intervention

yesterday, two of the account directors at work staged a mini intervention.

they called me into a room and told me that they had been hearing, from quite a few people, that i was being quite a b*tch. they said this to me in a way that was both compassionate and constructive and i truly appreciated it. i do work at a remarkable place with remarkable people.

of course, i started to cry. if i'm feeling attacked i can remain cool as a cucumber, but if anyone is the least bit compassionate, i come undone. it is what it is. i am currently a thinly skinned bundle of raw nerves.

i had to agree with them. i'm usually the one who is saying "be kind to each other," but lately, if someone comes to me with something that is the least bit sideways, i have snapped at them. and we have launched an agency and a brand in the past 16 weeks so most things have been understandably sideways.

and i knew i was doing it, when i was doing it, but i was unable to stop myself.

i was embarrassed that it had gotten so bad that they felt they had to say something, touched by the way they said it, and relieved that i was honestly able to look both of them in the eyes and say that i had figured that out a few weeks ago and had already started working very hard to get back to the way i used to be.

no one has ever been harder on me than me.

for the past week and a half i truly have been much better and i have been working very hard at that. i feel better. i am hopeful, again.

i had one of those mothers that made me feel like i was truly something special. but this experience has taught me that i can be both unique and common at the same time.

i am a textbook case.



and there is a part inside of me that is really disappointed that i have not been able to rise above this. but there is a larger part that finds comfort in the fact that i am not going crazy. i am just grieving. and this is just part of the human experience. the fact that you can find my behavior on chapter 2, page 95 is somehow comforting to me. (this blog...chapter 2, page 65.)

i've been crying on my way into the office and crying on my way home. i am nothing, if not efficient. i am crying a little less often now. in the beginning, it is actually hard to let go of the pain because the freshness of it keeps you strangely connected to the one that you lost. it's as if the raw pain keeps you attached to the death which keeps you attached to the life that was on the other side of that.

but as i've been letting go of that a little bit, and allowed myself to drift away from her death, i have actually been able to see more of her life more clearly.

i am learning so much right now. and much of it i am learning the hard way.

jason's mother

when jason left the office suddenly a little over a week ago, i prayed that it was a mistake. a bump in the road. a scare. but i was wrong. his mom died. i find myself using the euphemism "she lost her battle with cancer." and during her service yesterday morning, someone else said that. i think it was her best friend. she said that she fought a valiant battle and lost.

and, while i understand and use the euphemism, at that moment, something in my head immediately responded, "no she didn't."

because i had listened when the priest spoke about jason's mother, jill, during the homily and i heard about her strength. and i had been listening to mom's song's on the way to the funeral mass that morning. when bonnie raitt sings "i will not be broken," it brings me right back to mom's fight.

even though the doctors told us that mom was not going to beat cancer, she fought it. valiantly, courageously and gracefully. so when i loaded an ipod with comforting and encouraging songs for her, i made sure that "i will not be broken" was there. and in my head, when i hear it now, i imagine her saying those words to cancer.

" Take me down
You can hold me but you
Can't hold what's within
Pull me round
Push me to the limit
Maybe I may bend
But I know where I'm not going
I will not be broken
I will not be broken

I won't let you near it
I will let my spirit fly
Fly
High"

and when i hear that song, i don't believe mummy lost her battle with cancer. because it broke her body, but it didn't break her spirit. it didn't break her faith and it didn't end her love. it didn't end her love for us and it certainly didn't end our love for her.

i never met jason's mother. i expected that she would have been spectacular because her son is something special. he is bright (in both the "smart" and "luminous" meanings of that word). he is funny. he is joyful.

so i wasn't surprised to find the church packed with people. and i wasn't surprised to hear what a great wife and mother she had been. and, although it is painfully obvious that she died, i don't believe for a second that she was beaten.

earlier in the service yesterday, jason's mom's best friend said that jill had asked her to deliver a eulogy. when the best friend asked if she really thought she'd be able to do it, jill's response was something like "what do i care?" like mom, she kept her sense of humor and she kept her fighting spirit and, by every account, was more concerned about her husband and her children than she was about herself. she was not beaten.

being there was sweet. catholic mass makes me feel close to mummy. even when mummy was alive, i would feel a connection to her when i went to mass. i'd be in l.a. or new york, or even in milan in the midst of a bunch of italian speaking strangers, in a church saying the same things that i knew she was saying somewhere else that day. i felt mummy there with me yesterday.

and i got a really great picture of jason's mom. she was an amazing life force in a truly lovely family. she did a really great job. she lived a wonderful life. her second son paid incredible tribute to her life when he ended his eulogy by saying "we can take it from here." because she built her four children in her likeness.

jason sent me a lovely e-mail this morning. he said that it was unfortunate that we can share the pain of losing a mom. and that is certainly true. i had really hoped he wouldn't have to feel this. especially not this soon.

while loss is as individual as the individuals we lose, grief is universal. and if you are as lucky as jason and i have been, you have siblings that you can lean on. and family and friends that will hold you up when you don't feel like you can hold yourself up any longer. it was faith affirming to see them caring for each other as magee, maura, buzzy and i do. the fact that we share that kind of love in addition to the loss we share bolsters my currently shaky belief in a greater good. goodness is universal, too.

today, it has been six months since mom died. and it shocks me. because i can't believe that much time has already passed. while it feels like it was just yesterday, at the same time, it feels like it has been an eternity.

i woke up this morning and didn't think i could get out of bed. but i did. and on the way home, aunt jane called. it was so good to hear her voice. i had started my day filled with sadness. i struggled through it and by the time i ended it, i was filled with hope. so i have made it through the first six months. and it hasn't been easy. but the words that were true for mummy are true for me, "i will not be broken."

say a prayer for jason and the bedecarre family. the services are over. the out of town guests are leaving. life is supposed to resume. this is the hard part.

there is no crying in baseball

i had no plans for the weekend. this was the first completely open weekend i have had for quite a long time. the thought of it frightened me. no distractions. just me. alone. in my motherless house. living my motherless life.

don't get me wrong. i am not walking around all of the time feeling morose. but the void is omnipresent...the "motherless" thing. the best analogy i can use to describe it will only ring true for seat belt wearers. i'm a seat belt wearer. i put on my seatbelt every time i get in my car. i am securely fastened in before i take the car out of park. i put on seatbelts in taxis (especially in taxis). on maybe a few occasions in the past 10 years, i have moved my car without fastening my seatbelt. it happens so rarely i could count those instances on one hand and have a finger or two left over. the few times i have driven without a seatbelt, i have felt almost as if i were loose in the car. untethered. unanchored.

that is how i now feel in the world. loose, lost, unanchored. i'm not sullen, but i am not secure. so i try to distract myself. i try to keep moving.

this weekend, aside from saturday morning brunch with magee, i had nothing planned.

i cannot postpone the inevitable. i'm going to have to feel it. i'm going to have to feel what it is like to be still, in my own home, without her.

by saturday afternoon, i had already had enough stillness. but i decided if i could tough it out through the night, that i should get a treat. something that would make me happy.

so i decided i deserved some baseball.

i bought two tickets to see the giants play the yankees on sunday afternoon. on the website, i couldn't select particular seats, i just clicked "best available" and bought two.

baseball makes me happy. it reminds me of better, simpler times. like when my first love, marty, would pick me up in his rusted out mustang and drive me up to baltimore to see the orioles play in the old memorial stadium. the carpet on the front passenger side was gone, so he cut up carpet remnants and covered the floor for me. we always stalled out on the same hill. we had nosebleed seats and the same vendor would come running up to the top of the stadium yelling "cold beer." we were young and we were in love and we were happy.

it reminds me of the summer that my best friend, lee, and i made it our mission to meet cal ripken, jr. we'd go to mall appearances or make road trips to timonium to see if we could find him at one of his rumoured haunts.

i knew all of the orioles' stats. al bumbry was the shortest, cal was the tallest. eddie murray was my favorite.

magee and i met at giants stadium on sunday. they weren't kidding when they said "best available." i put my cold beer down on top of the giants dugout. the weather was beautiful. the game was good. (especially when derek jeter was up forever during one inning or when we got to see roger clemens pitch to barry bonds.) and there were sooo many bases stolen.

it was an entertaining game.


and there was no crying.

i am powerless

i came home from work last night and there was a notice stuck in my door. pg&e had come by and turned off my power.

i'm sure they sent me notices. i just haven't had the energy to open my mail. (i thought i had set them up on my automatic bill pay when i switched banks earlier this year. this is one of many things that have fallen through the cracks. who knows what else i have completely forgotten?)

i have bounced checks and forgotten bills, i have lost things and ignored things. this is not how i usually live in the world. i'm usually punctual and responsible. right now, i am barely hanging on.

the few times i have actually explained to someone that my mom has died and that i am uncharacteristically disorganized, it has felt icky. like i am somehow diminishing what has happened.

the worst instance was at wells fargo. i brought copies of wire transfers and explained that i had thought that they had posted and had no intention of bouncing checks. i asked them if they would reverse the charges since we had had such a good banking relationship for over 15 years. i explained that my mom had died and i was completely unraveled. the young banker said this: "my father passed away last year and i didn't bounce any checks."

it was already incredibly humbling for me to actually say that my mom had died. when he said that, it was like a kick in the stomach. like i had trivialized her death somehow.

but i digress. on tuesday, when i came home from a late evening at work and found the notice, i called pg&e and gave them my atm number. and then i sat in my dark house and had a good cry. then i called the claremont hotel and told them that i was a neighbor, that i had no power in my house and asked them if they could give me a good rate.

then i grabbed a flashlight. (it had been tucked in its usual spot in my bedroom with functioning batteries by my former, buttoned-up self. i thanked her.) i threw some clothes in a bag, fed the dog, gave him his arthritis meds, opened the silent fridge and grabbed a bottle of mumm's champagne.

i called magee and invited her to a slumber party at the claremont.

when i checked in to the hotel, i was given a room commensurate with my rate. it was over a brightly lit dumpster. so i called tony at the front desk and told him that i really appreciated the rate, but i was wondering if i could have a better room.

he had a lot of vacancies so he upgraded me to a lovely bay view room. i told him that he had really turned around my really lousy day. he was very sweet.

magee showed up with chips and guacamole and we drank champagne and paid $9.95 for a movie that we talked all the way through.

we're both in the same place. impatient, depressed, hopeful.

mummy loved the claremont.

i was driving up to sonoma yesterday for tolan's second birthday party. the weather was gorgeous and the drive to sonoma is beautiful.

my mind was stuck in the drama from work. i didn't handle it nearly as well as i could have...but i am not doing anything nearly as well as i could nowadays. it is hard — being kicked when you are down.

it is even harder when you don't have mummy to call.

so i was talking to her inside my head and we decided that i needed to just put it all behind me. but i kept going back to it, so we decided that if i would just sing along to the cd player as loudly as i could, i'd probably be fine. so that's what i did.

she liked it when i sang along to the radio. and not because i have a good singing voice. i don't. i think that's why she liked it. because when i was sitting in the car singing out loud, not caring what i sounded like, she knew i felt safe and happy.

so i sang. i sang through a few songs and i started to feel much better. then, john hiatt's "georgia rae" came on. and it happened.

i remembered her before the sickness. and not the logical, in my brain kind of memory...because i can intellectually remember things that happened...this was a visceral memory. it was the first, in-my-soul memory i've had of healthy mummy since she got sick.

and i just cried buckets. so hard that i thought i might need to turn around and go home. (we had a little conversation about that in my head, too. about grace. and that i should turn around and go home if i couldn't pull it together, because the day was all about tolan.)

it was both a sad and happy cry. sad because i miss her so much, i can feel it in my gut. i ache. happy because i was beginning to wonder if i'd ever be able to remember her and any of the good times we shared. and this memory came back. out of the blue. and maybe more will, too.

we shared so many good times. and they were simple times, small, lovely moments, like the one that came back to me when i was driving.

i finally saw her in my head. and not the "breathess, dying - her" or the "dead, with an overstuffed bra and bad make-up - her" but the living her.

so i am adding it to the memories that i can call up in my soul...her hanging onto my toes when i had my feet up on her hospital bed while we watched "ugly betty"...the way she smiled on december 23rd when liam came in and wrapped his arms around her neck and hugged her soooo tight...the way she felt when i curled up in bed behind her when we were watching the grinch...the times when i thought she was asleep and she reached up and held my hand...all of these are so sweet...and they mean the world to me...but in all of these moments she was dying.

now i have this:
i saw her to my left as we were driving up muncaster mill road in her white convertible with the top down. and she was wearing a white cotton hat, like gilligan used to wear. she had these giant plastic glasses over her prescription eyeglasses and she was wearing a polo shirt. i put on another gilligan hat that she had in the car, and i picked up another pair of awful giant plastic glasses and put them on. i don't remember where we were going, but i remember that we were singing "georgia rae" and we were happy and we loved each other so much and we were just happy to be together.

my last voicemail message from mummy

i left work in tears again today. not because of work. (not that work is pretty, right now...i am having an unexpectedly ugly, drama-filled week.) the drama is unfortunate, but i am not shedding any tears over that. i don't mean to be callous, but i've been dealing with so much "life and death" stuff that advertising falls very low on the list of things that might shake my psyche.

yesterday morning i sat down at my desk, turned on my computer and read a message from one of our art directors, marcus, that said that his grandmother had just died.

marcus and i have had quite a few talks about his grandmother over the past few months. he has been going through alot of the things that i went through with mummy. you don't realize until you go through it that no one can give you the answers you need. (his mom is a doctor and she didn't have all of the answers she needed.) all i could do is tell him the stuff that i wish someone had told me. like, if she's stopped eating, the dying is near. chuck gave him opportunities to go back home to spend time with her that he very wisely took.

she had been battling breast cancer for a while and doing very well, but had just started to decline. she was strong almost until the end. he called her almost every day. he felt like it was coming, and we had talked about him going home for the weekend. i had already lined up someone to cover a photoshoot for him. it just came too fast.

they were incredibly close. when he came by to get his stuff in order, it broke my heart to see this lovely, strong young man with his eyes all red and puffy from crying.

his grandmother must have been quite spectacular. he lights up when he talks about her.

today, one of our best account executives had to leave suddenly because it looks like his mother is losing her battle with breast cancer. i hope it's not true. statistically, some people DO survive. i desperately want her to be one of them. i want him to come back and say that this was just an ugly scare.

i think he's probably around 23 years old.

he's another one that lights up a room when he enters it.

i kept trying to focus on the mountain of work on my desk and i'd have tears running down my face. it sucks to lose mom. but i had her for a little over 40 years. it's not fair that he only gets 23. it breaks my heart and pisses me off. (so much for the anger stage dissipating.)

it's been a rough few days. aside from the drama, we've had a more voluminous workload this past week than we've had since i returned 16 months ago.

sadly there is enough real drama in our world. it really bums me out when people manufacture more. i suppose a year ago, i would have been able to muster up the appropriate amount of pathos...but right now i am all tapped out.

if i can just make it to the weekend, i'll head for sonoma for the 2nd birthday celebration of a particularly handsome young man and i will be amongst people i love.

bright, brilliant, lovely, sweet, exceptionally talented friends.

and next week, a fresh start with fresh air and fresh faces.

i'm still fighting my faith, but i end up saying prayers all of the time, so it must be more a part of me than i am willing to admit to myself. yesterday, i prayed for caroline. today i pray for carisa's pete. i hope his surgery today was wildly successful and his healing has begun. and i pray for marcus and his granny and jason and his mom and their families. and i pray for aunt tommie. and uncle jude. i always pray for uncle jude. and for aunt mary anne who could get a job as "the amazing strong woman" if she decided to run off with the circus. i pray for her since she holds so many of the rest of us up.

when mummy was alive, i used to call her and give her the things i needed to pray for and ask her if she would "get on it." (i figure god is much more likely to listen to her than me.) and she used to say that she would, and then she'd tell me that she would "get GoGo on it, too."

so when i was talking to carisa during my drive in, i told her that i would say a prayer, and "get mom in it, too." and then it struck me for a second that i couldn't. but then i remembered that i could.

so the faith is hanging onto me even if i am having a hard time hanging onto the faith.

i really should be in bethany beach. or wandering down some country road in ireland with a backpack and a camera.

really.

the stages of grief

my friend joni sent me an article about the stages of grief just after mummy died. she had just lost her father and was on a path that was parallel to mine.

to quote her, she found it "comforting that there is a universal rhythm to our grief."

in that article they spoke about (5) stages: disbelief, yearning, anger, depression and acceptance.

i think the word 'stages" is misleading because they all bleed into each other. they are definitely not sequential.

i identify much more with the word "shock" than the word "disbelief." i think those two early nights that i had of violent shaking and the feeling that, no matter how many blankets, i was freezing, may have been actual physical shock. the emotional shock is still with me today. i'm not sure if it is less severe than it was a few months ago, or if i have just gotten used to it.

i feel "horror" sometimes, because the picture of her straining to breathe is etched in my head. and when she died, i tried to close her eyes, but i couldn't.

"yearning" is a good word. i ache for her. that stage has not passed.

"anger" is true too. but that is the only one that seems to feel like it is truly dissipating.

"depression" is expected and endured. it's like being carried out to sea by a rip current. if you fight it, you will drown, if you ride it, you will survive.

depression and anger are the only ones that feel like "stages."

"acceptance" is just not happening for me. i think a better word is "resignation." i have not truly accepted that she is gone, but i have resigned myself to the fact that i will never see her again.

right now, my faith is being shaken, because i am not sure that i believe that we will ever be together again in any form. but, like depression, i am riding that current. i don't have the strength to fight it right now, and in my heart, i don't want to fight that battle and lose. i want my faith back. so i will deal with that when i have more strength.

aunt tommie is in a hospital in delaware fighting for her life right now. and i am clinging to what little faith i have left and praying for her swift return to good health.

if you pray, say a prayer for her. say a prayer for all of us.

on memorial day we celebrated aunt jane's 70th birthday. it was lovely. i really missed mom. we all did.

it was good to see dr. and mrs. bodurian, even though we only had time to chat for a minute. we don't know each other very well, but we have a bond that is so strong that it is almost tangible. they both knew and loved mom, and she loved them. and dr. bodurian gave our family a gift for which we will always be grateful. he helped us navigate the waters when mummy was sick. he chose her specialists, he made them talk to each other. he called them all of the time and made sure that she was getting the best effort from doctors who are among the best and the brightest in their fields. during one visit, dr. bobrow told mom and i that ed bodurian had called him up during his weekend at the beach and included him in a conference call with all of mummy's doctors to go over some of the finer points of her care. when it was all over, and we were second guessing everything we had done, we never second guessed her medical care. anyone who has lost someone to cancer will understand how huge of a gift that is.

rebecca, one of mom's "other daughters." was at the party, too. every time i see her, I think that i really need to see more of her. mom was crazy about her.

joshua carty, my cousin johnny's 4th child, is going to be the next steven spielberg.

i love putting cameras in the hands of children. a few years ago, i let joshua and his younger sister susanna take some pictures with one of my better cameras. they both have a really great natural ability. then, i got a video camera and i started making "talk show" videos and interviewing them. josh was anxious to get behind the camera and he has been taking pictures and making videos ever since. he has a gift. (one day, when he is rich and famous, i plan to retire and live in his pool house.)

i had this concept for a "worlds tallest baby" video, so i packed a bag full of mom's tin "houses" and brought them with me to aunt jane's that day.

i told joshua what the idea was, and handed him the camera and he took it from there. he assembled the extras that he wanted for the sound track and gave them direction. he told me what he wanted missy and i to do and he had us do it a few times so he could capture different angles. we loaded everything onto aunt jane's ibook and i edited the film under his direction. we loaded the finished file into hez's wii and had the premiere later that afternoon.

here it is for your viewing pleasure:



it was a beautiful, carty filled day. carty filled days are so good for my soul.

the time at home last weekend was good.

it was good to be home for the long weekend. i had hoped to stay longer but things went haywire at work, and I didn't want to spend my family time on the phone or glued to the computer, so I flew back to california a few days earlier than planned

missy's baptism was lovely. she wore GoGo's gown. this year we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of GoGo's birth. (when liam and seamus were baptized, liam wore the gown and seamus wore the slip.)

it was bittersweet. everything has been bittersweet since mummy died. if she were here it would just be sweet.

i think it hit us all in the middle of the baptism. she should have been there.

but missy was wearing the gown that maura wore and mummy wore and GoGo before her so they were both part of the fabric of our day.



missy was a champ. she shed more tears during her kitchen sink bath that morning than she did when she was trotted out in all of her finery and then subjected to a splash of cold water on her head.

she looks at me sometimes like she has an old soul.



during her baptism, she gave me this look, as if to say, "please, casey, bust me out of here, get me out of this dress and lets have some carrots."

she reminds me of mummy when she does that.