Hindsight

Trigger (un)happy

April 1, 2023 Susan Greco

After this week’s shitshow, social media is saturated with grim statistics reminding us yet again that our country is unique in the worst of ways. “The U.S. is the only country among its peers that has seen a substantial increase in the rate of child firearm deaths in the last two decades (42%). All comparably large and wealthy countries have seen child firearm deaths fall since 2000. These peer nations had an average child firearm death rate of 0.5 per 100,000 children in the year 2000, falling 56% to 0.3 per 100,000 children in 2019. The U.S. numbers keep moving in the wrong direction.” In fact, for 2020, the average child firearm death rate in the U.S. per 100,000 children was 5.6, a whopping 1800% more than peer nations.

This week Nashville got its turn. A head of the school, a pastor’s daughter, and four other irreplaceable souls, half of them children, all gone in a blink. We don’t know what to say, but still, we collectively murmur, hug your loved ones, we need to come together on gun control, sending you thoughts and prayers. It’s one thing to get a deadly disease, fight like hell and still die from it, or perish in a car collision, or drown. It’s another to be at your school on an otherwise ordinary Monday morning and not get to see another day. Why? Because another troubled individual was having another bad day and reached, in this case, her boiling point. After the fact, as is often the case, people come forward and admit that the shooter did, as it turns out, seem odd, was troubled, had made threats, had recently purchased an unusual quantity of firearms, etc., but we never could have predicted this. Or could we?

As a parent I can’t imagine–though with these climbing grim statistics every parent of school aged children now must—running through that school parking lot desperate for answers, knowing that future grieving parents are among you and that parent could very well turn out to be you. Or the scene at the nearby church where children, school staff and law enforcement gathered to sort out the mess they now found themselves in and connect children with their families. I imagine that church will stand out as a clear memory, at least for the adults in that room, of being a safe haven in the most horrible of horror shows.

One child was about to turn nine, and with two children of my own, I well remember the buzz of the planning and excitement, the friends we’d invite, gifts I’d wrap, singing Happy Birthday to You and presenting a made-from-scratch cake blazing with candles. The best part was seeing the shining wondrous joy stretched across my sons’ faces. These grieving parents must now go forth carrying only memories of past birthdays, and one set of parents also gets to grieve their child’s ninth birthday celebration that wasn’t. It’s all so unnatural, this deadly interruption, and it makes me wonder how many lawmakers who refuse to ban the purchase of semi-automatic weapons have lost their own loved ones in a similarly horrific scene. I have to think very few because it’s unfathomable to have this horror visit your own family, but yet you’d sign up for more?

When I look into the kind faces of the people who perished plastered on my tv screen, I see entire networks of colleagues, friends, neighbors and families, all bearing the weight of this week’s terror, a weight that will remain long after the last funeral. Despite locked doors and emergency protocol, the rock paper scissors game has semi-automatic weapons winning every time. It took mere seconds to shatter the locked entry, seconds for shards of glass to rain down like the endless tears that would soon follow.

Some say it’s a mental health problem and we need to do more. Others say it’s not guns that kill, but people. However you explain it, the statistics continue and they’re grim. As of late March, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 130 mass shootings in the United States this year, and we’re not even a quarter into the year.

We won’t forget the image of the young girl on the bus, her little palm pressed into the window, and the adult-sized fear and sadness hijacking her innocent face. No one deserves this kind of day, but it’s clear this isn’t the last of them. Those communities who have yet to be hit can’t imagine they’ll be up next, but after Monday’s terror, it feels inevitable.

So many countries have wised up and been better for it. Twenty-six years ago, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, killing 16 kids and a teacher. The UK govt responded by enacting tight gun control legislation. In the 9400+ days since, there have been a total of 0 school shootings in the UK. In our own schools, the curriculum needs to drastically change, move away from these deadly lessons, and foster an environment where our children, educators and staff can safely teach, learn and thrive.

Can you imagine?

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Ah

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAn-AWXtHv0

Humor

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

March 3, 2023March 4, 2023 Susan Greco

Aren’t we done here? I’m one thousand one hundred ninety-eight days post lumpectomy (believe me, you’d count too), and by the looks of things I’m breezing along—religiously scheduling and attending annual mammograms and scans, daily popping my treatment pill, going to New York and whining, wining and dining with my breast friends (aka breasties), and even raising money on a cancer walk. By all accounts, I am evolving into an unremarkable cancer patient. Scratch that. Survivor. I’ve done the rose smelling, looking forward to things, looking back trying to flatten the bumpy reality of this ride, and done my damnedest to remove the cancer distraction, survive, and get back to the work of evolving.

I’m doing all the things. Taking the daily ten-year pill (Anastrazole) to block estrogen from feeding any mf-ers who dare sidle back up to the table for a meal. The twice a year insanely expensive (thank God for insurance) Prolia injections, which for half the year halt my bone sloughing activities so I can climb out of osteoporosis, which I can thank aforementioned ten-year pill for. So far my spine has graduated into osteopenia and hopefully the hips will study hard and make the grade too. And then there are those mammograms we women all loathe, but the highly uncomfortable smush we must enlist.

A friend who also didn’t sign up for this sistership remarked about the surprising fear you get when there is something new. You spiral all over again hyperventilating over endless frantic Google searches. Some fear is healthy and helpful because it enables you to react quickly if you need to (fight or flight) but being an expert anxious overthinker who can slide into panic mode on a moment’s notice is not.

Take Tuesday, for example. I’d been noticing some swelling on my left side where all the hell had broken loose in late 2019, and it seemed the asymmetry was subtly increasing. I don’t need symmetry, but I do need consistency. Once cancer enters the scene, change, the only constant, is above all not welcome. Since my annual MRI was the next day, I slipped into an exceptionally nasty rabbit hole, you know the one where you start bawling those sad guttural notes and realize you won’t have the chance to finish several important projects you finally had the guts to start, but which you’ve only just begun. You’ve drifted back to that island alone, back on the torn raft, and once again you can’t bring yourself to glance back at the shore where you’ve left everyone going about their enviable ordinary lives which, from your vantage point, look sparkly, exceptional even.

You replay all your decisions. Why didn’t I just get a double mastectomy and be rid of this troublesome attention-seeking tissue, which per my doctor wasn’t a better option since lumpectomy+radiation = mastectomy when it comes to outcomes. You lament all the things you never stepped up to do because you let self-doubt win out. You won’t get to see that beautiful blue paint you picked out for the house you’re renovating, whose renovation has been at a standstill for three months, or live to see the day the new upstairs toilet is plumbed down the hall from your bedroom so you can stop sleepwalking the 22 stairs down to the bathroom in the far corner of the house. Your empathetic cat jumps on your lap and looks into your teary eyes trying his best to calm you, stretching his 16-lb body over your chest, his sweet, adoring attempt at a hug. Bo, my lovebug. You appreciate it, but it’s still your problem and yours alone. That’s the lone journey that is cancer.

I broke down to my breast friends in a sad teary video unlike any I’ve left. Historically I’ve been the optimistic one, you could say annoyingly cheerful even, and letting this other woman run amok and star in her own video was a risk I was willing to take. Someone needed to join me on this ride back out to sea. The response came in sweet videos from these ladies who get it.

The MRI was as they always are. Expensive, a lesson in patience and stillness, and as always, I can’t understand why those socks they give you with your gown aren’t donated to people who could use a pair of socks, any pair especially these which are warm and have treads. I’ve asked and they’re thrown away. Maybe I will live long enough to spearhead a hospital sock campaign to gather them all up and distribute them to the sockless? Each time I request classical music to accompany the MRI’s knocking/phone off the hook/discotheque soundtrack, and because so far it’s worked, why switch music and tempt fate? Afterward the technician said they usually read them quickly, so I figured maybe end of day I’d hear something.

The nurse practitioner I’d called at my breast surgeon’s office returned my call and they could see me in a few hours at 1pm. I wanted them to feel firsthand this swollen asymmetry and maybe an ultrasound would show something an MRI couldn’t? I stopped to pick up coffee and ran into a friend, the same one who’s walked to radiation with me a few times and who’s mostly up to speed on things. Her simple, “How are you?” brought forth from me an abbreviated non-teary-eyed version of my plight, that I was sandwiching an errand between scan appointments. It all felt rather healthy, despite the great unknown I still faced, and thankfully the conversation moved on to lots of other areas like kids, work, house renovation.

“Your tissue is folding around your scars and pulling up causing the puffiness. See where this is?” the nurse practitioner asked. I don’t see anything unusual here.” The tears, thousands of which were still collected behind my eyes from the day before, broke free and this poor woman had unwittingly found herself in a scene. I started hugging her and it was clear she was not a big hugger, but with no choice, did it anyway. I must have hugged her two more times groveling with my, “You don’t understand how crazy this makes me” excuse for carrying on. She added that radiation is the gift that keeps on giving, resulting in dramatic tissue changes that don’t necessarily settle over time. A few more hopeful nods from her and she got the hell out of dodge, and I got dressed, but not before leaving my breasties a video.

With mask pulled off my face to reveal the full red puffiness of my tear-stained checks, I left an update to the tune of “The nurse practitioner thinks it’s okay and the ultrasound looks normal; it’s just my tissue is pulled and puffed up.” Released from prison, I moved quickly through the elevators and parking deck, reaching my husband with my get out of jail card news and then left my sister a voicemail, which was barely audible through the endless supply of tears I’m now able to produce on command. The breast friends fired back multiple videos of relief which gave me a place to land. It’s much more fun to skip out of jail if you’ve got folks cheering on your escape since they too have been incarcerated.

In her video, one of my friends mentioned how fear of recurrence for her is almost worse than the actual initial diagnosis, which I wholeheartedly agree with. We now know too much and with this new knowledge, our mind is an even far more dangerous place to be. She shared the analogy she’d read about (https://at.tumblr.com/somehedgehog/cancer-the-mountain-lion-in-your-fridge/1d3nsa19vdc0) of having had cancer being compared to having a mountain lion in your fridge. It’s there. You can hide it. You can live with it because it’s in the fringe, but sometimes you open it and are reminded that it’s always going to be there.

Home to find an email with MyChart MRI breast w/ and w/o contrast results somewhat inconclusive:

Finding 1: Area in the left breast appears benign.
Finding 2: Area in the left breast requires additional evaluation. Additional mammographic images are recommended. A possible ultrasound may be warranted following the mammographic views. Recommend diagnostic evaluation with mammogram and possible ultrasound for left breast swelling.

More calls to doctor to see what they make of MRI and ultrasound findings when seen together, and the surgeon suggested a diagnostic mammogram. When pressed, the PA admitted additional evaluation can result when the patient is voicing a new complaint, aka me, and they take it seriously. I’m glad I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut because I want that comfy place with more eyes on me. I want my file to be stamped “free to go” until the next crisis, ahem scan, happens.

On March 8, I’ll be back at the cancer center for a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound, and I’ll get same-day results, which my PA expects will be fine. After that, I will begin weekly breast lymphatic massage therapy, a healthy drive up to Roswell where whomever is assigned my high maintenance breast will manually redistribute the tissue and I’ll be more comfortable. Whatever it takes, sign me up.

Birthdays, Mother's Love, Parenting

The First Year

February 26, 2023February 27, 2023 Susan Greco

It’s the eve of my first son’s 23rd birthday, and I am flooded back to that night when labor began and I crossed that threshold into becoming a mother. It would be another year after that when I would write this essay, but today, rereading these memories, I love that they’re still crystal clear. Seems you just wing it when you begin this parenting adventure, and every day as you step up to and into new challenges, you surprise yourself by how much you’re capable of and how far you’ve come. Forgive the cliche, but it really is the best job.

“Your life will never be the same,” everyone warned, urging my husband and me to go out on the town in the remaining weeks, even just see a movie, since this would be our last opportunity for a while. I remember the lady in the drug store who glanced at my full belly, then asked if this was my first. When I said it was, she laughed out loud and declared, “You’ve got a big surprise in store for you!”

Along with the loss of sleep, lack of time and exhausting exhilaration, my son’s birth surprised me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. It began to soften my grip on the world I once controlled, and my views on privacy, modesty and relationships changed permanently. I was now officially inducted into this world, connected to everyone and everything in it.

Several hours after my water broke and the birth process began, I suddenly didn’t care who saw me naked, bathed in a pathetic pain, bright lights shining on areas much more accustomed to the dark. Convinced during weeks of yoga training that quiet, focused breathing would ease my labor, I emitted instead dry, throaty vowel sounds like an old lawn mower refusing to start. The labor nurses swaddled me in warm towels so I could weather the storm. And I did.

Once home, the number of calls, cards and casseroles was staggering. Beyond our close circle of people, old friends came out of the woodwork, arms laden with comfort food and sweet little baby things. Some talked of their own children, now grown up and paying off student loans, and told stories of way back when. Some just sat and listened, quietly imagining their own future.

When the visitors tapered off and I’d returned the last dish, a peaceful quiet briefly blew through the house, eventually interrupted by household chores, job responsibilities and of course, baby cries. Days were nights, nights were days, and in between, I did everything I could to avoid walking over that loose floorboard which squeaked underfoot. Funny, it never seemed to wake the cats.

As the weeks passed and I began to get out more, I attracted otherwise disinterested strangers who would smile when they saw the baby, many lingering to admire him. Those particularly bold reached out to touch his soft skin. Most made it clear it was the baby they were interested in, and my attempts at idle conversation were unnecessary and interrupted their private moment with him. I loved their visits just the same.

Back at the office, I’d nurse and type, cradling baby in my left arm and dragging the computer mouse with my right. When it was time to switch sides, I’d return phone calls and nurse some more. Couriers who came by our two-person office seemed confused at first when I didn’t turn around to greet them, but then a baby smacking sound or bobbing head would tip them off. They’d return later in the week, skilled in the new drill, and let my co-worker sign for the package.

Just as groups of dogs and their owners flock to one another in parks, my baby attracted other babies and their parents. My husband and I formed instant bonds with other couples as we compared notes on topics like teething and proper burping techniques, essential information for our baby-centric world. When we would occasionally go out, it was wonderful to see my husband with other new dads cradling their babies and bragging that their child could already grasp a rattle or babble “da da.”

With the new baby came a new fascination with sleep: anywhere, anytime, any amount. On route to work, I fantasized about pulling into the closest motel (alone!) and getting a room for the day with a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, where I could savor consecutive hours of delicious sleep, alone and quiet. I bought special bath gels claiming to soothe the baby so he could easily transition to bedtime. I moved the CD player from my office to his room, hoping repeated lullaby rhythms would carry him to sleep. I spent hours searching the Internet for the perfect bedtime CD–forget my own shopping and U2’s new release.

The changes the baby brought extended to every cupboard and crevice of our home. The calming tones in our living room were interrupted every few feet by a primary-colored baby gadget, a pittance for the luxury of a ten-minute distraction. Three-inch socks clung to the inside of the dryer, turning up loads later in the sleeves of our T-shirts. Our promising china collection now mingled with plastic Teletubbies dinnerware.

When we went out to eat, I easily recognized the waiters who were parents or even aunts and uncles from the other ones. The former, usually smiling, knew to promptly bring a basket of bread and extra napkins in preparation for the impending food fest. The latter, via body language and average-at-best service, assured us he was not impressed with our little angel, whose squawking broke the almighty adult ambience. But full of naïve delight, we were just thankful our baby was so enthusiastic about mealtime.

Now, over a year later with more challenges ahead and fatigue still hanging around, I am oddly energized by it all. Our son has sprouted up eye level with the tabletops and scours our floors for things not intended for his mouth. He’s become skilled at catching and pulling the cats’ tails, and his pale, soft hands are filling up with scratches. And even though it’s almost summer and we still haven’t raked the fall leaves, we did finally get out and see a movie.

My sister took this photo, one of my favorites, for the first of what would be many Christmas cards to come.

Birthdays, Mother's Love, mothering, Parenting

Evan

February 12, 2023February 12, 2023 Susan Greco

It was a pregnancy that barely took I think, now looking back on it. This one bypassed the hallmarks of my first go round—uber-thick tresses, hankerings for gooey grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup, and the inevitable three scoops, two breasts and a belly, peeking out from the bath water, too swollen to submerge where it’s warm.

We were sailing along through the pregnancy, and then it happened: the slow trickle down my leg. I was not just eight months pregnant, but now an embarrassingly and inconveniently incontinent eight months pregnant. Thankfully it quickly dawned on me that it was my water that had broken and not my bladder, thank God. I was already carrying around diapers for my barely two-year-old and there wasn’t going to be lugging Depends around, too.

I wouldn’t dream of arriving at a dinner party a month early, so why had my baby lost his own manners, toyedwith the notion of showing up this early, and gone and done it? We weren’t nearly done with our nesting and besides, I hadn’t yet taken my pregnant belly photo, yet this baby was coming on his terms I realized, another trickle moseying down my leg. He was leading and I was going to follow. Tonight.

I was determined to birth this baby, who I knew would be my last, naturally and I checked out videos from the hospital which coached me on a drug-free labor. I’d be setting off on this inward journey I’d thoroughly prepared for, and soon found myself in the delivery room in bed on all fours staring down at the hospital mosaic floor tile. The sporadic dark tiles interrupted the pale ones, part of the peaceful beach scene I’d conjured, and with each wallop of a labor pain, I blew away these pesky dark tiles, which I’d decided were roaches I could obliterate with each exhale. After I’d gained considerable ground on these pests, I could hear my doctor instructing me to do something, but his voice was muffled and far away, and I struggled to understand. I kept telling him I couldn’t hear him, but I was the reason, I was the noise screaming bloody murder. Somewhat intimidated by steep roller coasters as it is, for this interminable ride, I’d been placed in the first car, and was flying down arms up on an infinite track with no end in sight.

After a long six hours—which I’d later learn is a textbook labor for one’s second delivery—I got to meet this little fella, all five pounds three ounces of him. His eyes were big—beyond saucers, we’re talking platters here—and he looked up at me, the momma bird, and batted sweet butterfly kisses my way. His enormous eyes fixed inside extraordinarily long lashes studied me. I tried my best to answer with my own unremarkable eyes, though was still shivering from the drug-free labor.

He was unique from the get-go. A mere four pounds leaving the hospital, he caused quite the stir in the elevator with women mostly who peeked into his blanket to study his miniature face buried inside a hospital-perfect swaddle. He’d bat those luscious lashes at them, and they’d beam back at me, jealous—or was it relief that this unusually miniature bundle wasn’t accompanying them home?

His ears were not exactly ears yet, but appeared like forming buds I worried could go either way, absorb back into his head or unfurl and evolve into separate flesh and cartilage we all take for granted as ears. Don’t touch the ears, I reminded myself, as I swaddled him loosely; let them blossom into true lobes, God willing.

We soon began our dance of breastfeeding and sleep, cries and burps, diapering and swaddling. His head was no bigger than a squirrel’s, but it was smooth and warm and smelled heavenly, a scent if you could market could earn you a fortune off wistful parents of older children, but needing a fix of early baby days.

Time zoomed by and one day, out of nowhere, we found ourselves by the crib, mattress set at the lowest setting, before our baby, now tall and grabbing the railing, yelling, “New Di! New Di! New Di!” He made quite the ruckus over this “New Di!” thingamajig he insisted on, and even though we felt tired and slow, we ultimately caught on. He was imitating our very own words we said to him each morning, “Do you need a new diaper?” He did indeed and was telling us plain as day, then and there, as he would again and again in the days that followed.

Life went on and he ate more and grew stronger and we slept less and grew exhausted. One morning, we looked up to find our big-eyed boy standing before us in the kitchen, having quietly climbed out of his crib all by himself—a remarkable feat he’d never performed—ready for a new di and breakfast. Like a cat jumping from a high perch without a sound, he could now go places he wished and do it silently too, but for the swishing sound of his diaper while en route.

Forever watching, learning, and absorbing, he did things in his own way and time, like when he first learned to walk. Unlike his older brother, who tried and fell, tried again, and fell again, this baby crawled, pulled up and stayed propped up with furniture, never letting go or falling, until one Easter Sunday when we were at grandma’s house. Out of the blue, he took off, from the living room through the dining room into the kitchen and back again, walking like a pro, simple as pie. That was that. On to the next milestone.

Walking led to running and running led to tricycles, scooters, and then on up to bikes. Starting with training wheels, he wobbled like we all used to, but stuck with it, always declining our offers to take the wheels off until one day he requested the wheels off today please. So off they came and off he went, a bike rider now, pedaling and balancing with ease. He’d done it again: accurately sized up a situation, dove in when he knew he was able, and performed perfectly and without hesitation.

Today, I’m cycling home from his elementary school with him in front taking the lead, as he likes to do, and he’s just barely fitting on the red 21-speed bike he got for Christmas. Not far behind, I’m working my way up the hill and noticing his little spine that’s visible through his shiny blue soccer shirt. Like little pearls strung on a chain, these vertebrae are the very links that hold him together, the same ones I saw in the ultrasound some nine years ago. I pause for a minute, remembering, until he shouts “C’mon, mom! You comin’?”

birthday serenade at Commander’s Palace, New Orleans

Note: I wrote this some 14 years ago, and today, Evan’s 21st birthday, it seemed a good time to share these memories.

Death, Mother's Love

You Needed to Stay

January 18, 2023January 18, 2023 Susan Greco

You’re everywhere, but you’re not here. You’re in the grey fog hovering over the backyard. You’re in the daffodil stems springing from your flower frog. You’re tiptoeing on morning moss dusted with dew. You’re warming up the car on a cold morning. You’re you through and through.

Some years you’re here and others I think you must be playing tennis or sunning yourself on a beach somewhere. Did you grow out your hair? You never did let it reach your shoulders. Do they let you smoke where you are? Tell me you didn’t start up again. Do you enjoy bourbon still? I hope you’re having cocktail hour with your parents enjoying all the nibbles Gammy sets out.

Just when I think I’ve put you away, you come back, as if you’ve overcome death. We didn’t finish what we were saying. I’m so sorry you couldn’t catch your breath. I wore an Ann Taylor cream and brown houndstooth dress to your funeral. Did you like it? I went to Lenox crippled with grief, but I needed to find something you would have picked out, stay your Susie a little longer and dress cute for you. I figured you’d make fun of me if I wore black and joined the throngs of mourners cloaked in dramatic greys and blacks, and say things like, “Why so sad? It’s okay.” I felt silly sitting there in the pew by the aisle at St. Luke’s, the only light-colored dress in the place. Why was I not weighted down like everyone else? You insisted I be the light.

So many memories backwards and forwards, sometimes I don’t know where to land, where to find you. Do I remember you that cold winter day when you left without saying goodbye, or do I remember warm summer nights and you finding us pickle jars for our fireflies? Or happy birthdays and the burning candles lighting up your face as you brought in homemade cakes dressed up with flowers you grew. The children and pets you doted on or the clothes you sewed us, or poems you wrote. You needed to stay. There was so much more to say.

When you died, I took several of your suits and altered them to fit me and wore them around for months. We squeezed everything out of those suits, didn’t we? I needed to wear you. I needed to know where you were and if not on me, at least you’d be hanging in my closet. I still see people who knew you and it makes you more real as if it’s not a dream I made up. You lived a full life and all I can do for my children is describe you as best I can.

You in that lovely pink dress you made and Anne and me in our matching nightgowns

I see your eyes in my sister and your pretty skin too. Every day you bothered, you worked hard, sweet Sue. You made spaces beautiful, gave them all your touches. You were the arms to lean into as you whispered calming hushes.

I look around and with so many of your things you left behind, I see you everywhere–in Christmas ornaments, furniture, art, even your old-fashioned grocery list I still hang on my wall. I wish I could cook for you. You’d like what I’d make: sundried tomato meatloaf, asparagus with ginger and orange, and an apple tart with sour cream sauce. We’d watch a movie and say goodnight and meet up again for coffee in the morning light.

But you are here in my coffee, which I still take light with plenty of cream. You’re in our cats’ faces who track me each morning looking for breakfast now awake from their dreams. You’re the pile of warm clothes fresh from the dryer, you’re clean sheets on a made up bed, you’re the sound of a dishwasher humming after we’ve all been fed. You’re the elegance of tall taper candles in the dining room, the sound of clinking shoes on hardwood floors gathering for a meal, the whirr of Christmas eve and Christmas morning. The joy of our dog licking the mashed potato pot or gobbling up a ground beef birthday cake.

You’re roasted tomatoes and sweet potatoes, zinnias, and mint. You’re the flame in the wood on this table where I sit. You’re the candle when the power goes out, the bath I draw when there are things to sort out. You’re the bunnies nibbling on our lawn, sweet strawberries in spring. You’re the bourbon in my eggnog, the lemon in your poundcake which I proudly make. You’re Crème Brulee and filet, tonic and lime, tell me please why is it you couldn’t stay?

You bothered, you showed up, you talked a lot. But you had sparkle, and like me, your friends were drawn to all you’ve got. I’ve changed from that 30-yr-old girl you left, yet I haven’t, but I don’t need to tell you that. You know. You’re here with me. So here we are, twenty-nine years later and holding, as you’d say. I’m not yet the age you reached when you passed that day, but when I hit 62, as I often do, I’ll be sure and think of you.