Sackload of Everloving Suck

If there's a top ten list of reasons why I write, comic relief takes the top spot, we all know that. It's my personal balm to the soul, always with the hope that it rubs off on other souls that need it as much as or more than I do.

Unfortunately, a lot of what's been going on around me in my little corner of existence is just...well it's just not frickin funny. It has its moments, don't get me wrong, and I know I'll get to those eventually, because they really do just write themselves.

But overall, it's just much too much...and not funny.

A month or so ago, I was trick-or-treating with Mike and the kids and a passel of neighborhood urchins when my cell phone rang with a call that made for the weirdest, surrealest Halloween of my life. It was my mom, and I knew I had to take the call and not smash the phone on the pavement...as if smashing the phone would mean I wouldn't get the news I knew was coming, that her brother, my Uncle Dan, had died. (This, by the way, is the kind of uncle that you would rather NOT be your uncle, so that you could grow up and marry him one day. Ask any of his other nieces and they'll back me up.)

Anyway, we'd all gotten the 24-36 hour warning from the kind hospice people, but that doesn't take the wallop out of it one little bit. And then, scarcely a week later, with no time for anyone to catch a breath or find the earth under their feet again, we lost a second one. This time it was my cousin Kevin, who'd been in the care of yet another set of kind hospice people, and so came another load of gutwrenching heartbreak, once again not unexpected, and once again a full-out punch in the gut just the same.

People who live close enough had been making the rounds of one hospice to the other...because all of us who love one of them, also love the other. Both were young and vibrant men, but then cancer came in and did its hideous thing, leaving broken hearts in pieces all around. Countless hands to hold. Tears that never stop flowing because once you've calmed down over the one for a minute or two, your mind goes to the other. This is going to be a long haul.

I want to be able to explain it, the cords of connection interweaving all the players, all the events. It would take volumes and volumes. I don't know where to start. My mother is the oldest of eight. So it was like this...beginning in their late teens, my incredibly movie-star gorgeous grandparents couldn't keep their hands off each other, plus they're from Buffalo, and it gets plenty cold in those parts and what better way to keep warm...in those parts.

Fast forward six short decades and you need a score card to keep track of us all. I do not exaggerate...ok so you all know I do, but not in this case. I think the family crest reads "Horny and Fertile" in Latin, I'll have to doublecheck. I always pity the poor inlaws (also affectionately known as nonbloods) when they join this clan...the frenzied mental gymnastics they do as they try to keep up on who's who at the barbecue, the disorientation written all over their faces, it's kind of adorable. Pretty soon they smarten up and just have another beer. There's no quiz at the end of the night. Just a bonfire, massive amounts of laughter...and more beer.

Some people don't know their uncles, aunts, cousins, etc., very well I guess. In some families they're just relations people enjoy (or not) being cordial to (or not) at weddings and funerals and family reunions. It's not that way in my clan. I grew up living for the day we'd pack up the family truckster and go to them and get swallowed up in a sea of affection that smelled like coffee and cigarettes...and maybe a highball. To this day it still happens. My heart starts to skip around and my stomach swims with butterflies when we turn at Ilio DiPaolo's Restaurant (so we'll be on the right side of the street for parking), now just mere blocks away from the house on Madison Avenue, Blasdell, NY 14219, one square mile of heaven, just like the T-shirts say.

My grandfather still lives there, a spritely 82, but don't tell him I said "spritely" because he'll only deny it. My grandmother, Rosemary, is there too, harder to see but if you pay attention you'll know she's there, and for an extra bonus you may smell good tobacco that nobody appears to be smoking, or the fluid from a Zippo lighter that nobody appears to have lit, or a rose will bloom in the yard after the first frost has set in...seriously, pay attention, I don't make this stuff up.

But getting back to Halloween, my sweet, gorgeous, hilarious, beloved Uncle Dan died that afternoon, an event I like to call part of the biggest sackload of suck to ever hit my family. So I packed my things and headed west to be with my people. While I was there, I went to the place where the kind hospice people were still taking care of Kevin. I got to hold his hand, tell him how beautiful and loved he is, and look into his eyes so bright and alive they took my breath away. That was a privilege I won't ever forget. I can still feel the life that was filling that room, and I didn't even have to close my eyes to see how quietly crowded it was in there.

We want certain kinds of miracles when people are threatening to die, specifically, we want them to NOT die. My Uncle Dan should have lived to 100 at the very least. Sixty-three measly years, we've been gypped bigtime. He was too good to be true, but he WAS true, and we don't get enough of those on this planet for my money. Therefore, we should get to keep him, end of story.

And Kevin, don't even get me started. Forty-four years old, are you kidding me? Hell-raising wise ass, lovingest father of the best and funnest family ever, six amazing kids, the youngest a little 3-year old baby. All that, and my cousin Missy had to watch him sicken, waste away, and die, just like what had already happened to her mom, my godmother, my mother's baby sister Mary...just a few short years ago when SHE was just forty-four. You want the definition of NOT FAIR, I'll just send you a picture of my cousin Missy...who, by the way, has never faltered, just puts her head down and continues on like a warrior, taking care of the business of life and of love while a shit storm of nothing less than Biblical proportions rains down around her. If I hear myself complain about anything, I just think "Missy," then I shut my big fat everloving mouth.

So we didn't get the miracles we wanted for my uncle Dan and my cousin Kevin, not by a long shot. Instead we got a one-two punch right in the face and kick in the crotch. We feel abandoned, broken, empty, cheated. And we all hate it.

But...I don't know...you tell me if this counts as a miracle, because I really just don't know anymore. As I've walked amongst my tribe through all this hell on earth, I've felt something impossible in the midst of it all....

Joy.

A joy so huge and expansive I'm almost ashamed to admit it. But if this joy had no place in the thick of our sorrow, it apparently didn't get the memo, because it was there just the same and wouldn't be shown the door. It had hundreds of faces, this thing, this joy. One of them was Ellie's, she's my newborn baby cousin I got to meet for the first time, in a funeral home of all places. And as I cradled this newest friend in my arms, and she was gurgle-smiling up at me (and beyond me, too, I'm pretty sure) something drew my attention across the room where another face caught my eye.

It was my grandfather's face. Papa. Daniel. Resident patriarch, whom I'd just watched walk up to a casket to tenderly caress the hair of his first-born son, which just about forced all the air out of my lungs I can assure you. But Papa was seated now, and while I watched from across the room, baby Ellie in my arms, I saw something happen on his face that I couldn't..I couldn't fathom. I figured the stress had gotten to me and I was starting to hallucinate, no biggie. Because what I was seeing across the room was a face all aglow with...delight. And not just any kind of delight...it was a boy's delight, I swear to God. Just a few feet from that coffin I mentioned. He was being clapped on the back by some old-timer, a stranger to me, and then they were talking and laughing, heads close together like a couple of 9-year-old boys who'd just overturned a big boulder and were feasting their eyes on the dozens of squiggling critters underneath.

Turns out his tall stranger with his shock of white hair was a friend from Papa's youth, someone he'd probably never expected to see again, maybe would never even have thought of again...and then, as I shamelessly spied on them, awestruck and mesmerized and glued to the spot, they hugged each other like long lost friends who didn't care who was looking, their billion-watt smiles never fading.

I could barely catch my breath. It was like looking at the sun.

But you can't look at the sun for too long or you're in trouble, so luckily Ellie started making some noises. Hey, what happened, did you forget about me?

I looked her in the eyes and asked her, point blank, What the hell was that, Ellie? Truth!

She burbled some, clearly amused by the big dumb WTF look on my face. Beyond that, she wasn't talking.

But I could tell she was in on it.

Love Always

To Calvin’s Angels (on the auspicious occasion of his graduation from at-home therapy this week...and kindergarten just breaths away...)

There's a word for someone who comes into your life, who comes into your home, right when your heart’s at its most broken, your mind all places at once, and nowhere.

You didn't see it coming, but you have this little guy, and at two and a half he's not speaking, and not pointing at things, and not looking most folks in the eye (except for mommy, the last one to notice, and don’t think for a second she won’t torture herself over that, time and again, for years upon end).

So this someone, she comes to the rescue (yours? his?), swoops into the house with her songs, with her puzzles, with bubbles, with toys...the awesomest, awesomest toys...

Elsewhere they say (through white coats and small minds and 15-minute appointment slots):

How discouraging, not making the progress we'd hoped. Well, I guess you could try these here drugs, or those ones, and assume it’s as good as it gets…Next…

But in my home it goes a different way, something more like:

Aha, ok, so I'll teach him like this, then like that…alright, now it’s time for this other way. (There’s always, ALWAYS another way, by the way.) We’ll all sit together, we’ll meet and brainstorm, and just see what he’ll do, where he’ll go, how he’ll learn.

So one day he spells his name (and your jaw hits the floor), and another day he knows the name of his town, and what month it is, and how old he is, and the days of the week, and he marches, and dances, and loves to play drums, and sings favorite songs.

One day he even comes right up to you, looks you straight in the eye and says, "I want waffles." (And you hold yourself back from toasting up every last waffle in the freezer for him…because somehow you have to make sure that he knows just how brilliant he is and how proud you are, unspeakably, unfathomably proud.)

Another day his big sister comes in for a hug, and instead of his usual push, he takes hold of her arms and wraps them around himself, grinning with glee. So that next she gets bolder and grabs hands for a game, and they spin and they squeal, and he’s looking right at her, and deep belly-laughing, and all you can do is sit back, watch, and breathe, eyes wet, face hurting from smiling.

So much of the world sees only the damage, and so many "friends" see only the damage. You see it there, written boldface in their eyes, so scary it is that it could have been them, so glad that it isn’t, so relieved they are that what’s happened to yours hasn’t happened to theirs.

But that's not what you read in the eyes of the one who's come into your life, who's come into your home. Her eyes hold a different story altogether, one that you recognize like some strange déjà vu, wonder why so familiar, then it hits you.

Her eyes look at him like your eyes look at him.

Melt-your-heart kind of tenderness shines out her eyes, just like you'd expect when she looks at her own, her own little love, waiting for her back home. She says with her eyes, and her smile, and her words,

What a mush, such a love, I could just eat him up! Here's my great Calvin tale of the day.

They each have their own private jokes with your boy, their own games, their own language, and you grow to love it, you love how this…this coven of enchantresses has entered your life to share this new world, to fathom its mysteries right there by your side.

It could be so lonely, scary as hell, unnavigable, chaos…but it’s not, not so much.

Not with such hands to hold on to.

Because little by little the glimmer that’s there, in and behind your little one's eyes, your little one's smile, grows brighter and brighter, and crisper, and lighter…until one day you realize, how dazzling!

Yes, there's a word for this one who comes into your life, who comes into your home, as little by little your heart begins stitching itself back together, your mind quiets down, the gifts this child brings coming sharper in focus, more known to you now.

Some call her a teacher. Of course that’s what she is. Me, I prefer angel. And family forever. And friend of my heart. The breath of fresh air that came through the front door, and the hope that blew right on through with her.

But whatever I call her, I’m grateful forever. All my love to you, ladies. Always.

Please Pass the Tylenol...

Do you know what sciatica is? I'll tell you what sciatica is. This is the official medical definition, I can assure you:

"sciatica (n): condition that causes unceasing, unrelenting, never ending (yeah, I'm being repetitive, wanna make somethin of it?) intractable pain at the top of one of your ass cheeks, pain that ricochets randomly all around all points south of your ass cheek, pain so maddening that you find yourself fantasizing about committing the most violent crimes you can think of just because you've run out of other distractions."

That, my friends, is motherf-ing sciatica.

To the ladies who've squeezed fully-formed humans out through your angry, angry lady parts, remember how you started screaming when it got to be too much even though you swore you weren't going to be like those wusses on TLC's A Baby Story because you thought yourself so much more highly evolved than those losers? Remember the moment right before you gave in and started screaming? That very moment is where I've been all week, a week that has included an 8-hour road trip across the entire breadth of our great state of New York.

I've had it, people.

How'd it happen? I don't frickin know but I have a guess. We were visiting relatives in the Buffalo area, the kids and I. Husband wasn't in town yet, still working and following a day later. I was sleeping on an air mattress per usual. No, now don't go blaming the air mattress, I love air mattresses, I love all kinds of mattresses, and couches, and chaises, and carpets with nice cushy naps...and I can sleep like a drunken homeless person on any of them in complete and utter bliss. But this particular time something unusual happened. (Yeah, get comfortable, grab your coffee...I'll wait for you.)

It was the wee small hours of the morning, and the whole wide world was fast asleep...all except my sweet boy Calvin. He was up. He'd been sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bed right next to me. I'd pulled the air mattress right up next to him just to keep him close by. We've done this tons of times. Never even think about the top bunk, never use it for anything but stacking up some clothes, wasn't even sure how you were supposed to get up there. Calvin decided to find out. I'm starting to figure out how he does it. It must be that he watches me sleep, waits for rapid eye movement so he knows I'm pretty well under, then makes his move. Carpe diem!!! And this, my dear friends, is a photo re-enactments of how I was awakened that morning:




Imagine my surprise! How many of you have been ripped out of a dead sleep quite that way? And what to my wondering eyes did appear but Calvin "Superfly Snuka" Stroh-Simon, belly flopped on top of me, giggling ecstatically, smiling his glorious billion watt smile into my face, my groggy shocked face, as if to say, "Was that not AWESOME, Momma? Shall we do it again?"

The good news is that there's been no evidence of internal injuries to my person. The not-as-good news is that later that day my neck and shoulders started to feel like I'd been smartly rear-ended at a stoplight by a monster truck. And by the next morning, the ass pain commenced, that condition whose official fancy pants name I defined for you above.

It's not all bad, really. If I'm standing up perfectly straight or lying down perfectly flat, it doesn't bother me much. But I had a little setback yesterday because, well, I've done horrible things in this or some other lifetime and karma is karma. I was taking Grace to her first day of summer rec camp, pulled up to the curb in front of the school, no hurries no worries, summertime and the living is easy...but as I'm a little compromised with the ass pain thing, I must not be lifting my feet up high enough when I do things like step up onto a curb.

And so, I face-planted.

It felt very slow motion, like I could feel as each part of me hit the pavement within the split second it took for me to bite the dust. So weird. And the inner dialog went, "left hand, palm down...smarts but probably not broken...right knee...hmmmm that's going to leave a mark...right shoulder...owie, even bigger mark...NOT THE FACE NOT THE FACE!!!!!"

Know what the hardest thing about the fall was? THE CONCRETE! Hahahahahaha!!!!! No, I jest, the hardest thing was having to limp into the elementary school with my child, me looking like I'd come from the wrong end of a street rumble or maybe caught some shrapnel on my way in from the parking lot. Teenager counselors looking at me like I must be the mother who eats vodka jello shots and OxyContin for breakfast. "We have a first-aid kit, ma'am" says one of the vibrant, fresh-faced, excrutiatingly young and beautiful staff members. She was only trying to help. So I refrained from beating on her even the littlest bit. I know, my self control is awe-inspiring.

That little incident was yesterday, and I'm much better now. I hurt all over and I have the oozing scabbed face of a meth addict...but I've been able to sit here long enough to write you this post without having to throw a lamp across the room.

But I'm going to stand up now, we're running low on lamps.

And I could use a snack...there's always room for Jello.

Sleeping Dangerously

I know he's not so much trying to kill me but...

Bad night sleep last night for Cal, which means for me too. But he mercifully drifted off into nappyland some time mid-morning, and he looked so comfy there on the couch that I decided to snuggle up with him, rather than just collapse where I stood.

I should tell you that I sleep very soundly. If someone is hurt or about to vomit, I snap upright like a dog when someone's blown one of those whistles that goes at a frequency only they can hear. Otherwise, so long as neither life nor limb is in jeopardy, forget it. Ask my husband, who wakes up if you look at him too hard (this got to be a fun game once I got the hang of it). He's threatened to steal my blood in the night so he can infuse himself whatever hormones I have that let me sleep like this.

Yes, it's a very nice ability to have, being able to sleep through armageddon and such (especially since I've heard it may be coming Saturday, everybody mark it down on your i-berry-droid-o-phones). But don't think I don't pay for it. Has it ever been said that no mother's nap goes unpunished? Or is that just how it looks from my neck of the woods?

Cal woke up first. That's why it got ugly. I don't know how long it was before I came to, but let's just say it was long enough. Have you ever seen footage of what bears do to a campsite? Or maybe there's been a time when a family of nearly-starved raccoons have visited your yard the night you put all your trash out for collection. Either scene, my friends, is a two-page glossy spread in Country Living compared to what happened in my home this morning.

It could have been worse. Because the lucky thing is, the boy decided to climb into the washing machine and turn it on. This is a potentially dangerous situation, particularly once agitation sets in, so my internal "somebody-may-need -a-bucket-or-an-ER-visit" siren went off so I could save the day. My first reaction: "What the...I didn't start a load of laundry yet today..." Second reaction, beeline between the couch and the laundry room leaving a cloud of dust like right after you hear the Road Runner go BEEP BEEP.

After the extraction of my 60-pound preschooler from the washer (not a high-efficiency machine, I might add) and my return to normal waking non-emergency consciousness, all I could do was stare, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as I scanned the disaster area.

The kitchen was ground zero. We have a lock on the refrigerator. HAHAHAHAHA on us. The first thing I noticed was the broken eggs. Unfortunately we'd just bought an 18-pack of those (a little later I'd start finding bits of shell that made it into the livingroom). String cheese everywhere like it's been sprayed out of a can on Halloween. All his pull-up diapers, that he for some reason loves to play with, arranged all over the floor like stepping stones. Extra-large economy-sized can of coffee, almost full...do I even have to say it? Don't make me say it. Oh, there were also the red grapes he loves so much. Well, perhaps in homage to his dad's new career in wine sales, or his mom's love of classic I Love Lucy episodes...yes, there was stomping. Stomping.

But hey, I'm a glass-half-full kinda gal, y'know? (Even as we speak, I'm sitting here with a glass half full of something, if ya know what I mean). The upside is that the kitchen is cleaner than it's been since before I made Christmas cookies. You could eat off the floors for probably five more minutes, because I'm sure any potentially remaining salmonella bacteria from the raw eggs is history. I may have had to search high and low for a mop...and heavy-duty germ killing cleaning solutions...but dammit, I found em, and waged war on the whole everloving mess.

Because that's what I do.

But I may never sleep again.