the aftermath

canon digital rebel xsi

If you read my post from yesterday, you are probably wondering, what the heck happened. I am not even sure where to begin. Much of it is a big blur.

As you may have guessed, I was spared from being sent away; my sister was not as lucky. There was a bit of time (days, maybe a week) before the night that changed everything and my sister boarding a jet plane. For starters, she had to return to the mall and exchange Garfield and company for a winter coat.

There were also discussions as to whether or not this was the right thing. I wasn't really privy to them, but I do believe that my mother talked this over with her boyfriend. My sister, for the record, did not get along with him at all. Needless to say, he didn't have any problems with my Mom's plan, and on some level I do believe his approval gave my Mom the nudge she needed. I hate to say it, but he probably was also influential in my being allowed to stay.

At some point my Mom must have to come to me with the news. When my sister boarded that plane for Newark, she had no idea she wasn't coming back, but I did. I think I thought she knew, but didn't realize until many years later that she didn't. She believed it was just for the holidays. I still have this image of her walking to the gate at the airport in her new light blue puffy coat.

My Mom and I also boarded a plane - for San Francisco. We were staying with relatives who lived in Marin County at the time. I remember all of us joking about my sister being gone. They had never been fans of her either.

Things were going okay, and then suddenly, took a very bizarre turn. In the end, my Aunt, cousin, mother and I ended up at a hotel in Union Square. There was a fight. My Aunt may or may not have fallen down the steps trying to eavesdrop on my mother and Uncle's conversation, and they next thing I knew we were packing it up and driving across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here's a random factoid. File under strange things I remember. The hotel where we stayed had "H"'s engraved on the towels. I really thought they were pretty and figured out how to write the "H", and used it in my signature from that point forward. Told you - random.

I know that it was weird returning to our apartment. I don't think I fully believed that my sister wasn't coming back. I figured if my mother didn't change her mind, my grandmother might. She was a recent widow, and while misery loves company, even my sister may have been a bit much.

I was told to clean out my sister's room. I remember finding a half-eaten PB&J under the bed. My sister was never a neat freak. I also found something that was like a diary. She didn't write in it much, but apparently had a crush on a boy. I closed the door, and we didn't go in there. My Mom said I could have her TV, but I didn't want it. We probably mailed her the rest of her things, but I have no memory of doing it.

I vaguely recall a phone call wherein it was revealed to my sister that she wasn't returning. That didn't go over well. She was pretty pissed. I couldn't blame her, but was definitely glad to have 3000 miles between us that night.

In an even more bizarre twist, my grandmother insisted that my sister be enrolled in private school. Of course, given her record, that wasn't going to be easy. It turned out though, that a space had opened up suddenly. That it itself was pretty random, but it would turn out that the student who left, was the youngest son of one of my mother's oldest friends, who it turned out was moving to northern California. He would manage to get a girl pregnant before he graduated, so maybe location doesn't matter after a certain point.

My mother and grandmother had come to some kind of agreement. She sent her money every month, even though my father lived with his mother on and off. Again, I wasn't in on all the details. At the same time though, the message being sent was that she was disowned. We rarely talked about my sister. There were no phone calls or letters. I often joked that I was now an oldest and only child. In many ways, I was.

We would move at the end of the school year. After our two years in the Valley, it was time to move up to the West Side, as promised. My Mom bought a brand-new condo with a roof deck. I felt like Cinderella. I think that was when it hit me that she really wasn't coming back. She didn't know our address.

When I started at the new school, I don't think anyone knew I had a sister. It was like this weird secret I had. Of course, eventually someone would ask, and I honestly had no idea what to say. I couldn't exactly explain this. Who would want to be friends with someone like me?

As expected, the story didn't have a happy ending. A couple of years later, my grandmother died. My sister was still a minor, and so my mother's sister agreed to take her in. Instead she robbed my grandmother's estate, and kicked my sister out. I think at that point my father stepped in, but may have also shown her the door. That was a very dark and ugly time. I was out of the house by then, so was spared much of the detail.

At one point though, my sister did call me. I was away at college. She was up to no good of some kind, and I called her on it. She told me to go fuck myself, and hung up. I wouldn't hear her voice again until after our mother died, and the call went pretty much the same way.

I have skimmed over some parts of the story, but you may already know how it ends. My sister died in March of 2003. She was 33-years old. I didn't find out until a year later, although part of me knew. The connection of sisters is powerful.


on the night stand :: Invisible Sisters

state of me

canon digital rebel xsi

I think I am slowly withdrawing. And yet I see small steps of progress. For example, today I got up (without prodding) at a decent hour, and made breakfast before B went off to work.

I feel like I have nothing to say. Part of that, I am sure, is because I am so isolated.

I finished all the laundry today. But I still feel like I got nothing done.

I was proud of myself for not freaking out when I realized that the bottom of the new quiche pan was missing, but felt like something was wrong with me. How does something like this not come home from the store?

I want to read and write, but haven't made any progress on those fronts. I did do my morning pages (in the morning even).

I feel guilty. And lonely. And mostly just very lost.

on the night stand :: Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

how well do you know me

canon digital rebel xsi

Am at a bit of a loss on what to write about today. I am tired of whining. So why not do a list?

Twenty-Five (very random) Things About Me

1. I am left-handed - the only one in my immediate family who is.


2. I have worn glasses since I was five.


3. My favorite holiday is Christmas.


4. If it were up to me, there wouldn't be a TV in the house.


5. The longest I ever lived in one place was five years.


6. It is a rare day when I don't drink at least one cup of tea.


7. I had my first email account in 1987.


8. One of my goals every year is to remember my friends' birthdays.


9. There are monsters on my bed (sheets).


10. The movie, Leaving Las Vegas, made me physically ill.


11. For as long as I can remember, I have loved books.


12. The last movie I saw at the theater was Toy Story & Toy Story 2 (in 3D).


13. When I saw Toy Story the first time, I had to leave because I forgot I was on the crisis line.


14. I logged over 1500 hours on a crisis line.


15. My first experience with a Mac was frustrating (because I was used to doing things the hard way).


16. I was a cheerleader.


17. And also on the drill team.


18. I love stationary.


19. One summer I worked as a vet's assistant. That was a crazy job.


20. Red Cup season at Starbucks makes me giddy.


21. I am very shy.


22. In fact, when I was 8, my Mom locked me outside because she was concerned about my introversion.


23. I have been doing the laundry since I was eight.


24. Tonight I made tomato soup from scratch along with homemade bread.


25. I have trouble finishing things.

on the night stand :: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

one hundred things about me :: part one

I have never been able to complete the list that so many bloggers seem to do - 100 things about me. I can get to about 50, and then I give up, or get bored. It is too easy to fall into this trap of mentioning one negative thing, and then to keep going down that path. Who wants to read that? And even better, after reading that, why would anyone continue reading?

So I thought why not try again? Start with ten things, and try to keep things light, yet interesting.

part one :: let's get physical

{one} I am left-handed. My parents and sister are right-handed. This made life interesting. No one understood why it took me so long to open a can of soup. My paternal grandmother is left-handed and was made to do things right-handed. They actually tied her left arm behind her back. The reasoning was that back then they thought left-handed people were evil.

{two} My eyes are green. Again, everyone else in my immediate family has blue eyes. I also seem to have inherited this from my paternal grandmother.

{three} I am not adopted, although there were times I had my doubts. I felt sure that at the very least there was a mix up at the hospital. Once I even confronted my mom and begged her to tell me that my father wasn't really my father. Alas, she told me that indeed he was.

{four} I have worn glasses since I was five. It probably should have been sooner. My grandmother noticed I was sitting too close to the television set and insisted an appointment be made. I hated doctors and was convinced that the instrument the optometrist used to figure out my prescription, had hundreds of tiny needles that were going to be pressed into my face. I had quite the imagination. Of course I didn't share this with anyone and just freaked out until it was over.

{five} Under my right knee, I have a birthmark. It is roundish in shape, but nothing interesting. Inside of it there were lots of little freckles. Thankfully over the years it has faded, although never completely gone away. Now it looks more like dirt.

{six} My hair is brown. In the summer it gets blonde highlights; in the autumn in can look auburn in the right light. I dyed it a couple of times, but have decided not to again, until I have to.

{seven} My skin is very pale. On the rare occasions that I buy foundation, I usually end up with the second from the lightest.

{eight} Despite that I was born in a place with a distinct accent, I do not have it. If you heard me speak, you would never guess that that is where I am from. I do have trouble with certain words. For example, "asked" can come out as "axed", as in "I axed my mother".

{nine} My belly button is an 'inny'.

{ten} My feet are extremely ticklish. I don't like my feet to be touched because of it. As a result, I have only had a pedicure twice. Each time I am sure the women who worked on my feet must have thought I was insane.

on the night stand :: WALL*E Soundtrack

3288 days later

Nine years ago today, the SF Coroner's office took possession of my 49-year old mother's body. It isn't clear exactly when she died. Phone records indicated she called her father for Father's Day. It took them a few days to find me (I had moved to Austin, Texas and my mother did not update her emergency contact information), so June 21, 1999, was just another day to me. I got up, went to work, ate, and slept in ignorant bliss. I remember making this argument to my therapist - that because I didn't have a reaction to the event when it happened, then it was really senseless to have a reaction now. Grief makes you say (and do) crazy things.

I found out on a Friday night. It was probably around 9pm. I was watching AbFab on the couch in my nightgown. I was tired from a long week at work. My house needed some tidying. What would have otherwise would have been a forgotten night, changed when the doorbell rang. It was the police.

B said he knew right away why they were there. But even when the officer said that it was in regards to my mother, I never went there. I figured she was in trouble of some sort, maybe locked up in a mental hospital at worse, but not dead. I hit the first phase of grief before the words were even out.

And once the words were out, I lost it. I started screaming. Wailing, almost. It was so bad the officer asked B if I had asthma, and was having an attack.

That insanity was broken by the phone ringing. Who could be calling at this hour, on a Friday? It was B's mother. For some reason I answered the phone. I must have been nearest or somehow thought that someone was going to tell me this was all a joke - a very bad one. This was the last person I wanted to talk to. She asked me how I was. I managed to say, not good and passed the phone to B. He took the call in the other room, never telling his mother was was going on in our living room. Yes, he did not mention that my mother was dead.

The officer left. He was accompanied by a woman who I guess was a social worker. I don't know. Her job was basically to give me the information I needed to deal with the body. She said that I could talk to the coroner's office if I had any questions. Actually I had to call them. All I wanted to ask, but didn't, was what kind of questions might those be? I had lots of questions, but I didn't think they were probably appropriate for the coroner.

In talking with this woman, whose name I don't recall, and who most likely I could not pick out of a line up to save my life, my sister came up. In irony of ironies, the last piece of correspondence I received from my mother was a postcard with my sister's address (and the request that I send my estranged sister money for an air conditioning unit). This woman explained that she could have someone go and share the news with her. What she didn't say was that said person would go post haste. My sister was in the eastern time zone, and ended up be awoken by the police at 3am local time. This caused her to call me quite pissed off about the whole incident (not that our mother was dead) as soon as they left.

By this time I had spoken to the coroner's office. I learned that I needed to make arrangements for my mother's body. I also talked to my mother's brother in California, who agreed to tell their father and other siblings. I also talked to his wife, my aunt, who had been friends with my mother since they were 13. She lost it on the phone. My first call was actually to my friend, and former high school teacher, who is a nun. She knew my mom too, and was able to help me figure out a plan of attack, so to speak.

My sister passed over the fact that we hadn't spoken to each other on the phone in about a decade. It didn't even phase her that the last time she had contacted me, she sent me email pretending to be an adopted 17-year old girl from Maine. I actually had a hunch that it was a hoax, but when I told B he said I was paranoid. He wasn't overly amused when my hunches turned out to be correct and she revealed her identity over IM. She was plain angry that I gave her address to the police. This was the purpose of her call - to tell me off!

When I was able to get her on track - our mother was dead, remember - things went downhill pretty quickly. She felt that the body should be cremated and the ashes scattered on the Golden Gate Bridge. [That is totally illegal, by the way.] My mother had disowned my sister when she was 15 and sent her to live with her paternal grandmother. They hadn't seen each other since she was 17 at a lunch which I also attended. They had made some contact recently, but my mother's brain was so pickled, that it is hard to call it a reconciliation. I can't recall how the call ended, but by that point I was completely spent. Life as I knew it would never be the same, and now I had to deal with all this craziness to boot. I wanted to just stay up all night, but B insisted I at least try and sleep.

I woke up the next morning, and B insisted we try and take his car in for service. I followed him in my car, and was not thrilled with the idea of being alone. I remember asking not to be left alone. As it turned out the service center was closed, so we went back to the house and carried on with the day in one car.

We also needed to stop by the office (he had to work), and I had an eye appointment later that afternoon. I believed that canceling it would anger my mother, so didn't call and try to reschedule. In truth, I didn't want to have to say why I needed to cancel.

First, though, we had lunch. We went to this sort of Irish Pub called Faddo. It is actually a chain. There is one in Chicago too. I remember going to the pay phone and calling my therapist to see if he could see me. I had to leave a message, and just said "something bad happened". I didn't have a cell phone, and so had to leave B's office number.

After lunch, which I didn't eat, we went to the office. Technically I worked there too, but part-time, as a contractor. Still, I had no idea what to do with myself. The CEO, my boss, was in, so I went to his office and broke down. I couldn't get the words out before the tears were streaming down my face. He handled it well. He said I could take any time I needed. I think he was a little surprised we were there, but also grateful as there was a release deadline looming. Somehow word did not spread, and so despite it being an office of about a dozen people, many of them had no idea that this happened while I worked there. Ah, life at a start up in the days before the dot boom.

It was then time for the eye doctor. It was a busy Saturday. They left me in the exam room by myself for a few minutes. I just sat there and cried. I was so afraid someone would ask what was the matter with me. Thankfully no one did, because I think I would have lost it.

I arrived at my therapist's office with my eyes still dilated. I remember the first thing I told him was that I had just been to the optometrist, and that I didn't look this bad because I had been crying uncontrollably since I learned about my mother's death.

Over the course of the next few days, things went from crazy to insane. My mother's siblings on the east coast had at one point tried to steal my mother's body. They felt she should be buried with their mother in a Catholic cemetery in New Jersey, and that I should foot the bill for an Irish wake complete with free-flowing alcohol. I guess they forgot that my mother had just lost her life to alcoholism. What they didn't even take into account was that my mother was converting to Judaism. I was never able to determine how far she had gotten, but at one point she had made arrangements at a Jewish cemetery. She later asked for her money back, and when I called in inquire was met with "you don't have a Jewish name" and basically told to get lost.

In the end, my mother was cremated and buried in the same plot as her mother (and her father and his second wife and possibly my sister). There was a funeral at the church of the Catholic school my sister and I attended for a year. This was the same place where after meeting with the principal, and learning what my sister (who was in first grade at the time) was up to, left the meeting and passed out on the front steps of the school, blocking out what she had been told because it was so awful.

I did not attend the funeral. I can only imagine what this group of people said about a woman they didn't know. About a woman who when she was able, helped out her siblings in every way she could, but when she tried to get her life back, they turned their back on her. I am sure it was a giant guilt festival -something my mother would have hated - but I felt like she probably wouldn't have attended unless it was for the humor of it all.

My aunt and uncle in California did go to the funeral home, but didn't attend the funeral either. They pushed the button for the cremation, and then went across the street to an Irish pub to toast her. I ended up in that same pub when we returned to the Bay Area after B got his MBA. There was a gathering of the interns summering in San Francisco, and we met up at a bar in North Beach . When that got too crowded, we moved the party. We walked a few blocks to Green Street, and as we turned the corner, I realized where we were, even though I had never been there. And there we were in the bar my Aunt described. I freaked out a bit, but somehow got though that night too.

on the night stand :: Motherless Mothers

meme time

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

I had been in Austin, Texas for about a month. I literally got in my car and three days later arrived in Austin to finish a job I had started. The plan was to stay for the summer; I stayed five years! There was a terrible heat wave, and it was triple digits every day. I think it had hit as high as 110F. On the good nights it would cool down to 90F around midnight.

I was staying with my boss/friend (who is no longer either) and clearly was starting to wear out my welcome. I think by this point B, who was still back in the Bay Area, had been laid off. I also believe that by this point I was left alone at the house for the weekend (well, Daisy, the dog, was there), and arrived home to discover a yellow post-it note on the door that said "Get Out!"

It turned out that my friend had rented from someone who didn't actually own the townhouse. This person was doing a rent to own agreement and it wasn't working out. Instead of moving on, she decided she would rent the place. Ironically the rental was done through an agency, and not just an ad in the paper. It was too bizarre.

I was, needless to say, freaked out. To make matters worse my friend and her girlfriend could not be reached. My friend was on a business trip, and as it turned out missed her connecting flight, so she was actually heading back to Austin. She had been asked to move to the back of the plane to accommodate a Muslim family (this was before 9/11), and in the process her carry on needed to be checked and her agenda went missing. In an effort to look for it, she missed her flight and there were no more flights that night. Her girlfriend was driving down to San Antonio to pick her up.

Thankfully I never had to confront anyone. I had been at the house most of the day and went out for about an hour after dinner. It was while I was out that the true owner of the property came by. I was worried that the dog would get out if they entered the property, or that they would send the police. How the heck was I going to explain myself? I looked for a lease, but couldn't find anything. Luckily I didn't need it.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

Mail out cards, put together package, upgrade Flickr account, open Share Builder account, and wash the tablecloth.

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Chocolate is always nice. Good chocolate.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Do lots of good; have lots of fun.

5) Places I have lived:

The Garden State (07306, 07307), The Golden State (95926, 90805, 90807, 90713, 91335, 91343, 90034, 92604, 92660, 92657, 92608, 94704, 94608, 94404, 91789) The Lone Star State (78757), The Land of Lincoln (60601), and Cambridge, England. I have moved 27 times, and am in the process of move 28 which has been going on for two years.

6) Jobs I have had:

Envelope stuffer, phone book delivery person, veterinarian's assistant, crisis line worker, AIDS worker, Group Home counselor, quality management manager & marketing manager.

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better: If you haven't, please share. :)


on the night stand :: This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness

seven random things (about me)

{one} The last book I read was Driving with Dead People. It made me cry. I can't entirely tell you why.

{two} For dinner tonight, I made pesto. My favorite thing is that I found frozen chopped basil in little cubes (at Trader Joes). It makes things very simple.

{three} Lately, I don't think I have been drinking enough water.

{four} I am left handed. My mother, father, and sister are right-handed.

{five} It is still hard to believe I once lived in the heart of downtown Chicago. Part of me really misses it.

{six} I feel so very lost.

{seven} I don't drink coffee. I prefer tea.

on the night stand :: Black & White