Balloon String

What can I say about my sweet Ellie girl. She was my true first girl.

She was one itty bitty kitten in a litter of five, born in the high temperatures of August. Ellie was a barn kitty. Her feral mother, young and inexperienced, kept her kittens tucked between bales of hay in the barn loft, away from human contact. Little did she know, her poor babies couldn't handle the heat or the fleas. On several occasions I moved the litter away from the tightly stacked bails of hay to a location in the loft where the air could flow, hoping Mama would adjust to the new location. No such luck, she always carried them back. Slowly but surely the kittens were dying, and left hopeless to nature I could merely watch. One by one, three kittens died, and I could no longer sit back and allow nature to run its course. I pleaded with my father to allow me to rescue the last two kittens from imminent death. On our farm cats were meant to stay outside, but I made my case anyway. I begged him to allow me to keep the kittens in my room. I reasoned, it would only be a month and then I would take them with me when I moved out. I left him little choice.

I became the proud new owner of two feral kittens, Ellie and Moo. Not at all appreciative, they wanted nothing to do with me. They lived under my bed, in the very center where my arms could not reach. As they grew, still very fearful of humans, they woud occasionally dart after my feet as I walked past the bed or as I dangled my legs over the edge. That was all the contact they wanted.

As time past, they came to accept me as their own. They grew to love me. One more than the other. There was just something about Ellie I was drawn to. I'm quite positive if she had been a person, we would have been great friends. The kind of friend you can share anything with and know you won't be judged. We would have drank tequila together. But instead, she was a cat. She had this aloof quality I always admired, as opposed to her brother who is and always has been so in your face needy. Ellie was best friends with my childhood dog, a black lab. They spent many hours of life together curled up on the dog bed, cleaning each other. It was the type of friendship cheesy Hollywood movies with talking animals are made of. They followed each other around the apartment and genuinely played together.

I sit here and think about the life Ellie lived, she was dealt a rough hand but you never would have known it. She was tough. She lived through a lot with me. In my current life, those two kittens were here before anything else. Before I was a wife or a mom or a homeowner. They were there before college, before responsibilities, when life was so simple. Together, Ellie and Moo began this journey of adulthood with me. We grew together. They were crazy kittens, destroying my apartment, while I was partying without a care in the world. Their wildness settled down right in line with my own. And now the duo has been split up.

Ellie had a fondness for balloon string and anything in that same family of string. I think fondness is an understatement, addiction is more accurate. She was hooked, she could sense its presence, she could smell it. She ate so much balloon string I was convinced it would be the death of her. Obviously I was wrong. Like most kids, Alice loves balloons. The placement of balloons was a constant concern in our house. The weighted string couldn't be on the coffee table or a side table, oh no, they had to be way up high. More occasions than I can recall we'd awake in the morning to a balloon floating on the ceiling with only a few inches of string attached. One day she discovered Alice's bike streamers and went to town. After that the bike was added to our list of things not to be left in Ellie's reach. This past Saturday we arrived home from brunch, Alice carrying a balloon in honor of my mother's birthday. And that sad moment occurred...I will never have to worry about balloons and their strings again. Ellie is missed dearly by every member of my house. But on the bright side, if there is one, my mom gained one more pet in heaven.

The Oath

I haven't been writing. More accurately I've been avoiding writing. Even more honest, I've been avoiding processing and dealing with difficult events in my life. If I don't write about them, I am only forced to address them as much as life requires. If I don't write, I don't have to swim in my feelings. I can just go on.

The problem with this logic, I can't seem to go on. I can't just skip over them and write as if they didn't occur. To do so feels as if I'm lying.

Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

I will tell the whole truth. On the 8th, I had to take Ellie to the vet to be euthanized. My mother's birthday was this past Saturday. I haven't had the words or the energy to write about either. But both deserve a proper post. I will give them this much. I will tell their story in their own separate posts. I do solemnly swear.

Defining Moments

There are certain moments in life, after them things are changed. Defining moments, I suppose. The thing that makes these moments unique is the way you feel after them, stunned and stupefied. I can only describe it is an out of body experience where you are in utter disbelief, for one moment you forget what has happened and then like an anvil it comes crashing down on you with a weight like no other, never to be forgotten again.

I think back to high school, I remember this feeling vividly the day I got caught with alcohol at my grandparents house having a pseudo party. Try as hard as I might, I could never go back to the day before. Things had changed permanently because of one little moment in time. And in that moment I was stressed and frazzled, clueless as to how to proceed with the recent discovery.

There's one specific second, literally a second, that changed everything concerning my mom and her illness. In that defining moment I could never go back to the other side. I had learned too much, and in my head my brain was stuck repeating "Oh my God." A day spent in shock.

And again the day I found out I was pregnant with Alice. Not all life changing moments are bad, there are just as many good ones. They still have the same affect on a person. Alice was planned, we tried for months to conceive. Yet, the moment the test showed a positive, I lost all breath. It could not be undone. And that is earth shattering. The idea that the world would never again be the same sent me into a frenzy of thought that stayed with me until my head hit the pillow that night.

The thing about these moments is you go on. You can not live in a state of shock forever. The next day you wake up. And the recent change infiltrates itself into your life. The mind blowingness of it all gradually lessens. Day after day you shower and eat lunch and feed the dog, all the while it becomes just another part of life again.

A few days ago, I woke with much hope for Ellie girl. She was scheduled for a simple surgery that should have made life better for quite awhile. I spent the day thinking of Ellie, eager to hear good news from the doctor, instead I was told the previous days diagnosis was in fact wrong. Instead of a simple, removable polyp in her ear, I was told it was a very large inoperable cancerous tumor. She had weeks left at best. Words were said about quality of life and having to make a decision in the near future. I was in disbelief. How could it be possible? I dropped her off at the vets that morning happy. And now my poor Ellie cat is home no better than before. The tumor, in the side of her head, is making eating extremely difficult. At this point, her breathing is barely affected, but we've been told that will change. So, for as many days as she wants I will syringe feed her five times a day. Every day I will watch her a little different than before. Every day I will watch to see if it's time.

Life Absent of a Mother

You know the saying, "time heals all wounds." Maybe you've even said it yourself in an attempt to comfort someone. I am here to tell you, this is not true. Not at all.

Some wounds never heal.

My mother died 6 years ago. Everyone said it will get easier, it hasn't. It's still just as hard to know I will never see her again. My mother never met Alice. She asks about her all the time.

"Mama? Did you take those pictures of your mama because you wanted me to know what she looked like?" she asked me just today on the ride to Toys R Us.

I am forced to spend the rest of my life trying to teach her about a woman she will never meet. Even when sometimes I'd rather not. Even when sometimes I'd rather just cry.

I walk through my days, motherless. Most days it's just that, life absent of a mother. The dishes are loaded in the dishwasher. The towels are switched to the dryer. The dog is fed. And then, there are the moments that hit like a grenade to my core. The moments that force me to think about the severity of everything I lost. The moments that make me relive it all over again.

Recently, I visited a very good friend's father in the hospital. Sitting in a chair in a small room filled with machines and wires and monitors, it all came flooding back to me. Six years flew past me and it was yesterday. It was my mom lying in that bed. It was my mom talking about the food she requested for tomorrow's breakfast. It was my sisters and I talking about the next days agenda and who would be there in the morning. It was my mother's room the nurse walked in when she wrote her name on the board. It was my mother's styrofoam cup with the bendy straw sitting on the bed tray. It was me worried and terrified about what was going to happen next. I sat in that chair and mindlessly chitchatted with my heart and my mind a million miles away.

I live a motherless life and it isn't getting easier.

June 9th

June 9th, 2006, the day I got the call. That phone call changed my life forever.

My story begins the Saturday before, in my mother's hospice room. I was 26 years old. Alone, just me and my mom, I laid with her and cried, my cheek to her's. She was unconscious and had been for several days. Her body had done this before, enter a comatose state for a day or two until her levels stabilized. She would awaken and life would begin again. This time, this coma, was different than all the others. This was the end. We all knew it. It was only a matter of time, without food and water, before her heart would finally cease to beat and her lungs would take their last breath. It was the sad, heart wrenching reality of science. I think talking with God at this point was no longer a prayer of life, but rather swiftness in death.

That day would be the last time I saw my mother ever again. Lying with her, I knew this as fact. For what seemed like an eternity, my life had become my mother's life. My world revolved around her. I took a leave of absence from my job to devote my days to my mother. I canceled a trip to Sanibel Island when it looked like my mother was taking a turn for the worst. I backed out of plans and stopped making them all together. Cell phone always with me, even while I slept. I lived my life for her, to be there for every moment she had left. To spend as much time as I possibly could with her. To have no regrets.

And yet, that Saturday I finally started living again. My husband (at the time my boyfriend) and I had our annual trip to the Outerbanks of North Carolina planned for the next day. I needed this trip. He needed this trip. He had been a rock for me and my two older sisters during this horrible time in our life. He picked up the slack when we couldn't. And I'm sure, given the mental state I was in, he was my emotional punching bag. Though, as much as I needed this trip, I didn't know how I was ever going to go. To cancel would have been easier. Continue sitting by her side, waiting for her to die. It was all I knew at that point. The grief couselors advised me not to cancel. They wanted me to go, to live. They reminded me, sometimes sick people wait for loved ones to leave them before they pass. They assured me it was okay to go. I wasn't a bad daughter. I knew everything they said to be true. I knew, for me, I had to go. However, I had no idea how to go.

How do I walk out of the room knowing it would be the last? I couldn't. I talked with my mom, not knowing if she could hear me. I let her know I would keep us all together just as she had done. I told her I was happy in my relationship, that we were going to get married and have kids one day. I reassured her I would never stop loving her and she would never be forgotten, a worry of hers. And I told her it was okay to go. I begged her. As I cried the words, they sounded foolish. How does one go? How do you stop living? My mother had so much to live for, asking her to let go was a rediculous request. She didn't want to go, she wanted to be here with her daughters. She lived for us.

Sadly, the hours past. The sun had set, the room had grown dark. The wicked, scary end was coming. I felt the dread creeping into my lungs. I still hadn't figured out, in my heart, how do I physically walk out of the room knowing I will never see my mother again? How was I supposed to say goodbye? I was dying inside. I was too young to have to be so brave. She was too young. It hurt. It played on all my feelings of guilt. Was I wrong, should I have canceled the trip and been by my mother's side, letting her decide how it should end? I cried until it seemed I could cry no more. I kissed her, held her and couldn't let go. My heart wouldn't let my arms release her. On my time, I grew strong, knowing I had to. I whispered in her ear, "I love you, Mom," kissed her cheek, stood and walked out the door. I couldn't look back. It hurt me that I couldn't, but I knew it would make leaving so much harder if I did. As I shut the door to her room, the click of the latch triggered the release, tears fell silently from my swollen eyelids down my cheeks.

From that moment forward, I knew my life would never be the same. June 9th was merely a formality.

In our beach rental house, as I was prepping myself for a day lounging in the sun and watching the guys fish, my phone rang. Before I answered, I knew. It was the call I had been dreading. To hear the words from the grief counselors, "I'm so sorry. Your mom has passed away." The rest of the phone call, a blur of insignificant details. I hung up and went to them, my sister, her boyfriend, and my own. I don't remember a thing, but I'm certain I told them the life altering news. All I remember is holding my one sister, pained for my eldest sister who was not with us. And in that moment, I felt the most bizarre feeling. I wanted to be as far from my family as possible. Remove myself from the nightmare that had consumed us for so long. I had lived and breathed them for what seemed like a lifetime. I needed to get away, to escape everyone that reminded me of my mom. They no longer provided comfort.

I found myself, not at the beach where you would normally find me, but rather at the pool. I stood leaning against a railing, overlooking the pool, away from the hustle and bustle of the kids playing, and called my dearest friend from my childhood. A friend who wasn't involved with the situation that had consumed my life for months, a friend who knew me sometimes better than I knew myself. And I told my story. I found comfort in that phone call. Comfort that my sisters and my boyfriend could not provide. In that phone call, I felt peace. Not exactly peace with my mother dying, but instead, that I would have peace in my life again.

A Day at the Flower Shop

Mother's Day is on Sunday. For me, the day is very bittersweet. I can not fully embrace it with my mother no longer living. However, I am a mother. The day was created for me, too. So, I do my best to think of positive memories of my mom and let the sadness go and be happy.

This morning, while showering, I was thinking. My best thinking happens in the shower, it has to be said. Anyway, I was thinking of childhood memories involving my mom. I found myself lost in a scene in my mother's flower shop. I was about 7 years old, I'm guessing. It was summer time, and not being old enough to stay home alone, I would accompany my mother to her shop. I loved it. My mom would come armed with craft projects galore. Paint by numbers, friendship bracelets, wooden boxes to paint. I can't even imagine how many loop n loom pot holders I made that summer! She would give me odd jobs around the shop, my favorite being pre-filling the floral water tubes. Living in a beach town, I would walk up to the boardwalk and bring us back the most delicious french fries drenched in vinegar. My mom would stop working and share them with me. We would sit on our tall, wooden stools together and talk. It made me feel important. Special.

Now as an adult, a mother myself, I think about that memory a little different. I see the other side. I believe you truly appreciate your mother when you become one yourself, when you've walked in similar shoes. I'm sure my mother loved the time we spent together during those summer days at her shop. I'm also sure, given the choice, she would have rather sent me to summer camp so she could work more productively.

I believe my mother was juggling it all at that exact moment. Divorced from my father, she was primarily raising me and my oldest sister alone, while working full time running her own business. Occasionally I remember seeing my mother stressed, like, for example, during the second biggest flower gifting holiday, Mother's Day. But mostly, I just remember how damn happy she was. Sunshiney happy. She never let on to the feelings she must have been feeling as she embarked upon a day at the shop, daugher in tow...how am I going to keep Nelly occupied for 8 hours straight so I can work. I don't recall her flipping out trying to rush us both out the door early in the morning, screaming "hurry up! We're going to be late!" When I distracted her with a million questions, like I was known to do, she never showed she was loosing patience. When I grew bored of one activity, she had an infinite supply of ideas to entertain me and they all sounded, well, fun. My mother made me feel like she wanted me in the shop with her. Like we were best friends.

I treasure the memories we made in her flower shop. They absolutely hold a dear place in my heart. More importantly, maybe the memories have taught me something about how to be a better, happier mother. Maybe the next time I'm finding myself frazzled with Alice and her antics and I'm about to go to that place I'm not particularly proud of, I should think of my mom. Think of how she handled it. With patience and a smile. With the right attitude, even the simplest most mundane tasks can be thrilling to a child. I should embrace this knowledge, because one day, many years from now, Alice will reflectively look back on her memories of me. What will she see? A stressed out, impatient mother? Or one who embraces fun at every opportunity? I will strive to make sure her memories are all of the loop n loom and water tube filling caliber.

In Case I Die

Alice loves fruit...sort of. If you give her a bowl of blueberries and strawberries, she won't eat them. But if you take that same bowl of fruit, add other fruits, tofu, and yogurt, throw it all in the food processor, she'll eat it. I make smoothies and popsicles daily. I'm a good mom. It occurred to me over the weekend that my husband has never made Alice a smoothie. Because I was short on time and had other things to do in the kitchen, I had to verbally walk my husband through the process. And I said to him, "now if I die, at least you know how to make a smoothie."

Tomorrow morning, I will be having my wisdom teeth removed. I've read that things that can go wrong. I could have permanent nerve damage, never being able to move my tongue again, or worse, death. Even though I have been reassured that the odds are in my my favor I will not die of anesthesia and many people endure this rite of passage and come out unscathed, I find it better to err on the side of pessimism caution.

I present to you my list of things someone needs to know in case I, um, well...just in case.

• The sewing kit is on the second shelf in the hutch.
• Water my plants. If my ficus tree or the orchid in the bathroom dies, I'll haunt you.
• Library books are due Friday. Late fees suck.
• Ramen noodles rock. I expect someone to teach Alice the fine art of making an oodles of noodles sandwich.
• White vinegar and baking soda will clean just about anything.
• When making aforementioned smoothies, don't add raspberries or blackberries. She hates the seeds.
• A little MSG will not kill you. Moderation is the spice of life.
• I have hand-me-downs organized in the basement up to size 6. After that, you're on your own.
• Pine shats are the best type of mulch.
• I wish to be cremated. Do not spend money on a fancy urn to hold my ashes. A cardboard box is a sufficient container to transport me. Please spread my ashes in my grandmothers cottage garden and in the ocean.
• Speaking of ashes, the remains of my childhood dog is in my basement. Please spread him in the garden with me and also in the pond behind my mother's old house.
• Wear sunscreen. Alice, like myself, is fair skinned. Don't let her burn.
• When life is shitty, there's nothing wrong with getting ice cream or cake to try and cheer yourself up.
• On Valentine's day, send Alice balloons to school...every year.
• You can never spoil a child by buying too many books.
• I'll save you the time looking. I do not have a 9x13 baking pan.
• The upholstery attachment for the vacuum is under the kitchen sink.
• Don't wash the black cloth napkins with anything else. No matter how much I wash them, they still bleed.
• Continue to remind my daughter that she is brilliant and beautiful and unique.

I suppose that will do for now. Besides, I'm sure I'll be just fine tomorrow. Nothing to worry about. Piece of cake.

Happy Birthday, Dear Mom

Today is my mom's birthday. This is the first year since 2006, when my mother died, that I have honestly attempted to celebrate this day.

The first three years after her death, I pretended April 20th didn't exist. It seemed easier that way. If I ignored it, I could also ignore the pain I felt. After all, how can the day that is all about her exist if she's not even here?

The next few years, I spent April 20th in a state of depression and silent anger. Angry that I couldn't celebrate my mom's birthday like other 30 year olds and send a card or maybe flowers, go out to dinner together, at least a call to sing her happy birthday. I was angry at my husband for not recognizing the state I was in, for not seeing how this day could be a bad day in my eyes. It was a bad day. Right there with June 9th, the day she died.

This year, I suppose I'm making progress. I can say today is my mom's birthday, and even though my eyes well with tears there may be a hint of a smile on my lips as I say it. Because today should not be a sad day. It should not. Today should be the day to celebrate all the amazingly wonderful things that made my mom brilliantly unique.

I have never known anyone quite as optimistic as my mom. She was happy. One day, her and I were outside in the garden at Hospice. My mother was a florist and an avid gardener. We were leisurely walking around the path and my mom was telling me the name of this flower and that one. It was a beautiful spring day. The gardener was there working and my mom wanted to talk to her. She was asking her about multiple aspects of the job, how many days a week was she there, did they have volunteers helping, etc. Without even hesitating, my mother tells the lady, "when I'm well again, I would like to volunteer here gardening." The eternal optimist. We knew she was not going to be well again. But her? She wouldn't allow herself to believe it. I don't even know if deep down inside, in that place where your brain holds you accountable for reality, she accepted it. That's who she was. Never ending sunshine.

So...to my mother, who I miss more than imaginable, I sing this to you in my perk, perk, perkiest voice.

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday, dear Mom!

Happy birthday to you!