a week ago, magee and i went out to a little place in berkeley called "sea salt." we were both looking for a meal that would be both delicious and healthy. (we're working on taking off the extra pounds that came with three months of chocolate ice cream followed by six months of sadness and most recently, depression.) it was delicious. she had a beautiful salad and some fresh chowder and i had half of a big crab and some figs with blue cheese.

it was all soooo fresh.

we commiserated about how we are living in this world right now. the fact of the matter is that neither of us is in a position to say "my world has been shattered and i need time for me, so i'll be taking the next year off of work." so we work..as much for ourselves as for the people who seem to freak out when we are out of the office for a day or two. and rather than people saying, "i know you are in more pain than you have ever been in your entire life, i appreciate your efforts and your commitment," people remind you that you are not doing things as well as you usually do them.

to that i say, "no shit, my mom is dead." no one in this world ever loved me more than she did..and she is gone.

i had no idea how much she helped me cope until she was gone. i called her when i was happy and when i was sad. i called her when i needed to know how long to bake a potato. i called her when i was crossing bridges. and my life has been blessed because i always knew she was there with open arms.

when someone chased me down 5th avenue harassing me, she was there, when someone fired me for not participating in his kick-back scheme, she was there. when someone was brutal to me because she thought i was after her job...mummy was there. she knew me. the days i wanted to give up, i called her and told her. she usually said "you don't want to quit. that's not you." once she said "come home, you don't have to take that anymore."

and i didnt quit. because just knowing that i could quit gave me the strength to go on.

no matter what i was up against...she was my safety net. and now she is gone.

and now i have to learn new coping skills. by myself.

magee and i were talking about how hard it is when people consider her death a distant memory. and how hard it is to walk around with a gaping wound that noone can see.

i definitely feel that way at work. and i really feel like most of the people at work have no idea how huge the hurt is. and, while i certainly would appreciate a little understanding, i would prefer that they have no sense of this for as long as possible. i wouldn't wish this on anyone. so there is a silver lining to that cloud.

luckily, my life is bigger than my job. and outside of work, i feel constant love and support.

last wednesday night, i was sad. on thursday morning, darcy called me as i was walking out the door to go to work, and quinci sent me an e-mail checking in. carisa called to say hello. as if telepathic, my friends and family called me just to check in when i needed it the most. e-mails from analisa and cat and aunt jane and uncle john, movies of missymoo from maura, funny e-mails from buzzy...they all come just when i need them.

i am getting better. i am not missing her less. i actually think i am missing her more every day. but i am fighting harder for my own life so i can do enough living for the both of us.

i am lucky. they say "you can't take it with you." and in the case of her safety net, it is true.

i am one of the lucky ones. if i get tired, or if i am scared, or if i get fed up...she left the safety net behind. she left it with magee and me and buzzy and maura. and with aunt jane and uncle john and lea and peaver and johnny...she left it with my friends. like cat, who sent me an e-mail out of the blue saying "FYI you know you can get on a plane and come out here any time you need a break!"

i have been so scared for the past few months. frantic, actually. and i am just starting to calm down, because i am just beginning to realize that everything is going to be okay. because i know that my friends and my family will keep me safe. because my mummy built me a net. and she consciously built it to outlive her.

so i am finally starting to go back to my old ways. i am starting to have the courage i had when she was alive. i will swing for the fences and make no apologies for my fouls. i am still spoiled. because i still do not have to do anything that i don't want to do.

and there is great freedom in that.

i have mummy to thank for that freedom.

insomnia

i am losing sleep again. there are too many things running around inside my head. i don't think i could possibly have any clearer understanding of the word "depression" than i do right now.
once again, i am a textbook case. this is what happens six months after your mummy dies.

it feels strange. like gravity has an extra pull on me lately. everything is so hard.

and i need to snap out of it. not the sadness...because avoiding the sadness is just postponing the inevitable...but the depression. the lethargy. the overwhelming "woe is me" feeling.

i don't want to minimize the clinical part of the equation. it is more than likely that this is just as physiological as it is psychological. and i don't mean to suggest that depression is something that people can merely "wish away" because i think i would be doing a disservice to anyone who has struggled with the illness.

but i don't want to medicate myself.

i don't want to take pills to sleep and then pills to wake up. i want to try using a hard day's work to help me sleep and exercise to help me wake up.

and i want to stop wallowing. when i look back at my most recent posts (except the one about tahoe) i get a little sick of myself.

i want to be more like her.

she was getting her ass kicked by cancer and, up until four days before she died, she was putting her shoes on, brushing her hair, and trying to make herself useful. she was so strong. and she did everything with such grace and i am not holding a candle to her right now.



i need to try harder. i want her to be proud of me.
when i wake up in five hours, i want to rise and shine.

i have to remember that i need to live for the both of us now.

today, magee came by at 7:15am. (it might have been earlier, but i didn't hear her until 7:15.)

she's been going through the exact same depression i have. she has the same lack of patience, the same struggle to start the day, the same everything.

i guess that is to be expected, because we lost the same mother, but it still surprises me when i get an e-mail from her saying exactly what i am feeling.

so she came by last night and we both agreed that exercise is probably the best way to ease our lethargy.

we had decided to go to the track from 7:00am to 8:00am this morning.

but i was still asleep at 7:15am.

she asked me if i wanted to sleep in and i said "no," threw on some sneakers, grabbed an ipod (mummy's) and went for a brisk walk.

and later, when i was driving to work, i remembered a saying that mom thought was funny. i can't remember if it was on a magnet or a coffee mug or a notepad that she gave me. i do remember that it was a commentary on the look i used to give her when she would pop her head in my room in the mornings and say "rise and shine."

the saying was "i may rise, but i refuse to shine."

it made me smile.

because my strategy right now is "fake it 'til you make it." and i am pretending i am a functioning member of society until i actually become one again.

and i was quite happy that i got up and got some fresh air before i started my day.

again, baby steps.

the hardest part of the day

i woke up this morning and i thought "i just can't do it." i just cant come up with enough strength to function today.

but i had so much to do.

so i took a shower, dried my hair and drove to the office. i parked at the lot at the end of the street instead of in my usual lot three blocks away.

i figured i'd go in, do the things that i needed to do and then let people know that i wasn't feeling well and go back home.

my 10:00 meeting was moved to 11:00. then at 11:00 it was moved to 2:00. and before i knew it, i was in the thick of things. functioning. not brilliantly. but certainly more than adequately.

i was still tired. depressed, really. but i realized that the hardest part of my day had already passed....when i got out of bed.

tomorrow i will try to "rise and shine." like she used to say....

how can it be that 6-1/2 months later i can find myself crying just as hard as i did on the day that she died?

sometimes, the very fact that she is gone knocks the wind right out of me.

lake tahoe is good for my soul.

this trip was too short.
i wish i had at least two more days with my friends in the fresh air and sunshine.
i love, love, love, love, love them.

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.