Rollercoaster of a week. Scared. Shocked. Hopeful. Terrified. Dancing. Sad. Laughing. Utter despair. The umbilical cord tying me to my mom’s human form, severed. We began to float above the earth somehow, without our gravity. Phone calls, paperwork, decisions. I got to writing a speech for the funeral, since I don’t really know how I … Continue reading At least not small
And then
You usually don’t know it’s the biggest day of your life when it’s happening. My brain stored her last 24 hours in choppy fragments. Crying with Dad in the waiting room at an ungodly early hour after hearing there was nothing left to do, and then calling my siblings one by one to come and … Continue reading And then
Essential oils and crystals and Mexican food
Thursday, April 19, 2018. Hell day. I walked into the hospital room around 6:00am and squeezed Mom’s hand. She looked terrible with the intubation tube down her throat and the wires coming out of everywhere. They’d used all her access points and made us give permission to use the more dangerous ones. Clearly her heart … Continue reading Essential oils and crystals and Mexican food
Kim, the chaplain, and I
Tuesday April 17, 2018. Kim and Dad were in the ICU with mom. I’d gone to work. I got a text at 10am and I’m not sure how I made it to the hospital through the panic pooling in my eyes. Mom started with what looked like a seizure, and the nurse who now never … Continue reading Kim, the chaplain, and I
Ceaselessly
April 16th, 2018, was a Monday. My notes say, “Last good day with Mom. Camryn there. We bee-bopped to music. Mom laughing.” She’d been strapped down as to not bend her leg and jostle the balloon pump going in through her groin, and she became increasingly uncomfortable throughout the weekend. More medicine bags were added … Continue reading Ceaselessly
Friday the 13th
And then it was Friday (a 13th), and it was probably the least scary day of them all. They extracted the fluid from her lungs with a ginormous needle through her back (barf), and then took her to the cath lab where a scope was inserted through the groin to travel up and check it … Continue reading Friday the 13th
The ER
So the clinic sends her to the ER for a chest X-ray and they’re like, “Oh ya, that’s bad pneumonia,” and start pumpin her with antibiotics. They’re doin all these tests and say her blood sugar is in the danger zone of 400+ and start an insulin line and Mom’s like, “What diabetes?” but by … Continue reading The ER
All the time in the world
Five years ago today, April 11th, Mom came and stayed the night at my house. Her “pneumonia” wouldn’t let her sleep laying down and she wanted to try sleeping propped up on my couch. Little did we know, her heart was already failing from some mysterious heart attack she’d had who knows when. Her lungs … Continue reading All the time in the world
“You betch’yer ass right here.”
I take a lot of pictures of everything around me. I’m the annoying one who yells, “Hey, let’s take a picture!” and they say, “Right here in the Subway line?” and I say, “You betch’yer ass right here.” I’ve always thought it was cheesy, but once I lost mom and realized I don’t have a … Continue reading “You betch’yer ass right here.”
Relentlessly here for all of it
This is a terrible picture. It’s also one of the last ones we have of Mom. My baby sister Karissa had given birth to her first kid, and had just gotten home from the birthing center. We swarmed around our new little baby, doting, but when I looked back, Mom was snuggled up with her … Continue reading Relentlessly here for all of it
Crack-infused ants
Besides me, music may have been Mom’s most favorite thing. And it’s the one thing that makes me feel her in every cell of my body. In the early days when I cried non stop, I was in the car cranking tunes to try and get most of it out before work. That song by Pearl … Continue reading Crack-infused ants
Dead Mom Month
It’s April. My mom died in April, on 4/20, which was just one of a million things that proves my mom had the best sense of humor. She never tried weed, and in those final days she vocalized big and little regrets about her life sporadically. She told the nurses, “But I never even got … Continue reading Dead Mom Month
Mom’s very loud, very dead voice
I met myself when I was 38. Mom died 1279 days ago, or 3.5 years for those who aren’t ticking it off day by day like a prison sentence. She died, out of nowhere. A curveball thrown by the universe with a deep, maniacal, slow-mo laugh echoing around my world. Mom. Dead. All of a … Continue reading Mom’s very loud, very dead voice
Brindle
Anyone who knew me during the middle decades of my life knows about my Scared-of-Dogs phase. Those years were full of anxiety and stress, and just one of the ways it showed up for me was not allowing myself to bond with anyone’s dogs, even my mom’s beloved fifth child Molly. I know I hurt … Continue reading Brindle
Happy birthday mom
Another birthday, I can't even believe it. You would have been 63 years old. I joked with your mom the other day that grandpa had died when he was 70, you died when you were 60, and I just turned 40, so that means I have exactly one decade left. She didn't think that was … Continue reading Happy birthday mom
Mother’s Day
I know I post about my mom a lot and you might say that it’s a little TOO much, but that just tells me she wasn’t YOUR mom. Because she was gloriously hilarious and wildly smiley and wickedly smart and ridiculously wise and only the good kind of sarcastic and the deepest type of authentically … Continue reading Mother’s Day
Pianomom
My mother was a renowned performance pianist by age twelve. She read sheet music like one would breathe air. It was a gift - an innate ability. She’d fill in for people, being handed complicated music moments before an event, only to beautifully and eloquently nail it. When she was 18 she lost half of … Continue reading Pianomom
My Grief Shadow
I climb up on my bed on all fours and rock forward until my head is buried in my pillow. I wrap my arms up under it until I can grab the back of my head and try to hold in all the wailing, all the sobbing... contain it in the cocoon I've built for … Continue reading My Grief Shadow
Ramblings of a Dodo 