Family
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Fingers Crossed…
(You can click here to get a larger version and see more of what I’m talking about.) Gen’s going under the knife today, so keep your fingers crossed that she’ll come out fine, OK? If you look closely at this picture, you can see that she has a growth on her bottom eyelid. We call it her lump of coal, or sometimes, eye boo boo. It’s been there for awhile, but it has gotten progressively larger, to the point where her doctor suggested that we remove it. She said it’s unlikely that it’s harming her eye, but she’s worried that Gen will scratch at it more as it gets larger,…
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Do Unto Others…
As you would have them do unto you. If you believe that California voters went too far on November 4th when they took the right of marriage away from gays and lesbians, you can share your frustration at a local protest (click for times and locations…they are all over the country) today.  I’ve heard so much about this issue in the last week and a half. Much more than I heard before the vote. I think the passage of Prop 8 took many of us here in California by surprise. I know I didn’t really think it had a chance. Not that I think California is the most progressive place…
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Visit with Grandma
(Grandma, 1941, 18 years old) I went to Stockton on Sunday to see my Grandma and her sister, my Great-Aunt Flo.  I haven’t seen them since the service we had for my mom, in June. They both seem a bit thinner, a bit sadder, but overall stronger and better than they did when my mom first died. Still sad, still somewhat angry, but better. Kate and I went up, hoping to take them to Grandma’s favorite place, Red Lobster. (I’m not a huge fan of the RL, but there isn’t a lot else in Stockton.) But Grandma said, um, no, Kate’s work is precarious, Ted isn’t working, you cannot take…
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Christmas Curry
Richard emailed me awhile ago, and said that one thing he would like to keep of mom’s is a couple of her curry bowls. This is the set. She took a pottery class back in 1980 and 1981 at our local community college, and she made them for our Christmas curry. Isn’t the glaze pretty? Of all of the things I’m keeping of my mom’s, I think these are my favorite. They’re lovely to look at, and she made them herself, and they bring back memories of meals shared together as a family. When we lived in Alaska, my mom worked two jobs…first as a Montessori teacher, and second (because…
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Memories
A few smart people commented on this post that the hard last days with my mom were not the sum of our relationship. The suggestion was made that I might find some comfort in stopping every day for a few minutes, and remembering the good times. You know what? You people are smart. I’ve been doing this, and it’s been helping. Not a cure all, of course, but when I start remembering that last visit, I shove my brain over to other visits, other times, and it cheers me right up. I’ve shared my pain and frustration with you, so now, I’ll share some of the good times as well,…
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Quote of the Day
(image found here) “Atheism has its uses, but don’t let it get in your way.” ~Dad Context is an email conversation about missing my mom horribly, and what an ideal afterlife would be for her. Dad said she would: Be pain free Know all the answers, to EVERYTHING! Be able to walk, run, FLY Have no financial worries Have no food issues Be in Alaska, California, and someplace exotic, all at the same time Know that her children and darling Maya are OK Know that we all love her I added that in addition to knowing all of the answers, she would be able to share that wisdom with others.…
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Yesterday
Yesterday I went to Sacramento, to go through mom’s things. Thankfully, Richard and Kathy had gone through her things up in Alaska already, and only packed what they thought she would really want or need down here.  It’s so expensive to move things from Alaska, that it didn’t make sense to ship furniture and so on…so it’s just personal stuff and books. It was nice going through her things, seeing familiar items that I grew up with. I found her photo albums, which was the thing I most wanted to have. I found her kaleidoscope collection, which I also wanted. I didn’t get through everything, though, because it was HOT…
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Birthdays…
Traditionally, I am very punctual when it comes to birthdays. If you’re going to get a card or a gift from me (and not everyone does, don’t be hurt…remember, I’m poor), you’ll get it on time. For some reason, I have a weird gift for remembering birthdays, and it’s important to me that people know that I love them and was thinking of them. I would like to brag about this gift and be especially proud of it, but that’s like being proud of having green/brown eyes, or long fingers, or moles. It’s just how I’m made. I don’t have to work at it. At all. However, it seems like…
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Dinner with the Atheists
The other night, for some reason, we got to talking about saying grace at the dinner table, and how it is often just saying thank you to God for the nourishment and the family, and leaving it at that. I was reminded of a post on my mom’s blog that I came across the other day. It’s a long post, and well worth reading, but the part I remembered was about hearing grace as a child, and how different it was from just, ‘thanks for the food’: At meals with my great-grandfather, he always said grace and always blessed at least the farmer and the cook. Sometimes he would list…
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Sheila
Today is Ted’s mom’s birthday. Her name is Susheela, but back home in Guyana, she was often called ‘Sheila’. Happy Birthday Ma! This song is called “Sea Lion Woman”, and they say ‘sea lion’ a lot, but when I listen to it, it sounds like they’re saying, “Sheila”, and it sounds like a party to me. So, let’s have some Veuve Cliquout (Ma’s favorite champagne), and let’s dance to “Sea Lion Woman”, OK? 🙂
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Home Again
(photo found here) Monday morning, and the vacation was, as most vacations are, all too brief. Now there’s laundry to be done, groceries to shop for, library books to return, and prescriptions to pick up. Back to the old grind, as they say. But it was a great week. I would say that the high point of the week was Thursday. When we went kayaking on Tuesday, we mentioned to our guide that we really liked the snorkeling, and he suggested that we might enjoy the snorkeling at Shark’s Cove. So on Thursday, we rented a convertible and drove up to the North Shore of the Island, to Pupukea. Isn’t…
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Hawaii Update
(photo found here) Hi Everyone, It’s Tuesday afternoon now…we had an AWESOME day today. We got up early and went on a kayaking tour, which meant kayaking out about a mile in the ocean to a little bird sanctuary in Kailua Bay, getting a short lecture on the formation of the Hawaiian Islands (interesting!), lunch and a swim, then kayaking down to a wonderful beach, where we did some snorkeling, and saw lots of beautiful fish. I have the say, the area that we were at today was SO MUCH nicer than the super-crowded Waikiki beach, which is closer to where we’re staying in Honolulu. It wasn’t crowded, the sand…
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Vacation
It’s 7:15 on Monday morning, and Ted and Maya are still asleep. But my body thinks it’s after 10:00, and can’t sleep anymore. Besides, there’s a woman outside in the common area of our condo with a really loud, weird laugh. 🙂 We arrived in Honolulu at about 11:30 yesterday morning, and within a few hours we: Rode in a limo (same price as a taxi, so why not?) Ate mahi-mahi for lunch (Maya had a cheese quesadilla, Ted had an Ahi wrap) Swam in the ocean (forgot to put on sunscreen, so it was a short visit to the beach. Don’t worry, I’ll be smarter today.) Relaxed in the…
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Two Weeks
It’s been two weeks now since my mom died. Two weeks. It’s hard for me to believe sometimes. Everyone wants to know how I’m doing, everyone wants to help me get through this. Which I appreciate. I want to get through this, too. Two weeks ago, I felt hollow, I sobbed rather than cried, and I wasn’t sure that having Maya had been a good idea, since someday, when I die, she would have to go through this horrible pain. To quote a quote within The Year of Magical Thinking, that immediate grief feels like “sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at…
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Reading in Grief
V-Grrrl mentioned in her comment that when her parents died (within 6 weeks of each other! God, Dad, be careful!), she had to put all photos of them away, couldn’t drive past their house, couldn’t bear to be reminded. Not that doing these things helped her to forget, I don’t think anything could do that…but she was too raw to cope otherwise. Which made me think of the different ways that people grieve. My uncle made me a lovely collage of photos of my mom, and I find comfort in looking at it. None of the pictures are of her when she was sick, they’re all of her in her…