The sun came up early, or maybe I slept in late. I woke from a dream where I was in a busy hospital emergency room. I was bleeding and four months pregnant. I knew I was going to lose the baby but I was trying to hold on.

There were other dreams about our neighbors but the details have disappeared back into the place that dreams are made. I use to wake up and write them down in my journal but I don't anymore instead I creep out of bed while everyone is still sleeping and find something to do. Staying busy seems to be my drug of choice, it helps me stay out of the tender sad places.

Today two tables will be painted. The first will have a leafy green base, the top will be painted with houses, clouds, and so much color it will vibrate. The second will be all black and white, stripes and geometric shapes. My sister is giving them to me we seem to keep passing these tables back and forth, this time they will be in the gallery.

I am determined to live this day without tears. I will be productive and when the sadness creeps in I will fill my mind and heart with the image of my daughter at her happiest, her sweetest, not sick, not sad. I will repeat I love you, I love you, I love you.

I have been working, working, working...

I re-designed Sawsans Gallery with a microscopic budget and some long nights cutting linoleum and painting walls. Artists are trickling in, it is taking shape. I have to admit it isn't what I dreamed it would look like but I think we did very well with what we had to work with.

We will be having an opening in December, I'm not ready.

I don't feel fit for the public. I feel like I woke up under a train and everyone can see how ripped apart I am. It is sweet when people try to be comforting but the pity is more than I can bear sometimes.

I have been trying to squeeze in art but I have been so busy putting this place together that I am spending less and less time in my studio. If I had my way I wouldn't do anything but art but I need to have a job just in case I am left alone to support Aly, Noah and I . Steve will try to do his best but I know from experience that women always see the shitty end of the stick when a marriage fails. I would love for once in my life to feel safe, comfortable, not in a hurry, and to never have to fight for every damn thing. I would love to never have to apologize for my true feelings and beliefs.

I know there is a Guru out there somewhere who would tell me I never did and I never have to, it is all a choice. I would tell him that sometimes choices come in some strange disguises.

It is quiet and dark in the house. The only light is coming from this monitor and the glowing street lamps that create shadows in the room. My little guy is ready for bed and Aly is out somewhere with her friends celebrating another Friday night.

I am very tired.

Stevie,

I miss you so much. I have been talking to you all day. Tonight when I went outside to stand in the grass and say good-night to you, I imagined your arm linked in mine, your head on my shoulder and I could almost smell your hair and hear your voice.

There was a woman reading magazines while I stood in line at Target today. She didn't look like you as much as she was your size and had your coloring. I squinted my eyes and pretended it was you standing there waiting impatiently for me to finish at the check-out so you could trick me in to stopping at Mr.Beans before we went home.

She looked up at me with blue eyes that couldn't come close to your blue, I wanted to say "Hey Stevie let's go home now" Instead I said "I think you dropped your keys" She looked down, picked them up, thanked me then walked away with a tiny hitch in her step, like yours.

She had no packages, she was with no-one, she was just standing there reading then she was gone. My heart did it's little skip a beat thing. What if it was you...

I am trying to live a life that would make you proud. I am trying to live with truth and integrity. I am trying to be good to myself. I am trying to be kind and forgiving. I am trying to let go of the stuff I use to hold on to.

Don't stop trying to find me, where ever you are. I am right here, where I have always been.

I love you so much, all of me.

Mommy

The first of the holiday wars...

My sister called and said "I know you are not have Thanksgiving but I am cooking..."

Aly and Steve heard me talking to her and said "What we aren't having Thanksgiving? " Then they proceeded to let me know that they were taking Noah and going to my sisters house for Dinner.

Out of shock, hurt and confusion I said, "I guess I am the only one who is hurting this much, who doesn't feel like celebrating"

They yelled at me, I am selfish, I am denying my family Turkey and the comfort of family.

It bothers me that no one is concerned that I will be home alone with the memory of my daughters last day of being well. She had surgery last year the day after Thanksgiving, she was so afraid. Everyone was here and she was so afraid, she tried to be a good sport but she couldn't eat and she went into her room at the end of the night and cried. I was up with her all night. She knew it was the beginning of the end, and she was right in five months she would be dead.

How can I sit around a table in a holiday sweater and pass the gravy?

I will instead visit her body at the cemetery, spend an hour with her there, then I will invite her spirit to a movie, if I can find a place that is open. In the evening I will build a fire and talk to her about things we would have talked about if she was still here, like before, and I could hear her and see her.

My sister called back and apologized, she feels bad for stirring it up, she didn't intend to.

I am not sure what part of "I don't think I can survive the Holidays this year, it hurts too much, I just need to not be a part of it and heal" Is it too hard to understand.? My aunt J called wanting to talk about Christmas presents, why? Noah wants to be sure Santa will come, His school wants me to help with a Christmas party.

I didn't say "I don't want to celebrate but..."

I guess I am feeling hurt that they can not hear me, and do not understand. I guess I need to respect the fact that life goes on for them, that they do not have to stand still in this hurting place with me.

I want to tell myself to be stronger and not make such a big deal out of it, go with the program but I won't. Too many times in my life I have let myself feel like there was something wrong with me for feeling strongly about something. Too many times in my life I have had to fight for what I believed was right. Too many times I shut down and ignored my heart. I won't do it anymore.

I am going to take care of myself, my heart, my life. I will not celebrate this year, my daughter has died and a part of me has died. I have to heal so I can continue to live and if it means being home alone then I will be. This is not a time of celebration for me, this is a time of great sadness as it should be.

If I was the relative or friend and not the grieving mom I would respect that.

I know myself, I would show up with flowers, a pizza, a bottle of wine, a stupid movie and just be with that person. Just be there for them in anyway they needed without my own agenda, just available. If I couldn't do that I would send a card or a letter or make a phone call and say, "I am thinking of you, if you need me I am here"

I wouldn't push.

I don't know how Steve and Aly will be able to sit there and eat turkey but I won't judge them, they are were they are with this and there is no right or wrong way. I do wish they were here with me, but it has never been our way.

I will be with Stevie, holding a hand I can not see, talking to her hoping that she can hear me. I will cry and miss her and it is going to be hard but I can not imagine anything else right now.

It is hard to watch as the world keeps turning, as people fill shopping carts with cans of pumpkin, giant frozen birds and cranberries. It is hard to know that people will be sitting around a table giving thanks for all the blessings of the year, getting drunk, watching football and glad for the four day holiday from work.

There was a time when that was me, and somewhere out there was a mother mourning her child trying to be grateful for what she still had. Did I stop and worry, did I put my fork down and sit with her, did I remember her child? No I didn't.

So this is my year to be alone and I am fine with it. I won't have to apologize for my mood or my tears. I won't have to pretend.

I am not mad. I am not bitter. I am not a martyr. I just have a broken heart and I am trying to heal.

I will be giving thanks in my own way that Noah is healthy and Happy, that Aly has a job she likes and makes slow steps forward in her life as an adult. I am happy that Steve continues to support us, likes his job, has friends and outlets for his creativity. I am thankful for friends and family. I am grateful that I am stronger than I thought, that I do this thing everyday, that I havn't fallen apart. I am mostly thankful that I had 19 years with the most wonderful person I have ever known, that I was able to love and be loved by her. I am so honored to be her mother and her friend. I would take this pain, all of it and more to have that time. I would easily have given my life and taken her pain so that she could still be here.

I know my girl, if she were here she would be pissed if we killed a bird and ate it.

Aunt Marina

You called tonight...crying, missing your boy.

I know this moment, this walking on glass, this big black hole in your heart, this wondering how the hell this could all be real.

It is real.

Why?

I don't know.

It hurts, it hurts so bad.

I would live with this pain forever if it meant I wouldn't have to lose anymore of her, not a memory, not the scent of her on her pillow, not the knowing that she is me and I am her.

It is a big ocean we are swimming in and the waves come...sometimes they knock us around and we have to catch our breath, sometimes the are so big that we are forced down to a cool quiet place. It is in that dark silence we think that air isn't all it's cracked up to be, and falling asleep where there is nothing is better than staying afloat hoping.

We are meant to survive so to the surface we rise and inhale more of this life.

You will find that some days the water will be calm, the waves rolling on distant shores. You can float easily staring at clouds, feeling the sun and imagine a dry firm place to plant your feet.

We are mothers...we were suppose to save them, we couldn't and now we are forced to do the most unnatural thing and save ourselves.

We don't do it on purpose, it just happens, day after hour, after minute, by breath.

I wish I knew how to do this better. I wish I had the words to mend your heart but I know there are no words, just time.

You told me over and over I was strong...I am not.

I cry, I beg, and I fight with God. I want her back.

God tells me no.

I don't believe in fairy tales or magic anymore.

I don't believe love conquers all.

I don't believe that God loves me like I thought he did. He has saved me from so many things just to bring me here, to my knees with my heart in my hands.

I do believe that there must be something...I just have to wait.

I do believe that I am needed, that I have work to do and that someday I will understand the love of this universe and the reason we exist, oh it better be good, really good.

Cry...

Fall down and cry, unleash your soul.

Then sleep deep, wake in the morning and start the day again. Do the things Richard could not, live a life that would will make him smile where ever he is. It is all we have, this life.

Remember when they were curled up inside us, our secret, we knew them when no one else did. Everything we did we did for them and they didn't even know it. We ate good food, we sang to them, we dreamed of them, for them. We nurtured them and waited.

This is what we must do again...

This time they wait for us. It can not be rushed, there is growing to do.

I ask the universe tonight to bless you with a dream. I ask that while you sleep your boy comes to you in his perfection, he smiles and tells you he is OK now, he is home and he is loved. As he climbs the stairs he looks back at you slowly and you know, you just know.

Sweet Dreams Auntie...

G

This morning I hosted a brunch for my family.

I wrote about them several weeks ago after my cousin Richards passing. It seems they found my blog and we all found the time to keep a promise to find a way to be together more often.

We are all so different as adults than we were as children. I can see bits and pieces that stir up memory but I am getting to know them all over again as grown-ups with new lives and new families.

I could have never guessed how we would all turn out. We are all good people. We are kind, strong, and loving, this is what is really connecting us, it is what always has.

My cousin Lisa is the the oldest, the funniest and the wisest. She had a job before we all did, kissed a boy, drove a car (her dads old station wagon) and had sex... I needed her to let me in on the mystery of it all. I was not the only one who was sure that I would forever weigh 87 pounds be breast-less, funny looking, and dorky. If she didn't fill me in I would never know. I would be destined to die a bony virgin never knowing what a blow-job was.

She picked me up once to take me to her house to spend the weekend. I loved it there with all her sisters. Her mom and dad worked weird hours and we were always sneaking off and getting into some kind of trouble. When Lisa would go to work we would pick the lock on her trunk and steal her cute tops and make-up. We use to show up at the mall where she worked and she would give us free cookies. Then we would go to Farrell's to dine and dash.

She was always nice, even when she was pissed. It was impossible not to like her, she was so positive, she knew how to take a crappy story and make it shine. She could also bullshit the pants off her parents and get us out of trouble.

I miss those summers learning how to use a tampon, how to put on eyeliner, and making midnight runs to Jack-in-the-box.

I miss watching all my cousins get ready to go out to the Disco in blue eye-shadow, wedgie heels and wrap around skirts. I was too young to go but they always promised me they would sneak me in someday. By the time I went through puberty and could pass for sixteen Disco was a bad word.

My Aunt was here today. She has changed so much over the years but she is still herself, the best parts of herself. She is a beautiful person with. She has lived many lives. I love it that she is so loved.

My cousins Rose and Carol are women now. They have grown-up children and real jobs. They are maternal, good, hard working and value family. We grew up scrappy little kids with runny noses, bare feet, and hair in those damn marbles on a rubber band. We slept all squished in the same bed skinny legs all tangled. We played together and went to the same schools sometimes. We also shared childhoods that could seem a little scary to most people.

I feel like they know me. They know the real me. We have scars in the same places. We survive.

I loved being in my sun room with these women and feeling the energy that is created by the strength of real women who live real lives, all different but all the the same.

Right now we are all trying to move through loss. I have lost my daughter, my cousins a brother and my aunt a son. This is the hardest part of life, knowing that it doesn't last forever and being here while the ones we love most, leave first.

I want to find comfort in the fact that we will be welcomed home by them, that they will be the first people we see when it is our turn, but somehow it isn't really a comfort at all and it seems so far away.

We have to stay here and keep living these lives with big holes in them. We have to pretend it is possible. We have to learn to forget without forgetting. We have to learn to love shadows where there once was a warm person who could make us smile. We have to learn to sit down at a table that has an extra chair.

We are enduring.

I am thankful tonight for family the way we can go our separate ways and find our way back again. I am thankful for a kind of love that is soft and forgiving and never fades completely away.

I am tired. So tired. Tonight I want to dream about being a kid again and riding on the handlebars of Richards bike, sitting in the back of uncle Wayne's wagon eating a triple scoop, playing Barbies with Rose and Carol, learning to do the hustle with Lisa, Tammy and Bridget, falling asleep next to Aunt Marina in the car.

Goodnight wonderful family.

There seems to be a fine line between reality and something else without a name. There are names for what people perceive is outside reality but I think unless you are teetering on the precipice you can not truly understand that there is more than what we can imagine or assign a label to that is beyond what we know to be real.

I am forced to stand on the fragile edge. I am strong, I am intelligent but I have lost someone I love most to this vast mystery on the other side of all that I was taught to believe. I stand here on tip-toe looking out as far as I can see and it is like a desert with waves of heat rising, it is like and ocean with a horizon that goes on forever, it is like the sky and there are a million stars passed the last one I can see.

I reach out hoping that someone will grab my hand and pull me into it, explain it all, and send me home safely. I have gently and carefully moved a foot in but have pulled back afraid that going over alone would assure that I would be lost forever.

In my dreams it is different and I go where I go, no one is watching and I always find myself in my own bed in the morning. Last night I was in love with a dentist who looked like Ben Kingsley. He had a beautiful house by the ocean, and I was there with all of my family, they didn't know he was my lover. I wanted to tell them but I knew Steve would be upset even though he had a girlfriend, a British artist who hated me. I didn't want to hurt him but I needed to stay there with him or go back home with Steve and all that comes with it.

Last week I dreamed I was working in a hospital again, I could not find an instrument tray. The department responsible for processing sterile equipment was on strike and we had a woman who needed a c-section in our OR. She was prepped, we were scrubbed but we had no tools. I searched the whole hospital trying to put together what we would need. In my dream I recalled each and every item we would need; the mayo clamps, alice adairs, straights, scissors, the eleven blade, two retractors, lidocaine, syringes, cord clamp, saline, suction bulb and cannula, tubing, lap pads, towels, cauldering blade, grounding pad, needle holders, sutures, basins, and stapler for closing.

I found bits and pieces as I searched cupboards and raced through other departments but it was exhausting and everyone was waiting for me, I felt responsible. I woke up in a panic feeling like I needed to go back to sleep and finish finding the rest of it, I didn't want anything to happen to her baby.

I dream I can fly, breath under water, run with cement legs.

It all feels very real, being in love, the feeling of responsibility, the freedom of flight. Could it have been? Just for that moment? A different real?

I woke up this morning to find a grasshopper on my window screen and the same three red roses that bloom, die, then bloom again in the same place since she died. While I was staring out the window a flock of little blackbirds lifted from a tree somewhere and flew over everything. It all seemed choreographed and I wondered if it was planned for me, if it is always planned for us and we just forget to pay attention.

Yesterday I was listening to a book on tape. I bought them for Stevie when she was sick and couldn't read, I thought listening to it would give her some pleasure. She hated the readers voices, so I read to her instead.

I found the audio books while cleaning the other day and chose one randomly. I took it with me to listen to while I was painting the gallery walls. The story unfolded the mothers name was Gina and the son was Stevie. The father had passed away and they were at his grave-site. The narrator read off the date of his birth, then his death-April 19Th. I held my breath.

A woman came into the gallery a little later to have some old art framed. The paintings were by a man who lived in Japan in the seventies. I stopped what I was doing to look at her pieces. Sawsan told me they were called "Girl With Poppy" she explained that this man painted this girl, these flowers and horses. I almost fell to the floor. I flashed back to John Muir and the Red Poppies, Stevie would tell me they were her second favorite. One day I picked one and gave it to her in the car, it wilted by the time we got home. There are red Iceland poppies, yellow tulips, and white Shasta daisies on her grave now.

I felt like my daughter was trying to tell me she was there.

If I believe this would I be crossing the fine line?

If I believe every single thing is perfectly planned, the grasshopper, the birds, the story, the girl with poppies and ponies...Does that make me insane? Desperate? Am I placing more that my big toe into the unknown?

I think I might have to risk it. Maybe I need to let go of all the things I thought I believed and open myself up to believing something new. When I dream I do not question my sanity, I let myself live in that world, I trust it. Maybe I can see this life like a dream and just go with it, let all things be possible.

Who wrote:

Go to the edge
No, we will fall
Go to the edge
No, we will fall
He pushed them
and they flew...

I think I am ready to fly.

Maybe I can make a long rope from bedsheets so I can find my way home, maybe I can make paper wings and a compass necklace, Maybe I can hold my hand out as I leap and hope someone will catch me.

I believe in the stars I can not see, I believe that the ocean keeps going past the horizon and that someplace in the desert there is an oasis.

I believe my daughter is somewhere and the way to find her is to let go of the fear that she isn't.

Fence post fire

It was Halloween last night. I sat out on a lawn chair in my front yard next to a big stinky fire I built in a fire bowl. John brought over a bunch of wood scraps from a job he did, we got the fire big and hot. Debbie and her sister dragged over canvas chairs and shared the fire as did a bunch of straggling parents with sugar high kids. Our front lawn was soon covered with little kids in costumes that were starting to fall apart and shiny candy wrappers blowing on the smoky breeze.

We talked about the earthquake we just had and how we were all shaken and jolted. We talked about old earthquakes and predicted earthquakes. We wondered how we were going to get our kids up for school and why November first wasn't always some kind of day-off. I figure the sugar hang-0ver isn't pretty you would think that the teachers would go on strike that day. I know what my day would be like with a child crabby kid itching like a junky for another piece of candy, can't imagine what it would be like locked in a room all day with twenty of them. God bless teachers.

It took a little longer to get dark this year with daylight savings time being pushed back. For the first time Noah had enough time to eat dinner and carve his pumpkin so that was a treat. He and Nicholas were out the door the very second the sky changed color. Steve and John took them out until the candy bags were too heavy for the kids to carry. Gluttons.

I tried not to cry, tried my best not to be a drag. A little Baily's and hot chocolate goes a long way on a dark night full of ghosts and goblins. Halloween was never one of Stevie's most favorites. She liked it well enough as a little kid but later on she sorta blew it off. It wasn't nostalgia as much as time being marked.

Time...I just can't get over it. You can't touch it or taste it, it is a memory, a wish or a dread. Time seems to goes fastest when you are most happy and creeps when you are waiting for something great to happen. It seems so drag slowest when you are saddest.

I remember Aly at two. Her head full of springy curls, her eyes big and brown. I dressed her in a white leotard and sequins tu-tu. She had silver and white wire wings, and a ribboned magic wand that she had no interest in. We were about to leave for a party when she decided to go out front and sit in a mud puddle and fill her pumpkin up with rocks and leaves. I was so pissed. I yelled at her. I took her in and washed her costume. I can't believe it, it was just mud. If it happened today I would have taken her to the party muddy, I would think it was appropriate, a play on the idea of angelic. What was I thinking back then? I had no idea that one day I would give a leg to be there in that moment again, maybe I would sit down right next to her and get muddy too, forget the party and cheap plastic pumpkin.

I remember the year I borrowed a sewing machine and spent a week making a Snow White dress for Aly. She wanted to be Snow White and the seven dwarbs and Anthony could be the handsome prince and Stevie could be a mouse. I made it happen with the help of cardboard, fabric, glue, glitter and many nights yelling at an old sewing machine. I sat on the kitchen floor cutting patterns from brown paper grocery bags and measuring the kids with a little fabric tape measure. They giggled and wiggled and Stevie ate the better half of a tube of gold glitter.

Stevie was still crawling around and looked adorable as a grey mouse with giant ears. Aly held on tight to her prince who hobbled around on a broken foot in a blue cast. Those were the days when they had no idea that you could trick-or-treat farther than your own block.

One year I made Noah an oompa-loompa. I soaked white felt pants in starch so they would stick out to the sides nice and pointy. He hated the green wig but loved the attention. Aly was a sexy blue fairy that year She was a teenager and was looking for a different kind of attention. I spent two weeks creating the most perfect Tinkerbell costume for Stevie. She had finished treatment and was painfully thin and pale. She wore a super blond wig cut in a pixie bob. I hand beaded a snug green dress with a leafy hem. I can't even remember how I managed the huge iridescent wings but I do remember sewing her slippers. She was so happy with that costume. The look on her face when she tried it on melted my heart. She felt beautiful, and looked like magic.

Time...

This Halloween I was void of that kind of creativity. The costume was a chore. The candy was just candy and I didn't carve a pumpkin. Instead I got tipsy, passed out generous amounts of treats and willed the night to pass.

Last night she came to me in my dreams. We were living someplace else and she had come home after being someplace I don't know. She was still sick but getting better. She could climb the stairs of this new house. I could hear her voice and we talked. The dream is fading from me fast, I wish I would have written it down when I woke up. I feel very happy to have had a little bit of time with her, even if it was strange and I can barely recall it.

It is still dark outside, the garbage truck just made his noisy pass by our house. It is quiet here now. I am sitting on Stevie's bed in her room, her sweet face staring at me from a photo I took of her last October. She is wearing a teal t-shirt and her room is still pink. She isn't smiling she is just looking at me it is an intense picture. The camera was new, she bought it herself with money she saved. It was a complex little thing and we were playing with it while trying to read the directions that came in four different languages none of them an English we could understand.

Her hair is shiny and long. It is deep auburn, the highlights so coppery. her eyes are Stevie blue, he only way to describe them. She got compliments on them where ever we went. Her lips are full and pink and her skin creamy and flawless. She was perfect. she is perfect. I wish I could crawl into that frame and kiss those cheeks, put that hair up in a high pony tail talk to her about anything.

When I was younger I use to think David Cassidy and Donny Osmond could see me. I had these huge posters in my room that I couldn't get undressed in front of. I wish my imagination was as silly now and I could believe that a tiny bit of her is stored in this photo and it was some portal for us, that if I spoke to it, she would speak back. Maybe that imagination is still intact.

It is time to get Noah up and ready for school, time for a new day to start, time, time, time.

Another Holiday without her. I got through it, but it didn't seem fair that I had to. I want her here with me like before. I want it to be her in this bed, the room littered with her clothes and books. I want her to sleep in late and hog all the hot water with her morning shower. I want to have lunch with her at the sushi place, drink Javatea, make plans and lists for Thanksgiving. I loved it when she made shopping lists while I drove. I loved to look her in the seat next to me deep in thought, sipping coffee, listening to some boy sing about things girls love to hear boys sing about.

This is the first year we won't be raiding the best candy out of Noah's bag. This is the first year we won't sit around with really good costume ideas for next year that we will forget by the time October rolls around again. This is my first year without her.

Happy Halloween sweet-potato, thank you for visiting me last night.

Mommy