i am thankful. but i must admit that i am most thankful that thanksgiving is over. it was much harder than i thought it would be.

i've had a good week. i didn't get to see as much as i had hoped in new york...but for good reason. we were having such a good time that we didn't bend over backwards to keep any kind of schedule. but we didn't manage to get to all of the things that i really wanted to do, so i'll go back up on sunday morning.

i had a great d.c. day on wednesday. i set off to see the annie leibovitz show at the corcoran and to wander around downtown. on the way down, i was missing mummy so much. before her hip started giving her trouble, she and i used to run downtown often. our last museum trip was to see the calder/miro exhibit at the phillips collection. we have a particular fondness for calder, an artist/engineer and master of whimsy. we used to go see his circus at the whitney whenever we were in new york at the same time. (i'll see it again this sunday)

i was remembering so much about those times while i was driving to the corcoran. so i decided to pretend that she was with me. (strange, yes. but that's what i decided.) and with the exception of the faster pace i was able to keep, i tried to look at everything as if she were there. she and i liked the same things, but had very different perspectives. i tried to look at things both ways.

i was doing pretty well, until i came to the part where annie leibovitz was documenting susan sontag's battle with cancer. and that is where i came undone. wandering from picture to picture with tears streaming down my face.

i am a photographer. that is how i see myself. after daughter, sister, aunt, niece, cousin and friend, that is my next descriptor.

and, when mom was dying, i remember watching everything and not taking pictures. if it were me dying, i'd have had a camera in my hand the whole time. but she is very private. so i only took a few photos. and most did not show her face. they were just visual clues. the bicycle bell from her wheelchair (i loved that when she was pushed into an elevator, looking gaunt, on her way up to chemo, the sad worried look of strangers would change when she rang her bell. that bell helped them see that there was a whimsical woman in that chair.) there's the x-ray sign that takes me back to the day we had her x-rayed to make sure she didn't have a bowel obstruction. (i like that one because it reminds me that, while i was sitting in the hallway waiting, magee was in there holding her up. that picture is very sweet to me.) the hand on her dog was taken with my phone when i though that mom was just about to die. i just wanted something. some kind of picture. and watching mummy on the monitor is how i spent my nights after we brought her home. the pictures are not spectacular in and of themselves...but they bring me right back to those moments.


there are pictures that i will take this week. pictures of "evidence." evidence that she was here. there's legal pad that says "evidence" at the top. on it, there is her handwriting. something cryptic. she was always doing puzzles. and we haven't moved it. we have left so much of the evidence alone. eventually we will have to move on...but not yet.

but i digress. i wandered around d.c. pretending that she was with me. after the leibovitz show, i ended up at the edward hopper retrospective at the east wing. afterwards, i went down to the subterranean museum café where we used to grab a snack and then i went through the gift shop in search of stocking stuffers. when i saw a scarf with a william morris pattern that she loved, i cried. when i came across an umbrella that i thought she would love for christmas, i bought it for myself.

i am so tired of being so sad. and i am getting a little bit sick of listening to myself when i talk about it or reading my words when i write about it. i fugure getting through christmas is going to be even harder than yesterday. but i am not going to put off fighting to be happy until that has passed.

this morning i was watching this week's episode of "pushing daisies." it's a lovely show with beautiful cinematography, delightful characters and wonderful storylines. among the characters are two sisters, vivian and lily, who are mourning the death of their niece, charlotte. they have stopped doing the thing that they love: synchronized swimming. in this episode, vivian is trying to convince lily that they need to work on being happy again. she says "i think it's brave to try to be happy. you've gotten so comfortable being unhappy. wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up in the morning and choose to be happy?" later in the show, the housebound vivian and lily are sitting in the parlor on a rainy afternoon and vivian begins to sing. she sings "morning has broken." (when we were little, magee and i used to lie in our beds at the beach house and listen to the teenage girl in the house next door play her acoustic guitar and sing "morning has broken" on warm summer nights.)

vivian sings the song, and as we listen, we watch the sisters choose to be happy again.



today, i am going to eat chocolate and stay in my pajamas. tomorrow, i am going downtown again with my sisters, my niece and all of my favorite boys.

it is hard to be here without her.

that makes me think of the phrase "there is no i in team."

because there is no "here" without "her." for that matter...there is no "there" without "her."

and "nothing" is the same without "her."

i think i have been playing too much scrabble with my siblings because these kinds of things keep running through my head.

i am so happy to be here with my brother and sisters. it's just so wrong that she is not with us, enjoying this. she was taken from us way too soon. i am trying to stay happy. i don't want to waste this time being unhappy. i need to really pay attention to the good things since she is not here to enjoy them. i cannot let these sweet minutes go to waste.

i'm in her bed right now. in her room. surrounded by her things. comforting and devastating at the same time.

here it comes.

more "firsts." our first thanksgiving without mummy. our first thanksgiving with missy.

followed by our first christmas without mummy. and our first christmas with missy.

thank god for missy. and seamus. and liam. they help us to balance looking forward with looking back.

last thanksgiving was at aunt jane's. it was supposed to be at our house...but mummy was dying. at that point she was still getting out of the house, but she decided to pass on thanksgiving since she didn't want to be wheeled around and cause anyone any trouble. she was no trouble...but we couldn't convince her of that.

i honestly can't remember what i did on thanksgiving. i can't remember if i went to aunt jane's for a little while or if i just stayed home. i think i went to aunt jane's...but whatever i did, i was so preoccupied that i wasn't in the moment...and as a result i have no memory of the day.

i just have memories of mummy. in the sunroom. with one of her many tea-carts by her side. in a hospital bed with flannel cowboy sheets. getting up in the mornings and making an effort to get to the kitchen sink. brushing her teeth and giving herself a little spongebath before she got back in bed and asked for a hairbrush.

i remember trying to get her to eat.

and with the memories of medication and radiation and the scheduling of her chemotherapy are the memories of her laughing and the times she sat and smiled while she spent time with her friends and with aunt jane & uncle john. i also have clear memories of the times that aunt mary-anne came to sit with her and we all deliberately disappeared, closing the french doors so she could have alone time with her sister/best friend so she could feel free to express all of her hopes and fears without children within earshot.

i have never had a christmas without mummy. i have never woken up on christmas morning without being under the same roof as mummy. i tried once. one year i decided to skip christmas in d.c. and have a christmas holiday to myself in san francisco. i told her of my plan that thanksgiving. so instead of magee flying to d.c. without me, mummy and maura flew out here.

we had the best time.

this is going to be weird. we all know we want to be together. we're not really sure we want to be home - at mummy's house in the place where she died. we do know that we need to be in d.c. because seamus and liam won't be able to travel. so we'll be there. motherless on christmas for the very first time.

with the exception of last year, mummy did the santa thing. a few years ago, we were finally able to convince her to tone it down a little bit. instead of a pile of gifts for each of us, for the past few years just stuffed a stocking and (if we told her there was something we wanted) added an extra gift or two. the stockings always had a clementine in the toe, some candy (like mini reese's peanut butter cups), some little gifts and a sterling silver christmas tree ornament. (every year, gogo had given each of her grandchildren a sterling silver ornament and mummy continued the tradition with us after gogo died.)

last year, she was dying. i don't even remember if i said "merry christmas" to anyone that day. that night, when i lay down on the floor with magee next to the hospital bed, i remember praying for her to die. and before the sun came up, she did.

sometime, later that day, i remember telling magee or maura that i didn't think i had even said "merry christmas" and that we had not even celebrated it in any way. and i don't remember if it was magee or maura, but i remember someone handed me a little red box with a sterling silver christmas ornament.

our sweet sick mummy had wireless and a credit card.

earlier this month, i was having dinner with two of my most excellent friends. it was an unseasonably warm october night in chicago and we were sitting on a moonlit deck, talking about everything from men to motherhood to shoes. i found it funny when one friend said that my mom had made everything about her children. she was talking about mom's innate vocation of motherhood.

it actually made me laugh. and i couldn't put my finger on it at the time...but weeks later, when i was talking to magee about it, she seemed to say it best when she said, "it wasn't until i was well into adulthood that i realized that motherhood was not mom's thing."

she was definitely not june cleaver. as a child, i can clearly remember that she was overwhelmed with the whole situation. she was drowning in chauffeuring duties. in a fit of frustration, she washed my yellow uniform skirt with maura's green bookbag and i wore a green skirt for four years. she tried to discourage the last major move i made because it would have been more convenient for her if i had stayed in l.a. at the time so she could visit buzzy and i in the same city. our house was a breeding ground for dust bunnies. she made mashed potatoes with powder from a box. at the end of one visit to buzzy and i in los angeles, while she was at l.a.x. waiting to board a flight to d.c., she got a call from buzzy saying julie had gone into labor with the twins. she got on the plane anyway. when i asked her about it, she said that babies "scared" her.

like magee, when i reached adulthood, i came to fully understand that she had her own, very distinct, non-mother identity.

this is not to say that she wasn't a brilliant mother, because she definitely was. but it definitely wasn't effortless for her.

i'm missing her so much now as i wrestle with some big decisions. but when i ask myself what she would do if she were here, it would be easy to romanticize things and picture her saying just the right thing at the right time. sometimes she did. and sometimes she didn't.

but here's the thing...the last time i made a big decision...it wasn't what she had suggested. but once i told her what i had decided, she went from "i don't think that's the best idea" to "how can i help you do that" in less than 60 seconds.

i can't write about the specifics my current struggles until i have all of my ducks in a row. but i can say that i've figured things out and i've made a decision and that when i finally flipped the switch, i started to sleep much better.

then, earlier this week, i had my first vivid dream about her. it was so real. and in my dream i kept challenging her...asking her if she were really there. because it wasn't like a regular dream. it was as if she had come back to me to assure me that everything was going to be okay. she was her 68 year old self..but without the cancer. with a raspberry colored sweatshirt on. and i saw her beautiful smile and the love in her eyes and i felt her hug in my dream as clearly as if she were physically in my presence. she kept assuring me that it was real. she was real. and it felt so incredibly real. she came back to me. just to assure me that she is still here with me and that i will be okay.

it was glorious.



the mechanics of motherhood were never her forté...but the unconditional love and her constant, unwavering advocacy for the the people she loved..those things were in her bones.

she was perfect in her imperfections.

my work situation is a conundrum. i have a love/hate relationship with it right now. (okay, "hate" is too strong of a word...perhaps love/dislike is more accurate.)

i love the people and the work. our latest Jeep spots make me smile every time i see them.





on the flipside, i really dislike being pulled in 17 directions at one time and owning all of the problems without the benefits of ownership. i dislike being so worn down by my work that when i get time for myself and my family, i have nothing left to give.

i need to figure out what's best for me.

mummy was so good at riddles. i miss her so much.

you expect those "i should call mummy" moments to dissipate as time goes on, and then you learn that things just aren't that linear.

a year has passed

and i just didn't want that to happen. i was dreading this almost as much as i am dreading christmas. christmas will be the first anniversary of mummy's last full day on earth.

i couldn't put my finger on the exact nature of my dread until a few weeks ago. gabrielle suggested i read "the year of magical thinking." in it, joan didion chronicles the first year after the death of her husband. gab had just finished it and thought that it echoed some of the things i had been saying to her.

and it all made sense.

because, as irrational as it may seem, somewhere in the back of my head i still have this feeling that this can't be true. and when i look up and see that it has been a year since we got the call and hopped on the red-eye, a little voice inside my head says "oh my god! she isn't coming back."

i know that seems bizarre. but it's true. there's a part of me that still has not accepted that this is final. the passing of a year seems to rub the reality of this in my face.

yesterday was a very good day for us. uncle jude has been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant for quite some time and yesterday he finally got his new kidney.

at one point today, megan forwarded me an e-mail update from sheila. in it she noted that the hospital staff was looking after Aunt Mary Anne while she looks after Uncle Jude. she said, ""Mom has a barcalounger to sleep in. I told her to ask for anything she needs...they had already offered her something to drink! Good. Maybe time for a whiskey sour? Go and Aunt Missy are up there sipping theirs now...keeping an eye on this." and i felt a huge pang in my gut. all i could think was "oh my god...she's really gone." it still catches me by surprise. how crazy is that? how crazy is it that after all this time, i still wake up on saturday mornings and wonder what she's doing and then remember that she's gone.

if she were here today, she'd be up early in the morning and on her way to georgetown to have her sister's back. and she'd be teasing uncle jude about his drafty hospital gown and celebrating his brand new kidney.

i do feel her looking out for us. and as clearly as if she were here, i can picture her pure joy for uncle jude's good news. but i just want to feel the soft skin of her cheek and see the sparkle in her eye.

if i could just fall asleep, maybe i would see her in my dreams. maybe i will see her with GoGo drinking whiskey sours.

today was the anniversary of the last normal day.

a year ago, today, my life was normal.

for the last time.

a year ago, tomorrow, maura called me and told me that mom backed the car into the garage. she crunched some garbage cans and cracked the frame of the garage door. maura ran outside when she heard the noise, mom got out of the car and walked upstairs and got in bed.

it was odd at the time. maura took pictures of the mess and sent them to me. nervous laughter ensued. then, i sat at my desk and cried. then i booked a trip home. i knew something was terribly wrong. i called to tell mummy...but she still had "laryngitis" so i told her, through maura, that i'd be home in little over a week for some made-up social event. i had to make something up because i knew that she would tell me not to come if i told her i was just coming out because i was worried.

now, i know that she already knew. she knew she had lung cancer. she knew that the tests that would tell the whole story were scheduled for the next day. she knew that she was going to have to give us the horrible news. and she turned into the driveway and she was overcome by pain and she crashed into the house and got out of the car and went upstairs and crawled into bed. so she could just have the last few hours before this all blew up.

and i knew something was wrong. and on october 3rd, i booked a flight that i never took. because on october 4th, i learned she was sick and took a red-eye. but now, as i continue to roll things around in my head, i find comfort in these two things: when she was in trouble and was afraid to tell anyone, she knew i was already on my way ... and when i sensed she needed me, i bought a ticket before she had to say it.



my mummy and i knew each other. so well.

she was the cool side of my pillow when i had a fever.

i've mentioned a few times, over the last few months, how insane it has been at the office. this week was no different. we were pitching new business...so the vacation zen was quickly overtaken by work intensity. it was fun this time. the work we presented was phenomenal. we'll find out on tuesday if we won the account. you can never get your hopes up about these things...but i will be disappointed if we don't get a chance to put some of the work out into the world because it was as smart as it was beautiful.

i've always taken pride in my work, but i was especially proud this week because 80% of the people who contributed to this pitch were people i recruited and hired. and they are as lovely as they are talented. i feel like i have had a hand in reshaping our culture and the results are proving to be incredible.

when you find yourself in the office past 3am...it's nice to be there with people you really enjoy.

i can't show you the work we presented for the pitch, or any of the work that we have done that has not aired yet, but here are a few of the things that we've done since we opened our doors in march:


this one won a lion at cannes


the director for this one is jeff labbé. i love the cinematography. mummy would have loved this one.


the Jeep work makes me happy. i've been singing this song in my head for three months now.

we've got a few more incredibly joyful spots in the works. i'll post them when i can.

the vacation is over.

it ended with a lovely weekend in new jersey with the mooney clan. it's a very sweet thing to sit among a crowd of people that are all family. and seeing little missy among all of those people who look like her makes you marvel at the magic of genetics.




i marveled at genetics again on tuesday when we stopped at aunt mary anne and uncle jude's for lunch on my way to the airport. mummy and aunt mary anne look so much a like. but the thing that sent me into the bathroom for a little cry was the feeling i got when aunt mary anne came out to greet us. she radiates unconditional love for us. i get that when i go to aunt jane and uncle johns. but there was something about being wrapped up in that warmth while looking into eyes that look so much like mummy's and being hugged tightly by those arms that feel so much iike mummy's that churned up the ache again. i was unprepared for it.

we were having such a lovely visit that we lost track of time and made a mad dash to dulles. my flight was boarding when i arrived at my gate.

and now i am home again.