My husband, despite our best efforts to convince him otherwise, sometimes thought towards the end of his life that we would be relieved when he died, that we’d go back to normal, I guess you might say. 

An important (and obvious) thing to remember about terminal illness is that everyone around it is changed forever during and after; and some of the changes are particularly awful to experience. I refer here not to the medical changes but to the emotional ones. The relentless pressure of illness takes a toll for which we, in particular, were … hmm, unprepared is the best way I can describe it. 

I remember one of the few fights we had during the latter stages of his illness. He made some stupid, cutting remark about how relieved we’d be when he died. I responded (to the best of my memory), “Yeah, well you get to die and I have to live the next 30 years without you.” And then I burst into tears and ran away to regain my composure. Believe me; it’s not a memory I look back on fondly, but I still replay it in my mind fairly regularly. He told me later that it made him think but I don’t really believe that he ever understood how much we would suffer without him. 

So, today, I was looking for something in our Google photo storage. My husband was not the most organized person. As such, his photos are in folders labeled with such intuitive names as “images1” and “images4” and, my personal favorite, “misc images.” Sure; I should organize his folders. I know and I’ll get to it sometime after I finish cleaning the basement and recaulking the bathroom tile and patching the hole in the drywall and painting the middle bedroom (now that I’ve removed the wallpaper) and, you know, cleaning the house and …. 

Until then, I just try to compose myself before I fall down the rabbit hole of his photo storage. So, anyway, I was feeling pretty proud of myself, yesterday, flooded with memories as I scanned through hundreds of family photos but handling it all pretty well. A picture, a ridiculous picture of my brother-in-law, who is going to achieve a significant milestone this year, appeared on my screen. I thought, “oh, that’s perfect for [X idea that I can’t share online because he might find out] and then I burst into sobs. 

These weren’t dainty tears one wipes away with their delicate handkerchief or the single tear gliding silently down a cheek. Nope. These were the body-heaving sobs that, if you stumble upon someone crying like this, you might be so overwhelmed by their sorrow that you join in involuntarily, crying for something you don’t even understand, or else you might turn away, embarrassed by their grief and your own discomfort with it. 

I’m fine now and not even sure, really why that image tipped me over the emotional edge. The obvious answer is that Ken will never achieve that milestone but I don’t think that’s it. Let’s be honest; there are many things he won’t do. He didn’t make it to our 25th wedding anniversary. He won’t walk down the aisle with his children for their weddings. He won’t retire and travel as he dreamed of doing (a ridiculous dream because he HATED to travel). He won’t see his youngest son graduate from high school (his cancer goal and I can’t imagine what that day is going to look like for us). Why, among so many consequential and inconsequential milestones, would this one trigger such a torrential outburst of tears? 

Anyway, I don’t share this in a ploy for sympathy — really! I share it because I’m not the only one grieving a loss and yet we don’t talk about it, about grief. It’s embarrassing and no one really knows what to say and they end up saying something like “it gets better” or “it will stop hurting” or “he’s no longer suffering” or “he’s with god now” or some other well-intentioned statement that may, actually, pour salt in a wound that never heals. 

And on that note:  it’s 23 years yesterday since we lost my mom. She was so young when she died, 8 years older than Ken was on his death. My youngest son and I made chicken fried steak for dinner; I taught him like she taught me a zillion years ago. It was a little nod to her ongoing presence in our lives. Sometimes I’ll tell them stories about her. She was creative and loving and mentally ill. And she would have been devoted to — and so proud of — her six grandchildren, just as she would have been of her two daughters. 

What do I miss most about Mom?  Adult conversations with her, asking her advice, watching her play with our kids … TIME. That’s what I miss most.

Several people have told me to write a book. That’s very flattering (thank you, my friends). As I said recently, I actually have done exactly that, but mostly, people who tell me to write a book are suggesting that I take the blog and “turn it into” a book. Again, thank you; it’s kind to hear that sort of comment. Here’s the thing about publishing a non-fiction book. You actually have to have something to say and if you have some credentials to back up what you have to say, well, that helps a lot too. Publishers (and agents) don’t really want to hear that Deb has an idea for a book based on the natterings from her little blog. As brilliant as I think my … er, musings are (!), I have to agree with them. 

I’m working from a Starbucks today, looking at a little girl, maybe 4, who is shopping for a snack. Her hand wanders above the options in the case, lighting for a moment on one item and then moving to another, like a dragonfly hovering over the hot grass on a summer day. She’s not sure what she wants and, I’d guess from her size and the way she’s interacting, that she’s not yet a reader, making the choosing even more complex. The pictures on the packages don’t really represent the contents, at least not at Starbucks. She continues to look. Then, suddenly, Mom has said no. She nods, sadly, and walks away, with one last look back. The longing on her face makes my heart ache a little, as I flash back to similar moments with my own children. 

Last moments happen all the time. We don’t note them. How could we? They become last moments in our memories; or more accurately, we note that we don’t do “that thing” anymore and we wonder when we stopped. When did you stop tucking your child into bed at night? When did you last sit beside the tub while they splashed? What was the last book you read aloud while a child eagerly turned the pages or nudged you as you dozed over the words, exhausted from a long day at work but happy to snuggle them in the curve of your arm? 

My son was sick earlier this week and I fussed over him, taking his temperature and insisting that he lay on the couch quietly. It made me realize that I don’t know when it all stopped, when he claimed his childhood independence, when his various “I can do it myself” moments stopped being moments and became the norm. It doesn’t make me long to be a grandmother or wish I had more kids. It makes me wish I had appreciated those moments more … as they were happening. It all seems so permanent, when you are in the middle of it, and then it’s all over and you can’t recapture it, except maybe as a flash of memory while you’re sitting in Starbucks.

I learned recently that … hmm, we’ll say “someone” for anonymity’s sake … that someone I know doesn’t eat dinner with their children. The kids eat together in front of the TV. The parents eat later because it’s more relaxing. First, I’m not judging or criticizing. I won’t be one of those people who has all the parenting answers. If anything, I think I could use a primer. But it did make me think back to our own family dinners. We almost always ate together. Sometimes, meal time caused indigestion — and not because of the food — but just as often, we joked or played games or had meaningful (or ridiculous) discussions. 

Speech days were one of my favorites. Ken would pick a topic and the kids had to stand at the end of the table and present off-the-cuff remarks, sometimes changing the topic in the middle because kids can pivot better than politicians. And then they had to take questions. We did this a couple times a month for years. Ken was the master of ceremonies and I was the audience, sometimes misbehaving and getting called to order, sometimes asking questions to keep the speaker going. Ken started this activity to help the kids speak without anxiety but it became so much more than a subtle teaching tool. We still laugh about the ridiculous topics he’d pick. He’d say something like “I’d like to welcome Haley today. She has graciously agreed to discuss why toads are better than pill bugs. Take it away, Haley!” 

Now, dinner is usually just me and my teenager. We sometimes sit at the table but just as often, we’ll re-watch an episode of something we like — Bones or Doctor Who or Criminal Minds or Boston Legal or …. It’s harder to connect and not just because he’s a teenager. A friend commented recently that he’s older than his years. It’s true and of course it’s no surprise. I remember the day I told my children that their dad had cancer. My not-yet-9-year-old son said “is he going to die?” It should have changed everything. It did change everything.

“And that’s about all I have to say about that,” as Forrest Gump would say. 

Instead of buying a bunch of gifts at Christmas, the kids and I try to focus on doing activities together. This past weekend, we went to the zoo and created holiday wreaths. It’s a fundraiser for the zoo and we’ve been doing it together since they each aged into the activity (it’s an adult course and frankly too difficult for young children to enjoy). Every year, we walk through the classroom door together and Emmett, the zoo employee who runs the class, groans and says “I thought we banned you.” Sometimes the other participants are shocked but we all laugh and tell him we used pseudonyms when we signed up. It’s a tiny little community that we’ve formed and I think each year about the day when we’ll no longer attend. Will I be like that man who went to DQ with his boys until they each left for college? Will I go one last time and take a picture of the ritual ending? Will Emmett wonder what happened to those goofs who made wreaths together every year for more than 15 years? 

The wreaths are beautiful, as they are every year. Three of them are hanging in front — two on the outside lights and one on the door. The fourth wreath usually goes on the back window for us and our backyard neighbors to enjoy. But it’s the ritual, not the outcome, that we look forward to every year. We are in the same room for about 3 hours, joking, teasing, always the last to leave, promising Emmett every year that we’ll be more efficient next year. He always says “stay as long as you want. I’m paid by the hour.” Everyone else hurries through the creation process but we’ll huddle around a wreath and discuss placement, then we’ll take a break when they bring one of the education animals in. We’ll take pictures and talk to the animal handler (Majyck the Macaw was the star this year. She’s 18 years old but she could easily live 100 years.). We eat cheese and crackers with sap-stained fingers and soak our glue-burned fingers in the bowl of ice they always provide. We’ll walk around the room admiring the other wreaths. (Want to make someone’s day? Tell them how pretty their handmade creation is.)

I’m not sure my kids even realize that they’re making lifelong memories but I do. Heck, I’m making them too.

I’m trying to finish up my book revisions and as with everyone else in the world who has a task to complete, I’m procrastinating. My preferred procrastination activity is writing (thus today’s post!). Some people might clean but, as we’ve already established, that’s not me. I had a friend who loved to “run the sweeper,” as she called it. She did that every day after work and probably still does (we’ve lost touch unfortunately so I can’t even ask her for advice). I wish I found that satisfying like writing or puttering in the garden. Imagine having a house so clean that you don’t have to clean when you know someone is coming to visit BUT you clean anyway because you like to. Crazy.

On a pretty regular basis, Haley and I laugh together until we’re crying. I couldn’t even tell you what we laugh about because, to the casual observer, it’s not funny. You know how it is. If you have to explain the punchline, the joke doesn’t work. The same is definitely true when you’re laughing until your sides ache and tears are running down your cheeks. For example, Ken would occasionally mildly injure himself (like bump his head on an open cabinet) and then say “ow” in a deliberately funny voice that’s hard to describe in writing. So, one day recently, Haley bumped her knee and deliberately said “ow” exactly the same way Ken did. We looked at each other and just started laughing. We laughed until our sides ached, slowing and then setting each other off again. I think, when I look back, that it was a strange kind of joyful grieving, honestly, a group of words that I would not have expected to type in a grouping.  

We finished the Eggnog Cake. It lasted really well. And it gets more flavorful over time which is lovely. I am going to make one modification, though, next time I make it. Just like with my mom’s lemonade cake (heavenly), I’m going to use a skewer to make holes all over the top of the cake before I add the glaze, so it soaks into the cake a bit.  Also, I used a golden rum — I’m a non-drinker so I had to GOOGLE (!) to find out that darker rums are stronger (though that seems obvious in retrospect). Finally, we usually make our cakes from scratch but for this recipe, I highly recommend that you don’t bother. The eggnog makes the cake crumb very delicate without the extra effort. 

Anyway, giving credit where it’s due, I was looking for ways to cook with eggnog and ultimately combined huffpost and allrecipes.com recipes to create this (it’s really easy but I like to over-explain things, as you already know): 

Eggnog Cake

The Cake

• ¾ cup eggnog
• ¼ cup rum (or ~2 tbsp rum extract)
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 yellow or white cake mix
• 2 – 2 ¼ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 stick softened butter (I always use salted but to each their own!)
• 3 eggs
• Spray a bundt or deep springform pan. 

Preheat your oven to 350F. 

Start the butter in your mixer, mixing until it’s nice and lemon yellow! While that’s going: Mix the eggnog, rum, and vanilla together. Set aside.  Mix the dry ingredients together. Set aside.

Add the eggs to the butter, one at a time and blend thoroughly. Then: 

• Add a third of the dry ingredients. Mix.
• Add half of the wet ingredients. Mix.
• Add another third of the dry. Mix. 
• Add the rest of the wet. Mix
• Add the rest of the dry. And mix. 

(Typing this made me sing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. No idea why.) 

Pour your creamy smooth batter into your prepared pan and bake for 30+ minutes, depending on your oven. Your tester should come out clean and your cake top should be golden brown. Your cake needs to cool somewhat before you start the glaze. I let mine sit for about 20 minutes (the pan was cool to the touch) before I inverted the pan and slide the cake onto a cake plate. 

The Glaze

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tbsp rum
• 3 tbsp eggnog
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• Optional nutmeg for the top of the glaze

Mix all dry ingredients together and then add the wet. You can use a whisk/your muscles or a mixer for this part. Your glaze will be a little thick, but not frosting-thick. Make sure your cake is touchable temperature and then drizzle the glaze over the top. If you pour the glaze onto the cake too soon, it will ALL melt and run off the sides onto the cake plate (trust me on this; I’ve done it!). As your final touch, if you like nutmeg, sprinkle some nutmeg onto the glaze (as you would across the top of a glass of eggnog). 

Some for you. Some for your 90 year old neighbors. And someone else you love.

Wishing you baking and a moment of laughing until you cry.

Funny (?) story: I was at the public school administration building earlier this week, having discovered that I was supposed to have registered him for public high school before we applied for the various magnet programs. Who knew? (Everyone knew except me!)  Anyway, I was talking to a wonderful woman who was really, really helpful and reassuring. She looked at my son’s application and said “Oh, yes, he already has an ID. Just give me a minute and I’ll look him up for you.” 

First, how in the world does she remember this stuff? There are thousands of students in our school district. The high school alone has more than 3,000 kids. She was confident though and went right over to her computer. “Hold on,” she said, and she typed for a few minutes, the keys making that familiar clacking sound. 

“I’ve got it,” she said. “But this is weird. Your husband has an ID but you aren’t on the profile.” She looked up at me expectantly and I had to say, for the first time in awhile, that thing that I’ve said many times. “My husband passed away, so….”

She interrupted me with a gasp. “OH NO,” she said really loudly. “I’m SO SORRY.” I can’t even explain the level of distress that she expressed immediately. It’s hard to convey. It was so real and so heartfelt that I immediately burst into tears. Yep, right there. In the administrative office. In front of two other parents and several administrators. No warning. No Kleenex. No trap door to drop through. 

Of course, she was horrified but it’s not her fault. Grief, as I’ve said before and you all probably know, isn’t convenient or predictable. It turned out fine. I did some calming yoga breaths – in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth — and pulled myself together. And when I got home, I told my daughter and we laughed about it. Because it was funny.

Earlier this week, when I got done working for the day, I tested a new recipe for the treat boxes we give every year to the teachers at my son’s school. This is our last year after 19 straight years there and I’m going big (and then going home). This week’s recipe was eggnog cake — crumbly cake, spiced with ginger and nutmeg, covered with a slightly sweet rum-flavored drizzle. 

Nothing brings my mom back to me more than holiday baking. The sound of the mixer, the oven timer pinging, the cookie discussions and batter tasting. She’s been gone for more than 20 years but I can still picture her, cheeks flushed from the heat, muttering over some perceived problem with the recipe of the moment and laughing with me and my sister.

ANYWAY, my 90 year old next door neighbors were quick to offer assistance when the Subaru went rogue; so yesterday morning, on my way out, I packaged up some of the eggnog cake and left it at their door with a little thank you note. She texted me later and … let’s just say, flattery may not get you everywhere but it will, in fact, get you some cookies. They’ll be ready and at your front door next week, neighbor. 

If you need the recipe, just hit me up!

… you can believe in yourself for 10 seconds.” Good advice from, oddly enough, an anonymous person on social media.

Writing takes up the majority of my day. Some people think that because I no longer have a “traditional job” I must spend most of my time binge-watching Netflix and cleaning my house. First of all, if you know me at all, you know that I would never clean my house if I could do anything else, including have a root canal. I HATE cleaning like other people hate root canals and … well, writing. 

Most nights, I fall asleep thinking about the story I’m working on and whatever knotty problem I’ve gotten my character into. They’re as real as a pen pal, not visible perhaps but vibrantly alive. Honestly, as stupid as this may sound to you, I cried after killing off a beloved character. No kidding. The best part about that particular incident is that I was at Starbucks at the time and a concerned man asked me if I was okay. “Oh, yes, thank you. I’m fine,” I said, wiping my eyes with a napkin and laughing nervously, as I am known to do. 

Ken would understand in a way most people won’t. He produced massive quantities of extraordinary content (but, oddly, he was a terrible editor). Sometimes I think, if only I could bear it, I would like to try to publish some of his writing but his voice is so clear in his words that I can’t even look at any of it right now. Maybe someday. 

It’s been a chaotic Fall. We’re doing the high school search for my youngest son. If you aren’t a Pittsburgher, you might not know that our city schools aren’t well-regarded. So, in addition to our usual activities, we’ve had rounds of private school visits, applications, and essays. The teenager will have to wait until February to know his options, including, in all fairness, the local public high school.

On top of that bustle of activity, we’ve had several other noteworthy experiences:

*The Case of the Missing Halloween Candy, In Which Puppies Exhibit Bulging Tummies: The puppies cleverly planned and executed a mass breakout of their kennel two weeks ago and then enacted mayhem upon the house. Said destruction included, but was not limited to, the discovery and vast over-consumption of the teenager’s Halloween candy. Who knows where their bad life choices would have taken them if they hadn’t been discovered. We considered an emergency vet visit for the puppy who had become canister-shaped but in short order, her body acted to … er, remove the problem. None of this was the teenager’s fault, by the way. Thankfully, after several hours of groaning, the puppies returned to their normal bad behavior. 

*The Mini Says Farewell, In Which The Mechanics Beg Us to Stop Trying: We’ve learned, after 13 years of enduring devotion (on our part), that love alone will not sustain our relationship with our beloved Mini-Cooper. We have finally reached the point where the constant need for repairs has outmatched the value to us of our hilarious, if impractical and expensive, vehicle. So, she’s going up for sale. I’m not sure exactly when we’ll be putting her on the market but she’s gotta go. I’m terribly sad about it, ridiculously so, but our lovely mechanics had a heart-to-heart with me about the financial wisdom of repairing a car that just isn’t that into me (it’s become perfectly clear that she was thoroughly devoted ONLY to Ken). And so, the relationship is ending. 

*The Subaru Strikes, In Which The Owners Find Out About Car Loyalty: We’ve been planning a hunting trip for the teenager for weeks. Of course, the morning that we were supposed to leave, the Subaru enacted its revenge for my disloyalty to the Mini. It refused to start. It resisted all my pleading, offers of battery juice, promises of ever-lasting devotion, sacrifices to the gods. We were fortunate that our extended family was in town for the morning and we were able to hitch a ride, thus stranding ourselves in another city. We were then blessed a second time with the offer of a loaner car to return us to Pittsburgh. So, we’re thankfully back home again but the Subaru didn’t miss us, isn’t threatened by the visitor car, and continues to demonstrate its solidarity to the Mini. We’ll see who wins this contest but thus far the points are all in the Subaru’s column. 

And because I’m doomed to learn of great poets only as they leave us, I have followed my exploration of Mary Oliver’s work with the discovery of Clive James, who seems to have understood Ken’s journey before either of them had yet traveled it. Thus, I leave you with this snippet from Japanese Maple, by Clive James, 2014, and the hope that you’ll find and read the whole poem: 

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort./ So slow a fading out brings no real pain./Breath growing short/Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain/Of energy, but thought and sight remain….

Wishing you much love as the year nears its conclusion.

 

It’s been nearly a year since a dear friend passed away. I think about her frequently, of course, and wonder what she would say about this and that. She was a wonderful person, kind and impatient, loving and direct, hopeful and pragmatic.  I am slightly ahead of her family on the grief timeline but, of course, grief isn’t linear. Some days are fine and some days are a fog of grief and loss that no one else could understand. Her mom reminded me recently that grief is an open wound but “… that it doesn’t have to get larger.”  Wise words from a woman who had to bury her child.

One of my kids cooks at a restaurant and goes to school at night. Occasionally, I go out to breakfast where he works. There’s a big window between the restaurant and the kitchen so I can see him at the grill, teasing the servers and hustling to get the orders up. If it isn’t busy, he takes his 10 at my table and we chat about his day, the amount of pancake batter on his apron, upcoming tests/papers/presentations at school. This is what we hoped for our children as Ken and I raised them: that they would work hard, be kind, make a difference in someone’s day. I don’t know where my son’s life will take him but I wish I could tell Ken that I think our boy is going to be okay. 

My youngest son goes to a laboratory school on a local college campus. It tops out at 8th grade so we’re deep into high school selection now. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh city schools don’t rank very well compared to suburban schools but we’re committed city residents so we’re considering a variety of options. I’m dreading — is there a word to express that more intensely? — because I am DREADING the end of the school year even more than teachers dread the end of summer, even more than tax preparers dread February 1st, even more than soda-drinkers dread going to the dentist … yes, even more than my dogs dread a trip to the vet (right turn = the vet, left turn = adventure).

We’ve had kids going to that school for 18 years straight. The inexorable approach of his last day signals the end of yet another chapter in our journey. On that last day, I know that I’m going to just flat-out sob because I’m crying RIGHT NOW as I type this. We’ll have another event with Ken missing from the picture, we’ll leave a familiar place for yet another unknown, and we’ll start the final chapter to the empty nest that I’ll be living in by myself. 

We had big plans, you know, like many parents do. We wanted to take a trip across Texas (a state whose beauty Ken really came to appreciate when we visited a few years ago). We were hoping to drive across the country again – a Blue Highways trip, exploring all the weird and wonderful bits (including as many used book stores as we could find). We wanted ….

Don’t think me unappreciative of the lovely invitations from several friends to join them on their adventures. It’s kind and not at all what I want. I mean that with a great deal of affection for the people who have invited me. I really do! But I can’t imagine a more painful experience than traveling as a third (or fifth) wheel. I’ll never feel comfortable, trying to fit into other peoples’ travel behaviors. I want to walk through the butterfly forest 15 times in one trip because I love it. I want to meander, not hurry to keep on schedule. I want to spend so long in front of the jellyfish exhibit that we miss lunch. I want to explore the side streets and the crappy little diners. I want to negotiate the playlist and play stupid car games. I want to travel with Ken. 

The funny thing about traveling with my husband is that he actually disliked leaving home. It made him anxious to be away. One time, while he was home but I was away on a business trip, there was a bad storm and a huge tree limb fell in the front yard. It took out the power lines and damaged the neighbor’s tree too. For Ken, it was further validation that vacations are magnets for disasters (even though he was home and I was NOT on vacation). Not at all rational but funny … still funny.

He frequently would pack at the very last moment for our trips, forgetting really important things like shirts or shoes. One time he even forgot his medication and we had to find a pharmacy in the middle of nowhere. (They were wonderful, by the way; I have a feeling this is a common problem.) Later in our lives, he didn’t travel with us as frequently. We were caring for his mom and of course, she couldn’t travel so we’d take turns being at home. One year, the kids and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon. Ken found our pictures and stories so appealing that he went there after we got back and added a train trip through the northwest, sharing wonderful pictures and stories of his own adventure. 

Can you guess which vacation Ken hated with the fire of a thousand suns? Disney. It’s true. He hated everything about it — rampant commercialism (As Alfred says in Miracle on 34th Street, “there is a lot of bad ‘isms’ floating around this world and one of the worst is commercialism”), noise, crowds, simply everything. I used to be a cast member there so I have a soft spot for the parks. I usually worked the closing shift and would wander through Epcot after hours, back when the parks were open until 1AM or later. The garden lights stay on all night and when the parks are empty of visitors, they have their own quiet beauty. Of course, most people, including Ken, never get a chance to see that. More importantly, that quiet beauty isn’t why people visit Disney!

I’ve been there once since our awful, though memorable, trip and I might never go back. We discovered, as a family, that we find more joy in watching baby turtles crawl toward the ocean, wandering a bookstore while the owner snoozes in a comfy chair in the corner, or catching (and releasing) frogs in the pond at Colonial Williamsburg (you can go to the pond for free and since it’s completely overlooked by most visitors, you can sit at the water’s edge for hours undisturbed). I’m not going to share more of the hidden treasures we’ve found in our lives together. First, they wouldn’t be meaningful to anyone else. Second, life is very short; you should discover your own, while you can.    

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Wishing you many hidden treasures.