One Year Later

One year ago yesterday my husband woke up from a medical procedure and I said, “I have good news and bad news.”

He said, “tell me the bad news.”

So I told him. “You are a very sick man. You have five blockages in your heart and you need open heart surgery. One of the blockages is very bad. It’s perforated. It could rupture at any moment. So you can’t leave the hospital. They are trying to see how quickly you can get scheduled for surgery.”

“Holy shit! How can there possibly be good news?!”

“It’s fixable,” I told him.

“That’s not good news! Tell me the good news!”

“It’s not a terminal diagnosis. It’s fixable. It’s going to take a lot of work but you’re going to be just fine. The angels have watched over you this long, they kept you alive through the procedure today, they’re going to keep you alive through this surgery. The recovery is going to be the hard part. That’s up to you.”

“You’re still not giving me any good news.”

“I love you. We’ll get through this, together.”

“That’s all you got?”

“It’s something. Better than nothing.”

“Yes, it’s something,” he agreed.

So it was one year ago this weekend that we spent all our time walking the floors of the hospital, saying good-byes, putting affairs in order. The night before his surgery he watched the Super Bowl game from his hospital bed while a blizzard raged outside the window. I was confident the angels would see him through surgery. He didn’t think he’d survive. He did.

It’s been an arduous journey. The bypass surgery was a complete success but the recovery has not been. For the first two months he had “hospital dementia” brought on by adverse reactions to several medicines and sleep deprivation. In the first few days after his surgery I knew something wasn’t right and kept trying to get someone to listen. At one point he didn’t even know my name, only that we were “together” and in fit of anger he told a doctor we were getting a divorce. She asked me if that was true and when I denied it she demanded I get her a copy of his health directive. I did. I never saw that particular doctor again but at least others understood I was trying to be my husband’s advocate. He spent two weeks in the hospital, the first time, and should have gone to a rehab facility but he was adamant about going home. And that’s when the struggle became real.

Because my husband didn’t think he’d survive the surgery (most people would be forever grateful for a second chance on life), he took on the mindset that he didn’t ask for a second chance so why did he get it? From day one he has pretty much refused to do his part to get better. He was told to do breathing exercises at least five times a day. He did them, maybe five times over the course of the first week, then gave up completely. He was supposed to stop putting salt on his food and to limit his sodium intake. Instead he berated me or anyone else who served him a meal for not bringing him salt. He was supposed to give up smoking cigars. He did, for five months. Then one night he lit up one and he’s been smoking them every day since. He is prescribed high doses of diuretics for serious edema in his legs and feet but he generally misses two to three doses each week. He’s supposed to exercise but instead chooses to sit in a chair and watch TV. He sleeps all night sitting up in a chair. He cannot lay flat.

And so on this first anniversary of his surgery, I’m a mess. Nothing is normal. Nothing is right. We haven’t even hit a place I could call our “new normal”. In many ways I feel this is a very long Second Good-bye. The first was the weekend a year ago when we put his affairs in order as best we could without him being able to step foot outside. So this second good-bye process is all about coming to terms with the fact that his last best day was January 31, 2019. The choices he makes every day now will never allow him to have a better day than that. He has hit a couple of plateaus in the last year, so he isn’t actively regressing every day, but there is no forward progress. Today is as good as it’s going to be for him. Tomorrow might be the same and the day after that. We are stuck in our own “Groundhog Day” but because he doesn’t want to learn from the moment, there’s simply no hope of us ever moving forward.

There is no joy. There is no sunshine or warmth. We both wake up in the morning and get on with our day simply because God gave us another day. I’m frustrated with myself that I no longer have the energy to rise above that. I’m angry at the poor choices he repeatedly makes. I’m depressed that internally I want to run free and live the life I’m capable of living but I could never, ever walk away. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. Given all the struggles I watch my husband face each day, I am mindful of the fact that he has so many blessings. He does not have a terminal diagnosis. He is not dealing with ALS or Parkinson’s or some other debilitating illness that is going to render him incapable of all human function. But he will reach that same outcome because he refuses to see his blessings, refuses to follow doctors’ orders, refuses to do the hard work. You can lead a horse to water….

I’ve been down a similar path four times before, when each of my four (now adult) daughters traversed the minefield of adolescence. All the while I knew in my heart they would indeed reach the other side of adolescence and they would become independent, fully functioning, law-abiding adults. The outcome on this path with my husband holds no promise. It’s the most difficult path I’ve ever been on in my life. And I now include my own name along with all the others in my daily prayers. And I pray also that we will not have a third form of this long good-bye. I won’t have the strength to see it through.

The Dog Dies

When I was growing up in the ‘60s, I couldn’t watch the TV show Lassie without being overcome by anxiety thinking something awful was going to happen to the dog. I couldn’t watch the movie The Wizard of Oz without crying because I was so upset that the Wicked Witch kidnapped Toto. In recent years when one of my grown daughters recommended I see a movie or read a book, they knew I needed to know up front if the mom dies or the dog dies. If so, I usually would take a pass.

For the past 37 years, I have personally owned a pet, mostly cats, which means I really should say I’ve been owned by cats since we all know they rule the house. But I also owned one dog. The last 15 years belonged to Charlee Girl, a black and tan Lhasa Apso. She came into my life when I was going through divorce and my ex-husband was sneaking into my house in the middle of the night. I needed a dog to bark and warn me about ex-husbands and teenage boys.

We rescued Charlee from wretched conditions at a pet shop, brought her home, gave her a bath, and let her eat as much food as she wanted. We tucked her in that first night and promised we’d be there for her first thing in the morning. When we let her out of her kennel the next day, she couldn’t hide her joy, charging from one end of the house to the other, jubilant that she had been given a forever home. And for that she was forever grateful.

Without any instructions or training Charlee understood the job she had to do. And she did it well. She didn’t need to worry about Kate because she was away at college. But Charlee helped calm extreme anxiety in Brianna. She put flame to the spark in Emily to become a veterinarian. She listened without criticism to Rose’s eclectic music and hours-long discourses on life. And for me, when all hope was lost of ever loving another man, she taught me about unconditional love.

As time passed and teenagers grew into adults, we all knew Charlee Girl was growing older too. We nursed her through two ACL surgeries, the extraction of several teeth, two bouts of pancreatitis, and some nasty, life-threatening allergic reactions. It was our honor to care for her after all she had done for us. She certainly had earned her stripes, in spades. Showing her our respect was easy.

Charlee started to decline about a year ago, and Emily encouraged me to consider the amount of suffering the old girl was going through. Nearly deaf, her eyes overcome by cataracts, and joints aching with arthritis, I watched and understood, but I couldn’t get the rest of the family to agree. About two weeks ago, when we were all away from home, Charlee had a panic attack when she struggled to see her way out of a room and instead got wedged behind a door. I cried when I found her, covered in “stuff”, weakened by her anxiety. She never fully recovered.

The vet said her heart was failing and she didn’t have much time left. There was nothing that could be done now except love her. And so we began our long goodbye. Each of us in our unique way sought her out and returned to her the unconditional love she had always shown us. I tried so hard to tell her she had served us all so well, that she deserved to be free of pain, and to go across the Rainbow Bridge and enjoy her new world. But she either didn’t want to listen or her deaf ears wouldn’t hear or she just wasn’t ready to go. She hung on.

Finally, the heart-wrenching and unpopular decision had to be made. Charlee was so uncomfortable, so freaked out by not being able to see or hear who was touching her, that her days and nights were filled with anxieties. I believed it was more respectful to honor her life by allowing a peaceful, planned passing rather than a tragic, pain-filled, emergency. So I made the call.

Today we said goodbye. She really didn’t want to leave us and we didn’t want her to go. But we celebrated and gave her a juicy steak, honored her life and service to us for 15 years, offered prayers and blessings for safe passage across the Rainbow Bridge, and made certain she knew she was loved right up until her last breath. Charlee Girl was the most caring and compassionate animal I have ever known. I will miss her more than words can say.

Not the Mom I Want to Be

I want to not be a mom anymore. I want my heart to not care anymore. And yet, I am so ashamed that I feel this way. I have friends who have had to bury their children! How despicable I am to even think such things. But it’s true.

I didn’t grow up knowing a mother’s love. The last of eight kids, I was just more work for my mom. Instead my three older sisters took care of me. By the time I turned twelve, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and fought a horrific battle, dying two years later. At the end of her life, we were complete strangers and I had no comprehension of what it means to be a mother.

When I became pregnant for the first time, my heart ached for the mother I never knew. I wanted to ask her questions, to understand what my life would be like as a mom. Holding my newborn in my arms, my heart melted and I was forever changed. I committed myself to my daughter forever. I promised her we would learn together what it means to be a mom. At the time my doctor said two things to me that I’ve carried all these years and at my age now know them to both be true. “You are a dyed-in-the-wool mom.” “You’ll be a mom until the day you die.”

I wish it wasn’t true but it is. I can’t turn off being a mom just as I cannot cause myself to stop breathing. Caring as I do, being a mom is going to kill me someday. My heart will shatter.

My daughters are grown. There are four of them. The oldest is 32 and the youngest is 24. The first three are married, the last one is not. The first has two children. The third is expecting her first. With the exception of the youngest who still lives in my home, I consider them all launched. All four are strong—in intellect, in will, in opinion, in passion. Each one thinks life has tested her but the reality is not one has truly been challenged. Even so, I know them each to be a survivor.

Perhaps it is this strength that causes such a heartache for me. I want them all to lean on me, to share their burdens and their joys, to keep me in their lives. One is very good about that and another is somewhat good about that. The other two are not good about that at all and fight me tooth and nail, in passive-aggressive style, whenever I try to connect or, heaven help us!, try to plan a family gathering, which is the reason for my heartache today.

The last time I saw my two grandchildren was six months ago. They live two hours away. Their mother, my oldest daughter, has given a dozen different reasons why she didn’t want to come to my house to celebrate Christmas. Her three sisters came.

Now I’m trying to plan a get together, free of the emotional tug that happens over the holidays. Despite the fact that I have a large house and could put everyone up for the night, my oldest is again the holdout and is insisting that we all rent hotel rooms for our family gathering. Fine, I can do that! If that’s what it takes, then so be it.

Not so easy. My husband won’t go; he thinks it’s ridiculous to spend so much money to get locked up in a hotel, even if there is a pool. My second daughter’s husband feels the same way and would rather stay home and care for their animals and avoid the inevitable drama. And my youngest can’t afford to spend the night and doesn’t want to share a room with me and besides, she thinks it’s absolutely ridiculous that her older sister won’t come to our house.

I just want to spend time with my daughters! All of them in the same room at the same time! I feel defeated. It’s never going to happen again in my lifetime. How do I tell my heart not to care so much? How do I push aside my disappointment that I can’t be the mom I want to be, that I don’t have the relationships with my daughters that I wanted?

 

When the Pastor Dies

About a week ago the calls and Facebook messages went out: Pastor Andy had died. It was a shock to everyone and yet, it should not have been a surprise. Andy was only 64 but he didn’t watch what he ate, didn’t exercise, and had been dealing with a few health issues for several years. His face often turned beet red during his sermons or when he enthusiastically sang a hymn. He made light of his weight often and admitted frequently that his doctor (and his wife) wanted him to slow down. Yet, he was driven in a way few of us completely understood. I wonder now if he knew he had to make the most of every minute because there weren’t enough minutes left.

I first met Pastor Andy in the mid-1990s. Our church membership had grown and the load was too much for our pastor, so Andy was brought in to help out mostly with the youth. I like my religion on the traditional side and Pastor Andy was anything but ordinary. Life was not black and white to him. It was every color of the rainbow, and he loved it all. He was exuberant no matter the task, always on the go like an Energizer bunny, and always singing, laughing, or telling a joke. Andy was always trying to make a buck, always trying to sell something, always full of more ideas than any of us could keep up with. He thought outside the box many times a day, so it’s not incorrect to say he “flew by the seat of his pants.” And it was all too unconventional for me.

My oldest daughter was around 10 or so when Pastor Andy joined our church. He was too much for her, even though I tried hard not to let my bias show. My second daughter understood Pastor Andy’s humor and she admired his can-do and nonconformist attitude. My other two daughters never really “took” to Andy, but they didn’t dislike him either. Rather, they were indifferent about him. And yet, when I broke the news to my daughters that Pastor Andy had died, each one’s response was the same. “How sad.”

All those years ago, Pastor Andy hadn’t been at the church very long when he did something that stirred my anger. In fact, it was the only time I’ve ever formally complained to the church. It was Easter Sunday and Pastor Andy was giving the sermon. My four young children were listening as Pastor Andy read a children’s book about Easter and when he got to the end of the story he loudly and firmly declared there was no Easter Bunny! I was stunned. I didn’t feel it was his place to break that particular news to my children. I looked around the church to see if other parents were upset, but it didn’t look like it. To this day, I have no idea if I was the only one who complained but I suspect I probably was. It was a moment I never forgot, and it created a wall between Pastor Andy and I. Over the years we grew to respect each other, but there was never a lot of love between us.

As time went on, bits and pieces of Andy’s childhood made their way into his sermons and I came to understand more about the boy who grew to be a man who became a pastor. His childhood wasn’t easy. And he carried an enormous amount of emotional baggage every single day of his life. He spent his lifetime trying to do good, to make everyone around him happy. He always had a smile on the outside, but I suspect many times he was crying on the inside.

On that fateful day last week, Andy was struck down by a massive heart attack. He never regained consciousness, but he lived a couple more days, just long enough for his family to all gather at his side and for the congregation to deal with the shock of his loss.

It is absolutely striking to read the tributes posted to honor him on Facebook. This man, despite his emotional scars and unorthodox ways, touched hundreds, if not thousands, of people. He didn’t just walk in their lives as their pastor, he was involved in their daily struggles, often knocking on the front door unannounced at the moment when these people needed him the most. He brought groceries to young families in need. He gave rides to senior citizens who couldn’t find a way to see the doctor. He helped parents mend relationships with teenagers. He counseled couples struggling with their marriage. He was anywhere and everywhere all at the same time. And all those things he was selling to make a buck, were merely a means to money to give to others or help others in myriad ways.

Despite all the demands on his time, he still made time for his wife and four children and several grandchildren. His devotion to his wife could be the gold standard for all men to follow. His two sons were so influenced by him that they too became ministers. The greatest gift his family gave was in sharing Pastor Andy with the world.

Indeed, Pastor Andy lived life to the fullest. And over the last few days as I’ve read the stories others have shared, I’ve discovered I really didn’t know this man at all. While I preferred traditional religion and planning events ahead of time, Pastor Andy, flying by the seat of his pants, had untold determination and something much more powerful. Faith. He never doubted that God would be there for him, providing whatever was needed in any given moment for any of the countless members of his flock. And he also had not one tiny iota of doubt about whether he would be welcomed in heaven. Andy knew God would be waiting with open arms. And remarkably all members of the congregation, despite the enormous void that has just opened in their lives, are celebrating this man’s passing into eternal life. The only point for discussion they have is what song Pastor Andy was singing as he passed through the pearly gates.

I am blessed for having known Pastor Andy. It is my loss that I didn’t understand him and instead placed a wall between us. Even in death, he is still teaching.

“The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7

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.”

Grief, the Uninvited Guest

In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross authored the groundbreaking book On Death and Dying. Someone gave a copy to my mother in 1973, when she was battling stage IV cancer at the age of 45. I have no idea where the book came from, only that it showed up one day. Was it a member of the clergy who gave the book to her, perhaps hoping to help her face her mortality? Maybe a friend or neighbor gave her the book, not knowing any words of comfort to help my mom deal with the vast emotions she must have had knowing she was leaving behind a husband and eight children and a half-lived life.

I never liked that book. The title alone scared me like nothing else. I was twelve when my mom got sick, and the thought of her dying was not anything I wanted to dwell on. To me, that book represents the cruelty of cancer because that’s what I was dealing with when the book came into my existence. In truth, I’ve never read the book. Although I have researched and experienced first-hand the theories that Kubler-Ross introduced on the five stages of dealing with grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And for some reason still unknown to me all these years later, I took that book when my mother died and hid it in my bedroom. I didn’t want anyone to have it. When I went away to college and our family home was sold, I packed that book up with the rest of my belongings. When I married and moved into a house and started a family, that book came with me. And many years later, when I was divorced and remarried and moved into a new home, that book followed. It is somewhere in the house where I live, sitting on a bookshelf or packed up in a box in the storage room. I have no idea where it is. I could probably locate it if my life depended on it, but it would take me a while. Funny thing is, I don’t want the book. But I can’t bring myself to throw it or give it away. Someday in the future when I move again or if someone is going through my belongings, the book will show up once again. Maybe I should ask a specific friend who is a therapist why I cannot bring myself to get rid of it. Maybe I don’t want to know.

For not ever having read that book, I know everything about it. Grief is a repeating process. And it strikes whenever you have a sense of loss in your life. You don’t have to be dying to feel grief. Children can experience grief when their parents get divorced. Teenagers go through it when they break up with their first crush. Adults go through grief during a job loss or financial hardship or divorce. Even those dealing with alcohol or other drug addiction experience loss and grief. There are many different ways we feel loss, and unfortunately for some of us, we experience loss many times in our lives. No matter how many times we process our emotions through the loss, we still have to deal with the grief. If we don’t, it festers under the surface and comes out in myriad unhealthy ways. It isn’t like the chicken pox in that it comes once in your life and you’re done with it. No, it’s a cruel and twisted thing that can happen many times, striking when you least expect it and often in a time of great stress.

And so it happens that Grief showed up this week while I was on vacation from work. In hindsight, I’m not surprised it showed up. I’ve been shoving down my emotions about my current job for months. This week off was a break from all that, allowing feelings of loss to sneak to the surface. An uninvited guest, I ignored Grief at first. Then I was pissed and tried to show it the door. Please go away, I begged it. But it wouldn’t go. And now I’m in a funk. It’s all because I so desperately want to find a new job and no matter how hard I try, I cannot land a different job. I had a really great series of interviews in the last month, and with each one I could imagine myself in that new role. I allowed myself to dream about the possibilities. But I haven’t been able to close the deal on any, and so I am experiencing the loss of those dreams. Now that my week off of work is coming to a close, I’m reaching the point of accepting the fact that I’m stuck where I am. Five stages of grief in the span of a week. No wonder I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.

One thing I do know—I must face that Grief. Head on. I must acknowledge it now that it’s surfaced. I must feel it. If I don’t, it will multiply and fester and fill every pore of my being. And then I truly will not be able to function in an interview, if I’m lucky enough to get another. The few ounces of confidence I’m hanging on to will dissolve. All the things that are right in my life will go wrong.

So I will face it. And I’ll be gentle to myself in these last three days of my time away from work. Whatever tasks are left on my to-do list will take low priority. Instead I will spend my energy consoling, nurturing, being patient, forgiving, honoring. Hopefully when I return to work, I’ll have the strength and the courage to face the madness without getting stung by its viciousness. Any maybe, just maybe, I’ll have some energy left over at the end of each day to keep looking for a different job.

November Thanks #16 | 3 Gifts Hard Eucharisteo

Every year I watch friends post daily thanks on Facebook during the month of November, and this year I thought I would accept this “giving thanks” challenge. I’ve been following a posting that instructs you to Count 1,000 Gifts, taken from Ann Voskamp’s recently published book by that name.

I don’t have the book and I haven’t read the book but I’ve managed to get along fine so far this month, until today. I had no idea what Voskamp meant by “hard eucharisteo” so I went back to her website and did some research. She defines this phrase as “hard discipline to lean into the ugly and still be able to give thanks, find joy, find grace.” In other words, a moment when it is painfully hard to give thanks, but you still do (translation: character building). I thought long and hard on this and decided to focus on the three most ugly times in my life. As it so happens, the order in which they happened in my life is also the degree of ugliness.

Without a doubt, the worst, most ugliest, most hard eucharisteo of my life occurred during a span of four years, when I was twelve to sixteen years old. At the age of twelve I learned my mother had cancer. Two years later she died. One year later my father was diagnosed with cancer. One year later he died. Whatever trajectory my life had been on up to that point, it was completely knocked out of kilter. The very basic foundation of the person I was at age eleven was forever changed by the time I was sixteen. The deaths of my parents have influenced—directly or indirectly—every decision I have made, every action I have taken, and many of the relationships I have formed. And the common thread that runs through my life as a result is an overpowering belief that I am a survivor.

The second-most hard eucharisteo moment in my life was the break-up of my first marriage. When I took my vows of marriage, I did so with the belief that I would be with this person until the day I died. Period. However, I was absolutely blind and naive and ignorant to the lack of control he had over his anger. For twenty years I tried to fix what was broke and in the end I was forced to realize that I was powerless, without any control over someone else’s emotions. The lesson I learned was that no matter how much you love someone, no matter how much you have invested in the relationship, sometimes you have to let go. Understanding that does not take away the heartache or the immense sense of loss. But it did provide a greater perspective and wiser insight when deciding if I wanted to marry a second time.

I experienced the third-most ugly moment in my life just six years ago. In July 2008, the company I was working for merged with another and my position was eliminated. By September I was without a job, at the same time that our economy tanked and the Great Recession took hold of everyone’s lives. I knew it would be challenging but never in my wildest imaginations did I think it would be thirty-four months before I would find another job. It was more than half the job I had had previously and the wage was indeed fifty percent less than what I had been earning. But after nearly three years without an income or medical insurance, I was grateful to have any job at all. The steadily progressive career path I had been on was cut off, as if I had jumped off a cliff. I doubt I will ever achieve that same job status again in my life. And our finances crumbled and we will never recover all that we lost. The experience was horrific and I learned many things, but the greatest lesson learned is knowing that at the end of the day all that matters is your family—spouse, children, parents, siblings. No amount of money can buy the love and support family provides when you have nothing to look forward to.

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.

The Winter that Was

It was a horrible winter. Everywhere, every person complained about the cold or the snow or the ice or combinations of the three. We have family in Atlanta who had water lines freeze between the road and their house, so they went without water until the city could make the repairs. Two of our daughters are teachers and both of them had more school days canceled this year because of snow or cold weather than they’ve had in all the last ten years combined. It was so cold that more than 90 percent of all of the Great Lakes were frozen over, something that no one can remember ever happening before.

Living in Minnesota, we’re used to cold weather and snow. But this winter was especially harsh. We had bitter cold weather in early December that just would not go away. We kept thinking it would change and we’d un-scrunch our shoulders, but no break came. We ended up with 37 days when we didn’t get above zero. At all. Not during the day, and certainly not overnight. We went more than three months with temperatures below freezing, not once going above 32 degrees. It was horrendous.

For us Northerners, we tend to take pride in surviving such extremes. We earn bragging rights by being able to say we can tell the difference between minus 10 degrees and minus 20. And having the unfathomable experience of brutal winter year after year, our hearts are filled with renewed spirit and hope when spring finally shows up. We do this every year. And we are stronger for it.

But this winter took a toll we weren’t yet ready to pay, and for that reason we will always remember it with great sadness. It was the winter that felled our black lab, Diva.

Aptly named, Diva was the center of her universe. We lived in her house, and the food we bought to feed ourselves she thought we bought for her. Our bed was her bed. My closet was her hideaway. She was the first in line for every meal or treat, the first at the door to go outside. She was the Queen of the House.

Despite such a prima donna attitude, Diva took her alpha dog responsibilities very seriously. She was on the clock 24/7, always the first to let us know when someone entered our cul-de-sac. And if that person dared to step foot in our yard or onto our driveway, Diva would sound the alarm in such a way that no one could ignore her. There was no reason for a doorbell. No reason for anyone to call and let us know they were almost here. Diva was on patrol.

We didn’t have any unwanted critters in our home or yard for Diva was always on guard. She had a keen sense of “good” people and we learned long ago to trust her instincts. If she didn’t like a person, we took another look ourselves. She had exceptional hearing and always knew when a storm was approaching.

In the end, it was a storm that felled her. In early March, we had a nasty ice storm followed by several inches of snow. Any other winter, we would have had signs of spring in March. We would have been near the end of the worst. But not this winter. It was March 13, a Thursday night, when we were eating supper, and Diva asked to go outside. For much of the winter she did her business on our deck and didn’t bother to go down the steps out to the yard. But this night, she choose to do just that. And she was out there longer than usual. And I wondered about that, so I went out and found her sitting at the bottom of the steps to the deck. Panting hard. Full of anxiety, and yet unable to move. She could not get herself up on her legs. I walked down the steps to talk to her, to check on her, and found a puddle of vomit. And I knew then, this was not going to be good. As I reached her, I slipped and fell on ice. And suddenly, I understood the “big picture” in its entirety.

I righted myself and ran back up the steps, grabbed a throw rug from the kitchen floor, and yelled for my husband to come help me. I threw the rug down on the ground, on top of the inch of ice, at the bottom of the steps. And carefully I lifted the rear end of this 110-pound black lab, and helped her get up on all fours. So far so good. But she could not put weight on one of her back legs. And she fought with all her might to get up those deck stairs, all four of them. But she made it, and she was driven to get inside the house. So she limped and struggled and got into the kitchen and collapsed on the floor.

She laid there for just a few minutes as I took inventory of her legs and couldn’t see anything obvious. Her panting was steady and fierce, and she was determined to get farther into the house. She stood and tried to walk, but fell. She tried again, and fell again. She propelled herself forward with each attempt and managed to move to a favorite rug at the bottom of the stairs going up to our bedrooms. And she stayed there a while.

My husband and I assessed the situation. We knew it was bad, but we didn’t want to believe it was THAT BAD. We figured she would rest, catch her breath, and she’d be fine. After all, this was Diva. This was the dog who at age three jumped out of a car that was going 70 mph, and survived with just a small scratch above one eye. This was the dog who had scared a few cats out of some of their nine lives. She was built like a horse. She had incredible strength. Combined with her determination, nothing could stop her, even if she was thirteen years old.

As she lay on that rug, in obvious pain, Diva was determined to make her way up the flight of stairs to our bedroom. We told her to lay, to “stay.” And she did. But only long enough for us to get distracted by other things. And with our backs turned, she managed, by will and determination, and with incredible strength of her chest and front legs, to make her way up to the second floor. None of us witnessed the struggle it must have been for her. And truth be told, we are all glad. We could not have handled the sight.

But she made it upstairs, to her favorite spot. She didn’t sleep the entire night. She didn’t move. She panted nonstop, and we brought her water. Lots of water. By morning, we knew she needed to get outside to empty her bladder, but we also realized she couldn’t do it on her own. She could not stand on her hind legs. And we could not carry her.

My husband called our vet and they sent out a “doggie ambulance” with a stretcher. Two men carried her down the stairs, struggling with each step from her weight and the unbalanced load. My husband rode with her and I followed behind. Arriving at the vet’s office was like a scene out of a TV hospital drama. Three people were standing outside waiting when we arrived. They each took hold of the stretcher and carried Diva in to the “emergency room.” She was surrounded by people on all sides, every person taking an assessment of some sort. And Diva smiled. She loved the attention.

It didn’t take long to get the news, she had torn her ACL. Four years earlier (and 25 pounds less in weight) Diva had torn the other ACL. At that time, she underwent surgery and three months of rehab. In the months that followed, she developed arthritis in both hips and it was difficult for her to get the right amount of exercise. Now, at thirteen and carrying much more weight than she could handle on three legs, the prognosis was not good. She had several tumors on her body, cataracts in both her eyes, as well as teeth and gum issues. The vet told us she likely would not survive the surgery, and he doubted he would find a surgeon who would agree to it. And if a surgeon did agree, and if she did survive, would we be able to provide the aftercare she needed? The vet told us it would not be three months of recovery this time, but much, much longer. And he wondered about the quality of life would she have. He asked some tough questions, but questions that needed to be asked just the same.

Diva was my husband’s “baby.” Diva was his “Superdog.” I don’t think my husband ever once believed she would die someday. Certainly, he never expected to find himself standing in a vet’s ER making the decision to end her life. He was devastated. One of the receptionists brought him a chair to sit on and I dug out some tissues from my purse. I asked the vet to give Diva some medicine to make her more comfortable so she could relax while we said our good-byes.

She settled down and quit panting, and relaxed in a way that made me realize she had not relaxed in more than four years. I grabbed my husband’s hand and forced him to pet her. I pointed out how relaxed she was. We talked about how much pain she must have been in for the last four years. He told the story to the room full of professionals of her jumping out the car window all those many years ago. He cried. He grieved. And then, he told the vet he was ready. And he said his final good-bye. In less than a minute, Diva was truly at peace.

It’s been more than a month since, and we still feel her loss every day. Even now it is a struggle to share this story, but I must. I need to let it go.

It is warmer now, and Diva would have loved to go walk in the sunshine, to prove to all the neighborhood dogs that she had earned more stripes from surviving another Minnesota winter. But sadly, she didn’t. And we will always remember the dreadful winter that was.

Loss Defines

Quite a while ago, probably at least three years, a friend asked me if I would write something about loss. He’s probably forgotten he asked since it’s been so long or it’s been so long that his need no longer exists. I told him I would, but I needed to wait until my life was in a better place. At that time, I was dealing with the loss of a job I really enjoyed and was struggling to find work. I was scared about my future and spent too many sleepless nights avoiding pity parties. Writing about loss was the last thing I needed to do right then.

But that seed was planted in my brain and every once in a while it pops up asking to be nurtured and noticed. I was reminded of it over the weekend (see Carl’s Birthday) as I told a group of people that “I lost my mother” and two years later “I lost my father.” When I speak out loud about their deaths, that is the verbiage that naturally flows off my tongue. As I spoke the word lost to this group, I was reminded of my friend’s request to write about loss. This writing has been floating around in my brain for the better part of thirty-some hours. I think it’s time to honor my friend’s request.

To me, death is not a passing, it’s a loss. My parents not only died, I lost them. They were taken when I wasn’t ready, when they weren’t ready, when I needed them. And so it follows that I believe we experience many types of losses in the course of our lives. For example, about a month ago one of my nieces opened the door to let out her dog and her treasured pet bird flew out the door. When a pet runs (or flies) away, that loss can be even more traumatizing than if the pet had died of natural causes. Another example is the loss of a job, no matter if you enjoyed it or not. It causes a change to your lifestyle and your ability to make ends meet. With financial hardship may come the loss of your house or apartment, even a car. Lack of funds can mean the cancellation of a trip you’ve been looking forward to. It may mean giving up on dreams and goals.

In my first year of college, I was living in a dorm and my two brothers who still lived at home were ready to move on to apartments. I saw the dorm as temporary housing. My brothers didn’t want the responsibility of managing the house anymore. And so all my seven siblings talked about it without me and made the determination that the house would be sold. No one cared to think about where I was going to go over Christmas break when the college sent everyone home or when the college year was finished. I was seeing a therapist at the time and he tried to explain to me that when people experience a loss, they grieve. It was his way of explaining why I was feeling so depressed about losing the only home I had ever known. The therapist told me that loss brings feelings of grief, and our brain/body has a memory of feelings. When the grief feeling is triggered, then a flood of memories of other times we felt grief parade through our brains.

I feel fortunate that I was given that wisdom and perspective at such a young age. For at every major milestone in my life—high school graduation, college graduation, wedding, buying a house, birth of each child—hidden in the mix of happy and exuberant emotions was always the reminder of the loss of my parents. They weren’t there to share in my “dreams” that had come true. Oh, don’t for a minute think every milestone in my life has been maudlin and without joy. That is far from my reality! I merely want to point out that loss can easily be in the mix of many other emotions, even happy ones.

More recently, in May of 2010, I had a loss I had never experienced before. And it was so traumatic, it made me physically ill for three or four days. The hard drive on my computer crashed. Unfortunately for me, the 300-page novel I had been writing for many years was on that computer. And so was another novel, about 75 pages long, that I had just recently started. I had a print out of the longer novel from about six months prior. Not the final version, but enough of it that I was able to retype (and edit) the novel and give it new life. (I now have three electronic copies of it.) The shorter novel was gone. No way to bring it back. I also lost about two years’ of journaling and scores of other writings. I grieved for several weeks over these losses. I was so angry at my shortsightedness for not having backups. I ignored the well-intentioned comments friends and family made. “Just rewrite it. It was your idea. You wrote it once, you can write it again.” Sorry, folks. Those words were never coming back.

As a child, when I or one of my siblings would experience a bad day or make a big mistake or be faced with a serious challenge, my father liked to tell us the experience would build character. I’ve often joked that I have enough character and don’t need any more, thank you very much. But just as difficult challenges shape us and teach us, so does loss define us. I wouldn’t be the person I am today had my parents lived long lives. I doubt I would cherish the home I live in today as much as I do had I not been forced to give up my childhood home before I had another permanent place to live. Losing my “dream” job in the summer of 2008 and most of my savings two months later in the market crash brought about a fiscal conservatism in me that never before existed. (And out of necessity I had been very frugal for most of my life!) Being in job search mode for thirty-six months shaped my self-esteem and helped me to understand where I place value in a job. It also showed me that I put too much value in a job’s title or how high a job is on the corporate ladder.

Author Dean Koontz writes about loss in The Darkest Evening of the Year. “We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.”

My children have been blessed all of their lives. The two grandparents they knew while growing up are still alive. They have not lost a parent, a sibling, a cousin. Certainly they have had their share of challenges, and some of the friends they have made only passed through their lives a short time instead of staying a lifetime. I’m sure if I asked each of them, each would agree she has experienced some kind of loss in her life. I suppose the greatest loss each has overcome was when their dad and I divorced. It was a dream shattered for all of us.

It is inevitable that someday I will need to parent my daughters through a moment of monumental loss. I can only hope I will have some words of wisdom to guide them in that moment.