Lily Von Shtupp

I had wanted to post this on May 11^th, 2011, the five year anniversary of my Mom’s passing. Not sure what happened, but here it is:

Today marks five years that my Mom has been gone.

I woke up with a broken heart, feeling like I did so many years ago. The emptiness and loss felt so fresh, and I surprised myself with how low I felt after so long without her. The truth is that the pain and heartbreak never go away. That will never change. I will miss my Mom until the end of time.

It has been five whole years since I have hugged her, and smelled her signature vanilla, cookie and lavender smell. When I hugged her, I used to bury my face in her neck and inhale. After she died, I kept some of her clothing unwashed, so that I could sleep with it and smell her smell. The clothing is stored away now, and the smell has faded. My memories of her perfume are still as sharp.

It has been five whole years since I have heard her voice, telling me how much she loved me, holding my hand in hers as I read to her in the hospital. She looked at me intently, studying my face as though counting the freckles and trying to remember everything about me. I was doing the same thing, committing her freckles and brown eyes to memory. I can still see the lines around her eyes, created by years of laughter.

I was so moved that my close friends texted me, called me, or emailed me to let me know they were thinking about me and that they knew today would be hard. I have some pretty spectacular friends, and am so thankful for them daily.

One fantastic friend in particular helped me turn today, May 11^th, into a new anniversary. A happy one.

She picked me up and drove me in horrible traffic to pick-up a wee puppy that needed a home. *Lily Von Shtupp, named for my Mother’s favorite movie character, was adopted at 6:30pm from a dog rescue. Small and shaking with fear, I scooped her up in my arms walked with her to the car to head home. I whispered in her floppy ear: "Life is going to be good for you, I promise."

I'm pretty sure Lily rescued me: Instead of sadness, I am filled with happiness and love. She's just 18lbs, but her meaning is huge. We're moving forward together. I hope she likes it here.

May 12, 2011: Lily doesn't mind my messy hair.

*If you haven’t seen Mel Brooks’ movie Blazing Saddles, go watch it immediately. It completely embodies my Mom’s sense of humor.

Sorry About That

Recently I’ve had more than a few people tell me they’ve read though this blog, and that it made them cry. And instinctively, I apologize. I’m not sure why I do this. Maybe because I don’t expect that my words will actually cause people to feel my hurt and my loss. Almost as though I feel like I’ve inconvenienced them into feeling something.

It made me think of how often people apologize for things, and how often they don’t when they should.

When I was 16, my mother let me read her copy of Erich Segal’s novel “Love Story”.

Given to her by my father in 1971, it bore the tag line “Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.” My mother had underlined it with a pencil. The underlining fades as the pages age, but I can see how important that statement was to her. The indent where she pressed the pencil firmly into the page is still there. She was 21 years old. Her boyfriend had given her this book as a symbol of his love for her, and she took it very seriously.

It is one of the many books that shaped my life, but unique in that it was my Mom’s way of teaching me about loving and respecting others. She wanted me to know that love takes work, patience, and sometimes forgiveness. When I was done reading it, I told her: “Mom, I think sometimes we need to apologize. Because how else will someone know you’re sorry?”

Part of apologizing when you’ve hurt or offended someone is knowing you’ve done wrong, and having the humility to admit to it. I can be extremely stubborn and opinionated (I can totally see my father/brother/boyfriend/best friend nodding vehemently at that statement), but I do make it a practice to acknowledge my wrongdoings in order to grow as a person. It’s safe to say that no matter your age or life experience, not everyone has the kind of self-knowledge required to know when to say “I’m sorry”.

I’ve always been a big believer in the power of the apology. In my mind, the most sincere apologies carry a lot of weight, and there is a very small window in which apologies can be offered in order for them to be considered truly genuine.

Whenever I fought with my Mom, we always said I’m sorry at the same time. We had the same stewing temperature. It usually was within 4 hours of whatever argument had taken place. We were fairly predictable.

My general rule is this: If you’ve done something wrong and you haven’t apologized in 72 hours, I’m kind of done with you. Yes, it’s a pretty strict time frame. Yes, it is harsh. But when you care about someone’s feelings and know you’ve screwed up, an apology should be forthcoming. And fast. It's that simple.

In the last year, I’ve had some major disappointments where apologies were due, and none came. Those disappointments were also fairly clarifying, in that they showed me who I was dealing with. When I thought about what I would tell my Mom about those people, I could hear her answer in my head. She had said it to me once before, when I was in my early 20s and had gotten into a fight with a friend who had hurt me deeply: “Amy, not everyone gets it. The ones that never apologize for hurting you or others are not worth keeping in your life because they will never see beyond themselves.”

Since my mother died, and as I continue to evolve as a person, I try my best to say I'm sorry and mean it. That's how my Mom was, and that's how I want to be: True and honest.

As this blog changes and grows with me, there will be posts like this. Posts where I pontificate and proliferate. There are so many moments in life when apologies are due, and none are offered or received. I suppose I just think that opportunities for honesty and truthfulness abound, and so few of them are seized.

"An apology is the superglue of life.  It can repair just about anything."  -Lynn Johnston

Turkeys and Thanks

Meticulous Turkey Basting 2009

It has been some time since I posted, and it hasn’t been for lack of interest. Or lack of sadness for that matter. 

It just seems like in the last few months, I’ve been feeling pretty good. The reasons aren’t bountiful, but they’re meaningful to me. I haven’t won the lottery (my Mom played the same numbers for years without winning more than $50, so I’m saving my toonies), nor have I climbed Everest: I’ve simply come to a level plateau of feeling GOOD. Certainly, there will be further mountains to climb, and valleys of sad times, but for the most part I’m feeling at peace.

It seemed foreign to me so long ago, that feeling of inner peace. I remember when something as simple as Thanksgiving dinner made me feel cynical and angry. At a time of thanks and blessing-counting, I was thankful for nothing. My mother had died, and it felt like being thankful for anything was hypocritical and without merit.

And here I am, finally able to be thankful with my whole heart. It is a strange place to be, but I like it here.

I am celebrating my 6^th Thanksgiving dinner without my Mom. At first, I didn't even want to attempt making a family dinner, hurting at the thought of doing it without her. I was her sous-chef.  

Over the last couple of years, however, I have hustled and bustled in the kitchen with my Dad, making a serious turkey (my father basting every 30 minutes like clockwork). The stuffing we make is moist and savory, the mashed potatoes creamy and delicious. The baked apples steam when you stick your fork in them, coated with vanilla ice cream. Just the way my Mom used to do it. And maybe even a little better. *wink wink* I have tried to do my Mother’s crafty side justice by collecting the ruby and gold leaves that have fallen to the ground, and placing them on the table as decoration. The perfect display of Fall’s bounty. 

Turkey prep methods? Agree to disagree.

I think my Mom would be proud of how far we’ve come not just in the kitchen, but as individuals. As a family. We have put our well-being on the table and talked about it. Picked it apart. Put it back together. My brother, my father and I: We are whole together. There will always be a part of my heart that hurts and longs for my best-friend, but I think life without her is slowly starting to evolve into something meaningful too. It has to. Change is inevitable.

So on this Thanksgiving, I am so very thankful for my Dad, my Brother, and those that I love very much. I am thankful for the friends that love me for my past and my present, and the friends that give me wings for my future. My heart has mended because of all of you. I laugh more, I feel more, and I am more.

For those of you basting turkeys and celebrating your blessings in life: Happy Thanksgiving. I raise my glass to you, your families, and your Moms. Make sure she sits down to eat tonight, because it’s a safe bet she’s hovering over you making sure your helping of stuffing was big enough. 

This is far from my last post about Judi, although I know it sounds like it will be the last. 

Simply put, I suspect that future posts might be more upbeat: Remembering what made me laugh about her. And I hope if you’re reading this you’re okay with that. Because I finally am.

Famous Last Words



I still legitimately need a bib when I eat ice cream.



As the last few posts have been fairly deep, I thought I’d liven up my Mother’s memory by demonstrating her comedic aptitude. This is the side of her that I loved best, and that I remember and miss most.

From the moment I could tell a knock-knock joke, my Mother stressed the importance of a good sense of humor. According to Mom, it wasn’t enough to just be funny and make others laugh. She taught me that it was just as important to be able to laugh at myself. That is a skill that is difficult to hone, because laughing at me means that I accept my quirks and my foibles. Let’s be honest: That is no easy feat for anyone.

Mom was the stealth bomber of humor in our house. She was smooth and quick with her witty comments and barbs, and no one ever saw them coming. My brother has inherited that awesome trait, making him one of the funniest people I know.

When my Mother was initially diagnosed with Cancer, her first instinct was to make us laugh even though she had just been told she was very sick. She always put us first, our well-being and our feelings. The doctor had finished telling our family that my Mother was essentially dying and that he would do his best to help her beat the illness. In the silence of the room, and without missing a beat, she quipped: “Well, it’s a good thing I got my flu shot” followed in quick succession with “Smoke em’ if you’ve got em’.”

My Mother’s humor put everyone at ease, no matter the situation. If there was a laugh to be had, my Mom was on it like white on rice. She was just that good.

Following her diagnosis, I tried to visit my family in Montreal once, if not twice a month. While I was there, I would often do a bit of laundry so that I wouldn’t have to do it when I got home. Often in a hurry, I would sometimes leave random articles of clothing behind.

On one memorable occasion, I left a pair of my underpants in the dryer. Much to my dismay and utter embarrassment, they were underwear that would fall under the category of Total Parental Humiliation Panties. Don’t judge. Everyone owns a pair they just don’t admit it publicly on a blog.

What made them embarrassing was that on the front of them was printed Band Camp, and across the ass was printed Flute Soloist. In a modest size 72 font, naturally.

I never asked about the missing underwear, mostly out of embarrassment and partly out of denial. Thankfully, my Mother never mentioned my forgotten frilly underthings. I hoped she would just put them aside for my next visit, and that would be the end of it.

Clearly, I was wrong. The Master of Practical Jokes had other plans.

On a scheduled visit to the Jewish General Hospital for Brachytherapy (a form of radiotherapy where a radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment), my Mother waited for the doctor and technician to get her prepared for the radiation session. She had Endometrial Cancer, and as such would be required to wear a hospital gown, and remove all undergarments.

When the doctor came in to examine her, he was greeted by a smile, a smirk, and a pair of sexy black underwear that said Band Camp across the front. My Mother had worn my underwear to her radiation appointment.

She said it was because they were black and wouldn’t show any blood stains (she often suffered leakage and spotting from the Cancer), but I think it is safe to say she did it for the laughs.

She was the talk of the Radiation department that day: The funny little lady with the crazy underwear.

Whenever I tell this story, I feel like I want to laugh and cry at the same time. She suffered so much, but she still just wanted to make people laugh every single day. Sometimes we laugh off the things that hurt or scare us, and I know that on her worst days that’s exactly what she was doing.

My Mom always told me that one cannot get through a Cancer diagnosis without a sense of humor, and that her survival depended on her ability to keep laughing despite the disease. I believe her: Her initial diagnosis came with a measured 6-8 months to live, and she lived for 19 months. She laughed until she couldn’t anymore.

Right before she died, she asked to be put into a drug-induced coma. The pain had become too severe, and she was ready to let go. After days of peaceful sleep and shallow breathing, she suddenly woke up. She opened her eyes and said to my Dad: “I’m hungry.”

Like a man on a mission, he instructed me to get some ice cream from the freezer and ran to the nurse’s station in a panic, concerned that she would be in pain upon waking from the coma. I rushed to the kitchenette, grabbed an ice cream cup, and tried to feed my Mother a tiny spoonful. Alone in her room, I gingerly touched the spoon to her lips. To my surprise, she tenderly grasped my wrist, and pushed it away.

And then she quietly whispered her final words to me.

You always think that your loved one’s last words will be as dramatic as they are in the movies….perhaps something along the lines of “The money is hidden under the stairs” or “You have a ½ sister living in Outer Mongolia.”

Not so with my Mother. What’s important for you to know is that she had not actually awoken from the coma. After she closed her eyes again, the doctors told us that sometimes patients open their eyes and speak, but are in fact still out of it.

This means that my Mother was even funny while still in a drug-induced slumber.

So to close this post, I offer you my Mom’s final words to me:

“Where the hell did your father GO? Put. The. Ice Cream. AWAY.”

God, I miss her.

Marry Me

I have toyed with not publishing this post.  After a few rereads, I think it’s important to share it. I am not being true to myself or to the intent of this blog if I don’t.  There are admissions in here that embarrass me, and that I still might make excuses for. So be it. 

I remember when the Doctors called us to the hospital to tell my brother and I what my parents already knew: My Mom had Cancer.  My parents seemed optimistic, but I knew my Mother. And I knew her eyes. And I knew that they were lying to us that “everything would be fine”. My parents protected my brother and I as much as they could, not wanting us to hurt. In the end, the outcome was as predicted, and we lost the most amazing woman who ever walked the earth. And the hurt was insurmountable.

This was in November 2004. At that time, I had been dating someone for about 2 months. My Mother’s diagnosis this early in our relationship had me on the fence. I came home from the hospital late at night, and called him. I said: “This isn’t the flu. She is going to die. I won’t ask you to be my boyfriend because I understand if this is too much to handle. I won’t feel bad if you can’t do this.” I made it very clear to him that I would not be 100% in the relationship, and his response was: “I can handle it.” 

Trauma makes you a stranger to yourself, let alone to the person you share a life with. He stood by me through the sad moments, and the hard times. I barely noticed the crappy things or warning signs that things weren’t quite right, because I was just happy to have someone to hold me at the end of the day and tell me things would be okay. 

The first year of a relationship is considered the “honeymoon” phase. You have fun, you laugh, and you have lots of sex. Our relationship was the opposite of that. We bickered, we cried, we had zero intimacy…everything was about my Mother, my sadness, and my fears. I could not turn off that part of my life. Cancer was ringing in my ears and it wouldn't stop. When we actually did have intimacy, I cried. I cried out of horrible guilt because it didn’t make sense to me that I was having sex while my Mother was taking Morphine pills to block out her pain.

The lines of impending loss and a strained relationship were constantly blurred, and I could never tell what the root of the problem was. Sometimes I thought I was the problem, because I wasn’t being a good girlfriend. I wasn’t paying enough attention to him. And when I cried that I was sorry I was so horrible to him, he said “That’s okay”, as though he, too, thought I was the single reason things were rough.

Yet we stayed together. I was terrified to be alone, and I think it’s safe to say he was terrified to leave and look like the asshole who left his girlfriend when her Mother was sick. We were both confused and unbelievably overwhelmed. 

When my Mother went into the hospital for that final time, she was admitted to the emergency room with massive hemorrhaging. My brother and I cried in the hallway, terrified she was going to die at any moment. I could hear her crying in pain as she passed blood clots, and they wouldn’t let us see her. He held me close, and rubbed my brother’s back, soothing us. When were finally able to go to her, we all huddled behind the privacy curtain in the emergency room, where she lay with her eyes closed, tears dried on her face. 

As though it was yesterday, I remember him reaching for her hand and holding it. And in front of my brother and father, he asked for my hand in marriage. Through her pain and discomfort, she opened one big brown eye and looked right at him. With an even stare and raspy voice she said: “If you marry her, you can’t give her back. We don’t accept returns.” 

Yes. That’s what she said. 

My Mom had a love for musicals and show-tunes, and on her bad days in the hospital he would burst into her room and sing “Oklahoma” at the top of his lungs. He made her laugh and smile, and I will always love him for that. He took her for her x-rays and radiation, singing to her and talking to her in funny voices as he wheeled her bed down the cold hallway. He went and got us food because we hadn’t eaten. He walked our dog, driving to and from the hospital many times a day. He was a good man. And he wanted to marry me.

I lay on her hospital bed with her, looking at Wedding Magazines. We giggled and gossiped as we looked at the pictures of flowers, and dresses, and cakes. The truth, however, was that every new glossy page we turned was a reminder, a slap in the face, that I would get married without my Mom. After we put down one of the magazines, she touched my face and said: “My beautiful girl. You are going to be a beautiful bride. You are wonderful, and creative. It will all be perfect, you’ll see.” I can still feel her hand on my cheek.

A few months after she died, he proposed marriage. While he was in school full-time doing his MBA, I planned the perfect wedding. Planning gave me something to live for. I was determined and invigorated by what I thought was the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Any nagging feelings I had I brushed aside, because in my mind this was my path. I was going to be a wife. I had a purpose. Sadly, planning a wedding so soon after my Mother died was as good as giving a kid crayons and paper to distract them during a massive raging hurricane. It was a temporary solution to a much bigger problem.

We never should have gotten married, but we were both afraid to be honest with each other. We didn’t want to hurt each other so instead of saying “I can’t” we said “I do.”

The wedding was beautiful. We began our life together. And both of us knew in our hearts that something huge was missing. The trauma of loss had changed us both so fundamentally, we had become strangers to each other.  I won’t go into the details of the demise of our marriage. I will just say that less than a year later, our relationship ended.  We divorced soon after.

Last year, in a moment of nostalgia, I thought about my past and my ex-husband. He made me laugh when I was sad, and he loved my Mother very much.  He was good to my family. And no matter the pain and hurt we both went through, I will always choose to remember the good. And how for a brief time, he made us laugh during the worst time in our lives. 

Love and Regrets

January 2005 - Best Friends

If you’re following this blog, and you know me, you know my mother and I were best friends. We even looked alike, and sounded alike. 

In pictures together, our features looked so similar but our coloring could have been fodder for a Benetton advertisement. She was dark, a Sabra, with long straight black hair, olive skin, dark eyes and freckles. I am beyond fair, with pale skin, blue eyes, freckles, and what has been referred to as Pre-Raphaelite red hair. I relish the moments when someone tells me I look just like her. She was ridiculously beautiful, so it’s a hell of a compliment.

Not only did we look alike. We thought alike. 

You know that one friend? The one you can have an entire conversation with just by exchanging glances? Where you pretty much have your own language and one look says it all? That one person that just gets you, even when you don’t get yourself? That was who my mother was to me. She was that friend.  My Mother was the one who sang my song back to me when I forgot the words. The one who called me on my shit and made me want to be a better and stronger person. The one who made me who I am today, quirks and all.

We were two peas in a pod. No one will ever know me better than my Mom did (although my Dad is getting there). She would start a sentence and I would finish it. Jokes were funnier when we told them, because we instinctively knew who would run with the punch-line. We would call each other multiple times a day, just to share “Oh my GOD, the funniest/craziest thing just happened!” We loved old movies, we loved shopping, we loved road trips, and we loved each other. She was the Amos to my Andy, the Bonnie to my Clyde, the Will to my Grace.

I’ve been thinking about our friendship a lot. I really miss her, and I won’t pretend tears haven’t been shed in the last couple of weeks, just because I wanted to talk to her and couldn’t. The biggest hurt comes when I want to pick up the phone and call my Mom. For one second, I anticipate how funny she’ll think my story is. And then I remember she’s gone. In that one nanosecond I am filled with hope. And then it dissipates as quickly as it came.

If you’re a woman reading this, you know that the Mother/Daughter relationship can be especially fragile and volatile. Our friendship, although mostly perfect, had many ups and downs. Some of those downs were brutal. When you love someone so very much, the hate stemming from an argument can be equally as strong. Sometimes I wasn’t easy to love, and sometimes, neither was she. In our most intense fights, we said things to each other no one should ever say. We would scream that we hated each other. We wouldn’t speak for weeks on end, even living under the same roof. We made each other miserable. And then we would make up, and forgive each other, promising never to fight again.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I have a few regrets in life. Everyone does, although we all run around waving the “Live With No Regrets” banner like we’re all free as birds. Right. It has taken me 10 tries to write this next bit without sounding like an asshole, but the truth of the matter is that those 10 tries forced me to accept that I WAS an asshole. 

When I found out my Mother was sick, I was angry. Anyone with a heartbeat would be. But I directed that anger at her. Just typing that out makes me nauseous. My mother was diagnosed with Cancer, and I wasn’t very nice to her. 

I can’t really explain why I did this, because frankly I’m still trying to figure it out. I caused her nothing but grief for over 6 months. I was demanding. I made her sickness about me. I didn’t want things to change. I fought her on everything. I made her cry. I am so ashamed, and I don’t know that I will ever be able to forgive myself for how horrible I was to her. She didn’t deserve it. I was in denial, I was terrified of what life would be like without her, and I fought my best friend instead of the illness itself. 

When someone emails you a long letter calling you out on how unpleasant you've been, you can delete it and rid yourself of any traces of your bad behavior. You can pretend that person is full of it, and deny any wrongdoing. You can rid yourself of any proof that someone knows how terrible you were. 

Now try getting that same letter from your Mother, who is dying of Cancer. 

She’s telling you how horrible you’ve been to her. How much you’ve hurt her. How she expected more from her daughter and best friend. It’s the last real letter you’ll ever get from her. You hate that she’s right. You’re embarrassed at what an asshole you’ve been. 

Now try and delete that letter. 

I have this inner turmoil every year: I re-read the letter, and I want so badly to delete it to make the regret and embarrassment go away, and I can’t. I can’t because if I do, I’m deleting a piece of her from my life.  Of the regrets I have in life, this is the one that I will battle for the rest of time. I hurt my best friend in ways unimaginable during what was the most terrifying ordeal for her.  And I can’t pretend it never happened, because I am the proof in the pudding.

Her letter was a wake-up call for me, and during the next year and some of her battle with Cancer, I stepped up to the plate and was the daughter and friend she needed me to be. I left my job and spent her last months with her, in the hospital, working to make her laugh every single day. I brushed her teeth, I changed her bedpan, I gave her a pedicure. I held her hand. I lay with her on her narrow hospital bed, and watched her as she slept. I loved her with my whole heart every single second. I left ME at the door, the way I should have when she was first diagnosed. 

About 6 days before she died, she had a friend and my Aunt take some dictation. She wanted to leave final letters for me, my Dad, and my Brother. I want to share these letters because they reassure me that I have been forgiven by the most wonderful woman I ever knew, and because they are precious to me. I can sleep because of these letters.

This was what was written to me, in two separate letters, one day apart:

May 5, 2006: “For my outstanding daughter, more beloved than she’ll ever know. You have surpassed my dreams of how wonderful you would ever be. You have been there for me in good times, the funny times, and the dark times. I’m luckier than I could ever expect to be. You are charming. You are thoughtful. And you love me so much and I love you and I hold you next to my heart forever, for always. I probably should have told you this more often but sometimes we get so busy with our daily lives, but never doubt my love for you.”

May 6, 2006: “I want to tell you, Amy, that you are my light. You are precious to me in every way. I adore you and the energy you put forth. Your kindness and love…all that means the world to me. I’m at a loss for words. We’ve had such good times together and I’ll always be with you. I have difficulty putting the right words down, but I know you’ll understand. If I have forgotten to mention certain things, you’ll hear me in the wind, the sounds of the fountains, and all that bring peace and beauty. I love you forever, Mom.”

I also share these letters with you because they are full of the things we should say NOW.

Tell the people you love that you LOVE them. Tell them they are special. Tell them you’re sorry. Be real and be honest. There are so few opportunities in life to tell the people you love how much they mean to you. 

Love your family. 

Hug your Mom.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

 

I wrote this in 2009. Given that Spring shoe-shopping is right around the corner, I thought this would be a proper post to welcome NEW SHOES:

Every time I go home to Montreal, it’s the same thing: Rushing to fit my friends and family into a tiny time frame. There aren’t enough hours in the day, and I always end up feeling guiltier about how short my visit was rather than how often I actually do visit. But hey, I’m Jewish. The guilt is genetic.

It’s always nice to go home and see that everything is the same as it was when I moved away five years ago. The same kitchen floor with the rub marks where our chairs have been for over 33 years, pushed away from the table as my brother and I rushed to play outside, talk on the phone, or get away from further parental questioning. IE. “Amy, are these YOUR rolling papers?” The same brick fireplace I ran into face first as a toddler, because I was dancing for the guests. The same sink where my father washes the dishes every night because he "does it better than anyone else”.

My old bedroom is now an office/guest room of sorts, with all of my mother’s art supplies, pictures she cut out, and selected quotes taped to her desk. I still take a look around and try to picture the way it was when I was a kid. I actually remember every single flower in the wallpaper my mother chose for my room, with matching linens and curtains. It was like living in a shrub: A large, all encompassing, dusty rose-colored shrub. Bless my mother, Laura Ashley, and the 1970s.

The house is big and warm. The rooms are the same, save for new furniture and appliances here and there. Of all of the rooms and all three floors, the place I like best in the house is where time stands still: My mother’s shoe closet.

When I was a little girl, I used to sit on the floor in her shoe closet surrounded by all of her shoes. I took great joy in trying them all on. Repeatedly. I organized them by color, by heel height, by season, and even sometimes by occasion. Surprisingly, I’m not actually OCD. My friends reading this may disagree. *ahem*

Each time I sat in her closet was different, and each time I would learn something new about my mother. I would ask her about the beautiful red satin Mary-Jane pumps (they made her feel like Dorothy), or I would tell her that her hand-made gladiator sandals were my favourite. There was always a story of a great sale, an impulse buy, or wedding she didn’t want to go to but really wanted to dance in her new shoes. She was a great dancer, and I always boogied with my Mom at family weddings.

On this particular visit home, I open my mother’s shoe closet, and look down at all of the shoes. Over a hundred pairs, easy. There are some in boxes, some strewn on the floor, some on a shoe rack. None of them have left the closet in a very long time. It has been over three years since she died, and when I go home, I still sit in my mother’s shoe closet. It’s where I feel closest to her, and where I remember her best. I don’t fit in there as well, and I have to shove some things aside to make room to sit. It’s in those few moments that I can still hear her voice, telling me about the sandals she wore on her honeymoon, the shoes she bought to feel like a movie star, or the boots my father bought her in Europe that she only wore once because they were “too nice”.

I can still see her face, smiling at me as I organized things and tried every single pair on, modeling them in her full-length mirror as though it was my job. Mostly, I feel like she is in the closet with me. In those moments, I feel like she’s still alive and my heart hurts just a little less.

My mother wore a size 5.5 shoe. I used to be able to wear them when I was a kid, but soon they were a half size too small.  Sometimes she would buy her shoes a size bigger so that we could share them. I learned from this extraordinary woman that love isn’t giving someone your last Rolo or French-fry: Love is buying the wrong shoe size so you can share them with your daughter.

After her funeral, her best friend pulled me aside and asked me for a pair of my mother’s shoes. I went through her closet, and found the pair my Mom liked best. They were far from stylish, but she wore them all the time. I mentioned this to the friend, saying they were probably really comfortable. 

Her response was that she wasn’t planning on wearing them. She just wanted to keep them at her front door, so that it would always feel like her best friend was visiting her.  Maybe I will do the same. There are so many to choose from, but the choice is clear: Dorothy, there’s no place like home.

In 2008, I wore my Mom's running shoes to do the 60km Weekend to End Breast Cancer.  They were a little too small, and I may have done permanent damage to my left big toe (shout out to my Podiatrist), but it meant she was with me. I walked in her shoes, and it was like she was by my side holding my hand the entire time.

I think about my own shoe collection sometimes, as a woman is wont to do, wondering what I was thinking when I bought 4 inch heels, or why I own 4 pairs of Chuck Taylor's. The truth is they all have a story and a life, just like my mother did.

Maybe the reason I am so obsessed with shoes, is simply because I LOVE them. Maybe it is because I just can’t resist a sale. I am a woman, after all. It’s how I’m programmed. 

Then again, perhaps it goes deeper than that, and it’s because I imagine what their story could be and want to be part of their adventure.

Or maybe they just remind me of the woman who taught me that the best way to determine if the shoe fits is to dance in them.

Be My Valentine

I am always a little sad on February 14^th.

It isn’t all because I don’t have a Valentine. I mean, I’m not the Queen of the Lonely Hearts Club, but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that this sickly sweet holiday doesn’t make me feel a little low. There is something to be said for someone making you feel totally loved and appreciated. With perhaps a little sprinkling of dark chocolate (the good kind).

That being said, the hollow feeling in my heart is 80% because I miss the Valentine’s Days of years past. My mother made this day so special for my family, that it is hard to imagine it could ever be as good without her.

Every single Valentine’s Day for as far back as my memory goes, my brother and I would awaken to the sight of hearts and cupids, and chocolates galore strewn all over our rooms. Imagine that: Being a little kid, and opening your sleepy eyes to see a festival of pink and red hearts everywhere. Even the glass of water on my nightstand had a heart floating in it. I was awake and dreaming at the same time. When I moved to Toronto, she mailed me huge parcels of chocolate.

Just like our birthdays, we got cake for breakfast. Yeah, I know. Pretty awesome, right? My mother outdid everyone else. We never got just one single birthday card or Valentine: We got three or more cards, each one filled with more humour and love than the last one. And every year was better than the one before.

There was never any question about how much my mother loved us. Every single holiday was celebrated with such joy and heart. Even when she got sick, she made sure our birthdays were special. Less than a month before she died, she ordered a birthday cake to the hospital for me. She didn’t want me to feel like my day was any less special. In her hospital room, she sang Happy Birthday to me. It was the last time I ever heard her sing, her voice etched in my heart forever.

The lonely part of Valentine’s Day for me is that I have seen what true love looks like. My expectations might be unrealistically high, but I don’t want to settle. Life is too short and precious for lacklustre love. Truthfully, I cannot help but want what my parents shared. A friendship and love so full and real, it was like they were made for each other. No other partnering in the world would have made sense. There was something so special about how much my parents loved each other.

She was the funny girl to his straight man. Sometimes they switched roles. They played off each other in a way that was so effortless and so natural. Even as a kid, it was so easy to see that THAT was what marriage was supposed to be like.

When my mother got sick, my father was destroyed on the inside, just like my brother and I. But she never ever saw him crumble. When we cried, he held it together for us. When my mother went into the hospital for the final time, my father slept on a lawn chair next to her bed every night for nearly two months. When my mother was scared and in pain, he held her hand and kissed her forehead. And when she asked to be put into a drug-induced coma because the pain was uncontrollable, he let her go. They would have been married for 34 years.

On Valentine’s Day, I cannot help but think about what kind of person my someday Valentine will be. The holiday has been so clouded by commercialism it’s hard to see through the fog of candy hearts and bouquets of red roses. What it comes down to is this: The material things don’t matter. What matters is real and honest LOVE. What will matter to me is that my Valentine holds my hand when I’m scared, and picks me up when I am down. That he is golden-hearted and kind. And that he makes me laugh, even if there is nothing to laugh about.

This post is a tribute to just such a man. My father. The best man I know.

Monarch Butterflies

So you know about the Fish Tacos.

Here is where the Monarch Butterflies in my blog title come from....

For as long as I can remember, I have always stopped in my tracks at the sight of one particular butterfly: The Monarch. The stark contrast between the crisp white, searing orange and inky black of the wings have always held my attention. I used to draw them in school, coloring my orange and black crayons down to nubs, long before the other colours ran out.

I also used to only be able to draw with my tongue sticking out of my mouth. Don’t ask.

Spring and summers with my Mom always involved walks in our neighbourhood, eating banana popsicles, stealing lilacs and looking for Monarch butterflies. I still do all of those things, in case you were wondering. Right down to the lilac theft. If I could keep every tradition my mother and I shared alive, I would. Instead, I pick the ones that remind me most of her free-spiritedness, her sense of play...

Before she died, there was a moment shared between my mother and father, where she promised that she would come back to him as a Monarch butterfly. This was before I believed in signs. I didn’t think people could come back as anything. I was angry that I was losing her. All I wanted to hear from anyone was “we found a cure.”

After sitting Shiva and the mourning period was complete, my father was coaxed by close friends to play a round of golf. Most of his golf games had been with my mother at his side, cracking jokes and having a good time. I think she once injured a squirrel with one of her shots. This would be his first game without her. I clutched my cell phone the entire day, waiting to hear how his day had been, worried that it may have been too soon, and too difficult. This was our conversation when he called, late in the evening:

Me: “Hi Dad! How was your golf game? Were you okay to play alone?” (Yeah, I could have opened with something less blunt, I know.)

Dad: “I didn’t play alone. I played golf with my wife today.”

Me: “Um, what do you mean?”

Dad: “A Monarch butterfly sat on my golf bag for 18 holes.”

18 holes.

That’s an entire day.

That’s taking clubs out of your golf bag, and then putting them back in. That’s dragging your golf bag across a golf course for hours on end. That’s INSANE.

My mother had always been a woman of her word, but come on: 18 holes??

Following my father’s experience, I have been a more astute observer of when the Monarchs show up in my life. Once when I lost my job, one landed on my arm the moment I left the office, in the middle of the downtown core. When I visited the cemetery one summer, one flew right by my nose as I knelt to put some roses on her grave.

In the summer of 2010, my cousin lost her beautiful baby boy just 4 hours after he was born. There was no rhyme or reason to the loss. Her pregnancy had been healthy and perfect. Our family was devastated, trying to make sense of how such a tragedy could occur. When I visited the hospital, I learned that in the maternity ward, small notices are put on the doors to the rooms where a woman has experienced babyloss. Mostly so that nurses and visitors know to enter the room with increased compassion and sensitivity for the mother and father.

I walked down the corridor to my cousin’s room, noticing pictures of kittens or a rainbow on the doors. As I reached her door, I literally stopped in my tracks: On her door was a picture of a Monarch butterfly. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I told her and her husband a few days later, a moment I am so blessed to have been able to share with two people I love very much.

There is no doubt in my mind that my Mom is ever present in the free and fluttering body of a butterfly. It is a constant reminder of how unique, special, and colourful she was.  And every spring and summer, I look forward to the return of the Monarch butterflies, wondering just where and when they will turn up.