closure and other myths

the concept of closure is a bunch of b.s.

maybe i've said this before. but i'm saying it again.

after my mom and stepdad died, after the grace period of empty platitudes had passed ("it was god's will," "it was their time," "they're in a better place now," "time heals all wounds,"...) people started asking if i'd found "closure." and if i said "no," or looked back with the confused but happy stare of a dairy cow, they would tell me how to find closure: therapy, art, music, medication, meditation, prayer.

and don't get me wrong. all of those things have their place in the grieving and healing process. but "healing" is not the same as "closure." just like a physical wound - when it heals, you are left with a scar. a scar that you can see, that reminds you, on occasion, of how it got there. that maybe pulls tight when you bend your knee a certain way or itches in the sun.

the worst thing about losing someone is that for a while afterwards, if and when you sleep, you wake up in the morning and for a second you forget what happened and you are just "hey it's friday" happy. then the realization comes, again, and hits you in the center of your being like a sledge hammer. it just rips a big, gaping hole of black nothing right in the middle there. every. single. morning. THANKFULLY, that does not last forever. after some weeks or months or maybe even years, you eventually get to wake up in the morning without fear of being punched in the face with this not-news all over again, and again, and again.

BUT. pain is a strange thing. sometimes it is a big, lumbering beast carrying an enormous mallet over its shoulder, and sometimes it's a snake or something else super sneaky like a "bwack smoke ninja"... it can still, out of nowhere, slither in and wrap itself around you and *squeeze* and take your breath away. almost 16 years out from my mom and (step)dad and i am still laid low on occasion, completely stripped bare. usually when i least expect it. like when watching a movie with james gandolfini and julia louis dreyfus with my honey on a wednesday night, and suddenly i'm SOBBING. me: "i'm just... so... SAD... that james gandolfini is dead." DM: "okay baby." then he pat-pat-pats me and kisses me on top of my head and lets the twin rivers of snot and tears soak his sleeve without comment.

anyway, pain is not like the type of thing where you can say, okay, light a candle, do twelve hail marys, and twenty bikram yoga classes and when you can finally do camel pose without feeling like you're going to puke on your own forehead, you're healed! oh and don't forget the coconut water and chia seeds!

a friend posted this quote the other day and i was really taken by it:

"We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy." - Pema Chodron

closure, to me, would be like sweeping things under the rug. like putting a piece of cardboard over the hole. if you lift up that rug, the shit's still there. if you step on that cardboard, you fall right back into that hole. personally, i think it's better to just keep the hole in plain view. i mean, maybe in the corner. and possibly you want to put up a "caution" cone or some caution tape, just so you don't accidentally fall in ass over teakettle (though, honestly, that still happens sometimes). but leave it out there. and maybe a ladder. so you can crawl back in when you need, and you can climb back out, too. it's dark. it's cold. it's not very comfortable. but you need a place like that. a little piece of rainy day in your heart where it's okay to be sad. to grieve. to pass through the pain and out the other side, and sometimes, back again.

some of you might wonder why i've got a case of the morbid mondays on this sweet sunshine-y friday. well, my stepgrams passed away yesterday. as you may or may not know from the blog, stepgramps passed away four months ago. we all knew it was coming that time, but that didn't make it any easier to let go. stepgrams and stepgramps were the real deal. their love was one in a million. sixty years of love like that - it truly was an inspiration and a sight to behold. we had all kind of talked about what would happen when one of them passed - because they were like that - one soul, two bodies. but to be honest, i never pegged stepgrams as the type to hastily follow her husband into the next life. as she recently said to me, with her trademark tact, "you and i are very lucky to have landed husbands that are so much nicer than we are." ;) she had so much spunk, plenty of fight left. i figured she'd plug along for another decade at least, fueled by piss, vinegar, and happy hour. so it caught us all by surprise, i think, when she up and died thursday morning, apparently of a broken heart.

to put it more poetically, in the words of one of my mom's best friends, "so sudden yet, in some ways, not surprising considering the frequency with which long-term, seasoned soul mates seem to end up 'in sync' in their senior years -- when the rich, shared journey ends for one partner before the other, it seems not unusual for the remaining journey to wrap up soon thereafter. and that all makes kind of poignant sense in an abstract, theoretical way, but man, i wasn't ready for either of their journeys on this earth to end!"

as you have heard me say before, my mom and sister and i "won" "the stepdadders" in the blended family lotto jackpot. they've been a part of my life for 27 of my 34 years on earth, and have never made me feel anything but welcomed wholeheartedly into their clan. the "step" is merely semantic. they are family. we have been loved so hard by them, and we have learned so much. i am thankful every day that the universe saw fit to bring us together.

stepgrams was the matriarch of this awesome family, and in her brazen and loving way, she helped mold my sister and brother and me into the people we are today. her legacy is one of fearlessness, adventure, honesty, humor, passion, family, and very little tolerance for bullshit. she taught us to climb up rocks, ski down mountains, speak up, say what you mean, start fires, sleep under the stars, pee in the bushes, play with knives, perfect our poker faces, properly pack a lunch for a hike (no smushed or soggy bread!), and reuse everything.

another one of my mom's BFFs just told me this story, too: once they were all hiking on the lost coast and there was some debate about who was the alpha male - my mom, or stepgrams. ha! it'd be a close call but i'd give grams the win on seniority.

i still can't really believe she's gone. i had just spoken with her the day before. she was talking to me about TBI (traumatic brain injury - you know, your typical wednesday morning conversational fare) and she said, "i sometimes wonder if my mother dropped me as a baby and i suffered from the incident." she was always good for a laugh. she was just one of those people who lived out loud, and the space she'll leave behind is too big to wrap my mind around. hers was definitely a star that burned out, rather than faded away.

[big sigh.]

kids are like dogs, they know when you're down and you need some extra love. and let me tell you, they have been lovin' on me quadruple-time! we haven't even told them anything yet, and they haven't seen me shed a tear. but somehow they just sense it, and i have been the lucky recipient of 27 full-body tackle hugs, 14 leg hugs, 8 arm hugs, 4 head hugs, and approximately 942 slobbery kisses. it really fills my cup, or, to the metaphor (simile?) above, it softens the landing in that space for grief in my heart. it makes me smile and it makes my heart hurt and it makes my eyes leak with a fierceness normally reserved only for james gandolfini... but... in a good way :)

i had written a lot of this earlier and said something like, "normally i cannot stand bed time. i would just as soon eat a crushed lightbulb sandwich than deal with the insane side show that bedtime, BUT, tonight, i am really looking forward to just sinking into it with them." and then bedtime happened. and it started out well. they were sweet and snuggly and handing out kisses and hugs like pot brownies at a marley brothers concert. they said again and again and again "i willy willy willy willy loves you, mama." but then. jesus mary and joseph. ladies and gentledudes, the bedtime train has DERAILED. jackson is an actual insane person between the hours of 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. he is terrified of invisible bugs, any sound in the tri-county area, extreme heat (above 73 degrees), extreme cold (below 73 degrees), dehydration, famine, the conflict in Iraq, president Obama's ability to make something of his lame duck presidency, the tea party's insurgence in primary elections, why his blankie isn't "cold" enough, why the dog gets to sleep in our bed but he doesn't, and OMIGOD he has to PEEEEE...Ope! Wait! now he is FIRSTYYYYY (again) and WHY DOESN'T HE HAVE ANY SOOTHING MELODIES TO FALL ASLEEP TO?!?!? and then my zen appreciation for my children's unconditional love and the circle of life came to a screeching halt.

it reminded me of this time i was at stepgrams and gramps' house - this was before i had kids, or maybe i was pregnant - and someone was making an annoying noise by incessantly "boing-ing" the door stop (i'm going to go out on a limb and say it was my little bro ;)) and i was like, "puhLEASE stop making that sound before i lose my mind!" and stepgrams said, in her diplomatic way, "you are going to be a terrible mother if you can't handle stuff like that. 85% of motherhood is being able to handle annoying noises."

she was right. (not about the terrible mother part, about which i assume she was, mostly, joking ;) i am so-so at that. but the noise. oh the noise.)

i'm sure mom and stepdad and stepgramps are rowdily welcoming stepgrams to that raucous hot tub party in the sky. margaritas on the house.

"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you."

- Shannon L. Adler

"If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good help to you nevertheless
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you."

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

heaven-ish

my grandpa just died.

i mean, not just just. but. quite recently.

it was not unexpected.

but that doesn't make it any less sad.

this isn't my first rodeo. death is not a foreign concept to me. i've done the tragic, sudden-death, freak-accident, gone-before-their-time thing. i've also done the not-exactly-expected, but not-exactly-shocking, either, thing. in any event. it always happened quickly. there was no "saying goodbye." and in my mind, i always thought it would be nice to be able to say goodbye.

i didn't really think about the reality of being able to say goodbye, though. that somebody has to be slowly dying. that you know they're going to die but you don't know when. that you are basically waiting for them to die. that they are waiting to die. that dying really isn't all that enjoyable of an experience, and dragging it out over an extended period of time is not necessarily ideal.

i'm still glad i got to say goodbye. but i'm just saying. it didn't go down like it does in the movies, or at least, the movie in my mind.

another thing i didn't realize: even when you know it's just around the corner, even when you're waiting for the call, even though you're actually hoping it happens sooner than later, it hurts. it really hurts. no matter which way you cut it, death is a sucker punch to the gut. it takes the wind out of you. it's like an emotional brain freeze. it sucks.

he was my step-dad's dad. i didn't call him "grandpa," but he was mine. some people have said things along the lines of, oh, i know he was "just" your step-grandfather, but i'm sure it still hurts. thank you, captain obvious. for me, "step" is just semantic. i love words. but sometimes, a lot of the time, they don't really mean anything. or rather, they mean what you want them to mean. you know?

step-gramps and step-grams met my sister and me before they met their own grandchildren. i was 7 and she was 3. if you keep up with this blog, you may remember that on my mom's first date with step-dad, they went naked hot-tubbing with step-grams and step-gramps. i think she fell in love with them as much as she did with step-dad. "the stepdadders" were and are a kick-ass crew. i have never met anyone quite like them. we won the modern-family lotto, for sure.

i keep starting sentences and stopping them. i feel like there is nothing i could write that would adequately sum up this man and his legacy. he was a teacher. he was a spy. he was afraid of heights. he loved happy hour. he introduced me to crinkle cut salt and pepper kettle chips. along with his wife and three sons, and learning on the fly, he built a cabin in lake tahoe that three generations have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy for years and years to come.

i started this post days ago and left it open on my computer. i had written "he was a" ... and never finished my thought. DM was using my computer and filled in the blank with "a-freaking-mazing." it's sweet. and true. DM loves their family, their dynamic, their 'french-word-for-that-certain-something.' he wishes he was a stepdadder. i'm glad he isn't though, because that would have made for a very strange situation. but the stepdadders, they are the genuine article. they actually consist mainly of step-grams' family. step-gramps was a "non-blood," as they're so lovingly called. an interloper. but he was the perfect complement. he was such a good man. a great man. one of the best men.

when i saw him last weekend, physically, he was a shell of the man he once was. but he still knew what was up. my brother and uncle and grams and i were sitting on the bed, going through old photos. we came upon a few photos of a pet parakeet that they'd had 40-some-odd years ago. apparently it had just been hanging out in the backyard and they brought it inside and there it stayed, sometimes perched on their german shepherd's back. we all thought step-gramps was sleeping, but suddenly, he hoarsely whispered something. "what was that?" we asked. "e." ... "a."... "nevermore." step-grams barked out a laugh. that was the parakeet's name! after edgar allen poe. he was still sharp as a tack ;)

when i was getting ready to leave at the end of the weekend, i wondered if i should just say goodbye, or say goodbye. i knew this was the last time i would see him. i flew up precisely because i wanted to see him again before he left this world. we had plans to come up in March, to celebrate Colby's 2nd birthday, because we knew he wasn't going to be around too much longer. but my brother, who has been staying with and helping take care of step-gramps for months, said he didn't think he would last even that long. so basically, i was there to say goodbye. but i wasn't sure if i was willing, or able, to make it a "thing."

a girlfriend of mine said she had read some literature that people in this sort of limbo state often pass in their sleep after saying goodbye to their family. she had watched a documentary about it. of course, then she added, "i also cried for like three days after watching that documentary, so maybe the concept is not totally ideal." ha. thanks for the helpful insight, friend ;)

i still didn't know what i was going to do as i walked into his room. i sat down next to him and held his hand. he opened his eyes and looked up at me. i said, "hey." after a few seconds he said, "how 'bout them niners?" i laughed out loud. i don't know if he noticed or not, but i was wearing a 49ers sweatshirt. it was superbowl sunday. we had asked him the day before if he might be interested in watching the game. he hadn't been out of bed in almost a week at this point so it was a long shot. also, he doesn't even like football. or, didn't. which just made it that much funnier. i talked with him a little bit. he asked about DM, my sister, my dad, and the kids. each and every word took so much effort. it meant so much to me that he would expend what precious little breath he had left asking about the well-being of my family. he told me he really appreciated that i came all the way up to see him. i said of course. he was closing his eyes after every sentence so i knew i needed to wrap it up. i said, "well, we'll all be up here next month for Colby's birthday, but......... if you're not around..... i'll catch you on the flip side, okay?" (that's the best i could do.) he mumbled something. i couldn't understand, so i asked him to repeat it. he said, "cold hands." i smiled and said, "yep. it's cold outside. california's finally getting some rain." (of course i felt it was an opportune time to talk about the weather.) then he whispered, "cold hands. warm heart." it's funny, because it's not even something i would ever picture him saying. but it pierced my soul. and my eyeballs. which promptly started leaking. i managed to get out the words "love you." but he had already closed his eyes.

it's weird. i'm weird. i don't think i've told anyone that story, not word-for-word. and yet i'm putting it out there on the world wide web for a million seven other people to see ;) just thinking about telling it, out loud, makes me so exhausted. and i feel simultaneously embarrassed and protective about sharing such a personal moment. but it also makes me feel better to write it down, like i don't have to hold on so tight. i can let go of it now. so. there you go.

this weekend i was looking at photo albums with the kids. i pointed out a picture of us with the step-grands in tahoe last summer and said, "step-gramps is in heaven now." DM looked at me quizzically and said, "heaven? really? wow. i would not have called that one in a million years." and i guess that's fair. i'm a notorious scrooge when it comes to organized religion and the bible and "god-with-a-capital-G." but, though i may not buy in to angels and harps and pearly gates, per se, "heaven" is shorthand for what i believe. step-gramps is reunited, somewhere, with his son, with my mom, with all of the friends and loved ones who went before him. heaven is a naked hot tub party in the sky. margaritas are mandatory.

"Melvin Rumplethorpe"
(Amazing art by my little bro)



the good ole days

we spent labor day weekend with my stepdad's family at their old family cabin in the mountains. it was, as always, pretty freaking awesome. i just love the family in general and this annual experience in particular. there are communal meals and cocktails served in 80 year old coffee mugs and campfire games and s'mores and trading memories as the fire burns to embers. there's an outhouse (not my favorite part). there's a chore chart. we take turns cooking and cleaning up and doing the dishes together. we blow an old horn when dinner's ready (it's like, a literal horn. i mean, a horn made out of an animal's horn. he's not using it anymore ;) it never occurred to me before now that this was the etymology of the word horn. learn somethin' new every day!) anyway, if someone has a new friend, we make them try to blow the horn and point fingers and laugh when they spit and sputter and fail. we play campfire games specifically designed to fluster the newbies. we play cards and (good naturedly) harass them some more. (wanna come?? ;)) we sleep under the stars and wake when the sun comes up over the mountains and eat bacon and pancakes and eggs or sometimes just cereal and drink coffee together next to the fire, planning our daily adventures, waiting for the sun to warm the air.

the kids LOVE it there. they get dirtier than they get the other 360 days of the year combined. they literally roll around in the dirt. omg, so much dirt. and they have SO much fun. but the cabin is definitely not what you would call child-proofed. there's a river on one side and a highway on the other. no fences. you can cross the river on a sagging, creaking 2"x12" board. there are steep, rickety old stairs, an unfinished, sliver-serving deck, open flames, large rocks, falling pine cones, wild and domesticated animals, biting insects, water snakes, and various other hazards. perhaps most tellingly, there are often SHARPIES left out within reach of the children - GASP! ;) the kids poke each other with sticks and swing branches wildly through the air and throw rocks too close to one anothers' heads and generally run around like dusty little savages. they "help" start the campfires and attempt to toast their own marshmallows. they play with ancient tonka trucks that would surely be recalled today for safety concerns. sometimes they play without either DM or I watching them at all, us relying heavily on the principles of community parenting.

this weekend, J went on a hike. an actual hike (well, i don't know if it totally qualifies because DM carried him most of the way) but, most importantly, he shat in the woods. if you know my anal retentive little boy, you know what a big deal this is. i'm sure anyone within a 5 mile radius thought some satanic cult was performing a ritual sacrifice, but whatever, he did it, and he lived to tell the tale, which DM keeps prompting him to do with that unmistakable glint of fatherly pride in his eye.

i don't ever really worry about J. he's got his mother's inherently concerned, rule-abiding, nature. (one of the news things he likes to say is, "if i don't do [dis or dat] den da police man wiw get me." no idea at all where he got that one. *wink wink.*) when they reached the top of the mountain on their hike, he had to be coaxed and prodded to step to the edge in order to see our cabin down below, and he was cautious as ever when we made our wallenda-like river crossings ("cautious" being code for "walking halfway across and then beginning to scream 'AAAH! HEWP MEHHHHH! I'M GONNA FAWWWWWW!!!'" he even worries on behalf of his little sister, yelling "Mama! Daddy! Save hewh! SAAAAVE HEEEEEWH!" whenever she is teetering on the edge of something tall and unstable, which is often.

at the cabin, there's a set of granite stairs. 4 steps, i think. no rails. grams and the other "elders" have assured me that, in the 100+ years the cabin has been in the family, "only two or three" kids have ever fallen down those stairs to their injury, but they still make me nervous, because C has no concept of her own mortality, balance is not her forte, and if anyone would be the "3rd or 4th" casualty, it would be her. she spent a lot of time staggering and stumbling on those stairs, causing her dad and me multiple mini heart attacks. she actually would have fallen down them more than once if one of us hadn't swooped in to catch her. i'm sure she would have survived, but it wouldn't have been pretty. so it was with good reason when J said, "Mom! [This is his new thing. "Mom" and "Dad" instead of "Mama" and "Daddy." *sniff sniff* ;)] I'm getting a littow newvous dat Cowby's going to faow down da 'tairs." haha! at least he understood. most everyone else just made fun of us for freaking out about it.

every time i'm up there, subject to this steady onslaught of familial hazing, it gets me thinking about how wimpy kids are, these days. or rather, we parents are. or maybe it's just me. but i remember having so many adventures when i was young, catching tadpoles in a little creek behind the babysitter's house, riding my bike to go get an ice cream cone, exploring the neighborhood, construction sites, and abandoned fields with friends, playing capture the flag or kick the can in the streets long after the sun had gone down - all with no grown-ups in sight. do kids even do that anymore? and our parents' generation took even more liberties. we always hear stories about stepdad and his brothers and cousins and the CRAZY SHIT they did when they were kids. climbing the faces of enormous rocks when they were knee high to a bee. backpacking solo in the wilderness. skateboarding without pads or helmets down steep winding mountain roads, and/or being towed (as grams says, "if they were dumb enough to try it, the least i could do was drive the car.") riding wheeled things off the diving board. unicycle races on a wire suspended over the swimming pool. using the empty pool as a halfpipe. doing flips off the tops of mountains or houses or balconies or anything else you could flip off of. sometimes they broke things, got scabs and scars. but they lived to tell the tales, and they are SUCH GOOD TALES! my dad has good stories, too. one of my faves is when he and his friend were 4 years old, they somehow convinced someone at the PX to sell them pocket knives, and they played with them until my grandpa caught them hours later, hands torn to shreds. (four years old!) there are also stories involving beebee guns, roaming around england for a day before being returned home by a good samaritan (or maybe that was ben, the family dog), and possibly driving a car before achieving double digits? my mom basically grew up in footloose. there was no drinking or dancing or playing cards or watching movies or wearing nylons (at least, not that the parents were supposed to know about), so her childhood stories are of a different genre.

not that i'm advocating selling knives to four year olds or anything (though maybe the YMCA does). and obviously some changes in the way we parent are probably worthwhile tradeoffs. (i have heard many a grandparent lament the use of "those craaaazy car seat contraptions," saying, "in our day, we didn't even have seat belts!" yes, and children flew out the window in a car crash! my girlfriend actually has a funny story from when they had their first child. her father-in-law was completely flabbergasted that you are required to have a car seat for your baby in order to leave the hospital. he was like, "what do you mean, you can't leave the hospital unless your baby is in a car seat?!? it's your baby?!? what're they gonna do?! arrest you?!" um actually, yes, hahaha.) but nowadays, kids can't even play football or soccer without fear of traumatic brain injury. and God forbid we go to the park without a costco-sized vat of Purell. i don't remember my mom having to desanitize the shopping cart before i sat in it, do you? how sad if this generation of america's (okay, middle-to-upper-class america's) kids' stories are like, "i played x-box while sitting in an ergonomic chair in a HEPA-filtered, climate controlled environment. sunlight - what?! did you want me to die of skin cancer?!"

so yeah, we're safer. but. what have we given up? and is it worth it? i'm not sure. it's like when i was pregnant and deciding whether to take anti-nausea medication or puke all day, to have a glass of wine or lose my mind, etc... it's a balancing test. you have to weigh the odds that something bad is going to happen vs. how much of an asshole you're going to feel like if that highly unlikely thing occurs... if your baby has 11 toes... if your kid shoots himself in the eye with a bee bee gun... etc...

reminds me of this interesting interview from a while back with lenore skenazy, the "free range kids" guru, on salon.com. she points out the irony of us taking such extreme measures to keep our precious children safe, all the while driving them around in cars 24/7 which is the #1 cause of death in children. “Remember parents: Asteroids happen, so keep your children inside!”

of course, i have no problem leaving the children perched unattended on a bench at the edge of a small cliff above a river... if it means getting an adorable photo out of the deal!!! ;) (don't worry. J would almost certainly save C in the somewhat likely event that she'd try to "dump" (aka jump) to her death below.)



i basically wrote this whole thing
just so i could post this picture :)