Easter Sunday
walking across the street of Grove and Ashby
headed for the corner store
I hear a crash.
It is the crush of metal pounding metal,
turning around I see a old blue car spinning
slowly like a Tilt- A-Whirl.
One spin,
two spin,
on the third spin the passenger door flies open
and a woman tumbles out
bouncing as she hits the pavement.
Everything stops,
except for the car
rolling over her
metal crushing bones
and I run home without going to the store.
I shared my trip on Facebook with my friends and I think they enjoyed being along. One thing I didn’t talk about was the homeless that I saw in the big cities of Paris and Barcelona. I think most of the people I saw begging or sleeping on the sidewalk were immigrants. People who have no country, home or opportunity. Children, I saw children sleeping on the cold, wet sidewalk. I often feel helpless about the world situation and here it was right in front of me. So this is what I did. I am sharing this with you because this is not an original idea of mine, someone else once suggested it. So I thought if someone had to turn me on to it maybe I should do the same.
The Thanksgiving that I remember is the one where Raechel and I bought a turkey and cooked it up then convinced Subway to give us their day old buns and we made these big fat turkey and cranberry sandwiches and got on our bikes and drove around Venice and fed the homeless. It was a great day. We had so much fun.
I decided to do the same thing on Christmas day in Paris. Christmas eve I roamed the streets looking for my supplies. I bought 8 giant baguettes and packages of ham and gouda cheese, butter, mustard (boy French mustard is really tasty) mayonnaise, radishes, tomatoes, lettuce, tangerines and chocolate dipped cookies. I got up Christmas day after having a wonderful Christmas eve dinner with lovely friends and got started. I cut the bread and lathered it with tasty butter, mustard and mayo. I made sure the sandwich was thick with ham and cheese then sliced the tomatoes and stuffed in the lettuce. Every bag got a few radishes, a tangerine, couple of cookies and a napkin. I had saved all my plastic bags and paper bags and used any ribbon I had to tie them up. I filled my large handbag with the sandwiches and off I went. I worried that I might not find anyone to give my goodie bags too but silly me all I had to do was walk outside my apartment and look down the street. Everyone I gave a sandwich to thanked me politely and some wished me Merry Christmas. For a moment I didn’t feel helpless, it felt good.
I talk to myself, I always have. Sometimes I talk out loud, often I mumble unaware. Who am I talking to really? God? The universe? You?
I don’t really know who I’m talking too. I just know I feel better when I talk, mumble or write it down. I’m part of the universal hum. Lets all hum together.
Grief, an unpredictable beast. Just when I think it has gone back to the cave, it crushes me sideways. I’m cleaning houses right now. It is a job. I’m in the bathroom of a comfortable home lived in by two mellow artists. The painter wife has a fabulous collection of large and unusual shells she has displayed on the bathroom counter. I look at them and burst into tears. My mom had a good collection of shells that she treasured. Some of them came from the Shell Shop that she worked at in Lahaina, Maui. She would laugh as she told people she sold “seashells at the seashore”. It was 1980 and we were young, happy and living “da kind”.
After Grace died I thought I was going to move right back to the Big Island so I had a garage sale. I sold Graces’ collection of shells. The shells she had for all those years and loved. I loved them too. I was thinking I was being practical by getting rid of them as it is expensive to ship “stuff” to the islands. “Stuff.” Stuff is a bitch for me, I don’t know when to let go.
The hardest part of grief right now is the loneliness. I have never felt so alone. I have lived by myself for 15 years and have loved it but since my mom died I have never felt so by myself. It is a horrible feeling. I don’t want to feel this way. I hear a voice “well change your attitude then.” I would if it was that easy.
I know it’s not the shells that I’m crying about. It’s the discomfort of life changing, of getting old, of losing the family I once had. Eventually this feeling will change. Not soon enough for this big baby.
There were four of us. Young, beautiful, full of life. We all met up in Mill Valley, a place to be in the late 60’s, early 70’s. Do I need to name drop? We were healthy, happy, wild and crazy young women. We were sisters in spirit. And when it got too wild and crazy we all ran to Maui which in 1973 was perfect, I mean fucking perfect, Not too big, not too small. And we were young and beautiful and wild and crazy. And we had fun on that perfect island. Later we moved on to marry, divorce, bury children. Life. Laughing and Crying. And before we knew it were were in our 60’s; Seniors, Grandmas’ even if we didn’t have children.
So forty years later, one committed suicide, one is in a nursing home with serious health issues, one is just to begin a serious health journey and then me.. I don’t have health issues; because I don’t go to the doctors.
I just got a great fucking haircut. There is nothing better for a woman at any age, then a great fucking haircut.
I changed my telephone number at the beginning of December. It means my crazy brother can no longer get in touch with me unless he writes. It was not an easy thing to do as I am Tommy’s emergency number. The phone calls were getting crazier and he has been in jail a couple of times and would robo call me four or five times a day. I refused to pay for the calls. I have been sending Tommy money and helping him out of jams since 1975. This last year since he decided to be homeless has been the hardest. He would often call to tell me how he was about to get a big settlement from a lawsuit he was involved with. I have no idea if this is true or not. He would talk about all the things he would do when he got the money including buying one of Elton John’s pianos that he used in Las Vegas, just what a homeless person needs. He never once offered to pay back any of the money I have given him. This is just the way he is. I became depressed dealing with him since our mother died. I feel like he has been bullying me and preying on my loyalty towards him. It is not a good feeling. So I changed my telephone number, I let him go.
I was still asleep when the phone rang at 8:30 am this morning. I had stayed up late and then had worrying dreams about forgetting my lines and being unable to complete tasks. The call was from my brother Tommy who is bi-polar and schizophrenic. It had been two days since I had hung up on him for screaming at me. I didn’t get to the phone in time so he left a message. He called to tell me they had taken 2 liters of liquid out of his right lung and that he has been doing rock cocaine and crystal meth and that he enjoyed it, he just wanted to be honest with me. He says he is not going to spend all his money on drugs that as soon as he gets his check he is going back to Sacramento and renting a hotel room so he won’t be homeless. He also said that he is running for Republican State Senator and wants to get a job with the government. I had wondered why he didn’t have any money and thought it was because a few months ago he had started going to the casino with a “friend” and that was where he was losing his money. I don’t know why he has picked Sacramento as the place to live and I haven’t remembered to ask him, as I usually get upset before we get too far in a conversation. This is the first time he has talked about getting a job with the government usually he is planning his rock and roll debut or working on making a tape to send Jimi Hendrix’s sister. Has his schizophrenia kicked in and that is why the drastic change in plans? I don’t know what is worse; hearing from him or not hearing from him. So many times over the years I have worried about his fate and feared for his life. The only time I didn’t worry was when he was in Napa State Hospital, and then I heard a story yesterday on how dangerous a place it is for inmates. Tommy rarely talked of that just complained about the food. My gut fears he won’t make it to 2016 and that something bad will happen to him in the next couple of months around the time of Grace’s birthday, his birthday and her death. I’m relieved Grace is not here to know all of what is going on, it was so hard for her to deal with and I think I sometimes I pressured her to talk to him when she would have rather not known. It’s only 9am and I’ve already cried and my stomach is in a knot. It’s that feeling of helplessness that breaks the heart. Tommy is always saying how he prays for me ( he is a Buddhist) now it’s my turn to pray for him.
It was about 8:30 in the evening when the telephone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but it was local so I answered it. A woman started talking about how we had the same number and she needed to take care of it before she went to bed. She sounded elderly and confused. She told me how she had asked her son to take care of this problem for her and how upset she was, all she wanted to do was go to sleep but couldn’t because of the noise in the garage. She feared someone was in there and maybe she smelled smoke. I tried to calm her down. I could tell she was confused and stressed. I suggested she call the police and she said she had tried but it hadn’t worked. I asked her what her address was and she said she couldn’t remember but she could find out, she put down the phone and I could hear her stumbling around. Then she started crying. It reminded me of how we cry when we are young and scared. I tried to call her back to the phone but she just kept crying so I hung up. I googled her number and found she lived in a neighboring town and then I called the police. I told the dispatcher what had happened and how I was concerned because she was in major distress. The man taking the information was polite and assured me he would have someone go check on her. I didn’t know what else I could do.
I grew up in a time where “you minded your own business” and didn’t “air your dirty laundry in public.” I still haven’t figured out where you draw the line when it comes to helping which can so often been interpreted as interfering. I do know there have been times in my life I wish I had been louder about my concerns for those I cared about. I also know I’ve been told to “mind my own business.”
I don’t know where you draw the line. I do know I thought about this phone call for days and hope she got the help she needs.
The Fall
The Move to the Hospital
The last day she talked
The day I picked up her ashes.
For weeks I have stood on the mountain and looked up at the clouds but now I am back in the valley of grief.
I’m not sure how I got here. Was it when the massage therapist started rubbing my feet and an image of my mothers’ adorable red toes appeared in my head? Or maybe it was when an old friend showed up and we talked for hours and then when he left loneliness wrapped around my heart. I like being alone but lately I have been aware of my loneliness, that feeling of no one to talk or hang out with. I saw mum everyday for the last six years and before that we talked on the phone at least once a week. Now, no one calls just to talk.
I felt like I had a sense of purpose being the queen mum’s caregiver and everyday I learned something new and let something go. Now I go to work, come home go to bed, get up and do it again.
I watched the documentary about Amy Winehouse, it was very good but really made me sad. I grew up knowing musicians who died young; Janis, Jimi, Michael Bloomfield, Jim Morrison, the list goes on. When I was young watching all this talent I noticed that they all seemed to be good at their art but not so good at daily life and with fame and success came the dark side that too much money can buy. Money can’t buy true friends or love and we all know along with health these are the most precious.
The Buzzy Donahue Show 