Two or three years ago I saw an article in a woman’s magazine about life in your 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. There were a ton of quotes from women about what defined them at specific times in their lives. I thought about my own decades and how I would define them.
My twenties, I decided, were all about moving and lessons learned. Moving from house to house, city to city and state to state. Of course I did all the moving myself. I schlepped my used, broken, hand-me-down furniture from location to location, never feeling entirely settled. All the while I was learning lesson after lesson and figuring out what is most important to me and what type of life I wanted to create.
My thirties, I decided at the time, were all about being more comfortable in my skin and finding my niche. The year I turned 30 I got married, I launched my career and we bought our first home. My 30s were, thankfully, about buying new furniture, and hiring movers and designers and painters. My thirties were all about finally being settled. It wasn’t so much about wanting and wishing and searching anymore. It was about enjoying what Todd and I had cultivated. We had kids and built a community of exceptional friends. We insulated ourselves with what I always call “good peeps”. Our good peeps are wonderful, kind, honest people. They are people who inspire me and people with whom I want to spend my increasingly limited and precious time. No matter how chaotic or stressful my days were (and are) with two kids, a husband, a dog, a cat, a frog and a business, I wouldn’t change any of it because at my core was peace.
Over the past six weeks I am afraid I have began to define my 30’s as something else altogether. I am afraid that my 30’s will forever be the decade when I lost both of my parents. The decade where I built the strongest of foundations and then held on for dear life as an earthquake threatened to destroy my core and devour every ounce of peace I had cultivated. An earthquake apparently wasn’t enough, because I feel like it has been followed by a flood and I am being held under.
I remember an episode of Run’s House. Rev Run and his wife lost their baby during childbirth. The entire family gathered around the mom’s hospital bed and held hands as Rev chanted over and over. “ We Are Blessed, We Are Blessed, We Are Blessed”, he kept saying. I remember thinking that I would be standing there saying “I am pissed, I am pissed, I am pissed.”
Well, I am pissed, beyond pissed, really. And I am in horrible pain. And I am blessed. I am so blessed that the good peeps that have insulated our family have gathered around and held on to my entire family in an effort to stabilize us during the aftershocks. So blessed that the people who we sought to surround ourselves with are willing to dive into the flood waters and let us stand on their shoulders so that we might catch our breath for a few moments.
So I am blessed and I am ever so thankful. I don’t, for one second want to take for granted the people that have and continue to get all of us through. And so I have many, many good peeps to thank.
To Peggy, whose pain and sympathy for me was palpable all the way from Paris. We still haven’t talked since my mom passed and yet I feel her presence all the time.
To Allison who, after losing her father, said “I knew your father died, but I had no idea.”
To Miriam who lost her mom in her twenties and told me “pretty soon it wont be so close to the surface.”
To Reece, who called me last year to tell me that both of her parents had died. I had no idea where I was headed and now I know why she was dropped back into my life.
To my childhood friend, Sarah, who I got in touch with a few months before her own mother passed away. She was one of the only people I felt like hearing from in the days following my mom’s passing.
To Susan, my friend, my sister, my surrogate mom, for forcing me to face the inevitable and see it for what it really was. And then stood by ready.
To Steve, who thankfully promised not to send flowers and who summarized my feelings best when he sent me an email saying “you must be fried.”
To “the guys” at my office. Just for being incredibly kind and allowing a tornado of estrogen to rip through their otherwise calm work environment.
To Tony who showed up at the hospital everyday and whose pain was evident. To Sylvia for telling me her dream and to Paula and Michael who were so kind to a cousin they hadn’t seen in 30 years.
To Holly for listening to me with no judgment whatsoever. Sometimes you meet a person for the first time and realize you have known them forever.
To Sandi who got in touch with me because she simply felt something was not right.
To my boy’s teachers who have provided the extra hugs they have needed are but are too young to ask for.
To Kris who took me to see Todd Snider right after I returned from the funeral. She fed me wine and then held on to me while I sobbed through the entire concert.
To Jody who reminded me of the details of the last time I saw my mom.
To Leslie for calling me on my birthday to tell me about a conversation she once had with my mom about me. And to Linda for making me a birthday peach cobbler. Now if I had only been there to eat it . . .
To Inez and Eva for listening and crying along with me every night during those horrible two weeks. I know they hurt as much as I do because they loved her as much as I do.
To Sue for leaving me a message that radiated with her love for me, Todd and the kids. I hope she can feel the love coming right back at her family as she enters into the eye of her own storm.
To Elyse and Audrey, Val and Tiffany, Christina, Michelle, Sarah, Tammy and Krista who I know are ready at a moment’s notice to provide the hugs and distraction that I might need to get me through a little bit longer.
To Carole and Megan, who I know tried their very hardest to find me the answers that I wanted. I am so sorry that they had to make such a difficult phone call.
To Amy, who I only met because of my mom’s passing. She has this tiny little link to my mom that I simply don’t want to lose.
And to those of you who I know only peripherally that took the time to write me and tell me about your own parent’s passing.
To the over two hundred people who loved my mom so much that they stopped everything they were doing to give me a hug and tell me exactly what she meant to them. My mom was adored.
To my sister, with whom I will forever hold onto with a death-grip. I could not get through the next minute if I didn’t know you were there.
When I was in college and poor, I gobbled up a gig that paid the unheard of amount of $30/hour. I had to dress up as a cow for the dairy council and pose with little kids for pictures at the balloon races. It was a huge, stuffy, sweaty, all-out college mascot type suit that I gladly wore for three chilly September mornings. Because it was difficult to see from inside the costume, I made Todd accompany me. He was my eyes and ears - the man behind the . . . Uh, cow. On the last day, during the last hour, a vender who was being bombarded by a crowd of about twenty 10 year olds yelled and pointed.
“Look everyone, there’s the cow! Everyone go say hi to the cow!”
Time all but stopped. Todd and I looked at each other , looked at the mad crowd barreling towards me and looked back at each other once again. For a moment the world moved in slow motion and I began to hear the chariots of fire music playing, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO” Todd yelled. He planted his feet and grabbed me around the waist. With every ounce of energy he had he held me stable while I was attacked by a crowd of wild banshee ten year olds. This earthquake has nothing on my love who is forever refusing to let anyone or anything take me down.
