December 20th

Just in case anyone checks in to see how my girls are doing, here they are. This photo was taken on the morning of December 20th, 2011, shortly before Eliza's holiday concert at school. Our Christmas was fragmented but wonderful. As always, the good moments pass by far too quickly. I'm trying to savor as much of these two weeks away from work as I can. Happy 2012 to anyone out there who might read this or who has ever checked in on me and my wonderful, amazing, fabulous girls.

He Will Fill Us With Goodness and Light

I could summarize my life in the two months since I've written but I imagine that's dull. November is always a busy month. My birthday passes, I add another year to my body clock and this year I definitely look it. I'm much too focused on Eliza's birthday on the 21st to pay too much attention to my own.

This year, my grandmother decided to die on November 11th. She was 97. She passed peacefully exactly 8 months after her husband of 70-something years (we all stopped counting and I'm not good at math). She was in such bad shape at my grandfather's funeral it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. But there she was, her head cocked at a weird angle in the open casket, her skin cold to the touch. That really did me in, how cold she was. My grandmother didn't like to be cold.

I started to cry and looked for a blanket to put on top of her. But I didn't, I figured everyone would look at me like I was a freak. Didn't I know she was dead? She's supposed to feel cold. Hey, be happy kid, she made it to 97. Most people don't make it that long.

I should have called her more. I should have taken Elena to see her more than one time. Elena's resemblance to my mother was confirmed by everyone who saw her at the funeral parlor. Friends from my mother's childhood followed Elena around like they were looking at some kind of ghost from yesteryear. When Elena was a baby, she wasn't quite the clone of my mother that she is now. We had hoped to get there when she was alive and in my own selfish imagination, I pictured my grandmother seeing Elena and briefly, so briefly, getting the opportunity to relive her youth. I thought she'd see Elena and in her demented, fragile state, think she was looking at my mother, all young and beautiful and full of promise, before being ravaged by all kinds of illnesses.

But she died before we got there. I went to O'Connor's Funeral Home and St. Stephen's Church for perhaps the last time. St. Stephen's where my grandparents and all three of their children were married. Where my Eliza was baptized so they could bear witness. Where my Uncle Mimi and so many other relatives were Eulogized. St. Stephen's is a huge, beautiful, historic church. It is in danger of being shut down, like the rest of the area that surrounds it. Once a bustling, lively section of Pittsburgh, Hazelwood is now a sea of broken down houses and boarded up shops. Even Dimperios, the Italian market, is finally closed.

After the funeral, I asked my Uncle to drive past my grandparents house and he did. I looked at the long steps leading to the front door, the big hill, the green awnings with the single white stripes on each end. I remembered my grandfather's garden in the backyard and the railroad apartment on the first floor we ran through as kids when it was rented out. The chime of the doorbell and the sound of going up the steps. I turned 40 the year my grandfather finally left that house. the last time I was there was in 2007, the year he turned 100. So much of my life was spent behind that heavy front door.

With the passing of my grandparents goes an entire world. They were the glue that held us all together. Now we are all spread out. At my grandmother's funeral, I read two short letters she'd written to me over the years. It was so special to bring her voice back to life. One of the letters recounted her joy at the birth of my cousin's son Dominic more than 10 years ago. It was truly a special moment to look out at my cousin that day and relive my grandmother's happiness over her newest and quite possibly favorite great grandchild. My cousin has a drinking problem now. If my mother new the details of her current situation, she'd be crushed. I don't even know if I'll see this cousin again.

Eliza broke down and started sobbing heavily during the funeral mass. I was overwhelmed, unsure of how to comfort her. I asked her why she was crying and she said "I miss great grandma." Eliza hardly knew my grandmother so I found this hard to believe. I think her breakdown may have come from exhaustion or from the fact that we were seated back far away from the cousins she longed to play with. But I held her and shushed her and stopped crying myself because I have a job still and that's to take care of my kids. But maybe the whole spectre of death, the finality of that body in the casket, really got to her. Watching her and my mother, so tired and sick from chemo, interact in the hotel between funeral home visits, I can see my own daughter's fear of her grandmother's passing. On the day before the funeral, my mother spread out the comics on the bed of the hotel room and told Eliza how she used to lay the comics out on the floor at her own grandmother's house and listen to a radio program.

For Eliza's birthday, my mother wrapped her gift in comic newspaper pages. Eliza was delighted. Grandmother's are so important.

My mother is superstitious and says things always happen in threes. I barked at her when she said this but there it is, my grandfather and grandmother within the same year and my mother with pancreatic cancer. Who knows who's next but I do know this, it seems to have taken on some kind of domino effect lately. Death is a part of life blah, blah. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Looking ahead to Christmas, I had cards made with photos of the girls for the first time. I chose five happy photos of them on the beach, picking apples, and climbing cherry trees. I quoted the Christmas Carol "Do you hear what I hear" on the card, this part:

Said the king to the people everywhere,

Listen to what I say.

Pray for peace, people everywhere.

Listen to what I say!

The child, the child, sleeping in the night

he will bring us goodness and light,

he will bring us goodness and light.

I would like to think my grandmother would be happy about my sending cards, about being polite and keeping in touch with relatives she and I share. I wish she was still alive to see the card, to see my kids. I wish I'd had kids younger so she could have been healthier and enjoyed them more.

But mostly I just hope to move forward and love who I love now and enjoy each day the best I can because life unfortunately, is fleeting.

Depressed

Life is tough for many people. I am lucky to have work, to have two beautiful, healthy daughters. My babysitter cares for them and the girls are happy. I have the freedom to earn money and not worry too much about my girls. I work with great people and I can't complain about the salary.

I tell myself over and over again to be happy, to love my life. Life goes by so quickly, we must savor it and not get too worked up over the little things.

But the thing is, I never made it to the cheerleading squad. Perhaps if I had, I'd be perkier, more resilient less to feel like I'm being hammered.

My job is tough. Every day is at 10-13 hours. I report to work every day at 6:30am and only have a half hour break for lunch. We rehearse, we shoot, I do a fair amount of time consuming paperwork, I have a fair amount of questions aimed towards me and then we finish and I go home. I often don't drink as much water as I should because going to the bathroom can be a challenge when we rehearse and shoot as much and as fast as we do. There are moments of down time but not much. This is a six day work week. Last week, we ended with night shoots so we finished work at 7am on Saturday, only to report to work at 6:30am on Sunday. Over the "weekend" I volunteered at Eliza's school fundraiser, went to the grocery store, did laundry, looked over Eliza's school papers, planned the week's menu for the girls, and discussed this job with the woman who is covering me for one day.

In the meantime, my mother is going through chemo. She drives herself to and from her appointments because she has no one willing or available to drive her. She needs to return to the doctor tomorrow for some kind of shot (her platelets are down) but she's too weak to drive herself and has no one to drive her. I offered to pay for a cab (what's the point of working, right?) but she refused, saying she's in pain and might yell and doesn't want to do that in front of a stranger. Oh sure, there are some volunteer services who offer rides out there but you have to give them at least a week's notice and they kind of come on their own timetable which I'll admit is understandable considering they're volunteering their time for free.

My mother is a wonderful person and she has to fight this battle largely on her own. People have jobs, they have families, they live far away. It's not that she has no one who cares for her, it's just that there's no one available right now. Life in today's world is exceptionally hard for people without immediate family nearby, a spouse, a neighborhood support system. I look at her life and I see what mine will look like, if I'm fortunate to live as long as she has. I don't mean to make her cancer all about me but I can't help but go there. My mother's brother died from pancreatic cancer and now she has it. My mother has had cancer three times. Ask the doctors, they'll start spouting my statistics, how I'm kind of likely to get it.

I'll be going to my appointments alone because I have no one. Sure, I have friends and people who care about me but I can't even find some one to have dinner with let alone ask for help if I really need it. All my friends know what's going on in my life right now--has anyone offered to take me out and cheer me up? Babysit my kids for a few hours? Check in on my mom or even send a freakin card?

I don't want to turn this into some kind of pity party but those are the facts. I see people all the time, most of my friends in fact, married with spouses who might not be the greatest but who are THERE. With siblings they might not like all the time but who show up for Thanksgiving dinner.

I love my daughters and I'm so grateful to have them but why couldn't their father have cared about me enough to be a partner. I remember saying to him once that he had this moment to be a man and decide what he wanted and he did. He decided he wanted me. Why couldn't he decide to stay with me instead of disintegrating into the jerk he's become. The guy I met was a better guy than that. It may of been brief but it was there.

But anyway, I digress. It's late and I have to be up at 5:30am. I'm tired and there's still three more days left in this week. Snow is in the forecast already and it looks like winter will be starting to bear down. And when the snow falls and my car is buried under several feet of snow who will help me out?

that's right, there's no one.

I Miss My Babies

Eliza's learning to read. She's been "reading" short words and phrases for close to a year but now she's really reading entire sentences and getting it. She's reading short stories for kids and finding them fun or interesting. At night, she often has assignments to read short two page stories with her parents. Unlike every other kid in her class, Eliza reads these short stories to the babysitter. Tonight she read a little to me over the phone and it was great, I loved it, I loved how happy she sounded. And then I cried about how much I'm missing.

I'm on a good job. I get to work with good people. I get paid a decent salary. The hours are long, the work is tough but most days I have a lot of fun. But I leave before my girls are awake and I get home after they've gone to bed. Last week I got to see the girls during the day because we had three consecutive night shoots. On Saturday, we finished work shortly before 7am, I raced home, had a decent morning with the girls and then volunteered for a few hours at Eliza's school fundraiser. I came home and spend a nice afternoon and evening with the girls and went to bed early to get myself back on a day schedule. As exhausting as it all was, at least I got to see my girls.

I'm not feeling so well this week and the babysitter is younger and healthier. The girls seem happy with her and I find that it's easier for me to be at work sick then at home with the girls. But I miss them, I miss them, I miss them. They also have us working Saturday this week so I won't really see or spend any quality time with my girls for six full days. This is the longest I've gone without seeing them awake. It's only Tuesday and the week in front of me feels endless.

I miss my girls, I miss my girls, I miss my girls. Elena is exploding with language--all kinds of fun stuff coming out of her mouth and I can't remember any of it. I can't record much more than her favorite phrase "I can't like this" whenever I try to get her to eat something healthy. It's so cute and when I tried to remember it and quote it to the babysitter, she filled in the blank words I couldn't remember. At this point in time, my sitter of 6 weeks knows my kids better than I do. She gets to hear how well Eliza reads, work on her spelling words with her and tuck them into bed every night.

I miss my girls, I miss my girls, I miss my girls. I tell myself this is temporary. This show will stop shooting in March and if I make it that far I won't have to work for a long time. I get to work with good people! I get to have some fun! My job ends! What about the poor moms who have to work every day and hate their jobs? I'm so much better off than they are, right, my life is wonderful!

I see the big picture and I know it's a good one. But right now, all I have is the week in front of me, pages of a script beside my and little girls in bed, the sound of the sleeping breath all I get to hear.

My Mama

Pancreatic cancer is the number one cancer killer. It's not number one based on how many people die from it (more people are diagnosed with colon cancer) it's just number one in the sense that if you get it, it kills you.

With the recent death of Steve Jobs, pancreatic cancer is all over the news. The statistics are grim. Most people diagnosed with it die within 12 months of diagnosis, by the time you have symptoms it's too late, blah blah, blah blah. I keep remember the title of a James Morrison biography I read in 8th grade, "No One Here Gets Out Alive." It could be the sing outside the door at a pancreatic cancer clinic.

Having said that, I'm in complete denial when it comes to the idea that pancreatic cancer is the number one cancer killer and that my mother has it. She says she feels better than she has in years. I believe it, end of story. She's going out more, she's happier, she's enjoying life a little more. She's still pretty tired and doesn't do much. But she's doing some things like going to the Walk Far for Autism Research yesterday.

She told me yesterday that she feels great, that the cancer was in there making her sick and now it's gone. Call it denial, call it a coping mechanism, call it whatever you like. Mom feels better and for now we are going with it. Now that she realizes her days may be numbered, she's actually letting me photograph her. So here's one of her with my two girls from the walk yesterday. Notice the way my older girl is draped across her because man oh man, does that kid love my mom. And then notice the similar facial features between my mom and the little one.

Let this photo just be one of many.

Working Hard

I'm not quite halfway through week three at work. As far as jobs go, this is a good one. It's exhausting. I'm still recovering from the early wake up Monday for the long commute in. My full-time sitter started yesterday and so far the first two days seem to be okay. She's very young (23) and that worries me. Though she seems pretty smart and has a lot of experience with kids, I'm not sure she knew what she was in for when she signed up for this gig. Week after week, this is going to be tough for her.

The first two weeks the girls were cared for by C and his mother. Everyone enjoyed their time together and I felt comfortable knowing the girls were with people who love them.

I'd like to take this job the distance but it all depends on the girls, my mother's health and how well the babysitter cares for the girls. I should pass the requirement for my health insurance this week, and start to earn towards my next quarter next week.

I miss the girls terrible, especially at night. The weekends are tough too with far too many errands and not enough fun time. With C coming on Sundays, I really feel like I don't have enough time to catch up with my wonderful girls. I am also worried about Eliza in her new school but that is a subject for another day entirely.

I have to get up pretty early so I'm going to sign off for now. Wish me luck in the upcoming months.

Farewell Beloved Summer

Three, four years ago, maybe, another labor day weekend at the Jersey Shore. C and I were still together but I came to Jersey to visit my mother alone. That last Sunday night of summer, before I had to pack up to return to New York and I loaded Eliza into the car around dusk, driving south just looking for the perfect playground, the perfect place to say good-bye to this wonderful summer.

But I never found it. I did find an odd playground with a spaceship like structure. It was practically dark by then but that didn't stop me from getting her out of the car, from dragging her through the playground to dig out one last memory of my favorite season that always goes by too fast.

Oh the heat gets to me and the summer tourist crowds. The mosquito bites, the sand in the diapers, the sunscreen that seems to go on like Elmer's glue: oh it all gets to me. Summer is far from perfect. But there's nothing better like the sheer joy of just slipping a pair of sandals onto your child's feet. There's no pesky sox to match, no jackets to wrestle on. the days are long and the nights cool and fragrant.

Like every summer, I've wrestled to enjoy every last drop. Going outside to chase fireflies, evening walks to the beach, tea parties on the back porch, pitchers of ice tea and visits to every ice cream shop: I've done it all. There are a few things we didn't get to; another trip to Six Flags, Storybook Land, the water park in Colts Neck. But this week I did manage to cross "picnic" and "outdoor movie" off my list.

This summer's end is particularly bittersweet. I'm going back to work full-time. Tonight I tucked my girls in for the last time this week. Tomorrow, I'll take them to my father's while I head up to New York for the night. We won't be finished until after the girls are in bed and we'll start long before they wake up. It's likely that I won't see them awake until Saturday. The weekend will fly by and then Monday starts the cycle all over again. I tell myself this is what I have to do in order to pay the rent and have health insurance. I'm lucky in this economy to have work that pays well enough and allows me the beauty of a summer at home with my daughters. I like the people I work with and often times we have a lot of fun. It will be good to be around adults, to leave work at the end of the day.

But still, I feel like the air is being sucked out of me, like the world is ending with this summer. Hi ho, hi ho, I hope I can do this.