April 17.2024

Oh my...

This feels like time traveling. 

"I have loved your for a thousand years, I will love you for a thousand more..."

(I just found this blog, I thought I lost it a long time ago but I was finally able to recover it.   It feels like a gift. )

It's been 17 years, how is it possible that I haven't seen your face, kissed your cheeks, held your hand for that long?  Well meaning people told me at the funeral it would be a blink of an eye and then I would be with you again.    I didn't believe it or like it but I smiled and let them hug me in all their awkwardness, in all that sadness and perfume, drippy mascara, black dresses and suits, sun shining like it had a right to, like it changed anything.   You ordered a sad funeral with big black umbrellas and rain.  

I don't know where to begin, how to catch up, I don't even know where I left off. 

Its 2024.  I am getting old Stevie.  Not Nana old, but the kind of old that annoys anyone under 30.  Under my blond there is gray hair and it's pretty.  Last year I shaved my head with Stacy when she had to have Chemo and radiation, It felt nice that she asked me.  I remember you saying you didn't want me to shave my head when you had to, "You don't have cancer mom, I do, this is my story, not yours".  You were right.  I had become so connected to you, thought if we were one person I could save you, keep you alive, keep you safe, and cancer couldn't get you.    I was wrong. 

So I shaved my head and let it grow in grey and. kept it that way a while, really liked it, got bored, dyed it back and now I am letting it grow out wild and curly mostly because I am too lazy to get haircuts every two weeks. 

I have wrinkles, my boobs sag, my thighs look all cottage cheesy.  I am overweight again, flabby, and I am embarrassed by it.  I know it's stupid and a waste of energy to worry about it and even more stupid to not take better care of this body.   I need to do better. 

In 2020 I hemmoraged, almost died, really almost died, the doctor didn't think she could save me.  I scared the crap out of her but she used her superpowers.   Three times that woman has showed up in my life out of the blue, so strange and I am grateful.  She cut out my uterus as fast as she could and thanks to some generous blood donors and a little help from all of you (over there where ever you) are I survived. 

A month later we entered the pandemic.

I meditated a couple months before all of it, and I heard you say, mom, don't be afraid it will be ok.  TT also had a dream that you were trying to tell her something urgent and TT kept saying "I don't understand"  she knew how badly you needed to tell her this thing to tell me, to warn me?  She woke up crying and called me, it broke her a little. 

We are ok.  It was scary. 

So many people died and I think that time changed this country, changed this planet in ways we are still trying to understand.  I don't think it was for the better.  It should have united us, it should have given us hope, it should have made us all realize how fragile we are as beings on this planet and how much we need each other.  Sadly that isn't what happened. 

Nana has died,  Hadley, then my mother, my father, then Sarah, then Uncle Bill, then Uncle Randy, oh and Uncle Rons dad died too.  Not in the pandemic, just kinda one after the other of old age or illness.   It's so weird, this family is so much smaller.   Aunty Jerry is still alive but she is old, in her 80's.  She is still herself, we still talk almost every day, we don't debate anymore, it's tender, she tells me she loves me before we get off the phone every time.   It feels good but it also feels sad.  She isn't as crisp as she use to be but she is still here and not ready to leave this earth anytime soon.   

Ashley had a little boy, Megan has two little girls,  Allison has three kids! I was suppose to get together with them on Friday but I broke my leg on Wednesday and I am not sure I can make it happen.   Maybe I will change my mind, we will see.  We all wanted to be together on the 19th, it kinda felt like somehow you would find us and share the day.  

Fuck Stevie we all miss you so much.

Noah will be 25 in September, he is a man, a musician, a good person and he is still so beautiful.   I am not sure what his future holds but he is finally ready for music and all that means, I just wonder if he waited too long.  I think being on television at such a young age was too much for him at the time.   Watch over him, Find Sarah and could you two help him find the opportunities he needs to make this thing happen?  the music is so beautiful, he composes like he is from a different planet.  I know with all my heart he was meant to bring beauty and peace to this world, he is someone meant for kinda big things.  

Aly is graduating in 14 days from college.  It is a little late in the game but you know she does things in her own way in her own time.  I am so proud.  She works full time, put herself through college this time (would not accept our help) she provides for herself as a single woman on her own.  I am very proud of her in all the ways.  We are finally starting to be friends I think.  It is hard for me because she is always my Pie, my first born, my baby girl but I am starting to know her as a woman and she is kinda cool.   I think you would like her. 

The Mouse is 11 years old.  How the hell did that happen?  He is smart, loves chess, loves the ocean, loves dogs, he is funny and damn I know the two of you would be best friends.  He is so much like you that sometimes I wonder if he is you.   I like him, I really like him. If you sent him, thank you.  I am so glad he found his way home, I am so glad I didn't give up,  so gladded he waited for me, and I am so glad I didn't let age, fear, or anything else stand in the way.  I followed my intuition and my heart, and I heard him calling.  Everyday I am grateful. 

He doesn't take your place. if anything I hate it that you are not here to love and be loved by him, you are both the same kind of smart and stubborn,  he is your brother for sure. 

I am making art still.  I turned the sunroom into a studio and have a boat I bought myself that I use as a studio and a place to have art adventures with other artists.   In some ways my life is pretty awesome but in other ways it hurts more than I wish it did.   Maybe that is a dance everyone has to do, I don't know.  Maybe its my chemistry or my damage, or living with grief?

Before this terrible broken leg I was walking and running a little.  I wear my ear buds so people don't think I am schizophrenic and talk to you out loud, it feels like a conversation.  

I don't go out to the cemetery very often.  It hurts a lot now, before it felt like a connection and now it feels like a reminder that you are too far away.  I use to go there and spread out a blanket bring cake and fruit, take a nap...it was comforting being as close as I could to you.  Now it feels like...a grave yard, like lost memories, a sea of silk flowers and name plates and tears, so many tears.   I touch the raised letters of your name on your marker, and it all feels like someone else's life, not mine, not yours, just a bad dream.  If I let myself slip into the sad I am not sure I am strong enough to climb out. 

I have built a room in my heart for you, it's sacred, it's a place with none of the sad parts, just the love I have for you, I visualize all kinds of beautiful places you live and sometimes I visit you there and you take me on adventures, tell me stories.   I try to get to know you the way you are now, I try to let myself feel the everything you are.  I don't know if it is all my imagination and I don't really care, It's what I have. 

If I have it all wrong, wake me up and set me straight. 

I wonder if I could have seen my future self back when I started this blog if I would have believed what life would be like in 17 years.  Another child, a couple jobs, new friends, a pandemic, the same house but layers of paint, a new sofa, a different kitchen (that is a little outdated now) our new car that we got when you started radiation is the old car now, it's Noah's.  The me that I am now, older, different...

Would I have been able to bear the pain of knowing that the world kept turning and life went on without you here?  Back then it didn't seem possible.  For me the world has never been the same, it's like a color dropped out of the spectrum. 

I am ok, I am but I still miss you, every single day. This loss is a part of me now.  I live and love with it around it because of it, for it.  It is important.  You are still you, still real, still my heart. 

The pink tulips came up, the daffodils are beautiful every year, when the sky turns pink my heart bursts every time. 

I am still here bunny, still your mom, still missing you, don't be too far away

Mama