Checking In

Holy-fucking-shlamoly! It's been months since I posted a blog. And as has been the case throughout much of my life when things go awry (i.e. not the way I had hoped or expected), I would like to take this opportunity to once again blame my mother.

I know, I know, it's incredibly crass to lay responsibility down at the feet of the recently deceased, but I see it as a way of maintaining my connection to my mother, the dearly departed, one Barbra May Bender. She up and died on us June 15th after a quick and very unexpected death.** Since then, I have been working on a longer, extended piece that I started in my mother's hospital room even while she lay breathing her last. I could think of nothing else to do, what with sleepless hours of bedside vigil interspersed with bouts of weeping, prayer, and socializing with family.

Of late, however, I have been internally confounded as to whether or not I should truncate the piece about my mother's death and publish it as longish blog entry and move on, or risk a full narrative description of the chain of events that lead to Barb's eventual death and where ever this may lead. The last time I did this was after my father passed. I had just witnessed--just participated in one of the most beautiful and heart crushing things I had ever experienced. From the bitter Wisconsin cold, I caught an Amtrak train back to New Mexico. One night, while sitting at my antique, single-drawered, wooden desk I heard a voice within say one word: Write. So I wrote ... and wrote ... and wrote some more, until the memoir/spiritual tome/joke book topped off at--Gadzooks!--just shy of 700 pages.

You see the risk. If I fully engage with the events around my mother's death, there is no telling how far that road will go or how much emotional pain it will dredge up. It is thus with much contemplation and not an insignificant amount of hesitation that I have come to a decision: Take the road I shall, because take this road I must. Do I anticipate a thousand page encyclopedia of my mother's life? To quote Barb herself who said from behind her cracked bedroom door one evening, in response to my threat to move in with her so she could cook, pick up after, and take care of me for the rest of my life: "Oy, I should slit my wrists."

So no, no more 700page romps.  But might I go on for a while? You bet.

The dilemma: How to find the time/energy to write a book that fully captures the tropical storm that was Barbara M. Bender when I am already struggling to juggle fatherhood, work, exercise, spiritual practice, this blog, and editing the book of a friend, all while trying to be a dutiful husband and a conscientious cat owner and somehow still maintain my natural sunny disposition and positive attitude. Why it's enough to make a violet shrink ... or at least wilt a little.

Let us, then, shift gears back to the original purpose of this blog: to celebrate all things Zinnia. Zinnia walks! She walketh! It's more of a controlled fall really, but still so cute, especially when viewed from behind. When she staggers forward, arms up and wagging from side to side, wrists bent for balance, Zinnia takes on the simian gait of a baby orangutan. She is a delight ... a delight who is about to celebrate he first birthday!  One year, four seasons, 365 days, and there will never, ever be a way to shove the genie back in the bottle.

A few weeks ago I watched her little, 20 pound body sleeping on top the sheet in the center of our queen sized bed. She was dwarfed by our mattress, and her chest gently rose and fell with each breath.  

Such a small body, such a huge presence, I thought. This kid, this being who is teaching me about new levels of loving, is completely, utterly running this house ... and my life. And I'm okay with it.

Gone, but Never Forgotten. 

Love you, Mom.

 **Do not mistake my glib tone as a true reflection of feeling. My mother's death was--and continues to be--sporadically heart-wrenching.