Catharsis (Part I)

I headed into last year - 2015 - with the weight of my mother's illness and imminent death on my shoulders.  Now, as we head into a new year - 2016 - I feel both guilty for leaving her behind and excited and relieved for what's ahead.  So I feel compelled to write about the experience of her final days.  Like everything, this is through my lens.

I wrote this post not only because I felt it would help me process a difficult experience but because I feel like this is the stuff no one talks about and we need to.  Because when I was going through it, I felt like my experience was so unique but I knew it couldn't be.  And the more I talked to people, the more I realized just how common my experience was.

I present it below in its raw state with little polish or gloss.  Forgive bad grammar or any other sins of an English major as they've been sacrificed for stream of consciousness.
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I leave the house to head back to the city.  My mother is sleeping and barely lifts her head to say goodbye. This is a first as she generally pushes through whatever to pretend she's ok, always thinking of others before herself.

I somehow know I won't see her alive again.

...

The next day she's a bit better.  She eats pulled pork and ice cream.  Lots of both. Significant because she's never been much of an eater her whole life.  "Tiny," the family calls her in an unironic way.  She has always been small but now she hovers around 80 lbs.  She needs to eat, I say, as someone who uses food as the solution to most things, and as a practical human who has been hearing this every day of my life from my mother.  I'm told that she doesn't need to do anything she doesn't want to.  This is what hospice is.  Liberation.  Finally the stage of life where you can do what you damn well please.  Eating and digesting, I'm told, is hard on the body, using precious energy she no longer has.  There is no longer eat to live but live to live.

...

She gets sicker.  The hospice nurse thinks maybe a stomach virus.  It's funny - in a short time, they've come to love her so they don't want to believe the worst.  We want to believe it's a simple virus too but really it's the body incapable of processing nutrients.  It's rejecting them.  Shutting down.  Of course we don't know this for sure yet, choosing to believe she will be better once the food passes through her system.

My aunt, my mother's older but not eldest sister, visits.  I encourage her to.  Once there in my mother's house, she sees the truth and how different she is even from two weeks prior.  My aunt's two hour visit turns into six days.  We joke that her trip is like that fateful trip the castaways' took - the three hour tour that ended up on Gilligan's Island.

...

I am still in the city, trying to decide whether to go home or stay put.  We've had false alarms before. Too many to count.  My goodwill at work, my goodwill in life, I feel is drying up.  I'm like the girl who cried wolf.  She's dying.  Wait, nevermind.  No really, now this time.  Oops, nope.

My sister calls and say the verdict is two weeks.  Stay put, she says, and come the weekend.  It's now Wednesday.  I pull myself together - whatever together is possible at this point - and head to my therapy appointment.  We talk about how soon I'll be an orphan.  My therapist - who I've just started seeing - is leaving for a three week vacation.  Surely by the next time I see her, my mother will be dead.  Time's up, settle the bill.  As I'm doing so, I see a text from my one sister, "Come home now," it says.  I smile at the therapist and wish her a relaxing vacation.  50 minutes of therapy undone in a single text.

...

I take the long 40 floor elevator ride down and explode into the phone outside on Pine Street.  How can you send me a text like this?  A fucking text?  What the fuck does this mean?  What do I do?

I'm angry but I understand no one has answers.  I feel overwhelmed and frozen.  How do I get the long 100 miles to my mother's side?  What do I do?  How long will I be gone?  Is it too morbid to pack a black dress?  Should I call someone?  Can I do this by myself?  Should I call someone?  Who do I call?  Will I make it in time to say goodbye?  I get on the subway to head to my apartment remembering to email my acupuncturist in a matter of fact way that I won't be at my appointment today.

Please excuse Lynn from acupuncture today.  Her mother is dying.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

My brain is like a junk drawer, filled with dead batteries and doll parts.  I can't think straight, tears are streaming down my face and I feel like I'm choking.  I'm not sure how I make it to my apartment, but I do.  I start throwing things into a bag, not sure if I'm packing for days, or a month.  Not sure how long I'll be gone, I throw my cat into a bag too.  It's too late for him to go to boarding, so I decide to bring him with me.  We are both disheveled and unprepared.
...
My sister calls as I am calling a car service to take me out to the Island.  It's not cheap, but I can't deal with taking public transport at this point.  I need to get there as soon as possible, and would be in no shape to drive myself.  She's calling because they are starting to heavily medicate her and by the time I get there, well, she may be alive but even if she is, it will be too late.  She won't know me or be able to speak.  I get on the phone and hear them telling her that I'm on the line.  The line is silent.  She can no longer talk.  I try to talk but words don't come and, ever self conscious, I feel a little but stupid so I mostly say nothing.  Later I'll learn that she was mouthing words with no sound and I feel even worse for not saying all the things I wanted to.  My car arrives and I look around my apartment thinking how when I return, life will never be the same.  I leave the apartment with a mother, and will return motherless.
...
The driver immediately starts complaining about how much traffic there is, how long a drive it will be.  Ever since I have moved to NYC, I do not understand why cab drivers complain so much.  I pay you, you drive me places.  Isn't that the deal?  It's not like I'm getting into some random person's car and demanding a ride.  It's a cab.  I tell him that my mother is dying and that I would never normally take this long a drive to the Island.  In rush hour.  This is not my idea of fun either.  I am not some kind of pampered princess.  So please, give me a break.  He promises to do his best to get me there in time, and then spends the rest of the ride alternately congratulating himself for beating the traffic and telling me about when his own father passed away.  I don't want to hear it, but I politely make small talk.  I feel like this is a situation where I could be rude and tell him to shut the fuck up, but decide not to.  Sitting in silence doesn't seem like a better alternative.

When we reach my mother's house, he helps me to the front door and wishes me well.  He'll be praying for me, he says.  He seems nice, my sister says.  I look into his kind eyes, and I'm glad that I didn't tell him to shut the fuck up.

...
Luckily, I've made it in time.  In fact, as will soon be evident, I will have plenty of time.  It's Wednesday evening and she won't pass until Friday evening.  We all spend the next 48 hours in a bizarre waiting game.  What do we wish for?  More time?  For her to pass quickly?  It's a lose lose or a win win, depending how you look at it.  We give her morphine and some other drug every hour under her tongue.  I am initially tentative but get good at it.  

My aunt stays with me - with us - at night, while my sisters and their families head home for some rest, although no one is getting any.  At three in the morning, I can't get her mouth to open to get the morphine in, and text my sister to ask her what do do.  She responds within an instant.  No one sleeps.  We wait.  We fill morphine syringes.  We watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix.  At some point, someone opens a bottle of wine.  We wear a path back to my mother's room, where each of us spends time with her, crying, saying goodbye.  I put the latest episode of Real Housewives of New York City on for her.  "You missed this week's episode," I say, "And it's a good one."  I also put on 50s radio station.  I sit by her bedside singing along to the Big Bopper.  Chantilly Lace, had a pretty face and a ponytail, hanging down... I'm assured she can hear us, and so I hope this music is bringing back good memories for her.  I tell her how great a mother she has been and tell her it's ok to go and that we will all be ok.  I hear my aunt in my mom's room telling my mother it's time to go.  She's essentially yelling at her, as the bossy older sister.  Like how she might have yelled at her for borrowing her clothes.  That's it, it's time to go, go Tiny go.

My mother is stubborn.  She gets it from me.

...

Hospice staff come in about twice a day, mainly to see if she's still alive.  Some of them cry and tell us how great a lady she is, how kind she was to them, and how special she is.  How she talked so often of her children and family and how she was ready to go.  This we know, as she has told us herself.

They give us a book essentially called "What to expect when you're expecting someone to die."  We read it and look for signs and milestones.  She's checked off mostly every box, so it shouldn't be too long now, we think.  I wonder how people without families are treated at death.  We're the ones medicating her, keeping her comfortable, wetting her lips, clearing her mouth of foam, changing her, cooling her face, holding her hand, sitting with her.  I look at my nieces and nephews and tell them, like it or not, they have to take care of me when I'm old.  And no putting pins in my diaper.

...

Hospice decides she's waiting for something.  Is everyone here?  Yes.  Well, then, maybe she doesn't want to die with one of you in the house.  We decide it's me since I haven't left the house in days.  "It probably is me," I say.  "It always is," says my sister laughing.  I ignore the dig.

Alas, it's not about me, and I return from Starbucks to find that she is still with us.  Barely.  Her breathing is getting more and more labored.  The staff tells us it will definitely be today.  An old friend whose mother passed several weeks prior sends over pizza, a Godsend as we are all too numb to do anything, nevermind remember to eat.  This is one of many gestures that I tell myself to remember and pay forward.  Yes this, this helps.  Do this.  Remember this.

...

Around 8:45 pm, my middle sister calls out from my mother's room that she believes it's time.  She's now making odd breathing noises.  Ahh yes, the death rattle, we all look at each other and say confidently, having read about it.  This is what it sounds like.  We surround her bed, all of us crammed into her small bedroom.  I sit on one of those medical commodes - top down, it's never been used.  I laugh that it's kind of comfortable.  Everyone is crying but I won't.  I'm closest to my mother's face and I feel like someone has to keep it together so she feels ok about going.  That's what I would want.

...

Before it happened, I wondered if we would know when it happened.  I needn't have worried.  Later, much later, my sisters and I argue a bit about whether it was peaceful.  I say it was.  They say because it lasted for days, it wasn't, with her gasping for breath, jerking involuntarily, foaming at the mouth.  I disagree.  In the exact moment of her passing, we were all with her.  She took one final breath and that was it.  Her skin, which had been purple for so many years due to lack of oxygen, turned white and her body finally stopped struggling.  There was no mistaking what happened.

I finally let myself cry.  You did so good, my sister says.

We leave the room and I call my mother's siblings one by one.  I learn my cousin's wife had a baby that evening.  There were too many of us so their souls swapped places and will forever be linked.  We call hospice who calls the undertaker.  I laugh that there's a surcharge because my mother died after business hours.  She would have hated that and surely hung on to the next day had she known.  Hospice comes and disposes of all of her medication.  My sister jokes that my mother's leftover Xanax is her inheritance.  At this point, I'd be ready to give up my share of her house for it.  It's more precious than gold.

My mother's doctor calls.  She's crying.  She was more than just a patient to me, you know, she was my friend, and when she told me she wanted hospice care, I cried because I thought she had more fight left, because I wanted her to.

I know how she feels.

The undertaker - a wonderfully friendly man from our small town - tells us to go outside on the back deck while they remove her from the home.  It's too hard to watch, he says, as if we don't know what's happening.  As if we can't hear the clanking of the gurney jerking its way down the steps.  A few weeks later, after the service, after she's laid to rest, I see him volunteering, passing out water along the course of a 5K race in town.  Always looking for more business, I joke.

The house is quiet.  My mother's oxygen machines are turned off.  Their purpose served.  I go into my bedroom with one of my mother's blankets and do what I have not been able to do in years:  Sleep.

Order History

It all started innocently enough.

How should I know that shopping from my mother's online grocery account would unleash the emotional hounds?

Well, let me tell you, if our lives are the sum of little moments, our little moments are the sum of our grocery carts.  Because food is at the heart of so much of our memories, but even moreso, looking through someone's grocery cart is revealing about who he or she is, or was.

All I was trying to do, really, was order some groceries for Thanksgiving.  As we have every year, we decided to host again at my mother's house.  We all still call it that, because it is, even though, as my four year old nephew accurately reminds us, "It's Lynn's house now because Gran is dead."  We all cringe a little and his mother yells at him every time for saying it, but his literal brain is not wrong, as I am the one who is living in it now and again, but it will always be our mother's house.

For everyone's well-being, I don't actually cook anything, but, with my bossy nature, I am a good foreman for the Thanksgiving operation day of and make the house presentable to welcome guests.  I volunteer to make a cheese and meat plate shaped like a turkey, but everyone is scared by my lack of ability in the kitchen, and despite that I did make brownies that one time and Zatarain's rice that other time and no ER trip was needed, I decide to stick to the script, which in this case means paper goods, chips, and dip.

This, I can handle, and decide to order from my mother's grocery account.  After all, it's all set up to deliver to her house.

When I log on, it's an emotional minefield.  Looking at her account is a punch in the gut, probably the biggest one yet.  Bigger than what would have been her 76th birthday a few weeks ago, bigger than today, the 4th month anniversary of her death.  Maybe because it's a glimpse into her life, and who she was as a person.  I cry the hardest I have in weeks.  And then I cry some more.  I am not a pretty crier, largely because I resist it, and the emotions end up forcing their way out of my body in waves of body shaking choking sobs.

The last order delivered just four days before she died.  The contents of her cart revealing how small her world had become.  How little she could eat or drink.  Yogurt, Tums, cake, tea, cheerios, water, not much else, though she loved her candy to the end, keeping a large overstuffed bowl on her coffee table for herself and visitors.

But yet, how she still thought of everyone else.  Cat food for my cat and the occasional stray.  My sister's favorite root beer, my brothers in law's favorite drinks.  Ginger ale for my other sister's always sensitive stomach.  American cheese and goldfish for my nephew Jacob.  Dog treats for my sisters' dogs who came to visit "Grandma."  Chips and fruit for my nieces and nephew.  Beer she kept on hand for my brother in law's friend who helped him do her lawn; he refused to take money, but would take a beer and sit at the kitchen table talking to her more than he worked.  Sugarfree cookies for my diabetic uncles.  Eggs, even though she herself was allergic, for the few days she felt well enough - "well" a stretch - as she insisted on sitting on her walker by the stove and making me eggs and cheese for breakfast, long a tradition that had mostly stopped in later years as she struggled for each breath, even the act of scrambling an egg too much of an exertion.

My mother was definitely a feed you type of mother.  It gave her joy to have people in her house, to make them feel at home and welcome them.  In later years, it would stress her out that she couldn't attend to people like she wanted to.  She would remember what you liked and always have it on hand.  I remember one year mentioning that a friend loved Cadbury cream eggs and couldn't find them.  That year and every year after that, even when she couldn't leave the house and would order everything online, she would order them for him, just to ensure he wouldn't be without.

My one sister claims this will be the worst holiday season of our lives.  We just have to get through this year of firsts.  This new normal.  She may be right, but I can hear my mom's voice in my head saying, "Well, with THAT attitude..."

To be honest, the last few years have been no picnic either.  My mother nearly died last Fall, and so we were given the gift of one last holiday season together, which we were painfully aware of as it was happening.  Everyone, let's make memories G*DDAMNIT.  And still, we were luckier than most.

I throw everything everyone likes that she used to order into the cart - dog treats, soda, beer, candy for the now empty candy bowl, chips, I order myself some eggs.  I unwrap a Waterford table cloth I had bought for her that she "saved" for a future occasion that never came, and throw it on the dining room table.  I say out loud, "Mom, look how good it looks.  It's beautiful."

As I place my order, the site asks, "Did you forget something?"  And suggests yogurt, tea, Cheerios...

I have not forgotten anything.  My cart runneth over.

Closure (But Not Yet)

I've wanted to blog about my mom's passing for awhile now.  But even as I sit here nearly three months to the day since she died, reading my last post shared five days before her death, through tears, I realize I'm just not ready.  Not yet.

Closure will have to wait.

The last three months have taught me many things, not the least of which is that grief is not a straight line.  Some days are better than others.  Hell, some hours, some minutes, are better than others.  In some ways, it's getting worse and not better.  It is, frankly, a bitch.  What is it they say, "Life's a bitch and then you die?"  How about, "Life's a bitch and then someone you love dies and it hurts so much you want to effing die yourself but you know you can't because you would totally piss off the person who died and you don't want to run across them in Heaven all mad and stuff?"  Let's try that one on for size and print it on a t-shirt.  It's too big for an emoji.

Loss is also something you can't be prepared for even if you think you are.  Even if you think you've gone down a similar road.  Even if you think you know it all.  Because I do.  Or I thought I did.  My dad died when I was 14, killed in an accident.  I thought that experience might help me.  I was wrong.  We had a very different relationship than I had with my mother.  He was abusive and alcoholic, he wore his flaws on the outside.  My mother had the good judgment to hide her flaws like the rest of us try to do.  He loved me, sure, but I felt relief when he died.  I mourned the relationship we never had and never would have.  With my mother, I have something tangible to mourn, something real.  It's different.

One of the biggest things I mourn is a loss of identity.  I am no longer someone's child, no longer a daughter, no longer a caretaker.  I feel irrelevant, lost.  My mother's illness was the sun I orbited around.  It gave me purpose, structure, a reason for being - especially as I approached my uncertain early 40s where the ground feels unsteady, my footing unsure.  It created a routine I leaned on when nothing else seemed to make sense.  I felt helpful, important, needed.

Every morning for years, as I sat down at my desk, the first thing I did was call my mother, allegedly to check in with a newsy hello but we both knew it was to make sure she was still alive, that she had survived the night.  On the days she didn't answer, I became frantic and upset, imagining the worst case scenario, calling relatives sometimes, other times stewing in worried silence.  Eventually, she would call, repentant, apologizing for making me worry.  She had been sleeping, in the bathroom, away from the phone.  All was forgiven.  She was here.

But now she's not.

Getting up in the morning, never particularly easy, has become almost impossible.  My morning routine is broken and my nights are sleepless and restless, filled with dreams when sleep actually comes.  So I fight my way out of bed, many days too late, making me late for work or dressed in a hurry, but I take pride in the fact that I get up.

Little victories.

I went to a bereavement group, confident it would help.  I was the one with the freshest loss in the group.  I win!  Sad Club MVP.  Everyone else had a few years under their belts.  They said things like, "I will never be happy again." or "I will never feel pure joy."  Those not talking all nodded their heads in assent.  They believed it.  I could not.  I have already felt pure joy in the three months since my mom passed.  I have felt the warm glow of good times, and the love of friends and family.  I will be happy again.  I cannot allow myself to believe otherwise.  My mother would not allow it.  I want to graduate out of this state at some point and return to life.  I don't want to be "that person."  I cannot let loss become my identity.  In the natural order of things, we should lose our parents in our lifetimes.  It's not easy but it is.  It just simply is.  I have to learn a new normal.

A new normal where the world does not revolve around me.  I mean, who cares about all of my stupid stuff now?  Your mother is legally required (don't fact check it, just trust me) to care about the most ridiculous things related to you, her child.   Sure, spouses and friends and other family can pretend to care about the bigger things, and maybe they even actually do care, but your mom cares about life's hangnails - actual hangnails and the metaphorical ones - and the little victories, not just the small ones.  You got out of bed today, treasure, good for you!  You have a hangnail, I'm so sorry, honey, have some tea.  Moms cover up just how cold the world can be.

I left the group and decided, instead of looking inward, I'll keep as busy as humanly possible.  I fill my schedule with trips and work and anything I can think of.  I feel like Forrest Gump - run Forrest run.  Whenever I stop, it isn't pretty.  That is when the emotions come.  And this is maybe why I cannot sleep; when I finally lay to rest, everything wells up and you can only shut it out for so long.  I try to shut it out with work and sugar and cheese and bread and the occasional glass of wine.  And then I remember that this behavior will not change the fact that I am an orphan, it will just make me stressed AND fat AND an orphan AND in need of new clothes I can't afford to fit my bigger orphan body.  Let's stick with the original problem, shall we?  I already have 99.

This loss has also taught me that I know nothing about compassion.  I thought I was a compassionate person, but I really wasn't.  All of a sudden I am a member of a club I never wanted to be a part of, and it totally sucks, and I apologize to anyone I have ever said well-meaning words of comfort to.  I didn't know what you were going through.  I wasn't sure it would be ok.  I don't know if he/she/it was better off or in a better place and it doesn't matter.  I have no business saying he/she lived a rich, full life.  What I should have said was, "I'm sorry.  I'm thinking of you," and did something, anything that I thought would help instead of thinking, "Let me know if there's anything I can do" would cover it.  Now I know that when you're going through a loss, you have no idea what you want or need, but you just need people, you need them to do something, to be there.  I'll try to do better.

So I sit here at my computer, more than a little bit heartbroken, puffy eyed, tired, and 10 lbs heavier than when I last wrote to you, dear readers, sharing that I want to share more, but I just can't yet.  I hope you forgive me because I'm not sure I forgive myself.  But I'll get there.  And if I write about my hangnails know that it's because I need to, and I need to hear reassurance that, like everything else, they'll heal and it'll be alright.

Now THAT's a t-shirt I would wear.

Anticipation

I wasn't planning to go home but my mother isn't well and my logic is there won't be many more opportunities.

So I go.

My sister picks me up from the bus stop and greets me with an important question:

"When she dies, because I know I'll be the unlucky one to be there, who do I call?  The Life Alert people?  Hospice?  911?  Ron Scott?"

Ron Scott is our friendly neighborhood undertaker.  He is both actually friendly and an undertaker.

This seems like something we should know.

"I'm pushing that Life Alert button so hard," I say.  "Let it be their problem.  And this is really falling and really not being able to get up."

Later, because I am curious, I ask my mom.  As she gets closer to dying, these conversations get both harder and easier.  Somehow it's all we have to talk about and yet it seems abstract, like it's happening to someone else, someone else's mother, some other family.

"Don't call Ron Scott," she says.  "You guys aren't doctors. What if you panic and I'm not actually dead and he hauls me off?"

Good point.  Smart to remind us years of watching General Hospital does not translate to actual medical training and this is a judgment best left to the professionals.

I ask her what clothes she wants to be dressed in when she dies.  Since she's going to be cremated, she says it doesn't matter.  "Besides," she says, "I'm too cheap to let you burn up one of my good outfits that somebody else could wear."

******

Mom is complaining she's not dying fast enough.  "I thought it would have happened already, you know?"

I don't know whether to be grateful or angry.  But I know what she means.  We are an impatient lot so why should now be any different?

I try to remember even though this feels like it's happening to me, she's the one who is dying.

I decide it's my job now to make this easier for her.

So I try to reassure her.  "Well you definitely feel worse, right?  You would say you're getting closer, right?  That's something.  Progress."

Chin up, bucakroo, you'll be dead soon.  Attagirl.

I also tell her that I'll be fine when she dies. Every single time my voice catches and tears well up betraying me and undermining my credibility.

I'm a terrible liar.

She knows I don't believe it but she believes it.  And hopefully that's enough.

******

They ("they") call it "anticipatory grief."

Which is exactly as it sounds.  I say it's more like a thousand tiny deaths.  Mourning who a person was, what they can no longer do, who they no longer are.  Every day something else.

I find myself testing the limits of this new person in front of me - is she new or is she just a variation on the old?  One night on the phone as I'm telling her about a doctor's appointment, I feel she isn't paying attention.  She's yesing me and fluffing me off.  Despite myself, I poke the hornets' nest. I want her to hear me.  "You don't get it, mom. They are worried about me."

I've said too much.  

She starts to cry and unleashes a stream of consciousness rant that I'm not sure 100 years of therapy could make me forget.  Yet, there is some comfort in the fact that underneath it all, she's still my mother.  Her words remind me she's still here, she still cares and maybe that's what I needed.  She cares about me like no other and can wound me like no other because she installed all my buttons and can find them with her eyes closed.

******

I'm waiting for a meeting to start and the colleague joining me for it shows up outside my door.  "Oh come in," I say, "Let's do this."

We dial the line and wait and wait. "Where is everyone?" I wonder aloud.

"Um," he says slowly, "the meeting isn't until 2 and it's only 1:30."

"Seriously?  Well why did you come into my office then?"

Good one.  I'll blame him for this.

"I didn't.  I was just on my way to the bathroom."

Okay, then.  Carry on.

"Did I have a stroke and not know it?" I ask, which is a terrible thing to ask.

"I hope not," he says, "And besides, what's worse?  You thinking it's the wrong time or me knowing it's not time and blindly following your lead anyway?  I just figured you knew what you were doing."

Ahh, now there's your first mistake.

******

Everything feels suspended in time.  Like a jello casserole mold thing.  Or...

Remember those annoying Heinz Ketchup commercials from the 80s or whenever that was?  The one with Carly Simon's Anticipation playing?  What a terrible commercial.  Watching ketchup come out of a bottle is as exciting as watching paint dry (read: not very exciting).

Just hit the damn bottle on the 57 with the palm of your hand or smack it on the bottom.  Dig it out with a knife already.  Break the bottle if we have to.  

Let's get this show on the road.

But I don't want to rush along the inevitable even though it's hard to appreciate the days between now and then.  

For me, I want more time.  For her, I want less.  Really no one wins.

******

My sister teaches me how to make the syringes of morphine.  I'm not very good at it.  Much ends up running down my hands and arms.

"You are wasting my precious morphine!  And for God's sake don't lick your hands.  Or wait, is this why you wanted to learn this?  Are you going to steal my drugs?"

She's kidding - sorta - but it's tempting - sorta.

I laugh to myself and wonder how I can add this new skill to my resume.

Life goes on.

Hibernation

One of my favorite moments ever in film is that part in Tootsie where the director calls for the cameras to "Push in for a close up" on Dorothy Michaels and everyone yells in unison, "Not too close!"

I always laugh so hard and it's a line that's especially resonated the past few weeks.  How much do we disclose and reveal?  Especially on social media where everyone seems to be putting their best foot forward.  Where's the line between what we say and don't say?  Between close and too close?  Do we show our imperfections or just keep pulling back the focus so everything looks fuzzy and lovely?

A few weeks ago, I decided to take a little break from Facebook, which seems a little ridiculous - I mean, it's not heroin - but I found myself on it constantly.  It's mindless and a way to connect but also a way to avoid and I feel like I need to be paying better attention, you know, to me, and stuff, and things.

I also realized I don't have that much to say that isn't a great big bummer. Between my mom, the deaths of a few friends, serious illness of several close to me, and other bad news, I feel depressed and unable to pretend the opposite.  Moreover, I don't want to.  And yet, I also don't want to post things like:

Dear Prozac, why aren't you working yet? #impatient

Nope, she's not dead yet. #stillhere

Have spent the past three days dry heaving from anxiety. #veryattractive

Got out of bed today.  #wheresmymedal

Besides work, I haven't been using much of my self-imposed Facebook exile to see other humans in the actual flesh.  People are too messy and I need space.  To quote another great movie, As Good As It Gets, "Go sell crazy somewhere else.  We're all stocked up here." Depression is selfish.  I've got too many emotions so I feel like I'm not a good or supportive friend to anyone right now.  Least of all myself.

So I bought so many books that I may need a GoFundMe to pay my Amazon bill.  I finally figured out Netflix and devoured Orange Is The New Black. I decide that going to jail to get into shape no longer seems like a good idea. Maybe I'll have to diet and exercise after all.  Some days when I can pry myself off the couch after work, I take dance classes.  I laugh at myself. That one time, I may have actually twerked.

If a person twerks and it's not on Facebook, does it actually count?  And can you enjoy it without an audience?

I don't have an answer but I've been thinking about it a lot.  And in doing so, I'm reminded of another great line from Tootsie, "I'm going to feel this way until I don't feel this way anymore."

Two steps forward, three steps back.

But I suppose it's still dancing.

On Fathers and Father's Day (2015)

As long as I can remember, I've had a complicated relationship with Father's Day.  My dad was a good man, with a lot of issues and as a result, a terrible father.  And then he went and died in a horrible accident when I was 14, which really complicated things, even moreso because I am of Irish stock.  Irish people are afraid to speak ill of the dead.  Try it out sometime.  I guarantee you, any universally abhorred dead person, if you mention him or her to an Irish person, they will find the good and then cross themselves just to be safe.  "Hitler, he certainly had a point of view, now didn't he?  God rest his soul." "Osama Bin Laden sure had a gift for finding the best hiding places.  Saints preserve us."

You get the idea.

It feels wrong to say that, when my father passed, the result of a violent accident that, somewhat ironically given years and years of poor choices, was in no way his fault, I could finally breathe.  When someone you love is struggling, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, the phone to ring with the bad news that will surely come, it's just a matter of time.  Sure, I felt sad when he passed, but I also felt some relief - for him and for me and my whole family.

My dad was alcoholic and abusive, unpredictable and violent. 

He was also charming and kind, would give you the shirt off his back, loved music, animals and children.

(Rest in peace.)

After my mother asked him to leave, he showed up at our house when I was in first grade.  He broke the back bedroom window, tried to break down the doors and cut the phone line so we couldn't call for help.  He was a cop and very crafty.  Luckily, our neighbor called the police before we could see how this story ended.  He was taken away in a police car with our beloved dog, Rosie, who insisted on going with him; she loved him more than anyone, seeing his good above all else. 

I'm in my childhood home a lot these days as I spend time with my mother as she nears the end of her own life.  We have lots of conversations we never dared have before.  We've never been a particularly emotional and don't spend a lot of time analyzing or reflecting - better to just keep moving forward.  Lying in the back bedroom the other day, where the window has never been truly fixed, covered instead with a thick plastic, I was reminded of what happened.  Emboldened by the sense that time is running out for me to ask these questions, I stroll into the kitchen to ask my mom whether, if he had gotten in the house, he would have killed us.  She replies, nonchalantly, "Oh, I think he just wanted back in the house."

Sounds perfectly reasonable.  Let's go with that, shall we?  There are some stones best left unturned.

(God rest his soul.)

He also showed up at my school and trying to abduct me, luckily thwarted by a quick thinking teacher who had her own alcoholic husband.  I think about the desperation of a man who wanted his family back but didn't know how to get his life back on track enough to do it the right way.  Of course then, I certainly didn't think that way, and this set off years of being afraid to go to school and at least a year of nonstop crying in the classroom.  My second grade teacher confronted me by bringing me into the closet and asking me if I hated her.  I didn't but did hate her a little bit in that moment for being more of a child than I was.  How innocent she was to think it was all about her.

After my dad moved out of town, he moved around a lot; we were never sure where he was, but he would send lots of rambling, emotionally charged letters, and would call from time to time.  I would write to him, mostly out of obligation and guilt.  I enjoyed getting the $50 or $100 he would sometimes send (Lord knows he never paid child support), but dreaded the letters that came with it.  Reading them was a high price to pay for that $50. 

On rare occasions, we would see him in person; my mother, I am sure, torn between doing what she thought was right and trying to protect us.  Sometimes I would talk to him but after awhile, I refused.  It was uncomfortable, and well beyond the emotional maturity I had at 6 or 10, or who am I kidding? - 42.  I didn't know how to process then - or candidly, even now sometimes - how someone who claimed to love us could hurt us so much.  It just didn't jive with any of the images I knew from television or books.  Pa Ingalls, Mr. Drummond and Mr. C certainly didn't act this way.

This continued on for years until one day, two weeks after his birthday, he died.  Killed on impact, hit by a car by a nurse driving home from her shift at the hospital.   When I read the accident report, I felt sick as it described in graphic detail how he had been hit multiple times.  It was not an easy death, but somehow fitting as his life was not easy either.  I found myself feeling sad for the woman who had killed him, really just minding her own business heading home after a hard day at work.  It made me lose my enthusiasm for driving, thinking about how one day you were just a person, and at the end of that day, you could kill someone simply by chance, through no real fault of your own.

When he died, I didn't have to worry anymore that he'd show up at school again and try to take me with him, or show up at our house uninvited.  I didn't have to feel guilty for not answering his calls or not returning his letters. In one last blow, my birthday card to him was returned to me a week or so after his death; returned to sender, addressee unknown.

As I get older, I realize more and more how much of a struggle he really had, and how, really, at the end of the day, we're all just doing the best that we can.  Sometimes it's not enough, but day after day, we're all just waking up, putting one foot in front of the other and giving it the old college try

So maybe it's that, now, as an adult, I can see beyond my fear of him to love and understanding, and that's where the sense of loss kicks in.

Sometimes I do things I'm not proud of.  I'm impatient and controlling and refuse to ask for help.  I'm overly sensitive to looking stupid and have an overdeveloped sense of justice.  Often, I say things I wish I hadn't and never say the things I should.  I haven't mastered the flow of thinking BEFORE you speak as I prefer to ruminate and obsess for years after instead of investing two seconds before in a moment of consideration that could save me a lot of grief - and sleep, and, on too many an occasion, calories.  But pretty much always, I come from a good place.

As I become more self-aware, I see how not having paternal support did impact who I've become - for better and for worse.   To every positive, a corresponding negative.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but it's better to be rubber - tough but flexible - than brick - thick and unyielding.  I've spend a lot of time working in brick.  Maybe it's time to switch to another medium.

Someone asked me recently if I felt cheated not really having a dad growing up.  Honestly, yes, but more in the fairytale way that probably never would have been a reality.  I think about being walked down the aisle at my wedding and other pop culture "dad" situations that I've seen on television and in the movies as being "perfect, bonding moments."  Aw, shucks, dad.

Real life is far messier, so I know that, in reality, my life wouldn't have played out in those ways.  In real life, I've had amazing uncles, cousins, brother-in-laws, teachers, mentors, coworkers and friends who have filled various "dad" roles at certain points in my life and will continue to do so.  I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful, caring men.

And my mother, as a single mom for most of my life, did a pretty great job as both mom and dad.  I think ahead to next Father's Day, when, in all likelihood, I won't have a father or mother on this earth to celebrate with, and it makes me sad.  Over the past few months, as I've prepared to say goodbye to my mother, I've had the good fortune to be able to tell her how incredible she was as a parent.  Certainly not perfect, but she did the best she could and that was more than enough.  Finally as an adult, I know how hard it must have been being both parents, and not only that, feeling the need to apologize for someone else's actions as well as your own.  And, as I get older and consider my own options, I don't know if being a single parent is something that I would be by choice, and yet, there she was.

So, on Father's Day, sure, I feel a little sad, a little wistful, but mostly I feel happy watching the joy the great dads I know feel having children, and hoping they soak up the much-deserved love and appreciation on this day.

And to those who have lost their dads too soon - it's always too soon - I simply say:

I'll be thinking of you this weekend.  I know it must be hard for you.

Permission

Ever the planner, as my mother's sickness progresses and her passing seems more real, I look to the future.

Maybe I can "find myself."  Whatever that means.  Maybe I can take a Cheryl Strayed-like trek into the wilderness and push myself to my physical, mental and emotional limits. I'll eat food from cans and carry my life on my back.

But that involves going outside.

I wonder if I instead I could "find myself" at a mall, or a spa, or while eating gelato in the Piazza di Spagna.

I think about where I'll live, having decided with certainty that I'll need to leave NYC behind.  Too many years I've felt trapped, waiting for the other shoe to drop, bracing myself as my life got smaller and smaller.  NYC seems as small as my tiny hometown now.  My apartment in Manhattan - a dream of mine when I was younger - seems tiny, claustrophobic on some days; a safe cocoon other days.  I feel 17 again desperate to find where I belong and connect with people that understand me.  I conveniently ignore the fact that wherever I go, I'll still be me.  The images in my head are me but not me, me on steroids, a better me - or maybe it's not me at all.

The prospect of change is seductive.

****

My life these days is divided in two - NYC and LI, work and family, numb and numb-er.

Having not seen my mom in two weeks thanks to a forced break in the form of another emotional storm - my 20th college reunion - 100 miles from my mother's house, it's easy to convince myself that all is well.  She sounds good today, I tell myself, ignoring the fact that she had to hang up after 2 minutes because she was out of breath.

It's the weather, it's allergies, it's boredom, it's Tuesday.  I mean, look, I'm tired too and I'm not even sick.

Out on LI, reality is far less easy to rationalize, especially when she says, "I don't know when but it will be soon."  I want to know what soon means.  Soon as in, don't go back to the city?  Soon as in, leave my phone on at night?  Soon as in, better make sure that trip I am hoping for in August is refundable?

Despite myself, I start to cry and cry nonstop my entire visit, prompting her to threaten that she is going to send me back to the city.

I am crying for myself and she consoles me, holding me for the first time in probably 35 years.  She says she won't take that away from me, that I am allowed to be sad.  She's frail and weak and I wish she could hold me tighter but I'm grateful for this moment even though it's not perfect.  She talks about mistakes she's made and encourages me to think about the future and all of the good things ahead, that I am still a young woman and anything is possible.

We both know I don't believe her.

****

Back in the city, work is a welcome distraction.  I am grateful for my job, the nature of which is that I could never do too much, it is never enough.  We can never have too much money to support our work.  My colleagues have learned how to support me, in some ways despite their best instincts.  They make gifts for my mother and slip gifts for me awkwardly on my desk.  Because you're having a rough time, they say.  They mean well, I think to myself, still not sure any of us is getting it right.

I worry my colleagues have gotten used to my unpredictable moods.  I am, at turns, soft and yielding, crying in my office which unfortunately has glass walls.  "Are you alright?" One brave (foolish?) soul might ask which is my cue to shift to hard and brusque, closed off and brittle, like pieces of me are cracking off throughout the day and vacuumed up at night by housekeeping.  "What's going on with that project?  I haven't heard an update for awhile."

I don't look up.

The best offense is defense.

*****

I reconnect with an old therapist and start working remotely as she has relocated to California.  I worry that she doesn't seem happy there but that's none of my business, although I love to deflect attention from me.  We are in the business of me, a business that resembles a burned down, abandoned building.

She's smart and soft but not at all tricked by me. This is why I like her.  I've learned the right things to say but these don't placate her.  She beats me at my own game.  We are a good match.

I decide I need pharmaceutical help, something I have resisted for years.  When I share my thinking with friends, family, my acupuncturist, my doctor, I expect resistance but everyone readily agrees, leaving me to wonder if I haven't been fooling anyone.

My sister starts calling me every night just to make sure all is ok.  I know my mother told her as keeping secrets is not a thing we do well in our family, most people told what they're getting for Christmas well before the actual exchange. One of my closest friends puts her best friend on the case, my case.  Even though we've never met she starts texting me every day.  It's oddly comforting.

Maybe I'm not as smart as I think.

Even my acupuncturist, who has made a career out of finding alternatives to Western medicine and medication, tells me this is what I need.  He's seen me week after week in various stages of distress and checks in on me regularly.  I look to him for permission and counsel, only comfortable asking for help because I pay him for it.  It's easier that way, transactional but I know it would hurt him if he knew that's how I view things.  He's realistic and not reassuring but I know he's right, "It's only going to get worse before it gets better."

I sit across from my doctor, who is very young and very fit.  Generally her solution to me in every situation is to eat better and exercise more, which is good advice that I take or leave at whim.  When I tell her that I want medicine to help manage what has become the deepest depression of my life I expect to hear her say, "Have you tried yoga?"  But she doesn't.  Instead she says, "Start taking these now so that, well, you know, when the inevitable happens...I mean, it's your mom.  You only lose your mom once."

But, because we are all who we are and she can't help herself, she says, "Diet and exercise will help a lot too."  And because I am who I am and can't help myself either because I want to please her I say, "I know.  I've lost 7 lbs since I was here last."

She goes to congratulate me then stops herself, realizing it's been less than a week since I saw her.  She stumbles.  We both want me to be thinner. "Um, that's good but too fast, you know?"

I know but my mood has taken root in my stomach and although I've been eating, food hasn't had much appeal and I've been exercising more in a desperate bid to tire out my ever spinning brain.

And besides, I need to get in shape to "find myself," which I am pretty sure involves losing a lot of everything first.

****

I spend a lot of time thinking about how maybe I wasn't born for these times.  I don't understand people, with me at the top of the list.  I embrace technology but get disappointed by it constantly - choosing to blame technology than the people behind it.  We are closer together but more apart than ever.  I hear from people I haven't heard from much nor did I expect to. It's surprising and comforting.

I bite the bullet and text a friend that I am depressed and am not sure how to get through it and need help.

I don't get an answer.

I tell myself that maybe I shouldn't drop bombshells like that, maybe people don't like it.  It makes me feel wrong and sorry I reached out.  I push down the part of me that tells me I'm not wrong and it's ok.

The next day I get a random text about the weather.

Why yes, it is cold outside.  

Even colder in here.

****

I take solace in books and read constantly, embracing an old habit from my childhood, feeling 5 years old and scared and desperate for comfort wherever I can find it. Books a far healthier choice than food as long as they are light and meaningless.  Nothing about death or dying.  Nothing too hopeful either. Let's not delude myself of a happier ever after. My comfort zone is small but I immerse myself.  I look forward to returning home at the end of the day to my books.

I tell myself I'm not isolating but simplifying and in many ways it's true.  I'm exhausted and it's all too much.  People are messy. I'm messy.  I'm not sure I can handle anyone else's mess right now.

****

I plan a hot Friday night with me and my new book after my dance class.  It's small, controlled, reassuring.

My colleagues ask if I want to join them in sending off another colleague who is heading to a new job.  

I hesitate, feeling the pull of my couch, solitude, isolation - the tidiness of my controlled world - but know this is not always the answer, and that this is not going to be the support I need moving forward.

I look up and try a smile.

"Count me in," I say.

And I almost mean it.