Who Will Watch Over My Hostas?

A lovely man, attorney, good tenant of mine, hung himself on a Monday, March 7, 2011.  He had intended to do it a week earlier as evidenced by the letter he wrote telling me he was dead.  Four years ago, I had negotiated what was to be his last five year renewal in my building.  He had been battling cancer and at the time, he wasn't yet certain he would win the battle. He asked me to incorporate a "death" provision into his lease.  This was not uncommon, especially given his circumstances being a sole practitioner. Should something happen to him, he did not want the long term obligations of a lease to encumber his estate. Understandable.  Done. But did he negotiate that provision with something else in mind?

First, I received a letter from him telling me he was dead - his office had been instructed to mail said letter in the event of his death.  Within minutes of receiving the letter I was surprised to find an email from him apologizing for the mistaken mailing and assuring me he was alive and well.  My response went something along the lines of this....." so happy to know you are alive but don't you ever do that to me again......"

A few days later, he asked me to mail him a full copy of his lease and within a week of that, he went to his basement and hung himself, but not before hand writing a letter to me with date and initial just before he did it.

I have since been able to piece together just a few fragments.  He reportedly was in financial trouble; yet he paid his rent right up the the very end. He left behind two long term sub-tenants who had no more of an inkling of his plans than I. He carefully and thoughtfully placed notes in his house to warn his live-in girlfriend to 1) remember him as he was and 2) to not go down to the basement but instead to call 911.

Walking through his office the next day, it looked as if he had left for the night, nothing unusual, nothing out of place, newspaper on the cafe table, something he might finish reading when he returned.  Law books carefully organized and two bewildered sub-tenants who had leased from him for ten years. They told me how they had been receiving phone calls from vendors who seemed to know of his death before it occurred, just as I had been notified.  Placing the fragmented pieces of the last desperate puzzle together, it became clear - he attempted it once then changed his mind just long enough to unravel the unrest he had sent out to the universe, only to attempt it again, this time with success (so very hard to use that word in this context).

When I held his second letter in my hand, knowing it was real, knowing he dated and signed it hours or perhaps minutes before he hung himself, I wondered.  Had the very act of mailing the letters a second time provided him the impetus to not turn back? He couldn't call me a second time and tell me he was alive. He couldn't explain two such letters mailed in error for an attorney is much too pragmatic for that.  He mailed the letter and knew, this time, he would end it.  The Wisconsin Bar Association notified me before I got the second letter. I had time to question my actions.  Had I been cordial to him after the first letter or had I been a hard ass landlord interested in collecting rent?

And why didn't I take the time to connect with him on a level of which I am most familiar? Hurt, loss, financial trouble, depression, regret?  You've just got to keep fucking fighting the best fucking way you know how.  This life can be hard beyond our ability to cope but I also know when you are done, you are done. His kids were grown, he had faced death once......maybe he came to a place of acceptance that no living soul will ever understand.  Not one of life, but of death.

I will miss you and I will think of you each time I view this property and see the Hostas along "your" front walkway struggling to survive amidst the salt and plow damage from the winter.  But rest assured my friend, this year, I will plant nothing less than a soliloquy of seasonal, breathtaking, foliage in your name.  For I know you were the one who always took the time to notice and care for your surroundings.

Your lessons will not be forgotten.

Even in the midst of the greatest pain, the final reckoning, the encore that brought you back from the dead, you were always surrounded by the bountiful offerings of the earth. Why was that not enough to save you? Why couldn't you hold on for one more spring? I suppose the thought of the rose that would bloom was mired by your own belief that death had come to the vine.

And whether it's a twisted, thorny vine or a Hosta that held on as long as it could but eventually gave way to the bitter elements of a cold, hard winter, I believe life will come again for with the The Charge of the Light Brigade, "....Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: into the valley of Death, rode the six hundred. 

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

The Charge of The Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

In Lieu of My Refrain

For the love of Webster, here I am stringing words together again. I love to write and thankfully, I have enjoyed attention for it:

• Elementary school -  poem published in the school newspaper. 
• Honored by the Masonic Temple as tops in my class during 6th grade grad ceremony.
• Junior High - met Coach Carter and started to write for real.
• Went to NYC in junior year, attended the Columbia University Journalism Convention at Coach Carter's insistence.
• High School - Editor of the Jet Express.
• Recruited Robin Thomas to write reviews on movies, music and anything else that was on her mind. For those of you who know her, just imagine her very first blog.
• Won First Place, Oklahoma Interscholastic Press Association Award for Editorial writing.
• Freshman year at junior college - first essay written was singled out by professor, resulting in scholarship nomination and award of $125.00 US dollars toward my education.
• Subsequently recruited by the junior college newspaper for a staff writing position. Covered many hot topics including the need for more student parking on campus.

Then it stopped, not the opportunities, not the praise, but me.  I stopped.

Life happened.

Had a child, got a real job, became an accountant, got married and divorced and married and divorced again. Had three more kids along the way. See prior blog posts if you must.

Last night while enjoying a moment with my children, watching one of their Nickelodeon TV shows, I was blindsided by the choices I've made in my life, or to be more specific, the life I thought I would have as a writer.

So innocent was the thought behind the words, so pure was the message, I laughed, hugged, applauded, then explained to my nearly nine year old daughter how the words she had so quietly and irreverently spoken were equally inspirational and brilliant.  These words came from the daughter who does not put herself out there very often.  She saves her moments, she processes and intellectualizes while her sister is charging the windmills of her Don Quixote inspired spirit.  This introspective, happy-go-lucky, beautiful child asked me if I had ever wanted to be famous.

Sure, I said.  I always imagined myself being a famous writer some day.

And with that, came the six words that pierced the veil of my very existence, "when did you change your mind"? 

I should have known this would come from her. I have not dared write or speak of this as I wasn't sure if reality was in charge that night or I was under the delusion of some postpartum induced fantasy. And if it was real, how could I possibly find the words to describe how this gentle daughter of mine allowed me to see the universe on the night she was born.

I suppose it was fortunate I was in extreme pain, which left me no choice but to be wide awake when it happened. Holding her, propped up on my knees, staring at her as she stirred and then in the blink of an eye, or maybe it was five minutes, or perhaps an hour, I saw into her past and I knew from where she had come. Many lifetimes, so much wisdom, it felt like staring into an infinite mirror where the reflection was beyond my mortal understanding and yet it was recognizable even into infinity. It was me. She was me, she was my choice and she was a wise old soul here for some serious business.

So many times I have questioned this moment as I observe her in her daily comings and goings. Can it be true? Surely it is the wild one who was sent to teach me, not her, not the one who rarely ever expresses but almost always compromises to the whims of her identical twin.

I almost missed her message. After she said it, I remember thinking about it for just a moment before I realized the gravity of it. What made you change your mind?

And just as she had done on the night she was born, she had once again allowed me to see a glimpse of my own truth 1) either wake the fuck up and believe what you know or 2) go back to sleep and pretend none of this ever happened.  I get the mediocrity of my bullet points above. I realize I was not changing the world or even working hard at this craft. Yet, the messages were finding their way to me, in spite of my denial and in lieu of my refrain.


I haven't changed my mind baby girl, but I have been acting like I have.  Thank you gracious, tenacious.

Thank God for you, quiet messenger of the universe that you are. May I always be open to the gifts you bring.

Saturday Morning Swim Switch

We walk into the steamy pool area of our local high school every Saturday morning with heavy winter gear; coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, boots and for my daughters, swim suits buried underneath those tantamount layers. It was an idea spawned from my obsessive compulsive need to make sure my girls never fear the water as I did/do. Well that, and the fact that their two best friends are competitive swimmers.

The girls are taking to it like fish in the......strike that.  Like sea bass on a hot grill waiting to be served to Oprah and Gayle. They are all in, fully invested and they make my heart skip a beat when I watch them glide along the water as I could never do.  There is a rather infamous story of me told by The Leaders of The Free World. It has been embellished over the years, I am certain of that.  And depending upon who recounts the tale, it is either told as a horrifying experience or the most hilarious thing ever witnessed at a lake house.

We had been boating and floating most of the day.  After docking the boat, we cranked up the Toby Keith tunes and sat at the edge of the water, drinking our Corona's and enjoying the sacredness of our much too infrequent reunions.  As the sun grew more intense, we all slowly drifted out into the lake, standing amongst the fish and squishy, tickly, disgusting plant life that inhabits the bottom of a lake.  I was uncomfortable at best but the conversation was getting deep and so was I.  Without realizing it, I apparently backed off a ledge of some sort and was starting to go under, grasping for my friend with one arm while carefully keeping my Corona arm safely above sea level, or lake level as the case may be.

But my girls will never know the agony of choosing to save their own life or that of a frosty cold beverage, for they will be the greatest of swimmers.  The one thing that saddens me at these Saturday morning swim sessions is witnessing the parade of divorced families using this noon hour as the drop off point for the switch from mom's house to dad's or vice versa. I see the bags packed full of weekend gear, I see the mom's giving those extra long goodbye hugs and I see the kids who don't appear bothered at all, for they have settled into this life, this routine that is comfortable and common to them.  "Don't worry, kids are resilient", they all say.

And I am reminded how ugly the face of divorce can be. I clearly remember my ex coming to pick up the kids for the first "switch day". I remember the twin whom I had guessed would be falling apart was brave and stoic, while her sister screamed and reached for me as she was carried out the door.  I could hear her screams all the way to the car.  I shut the door behind me and slid down to the floor, like a hollowed out tree, there was nothing left inside of me. I was numb.

While cleaning out some old files, I recently ran across a photo taken of Mr. Sunshine with the kids, just after our separation. It was a black and white photo used in a campaign brochure for his run at a seat in the State Assembly.  The Commando is standing next to him with his arm around his dad and a look on his face that brought me right back to that empty, hollowed out vortex I once inhabited. I looked at the innocence of a child who was being manipulated by a man terrified of losing his children.

I saw the brightness that has only recently returned to his eyes and I also saw a little guy who wanted nothing more than to please his dad.  Smile for the camera, let's tell the voting public we are a happy family, while behind the scenes, he was witnessing the unraveling of his father.  Mommy left us....mommy took the toaster so I can't make toast for breakfast, as he broke down crying in front of them for the very first time.  For years, I couldn't make toast without one of them screaming at me for taking daddy's toaster, the same toaster I had had since I first moved out on my own at the age of 19. It was only recently one of them finally opened up to me about what happened that day.  He must have been holding in all of his guilt, anger and raw emotion when the toaster's disappearance served as the catalyst for him to release it.

Eventually, as all divorced families do, we settled into our own routine; that is, until he made the decision to commit a felony fraud landing himself in a country club to serve 30 months of cooking, gardening and exercise duty while I usher the kids through this most difficult of transitions.  I've been through the unraveling of our son and I've seen him put back together again.  I am seeing more subtle signs from the girls.  Just as in that black and white photo, when they were too young to truly process their pain, they are now too strong to let this openly bother them; but the truth is there, if you look closely enough.  They are taking their emotions out on each other, as only twins could do.

Sitting through teacher conferences last week, I was told in each case, one by one, all three of these children are "gifted writers". It is up to me to nurture this in them.  I know what it is to have it, but I don't know what it is to believe in it from an early age.  We are always writing stories, or telling stories, or imagining a great title for a book or noticing humanity for the good and the bad.  Soaking it in until we realize we can internalize it, process it and then tell it in a way that is earth bending.

Watching the American Idol preliminary auditions recently, one of the girls quickly surmised a pattern.  She noticed when a contestant has a gut wrenching back story told prior to their audition, they will inevitably be a good singer.  I was amazed at how quickly she tuned into this.  As obvious as it is to us, that's some pretty heady stuff for an 8 year old.  As I tucked her into bed weeks later, she told me she had come to another realization. "Mommy, I am living my own back story right now, aren't I", she asked with an intended sad inflection and a heart-melting frowney face.

Yes, you are honey. This is a hard time, a struggle of your very own but just like those singers on Idol, you know what happens when they have a difficult back story, right?  Then with confidence, she nodded and concluded she too would be a winner.

I see these families on Saturday morning through a black and white photo lens and I wonder about their lives. Are they being good and true to their children, forsaking their own anger and bitterness to do what is best for them or are they using them as weapons in their own sick battles for power, control, money or just simply to say they won? When I can feel the tension from the top row of the bleachers, I pray for them. Then I sit back and watch my beautiful girls, who have overcome so much and I pray for them too.  One of which is currently writing her autobiography.

Angry Mobs v. Governor Walker in Wisconsin (or how to run away from a fair fight)

Those that know me really well know I generally don't climb mountains but I would climb a mountain if it meant I could avoid a political debate.  I would circumvent the globe if it meant I wouldn't have to stand toe to toe with an over zealous protester who believes in their cause just enough to bring harm to others or worse yet, an ex-husband who morphed from an agnostic to a right winged conservative political pundit/candidate right before my eyes.  The very same conservative Republican candidate then committed a federal fraud landing him in jail for a term of 30 months. I fucking hate politics, the game, the facade, the labels placed upon us all.

I grew up in Oklahoma and as such, I was given the legacy bestowed upon me by me "Democrat" father.  I place the word Democrat in parenthesis as his version of Democrat does not jive with the culture of today.  I clearly recall my father being a hard working American man who would drive me through the northeast sections of Oklahoma City, pointing out the people who chose to sit on their porches instead of working.  He called them many names. He routinely used the "N" word and referred to them as porch monkeys. 

He told me his tax dollars were allowing them to live on their porches. I didn't understand his words at the time but I could taste his hate.  I rebelled against it, arguing with him in my uneducated 11 year old brain.  I insisted he could not understand their plight for he had not walked in their shoes.  He told me they didn't need shoes on the front porch. (Insert internal soul-killing death scream here.)

Living in Wisconsin for the past ten years, working in a politically conservative environment, I have hidden my Democratic roots.  I have been told many times, my actual philosophies align more with the Republicans and I know that is true when it comes to taxes, for God's sake, that was a real eye-opener moving up here.  But, I have held onto my beliefs because I cannot stand the soap box diatribes from those that would like to condemn homosexuals, women who have had abortions and people who need a helping hand from time to time.  I do not like to judge.  I do not care for people who judge and I believe in extending an open arm to those who find themselves in need of a little help from their friends.

But today, I am ashamed to call myself a Democrat.  I work hard for my money.  My company has been forced to cut raises, bonuses, incentives, holiday parties, monthly luncheons, technology upgrades and staff.  I have watched my co-workers walk to their cars with boxes in hand.  I have endured annual increases on health insurance, with this year being the worst - nearly 40%.  I am on my own, raising my children with no help, no support and my salary has regressed as raises diminish and health insurance costs rise. 

Today I witnessed no less than 15 schools in the state of Wisconsin shut down because the teachers took a day off to protest at the state Capitol in Madison.  Today I saw thousands of people demanding, expecting; nay,  feeling entitled to a set of rights I have never been given, never offered, never even considered as a possibility.  Today I am proud of our newly elected Governor because I believe sometimes you have to break necks to cash checks. 

I am not ready to call myself a R....R...Re....Rep...Republican. I don't like labels.  Never have, never will.  But I want to say to that group of cowardly politicians that fled the state to avoid the new sheriff in town, you have shown your true colors and they are yellow.  You were elected to stand up for us, not to run.  I'm not sure if I've made this absolutely clear but I hate politics and hate is the strongest word in my arsenal.  Imagine myself and my fellow senior managers catching wind of an uprising among the workers in our company.  Let's say the accountants are feeling under appreciated during their busiest time of the year and they are screaming at us for the high cost of health insurance.  They took pay cuts for two years straight and yet, they work harder than ever. But that is not going to happen because you know what?  They have a job.  They are employed and in this economy, they have accepted the sacrifices because the alternative is much worse.

Why then?  Why do all these people march on the capitol of my state and insist they should be treated better than I, better than my co-workers, better than most of the hard working American citizens, including my late, misguided, uninformed father?  Why?

I am at a crucible. My brain is telling me to write something my heart does not want to believe. Was my father right?  Was my registered Democrat, Reagan hating father spot on in one respect? Should people be entitled to that which another is not?  His characterizations were based on racist principles; those that my heart shall never embrace.

But today, it was not about race.  It was not about poverty or privilege.  It was about a man whom I formerly placed in the category of a cad.  Not my father, but the former Milwaukee County Executive, now Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.  I categorized him based upon my ex-husband's affiliation with him.  "He is one of them". Just another politician, well spoken, family man - probably stealing money on the side or sleeping with staffers.  I have met him, sat across a luncheon table with him, liked him and appreciated what he was doing for Milwaukee County but jaded I was.  Jaded, for sure.

Jaded no more.  For you, Mr. Governor sir, I respect.  And God only knows how utterly difficult that is for me to admit.