Listen to your mother (in-law) #LTYM

Drumroll please...I am incredibly excited to announce that I will be part of the first cast of Listen to Your Mother Evansville and I have my mother-in-law to thank for it.

Karen was the inspiration for my submission. This piece is very different from the piece I read at Listen to Your Mother Indianapolis two years ago. There will be laughs (I hope). There might be a tear or two. What there will not be is me teetering on wedge sandals that I will wear for that event only and never put on my feet again. Lesson learned.

I am excited and nervous for this show. I'm coming in as one of two outsiders -- everyone else in the cast is from the Evansville area. Other than Hilary Melchiors, one of the directors and a castmate of mine from Indianapolis, I don't know any of the other women. 

I'm excited for the energy that I know will surround this show. I'm nervous to read a piece about my mother-in-law with my father-in-law in the audience. I'm excited to "introduce" my mother-in-law to so many people who probably don't even know that she had an impact on their own lives. I'm nervous that she won't approve of something I say and will come back to haunt me from the grave.

Mostly, I hope that though this piece is about my own mother-in-law experience, people will be able to relate in some way and will leave feeling like my 4 minutes was worth their time. 

LTYM Evansville will take place on May 9 at 7pm in the AIS Diamond Auditorium. If you're within driving distance to the 'ville, get your girlfriends together and make a night of it. You can buy tickets ($15) here. 

Digital comfort

Thank you all so much for your kind words regarding the loss of my mother-in-law, Karen. Some of you are people I know in real life, people who will be quick to offer a hug or help the next we see each other. Many of you, however, are people I'll likely never see face-to-face. We've been brought together by the magical workings of the internet.

I've spent quite a bit of time over the past 24 hours reading posts on Facebook, e-mails sent directly to me, comments on the funeral home's condolence page and on the newspaper's article about Karen's legacy and I have to say I am so thankful for the "digital comfort" that has been shared.

It's been enlightening to read the words of people who knew Karen in different ways than I did. She was my mother-in-law and I saw her through the lens of "family." So many others knew her as a friend, a mentor, a teacher, a guide.

I wanted to share some of the things that have been written in various places online about Karen since her passing:

Karen loved fiercely, gave generously, and encouraged others in a way that empowered them to do more.

I worked for Leadership Evansville many years ago....I never met her but remember she was the one who made sure I had a paycheck once...what a generous soul. 

She was a bright light in this world ~ bless her.

She always impressed me as one gutsy dame ... 

Her work with children, especially cMoe, and all of her unsung, known-only-to-her kindnesses will live on. She will be missed, but the love she has spread will live on. Everyone who knew her is a better person because of her.

SHE SHOWED ME HOW MUCH ONE WOMAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A COMMUNITY AND TO A PERSON. EVEN WITHOUT MANY WORDS AT THE END, SHE WAS ABLE TO SPEAK TO MY HEART. 


I'm going to be away from this blog for the next couple of days. Don't fear, though, I've got a couple of terrific guest posts lined up for you. And I'll likely check in on Facebook from time to time, because I can do that from my phone.

Thank you again for the comfort you have shared with me and with my family. It really has meant more than I would have expected to receive via a computer screen.

What the obituary will not say

My mother-in-law, Karen, passed away this morning.

I was home asleep on the couch (thank you tooth extraction) and Mike came downstairs to tell me his dad had just called. "My mom died."

We both sat there, almost in disbelief, taking in the words as they still hung in the air between us. The windows were open and I was aware of how beautiful the day outside was. I took small comfort in knowing that the day of Karen's death was one of sun and loveliness.

My tears were the first to come. They were a mix of relief that she is no longer suffering and sadness that she is gone. I called my parents, who loved Karen too, and Mike went to call his brother and a few friends. And then I turned here.

I've been contemplating how I would handle Karen's death in this space. It occurs to me that there is so much more to Karen than what her obituary will say.

The notice of her death might mention her multiple degrees. But it won't tell you that the greatest measure of Karen's brain was her emotional intelligence. She loved people and she loved making connections between people. I often joked that it would take 20 minutes to leave a restaurant because Karen would invariably stop at several tables to talk with people she knew -- and she knew EVERYONE.  Karen was the physical embodiment of Facebook before Facebook even existed.

Her obituary will most certainly include mention of her civic accomplishments, most notably her role as the founder of the Children's Museum of Evansville. It was her second greatest passion. Her first was her family. She was quick to rise up and defend her children from the time they were small and she knew no greater role than that of grandmother -- GoGo as she chose to be called.

She was not overly religious, but she was unflinchingly supportive of the fact that we choose to raise our own children in faith. And every time she pulled out of the driveway, she would toot the horn twice in front of an elderly neighbor's house and instruct her passengers to "Pray for Alma Baker."

I will be listed among her survivors, but no amount of column inches in the newspaper can begin to express how much I loved her. She has been part of my life for more than half of my years (that's what you get when you marry young). And she was my champion in my roles as wife and mother. She leaped to my defense on the Blue River when Mike was hollering at me to "look for the V" from the front of our canoe. She paid to have nearly 100 pounds of unfinished laundry carted out of my house to be washed, dried and folded by the dry cleaner. More importantly, in the recent years when our marriage has been tried, Karen stood by my side and reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

There is no way that the newsprint will be able to convey her laughter. It's one of the things I will miss the most. She'll no doubt be laughing from heaven when I say that her first question at the pearly gates is probably "What's for lunch?"

And no paper in the world would print that her favorite curse word was "F*ck," generally used in triplicate when something went wrong.

The obituary for my mother-in-law will not begin to describe who she really was. And I've probably done a miserable job trying to capture it here.

So I'll just leave it at this: Her name was Karen. And she was loved.

Linking this up with this week's Pour Your Heart Out.

Unprepared

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with a neurological disease about six years ago. From the beginning, we've known that it is terminal. With every passing birthday and holiday, I've considered that there won't be many more of these.

Yet her death seemed so far in the distance. It was easy to think that when she was just a little unsure of foot. It was easy to believe it was so when she was living at home and keeping her weekly beauty shop appointments. Even when she moved to a nursing home two years ago, it seemed so far away because she was still so vibrant, just physically impaired.

Last Christmas, I thought about what gift to give her. She loves pictures of my kids -- her only grandchildren -- so I considered a photo calendar...until the reality hit that she likely wouldn't live to see the smiles of their printed faces for each month of this year. (We went with a digital picture frame instead, which has brought her hours of joy.)

I try to place my calls to her room when I think someone might be there who can answer the phone and hold it up to her ear, allowing me to tell her tales of the kids' antics and accomplishments, as if it were one of those long and winding talks we used to have when we both were home watching Oprah. Though now the conversation is one-sided.

Since Mike lost his job a month ago, he's taken advantage of the free time and gone to see his mom several times. Each time he's come back and reported the latest devastation of her declining condition.

And now, we've come to a point where we are not measuring the remainder of her life in months, or even weeks, but in days. And I am unprepared.

Christmas past

Christmas 2010 is almost a thing of the past -- one more family Christmas celebration next weekend and theologically speaking, the Christmas season doesn't end until the Feast of the Epiphany when the three kings visited the Baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

It's been a good Christmas in the 4th Frog house. The boys each had a part in the Christmas play at church on Christmas Eve and we came home to enjoy slow cooker lasagna and let the kids open two gifts, as has  become our tradition.

I'm not sure when Santa arrived, though I couldn't have missed it very easily, considering I didn't fall asleep until 4am. From about midnight to 4, Annie was up keeping me company. Boy, did 5:30am come quickly when the boys were bouncing on the bed, shouting that Santa had come.

Santa came through with a new sled for Charlie, an Air Hogs helicopter for Robbie, Wicked tickets for Annie, and a Star Wars video game for Mike. Happily, Mr. Claus remembered my love for all things Scrabble and tucked the 2011 Scrabble calendar and the new Scrabble Flash game under the tree for me. Love that Scrabble Flash -- and so do the kids. I only wish it had 7 tiles instead of 5 so it would be more true to the real game of Scrabble.

We had a nice visit with Mike's family over the past day or so, though there was a little bit of sadness in the air knowing that this was most likely our last Christmas to be spent with his mom. More than melancholy, though, there was lots of laughter and good food. The kids were well-behaved and thoroughly spoiled.

Now we're back home and planning to enjoy a few days of R&R before the real world comes knocking again next week. I need to make a to do list of things I'd like to this week, otherwise the days will tumble by and I'll be scratching my head on January 3rd wondering what happened to all those good intentions.

Thanks for putting up with my re-posts from Christmases past. Hope you will indulge me in just one more. It involves Santa, Diet Coke, and riding nearly naked in the car (no worries, still rated G). Check it out here: Dear Santa.

Hope your Christmas was terrific, too!

Not my story to tell

There is a post that I've had rolling around my head for a few weeks. It concerns my mother-in-law and her physical condition, which is declining and terminal.

I want to talk about how difficult it is to watch her slip away physically and how unfair it is that mentally she is absolutely aware of all the ways that her body is betraying her. I want to share about the dedication of my father-in-law as her life's partner and her caregiver.

But my in-laws are fairly private people. I'm pretty sure they would not share details about their lives to the extent that I've shared about mine on this blog. And so I hesitate to write the post I really want to write because it's just not my story to tell. 

There is an offshoot of this situation that is mine, however. I can share my unease at how to support my husband in this transition, this long good-bye to his mom. I can confess that I have miserably failed at sending my mother-in-law cards and pictures of the kids and artwork that they've made. I can attempt to earn some redemption by revealing that I do call her, two to three times a week to give her a glimpse of her grandchildren's lives.

I know that plenty of times in the past 17 years of my marriage, my mother-in-law has been the cause of many an eye roll, an impatient toe tap, a passing of the phone as it's ringing because "it's YOUR mother." But I can count just as many times that she has been the source of laughter and joy and relief. She once came for a visit and a paid by the pound to have the dry cleaner do all the laundry I was behind on. (We're talking several trash bags full of clothes!)

I can look back objectively and see how she has supported me in my role as wife and mother, how she has only wanted to the best for us and done what she could to help bring that about. I can even look at myself and see that in many ways, she and I are very similar (though I am considerably less busty).

At 40 years old, I still have three grandparents living. It seems absolutely unfair that my children will lose one of theirs before Charlie and Robbie even reach their teen years. So, while the story of my mother-in-law's illness is not mine to tell, the story of her life is...and will be so that my kids are always aware of what a remarkable woman their GoGo is.

Thanks to Shell at Things I Can't Say 

for giving me space to share what I can't say.