Of Life, Brief and Beautiful.

First Mother's Day, and I had to choose to stand at the grave of the gone or celebrate the here and now, who we are today and how am I blessed in this moment. So I chose to eat brunch with my mother-in-law and later wander the art institute with my best friend, where we explored beauty, ancient and new and twisted and refined and it was there that I felt all the longings of our mortality. 

This is the story we are asked to tell : of life, brief and beautiful. 

To find it carved in marble, stroked in oil and acrylic, woven in the fabric of our collective creative conscious over centuries, seems the only true comfort, the only way to celebrate our legacy of love and loss. 

[Photos : 1, 2.]

Inspired By.

If I really think about it, I was never blessed with just one mother. I think that when we celebrate Mother’s Day, we’re not just celebrating flesh and blood, but the role that mothers play in our lives - to nurture and guide and encourage us, to create space for us to grow into the people we were meant to be. 

And so, yes, my mother knew me better than any other person on the planet, in a deep and intimate way that could only have happened because I grew out of her very being, an honest to goodness miracle. But this Mother’s Day, I’m learning to see beyond the label of mother and think in terms of the abstract, the larger sense of motherhood, the legacy that spans generations whether you came from her womb or not. 

And so I dedicate this post to my Mother, the one that grew me and birthed me and raised me and knew me for 25 years, and also to the women that will be with me in the years to come, helping me navigate the next 25(+). You know who you are, and I feel more gratitude for each of you than I have words for. 

Happy Mother’s Day, with all my love. These sweet links are for you : 

Give her a name.

Like mother like daughter.

"We pray for sleep, for poop, for patience, for energy, for forgiveness." The real story of motherhood.

Mama for a Moment.

Tina Fey's "A Mother's Prayer for Her Daughter."

Every Mother Matters.

A healthy diet of bread and words.

"For every house you enter, you must offer healing..." A favorite poem for anyone who has ever loved their mother.

[Photo : coming soon to my Etsy shop.]

More than a Memory.

It's not always sad. There is a deep joy when I remember you, when I think about your arms around me, the words we shared, the things we loved together - coffee, dessert, hairspray, Gilmore Girls, The Sound of Music. 

I am not always afraid. When K told us she was pregnant last month and that this time the baby is healthy, my heart leapt with joy and I heard you say, This is possible; it will all be okay. 

It isn't always about loss. My heart is full with you - your affirmations, your laughter, your gentle words, even your tough love. You loved me for me, and maybe this is why I don't hate my body : you taught me that life was too short to starve myself of it. 

I am not always alone. When I talk with my hands or choose what to wear in the morning or glance at a passing reflection, it's that same conversation we always had, only quieter. 

It isn't always past tense. We are more than memories, more than dust and bones and the dirt we return to. You are faith and hope and love present tense, a glimmer of joy in every living moment. 

It’s true. I look at my life every day and think, I’m lucky. I am blessed. Our short lives - lived well - are better than the long lives we might have wasted in different circumstances. Fifty years of Grace is better than a hundred years of mere existence.

Prodigal : When I Become a Mother.

In honor of Mother's Day this weekend, Prodigal Mag is hosting a series honoring our mothers. Today I contribute with "When I Become a Mother," reflecting on my close relationship to my mom and how my  desire to be a mom has changed since she passed away in January.


P.S. My Prodigal archives, and other posts remembering my mother.  

Mom's Mug.

In a cupboard full of mugs, she always pulled out this one. Each early morning before work and school she would pour a steaming kettle of water into it with swiss miss mix, and a smell like hot chocolate would waft over to me as I ate my cereal. She would stand in the bathroom, curling her hair, applying her makeup, listening to the radio, sipping her swiss miss from this mug. 

When I was older we would share it, and when I had gone away to college, each visit home was a visit with this mug, which she would let me use to satisfy my own nostalgia. 

Now it sits in my own cupboard full of mugs. Each morning it follows me from room to room as I do my hair, put on makeup, get dressed for work. Or on Saturdays, as I wipe down counters, fold laundry, read a book. 

There are just some things that keep her with me, even if she's gone. 

And like I know so many of you might want to, here’s a link to buy your own vintage Taylor & Ng mugs on their site or on Etsy, including Le Chat.

[Photo.]

Poem : The Memory of You.

Recent past eclipses healthy memories, 
those days when your smile and skin glowed happy, 
what do we remember from before? 
all of us were young and unaware of a soon and threatening after, 
of a life later, 
when the living room is empty of you, 
when sad, silent objects sit in your void. 

Tears come, a slow tide of grief in the dark, 
or in a swell surrounded by a sea of strangers, 
an angry rock of grief grows in my throat as I flee 
to bathroom, closet, closed door.
I drive apologetic and repentant all the way to work each morning, 
all the way home at night, mascara running along the road with me.

And when I think that faith has failed me, 
"Take a deep breath," you say. 
The sun glows bright against glistening pavement, 
a sparrow flies fast and free above me, 

I breathe. 

"Until I see you again," 
       I whisper,
"Beatific, wholly holy, alive and well."

Writing Therapy.

“And even though their son will always be alive in their hearts, like Pammy and my dad will be alive in mine- and maybe this is the only way we ever really have anyone-there is still something to be said for painting portraits of the people we have loved, for trying to express those moments that seem so inexpressibly beautiful, the ones that change us and deepen us.”
- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I found the poem I shared yesterday written on the back side of a scrap of watercolor paper, a painting I had begun that I destroyed entirely with too much of the wrong color. On Sunday evening I finally decided to clean out a bag full of things I had taken home with me that week before Christmas, when I knew that this was my last journey home to her. So many things were in that bag. Christmas cards, sympathy cards, receipts from the hospital cafe, a copy of mom's obituary, a Vogue that I flipped through mindlessly because I couldn’t bring myself to read the novel I brought, scraps of paintings that never turned out, scraps of writings from spare moments when fairly cohesive thoughts broke through my sadness. 

Two months later, I don’t even remember writing that poem. Was I in the hospital? Was I at home? Late at night or early in the day? Before or after she slipped and fell and hit her head on the cold bathroom tile and all the nurses came rushing in at once and I cried, but she didn’t?

I left all of that out, but the emotion is there. 

I’ve found bits and pieces of these experiences all over the place, scribbled on napkins and receipts and work notes. Like finding all the outer edges of a 500-piece puzzle I’ve been gathering them, trying to fit them together to keep the memories alive. Because sometimes, yes, I have to ask,

Did that really happen?

It did. 

And she’s gone. 

But she’s still with me.

Reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird has been very much like going to see my therapist, except that Lamott is like the therapist for my writing psyche. She tells me to write thoughts as they come to me on index cards or in a notebook. I think for a long moment about all of my notebooks and scraps of paper. 

“Oh yeah... I guess that’s what I’ve been doing, in a way.”

“Good,” she smiles. “That’s normal for a writer, whatever that means.” 

Guest Post | One Letter

I love what my friend Missy said the other day, 

"Never waste a good crisis." 

She was talking about Grammy winner Adele's breakup with a terrible, horrible, no good boyfriend that broke her heart, and how that breakup gave Adele the fuel she needed to write the album that changed her life and changed the world. It's a beautiful concept isn't it? It's not something we think about in the midst of pain, but creativity has the power to heal if we let it. 

What experiences in your life can you put to good use? How can sharing those experiences through your art impact the lives of others? 

I answer those questions in my guest post for Missy's blog in her "One Letter" series, and talk about my relationship with my mom, the letter she left me, and the one letter I would love to leave for my own daughter some day.

Goals for 2012

It's been a month. One month without mom. Without her voice, her touch, her face, her thoughts. I expected to be immovable, stranded on an island of grief and away from the world that I understand. But grief defies expectations, and so does faith. When the two interact, we often find ourselves in unfamiliar territory; rough, but not impossible. 

This is where I find myself, one month into this new chapter of life, this new year where nothing and everything is different. The thing is, for me, the girl that moved away from home nearly seven years ago ne'er to return, my life looks the same in so many ways. But it feels different on the deepest levels. 

And so when I started working through the idea of change, writing this post a couple of weeks ago prompted me to think about tangible ways to embrace that change. I'm not one to make resolutions; I'm usually one to break them. When I have made new year resolutions, February usually marks the end of effort and there's a celebratory burning of the resolution list. I can be just that rebellious against myself. 

But this February is different. I am different.

Maybe it seems inappropriately belated to share a resolution list in February. But life is short. And in one of the last conversations my mom had, she told one of our family members, with clarity and conviction and absolute love, "It's never too late." 

If we're not intentional, time rushes past and most of it is wasted. So I'm sharing with you the goals I have for 2012, the ones that will help me embrace change. Next week I'll share another goal list, my 30 Before 30. Tell me, do you have any goals for 2012? Or goals before you turn a certain age? Now that it's February, how would you rate your progress with those goals?

P E R S O N A L : 

- get a physical (for the first time in 2 years) 

- visit the optometrist and get a new pair of glasses (for the first time in 5 years) 

- visit the dentist (for the first time in 5 years)

- take a bubble bath once per week (this one is going VERY well, I should mention.)
- give myself a weekly manicure (this one has also been a success!)

- read at least 12 books (an average of one per month, but I don't have to finish each one within 30 days)

P R O F E S S I O N A L : 

- redesign blog and/or convert to Wordpress

- double my blog readership 

- contribute 11 guest posts for other blogs (average of one per month from February to December) 

- write and share at least one new poem per month on my blog

- get one article or poem published in an online or print magazine

- create writing portfolio for graduate school and job interviews

- get business cards for my writiting, editing, and art

- create and sell at least 100 paintings through my Etsy shop

- get up early enough to eat breakfast and write for 30 minutes each morning (working on this one, but not quite there yet)

[Image via]

Morning : A New Routine

I am not a morning person. When the alarm goes off at 6:15 my body feels like a dead weight. My ears don't really hear it until 6:30. And the purpose behind that annoying jingle doesn't really register in my brain until 6:45. And then the dread sets in : the effort of getting out of my warm bed, making myself presentable, going out in the cold, dealing with morning traffic, answering emails at work, doesn't make sense from the comfort of my fetal position beneath a pile of blankets. To my shame, I have been known to sleep until 8 a.m. 

The bright spot, the one motivating event of my every morning, was my phone chat with mom on the commute to work. I would climb into my car, put on my headset, dial her, pull out of my parking space, and before I reached the end of the lot and started on the road she would greet me with a cheerful, 

"Good morning, my Bethy." 

As the months of 2011 waned on and cancer took its toll on her body, this routine changed. The cheer in her voice lost its color and vibrancy. Conversations grew shorter. And there were many mornings when instead of that phone call, I received another one from my dad or my grandmother saying that they were taking her to the hospital again. I let the depression settle into me, keep me in bed a little longer each morning, away from the world, away from work, away from writing and everything "wrong" with my life. 

You can imagine how different my mornings feel now, to know that our routine is forever changed. No phone calls, no cheery chats. It would be all too easy to justify staying in bed permanently. 

Yesterday I pondered words for 2011. Today I ponder words for the first weeks of 2012. 

The one word that seems to fit for this time : 

C H A N G E . 

2012 is my year to accept that change. To live with it, work with it, respond to it. I figure that since my mornings are fundamentally different now, why not roll with it? I know what my mother would do to me if she knew I was sleeping in and arriving late to work every day. I can't dishonor her like that. 

So I'm getting up early, when my alarm actually goes off… Okay, here's a secret : I employed the help of my best friend, who has to be AT work at 7 a.m., to text me repeatedly until I answer her that I am out of bed. And I can't lie to her, so I might as well actually get up when I say I am going to. 

And from my bed I walk to the kitchen, where our shiny new french press awaits, and my bright yellow tea kettle sings hello, good morning, and I pour a mug for myself, mom's mug. 

From there the day begins. I've even allotted time to pack my lunch. And instead of dwelling in the silence of a morning commute without my mother, I call my grandmother; it doesn't do to dwell in the loneliness. 

So let the change I feel be the change I need in order to rise early and greet the day in a new way, with gratitude, with discipline, with determination.

Back on the Blog.

I've been afraid to start this, unsure that the words would come, unsure that if the words came that they would adequately touch the depth of this experience. But as with all forms and subjects for writing, the important part is to begin.

My mother died on a snowy Monday morning two weeks ago. We missed her by minutes. I slept fitfully in a recliner in her hospice room all night prior, counting seconds between breaths, trying to remember to keep breathing myself. My father slept on an air mattress next to her bed, doing the same. The nurse came in at seven to check on her and administer more medication and left to get a stethoscope. Our eyes drooped closed, and when the nurse came back, she had gone. The air slowly exhaled in one long quiet breath from her lungs, and she crossed over into the next world. It was as simple and as peaceful as that, just as we had prayed for.

I cursed myself for missing it, for not being awake to hold her hand and say goodbye. But now I understand that I was doing exactly that for the months, weeks, days, and hours beforehand. Things had become so apparent; as much as we wished it were different, we knew what we were facing. Therefore, important words did not go unspoken. Time was not wasted. There was no limit to love in those days; how grateful I am for that. And in the moment she left, it was appropriate that she make that transition independently; she didn't need anyone to cling to her and beg her to stay as she made her way into a new life that she rightfully deserved.

I can't say much without saying it all, and a single blog post won't hold the whole of it. If you're at all like me and you haven't experienced death first hand, you probably have all sorts of questions running through your mind :

Is it scary? Can you sense death's presence mentally, spiritually, emotionally? How do you know when they are getting close to the end (days, hours, minutes)? How do you carry on conversations with each other when things become that serious? Is it better to talk about it, or avoid it? How do you spend time with your loved one in the days before their death if they are conscious? How do you comfort and encourage them as they reach death? Losing a loved one is hard - where and how do you find solace and strength to keep living? When your loved one suffers from a terminal illness, can you really find relief in knowing that they are no longer suffering, or is that just something ignorant people tell you when they don't know what to say?

There is a lot that people don't talk about when it comes to death. Why bring it up now, when things are fine? But death is a part of life. Whether it is from a terminal illness, natural causes, or a sudden accident, it happens to each of us; it's only a matter of time, and we never know for sure how much of it we have left. And there are so many ways that it changes us as we witness it, and as we draw closer to it ourselves. A sense of our own mortality is part of what makes us human.

So in the weeks and months ahead, as I process this loss, I will write about it here. If you have specific questions, or if you have your own story to share, please email me. I'd love to dialogue about it.

Love you, Mom.

Tina Kay Droscha

July 21, 1961 - January 2, 2012

Love you, Mom.

A blogging break.

I am standing this side of something. A tunnel. A current. A dark place. An ocean of grief. It feels so strangely appropriate to stand on the precipice of a new year, and to stand at the ledge of this experience. I know that light awaits me. And I know that the light will not meet me all at once, but in slow, gradual gradients as I make my way across. And then I will stand, feet in the tides, on the opposite shore and welcome the sunrise. But first I must take the plunge.

I’m taking a break from blogging to turn my focus to my mother as she lives out her final days with us. She has battled breast cancer for 14 long years. We are deeply grateful for her life, for her love, for her unwavering faith and strength to the very end. 

I wish each of you a happy new year. See you on the other side. 

The Velvet Coat.

It hung on her coat rack for most of my childhood. My five, six, seven year old hands would pet the cuff, rub it against my cheek as she shoved my feet into snow boots before school. A picture of her in it hung above my Grandmother's rocker for years. Her dark feathered tendrils disappeared into the dark velvet collar, her face and eyes shining out from it with happiness, mischief. She was gorgeous, I thought.

One day she handed it to me.

"It'll fit you now. Do you want to try it? I used to wear it to see the opera in the city while I was at college. Made me feel special with heels and my tweed skirt."

And as I slip it on in the mornings, right sleeve then left sleeve, flinging my own dark hair from beneath the collar, I imagine her in this life before we knew one another. Laughing, glamorous and innocent and young in a dark velvet coat in the amber glow of city lights. I wrap it closer to myself, this jacket, this girl in another world. Stay with me now.

Introducing : The Ripe Word.

It started with this little idea I had and it grew into something surprising. Something big and unpredictable and good. And I can't believe I'm writing this post, that in mere moments my little idea will be out there for the world to see. Nevertheless, here it is. My little idea is now a big idea about to come to fruition. 

My friends, I have started a business. The Ripe Word is my very own Etsy shop I have created for selling my watercolor and ink paintings. 

Where did my little idea begin? It's a long story, but in a nutshell, I've always been an artist. I've been drawing and painting since I was really young. For a brief while in college I was an English and Visual Arts double major, but discovered that visual art was more enjoyable when I was creating it on my own terms, rather than in a classroom setting. So I quit. I chose one over the other. For awhile after that I didn't pick up a sketchpad or paint at all, I think because I felt intimidated, but also because I was preoccupied with finishing my degree in English/Writing. After I graduated, I began to pursue it again - slowly, quietly, when I was sure that no one was looking. 

What sparked the impulse to sell my work? A few months ago, a family friend began planning a silent auction for my mom to raise funds for her medical debt. She asked me to donate artwork for it, knowing that I dabble in it. I said yes without any forethought to what I would create in order to contribute. 

And then I began to think : what can I create that will be more than beautiful, but will also serve as a glimpse of my mother's story, and mine too? 

Some of the text incorporated into the artwork is poetry written by myself, some are quotes from poetry or prose that inspires me and speaks to life as I see it : beautiful, brief, and sacred. The images themselves - mostly fruit and other natural objects - are meant to depict life, healthy, joyous and simple. Life the way that it was meant to be enjoyed. 

Noteworthy about The Ripe Word : 

Fifty percent of the profits from each sale will be donated to my mom to help her as she continues to pay off her medical debt. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and was later diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2002. Since being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, she has undergone a variety of treatments and surgeries, and spent much of 2011 in the hospital. [Read more about my mom's story here.] This is my way to honor her, and help her in a way that I am able. [In case you were wondering, yes, she does think I'm crazy for offering this, but since I inherited her stubbornness, she can't stop me.]

The Ripe Word is going green. I'm currently researching materials to make this an eco-friendly business. Paint, paper, ink, mat frames, packaging, and business cards are all on my list of to-find. If you're an artist that works with these materials and can give me good recommendations, I am all ears. 

A Note of Thanks :

The auction for my mom was held in mid-October, and it drew a crowd of more than 800 of our "closest" friends, family and acquaintances. My family is truly blessed to have such a strong support system. Even in the midst of one of life's hardest experiences, we have discovered profound joy. This business is in part dedicated to the people that continue to support me and my family, for the prayer and the visits and the meals and the hugs that keep us moving forward. Without you, I wouldn't have had the courage to do this. 

With Love,

B.

Choosing to Live

"I chose to live like I was living with cancer instead of dying from it." - My Mom.