NOTE: I started this blog on Thursday, March 18, 2021. It’s almost a live document, with the continuing changes I’ve made to it since. The public will get this shorter version. The “Director’s Cut” will be strictly for me privately.
You are my child
You came like the morning light
With all your love in your eyes....
Infinity,
Journey
The outpouring of support for this family has been monumental.
Despite the horrific events of the last two months, our cup truly doth runneth
over.
People want to help. Ask what they can do. "If you need
us, call us." Hundreds of people. After a year of being isolated, you begin
to think you're alone in the world.
Not so.
Such is the impact of one young woman in just thirty years.
From that six-year-old little girl who, upon her first sleepover at my house in
1996, curled up next to a nightlight saying, "This is like my own little
campfire" to an amazing 30-year-old who carried her handicapped son on her
back as she walked down our back steps for the last time.
"I love you, Mom!"
We were planning to go to Boston and Salem. To go through
the overflow of dishes and bakeware in the kitchen. Plan a new social media
marketing strategy to sell more books. We had PLANS. Lots and lots of plans.
The past was gone, the future was bright. Our youngest daughter was happy and
in high spirits, and not just because she'd finished off almost an entire
bottle of Andre Extra Dry champagne with pineapple juice pretty much by herself
the night before. There were about two fingers left in the bottle the next morning.
I should have let her have it all.
None of us were ready for this. No one ever is.
Everyone handles grief in their own way, and none of those
are wrong. Societal and cultural norms may suggest differently, but in the long
run, you should be able to express this emotion however you please.
Blast it on social media? Go ahead. Run through the streets
screaming? Have at it. Shut down and hide in a closet? Knock yourself out. As
long as you don't hurt anyone, or yourself, it's fair. Totally fair.
Over time I've discovered I'm more stoic. In public. I can
break down in private later. I guess it's because I know there are things to be
done: phone calls, funeral arrangements, traveling...are phones charged? Is
there gas in the car? Did everyone eat? Et cetera....
I posted that I refer to films, books, and music for
comfort. I'm reminded of Princess Leia: "We've no time for our sorrows,
Commander." What she didn't say was: "Even though my father and his
evil cronies blew up my home planet, cut off my brother's hand, and froze my
future husband, I gotta keep my shit together so I can beat the Empire's ass."
If that's not a role model, I don't know what is. It's probably why Cassie
named her son Luke, who now needs all the positive energy the Force can
provide.
We never see Leia's breakdown until the very end of the
saga, when she realizes her son is gone.
Maybe my pragmatism comes from Scarlett O'Hara, another name
bestowed on one of my granddaughters. Scarlett (in the novel) may have been the
selfish anti-heroine, but she's another one who had to hold it together for
everybody else. There was a war going on, her home was destroyed, her mother
died, her father went crazy, her invalid sister-in-law barely survived
childbirth, the man she thought she loved was unreliable, and she was such a
bitch to the man who truly loved her he up and decided he didn't give a damn.
Scarlett lost a child, too. Her most beloved. And now we
know that pain as well. We didn't want to know that, but we have no choice now.
We had a fantastic visit with Cassie the weekend before. I wasn't sure what time she was getting in and I stayed up as late as I could that Thursday, but I did see her when she got there. She hugged me and said "Good night."
I worked from home that next
Friday morning so I could stay with the boys while she and her dad went to yoga
together. Luke slept in, Gabriel just played a game on his tablet.
She went with me to, ironically, CVS. I was wearing my KISS t-shirt and some guy said, "Great shirt." At first we didn't know what he was talking about, then I remembered what I was wearing. We went to the grocery store and I was introducing her to my symphonic goth metal. She liked Within Temptation's Sharon den Adel's voice. I think "Angels" was the song. I was buying ingredients for my homemade spaghetti sauce. (When I sent her a picture of the recipe that night, she said, "You know it's a good one when your mom sends it to you and there are grease spots and tomato sauce splatters all over it!")
She came prancing up the pasta aisle carrying a plush gnome
with rabbit ears. "It's for Dad and all his other garden gnomes!" I
ALMOST said no...doing the Mom thing...
"Put it in the cart."
It's still sitting in the foyer.
That afternoon everyone napped but I stayed in my office and
worked on my new book. Somehow just having her in the house made creating a lot
easier. I really enjoyed that afternoon. At dinner, we ate spaghetti, drank
wine, and talked conspiracy theories.
On Saturday, after we took each of the boys for a quick trip
up to the next corner on the Spyder, she told me about how she thought her
house was haunted. I'm thinking maybe there was just an electrical short in the
bathroom light and that Gabriel's bedroom door latch just doesn't catch, but she was convinced
there were spooks. Well...okay then.
She ordered three MEDIUM pizzas that night to feed 5 kids
and 4 adults. "I thought they were bigger..." she'd said. But that
ended up like loaves and fishes: everyone ate their fill and we even had some
leftover. I kept the receipt.
Later on that evening, she walked into the kitchen carrying
one of the neighborhood feral cats. "Is this one of y'all's cats??"
"MEOW!" squealed the rather distraught feline.
"Cassie! Put that cat back outside!"
She went to the back door and it leapt from her arms,
dashing across the courtyard.
"Oh no!" Cassie squealed. "Mistakes were
made! Run away! Run away!"
We spent the evening around the picnic table, talking, laughing, drinking, imparting sage advice to both her and her best friend Summer. We were able to catch all of this on our security camera video; her coming in and out of the back door, full of her usual energy. We had custard eggs for breakfast the next morning, and I sent her off with a big mug of coffee.
She hugged our necks and told us she loved us. And we watched her drive
away, ready to take her boys to their dads for Spring Break and enjoy a week of
peace and quiet. She looked like she singing along with the radio, or
chattering with the boys. It's a little hard for me to look out that back door
through the crepe myrtles now, where the car zipped up 17th Street.
Did God know? That that would be the last time? Those last
four days at our house? I've always prayed for the Lord to "fix" the
things that make my children struggle or for those times when they need
guidance. There's a line in "Amadeus" where Salieri asks, "What
was God up to?" That's where I'm at right now. I know He has a plan but
this seems like a pretty crummy one. Not my will but Thine. I really don't know
what to think about that.
And like Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think about that
tomorrow."
There are 5 remaining siblings. They have all reacted
differently but with an equal amount of sorrow. The story of how I became a
mother to four of those is for another time, but I am devastated to see them
hurting so badly, to hear their sobs as I hold them. To watch as Cassie's light
fades, their youngest sister - the track star, the straight A student, the
single mother who fought the hard fight when Gabriel was born and still managed
to raise a fine strong son in Luke, who is probably now the bravest young soul
I know, candidly telling stories about his mom to her friends and family who
came from far and wide to celebrate her life.
I felt it was my job to make sure her going-away party was
an event worthy of her spirit. Beautiful, but not too ostentatious. It wasn’t
easy writing that last biography, trying to sum up my youngest daughter’s life
on just one page. It wasn’t easy planning her service, but I knew she’d want it
short and to the point, with pictures and music and that outstanding sermon
from Brother Ron Tilley; her favorite quote from Terry Goodkind and the
announcement of her nicknames. (We were just glad he didn’t mention THAT
nickname.)
Tiffany and I picked out her dress, one with beautiful
embroidery. I made sure her hair was styled properly and her makeup flawless. She
was in high style to take one last pole-vault jump into the sky, with
mismatched socks on her feet, her last ride covered with pink roses and purple
carnations, that seemed to fall out of the spray on their own. We figured she
was choosing flowers for her future garden.
I've told my husband, her father, that once this is over, he
can take off on a motorcycle ride as long as he wants to. To find peace out on
the open road, feel the wind and reach out to run his hand over the amber waves
of grain. Take pictures of the night sky and sleep under the stars next to his
own little campfire. Listen to the stories of the ancient bristlecone pines,
and just...be.
I'll stay home and pet cats. Walk dogs. Play music as loud
as I want and write my stories. I’ll have that quiet moment to read her text
from my last birthday and previous Mother’s Days; fall all to pieces and put
myself back together again. Try to fill this huge hole that's gaping open. Fill
it up with living until we get to the end of the tunnel where that golden girl,
Lady ToughBreed, will be waiting for us with everyone else who has gone before.
And will possibly have a workout regimen for us all to start on, toot suite.
Live our lives for those two fantastic boys she gave us.
Strong Master Luke and the Angel Gabriel. Regale them with stories of the Bony
Refugee and everything they meant to her, and what she meant to us. And I'll
definitely think about that not only tomorrow, but every day thereafter.
In the Jewish faith as well as Victorian tradition, it’s
customary to mourn a year and a day. Now I understand why. This is the first
Mother’s Day without her, for me, the family, and especially her boys. It will
be the first 4th of July, Halloween (she loved Halloween), Thanksgiving,
Christmas. Everyone’s birthdays. HER birthday. I know the “seconds” won’t be
any easier but those firsts will be hard. Today was hard. It’s all hard and still
doesn’t make a lot of sense. It still doesn’t seem real, as I look through pictures
and memories and find things that belonged to her or gifts she gave us, like
this little gold owl that sits on my home office desk right next to Master
Yoda. She’s not here but yet she is.
So....
For those who continue to ask, “What can I do?” Do this: Hug
your children and tell them you love them. Take a picture when you say goodbyes.
No one cares what your hair looks like, or what you’re wearing – they’re just
glad you’re THERE. Cherish every moment. And NEVER forget the good times, like these "blast from the past" pictures with all of my kids:
I want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers of all kinds,
and extend an all-encompassing thank you to everyone who has experienced this journey
with us. Your kindness, prayers, and friendships have meant the world to us.
And to two little boys who must remember how much their mother loved them, and
how much she was loved by so many.
And I
still believe in the good
And I still believe in the light
And I wanna feel the sun
I wanna free you tonight
And I still believe in the good
And I still believe in the light
And I wanna feel the sun
I wanna free you tonight
The Dream, In This Moment
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