Argyle Socks!

Okay, I shouldn't have done it. I tried really hard not to open my mouth. But...
I was on a serious sock shopping mission and heard a young mother in the next aisle telling her young child "If you talk like that again, you know what will happen!" He asked, "What?" and she said "A smack in the mouth!" And she was serious. He asked, innocently enough, "But why, because I'm just trying to tell you something, Mommy." She was busy on the phone and talking to her friend who was also with her so her son was more of a nuisance at that point.
"Not my business!" I said to myself. But then she came around the corner, cute little four year old boy hanging on the side of the cart, chattering away, "What's that, what's this for, Mommy?" His two year old baby sister was in the cart seat babbling as well. Sure, it can be overwhelming in her situation, but she didn't even appear to even like them. I actually felt a pang of some sort so I physically put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't say what I was thinking. I tried, I really tried... But then, she said, slowly and loudly,
 "So now, I want you to just - stop - talking because I am tired of hearing what you - are - saying."
Without another thought except for your voice in my head saying "Now, Mama, now!", off fly my hands and I went to her and explained it may not be my business and she could tell me to you-know-what, but that I had just lost my daughter and told her I would give anything, anything to have you talking to me, even if it was stuff I didn't want to hear. She just looked at me, so I continued. (I know, I know, I am getting too old to filter my thoughts sometimes!) "And" I continued, "What they are hearing is that you don't want to listen to them about anything." Her friend spoke up and said, "They're too young to remember this!" And I said, "But she will continue to say it so they will learn it well. You only have them for such a little time when they are young. And please don't be mad at them because I spoke to you. I only mean well." (Then I made a hasty exit!)
I hope you were just listening and smiling and maybe helping to safely hasten my exit.
I spend many hours at night reliving conversations with you from ones I loved, ones you loved, ones I wish we could have changed, ones that I don't know how they were received, ones that made us both cry, ones that had us laughing. I would give anything for another conversation with one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and thought-provoking human beings I ever knew.
I even miss our funny weather conversations from Fair Oaks to June Lake.
Summertime: "Oh my God, Mama, it is 72 degrees here. I hate this heat!" to which I'd reply, "Honey, it's 110 degrees here today!"
Wintertime: "Kenna, it's so cold, it's 40 degrees!" and you'd scoff and say, "Yeah? Try -14 degrees and shoveling snow, Mama!"
I even miss you telling me you were outside late at night next to your front door taking pictures of the bear trying to break into the trash container. I'd plead for you to go back in to be safe. You were never afraid of animals, not even the ones you should have been afraid of. Guess it wasn't the animals we should have feared, was it?
I especially miss the annual calls when you hit a deer. You reset your odometer every time to see how long it would be before the next one. How we all lived there forever and never hit one, but you, the lover and defender of all animals great and small, managed to find so many with your front bumper. "God, Mama, I hit another deer!" you'd cry over your cell phone on the highway, then abruptly end with "Gotta go!" and leave me hanging with worry. What I'd give to just worry about that again.
But what I miss most is when I'd say "I love you Kenna!" and you'd say "Yeah, yeah, yeah..." but  you'd sneak in a "Love you, too."
P.S. I bought you a pair of lavender and purple argyle socks. Stay warm.

Gifts

I've received many incredible gifts throughout my life and hope I never take them for granted. My family, my friends, my work, my art, my history...
One of my first memories was the playhouse that Dad built for us when we lived in Palos Verdes. It was a magical place where we played, cooked, and built anything our hearts desired. I was always a little jealous of Mike's real tools but didn't realize I could ask for my own. When I was 55, (Yes, really!) I did ask for tools so Dad got me a tool belt and tools for Christmas! (I wonder if Mike ever asked for a Betsy Wetsy doll?) This "playhouse" was like a miniature home. In fact, future owners turned it into a guest house! When we moved to the mountains and had to say goodbye, I remember missing that house. In Mammoth, Dad built us our own little A-frame houses next to the little stream on our property. I loved mine and have such wonderful memories of playing in them, having my friends for sleepovers outdoors and trying to scare each other, Luau celebrations in the pines, and drawing and painting to my heart's content.
I received the lifelong gifts of loving music, writing and art from my mom. I can still hear her typing away late into the night and early morning hours as she wrote her weekly newspaper columns. (Funny thought just struck me, here I am typing this in the wee hours of the morning...) (although the soft tapping of a laptop keyboard sounds nothing like the sound of the clickety-clack of an electric typewriter!) I remember laying on the floor in front of the large stereo cabinet with the red light at the bottom. I'd stare into that light while listening to vinyl recordings of Charles Aznavour, Sarah Vaughn, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Mitch Miller, Burl Ives, Pat Boone, soundtracks from The Sound of Music, The King and I, and imagining scenes from movies or making up elaborate ones of my own. Chores were always accompanied by "turn up the stereo" music! Of course, now when I hear Dean Martin, I have this Pavlovian need to vacuum, although as you know, I am good at not answering that call! Many of the things I love to do stem from the gifts Mom gave all of us.
I received the gift of a strong work ethic from my dad. Did you know I've worked since I was 12 and never had time off? When you left us, it was the first summer I had not worked. Dad showed me how important it is to love what you do, do what you love and take pride in your talents and accomplishments! Dave and Roma McCoy gave me the gift of seeing what a good and decent employer can be when they put their trust in Dad. Amazing people!
Pam gave me the gift of what growing up gracefully should look like and living life to the fullest. She gave me the gift of having Dad around still today because she changed the course of his life, and ours. She and Dad gave me a most precious gift that they don't even know they did when they opened their home to you as refuge from the storm, when they held your hand when I couldn't, and when they loved and admired and respected you every minute of your life. I treasure that gift beyond words.
My Grandma and Grandpa Rake gave me the gift of acceptance. I know my Grandpa loved me more that anything in the world and would have taken a bullet for any of us. My Grandma was the one I called when I wanted to fix my lavender colored gravy or make tapioca or talk to when I had to leave your father. They gave us the gift of wonderful summers on Lake Isabella. Before that, we always looked forward to staying with them in Inglewood and getting out the change jar under the kitchen sink, rolling the coins in wrappers and going to the bank together.
My Grandma and Grandpa Cook showed me that even after tragedy, people can move ahead and love again. (But that was, of course, before you. Now I know what it really took for them to do so.) And they showed me what grandparents are really all about! One time I was playing on the sidewalk with my little wind-up dog Grandpa had given me. It would take a few steps, jump over backwards and land on its feet! When an older kid in their neighborhood ran over it with his bike, on purpose, I was as crushed as that little metal and fake fur toy dog. Well, you do not want to mess with a grandchild of Eddie and Naomi Cook because they both went after that boy, hauled him back, made him apologize and sent him to the store to buy me a new dog! Take that, bullies of the world!
My brothers gave me the gift of learning to be tough by kicking with my feet when they would try to punch me in the arm. They taught me that being the only girl was the best thing ever! Mike taught me how to drive my little Bug in in one afternoon! He also taught me how to be fearless when you just really want to learn to dance and sing and not worry about what anyone else thinks, although he really did care, but he was brave that night at the local dance in Kernwood. Like you, my big brother has always been my hero. And when people point out my shortcomings, even with good intentions, he always has my back! (And, come to think of it, he always had yours, didn't he?)
My little brother Patrick gave me the gift of knowing how humor and the absurd can be important in our lives. When he was 9 or 10, he started with the "Which would you rather have happen, fall out of an airplane without a parachute, or get cut in half by a speedboat?" bit! (To which we would always say, "Neither!" and he would insist we had to pick!) He was the original Dennis the Menace and stills lives every moment like that kid! He also taught me to be fearless! He passed that on to our little brother Andy, as well.
My baby brother Andy taught me what would be the most important lessons for my journey into motherhood. He was the sweetest, most affable, adorable and talented little boy. Kenton reminds me of him in so many ways. Andy was a joy from the minute he joined our family. Grandpa Rake told me that when he saw him through the little window in the Bishop hospital (where Kameron was later born. Oh, wow, I just made that connection!), "his heart just skipped a beat and he had to take a deep breath". I can still hear his words and see that big smile on his face. I was fourteen when Andy was born and took care of him often. (It was also a good reason to skip school because Mom needed a babysitter, but don't tell anybody, please!) I learned about diapers and bottles and hugs and kisses and even how to stop a bloody nose with Jello! And I learned what unconditional love from someone younger than you means. I got to be someone's hero, if only for a short time!

But, bar none, the greatest gift I ever received, or ever will, was the gift of being a mother to three amazing human beings. You came and changed everything in a heartbeat and then I realized why I was here. I don't know who is in charge of pairing up babies and mommies, but I got in the right line every time! I loved everything about it, being pregnant, the births (even Kameron's 36 hours, your 18 hours  and Kenton's 18 hours of those apparently traditional two-minute apart contractions!) Worth every second! All my "greatest hits" are the amazing soundtracks with my little family playing happily in my head.
But you, my sweet baby girl, you were a special gift. On my 28th birthday, you started your journey to join us. But, like the Kenna you were, you had different plans even then and maybe didn't want to share a birthday. (I never liked that idea for babies, either!) So, early the next morning, February 11, 1980, you arrived. And that was quite a story in itself. But I think I'll save that until our birthdays.
I love you, little Snoozie girl, I miss everything about you, but I am on-my-knees-thankful every minute for every laugh, every tear, every hug, every kiss, every note, every smile, every hair color, every sly look, every "everything"...
Goodnight my love,
Mama

Understanding Love

  I pulled into my driveway and her car was there. For that split second of twilight, between hope and stark reality, I let out my breath; knowing she was home and it had all been a cruel dream.

  My mother once said she was willing to give up having her most wonderful dreams come true in order for the terrible ones not to come to fruition.

  Would I trade this pain to have never experienced one moment with my daughter? Never. If someone said it could have been me to go and not her, would I trade? In a heartbeat. Anything to spare her brothers’ from this unspeakable pain. My loss to them would be sad but would fit more in the natural course of life. My passing would not be as unbearable as the loss of their sister in such a devastating way.

  Her younger brother said he would have to live with her loss the longest. Her older brother felt the joy in life was now out of his reach. How could I argue any of that at this time? What hope was there to soften this blow? Every thing else in our lives, no matter how difficult, had been what we knew to be surmountable, but not this. I had nothing to give, just words that felt so hollow.

  She considered it for many years, but we all thought it was a cry for help and tried to offer her that. Hospital stays, treatments, counselors and still the memories of that brutal attack on a naive seventeen-year-old girl persisted to haunt her waking and sleeping moments. “I wish I could be one of those made-for-television movie women who turn it around and save the world, but I just can’t”, she’d cry when she knew that was what others thought she would do.

  She seemed happy toward the end and everyone thought she was doing better. She was doing better, for us. But underneath that beautiful gapped-tooth smile and sarcastic, sardonic humor we all loved, lived a broken young women.

  The saddest words I ever heard were when I said “A penny for your thoughts?” and she didn’t add her usual, “Inflation, Mama!” but simply spoke volumes as she whispered, “It used to be so easy to be me.”

  When she decided leaving this earth was the answer she needed, she took time to explain it to each of us in handwritten letters.

  We sat together to read her last words, right out in the hot summer sun in front of the coroner’s office on a busy street downtown, a place no mother or brother should ever have to visit.

  We opened the envelopes addressed to each of us.

  In my letter, she explained why this world had no more to offer her. She was sorry to cause us such pain and that I, of all people, knew how much she was hurting, but that I didn’t know what she saw when she closed her eyes at night and what was waiting there when she awoke every day.  She asked to have her ashes spread near her favorite lake in the mountains when the leaves changed color in the fall. A poem by Longfellow was included in the envelope that she wished to have read aloud. When I read her carefully chosen words, I suddenly knew what courage it had taken to do what she had done. Many would say suicide is an act of selfishness, a cowardly way out of a temporary problem. I may have thought so until it happened to my only daughter. She put it in words that no mother should have to hear, but she did so bravely, and with what I knew at that moment to be love.

  As we finished reading our own letters, no one spoke. There was only the sound of soft crying that seemed to drown out the city traffic noise. Without talking, we all just passed our letter to the one next to us, and silently read on.

  I opened her younger brother’s letter and the first line was “You were always my favorite.” Through the thick fog of grief so fresh, my first priority was now on shielding my boys from more pain, and I immediately thought, how will her older brother feel when he reads this? Her big brother, her protector, not her favorite? How could he not be crushed on top of being broken-hearted?

  It was when I read the next one, the letter to him, that I felt pure love rush through me with such intensity, I knew she had gotten it right while she was here, even for such a short time.

  She had carefully thought all of this through, and knew that her openness would help us deal with her loss. Alone and at her worst moment, she still thought of her family and the unique relationship she had with each of us. She wanted to leave us with this unconditional love. I should have had more faith in her. I almost smiled through my tears as I read her first line to him “You were always my hero.” 

                                                       

Heartbroken

I know others have if far worse than us, but today, I just can't imagine who that might be.