Author: Sheila Quirke

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The Clunky Boots of Life and Other Mid-Winter Blues

I live in Chicago.  Chicago in February is not the easiest place to live. Despite global warming (and if you don’t believe in global warming, are you sure I am the right blogger for you?), February in Chicago is messy — the cold, gray, slushy kind of messy.  The bitter, sad, will it ever end kind of messy.  Messy.

Ugh.
Ugh.

This morning, getting ready to bring the kiddo to school, I was keenly aware of the monstrosities called “snow boots” I was wearing.  They are large and clumsy and supremely unattractive.  When I walk in them, it’s hard to shake just how different they feel on my feet, how awkward.  And heavy.  I kind of drag my heels and then the rubber makes me trip.

Looking down at my boots today, as I bumbled along the snowy sidewalk with my boy, I realized just how potent a metaphor these boots are for life.  So often, life is messy and clumsy and awkward and cold and sometimes, even bitter.  At least my life.  Maybe you live in La La Land where it’s always sunny and pleasant and warm and joyful.  I live in a world where children get sick and die and family members need lots of help and when I write things on the Internet people tell me how much I suck (in excruciating detail).

Bah!

I am in the thick of it.  That mid-winter semi-depression that gets worse before it gets better.  Yuck.  But knowing folks who have experienced depression to levels I can’t even imagine, I just slog my way through it.  I strap my boots on and go. I don’t have a choice.  People need me.  They rely on me.  That need is maybe the only thing that keeps me going some days.  And I am grateful for it.  Lordy, I am grateful for the many people in my life who need me.

So you’ll forgive me if I take a little longer to get back to your messages and requests.  You’ll forgive me if I only serve sloppy joes and turkey burgers and frozen lasagne for dinner.  You’ll forgive me if the thank you notes from my boy’s birthday that were written weeks ago are still sitting waiting to be addressed.  You’ll forgive me if I am not sufficiently cooing over your baby and puppy photos on the Facebook.  You’ll forgive me if I am fantasizing about curling up with the latest episode of The Bachelor under my cozy down comforter while I smile and nod vacantly during chit chat.

I got my boots on, folks.  Let’s do this.

If you like this, for the love of God, “like” this by hitting that little button above.  Throw me a bone, will ya?

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The Sorority of Moms: Kappa Alpha Towla

I was not in a sorority in college.  Never missed it, either, as I was, how can I say this kindly?  Um, sheltered?  Uptight?  Yeah, uptight is probably more accurate.  I also had the self-confidence of a Judy Blume tween character with acne and a back brace for scoliosis.  Oh wait.  I didn’t have acne, though.  Clear skin is one of my blessings.  Thanks, Mom!  And while I did have scoliosis, it never required a back brace.  Thanks be to the junior high gods for that one.

But I digress.

Last week me and the family overslept on a school day.  The boy woke us all up at 7:10.  We need to skedaddle by 8:08 to get him to school on time.  I had to shower, HAD TO, as it had been, ahem, a while since I stood under the cleansing stream of hot water and I had people to see and places to go on that day.  And you would think that fifty-eight minutes would be more than sufficient time to shower and dress, but then you wouldn’t know me very well, would you?

Maybe that is why showering is one of my least favorite things to do in the universe.  For me, it is a production.  I shampoo, condition, exfoliate, shave, soap, buff, and rinse.  That is a lot to accomplish, not to mention the post-shower necessities of moisturizing, powdering, drying, and hair.  Ugh.  Do not even get me started on the hair.

That said, the clock was bearing down on 8:06 and while dressed, my hair was still having the moisture sucked out of it.  I need at least six minutes with a hair dryer, minimum, and that meant we would be really late or I could opt for the towel.  I chose towel.  Honestly, it is this super cool absorbant towel I bought in 1994 for my post-college backpack hostel adventure through Europe.  Lordy, I complained when my friend insisted we both get them.  That gal waxed poetic about the amazing moisture sucking/packing attributes of that $20 towel.  Pfffft.  I was 24 years old and $20 for a towel seemed somehow more excessive that a month long backpacking tour through Europe’s coolest cities.

Well, 19 years later, that towel is probably the best $20 I ever spent. Anyways.

If someone had told my 24 year old self that my 43 year old self would one day drive her little boy to pre-school wearing said towel, in public, well, I would have slapped the bitch who suggested such non-sense.  My 24 year old self had standards, you know?

Kappa Alpha Towla

But there I was, my 43 year old self, driving my boy to school, in public, with a towel on my head.  Nice.  Forgive me, Stacey and Clinton.  I know and embrace my sins.  I was raised Catholic, so consider this my confession.  Actually, my confession came swiftly.  As with many modern day confessions, I snapped a photo and slapped that sucker on Facebook.

Well, lo and behold, moms across America quickly educated me that the school drop-off in pajamas/robe/towel/slippers is no less common than storing a home’s worth of crap in closets when visitors come by.  Who knew?  Not me, I tell ‘ya, not me.  Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was finally part of a sorority that would have me.  It was twenty-two years too late, but no less of a rush, pun intended.

Ladies, I propose we charter a sorority for moms and call our new sisterhood Kappa Alpha Towla.  (That would be ΚΑΤ using the fancy greek symbols on Word for those reading Greek, which is pretty redundant, dontcha think?)  Are you in?  ARE YOU IN?  KAT has a nice ring to it, right?  Brings our my inner cougar.

Given my goody-two-shoes/hermit status from junior high through college, I really have no idea how sororities work.  If I believe what I see in movies, it might mean that we run around in filmy negligees and have pillow fights and do each other’s hair.  The mom edition of that might translate into yoga pants from Target or Costco and re-runs of Real Housewives of It Doesn’t Even Matter while downing boxes of pinot grigio.

Oh, man, that honestly sounds like a really good time.  Rush will commence immediately, as I rush to the sofa with my wine and remote.  See you there, sisters.

Hey!  If you like this, throw a sister a bone and hit that little “like” button up above, okay?

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Going Home

I spent the morning at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago yesterday.  Many folks think kid’s hospitals are sad, sad places.  I don’t.  To me, they feel like home.  I feel comfortable in them, even ones I haven’t been in before.  Maybe its because I worked in health care for a lot of years.  Maybe it’s because doctors don’t scare me and the smell of antiseptic cleaners doesn’t nauseate me.  Maybe it’s because they remind me of Donna.

I went as a volunteer for a charity that does monthly parties for kids being treated for cancer.  Within minutes of being on the outpatient unit, I gave and received hugs from no less that six folks who helped care for Donna.  And honestly, for me and Mary Tyler Dad, too.  When Children’s Memorial Hospital closed last June, the anticipation of that closure gutted me for a bit.  It was another connection to Donna gone, gone, gone.

In my last visit to the old hospital, where another round of hugs were exchanged, I heard from almost every staff member I visited with, “We’ll be taking Donna with us.”  I heard those words, but in the moment they felt unintentionally hollow.  These folks meant well, but you know, they still made me sad.  In my first few visits to the new hospital, aside from being awed from the sheer impressiveness of the structure, it was simply good to see their faces again.  Those faces — so many beautiful faces — are, I now realize, another connection to Donna.

While Donna walked in hallways and cried and laughed in rooms that will never be accessible to me again, she also made an impression on an awful lot of folks that watched her grow up along with me and her Dad.  And when I see those faces now, even more than three years later, when they look at me, they are thinking of Donna.  And they say her name.  And for a few moments, I get to feel close to my girl again.

Donna getting a chemo infusion in Day Hospital at Children's Memorial Hospital, Fall 2008.
Donna getting a chemo infusion in Day Hospital at Children’s Memorial Hospital, Fall 2008.

What a gift.  I wrote on Facebook, “Any day that I get to hug Donna’s oncologist is a good day. So I guess today is a good day.”  And it was.

As I write this, sitting in my dining room, son tucked away in bed, husband out with friends, the tears are flowing freely.  They fall for Donna, but they also fall for the kids and families I met today.  Some had hair, some did not.  Some had IV poles, some did not.  Some had smiles, some did not.  All, I know, have fear.  Deep, troubling fear that sinks into the bones it is so potent.  And that fear is justified.

There is kinship in knowing the sadness of another.

I think that is why being at Lurie Children’s feels, in a way, like going home.  It is all familiar to me, even though it is brand new.  It doesn’t matter that yesterday was the first day I had the courage to go up to the oncology units.  Metaphorically, I’ve never left.  My husband used to call me the Mayor of 4 West, the old oncology unit, cause every time I left Donna’s room, I would stop and chat with folks in the halls or at the desk.  It would take me 45 minutes to run and get a soda.  Chat, chat, chat.  Today was the same way.

So today I send love and gratitude to all my friends at Lurie Children’s, another of my homes.  It was so good to see and hug and chat with Stew and Sandy and Heidi and Purvie and Willow and Julie and Barb and Beth and Althea and Katherine and Lana.  I am so glad that you are some of the good folks who know my sadness and my joy and my Donna.

It was good to be home.