Hope.

Tonight I had a phone call from my far away girl, and we laughed.

We actually laughed together.

I have cried more tears this past year than I have cried in a lifetime. I have been attending twelve step family support group meetings and every time I am there, I cry. All the tears that I avoid all week come spilling out of my eyeballs like a flood. I am surrounded by people who know exactly what it is like to see someone you love destroy themselves. Wednesday night I felt sad beyond compare.

But tonight, in the midst of a little bit of laughter, I felt a twinge of a feeling I barely recognized.

It was hope, goddammit it.

It was hope.

So Far Away.

"Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the children you have, not the children you thought you would have. It’s about understanding that they are exactly the person they are supposed to be. And that, if you’re lucky, they just might be the teachers who turn you into the person you are supposed to be.” 
                                                                                                                                      -Joan Ryan

When my children were little, they used to give me the usual Mother's Day cards and gifts that they made at school. They were so precious, both the children and the gifts. My then husband was of the hey-you-aren't-MY-mother school of celebration so I used to put those kids in the car and off we would go to Toys R Us and buy a few outdoor summer toys (chalk, balls, jump rope) and then we would spend the day outside, playing our brains out. I have never been the type of mom who said, "I wish I would have enjoyed my kids when they were little," because I was the mom that enjoyed my kids when they were little. The loudness, the silliness, the scraped knees, the long hours we spent in the pool: Those days were fleeting and I knew it. 

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I have tried to finish this post a million times today but I just can't. 

There are no words. Some days there is only survival.

A day made easier by a delicious yellow cake my son made, some pretty earrings, summer slippers, a journal, a CD, and a page colored from a coloring book.

And a phone call from my girl, who seems so far away, it physically hurts. 

Morning Comes and Morning Goes.

If you peeked inside my daughter's kindergarten class you would have seen a bright, lively, well-behaved girl, a little shy, and well-mannered. I will bet you one thousand dollars that if her teacher could have predicted which one of her students would grow up to be an alcoholic and a drug abuser, my daughter's name would have been last on the list. She grew up in a stable family, was tucked into bed and read to nightly, and was both adored and protected.

I always wanted to be a mom. I couldn't wait to have children. I have been in the parenting business for twenty three years. I have a BA in developmental psychology and cognitive development. I have beyond a Master's Degree in School Psychology and Clinical Psychology. I worked in a clinic for two years and I worked in a school for thirteen years, before leaving due to health issues. I have a lot of experience working with parents and children of all ages, and was well-respected in my field. In my real life, people would seek my counsel about their children. My children's friends always felt comfortable talking to me about their life. At one point in my son's elementary school years I had a parent come up to me and say, "I want my child to turn out just like him."

So, what went wrong? 

What did I do wrong?

If my daughter's life is a television series, my brain is its home network and it is on 24/7. I am constantly scanning through the years, examining my behavior. Was I too strict? Not strict enough? Too loose; too structured? I flip through her baby book, I look at old pictures, I stay up until the wee hours of the morning, wondering, wondering, wondering until my head is going to explode. I have searched my heart completely and feel like I did my very best as a parent. Was I perfect? Of course not, I am human. I made a thousand mistakes. But, I kept on trying. I was always in the game. Always.

If you peek inside a private rehab facility near a far away ocean you would see a stunningly beautiful young woman. She is tall and thin with dark brown hair and green eyes. She is shy and well-mannered, and when sober, well-behaved. She is loved by family and friends. She is the funniest person I know and also the most self-destructive. When her history was presented to the rehab, they were reluctant to take her because her behaviors are so out of control when she is under the influence. After they met her they were so surprised to see how lovely she is. 

She is lovely, when she is sober. She hovers at death's doorstep when she isn't. People often ask me if I miss her, since she's been gone. 

And I tell them the truth: I have been missing my daughter for a very long time. 

Her progress has been very slow and I am still fearful for her survival if things don't change. When I am not wandering around the house at midnight, looking for clues from the past, I put my head on the pillow, and I sleep better than I have in years, because I know for tonight she is safe.

Demons Are Prowling.

When I was pregnant with my daughter I used to take a daily walk and listen to music.  I always listened to the Barbra Streisand Broadway album and when it got to the song, " Nothing's Going to Harm You," I would take off the headphones and put them on my stomach so my growing baby could listen. My daughter was born on a cold November day after a difficult labor and delivery. That song became our anthem. My beautiful baby girl.

What a lively, quirky, stunningly beautiful girl. I tell you with sincerity that she was such a beautiful baby and toddler that people would gasp when they saw her. She had wild curly hair, bright blue eyes that morphed into green as she got older, and a smile so bright it could blind the sun. She was a feisty one, my girl. She was busy and talkative and not too cuddly and had a mind of her own. Everyone who knows her says she was born talking and it's true. She was fully conversant before age two and she had strong opinions that she was not too shy to voice. She was my little buddy and I was very protective of her. 

When she was about four years old we moved into our house very close to a playground where my daughter spent much of her childhood playing. On our very first visit, some kid knocked her completely to the ground. I am ashamed (and a little proud) to admit that I grabbed the kid and said, "What the hell is wrong with you?" I was one fierce momma.  DO NOT mess with my kid. Period. 

As she grew up I learned that she had to fight her own battles, but she has so little fight in her. Unless she is fighting me. I have had to step out of the way but the professionals who are treating her, are just as concerned as I am.

I want her to be happy so bad it physically hurts.

I heard "our" song today in the car. I was blinded by my tears. In those early optimistic years of motherhood I had no idea, that the person I would most need to protect my daughter from, was herself.

Lingering Around My Cabin Door.

I search for inspiration to write a blog post.  I start, of course, with To Kill A Mockingbird. I leaf through quotes from Martin Luther King, Emily Dickinson, Aristotle, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin. Nothing hits me. I go through my music library -- surely there is something there that will light a spark. Nope, nothing. I mope around the house. I read the literature from the twelve step family support group. Useful, yes. But not inspiring. I make some soup, bake some muffins, do some laundry. The phone rings. It is a woman from the rehab that my daughter is in. We talk business: billing, insurance, dates. Then she says, "You would not recognize your daughter. She looks tan and healthy and her eyes are bright and just a little bit happier." Another phone call comes in later with a report that there have been ups and downs but today is an up day. Suddenly, the sun seems brighter and my heart is lighter.

There is a saying that says you are only as happy as your unhappiest kid. I am living testimony to this quote. I am trying to change it, but it is very hard for me. I go to counseling and I go to the support groups. I read the literature, over and over and over and over and over, again, hoping the words will seep into my brain and trickle down to my heart. Loving detachment. Codependency. Enabler. Victim. Provoker. The terms and the words swirl in my brain constantly. I get it. I really do. I really try and DO the right thing. I really try and SAY all the right things. But my heart? It's a work in progress. I want her happiness more than anything. I realize it is her road to find it, and I am trying to stay out of the way, for good or bad.

For many years I lost my faith in God. Today, I allow for His existence. I have placed her in His hands. He better not fuck it up.

Amen.

Bright Blessed Days.

In the spring of 1992 I found out I was pregnant with my second child. It was truly an answer to my prayers as I had been diagnosed with secondary infertility. I drove out to my parent's house to share the exciting news. During this visit, my father shared with me a poem he had written after his life long friend died of cancer. The sentiment of the poem was this: Do not grieve for me when I die, plant a tree instead. My father was quite pleased with himself when he showed me this poem and I did what any loving daughter might do when reading a poem about her father speculating about his death: I ridiculed it. I read it aloud, in a dramatic voice, like a movie actress in a very bad dramatic period piece. At the end, I bowed and gave the poem back to my Dad and said, "Well, it's a good thing that YOUR death is like an eternity away."

He died four months later. 

It was sudden and unexpected. I arrived at my mother's house late at night and took my place among the shocked relatives that had gathered there. One of my brothers and I were sitting quietly in the family room when I remembered the poem that my father wrote. I went through some drawers and found it. I gave it to my brother and he read it during my father's eulogy. It brought great comfort to people who felt like they had one last message from my dad.  My sister had the poem printed and framed and it glared at me from the wall in my house, as if it were daring me to ridicule it again.

Its title?

When I Die, Plant a Tree.

A few weeks into autumn, heavy with child, heavy with grief, I stared at the poem and said to my husband, "O.K., let's go buy the goddamn tree." And so we did.

I told no one in my family. I invited them to my mother's house to pick the pumpkins my father had planted for the grandchildren. I prepared a bit of a ceremony with a few readings, one from Romeo and Juliet and one from Aeschylus. It was a beautiful, sunny October day. We gathered in the back yard, did the readings, and planted the goddamned tree. The music played and I said goodbye to my dad, in my own way, for the last time, and I shut the door on grief.

Except I learned that you can't shut the door on grief. I would say good-bye to my father one hundred times more over the next twenty years. You never stop missing someone you love. 

There was so much pain after he died, for my mom, for my siblings, for the grandchildren, and for me, the baby of the family and the twinkle in his eye. (Thorn in his side.)

But in the midst of that sadness was beauty. When I think of my father dying, I remember a sunny afternoon in October when I did exactly as he asked, in the poem borne from his own grief.

I planted a tree.

Now when I think of my father's wake and funeral, I don't instantly recall the church and the sobbing ride to the cemetery. I think of pumpkins, autumn leaves, and Louis Armstrong.

As years pass, maybe grief diminishes and in its place stands the unexpected beauty we find in it.

Today, in the midst of overwhelming sadness, confusion, and grief, I had a very unexpected kindness. It touched my heart in a way that I can't quite yet put into words. I hope as time goes by, that what I will remember about this snowy April day, is that we are all more alike than different and that someone out there understands what it is I am trying to say.

This post is for you, dear reader.

God bless you.

I wish you good health and every happiness your lovely heart deserves. 

We Don't Know Where.

Today I told my son that I had not written a blog post since last Wednesday.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I cannot think of anything to say."

"Maybe that's a good thing," he said.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I think it means that I am still in a bit of shock, trying to find the calm after the storm.

Today I saw the news about the bombing at the Boston Marathon. I didn't watch it for too long. My cup is already filled with sadness and it does not have room for one more drop.

Sometimes life is just heartbreaking.

For everyone.







Simon and Garfunkel. The Only Living Boy in New York.