In reply to below

Linda I'm so sorry for your loss. There are parts of what you say that remind me of my dad's death, a little over a year ago. The part about birth and death being similar, maybe that should be obvious but it still came as a surprise. And the finality of it is so crushing. Like a cruel joke where you wait for the 'just kidding' part that never comes.

My dad experienced such horrific amounts of pain to his back muscles from metastasized bladder cancer. It was undescribable really to watch someone you love experience so much pain and not be able to do anything about it. He was on superhuman doses of morphine and still in a strange distant twilight of consciousness altho he couldn't communicate with us. Like being buried alive. S., who was 2, brought us tissues as we cried and made the social workers cry too.

The doctors were so stingy with the morphine. They were so fearful of any dose that might be construed as euthanasia. But the point is moot; you can't really overdose, and when you're at the very end you're only providing relief. Or not. We had to call the doctors several times at 4:00 a.m., the i.v. pump had a lock code that allowed only a hospice nurse to access it. But it was a new model of pump and my sister and I ended up showing the nurses how to use it. We knew the code and thought many times to change it ourselves but we were afraid we'd run out before the next timed delivery.

The pain doctor we had was not well suited to his job. Our last time in the hospital when it became clear all the assurances of a pain-free end were empty, I remember him rolling my dad, who was completely conscious and otherwise normal, over on his side to listen with his stethoscope. It was such a subtle gesture but he only touched him with his fingertips, as you would touch something distasteful. I wanted to smack him. I still hate him.

He came home to die, in his own bedroom. Once he realized they could nothing for him, he deteriorated quickly. It showed not only how much he was staying alive by sheer will power, but also how incredibly powerful it was. The last thing he said was, "Good night, S." in response to "Good night, Grampa."

A couple of weeks later, several days after the gruesome death rattle started, the hospice nurse called us out of our beds for the end, she had seen it so many times it was a clinical process, like knowing when to change an oil filter. I got the distinct feeling that whatever he had been wasn't there anymore. It had already left and this was the machine shutting down. A few last breaths with longer pauses between, and then you wait for one more and it doesn't come. Except your brain doesn't want to accept it and you can swear that you still see the chest rising and falling. You're completely and utterly helpless there's nothing that you can do that will change it.

Garrett and I slept in that room for the next couple of days and I know what you mean about that wanting traces to cling; I was hoping there'd be some energy imprint in the physical space, I was hoping it would be 'haunted'. Except for an occasional waft of Nurse Lily's perfume, there was nothing.

The police came and made sure the massive amounts of opiates that the hospice nurse had flushed down the toilet were well and truly gone. The corpse seemed to be almost an afterthought. A hearse came and took the body away. S. watched the Wizard of Oz incessantly it was the most tv she'd ever been allowed to watch and no one cared. The Munchkins sang over and over: "As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."

A couple of months later I had an intensely real dream that he was fixing this old lavender refrigerator I used to have. We were sitting side by side on the floor in T-shirts, jeans. His smell was so authentic, so organic. We both knew the refrigerator was a pretext; this was a last opportunity to be together. I remember feeling grateful toward whatever power that had made it happen. The next night I had another intense dream that I was standing at the window of my living room except I was a small child; he was out in the driveway; a little pudgy alot more hair, much younger. He was leaving in his Triumph convertible (the car they had when I was very small). He was laughing that I was crying; I was so sad he was going. Somewhere the adult me was watching the whole thing and feeling sorry for the little girl. He waved and got in the car and drove off. And that's the end of it. Occasionally I'll have a dream that it was all a mistake and when i wake up I'm actually convinced for a few minutes. That sounds so cliche but hope is a funny, stubborn thing. I still can't really look at photos or listen to their answering machine. I don't think it gets better with time. You just learn to live with it, like a chronic sore, like colors that have become washed out.

My Mother (L)

December 1, 2008

My mother passed away last night at 6:43 p.m. The time clings in my mind like I'm storing it for a birth announcement, except for death, which no one does. But it is surprising how parallel the events are. Like the pain of labor with my children, I never could catch up to the rolling ball of her death. It should have been no surprise, as a baby being born from you after hours of labor should not be, we had pulled the plugs from her life support after all. The sepsis in her blood had staked it's claim and was not leaving. But I never really believed it would actually happen, I didn't. And as I stroked her hair as she labored for breath, I remembered Chris stroking my hair when I was laboring our children and how it calmed me. I wanted to calm her, but in my head I was shouting "come back, come back" and was running to try and catch that that moment could be real. A priest came, and like in a movie after he gave her the sacraments, her body began giving undeniable evidence that she was leaving and the moment hit, crashed and wailed.

Later I asked the nurse what time we we shut off the ventilator, and I found some inexplicable pride in my mother that she had only struggled for a very short time. Like the pride of a short push during labor. It did help to believe that we had made the right decision, that she did not suffer for long.

But what the moment gave us, we had to leave behind, unlike birth. And I find myself, not just an hour after getting home from the hospital, not wanting to wash my hair that brushed her shoulders, or brush my teeth that breathed the air around her. I want to cling to her traces.

I always believed I would be instantly shattered when I lost my mother, but it's more like I'm slowly melting and grief is dripping from my pores.

My Aunt Edith (L)

My Great Aunt Edith died last week, whe was 100. I never thought I'd use the term "beloved" with sincerity, but she was much beloved by me and my family. Here are some of the words I spoke at her funeral.

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Aunt Edith is finally with Uncle Charlie, it took her body being 100 to finally agree with what her heart wanted for 20 years. We can only be happy that she is where she wants to be. Aunt Edith was the last of her siblings, the last of many of our grandmother and mother's generation. For us, left behind, it is truly the end of an era. A time when tea was a social event, when “muffin day” was a designated day of the week, when unannounced guests were greeted as the welcome highlight to a day, hugged ferociously and dutifully waved goodbye to as they drove away. When if you didn't have anything nice to say, you truly said nothing at all. Aunt Edith kept her house clean in many ways.

What I remember most about Aunt Edith was her sense of fun and adventure, her strength, and independence; her greeting me each time at the door with a “Whyyyyy” as if she couldn’t believe I had come, whether I was visiting from New Jersey, or just down the road and had seen her the day before. I loved the twinkle in her eyes, and the tight squeeze of her hugs.

As a child, she was my great aunt who was always willing to play a game of tether ball or frisbee with any of us, who always had muffins and cookies waiting in case you stopped by, who'd spread on an amazing 4th of july bbq and then stay up in the dark summer night to serve us watermelon on the way home from the fireworks. She was always willing to join us for Walker Park or Islesboro or even the grocery store with a quick” I'll just get my purse”. I learned my childhood love of Aunt Edith from my mother. It was a woman's world at Aunt Edith full of tradition, estrogen, and tea. But as an adult, I discovered a new love and friendship in Aunt Edith. Over the years, she has been to me an aunt, a grandmother, a mother, a best friend, a companion, a co-pilot in many adventures, a grandmother to my children, and a soul friend to me. She was always there when I needed her with welcome arms, a hug for my children, time to spend with me, and hot cup of tea.

I worried when Gwenyvere was born and Aunt Edith was 90, that I was doing something selfish to foster such a close relationship with someone that I knew she would be young when she lost. But I am so grateful for the years my children had to love Aunt Edith. I look at my girls and I see Aunt Edith in them in their poise and manners and love for company and tradition. I see her in sensitivity and stubbornness of my six year old son, who told me this morning (the morning of her funeral), “I’m coming! I want to see her one more time even if she’s not alive anymore”.

Money, money, money (Alessandra)

Just got off the phone with a woman from my high school class to remind me about the significant reunion happening this summer.  All laughs and cheers and fun fun fun and then a solicitation for money.  God I hate that.  My high school is famous for its multimillion-dollar endowment.  I told her with a smile, that I wasn't giving anything. Nothing.  And then I felt like a fraud because I expressed interest in going, yadda yadda yadda.  Not realizing these reunion nostalgia trips are basically fundraising events. I've never gone to a reunion because I basically communiate with everyone I had ever wanted to, everything else is just morbid curiosity, like rubbernecking a traffic accident.   

 I'm not totally cheap: I do give money to charity, but if it's a choice between helping the third world get some medical attention and seeing that political prisoners aren't left to rot in jails or whether the golf team gets new Titleists, the choice seems pretty clear, you know?  I guess I'll never be in that preppy corduroy old boys club that gets your kids into Yale or your husband some Master of the Universe job.  Whatevs.  I just have a really bad taste in my mouth right now.  

Don't Swim Naked

Mommy Drinks (Alessandra)

I'm so fried so all you're going to get is run-on sentences. Run-away sentences. Yes Maine seems like a dream now, but maybe too lucid since bringing a newborn (party foul!) I didn't get absolutely polluted. Shopping spree at the guns ammo wedding dress store. I so wanted to put my Maine Terrorists Hunting Permit bumpersticker next to an Obama 08 bumpersticker but G. won't let me put anything on the car. Beautiful weather cool air piney smells campfire hissing and clicking like a living thing. A big fat moon looming over the lake like a window onto another world. Next year all media devices will be confiscated except for the requisite midnight call to S. Or maybe he could be beamed in via hologram for a guest appearance. Racing wild turkeys (the bird kind not the liquor kind) at 12 mph down a backroad trying to keep baby asleep waiting for Herself to open the door. Swimming in the lake all but the rudimentary brain stem shut down just soaking up the sun like plant life and feeling your heart thump in your chest against the almost-shocking cold of the water. Delicious burritos that were I am ashamed to say pretty healthy. Whose freeking idea was that? At least it was counterbalanced by a lipsmacking pesto eating session in the car in the parking lot of the store. Well hey it's a rental. I love that. I also learned a lot about moisturizer. Seriously, not being facetious. Reality check for the sad sack. Well there i jumped into the blog lake. Little cold, little slimy but not so bad.

Knew a girl named Nikki, I guess you could say she was a (Linda)

There is so much I want to escape from in my real life in the here and now--reading Marty's post was like stepping into a pool of surprisingly warm, burnt orange, sunlit memories that linger in purple twilight. There, the air is steeped thick with alcohol, laughter and song. Alcohol--the Captain's Tattoo, 3 Olives Raspberry Vodka and enough red wine to drown in. Laughter--Cooter Turtle (or was it Turtle Cooter?), Turret's Syndrome Convention (could we have possibly sworn more?), and the many ways I could spank my bottom during "Guesstures" while the two of you shouted out every word in the dictionary but "spank".

Song--here, I must depart from my format because this memory demands. Pulling in the dock from the walkway, like a boat, floating out as far as the rope would go--so separate from the land we were one with the lake. Sitting in the deep dark end of twilight as the fog rose off the water, a sheer mist around us, reeds emerged through it like fragile, slender statues. Our songs graduated with the night, as it turned darker and the full moon rose on us like a spotlight, casting aside the fog while the air grew colder and inched its way into our bones. My favorites were Prince's "Nikki" (Kudos to Marty, the lyrics queen who kept us going all night) and Hotel California. I would have never known I knew every last living word to that song. We all sang it like it was the anthem to our childhood.

I was delighted by Marty's beauty (so radiant in the moonlight!) and her honesty (though I could never wrap my tongue around the cherry chapstick/cherry cheesecake line). I was intimidated and worshipful of Alessandra's intelligence, the politics of the day peeling back the heavy shroud of her motherness, as she spoke her sharp, educated, smarter-than-I'll-ever-be mind, and the dimly lit cottage air cried, "she's baaa-aaack". Her little mini-me slept through the night and seduced us all with her dark perfection. I was pleased that we resisted gunning down the political signs (first time we'd seen Palin on a lawn) as we made our mad pesto dash to Waldoboro for our bread, wine, that addictive pesto, and small town walk. Not to mention the small bar beer. Remember the picture of a cottage on a grass lane with the moon above it? Good, I want it for Christmas, you can go halvsies.

Enough, enough, next year it will be posts about getting into bar brawls with toothless men because you hustled them at pool and used me as horny old biker man bait. I can't wait to wear a trashy denim mini-skirt again, it's been years! So, until then, keep writing--that means you, Bocco. Anything, every scrap, every bit, every run on edit free sentence your little fingers can type.