Adventures in Motherhood

location: Home

mood: peaceful

Thanksgiving was tasty and overall enjoyable.  I only got choked up about Liz twice, and both times I felt were completely reasonable rather than out of nowhere.  I did manage to feel a sense of Liz's presence when I responded to her father-in-law's question about the chocolate cornucopia, and that was a particularly warm feeling.  I felt thankful to have a moment that reminded me of her in that way.

I really enjoyed watching the kids play, and I am certain that Liz would have been happy to see them playing too.  I didn't feel like I needed to watch over Caleb, and I actually felt like I had some adult conversation (a rarity these days).  

As for the getting choked up, the first time was when I was eating the absolutely fabulous sweet potatoes.  I exclaimed that the sweet potatoes were fantastic.  Evan's sister-in-law had made them, and I was a bit surprised because I don't think of her as a cook necessarily.  To be fair, I don't know her that well, so I'm not being judgmental here - I just think of her as a take-out kind of person.  Anyway, she said that she used Liz's recipe, and I nearly choked on my sweet potatoes.  Liz made the absolute best sweet potatoes on earth, and it was strange for me to think of someone else being able to reproduce them.  After my choking, I was able to thank the sister-in-law for making them and tell her that it meant a lot to me that she used Liz's recipe.  The second time I got choked up was my own fault.  I have been meaning to ask Evan's aunt for a copy of what she wrote for Liz's memorial.  I asked, and of course the aunt wanted to talk but not talk about it.  She was happy to send me a copy (I hope to receive it soon!), and we both got a bit teary-eyed and agreed to stop talking about it.  Then she thanked us for helping everyone through this.  I don't know what she means.  We've all plodded through "this" together, helping each other as we could.  I don't feel like we've done anything particularly special to help.  Aaron perhaps has, but me?  Not so much.  I've run away and avoided like the repressed scared individual that I suppose I am.

Anyway, we really did have a good time with the family.  I think we can build upon the tradition.  Liz would like that.

Tags: family, grief

Posted at 03:53 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

location: Home

mood: sad

The day has arrived.  Evan came by this morning to pick up a long folding table and some extra chairs.  I offered to bring food, only to be told how much food already was made.  OK.  I asked about family and got the list of people coming.  I asked about football and got a confused look but had a nice chat about the Pats and Jets.  I wanted to ask how he was doing.  I wanted to tell him how sad I was, but I didn't want to burden him.  It was good to see him happy about the cranberry pomegranate sauce that he modified with brandy.  To be honest, I still want my crappy Ocean Spray canned cranberry jelly - go figure.  I digress.  It was good to see him happy about the Jets.  So maybe I did the right thing by distracting him, and in the process by distracting myself.

I just want her back.  I want to know what vegetarian delight she would have made to accompany the 27+ pound turkey that Evan is barbecuing.  I want to know what she would have said about various family stuff that I won't write about here.  What book would she have been reading?  What movie would she want to go see?  What would she think of Obama's cabinet choices?  Yeah, I want to know all that relatively insignificant stuff that I didn't necessarily know when she was alive.  

Mostly, I just want her presence.  She had such a unique presence (I guess we all do?); I'm not sure whether I can describe it.  I always thought of her as an observer since she seemed to be watching everything and everyone.  But she wasn't passive.  In fact, on Thanksgiving she had specific ideas about what to make and she would go ahead and make those things.  She was like that - she knew what to do and just did it.  She wasn't loud about it, but she was effective.  When she spoke, it mattered.  It was as though she waited until she had all the right words in the right order and the conversation had enough of a pause.  Then she would speak, and it would be funny or brilliant or somehow would summarize everything we all had been saying.  And yet, she was unassuming about all of this.  It wasn't like she was cocky or full of herself.  She just spoke and resumed her business.

In the happy chaos of large gatherings, it was comforting to know that there was a calm rational person I could look to when I felt overwhelmed by the masses.  I'm not sure where I should look today.  Do I look to my husband who will be busy catching up with relatives?  Do I look to my children, one of whom will be bouncing off the walls?  I don't know.  Yesterday I thought about how I didn't want to go to this gathering, but I know that isn't really accurate.  I want to go, but I want the gathering to be different.  I want to go, and I want to be allowed to be openly sad.  I want to go, and I want to see her there in the kitchen and at the head of the table.

Tags: grief, thanksgiving

Posted at 10:20 am | Link | Leave a comment | 2 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

location: Home

mood: sad

When I nurse my daughter, I take that quiet time as an opportunity to breathe, to think in peace, and sometimes even to snooze a little bit.  I mentioned in a recent post that thoughts of Liz keep coming to me while I'm nursing, and I know this is tied to the fact that I associate Liz with parenting.

I remember telling Liz at least one time that I looked to her as a role model for parenting.  She scoffed at this idea, telling me that she was just making it up as she went along.  Maybe she was making it up, but she was really good at it.  I can't say I always agreed with her choices, but who always agrees?  Even when she was sick, she passed on important lessons to her girls and found ways to be close with them.  I remember one time when one of the girls intentionally hurt the other and Liz's response was "The worst thing you can do is hurt your sister."  When the girls went through a labeling phase some time later, the older one had made a sign that said that and taped it to a dresser drawer.  Maybe it was a harsh statement, but it sunk in and those girls are generally loving and good to each other. 

While I nurse, I often wonder how Liz came up with her ideas or how her daughters turned out the way they have so far.  What did she do to minimize sibling rivalry?  What did she say or do to encourage teamwork?  When I enforce a limit with Caleb, I wonder whether Liz would have made the same limit or whether she would have ignored that particular battle.  I even hear myself asking, "Hey Liz, when R did XYZ, what did you do?"  And then I remind myself that I won't hear an answer, not even a scoffing one.

Tags: grief

Posted at 11:28 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

location: Home

mood: lonely

The last post I actually wrote was about grief, and I guess I'm supposed to be writing about motherhood given the title of my blog.  However, my grieving for Liz seems to be tied to my mothering, so I'm going to babble and rant about what I perceive as the unfairness of losing Liz and maybe even tie it to my experience parenting.

Thanksgiving is coming up this week.  I love Thanksgiving.  Liz loved Thanksgiving too.  I think it was her favorite holiday, or at least it was in the top 5.  It's sort of funny that she loved Thanksgiving, given that she didn't eat meat, but I didn't eat meat for several years either and still loved Thanksgiving too.  I half-joke that Thanksgiving is about 3 F's - food, football, and family - in that order.  Seriously though, it's a great excuse to get together with family, with people you love, and just hang out for the day with some great food.  I happen to love watching football too, so that's a bonus.  

Liz didn't make it to Thanksgiving last year.

Oh, we all hoped and prayed she would.  In fact, most of us thought she would make it that far simply because she loved Thanksgiving so much.  Liz used to cook up a storm for Thanksgiving.  She made pies, side dishes galore (the best meal is one made completely of sides, by the way).  Evan was in charge of the bird.  We would bring folding tables to put in their living room upstairs and extra chairs so that we all had a place to sit.  Then we would feast and laugh.  The meal was long, but it never felt long.  It was just a happy chaos.  How could Liz leave before enjoying it one more time?

And yet she did.

Last year's Thanksgiving had a somberness to it which felt all wrong and yet required.  Thanksgiving is supposed to be a happy holiday, and yet I could bring no cheer to the table.  It was the first time I hosted Thanksgiving in our house, and we were in our new house to boot.  Aaron's dad and stepmom were there, and it is always lovely to see them.  I cooked all of the traditional foods, and Aaron was in charge of the bird.  I set a lovely table, if I may say so.  But it didn't feel like Thanksgiving.

There was no happy chaos.  No kids fighting over toys.  No cameras flashing pictures of the bounty and people enjoying one another's company.  The meal was short, but it felt long.

This year, we return to Liz's house for Thanksgiving.  Liz will not be joining us in body.  Maybe she will be there in spirit.  I will be looking for her in more than just the pictures and books on the shelves.

Tags: grief

Posted at 11:07 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

location: Home

mood: sad

Nearly a year has passed since our cousin Elizabeth Stern Thompson died from the wretched monster known as cancer.  Last month, I finished reciting kaddish, a Jewish prayer which exalts G-d and is traditionally recited while in mourning.  This coming Sunday, we are going to visit her husband and daughters.  I'm not sure what we will do other than hang out and eat dinner, but I feel like we ought to do something.  Then again, her husband is the real mourner.  Sure, I feel a tremendous loss, but it cannot be anything like his loss, and I feel like his loss takes precedence.

Anyway, over the past few weeks, my grief keeps hitting me without warning.  I was sharing a journal with my students on Sunday and read to them how I had spent several New Year's Eves.  1998-99: Paris, 1999-2000: Chicago, 2000-01: BNL concert with Evan and Liz.  ack.  It isn't like I forgot the concert, even with my lousy memory these days.  In fact, when I read that aloud, I could see the stage from our seats in my mind.  No, I just had not thought about yet another happy memory of Liz.  Memories came flooding into my mind as I rolled off the other New Year's Eve locations, and I boxed them all up and shoved that box away while I continued to teach.  No need to deal with those feelings in front of my 6th grade class, right?

Of course, feelings don't go away when you don't deal with them, so...

Lately when I nurse Ellie to sleep, I keep having random thoughts about Liz.  The first time it happened, I noticed how I couldn't see my stuffed rhinoceros on the top bookshelf in the dark.  Then I remembered that Liz gave us the rhino and was amused (?) or maybe annoyed (?) that we named her Rhonda.  I took that rhino with me when I had my gall bladder out.  Did taking her gift to a hospital bring a curse upon her?  OK, that's nuts. 

The next time I remember Liz thoughts coming to me while nursing was Halloween.  I wondered whether Liz liked Halloween.  I wondered what the girls had dressed up as.  Did the girls have a good time?  Liz would have gone with them even if she didn't like Halloween.  I was sad not to know whether she liked Halloween.  What right do I have to miss her so much when I don't know such details about her?

Then the other night I was thinking about how fast my kids are growing up, which of course made me think about other kids who grow up fast, which of course made me think of the girls.  That would have been OK except I started thinking about how my kids' names would sound at their bar and bat mitzvah when they are called to the Torah.  Then I started thinking about the girls' names.  Did they have one Hebrew name or two?  Caleb has one, but Ellie has two (Calev and Elisheva Noa).  Liz would have liked seeing her girls become b'not mitzvah.  She was supposed to see that.  Why do I get to see both my kids and her kids, but she doesn't get to see even her kids?

Oh, right.  She got cancer.  And she battled that cancer.  And cancer, damn evil disease, won.

Why?  Please explain to me how that is right.  It isn't right, and not just because I love Liz, and not just because she had a fantastic family.  I briefly thought about how someone else maybe should have had cancer instead of her.  But who should get cancer, really?  It's not like I think I should have been sick instead.  I even thought (have I mentioned Ellie nurses for a long time?) that really evil people, people that I hate, should get cancer.  That seemed right at first, you know, if I got to be the one doling out things like cancer.  But then I realized that just because I thought someone was evil or just because I hated someone didn't mean they should have cancer.  First off, I couldn't think of anyone that I really hated.  OK, there are certain politicians I really disagree with, but I don't know them personally, so I don't feel like I can really HATE them.  But even if I could come up with someone that I thought was evil or that I actually hated, I wouldn't want them to have cancer.  Someone must love that person, right?  That person has a family or some friends or someone who cares about them.  And who does the cancer hurt?  Yes, it obviously hurts the person who gets sick from it.  But the cancer really ends up hurting those who are left behind.  And I don't want to hurt those people, so I can't decide that someone else should have cancer.  Really, no one should have cancer.  Cancer sucks, plain and simple.

Where does this get me?  Nowhere, really.  Liz still is gone.  I never will find out whether she liked Halloween from her.  She won't get to see her daughters become b'not mitzvah.  I won't get to know whether she thinks I'm crazy or whether she thinks I'm OK.  She didn't get to see the end of the Bush administration and the Obama campaign. 

I guess all I can do from here forward is support Evan and his girls.  I don't really know how to do that.  It isn't like I'm all that available when he needs help, and I can't seem to stay together enough to be useful.  I choke up when I see pictures of Liz, even at their house.  I choke up when the girls do something that reminds me of Liz - a look, a posture, nothing intentional.  I'm sure some therapy would do me a load of good, but why should I be the one who needs therapy?  She wasn't my wife, my mother, my daughter, or even my sister.  Shouldn't I be done grieving?

Tags: grief

Posted at 03:06 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 2 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend