Stevie and The Dream of Horses

Rambeling and remembering...

2011-12-05T15:29:00.001-08:00

I started this blog after my daughter left her body. I wanted to be able to express my grief, honor it, and be able to hopefully look back and find growth and healing. I wanted another mom who had lost a daughter to find this blog and say "I am not alone, it doesn't fix it but at least I am not alone." I needed this to be a place I could say anything I needed and not worry that I was being a drag or bumming someone out. In real life the person who is grieving continues to grieve long after everyone else has moved on with their lives, for us it lasts forever.

I think the blog has done it's job, my words have reached people they needed to and having the freedom to talk about my daughter or whatever else is going on feels right with my soul. This blog has been a letter to myself, it reminds me that there I was and here I am, this is what I did, and I am still standing.

The days that I melt down and don't feel like I can get up are farther apart. I don't wake up every morning and cry anymore. I don't go to the cemetery every Thursday and I stopped going on the 19th of every month, now I go on her death day, her birthday and sometimes just because.

I still talk to her every single day, I write her love letters in the steam on the shower door. I keep her things, the few things she left behind in her closet but I don't visit them like I use to now they are here because it hold her place, they are symbolic, nothing can take her place, nothing will erase where she has been in our lives.

There are still times when I can't catch my breath because the pain is too big for me but I know I will move through it,that it's just what I must do, what I must feel, then it fades and things begin to hum and move and happen.

I tried to have another baby, for so many reasons, most that make sense to no one but me or a mother who has lost a child. I have put my heart and my body through so much in the last three years trying to make this happen. Finally it did happen and my much wanted, waited for, fought for little girl was here, growing, kicking, stretching...then she wasn't. Claire died, it was a random mutation that had nothing to do with anything anyone could explain. It could have and does happen to many people and she and I happened to be those people. I once again left the hospital without my child.

You would think that all this loss has broken me and I would give up but I can't and I won't.

I am not made out of give up stuff, if I was I would not still be here. My whole life has been about challenges and I am a girl who isn't afraid for long of them. I am a kicker and screamer, I am not told "no" easily and it would be a mistake to underestimate my strength.

There is something in me (in all of us) that knows what is right for us. It is a feeling that is deep inside you and hard to shake but it has a gentle voice. This "something" says "this is for you, but it's your choice, do the right thing" As most of us know the right thing for us isn't always the right thing for everyone else. As a mother I put my children first, my family first. If I have a little of something it is all theirs. If they all want to swim at the deep end I paddle out, even though I am afraid. If they all need me home when I want to be somewhere else, home is where I am because I would rather be with them than without them even if I am missing something else.

I don't think I am unusual when I say "I have lived my life for other people" I don't mean it to sound dramatic or like I am a martyr, I am not, I chose this, it is what I love and when my family is happy I am happy. Over the years I use to think "someday it will be my turn" and when I wondered how I would feel if that day never came, I didn't care. I wanted to be a mom, since I was seven, I wanted to be lots of other things too but a mom most.

I still do. Someone asked me once, and trust me she said it in a loving way, "after all this why would you still want to be a mom"? She said it would destroy her to lose a child let alone two and she would be terrified and scarred. I told her this, " when you fell in love for the first time it blew your mind, turned you upside down, then it ended and for a while you didn't think you could endure that kind of love and loss again. One day you woke up, you got a tea at Peete's and there he was this man who makes your heart pound and you have everything in common and you knew you would love him forever and it's magic for a little while then it isn't and you are back in the trenches, hating men, going back to the gym sure you will be the kind of woman who never needs a man. Two years later you are in a wedding dress, and all that happened before (in hindsight ) makes perfect sense, you had to endure what you did to get where you are. Some part of you held on to hope and the belief that someday that kind of love would be yours to keep."

For me it's the same. I love being a mom, I still want to be a mom, a baby won't take away the pain, it won't bring back the children I have lost but hope still lives in me and the belief that someday that kind of love will be mine to keep.

Maybe some people think I am too old or my relationship with my husband is too strained or maybe I have had my chance and I should give it up. That is OK, they don't have to live my life, they do not know my heart and I wouldn't want them to. Most people who really know me and love me understand, it may not be what they would choose for themselves because they are not wearing my shoes but they know it is what I need and want most and what I am made out of.

This is the first time in my life I am doing something that is right for me, because I believe it will bring me peace, healing and happiness. It may not be the right thing for my husband or for my oldest daughter (who thinks I am as old as dirt, and a little crazy). It might not be the easiest thing to do and it might be a lot more heartache and hard work but I am sure this is right for me.

It may not happen for me but I will go down with this ship, I won't put my hands up and surrender, there will be no white flag above my door...

I have this feeling, and I can't explain it that even though things look grim and impossible right now that they are about to change. I don't know how but I feel it, it's strong. I have felt this before and I trust it. My baby (child) will find me, I will leave it up to the universe to decide how that will happen. [don't worry I haven't lost my mind and I am not going to go out stealing babies or purchasing them at the local Walmart from crack heads] All I can do is open my heart up to this, trust and wait. I am breathing deep and standing still, hard to do when you are a stubborn hot-head like me.

I won't make resolutions for next year, instead I am waiting for a miracle.

I have two beautiful daughters in heaven and I think they are looking out for me.

I will continue to chronicle this journey no matter where it takes me, I know I will end up exactly where I am meant to be.

24

2011-09-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Stevie,

Today would have been your 24th birthday...or is it still? I am not sure how this works. To me you are still 19, I can't imagine you any older. It would have been nice to know you as a college student, then graduate, then working woman. It would have been nice to help you decorate your first apartment, come over for home cooked meals a la Stevie.

Would you have called me late at night to tell me about boyfriends, ask me how to get a pasta sauce stain out of a sweater or just call because you miss my voice and it helps you sleep. Maybe I would call you...yep I would every night and maybe you would ignore me, that would be fine with me.

Instead I am here on this planet in this physical body wondering where the hell you are and if you are somewhere what you are doing in that somewhere, that everywhere.

I imagine you with Claire swimming in a blue, blue, blue ocean, dolphins around you, water warm and the sky pink. I can hear you laughing in my imagination, the water splashing, you with a baby, our little baby.

Oh sweet girl the years are flying by and everything changes. I don't want it to change too much, I am afraid time will try to erase you, I won't let it happen.

I went to the cemetery today, when I got there a little man with skin like chocolate from working in the sun was digging a very, very big hole. I couldn't find your grave and for a moment I thought he dug you up. I got to the hole looked in and it was empty, no crypt, no coffin just that ugly cemetery dirt that doesn't look real. I asked him where you where and in his best spanglish he said, "service at two" and I told him "No, where is my daughter, where is her marker, what did you do with her?" I think I might have looked a little crazy and he lifted a big board he had placed over your marker to see if that was the one I was looking for.

I told him "Yes, yes" and he pulled the board away, swept the dirt and grass off of your marker and looked sad. I felt bad, it was 99 degrees out today and he was trying to dig a grave and have it ready by 2pm. He gave me some space to place the things I brought (big sunflowers, pussy willow a pretty green ribbon and green apples from our tree) . I didn't stay long, I knew he had work to do and I was grateful that he gave me time he did not have. I wished you a happy birthday, blew you a kiss and said, "C'mon Stevie let's go home".

The drive back was quiet, I didn't cry, I just sat in silence remembering the day you were born, thinking about the dreams I had for you, asking you to tell me where you are, to prove to me you are ok so I don't have to worry.

This is a hard time bunny. I am missing you and mourning Claire, it is a lot for a heart to take. I am doing ok, I am strong but you can see the cracks in me now. I want to try to have another baby, I don't understand this need anymore. Dad and Aly think I am asking for pain when what I am asking for is comfort. I ned to hope, I can't lose hope.

I believe Claire is with you where ever you are. I want to believe that you are telling her all about birthdays and all of your favorite ones, how much you loved parties, and cake, and presents. Maybe the two of you will plan a party so she will know what they are like too. Keep her close Stevie, I know she will love you so much and I know you will be a good sister to her.

Oh sweet girl what I would give to kiss your cheeks.

Know how much I love you...you still have all of me.

Happy birthday chumpkin,

Love,

Mama

Please God let there be a heaven, and let me girls be in the best part of it, where unicorns and fairies live, where angels sing, where cute boys with swinging haircuts sit and have coffee with geeky girls that wear glasses and can kill anyone at scrabble. Let my girls be together and please God Let me be with them again someday.

Claire...

2011-09-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—
I only know she came and went.

How do I tell this story again, where do I begin...

Claire.

On my birthday I went for an ultrasound, it was silly, and I was having one in a week but I paid a little extra to get a sneak-peek, to find out if she was really a girl, I couldn't think of any other birthday present that I would love as much. It would be the first time Noah got to see his little sister.

The technician found a problem right away and I could tell she was worried, she didn't want to send me off afraid, with nothing to hold onto, so she told me my little baby was a girl and I left the appointment knowing that everything had changed.

The following Monday my Obstetrician scanned me and asked me to see a perinatologist that same day. It was at this clinic that a doctor finally told me the truth, the sad, sad, news that my little girl was not going to be born. I was given choices, none of them good all of them with the same outcome.

Claire did not have amniotic fluid, she did not develop kidneys, and there was a zero percent chance she would survive outside of my body. My little mermaid was washed ashore, the ocean had gone and all she had was my beating heart keeping her alive.

I got a second opinion and I learned her little heart was failing. She would not live long inside me, there was nothing they could do. I wondered if she was afraid, if she felt pain, if she was suffering. I begged her to go to sleep, to find Stevie, to leave this place where she would never swim. She held on tight, and that night I felt her little kicks.

Two days later on August 25th, my other grandmothers birthday, I was induced and I delivered Claire into my hands. It was a long sad day, I woke up before the sun and as it set she arrived. My labor was 12 hours long, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, was wrong and at one point thought I would die, and I welcomed it.

Then she was there, resting in the nest of my hands, I held her, kissed her, and told her how loved she was, how strong she was, and how sorry I was that I could not bring the ocean back. My tears spilled onto her cheeks as I memorized every detail of her perfect little body.

Her feet were long with graceful toes, the middle one just a little longer than the rest. Her hands so delicate, her little face round with a pouty upper lip and a pixie nose. She was small, mighty, beautiful, and she was my daughter.

(For those of you who could not wrap yourself around the idea that I was carrying a a baby that was not biologically mine let me assure you that biology is small, this little girl was my daughter, she was my child and my connection to her was strong and real, I knew her, I loved her.)

It is unreal, all of it, how can I be here again mourning the loss of a daughter? What kind of universe hands this to a person? What kind of God is so cruel? I spent some time here, thinking of all the reasons why this is unfair but no matter how angry I got nothing changed, I am here with this broken heart again, arms empty.

I then tried to make sense of it all...I told myself that Claire needed a place to grow and feel loved for 18 weeks, that was it, and she chose me, I chose her, 18 weeks was enough but it is all we were ever going to have. Being a mom means a lot of different things and even though I never got to nurse her to sleep or braid her hair I was still her mommy.

I am floating in a place between dream and waking...I am sleep walking through life right now, I have done it before. I will find things to distract me, projects that keep me so busy so I don't have time to cry. This is what I do, I survive.

I want to try again. It disturbs me a little that I can even think about it, that hope still lives in me...Love and pain sometimes they overlap, most times you can't have one without the other and always you must risk one to have the other.

I have learned some important things, they don't comfort me as much as they should but I have learned that birth and death are the same, that love is bigger than loss, that hope is bigger than fear and that nothing can destroy a mothers heart. I won't be crushed, I won't be destroyed, and I will push this boulder up this mountain again and again...because I must.

At night when the sky turns pink I walk around my neighborhood and I talk to my daughters in heaven. I try to access what ever hidden strength is left in me, I try to make plans, I try to believe in God, I try to understand that the universe has a plan for me and all I need to do is be still, just for a moment and wait for direction.

Claire, Claire, Claire...I wanted to be her mommy, I wanted her to sleep next to me, to smell her sweet breath, to hold her hand, to watch her grow. I miss her wiggling inside me, I miss planning, waiting and wondering what she would look like, if she would be born when the moon was full, the sound of her first cry...

I don't know what happens next, I just know that I am here in this moment and there will be a next and a next, where those moments lead is a mystery that offers hope to me even now when everything hurts.

Change

2011-08-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

It is August and Aly will be 26 this month, how did that happen? She doesn't seem to excited about this birthday, she has hit a place where they just aren't as fun as they use to be. When she was younger birthdays were a promise, they brought her closer to the things she wanted to experience, she wanted to be a teenager, wear make-up, learn to drive, be an adult, vote...

Her birthdays now bring her closer to 30 and farther away from her childhood, the place she was once so eager to escape from she now wants to hold onto, it happens to all of us. My heart is breaking for her I know what she is going through, my little Peter-Pan-ess. Time pulls her forward and the things she cherished most are becoming memories that are harder and harder to hold onto, and Stevie isn't here to hold her hand and be her friend.

It is a year of changes and growth.

I am 16 weeks pregnant today, at 46 that is a big change for me, my body, and this family. I am filled with something that feels like faith, magic, love, and wonder. It is so funny, I have had three children you would think this wouldn't be such a big deal but it feels brand new, like it's the first time I ever had a baby, that anyone has ever had a baby. This little wiggle is already a part of our family and feels like it always has been. I believe it has just been waiting for the door to open to come home.

Aly... is getting squishy and maternal, she fights it but I can see and feel her softening. She will miss my 20 week ultrasound (gender) and is bummed. I am going to do something special for her she can still be a part of the day. I may try to call or text her while we are in the exam room so she can still be there. She has class that day, she could skip but it is the beginning of the school year for her and she needs to be there.

Noah...I can't believe how excited this kid is. He is a little boy and I thought he would be a little oblivious to the whole process. I was so wrong. This kid is in love with this baby and he keeps track of what week I am in, how much the baby is growing, what changes have taken place and how many days are left. He can't understand why it takes so long to grow something so small. At first he was sure this was going to be a boy, because that is what he ordered, a little brother, but he has changed his mind and thinks a little sister would be pretty awesome too and he wouldn't have to share his room if it was a girl! He has picked the names out for the baby and they are good names. He is such a sweet and amazing person. He is taking the morning off of school to be at the ultrasound and he will be at the birth with Aly, my sister, and Steve.

Steve...is doing his best to be a good guy but this baby isn't something he imagined for himself. He feels like he is too old, that our relationship is too fragile, that the future is too unpredictable. I get it, I just don't see things the way he does. I have no idea how his role in all of this will play out but I trust the universe to move us all in the direction we all need to go.

I am sure I did the right thing, I can feel it, everything is falling into place inside me. I felt so broken before, I couldn't make sense of anything, and I could not understand how I could truly put myself back together again but I moved in the direction my heart pointed me and here I am, and I am in a peaceful place.

This child does not replace Stevie, it does not take away that pain, and it isn't an escape from loss. I still miss my girl with all that I am, and there is no escape from the loss of a child but this experience is adding another layer to me; I had to learn to be a mother but not lose who I was as a person, I had to learn to be a caregiver but not lose my ability to be a mother, I learned to be an artist but still stay grounded to the life and family I had built, I learned to let Stevie go and still hold onto myself, now I will have a baby and have a new beginning but I will hold onto the child I lost. I can honor the loss of Stevie and the birth of this child in the same breath.

Is Stevie coming home? Does that happen? I am the kind of person who believes it can. I also believe that there could be a child that has been mine all along that has been patiently waiting for it's turn to come home. No matter what this child is loved and I am sure that this is how it was always meant to turn out, I just had to trust the path I was walking, the mountains I was climbing and the destination that seemed so far away and impossible to get to.

I am a blessed person. On the days when my sorrow is deep I forget, all I can feel is what I have lost, and it is so hard to remember what I have had, what still waits for me. Since I was a child I believed in magical things, witches, fairies, God, angels, birthday wishes, star wishes, moon wishes. I lived in worlds I invented, created imaginary places to hide the things that made me afraid, wrapped hope up in shiny paper and kept it in my pockets.

As an adult it is hard to believe in what was once so easy and felt so real. Stevie's death flattened me out, I felt like I was alone on an island, and not a pretty one. The sea took a tiny bit everyday and I knew one day I would be swallowed by it, and it would taste like tears and feel like falling. Then there were days the sun would come out and dry out the shore just a little, the waves would quiet and I could hear birds far away, in my pockets I could feel something shiny...hope.

It has been four years, and my island is my home, my house is on it, my family is here, my friends, my life. The sea is there and sometimes I am pulled to take my little row boat out into it, brave it, face it, swim in it. It can't swallow me now but it will forever be a part of me, it is what my tears are made out of.

This baby is promise, this baby is wrapped in shiny paper and this baby is helping me believe in magical things again.

My oldest baby is a woman now, still my child, still my little girl with the curly hair the gentle heart, and the laugh that melts me. My Stevie lives in my heart, she is a part of my soul and she surrounds me with her love. My little boy is growing up so fast but he is the glue that has kept my heart in one piece, he is love, he is music, he is sweetness.

This is a year of change, growth, and healing...

Coming home...

2011-06-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

I had a dream that we lived in a small house, even smaller than the one we live in now it was just you, me and Aly...just like before, a long time ago when we lived in the forest and the rain kept falling.

I was getting the shower ready for you and I couldn't get the temperature correct, you kept saying it was OK but I knew it wasn't I wanted it to be perfect. It was just a little dream, faded too quickly, but it felt important, any glimpse I get of you warms my heart.

Well my love it seems one of those little embryos may have decided to snuggle in. It has been two years of tears and trying, wondering if I am crazy for not letting go of this, I just had to try, and try again. The funny thing is that this was my last try, I had run out of options and baby money. I accepted that I needed to move on if the universe said no, but it didn't, it just wanted me to travel a little more before I reached my destination.

Tomorrow I will be 8 weeks pregnant, still very early for jumping up and down and celebrating, when you are my age you have to be cautiously optimistic. I heard her heart beating, I felt you close by... it was like magic, and fairies, and I cried.

I need this beginning, I wish you were here to hold my hand, pick out names and shop for cradles and and soft baby clothes.

A part of me that felt broken is starting to heal, I knew it would. I still miss you, I am still sad, and no one can ever take your place but my heart has a place to land, it is a soft place, it feels like hope and birthday cake... only you would understand.

Maybe there is a God...and maybe God is letting you share a little bit of heaven with me so I won't feel so alone here without you.

Maybe you are coming home...

Here we are...

2011-05-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day...my family gave me flowers (purple petunias for the garden) , Candy ( a hand packed box from See's), and we spent the day wearing pajamas, soaking in the hot tub, eating a super big breakfast with banana pancakes and mango jalapeno sausages. The we went to Berkeley for dinner to Cafe Colucci for some Ethiopian food (yummiest). But this morning I got my real present.

At 11:30 am I had two embryos transferred.

The morning started off nice, a long shower, a bagel at a little place on College, a long walk through a flower filled neighborhood, the houses on Webster always make me smile. I drank the water, took the pills, got the injection and in two minutes it was done.

I then went for a little drive, ended up in Orinda and had a big mango and chicken salad while I sat outside and scribbled in my journal. On my way home I stopped at the cemetery and left a Republic of Cake cupcake for Stevie, a Meyer lemon with rosemary frosting (heavenly).

Home for a nap, made dinner, now I wait.

I feel good about this. Not sure it worked good but at peace with what ever the outcome will be. I had to be in a lot of places to find this place and its good.

There is a Jason Mraz song that is perfect for this moment...

Here we are, here we are, we're still here,
What a beautiful mess this is...
It's like taking a guess when the only answer is yes.
Through timeless words and priceless pictures
We'll fly like birds not of this earth,
and tides they turn and hearts disfigure
but that's no concern when we are wounded together.
and we tore our dresses and stained our shirts
but it's nice today
oh, the wait was so worth it.

The song is called Beautiful mess and I think he wrote if just for me...

I am full, happy, excited, tired and it is time for me to rest, sleep, dream.

Stevie find me tell me you got the cupcake, I love you.

Candy Land...

2011-04-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

It is April 18Th and I remember this day, the last day home, the trip to the hospital we made, the long night and morning, letting you go...

I love you Stevie. It will be four years tomorrow. You would be 23, a student at Cornell, we would have sold this house and moved to East, to be close to you, to be a part of your adventure. You would say not to come, to let you grow up and do this on your own but I know you would be happy that I was not far away, we would find a big house not far from the campus that I would spend years fixing up because I love it and hate it and I am good at it. I would do your laundry, Dad would help you with physics and you would be blissed out.

How old are you in heaven? Are you still 19 or do you just not count days because they have no meaning where you are?

God I hope there is a heaven bunny, and I hope there was a big party when you got there and it has been nothing but beauty and discovery for you since you arrived. I hope you have missed us but not too much. I hope you get to sleep as long as you want and eat what ever you like. I hope you have a big fat cruiser bike you ride on the beach. I hope you have found the best pic-nic spots with big redwood trees and soft grass.

No baby for me, I cried. I told myself I would not try again but I am, one last time,everything that could have gone wrong did. I should have taken that as a sign that it was not meant to be but I woke up one morning after the bleeding started and decided that in April I needed to try one more time because it was April and how could I not...

Tomorrow I will go to the cemetery, not sure what flowers to bring but I bought some green apples and little tangerines for you. I won't stay long, if I do I fall apart and I don't want to. I want to visit the body you once lived in that I loved so much and tell you how much I miss you. Then I need to leave before I start rewinding everything.

I watched a movie called "Rabbit Hole" last night, it was hard, I cried, but I needed to see it for some reason. There is a scene where people are sitting in a circle at a support group for grieving parents and they were talking about feelings of loss. There are some people who have been coming to it for years and years...I don't want to be like that, stuck, so sad, and forever identifying with that and nothing else.

I know everyone has their own internal clock, and there is no schedule for grieving but at some point there has to be more than just the grief, right? You have to shower, eat, drive carpool and plant things. There is work to be done still, children to raise, a house to clean, places to see, and a life that needs living. Staying in one place for too long is not an option really.

There is a part int the movie where the mother who has lost her son asks "Does it ever go away?" and her mother tells her "No, it doesn't, you hold onto it because it is all you have left, it 's like a brick in your pocket, and you learn to live with it there. Some days you hardly notice it, then you will dig around looking for something else and there it will be". I can live with the brick, it is not a choice, but I also choose to fill my pockets with so many things that the brick is easy to carry that when I find it or it finds me it is a part of everything.

You are not a brick, the grief is. You are still you, and still my daughter and this love I feel for you never changes.

I wish you could come home, I wish I could visit heaven. I wish my faith was stronger and the God I believed in as a child still belonged to me and would tell me where you are.

Come to me in my dreams tonight, wake me up, let's play Candy Land and tell secrets. I will paint your toenails pink, and you can tell me things that will make me laugh. We will stay up all night being silly, holding hands, and before morning, before the sky turns you can promise me you are not far away...

I love you sweetness,
mama

Spring

2011-02-28T16:20:00.000-08:00

Its the last day of February. Spring is coming I can smell her, feel her, she is waiting outside the edges of Winter for her turn. I love spring, she holds promise, there are gardens to be planted, weeds to be pulled, leaves pushing through the ground and out of branches. The days get a little longer and the sun is out more and more warming everything back to life, even me.

I love the way spring transforms the back yard, my heart, my state of mind, making me forget the cold of winter, helping me remember every Easter egg hunt we have had here, the year we put in the fish pond, took out the fish pond, put in the hot tub, planted the fig tree, got rid of the old wheel barrel that use to hold daisies and violets...

I can't forget the spring Stevie left and the cherries grew on the tree and everything changed forever but hope didn't die, love survived and here we are, oh here we are.

I belong to her, I am her servant. I am the keeper of her memory, I cherish the things she left behind, I am the caretaker of her grave. I do this because I must because I could not breath if I didn't. She left and I was left behind here, somewhere she waits and watches and I am determined to make her proud, to do this right, to keep my promises. I wait to for a miracle I don't know what it will look like or feel like or how I will know it has happened but it will, I am sure of it.

I adopted four little embryos. I don't know much about them only that they were left behind, the donors could not continue, they had broken hearts. To heal they had to move on. To heal I am taking their place. My heart may be broken too but I have to try, it's what I do.

In a month I will know if these embryos will become babies. If they are meant to be born and if I am meant to give birth to them the universe will set this all into motion, hopefully it already has. Spring is my lucky charm.

This house needs a baby, a beginning, the sound of children laughing, cartoons, and a big plastic wagon on the front lawn. This family needs a child and all that comes with it. Not everyone agrees with me, and I have been told that I should be thinking about filling an empty nest with vacations, quiet afternoons, long lunches with friends and getting to know my husband again.

I am not an empty nest kinda girl, I am not ready nor do I crave hours and hours of quiet and a life that does not include a messy house, Sunday breakfast, and bedtime stories. There will be a time I am sure when I want my life to myself, when I will love not stepping on Lego's or having a bath free of Mr.Potatohead and all of his friends. I am sure that I will someday want to walk on a beach with my husband no smidgets in tow who have to pee...

I still need monsters under the bed, I want to pack a lunches, I want to be late for the dentist, have a calendar full of places we need to be and things I need to remember. I want little feet under covers, good morning kisses, cereal and bubbles. For me this is the best part of life and I have not had enough of it yet.

I am designed to live long, to survive famines, and wars, to heal from mortal wounds and to defy odds. I don't know why. If I am staying I am going to make this life mine by doing what I love most by filling it with family, friends, art, words, good food, and a belief in something bigger than myself. I want to learn about the stars, understand how deep the ocean really is, find things no one else knows about. I want to write a story, learn to sing, travel to the pyramids, toss a penny into the Grand Canyon, and eat dinner in Italy.

I will grow old with our without a broken heart or a house full of kids. Time is what it is and it moves slow when you wish it would pass and too fast when you need it to slow down. It is it's own being and I live inside it, I can't change it but I can be my own being and love and protect what is inside me.

On Thursday I reach for a miracle, and I don't stop reaching. I will go where the universe guides me. I won't be afraid. I have been in the Winter of my life I want to be warm now, I am ready to grow, I am reaching for the sun. Like Spring I am waiting around the edges, waiting for my turn.

2011-02-08T16:59:00.000-08:00

Stevie

The daffodills are up, the ones I planted for you when they were your favorite. They made me think of you, it is a bittersweet thing, I can see your face in them, your smile, and hear your voice but I also remember that you will never see them again, not like before.

Soon the tulips will be here, then spring...

I am praying that spring will bring a baby. This is the month I try, I have adopted four embryos.

I wish you could come home, that you could come back as a little baby that smells like apple blossoms and has the color of heaven in her eyes. It could happen, miracles happen...

My arms are empty. Noah is a big boy now, off running around, performing in show after show, hanging out with friends, getting crushes on girls. Your sister is a woman, when I was her age the two of you were running aroun the house putting toothpaste in your hair, fairy hunting, and macaroni and cheese eating.

I am lonley for a little hand in mine, bedtime stories and beginnings.

Don't be mad at me for wanting this, needing this. You are my heart, my love and my very best buddy in the world. No one has ever or will ever take your place.

I have been so busy, I just keep working hard, it helps, it keeps me focussed outside instead of inside, it helps me sleep, keeps me breathing deep and hoping.

I love you sweet girl, so much, it never changes, it never goes away, it is a part of me, you are a part of me.

If you can't come home send me a little sister or two that might need a silly mom. Tell them there is chocolate cake for breakfast at our house, that we sleep in a big pile in soft blankets and tell stories until we fall asleep. There are fruit trees and a big trampoline and spaghetti dinners outside when the leaves start to turn and fall. We swear like pirates in the summer on our little boat. Dad and I agree on nothing and we are a miserable comedy but we are a family, a good one, a strong one.

Do you miss us? We miss you.

Come home if you can, the window has been open, and I am opening it up a little more.

I love you bunny,

mama

To try or not to try...

2010-11-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

Falling into place...

2010-11-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

It is Sunday, the sun is out but the air is cool and crisp and tastes like winter is coming. It is a good day.

I got an email from a woman who is willing to give us embryos. We spoke with her some time ago but they chose another family who also lost a daughter, That family is now pregnant (and I wish them happy healthy babies)...and there are still embryos remaining. If we want them they are willing to gift them to us.

I have been holding my breath since I read the email.

I told Steve and after a long talk that lasted most of the night and some of the morning we decided we would go for it. He is worried about his age, worried about money, worried about everything there is to worry about. He knows this is what I really want and that I am very sure. He loves me and wants me to have this chance. He will continue to worry but I think it is what we do as parents. We worry so much because we want so much for our children. We know that in a blink of an eye everything can change, we need to be their hero, protector, teacher, friend.

Steve was 41 when Noah was born and his father was 43 when his younger brother was born. I think it will be fine. We have enough of everything...when we had the girls we had nothing and we did just fine. I know this will be good for our family, it will help us heal, love is a powerful thing. I know, know, know this will be good for me, for so many reasons.

We are older now than we were when the girls were born but we also own a home and business, we are smarter, stronger, wiser, we have worked out all the bugs, we understand kids, know what to expect and don't sweat the small stuff anymore.

We have also been married for twenty five years and there are days I would like to run away from home but bake instead. We are both active, work hard, we are healthy and my genetics promise me a 100 years if I look both ways before I cross the street.

These embryos are not a sure thing, they have hurdles to jump and so do I. They have to survive the thawing process, my body has to be prepared. They have to implant and my body has to embrace them. They have to continue to grow and my body has to nourish them.

My prayer is that it all turns out like it should.

I asked for one good thing and good is raining all over me today.

I thank these donors with all my heart. I am not sure if they know how much this gift means to me and how they are changing lives and building families. I asked the universe for a chance, and with thier help I am getting it.

So cross your fingers and toes for us, send up a prayer if you are so inclined, good thoughts are welcome too.

Now I am going to get my little guy outside we have a new RC helocopter to fly.

Emily

2010-11-07T18:28:00.001-08:00

I opened my email tonight, from T a short note "I just read on PBT that Emily passed away".

My heart sank.

When Stevie was diagnosed a joined a support group for parents that were caring for children who had brain tumors. It isn't a club anyone wants to belong to and when I first joined I could not believe I was a member really. I would sit there and cry feeling so sad for these families and all they and their children were forced to endure.

One night I reached out, it isn't easy for me to do that, I like to feel strong and in control even when I know I'm not. I would rather hug someone than to be hugged.

I remember going to the movies back then and there was a St.Judes spot they ran before the film. I cried, my sister felt terrible for me, I turned to her and said "I just don't know how these people do it" She reminded me that I was doing it and it hit me, "Oh my God we are one of those families, my kid has cancer, I am a cancer mom, this may not go well"

I made many friends on that list, what usually happens though is that when a child transitions to the next world that parent also transitions to the next part of their life and we lose track of them when they do. Then just as fast another parent posts, terrified, a million questions, needing someone to hold them up because they can't sleep or eat or figure out what to do next.

We were all falling apart but we somehow managed to hold each other together, I don't know how, love is a powerful thing.

I soon became a moderator and met two amazing people who remain in my heart to this day. They still keep this list running, making sure there is always someone to greet a new parent, they offer advice, resources and will call you at the hospital at two in the morning if they think you are melting down and Melt down I did.

When it was Stevie's turn to transition I left the list.

Teresa and Julie would not let me go. They kept me, held on to me and saved me. They were like a tag team without even knowing it. These two women who didn't even know my first name just an ID on a computer screen reached out and made sure that I knew I was loved and I was not alone.

Tulips arrived over and over I still have no idea how they found them. T made a book out of my posts, wrote me every morning and became my guardian angel. Julie wrote me posts, called me and kept me in a place that felt as normal as possible, kept me human. She made me laugh, she shared her life with me, she supported me with cards and flowers and little gifts that touched my heart.

It has been three years.

Julies daughter Emily has left for pink skies.

I want to wrap her in my friendship, give her back what she has given me. Tonight I will light a candle and say a prayer that Emily is being welcomed home by all the people who love her and have been waiting so long for her return. I will say a prayer for Julie and her breaking heart.

Julie my sweet friend I love you so, I am here...this is a new club, like the one before no one wants to belong to it, but once again we are bonded, strengthened and healed by the very thing that has broken us.

You are not alone, you are loved and your sweet girl has broken free from that cocoon and can finally spread her wings...her task here complete. They are everywhere my friend, everywhere.

Gabriell

Everywhere...

2010-10-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Rain is starting to fall, tiny drops that lead to big fat ones that lead to puddles and shiny roads. Fall is here Stevie, one of our favorites. If you were here you would make me buy you yarn so you could start knitting hats and scarves for Christmas. You would be so happy because Pumpkin Lattes would be available at the coffee shops and we could start baking treats in the kitchen.

I bought ugly pumpkins this year the kind that have warts and greeny stripes. I'm not sure how we will carve them but like most years we might not even get around to it and they will stay on the porch for Thanksgiving. Remember when Sarah use to paint them gold for Christmas? I loved that.

November is almost here and with it come the memories...it's like that now everything reminds me of something we did, we should be doing, I wish we could do again or I wish never happened. My life is a series of little events (some big ones) all linked together by a chain I can't see but feel deep inside.

Dad now thinks a baby might be a good idea after all the tears, all the roadblocks he put up, all the arguments...he shut down the factory, sent everyone home now he wants to turn the lights back on and save the day. It is too late. He doesn't understand how these things work and it makes me mad, sad, frustrated. He has no concept of time or urgency, to him everything and everyone stands frozen until he decides what he wants and when he wants it. I think he is just afraid I will really leave now that there is nothing left for me to stay for. He can't see I left a long time ago.

I really thought you could come home and if you couldn't maybe you would send someone I needed, that would need me. You know how my heart works, I need to be needed.

I crave family it is what my heart was made for, even my body was created for it. At 45 I can still have a baby, nothing has changed, it has always been easy for me, I have always loved being a mom. I am not sure what I am if I am not. There are other facets but being a mom is the on big shiny one in the middle, on top, most important, all the rest on the sides support it, bring light, help it to shine brighter.

Someone suggested foster care and I love the idea of being that person but I also know I could not let a child I love go. I don't know how to love a child just a little, it's selfish so maybe the job isn't for me, my heart can't do anymore breaking and letting go. I need something to hold onto for a little while.

The store is still here and today I sit quietly at my desk looking out at the rain, watching the cars pass by, drinking tea and thinking about you and how you are hidden all over it. On days like today I can imagine your spirit floating around the shelves, moving in and out of little cupboards and doors like Tinkerbell. You would love the gumballs and flying monkeys, the big orange chair and the funky jewelry. You would want me to order more candy and gifts made by geeks...I wish this was enough but it isn't.

Where are you?

When I got in today a customer had left a gift for me, a small box wrapped in orange ribbon, inside it a lovely necklace she made. She came in a couple weeks ago and we talked, she listened more than I did and I gave her a copy of Pink Sky. She is a writer of children's book who is hiding in corporate America. I wanted to encourage her to follow her passion.

Her story was bigger than I knew and she shared the book with someone she loves who lost a daughter...

The necklace had little floating letters on a chain that said "Everywhere" and on the clasp was a single pink bead.

I needed something good to happen and she made my day. I am overwhelmed with the kindness of people sometimes. She wanted to thank me...she has no idea what a gift it is for me to be able to talk about you, to let one more person know you, know your name, to keep you real.

You were in my dreams last night, you whispered "mom" and I was watching you make a little tunic out of green fabric with pink embroidery, it was simple and sweet and very you. In my dream I wished I paid more attention to every single thing you did. I didn't know how important it all was and how it would be all I had left...those memories.

I would give anything to time travel, even if it was only for a minute, just to touch you, kiss your cheeks, listen to your voice.

I love you so much bunny, so very much...it is so hard to not be near you.

Please be in Heaven, please be waiting for me.

Mama

2010-10-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

This is a blog about living with loss...well I guess it's about a lot of things and maybe nothing really...

I woke up this morning realizing that I am not me anymore. I don't even look like me. I have days where life seems almost normal but not my normal, like I skipped over into a parallel universe and I am living a life that is almost exactly like mine but not really. I would have liked to stay where Stevie never died but I guess this me would still be here in this hurting place.

For me everything broke when Stevie left. It started cracking when she was diagnosed but I was able to hold us together with hope and make-a-wish trips, I was able to pretend for both of us, for all of us that we just needed this journey to bring us closer to something bigger and at the end of the road would be a healthy kid who endured this gigantic thing and someday it would be her story to tell. I never let myself truly believe that I would be sitting in front of a computer writing my story, well her story, our story.

For those of you who have not lost a child...

I understand that losing a pet, a friend, a grandparent or even an aging parent is difficult, painful and has it's own process, but losing a child is a different animal. I am not saying my grief is more than yours, if you have ever lost someone you love grief is grief but again this breaking is something different it has to do with the order of things, it's primal, it goes against what we are made out of as mothers.

Unfortunately I know a lot of mothers who have a lost a child who have also lost a husband, parent, and or best friend and they say that the loss of a child feels like your own death.

Forgive the drama but anyone who is a parent has had the scary dreams, the worries, the emergency room visits what I am going through is the thing you fear most. We are designed to protect and love our children it is so much a part of who we are that we can not really separate ourselves from them completely even when they have children of thier own.

When your child dies a part of you dies. For some people all of you dies, life is too unbearable. I understand that level of pain, all of us who have lost a child do. If you havn't I am betting that it isn't too hard to imagine.

My point is that life breaks when the your child takes her last breath, you break, and I am not sure you ever really recover from that, I think it's permanant. I know a woman who I connected with when Stevie was having radiation, her 8 year old son did not survive treatment and I watched her die, her skin changed color, her eyes her voice and the way she walked. She lost her ability to dream, to hope, to want anything, her will was destroyed. She now has chronic pain, does not leave the house unless she has to and has become invisable in her home.

There is a spectrum to this as there is with all things, I am broken but I endure because I am designed to. That does not mean I don't crash and burn, I think it's what saves me. I honor my grief. That is hard for some people to understand, they think OK you lost a kid but you have the rest of your life to live, you have other children at some point you get over it and get back to business. They grow tired of this new you that isn't as much fun, that doesn't laugh at the old jokes, that might not find the little things important anymore. You have joined a club they would never want to pay the dues to join. They need you to be you, thier friend but you have changed in a way that they can not understand.

I had an event at my store, it was big and wild and it was a great distraction but I found it hard to be there 100%. I had dinner out with wonderful and interesting people but I felt the need to fade into the background when my default is to be front and center.

Is this growth? Is this new me going to be a better me, a stronger and more certain me or am I turning into my own kind of ghost?

It is all about changes, I have shed my old self and new skin is growing, I am turning into a different person. I am excited and frightened. This new me will have to be strong because I will always carry my daughter inside me, every memory, every morning, every whispered secret, the smell of her, all of her.

I want the old me back, I want my daughter back, I want to time travel back to a place where cancer had not knocked down the door. What I have is this and I am learning to live with broken, learning to accept change, trying very very hard to understand that my grief will always be a part of me but it does not have to be all of me.

Golden

2010-09-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

When the girls were little they made up something called a Golden Birthday, not sure if they originated the concept but they discovered it and introduced me to it. This is when your age and birth day match...For some reason this is a magical reason to celebrate extra big and they use to plan how they were going to do it. Stevie had no idea back then that she would not live to see her golden birthday, or maybe she did but knew they would honor it in heaven.

Today my girl would be 23, this is her golden year, her golden earth birthday.

Happy Birthday Stevie. If you were here, sleeping in your bed I would be up like I am now writing in my journal, remembering the day you were born, telling you how much I love you, how proud of you I am and how wonderful my life is because I get to share it with you.

I would bake a cake while you were still asleep so that when the sun came up it would smell like chocolate. I would bake a vegan cake, get the recipe from Teresa, decorate it with daisies and stick 23 little pink candles on top of it. I would cover your bed with rose petals so you would wake up like a princess. I would make you a bubble bath, stack a pile of new books all wrapped in shiny paper next to the tub for you to discover. I would stick the towels in the dryer so they would be nice and warm when you got out.

We would spend the day doing what ever you want, maybe take a last minute flight to Tahiti or Thailand. We would lay on beaches, eat beautiful things. I would make you a crown out of seashells, I would rub your feet with oil, I would wrap you in my love and never let anything bad happen to you.

We would watch the sky turn pink then find a concert under this big fat full moon, We would take a long boat ride under a sky of stars. We wouldn't sleep until the sky turned gold, the sun came up and the first day of Autumn turned into the second day.

I love you so much sweet girl.

This morning I got up and lit candles, one on the front porch for you to see from heaven, and one in the living room next to the picture of you in a white t-shirt that we took when we thought everything was going to be OK. Your hair was blond, cut into a bob, you still had a little girls body, but the eyes of a very old soul: so blue they were almost white, long dark lashes...sometimes when you looked at me I could feel the answers to everything.

Today I will cry...because I miss you so much, because I wish you were here, because I tried to have a baby so I could bring you back and it didn't work, because I can't kiss your cheeks, because it feels so unfair and so wrong that you are not sleeping in that big bed waiting to start the day.

I will go to the cemetery and bring you new flowers. Today I chose red Iceland poppies, yellow Dalia's, creme crepe myrtle, and a deep purple flower I don't know the name of. It is beautiful at Oakmont, so many people go there to walk because it is so lovely, I think you would love knowing that is were your body is. You are at the top of the hill in one of the newest gardens, next to the dry river bed. There are oak trees, lavender, purple and red bell flowers, roses, that long English grass carefully planted in tufts.

I will bring a blanket, and I lay next to you, I talk, cry, sing terribly. I will carefully arrange your flowers and apologize that they are made out of silk. The deer will eat the fresh ones and all that will be left are dried stems, and the silk stay pretty and colorful until the next time I come.

I spoke to a psychic that said that I didn't have to go there, that you are with me all the time. I hope you're not with me all the time, how terribly boring for you. I do wish that once in a while you curl up next to me in your bed and dream with me, or you sit next to me on the sofa and hold my hand while we watch something cheesy on television. I imagine sometimes that you hold onto my arm like you use to while I walk down 4Th street or cruise the isles at the bookstore.

Where are you Golden girl? What are you doing in heaven today? The sun is getting ready to come up here, and the moon is still big and full in the sky, is it enough magic to bring you home, just for a second so we can give you birthday kisses?

Stevie it is so hard to be here without you. I try so hard to believe in all the things my heart tells me to but I am so damn human, and it hurts.

I remember your last birthday, the Thai place in Benicia, family, big cake, the espresso machine I paid too much for but the smile on your face was so worth it. I have a photo of you from that day, you were so beautiful, drinking a tall Thai tea, laughing and being silly with your sister. I didn't know that would be the last birthday, I just didn't know.

*************************************************************************************

I stopped writing to go outside and watch the sun come up. I wrapped myself in a furry pink blanket we always took to the hospital with us. I stood outside my feet bare in the cold wet grass, my heart heavy with emotion. I watched the sun rise slowly over the foothills to my right as the full moon began to sink behind the foothills to my left. For a little while they both hung in a bruise colored sky surrounded by wispy pink clouds. I searched the universe for a message, searched my soul for a way to forgive God for this moment that was so beautiful and painful at the same time.

I am here on this planet; wet grass, a sun that is a clock, a moon that makes promises, in a body that has a broken heart and restless soul that aches. Where is my girl?

I keep searching, I keep waiting, I keep praying that this all has meaning and one day I will understand it.

Today is your birthday sweet. I would give you anything, anything at all. I wish I could give you my body for the day. You could come home and eat cake, read your old books, talk to your brother and sister, play scrabble, drink coffee, ride a bike, run in the grass, go to the beach. Even if it meant I would miss the whole thing because I would be asleep somewhere deep inside myself. Just knowing you were here and got to do your favorite things...

I am guessing heaven is a whole lot more exciting...

God I wish you were here, just for a moment.

A million kisses bunny, a million kisses best girl, I love you, I love you, I love you...

Happy Golden Birthday,

Mama

It's summer...

2010-08-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

It is the middle of summer and the stars are falling; a meteor shower just in time for Aly's birthday. It was 25 years ago those stars brought me this girl, this mystery this first child of mine.

She was born at 5:26 in the morning, I had been in labor all night, turning inside out with the pain and the fear that I did not know what do with. The experience was bigger than me, bigger than anything I had known. Then right before the sun came up she was here and everything was different, I was no longer a child, I was a mother.

Aly was a surprise, one I was not ready for but never an accident or a mistake. It is my belief she arrived just when she was suppose to. I was terrified and young but always sure.

For nine months my body stretched and changed. I vomited everyday for 41 weeks, and was always mesmerized by the baby mermaid living inside of me swimming and swimming all night, singing a song that only I could hear. I dreamed she would be born with long hair, I dreamed that she fell out of the sky and landed in a bath full of bubbles, I dreamed she could speak and had teeth.

When she finally arrived she was warm and wet, bigger than I imagined and she was real, a head of curly auburn hair, lips like a favorite kiss, and a boo-boo face when she cried that she still has.

I was overwhelmed but in love. Someone switched on the next part of my life and the gears and levers began to turn. I knew what to do instinctively: how to nurse her, bath her, dress her, hold her. I never hesitated, I went without sleep just so I could watch her breath, and every morning felt like Christmas morning, she was a gift waiting for me to discover.

Now she is a woman with long legs, big brown eyes, and a laugh that is contagious. She can be moody and mean and every day I wish we were closer. She is a person separate of me, having experiences that don't include me. She doesn't tell me her secrets, we have never been that mother and daughter but I can still comfort her when she is sick, I can be the person she calls when everything falls apart and I am happy to be that mama.

I am proud of her. I don't tell her that because I have always felt like I needed to push her to do just a little bit better. I know her better than anyone, I know what she is made out of, what she is capable of and I know why she won't move forward when she should. As much as she wants to be her own person, as much as she tried to grow up early, she is our baby and she needs to be here surrounded by people she can trust, wrapped in a love she can not destroy no matter how hard she tries.

She was the woman that was with me when Stevie died, we bathed her and kept her safe while she made her transition, the three of us, three women bonded by love, blood, and sorrow. It was always the three of us, me and my girls...

Long ago we would cuddle up in a big bed while the snow fell outside and crept into the old wooden windows to freeze our eyelashes. We kept each other warm and shared dreams. She and her sister taught me about fairies, magic, and how real love survives anything that stupidity, anger and fear can throw your way. We rescued ugly Christmas trees, ate oatmeal for dinner and bought thick socks with colorful stripes.

Without these two girls I would not be the person I am today, without Aly I would not have survived the loss of Stevie. She is private about her grief, once in a while she leaks a little, get's mad and goes back to being private. I understand it, I wish I could fix it but this belongs to her.

She doesn't believe she was there for her sister but she was, she was always Stevie's friend and protector. No one knew Stevie better than Aly, and no one loved Aly more than Stevie.

Today she is 25, She woke up with a hang-over from a night out with friends eating sushi and slamming saki-bombs, a very different 25 than mine. She does all the things I never did, she isn't afraid of anything, she knows how to live big, laugh at everything that is funny (and sometimes not) and experience everything.

It will be a quiet day with a celebration dinner tonight, I miss birthday cakes and barbies wrapped in shiny paper. What we have now is different but I love watching her smile, I love listening to her tell a story about someone at work getting "Jelly-Boxed", and I love knowing she is my daughter.

Happy birthday Aly, thank you for being my family, my daughter and for living a life on your terms.

You are You.

Sleep

2010-08-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

It has been a long day. I am sleepy and the sun is still up, if I were a napper I would be sleeping on the couch in the sun room where there is a late afternoon patch of sun keeping it warm. I can't seem to nap, it makes me grouchy my body isn't sure what to do with sleep that isn't quite sleep, it doesn't understand light, sleep and waking up to get through the last part of the day.

What I do is push through the day with that heavy feeling you get in dreams where it feels like you have legs made of sand. I will eat to stay awake and ask myself over and over "is it 9:30 yet?" That is another small problem I have, I won't go to bed before that time no matter how tired I am. I am afraid going to sleep early will become a habit and I will start eating dinner at 4:00 with the seniors at Denny's, wake up at some ungodly hour to pee and make tea, sit in the dark alone, listen to the radio...Oh so not attractive to me.

So I will torture myself, stay awake, eat some chocolate, watch something horrid on television like "The Bad Girls Club" or hulu old episodes of Glee (which is actually one of my favorite secret crush TV shows).

Sleep, sleep, sleep...

I had a few VIP visitors at the store today, special guests that really made my day. In-law-cousins who live up in Olympia (who I was too afraid to drop in on when Noah and I went up last month). They were at the end of their long road-trip-vacation we got lucky and were able to share a meal and talk. Neil and Jamie are so nice, so comfortable. They are the kind of people you feel like you have known forever. They have a 15 year old son who reminds me of someone I can't name, he has an adorable Peck face and is a super witty guy. Teenagers can be a drag, all those hormones and moody stuff, he is different, a super nice boy, smart, interesting...I hope Noah is as sweet when he is his age.

Jamie is married to Steve's cousin she is a mom, she knows all the right things to say, she hugs just right and if I were in labor or having a bad day she would be the person I would like holding my hand, she has that "everything will be all right" vibe. I dig it, everyone should know someone just like her, I am a lucky girl.

I am missing Stevie. I always miss her but today I really-really miss her. I wrote her a note on the shower door in the steam asking her what she is doing, telling her I miss her and love her and I scribbled a million XXOO XXOO XXOO's

There is a Jason Mraz song called "Sleeping to Dream" it has been playing in my mind all day.

It has been a wonderful day, renewed family connections, plenty of Noah time, a great day at the store, a long ride on the Yamaha, and tonight a nice long sleep where I will dream of girl who stole a horse.

(Jason Mraz's song, Sleeping to Dream About You)

And I
I'm dreaming of sleeping next to you and feeling like a lost little boy in a brand new town
I'm counting my sheep and each one that passes is another dream to ashes
And they all fall down.

And as I lay me down tonight
I close my eyes
What, what a beautiful sight

[Chorus:]
Sleeping to dream about you
And I'm so damn tired
Of having to live without you
But I don't mind
Sleeping to dream about you and I'm so tired

I found myself in the riches
Your eyes, your lips, your hair and you were everywhere out there
I woke up in the ditches, I hit the light and I thought you might be here
But you were nowhere
Oh you were nowhere at home

And as I lay me back to sleep
Lord this love I pray, that I can keep

[Repeat Chorus]

It's just a little a lullaby to keep myself from crying myself to sleep at night
Oh just a lullabye to keep from crying myself to sleep
Oh just a, just oh, just a little lullabye,

Sleeping to dream about you
And I'm so damn tired
Of having to live without you
And I'm so tired

[Repeat Chorus]

Well I'm so, I'm tired
I'm falling, I'm so tired, I'm so tired

Georgia calls...

2010-07-19T17:48:00.001-07:00

I had a reading with Georgia O'Connor today. If I wasn't sceptical, if I wasn't so afraid of being gullible, if I didn't worry about everyone thinking I was a nut-job for paying a psychic to tell my daughter is in heaven then it would have been a really good reading.

I love the paranormal how could I not when I have a daughter who no longer has a body. I love the idea of people being psychic, I understand instinct and intuition and how powerful it is, ask my kids, I have eyes in the back of my head, ask my husband, I bust him a mile away when he is up to no good.

I explore the possibility of alien life, a quantum universe, and metaphysics blows my mind. I have a crushes on a nerdy physicists and all the theories they bring to the table, all ways they explain how the universe works and even if they are scientists they still believe in something bigger even if it is just a universe full of more universes.

Today I was a weeping mother on the other end of a telephone conversation with a woman who claims she can see past the veil. It was out-of-body, there were too many emotions and feelings and fears.

I was excited, embarrassed, hopeful, and cautious. I tapped the top of Noah's cell phone, I picked at little lint balls on the bed, and I contemplated painting my toenails while I waited for the 1:oo call to come in. I was at ease the moment I picked up the ringing phone and she said my name. She was feeding her baby and talking to my daughter and the things she told me started giving me hope. I thought maybe I slipped up somewhere and she googled me and I was chumped.

I wrote down everything she said, I cried, I wondered, I tried to convince myself for just one moment I was actually on the phone to the other side and Stevie was talking to me. I couldn't ask questions, all I could do was listen, I didn't want it to stop, I couldn't get enough. I wanted her to tell me things no one else knew but she didn't. We are all humans and mothers who lose children all share the same pain, we do the same things, we have the same worries and needs.

I remembered to get a new email account, to use my maiden name, to have her call a phone different than my own. I paid with my fathers credit card. My sister later pointed out that the phone I used was a phone I paid for and even though it was Noah's I came up on caller ID. Damn...I will never be a secret spy.

She said a few things that could be googled like Stevie's name, the reference to her brain, the rain, and sipping a drink from a coconut. She also said a few things that confused me, they felt like things my grandmother would say (according to the psychic my grandmother, grandfather, and father in law where all there ready to communicate). Some of the things she told me were things that were important to me but I did not expect her to bring up. I chalked a few of those up to common things that come up for the grieving.

She was kind, she was soothing, she did her best to let me know I was loved, not alone, and that I would be with my daughter again, who by the way was happy where she was. It is more than some therapists have to offer, the price is similar the results are better, I vote psychic.

Was it real? I don't know. I have a lot to digest, too much to think about. If it isn't and I believe it I really don't lose a thing. If I refuse the comfort then I miss an opportunity for healing.

She didn't try to sell me another session or sell me a potion to get rid of a curse. She actually told me that my daughter thought it was ridiculous for me to be talking to a psychic when we had been communicating so well without one. She told me things I knew but needed to hear like: My daughter loved and missed me, that she was happy, that I was her best friend, that every time I asked if it was her, it was. If my little tape player worked better, if Noah's speaking phone was a little more powerful I would have recorded all of it and played it over and over before bed.

I am still processing all of this, I will take what I need and neatly store the rest away in a safe place. Even though I am skeptical I have an open mind, even though I am curious I am not gullible, it was a good reading, a very good reading.

Turtle

2010-07-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

I'm coming back to my girl by July...

-andrew mcmahon

It's July, we have had a couple hot days but for the most part it has been a mild summer. I am guessing the heat will arrive late when school starts and Noah wants to wear his new jeans and a sweater to school, I will force him to wear shorts and he will think I am mean.

We had my aunts 70th birthday here last week, it was nice, not sure how she felt about it, it was a surprise and she seemed a little overwhelmed. Her Colorado kids, grand kids, and great-grandson arrived and surprised her a couple days before the party and we had one of her best friends from third grade here. We gave a her a computer, made a video of her life, and bought a big cake with bright blue flowers all over it.

My aunt is a planner, a little OCD and likes to hold the pencil if you know what I mean. I didn't think about that when I planned this gig, I just knew that she would thing no one remembered and I wanted her to feel very remembered, make her queen for the day. I think we blew her mind, and stressed her out but all in all I think she felt the love.

I found a little houseboat on craigslist. I am always looking but have never ever found anything that we could afford. This one popped up and I jumped on it. The price was right and I really expected it to be scary when I drove to Oakley to look at it. I was surprised that even though it got big prizes for being funky it was a good boat; the engine is in good shape, it has been well taken care of and it was just the right size for us (28ft).

It sits in the Delta, not my favorite place but the property where we will be renting the slip is very nice, pretty, green, quiet. The boat has faux wood panelling on the inside, a terrible green carpet, a golden harvest stove and dusty old seat cushions. It smells like...a cabin. We went out last week and removed all the old stuff and put in new stuff like aqua dishes, cups, floating silverware, new pots and pans, pillows and blankets. We dusted and cleared out cobwebs, washed it down, and did a little happy dance on the dime sized deck.

It is cute in an old boat way I think we will have some good times on it. Noah is a good age. I wish Stevie was here, oh she would have loved this thing and I think she helped me find it. If she was here she and I would be decorating it and escaping to it every chance we got. She wouldn't let me change a thing, she would want to roll with the retro. We would buy party lights, fuzzy gnomes, find a record player and blow up furniture.

I talked to her before bed and said, "Stevie a boat needs a name, I want you to choose it, tell me what to name it, but I won't name it Freakin-Unicorn" I woke up the next morning and "Turtle" popped into my head. I know it isn't "me" because I would not have chosen "Turtle" The other night I was thinking that it was a silly name for a boat and wondering if I had lost my mind (again). A couple hours later I was watching "Never been kissed" with Noah. This is a silly movie the girls liked, Drew Barrymore who plays a sweet geek, in the movie she has the cutest apartment and a pet turtle. Stevie popped into my head and I said out loud "all right Turtle it is" I realise I have lost my mind and our boat will be named "Turtle".

This is my last month trying to have a baby. I am not even sure if I am going to go through with it. The universe has been telling me no, and maybe I have to listen. I am bummed about it, feel like I need to give it one more shot, then let it go. I will be 45 in August and I promised myself I wouldn't try after that age.

Stevie, I tried...

Thank you for helping me find the boat, the name, and I know you will be with us on the water. You always loved the water, it calmed you. As a baby you had no fear, loved, loved, loved to swim. I hear you when I can stop being sad long enough to listen. Stay close love, I need you.

Come to me in my dreams and show me your heaven, tell me secrets, let me know that you are still you.

I love you so.

Mama

2010-05-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

It is May, the roses are all blooming, fading and making more buds, there is a pretty rose bush by the back window of the sun room that I planted after Stevie that is an odd shade of pink and lavender blended together, she would have loved it. I wonder if it was her kiss from where ever she is that made it explode with big fat flowers this year?

I took a week off, a week away, disappeared to Washington State to be with my boy, my thoughts, one of my best friends and old memories of a little house on an island where it rains all the time.

Last Thursday I decided for no particular reason to load up the car, the kid and my CD player and make the long drive down I5 past Lake Shasta, through Oregon and into Olympia where I spent four years with my girls. It was here we learned how to drive in the snow, how to pull ourselves out of the snow we slid into, how to fish, live in the rain, appreciate a sunny day, a hot bath, a good fire, make friends and be happy without the things we thought we needed before.

It was a difficult time financially, it was a lonely time, and a time of change for us but in the end the three of us (me, Aly, and Stevie) agree that it was a perfect time and we would not have changed a second of the time we spent there.

I took Noah to Steamboat Island where we lived where there is an oyster beach with a harbor, park and water for as far as the eye can see. I took Noah to our pic-nic tree, the beach the girls played at, the dock we crabbed off of and the house we once lived in. I wanted him to be a part of our history, it was hard having him there and Stevie being gone. She would have loved to show him her old fairy hang-outs, the little holes in logs she use to leave treats for them, the best flowers to make fairy dresses out of the crack in the wall down at the beach were she and Aly use to hide stuff and see if it would still be there after the tide went back out.

It was drizzly and cold, everything was so green, the water and sky so gray. I didn't cry until we left, it felt like a loose end, a place I needed to visit and remember, almost like she asked me to come. I did the right thing but it wasn't easy, remembering is so hard but it is also life-saving.

Stevie learned to ride her bike there from house to beach, and had the most terrible fall, a scar on her thigh marked the day forever. She went to fast down the hill and fell, the handle bar gouged her leg and she rode home bleeding the whole way. She was a trooper and proud to have made it home, down the hill, on her own.

Noah took it all in, I was glad he was with me, it made sense in a way I can not explain.

One of my very best friends welcomed me home, fed me, made sure I had a place to stay, shared her little boys with me and reminded me how kind and giving people are, how distance does not affect love.

It was a good trip. I needed the time and space, I needed to think, to cry, to drive until I couldn't stay awake. I needed hotels, swimming pools, gas stations, long roads, and the pink sky and sun setting behind MT. Shasta. It was a small adventure but just the right size for the two of us, three counting Stevie, she was with me, I know it.

I am tired.

I think I am entering another stage in this process or repeating one. My emotions are all over the place, change is coming and it isn't the change I want but the universe laughs at my plans once again.

I have to trust, have faith, surrender, it isn't easy.

I drove all those miles, now I am home, a new journey is begining, I wonder where it will take me.

525600

2010-04-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

She still counts the minutes that I am not here... -Andrew McMahon

Three is a magic number, it doesn't feel magical today even though I keep looking up at the sky, over my shoulder, and into mirrors hoping that heaven will break a rule and let me see my daughter one more time. Three years, how could that be? It was like yesterday that it was her sitting here at this computer playing a marathon game of Literati eating a bowl of nuts and a pile of grapes. She would leave the bowl and the stems for me to pick up and I would act like I was pissed but I really wouldn't be. It wasn't that long ago that we were at a bookstore looking for something she had not read yet, at Target looking for the perfect T to wear to a concert or in Berkeley at Sweet Dreams wandering around touching everything. Now here I am at this computer alone and if feels like a million years since I've heard her voice or smelled her skin.

Today is the day I am allowed to have a full blown pity party. Today I get to count years, months, minutes...525600

There are a few red tulips up in the garden, stragglers, and the lilac so much of it I love the way it smells, it is a female smell; warm, like home. The Trees all have their clothes back on and the apple blossoms arrived just as the pear blossoms blew away. The cherry tree is gone, Stevie's tree, the one that did not make cherries until the year she died, the one I bought her as a present after radiation therapy. She wanted to be able to see cherry blossoms from her window.

I should plant a garden but I can't seem to do it, to put myself out there, invest in any more hope. I will, I always do and since Stevie left it has been mostly half hearted, a habit, an act of caring when I am still so mad at God. My little vegan isn't here to graze my veggie beds stealing the fattest tomato's the second they became ripe. She refused to get her hands dirty but you never knew a child who loved produce as much as she did.

The seasons change and I watch it all happen. Time moves the way it will, it does not stop, it will not turn back. I am not like time...I am forced to move with it but I dare it to stop me from remembering. If I were smarter I would find a way to move backwards through it and find the exact moment I could have done one thing different and saved her life.

Today is a day for tears...

I can't seem to bring her back and I tell myself it must be because she is so happy where she is, that she has long since forgotten this little house and these people she shared a short life with. In some other place she is reunited with people she has known before time who missed her even more than I ever could (not sure how that is possible) and they surround her with the most complete kind of love, a bigger love than I can't remember but I must have known.
My girl.

I survive, I am here, and she is somewhere...too far away.

This is fucked. I know ugly words make me look ugly, that is what I tell the kids but this thing I feel is kinda ugly and the word fits, there isn't another in this language I know.

Today I will take Noah to the orthodontist and let her torture his poor little mouth so that one day he will have a Hollywood smile to go with his black guitar and his beautiful voice. Then I will go to the cemetery and sleep on my cowboy blanket over the place my daughters body is buried. I will talk, sing, cry and wait for magic to happen. Three is a magic number.

Orion makes his way across the sky

2010-04-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Oh and here comes spring...The lilac is in full bloom and it's scent fills the yard, the lone pink tulip is here and brought two little sisters so now there are three. I am not sure why but it made me cry. The daffs and red tulips have finished and the roses are beginning. All the trees have leaves and the fig has tight little baby buds just waiting to get enough sun to turn into grown-ups.

My yard is it's own little universe. When we first moved here I tended it like I was it's mother and it needed me. I planted dreams, ideas, and nurtured growth. It was a simple yard with low maintenance shrubbery, a couple rose bushes and a big lawn. Over the years it has seen a pond (which we covered when Noah was born) A huge veggie garden (Which is now a small garden bed) new trees (because I love fruit trees not because we actually have room for them) Two small buildings (garden sheds converted into an office and a studio) and a little hot tub (which turned into a very big hot tub). The shrubs are long gone, the lawn is much smaller, the trees are much bigger and I just put up a little awning to keep the afternoon sun from beating us to death in the summer.

Steve tells everyone I am Sarah Winchester because I have taken our small yard in suburbia and turned it upside down every spring. For me life is about moving, changing, growing, evolving. We now have gardeners who mow the lawn and kill the weeds, and the yard no longer requires a mother it knows how to take care of itself. It has become my invention, a history of our life here.

Spring is a time of new beginings, when everything wakes up and blooms, buds, and lives. It is a bittersweet time for me because it now marks the end of my daughters life here but maybe somewhere it marks a different kind of beginning something so awesome and breathtaking even my imagination can not conceive of it.

For those of you who have asked for a baby update I guess this is as good a time as any to report that there isn't much news. I do have a family that has contacted me regarding embryo adoption. They have (adorable)twin girls that resulted from IVF and there are seven embryos remaining. I am just waiting to hear from them in regards to a final decision. They have many parents to choose from and they need to make a choice based on what they feel is best for their family. They would like an open adoption so that the children can know each other. I think it's a great idea. This process is about building families, and there are so many wonderful ways to do that.

To be honest I had just about given up. Steve and I had a melt down while we were going through the clinics donation program and I started feeling like maybe I was pushing something to happen that wasn't meant to happen, that maybe the universe was telling me to just let it go. It has always been my opinion that if you have to use force it is a sign to just be still.

So I stopped. I cancelled appointments and I decided to be still. I cried, I contemplated, I questioned, I meditated, and I made a plan to not have a plan. Two days later I got an email from two families who were interested in us.

The other family is wonderful and all the embryos they have are girls (extra terrific) all four embryos have been genetically tested and they are preparing for the birth of thier son. It feels like they have a very long list to choose from and although I am on that list it still feels like a long shot.

To be honest it was a blessing just to be chosen at at all. There are so many families waiting and so few donors, those emails made me feel like the universe does have it's own plan. I am not sure where all this will lead but I am full of hope and I am sure it will take me where I need to be.

For right now this moment is about watching the stars in the night sky, following Orion as he makes his way to a place where I can no longer see him, watching the moon through her phases, waiting for the morning glory to climb the fence, listening to the new birds sing the same songs they always have.

This life of mine, of all of ours is filled with such magic and wonder, it is bigger than standing in line at Starbucks, getting to work on time, trying to decide what to make for dinner. It has a rhythm, promises, and heartbreak. There are beginnings and endings and we live in between them. There is a time embrace life, to fight for it, to let it go and a time to just be still and experience it happening all around us.

Stevie, I am still here buttercup, still waiting and listening, still your mom, still your buddy, still in love with what ever it is you have become. Thank you for being my girl, my heart, my spring.

So I keep trying...

2010-02-26T07:14:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have asked here is the skinny on the baby stuff...

So far no luck doing things in this strange-ill-timed way with donors and the local Obstetrician. The insurance company continues to say no to IVF unless I can prove I have unexplained infertility.

Do I give up? Heck no. When I started this I was so sure I could do this easily that I promised Steve I would only try once. I didn't want to be one of those desperate women who took all the equity out of their house to buy a donor egg and put themselves through years and years of injections and heartbreak. I told myself "Hey, if it is meant to happen then the fertility gods will drop a big fat baby in my lap, if not I move on, I am a big girl for goodness sake."

Instead the universe has chosen to teach me a little lesson about what it feels like to walk in anther's moccasins. If I had equity in my house I would have used it without a second thought. If I had a savings account with lots of zero's it would be gone. Do I feel silly and desperate? No. I feel like there is a child out there who is waiting for me to figure this out.

Unless you have ever been in this moment it's hard to understand. Some of my friends who have kids, that are mostly grown up can't wait for them to be off to college so they can get back to a life that feels a little bit less like a circus. The friends I have who do not have children by choice think this is animal instinct and what I need is a good vacation or the loan of someone elses screaming baby with colic to cure me. The friends I have with small children look at me with eyes that say, "you have got to be kidding?" I get it, I have had days like that too.

Some women are designed to be mothers some know it and some don't. I am not a great mom, I give my kids chocolate cake for breakfast, pancakes for dinner and let them run around naked all day. I kinda like kiddie chaos, especially in the backyard in the summer, or Christmas morning, or even late at night when everyone wants to wiggle and have one more story, one more story, one more story. I am perfect in my imperfection, we all are, Some women embrace it, some fight it, and some women have to fight long and hard for it.

There is a laundry list of the comments people make, and I have made them too. I am here to tell you that wanting and waiting for a child is big, it isn't like wanting a big wedding, or a better house. This is deep, it consumes you, it feels like a mission, it feels like an obstacle (obstetrical) course the universe made just for you to figure out how badly you want this and what you are willing to endure for it.

A houseplant, puppy, or the loan of a neighbors child won't cure or satisfy this longing, this need, this knowing. Adoption is not as easy as it sounds and just for the record adopting a special needs child or doing foster care takes a special person, deserves a special person, that is it's own journey, it isn't what you do when you have run out of options.

So here I am...

I found a clinic that offers embryo donation. I know, I know, it sounds sci-fi and creeps you out a little but it is actually a beautiful gift. Here is how it works...

A couple who can not have a child without assisted reproductive therapy (ART) has IVF. IVF is when all the magic happens outside the body rather than inside. A woman's eggs (or donor eggs if she does not have her own) are mixed up in a petri dish with the sperm from the partner (or a donor if he does not make his own sperm or she does not have a partner) and embryo's are created.

I know you are visualizing tiny little babies floating around in a laboratory. These are not quite baby's yet but more like baby seeds. They are cells that have just begun to divide, they are baby hope. Because this process is so very expensive, and painful (to the woman) they make as many embryo's as they can to give her a really good chance.

If she does not get pregnant there will be some frozen embryo's waiting for her to try again. If she does get pregnant she can store her remaining embryo's for another pregnancy later on. When she is done building her family she can choose to donate her remaining embryo's to science, let them expire, or she can offer them to another family.

Many families pay to keep these cells in cryopreservation because they are not sure what do or what the options are.

There are several pro-life Christian organizations who are on a mission to save these "babies" and God bless them. The problem is that they are becoming the middle men in what should be a donation and turning it into a formal adoption. The great part of this is that Christian families are able to connect with other Christian families and get matched in a way that makes them happy. The not so great part of this is that there is a lot of expense generated in this process, and more hoops to jump through than a person should have to. It excludes recipient families that do not have the 11,000-18,000 dollars to make this happen.

Then there are clinics that lay out the options very clearly to their patients and if the family chooses to donate then embryo's are kept at the fertility clinic and a true donation to another family happens through the clinic. It isn't warm and fuzzy with phone calls and photos, it is clinical, but it is simple and there are no middle men with hands held out for large sums of money, no giant hoops.

There are over 400,000 embryo's in storage. Many of those would be donated to families if there was more education about this option and if more of these stories were told.

There is a website called Miracles Waiting that offers a forum for donating families and hopeful parents to connect on their own. I think it's a happy middle ground. It's a well screened and monitored community, a small fee is involved but it is mostly to weed out people who would try to do harm, or not serious.

So I am waiting for an embryo. I know this may be a difficult solution for many people but the way I see it conception is it's own little world, we can't control it, the universe will give us the child that is meant for us. Biology offers a connection but not much else. I love the idea of adopting a child I get to give birth to, how beautiful is that?

I don't know why a woman as fertile as I have been has been led down this path, I don't know if a baby will be at the end of all of this but I do know I am changed by this process, I have grown in so many ways.

To my new friends who have been working so hard, waited so long, and have endured so much thank you for being my teachers, my support and guiding me so well, you have offered light...

Happy Birthday Gram...

2010-02-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

My Grandmother passed away this morning, early before the sun came up...

I was up because I had gone to bed early the night before, I meditated and prayed for her passing. She had lost consciousness the night before and I was wishing her transition would be peaceful and she would not have to linger in a place of hearing and feeling but not being able to communicate.

I got to spend time with her and got to tell her I loved her. I am not sad, I am grateful.

My gram lived a long life and many of the years of her life were spent caring for me and my siblings because our parents could not. She wasn't warm and cuddly, she was strong and good. We could depend on her to come and rescue us in the middle of the night from a sleep over we were not ready for, to get us to a doctor when we were sick, to make sure we always had something to eat and a safe person to call when we were afraid.

My gram was my mothers care-taker, my mother never quite got that, still doesn't. Gram spent her whole life worrying about and taking care of her. Without my gram my mother wouldn't have survived. My mother has always dealt with mental illness and drug addiction, gram never judged her and was always took her side. It is sad that her life was spent giving to her and there are times I have been angry about how much sacrifice that was but my gram knew how to love unconditionally.

My gram did not shower us with gifts, she didn't kiss us good night or tell us she loved us. She didn't braid our hair or take us to Sunday tea, she didn't make us dresses, fuss over us or own a brag book. My gram was not our cushion, she was our protector and our rock.

What gram gave me was good advice, she taught me cook, garden, honor family, work hard, play cards, fish, and showed me how to make something beautiful from almost nothing at all. She told me stories that would last my whole life.

She believed in simple things like a good meal, a night sky, the sound of the ocean, that a long drive could clear your head, and a good nights sleep could be found in a comfy chair with a book on your lap. A party was not a party without lots of food and music, the best place for a party was under the big tree in her yard. A pic-nic table could be made from an old door and comfort could be found at the kitchen table. Family first...always.

At Stevie's funeral my gram took my hands in her delicate brown hands that looked like leathery road map, looked at me with her magnified mosquito eyes and said, "It should have been me, I am ready to go, it should have been me" She told me she loved me very much. She never had to say it before because I always knew she loved me but hearing it on that day split me down the middle. The unfairness was obvious but as it turned out my gram still needed to be here and losing Stevie tought me how to care for my gram in her last days. She lit a candle everyday for the last three years for my daughter.

Before Stevie died she had a dream that my grandmothers house was beautiful, filled with light and vases of baby pink roses. Stevie said that in her dream they were preparing for a birthday party and Stevie's job was to find my grandmothers baby and bring it to the party. She searched and searched and finally found it under a big tree.

I believe that at five this morning (on my grandfathers birthday) there was a house full of pink roses and healing light, guests waiting anxiously for the arrival of the birthday girl, and my daughter holding the baby my grandmother lost in childbirth so many years ago. The nurse said the last thing gram did was reach her hands out to embrace someone.

Happy Birthday gram, thank you, and I love you too.

Train of thought

2010-01-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

It is late January, we have had some stormy skies, some beautiful clouds, not enough rain (even though it feels like we have had plenty), and winter nights that feel like winter.

The moon looked like a little boat last night, I imagined children rowing it through the sky, a sea of stars.

In December we went on a family vacation, to Mexico on a big boat that was loud and a little too much like Las Vegas and Disneyland had a bastard ship child and we were on it for seven days.

Aly got sea-sick then got better with the help of a patch only to get food poisoning from the fish she ate in Puerto Villarta. She was a puking machine but seemed very happy with the weight loss when we got home. She did well considering she doesn't like our little dysfunctional family much, but she slapped on a happy face for a trip to Mexico she didn't have to pay for.

I pulled a muscle in my back trying to help an elderly woman up out of a sun lounger. Her husband was about a hundred and I did that thing I do and threw myself at a situation I think needs me. My lifting skills are good but she started feeling dizzy and refused to sit back down so I supported her in a position that was not in my best interest. She broke my heart, she was crying because she felt helpless not being able to get up, it reminded me of Stevie and I didn't want them to have to get the kind of help that would require effort and attention. Once we got her up and stable they were happy, it made me feel good but I was in some horrible pain.

My period started before I could get too excited about the slim possibility that I might actually be pregnant so I had to trek through the harbor district in a Mexican city to a Walmart for Tampons. I didn't realize it was Christmas eve in a mostly Catholic country and the store was jam packed with people. I traveled to avoid the Christmas shopping and there I was in the middle of it.

What a crazy scene; ready-to-eat chickens in plastic containers, holiday wrapping paper, underwear, and pool toys all in the same isle of the store. It took me a little while to find tampons who knew to look for tampons on DVD's and car parts isle?

Everyone was coughing, it was a phlegm-fest. I thought, "Crap swine flu central, my goose is cooked for sure" Right on cue I was sneezed on by a little girl in the seat of a shopping cart who had a rattly chest and more hair than I have ever seen on such a small person. My left arm was covered with sneezy goo and I wanted to cry.

I wasn't leaving without finding antibacterial wipes but after ten or fifteen minutes I gave up the fight and surrendered to my fate...I was going to get sick. Three days later it began and I coughed, sneezed, got a fever and felt like hell. If you are going to be sick a cruise ship is a good place to do it (if you don't care about all the people you are infecting) You have room service, a doctor downstairs, someone washes all your towels, makes your bed and leaves you chocolate on your pillow...not bad.

Noah had fun and made a couple friends who live not too far from us (small world) he ate pizza, swam, got to wear a tie to dinner and danced a little. Steve was a little disappointed that I wasn't interested in being a cruise-ship couple but he did what he always does and takes off to find his own fun. There was comedy and a karaoke bar who could ask for anything more?

I know I sound like Debbie-downer and I don't mean to, it had it's super great moments, it was so nice not to have to deal with the sadness that this holiday brings, I mean we were missing Stevie but our environment was so different that we almost got to pretend it wasn't Christmas. We had some beautiful meals, listened to some upbeat rock n roll music played by a family band from the Philippines. They were good but I died laughing when the mama was belting Tina Turners "Whats love got to do with it" She had the voice but she hadn't worked out the English all the way "It is only da prill of boy meeting grill, opposit attract...it's only pisical" I loved it.

Then there was the chocolate extravaganza...back hurting, fever, leprosy couldn't keep me away, heaven, heaven, heaven. I had a pot of melting chocolate cake every night for dinner, brought it with me to the cabin and ate it in bed.

Noah and Steve body surfed and did a little snorkeling, Aly and I drank margaritas in dirty plastic cups from a beach vendor and bought cheap sunglasses from a man who had twenty hats stacked on his head. We all got nice and tanned, ate way too much food, and felt like a bunch of boneless chickens after a couple days. Not sure we are "Cruise" people but it was a nice trip for all the right reasons.

It's 2010 hard to believe how time just keeps doing it's thing. I have a long list of resolutions that challenge me to be stronger, more focused, more compassionate, helpful, and brave. I keep telling myself this will be the year I hit the gym and lose all this weight but after about three trips to the gym I decided I needed a break and headed on over to the bakery for a tea and a chocolate cupcake, after that I am like a junkie and it's been a down hill sugar high for me.

I've been sad, very sad. I miss Stevie and this baby thing isn't working. I have to make a plan to stop trying but it's hard. The bottom line is I'm not getting any younger, the insurance company won't pay for treatment, and I don't have a spare 26 thousand dollars to pay for IVF. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, maybe I needed this process for personal growth, maybe I just needed to try.

Yesterday on my way home from work there was an enormous pink cloud floating in a grey sky ready to burst. The cloud was shaped like a wobbly heart and reminded me of my girl. I told her I loved her too...why can't a cloud like that be enough?

When I went to put gas in my car I bought a lottery ticket, the jackpot was 105 million dollars. I don't need that much money but a little of it would be nice. As Fiest says in 1234, "Money can't buy you back the love that you had then" I know this to be true but it can offer me a little freedom.

The first thing I would do is a build a stable at Camp Okizu, it would be simple but beautiful and I would buy the camp four strong, gentle horses. I would call the stable "Stevie and the dream of horses" There would be an endowment to keep it running and keep the horses happy. Stevie would like that...

Then I would travel to Thailand and bury a pair of Stevie's chucks in the sand, light incense at a temple and walk for days, just walk and walk until it all there was was the ocean. Then off to Egypt to see the pyramids, Portugal to see the birthplace of my Great-Grandmother, and then to Italy to eat, sculpt, paint, and fall in love with my life.

I would keep my car, my house, and my red Dansko's. All the kids in my family would have money for college. Noah would get a voice coach, Aly would go to art school. Steve could quit his job, I would give him half the money to do what ever he wanted.

I would buy all the kids at Noah's school ice cream on a hot day.

I would go to Haiti and bring medicine, food and building supplies.

I would adopt a child.

Well my train of thought has just slowed at the station and I need to get off here and face the real world where people wear sweatshirts that say "Human-kind be both" and remind me that I have so much farther to go.

And the insurance company said...

2009-11-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

I have not been looking forward to writing this post. I am beyond upset, really upset. Here is the deal. I called the insurance company several times in regards to fertility treatments. They let me know I had some coverage but not much, about five thousand dollars for diagnostics and meds. It felt generous enough and I was grateful until I found out that what I needed was IVF. I was told I did not have coverage for that. I didn't know what to do but I made an appointment at the new clinic anyway, just to see what my options were.

Went to see the new fertility docs and they told me 26k for IVF. I went home and cried, Steve doesn't want a baby and he wants a 26 thousand dollar baby even less. BTW that is 26 thousand dollars to try, that is not a guarantee. The following Monday I called the insurance company about the IUI meds I had to send a claim in for and I asked about IVF and if the meds for that would be covered under the fertility benefit. I was told that I needed to access my IVF benefit, I told her I didn't have one and she told me I sure did, 100,000 bucks for IVF. I almost fainted, regrouped, and called Steve's company to be sure, HR told me "you certainly do" this time tears of joy. I felt like the universe was whispering in my ear.

I called that day and got my appointments scheduled, did the paperwork for the insurance company, had all the tests (not fun ones) the blood work, and got all the instructions to start IVF in December.

On the following Monday I got a call from the insurance company letting me know that I was not going to be able to qualify, it seems that my husband has had a vasectomy and that knocks me out of the game. Even if he reverses and especially if I use donor sperm I am not going to be able to access the benefit. What Steve did was voluntary sterilization, that isn't exactly infertility, it is a choice to be infertile. They didn't take into account my age, and they don't cover me if I have a child by anyone but my husband.

It sounds wrong and unfair and it is. Can they do that, cover you only if you have a child by your husband? What if he would have had cancer or we chose not to use his sperm because of genetic concerns?

Well I cracked in half. The hormones, the trying, the thumbs up and thumbs down, dealing with Steve's fears about a "late in life" baby, I just fell apart. It is funny what taking a little bit of hope away does to a person.

I am trying to come to terms with this, trying to see all the reasons it is for the best. It seems to be for someone Else's best not mine. The reasons are all about money not about love.

In a perfect world my life would look a lot different.

I know I will get through it, I am use to getting through things but I would like to not have to and just once have it go my way. Do I sound like a big baby? I am feeling sorry for myself because for a while I felt like I was waiting for this child to arrive, I was doing all the work but in the end there this child would be.

Steve thinks it is for the best, there must be something else I want to do. He doesn't get it, he never has, he never will. He is always pushing me in a direction he wants me to go not one I want to go. I tried so hard to hold us together but I can't anymore. This feels so last straw.

I am an idea girl, always busy doing something, dreaming up a new plan and new adventure always trying to keep it interesting. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it stays in the idea drawer.

I am tired now, out of ideas, out of dreams, running out of hope.

I think this is depression...I will recover, I always do but right now I am in the thick of it and need to spend sometime bandaging up the wounds and putting me back together.

Mid-life blows.

My daughter was strong, she knew how to find the next thing when she lost the last thing. She endured so much and she still stayed beautiful, funny, and interesting. She always made the best of what she had and rarely complained. I don't know how to be like her, I wish she was here to tell me how to take the next step.

BFP-fingers crossed

2009-10-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well some people know at least those who read this blog that I have been trying to have a baby. I am forty-four (cue to cringe) I know it seems old to try unless you are a celebrity but try I must.

I started a couple months ago, tracking dates, getting lab work done, having a physical, working out, taking vitamins etc. Then I went to an infertility doctor (serious stuff, desperate waiting room) who did something called a clomid challenge test. My initial labs were good and my CCT labs were good and we are almost sure I ovulated just missed it by a day. To quote my very serious doctor "Good Response for an old chick".

This month I had two IUI's, that's when they put the sperm (all spun washed and tidy) into your uterus so that your chances improve. I did this after another round of clomid an LH surge, a couple scans and a trigger shot, the shot helps to make sure you ovulate in a predictable little window of time. This was not fun or comfortable but I was very sure it was going to work...why wouldn't it?

I have never had a difficult time getting pregnant, I have a healthy body, my lab tests were impressive for "my advanced maternal age" and I timed this cycle perfectly, All my I's dotted all my T's crossed.

In this new age of reproductive technology I am officially DPO 10 that means ten days past ovulation. My little fertilized egg should have found a nice cozy spot in my uterus by now (implanting happens between DPO 6 and 12) and Hcg should begin to enter my system (the pregnancy hormone that makes you barf and have boobs like Selma Hyak). Symptoms may appear this early but not all the time which is good because none have except the hunger but I am always a hungry girl, and I already own a version of Selma's boobs.

I did what most women who are in this two week holding pattern do and obsess. We start peeing on sticks before the sperm has even found it's way to the egg. I am no exception I have pee'd on a whole lotta sticks in the last two days but today I was sure I would get a BFP (Big Fat Positive) instead it was BFN (Big Fat Negative.

This could mean that the egg never fertilized and instead of a baby I will get the dreaded days of bleeding and binging. It could mean that the egg has not seated itself yet and I am not producing enough Hcg to be detected on a pregnancy test. It could be that my stubborn little egg is waiting until the last possible minute to enter its 38 week home.

I am Being emotional because of the hormones that occupy a woman this time of the month, the hormones injected, inserted and swallowed. The rational non-hormonal person might take this all in stride and say "well we will just have to wait and see won't we and if not this month next month" Oh no, the hormonal woman can only count days over and over, and worry every moment. She needs this, she must have this, and how can she possibly wait. It is sweet torture, it is almost like climbing a mountain. The summit is there and you can see it but after hours of hiking it doesn't feel much closer.

This was my big shot at being a mommy, I have three days to produce a little Hcg or I will have to go off the prometrium (a progesterone they give you to help you build a happy nest for your baby) my cycle will start all over again...a cycle I refuse to acknowledge.

There is no trying again, this is it. We can't adopt our combined age is too old. I have no interest in foster care, I could never give a child back, too hard. So it has to work.

Where are you Stevie, My Sweetness?

2009-10-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

I found this poem today after typing in "Where are you Stevie, My Sweetness" into the google box of my computer. Not sure why I typed it in, maybe if we are all just energy it would be a good way to communicate, maybe I just needed to type it in...

I opened this link not sure what I would find and there was this beautiful treasure waiting for me. It is perfect in everyway and speaks to the depths of my being. This poem could have been written by my own heart.

Stevie tell Khalil Gibran thank you for his beautiful poem and thank you my sweet girl for helping me find it this morning. I love you, I love you, I love you...

Mom

Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little
Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you
As infants look upon the breast of their mothers?

Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of
Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon
Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice?

Or amongst the books, seeking human knowledge,
While you are replete with heavenly wisdom?

Oh companion of my soul, where are you? Are you
Praying in the temple? Or calling Nature in the
Field, haven of your dreams?

Are you in the huts of the poor, consoling the
Broken-hearted with the sweetness of your soul, and
Filling their hands with your bounty?

You are God's spirit everywhere;
You are stronger than the ages.

Do you have memory of the day we met, when the halo of
You spirit surrounded us, and the Angels of Love
Floated about, singing the praise of the soul's deed?

Do you recollect our sitting in the shade of the
Branches, sheltering ourselves from Humanity, as the ribs
Protect the divine secret of the heart from injury?

Remember you the trails and forest we walked, with hands
Joined, and our heads leaning against each other, as if
We were hiding ourselves within ourselves?

Recall you the hour I bade you farewell,
And the Maritime kiss you placed on my lips?
That kiss taught me that joining of lips in Love
Reveals heavenly secrets which the tongue cannot utter!

That kiss was introduction to a great sigh,
Like the Almighty's breath that turned earth into man.

That sigh led my way into the spiritual world,
Announcing the glory of my soul; and there
It shall perpetuate until again we meet.

I remember when you kissed me and kissed me,
With tears coursing your cheeks, and you said,
"Earthly bodies must often separate for earthly purpose,
And must live apart impelled by worldly intent.

"But the spirit remains joined safely in the hands of
Love, until death arrives and takes joined souls to God.

"Go, my beloved; Love has chosen you her delegate;
Over her, for she is Beauty who offers to her follower
The cup of the sweetness of life.
As for my own empty arms, your love shall remain my
Comforting groom; your memory, my Eternal wedding."

Where are you now, my other self? Are you awake in
The silence of the night? Let the clean breeze convey
To you my heart's every beat and affection.

Are you fondling my face in your memory? That image
Is no longer my own, for Sorrow has dropped his
Shadow on my happy countenance of the past.

Sobs have withered my eyes which reflected your beauty
And dried my lips which you sweetened with kisses.

Where are you, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping
From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need?
Do you know the greatness of my patience?

Is there any spirit in the air capable of conveying
To you the breath of this dying youth? Is there any
Secret communication between angels that will carry to
You my complaint?

Where are you, my beautiful star? The obscurity of life
Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.

Sail your smile into the air; it will reach and enliven me!
Breathe your fragrance into the air; it will sustain me!

Where are you, me beloved?
Oh, how great is Love!
And how little am I!

22

2009-09-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Twenty two years ago I gave birth to a little girl.

For nineteen years she let me love her and she tenderly loved me back.

Today I watched the sunset over Mt.Diablo as I placed fresh fruit and an armful of beautiful yellow tulips (yes, real tulips in September, thank you Teresa) on her grave. It was quiet and calm and a family of deer came down the hill and danced on the lawn looking for blossoms to nibble. I knew once I left tulips would be desert.

I love thinking of the two little fawns tasting flowers, apples, and pears as the sun turned from pink to that bruisy blue. Stevie would love to be surrounded with such sweetness.

My heart is full of things to say but I think tonight I will keep all those words in my heart.

The night sky is indigo now, and there is a crescent moon, a wishing moon and I wished my girl a happy birthday...I wanted to wish her home, wish me were ever she was but I simply wished her love on a day I will never forget, a day that changed me forever.

Stevie,

I love you, I love you, I love you...if you were here I would bake you a giant chocolate cake an put a million candles on it. If you were here I would kiss you until you begged me to stop. If you were here I would ask you question after question and hold you so tight you could never leave again.

I don't know where you are lovey I just pray everyday that in that sacred place you have found you are floating in a sea of bliss.

I am opening windows, it worked for Mrs.Darling, I am hoping you will come home after you awfully long adventure.

Don't be too far away...

Mama

Hope

2009-09-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of emails from family, friends, but mostly from people I have never met. They find the blog and read backwards. Some have lost a child, some a parent and some are attracted to the story like a car accident.

It is always a positive experience for me. I am comforted by the caring emails, it feels good to write a little bit about my girl when people ask, and I like to think that I am helping someone else who has just stepped off the train where they sat next to their child and out onto the platform where the train leaves taking your child, your heart and all your hope.

There is a destination, and someday that train will be back for you but until then you are here, in this new place. It all looks familiar but everything has changed. As mothers who have lost children we stand out to each other. It is like we wear a secret tattoo. It is a club no one wants to belong to but it is a very big club none the less.

If you have just stepped off the train here is a survival guide.

1. Cry. Cry loud, cry hard, and cry as much as you need to. Cry in front of your children, your friends, your family and complete strangers. Stop your car, pull over and cry. Break down at dinner, walk out of a movie, cry in a park, in your shower, cry until your body just can't do it anymore.

People will get nervous, feel uncomfortable, and well meaning people will tell you to pull it together and be strong for your children. Ignore them. You have lost your child and you are broken, crying is a natural response to pain and there is no reason to suppress that or feel guilty. Your children will see you cry and it will not hurt them, how could you not cry, you are so sad because this families child is so loved. You are letting them know it is OK to mourn and express your grief. As you begin to heal, they begin to heal.

2. Do not look at the clock. Time is different here and minutes last a lot longer than they use to. There is a part of you that wants the hands to stop, wants the whole world to stop and be here in this unreal space of time with you. Then there is the part of you that wants the years to go by as fast as they can so you don't have to live in all those hours.

You will hear "Time heals" it's bullshit. Time only offers distance, healing happens when it does, how it does, and it is never finished. Healing is a process of the soul, not of the body. There are no rules, you will not be better in a month a year or a decade. You learn to live with this loss, it never goes away, your heart won't let it. A vacation, a new baby, a new house, a better job, nothing fills the void. What you learn to do is live in spite of it, because of it, and yes you are stonger than you were before it.

No one gets to tell you when and how. No one can guide you, help you, fix you. This is your journey and it is deep, intimate, and sacred. There are no clocks here only heartbeats.

3. Look for signs. It doesn't matter what church you go to, what you were raised to believe, or if you believe in nothing. All of it disappears. This is a dark and quiet night of the soul. You are alone. Here in this alone place magic happens. Every cell in your body is waiting and watching and things happen. Songs will play and have meaning they never had before. You will find small ordinary things that are suddenly extraordinary. You will wake up in the middle of the night and feel kissed, flowers will bloom in odd places, you smell something that reminds you of something you can not name. I promise you these things will happen.

I don't know why these things happen or what they mean but they do. Get a journal and write them down. Don't try to make them mean something, don't share them with people who would not understand. These are private things meant for you.

4. Stay away from people who don't know better. It sounds cliche but the people who will be most helpful to you from this moment on may be the people you least expect, they may even be people you did not know before.

Here is the deal: When the funeral is over people need to go on with their lives. It isn't bad, it isn't uncaring. This is how it goes and you have accept that. The traffic will still be jammed in the morning, the banks will open on time, people will be rude in line at the grocery store. Your whole world has changed but you are the only one who noticed (well, you and the thousands of us who belong to this club). You are going to get mad and you will feel a little betrayed but don't stay there, move past it as fast as you can. This isn't personal it is just nature.

You will find that people will try to say all the right things and fail terribly.

You will find the people you thought would sit silently by your side and sooth you during this time will seem farther away than they have ever been.

You will find some people will actually get frustrated with your sadness, they want the old you back and try tough love you back to your old self.

None of these people are wrong, they just are.

They don't understand and you would not want them to understand. You have to let these people go. This does not mean cut them out of your life it just means that you have to understand that these are not your support people. You can still love them and let them love you but from an emotional distance.

Here is the beautiful thing, you will find people who for some reason you can't explain will arrive in your life and know just how to be with you, just what to say and are strong enough for your tears and your stories. I promise.

[Note: if money is involved in anyway these are not your people, run]

5. Allow yourself to feel good. In real life we are always trying to stay balanced, as women we find it easy to sacrifice what feel good for what feels right. As mothers we put ourselves last not because we are martyrs but because our instinct shows us how to distribute resources.

It is time to be selfish. Pull your kids out of school and drive to the Grand Canyon without any plan other than enough money, a full tank of gas and the desire to see something beautiful. Stay up all night looking at the stars and talking to the moon. Bake a big chocolate cake and eat the whole thing by yourself, dance naked in the rain, spend the day in the woods collecting pine cones, write a book, climb a mountain.

Avoid the real world, indulge in things that are good for you, break old rules, be spontaneous, live.

There is one thing you have learned and that is that this life does not last forever and there are no rules about when you go.

Lay in bed all day and watch TV, turn the stereo all the way up and sing and cry, fill the house with flowers and candles, plant fruit tree's, paint the house orange if it makes you feel better.

There are some people who worry that this anarchy will lead to insanity, to chaos, and your ultimate demise. I think it's the opposite, I know it's life affirming. If there is one time in your life when indulgence is not only a good idea but life saving then this is when it should happen.

[This advice does not include drugs, alcohol, or any other harmful behavior that would hurt you or hurt someone else.]

6. Don't give up. I know that the one thing you want most is to be with your child. You are praying to a God you are mad at or a God you never believe existed and you are saying "I want my child back" I know that you have considered leaving this life to be with them or to at least be in a place that does not hurt anymore even if it means being no where at all.

You are not crazy. You are sad.

Trust me, leaving is not a good idea and not really an option. My daughter use to say "Don't waste it" and it would be a crime against your soul to leave when you are meant to stay.

Your child is now free from the body that hurt, the body that could no longer survive here. The timing sucks for you but it makes sense someplace else. If it were a perfect world they would be here or you would understand why they are not.

To leave is to give up and we are not designed to give up. We are here for a reason. You have work to do. It bites, if anyone knows I do. There will be a time when you are ready to go, when your work is done but it isn't now. You have to be invited back home, grief is not an invitation to die it is a dare to live.

Choose life, it is a way to honor your child.

This dark night passes, your heart will never be the same but the sun comes up and you learn to live with half a heart.

7. Expect Change. Everything has changed, food tastes different, there is a color missing from the spectrum, and you feel like you are walking around in a dream you can't wake up from.

Something bigger has changed and you are stronger, less afraid, and the silly small stuff is white noise in your life. You feel disconnected from everything that use to matter and suddenly connected to something bigger you can not name.

Losing a child is like having a baby backwards. There is a rhythm to it, it has waves, contractions. The acute moment is closest to the first and the last breath.

Time will offer distance from those waves that crash so close together. You will stop crying as much, you will begin doing things you use to like paying the bills and getting the laundry done. You may even go back to work.

Don't be surprised if the things that felt important before don't feel important now. It is easier to let things go because you have a feeling there is something else waiting.

Most of us on the platform have changed jobs, left hurtful relationships, written books, started foundations, learned to play a musical instrument, go back to school, find a new hobby, adopt a child, move to a new city, try yoga, become support people, find new things to love just a little.

You are not the same person. You sent a part of you off with your child and like starfish we grow new parts.

7. Children. Most women who lose a child in their childbearing years become pregnant within a year. Mother nature knows what she is doing. If you are in a healthy relationship and you are moved to do this I think it is beautiful.

If you are past the fertile years and you want to adopt, how lucky for a child waiting all this time for a mother.

If you have children...

Those well meaning people who love you but say all the wrong things will say (and I guarantee this) "Your other children need you now and/or at least you have your other children" I think the worst is, "Your still young you can have other children"

It is easy to see how that might seem comforting but really it is insulting. Let the words dissolve, don't even let them enter your mind where they will turn into ugly thoughts.

Do fall in love with your living children. Give yourself time, and give them time.

Don't be afraid to have a baby. This does not replace the child you lost but helps you believe in love again, teaches you to hope.

Don't feel like you need to apologize for not wanting another child, only you and your heart know what is good for you.

This could go on forever and maybe I will add to it as a journey farther. I have a little boy that needs a lunch made and a kiss before school, a lab that is waiting for me to arrive at so they can check my hormones and see if a baby is possible, and a job that requires me to be there.

Life is not perfect and I am far from the person I hope to become. Today I have hope and that is a big deal. To have hope is to believe that it can and will get better.

It will. Keep Traveling.

2009-07-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

I am home with the flu, a gift from my sweet boy and his bunk mates at camp. He is recovered and doing well and is being a love and getting me ice water, giving me head rubs, and teaching me camp songs.

This is a strange summer...I can't put my finger on it, maybe it is the unusual weather, a quiet house, or business that requires my attention. It just doesn't feel like a real summer yet.

I have been in a bummed out crappy mood. I feel restless, sad, a little frustrated, and disconnected. Because this is a blog about grieving and surviving I think it is OK to talk about the long term fall out. For me there was the acute period of absolute pain. There were whole days when I didn't even want to breath, everything hurt, those days quickly turned into days that were doing, doing, doing. If I kept myself busy I didn't have time to think, remember, or fall apart. I felt like I was healing but I would crash and burn, then get busy again.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and now it has been two years. For most people that seems plenty of time to move on and leave behind the crying days. I think what people don't understand is that there is no moving on. The moment I kissed my daughter for the last time, before they zipped up that ugly bag and took her body away was the last moment I was me.

I didn't die or disappear, my body looks the same, my life looks similar but everything has changed. This life I live is a broken version of the life I had before. I wobble around in it. Noah still needs a lunch packed, Aly still wants to argue about how she understands life much better than I do. Steve still wants me to be the person he met 25 years ago. The bills need to be paid, groceries purchased, a house cleaned, dentists to see, mammograms, school supplies to buy...

Everything still moves and turns but without the person I love most. I am learning to live this way, it isn't a choice really but I have not learned to live this way with joy, hope, and happiness.

I know several women who have lost children. One woman I know went to all the right therapists, did all the right things, and has chosen to celebrate her daughters life rather than focus on her death. She finds comfort in talking to her, talking about her and wrapping herself in her husbands love, and the love of her children and grandchildren. She is an inspiration.

Most women who lose a child, who are of child bearing age become pregnant within a year. It is easy to understand why, and I know if this option where available to me it would have helped me in a big way. I am very angry that it is not. I know that the act of bringing a life into the world would restore hope and belief.

There are women who can not bear this loss and I understand that. There is no one on this planet that will argue that the loss of a child is the most painful thing a woman will ever have to endure. I know women who have taken there lives and women who still have bodies that live but they don't live in them. This scares me.

Many women put their energy into a cause, they raise money, write books, start foundations. This cause is not unlike giving birth to another child.

There is a spectrum to this like most things I'm not sure it is a very big one but we all fit somewhere on it, I'm not sure where I fit yet, I'm all over the place.

I fear being stuck in a dark place but I know I am not able to celebrate my daughters life. Noah wraps himself around me and he saves me but everything else feels like an enormous rocking sea. I am tired of being busy just to be busy. I desire to find happiness, I would love to have more children.

I know I can live with this pain, missing my girl, and not understanding. I am doing it. I think I can do more than what I am doing. I know I still have a well of strength I have not accessed yet. I have an idea of what I want my new life to look like but I just don't know how to navigate this ocean and make my way to that shore.

I need a soft spot to land, a life that is easy, I need good weather, music, time to heal and a beautiful place to do it. I need to escape this place where the old me use to live. I want a vacation from stress, drama, and work. I want to sit under a big tree with Noah and read stories. I want to eat outside, walk on the beach, float in water, I want to write long letters by candle light, I want to watch the sky turn pink wrapped in a blanket on the top of hill. I want to make art for myself, sing in the kitchen and go barefoot everyday.

I want a real summer that lasts and lasts and lasts.

2009-07-02T18:10:00.001-07:00

I am sitting at Whole Foods with the pink cupcake computer I bought a while back. They keyboard is so tiny I feel giant and fumbely. I just ate a huge dinner; curried veggies, tofu with peanut sauce, some garlic potatoes and a fat slice of Lemon cake. The sun shining through the window is keeping nice and toasty even thought they have the A/C turned up to Arctic in here. It is a little surreal blogging in a grocery store but I have an outlet and a connection how could I not.

I am alone, it feels weird. Aly and Steve went to see Hang-over I not so politely declined. I have been labeled "No Fun" by the two of them but I don't feel very offended. I'm sorry I just can't spend two hours of my life watching people get smashed testicles, knocked out teeth and near misses everywhere else. I'm not a fan of stoner movies, parodies, or Three Stooges humor. I also don't like practical jokes or those damn videos where someone always gets hurt. Maybe I am no fun but pie-in-the-face just doesn't do it for me.

I like my humor a little dry or a little dirty, I also like to soar just a tiny bit over my head where I have to reach a little. I also like sweet humor. Last night I went to Walnut Creek to see Away We Go. It was a sweet, funny, smart movie. It wasn't blockbuster material it was a quality film that I am very glad someone made. I wish more films were as thoughtful.

Noah is still at camp and I miss him like crazy. It is quite boring without my little man tagging along, singing his songs, trying everything he can to score desert and cuddling up next to at bedtime.

I know he is having a great time, I can feel it. I can see him at campfires with his new summer buddies, eating big, sunburned cheeks, rowing boats and learning how to use a bow and arrow. I am proud of him, and I am proud of myself for not letting my fear override my knowing. He deserves this magical and caring week.

I am once again at some crossroad. It doesn't have a name it is just a very real feeling that sits just below my heart. My life is about to change my fingers are crossed it is good change. I was telling one of my very dearest friends Teresa that I am ready for something good to happen, something light and feathery to rain down on me and fill me up with hope and a reason to get up before the sun.

I know we all are responsible for making good things happen, we should be attracting what we desire most, inviting the universe to move us into our desired direction. I am just not strong enough to make that happen at the moment. I need the universe to take charge and give me an amazing brilliant magnet to pull me in. I know it's possible, and if it can happen in a heartbreaking way it can also happen in a beautiful life changing way.

There is a woman sitting in front of me, I can't tell her nationality, she has Asian eyes but they are the lightest hazel, her skin is olive and she has a spray of tiny freckles on her cheeks and across her nose. Her hair is black and pulled back in a shiny ponytail. The reason she has my attention is that she is eating a large gelato and reading a book. It isn't the book or the gelato but the expression on her face as she is reading and enjoying her treat. She looks totally blissed out, her bliss is rubbing off on me.

Teresa told me that I need to look for those feathers from heaven all around me and simply be in a moment. If something is pretty it is pretty, if it smells good, it smells good, if I have a fleeting moment of pleasure then be in that fleeting moment.

This woman may be an example of that. She is finding such joy in such simple pleasures, it is almost like she is radiating. If she knew what I was typing all of that would probably change (just a little creepy)quickly as all things observed tend to do.

I love Whole Foods. It makes me sad because this was another one of those Stevie places. She loved this store, and we spent a lot of time and many of Steve's paychecks here. It also makes me feel close to her. It is funny how the two go together, the closeness and the pain. I understand why, and it's worth it.

I am starting to realise I ate way too much, maybe I should go home and go for a walk so I don't have all night cake guilt. A nap is a good cure too but I really need the walk.

I embrace change, I open myself to the greatness of the universe and trust it's plan for me.

Big Hair and the Circle Star

2009-06-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well it was a big day yesterday for the entertainment industry, two icons gone...

I remember my cousin Ron (and every other teenage boy) had the Farah in the red bathing suit- nipples at attention poster hanging in his room. I remember thinking how beautiful she was and how I wanted more than anything in the world to have two things:

1. Boobs
2. Big Hair

Lucky for me curling irons and a home perm weren't too expensive but the boobs would be harder to come by and a long wait. The boob fairy finally did visit me after the birth of my first child. Because this fairy was late she decided to make up for it by giving my great-grandmothers heavy breasts. It is feast or famine with me always.

Charlies Angels...sigh. You had to love that cheesy show, the original crew made me want a jump suit, made me want to learn karate, made me want to wear lipstick. Alas I was trapped in a skinny boys body but I loved those angels.

Although I am not a People magazine reader and I don't follow what goes on in the magic world of all things shiny I did respect Farrah making the documentary of her cancer journey. I have not seen it but I think it can only raise awareness when someone who was the standard of beauty in her prime allows the public to see what cancer takes away. It isn't like the movies, it is painful, scary, and ugly.

Thank you Farrah for raising cancer awareness.

Michael. It was a shock to hear that he had passed, I knew it would happen some day I just could never imagine Michael Jackson at 70. It was hard to believe he was 50. My instincts tell me his demise was drug related but it doesn't really matter how he left, it was just his time. His heart breaking seems like a tragic and fitting ending.

I was a fan, then a confused and conflicted fan when he was dealing with the molestation accusations. The plastic surgery never bothered me it is just what people do. His choices were just out there where people could examine it and act shocked and amazed. C'mon what celebrity hasn't been nipped-tucked and had things plumped up or moved around. It's mainstream now, I know more people who have had work done than people who have not.

The monkey, the out-there clothing, Lisa Presley, Neverland, seriously how could that shock anyone. Hollywood is the land of make-believe and he gave people something to talk about, to wonder about and keep them interested, pure marketing genius.

Surrogate mothers...he wanted children for what ever reason, most of us do. I don't care about his sexuality, in these times it seems silly that anyone is really all that shocked or concerned.

The molestation charges. This bothers me. I have no tolerance for pedophiles. I also don't believe children lie about these things. I have my doubts where money is concerned. The first little boys family took 23 million dollars and chose not to prosecute, there is something a little selfish and greedy about that. As a mother I would first want to rip the genitals off the person who did this to my child then I would want them to spend the rest of their days behind bars where they could hurt no other child, money would be the last thing on my mind.

The second little boy...not sure how I feel about that. I wasn't at the trial, I do not know what the jurors heard or why they chose a not-guilty verdict.

I think, and hope that this man will be remembered for the good things he did, and he did do things that changed lives for the better. He did give, he did make a difference. I think all people should be remembered for what they gave.

When I was a kid I went to see The Jackson Five at the Circle Star theater in Oakland. we were way up front and it was spectacular. These boys sang their hearts out. Micheal had a fro back then and all the brothers wore bell bottoms, I thought that was boss. I was a runny nosed little tom-boy but I danced my little chicken legs off.

While I was driving home I spoke to Stevie, I told her, "Hey Michael Jackson is in heaven now, how cool is that" She had a little collection of DVDs that she use to watch. To her it was all "Old School" and she loved the music and videos. Stevie didn't judge people. She like them or didn't like them, there was never an explanation or an apology, she never wavered or changed her mind. She could just feel to the heart of a person. She didn't have time to waste.

I wonder if that is how we should all live. I could have saved hundreds of hours of my life if I didn't try to help people who didn't really want help, change people who were happy in their misery, trying to build friendships with people I didn't really like because I thought it was the right thing to do. My instincts were always right but always a hindsight observation.

I am not saying people should be hateful or avoid helping another person,it isn't about the worth of a person. What I am saying is that we all have a moral compass, good instincts, and if we listen to that without judgement we could live a little more effectively.

I get lost in this. I always tell myself that that gut feeling isn't a tool for me to move in another direction but a challenge, a hurdle that will help me build a better me if I do the right thing, maybe I am wrong.

The universe gives us a road map for our lives, Point A to Point B. It offers us guidance and direction. We have the freedom to take our own route and we can make it as long or as difficult as we like. Only two things are for sure; there is a point B and there are no shortcuts.

I think I am going to stick to my map now, listen to that inner guidance, love when my heart tells me to, run when my heart tells me to. My girl had this all figured out by the time she was five, I am a slow learner.

For some reason humans need idols, and icons serve a purpose but they to die and fade away, making room for other icons.

We can chose who we love, I think we should learn to see lovable greatness in ourselves and not hang all our hopes and dreams on someone else who seems bigger and better.

This is the only life we have and know right now, we have to be kings and queens of our own beauty and promise.

elsewhere

2009-06-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Elsewhere I found the book at Target, I was looking for some summer reading for Noah. I am sure this is his "reading" summer. The girls both had a magic summer just like I did when they discovered how to fall into a book and not come up for air until dinner time.

I passed the book up once then went back to it like a magnet. Noah started reading it and loved it so I started reading it and I fell in love with it. It is about a girl who dies and what happens after.

There were too many moments in the story that made the book feel personal. I know authors write what they do for what ever reason and it has nothing to do with anyone else but themselves, it is their art and it is personal only to them. Issabelle Allende and Jodi Piccult have both said that a story finds them, they listen and write it all down. I can almost believe that someone whispered this story into Ms.Gabrielle's ear so that one summer I would find it on a shelf when I needed it most and it would help heal my heart a little.

I had a dream a while ago that the date 7-12 was important. I think it might be still. Next month The Time Travelers Daughter will be released at theaters. This was one of Stevie's favorite books. The movie was set to be released earlier (much earlier) but they had to make a ton of post production changes, I heard through the grapevine that the ending had to be changed.

So next month I will be able to see this book come to life...I am taking Stevie with me. I will leave an open seat next to me for her. I will bring one of her sweaters and put it on the seat so everyone will know it is taken.

It's fathers day. We are going to take the boat out to the delta, it should be about 85 degrees with a little more wind than I like but it could be a nice day.

There is so much more I want to write but I will have to save it for another day, Steve and Noah are getting itchy to leave.

wrapping night around me

2009-06-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've been writing in my journal more and more. I forgot how good it feels to create letters with a pen on paper. I make lists. I am a list maker. Writing it all down in neat little rows makes me feel like I am making progress towards being more organized, I am not sure it works that way.

Today's list:

Finish the laundry (I didn't)
Get Noah of to school and remember to pick him up at 12:30 (I did)
Finish the little paper birds for the shop (almost done)
Go for a nice long walk after dinner (I did the dinner part)
Register Noah for drama camp (I forgot)
Make Polenta for dinner (I did but no one ate it)
Get my Rx refilled (done)
answer emails (read them, did not answer them)

Am I the only one who does this?

I have been doing a lot of research, it is easy to lose hours doing reading. I am obsessed with reincarnation. So many people on this planet embrace the idea but here in the West we are still scratching our heads.

As with most ideas that are a outside our little box of comfort we first question how it will effect mainstream Christianity. I listened to two parents with a child who has offered a great deal of strong evidence that he was a reincarnated air force Pilot shot down in WW2. I loved what they said, "This has not changed our faith it has strengthened it" It would be so much easier if most people wondered more about how integrating a new idea would enrich their belief system instead of fearing discovery.

I have my obvious reason for being curious but the more I learn the more interesting it becomes. In India almost every child talks about the life they had before they were born and parents listen, they are interested, they do not question it. In most cases the memory fades by age seven as the child learns to love his current family and rediscovers childhood.

The late Dr.Ian Stevenson studied thousands of these children. He evaluated the cases after much investigation. The stories that unfolded were mysterious and beautiful. He reunited children with past families, the children recognizing siblings, knowing where toys were kept and remembering how they died.

I wonder why it is such a difficult thing for us here to believe. We rationalize, tell ourselves it is something people created to ease the pain of loss and calm the fear of death. Don't we do that anyway with Heaven?

If we observe nature a tree grows from a seed, it gives fruit that is eaten, the seeds are carried off and grow into more trees. The leaves on the trees fall in Autumn and the tree sleeps for the season. The fallen leaves turn into mulch that protects and feeds the trees and in spring new leaves and fruit appear, year after year.

Energy can not be destroyed. Tree's do not disappear in nature. Tree energy remains tree energy and human energy must remain human energy. When we die we simply sleep through a season and wake when it is warm again. It is a thought I kinda like.

Tonight I am fighting the urge to bake a cake. I need sugar, everyone has a vice and sugar is mine. A homemade lemon raspberry cake is calling to me like a siren...

Stevie was my partner in crime, we are desert queens. If she was here I would make it and not even think twice, or she would, either way I would get stuck with the dishes.

I might just swim instead, the sun has gone down and the sky is that deep bruisy lavender before dark. It is kinda sad but I like it. I like watching night happen, stars appearing one by one. Night is magic, it is another world. I use to be so afraid of the dark, now it is a comfort. The sky feels like a big sparkling blanket. I remember reading once about stars being tiny windows people made in heaven to keep an eye on us. Heaven must be well lit and there must be a whole lot of heavenly people keeping an eye on us here.

Graduations and Pity Parties...

2009-05-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

Ashley and Stevie were born two weeks apart. Ashley's mother Sandy and I were close at the time. She was married to my cousin Ron and as children he and I were close. My family was big back then and all the cousins spent a great deal of time together. Ron and I were close in age and I got all his hand-me-downs.

When Ashley was born I was at the hospital, and Stevie was with me, all snuggled up in a baby sling. Stevie was a great big baby with huge cheeks and Ashley was a lean baby with big eyes. The two of them spent a lot of time together in pools, back yards and at parks. They climbed trees, played dress up, and got drunk once at a family party on fuzzy navels.

We took our first trip to Disneyland with Sandy, Ron Ashley and her little sister Megan when the girls were still little. I cried on the Peter Pan ride and the girls got sugared up and crowned with Mickey ears. I still have a photo of Ashley kissing Stevie on a ride that day.

Ashley called today to thank me for a quilt I gave her for graduation. She graduates from college this year and I am very proud of her. She is going to be a teacher. I knew she would be from the time she was little. Ashley was playful, responsible and patient. She was guided gently and has always been the first one to snatch up a baby or sit on the floor with a little kid to play. She is a hard working girl who loves her family with her whole heart. She loved Stevie very much and she was at the hospital the day Stevie died.

Ashley is good to me and it hurts. She is doing all the things Stevie would be doing, getting all the milestones, and she deserves all the happiness it brings but it reminds me of all the things Stevie will never be able to do.

I am an asshole because I should be grateful to have Ashley in my life, grateful that she is so loving and caring. I am grateful but I also let my loss get in the way of expressing that and being closer.

When Stevie was sick she pulled away from everyone and the last Easter we had together she cried because she wanted everyone to leave. It was hard for her to let go but that was what she was doing, it hurt her so much to be in a bed sick, without hair, unable to walk. It was hard for her to know that she would never have anymore holidays with the people she loved most.

I am not sure everyone understood that and they broke into her room any way and loved her up. She was pissed. I think it was mostly because she knew she had to leave...

Today I am falling apart because I am remembering all of this clearly, it is playing in my mind like a movie...I can smell the Easter Bunnies, feel the warm day, and I remember the way Stevie sobbed as my sister held her.

I promise on most days I am normal but on the days I feel heavy and broken I come here and have a little pity party so I can sort out all these feelings, cry and make room for deep breaths and new moments.

My girl graduated early and she moved away to start her new life. It is far away and she can not be reached by telephone or mail. I just have to trust that her new life holds great promise(s), unending love, adventure, bliss and a place for me when I graduate.

2009-05-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hey baby girl,

It was a warm May day, the sun is setting, I missed all the colors but the sky is still beautiful. Noah and I watched "That Thing You Do" and I kept thinking of Briana when Liv Tyler had a little camera time. I never met Briana but I feel like I know her a little. Iva must feel the same way about you.

I keep smelling you in your room late at night, just for a moment then it fades.

I moved stuff around in the store, doing that thing I do and play a constant game of Tetris with my space until everything fits just right. If you can't arrange your life, arrange furniture. It looks good. Lana came in today to help me roll up ribbon, she even got her husband to come out and do some heavy lifting if it needed doing. I don't know how to recieve kindness, it makes me feel akward and emotional, another something to work on.

I am moving the studio back into the garage and having new carpet put in the sunroom. I feel like I am taking up too much space in a small house. I don't work at home much so moving back into the garage makes more sense.

(The new carpet will be refreshing, remember when someone spilled spaghetti sauce out here and we could never quite get it all up. In the summer when the room heats up it smells like underarms and oregano. It will be nice to have that gone but hard to give up another thing that you touched, that was a part of your life here.)

I am let my hair grow long, and letting it be as curly as it wants to be. Silly. I am too old to pull this off but I want to grow it one last time and finally have long hair. You will have to keep me from going out and cutting it like I always do when I get tired of being a slave to it.

Tonight I made ravioli and arabiata sauce and a big salad you would have loved. I made a lemon dressing that was really good. I was remembering you in the kitchen making ravioli from scratch (you savage) ever the purist, always the finest ingredients. I ate way too much bread, so much for the diet. I also ate a million ginger cookies at work, what is it about ginger snaps that tastes healthy? little tricky cookies!

I am going to go out and soak under the stars after I write this. Orion has moved out into another part of the sky and I feel like I 'm lost, I'll need to find another reference point, maybe the little dipper will be my guide for a while. The moon is almost full, I can see her face. I pretend that you can see her too and it is one thing we can both be a part of in the same moment. What was that old song...

"Even though I know how very far apart we are it helps to know we both are wishing on the same bright star and when the night wind starts to sing her lonesome lulliby it helps to think were sleeping underneath the same bright sky"

Aly is leaving soon to the South to visit with Hunter. She is pretty excited. Keep her safe.

I am reading one of your books, I had to take a break because there was a part that turned me upside down. I am going to read a little bit more of it tonight, it is a good story and you have always had excellent taste in authors, among other things.

Remember when we met Jodi Piccult in San Fransisco, we were standing behind her and she was ordering Starbucks just like a regular person. The book she spoke about, the one she was writing at the time is the one I am reading now. I am not crazy about all the prison stuff but I can understand her fascination with this world inside a world. In the book a young girl needs a heart and a man on death row wants her to have his.

I have always said that there were a million people who could have died, why you? There were child molesters, rapists, and serial killers all sitting in prisons... I would have removed a heart from anyone of them with my bare hands if it meant saving your life...

God just sees people as people, souls as souls no one more or less valuable than the other. I guess it is how I should see it, and I do but I miss you and need you here with me so I can have someone to tell all my secrets to, to talk to late at night, to watch grow, to be proud of, to learn from and to feel connected to.

You were my person...

Now I am getting all sappy so I better stop righting and get into that water and under those stars.

Let's go look at the moon sweetness,

Mom

2009-04-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

So here we are...the 19th.

My mind wants to race back to this moment in time two years ago, the synapse bridge has been built and it is an easy leap but I can't or I am going to try not to at least.

The memory of that day is as painful in this moment as it was then.

What I have to do is create a new bridge...

I'm not sure how to do that yet so I will have to stay as numb as I can today.

There is no forgetting any of it really.

Maybe forgetting isn't the answer but surviving the remembering is.

Stevie,

I am up with the sun this morning, I waited for you last night but instead of a visitation I had a deep restful nights sleep. Maybe God is offering a consolation prize but I will keep waiting anyway.

This morning I am going to clean up, open the store for Colleens class, run over to Joe's and buy every Daffodil they have, then I will go to Micheal's and buy and armload of yellow silk tulips. I will talk to you on the long, long drive to Oakmont, cry all the way up the hill, and find a way to accept that all this is real as I cover your body with flowers.

I listened to three people who claimed to have died, gone to heaven, and returned to tell about it. They all said that they didn't want to come back because heaven was so beautiful; the colors intoxicating, the sound of music transcending, the feeling of pure love and peace overwhelming. the experience changed them forever.

On the other side there were beings of light, loved ones, and the presence of a God they could not describe without reverting back to their own religious frame of reference. They were all told it wasn't there time, that they still had work to do and were sent back. Every person felt that had a message.

I listened to other people tell stories of angel sightings, visitations from the other side and messages left on answering machines, tape recorders and in the form of orbs and streaks of light on film.

Every well meaning person I know promises me that you are someplace better than here, at peace, in heaven, waiting for me. They are confused because I can't simply believe that and feel comforted. If it were their child they would be standing in the same place I am, no matter what church they belong to.

Yesterday I was in your room placing a beautiful vase of tulips that Teresa sent me next to your picture and I yelled at you. I said, "Damn it Stevie, I don't care if you are having a party with Julia Child every night, I don't care if I bum you out, you must come and see me and tell me you are OK, you have to, don't leave me here alone to go crazy with grief."

It is the first time I felt angry. I am not angry at you, just frustrated because I feel that I have been waiting so long, holding onto bits and pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together. I gather signs, and coincidence, and make a story out of something that moves me not because it is real but because I need so badly for it to be real.

I must have been on a roll because I had it out with God that day too. The things I wrote in my journal I won't try and write here. I wrote word after word, page after page until I was empty. It all comes down to faith and I am tired of faith, tired of trying to hold onto a belief that is betraying me.

I know I am suppose to wake up on a morning like this and thank God for another day, watch the sun come up, marvel at how the trees that have filled in with magical shades of green, the hills have been covered with a downy coat of grass, and count how many birds have found there way into the garden this year.

I did this but I also listened to how quite the morning was, and how lonely this place is when the person you loved best isn't here, sleeping in her bed, dreaming of coffee and sweet faced boys who sing about tangerines and trampolines.

A color leaves the spectrum, everything is still beautiful but it has changed.

Anthony spent the night, he is sleeping on our sofa. Dad, Noah and Aly are sound asleep. In an hour this house will be noisy, I will cook breakfast, Dad will start hammering away at the wall and door he is building so I can move back into my old studio. It will be another day for everyone else on this planet but it will be a wormhole in time for me, just a visit, no ability to make the changes I desire.

Noah, Aly and I watches a documentary on Time Machines. Aly didn't want to watch it she thought it would be too cerebral and she hates physics. I made her press "Play" and about ten minutes in she got up and stomped into the kitchen, angry because she couldn't get it. I followed her and explained to her that time and space were another dimension that would could see or follow with our five senses but it was real and it operated like a membrane or a piece of fabric and if we could find a way to manipulate it (the planets do all the time) then we could create a little tunnel, a short cut and move through time and space in a different way than we do now.

She got it. She is so smart Stevie but she gets frustrated too easily. There is a moment when you hit a wall, the trick is realizing that it isn't a wall as much as it is a door. Yesterday she walked through that door.

It made me think that I am doing the same thing...I am stomping my feet and wailing at God because I have hit a wall. I am trying to feel around in the dark for the door sweet girl but my Aly-apple didn't fall far from the tree...

I am not giving up, I am just circling Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's wheel of grief, she never said how many times you would visit each of those places and for how long but I am far from finished.

I am rambling because I don't want to face the day...I am a big sad baby.

Bunny of mine, twenty four months doesn't mean a damn thing. You still have all of me. Today I am yours take me where you want me to go, show me what you need me to see, teach me how this has to be. You can yell at me if you want.

I put the fountain were you told me to, I will turn it on today and maybe if I can get myself to do it I will put new plants in the garden. You hated gardening...I tried so hard to get you out there but you just were not a fan of dirt and sweaty labor.

It is inevitable, the day must begin, another day...

Stay close to me sweetness.

Mom

Crucimation

2009-04-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Hey sweet girl...

It has been a very hard week. You would think that going to Paris would turn me into a happy person for just a little while but the end of the trip was the end of the trip.

There were great times and it was beautiful. It is hard to travel with someone who has a completely different personality that you but I think we did OK. Sarah needs more than I do, or she just needs different things. I am a little more quiet, I like observing, exploring, figuring things out in a slow way, letting them happen the way they should. Sarah likes to go out and get what she wants, no is not an option, she is in control of her life and her outcome. She always gets what she wants I am just not sure she gets what she needs. I think she might feel I was too passive or lazy but I don't feel like you ever need to push that hard if it isn't really that important.

You taught me what is important, at least I am clear about what I think is important now. It is just the seconds lived in a way that is true, being a good person, observing and learning. It isn't what you can fit in your pockets it is what you fill your heart with.

I would have been happy in flea bag hotels and days spent seeing more instead of driving more. I went with the flow the first week. I always had the opportunity to speak up but there were things that were important to her experience that didn't take away from mine. The second week we had a home base so we were free to explore on our own.

The most memorable moments were walking through tiny villages, spending hours in cathedrals and the museums, oh the museums.

Stevie I must have looked silly crying...but there I was standing in Rodin's Museum surrounded by his work and Camille's and I was overwhelmed. I remember a similar feeling when I went to the legion of Honor to see his exhibit and later in art school learning about Camille and seeing her face. I know it's crazy thinking but I always felt I was Camille in another life. I have dreamed of Auguste so many times, I know his face like I know my own. The funny thing is that I am not in love with his work as much as I am in love with idea of him.

The Louvre was something I won't forget. Arriving at the square, entering the pyramid, walking with a sea of people from all over the world. I felt light headed. The paintings blew me away, the baroque rooms did not, and the scupture, well I almost fainted. I spent the most time with the marble. I wanted so badly to touch it. What is it about three dimensional art that moves me so?

I took photos then had to stop because I knew that I was wasting time looking at everything from behind the lense of a camera when what I really wanted to do was stand there in a narrow shaft of light and remember every detail with my own eyes, and I did, I stayed until they asked everyone to leave.

Paris has an energy all it's own but like any other place after a while it loses it's shine and it starts to seem a little more like Disneyland. I hate seeing the zipper on the gorilla suit but you and I both know it is inevitable. I walked for hours getting as far from the center as I could, I ate in places that most people don't and I am not sure if you had something to do with this but I found what must have been the only Thai cafe in Paris.

Stevie I was the only customer there and I had the most incredible bowl of soup I had the whole trip. It was full of veggies and spices, the broth must have been fish-based. It was served in a deep bowl that was taller than any soup ball I had ever eaten from. It was steamy and warmed me inside and out. I stayed there for a while, wrote in my journal, and listened to sing-song- Asian-French. I was very happy that no one brought me a basket of sliced baguette, you know me I love bread but the baguette got old very fast. It was a surreal day and I knew that if you had come on the trip with me, we would have found this place.

The plane ride home was long but Sarah booked us in Business class so it was comfortable. I watched the Secret Life Of Bees and there was something about Dakota that reminded me of you at that age. Remember how skinny you got after radiation? The last of your long blond hair turning auburn, your eyes so blue and haunting. You gave and gave and when you finally spoke it was always something so profound. Dad use to call what you said "Pearls" I like the image of pearls falling from your lips.

I understood the depths of May's sadness. I related a little too much. The wailing wall seems like a beautiful tool for grief, I wonder where I can find a billion stones to build one.

I am stressed out. There is so much to do. The business has a pulse now and needs constant attention. I am learning everything the hard way and just when I think I may have made a mistake by being so compulsive and opening a store without any real planning...well, people show up and make me think it wasn't as unplanned as I thought, just not my plan.

Noah is happy I am home but I have been sad. He tries to find me past that sadness, he needs it to go away so I can belong only to him. It won't go away and he will learn something beautiful from that. I give him all that I have, I see him, I am just a little broken. I am learning to be a different kind of mother and he is learning how much mothers love their children. He is such a happy boy, such a good guy Stevie, you knew it, you knew that he would be here after you were gone and you were afraid that I would forget you, that he would fill up your space. He has a place in my heart, his own place and you my sweet have yours, I will never forget, you are still my bunny, my best friend, my sweetness.

The 19Th is fast approaching and we have no plans. I think after the first year most people are over the hump and would feel more comfortable if I was too. The bulk of their grief has passed but I will live with mine forever. It doesn't mean I stop living it just means I learn to live and grieve.

I plan to go to the cemetery and take hundreds of daffodils. I will spread them all over your body, a sea of delicate yellow petals. The deer will come and nibble them and I am sure that will be more than OK with you. I am going to lay next to your body and sing favorite songs terribly, tell you how much I love you and how 24 months has meant nothing, it was just yesterday that you and dad were going to Berkeley to see the Format and I was doing your hair. I remember helping you get your make-up right and telling you how beautiful you were, how grown up you looked. I remember kissing your neck and telling you that you smelled so good, that you always smelled so sweet. What I would give to smell you, all fruit, flowers and knowing.

When you were little I use to nibble on you, all the fleshy places, I would inhale you, wrap myself around you, I thought I could keep you safe, my love felt strong and powerful, and you felt like you were mine.

We celebrated Easter the best way we could. I asked Noah if he believed in the Easter Bunny and he tried to fake it, he knew what was on the line. I told him it was OK, that a six foot Bunny dropping eggs in our yard was very Donny Darko and he was off the hook but in order to get a basket he had to tell me what Easter really was. He said, "Oh I know, it is when that guy who looks like Uncle John, the Jesus guy, he gets crucimated" Ding-Ding-Ding, Noah got a basket.

I got up at four and left a small basket for Aly in her car so she would have it first thing before work. She was very happy that I kept the tradition. She knows she is too old but there is comfort in some things not changing.

Spring is here puddin. Your Cherry tree has tiny green nubs, a million of them and there will be even more cherries than last year. Remember the mystery tulip the lone pink one that comes up every year under the walnut tree? This year there are two. The red tulips and garden daffs and the lilac are gone but the tree's all have their leaves again. This year I will try to plant a good garden. It is the right thing to do and it has always given me such pleasure I need to find a way back to it again.

So much to do honey, sometimes it feels like to much to do. I want a break but I need to stay busy. I need to have one of those dreams, the one where I can see you and touch you and it is all so real that waking up is confusing. Send me one of those dreams sweet girl.

Well, this tired mama has a house to clean, a garden to plant, and a business to run. I also have a sleepy little boy who deserves a good breakfast on his first day of spring break.

I miss you everyday, and I still count the minutes that you are not here.

I love you so much baby girl,

Mom

France

2009-03-28T16:03:00.001-07:00

I am in France.

It doesn't seem real.

I went to a beautiful Bascillica in Verasay and spent the morning in meditation. I stayed for a long time, long enough for my toes and bottom to go cold and numb. I lit a candle for Stevie at the alter for Mary. I cried and asked for strength. The church is magnificent and I can't believe that God isn't moved.

This trip has been a learning experience. There is so much to see and time to contemplate. I am in the country this week following a trail of Chataux, small hamlets, good food and roads that wind through the greenest meadows and fields of grain.

It is breathtaking all of it. Next week I will be in Paris where it will be a lot different but exciting and interesting. I am traveling with my SIL Sarah who held me up after Stevie left. Now she driving me through France helping me find myself.

It is late in the evening, I have eaten too much and my bed has a thick duvet that I plan to crawl under and sleep deep and late.

I had dreams last night that I can't recall but I do remember laughing...

Stevie, all the things I dreamed about the night I went flying I have found here, all of them. I love you so much.

2009-03-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Stevie,

I am on my way. I can't believe I am going...this is surreal. I wish you were coming with me, maybe you are...

I have always wanted to go to Europe, Italy especially and you have always wanted to go to Thailand. We never got to take those trips together, we tried but it never worked out, there was always something...

Our little guy has been crying, he doesn't want me to go. I think he is afraid of losing another person. I want to promise him he will never-ever lose a person he loves but I can't, because he will. The odds are hundred percent that we will all die. I can promise him that I will stick around for as long as I can and that he will always be surrounded by love. Keep him safe while I am gone bunny he is still so little.

Your sister will drive me to the airport then Sarah and I will plan the first leg of our trip while we wait to board. We are getting there early so we can sit in the VIP and be silly. She can be a lot of fun, I think you picked the perfect person for me to go with.

I was thinking of leaving something of yours in Paris but I can't seem to part with even the smallest thing. I left Daffodils for you in your room, and the tulips are up in the backyard, so is the lilac. Your cherry tree is bursting with blossoms, Stevie I have never seen anything like it.

Spring is coming...so is April 19th.

I don't have anything big planned, I want to be sad and miss you all alone I think. I am going to make chocolate cupcakes I found in a book that are frosted in pastel colors and decorated with tiny fondant flowers. You would love them. I will bring them to Oakmont. I will also watch your video, the one Dave made for your service. It is going to kill me but I need to see you smiling, laughing and being your adorable self even if it hurts.

I have always been so terrified to fly, now I'm not. What is the worst that could happen? I think about it often and if you are somewhere out there then I will find you that can only be a good thing. I don't speak a word of French and Sarah and I have no real plans...we are just going. The first week will be an adventure, the second week will be an apartment in Paris and the marathon.

I plan to hit flea-markets and bring ephemera back for the shop. I plan to sit in cafes and write. I plan to pray in big churches, take a million photo's and come back healed a little more.

I found the Pi from my dream, it was on a journal Aunty Jerry gave me for Christmas. It is from the book of Kells, an illuminated letter. I think you sent me the letter for a reason...Pi is 3.1415...it is an infinite decimal with a number pattern that never repeats. It is a ratio for the circumference of a circle. It is like you to give me this puzzle. Such an old number, such an infinite and beautiful number. I'll figure it out.

Pi is also Aly's baby name could it be that simple?

Let's go to France Stevie, show me this place, point out all the things you want me to see, sit next to me in a cathedral, hold my hand in the Louvre. I need so much to be closer to you. Thank you for this trip, I know you had something to do with it. I used the money, you know what money. TT thinks it is what you left it for, you wanted me to be happy. If you are still you, and you are somewhere perfect and wonderful and if I get to be with you again then I can be happy.

I miss you best girl...my friend, my sweet, my heart, my bunny, my love...

Mommy

The dreamwaves...

2009-03-20T09:09:00.001-07:00

I had a night of intense dreaming. I think it may have been a present to me for letting go of Stevie's body just a little and not honoring cemetery day. Instead I flew. I read a wonderful book on Astral Projection (yes I know I am weird, I like this stuff) that gave instructions on how to teach yourself to do this thing.

I am already a lucid dreamer so the instructions seemed simple enough, I have been trying for a couple weeks but last night it finally happened.

Lucid dreaming in case you are scratching your head:

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress, also known as a conscious dream. When the dreamer is lucid, they can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can be extremely real and vivid depending on a person's level of self-awareness during the lucid dream.^[1]

I am very right brain. The creative center in my mind is lit up like a Christmas tree. My left brain works fine too but my right brain is who I am, where I find my passion. I have had to work harder than most people to be organized. I love physics but I hate math so it has taken me longer to understand it.

I have been lucid dreaming since childhood. I didn't know there was a name for what I was doing until my twenties and still I didn't pay much attention to what an incredible gift it was until my thirties. I now love lucid dreaming.

Astral Projection in case you are still scratching your head and wondering why you have lunch with such a strange person:

Astral projection (or astral travel) refers to episodes of out-of-body experiences perceived as unfolding in environments other than the physical world, by an astral counterpart of the physical body that separates from it and travels to one or more astral planes.^[1] Astral projection is experienced as being "out of the body".^[2] Unlike dreaming or near death experiences, astral projection may be practiced deliberately.
If you are still hanging on, no I did not leave my body...not the way you think.

When I dream I can communicate with myself, I can read, eat, taste, hear music and I know I am dreaming, I just have the gift of interacting with my dream world. For most people remembering a dream is difficult enough, and when you do it seems like you were swimming through a collaged life; bits and pieces of a familiar life all chopped up and rearranged. I get those too, not a fan.

When you astral project you basically tell your dream self to go flying. You know you love flying dreams, everyone does, it is rated the most favorite dream to have. Well, last night I got to tell myself to do it and I did. I slipped out of my "dream body" and flew. I was aware the whole time that I was dreaming and it was the most amazing experience.

I know you are thinking, "Isn't that a whole lot of work to do when the goal is to get some rest" the answer for me is, "No" If you are truly dreaming this way it means that you are in a deep sleep state and it can be very restful, it can also wake you up way over stimulated.

This is science. I know it sounds strange but it isn't. If you went to bed tonight and told yourself that in the morning you would remember your dreams, you would. If you did that several nights in a row and wrote them down when you woke up you would be amazed what you are dreaming. After several months you would begin to lucid dream. It is just an awareness, a muscle you have that you need to excersize. Creative people have an easier time, left brainers have a harder time but it is still possible. Einstein dreamed of the nature of time.

So last night I was dreaming and I told myself to astral project. I found a dream sofa (really the stinky one in my garage) and let myself slip out of my dream body and float around. It lasted a short time and wasn't amazing but felt wonderful.

Then I went into Stevie's room and tried again. This time I flew over water. It was a long dream and I won't go into the whole thing but in the asral projection part I felt the wind on my body and it was divine. I also felt my arms and legs but couldn't see them. I didn't fly like a bird I kind of glided and floated, it was very relaxing. At one point I felt surrounded and new that this is what Stevie must feel; surrounded by love and free to move with thought. I then had a very sad feeling, even though I was surrounded by love there was something missing, a love that was vital...I felt I was missing the best person. I said outlound "I love you best, I am right here" I hear it and it seemed to echo back at me like in "Goodnight Moon".

I woke up feeling so wonderful. The song "Airwaves" by Jacks Mannequin was stuck in my head.

I'll send this message through the speakers They told me that you moved I'll cross this country on a frequency I am slipping through, I am slipping through I am slipping into the airwaves (The static's where you'll find me) And this is nothing new, you are slipping through My fingers and into the airwaves Into the airwaves

I feel like I am close to something, I am just not sure what it is. It seems obvious but nothing is ever that simple, is it?

comfortable shoes

2009-02-25T09:22:00.000-08:00

It is a cool day a little gray but it has the promise of spring in it. I can see pink blossoms on the tree's that line the street where I work, they smell like corn masa and apricots. I love spring...but it is also filled with memories of a girl I love that I can't bring home cherry blossom covered branches for. She would love this morning, a trip to the Asian bakery for a sweet bun sticky with custard and coconut, a morning swim in a warm pool, online shopping for cute and unusual things to fill the store with.

This is a good life. Noah is healthy and strong, Aly is happy with her job and hoping to buy a new car. Steve is less angry that his life isn't exactly how he thinks it should be. I am here, working, making art, writing and watching tree's blossom.

It is also a lonely life. I have new and wonderful friends but my best one, my favorite one isn't here. I meditated this morning asked the universe why this has to be so hard, so heart breaking and it replied softy "it just is" If I listened a little harder I might have heard it say that it was all going to be just as it should be and to stop living in the heart breaking moments.

Paris is four weeks away. I still do not know how to count in French which is what I thought should be the bare minimum. I bought some t-shirts, a new pair of jeans and some walking shoes for trip. I won't be fashionable but I will be comfortable. I also need to travel light, I hate being a slave to luggage.

This is a big adventure for me not unlike the blossoms on the tree's. It is the beginning of something...

2009-02-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

Doors close
Windows Open

I feel surrounded by love today.
I am blessed to know incredible people who took time out of their day to send comments of love, support and comfort.

I am fine.

When I am confused and frustrate, angry or sad, I bake. I am not good at it, my cousin Kelly is the baker in our family but I get by. I made delicate sugar cookies this morning iced with pale pink frosting and tiny white sprinkles. The flower cookie cutter I used was Stevie's and I know she would have LOVED these sweeties.

Yesterday I made peanut butter cookies. I like mine a little bit crunchy and dry. I use whole roasted peanuts, brown sugar and really good vanilla.

Yes, I ate them all.

My Sarah will be running the Paris Marathon in April. She and her husband recently separated and will be divorcing. She asked if I would go with her to France and be there for her at the finish line and I said yes without even thinking. How can you say no to Paris in the spring. I have a little money saved and I got a very, very good deal on my ticket. We will be sharing expenses and traveling like bohemians. Our one luxury will be the tiny apartment we are renting for the days of the race. The elevator in the building is broken, and our room is on the fifth floor so we got it half price. It is still astronomical as far as I am concerned but it is going to be dreamy I just know it.

No, I will not be running.

I do not drink red wine, I hate goat cheese and I am a vegetarian. It will be a bit of a challenge to get the French to like a Canadian (tee-hee-hee) like me. I am sure there will be plenty of pastries to keep my belly full.

I need this trip. It will be my first time away from my little guy for such a long period of time. I am having anxiety just thinking of the distance but I know he will be Ok. I plan to bring him puppets, chocolate, and rocks from France.

I will bring something of Stevie's to bury. I plan to take her everywhere I go and leave little bits of her all over the world.

I asked her to send a meteor shaped like a heart to let me know she is still alive, somewhere I am not meant to travel yet. I am waiting to see what unravels. I don't want anyone to get hurt or anything to get damaged, a giant hole in the backyard will be fine.

The shop is doing well. I am not rolling in money but there is always enough to keep it going. I am very proud of what I have created...The art, my children, the book, the store. I am blessed.

I am holding my head high, standing close to that open window letting it all in.

(T-I am here for you, we still share the same life-boat)

It is over.

2009-02-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

After a very long and stormy marriage my husband has asked for a divorce.
It isn't a surprise.
I find the timing disturbing but this is how my husband is. He likes to make things harder, maybe he thinks it builds character, maybe it does but I don't feel like thanking him for it.

I find it ugly that he has been so emotionally needy. In some ways he is very generous and in some ways he is very selfish.

I find it ugly that I have been so angry at him. Inside me I feel like there was good reason but from a few steps away I just look mean.

He was actually a very good friend a long, long time ago when I was very young and it was appropriate to be silly and irresponsible. I thought he understood me, I thought we had a whole lot in common. I changed, I grew up, I became this person lugging around a whole life. He is the same.

So much time has passed and he has risen to the occasion on occasion and he has failed miserably a time or two. I am sure the same can be said for me.

I feel let down by him. Maybe it was never his fault but it sure hurt like it.

Is this Karma?

The only unconditional love I have ever experienced in almost 44 years came from my children. Aly might roll her eyes at that statement because she sure isn't feeling love for me right now but I know that there 's a little storm inside of her that only time and perspective can calm.

I told my husband that I didn't want anything. Child support seems appropriate but everything else he can have. It will be very hard to leave a house that I created, the walls I painted over and over, the kitchen I helped build, the floors I laid plank by plank while I cried because I was missing Stevie. It will be hard to leave a garden I created, my great-grandmothers rosemary, the memories of Easter egg hunts and Christmas.

The hardest thing to leave behind is Stevie's room...the last place she was herself, the trees on the walls I put up while she still had one good eye and could see. The closet that is still bubble gum pink and has little mermaid stickers. There is a spot on the wallpaper where the contents of her feeding tube splattered after a pretty unfortunate plunger incident. It is still there, bits of her on the wall. I know it sounds gross but it is what I have.

I told him I wouldn't take a thing because he made it clear that he felt responsible for me and didn't want that responsibility. He told me it wasn't fair that he worked and paid the bills and got nothing back. When I told him I would give it all to him he told me it was self flagellation and I was doing it only to get sympathy.

It feels like my husband is more worried about people feeling sorry for me than he is about what is really happening. He needs to be the victim in all this...he needs someone to feel sorry for him, to make him feel better. Don't feel sorry for me, I have what I need; self respect, strength, determination, and the next half of my life waiting to be lived

I don't begrudge him a new beginning with someone who isn't dragging around the memories I am. I want him to be happy but I want to have a little peace myself. I am not sure he will allow it. Sometimes when you are hurting you think that hurting someone else will make it feel better.

I am all outside myself. I am a woman so I express myself with words and magnified emotion. I say what I feel, and I tell the truth. It makes seem hard because my internal filters are not what they should be. I can be loud and opinionated when it is something I believe in. I think decorating what you think and feel is confusing. I love with all that I am and I fight hard for what I believe in and who I love. I am not delicate and I have a terrible temper. If I were a dog, I think someone would have shot me by now.

Steve is inside. He doesn't always say what he means so it is hard to know what he is really feeling. He pontificates. He likes to believe he is rational and reasonable. What is inside of him is not what usually comes out of him. This makes him angry because he can't understand why I question his motives. Most of my arguments with him start with "But you said..." His replies are always "But I meant..."

I know he loves me but in my darkest hours he has not been able to reach me. I don't understand why. I also don't understand why he takes the most difficult moments in my life and makes them harder. Why he feels so abandoned when I am happy.

It isn't intentional, he isn't that way. Most of the things he does that hurt me he doesn't even realize until the damage has been done. He is not a person who will apologize and make it better. He knows how to say he is sorry but only after it has been dragged out of him and replayed over and over. It makes me tired, and I can never find closure.

It might be me, maybe I expect too much. I understand that feeling when you have done something that you know has hurt another person and that person confronts you. Your eyelids get heavy, your heart starts to pound and you want to run away from it, pretend it didn't happen, wish it gone. I also know you have to swallow your shame and embarrassment and apologize with that beating heart and try to make it right.

I am not sure what you are suppose to do when you know you hurt someone but you did what you did because that person was hurting you...

I did something really awful to my husband many, many years ago. It went against who I was and what I believed in. I felt at the time that he deserved it, that I was evening a score. The funny thing is that instead of the pain and anger getting smaller it actually expanded.

I apologized and did everything I could to make it right. I earned his trust back because I was sorry with all of me. The words were not as important as the actions. Actions are everything, we are beings who need our five senses engaged in order to understand and believe. It felt like he forgave me, and it felt like I earned that forgiveness.

He tells me that I am a mean person, Aly backs him up...They tell me the reason no one else finds me mean is because they do not know me. My eyelids are heavy, my heart is pounding, and I want it to go away but I know I have to make it right, this time I just don't know how.

When I let Stevie go, I let a part of myself go. I didn't want her to be alone so I sent the best parts of me with her. What is here has to be rebuilt and I am doing that. There isn't much to work with and I am keeping what there is for me.

My whole life has been spent giving to other people, taking care of the messy things. My jobs have always been to comfort the sick, clean up blood, vomit, shit. Children are kinda the same, skinned knees, runny noses, barf bowls, poopy diapers. I am not complaining I loved my job and I love, love, love my children. I have spent 25 years of my life cleaning up messes, taking care of people, and in the process I forgot to take care of me.

I suppose a perfect person could be a loving wife and make positive life changes at the same time but I can't. I suppose a perfect person could be a patient husband and give his wife room to heal and grow, this new person might be incredible, but he can't.

Steve deserves more. I think he deserves a wife that never needs this moment, who can give and give and give. A wife who doesn't complain, who is needy enough to make him feel strong but strong enough to put herself neatly away when he needs to do what ever it is he needs to do.
He needs a house without children, a house without the heavy memory of a dead child, the remote to himself, sex when ever he wants it. He needs to be able to live his life to the fullest and have a partner who will stand quietly next to him, who adores him.

Steve has never liked the messy parts and he doesn't know how to be in a painful moment with someone. This doesn't make him a bad person. He tries but it isn't his nature. I am the opposite I am drawn to it, it finds me. I may not be good at it but it is my nature.

I read that this is midlife. Even if Stevie was still here Steve and I would still be here in this moment. Me changing, him not understanding. Dr.Northrup says that woman change in midlife dramatically, what they need and what they are willing to give are not the same anymore. A long time ago a woman in midlife was considered half dead, dried up, going down hill. Now women in midlife are changing careers, finding new partners, adopting children, building dreams.

I am not doing anything that adventurous I am just trying to finally get right with myself. I have neglected me for a very long time. It felt selfish and what I had to give I gave to my family. I am still giving just not in the same ways.

The house isn't spotless, Noah has to grow noticeably out of his pants before I think to take him shopping. I don't spend time at his school, I don't cook as much as I use to. I don't spend days trying to figure out how to fix my marriage, I don't feel guilty because I am not the wife my husband wants me to be. I gave my a part of my house to myself, I started a business, I wrote a book, I made a list of things I want to accomplish before I leave this planet and I am finally going to Europe.

In the process I pushed my husband away. I pushed because I am afraid he will turn me back into that other person and I will slip out of this new life and back into the old one where there is too much missing and too much hurts.

I spent the last two days in that vortex, trying to keep my family together but trying to be heard. I did all the talking, yelling and crying but he still didn't hear me.

He wants me but he doesn't want to do the work to find me.

He tells me I give him nothing, I have given him my whole life.

Being a parent

2009-02-03T09:02:00.000-08:00

I am not sure this is the right place for this but damn do I need to unload this frustration.
This is about being a parent.

I am not an expert. I have given birth to three children all under different circumstances. My first child was concieved when I was very young, I knew I wanted her, never a doubt. I was too young to have a child but I lived on my own, supported myself with a decent job. I was afraid, at the time that fear made me feel inadequate but now I realize that the fear I had was maturity, I didn't take my situation lightly. I understood what an awesome responsibility a child would be.

I didn't set out to get pregnant I was just young and experiencing sex for the first time. My boyfriend at the time was much older than me and assumed I had the birth control figured out. I married him and after 26 years I am still married to him.

When Aly was born I changed, I became a person outside of myself. I had never known such love, I felt like a super hero.

When we were ready to buy our first house I decided that it was time to give Aly a sibling. My husband disagreed. He didn't want more children. I on the other hand wanted a house full. I wanted six. I imagined a table full of kids eating spaghetti, laughing, sharing stories. I imagined pajamas, trips to the grocery with a line of kids holding hands. I dreamed of backpacks, and bath time. I fantasized that I would be Wendy and tell bedtime stories to a room full of pink cheeked children who adored me and whom I loved with all that I was.

I had a second child but only because my husband had decided two was it and I would have to get the above mentioned fantasy out of my head. I didn't get it out of my head, it is still there, always has been and it has been one of those things that hurts to think about.

Maybe it isn't practical, maybe it isn't fair to children to have to share so many siblings with so few parents. I know that financially it isn't easy and emotionally I would be drained, my whole life would be about raising kids, cooking, doing laundry and running around dropping off and picking up. It was anyway...

It took me twelve years, many fights, many tears, and my husband getting a job that he loved to convince him to let me have my third child. Six weeks later he got a vasectomy. Six years later my youngest daughter died.

My family is even smaller.

I enjoy being a mom. I also enjoy bitching about no sleep, a car that smells like pee, no time alone, days without showers, money woes and play-dough you can't get out of the carpet. For me it is a whole experience. I am not a great mom, I don't spend my days at the school, my kids spent the first year of their life in diapers and not much else, I let them sleep in my bed as long as they wanted, I told them fairies and ghosts were real, Santa was not, and let them eat chocolate cake for breakfast.

I took baths with them, made clothes for barbies, let them run in the sprinklers naked, danced with them in the living room, yelled at them way too much, never ever spanked them, didn't let them drink soda but let them stay home from school when they felt like they needed a break.

I could have been a better mom but I kinda like the mom that I am. I am the mom I wish I had.
I am unconditional and I love my children more than I love anyone or anything else. They come first in my heart and in my life.

There is a woman who has six children, and now has eight more. She is not married, does not have a job, lives with her parents, and a nanny to take care of her children while she goes to school. All of her children were born using in-vitro fertilization. She is all over the news being offered book deals, movie deals, free products and is even being viewed as a victim because her last eight children were the result of eight embryos implanted at the same time.

(Aly's remark as to this woman being a victim is "so she went to the fertility doctor because she had a headache?")
This is a train wreck. Her mother is quoted saying "She has always wanted children since she was a teenager"

I get wanting children, I get wanting a big family. What I don't get is breeding without the ability to care for all the children you bring into the world. We see this all over the world were birth control is not available, were there isn't enough education, were socio-economics effects judgement.

This woman is training to be a therapist?

I feel she has blurred the line between a love for children and neglect. I don't know her and what I know about her story is what the media has leaked and what her friends and family have revealed.

Who will take care of all these children? Who will pay for special services, food, clothing, dental and medical bills. How can a single woman who can not even support herself take care of all these babies?

I also want to know how she could afford all the fertility treatment. I have friends who both have good jobs and health insurance but could not afford in-vitro because of the cost. Their medical insurance wouldn't cover it and it was incredibly expensive. They have no children, instead they have become extra parents for all of our children sharing our experiences and holding our hands through the hard times.

A friend of mine told this woman is not so different than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Part of me wanted to slap myself for forgiving the rich and beautiful but berating the poor. The difference is that The Pitt family does have the resources, they also adopt children who need homes and families. They can take care of these kids and they are not asking anyone else to do it for them. They also give so much to charities that help feed and house children and families.

I am not saying only the wealthy should be allowed large families. What I am saying is that you should be able to care for the children you bring into your life. I am all about hand-me-downs, and a grocery budget. There is nothing wrong with little kids sharing a bed and toys. But fourteen children, eight of the same age, no income, no home, no partner? I understand her support system is her parents. They have been helping her but her mother is quoted as saying that she feels obligated to the children to help, and not happy with her daughters choice to bring so many children into the world.

It seems irresponsible and unfair and Maybe I am bitter because she has that big family, maybe it hurts that I lose a child and she gives birth to eight... Maybe it sucks a little that a woman who lives in ghetto with all five of her children is called a "Welfare Queen" and this woman is being offered free diapers and a book deal.

Is it me?

A parent is not a person who gives birth to children. A parent is a person who chooses to be responsible for another human being. My friends who do not have children are the best parents I know. They love unconditionally, share what they have without any reservation, give because they love to, and have walked with all of us through our lives asking for nothing in return.

I am sad about this imbalance.

I still want my big family but I am going to have to make a big family out of the people who love me and who I love. I am going to fill my kitchen table and leave an empty chair and plate for the child who should be there but has to live in heaven instead.

2009-02-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentlemen
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

I'll be the water wings that save you if you start drowning
In an open tab when your judgement's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as your lying there drifting off to sleep...
I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped straight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

I want to take you far from the cynics int his town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut out bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony
Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will hear the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change, oOo oOo...

These are the lyrics to Brand New Colony by The Postal Service.

It was a song off of an album that I bought Stevie while we were living in Atherton. It was an album I would have never listened to on my own but Gibbard was one of Stevie's crushes. I found the album by accident and bought it on a whim hoping she would like it and she did. We played it in the car almost everyday.

Every song on this album squeezes my heart and the songs find me where ever I go.

Last week I had part of this song stuck in my head and could not remember who sang it or what it was called and I finally found it.

How can one person love another person so completely...even when they don't have cheeks to kiss, hands to hold or eyes to look into anymore?

This is the kind of love that makes you never want to love again because the loss of it is...there are no words, if there was a word it wouldn't be used often, it would be sacred.

A brand new colony, I guess she started without me.

If you want to listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW8H0oLSXyk&feature=related

Snow

2009-01-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

Yosemite was breath taking. If you have never seen it in the winter than you are missing what must surely be one of the many wonders of the world.

We woke up on Christmas morning in a tiny cabin with two very small beds that we pushed together so that all four of us could fit and keep warm. We could hear snow bombs falling from the branches of the tall trees, when they crashed down we jumped, it is hard to believe something so soft and white can be so loud and heavy.

Santa left little gold wrapped gifts under a miniature tree with battery operated lights. Noah got everything he asked for an Ipod and snow. He was like a helium balloon that kept floating to the ceiling, he was inflated, I mean elated.

Aly moaned and groaned but she was the first one to put on her snow clothes. They all went for some Christmas sledding while I stayed behind to take a long hot shower and get us packed up.
I also needed some time to be alone with my feelings. I could feel the empty place and it seemed all around me. I wished she was there with me.

I layed in our funny bed and read The Lovely Bones and the book felt like a Christmas present. Most people may find it a strange book to be comforted by but it was what I needed. My wet and freezing family arrived at lunch time and we headed over to the Yosemite Valley Grocery where we stocked up on car food; Cheese, bread, honey mustard, fruit, giant cookies, Kettle chips and juice.

The drive home was slow but we couldn't complain it felt like every few feet offered a new view we would have slowed down to appreciate anyway.

My favorite was a single black crow that flew into my frame just as I clicked the shutter, they follow me everywhere. I snapped again as it landed and said, "Good Morning Mother, tell our girl Happy Christmas"

It was a different kind of Christmas and maybe this will be our new tradition.

I am learning to build a life around an empty space.

April and December

2008-12-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

I flew to Portland on Thursday night to be with Angela and say good-bye to Hadley. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it to the funeral but I knew I could board a plane so I took that step first.

The flight was delayed due to a storm that was coming in and when I finally arrived it was to a snowy and cold dark night. My cousin Ron picked me up in rented car and drove me to my hotel. I unpacked, found my bathing suit and went for a ten o'clock swim in a very warm indoor pool. It was the only thing to do that felt right. Water calms me.

I thought about what it must have been like for all the people finding their way to Dublin to be at Stevie's funeral. What were they thinking? Did they feel like I did? Did they swim and wonder how this all made any sense, why children died, how they were going to sit in a church and try not to hate God, what they were going to say to a mother who has just had her heart ripped out?

It sucked. I am terrible with words. When I am emotional words tumble out of me that are not mine. It is almost like a string has been pulled and random sentences and statements escape...remember those dolls? "I want to be your friend...tell me a story...let's play" That is exactly what happens to me. When I hurt the real me hides. My auto pilot is a stranger that takes over and bumbles.

The morning of the funeral I was on auto pilot. I felt it happen, a kind of numbness, a retreating behind a soft wall where the rest of me won't crumble. The church parking lot was white with snow and beautiful flakes were falling, falling, falling. I kept thinking, "Stevie made it rain, Hadley made it snow" My cousin pulled the car up close so we wouldn't have to trek through the cold and there is was a big hearse parked in front of the church. My protective wall was suddenly useless and I was sucked back to a day in April.

I was moving back and forth between the parking lot and the church, carrying flowers and pictures. It was surreal, it felt like a party and I was just making it happen. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a shiny black hearse coming down the road and my mind said, "Oh how sad, those poor people" and I began to say a prayer I always say when I see a hearse, it is a blessing to the person who is going to heaven and a prayer of comfort for the family who is missing that person. Right in the middle of it I realized that it was pulling up to the church and the person that was in it was my daughter.

I collapsed, Matt came and held me up while I fell apart. Everything was suddenly bright and painfully real. There are moments that can not be handled, it is too much to believe, to have to believe, and a part of me died in then, I couldn't live there with that pain, without my daughter standing next me, instead of in a box cold and not breathing.

Matt held me until that part of me was gone and I was numb the rest of the day.

Now it is December and Spring is Replaced with Winter. The sun is not shining, I am not carrying tulips. Instead I am carrying a tiny crown I made for Hadley on a cold white day. This is the hearse that brought her to the church but it was also every hearse that has ever brought a child to a church. It was a symbol of death...A child gone and a mothers heart split in half.

I began to cry while a built a new protective wall, and my anger at God was fresh again.

It was a Christian service and I didn't bow my head to pray or sing any hymns. I shrunk a little inside myself when they began to sing "Jesus Loves me" It felt too ironic to be singing a Child's Sunday School song while and eight year old child lay in a casket, her little brothers sitting close by...

The people who spoke did it beautifully. Everyone who spoke did so with a heart full of love. You could feel the love in the church, the energy vibrated. Angela was beautiful, she was present for her boys, embraced each and every person and gave comfort. She sent her daughter to heaven with a most beautiful service. I was proud of her and in awe of how she had created this moment for her children, her family, her friends and her daughters memory.

There is something about Angela that is hard to explain. She is human and I have seen her mad, hurt, sad, and afraid but she has an inner strength and purpose that is bigger than what most people have. She is tall but she would have to be 100 feet taller to contain just a little of all the beauty and love she was sent here with.

Angela will never have an ordinary life. There is so much she is meant for, so much she will do. She has already been an incredible mother. You can tell a great mom by kind and loving children. What is next I do not know but I do know that it will not be ordinary or small. Angela is made out of great stuff, do big things stuff.

My auto pilot said all the wrong things to her but I was guessing she was in a little bit of auto pilot herself so maybe I will be forgiven.

I viewed Hadley's body after telling myself I would not. I hid out in the ladies lounge most of the time and when I thought the coast was clear I came out. The large crowd had eaten cookies and small sandwiches, spilled coffee and tears and they were out driving home in the snow wanting nothing more than to get home and hug the children they yelled at yesterday.

The church was empty and there she was...something pulled me in and the whole time I was telling it to let me go. The next thing I knew I was standing over a beautiful child in a brown velvet dress, her long lashes resting on her cheeks, her hair shiny, and her face calm.

I wanted her to wake up. If Jesus loves you than he can wake you up and we can finish the rest of those cookies and take you home. We can call it a Christmas miracle and throw these damn stinky carnations in the garbage.

I knew Jesus wasn't going to give me my daughter back but damn it he could do this, look at her she is too beautiful to be dead, I waited for the miracle, waited to take Hadley's hand and help her out of that bed no child should have to lay in.

It didn't happen, and I didn't cry because I knew that she didn't need that body anymore, she left it for better things. I knew that she was here for as long as she needed to be and she did exactly what she was suppose to do. When I said, "Sweet Dreams Hadley" I felt my anger at God lift just a little.

Now I am home and I have hugged and kissed Noah so many times that he thinks there is something wrong and I won't tell him. I said to him, "I love you Noah, and I am just glad you are here with me on this leg of my journey, I don't know how I would have been able to survive without your sweet face and all your love" He said "I love you too mom, what did you get me for Christmas" I told him, "Oh know I was suppose to get you a Christmas present?"

I dreamed about Stevie last night. She was sleeping in the top bunk in a room that she and Aly shared when they were little. I could hear her breathing and I panicked, she wasn't wearing her Bipap, when did she stop wearing it? When I went into the room again to check on her she was laying there with her bipap on. Instead of relief I felt sick. I knew it was a dream, and I heard her tell me something I can't remember but I do remember telling my dream self, "Let this go, this isn't her anymore, don't keep her like this" I wasn't sad to let it go, it was just a dream, and it wasn't her, just a memory of a sad time when she couldn't breath on her own. A time when machines, tubes, wires and medications were keeping her alive.

We are going to Yosemite for Christmas. We leave Christmas eve. We will drive in the snow to a small Cabin where we will try to run away from Christmas past. The memories of Stevie's last Christmas still hurt too much. We need to make a new memory and it can't be anything like any other.

I didn't want to go because I kept thinking what if Christmas is one of those times that the veil opens and our loved ones on the other side get to be with us. Stevie will come home and we will be gone, she will be alone.

I know it sounds silly but I am leaving her a big note on the kitchen counter that will tell her where we will be and how to find us.

Now I have to get dressed and start this day.

Angela and Hadley

2008-12-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

I am at work...the sky is dark blue and it is biting cold outside. I should be making my way back home but I need just a few more minutes here in my little shop where it smells like cookies and everything is so beautiful.

Outside the world is real, cold ,and feels a little cruel today.

I got a phone call Saturday morning and the person on the other end was letting me know that Hadley left her body...I shut down inside. I couldn't cry, I was too mad to cry. I knew it was coming but I didn't want to believe it. I thought this family had given enough, I guess not.

Angela is somewhere out there making arrangements, receiving flowers and tearful phone calls. There is a little dress to pick out, relatives and meals arriving. All this is happening while a storm literally rages outside her house, freezing the roads and covering everything in snow.

I know this moment she is in. People are buzzing around, phones keep ringing, kids need to be fed, mortuary details need to be finalized. While your heart is breaking your body goes into auto pilot and you just keep doing. It isn't unlike a wedding only instead of adding a person to a family you are letting one go.

Although I remember this time all the details are gone. I can't remember most of the funeral or the days following. I couldn't tell you who was there or how I got dressed. I do remember crashing and burning after everyone went home. When they left they took all the mess, the noise, and the chaos with them but they also took the love and support. I was left alone in a quiet house without my best friend, my baby girl. All I had were pictures, shoes, and an empty bed. I wanted to die. I knew I wouldn't have to commit suicide because my heart would surely fail all by itself. I couldn't imagine surviving this kind of pain, it didn't seem possible.

If I had a magic wand I would take those days away from Angela so she wouldn't have to work through them and replace them with warm days sleeping on a beach, with Hadley alive, well and happy running on the shore.

Mother God, Father God, I don't understand this.

Please surround our sweet Mama Angela with your love, help heal her heart, let her move through these days deep in faith and a knowing that her girl is in the heaven she came from where there are no brain tumors, hospitals, and sad days.

Stevie if you can hear me thank you for trying to tell me you were waiting for Hadley. TT told me that she spoke with you in a dream the night before and you were so beautiful and happy, I can see you in my mind standing next to Hadley's bed telling her "Hadley wake up it is time to go, the helicopter is waiting, we are going to heaven" I can see her hopping up out of bed, full of energy, free of a sick body and a sleeping room. I can see you her take your hand, the both of you are strong and beautiful and as promised there is a wonderful helicopter that takes you both into the light.

Angela...you are a strong woman and there is so much for you to do. You have been feeling a pull for so long, there is something very big an important waiting for you to do. Your heart is broken and there is an empty space in your soul, your home, and your family but there is more... so much more to do. This next part of your life that needs living.

You are here for a reason and a reason and a reason...there is so much more work but there is also so much more love, growth, experience and accomplishment. You were made for great things, beautiful things, it is all waiting for you.

Deep breaths, grace will guide you through this next week. Lean on your angels, your friends and your family to help move you through the next years. We are here, we love you, and we are so damn proud of you.

You are made out of love, you are love, you are loved.

Chanks...

2008-11-28T08:30:00.001-08:00

When Noah was little he use to say "Chanks mom" and I would say your welcome he would also answer "Yesh" when I offered him a cookie. My favorite was "Oh I a nishey-boy" and he is still the nicest boy I know.

We went to Jeff and Sarah's for Chanksgiving. We were going to have a pic-nic but the weather was a little iffy so we decided to do an indoor casual dinner. We used paper plates, ate huge pots of homeade soup (Lizzies Butternut-apple rocks me upside down) pie, sandwiches, a huge Sarah salad and played board games. Later we went for a night hike along the water and enjoyed the view of the bridge. Noah thought the bridge lights were christmas decorations.

I thought is would be terribly sad but it wasn't.

Early Thanksgiving morning before everyone woke up I decided to head out to the cemetery to bring Stevie a terrible little Christmas tree decorated with glittery bulbs, pink bows, and silver snow flakes. I chose a tree she could see from heaven.

When I got there the gates were locked, that was unusual as it's a sunup to sundown park. I waited about an hour, watched the cars line up, watched people get mad and leave then decided to lock my car and head up the hill on foot.

I squeezed my sausage self and my silly tree through the side of the gate and huffed and puffed myself up the hill for about a mile. I had to sit and rest because I was panting so hard I thought I would faint. I then decided to take a short cut up the muddy hillside instead of continuing on the paved road. This is were it get's funny. Stevie I hope you enjoyed this.

I am out of shape and a little middle-age-over-weight. I was bundled in a down vest and big sweater, and carrying this dingle-dangly Christmas tree while trying to scale a pretty steep and muddy hillside. Half way up I looked down and decided I had made a big mistake. I started to panic and slid about ten feet down, I could have prevented it but I wouldn't let go of the shiny tree. Just as I am trying to right myself and grab at snowflakes that had flown off the tree during the slide several cars whiz by.

It seems that while I was struggling up hill someone opened the gate and the passers by got a good look at me, my muddy but, my red face, hanging on to a poor oleaner bush with rescued snowflakes between my teeth.

I made it up the hill only to find the short cut was not what I thought it was and I still had another hill to climb, this time I chose to walk the road.

I arrived at Stevie's grave a mess. I had lost my hair clip so my hair was a giant curly fright, the top of the tree was bent, I had glitter on my face from the snowflakes I had in my mouth, I was wet, muddy, sweaty, and all I could do was colapse on the grass and laugh.

I brought a pocket full of Stawberries for Stevie and the deer to my surprise they were not smushed at all, and I ate one. I then righted the tree, dumped the old flowers and had a good cry with my girl.

The sky was cloudy, moody, and grey. There were birds and big black crows and me all alone on a cemetery hill with a shiny tree and a view of nothing but a broken heart. I wished she would appear but she didn't. I wished God would sit next to me and explain it all to me but he didn't. I wished that someone would arrive with a warm blanket, a cup of tea and tell me it was all a bad dream but they didn't. So I sat there still and quiet, I prayed, I talked to Stevie then I began walking back to my car.

On the way back I took in the green of the trees, the gold grass that was going to sleep for the winter, the red berries that are suppose to make birds drunk and kids sick if you eat them. I watched little squirrels dart back and forth across the road, leaves fall, and cars drive slowly by. It was peaceful in a way I can not explain. Then there was a great noise, and from every direction big black crows came, they flew into a group of trees just up ahead and the noise increased. Soon I was under a tree full of black crows all talking madly at the same time. It was music only crows understand. It felt important so I stood there and listened for a few minutes, as soon as I walked away it stopped almost like a switch was turned off.

Chanks...

What is real?

2008-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

I got up early this morning, it was still dark and the morning a little a colder than yesterday. I waited for the sun to come up somewhere...I live in a suburb so I know when the sun is coming up because I can see the horizon change from dark to grey to gold to sky blue. What I can't see is the sun rising from one place, like over a mountain or out of the ocean.

There is a creepy moment before the colors change, the same moment happen just before dark. Stevie hated the end of the day, I never understood why, I do now, even though I crave it sometimes.

I need to be up early like this, my mind is most clear and it's as quiet as the day will be. This morning I kept thinking about illusions and how quantum physics shows us that nothing is solid, that there is more empty space in between than there is anything else. I touched things like a stone Noah collected from our property in Oroville, the edge of Stevie's furry pink blanket, the one I took to the hospital with us. I touched the skin on the back of my hand to see if I could really touch and feel at the same time. It all felt very solid to me.

I closed my eyes and tried to release my need to believe that everything I could see with my eyes and touch with my fingers were "real" What if I let go and tried to see without my eyes and feel without my fingertips, what if I tried to "know" instead of "believe".

What I felt was the smooth sweep of memory where nothing is solid it is just the dancing of time, some of it exactly as it happened and some of it added to or subtracted from depending on how I wanted to remember it.

I tried to listen to music by remembering music and Jenny Lewis started singing "Handle me with Care". I tried to taste the seven cookies I ate yesterday and I easily remembered the butter and the crunchy sugar crystals. I remembered the way Noah's hair smelled yesterday while he was sleeping, the way the hot water felt in my bath last night and a hundred cold mornings that I sat on the porch crying as the last of Stevie's night candle burned.

What if this life we live moment by moment is a memory that plays in a loop? What if it has all happened before? What if we have long since left these bodies and this planet we created and we are accessing time? What if real isn't real at all? What if like memory we can shift and change parts so that they appear a little more pleasant or a lot more horrible than they actually were?

I thought about this for a moment and I decided to take a very hurtful moment and change it. I remembered a night in the hospital when I called Sarah and told her I was going to put Stevie in the car and leave, get us on a plane to someplace beautiful and run away from hospitals, cancer, tears and pain.

In the memory I had we stayed and she never got better. In the new memory I found a wheel chair and sat her in it. I told her what we were going to do and she gave me her most wicked smile. I disconnected her IV line but took the pole with us so the nurses wouldn't be suspicious. I put her slippers on her feet and covered her in a pink fuzzy blanket. I grabbed my purse and we headed down to the lobby. I used my cell phone to call a cab. I used my credit card at the airport to get us two tickets to Tahiti. At the gift shop I bought us sweatshirts, baseball caps and plenty of things to read.

The plane ride was long but we slept most of the time. We read the rest of the time and before we knew it we were landing in Popiette. The puddle jumper took us to the cluster of bungalow's that sit on the water.

I filled up the big claw foot with warm soapy water and let Stevie relax. We then climbed into the big bed under the thatched roof and ceiling fans and slept. No alarms, no machines, no lights and constantly opening doors, no bad news, just sleep.

The next morning we swam in the lagoon as the sun snuck up on us. The water was warm and turquoise blue. We laughed and laughed because we did it, we escaped. We needed to creep out of the water before everyone woke up because we were naked. We sat on the deck in fat towels wondering if it was too early to find breakfast.

We exchanged our sweatshirts for tourist clothing that we bought at the gift shops and we arrived at our breakfast destination wearing tank tops and sarongs. We flip-flopped to our table in new sandals that needed breaking in. Our hair was still wet but we pulled it back in pony tails.

Our days and nights were spent walking the beaches, swimming in the lagoons, eating, reading under the shade of big umbrella's while we drank fizzy water and blended fruit drinks. Soon time stopped, we forgot what day it was or long it had been since the time before.

It worked. The old memory was gone (well faded to another part of my brain) and this new memory had taken it's place. I could really see Stevie in a beach chair, a book on her lap, big sunglasses telling me that she was hungry and wanted to rent bikes and find someplace new for lunch. I was wearing a baseball cap and could feel the sunburn on my shoulders. I wanted to fall asleep for a little while but the idea of a bike ride sounded better, I got excited.

If you can see it in your mind, feel it in your heart isn't that real? Did I just change our life in some parallel universe. Did she die in a big bed over blue water instead of a stinky hospital connected to tubes and wires. I believe she did.

Relationships and grieving

2008-11-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

Things have been going well. Tangerine is official, I have hours and customers, vendors and book keeping, events and marketing. I also have bills and stress but I expected that and so far both have been more than manageable.

I love working and keeping busy. I am not a lay-down-and-let-the-day-go-by kinda girl. I think we all have days when we don't feel good or we are just a little burnt out and our bodies and minds kinda take a little 24 our vacation or maybe just a 15 minute nap. I indulge in this practice but I find that if I am quiet and still for too long my emotions come to the surface and I slip into a sad dark place where missing my girl is more than I can bear.

I know someone who thinks that because I am able to stay busy, have goals, work hard means that I am healed up and ready to take on the work of repairing relationships and becoming a more giving person on an intimate level.

Wrong.

Working hard is not intimacy, it isn't personal, it's work, a distraction. I think it's healthy and necessary. This person went back to work a week after Stevie left because it was easier to look at a computer screen full of numbers than it was to be in a house where her shoes were still in the hallway and her books piled high waiting for her. I understand that.

I didn't have a job to go to, I didn't have an escape hatch, so I tore out the kitchen, moved my studio, cleaned the house, wrote a book, started a business.

I don't move through pain easily. I don't forgive easily. I can't seem to forget easily. What I can do is give myself a project a goal and put myself there in that working place, where I feel I have purpose.

I have a dear friend who I love who lost her child the same year I did. She was in a very healthy, wonderful marriage before her daughter left so her relationship comforted her. Not unlike me she poured herself into work, a major move, and tennis. This didn't keep the tears away, it didn't soften the blow, and it didn't fix everything but it helped her move through unbearable days.

My marriage was in deep trouble before Stevie left. I did not find comfort in it because for me it was something that needed fixing or leaving and I didn't have the energy to do either one.

Most marriages don't survive this kind of loss so I am trying not to beat myself up over this struggle. When I give it too much thought I get lost in it, there is no right thing to do. This family can not handle one more big upheaval but I am not in any shape to repair something that has broken for such a long time.

I can fix a sink, build a wall, lay a floor but only because it doesn't ask anything of my heart.

A therapist might have a whole other take on this and I can't say for sure because I am not one. For me grief is very personal. It has a flow like anything else but there are variations in personality, temperament, and mental stability. There are situations in families, relationships and finances. There are so many factors that will effect how the story unfolds.

The death of a child is unlike the death of a pet, a parent, even a spouse. Pain is pain but the death of a child is soul deep. It goes against the order of nature. Women are maternal by design, our hormones support our heightened instinct. When I gave birth to all three of my children I felt the flood of it. It isn't a subtle thing it's a tsunami. It is so over whelming that you actually react to it with tears.

I remember looking at my new baby thinking how fine my life was before this child, how ordinary. Then this little bundle of heat, milk breath and soft skin arrives and I just know that I will never be the same and I can't understand how I lived a whole life without this very vital part of myself.

Ask any mother of a new born and they will tell you that they are changed forever. You are suddenly not "You" anymore. Your instinct to protect your child over-rides your instinct to survive. This bond is formed and it's stronger than any kind of love you have ever experienced before.

You are in protection overdrive. There is no way to fight it, you are on a mission and it is one that never ends, that love never goes away or changes.

When you loose a child something inside you breaks. The worst fear you can imagine has been realized and you are undone.

If you have other children you go into auto pilot, at least I did. You may be broken but you still have a mission. It isn't easy because you are without one of your engines but you learn to navigate with the one you have. Mother nature has a way of helping you along, she gives you extra fuel, the right winds, and a soft place to land.

Marriages...

I don't know what it is like to be able to make it work after a loss like this. I only know one person who is doing well and that is because she started off doing well. Her and her husband were blindsided by their daughters illness but they were united and helped her together, they comforted each other from the beginning because they had a strong foundation of trust and respect. Her husband is not the biological father of her children but he takes his role as their father very seriously he loves them with his whole heart. For him these children are a gift and a part of the woman he loves most. I think his intense love and caring for her children bonded them and is helping them survive through loss.

It feels like he situation is the best possible scenario. I don't think mine is the worst because I know women who have had it much harder. I know one woman whose husband of 25 years left her for a younger woman. In the middle of her trying to come to terms with her husband leaving and her whole life changing she unexpectedly loses her 21 year old son.

Another woman I know lost her son in a car accident and a year later her husband leaves her. He had been having an affair for twelve years but blamed her because he felt she was not comforting him enough in his time of loss.

My husband is a good guy. He loved our daughter and he has always provided for us. I have been a good mom, and I have always been ground crew not as visible, not bringing in the big bucks, but necessary.

We have struggled for so many years to hold this family together. I am not sure we are going to make it. I am not strong enough, my heart is broken, I can't find the will to do what he wants, to help him, to make him happy, to make him feel loved or wanted enough.

My needs are basic, I need to eat, be able to pay the bills, sleep and work. I have found ways to survive, I comfort myself by giving to myself. I cry, I write, I surround myself with people who can give to me without asking anything back. People who understand that right now I need this and they are happy to help me in anyway. They call, send emails, invite me to lunch, listen to me cry. They never say "now it's my turn" They know me, they know that as I slowly heal I will slowly become more giving. They know that I would do the same for them.

Working, taking care of Noah and keeping the house running is about all I can do right now. I feel OK with that. I am actually very proud of myself. I know I stumble and fall but I am not laying in that bed waiting to die like I thought I would.

I can't speak for my husband but I know he needs something, has always needed something that I just don't know how to give him. We grieve differently and I can't change this, I can't race through it, and I can't be someone else. He expects me to farther along in this process, he expects me to fix our relationship. I can't.

I expect him to grieve like me, to feel what I feel, I can't imagine anything else.

He is making decisions and struggling. Part of me wants to tell him to sit tight and wait this out but I can't. I am in no shape to make promises or demands. He wants to be in a loving relationship, he wants to move past all this, he needs...he needs.

I am just me.

The First Edit...

2008-11-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

This morning I did something I have never done and I edited a post. My agreement with myself was that this blog would be for me and I would write honestly, openly, and not be afraid of pushing "Publish" because of what someone else would think.

It was hard to start blogging because it is a public forum. The odds of anyone finding this blog and reading it are pretty small but it feels very public when you begin. I knew what kind of person I am and I knew that I would write, re-write and finally delete because it wasn't perfect. I decided instead to give myself permission for this not to be perfect for it to just be what it is.

This is where I go to write. I love doing it because it comforts me, it connects me with myself. For me writing is very healing, it's my therapy.

We live our lives editing all the time, there has to be one place you don't have to do that, for me it was here. I wanted this to be my journey.

Last night someone who I thought never read my posts did and found two sentences in a post I wrote hurtful. I didn't write them to be hurtful actually writing them helped me diffuse some anger so that I could get through the day. I didn't write an untruth but it upset this person enough to confront me about it. So the post has been edited, the sentences deleted.

I won't do it again. I have also asked that person to stop reading my blog.

I feel like this blog suddenly doesn't have the integrity it once did. In the future I will leave out names of people if the story is not positive but the story will still be honest. In real life we have names, here maybe not.

Redecorating my life...

2008-11-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

My good friend Sawsan and I have decided to dedicate 100 days to improving our lives by living our lives with intent, focusing on what we want, and manifesting joy.

We will be doing this "thing" until February 17th 2009. It is an experiment, a promise, an adventure and a hopeful journey.

We had to choose three wishes for ourselves. As women we want to ask for the health and happiness of our children, feed the world, end wars, eliminate cellulite and hot flashes. The deal is we would give that to the universe to work on and for this moment focus on us. If we can manifest joy into our lives then we can offer it to others and be part of a never ending chain of joy-givers. If we are happy, healthy, and strong we can be better tools for the universe to use to create change.

It was not easy choosing the three things. I felt like I had let the genie out of the bottle and I didn't want to screw it up. I had to tell myself over and over, " first these three things, then three more, the universe is abundant and this genie never gets tired of helping you create an amazing life."

My three wishes are this:

My first wish is to have contact with Stevie, real contact, something that I can feel and keep inside me for the rest of my days here. I want the universe to help me find her and allow us lift the veil for a moment and tell each other we are OK.

I wish to know where she is and to know that one day I will be with her again. I want to ask her three questions and know that it is she that is giving me the answers.

My second wish is for my business to be successful. This one is a hard one to ask for, it goes against something inside me that tells me this is greed. I have taken a couple deep breaths and given myself permission to ask for this. I work hard and I deserve to be successful. I am asking for ten paying customers a day. I want to pay off the business debt in a year, have money to keep purchasing art, and have money to save.

I want to be able to support myself should I ever need to. I want to know that I can do something well. I would like to contribute to my family financially.

My last wish is for my health. I would rather be where Stevie is but I am here. If I have to be here and grow old I plan to do it in a healthy body. I would like to lose enough weight to be heart healthy (about 15 pounds) I wish to desire physical activity, to have that feeling athletes have in the morning. I want to take long walks, hike, ride my bike and dance. I am asking the universe to help me find the time and motivation. I see myself in a healthy, fit and strong body.

All this in 100 days? Yes. Why not?

I am only in the first week of this and I already feel a subtle shift. I feel good I know I can do this. The only work I have had to do so far is open myself up to this and allow it to happen. I know the universe has it's own time table and I can be patient while we tweak things and get me ready for this new adventure.

My sister and I love each other. We have been friends to each other, we have parented each other and we have been fight-like-dogs-pulling-hair sisters. It hurts that we can't get along for very long periods of time. I find myself irritated by her, inpatient, judgemental and sometimes just mean.

I have always been hard on her, but never harder on her than I am on myself.

We are at a point in our relationship were we have a hard time just having a telephone conversation. Last night we got into a big disagreement and she decided to tell me off and blame me for things she has no right blaming me for. I did my best to tell myself that she is angry and frustrated and needs someone to download all over. I can be that person but not quietly or easily.

I hung-up on her when the negativity and anger started hurting. I went to bed very upset and woke up with an idea.

I took out my journal and wrote about it all, the ugliest thoughts and all the frustration. I felt like I was taking out the garbage and getting rid of all those rotten yucky feelings. I then made a long list of things I felt responsible for and asked for forgiveness, and gave it to myself.

I then made a list of three wishes for her. I know that it is not for me to wish for other people, those wishes belong to them but I did it as a loving act, a desire to voice what I most wanted for her. My wishes were all about happiness and love.

Then I let it go. It was easier than I thought.

I wondered why this happened when I was so trying to attract positive energy into my life that I had this painful conflict. I didn't feel defeated just curious.

The answer came to me easily. I could see a messy house full of old worn out things piled high and cluttering every nook and cranny. Things I did not need, things that did not work, things that caused me pain and sadness.

I could see a big truck pulling up with new things, wonderful things but there was no room for them in this house full of cobwebs and history. I could then see the truck pulling away after leaving a little note on my door saying they would come back again when I was ready.

I had to find a way to let this thing go with my sister, and there are other things I have to learn to let go. I have to clear all this out so that I can start from scratch with well lit rooms that are clean and swept. I need to be able to see out of the windows and open the door. I need white walls and open spaces so that I can redecorate my life.

There will be more hard times in the next 100 days but I will try to see them as opportunities.

I am ready for a new me. That does not mean that I leave behind the old me but I will only pack up the best parts of her. I want to travel light, I want to be grow, learn and heal.

Cricket

2008-11-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

Some of you have heard this story but it is worth telling again.

Last week the dogs were scheduled to be spayed. As much as I think it would be sweet to have a house full of puppies and let Noah see the miracles mother nature has to offer I also knew it would be horribly irresponsible to let it happen. They should have had the surgery a long time ago but I haven't been able to make it happen.

I have actually given full responsibility of the dogs to Steve, Noah and Aly. This seems to be the one place I can delegate easily. I use to be such a dog-lover. I was raised with dogs, slept with them, slept with their fleas and took a dog with me where ever I went. When I had kids it changed and all that maternal energy went to them. After Stevie left her body I had a hard time giving any of myself, I was pretty empty and the thought of loving anyone or anything hurt.

I am now back to being the mommy because Noah makes it easy. Aly doesn't want a mom. Steve wants me to give to him what I gave to Stevie but he doesn't understand that what I gave to her she took with her when she left.

So there sit these horribly cute dogs and I feel nothing but pity for them because I know they need to be cuddled and loved and I just don't have it to give.

Steve is not much of a multi-tasker at home. He decided out of the blue that he would make the spaying arrangements. I wanted to step in for about a second then just let it go.

He had arranged for the surgery a month ahead of time but had obligations the morning of the surgery and sorta expected me to fix it, to step in and take over and I didn't. He made the plan and he would have to cancel or make it happen. This is not how we do things historically. What usually happens is I take over and bitch and complain the whole time.

This time Steve was stuck with two very skittish dogs on leashes connected to harnesses he put on them upside down. He got them in the car and tied one dogs leash to the front seat and the other in the back. If it were me I would have put the crates in the car, put them in the crates and taken them safely to the vet. Then I would have put something warm and soft in the crates for them so the trip home would be comfortable. He is not me and I let him do his thing.

About 20 minutes later Steve calls Aly's cell, not mine, hers. All I can hear is her saying "No Dad, no, she never does that she is always good in the car" then tears then running around the house frantically. I am trying to get her to tell me what is going on but she is hysterical and I can't understand her.

I call Steve and he tells me that when he got to the vet he untied Bicha and went around the other side of the car to get Cricket out but she wasn't there all that was there was a leash and empty collar hanging out of the window. He swears he has no idea how or when it happened.
I tell him that there is no way she is alive, and Noah walks in just as I say it, now he is hysterical.

Steve stays at the vet and admits Bicha, Aly calls work and gets in her truck to go look for Cricket. I grab a blanket thinking I will have to scrape a dead dog off the side of the road and wrap her in it. Noah and I get into the car and go looking for her. I tell Noah that the odds that we will find her alive don't look good but I need him to try and communicate with her. I tell him dogs can hear kids and he needs to tell her to stay were she is, not to be afraid that we are coming. He takes this task very seriously and begins chanting which is irritating but better than crying.

I follow Steve's path. It is morning and there are a lot of cars on the road. I check my speed and I am going about 40mph. and thinking how the hell could a dog survive hanging from a car window until she falls out of her leash, drop onto the road at this speed then miss being hit by a car if she survives the fall. I was praying Noah would not see her, my plan was to pull over gently at least a hundred feet from her and wrap her in the blanket.

Twenty minutes go by and still no dog.

Aly calls my cell and yells "Mom some guy said he thinks there was a white dog running toward the bart station and I think I could see Cricket running really fast through the field there" I tell her I am on my way and I make a U-turn and head to the bart station. Part of me is excited and another part of me thinks Aly is just seeing what she wants to and it was most likely a bird or a rabbit.

Noah and I drive around and around the station, the parking lot, and the fields, nothing. We meet up with Aly for a minute and keep looking. I hit a dead end literally and think to myself we need to just go home. I turn to Noah who is still chanting for Cricket to stay put and not be afraid, and tell him we have to go home. I tell him that if she is alive someone will find her and bring her to the animal shelter and they will call us.

As I round turn the car around and head out I see a fence leading from the field to bart and a small white dog sitting patiently waiting.

Noah jumps out and picks her up, and brings her into the car. I check her out top to bottom looking in her ears for blood and fluid, her ribs for tender spots, her limbs for broken bones, her eyes and her abdomen. Aside from a scrape under her doggy-lip she is untouched by any harm, perfect, fine and worn out. She curls up on the blanket I brought and enjoys the ride home.

If she can survive, I can survive. It is shitty she went through all of that to teach me something when I can' even manage to give her a few tender moments a day.

I still delegate the dog stuff because I know it is best for the dogs and for me, for right now but I have a new tenderness I didn't have before, a respect for all beings and how we share this planet with them. Cricket is not here by accident.

Falling in Love...

2008-10-26T16:28:00.001-07:00

I was at Tangerine yesterday. It was a quiet day but I had so many little things to do. At about four I was dragging. I someones bounced check to deal with, some restocking and cramps. I wanted to close early and go home but I stuck it out.

Mairead and Allison showed up just then, happy, young, smelling pretty and full of energy. They were like a breath of fresh air. They came in to shop, talk, and me a tiny black bag from Sephora, they both had funny little smiles on.

These two girls have been so good to me and I wasn't always the nicest person to them. When they were younger I use to give Alli a hard time. She and Aly would always be up to something and needing a ride to a show, Berkeley, Rasputin, wanting to take Bart to the city and give me a heart attack, stay up late and cook, come home from a show stoned, and generally drive me insane.

Mairead was sweet, she would come over and hang-out with Stevie once in a while and talk about her make-up fetish, designer bags, how she had to straighten her hair before she could curl it. She is a crack up and a little glam-girl.

I played the role of grumpy mom.

Now Stevie is gone and Aly is in her own world.

Allison and Mairead still come over, still email me and have found a way to comfort me while I am hurting so much and missing my girl. I don't know why they do it but they do and it is so beautiful.

It seems they read my post about running out of "Falling in Love" and not being able to find it anymore. It is just a bottle of perfume but it felt like I was losing another part of Stevie.

These two sisters who love to shop got online and found were the perfume might be and then went to several stores until they found and actual bottle.

When I opened the little bag they brought me that was what was inside.

They also brought me a song by The Plain White T's called 1234...They told me I would cry and I did. It is such a pretty song, and Stevie would have loved it.

If she could whisper into their ears she would have told them to bring me the perfume and the song and they would.

They would have it even if she didn't.

I like to believe it was three of them there yesterday.

Thank you girls...

2008-10-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

I had a dream of a baby last night. Not sure if it was because I was thinking of babies or because I asked the universe to give me a sign.

I raised my brother and sister, then became a mom at 19. I have been taking care of kids my whole life. I always dreamed of having a house that was full of kids. We would all sleep in a great big bed and eat at a really long table. I would make stacks of pancakes on Sunday and platters of spaghetti for dinner. I imagined we would live on a boat and Christmas would be spent someplace snowy. We would have a big fire and kids in footie pajamas that tried to stay awake for Santa.

Steve and I started dating when I was 18 and he knew about this big family dream. He took it upon himself to fill me in on the realities of a big family, coming from one himself. There were six kids in his family. His mother was married to his father when she was 19, he was in his thirties. Steve is also older than I am.

I think he really thought he could talk me out of a big family, or any family for that matter. He was one of those kids who just didn't get enough of what he needed. His parents were both alcoholics and his mother had many issues around mental health. Both his parents died when he was young. Although I could see that the difficult times growing up for him were not due to having a big family but a big family that had more than it's share of struggles. Had he been an only child with the same two parents life would have still been difficult.

Steve wanted what his parents wanted but didn't know how to get. He wanted a great job, travel, adventures and freedom. He wanted to make art, write, act, and have a swanky apartment full of great stereo equipment. He wanted just enough of everything and not have to worry that that's all there would ever be.

I became pregnant by accident but I never questioned that it was what was suppose to happen. Steve reacted badly. I was determined and he figured out slowly that maternal instincts make Superman look like a wimp. We lived in a crappy one bedroom apartment, Steve was finishing school, I was taking my first college course.

From outside it seemed like we were doomed but I knew it would be OK.

I think all of his worries and doubts disappeared when he held Aly for the first time. He was madly in love with her and she with him. They are still very close.

When Aly was getting close to two I decided we needed to have another baby. Steve decided I was crazy. His argument was that we lived in a crappy one bedroom apartment. I did research on financing a first home and found a loan program that was perfect for us. Three months later we were in our first house and Stevie growing inside of me.

Steve was sure another child would ruin us but each child brought such happiness and good luck. He had a hard time seeing that. He had a harder time dealing with the attention the kids demanded of me and how I happily moved toward them and drifted from him. Our relationship changed drastically. I went from being a silly teenage girl who followed him where ever he wanted to go to a mom of two daughters who demanded we stay home and enjoy our babies. He wanted to be out and I wanted to be in.

I was young but I knew it was going to go fast, that we only had a small amount of time with them as babies. I stayed home with them instead of returning to work which gave us new financial worries. The pressure to provide and trade dreams for reality was hard on Steve. He still wanted all the things he did before but he is a responsible guy and knew he had a family to care for first.

We were so young.

I wanted those dream babies and we fought about it over and over. I never was able to convince him.

We would separate when Stevie was four. We couldn't agree on what was important. When I turned 27 I had a little bit of a melt down.

Two years later we reconciled, agreeing to put our family back together again. The baby argument began right away. Steve held strong for almost five years. In 1998 he got his dream job with the opportunity to travel all around the world. The kids were older so there was less demand on him to be home. He took the job and I had Noah.

It seemed perfect at the time. Then Stevie got sick.

Steve and I have always had an agreement. The house and kids were me. My job was to cook, clean, do laundry, shop, pay the bills, take care of the kids, school work, doctors appointments etc. His job was to work hard and take out the garbage.

I consider myself a feminist so part of me resented the traditional roles sometimes, especially when I didn't get enough sleep or had literally gone weeks without leaving the house. I hated asking him for help it made me feel like a failure. If I asked, and if he was available he would help.

I had dreams too. I thought I could do it all, and would do it all. It was much harder work than I thought. There were friends who had bigger houses, vacations and nannies. There were friends who had careers and parties. There were friends who wondered what the hell I did all day. I felt small sometimes. I missed the world outside.

At night when the girls were cuddled up in bed with me smelling like soap, milk and flowers I would feel like a shit for wanting anything more than that moment with them.

Although I had moments of self pity I also had moments of knowing that my turn would come. Maybe this was what I was meant to do and that could be enough. Being a parent is such hard work it is messy and heartbreaking but nothing, and I mean nothing feeds your soul like being a mother.

When Noah came...It was like he pulled us together. He is the glue in our family. I can not say enough how heaven-sent that boy is. Steve fought long and hard and he was sure that having a child would make our lives crumble...but he loves that boy with all his heart. We didn't crumble, Noah made us strong for what was to come.

Steve has now achieved all his dreams. He has jumped out of a plane, hang-glided, bungee jumped, swung from trapeze. He has traveled all around the world. He has a great job that pays him well. He owns a nice house. He has performed in theatres, has been in several independent films and is in a long-running commercial. His life is his, and he gets up every morning to play tennis (his favorite thing to do) has friends, watches football, eats meat (even though I would prefer us to be vegetarian) and sings with his friends and brothers.

I have been the person who has been behind the scenes, with the kids, creating a place for him to come home to. I am not perfect and I can be temperamental, moody and demanding. I am not the ideal wife, at times I am a terrible wife. If you asked Steve I think he would say that he wished I loved him better.

After Stevie died I stopped liking him. I think it was all too much and I could not handle his need and I resented his moving on so quickly. He is healthier than me in that way. He doesn't drag around old hurts and sad moments. He lets them go and moves onto the next. He has some kind of pain amnesia that I don't seem to have. It keeps him from getting stuck and being depressed.

I was learning to accept that three kids and the life we had was what the universe chose for me. It didn't mean that I gave up wanting a big family but I was getting older and Steve had a vasectomy so I didn't have a whole lot of choice. I could fill up that empty place in the nest with a career, maybe I would get to travel now or I could write a book.

I knew my family would not get bigger, but I didn't think it would get smaller. A dying child is never part of a life you dream for yourself, worse it is never what you dream for them.

Now I am trying hard to accept that this is my reality, what the universe has planned for me.

Now a baby is creeping in again. I admit I fantasize and pray that I can have Stevie back and that may be my main motivation. I have read that women who lose a child are usually pregnant inside a year. They are not trying to replace that child but the giant hole the loss of a child leaves is unbearable and a baby gives you hope and reason.

I try to explain to Steve that I am a woman like any other woman and this need is natural and normal. I am trying to honor it, I may not act on it but it deserves thinking about.

He is the same person he has always been and has the same arguments. He told me he would leave us if I tried to have a baby. He tells me that I am tired of parenting, burned out, that I need to move on. I think he is trying to punish me. He wants to be the person who gives me hope and reason and it hurts him that I am choosing a child that doesn't even exist over him.

I am not burned out, I am grieving the loss of a child. I am not the same me I was before because I feel broken. I still work hard. My heart, soul and body ache. I am trying to survive this.

There are ways to have a baby, even at my age, even without him. It wouldn't be responsible to do it perhaps but it would be even more wrong to let him try to frighten me. Every time I try to live the best life for me he threatens to leave. Maybe he should.

He loves me, the way he knows how to. He wishes that I would love him that same way but I don't. For me love is pure emotion, it is an environment, it is who and what we are in this moment. It is every second we have ever been. Love is pure and it needs and uncontaminated environment to grow. Love can't live where resentment, control, anger and fear does. Love is not sex, love is not need, love can not be demanded, or paid for. Love is not something you can talk yourself into.

For me I need love to feel passion, energy, peace, creativity, and strength.

Children understand it, they bring it with them and they teach it to us. Unconditional love heals like nothing else can.

I want a baby for some of the most important reasons and for some of all the wrong reasons. This decision should be mine, without fear, without guilt, without a price.

I feel like I am standing high on a mountain, at the very edge. I am all alone and there is something so important in this moment for me. It will take great faith to take the next step forward or back.

2008-10-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

I dreamed we moved into a big house with many rooms. There was even a closet in a long hallway with a mop-sink in it! My bedroom had brown wallpaper with tiny little bunnies on it. I wasn't sure about it because they were bunnies and it was brown but the was something about it that was pretty. In a drawer I found pictures of that very room over time, and every owner had some kind of bunny wallpaper.

I asked you what room you wanted and you took me far away from mine and showed me a little room at the end of the house. I said, "You will be too far away from me I won't be able to hear you if you need me" You looked at me in confusion and I could hear you thinking, "I won't need you silly mom"

There was an old grampa who lived in the house, I guess he belonged to us, or came with the house I don't know but I like him. He looked like Vincent Price and had a Austrian accent.

Why do I dream the things I do?

In the dream you were there and I but I never did really see you, just knew it was you.

The opening was yesterday and it went well. So many friends came, it felt good to be supported. Everyone liked the shop. Your brother put on one of Sawsan's framing aprons and sold candy to his friends. TT rang everyone's purchases up and I floated around the shop talking to everyone. It felt unreal, like a dream.

I was so busy that I didn't have time to be sad or to even talk to you. Maybe that was best. Were you there Stevie, did you like it?

The Jennings bought us a huge Chinese dinner after closing. Shoshana looks so much like you and I find that comforting but I have stopped seeing you now that I know her, I see her and I like her. She seems so damn sad but I think she is an amazing person who doesn't know quite how amazing she is.

Aly didn't show, she can be so mean. I don't know why she is the way she is. I try so hard to like her and connect and it doesn't work. Her arrested development keeps me from liking her most days. I want so much for her like: a good school were she could learn to do what she is passionate about, great job she loves to wake up to, friends who inspire her, comfort her and love her. Someday I wish for her to meet a really great guy to be loved by.

What she wants is to be supported indefinately, freedom to do what she wants, when she wants without any consequence, a nose job, a boob job, more shoes, more jeans, a new car and money to fall from the sky.

I wish for her to be independent, happy, adventurous, loved, fulfilled. She wishes to be Paris Hilton.

Stevie how did this happen?

You and Noah are so grounded and smart. She is smart too but she pretends to be stupid so no one will expect anything from her. She hates me because I expect more and I can see through her silly game. I wonder when she will give in and grow up.

Your brother is going to sing a Jason Moraz song for the whole school. It is the song about words that you loved, the lyrics are in your scrap book from graduation. He heard the song on Dad's radio and loved it. He sings it so well.

My only complaint about the little man is that he can be stinky. You and Aly were never stinky. He is like a sweaty little puppy. He would go weeks without soap and water if we let him.

He loves to wear skinny jeans and those t-shirts you and I bought him a long time ago. They are way too small but he will not let me throw them away. He still has your Format robot T that you gave him for Christmas. Remember how it use to fit him like a night-shirt? Well, it now fits him like a regular shirt, the kid must grow while he is sleeping. When he wakes up his pants are always too short.

He is so much like you. I know he is not you, and he does not replace you, but he is definitely your little brother.

My "Falling in Love" Philosophy perfume is almost gone. I don't think they make it anymore. It reminds me of the way you smell. It also reminds me of your funeral, I sprayed it all over me so I wouldn't smell anything else, I just wanted you. You and I bought it at the Stanford Shopping Center when you were having treatment at Stanford. You wanted to go there all the time, you loved it, loved the shops...loved perfume, lotion, bubble bath and lip balms. We bought so much and I still have it all. I keep the Satsuma put away in a sealed box. I come undone if I smell it.

I miss you so much. How can a person be so lonely in a world of so many people. I am a very loved person and I am grateful but it isn't the same. My best friend in the whole world, my favorite person is not here like before. It sucks.

If you were here in your body you would be watching the Simpson's with Dad, Aly and Noah and I would be walking by the living room saying "Why do you guys watch that show is so mean and so full of sarcasm" The four of you would ignore me and I would keep putting away laundry and sneaking cookies.

You would be having fruit, eating it out of a little bowl. You would have some fat green grapes, an orange and maybe some cashiews. You would leave the bowl out, the peels in a napkin and a glass of something on the table. You would leave your shoes by the couch...The next day I would complain that you always leave a nest for me to pick up. I never minded Stevie, I loved your nests.

You would stay up late tonight and beat some old guys who think they are brilliant at Literati while you listened to MP3's. I would come out at about midnight and see you hunched over in this very chair humming and creating high point words.

Some nights I would stand there and look at you. I would wonder if you were happy. I know you enjoyed playing word games and listening to music. I know you loved to stay up late and have the house to yourself but were you happy?

I was happy to have you in my life, I was always madly in love with you, I still am. I always knew how lucky I was, I never questioned it. I also believed that my love could keep you here. Maybe it did but not forever.

Well my sweetest girl I am a tired mama. I got up very early this morning and all I want to do is lay in your bed and count sheep.

Sweet dreams honey-bunny, don't be too far away,
XXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOO
mommy

2008-10-16T09:55:00.001-07:00

and here I am...

The moon was huge last night. I walked all the way to the dog park and up the hill to look at, to feel closer to you.

I also drove to the cemetery on my way home from Oakland. For the first time it didn't feel comforting or good, it felt out of place and unreal. You shouldn't be there and I shouldn't be going there. We should be here at home planning for the opening on Saturday. You should be drinking a latte and bugging me to take you shopping so you will have something to wear.

This morning you should be sleeping late because that is what you do, then you should take a long shower and get the bathroom all steamy and messy. You should leave the blow-dryer out and your clothes all over the floor. I should be yelling at you to turn the music down and hurry up if you are coming to the store with me, we need groceries.

At the store you should be buying things you have never tried before, things I know you won't like and cost too much but I know how happy it makes you to try new things, discover new flavors.

Then we will go to Bev-Mo and buy a case of Pink Champagne because we both think it's pretty. At lunch time we will grab some Thai and talk. I will look at you and think "My God you are beautiful" but what I'll say is, "Stevie I think you are from outer-space" and you will smile because you know what that means. You know that I think you are unique, special, too wonderful to be human. You know that I am so proud of you, so blessed to be your mommy, and I love it that you are smarter than me and care about so many things that other people just don't get.

These are not secrets, I tell you all the time but there are different ways to say it and over Thai food and a tall milky tea "You are from outer-space" is what you say. You always got me, we could speak without all the words in-between. I thought that after you left it would be the same.

The shop opens on Saturday and I want to believe you will be there, standing right next to me saying, "Oh Mom, it is so pretty, I love it" but I won't be able to hear the words instead I will have to search for something else.

I called TT on the way home from Oakmont and told her I couldn't do it anymore, that I didn't want to be here without you. I meant it. I do it though day after day. I have to I guess, that doesn't mean I am happy about it but it is what I must do. The choice doesn't feel like mine.

I got up really early this morning and stood out on the lawn. It was cold and the grass was wet from the sprinklers but the sky was so clear and perfect. The moon was bright and high and close to the three sisters in the sky. Tom and Cindy have put there house up for sale and I wonder if it is because they are afraid to live next door to a crazy lady who stands outside in the dark in nothing but a T-shirt and her nine year old bathrobe, talking to the sky and crying.

I think I might be tempted to move.

I tell you over and over how much I miss you, and love you. I think you must be sick of it but if you are you will have to find a way to tell me. I want to be were you are, I don't want you to be alone and I don't want to be here without you. In this world full of people I feel lost and alone without you.

If I have to stay maybe you can come back. I will find a donor and have a baby. I will be one of those mom's who looks like a gram. When you turn 21 this time I will be...old. I can take you in a backpack to the shop. You will grow up surrounded by cute things and eat candy for breakfast.

I don't know what it is like to be without a body. I don't remember it. If there is a God you are happy now and busy. They have good cold-pressed, free-trade coffee, organic fruit and showers that never get cold. You can sleep as long as you want and travel to places that only you know exist. You never have to be sick, condition your hair, or worry about losing a few pounds.

I see you on a bike riding down a beach where the sand is firm and the waves are all foamy. You hair is long and auburn and wild in the wind. You are laughing and riding fast, barefoot and wearing your old cable knit sweater.

This is what should be, me on the beach watching you, and you so happy, so very happy.

Mama Posted by Gabriell at 8:23 AM 0

Little Cakes...

2008-10-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

When I take a shower in the morning I write you little messages on the steamy glass of the shower walls. I started doing it because it was so hard to be in the shower with your collection of soaps and shampoos. I would cover myself with your cotton candy soap and write you love letters in the steam. I write simple lines about the little things that are happening at home and how much we miss you. I fantasize that the words some how find you. Maybe there is a parallel world were you never got sick, or I did instead and the words appear to you when you take a shower and they comfort you.

This morning I wrote to you about the little cakes I made out of clay, no bigger that a quarter, complete with frosting, berries, tiny nuts and leaves. They remind me of you, something you would hold in your hand that would make you smile. You must have put the idea in my mind while I was sleeping because I woke up with a need to make them.

The shop is opening soon, on the 18th. I can't believe I am doing this, I feel ill prepared. What do I know about retail? Some days I wake up wondering what the hell I am doing and then I think I feel you telling me, " Relax mom, breath, it's happening, and it will be OK"

This little store is something you and I have talked about. I hope I am doing it right. Oh Stevie I wish you were here in your body helping me, shopping with me, talking me through this. I can see you sitting at the little wooden table concentrating on a catalog or telling me how much pink is too much pink.

I am trying so hard to get Aly to be a part of this but she thinks it's stupid, a waste of time and money. She still doesn't like me, I am not sure she ever will. I miss having a daughter who wants to be with me, who loves the things I love, who is my friend and my keeper of secrets. Tell me you are still that person, just without a body of skin and cells.

I am calling the shop Tangerine. It came to me so easily, from the Format song I loved that I stole from you..."alas you are my tangerine, my pussycat my trampoline"

I had a dream about Andrew last night, that he was here for an event and I was telling him all about you and he loved the story and wanted to know everything...then I kissed him. Sorry but he is so very cute. I am not sure if he is so adorable because he is or if it is simply that you found him adorable and I can see what you did. Sorry I kissed him (more that once) it is wicked but it was a dream, how can I possibly be responsible for what I do when I am dreaming?

I promise not to kiss anymore of your rock star boyfriends.

Sweet girl, what am I going to do without your chubby cheeks and cuteness? I am trying to be happy with this new you, this mystery, this in the air, my heart, my mind you. I can love you in any form but it is frustrating for me. I want to touch you, hear your voice, buy you clothes, hear your music come from your room while you are trying to find your shoes and put your hair up in an elastic.

This new you is so ethereal. I am never sure, never.

I have so much to do today, the days are busy as they should be. Your brother is such a comfort to me. He does not replace you but he loves me so completely. He understands this, how I don't know. He came for a reason, maybe it was to save me, to give me a reason to stay and not follow you.

There is not a day that goes by that you are not part of in some way. I am holding you close puddin' so close. Stay with me when you can but not if it keeps you from heaven.

I love you, I love you, I love you,
mama

Weddings, Beaches and Blankets

2008-10-01T07:31:00.001-07:00

My niece Braina was married on Saturday. The wedding was in southern California so we loaded up the car with pillows, bottled water, books on tape, luggage and began the long drive.

I think this is the first "family" trip we have gone on since Stevie left. It was very sad not having her there...the empty space was big. Aly got car sick as usual, Noah fidgeted, Steve drove and I found places to pull over and eat.

We stopped at the windmill and had Anderson's split pea soup for breakfast, yes they serve it as part of your breakfast and it's actually good, and I don't even like peas. We stuffed ourselves full of pancakes, omelets, buttered toast and hot chocolate then got back in the car for naps. Steve plugged into his IPOD and sang to himself for a couple hours.

The hotel was beautiful, a small resort in a very unlikely place. Our room opened up to the beach and we took advantage of the sand and water before our suitcases were unpacked. Noah was smacked by wave and "ate shit like a pro" according to Aly. He got a little mangled so I took him to the pool while Aly and Steve body surfed for a while.

Jeff and Sarah were checked in and having a coctail by the pool so we hung out with them until dinner. Dave brought Lisa and Mahina over for dinner and we all watched the debates. It was a groovy evening. My SIL Lisa is such a beautiful person, my favorite McMoyler sibling. She is everything her brothers are not. It is nice to be around her feminine, smart, and funny energy. He daughter Mahina took my breath away. I met her for the first time that evening but I felt like she had been a part of my heart and my life forever.

I felt connected to her in a very important way, there was something about spending time with her that comforted me. She completes a circle, a female circle that I can not explain. She is not just physically beautiful but gentle, kind and has an inner strength that you know is hidden deep inside her. She feels like family to me, and I know I have known her before.

The wedding was on a big green lawn in front of a harbor full of sail boats. There was a big paddle boat waiting for us after the ceremony and it slowly took us around the bay in circles while we danced, ate dinner and cake, and drank (a little too much).

Aly taught Noah how to dance to a slow song and I can still see his chubby little sticky fingers holding onto her dress at her waste while he looked up at her with the sweetest grin. She had her hand on his little shoulder and was looking down at him like mother looks at a child. She tells me she will never have children, she doesn't think she is mama-material but she is. She loves that boy with her whole heart.

Noah is late for school so this post is a little rushed, I am leaving out good parts but I promise I will get back to them on another day.

I wanted to be sure I wrote about the package that arrived last night. There was no card but I knew who it was from. My childhood friend owns a blanket company...it had to be her because inside this package was the most beautiful blanket. It was a woven portrait of Stevie, the night of the concert in her gold sweater. It is the picture where she looks like a grown-up, a picture that I only found after she was gone.

How Monica made it happen I still do not know but what a precious gift. It took my breath away, over and over again. Some part of me believes that Stevie and Monica had some kind of communication. Thank you Mona, you have found a way over miles and years to touch my heart.

Noah needs me to get him to school, I will post more later.

Yesterday

2008-09-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

I was in bed last night, it was dark and warm, a little too warm, and I was thinking that I should get up and write, talk about the day and tell my girl happy birthday. I fell asleep instead.

I was so tired from all the crying, and I did a ton of it. God and I had it out again.

The cemetery was so sunny, flowers at the graves so bright and pretty. The view there is incredible. It is hard to believe that is a place of such great sadness and all those pretty flowers mark a life, someone who is loved and missed.

I brought fall flowers; Japanese paper lanterns in orange, deep red Dalia's, blue cabbage roses, sunflowers in yellow and brown, creamy hydrangea, and pussy-willow. They were all silk but somehow they looked pretty enough to be real. On her marker I left fresh flowers from our garden, the last of the yellow glads, pink roses, lavender, purple rosemary, red bells... I also left the apples, grapes and Asian pears from the back yard.

I figure the deer will come and eat the fruit and flowers like they always do and I love the idea of a mama deer and her fawn nibbling peacefully near my girl.

I brought one of the pink cans of Sophia and toasted Stevie, I then poured the rest of the can over her grave. The sun was burning down on the grass and it began to smell sweet and fruity.
I sat with her like I always do while confused bees hovered and darted.

There is a boy with her exact birthday buried just across from her. I visit with her "neighbors" and tend their graves. I pull weeds, tidy up, and place the flowers from the previous month on a grave that is empty. Yesterday his grandparents were there and I spoke with them. They were beautiful, tearful and so sweet. They told me that he took his own life. A strong healthy boy with a scholarship, a quarter back on his college football team. He had a girl friend and was so loved that over a thousand people showed up for his funeral. He left no note. They still do not understand why he did it, he never seemed unhappy.

My heart understands pain and confusion, but I felt very angry. I kept it to myself. They asked how my girl passed and I told them that cancer took her body, that she wanted so much to live but it was too aggressive.

In my mind I said, "Matthiew you selfish little shit, you had everything and all you wanted to do was die, she had nothing, just pain and more pain and all she wanted was to live"

It is a terrible thing to think about someones child but I did.

Sarah called to tell me she was thinking about me and told me she spent the weekend in New York at a funeral for a cousin who killed himself at 23, I was angry all over again.

Anger is not going to bring her back or make me feel better but there it is like an ugly sore, I cover with a band-aid. I just have a hard time trying to make sense out of it. My heart tells me it is not for me to make sense out of, and my brain tells me that this is a bullshit scam.

I came home to yellow tulips...Teresa sent them. How she found them I will never know. They made me sob, they brought me to my knees. It was bitter sweet. Teresa understands this thing inside me. She has not lost a child but she loves me so my loss is her loss. She knows how deep this goes and she knows how to keep me from sinking but always honors my grief. It is good to know someone who is not afraid of your pain.

The tulips are in a blue milk glass vase that Julie sent me last year.

I am so worn out. Good things are happening and I am staying busy and working hard but there is something in me that is just worn thin and is having a hard time figuring out why I keep on keeping on. I would like to say it is because I am strong and determined, that Stevie got her strength and determination from me but the reality is that I am genetically designed to survive.

I have survived child abuse, two mentally ill parents, poverty, rape, and now this. I would relive the ugliest and most pain full parts of my life a million times if I could just have her back.

What I get instead is a heart that keeps beating, that keeps loving, and that keeps hoping.

I am a good person, but I am a broken person, but one that keeps moving forward.

I release the darkest things here but I live in the light, I have to, there is no other choice, to do anything else would not honor the life she fought so hard for.

We leave for Los Angeles. My niece Braina is getting married. I do not know how these kids grew up so fast. This is the first big family event for us. We have not traveled as a family since Stevie...it will be weird not having her in the car knitting and torturing Noah. We are not complete but we will all go and celebrate.

The wedding is on Noah's birthday so we are taking him to an amusement park the next day. He is pretty happy about it. Aly is strangely happy to be going, she usually hates doing anything with us. We are trying, all of us.

We will be on a boat for the reception that should be beautiful. Davie and Stevie have to be there, I cant imagine a heaven that would not let them. I will be looking for them everywhere.

21 and...

2008-09-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

Some days go by, I wish I was famous
Or maybe religious, so I could go to heaven
Just like you
I can have a big house, complain about taxes
Payoff my ex'es, ain't that living
No one makes fun of me, cause I can't stand up for myself and I cross my legs like a girl

Woah, 21 and invincible
Woah, can't wait to screw this up
And woah, 21 and invincible
I'm in power for the hour
Guess today's gonna blow us away

I've got a girlfriend
She tells me she needs me
And she loves me
We'll probably get married
Oh no, and everyone will bit their tongues so hard they'll bleed

When mom hears this song
She'll tell me I'm crazy
And she'll say to me
"Son you're much too fun, go have some fun don't waste your youth like I did"

And woah, 21 and invincible
Woah, can't wait to screw this up
And woah, 21 and invincible
I'm in power for the hour
I guess today's gonna blow us away

And it's been autumn since the day that I met you
If I had bottomed, I'd crawl out alone
And I don't wish you know the secrets of summer at all

And woah, 21 and invincible
Woah, can't wait to screw this up
And woah, 21 and invincible
I'm in power for the hour
I guess today's gonna blow us away

This is a song Stevie loved...Andrews music. We went to the Fillmore in the city and watched him sing this when his hair was growing back and he was loving life and his fans. He deserved every bit of that energy those girls were pouring out to him.

My girl leaned against a pillar and sang every word, she was shy as hell but she loved a room full of sweaty people when live music was playing. I bought her a black sweatshirt that night. It was a zip up with a little silk screened "Jacks Mannequin" on it. I teased her, told her it was for me but she new I was lying.

I wear it now because it reminds me of that groovy night with my best girl, she was so happy.

Tomorrow would be her 21st birthday...

I will go to the cemetery alone. I just need to be close to her, to the body I loved so much.

On my 21st birthday I went to my aunts house, my family was there, my cousin made me a cake. Aly was still in diapers and the one she was wearing had failed and both of us were in ruined clothes. Steve and I had a big fight because I wanted to go home, he couldn't understand why it didn't feel like 21 I felt like 41. I had leaky boobs, smelled like poo and instead of a college keg party I was eating cake and cob salad while everyone watched TV.

Stevie would be born September 23rd, the year I turned 23. I can't believe I was a mother to two tiny kids when I was that young. Aly is 23 now...a puppy and a job is a challenge for her, I can't imagine babies, a mortgage and a difficult to please husband.

Would I change any of it?

Yes.

I would have waited until I was older, until we had more money, until I was an adult. I would have worn my seat belt the day we were in the car accident. I would have made them do an MRI when she was seven. I would have said no to radiation. I would have never yelled at the girls, even when I was on my period and they wall papered the bathroom with maxi-pads. I would have just ripped one off the wall to use and admired the beauty of the moment.

Would it have made a difference?

I don't know, but maybe in a parallel universe somewhere is a much happier me with two daughters just going through puberty, that are healthy and happy. Maybe that other me is relaxed and never loses her temper or worries about how well the dishwasher is working or how crappy school lunches are. Noah is still eight and has a mom that doesn't cry at night when everyone is in bed and Stevie picks on him for being a boy and being gross and loud.

In that other universe we live in a different house, one that has stairs and a real swimming pool. I run in the morning and come home to make big breakfasts for the kids before school. Stevie is well so she isn't as shy, she has more friends so she needs less of me. She and Aly are still at that stage where they are best friends, just like before, I am just the mom, the "her" in their before bed talks. I feel left out but I have no idea how beautiful that is.

Stevie never died, she went to college instead.

On her 21st birthday we had a big party and I baked an obscene cake and hired a garage band to play in our backyard under a tent. She and her friends got filthy drunk on cheap beer and all slept in sleeping bags on the floor.

I would love to live there, in that universe but I live here, someone has to, and I can't imagine breaking the other me's heart.

She is here, she has to be, I can't stop thinking about her. That black crow who called to me every morning, and seemed to follow me everywhere the first months is back. She is sitting right where she did before and she called to me this morning. I told her to tell Stevie I love her so much and that I didn't forget.

Sometimes this still doesn't feel real.

Don't pinch me, I want to believe it is a dream and I am going to wake up to Stevie yelling because Aly borrowed her silver flip flops and her Hula perfume. Noah will want cereal, Steve will be playing tennis and the terrible dream I had will stick with me most of the morning but it fades so quickly that I forget all about it by dinner.

The day you were born...

2008-09-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

I remember how afraid I was, it was dark outside and the room was so bright. I remember how I couldn't really connect with what was happening. It happened so fast and there you were...

Dad and I went to the hospital alone, I never let anyone come when I had a baby, it's so intimate and private and I was selfish with the experience. The contractions came and went and I thought I had a long time, I was actually comfortable. It seems it went from" we are going to have a baby sometime soon" to "we are going to have a baby now" in a matter of minutes.

You were two weeks late but you came when you were ready, waiting for no one else to be ready.

I sat there thinking "Oh God I am never doing this again" You were such a big baby and you were in such a hurry all of the sudden. I yelled at the doctor, told him to give me drugs and he smiled and said, "this baby is coming now" I believe I dropped the f-bomb and pushed.

I could feel everything opening up against my will, skin burning from all the stretching. I had a moment when I wanted it all to stop, I didn't want to release you into this world of people and time, I wanted you to be all mine just for a little while longer.

A couple pushes I tried to fight and instinct told me I had to let go, so I did. I reached down and there you were warm, wet, heavy and pissed.

Oh you sweet girl, my sweet and most favorite person in the world. My heart was all yours.

It still is.

I fell in love with Aly and Noah when they were born, it was a strong intense thing, so natural, so primitive.

You frightened me with your strength and your knowing eyes. I could hear you talking to me, I could feel you telling me that this wasn't forever and this would all be hard work. You told me you needed me, and you never stopped telling me, I needed you too.

I still do.

The love I felt for you was deep and it consumed me, it literally took my breath away. I held onto you so tightly. I made you promise me you would never leave, that you would always be my baby and until the day you left you promise you would.

I promised you that if you died, I would too but I didn't keep that promise, I never knew it would be a choice, I just assumed my heart would stop, and it wouldn't.

The moon is so big tonight, and I feel you so close, but not close enough. For some reason your birth keeps playing in my head, so does the day you left.

They are both the same.

Your birthday is coming...

Do you stay 19 forever?

It is hard to imagine that someday Noah will be older than you, that new bands will form that you will never love, that Jodi Piccult will keep writing books you will never read. I will grow old without knowing what your babies would look like, without sharing anymore secrets with you.

I am tired tonight. I am tired of trying to believe, tired of saving "signs" in a note book to prove something to myself. I am tired of missing you and I want you back, this is too hard. Time is not magic, it doesn't make this go away it just makes all the real stuff seem far away.

Where are you and why aren't you here with me?

I am so lonely for your voice, for you presence in this house, for your books, and you music, for you sitting next to me in the car, or you holding onto me while we walk. No one can take your place, no one comes close. No one is you.

One day, that is all I want just one day with you. You wouldn't have to give away God's secrets, you could just be here where I can touch you, kiss your cheeks and know you are OK. I would memorize it and make it last. I just want to know you are somewhere.

You can stay 19 and I will grow old but I have to know.

My love, my love, my sweet lovey-girl,

I love you so much bunny,
mama

September...

2008-09-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it is September.

I woke up this morning with vivid memories of the eleventh. It was 2001 and Stevie and I got up very early. She had radiation at John Muir scheduled that day. She didn't know that Steve and TT had taken the day off and at home everyone would be waiting with balloons. It was her last day of radiation and she was puffed up like a steroid balloon. She had been so brave through it all, and it was scary.

She was saying good-bye to the techs she that had adopted her. She was the youngest patient and they had seen her everyday for six weeks, she kinda grew on them, she was glad to never see them again.

The waiting room was somber, the ride home was quiet, the air seemed to be humming quietly. We came home to balloons and the television showing a plane smashing into the twin towers. We went from celebrating to jaw dropping disbelief in a matter of seconds.

We cancelled our drive to the city and our plans for Joe's Crab Shack and the pier. We sat at home instead and watched it all happen again and again. The town seemed to shut down.

Stevie had her Make-a-Wish trip planned for that week, in New York, we called and cancelled it.

We ordered Chinese and huddled. I remember writing to my online support group that it felt like the whole world had a brain tumor.

Today those families gather to remember the loved ones lost, that terrible day, and the insanity of that time. They stand where it all happened, cry and wonder what it would be like if they could turn back time and change one little thing.

All around them the world moves, vibrates, and hums. Life continues, new babies are born, there are new people doing those old jobs in different buildings now.

I understand this pain, it is collective. Loss is a consciousness I belong to now and even though it seems that the whole world has forgotten there are those of us who stand completely still in this moment remembering.

For me it isn't about flags, wars and revenge. It is simply learning to live with a change in reality, empty spaces, and the knowing that nothing is solid or permanent, shit happens...

Good happens too.

little girls with great big eyes...

2008-09-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I am trying so hard to remember the dream I had last night. I know that I was at my neighbors house, it was bright, there were yellow walls and it was infused with light. She was there and she had dark hair and tanned skin that was firm and young. She looked like she was in her fifties. She was happy and animated and I couldn't believe it.

I ran home to tell everyone that Mable was home and the house was beautiful, when we all got there Earl was there too. I didn't see him but I knew he was there. Somewhere in all the excitement there was Stevie. I can't remember exactly how or why but she was there and I was so happy, and I mean so, so, so happy. I just kept saying "Oh my God it's you, oh Stevie, oh Stevie" I kept hugging her and kissing her over and over.

In real life the house down the street is dark now, the once well manicured mature garden is a mess of little white wire borders that make no sense and random flowers planted in no order.
An East Indian Family moved in a couple years ago after Mable and Earl died. They are nice enough but I miss the neighbors who would sit outside and tell us all about the neighborhood when it was new. Mable told me some of the most beautiful stories about love and family that now live inside me as if they were my own stories.

I remember in the dream talking to Mable who looked more like pictures of my Mother-in-law who I never met. She was telling me that she kept getting younger but she was taking her time she wanted it all to last a long time.

I awoke this morning trying so desperately to access my mental magnifying glass so I can zoom in on the Stevie part. I know Aly was there and I know everyone was watching as I just gobbled Stevie up like I was a woman dying of thirst in a desert and she was a single drop of water that fell from the sky.

Noah got up for school, the house started buzzing and there is always so much to get done. While Noah was brushing his teeth I decided to pick up some things in my studio (a spit in the ocean) to make a path for myself. On the floor there was a pad of paper. I remember buying it a very long time ago for Noah. I have no idea why it was in my studio and why it was were it was but I picked it up ready to throw it out and on the preprinted cover is a small child's hand drawing a picture for his mom and he has written "I Love You" on it.

I opened the tablet, which has about four sheets of wrinkled paper left in it and on the first page there is a drawing of three little girls with great big eyes. They have long skinny legs and fly-away hair. One is holding an apple, one is holding flowers. They are delicate pencil sketches Stevie did. I don't know when she did them but there they are and my heart is so full.

She keeps trying to find me, to tell me she is here.

Stevie ,

I hear you, I am right here sweetness, where I have always been and I am listening. It will be your birthday this month, if you were in your body you would be 21. If you were here in your body we would drink champagne from a straw out of the pink Sophia's you were saving for a special occasion. They would probably taste like vinegar now but we wouldn't care. TT would want to take you to some seedy casino, Aly would want to take you to an equally seedy club.

Why is it when a child turns 21 the goal is always to offer them vices. It is like saying welcome to being an adult pick your poison, your old enough to start ruining your life.

I would take you to the forest, to big basin. I would pack a big picnic full of your favorites and we would collect moss, and rocks. I would take you shopping at an old bookstore and let you fill the car up with novels. At night we would drive to the beach and watch the phosphorescent waves crash and stare up at the big fat moon. We would have a late dinner and I would buy you the most incredible gourmet feast.

We would drive home listening to your music, and you would fall asleep, and I would be the luckiest mom in the whole world.

Thank you for the three little girls, you know what they mean to me, three is a magic number.

I love you too.

Mama

2008-08-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Stevie,

It's the 19Th and I didn't go to the cemetery. I was feeling awful about it until I got to Murray and Barb was standing there holding up the proto for one of your t-shirts.

I cried because I missed you so much in that moment and I cried because I felt like you were there with me even if I couldn't make it out to the cemetery to be with you.

Tomorrow is my birthday, I think I will wake up early and take some flowers to your grave site, sit and have a long talk with you under a great big blue sky. I would wear you t-shirt but I wore it all day today and it is sweaty and smelly.

I took your designs, the ones you wrote on some note paper a while ago. I copied them, darkened them up and barb compressed them in a software program she has. She printed them on some overstock she had just so I could see the print quality. I am embarrassed to say I was poo-pooing the digital printing versus screen printing, it just seemed like cheating and I thought it would look cheap.

I am eating crow while I write this, they turned out wonderful and I can not wait to see them on the little kids t-shirts I bought. I also bought some mini canvas bags too. Are you ok with this?
It is hard to know because sometimes you got so pissed when I stole your designs, some things you just wanted to be yours.

The reason I am using these is because I want a part of you to be everywhere, if you are hoping to just fade away I am not going to let it happen, I can't.

Allison lost her baby. She is going to have surgery tomorrow, stay close to her if you can she is scared. If the baby was a girl she was going to name her Stevie... She misses you.

Allison has been sending me little emails since you left. It is so sweet that she is trying so hard to make sure I am Ok. She tells me that she talks to you sometimes and every once in a while she will turn on the radio and a song that reminds her of you will come on and she feels like it's you telling her you are thinking about her too.

This is so damn weird writing to you on a computer pretending you can hear me, wishing I was writing to you in college instead of heaven. Maybe heaven is a kind of college, maybe they have an awesome food science program and you are inventing new things for us to eat here. Could you whip up a great cheese cake that has no calories in it and actually helps you burn calories while you lay in the bath and read?

Well this life without you is a great big university I am lost in. I am naked and can't find any of my classes. There are exams in every class that I am not prepared for and no matter how hard I study I can't seem to learn what it is I most want to know.

Tonight find me in my dreams, bring a sweater for me because I am cold. Take me by the hand and to the class I need to be in, sit with me while the old man at the podium explains it all to me.
Whisper all the answers to the questions on my test.

If you were here I would kiss your whole face and tell you over and over how much I love you.

I love you with all of me, all of me,

Mama

Fairy dresses.

2008-08-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

I took a picture of your fairy dresses today. When we first moved here you made little clothes for fairies out of the flowers in the backyard, these were skirts.

The moon is so incredibly bright and full. I just came in from looking at it and talking to you. I feel you close by again. It isn't a kind of close I am use to. What my physical body wants is to be next to you, to feel your warmth, smell your skin, hear your voice. My spirit knows you are here, I just wish I could be happy with that, believe it without doubt, and be comforted.

I am reading a book called "There is no Death" by Betty Bethards. It is a small and self published, Veronica gave it to me. Even though there isn't anything in it that I have not already heard it is still comforting. She lost two sons, surviving that alone means she must understand something I do not.

She believes that our bodies are just suits we wear while here on earth. They help us get a job done. While we are here we are working and learning but it isn't real, it is all an illusion of some kind. The real "Life" happens when we once again shed the suit and go back home.

Is that what happened? Did you shed that suit of yours so that you could go back home and be done with all of this?

In the book Betty writes that we simply slip out of our bodies and experience a beautiful dream that we do not have to wake from . We are reunited with beings we love and we are so very happy.

I like that.

She says that when we grieve we don't really grieve for the person who has gone home because deep inside we know where they went. We grieve and cry for ourselves because we are left behind without them and long to go home too.

She is right.

I wish I could close my eyes and see where you live, what you are doing, and know how happy you are.

You would be wearing a pink sweater and your hair would be grown out, long a wavy, the ends curling. Your cheeks would be warm and pink and you would be wearing the cutest shoes or maybe your chucks...no, cute shoes in heaven you could wear any kind of shoe you wanted because you wouldn't have to worry about flat feet or falling down.

I think you would be surrounded by books, maybe you found a library that goes on and on and never ends. You would have a tall coffee with caramel sauce and whip cream and a big bowl of fat red cherries because in heaven every fruit is always in season.

You would spend your days traveling not just from country to country but from planet to planet. I want to believe you wouldn't be shy but I feel like you still would be. I loved that about you, how you kept yourself private, you made people come to you.

I hope you are laughing and being silly. I hope you talk to angels and to God. I hope you know how very loved you are.

Do you know Aly had a dream that she was at an opening of mine, it was a show full of the cutest things, there was some kind of film playing in the middle of the room. She said she just kept thinking "Oh my God Stevie would love this" She said she was sitting next to you in a chair with her head on your shoulder saying, "I wish Stevie was here, why isn't she here?" and you answered "Yes, why isn't Stevie here?"

I am hoping that dream was about Tangerine. I wish you were here doing this with me, sometimes I think you are...I am going to make it wonderful Stevie, a place you would love, I want you to be proud of me, you should be here telling me if the blue is too blue and if there is enough room for all four tables.

Yesterday I was buying a mannequin and I talked to you all the while. Damn, is it me or is it you? Is it us, can it be us...I want it to still be the two of us doing these things.

When I look up at that full moon everything solid falls away and I can imagine an endless universe where you must be. Maybe you are attending the birth of a star or counting comets. Maybe you are exploring galaxies or visiting your star at the knee of Hercules. What I wish most is that while I am looking up at that moon you are looking down at me and remembering...

I love you Stevie so much, so very much, it is an infinity kind of love,

Mama

An invitation home...

2008-08-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I found these photos they were all taken on April 19th...it was a beautiful day, I think heaven was waiting...

Listening...

2008-08-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

I had to go to Pleasant Hill today to pick up some fixtures for Tangerine, I plugged in the Ipod, put the ear thingy in my cell and headed down the driveway. When I got to the corner I turned up the volume and let the Ipod shuffle. The song that came up was Death Cabs "I'll Follow you into the dark"

And the soles of your shoes are all worn down The time for sleep is now It's nothing to cry about Cause we'll hold each other soon The blackest of rooms If Heaven and Hell decide That they both are satisfied Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you When your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark Then I'll follow you into the dark

A friend of ours sang this song for Stevie at her funeral. It was one of her favorites, she loved Ben, he rocked her world.

I started to cry even though I had gone through the trouble of putting make up on, not something I usually do (put on make up, not cry). I must have been a sight driving down the road with mascara and tears running down my cheeks, my nose red, and singing at the top of my lungs fully animated.

When the song was over I turned the volume all the way down and started talking to Stevie.

I said,

"Hey Stevie I need to talk to you.
I want to believe that song came on because you wanted me to hear it. I am trying so hard to listen and at times like this I think I can hear you. I want to believe it is you and not the beginning of some degenerative mental illness. Isn't it strange that the very part of me that can hear you is the part of me I trust the least."

"Missing you is so hard, it feels like torture but it would be worse if I couldn't miss you. The only thing that can fix my broken parts is having you here next to me in this car telling me to turn the music back up and stop talking."

"If God were to tell me I could have you back but I would never get to see you because you would be too busy going to college, making friends and living a life that belonged only to you then I would agree."

I thought I heard her say "That is what I am doing mom, it is what I am doing" It felt urgent and I said, "The difference is that I don't really know that's what's happening, I feel like I hear you but I am not sure, I need to be sure, you have to make me sure. You and God have to find a way to tell me that I can not explain away."

Then I told her that I had so much in my heart I wanted her to know. I told her I was sorry I was never patient, that I yelled too much, that I was flaky and was late picking her up from school when I knew it made her afraid.

I told her that I was sorry that I didn't listen to her enough, didn't play more and that I didn't try hard enough to save her.

I thanked her for choosing me, for loving me, for letting me be her mother and for being my daughter. I told her I would do it over and over just to know her, I can't imagine a life of not knowing her.

I thanked her for teaching me about love and compassion as I cried and cried.

When I got to my destination I had to pull myself together, I had to dry my eyes and look as normal as was possible. I was finished with my errand and back in the car pretty quickly, I looked at the clock and it was 11:11. I put the ear bud in and left the parking lot. When I got onto the freeway I turned up the volume. The Ipod never got shut down so it just began playing.

It was Iz's version of somewhere over the rainbow, another song from the funeral, and one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful songs that was ever overplayed. I love Iz's soft and soothing Hawaiian voice and the sound of his little ukulele.

I looked up to the sky to tell Stevie I loved her and there was big heart made of clouds right over me. I watched it as it followed me all the way home.

When I got home I told Steve about it and he told me that he woke up thinking about her and wrote about her this morning. He said it feels like a day that she is so close, like she is trying to tell us she misses us.

I felt the same way, and it was a whole day of talking to her.

Just a little while ago Steve called me and said "You have to come outside" I almost fell over, the sky was so pink and I don't mean sunset pink, there were big pink clouds all around, it was everywhere. I just kept saying "I am right here Stevie, I am right here with you." The sky was beginning to change and I didn't want to forget it so I ran in the house and grabbed the camera. The photo's do not do that magnificent sky justice.

When I went back into the house it began to rain, only for a few minutes, big fat drops. I stood out under it and let it fall on me and thanked her for working so hard.

more dreams

2008-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

I had a dream in the early morning hours that our back bathroom flooded and was finally ruined enough for me to call someone to come out and re-do the bathroom.

Steve and I and our good friends Matt and Ann "remodeled" it several years ago. I was tired of all the leaking and the mold, it was out dated and just plain gross. Steve came home one day to find me hammering out all the ancient 1970's tile. I had a big garbage bin under the window and I was swearing and tossing out broken tile. He freaked out.

That seems to be the way I do things, I get up early one morning and something in me has just had enough of what ever it is that is under my skin and I get to work, the size of the project doesn't intimidate me like it does Steve.

Ann and I laid tile and Steve bought the cheapest and ugliest shower stall he could find at Home Depot. I am almost sure he went in and asked them for exactly that, they know the type and took him to the secret ugly-and-cheap back room where they keep this stuff.

I painted the whole bathroom a deep red and put it a pedestal sink and a small toilet so we could actually bend over to dry off without banging our head or bottom against something.

It was an improvement but it still needs improving. We have the same mold, the same leaks and there is nothing more annoying than that shower. I remember when Stevie was sick and I had to work so hard to get her in and out of there. I also remember when she had a seizure and the medics had to come. They had to literally wrap her in fabric and drag her out, they couldn't fit to help her. It was one of the scariest days in all our lives. We thought we lost her that day.

I can't go there.

So I had this dream that the whole room finally gave and I called a contractor to come and rip the whole thing apart and make it right. He gave me this huge figure and I decided to save money by doing the demo myself.

I found a hidden in the wall a safe while I was tearing out a moldy piece of sheet rock. It wasn't a haunted house or bank style safe just one of those metal boxes with a lock you buy at the hardware store to keep your important documents and valuables in case there is a robbery or a fire.

I would never own one, not because I don't care but because nothing I value that much can be put into a safe. If the house burned and I could only grab one thing (this is assuming the kids were safely outside) I would grab my chest of photos. If there was a robbery everything could easily be replaced. I don't think they would steal Stevie's pillow, or her little pony. I don't think anyone would steal Noah's game ball or his baby shoes, not sure why they would want Aly's graduation picture or her folder of sketches I save from high school.

Do most people feel that way? I can't imagine caring about the normal day-to-day crap we accumulate over the years. I don't save. One year the mice in the rafters ate through a whole box full of baby clothes and books. I was sad but the best parts of that time are stored in my heart, this stuff was just stuff. I did get my revenge and the Clarks Pest guy sent the stinky little mice to heaven. I am not a fan of violence but I will not share my house with pests that destroy my safe haven. They can live outside, on the roof, in my trees. They can eat all the nuts and fruit they want out of my garden but do not come in and poo all over my house and keep me up all night making holes in my wall. I turn into the terminator. So much for being a pacifist.

Back to the dream: I find this make-believe safe and it is full, full, full of stuff. There are business documents, all hand typed, a bible, small toys, an old fashioned calculator that still worked, photo's of a man and a woman. There was a worn photo album of a little baby boy, he was very dark skinned. There were report cards and homework and from a catholic school, two paddle boards, and a box of clothing. The documents had mine, my sisters and Aly's names on them. It was very creepy.

I called Aly in and said, "Oh Aly there is a big box of vintage clothing in here you better come and see if you want it before I dump all this stuff" she came in with her usual real life attitude that lets me know that she finds me annoying and it is pure torture to have to pretend she is related to me. I pulled out a few things and they got her attention, then I pull out this beautiful yellow satin dress, very retro, very unique and she began to cry, she knew this dress...

Then I woke up.

Holy cow.

I wanted to go back to sleep so badly. I wanted to finish the dream and find out what the dress meant and where all the connections were but I couldn't. I couldn't shake the dream all morning so I decided to write it down. I figure once I am less sleep fuzzy It will make more sense.

Right now all I want to do is take a big hammer to that back bathroom and erase every scary and sad moment. I want to buy a pretty shower and forget that the things that happened there happened. I only want to remember the look on Stevie's face when she would come out of a two hour shower all pink cheeked an smelling like flowers. She could never start the day without a lot of water and steam. She liked her hair washed and soft clean clothes to wear. She only wore cotton. She didn't like zippers or scratchy fabric and never wore anything made from an animal, not even leather shoes.

I think my daughter was happiest with a cup of espresso, a worn novel, her green chucks, a soft cotton T and sunny spot to nest.

I miss her.