2018

Stevie,

It is January, winter, cold, and we are home.

This is a new year.  I didn't make a list of resolutions because every year it's mostly a list of things I didn't do, couldn't do, didn't feel brave or strong enough to do, or hate myself for not doing.  This year I am giving myself a break and just trying to love on myself for the things I did do and the things I might make happen, can make happen, or will just happen because good happens.

Your brother came in fifth and the show is over.  It was all very strange and surreal living in that pretend bubble with him for six months.  I lost "real" and it was exciting, scary, and a little embarrassing sometimes.  The magic for him was when he got to sing with Bastille, he loves those guys and they are some really awesome humans and gifted musicians.  He was happy to go home, he left with no car, no trophy, no record deal, no big fat check.  He was fine with that, he just wanted to go home.

In about five days we find out if the record company will keep him, we are guessing they are not or else they would have contacted us.  That is good news in a way.  I was hoping a smaller label might pick him up, but thats me, not him.  He is happy to make music he loves on his own terms, make music video's with friends, have full creative control and see what the universe does with all that.  He trusts himself, he believes in what he does, he is content, he just knows what should happen will happen and he is ok with what ever that looks like.  How did I make this boy?  He is everything I am not; calm, sure, trusting, driven, happy, and he just really believes everything is going to be ok and work out.   I could learn a lot from that boy.

Aly and dad made beer yesterday,  well dad made beer, he geeked out talked a lot about temperatures and acidity, gravity, yeast...Aly drank beer.   Your baby brother came in after many hours of brewing, boring talk, things soaking and steeping, and opened the spout at the bottom of what ever that things is the beer goes into to ferment and half the beer ended up on the kitchen floor.  It was messy, stinky, sticky, and it took me an hour to clean up while he sat in the naughty chair.  It's a story we can tell, its kinda funny.

I have been feeling like a crap mom.  I am falling short of my own expectations.  I don't have super high standards, basically I like to keep you all alive and healthy, make sure you eat some good food, provide you with a warm and safe home,  do activities, get you to school, keep you clean and dressed, listen your dreams, try to help you make them happen if I can.  I try not to get too mad, demanding, weird (sorry that seems to be my big fail) take you fun places, read you stories make you cake.

This baby came late in life, he is all alone in this house with giant people, he is treasured and loved and we adore him but he doesn't have all of me all of the time like he should.  I have never been a mama who likes to play pretend, throw a football, have a sword fight, play a board game.  I am just not a playful person and that sucks for a little who needs that.  I want to be that for him but I just show up myself and he is so different then the three of you.  He has a very strong personality, he needs a lot of activity, he has so much energy.  I get the happies when I think about who he is because I know it will serve him well in his life, all the energy and building, and making and curiosity, oh and the stubborn, he is even more stubborn than you were Stevie!  I just wish I could be more, do more.

I have been having a lot of flashbacks.  Tiny bits of memory from this time when you were here and it was cold and we bought the red car and moved to Atherton for Chemo and radiation at Stanford.  I remember listening to Jacks Mannequin and The postal service, struggling with that wheel chair, trying to keep you warm and here...but you kept slipping away no matter how hard you fought.  I hate that time.  I want to erase it and just bring you home and start all over from the beginning.  I would do so many things different, so many, the list is long.

19 years of you is not enough.

I made the decision that dad and I should get a divorce.  It isn't new news, and really Stevie I don't even know why we even got married again.  It was a practical move for financial reasons it wasn't about love or hope or any of those things it is suppose to be about.  If he accidentally reads this he will be mad.  He doesn't want me blogging about this stuff.  In his mind people are reading this and its an invasion of his privacy.  No one reads this.  I have been blogging for ten or eleven years now, I have always been honest and truthful.  I don't hide anything, I don't edit, I don't change anything.  This is just a very raw account of life after you left your body.

The statistics show that losing a child is usually the end of a marriage.  There are strong marriages that are made stronger by loss but I think that might be rare.  I think you have to have a very solid foundation, a strong relationship, deep love and respect in order to survive and heal together as a couple.  Dad and I...well its always been string and tape.

Dad and I got married because we had Aly, and that almost didn't happen.  I tried to do the right thing but I am not sure if it was, not for my heart.  I think the five of you (and I include Claire because she was my child if even for 19 weeks) were the only good things that have come out of these 33 years of marriage.

I married a man I didn't share goals and values with, who didn't want kids, who I didn't have a lot in common with.  I tried really hard to be a good wife because I thought the universe was asking me to do the right thing, I thought he would be a good man and good husband.  I was 18...

I don't think anyone should get married until they are at least 30.  You don't know who you are until then.  You need time to let your brain develop fully, to find your passion, to go to school, to work hard, to build a nest, to see yourself as whole person.

I grew up...when I became an adult I had two daughters, a house payment, too much responsibility and too many dreams for myself that I didn't know how to make happen so I gave up on them mostly.  I was also very lonely in a way I can't describe.

I soldiered on, I made mistakes, I tried harder.

No matter how hard I tried I could never get it right, I blamed myself a lot, I cried too much.  Mostly I just showed up my worse self.

When I turned 50 something changed inside me, I realized that I now had a limited amount of time (if I was lucky) to do the things I wanted to do (outside of being a mother) my long list was still long and the world considered me "old" already and I just didn't want to keep going around in circles and getting no where, I didn't have the time to do that anymore.

I don't want to wake up every day sad and lonely and angry and resentful.

I have had a lot of therapy and I know who I am I just haven't figured out how to like, honor,  and respect that person.  A therapist can tell you that you need to, they can show you how you might do it but  at the end of the day you have to do it.   I will be 53 this year and this is the year that happens.

I spent the last three years trying to see if I could find a way to reach dad, make him see me, know me, understand me as a person.  I tried to see if there was anything left of our marriage, if anything could be repaired or at the very least changed.

I examined this thing we have been doing with a giant magnifying glass, I replayed our life  (about a million times) through my own eyes as honestly as I could.  What I found were patterns, circles, cycles, and sadness for me.

Right now I am just mad at him.  It isn't his fault, he is who he is and he isn't a bad person.  I just woke up and realized he just isn't someone I like, that doesn't mean he is not likable it just means that this thing I have been holding onto isn't worth holding onto anymore and I am ready to let it go.

He isn't getting any younger but there is still time for him to find someone to love him the way he needs to be loved, he needs a lot of love.

I am not making resolutions but I am going to make a mental list of things I hope for, things I wish.  I will make the list in my mind then breath it into an imaginary balloon, tie a knot in it and let it float way up high, get lost out in the everywhere then pop.  What every finds me will be blessings.

Always first on my list is you.  I want to find you, for you to find me, in any way we can.  I need moments with your energy, it keeps me hopeful and strong.  I had a reading with a channel, very odd experience.  I met her through a chance meeting with that girl you and I met 14 years ago at Big Lots.  The two of you had feeding tubes and damaged vocal chords.  She had been in a car accident you had brain cancer.  She was super positive, sure she was going to be ok and life was going to be great and she spread all that all over you.  14 years later standing in line at Target we recognize each other, it was Christmas eve.  I felt you there.  She felt you there.

She invited me to this meditation group and the women leading it gave me a reading...it was beautiful.  I don't know if it was you she was channeling but I could feel her heart reaching out to me, she was trying to give me something, it felt like love.

The rest of my list is just me promising to love myself better and doing things that make me feel whole and good.

Make lots of art, read, go for long walks to pretty places, nurture my friendships and make more friends.  I want to be open for good stuff to find me.

Feel free to come to me in a dream and give me some lottery numbers!

I dream of my own house in a neighborhood where there are a lot of kids for your brother to play with.  I want him to have a best friend that lives next door, who lives at our house on summer days.  I want to live in a community that I fit well in, like minded people.

I have ten more pounds to lose but I trust that if I eat well, go for nice walks and stay active that I will shed it if that is what my body needs.

I hope to spend more quality time with the baby, make some good childhood memories for him to hang onto.

I would like to be in love.  It doesn't have to be with a man or person...I want to wake up in love with my life, my work, my kids, a good book, a great project...

It's January my love, the beginning of the year, that red car is getting old and I will replace it this year I think.  That house in Atherton now full of daughter in laws, son in laws, grand babies.  Time is a funny thing...

I love you miss Stevie, you are still here, I feel it, I am going to make you pretty proud this year.

(Photography by Joe Pippen, January 19, 2018 sunrise)