The queen mum loved my dog Sweetie and Sweetie loved the queen. I was surprised, as I thought Grace might be a bit of a dog snob having raised purebreds. Grace immediately saw what a great personality my dog had and it seems I had finally given her the grandchild she always wanted. Sweetie got Grace to walk around the block or take a walk on the beach at Port Hudson. I brought Sweetie to the nursing home to visit so the dog knew Grace was not well. The night my sister called to say mum was getting worse I jumped out of bed got dressed and Sweetie who never got up that late insisted on coming with me to the hospital. After the queen mum died I went every day to her apartment to deal with her things but Sweetie refused to come with me. The dog took to her bed and barely acknowledged me. I started telling her that she had turned into Grace, all she wanted to do was sleep and be left alone. This went on for over a month then slowly she started acting like her happy self again.
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Boxes of love
I am still sifting through boxes of pictures, letters, cards, newspaper clippings that belonged to the queen mum. She kept every card her kids ever sent her. She kept a list of Christmas cards that she received and a list of cards she sent. In the past few years the list had gotten smaller and as I looked at her address book I noticed the scratched out names of friends that are gone. She kept everything that had anything to do with my brother Sean who died in 2000, his death broke her heart. So now I struggle with throwing away the pictures of the memorial gathering and remembrance book that his friends signed, the newspaper articles about his life, his obituary notice. It isn’t just his obits she kept but the one for her mother, her father, her two brothers with rosary cards in their honor. Who would I save these for? Who wants to know? Who would see these pieces of paper as treasures, touch stones to their past. History. As I throw these things away I feel I am not only throwing away my mother’s life but a part of my own. I am grateful we have memories, you don’t have to throw them away.
1969
I don’t want to call you “dude” or “peeps” or think of you as being “part of my hood.” I will never put a smiley face at the end of a sentence or a big red heart, and I am definitely not getting a tatoo. When I was young I lived on the north shore of Oahu one winter. Next door was a house full of surfers that lived on granola and LSD. There was an older guy who seemed to be their “guru” preaching peace, love and psychedelics. I had a hard time taking him seriously because of the playboy bunny tatoo on his arm. Right then I decided I didn’t ever want to make that kind of commitment. It was an exciting winter watching the boys surf pipeline then come home and ohm.
Yoga
I finally went to a yoga class this morning. After the queen mum died I bought a yoga class certificate (on sale) and told myself I was going to go as part of my “taking care of yourself” plan. It’s much easier for me to take care of someone else than myself, I think this is a challenge a lot of caregivers deal with. I set the alarm which I don’t often do so I wouldn’t have an excuse for not going (I’m good at excuses.) It was great as I haven’t taken the time to stretch and breathe in a while and I know how powerfully healing it can be. I used to do yin yoga which is basically stretches on the floor with lots of breathing and onetime as I stretched then relaxed and stretched again my body let go of an injury I had forgotten about. Our yoga teacher today reminded me of a willow tree, long and lean and limber but the best part is she seemed to appreciate that not all of us are willow trees.
Tears
Today was the first day since my mum died that I did not cry. Oh shit, I still have an hour left of this day, maybe I should have waited before making such a brash statement. Yesterday there was a lot of wailing and breast beating, even I didn’t recognize my own crying at one point, it came from a place I have never been before. I imagine that this anguish is like malaria, it probably won’t kill you but it takes its toll in sweat and tears. I always knew I would have a hard time when my mother died, I had tried imagining it while she was alive and I would start to panic. Now it has happened and I am inside the eye of my own hurricane. I should have kept quiet, here come a few sad tears, they hardly count.
Help Me
There was a big black fly banging on the window today, acting like he wanted to get out. So I opened the window, all he had to do was go over to it. But he didn’t, he just kept whacking his head on the opposite side. I would think he could smell or feel the fresh air and gravitate towards it. No, he just kept flying around in the opposite corner. I use my hand to try to lead him towards freedom, instead he panics and flies even father away from the open window. I feel like I’m doing the same thing. I want to be happy and support myself doing something I care about and not worry about being in the corner but I’m so focused on where I am that I can’t see that the window is open and all I have to do is fly.
Where did it go?
I’m having a hard time liking the world right now. When I say world I mean people, not anyone specific just people in general. I have this bad habit of reading the dailymail on the internet. The queen mum would have called it “a penny dreadful.” It gives me the worst news possible along side of pictures of Bruce Jenner’s new fingernail polish. It shows me ISIS brutality in detail and then I get to see Kim Kadashian’s butt. We are all mourning Spock on Facebook while a blogger Dr. Avijit Roy was hacked to death in Bangladesh is not even mentioned. The full color picture of his bloodied wife standing over his body while onlookers stand by is shocking but they are not reality stars. What the hell has happened? When did sensationalism and cruelty knock out compassion and peace? I feel like the world has gone crazy. I hardly know anyone who seems happy, do you?
Today is my birthday
Yes, I was born on 2/22/1950 in Washington D.C. on George Washington’s birthday. My mother Grace played cards (was it canasta) with my dad Tom and his parents until they insisted she go to the hospital. At the hospital they knocked her out and got out the thongs (I can still feel the dent on the side of my head) and pulled me out. I have a feeling I wanted to stay inside. Grace woke up and said that was fun let’s have another. Grace loved babies. Kids; not so much. I used to be a holiday. George Washington’s’ birthday was a national holiday, no school. I loved that, it made me feel special. I can remember as a kid trying to imagine what it would be like in the year 2000, I couldn’t. And now here I am in the year 2015 at the age of 65, with still so much to see, so much to do.
Thursday
It is one of those rainy grey days. I stay home in comfy clothes and begin again to throw the queen mum’s life away. Yesterday marked two months since she died. The last couple of weeks have been hard, lots of crying and sadness. I stopped looking through boxes, I needed a break from the daily reminder that she is gone. I feel so alone. I don’t know where I belong. I don’t know what to do. Who am I now? What do I need? Feeling closer to the end then the beginning, working on making peace with that. Reinventing, revitalizing, remembering. Today I tossed away fifteen years of calendars that Grace used as a diary, noting birthdays, telephone calls, parties, fights and bills paid. For a moment I want to stop and read what she wrote for every day of every month of every year. I resist and drop them in the garbage bag. I sift through a box of video tapes that cause my nose to itch from the faint moldy smell held in the box and wonder if anybody still uses VHS. I think that is enough for today.
Waiting
I walked into the holistic health office and 4 young people smile at me, their faces full of joy. I try to smile back. I wish I could put on the big fat I can take it smile, but it’s just not there. Mourning sucks all the joy out and fills the empty spaces with sadness. I honor my grief because when the mourning quiets down I know I will be better for it. I will find my joy.
The Buzzy Donahue Show 