Category: Grief

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What a Muddy Backpack and Stuffed Rooster Taught Me About My Mothering

My eight year old son is a child sized version of an absent-minded professor.  I am constantly reminding him to keep track of his things, not to lose his things, and to stay on top of his things.  “Things” being the all inclusive umbrella term for the trappings of boyhood — backpack, handheld game system, stuffed animal du jour, current book, homework, hat, gloves, you know the drill.

This trait in my son is equal parts annoying and endearing.  I love that his little head is so full of such interesting thoughts that he is distracted from the minutiae of life.  Committing to memory the lyrics of all 46 songs on the Hamilton soundtrack is infinitely more rewarding than remembering to empty out and store his backback after school.  I get it.  But damn if we both don’t get frustrated when he’s five minutes late the next morning and he can’t find his mysteriously missing backpack.

And I can’t tell you how often we’re getting ready to leave school and I need to ask him if he remembered to bring home his homework or hoodie or insert necessary thing here.  The sheer volume of stuff on the lost and found table, though, makes me realize that my little fledgling absent-minded academic is merely one of many at his school.  Kids lose their shit all the time, resulting in moms across America losing a different kind of shit all the time, too.

Today as we were leaving, his teacher called out to him, “Don’t forget your backpack!”  I was grateful she was on it, as that damn backpack wasn’t on my radar in that moment.  We had a long afternoon ahead of us and I was thinking about the precision timing involved in getting us from Point A to Point B to Point C in the time frame we needed to keep on schedule.

Knowing we had a few minutes to spare, we went to the school playground to allow my boys to get their afternoon ya-yas out before we headed on to our packed schedule.  Happily, everything worked out.  We were on time for our first adventure, despite bad traffic, and my husband arrived just in time to meet us afterward so that we could share a quick dinner out together before we traded cars and he headed home with the boys and I went on to my evening event.

I was in the middle of that evening event, a guest lecture I was giving about finding meaning after child loss to a room full of social work students when my husband started texting me.  “Do you know where the boy’s backpack is?”  “It’s not in the car.”  “Did you bring it to that focus group?”  “FYI, he is very worried about the stuffies that were in it.”

What a perfectly typical moment of motherhood — impending doom and competing needs.  So there I am trying to convey the reality of what it is like to bury a child when I am thinking about the missing backpack with the stuffed rooster inside it and how sad I know my boy must be, missing his rooster friend.  That, right there, my friends, is my grief in a nutshell.

The texts stopped as soon as they started and I got back to the matter at hand.  Afterwards, I checked in with my husband.  My son didn’t remember having it at our first stop, but I was convinced he must have left it there, as I know he had it leaving school, as his teacher made sure of it.  On this lousy, rainy night, I circled around back to our first stop.  I checked with the lost and found at the security desk, no backpack.  Hmmmm.

I called my husband and said, “Well, we did go to the school playground before we left, maybe he forgot it there and the after school staff found it and took it inside.  You can check in the morning at drop-off.”  I started driving home and thought it might be worthwhile to take a spin to the school myself, just in case the backpack might be on the playground.

BINGO.

backpack

Sure enough, the backpack was there, soaking and filthy, sitting in a pile of mud after hours of rain.  I was elated to find it.  I picked it up with relief and booked it home, feeling like a true hero.  MOM TO THE RESCUE!  How great am I?  Job well done, Mom!  I rock.

As I drove through the rain, I thought about my boy and my love for my boy.  I thought about how happy and relieved he will be in the morning when he learns his rooster stuffie is safe and sound, albeit a bit damp.  I thought about how lucky it was that I went back to the school, especially given that it was out of the way.  I thought about how tender it made me feel that I could do something so simple that will make my boy feel so happy. Isn’t life grand?

Then, out of nowhere, I thought about how I might have reacted if we were halfway to our destination and my son had remembered in that moment that his backpack was missing.  I thought about how angry that would have made me.  I thought about the frustration and resentment I surely would have felt towards my son that no doubt would have snaked its way out of my mouth, lecturing and probably shaming him for being so forgetful.

Ugh.  I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it — motherhood is humbling. I got to feel like a hero tonight and tomorrow morning when my boy finds his favorite stuffed rooster, he will think I am a hero, too.  But, in my gut, I will know the truth, that the flip side of that hero coin is a yelling, overwhelmed, angry and imperfect mom.

I am both those things and my mothering could go either way at any given moment. Tonight it worked out for the best.  On another night, it might not.  The next time I find myself angry and frustrated, resentful towards an eight year old boy for committing the heinous crime of forgetting, I hope I remember that muddy backpack and stuffed rooster.  I hope I remember the tenderness I felt towards a sad boy worried about his missing friend who just happened to be a stuffed rooster.  I hope I remember that how I react is about me and not my son.  I hope I can be a hero more often than not.

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The Unimaginable: A Grieving Parent On ‘Hamilton’

Is a spoiler alert required for historical events that occurred over 200 years ago?  I’m told it isn’t, but consider this your official spoiler alert.

My husband and I were presented with the totally unexpected opportunity to go see ‘Hamilton’ last week.  After agreeing that the family will be eating three squares of oatmeal for the next month to cover the ticket prices (can someone, anyone, explain why these tickets are so damn expensive?), we went.  It did not disappoint.

I would never call myself a ‘musical person’ or a ‘Broadway person.’  I can count on a couple of fingers the number of live musicals I have seen in my life.  That ‘Cats’ was ‘Wicked,’ kind of thing, but ‘Hamilton’ transfixed me. Using hip hop and rap lenses to capture the founding of America is nothing short of genius.  These tools provide a context and relevance that breathe life into history, making the humanity behind the American Revolution and founding of our country accessible to modern audiences.

Long story short, this musical was well worth a month of oatmeal.

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Because so little time elapsed between the getting of the tickets and the seeing of the play, I didn’t have the opportunity to do even the simplest Google search on Alexander Hamilton.  All I knew about the play was the hype that I studiously avoided.  I did watch the PBS documentary about the making of it, and, I can’t lie, I found Lin-Manuel Miranda so damn charming and smart that I was intrigued.  Turns out, the hype is totally legit.

So, here is where the spoiler comes in, folks.  I didn’t know that Alexander and Eliza Hamilton buried their first born child.  Philip, their nineteen year old son, was killed in a duel defending his father’s honor.  Much of the second act of the play revolves around the impact of their son’s death on this Founding Father and his long suffering wife.  The song “It’s Quiet Uptown” tries to capture what Miranda calls, “the unimaginable.”  It will stick with me for a long, long time.  Give it a listen:

If you yourself are not grieving a child, it’s hard to explain the visceral connection you feel to other grieving parents.  There is a level of empathy and solidarity that transcends so many of the barriers that exist to knowing another person.  The depth of grief is universal, despite time, despite culture, despite geography.  It is a profound and sacred shorthand.

One of the burdens of surviving the death of a child is the intense loneliness and isolation you feel.  My daily grief and sadness is unapparent to the outside world.  I shop for groceries and take my sons to school and volunteer at event XYZ and all the while, despite it not being seen, I am grieving.  The burden is real and it is heavy, but in so many instances, it is invisible.  Some days, that invisibility is an advantage, some days not.

The effect of seeing another parent’s grief on stage, captured so tenderly and respectfully, was raw and arresting.  I was a weeping mess for most of the second act.  I purchased the soundtrack the day after seeing the performance and play this song on loop.  It is the last thing I listened to before picking up my youngest from pre-school this week, so I am grateful for the bright sun these days, allowing me to wear sunglasses and hide my wet and red eyes.

Lordy.  Even as I sit here and write these words, I am crying, knowing that in just a few minutes I need to pull it together and bundle up my toddler to pick up my older boy at school.  The other parents, gathered like I will be, waiting for our kids after school, will not see this grief, this sadness, but it is there, heavy and potent, beating inside me alongside my heart.

‘Hamilton’ is a masterpiece on many levels, for many reasons.  To capture a parent’s grief and mirror it on stage for the audience to witness is a balm, a gift, an invitation to feel less alone.  Art heals, my friends.

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Mary Tyler Moore, My Patron Saint of Hope

“You’re gonna make it after all.”  

I am writing these words through tears, a full 24 hours (now almost 48, as the words did not coming easily) after hearing the news of Mary Tyler Moore’s death.  The death of an 80 year old should never surprise, but the death of this particular 80 year old during this particular week feels especially crushing.  Mary Tyler Moore, you see, was my patron saint of hope.

I never wrote before my daughter was diagnosed with cancer.  My husband was the writer in the family.  Days after we got the devastating news, we started an online journal that quickly became our lifeline in the two and a half years we lived in Cancerville with Donna.  After she died, I never stopped writing.  Words, and the connection they provided, had become too essential to me.

Making the decision to start my own blog resulted in needing to name said blog.  At the time, I was adamant that it would not be about grief.  I wanted a fresh start where I wasn’t solely identified by the gaping hole in my life and in my heart.  Foolishly, I thought I could write a parenting blog without mentioning that pesky little detail that one of my children was dead.

“Mary Tyler Mom” was born while I was driving with my husband.  We were throwing out names, much as couples do when they are expecting a little one.  The moment it came to me, I knew it was perfect.  Mary Tyler Moore was an icon of my youth, an unapologetic feminist who was full of self-effacing spunk.  She was as vulnerable as she was strong.  She was accessible without being intimidating. She was gonna make it after all, while wearing a stylish pantsuit.

Naming my blog after my childhood icon, a symbol of possibility and perseverance, was a nod to my grief, a wink to that part of myself that knew I, too, was gonna make it after all.  Not all folks might make an immediate connection between the character of Mary Richards and hope, but as a little girl in 1970s America, she was one of my first teachers of what was possible when you dared to hope.

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The image of the original opening sequence, Mary Richards driving in a car alone, heading to the big city after leaving behind everything that was familiar to her (can we all just agree to forget about the fur she was wearing during that opening?).  “How will you make it on your own?  This world is awfully big, girl this time you’re all alone.  It’s time you started living.  It’s time you let someone else do some giving.  Love is all around, no need to waste it. You can have the town, why don’t you take it?  You’re gonna make it after all.”  Those lyrics were the soundtrack to my girlhood, and now, my grief.

It’s incredible, really, to think about the impact this show had on my generation.  Premiering just before my first birthday, and ending as I was finishing second grade, Mary Tyler Moore shaped the woman I wanted to be, I imagined I could be.  You always hear the narrative of little girls wanting to grow up to be brides or moms or princesses.  Nope.  I wanted to grow up to be Mary Tyler Moore. Even as a young girl, I imagined myself strong, independent, living in the city, working some type of fabulous and exciting job, alone (no man required), and wearing some kind of amazing outfit that featured knee high boots.

A lot of that came true for me.

As a grieving mom, I was reminded of the importance of imagining what was possible.  Might it be possible for me to know joy again? Might it be possible for me to be interested in my work again?  Might it be possible to still produce, still contribute, still participate in this world of ours, despite my sorrow?  Because of Mary Tyler Moore, I knew I could.

Mary, my patron saint of hope, reminded me what was possible in a time I felt so incredibly lost and vulnerable.  Her joy, her passion, her competence, her moxie, her humor, her spunk, was all still possible.  For me.  Even in my grief.  Even as a forty year old gal that was married.  Even as someone who had no earthly idea of what I wanted anymore.

I am so grateful to Mary Tyler Moore, the woman and the show.  They have guided me and provided so much inspiration as a girl, as a young woman on my own in a big city for the first time, and now, as a middle aged grieving mom.  We are all gonna make it after all.

Well, except maybe Chuckles.