The Mo(u)rning of (A work in progress)

**Note: I lost my mom in a car accident on December 9th 2005. Sometimes when I think back to that morning I envision how all of the different people in my family went about their mornings that day, before the first phone call informing us that she has been lost. I know what my morning consisted of, and there is a little of that here, but what I find intriguing is wondering how that morning played out for different people. Below is one of these stories, focused on my little brother Matthew, who is now 9 and what his last morning with Mom was like. I warn you it may be sad to read, but in writing I find a weird sense of solace, so here it goes…**

The Mo(u)rning of

I wasn’t there. I had never been there. This exists only in my mind. A recreation of something I had never seen. And yet in my imagination I conjure up more sadness then I ever thought possible. I see innocence as I have never seen before. With that I will begin.

I picture it vividly. The cold December air, the darkness that hangs over the early morning, as if night is refusing to give up, that latent darkness that hangs on ever longer in those cold New York winters. I see his face waking up to her cool coaxing.

“Its time to wake up Matthew she says”

Little does she know he is already awake. I know he was already awake because in our conversations he told me how he thought it was funny that mom always used to wake him up because he actually woke up to the sound of her alarm. Maybe she knew too, but still needed the ritual of giving him a smile, a kiss and a nudge to wake up in the morning. Maybe he knew he could wake up, but laid in bed that cold December morning, like other mornings anticipating her bright smile, anticipating the good morning nudge. Anticipating her soothing voice that gave no indication of the rush she was in, to prepare breakfast, get dressed, pack his bags, get him on the bus and rush to work (hopefully) in time. None of that was apparent in her voice. Instead it was a calm affirmation of morning as if they had all day to get ready. That gentleness awoke him.

The time between. How do we look back? I don’t know how he looks back on those moments prior to the bus. The problem is we don’t realize whats coming. We are not prepared. I picture then not a little boy who paid close attention to every moment, knowing that these would be the last with his mother. No, instead I picture a little boy happily eating breakfast. No conception of death. No conception of ends. No conception of the pain of abandonment. A boy filled with the hopes of a 7 year old. A boy eating cereal with the unconscious assumption that his mother would be there in that very kitchen, watching him eat breakfast before his last day of high school. No sense of temporality. No sense of time. There was no rush to cram anything into these moments. Moments thought to be trivial and everyday that would turn out to be “last” moments. Those moments we don’t anticipate being the last, but are.


What I see next. Gathered from pieces of conversation with my grandmother and Matt scare me, haunt me and sadden me even though they only exist in my imagination. I see them walking out the door, Mom in her work clothes, Matt wearing his not so warm Yankees jacket, insisting “its not that cold mom.” She acknowledges him only with a smile that says, I love you even when you’re stubborn. As they wait for the bus they chatter, Matt with his friends, Mom with the neighbors. In every ones actions, words thoughts today is a day just like any other. How do we look back on those moments? How do we reflect? If only they had all known what was to come, would things have been different? Would they have savored the morning conversation? Savored last good byes?

All I see at that bus stop now is a little boy who has no idea the world that awaits him. I picture his smile, carefree and innocent. His funny laugh, his smirk, the ease with which he interacts with people. If only I could save him from this moment. As I play it back in my head I see it all happening but with that horrible feeling that I know the outcome. In my head I want to go back and tell him, hold on to that hug Matthew, get every ounce of goodbye from her for this is it, after this moment your life will never be the same. But it is like one of those horrible dreams where you try to speak but somehow you have lost all ability to make sound. So it goes, I play it over and over in my head. I envision the bus pulling up, the good bye hug she gives him.

From my conversations with Matt I do know what happened next. As he got on the bus she gave him a kiss goodbye, and told him they would go bowling that night. I can picture it now, the smile on his face at the prospect of a fun Friday night bowling with his mom, and the smile on her face, the joy she felt when ever he felt so happy. And that was it. Those last few seconds of normality for everyone. Its hard to picture this all because it seems like a dream, as I re create the scene over and over in my head I want to make it stop, change the outcome, or do something but instead it plays on.

In my head I see the bus pull away. Mom, taking a long deep gasp of the cold December air rushes to her car in order to make it to work on time. No time to wait, no time to ponder, just as quick as the bus moves out of view she is into the care and off to work. It is at this very moment that I want the world to halt. I want that little boy filled with the anticipation of Friday night bowling to return home to the warm arms of his mom. I want my mom filled with anxiety to simply be able to make it to work on time, and return home to do what she does best, deliver happiness to the lives of others. But just like a bad dream, I have no control over this scene. The bus pulls away, Matt gives one last wave and smile, Mom beams back blows him a kiss and that is it. At that very moment little did anyone know what was to come.

In a rush Mom hastily pulls out of the driveway, and on this cold December morning heads off to work. When I think this scene over I wonder what was she thinking? In those three short miles from the house to the scene of the accident what was going through her head. In my head I see the car moving, but I also see the last seconds of her life ticking away. I guess this is the problem with memory. Mom had no idea what awaited around that bend, though in my head I see her approaching that turn and want to intervene, save her, save us all. But time moves on. I like to think that in her last moments, as she was rushing to work, she was filled with thoughts of happiness and not worry. Knowing my Mom she was already plotting the day. Her mind raced always at speeds that most would find hard to comprehend. She was probably planning her first meeting, lunch, when she would get Matt, what she would cook for dinner, when they would go bowling. I wonder what was her last thought? As the car slid over that center median, and the van fast approached did she have time to think one last happy thought? Did all her worry disappear? Did she know this was it? Those moments somehow replay in my head more often then I would like. Those last few moments of life, somewhere in between 908 and 909 am on that morning she was here with us, rushing to work, going about the everyday, and then just like that she was not.

What is most odd to me is that although it was at 9:09 am that my Mom passed we all went about our daily lives. Matt was off to school anticipating his run Friday evening, Michelle was off to class, my alarm would be going off in 2 hours and I would be out the door to give a presentation at school. Up until some one realized Mom was not where she was suppose to be we were all living. All living with the assumption that our lives would remain the carefree, happy ones that they were at that very moment. Even while she was no longer with us, we went about the day as if she was, assuming she had made it to work, assuming today was a day just like every other. It is those moments that truly mess with my sense of time. I look back and see myself walking into class, thinking that this presentation was the most important thing of the day, nervous beyond belief. As I gave that presentation I had no idea of the phone call I would receive when I finished class and turned on my phone. We all have no idea when that moment is coming. In a way we have to live the lie that everything is normal until proven otherwise, if we did not we would go insane.

It feels odd to be writing this. At this point I must come to grips with how the story really ends. As I type these words I am forced to confront the fact that there is no going back. I will never be able to be at the bus stop urging Matthew to giver he one more hug, I will never be able to prevent her from rushing off to work, I will never be able to know her last thoughts. Instead I must relate the final moments as they occurred, not how I want them to be. This is how it happened….

Matthew returned home late that afternoon. Again, I was not there, and my imagination runs rampant but this is how I envision it. As the bus pulls up I wonder at which point he notices, something is wrong, someone is missing. Slowly the bus door opens up and instead of my Mom being there to greet him with a hug and take him bowling, he instead sees me grandmother, my aunts and his dad. As innocent as 7 year olds are I would venture to say some part of him knew something was certainly wrong. Could he tell on their faces the new they were about to deliver? Did he know that there would be no bowling and no hugs? Did he notice her car was not there? Just as I contemplate those last moments of my mother’s life, I also contemplate the last moments of my brother’s innocence. I see his each and every step as approaching that loss of innocence, and again I want to intervene to prevent his world from being crushed. I can not though. Just as I can not prevent myself from picking up that phone call, and hearing my father’s voice on the other line trembling like I have never heard it before. Just as I imagine my brother knew what had happened the moment he saw my mom was not at the bus stop, I somehow knew at the quaking of my father’s voice that I had lost my mom. He didn’t have to speak, he didn’t have to utter those words. It is akin to what Freud calls the uncanny, when you just know something, you become aware before you are told. I was aware I had lost my mom as my dad trembled out the words, “Bill, I don’t know how to tell you this…” And that is how it occurred, or at least what I remember about the morning of.

time keeps on slipping slipping....

into the future. name that tune. even if you don't know it you can probably hum the tune and you know those words and all too well that time, despite out best attempts, keeps on slipping into the future. somehow 2 weeks has just blown by. from letting out a huge scream of joy as i flew down the face of a great run in Whistler with some great friends, to nervously giving the best man speech at my good friends wedding. I feel like these past 2 weeks I accumulated so many experiences and smiles that it is somehow ok to be back at school, reading theory and dreaming over the next moments of escape. I also realized why the time went to quick, I was too busy living that I wasn't doing much thinking. And I need those moments, I think we all do for our mental sanity. Those "flow" moments where you are not aware of before or after but without knowing it you are simply immersed in now, with only the big grin on your face to show for it. Those moments where we are in it, living it, and sucking every last drop out of this gift of life are those moments we look back on with fondness. For some crazy reason it seems lots of us are hell bent on accumulating money. Money has become the thing that defines a person, the thing which we always want more, at the expense our our hopes, our dreams and sometimes even our morals. But what about experience? Why do we need to measure a person by the size of the bank account but the total of dollar bills accumulated? What about an experience account? What about heading out there and accumulating moments of joy, happiness and ecstasy? Instead of envying someones new ride, there new clothes or there high paying job why not ask them when was the last time you let out a scream of joy, had a laugh with old friends, had a smile on your face so big that it hurt the next day, felt stoked to be alive? Jobs and money are obviously vital to accumulating experience but money may not be the be all and end all. I guess that might be the anthropologist in me. I am curious what makes people get up every day? What makes all of the other crap worthwhile? What are those things that get people inspired? What brings a smile of excitement to peoples faces? I am curious about all of this and I want to know how people achieve it in their own unique ways. There is no one way to happiness, despite what the self help section at Borders may lead you to believe. Somehow happiness has become a business where to find out how to be happy you need to work a lot to afford to buy all the books on happiness. I think its bullshit. Now I will admit I have read these books and even enjoyed some of them. But I think that the real secret lies in our greatest resource...other people. Try it and I think you may seem that there are may ways to live a life. The next time you meet some one in the street or catch up with an old friend, ask them: When was the last time you felt really alive? What do you love to do? What makes you get out bed every day in the face of seemingly endless obstacles, confusion and work? What moments when remembered put a smile on your face? And after a few of these questions you'll see it, as the person talks about those experience suddenly something will ignite a memory and that spark, that smile will appear on their face. So head out put those dollars to work and accumulate some of those other things..experience, fun, and memories that make you laugh so hard it hurts.

learning. knowing. learning that which we always already know...

amazingly after finishing off a 25 page paper which I struggled over I find nothing more soothing than getting back at the old blog. I guess its like drinking off a hangover in a way (though I have never understood how this works), to get over the pain of all that writing I need some writing to cure the pain...anyway next up a little Plato.

In my paper about the construction of memory and how we remember or what we even call remembering I came upon an interesting idea by Plato. Let me distill. I bet you already know it, even if you think you don't. Let me explain. Plato asserted that nothing new was ever learned during life. Humans for him were born knowing everything of significance. This original knowledge is lost over time and events though so that when we think we are "learning" we are actually recalling some original truth which we had forgot without forgetting. A little out there maybe but I think Plato might be on to something, he was a pretty smart guy after all...

This idea is optimistic which might be why I like it so much. The truth is there. We know it. It exists inside of us but we need to simply "learn" it anew. What this means is that remembering is in a sense returning to our original "all knowing" self. Our capacity for knowledge is already there, we just need to pull back the curtain of life a bit to find out what we have forgot. Sometimes we get so caught up in every day, in feeling like we need to learn it all. What we need maybe is to stop and listen, learning in this sense may not be of the reading the books sort but more of a stopping to listen to the void sort. If deep within us lies the knowledge we seek rather than looking externally maybe we should also leave some time to turn inward. Savor those moments of silence. Take the time to listen to the knowledge within you that think you do not possess. Maybe this is what instinct is. Or following your gut. Or following your heart. Either way you cut it I like the idea that I once had the answers but I need to simply just recall what I already knew. This is all experience is then. Slowly through the gradual wearing of time we begin to see, begin to realize and begin to feel like we actually do know something. I don't know how much sense that makes, but the pain of writing has left and the joy of sleeping has quickly descended upon me. Back with more philosophical ramblings from after a brief snowboard trip to Whistler BC where I will hopefully recover some of that ease on the snowboard that i once knew but feel I have forgotten. thanks to Plato though I now know, its there, always has been. just need to peel back a few layers of experience and let it emerge. hopefully ill be thinking my next thoughts deep in the middle of a big powder turn or maybe i wont be thinking at all. ill just be living. yeah living the moment that sounds pretty good right now!

a favorite story of mine

I can't claim credit for this story but I think it is amazing....

THE MAN FROM BOGOTA
A Short story by Amy Hempel

The police and emergency service people fail to make a dent. The voice of the pleading spouse does not have the hoped-for effect. The woman remains on the ledge - though not, she threatens, for long.I imagine that I am the one who must talk the woman down. I see it, and it happens like this.I tell the woman about a man in Bogota. He was a wealthy man, an industrialist who was kidnapped and held for ransom. It was not like a TV drama; his wife could not call the bank and, in twenty-four hours, have one million dollars. It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kidnappers had to keep the man alive.Listen to this, I tell the woman on the ledge. His captors made him quit smoking. They changed his diet and made him exercise every day. They held him that way for three months.When the ransom was paid and the man was released his doctor looked him over. He found the man to be in excellent health. I tell the woman what the doctor said then - that the kidnap was the best thing to happen to that man.Maybe this is not a come-down-from-the-ledge story. But I tell it with the thought that the woman on the ledge will ask herself a question, the question that occurred to that man in Bogota .
He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.

What we need

Interesting piece I found online....

Absolute control

Each person knows how best to be at peace with life; some need at least some degree of security, others launch themselves fearlessly into danger. There are no formulae for living out one’s dream: each of us, by listening to our own heart, will know how best to act.

The American writer Sherwood Anderson was always extremely undisciplined and only managed to write when fuelled by his own rebelliousness. His first publishers, concerned about the abject poverty in which Anderson lived, decided to send him a weekly cheque as an advance on his next novel.

After a month, they received a visit from the writer, who returned all the cheques.‘I haven’t been able to write a line in weeks,’ said Anderson. ‘I just can’t write with financial security staring at me across the desk.’

Traces of life

“What we see resonates in the memory of what we have seen; new experience always percolates through the old, leaving a hint of its flavor as it passes. We live, in this sense, in a remembered present” –Adam Zeman

Do you ever have those moments where you are not quite sure where you are? Not literally where you are physically, but where you are in time? Have you ever had those times where time seemed to fold on to itself and you were in the same place but everything was different, as if the life you had been accustomed to just changed with out you knowing? The other day I had one of those moments........



After seeing I missed a call from my mom's old cell phone number, which my little brother uses to call me occasionally I called it back. As I was standing there on the beach, I did not give much thought to how many times the phone had rung, I was on the phone but in that waiting phase where your mind wanders as you wait for an answer. Then all of the sudden the phone went to voice mail...."Hello, you've reached Barbara...." For a brief second I wondered if I had just awoke from really long dream. There on the other end of the phone was my mom's cheery voice mail, the one that always made me laugh because it is so her. By that I mean you can tell she set up her voicemail while doing 10 million other things (as she usually did) and you can sense the happy franticness in her voice. She ends the voice mail with "have a good day, night, ahh whatever time it is" and laughs.



This voicemail made me think of the traces we all leave on life. Here it is nearly 2 and a half years later and my mom's voice is still there. For a few brief seconds I was flooded with tons of happy memories of my mom. Her franticness. Her gentleness. Her cheer. Her overflowing exuberance for life. Just from a simple voicemail. For a few brief seconds there I was standing on the beach wondering if I had imagined it all. We leave traces. We leave moments. It was not just the trace of her on the voicemail that startled me, but the traces of her I see all over the place. Moments that take me back in time. Just prior to that phone call I had been out in the water surfing. As I paddled around in the gorgeous pacific ocean, I thought how did I get here? Not literally here but in this present moment.

For me that present moment was distinctly tied to my mom. As I sat in the crisp pacific water waiting for the next wave I was flooded with memory of my trip to the surf shop way back at the young age of 15 where my mom purchased me my first ever surf board. I remember my mom carrying it out of the shop for me and squeezing it into her car. I remember the first time we took a trip to the ocean with the new board and how excited she was that I was going to surf. I remember those humid new york summers and my mom shuttling me back and forth to K road in the Hamptons just so I would have a chance to surf. All of these memories emerged from seemingly nowhere as 12 years later I sat in the pacific waiting for yet another wave. This this is the thing about time and memory that amazes me so much. We often think of time as a linear progression, and that we possess our memories. But maybe memories possess us, they come back to remind us and re-create bits and pieces of our life that we conceive as "past". In that moment my mom was alive in a different sense. Her giving nature, her sense of adventure and sacrifice, all of those are what led me to be paddling out into the pacific this weekend. Small actions, actions she probably thought nothing of but live on for time immortal. Time in this sense lives on. It is not a simple linear flow from one moment to the next. Our memories can re connect us with past moments, illuminating in a sense how we arrived in the present moment. The present moment then is inextricably tied to the past. Those seemingly minuscule moments, the hour or so that my mom and I bought that surf board 12 years ago, weave themselves into the everyday fabric of our lives. For now and forever whenever I paddle down the face of a wave, as the cold pacific water catches my board and it picks up speed, as I quickly hop to my feet I will feel my mom gliding along with me. Call it heaven, call it after life, call it memory, call it what you will but somehow I know in those moments though she is gone in the physical sense she is very much there.

Quote of the day

"We go out into the world in search of our dreams and ideals.Often we store away in some inaccessible place what is already there within reach of our hands."
(Maktub)

I don't think I can hope to add much to this. I saw this quote and it felt like someone kicked me in the stomach it rang so true. How often do we search for that which we already have? Why is the distant so more appealing than the close? Why does everything have to be a process of discovering rather than simply realizing we have it here, right now? What do we give up in search of our dreams? Who do these dreams belong to anyway? I also dont know who I would be without these dreams. The search consumes me and if I woke up one morning content I would feel empty. Is that insane? I think it is possible to be happy without being content, or maybe again I am struggling with content versus complacent, I can't distingush the two and perhaps therein lies the problem.

blogging for your health

this just in...blogging is not only good for you, its good for you

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/03/blogging-social-health.html

does blogging about blogging count as a blog post?

inspiration overflow

what a day two posts! lots of inspiration? or lots of work? a little bit of both. anyway i saw this quote from the tao te ching and couldnt help but think.......

"And because he is not competing, no one in the world can compete with him."

I think this is a good line to reflect on amidst the chaos we live in. Often we all succumb to the pressure to compete. Buying a new car that's nicer then a friend. Having a better job. A better degree. A better paper. A nicer wardrobe. But in the the end all of this ends up creating more stress then it is worth. If we enter into the circle of competition we become burdened by it. We realize that although we may out compete some one in some area, we are also being out competeted by some one else in the very same area. This creates an endless loop where are best is not good enough, our things are not nice enough, we are not smart enough, wealthy enough....you name it.

But if we can some how step outside the competition and not compete then whatever we do is enough because we are not competing with anyone nor is anyone competing with us. What might this lead to? I think it could lead to that c word that is rarely mentioned. The c word that I am just as guilty at times of equating with death...Contentment. When was the last time you thought I am content. Often it is I am well, but could be better. The paper is good, but I could do a lot more to it. The car is nice but its not a.... The house its nice but will be nicer when...

I am guilty of this trap far too often. I rarely reflect that you know what things are good and I am content with where they are. How has something so natural become so foreign. Think about it. When was the last time you met some one who said they were content. A life lived nowadays seems to be one that must involve change, competing and constantly seeking better. But where does the line get drawn? When does enough become just that? When does time spent day dreaming in the sun become time lived rather than time wasted? Being content even if for a few brief moments, thats my goal for the week. Not complacent. Content. The distinction is hard and one I struggle with, but content is what I seek.

What would valentine's day be without family....

"The worst day of life life my life what do you think?"- Napoleon Dynamite

So the random quote comes from a valentines day card I got from my sister. It is one of those talking cards and it made me laugh so hard that I sat at my desk for a good ten minutes opening and closing it just laughing.

Now (you/y'all/no one) depending on who reads this blog might be thinking WTF bill, what has a silly valentines day have to do with all the insanely overly thought slightly depressing blog posts of the past?

Well thanks to a tip from a friendly Canadian blog reader I was persuaded to think that my blog should be a collage of me if you will. Rather then posting only when my life seems out of sorts and I am caught in some philosophical mess, I should also post when life feels good, when the sun is shining, I come to school happy and all I want to do is run around screaming life is good!

Today is one of those days, and looking at the card from my sister on my desk made me think about that. I am ridiculously blessed. There is a lot of things that dont make sense to me. There are many days I wonder WTF is my purpose here, it has to be more then this. But you know what, when I think back to moments I have had with my family and my friends EVERYTHING makes sense. I have amazing parents, awesome siblings, loving/funny/caring/ grandparents, an amazing god mother who is like a mom and best friend all in one to me, fantastic aunts, cool uncles....I dont want to brag but I am blessed. My friends I wouldn' t trade for the world, they keep me grounded, keep me afloat and each have qualities in them that I wish I had in myself. Most of all though they are loyal, and real.

So yeah. I am sure this is far from the end of my philosophical where do I fit musings, but this is also the beginning of recognizing that amidst the turmoil, sadness and confusion my life is filled with amazing people, and spectacular moments where I feel so incredibly lucky to be alive! Today is one of those days....

"Life is divine chaos. Embrace it. Forgive yourself. Breathe. And enjoy the ride..."