you are in my dreams more often now, than not
it’s strange.

we are meeting, or together somehow,
doing the most mundane tasks
ordinary routines
nothing special, just – together.

I used to complain that I never dreamt about anyone I knew
my dreams were people-less

then, at some point, that changed
and now
I only dream about people I know.

I have never
dreamed about strangers.

so which one are you?

there are not words adequate enough to describe
the azure-sapphire-lapis shades
of the forever endless sky
the sun’s disappeared, the moon is just around the corner,
and I’m here, gently rocking and patiently waiting
for the stars, and you, to come out.

eye
watery blue, hints of Irish showing
through (both me, and you)

aye
affirmative in your accent, knowing
what’s true

I
here, across the sea, glowing and
making do

you
there, across I see, knowing and
seeking out a different view

U
4gotten b4 me, 2 much 2 handle
u understand, intoning
(as you do)

wee
the small hours of the morning tend to be
yet, somehow, growing
(they knew)

we
happens when adding you (u) to (two) (too) me.
across an ocean wide, stones throwing
we endlessly pursue.

here,
we hear.

early mornings
dark, the sun still hidden
distant warnings
secret thoughts, forbidden

mid afternoons
the sun exposed in full glory
inflated balloons
secret reflections, tell a story

late nights
the sun has left at last for bed
extinguished lights
secret inspirations, fill my head.

It’s been a minute since I blogged. And it’s been even longer since I’ve written a poem. Good news on both fronts: both blogging and poetry have returned to my life.

I was talking with a friend last month and mentioned that while I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions for 2021, I had made a promise to myself to get back into poetry. At the time, I meant reading. But as I dove back into to discovering my first love, the written word, I recognized a feeling I hadn’t felt in many years. I began to wonder if I could still write poetry. I sat down and opened the “note” feature on my phone, and ten minutes later (no kidding) I had written my first poem since probably college. What’s more, it rhymed! I briefly wondered to myself: do they even do that any more? I hope they do. I was pretty proud of it. Imagine my surprise when, over the course of the next five days, I wrote three more poems. I can’t describe the immense satisfaction I got out of this.

I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) off and on over the last several years. Each time, I was able to complete the novel due to having an inspiration of one kind or another come to me. As it turns out, it was no different with poetry. My muse came as a complete surprise to me this time around, but it came, all the same. Some times it just takes longer than others (in this case, 20 years). It doesn’t matter how it arrives, what matters is acting on it.

Seriously, though. Four poems in a week? Feels like I’m 20 years old again. I’ll take it.

I’ll post the poems in the next blog, coming shortly.

“Off in the night, while you live it up, I’m off to sleep.

Waging wars to shape the poet, and the beat.

I hope it’s gonna make you notice someone like me. ” – Kings of Leon

December arrived with a flood of emotions that spurted off and on all month. Grief during the holidays, coupled with a pandemic that’s been raging for 9 months, is like being caught in questionable weather without an umbrella. You are unprepared when the drops hit you, and without warning they can turn into a deluge.

One night last month I was up late, watching a Korean drama (if you’ve never seen one, Netflix has a ton and I highly recommend any of them!). One of the characters was grappling with abandonment issues, and the fact that when her parents divorced, her older sister chose to live with her mom while this character remained with her father. Although this drama did not portray an adoption story line, it nevertheless got me to thinking about the different paths adoptees could have taken if they hadn’t been adopted.

One of the things that makes me so sad about the path that was chosen for me, was that I waited so long to look for my paternal side. Because the paternal side, as it turned out, was the side I had really been searching for my whole life. In particular, I’m talking about my brother N. I grew up with my adopted brother, G, but we were never close until we were adults and even now, with all we have been through with the death of our parents, we just aren’t very close and don’t have much in common. N, though. From the time I met him, it was if I HAD known him my entire life. We share the same sense of humor, and even some of the same mannerisms. After that incredible evening, staying up until 3am sharing stories, I knew we would be in each other’s lives forever.

How different would our lives have been if we had grown up together (unlikely since we had different mothers, not fathers, but not out of the question entirely)? How extraordinary our lives might have been if I had found him when I was 21 or 31, versus 41?

But we are together now, which is really what matters.

Anyhow, thinking about what I was lacking as I was growing up (closeness to my mom, closeness to my only sibling that I knew) got me all up into my feelings. So I grabbed my phone and send a quick text to N, checking the time as I did so and wincing that it was just after 10pm his time. I hoped I wasn’t going to wake him.

What he texted back was just two short paragraphs, a total of 6 brief sentences in all. But it was a love letter, all the same. The over 35 years we had spent separated was worth it for once sentence in particular.

I will be seeing a therapist for the first time in my life, next week. I credit this decision to surviving (not thriving, sorry to say) the last 4 years, including the death of my parents, quitting my job, buying and renovating a house and the pandemic. But really, it’s more about the last 40 plus years and better late than never, right?

So they give you a lot – like, a LOT – of paperwork to fill out ahead of your first appointment. Naturally, one thing they ask for is a complete family mental illness history. Does or did anyone in your family suffer from depression/schizophrenia/anxiety/OCD/etc./etc.? Well. This was going to take a minute.

I had to write very small, and make additional columns. I know virtually nothing about my biological father’s mental health, other than the fact he didn’t appear to be a very nice person. I have learned that hurt people hurt people, and I know he was and he did. So it stands to reason he had some mental health issues going on. Regarding my biological mom, S, I have slightly more information but I don’t really know for sure if she has a diagnosis. I know she has a drinking problem and (at a minimum) severe abandonment and attachment issues. Moving on to my adoptive parents…my dad’s father suffered from depression. I’m not sure how many people who suffered from mental health issues during the actual Depression got help, but I don’t think my Grandpa ever did. But the star of the IrishAmericanGirl mental health movie has to be my (adoptive) mom’s father, my Grandpa L. I never knew him, because he hung himself in the family basement 4 years before I was born. My mom was 28 and had a 4 month old newborn (my brother) at the time. Her brother was 21. I can only assume Grandpa was not receiving therapy or taking drugs, but everyone I know who would know details on that is dead. When they were alive, I never wanted to pry the details because who wants to further deepen that wound? I find myself wishing now I had more courage then. Is it nature (i.e. biological) or nurture (i.e. adoptive) that forms an adoptee’s psyche? And is either inescapable; can either path be changed or are you destined no matter what to your future becoming your history? It is a process I am about to undertake, so I will let you know.

Not only did my mom lose her dad at a relatively young age, in the most traumatic way I can think of, but she lost her baby brother 16 years later, when she was 44 and he was 37. They were incredibly close. He was my godfather, and especially close with my brother. His death leaves a hole to this day in G and I. Around this time, our family was making preparations to move to Texas for my dad’s work. My grandmother, who had a big part in raising us and tremendous influence on us, was planning on making the move with us. Unfortunately, she died from a heart attack about a year after my Uncle passed. So there my mom was, at age 45 (not much younger than I am now) and she had lost her entire immediate family: both parents, and only sibling. Whenever I would get really frustrated or angry with my mom, which was often, I would try to come back to this history and ask myself; how would you feel if this had all happened to you, and then you had to move across the country and start a new home where you knew no-one? It would work for a while, until I remembered that my mom never chose to talk to anyone about her loss, much less consider taking stronger steps like medication. I also remember feeling this: “But she had US.” As it turned out, having us didn’t seem to help. All I know is that, having lost both of my parents now, I do not believe a person can handle a trauma such as her collective one (even just her father committing suicide) without undergoing a personality/mental shift of some kind, on a deep level. With proper help, i.e. therapy and/or meds, it’s safe to assume the effect would be more positive than negative, or at least more manageable. But she never wanted/asked for/received the help, and the effects were felt by us all.

I’m not a medical professional, but even I could tell that Mom was suffering from depression by the time I was out of high school. By the time I moved away from home at age 23, it was her depression (presenting mostly as extreme negativity) that caused me to move as far away as I could. Ironically, it was back to the same city we were both born in (before I moved to Chicago). I would return home several times a year, but we would spend so much time fighting that I would inevitably wind up counting down the days until I could get the hell out of there and return to my “normal” life. Eventually, weekly phone calls turned into monthly or longer. I would go home once, maybe twice a year because my psyche couldn’t take it. I was an optimistic person by nature, or at least I thought I was, and it was a little soul destroying to keep coming back – despite the joy I got from seeing my Dad (see future blog post re: “never being satisfied”). I made a conscious shift away from them and their problems, as I had plenty of my own issues to contend with. As the years went by, her depression got worse and in the last 10 years of her life, she developed a drinking problem.

The bit of good news was…after she was diagnosed with cancer, a year before she died, I was able to let a lot of that shit go. And when she did pass, I had peace in my heart. But I still wish she had gotten help. I will always wonder how different her life, and our relationship, would have been if she had reached out. Even if it had only been to me. Because now here I am, sliding into my late 40s, and I’m left to deal with her collective trauma – as well as my own.

Wish me luck.

“They said you were a bright child, never anything but joy behind your eyes

No sign of all the dark clouds spreading like volcanic dust over your blue skies…

The way your head gets twisted, and you sit up all night trying to figure it out.

And they say “You made your bed, now. Don’t you see you brought it on yourself?”

And they say that you should move on. But you can’t even get your shoes on.”

(Keane, “The Way I Feel”)

Our last photo together, taken at Dad’s funeral – 7 months to the date before she died.

So…first blog since Corona came to town. Hope all my readers are doing well and staying healthy. As I write this, we are on day 24 of a stay-at-home order that is currently scheduled to last until the end of April. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get extended past May. My kids have been home, doing distance learning, since that time and my husband has been working from home as well. I understand the privilege we have to be able to do so, and I salute those who have to continue to go out into the world for work.

Like most of us, I have been spending far too much time watching the news and being on my phone, with information overload. But one common theme I have noticed again and again is people saying a variation of the phrase:

“They died alone.” It is but one of many horrors of this pandemic, the ill who succumb are in isolation and the lucky ones are able to FaceTime their families before they go. It is, in a word, awful.

My dad died alone. Probably he just “stopped breathing” and his death, by all accounts, was peaceful. Maybe he died in his sleep. This is what I chose to believe. I had seen him just eight hours before, and I know he was at peace and ready when the time came.

My mom also died alone. Unfortunately, I think it was the opposite of my dad’s experience. From what we could gather (from the nurse who was on duty at the time, who called my brother): my mom had been receiving oxygen since she had been admitted. At some point, the night she died, she kept removing the mask which would set off an alarm, which caused the nurses to keep running in and making her put it back on. This scenario eventually disintegrated to the point where mom needed to be intubated. Here’s the thing about intubating a person who’s completely coherent: it is fucking hard to do. A person’s innate survival instincts kicks in, and they fight it. My mom was no different. It is unclear if it was mom’s actions or her cancer that prevented them from successfully intubating her; the kind nurse spared our feelings I think when she said she believed it was the later.

So my mom died the way most of these Covid patients do – gasping for breath, feeling like she was drowning, and with no family at her side. This is what made me saddest about her death. Nobody should die alone. But even in a time where there’s no pandemic, it stands to reason that many people do.

Here’s what I want you to know. (DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a legal or medical expert. I am NOT a medical doctor or attorney. Just a grieving daughter. YMMV, etc. ) Now, friends, is the time to have “the talk” with your parents (spouses too). It’s time to make all the plans and arrangements. Obviously, you and your parents need to be in the right frame of mind to have these discussions so if you are on good terms with them, PLEASE begin this process NOW.

It starts, of course, with wills and end of life care but there is so much more that needs to be discussed. Here’s a list of what I wish my brother and I knew before our parents passed:

1. Update wills. Fortunately, we were able to have my mom complete this process after Dad died. Remember that everything takes longer than you think it will. If your parents don’t have a lawyer, find them a reputable one. An accountant too.
2. Update medical power of attorneys/end of life care instructions. Here, the most important advice I can offer you is have your parents be as specific and thorough as possible. Have them name someone, preferably you or a sibling, in charge for medical care if they become unable to make decisions.
3. Know your parents’ WiFi login, and where they keep their passwords. Ask them for updates every time you see them. “Has anything changed?” Here’s what we found out: passwords only get you so far. Take extra steps and memorize your grandparents and great grandparents names, which are often used as a two-step authentication. My parents have been gone for months, and my brother just texted me last week to ask me the first name of our dad’s paternal grandfather (our great grandfather). He was trying to close a credit card my dad had. I happened to have a family photo sitting next to me, with that person in it, and all the names were written on the photo.
4. This goes along with number 3. Make yourself a notebook with ALL of the utilities and services, and bills attached to your parents. Mortgage, to doctors, to water and sewer, to lawn care and cable, to the company who provides the oxygen they get at home. Who to call to cancel services and send final payments too. It took me 3 minutes to get the account on file at Walgreen’s closed (and the credit card along with it) but it took my brother THREE MONTHS to get their AT&T account closed. Generally, we have found what you can do in person goes smoother/faster than doing it over the phone or online. Most companies do not want a scene in public! 🙂
5. While your parents are still alive, if they will agree, get yourself (or a trusted sibling) added as an additional name on every account they will allow you to. Even for things you might not think of, like a security system. (true story – we couldn’t get the security system turned off because my dad didn’t add anyone else on his account) Even if your parents won’t agree to total financial access, they can at least put your name on accounts as a person to speak with. That way, when you go to the bank, they will be able to tell you how much money is in their account. If you aren’t listed, you get zero info. It is all for their protection, and yours, but it can be VERY frustrating and ties your hands when you need access to cash. Which brings me to number…
6. Think about how you will pay for a funeral. Fun fact: funerals, even simple ones, are expensive and must be paid up front. You can expect an minimal cost of $5,000 and they can shoot up quickly to $20,000. My dad’s was a little extravagant and on the higher end. By contrast, my mom’s was very simple and the same funeral home didn’t work much with us on cost. It wound up only being a few thousand less than dad’s (a post for another day). Honor your parent’s wishes if that’s important to you, (it was for us) but be aware that you need to pony up almost immediately. Generally, life insurance can be used to “pay yourself back” for these costs but again, it takes a long time to get this money so be sure you are prepared to carry a credit card payment for the funeral for several months, if need be (that is what my brother and I had to do). Along with this: if you can convince your surviving parent to pay for pre-arrangements for themselves, this is ideal because the funeral home is typically willing to freeze the cost at the current time’s going rates.
7. For parents who are currently experiencing health issues: ask your parents to have you added to all care plans with regards to their medical stuff. This can be daunting, but if you have a good and open relationship with your parents, it is essential for your peace of mind. My mom agreed to let me or my brother tag along to oncology appointments, where we were free to ask any questions regarding her health. That privilege, of course, existed only within the confines of that appointment. Because of HIPAA regulations, doctor are never going to give you information about your parents unless your parent is sitting there and gives permission, UNLESS you are listed on their care plan. It can be extremely frustrating, sad, and disheartening. My parents were both very private people and refused to talk about most of this stuff, which is why being allowed to go to my mom’s oncology and other doctor appointments was so beneficial to me. In times of stress and age-related memory issues, being able to get the straight scoop from the doctor is so helpful. I strongly believe in a “second pair of eyes and ears”, not to mention being an advocate for your parent if they aren’t doing a good job of it themselves. I hate to break it to all us of, but people are still getting diagnosed with horrible shit every day. Stay at home order, be damned.  Have. A. Plan.
8. When you order death certificates (typically done through the funeral home), order twice as many as you think you’ll need. They aren’t free, but everyone (even AT&T) needs a copy to get shit done. We ordered 25 when each parent died. If you have to order more later, it can take FOREVER. FWIW, the funeral home told us to expect the certificates to arrive in 4-6 weeks and both times, they came in 2. YMMV.

To sum up…have the talk with them now. Write it all down, now. Get all the passwords and logins and two-step authentications answer now. GET ON ALL CARE PLANS NOW. Let me repeat that…GET ON ALL CARE PLANS NOW. We all have a lot of time on our hands. Skype your parents, and get the ball rolling. Tell them this story. I would do anything to save you from the bullshit of the red tape that ensues during a time of grief. Please make a plan for them, with them. Stay home, wash your hands, love you all.

Photo by Anna-Louise on Pexels.com

While still grieving both my parents, I am aware that life goes on all around me. Being well into my 40s means that a lot of my friends are too, and they are starting to (or are already experiencing) deal with aging parents and the myriad of issues, concerns, and problems that go along with it.

When my Dad suffered his stroke, 8 years ago, and I wasn’t yet sure if he would make it, and my mother in law’s breast cancer had returned during the same timeframe,  I had a long talk with my friend Toni. Toni is older than me by about 15 years, and had already been through the death of her parents. She is very spiritual, and I remember to this day when she told me that, perhaps everything I was going through with my Dad was to prepare me for when we would have to say goodbye to my mother in law. Of course, she was right. Sometimes the only lesson I can find in my grief, is that I will be able to help someone else going through the same thing. Either by showing up physically, or showing up electronically.

Showing up is what it’s all about, y’all. In this time of the ability to be “plugged in” and “connected” more than ever before, we are somehow more isolated and divided than ever before, ironically. We are all busy, of course, and it’s very easy to get wrapped up in our own lives, problems, and stresses. But the great gift of the last 18 months is that so many people I love showed up for me. Whether it was a physical act, like my best friend (since sophomore year in high school) driving my mom to her chemo (and then subsequently instead having to drive her to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion), or an electronic act of a “random” text 5 weeks after my mom’s funeral “just checking on you…heard this song and it made me think of you”, the effect is exactly the same.

One of my oldest and dearest and best-est, M, is going through a similar season right now. I called her last night and even though we talked for only 5 minutes, I know it mattered to both of us. The first thing I did this morning was to text her. Early mornings and late nights can be the hardest, in this season. I pray that, if you find yourself in a situation like ours, you too will be able to receive the blessings and reciprocate that energy back into the universe. It always returns to you. Promise.

Love you. Mean it.

I’m not sure what the minimum time requirement for getting over the loss of one parent is, but I’m fairly certain the clock resets when you lose the other one in the same twelve months.

Reader, you may recall that my Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer just over a year ago. Last month, one day shy of the 7 month anniversary of my Dad’s passing, mom quietly left this plain for another, somewhere beyond.

So here I sit, again, facing a monumental loss that was expected, but not. Gradual, and yet sudden, all in the same moment. She was, of course, critically ill and had been for a few years. Before lung cancer, she had stage 2 breast cancer and chronic leukemia/lymphoma prior to that.

The plan, of course, was to have my Dad’s knee replaced so he could be a better, more effective caretaker for Mom. The plan was always for her to go first.

You know what John Lennon said about making plans.

So Mom muddled and managed, sort of, her way through almost 7 months on her own (with a tremendous amount of help from my brother and sister in law, as well as me).

Her health updates to my brother and I were always shrouded in mystery and unclear, much as they had been the last 10 or so years. G and I found this incredibly frustrating but at some point, Shirl was gonna do what she was gonna do and that was that. She refused to take her portable oxygen anywhere. She wouldn’t take herself to the ER when she struggled to breathe beyond what her oxygen could assist her with, so much so that she was having blood transfusions almost more than once a month. Her body seemed to tolerate chemo okay, in that it didn’t make her sick to her stomach or her hair fall out. It did give her an annoying, terrible rash which, after about 3 months of chemo, she decided was aggravating enough that she took herself off chemo (with her oncologist’s blessing). She decided to remain on immunotherapy. During this last year, I was present for only one oncology appointment where we received CT scan results. At that appointment (just before Dad died), there was evidence that the lung tumor had disappeared. My mom took this news to mean she was cured. But in fact, she still had stage 4 metastasized cancer that had spread in at least four areas.

So for those 12 months, we all lived in a state of suspended belief. My brother and I in reality, and our mom in denial. I have come now to realize that, in certain cases, it is entirely appropriate to let the sick live in whatever side of reality helps them to cope. The truth of the matter is this: Shirl left this realm on her own terms. She was in control until the very end, which was exactly HER plan all along.

She took herself to the ER, via ambulance, on Martin Luther King Jr Day. She was admitted with pneumonia, which my brother informed me of that evening. Of course, I was alarmed but my mom had been hospitalized with pneumonia at least once a year for the past five years. I was concerned but apparently living in some denial of my own. I continued on about my week with the mundane tasks of the everyday. My husband understood the severity immediately; I think I must have been in some kind of shock. I talked with her twice; the first time, she hadn’t seen either of her doctors. The second time, she had seen her oncologist who had results of her latest CT scan. It showed cloudy images, which he believed were due to her ongoing immunotherapy. His first recommendation was to take her off the treatment, his second recommendation was to meet with her lung doctor to come up with a plan. Again, I took all of this in with concern but not alarm. It was M and G who figured out the “plan” was because there was likely nothing else to try. We had suddenly, and not so suddenly, arrived at the end-stage very quickly.

So we ended our phone conversation with me promising to call her over the weekend. She estimated that she would be there until at least Tuesday. My brother was going up to see her on Sunday. These were the plans. As we hung up, I was already calling my brother so we could compare notes. Later on, I texted him with my stupid but necessary question: did mom have him listed as a next of kin? Like, would they know who to call if the bottom fell out? He said he wasn’t sure, but he assumed that she did.

I didn’t have long to wait for the answer. He called me at 3:43 am and, despite me insisting he do precisely that in this exact scenario, I had my phone on silent. So I didn’t read his follow-up text until about 6:15 am, as I was getting ready to leave for a meeting. It’s so funny how immediately the body reacts to danger and/or fear. My heartbeat immediately started racing, and it was hard to breathe. Instantly. My heart was already sinking as he picked up on the first ring. He broke the news that she had passed somewhere around 2:30.

Apparently, she had been trying to remove her breathing mask at some point and they attempted to intubate her (when she was admitted, her oxygen levels were less than 50 percent. For comparison, when my dad was in the hospital all alarm bells were sounding anytime his level dipped below 90 percent). According to the on-duty nurse, they were unable to intubate her and she died. She had just turned 78 one week before.

So just like that, G and I became orphans for the second time in eight months. There were some differences between the two, but the similarities were clear: we were on our own at ages 45 and 50. Somehow, we would have to figure out the rest of our lives, unaided. You’d think we’d have figured that out by this point, but the truth is, we lose our touchstones when we lose our parents. Your foundation shifts and everything is upside down. And although we had all been sliding that way for a while, starting with the loss of my mother in law seven years before, it is still life-altering. To put it mildly, Shirl and I had a complicated relationship. I was sad, I am sad, but didn’t (and don’t) feel sad enough. I’m still trying to process the grief of losing my dad, and somehow I feel cheated out of that – now I have two parents to grieve. Life, and death, is not fair.

Of the four parents I am connected to (two biological and two adoptive), only one remains, my biological mother. If I thought feelings about her were complicated before losing my mom, they were nothing compared to what I am going through now. But that, dear friends, is a post for another day.

“This is the book I never read

These are the words I never said

This is the path I’ll never tread

These are the dreams I’ll dream instead.” – Annie Lennox, “Why”