this week we are lucky.

one of our timmys goes to virginia tech. he was in the building next to norris hall when the senseless killings took place.

he lost his lab partner from last semester.

and i feel an overwhelming mixture of sorrow and relief. because he and his sister and their mummy, sheila, should not have to hurt as much as they are hurting this week. when you are young and you feel, first hand, something as senseless as this, your world is forever changed. i want them all to have the brighter, shinier world that they had the week before. i remember how mummy felt when i suffered my first few hard knocks, so i know that sheila is hurting so much for timmy and for kaitlin.

and i am so relieved that he is okay and that they still have each other and that we still have all of them.

i know how loss feels. and i have felt it at different levels as i have lost people in my life. as horrible as it is to have lost mummy, i think losing a child would be even worse.

a few times i would catch my mind in the middle of the "what ifs" and the "what if we had gotten a phone call that timmy was injured or worse" chokes me up.

but we still have him. and that reminds me how lucky i am.

mummy is the one we call when crazy things like this happen. i remember calling her on the morning of september 11th when i saw the second plane go into the tower on tv. she was already on the phone with maura.

and, while i missed hearing her comforting voice this week, i had the same little moment of thankfulness that i had after september 11th.

because dad had died earlier that year, and i was glad he didn't live to see that.

and while i really miss her at times like these, i'm glad that mummy didn't have to experience this.

the rest of us are still here. and we are still breathing. and we still have our luminous timmy and kaitlin and sheila. and, again, i feel lucky.

she was ahead of her time.

today, i read that the pope has revised the catholic church's stance on "limbo."

when we were small children, the nuns told us that unbaptized babies could not go to heaven. instead, they would spend all of eternity in an "in-between" place called "limbo."

my mother was a very faithful person. and she was a good, catholic woman. she was also a critical thinker and she believed in god's unconditional love and his infinite capacity for forgiveness. she infused our minds with these beliefs.

so, the institution of the catholic church is finally starting to catch up with her.

and they have come out and said that you don't have to be baptized to go to heaven.

now, if they would just be able to wrap their heads around the idea that god made all of us in his/her own image, and we all deserve to be able to live in freedom without judgement by other humans ... gay or straight, black or white, male or female ... they might catch up to her even more.

she used to say "when i'm god ..." (because she used to pretend that perhaps we all got to take a turn at the god thing) and then she would go on to say what she would do: little things like making sure that the people who came to church every sunday were guaranteed a seat at mass on the crowded holidays of easter or christmas, or big things like making sure that people could live and love and believe freely.

she was ahead of her time in so many ways. and perhaps now she is in heaven with a bunch of unbaptized babies.

say a prayer for her, babies scare her out of her mind.

i am aloof.

i did it again tonight. i drove right past a turn i was supposed to take. and not in an unknown place, but on the road i take every night on my way home. i did it on tuesday night coming back home from the oakland airport. i was deep in thought and the next thing i knew, i had no choice but to take the bridge halfway across the bay and make the first possible u-turn at yerba buena/treasure island. that deep thought cost me a $4 toll.

i am an airhead. i forget where i parked my car, i forget what day it is. i am so lost deep inside my own head that, when i snap out of it, i find myself feeling like a sleepwalker who just woke up in the middle of a crowded room.

fortunately, things are so busy at work, that, when i am in the thick of it, i don't fall into my own mind. it's the drives to-and-from, the quiet minutes at home, the times i am waiting in lines. the "in-between" times are the times that i get lost.

inside my head i have sweet memories, and battles with myself, and ask questions that i forgot to ask her. i replay the last few months and second guess myself inside my head. i have flashes of understanding that she is never coming back and get kicked in the gut all over again inside my head.

inside my head, i remember her eyes and the love. i still just remember the end...but there was so much love in those last three months that i still have goodness there.

inside my head, i am aching to ask her how it was, the dying, and if she was scared. and i want to do it over and do it better and make sure she gets a chance to say she is scared instead of being as strong as she was, so i can comfort her the way she always comforted me. she mothered us until her last breath. i want a do-over.

inside my head i rage at god and ask him why he took her so damn early. i feel really ripped off inside my head.

and, when i snap out of it, i still feel really ripped off.

i feel both lucky and ripped off at the same time. she was living and dying at the same time. i am fine and i am broken at the same time. it is trippy.

it trips me. and when i fall, i fall into my own head.

missy moo
missy is the "world's tallest baby." the only thing average about her is her weight. she is dead center in the weight charts. she is off the charts when it comes to her height.

she holds her own bottle. she is has a luminous spirit. she loves it when you hold her under her arms and let her use her own legs to hold herself up. that makes her smile. she smiles a lot.



liam
is a talented artist. he can tell a brilliant story. he also has a gentle spirit and he is more articulate about his feelings at 9 than i am right now.

seamus
seamus plays the trumpet and the accordion. he has more musical talent at 9 than i will ever have. he is also a talented artist. he has a gentle spirit and he loves being missy's protector.

buzzy
buzzy is my brother. he is the father to liam and seamus. if i imagine the father that i always wished i had ... buzzy is a better father than that.

we had a really good weekend at mummy's beach house. we missed her, but we were surrounded by her and if she could speak to me right now she would tell me that she was "tickled" to see us together.

good news : bad news

the bad news is that i just had the flu like i've never had it before. i now truly understand the phrase "violently ill."

the bad news is that i had to postpone my flight home two separate occasions (with two separate charges) because i could not be a "seat belt sign" away from a bathroom, even for a minute.

the bad news is that i had to miss a few days at work and (good news) there is so much work to be done right now.

the good news is that i was at mummy's house when i collapsed. and i literally collapsed. twice. so the first time, since she died, that i was so sick that i just wanted my mummy, i was not alone. maura was there and she took such good care of me. and i know that mummy would have been so proud of her. she made sure i never had an empy water glass. she went and got crackers and soup and ginger ale. she checked on me around the clock. and i kept thinking how proud mom must be watching her children take such good care of each other. doing the things that she used to do.

the good news is that tuesday was maura's birthday. and i was there for most of tuesday. up until that point, maura only had three birthdays without mom. mom spent maura's birthdays with her. it was their special thing. even when maura lived in nashville, mom would get in her car and take a road trip and spend at least the day/night with maura on her birthdays.

being stuck with moo when i was sick, and having her stuck with me on her birthday. it was divine intervention and it was good. (even if we celebrated with saltines and ginger ale.)