The Age of...

I know I probably owe my recently demised Ashley a post of her own.  All the other dogs have gotten one in honor of their passing.  Yet, I find I can't quite bring myself to do it.  In part because I took this death hard and there is a lot of guilt involved.  Before Kelsey discovered Tum Tum, Ashley was her touchstone, so this felt different than even the pain of losing the others.  Since Noelle, our Dalmatian, picked on her (Ashley was part Pit Bull and could end a fight, but she rarely started one and never without some serious provocation), she lived upstairs much of her life to keep away from all that canine drama.  As a result, she and Kelsey comforted one another during Kelsey's tough early years dealing with her disease.  It was when I refused to let Kelsey take Ashley to her apartment that Tum Tum came into the picture.  Kelsey couldn't care for a dog, I knew - she could barely care for herself.  But, sometimes I wonder if I did any better for dear, sweet, loyal Ashley who, in the last moments of her life I found out had a mass in her stomach.  I had no idea and have to wonder now how much of the behavior I put down to Grumpy Old Dog Syndrome was really something else.

But, also because I figure people are just sick to death (pardon the sad pun) of those kinds of posts from me.  Sometimes I just think Kelsey opened up a vortex and people and pets have been sucked through it at an alarming rate ever since.  There seems to have just been so much loss in the last few years.   Yet, truth be told, I think it's just because I'm at That Age.  The age when my friends who are a little older are legitimately slowing down and when someone calls or emails and the conversation begins, "I've got some bad news..." you immediately wonder who it is.  And what it is:  cancer is a word that looms way too large in my vernacular these days.  Heart disease is not a rarity either.  It's still a tragic loss when a contemporary passes on, and we all shake our heads sadly and say they died too soon, but it is no longer the shocking rarity it was when we were in our 20's.  And that makes sense.  It's the law of averages.  A few years ago I realized the need to keep a stock of sympathy cards at the ready for my friends when their parents passed away.  Now I occasionally have to also use one for a friend or their spouse. That trend won't reverse with the passage of time.  It's just something I have to know and learn how to accept.  And, I have no doubt that I'm not the first person to grapple with feelings of both guilt and secret relief when they learn someone around their age has health problems and thinks, "Thank God I have my health."  For now anyway.  And that's also not going to go away as time marches cruelly on.

I admit I've struggled a little recently, my heart still tender from my friend's passing, a little rattled by the news that another friend had a mastectomy (although the post operative news is very good), and now the sudden goodbye to Ashley.  If this is what life is going to be like going forward, I thought to myself a time or two, what's the point?

On the flip side of the coin was a lovely family evening with two of my cousins and our spouses earlier in the week.  I don't get to see my mother's family often - although they were part of the draw to moving to this area - yet, I realize that every time I do I come away with a great, warm feeling that you would hope to associate with family.  They all have known one another all their lives, so they share common stories and experiences, yet they accept Greg and me like we are - well - family.  It's like curling up with a cozy blanket.  It's a comfortable feeling.

Then at the end of the week came my Lovely Philly Friend who was in town over the weekend and invited me to come with her, her husband and mother to the zoo, almost as if she somehow knew I needed a little rescuing.  I had to think about it for a few minutes since it involved recording the hockey game - which was being played a day later than scheduled in Boston after the city went through its own rather dramatic week.  But, I knew as soon as I pulled into the parking lot that I had made the right decision.  It was completely life affirming.  A crisp day that began with some random snow in the air, the animals were up and restless, but it wasn't overly crowded by the human animals.  It's hard to describe the magic of the zoo if you're not an animal lover. And maybe even if you are, because it can seem wrong and sometimes sad to see animals contained.  Yet, to have a beautiful animal walk up within a foot of you and the two of you share a moment, both safely contained from the other, well, it's hard to put a value on that.  And it happens so often at this particular zoo.  Tragedy happens there from time-to-time, but magic happens too.  A little like life.

So, after the see-saw emotions of the week settled in, I concluded that, for those of us on the latter half of our life's journey, we just have to take the joys that the world has when we get them and balance them against the sorrows that we now have to accept will come more frequently.  We have to be thankful that we've stuck around long enough to be at this point on the road and not waste moments of happiness when they cross our path.  In short, we have to live in the Age of Reason, not the Age of Fear.

Too Old for This S**t

I'll never forget my business partner telling me to cut a troublesome employee some slack because she was 50 and just didn't want to work that hard anymore.  At the time, firmly rooted in my 30's, with no grey hair, pretty good vision, no need to stuff any body part into a form fitting undergarment, and the perk and drive to grow a career, that seemed like an insulting statement.  There was no reason in the world that I could see that a woman entering her 50's wasn't just as capable as anyone else.  I think, looking back on it now, maybe I even pushed her harder after that statement got made because I wanted her to prove to the world that women were just as capable as men.  I don't know that I did it consciously.   But I bet I did increase the pressure, because the one thing I can tell you I remember thinking for certain was that no one would have said that about a man that age.  Turns out he was right about her - maybe not for the reason he thought he was - but she just didn't want to work as hard as it was going to take in the heady, hard days of trying to take the little mom and pop company we had and make it something more.  But I don't know if it was age so much as her world view.  She didn't need the money all that badly, she and her husband were relatively well off.  He was winding his career down, their daughter was grown and out of the house, and they envisioned finally recapturing that quiet time together that they had briefly as a young married couple.  It wasn't that she wasn't capable of working hard, she just didn't want to.  At the time, I think I saw that as shameful.  I've always felt the weight on my shoulders of the women who came before me and worked to create fissures in the glass ceiling.  I know myself well enough to imagine I projected that onto some of the people who worked for me.

I think about that long ago statement a lot now that I'm on the other side of the half century mark and I've definitely been thinking about it after last week.  And here's why:  I got a call late in the day on the Wednesday before Easter asking if I could come down to Dallas for a meeting with a new client on Monday.  I said sure, but it would probably be expensive to get a flight at this point.  My boss asked me to check into it and we'd decide the next day.  I did, sent him what I found and - he's very busy, I realize - it wasn't until very late Thursday that I got the go ahead to book everything and plan on coming.   So, that night, with one eye on the hockey game and one eye on the computer screen, I made all the arrangements for myself to fly out Easter Sunday, spend the day in the office and then fly home Tuesday so I could be logged back in and working by mid-afternoon.  Of course, since I've renamed Friday Hair on Fire Day at work, there was no time to really do much more than the normal stuff, that left Friday night to try and get some housework done because Greg and I were going to the hockey game the next day.  That really left Sunday morning to get ready to go to meet a client who is important enough to pay large bucks to fly me down for.  So, I take a look at myself as I ready to pack and this is what I see:

• Once I peel off one of the baseball caps that I almost constantly sport, it was obvious that the roots are showing as are some hints of grey through the now-aging dye job with no chance to get to my hairdresser.  
• I have what I refer to as "hockey nails".  For a full half century, I never really bit my nails.  That all changed when I started watching hockey - it's a nail biter kind of sport, often never over until it's completely over, so I'm working on getting past that, but I find it's a bit like an addiction and saying that you're going to stop just doesn't make it happen.
• I'm certainly not as slim as I used to be and body parts that used to have some bounce in them now just have some flap and flop.
• In all, looking at the person in the mirror, it just wasn't the person I would feel real confident putting my trust in as a client.

"Packing" for this quick trip now has to include a quick trip to Target for a box of root cover up, which was applied literally two hours before I left for the airport, then doing as much work on my nails as was possible to do with the material I had to work with, ending with a coat of clear polish to try and make it look at least like I give a damn.  I try to whiten the teeth with some cheap tooth bleach while I agonize over my potential wardrobe, which I finally resolve by tossing together an outfit featuring a long shirt that hides some of the bumps and rolls and pack some of kinds of undergarments that were probably used as torture devices in the Dark Ages.  I figure I've done as much as I can do to fix the wreck that is me and I unhappily head out to the airport for a long day of travel with my ego and self-confidence riding low.

Flash forward to Monday morning where, after a less than full night's worth of sleep, I look at the hair with the cheap root cover up job on it through the harsher light of the hotel bathroom and realize that the top of my hair is definitely darker and redder than the rest of the head.  I have to fight the sudden urge to bite the slim bit of nails I have as a result, I'm so freaked out by this discovery, because that harsh neon lighting is exactly what I will be facing at the office.  Finally, I realize, there is nothing for  it and maybe if I don't call attention to it, no one will look closely enough to notice.  I go down to breakfast in the lobby and sit near the TV where they are showing the Mike and Mike Show on ESPN.  So, rattled by my two-toned hair and uncomfortable in my tortuous underwear and dress shoes, I look at the larger of the Mikes.  He looks like it took him all of ten minutes to get ready for work and maybe that's generous.  Maybe he only needed five, if you don't count any time spent sitting over a cup of coffee and the morning paper.  And I all but guarantee you he out earns me by a lot.  There is not a woman alive who could make that much money on air and look like that, I reckon.  That got me to thinking about Rush Limbaugh, who is an overweight gas bag.   How much do I suppose he makes?  And he looks like a hateful, spiteful Pillsbury Dough Boy.  What a double standard, I bemoan to myself.  All of that would only serve to be reinforced the next morning when, after a long day and a very early morning, I see a sharply dressed, tall and slender woman in the airport hurrying to get to the security checkpoint to whisk off to Wherever with her head held high and her shoulders back, and I think to myself, "Now that's a look that inspires confidence!" only to catch my reflection in some glass wall a moment later and see a tired, pale old woman. 

Bottom line, at this point in my life, it's work, and hard work, to try and look good enough to compete in the marketplace, and that's just to get the look.  I'm not even talking about the other stuff:  trying to always anticipate what the competitors are doing, stay ahead of them by working with the best cutting edge technology and thinking up the Next Big Thing.  Or, since I'm sort of out of that game, it's more about successfully supporting my boss's Big Things, but doing it well and anticipating how best to do that.  It's not as easy nor as fun as it used to be.  It's work.

I think I have to say that I'm getting too old for this shit.

To Betty

"As the years went by, we drifted apart

When I heard that you were gone

I felt a shadow cross my heart

But he's nobody's hero

Saves a drowning child

Cures a wasting disease

Hero...lands the crippled airplane

Solved great mysteries

Hero...not the handsome actor

Who plays a hero's role

Hero...not the glamour girl

Who'd love to sell her soul

If anybody's buying

Nobody's hero

Hero"

- Nobody's Hero, Rush

The other day I was trying to think how long I'd known you and I never came up with a firm date.  But, I can tell you that the bronze cat adorning my bookshelf that you gave me for my birthday once is now entering his 27th year, so it's safe to assume we were going on three full decades.  Yet, I'm not sure I really knew you at all.  When we first met, I was young and flighty - I had an intelligence to me, I might grant you, but not any wisdom, so it was easy to see what attracted me to you, but I'll never know what it was that you saw in me.  Maybe some raw potential, who knows.  But, for my side of the equation, you were a decade older with a lifetime of exotic travels and experience.  A microbiologist who had formerly worked for the World Health Organization and traveled extensively.  It seemed so romantic to my naive eyes, even taking into account that the field you were in and the work you were doing made you witness to things that are so not pretty.  And maybe that's why you didn't do it anymore.  You know, I realize I don't even know really.   But, by the time I met you, you were settled in Austin running your own company, doing lab work for doctors offices and vet clinics, and that's how we met.  You did the lab work for the doctor my future mother-in-law worked for.  So, I've at least known you longer than I've been a married woman, and that's a long old time.

Really, we didn't have a lot in common.  We connected on our love for animals, but you were a cat person and I favor dogs.  We both loved movies, but didn't particularly agree on them.  One of my favorite memories was a spirited debate you, Greg and I had over the merits of The Natural one night at his parent's house.  Your argument was that it actually didn't have any for a long list of well thought out and articulated reasons, but I have a soft spot for baseball movies oddly enough (since I don't really follow the sport) and loved the symbolism of baseball as a purifying force, so I defended it vigorously.  For years it was a running joke that if you were coming over to watch a movie we'd be sure to pop in The Natural for you because we knew how much you loved it.

One thing you did truly love was a good glass of red wine, and you knew a lot about it.  If I know anything about it today, it was because of you, but since it's rare to see anyone sitting around a football stadium drinking wine, even that connection faded with time.  As far as I know that is the only vice you ever had, and you exercised it with the caution and discretion you did everything else.

I think the things people will remember about you the most is your voice - like dark tea flavored with honey, it was warm and flowing.  And of course your laugh, which people have commented on already when I posted the news on Facebook that you were gone.  You had a deep, genuine laugh that came from  deep within you.  You laughed easily and often, but I think that it masked deeper secrets.  Secrets that you kept to yourself because you were just on the cusp of the time when women could express themselves freely about who they truly were and whom they truly loved.  The funny thing is, as self-absorbed as I was, I always knew and accepted certain things about you, even if you never said them out loud.  But, I never told you that.  I wish that I had, but I'm not sure, even if I had, you would have felt like you could open up to me.  I hope you had someone out there with whom you could, but I don't actually know.  I think that you had kept some things so tightly held close to the vest for so long that it was second nature to you.  You know that I never went to your house?  Our common memories were at Greg's parent's house mainly.  Warm summer nights of good conversation fueled by wine you had brought.  But, it was easier to keep certain boundaries in a neutral location, isn't it?  We were very different that way as well - you shrouded in mystery and me just willing to shout my secrets to the heavens.  What an odd couple we were.  I'm not even sure I could scare up a picture of you - I know I've got a few here and there, but you were deeply private, so I hope that you don't mind this post actually.

I got word a few days ago that you were in hospice care and it wouldn't be long now.  I puzzled over what I could send you (I toyed with sending a copy of The Natural - and would have done it too if I was sure you'd remember the joke), but I hadn't settled on anything yet.  I had already been booked to come to Dallas for a day on business and considered holding over and coming down to Austin to try and see you.  To Greg's infinite credit, he encouraged me to do it, but I was too worried about work to miss the time.  I could completely kick myself now.  I'm not sure I'll ever learn the lesson Life keeps trying to teach me that we work to live not the other way around.  Seriously, is that a final lesson you leave me with?  God, I hope I heed it this time.  But, here's what I wanted to say to you:  the last time I saw you was the night of the art auction we did for AFED featuring Kelsey's art, just over three years ago now if you can believe it.  You came, accompanied by a woman I'd never met, but she waited patiently while you sat and talked to me for a long while, that warm, comforting voice flowing over me, your clear, all-seeing eyes looking into mine.  I don't remember what all you talked about, it wasn't important.  What I knew you realized was how complicated that night was - both an affirmation of Kelsey's life and talent, but painful because she wasn't there to see it.  You could never know how much that meant to me.  I love my bronze cat - I've carried it from one place to another and now all across the country - but that night was the greatest gift you could ever give me.  I wanted to thank you for that.  I pray to God that you hear me now and know how much I loved you for all your complicated wisdom, hard won as I am sure it was.  I pray that you are peace now - in every way.  I won't be there for your funeral, but I will mourn your passing like you just can't imagine.

Things I Would Say to My Parents

When I flipped my calendar over to March a couple of weeks back, it struck me with a little bit of a surprise that this March will usher in the third anniversary of my mom's death.  The same mother whose care was strenuous and stressful enough to cause me to create this blog.  She's gone, but the blog lives on.  Ironic (since I haven't used that word in at least a couple of hours - maybe a record for me).

But, the fact that I was so surprised that it had already been three years was what really struck me.  Because it seems like forever ago that Kelsey died - like I've been away from her for half a lifetime, even though there were really only a few months between the two events.  What I've decided about the difference in perception is that when my daughter died so did our lives for a time.  Time wore on, but had no joy, no meaning, no purpose.  It just existed - something to endure.  After Mom died, so much suddenly started happening so fast, with all of it ending up landing us all in Pittsburgh, that I feel at times like we were Dorothy being whisked away from Kansas and landing in Oz, only with a black and yellow brick road.

That's not to say that I didn't and don't mourn my mom, but I will confess to a release in a way - there's just no denying it - because there was suddenly no one who needed our immediate and intensive care taking.  And, the naked reality of it is that some of the reflecting a personality like mine would have done after burying a parent was lost in the hefty shadow of losing a daughter, coupled with the mad dash to shut down not only Mother's affairs, but mine as well and move clear across the country.  So, here I am, three years later, looking at a calendar, wondering where the time went.  I think Mother would be hurt - just honestly - that she didn't merit a higher degree of mourning.  I think she would mistake the flurry of action as a lack of sadness.  I would like her to know that's not the case at all, but it was a great coping mechanism, which led me to think that there are actually a lot of things I would say to both my parents if I had a chance, so why not take that opportunity now to say at least a few of them?  So, here goes...

To Dad:  I don't know if I said this ever to you, but if I did, I certainly didn't say it enough, but thank you so much for your service to the country.  I know it happened before I was even born, but you were part of a generation that fought and sacrificed to give my generation a good life.  And it was.  Maybe I whined a lot about the things I didn't have:  a phone in my room, a color TV in my room, a better stereo, but the reality is that you gave me everything I really needed and, truly, wanted.  And that was warmth, shelter, food and love - in your own way.  I know we puzzled one another very often.  I grew up in a far different time than you had and embodied the rebellion of my generation, and that, I think, was something you were not particularly prepared to deal with well, and I never took the time to understand that about you for my part.  My largest regret, as a matter of fact, is that I never truly understood the weight you carried with you everyday - the trauma the war left you with.  As a matter of fact, it would be years after you were gone before I think I got a handle on exactly how large of a factor  it was for you.  I wish so much I could have been more sensitive to that when you were alive.  I wish I could have helped you more.

I think the thing I most want you to know is that you are the largest single influence in my life.  That's both bad and good, I have to confess, but everything I am and do is a direct result of the values that you instilled in me:  work hard to support your family.  That was something above all you always did, no matter what else was going on in your own head - you made sure we did not want for things.  I appreciate that a lot - and I never told you that.

To Mom:  First, let me just say that I really wish I had let you make a wedding dress for me.  When the very perfect dress fell in my lap so to speak (vintage, velvet with a cathedral train and a sentimental meaning - Greg's mom's dress), I felt it was like a miracle, but I never stopped to think what it would mean to you, an accomplished seamstress, to make your only child her dress.  I was so young and dumb, there is actually a whole lot about our wedding I would do differently now, but that's the big thing.  I know that always upset you, and it bothers me that I was so insensitive about it.

In general, I kept a lot of secrets from you (not telling you I was pregnant until my second trimester for instance because I was scared if something happened it would be too traumatic), and I'm sorry about that.  I thought I had a noble purpose each and every time, but I never gave you a real chance to be a full part of my adult life as a result.  I think the exception to that was the first few years after Dad died.  We were close then, and I treasure that time.  I hope you do too.

The biggest thing to tell you is that having gotten to know your family a little and realizing what awesome people they all are, I know that you sacrificed a lot to live so far from them.  I suspect you did it in large part to keep the secret of my birth exactly that:  a secret.  You know by now that I am upset and sometimes angry about not knowing my true history, but what I realize is that you believed so strongly that it was something I should NOT be told that you held that secret tightly all your life and sacrificed a lot to keep it that way.  I know you did that out of real true love.

What I would say to both of them:  like many families, we had our ups and downs, but I know you loved me and did your very best for me.  I want to thank you for that.  I love you both - time does not change that.

The Family Photo Project

"...Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel towards them?... Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that's some time ago. I propose to you, any disease a rat could spread, a squirrel could equally carry. Would you agree?...Yet I assume you don't share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?...But they're both rodents, are they not? And except for the tail, they even rather look alike, don't they?...Ha! However interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to walk in here right now, as I'm talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?...I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them; all you know is you find them repulsive."

-Hans Landa, Inglourious Basterds

It should have come to no surprise to me that my Dr. Doolittle routine would at some point usher in some unwelcome house guests, yet, as I watched from my dining room window as a family of rats happily crawled up and down a pole to access the bird feeder off my deck, I was genuinely surprised.  I think maybe I was more surprised that I live in a house with two cats and five - count 'em - five dogs, yet a family of four not particularly small rats felt so completely comfortable as to scamper around my back deck in broad daylight helping themselves to the food I set out for others (meaning squirrels and birds - it is like an Eat N'Park breakfast buffet for critters out there).  Of course, I actually know the answer to that: this is why the little rat family knows no fear --

Hard to chase varmints from the sofa.

And why do I feel like I need to feed the entire wild population of suburban Pittsburgh anyway?  Well, for the same reason I attracted a herd of some 30 deer that would actually respond by name back in Texas.   And for the same reason I've had up to eight dogs at a time.  And it's the same reason that I have put us through the ardor of raising an active puppy in a 1,308 sq. ft. house in the middle of winter at our age.  I'm the most transparent person on the face of the planet.  There are no secrets here:  I am trying to surround myself with a pseudo family.  And if you wonder why I still feel compelled to gather all these four legged bundles of fur around me - invited or not - even though I now live close to my mother's family, it's because it's pretty deeply ingrained in me at this point.  The dye is cast, but there is little doubt that my present is rooted in my past.

But, one thing I have to realize about my past that might never change now is that it stops with me.  Past my own childhood, my history - the connective tissue that binds me to a family and a legacy - is a locked book.  The pages are written, but I can't get into them to read it.  And that's frustrating on several levels.  About this time last year I shelled out a fairly hefty sum to an agency that specializes in locating adoptee's birth parents.  As I explained to the woman when I initially made the deal, I am not interested in meeting my birth parents even if they are still alive, but I want to know my true history.  I grew up believing one thing about myself, which then translated into what I believed about my children and turns out that is not true.  And that frustrates me on my best days and angers me on my worst.  I pulled the trigger therefore at the time to try and find out Marissa's true medical history.  She still deals with some of the physical after-effects of her own addiction and eating disorder issues, and someday in all likelihood she will be at a point where she wants to have a family.  I'm sure, given our experiences as a family, she'd like to know what kind of genetic bullet she is loading into the gun.  She has a right to know.

But, it's more than that.  One of the things we wrestle with as humans is the knowledge that life is fleeting and we cope with that in part by passing on pieces of ourselves and our past to the younger members of our families and knowing that we live on in some small way, just as we carried the torch for our ancestors before us.  I have a photo of my mother and all her siblings taken in the early 40's in my office.  They were so young, so vibrant, so beautiful.  Now only one of those six people in that photo is still alive.  Yet, each of them lives on in a way.  The legacy of who they were is remembered by their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews and will be passed on in that way to future generations.  They therefore carry on in the hearts and minds of their loved ones, as well as in the  DNA strands that they pass along.  There is a comfort that is hard to put into words of knowing where you come from.  Even just the ability to be able to say, "I'm Irish" or "I'm German".  It's why, after generations of living here, we all still do say things like that.  You've all heard me label where I live as an "Irish-Catholic" neighborhood.  Yet, not one of the people who share my zip code were actually born in Ireland (that I know of anyway).  I guarantee you that will not stop a single one of us from celebrating St. Patrick's Day with great gusto.  We are connected to our past.  We like it that way because it makes us feel grounded and gives us an understanding about ourselves.

My mother, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was extremely proud of her heritage.  So I think she would understand what I'm trying to say here.  Therefore, on some days, I just cannot imagine why she kept me away from mine.  Please don't get me wrong - my parents gave me a good life.  They raised me without a hint ever that I was anything less than truly a member of their family.  Now granted, they were humans and therefore had some failings as parents...I could write volumes on that, trust me.  But, they were genuine in their love, I know that.  Yet, I do have lesser moments where I get really angry that Mother, at least when Kelsey started to get sick, never told me the truth.  She was a nurse after all.  Surely she knew I was repeating family histories that were completely erroneous.  Would it have made a difference?  I don't know.  But could it make a difference to Marissa now?  Possibly, and more than anything else that's why I can't let this go.

Why has all of this been stirred up, you wonder?  Well, I am undertaking a project to convert all of Greg's family slides to .jpeg files.  There are thousands of them.  Greg's father loved taking photos and, for a man with his own social anxiety issues, he had a real eye for human emotion.  There are some real gems.  I've had a lot of fun sharing them with his sister and his cousins.  When I'm done, I'll start in on my parent's slides.  But, I have been struck more than once how fortunate they are that they understand how they are truly connected to one another, and how blessed they are to have one another in their lives.  I hope they realize it, treasure it and don't take it for granted.

Of course, it stands to follow that I have also been struck more than once how I have none of that.  That sounds like self-pity and perhaps it is.  It is a mourning of a sort, that much I will definitely concede.  Yet, it is what is is for now.  So, until I can dig up the keys to unlock the pages to my own past, I'll continue in all likelihood to feed the squirrels and the birds and have way too many pets.  I had promised Greg I would stop putting food out back to try and force the rats to go elsewhere (since I was horrified at the idea of trying to poison or trap them), but I snuck some out there yesterday and was able to watch the most beautiful bird - I have no idea what it was - come visit the feeder.  So, what the heck, the little rat family is just trying to forge out a living after all, just like the rest of us.  I realize that it is a bit like life:  you take the ugly along with the occasional glimpse of real joy and beauty and accept that you can't truly have one without the other.

What Real Beauty Looks Like

I am sure it was pure coincidence, but was anyone else struck by the fact that the largest display of Hollywood beauty and glam came on the eve of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week?

As you all know, I love movies.  When I was in junior high school and had to fill in some survey for one of the teachers at the beginning of the school year so she could get to know us, I answered the question about what I wanted to do when I grew up as "film critic".  I've probably mentioned that before.  It's occurred to me since that my 14-year old self knew me better than any other iteration of me since.  Of course, had I pursued that, it would mean that I would have to actually sit through movies with "Resident Evil" in the title or "Silent Hill" or anything that claims Nicholas Sparks as the source material.   However, if you think about some of the things I've actually done for a living, that would probably be a more productive use of my time.  But, as it stands, I go to the movies for personal pleasure only and enjoy them like some people enjoy fine wine.  At their least they entertain, at their finest they inspire and maybe even educate.  And as such, Oscar night is a big deal for me because it's the ultimate celebration of the medium I love so much.  Yet, now, after everything we have been through as a family, Oscar night takes on a different tone.  I can never just look at all those women in their finest gowns and jewels and be dazzled.  For me, the red carpet is a whole lot of complicated these days.  As a matter of fact, I skip the whole red carpet parade and just concentrate on the awards themselves and sometimes even that is hard.   I didn't make it past Angelina Jolie's presentation last year.  I was so distressed that I erased the rest of the show.  That was a tough one all the way around because Rooney Mara was in the audience, and she reminds me so much of Kelsey, particularly when she is sporting short, severe bangs.  She is lovely and NFL royalty, but she is disturbingly thin with a piercing gaze that just unnerves me because I've seen it on another's face too.  I will never look at her with any level of comfort I'm afraid.  Then of course, there is always the threat of a Suzi Amis sighting, which I find highly troubling on several levels (for one:  she's known as quite the fashionista around Hollywood - don't any of those designers think enough of her personally to do something or say something...?!)  This year, however, things seemed better.  Relatively.  There still was a dazzling parade of women with dresses designed to show off flat tummies and lots of bare arm, and lots of evidence of women fighting off aging with collagen, silicone and lots and lots of Botox.  There is still ample evidence that body image is game one in the City of Angels.  There are some exceptions:  women with full figures who are thriving in a body conscious world like Adele, Melissa McCarthy, Queen Latifah and Octavia Spencer, but the fact that I can list them by name in a single sentence will probably tell you something.  When I look at Catherine Zeta-Jones and think, "Well, I don't stack up well against that!" then I'm in danger of losing perspective.  I can only imagine what girls like Kelsey must have thought watching all of those hard bodies walk the red carpet.  I wondered about that a lot when I saw Jennifer Lawrence, who truly is a vision and only 22.  But I watch because this was a phenomenal year for film, and I wanted to see that being celebrated, but there is a lot to process after seeing so much glitz and glamour on parade, as you can see since I'm writing about it days later.  And, as I sat and considered all of it while I was watching a female police officer on Boston's Finest last night (and yes, that is because it has a Wahlberg connection and yes, I do get the hypocrisy...), it occurred to me that I'm wrong - we're a lot of us wrong - about what real beauty is.

Here maybe is a better depiction of what real beauty looks like (just to name a very few):

Eleanor Roosevelt:  First Lady, author, activist

Barbara Jordan:  Civil Rights leader and politician

Jane Goodall: primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace

Rosa Parks:  Civil Rights activist

Mother Teresa:  need I say more?

Who do you find beautiful?

I Had a Daughter Once

In the Shadows
artist:  Kelsey N Veldman

One of the things that has kept me from giving up this blog in favor of a little extra reading time every week (or whatever I chose to do with the time - folding laundry could probably use some additional attention) is that I'm afraid.  And like really terrified actually.  Afraid that people will forget Kelsey.  Maybe I'm even a little worried that I will forget her because I don't even use the blog to feature her these days.  It's all about me, some might say.  The reality is that grief is about you, not the one you've lost.  That may shock you, but think about it as I make the case...

I'll never forget when a high school psychology teacher hipped us to the fact that we don't cry for the other person; we cry because we are sad.  There was a murmur in the room, I can still recall it - people protested, but he insisted.  And his logic was irrefutable.  It's a very selfish feeling:  sadness.  If you are crying over the loss of someone, the other person no longer feels hurt, sick or sad.  As a matter of fact, if you're spiritual, you probably believe that they are in a better place.  So, you are crying because you miss them.  I think most of the kids in the class who were a little shocked at the statement were thinking of times that they had cried over something sad they had seen on the news or had happened to someone else and they felt badly for them.  Surely, we all said to ourselves, then we are crying for others, and I think we felt that, in a small way, it proved our goodness that we could be so moved by someone else's plight.  (Little did any of us know that collectively we would all have so many opportunities for that in our lifetime.)  But, no, he still insisted that it was for our own purposes that we cried.  We were the ones who felt badly, and it was in reaction to our own emotions that we shed tears.  There is no denying this.  He was right.

But he stopped short of letting us off the hook for this by explaining that feeling sad is not a bad thing.  That selfish display of emotion means one thing very plainly:  we feel.  And feeling something is a good thing.  Generally.  I would imagine people who were/are monstrous also feel things, but their feelings are just off kilter from the rest of us somehow.  But, putting them aside for these purposes, you have to have a depth of feeling about something to then take it to the next level, whatever that might be.  It's like the key in the ignition.  If you are numb to the things around you, you'll be stuck.  The engine will be frozen. (This will all tie together, I promise.)

I think I see evidence of my theory at work every day in how people spur themselves to action after losing a loved one.  I belong to a group of mothers whose children have suffered or are suffering from eating disorders that was started by a woman who lost her daughter to the disease a decade ago (I may have mentioned this before).  She is also active in a number of other eating disorder-related activities.  That is just one example of course.  Some people have made a huge national or worldwide impact like Candy Lightner who founded MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) in 1980 after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver.  Others stay within the confines of their community, like a local mom who works diligently on anti-drug efforts in Pittsburgh after her son died of a heroin overdose.  But you see those kinds of efforts over and over in honor of their children, and I realize that, at the core, they are probably doing it for much the same reason I can't quite let myself let go of this:  so people don't forget who their children were and so their life and death mean something.  It is selfish.  But that is okay, because it has spurred them to act in ways that helps others far beyond themselves.  If only every selfish act we do has such selfless results.

I don't think this little blog rises to that level at all, and the other thing I spend a lot of time pondering these days is the fine line between trying to keep the memory of someone alive and exploiting it.  I've crossed that line in my own estimation a time or two I think - but that's almost its own topic.  But, to bring it all back to the beginning - as we look toward Eating Disorder Awareness Week next week, I need you to remember I had a daughter once.  She was beautiful, but she could be ugly in spirit when she wanted to be.  She had an amazing talent that her disease abused and refused to allow to blossom to its full potential.  She loved passionately, she hated that way too.  She could be funny, but that humor could bite as well.  In short, she was a human being, with assets and flaws.  What she could have potentially become we will never know, but what she is that I know for sure is my first born daughter whom I held in my arms at the moment of her birth.  I need you not to forget her.  I need it.