message to heaven
my message to mummy was written on the Tour de France route by the LIVESTRONG chalk bot.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
a few weeks ago, i had a moment when i did something so much like mummy that i saw her very clearly in myself. something simple delighted me and i caught myself laughing out loud. i can't even remember what it was that amused me. it wasn't anything monumental, it was just an every day simple thing.
i laughed her laugh and sighed her sigh i and was taken aback by how much of her i heard in my own voice.
i had a rough time last week on the anniversary of her sickness. and, again, i was taken aback. because i was trying to remember where i was a year ago on the 4th. and i pictured myself rushing to d.c....but that was two years ago. it feels so fresh, but time is passing.
this morning, when i woke up, i sat up and took a really close look at a picture that sits on my nightstand. i see it every day, but i realized i haven't really looked at it for a long time. it's my grandparents...gogo and wowo. and wowo has mummy's face and her eyes. i love looking at it.
i see her in wowo. and in missy and liam and seamus.
genetics are marvelous. seeing her in them is really remarkable.
even more remarkable is hearing her in seamus, liam and missy moo's laughs and sighs of contentment.
i laughed her laugh and sighed her sigh i and was taken aback by how much of her i heard in my own voice.
i had a rough time last week on the anniversary of her sickness. and, again, i was taken aback. because i was trying to remember where i was a year ago on the 4th. and i pictured myself rushing to d.c....but that was two years ago. it feels so fresh, but time is passing.
this morning, when i woke up, i sat up and took a really close look at a picture that sits on my nightstand. i see it every day, but i realized i haven't really looked at it for a long time. it's my grandparents...gogo and wowo. and wowo has mummy's face and her eyes. i love looking at it.
i see her in wowo. and in missy and liam and seamus.
genetics are marvelous. seeing her in them is really remarkable.
even more remarkable is hearing her in seamus, liam and missy moo's laughs and sighs of contentment.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
once again, it has been a long time since i have written. it's not that i don't miss mummy every day...because i do...it's just that i am working very hard at healing. and i am trying to shift from feeling the loss to feeling the love. nowadays, i'm kind of caught in-between those two feelings. i am trying not to dwell on the pain, but i am still in that state where (intellectually) i remember more of the sickness than the whole lifetime before that. i am happy to say that, viscerally, i find myself feeling more and more joyful about my increasing ability remember the magic that was mummy. i still haven't completely crossed that bridge between loss and love (i don't know if i ever will) but i can feel the magic of her in my life more than i could when the pain of her death was so fresh.
the move to los angeles has been good for me because it has forced me to focus on "me."
work here is wildly different than work at cutwater, but i am finding my way. the one thing that i miss the most about cutwater is the people. i have great affection for them. it is an affection that is borne from being in the trenches together.
2007 is still a blur to me. in that year, immediately after losing mummy, we had the ride of our lives at work.
to use one of chuck mcbride's sports metaphors, i left it all on the field.
i remember saying to someone once that i didn't want to wake up one day and realize that i had made everyone else's dreams come true without pursuing my own. hence my departure.
while i was there, i recruited and hired some amazing people. i strongly believe that every hire is an opportunity to shape a culture and i made choices and recommended people that are as kind as they are talented.
a few weeks ago, tragedy struck william, one of our art directors. his beautiful glenda died. she was too young and it was too sudden. william and glenda met in high school here in los angeles. they have been together ever since. it was clear, when you saw them together, that they had something magical.
the wake and the funeral were down here in l.a.
when i drove up to the wake, the first face i saw was peter's. peter is a studio artist at cutwater. he had come all the way down from san francisco. and then i saw josh, one of our copywriters. the wake was beautiful. glenda's artwork hung from the wall, william's uncle sang and will and glenda's families served fresh bread and mexican hot chocolate.
the funeral and burial were even sweeter. when i walked into the church i saw that marty and eric (also from cutwater's creative department) were sitting next to josh and peter in the pew.
the mass was almost entirely in spanish, but i was able to follow along. william spoke about glenda and i was so incredibly moved (as i was the night before) by his strength and his eloquence.
at the cemetery there was a moment, when william was standing at the head of the casket and the pall bearers were lined up on either side, when i saw a little girl (who i think was glenda's niece) spinning around in the grass behind him so she could make her skirt twirl. it was a breathtaking sight.
then, i saw something i had never seen before. they actually buried glenda while we were all still standing there. they used a bulldozer-like machine. at first, it seemed rather industrial, but it brought me back to the moment when i had to walk away from mummy's casket while it was still on the risers abover her burial vault. and i envied william. because walking away from mummy like that seemed so wrong, but no one would leave while we were still standing there, so we left her there.
william saw glenda through the whole thing and it was a gift to be able to share that moment with him and with their families.
that night, as i was thinking about how remarkable the day had been, i felt such incredible pride in my friends from cutwater. this disparate group of people that i assembled is so kind and loving and connected to each other. i still count the friends i made in early days of chiat among my dearest. i can already see that some of my cutwater friends feel that same kind of connection to each other.
so now, i am here without them. pursuing my own dreams. but now that i have emerged from the blur i am able to see clearly that what i did there had value beyond measure. beyond advertising. i am deeply warmed as i realize, now that i finally have some clarity, my blurry year was definitely not wasted time. (in retrospect, helping to make other peoples' dreams come true was really quite nice.)
please keep william and glenda and their families in your prayers. now that the ceremonies are over, the truly hard part begins.
glenda and william
the move to los angeles has been good for me because it has forced me to focus on "me."
work here is wildly different than work at cutwater, but i am finding my way. the one thing that i miss the most about cutwater is the people. i have great affection for them. it is an affection that is borne from being in the trenches together.
2007 is still a blur to me. in that year, immediately after losing mummy, we had the ride of our lives at work.
to use one of chuck mcbride's sports metaphors, i left it all on the field.
i remember saying to someone once that i didn't want to wake up one day and realize that i had made everyone else's dreams come true without pursuing my own. hence my departure.
while i was there, i recruited and hired some amazing people. i strongly believe that every hire is an opportunity to shape a culture and i made choices and recommended people that are as kind as they are talented.
a few weeks ago, tragedy struck william, one of our art directors. his beautiful glenda died. she was too young and it was too sudden. william and glenda met in high school here in los angeles. they have been together ever since. it was clear, when you saw them together, that they had something magical.
the wake and the funeral were down here in l.a.
when i drove up to the wake, the first face i saw was peter's. peter is a studio artist at cutwater. he had come all the way down from san francisco. and then i saw josh, one of our copywriters. the wake was beautiful. glenda's artwork hung from the wall, william's uncle sang and will and glenda's families served fresh bread and mexican hot chocolate.
the funeral and burial were even sweeter. when i walked into the church i saw that marty and eric (also from cutwater's creative department) were sitting next to josh and peter in the pew.
the mass was almost entirely in spanish, but i was able to follow along. william spoke about glenda and i was so incredibly moved (as i was the night before) by his strength and his eloquence.
at the cemetery there was a moment, when william was standing at the head of the casket and the pall bearers were lined up on either side, when i saw a little girl (who i think was glenda's niece) spinning around in the grass behind him so she could make her skirt twirl. it was a breathtaking sight.
then, i saw something i had never seen before. they actually buried glenda while we were all still standing there. they used a bulldozer-like machine. at first, it seemed rather industrial, but it brought me back to the moment when i had to walk away from mummy's casket while it was still on the risers abover her burial vault. and i envied william. because walking away from mummy like that seemed so wrong, but no one would leave while we were still standing there, so we left her there.
william saw glenda through the whole thing and it was a gift to be able to share that moment with him and with their families.
that night, as i was thinking about how remarkable the day had been, i felt such incredible pride in my friends from cutwater. this disparate group of people that i assembled is so kind and loving and connected to each other. i still count the friends i made in early days of chiat among my dearest. i can already see that some of my cutwater friends feel that same kind of connection to each other.
so now, i am here without them. pursuing my own dreams. but now that i have emerged from the blur i am able to see clearly that what i did there had value beyond measure. beyond advertising. i am deeply warmed as i realize, now that i finally have some clarity, my blurry year was definitely not wasted time. (in retrospect, helping to make other peoples' dreams come true was really quite nice.)
please keep william and glenda and their families in your prayers. now that the ceremonies are over, the truly hard part begins.
glenda and william
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
sweet little things that have come to me in flashes
maria eugenia velasco gave us a key to her house. the whole time mom was at sibley, she wanted us to have a comfortable place just a few miles away. we never used it...but we always knew it was there. she was there for us.
++
maria brought us two grocery bags full of comfort food when we were camped out at the hospital.
++
carolina velasco heard about maria's giant bags of junk food. soon afterwards, she came by the hospital with fresh fruit and healthy snacks to counter the comfort food maria had brought. she came in and sat with us and was bright and sparkly when we were all catatonic.
++
maria and carolina's mummy reached out and hugged me as i walked down the aisle behind mummy's casket on the way out of the funeral. it was beyond sweet to see her and mr. velasco there. and when she whispered in my ear, "i remember how i felt when i lost my mother," it was terribly moving.
++
kara's parents came, too. and at mummy's wake it was funny because they asked how i knew the browns. (they ran into friends who have a homes near both their maryland and maine homes) and i explained that mummy was a brown. it reminded me how small the world is.
++
mike and carolee beck were there and cari lynn, too. mr. beck kissed his fingertips and pressed them on mummy's casket when we were walking out of the church. both mike and carol lee were so connected to mummy. i think kaki proctor was there, too.
++
i tried really hard to find the right "casket spray" for mummy. i went to a florist in gaithersburg and gave them my dream list of flowers. hydrangea were on the top. the florist explained that i couldn't get hydrangea that would look good at that time of year, so i ended up getting something that looked like a bad thanksgiving centerpiece.
a fed-ex package came to the house a few days after mummy died. it was a package of live hydrangea from gabrielle that kara (or maria) put in a vase in the middle of the table in the sunroom.
++
i don't remember exactly who did it...it was all a blur. but i do remember that kara and maria came over one night and helped me put together the cds for mummy's funeral.
++
when we went to st. patrick's, i was supposed to pay the church and the organist and the tenor and i couldn't fill out a check correctly. and then sheila o'donnell came and took the check book out of my hands and listened while i spelled "petrucelli" and took all of that weight off of my shoulders.
++
when i looked at the altar, there was the most beautiful flower arrangement i had ever seen. it was sooooo mummy. and it was full of live, fresh hydrangea. it was from her cousins, the browns.
++
penny coppola (mummy's college roommate) called us on the night mummy was dying. i was laying next to magee on the floor while she was talking to penny. i could only hear magee's side of the conversation but the love that was coming out of the cordless was palpable.
++
kara's mom drove all the way out to mom's house after everything was over and everyone was gone and brought us a full, family sized meal and an activity blanket that missy loves.
++
when we were going through it, we were consumed by it. and all of our attention was on her. it is only now, when all of this time has passed, that i am remembering these simple, beautiful, loving gestures.
it is amazing that something simple like taking a pen and a checkbook out of someone's hand can make a difference. and more and more of these moments come back to me every day.
i've shifted from crying to smiling (for the most part). we have been blessed.
maria eugenia velasco gave us a key to her house. the whole time mom was at sibley, she wanted us to have a comfortable place just a few miles away. we never used it...but we always knew it was there. she was there for us.
++
maria brought us two grocery bags full of comfort food when we were camped out at the hospital.
++
carolina velasco heard about maria's giant bags of junk food. soon afterwards, she came by the hospital with fresh fruit and healthy snacks to counter the comfort food maria had brought. she came in and sat with us and was bright and sparkly when we were all catatonic.
++
maria and carolina's mummy reached out and hugged me as i walked down the aisle behind mummy's casket on the way out of the funeral. it was beyond sweet to see her and mr. velasco there. and when she whispered in my ear, "i remember how i felt when i lost my mother," it was terribly moving.
++
kara's parents came, too. and at mummy's wake it was funny because they asked how i knew the browns. (they ran into friends who have a homes near both their maryland and maine homes) and i explained that mummy was a brown. it reminded me how small the world is.
++
mike and carolee beck were there and cari lynn, too. mr. beck kissed his fingertips and pressed them on mummy's casket when we were walking out of the church. both mike and carol lee were so connected to mummy. i think kaki proctor was there, too.
++
i tried really hard to find the right "casket spray" for mummy. i went to a florist in gaithersburg and gave them my dream list of flowers. hydrangea were on the top. the florist explained that i couldn't get hydrangea that would look good at that time of year, so i ended up getting something that looked like a bad thanksgiving centerpiece.
a fed-ex package came to the house a few days after mummy died. it was a package of live hydrangea from gabrielle that kara (or maria) put in a vase in the middle of the table in the sunroom.
++
i don't remember exactly who did it...it was all a blur. but i do remember that kara and maria came over one night and helped me put together the cds for mummy's funeral.
++
when we went to st. patrick's, i was supposed to pay the church and the organist and the tenor and i couldn't fill out a check correctly. and then sheila o'donnell came and took the check book out of my hands and listened while i spelled "petrucelli" and took all of that weight off of my shoulders.
++
when i looked at the altar, there was the most beautiful flower arrangement i had ever seen. it was sooooo mummy. and it was full of live, fresh hydrangea. it was from her cousins, the browns.
++
penny coppola (mummy's college roommate) called us on the night mummy was dying. i was laying next to magee on the floor while she was talking to penny. i could only hear magee's side of the conversation but the love that was coming out of the cordless was palpable.
++
kara's mom drove all the way out to mom's house after everything was over and everyone was gone and brought us a full, family sized meal and an activity blanket that missy loves.
++
when we were going through it, we were consumed by it. and all of our attention was on her. it is only now, when all of this time has passed, that i am remembering these simple, beautiful, loving gestures.
it is amazing that something simple like taking a pen and a checkbook out of someone's hand can make a difference. and more and more of these moments come back to me every day.
i've shifted from crying to smiling (for the most part). we have been blessed.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
once again, it has been a while since i have written. i've almost completed the move to los angeles. i have sold the berkeley bungalow and the boxes in l.a. are almost completely unpacked .
i'm two months into the new job and i've rescued a new beast.
did i mention that fang the wonder dog died at christmas time? he was 14-1/2 years old and his arthritis was awful. when i called magee to tell her, she reminded me that we thought we were going to lose him last march so all of the rest of the time was a bonus.
he was a glorious beast. losing him almost on the anniversary of losing mummy really sucked.
next christmas, i am going to wrap myself in bubble wrap and tuck myself in the corner of a closet for the duration of the holidays in hopes that i don't emerge with any more loss before the new year starts. i will say this...after losing mummy..losing fang was nothing. it's not that i didn't love him...he was glued to my side for years and years and i found him to be incredibly sweet and very grounding...but mummy's death was so monumentally painful that losing fang was easy in comparison. it's not that it didn't hurt...but my capacity for hurt was stretched so far by the death of mummy that i barely felt the death of fang.
the new beast is quite different than fang. fang was a genius...but a curmudgeon. i think scout might be an airhead. she is so purely joyful and friendly that i am still a little surprised that we found each other. she lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared.
i brought her back to the east coast last weekend and we spent the weekend with maura and missy at the beach house.
missy is magical. she also lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared. i sometimes find myself "armchair quarterbacking" some of the more trivial aspects of her care...but i am not in maura's shoes and i can't help but marvel at the essence of maura's mothering skills because missy is purely joyful and unconditionally loved (even when she bites).
the monday before my return was really lovely. maura and i stopped off at aunt mary anne and uncle jude's for lunch on the way home from bethany beach. uncle jude's new kidney is fabulous because it has given him back the energy he needs to be his mischievous self. i didn't have to go to the bathroom and cry when aunt mary anne hugged me...but her eyes did catch me off guard a couple of times.
i can't say the scales have permanently tipped in one direction or another because this is all still very much a bumpy ride...but on monday the scales were tipped more towards feeling the comfort of seeing mummy in aunt mary anne's eyes and tipped away from the striking feeling of loss that could have come from the very same sight.
we had dinner with aunt jane and uncle john, buzzy, liam and seamus. the boys are growing like weeds. like maura, buzzy has effervescent parenting skills resulting in magical children.
i spent the last night of my trip at mummy's house. this time, i couldn't find her shoes.
now, i am back in los angeles. i have almost finished unpacking boxes. in the back of my head, i think i have been dragging out the unpacking process...because finishing the work of upending my life over the past four months means that i will have to face this question: "what's next?"
i made all of these changes so i could have more time for myself...and, frankly, that is a scary proposition.
i'm two months into the new job and i've rescued a new beast.
did i mention that fang the wonder dog died at christmas time? he was 14-1/2 years old and his arthritis was awful. when i called magee to tell her, she reminded me that we thought we were going to lose him last march so all of the rest of the time was a bonus.
he was a glorious beast. losing him almost on the anniversary of losing mummy really sucked.
next christmas, i am going to wrap myself in bubble wrap and tuck myself in the corner of a closet for the duration of the holidays in hopes that i don't emerge with any more loss before the new year starts. i will say this...after losing mummy..losing fang was nothing. it's not that i didn't love him...he was glued to my side for years and years and i found him to be incredibly sweet and very grounding...but mummy's death was so monumentally painful that losing fang was easy in comparison. it's not that it didn't hurt...but my capacity for hurt was stretched so far by the death of mummy that i barely felt the death of fang.
the new beast is quite different than fang. fang was a genius...but a curmudgeon. i think scout might be an airhead. she is so purely joyful and friendly that i am still a little surprised that we found each other. she lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared.
i brought her back to the east coast last weekend and we spent the weekend with maura and missy at the beach house.
missy is magical. she also lacks the cynicism that fang and i shared. i sometimes find myself "armchair quarterbacking" some of the more trivial aspects of her care...but i am not in maura's shoes and i can't help but marvel at the essence of maura's mothering skills because missy is purely joyful and unconditionally loved (even when she bites).
the monday before my return was really lovely. maura and i stopped off at aunt mary anne and uncle jude's for lunch on the way home from bethany beach. uncle jude's new kidney is fabulous because it has given him back the energy he needs to be his mischievous self. i didn't have to go to the bathroom and cry when aunt mary anne hugged me...but her eyes did catch me off guard a couple of times.
i can't say the scales have permanently tipped in one direction or another because this is all still very much a bumpy ride...but on monday the scales were tipped more towards feeling the comfort of seeing mummy in aunt mary anne's eyes and tipped away from the striking feeling of loss that could have come from the very same sight.
we had dinner with aunt jane and uncle john, buzzy, liam and seamus. the boys are growing like weeds. like maura, buzzy has effervescent parenting skills resulting in magical children.
i spent the last night of my trip at mummy's house. this time, i couldn't find her shoes.
now, i am back in los angeles. i have almost finished unpacking boxes. in the back of my head, i think i have been dragging out the unpacking process...because finishing the work of upending my life over the past four months means that i will have to face this question: "what's next?"
i made all of these changes so i could have more time for myself...and, frankly, that is a scary proposition.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
i flew back down to los angeles on thursday. i'll be going back and forth until the end of this month. when i got on the plane thursday morning, i realized that i was very happy. i struggled for so long with whether or not to move, but now that most of the hard work is over, i am really glad i did it.
i'm getting ready to go to the opera at the dorothy chandler pavilion. i haven't been to the opera since i was a kid. mummy and gogo took all of us to the kennedy center when we were kids so we could see the mikado. it was beautiful.
my attention span is not ideal for such fine evenings, but one of my dearest friends had an extra ticket and an evening with her and her lovely husband never fails to entertain me, so i'm in.
i called my good friend miss lisa this morning. she was on her way to pick her son nicholas up from the airport. he's come home from ASU because he needs a proper sportscoat for his job. she invited me to meet them or breakfast at dinah's as a surprise guest for nicholas. i must say, i was more surprised than he was because i haven't seen him for about eight years and he's "almost 20" now. while i was driving over there, i felt mummy with me. she loved lisa and nicholas so much. when i flew home to meet her at the hospital when we first discovered she had cancer, after we dealt with the immediate crisis, she wanted to know all about how everyone was doing. she wanted to know about lisa and nicholas and pen and his girls and gab and carisa, she had such great affection for my friends.
so it was inevitable that i would feel the incredible pull to call her this morning and tell her i was going to see lisa and nick. and i was ready for the incredible pull towards calling her after i left them. this time, i did not cry, i just tried to picture her smiling and happy that we all managed to spend some time together. and happy that lisa is as beautiful as ever, inside and out and her sweet nicholas is a really delightful young man.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
it's been a while since i've written. i've been trying to figure out why. at times i just feel numb. other times i am seriously concerned about what this blog says. not literally, but what it says about loss and healing. i talk much more about loss than i do about healing. and the sad reality is that i am healing. it is sad because it it is hard to reconcile being well with being without her. and when i put things in those terms, i just get sick of myself because i sound like a broken record. i miss her so much.
and i am okay. christmas was surprisingly much easier than thanksgiving. i think the big difference was that i made a concerted effort to keep christmas to the core. i turned down invitations that i would have otherwise loved to accept and only spent christmas eve and christmas day with my immediate family. we had a really good time. we had mummy's favorite christmas dinner. flank steak on the grill with grilled veggies. (she was not a fan of cooking turkey or ham.) her children and grandchildren — me, magee, buzzy, maura, liam, seamus and missy — were all seated around her big table in her sunroom. we were drinking out of her fabulous water goblets and eating off of her hadley pottery and lifting glasses of mumm's in her honor. and it was never lost on me that i was sitting on the very spot where she died, enjoying her people. if she actually can see us in some way, shape or form, i know she is joyful.
it was lovely.
i set my alarm for 4:50 am and went to sleep so i could wake up and be clear-headed by 5:00am.
it beeped, and i woke up, and on the anniversary of the moment that she died, i was laying in her bed, remembering her, remembering that moment, and praying for her and for all of us.
i went back to sleep for a few hours and then got up and got dressed for mass. maura had asked that they say a mass for mummy on her birthday in august, but someone had already claimed that mass. so, she claimed the 9:30 mass on december 26th. the anniversary of mummy's death ... and missy's first birthday.
we all got up and got dressed and went to church. it was shaping up to be a pretty emotional day.
then, the mass started. and the priest made a point of saying that the mass that morning was being offered in memory of "patricia bennett."
well. we all looked a little shocked. and, after about two minutes, maura stormed out of the church. that was at about the same time that i was trying to stifle my laughter.
maura was lucky the rectory was closed because she probably would have said a few things she may have regretted. she cooled off pretty quickly and was back in a few minutes. i was thinking about how funny my mom would have thought it was to see all of her kids dressed up and out of the house so early after a holiday for a mass in honor of a total stranger. and missy was in rare form. she was particularly squeally and giggly. she irritated some of the more pious people in the crowd ... and that was another thing that mummy would have found amusing.
it made me think about mummy being in my "muscle memory" as i said a few weeks ago. i go to mass occasionally ... but not nearly as often as i used to. but when i go, it is amazing that, without thinking, i can go through all of the prayers and songs as if i said them yesterday. it's striking sometimes when my conscious mind might not be able to say the "apostles creed" but then my unconscious mind takes over and the words just come out of my mouth. it's in me, the catholic thing. woven into me. i went to mass when i was in milan for work and i could whisper it all, in english, as if it were a harmony to the same words being said around me in italian.
that brings me so much comfort.
because if an hour a week for 20 years can embed those words into my soul, imagine what having all of these years with mummy has done to secure her place inside me. and sometimes, when i can't consciously conjure up a memory of her face, my unconscious mind can still feel the memory of her spirit wrapped around me like one of the blankets she'd tuck around me on a chilly evening.
and, remarkably, i can easily conjure up the memories of curling up behind her all of those times in that hospital bed in the sunroom.
i haven't even looked at the photos from christmas yet. that is not like me. i'll try to do that soon and add some pictures of our lovely holiday. and missy's first cake. but for now, i must pack some boxes.
and i am okay. christmas was surprisingly much easier than thanksgiving. i think the big difference was that i made a concerted effort to keep christmas to the core. i turned down invitations that i would have otherwise loved to accept and only spent christmas eve and christmas day with my immediate family. we had a really good time. we had mummy's favorite christmas dinner. flank steak on the grill with grilled veggies. (she was not a fan of cooking turkey or ham.) her children and grandchildren — me, magee, buzzy, maura, liam, seamus and missy — were all seated around her big table in her sunroom. we were drinking out of her fabulous water goblets and eating off of her hadley pottery and lifting glasses of mumm's in her honor. and it was never lost on me that i was sitting on the very spot where she died, enjoying her people. if she actually can see us in some way, shape or form, i know she is joyful.
it was lovely.
i set my alarm for 4:50 am and went to sleep so i could wake up and be clear-headed by 5:00am.
it beeped, and i woke up, and on the anniversary of the moment that she died, i was laying in her bed, remembering her, remembering that moment, and praying for her and for all of us.
i went back to sleep for a few hours and then got up and got dressed for mass. maura had asked that they say a mass for mummy on her birthday in august, but someone had already claimed that mass. so, she claimed the 9:30 mass on december 26th. the anniversary of mummy's death ... and missy's first birthday.
we all got up and got dressed and went to church. it was shaping up to be a pretty emotional day.
then, the mass started. and the priest made a point of saying that the mass that morning was being offered in memory of "patricia bennett."
well. we all looked a little shocked. and, after about two minutes, maura stormed out of the church. that was at about the same time that i was trying to stifle my laughter.
maura was lucky the rectory was closed because she probably would have said a few things she may have regretted. she cooled off pretty quickly and was back in a few minutes. i was thinking about how funny my mom would have thought it was to see all of her kids dressed up and out of the house so early after a holiday for a mass in honor of a total stranger. and missy was in rare form. she was particularly squeally and giggly. she irritated some of the more pious people in the crowd ... and that was another thing that mummy would have found amusing.
it made me think about mummy being in my "muscle memory" as i said a few weeks ago. i go to mass occasionally ... but not nearly as often as i used to. but when i go, it is amazing that, without thinking, i can go through all of the prayers and songs as if i said them yesterday. it's striking sometimes when my conscious mind might not be able to say the "apostles creed" but then my unconscious mind takes over and the words just come out of my mouth. it's in me, the catholic thing. woven into me. i went to mass when i was in milan for work and i could whisper it all, in english, as if it were a harmony to the same words being said around me in italian.
that brings me so much comfort.
because if an hour a week for 20 years can embed those words into my soul, imagine what having all of these years with mummy has done to secure her place inside me. and sometimes, when i can't consciously conjure up a memory of her face, my unconscious mind can still feel the memory of her spirit wrapped around me like one of the blankets she'd tuck around me on a chilly evening.
and, remarkably, i can easily conjure up the memories of curling up behind her all of those times in that hospital bed in the sunroom.
i haven't even looked at the photos from christmas yet. that is not like me. i'll try to do that soon and add some pictures of our lovely holiday. and missy's first cake. but for now, i must pack some boxes.
Monday, December 24, 2007
we're all together now...missy and bill's four children. we spent the day together doing our last minute shopping and running errands.
we ended the evening with a dance party with missy. she hasn't completely mastered walking yet...but she loves to dance. she heard music on the credits of a special we were watching and she just started dancing. so we all started dancing. (the beast even tried to get in on it.) then missy started clapping, so we all started clapping. then she started giving us all high fives. she was squealing with delight.
(it is particularly delightful when she squeals because she smiles a huge smile and you can see that she only has four teeth...two on the top and two on the bottom.)
i thought to myself, "i wonder if they knew that even after they were gone, we would all make sure we were together."
tonight, i am thinking about mummy's sisters and her brother. i know they are missing her, too.
tonight i am feeling very lucky that my sisters and my brother are under this roof with me.
we ended the evening with a dance party with missy. she hasn't completely mastered walking yet...but she loves to dance. she heard music on the credits of a special we were watching and she just started dancing. so we all started dancing. (the beast even tried to get in on it.) then missy started clapping, so we all started clapping. then she started giving us all high fives. she was squealing with delight.
(it is particularly delightful when she squeals because she smiles a huge smile and you can see that she only has four teeth...two on the top and two on the bottom.)
i thought to myself, "i wonder if they knew that even after they were gone, we would all make sure we were together."
tonight, i am thinking about mummy's sisters and her brother. i know they are missing her, too.
tonight i am feeling very lucky that my sisters and my brother are under this roof with me.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
a year ago, today, we were all in a house full of love taking care of mummy. at the time, it was the saddest and sweetest time of my life. since then, things have become much more sad and life has continued to be sweet. it's a strange holiday season without mummy. one thing remains...there is still a house full of love on hornbeam drive. i will go there on sunday and we will celebrate together and miss her every single minute.
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