I See What You Meme

It's been a while since I used the blog to share my thoughts. What started as some random musings turned into much more than a Facebook post. I started writing this over a week ago but it's taken a minute to actually hit the publish button. Thanks for your patience. Welcome back.   It has been a week (or two) . One of those weeks where everything happens all at once. A week where things need to happen in a particular order or everything‘s going to go to shit. A week where you just seem to go from one thing to the next thing and you’ll figure out what’s going to happen next as it goes along. A week full of work and family and rest and sleeplessness and it never feels like there’s enough time for anything. But somehow it all works out.   A plaque on the library walk in NYC My week started with a trip for work to NYC. It coincided with my birthday. Because of that, I had all kinds of feelings all week about life in general. The week ended with a trip to Florida that, unfortun...

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9.  Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole.  There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them."    I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known.  This...

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen.  If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life.  I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into ...

I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room a few weeks ago. While I waited, another patient came out into the reception area to make her next appointment. The receptionist offered a few dates, including one on a Saturday. The woman (I have no idea who she was; let's call her Maude) originally said yes to the Saturday date. Then the following conversation ensued:  Maude: Wait! Is that Mother's Day weekend?  Receptionist: Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. When is Mother's Day?  Maude: You don't know?  Receptionist: (nervous laugh) Well, I guess I should know this.... Maude: Are you a mother?  Receptionist: No.  Maude: But...you have a mother, right? You should know these things!  At this point, I was incensed with "Maude". This woman knew nothing about the receptionist. She could have recently lost a child. She could have been struggling with infertility. She could have had a mother who recently died. Or she could have a strained or just very compli...

Science tells us that human memory is faulty . We want to think that we will remember certain moments forever like they are encased in carbonite. In reality, we look back on events and retell our stories to friends and colleagues. The story always shifts a little in the process and by the time we have told the story 1000 times, it has changed. It's not (usually) an outright lie. It's just that our brain betrays us. Even our collective memories of major national events that are witnessed by millions of people can be faulty. One study suggests that up to 40% of people changed certain elements of their remembrances of 9/11 as time passed. Something to seriously consider as our recent national discussions about history have claimed the center stage and we continue to live in "unprecedented" times.  Side note: anybody else yearning for some precedented times again?    Fifteen years ago this week, Charlotte Jennie was born. I recounted a lot of her birth story on this ...

As I spend my 2nd Mother's Day without my mother and my 10th Mother's Day without my One of my favorite multi-generational pics of me, my mom, and Charlotte.  first-born, I'm probably more reflective than usual. I blame the burgeoning pandemic . I'm still struggling with survivor guilt and an irrational, imaginary pressure to be more productive than I should be in a time of stress. I try to balance managing the influx of information for both my mental health and my need to be well-informed. I'm managing a new household with kids learning from home, replacing rehearsals and school with online tutoring, drum lessons, and playdates; none of which, by the way, are adequate substitutions for the real thing.  I'm trying to embrace the new opportunity for more restful weekends (much needed) with my desire to still do as much as I can to be a force for good. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes by E.B. White:  "I arise in the morning torn between a...

Nothing like a little pandemic to get me writing again, huh?  I have so many thoughts in my brain right now. A simple social media post didn't seem the right venue. So I have picked up the blog to get these thoughts on paper. Or digital paper, as it were.  Ever since this COVID-19 crisis began, I have been struggling with information overload. There is the desire to be informed and the potential to be overwhelmed by it all. There is the need to filter out truth from fiction. There is the need to distance ourselves, both physically and emotionally sometimes, from others. My anxiety brain often has trouble turning it all off, even in "normal" times. These are not normal times. Many wise people have pointed out that we are in a period of collective grief . Like any grief, the process cycles between despair, denial, bargaining, anger, and acceptance. Sometimes I feel all of those in one day. I think that one of the things I struggle with the most in all of this is wha...

As I sit here writing this, I mark 13 years since I was in labor with Charlotte. I am the mom of a teenager. And yet, I’m not. Every year, Charlotte’s birthday hits me a different way. Every year in the grief process is a little bit different. The arrival of her birthday so close on the heels of the end of the school year frequently triggers thoughts for me about how Charlotte’s peers continue to move forward while she Seriously. Kids these days... remains frozen in time as a four year old. As the school year ends, I see her peers moving on to middle school, attending dances, achieving milestones, and just plain getting older (Puberty! Eek!). It always leaves a twinge of jealousy and sadness in my heart. I try to imagine what she would be like, what her interests would be. Knowing how much she was my “mini-me” as a youngster, I lift up hope that she might have strayed from my junior high life as an awkward, frizzy-haired, coke-bottle-eyeglass-wearing teenager. ...

Yes. It's been a long time since I've blogged. Doesn't mean my mind hasn't been churning.  It's *Diagnosis Day*. The picture below was taken by Roger as they were waiting at the hospital for CAT scan results on January 20, 2009. I shared our story yesterday at a Synapse meeting, rather unexpectedly. A "teaser" from another member about the  Thumbs Up Ball 2018  and the pending anniversary of this date were both combining factors that helped me decide to share the story. This day in 2009 is forever etched in my brain. There are few details that I have forgotten. I remember Roger picking me up from a full morning of teaching at Romp n' Roll after he'd already spent hours with Charlotte at the pediatricia n and at St. Mary's for a CAT scan. I remember grabbing a quick lunch from the Drive-Thru of Chick-fil-A, but not really wanting to eat anything. (Not wanting to eat CFA? I know! Right?) I remember using my non-smart phone to call friends ...

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about Charlotte. She is everywhere. I see her in so many things. Most of the time, the thoughts are happy memories but they are often tinged with a bittersweet sadness and longing.  Around mid-June each year, it starts. For some reason, I'm extra sensitive to different memories or triggers. Some of these make sense. At the end of the school year, as kids are celebrating accomplishments and moving forward in time, I think of Charlotte. She never even made it to Kindergarten. I try to imagine what she would be interested in now, what her summers would look like, who her friends would be. Even with another child who has much to celebrate and keep me occupied, my thoughts fall back to her.  Bear. Just sayin' hello.  Other triggers are more mundane. I was at our chiropractor's office the other day for a regular visit and there was Bear, sitting there staring at me from the kid's play area. I hadn't tho...

If there's one thing I've learned on this parenting journey, it's that everyone travels through this experience looking through a lens that is tinted by their own experiences, the way they were raised by their own family, their education, and their personalities.  From the very beginning of parenthood...even before the child pops out of the womb...we, as parents, are bombarded with suggestions and recommendations. Get a doula. Get an epidural. Don't get an epidural. Don't ever co-sleep. Follow your child's lead. Don't feed them solids until they are six months old. Feed them solids early and they will sleep through the night sooner. Enroll them in classes to stimulate their brain. Let them be "free spirits" and explore and play.  In the words of the great Jimmy Buffett, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." It's with all this in mind that I reflect on one parenting perspective that is unique to those who have ch...

It's been seven years since Charlotte died. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday. The time between early November and the end of January harbors some of the most intense memories from that time in late 2009 and early 2010 when we ran out of medical options and watched her die. On top of that, January 20 marks the date when she was first diagnosed (a year before). It's no wonder that this time of year is hard for our family, emotionally.  Roger calls it "the bus" .  That feeling of grief settles on his chest like a great weight and it stays there. Sometimes it's there for a few days but often it takes up residence for weeks at a time. There's no moving the bus. You just have to let it park for a while.  This guy. Some days he drives me crazy. Without him, I certainly would be. One of the challenges in handling a collective grief is that nobody mourns the same way. The timetable is different. The intensity can be...