Behind Anger Is Loss

My bestest friends in the whole wide world are too kind. They listened to me whine and complain this past weekend (again) about how I’m so frustrated and angry with not having any money. They let me carry on and on when they should have told me to shut my mouth and get a grip.

The problem is, I can’t get past my anger. I’m still mad that I lost my job in 2008 and that we lost all our savings in the market crash. I’m furious that it took me three years to find another job that didn’t come anywhere near the salary I needed. Okay, I just nudged myself in the ribs. I need to shut up about it.

But it’s hard to be quiet when it seems the whole world is angry along with me. We’re in the throes of a nasty presidential election and candidates are struggling to appear poised and composed. Their followers prod them with chants of rage and the main networks run those scenes 24/7 to boost ratings. Protestors are breaking out in fights at campaign rallies, and others are blaming the candidates for it all. I can’t remember a time in my life when so many people were so angry.

Today I had an Aha! moment. I’ll bet many of those angry protestors are people just like me—working in a lower job, making less than we need (if we’re lucky enough to have a job), frustrated by the fact that eight years post-recession we are no better off. We just want all the bad stuff to stop!

Sure we can point fingers at the current president and the president before him. If we really want to, we can go all the way back to when Ronald Reagan was president and blame him. Assigning blame isn’t going to change the situation. It might make us feel better, but the fact is we’re angry because our dreams were shattered or even worse, they never even had a chance to come alive.

Therein lies loss. And knowing that just makes me all the angrier. I despise loss. It’s right up there with cleaning toilets and picking up dog poop. I don’t want to deal with loss anymore. I just want to leave it there in a pile and walk away from it. Let someone else clean up the mess because I’ve had my fill. Just like Howard Beale I want to yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

I’ve been swimming upstream for more than eight years trying to find the root of a small tree that I can grab hold of and secure myself. I’m tired. The water’s cold. And it’s crowded. There’s no room to move about because so many of us are treading water. How are we ever going to lift ourselves up out of this damn stream?

Visiting with my friends this weekend I learned they’re in the stream with me, furiously swimming along, trying to make ends meet, and trying to find that root to grasp. But they’re dealing with it so much better than I am. If they’re angry, they aren’t showing it. If they’re depressed, they’re hiding it much better than I can. I know they’re tired too. But what is their secret? How are they dealing so well with their anger and loss? They look composed and pulled together. I feel like a hot mess beside them, flapping my mouth, spewing words without thinking.

“Good morning, Mr. Beale. They tell me you’re a madman.”

The Mercy Year

Libraries sometimes have a special offer when you can return overdue books, no matter how long they’ve been out, free of charge. It’s a forgiveness that I’ve never been able to take part in because I always return my library books. Maybe they’ve been late once in a while, but I always pay the fine. Life is good.

Lately I’ve been contemplating whether the Catholic Church, in this Year of Mercy that Pope Francis has proclaimed, would be willing to make a similar deal. No matter how long it’s been since my last confession and no matter how many sins I’ve committed, would a priest be willing to sit down and hear my story and help me find a clean slate?

I have no way of knowing for certain, but I’m guessing my last confession took place more than forty-five years ago. A lot of water has gone under the bridge. I was a naïve eleven year old, somewhat spoiled, mostly sheltered from all the bad things in life. The worst sin I committed was likely calling my brother a name or not getting home on time for supper.

Then along came an overheard conversation about how my mom had cancer and I had to look up the word in a dictionary to find out what was going on. Even in her last days when she was in a coma my family could not be honest with me and tell me she was going to die. They wouldn’t let me see her to say good-bye. Two years later cancer took my father too. By that time I was an angry adolescent strung out on love deprivation.

How I managed to maneuver high school and college (miracles on their own) by not ending up in jail or rehab or pregnant is beyond my comprehension. Truly, I credit divine intervention. I didn’t have one guardian angel; I had a whole team. God knows, I tried my best to mess up my life and my future. But somehow I always seemed to end up okay. Maybe a few battle scars but generally unscathed.

Still, sins were committed. And I’ve reached a point in my life where I am not proud of those things and I feel the need to tell my story. I don’t want to sit in a confessional booth and go through the list, one at a time. I want a face-to-face conversation, a telling of my story, a purging of all the bad intermingled with the good things I’ve done. I want to tell my story, good and bad, and in the end find a reasonable penance.

Some might argue I’ve paid penance already in my life and yes, I agree I have. Some anyway. People might say that because I am consciously choosing to admit my sins and through confession I seek forgiveness, it shall be granted. I agree with that as well. But to me it’s not the act of confessing, it’s the complete story that I need to unleash. Why it has become so heavy to carry at this point in my life is not an answer I have. I only know it is so. I’d rather do the lion’s share of my penance while I still have time on Earth.

I know if I look hard enough I’ll likely find a priest willing to sit with me, one-on-one, and hear my story. I would hope that he would listen to everything and help me come up with a meaningful plan of action that doesn’t feel trite or insignificant, like Fr. Schultz’s “Say one Our Father and Three Hail Marys and help your mother with the dishes the rest of the week.”

I am not afraid of penance. I am not afraid of priests. But I have been away from the church for far too long, and I have not and still do not agree with some of the decisions made by church leaders. I am saddened by the bad things that have happened. I am frustrated with the greed and annoyed by the attitudes of some church leaders. Forgive me Father for I have sinned, but the church has sinned as well. I want a conversation that encompasses all of that, and more.

Pope Francis smiles and hugs and reaches out. He communicates without words. He makes the Church look so accessible. I seek a cleansing, a purging, some pain, healing, forgiveness and mercy. Is the Church capable?

Making a Case for The Short List

Stop for a moment and think of the saddest novel you’ve ever read or the one movie that made you cry even after the movie was over. I’m guessing more than one answer comes to mind. Maybe even a list. Now think of a book that made you feel happy, deeply happy. No doubt a short list.

What is it about our nature that as writers we are drawn to pen and paper when we are feeling at our lowest or saddest or most depressed? Why don’t we write annoyingly happy stories and post them, just as many people post pesky vacation photos on social media? You know the ones—two feet with freshly manicured toenails resting on the edge of a lounge chair with an ocean view, or the glass(es) of wine standing on a linen-covered table overlooking a mountain scene.

Every time I see such a photo on Facebook or Instagram I want to scream. I’m happy for the person who’s had a great adventure but I can’t afford any such vacation and I’m not in the mood to deal with my envy or jealousy. Those images are akin to my childhood bully taunting, “Haha! You can’t get me!”

Why is it so much easier for us to wallow publicly in self-pity and whine and complain? Why can we easily tap into negative emotions and write epic novels about those experiences? Try to do that about happiness and critics will say it’s boring and trite, or worse, fantasy.

All of this is on my mind since I find myself in a pleasant moment in time. Mind you, I’m not complaining. But it’s highly unusual for me—at least in the last eight years—to have a run of six months of peace and happiness. I’m not stuck in a quagmire of misery or depression, and there’s nothing at the moment for which I need to seek solace or guidance. Sure, I want more money and more sleep. Chocolate would be great too. Beyond that, life is good. Quiet. Uneventful. No drama!

I’ve thought about sharing an ethereal post: “Kids are fine. Work is good. Life is wonderful. Having a fantastic day! Wish you were here.” Maybe even add a photo of a glass of wine. Imagine the comments: “Where are you?” “Have you been drinking?” “You’re no good at writing sarcasm.” “What did so-and-so do now?”

I read a blog post last week written by someone with whom I went to high school. She doesn’t know I’ve been following her journey of watching her husband succumb to ALS. In her writing last week she apologized for not having written much lately, not because she’s been busy or because life has been too hard. She was lamenting the fact that she only writes when she’s overwhelmed with depression or the depth of what her husband is facing, even though she declared that particular day a good day. If my husband were dying a slow and tortuous death, I’d be writing constantly trying to keep depression from suffocating me. Please! Write about the happiness you’re experiencing because I can’t see it!

I also haven’t written much lately, and not because I’ve been too busy or overwhelmed. Perhaps it’s because I don’t want to flaunt my good moment in time, or I don’t want to jinx myself. Maybe I don’t know how to write about happiness; after all, they say you write what you know.

Evidently I’ve been silent too long because people are asking, “Why aren’t you writing? What’s going on?”

No one wants to read about someone having a great day because so few people can relate to that. Maybe I need to start a new trend, call it Random Happy Moment. With small messages, 140-characters at a time, we can quietly create a revolution of good-natured moments. Spread an ounce of happiness here and there, like dandelion seeds. Imagine the possibilities.

“There’s been a development.”

My experience has been such that whenever you hear those words, something not good is about to happen. Makes me think of Apollo 13. Bush v Gore. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Okay, yes, I admit it. I’m trending a little melodramatic at the moment.

In the last month I’ve been interviewing for a job that at first I didn’t want and now I want the job and I want to start it next week. This past week I had a great in-person interview session with several people and all indications were that I had done well and that I would proceed to the next step. Even the HR contact indicated as much to me. So I dropped my rose-colored glasses today when I received an email telling me that a last-minute candidate has been added to the mix. They will be interviewing that person on Tuesday and making a final decision on Wednesday. What happened to the next step of traveling to the headquarters for an all-day interview session?

Life is what happened. Reality.

It’s so hard for me sometimes to dream and wish. It’s so easy to fall into the fantasy that those dreams provide. And the slap in the face when reality strikes is just too harsh, too disappointing, too painful.

I’m grateful that I’m still in consideration. Perhaps it was healthy to have a forced reset on my expectations. Hopefully I can let go of my frustration and impatience and find a way to hold positive thoughts a few more days.

Why Do You Care so Much?

It’s been a while. Using a metaphor, I’ve been happily floating on an inner tube through life. There have been a couple of big waves from passing large ships and I’ve managed to hold on until the water settled down again. For the most part there haven’t been any major fires to distract me, no über drama erupting and forcing me into shore. It’s been pleasantly quiet. And I’ve been savoring the peace and tranquility.

Because the recent float on life’s river has been uneventful and my stress levels have decreased considerably, I’ve tolerated a lot in recent weeks that six months ago would have sent me through the roof. I remained calm through several phone calls from my daughter Emily, whose sole purpose was to get something from me. I was able to joke about my neighbor coming over to ask me about getting my paved driveway resurfaced in time for her son’s graduation party. (For the record, we had it resurfaced last summer.) I even stayed calm when my daughter Rose and her husband had another argument because he was being disrespectful and making unreasonable demands.

In the back of my mind, I knew eventually the smooth float would come to an end, either by running out of water or by being called or pulled to shore. In my relaxed state of mind I had time to ponder what event would cause my inner tube to spring a leak. I was pretty sure it would be one of our daughters. That’s always been the thing to push me over the edge before. If not one of them, then it would have to be my job. Sure enough, the job.

A couple of weeks ago one of our managers wanted to use a well-known image on some advertising. The image she wanted to use is trademarked. To make this simple, I’ll give you an example. This is NOT what happened, but it’s a good example. The manager wanted to put the Nike swoosh on t-shirts and hand them out as prizes. The problem? We don’t work at Nike and that swoosh is trademarked. We may not be a big whale in the ocean, but we’re a big enough dolphin that Nike knows we’re there and notices us once in a while. This manager was not happy that I called attention to the use of the swoosh and tried to tell me, “No one will notice.” There would be thousands of people at the event where these t-shirts would be handed out. It was a clever use of the swoosh, and all it would take is for one person to think it was cute, take a picture and tweet it, and Nike’s lawyers would be ringing up our CEO. I called out the manager on it, took it up a couple of ladder rungs, and the manager was forced to go with Plan B advertising. End of story? Not quite.

Two things happened at work today in a span of a half hour that tossed me out of my inner tube and slammed me up onto shore.

The first. I was in my weekly meeting with Boss Man and we were discussing how some of the team are behind in their work. It’s no exaggeration that these people all have too much work. But a couple of them are tired and run down. We don’t have a manager for our team right now so these individuals are not being pressed to do their work. We haven’t had a “watching manager” since my old boss left the company nearly a year ago. Boss Man still hasn’t replaced my old boss. And Boss Man is too busy minding the till that he doesn’t care about what’s going on out in the store aisles. (Yeah, I’m mixing metaphors.) “Why do you care so much?” he asked me. Say what?! In the first millisecond I thought he might be teasing. He has this sarcastic way of talking and sometimes I have trouble deciphering if it’s a joke or not. In the third or fourth millisecond I realized he wasn’t teasing, and he was waiting for me to answer his question. For five through ten milliseconds, I wondered 1) why in the world would a Boss ask such a question, and 2) how in the world do I answer? I went with the truth. “It’s my job. If someone is behind on the schedule, I have to negotiate a new schedule.” He knows this. Well, I think he knows what I do, unless he forgot about the very first meeting the two of us had after my old boss left. Honest! Boss Man called me in for a meeting just days after my old boss had left and asked me (not kidding) what it is exactly that I do. Since he is the manager of our division, shouldn’t he know what I do?

Anyway, when he asked why I care I told him I was just doing my job. So then he asked me why I was worried about doing my job. “Do you think I’m going to catch you doing something?” Say what, again?! I didn’t have to spend any time wondering if he was teasing or being sarcastic. And for once in my life I could think quick as lightning and I said, “There’s nothing for you to catch me at. I’m not guilty of doing anything other than my job.” By that point, my anxiety level was off the charts and I just wanted to sit in a quiet room and figure out what the hell was going on. Thankfully our scheduled time was up. He told me to have a great holiday weekend. I wished him the same. I went back to my desk and sat down in my chair and stared at nothing. What manager would ask an employee why he or she cares so much about the job? Aren’t managers supposed to want employees who care?

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and decided to check my email, then clear off my desk, and leave for the day. That’s when the second thing happened. While I had been in the meeting with Boss Man, an email had come in from the Nike-swoosh-stealing manager demanding that our department turn over all original files for all of the advertising projects we’ve completed for that manager since January. For some perspective, that would be like walking into a warehouse shoe store and telling them you want every shoe in the store. Right now.

This manager doesn’t own the original files. The manager is in charge of selling product and we create the advertising for that product. The intellectual property in the design files belong with our department. If we give out those original files, we lose all control over them. The manager can take those files and do whatever with them. Remember that trademarked swoosh? It could appear anywhere and everywhere if turned over to the manager. Think Nike won’t notice?

And those original files are huge. To turn over the original files on even one project, we will need to have a very large external hard drive. The files won’t fit on a CD or a flash drive. Two projects would fill up a “normal” hard drive. Five projects would fill up a normal “cloud.” This manager wants all the files completed since the beginning of the year. I’m guessing that’s about 125 projects.

We have an enormous amount of active projects on our desks every day. All with very tight deadlines. We’re typical of every team in the workforce right now in that we’re a small group doing the work of an army. We handle projects in priority order. To gather that many files and load them onto some type of storage device(s) will take an enormous amount of time, which we don’t have because there are so many urgent money-making priorities ahead of this request.

I decided to take the easy way out and I answered the manager’s email by saying Boss Man will have to approve that.

To my shock and horror, within a couple of minutes, Boss Man replied, “This is approved.”

What in the hell is going on? I shut down my computer and left. I told myself I will not think about this again until Monday morning. But of course, I’m thinking about it. And I’m wondering, why do I care so much?

Cogitating Powerlessness, Yet Again

If I were a mathematician, I would spend time formulating a theory about the correlation between powerlessness and hopelessness. Maybe someone already has and I just don’t know about it. And if someone has, it’s probably a good thing I don’t know about it; it would be too depressing.

 

Looking back, the times in my life when I was the most depressed were the moments when I felt the most hopeless, all because I could not control whatever was happening in my life to make me depressed. I could have repeated the old adage “the only thing you can control is your attitude” to myself until I had no breath left in me, but in the end it would not have helped. Some things just are not within our control.

 

We can build the best plans and take all the precautions we can imagine, and still there is risk simply in the fact that we choose to live, to get out of bed, to interact with our environment, society, the world. One minute you’re fine and the next minute you’re not, simply because you exist. A car accident. A house or apartment fire. A plane crash. A tornado or earthquake. One minute you’re holding your own and the next minute tragedy strikes in the form of a stroke or heart attack, a diagnosis of cancer, or MS or HIV or on and on. Maybe it’s not you; maybe it’s your spouse, or your child.

 

Such events suck the breath and life right out of a person, and yet, some people survive. Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence and yet statistics show there is a 6% survival rate. Heart attacks that happen outside of a hospital setting have a 9% survival rate. Every day thousands of people survive car accidents. Despite being hit by the proverbial bus, people do survive.

 

In the face of adversity, when hope is so slim it can’t be seen with the naked eye, when not a single thing is within one’s power, where does that ounce of survival DNA come from and how does it grow and expand? What gene allows one training athlete to fall down a hundred times and get up a hundred and one, yet cause another to lay down and die? What is it about the character of one person struggling through despair who manages to smile once in a while, when another cannot find a single person to reach out to for encouragement? How can one person see only a dead end in the road, but another can see a fence to climb or a tree limb to grab hold of and propel to another path?

 

Don’t fret; I’m fine. Just cogitating.

 

It’s a Lie!

Job experts say it’s easier to find a job when you have a job. While it might seem that hiring managers are more willing to take a risk on someone currently employed than someone who has been out of the game for a while, I’m telling you finding a job is tough no matter when you’re looking. And lately I’ve begun to think it’s all about who’s the better liar.

I had the terrible misfortune of finding myself without a job in September 2008. The company I worked for merged with another and my position was eliminated. The timing was the worst in the last half century. It took nearly three years before I could find another full-time, permanent job, and that was only because the hiring manager saw he was going to get “an exceptionally skilled worker for a song,” his words not mine.

That thirty-four month journey was so depressing, so ripe with hopelessness that I promised myself I wouldn’t go through that again. Funny how we make promises like that to ourselves. Just think of how many women in the throes of delivering their first child promised to never go through that again but went on to have a second child. (In my case, I had another three.)

About six months ago the manager who hired me left for a better opportunity. Immediately I started another job search, albeit quiet and behind the scenes. I can’t let my current manager know I’m looking. I can’t tell my co-workers, although I suspect at least 80 percent of them are also looking. We’ve already watched a half dozen critical employees leave since the start of the year. Morale in our office is so low a snake’s belly could rub against it. And yet, on any given day all of the managers and directors will tell you things are just fine.

Four weeks ago I went to work one morning and told my manager I had to leave early for a doctor’s appointment. Instead I left early, drove five minutes down the road (that’s the truth), and interviewed with another company. It didn’t go too well. My work day had not gone well and I was frustrated and stressed and exhausted by the time I landed in the lobby of that prospective employer. Even though I knew I needed to shake off the baggage from my bad day, I couldn’t do it. I am not a good liar. I don’t have a good poker face. That hiring manager was looking for someone to come in and help her solve problems and have the initiative to set chaos into order. Instead she saw in me an exhausted, seasoned employee at the end of the day worn down by bureaucratic hamster wheels. I asked her what she thought would be the biggest challenge in the job. Learning the product. I smiled. She didn’t have a very good poker face either. Although I desperately wanted the job, it’s a good thing I didn’t get it. It would have been a lateral move of exhaustion and frustration. Same shit, different office.

Tomorrow I have another interview. This one holds some promise, and for that reason I am concerned. Lately whenever I desperately want something, it falls apart. I desperately wanted to win that record Powerball a few weeks back. I was desperate for a Spring Break at some all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas, but that depended on the lottery winnings that never came. I desperately want to find an office “home” where I can settle in and stay a while, where I can grow and develop, learn and mentor, laugh and problem solve.

In an effort to invite good karma into my life, I’m trying a different approach. I left work early today, with an imaginary headache and stomach ache. Tomorrow I’ll call in sick early, getting the lie out there right away so I can properly recover from the guilt long before I will step foot into the lobby of this potential employer. I’m hoping for a leisurely morning, a long shower, a problem free commute, and a winning interview.

Sure enough, about an hour after I got home today I started to panic. Guilt had taken over and I feel awful about lying to leave early, knowing I’m going to miss another full day tomorrow. I was so worked up about it that I actually started to feel ill. And then I had a terrible thought. What if the universe decided to play a joke on me and tomorrow afternoon put my current manager in the building I’m headed to for my interview? I can tell already I’m going to have nightmares tonight.

I hate lying. I never tolerated it in my children when they were growing up. I don’t tolerate it with my spouse. And yet, here I am, telling a bunch of whoppers just so I can have a chance at making a better life for myself. I think it would be so much easier to find a job if I didn’t have one. Yikes! That’s going to upset the universe for certain. I take it back! It’s a lie!

November Thanks #25 | 3 Gifts Ugly-Beautiful

A thirty-day exercise in pausing, reflecting, appreciating, and giving thanks for simple things.

There was a time when I found myself in a therapist’s office, searching for answers about life. Stuck and unable to move forward or back, I had spun in circles for months before connecting with this particular therapist. She made me think so hard at times my brain hurt. She reminded me how to feel. But most importantly, she helped me find my true self. The time came for me to “graduate” and move on. And at my last appointment with her, I held out my hand and showed her half of an ugly rock. The round, rough edge was facing up and the cut half was flat against my palm. And I held it out and told her, “This is how I think I looked and felt when I first walked in your door. And with your guidance and support, you helped me believe in myself again. I am no longer ugly.” And I turned up the flat side of the rock to allow the crystals to shine. She was so taken aback by my presentation that she had tears in her eyes. The geode was my present to her, so that she would always have a reminder of the work she does to turn something ugly into something beautiful. Whenever I see a geode, I am reminded of that moment and all the challenging work I did to put my life back on track. Sometimes it’s a good thing to be reminded of how far we’ve come.

In a few days we will dust off all the boxes of Christmas decorations and get our tree set up. Like most moms, I have a box filled with some special ornaments made by my daughters when they were very young. There’s a picture frame made from Popsicle sticks and a school photo of the artist. I think she was in third or fourth grade. There’s another picture frame made of cardboard shaped like a wreath with elbow noodles glued to it, spray painted in gold. There are paper cutouts colored in crayon with a string attached to hang them on a tree. For years my daughters didn’t even want to take these items out of the box; they were embarrassed by their primitive artwork. But they have finally come to appreciate the decorations for what they are…a gift from a child so special that a mother saved it for a lifetime.

I know I am supposed to name three gifts, but my brain has ceased to function. I have a lot on my mind lately and I haven’t been able to sleep. I keep waking up at four in the morning and cannot go back to sleep. At night, I’ve tried my best to stay awake until ten o’clock thinking I’ll sleep until six in the morning for sure. Not to be. No matter the time I go to sleep, I’m waking up at four. And my eyelids are like curtain shades tonight. I cannot keep my eyes open even as I sit here typing. Going to sleep now.

November Thanks #24 | 3 Gifts Humble

A thirty-day exercise in pausing, reflecting, appreciating, and giving thanks for simple things.

Humility is a challenging concept to understand. I know that being awestruck is part of humility—to be humbled by nature. So I was thinking about times in my life when I was so completely surprised and blown away by something that I might have been humbled by it. The birth of each of my children did that for me. I was awestruck by the miracle of birth. I once won a prestigious award and was shocked that I was chosen. But those two events didn’t make me humbled; instead they lifted my up, they empowered me. I was filled with pride in those moments, and pride is actually an antonym of humility. So just what exactly does it mean to be humbled by something?

Some definitions teach that true humility occurs when you are broken, crushed, humiliated. Think of defining moments in your life, but at the lowest moments of your life. If you are humbled, then you are lower in dignity or importance. Religious texts tell us that we as sinners shall kneel before Christ, that we will be humbled.

To be humbled doesn’t mean one is weak or less than another. It means we are without pride or arrogance. The Bible shows us humility in a strong person who loves others, not someone who is weak or timid. A humble person can diffuse an argument without expressing anger. A humble person can react to unfairness without being vengeful. When a humble person is criticized, he learns from the moment instead of becoming defensive.

To be humble means you don’t have unrealistic expectations. Now that’s a concept I can wrap my mind around. In some areas of my life, I am very much a realist and I don’t have too high expectations. In other areas of my life, my dreams are so large that I cannot come close to being a realist.

I need to mull over this concept of humility before I am willing to commit to three gifts. But one thing is for certain, I have some work to do on this virtue.

October 29, Again

I was reminded the other day of a scene from the movie Field of Dreams, when the main character, Ray, looks over to home plate at his dad who was in the prime of his youth. Ray says to his wife, Annie, “I only saw him years later when he was worn down by life. Look at him. He’s got his whole life in front of him, and I’m not even a glint in his eye. What do I say to him?”

One of my brothers recently shared some old photos that were taken before I was born, and one included my parents. My dad looked just as I remembered him. He always wore his hair in a crew cut and he wore glasses. Other than that, his face never changed. Unless he smiled. What a fantastic smile he had.

But the photo of my mother didn’t look anything at all like I remember her. She was thirty-two years old when I was born, the last of her eight children. In the photo she is young, not quite thirty, with no lines in the corners of her eyes. She has on a necklace and lipstick. And a Mona Lisa smile. She died at the age of 46, on October 29, 1975.

So young when she died, and yet, I only knew her when she was worn down by life. I was only twelve when she became sick and at that age I was just beginning to comprehend that there was a world outside of my own being. I’ll admit I was a sheltered, spoiled brat. I took my mother for granted, but what twelve-year-old doesn’t? Had I known then what I know now…

It’s been thirty-nine years since she died. My memories have faded quite a bit but when I gather an image in my mind of my mom, she is middle-aged. She has salt and pepper hair and a “belly”. She has crow’s feet at her eyes. And she is distracted, not by her eight children but by all of the flower gardens in the back yard. She loved her flowers! And if I ever wanted to find her, that’s where she would be.

Tonight, on the eve of the anniversary of her death, looking at that photo, I can’t help but wonder, if I had a chance to talk with her, what would I say to her? We’d need a lifetime to get caught up.