Up the Stairs

I recently had a hard drive crash and lost a the last few months worth of work on the book. I'm not dwelling on it, and in fact it gives me a chance to start afresh with a new direction I'm taking. Up until recently, the focus of 7 Days has been mainly on my father and how his death and grieving for him impacted me. That's still a great focus, but I felt it important to introduce some of the details about my mom's death and its impact on me in order to give texture and context to my mind-frame as my father's illness unfolded.

This is an excerpt of a draft I'm working on right now, with those things in mind.

Up The Stairs.

I was the only one who knew whose things were whose. Before everything was cleaned up they had me go back to the townhouse so I could say yes, this was my mom’s, no this isn’t. Steven was in jail and my grandparents wanted to make sure they got everything of hers before Steven’s brother came to get his things. How would he know? His brother had never been to the house in my eight years of knowing Steven.

I remember walking into the house. Coldness overtook me and I trembled at the door. To the right at the entrance were the stairs to the second level. At the top on the left, a door to my mom’s bedroom. Straight ahead, the hallway to my old bedroom. A linen cabinet and closet on the left, just before my bedroom at the end of the hall. It had become Michael's room after I left. He was in that room when all the chaos took place, just two and a half years old.

My grandmother wanted me to get things of Michael’s, things of mine from the bedroom. In order to get there I’d have to walk past my mom’s bedroom. I summoned all my strength. I walked to the stairs and began to climb, one foot ahead of the other. As I ascended, the opening to the lower level became smaller and smaller. And when I reached the halfway point, where the railing met the wall of the bedroom, my legs gave out. I slipped. I fell just one step back and landed on my hands and knees. I was too weak to continue. I sat there and cried until my grandmother met me on the stairs to help me down and tell me it was okay. All I could tell her was, “I’m sorry.”

I felt weak. I felt like a failure. I had been asked to do something, and I had failed. I couldn’t complete a simple task to go up a single flight of stairs and pass a closed door to get to the belongings of my two-year-old brother. I feared they would always see me as weak little Dian, who couldn’t even get halfway up the stairs without falling to her knees.

At times I still regret not going up there. But I couldn’t pass that bedroom. I couldn’t even get half way up the stairs. My father had warned me that the bedroom hadn’t been cleaned up yet. The bedroom had been a crime scene. I told my father I could walk past the room if he closed the door, but in the end, I was too weak. I didn’t have to see anything to know what went on in that room, and I couldn’t bring myself to be on the same level as Steven or my mom when those four shots were fired.

There were no shots fired during the last seven days of my father’s life. But the constant beeping of the heart monitors was enough to drive me near mad.

letter to mom: march 26, 2008

this is a repost from a couple of years ago. i'm writing a new letter later today and thought it appropriate to share this one again, for context and contrast.

dear mom,

my life is so much different from when you knew me. all i could do back then was try to please you. i know it was hard to tell with the running away, the arrests, the disrespect i showed you on a daily basis when you were still alive. but in all that, i wanted you to notice me. i wanted you to protect me. i wanted you to teach me. i wanted you to love me.

we watched baseball together and i learned your love of the game, win or lose. we laughed together and i learned your sense of humor, both filtered and raw. we talked like mother, like daughter, like friends, like enemies, and i learned that nowhere and everywhere was safe within those bonds.

i listened to how you searched for your father's love and never got it because you were a girl. i listened as you denied your alcohol consumption that night you passed out after i tasted your vodka flavored lemonade and watched you pour a bottle of smirnoff down the kitchen sink the next morning. i watched you teach me that appearances are more important than telling the truth. i watched you teach me that telling the truth does no good when the person i'm telling doesn't want to hear it. i watched you teach me that i don't need to tell the truth if people will believe a lie.

my life now does not mirror my life then. my life now only expresses my life then. i've learned so much from your life, from the things you did right, from the things i wish you'd done differently, from the things that impressed me so much that i’d have you do them the same, no matter the consequence.

let me tell you what i remember, so you can see through my eyes.

i love that you took care of me when i was sick, that you came home for lunch to check on me and feed me soup and take my temperature (and probably to make sure i was really there). i love that you took me to dodger games. i love that you got excited at the prospect of talking to steve yeager on kabc radio one morning while getting ready for work. i love that you baked my birthday cake more often than not. i love that you took me to brandi fernandez's funeral and told me that there was never a good enough reason for suicide.

i remember walking down the railroad tracks by our condo and we talked about school and how you were disappointed with the previous year's grades. i told you i would bring them up in the coming year, and you told me you didn't believe me. maybe that would've worked if i believed in myself. but i was relying on you to believe in me. without you, i couldn't believe in myself. the scar from that day is still visible, palpable in my soul, my actions, my heart. i wonder if it will ever fully heal.

i remember sitting on the couch the weekend before you died. pomeranian on one side of you, me on the other. we talked about nothing in particular, but i remember beaming inside...feeling like you finally looked at me like a real person. like i wasn't just your daughter, but someone whose thoughts and feelings you cared about because they were relevant, not because you felt obligated by family relation. you talked to me about your relationship with steven and i talked about life in placement. you didn't judge me, you didn't scold me, you just listened. i will always be grateful for the moments we shared on that couch. especially because they were the last.

i've gone through graduations and first loves, getting hired and fired, moving and moving and moving some more...i've gotten a driver's license, i've bought and sold cars, i've voted...i've loved, had my heart broken and broken hearts...i've lied, i've cheated, i've stolen...i've learned, been humbled, been forgiven...i've fallen behind, gotten ahead, and kept up with the crowd...i've been depressed, overwhelmed and felt like i would never recover...i've laughed, i've shared, i've given everything of myself and expected both nothing and everything in return...all in all, mom, i've lived. and you missed it.

for much of my twenties i resented you for missing my life. for not being here for the big things. you weren't here when i signed my first lease on an apartment. when i got my first raise. when i got into my first car accident. and i resented you for not being here for the little things. you weren't here when i came home from work exhausted after my first real night shift working the counter at mcdonald's when i needed encouragement and a soft ear to listen to all my complaints about why it was so hard. when i bought my first set of couches. when i dropped off my first set of clothes at the dry cleaners. it's the little things i missed that you never got to be a part of.

you used to send flowers to grandma just because. and you took that away from me. you would drop by grandma & grandpa's for dinner on a whim because you wanted to talk about what was going on in your life with them. you took that away from me. you would answer the phone when grandma called every other night just to chat about what little old ladies who play bridge and drink wine all day chat about with their daughters. you took that away from me.

so many nights i had dinner alone and wished i could've invited you over. so many nights i watched baseball alone and wished i could have called you after a great play. so many nights i missed you and your voice and the way you always knew the right thing to say, even if it was nothing at all, and i wished i could call you. you took that away from me. you took it all away by staying.

after you died i dreaded dreaming about you because i hated waking up from those dreams. i hated that the only time i could see you was when you weren't really there. i hated that you left me. i hated that you stayed with him. i hated that he killed you...that you killed yourself. i have no doubt that you didn't point the gun at yourself. but you stayed with him. you knew what kind of man he was: the kind of man to touch your daughter. and if that wasn't enough to leave him, then i guess nothing short of dying in a gun battle in your bedroom was going to do it.

i wouldn't let anyone talk bad about you because you weren't here to defend yourself. i wouldn't even allow myself to openly be angry with you, to openly resent you. but i was angry with you. i did resent you. you didn't protect me, and that made me angry. i expected you to react to steven the way you reacted to grandpa that night you told him off. remember?

i called you after grandpa yelled at me, had me backed into a corner crying, telling me i was good for nothing, that i would never amount to anything, that i would end up just like my mother. i didn't know what he meant; i was scared and confused. i called you and when you got to the house, you told me to go to the car. i sat in the car in the driveway and watched you. i couldn't hear a word that was said, but i saw your head, your hand, your finger swagger in front of him and in my mind i heard the greatest speech anyone's ever given about how wrong it was to treat me the way my grandfather had. i saw only the back of your head and could only imagine the words flying out of your mouth that night, but the one thing i was sure of was that you loved me. that you were protecting me. that you were saving me from everything bad he could ever do to me. from anything bad anyone could ever do to me. that was the only night of my life i ever felt like that about you.

there are so many things i've missed out on in my life because you weren't here. and for the longest time that seemed to be all i could focus on. and at some point it dawned on me that you were human. that you had faults. that just because you were my mother didn't mean that you were supposed to get everything right. that's a fallacy that all kids have about their parents. and it sucks to grow up and realize that your parents are human and make mistakes, too. i know you did everything in your power to save me. i know that if you could've done anything more you would have. and i know that you just didn't have the capacity to love yourself enough to leave him. and i know that because that's the way it was, i've learned from it.

i rarely think about those things anymore, but you need to know that sometimes they come up. that sometimes these things affect me and my life. and that these things do not consume me.

i live near the beach now, me and my two cats. i’m head over heels for my girlfriend. yeah, girlfriend. i guess if you were here, you'd know that by now. i quit my job over a year ago to write and haven't really done what i expected to with that, but i'm still working towards everything i've ever dreamed about. i wish you were here to see it all for yourself, but i accept that you're not.

i guess the whole point in writing this letter at all wasn't to tell you about what's going on in my life, but to tell you how you've impacted it. it's easy to tell you that you made me laugh and that i love you. but it's hard to tell you that i was ever angry with you, that i ever judged you and thought you were a bad parent. and even harder still to tell you that i've forgiven you for your mistakes, as if i have the right to do anything other than that. there were parts of my life that were hell when you were here as well as when you left. and none of it was your fault. it's just the way it was. my life is mine and if i blame you for everything that happened to me, i'd never get to living my life. so at this point, the letter becomes about letting you go.

there's no such thing as jayme ann newkirk anymore. no such thing as jayme ann reid. or jayme ann boland. she's gone and has been for years. the only thing that's left is the memory i hold of you. and that some of that memory serves me no purpose anymore. i've learned from the anger, the frustration, the humiliation, the exhaustion, the depression, and the relief. i've learned from holding on, moving on, and letting go piece by piece. first there were your clothes, then your make up (like i was allowed to ever wear make up), then your knick knacks, and your dishes, your phone (which still had blood on it from the night you died that i never cleaned off or told anyone about)...and the rest are the memories. there are some memories i'll let go of (i won't hash those out again here), and there are some i'll hold on to (hill cows and moo cows, the pout bird, and the look on your face when we saw brian boitano in the red onion all those years ago). but it's all my decision because this life is finally mine. yours is over and that's all you get.

i love you with all my heart. say hi to dad for me.

your beloved daughter

Dead Yet?

I wrote this part of a chapter yesterday:

Rick, Johnny and Ian walked into Forest Lawn's mortuary and funeral services office to finalize the purchase of my father's plot. They'd been there before. They'd met with a tiny European man with an accent, who showed them the grassy knoll where my father would be buried. The same man greeted them when they walked in the door. Rick expected a hello, or a courtesy smile and head tilt. He received neither. Instead, the accented European man said to the three of them, "Dead yet?"

I told a friend of mine about this experience the other day, which I only recently learned about from my uncle, and she shared a similar, jarring experience. Her family member died suddenly of a heart attack. She was still in shock several days later when she was at the funeral home making the arrangements. As the sales guy went over the options, he began to make jokes. About the type of casket—"oh you don't want that one, that's a girly casket, I bet this guy'd want a manly casket, I mean, not that he gets a say now, guffaw, guffaw..." People can be so insensitive.

Is it really insensitivity? Are people just trying to make light of a tough situation? Do I expect too much from people who provide services for the dead and still need to functionally communicate with the living? Am I wrong to expect sensitivity or genuine caring from these people?

I am grateful that I wasn't with my uncles and cousin that day at Forest Lawn. And I am grateful I wasn't there with my friend at that funeral home. Had I been in either of those places, I just might have lost my composure.

Or I would have sat in the chair like my friend did, dumbfounded that the words were coming out of this man's face at all. She actually had the courage to ask him to tone the humor down a bit. He apologized and then went right back to doing business as usual, poor humor, and all.

Or I would have laughed heartily as my cousin impersonated the European accent all the way back to the hospital. We Reids enjoy a good bit of dry humor.

While hindsight might offer a lot of options, in the moment, it's hard to know what you'll say or do. I can only hope that the next time I walk into a funeral home because someone I love has died, that I'm treated with respect and humility, not sales and bad judgment.

Forget to Remember

Forgetting. It seems to be a recurring theme on this day. Last year on the anniversary of my father's death, nearly the whole day passed before I realized the significance of the date. I wrote a post to reconnect myself, and rolled back the actual publish time to 9:01AM, although I'm pretty sure it was closer to 4PM by the time I even started writing that post.

It's about 9:15PM as I write this post. Odd to say that my father's death seems like something that happened to someone else at this point. Which is true. It happened to him. I just get to live without him. I'm fine with that. And that feels odd, too.

I like the first four years after my father's death much better than the first four after my mother's. I was so angry about my mother's death and I didn't understand so much. The past four years I understand so much more, not necessarily about life (although that's true, too), but about both of my parents.

I understand that I get a choice to be like both of them, either of them, neither of them. I get to choose to love myself more than some guy who will never me because I don't love myself. Thanks mom, for teaching me that one. I get to choose to take care of myself before everyone else (which also goes back to that whole loving myself thing). Thanks dad, for teaching me that one.

I also understand that they were both human. That it does me no good to judge them on the job they did raising me when I turned out just fine. I get that my parents were victims of themselves, and then of others—not the other way around. I get that they did the best they could with what they knew. And I get that I love them, even in their early departures.

On days like today when I've forgotten to remember the significance of the date, it doesn't bother me. Not because the date is insignificant, but because I don't need a significant date to remember either of my parents.

I remember my mom when I laugh. My dad when I build. I remember them when I cook or clean or run or play or read. I remember them when I live my life. Not when a certain day passes me by to remind me that they're not here anymore.

So take that, January 4th, 2006 6:07PM and June 27th, 1991 early AM hours.

Mom's Olay

As I got ready for a client this morning I noticed my face was a little dry. I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a plastic bottle of Oil of Olay and dabbed some on my chin, my cheeks, my forehead, my neck. And then I slipped back in time a little.

After my mom died I took over most of her belongings. It was too painful for her brother and my grandparents to take anything, so they pawned it all off on me, citing that I would be honored to have these little reminders of her everyday. I was sixteen and hadn't yet figured out how to say no to anyone, so I took most of it.

The clothes that didn't fit me I convinced my grandmother to donate to a women's shelter in Los Angeles. I held on to pretty much everything else. Including her make-up and toiletries.

My mom loved Giorgio. But at some point she stopped buying it because the same scent seemed to come out of a little yellow striped can that stated, "If you like Giorgio, you'll love...". Since the can wasn't the real thing (and the smell of it kind of made me sick), I had no problem tossing it into the trash.

She had a plastic bottle of Jafra body lotion, which I used up within the first few months. I didn't relate the smell to just my mom since I've always used my mom's lotion. It was hardly like using my mom's lotion at all.

And then she had a glass bottle of Oil of Olay. Pink glass. Black label. I can hear the sound of the black plastic cap being screwed off the glass top. I can smell the Original scent of creme. I can feel the moisture being locked into my skin after my morning shower.

I don't remember when I actually finished that bottle, because I kept it for quite some time after I emptied it into my pores. It might have been a few months, it might have been a few years. I'm sure I used it long after the expiration date had passed, though, because I remember at one point seeing 04/92 stamped on the bottle. Seeing the date now reminds me of just how long ago that really was.

For a long time I remembered how much I missed my mom, and a moment like this morning where I was taken back to the scent of my mother's Oil of Olay might have sent me into a long list of why it's so horrible that my mom was taken away from me so long ago. But when that moment this morning happened, I simply smiled. I remembered my mom. And I thanked her for my youthful skin. I doubt I would have started using the Olay at age 16 had it not been for her.

Keep On Keepin On

I've been doing a bit of reflecting of late, and realize just how much growth there's been for me this past year. Not just for me, but for the book. This year the book went from concept to paper to being read to being edited. It's not that there's nothing left to do; there's plenty left to do. But the growth I've had this year gives me a sense of urgency for getting the book finished and published and out there into the world.

I keep having this dream (even when they suck, I hate to call them nightmares) that I get the book published and no one buys it. Or that two people buy it and they both tell me it's crap. Or that five people buy it and they form a group to come TP my house because they expected more out of me. I hide inside while I see rolls of toilet paper flying hither and thither, and people from the neighborhood join in on the egg throwing and the toilet paper tossing while my dog looks at me in contempt and refuses to protect me. Dreams are stupid. At least the ones I refuse to call nightmares are.

I know this is just fear of working for years on a project that doesn't relate to anyone. And I know this fear is unfounded. Everyone I've handed the book to has been touched. The greatest compliment I got from handing the book out to my cast of feedbackers was that most of them cried. It's not that I was trying to make anyone cry; I just told my story. And while my story is written around the cancer that took my father from me, the basis was the relationship between my father and I. I guess the story's not for everyone, but I've realized that I'm not really writing it for anyone else; I'm writing it for me.

Without this book and the last three years of writing it, I might not have ever learned a thing from my father's death but that he's not coming back. By reflecting, by writing, I've been able to connect with me. Who I was then, who I am now, and who I'm on my way to becoming. I've learned more about myself in this past year or four than I have in the my thirty years prior. I've been able to connect with myself in a way I never knew existed, let alone thought was possible. I guess that connection is what people relate to, not the details of my story.

We're all human. We all feel. We all have relationships, whether they work for us or not. Those relationships all need tending to. And at some point all of those relationships will cease to exist, whether we like to admit it or not. By change, by circumstance, by accident, by death. I want to create as much learning, as much healing as I can in the relationships that haven't yet ceased to exist.

I guess I'm still trying to figure it all out.

In the meantime, I'll just keep writing.

What about you?

In Progress (Aren't We All?)

Draft 7 is on the way. In progress (aren't we all?). Streaming wildly, slowly, softly, thoroughly. Writing in stream of consciousness style of late, and it seems to be working. The connection to my father grows and grows as the days without him pass me by. It seems to me that the connection I create (retain?) by writing about him and me and our relationship and what it was like to lose him and live with him and take care of him and feel guilty for not taking better care of him, for not making him well and making him beat the cancer. By writing about all of this, my love soars and my heart grows for him. I have new and old appreciations coming to light for all of my relationships. I feel less at ease with questions in passing and long for deep conversations about who you are and what's important to you. I feel motivated to share this connection with my father, to share this connection with you, with him, with her, with everyone, everywhere. Because aren't we all connected? Don't we all share something (what is it, what is it??) with each other? We share this emotion, this passion, this grace, this gratitude, this life, this focus, this awareness, this conscious effort to [be who I am], this grief, this loss, this air, this memory—albeit for different things, but we share it nonetheless.

And so I remain in progress, as ever I will be while I'm alive (don't you, too?). At some point the book will be finished and cease to be in progress, but me, I prefer to always be on to the next bit of growth.

As for the book...I'll be testing excerpts (although is it still an excerpt if it doesn't actually end up in the book?) to see how it feels to get some of this out into the world.

I must remember to breathe.