We Have Lift-Off

When my mother passed away, there was no question about it, none whatsoever. Of course, I would adopt her white greyhound, Lucy. I could no more give up Lucy than I could my own beloved fawn greyhound, Elvis.

Lucy is a sweet and affectionate little dog who curls up alongside me on the sofa and has invited herself on my bed. An unhygenic no-no, I always thought. That is, until the first time she snuggled her head in the crook of my neck and heaved a contented sigh. Not only did I not have the heart to push her off, I found I didn't want to.

There has been one major challenge, however: Lucy has been deathly afraid of the doggie door. No amount of bacon bits, begging, cajoling, pushing and pleading has convinced her to push the flap with her nose and go through the door. Like it was a doggie Guillotine or something.

And so, for almost four months, despite watching Elvis use the door, Lucy has gone through it only if I've Velcroed the flap open. Not a good thing in warm weather when flying insects are rampant. Or in the winter, with my furnace serving as a heater for the entire backyard. But it was either leave the flap open or come home to find my Oriental carpet transformed into a $600 pee pad.

Until this morning.

At 5:27 am came a moment to remember. After finishing her breakfast, Lucy tentatively approached the doggie door. Stopped. Sniffed it. Stepped back. Turned around and looked at me. “Good girl,” I coaxed her softly, using the word a trainer had advised. “Outside! Outside!” She stepped towards the door again. Sniffed it. Tapped it with her nose. And then, as I held my breath, she gently pushed the flap with her nose and stepped outside.

ALLELUIA!

And while it may not mean much to anyone else, I'm embracing it as the most subtle of signs that 2010 is off to a promising start.

Skipping Christmas

Four years ago, when I observed my best friend "skipping Christmas," it saddened me. That's because I knew that Pam was still mourning the loss of her beloved father, who had passed away that previous March.

But I know now that there is no such thing as "still mourning." Over time the mourning may lessen, subside, but it never stops.
And four years ago, I couldn't have ever imagined how difficult it was for anyone who has lost a loved one to experience that year of "firsts," such as the first birthday. Mom's was last Sunday. We have a family tradition that the birthday person gets to select their favorite meal and my sister prepares it at a joyous family celebration. Mom always chose tostadas. And so, last Sunday we invited her best friend to join our family tradition over a tostada dinner, and we spent the evening exchanging funny stories and memories. What could have been a difficult time ended up warming our hearts. It felt good. Right.
But no matter how I try to spin it, Christmas this year isn't good or right. Every Christmas carol, every twinkling light, reminds me that last year at this time our family was healthy, whole and happy. I now understand Pam's decision four years ago when she chose to skip Christmas. No cards. No gifts. No decorations or parties or carols.
"Your mother wouldn't want that!" my friend, Patt, chided me. And she's absolutely right. Mom would be the first to tell us to whip out her favorite Christmas album by Andy Williams and spin it on the turntable.
But the brain can't force the heart. And my heart just isn't in it.
Friends who have experienced this type of loss promise that with each passing "first" it gets easier, and one day joy will return to my heart. I believe them. Just last night Pam called to tell me how pretty her Christmas tree looks.
And while my family may never again feel whole, in time I'll learn to be happy, and future Christmases will be good and right.

One Year Ago: the Infamous Finger

It was the day after Thanksgiving and mom and I had made plans to go window shopping at a nearby outdoor mall. Walk off those pumpkin pie calories, admire the decorations, maybe do a little shopping, and enjoy a light lunch afterwards. So I wasn't surprised when she called at 9 a.m. to tell me she was on her way to pick me up. Ready to go shopping? You betcha!

But then she oh, so casually mentioned that her finger hurt. Just a little.

"What do you mean it hurts?" I asked. "What happened?"

"Oh, I tripped over one of the dogs last night before I went to bed and I must have sprained it a little," she replied. "It's no big deal."

My antennas went up. If it wasn't a big deal, why had she mentioned it? "Do you need to see a doctor?" I asked. "Should I take you to Emergency?"

"Naaaaaw," she snorted, "it's nothing, really. Let's go shopping."

Okeefine.

But when she picked me up 15 minutes later and I saw her middle finger, I had a slightly different take on the matter.

"OH MY GAWD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

Because THAT was her middle finger, completely popped out of the second knuckle and bent at a 45 degree angle. It was in complete alignment with her palm, crossing her index finger like a "t" and pointing towards her thumb. I was trying not to gag.

"You're exaggerating," she insisted. "It feels fine!"

Yeah, right sister. Off to emergency we went.

When we checked in and mom displayed her hand with the finger bent like Gumby on crack, I got to say "I told you so" because the response was universal. Everywhere we went throughout the hospital, jaws dropped, eyes popped and stomachs turned. "OH MY GAWD!" the man at check-in exclaimed. As did the woman in the X-Ray department, the emergency technician and the doctor who treated her.

"See?" I told her. "You've even grossed out the people in Emergency and they've seen it all!"

She shrugged. And after the doctor gave her a painful anesthesia shot in the knuckle, snapped her finger back in the socket, taped it to a splint and swathed her hand like an oven mitt, she had but one thing to say.

"So are you happy now? Let's go shopping!" And we did.

Soytini, Anyone?

You might call me a quasi-vegetarian. It's not that I have any particular ethics about eating things with a face, although once I begin reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, I may start singing a different tune. Just the book review had me gagging.

Mainly, I stick to a veggie diet because veggies are quick and easy and I'm impatient and lazy. Plus, I have to confess I do feel better without all that cholesterol and whatnot churning through my body.

But I'll be the first to admit that some foods aren't meant to be healthy, no matter how you spin it. Such as the brownie I once impulsively purchased at the Whole Foods checkout stand. Thick, chewy, creamy, it looked like a slice of heaven and I couldn't wait to sink my fangs into it.

Eeeeuuuu, eeuuuuu euuuuuu! I promptly spat it out and scrambled for a napkin to scrape my tongue of any offending brownie residue. What the hell? Perplexed, I retrieved the wrapper from the trash can and discovered that this wasn't just any ordinary brownie, no sirree. This was a "vegan" brownie and the major ingredient was - sacrebleu - tofu!

Now, I love tofu. Eat it almost every day. But nowhere in my world do the words "chocolate" and "tofu" belong together in the same sentence. Nor, as I discovered last week, do the words "martini" and "soymilk."

This I learned when I was preparing for my weekly guilty pleasure triple threat: indulging in a chocolate martini while watching "Ghost Whisperer" followed by my Netflix rental of the week. I know, pathetic, but I love it. On this evening however, I discovered I was out of the cream used to dilute my martini. Darn. But wait: I did have a carton of vanilla soymilk. And milk is milk, right? Heck, maybe I was on the verge of discovering a healthy martini!

Au contraire mon frere. Martinis aren't supposed to be foamy. Nor should they smell like socks, look like mud or taste like battery acid.

But I may be on to something just the same. Whole Foods, if you're reading this, give me a jingle. I have a recipe for the perfect drink to wash down your vegan brownies.

Skip it, You Say? REALLY?

Of course, I'm absolutely, unequivocally and undoubtedly certain that the new, more relaxed guidelines announced this week for breast and cervical cancer screenings were in no way, shape or form introduced, influenced or initiated by insurance companies.

I mean, really. Such a cynical and totally unfounded suspicion. Really.

Because really, I'm sure that insurance companies have absolutely no say in matters such as these, and the new cost-effective guidelines are purely for the good of all women and in our best interest, and there are no ulterior motives whatsoever.

I mean, really.

One Day at a Time

Yesterday, I received a thoughtful email from Tia, a former contributor to my Pet Tales column that runs weekly in the San Francisco Chronicle. She reads my Blog and noticed I haven’t been writing much lately. She also shared that she lost her own mother 12 years ago and her father 16 years ago, and to this day she's still not quite over it.

"I've given up thinking that it will ever change," Tia said. "So I just live with it." But she understands how losing a parent feels, and was just checking in to say hi, see how I'm doing. I appreciate that, I really do.

Here’s the thing: writing is cathartic. I usually address what’s on my mind and in my heart. And these days, both are so heavy with grief that I can hardly motivate myself to do anything other than the bare essentials to keep me going.

How am I doing?

Well, my sister (second from left in the above photo) and I tried grief counseling, but dropped it after a couple sessions when we noticed that the counselor was fishing for family skeletons. Really lady, there aren’t any, we wanted to say. We’re just two daughters mourning the loss of our mom. We didn’t tell her that, but afterwards, we agreed to save the $165 per hour she was charging and spend it on something more therapeutic, like massages. Come January, we’re going to need to unwind after we start cleaning and emptying mom’s beloved home of 40 years. It's a task we're truly dreading.

In lieu of grief therapy, I’m turning to recommended books. One is “When Parents Die: A Guide for Adults" by Edward Myers. It's comforting to read that my emotions and reactions are typical and that I'm not alone. Or crazy, like it sometimes feels. Sudden death is especially difficult to deal with, the author notes. He also cautions that the grieving process typically lasts up to two years. It's been just two months. I can't imagine two years of living with this ache in my heart. And yet I can't imagine ever feeling normal again. Ever NOT missing mom.

Yesterday morning at Starbucks, I saw an older woman with short curly gray hair and wearing the same type of sweatshirt and jeans that mom was so fond of. And I remembered one of her simple pleasures: every single morning, she piled the dogs, Lucy and Holden, into the back seat of her Corolla, and with their happy heads wagging out the window, she took them for a drive, much to the amused delight of all her neighbors who witnessed this daily trek. Then she wrapped up their field trip with a stop at Starbucks for a Chai Tea latte.

For just the briefest of seconds, I wanted to call mom and tell her I'd seen her twin. And then I remembered. The pain washed anew, like it just happened yesterday, and in the Starbucks parking lot I fought back the tears.

It will take time, I know. And I'm trying, really I am. Thank you for asking.

And that's how I'm doing.

The One About the Rabbi, the Monk and the Pastor

Well, I'm not Jewish or Buddhist, so I'm cutting straight to the pastor.

To say that my pastor and church failed me during the darkest period of my entire life is like saying Hitler had issues. Friends who have heard the story are appalled, which validates that I wasn't simply crazy with grief. At a time when I desperately needed spiritual comfort, my church of ten years forgot me.

Oh, but the signs were there.

Such as the day before Mom's surgery, when the wife of the assistant pastor emailed me, asking if I'd like to join a brainstorming session for future church services. I wrote back, explaining that I'd have to decline because my mother had just been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and I would be her primary caretaker. I also said she was entering the hospital the next day for surgery and asked that prayers be said for her.

How did the pastor's wife respond? She didn't. Nada, zip, zilch. Like I'd mentioned my mom was suffering from the heartbreak of psoriasis or chronic dandruff.

And it gets better, folks.

Days after Mom died, I made an appointment to see my pastor and told his administrative assistant the reason why. I was grief-stricken and in total despair. Angry at God and confused at why He let this happen. I desperately needed spiritual counseling.

So there I was, sitting in the lobby and struggling to hold back the tears while my pastor kept me waiting ten minutes because hey, it was a hot day and he had gone out to get an ice-coffee.

Okay, fine.

As I sat in his office, barely able to speak because I was sobbing so hard, he simply sat there. Slurping his ice-coffee and nodding, occasionally saying things like, "Hmmm," or "That's too bad," or "I'm so sorry." Then, when I couldn't utter another word, he finally spoke. Did he quote the Bible? Recite scripture or say anything to help me make sense of what had transpired?

Not quite.

"You know what's really bad?" he asked. "The death of a child."

I was speechless. Was I suppose to feel better that it was JUST my old mother that had died and not some adorable little tyke? I left his office still grief-stricken and also newly befuddled.

What the hell had just taken place?

This appointment was seven weeks ago. Since that time, neither my pastor nor anyone from his staff has reached out to me even once to see how I'm doing. No emails, no phone calls, no "Hope you're hanging in there, God loves you." Nothing. Despite greeting me in the lobby every Sunday morning for over ten years, my sudden absence hasn't made a dent on their radar.

In a previous posting I wrote that a crisis reveals the worst in people as well as the best. I'm saddened to learn that this idiom applies to churches as well, which is why I won't be returning to my former house of worship.

Not that I'm done with God just yet. There's always still the Rabbi and the Monk.