Doors and Windows: A New Chapter

And just like that, my job was eliminated.

It's difficult to put into words what it means to get up every day for almost twelve years and go to a place and then one morning be told, there is no place for you there anymore.

All it took was one solemn conversation. Tears. Disbelief. An office door closed and I was left with a new reality. Suddenly everything was different. "My" computer wasn't mine. Or "my" phone. I had a "last" day of work on a day I'd expected would be like any other. There were boxes to pack and a hundred phone calls to make.

Surreal doesn't begin to cover it.


I've already posted this, but it's just so perfect that I keep going back to it. I might edit it with "when something unexpected happens." Because I refuse to believe this is necessarily a bad thing. But unexpected? Oh. Yes.

I think I've certainly learned the lesson that life is full of surprises and that as much as we might like to think we have control of things, we really don't. All it takes is one extra chromosome, one hurricane wind-gust, one wonky cancer cell or one name on a list of lay-offs, to turn life as you know it, into something quite different.



The day I got the news (almost a month ago to the day, hence the quiet on my end) I left work early (obviously!) and did what any logical person would do. I got a mani/pedi. Then I walked the streets of our snowy, bitterly cold neighborhood (keep in mind these pictures were taken the day before snow storm #I'velosttrack).



It's funny how one big life event can make you look at everything with a different lens. These were the same streets I drove by and walked on every day. And yet. Everything seemed just...not the same.

Because it isn't.

For now I'm suddenly doing things like making chicken stock out of bones from a leftover roast chicken and discovering I can drop Ellie off in the morning in the front of her school, to thus avoid hauling twins through a parking lot when it's twelve degrees outside (to say nothing of negotiating Lucy in and out of her carseat twice--there's a good thirty minutes right there).



I'm not sure what my next act is. I am trying to be very When a Door Closes a Window Opens about all of this.



The best is yet to come? I think so. I really do.

Sandy, One Year Later

Ellie and Leo surveying the damage, two days after Hurricane Sandy storm. This tree was across the street from our house. It, along with many others were removed, and our neighbor was very lucky that tree didn't land on her house--look how close it came.

A year ago today, the wind howled, the trees splintered around us like broken toothpicks and the lights went out. Hurricane Sandy arrived. 

After we lost power, our family piled into one big bed and listened, terrified, as the wind roared outside--it truly sounded like the world was about to end. I am not exaggerating when I say it was one of the scariest things I've ever experienced. 

When the storm was over, our lives ground to a halt. Without heat and electricity for ten days, schools were closed and all around us was evidence of the destruction: downed trees, power lines and homes. Our losses were minor in comparison to many others, and very much replaceable. Sadly, many others were not as fortunate. It was a trying time that I won't soon forget, and a sobering reminder of how fragile our little lives are--we really are just a wind's gust away from disaster. 

As they say, much was lost that day, and much was gained. And I think it's true what they also say, that God isn't the hurricane, God is the cleanup (it's an old Yiddish phrase my dad quotes often). In short, a lot of good did come out of that literally dark time. 

I wrote this last year, so I wouldn't forget.

Another Year Without Her

Mom and me in Paris, 1998. She was 48, I was 25.

Today is my mom's birthday. She would have turned 63. Another year gone, another birthday she never got to have.

I know. You've heard this all before. Believe me, sometimes I even bore myself. But there it is.

I'm not grieving anymore. Grief sounds raw and active. What I feel? Is just a giant, ugly, gaping hole. Yes, it's a hole I've learned to live with. But it's there. Because she's not here. Because she's missing all of this.




Mom and me in Amsterdam, 1999. This might be one of my most favorite pictures of all time. I think it looks like a movie still.

There are just an innumerable amount of should haves and could haves. And as much as I can shrug and mumble It is what it is (because, well, it is!)...well...

She should have been able to meet her grandchildren. She could have had so much fun. I miss her friendship. I miss her advice and counsel and perspective. I miss her sense of humor and her ability to provide levity to almost any situation. And selfishly? I could really use her help. I often see adult women and their children out with their moms at Target or the park or just walking down the damn street, Grandma holding the hand of a toddler, Mom balancing another child on her hip and probably a shopping bag or two...they might even be snapping at each other.

I can't even. I just can't imagine.

And I'm still really mad that she's gone, on another birthday. And I'm still really sad.

She's missing Leo's solar systems and bear hugs and Lego masterpieces.

She's missing Ellie's baking and tea parties and fairy drawings and her blooming sense of humor (that she undoubtedly inherited at least somewhat from Grandma Eleanor).

She's missing Harry's sloppy, open mouthed kisses and his unbridled love for seltzer (seriously, that guy hears me making a bottle with my Sodastream from across the house and he's by my side in seconds, with arms outstretched).

She's missing Lucy's paragraph long diatribes about how she's "NOT going night-night" and "Where is [her] princess book" and "[her] shirt! Is! Wet! Please! Take! It! Off!"

Thirteen years later and it still seems unimaginable to me that my mom could be gone.

And yet. It's just as unimaginable to me to consider her being here. To think of what it would be like for her to be in the same room with all of these people that she never got to meet.



Make no mistake. I am grateful every single day for the wonderful family I do have. For the loving, supportive partner and the four crazy, but delicious children. In quiet moments, I've been known to wonder, is this the Universe's way of making it up to me? For attempting to fill the Giant, Gaping Hole? (I know, as if the Universe has nothing better to do).

I think of her more when I need her more. For a few years, I seemed to deal with her absence more gracefully. Distracted by the overwhelming responsibility of adjusting to having two small children, I was almost perpetually distracted.


This was the face my mom used to make when she was about to explode into laughter. She was known to fall victim to a serious case of the giggles. She could be so silly sometimes and it was one of the many things I loved about her. 

But the kids are getting older and new questions are arising. Tougher questions than just How long do I wait before giving Tylenol if I've already given Advil? (Besides, we have Dr. Google for that now). And so I've been thinking about her more recently, as I seem to do when things feel particularly overwhelming. I long to pick up the phone and ask for her counsel. She was the logic to my tendency toward over-emotion. She was the "Lighten up!" to my doomsday.

In short, she was my first "Everything Is Going to Be Fine."




And who doesn't need one of those?

Since losing her, I've had to internalize that reassurance (and of course, draw on the support of Erin and friends). And most of the time, I do a pretty good job of it, I think. The older I get, the calmer I am. I have more perspective and a better ability to prioritize. What's really important? What's worth getting upset about and what's better to shrug off? Things have a way of working out, my father once wisely reminded me, when I was dealing with some crisis that I can't recall now. When I   really wished I could have picked up the phone and also talked to my mom.  It's a phrase I remind myself of often, because it's true.

Except for, you know, cancer.

***

A few days ago I was rushing to the bank before work and as I stood in line I read an email from someone very close to my mom. I had been musing about my mother's upcoming birthday and noted that she'd been on my mind more than usual lately.

Eleanor is missed more than I can really say, he wrote.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.

Yes. That.

For some reason, those two simple sentences resonated (and of course, cued the waterworks). They resonated, and also, I think I was overcome because it's so rare that I come in contact with someone who knew my mom. Oh sure, she's in my heart and all of that. But in my day to day life? It's almost as if she never existed at all.

As I reached the front of the line at the bank, I looked away from the email and stuffed my phone in my purse. My eyes glassy and brimming with tears, my face hot and flushed. Of course, I had no tissues.

"Is it allergies?" the teller asked, sympathetically. Yes, I lied and so began her treatise on the best allergy medications. And at that moment, I was very grateful for allergies and little white lies.


Mom and me, sleep away camp drop-off, 1983 

Happy birthday, Mom. Wishing for an afternoon shopping with you at Nordstrom, and plenty of prosecco and chocolate raspberry cake.

Here's to you, with so much love.

September 11

48th and 8th Avenue, 9:45 a.m., September 11, 2013, New York City.

"That's Just All the Life They Get"

Leo came home from camp with this yesterday, from his friend Deanna. Why did she give this to you, Leo? I asked. "You know," Leo replied, with that tone that tells me I am NOT the smartest person he knows. "Because! Ruby's dead."

***

For me, the grief comes in waves. Of course I think about her a lot at home. There are no more dog hair tumbleweeds and no more water bowls to hide from the twins. The mudroom doesn't have that familiar "eau-de-dog" aroma anymore, even though it's only been two weeks.

I drive by the vet, Ruby's vet, every morning, to take Ellie to camp. It's where I rushed to say goodbye to her, when I got the call from Erin. And my eyes well up with tears.

Of course, I'm not doing myself any favors when I peruse our photo archives and find pictures like this:

Leo, age three. Ruby, age four.

I've been thinking about why this is so hard. And why it is I have cried every single day since Ruby died. I cry on the bus on the way to work. I cry in the car. I cried yesterday as I sat on the floor of the mudroom, scrubbing the wall next to where Ruby slept. For a few moments I wondered, as I scrubbed, if I shouldn't clean it. And keep it, as what? A shrine to our dirty dog? Before I could think about it too much the little brown line, evidence of years and years of restful naps was gone. Just like that.

I donated her food, (an almost full, thirty pound bag of the best gourmet, all-natural organic dog food money can buy) to a friend who fosters dogs. She gently refused my offer of Ruby's quite new dog bed. "Keep it for your next dog," she texted me. At first I brushed that off as ridiculous (not that there won't ever be a next dog, just that right now, that feels a long way off, and the thought of housing an extra dog bed in our already crap-packed house feels both impractical and impossible).

And yet. I kept the dog bed after all.

At night before bed I feel like I'm forgetting something. There is no one to let outside one last time. I go to close the mud room door (Ruby could be prone to accidents so she stayed in the mudroom over night and when we were out) and now, there is no need. I still expect to stumble over her and swear that I see her shuffling around the house, out of the corner of my eye.

And I've only been able to come up with this, not so profound explanation: This is hard because Ruby signals a definitive end to this chapter of our life. Yes she was the start to our little family, but she was also here when Leo and Ellie were really little kids. And when the babies were truly babies. And every day, everyone just gets a little older and every day, everything changes just a little bit (older isn't bad! I know! And neither is change!) but I still sometimes just want to freeze time and make it so that everyone always wants to snuggle and sit on my lap and put their warm, soft little hand in mine when we cross the Costco parking lot.

***

After dinner last night, Leo came bounding into the kitchen, eager to show me that he'd put on his pajamas without being asked to do so (It's a nightly discussion).

"Tell Ruby!" He exclaimed.

It took me a minute to figure out what Leo meant. Recently he's started asking us to tell certain people (those he holds in especially high regard, grandparents top the list these days) about instances when he does something good without being asked (clears the table, washes his hands, helps bring groceries inside).

"Is Ruby proud of me?" Leo asked, as he opened the freezer door in search of vanilla ice cream.

Oh! Yes! I said. Very proud! Sooo proud.

"Mommy? Is Ruby all better now? Almost?"


These questions. Oh my goodness.

Oh yes, Bub. I said.

I don't even bother to hide my tears anymore. And the kids don't even seem to notice.

Yes, I said. She's all better. She's not in any pain and she's very, very happy.

***

"It's been four years since I lost my dog and I'm just now thinking of getting another dog," an old college friend wrote to me, in response to that picture of three year old Leo and four year old Ruby. "The grief over losing an animal is so pure. You can't be angry or blame anyone, that's just all the life they get. And it was a good one, for sure."

I hope so.

Saying Goodbye to the One Who "Started Our Family"

This weekend, we said goodbye to this sweet girl, our Ruby.

She had just turned eleven years old. I complained plenty about her the last few years. Four kids and a dog: It's a lot. But the simple fact is, she was a wonderful, wonderful dog. She was a sweet soul with more patience than any creature I have ever known, as you can see here.



And here.



And here.



And of course, here.



She was happiest when she was just with us.



She loved to have her belly rubbed with your foot. She'd stick her leg up and lay back as if to say, "Don't Stop! I love it!"



She always had to be right there, doing what we were doing, a part of our little gang.

Yes, she was often frustratingly underfoot (especially when someone was eating). And don't get me started on her unabashed food thievery. She must have ingested the equivalent of a thousand purloined cheese quesadillas and pizza slices, usually in one gulp. I often marveled at how she didn't even seem to have to chew her stolen food--poof! It was just gone. She never left a crumb on the floor either, and enjoyed the bounty of dropped food that comes with four children.

And so thanks to Ruby, I didn't sweep my kitchen floor for eleven years.




I still remember the hot, sticky night that we drove out to the hinterlands of Long Island to pick her up. She was floppy and soft and slept in my lap all the way home like an infant (which, at eight weeks old, she was!). She cried all night long that first night home with us-- Erin had to sleep with her hand in the little box where we'd set up her bed. And when she woke us up to go outside at 5 a.m. the next morning, I wondered if I was grown up enough to handle this whole dog business.

Erin had wanted a dog for a long time but I was hesitant. It seemed like a lot of responsibility (by the way, Sweetie? Getting Ruby? One of the best ideas you ever had). Because the simple truth was, I needed Ruby. It was the fall of 2002 and New York City continued under a layer of grief following September 11. At that time, Erin worked many nights and weekends. My mother was still dead and I felt very much alone. Ruby was my constant companion and together, she and I explored the streets of Park Slope, Brooklyn. We chose restaurants based on who had outdoor seating (and allowed dogs). Prospect Park was our backyard and to this day, the sight of Ruby's little blonde legs bounding after a tennis ball through the dewy grass, ranks as one of the happiest sights of my life. Her ebullient joy was infectious-you couldn't watch her in her tennis ball chasing element and not feel happy.

I regaled my friends and family with pictures of her, our undeniable "First Baby" via email. There was Ruby, frolicking in the snow outside our Brooklyn stoop. There was Ruby jumping in the crunchy orange and yellow leaves. My canine photo gallery email recipients tolerated me. When we announced I was pregnant, my stepmom said, "You'll see, a baby is even more fun than a dog!"



She moved cross country twice and without complaint, traveling via airplane and Subaru Outback.

When an old friend from graduate school heard about Ruby's death, she wrote this:

"I remember a joyful picture of you and Erin with Ruby as a puppy...you two were beaming. At the time, I thought, that was the start of your family."

She was right.

And then the kids came along. Leo, in particular, was in love with her.



And Ruby loved the kids. And tennis balls.



We often joked that if  you could harness the energy and focus Ruby spent on catching a tennis ball, you could probably generate power for a small town.



I'm pretty sure Leo had a tennis ball hidden in the snow somewhere. He loved hiding them from her. And she in turn adored the hunt.



I have some guilt, that she went from being "Our Baby" (sleeping in our bed, enjoying full days devoted to her with long walks, morning, noon and night)  to basically the fifth fiddle. She may not have always gotten the "right" kind of attention, but you can't say Ruby was ever lonely.





She was a silly dog with a boundless amount of energy and a puppy spirit until almost the end.

She was Leo's first best friend and Ellie's first word.

And I realized the twins likely won't remember her, which seems unreal, since she was such an intrinsic part of our family. But I couldn't even find any pictures of them with her.

People are asking us if we'll get another dog. Probably? Someday? I think once you've had a dog it's hard to not have a dog.

But there will never be another Ruby.

Stop Making Sense

It all started with Hurricane Sandy.

Surveying the damage across the street from our house, October, 2012.

Two weeks after it blew through our region and darkened our home for ten long, cold days, I was driving the kids to swim class and we passed a cavalry of electric company trucks. I burst into tears. Our power was back (it had been restored for a glorious three whole days!) but seeing that army of trucks was a stark reminder, as were the massive overturned trees that could be seen, well, everywhere. People were still suffering. Things were far from normal.

Then came Newtown.

I still find myself tearing up, more often and unexpectedly. I still think about Sandy Hook, every single day when I take Ellie to school. Amidst the bedlam and chaos of elementary school children, weighed down by backpacks and winter coats and hats, shrieking and giggling and hugging and wrestling--life and death feels close. 

Ellie and my bedtime ritual used to include me reading her a book, rubbing her back for a few minutes, tucking her in and saying goodnight. Since December 14, I have stayed with her until her breathing slows and deepens, until she starts to snore adorably (as only those under age ten can make snoring adorable). Staying with her until sleep comes for what she calls our "Snuggle Time," it seems like the least I can do.

I still cannot wrap my brain around what happened at Sandy Hook. It is the epitome of unthinkable. How can any of us begin to grasp it? It simply does not compute, still does not seem possible. Yes, we hug our children tighter and we sign petitions and we give money. What else can we do?

Finally, less than a month ago, half a dozen of my co-workers lost their jobs (and hundreds more, within the company). Friends and esteemed colleagues. Here one day, gone the next.  Empty boxes sat outside offices, poised to be packed. Name plates abruptly came down and now hang blank. This was another kind of "does not compute" but still a very real one, to look around at our morning meeting and feel the void of so many faces. Then: Last week came the rumor that our company may be sold. Who knows what will happen if that transpires.

A hurricane. An elementary school massacre. Hundreds of people out of work. Hardships and horrors of different degrees of course, but tied together by one thread: You never know what's going to happen. You may think you have control, to some degree. But you really don't.

And so, I throw up my hands. Again. 

I learned to throw up my hands for the first time, thirteen years ago when my mother died. And again, when Leo was born, when I was reminded once more of our powerlessness in all of this, in this gift of life we have. You try to prepare and you just can't, no matter how much you think you can. The best you can do is hang on and hope for the best, hope that things are going to work out the way they are supposed to. That's what I'm doing. What choice do I have?

But for the record? I don't like this out of control feeling. Does anyone? I may try to keep things "tidy," with my organizer boxes for everything from toys to linens to Tupperware tops, but in my heart I know that I can't really control much at all.

I just can't recall a time where I have felt that so many things were so very much out of my hands.

Wrecked

I am sorry I was cranky, Bye [sic] Ellie. Ellie wrote me this note a few weeks ago after an evening tantrum.

It always happens like this. A terrible event, a horrific loss puts it all in perspective, reminds us of what really matters. Being late for school suddenly feels trivial. The giant piles of laundry that require me to wade through the floor of the laundry room? Eh.

And then gradually the loss fades away, and my occupation in trivialities returns.

But this time really feels different. And nearly everyone I know agrees.

In the last week I've cried washing dishes. I've cried on the bus to and from work. I've cried listening to "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." I've cried reading about how one of the children who died at Sandy Hook had special needs and his aide reportedly died trying to protect him. I've cried reading about the teacher who barricaded herself and her class in a bathroom, telling her students she loved them because she thought it was the last thing they were going to hear. I've cried dropping Ellie off at school, not because I'm afraid for her safety, but because of all those little faces, all those teachers and support staff and the principal. It could have been any of them.

"I can't even think about it," a dear friend wrote in an email yesterday. "Except I can't stop thinking about it."

It just feels so close.

"What Six Looks Like" summed it up perfectly for me (if you haven't read it already, please do). Why are so many parents of young children having such a difficult time with what happened in Newtown (aside, of course from the obvious horror of it?)--By the way, I'm not saying that it's only the parents of young children who are struggling--I'm just speaking about it from that perspective:

"I think it's because we know what six looks like. We see it every day... in all its glory...this friend and I both have a six-year-old child. I, a six-year-old son. She, a six-year-old daughter. Both are in first grade. Both, I imagine, so heart-breakingly similar to those 20 kids who were so brutally and senselessly killed on Friday morning. And we do, indeed, know what six looks like. We do see it every day. In all its glory. We see the good, the bad and the ugly. The beautiful and the infuriating. It's in our face. We live it and breathe it."

Overnight, mundane events like school drop off and bedtime became fraught and loaded.

For some reason Ellie has been having a hard time going to sleep the last few weeks, and coincidentally it heightened following the Newtown shooting (and no, she doesn't know about it).

She wants to sleep in our bed. She wants us to stay with her until she goes to sleep. She's lonely. She's scared and sad. But she can't tell me what she's afraid of or why she's sad.

In my head I'm thinking: Will you just go to sleep? I still need to pack lunches and snacks and clean up the kitchen and hopefully do a load of laundry-lights-we need more washcloths-before I collapse into bed with Words With Friends. Really I just want to play Words With Friends.

But in my heart? I'm thinking about how she is hurting and scared. And would it be so terrible for me to wait another thirty minutes to make the damn lunches? I could lie down next to her and listen to her breathing change as she slowly relaxes and falls asleep, feel the warmth of her small, sturdy body next to mine (but not too close--she gets hot--sleeps with a fan in December--don't ask).

I think of the parents less than two hours away who I imagine would love to have a drawn out bedtime with their children.


This is Five: Ellie's illustration of last week's unit on Probability. I realize I'm biased, but I don't think it really gets much cuter than this.

"The harder life is, the softer I must become," read a comment on a blog I read sporadically. Yes. This. It's hard to care so much about packing lunches and loading the dishwasher, right now. Except that those tasks do still have to get done, preferably before 10:30 p.m.

But right now, I have more patience. I am yelling less. I am hugging more. I am stepping over toys instead of fretting about the mess and clutter.

I would like to stop crying, and I know that I will. But I don't want to forget this feeling, or all that we lost that day.

Love and Light: It's All I Have

Yesterday morning, bleak, cold and rainy, I dropped Ellie off at school, like any other Monday. Except it wasn't any other Monday. It was three days after Newtown. It was the day the funerals started. 

I thought about all those parents, who had hugged and kissed their little first graders goodbye on Friday morning. Not knowing, of course, that the unthinkable was about to happen.


As a parent, I worry about a lot of things. But never, in a million years, would this scenario have entered my mind. 


First graders.


Teachers and administrators and educators just doing their jobs.


None of it makes any sense. There is no way to explain what happened, there is no "reason" for it. Yes, we can hope and pray that some good comes out of this terrible tragedy, but that won't make the losses any less heartbreaking.


I can't stop thinking about the parents. The siblings. Lives will never, ever be the same. 


It's human nature to seek comfort and answers, when something so awful happens. I do like what President Obama said at the memorial service in Newtown on Sunday:


We know our time on this Earth is fleeting. We know that we will each have our share of pleasure and pain, that even after we chase after some earthly goal, whether it’s wealth or power or fame or just simple comfort, we will, in some fashion, fall short of what we had hoped. We know that, no matter how good our intentions, we’ll all stumble sometimes in some way.


We’ll make mistakes, we’ll experience hardships and even when we’re trying to do the right thing, we know that much of our time will be spent groping through the darkness, so often unable to discern God’s heavenly plans.


There’s only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child’s embrace, that is true.The memories we have of them, the joy that they bring, the wonder we see through their eyes, that fierce and boundless love we feel for them, a love that takes us out of ourselves and binds us to something larger, we know that’s what matters.

Others have been saying better, what I've been feeling. I wish I could do something with this grief, this guilt (besides donate money, yes, donating to very worthy causes is of course, wonderful). I'm interested in this idea of Tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist term, which writer Kyran Pittman describes as something that "teaches neither to resist or cling to suffering when it comes, but breathe in the pain, and breathe out peace. A kind of spiritual photosynthesis that helps everyone."

Perhaps of little comfort to those who have lost a child (I don't dare imagine or speculate as to what they are feeling). But, something. I have to do something.  

***

In the midst of the horror, tiny gems of grace are trickling in. I was moved this morning by the story of Gene Rosen, a retiree who found a group of Sandy Hook students at the end of his driveway minutes after they escaped the school shooting. "We can't go back to school," one little boy reportedly told Rosen. "Our teacher is dead. Mrs. Soto; we don't have a teacher." 

Rosen entertained them with stuffed animals, gave them juice and called their parents. He said it was his experience as a grandparent, not a trained psychologist, that helped him on Friday.


Look for the helpers, as the wise Mr. Rogers advised, in a now well known quote that (deservedly) went viral shortly after the shootings in Newtown:


When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”


***


A twin group I'm a member of raised $5,000 in less than twenty-four hours, to plant a tree in Central Park for Noah Pozen, one of the young shooting victims who was also a twin. They actually raised close to $7,000, total (and people are continuing to give). A donor just stepped in to donate an additional $5,000 for a second tree, a "twin" that will grow beside Noah's tree.


***

Saturday night was the last night of Hanukkah. I was tired and emotional and I'm a little embarrassed to admit there was a part of me that hoped the kids would forget. I didn't feel like dealing with the frustration of trying to jam fragile candles into tiny, wax clogged holes (there has to be a better solution, menorah makers of the world!) while Leo and Ellie bickered about who go to light which candle first;  and then I'd be left with cleaning the mess of the melted wax off of the kitchen table. But wouldn't you know it? Ellie has fallen head over heels for the whole notion of "a present every night" and she would certainly not let me forget it (lighting candles = presents).

And how could I ignore the eighth night, when all the candles are lit?

For the first time this year, I used all three menorahs.

They flooded our little house with light. 

It was all I could do. 

You Knew It Would End Well

Our street this morning.

The snow started falling yesterday around noon, small, wet flakes blown sideways by the Nor'easter's powerful winds.

Perfect, I thought to myself. Not only do I need to leave work early to avoid the parking lot of the turnpike, but it will be an even colder night, thanks to the storm's high winds and blowing snow. All made that much more painful, due to that small detail of no power at our house.

***

The walk from the bus to my house took twice as long as usual. The snow had accumulated quickly, making the sidewalks slick and treacherous. I could barely see-it was almost white out conditions and the snow was blowing straight into my face. At one point my glasses were so coated with snow I had to take them off and clean them.

Normally, I would feel festive: The first snow of the season! I got to leave work early! I'd come home to a cozy house in time to make a nice, comforting dinner, maybe some kind of stew (if I were the kind of person who made stew). But no. I knew I was coming home to a cold, dark house. The scramble to get everything picked up in time for darkness would begin, the rush to consider dinner and its few simple ingredients. In no time the house would go from gray, to purple to black. The twins would get lost behind a stairwell or an end table "Where's Harry? Where's Lucy?" A diaper would need to be changed, by flashlight, and then the bundling of four layers would ensue.

Just then a utility-truck of some kind passed me. I'd started to spot them as though some kind of mirage--could it be? A repairman? An angel? To rescue us from our darkness? Was it even real? It barreled along, its turn signal on. Where would he turn? My plan was to catch up with him, to flag him down and see where he was headed and if he had any prognosis for my street. "Sunshine State Electric" read the sign on the truck's door. As quickly as I reached him, he turned down the culdacac across the street from my house.

That's when I saw two of my neighbors, laughing and smiling. My heart raced. Could it be?

One of them spotted me.

"He said it will be about an hour and a half," she said. "He's never seen snow!" Clearly, she felt celebratory too.

I instantly loved these Florida electrical crew snow virgins. I was giddy-filled with more hope than I'd had in ten days.

Thirty minutes later, as I held Lucy in my arms and watched the men work on the street outside my picture window, the lights in my living room and kitchen flashed on, then off, then back on again. The whole house whirred back to life. Digital numbers on appliances blinked yellow, green and blue. The furnace kicked on. Leo and Ellie, in the backyard playing in the snow, rushed to the back door, clamoring to come in, pink cheeked and with enormous grins.

"Mommy! The lights are ON!" Ellie squealed. "Do we get to have our "The Electricity is Back on Party?" (I'd promised this event,  which would entail pink and chocolate frosted cupcakes and the wearing of Halloween costumes, the ones the kids never even got to wear, because of the storm).

Leo jumped up and down and flapped his arms so high he could have ascended to the second floor of the house.

Life, as we'd known, was back.

Losing It

Surveying some of Sandy's damage, October 31, 2012.

First, the disclaimer. I know we were incredibly lucky. I know there are so many people who have it worse than we do. We are lucky the structure of our home was unscathed and that no major trees came down. We have our lives, for goodness sake. Some people were not so fortunate.

But. We are on our tenth day without power. Without heat or electricity. Did I mention there is a nor'easter forecasted for this afternoon? The kicker with that? The workers who are scrambling to reinstate power to those who are still without, will have to stop once the storm hits. Not to mention the possibility that people who have power might lose it again. I think if that happened, I would just drive myself straight to the closest mental hospital. I mean, really.


Even during the day, the house doesn't seem all that light.

I want to cry. I'm wondering around in a perpetual fog and feel stretched so thin that it's as though if I stood side ways I'd be transparent. I'm not sleeping well. I lie awake and think of those cold little babies in their seven layers. My spirit feels like it's being slowly crushed. I know this is irrational but the prospect that the power will come back is starting to feel out of reach, impossible. When I hear of friends getting their power restored, I am thrilled for them and don't begrudge them their power, but I am envious. I don't think: Why them? I think, Why not them AND Us?

Erin was able to download a movie on the iPad (she had to do it in the city, our signal at home is too weak right now) the other day and it was as if the heavens had parted. By the way, according to Leo and Ellie  The Secret of the Wings is not to be missed.

One bright spot in all of this: I will admit that I sort of love not having a TV (that is of course until the kids go to bed and I want to watch My Shows--Oh wait, there's another bright spot! Think of all the TV I have saved up to watch! Weee!.) Without a television, the kids are forced to be creative. They draw, they play "Animal Hospital" and "Fix the Toys"--you should have seen Ellie making casts out of white printer paper, for all the stuffed animals. They come up with complicated scenarios: "Leo!" Ellie calls, "Let's play Fairies!" And we all know about Leo's love of dress-up. There has been plenty of that.

The only reason we are able to stay in the house is that our neighbor (who inexplicably, has power--that's another kicker, most of the houses on our street have power restored) offered to plug in an extension cord to his outlet, so we're stringing one to our electric fireplace. Of course we're not able to keep that overnight (hello, fire hazard), so it is getting very cold in our bedrooms. The daytime temperature in the house hovers around fifty-eight degrees. We wear many, many layers.


Thankfully, our gas stove works (we turn on the gas and then light it with a match). We plowed through our supply of frozen pizza in the first few days. And yes, in case you were wondering, you can heat pizza on the stovetop (see above).

Some good news? The kids finally went back to school yesterday after missing seven days. As you can imagine, we were all thrilled. I usually pack their lunches (which they prefer) but since we are dealing with some rather extraordinary circumstances, had counted on them having school lunch until life goes back to normal. Food has been tricky, we have a cooler packed with ice (which at this point seems silly--I could just save the trouble and store the food outside in the freezing temperatures.) I've been doing a little shopping every day but am certainly not in my usual Bento lunch box form.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I got the email from the school district yesterday afternoon saying there would be no school lunch available today.

In the end, I was able to cobble together two passable lunches. I think I will always remember Election Night 2012 as the one in which  I listened to the returns on the radio and packed lunches by candle light, while I dined on Cheese Nips and wine. Try not to be jealous.

Last night Poor Erin got caught in hours of traffic coming home. Why? Because there was a downed wire on the turnpike. Of course there was. It feels like the End Of Days around here lately. Like, if it can go wrong, it will.

I keep thinking how easy life will feel once we get power back. But I did not need this reminder of how wonderful modern conveniences are (I already loved my dish washer and practically want to make out with my extra large HE washer and dryer). That reminds me. The laundry that has accumulated? Oh my goodness. It is epic.

"Why do we have to go to school?" Ellie asked this morning. "There's no power."

I explained to her that while we still don't have power, her school does. "It will be warm at school! And there will be lights!" I practically cheered. Lights and heat! Imagine the novelty.

"But why don't WE have power?" she asked.

Yes, it could be so much worse.

But I'm still waiting for it to get better.

I called our town mayor today. I call the electric company every day. I wish I had a good answer. If you'll forgive the pun, I feel so incredibly powerless.

Safe, Cold, Still in the Dark, But Grateful

We are emerging from the Hurricane Sandy fog. Still without power (today marks day eight). Which means no heat. Which means our upstairs (bedrooms) goes down to about 55 degrees tonight.

Luckily, the park didn't lose power.

But. We are safe. Our house is safe. Which, as everyone knows by now, is more than can be said for a great many people. And so for that I am of course very grateful. Complaining about no heat or lights seems petty in the light of the many heartbreaking stories that have come out of Hurricane Sandy.


Although New York was without subways for several days, there was no shortage of hot dogs.

I'm still processing everything. I have a lot of stories. More to come, soon.

Times Like These

It’s times like these that I have a hard time swallowing my own slogan.

Everything Happens for a Reason? Really? So there’s a reason a woman who is 40 weeks pregnant and chatting about how late babies run in her family, there’s a reason this woman has to find that at 40 weeks, her baby has no heartbeat? And there’s a reason she has to go on to labor and deliver a dead baby, a dead baby who also happens to have Down syndrome? (She knew in advance about the DS.)

I received word of this last night. She is a lovely woman who recently joined the Down syndrome support/playgroup that we’ve attended since Leo was an infant. I last saw her at a play date held by our group. It was a sweltering, unseasonably hot day in April and she sat on a bench at a playground in Brooklyn. She was flushed and glowing and laughed about how she was doing what she did best these days-sitting.

She came with her husband to be with the children. There was no fear in her face as a newborn with Down syndrome, swaddled in a green blanket, was passed around. She seemed to know exactly what she was “in for” and just seemed genuinely ecstatic about the baby she would soon have, a little girl who yes, had Down syndrome.

This, from my friend, who emailed me with the news:

“She and her husband seemed so happy to be having a child, I didn't ever sense a worry about Down syndrome. If ever there was a couple who really wanted this child, it was them. Each of us who knew in advance that our child would have DS was probably very worried about the what-ifs, but [they] seemed so calm.”

I read somewhere that most pregnancies of babies with Down syndrome do not survive-I think even that Down syndrome is a huge factor in miscarriages in general. Cynics might say it is nature’s way…survival of the fittest and all of that.

Whatever. The fact is, it’s a damn miracle that any of us is here at all, no matter how many chromosomes we have. It’s a mystery how any of us survived past the initial meiosis or mitosis or whatever the hell—forgive me, I was not a fabulous biology student. Sometimes I even think it's amazing that any of us made it beyond toddlerhood.

I just, what do you say? I have a card for her and her husband on my desk. I will write something. I know how important these cards are.

I feel teary and distracted. I didn’t know this woman well at all and only had a few conversations with her and they were brief. But her enthusiasm shone through. Of course I am sitting here, my active imagination running on overdrive, cooking up scenarios. They tried for months, years, to get pregnant, they were heart broken when they received the results of the amnio but they soldiered on and came to embrace their unborn baby. They did their research, they met with doctors and educators and most importantly, parents of children with Down syndrome and the children themselves.

I’ve known handful of women who have received diagnosis prenatally and who have come to playgroups hugely pregnant, to survey their futures. I am in awe of them. I can’t imagine what that must be like.

And I am just so sorry for this couple.

I’m going to hold onto my hope and belief that everything happens for a reason, but sometimes, sometimes it’s just damn hard to do it.

Summer Lovin'

Here's another shot from the backyard from this weekend. It was really hot and humid but I spent so much of it either sitting with my feet in the baby pool or standing by a sprinkler, that I didn't really notice it being too uncomfortable. I didn't grow up with humidity but at some point I have grown accustomed to it. Not sure when that happened.

We had a great weekend. Leo and Ellie are playing together more and more, though a good deal of my time is still spent refereeing (OK, most of my time). Why is it that the toy that Ellie chooses is instantly the toy that Leo needs at That Exact Moment. And he can be a little rough with her. She's not all that solid on two feet yet. But she's starting to give Leo a hard time back. She sort of screeches at him of he takes something from her that she wants. It's hilarious.

I've had a lot on my mind lately. Too much to post right now, but I'll get to it. My brain just hurts. So rather than write a lot, I am posting a picture that makes me smile and reminds me of what is truly important. By the way, right after the above photo was taken, Leo pushed Ellie down. Blatantly. She burst into tears. Leo immediately kissed Ellie, turned to me and did the sign for "cry." Oh well.

Time.

We went to Mystic, Connecticut for the weekend.

I couldn't help but think about this time last year. It was pretty much exactly a year ago we made the same trip. Stayed at the same fabulous hotel. We had just bought our new car (it was our first road trip in it). We hadn't yet had the pleasure of making a certain Miss Ellie's acquaintance.

Pictured above, last year I sat on this same bench, hugely pregnant with Ellie, while Erin took Leo to the Birds of the Outback exhibit at the aquarium (you can see the bird exhibit in the background of the photo). This year I sat holding in my lap an adorable, almost one-year-old baby! Where does the time go? I mean really. Cause this whole time flies thing is getting ridiculous.

What I will never understand is how certain days just drag. The difficult times, they just seem to take forever. But the good times? They go way too fast. You turn around and it's July 4. And then you close your eyes and it's Thanksgiving. Time is at once eternal and fleeting.

To borrow the words from one of my favorite plays:

"You cannot imagine how time ... can be ... so still. It hangs. It weighs. And yet there is so little of it."

To come, more pictures of the trip. And me not being so existential. We had a great time.