)

- - - -

And then Smoosh died. And the hours that followed: the screaming, the weeping, the frantic calls to my mother, the call to my sister where I just sat wailing into the phone, the call to my other sister, who brought out drugs, sweet drugs, and tried to hold my hand that I needed to keep twisting the fabric of my pants with in order to keep breathing and who had to sit with me on the floor as I told her the awful, gruesome details that I will not repeat ever again, to anyone, but for some reason needed to keep telling her, over and over, even though I knew each time I said them that it was causing her physical pain, and finally, the the last recollection of that day, her saying, "This hopefully will knock her out," as I swallowed another pill and prayed for the dark.

I stayed in bed for days. I don't remember them, but I know I did. I remember going in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, thinking to myself, "I need to brush my hair," and then saying aloud to the image looking back at me, "Fuck off." And I went back to bed.

- - - -

And finally, two weeks ago, I took Jessie back to the vet. She won't quit pacing. Her breathing is rapid. She is in a state of nearly constant panic. I wanted medication to calm her. I wanted stronger pain medications to ease her.

I couldn't stop weeping.

"I think you've really got to consider helping her out soon," she said as softly as possible, her hand on my shaking leg. "I know, it must seem unbearable right now, but I know how much you love her and that you want to do the right thing by her."

"It's too much," I sobbed into the phone to my mom. "It's too much."

- - - -

And so I went home that night, and I rolled a medication bottle in my hand. And I debated with myself over and over and over again. And I put it back in the drawer where I had stored it, and picked it up again a few times.

And ultimately, I opened it up and I swallowed a pill. And I smiled a bit when I thought to myself, "Tom Cruise would so not approve."

- - - -

And so that brings us back to tonight and a scream disguised as a whisper, one daughter rambling of her bygone days as a 'wittle girl, another daughter five feet tall, a decision balancing in the air.

- - - -

Big A is five feet tall.

I miss my grandfather.

Big A is five feet tall.

I miss Smoosh and everything about her and I wish I could erase the memory of her last minute on this earth, but I can't.

Big A is five feet tall.

I don't want to let go of Jessie.

Big A is five feet tall.

I need to show her how to stand as such, and I cannot do that from my knees.

Big A is five feet tall.

But I am taller. For now. And I'll be damned if she thinks that just because she's going to be taller than me someday that she will ever beat me at a game of hoops.

- - - -

Game on, 2009, you miserable bitch of a year. I'm gonna go barn-style, old-school: no blood, no foul; no clock; first one to "mercy" loses. Let's just see which one of us is standing on January 1st of next year--if I were you, I'd put my money on the chick with the white high-top Puma's who has a kid that's five feet tall.

Signs, Hope, Angels-Not Always What We Think

2009-08-12T20:29:00.003-04:00

All around us, I know that they are; I just forget that sometimes, especially lately.

Remember him? It's OK, I wouldn't blame you if you'd forgotten--he'd crossed my mind now and then, but as of late, mostly then. I happened to check an old email account yesterday when I came across this message that had been sent to me two days ago:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:37 AM, wrote:

Hi Jenn,

I am sorry if I am wrong but I think you were they Good Samaritan that picked me off of US 127 heading south sometimes around June 2008.

I was going to the court in Ithaca and my engine blew up. I was driving a navy blue Audi Quattro car. You stopped and not only did you take me to Ithaca but you went inside the court house with me to testify as to the fact that my engine did blow up. This was something I will live to remember!!!!

I was going through my files this morning and I saw a complementary card which I guess was the same one you gave me at the court house when you were leaving. If you were not the person I am thinking you are, I am sorry to have bothered you.

I wish you a nice weekend.

After I quit crying, I messaged him back, to which he replied:

Hi Jenn,

I am so glad we were able to reconnect after such a long time. You know people talk about Angels as if they are invisible entities. You were my Angel that day and the fact you went inside the court house with me was like a miracle. I strongly believe in what goes round comes round. There is nothing I can do for you that can repay your good did. No money, which unfortunately I don’t even have (lol) would be enough to show my appreciation. Everywhere you go, I wish you compassion and favor in multiple folds of the one you showed toward me.

I read Physics at both undergraduate and graduate but presently taking graduate classes in Computer Science to have another graduate degree in Computer Science. I also work as an IT person with the District Library. If you ever need my assistance in any way or form, please do not hesitate to let me know.

I also hope we’ll keep the line of communication opened.

Signs, angels, hope--all around--turns out maybe I wasn't the savior that day.

Gone.

2009-08-02T11:18:00.012-04:00

Yesterday, she was here. Today, no matter how many times I've begged it not to be so, she is gone.

I know, of course, that when you get to the age 0f 16 and you are classified as a dog, each moment is a gift. It's just that while I knew that the time left was small, I assumed that the goodbye would be on my terms; when I was ready, when I was able to know absolutely in my heart that letting go was the only honorable option left.

This was not meant to be.

If I told you her story before yesterday, before that moment, I would tell it to you laughing, as would anyone who knew her. She always looked like she was smiling, her tail was always wagging, she was still certain that she could field her duck that she caught mid-air each time it was thrown, and for the most part, she did. She still wrestled with the pups like she was one of them and she still lolly-gagged with Jessie like the true companion that she was.

After dinner, I walked outside to give her and Jessie their medicine. She was on her bed in the garage. I petted her head, rubbed her ear and said, "Oh, Smoosh". I gave Jessie her medicines and sang, "Jessie is a beauty queen" while I waited for her to swallow. Then I went back into the house to get Little A's P.J.'s on and stand at the window and wave goodbye to Gram and Gramps.

Three, maybe five minutes passed. I heard a yelp--the sound that Smoosh makes when the pups have caught her and she is telling them to back off. I started to the door with a smile on my face, until I heard my mother-in-law scream. I dropped Little A and ran down the stairs as she was running in, "Don't go out there." "No! No!" I screamed as I hit her arm and pushed her out of my way, stumbling out into the place where I saw Smoosh lying by their tire.

I took her broken body and tried to put it back together with my hands, thinking, of course, that somehow, this would mend her.

I don't know how long I laid there, sobbing on top of her, begging God, damning God, saying no, saying please. Later I was told that our neighbors had come running over; they had heard my screams, but I don't remember that happening.

Little A went with her grandparents and I began to search for the things that needed to be with her when she finally was placed to rest.

I found her pink afghan my mother had knitted her, easily located her yellow, tattered duck-it was right under her bed-and found some pictures of the three dogs together. I went outside to find a spot to bury her; I knew where she belonged. In the circular part of our drive, each day when we arrived home, there she would be, laying under the trees in the grass.

The world began to weep as her grave was dug in the rain as I whispered my final goodbye to her. I wrapped her in her afghan and my blue Michigan blanket, with her duck tucked between her chin and chest. Jessie nuzzled her, one last time, then slowly made her way to the furthest part of the garage. I kissed her one last time and covered up her sweet face as and I laid, sobbing, over her.

I want to tell you something happy about her. I want to tell you something to make you smile. I want to tell you that everyone she met said she was the happiest and sweetest dog they'd ever seen. I want you to know that she was always smiling, and I need to remind myself of this to get through the days that lie ahead.

God Speed, Smoosh.

I will love you until the day that I see you again.

And Then There Were Three

2009-07-30T22:44:00.003-04:00

In this photo: HOPE. Alive and well.

*******

Approximately three weeks ago in our state, All-Star tournaments started.

120 teams suited up and took the field in the hopes of going to the state finals and fighting for the chance to be called "State Champs".

Three of those teams are left now.

I thought that I knew a lot about parenting. I thought that I knew a lot about life. I thought that for the most part, I wanted time to stand still so that I could have my children be children always, even though I knew this wasn't possible.

I thought that over this past six months, I'd cried myself out. I thought I had nothing left in me, no matter how happy or sad.

I've been wrong before, but never so wrong.

Today was one of the happiest days of my life, watching Big A's team win.

Pieces of my heart are scattered across softball fields everywhere, and the same remains true not with just my sisters, but with so many members of my family. It felt like with each play made, they were returning bits of myself to me.

They must win each time game that they play now in order to march on. During the game that they lost, I was furiously chatting on my Blackberry with my sister A, detail by detail, including counts on batters. It was down to our teams last at-bats and they were down by two.

I was standing alongside the fence, moving back and forth, trying not to cry when I read this message from A:

The boys have on their rally caps. And then an image, right to my heart, from 500 miles away, I could see them. Then the next message: And we have our shoes on the wrong feet.

Because they can't get cell service in their house, those three sat in her car in the driveway for the entire game and wept with me at the end when Big A's team fell into the loser's bracket.

During the game tonight, 500 miles away, A and her children and my niece again assumed their positions around her phone. It was an inning by inning battle; again I paced and typed. They would score, their opponents would score. This continued inning after inning.

Finally, the last inning arrived with Big A's team up by 2. "We need 3 outs", I typed.

With two runners on and two outs on the scoreboard, I didn't think I would be able to take one more breath, then finally, the final out. Our girls advanced again.

"WE WON!" I sent to the faithful fans assembled around a phone so very far away.

"You should have heard me and the kids praying together in the car", A typed.

"I did." I replied.

And I did.

Somehow, across all those miles and somehow, through all of the dust and dirt and tears, there they were, right next to me, staring down a dream--a dream that we've each dreamed for ourselves, and a dream that belongs to each of us now as this magic summer continues.

120 teams.

Three remain.

Go, Girls, Go!

No More

2009-07-21T21:01:00.003-04:00

The thought startled me upon its arrival; appearing without so much as a warning, then taking up room to stay for what appears to be an extended period, easing its way into what was left of the peaceful ruminations in my mind.

I've met the point in my life, I am certain, where if time stopped tomorrow, I would be quite well with it. No longer do my tomorrows hold promises of something new and exciting, or even, honestly, anything that I greatly anticipate or look forward to.

I recall, with great detail, as a child how time was met with such an eager force; the special days on the calendar marked with bright circles: my birthday, the first day of school, Christmas. I also recall, with great detail, the first year that I dreaded the holidays and willed myself to not feel as such. Truth be told, they've been a lie since that year, I just try to fake it for my family. If I could have anything for the holidays, it would be simple innocence again. It would be to believe, if just for a minute, again, with the faith of a child, in anything.

High school brought dreams of college, college brought dreams of a career and family, and those things have led me here, to this moment, in my home, cruelly aware that what lies ahead will never be better than what I have today.

Please don't try to dissuade me otherwise; this is my truth; you may have your own if you'd like, but I know this as certain as I know me.

I am mercilessly aware that without fail, if time continues to be mostly kind and my children continue to thrive, one day soon, Big A will awaken and be taller than me. It will happen as it did the morning that I reached to her wrist to kiss the last of her baby fat, only to find it gone, leaving in its gaping wake a gasp and sob and a woman weeping in the shower who had to leave two meetings that day in order to compose herself.

Little A will become not so little and there will be a day, somehow, despite my strongest wishes otherwise, that I will no longer be able to hold her to me. I will reach to pick her up and it will not be possible and I will try to smile and make light of the fact that she has grown so much as my heart will be breaking into a thousand pieces inside of me.

My two aged dogs will one day very soon, most likely be leaving this home that they have made with me for the past sixteen years, and I am telling you simply: I cannot bear this thought. I will be wrecked, permanently; scarred in ways that will not heal.

My career cannot get better, at least not to me on the levels that matter. My accomplishments are enough, what I want, what I want so very badly is to have this life, for life.

I think of my grandmother, who within this year alone has already buried her husband and two brothers. I think of my grandfather still and cannot remain composed; it is an ache, a wound, a missing piece that I am beginning to recognize will not come to be filled.

I cannot help but think of the progression of time; I've many close friends that have lost their parents. Someday--a world without my mother? No. This is not something that I can bear to fathom, and yet each morning when I turn the pages in my planner, that day is closer.

One day there will be no longer five of us siblings. That day is closer most likely now than our childhoods. That thought is horrifying and I cannot escape it, no matter how hard I try.

I try to speak of the beauty of the world to my kids, the gratitude I have for our lives, the love that I have in my heart, and the words come out not as words, but tears. I stare out the window into a place that doesn't exist anymore, Big A asking what I'm thinking about. I'm afraid to answer that I'm thinking of how I miss sleeping with my sister and the sound of her laughter and the comfort of knowing that she was there, even on the nights that I hated her deeply for being such.

I am, most likely, by some outsider and all insider accounts, a verifiable mess. Big A said to me the other day, "Let me know when you're done with your mental breakdown," as I stood sobbing in the kitchen over the thought of nothing in particular, but time in general.

The best, friends, is no longer yet to come.

The best lies asleep in their beds at this moment.

The best sits next to me under our willow tree as we watch the dogs and girls run about.

The best lives in my memory, riding the imaginary school bus in our hallway, towels used as our flowing hair.

The best lives spreading out a blue flowered quilt under the summer sun with a picnic basket and reading to me repeatedly storybooks.

The best exists within Tiger Stadium, not Comerica Park, the 1984 Tigers running rampant around the bases.

The best drives a red lumber truck down a dirt road that exists no more.

Time, you son of a bitch. If I thought it would make a difference, I'd beg and plead and bolt my doors and rip the calendars from my walls and smash the clocks with my clenched fists. But knowing that you are as merciless as you are steady, instead I will continue to try to smile through whatever it is that is happening to me, and hug my Queens and express my gratitude for what I've been given in this lifetime. You've broken my heart and I'm going to wear it on my sleeve, a warrior's badge, tattered and torn, but still mine to wear. You won't take that from me as well.

Dear Big A: A Letter From Your Adoring Mother

2009-07-17T14:40:00.009-04:00

Dear Big A,

As you're gearing up for your big game tonight, there are a lot of things I'd like to tell you, but I don't think that I can say them without losing myself in a sea of tears, so I'm writing them instead.

I want to tell you to swing for the fence, each time, unless you are supposed to sacrifice for the good of your team.

I want to tell you that if you strike out, make eye contact with the pitcher, nod your head, and run back to the dugout.

I want to tell you that if you see a ball coming at you and you think, "No way", dive anyways. Sometimes you might miss it, but sometimes, you won't. It won't be the missed catches that haunt you, Big A, it will be the ones that you wonder about--wonder what would have happened if you'd tried.

If you're going to slide, kiddo, slide with gusto. No half slides, no "Should I or shouldn't I"? Run as hard and as fast as you can and plan on sliding with everything that is bundled inside of you.

If, at the end of the game, things go as you hope and pray and you and your teammates see the last out called and can raise up a banner that reads: "State Finals Bound", don't forget about the girls on the other team that are going home that night without that banner. Look each of them in the eye as you shake their hands.

Just go for it, Big A. Go for it all, with everything that you have within you. You have no idea what this moment is, how could you? You are, after all, still a child. I am telling you, as an adult, as an adult that stands inside your room at night and stares upon your sleeping face, unable to figure out where the tears are coming from and where this thing called life is going so fast, that even I am unable to comprehend things until the moment has passed, even after all of these years. Or maybe it is that I can comprehend too much; I don't know anymore.

When I picked up your uniform this morning before I left, I held it to my chest, like I held you once, and I wished things for you, things that I probably didn't need to wish; you don't need magic when you are magic, but you don't know that yet.

When it's all said and done, no matter how the dust settles, I will still be amazingly proud of you and what you've accomplished.

Now, go get them, kiddo.

The world awaits.

All my love,
Your Adoring Mother

Bases and Fences

2009-07-08T18:30:00.007-04:00

Sports is something that I rarely write about here, which is odd, since they taught me most of the lessons that I've learned throughout my life. They were also the tie to the first public introduction of me as an author.

We had been asked in a writing class in college to write a paper about the greatest betrayal that we'd encountered. Two weeks later, in front of a class of 300 of my peers, the professor said that many of the papers were very good, but that there was one paper in particular that in all his years teaching, stood out, because it didn't deal with human betrayal as one would assume.

It was at that moment that my face began burning and I murmured to myself, "please, no". He picked up my paper and began to read aloud the words that I had written.

I had recounted the last basketball game that I played on my home court as a senior. We needed a three pointer to go into overtime. Our coach called time-out and said to in-bounds the ball to me; I would make my shot and we'd go on.

It went according to plan, and as I launched to ball into the air, it felt right. I began stepping backwards, out of habit, to head back down the court, not inwards to rebound a shot that I knew that wasn't going in. I dropped to my knees as the ball spun around the rim and ultimately fell out while the buzzer rang.

Still, after all those years, I dream about that shot. Not that it would have catapulted us to greatness, not that it meant anything more than a different end to a game that mattered not at all. But that I was so certain it was going in.

I had made that shot so many times throughout my life: in the gym and in our backyard, the beam of the large yard light stretching across our cement court, in my grandparents barn. The one time that more than ever I wanted it to dance through the net with a quiet swish, it landed differently, and I had to get up of my knees and start something new after that. There were no time-outs or practices left. I had practiced for that moment, and I had failed. Life went on, and I needed to go shake the hand of my opponents and move on.

Last month, Big A had a ball tournament. It was hot that day, and I was sitting in the shade with some other moms there. Big A got up to bat and connected, hard, with the ball. I clapped as it landed in the outfield across from where I was sitting by third base.

She began running around the bases, and as I saw her looking at her coach on her way to third base, I expected her to slow down and hold up; I expected her coach to tell her to stop, to do the safe thing.

He didn't. "Go for it, kid!" he exclaimed, and Big A, her eyes wide, began to round third base.

I jumped up from my chair and ran to the fence so that I could run alongside her. I forgot about my arm and that I wasn't supposed to move quickly, and about the people watching, but I didn't forget about the fence between us--it was at that point in time merely a physical reminder of my limits.

I saw the throw coming in from the second baseman and thought, "She won't make it." And there was nothing that I could do, but watch her inevitable fall. She fell with gusto. She slid and banged herself up and was tossed out at the plate. And she arose with tears in her eyes and clutching her elbow and when she got back to the dugout I told her, "There's no crying in baseball. You were awesome." It was her pride injured, mostly, I think, not her arm.

Later on that night, I thought about that fence; about that moment. About what it meant to be a mother and the other fences that I will surely encounter along the way. I thought about what kind of mother I ultimately wanted to be.

Did I want to be the mother that stopped her child, congratulated her on a triple and tapped her on the helmet as she shook off her ball pants, or would I be the mother that, arms waving, shouted, "Go for it kid!" and turned to watch either a moment of greatness or a moment of temporary great defeat?

And in my heart, I knew the answer. And for the first time, I was grateful for fences.

And I reminded myself that I must heal my arm.

You cannot properly wave your child home if both of them aren't working.

Run, Big A, Run.

And The Band Played On

2009-07-07T19:52:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, it seems to me that the smallest things; those that would appear insignificant; those that would give most people not even the slightest pause; those are the things that bring tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart.

I was heading into town tonight after work to go to the pharmacy; I'd been up since 2:00 this morning--awake all night while I replayed scenarios through my head; meaningless, of course, because the path has already been taken and I'm starting to realize that at some point, you just cannot turn back.

I pulled out of our driveway and started down our road when I saw a group of teens walking down the opposing lane, spreading fully across it. I slowed down as I neared them, I was so curious about what they were doing--there were six of them in total, three boys and three girls, I'm guessing between the ages of 15 and 16.

One of the boys carried a guitar, a girl carried a saxophone, another boy carried a pink helium balloon that read, "Get Well Soon". Since I was alone in the car, I didn't even need to try to mask my sobs.

My hope is that no matter what and no matter where, the recipient of those gifts will always, always carry with her the memory of opening her door and finding them there. My hope is that she will always have in her heart the music that they played. My hope is that no matter the roads that she wanders, she will know that she is never alone and that she was loved, greatly, and that this knowledge will carry her through even the darkest days.

And if I were going to write of things that I can't at this moment, I would say that after I passed them on my way back home and they waved to me, and my eyes connected with one of the girls that was walking, I would tell you that I walked in the door, checked my caller I.D. and email, pulled out my planner, took out an email that is ragged and has been softened from it's repeated removal and replacement in the place where I stored it, read it one last time with uncontrolled tears streaming from my eyes, folded it back in half and put it through my shredder.

And the band played on.

Four

2009-07-05T22:03:00.002-04:00

Four.

Tonight you'll fall asleep a three-year old, and awaken to the morning sun a four-year old. Still my baby, you know. Always you will be.

Looking back, Little A, I cannot believe the road that we've come. That you've come; from a complete surprise to the complete world of so many. To think that once, I held your tiny little life in my hands, and now you hold mine within yours. Funny how the world works, isn't it?

You are the sun in so many skies, the smile on so many faces, the laughter in so many hearts. To know you, truly, is to love you.

Once upon a time, Little A, I was terrified at the thought of you; having not a clue how I'd manage you, take care of you, be a good mother to you. Once upon a time, I couldn't understand why.

Today, Little A, the "why" that I do not understand is how I have been so blessed. How God chose me to have you; how he gave me such an amazing gift. I thank Him for you so many times a day, little one. So many times.

And now here I am, on the eve of four, wondering how it is that just yesterday I found that I carried you within me.

I will always carry you within me, Little A.

Four. And four hundred times over.

Happy Birthday, Love.

Crushed

2009-06-12T11:44:00.004-04:00

Today was Big A's last day of elementary school.

She got up and got dressed, chattering the entire time; excited about the day, excited for it to begin, excited for it to end, as I quietly watched the being before me.

She slipped into a pair of my shoes that fit her perfectly and twirled to the mirror before us, leaving in the wake of her joyful spin a mother only able to place a hand over her mouth to stop the sob she felt rising within.

It was yesterday, I swear, that she started kindergarten. Just moments ago that she slipped into my shoes and tugged at the hems of my skirts and looked up at me, eliciting laughter at the sight of her trying to walk in heels far too big for her.

It seems like just a month ago that I prepared her first lunch for her. Today she made it nearly on her own, truth be told, she would have been fine without my interference, had I not insisted on fumbling around in the kitchen with her, pretending to add things to her lunch, to make things better, to show her that there is usefulness in me yet, "You still need me, Big A, please, still do, because the day you don't need me, who will I be then?"

We drove into school together, a family. I thought of the day that I drove her into elementary school, just she and I, a long winding road ahead of us, having no idea what was in store for us. Today I drove as we listened to Little A's music and looked for the deer that are out each morning.

I wish I could ride there, in that car, in that moment, every day for the rest of my life.

We pulled up and Big A hopped out; all smiles and tallness and looking so grown, kissed Little A and was off--just as she had been that first day of kindergarten.

I recall watching her outside the door after she kissed me goodbye that morning; I remember that she never turned to look back; that she just ran forward. I remember hoping for her that she would always be as such--face forward, running to what lies ahead...that she would always have that confidence and security within her.

Today I watched her tall shape walk up the sidewalk and her friends smile and laugh and run up to her, and I waited, truth be told, for just one look back.

She didn't turn around.

It made me so happy that she never hesitated or paused, I could barely feel the pain of my heart being crushed inside my chest, until the tears streaming down my cheeks belied it.

The Small Things

2009-06-08T17:21:00.003-04:00

There we were, eagerly unwrapping our ice-cream requests. Big A and Little A were sharing one red Adirondack chair and I was sitting next to them.

Little A held up her treat, blue eyes wide open, smiling from ear to ear, "See what he gotted me? Do ya? It's so awesome! I so excited!" And then she placed into my hands an orange push-up that she needed help opening.

It happened that fast; within one moment--years were erased and existed no more. I was eight years old, climbing into a wood truck, eagerly anticipating stopping into the local store after a delivery of lumber to get my orange push-up, my smiling grandfather placing two quarters on the counter to pay for it.

And just as quickly, I was back. To that moment in those red chairs. To her blue eyes. To the knowledge that he is gone; the racing of my heart when I remember again that I've spoken to him and seen him for the last time.

It's still not real, you know. Oh, it's real enough when I choke back tears and clear my throat and walk into a different room to gather myself. It's real enough when I hear my grandmothers changed voice and read her letters speaking of emptiness that I don't want to know. It's real enough watching the Tigers and trying not to remember how many days of my youth were spent lying on my stomach, viewing the Tigers with my grandparents.

It is real enough.

And yet, I must remind myself of this frequently and I worry of what is to come. If something so large, something so true, is something that I must consistently tell myself of--what will life make of me later?

It's the small things, the little moments, that quietly sneak up and startle me. The blue of the sky, hearing a laugh that sounds like his, a blown save by a Tiger's relief pitcher, an orange push-up.

I've never lost someone that I loved so much, and yet I know that there will be greater losses. And the calendar days passing and my daughters so quickly growing do nothing to ease the fear that arises in me when I think of these things.

I try to capture time; to remember so much that it all becomes muddled and hazy--the things that I do remember are the small ones:

Big A's snarky comments, years beyond her age.

Little A's uncontrolled laughter anytime I squeeze her chunkins.

A red wood-truck picking up a tow-haired girl at the end of her driveway.

I miss him so much. Still. In uncontrolled ways when I am honest with myself, sobbing in the shower.

And then I walk out of the bathroom, smile at the Queens and slide orange push-ups to the top of their container, all the while pushing down the small things that keep rising to the surface.

Impostor

2009-05-26T21:45:00.007-04:00

There's an impostor in the castle.

She sleeps in my daughter's bed and wears my daughters clothes. When I go to watch Big A play softball, there that stranger is, sliding in the dirt and rounding bases with the world in front of her.

This impostor has taken to calling me "Mom", and I let her; I believe she is the only one that can tell me where my daughter has gone, so I try to be kind and gentle and coax the answers that I seek out of her.

This stranger has traveled to my home with us, stood side by side with my sister and glanced, her head tilted, at the tip of my sister's head, which wasn't far from her own. "I'm wearing flats," my sister responded, looking at me, our minds swimming together over an ocean of time and space, searching for my daughter.

This impostor has been climbing trees of late, carefully picking out clothes; looking into a mirror that reveals a stunning face before leaving the room that she's inhabiting.

She's got a sea of emotions nearly always swimming in her eyes and sometimes, just for a moment, I look into them and can almost see my daughter looking back. But those moments are fleeting and pass by as quickly as a cloud in the sky; before I have a chance to say all of the things going through my head, she turns a cheek and bounds off in a different direction as I mentally add to the list that I carry within my heart, keeping it tucked safely away for the day that I find Big A again.

This impostor sprawls out across a bed that just yesterday my baby daughter laid upon, curled up with my dogs. She wears lip gloss and sandals and stares at me blankly as I wonder where her dolls went. "They were just here," I implore, but to no use; I don't believe that I will see them again and that thought alone saddens me in ways hard to express.

She is so comfortable here, in her role, that she sleeps soundly when I steal into her room at night and peer at her face; the moonlight streaming upon it, searching for the daughter of mine that I miss so deeply.

She rolls her eyes and shrugs at her pink walls; explains them as a way to keep me amused--perhaps to keep me off the trail of discovering where she has hidden the child that I carried within me just a moment ago.

At times, she curls up against me and kisses my cheek and murmurs sweet nothings such as, "I love you, momma." In those seconds, I almost believe her; that she is mine.

But then she steps back and I remind myself that no, she is not.

She is not mine.

She never was.

I just had the honor of holding her and rocking her and bathing her and singing to her while she grew into this impostor before me.

And my heart aches with this knowledge as time whispers mercilessly into my ear, "I told you so."

Dear A

2009-04-28T10:01:00.005-04:00

Dear A,

Hey. Thanks for the nasty-gram comment. Um, it only works sending stuff like that if you are truly anonymous and don't leave messages that have words that you and I use only with each other. Just FYI, bitch.

Ugh. I have so much going through my head right now. So freaking much. I feel like the shittiest mom to walk the earth, I truly do. Little A has been at her Gram's house the past two nights, where SHE HAS SLEPT ALL NIGHT. Therefore, I have deduced that she hates me and is exerting the only form of torture that she is adept at. She's on her way home right now and I am going to spend all day sucking on her face and squeezing her chunkins and then she has to stay at Gram's again, since I have to leave at a god-forsaken hour for surgery in the morning.

Speaking of surgery, you are my patient advocate, okay? Thanks. (I pasted your signature and copied it--copies do count as originals, so I got that covered) I was talking to Beth about why the hell they make you fill that crap out and then say, "Nothing ever happens". Ummm, I bet something happened to someone at sometime, and that is the reason for this form, so really, don't tell me "never" and "ever".

Truth is, A, we know better by now, don't we? Yesterday I was 18 and invincible and now I'm staring down the tail-end of my 30's and know that "stuff happens" all the time and people die and accidents occur and there is so much out of our control. And for whatever reason, I'll blame it on PMS and nostalgia, but mostly PMS, that's the crap I'm thinking about lately. I suppose the narcotics and chocolate (I've eaten the good Easter candy. Again. Truth be told, I didn't even give them the snickers stuff this year, I just saved it for myself) don't help, but knowing what life is going to be like post surgery doesn't help either.

I know that you're going through major crap right now and I wish that I were there with you. I know that you feel incredibly alone and think that this won't ever pass. It will, A, it will. I know first-hand and I know now because I know you. I promise you that there will be a day in the future that you will throw your head back and laugh and afterward think, "My God, I'm happy" and be awed at how that happened. Or you'll be driving in your car and sing to a song on the radio, and after you'll think, "My God, I'm singing again." And we know that there will be a lot of nights and days spent sobbing before that happens; but sometimes just having awareness that the sun is on the way helps us deal with the rain. That and tequila, right?

A, I've been thinking about our childhood a lot lately. I've been crying over it and using it as foreboding warnings to my kids, "Let me tell you, these are the days you will look back to and miss and you'll regret all this fighting and screaming and WISH you could go back to this time. And GUESS WHAT? You can't. So you should just enjoy it." To which they huddle together and whisper that mommy is a little crazy right now and if that what it takes for them to bond, fine, so be it.

There are some things that I feel like I need to tell you, before tomorrow, the day which I won't die or turn into a vegetable and then die, but I had to sign papers regarding that those are possibilities, so I just need to tell you these things because they've been going through my head constantly.

I wish I could go back to our childhood and do some things differently. I don't blame myself for not knowing; these weren't conscious errors or meaningful hurts--youth is wasted on the young, isn't it? Fuck, I am so sick of mom and dad being right all the time!

I would go back to us sharing a bed and I wouldn't scream at you for when you kept touching me with your foot. I understand now why you wanted that comfort, of just knowing that I was there. Now I would let my arm drift over and drape it across you and I wouldn't drop your hand when we saw older friends and cousins coming so that I could pretend that I wasn't skipping along, holding hands with my sister, when I was far too cool for that.

I would let you have the window seat in the car and the pudding with the most whipped cream. I would let you have the prettiest towel all the time that we used to pretend we had long, flowing hair, instead of making you split it 50/50. I would run to drag you away from those wasps stinging you when you stepped into that nest instead of running to get mom and dad. I would braid your hair every single morning and let you braid mine, too.

I would go back to the days of when you were in kindergarten. Instead of hugging you and then peeling your sobbing self off of me and letting the teacher drag you into the classroom, I would stand there and hold you, A. I would make them peel us off of each other and I would stand outside of your classroom during recess, this time where you could see me, and I would make sure that you saw me smiling at you.

I miss you, A. I miss you in the physical sense in that I wish you were here, just down the way. I wish you were going to be here tomorrow instead of working; I wish that things were that easy, that there wasn't work and kids and obligations and duties that always stand in the way of what our hearts want. I wish that for once, my mind and my heart wanted the same thing and that that thing was attainable.

I hope that you're reading this at school and sobbing uncontrollably like I am because that's what you get for sending me messages like the one you did last night. (I don't really wish that, but I had to say it to try and make you laugh before your next class comes in.)

I love you. And, if anything should happen, I fully expect you to be the one to change my laundry.

Love,
Jenn

The Edge of Goodbye

2009-04-12T20:48:00.005-04:00

"There isn't anymore that you can do for her, except care for her. She will probably have a couple of good months left." The vet paused as though she expected me to speak, but I couldn't. "Call me when...call me when you are ready." I nodded my head and smiled, the salt of my tears burning my tongue.

"Let's go, Beauty Queen," I nudged her and she peered at me, rising slowly, but still with the wag of her tail.

I carefully lifted her into the back of my car and then got into the driver's seat where I swore that my devotion and love would somehow make this story end differently.

Of course, now, I know that it won't.

I don't know how to begin to tell you her story, the beginning was so long ago. She came to me a stray that was about to put down for her lack of the ability to be housebroken. I took one look into her eyes and called my college roommate, asking her permission to bring back another dog. She laughed and said, "God, Jenn, you're such a sucker." She never had an accident in my home, barring the occasional upset stomach.

That was sixteen years ago now.

She has been with me through the birth of my children, the loss of loves and hopes, through moves almost too numerous to count--always, literally, by my side.

She cannot rest unless she is resting against me. If I leave a room to go and get a drink of water, she follows. She has always been as such. For sixteen years, probably my closest companion when you tally all the time and hours spent together.

Time has caught up with us two blond compatriots, and she is dying.

And in ways that I cannot find the words to express, so am I.

I know that the world is full of heartbreaking losses; of pains so deep that I cannot begin to imagine. I do not mean to belittle those losses; I just mean to try to express mine.

When we are outside, she now needs several breaks to slowly walk paths that just a year ago, she could have ran. Little A laughs and says, "Jessie's silly! She's shaking her legs!" when she stands alongside me, as I quietly whisper, "I know," and gently nudge her to sit.

I do not want to be the one to make this choice.

I know that I am the adult, that I owe her an ending of dignity and peace; you need not remind me of this.

Right now, I am tallying how many times I see her tail wag during a given day, versus how many times I see her stumble or falter. Today, out in the sun, she ran a little, a smile upon her face, and my resolution to tell her goodbye this week began to dissolve.

When I arise each morning and tiptoe over to her bed, I will be honest: part of me hopes that she is gone; that she has peacefully passed in the night and removed from me the burden of being the one to let go.

"She is probably holding on for you, because she knows how much it will hurt you when she's gone," my sister told me this weekend as I sobbed about the undeniable truth as Jessie paced anxiously alongside me.

The only thought that brings me any solace is that she will be united with her best friend; when he died two years ago, she paced the house, looking for him, nosing his bed repeatedly across the wood floors, standing in front of me, whining, crying, pawing my knees, begging me to arise and go and retrieve him.

God have mercy upon the person that suggests to me that animals do not have souls or know sorrow and joy and other emotions.

And so here I sit tonight; unable to picture my life without her and unable to deny that the end is near any longer. It is a feeling that brings me so much pain, physical and emotional, that it feels as though there is a vise crushing my chest.

I feel as though I should make the phone calls, summon my family and friends, tell them that they have little time left to say their goodbyes. I feel as though the world should stop, if but for a moment, out of respect for all that she was to me and my loved ones over these past sixteen years. I feel as though a child again, not understanding this thing called death and being beyond consolation at the news that someone that I loved will never be again.

If I could choose her ending, I would choose a sunny day with the birds singing and the breeze blowing gently, tiny ripples darting across the pond. I would be holding her and whisper my goodbyes, reminding her of all that she has meant to me. She would be surrounded by my family and friends, and she would go peacefully into the next world as she leaves a void in this world that I cannot imagine filled.

And I sob tonight because I know that I can choose that ending for her.

And I sob tonight because I know that I must choose that ending for her.

And I sob tonight because I know that that day is very near.

And already, I am not the same.

To The Girl Sobbing On The Phone

2009-04-09T13:16:00.007-04:00

Dear Girl,

Should I be saying "girl", at our age? "Woman" sounds so grown, and I don't feel that way yet. Maybe I never will.

When you told me about the test that you took, the three of them in all, about how you were staring down three pink plus signs, about how you didn't think you could possibly do this, about how alone you would be--and then there was silence on my end, with your tentative, "Jenn?"--I am writing this to tell you what I wanted to say in those moments.

I wanted to tell you that I know that there was a point in my life when you weren't a part of it. That doesn't seem possible now. I wanted to tell you that of my friends, you have been among the most true. I wanted to tell you that I will never forget your kindnesses.

I want to talk to you about that plus sign. I wanted to tell you of the time my sister sat on the edge of my water bed, two days short of sixteen, and told me of her pregnancy. I know you know her son now; I know you know her strength now, and I know that you have that within you.

When you said that you'd be alone--I wanted to talk to you about that. I've been alone and pregnant. I've gone to doctor's appointments and tests alone; I've ridden an elevator to his office on the top floor, where they would tell me whether my child had made it through the night within me, or if she had died. I've delivered a baby that was between life and death for sometime. I've sat in a hospital room alone, sobbing, begging, bartering, multiple times.

This will not be you.

I promise you that I will be there every moment, for every appointment. If I cannot be, I know that you have a network of people that love you as fiercely as I do that will make sure you won't be alone, in the physical sense.

Because you already know that there is the other sense; the sense of being--and there are no words that I can say to promise that I can ease that feeling. If I could, I would do it, but no matter the honesty, you cannot change the truth.

It will be hard. You will think that you cannot do this. You will be shamed when people look to your swollen belly and then your empty ring finger. You've known my shames. None burned so hard as the side-ward glances, the whispers, the forms filled out without a father's name written in, the judgement.

But I wanted to tell you about judgement. That no matter what you feel now, no matter what you will feel when your cheeks are burning and you can't lift the dog food to put in your car and you feel this thing kicking inside of you and you just want it to end--those aren't the judgements that will matter.

The real judgements will happen daily, every time you catch a glance of yourself.

The real judgements will happen the first time your child says, "I love you mommy".

Those are the only judgements that count.

Will people you thought were close to you be some of the ones to bring you pain? Most likely, yes. But you learn who your friends are, and believe me, you will need them, and they will want to be there for you, and you will learn about accepting mercy and kindness, and I know that someday, you will pass those along when you can.

You will feel like a burden. I want you to understand right now, you are not. I want to help you, I want to be there, and I know that others around you will feel the same.

I want you to know that in the dead of the night, when you are lying there alone in your bed, one hand on your stomach, one hand pulling at your hair, your chest heaving with fear and regret and anger, when you are thinking that it is too late in the day, that there is no one that you can call: You are wrong. I am here, and there is no hour, no distance, nothing that will change that.

I am but a heartbeat away; I will always be such, until the day that I die.

I wanted to tell you that there wasn't a lower time in my life than when I carried Little A inside of me. I wanted to tell you that today, there is not a moment that brings me more joy, more love, more happiness--almost beyond what I can physically bear--than when I hear her laughter and feel her head upon my chest.

It will be a path that is not for the weak and weary--and though that is how you will feel--when you are walking it, know that every single step is worth it, a thousand times over.

Mostly, I wanted to say this:

There are few truths without exception.

I want you to know this one:

You are not alone.
I am here.
I will always be here.
I promise you this now, with each reader as my witness.
I will hold your hand and hold your baby and fight your fights and will do so with a heart that is so grateful to have been so fortunate as to have you in my life.

In that silence; that pause; that is what I wanted to say.

Now chin up and face forward, dear one.

All my love, always,
Jenn

With Deepest Sympathy

2009-04-08T11:28:00.008-04:00

Having once held a 3.5 pound baby in my hands, willing her to breathe, begging God to take my life if he would just give her one, I cannot quit crying.

I am so, so, sorry.

Please go here and consider donating to the March of Dimes:

http://www.marchforbabies.org/personal_page.asp?si=&w=131032674&u=marchformaddie

Godspeed, sweet one.

(Post Scrip: You cannot go to the personal blog of Maddie, because Blogger has suspended the account due to a large amount of traffic. Their prematurely born daughter passed away, after 16 months. They have been taken by surprise and are in need of support, please consider it in any form, including prayers.)

It's NOT the Economy, Stupid

2009-04-07T17:39:00.003-04:00

Some of you may or may not be aware that last night Michigan State played North Carolina for the Men's College Basketball Title.

Regardless of whether you knew it or not, let me give you a little back story.

Michigan State wasn't supposed to be there, playing North Carolina. They defeated two number one teams to have the honor of playing for the title in front of a crowd hailing from their state.

In the days leading up to the game, the stories playing on the news and in the papers sang a familiar tune: How this championship could help the Michigan economy, how this would be such a Cinderella story for a citizenship in desperate need of a fairy tale, etc.

And then, of course, the game began. And, then, there are those that would say that it ended nearly as soon as it began. It wasn't pretty; what ensued. It was what some might call a routing, a massacre, an easy victory for North Carolina.

And then, of course, the media reports today. Since we listen to ESPN each morning on our drive to work, I got to hear the tail end of a Roy Williams quote (He's the coach of NC), where he was laughing with Mike and Mike in the Morning, joking about how he did his part for the economy and went and spent some of his money at the casino. Laughter all around as I shook my head and bit my lip.

I was driving to Lansing, where I work, the town where Michigan State hails from. In the same city of our state capitol, on a daily basis, I meet with individuals struggling to find employment who also happen to be struggling with some sort of disability, from being wheel-chair bound, to being displaced workers stunned by the closing of doors where they worked every day for the last twenty years.

Our state has been hardest hit by this downfall of our nation's economy. Our unemployment rate is in double digits, the highest in the nation. Our factories, which once were the fore-front of this nations industry, now closing all around us. We drive through town, every other house with "For Sale" signs in their abandoned yards. And each day, I walk out into a lobby full of people desperate to work, desperate for anything good.

It wasn't ever about the economy, Roy.

It was about hope. It was about overcoming the inconceivable. It was about, for once, instead of the usual, "Have you heard from any employers this week," answered with the shake of a down-turned head, it was, "How about those Spartans?"

It wasn't about your damn dollars tossed down in a casino.

It was about spirits lifted, if just for a minute, towards a sun that we haven't seen for a long time.

It was about a client that we still have on our roster who I couldn't get Taco Bell to call. It was about a letter I sent off to one Mr. Tom Izzo, head coach of MSU, talking about my client and how he couldn't recite our presidents or verbalize very well, but about how he could recite stats about Michigan State Basketball from the 1970's through today.

It was about a phone call that I got back, a four-color book on MSU basketball sent to my client, with his name written in it, inscribed, "Dream Big. Tom Izzo". It was about basketball tickets given to him, right behind the MSU bench, it was about Tom Izzo walking up to him after the game, shaking his hand, and taking him back into the locker room. It's about a kid that never believed in himself for one minute, that finally believed maybe he was worth something. That's what it was about, Roy.

So you can take your game stats. You can take your criticisms of when a time-out should or shouldn't have been called. You can take your talk of, "Well, maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place", and you can take your lousy dollars dropped within a casino.

What you cannot take is what was finally true here: There was hope. And for a state full of people that forgot what that looked like, that will not be forgotten.

There is a long, hard road ahead, no doubt. We know that. But if a group of kids in green and white jersey's can make it to the final game, who is to say that we can't?

It wasn't ever about the economy. It was about what it took to get there.

And you can't buy that, no matter what the media and certain head coaches want you to believe.

Funniest. Commercial. EVAR.

2009-03-30T13:58:00.001-04:00

Wordless Wednesday, 24 Hours Late

2009-03-26T21:34:00.006-04:00

And Then, The World Changed Me

2009-03-19T10:41:00.002-04:00

As I was laying on the couch yesterday, commiserating to myself about the searing pain in my shoulder and arm, my cell phone rang; it wasn't a number that I recognized, and irritation buzzed through me--I picked it up and asked the person if I could call them back from my home phone.

He obliged, and grudgingly, I dialed him back.

He introduced himself as a minister at a local church, and told me that he was calling because I had sent someone in to see him; he mentioned a name that I didn't know and I cut him off mid-sentence, "You must have mistaken me for someone else."

"No, ma'am, I have your business card. He said that you gave it to him."

And on a dime, my heart stopped.

I remembered him.

He had been standing near the entrance to a local grocery store and mall, holding a sign:

"Will work for food.
Please.
I have two kids."

I passed him on my way out of the store, my radio playing the song, "Coming Home", my sunroof open, the sun shining brightly for the first time in a long time. When I read the sign, I turned my car around, went back into the store, purchased a gift card, and took it to him.

His eyes watered as I placed it in his hand. "Hey, miss, I'll work for you. I'll do your lawn or help out with stuff."

I smiled back at him and told him to just pay it forward instead. He didn't understand what I meant--I explained to him that instead of him helping me, I wanted him to help someone else in need and suggested that he go to a local church and ask for people that might need assistance.

Then I asked him why he wasn't working--he told me he'd been laid off, and that he couldn't find work. I asked him about unemployment benefits and applying for assistance, and then he told me that, "He couldn't read real good and didn't understand the papers."

I hesitated, for longer than I should have, before I asked him to come with me to my car. I gave him my card, and wrote a note on it for him to take to the unemployment office, requesting that they give him an accommodation or call me.

Truth is, I didn't want him to have my name, or my number. I'm better at compassion than at closeness.

When I left, I wasn't sure what he'd do, for all I knew, it was just a story that he told, but I didn't give it much more thought other than choosing to believe what he'd written on that sign.

Turns out, he did go to a church.

Turns out, he did ask if he could help someone. He's going there this weekend, with his family, to clean up a large yard of a house-bound elderly woman who can't bear to sell the home that she's lived in her entire life.

Turns out, he was laid off, and did go to the unemployment office, where they did process his forms, and assisted him with finding the right person to help him apply for other aid.

And, turns out, that for as uneducated as he believes that he is, he read me.

"Also," the minister continued, "He wanted you to know that he gave me your card, that he didn't keep it. He could tell that you didn't want to give it to him, but that you did anyway."

Shame crept up my neck, into my face, and I could barely speak.

"I'm sorry, it's just that-", this time, the minister cut me off. "You did a good, good thing. That's what matters."

I thanked him and hung up the phone, looking out my window at the birds and the blue sky.

I remembered after I'd given him that gift card and driven away, I had thought to myself, "I'm going to change the world."

But it turns out, the world changed me.

Wishing For Magic

2009-03-10T14:16:00.011-04:00

"Hey, what happened to my magic?" Asked Little A this morning as we were taking Big A into school.

"It's raining--it takes a little bit for your magic to warm up when it's raining outside," I told her as I switched the song via my steering wheel controls.

"Oh! Yep. There it is," she squealed with delight.

Big A looked over at me and smiled, "I remember when I thought I was magic. Like when I thought I could open doors and windows and turn the radio station by pointing my fingers."

We both grinned at each other, each of us probably recalling some of those memories.

After about a minute, Big A quietly said, "Hey, mom."

"Uh, huh," I said, a little wary because of the tone in her voice.

"It's just that sometimes, I wish I still believed in that. You know, that I was magic. Like that the Tooth Fairy really was the one leaving pixie dust in my room and stuff."

"Right," I nodded wistfully, "Me too."

"Hey! What's wrong with my magic," Little A shouted from the back. "Why isn't it listening to me?"

Big A and I laughed as I switched the song, each of us watching the wipers moving across the windshield.

"Hey, Big A," I said as we pulled up to the school, "Magic is everywhere, it's just that sometimes it changes and you have to find it again. You still have it, it's just that it works different now."

Her perfect mouth turned slightly upward as she tipped her head, "Yeah. I guess so."

She turned and headed out into the rain as I sat in my car watching her disappearing shape; my mind frantically racing down the halls of my memory, searching for the day that she quit believing, wishing for the magic to bring it back.

Jackass: The Update

2009-03-09T11:43:00.006-04:00

It was 5:10 a.m. when I laid down in bed.

Big A was supposed to be getting up at 6:00, and then waking me up at 7:00. We had decided this when she'd awoken at 4:15 and saw me still painting.

Except I woke up at 7:32. I ran to Big A's room, where she was blissfully unaware that she'd reversed her a.m. and p.m. settings on her clock. The rush out the door was ugly, but I did remember to grab the paint can.

When I walked through the door of the hardware store, the paint kid, whom from here on out I shall call Bill/Ted, was working.

"Oh, dude! I told my manager you'd totally be back!"

"Did you?"

"Yeah, turns out that you still have to do the primer-thing, but then it will only take one coat of paint after that. I totally got it wrong."

"Right. It was more like five coats--"

I was interrupted by the sound of him "shaaa-ing" and smacking his head.

"Yeah--I was like, oh, man, I totally told this lady that it would only take one coat and she was all, are you sure because I've never heard that before and usually dark paint needs primer and I was like, yeah, it's guaranteed and stuff and she was like, so I can get my money back if it takes more than one coat and I--"

"Please quit talking."

I'm not sure who was more surprised that those words came out of my mouth, him or me. I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the time change on Saturday, not sleeping on Sunday and the exposure to paint fumes.

We stood there for an awkward second.

"Is your manager here?"

"Yeah. I'll go get him." He started walking away when he turned to me and said, "But he totally said he is not refunding your money."

"I'm totally sure he did." To which Bill/Ted gave me a thumbs up; apparently mistaking my sarcasm for an act of unity.

I tilted my head to the side to get a view of the two talking. Bill/Ted made what appeared to be a circular motion with his pointer finger by his head, which, to the manager's credit, he did have the where-with-all to slap away.

I waved and smiled at the manager, as though to signal, "Yes, I am probably as crazy as he is saying, and you will be coming to talk to me and give me my money back."

The manager smoothed back his hair and began walking towards me, Bill/Ted in tow. He had probably been quite the lady killer back in the day, and had the potential to still pull off some excellent moves while masqueraded by the smoky atmosphere and dim lighting in a bar. However, it was Monday, and the lights were florescent, and I was freaking out that maybe I had drool on my face and that it would be hard to taken seriously were that indeed the case.

"Hello there."

"Hello."

"So, I hear we had a little mix-up."

"If by mix-up you mean that I was told that this was guaranteed to cover in one coat and I bought it and then stayed up until 5:00 this morning applying coat after coat, then yes, I guess you could say that 'we' had a mix-up".

"Right. Well, I think Bill/Ted told you what happened--that paint is actually guaranteed to cover in one coat without first using a primer."

I just stared at him.

"I guess what I could do is go ahead and refund you the $12 extra that you paid for that gallon."

As soon as he said those words, the telepathic conversation between he and I went like this:

HE: I should not have said that.

I: No, you should not have.

HE: You are going to kill me.

I: Your sense of perception is far greater than I would have given you credit for.

HE: Yeah, I've got six ex-wives, so I have a real good sense of imminent physical danger.

I: Your vocabulary is also much better than I'd have expected.

HE: Wife Three. Professor. Wanted to marry a bad boy, but then couldn't handle it.

I: Right. Okay, where were we? Oh, yes, I am going to kill you.

HE: Will you make it fast and merciful?

I: As fast as my painting project last night.

Then, out loud, he proclaimed that he had an idea. Bill/Ted glanced up at him, eager to hear what he had to say. I could pretty much envision the manager telling Bill/Ted that he wasn't about to refund some lady for a gallon of paint, etc, and I think that is what fueled Bill/Ted's great interest in the upcoming proclamation of his manger.

"I know you probably don't want to think about this, but you're probably going to need to paint some other things, right?"

I nodded my head.

"How about a gift certificate for two cans of paint and some brushes?"

At that moment, what I really wanted was Bill/Ted to come to my home and apply five coats of paint to a wall without sleep, but the thought of all of Big A's Cheetos coming up missing stopped that little fantasy.

"Throw in a can of primer, and you have a deal," I said.

"Done." He reached his hand out and shook my navy-blue coated palms.

Then he turned to get the certificate and gave Bill/Ted a wink, as though to say, "And that is how you handle the ladies." Bill/Ted nodded his head.

Truth is, by that time, I'd calmed down and the fumes had worn off and I reminded myself that I had a house with walls to paint, and that within those walls live people that I love more than life itself.

I've got it good.

And I've also got it in any available color that I desire, with primer and brushes to boot.

Hey, Jackass

2009-03-09T02:58:00.002-04:00

Yes, you.

You lying little punk who sold me the navy blue paint that was an extra $12, insisting that it would cover in ONE COAT and that it was worth it because I wouldn't need a primer.

"Totally", to quote you as I raised my eyebrow in disbelief.

Guess what?

Yeah, it's three o'clock in the f-ing morning and I have to put on YET ONE MORE coat, which would make it coat FOUR--which would make it three over the "guaranteed" one coat that you sold me.

I hope beyond hope that your ass is working in the morning after I drop off Big A at school.

Because you WILL be looking up that "guarantee" and you will be refunding me my friggin' money, and if there happens to be another chickie-poo in there with a cut-off t-shirt in the dead of winter that causes your eyes and mind to wander while I'm trying to talk to you, I swear that I will smack you with the son-of-a-bitching paint can that I will have in my hand.

And that is a "guarantee".

Eleven

2009-03-06T17:51:00.000-05:00

Time, you thief.

To have held this baby in my arms, and then, in just the blink of an eye, to be looking at this girl--this young lady--to think that I once carried her within me.

How could you?

Know you nothing of ache within your chest that yearns to hold her tight, just one more time--to sleep just one more night with her snuggled up against you?

Have you not awoken one morning to find the last of her baby fat gone and wept all day?

Do you know the feeling of stumbling down a school hallway, unable to breathe or see, having just waved goodbye to your daughter on her first day of school?

What is it that you think you would sacrifice of yourself to keep her free from knowledge of the real world and the pain within it, if just for one more day?

Are not the lines upon my face and creaks within my bones enough for you?

Must you take her as well? Must you continue to take each day and give back to me one less moment of her childhood?

Have you no pity?

To give us these moments, these smiles, this pride, and so quietly ebb up on us, and before we know it, you've cleared out our most prized possessions with not so much as a warning, leaving us with rooms strewn with jeans and lip gloss and softball gloves; rooms that just yesterday were filled with cribs and baby blankets.

Can I not keep you out? If even for a day?

This is how it should be, I know.

This is what every parent would hope and pray for: a daughter, healthy and beautiful, growing into such an amazing being.

I know this, of course.

But it does nothing to ease the young woman within me, standing with a baby in her arms, trying to keep out the thief at the door.

Eleven.

Eleven.

Eleven.

Gone

2009-01-07T22:49:00.003-05:00

"He is gone".

That simple sentence keeps ruminating through my mind; an endless whisper of what is now true; a constant reminder of what will never be the same.

You can speak to me of memories, but I know them, and I keep them with me.

You can remind me of a better place; I know that he is there.

For the time being, these things do not change what is the truth to me right now, and that truth is achingly painful, and I am indescribably sad.

The simple truth leaves me sobbing in my car, circling the parking lot, unable to stop the car or muster the energy to actually go inside.

This simple truth has me tapping my chest, willing it to take deep breaths in and out and reminding it not to allow the hard jagged sobs that seem to take it over at will.

This simple sentence has me at a loss; has all of my family at a loss, and I'm just trying to comprehend that no matter the days that pass, life will never be the same.

This simple sentence has me begging the world to stop; to pause; just for a moment, and yet this life is pushing me along: bathe my children, do my work, feed the birds, play with the dogs, work with Big A on her pitching and Little A on her ABC's and debate with anyone who will listen why the Tigers should keep Kenny Rogers as a mid-game reliever.

And then finally, there will come a pause, a break in the routine of my day, and in those moments of silence, I cannot help it, I weep.

I'm not a stranger to death or loss.

I'm just not sure that I've lost someone that I loved so much; someone that was such a magnificent part of my life; someone that always brought a smile to my face.

It's difficult to think that I will not see him again; that there will be no more emails from him, no more Tigers games with him, no more hearing his accented voice singing hymns.

I know, that in a sense, he is there; that he exists within all of us.

It's just that despite that truth, the simple one still exists.

He is gone.

And so I weep.

Goodbye

2008-12-31T08:51:00.003-05:00

I'm heading to my first home today; the home where I spent my childhood and I'm dreading it.

It's a place where, in my minds eye, all remains the same. The trees we'd play in remain standing, the hills we rolled down still as magnificent as they were when we were small. So many pieces of me remain there, protected from what would come.

Except there is no protection there anymore.

I'm going to walk into my grandparents home, just as I did on Christmas, and nothing there will be the same, for he is gone, and I cannot wrap myself around this. When I try to begin to comprehend him passing, I sob or I start wringing my hands and demand my thoughts to go elsewhere.

I've no regrets to our goodbye; I don't wish I'd said something more or done something differently, just a kiss on the forehead and an "I love you Gramps", to which he responded, "I love you too". It might be the first goodbye to which I've not later wished for more.

I have to tell Big A today, and I don't know how I will do this. I know what the news of this will do to her little heart, and I can't stand the thought of it. I feel like I should know more, like I should be able to cope, like I should be a blanket of comfort for her, but the truth is that my heart is also raw; in ways, I suppose, still very childlike.

I laid on the couch last night and tried to picture what today will be like, but I didn't get very far. My mind went back to so many memories of him that I became lost in emotion and could barely breathe.

Is this adulthood then? Our hearts and minds screaming, sobbing, "no", and our bodies and motions saying, "but you must"?

I don't know how I will do this.

Godspeed Gramps.

True Story

2008-11-17T14:17:00.002-05:00

Actual conversation last night in the castle:

ME: Big A, did you eat all of the lasagna?

BIG A: Um, no.

ME: So you didn't just put an empty container back into the fridge?

BIG A: No, mom. There's some left. I'm going to have it for a snack later.

Perhaps, maybe, when she's going through her super-model phase and can only consume 20 calories per day?

With Much Gratitude

2008-10-08T07:29:00.002-04:00

Dear Readers,

It is with much gratitude that I'd like to update you on my completely corrected and now non-existent condition.

Seems that in addition to being a miracle in general, I've managed to have my body grow and heal itself, so there will be no kidney surgery in my future, nor anymore trips to The Big Hospital.

Following my day of torture and the purchase of whatever doughnuts I wanted (3 of them), we got to go and visit this disturbingly large bird, who was thrilled to be able to be photographed with me.

Thank you, dear readers, for all of the love you sent my way. If you'd like to order a picture, please send $10 and a self-addressed stamped envelope to me and I'll have my minions get on that.

Love,
Queen Little A

Dear Chrysler

2008-09-17T20:57:00.007-04:00

Dear Chrysler,

Creator of the Pa-Crapica, we need to chat.

Surely you cannot be serious when you have various technicians tell me that it is perfectly normal for my car to need two to three quarts of oil added to it between oil changes.

Surely, you cannot.

You should note that they can barely keep a straight face and may want to invest some cash-ola into acting lessons for them.

It's fabulous that in order to speak to someone, you must sit on hold and be transferred eight times. Luckily for me, I have unlimited minutes and a three hour commute a few days a week, and am always looking for new ways to kill time.

I want to meet you so that I can personally remove your toenails with a dull knife after being forced to listen to the likes of Celine Dion, Michael Bolton and Gloria Estfan while holding. Die in a fire, please.

Anyhoo, just wanted you to know that after being told by two people that, yes, that was an acceptable rate of oil burn according to you and additionally I was calling the wrong "800" number, and that I had to call another and speak to someone else, because what did I expect the customer service number to do? Provide customer service? Was I high? Anyway, lost my train of thought after you then refused to give me the 800 number to the Chrysler Service Contract Division.

Oh yes.

In anticipation of your continued suck-tastic service, I've reserved a new blog name.

It's titled "Chrysler Sucks". You can find it at http://chryslerpacificasucks.blogspot.com/.

I'm curious as to how much traffic I'll be able to drive to my new page with the magnets that I'm going to have made up to put on my car with the blog address on it. It will be a neat little marketing experiment for me.

I'll keep you posted as to the progress.

Unless, of course, you'd like to honor that 100,000 mile extended warranty that I purchased from you and admit that something is wrong with my car and repair it for me.

Keep me posted as to your decision, OK?

Sincerely,

One Pissed-Off Woman

He Wore A Suit

2008-09-17T09:55:00.005-04:00

Last week, a counselor asked me if I had time to meet with someone and create a resume and cover letter for him; he had a deadline that needed to be met rather quickly and was without either of those items. I scheduled to meet him the next day.

When I walked into the office that day, I was dressed down. I wasn't wearing heels, but ballerina flats, with cords--not my typical attire, but he was my only client meeting that day, the rest of the day I had been planning to spend doing follow-up and applications. I glanced around the waiting area as the security guard buzzed me through and I saw a man, dressed in a full suit and tie, a battered briefcase on his lap.

"Please, don't let that be him", I thought, cursing myself for my casual approach to the day.

I settled in and went to the lobby, "Mr. X", I called, and the man in the suit arose. I was grateful for the long hall that we had to walk down--shame was burning my cheeks--all over my appearance.

I'd asked the counselor to authorize me three hours, thinking that would be plenty of time to meet with him, get his employment history, review the job description and draft the items that he needed. Of course, it wasn't that simple.

"So we're creating a resume today", I asked him. "Do you have the job description"?

He didn't. He began to tell me what was happening in regards to the job, and I could feel my blood pressure rising. The counselor and other staff members had also tried to get the job description, but still didn't have it either.

Turns out Mr. X was a state employee in the Department of Corrections for twelve years. He had been injured on the job, and was placed on long-term disability, and had been recently notified that he was no longer eligible for it. The state wouldn't give him his old job back, because he was apparently disabled enough not to be qualified to work in that capacity any longer. He'd spent his life and career working in a field where he hadn't gained much additional professional knowledge and was supposed to be applying for a job in the corrections department that was in an office setting.

Since he was trying to change career paths, he qualified for the Department of Corrections re-entry program, a program, which at face value, is excellent. It gives dedicated employees such as him accessibility and preference to openings as they try to re-establish themselves. He was given a "ticket to work" and assigned a case worker.

A case worker who, instead of sending a link to job postings sent him random e-mails with vague descriptions of jobs--no companies listed, no submission deadlines, no qualifications needed. A case worker who didn't return the numerous phone calls from his counselor and re-hab staff to get a copy of the job description. A case worker who left her voice mail box full so that you couldn't even leave a message. A case worker who finally returned my call when I got in touch with the receptionist and asked her to relay that if the case worker was too busy to return my call, I'd be happy to speak with her supervisor.

He gave me a copy of his resume that he'd tried to draft. "I guess this is what they are using now-a-day's," he said. He handed me a piece of paper with an art clip of a computer mouse at the top of it, and it got worse after that. And it was genuinely his best effort--he had no idea how to navigate the sea he'd been tossed in, but he was trying to desperately.

I smiled and took it from him, got as much information as I could and told him I'd be in touch with him that day.

When his case worker finally returned my call, I asked for the job description. She couldn't find it. I asked for the deadline. She thought it was Monday. I asked her to email me the link, she took my email, but refused to give me hers.

"So if you'll just submit his resume and cover letter, that would be great," she said.

I lost it, in a professional manner, but lost it just the same.

"Excuse me? Submit it to whom? You haven't given me any information".

"Right. Just get it to me and I'll submit it for him".

"I'll need your email."

"Just send it to him and then he can get it to me."

"I'm confused," I stammered, "I thought that you were supposed to be submitting his resume to appropriate openings for him, as his case worker, and making sure that the recipient knew that he was involved in this program and should be given greater preference".

"I do." She was short. "Just get him the resume and I'll email you the link". She hung up.

Of course, I never got the information, but drafted the best documents that I could.

Monday, his counselor asked me if I had a few minutes. Seems his case worker said that all of his employment history needed to be on there, including three month stints from when he was in college.

I shut her office door and threw the bullshit flag. Tears burned my eyes when I asked exactly who was going to help him, because we both knew it wasn't his case worker. I also reminded her that if I'd had the fucking job description, it would have helped.

"I share your outrage," she said, and I know that she did. Except that she's also mired in the state system of hierarchy and bureaucracy and sometimes, you just cannot risk pissing off the wrong people.

That's the beauty of my job. I'm not a state employee, and so I don't have to worry about the politics of the system for the most part--as long as I'm doing what the counselors pay me to do, I'm secure. Most of my clients have been on their knees so long, I don't think that they can remember how to stand, let alone stand and fight.

The new state budget starts October first.

"He was one of the people I was telling you about," his counselor told me. "When October hits, he's your client".

"Good," I said, still shaking. I apologized for the tears and vehement reaction.

She touched my shoulder, "Don't ever lose that, Jenn. Don't ever lose that."

I smiled and walked out of her office, looking desperately forward to October first. I'll be kicking ass and taking names. And I'll be doing it in a dress suit and heels.

Pay Some FARK'in Attention, Please

2008-09-16T04:33:00.003-04:00

"In arguably his toughest interview yet, View co-host Joy Behar asked McCain..." You read that right. Toughest interview yet, on The View. Our news media is doomed

+ PLUS

GOP: "Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience, after all she went to Iraq." Media: "ORLY? When?" GOP: "And by 'went to Iraq' we meant, 'could have gone if she wanted to.'"

+ PLUS

Greenspan says this is the worst economy he's seen, which is scary considering he's 400 years old

+ PLUS

Bush says he is working on a way to minimize the impact of his disastrous economic policies

+ PLUS

(Blue Ridge Now)

Gov. Sarah Palin once appointed a high school friend to head up the state's agricultural division. The friend's qualifications? A childhood love of cows

+ PLUS

McCain asserts that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Today. The day that two of the biggest banks on Wall Street have failed

+ PLUS

So it begins: D.C. election officials blamed a defective computer memory cartridge yesterday for producing what appeared to be thousands of write-in votes that officials say did not exist

+ PLUS

Gibson: "VP nominee Palin, what are your thoughts on the Bush Doctrine?" Palin: "The what now?" Gibson: "The Bush Doctrine." Palin: "Ummm... Could you dumb it down a shade?"

+ PLUS

Guess who picketed legal abortion clinics in Alaska?

+ PLUS

Not only does Sarah Palin oppose abortion, she is also willing to block access to clinics that practice it

+ PLUS

(Some Guy)

Ballots mistaken for trash and thrown out. Because it's in FL, consider this "foreshadowing"

+ PLUS

McCain touts Palin on foreign affairs: commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, because some of them have died in Iraq

+ PLUS

"The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government"

= EQUALS
__________________________________________________________________

UNKNOWN--YOU DECIDE.

(Are you registered to vote? Are twenty people that you know registered?)

Small Truths

2008-09-13T10:58:00.011-04:00

Turns out taking a running leap from the rocks of faith and attempting to soar was a good thing. I've always said if I could have any super-power, it would be the ability to fly, and if I could be any animal, it would be a bird, so I could soar.

It's just that time is so scarce now that I am struggling to manage it well. I always knew he was a thief--he was always up front about that: a wrinkle here; a brown spot there; a roll of baby fat overnight, vanished; a first step, then, seemingly within a heartbeat, a full-out racing child; a mother holding my hand, then I, a mother, holding my own daughters' hands.

And so it goes, this thing called life.

There are a few things that I kept telling myself while I was swimming through the hard stuff, and I keep telling myself those things still, for they kept me afloat. I haven't forgotten that there is something more that I want to do, except rather than telling myself that I possibly cannot change the world, I am now telling myself that I can--start small, then grow.

Here are a collection of things that I've taped up or memorized and kept close to me that I thought I'd put out there for you now, because I think that we all need those reminders, and if we feel like we don't, I can assure you that someone close to you does--perhaps not personally close, but maybe physically close--look around--I can tell you, without doubt, that you can spread hope, and that it once given to someone else, it continues to grow.

"When you're going through hell, keep going" (Winston Churchill; a magnet)

"Psst, here's a secret: Your last mortal thought will be: "Why did I take so many days-just like today-for granted"? (My favorite PostSecret card)

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be" (Celmentine Paddleford)

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may resent you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway". Associated with Mother Teresa, however, it was adapted from The Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith (1968)

Each day I'm grateful for a body that, despite some creaks and cracks, works, perfectly. I'm not in a wheelchair, I'm not missing any limbs, I might hate to get wet, but I can still run in the rain into the store from my parking spot a hundred spaces back. I can drive myself where I need to go. I can hug and see my children.

Despite having been at such a low, I can tell you now that I am grateful for it--I know, without fail, those that will stand by me, no matter what, and those that won't. I'm eternally blessed to be able to share my life with the people that love me, and I'm not going to devote anymore time to worrying about what others that ultimately don't care about me believe. It's a huge weight to remove--you should try it today.

And finally, the poster that I've carried with me for fifteen years:

When Stars Collide

2008-08-14T06:38:00.002-04:00

"Honestly, Jessie, you and I both know that as blond beauties, we deserve far more than our current lifestyle at the castle."

"I agree, Little A. I mean, despite the fact that I barely have any teeth left, I'd still like a steak to gum on each day."

"Right, Jessie. Being of limited vocabulary between us and beyond insisting upon shiny bed wear and fantastic sandals and beaded dog collars, what can we do to express to the Servant exactly how much more we deserve?"

"I know Little A! At the count of three, lets give the Servant our best turn of the head with squinted eyes, hopefully conveying our utter disregard for having to linger among the common folk, when so obviously we are royalty. Perhaps if we each also tilt our chins just so and look upward as well, it will give the picture a movie-star-I'm-too-good-for-you-effect."

"Sounds good. Then I've got to dash off to my quarters and watch Dora and get my feet rubbed while they fetch me chocolate milk and adorn my cheeks with kisses and struggle to fulfill the random requests that I have just so that I might grace them with my smile. Ugh, the things I must put up with, Jessie."

Three

2008-08-04T10:58:00.003-04:00

Three, Little A.

Can you believe it?

To think that once upon a time, three was such a questionable number. Three minutes? Three hours? Three days? Three weeks?

And now, three years.

I should have known from the start what a fighter you were, Little A. All the odds that you've already overcome to be here now, lighting up so many worlds with the sunshine from your sweet face.

To think that sometimes now I struggle, not with prayers for your next breath, not with tears of wondering what your future holds, but with tears of joy for the moments that your smile catches me unprepared and leaves me struggling for my next breath--I'm so filled with such complete love for you that at times, I'm literally crushed.

You are my constant reminder, Little A, of how the darkest storms can create the brightest rainbow, of how the despite what common sense and logic might say, that if we listen to what our hearts are whispering to us, we can make it.

And made it, we have, haven't we, sunshine?

Everything about you: your independence, your wit, your laughter, your heart--everything about you makes me such a grateful person, each and every single day of my life.

There are so many eloquent quotes and writings denoting how much a mother gives when she gives life. Someday, possibly, I'll explain to you what life you gave to me; how, in some ways, you saved me, you re-created me.

I love you Little A, so much more that what I can tell you here, or when I'm kissing your face, or embracing you, or smoothing your hair.

I love you beyond love.

And no matter the days or years that pass, no matter the changes that will occur, that will remain as such.

The Dime Story, Part Two

2008-07-24T11:51:00.005-04:00

Today is my first day along my new journey. I was going to post a picture of the sun shining through the trees that I saw this morning, but then this happened.

I was meeting with one of my first clients, and pulled out her brand new file and opened it up, something proceeded to fall to the floor.

"I wonder what that could be? The file is brand new", I said as I leaned over to look under my chair, expecting, perhaps, a paper clip.

Instead, I saw this:Yes, it's a dime.

I bit my lip and smiled through the tears that were threatening to spill over.

And now I'm off, to my next appointment, a new keepsake in my planner; yet one more reminder of things so much greater than I written in my heart.

Readers Beware! Danger! Protect Your Children!

2008-07-19T09:57:00.008-04:00

There had been whispers before in the scientific world, but last night a brutal attack in our home confirmed scientists worst suspicions: the horrifying Pen Spider does, in fact, exist. It is not merely lore recited around Bunsen burners outside of tents on summer nights. Following is what I've learned in the first twelve hours since the brutal attack:

This spider is wily and brilliant, amazingly smart for having a brain the size of a spec of sand.

The first mode of his multi-faceted attack is to render the victim suspiciously quiet. He then proceeds to crawl up and down the legs of the victim, marking her with his fangs. (His fangs are not actually teeth, but rather pen, thus leaving proof of his attack with ink, not red bite marks)

After tattooing the victim, who is still apparently unable to use her voice box, he then places stickers upon her body and what is left of her hair. (Instead of having silk to weave webs, he carries stickers in that sac instead).

Apparently, the only way to end the viciousness of this spiders attack is to have someone open the bedroom door. Upon a parental figure in the doorway, this spider slips away into the night, untraceable, despite the best efforts of the Servant to find it, all the while, the poor victim chanting, over and over, "I scared. The spider scary. He got me. He got me. I no get me. The spider did."

Fortunately, I got in touch with someone from National Geographic who told me that there is an anti-dote for the spider bites, and that it must be administered within ten hours of the attack (we just made the deadline). This expert said that some substance in Powdered Sugar Doughnuts can erase all effects of the attack. (Luckily, we had some in our cupboard).

I have to go now and primp (National Geographic is on the way. I'm assuming that we'll be featured in a special on this monster, the scenes re-enacted by far better looking actors than us. I'll keep you posted as to the airing time).

I just wanted to take a few moments and warn all of you of the dangers that this creature poses to your children. Be on the look-out people. And let me know if you have any sightings, then I can send the N.G. crew your way once they are done here.

Signs: On the Corner of Mt. Hope

2008-07-07T19:45:00.008-04:00

There I was, walking to an appointment in 87 degree humid weather, in my heels and skirt, trying to figure out where I was going to come up with a gas can, more cash to put gas into it, and how I was going to do it in enough time to get Little A from daycare, 99 miles away.

My employer had let the gas card run out, again. I was encouraged to put in $10 increments of my own money until they found time to put the funds on the card. That didn't work so well, and proved especially difficult to do when my checks were consistently short with promises of "catching up" the next pay period and I had two Queens at home with a budget that, literally, was balanced to within $10.

I had gambled with fate; my GPS had told me I had .8 miles until my destination. The car quit running at .4 miles. I pulled into an abandoned parking lot (not hard to find where I was working) and proceeded to hoof it while I calculated what my employer charged hourly for my services versus what she paid me.

I took deep breaths to calm the storm brewing inside of me while I apologized for being late. It was his time--my clients--not mine. I was meeting with him to talk about his hopes, his ambitions, his triumphs and failures.

So many times I want to tell my clients, "I've been there, I completely understand, and that's why I'm here, helping you," but none more so than that day. I didn't, of course--it's often a mystery to employers and others what drives me to lengths that I go to in order to help the people that I work with, but I will never, so long as I live and breathe, forget what it was like to be at the absolute bottom, and how desperately I needed a helping hand. That recollection and that gratitude for second chances are some of the things that I am most grateful for in my life.

Our meeting ended and I looked at my watch. I made a call to ask one of my friends to get Little A and I put my clients file in my briefcase, looking out the window where storm clouds were moving in. I called my employer again, and told her what had happened, to which she suggested again that I add some of my own funds to the card while she "tried to correct the situation".

"I don't have any more funds," I whispered into the phone. "I don't have one.extra.dime." She sighed the sigh of someone who had never sat awake at night, crunching dollars and sacrificing all that you possibly could in order to stay afloat. I knew that her sigh meant that I was supposed to respond and tell her I'd figure it out, but instead, I just quietly shut my phone and stood up to head out into the rain, wondering how far Big A's $5 for lunch money that I had in my purse would get me.

I looked the man in the eyes that pulled up along side me and asked me if I needed a ride. His van was battered; his beard was scraggly; his cap was pulled down almost to the point where I couldn't see his eyes, but at that moment, he was what I had. I was ready, really, if it was going to end badly; ready for it to just end. I was that tired and despondent; I truly was.

I sent a text to my sister. "Just got into a van with a stranger. The car is here" And I went to snap a photo of the road sign. And that's what the intersection was:

The corner of Mt. Hope and Cedar.

And I felt something inside of me move again; stir; whisper, "Remember me"? And suddenly, in that one moment, I did.

I remembered me.

I turned and conversed with the man beside me. He drove me to the gas station where he paid for the gas that filled his can; then to the car, waited to make sure that it started, and was off. I felt shamed for handing him the $5 that I had left; I wanted to give him more, but I couldn't.

My employer called to tell me that there was money on the card again, with a reminder that I needed to "be more resourceful" about my billing so that we could bill more frequently. I heard this often, but this time, I didn't feel the usual rage rising within me; I was too busy trying to adapt to the sudden feeling of not being weighed down by what I wasn't any longer.

I couldn't sleep that night, so busy was I, awakening from my slumber, replaying the intersections of my life over and over. "It's not too late. It's not too late. It's not too late. The corner of Mt. Hope".

The next day, I turned my planner page to the current month. I tried to take a picture of what it said, but it turned out too dark, it said:

"Be unafraid of life's changing tides. Each new day gives us a chance to sail our ship".

I was standing outside over the weekend, Little A in my arms. I gasped when I looked up at the sky; the stars were so bright--there were millions of them. "What mommy?" Asked Little A. "The stars, baby. Mommy forgot they were there." "That's silly, mommy. You're silly".

I realized I couldn't remember the last time that I looked up.

And finally, today, as I was driving to meet a client on a busy road, I saw an animal darting across the five lanes of traffic. I was in a panic; certain by the time I got there, it would be run over. I came closer, watching it weave its way through the gauntlet, and started to pull into the center lane, my hazards on, when I looked around me.

There was a truck stopped, a man lowered near the ground, his hand outstretched, crouching to eye level, beckoning the frightened creature to him, exactly as I'd have done. And there was a semi stopped, his hazards flashing. And the lane of traffic next to me had stopped as well, all of us, eyes upon this man, willing the dog to go to him.

As it slowly crept to him, we all smiled, some beeped their horns and waved. I got in my car and sobbed. But it wasn't the type of sobbing I'd been doing lately. It was the type of crying that happens when you see an old friend; when somehow you are so overcome with the good, with all that might be right with the world--with hope-- that you just cannot contain yourself.

I came home from that meeting and I reached out. My words jumbled themselves as I explained my awakening, my hopes, my plans, my beliefs about all the good that I could do and people that I could help, about the paths of my life finally making sense, and finally, my need for financial help to get started. I had promised myself that I would never ask for help again, and expected many questions about how, exactly, I would do this, but there were none. "I'm so glad to hear your voice, your real voice again," was the response.

And somehow, the space between was suddenly filled not with my constant thoughts of regret and loss and what could have been, but rather with hope. And belief. And possibility. And for the first time in so very, very long, self worth. "Now go help them and don't ever forget yourself again", the final words before flight.

And this is the day, my friends, that Jenn quit swimming and learned to fly.

And it can all be traced back to Mt. Hope. And for once, for absolutely once, I'm certain I went the right way.

A Letter, Re-written

2008-05-27T18:21:00.003-04:00

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since I wrote my first letter to a passerby.

Last week, in the midst of everything, I had the chance to re-write that message. And in the end, it wasn't I that delivered help or hope, it was a stranger.

I was traveling along the expressway on Wednesday morning when I passed by a man, his arms frantically waving a newspaper wrapped in a red tie, running alongside of his car, which was emitting smoke from the engine. I looked back at him in my rear view mirror, let my mind wander, and my heart steer the wheel while I backed down the side of the expressway to meet him.

He came bounding to my car, his accent heavy as he leaned his head in the window. "I am to be in court, in XX, eight miles down the road, can you help?" I nodded my head as I moved my belongings to the backseat and gripped my cell phone in my shaking hand, my finger set to press a pre-programmed number with one small tap.

He explained that he was due in court for a custody hearing; he had gone back to his native Kenya for a visit and when he returned, his wife was gone. Today was the day he was supposed to finally see a judge to make a decision on his parenting time.

"Thank you so much for stopping. So much. I was there for minutes, then I tied this tie on my paper, trying to get someone to see me. 'Can't you see me people'? I was thinking, 'I'm drowning here.' "

And there, in that very moment, each hair on my body on edge, my lip bitten, my eyes watering, I looked at him and smiled, and thought, "Not on my watch."

We chatted a bit more and I walked with him into the court house in case he needed verification of why he was a few minutes late. His case hadn't even been called yet. I handed him my card and wished him the best.

"Thank you. Thank you again. I believe that the good we do comes back to us. I believe God will repay you."

"I believe that he already has," I said.

And I walked out into the day, smiling, floating, really, as I realized that I could finally touch bottom.

SOS! Urgent!

2008-05-17T15:12:00.005-04:00

Seriously, folks?

As though the tights alone weren't an enormous enough crime against humanity?

Then to have my bootie (the same bootie that The Servant claims to need to squeeze because "it's too cute") spanked, be placed in a corner, then PHO-TO-GRAPHED while in an obvious state of torment?

Have I not suffered enough?

When is someone going to get me the number to CPS?

I am certain my caseworker will understand my need to:

1.) Empty the 80 or so pop cans out of the front closet from their containers, five minutes before the real estate agent shows up with potential sellers.

2.) Incessantly repeat, "mom, mom, mom, mom, mom", even while mom is saying, "what"?

3.) Throw items out the car window, then scream that I want them, forcing the Servant to turn around, even though we are late to Big A's game.

4.) Run from the Servant. Down a hill. At Big A's ball game. During which the Servant is supposed to be assisting with the coaching. Screaming the entire way, thereby guaranteeing all eyes are upon us, eliminating the otherwise certain spanking I'd have obtained.

5.) When caught, needing to slap the Servant in the face.

6.) Unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper, then trying to flush it down the toilet while the Servant is folding laundry.

7.) Opening nail polish (that, might I add, the Servant left out after painting my toenails), and dumping it on the floor.

8.) Stripping, then running out on the front porch naked. The Servant must learn not to leave the front door open. Ever. Even if it's just to clean up the front porch.

9.) Screaming when forced to be clothed again, kicking the Servant, throwing my milk, and tossing the bowl of cottage cheese across the floor.

Plus, the first person to provide me with the number will win a grand prize of a weekend with me.

Hello?

People?

Where are you?

Wait. I can be charming. I swear that I can.

Hello?

D: Up From the Ashes

2008-05-13T03:43:00.006-04:00

I have a man on my caseload who has, quite literally, been searching for work for almost two years. He's made mistakes in his past that have adversely altered his present and future, and he's a recovering alcoholic, who has been sober for over a year.

Around February, he became my client. At our first meeting, when I said to him that he seemed agitated, could I help in any way? He said to me something to the effect that he'd been looking for work for years, that I was probably one more person he'd see for a few months, and that he was tired. Tired of trying, tired of not drinking, tired of begging.

To which I said, "I'm sorry. I wish I could change those things for you, but I can't".

To which he replied, "No shit".

He had me at hello.

About two weeks ago, I wrangled my foot through a front door that appeared closed and landed an appointment with the right person. After he complimented me on having the nerve to schedule an appointment under, lets just call it "vague" pretenses, he listened as I pitched D's case.

"He just needs a break".

I refused to let my eyes waiver from his. Ultimately, he handed me a sample test and told me to come back in a week with D.

On Thursday, D and I entered the building. D was terrified; certain he'd fail, certain this was just one more rejection in the making. Certain this was one more item that he'd put in the "reasons I should drink" portion of the list that he kept in his head. Except he sailed through the test. And the interview.

When Mr. X asked him how the hours of 7:30-3:30 sounded, D hesitantly said they sounded great. Then Mr. X told him that his benefits would begin after 90 days, and that he'd see him the following week.

D and I left the building and headed to my car.

"You doing OK, D"? I asked.

"Yep."

I got in, jotted a couple of notes and then rolled down my window to let D know that the door was open and he could get in.

"I just need a couple of minutes," he choked out. I was jolted by the tears streaming down his face.

When he got into the car, he apologized for crying, told me how embarrassed he was, how I must be thinking he was crazy or drunk.

I assured him that I didn't think any of those things and congratulated him on his job.

"I can't believe you got me this job," he said.

I reminded him that I didn't get it for him; that he got it for himself, that he was a person truly deserving of a new start and chance, and that he finally got those things.

"I just can't figure it out", he said.

"Figure out what"?

"What the hell you're doing in this job. You should be doing something way different, not driving around people like me who completely fucked up their lives and are out begging for help."

"We're all doing that in some aspect, D, I think. It just isn't as apparent with some of us."

"Well, you changed my life today, you know. Completely changed it. And I feel bad for thinking the things that I thought about you when I met you." He choked back a sob. "I feel really, really bad."

I smiled, only imaging what he could have thought. Who could blame him? Who wouldn't get exhausted and jaded, being bounced around in a system where red tape often seems to dangle what you want and need the most just out of your reach, where there is an infinite number of hoops to jump through, each a little more challenging than the next.

"Don't feel bad, D. You were probably mostly right about me anyway."

He laughed and wiped his tears.

"You should drop me at the bus stop. You shouldn't be driving me home, where I live. It's not exactly the best area, if you know what I mean."

"I'll hold my own", I smirked a little, wondering what he'd have thought had he seen me the day I pounded on a clients door in a far worse area of town because she didn't show for our meeting (AGAIN). I'd gotten a hold of her mother (pesky little "emergency contact" part of her sample employment application) who'd told me she knew she was home, waiting for the cable guy to come and hook her cable up.

The look on her face when she swung the door open and saw me standing there was priceless. That would be a good MasterCard commercial. But I digress.

"I just don't want anything happening to you, you're like the one good thing in my life."

It was my turn to cry. "Thank you, D. That's probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me in quite a while."

"Well, look at us, two grown adults, sitting here crying in your car. What, are we in some fucking chick flick or something?"

And we both started laughing, each of our eyes peering out the windshield into the sun, each of us seeing, despite our very different views, for maybe just one second, the exact same thing.

Because It Makes Me Smile

2008-05-05T14:10:00.002-04:00

Because it reminds me that happiness, in its truest form, lives within us, always. We just need to remember that it's there.

"It's Herpes. You Get it From Sex"

2008-04-30T22:30:00.002-04:00

I have a client that has Asperger's Syndrome. One of the symptoms of it is being unaware of social boundaries or appropriate behavior; often individuals with it simply do not know how to function socially.

In addition to this, she also has the Church Lady Syndrome. While my other clients with Asperger's are genuinely sweet souls that are simply trying to learn the skills that will allow them to fit into the world of employment, she is actually very judgmental and stubborn. Needless to say, it's difficult to coach someone that is constantly reprimanding me.

Last week when I arrived for my meeting with her, she was already there waiting in the lobby. Our appointment was at 10:00, and I arrived at 9:50. I said hello to her and told her I'd be out to get her as soon as I settled in and got the computer up. I called her back at 9:57.

As soon as she walked in and sat down, she told me that I must have gone the wrong way in traffic and that if she'd taken that route, she'd have been, "later than you."

"Our appointment was for 10:00, R, and we actually started a few minutes early."

"Well I've been here since 9:30, and you weren't".

"Right. That's great that you're early, but that doesn't mean that I was late."

"But I was sitting here, waiting for you, and you must have taken the wrong way because you weren't here when I was."

"R, our appointment was at 10:00. If we were starting after that time, I would have been considered late, but the fact is that I was on time and you were simply early."

"Well, you should always be early. You should know that if you're supposed to be teaching people how to get a job."

I stopped myself then; the woman has lost so many jobs because of her inability to function within a work environment--I knew that arguing this point was mute.

At today's appointment, the first thing that she did when she sat down was say, "I see you have a sore." The snarky woman living in my head replied, "Really? Hadn't noticed. Thought maybe the botox fairy came and injected only half of my lip."

Instead, I told her that yes, I did and explained that I had drank lemon water and that whenever I have citrus, I end up with cold sores. To which she replied:

"Those are herpes. You get it from sex."

At that point, I was leaning over into my briefcase, pulling out her file. Initially, I told myself, "She did.not.just.say.that." I sat up ramrod straight in my chair and looked pointedly at her.

"No, R, there are many different strains of herpes and what I have is not the one associated with sex. I've had them since I was a child."

"No, it's herpes and you get it from boys." (She's thirty eight.)

I tilted my head and bit my lip.

"I think I'm more familiar with my medical conditions than you, and actually, you saying that is completely inappropriate. That is not something that you'd say to a fellow employee or colleague."

"Well, whatever you say, I know how you got it." Her eyes challenged mine as I sat there for a few moments; a battle waging within my head. It was ugly.

In one scenario, I asked her if she knew how a person would get a black eye.

In another, she had a conversation with the person that referred her to me, talking about Jenn, her case worker with herpes that was always late.

In another, I just laid my head on the desk and cried.

I ended up telling her that discussing this issue was not in any way pertinent to what we were doing that day and that we needed to move along. She accepted this with a self-satisfied smile--certain that she'd just put her slutty placement specialist in her place.

When we ended our session and I handed her an appointment card, she visually flinched when she took it from me with her fingertips. It was all I could do not to say, "Don't worry, R, you can only get them from sex, remember?"

"Well, I guess you better take care of yourself for our appointment next week."

"Thanks R. I will."

I glanced up from my case notes and she was still standing there, looking at me. For one second I thought that maybe that was her way of caring, that she was concerned for me, that despite her delivery, she was just trying to help, and there I was, judging her, thinking very unkind thoughts about her.

"So that you won't be late anymore or get anymore herpes sores". (Not even "cold sores", but "herpes sores".)

"Goodbye, R." I looked back down to my notes until I sensed her leaving. I considered dictating: "Day previous to next meeting, snarf down an entire bag of oranges and arrive ten minutes late in a mini-skirt and hooker boots."

Do any of you know where I could get her an application for a job at Saturday Night Live, acting out the Church Lady Reprisal? Or where I can submit her resume for consideration of being the next pope? Any leads would be greatly appreciated.