Barking Mad

Will I Ever Fit In?

 

You know you really need to sit down and just write when your four year old tells you that you're annoying her and then asks you to "Please mumma, go write lots of words on your computer!  You don't play Princess and the Frog like I want you to!"  Of course, somehow I always mange to end up being the frog.  Never once have I landed the sweet gig of being the princess.  Heck, I can't even manage to ever be Cinderella when we play that game!  I don't even get to be one of the mean step-sisters, or even the evil step-mother.  Nope!  Who does Gaby deign to let me play?  Gus, one of the mice.  That's right...the rotund (albeit he's very cute, at least I've got that going for me!), less than coordinated, newcomer to Cinderella's merry troupe of vermin mice.

So when I asked Gaby if she wanted to work on our "Kindness Project", (I mentioned this in yesterdays brief post), she just rolled her eyes and very emphatically told me, "Later! Now just move offa my swamp!"  So much for blog fodder...blog fodder which I was really excited about, because she was really excited about doing it.  "Was" being the operative word. 

In a way it's kind of a good thing that we didn't get around to finishing our project today because something has been eating away at me for a few weeks and I wasn't sure if I could find the words to write about it, without sounding like the girl who never gets asked to dance.

I have written a lot about being "that mom", the one who has lost the child and is forced to wear that loss like a huge scarlet A across my chest.   That's not something that will ever go away. I won't ever completely fit in around other mothers who are unbroken and whole.  I've also written a great deal about my life as a morbidly obese woman and how I have struggled with that for more than two decades now.  The weight will go away.  I'm more determined now than ever to become healthy and strong...not only physically but mentally as well.  However, as much as the stigma of belonging to the "That Mom" club will be ever present in my life, I wonder if the shame of being so physically repugnant will ever go away?

Let's be honest, shall we?  Fat people, especially really, horribly  morbidly obese people are overlooked, made fun of, laughed at, belittled, demeaned, and denigrated in almost every way possible.  Not only do we often times not physically fit in (airplane seats anyone?), we also don't socially fit in...regardless of where we are.  Oh sure, there's the funny fat guy at almost every party, but outside of his sense of humor, how much do you really know about him?  Do you know what his passions in life are or what he thinks about anything outside of being funny?  What is the funny guy like outside of the social setting where you're likely to come across him for a few minutes?  Do you even honestly want to know anything more about him?

You probably don't because you see people like him much the same way people view those with leprosy.  Here's the thing though...fat isn't contagious.  If I sneeze near you, or cough in your general direction, you won't automatically sprout love handles, nor will the buttons pop off of your blouse or trousers, and you probably won't end up having to sign up with Jenny Craig after sitting near me on the bus.  The way some people act around us though, you'd think we were no better than a common criminal. 

Simply put, we don't fit in with all the cool kids.

Oh sure, you're probably sitting there going, "But Audrey, some of my closest friends are fat!" And maybe that's true.  Perhaps you're able to see beyond the excess weight, the clothes that don't fit well, the unease this person has when he or she eats around you because they think you're watching everything they put in their mouths...maybe you are in fact able to look behind their eyes and see the human being that lives underneath all that adipose tissue.  The fact remains, you're one of the few that can actually do that.  Most people see us as gross blights on the pretty landscape of the earth.

Of course, at the rate Americans are gaining weight, I suppose many of us don't even realize that we aren't just overweight, we are obese!  Maybe some of us just don't see it.  Don't want to see it.

I see people look at me with disgust every day.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.   That photo (I apologize for the quality, I took it at night on my way home from the store, and it was raining!), I posted above?  That's the sign that greats you as you drive into the small town I live in.   I live in Saratoga Springs, a beautiful, affluent area of upstate New York, situated at the foothills of the Adirondacks...and one of the things this area is famous for is health.  HEALTH!  And then there's me.  I just moved here, I'm having a difficult time adjusting, and everywhere I look there are beautiful people with horses who are proud of their history...oh and their health.  Did I mention the health thing already? 

If people don't look at me with disgust, they just don't see me.  They see right past me, like I'm not even there.  I go into stores where men will open the door for every attractive and fit woman that walks in, but when I walk in, it's as if they don't see me.  Don't get me wrong, I can open the door myself.  It's just a common courtesy that I notice is not extended to me...even when I have Gaby with me.  I can't even begin to count the number of times I have seen this happen before, not just with me, but with other obese women.   They are not offered the same courtesy as those who are fit and attractive.  It's not just doors that aren't opened (I can't even begin to count the number of "career" doors that have been slammed in my face because of my weight.  Yes radio Program Directors, I'm talking about YOU!  Yes employment agencies, I'm talking about YOU!) for the obese, it's the level of service we don't receive, the niceties that people neglect to give us, the smiles that go un-returned because of what we look like.

What happens when I lose the weight?  Are you still going to see me as the woman who used to be fatally obese?  Will you worry that I'll gain it all back and therefore be unattractive again? Will I fit into your world once I fit into normal size clothes? Are you all of a sudden going to open the door at Macy's for me?  Run out to grab my cart at the grocery store on your way in with the rest of the carts?  Smile back at me when I smile at you?

More than wondering if you'll all finally accept me for the person I am, I wonder if I'll ever see myself as acceptable?  I know, within every cell of my being, that I'm worthy of the changes I'm making, but I wonder how I'll ever wash off the stigma that's been so very long associated with who I am?

One of these days I'm going to stop hiding behind my family and my kids when we take pictures together.  I won't feel like I have to hide the horribleness of myself behind others...

 

   

Will you finally notice me then?

 

22

 

last name Photoshopped out for privacy reasons

"Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love.  It can't take away our memories either.  In the end, life is stronger than death."

~Unknown~

Happy 22nd Birthday, Joshua! 

I have a hard time believing you'd be 22 today, if you were still here on earth.  I hope you're having a great day with your Heavenly family and your Heavenly Father. 

I know that you already know this, but things are so much better here on mortal ground than they were this time last year.  That's despite the fact that your littlest sister is laying on the floor, tossing a ball into the air and just watching it come straight back down, right at her face.  Luckily, for her, it hasn't hit her in the nose yet. I told her to knock it off or she'd regret it and she just laughed.  It seems that the daring, rebellious spirit runs through all of my children! 

Watching Gaby play, especially the times she plays with her guitar reminds me so much of you.  She has such a love of music, just like you did!  

 

Two years, three months and 10 days seems like such a short time to get to know someone, especially when that someone was the child who grew in my womb and took me on the first step of the journey from teenager to mother. 

I've not felt your embrace, or gazed into those gorgeous brown eyes of yours for close to twenty years now...but hardly a day goes by when I don't feel your presence near me almost all the time.  Maybe it was because your time here on earth with me left such a huge impression that the energy from your life still resonates around me.  Perhaps that's more of a scientific explanation for it, but I prefer to believe that your spirit still lingers nearby.

I haven't dreamed about you again, since last year.  It took some time for the dream to sink in and for me to fully feel the impact of the words exchanged between you and I that night, but I have...I finally have.  Since that sleepy morning, when I sat staring at the words I'd written immediately after waking from that dream, I've come to a point in my life where I have, once and for all decided to stop killing myself and start living...really start living!

I still have moments where the memory of your death feels like a punch in the gut and takes my breath away.  Being that I didn't really let the grief process run it's course, and instead, I ate and ate and ate to insulate myself from the pain of your loss, sometimes the fresh pain is like having daggers if ice plunged deep into my heart and the most tender places in my soul...the places of a mothers soul where she tends her garden of sorrows.  During those times I take a deep breath and become still and allow myself to feel the pain and let the grief wash over me anew.  I submit to ache of missing you and let my tears rain down on those blossoms of sorrow and agony.  

After being exhausted by the tears and longing to see you again, I let myself journey to the other side of this mother's soul...the place where I tend my garden of happy, fun, lovely and cherished memories.  I sit in this springtime garden of my soul and let the warmth of all the wonderful memories of you - your smile, your laugh, your love for your little brother and sister, embrace my soul and warm my heart.  I feel the petals of healing and peace blossom inside of me like a field of awakening poppies; opening their faces to the sun. 

 

 

   

 

So, I'll allow myself these showers of grief and heartache and hours where I wallow in the misery of missing you because I know they'll give way to the warm breezes of hope and healing. 

 

Beautiful beautiful boy of mine, on what would be your 22nd birthday I want you to know that I miss your smile so very much...

 

...but I love you so much more.  Death can never take away the precious gift your place in my life gave me.   Maybe through finally grieving your death, I am starting to learn how to live.   It's in your memory that I begin to take the steps towards living the life I was meant to live.

"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live." 

~Joan Borysenko~

Mommy

Almost 20 Years Later, it's Finally Time to Lay Some Demons to Rest

I woke up yesterday and realized that for the first time in almost 20 years, I can not recall the name of the man who was driving the small pickup truck that hit and killed my son, Joshua. 

For almost 20 years I have harbored feelings of hatred, genuine hatred, and anger towards this man who to this day remains faceless to me. He never should have been on the road that night.  His license had been removed by the state of California and he was alleged to have been drinking.   He was never arrested or held after being briefly detained by police. 

I remember several days after Joshua's funeral and burial, seething with anger because this man never bothered to phone us, send a card or a letter, or offer any sort of condolences of any kind.  At the time, I wanted to rip this mans neck off and commit his soul to Satan, if I had to sell my own to do it. 

Some time in 1993 when my former husband, Joshua's father, and I were in the midst of serious economic despair, we didn't even so much as have a home telephone and I had 3 year old twins hanging on my sides and was hugely pregnant with my youngest son, we took every coin we had in our possession and phoned this man - the man who drove in the pitch black of night on a lone country road and in the blink of an eye, took away the child who first blessed me with the title of "Mommy."  So much metal to precious skin and then...gone.  An altogether too short life, blown out like a candle in a single exhalation of breath.

 

He didn't know what to say to us then.  He offered no excuses as to why he was on the road.  And in my mind I knew it wasn't right to ask him why he never bothered sending condolences, sympathies or failed to show up at the services for Joshua.  Besides, what would he have said, "Hello Audrey, I'm the man who killed your son?"   Painful and awkward would not have done justice to the emotions a scene like that would have caused.

And now?  Now I sit here and know, without a single doubt in my mind or heart that it's time to forgive this man.

It's time.

In forgiving him perhaps I can find it within my own soul to forgive myself for not being there for Joshua and trying to prevent this from happening in the first place. 

The wound that Joshua's death left behind is terminal.  There will never be a day that passes whilst I tread the earth that the familiar ache and sting of his loss isn't present with me.  However, I no longer have to carry around the dagger of hatred, anger, and blame for this man, that I have been holding close to me, like some morbid piece of carry on luggage of the soul.

It's time.

Time to lay this burden aside and cast into the ocean of time the sharp blades of condemnation and judgment which were never mine to carry or bestow upon him in the first place. 

It's time.

Time for me to rest my head at night with one less shard of painful broken glass slicing it's way through my heart and the corridors of my soul.

It's time.

Time for me to say the words...

I forgive you. 

 

Who Will "Thrill" the Next Generation?

I have been sitting here this morning, looking at at the gray clouds and watching the never-ending silvery drops of water fall from the sky in an almost hypnotically rhythmic fashion, willing myself to not go back to bed, crawl under the covers and sink into the sweet oblivion that sleep offers me.  In doing so, I have been thinking about the events of the past several days, especially the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Undoubtedly, Fawcett and Jackson were icons of my generation.  I grew up watching Charlie's Angels and instantly fell in love with "Farrah Hair" and spent years attempting to get my naturally curly hair to "feather" just like Farrah's did.  This was as close as I got...

I was only 5 when Fawcett married one of my childhood heroes, The Six Million Dollar Man, (Lee Majors), but was a prepubescent teen when they divorced in 1982.  I was crushed.  How could they split up?  Didn't they really love one another?   I guess there would never be any Majors-Fawcett babies with gorgeous hair.  Alas, I still had hope that Majors would eventually marry The Bionic Woman  (Lindsay Wagner) and they'd have lots of bionic babies together. So much for the dreams of a southern California pre-teen. Besides, ordinary toddlers are scary enough...can you imagine the havok a bionic toddler could wreak?  That's the stuff of nightmares!  Of course, I can say this now, as a mother who has parented five toddlers and is currently parenting one.

I digress.

Unlike my obsession with Farrah and her hair, I never really got very attached to Michael Jackson when he exploded all over the music and video scene.  Mine was the generation that birthed MTV and whilst my parents didn't want me spending my time being consumed by all things music-video, they did buy Thriller when it came out on video.  Being a HUGE Vincent Price fan (how many other little kids did you know, growing up, who sat, glued to the TV whenever ANYTHING with Vincent Price came on?  Yeah, I was that kid!), and an enormous fan of horror films, I was intrigued by the video. The dancing was mesmerizing and I'd never seen anyone move like Jackson did.    Was I as entranced and enamored of Jackson's other stuff?  Not so much.   During the time he owned the music scene, my tastes were more in line with Judas Priest, Motely Crue, Ozzy Ozbourne and then turning to bands like Depeche Mode and The Cure. If I were asked what my favourite Michael Jackson song would be, I'd have to say "Scream."  It's not coated in that sugary "pop" goodness that infests the Top 40 charts.  It's edgy, a little dark and that's what attracts me to it.

Even though my cassette collection (yes, I am indeed that old!), and eventual CD collection never contained anything by Jackson, I still understood and had respect for the immense talent he possessed and how he changed the landscape of music and video during my generation, and how his influence spread to other artists over the past three decades.  I'd be dishonest if I said I didn't find him a tad bizarre and wondered from time to time if any of the allegations made against him were true.  During my career in radio and voice work and all my time spent on the air, I never met him, or even came close to meeting him.  Those who I worked with who knew him personally, never had anything but the highest regard and utmost respect for him.  To me that said something.  I might have found Jackson to be a little strange...but that was simply an outsider's view into his world. 

The bottom line; there is no denying his genius and his effect on not only the music world, but the creative aspect of being an artist in an industry that craves the next big thing.  Jackson was, without a doubt, the biggest artist of my generation.  You can't argue his humanitarian efforts or the difference he made in the lives of millions around the globe simply by virtue of his music.  Music is a global language we all understand; his words echoed across oceans, over mountains and into hearts and minds the world over.  

When the hubby, who had been downstairs watching television, came up to tell me Jackson had died, I met the news with not only a fair amount of shock, but a bit of skepticism as well.  This was after all, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop; someone who lived life in a way most outsiders looked at as anything but normal.  We'd all seen the headlines of his looming financial woes and various other crisis' in recent years. I wondered if this wasn't all a huge ploy to escape impending disaster.  Eventually though, it sank in that this wasn't a hoax, that Jackson was indeed, dead. 

For the next few days there was little else on the television, internet or radio other than Michael Jackson.  So it's ironic that the Little Imp would find her introduction to Michael Jackson via his death. She is fascinated by the music and dancing and wants to watch little else other than Michael Jackson videos.   She rarely ever sits to watch his videos.  She is up and moving, dancing, (as I sit and pray that she doesn't start to imitate him grabbing his crotch!), and is singing along with him.  She is moved much the same way my entire generation was moved and influenced by his music, his videos...his art. 

As I sit back and watch the Little Imp's blonde curls bounce along to the tune of "Smooth Criminal" and listen to her sweet tiny voice sing along with the words, "....Annie are you okay, are you okay Annie?..." I ask myself, who will be the voice and sound of her generation?   Who will she want to emulate?  Who will move her to dance around her bedroom and inspire her to sing?  Who will she find beautiful and style her hair after?  Who will be the beat behind the bounce of her peers?  Who will be the one to take them by storm, rock them, and be the thriller of her generation?

Have you entered the Keurig giveaway?  No? What are you waiting for?  I'm giving away, not only a Keurig Platinum Home Brewing System, but a 3-month supply of k-cups to go with the Keurig and a $50 VISA gift card!  Go on now, get on it!

I am THAT Mom

I am many things, some flattering, and some pejorative.

I am; a wife, mom, sister, daughter, writer, photographer, smartass, know-it-all, the former extrovert who is now reclusively introverted, a bitch, an aunt, a friend…so many things, yet sometimes nothing at all. I can change some of those things. Some, like being a wife, mom, friend, writer, and OK - a smartass, I wouldn’t want to change. 

There is one thing, one deep, scarring, tormenting aspect of my being that I will never be able to change…I am that mom, the one who has laid one of her own in the ground, to slumber forever.

I am that mom, the one who will forever wear this loss like some sort of morbid tattoo on her soul, on her being, and etched into her heart.

I am that mom, the one who will always have that piece of her soul, floating above her in the ether like so much ozone, there but yet not there.

I am that mom, who lost the child who first blessed her with the title of mommy, mom, mother, momma…

I am the mom who no other woman ever wants to be.

I am that mom; the one other moms look at with pity and something else…something harder to articulate. Other women, upon learning of my loss, hold their children close and thank God they’ve never experienced this pain, this horrible slow demise of the soul that is the death of a child. They are intact. I am not.  They look at me with pity; I look at them with jealousy.

I look at those unbroken women with an immeasurable envy.  They have not spent hours curled deep within themselves, in agony, missing the flesh of their flesh, trying to remember the laugh that no longer echoes through the halls, the smile that used to reach out to whomever it happened upon and grabbed them and made their heart melt, and the scent of him, dear God that wonderful mixture of little boy, bubble bath, dirt, sunscreen, and pure sunshine that so overtook my senses every time I’d nuzzle into the back of his neck. A smell I thought would forever be imprinted in every cell of my being but one which I now struggle to recall. I remember running my fingers through the golden curls at the nape of his neck whilst he napped and marveling at how perfect each individual ringlet was.  I ache to feel that silky golden hair slide through my fingers again.  I look at these women and wonder what it’s like to feel whole. I can’t remember. 

I’m that mom, the one who stands and stares into the white lights of her Christmas tree, longing to place presents under the tree for the little boy who won’t be there to open them. In April I make a birthday cake, every year, knowing he won’t be there to blow out the candles. This year there were twenty candles. They remained lit until the flames flickered out and the wax melted onto the cake. Nearly eighteen years after his death, bitter, salty tears rolled down my face, much the same way the wax of the candles flowed onto the chocolate frosting and then down the sides of the cake.

I am the mom who had to excuse herself from the room the evening her oldest daughter brought home the young man she was dating when I realized he was the same exact age Joshua would have been, had he lived. 

Over the years I have been the mom who stands along the sidelines at little league games, watching the boys who would have been the same age as her son and wondering if her little boy would have loved playing baseball and would he have hit a grand slam home run?  I long for things that never were...to hear the crack of the bat against the bright white ball, to stand and cheer along the sidelines as he rounded the bases with a huge grin on his face, to embrace him and tell him what an awesome job he did, and to feel a huge sense of pride - that was my boy out there, the one who hit the ball that went flying over everyone's heads and into the vast blue sky.

I'm the mom who is now obsessively overprotective of her remaining children, who can't bear to see them cross the street without looking both ways at least ten times lest a car hit and kill them the same way it did Joshua. 

I'm that mom, the one who angered easily when standing at Joshua's graveside and someone would tell me that wasn't him in there, he was "somewhere else."  In my mind and my heart, that boy, that precious baby who stole my heart and who was now buried in a hard box underneath cold earth was still my boy...that body, was the only way I knew him.  I can't count how many times I wanted to lay down on the ground to be near him.

I have been that mom since August 10^th, 1990.  1:14AM this morning marks eighteen long years since I became that mom.

I can scarcely believe sometimes that eighteen years have passed since that beautiful little boy with the golden curls and the laugh that overtook his entire body has been gone. Eighteen years since I first experienced the inexplicable pain of body and soul that ripped me apart and left me incomplete.

I was little more than a child myself when I gave birth to Joshua and would like to say that in the span of the two years, three months and ten days until his death, I grew and matured. Even with the birth of my twins who were only six months old at the time of his death, I was still that scared half-girl half-woman who didn’t have a clue what she was doing, who only knew that she loved her babies with every ounce of her being and was doing her best.

The years since Joshua’s death and becoming that mom have been interesting, some more difficult than others, some passing without much note.

As I look back on the last eighteen years, I can finally see the difference between the child burying her child, and the woman, sitting here today, who has done what she thought, at one time, impossible…survive the loss of a child, subsequent failure of that marriage and another,  and made a name for herself in the radio and voice over industries.

Some days I still have no clue what I’m doing, I fly by the seat of my pants and hope that I don’t screw my kids up too badly. There are no manuals out there for dealing with life after the loss of a child. There are myriad books available on grief and loss, but nothing that really ever captured the essence of my loss.  Most of the books I read were of others journey's through their own personal hell after the death of a child.   Their pain is as unique to them as mine is to me.  The words on the pages seemed cold and unfeeling.  They were flat and did nothing to soothe a tortured soul.

How I wish the blogosphere had been around back then. It wasn’t until I found other mothers who have have traveled a seemingly unbearable road, that I realized I am not alone in this.   I have a voice and perhaps through my own voice, not only will I soothe my scarred and battered soul, but maybe be able to offer some support, encouragement and hope to someone else who has gone through this and is reaching out, grasping for something to hang onto.

As I read the words that tumbled from the hearts and minds of these women, they seemed laced with feeling, empathy, and something more...something alive.  They were part of a living tribute to their children.  They were not words in books that had been on shelves collecting dust, waiting for someone with tear-stained cheeks and a heavy heart to come and lift them and try and find some meaning to the madness and the grief...their blogs are like living entities, further proof that they have gotten up, day after day and gone on, and most of all, survived.  Unlike the authors of the plethora of books on coping after the loss of a loved one, I can reach out to these women and know that they are still there, they are real and a daily reminder of the spirit of their children.   

It’s ironic, when I look back on the last eighteen years and how I’ve pulled myself up out of the mire of the hell my life was immediately after Joshua’s death, (it wasn’t a depression so much as this ache that would never leave and feeling as if I’d never get over the sadness of what happened – it’s hard to articulate), and here I sit on the precipice of a serious depression now, that I don’t seem to be able to grasp the same thread of hope that I did all those years ago.

Granted, the situations are not the same, but today I am able to read the voices of other women like  who, like myself, have been on the edge of this very scary abyss, and have resurfaced, alive and functional. I am able to reach out to those women,  whose voices so poignantly, beautifully and painstakingly have chronicled their own battles with depression and I can take hold of their words like so many life-rafts and hang on with everything I have.

And, I can write! Perhaps not about the incident that led to all this, but I can get this all out of my head and onto paper and try and exorcize the demons that way. I can finish the book I've been writing over the last ten years but have stopped and then restarted so many times, and I can take the medication (once we get it all worked out and adjusted or switched to something that isn’t making me puke all day long and feel as if my head is completely disconnected from my body), and not feel the guilt of being labeled “depressed.” It won’t happen overnight, but in time, I hope I can look back on this much the same way I look back on the last eighteen years and realize that I did get through it, I survived and perhaps in doing so, I’ve given someone else the courage to do the same.  Maybe some day, someone going through something similar will be able to read my words and see that I am still here, still breathing and coping and know that they can reach out to me and hang on with everything they have.

I will always be that mom. However, I am now also that mom, the one who looks at her eighteen year old twins her fifteen year old son and am reminded of the balm that they were, that soothed my broken heart, in the months and years following Joshua’s death and what incredible young adults they are and what amazing lives they will lead.

I am that mom, who looks at her two year old with that impetuous twinkle in her eye and wild curl of her hair and smile as big as the sun and recalls a beautiful little boy who graced my life with his presence and who will always be with me, in some way or another. I look at this precious little girl and drink everything in and enjoy basking in her presence in my life.

I am that mom, the one who now knows tomorrow is out there. I just have to keep reaching for it.