A Speckled Trout

When Will was a fifteen year old boy and told us he was gay, the first thing I said to him was that we loved him just as he was. My immediate thought after that was that his dad and I would protect him at all costs from the hate and vitriol that was surely going to come his way.

A few years after he had told us, I went with him and the girls to see Barack Obama at a rally nearby when he was running for president the first time. As we walked to the venue Will spotted members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a ragtag bunch of a religous zealots who gained notoriety for their hatred of everything. Their specialty was their God Hates Fags signs and promises of eternal damnation for anyone who was not straight. Will grabbed my arm hard and said, “Mom, we can’t walk past them,” and I could hear the fear in his voice. We crossed the street and avoided them, but I wanted to confront them, I wanted to grab their signs, I wanted them to fear my wrath like my son did theirs. But the funny thing about this group was that they were heavily protected by the police wherever they went unlike my young, gay son.

That was many years ago and as a country we have since graduated to hating the transgender community because now everyone knows somebody who is gay so there’s no novelty in that. But that group of people? Well, they’re coming for your bathroom, your swimming medals, the dressing rooms at the moonlight madness sale at your local Kohl’s, and in the course of your kid’s school day changing their sex in the nurse’s office.

When I worked at a local university, our office was home to LGBTQ Affairs so seeing students of every identification was a normal part of the day. I was working with a student group on one of their events via email. The student rep’s name was Katherine, but every email was signed off with a different name which kept confusing me. When they came to the office to meet me in person and talk over details, the person at our front desk came to tell me and said, “Just so you know, they are presenting themselves as male,” which I was grateful to have a heads up on. What followed was a conversation on the business end of things and then a different conversation about the difference in name and my apologies for the confusion. We had more emails, and phone calls over the weeks that followed and their event went off without a hitch. Through it all I stayed solidly female.

Last fall I took a writing class sponsored by our library where a trans woman was in attendance. Her look was over the top and garnered lots of attention which for me would be so uncomfortable I’d probably end up hiding in the bathroom out of embarrassment. A few hours later we were in a class together where she furiously took notes which I admired because I was having trouble staying interested. As the class wound down and the instructor asked if anyone had any advice to share about their method of writing, she raised her hand and proceeded to wow the room with a multitude of tips. In that moment her look melted away in light of her enthusiasm for writing and supporting everyone in the room who was struggling with the same thing – making time to write. I often think that trans people are the bravest of us out in the world. We all package ourselves in order to be accepted and they have the courage to rip the packaging off to show their true selves and face ridicule and often violence at every turn.

I cannot accept punishing anyone who has purposely been pushed to the fringes of society for being who they are, for wanting the same things all of us want, for daring to dream that they, too, get a chance. As the holidays get closer and we are starting to think of our celebrations, for those of us missing someone (and isn’t that all of us?) there are so many bittersweet reminders of how it used to be. Mark loved pumpkin pie, my mom used an old-fashioned meat grinder to crush her cranberries, my dad loved stuffing. As the turkey is in the oven the memories flood in and the longing of setting one less plate never goes away.

The airwaves this election season have been flooded with the vilest of commercials demonizing the other. We are being groomed to hate. But there is a person on the receiving end of that, a chair being made ready for them, sisters who can’t imagine life without their brother, and parents desperately praying that they can shield them from that which they do not deserve.

Hate has consequences.

My family lived in a suburb south of Chicago – minutes actually from the city limits. Prior to that, my mom and dad lived in an apartment with three small boys that was bursting at the seams. I don’t know much about those years except that my mom talked so fondly of their neighbors, Gladys and Al, that I felt like I knew them even though I never did. My dad credits my Uncle Moe (the never-married brother of my grandma who lived with her and my grandpa until his death) with giving them the means to buy a house. My dad said his uncle watched them struggle to keep things afloat and gave them money for a down payment on the house we all grew up in. My Uncle Moe was mostly an elusive figure in my life. He wasn’t in many family photos as he worked nights at the steel mill, but I knew my dad was grateful to him his entire life for the help he gave him when he was a young father.

The house by any standard was a starter home. Small, no basement, one full bath, another with a sink, toilet, hot water heater, freezer, and a plastic bucket taped to a vent in the ceiling to keep the birds out. Eight people were crammed into that little house – it’s saving grace a big backyard where we all played.

We spent the first eight years of our school lives at St. Jude the Apostle – an actual barn when my parents first moved there. For all of us life revolved around the church and school and Mom and Dad volunteered for a lot. How with six kids they found the time I do not know. But because of that nearly all of their friends were fellow parishioners, fellow parents with many kids, fellow adults who knew how to be of service and have fun doing it.

One of those friends was named Joan Kelly. Her husband, David, ran a drywall business and they had eight kids. Many of their kids were the same age as some of us so the Kellys were part of our lives for a very long time. Mrs. Kelly knew everything about everyone. My sister and I were a year apart and nobody could get our names straight except Mrs. Kelly. She never even had to guess – she just knew. She knew each one of my brother’s names, who their teachers were, which one of them were the same age as one of hers. My mom loved Mrs. Kelly – if she told us that once she told us a hundred times. Joan was funny, she was a spitfire, and she was a dear friend. Mom would cross paths with her and hear one of her kooky stories and would retell us at dinner. “That David is a saint,” Mom would say. My dad was the first of their large group of friends to die and years later David and many others would follow. I was so sad for Mrs. Kelly when I heard the news. From the stories my mom and dad told it seemed that David was the straight guy to her comedy routine. What was Lucy supposed to do without her Ricky?

Years later the people who started that church and school started moving further west (my mom included) and they would have yearly reunions. When she would see Mrs. Kelly at one of those (or more likely a funeral) she would fill us in on what she was up to – it was like getting an update on your Auntie Mame.

When you live to be my mom’s age you don’t have many friends left and the ones who are either don’t get around very well or are in assisted living. Most of the people who came to her wake were people who knew my mom through all of us which was our own sort of reunion. A few hours into the visitation and balancing on two canes, in came Mrs. Kelly with her niece. News of her arrival spread fast. My sisters talked to her first and then I made my way over to her as she sat in a chair in the front row. She had hardly changed, her eyes the kind of blue that looked like a pool you could dive into. She watched the screen with tears in her eyes as it showed photo after photo of my mom’s life and said, “Oh will you look at our girl? She was beautiful inside and out.” I sat on the floor at her feet and she turned to me and said, “I loved your mom and dad.” “It was mutual,” I said and pulled my grade school friend over and told Mrs. Kelly her name. “Oh, yes, of course I know you Pat. You’re Chuck and Helen’s daughter, aren’t you,” she said and then listed family after family that she knew who lived on the street Pat grew up on. We had a long talk with her and caught up on Peggy, the daughter of hers that was in our class. Will was standing nearby and I motioned him over to meet her, “My god, you look just like your grandfather,” she said when she laid eyes on him. She was the same Mrs. Kelly we had always known and told us a story of becoming the girls softball coach because somebody asked her if she could. She agreed without have any idea what she was doing, pushed a stroller with one of her babies across the field, and winged it from there. “That’s what we did back then,” she said, “and nobody cared if you knew what you were doing or not.” She filled us in on the rest of her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. I’m not sure if I was distracted or someone I knew was leaving and I got up to thank them for coming, but when I looked again Mrs. Kelly was gone. I hoped she would be at the funeral the next day but if she was I never saw her.

I think most families have a Joan – the relative or family friend who lights up the room with their stories, their interest in your life, their humor and kindness. To have my mom and dad gone and see Joan walk through the doors of that funeral home, which like my mom for many years was a too regular occurance, was a beam of light on years gone by. She knew things about both of them as her and David’s friends, carried stories within her we could never know, and hobbled in with her niece and canes to tell us.

If you ever have a fleeting thought that your presence at a funeral is not necessary I hope you realize that you are the living record keeper of a story that a family may have never heard, a story that will bring light and a smile as you say farewell. How else would I have known that the time our not-even-five-foot mom played Tattoo, dressed in a white tux with her short dark hair and pointing to the sky saying, “De plane, de plane,” in a Fantasy Island spoof that was a church fundraiser, would be talked about by Joan and all my parents’ friends for years. As she lay in a casket just feet away it was Mrs. Kelly’s storytelling that erased the dementia and made Mom shine again.

If there was a prayer I had after that night was over it was gratitude followed by a plea to the universe to protect The Joans in our lives at all costs.

In late July after nine fabulous days in Ireland, Michael and I headed to the Dublin airport to fly to Minneapolis and then home. I didn’t think I was ready for the trip to be over until we arrived at the terminal and suddenly longed to be home sleeping in my own bed. Upon arrival that Friday morning, we were funneled into a long, snaking line to check our boarding passes. The line moved at a fairly quick pace until it suddenly didn’t and we came to a screeching halt. We watched frequent and serious conversations among airport employees with head nods and concerned looks as the queue grew and grew. Within minutes the buzz making its way from person-to-person like an old-fashioned game of telephone was that there was a global computer problem affecting flights.

After a long while where the panic over missed flights hung over the line like storm clouds, we began moving and were on our way to security and immigration. Things were understandedly backed up and a wee bit tense at each stop but we had arrived in plenty of time for our flight. We headed to the duty-free shops to get some Irish whiskey and chocolate to bring home because priorities. I crammed my sealed bag of spirits into my backpack, Michael took the chocolate, and we headed to the gate. By this point we had looked at our phones enough to know this was a much bigger problem than we thought and its name was Crowdstrike. Were we worried? No, there was a plane sitting at our gate that may as well have had a banner saying CONGRATULATIONS, WEARY TRAVELER, YOU GET TO GO HOME UNLIKE THESE OTHER POOR SUCKERS.

We waited and waited and then waited. The flight got delayed over and over. The terminal started to fill to capacity but we found a small table with two chairs to sit and people watch while the covidy respitory particles of hundreds of people filled the air. Then suddenly it was announced that our plane sitting at the gate, our plane with our banner was going to be used for a flight to New York and we were like BUT WHAT ABOUT US? WE WERE HERE FIRST!! Mr. Irish Lad Gate Agent who was understandably stressed said calm down peoples the next one coming is going to Minneapolis. After two hours had passed with frequent alerts from Delta giving us new departure times, Michael said we may as well have some lunch and since there was a restaurant right next to our gate it seemed like a good idea. We could easily ditch our crappy airport sandwiches when our flight started to board.

Hahahahahahaha……

After a couple more hours had passed and on my way back from getting our third bag of Peanut M&Ms, I looked for our flight on the departure board and in red it said CANCELED. I made my way through the sea of travelers to tell Michael who said that couldn’t be because he hadn’t gotten a text message from Delta and thirty seconds later his phone dinged. By then Mr. Irish Lad Gate Agent, who had every bit of customer service wrung out of him, could only point and say, “Go that away” so we followed everyone else down a set of stairs. And who was meeting us at the bottom of the stairs? Delta employees who were taking our duty-free purchases for safekeeping because we wouldn’t be able to reenter the airport with them and we were like WE’RE NOT LEAVING THE AIRPORT YOU DOPES. WE ARE FLYING HOME TODAY.

We had no idea what to do next and no guidance from the airlines so we followed people who looked like they knew what they were doing which is how we ended up in baggage claim – luggage back in hand. We rolled our vacation life to the Delta counter where a very cheerful agent said, “I am here to help you,” which we took to mean rebooking our flight. She smiled and said, “No, you silly gooses, you are going to be in a hotel tonight, a lovely hotel with comped food for your troubles.” We said, “Thank you so much but we are wanting to get home,” and it was as if she didn’t hear a thing we said. “We are waiting on the next bus to take you to your hotel,” she said, “and you can get on the Delta app when you’re there and rebook your flight.”

We were first in line for the next bus which arrived at the curb and the driver disappeared. Nobody could find him for at least fifteen minutes which is probably as long as it took to enjoy a ciggy in peace and quiet before driving a bunch of cranky travelers somewhere they didn’t want to be. We boarded and arrived at the hotel which was quite nice and took the sting out of wearing the same unwashed clothes one last time. We got a room and immediately worked our phones, Michael’s laptop, and the universe to get through to Delta to rebook our flights with zero luck. In desperation, Michael emailed his admin for help on her end and after some back and forth between them we were booked on a United flight for the next day.

The next morning we packed up and headed to the breakfast buffet before taking an Uber to the airport. We sat down next to a couple about our age from North Dakota who asked us if we were on the Delta flight to Minneapolis which started a lively conversation about our previous day’s travel. They were surprised we got a flight out as they were part of a tour group and their agent was trying to rebook 43 tickets which seemed like a nightmare. It was a friendly back and forth and then the woman said, “Dave and I read our devotional every morning and today’s was perfect.” Did we ask what it said? We did not but Fargo plowed ahead and I don’t remember it exactly so I will paraphrase it. Yea, though thou walks thru the shadow of death known to thee as THE AIRPORT, thou shall not want because I have given thee a thimble of patience. Nay, scratch that, my beloved, that’s too much. I have given thee enough patience to fit in the eye of the needle and so thou should go forth in the name of the Lord and call upon me in times of flight troubles for I am your rock. No, it’s wings, yes, definitely wings.“When we read that this morning I said to Dave well of all the things we needed to hear today. Isn’t that perfect? I mean we’re going to need patience, aren’t we?” I had an oh-for-chrissakes look written all over my face as I sipped my coffee and then Michael said, “Welp, we better shove off now,” and we shoved off very very fast.

An hour later we were in the Dublin airport for our flight. It was calm and quiet unlike the day before and we went through security and immigration and picked up our confiscated whiskey and chocolate. We took the escalator upstairs to our gate which was void of frustrated faces, crying babies, or the elderly trying to manage a walker through throngs of people. It was civil like traveling used to be once upon a time. Seven hours later we arrived in Newark for a four-hour layover before boarding our next flight. We sat at a bar to get something to eat and a glass of not-fine-wine that cost $22 a glass. Grossly overpriced? Why yes it was, and we didn’t care.

We made our way to the gate area where Newark airport decided to put long tables with chairs so one could sit upright like they’re at their job and write a letter to their grandma while they waited to board. This seemed like a major design flaw as weary travelers merely need a decent slouchy chair with a charger so they can doom scroll until they hate their life a little less or can get out of Dodge. But nobody asked me and at the packed gate it was announced that though it was time to board one of the flight attendants had gone to the wrong gate and we would have to wait for her to arrive at our gate.

We waited so long I wondered if the flight attendant was at the wrong gate at the wrong airport. The gate agent at one point had enough, walked away, and took a seat (on one of the few comfy chairs) to bitch about work with another gate agent and I was like SHOULDN’T YOU BE OVER THERE DOING YOUR JOB???? When the flight attendant finally arrived everyone started clapping like that was a normal thing to do when an employee shows up an hour late for work. We boarded and sat while a minor mechanical issue was addressed and by minor I mean we didn’t move for another hour. Michael and I didn’t sit together, stuck in the middle of different rows like the white part of an Oreo cookie. I couldn’t sleep because I was distracted by the four-year-old in the row in front of me who kept punching his mom when anything didn’t go his way. When we arrived in Kansas City, close to midnight to an empty airport, we had to wait for a gate and by that point I believed we had moved from the passenger category to hostage.

Five weeks later we went to Canada for another meeting for Michael. It was a fast flight to Detroit and then to Montreal – easy and uneventful. We stayed at the Doubletree Hotel which was where the meeting was being held. Our first night we took a long walk in search of a place to eat and ended up at a fantastic Indian restaurant The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel then came back to the room to gather our stuff for a day of sightseeing. I tidyed up before leaving saying to Michael, “I don’t want the housekeepers to think we’re lazy, American slobs.” Hours later we returned to our room looking exactly as we had left it. That’s when we learned that the housekeeping staff was on strike. Was this city wide? No, just at Doubletree hotels.

On our last full day in the city we walked to the Ritz-Carlton because the retired owner where I work said it had the most beautiful bar in North America and we had to check it out. That might have been a bit exaggerated but we went and as soon as I walked in the first thing I noticed was that the Ritz didn’t smell like mildew from hundreds of unwashed towels. Since it was only 11:30 in the morning we each had a mocktail that was spritzed with a little geranium which I didn’t even know was a thing and had a lovely conversation with the bartender who didn’t seem stressed and ready to snap like everyone working at our hotel.

Later this fall Michael has a trip to Omaha which I took a pass on because I’ve already been there and I’m feeling a bit striked out. I did, however, discover you can buy an oil from Amazon that smells like the Ritz Carlton. It came the other day and it’s so lovely – a fragrant mix of well-paid employees, impeccable service, and clean towels.

Dear Mark,

Every year as the anniversary of your death approaches, I always say, “I can’t believe it’s been __ years.” Time has marched on which sometimes feels unforgiveable. I have flashbacks often, but when there is a hint of changing colors, and the sound of early morning band practice from the high school cuts through the crisp air, they ramp up. I don’t analyze them for answers any more as I have done plenty of that. They are more of a curiousity to me about a time in our lives that still feels like a terrible dream.

Much has changed in the last year. Last fall my aunt died, in January my uncle. Such a lovely man, and if anyone deserved to have a flight of angels sing him to his rest, it was Paul. In April, it was my mom. We prayed for her death – three years on hospice and she couldn’t let go. I think she learned at four years old that when her dad died she just needed to hang on, and hang on she did. She was shockingly thin at the end and there are some images of those last hours that I wish I could erase. How two good people like her and my dad had such horrible end days will always haunt me. Her wake was exactly what she would have wanted – filled with family and friends, a gathering of pure love. I was so proud to be a part of the family that her and Dad made. The next day at her funeral the priest kept calling her by the wrong name. At first I thought I misheard it, but once he went down the road he never came back and so now we refer to her as Peggy.

Maggie and Nate and the kids are thriving. This summer they went to Hilton Head which was a relatively unknown place when we went for our honeymoon 41 years ago. They have the most beautiful beach babies – I think we planted that seed in all of our kids long ago on the shores of Lake Michigan. You would so love being their grandpa. Will has had a rough ride of late – bravely ended a relationship and engagement that was not right for him. He is missing you terribly through this upheaval in his life but is righting his ship, and after weeks of constant worry about him and his emotional health, I feel like I can exhale. Mallory and Rubin are the hip couple from LA who come into town and fill us in on all the cool stuff we’re missing in the Midwest. Mal is still in school, still working full-time, and is dancing again – this time for fun. I imagine you and her in deep conversations about her masters program and you peppering her with questions. On paper it all seems good, but your absence in their lives is profound and painful, so I will ask you again and again to please watch over them.

In the last year my life has changed the most. Last September I met Michael who you knew. All those nights I laid in bed, bereft and heartbroken, asking you to send me someone to love and you delivered a gem. Between us we have 75 years of marriage and things are different this go ’round. We don’t fall into pettiness as we are too aware of how short life is, how fast everything can change, and so we live accordingly. I am unsure how I have been so fortunate in my life to love and be loved by two such passionate, kind, and honorable men.

The other day I was telling my therapist about some flashbacks I was having to your funeral. How it was so important to me that I made people believe that I was okay, how I welcomed everyone with a smile so they weren’t afraid to talk to me, how the distraught on their faces never gave way to my own. I kept my back straight, stayed focused, and never faltered. She listened to all of it and then said, “You didn’t know how to be a wife who was suddenly alone because your husband ended his life, but you knew how to be a hostess.” I have yet to recover from that observation of hers.

Some days I still want to burn everything to the ground out of frustration and grief and rage, but for the most part, gratitude is my daily prayer. And you probably already know this, but there has not been a single day in all these years that I haven’t spoken your name. You live on and so do we.

love,
k.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard about my Irish roots. My dad’s mom was Irish, his dad German, and even though that was a 50/50 mix, it was the Irish part that was talked about the most. My grandmother had skin pure as the driven snow so it made sense that her people came from a place that didn’t see much sun. My mom’s side was English and Irish. I inherited her dark hair and the fair skin from my dad’s side, and when I was once asked what my background was, before I could answer I was told, “You’re black Irish through and through.” I didn’t even know what that meant until I got home and looked it up.

Months ago, Michael told me about a meeting he was invited to in Dublin and asked if I wanted to go. I don’t think he even got the whole question out before I said OF COURSE I WANT TO GO TO IRELAND WITH YOU!! I told a friend who had been there the year before and she lent me her guidebooks which we poured over, and along with advice from an Irish colleague of Michael’s, we planned our trip.

We landed in Dublin and took a shuttle bus to pick up our rental car. Our first encounter with an Irishman was a tall, black man with dreadlocks and a brogue I’d only heard in movies. I may have fallen a wee bit in love. He took us to our car and after a quick look we said, “We need something smaller.” Everything we had read about driving in Ireland was about their narrow roads – the smaller the car the better. He switched it out, we got an overview of the mechanics, and were sent on our way with his casual advice of, “Don’t worry, just stay left and you’ll be fine.” Us worry about driving on the wrong side of the road? Well, hell to the yeah, but in case we forgot there was a placard on the dash reminding us of the same thing.

Michael got behind the wheel with me navigating and as we made our way I oohed and ahhed at everything at every turn. Around dinner time we landed in the seaside town of Dingle where we stayed in a bed and breakfast. We dumped our stuff, took a shower, and headed to town. To say we were charmed would be an understatement, and after some wandering settled on a place for dinner. Post dinner we walked some more and were pulled by the sound of folk music into a pub. We sat at the bar, Michael had a Guinness, I had whiskey, and I couldn’t believe we were there. We started the second day with a drive around the coastline and frequent stops along the way – a sweet alpaca, a very agressive goat, and the most western bar in Europe for lunch where right inside the door was a framed photo of John Kennedy. That night we ended up back in town, ate dinner at a different place, and ended it with a raucous band at another pub who sang a song or two about “the troubles.”

We made our way by ferry to the stunning Cliffs of Mohr. We had read about them prior to our trip and watched many Youtube videos, but nothing compared to seeing them in person – rugged, beautiful, peaceful. That night we arrived in Galway which was about as different as could be from Dingle – a bustling city with lots of college students, pubs, and beefy bouncers standing guard every few feet. We grabbed dinner and ended up in a bar where an 80s band was playing. The next day we stumbled upon an art fair, a breathtaking Catholic church where I lit candles for my mom and dad, and for a very long while watched three fly fisherman in a river trying to catch salmon who were jumping all around them except onto their line. Later that day we arrived in Westport, had dinner then headed downstairs to the pub to watch the European Cup. Spain won which made the bar erupt in cheers – not because there were a lot of Spaniards there but because they beat England. We listened to more Irish music then walked back to our first real hotel with a shower big enough to turn around.

From there we went to Trim and wandered around the castle grounds where Braveheart was filmed then to Dublin for Michael’s meeting and more food, more pubs, more sight-seeing.

A few weeks before we left for our trip I took my two older grandkids to the pool, the same pool I used to take my kids to every day. Fast forward a few decades and there I was doing the same thing with the next generation, catching them when they jumped off the side, throwing a foam football back and forth, watching them swim to me and me saying,”kick, kick, kick” as their little legs moved furiously, and patting their back when they downed a mouthful of water.

As promised when we set off for the afternoon, I told them that if they were good listeners we would go to the snack bar. Eventually we took a break from the water and got in line with a dozen other water-soaked-littles and their parents. As they were deciding what they were going to have, Mabel noticed the little girl in front of us and said, “Greta, is that you?” It was someone from a program she’s in at school that she only sees once a week and not in several weeks since school got out for the summer. She turned around and said, “It is me, Mabel.” Mabel got teary-eyed, cupped her friend’s face with her crinkled, chlorine-smelling fingers, the two of them looking at each other with their dripping hair, and said, “I can’t believe it’s you, Greta. I can’t believe I finally get to see you.”

I could talk for hours about this trip, how I finally understood why it was spoken of so fondly when I was growing up, how every time I told someone where I was going this summer they would sigh and say, “Oh, you’re going to love it.” When I’m asked what my favorite part of our trip was, I say, “all of it,” because it’s true. If I could have cupped that country in my hands I would have followed Mabel’s lead and said, “Ireland, is that you? I can’t believe I finally get to see you.” Instead I’ve deposited every lush, green memory into the travel bank and thanked the universe for sending me someone to love, someone to explore new places with, someone whose loss is achingly familiar to mine, and someone, who like me, has made the choice to keep raising a glass to life.

Slainte.

Recently Michael asked me if I ever write about politics on my blog. I told him that I don’t often broach that subject even though I have been passionately political throughout my adult life. I have a group of friends that I have known for years, women I met when my kids were in grade school. We are well-informed about current events, and it is usually the first thing we talk about whenever we get together. We each have strong opinions that we listen to, sometimes argue against, and always respect. Many years ago, when I was listening to a heated argument regarding politics amongst several couples, one of the women turned to me and said, “Let’s talk about something else. I hate politics.” I have never understood that position. Everything from the water you drink, the interest rate on your mortgage, and your kids’ education is political. Why would you ever let someone else decide those things for you without weighing in?

My intent this morning was to write about the fabulous trip Michael and I just took to Ireland and that will happen. But yesterday as we were adjusting to getting back home after a hellish travel day, doing laundry, yardwork, and stocking the fridge, the news broke that President Biden was dropping out of the race and with it my heart dropped. Michael and I have disagreed about whether he should stay in the race or not and I was steadfastly behind him. His debate performance? Awful, but I thought he’d recover and serve again. That was not to be and as I later lay wide awake in bed due to jet lag and thinking about the fast-moving events hours before, I started to cry which has never been a habit of mine when it comes to politicians.

Whenever I saw Joe Biden, I saw his pain. I think that switch flips on when you have an out-of-order loss and never flips off. Since my own traumatic loss, I see it everywhere – the people in The Club. For me he represented such decency, such perseverance and fight when his world imploded twice, the grace to say that these losses of his would always hurt, and that staunch Catholicism of his that reminded me so much of my dad.

During our rough day of travel on Saturday when we still had a long way to go, Michael and I landed in Newark. Over a glass of wine, I thought how much I couldn’t wait to get a good night’s sleep and call my mom in the morning to tell her all about the trip. Then I remembered she was gone, and just like that I felt like I was plopped from a life with this woman who was funny and beautiful, who carried her faith with her wherever she went, and of course couldn’t wait to hear everything about your trip.

During those early morning tears of mine, I thought that this president of ours who is very familiar with having your back against the wall would have cried with me, handed me his handkerchief as I blew my snotty nose into the presidential seal, and then said, “C’mon, kid, put your game face back on, we’ve got a woman to elect.”

While Mark was an avid cyclist, I preferred walking. The only gear required was a decent pair of gym shoes, and while he was supportive of my daily walks, my husband much preferred the manly sport he chose. I felt like a little kid who was patted on the head whenever I’d leave for the park doing my lil exercise. Then he did some research, found out that daily walking was good for your brain health, and all of a sudden he wanted to join me.

The summer prior to his death, we’d head outside after dinner and roam around our neighborhood and the expensive one next door. Two blocks from our house we would pass by an older woman tending her garden in her front yard. She would scoop small amounts of mulch from a bag with her spade, dump it in the dirt, smooth it out, and repeat over and over. I felt like we should offer to pick up the whole bag and dump it which would be so much faster, but she seemed content with her plan and so we’d say “hello, beautiful night, your garden is looking great” and keep moving. On the way back she’d still be out there in the dark with her spade, her garden, and her plan. “I want to be like her when I get older,” I told Mark, “tending the earth with the lightning bugs keeping me company.”

For the longest time I didn’t see her and was worried that she had died except I hadn’t seen a moving truck in the driveway or for sale sign planted in her yard. The one person I knew who lived near her had moved so I had no way of finding out what was going on or why she wasn’t in her garden every night. A few weeks ago I passed her house on the way to the park and there she was, sitting in a wheelchair by the front door watching the neighborhood activities. Dottie was still with us. I smiled and waved and teared up from relief and happiness.

Michael is an avid, daily walker and after one of his early morning walks told me that he passed by a house where an ambulance was parked in the driveway. He described the house and I peppered him with questions. Was it next to the gray house that was for sale? Did it have a white iron bench in front and a small garden next to the driveway? Did you see an older woman with gray hair being brought out? He didn’t have an answer to any of my questions until a few days later when we were in the car and he pointed the house out.

My heart sank.

Weeks later I still don’t know what happened and for now I prefer it that way. Watching this woman in her garden and knowing my mom was safe and cared for in a memory care unit made life feel safe. On the way to work the other day I was stopped at a light and an older man in a different park was walking the path and picking up sticks along the way. He didn’t toss them aside into the grass but held onto them stooping over to pick them up. I prayed he wouldn’t fall when he bent over as my mom often had.

The light turned green, and I wished I could have had a bit more time watching him. Salman Rushdie once said, “We all owe death a life,” and as I have grown older, I prefer that it be simpler, much like Dottie the Nighttime Gardener or the man I saw picking up sticks. Stewards along the path, caring for what is beneath our feet, and making the journey a bit more beautiful as we watch each other grow in wisdom and gratitude.

In the early months and initial year following Mark’s death, when all of it seemed like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from, I ceased living and without even knowing entered the existing category. I would show up to work and social occasions with a smile and my I’m-just-fine face and act my way through until it was mercifully over. When I’d get back in the car I would collapse from the mental exhaustion of pretending that, why, of course, I’m rebuilding my life, how lovely of you to ask. In reality I wasn’t rebuilding anything as most times I’d have to give myself a pep talk in the house to go, another in the parking lot to start the car and drive home, and then in the driveway to get out and go back into the house.

There seemed to be no end in sight to the anguish of Mark’s death despite weekly therapy appointments and trial and error with meds for anxiety and depression. I had no choice but to show up in my brokenness to a life I did not recognize. When I did, people seemed genuinely happy to see me and I had no idea why. I had nothing to offer, I was depleted in every way. I devoured grief books, desperate for something to cling to in order to hold it together. In one of them I stumbled across this quote, “There will be more light upon this earth for me.” I typed it out on the notes on my phone and repeated it over and over and over throughout the day.

Therewillbemorelightuponthisearthformetherewillbemorelightuponthisearthformetherewillbemorelightuponthisearthforme.

I did not believe it, but it seemed encouraging and not patronizing, and since nothing else was working I gripped it tightly and started paying attention. This promised light started showing up in small ways – watching my grandkids which made me forget my sorrow, a garden that took off, a new job with some incredible women. It wasn’t even close to what I had but it was drops in the parched well of my life.

When a few years had passed and I started feeling a bit stronger, I decided to dip my toe in the dating pool and the light got squashed like a bug. I met someone who spent two hours telling me how he fixed his toilet, I dated a musician who reeked of weed all the time, and then there was this guy. One day I told my sister all I really wanted was another professor. “I know that world,” I said, “I’m comfortable in it, and besides those guys are really smart.” “I think you only get one of those in life,” she said. She was right, I had had my shot.

After more bad dates with some very questionable men, I said to myself, “Welp, this dating thing isn’t working and needs to go.” My life, I decided, would be as a full-time cat lady who watches true crime dramas mixed in with some decorating shows and occasional trips to Target for a bottle of wine, a candle that masked the smell of depression, and lightweight, clumping litter. I had a plan for my future, albeit a bad one. I opened the app on my phone to figure out how to get rid of it (and the monthly charges) and a face I’d never seen popped onto the screen. I read his bio and said to the cat, “Hmmmmm….. he seems interesting” He was a widower and I messaged him about this nonsense of “starting over.” We messaged back and forth for over a week until he suggested we meet in person. I told him I had no idea of the dating rules when you are of Medicare age but if he wanted to come to my house I’d make us dinner. Was this a bad idea? Of course, but it had the potential of making me the dead star of my own true crime story which seemed especially good for my blog stats.

It was on a Saturday night last September when he arrived at my house with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers, and by the end of the night I knew that things in my life were going to be going in a different direction. They quickly did and there were aspects of it that were terrifying. When you have experienced a traumatic event in your life, it is difficult to recognize and accept happiness. I often felt like the floor beneath me was going to collapse and I’d be in free fall again. An unanswered text didn’t mean he was busy, it meant that he was dead somewhere and the police were on their way to tell me. It turns out that, like grief, moving forward with someone also requires a lot of emotional work.

Since that initial date, this lovely, kind man and I have cried together many times over our experiences of losing our spouses and how present each of them remains in our lives. We honor the sadness and the joy of our previous lives with enormous gratitude tinged occasionally with guilt for being happy. It is often overwhelming. “I think we are brave,” he said to me one night which made me cry. We are, and I have stopped worrying and wondering how long we’ll have until life has other plans. We have today.

Meet Michael. He works at the same medical center as Mark did, in the same building. He is a professor in the pathology department.

The light is blinding.

**Michael knew Mark during his years at the med center, although not well. He said he and his wife and Mark and I were at the same party once and we all talked but I have no recollection of it.**

*On April 17th, our mom’s long life and battle with dementia came to an end. Here is the eulogy I gave at her funeral.*

At the beginning of the year, I was in town for my uncle’s funeral and to see our mom at the facility where she has been living these past few years. On the way home, Ann said to me, “Have you started to write Mom’s eulogy yet because you know you’re going to be asked to do it?” I had not because the prospect of describing what it was like to have Gerry Werner as your mom was daunting. The prospect of not having Gerry Werner around even more so.

Our mom was tough – with six kids she had to be, lest the inmates take over the asylum, and Lord knows we tried. The boys once broke one of her plants playing hockey in the family room with a tennis ball – a plant she had nursed from a tiny log with a single leaf coming out of it. She was so proud of that plant and how big it had gotten and then those noggin heads whacked it in half. I thought that they were for sure, that time, going to the orphanage that Dad always threatened them with. Somehow they were saved from that fate but it was just one of a long list of transgressions where we collectively lied, stole, broke curfews, broke the mental health of a certain babysitter, dented cars, dented our heads, dented each other, excelled in school, failed in school, and broke the bank with Catholic school tuition and sports equipment. Though not our intent, I think every day we were a six-man wrecking crew trying to break that woman.

Though she was small she was mighty and we failed miserably. When we had a story to tell her about some mishap she would listen intently, nod, say, “Oh boy, that’s terrible,” then sigh and say as she walked away, “You know I wasn’t born yesterday.” On a Saturday afternoon when I was with a friend and had walked to K-Mart which Mom had strictly forbidden, I came home and she asked me why I was late. I told her we were at the playground at St. Jude’s and then realizing that a priest was at the church hearing confessions decided I should go before I headed home. That night at dinner Mom announced to the table that maybe my siblings should heed my actions and TAKE IT UPON THEMSELVES TO CONFESS THEIR MANY, MANY SINS. Everyone glared at me and after dinner Tom cornered me and said, “I don’t believe for one minute that you went to confession.” How did he know this? As soon as Tom got his drivers license, he and I would leave for church on Sunday morning, say “see you in an hour,” and drive straight to McDonalds for breakfast. Then he’d drive back to the church parking lot where I would hop out, run inside, grab a bulletin from one of the ushers, and check out who the priest was before we headed back home. Tom, most definitely, had the goods on me. The next day I went to Mom and folded like a card table to which she said, “Oh for crying out loud, Kathy, did you really think I believed you went to confession?”

We grew up, managed to stay out of the prison system, somehow got responsible, and Mom finally got to relax. Just when life was supposed to get easier Dad died and she became a widow far sooner than she should have. We all saw her more tenderly after that, as the woman who mothered us through so many trials was now facing her hardest. Like everything about her, though, she quietly and without fanfare wore her heartbreak with stunning grace. She did not complain, she did not want pity, she kept her sense of humor intact, she moved forward. She bought a new house where in no time she knew all of the neighbors, got a dog named, Duffy, who was her constant sidekick, sipped on afternoon wine, and watched most Cubs games. She could tell you about Cody on Sister Wives and ask how all those women could love that idiot. She said Adrienne Arpel who sold a skin care line on QVC had “work” done. “She’s gotta be a hundred years old,” Mom would say, “she’s not fooling anybody with that Aurora Borealis cream.” She was always cheerful whenever you called or stopped by. If, as one of her kids, you were mad at someone and told Mom she fiercely clenched that grudge right along with you. “How’s that idiot Mark works with,” she’d ask me every time I called, not once considering there was any other side but mine. If you were to ask any of her grandkids who they thought was her favorite they would all say, “Oh, it was definitely me,” because she had the uncanny ability to take an interest in their interests and make each one of them feel special.

If we could have had a single wish for our mom, it would be that her last years on earth would have been easier than they were. To watch the cruelty of her vibrant personality be slowly diminished as she searched for words, searched for recognition, or searched our faces felt like a slow drop off a cliff into the unknown. She was fiercely independent and at the end had to rely on help for everything. “Come on, Gerry Berry,” the afternoon aide said to her on that last night when she was giving her morphine and trying to get her to swallow. Her eyes never opened that time or any other, but every person that came in her room told her everything they were going to do to her to make her more comfortable. In the midst of such sadness, we were well aware that there were angels among us.

I once read a story about a man whose mother was in memory care for dementia. “Will this ever be over,” he asked the aide who said, “Why, honey, she’s got the dementia. She’s trying but she can’t find the right door.” Last Tuesday night our mom found the right door and on the other side was our dad, the girls she gave birth to who never took a breath, her mom and dad, her sister, her stepdad who raised her. Their favorite girl was finally home and though we will miss her until our very last day, she is exactly where she wanted to be.

And so, Grandma, Ger, Gerry, Gretchen, Mrs. Werner, G-Dawg, Aunt Gerry, Gerry Berry……we will mourn your loss and the incredible, generous life you lived. Will we be okay? You needn’t worry about us, Mom. We were loved and raised by you. We know exactly what direction to go from here.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Chicago to be with my mom who was in the end stages of dementia and her life. How my mom was still alive was a mystery to all of us as she has had many things happen to her in these past few years that should have been the end. Somehow, though, she always recovered. This time was different, and as I hurriedly pulled things out of the closet and drawers, the same thought kept repeating itself. What are you supposed to pack for your mother’s death?

I flew out in the morning, my sister picked me up at the airport, and we went right to see Mom. She was not awake, her breathing was shallow, her eyes closed, and along with one of my brothers and his wife and my other sister we sat vigil in her small room. Many, many thoughts were going through my mind as the minutes and then hours ticked by and a lot of them were ridiculous. I became obsessed with the fact that the only light on was an overhead one. I hate overhead lighting and kept eyeing the lamp on a table behind her – a lamp I bought her at least twenty years ago. Finally I got up to turn it on – it was not plugged in and it wasn’t near an outlet so I sat back down. I made a mental checklist of what I want at the end – a lamp or two on, classical music softly playing, a diffuser going that smells like spring, quiet conversation, and if it’s nice out the window cracked open just a bit. Basically like a well-scripted scene from a movie which isn’t at all how most deaths go. After awhile of sitting in my own agitation, I announced that we needed to turn the ceiling light off and find a plug for the table lamp. My sister found something to unplug, we turned the lamp on, and my therapist would have a field day with that one. Hint: I was trying to control something completely out of my control.

The day lingered. My sister left for a doctor’s appointment. Mom was trying to cough, something she had virtually no strength to do and distress covered her face. It broke me and I got up and kneeled next to her bed, rubbed her cheek, told her we were there and everyone was going to take care of her, that she needed to relax because it was almost time to see Dad. “I think she needs morphine,” I said, as if I know about such things. It was already on its way and it wasn’t long before she got her first dose. Her face relaxed in minutes and so did the rest of us. My brother and his wife went to get lunch, another brother arrived from Florida with his wife and son. My sister came back with her husband, my niece, her husband, and daughter came, my nephew and his fiancee. My mom had a lot of grandchildren, seventeen to be exact, and she was adored by every single one of them. As soon as they came in her room and saw her they sobbed which pretty much broke open the dam.

At one point I walked down the hallway where some of my siblings were gathered. We discussed a date for the funeral which was weird considering she was still alive. These things, though, need to be sorted out especially when you have a very large family scattered across the country. My oldest brother and I went to get dinner. We weren’t gone long – maybe thirty minutes and when we walked back into the room to tell everyone the food was there my sister-in-law (who is a nurse) said, “I think she’s gone.” She checked her pulse and for a few minutes you’d have thought we were all dead the way we just stood there in disbelief. Two aides came in and verified it and while there was never any hope that this was going to end differently, it still felt shocking to say our tearful and tender goodbyes to the woman who raised us all. “Thank you for everything, Grandma,” my nephew said to her and I felt like my legs were going to give out.

Earlier that day one of the residents came by Mom’s room so we could meet her dog. It was a stuffed animal tucked under her arm and one thing you learn when you’ve loved someone with dementia is that where they are is where you’d better get to, and so we petted it and asked the woman what his name was. She smiled the whole time and said he didn’t have a name yet but he would soon and off she went to show him to everyone else which she probably does a dozen times a day.

A few hours later the woman appeared again outside Mom’s room. On a small shelf in the hallway was an old rotary phone and she picked it up and started dialing. “Mary, what are you doing,” one of the aides asked when they walked by. “I’m calling my mother,” she said. “The phone doesn’t work,” he said and she put the receiver down, looked at him, and said, “Well, it did yesterday when I called her.”

She walked down the hall and I watched her as she made another loop with her stuffed dog tucked under her arm, her ever-present smile, a room crammed with love and tears a few feet away, and I knew that like her I’d have a hard time believing that my mom was gone when it seemed as though I just talked to her yesterday.