Author: Sheila Quirke

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Camp Mom: Muck My Life

This is a cross post blog experiment with dear friend and fellow blogger Katy from I Got a Dumpster Family.  You can read Katy’s post HERE.  

I love my friend, Katy.  She is awesome and amazing and so dear to me.  She wears high heels and red lipstick and is smart as a whip and as compassionate as anyone you will ever meet.  Trophy friend!  Occasionally, we get our kiddos together and somehow manage to get a few minutes of adult talk in, in between the “Be carefuls!” and “Pick up your hat!” reminders that we cheerfully call out to our kiddos.

Two mom bloggers walk into the woods . . .
Two mom bloggers walk into the woods . . .

This week we made plans to have a Camp Mom date.  Specifically, a nature walk.  Camp Mom is something I devised the first summer my boy was out of school and I hadn’t really ironed out a lot of plans for him.  Most of his friends would be in camp for those weeks, so, out of optimism and desperation, I started calling our time together that summer “Camp Mom.”  Simply put, Camp Mom is anything we do together over the summer months that is not as lame as going to the grocery store, but not as cool as the museum camp weeks I can never quite seem to get my act together to register for.  Possibly because you’re supposed to do that stuff in February.  I am definitely not thinking of summer in February.

Anyway.

Now that Camp Mom is in its fourth year, lots of my friends have signed on with their own versions, Katy being one of them.  We decided to combine our Camp Moms at the Linne Woods this morning for the aforementioned nature walk.  Blue skies, fresh air, green trees . . . what more could our kiddos need?  The weather forecast was a perfect 83 degrees with bright sun.  Lovely.

We met at the woods.  We were both running a few minutes late, Katy because she picked up chocolate donuts for all the kiddos (I told you she was a trophy friend!) and me because, well, me.  After brief hellos and kisses, I mentioned that despite the boots I had encouraged her to wear when we finalized plans yesterday, I had opted out of them for any of us, despite my husband’s encouragement.  Pffft, I thought, it hasn’t rained in two days, we’ll be fine.  Katy agreed, noting it was hot and none of the kids would be comfortable in heavy boots.  You can think of this conversation as foreshadowing, my friends.  Also, because we both adore shoes and are dorks, we had texted one another photos of the boots we would be wearing.  The yellow ones are Katy’s, while mine are the polka dotted wonders.

It's amazing what pops up when you Google, "hooker rain boots."
It’s amazing what pops up when you Google, “hooker rain boots.”

So, yeah, no boots were worn.  We started out on the paved path easily enough.  Aside from the angry cyclists screaming out, “TO YOUR LEFT!” to the toddlers and moms who kept clumsily crossing the yellow line on the path, we were doing just great.  Soon, though, the kiddos were hungry and knew there were chocolate donuts to be eaten.

After seeing some horses and riders emerging from one of the wooded trails, we decided to find some logs and let the kids enjoy their sugar fix.  They did.  It was time to walk again.  “Watch out for horse poop!” I called ahead to the little ones happily skipping ahead of us.  Yes, this was a trail frequented by both horses and humans. Toddlers love horses, so it added to our excitement.  Katy and I hung back a bit, me lazily pushing the stroller that held Mary Tyler Toddler and the pile of things that accumulate when you go for a walk in the woods with kiddos — diaper bag, extra snacks, mini-backpacks, water cans, empty donut bag, etc.  We chatted a bit and caught up.

Soon enough, we ran into another group of horses and their riders.  Three or four older ladies who paused as we collected kids and clung to the edge of the path.  I love seeing the horses up close, but as the riders passed, a group of older women, they called out with a smirk, “BE CAREFUL OF THE POISON IVY!”  What?  Oh damn.  Yep.  Katy’s two little ones, in an effort to get out of the path of the horses had sure enough sat on clumps of poison ivy.  “If leaves of three, let it be” was not really something any of us were thinking about in that moment.

Oy.

Katy quickly pulled out the wet wipes and gave those twins the wipe of a lifetime.  I encouraged her to bathe them as soon as they got home to get any residual oil off. But this was Camp Mom, yo.  We are mothers, hear us ROAR!  Onward we went, dodging what seemed to be increasingly big pools of mud.  As we walked, we commented, too, on those horse riding gals who seemed to wait for our kiddos to sit in the poison ivy before gleefully shouting out to us as they passed, “You know that’s poison ivy!  Watch out!”  Clearly they never got the memo about it taking a village.

Soon enough, my oldest boy was leading the troops and was occasionally out of eyesight.  Before we knew it, Katy’s twins were out of eyesight, too.  Whoops.  We sped up our pace a bit, as best we could, because those puddles of mud and standing water were quickly morphing into pools of vast mud and muck and horse shit (poop that has become water logged and smeared with dirt now qualifies as shit, yo) as far as the eye could see.  This was not good.

Two walking toddlers, one toddler in a stroller, a bigger kid, and two moms.  We all convened while the moms hashed it out.  Move forward into the muck, certain to ruin my super cute purple Nikes and Katy’s fresh pedicure?  Retrace our steps back, hoping against hope that the increasingly tired and hungry toddlers would make it back to the cars?  This was serious business, my friends.  I made a case for separating, but Katy would have none of it.  We were in this together.  This was Camp Mom, dammit — no moms would be left behind on Katy’s watch.  Onward, we agreed!  Into the muck it would be!

So, you know, that’s what we did.  Katy went ahead to keep eyes and ears on the three bigger kids while I lagged behind with the stroller.  I tried to push, but with mud several inches thick on the wheels, that stroller needed to be pulled, not pushed.  So pull I did.  Those purple Nikes are trashed my friends.  The ooze of the mud and shit is all up in every single crevice that exists on those shoes.

As I huffed and puffed and swore once or twice (funny how muck rhymes with another choice word, isn’t it?), my sweet boy happily sat back and rang the bicycle bell that had landed in his hands that morning.  Brrrrring!  Bbbrrrriiinnnnggg! is what I heard while I inched our way through the mud.  Such an awesome metaphor for motherhood, isn’t it?  Muck and shit and sweetness all intertwined.

Two-thirds through the worst of it, I saw Katy come to check on our progress.  And there was a man in blue.  I stood up to catch my breath and Katy, God bless her, confirmed that we were through the worst of it, clear sailing ahead.  And, before I knew it, after a few pleasantries, that man bent down to help me pull that massive stroller to sweet, sweet freedom!  Thank you, kind stranger, for making my day.  Thank you, dear Katy, for snapping a photo of us.

My favorite hero of the day, the man in blue! Thank you, kind stranger!
My favorite hero of the day, the man in blue! Thank you, kind stranger!

Camp Mom, yo.  It’s not for the faint of heart.  But we did it.  Katy and I got through it, keeping our heads on straight, allowing our kids to find the fun in a situation rather than moan and pout and whine.  Nope, we moms set the tone.  With a little help from our friends.  It’s such a good reminder of what’s truly important in motherhood and friendship and life.

#friends #gratitude #muck

 

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In Defense of the AR-15

Earlier this week America experienced its most lethal mass shooting in history.  Fifty people dead, including the shooter, fifty-three more injured. These mass shootings feel almost inevitable to me now, part of our culture. I feel myself numbing to them, this despite two acquaintances of acquaintances being among the victims in Orlando.  I am shamed to admit that, my numbness, to the violent loss of life.

I’ve written about gun violence before, so my stance is well known.  My earnest arguments in favor of common sense gun laws are received well by those who hold similar views and I am torn to shreds by those who disagree.  The futility does not escape me.  But on Monday morning, I found myself drawn to the Internet, reading articles, watching some news footage, quickly closing my laptop at times, lest my toddler be exposed to something no kid should should have to consider.

What I found, in researching the AR-15 gun that was used by the shooter, was what led to this gallery.  It’s a collection of t-shirt graphics, of all things, that pretty much captures how and why the AR-15 is, as the NRA calls it, “America’s Rifle.”  The sentiments on the shirts are evidence of a nation greatly divided.  Rather than talk with those who disagree with us, we shout, we demean, we name call, we seek to silence them, we threaten.

Today, I will devote my blog to better understanding why it is the AR-15 is the most popular rifle sold on American soil, it’s purchases reaching an all time high in the days after the Orlando massacre.  I am holding up a mirror to ourselves, our division, our passion and obsession with guns, our beliefs. And I will let the t-shirts speak for themselves, but not without a wee bit of commentary.

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TOOT TOOT: That’s Me Blowing My Own Horn!

This post is part of ChicagoNow’s monthly “blogapalooza” series, where our community manager provides a writing prompt to all bloggers with the only rule being it must be published within one hour.  This month’s prompt:

“Write about a period in your life when you were at your best.”

Dammit.  This is a tough thing to consider today.  Not really where my head is at, you know?  But, a challenge is a challenge, so I will give this a go.

I remember October 2, 2011 vividly.  It was a beautiful early fall day in Chicago.  I was working part time at the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago, right on Michigan Avenue.  I had gone back to work ten months earlier after the death of my daughter in 2009.  My profession was social work, but the kind of social work I did before my girl was diagnosed with cancer — working with older adults and their families in a retirement community, providing advocacy and counseling to elders and their families as they coped with aging and death — well, let’s just say that my head and heart were no longer able to do that type of work anymore.

An old acquaintance from graduate school was a VP at the Alzheimer’s Association and knew I was looking for work.  I applied to a position she had recommended me for.  It was a purely corporate type of gig.  Foundation work, not clinical in nature.  Part-time.  Creating training programs about dementia for paid caregivers and family members.  Full disclosure, it was never a good fit, but I appreciated getting out of the house, I liked my co-workers, and it helped me re-connect to part of myself that I had lost when our family moved to Cancerville.

At the same time I went back to work, I started my Mary Tyler Mom blog.  I was introduced to online writing through the CaringBridge page my husband and I co-authored through our Donna’s illness.  After Donna died, my husband stopped writing, I did not.  I came to realize how much I needed the words, the connection, the community.  I also came to realize I needed to write about more than cancer and grief.

Mary Tyler Mom was born.  The blog was named after one of my childhood icons, Mary Tyler Moore.  As a young girl, I always found her spark and independence so appealing.  She was gonna make it after all, you know?  And, I needed to believe in those early days of my grief, that I was, too.

The first six months of the blog had absolutely nothing to do with grief or cancer.  I trashed Gwyneth Paltrow more than once, in erudite and clever ways, and was celebrated with thousands of likes and shares.  People, it turns out, really dislike Gwyneth Paltrow.  My stomach literally turned when I realized that my clever quips gave other people permission to refer to this woman none of us knew personally as a cunt, a bitch, a whore.  I felt lost.  You see, I never revealed to my readers that I was a grieving mom.  Because I had decided Mary Tyler Mom was not about that, it was about working and raising children. And trashing easy to hate celebrities.

Pffft.

Right after my daughter’s would be/should be 6th birthday, I came out to my readers.  I introduced Donna to them.  Finally.  Timidly.  I revealed myself to you readers for who I was, a broken, grieving, sad,but hopeful mom.  I peppered anecdotes and memories of Donna in some of my posts, still feeling protective of how both she and my grief would be received, still worried that if I stopped trashing Gwyneth, people would stop reading.

In August of that year I approached my community manager at ChicagoNow, the same one who provided this damn prompt (thanks, Jimmy), with the idea to serialize Donna’s Cancer Story.  I pitched the idea of writing about one month of my daughter’s 31 months of cancer treatment each day over the course of September.  It was my effort to raise awareness for National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.  I was worried how he would receive it.  I mean, 31 days of blogs leading up to the death of my daughter.  Not exactly good time reading.  Jimmy did not hesitate in his encouragement.  Literally.  Not a single second passed before he offered me whatever support I would need.

My pitch was naive, in that I didn’t realize what the process would be like.  Seriously, who on earth could I have known?

The month started with a “game on” kind of attitude.  The day before posting, my routine was to re-read the month’s worth of CaringBridge journal entries for the corresponding month.  On September 1, I read about the 30 days that started with Donna’s diagnosis.  I would then cross reference the thousands of photos we took of Donna during that same period of time, wanting to represent pediatric cancer both visually and through storytelling.  I would generally wrap up the entry for the next day around midnight or 1 a.m.

Mothering Donna, my happy girl. What a glorious Donna Day this was.
Mothering Donna, my happy girl.

As the month progressed, this routine got harder.  I got more tired.  I stopped posting first thing in the morning, simply because the posts weren’t ready.  I started writing at 9 or 10 in the morning, instead of posting.  Again, as the days passed and my fatigue, both physical and emotional, worsened, there were days I didn’t write until my lunch hour at the office, posting later in the afternoon now.

The reader response to Donna’s Cancer Story took me by complete surprise.  People were reading the entries like a soap opera, as if I was purposefully generating cliff hangers, as if our life hadn’t been a cliff hanger for those 31 months of treatment.  It was wrenching and traumatic for me, writing Donna’s Cancer Story.  It was also, potentially, one of the greatest things I will have ever accomplished in my life, telling the story of my daughter, who would never be able to tell it herself.

Oh, Donna.  My dear girl.  I wrote Donna’s Cancer Story for you, for me, too, selfishly, to keep you near, to keep you close, to alert the world that you lived, that you existed, that you were amazing.  My life has changed because of you, and telling your story, sharing your life.

That day, October 2, was to be the very last entry in Donna’s Cancer Story.  The final post was an unexpected addition about how to harness and direct the outpouring of help that people wanted to provide after reading of our girl, my Donna.  Jimmy, my community manager, had also arranged for a live chat with readers.  I was so tech challenged that he agreed to come to my office and help me navigate it.  The response astounded me.  Floored me.  Humbled me.  It still does, six years later.

That afternoon, I opted to leave work early.  I walked out of the Mies van der Rohe high rise I worked in and out the door, heading to Chicago’s beautiful Millenium Park.  I walked amongst strangers, native Chicagoans and tourists from around the world.  None of them knew my story, none of them knew the sense of immense accomplishment I carried with me that day, as I enjoyed the warm sunshine.

When you bury a child, you no longer have the opportunity to parent them.  That day, October 2, 2011 I got to revel in a month of getting to parent my daughter again, by telling her story, not stopping when the pain and memories overcame me, honoring my daughter in a way that was worthy of her.  What a gift.