"...although it would be delightful, it is not possible for the culture to make up for the society." - Fran Lebowitz

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher, tonight and almost turned it off because Seth McFarlane was going to be on.  Though, I agree with him often politically, the seemingly bottomless well of ignorance and hate he spews towards the intellectually disabled is hard to ignore.  As my worldview has been colored by Down syndrome for 18 years, it’s hard to get past.

Long story short, I stayed for Fran Lebowitz.

The quote that is the title of this little diatribe is one that she spoke in response to a question about the Oscars being “too white”.  She didn’t say much during the show, but that quote, "...although it would be delightful, it is not possible for the culture to make up for the society.", was a gem.

And I agree.  

It would be nice if having more black Oscar winners meant racial tolerance, but it doesn’t, in the same way that having a kid with Down syndrome crowned prom king does nothing in the grand scheme of things for kids with i/d that are more often than not, excluded.

I can see people who think Betsy DeVos is going to be a dandy Secretary of Education screaming “Well, what more do you want?!?!???  I mean, HE. WAS. PROM. KING.  Forget that there are hundreds of hours in the school year where he is separated from the “typical” population.  Forget that he is in danger of losing even the shitty supports that are in place at the moment.  Forget that people fear the unknown, and in too many schools, kids with Down syndrome are not known as friends and peers, still, today.

I have some very lovely snapshots of my son and a couple of “typical” kids.  If I posted those pictures without comment, you would think that these are his close friends.  They are not.

He spends hours texting and calling and leaving barely intelligible messages on their voicemails, and rarely, very rarely does he ever get a call or text back.  About once a month, one of these boys comes over for a half and hour or an hour at most.  He NEVER gets invited to their house.  It is heartbreaking to have your kid tell you about a party that he wasn’t invited to, or who is sleeping over whose house.  He wants it so badly to be him.  He wants SO BADLY to be one of the guys.  

I’m not bashing the kids.  They are good kids.  They are nice to my kid and have fun with him when they are here.  I honestly think they don’t mean to exclude him.  They just don’t think to INCLUDE him.  They don’t see him as an equal, and that is the most heartbreaking part.

I don’t expect the world to be color or gender or orientation or disability blind.  Not seeing differences is impossible and dishonest.  Not seeing those who are different than you as peers, is a tragedy.  Before we can have equality, we must see each other for the equals we are.

I am pulling for La La Land, but have not seen Hidden Figures, yet.  I guess I need to get on that this weekend.

Happy New Year...What The What?

There are two stories making the rounds this New Year's Eve that have me shaking my head.  One is tragic and the other is just...silly.

The first one is the story of a two year old that shot and killed his mother in a Utah Walmart.  Horrifying.  So many lives ruined in a second.  It raises so many questions:  Why was the gun in her purse?  Why was the kid left alone with the gun and purse?  How did his two year old fingers manage to pull the trigger?  What was she so afraid of in that little podunk town that she felt she needed to be armed to go to Walmart?  Did she get the gun for Christmas?

See the story here.

I don't want to get into a gun debate.  I really don't.  My husband is a former Marine.  He has massive respect for what guns and more importantly, bullets, can do.  We don't have a gun in the house, but if and when we move to the country (which we are thinking about in the future), my husband has already said that he would want a rifle; nothing crazy, just something for protection in a remote area where the police response time is decidedly slower than it is in the suburbs.  I know that he will be responsible with it.  He is that kind of guy.  I am no fan of guns myself, but I have no problem with responsible gun owners.  Where "responsible" becomes "irresponsible" becomes a bit more blurry for me, but that is a discussion for another day.  

I have been reading the debates about this incident.  The most ridiculous arguments are being made by some who are bragging about how savvy their own two year old's are with guns.  They are saying things like "They know not to touch a gun, ever".  I even saw a guy compare his having guns and teaching his toddlers about them to electrical outlets.  "We teach them not to touch those!  This is the same thing!".  Really?

Not the same, not at all.  Yes, we teach our kids to stay away from hot pots and electrical outlets...and guns, and accidents still happen.  As much as we parents are on top of our little ones, we still need to use the bathroom from time to time, or answer the door, or check on another child, or make dinner, or, or...so many "ors" in life.  Two year old's (and five year old's and ten year old's and teenagers and young adults...) don't make the best decisions.  Sure, they may have been told a thousand times that running into the street after a ball is a no-no, but how many do it anyway?  The answer is:  ALL OF THEM.  At one time or another, every kid puts themselves in some kind of dangerous situation.  Hopefully, usually, there is an adult nearby to save them from themselves.

While I certainly hope that these parents of gun-savvy two year old's are correct; which I highly, highly doubt, (sorry, THEY ARE TWO!) what I hope more is that they never learn whether they were wrong.  I hope they never have to second guess their actions because of a tragedy.  I also fervently hope that they are more responsible than that mom in the Walmart.  However you feel about guns, I am fairly certain that we can agree that a loose, loaded handgun in a purse within reach of everyone around you, not just your kids, is a bad idea; really, horribly, sometimes tragically bad.

I am thinking about this family today and hoping that they can find some peace in the coming year.

The other story making the rounds is about...drumroll, please...Playdoh.  It seems that in an attempt to design a kid friendly, fake cake making set, the manufacturers made one part look like this 
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I mean, okay.  I see it.  The person that designed it is either totally incompetent or a total, toy making genius.  After all, it is getting attention.

What I don't get is how this ruined anyone's Christmas.  People are actually saying that.  "It ruined Christmas when our daughter opened this present!", they are saying, hands held to throats in horror.

Seriously?  In what world does this ruin anything?  Sure, it looks like a tiny penis.  My question is:  Who cares?  It's not a tiny penis.  It's a tiny, Playdoh part that happens to look a bit like a tiny penis.  

Penises do not ruin Christmas.  They just don't.  Parents who make a big deal over nothing, do.

Why these two stories together, you ask?  What does one have to do with the other?  The way I see it, with all the horrors in the world, including a two year old shooting and killing his mom, tiny plastic phalluses are the least of our worries; or at least, they should be.

Are we really that far gone as a society that we are so desensitized to violence that we shrug it off, but anything that even resembles a penis has to be blurred out for our viewing (like they did here)?  What does that say about us?  Penises, real, fake, purposeful or not, are not the problem.  Our twisted view of what is bad or wrong, is.

Sentimental Me

Maybe it's foolish.  I've been called worse things.  

It's easy to become sentimental as you get older, but I was born that way.  From as far back as I can remember, I saved little things.  I had a terrible time parting with anything someone I loved gave me, whether it was a plastic ring from a gumball machine or a stuffed animal or a birthday card.  

When my Mom, or grandma, or grandpa would kiss my cheek, I would be careful not to rub it and could feel it, lingering there, for a long time afterwards.  

The one and only year I went to camp, the girls in my cabin were mean and clique-y.  Though I felt a bit lonely, the fact that they weren't nice to me didn't bother me as much as the fact that they wrecked the bed that my mom so nicely made for me before she left.  All those thoughtful, tight tucks, undone in a fit of eleven year old menace.  

If you look in my purse, I know you will find at least one old shopping list written by my Mom and a note about my worn out tires from my Dad.  In the kitchen drawer, notes from my Dear Husband about slippery roads, hot coffee and cats.  On the top shelf of the closet, nearly every drawing, project and card ever made by my children and birthday cards from relatives dating back to the 70's.

My father's mother passed away last April, but her voice is still on my answering machine.  I'd still have my other grandmother's voice as well, but her last message to me got erased.  Believe me when I say it really bothers me that it's gone.  I also had my youngest son's voice on there, from the day he first rode his bike (alone!) to a friend's house.  He called as soon as he got there.  "Hi Mom.  Well, I just wanted to call and say that I made it and I'm fine.  Well, see you later.".  You see, I have it memorized, even though it too got erased when we had to get a new phone.  

Books and clothes and televisions and cars and other things, I have no problem giving away.  I don't get attached to big things; not really.  I'd rather someone else have them, if they can be useful to them.  Over the years, I've managed to pare down the sky high pile of letters and cards to a more manageable amount, as well.  Now, instead of every birthday card my great grandmother ever sent me, I only have one; but I won't part with it.  

I still have my favorite childhood stuffed animals and every silly letter my husband wrote to me when we were apart for four months the year we got engaged.

I worry that I haven't taken enough pictures, spent enough time, taught my children all the things they need to know from their mom.  I worry that they'll grow up and leave and I worry that they won't.

I want to take all these things; the papers, the pictures, the voices and the worries and lock them away in a time capsule.  I want to cement them into the cornerstone of my life; knowing that these things are only a small representation of what really matters.

Here and now, what I have shared, what I remember, who I have loved, who knows that I love them; those are the real things worth keeping.

Shame On Us

Today is Robert Ethan Saylor's 27th birthday.  

If you don't know Ethan, I have written about him here, here, here and also here.

I will sum up Ethan's story in a few words:  He was born in 1987.  He had Down syndrome.  He loved and was loved.  He died on January 12, 2013, three days after his 26th birthday, over the price of a movie ticket.

My last line usually garners much debate in articles, but essentially, that is what happened.  The exact details of the incident that happened in the few minutes between screenings of "Zero Dark Thirty" may never come out, because maddeningly, shockingly, sadly the off duty officers involved in Ethan's death were never charged with anything.  Ethan's death was ruled a homicide, but no charges were ever filed (you can read more about that, here).

I find it hard to understand.  If someone can be charged with involuntary manslaughter when they accidentally kill someone with their car, shouldn't they be charged with the same if the accidentally kill someone with their hands?  I am no legal scholar, but something seems amiss, here.

Since that day, it has been mainly on the family to speak out.  They were joined by some Down syndrome advocates in crying out for justice.  We have called upon our national organizations to act, to denounce and to support and eventually, with much prodding from the advocates, our national organizations began to speak out, though,  too quietly and nicely for my taste.  If it had been up to me, as director of a national organization WHOSE VERY REASON FOR EXISTING is to advocate for those with Down syndrome, I would have called for an ad in every national paper saying "Down syndrome is not a cause of death".  But, that's just me.

So, it was mostly up to the family and a small group of fierce advocates to get the story told.  Slowly, articles began to appear in national papers, but still there were plenty of people even in the Down syndrome community that hadn't heard about the story, even six months after it happened and even still, today one year later.  I find that absolutely appalling.  I find it hard to understand why you can say the name Trayvon Martin and everyone knows whom you are speaking of, but saying the name Ethan Saylor doesn't even necessarily ring a bell with people who should care the most.

Part of me understands that people don't want to be reminded of all the terrible things that happen in the world.  I can relate to that.  I don't watch the news with any regularity because of it; it all seems like bad news, from the top stories to the weather.  They may save 45 seconds at the end for some kind of "feel good" moment, as if that will erase the last half hour from our collective psyche.  It doesn't work.

So, many of us surround ourselves with what feels good and we try to ignore the bad and the ugly.  We look at cute baby pictures instead of dealing with what is frightening.  I do it, too.  There are times when calling for justice seems like a monumental task; mostly, because it is.  There are times when all I want is to hug my own kids and look at pictures of babies and kittens and to stick my fingers in my ears and say "la la la la, I can't hear you".  And I do; sometimes, for weeks.

I have to get back to the fight, though.  I can't tolerate just being sad or angry.  I have to act, or else I feel like I have no right to complain.  I deserve an injust world if I am not willing to fight for justice.  

I think this is a lesson that the Down syndrome community needs to learn from the LGBTQ community.  When one of theirs is hurt or killed, we all hear about it.  We all react.  Those of us who have the will, act, in ways big and small, so that justice can be carried out.  We work together to make the world better, not just for LGBTQ people, but eventually, for everyone.  

I have written before about this line of people waiting for justice.  Individuals with intellectual disabilities are on the back of the justice bus, it seems.  I wonder why we can't see that the line really doesn't exist and the bus is a figment of our imagination as well.  We are all human and we all want and need the same things.  A cry from one of us should be heard by all of us, regardless of race, sex, station, orientation, religion or lack thereof, etc.  If I can't see a bit of myself in every other living being, what hope do I have that someone will relate to me?

I urge the national Down syndrome groups to start acting for real change.  Do not let another year go by without calling loudly, publicly for change in the public perception of those with Down syndrome.  It's not about preaching to the choir.  It's about demanding that the rights for our children are recognized.  You have the means, you have the forum, all you need is the will.

I urge gay rights groups and women's rights groups and minority rights groups to look at Ethan and see your own fight and join us.

I urge individuals to stop crying over how sad this is and DO SOMETHING!  Pick up a phone, send an email, write a letter or a comment or a blog post or SOMETHING.  Take action, or expect to see more of the same again and again.

If Ethan's tragic death can mean a change in the way people with Down syndrome are treated, there may be some measure of peace his family could receive in that knowledge.  Isn't it the least we can do for them?  For Ethan?  For other victims of injustice?

If we don't care enough to act, shame on us.

Hypothetical

I have written ad nauseum about losing a good friend (ex-boyfriend) of mine.  I probably wrote five or six (or more) different posts on different blogs about it over the years, and much, much more than that in various diaries and such.

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite posts:

My favorite song to listen to when I am depressed is "Smoke" by Ben Folds Five.  You can feel the despair in the way he bangs the piano keys and in the catch of his voice.  

But, the lyrics...therein lies the magic.
"Here's a secret...no one will ever know the reasons for the tears"

That line says it all.

It's hard to lose someone that you love, but I have found that it's the sadness that no one understands that is the hardest to deal with.  

For example:  if your cat/dog/significant other dies, everyone knows why you are sad.  If your high school boyfriend that you hadn't seen in three years dies, people are sympathetic, but only to a point.  When it's been a year and you are still talking about it, people wonder what's wrong with you.  When it's been almost twenty, they just think you are crazy.

"They were broken up!" they say to themselves.  They think they know the whole story.  But they don't.

This year marked twenty two years since he passed.  It also marked the fact that he has now spent more time dead than he ever did alive.  

I've spent many hours contemplating his death.  Even so many years later, I still find myself reaching for him telepathically.  I know that this will sound weird, but of all those that I have loved and lost, he has kept in touch the best.  It's complicated; just like it was when he was here.

I imagine that it's hard for my husband to understand this relationship.  I say I imagine because we haven't talked about it much.  Mostly, I am afraid to bring it up, for fear of sounding like a crazy person.  Of course, I am much more prone to jealousy than he is, so maybe I am just that:  crazy.  

The dead have a way of only showing their good side, though.  I forget how angry he made me and remember how much he made me laugh.  I forget that his skin was not always flawless; in the beyond, he glows with color and health.  Dying before your twenty first birthday helps, too.  I mean, it's pretty much downhill for your looks somewhere around twenty eight, so he had the privilege(?) of dying before he started balding or developing a beer belly.

I'm not saying any of this is logical.  What I am saying is that it's a tough act to follow.  

The guy I was with when it happened understood this and was, in turn, totally jealous of a corpse and actually angered by my grief.  Those were fun conversations.  Seriously?  I need to explain why I am crying?  Or worse, hide the fact that I am sad?  Geez.  

I'm pretty sure that was the beginning of the end for us, even though we stayed together for another eighteen months.  I was lost in wishing I had done things differently; regretting that I hadn't called my friend after what would be our last fight.  Too much grief and too many unresolved and un-resolvable feelings messed me up.  

I can barely remember the girl I was when I met my husband in 1992.  I was still grieving KD and I had just lost my maternal grandfather, whom I adored.  I was lost.  I remember arming myself with sarcasm and hiding my vulnerability behind a thin wall of bravado.  "You are dating someone else?  Who cares?!?"  (ha).  I'm not sure how quickly he realized that I was mostly bluster.  I'm really not sure what there was of substance for him to be attracted to, but there must have been something. I think in my sadness I had become something of a ghost, myself.  Maybe he was a bit lost,too.  Maybe we rescued each other.  

In any case, this year marks twenty years that my husband and I have been together.  Twenty years!  In that time, both of our lives have been touched by plenty of grief.  We've lost five grandparents and three parents.  We've worried and struggled and have become a family of five along the way.  

Somehow, midst all the pain, we've managed to become more, rather than less.  The sorrow has colored us in, rather than diminishing us.  We've become stronger as a couple and grateful for what is, rather than wishing for what isn't.  It hasn't been an easy lesson, but I am grateful for it.  

I am glad that I have learned that there is more to life than "counting my abs and lovers", something I used to say about my hypothetical single life.

As for my long gone friend, I will always miss him.  I just will.  There is not much I can do about that.  But as I have grown in wisdom, I have learned to feel lucky for what was and what still is.  Life is a gift.  It may be poorly wrapped at times.  It may be smaller than what we were hoping for, but if we hold it up to the light, we will see its beauty and it will be a joy to behold.

De-cluttering My Soul

I've been thinking about what it means to be me.  I'm wondering if I met me, what my first impression would be.  Fat?  Chip on her shoulder?  Nice teeth?  Well spoken, but salty?  Funny?  I wonder if hypothetical me would get past fat and chip on her shoulder to see the truth.  The truth is, that I have a hard exterior made up of guilt, sadness, fear, anger and confusion covered in a thin veneer of sarcasm.  With a little pressure, that shell yields to a gooey center of love, hope and dreams.  I'm basically a Cadbury Cream Egg.  No wonder my husband likes me.  I need that shell to protect what is really worth protecting.  You can have my anger and my sarcasm, but my dreams?  Not without a fight.  

The truth is, that up until just a few days ago, fat was all I was seeing. You'd think since having my last baby 13 years ago, I would be used to being fat, but I'm not.  There's fat and there's FAT.  Right now, I am at FAT and I'd like to get down to fat before spring comes and I can start training for some kind of crazy physical feat; like a triathlon or another marathon (read my condensed marathon story here ).

More about those plans later.

So, up until a few days ago, I was hyper-focused on what was going on with my exterior, to the point that it was exhausting.  I still had obligations to family, friends and the various committees I am involved with, but doing even the most basic thing felt monumentally hard.  I blame it on being heavier than ever before and being just a tiny bit depressed about it.  You know that things are not going well when brushing your teeth seems like a real chore; like something you need to cross off a list.  Forget the actual lists I have.  That shit is on the back burner.  

Now, the list has only one item:  Be the person I was meant to be.

That's it.  Of course, there are sub-headers and lines a through z.  There's a lot that goes into being that person.  But, the way to get there is simple:  Do the things that move me towards a goal and don't do things that move me away.  For example:  I want to complete a big, physically demanding goal by the end of next year.  In order for me to do that, I have to be physically and emotionally ready.  It will take many weeks, many smaller goals and many setbacks to achieve it, so I need to give it a good long time to be accomplished.   

I am not very patient and that has been a big part of what has kept me FAT.  It took too long to see results and I got mad and punished myself by gaining more weight.  It's a long and complicated journey, this one with food.  Everything I think about myself plays into how I treat my temple (it's a god damned temple, you hear me?!?  It just needs some slight retrofitting and remodeling and it will be a thing of beauty for years to come).  

This journey is not about being hot again.  That ship has sailed.  And you know what?  I think that for the first time ever, I don't care.  I was talking to my sister the other day about this.  I said something to the effect of being invisible; that I have gotten to the point where I could grocery shop wearing a clown wig and no one would notice because I am a chunky, middle aged mom. 

Somehow, I've gotten to the point where no one outside my circle of family and friends really sees me.  Sometimes, I wonder if they even see me; me how I really am.  I think my husband usually sees the girl who met him at the end of the aisle eighteen years ago.  I can't keep up with that girl in a race today, but I sure am more thoughtful and more compassionate than she was.  I wonder what my kids see.  Do they judge my weight?  It makes me think of my maternal grandmother, whom I loved so much, and who passed away this summer.  She was heavy most of the years I knew her and I loved her.  My grandfather loved her.  They were happy and laughed and had fun, even though she was bothered by the weight and was always trying some kind of weird diet.  I hope that at some point she stopped measuring her worth in pounds and more in love; that which she gave and that which she received.  I wonder what she would tell me now about wasting time on things that don't ultimately matter.

Speaking of my grandmother:  I am also realizing that I have not fully processed the losses of this past summer.  I lost three significant family members, including both of my grandmothers and Oliver; a boy I never met in person, but learned to love just the same.  I've tried to channel my feelings into advocacy and writing and doing things that make my existence on this planet mean something, but at some point, I just need to sit with my grief.  I've been catching myself from falling into that vast, unwelcome valley, but maybe it is time to explore it a little.  We all have to walk through this valley time and time again as we age.  It should be like going home, but instead, it feels like an endless mire of tears and silence.  It's murky and dark and I am afraid.

I don't need to fill that valley with food, or approval, or laughs.  I only need to sit there and see that I can survive on my own.  All I need is a hanky and a hug when I emerge.

And to the people (they seem to be coming out of the woodwork) who want me to find Jesus/go into business with them/join their cult I want to say thank you for making me see that I am the only one who can fix me.  I think I am on the right track and I will burn your business card keep you in mind, but I need to step away right now.  I have enough crazy up in here, thanks.

So, the to do list:  Be the person I was meant to be 

     a) lose the weight

          1) make a list of achievable goals to meet the ultimate one

     b) sit with my grief

     c) start today

Eulogy Part Two or 2013 is a Bad Year for Grandmas

When I think of my maternal grandmother, a virtual storm of images, sounds, tastes and smells hits my brain.  

I see tan arms and legs, dark sunglasses and zinc oxide.

I see a blue and white beach umbrella.

I see and smell a wet dock, salt air and sand.

I taste the moistest and most delicious and gluten filled crumb cake that there ever has been.  And noodle salad that no one has been able to come close to making; though my mom is getting there.

If you asked what the secret ingredient was in virtually all of her recipes, the answer would most likely be "sugar" and lots of it.  This probably explains my addiction to all things sweet and plays a role in why I am (only just slightly) above my target weight.

My grandmother was a strong alto in the church choir; she never possessed the most melodious voice in the bunch (that job is for the sopranos), but it was always full of depth and belief that made the hymns come to life. I loved to hear her sing.  

I also loved to hear her yell "BUUUTCH!!!" to my grandfather when he was out tinkering in the garage or in the basement.  I never asked her why she called him that, as his name was Charles Howard and he had plenty of other nicknames.  I think she was the only one who called him that.

When I told my grandmother that I was going to name my unborn middle son, Charles after her Butch, she was happy.  When we found out later on that he would be born with Down syndrome, part of me was a little worried that she wouldn't want him to have his great-grandfather's name.  ( I can't imagine thinking this now, fourteen years later ).  When I told her of Charles' in utero diagnosis, she responded with a story of her good family friend (Uncle Jerry) whom I loved and thought the world of and his brother who had had Down syndrome.  She got emotional talking about him and said how loved he had been and how when he hugged you "you knew you were hugged".  I didn't have any doubts after that.

A few months after Charles was born, my grandmother and Aunt Marilyn came out to Chicago to meet him and celebrate my oldest son's third birthday.  For five days we ate ice cream cake, played cards and laughed our butts off.  One of my fondest memories is hearing my grandmother and aunt laughing at the sad air mattress in our "guest" room.  It took up almost the whole floor and they had to climb across it to get in or out.  Sometimes, a grandmother shows her love by getting on a plane and flying for two hours even though it terrifies her and by sleeping on a horrible air mattress just so she can visit you.

When I was about seven or eight, I went with her and my grandfather to visit some friends of theirs in Lake Hopatcong.  The grownups were having a good time and I was getting a little bored, so I decided to take a walk to the beach.  Though it was not far, I got turned around (I am famous for my lack of an internal compass)  and lost.  I'm not sure how long it was that I was gone, but it had been daylight when I left and it was dark when I was finally found.  When I was reunited with my grandmother, I was afraid she would be angry.  The look of relief on her face was enough to let me know that I was not in trouble, that she had just been very, very worried.  I didn't know it at the time, but my grandfather's little brother, Francis, drowned in the Ramapo River at the age of five.  I'm sure they were reminded of that day when they were out calling my name.  Sometimes, a grandmother shows her love by hugging you instead of spanking your butt.

It's hard to think of my grandmother without thinking of my grandfather.  He has been gone for twenty one years and I am sure that a day did not go by that he was not her first thought when she woke up and the last thought before she fell asleep.  

He was the light of every gathering.  He was the fun and the laughter.  He was all hugs and love.  When he died, a light went out for all of us.  

The last time I saw my grandfather, we were sitting on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune in Lanoka Harbor.  I was getting ready to drive back to California after spending the summer in New Jersey.  I knew it would be the last time, because his cancer was back and they were not treating it.  He still got under my old Volvo and rigged up the rattly muffler before I left.  Pop showed love through hugs and jokes and sometimes through repairs.  

When I returned less than a month later for his funeral, my grandmother stood outside her front door, keys in hand with her other hand outstretched behind her, waiting...

She looked at me after a second and said "I was waiting for Pop to take my hand".  

I still cry imagining her heartbreak at that moment and every moment that she remembered, again, that he was gone.

I talked with my Gram a lot in the days after my Pops death.  I remember saying "Don't take this wrong, but, Pop was my favorite".  She responded with:  "He was everyone's favorite".  Yes, I was a jerk when I was 22.  She wasn't insulted, I don't think, not really, anyway.  She knew exactly what I meant.  

I realize now, that he had it easier than her.  She was the disciplinarian and the one who made sure everyone was fed and clean and on time. Being in that position in my house has given me new respect and more love for the "tough one" in the household.  It's not easy to be overshadowed by "the fun one", but it is often necessary.  We can't all be the fun one; nothing would ever get done!

The last time I saw my grandmother, just a few days ago, she was not the person I am remembering, here.  She was forgetful, asking the same question three or four times.  Her voice was weak and quiet, where it had always been loud and strong.  I talked to her and sat with her a little bit.  She said her arm was itchy, so I rubbed some cream on it for her.  I could not get over how thin her once plump arm was.  I jokingly said "Man, Gram, your arms are so skinny!" and she smiled and kind of laughed.  Years ago, she would have been thrilled for skinny arms.  We both understood this.  

The last thing I said to her was "Bye, Gram.  I love you!" and I blew her a kiss out the door.  She responded with a wave and a quiet "I love you".

I will miss her terribly.  She was the bedrock that so much of my life was built on.  So strong and seemingly, permanent.  How is it that in the end, she really wasn't?  That she too would eventually die?  What does family even mean without her?  As a family, we will go on, but with her passing goes another generation.  Some call it the "Greatest Generation".  I called them Grams and Gramps and Gram and Pop and the greatest grandparents a child could hope for.

I can only smile and laugh at the memories and be happy that my Pop won't keep her waiting with her hand outstretched ever again.  

The glasses, Gram, Pop and Me.