“Are you happy?”

So the four of us were part of a family panel this weekend for a family advocacy training (that I completed myself 14 years ago). The boys were part of the panel last year, with dad and I offering clarification from the back of the room; because of that, we were invited to be a part of the panel this year. I wondered how much my guys understood the importance and impact of their presentation and was frankly irritated with them both for what I felt was their lack of seriousness in preparation.

They showed me up, but I get ahead of myself.

Their presentations ran like last year. Elder explained some of the changes over the past year, but assured his listeners he was looking for a competitive full time job.  I bit the inside of my mouth, thinking of how all his discretionary time and energy is expended. Hubby’s thoughtful insight reminded me of all the stuff I didn’t do while I was in the throes of fighting for, getting, and maintaining services and supports back in the day.

Self-care. It’s still a new concept to me.

Elder floored me with his assessments of where he saw himself in 5-10 years….with a full time job, hopefully married, hopefully starting a family “but, he added quickly, “in case none of that works out, I know I don’t want to be alone, so at least I have my parents and [younger brother].

That was like a throat punch. Time isn’t flowing as fast from him as it is his parents.

It was a good conversation between the families, among the parents.

One mom asked, “Are you happy? That’s one of the things that keeps me up at night.”

Me too, ma’am, me too.

I wasn’t prepared for both my guys leaning forward in their seats, eager to answer. I was less prepared for their answers.

“Yes, yes, absolutely yes.” 

I could feel her relief. And I felt my own.

Life’s not perfect, but I think we as parents can all agree that the one thing we wish for our kids is to be happy.

I will keep wishing for that.

Unchained

 Today was the best day I’ve had in a very long time.

Maybe it has something to do with last week being the best week I’ve had in a long while. Maybe because today was a beautiful day. Maybe because the weekend was a beautiful weekend.

Maybe it’s because I am finally at peace with the things I can’t fix, change, or control. And maybe, just maybe, I’m finally feeling good enough about myself to take chances.

Like yesterday I stood up in the back of a dragon boat for the first time, learning to steer. It didn’t go great, but I didn’t crash us or fall in, either.

I’m doing a story slam in two weeks. I’ve always wanted to try that.

Hubby and I had a night out on the town with another couple—and had a blast.

And, we’re making inroads into our next chapters with the boys.

There are a lot of great things happening.

Person lost

(Been processing this since September 16, 2023.  He passed on September 27.  The difference between the passing of Person Adjacent and Person are a couple orders of magnitude.  I haven’t fully absorbed that he is gone.  What follows are some reflections on the plane ride home…)

On the plane back from Greenville, lots of things to process, since this wasn’t the day I thought it was going to be.

Zio is dying. He might actually be dead already, we’re in the air and in radio silence until Newark. I can’t believe I just typed that, and I can’t believe it’s happening, yet here it is, and here we are.  I’m not eulogizing yet. I had a whole raft of things to say in my head before cracking open the laptop, and I’m sorry I don’t have my journal to write in, but honestly my handwriting is so bad that I can’t even decipher my own notes anymore.

Good to connect again with the cousins. I want to get down maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas to spend time with them.  I’m glad we got in on Thursday night, because we got to see him while he was still him.  He was in so much pain—I know this because I held his hand and he squeezed hard as the pain coursed through him. He pretended he wasn’t feeling any pain, but that was only because he was waiting to say goodbye to everyone and wanted to be present for his goodbyes.  A was the last to arrive, so he held off on taking the big guns, the heavy painkillers, until noonish today, until after he saw her.

“He didn’t seem happy to see me.” She was dejected, just having flown from upstate NY and having to turn and burn, out tomorrow morning early.

“He was, honey, he’s just in a lot of pain.” 

It’s tough to be an adult child in this group.

 But there’s Zio. His eyes lit up when we finally got to the hospice Thursday night.  Hubby kept getting calls tracking our progress. Nic wanted adventures. G would rather stay home, but gamely was along as only he can be. We finally get to where we needed to go…

 And there he was, looking smaller and frailer than I have ever seen him. This guy. The same guy who took hubby camping, hunting and fishing, the same guy who was basically hubby’s first person, the same guy I fell in love with 33 years ago with his camouflage Tyrolean hat and ever present morning Meister Brau and evening Zio Carlo—this guy now on oxygen, his thin arms covered in bruises, his shoulders like angel’s wings poking out of his hospital gown.

This guy.

I parked myself in the chair next to him and held his hand.  That was my spot for the better part of the last two days. I absorbed his pain the best I could. He turned to me often and told me he loved me, he was comfortable, he was happy.

But the pain. 

I knew it was there. So did my cousins.  But he was waiting for his granddaughter.

Then she came.

Then he finally found relief for the pain.  That was when he left us.

He wasn’t dead, it didn’t kill him, but that was when he made his decision to start shutting down.   He even announced that he was leaving—I wasn’t in the room, I heard later—and he was told he wasn’t going anywhere.

I knew what he meant. I saw he was already gone. His eyes were open when I sat with him again, but they were blank. He was transitioning right in front of us.

I’m on a turbulent plane right now typing all this after the fact. G is trying to read a book but is anxious about the turbulence. So am I, but typing this helps.

Anyway.  Dinner with the cousins was fun, if not comic in trying to get service.  We didn’t take pictures. Too busy visiting, catching up, reeling in the years.

We took a bunch before we left. It was loud. 

Tears.

Everyone is a little fractured.

Person Adjacent

 So when I say my person was the third time, the charm, turned out I’ve miscounted for the last few decades. Because there was one before, one I never counted because we had one date and we ‘went out’ for less than a month. After chasing him for two years, I caught him and decided I didn’t want him.

Well, it’s not as pat as that—is it ever? The long and short of it was that he wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but he was close enough that we probably could have figured it out. Except I thought we could each do better.

Turned out I was right. It didn’t happen overnight, and it took him longer to find his person, but he eventually did, and got four bonus people in the form of her kids and even more in her extended circle of people. We saw each other once in the last 35 or so years, grade school reunion 12 years ago. He was annoyed at my Irish goodbye, but the bar got too loud, and I needed to go.

So we didn’t say goodbye. It was like leaving the phone off the hook.

I found out he died last week. He cheated death once, about a dozen years ago, so I thought maybe he had some superpowers gleaned from decades of comic book fandom. But no. Death wasn’t taking a second pass. His departure called up a whole bunch of memories I’ve all but forgotten.

Mostly good. Mostly a reckoning that we’d both eventually get where we needed to go and find the people who really, really got us. I’m happy to say we both did. 

Later days, Mike.

Unshakable, unbreakable

 I’m neither thing, unfortunately, but I’m a little less shake n break than I used to be.

So goals. My last two decades have been all about setting goals for the boys. Now they need to set their own. Just like their stories are theirs to tell—or not. Agency. They both have it, and I’m sweating it out on the sidelines waiting for them to start exercising it.

Might be a wait. Need a distraction.

So one of my teammates announces that the International Dragon Boat Festival is in Taipei in 2026. As a team, we’d have to qualify at the national level to get there. I recall elder telling me in 2013 at the Cross Country Nationals that I’ve never been a National anything.

Challenge accepted.

The very worst that can happen is that I get into shape.

Game on.