It is eight days into the New Year and I have done 16 loads of laundry and slept on the couch for the last five nights because Mark brought in 2009 with a cold that morphed into bronchitis. I have also made about 21 meals, and a half dozen cups of tea (for Mark). My nails are unpolished, my hair needs to be cut, and because Walter (our cockapoo) loves to sleep on the couch during the day, I am blessed with flea bites on my back and rear. So, last night I flipped the sofa cushions and today I will vacuum it with mothballs in the vacuum cleaner bag (that works, by the way), give Walter a flea bath and slap a flea collar on him, and maybe on myself just in case. David has been granted a few grad school interviews and I am proud and happy for him. Ellie joined a gym and has put herself and Larry on a new diet and exercise regimen. Ben is heading to Los Angeles on Saturday to see what might be out there for him when he graduates in May.
Last night, I did a shooter of cognac after a conversation with my father that never has a great soporific effect before bedtime. My parents are aged, ailing, and not coming to the end of their lives with ease. They are not coming to the kind of end that many patients of my husband’s come to when they live each day well until the day they pass in their sleep, or in a hospital bed with family gathered around them and then peacefully slip away.
But such is life.
So, these days, life is “ knock wood, spit through my fingers, count my lucky stars, thank a greater power” good.
I have come to the point in life where Perspective with a capital P and constant awareness is the driving force. An email came today from my friend Beth whose youngest daughter Wendy would have been 31 on January 12th. Beth reminded me that on Wendy’s birthday, she’ll be making four different kinds of soup and letting go balloons to honor Wendy as she does every year. In October 2000, Wendy was sitting in her car, talking to her girlfriends when a robbery (the girls handed over their wallets) turned into murder and a handgun took Wendy’s life at the age of 22. This defines senseless. This defines blasphemy. This defines injustice, grief, sorrow…on levels that are immeasurable. Yes, there was a trial and a conviction, and yet it only matters in terms of saving another life. It doesn’t bring back Wendy who is buried in a small cemetery about a five-minute walk from Beth’s home in Dallas where Beth visits every day and weeps as much as she did when Wendy was taken from her. Beth will never heal.
In her email, Beth said that Wendy had met John Travolta and Kelly Preston when she was out in L.A., and that because Wendy was Wendy, the Travolta’s remembered her. Wendy: the quintessential artist and free spirit who touched so many hearts including the heart of my mother who, although she asked about Wendy’s piercings said, “She’s just the sweetest thing.”
When Wendy was killed, John Travolta wrote a letter to Beth and family. And now Beth is sitting down to write to the Travolta’s for Jett. “I remember that he spoke about [the fact] that he could not believe ever going through the loss of one of his kids,” Beth’s email said. “Now I will write him a letter and I feel so very, very sad. Now I know he knows even more what it feels like. And that pains me.”
So, I listen to the news…the economic crisis, the wars in the Middle East and Iraq, global warming, famine, disease and I think that none of this is really new. It’s today news, but it’s not new. This country (the world!) has weathered setbacks and wars since pre-ancient times. As my friend Ellen asks, “Can we all really relate to a trillion dollar deficit? No. Not really. But can we relate to the loss of Jett?”
Yes. And Wendy. And then everything else just pales in comparison.
It sounds so crazy, but I have never been angry at my children. Unconditional love. Sure, they’ve annoyed me…but I have never been truly angry. And there is not a time when I either don™t think, and most of the time say, “I love you†before I say good night or good bye. I started saying I love you with even more intensity since my own mother “left†me. I think I need to tell my husband more often as well.
Beth’s email this morning just got me.
Perspective.
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beautiful blog today, mommy.
lovelovelove
So, so true. I am counting my blessings every day. A wonderful and poignant blog, that, as always, goes straight to the heart….
right to the heart, steph. so beautiful, every single sentiment. love, love.
thank you for this — something i really needed to read to put some Perspective in my life these days ,during these challenging times! i have a beautiful, 6 year old son and i’m blessed and grateful for that — everything else doesn’t matter!
we really understand how lucky we are when we see what somebody else is going through.when my daughter Yelena was diagnosed with retinoblastoma(eye cancer) i thought “this is the end of the world,” but when we got to the eye clinic in Moscow, and i saw what other kids and parents are going through, i realized how lucky we are.Yelena is alive — and a beautiful, smart and talented young woman. a lot of kids with retinoblastoma back in that clinic did not make it. thank you, stephanie, very beautiful and powerful blog for me
Yours is the only blog I READ all the way through, in fact the only blog I read.
Love the way you write – you pull me in and I am always right there with you.
Fabulous!
my mother, mary baker, died 6 yrs ago in NYC @ 91. (1/7/03)
she had wanted to die for yrs because she had very painful arthritis in her back. i have dreamed of her since her death. we’re always in the city doing fun things, like going to the woman’s exchange for lunch. when she finally passed, (it wasn’t pretty in the end, because other family members had her on machines) i was put into the situation of having to fight for her right to die. i have been haunted by this ever since. at her funeral, a monsignor from st. patrick’s cathedral, told me ‘it’s not easy to live and it’s not easy to die.” that helps. i love your blog because i know how much you love your parents and i feel for you, your parents and all of us with aging parents and marrying children. thanks, steph.
isn’t it sweet ellie likes it too!!
I was so touched about your blog about our Wendy. I especially loved the part about your mom’s comment of Wendy and her piercings (ears and tongue). For the record, I hated the tongue one too, and I shared my feelings with Wendy! I waited to respond because I just couldn’t think nor feel what I wanted to write. I thought I would find the words after I got through Wendy’s birthday on the 12th. Well, the words still did not come. That is the realization of an untimely, horrific and sad death of a child. There are no “right” words. So, now I write to tell you how touched we were by the surprise of so many people showing up to share the time with us on her birthday, enjoy a bowl (or 2 or 3) of the soup selection, and share memories. We had balloons for release here at the house as Gene could not walk to the cemetery because of his recent leg surgery which is why we didn’t even let people know we were doing it until 2 days before. We thought perhaps 10 or so people would come and be relieved to not have to walk up in the very cold evening to her grave. About 5 PM, we received your wonderful gift for Wendy of balloons and a teddy bear — which she collected. Much to our surprise, despite the very short notice, we had over 50 people show up AND everyone wanted to walk up to the grave to release their balloons! I went up with the 3rd group when I realized what was happening! I took your balloons and released them for you since Gene and I had gone up earlier in the day by ourselves and released our balloons to her. We kept passing people returning to our home! While I was so very drained by the end of the night when all left, Gene and I were so very, very touched by the events of the evening. What a tribute to Wendy. So, I still do not have the “correct words” to express my feelings on Wendy’s fate and the holes that exist now and forever in our hearts, I can find the words to thank all those for remembering us and our dear Wendybird! I love you! Beth