The Ties That Bind

It is June.  June is the month of my oldest daughter's birthday.  June brings summer and June Gloom and eventually, July, which is the month of my birthday and my brother's birthday and some unexplained and mostly unexplored anxiety which I do believe that I must take some time to understand this year.  My favorite grandmother passed away on my birthday several years ago, but I do not believe that that has anything at all to do with my "July anxiety" because it seemed to have started well before her death.  Sometimes, I think that my grandma's passing on my birthday was sort of a Universal pox on my irrational anxiety.  Like "Here.  If you are going to be all weird about your birthday and stuff, we will add something else, something more concrete that will make it even more burdensome for you."  Or, "You really aren't that important, Debra, so do not believe that other people celebrating the fact that you are still here to be celebrated means anything more than that you are just another year older."  Silly, I know.  And the interesting thing is that I love life, I really do.  And I understand that in order to continue having a life to love, I must also have birthdays to grow older on.  Like my grandmother always told me, if you want to live, you have to get old.  And it isn't necessarily the growing older part of my birthday that bothers me.  I do not mind that at all.  There are many benefits to growing older and wiser and more comfortable in one's own skin.  But while I am contemplating this, I must ask if there is anyone else out there who shares in this birthday anxiety?  I witness other people getting very excited about their own birthdays and I do, too, but it makes me wonder where my own apprehension might have come from.

So here we all are in the month of June.  Angel Daughter Number One will be turning twenty-six at the end of this month which is almost hard for me to fathom as in my own mind, she is still a very young woman.  Truthfully, I am finally coming to the conclusion that this child of mine is finished being a child.  This has been a somewhat difficult concept for me to grasp as she has always been so easy to mother which makes it even easier for me to continue doing so.(She is a pretty good sport about it.)    But she does not really need me to do that part of the job anymore.  I mean, I know that she will always need me to be her momma, but as far as the unasked-for advice, etc., etc., I would rather not sound like the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons.  I am learning to back off.  I am learning that when she needs me, she will come to me.  I am learning that AD1 is pretty much cooked.  I definitely cannot complain. Look at my girl, she is self-assured, considerate, compassionate and beautiful.  As her momma, there is nothing that I could wish for her to be that she is not already in the process of achieving.  It is a little bit frightening to know that I am on my way out of a job that I have so loved doing for twenty-six years, but this is the truth whether I want it to happen or not so I might as well enjoy the process.

So I move on to Angel Daughter Number Two...My wild child, per say.  The one who can cause my heart to pound wildly in the middle of the night without logical reason, but just because I know.  And yet, she always seems to figure her way out of the dilemmas that are sometimes self-created and sometimes, not.  This child is twenty-three years old and although she will tell you that she has been "on her own" since she was eighteen, that is so not true.  She flies freely under the very watchful eyes of her parents and her extremely proud, extremely supportive grandfather even when she sometimes flaps her wings like a wayward bird whose wings have been temporarily clipped by her own impulsive actions from time to time.  I cannot say that this one is fully cooked yet, but I do have to watch the way that I respond to the manner in which she approaches the world.  It it very different, not bad, just different and unusual.  She is, after all, a creative soul and creative souls can have a very different way of approaching life.  AD2 is a free-spirit who views the world from a distinctive and much further elevated perch.(If she can get there, it is definitely worth the effort of the climb!)  I often find myself observing this child in the way that I would view a very beautiful, rare bird that loves the idea of self-survivial but needs the security of others to occasionally feather her nest(and fill her refrigerator).  She wants, so badly, to do things on her own, but she just isn't as ready as she sometimes believes that she is.(Sir, I was born ready!)  It is all good, though.  I know that AD2 is absolutely capable of amazing things, things that other twenty-three year olds could not even imagine achieving.  Being her momma is something that I know that I was meant to do, so I will do it in whatever way she needs me to for however long it takes.  Nothing could make me prouder or happier.

Angel Daughter Number Three just completed her AA degree from a community college, received her first "A" in math, ever, and will be moving on to attend a college that is nine hours away in August to complete her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology.(Just like her momma:))  In some ways, AD3 is our late bloomer, but she is also very thorough in making sure that she is comfortable with one step in life before she moves on to the next one.  It is going to be very difficult when she leaves, I am fully aware of that and I know that I will come down with another case of "empty-nest syndrome" when she goes.    She has been dating Zach for a couple of months now.  He is the brother of AD1's boyfriend, Matt.  They fell pretty fast and quick when they met and have been inseparable ever since.  I'm not exactly sure how the Universe is going to work this one out come August, but it is all part of the major scheme so I am confident that if they want it to work, it will.  Mark and I both really like Matt and Zach so if things are somehow meant to be, we would not complain.  Life has a funny way of working things out, so we shall see what happens in the future.

Angel Daughter Number Four...What can I say about this little bundle of teenage energy.  She is like a whirlwind of enthusiasm and kinetic chatter that bounces from moment to moment, place to place, leaving people smiling from ear to ear in her path.  And although she is in the midst of her final year as a teenager, she is finally now going through a somewhat rebellious stage.  I should have known that it was coming.  It is normal and healthy and necessary.  I was just sort of hoping that we could just skip that portion of the process with this mostly happy, mostly agreeable little soul.  AD4 is still dancing up a storm, going to college, and working while also keeping up with her full social calendar.  Her ability to bring people joy through the art of dance is mesmerizing and I am so proud of her confidence and skill.  I only hope that she takes full advantage of the natural ability that has been given to her so that she does not look back with any regret.  She truly is that good.

The love of my life.  This man whom I have spent the past thirty-three years of my life with.  We have been together since we were freshmen in college and have been married for almost twenty-nine years.  We continue to build a life together that is both joy filled and upbeat.  Yes, we definitely share in the difficulties that being alive throws at everyone, but we choose to deal with them in a way that allows us to keep the bright side mostly in tact.  We try to remember that we are always in this together and we do our very best to work as a team.  Most importantly, we remain deeply in love with one another and that is something that sustains us through even the heaviest of storms.

Even as we watch our four children walking into their own futures, we steadfastly remain two people who will share in ours together and in that, we both find deep comfort.

The pelicans have been returning to San Clemente, and with them, another season has passed and another June has arrived.  Watching my children leave and return and leave and return and then, eventually leave without returning alone, has been a process for me.  It has been a process filled with the bittersweet proclivity of both transformation and also, displacement.  I am excited about what is to come for them, but I am scared about where it will leave me in my newest phase of life.  Who will I be when I am no longer known as my children's mother?  Where will my own purpose lie when the most important job that I could ever conceive of in my life is mostly finished?  How do I discover who I will now become?  I have so much to learn and for the first time in my entire life, I am feeling a little bit lost.    I always knew what would come next...College, job and marriage, children...Now, I am just not that sure.  I've never had a role model to guide me.  No other woman to look to as an example of how it is all done gracefully, at least not one whom I know personally.  It's a bit disconcerting.  I know that I can rely on the support, love and encouragement of my husband and our daughters.  I know that they will cheer me on in whatever direction I choose to fly.  But where do I even begin...I have most of the tools, but I still need a compass, and a map, and a GPS, for that matter.

Happy June!

Booming Voices and What Comes Next?

Standing in front of the railroad tracks that are down at the beach near my home, I often take the moment or two in which I am forced to stop in my own tracks to feel the absolute force of the passing train and then I think about God or my children or my husband and sometimes rarely, about myself, and I pray. I do not usually use any formal version of prayer but more of a conversational tone with God asking Him to watch over, to guide, to consider, and most importantly, to protect.  I never ask for anything tangible.  No cars or cash prizes or anything that my husband and I do not earn.  No, to me there are much, much more important reasons to talk to God and I would never want to waste His time with stuff.  That is what Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or our Fairy Godmothers are for, cash prizes, shiny new cars and stuff.  I do not often get any answers but there are times when I walk away feeling heard, even acknowledged and yet, how would I even know whether or not I was actually acknowledged.  It isn't as if God really speaks out loud in a booming voice.(At least to me, He doesn't.  Now Moses might have been a very different story.)

A decade ago on July 9, I turned 40 years old which means that I am now 50.(Glad that I did the math for you?)  So many things have happened over the past decade since that wonderful surprise party that Mark threw for me for my fortieth birthday.  We have had four daughters graduate from High School and so far, one from college with honors.  We celebrated with great joy as each of our youngest three daughters became Bat Mitzvahs and young women in the eyes of our congregation.  My beloved grandmother passed away on my birthday at the strong age of ninety one years old and I lost my younger brother, my only sibling, at the far too young age of forty one years young, to sudden heart failure and heart ache.  I(temporarily) lost my beautiful nieces to a woman who is supposed to care for them based upon their best interests.  We made our way through the terrible maze of the family court system with my sister-in-law and we found out just how many rights that I do not have as the only living sibling of a dead brother/father.  We found a loop-hole in the law that saved us from salt in a gaping wound and left my SIL wondering whether or not it was honestly worth over $100,000 to hold a grudge against people who she supposedly cared for at some point in time.  I watched as my parents mourned the death of their only son in very different ways.  We made a drastic life-altering change in homes, moving down to the beach where my soul can really breathe.  We hunted for sea glass as I hunted for peace.  I faced the reality that this illness may never again, head back into remission and I came to terms with that.  My family struggled as they came to terms with the same illness.  I watched as my daughters acted in commercials and danced, created photographic brilliance for magazines and created beautiful pieces of clothing from almost nothing.  I sat back and whispered prayers for my daughters as they experienced break-ups, heart ache and independence.  We traveled and stayed put.  I lost some friends on purpose and gently let some go when our friendships no longer served either one of us.  I made some wonderful connections with the most unlikely of individuals.  I kept myself sane with the assistance of my therapist who is really just a friend that I pay to listen to me while I work out my own stuff.  I helped two babies leave the nest while almost dreading the day when the next two must take off too.  I clung tightly to my oldest friend and shared in the joy of her amazing grandbabies!  My marriage became an even more valuable entity in my life and my husband, an even better best friend.  So much has happened during the decade between my fortieth and fiftieth years and truthfully I cannot say that this has been the best ten years of my life.  I readily admit that the last decade has been hard, very, very hard.  I mean, raising four teenage daughters at one time was a feat in itself, but now I know and I recognize the "stages" as they do surely come and the blows are definitely much softer.  I have experienced some of the worst that there is(and some of the best) and I have come out stronger on the other side.  I also know what I now must do as I enter into the next decade of my life.  No more hiding behind my jobs as a wife and a mother, although those are the two most important jobs that I could ever hold in any lifetime and they will always be my jobs.  But there is some clarity and freedom in knowing that I have accomplished the job of being a good mother which is something that I wanted to do, craved doing, since the day that I could first push my first baby doll around in a toy stroller.  And although the past decade of that job has been the toughest, there is no place else that I would rather have been because I got to do it with the most incredible husband and the most wonderful children.  Maybe these fantastic people are the biggest answers to my conversations with God.  Maybe they are living, breathing, booming voice examples as to how God feels about me and maybe, just maybe, the language that God uses with me is just a different language than what I might expect.

Birthdays are a contemplative time for me and this one certainly more so than 99.9% of the forty nine others that I have been lucky enough to celebrate.  For some reason though, 50 feels like an achievement to me.  I feel like having lived for a half of a century gives me some credibility that I was not as secure in before and now, I can own it all.  From the wonderful to the not so wonderful, there is a strength of will that has developed in me throughout the course of my years and I feel very centered in that strength.  I am not at all sure where the next ten years of my life will lead, but I do know this.  It is time for me to learn more about who I am as a woman, as an individual and as a student of life.  I am not used to being in the forefront of my own life so the vantage point from here is a little bit scary, but I do know that it is time.  It is time for me to face the possibilities with strength and fortitude.  Maybe the difficulties which seemed to come one after the other after the other over the course of my forties were meant to set me up with a new kind of steadiness for the decade to come.  I do know that we are never immune from the painful or the difficult or the formidable but maybe now, things won't take the same toll on me as they once did.  I am looking forward to this next phase of my life.  And maybe the next time that the train speeds past me down at the beach, I will converse with God a little bit more about myself. I will ask Him, "What next?"  And maybe, being more familiar with the language that He has shared with me for most of my life, it will be easier to hear the answers and I will feel confident in what  will come next.

How we Cope

Most of the time I prefer paper when I read.  There is something very grounding about the feel of a page, the scent of newsprint as the page turns, the sound of a book softly landing upon a hard surface when I am ready to head back out into the world after a few delicious hours away of being lost in someone else's words.  Someone else's world.  And yet, I gave in and purchased a Kindle...and then a Nook.  I blame this on the fact that I am addicted to the written word and that I had to give up reading for most of the years that I was raising my four Angel Daughters.  Sure I read books that were relevant to parenting and the developmental stages of childhood, but reading for the sheer pleasure of it was something that I just no longer had the time to do.(That, and keeping my eyes open to get to the end of a page was virtually impossible.)  Once I realized that I was free to read at my own leisure again, I could not stop myself from filling my mind with all of the knowledge that I had been starved of for so many years.  It began with reading blogs online which were easy to digest in small snippets of time(You are all such wonderful writers) and then it became books.  And more books, mostly in hardcover.   Heavy and impractical for someone whose purse is filled to the brim with other accoutrements, I needed to find another way to bring my friends with me.   I travel heavy.  You never know what you might need.  So when the Kindle first appeared on the market,  I gave in to the medium of the electronic page.  It has taken me awhile to become used to reading books on something electronic but there are some things that I love about it.  First off, having the backlight means that I can read at any time of the day or night without disturbing Mark with a book light.  Second, and almost more importantly in the scheme of my life, electronic readers mean that I can easily read a book with a cat nestled contently upon my lap.  With one finger, I can turn a page without disturbing my furry feline and anyone who owns a cat understands how important this really is.  This morning as I was reading, Angel Daughter Number Two's cat Louis, who has taken up temporary residency(I have heard this one before from this particular child) in our house crawled up on to my chest as I was lying in bed reading.  Louis is staying with us while AD2 finds a new place to live and since she is unsure about location, job, country, etc., we all think that it is best for him to remain in a stable* environment.(*Stable meaning unchanging or possibly that we already have four cats, two dogs and two birds.  Either one works in this instance.)  Louis spent the first two years of his life in an animal shelter which could not have been easy on him.  He has developed some nervous habits over the past couple of months which I believe might have been caused by AD2's breakup with her longtime boyfriend.  Louis began systematically pulling his own fur out while cleaning himself five or six times a day.  My heart truly broke when I realized what he was doing to himself.  Animals are quite sensitive and many are also empathic meaning that if their owners are in distress, so are they.  I do not think that I have ever witnessed such a strong example of how empathetic animals can be until I saw all of the bare spots on Louis' body.  He looked a bit like a cat with a mohawk down the center of his back.  It hurt my heart to consider the confusion that he must have been experiencing while AD2 and her boyfriend hashed and rehashed the same issues that they have been dealing with for the past eight-plus years culminating in complete instability for a cat who has only known such.  I mean, it is one thing for the stupid humans to be exposing themselves to the same nastiness for year, after year, after year, but to do so to someone who has no choice as to environment is not only insensitive but also, unfair.  And yes, I love and adore my daughter more than anything in this world but I am growing quite weary of the stupid human tricks.

Last week I went to the dentist for my twice-yearly cleaning.  Nothing life-altering or particularly significant in the typical life.  We have been going to the same dentist for well over twenty years and in some ways, he and his wife feel like family now.  We have been through babies and children and graduations together.  He takes care of my entire family and has done so since before some of my girls were even born.  That being said, when he looked at my teeth, he sighed and looked at me with so much empathy in his eyes that it almost made me cry.  "So, Debra, what has been causing you so much stress in your life lately?"  I may or may not have looked at him, at this point, as if he had just glanced deep down into the seat of my soul, into a very private place that I am pretty good at keeping from the light of day.  A very vulnerably naked feeling.  I hemmed and hawed a bit until I realized that he was not buying what I had to say and admitted that the past six or so months since I had last been in to see him, had not been particularly easy for me.  And he showed me what I have been doing to my teeth.  My own teeth.  I have always been a "grinder" meaning that I grind my teeth throughout most of the day, but I always swore that I have never ground my teeth at night.(Denial?)  He called me on that.  What I managed to do over the course of the past six months since I was last in to his office is grind my teeth so viscously and so aggressively that I now have two lose teeth in my mouth.  Strong, rooted, healthy teeth that will eventually fall out if I do not put a stop to this.  He explained to me that during the day if we grind, we can only put about sixty pounds of pressure on our teeth because we would stop ourselves from biting any harder at that point.  At night, when we are in and out of very deep sleep cycles, studies have shown that we can actually put nine hundred pounds of pressure on our teeth without even knowing that we are doing it.  And the more times that someone wakes up and falls back to sleep again, the more times that that person will go in to the very deepest cycle of sleep which is when the hardest grinding will take place.  I am a terrible sleeper.  There are times when I just cannot get my mind to stop chattering at me.  My dentist told me that I would need to get a hard night guard(most people have soft ones) because he believes that I would continue to bite through a night guard until I bit through it anyway.  If the night guard does not work(I used to hide my retainer from myself in the middle of the night as a teenager), there are other much more drastic measures that we could take in order to preserve my teeth, none of them fun or particularly appealing.  And here is the thing, I want very badly to stop grinding my teeth, but I can't.  It is a physical compulsion that I have used to somehow relieve stress for as long as I can remember, but never to the point that I was doing any real damage to myself.  Even though it hurts and it is harmful to my teeth, I am still compelled to
grind.  I think that this is something that you might only understand if you, too, are a teeth-grinder but there is something about causing myself temporary pain that helps to relieve the psychic pain that is sometimes driving me batty mentally.  It is not that I want to hurt myself, it's just that the stress that can sometimes be overwhelming, needs a place to go.  I cannot ship my mother off to some far-away desert island.  I cannot control how other people perceive situations and how they should best be handled.  I cannot change anyone and so, like Louis, I have devised a way to keep myself from combusting from stress.  Obviously I have some very healthy outlets for excess stress too, like reading and enjoying my family and gazing out at the ocean, etc., but apparently not enough.

Louis is doing much better now.  His fur is growing back in quite nicely and he rolls around on his back and lets me pet his chubby belly with a smile on his face.  In some ways, his bald patches serve as a visual reminder that I too might need to allow people to scratch my proverbial belly.  That maybe, just maybe, it is time for me to open myself up to new relationships that not only serve someone else, but also fulfill a need in my own soul.  I've never been very good at that which is why I probably grind the hell out of my own teeth but as Louis's fur grows back in, it might just be time for me to explore some
healthy outlets and relationships of my own.  There is nothing like having your dentist look through you like an x-ray while telling you that you are physically damaging your own body to serve as a wake-up call for what will hopefully be only the second half of your life.  On Monday, I will be turning 50 years old.  50.  It is definitely time for me to enter the next half of my life with more self-care and less stress.  I would say that it is quite possibly time for me to begin traveling lighter in oh so many more ways than one.

*Lots and lots happening in the Four Angel's world which I hope to write about soon.  I fried the hard-drive on my laptop and I am waiting for all of my photos to restore so until then, most of the photos on my blog will be from my cellphone.(like the ones above)  AD4 graduated from High School and AD1 celebrated her 25th birthday!  Happy Birthday, baby girl!!!  Life is good and quite busy.

Levity, Lessons and Love

For those of you who have been visiting my little blog spot in Etherland for awhile, you might actually recognize the man in the lobster shirt with the Shitzu on his head.  For anyone else who might have just happened by while innocently looking up information on Shitzus first off, I apologize.  The dog likes it up there, he really does.  Second, allow me to introduce my father and my dog-brother.  No, I was not adopted(although my dog-brother was) and yes, my daughters think that I am just as much of a nut as their grandfather is only when he does things the girls think that they are much, much funnier than when I do them.  Pop-Pop gets all the laughs and I mostly get the eye-rolls.(Must be a generational thing, I am looking forward to my future grandchildren.)

When my father and my step-mom first adopted this little guy, his name was Augustus or Auggie for short.  Very befitting for a Shitzu residing in Palm Springs.  After a few days, they realized that he was more like a battering-ram on four short legs than a sophisticated little dumpling so they started calling him Rambo.  And as incongruous as the name Rambo and those beautiful eyelashes are, the name really suits him.  He follows our father around like an enormous watchdog would, barking at anything that he perceives as danger.  He recently received a new sister named Lizzie.  She is a wire-haired Dachshund.  She might need some doggie Prozac.  She makes Rambo look very, very calm.  Very calm.

But of course, then there is my human family.  This includes both my children and,

their grandfather, my father.

There is a sign that I have hanging up in our mountain house.  It says, "My family tree is full of nuts."  This is not a figure of speech in my case.

Over the course of the past several years, I have boiled most of those nuts down to the good kind because unfortunately, I also have my share of the other kind.  The kind that will constantly give you indigestion and heartburn all the while expecting a pass-go pass for forgiveness.  Which is something that I do: forgive.  Sadly, forgiveness cannot always include a free pass on forgetting which is something that they also expect without repercussions.  They seem to confuse the two, and up until fairly recently, I had a difficult time with the concept as well.  I not only forgave the abhorrent behavior but tried my best to forget about it, too.  But I think that this is just one of the many lessons that I am here to learn and for the most part, it is a good one for me because I am getting it.  I can forgive without trying to forget.  It is actually quite important to remember.  It breaks my heart more to move ahead in these stale relationships that cause me more pain than pleasure.  I think it is time for someone other than myself to put actual effort in to learning from life and then using those lessons to improve upon how the behaviors might adversely affect somebody else.  Patterns are very difficult to break, but if everyone involved continues dancing the same dance, then nothing will ever change.  Nothing will ever improve.  Nothing will be learned.  And nothing will be gained.

So, I am learning to embrace the "nuts"  who are willing to grow along with me, while distancing myself from the ones who leave a horribly bitter taste in my soul.  I mean, I enjoy pecans.  Walnuts, not so much.  So instead of continuing to add walnuts to my brownies, I might add some extra pecans.  Makes sense, yes?

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to Palm Springs to spend the weekend with my dad for his birthday.  Living two hours away from each other is hard and although we speak on the phone almost everyday, we do not get to see each other nearly enough.

We all arrived on different days and at different times, but everyone made it and we had a really nice trip.  My dad can make me laugh harder than anyone else in this world.  Not only that, he is as intelligent and as big-hearted as a man can be.  He mentors my daughters as if they are his own and motivates them to do things that Mark and I could never convince them of.(Once again, that generational thing.)  Would you believe me if I told you that he has several projects going on right now, one being that he is seriously considering opening up a college in China???  Who does that?  Who even believes that they are capable of doing that?  This man's mind is never, ever at rest.  Lordy, lordy...

Angel Daughter Number Two and Joshua drove out to join us on Saturday and stayed with my dad and Rita.  The rest of us stayed at the beautiful La Quinta resort across the street from their house.  We like it there and we can bring our thirteen year old pup, Becca, so it works out perfectly.  Becca is getting to the point in her life(and mine) where I do not feel comfortable leaving her with anybody else so we just set her up in the backseat and take her along.  Makes me happy, happy.

The girls adore their grandma Rita so much.  Twenty-five years ago when our oldest Angel Daughter was born, my step-mom felt like she was too young to be called "grandma" so the girls all called her Rita.  Now, she loves it because when she goes out with them, people think that she is their mother.  She now readily admits that she is their grandmother and qvells(Yiddish for "bubbles over with joy") when people don't believe it.  Too, too cute!  The girls absolutely love going into Rita's closet and coming out with all sorts of goodies that she doesn't wear anymore.  How many grandmothers can claim that?

Three generations.  This is what makes me happy.

I had to share a photo of a Palm Springs traffic-jam.  When Mark pulled up behind this golf-cart, I couldn't resist snapping some photos.  Yup, life is hard in my father's neighborhood.

On our way home from Palm Springs, I am always fascinated by the miles and miles of desert covered in windmills which seem to magically sprout up from the mostly baron land.  Leave it up to human ingenuity to take advantage of a natural resource that cannot be seen(the wind), and utilize it to create power for thousands and thousands of homes.  Something from what seems to be nothing.  There is so much beauty in the thought of that.

Update:

I am grateful to everyone who follows my blog either silently(I can feel your presence but don't be shy, say hello sometime:)), or those of you who have become my dear friends.  Thank you for all of the comments and e-mails and phone calls(Hi Nessie!) that you left for me after my previous post.  At first, I considered not writing anything at all about what I was going through, but then I decided that it was important for me to be authentic about my life when I write here because that is why I write here.  Life is messy sometimes and that goes for every life.  The object is to learn from both the wonderful times and the messy ones.  Things are better now.  I was able to verbalize the truth about what I was really going through over the course of the past four plus years since Robert's death, culminating in a pretty bad depression during the past few months or so to my husband, Mark.  In doing so, I have also come to terms with something that was pretty damn hard to admit.  I have been in a pretty big hole for awhile now.  I did not write much about the court case seeking visitation with my nieces after it ended a few months ago.  I thought that I would be able to handle the verdict regardless of what it was.  I thought that if a judge told me that I have no rights to my deceased brother's children, that I could accept it and move right along with my life.  I thought that I had properly grieved for my brother.  The truth is that what I should have known is that that was a bunch of crap.  I didn't consider that I would actually have to grieve the loss of my two nieces in the event that the court case did not end in my favor.  Unexpected feelings sucked me into a place of isolation which in turn, caused my physical pain levels to soar, which in turn spiraled my entire body into a flare.  My family, not really understanding what I was going through, made some major assumptions because those assumptions would have actually been much easier to deal with than depression, especially because I have never been seriously depressed before.  I am a very happy person and even though I have difficult days, essentially, I snap out of it very quickly. I don't think they knew what to do with me.  They did what they thought they needed to do and for that, I love them.

I am feeling much better now because I was able to acknowledge and in turn, got Mark to understand that what I was going through was profound sadness.  I have taken some steps toward healing but this will take some time.  There is no time table for grief.  There are still some things that I feel that I have to do before I can move ahead such as visit my brother's gravesite for the first time since the day of his funeral.  I know that his soul is often with me, but I can no longer use that as an excuse for not visiting the place where his body will forever remain.  I have been examining the reasons that I have stayed away and it is now time for me to go whether alone or with my husband.  I am not sure what I will feel after doing this, but it is something that I must do.  It is only right.

So here I sit, in a place of acceptance, forgiveness and contemplation and I am doing okay.  I am proud of myself for being a strong woman just as my grandmothers and great-grandmothers were.  There is a very tough gene residing someplace within my body and I am pretty sure that this gene has been inherited by my four beautiful daughters.  I mean, I may not agree with the way that they went about doing things, but I admire them for doing something.  I admire them for being proactive.  I admire them for not giving up on their momma.   It is an odd feeling knowing that one's own children are turning into adults right before their eyes and it is new territory for all of us.  If I have taught my girls nothing else, at least I know that there is one thing that I have taught them for sure, to lean on one another and to stick together when life gets messy.  Because it is so much easier to clean things up when you share the job with someone else whose motives are in line with your own.

Wishing you peace, my friends.

18. L'Chaim. To Life.

This month, we celebrated Angel Daughter Number Four's 18th birthday.  Incidentally, this also means that Mark and I are no longer the parents of any minor children.  Such an unfamiliar feeling to no longer be something that I have been in one form or another for almost 25 years.  Who am I now?    How do I let go?  In Judaism, when our children turn 13 and they are either Bar(for a boy) or Bat(for a girl) Mitzvahed, it is said that they are considered "adults" and are therefore responsible for their own actions, but as a parent, this was only the very beginning of acknowledging that my daughters were on their way to becoming young women.  The teen years in our home, proved to be full of wonder(I wondered how I was going to make it through!) to feeling like they might go on forever.  But, like any other stages of our daughter's lives, these years actually raced by.  In several weeks when Angel Daughter Number Three turns 20, we will only have one more teenager to finish raising up and she is now legally old enough to vote in the next presidential election, sign for her own replacement driver's license at the DMV(damn the person who stole her purse at school), or pierce another hole in her ear on a whim.(Both she and AD3 felt that "whim", last week.  Oy.)  And yet, as odd as it feels to be the momma of four young adult women, I can look at them with confidence in knowing that Mark and I did things the way that we always said that we would.  Yes, we waivered at times.  The arguments coming out of the mouth of a living, breathing individual is quite different to those that come out of the mouths of very obedient imaginary children.  But the thing is, we actually parented these daughters of ours when too many of our peers thought it wise to be their children's friends, and that is something that most certainly never works.

So, as I piece together the thoughts that I have about Angel Daughter Number Four's 18th birthday, I can truly say that Mark and I must have done something right because these daughters of our just keep getting better and better!

I love that she does not have too much pride to stand up on a chair in a very crowded restaurant with a balloon animal in her hand while shaking her adorable booty just like she did when she was three.

Even while being serenaded by the very handsome waiter who sweetly(and respectfully) flirted with her for the entire evening.

Culminating with a high-five and applause from the whole restaurant.

I just love how the little boy behind us seemed to be coveting AD4's ice cream sundae.

As did the little guy who was sitting at the table behind AD3!  I would have given them ice cream for dinner now that I am moving ahead into that "grandma" phase of life...

My beauties.  Angel Daughter Number Four(18).  Angel Daughter Number Three(19).  Angel Daughter Number Two(22).  Angel Daughter Number One(24).

This is AD1 and her boyfriend, Kyle.  He is a very nice guy from Colorado chasing his California dream.  They are cute together.

Obviously, something very interesting was happening on AD4's cellphone;)

Once again, AD4 sparkled and shined to another rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" from a packed restaurant.  There is something about watching your baby come into her own that does a momma's heart good.  She is me at that age, yet with a lot more confidence, self-assurance and moxie.  She is generous of spirit, she is lavish of heart.  She lives her life out loud and without apology.  She is Mark at that age with a contagious smile and a joyous sense of humor.  She has grown up well and I cannot wait to meet the woman that she will someday become.

In Judaism, the number "18" symbolizes life which is why Jewish people tend to give monetary gifts and donations in sums of 18.  Celebrating life is one of the most important tenants of Judaism which is why the phrase "L'chaim, To Life" is often said in celebration.  Life is a precious gift that should never be taken for granted.  It should be celebrated and exalted.  Happy, happy 18th birthday, my sweet angel baby.  We are all so incredibly proud of you.

The Dog Days of Summer-Saying Good-bye to Another July

Really, the dog days of summer are said to be between the dates of July 3 and August 11, but that is only if I decide to be precise about things.  Which, I most usually am not.  A little literary license keeps things much more interesting.  During ancient times, it was believed that the constellation Sirius(the dog) was  brightest in the sky during these dates, therefore joining with the sun in heating up the earth, hence the dog days.  But since we have all been experiencing some extremely steamy days recently, I decided to describe this most recent set of memories as our dog days of summer.  And since the photo above is of our very majestic dog, Micah, watching attentively over the shoreline below our home, for me, these are the dog days of summer.

Our family is quite big on hugging.  Yes, we are all huggers.  If you meet one of us for the first time, chances are you are going to receive a hug because that is the way that we roll.  I certainly did not grow up in a family of huggers, but it was something that came naturally to me as I ventured out into the world on my own.  It feels good to hug.  It feel good to be hugged.  Embracing another person allows us to connect on a level that waving and saying hello or good-bye cannot achieve.  Lord knows the world can be a cold and lonely place these days, so I say HUG AWAY and if I am ever lucky enough to meet you, feel free to give me a hug.  I am absolutely positive that there is a study out there somewhere that proves that hugging can increase your life span by seven years.(I just made that up but somehow I am sure that it is true!)  I recently decided that capturing photographs of people hugging is a very good and sneaky way to discern their heartfelt feelings for one another.

Look at the body language, look at these faces.(Look at my expensive and coveted Mexican Cokes being hijacked by my children!)

Witnessing how they hug on one another makes this momma's heart swell.

Even when they are posing for me, the genuine love that they feel for each other shines through the camera lens.

Mark is so lucky to have four daughters who dote on him more and more with each passing year.  They are so lucky to have a father who loves them so dearly.  I am lucky to have them all.  Ah, this family we have created is all I really need in this world.  Well, I would not complain about also having an entire fridge filled with ice-cold Mexican Coca-Cola bottles, but maybe I ask for too much.

With summertime comes three birthdays, Angel Daughter Number One(thank you, Mark!  I cannot tell you how often I confuse my children by name, let alone, number) turned twenty-four.  And I turned...Well, we have already discussed that.  Tomorrow would have been my little brother's forty-fifth birthday.  45.   He will be forever young in our hearts and in our minds.  He was forty-one when he died.  I will definitely blast a few Springsteen songs for him just to see if I can still feel him close.  It would make me very happy to think that Rob might be partying with Clarence somewhere.  The Big Man, The Master of disaster, The Minister of Soul, The King of the World...The spirit of the E-Street Band.  Clarence Clemons' passing a couple of weeks ago, also broke our hearts.  So thinking that my brother and Clarence might be tripping the light fantastic creates a huge lump in my throat.  My brother was a huge Springsteen fan and so are we.  It is a part of our history.  A part of who we were.  A part of who I now am and will always be.  Always...

Summertime also brings with it the beautiful House Finches who always seem to nest in the same places every year.  How is it that they know to return to a place that has been secure for them in the past.  In some other homes, the front door would be an extremely precarious spot to build a nest.  In our home, the nest rests securely between our wreath and the glass on our door.  AD1 is bravely climbing the later for her vertically challenged momma to see if she is able to spot any eggs in the nest.  Each year I place a sign outside saying that there are nesting birds on our door.  I duct tape the door shut and nobody is allowed to open it.  The sign tells visitors to come to our side door and most people do listen.  The thought of that makes me almost as misty as the Finches who return every year to raise their babies.  Human Beings can be painfully kind.

This summer, we also got to meet sweet Scarlett.  Scarlett is the granddaughter of my oldest friend, Donna, who I have known since we were twelve.  Donna's Daughter, Jessica, and her adorable husband stopped by on their way to San Diego so that we could finally meet their gorgeous baby.  

We all attended their wedding, last year.  Scarlett is what is known as a "honeymoon baby".  What a fantastic souvenir Jessica and Brock returned home with!  They make such adorable parents.  

Angel Daughter Number Four decided that pink would be the color of the summer.  Maybe not the entire summer because her hair is now blonde, but much of July.  Not exactly sure what colors are left for her to try but I am sure that she will come up with something.  I cannot complain.  AD4 is such a wonderful, responsible, and very mature-for-a-seventeen year old child(Believe me, after having made it through "17" three times before, I could not ask for more).  Her loving and compassionate nature make this momma proud down to the very core.

A little bit more Scarlett.

The Fourth of July was a fun day around beach central.  Our home is fairly close to Camp Pendleton which makes our area very proud of the young men and women who choose to serve our country.  Encountering these wonderful individuals on a regular basis makes me very proud to be an American.  Mark and I make it a policy to thank each and every individual who we come across wearing a uniform throughout the course of our days.  It never ceases to bring a smile of pride to their faces and a bit of a bounce to their steps.  

On the eve of the Fourth, we sit on our patio and watch the firework show that is put on off of the San Clemente pier.  If the wind is blowing, we get quite a bit of smoke.  This year was not as bad as some years have been.

Angel Daughter Number Three and her boyfriend, Jacob, invited a couple of their friends to join us for the weekend.  We made a fire and they made s'mores while the fireworks exploded in the distance.  Not a better seat in the house.

This was one of my favorite parts of the evening.  Fireworks cascaded down from the pier and lit up the water in such a fantastic display.  Look at all of the folks down in the water!  Not sure that I would be brave enough to watch the show from their vantage point, but it must have been quite a perspective.

The next day, I spotted the boys doing what kids seem to do no matter where they are, fiddling with their phones.  Not exactly sure what we did before the invention of cellphone!

The dog days of summer also brought us together for a little shopping.  Can you guess which Angel Daughters these are?  I know that one is pretty easy to discern.

I have heard that the next week will bring back milder temperatures here in Southern California.  I hope that wherever you are, the same will be true for you.  I prefer cool ocean breezes to being able to fry an egg on the sidewalk!

Since I began this with one of our dogs, I will wrap up the month of July with two of our cats.  Yes, they have enormous ears and yes, their coats are different from that of a domestic cat.  They are Cornish Rexes and in many ways, they are much more dog-like that cat.

Being that we are only going on to the end of July, it seems as though there is a lot more summer left to enjoy(depending on where you live).  According to astrological folklore, there are even two more weeks left to the dog days of summer(just hopefully not the extreme heat).  I wish for you celebrations and fireworks, and if not fireworks, then definitely shooting stars.  I wish you sun-filled days that never seem to end, but blend down into the night.  I wish you bird nests and s'mores and babies, if you are lucky enough to be able to find one that you can hold for a while.  I wish you family who you like spending time with, friends who are family if you do not, and maybe a Mexican Coke or two.  But most of all, I wish you hugs.  Lots and lots of hugs.  Because in my mind, there is nothing quite as validating, quite as life-affirming, quite as energizing as an honestly gifted and well-received hug to remind us of how truly important we are in the lives of one another.

So much love.