Microblog Monday - It's getting to me.

At the end of West Side Story a woman kneels at the side of her dead lover who has been shot. Two rival gangs stand and approach each other with violence on their minds.

"Stay back!" The woman says. She goes to the boy with the gun and takes it from him.

"How do I use this? By pulling this little trigger? You all killed him... not with guns but with hate. Now I can kill too because I have hate."

I'm finding myself hating.
Hating the occupant of the White House.
Hating the people who thought it would be a good idea to get him elected.
Hating the haters.

I'm finding myself in rages.
Rages at the political climate.
I have to stop shouting and yet I can't keep myself from shouting.

I want to de-personalize people. I want to say if they think THAT, then they aren't deserving of the moniker human being.

I want to.

And then I can't. I can't let my body fill up with hate. I can't let myself give into the fear.

How do you not give into the hate? How do you avoid cocooning in your home because you don't think you can handle somebody discriminating against you? How do you avoid it?

It's getting to me.

Tell me your story - Biographies on Audiobook

I've been listening to a lot of books. Right now I'm in the middle of Grant. This book, written by Ron Chernow, the author of Alexander Hamilton, is an in-depth look at the man, the soldier, and the president.  I'm only about eight hours into this 48 hour behemoth of an audiobook but I'm finding time to do things so I can listen.

It is fascinating.

After I finish the book I'll do an in-depth review of it. However I was musing about how some of the audiobooks I have liked the best have been biographies. I've listened to four biographies that I had not read previously and sometimes it is like listening to someone wise tell me about how someone I looked up to (Steve Jobs) might have been a bit of an asshole. Sometimes it is showing me history (Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin) and teaching me that the founding fathers weren't gods. They were just as human as you or I.

The art of listening to biographies is different than listening to fiction. One, you listen and think, oh, this famous and accomplished person did thus and so, and I do thus and so. My best example of this was when I listened to the book of John Adams and I heard how he would pack books first before any trip and often kept a book in his pocket--just in case. I do that as well and miss the abundance of mass market books that I often kept in my purse.

Sometimes I hear parts of a person's life thinking "I don't know how they're going to get out of this one!" This was prevalent when I listened to the Steve Jobs biography. I knew he became successful, but it was the how of the journey that took me by surprise.

But most important about listening to these biographies is the sense that I'm not alone. It is a voice, quite literally, reaching out from my computer or smartphone telling me that even though I am struggling through difficult times, I'm not alone. These people struggled too. They survived. They thrived, and it gives me the strength to go on.

Who shall attain the measure of mans days and who shall not attain it -- Microblog Monday

Today, once more, The United States is reeling from another mass shooting.
Only the places change.

I'm sick about it.

But I was reeling for long before I heard of it.

Social Media, you see. It got me back in touch with people I thought passed out of my life long ago. Years ago I got back in touch with my very first crush. I'll call him E.  I still remember the day we held hands and climbed the monkey bars together. He was always good to me. In second grade I decided I wanted to marry him. I didn't, but we became kind of friends. He never bullied me and often put a stop to bullying when he saw it happening to me. When I finally got onto Facebook he welcomed me and we corresponded when we saw each other.

He was a good, kind, funny, fun, man.

He was.

Yesterday I saw people leaving memorials for E on social media. This must be a joke. I thought.  He's my age. He wasn't sick. He can't be dead.

Of course it was true. That smiling boy who took my hand in second grade,  went to sleep last night and never woke up. He had (that we know at this time) no underlying health problems. He had no drug problems. He did not die of pancreatic cancer like the valedictorian of my high school class. No one knows why or what happened. We only know that the people who knew him have a darkness in their lives where his light was.

I'm now asking the same questions the family and friends of those killed in Las Vegas are asking. I'm grieving. I always meant to send a text to him that maybe we could meet and hang out. I always thought that there was time. I always thought that there would still be time. Why wasn't there time?

On one of the memorials someone quoted the title quote. It is from the Yom Kippur liturgy. I wondered if E sat in a synagogue on Yom Kippur and listened to it on his last day.

There are times where this whole life thing doesn't make sense. It is up to us to try to make some degree of sense. The week before I went out to see my high school crush/best friend for the first time in years. Both our families had a great time and I plan to see more of each other. I don't know how much time we have.

What would you do if you knew that you didn't have much time? What is stopping you?

Microblog Mondays - Dear Mom Year 3

Dear Mom,

Tomorrow will be three years
since I picked up the phone
to Dad's voice
saying only
"Honey, she's gone."

I had seen you
two days earlier.
I can still feel
your hand in mine.

You were beyond speech but
when you squeezed my hand
I knew that you knew
I was there.

I promised to take care of dad.
And I have, as much as he will let me.

I told you it was okay for you to go.
It was.
You were in so much pain.
You weren't you anymore.
Dad said, "If there was anything to pull we would have pulled it."
Not for him,
For you,
Because you hated being that way.

I told you you had been a great mom.
I forgave all the teenage crap.
I forgave the adult crap.
I forgave.

I said that I would be okay.
I lied.

I need you.
I never planned on motherhood
without my mother to guide me.

I miss you.
The good and the bad.
I never knew I'd watch Gilmore Girls
To remember how much of a pain you could be.

I know I am not the only one suffering.
Dad still reaches for you in the morning.
Aunt V, your older sister, often time travels in her head
to when you were alive.
My sister and brother live with their regrets.

I have few with regard to you.
I am proud of how I was able to care for you
like you cared for me.

I only wish I could have done so longer.

Broadway music saved my life--now it is saving my sanity.

Broadway music saved my life.

More than once.

When I was in sixth grade I had a horrible teacher. Think Snape--except without the forgiving back story. I was depressed. I was suicidal.

My parents were fairly oblivious. I didn't think I could tell them anything.  But they knew I was unhappy. They sent me to my aunt and uncle for a week. Where my aunt and uncle saved my life.

They took me to a show. A national tour of Man of La Mancha. While I had seen several musicals--growing up in a suburb of New York City-- this was the first one I climbed in and lived in. After that, no conversation was had without me bringing up Man of La Mancha. Which was my favorite song today? Then I would play it over and over --rewinding the cassette a myriad of times (because of course I had it on cassette since MP3s were decades away). I memorized the entire book of the musical. I read Don Quixote (a fairly bad translation) when I was 12 years old. I read biographies of Don Miguel de Cervantes.  I took comfort from the fact that even when everyone laughed at Don Quixote and beat him and turned away from him--he still followed the Impossible Dream.  It made me believe that I could go on and do it to.

I got through the rest of the school year. I think part of it was that I told my aunt some of the stuff my teacher said and things got better at home. Things got better.

I'm in a dark place lately. I want to just hold on to my daughter because she makes me laugh. She hugs me and makes me comfortable in a world that has grown increasingly uncomfortable. I then thought of what I used to do when I was uncomfortable and I thought of Man of La Mancha. Got the CD and listened to it. '

And today, today, it is helping me go on. Helping me say that I can follow the quest. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.

Below is Brian Stokes Mitchell in what I would say is the best version of this.
I will strive with my last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars.

Microblog Monday - My Real Grandmother

Lotus is named after my grandmother.  My father's mother.

I adored her. I looked up to her--even though by the time I was 14 I was taller than her.  When I spoke of my grandmother, I meant her.

But I met both of my grandmothers. I met my mother's mother. She taught me how to bless the candles on Friday nights. She put dots of honey on my fingers and after I said some of the words right I would lick my fingers. She would read Torah stories to me. I remember her scent.

Grandma G. passed when I was around 7. I remember the funeral vividly. I remember my mother ripping a black ribbon as it was pinned to her suit. I remember that so well that when I was at my own mother's funeral, I flashed back to that day and broke down. It became real then.

But this isn't about my mom--or not really.

I came across a cache of pictures of my mother's parents.  I never met my maternal grandfather, he died before I was born. My then 42 year old mother thought that her missed periods and nausea was extended mourning. She went to the doctor and was declared 4 months pregnant.

There are several pictures of me with my grandmother. But the picture that stopped me cold was a picture of both of my maternal grandparents--taken not long before my grandfather's death.  In it my grandfather is smiling adoringly at my grandmother and she has--an almost shy smile on. It's the smile of a woman who loves the man she is with. It is a beautiful picture of two people very much in love.

I realized that while I had met my maternal grandmother--I didn't know her. Not because I was a child, but because so much of her died with my grandfather. This woman, with the shy, loving smile, this was my grandmother. The one my mother wept for. The one my mother knew.

Lotus met my mother but knew her less than a year. Afterwards my father had a lady friend who slipped effortlessly into the role and Lotus loves her. She knows and loves my father. He is Papa. He can't count. Every time he asks Lotus to give him three kisses he counts "one, one, one, one" He makes her giggle.

Today, I was looking through more pictures and I saw a picture of my father smiling so broadly with my mother in his arms smiling back. This is a lovely picture. I sucked in my breath as I realized I was staring at my real father. The complete one, the one with my mom at his side. No matter how long my father lives, Lotus will never know this man. My father, when he was complete.

Aunt and Uncle

I believe in reincarnation. I believe that some people have been in our lives for many lifetimes.

Here I talk about my Aunt and Uncle.  I'll just call them Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Phil. Both teachers--down to the bone. My uncle taught music. One of his students was Donna Summer with whom he exchanged birthday cards until her death. Her death took my Uncle Phil by surprise--and hit him hard. No teacher wants to outlive his students.

My aunt taught history. She still does when she can.

Both of them outlived younger sisters. Their last trip on a plane was to bury my mother.

They have been married for 73 years.  No typo.

They are 96 and 97 respectively.

And they are dying.

They taught me how to live without children, and it makes me feel terrible that once we had Lotus my contact with them wasn't as frequent.  Part of that was--well parenting.  Part of it was that my Aunt Phyllis would time travel in her head.  Most often she knew who I was when I called, but we were always about to get Lotus.  And my mother was alive.  Hearing Aunt Phyl talk about her in the present tense broke stuff in me.

I believe in reincarnation. I believe that when they leave this earth they will wait for me and we will be born again together.

But right now, I just hope that if there is a merciful Gd, he will take them together.

And I hope that they will hang on until I get out there to hug them, one more time.

Microblog Mondays - Assumptions about choice

We are finally in the last stages of this interminable election. There are quite a few women I know who are voting for Trump or a third party candidate.

The women who are voting for Trump--all of them that I have spoken to which is in no way a scientific survey--cite the Supreme Court and anti-choice views as their reason.

When life begins--at conception, at sometime in utero, at birth--I don't know, I don't pretend to know.

When I did IVF and I saw those little dots on the screen--they were real to me. I was overwhelmed at how protective I was of those little dots. They were mine. When the IVF failed I was so despondent I can't put it into words.

That being said, I can't and won't use my beliefs and how I felt to say how others can and should feel.

I should say this. Pro-life is not the right term.
Anti choice is.

If you are voting for someone so that he will put forth justices that will force women to have babies that they don't want, and it doesn't bother you that he has no problem sexually molesting these self-same women--you are not pro-life, you are anti-choice.

If you do not see that there should be mandatory maternity and family leave, you are not pro-life you are anti-choice.

Please understand that, according to the Jewish religion, when the health (physical or mental)  of the mother is in danger the pregnancy must be terminated. Not should, not can, must.  If you can't embrace that because of your religion, you are not pro-life, you are anti-choice.

Do understand, if abortion is outlawed--there will still be abortion. It will just be unsafe.

Towards the end of her life my mom opened up about her college friend, Julie. She died because she had an unsafe abortion. My mom said that Julie was her best friend in college. Had she lived, I would have called her Aunt Julie. She was taken away from me because men in the 1940s didn't want to trust women with their own bodies. I would have liked her, my mom said. When I think of mom in the afterlife I like thinking of her with Aunt Julie, eating chocolate and drinking wine. She died horribly.

If you want to force women into this situation, don't you dare call yourself pro-life. You are anti-choice.

Emily Gilmore and My Mom

So I've been binge-watching Gilmore Girls.  I'd never seen it, a bunch of people said it was good and I've been enjoying it. I'm only in the first season so no spoilers please.

I thought I'd like Rory and Lorelei and I do.

But I love Emily. It's like having some time back with my mother.

My mother and Emily Gilmore had a lot in common. A rigid look at the world, a fierce love of their daughters, and a way to make sure her disappointment was known without saying a word. No way did we grow up that rich, but we were comfortable and the similarities are there.

There are sometimes when Emily Gilmore is on screen that I have my mom back for a little while--even the parts of her that I didn't like. Maybe especially the parts of her that I didn't like. I haven't been remembering the parts that drove me crazy--I miss them too. But there were times I could have killed her and saved the cancer the trouble. She had her bad points too, and watching Emily Gilmore helps me to remember the whole person.

Somehow this seems healthier than remembering only the good things. The bad things were there too. They had parts of our relationship and there are things I do now that I know she wouldn't have liked. She was not ever perfect. And neither is Emily Gilmore.

But she was mine, and I miss her, and for a little while when I am watching Gilmore Girls I have some time back with my mom.

Microblog Mondays - Smart women

My father has been somewhat of a Lothario as he is is working through his grief.

For reasons I don't comprehend, women live longer than men. That means as a straight widower he has his pick of women to keep company with.

He suggested that his popularity was due to the same things that fueled his popularity in college chiefly that he still has a lot of his hair and he still drives.

As for the women he has dated, some I like better than others, but none of them are bad. The other thing that I notice is they all have one thing in common.  Intelligence.

I'm not saying common sense intelligence but I guess an intellectual curiosity that reminds me (rather unsurprisingly) of my mother. I find it funny that my father has a type--and the type is intelligent women.

Like my mom.
Like me.

Microblog Monday--Happy Anniversary Mom

Dear Mom,

I have my first byline.  My first paid byline, mom!  It's in the online magazine Kveller. I think it is right--the name. That's what you would have been doing--you'd be kvelling.

Dad had his birthday and then, six days later was your anniversary.

It's a hard day.

For sixty-four years June nineteenth was a celebration of love. The kind of love that you had. The yell at each other, make up, hold hands for a while kind of love. The sleep in a chair by your love's hospital bed kind of love. That's what we celebrated every June Nineteenth. That's what my sister celebrated when she chose it as her wedding day.

Now, now it's a day where we try to act like we don't remember how you would do stuff. We made no mention of the fact that it was your anniversary when we celebrated father's day, and my sister's anniversary. No mention at all.

I didn't handle that part so well. Even though dad was with his new girlfriend, I had to talk about you. I had to remember you. We talked about you and baseball. How a client took you to the famous Don Larson Perfect Game. You came home sad and down because "No one hit anything. No one got a run. " We laughed. We missed you. I needed to remember.

I need to remember that your blood is still in my veins. Your heart still beats with my heart.  I am here. I am here and since I am, you are still here.

When I am gone. When I am where you are, my blood does not flow through Lotus' veins.  But my heart will still beat. I have given her my heart and yours too.

I miss you mom. Happy what would have been your 67th anniversary.

I'm with her

I was very moved by Hillary's speech.

I thought of my mom.

My mother voted for Hillary in 2008.

My mother was born in 1927. She was the second woman to graduate her university with a major of world trade. Now it would be called international finance.

Nothing offended my mother more than willful ignorance. I think it is understandable that she didn't like Sarah Palin.  But she wanted to see a woman president very much.

She would have liked yesterday.

Breaking the Fast

Work-wise and getting things done - wise, last week pretty much sucked.

However, as I plod along trying to take steps forward in my grief I believe I have turned a corner.

Last week, I read.

I don't mean read news sites and blog posts I mean books.
I don't mean I listened to books--though I am in the middle of a long audiobook and I listened to it.

I mean I read.

Five books in seven days.

Five new books that I have never read before.
Five books that are not written by Nora Roberts.

When my cousin, who lost both of her parents, told me that I would have problems reading, I didn't believe her.  Reading and books are what got me through bad times. To a point it still did. I was reading and rereading the work of Nora Roberts.  When I tried to read new books--I put them down.

Something happened. The dam of my TBR (to be read) pile crashed down and I picked up a new book and finished it. I grabbed another new book and did the same.  If I wasn't with my husband or daughter I was reading, getting lost in words and worlds. I was staying up late reading to find out what happens next. I plan to be reviewing some of the books in later posts, but I can say that the biggest surprise of the books was Trade Me by Courtney Milan.  Mainly because I don't like "New Adult" fiction usually--but this was a massive exception.

Anyone read any really good books lately? Because it seems that now I'm ready to.

Blood ties

I tend to belittle blood ties.
Hmmm, maybe belittle is not the word.

I understand and appreciate blood ties, but when people say to me, "You can't possibly love your adopted daughter like I love my daughter because she isn't your blood." I roll my eyes and take a step back from the speaker, often both metaphorically and physically.

I have a biological sister. I love her.

I have a sister that I chose for myself in my first week of college.  I love her too.

In my heart there is truly no difference. I often introduce the latter as my sister--something that kinda gets my bio sister upset. That being said, I often don't understand it, I don't love my b-sister less, I couldn't possibly. Somewhere along the line, with my non-bio sister, the word "friend" just didn't seem to cut it.

Anyway, blood ties--not a thing.

Then there was yesterday.

We are in California visiting my Aunt and Uncle. They are celebrating their 72nd wedding anniversary--and that wasn't a typo.

My Aunt is my mom's older sister. Though over 90 she traveled from CA to NY when mom passed. She said that she was there when mom came into the world and she would perform the mitzvah of burying her. She did--bent over with her own grief she did.

Yesterday after a incredibly long and traffic filled drive we arrived to meet them and I took my Aunt's hand.

More often than not I don't think about her being my mom's sister--seriously if you met my aunt you'd understand, she's in a class by herself. Yesterday I held her hand and it felt like I was holding Mom's hand. Her touch was the same.  We sat while eating dinner, holding each other's hands. I wasn't about to let go, neither was she. We were both looking for a link to mom and found it in each other.

I love my Aunt, and she loves me. Yesterday when I held my aunt's hand I also held my mom's. Yesterday when she held my hand she held a link to her sister.  The blood is there and so is the love. Maybe it's when they aren't together, that's when people say don't forget blood.

That mothers day when I sucked - Microblog Monday

So yesterday was Mother's day.  And after years of waiting and dreading this holiday I had a holiday with my beautiful Lotus.

My father and inlaws were here too.

And I did not have a good day. I like to make this blog about Hallmark moments, good moments, sad moments, but seriously this wasn't a good time, a good day, and I don't look good when I talk about it.

First we went to get our pictures done--and that went fine.  My dad left for his Mother's day with his girlfriend. (Is it really weird to talk about a 88 year old man's companion as a girlfriend or is it just me?) Nevertheless, that is probably when I started cooking.

I kinda wanted him with me.
Did I say that? No. Did I even register it consciously until I started to write this blog post? Also no.

So I started cooking in my mind.

Prior to this D and I had a tiff because I was annoyed that the place where I wanted to have Mothers Day Brunch A) wasn't doing it this year  (was closed for the day) and B) Why in all hell was I the one to make Mother's Day Reservations since I was the mother.

So poor D, went nuts trying to find a good mothers day brunch the day before mother's day.  He found a mother's day brunch but it wasn't good and the lack of care they took with cross contamination of my allergies meant I couldn't eat. At first they wouldn't let me order off the usual menu. Then they saw me sitting there like a bad Yelp review ready to happen and they let me order off the usual menu but it wasn't very good.

My Mother In Law was angry because I was not grinning and bearing it. To tell the truth I was angry at myself that I wasn't just grinning and bearing it. Well we left and got ice cream and it was marginally better. Then we went home because my in-laws were going to watch Lotus while D and I were going to watch Superheroes save the world. We left Lotus wondering why we had to go out and of course the time we wanted to see was sold out.

And I lost it.

I was crying, yelling at D, blaming him, blaming me. This day sucked sucked sucked! I had waited and waited and I wanted this perfect day! Why couldn't anyone understand that! My mom would have understood it!

And there it was.

I wanted my mother.  Somehow she'd have made it all right. D and I hugged and then we got the uber expensive Imax tickets.  The movie made me sane again.

Today I cringe at how I was yesterday--but it's real. Sometimes I am not a nice person, and well, today I'm owning it. I remember some of the Mothers' days with my mother. How sometimes she'd be sad, or in a bad mood, and I didn't understand. Now, in the light after that day, I realize that my grandmother, my mother's mother, died when I was seven years old. I don't have many memories of her. It occurs to me how mom must have been missing my grandmother on Mother's day. She must have ached for her, and hated hearing how the whole family was together--as sometimes it was--on mother's day.

So, I'm my mother's daughter.
And I can only hope that next year will be better.

Picture it--Long Island in the '80s

Yeah, I know, blame it on the fact that I've been watching way too many Golden Girls reruns...

But seriously

Long Island.
1988
I was on my high school's cross country track team.
I didn't run very fast but I liked it.

Two of the people on the track team were twins. Identical. I'd be lying if I said I could tell them apart.
They were funny and always kind to me.

I found out today that one of them committed suicide.

I hadn't thought of either of the twins for decades, and yet I feel terrible.  I remember that smile. I remember how they used to go as each other for Halloween.

And yes, I think of the Weasley twins --as they were both redheads.
I think about the surviving twin and how he won't be able to make a patronus, and how every mirror is the mirror of Erised.

Wind to thy wings Charles. The world is less bright without you in it.

Dear new owners of the house where I grew up

It's happened.

An offer has come on the house where I grew up. It has been accepted an a closing date has been set.

I want to beg Dad not to sell it.
I want to have it sold already.

But it is the house where I grew up.  I want to write a letter to the new owners and this is what I think it will say.

Dear new owners.

I grew up in this house. My earliest memories were of sliding down the stairs on my butt. Allow me to let you know some things about it.

The rungs on the bannister look wider than they are. Ask my brother. He got his head stuck between them. Mom called the fire department and expected them to cut through the bars, instead they poured a massive amount of cooking oil on his head. To the kids growing up--don't try it, it really sucks.

When you are in the basement, the house creaks. You will swear on a stack of bibles that there is someone else in the house. Nope. That's just the way it is.

My bedroom, the one that's pink now, is the warmest room in the winter and the coolest room in the summer. Yeah, you might like to have the big bedroom with the bathroom attached as the master bedroom--but if you are as sensitive to temperature as I am, take my room. It's good.

This house knew love. The kind that lasts lifetimes. My parents were the only owners of the house and they were married nearly 65 years. 54 of them were spent in this house. My oldest sister grew from toddler to adult in this house. My brother and I grew from newborns to adult in this house. This is the house where we hung out as teenagers, we held parties, and kissed our boyfriends (okay my boyfriends) at the front door. Grandchildren came to play in this house. The step that leads to the den from the stairs is called the evil step because every one of the grandchildren took a header on it. But afterwards they learned. This house rang with the laughter of a family with a good sense of humor. Yes this house knew tears, but when we wept, we didn't weep alone as the spirits of love remembered kept us company.

This is also the house where my mother died. I'm not telling you that to scare you or make this morbid. That is why my father is selling it, because when I come to the house I expect to see my mother in the kitchen, or coming up from the office in the basement, and it still hurts that she won't. We had a wonderful time in this house, and now it is your turn.

I have wishes for you.
May you make the house ring with laughter. The acoustics are such that if someone is laughing in the den, you can hear them upstairs.
May your children discover that if you talk about them in the basement office they can hear you in my room (the pink one).
May you have many meals where both ovens are used.
May there be a blackout--just cold enough that you sleep in front of the fireplace. I remember those nights of my childhood very well.
Fill this house with as much kindness, arguments, laughter, shouting, and love that we did.  It's a tall order but we are wishing that a family enjoys this house as much as we did.

Gd bless.

(and, if you find a wedding ring in the corners of the house, please return it to me. It was my mother's.)

Dear Mom - 2 years out.

Dear Mom,

It's been two years since Dad called--his voice nearly unrecognizable--and said, "Honey, she's gone." It wasn't a surprise. You said, often, you wanted to go "fast and first" and you did.  First being that you didn't have to wake a single day in a world where Dad wasn't.  Fast--well that is a relative term. You meant to have a heart attack. But the cancer that was discovered in October, left you bedridden in  late February and took you in April was plenty damn quick.

I remember clearly how at 5:30 in the morning I woke up. I glanced at the clock, I got up and waited for the phone to ring. I was so sure you were gone. I called dad at 8:00, but he told me no, you were still alive, only to call back three hours later with the news. I told this to my sister and brother and father and all of us woke up at 5:30 or within 10 minutes of the time.  No idea what that was.

It was monumentally unfair that after years of trying to have a child, waiting for the adoption that I never had a mother's day when I was both mother and child. You got to meet our Lotus and hold her, but she won't remember you--and I hate that.

You would have loved that I've been working the past year with audiobooks.

I remember your likes and dislikes sharper than when you were alive. I remember your scent and the strong way your hands moved. I remember how you would cut an onion, potato, or apple in the palm of your hand and never use a cutting board. I kept buying you cutting boards for Mother's day, your birthday, Chanukah.  Two of them I found after--unused.

Listing the things I don't miss about you would take a shorter time.

I miss your voice and your assertion that "everything happens for the best." I don't believe it now, anymore than I did then. But I miss you saying it.  

I think what I miss most about missing you is Dad. He's not with you--not yet, and I have some idea on how much work he has had to do not to just will himself to your side. But my strong Papa is gone. He's far more indecisive than I have ever seen him. He's more fearful too-- fearful of driving, fearful of stuff.  By your side he could do anything. The two of you could do anything. I miss that.  

I'm getting along--like you told me to, but you never taught me how to get along without you so I'm winging it most of the time.

The last show

I like the new Facebook feature.  The one where you can click on something and then you can see all of your posts on this day for the past year.

I've been enjoying it.

For the most part.

Today though, three years ago today, D and I saw Fiorello with my parents.
Bad memory? No. Not at all. We had a wonderful time at the show. Went to dinner at La Bonne Soupe, discussed politics and had a wonderful time.

I just didn't know it would be the last one. I didn't know that wonderful time wouldn't happen again. The next day is one of the best of our lives--we got our referral.  Then we got Lotus. And then we lost mom. Dad hasn't been back to Broadway since--though we are hoping to change that.

I just thought there would be more shows. My sister did too. She was invited and she didn't want to go--she missed the last one. Her thoughts of this--I don't know. I know she has so many regrets.  A difference between she and I is that I have no regrets when it comes to mom--sometimes that helps.

Sometimes no.

But I wish we had had more.

Microblog Mondays--Valuables

The Governor: (dismissively) Paper.
Cervantes: Manuscript
The Governor: Valuable?
Cervantes: Only to me.

-- Man of La Mancha


I went to my dad's house this weekend. He's looking at apartments and I went with him.

I wanted to take my mom's recipe file home with me. Then I couldn't find it.

Dad had hired a clean-out company to help him get a lot of stuff out. We had estate sales.  But we couldn't find some stuff afterwards--we know it is in the house somewhere but we don't know where. I freaked out about this the last time, but I had calmed down.

My mom's recipe file? That practically broke me.

These are the foods that she made her corrections to. The recipes she'd charmed from restaurants when she traveled--in her own handwriting. I called my sister to see if maybe she had taken it. She said no, got upset and then said that no one would have stolen it. They couldn't read mom's handwriting.  It made me feel slightly better--but not much.

We found it, well my husband did.  I hugged that file to me the way I couldn't hug my mother. To others it was worthless, for me--it was priceless.

Do you have any objects that are "worthless?"