Author: Sheila Quirke

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Motherlines

When I was in college I took a literature course about African American women writers.  Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks — so many amazing writers.  One of the central themes of the class was something the professor called “motherlines.”  Her theory was that these writers used the lessons we learn from out mothers as a tool in their writing, a literary device.

I was nineteen at the time, so I read the books, loved the class, but really didn’t fully understand the concept of motherhood, let alone motherlines.  But lately, man, motherlines is heavy in my day-to-day.  I feel my Mom in so many ways, that same Mom who died eleven years ago, just a few months into my first pregnancy.  It’s comforting, actually, as I carry a sense of guilt about how I grieve my Mom, compared to how I grieve my daughter and Dad.

Our daughter was born five months after my Mom died.  I spent the end of that pregnancy both grieving and prepping.  It was an odd combination.  There were tears and sleepless night writing thank you notes to friends and family, but there was so much joy, too.  I just couldn’t collapse into sadness the way I imagined I might.  Then just a couple years later, our baby, then a young toddler, was diagnosed with her own cancer.

My Mom got lost in the shuffle of that.

More than missing my Mom, I often felt a relief that she never had to live to see her granddaughter die.  When she was alive, my Mom often said that the worst way to die was a brain tumor.  We would see a news story about them or a famous person might be diagnosed and there would be my Mom, “Oh, that’s a terrible way to go.” I sometimes wonder if my Mom knew on some unconscious level that she hated brain tumors so much because both she and her namesake granddaughter would die from them.  Magical thinking, I know, but still.

After my Dad’s death last year, I feel my Mom’s absence in a completely different way.  It’s much more potent to me.  I feel her, often, as I pass through my days.  The connection feels strongest as I mother and mark the milestones of childhood.  A few weeks ago my niece celebrated her First Holy Communion, and, BAM, there was my Mom, dancing through my memories, mothering me as I celebrated my own first communion that May day in 1977.

Yesterday I stopped by a small store to buy my oldest son a Cub Scout shirt and hat.  BOOM, there was my Mom again, just floating through my thoughts.  My brother was a Cub Scout and my Mom and a neighbor managed their den.  I was a very little one at the time, so kind of tagged along to all the meetings.  I remember how she ironed my brother’s blue shirt and neckerchief and adjusted them just so before meetings.

Cub Scout

The connection I felt was visceral and I am so grateful for it.

My years as a mother never overlapped with my Mom’s life and those two things — my life with my Mom and my life as a mother — always felt very separate and distinct.  But now, mothering my boys as they grow into older boys, well, I feel the connection and her presence.  It is a very welcome surprise.  There is a thread, not always apparent, that exists that connects my Mom and I as mother and daughter, and now as mothers — my very own motherline.

I hope to learn from her, remember what she taught, allow her to guide me as I walk this path of motherhood on my own.  It can be lonely, motherhood.  Feeling my Mom these past few months has helped.  Eleven years is a long time apart.  I am so glad she’s back and keeping me company.

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15 Wedding Gifts Still In Use After 15 Years of Marriage

So the husband and I celebrated 15 years of marriage last week.  It was lovely, actually.  We spent a weekend in the small town where we got married, showed the boys the opera hall where our ceremony was held,  had a spontaneous vow renewal, enjoyed a fancy dinner and show.  Really lovely.  And, then, you know, it’s Monday again and the chaos of day-to-day life resumed.

As I was emptying the dishwasher, it struck me that I was putting away dishes and glasses and silverware that were gifted to us for our wedding.  I took a quick survey of the things in our lives that we use regularly that we’ve had for 15 years.  Sure enough, there were 15 of them.  BLOG POST.

When you get married, or commit matrimony, as my Dad always used to say, so much of the focus is on the wedding day and not all the days that will follow.  Equally skewed are the things we register for when we get married — fancy things that rarely get used and sit tucked away in their original packaging.  I took some flak for not registering for china or silver, but I don’t regret it for an instant.  I love to use these things and I love that they’ve been part of our day-to-day lives for fifteen years.

What better gift to give than one that gets used?  Think about that, brides-to-be, as you prepare for your own wedding.  My advice to you is to spend as much time thinking about the marriage as the wedding.  And grateful thanks to all who gifted us these things.  We think of you often!

 

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Thank You, HONY!

Brandon Stanton is a stranger to me, but should I ever be lucky enough to meet this man, I would have met an honest to goodness hero with a heart of gold.  Those are all ridiculous cliches of course, and yet, where Brandon is concerned, they are simply descriptors.

He is the young man behind Humans of New York, that Facebook juggernaut of a page where you go when you need a lift.  He uses his camera to not only capture humanity, but inspire humanity.  We need Brandon right now.  All of us.

Less than three weeks ago, I learned, when my Facebook feed started blowing up, that Brandon was committing HONY to a fundraiser for the pediatric cancer patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  This is a place where dozens of children I know have been treated for their disease.  I started weeping with the realization that his lens would be trained on pediatric cancer and what a powerful force that would be.

I have used storytelling as a tool to gain awareness of and create advocates for pediatric cancer since 2011 when I first wrote Donna’s Cancer Story.  My hope and belief was that if people knew a child with cancer, they would care and want to help.  Despite the incidence of childhood cancer being on the rise and despite cancer being the number one disease killer of children in America, it is woefully underfunded.  People within the community know the truth, that, in many respects, our kids are invisible.

That is a painful truth.

With HONY using its massive reach and Brandon’s empathic lens, his gift for making us see things we never saw before, pediatric cancer just found its new BFF.

There was a thrill on my page, an excitement, a current of hope that I have never felt before.  People would see our kids, know their stories, perhaps, even care.  $3.8 million dollars and two weeks later, Lordy, does it feel good to be seen.

When you live with childhood cancer, when you are caring for a child with cancer, the isolation, the despair, the loneliness, the fear, all those things become your life.  You feel broken and marked and different than those around you.  I have often felt grateful that the years we cared for Donna during her cancer treatments, social media was not yet a part of my life.  The pain of seeing other thriving children while your own is experiencing something so horrendous has to be like a low level of constant torture that gives you a zing every time you log on.

HONY put our children (and, yes, somehow every child with cancer feels like one of my own) front and center.  And they were ready for their close-up.

As the mother of a daughter who died of cancer, I am immensely grateful.  I connected with so many of the stories he brought to us.  It was enlightening to have a window into what it is like to be a doctor to these kiddos, to willingly go to work day-in and day-out, knowing your entire patient base would die, despite your best efforts.  To see the fear in a parent’s eyes, a fear I know well.  To hear, in the words of a child, what something as unruly as cancer living in your body might feel like. To see a woman on a bench talk about her dead child and to cry with her, as I still grieve my own.

I use words to help people connect, encourage them to feel.  Brandon uses photos.  He nailed it.

If you haven’t already done so, please head over to Humans of New York.  Allow yourself to get to know a child living with cancer, a nurse who administers chemo, a surgeon who says a prayer that his patient might wake up from their anesthesia, a researcher who keeps researching despite not finding a single answer, a mom who misses her son.  Looks like donations are still open, too.  You can give (even $1 helps) HERE.

HONY, thank you, from the bottom of my broken heart, for seeing us.  Thank you for helping others see us, too.  We needed you so much more than you will ever know or realize.  You are a gift.