Soul Mosaic

2015-2019 A whole new life

Virginia became a time that appears to have given Mom fun in life. Closer to family, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, it was a time she was still healthy and active enough to do things.

Sometimes, especially when she first moved from Pennsylvania, she was kind of grumpy and refused to participate in things, even things she loved. I suspect that was payback for moving her. And…I can appreciate that after Dad died, she was living on her terms in Pennsylvania. While it was life, age, and health that forced this change, I can understand if she just folded her arms and refused to be happy about things. And no doubt being closer to one of us probably cramped her style…which also no doubt worked both ways.

But gradually, she did begin to make her peace with things and found her new normal. She LOVED IHOP and their crepes. Right to the end, we could always get her to eat crepes, even as she wasn’t interested in other things anymore. Frozen yogurt was another favorite, and she was never without a crossword puzzle book. The day she died, she was still trying to work a puzzle even as she just stared at the page. There were hours working jigsaw puzzles until her eyes started to fail her, and her back hurt too much.

She ferociously rooted for her New England Patriots – and we knew never to call her if they lost. And we even got her out to Colonial Williamsburg for old times’ sake. She even climbed up into the carriage to ride around the grounds. I could see her joy as she just watched various things go by, and periodically she would remember something about a family trip from the past.

“Frozen detente”

Yet, it was still difficult.

What might she have been?

I look at my mother’s early photos, and always, I see joy. Maybe there were other things beneath that smile, which led her to him. Whatever it was, that sealed her fate.

Once he was in her life, she lived in his shadow. Yielded to his will. Was belittled by his words and terrorized by his fists.

In all the years I knew her, there had always been a “him” between us. Never just HER. Now that he was gone, what would our relationship be like? And who would she be now?

Photo by author

Before I move beyond my father’s death and on to my mother’s last days, I wanted to repost a piece for those who may not have seen this.

This is the first post I did for this memoir, and it is about the last time I saw my father before he died.

For those who have already read this, you can move on. For those who never saw it, here it is:

Post: Dad – The Last Conversation

I don’t like your father…

It was one of the visits to Pennsylvania. We were having lunch with my parents at their neighborhood’s community center across the street from their house. Every few weeks, the center would put on a full-course meal complete with salad and dessert bars. It was always a great spread, so my mother would always get tickets for it, especially if any of us were visiting.

I let everyone else go ahead and get their food, then I headed for the salad bar. Intent on scooping a ladle full of black olives, my favorite, I was oblivious to this older woman standing near me until I turned to move on.

“Are you the ones here to visit your parents?”

It was not an uncommon question, as word travels fast in a retirement community if someone different is there. And it was always considered a “status symbol” to have your family visit.

So I smiled and answered that yes, my husband and I were visiting, and who my parents were.

But I should have known she already knew who my parents were. That information spreads quickly, too. As soon as I answered, without missing a beat, she said to me, “I don’t like your father. I like your mother. But not your father.”

This period was a “status-quo” one – mostly a continuation of the progress and healing that began in 2009.

Our son

Whatever Ed and I were struggling with, we had worked hard to keep it from affecting our son. He was doing well, which was a relief to both of us.

It had been great having him back in the state for college, even as we didn’t see him that much. He savored his classes in German literature and was busy participating in drama productions, clubs, and fund-raising and social service activities.

By 2012, he had finished his undergraduate degree program and had been accepted to a Master’s degree program in Higher Education Administration at another local university. But first, he earned the chance to intern for the summer at a university in Germany in their higher education administration department. It was a rare chance, so he delayed starting the graduate classes and quickly accepted the internship.

He apparently had written his entire application in German, and between that and whatever he wrote to them, that was all the German university needed to decide he was their choice. On his return, while he waited to start his classes, he spent several months working, first in a local home-improvement store, operating forklifts, and then driving a recycling truck for a university — whatever it took to save up some money. He was finding his way in life and making the most of every opportunity life sent him.

Ed and I

FINALLY!!! A totally FUN and joyous entry to write!

Just like that Robert Frost poem – Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood….

We were in the midst of Ed’s health struggles. I was volunteering at the science museum and LOVING it. But still, there was no immediate chance for a job, and only a long shot for some future positions when the new museum wing construction was finished…in about a year.

Bills were mounting. And I was that responsible, oldest child raised in an immigrant culture that drilled into you to always be working. “Get a job. Now! Earn as much money as you can.” It was understandable. They lived at the edge of life, hunger, and poverty. And while our current situation wasn’t like that, still, it wasn’t that flush. And any savings were hard-earned and weren’t going to last. I needed a job.

So when a colleague who ran her own pharmaceutical research-services company kept inviting me to work for her, it seemed like the right thing to do. It made total sense. She wanted me there. My whole background fit what she needed. And I had been floundering over what to do next with my life. It was the logical thing to do…on paper.

Given all that, I started making plans to take the job. I would be a contractor for her, and no question, she would compensate me very well. The last thing I had to do was set up my liability insurance, and then start earning my keep again.

The quotes came in. I filled out the forms. All I had to do was sign them and submit them. It was like that moment-of-truth scene you see in all the movies, where the person’s hand hovers over the form, pen closing in on the bottom line. But in my “movie,” every single fiber in my body screamed, “Don’t do it!”

It was absurd. My husband was killing himself at his job. We needed me to work at something that could bring in money. I loved the museum, but I had no right to pass this job up. I couldn’t do that to him. Who did I think I was? Yet, I just…couldn’t…sign…that…form.

Finally, I went to Ed. “I can’t do this. I just can’t do this work anymore.”

He looked at me with an expression of “it’s about time,” and said, “I know.”

Prayer from the Reform Siddur (prayer book) – Mishkan T’Filah

This is an hour of change.
Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light.
Shall we draw back or cross over?
Where shall our hearts turn?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?
This is the hour of change, and within it,
we stand quietly
on the border of light.
What lies before us?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?

Why Judaism?

So why did a born-and-raised, formerly devoted Catholic, with an aunt who was a nun and two uncles who were priests, go to a rabbi and ask to join “The Tribe?”

Maybe that journey was like the name of my blogs: Soul Mosaic. Not any one thing, but a creation made of so many small and diverse pieces accumulated along the way? An image formed slowly that became impossible to ignore?

The mosaic pieces were scattered all through my life:

In Ed’s own words…

While I could give the exact list of all the ways we researched, investigated, and pursued answers to help Ed, and while I could certainly say it was a hard time for him, nothing gives the portrayal of what Ed went through as powerfully as his own words.

Ten years after he nearly died, he wrote a piece for his blog to reflect on what those years were like. Rather than me paraphrasing, with his permission, here are his observations from that time.

Soon, he will be writing the “Twenty Years Later” piece, and I will share that as well.

And I will say that amazing things can happen when you refuse to give up. No, it’s not perfect. He has worked so hard, and it isn’t easy. But still, ten years after the “ten years” assessment, he is in a much different, much better place. And we are so grateful.

But right now…2016.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Opening the Door

“Today marks the tenth anniversary of the day I failed to die. I call December 12th my “life day” and have celebrated it, in my own quiet way, each and every year.

But “life day” is a phrase that fails to capture the full import of that time: it speaks of victory, of a foe vanquished, of death avoided (well, to the extent we all avoid it.)

But that’s not the whole story.

Yes, my life day is the day I cheated death. But it’s also the day the person I once was started to die.

The departure of that “presence”

Just as I had a lot of work to do to piece myself back together emotionally, Ed, too, was waging his own battles, physically and emotionally at the same time. But at least we were starting to work together to pull each other out of the darkness. And the word “darkness” doesn’t even come close to describing his ultimate dark place at that point…that “presence,” just off to his periphery.

At the worst of that time for him, that deepest, suicidal point, he could feel a constant “companion,” a black depression that was so crushingly real it felt like a living, breathing entity standing right at his elbow.

“It was right there, just out of my sight, off to the side. I felt like if I could just turn around fast enough, I would see that dark form standing right by my side. My peripheral vision was just frightening DARKNESS. Like I could touch it. It was ALWAYS right there.”

To this day, whenever he speaks about those days, I can see intense fear in his eyes and a deep revulsion in his facial expression. It is the expression of someone who came so close to the edge of a cliff that it still scares him to think about.

Blinded by the fog

If there were a painting to depict a large chunk of my life, it would be this one. In looking back over the entries now, I can see how many periods of challenges there were, sometimes a few at the same time. There were also places of joy and calm — and we made our joy in any given moment. But always lurking just out of sight was the question of what might happen or be needed next.