The Loneliness of Our Losses

I haven't written since January, and it's because I haven't been able to find the words. Since my last post, April 7th has come and gone. A year without my mom. Tomorrow, July 9th, is her birthday. I know I will forever mark these days - July 9th, April 7th - but I also know that I am not really supposed to talk about it anymore. I understand. I do. But ... it's still there. It will always be there. As my mom's sister said about losing her husband, "It gets easier, but it doesn't get better."

In April, I ran into an acquaintance who knew about my mom but who I had not seen in a while. We made small talk, and then she paused. "So ... how are you dealing with losing your mom?" I took a deep breath. There was a physical ache that I could not explain. She continued, "I mean ... are you over it yet?"

This felt like a punch to the gut. I struggled to say a few words, "You know ... it was just a year a few weeks ago ... I'm ok ... I just miss her ... "

"Well, you had all that good time together."

July 9th, 2013. My daughter, my mom, and me. 

She was right. She was. This woman with whom I was talking had lost her own mother when she was just a child. She hardly knew her. My husband lost his mother before our children were born. Students of mine have lost mothers or fathers -- or both -- and have had to find a way to go on. I know I am incredibly lucky to have had the mom I had and to have had her for nearly 37 years of my life. I know.

And yet ... the words (of this woman, who I knew to be kind, and who did not speak without sympathy) were cruel, despite their truth. And I think that cruelty came from her own huge loss decades before. She was still not over it.

None of us will ever be over the great losses of our life. Of that I am certain. They crack us open. There is a new loneliness. No one will ever truly understand what we have been through.

More than a year after losing my mom, I still wake in the middle of the night and relive that last morning with her. Or I see her ashes, disappearing into the water. And yet I know it is time for grief to pack its bags and move from public me to private me. It is no one else's job to understand my loss. Perhaps I can be kinder because of this. Perhaps. Or perhaps, someday, I can find the words, the words that make the loneliness of our losses a little less lonely. Until then, goodbye mom. A million goodbyes. I will love you and miss you forever.

My husband and me in Montreal last week. I am one of the lucky ones. I am blessed and grateful for my broken, beating heart, and for those I love still around me. 

Lessons from Fifth Grade Basketball: Nothing is Impossible

Grace had a basketball game tonight. They had played this team before, in the first game of the season, and lost 36-5 (this is their first year in the "A Division," and let's just say it hasn't been a walk in the park). "Mom, we're doomed," Grace said to me before the game, as she was filling her water bottle in the kitchen. Grace is about as competitive as you get, but losing multiple times by more than 20 points has a way of making a realist out of you. But doomed?

"I love watching her play." -my mom

"Wait a second!" I laughed. "I know it's going to be a tough game, but at least believe you have a chance. Your team has gotten a lot better since that first game!"

Grace was silent for a moment, and then, not sounding convinced, conceded, "OK. Nothing is impossible." Still, we both knew it was highly improbable.

The rain poured down as we drove to the gym and ran inside, shivering, but inside was cozy, and Grace and her teammates warmed up enthusiastically, despite the doom that lay ahead (in addition to having lost 36-5 before, this time they were missing one of their best players, Grace's good friend Ava). 

And then, the game started. Here we go, I thought. The other team looked tough. 

But then, something happened. We made the first shot, and then another. We were tough, too. 4-3, 5-3, 7-3, 9-3, 9-4 ... my texts to Anthony (who was home with Joseph and Genevieve) and my dad (who was taking my cousin back to school at Ursinus) became more and more enthusiastic. And, well, while I know this is just fifth grade basketball, it is also, like all sports, so much more as well. When Grace stole the ball and raced downcourt to make a basket and bring the score to 11-4, I realized, with astonishment, they actually might win this. And, though it would have been just a tiny little miracle in a tiny little gym in a tiny little town, it would have been just the little miracle that my heart needed tonight. 

Sometimes the impossible becomes possible, I thought. Sometimes you win when you don't think you can. 

After my mom died last year, I stood up and spoke at her service on April 11th.  That morning, I told the story of a different basketball game, a terrible, unfair game that Grace had lost. It was the last one my mom was able to attend. 

"My mom ... came to many of [Grace's] travel basketball games this winter, despite how she was feeling. Just two months ago she was at a heated basketball game of Grace’s, as both of the teams were undefeated coming into it. The other team was extremely rough, and obnoxious, and the ref wasn’t calling anything. Finally, when the ref didn’t call perhaps the 5th time that a girl on the other team blatantly pushed down one of Grace’s teammates, my mom couldn’t hold it in any longer: 'Come on ref!' she screamed, 'Call the foul!'." (full eulogy posted here: http://nanadays.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-mom-and-truth-adoption-and-otherwise.html)

Though I was telling the story to describe my mom's competitive spirit, I think for a long time I've also thought of that game as a metaphor for my mom's fight with cancer. It wasn't fair, and in the end she lost. It made me angry. It made me feel as though God weren't there, calling the fouls.  

So tonight was a chance to change the metaphor. And I realized that that bird of hope in my heart 

(my heart, which is protected now as it never was before by a thick wall of realism) still flutters about, wanting to believe the impossible. You can win the game. You can beat the cancer. 

I could practically feel my mom sitting there beside me tonight, cheering Grace on. "Sometimes, when I am watching Grace play and she breaks away and is sprinting downcourt, I am only in the moment and nowhere else," she told me last year. "It is my goal to have as many of these moments as possible." 

My mom would have loved the game tonight. 11-8, 18-14, 20-16, 20-20 and Grace, racing downcourt, trying to make the winning shot (time ran out). The girls found themselves in overtime, and even went up 21-20 at first, but in the end the other team was just too tough.

26-21. Going to cry, I texted Anthony at 6:15, moments before the game ended. Be strong, he texted back (and then, a few minutes later: Give G a big hug for me, and don't forget the milk). 

In the end, there were no miraculous wins tonight, but I have a new metaphor nonetheless. We all want the impossible, and that's ok. Sometimes it even happens. Miracles abound. But when it doesn't, when the game's unfair, or just too tough, if you can meet the buzzer racing downcourt, taking a shot, well, then ... 

Grace at Whole Foods. "I think it was my best game."

After the game, Grace and I went to Whole Foods for the milk, and we sat down to eat something, too. She relived a few of the painful missed opportunities of the game, but overall she was feeling pretty good about herself. In fact, she probably handled the loss better than I did. "I actually think that was my best game yet," she said. I agreed.

I wish she could have won -- because she played so tough, and because she deserved to as much as anyone (and, oh, Mom, in this metaphor, of course, you are Grace, and I am me) -- but I agreed.

Mom, July 2013, in her "Life is good" t-shirt. It might not be fair, but it is good. 

My Coat, My Mom's Coat

Me in my winter coat. Photo by 10-year-old Grace. 

Last year, my mom gave me a winter coat for Christmas. It is warm -- filled with "Premium European Goose Down" -- and covers me from head to knees. She gave it to me a month early because, like this year, winter arrived in November. I wore it almost every day. My sister laughed when she saw me in it because she had, unbeknownst to my mom, picked out an almost identical coat for her. So it came to be that my mom and I had matching coats. Yet my sister never got to give my mom the coat the way she wanted to. A week before Christmas, my mom had a CAT scan showing that she was not responding to treatment. A few days later, she and my dad met with hospice/palliative care. That day, Kate called me while I was driving to my parents. We cried together and debated whether or not she should give my mom the coat. Yes, we eventually decided. It was an act of hope, even though we knew. And my mom and I did wear those coats together a few times. She came to Grace's basketball games until she couldn't, always wearing the coat that made us laugh when we saw each other. "The twins," my mom would say.

She wore it, too, to her last doctor's appointment at Penn. It was on a Friday afternoon and the plan was that I would meet her and  my dad at their house and drive with them, but a snowstorm snarled traffic, so we decided to meet at the hospital. I knew that when it took me an hour and a half to drive across the city (usually a 15-minute drive) that my parents were in trouble, but what were they to do? They had already left and there was no turning back. Four hours later, and many panicked phone calls between my dad and me as he tried to find the best route (at one point I asked a police officer at the information desk, and he just shook his head, "Lady, the whole city's at a standstill. There's no good route"), my parents made it to within two blocks of the hospital, but were still not moving. My dad called, "Mom got out of the car and is walking the rest of the way. I think I'll be another half hour. I'll call you when I park.") I ran outside to look for her, but the snow was swirling and vision was tough. I crossed the street, walked in the direction of my dad's car, and still didn't see her. Wondering how I would ever find her, I ran back towards the hospital and there she was, standing right in front. "Mom!" I yelled, waving my hands above me, then running. She, in her coat, lifted her hand as well and smiled, shaking her head. A moment more and we were together, laughing at the absurdness of it all. In the nearly empty hospital we at first found that no one was on her floor, but a nurse on her way out led us to another floor, where, when I knocked and opened the door, another nurse, once I had explained our situation, said "Don't worry. We'll take care of you here. We got you." And they did.

This year, I've already worn the coat to the girls' soccer games, and to work. Every time I put it on I think of my mom with gratitude. Did she know what a perfect gift this would be when she gave it last year? Did she know how much I would appreciate feeling warm, and loved, every time I put it on? Sometimes, when I miss my mom too much, I like to think of seeing her again one day. And maybe it will be just like that day at Penn, in the snowstorm, when we finally found each other again and laughed about our arduous journeys. "Can you believe it?" we'll shake our heads, but not unhappily, because we are together. "So much time to get here!"

For now, I have the coat. The cold weather is bitter and brutal, and I can't say I enjoy it one bit, but I can stand it because of my coat, and that's going to be enough until the spring.

Life is a Struggle. Enjoy the Struggle.

The above advice came to me via one of my high school seniors, via her grandmother, Millicent Bracy. I like it, and I I've been thinking about it this last week, which was a bit of a struggle. It started last Friday night with Joseph, my three year old, throwing a massive fit in Barnes and Noble because he wanted a Spider Man toy, which Genevieve, my eight year old, had shown him. He didn't want to leave without it, and he didn't want to leave, period. After I slide tackled him to keep him from running away I still had to wait in line to buy the birthday present we were there for, because we had a packed day the next day, starting at 7 am and leading all the way up to my niece's 3:30 pm birthday party, and there was simply no other time we could buy it. Sorry, Barnes and Noble customers of last Friday night. I really am sorry. I could tell by your looks that you were not pleased. I know that listening to my son yell, "I'm putting slobber on you!" and then watching him actually wipe slobber on me must not have been your idea of an ideal evening. I did not enjoy it either.

Joseph, in a moment of peace.

The next morning we all stood shivering in the pouring rain to watch my daughter's tournament soccer games. That was actually a highlight of the week. I always love watching Grace play. Afterwards, it was to my niece's birthday party. Another highlight. I roller-skated and ate cake, so you can see why. (I also gave her the birthday present that we had so painstakingly picked out the night before). But that night, it was on to the beach, and the next morning, Sunday morning, my sister, dad, and I, as planned, kayaked out on the sparkling waters that had been such a part of my mom's life and said our final goodbyes (if there can ever be such a thing as final goodbyes). My heart was heavy. My heart is heavy.  And so, as I woke up each morning to run this week, I contemplated Millicent Bracy's advice: Life is a Struggle. Enjoy the Struggle.

Enjoying the struggle in Barnegat

Each day, the alarm would go off in the dark, and I would run west alone. This week, I was thinking about my dad. He came over in the rain on Monday to plant daffodil bulbs in our front garden. Joseph helped, placing each bulb in the hole my dad had dug for him and covering it with dirt. When they finished, Joseph looked at the ground, head tilted, and said, "Are they gonna grow now?" No, Joseph, they will not grow now. And each morning, as I ran in the dark, this is what I thought about. How long it takes for things to grow. How hard it is to wait, not knowing if they ever will. Still, I kept running. Not many people were out this week, in the dark. When I crossed the footbridge, where in September I was rewarded for my efforts with the beautiful pink hints of a sunrise, I was still in the dark.

I know, somehow, that I need to keep running, that this is what is saving me, but it didn't feel good this week. Still, I keep going. On Thursday, finally, a block from home, I felt relieved. It was still dark, but I had gotten up another morning, and I had done what I know I needed to do. A cool glass of water was ahead of me, and a warm shower. Almost home! Then, without warning, I fell flat on my face. I was in my neighbor's driveway, my foot having caught a slight crack. If someone hadn't just pulled into the the next driveway over, I would have been crying as I lay face-down on the sidewalk, my hand and hip hurting. Instead, I jumped up, embarrassed, and waved to the car to show I was ok. I am ok! I am ok! She was not my neighbor, as I thought, but just a woman turning around. She quickly drove away.

Seeing my dear friend Crary in NY, a highlight of the week.  Worth the ticket.

Am I enjoying the struggle of my life? I am not sure. I'd like to be the kind of person who does. Maybe it's more that I enjoy the moments between the struggle. This weekend, after   a week of more children throwing fits, several unexpected and rather steep bills, many nights of less sleep than I would like, and a traffic ticket of $143 for making an illegal right turn in New York City (for what it's worth, I really didn't see that no turn sign), I  could also look back and see many moments of sweetness. Last night, my family and I went camping. We roasted marshmallows around the campfire and slept side by side in a tent by the lake. We talked and laughed and felt blessed. And I was all set to write about this, and only this, tonight.

These guys are worth the struggle. Even slobber. 

Honestly, that's all I should write about, because I am blessed. BUT, that's not the end of the story. Because we came home to find we had been robbed. Computers, television, stereo, jewelry of great sentimental value … even Grace's $15 Target alarm clock was gone (our vacuum, too). So I guess this is what life is going to be like. For every sunrise, dark mornings. Unexpected falls on my face. Not, as the saying goes, a rose garden. And, like Joseph, I want the flowers to grow now! I want my rose garden. We planted them, didn't we? Why aren't they growing? Will they grow tomorrow? When, dear flowers deep in the ground, will you grow? Because I am waiting.

Sisters and Friends

At the beach on a beautiful September Saturday

Last weekend we celebrated my sister's birthday at the beach with three of her closest friends. The five of us decided last March, near my sister's actual birthday, that we were going to do this. We didn't know how at the time, but we would.

Kate and I drove down together late Thursday evening and arrived at the dark house in a soft rain. We slept in my parents' bedroom, which for me sweetly connected us to all those evenings throughout our lives when we had slept in the same bedroom together: in the house on East Park Avenue, when I would try to hide under her covers so my parents wouldn't see me, at the beach, in the twin beds, with the windows open and the sound of the ocean lulling us to sleep, in the attic bedroom on Woodland Avenue, waiting for Christmas morning... Thousands of nights have come and gone since those childhood days, of course, but as we brushed our teeth and put on pajamas in that quiet house I felt that I could touch the taut wire of our lives and feel a current running through that had never been interrupted.

The sweetness was touched by sadness, too, though. Kate put words to it first, saying, as she appeared from the bathroom after washing her face, "Is it just me or is this really hard?" Yes, it was really hard. My mom's shoes still lined the closet floor, and her books--she always had books--filled the nightstand. All of our children had been snuggled by her in this bed, on lazy weekend mornings when there was no need to rush, and we, too, had often joined her and them. I cannot remember what we talked about, but I remember laughing.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, that while out to dinner Saturday night for the official celebration of Kate's birthday, that our group, after a particularly loud outburst of laughter, was approached by the manager of the lovely restaurant where we were dining and asked if we could try to be a bit more quiet. "There have been some complaints, I'm so sorry," she said. She really did seem sorry. Later, we

Kate and my mom at the beach years ago. 

discovered that the "complaints" were all from the same grumpy looking man who had been glaring at us all evening. I wish him more laughter. I wish us all more laughter, and more time with those we love. Could there ever be enough time?

My mom's friends had one last gathering at the beach with her last September, before she got really sick, and I know that it was filled with laughter, too, even as my mom faced the most difficult time of her life. Swimming in the ocean, paddle-boarding in the bay, and laughing this past weekend, I felt light and joyous and heavy and heartbroken all at the same time.

But oh how we laughed. We were sitting in a circle on the beach on Saturday afternoon, retracing the winding paths of our lives, when someone mentioned that she felt "a bit like Thelma and Louis." She meant like Thelma and Louis on their joyous journey, of course, not like Thelma and Louis as they drove off the cliff.  And we all agreed that if we were to make that movie, we would not have Thelma and Louis die in the end. They might not have had the future all wrapped up for them in a pretty bow, but they would have kept driving, at least, heading towards a future that was entirely their own, trying to leave the heartbreak behind. Yes, in our version, we all agreed, they would have kept living.

We were having so much fun that we forgot to take pictures. This is the only one of the group we got. 

Morning Runs and Mom

I've started running in the morning. I wake when it's still dark, slip on the clothes I've laid out the night before, drink a glass of water, and head out the door. The crickets are chirping and the moon is out when I leave. The stars are shining, too. Then, it is down to the Cooper River, or "Cooper Wawa," as Grace used to call it when she was two (for Cooper Water, instead of Cooper River).

Grace riding around the Cooper Wawa five years ago ... 

Only a handful of people are also out at this time, and I've come to recognize the regulars. The other day, when it was raining, there was only one other man, walking with his umbrella. "We got us a shower," he said, not unhappily, as I ran by. I run west first, towards the city, towards the Delaware River to which the Cooper flows. By the time I reach the foot bridge to cross the river, the sky to the East is a pale orange-pink. The sunrise. I cross the river and run East too. Last week, one morning was particularly beautiful. There were a few clouds in the sky, each a slightly different delicate shade of pink, and a lone boat, a foursome, out on the river. I thought of my mom, as I so often do on those morning runs. Sometimes, I miss her so much that it is all I can do just to say her name, Mom. 

When I was little, my mom used to ride me around this river on the back of her bike. Once, there was a sudden thunderstorm, and we had to take shelter in a gazebo along the river. I remember feeling so safe. Mom, where are you? I asked that morning last week. My mom had made it clear to us before she died that she was not afraid of dying, if that was what was to be, though "Of course there is nothing I want more than to stay right here with all of you." I know that was true. Some people say, lightly, "Your mom is still with you," and of course though I know what they mean, she is not still with me. At least not in the same way that she used to be. How much I would love to be hugged by her one more time, or to hear her voice, or feel her hand warm in mine.

Last week, as I ran, I said goodbye to her again. I thought of her funeral, and how Ken Carter, the retired choir director of the Presbyterian Church in Haddonfield in which she, and I, had been raised, sang For the Beauty of the Earth. We hadn't seen Ken in years, but when the pastor called him up two days before the service to ask him if he would sing, he said yes without hesitation. Later, we found out that he had refused the honorarium. The song was his gift to us.

As I ran, the song's words came to me: For the beauty of the earth/for the glory of the skies/for the love which from our birth/over and around us lies ... This beauty, it is almost enough. Is it enough? Will it be enough for me? Can I believe, and remember, as a friend wrote to me after my mom's diagnosis, that "Our Creator is Good"?

As I crossed the bridge back home last week, the river beneath me, the sky above, I felt the answer, a gentle whisper in my heart: Yes. But ... Mom, Mom ... I still miss you so much. And just then, taking my breath away, a white egret glided in front of me, wings spread wide. For the joy of human love/brother, sister, parent, child/friends on earth and friends above/for all gentle thoughts and mild ...

So I will keep running, and I will keep running in the morning, even if it means rising in the dark. Somehow, between the stars above I begin with and the sunrise with which I end, I will find my answers, and my comfort, or at least I'll try.

These pictures were taken along the Cooper River after Hurricane Irene in August of 2011. There was flooding, and the wind was strong, really strong (thus my face, to the right). Though I am wearing running clothes, I didn't actually do much running after Joseph was born, until now. In that picture, I am standing on the bridge where I saw the egret (and have since seen the egret several times). 

Poopin' Perry's on the Phone

 I met my first best friend, Margo, on the first day of second grade. She made me laugh during lunch and played my favorite game ("pretend you're an animal") at a play-date at my house soon after. When I went to her house, her mom fed me snacks and invited me to stay for dinner. We walked to school together every day, spent nearly every afternoon together, and often had sleep-overs on the weekend. She held the umbrella for me as we walked to school the morning after my dog, Ranger, had died, and she, along with all my classmates, sent me a hand-made get-well card when I was out of school for two weeks with pneumonia.

To this day, I remember Margo's childhood phone number, as I called her house nearly every day from the rotary phone on my kitchen wall. We loved each other in that sweet childhood way that only first best friends can.

Me, Margo, and my Dad at the Haddonfield Five-Miler, our first-ever race, in 1984

There was only one complication: Margo's big brother, Jonathan. I thought of him then as a a high-schooler but now I realize he was probably a sixth or seventh-grader at most. He was a bit Kevin Arnold's older brother from the t.v. series The Wonder Years and a bit Greg Heffley's older brother in the book series (and movie) Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And he did not take a liking to me. He may not have liked anyone else, either, but I specifically remember how little he cared for me. Margo and I would be sitting at the kitchen table doing a puzzle and in would walk Jonathan. I would attempt a smile and a "Hi," only to be met by scowling and a grunt of disgust. 

Also, Jonathan claimed complete control over the family phone, so that every time I called (which was every day, possibly multiple times), he would answer. EVERY time. My name back then was Jenny Perry (I took the name Gentlesk when I got married), but when I called I didn't have to say my name because Jonathan knew my voice. Thus:

"Hullo?"

"Hi ... can I please speak to Margo?"

Silence. Deep sigh of irritation. Then ... 

"Maaaaar-gooooooo! Poopin' Perry's on the phone!"

Then Margo would answer. We always just pretended that we hadn't heard the offensive name though, of course, we had. I would feel a bit embarrassed ( thinking "I'm NOT Poopin' Perry, I'll show him!") and then I would move on. Margo couldn't help her brother, and I couldn't worry about my last name beginning with a P. Right? This is what we do for love. This is just what we do. 

Tune in next time for the story of how I hid in Jonathan's room during a game of hide-n-seek only to accidentally break his desk JUST as he came home ... You'll laugh, you'll cry ...