I Remember...

Seven years has gone by. A lot has changed since then. I remember, like most surely do, exactly where I was on the morning of Sept 11. It's my generations version of Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy Assassinations, or the Lunar landing.

I was getting ready for work at just after 7am. As always, the news was on in my bedroom - KTLA 5. I stood there transfixed, dumbfounded even & I didn't end up leaving the house until almost noon. None of us was even sure if we SHOULD leave our homes. That morning was filled w/ phone calls to friends & family in NY and elsewhere, including my ex-boyfriend of 8 years who was doing his Infectious Disease fellowship at Memorial Sloane Kettering in Manhattan. I couldn't get in touch with him, so I called his parents in Tucson. They'd been out walking & hadn't heard the news yet. We watched the news "together" over the phone. We saw the second plane hit.

"This is what war must feel like."

I still had my little 1940's house on Los Coyotes Diagonal. I wasn't in a relationship, but was going on lots of dates. I was working for Corning & liked my job. I had a brand new car. My mom's health hadn't gotten so bad yet that we couldn't still go to the movies, or talk about life for hours. My dogs were young and healthy. My niece was born on Sept 6th & I was over the moon about becoming an Auntie. My parents left for a month long trip to China on Sept 9th - Dad & I both knowing this would be their last "Big Adventure" abroad. Life was pretty damn good, all things considered.

Then Tuesday morning happened. I remember feeling SO many emotions. Rage, fear, sadness, anger at how Bush handled the situation, deep pride for all the unsung hero's that suited up & showed up in the hours, days, weeks that followed, grief & even hope at the immediate resolve from the entire world to say "No more!" to terrorism. Some of those feelings have dissipated while others have grown stronger or mutated into something else altogether.

Here we are, seven years later. So much has changed since that life marker called Sept 11th. My folks are both gone. My dogs are gone. My house is gone. The new car was replaced w/ a new SUV. Corning closed up shop here in CA & went back to Elmira NY so the great job is gone. My sweet baby niece is now in 2nd grade & I have another niece that turned just turned one. I even had a baby of my own!

I don't know what else to say, except that I hope you will take a moment today - just one moment - to stop and think about the 2,752 people that were lost on Sept 11, 2001 not to mention all the families whose lives were changed forever in less than 24 hours.

I will not applaud the political posturing that has gone on ad nauseum since that day. Nor will I entertain or endorse conspiracy theories. But to the men and women who went above & beyond; who rolled up their sleeves to sift through the toxic rubble, wrapped their arms around widows & little kids who'd lost their daddies, who rushed back into burning debris to save just one more life, who gave money to help families in need, etc. I thank you. I also promise to never forget.

What do YOU remember? Please feel free to share in the comments section!

Memories of Mom

I woke up to the sound of Dexy crying "Mama, Mama, Mama" at 5:14am this morning.

This is not an unusual occurrence, but today I just didn't want to get up. I was in the middle of the most beautiful dream. I was in the entryway greeting our housekeeper and suddenly my mom was there too. Still an "old" woman, yes. But not as bad off as she'd been toward the end when Alzheimer's had stripped almost everything recognizable from her frame & face.

In my dream she was clear eyed, walking, alert and just totally "with it". She was wearing this blue & white seersucker robe, nylons, and white fuzzy slippers. Her hair was freshly washed & curled. She was smiling, but never said a word. I looked at Marta, and asked, "Do you see what I see?" I'm not sure if she answered, I was already scooping my mom into my arms. I wrapped them ALL the way around her, hugging her as tight as I could. I didn't want to let her go.

That's when I heard Declan calling for me.

I can't really explain to you how meaningful that dream was, except to say that generally when I dream about my mom, we are having an argument. This was sweet, it was palpable, it was so very much what I've been needing. A big warm loving hug from my mom. I also know that dream was a gift b/c I got to wake up feeling all that warm fuzzy hug stuff so that I could trudge bleary eyed down the hall, pick up my own daughter & pass it on to her, instead of just feeling irritated.

Unbelievably the one year anniversary of my mom's death came & went in July. Granted, I was dealing with my father's death right about the same time, so not surprising I sort of "missed" it.

I meant to post some kind of Ode To My Mom on her birthday but oops... it's been almost a month since that day came & went. Better late than never, right?

So, here are some things about my mom that I remember most/best:

• Cody lipstick in gold tubes. She always wore the same shade & was never, ever without a fresh coat of lipstick (wish I could remember the color, even if Cody is long gone).

• She always had a little smidge of lipstick on her front teeth, but she could also apply her lipstick picture perfectly without ever looking in a mirror. Of course, then she'd take a napkin to blot her lips which I never understood, since it pretty much took all the lipstick off. LOL.
  

• Home perms (or permanent waves). She would always do them in the kitchen sink. I remember helping her w/ the back of her head more times than I can count, taking the little fuzzy rollers & crisp thin white paper, squirting the smelly solution all over each roller, then helping her rinse it all out later.

• When she wasn't giving herself a home perm, mom got her hair "done"... every week, without fail, pretty much until a year or so before she died. She would go to a local salon and have her hair washed & set. Who does that anymore?
  

• The way she smelled! Especially the saliva she would deposit onto a tissue or delicate cotton handkerchief to wipe my face off. It may sound gross to y'all, but I just loved the smell of her spit.

• She had really narrow itty bitty feet for such a tall gal (AAA size 8).

• She'd give me a sandwich baggie of coins (usually dimes) for my lunch money. Horribly embarrassing when you are 14 or 15. But, in hindsight how nice that my mom had lunch money to give me, regardless of its form.
  

• She loved ice cream & she loved root beer, but root beer floats were her most favorite thing of all. Whenever she could make up an excuse (it didn't take much), she'd haul me off to the local A&W for a cool treat. Just the two of us.

• She gave back to her community more any other mom I knew. Rick Rackers, Assistance League, Spinsters, PTA, The Wenches, Memorial Hospital Womens League, etc. I learned how to volunteer (& how to love it) from her.

• My mom always dressed to the nines, even to get on a plane, or go to the doctor. Girlfriend never went anywhere without being put together. Hair & lipstick always just so. She loved the colors Navy blue, camel & beige, even though she was a "Winter" and really should have been wearing colors like fuchsia, violet blue or winter white.

• Speaking of color, she would labor for YEARS over which color white to paint the house!
  

• My mom had the MOST amazing blue eyes I've ever seen!

• She was a great cook and she made a delicious full course sit down dinner almost every night (otherwise, we went out to eat as a family).

• She loved cookbooks - she had several hundred of them - and loved trying new recipes, sharing recipes w/ her friends, or giving ME advice on how to cook something better. I learned how to cook many of her (and my grandmothers') recipes right at her knee, and those recipes are locked in my memory forever. I can cook them "by heart" even now.
  

• She loved her own mother more than anything. Her dad died in 1944, her brother was off being a doctor in KS, so it was her and her mom against the world. She took care of her mom for 6+ years as she battled cancer (breast & lymphoma). She always swore that she would never "get over" her mother's death and I don't think she ever did.

• Speaking of grandma. Mom told us wonderfully descriptive stories about "Pink" (as she was called), to the point that I felt as if I'd known her too. My favorite story was how she had always wanted a brown eyed child. Their family was all tall, blond & blue eyed. My Grandma died in July 1963, in the front bedroom of my mother's home. And in the fall of 1967, LA County Social Services sent me to my mom. I was brown eyed and my birthday was March 1st. Same day as my grandma. So I know I was sent to her, just as Dexy was sent to me.
  

That's all I've got for today folks! It's almost time to go get Dexy from school. Tomorrow is the Broker Tour (4 hour "open house" for real estate agents), so I have more cleaning & straightening up to do. Oh joy! Not. *snort*

What are some of the things about YOUR mom that are stuck in your memory banks forever?

Loved

She's Leaving Home. Bye, Bye.

At 11am today, I'll be signing a contract to put this house on the market. The house I grew up in, that belonged to mom & dad for over 40 years, in the neighborhood I haunted w/ my childhood pals, in the city I was born & raised in.

For those who've never had that kind of stability, who have never known a permanent fixture called "Mom & Dad's House", I don't know if you can imagine what this feels like. Liberating in some ways yes, but also strange & sad. I have roots here people. Deep roots. No matter where I went, no matter how long I was gone, I always knew I had this house to come HOME to. But mom & dad are gone now. My brother has his own life about a mile away. Those childhood pals have moved out of the neighborhood & created families & roots of their own.

Once this house is sold and I've moved out (and away), there will never be another reason to pull into this neighborhood (or driveway) again. I somehow figured that if I didn't keep the house, my brother would, so there would always be a place to come back to. But he's decided against it as well. Too many memories. Too much work. And frankly, this isn't the neighborhood it once was. Oh sure, the houses are still gorgeous, the lanes are tree lined & lovely, the property values have consistently gone up-up-up (this is one of the best neighborhoods in Long Beach), we still have the neighbors we've known ALL our lives. We wave to each other in passing, chatting pleasantly while we attend to yard chores or take out the garbage cans...

But this really isn't a Front Yard neighborhood anymore. Kids aren't chasing each other along the sidewalks, or racing up and down the block on bikes & skates. You don't see mom or dad in their driveways watching their kids play, you see them speeding down the street in their Hummers and Mercedes Benz's oblivious to anything but themselves & their cell phone conversation. No more block parties on hot summer days. No more baking cookies or borrowing sugar from one another. The children are being walked to the local park or driven to their soccer games & dance recitals by Spanish speaking nannies. Both parents are working late hours to keep up with The Jones's next door whom they don't even talk to. So, this is not the kind of neighborhood I want my daughter to grow up in. I want her to have buddies to swim, run, play & have sleepovers with. I also want to know that those buddies have parents who are PAYING ATTENTION to what goes on in their homes.

And so here we are. One chapter comes to an end. Another is about to begin. This is what turning mom & dad's telephone of 40+ years off last month felt like, but MUCH bigger. This is where I officially leave the physical manifestations of my childhood and become a grownup who has a life, a family, roots, etc. of her own.

No looking back. It's time.

Quick Update on My Dad

Here is a picture of my mom & dad on their wedding day; July 11, 1957... Joan & Hunter. Look how happy they were. How young, beautiful, healthy, strong. And oh so wonderfully hopeful for their new life together as Mr. and Mrs. R.

At 6:08am on July 12, 2008, my father passed away very peacefully with a hospice nurse by his side (thank you Daisy for being there w/ him when he passed). He was 83.

I have so much I want to say about my dad but I am really just too out of it right now to even focus properly. Losing both parents in just under a year is pretty sucky. What more can I say about that? Even though in many ways, I've been sans parents for nearly a decade, the REALITY of their both being gone is starting to hit me. And frankly, it's hitting me rather hard, which I didn't expect.

I will certainly post a far more suitable tribute to my Pop very soon. But until I can muster up the energy to do so, I'll simply say...

Goodbye Daddy. I love you & I will miss you always! Your daughter, Cheryl ~