Fallen

Two and a half weeks have flown by since we lost Lil’ Rick.

Matt picked up his ashes from the vet yesterday. I guess they will mingle with my good crystal until spring rolls back around and we can give him a proper burial. Returned to the earth under rose bushes dedicated in his name.

He was such a part of our routine. The first few nights I kept calling him, annoyed that he didn’t answer.
‘Come on dude, it’s time to go out. I want to go to bed!’
I’d go to grab a cookie, to shake the glass lid that housed them to rouse him from slumber upstairs, and the jar would be gone from the counter top. I’d freeze, futilely fighting the burn at the back of my throat. He’s not coming downstairs because he is no longer here.

We were grateful that Grace really didn’t ask questions about Rick’s where-a-bouts. She would mention him in passing when going through lists of family and things that she loves.
‘We’re going to go to my happy birthday party. You and Me and Daddy and Clare and Maga and Unkey Jer and Ricky!’
‘Ricky isn’t going to your party Love.’
‘Oh. OK. He’s a dog. He can't go.’
And then she would start talking about Curious George or the leaves she picked up off the ground that morning or what she ‘wants for eat’ that night.

We didn’t correct her. It was still too hard of a thing, and we figured why bring pain to her if she’s not specifically asking questions. The other day she asked. Or she said something about him that made us think she should tell her.

‘So Grace, you know how you haven’t seen Rick in awhile?’
‘Yeah. Where is he?’
‘Lil’ Rick had to go away Love.’
‘Oh? Where did he go?’
‘Well, he was really old – way older than you or me or even Maga – and he went away and isn’t going to be able to come back anymore.’
‘Where did he go? I want him to come back.’
‘He died sweetie. You know how the leaves are falling off the trees right now? It’s because the leaves are old and the tree can’t keep them attached anymore. The leaves die. The tree has to let the old ones go. Ricky was kind of like an old leaf.’
‘Oh, OK…. Ricky fell off??’
‘Kind of Grace. He was old and tired and ready to go to heaven.’
‘Oh. OK. I will miss him. Can I have another cookie?’

She’s mentioned him in the same passing ‘things I love’ way a time or two since that conversation, but hasn’t really asked more questions about him.

Nor has she played with the leaves in the morning though.



Now what?

Big Things in Little Packages

Lil' Rick was the dog I didn't really want.

I wanted a BIG dog. A Great Dane or a Bullmastiff. Something that weighed as much as a human, could do some significant damage to an intruder and had a heart and spirit as big as their body.

Instead, we got a Corgi.

During the normal course of a work day we were usually offered Corgis' several times. See, a coworkers wife showed dogs. Think the Thanksgiving Day Westminster Dog Show. The people who trot the fancy dogs around the ring. That was what she did- she trained, groomed and showed fancy pedigreed dogs as a profession. (Yeah, a little crazy, I know.) Anyway, once these fancy dogs won enough blue ribbons to be dubbed 'champions' and then went on to breed enough future champions, they were often abandonded by their true owners.

Hence, our possession of Lil' Rick. Champion of Corgi's with a google-able name, daddy to many more little champion Corgi's, and master of none of the tricks normal people expect your dog to preform whe the phrase 'show dog' is uttered.

When we finally broke down and agreed to a visit to meet the dog selected for us. I was by no means enchanted with him.

He was released from the dog pens with a fury. He ran into the room with a streak of orange fur. He jumped on furniture. He jumped on people. I backed away and sat down in a chair. He spied me and ran full speed in my direction to cover me in Corgi kisses. But he didn't stop soon enough. He launched himself into the air and only stopped due to a nose to nose collision. The tip of his snout to the bridge of my nose. Oh-my-God did it hurt.

I didn't want to take him, but Matt was taken with him. One week later we brought home our 5 year old puppy. We weren't always the best parents.

Over the last two years, Rick started having old age issues. Cateracts, bad teeth, arthritis, hearing loss. Last Christmas he started coughing. Several hundred dollars in vet visits couldn't bring a diagnosis. Allergies? The medicine didn't work. Fungal infection? The antibiotics didn't help. Cancer? What was the point of more tests to tell us something we couldn't do anything about.

Over the last few months he'd taken to coughing under our bed at 2am. We started putting him in the laundry room overnight. We always felt horrible about it, but sleep in this house is a fleeting, precious thing.

Last night was Lil' Rick's final night with us. I'm glad he spent it under our bed. Today when Matt got home from work, Rick was cold. The wag of his happy old-man body was gone.

13 years old. 91 in dog years. That's a pretty good run. I hope the last 8 were his favorite.


We'll miss you Lil' Rick.

RIP

It is over. He ended today. Rest in Peace.

I hope Grandma smacks him across the face and then is able to forgive him.

If anyone can, it is her.

No Grey, Just Black and White

The saga continues…

He is dying. I’m still OK with it. My mom, on the other hand, is falling apart.

On an intellectual level, I understand. The death of a parent must be hard. My mom has a tendency to remember things the way she wishes they happened, so the last 14 years has been filled with wonderful times.

On an emotional level, I just don’t get it. He didn’t just abandon us, he abandoned YOU. His child. He choose a life that didn’t involve you unless you came to him, and then during those visits he still preferred the company of whatever biddy was at his side more than 48 hours with his daughter.

He is old. You got the phone call last week that he wasn’t doing well. You’re an accomplished nurse, you know how these things and the fragile human body work. When you get old, you shut down. When you are dying, sometimes things improve right before they go down hill again. Why are you shocked that a man who has smoked for 75 years is coughing up globs of blood after being told he has blood clots in his lungs?

So a funeral is imminent. Last night’s declaration was hours, maybe a week. You took a late night flight to sit vigil next to him.

Apparently, he has made funeral arrangements in Florida. He has pre-paid for everything and intends to be laid to rest next to the monster. This is his choice, though I doubt he has it spelled out in a will. You are not going to let him choose though, are you? Once he has lost his voice, you will impose your will once last time and have him buried in the cold Chicago air with Grandma.

You are wrong if you do that.

So my choice in the coming days: Do I attend? Do I attend the funeral for a man who died 14 years ago? Do I willingly walk into a room full of tears and mourners when I feel none of these things? Will I be able to hold my tongue if challenged on this lack of sorrow?

I do not know. On any of it.

Will I regret not seeing him again? No. Will I regret the amount of grief my absence will cause my mom? Yes. Will I bend to her wishes on this one last time? I don’t know.

Excuse Me Please, One More Drink....

My Grandpa is dying.

I think.

I’m not really sure. Either he’ll be dead soon or he will be as fine as some who is 87 years old and getting senile can be.

Honestly though, I really don’t care either way. I don’t talk about him much. I really don’t think about him much. This is why………

My Grandma died September 1995. I was 17 years old. She was my world; I know that is naive and perfection through the imperfect eyes of a child, but in my eyes she could do no wrong.

My brother and I spent almost everyday with her. Grandpa would drop her off at our house at 6am on his way to work and pick her up around 5pm on his way home. We spent at least one weekend a month at their house, often more. We went on many, many vacations with them. Even as a licensed teenager, I still choose to drive to their house and stay hours on end.

Grandma was the family matriarch. She held everything and everyone together. She arbitrated family fights, she gave the last word on right, wrong and priorities. I always saw my Grandpa as an accessory to her; the one who carried out the commands. Sure, I loved him and have plenty of good memories of him, but they all end after her death.

*******
I was informed of her death moments after he discovered her on the couch via the phone. I don’t blame him for this, I just still wish it had happened differently. He called our house looking for my mom, I answered the phone instead.

Shan, he cried, she’s dead. Grandma is dead. I don’t know what to do. What should I do? Grandma is cold and dead and I don’t know what to do....

Yeah I was 17, but had never really lost anyone close to me. How was I supposed to give him guidance? Really, I don’t blame him though. She was his whole world too and now she wasn’t there to tell him what to do….

*******
A few months after Grandma’s death, my mom booked him a trip to Florida to visit his sister. He never came back. His first week down there he met a lady. Less than 6 months after the death of the woman he was married to for over 35 years and had 7 children with, and without telling anyone what was happening, he married her in a civil ceremony.

He organized the sale of his/their home via the phone. His children and grandchildren found out about this, and the marriage, via the For Sale sign in the front yard and another phone call telling us we had one week to go through the house and take anything we wanted before cleaners came though to get it ready.

He never came back. He left all the family photos hanging on the walls and bookshelves. He left the pictures of me and Jerry in their frames. He declined offers from my mom to mail them to him, claiming it would make is new wife uncomfortable.

*******
I take that back, he came home for a weekend about 2 years later in 1997. My mom decided she wanted to take me and Jerry to the Mall of America for a spur of the moment weekend trip. She bought me everything a teenaged heart desired and took us to an Indian casino where I won something like $400 dollars playing a slot machine.

On the way to the airport she claimed to have a voicemail from an Uncle saying he was having a party that night and we should come. My mom strong armed us into attending playing the goodwill card from the weekend. If Jerry and I had known he would be there we wouldn’t have gone. Not only was he there, but he brought his wife too.

When we walked through the door, he smiled and said hello like nothing had changed and that he wanted to introduce us to our grandmother.

I ran out of the room in tears, while his wife proceeded to tell my brother how selfish we were to hurt him this way and that our grandfather is much happier with her than he ever was before.

I think he went back to Chicago a few times after that, but I never attended. The wife died sometime around 2001. After her death he claimed that she was a drunk and emotionally abusive. Good.

*******
Matt and I married in 2003. Under pressure from my mom, we invited him. I did hug him and stood next to him for 5 minutes to snap a few pictures. I can’t remember what words were spoken, but I do recall thinking about how old he looked now as opposed to the man in my memories. The man from my childhood was my Grandpa, this is just some look-a-like in much wrinklier skin.

Those pictures are the only ones from that day without a smile.

*******
Over the years my mom brings up that I should call him at least once a season. My reply is always the same. What is there to say? Nothing. My Grandpa died when Grandma did. I do not know the man living in Florida and I have nothing to say to him.

As a compromise, I usually send updated photos of Grace when I get them. That takes little effort on my part to address one more envelope. According to relatives, he has a little shrine on his piano of all the photos I’ve sent him of Grace, ones my mom has supplied of us, and the unsmiling picture from my wedding day. I still have nothing else to say.

******
Yesterday, as I browsed through the online clearance section of a store, I stopped short and thought of him. There in front of me was a pair of Santa Claus and Rainbow suspenders. Rainbow suspenders were always his signature piece. At $3.00 each, I thought about purchasing them and sending them anonymously. I didn’t.

When I got home yesterday, Matt said my mom left a message on the machine saying my Grandpa was in the hospital. Apparently he has several blood clots in his lungs. Testing today should determine if they can do anything, but it doesn’t look good. She once again pushed me to call him.

My answer is again, unchanged. I am sorry for the pain this is causing her. I am even sorry for the pain and confusion that he must be going though, but my Grandpa is gone.

My Grandpa is dying.

I think.

I really don’t care either way. I don’t talk about him much. I really don’t think about him much. And now you know why.

A Strangers End

Yesterday I saw my first dead body.

OK, not really the first. I’ve been to wakes and funerals. I’ve forced myself to walk up to the casket and peer in. But yesterday – yesterday I saw my first REAL dead body. Well, a body covered with a big white sheet and boots sticking out.

On my way to work, traffic came to a halt. I flicked on the traffic channel and they said there was a fatal accident at 29 & 198, with Northbound 29 closed to traffic.

When I got closer to the scene, I saw what was causing the delay. For the first time ever I understood gapers delay. There was no wreckage. No mangled cars. No sirens. Just 6 police cars, an ambulance and 10 officers talking around.

And a body in the middle of the road. Just laying there.

The news said the accident happened around 4am. Why on earth is the guy still laying there?

I said a quick Our Father, as I always do when I see an accident - or even an ambulance going out on a call - and sped away from the scene.

On the way home I kept my eyes open for the spot.

It was horrible.

You could see skid marks all over the place. The police marked them with florescent paint. They circled points in the road. They made arrows showing the sequence of events. They recreated the man's last moments in a spray of hot pink, green and yellow.

At the end of the rainbow there was a big dark patch. I keep trying to tell myself that it was probably oil, but I know better. I’ve seen plenty of deer on the side of the road. It was blood. It is blood. A lot of it. And it will stay there until we have another big storm.

This is the news story.

Odd, huh?

I was so glad that Gracie didn’t know what was going on. It was just a traffic jam to her- a regular occurrence. I’m sure she was looking across the median. I’m sure her eyes fixated on the flashing lights. She’s not old enough to ask questions or to realize that there was a person under the white cover.

I dread the day that I will have to explain death to her and I’m so glad that day didn’t come in this context.

Here. Now.

The world of Mommy Bloggers is so sad right now.

I don’t know these people. I read their lives anonymously via the Internet, just as I suspect one or two people may read mine. I lurk around and read their stories – good times and bad – and feel more complete and justified with my life.

The choices I make. The choices I don’t make. The problems I just ignore and put back on the shelf until I feel like I can deal with them again.

To read these stories in a circumspect way makes me not feel so alone in the joy and woe of being a parent. It makes me feel connected to them and to this web-based world.

Then night fell on what I thought was a huge, monstrous web of people, and I am realizing how small and close knit Mommy Bloggers really are, which I suppose is part of the success of it.

I don’t know Maddie. I don’t know her family. To be honest, I had never read The Sphors are Multiplying. But all of a sudden the world went purple. People that I had never connected to in the world of Mommy Blogging all turned their Twitter avatars purple to show their sorrow over the loss of Maddie.

My favorite bloggers all wrote soul crushing posts about her loss. Their own loss.

And I cried.

Then another blogger lost their son.

Now another blogger, one that I adore, has a child in the hospital.

So I cried.

Parent’s don’t want to think about the death as it applies to children, especially their own children. It shakes me to my core to even fathom the idea, so I push it from my head.

And I cried.

I know there is a chance I will have to face challenges with Grace. I pray constantly that I won’t have to teach her about carbs, how to give shots, how to check her blood sugar.

But those challenges would be embraced with open arms over not have the opportunity to teach her anything ever again.

I Do Believe

My brother Jerry, the firefighter / paramedic, called me yesterday with an announcement. He saw a ghost.

Jerry said he was covering for another station, so he and his partner went go hang out while the other squad was gone. His partner wanted to stay in the ambulance to sleep, Jerry went in the building.

Most of the lights were off except for the truck bay and the ambient light in the kitchen where he was trolling for snacks. He said when he turned around there was a little girl, about 7 years old, standing in front of a big gumball machine in the kitchen. He didn’t think much of it because often times people do bring their kids to work and have them spend the night. He didn’t say anything to her and the girl turned and walked silently back into the bay moments later.

When the other squad returned a hour later, he informed them that someone’s kid had been up.

Nobody had any kids here, they said, the station is empty.

No really, Jerry responded, a little blonde girl wearing a dress. She was looking for candy. I figured it wasn’t my kid, and didn’t particularly care what she was eating at 1am, so I didn’t say anything.

That’s when they cracked smiles. Oh, you saw her! That’s our ghost.

Not funny, Jerry said. She was real. I saw her.

There is nobody here, they said. Go look in the bunks. Nobody is there.

Jerry went and looked. Nobody was there.

They told him they had responded to a call in the summer of 2007. The girl died on the scene and has been with the station since then.

I believe in ghosts. I believe in angles. I believe in good and evil. I believe. That is why I don’t watch scary movies. I believe.

Yesterday, as I sped through the woods on the way home from L’s birthday party, the dark, narrow, twisted road all of a sudden got REALLY dark.

Hmmm, I thought, maybe I should turn on my brights.

Just as I did I saw a large deer running down the steep embankment that counts as the roads edge.

The super-bright flash of my headlights startled the deer and stopped it dead in its tracks. I have no idea what would have happened to us if it hadn’t. There is no wiggle room on that road. There is no edge. There is no straight line. There is nowhere to go.

There was nowhere to go.

I drove the rest of the way home really, really slowly.

And thanked my guardian angels. I have two of them you know.

I do believe.

Farewell

Tomorrow we are attending a wake. No, there is no booze, although Sally would have loved there to be champagne served. A funeral. No, she is already long buried. A memorial I supposes then. Yeah, memorial sounds like the right word.

And I’m not so sure I want to go.

Sally wasn’t family, but she treated me like a daughter during the 7 years I knew her. She was overbearing and way to opinionated at times, just like a mother, but I loved her. She was what I needed in my life when I moved 700 miles away from my own mother.

Sally was fascinating. A small town farm girl who received cows as gifts turned flight attendant, White House diarist, fundraiser and Archivist. Who would have thought?

Sally had impeccable style and grace. I think I knew something was wrong before she told me. Less than a year into our friendship she told me about her breast cancer diagnosis. I watched her go through chemo. I knew she was losing her hair. She wore her radiation pinpoint tattoos on her breast like a badge of honor. Something she didn’t want to forget about. Something she was going to beat.

And she did. A few times.

But I guess at some point the body just gives out.

Sally retired about two years ago. We traded emails every month or so during that time. July was the last time I heard from her. I think I knew something was wrong. I asked her, but she never responded. I wish I had kept those emails. Not that they would make one lick of difference, but just to read one more time.

So why don’t I want to go? The same reason why nobody wants to go to a loved one’s funeral. I want to remember her as she was.

She was a bright, bubbly adventurer. She was fierce when needed and kind all the rest. She would regale me with stories from her Nixon days, and every so often point out exits like a flight attendant. She beamed when she talked about Paris and Wein, Austria. She would light up when she talked about Richard, her husband. I think she did the same when she talked to me.

She was a good friend to me and I didn’t need to read an obituary to know any of these facts about her. I know many, many more. Goodbye Sally K., will forever stay in my heart.