tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30799420597667785592024-02-19T09:42:26.944-05:00QuillUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-75101450613141007712022-11-03T14:16:00.006-04:002022-11-03T14:44:03.371-04:00Tangible even ten years later<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdaXmDDgh5u7iqKc5jc6BjVeyRfmSRSWhQ5pyhPNJrqlgIKhLtb2K58Sc3OVrmvSCx0_UwKkyXMnwGjjK1YPn66OA2stT8VhkvtM5Qr06oyNWq5_MJM-3zdtGSAhgW-ZeAH7Rt41uEqP0MKa5xeKA4a95bc0dPCZB_-DhWWaeIFqkTYmXETXlhqpp-w/s4032/ACS_0189.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdaXmDDgh5u7iqKc5jc6BjVeyRfmSRSWhQ5pyhPNJrqlgIKhLtb2K58Sc3OVrmvSCx0_UwKkyXMnwGjjK1YPn66OA2stT8VhkvtM5Qr06oyNWq5_MJM-3zdtGSAhgW-ZeAH7Rt41uEqP0MKa5xeKA4a95bc0dPCZB_-DhWWaeIFqkTYmXETXlhqpp-w/w640-h480/ACS_0189.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Her voice is within me. I hear it more often these days. Literally it is in various vowel sounds of my lower register. Figuratively it’s in my automatic “Yahm!” reply to my son when he says, “Mom!” The first time I reflexively replied, “Yahm,” I laughed and smiled, thinking of her and how we used to do the same exchange, with roles reversed.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">TEN years later, that’s kind of how my grief is. There’s not much that makes me lose it these days. Time will do that to you - getting used to a milestone missed. The usual ones you’d find in a family and close group of family-like friends - marriages, divorce, deaths and births - aren’t the events that make me feel those heartstring tugs. I do wonder what songs we would have danced to at my wedding, or how she’d comfort a childhood friend navigating a divorce, or what nickname she’d give to my son. But it’s the small, ultra-specific moments that can immediately illicit tears. Like when I finally had to buy a new car and donate hers. It’s just a car to some, but to me it was an extension of her, my tomboy, car-loving mom. Driving it made her feel tangible. Or when I first sang to my newborn son the lullaby she made up and hummed to me when I was a baby - I couldn’t get through the first few words without sobbing, in part thanks to that postpartum hormone rush. Some days even now I can’t stop a tear or two when singing it to him. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s cruel to be a parent without your mom. But surprisingly, this is where I’ve “found” her the most - connected in motherhood in two different universes. We were almost the same age when we each gave birth and I’ve felt close to her again imagining her doing the same things I’m doing with my son but to me at his age. When I was born she wrote in lined notebooks, keeping track of the the newborn minutia. As I grew it became a log by whomever was watching my brother and me - her, dad, Baci - of who visited, what I ate (lots of pears), and what I was doing (coloring with blue crayons on the porch). I dug these notebooks spanning my first two years out of storage last year and just immersed myself into them, made even easier since I live now in my childhood home. It’s like I can step back in time and find tangible answers to my motherhood questions from the best in the business. </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jw-JbnVmnxL-d4YuGb_xyHwTzx4dheMi7DYkcrP_qLSlsBJfApCWDQl7mKTdapW__rtEyE1cVZBesytg_RpSJMEXlRP3d1ABhuyVFoekbt7evh6LfbyxJ6kfGa2yNJAUdKJCVvg58dGv/s640/DSC_0257.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="428" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jw-JbnVmnxL-d4YuGb_xyHwTzx4dheMi7DYkcrP_qLSlsBJfApCWDQl7mKTdapW__rtEyE1cVZBesytg_RpSJMEXlRP3d1ABhuyVFoekbt7evh6LfbyxJ6kfGa2yNJAUdKJCVvg58dGv/w428-h640/DSC_0257.JPG" width="428" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ten years is both an eternity and a blink of an eye. How is it possible she died 10 years ago? Ten! What would she be like today? What would she look like, ten years older? What would she call my son? I can imagine for the most part and when I do a deep imaginary dive, I find those heartstring tugs and waterworks. I know she would chuckle that her cat, which she didn’t ask for but reluctantly adopted from my brother, is somehow still alive and kicking, now making me the reluctant cat owner. And me - wow. What would I tell her? Ten years later I am 36. I book annual mammograms years earlier than my peers because of her history. I am a MOM. I changed jobs. I no longer have the years-long trauma-induced anxiety I developed after caring for her in the last week of her life. I’ve held firm boundaries like she modeled. We talk less but I’m still good friends with my core group of pals she knew and loved. I’ve made new friends she would adore. I really wish she could have met my former boss. </span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdiYTie0plcDvhlaNnRyVOFYe1agtd_UBXRzkibLXyKBxPqLdAxFlL0RrCAdlcCEXkYrJ5-Lhxrl0i5sAEigP6iWfFL2o5XwiYqWY_kK8rXheaFjBw_dySsE7ZxhXICikcZV2ZLOIiqSu/s640/IMG_3433.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdiYTie0plcDvhlaNnRyVOFYe1agtd_UBXRzkibLXyKBxPqLdAxFlL0RrCAdlcCEXkYrJ5-Lhxrl0i5sAEigP6iWfFL2o5XwiYqWY_kK8rXheaFjBw_dySsE7ZxhXICikcZV2ZLOIiqSu/w480-h640/IMG_3433.JPG" width="480" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>My heart hurts when I see things I know she would like or wear or do, but there’s a beauty in that, in knowing her so well, even a decade later. That, too, makes her tangible today. She still exists if I know what she’d listen to, watch, or buy these days. She still exists because I hear her in my voice. I see her in the way I parent, both naturally and trying to emulate the magical childhood she helped create. She still exists in the traditions she started that I carry out. Ever the moon lover, I truly felt she was with me giving birth, two weeks late, because my son was born on a day with a super moon - when the moon is the closest it ever gets to earth. I know she and the universe worked together on that one.</span><span> </span></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My son’s room is what used to be her office. In transforming it from my brother’s lair, she added translucent glitter to the ceiling to emulate stars, her favorite, as was all celestial things. Months ago, my son noticed their sparkle with the way his lamp light was reflecting through them and I said, “Those are Baci’s stars. She put them there.” Months passed. He became more talkative. One day while I was changing his clothes, he said, “Baci!” and I stared at him, so surprised. “Baci?” I asked, wondering why she would show herself to him and not me. “Baci!” he said, and pointed up, to the glittery refracted light. Baci’s stars. The floodgates opened. A tangible connection to her for my son. She’s still real. She still exists. Even in a new generation.</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-75025178854130946212020-11-03T19:43:00.008-05:002020-11-03T22:53:35.713-05:00A mother's love<h3 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3Vo5wY_ZWUc4pANFMiG1t7y8T72FRLY_YdbFa8uC3-JzdP9pHaVgqm5mwqIV-J_0FGDfbKxvqakF9TeD5XxjAJGQTd_bZIjUEBlvcDrhpPGZOiFplOAD-AAF9wKLScfoUgsf3O0uiP6C/s1304/MCblog.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1304" data-original-width="1052" height="489" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3Vo5wY_ZWUc4pANFMiG1t7y8T72FRLY_YdbFa8uC3-JzdP9pHaVgqm5mwqIV-J_0FGDfbKxvqakF9TeD5XxjAJGQTd_bZIjUEBlvcDrhpPGZOiFplOAD-AAF9wKLScfoUgsf3O0uiP6C/w394-h489/MCblog.png" width="394" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My son fell asleep in my arms today, both of us locked in an embrace. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I held him close while waiting for him to fall into deep sleep so I could then lay him in his crib without him waking upon landing. We rocked back and forth and I brushed my mouth and nose against his warm head and soft hair, drinking him in and imprinting the memory into my brain.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">While waiting him out, I allowed my mind to open the door I mostly keep closed, locking away the memories of eight years ago that still sting. My mum died eight years ago today, a painful culmination of a savage week of hope, despair and crushing loss. Truly, I try not to fully think about those days often because they’re so painful. How naive I was at the time, so buoyed by Mum’s positivity and remarkable success rate at overcoming any illness. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">It’s hard to describe how antagonizing it is to be a young adult living a week of watching your parent’s health rapidly, yet excruciatingly slowly, decline to death. Unbearable is an appropriate term, but I bore it, so I can’t use it as a descriptor. But I barely did. That experience doused my own positivity and created an anxiety that affects me daily. It is why I take COVID precautions so seriously. Watching your parent die is horrendous. And she didn’t even die “tragically.” She laid in a hospital bed, pumped with morphine, and died “in her sleep.” She had a “death rattle.” I sat in my dad’s lap and watched my mom take her last breath. I heard it. I saw it. It is forever seared into my memory. There is no forgetting that.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Experiences like this make you a more empathic person, Sean says. Of watching someone who is too young to die, die. Watching someone you didn’t think you could live without, die. Watching not just your parent, but a knowledge base, your childhood memory bank, die. Of watching parts of your future memories extinguish before they can ever be made. Of watching someone who loves you unconditionally, who loves you so fiercely in only a way a mother can love their child, die. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Sean, too, experienced part of this “last week” of Mum’s life. He came to the hospital when she called a family meeting to say she “was done.” He watched us gather around her bed, with other family members on FaceTime and the phone, while she talked to us. Nurses stopped her morphine drip before bringing her to the Hospice ward and he too saw her grimace in pain as the drugs stopped blocking the feeling of someone’s body shutting down. He stood in the room and watched us all at our breaking points trying to keep our shit together for her, for the first rightfully selfish decision she made in a long time. Later, he would say his last words to her while she was in a sleepy morphine stupor, with me by her side, of, “I’ll take care of your girl.” He, too, is empathetic.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">On one of the days in the last few weeks of her life, I was at her house doing my “taking care of Kathy” duties. Because she had a hard time walking then, various family members split up days to spend with her and care for her. I remember sitting halfway in her lap on a recliner. </span>Her lap was a frequent place for me. She hugged me, hard, arms wrapped around my middle. She was more sentimental than usual, and told me she loved me. We stayed embraced like that, not saying anything. I remember I was leaving to go somewhere and honestly felt rushed - pulled among work responsibilities, taking care of her and making dinner for or spending time with Sean. Here is part of that naivety I mentioned. What was she hugging me so hard for? She would get back to doing chemo soon and we’d all eventually be back to normal. She wouldn’t need a wheelchair and would walk unassisted again. She overcame everything thrown her way. She was such a force, such a strong woman with an indomitable will. I had no idea what was coming. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Becoming a parent has changed the loss of my mum for me. It is a deeper hole in my heart where memories of watching my mum and her first grandchild together don’t get to live. And, in a 2020 plot twist, that hole is only deeper because I can’t watch my dads do this with Calvin, thanks to COVID. Sean, Calvin and I are staying in our bubble, as we should, because Sean and I have already experienced the horror of watching a slow death of someone who I wish so badly was alive today. To potentially be an asymptomatic spreader or unintentional eventual-symptomatic spreader to my Dads would wreck me, and wreck Sean if it were his parents. We empathize with our family who want to hold our son, but - we’ve been in the thick of illness and despair and don’t want to experience that again. Being both an adult child and a parent during this pandemic is cruel. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Only now, having birthed a child of my own, do I understand what Mum was doing that day when she hugged me tightly, silently and for so long. She was, essentially, doing what I did earlier today to Calvin - breathing in his scent, hugging him as if we were one, burning the memory into my brain for keeps. I assume she knew there would be no “coming back” from the state her body was in then. And maybe Mum had an inkling she was living the last of her days. So she was loving her first child, remembering the days of feeding and rocking, of giving as mothers do all of herself to her child. Hugging me - an extension of her, her heart, breathing me in, holding us close as one, searing the memory into her brain to keep forever. A mother’s love. I’ve felt it. I give it. I fully understand it now. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p></div></h3>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-84502920465250894632018-11-03T23:32:00.001-04:002018-11-03T23:56:46.347-04:00I'm not mourning her today <div style="line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I’m not mourning her today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Six years ago this evening, my mom died. Holding my hand, surrounded by most of her family. It was sad, devastating, and painfully traumatic. It was the worst day of my life; a culmination of the worst week of my life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">By all accounts, I should be mourning her today. I should have been mourning her this past week. But I’m not. Today is insignificant, except it being her death anniversary. And I’m prepared for her absence today. Like my wedding day. Or Mothers’ Day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">It’s the days when I’m not prepared that I mourn her most. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Like the day I had to walk into my very first mammogram appointment without her. SO IRONIC! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">In just this past year, I mourned her when I contemplated leaving my previous job for my current one - I talked it over with everyone (thanks for listening to me!) except her. She died knowing me as a reporter. What about now? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">And when I bought a new car (I drove her old one), she wasn’t with me, or in my passenger seat on an adventure, or prodding all the buttons and bells and whistles. She died knowing me driving a different car. What about now? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Or in October when I went to a local tire store. The last time I was there, I was with her. I took a photo of her in front of a sign that said, “Bald is beautiful ... except here.” She covered the bottom half, so it’s just her, holding her hat and exposing her bald head. The sign is still there. But she is not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I mourned her a few weeks ago when I heard a commercial for a Mannheim Steamroller show and laughed out loud and teared up because she would have loved to attend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I want to tell her that a co-worker at my new job wears a perfume very similar to hers and when I first smelled it I cried in my office. Or that when my boss smiles his eyes crinkle up like hers. He looks like her dad, too. I want her to know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Her absence is a hole I stumble across nearly daily. On all of these occasions, I mourn her. But not on Nov. 3. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">On that date, I mourn myself. My old self. My self BHD. Before Her Death. I was so naive, and innocent, and trusting. Carefree. Less calculating. Lighter. Without worry. It all changed on Nov. 3. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I see myself in her hospital room on the day she decided she had had enough, and I think, “Oh, girl. You have no idea what you’re in for. You are so unprepared for what you have to do, and what you’re about to go through.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">It’s with the clarity of six years AHD (After Her Death) that I can view that time period like a video sequence. I can see how the trauma of that week froze and hardened and numbed me. I remember nearly every moment of her in the hospital. I remember waking up on Nov. 4 in my apartment and immediately wailing when the foggy morning grog wore off and I remembered that my mom. had. died. I pulled the sheets over my head, curled in a ball and cried. And then I don’t remember. I don’t remember much of her celebration of life, except that it seemed like a party - rooms full of friends and family. I don’t remember how I got to the funeral home. I remember being in a car, but I don’t remember with who. I don’t remember leaving. Did I sleep in her house or my apartment? What was I doing then? What was I doing a month from then? I don’t know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I remember saying that I didn’t want to remember 2013, the immediate year after her death, and saying I didn’t want anything significant to happen in that year, in case there was a proposal or an adventure or something. And I really can’t remember many specific things about that year. On purpose in planning nothing significant, I figured it would be a helpful, mindful coping technique. I didn’t realize my body and mind would employ this technique on their own, in different ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">In that time, I now realize I developed trauma-induced anxiety, and I probably, very likely, was depressed. I should have listened to my husband and my best friend and saw a therapist. I would probably have felt better faster. I scoffed at taking medication because, I told myself and them, I wanted to feel all the feels now, and get it all over with so I can move forward. When my anxiety got really bad, I ended up taking medication for about a year. I’m not sure it was as helpful as I hoped it would have been. Truthfully, time, it seems, is what helped heal the most. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I recently read an article about a psychotherapist who works with trauma victims. The article was about a shark attack on the Cape, but the way the doctor described how the body reacts to a traumatic experience - it stiffens and tells the brain there is a complete threat everywhere - resonated. It explained how I had felt - frozen and fearful. “For people, there’s a surge of sensation that frightens them and keeps them in that frozen state indefinitely.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Although my mom was battling cancer, her death was sudden and unexpected. She, I guess, just got sick, or got an infection, and her weakened body fought as hard as it could until it couldn’t. She was an immensely strong woman who overcame everything thrown her way. This infection just tripped her up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">For me, I subconsciously felt like something - anything - could trip ME up. Or my dads. Or husband. Or aunt. And I needed to be in control and prepared and afraid of everything. A combination of fight AND flight. Voila. Trauma-induced anxiety. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I remained in that state for years. Frozen. I’d say 2015 was the thick of it, and 2017 was when I felt ... warmer. 2018 was The Big Thaw. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">I’m not sure what’s changed. But if I was frozen in 2012, I am nearly thawed today. I’ve been writing every year on this anniversary about how I feel, and how I feel better than the year before. But this year, I feel ... great? I feel almost like my old self again. As if 2012 Kristin is thawed enough for me to grab her hand. I’m going to hold on as hard as I can. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Time, I’m sure, is the reason. It’s been enough years for this not to feel raw anymore. I think I’ve described this pain as a cut, and then a scab, and then a scar. But this year just feels different. Six years feels like a new chapter. There’s so many new and different things that have happened, projects that are ongoing, plans that are being made, or trying to be made. It’s ... life. It’s life happening. Without her. That hurts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span>It’s always going to hurt. It will never be fair to me that this happened. To her. To me. And I can’t do anything about it, except to remember not to freeze. If I worry about life tripping me up, or my dads, or husband, or family, I’m always going to be anxious and frozen. I can’t prepare myself for every possible scenario, especially the ones that haven’t happened yet, or hopefully won’t happen for a very, very long time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But there’s always going to be those unexpected moments. That’s life, right? There’s beauty in that. Beauty in the new chapters. Even beauty in the mourning.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-61107198644156018782017-11-03T11:23:00.003-04:002017-11-03T13:18:39.087-04:00Car conundrums<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">A deep yellow light illuminated the outskirts of where my bright white headlights should have shown on my garage door. I continuously clicked the proper lever back and forth - no change. My headlights were out, and I took it as the sign for which I had asked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Rewind two weeks to Oct. 20. I’m sprawled on my living room floor, hiccup-crying and sputtering the words, “I,” “don’t,” “want,” “a,” “new,” “car” to my husband. News from a local auto repair shop was relayed to me that I need a new catalytic converter to the tune of $1,300. Paired with my recent idea to purchase four new tires before winter, in addition to the fact that my figurative pockets are not deep, I started to cry. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Reality stings. It’s not so much the higher-than-expected-but-warranted repair costs, but that my car is old, needs another repair, and it might be more of a financially sound decision in the long run to put that money not into my beloved car, but toward a newer one. Lest you think I’m a “hysterical female,” I’ll offer the knowledge that I’m sentimental, frugal and I don’t particularly enjoy major change. The car also belonged to my mum. She died five years ago to this day, Nov. 3.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">The coincidence of this car conundrum occurring in these last weeks of October is not lost on me. I actually laughed out loud when I realized. Enough time has passed where moments like this don’t gut me, but instead their absurdity or irony elicit laughter. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Around the end of October five years ago, my life forever changed. I naively thought whatever had been ailing my Mum up to that point would be something from which she could recover or adapt. She had overcome so much already in 61 years as a 24-year breast cancer survivor who vacillated in and out of remission.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Eight days after she was admitted to the hospital that last week of October, Mum died holding my hand, surrounded by my dads, her best friend, her cousin, and her sister - seconds after her sister, who helped our family in a months-long round-the-clock system of care, had driven back from New York and entered her hospital room. I heard her last breaths, watched her take that final one, and felt her hand grow cold before I let it go. It was the most traumatizing, literally traumatizing, week of my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">I can’t help but compare it to this current week, the one in which my car is dying - but on a lesser degree. Cue laughter. This car - it took us on journeys. It made memories for us. It’s a 2001 Subaru Forester that carted me around in my senior year of high school. It carried me to college for the first time and brought me back home at times when I just needed my mum. It heard our mother-daughter radio duets (to Lady Gaga and Cher) now turned solos. I transported her to chemotherapy in it, and she later gave it to me after my Impreza was totaled when struck in 2012. I recognized the car as “her” when I’d see it in my rearview mirror or as it pulled into my apartment driveway or work parking lot. My favorite adventures include my mum, who taught me to drive, behind its wheel, and later, in the passenger seat. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2004</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">My sentimental side is battling with my frugal side. I know it’s most likely a smarter, better-bang-for-your-buck plan to funnel my funds into a new, used car than repair this one. I’ve replaced both its rear wheel bearings in the last two years, and the car is plagued with weeping head gaskets. I’m disappointed that at 155,000 miles it didn’t reach 200,000 like my last two Subarus - and most Subarus in general - did. If I was wealthy, I would repair it forever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Torn on what to do, I asked Mum for a sign. I’d been researching newer, used Foresters, feeling guilty looking at them. I guess I just wanted her permission to let it go. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">Last Saturday evening I headed out to a friend’s house to carve pumpkins. I turned the ignition on and chalked up the lack of headlights to my husband who had driven the car earlier to unload leaves at the landfill. Flicking the light lever back and forth didn’t illuminate my garage but instead, me, realizing its lights had burned out - or so I thought. It’s likely a fuse problem because my high beams work. Regardless, I had my sign. I laughed out loud and felt relief wash over me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">For Mother’s Day in 2012, I wrote a column about Mum and called her my North Star, “Always present no matter the weather, illuminating the way for me, never burning out.” Those words couldn’t hold more true today. My car’s lights didn’t burn out, but they’ve gone out. And she has illuminated a path for me to take, enlightening me with permission to let go of her car. My North Star, indeed. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-55636566989523097632016-11-03T23:45:00.000-04:002018-11-03T23:46:00.035-04:00Train of change <div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
How many times can you pinpoint the exact moment - the hour, the minute, the evening or day - your life changed? Where with retrospection, you can see the figurative gears chug into motion, one set of toothed wheels slowly turning until the first link is made, and then the second, and then before you know it, this train of change is speeding up and on track ready to derail life as you know it, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.</div>
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Change is inevitable, both good and bad. Every day it happens, but there are extraordinary moments of change that simply shake you up with such force you’re never able to put your pieces back together in their original shape. The edges of tumbling pieces dull over time, their corners rounding, and if you were to attempt returning them to their primary place, gaps would remain. Fissures have found their way in, and ultimately, your original form simply no longer exists. </div>
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But that doesn’t mean you don’t. You still exist after this radical change. So you adapt and modify, make mistakes and work on them. Eventually you face your new fears and acclimatize to life after the severe change. It’s a metamorphosis. It’s terrifying. It’s ugly, maddening and sad. It’s profoundly lonely. And it’s a journey only you can take, only you can truly work at, only you can decide to no longer feel a certain way because it’s miserable and affecting those closest to you no matter how hard you tried to not let it. Time is the only solution that works best.</div>
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I can look back four years ago to Oct. 26 and can clearly see, “Ah yes, that evening when I was wearing a red and white striped sweater at my Mum’s house where I made us dinner, and then brownies from a box in a yellow pyrex bowl that had a photogenic drip so I took a picture,” - that is the exact moment my life changed. Because my Mum wouldn’t eat much of the dinner or brownies I made, and she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, and she wouldn’t be able to stay awake to have a clear conversation. And she would suggest I call her doctor, who would suggest we call an ambulance and head to the hospital. This night, where I arbitrarily watched a couponing show on Netflix in a green recliner chair, so naively thinking that whatever had been ailing Mum up to this point would be something from which she could recover or adapt, this night where I was not scared following her ambulance or entering a hospital because she overcame so much already in 61 years - this is the night where the first link was made in those wheels of change. Eight days later, on Nov. 3, 2012 at 9:33 p.m., mere seconds after her sister, who helped our family in a months-long round-the-clock system of care had driven back from New York and entered her hospital room, Mum would die, surrounded by my dads, her best friend, her cousin, and her sister, holding my hand. I would hear her taking her last breaths, watch her take that final one, and feel her hand grow cold. It was the most traumatizing, literally traumatizing, week of my life. And then that train of change took me on the rockiest ride of my life yet. </div>
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Every year on this day, this anniversary, I reflect on the past year and write about how I feel better than last year. I’ve noted how I feel lighter, every year, and talk about how that year must be the “year of acceptance” because of how much better I feel. But this year, year four - which whoa, I haven’t talked to/danced/laughed with my Mum in four years!? - I know for certain is acceptance. Everyone’s grief is their own, and different, but mine, I can say with certainly, has finished after four years. I know because I don’t feel bad about feeling happy, about feeling grateful to have paid off student debt and to reside where I currently do, because that wouldn’t be a reality if things turned out differently. I love my life, and even though my life for the last four years hasn’t had her in it, I still love it, and that is okay, which was once difficult to reason with.</div>
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This train of change had to happen; it was inevitable. It did attempt to derail life as I knew it, and it did deeply change me, but with retrospection, I think this was more of a detour than a derailment.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-42796286958710806932015-11-03T23:49:00.000-05:002018-11-04T07:25:52.432-05:00A scar<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Three years later, I've digested my mom's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">deep, devastating loss, and learned to accept it. My heart no longer has a hole, nor a scab, but a scar. Grief is an excruciatingly slow, long process. Throughout these years, I've thought, "Okay, I've gone through all of the stages," but really, it's taken three entire years for that final stage. This third anniversary feels so much better than the last, because that scab of sorrow is now a scar - a battle wound that shows </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">flesh forever changed. You can pick at it, but it doesn't flake like a scab because it runs deep within. Nothing, not surgery nor the sun, can alter its existence. Initially it feels fresh but soon it doesn't catch your eye for being new, and eventually, it just becomes a part of you. You'll see it every once in a while, and years later, you can retell the story of how you received the scar without wincing. But you're forever changed. That is grief. Well, that is my grief. Yours is different - and that's okay. My universe will never be the same, but I'm alright with that now. If I stop and really think about Mum's absence in my life, I still cannot believe it, and I would give every part of me for just one more hug, one more, "Hey, Kris" or "Hey, Chip," one more dance, adventure, one more day. That's a constant wish, but I understand it won't happen. This third anniversary feels lighter, not as crushing, and I know that this is "acceptance." She's forever a part of me; she's the scar tracing around my fractured heart, holding it together in an eternal hug. She's in my laugh, she's in the booming thunderstorms, in the waves washing ashore, the moon and me. My North Star, illuminating my way, never burning out. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-82132804492075290422014-11-25T09:21:00.002-05:002014-11-25T09:46:31.000-05:00Mammograms, my mum, and motivation<div style="color: #231e20; margin-bottom: 12px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Only her faded, well-worn denim hat adorned with various enameled pink ribbons and survivor pins accompanied me to my first mammogram appointment instead of Kathy herself. The irony is not lost on me.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For years, my OBGYN recommended I begin mammogram testing at age 27. My direct family history screams, “Test early!” At age 37, my mum, Kathy, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Her sister was diagnosed in her late 60s.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">According to my OBGYN, I needed to get a baseline mammogram 10 years prior to my mum’s age of diagnosis. Because of my age, and subsequent dense tissue, I’d likely receive a false positive.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When you’re 18, 27 is eons away. Annually hearing the same advice over the course of 10 years naturally dulls its impact. It also twists time.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Although I eventually surmised enough independence to venture to appointments on my own, without mum sitting as a security blanket in the waiting room for me, I’d always assumed Kathy would take me to, at the very least, my first mammogram appointment, when I finally turned the ripe ‘ol age of 27. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Never did I expect she would die from metastasized breast cancer when I was 26, two months shy of turning the long-awaited age of 27.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here’s how hearing that same advice twists time: age 27 seems drastically old when you’re in your early 20s making a mental note to schedule a mammogram. But thinking about losing your mum at 26? That’s so young!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Visions of chatting with Kathy about her first mammogram while I waited to be called into the doctor’s office, of reclining casually in a waiting room listening to her compare the difference in technology from the late 80s to today, promising her I’d ask to see the resulting picture, disappeared.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Crammed out of my mind in the year after her death, while my brain weighed pressing needs like, “What does Christmas look like without her?” and “Who’s going to call me in the afternoon on my birthday to comedically retell the story of my birth?” and “So if you’re really not coming back, what do I do?,” was scheduling a mammogram.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It wasn’t until I began planning a month-long series profiling breast cancer survivors for the paper of which I am editor<i> </i>did I seriously consider scheduling one.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While chatting with one survivor, who had her breast cancer discovered through a routine mammogram - a tumor so small a self-exam wouldn’t have revealed it - I instinctively shared Kathy’s battle. It comes so naturally; I can’t disassociate breast cancer and survivorship with my mum. She was in and out of remission for 24 years; diagnosed when I was 2. Telling her story, proudly, is different these days, I realize, because there is now an end.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I told the survivor how I’d been recommended to have a mammogram at 27, but put it off. Now, at 28, I was a year behind. Simply, she said, “Well, schedule one!” Perhaps it was her familiar positive attitude or gentle prodding mothers often use when attempting to convince their older child, who is no longer a child, that resonated within and motivated me. Whatever it was, I made the call.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A week later, I showed up for my first mammogram. The radiologist was unsure if I needed it or an ultrasound with less radiation exposure. But after a call to her main office, it was determined I’d get a mammogram.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Speculation about mammograms has produced a reputation associated with pain. Pressed against the cold, metal mammogram machine, I was worried. But the radiologist was friendly and accommodating. She apologized for the repeated repositioning and length I’d have to hold my breath. She was creating my baseline, the image to which future exams would be compared, so she wanted to create the best, most informative picture. I could appreciate that. Plus, she let me see the picture.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Twice on each side I was squished and mammoramed. Uncomfortable? Completely. Slightly awkward? Totally. But manageable? Heck yes!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Following the exam on my way out of the room, I stopped to take a survey in which I’d been asked to participate. The door to the waiting room remained open, and I could see my fiancé, who tagged along (my dad also offered his own company), reading in a row of seats. I’d answered the last question and hit “done” when I heard, “Kathy? The radiologist will see you now,” as the next patient was called.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hearing that name, at that time, in that place, sent a shock through me. Despite it not “belonging” to my mum, it made all the difference. I teared up and smiled.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Forty-eight hours later, I received my results in the mail and braced for the expected false positive. But it wasn’t there. My test results were normal. I cried.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What I’ve learned in these past two years is you can’t expect certain things to happen. I never expected to lose my mum when I was 26. I honestly didn’t expect to see a clean mammogram. And I didn’t expect to not have Kathy with me at my first exam. But maybe I wasn’t without her after all. And her story, her inspiration, doesn’t have to end.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Schedule your mammogram or call to start that conversation with your doctor today. Urge the other women in your life to do the same -you could be that motivation they need.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-18025116782833437572013-06-28T16:54:00.000-04:002013-06-28T16:57:02.337-04:00Running for a reason<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font: normal normal normal 56px/normal 'Times New Roman';">P</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">eter called my bluff with which I didn’t consciously realize I was faltering. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“No you’re not,” he told me matter-of-factly, in the way one says the sky is blue and the grass is green.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I had just told him I was okay, was holding up fine. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It’s a keen intuition unfortunately gifted only to those who have experienced tragic, piercing loss; the ability to calculate unnatural blinking patterns, a nod too many, a slight raise of the eyebrows used when trying to convince with conviction. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dumbfounded, I paused and reclined in the chair facing him, repeatedly capping and uncapping the red pen I was using to proof the newspaper. A nervous tick. My façade was faulty. Someone could see I was falling apart at the seams.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the seven months since my Mum passed away, “How are you doing?” is the question I’m most often asked.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Everyone has taken my reply at face value. “I’m okay,” I’ve said. And so they believe just that. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I like to think they don’t second-guess my answer because, well, A) I’m a trustworthy woman and B) they can see I’m just as strong as she was. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But what else am I supposed to say? That I feel lost without someone for whom to care? Entirely too angry I have to deal with this at 27? That every time I wake from dreaming of her I cry uncontrollably, inconsolably, when reality quickly comes crashing? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I’m sure friends ask because they’re genuinely concerned. But I know they don’t want me to unload the whole of my emotions on them just as much as I don’t want to be a burden.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">So I run from a real answer. I mean, I do work in public relations.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Until I had talked with Peter, I hadn’t considered it was okay to not be okay. I assumed the racing of my mind was normal. That I would soon stop mentally running in circles from an emotional ebb and flow.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Initially, I ignored it, like most things I don’t want to deal with in life. But after chest pain, continual stomachaches and breakouts worse than the whole of my teens, I had to be honest with myself. I’m not okay. I have anxiety. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mum and I had a running joke when she would tell me to not lift something heavy or she’d ask someone for help. “Don’t you know who my mother is?” I’d reply back. “I can do anything.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To realize I’m not invincible – and that’s okay - was kind of an “ah-ha” moment. Something needed to change. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On a whim, I joined friends Trudy and Janet in May and ran the route of a local 5k. Every .5 miles I had to stop and catch my breath. But for the first time in months, I fell asleep without a case of the “What-Ifs?” I slept through the night. And I felt great the next morning.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Today, we run three times a week. I participated in my first official 5k Saturday. More importantly, I don’t feel so anxious and sad. I’ve learned to focus and channel my energy, nervous or excited, into a steady cadence. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the third of every month, I still have a hard time leaving my bed. I still ache for my Mum. And my mind will race every once in a while. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But I’m keeping the running for the road. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">***</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Coincidently enough, I'm obsessed with this song, called, "Time to Run," by Lord Huron</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-62129383327150434412013-05-12T11:26:00.000-04:002016-09-21T17:51:51.365-04:00Messages from Mum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Cheeses of all kinds blurred together into one bright orange block as I attempted to compose myself in Big Y’s dairy aisle last week.<br />
Moments earlier, my body let out an audible, involuntarily gasp as I passed a woman whose perfume wafted my way.<br />
It was Tova. My Mum’s signature perfume.<br />
I nearly dropped my basket.<br />
Memories are one thing I’ve managed to confront with little problem these days. And I readily inhale her faint smell still traceable in sections of her house. But to come in contact with this scent I’ve forever associated with my Mum in a random aisle in a grocery store six months after her passing literally stopped me in my tracks. I was not prepared for this.<br />
I understand I cannot equip myself for every similar moment, although I do try. Each month seems to bring its own high and low.<br />
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April found me preparing for the six-month marker the first week of May, and conversely, her birthday the last. Ironically in this effort, I had forgotten about Mothers’ Day.<br />
A purple sign displaying “Mothers’ Day Cards!” caught my attention in Target and I thought, “Ooh!” and then immediately, “Oh.”<br />
This holiday dedicated to mothers is not something in which I will participate this year. And I feel wholly cheated. It makes me want to scream with anger, frustration and despair. <br />
I just want my Mom!<br />
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My friends feel her absence, too. One recently told me she had a “What would Kathy do?” moment when solving a problem. Another just this evening said it feels like a night she would drink tea with Mum and I and get some good advice.<br />
My Mum was a mom to more than just my brother and me. So many of my friends wished she were theirs. Her nickname was “K-Mom.” I know I’m incredibly lucky to have called her mine.<br />
She is here, though. I can feel her.<br />
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A partial lunar eclipse paired with a pink moon April 25 found me ascending the Mt. Holyoke Range to snap some shots of the giant moon. As that vantage point didn’t pan out, I drove to various spots in South Hadley to look for a better view.<br />
Parked in front of a field near McCrays, I lamented the loss of my moon-watching Mum and adventure sidekick. She once gave me a card that said, “Every time you see the moon, it’s me watching over you. I’m with you always.”<br />
With a giant moon in my view, I felt closer to her that night than I have since she passed.<br />
Last weekend at the Springfield Symphony with my boyfriend, Sean, I picked up tickets a co-worker held at will-call under my name. Mum and I often would have symphony dates. She loves those strings!<br />
“Enjoy your show, Kathryn,” the ticketmaster said.<br />
Again I found myself gasping out loud, with tunnel vision focused on the name printed on my ticket envelope – hers. Shaking, I held it up to show Sean, tears instantly streaming.<br />
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I can’t explain how her name appeared on my tickets. But I’m taking it as a sign she’s saying hello.<br />
<a href="http://kwillll.blogspot.com/2012/05/best-in-universe.html" target="_blank">Last Mothers’ Day I wrote a column about Mum</a>, calling her my North Star. Always present, no matter the weather. Illuminating my way. Never burning out. The best in the universe.<br />
That analogy couldn’t have held more true.<br />
These days are painful, but progressively less so. And like the cheese I composed myself in front of last week, this pain will get better with time. But it’ll still stink. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-25434980430525177742013-02-26T20:41:00.002-05:002013-02-26T20:41:23.000-05:00That's the thing about pain... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I just devoured "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green in two days. It was otherworldly to read exactly what I'm feeling without knowing I was feeling that way until I read it. Some of these quotes just struck such resonating chords inside. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-84810897755672304742013-02-19T12:58:00.001-05:002013-02-19T13:11:42.874-05:00I miss my biggest cheerleader<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I put down the receiver just as quickly as I picked it up after learning I had won. I disconnected that number months ago; there would be no one on the other end to listen to my excited chatter. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sitting at my desk tucked away in the back corner of my newspaper office, in this small town, in the state of Massachusetts, on the East Coast, in the United States, on planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galaxy, I felt small, unconnected. With whom would I share this news who would match my own excitement?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mum. The only correct answer is my Mum. But she's not here. And it makes this exciting moment actually painful. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I drop the receiver in its cradle and stare at the telephone - an ancient way of communicating - choking up because I cannot use it to communicate what I want to say to the sole person to whom I want to say it.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This knee-jerk instinctual reaction to call her surprises me, because it has been three months since Mum passed away. I should have known better than to reach for the phone because I know she is not on the other end. I'm the one who disconnected the phone number, my home phone number, in December. I'm the one who called the ambulance that Friday night to transport her to the hospital. I'm the one who slept with her overnight in the ER and ICU. I'm the one Nurse Debbie called to say Mum was calling a family meeting. I'm the one who had to rally our family. I'm the one who pleaded with Mum to change her mind, that it was not her time, that it was not the right decision. I'm the one who had to instantly process that it was time, swallow my sadness and inform her siblings wearing my brave face. I slept in her room that night listening to her breathing slow. I was in the room when her breathing stopped. I held her hand until it was cold. I know she is dead. My brain can process the facts - my body cannot and my heart refuses. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sitting at my desk, I felt breathless. I could feel my cheeks grow hot and searing tears form. But then the phone rang.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My friend Aimee was on the other line. We have a standing "Monday check-in." </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I relayed how she has funny timing and that I was genuinely upset about not being able to tell Mum about the news I just learned. And how that aching sadnesses outweighed the award. Nonchalantly, Aimee just said, "She knows. She's watching," in a factual tone. And that was that. She is watching.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Up until then, the thought hadn't occurred to me. She already knows I won, because she's watching.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Last weekend, award recipients were supposed to gather with the New England Newspaper and Press Association in Boston for a convention and subsequent award ceremony. I won third place in Environmental Reporting for a series of articles and an editorial I had written about our town's landfill issues. They're not particularly outstanding on their own, but together I guess they were noteworthy. Truthfully, I'm upset </span></span><a href="http://kwillll.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-favorite-article-to-date.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">this article</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> wasn't recognized, which I feel I put more time into. But I digress. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Nemo Blizzard prevented me from attending the ceremony and honestly, I'm glad. I had been dreading going, to an extent, because I would have been a melancholy mess. It's not that I can't share my excitement with my dads, who were siked, or with Sean, who was equally proud, but it's just not the same as sharing it with Mum. She was so proud of me when I, her beloved "</span></span><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7190/6811153574_d5d64241d3_z.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">flying crime writer</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">," won last year. She was my biggest cheerleader, whether I won a regional award or successfully cooked a tasty new dish. My prize was seeing the love on her face. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Quiet honestly, I wish I hadn't won anything. To me, it's just the beginning of a series of firsts without her. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I really would like to fast forward this coming year. I want to put so much distance between myself and Nov. 3, 2012 as possible. I'd like nothing remarkable to happen this year because I don't want to remember right now. I don't want to remember this moment and this deep pain that penetrates every pore of my person. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It's a longing, sorrowful frustration I'm forlornly fighting. Each morning I wake up feeling like I'm back at square one with handling my erratic emotions. I'm either "on," and focused and strong and forging through this awful grieving/healing process, being a rock for myself and others, or I'm emotionally immobile simply going through the motions of what I know I need to do that particular day without being "there."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I began taking a yoga class, because internally, I need to calm down. My heart literally feels heavy. There's a dull ache in my chest that lingers on those "off" days. In November, right after she died, I went to the doctors because my chest hurt so badly I thought I had pneumonia. (My uncle had it at the time, which was another reason to go). I had an X-Ray taken. An X-Ray! It showed nothing. The pain in my chest was grief. A tangible grief.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I need to relax. I need to let go. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But I also need to be reminded she is watching me. I talk out loud to her at least once a day. And when I catch a glimpse of the moon at night, I say "Hi, Mum!" because she loved the moon and anything astronomy related. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On my desk, I've kept this moon card she gave me when I was in college. Then, it was taped to my wall. When I became editor in 2010, I placed it on my office shelves. I hadn't read it in years and recently picked it up because I wanted to look at her handwriting. I gasped when I read her words. "I know there will be tough days, but you will get through them fine. Every time you see the moon, it's me watching over you." And then she quotes our favorite movie, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She knew when the time came, I would severely struggle with moving forward, so she would always write notes like this, knowing I keep everything. It was such a pleasant shock to read this one I had forgotten about in a time when I need it most. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Every time you see the moon, it's me watching over you," she wrote. She's telling me she's watching. I just need to remember.</span></span>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-45424031486845157922012-11-19T19:59:00.000-05:002012-11-19T19:59:10.882-05:00I will be okay<style>@font-face {
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“Do you want to come ice skating?” Sean says to me, in the
living room, from the kitchen. He glides across the linoleum floor in fluffy
socks, exaggerating his arm movements, making his way to me on the couch. </div>
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“Okay,” I say. </div>
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Okay. I will be okay. It’s moments like these in which I
know I will be okay. </div>
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Two weeks and two days ago I lost the one person who could
read me and my mind within seconds of seeing or hearing from me, who could
communicate with me in literal mumbles and beep sounds, who always knew how to
make me feel better instantly. </div>
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And as Sean skates back into the kitchen after pretending to
be hurt when I accidentally struck him when he leaned in to kiss my cheek,
complete with fake tears of saliva running down his face, I know I will be
okay.</div>
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He, nor will anyone, ever replace Mum or the fierce bond we
had. But he truly “gets” me, in a similar way. He knows when I need him and his
comic relief even when I don’t. And we communicate in our own weird way of just
“knowing” without having to say anything. And he knows that I will always want
to join a fluffy sock ice skating party in our kitchen.</div>
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I will be okay. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-37554010798061338452012-11-06T12:55:00.002-05:002012-11-06T13:09:48.997-05:00The last word: strong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The last word.<br />
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I always have had to have the last word as a child. Which may or may not have carried over into adulthood. I could go on for hours, arguing with my brother, saying either "yes" or "no" repeatedly after anything he said. And when I would argue with mum, for the most part, she would let me have the last word.<br />
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And here I am now. With the last word.<br />
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I want that "last word" to be a bevy of synonyms for the word "strong."<br />
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Because my Mum was the epitome of strong. She was a warrior. A fighter. A trooper. Powerful. Brave. Sturdy. Tough. Determined. Tenacious. Indomitable. Gutsy. Fierce. <br />
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Kathy didn't quit.<br />
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In messages from family and friends recounting their memories and thoughts of her, I keep reading the word "strong." And even for friends of mine who never had the opportunity to meet her, and solely saw our interactions on Facebook, they all say the same thing. She was a tough, brave, strong fighter.<br />
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Kathryn Bieda Will never backed down. She battled this breast cancer, which metastasized into her bones, for 24 years. 24 YEARS! She surpassed any time limit given to her. She blew predicted life expectancies out of the water.<br />
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For the last 12 years straight, she received radiation and every chemotherapy drug on the market. And she would laugh for some, saying she testing them back in the 80s when they first were created.<br />
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When I look back on our life together, and review all of the struggles she endured not related to health, I think to myself, "How did she not give up?" "How did she keep going?"<br />
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She had this indomitable will to put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Move through the hard, through the bad, through the times when anyone else would give up. And she prevailed. Each time.<br />
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On Saturday, Nov. 3, Kathy didn't quit. Her body quit on her.<br />
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She called a family meeting the day before and laid out her plans. And no matter how much convincing from our end, she had already accepted that the one thing that hadn't given up all these years, her body, had finally threw in the towel.<br />
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"It's okay," she said. "You'll be okay. It's time."<br />
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She wanted her closest family and friends around her when she went. And we were. Her sister and I slept over that night. My dads, my brother, her own brother, her best friend and her cousin made round-the-clock visits. She was never alone.<br />
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At 9:30 Saturday night, my Dad and I heard her peacefully inhale for the last time.<br />
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All of us again gathered around her and said our final goodbyes. Kathy didn't quit.<br />
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My life is forever changed. For having known her, grown up with her, for having her genes within me. And for losing her in just 26 short years of my life.<br />
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She and I had a bond that will never be broken. It went beyond mother and daughter. It went deeper than best friends. She knew me to a T and I knew her similarly. We could just look at one another and know. We would just know.<br />
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So when I look back on this past weekend, I know this is what she wanted. I know that she was okay with her decision and I know she wouldn't have made it if she didn't believe that we, her family, would be okay without her being our buffer, our glue.<br />
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And I feel weird. I have felt different since Saturday night. I feel stronger. If that's the adrenaline I've been operating on or the pneumonia I contracted while spending last week with her in the ICU and not eating or sleeping, I'm not sure. But I feel oddly calm. Like she is within me, helping me navigate this week ahead when I feel completely lost.<br />
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Mornings are the hardest. I wake up and for a brief few milliseconds before my brain connects to my heart, I feel fine. And then immediately I am immobile, weighed down with all of these feelings and reality. And I cry.<br />
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And then I hear her say to herself, "You gotta get up." And I do the same. "You have to get up, Kristin," I repeat. So I do. And I make the bed. And I emulate her morning rituals.<br />
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I almost feel like she is still in the hospital, going to bounce back from this infection, like she always did. And I don't know if I have let myself accept she is gone, or am in disbelief and denial. My life doesn't seem real right now.<br />
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"This too shall pass," she would say to me when I was struggling. These feelings, I know, will never pass. I will never be the same without her here. But I do know it will get easier. She is with me, with every decision and every step. She will be in the moon, in the ocean waves and the loudest thunderstorms. She was and will forever be, my north star. Illuminating my way, never burning out.<br />
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We're holding a Celebration of Life Thursday, Nov. 8 from 3 to 6 p.m. at Cierpial Memorial Funeral Home at 69 East St., Chicopee, for anyone who would like to attend. A short service will be held at 5:30 p.m. We will play the music - Ray Lynch - she made me promise we would play. And we will remember her, happy and well. She didn't want people to be sad and cry - she wanted them to just remember her happy.<br />
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So we will do that. And we will send her off in the most Will Family way we know how. Please come and bring photos to share and be prepared to write down your favorite memories and adventures of and with her in the provided books.<br />
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Kathy was never really one for flowers, at least not lately as Kali, our cat, loved to eat/knock them over. Kathy did, however, find solace, peace and relaxation in yoga classes and water yoga classes she found through the Cancer House of Hope in Westfield. She would come home rejuvenated, refreshed. Energized to keep fighting. And she loved her instructor, Niti.<br />
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Initially, the classes were free to cancer survivors and their caregivers, but then a fee appeared and increased. Unfortunately, this stopped her from attending.<br />
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Our family is asking in lieu of flowers to please make memorial contributions in Kathy's name to the Cancer House of Hope, 86 Court St., Westfield, Ma, 01085, in support of "The Healing Art of Yoga for Ongoing Cancer Recovery" and/or their water yoga program.<br />
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She would want other survivors and their caregivers to experience the peace and energy she found in that program. I have spoken directly with the program coordinator who assured me the memorial contributions will be earmarked specifically for these yoga programs. <br />
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I thank you from the bottom of my heart, as does our family. <3<br />
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I hurt. I can't believe this happened. And I think of how I thought we had more time. And I keep saying "What if?" to myself. If there is one thing, ONE THING, I am taking away from this, is not a sense of never giving up, because that has been instilled in me since birth, but to stop saying "tomorrow" and say "today." No more, "I'll do that tomorrow, Mum," but I will do that now.<br />
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I've treasured this quote from Alice in Wonderland for a long time now - "'If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, 'You wouldn't talk of wasting it.'"<br />
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So I will stop wasting time. Stop stressing out about people and things that don't directly affect me. I will focus on me, and my time, and how I will effectively spend my time. Because I would give anything, ANYTHING, even my right arm and eyes which would render my a useless photographer, if I could just have more time with her.<br />
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I love you, Mum. To the moon and back.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-28766949550370859652012-08-30T22:31:00.000-04:002012-08-30T22:31:10.251-04:00Goodnight, Moon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/7897806644_b2e5d23719_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/7897806644_b2e5d23719_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-19770421542000704982012-08-22T23:24:00.001-04:002012-08-22T23:26:17.544-04:00Water ways of seeing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8284/7842305106_be0c3d7429_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8284/7842305106_be0c3d7429_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I've been told a number of times I "see things" differently. And every so often, I agree. There are these times when I see something so beautiful or different that I have an insatiable NEED to photograph it. A drop-everything-you're-doing need. In this case, a "put-pants-on-because-it's-mosquito-y" need to photograph the Maher's asparagus plants after a rainstorm.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8291/7842304322_c2cb9fa104_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8291/7842304322_c2cb9fa104_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Originally, this is what caught my attention as I was wandering through the Maher garden looking for edible tomatoes. The reflecting light caught by the thousands of large and small droplets was what got me through the fence as I passed by. At first I thought, "wet Christmas tree," and then laughed.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7842306082_b8deafb6c6_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7842306082_b8deafb6c6_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It's just that the branches of the asparagus are so pine tree-like! And the bokeh of the droplets in the background reminded me of Christmas lights. Haha!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7139/7842307110_3f354581f6_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7139/7842307110_3f354581f6_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I ran back inside and grabbed my camera and attached my macro lens and snapped away. My pants got soaked and I definitely need to clean my macro lens after this adventure. And I only received one mosquito bite! He got me though my jeans! Thumbs down.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8440/7842302534_b123368318_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8440/7842302534_b123368318_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7127/7842302740_a6167c1428_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7127/7842302740_a6167c1428_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8284/7842303436_22671ea364_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8284/7842303436_22671ea364_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>There's just something about the varying greens, the spikey branches and the plethora of water droplets that I absolutely love.<br />
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What was the last time you had a "stop-everything" moment and snapped away?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-60073417222923506102012-07-27T15:14:00.001-04:002012-07-27T15:26:43.778-04:00Ways of seeing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7657036406_4c4e39a22f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7657036406_4c4e39a22f_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I took my first photograph when I was three, maybe four years old. I have the original 4x5 copy from the late 80s. It's a blurry, off-kilter picture of the two greatest women in my life - Mum and Baci. They're both laughing; the harsh flash reflecting off Baci's large round glasses, Mum in mid-sentence most likely instructing me to push the shutter button. It's one of my favorite photos to date, in all of my 26 years.<br />
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What I enjoy most about it is the subjects. They're not posed, but in their natural states. You can see my way of seeing at that time.<br />
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This past Sunday I photographed a fellow editor and close friend of mine who also shares a passion for photography. She's nearly eight months pregnant and wanted maternity photos with her family. The afternoon shoot turned into a couples/maternity/family photo shoot at Mount Holyoke College. <br />
Her oldest, Francis, who I believe is seven, has become enamored with photography. Digital camera in tow, he was more interested in shooting next to me than being my subject. At every spot we stopped, he had to be rounded up to join the family. Truthfully, it was entirely cute and endearing. And I loved how patient he was with the slow, ancient model. <br />
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There's two specific shots I snapped of him taking pictures of his parents. This is my favorite of the two. I love how he's propping himself against the stair railing, firmly grasping his digital camera with both hands. The look on his parents faces attests to how great they are as role models - this was the sixth or seventh time he had jumped out of the frame, unable to control his need to take a photograph - and yet they're still smiling away for him, not rolling their eyes or looking at him skeptically. (Fellow photogs, I know you know how he feels.) I love his sister crawling up the tree in her polka dotted dress. But mostly, I love viewing what - and how - he's seeing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-52959932428100941192012-07-17T17:57:00.002-04:002012-07-17T18:04:26.605-04:00Beachin' away the blues<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8421/7593058886_a7304b0650_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="437" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8421/7593058886_a7304b0650_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Welcome to our Scusset Beach Gun Show!<br />
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Last weekend I (second-in from the right) met up with a bunch of lovely ladies from college at the Cape! We spent the day at Scusset Beach in Sandwhich, Mass. Armed with watermelon, adult beverages and other tasty snacks, we soaked up sun rays and caught up on life. <br />
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A game of frisbee chest-deep in the ocean turned into a "let's see how far we can swim out to sea' adventure." It felt so. damn. good to swim toward the endless horizon line, feel nothing but water beneath my feet as I treaded water, be carried by the waves while floating on my back. I feel so at home in the sea.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8294/7593059328_0a11131b4e_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8294/7593059328_0a11131b4e_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>A walk down the jetty, extending deep into the ocean, took us farther out to sea than we could have swum. Swam? We climbed a warning tower and Sean graciously snapped our photos. Clamoring about the rocks, we struck many a strong-arm pose and cut our feet on barnacles. Anything for a photo, right?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7593059016_4cf4988ecb_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7593059016_4cf4988ecb_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I took so many deep breathes of the sea breeze. I know what I need to center myself sometimes and it's the sea. I carry so many worries in a wreath around my shoulders these days with Mum's May stay in the hospital, radiation treatment, pelvic fracture, impaired walking and ongoing chemo. I'm not a feeling-share-er. I tuck away my worries and compartmentalize them, put them out of my mind. But they only stay away for so long when there seems to be one thing after another. Blood transfusion, subsequent reaction to white cells, a mysterious virus, an ever-present fever.<br />
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My mum is the strongest, most resilient woman I know and I'm trying to be like her. "One day at a time," she says. I don't know she does it. I just go numb. And maybe that's like taking it one day at a time. I learn of something unfortunate, face it, accept it's happening and go numb. Move forward.<br />
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There are moments I will grant myself when I completely let go. But for the most part, those times are few and far between. Mum has such a positive outlook and I know I've inherited that from her. I just have to remind myself to stay positive.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/7593059120_f2067dfb34_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/7593059120_f2067dfb34_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>So I escape to the sea to recharge. The push and pull of the tide just resets my internal Circadian Rhythm and I'm renewed. It's so strange but I feel it. There's something with that ebb and flow. It doesn't have to be summer, or even during the day. Bring me to the sea any season and I feel better.<br />
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But boy does it help to have a crew of wonderful, beautiful ladies - inside and out - and your boyfriend to help you beach those blues away. :]Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-75144875276148478252012-05-12T14:16:00.003-04:002012-05-12T14:16:00.579-04:00Buzz on<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5155/7177092942_78568ce296_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5155/7177092942_78568ce296_b.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A buzzing noise I heard when I got home Wednesday had me puzzled of its origin. It was loudest in our computer room but there wasn't anything in the window and nobody was flying above my head. I wrote down a dinner recipe and went to close a window in our bedroom when I found this lady - a yellow jacket! (Doesn't it look like she's wavving hello?)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8019/7177093306_b7afc536e0_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8019/7177093306_b7afc536e0_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I didn't want to kill her, so I grabbed a clear glass jar because I knew I would want to photograph her when I captured her buzzing self. I corralled her in this container and then thought to myself "Now what!?" I worked up enough courage to slip paper between the window and the container and turned it upright. Truthfully it took a few minutes for the uprighting, but I did it and she didn't escape and sting me! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8146/7177091622_62c7857e7e_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="452" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8146/7177091622_62c7857e7e_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She was crawling around so fast! I grabbed my macro lens and bumped up the ISO to the 1100 range and snapped away. I love the symmetry in her coloring!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7232/7177092320_c6ce566d8b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7232/7177092320_c6ce566d8b_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She looked quite funny when she would crawl around the bottom where the glass is thicker, warping her image. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7177093242_e8d1b33628_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7177093242_e8d1b33628_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After a few minutes I brought the jar outside to let her free - and she wouldn't leave! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7177092700_b954377861_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7177092700_b954377861_b.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But that was alright. It gave me more time to photograph her! Buzz on, little lady! Buzz on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-33228502194916502842012-05-11T12:11:00.001-04:002012-05-11T12:12:31.512-04:00The best in the universe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7085/7177031324_46a6c3a5a6_b.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="565" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7085/7177031324_46a6c3a5a6_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Take a guess - Kristin Lee Will (me) or Kathryn Bieda Will (Mum)?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">T</span>he outline of my jaw mimics hers. Our long noses, rounded at the tip, are identical. Our cheeks trace the same chubby outline. My stubborn brown hair glows just as red in the sun as hers once did. Freckles on our faces trace the same map. <br />
I see so much of myself in my Mum. I’ve inherited her profile, and with luck, hopefully her strong will and fearless attitude. Because Kathryn Bieda Will is the best Mom in the universe. From her, I’ve learned so much.<br />
Turning negatives into positives is her forte. Despite facing a battle with cancer head-on for the past 24 years, she is a survivor. She has come out on top of every obstacle she’s been presented, and she won’t give up. Her will to survive - to thrive - is so strong. Kathy doesn’t quit.<br />
It’s true. Kathy doesn’t quit. And its a mantra I’ve taken on and repeat to myself when aspects of my life grow challenging. <br />
My Mum has been in and out of remission for the past 24 years, remaining on the outs the last 10. With breast cancer having metastasized into her bones, every day movements are painful. She’ll wince in torment shifting around in her plush chair while I recount my latest biking adventure and subsequent sore muscles. “Oh man, Mum, I’m sooo sooore,” I’ll lament to her. Kathy will nod and figuratively feel my pain. She’ll listen to my useless complaints without a word otherwise.<br />
When I’ve dueled the flu or cramps and I’m crying over the phone (or notoriously leaving voicemails) to her about how much it hurts, she’ll tell me she would take the pain away and onto herself if she could. She means it.<br />
In January, I was in a car accident that wasn’t my fault coming home from work. I had my Dad pick me up from the crash site and deliver me to my Mum’s house. I held my composure (relatively) on scene but knew no one could comfort me like she could. Dad pulled into her driveway and as soon as he parked I walked into the house and made a beeline to Mum’s lap. I’m not kidding - I literally curled into a ball directly on her lap, hooked my arms around her soft body, and shook uncontrollably while sobbing, my frame of a little more than 110 pounds rattling her bones, pressing on tender muscles and literally weighing her down in searing pain. She bore that weight, that pain, that aching in her bones and held me for as long as it took to calm me down. <br />
Because that’s my Mum. She is willing to bear my burdens endlessly to give me the slightest reprieve, regardless of her own. She will rescue me from any situation: running out of gas past midnight on New Year’s eve; driving an hour one-way to campus late at night to retrieve me from a college break-up; delivering food and medicine to my apartment when we’re both sick with the flu; bringing my car to be repaired when I have no time on deadline.<br />
Even when I’m turning down offers for help, she’s already on her way. Kathy doesn’t quit. <br />
She is my North Star. A constant in my life. Always present no matter the weather, illuminating the way for me, never burning out. The best in the universe. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8013/7177031418_cc61b070a8_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8013/7177031418_cc61b070a8_b.jpg" width="640" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Mum and I in '88, Baci and Mum in '54 or '55. Even as kids we look the same! And now I'm realizing I resemble my baci!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-17890653822889563852012-05-04T15:13:00.001-04:002012-05-04T15:13:45.042-04:00Grow, garden, grow!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There's an abundance of greenery here at the apartment - so much that we needed to rearrange the living room to accommodate everyone's sun needs!<br />
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From seed, Sean and I grew regular basil (that towering green plant in the above photo), Thai Basil and Black Opal Basil which is a lovely shade of purple with a green outline! We also grew tomatios, hot peppers, cilantro, parsley and a slew of flowers - Cypress Vine, Morning Glories and Poppies! In the left window in the photo above is my poor succulent I rescued from a greenhouse at the end of last summer. Somehow its still hanging on! And in the right window is a glass of green onion roots, happily growing away. If you use green onions, don't throw out the white root - just sink it in a glass of water and stick it in a window - the shoots will regenerate!<br />
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With little success last year growing tomatoes and cucumbers from seed, we purchased some sprouts well on their way and planted them in the orange buckets and planters to the right. Also, some strawberry plants ( I can't wait!) and some mint! Oh and some catnip, which Kali immediately attacked!<br />
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Having searched for Anemones (the flower, not sea creature) for quite some time, I was lucky to come across a plant two weeks ago at a nursery! Sadly, it's not fairing too well, and I can't figure out why! The second round of flowers were pale pink, rather than a deep red as the first batch was. Hmm...<br />
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It's been so rewarding to watch these plants grow from seed, especially the regular basil - it just took off immediately! We had sprouts in the beginning of March and by mid-April, the basil leaves were as large as my hand!<br />
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Also fun(ny) has been watching Sean take care of the basil - his favorite. I came home one day to find the basil in the bathroom, which has a west-facing window, for maximum sunlight exposure. I guess this just proves Sean would make a good father one day, haha!<br />
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We started the seedlings back in late February/the first week of March, when there was still some snow covering spring blossoms, and lined our window sills with the small pots. It's been fun to check on the daily growth of the seeds and then sprouts and now full-on plants. I would highly recommend trying your hand at gardening. You don't even need a green thumb! Basil, cilantro and parsley have been exceptionally easy to grow. For flowers, sunflowers and morning glories were also simple! All you need is waster, dirt and sunlight! <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-87024870484082749322012-05-01T19:21:00.000-04:002012-05-01T19:21:23.164-04:00Fun with food<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes you just gotta play with your food!<br />
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I always "see" faces in things. In houses with their windows and doors. On cars with their headlights and grills. In cracks on a sidewalk, sticks on the ground that have fallen a certain way, you name it. I see faces. Better than ghosts, right?<br />
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Last night, I was halving red peppers to make stuffed red peppers for dinner and couldn't help but laugh at how the peppers looked like mouths. It helped they're red, too!<br />
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So I snapped a photo and then using a Paint-like app on my iPhone, I drew some eyes. The eyebrows complete the faces, though. They're so full of expression! Hahaha!<br />
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Turning inanimate objects animate, one day at a time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-70395157920629761552012-03-05T18:13:00.000-05:002012-03-05T18:13:42.338-05:00I still exist!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7190/6811153574_d5d64241d3_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7190/6811153574_d5d64241d3_z.jpg" /></a></div>I'm still here, blog-o-sphere! Sometimes you just have to be super woman and perform a million other tasks before maintaining a blog!<br />
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But really though, this past month and a half have been so hectic! Life seems to throw a million things at you at once.<br />
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My New Year's Resolution was to unplug more often, so I'd say that helped keep me away from the interwebs, too!<br />
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Please accept my apologies! I promise you didn't miss much, except for a few AWESOME dinners I whipped up, a game of group Pictionary or two, mine and Sean's seven-year anniversary and one really great photo adventure, which took place with my friend and fellow photog Aimee in the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Oh yes,we jumped on the beds. And took some pretty fantastic shots, I must say.<br />
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I'm hoping to get back into a routine of blogging. We'll see how that goes. Considering I have a library book that is three months overdue and I'm too much of a lazy bear to drop it off a mile or two from my house, I don't know how well I can uphold that promise. Let's shoot for twice a week, okay? Deal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-78933934875669567672012-01-30T20:12:00.001-05:002012-01-30T20:15:55.720-05:00Balderdash Birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6792663269_c912bc44d4_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6792663269_c912bc44d4_b.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I turned 26 this past Sunday and rung in the start to the later half of my twenties with my very best buds. I certainly don't feel any older, but knowing I can no longer choose "20-25" on surveys and whatnot weirds me out a little! But, it's onwards and upwards, so 26, here I come!</div><br />
This year, I wanted to implement a birthday tradition to carry out well into my fifties, sixties and seventies. Eighties, too. Birthday photos in a real photo booth.<br />
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</div>As a photographer, I'm always the one behind the camera. So it's nice to not have to set up a shot on a tripod, pass off my camera to a willing photog or spin the lens around and snap away at arms length. The photo booth had to be a real one, with film, and not one of those digitized versions. I wanted the film strip to have weight in my hands and feel cold after I grabbed it out of the slot straight from the processing chemicals.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/6792663173_c9bcb6bc6f_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/6792663173_c9bcb6bc6f_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Luckily, I know of two such photo booths, literally across the street from one another in downtown Northampton. The one I chose was in Thornes Marketplace, because I knew it would have less foot traffic at its second floor location. Surprisingly, there were two other couples after Sean and I who took some photos, so this baby must still be in popular demand. (Yay!)<br />
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Sean happily obliged me in my birthday request and we trekked downtown late Sunday afternoon. The booth was tiny and probably made for a single person, but we managed to squeeze in. We had the option (!) of backgrounds, which laughably was the yellow back of the booth or a fantastically retro blue curtain. I chose the curtain. We swiveled the seat down to eye level, popped in $4 and smiled away. The flashes came quickly, and we later had the idea to plan out poses beforehand. And to bring props. There will be props next time.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7154/6792675597_54c96cfd48_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7154/6792675597_54c96cfd48_z.jpg" /></a></div>It was perfect. After four minutes, the strip came out and we were immediately histercal. The photos are absolutely perfect. I love the fact that only one person is in focus at all times. The graininess is spot-on and the chemical residue is very much wanted. I love the imperfections. That's what makes the strip so much better than any digital photo I could have taken.<br />
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Aren't Sean's expressions just perfect? (In the first photo, he was making faces at himself in the small mirror on the side!) And doesn't he look great in my new birthday glasses?!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7007/6792675355_c9bf2f1455_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7007/6792675355_c9bf2f1455_z.jpg" /></a></div>The rest of the evening was wonderful. My bestest friends - the creme of the crop - came over to my Mum's house with Sean and I and we made mini pizzas, indulged in fancy drinks in fancy glasses (strawberry syrup, seltzer water and lemon juice, topped with a raspberry!) and played Pictionary on a giant whiteboard and then Balderdash later in the evening.<br />
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What more could a girl ask for? :)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7157/6792675225_75fd05dd6d_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7157/6792675225_75fd05dd6d_z.jpg" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-47771904713004783352012-01-20T15:44:00.001-05:002012-01-20T15:45:06.115-05:00Photo contest!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7150/6732425109_3952d4896c_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7150/6732425109_3952d4896c_b.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>I shot this photo of my <a href="http://kwillll.blogspot.com/2011/10/bk-wedding-sneak-peeks.html">friends' wedding last fall in Maine.</a> So beautiful, right? I love the moon glinting in the ocean, and the warm lights. It just exudes a happy, fun time to me.<br />
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The couple entered the photo into a contest held by the tent company to win $1,000 to start their newly wed life. They are in second place, behind a, let's say, less artistic photograph, just because that couple shared it with everyone everywhere. <br />
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Well, two can play at that game!<br />
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All you have to do is click <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150513132818578&set=a.10150512823403578.398800.220612178577&type=1&theater">this link, </a>which will take you to the contest Facebook page, and "like" the photo. Simple!<br />
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I've shared it twice on my own Facebook and my Flickr. My last resort is lovely blog readers! I truly did snap that photo and am not associated with the tent company in any way. I'm just siked my photo is in a contest!<br />
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So please, do me a favor and help my fantastic newly wed friends win some dollars!<br />
THANK YOU! :) <3Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3079942059766778559.post-53918950649091039052012-01-15T22:53:00.005-05:002012-01-15T23:07:35.751-05:00Starting off with a bang<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/396791_772650804925_49400079_36186647_2040255674_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/396791_772650804925_49400079_36186647_2040255674_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>2012 started off with a bang -literally - when an 81-year-old man disregarded a stop sign and any intention of yielding and t-boned my poor car as I was traveling through an intersection coming home from work - with a green arrow and thus the right of way, might I add.<br />
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The force of impact as he basically gunned it into my passenger side spun me about 180 degrees into oncoming traffic. Magically or miraculously, oncoming traffic completely avoided me. However, I can't say for certain as I don't remember the actual spinning - just the impact and then ending up facing the direction in which I was traveling.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/374763_773227658905_49400079_36188489_1060754706_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/374763_773227658905_49400079_36188489_1060754706_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Thankfully, my seatbelt held me in place while everything in my car went left. I'm SO SORE a week later on my chest where the seatbelt lays. It freaks me out, despite a doctor telling me I don't have any fractured ribs. Aside from whiplash and a terribly sore back, I'm alright.<br />
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And so many people keep telling me I'm lucky. True, I seem to be in the best of a worst-case scenario. The elderly man and his wife refused medical treatment on scene. My passenger side was struck, not the driver. The car held up like a tank and sustained the most damage between the two of us. It's hard to tell in the photo, but what looks like a reflection in both doors is actually a mold of the man's front end. At least in her last act, she ripped off the man's front end in defiance.<br />
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Officially, she's totaled. I knew this from the get go, as soon as I saw the rear axle. I loved that car! It (was) a 2000 Subaru Imprezza L. She was my second car, purchashed in the summer of 2005, fresh out of my first year of college. Truthfully, I loved my first car more, a 1988 Subaru boxy thing. But still, this one totally grew on me.<br />
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Initially, I was against having a hatchback. I mean, they so weren't cool to a then-20-year-old girl. I nick-named her the blue baby whale initially out of apathy toward her, which quickly grew endearing. But man, could she haul a ton of stuff to and from college! And when I got into biking - she carried so many bikes to the best trails and locations. I didn't adorn her with nicknacks like my first, which had a starry ceiling - think Something Corporate's "Konstantine." But she was afixed with a "Whiptastic Handling" sticker I found in a magazine I once stuck to my first car (I peeled it off when I picked up her contents in the tow yard last week), had a running theme of lacking a radio volume button cap, and damn good memories. She lived so many Subaru summers.<br />
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What bums me out the most about this accident is that I'm affected for doing nothing wrong. Friends have said, "Well, at least you get a new car out of it!" but that's not the point. I don't want a new car. I don't want a brand new or new-old car. Look. I'm not a wasteful person. I planned to run that car into the ground, adding useless miles traveling such a short distance to work. I feel like she didn't get to live out a full life, if I start to personify her. Regardless of a different car in my soon to be future, I'm going to have to shell out some money I wasn't intending on spending on a new car this year. Not that I don't have any money at all, although I'm not rich by any standards, but I'm comfortable. I don't have any debt, aside from student loans. I don't want a new car payment, or to take a chunk out of my funds for a new-old car. When I want a new car, I'm going to save for it first. I bought that blue baby for $6,000 up front. I don't live out of my means.<br />
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Of course, the insurance company isn't giving me full recovery or a fair value of what she would be worth. And the old man's insurance company refused to pay for a rental car up until Friday evening. So there's been a constant fight with both insurance companies. And I've been visiting a chiropractor three times a week to fix the back and shoulder muscles that got jacked-up from the accident. I've complained in person to friends and family (I actually walked into my Mum's house the night of the impact, crawled into her lap still in my coat and work clothes and sobbed like a baby - seriously the kinds of sobs you hear in movies), I've complained on Facebook, I've complained probably every day. I'm just so IRKED by the negative impact I'm experiencing from the literal impact.<br />
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But I'm going to stop, tonight. I'm not seriously injured. There will be some kind of car in my possession soon, thanks to amazing family friends. I'm fixing what muscle injuries I have and so far not paying any of my own funds to do so. Mum let me borrow her car this past week when the old man's insurance company was still "determining liability" or, as I say, procrastinating. It's true; I'm lucky.<br />
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While scrolling through Pinterest over the weekend, I saw a poster with a floating balloon and the text "Let it go." Its simplicity struck me and the message resonated so deeply within me, jolting me out of this negative funk from which my usually positive self strays. So, this is my balloon. (It's red, if you're wondering). I'm letting it go. 2012 started out with a bang, and I'm going to make sure that continues in a good way. Ironically, I received some good news a few days after the accident which has had me on cloud nine since. (I'll share it soon!) My positivity took a big hit, but I'm not going to be brought down. Here's to the up and up!<br />
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