Obituaries

 

February 12, 2012    

Dear Andrea,

What can you tell me about death?  About dying?

This morning I read The Issaquah Press.  I skimmed through the news on the first page about free health screenings at the Health Fair yesterday, Senatorial support for same-sex marriage bill; looked at the color picture of Julie  Clegg, pet photographer on the first page of Community Section; noted Squak Mountain Nursery was having free seminars on pruning trees, planning roses and starting seedlings.

It wasn’t until I got to page B3 that anything really piqued my interest.  OBITUARIES.  There were three.  Marcella Louise Antonich-Layman known by family and friends as Marcy.  Marcella was your middle name.

She shared the obituary column with Richard Leander Ingertila and Laurel “Lolly” Anne Snedeker .  The story of each life summed up in 6 to 9 small paragraphs. 

I have read the obit Steve wrote for his wife.

I write you letters all day long on my heart.  I try to remember the genes you took from me.  Catalogue them.  Sum them up into neat small paragraphs.  A fitting obituary for you.

I contemplate death.  Everyone around me represents potential loss.  6-9 paragraphs in the obit section.

Steve read me something he saw on his Facebook last night.  It was a letter.  It read Dear Pessimist and Optimist, while you were arguing over whether the glass was half empty or if it was half full, I drank it.  Sincerely, the Opportunist.

Everyone around me represents a connection.  Those I knew before you died.  Those I have met after.

I could not write your obit.  I could not sum you up in 6 to 9 paragraphs.  Dean did that for me.  I have not read what he wrote, studied it like I am studying Marcy’s, Richard’s and Lolly’s.  After I saw your name under the heading, OBITUARIES­ nothing else would register.  The letters did not fit together to form words, sentences, paragraphs, anything I could comprehend.  All I could see were just black marks on a page.

Dean went out and bought a stack of The Olympian’s on the day it ran the picture and paragraphs of you.  He was irate.  The paper misspelled Lyme disease as Lime disease.  I tried to get him to stop his tirade—“fucking morons, imbeciles, what the hell is lime disease, people are going to think Andrea died of too many limes, too many margaritas.” 

I was crying, vibrating with all the pitches of sorrow wanting to escape from me.  “Please.”

“Just forget it.” 

“Leave it.”

“Fucking morons, imbeciles.  How could they get that wrong.  I specifically spelled it out for them.”  He flapped the paper and it made slapping, snapping noises that hurt my ears.  I was in so much pain it hurt to move from one minute to the next.

Jake intervened.  “Hey it could be worse.  I was watching this show and Aunt Mildred died.  They sent her nephew to the paper with her obituary.  On the way he read it.  Aunt Mildred was remembered as a devoted wife, loving mother, sister, grandmother and friend.  ‘Wait,’ the nephew thought, ‘they don’t acknowledge that she was also an aunt.’  When he got to the newspaper, he  put a comma after grandmother, deleted friend, put a comma in after friend and added ‘beloved aunt.’  The next day a family member brought a stack of newspapers over so everyone could read the obit.  They all sat there reading quietly until they got to the friend, and ‘beloved cunt.’

Maybe this morning I am looking for typographical errors. 

Though I did not realize at the time, Jake’s story taught me I could find something hysterically sad and hysterically funny in the same moment.  My first lesson, in death and dying.  A lesson I wake up with every morning, it follows me through my day.

I refrain from counting all my losses.  The ones I could see coming.  The ones I did not.

I am trying hard to focus on what I have.

Marcy will be remembered by all for her love of family, friends.  And laughter. She is survived by her husband, daughter, son, granddaughters.

Richard was a parachute jumper in the United States Navy.  He is survived by his loving wife Marie, son and grandchildren. 

Lolly was a Norwegian beauty.  She will be treasured for her love, kindness, elegance, wisdom, endless patience and strength, and will be dearly missed by all who knew and loved her.

What could anyone tell me about death, about dying? 

I am learning, even as I live.

I love you Andrea.

There are not enough pages, enough words for me to write an obit for you.  Ever.

Mom

Droid Astronomy

January 29, 2012

Good Sunday Morning Andrea—

A shear veil of rain surrounds Steve’s house.  The lake is full, overflowing, creating a small pond, its surface echoing falling raindrops. 

The trees, stripped of all pretenses, stand bare.  Broken limbs, some big around as my waist, lay everywhere, a testament to forces beyond my control.

Since you died I have been searching for order.  For a way to explain your death in a way that makes sense to me.  For a way to incorporate the incorporatable. 

I am giving up my search for order.

Surrendering it to forces beyond my control.

I do not need to understand, explain, rationalize, apologize .

I can just be.

Except your death surrounds me like the dome of stars I laid under last Sunday at the dark beach at Barking Sands.

Oh my Gosh—you would be so amazed at what you can do with a phone now.  You can take your I Phone, or your Droid—did you die before or after the I Phone or the Droid? I cannot remember. 

Anyway, there are apps for the I Phone, the Droid that you can download.  If you have that app, you point your phone at the light shining in the night sky and it will tell you the name of the planet or the star you are facing.  The map outlines constellations.  Names stars and planets.  I never have to stand on a dark night and wonder, what is that shining in the distance.  Now, I can know.

Knowledge is a choice.

Holding the phone up to the night sky, I am at the center of my universe.

I am one small speck on a slightly tilted turning globe of land and water. 

A satellite can track my existence.  My presence in  physical relation to everything else on this planet.

Every choice, every act, is significant. 

I start each day now, expecting nothing.  The anticipation of surprise propels me forward.  Enough, I am rewarded. 

Days run together, undefined.  I find myself sometimes in unexpected places.  I am changed when I become aware.

Like the pond rippled with raindrops, everything around me changes until it dissipates.

When I surrender, I am strongest.  Only then am I aware of all my weaknesses, those things I must protect.

The memories of you.

It is essential that I cry out. 

I am in the process of delivery.

Delivering myself from the weight of grief so I can cradle it in my arms. 

She who has gone before, my new friend, midwife’s me in my grief. 

We talk about you, her son, knowing everything the heart cannot speak and how delicious it is to wrap your names around our tongues like the first time we named you.  Barry.  Andrea.  We taste the vowels and consonants  sitting on the beach together sifting sand. 

Love, loss, memory. 

Shells, no bigger than a figment of my imagination, collected, will transport me back to this moment from some future point in time.

Last Sunday night Steve and I took our Droid’s, two pillows, beach towels and a blanket.  Barefooted, I followed him out to the shore.  We wanted to lay flat, explore the universe above us, around us as the day and tide retreated. 

On the bed we made on sand and lumps of vegetation, we held our phones above naming stars, constellations, planets.  Jupiter was following Venus who had just passed below the western horizon. 

I laid as perfectly still as I could, held my breath, opened my eyes as wide as I could, focused on nothing.  It was then I could see myself in the middle of a 360 degree circle –a horizon encircling me.  The darkness, punctuated with specks of light varying in intensity.

Each light has a name.  Its name has been spoken back to the first awareness of its meaningful existence.  A place to navigate from, to.  Passed from tongue to tongue in breath, in sound, in song, in kiss.

My birth sign, Gemini, is above us. 

I move my phone.  Find Mars.

Saturn.  Spica, the star.

I do not trust my eyes. 

Me, pressed against the earth by the centrifugal force of movement.  The earth spins on its axis.  The sky appears to be moving.

Directionally confused here, I cannot feel north, south, east, west.  I am at an intersection where earth meets water, meets air.  A cool breeze blows over me.

I count five falling stars.  Five falling stars for this woman born in the 5^th month of 1955. 

Five secret wishes only my heart knows. 

And you, Andrea--Saturn and the Spica.  Two ships, whose helms you stood at out at sea. 

At breakfast my friend Jean, her husband, tell me “Oh that was an ‘oh hi mom’.”

You are so much more than just a memory.

I see ripples of that everywhere.

Sadie says to tell you hi. 

I love you.  

Mom.

Back from Vacation

January 28, 2012

Hi Andrea,

Yes it has been awhile. 

Steve and his neighbors are out picking up tree limbs.  There is devastation from ice and snow and wind everywhere.  Last week, while the snow fell and ice covered trees breaking huge trunks and branches, froze pipes, left homes without power, Steve and I explored Kauai from the beach at Ke’e to Barking Sands.  Purposefully, I unplugged from phones, computers, televisions, newspapers.  I got lost in the pursuit of solitude and sun. 

I have not looked at the weather for Kauai, but I am certain the sun is shining there today.  The sand is pink speckled with miniscule bits of broken shells still sparkling from the receding tide, the dolphins are surfing the breaking waves, the shearwaters are diving for their daily meal, and a whale blows a plume--waves a pectoral fin, rolls over, then launches its massive body from the ocean, forms an arch and dives back in.  If I listen hard enough I can hear a rooster crowing.  A shama singing.  I hear the doves wings flutter as a tanned old man with long gray hair, held back in a ponytail sits in the sand throwing breadcrumbs in the air.

Today I spent the day with Lisa and Annalise.  Next Saturday is Annalise’s first birthday.  She has two little teeth right in the middle of her lower gums.  Her laughter opens doors in my heart that would rather stay closed.  Love is risk.

When Annalise polks her pudgy index finger in my mouth, I nibble it with my front teeth.  She giggles, pulls her finger back, puts it in my mouth again.  Then she teases me, holds her finger out, makes me come after it.  I let out a little growl. Annalise  laughs with all her being. 

Love is really all there is.

It is worth the risk.

In the end, it is all we can take with us.

………………………………………..

Last Monday night, my last night on Kauai, I slipped between cool sheets wearing nothing but Fig Leaf and Cassis lotion.  Outside, there was a breeze blowing towards the northwest--towards home.  It rattled the wood blinds as it entered the room.  Finding Steve and I curled up together, the breeze traveled the hills and valleys of our bodies.  

Back to back, I aligned by spine against Steve’s, pressed into the warmth of his sleeping body.  He did not stir.  I closed my eyes, let the sound of the outgoing tide, the eerie moan of the wedgetailed sheerwater escort me to the realm of sleep.

Tuesday morning, 6 a.m. my alarm went off for the first time in 10 days.  At noon, Alaska Airlines Flight 852 would speed down the  runway, lift in flight, travel the jet stream pushed to Sea-Tac by strong tailwinds.  After I hit the snooze button, buying five more minutes, I thought, “I could leave everything for this moment.”

The alarm rang again.  Steve stirred, rolled over, pressed his stomach into my back, tucked his knees in behind mine.

“Mmmmmm.”  He said.

I felt delicious, ripe from seven full days of sunshine.  I let out a small moan of pleasure as Steve ran his open palm over the rise of my hip.

“You have no jammies on.” 

“Mmmmmm.”  I answered.

“Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”  Steve whispered as he nuzzled his nose behind my left ear.

“Perfect.”  Because on this last morning, while the winter sun was still working its way over the southeast horizon 22 degrees from the Tropic of Cancer, a walk on the beach would be.  Perfect.

I wrapped myself in a pareo, dark blue with yellow flowers blooming on one edge.  I tied two ends criss-crossed around my neck, making it into a dress.

Hand in hand we quietly left the little cottage at the beach.  It was still dark, in front of us the planet Mars was the brightest light in the western sky leading to the place where vegetation stopped, beach began.  Right over us was Saturn with its pronounced and visible rings.  Just off to the side was the star Spica. 

Saturn and Spica.  USS Saturn and USS Spica.  I have t-shirts, baseball caps, from those two ships you served on as an able bodied seawoman.

We stopped at the picnic table, the last point before beach.  Facing the island Ni’hua, the channel where humpback whales spend winter days, where dolphins wait for the tide to change to feed in breaking waves, I turned my face toward Mars, navigated to your planet Saturn, star Spica, breathed deep. 

The wind tugged at the corners of my makeshift pareo dress.  Steve, behind me, encircled me in his arms.   

The ocean rises with a single tear. 

Crying dissolves unseen parts of me.  I taste the salt of ocean spray as it falls from my eyes, making its way to waves broken at the steep drop before shore, still moving across a polished sandy beach until worn out.

Yesterday I saw my tears pass through a humpback whale that waved a pectoral fin, then blew a plume of water.

Humbly, bare, beneath a piece of cloth tied with one knot behind my neck, I invoked a blessing from sky, ocean, sand.  From who ever, what ever, might be listening.

I turned to Steve.  Stood face to face with him under a sky still dark enough for stars and planets to show themselves as tiny specks of light.  Pulling apart the front of my makeshift dress, I exposed my most vulnerable self .

My breasts that fed you, my belly that carried you, the passage to your birth.

I am safe in a way I have never been with anyone. 

Steve pulled me close.  Burying my face in his neck, he and I danced together as the sun rose over his left shoulder. 

The stars and planets disappeared.

I accepted my blessing.

To know, to feel love, is worth the risk.

                                      Love you Andie—

                                    Mom

Kauai Calls

January 11, 2012

Hey Andrea,

Kauai calls. 

I hear her and I will be there soon.

In the meantime, this is a conversation I had with Steve via text messaging this evening:

Me:  “I have never traveled for ten days w just a day pack

and carry on .  This is a challenge.”

I have horse packed into the Maroon Belles Wilderness Area in Colorado; into the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana.  I have taken a dog to New York City for Westminster, twice.  I have gone to Finland, Russia, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Cleveland, Boston, Reno, Los Angeles, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, La Paz, Norfolk, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and places I have since forgotten.  I have  never traveled light.  Traveling light requires planning, making choices.

Steve:  “Check Rick Steves’ website for suggestions.  Pack multi-

use articles and plan to wash them.  Four days socks & underwear max.  Can you wear a pair of hiking sneakers on the plane?  Bring nothing “just in case”.  A long pair of pants, a pair shorts.  You get the idea.”

Only four pairs of underwear max?  Only four pair?  I will close up my suitcase before he gets to count anything.

“Bring nothing ‘just in case’”. 

My whole suitcase is full of clothing and items “just in case.” 

Because you never know.   

Bring nothing “just in case”.  Is he kidding?  What if…How am I supposed to know what I want to wear next Tuesday, next Friday.  I have a hard time with what to wear one day at a time. 

Me:  “I totally have the idea.  Implementation of the concept is

the problem.  If goal is achieved you will have to recognize  what a major achievement this is for me.”

Steve:  “Congratulations on the effort.”

A second later.

Steve:  “Subaru gets 22mpg.”

The effort.  Steve has no idea.  This is the first major trip he and I have taken together.  Flying to Palm Springs a year ago last Christmas does not count.  I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Grandpa Veil had a stroke.  He was laying in the hospital, soon to be moved to hospice.   I hope he has found you, and grandma.

Rick Steves.  I Google “rick steves packing list”.  There is a separate packing list for women.  If you want you can compare it to the men’s list.  I am not so inclined.  What would be the point?

Apparently, when Rick first came up with his packing list, women complained.  It did not account for all their needs.

Which is why men should never be architects.  But that is an entirely different subject you and I shall discuss later.  Back to packing.

Me:  “Checked out Rick’s packing list.  He says I can bring two

pair of shorts.”

No reply. 

I need to account for all my needs.  And fit them all in a carry on and backpack. 

There are piles everywhere.  Shirts, shorts, bathing suits, slacks, skirts, dresses, different color sandals to match each outfit.

Snorkel gear, cameras, camera chargers, colored pencils, a blank notebook, something to read.

I have always carried more than I needed.  Wrestling with the weight of it lugging it from place to place.  Weighing me down.

Wait, that shirt with the palm tree is really cute.  I might want to wear that next Saturday.

I check Rick’s list.  4-5 shirts.  I already have 7.  That’s a compromise.  I am not taking 10—which is how many I wanted to bring.

The last time I went on vacation was the February after you died.  I flew to Miami, met with a tour group—Senior Cycling, and bicycled the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West.  On that trip I UPS’d my bicycle, brought a backpack, a carry on and a large suitcase weighing 50 lbs.  I had the most and the heaviest luggage of anyone on the trip.

Remember when I used to fly to Norfolk when you lived there?  Not only would I bring a carry on and a suitcase, but I would end up buying a suitcase at Marshall’s or Ross to carry all the clothes and other things I bought when you and I went shopping at the Outlet Mall and around Norfolk. 

You inherited the maximum amount of luggage gene from me.  I will never forget your tantrums every time you left home to meet a ship.  You could bring anything you wanted as long as it fit in your duffel and one other bag.  Your favorite pillow and down comforter competed for space with nail polish, eye shadow, strappy shoes and a little dress.  Then there were the work clothes.

I had no idea how much collected luggage you and I had until after you died.  We never traveled light.  Anywhere.

And now it is a requirement.  It is a test I must pass.  Traveling light.

Me:  Got everything in carry on and in backpack.

Everything I need.

                   Love You Andrea,

                   Mom

Birthday Wishes from Friends and Family

Andrea,

Happy 30th Birthday....Remembering E.T. toes, SNICK, cross-country skiing, dress up, and so much more. I miss you so much Andie.

Love ,

          Eddie :0)

Andrea,

          Happy 30^th birthday!  Your mom has put together quite a celebration!  We are all here to enjoy each other’s company, share our memories of you, and of course to devour your mom’s amazing cooking.  She’s serving posole, your favorite.

God has you in his arms and we all have you in our hearts.  Your missed!

Love you,

Lisa and family

Happy Birthday Andrea, remembering you today and everyday. I hope that you are teaching the angles how to be pirates and keeping watch on your mom.

Grandpa and Mari

 My friend Ami gave me a card she made.  It says:

I have not turned my back on you

So there is no need to cry.

I'm watching you from heaven

Just beyond the morning sky.

I've seen you almost fall apart

When you could barely stand.

I asked an angel to comfort you

And watched her take your hand.

She told me you are in more pain

Than I could ever be.

She wiped her eyes and swallowed hard

then gave your hand for me.

Although you may not feel my touch

Or see me by your side.

I've whispered that I love you

While I wiped each tear you cried.

So please try not to ache for me

We'll meet again one day.

Beyond the dark and stormy sky

A rainbow lights the way.

--Author Unknown.

You told us--"If I'm smiling, you should be smiling too."

I feel you missing me as much as I miss you.

An angel watches over me.

I'm not sure when I'll get there kid.  I still have lots to do.

Love you--Mom

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

 

December 31, 2011

Two twelve a.m. December 31, 2011 I cannot sleep.  I make myself a cup of tea, pull the chair up to my desk, check Facebook.  There is a post from your friend Edwina.

Andrea would be 30 years old in less than 2 hours. I miss her so much. The tears are rolling down my face as I type this. for the 2 years before she pissed away she always told me two things,"i will never get a chance to have kids" and "i won't live to see my 30th birthday." It hurts my heart to know she was right. Andrea you are missed by many. Happy Birthday. I will love you always.

Edwina Pezoldt-Smith oops blurred vision from tears I meant passed not pissed.

3 hours ago · Like · 1

Your cousin Lisa sends you birthday wishes.  She writes

“Why is no one sleeping??”

And a birthday wish—“God has you in his arms.  We have you in our hearts.”

I need to find the box of pirate paper plates and napkins for tomorrow.  They are buried somewhere in the garage, along with all your papers and possessions I am storing.  The garage is full, overwhelming.  Searching, I find a pile of notes I made, and printouts of things you posted on Facebook, MySpace, your Tweets.

I find something you wrote on April 9, 2009.  April.  Five months before you died.

Future…new option for me.  I realized during my break that I’d been living in anticipation of dying…I’ve thrown out the earlier calculations that I wouldn’t make it past 30, and at my 27^th birthday dinner, I proposed a toast to the future.  I mentioned how happy we’d all be the day I turn 31…Now there’s a milestone.  My friends dread turning 30, when I think my 30s will be the happiest decade of my life….

I am up because Steve and I were playing Scrabble serenaded by the sound of dishes in the washer.  The steady syncopated beat and swishing water.  We play a relaxed game.  Make up our own rules.  I do not know why we keep score.  Playing Scrabble with Steve is never about the winning.   He has fallen asleep in the chair in front of the fire.  Stella lays out flat as she can make herself absorbing the warmth of the tile hearth. Sadie sleeps beside me at my desk.

I also find your Beatrix Potter baby book—A Tale of Baby’s Days.  I open it and find two ultrasound photos—one taken on October 7, 1981.  The second December 28, 1981.  Your Certificate of Baptism from Saint Anthony’s Church in Kent, Washington on February 20, 1982.  A list of THINGS TO PACK FOR LAMAZE BAG (KEEP WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES).  The first thing on the list is Focal Point.

I need that focal point now.  Where is it?

In my handwriting I added to the list—extra pillows, wash cloth, footies, Baby Book. 

A card that was attached to a bouquet of pink roses from your dad.  To the Treasure of our Hearts.

An envelope.  3-16-84.  Andrea’s First haircut.  I have a few locks of your hair.  Something of you.  I held that envelope in my hand.  Could not open it.  For some reason all I can think of is my trip to Poland several years ago.  The room of hair at Auschwitz.    How I could not move, was paralyzed.  The locks of hair brought the magnitude of loss, of the atrocity home to me.  I put the envelope down.  I cannot open it. 

My hospital bracelet.  Yours.

The card they had on your bassinet.  Date of Birth 12-31-81.

Time:  7:37 a.m.

Weight 7 lbs. 2 oz.

Length 20 inches.

Valley General Hospital Certificate of Birth.  This document should be carefully preserved.  It is your family’s heirloom record of the facts pertaining to your child’s birth.

Baby’s left footprint.  Baby’s right footprint.

Your first smile was on January 29, 1982.  4 weeks old.  On March 29 you rolled over from back to front.  On May 31 your rolled over front to back.

On April 1, 1981 you laughed out loud for the first time.

On August 7 you got your first tooth.  At six months you sat up on your own.  At 7 months you crawled.  At 11 months you walked alone.

Sometimes I feel you missing me.  Or is it just me missing you?

I stop.  Close my eyes.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

It is you missing me. 

You, holding a My Little Pony up to your face in the snow.  Smiling a smile as big as Kansas.  The caption reads “If I am smiling, you should be smiling too.”

Enough of this. 

It must be 32 degrees outside.  I hear the hot tub pump come on.  I strip.  Leave my clothes in a pile by the patio slider, wrap myself in a big beach towel. 

Immersing myself in the steaming 100 degree water, I melt.  Float in a womb of warmth, feel the breeze brushing my hair, caressing my cheeks.

30 years ago I laid alone in a hospital room at this hour, laboring, waiting to give birth to you.

Focusing on my focal point as contractions seized my body.  Breathing in.  Breathing out.  Resting in between.

7:37 a.m.  December 31, 2011.  Thirty years have come and gone. 

There is no place in your baby book to record your death.

THINGS TO PACK FOR DAUGHTER’S DEATH (KEEP WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES).

Whatever you decide to bring, pack lightly. 

The journey is a long one. 

Happy Birthday Baby Girl. 

Happy Birthday.

The eve of your 30th Birthday

December 30, 2011

Sadness stalks me.  I feel its breath on my neck, traveling along the crease where my earlobe meets my head. It paralyzes me.   I cannot scream.  My vocal cords will not work.  Tonight I have no energy to fight.  My constant vigilance, avoidance, cost me.  I’ve just begun the tally.   I count each tear as it falls onto my lap.

Tonight I will give in to this stalker.  I no longer want to be the prey.  Let it have its way with me all it will.  Devour me with the fervor of a hungry lover.   I writhe and revel in sweet surrender.

This will not be the last time we meet.

Tonight I feel like I have been transported back to past, to that afternoon the Graham Firefighter told me over the phone, “I’m sorry.  There was nothing we could do.  I’m really sorry.”

Tonight I feel like I felt at your Memorial Service on the steamship Virgina V.   I wore sunglasses to hide the fact that I was crying.  You cannot hide sobbing.

Tonight I want to hold my breath until my body screams “Breathe . Breathe .” and I tell it no.  My body will take over, win the fight.

Tonight I want to stand outside naked in the rain and scream until my throat is raw and I cannot make any sound except a whimper.

Your Birthday.  On New Year’s Eve you would be 30.  Could you just imagine the party we would have? 

I decided to have a get togethereven though you won’t be here.  I am making you homemade flour tortillas, posole and pirate cupcakes—vanilla ice cream on the side.

I guess maybe I should get some balloons.  Some Happy Birthday Banners. 

Aren’t the pirate cupcakes enough?

Always more.  Always wanting to do more to show you how much I love you.

Remember your 5^th birthday.  We were living in UW student housing out at Sandpoint in Seattle.  I made you that dinosaur piñata you wanted out of newspaper, flour glued over balloons.  I couldn’t figure out how to attach the head to a really long neck and join it to the body.  I painted it a royal blue color.  It was a miracle the whole thing hung together suspended from the ceiling its dinosaur neck drooping, threatening to fall off.  All your friends were blindfolded and batted at the thing with all the force a five year old could muster.  No matter how many blows were dealt, it would not come apart.  In fact we had to take it down and stomp on it to finally get it to break—which totally defeated the whole candy flying purpose of a piñata.

Birthdays were special times.

They always will be.

Sweet cupcakes now laced with salty tears.

Do you remember that book we both read?  A Girl Named Zippy?  I picked up The News Tribune from the driveway yesterday.  On the front page was an article ‘Zippy,’ the girl killed by a tree…  I immediately thought of you, the book, and how we laughed and talked about Zippy like she was member of our family. 

The story of this Zippy in The News Tribune  only makes me sadder than I already am.  A 9 year old girl died on Christmas day.  She was riding in the back seat of her parent’s SUV when a 15 foot long, 1 foot across section of alder tree broke free during a windstorm and crushed the family car.  Her father, who was riding in the passenger seat in front of her, suffered a broken neck.  Her two older sisters have  scratches and sore necks.  When the car came to a stop Zippy’s mother got out, climbed in the back seat, and held her dying daughter.  She held the child she had given birth to as she breathed her last breath.

“I don’t know how soon a person can get over this” the paper quotes Zippy’s grandfather as saying.

I want to call him on the phone and tell him.

Never.

That is the myth.  The expectation.  Take an acceptable amount of time to grieve, and then move on.

Sadness stalks me.  Grief its co-conspirator.

An acceptable amount of time to grieve.

How soon can a person get over this?

Why should anyone expect them to?

It is your birthday tomorrow. 

Dark chocolate mocha cupcakes are baking in the oven, filling the house with promises of sweetness.  Later I will frost and decorate them for you.

Tomorrow I will get up in the morning and light 30 candles.  I will watch the flames flicker as I try to remember every birthday I celebrated with you.  When there is almost nothing left of the wick and wax, I will blow them out and make a wish.

Then wait for the guests to arrive. 

Happy Birthday Andrea. 

                                                Love you—

                                             Mom