I thought this gig got easier with experience. Once again, I was wrong.

Children can be difficult. Each stage of development comes with it's own pitfalls and rewards. But somehow I got the idea that as I grew with my children, as I gathered experience points in this motherhood thing, it would get easier. Funny me. Delusional me, maybe.

Six and half years into this adventure, I'm beginning to realize that when you start with an infant, you start out easy. Address the basic things: food, clothing, shelter, love. Some babies are easier than others, I know (my first was a difficult baby). I just felt like I could work through everything, be generous and loving, and it would all work out. It gets so much more complicated from there.

As a family, we attended an open casket visitation and then funeral service this week. It was my daughter's first personal experience with this sort of ritual. We tried to prepare her for it, using a (quite serendipitous) question about a mortuary we drove by to explain things like embalming, viewing the dead, and funeral rites. Upon approaching the casket the other day, the first question was easy to handle. Then the distractions set in and it seemed like smooth sailing.

Until we hit the car. For some reason Ari thinks that the car is the perfect time for deep meaningful conversations.

I won't get into the nuts and bolts of the conversation. I will tell you that Ari was upset. Confronted with a person's mortality made her perceive a threat to those people that she loves dearly. [Grandpa's earlier attempts at being honest and well-meaning, with comments like "We all go someday. I'll die someday, too." didn't help matters.] And I desperately wanted to stop the car, pull her into my arms, and murmur platitudes assuring her that I would never leave her. That she would spend all her days sheltered in the arms of the ones she loves, never feeling the pain of loss and grief.

But I knew this would be wrong.

On one level, I couldn't bring myself to say this because, frankly, I want my children to outlive me. I want us all to have long, full, rich lives and come to a natural end. To tell my six year old that we would never leave her somehow implies to my brain that she will leave us instead. Short life isn't on my list of things I want for my kids. This is honest and raw and natural.

More than that, I couldn't offer Ari those reassurances because I know life is painful. It's hard. It's cruel sometimes. And I prefer honesty. We don't believe in Santa Clause, perfection, or that everything works out all the time. We do celebrate when things go right, when we try our best, and when the hard stuff reminds us of how good the good stuff is. If I am the one to leave my daughter, I do not want to complicate her grief with lies. I want her to know that I value her, love her, respect her.

So, as hard as it was, I didn't offer empty promises. Instead I followed her lead and did my best to help her through her fear. In the end, she seemed to feel better after deciding what memento she would keep from each of us. She asked for my jewelry box, some of her dad's shirts, her brother's keepsake box. She staked her claim on those things, in case one of us dies.

It took almost all of my energy to calmly progress in this conversation. To accept that she needed to have it. To hear her fear, to lift her up, to promise her these transient material things in case of disaster. Days later, I'm still digesting and processing, and when I can sit and think about it, I go ahead and cry.

The questions just keep getting harder.

All the things I'd like to say get jumbled together with my expectations and trapped inside my head.

Five things to do today:

1. Pick up all the toys littering the house.
2. Load, turn on, unload, repeat re: dishwasher.
3. Teach school.
4. Catch up on school record keeping.
5. Run over to that (new to me) cafe for tomorrow's needed birthday gift.

Isn't that exciting? And seemingly easy to accomplish?

Wait - there's also a piano that needs to be moved into the house. And those overdue library books. And the trip to the post office. And trimming the dog's toenails. The list really does go on.

My life: a fairly accurate representation of what goes on in my head all the time. There's the short list of five (or even one) thing/s I might want to do for myself and my mental well being. Post on my blog. Write an actual poem. Read something that isn't just brain numbing. Work on my decoupage project. Knit. Deeply inhale the steam from my cup of tea. Instead I get tangled up in all the other things. I feel like I'm running an endless maze and I've forgotten the way back.

Some days this is a very sad thing. Some days it's just the way it is. And sure, like most of us, there are things I would change about my life if I could but usually I focus on just accepting and changing things where it is possible. Serenity, anyone?

In the meantime, my words are all jumbled together in my head while my soul is busy living out this life of mine. Weird and all jumbled up together.

When someone calls me antisocial, my whole body tenses and I want to throw up.

When I was in second grade I participated in my First Communion (Catholic). It was a Big Deal. Months of work, frilly white dress, veil, gloves, my own (new) rosary... I even got my picture professionally taken in the whole get up. It's an odd awkward photograph, my dark hair sharply contrasting with all that white material while I bowed my head in a semblance of humility. I believe I've made my point: This was a Big Deal.

First Communion was Big enough that I even got my own party. In my house, party translated into tons of people, ridiculous amounts of food, a beer keg, and a store bought cake. It was tradition. And expected.

But here's the thing. I don't like parties. I don't ever remember liking parties. It was too much. It was overwhelming. The only party I've ever been excited to plan was my wedding reception - and once I did all the obligatory reception things, I did what I wanted for the rest of the night. Which meant I hung out with the people I liked and listened to music I enjoyed. The rest of the invitees were on their own. So I enjoyed about half of my wedding reception. Which is a much higher percentage than most parties, so I count it as a win.

How I digress.

Back to the First Communion Big Deal. This is the first party I remember truly and deeply hating. I was too little to play with the big kids and too big for the little ones. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable around my drunk relatives (my parents didn't drink, and the difference was shocking to me, even then). There were more grown ups than kids. I was the star of the show so I was supposed to talk to everyone. And worst of all, after putting up with all that frilly white lace dress, gloves, tights, shoes, veil crap, I had to wear another dress for the party.

I hated dresses. I still do (mostly).

As the guests started to arrive my dread grew until it seemed completely unmanageable. I couldn't face the day. And I was too young to articulate any of that. I went all the way to the back of the yard (a good distance from my mom's watchful eye) to hide. I climbed up on an old trailer sitting along the fence. It was the kind with a tongue at one end, two wheels in the middle, and open all around. I was feeling good about the situation until gravity took over, tipped the trailer the other way (like a bad seesaw) and spilled me onto the ground.

I wasn't hurt, but I'd stained my dress. And just like that, a crappy party went to sheer hell. I tried sneaking back into the house - though I have no idea what I was going to do after that - but I got caught by some helpful woman and delivered to my mother. Who was absolutely horrified by my appearance. I had stained my dress. At my very own party.

I was allowed to change into comfortable play clothes and then thrown back into the party. I had to apologize the rest of the day to everyone for my appearance. I had to apologize to my mom for ruining all her hard work. It felt like the rest of the party was one huge punishment for running away in the first place.

I was eight. And this party has been preserved in my memory with amazing clarity - something really unusual for me. I couldn't tell you who my second grade teacher was, what sports I might have played that year, what my favorite game/movie/tv show/book was, or whether or not I liked school. I'm sure some people have all that information stored in their head but mine got misplaced. So the retention of my First Communion party strikes me as significant.

I think it was the beginning. I think it marked the time when my shyness started to become crippling. It was the first party I tried to hide from everyone, and I've spent years hiding at parties ever since. My father used to bang on my bedroom door and tell me to stop being antisocial, come out and enjoy the party.

I suspect that many people who think they know me wouldn't use the word "shy" as a description. But it's true. I work really hard at overcoming this feeling but the truth is that it's incredibly difficult for me to walk into an unfamiliar situation, meet new people, make connections with the people around me. Even now, after 7 years of hosting a Christmas shindig for 15-20 family members, I have to eventually go hide in the kitchen or risk a total freak out. I've overcompensated at times and found myself in some really bad situations. Sometimes I totally fail and cancel at the last minute.

It's not that I want to stay an arms length away from everyone. It's just that sometimes I don't feel like I have any choice.

In a world full of noise.

There's a deep part of me, strangely silent, that yearns for words. The right words or wrong words, awkward or flowing, it doesn't matter. The silence is deafening and it is echoing through my soul.

In a bad way.

Lord, help us bear up under our sufferings and call us home in the end.

We were in church this evening and I missed most of the beginning. My 20 mo old has started to resist going into the children's program, screaming at poor DeeDee until she feels so bad for him that she fetches me. It's all a total power tripping manipulation by a toddler. So I've responded with bribery. You want that special snack? Have to go see Mrs. DeeDee first! The approach has met with mixed results.

But I digress.

Once I finally made it into the service, I sit down, start to get comfortable, and that's when I see it: some kind of insect down on the floor under the chair in front of me. I think: Hmmm. This would upset Ari. Then: Hmmm. I hope this doesn't upset the girl sitting there. And then the insect moved. And I thought: Oh! I thought you were dead. I guess not.

About then, Marc and I realized we were both looking at this insect, and he leaned over whispering "I tried to flip him over; his wing is broken." I shrugged. After all, with a broken wing that insect is doomed. It's a flying insect. They're not that adaptable. So, that's that.

Only, it wasn't. Because throughout the service, that insect would randomly start moving again. Little legs going, moving ever so slightly sideways. Then it would stop, as if exhausted, and rest awhile. Each time it stopped, I thought "That's that." But the weird thing is: no one told this insect it was doomed. It didn't know. So it kept trying.

I know, we're getting into a pretty well used and fairly lame analogy here. But I can't help it because I got socked in the head with it this evening. How much do we limit ourselves, all by ourselves? How much do I fool myself into one more try? Should it matter if it's simply hopeless? Is there really ever an end to hope?

I carry a lot of emotional baggage (ha ha! surprised you there, didn't I? You weren't expecting that!). One of the most complicated things I carry around is related to my mom's illness and death - yes, those are two separate things. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that this is related to Mom, what with Mom being one of the highly complicated things in my life. Ack. Again I digress. Moving along... I reached a point in Mom's illness that I stopped hoping she would get better. Deep down (way down) there's a part of me that believes that the reason she didn't get better is because I stopped Believing.

How's that for guilt?

Have I mentioned this before? Forgive me if I have. Every time I come around to it, it feels so dark and bad that I just want to whisper it quietly like a secret I'm imparting, begging for forgiveness.

There are some problems with this little belief of mine. Logically, I know that giving up hope of recovery didn't kill my mom. The part of me that believes this, however, has the mentality of a small child. It can't hear reason, see logic, believes in Santa Claus and that everything always works out in the end. Plus, there's no way to ask forgiveness from the person I impacted the most (Mom - try to keep up). Not in a tangible way, anyway.

In the first few years after Mom died, I wrote her letters. I always knew she was gone but it helped me believe for a little while that she wasn't so far gone. They weren't for her. They were for me, because I couldn't cope in this cruel world without my mom. Eventually I learned. It was hard, and it sucked. And I stopped writing letters to a dead woman.

Back to the point. I stopped believing Mom would get better. And then she died. And a part of me was relieved. Yep. Awful as it sounds, it's true. The harsh facts: My mother died of starvation, looking overweight and cancer riddled (yes, you can look like you have cancer), addicted to morphine and when you watch someone you love go through this, the end is a relief. A small, cold-comfort kind of relief.

But what if no one had told Mom she was doomed? What if no one had ever used the word terminal? Would she have known anyway?

In a cruel twist of fate, my dog was diagnosed with cancer last year. Liver, metastasized (I've ranted about him, too. Look under "Simon.") I seriously doubt he understood the vet when the vet said "terminal." As smart as he was, I doubt he understood why I was standing there sobbing. Or why, for the last few weeks we had together after that, he got loads and loads of peanut butter. But he died anyway. And I'll never, ever forget those last moments, watching him, waiting with him, seeing the life fade out of his eyes. It's the first time I've watched a soul float away (we can argue elsewhere about dogs having souls, I'm busy here) and I'll never forget it.

So where does the knowledge of our end come from? Internal, external, or both? Do we all die alone or is it possible to go while being loved? Does any of that matter, anyway, as we are judged?

Towards the end of the service, Marc got up, picked up the insect and took it outside to die. I was grateful. Not so the struggle for life wasn't smack in front of me like that, but so the insect could at least feel a bit more at home in the end.

Thunder

It's late; quiet with much of the world asleep. My favorite time of day.
Tonight is better than some - a gentle rain can be heard through the open windows. The rain nourishes my plants and keeps my neighbors inside,
Neighbors who enjoy the quiet much as I do but fill my home with the acrid scent of cigarette smoke.
The price I pay for opening the windows to the cool night air.
But the kids are asleep and the dog is settled in and the rain is picking up and I think, for a moment, that this is the best it's going to get all day, all week.
Then I think: pessimist.
When I deign to be honest with myself I have to face the emptiness inside. No matter how hard I try to gorge myself on hope it seems to pass right through me -
It reminds me of holding a fingertip over the flashlight, the light still gets through.
Amazingly, as I wander down these mental walkways, the rain begins to fall more earnestly until a rumble of thunder rolls through my head.
The quiet has past and I'm grateful for the distraction.

Today I hope that Heaven is a place where you can fix things you broke while you were alive.

When I was a kid, the only grandmother in my life was on dad's side. She lived about 10 minutes away by car and Dad spent most Saturday mornings at her house tracking her finances and keeping up the property. As my sister and I got older, we each took a turn at joining him to mow the lawn or clean the house. I spent many Saturday mornings at Grandma's. It was a big, adult yard - no swingset but a nice park bench next to the flower garden. I have a number of strong memories of that place. I can't recall a time when Grandma was ever nice. Sometimes she was downright mean, mostly just highly indifferent. But week after week of pushing a lawn mower or mop around gave you a sense of connection. Grandma died some years ago and it was easy for me to let go. At the time, I was reeling from my mother's death and the only emotion I could dredge up at Grandma's funeral was sympathy for my father. After all, good or bad, he'd lost his mother. It just didn't mean a lot to me.

I find myself in a similar place now. I got the call this evening that my Grandfather died a few days ago. He wasn't really my grandfather, exactly. He was my mom's step dad. And it's complicated, because my maternal grandmother died when I was 2, leaving that step dad a widow. He remarried a few months after her death. A whole lot of things ripped apart the fabric of my mother's relationship with her father (he'd been in her life since she was a toddler, as opposed to her biological alcoholic abusive father). So while I vaguely knew this man called 'Papa' by my sister, I had no real connection to him. The last time I saw him was over 8 years ago at my wedding. And I only invited him to be polite. Well, he died the other day and the only emotion I'm feeling is sympathy for my sister because now she doesn't have a chance to mend her relationship with him.

In this situation, before I knew what I was doing, I decided to be the one to call my sister and tell her. And while I spoke with her, I volunteered to go to the visitation with her as moral support. Now, I'm feeling a whole lot of other things.

The woman my grandfather married never really wanted us around. It was fairly obvious - I got the message when I was still a child. But these two people are intimately connected to my mother's side of the family. And going to the visitation means I'm going to have to see all of them. And the mere thought of it is making my blood a little warm. It harkens back to that dark time of mom's illness and death. I had known them a little when I was younger. Then mom got sick and they came out of the woodwork. Food, time, hugs, love, support - as long as Mom was terminally ill they were there. After the funeral they packed up and left and stayed away. Their connection to me (my mom) and their obligation to my dead grandmother was gone and so were they. A part of me is still angry about this.

The whole thing gets into the concept of authenticity. Sure, I appreciate the casseroles that fed us during that short intensely bad time. But I resent the fact that as soon as Mom was in the ground they were gone. And I would have traded every casserole for somebody to give me time, hugs, love, and support in that dark time after Mom died. I wanted something real, something authentic to hold on to during those long days. Something solid in a world that had fallen apart. It's been over 10 years and just thinking about how amazingly lonely I felt then makes me cry now.

I must admit, even if they had stayed I might have felt amazingly lonely anyway. My whole world changed when Mom died and that was very, very hard.

When I was a kid, I never really thought about how my mother didn't have a mom or dad around. Once I got a bit older, I began to wonder a little bit about it but was afraid to ask, afraid to rock the boat. My Mom was the center of my universe but she wasn't without faults, including a tendency to lash out at the nearest person when angry or sad. Late one night I found her sitting in the living room crying, missing her parents. She said it never goes away, that missing. And now all three of them are gone, truly gone, and I hope that missing is over for all of them.