My Children

I know I have let all of my children down in so many ways. I know there are many ways I did not let them down, but my heart is heavy in the knowing that I was not the best mom I could have been.  I wasn't, and I can never go back and make things any different.

Did not get my order

I still have not received this order.  My only option now is to file a claim with PayPal so hopefully I will get reimbursed.  I am copy/pasting this and keeping a copy in my send folder.  You have seemed completely nonplussed by this, but it has troubled me.  I guess it's just business as usual for you, and I wish you the best going forward, but you need to be more sensitive and helpful to the people who order from you and never get their order.

When he says

When he says I am being a bitch, that's a good thing. It means he is feeling angry and standing up for himself.  He hasn't done that in a long time but has been doing it more and more lately.  Maybe he is coming out of his funk.  I can be a bitch.  I am a bitch sometimes.

Lauren's beautiful words about Grandma

It's true life does not stop for death, but it can give pause. -A caesura demarcating the banal from the extraordinary moment a soul moves away forever from this earth--a break in the beat of time that marches on, otherwise steadfast and impervious to earthly sentiment like love and loss.

Recently, I packed my little family up and left for Europe, having said goodbye to my grandmother whom I knew was not much longer for this earth. I was caught between the decision of canceling my trip so I could lay in wait for this moment or continuing on with life and the commitment to seeing the world and educating my daughter on life beyond our own yard. “That is what [my] grandmother would want” everyone kept saying, and therefore, I was hoping I had made peace with letting her go. With my eyes fixed on pragmatism, I was hoping life could keep on going for us. My grandmother’s decline has been gradual with death foreseeable, and in some ways, even ideal. Hospice helped us keep her comfortable and we shared final moments with her. Death was almost organized. Alas, the eyes and the heart are entirely different organs and the finality of loss delivers emotions that transcend intellectualization.

Hence, we returned early from our wandering venture so I could pay respect to my grandmother who took her last breath on May 28, just two months shy of her 97th birthday. I cannot know what exactly my grandma Marie would have wanted for me and my little family at this moment, but I do know seeing her one last time before the earth eternally swallows her up is the right thing. I am grateful life has given me these moments—to say goodbye, to see the world, to return home—and the ability to make bold decisions. Through such decisions, I hope to teach my daughter love for this life, this planet, different cultures, and the humility to understand it is a privilege to be able to explore life beyond your own. I also hope to instill in her a deep sense of respect for those who came before us: those who lived so that we could live; those who worked hard so that life could maybe be easier for us; those who suffered quietly so that we could suffer less. My grandma Marie endured so much loss and did so with great poise. She was born before the Great Depression; she lost her mother to tuberculosis when she was only around 5 years old; she survived three husbands and a son as well as all her siblings but one. I cannot imagine bidding farewell to so many of those you hold dear and keeping the strength to face life as it keeps on going.

I once asked her if I could write about her life; without a moment’s thought she responded that some things were too painful to discuss. I think she was trying to save me from her suffering. With the burial of her body, her pains are also buried. And with the burial of her body is also buried an artifact of so much history. Goodbye to that vessel carrying another time in history, and thank you, Lottie Marie, for all you gave in your 96 years. Thank you for modeling strength, courage, and poise and how to make bold decisions when life keeps pushing on. You live within us as we keep on going.