Grief or Madness

The worst part about grief is how it ambushes you unaware – how it sneaks up on you silently while you are finally – and not so easily – nestled into a state of almost contentment.

Grief is an asshole in the night. And in every hour of the day, for that matter. He strikes when you think you have at last reached a modicum of happiness. Grief  hates happiness. He does not care about you – and he does not want you to get better. He does not want that sub sandwich or dark chocolate with sea salt or vodka tonic to help. He wants you to PAY for… I’m not sure what.

I am still in his clutches.

I have been here many times before, but it only gets harder. I know that doesn’t make sense, but Grief does not make sense. Grief wants to  LAY YOU OUT and throw dirt in your crying face.

Grief is a monster. A mercurial, mesmerizing, moment-bashing monster.

But he is like skin or soul – there is no way to shed him. No way to survive without him.

But in his own twisted way, Grief makes you so sick that you are eventually forced to find a place to stash him – shove his cocky, contorted face in.

Oh, he won’t stay in that spot forever. But you can tame him to the point where he knows his place.

I still fucking hate him.

No I would not give you false hope…

I want everyone to know that my mom died. I especially want the lady who honked at me and shook her fist angrily while I spaced out at a traffic light to know. I want her to know that I was thinking back to a time when my mother was beautiful and vibrant and I danced on her feet after school. I want that impatient woman to know that my hands were shaking at the wheel and I wasn’t even sure I could make it across that light to the video store to return a movie without collapsing.

I want her to know everything.

I want everyone to know. And yet I want nobody to know.

I want to let everybody in. I want to shut everybody out.

Nobody knows what to say, and I have failed miserably in knowing how to answer.

“Was it sudden?” Yes. It always is, by the way. I have been through my share of close deaths in the last decade, and even when a doctor stares you in the eye and tells you someone has days to live… It is always sudden. And you are never ready.

“I hope you’re feeling better today.” Not only do I not feel better, I don’t necessarily want to feel better yet.

“Were you close?” Shit, yes. She was my mother. True, we had a complicated relationship – one might even say, the “mother of all complicated relationships”. And yes, I did let that fact be known to all who would indulge me in the last couple years. But truly, there is nobody to whom I will ever feel closer.

This world was difficult for my mom. Her dreams were too big – her expectations impossibly high. She also struggled mightily, I am discovering as I navigate my own psychological journey to wellness, with mental illness. Debilitating OCD, anxiety, personality disorders, perhaps even manic depression — who really knows? She lived during a time when most were not treated or medicated for such things – and frankly, she probably would have refused anyway. It was always “her way or the highway”. But you know what? She was right more times than not.

Unfortunately, those “nots” escalated in her later years – especially during my father’s illness and death. I raged inside at how manic and unmanageable she had become – wanting to do things “her way”, denying him pain medication when he lay riddled with cancer. At times I felt like I wanted to kill the woman who I felt was killing my dad.

I expected more. I expected better. I expected – at the very least –“normalcy”.

But why? My mom was never “normal” – and light-years from the typical parent.  For one thing, we were both only children.  My first 17 years on this earth were essentially just the two of us. It felt more like we were sisters, friends, or even artists in residence at some sort of creative commune.

Poetry, classical music, drawing, storytelling, word games, dancing, Ingmar Bergman films, trips to the Art Institute… when most kids were outside roughhousing with their siblings… these filled my days.

She was a true artist, my mother, and I was her ultimate creation. Like everything else in her life, she wanted me to be perfect.

But I was just a kid. Human. Damaged. Helpless.

The moment she passed away, my anger was washed away with forgiveness. I see now how hard it was for my mom to give and accept love, and I’ll probably never know why. And while I never truly felt the 100% unconditional love most daughters receive without effort, I certainly learned how to give it back. And she blessed me with other gifts – many of which I am just beginning to unwrap.

All I ever wanted was for my mother to be happy.

I do want everyone to know that.

“Mother And Child Reunion”

——Paul Simon

No I would not give you false hope

On this strange and mournful day

But the mother and child reunion

Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine

I can’t for the life of me

Remember a sadder day

I know they say let it be

But it just don’t work out that way

And the course of a lifetime runs

Over and over again

No I would not give you false hope

On this strange and mournful day

But the mother and child reunion

Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine

I just can’t believe it’s so

Though it seems strange to say

I never been laid so low

In such a mysterious way

And the course of a lifetime runs

Over and over again

But I would not give you false hope

On this strange and mournful day

When the mother and child reunion

Is only a motion away

Oh the mother and child reunion

Is only a motion away

Oh the mother and child reunion

Is only a moment away

An Only Daughter’s Eulogy for her Mother

                      

My mom didn’t like eulogies. I was never sure why. But this is one time I will go against her wishes, because she deserves it. My mother is an impossible woman to sum up quickly. But the two words that kept coming to me as I wrote this were: Truth and Beauty.

 

Truth, because she was a lifelong crusader of doing the right thing – even if she was alone in what that was – or ahead of her time, as was often the case. My mother had conviction, confidence and creativity to spare. Her goals were lofty, her expectations— at times – unreachably high.

 

And then there’s Beauty – because, well, not only did I think she was beautiful; she was also passionate about beauty itself. She adored the Arts – literature, poetry, painting, music, architecture, design – and she was an amazing artist and poet herself. I might add – ironically – that she was even married to someone named “Art”.

 

She passed all of this on to me in one way or another – this somewhat compulsive quest for truth whose answers, perfectly enough, are often found in the arts.

 

I remember a time when we were driving home from somewhere and she spotted a meadow of daisies – her favorite flower – on the side of the road. She had these moments when she was seized with artistic compulsivity. She made my dad rush home to get her camera while she “staged” everything. I watched in awe. When he returned, we posed for what seemed like hours among the flowers to get just the right shots. Mostly of her and me – my dad, in an effort to preserve his masculinity, took a pass.

 

So now I say goodbye to the person who gave me life – in so many more ways than one. To a woman who might not have been the huggy-est type, yet always made sure I felt her embrace. This world never held enough Truth or Beauty for my mother, so I pray she has found it now.

 

I love you mom, and I will miss you.

 

I want to end by reading one of her favorite poems, by Lord Byron. I believe she had me memorize it as a child, but I think she’d cut me some slack for using a cheat sheet now.

 

 

She walks in beauty, like the night

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;        

And all that ‘s best of dark and bright        

  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow’d to that tender light           

  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.      

One shade the more, one ray the less,    

  Had half impair’d the nameless grace        

Which waves in every raven tress,

  Or softly lightens o’er her face;  

Where thoughts serenely sweet express     

  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.        

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,       

  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,  

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,   

  But tell of days in goodness spent,       

A mind at peace with all below, 

  A heart whose love is innocent!

 

 

 

 

As winter break (a misnomer for parents, by the way) comes to a merciful close, I look back on the high- and low-lights of living 24-7 with my children – my eldest in particular.

For this blog, I’ll refer to my oldest son as “Mayhem” because it was during this vacation (yeah, right) that I discovered he is EXACTLY the Mayhem guy from the Allstate commercials. Mischievous, hole-ish, wildly disruptive – but with a certain likeable charm.

So, I’ve already told you about giving Mayhem a break from the meds for a day or two. We are, of course, back on them. Funny thing is, my husband, who was adamantly anti-pharmaceutical in the beginning, is now the FIRST one to emit this type of morning tirade: “Did he take his meds?… He HAS to take his meds today… is that one on the floor?… MAYHEM GET IN HERE THIS SECOND AND SWALLOW THESE PILLS!… He better not have left this house without taking these meds!?!… He has GOT to take these pills… I am NOT living another day IN THIS HOUSE without him on the meds!”

You get the idea.

So, back to looking back.

There was the evening Mayhem refused to stop bouncing around potato sack race-style in a sleeping bag – thrashing about and breaking ornaments on the tree like a dolphin struggling in a tuna net. This, by the way, not even at our own home. And right in front of a girl his own age (13!) who looked up at him occasionally from her iPhone and shook her head as if to say – “Don’t even THINK about asking for a piece of this someday.”

Then there was…. (CUE OMINOUS MUSIC) “Family Game Morning.” What ever possessed my husband to BEGIN the day with an activity that invariably leads to Jerry Springer style lash-outs, I will never know. But when he gleefully inquired, “Anyone up for Farkle?” and Mayhem responded “yes”, I at least knew enough to vacate the room as fast as the cowardly bartender drying glasses in an old Western when the bad guy swaggers in.

But then…. There was this.

On day, I asked Mayhem to clear his plate from the table.

And he did.

Without negotiation. Without altercation. Without hesitation.

And with a smile.

The pride and exhilaration that beamed from my face rivaled that of the college quarterback’s mom in the stands when her baby throws the touchdown pass that wins a bowl game, secures a high draft spot and buys her some kick-A new wheels.

Indeed, I have learned to cherish those moments – and similar ones – whenever Mayhem decides to dole them out.

And you know what? This was hardly the worst break ever – and certainly preferable to the one a couple years back where Mayhem refused to take off his obscenely tight long underwear pants for two entire weeks and impulsively mooned our family, friends and many an innocent passer-by our picture window.

Good times. Bad times.

Now “Get them all the f*&k back to school” time.

Struggling in the “No Med” Zone

It is New Year’s Eve morning at an ungodly hour. I am up this early not because I really want to bask in the pre-dawn glow of the Christmas tree lights while sipping green tea – but rather to revel in my peaceful solitude while I can… because – just like for Robert Shaw on the fishing boat in “Jaws” – any minute now it will be attacked and chomped away by a giant, lurching beast.

My un-medicated 13 year-old son.

“Jaws”, as I will refer to him for this blog anyway, sports an unpleasant and impossible-to-fully-medicate smorgasbord of disorders – ADHD, OCD, ODD and Tourette’s.

Plus a side order of hormones.

It was incredibly hard for me to go down the pharmaceutical path with little Jaws. I was determined to treat him naturally. I didn’t want him to lose his “spirit” – no matter how challenging he became. I also feared the havoc the drugs might wreak on his liver. I felt like I would be doing it less for him and more to make things easier for me.

But finally I realized that things weren’t easy for him either.

So, like I do with many pursuits in my life – I pulled an ideological flip-flop that would blow even Mitt Romney away and threw myself full force into the quest for the med miracle.

Of course, nothing with these kids is easy. And after consulting with many top child psychiatrists in Chicago, we found out that Jaws’ cocktail of disorders was extremely hard to treat. A drug that would control one problem would always open a Pandora’s box of another.

I had that deflated feeling you get when you finally decide you are going to spring for those really expensive kick-ass boots at Nordstrom and you rush back right before you’re going to a party only to find they are out of stock. Forever.

Of course, a child’s welfare and future are SO much more important than designer footwear, but you get the idea.

Anyway, currently we are back to Concerta only – which is mainly to treat the ADHD – and his out-of-control impulsivity. Concerta is a stimulant and one of drugs you can skip without repercussion (medically, that is). So during this holiday break, I have been giving Jaws a break.

Which is basically like living with the love child of Pee Wee Herman and the guy from Radiohead. On crack. And hormones.

Let me tell you, giving Jaws this medicinal leave of absence is hardly a vacation for the rest of us. And – ironically – decreasing the abuse on his liver has certainly taken a toll on mine. But, hey, this is what we do for our kids, right?

Yikes. I think I hear him stirring.

We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

(Check out my new venture: adhdivas.com)

I Wish to Retract my Love of Lice

 

A while back I blogged about our family’s lice infestation and how I was actually enjoying that plague because it was bringing us all closer together (https://lisays.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/lice-just-a-bowl-of-cherries/).

 

Ah, what an innocent, idealist naïf I was but a few weeks ago. Not that it wasn’t true at the time, but now I confess I may have opened up a giant, karmic can of worms (or bugs, in this case) by putting that welcome sign “out there” in the universe. 

 

So now, seemingly endless fortnights into this hard-fought battle for follicle supremacy, I am officially renouncing my love of lice.

 

Oh, the things I have learned, though, throughout this process!

 

For example, the origin of the phrase “nit picking” and how the actual act thereof totally kicks verbal nit picking’s ass (not in a good way). Also, I now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the last living creature left standing after a nuclear holocaust will not be a cockroach, but a louse. (And perhaps a Kardashian.)  And yes — I finally get why you might call a really annoying, good-for-nothing parasite of a person a louse! It’s admittedly old-school, (“Gee whiz, Beaver, quit being such a louse!) but I strongly feel we should bring it back.

 

‘Cause right now, some five million laundry loads into it, that is the worst name I could ever call someone.

 

I’ve also learned that even if you’ve been declared clean by the school nurse/Nit Nazi and your house has been vacuumed and bleached and scrubbed down as if it were invaded by Merry Maids on crystal meth – your kids will still be “liced”.

 

Liced: To be iced out of playmates due to a reputation for having lice, even if the case is no longer active.

 

So pardon my language, but F@$k you, you microscopic, bastard, hair-hobo lock-suckers. Party’s over.

 

Did we have some good times? Yeah, we sure did. I’m playing the montage in my head right now to the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”. But just like that hot guy you meet at a Lollapalooza after-party who you have a hell of a good time with until you see his Tasmanian Devil tattoo and find out he is not actually the bass player for Bon Iver but rather a Renaissance Faire actor who lives in his stepmom’s basement … it’s time to part ways.

 

Word to the lice: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here… or should I say hair?

 

I will miss the puns.

 

 

Top Ten Signs You Are an Out-of-Control Soccer Parent

 

10. Instead of family game nights, your family has Game Film Fridays.

 

9. Your 5 year-old has already undergone ACL surgery.

 

8. You have been red carded – by a 12 year-old sideline ref – for taunting.

 

7. When your kid scores a goal, your choreographed celebration dance offends even Steve Johnson and Chad Ochocinco.

 

6. You are not legally allowed within 50 yards of the coach. 

 

5. You’ve screamed, “Center it!”, “Attack the ball!” and “Sweet!” so much you’ve had to contact Adele’s vocal chord surgeon

 

4. You practice bicycle kicks during halftime in a pathetic attempt to show off decades-old high school moves but instead appear more like Napoleon Dynamite fighting off bees.

 

3. Game day, you bring a cowbell.

 

2. Even the really religious parents have called you a douche behind your back

 

1. Your name is – well, I won’t say it here – but you know who you are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Stop Believing

I don’t want my kids to ever stop believing in Santa Claus. That way, when they grow up, they’ll never have to buy their kids presents.

And they can spend more on me.

Which they totally owe me.

Circle of life.

 

 

Buffy the Uninformed Football Fan Slayer

Jermichael, me and Nick

Well, the ridiculous debate over who’s funnier – men or women – is trending all over the Internet again. I’m quite sure this competition goes back to caveman days when one guy would club another in the balls, igniting guffaws amongst the other dudes and polite chuckles from the ladies – survival chuckles, if you will, so the men would just get the hell out of the cave already and kill some damn dinner – at which point the chicks would crack themselves up with sophisticated (for the times anyway), observational humor at the expense of their Neanderthal husbands.

Ah, plus ca change…

Anyway, if you distill all the studies, it seems men are just funnier to other men  — even though they are, ironically and pathetically, mostly using humor to get laid.

If you ask me, of any group, gay men are more naturally amusing than anyone – at the other end of the spectrum being the Lutheran choir director.

Now, I’d like to bring up a premise that I fear will be much harder to prove, but I believe has merit – at least as it pertains to me personally.

Women know as much about sports as men.

I know, sounds crazy, but let me rephrase a bit: Women who do know about sports are often more knowledgeable than their Y chromosome-bearing counterparts.

I’ve got no hard data to back this up – just years of experience – but I can tell you I am sick of hearing: “Wow, you really do know a lot about football.”

Actually, I kind of love hearing it, even though it’s a slam to my gender.

I cannot tell you how many dudes I have taken down (and as an all-too-often unpleasant side effect – turned on) with my football prowess. And though I admittedly know the most about my beloved Packers, I also know the game inside out, and keep up on all the teams – to the point of winning a Chicago Bears trivia contest (know your enemy!).

Just yesterday at our friendly neighborhood video store, I felled three male Bears fans single-handedly – torching one cocky dude for mixing up Vince Lombardi with Curly Lambeau and smoking another for having zero knowledge of Jay Cutler’s QB stats.

BAM!

A few weeks ago my unsuspecting victims were two pumped up young guys decked out in authentic NFL jerseys. Mistakenly assuming I was sporting my Clay Matthews attire because I “loved his hair” or thought his “butt was cute”, they stepped into a heap of statistical whoop ass in a Packer-Bear offensive strategy debate.

It got so bad at one point that the friend, who had long since surrendered, was begging his buddy to give up, oozing an air of desperation that rivaled that of a reluctant sidekick in a botched robbery.

“Yo, step off! You’re making a fool of yourself, bro.” (Nervously looks around.) “She knows her shit.”

POW!

That one was a little tougher than the video store victory, but the ending was even sweeter as the six-foot-plus Bears fan shook my hand on the way out, shaken and jittery, muttering “Hey, go Pack, unless you’re playing us.”

For one of my proudest moments, we need to travel back in time to the 1980s when, in a nightclub, the innocent, interception-prone Mike Tomczak, (Bears quarterback at the time) walked into my web, offered to buy me a drink, then eventually fled our conversation, confidence shaken, admitting his team was ill-prepared for Sunday’s game against the Pack.

SACK! KERPLAT! OOF!

So, as Faye Dunaway articulated so well in Mommy Dearest – “Don’t f#@k with me, fellas.”

And hey — go Pack!

Why all the his-panic?

I was emailed this sickening image, along with an accompanying, and too gleefully punctuated, “Pass it on if you agree!”.

Not only do I not agree, it has pissed me off to the point of public venting.

America is melting pot. Filled with delicious, creamy, steamy queso ranchero. Get over it, xenophobes.

Hispanic people are among the warmest, kindest, hard-working people on the planet. Be happy they’re here. Also be thankful they willingly and cheerfully do all the icky jobs most of us don’t want – like cutting grass, changing hotel sheets, and raising our children.

Yeah, John, I’ll press “1” for that.

And the food! I don’t want to live in a world without authentic enchiladas verde, pork tamales, carnitas tacos… mmm…

I’ll sure as hell press “1” for all that.

And what about Sofia Vergara from “Modern Family”?

I’m sure a lot of hot-blooded American males would press a lot more than“1” for her.

It also ticks me off that the people who send these types of emails imply you are somehow un-American if you disagree. “Try to go live somewhere else.” they snarl. Well, despite all that’s wrong with this country, I still wish to reside here. And I definitely prefer it to, say, my ancestral stomping grounds of Sweden where they flavor liquor with caraway seeds, and it’s considered bragging to yell “Bingo!”.

You know what else annoys me? That I’m getting chastised by John Wayne – a bigoted blowhard who smoked six packs of cigarettes a day, blasted black people in a famous “Playboy” article, and – oh yeah — is dead.

I also wonder if the originator of this vile visual knew that Mr. Wayne requested his tombstone be written in Spanish (“Feo, Fuerte y Formal”, a Mexican epitaph Wayne described as meaning “ugly, strong and dignified”) and was married to three women – all of whom were Hispanic.

So yeah, I venture to say even old Duke would okay with pressing “1”.

Put that in your burrito and stuff it.

For Marleny Alvarado, RIP, my eternal thanks.