More Than A Chapter

  It’s getting hotter out. The temperatures are skirting 100°, which means that the pool is warming up. I’ve already been in a couple of times—once with the pup and the other to swim laps. There’s something peaceful about being in the water. I’ve loved lakes, oceans, pools, and waterparks all of my life. I’ve passed this “bug” onto both of my boys. Summer time means pool time. The end of the school year and the arrival of summer was always exciting. Sure, part of it was because the daily grind came to an end for a month or two. But mostly it was because I had ample time with my kids. And a big part of that once included spending time in the pool. And since I worked in education, I kept the same schedule as the kids. The smell of sunscreen still evokes calming memories for me. Drifting beneath the surface makes me feel like I’ve somehow found an old home that I’ve been missing. And being in the water is yet another way to commune with Zane. We have a pretty large, diving pool, so it...

  This Memorial Day weekend has been tough when it comes to my mental health. It’s not the day itself, but the things that have happened around it. My husband designated this weekend as the one where we do spring cleaning, but it’s more like a deep purge. Now I will be the first to admit that I love to hang onto things that have sentimental value, and that includes things that belonged to Zane. And I’ll admit that it’s time to let some of them go.  Some of them.  Well, if you know my husband you know how obsessive he is about cleaning and minimizing stuff. So this weekend was horrible for me. I won’t get into the specifics right now, but I felt compelled to get rid many of Zane’s belongings that I wouldn’t otherwise part with. Having to sort through and compile his toys and personal items was emotional and taxing. Add to that a verbal “fight” my husband and I had that sent me bawling in Zane’s room for an hour and a pouting episode on my dad’s part that left me filled wit...

  Yesterday was surgery day for my older son. We were at the same hospital where Zane spent his last days of life. Shit, was that hard! All sorts of feelings surfaced, and I had to stuff them down throughout the day. The last thing my living kiddo needed was a mom bursting into tears while he was experiencing anxiety of his own. I had to throw the brave-face on. I’m pretty flipping good at it.  Yet there were moments of laughter when we joked about directing the surgeon into our room with one of those business-twirling arrows and then accidentally knocking him out with it, because we were so inept at twirling, that he couldn’t perform the surgery that day.  But then the sobriety kicked in.  During pre-op, when my son stepped out of the room, I turned to the surgical PA. “Be sure to take extra care of him during surgery,” I said. Then I back-pedaled a bit. “I mean, I know you’ll take care of him, but I lost my younger son three years ago, and he’s all I have left. So ...

 Tomorrow my older, 18-year-old has surgery at the same hospital where my younger kiddo spent the last days of his life. He and I were there for the first part of his surgery three years ago (only six months after Zane died). It was hard to go back then. But at the time, I was still existing in a fog-like state. I had only just received my latest cancer diagnosis, and the pandemic was only a mere four months old. I was pretty much out of body.  Not this time around.  This time, I’m feeling more anxiety than I did on the day of that first surgery. My oldest is feeling it, too. For him, some of it is due to the procedure itself, but that’s not the all of it. Yesterday he told me he hates the hospital: the smell, the colors, the fact that it’s filled with sick children. We had spent a lot of time there when Zane was alive. He was inpatient quite a lot. It became like a second home, and I never minded it when my kiddo was alive. And until the last admission, he always came ho...

  Lately I’ve been having a lot of memory flashes about Zane. There’s nothing in particular that sparks these remembrances; they just sort of happen. Sometimes they occur in a montage of the mind. I see the time spent on the second floor of PCH, waiting for a specialist appointment. Or…I revisit middle-of-the-night bedding changes. Some of the flashes make me long for day’s past while others make me wish I’d done things differently (i.e., regret).  This past weekend was Mother’s Day, so I naturally thought of the times when I enjoyed the holiday. The three guys were always so good about planning something for the day—a bike ride or a day trip to a cool part of Arizona. I cherish these memories and hold them protectively close. There’s no way of ever going back to them, so they’re all I have when it comes to Zane. Even after three years, that’s still a hard reality to face. I imagine it always will be.  Zane loved to move. When we lived in Colorado, he participated in adap...

  Yesterday was Mother’s Day. It’s a complicated day for many women:   • For those who wish to be mothers  • For those who never had a mother  • For those whose mother caused trauma  • For those who have lost mothers  • For mothers who have lost children, including babies in pregnancy  I know there are other scenarios, which I have not touched on. That’s not deliberate.  I used to be okay with the day when both of my kids were alive and I hadn’t yet recognized the complicated and traumatic relationship I had (still have) with my own mother. Now the day pretty much sucks. Sure, my 18-year-old made pancakes for me and gave me a beautiful card. I spent time with him, which is precious. But that’s true on any given day.  Honestly, I think the day is overhyped; meant to carve society (i.e., women) into its perception of what we should look like when, the reality is, most of us don’t have normal mothering situations. Let’s be honest here....

  Photo by Pok Rie I was thinking about how grief ebbs and flows through a person’s life. I remember the first time I experienced the death of a loved one. It was in 1995 when my grandfather died suddenly. Despite his old age, he was healthy, so his passing came as a shock.  I was living in Phoenix at the time, as was my younger brother. My parents were still in Wisconsin. I received the call while I was at work at First National Bank. Of course, the loan documentation I was working on came to a standstill as I tried to process the news, and then deliver it to my mom. I vividly remember where I was standing when she explicitly said she would not be traveling to Arizona to help with any of the arrangements. At 26, I was left to handle things alone—not only the details around his death, but also in passing the news along to my grandmother. It was a lot for a young person to handle, and I insisted my brother at least go with me to view our grandpa's body.  My first brush wit...

  Yesterday I took Presley, my angel son’s labradoodle, for a walk. It was warm outside, so I decided to shave off some of the mileage and cut through the school field. Doing this also allowed for him to be set free to wander and explore.  As we approached the other end of the field, we came upon a woman who was walking by herself. I complimented her hat—an Ecuadorian Panama one. From there, she and I struck up a conversation. Normally I don’t share information about losing Zane with strangers, but at one point she asked me how many children I have, and it always feels wrong to exclude Zane. So I told her. She welled up, which is always a sign that someone has empathy and isn’t afraid to show it. Our conversation quickly evolved into a lovely sharing of loss and cancer journeys and grief.  She and I are going to walk together later this week. I think this may be the start of a new friendship. It truly is rare to find people who fit so harmoniously with my own belief syste...