my mom is dead.
it's been approximately one month since she died, but it feels no less strange saying that phrase today then it did on the day it actually happened.
yes, i am aware that a month has passed in between, and yes, my pain has lessened during that time (in fact, it's lessened considerably), but it still doesn't change what has happened. on the contrary, as the whirlwind slows and the dust settles, it seems to have only clarified things more sharply.
i will never be able to talk to her again. i will never be able to hug her. try as i might to move forward and return to some semblance of an everyday life i still find myself distracted, frequently having to beat back thoughts of her no longer being here, while at the same time trying to hold firmly onto her memory.
the constant inquiries from friends and family wanting to know how i'm doing has slowed a bit, and to be honest, i'm thankful. this isn't to say i don't appreciate the concern (or that people aren't still thinking about me and inquiring), but i'd just assume not answer the same questions every day, especially given the subject.
so, for anyone currently wondering, this is for you--
i am doing fine...except when i'm not.
the reality is, the answer to your question is a constantly changing one that i have trouble enough getting a grasp on myself from moment to moment without having to try and articulate it at the precise moment you're asking.
i suppose the better question (and in some ways i think the one you actually mean to ask) is, will i be okay? and to that, i can unequivocally say maybe.
i'm kidding of course, i'm sure i'll be fine. i just don't know how long it will be till i am (though i'm beginning to think that it may be a while).
see, on top of actually mourning and grieving the loss, i've started to realize that i need to learn how to live again in a world where my mom being sick and dying is not at the center, because in a lot of ways that's what the last three years have been...and to be honest, i don't remember how to do that just yet.
in my mind i recognize that i no longer need to spend my days walking around like a tightly coiled ball of anxiety, nervous that the next phone call could be the proverbial "other shoe dropping," (as the other shoe has now dropped...and it's been buried), but i still haven't figured out how to tell my body.
also, i no longer need to feel like i'm racing a clock (at least not as acutely).
every decision (in life, in love, in pursuit of my career) can exist on its own now, or at least absent the added pressure of being made with a desperate wanting to reach certain life moments before she was gone (not to mention absent the at-times crippling guilt that comes from realizing that this wasn't going to happen).
i suppose there's a reason why they're called life altering events, because that is, quite literally, precisely what they are.
but the good news is these alterations can be used to make me better, or perhaps i should say (as cliched and new-agey as it might sound) to make a better me.
i know what i want (and, thanks to tv and being a child of the 80s, i know that "knowing is half the battle"). it's time for to me to re-calibrate, to get back to LIVING my life, not fighting against it...
i'm looking forward to it.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Eulogy For My Mom
below is the eulogy i delivered at my mom's funeral.
Losing a loved one is never easy, but my Mom liked to say that no one ever really dies because even after a person’s gone they live on in our heads and in our hearts.
She also liked to say that death isn’t something to be afraid of. The analogy she always used was that of an unborn child. She’d say that if it was somehow possible to ask an unborn child whether it wanted to be born or just continue living in the comfort and safety of it’s mother’s womb, that it would choose the womb. It would choose the womb because it doesn’t know about all the wonderful things waiting for them once they’re born…the baby would choose the womb because that’s all it knows.
I reminded my Mom of these two things right before she died. In fact, those were two of the last things I ever told her. At the time I hoped that if for some reason she was afraid to leave us and enter into the unknown, then maybe it would help her let go. And now that she’s gone, I keep trying to remind myself that these would be the two things she would say to me if she were still here.
That said, it will probably come as no surprise when I tell you that today is the hardest day of my life. I suppose it’s somewhat fitting then that my Mom’s eulogy was the hardest thing I ever tried to write. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but because there truly are no words capable of properly describing someone as amazing as my Mom.
When Jason and I were very young, and still shared a room, every night before we went to sleep she used to spray a can of lysol in our door and say, “Hocus Pocus, no bad dreams” and somehow, magically, the nightmares stayed away. Well right now there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to hear her say those magic words, because that’s what this feels like - a very bad dream…one that I keep hoping I’ll wake up from, so that when I do she’ll still be alive.
There’s just so much I’m going to miss now that she’s gone:
- Our weekly recaps about all the TV shows we both watched and what we thought about last week’s episodes.
- The latest information about who got engaged, who got married, who gave birth, and who got a new job.
- Her telling me about some new restaurant she read about or saw on the Food Network, or a great recipe she found for me to try.
- Unexpected packages in my mailbox stuffed with newspaper clippings or magazine articles I might enjoy.
- Boxes of food from Zingerman’s, full of macaroons or hamantashen or whatever the appropriate corresponding food might be so that Jason and I would have something to properly celebrate the current holiday, even if we were all the way on the other side of the country.
- Or just coming home and finding her current stash of potato chips, hidden in the strangest of places (in fact, for anyone coming back to our house later, don’t be surprised if you open up some cabinet or drawer and find a bag).
And, unfortunately, I also can’t help but think about all the things that she’s going to miss out on.
The fact that she won’t be there to see me get married, something I know she desperately wanted to be around for…as evidenced by her regular inquiries into whether I was dating anyone, or in the event that I was dating someone, whether I thought she was “The One.”
That she’ll never get the chance to play with and spoil her grandchildren, which hurts so much because she would have been the most amazing Grandmother.
Or that she won’t be able to see Jason and I (knock on wood) one-day find success with our careers.
But rather than continue to dwell on what’s been taken away from us, I want to celebrate and remember everything I was fortunate enough to be given by being her son.
Everything that I am today is, in large part, because of her: My love of cooking and my love of eating food from all over the world. My equal appreciation of a good book, a good movie, a good concert, and a good Broadway musical. The enjoyment I get out of spending an afternoon by the pool, or in a museum, which comes courtesy of all the numerous museum trips we made growing up (even if at the time they were tolerated only because they came with the promise of a visit to the gift shop at the end, they resulted in Jason and I joining a rather exclusive club -- children under the age of 13 who had the ability to distinguish between a Magritte and a Matisse). My sense of humor. My sense of empathy. My sense of wonder. My sense of adventure. For all these things, I have her to thank.
Yes, my Mom’s life has ended, much sooner than any of us wanted and much, much sooner then she deserved. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And in this regard, my Mom lived more in her 59 years than most people could dream of living in two lifetimes.
I look out at the dozens and dozens of people in this room, not to mention the dozens and dozens more who couldn’t make it but who are thinking about her all over the country today as a testament to how rich and fulfilling her time with us was, and I see the proof of what my words have attempted to express…She left this world a better place than when she entered it, and our lives were infinitely better because she was a part of it.
I hope to see her again some day, but in the meantime I will go on knowing that she will never be forgotten.
Losing a loved one is never easy, but my Mom liked to say that no one ever really dies because even after a person’s gone they live on in our heads and in our hearts.
She also liked to say that death isn’t something to be afraid of. The analogy she always used was that of an unborn child. She’d say that if it was somehow possible to ask an unborn child whether it wanted to be born or just continue living in the comfort and safety of it’s mother’s womb, that it would choose the womb. It would choose the womb because it doesn’t know about all the wonderful things waiting for them once they’re born…the baby would choose the womb because that’s all it knows.
I reminded my Mom of these two things right before she died. In fact, those were two of the last things I ever told her. At the time I hoped that if for some reason she was afraid to leave us and enter into the unknown, then maybe it would help her let go. And now that she’s gone, I keep trying to remind myself that these would be the two things she would say to me if she were still here.
That said, it will probably come as no surprise when I tell you that today is the hardest day of my life. I suppose it’s somewhat fitting then that my Mom’s eulogy was the hardest thing I ever tried to write. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but because there truly are no words capable of properly describing someone as amazing as my Mom.
When Jason and I were very young, and still shared a room, every night before we went to sleep she used to spray a can of lysol in our door and say, “Hocus Pocus, no bad dreams” and somehow, magically, the nightmares stayed away. Well right now there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to hear her say those magic words, because that’s what this feels like - a very bad dream…one that I keep hoping I’ll wake up from, so that when I do she’ll still be alive.
There’s just so much I’m going to miss now that she’s gone:
- Our weekly recaps about all the TV shows we both watched and what we thought about last week’s episodes.
- The latest information about who got engaged, who got married, who gave birth, and who got a new job.
- Her telling me about some new restaurant she read about or saw on the Food Network, or a great recipe she found for me to try.
- Unexpected packages in my mailbox stuffed with newspaper clippings or magazine articles I might enjoy.
- Boxes of food from Zingerman’s, full of macaroons or hamantashen or whatever the appropriate corresponding food might be so that Jason and I would have something to properly celebrate the current holiday, even if we were all the way on the other side of the country.
- Or just coming home and finding her current stash of potato chips, hidden in the strangest of places (in fact, for anyone coming back to our house later, don’t be surprised if you open up some cabinet or drawer and find a bag).
And, unfortunately, I also can’t help but think about all the things that she’s going to miss out on.
The fact that she won’t be there to see me get married, something I know she desperately wanted to be around for…as evidenced by her regular inquiries into whether I was dating anyone, or in the event that I was dating someone, whether I thought she was “The One.”
That she’ll never get the chance to play with and spoil her grandchildren, which hurts so much because she would have been the most amazing Grandmother.
Or that she won’t be able to see Jason and I (knock on wood) one-day find success with our careers.
But rather than continue to dwell on what’s been taken away from us, I want to celebrate and remember everything I was fortunate enough to be given by being her son.
Everything that I am today is, in large part, because of her: My love of cooking and my love of eating food from all over the world. My equal appreciation of a good book, a good movie, a good concert, and a good Broadway musical. The enjoyment I get out of spending an afternoon by the pool, or in a museum, which comes courtesy of all the numerous museum trips we made growing up (even if at the time they were tolerated only because they came with the promise of a visit to the gift shop at the end, they resulted in Jason and I joining a rather exclusive club -- children under the age of 13 who had the ability to distinguish between a Magritte and a Matisse). My sense of humor. My sense of empathy. My sense of wonder. My sense of adventure. For all these things, I have her to thank.
Yes, my Mom’s life has ended, much sooner than any of us wanted and much, much sooner then she deserved. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And in this regard, my Mom lived more in her 59 years than most people could dream of living in two lifetimes.
I look out at the dozens and dozens of people in this room, not to mention the dozens and dozens more who couldn’t make it but who are thinking about her all over the country today as a testament to how rich and fulfilling her time with us was, and I see the proof of what my words have attempted to express…She left this world a better place than when she entered it, and our lives were infinitely better because she was a part of it.
I hope to see her again some day, but in the meantime I will go on knowing that she will never be forgotten.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
on the one hand, this is hilarious. on the other...i kinda wish someone would make a weird al yankovic biopic.
Friday, March 12, 2010
I'll Roshambo You For It!
in a word: awesome. a glove that lets you play rock-paper-scissors by yourself. i wants it.
Monday, February 1, 2010
the secret word is...FUN!
from the moment pee-wee stepped out onto the stage and chuckled, till the moment during the post-show q&a* where he choked up telling us how grateful he was that we still wanted to see him perform, it was magical. so much so, that i can unequivocally state that witnessing pee-wee's return to the stage was an experience that i will definitely remember (barring any alzheimers, dementia or head injuries that result in memory loss) for the rest of my life (*because i bought my tickets to see the show when they initially went on sale, before the venue switch, i was able to attend the aforementioned q&a).
now, i realize there are a lot of you (relatively speaking to the number of people actually reading) who might be a little upset over having neglected/been denied the opportunity to see the show for yourself...to you i say, don't worry, the point of this post is not (solely) to rub in the fact that i got to see the show and you didn't. no, the point (also) is to share with you some of what made the show magical...and so here's a taste of what you missed:
the first is a film from 1960 that was (presumably) originally shown in schools in an attempt to teach children the right way to behave. pee-wee used it as a sort of interlude at one point during the show.
it is apparently part of the beginning responsibility series. it is entitled lunchroom manners. and it is, in a word, tremendous.
the second is a little fun (SCREAM!) fact that you may or may not know. pee-wee used to be a huge collector of strange vintage things (example: he has over 8000 different yearbooks in his possession), but these days he says his hoarder habit is under control.
and finally, the third item is another video...this one of david hasselhoff (who was a classmate of pee-wee's at the california institute of the arts in valencia) performing hooked on a feeling. pee-wee said during the q&a that this video was one of his favorite things to watch online, and i think you'll very quickly see why (hint: because it's awesome).
so, enjoy...and don't be a mr. or miss bungle!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Where Have I Been?
i admit, it's been a long time since i've shown the blog any love. it happens (with me seemingly every few months or so). but, rather then get into a long explanation as to why it happened this time (and, for the record, i can neither confirm nor deny any rumors that you may have heard about my role in the global pursuit of one of the greatest criminal masterminds of our time), instead i'll just say that there should be some (semi) regular posts headed your way for...well, for however long they last.
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