Even Her Smile Is Changing

Along with every other physical feature that once helped define her for me, my dear Mother's smile is changing. When I was young -- when she was young -- it was unencumbered. It was bright, joyful, radiant. It amplified the beauty of her head-turning face.

It was sunshine.

Today, that face is just as beautiful. But it's different, too. It's fragile somehow, etched by years of laughter, pain, loss, and happiness. Sixty-nine years have come and gone in my Mom's life. For forty of those, I've been with her.

Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine what she was like before me, before Carrie. It was always the three of us, a united front in this crazy world. But she was once a child like my Mary Claire, once a teenager with a gap-toothed grin who dated the handsome football star. The Golden Couple. That's what my Mom and Dad were called in high school. When Carrie and I were little, she was beyond social. She had a vast array of friends and would-be suitors. She ably balanced her time between mothering and playing. She never thought twice about fulfilling her own needs -- about putting her own oxygen mask on first -- so she could better parent her two young girls. And for that decision, I have so much respect.

Now she has sweet Bob to stand beside her with his patience, his kind and generous heart. He administers her medicine, shuttles her to and from her appointments, brings her dinner in bed when the pain in her legs won't subside.

She is changing. Every day, she's changing.

She stayed overnight with me this weekend. And caring for her was more challenging than ever before. She's so weak, so worn down by illness. She moves so slowly, her conversations require such effort. I can remember well the dinners we'd have at Weston Village Apartments. Dining on macaroni and cheese with tuna, she'd coax Carrie and me into conversation.

"How was your day at school, girls? Did you learn anything exciting?"

And she'd expect us to participate, to reciprocate. "The art of conversation means everything," she'd explain. "Be interested in whomever you're talking with. Ask questions. Look her in the eye. Be present."

Advice to carry me through a lifetime.

But now, my Mom's conversations are limited by the synapses in her weary brain. Sometimes they fire when she needs them to, sometimes they abandon her completely. She searches for words, but can't always find them. Frustrated by her own declining memory, she resorts to her famous sarcasm, her biting wit to cover her embarrassment.

She is never, though, an embarrassment to me.

When I hold her hands with their paper-thin skin to help her walk to the car, I am simultaneously shocked and saddened by the age spots, the bruises, the gnarled knuckles that betray her years. As a young girl, those hands held me, comforted me, supported me, sustained me. I think about pictures of my Mom as a beautiful, vibrant woman -- the wind in her hair on a Hobie Cat, her ready and contagious smile.

She was loved by so many, treasured by all who knew her. She'd laugh with Sister Helen Therese, vacation with Patti and Jimmy, sail with Janet and Mike. Never, ever a third wheel -- always the life of the party.

Still she is treasured, still she is loved.

But even her smile is changing. It's tentative now, guarded, as if perhaps it might pain her to allow that beautifully wrinkled face to submit to a full, unguarded smile.

I feel as if I'm standing at a crossroads with my beloved Mom. From cared for to caregiver in one small step. From needy to needed.

Yet always -- always -- loved without limits.

All the News That's Fit to Print

Much to my friend Jenny's dismay, I stopped reading the newspaper a long time ago. I'm not sure what pushed me over the edge. It might have been the bloody and daunting headlines. (If I'm going to read something dark, I'd like for it to be fictitious.) It could have been my personal obsession with the obituaries. Perhaps it was my aversion to the tedium of coupon-cutting and the good ole Catholic guilt I experienced when I didn't engage in this particular money-saving means for my family.

Whatever the reason, the newspaper has lost it's appeal for me. And as you all know, I haven't watched TV for over two years. I've given myself completely and wholly over to books. Good books, bad books, well-written books, books filled with drivel. I devour them all. I may not be able to adequately discuss national elections or local happenings at your next party, but I'll be damned if I can't give you some good book recommendations. (Although Jenny would beg to differ...)

As of late, when something worth noting appears in the paper, Jenny mentions it to me or sends it my way. And what a gem she sent today! Hold onto your hats, my Writer Friends. And let me introduce you to "I Write Like" -- the website that analyzes a snippet of your work and reveals the famous author whose writing most closely resembles your own.

Go ahead. Try it.

 http://iwl.me/ 

When I plugged the first chapter of my latest novel in, "I Write Like" determined that I write like...

Wait for it...

MARGARET ATWOOD!

(I know you just got weak in the knees, Nicole. I know. Go ahead and pull out your dog-eared copy of "The Handmaid's Tale" and re-read it during your world travels.)

It's true, friends. I was compared by a random website analysis to one of Canada's quirkiest, darkest, and most brilliant writers. (At least in my humble opinion.)

Next, I plugged in a bit of my memoir and got...

Dan Brown.

Far less exciting for me. I said to Chris over dinner, "But I don't really even like Dan Brown. That must mean the section I plugged in was far too wordy and overly descriptive."

And my husband merely replied (with dollar signs in his eyes), "YOU may not like Dan Brown, Honey. But. Millions. Of. Other. People. Do. Ron Howard liked him enough to sign some multi-million dollar movie deals with him. That can't possibly be a bad thing."

And the capitalist in me instantly felt much better about being Dan Brown-ish.

I realize that some random algorithm lies behind the magic of "I Write Like" and that there is no real merit to the results. I get that it's probably just a smidgen more sophisticated than the Magic 8 ball of my childhood.

But I don't give two shits.

I'm going to continue to plug my words into the damn screen -- ad nauseum -- and see what happens. And on the day I'm compared to my beloved Julia Glass or Donna Tartt... well, then I'm pretty sure my life will be complete.

Perfect Ten

She turned ten this weekend. Double digits. My one and only girl. My sweet and salty enigma wrapped up inside a riddle. That's the only way to describe her. She's like a rainbow (but not in a Skittles kind of way) -- so many different colors, never content to choose just one. She laughs and cries with the same gusto, she plays and works with the same fevered intensity. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, wholly devoted to her Mama.

She wishes more than anything that she could have a sister, but that business closed down a few years ago. Instead, she'll learn to be content with the stinky, loud, obnoxious brothers she has. The ones who peek at her private diary and mess up her American Girl doll homes, and sneak into her closet fort when she's not looking, and leave plastic spiders under her pillow. The same ones who will soon beat their friends up for making sexual innuendos about her, and who will dance with her in her beautiful white gown after she's said "I do" to the love of her life.

She's going to middle school this year. Barely ten, but bursting at the seams to join the ranks of the angst-ridden middle school crowd. Undoubtedly, she'll want to wear make-up before I'll let her, we'll argue about her choice of clothing, she'll slam a lot of doors, and I'll slam a lot of alcohol.

Later this month, she's going to get braces. She's choosing green and orange bands to decorate her pearly whites as they morph into an even more beautiful smile. She gets to change the colors every time she goes in, though, so I'm sure she'll cover the entire spectrum before her time is done. I mean, what little girl can live without the royal combo of purple and red?

We attended Amber's baby shower together this weekend. A storm was looming and she leaned over to me and whispered, "Can I please go get the umbrella out of the car before it rains? I don't want Nana to get wet when we take her back to the car. She's not so fast these days, you know."

I was blessed to sit with a friend during chemo today, and Mary Claire peppered the afternoon and evening with questions about where I'd been and what I'd done. "Is Mara okay? What happened to her? How does chemo work? Does it hurt her? Is there anything I can do to help her?"

She's a lover, that girl of mine.

It seems impossible that I held that sweet, quiet baby in my arms just ten short years ago. Ten more, and she'll be an adult.

Time is funny that way.

There's a nursery rhyme my Mom used to sing to me when I was little... "There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was horrid." When the horrid part rears its ugly head, Stacy likes to say that my girl's "Bitch Meter" is turned up full blast. And she has the perfect sound effects to drive her point home.

But I'll take the snotty back-talk, the exasperating and highly dramatic sighs, the "OMG, you're SO stupid" attitude, and the slammed doors followed by a full-blast rendition of "The Rose" if it means I can continue to receive the precious gifts of her giving heart -- her exuberant hugs, her infectious laugh, the little pieces of her soul she so willingly gives.

And the love notes? Oh, the love notes!

(And just as a side note, I might "take" her bad behavior in anticipation of the good, but I most definitely won't "take" it lying down. She's still not too old to be spanked. Or grounded. Or a combination of both. George might be destined for reform school, but there's still hope for this one.)

Happy birthday, sweet Mary Claire, my bright and shining star! I am so grateful you looked down from the heavens and chose me to share this journey with you.

Onward!

What Matters?

We just had a low-key, luxurious week on Emerald Isle to determine some true and meaningful answers to that little, 2-word question. (And let me warn you, friends, don't let the size and seeming innocuousness of that teeny-tiny phrase catch you off guard. It's a doozy. Stacy and Molly will agree. Andi, Nicole, and Liz will find out soon enough.)

Getting to the heart of What Matters is not a task for sissies. I have the tears to prove it. (I know, I know, Jenny! Waaahh, waaahh... Somebody call that effing waaaahmbulance!)

Undoing years heaped upon years of thinking that What Matters amounts to tangible things and academic degrees and social status, however, takes some time. And some balls.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't lived my life entirely in some kind of shallow, surface existence. I know there are things in life That Matter, that Have Always Mattered, that Will Always Matter matter. My family, my friends, myself, my world.

It's letting go of the things that Don't Really Matter that proves to be a bit tougher.

We're undergoing some changes over here. By choice. By design. By intent.

But that doesn't mean change comes easy. That doesn't mean people don't question, don't assume, don't jump to conclusions.

And what, exactly, does that mean? All that external shit? It Doesn't Matter.

Chris gets it. Always has. For twenty-two years now, he's been whispering sweet nothings in my ear, guiding me gently off the pathway of crazy, calming my fears, doling out my anti-depressants. (Thank God we don't have to deal with THOSE anymore. Just raw emotion now, Baby. What you see is what you get.)

And in my heart, I get it, too.

It's my damn head that gets in the way.

What will people think? What will people say? How will we be perceived? What if NOBODY LIKES ME? (Yeah, I know. It's pathetic, really. And quite frankly, I'm a bit tired of seeking my self-worth outside of, well, myself.)

And Chris's answer...? "Who the fuck cares? We know what's true and real and right."

It's a brilliant answer, really. Especially because he believes it so wholeheartedly.

I'm getting there.

But on the road at 1:00 AM when I'm overtired and sunburned and allowing the weight of the world to descend upon my shoulders... when the numbers don't add up and the unknown looms frighteningly in the dark and The Fray is playing "Cable Car" in the background... when our last bottle of vodka has spilled all over the back seat and the kids and all their belongings smell like a redneck, honky-tonk bar... when the residual grease from our late-night Bob Evans stop is still clinging to my ponytailed hair and a bowel revolt of epic proportions is threatening to make an appearance (that's Kenshatty to you, BFF)... when the 3-hour traffic jam wears down my last remaining nerve... that's when the tears came most freely and unabashedly. And let's just say that the mountains in West Virginia are difficult to navigate through snot and saline.

But when I thought back to my sun-kissed kids on the beach and heard their laughter through the crashing Atlantic waves (cheesy, I know, but oh so true)... and I remembered dancing to bad 80's tunes in the kitchen -- red wine in hand (Jim Z. Tumbler Style) -- with some of my very oldest, truest, and best friends... and I giggled about the unfortunate golf cart incidents (yes, plural) at Spinnaker's Reach... that's when I shifted back to What Matters.

And when Chris unplugged my iPod and plugged his in and promptly began to play the YouTube clip from "Parenthood" about Grandma's version of the roller-coaster ride versus the merry-go-round ride, I began to climb off the ledge.

And this text from my sweet husband pretty much sealed the deal... (Yes, he was sitting beside me in the passenger's seat, supportive in his silence. Yes, he knows that often, it's best to just let my instability run its course.)

"No matter what happens we get to experience it together and this is all that matters to me. I love you."

And there weren't even any typos or misspellings.

God, I love him.

And I always have been fond of a good roller-coaster.