A quiet New Year's Eve.  I don't go out and freeze to welcome in "First Night" or "First Morning" or whatever it is.  I'd prefer to be sound asleep long before midnight.  I noticed a long time ago that 12:01AM looks an awful lot like 10:01PM and I prefer the latter.  Himself made a lovely meal.  It was an Indian curry.  I served as sous chef by cutting garlic and chili peppers.  About the peppers...three hours later (after washing my hands thoroughly, I thought) I rubbed my eye.  Yikes.  Well, that's the perfect end to a year that I won't mind kicking to the curb.

A long time ago I was at one of the few New Year's Eve parties I have ever deigned to attend.  At 12:30 the host looked at his watch and said, "Well, good night and Happy New Year!"  I thought he was kidding.  Until he said something that I have made a bit of a mantra ever since, and I quote: "Nothing good ever happens after 1 AM."  Every time I hear a scary story on the news I check the time, and sure enough, David was right.

I don't do resolutions.  Oh, I have a long list of good intentions, but I have them every day when I wake up.  There is no magic to the first of January. I know what I need to do and I know the calendar is not going to be the incentive to do them.  But every day I re-commit and sometimes I succeed in spite of myself.  I have, actually, stopped smoking.  OK...that took getting pregnant at the age of 39, but I've been good ever since.  The weight goes up, the weight goes down.  I'm not obsessing any more, although I would like to look good enough at my niece's wedding in September to actually appear in the pictures.  And there's always the chance she'll ask me to sing.  And I should write more because I really do enjoy it.  But that's not a New Year's resolution.  That's a decision I made years ago and I'm making progress in my own good (slow) time.

As a new year starts I look back with longing at people I am forced to leave behind.  But looking back is not a good idea.  That's not the direction in which I'm going.  So I'll look forward.  I wonder what the new year will bring, but I am not worried about it.  Whatever it is, I have the confidence born of knowing that I have a 100% record of surviving whatever has been thrown at me up to now.  If I stop to think about it my wish for the new year is that we will all pray more and laugh more.  The rest of it has a way of working itself out if you give it enough time.

Happy New Year.  And good night.

The presents are all opened.  The lights never did make it outside.  Nor down the staircase (although that at least got a green garland).  It's quiet.  Everyone has retreated to a separate corner of the house and I'm wondering if pizza parlors are open on Christmas night since there is no way I am in the mood to cook a thing.  I sang at two Masses this morning, and I sounded pretty good, if I do say so myself.  My gifts were lovely.  Why, then, this feeling of quiet sorrow?

I suppose it has something to do with missing the people who aren't here.  My sisters couldn't make it for Christmas Eve for the first time in a very very long time, and the only guest we had was my father-in-law who is a sweetheart, but didn't quite fill the house.  The permanently missing faces are more of a problem, and there are more of them every year, but that is part of life if one lives long enough.  Not my favorite part, by the way.  The kids are grown and there just isn't the same level of excitement, even though Santa came and filled stockings and turned their chairs around so he could leave their gifts on them, the way he always has.  Something is different.  Something is missing.

At church today I stared at the altar and the flowers, the gold chalice and the white linens, the candle flames and the satin vestments and I kept hearing the thought in my head, "I have this.  I have this,"  which was oddly comforting.  Because ultimately it is the faith to which I cling, and it's the only thing that makes sense some days.  I get seriously annoyed with the Catholic Church sometimes (being female and all that), but you couldn't drive me away with a whip and a chair.  I have this; this faith in the Savior who put on flesh and became like us for a while.  This increasing sense of the impermanence of life and the comfort of eternity.  This firm belief that what is coming is going to be so far above whatever we've known so far.  And all that mattered more than how many lights were put on the house or not, or how many presents were under the tree.  And so I shall take a few quiet moments to rest in the Presence, firm in the knowledge that even if I don't know what's wrong, He does. And He'll know how to fix it.

There's a lot for which to be thankful.  Son Number One got in before the storm at one o'clock this morning and is sound asleep in his bed.  Son Number Two will be staying in Cleveland and having dinner with a roommate's family, but he'll call and that's somehow OK.  I thought not having him with us for the very first time in his twenty years would be gut-wrenching, but he'll be home in three weeks, and to my motherly delight I find that he is really and truly with me all the time anyway.  One day here or there isn't going to change that.  I hope he has fun, doesn't feel guilty or lonely, and makes his hosts laugh the way he does us.  There is a priest half-way across the Atlantic Ocean at this point, who will arrive in Boston sometime this afternoon (please, God) unless he gets stuck in Philadelphia, which an abnormally large number of my friends do when they fly US Airways for some reason. 

There will be faces missing at the table, which will make my heart ache a little.  Not the "couldn't make it this year" faces, but the "See you when you get to Heaven" faces.  I hope they are all saving me a seat at their table.  Himself's father will be here, but we will wend our way to the nursing home to see his mother at some point later in the day, even though she won't know we're there in all probability.  But his sister and her family will crowd round the table, and Son Number One's wonderful violin teacher from elementary school and beyond will join us, and it's all good.

There will be no trips to the mall for the big sale.  We will boycott any store that stays open on Thanksgiving.  We are in danger of losing something very precious in this country, and the opening of stores on family holidays is just one symptom of it.  And the boycott will be permanent.  I won't set a foot in Macy's or K-Mart, Walmart, or Kohl's or Target's again.  At least not until they change their anti-family policies.  There are other places to buy gifts.  Local shops and owner-run boutiques abound and they could certainly use the business.  And I'm backing off gift giving in general this year anyway.  I've gotten to the point where I don't want things.  I want time.  Time with my family, time to think, time to write, time to meditate, time to be grateful. 

We will all join hands around the table and we won't let the priest say the grace because he's on vacation, and I have a perfectly good relationship with the Deity myself.  We talk all day long, every day, and tomorrow won't be any different.  So blessings to you all on this pause in the chaos when we stop to appreciate what we already have.  Don't buy into the madness.  Take a breath and cherish the moment.

After months of struggling to train an aging brain to memorize more dialogue than I thought possible, and weeks upon weeks of Himself having to dine alone while I rehearsed and rehearsed until ten at night, the curtain has finally fallen.  The set has been dismantled, the flowers are fading, but the memories won't.  I'm going to miss the insanity of being a leading lady.

There were six performances, and we got standing ovations for half of them.  I suggested to the director that this had a direct correlation to whether or not I was able to come up with real tears for the final scene (which I did three times...hmmmmm) but he wasn't so sure.  My leading man contracted pneumonia somewhere along the line, which at age seventy-something is nothing at which to sneeze, but kept plugging along and barely missed a beat.

The show itself was very funny and touching.  While the movie is mostly about the relationship between Norman and Chelsea, as played by Henry and Jane Fonda, the play is actually about the relationship between Norman and Ethel, a husband and wife who have weathered nearly half a century together and are approaching the end of the line.  The topic of death dances through the play, but this is no tragedy.  It is a celebration of love in every sense, between two people who have learned to treasure each other over the years, and between parents and their adult child.  It also celebrates the ability of the heart to grow and admit new love, in the form of an unexpected relationship with a grandchild.

Needless to say, it has given me cause to stop and look around at my own life with a bit more attention.  We take so many moments for granted.  There are so many little nuances in our interactions with family and friends.  So many silly little "ticks" that we miss enormously when they disappear.  It has also made me miss (or remember that I always miss) so many people who have taken their final bows in my life.  Well, the curtain that separates us becomes thinner and thinner, and, as Ethel said, "It's not so frightening.  Not such a bad place to go."

I was blessed with a huge number of friends who took time to come and cheer and clap and cry and say nice things.  I was showered with praise and with beautiful flowers.  I even got to keep the "65 year old doll", Elmer, who was Ethel's childhood companion.  I loved that the director had us take our bows as an ensemble, because that is a true reflection of how this lovely play came into being.  Everyone was such an integral part of the whole, and I wish there had been room on stage for the set designer, the director, the lighting crew, the stage manager, and the many more people who quietly performed their labors of love in the background, gathering props and finding the right clothes for us to wear.

And so I go back to the real world tomorrow, but with a bit of a spring in my step, a tiny bit smug at the success we pulled off, a bit more confident in the abilities of an aging brain, and eager to find what comes next!

The terror of opening night looming one week from tomorrow is beginning to subside.  The horror of the publicity photos is another matter altogether.  I loathe photographs of myself.  The mirror tells me such sweet lies; "Not bad straight on!"  "You look MUCH younger than your years!"  All fantasy.  The close ups are an education in humility.  In combination with the subject matter of the play it's enough to make one start actually thinking about mortality.  Or at least about getting a whole lot more serious about Weight Watchers!

Last night we had the first run through in which we were not allowed to call for a forgotten line.  For those of you not into theater, it's a lot like walking a tightrope without a net below.  The theory is that if you had a real audience in front of you, you'd have to find a way to cover or cope or something.  And we did.  Which was a rather pleasant surprise, if not shock, considering the travesty which we tried to pass off as a rehearsal just three days before.  I hung my head in shame after that one.  But it's finally starting to "click".  I'm finding nuances in "Ethel" and playing with them.  All this and I get applause and occasionally flowers, too.  I hope for the former.  The latter is assured because Himself has finally figured out how this thing works.  My friends quietly take him aside and say, "You want to stay married to her?  You want to be able to close your eyes when you sleep?"

I won't be entirely sorry when this is all over, in spite of the ego boost and the delightful company.  It's also been a boatload of work on top of my full time job.  And immediately following the close of this play is Thanksgiving and the beginning of Christmas caroling season, so it's not as though I'll be twiddling my thumbs.  Still, it's nice to feel wanted once in a while, and it's a pleasant change to go from evenings of watching bad television to figuring out where to leave my costumes for which acts, and carving new pathways through my old brain with pages and pages of dialogue and stage directions.  And now I have discovered I really do have a new respect for loons.

Less than three weeks remain to the opening night of "On Golden Pond".  Rehearsals are going well (I'm told) but panic is beginning to set in.  How on EARTH is anyone supposed to memorize all this stuff?  Much less act it out?  Still, I'm loving the challenge and enjoying the company.  It's been so long since I've had anything to do on a weekday night besides watch bad television and iron tomorrow's clothes.

Last night I went to see a friend in a one-man show.  Neil McGarry did a brilliant job as Richard Burbage in "Burbage", who (for those of you who napped occasionally during English class in high school) was arguably the most famous of the actors who made Shakespeare so popular back in the day.  For one solid hour Neil spoke to an imaginary boy who had wandered into the Globe Theatre to join the dizzying world of the stage.  Not one actor was there to give him a cue or remind him of the next line or give him ANYTHING to which he could react.  He was absolutely amazing.  The church hall where he performed was the quietest place I've been in years.  Everyone gave rapt attention to every word.  I sat in awe.

After the performance I told Neil how impressed I was and how I was having trouble memorizing what I had (until then) believed was a ton of dialogue.  He advised me to speak the lines aloud as I walked.  He gave me several hints on locking knees and unlocking jaws and generally just behaving like an absolute loon who would frighten the neighbors for a while, but he swears it works, so I'm going to do it.  I've reached the "everyone else makes it look so easy" part of rehearsing.  I'm sure they're working twice as hard as I have been.  Or maybe it just really does come naturally to some people.  I don't know how that works.  I won't be offended if you see me walking around talking to myself and decide it would be better not to acknowledge that you know me.  Maybe I'll just put on my earphones and tuck the unconnected wire into my pocket so I'll blend in with everyone else out there.  It's mildly terrifying, but damn, it's fun!

So there I was onstage, having done four out of six performances of our little play and feeling quite cocky.  I knew this stuff cold.  Until that awkward little silence set in which I recognized only too well.  With over ninety pairs of eyes trained on me and two actors hanging in the breeze, one on either side, I had not the slightest idea of what I was supposed to say next.  Of course, it was the only night that Himself was present, along with a group of friends who had traveled a good distance to watch me be a "star".

The thoughts that pass through one's mind at a time like this (along with a flash of one's entire life) are interesting.  The phrase "laid an egg" suddenly made sense to me.  Trying to get the right words out was at least that painful.  "Dying on stage" also took on new meaning.  I remembered that Saint Genesius is the patron saint of actors.  He, however, appears to have been weekending in New York and was probably taking in something on Broadway.  Suddenly from the wings I heard our patient and faithful stage manager whisper the key word that I was looking for.  She had been sitting just behind the curtain for four performances, running down the batteries on three pen flashlights as she followed every word of every actor on stage.  She didn't look up and watch the show.  She just read the same words night after night, one by one, waiting to throw a life preserver to the poor sinking soul who needed it.  Last night I caught it.  The entire pause didn't really last for more than five seconds, and the majority of the audience didn't realize what was going on.  We figured that out a long time ago, which is why they never hand you a script when you enter a theater.

A lesson in humility, it also reminded me how important it is to listen for the quiet whispers in our lives.  They're there.  We just prefer to tune in to the roaring applause (when it comes).  But making a space for the quiet whispers has guided me through more than theater.  In the way the leaves "speak" when the wind passes through, the calming, rhythmic pulsing of the ocean waves as we near the shore, much is "whispered" to us that is meaningful and important.   But for last night the quiet whisper of my stage manager/guardian angel was like a symphony ringing in my ears.  She didn't get to stand on the stage and bow with the rest of us, which doesn't seem fair considering how many other things she has done to make this performance happen, from serving drinks to running props to wiping tables.  So, Paula Sullivan, quiet hero and patient friend, this is my standing ovation for you.  And I am so glad you will be there for today's closing matinee!

It was bound to happen.  I knew it the first time he picked up a rugby ball.  Yesterday a knee to the face resulted in a broken nose for my college senior, who has avoided serious injury (at least that he informed me about) up until now.  Luckily in this age of technology, even for Luddites like myself, Son Number One was able to comfort me long distance with a "selfie" which really didn't look all that bad.  I suspect that today there will be panda eyes and more swelling, but at least he went to the emergency room for treatment so he's been seen by someone who knows significantly more about broken noses than I, with my fairly useless degree in French.  To tell you the truth, that nose which started out like a tiny button all those years ago, has been looking a little "askew" for a while; not obvious, but just the tiniest bit crooked.  Mother is suspecting that this might be her baby's second broken nose, but who can tell?

The trial of the long distance Mom is to stay calm and supportive and let him handle it on his own, which he is quite capable of doing.  He even used his "Talk Her Off The Ledge" voice when he phoned to assure me he was fine.  I know it could have been a far worse injury. All those prayers and guardian angels I dispatch seem to be doing the job.   My idea of winning a rugby game is empty ambulances on the edge of the field.  This is football with no padding.  This is, in my humble opinion, nuts.

And so I absorb another exercise in "letting go", a class for which I don't remember registering.  Son Number Two is in Cleveland fencing for his university.  I hope he doesn't come home with a dueling scar across his cheek.  That test I would certainly fail.

There are a few things in life I can count on.  My husband will invite me out for a lovely dinner the night before I weigh in at Weight Watchers (and I never say no).  A week before I am scheduled to go on a wonderful vacation I will realize how much work is involved in getting ready and I will decide it's not worth the effort and begin to dread the whole process (but I go anyway and have a wonderful time).  And when I get cast as a lead in a play I will absolutely convince myself that THIS time my brain is just too old to learn that many lines and I'm going to freeze on stage and ruin everything.  It hasn't happened...yet...but this time I've got an interesting situation.  I've been cast as the lead in a wonderful play which started rehearsals tonight.  But the play I'm already involved in is opening on Saturday night and running for three weekends.  So that's two sets of lines that will be running around in my head at the same time.  I don't know about this one.

They say that after a certain age it's good to do crossword puzzles and whatever you call that number thingie they print in the paper on the comics page.  This is a good alternative, and certainly challenging, but I could go into full-blown panic mode without traveling very far.  Then I remember what it's like to hear laughter, or to make an audience weep.  I remember the camaraderie of putting on a production and the thrill of taking a bow at the curtain call.  And at 62 I will get my first theatrical kiss.  I will confess that at the read-through I reacted like a high school freshman at that news, all giggles and bad jokes.

Still, what a delicious dilemma.  I'm still in demand.  At least this time.  It's been a long while since I've gotten the "We'd like to offer you the part" phone call instead of the "We decided to go in another direction, but we LOVED your audition!" e-mail, and my ego is purring like a kitten.  In between panic attacks.

I read somewhere, "I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes a group of days get together and ambush me," and that's how it feels right now.  There are several anniversaries that come around Labor Day which I'd rather not think about, but they are heavy hitters and insist on my attention.  

Yesterday would have been my niece's 45th birthday, but she is, instead, forever 19.  I can't say much beyond that, because it's too painful to think about how much I miss her and how much she has missed.  It was also the fourth anniversary of the passing of the man who was like a father to me.  He was a creative genius, talented and theatrical and with a memory like a computer.  I once called him from North Wales to settle a question about Hollywood.  My house is filled with oil paintings he created and presents he picked out for many Christmases.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of him.

Today is the second anniversary of the passing of one of my very closest friends.  He was 72, which, once upon a time, I thought was a ripe old age.  I don't any more.  I wanted him around until he was at least a hundred.  While I was home taking care of my children and bored out of my mind while they were at school, Jim was the voice on the other end of the phone almost every day.  He encouraged me to write, and this blog started as a belated tribute to him.  He turned to me for advice and made me feel like the Goddess of Wisdom.  He made me laugh.  Sometimes he made me want to slug him.  I never understood his fascination with all things Irish, but it was just part of who he was. He cared passionately about politics and justice.  He had a PhD from Notre Dame and the impishness of a five year old.  He is completely irreplaceable and my heart aches with the missing of him.

So this week is tough.  Not only is summer over (except for the weather) but my boys are both back at college and it's just Himself and Myself rattling around the empty house.  Luckily I still adore him after 23 years of marriage, and he seems to still think I'm OK, too.  That's good.  Because this week I need to come home to a hug and a cup of tea and a sympathetic ear.  He doesn't ask a question.  He just knows.  Bless him.

It's 3:30 in the morning and here I sit typing. Something about the death of Robin Williams is hitting me as though I knew him.  My heart hurts, as though he were a friend.  I've always respected his work, found some of his movies brilliant and some embarrassing, but I've always liked him.  And now his passing feels like another thread pulled from my tapestry, leaving a gaping hole.  Why is that?

I'm not surprised that he killed himself.  On some level I've been waiting for it for years.  How could a star that burns that brightly not burn itself out?  The poor thing.  It must have been exhausting to be that brilliant, that kind, that talented.  He took so much out of his own hide.  Is it any wonder he had trouble with alcohol and drugs?  I can certainly see why he would try to quiet the raging forces of his mind.

His movie "What Dreams May Come" was not a big hit, but I saw it in the theater years ago and became completely unglued.  The movie, in case you haven't seen it, involved a couple who lost their children in a car accident, then the father (Williams) died trying to help someone in an accident in a tunnel, then the mother killed herself in grief.  The images of heaven that followed were so eerie.  There is no way to describe it other than "it felt like a memory" even though I know that sounds ridiculous and pretentious.  Heaven was tailor-made to fit the expectations of whatever one needed to see.  For him it started as an impressionist painting, the pigments coming off on his hands and clothing.  Things got more solid and clearer as he settled in.  I'm doing this from memory and it's probably been twenty years since I've seen it.  But the feeling remains vivid.  You just had to sit on your toboggan and go along for the ride.  I'll have the opportunity soon, since I just ordered the DVD copy I've been promising myself for years. 

I'm deeply sorry for his family, and for all of us, too.  We have lost someone special who was more important than we realized.  I regret that the joy he gave us had to come at such a high cost for him.  God has already welcomed him home, I'm sure, and I hope he likes his new digs.  At last he'll find peace there, although he has left the world a lot duller for the rest of us.

I am no longer the mother of teenagers.  Today my younger son turns twenty, and I am astounded at how fast that happened.  It seems only yesterday that the sky turned black, the thunder and lightning shook the hospital, and I turned to my husband and said, "I hope the lady in the next room is having the Anti-Christ and it's not us".  Well, it wasn't, because there has never been a more delightful kid than this one.  He is brilliant and sensitive, nerdy and funny.  Most of all he is kind.
We've been away for a few days for what I hope is not our last, but is  probably one of our last getaways as a family before people start careers and families and all that.  To have the opportunity to listen to some of the ideas that run through his head at top speed is both dizzying and wonderful.  The world fascinates him and he takes it apart piece by piece and examines it from every angle, coming away with a sense of awe at the mysteries of the universe.  This is nothing new.  At the age of four every sentence started with either, "You know what?" or "Can I tell you something?"  I learn something every time I talk to him.

He's not big on words.  He is, however, the first one to put an arm around my shoulders when he senses that I'm having a tough day.  He makes me a cup of tea. There are a million layers to him, and I feel as though I've only scratched the surface.  He is deep and complicated and keeps many things to himself.  I suspect I'll never understand him completely, but I am always amazed and impressed by him, and his presence makes me smile.

He's heading back to his junior year of college next week.  His big brother leaves on Saturday of this week.  The house will echo.  My curiosity at how this all turns out takes some of the sting out of the emptiness for me.  These guys are something else, and if I never did one other thing I have raised the average of the universe by setting them loose on the world. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.

You are one of a kind! :)

Sitting out on the front porch with a cup of coffee and a very aged paperback book, I was distracted when a butterfly alit on a dandelion at the foot of the stairs.  Now, said butterfly had plenty of dandelions from which to choose, because we all know how good I am at gardening, but it chose this one and I started thinking.  The weed I haven't gotten around to pulling gave this graceful creature a place to rest for a brief moment.  My sister always identifies butterflies with my mother, who is doing her own flying and alighting these days.  It was a sweet thought on this birthday when I qualify for Social Security, that Mom is still around and checking up on me.

On this quiet summer birthday with an overcast sky I can't help thinking of all the people who used to send me cards and aren't around to do that anymore.  I miss them, and the nature of my birthday has changed because of their absence.  Jim Flanagan, Maggie Cox, Jim Webb, David Brudnoy, Jack Morris, Rosemary Reilly, Helen Barry, not to mention my brothers, my niece Barbara, and my Mom and Dad, they're all in my heart in a special way today.  I feel their presence although I can no longer see their faces.  But they're here and always will be.  Meanwhile, 114 Facebook greetings later I am overwhelmed at the number of people who take the time to say they care and to celebrate with me.  My sons and husband are waiting to shower me with love and attention, but that can wait until a little later.  I'm just hanging out here with the butterflies and feeling the love and oceans of gratitude for the people who have been sent into my life.

It's happening again....It's only July and already the best birds have taken off for parts unknown.  If you don't believe me, set your alarm for 4:30 and open your window.  Oh wait.  It's DARK now at 4:30.  That's almost a good thing since you can now sleep for an extra hour at least, but when you DO open that window, you'll hear a mourning dove, a crow, and maybe a sparrow.  The divas have left the building.  There is still a lot of summer to go, though, and it doesn't seem quite fair, but there we are.

Meanwhile, my own nest will soon be temporarily full again.  Son Number One flies home this Saturday from a summer internship in Washington, D.C. and will be in residence for a couple of weeks before heading back to his last year in college.  Son Number Two has been home since May and has been working at my place of employment since June, so we commute together.  OK, sometimes he sleeps going in or out of town, but often we chat about whatever is on his mind, or he'll run lines with me to help me memorize my script for the play I'm in.  It's been a joy to breathe the same air for the whole summer.  I'd forgotten how much fun he is.  I'll have him until just before Labor Day.  My mother used to call this "having all her chicken's in one roost" and it was her greatest joy.  I didn't understand what the big deal was back then.  I do now.

They'll both be back to school soon and the house will be quiet again.  And that's OK.  I'm getting better at letting the birds leave the nest.  I understand that it's their turn to fly and that soon they won't be coming "home" because they'll be making nests of their own.  To my complete astonishment I'm finding that my claws are retractable after all.  Not only do I not have to hang on for dear life, I don't really want to.  I'm enjoying watching the process and I am dazed at the talent and resourcefulness they both show.  But for the moment I am thoroughly enjoying the prospect of time with my boys.  Himself and I will have time for dinners and movies again, instead of playing chauffeur.  We'll be back to washing the dishes ourselves and taking out our own trash, and we're quite capable of doing all that and more.  But just as the quiet mornings make me sad once the birds leave, the quiet house will be bittersweet.  Silence can be good, too. And, as for the birds and the boys, as a very smart friend once told me every time I wept at his departure, "How can I come back if I don't leave?" and that was and will always be cause for celebration.

For those of you who have heard the phrase but never knew what the heck it meant, an "Irish Twin" is a sibling born less than a year before or after you, so that for a few days or weeks or sometimes months a year you had a sister or a brother who was the same age as you.  Today starts my Irish Twin week.  My baby brother was born on July 28.  I had been born on August 3 the year before, so we had six days of being "twins".  Well, I would tell everyone we were twins.  He would tell people he'd never seen me before in his life!

It's a silly little tradition, but I've been missing it for almost twenty years now and today is no exception.  So Happy Birthday, Smitty, in heaven where you belong after your sad growing up and your tour in Viet Nam when you were much too young.  I miss your Wolfman Jack impersonations (which were REALLY good) and your insane laughter.  I am counting on you to keep an eye on your nephews as they get to that dangerous and tempting decade of their twenties.  And you'd better be saving me a good seat.  I blow a kiss towards the sky and know you will return it.  You're still a presence in my life and always in my heart. <3

It's a hard day.  Tomorrow I will sing at the funeral of the nephew of my first real boyfriend.  He was a handsome kid, but he never smiled.  In all the pictures that flashed by in the video at the wake this afternoon, his eyes looked sad.  I may be projecting.  Maybe he was the life of the party among his friends, I'd only met him once or twice, but he chose to find a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and my friends are devastated while the rest of us shake our heads and try to think of something comforting to say to his mother and his widow.  There is nothing to say.  There are no words for this kind of grief, for this kind of waste. 
As a mother I recoil in horror at the one nightmare I don't think I could survive.  I think of all the times my kids have driven me crazy, ruined my plans, caused me worry.  But the thought that their problems could drive them to end it all has never crossed my mind.  The size of the gap their absence would leave in the fabric of my universe is unfathomable.  I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this one.
His struggles are over, and I know a loving God understands that he just couldn't handle any more.  I know he is at peace at last. But there is no peace for the people who loved him and worried about him.  There is no peace to be found in not worrying any more.

It's Bastille Day, and, even with my degree in French Literature ("Voulez-vous des pommes frites avec ca?") I find it a tad hard to get excited.  I am more excited about the fact that I ducked another trip to the gym...yeah, yeah, I know...and that Himself (fractured rib and all) took Son Number Two to go work himself into a sweaty mess in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Had I remembered that bottle of sherry the other day this evening would be pretty close to perfect.

As it is, I feel compelled to have something on the table when they return, even if it is only leftovers from the past two days with a salad on the side.  The piles are calling my name, but I'd really rather sit down and learn my lines from the play I'm in.  I am such a snob about being the first one in a cast to get "off book".  Sixty-one is a little late for developing ADD, but I find myself wandering from room to room, starting something and then saying, "Oh, look over there!" and off I go to some other soon-to-be-discarded task until it's time for bed.  The theory is that if I do that enough times eventually the house will be clean.  So far the theory doesn't hold a lot of water.  Maybe it will work better if I sing "La Marseillaise" as I go.........

Yesterday Himself and some friends went for a bicycle ride.  It wasn't a very long one (he has been known to go over a hundred miles just to pass a Saturday) but it turned out to be eventful.  He hit a storm drain which was four inches below the road and over he went.  When he came home (rather earlier than I'd expected) I noticed something on his nose.  I thought it might be a leaf, or maybe a scratch.  I asked him about it and he turned and said, "Maybe it has something to do with this," at which point he showed me his scraped shoulder, elbow and knee.  It's a good thing I have Mommy experience, because I sat him down, ran to the store for antiseptic pain killer spray and big bandages.  We don't get this size "boo boo" around here much anymore.  After a shower and a bit of patching up he went up for a nap and seems fine today except for sore ribs which the doctor will take a look at later this morning.  We are (as we have always been) blessed and watched over by many angels.

This, in combination with a couple of TRULY alarming Boston drivers this week and a pedestrian in Plymouth who strolled across the street at night in front of my car was a reminder to me of how much I need those angels.  Every minute is a miracle, and a life can change in the time it takes to gasp.  A very dear friend of mine lost her husband with absolutely no warning.  Another has been diagnosed with cancer.  Another whose fabulous career I have long envied has been searching for work for months and is in a panic. And then there are those friends of mine who have left me unexpectedly.   Nothing is guaranteed.  I know we all know that, and the stress of trying to appreciate each and every precious moment would drive us all crazy and make us pretty annoying to be with, I'm guessing.  Still, the mindfulness of the Buddhists is not such a bad role model. 

Life is speeding by pretty quickly at this point.  I am amazed and amused at how old I will be on my next birthday, and I have mixed feelings about how many seats I am offered on the subway these days.  On the other hand, I am perfectly happy to be on the "back half of this golf course and heading for the club house."  There's still a lot of life left here, mind you, and I'm still trying every day to improve the quality of it, whether it is July Resolutions to clean the house or to drop a few pounds or exercise more, every day is New Year's Eve.  Nevertheless, I don't envy Dr. Who (apologies to those of you who are not sci-fi fans of this wonderful BBC show from Wales).  He's over 900 years old and never dies. He just "re-generates".  At some point I'd rather take the rest.

But while I'm still here I am so grateful for my angels and for the prayers of friends (and now that I think of it, have you ever seen them in the same room at the same time?  Hmmmmm.) and for Himself who continues to make me look like a slug, but a happy one.

It's nearly the Fourth of July and I still haven't put a toe in the water, either the ocean or a pool.  Still, summer is upon us and I am more or less ready for it.  I don't have the bathing suit body I was hoping would have magically arrived by now, but there is something about having the windows open in the morning that just delights me.  In the U.K. they don't bother with screens, a fact which always fascinates me.  I'm sure it's true other places, too, where the climate is less conducive to the happy propagation of flying bugs.  I don't understand why they don't have a house full of birds, and speaking of the birds, they must be eating something, so there ARE bugs, but I digress.

We've had no obnoxious "3 H" days yet, which, for those of you not from the area, refers to "Hazy, Hot and Humid", so I can afford to be cheerful about summer still.  As is the family tradition, modified due to the internship of Son Number One in Washington, D.C., the clan got up at "zero dark thirty" on the day of the Summer Solstice and went to Nut Island to watch the sun rise.

For the second year, Papa came with us to round out the number and the view was very pretty, although I must confess it hasn't changed much since last year.  Still, it's a lovely tradition and breakfast is always fun afterwards at the Wheel House Diner.  I said to Papa, "I married into this insanity, but why do you drag yourself out of bed at this hour when you don't have to? and he replied, "Who knows how many more times I'll be able to?" and then he laughed.
I love that he laughed.  He's 84 now, which makes it no joke, but that is how he feels about life in general, I guess.  Recently he spent hours on his hands and knees putting pansies and petunias on the outside of our hedges, where there have been no flowers, no signs of life (except weeds) in twenty years.  It looks so nice that now I find myself weeding every time I go by.  OK.  Not every time, but often.  I guess it's a break from his twice daily trips to the nursing home to visit my mother-in-law.  She doesn't recognize him most of the time, but he lives for those fleet bursts of clarity when she does.  So here's to another season with Papa, who puts me to shame in so many ways.  He's at the Y or off on a walk every day, or when the weather gets really bad he's on the rowing machine in his attic.  He dotes on his grandchildren and the feeling is beyond mutual.  And he loves me, too.  How blessed am I?  All this and chirping  birds, too.

The only reason I'm not posting a picture is my respect for the privacy of my friends and fellow classmates.  OK, also because, as predicted, I looked rather bovine compared to my image of myself, but we had SUCH a good time!  There were only two tables (plus one very popular professor) from the Class of 1974, but I think we were the loudest, happiest table in the joint.

Oh, we all started off sedately and politely enough.  Thank heavens someone brought a yearbook, because we're not all recognizable as our 40 year younger selves.  Slowly the facade of politeness and distance and trepidation started to crack, and before I knew it (or before the second glass of wine) we were laughing at things that happened forty years ago and at things that happened yesterday.  The ladylike groups from a mere 20 and 30 years out halted their quiet reminiscences as our conga line, waving a rainbow of colorful napkins, snaked through the hall.  There was a circle dance, into the center of which even the demurest of us was drawn to display her moves, and there was a charming waiter who danced his way into our hearts (and a sizable tip at the end of the evening).

Let me say this with complete honesty: not one of us was drunk or anywhere near it.  We have simply arrived at that glorious, liberating age of "Take it or leave it, Toots, this is me!" which is turning out to be a lot more fun than any of us had expected it to be.  Some of my companions were names to me, vaguely remembered.  Some I swear I have never heard of or seen in my life.  None of that mattered by the end of the evening.  We rejoiced in the renewed spirit of our college.  Sister Janet Eisner, now President of the school, and the Dean of Students when we entered all those years ago, has simply changed her hair from black to silver, but remained unchanged and as dynamic as ever.  She took a moribund girls' college and transformed it into one of the up and coming science centers of Boston, working closely with local hospitals and research laboratories.  She even let boys in, and the place still stands.  
 
To put it another way, everything and nothing has changed.  Like us, Emmanuel doesn't look the way it looked forty years ago.  But in among the glass and steel state-of-the-art buildings one can still see the red brick of the Administration Building (where I was married in the chapel) and the dormitories which face onto Brookline Avenue.  There are enough old bones there to identify the place, but hiding in the center is a hubbub of activity and newness.  Not unlike the members of the
Class of 1974.

I have waited all week for Saturday morning so I could sleep late.  But I have also waited all winter for the song of the birds.  As I lie awake, hours before chores or appointments compel me to stir, the trills and echoes fill my ears and my heart.  The mornings are still cool, so the windows aren't shut, and the whir of the air conditioner isn't drowning them out yet.  I hear the traffic from the highway, which I never notice hearing during the day.  An airplane passes overhead.  The gentle wind stirs the curtains and glides past my sleep-warmed body with a delicious chill.   

There are many different varieties of birds in Massachusetts.  I recognize the cardinal's call, and the robin's, but the rest is just a symphony of trills and chirps and tweets to me, punctuated with the occasional raucousness of the crow.  One of these days I'll get a book and learn about the singers of this song.  For this moment I am content to just listen, and to memorize the sound.  I want to imprint it into my heart so that when winter comes again, or when my ears are too old to hear those high notes, I'll be able to open this memory like a music box and play it back note for note and smile as I bless the Composer.  

I am in such a strange mood.  Tonight is my 40th reunion from college.  At the last one of these I went to, five years ago, I thought I looked pretty good.  Then someone put up pictures on Face Book and that was the end of that delusion and the beginning of my reunion with Weight Watchers.  I'm not expecting much to be different tonight. 

I look at my sons, who are already going into their Junior and Senior years of college and I see little faces and plastic knights' helmets and Fisher Price castles with cannon balls flying. How on earth did we get here this fast?  And now I get to face the strange fact that I haven't been a college student in four decades.  A large number of these women were also classmates of mine from grade seven right through high school.  Nineteen of us went to Emmanuel in the fall of 1970 from Girls' Latin School.  Trembling with anticipation in our very first class of freshman year (English with Dr. Jerry Bernhard at 8:30AM) we all gasped when he told us our first assignment was to read "The Aeneid".  Eyes widened.  Furtive glances were stolen.  Notes were passed.  "In TRANSLATION?  ALL RIGHT!"

But that was long ago when the crust of the earth was cooling.  So much has happened since then.  There have been jobs and deaths, romances and broken hearts, children and grandchildren (not mine yet, thankfully) and 9/11 and cell phones, ATMs and iPads.  It's all new and more than a little overwhelming at times.  Yet we cope, some of us better than others.  How does one start a conversation after 40 years?  "What's new?"  Well, there's always wine.  Or I could stuff my face with cheese and crackers and feign a migraine.  At least we're not quite at the age when we don't drive at night.  Or at least I hope that's true.  You never know.  I may be in for another shattered delusion.

Then tomorrow my older college boy goes off to Washington, D.C. for the summer to serve an internship with our Congressman.  This is the very first summer of his life when he won't be home with me.  Oh I know the days are numbered anyway.  His life is taking off like a rocket, as is his brother's.  They have their friends, their own interests, and this coming year, their own apartments instead of living on campus.  I realize they may never really move home again, and that's fine.  But you'll forgive me if there is a tiny bit of mourning going on.  I don't feel needed any longer, and that is as it should be if I have done my job well.  But this letting go thing is so much harder than Virgil's "Aeneid" in Latin or in English.

I don't go to barbecues or the beach on Memorial Day weekend, generally speaking.  Neither do I go to the cemeteries where my brothers and my father lie.  Wayne was 22 and just back from a tour with the 7th Cavalry in Viet Nam when his life ended in a car accident.  Earl ("Smitty") was 42 and a veteran of Viet Nam, too, with the 82nd Airborne, when lung cancer took its very long time to end his pain.  Dad was a sonar man in WWII with the Navy and cancer got him at 72.  All of them were seeing far too much when they were younger than my sons are now.  I can't even begin to imagine what going to war does to people.  My sons don't understand why I still object to the video games where they spend hours shooting at "the enemy".  Sometimes I don't understand that myself, but the connections are beginning to bleed through as I get older.  Life is precious.  It just is.  All of it.  Born, unborn, innocent, guilty, bugs, and animation that represents life in any form.  The only reason that I'm not a vegetarian is that I don't think about it for very long, and I draw comfort from the fact that even Jesus ate fish.

On this Memorial Day I hold these men, and all the men and women who are and were so much braver than I can ever imagine anyone being, close to my heart in a loving and awe-struck way.  I salute you with tears and a lump in my throat.  I bless your memories with my prayers and my quiet moments stolen today to just appreciate the gift of being here and breathing. 

There is not one thing wrong with barbecues and parties and celebrating with friends.  I hope you all enjoy yours.  Just take a moment sometime today to give a thought to the amazing men and women who have made it possible for all of us, with our priceless freedom, to wake up every day in a place where such happy gatherings are possible.  And until our paths cross again, sleep well, my heroes.  I send a kiss heavenward just for you.

It's such a nice little planet.  It's got chocolate and music and everything.  But I must confess that lately I've been wondering how long it's going to be around.  The tales of Global Warming or Climate Change or Whatever are getting scarier and scarier, and more and more believable.  I'm sure there have been other winters like the one we just slogged through, but I am pretty sure they were restricted to the upper reaches of Canada.  Now comes the real test.

Those who have been with me for a while know what a total wimp I am in the heat.  All my Irish and English ancestors come out in force and wail with me when the temperature nudges above 80 degrees.  There is no "beach" in my summers.  There is no "tan".  If I have a color, it tends to be snow white or rose red.  I only venture out of doors at daybreak and after sunset.  Outside of that you will find me patting the air conditioner and singing its praises.  If this summer is the equivalent of that sorry winter, I shall not be happy.  Not happy at all.  Then there's the issue of my issue.  I worry about my children.  And about their children.  What, exactly, have we done to this poor place?  And is there any way to slow it down or stop it or reverse it?  I keep hoping that my son the scientist and my son the politician will one day join forces and come up with something brilliant that will both save the world and make them rich enough to build a nice little house (or an "ell" on their mansions) for Mom and Dad.

Meanwhile, my efforts at recycling have gotten quite serious.  And I think I'd better back off on the Netflix episodes of "Dr. Who."  The frightening images of the future aren't helping me sleep any better.  (Although I do agree, that bow-ties are "cool".)  It's time for us all to walk more and drive less, to take our reusable bags to the grocery store, to recycle anything we can get our hands on, and to take this threat a lot more seriously than we have been.  We don't have a blue Police Call Box in which to escape.

Telephones ringing after one o'clock in the morning do not, generally speaking, bring good news, and this was no exception.  The first time it rang I groggily picked it up and heard nothing.  As I drifted off to sleep it rang again.  This time I waited and heard a recorded female voice telling me there had been a "shooting in the area" and advising all to stay indoors, away from windows, and to admit no one.  I was wide awake at this point and toddled downstairs to (of course) look out the window.  All seemed quiet in suburbia.  I wondered why none of the other neighbors were up and at their windows.  Then the phone rang again.  This time I was awake enough to hear the words "CWRU Emergency Alert" and through the fog I recognized the initials of my son's school in Cleveland.  Case Western Reserve University was under lock-down.

I ran to get my cell phone and picked it up with shaking hands to text my son.  He, thoughtful and smart young man that he is, had a message waiting for me already, "Don't worry I'm safe".  I didn't care about the lack of punctuation.  I could breathe again.  He texted back that the shots were fired near the other side of the campus and that he was tucked in his dorm room.  I'm growing to like my cell phone better and better. 

A thousand thoughts stampeded through my mind as the clock ticked past two.  "What if?" was a biggie, although I usually don't allow myself to indulge in that kind of wallowing.  Someone once told me that once you have a child you spend the rest of your life wearing your heart outside of your body, and it's true.  One Face Book friend said she would be half-way to Cleveland by now  and transfer her kid to a school within twenty-five miles of home.  I responded with two words:  Boston Marathon.  There is no protecting them once they hit the air.  From the womb to the tomb all we can do is cover them in prayers and hang on for the ride. 

As it turned out, no college students were involved.  There were two "juveniles", one of whom shot the other in the thigh at a park near campus.  Why are "juveniles" out at one o'clock?  Why does one of them have a gun?  And I am so grateful to God that those are the only "whys" I have to ask this time.  So many parents aren't as lucky.