A pretty good day

We celebrated Mama's 77th birthday yesterday. Mary Irene (Lakowski) Lapczynski Richards was born in 1928 in Detroit, the seventh of eight children. She had five brothers and two sisters and has outlived them all. She was two when her father died, and has outlived two husbands, one daughter and a granddaughter. She has endured 38 operations, most for the replacement of the joints of her hands and toes destroyed by arthritis, and has survived several microstrokes that have left her mentally impaired. She can no longer manage her own money, run her own household, drive a car, or remember to take her medications. She lives with us but mourns the loss of her apartment and the remnants of her independence. Most days, she is pretty melancholy but yesterday... well, let's just say she was really looking forward to her birthday, even if she can't always remember how old she is.

Because of the strokes, Mama is very childlike. So we kept that in mind planning her birthday. Knowing that kids don't like to wait for presents, we started the day with gifts from Dave and I right after breakfast- lots of them. Four pairs of shorts, five tops, two housecoats and lots of new undies; a new summer wardrobe she wanted, and other things she needed. She had a ball pulling each tissue paper wrapped gift out of the three gifts bags. She carried everything to her bedroom cackling with delight.

Dave had the day off, so she got to spend the day with her son. She and her "baby" sat on the porch swing and watched westerns together. In the early afternoon, the Rose Cottage delivered a bouquet of helium balloons and a small flower arrangement in a teacup from George and Stephanie. Mama LOVES getting flowers and was as excited about the balloons as a kid.

At 4:30, Jake, Becca, Kendall, Haley, Delaney and Emily rolled in. Mama had requested meat loaf and mashed potatoes for her birthday meal, so I made that and all her favorites- corn, salad, cottage cheese, crescent rolls. I bought bright "Happy Birthday" paper plates, cups and napkins for the table, made her a cake and bought her favorite ice cream, Purity strawberry. We decorated her chair with her balloons, and had a nice supper together. We sang "Happy Birthday" and the goonies helped her blow out the candles. They helped her eat the cake and ice cream as well. Everyone was in a good mood, and the goonies were especially attentive to their Busha (Polish for grandmother.)

Before she went to bed, she toddled into the livingroom in her big pink bathrobe to give Dave and I a kiss and to thank us for the party. She looked adorable. Before I sat down to type this, I looked in on her. She was all curled on her little bed. She looks so sweet when she's asleep- just like a child.

And the new challenge is... pick-axe handle

My son has issued a second writing challenge to my daughter Kelly and I, and again has chosen a weird topic, this time an axe-handle (check his blog- there is a link to it on this page).

My son is a very interesting person. Despite having IMS (Incurable Misspelling Syndrome), he is a wonderful communicator with many gifts. He is an artist, a mechanical savant, an engineer without portfolio, a builder, tinkerer, musician, athlete, and lover of music. He is also an extremely good son. Even though he has his own yard to tend, once a week he comes here to care for ours, sparing his Aged P (aged parent, for those unfamiliar with Dickens, and Dave in this context, thank you). Lately, however, the demands of his life have precluded his doing an optimal job here and I have toyed with the idea of hiring someone else.

I actually gave one guy a try-out. He showed up early one morning- waaay too early to suit me. Polite convention makes it uncool to start making loud noises in the neighborhood prior to 9 AM. By 9 AM, all decent people who don't have night jobs should be up and about; it's an unwritten law, like no phone calls before 8 AM and none after 9 PM. Courtesy codes. Had the lawnman been a caller at that time, I would have hung up on him, but by the time my mind cleared, and I was fully awake, and in some fit state to be seen, he was disappearing behind our copse. He was using his own push mower instead of our riding mower, and he was being scrupulously meticulous, so his mowing seemed to go on forever. He took a break at about 10 AM, and then broke out the weed eater. He also broke out his CD player and a platform of speakers, setting them up on the tailgate of his truck and plugging them into the outlet on my garage. He cranked up his noise machine and the weed eater at the same time. I was expecting hip-hop or something, but instead, a lush swell of classical music swept across the lawn. He used the weed-eater in time with the music and it was almost like a ballet, he dancing nimbly, the weed-eater his partner, the music his muse.

At first, it was fascinating, this dance in the afternoon with the sweet smell of grass in the air. And then... then, somehow, it became irritating. He had only brought one CD with him and he played it again and again and again. I like classical music as much as the next person- unless the next person is my husband- but the drone of the weedeater and the endlessly repeating music from the CD very soon were working on my last nerve. I have a lot of nerve, so you can imagine. I signaled to him to lower the volume. He smiled and waved back. I walked out and asked him to turn off the music. He smiled, and nodded, and turned off the music. I went back into the house. After a five minute reprieve, the music was back on. Once again, I rushed to the door and signalled for him to turn off the music. This time, he pretended not to see me. I stomped out and asked him to turn off the music. He didn't smile or nod, and he didn't turn off the music, either. Instead, he reached over my shoulder and turned the volume down. I believe in compromise. I thanked him and went back into the house. You guessed it. Five minutes later, the volume increased to ear-bleeding levels and the house began to shake. When I ran to the door this time, he wasn't dancing, smiling, nodding or weed-eating. He was standing with his arms crossed and his legs spread out as if defying me to come out again. I turned, went through the kitchen, grabbing my cash en route, and went out to him by way of the garage. I did the only sensible thing to do when a seemingly amiable bully pulls your chain. I threw what I owed him plus another $40 into his face and took my pick-axe to his Handel.

Jake is back on the job. Such a good, quiet boy.


FOOTNOTE TO KELLY AND JAKE: I win :)

FOOTNOTE TO OTHERS: Everything about the lawn guy is fiction. I never considered firing my son.

Oh, frabjous day!!

In just four short days, on Friday, May 27th, two wonderful things will happen.

The first is the 77th birthday of Dave's mother. Mama is like a kid on her birthday, so we will do it up right. Balloons, cake, presents, birthday hat, the whole nine yards.

The second is that it is the last day of school for the Goonies! Oh, frabjous day! I get to see Emily, the Amazing Perpetual Motion Baby, several times a week while I am in town, but I don't get to see Kendall (AKA Rangy Lil, age 10), Haley (AKA Noodle, age 8) or Delaney (AKA Pixie Dixie, just turned 6) anywhere near as often or for as long as I would like. It's all because of school. Damnable school. While I believe in education, I really hate school because it separates grandchildren from their grandmother. It tires them, and gives them homework, and makes it impossible for grandmothers to kidnap them on a week night and have some fun. My goonies go away on the weekends- Kendall and Haley to their mother, Delaney to her grandmother- which leaves me goonieless on the weekends as well. I now live for vacations, and summer vacation begins on FRIDAY, MAY 27!! I am going to get them en masse, and one on one- I am going to throw them in the pool, and do arts and crafts, and build tents, and go parading and I can't wait. I don't expect to see them everyday- just everyday I am in town. And some nights, too! I anticipate sleepovers and makeovers and staying up late to watch movies and eat popcorn. I used to say, when they were little, that I was their favorite toy. That's not true anymore. They are growing up and away from me, faster than I am prepared to accept, of course. "That's what kids do," Haley said, wisely, "they grow and change." But summer turns back time. If I can be a kid again, so can they :)


FOOTNOTE FOR JAKE: BUCKETS and BUCKETS of kudos to you for figuring out how to finesse the writing challenge. Now, can we move on? :)

Falling back into greased grooves

It has been a hectic couple of days.

Dave, Jake and I didn't get in from our flight home from Michigan until 11:30 PM on Monday, May 16. May 17th, around noon, my brother Bill and his girlfriend Anna stopped by for a short visit on their trip home to Texas. I juggled preparing for my woman's club meeting with being a hostess, with mixed success. About 4:30, my dear friend Taffy popped in to hang out until it was time to leave for the meeting. Mama and Anna joined us as well, so at 6 PM, after loading the car with everything that needed to go, the four of us headed out for the Butler's Pantry. We had a great meal, a good meeting, a fun fundraiser and only one brief moment of poignancy: the good ladies of GFWC Centenniel Woman's Club collected money to be used to place a book in the Coffee County Lannom Memorial Library in Pat's memory. I was very touched.

Today, May 18th, life began to settle back into greased grooves again. I fought with the pool guy- whom I have decided to fire- did some grocery shopping, cooked two meals, and did a couple of loads of wash. Becca brought the Goonies over for a short visit with Uncle Bill, but he is temporally dyslexic and didn't get back from Lynchburg in time to see them before they had to return home. As today is her sixth birthday, I gave Delaney her birthday present, a canopy bed and matching dresser for her My Twinn doll. Her reaction was disappointing, but I think she may not have been feeling well; she was uncharacteristically bratty when it came time to leave and cried for no good reason all the way to the car and down the drive.

Dave left for Atlanta where he will spend the night tonight. He has a meeting with a customer there and will be back tomorrow. He called around 8 pm while I was still farting around with the pool so we didn't talk long.

Shortly after his call, Mama woke up- from a nightmare, I suspect- and was horribly distressed because she couldn't "remember" if it was day or night. She kept saying she was losing her mind. It took some doing, but I got her calmed down. She pointedly asked me not to put her in a home, which reinforced my suspicion that she had awakened, disoriented, from a bad dream. Poor old thing. I finally got her tucked into bed again.

Around 11:30 PM, Bill and Anna left for Houston.

Tomorrow Becca wants to make a quick run to Murfreesboro but I will have to call Marcia before we go as I think she said something about our running around tomorrow. I need to get to Walgreens for presciptions, pick up Dave's shirts from the cleaners, and get my goddaughter Kat's birthday card to her; she shares Pat's birthday, May 17th. I also have to swing by Tullahoma Floor Covering to price a new countertop for the house on Mac's Lane we are going to list soon.

Friday Donna is delivering the mugs she made for our "Lord of the Rings" film festival, coming sometime this summer. All three movies, back to back, and all seven Hobbit meals- breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. It takes a lot of provender to feed Hobbits, you know.

Off to bed, me.

Home again from Pat's memorial

At 4 PM yesterday, in Chicago, Dave, Kelly, Jake and I parted ways after a weekend with my family. Kelly returned to San Diego. The rest of us came home. It was a hard, strange weekend, but it did, as I had hoped, bring me some closure.

Saturday was spent with my dad. Sue, Andy, Bill, his friend Anna, and those of us from Tennessee, met at Dad's and then traveled to South Lyon to Mike's house. My brother Mike is the sweetest guy in the world, and we don't get to spend enough time with him. I had, as I always do, a good time with his wife Yvonne and my gorgeous niece Megan.

We had a good time together. Kelly and Jake got to engage with aunts, uncles and cousins who have only been on the margins of their lives. Kelly had not been in Michigan for the past almost 10 years, so some of her younger cousins had no memory of her at all, though they had heard about her.

My kids are closer to Dave's side of the family. Mama and Paul came every Easter, and often returned for a visit in the fall, and in each of our trips to Michigan to see my family, we would spend a day with Dave's. My family, with the exception of Bill, has been generally remiss in making visits to Tennessee. For the most part, to stay connected with the Michiganders, the Tennesseans have had to make the effort. And we did make the effort regularly when the kids were younger. But one does not have to be a rocket scientist to know when the need for connection is not reciprocated- both of my kids commented on it several times during the weekend, how they missed out on so much because we had moved away, and I felt sad for them.

And I felt sad for myself, as my siblings continued to tease me about things from our ancient past. It's always the same few memories that get dredged up again and again. I burned a steak when I was 14. I am 55 now, I've cooked since then. Have they no more recent memories of me to draw on? I seem to be a frozen image for them, a set piece of half-remembered, mostly negative, incidents. They don't know who I am now at all.

Sitting in Mike's kitchen, I could not remember a single incidence of such a thing happening in mine- all of us together, playing games, catching up. Well, we weren't all together this time, either. Pat and Barb were not there. Maybe it was all to the good that the gathering seemed so... surreal. It was the first gathering without Pat, at least for my crew.

Sunday we spent with Barb and the girls. At 5 pm, we went to Temple Beth-el for the memorial service. There were about 250 people there. Sue spoke, then Mike, then me, and then Bill. Each of Pat's siblings said their good-byes. Jack Austin spoke, Carol Middel spoke, and a couple of Pat's good buddies spoke. Pat's youngest, Jessica, tried to speak and couldn't do it, which broke the hearts of everyone in the room.

But there was also a lot of laughter during that service, as there should have been. Pat had a great sense of humor, and was making people laugh right up to the end of his days. It was what people remembered and loved the most about him. There was a nice meal after, and my children got to meet some of their more distant relations; two of my great-aunts, my cousins Debbie and Lynn...

We returned to Mike's that evening for a visit with a dear friend we hadn't seen in years. Monday, we lunched with Barb at her parent's house and then headed for the airport. The four of us together, our own little nuclear core, with beloved satellites waiting for us on our return- Jake's beautiful wife Becca, the four fabulous goonie sisters, Mama. We are a tight group, we four plus five plus one. It was a comfort having them with me. Becca and Mama comforted me here. My children were a comfort there. Whatever nostalgia I may have for how things might have been had we stayed in Michigan, I have no complaints about how things are here and now.

It was good to spend time with my siblings and my dad. But on the flight home, I realized we were returning to, not leaving, the people who know us best.


Today would have been Pat's 46th birthday. May perpetual light shine upon him.

Time to say good-bye

My sister Sue called last night, and we had a long talk. I feel a little better about the trip to Michigan now. She helped. She doesn't usually. Usually, she means well, but pushes all my buttons making me feel angry, manipulated and impotent. Last night, either she was being more sensitive or I was being less so, but we cried together and ended the conversations with heartfelt I love yous.

Later this morning I will meet Jake in Manchester and we will drive to the Nashville Airport. Kelly is meeting us there. We will fly to Dallas where Dave will join us and then all four fly to Detroit. A very convoluted way to get from Point A to Point B, but such are the vagaries of Frequent Flier Miles.

I am so not looking forward to this trip. My brother's body has already been reduced to ashes. There will be no funeral, just a memorial service, in a temple instead of a church, where flowers are not permitted. It is going to feel slightly surreal, I am sure. It has been so hard waiting here alone in Tullahoma for a memorial service that is taking place more than two weeks after his death. I am feeling unusually fragile and fear I will lose control of myself at some point. I have been feeling physically sick for three days now. My head hurts. My heart hurts. My blood sugar is soaring or dropping, depending on the time of day, and I have been dangerously light-headed twice today. I am heartsick and the rest of my body is following suit.

It is an inconceivable loss, the death of a much younger brother. I remember him as a baby, as a child, as a teen, as a man, in much the same way as I remember my own children. Sue and I were surrogate mothers to Mike and Pat because our mother was a semi-invalid for almost our entire childhoods. We split the motherhood role. Sue was the nurturer, the story book reader, the tucker in at night. I was the disciplinarian, the enforcer. I didn't show my soft side to my brothers because I needed to maintain fear. I was given responsibility without authority, and so needed to be harder, meaner, scarier and tougher than they were so that not doing what I said was certain to be met with ruthless retribution. It was in hardness that I kept them safe and taught them the proper path.

But the soft feelings were there. I loved my baby brother. I dressed him up like he was a doll, and dragged him around in a wagon until my arms were pulled out of their sockets. When he was very little, he couldn't say "Kathy", as I was called then, and, to the delight of my siblings and cousins, called me "Kaka". Later, I was either Katie or Sissy. Not Kate. Not Sis. He must have known those softer feelings were there.

During our last visit together, Pat told me he was surprised at how well I had gotten my temper under control. I was angry all the time when I was a kid and young adult, and inclined to lash out suddenly and cuttingly at anyone who annoyed me. I told him I finally realized that I was taking my anger out on innocent people and not the people I was angry with, so I stopped doing it. He looked at me with something like wonder in his eyes.

Twenty five years of living separate and apart from my brothers and sister has robbed me of the opportunity of watching them evolve, and vice versa. Their image of me is still somewhat frozen in terms of our shared childhood. But I am not that hard, angry person anymore because I don't need to be. They will expect me to be strong this weekend. That is their image of me. I fear I won't be.

David left for San Diego the day after Patrick's death, so I have been trying to cope with my grief alone. I haven't done well. Complicating my grief is my resentment toward Dave for making me bear it alone. My rational self understands the demands of his job, and how he needed to be there because of job pressures. My irrational self feels it was unforgivable for him to leave me comfortless. I would not have done that to him.

I am tired and must be on the road in 6 hours, so I am going to bed. I must be rested. I am going to Michigan for my brother's memorial. I wish it had been me who had died instead.

My life as a sloth

I have a standard stress reaction- it times of high stress, I sleep. My stress reaction has jumped into overdrive this week. I will be flying to Michigan by way of Dallas with my children on Friday. Ah, the convolutions demanded by the use of frequent flier miles. Packing, going to the airport, and getting on a plane, especially one bound for Dallas, the most hateful airport in America, all stress the hell out of me and they have only become marginally easier as I have been traveling more. I find I really don't like the process of travel at all. I am stressed about going to my brother's memorial service and worried that I will fall to pieces during it. I have been terribly distressed about his death since it happened on April 30. Maybe the memorial will bring me some closure. Ironically, as soon as I return on the 16th, I must finish preparations for my woman's club award dinner, scheduled for May 17th- Pat's birthday. He would have been 46.
So I have been sleeping. I slept all day today. Poor Mama. I made her oatmeal at about 10 AM, and promptly fell asleep on the couch where I slept until 4 PM. I made her dinner, and dozed off again. I am such good company. Granted, I was feeling under the weather today, but I know what is going on. I can't face what is coming.
I have a recording of his last call to me on my cell phone. It was recorded after he got home from the hospital after his last surgery, roughly two weeks before he died. He sounds wonderful. His voice is strong, his mind is clear- he is Pat. I have been saving and resaving that message, unable to let go of the sound of his voice. I went to Verizon to see if there was a way to save it permanently but they have no such service. Play it into a tape recorder, they advise. Isn't that ironic? We have devices that can save the image of a person, save the sound of a person, long after that person ceases to be and those images and sounds become unsatisfying icons of the person we have lost. I know from experience if I record his message to a tape, I will never listen to that tape; I also know I cannot allow it to be deleted from my cell phone, not just yet. So every 5 days, I am reminded by my service that the message is about to be deleted. I listen to it and resave it because I cannot do otherwise. This is the way people are really haunted. I'm going back to bed now.

The gauntlet has been thrown down...

Check out my son's blog from time to time... icarus7474.blogspot.com
Kelly also has a blog; in fact she started the blogfest. She can be found at kellell.blogspot.com. Well, her thoughts can, anyway.

Both of my kids are pretty good writers, though Jake, like his dad, has a rather problematic relationship with spelling. (I don't think he proof-reads, either- he is a stream of consciousness kinda guy). Both of them are original thinkers.

Some years ago, we used to have short, short story contests among the three of us. We would set a deadline, pick a phrase to write about, and come out writing. On the deadline, we would read our stories to one another. It was always cool to see how diversely we handled the same topic. Once we stopped living in the same house, it became harder to do stuff like that. And now with almost a whole continent between us at any given time, you'd think it would be impossible.

BUT NO!!!! We are bloggers! And we read one another's blogs. And we comment on them, which no one else, for the most part, seems to do, at least with my blogs, anyway. But I digress. On his page, Jake has proposed another contest. Deadline: May 20. Phrase/word: "bucket". No word from Kelly yet- she is currently in rehearsal for a new show in California, a British farce called "Move over, Mrs. Markham" and hasn't been blogging on as much here lately. But I'm game. I'm up for it. I plan on kicking ass. What the hell! Bucket!

My baby brother

I lost my baby brother Patrick Saturday morning, April 30, 2005. He fought cancer for ten excruciating months, and I honestly believed, until the last few days of his life, that he was going to win the fight.
I cannot describe my pain. I am the oldest of five and he is the youngest. My kids are grown, his kids still need him. In a symmetrical world, I would be the one who is gone and he would be here for his daughters' graduations and weddings and first babies.
The rest of my family has been better prepared for his death for a variety of reasons. They were there in Michigan and saw his battles at close hand. I only heard about them after the fact. They saw his pain. I heard him talk when he was pain free. They believed the doctors when they said he'd be dead in a year, and so have been in a kind of sotto voce continuous mourning throughout these past months. My mourning began on Saturday. They are together to comfort one another. I am here.
I know that is by choice. I know I chose not to go to Michigan during the last few days of his life. Bill and Barb both advised me to stay here and that is what I wanted to hear. I wanted permission to remember him the way he was when we spent our week together in March. He was very thin and frail, but still Patrick. Still strong, still sharp-witted, still good company and my good friend. I really, really loved him and I can't believe he is gone.
I can't seem to stop crying. During this whole ordeal, I don't think I cried more than a couple of times; I was operating under the idea that he was living with cancer, not dying from it. Even so, we had a couple of poignant moments where we both lost it for a bit. Not pity parties- there was no self-pity ever- but there was sadness and fear and regret, and we cried over them. And I cried over his pain.
Now my tears are entirely selfish. I want my baby brother back, alive and whole. And I would very much like to have Mike's arms around me, and Bill's shoulder to cry on, and Susie to mother me just a little. We will all be together for his memorial on May 15. All but Pat, of course. How can there only be four of us now?