David Bowie

I am heartbroken, shocked, and not quite sure how to respond on hearing of the death of David Bowie, just moments ago.

So I'll write.

This blog was/is a way to post stories of my childhood, growing up with a mother who was a David Bowie impersonator. She hand fed my brother and I his music from the time we were born. Hearing his songs is like coming home for us. We knew every word like most kids knew nursery rhymes.

Mum (Donn Shy) as the "Thin White Duke."

Having no idea of Bowie's state, I texted my brother the following at 5:27 p.m. PST this afternoon:

"Cleaning house, listening to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. Reminds me of being kids and doing the same. And then--HOLY SHIT--what an amazing album! My God! What lucky monkeys we were to be introduced to this music when we were. Beyond comprehension."

Mind you, I'd been listening to that album on a loop since yesterday. Driving to Ojai from Malibu, I cycled through Aladdin Sane, Hunky Dory, as well as TRAFoZS. When driving through Oxnard, the California town I grew up in, I sang Drive In Saturday loud--not a care in the world--reminiscing on the times we listened to the album on tape in Mum's Toyota Celica, then Suburu station wagon, driving that same road when we were all much younger.

Mum became Bowie night after night, performing at clubs and such. It was a bit annoying as kids because, hell, we were kids and just wanted our mum to be a mum. PTA meetings, award assemblies, sandwiches. But as adults, hell if we don't think she was a Badass with a capital "B".

The week mum died (January of 2012)--I couldn't believe it--David Bowie graced the cover of Rolling Stone. 

I bought it. 

I kept it.

 

After my best friend, Great Dane Audrey, passed away, not long after Mum left this earth, I decided I was getting a tattoo. In fact, I was going to design that mother. And I did. 

Mum's symbol in her illness became a butterfly. I had given her, just before she passed, a bracelet I had made with a butterfly on it and a print of a butterfly with the following quote:

"Just when the caterpiller thought the world was over,

it became a butterfly." - Anonymous

She cried. And that memory is forever burned in my mind and when I see a butterfly approach me or my windows, "It's her," I say.

And Bowie. And then there was Bowie. And I sketched. And a butterfly came about with Bowie as Ziggy Stardust as the pattern it the butterfly's wings. And Audrey on the other side, soaking up the sun in a henna-like pattern. And I found one of THE best tattoo artists, Louie Perez at Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood, to finish the design and ultimately create what is now on my left arm for life. I'm so grateful for that and that he was available and up to the task.

 

Yes, I'm rambling. I have no idea how to respond other than to say this one cuts deep, for so many reasons. And though I don't know what I believe anymore when it comes to the afterlife, I wonder if he is where she is and if she is finally able to ask him all the questions she wanted to ask.

I have a special keepsake of hers that I've been searching for for a week. It wasn't where I last put it, the special place where I have been keeping it. I pulled down every storage bin, looked through every file. No where. And was feeling quite devastated. How could I be so irresponsible to misplace it?

When the news broke tonight about Bowie's death, I decided to pull out my "Bowie is Inside" book to have a look, hoping to find a photo I could post to Instagram with my sentiments. 

Out fell the keepsake. 

I don't recall putting it in there, but must have. 



Or must I have?

What's Harder? Losing the Dead or Losing the Living?

A hat, a couple of bloody t-shirts, and a plastic hospital pan.

Mum's life in a hospital pan. A plastic freaking hospital pan. 

This is it. All I have in my possession from my 36 years of life living on this earth with my mother. My creative, driven, beautiful, yet tortured soul of a mother died in January 2012 from complications related to a rare stomach cancer brought on by her years of alcohol overindulgence. 


It's been three years since Mum's death. It is strange indeed, but life has moved on, as it does. All of her things, her furniture, her clothes, her shoes, her knic knacs, her photos, her jewelry, her keepsakes, have all been moved into a storage unit at my step-father's job--I was told recently it's all being kept there without the owner's consent and could be found and dumped at any time. So, naturally, I'm panicked. 

When I was young, before my step-father and sister entered the picture, Mum was an artist. She painted, sketched, played music, and for years worked as a David Bowie impersonator (which I despised at the time, but now of course realize how badass she truly was). She painted an incredible abstract depiction of Elton John that hung above our orange '70s sofa for years, and as a little girl I'd stare up at it and counted the shapes and colors. She created ceramic pieces that she placed throughout the home. I cannot imagine my childhood without picturing these pieces--pots, psychedelic cats, busts--giving texture and color to life's background. Her music album collection consisted of Queen, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Kinks, Adam and the Ants, Alvin and the Chipmunks. She'd place these albums on the record player and we'd clean house or play games or dance about like the crazy neighborhood freaks we were, and those memories are held dear to my brother Tony and I. 

My step-father and sister never knew this woman. Only Tony and I were lucky enough to embrace her before she abandoned her for another persona. 

Somewhere in taped up boxes in my step-father's work warehouse lie Mum's Kink's albums, her sketches, her ceramic creations, her Bowie costumes, her complicated yet intriguing history. Somewhere in those boxes (that can be gone forever at any time) lie my brother's and my baby pictures, our special newborn outfits, the blankets she made especially for us, and small keepsakes from our respective fathers. 

Bill and Kelli never knew these memories, these blankets, these fathers, these moments, this life. And yet, they refuse to let them go--to us, at least.

.....

I'm working on a video project for disadvantaged children, connecting them with grown, successful mentors of sorts via video interviews. Starting in August of last year I was attempting to gather any equipment I could, and being on a tight budget, remembered Mum had loads of video and camera equipment in storage that wasn't being used and had sat there gathering dust for the past three years. If Mum were alive, she'd want to help. So I called my sister to not only discuss borrowing Mum's equipment for a few months, but also to arrange a special birthday dinner for her in Los Angeles.

After discussing the dinner in high spirits, I brought up borrowing the video equipment. 

"I don't want to keep it, just would like to borrow it for a few months. I know Mum would want it to be used and especially for something positive."

"No! That stuff is all MINE now. I don't care. Not you, not Papa, not Tony, not me, NO one will touch any of those things. I'm locking them up in storage until I die!" she replied. 

"I'm not asking to keep . . ."

"I don't care. No." Click. 

That was the last time I spoke with my sister. And no, we didn't end up going to a special dinner for her birthday. 

Months went by and after discussing the situation with my brother Tony, we decided we should give Bill, our step-dad, a call. After all, legally, my Mum's possessions were his, as they were legally still married before she passed (even though she told me just after her surgery that they were about to divorce). At this point, all Tony and I were looking to have is our baby pictures, our baby clothes, and a few knic knacs that meant something to us that they would have no clue of the significance. It would kill us if they ended up in a landfill next to soiled diapers and yesterday's treasures being picked at and shat upon by seagulls. No, please, no. 

I wish she'd written a goddamned will. 

His bottom line was, "I'll have the stuff moved into a storage unit. When we do that, anything that has your name on it I'll put it outside and good luck getting it." 

Trouble is, it won't have my name on it. Nor Tony's. 

Before Bill gave me this incredibly generous offer, I had offered to help them move it. I offered to get dinner, pizza, and help sort through all of it. We could do it as a family. I told him I was in no personal rush to get it, but I wanted to be sure it didn't end up in the dumpster before Tony and I have a chance to go through it. 

"I don't ever want to see your brother again." He said. 

"Why not?" I asked. 

"Because I'm sick and tired of hearing about how bad I treated him."

I wondered where he was hearing these stories as Tony and I had forgiven him long ago for the abuse. Must be his conscience, I thought. 

So, family members die, and I have to wonder if the most pain comes from losing the dead or losing those who are still alive and well. At least when losing the dead, there is a reason: car accident, long-standing illness, suicide, or in Mum's case, cancer.

.....

The hat I have sitting on the hospital pan represents a mum I didn't grow up knowing. It was her newer persona, the persona Bill and Kelli knew well and embraced, the persona loved and adored by her paranormal society colleagues, by her newer friends. I know my little sister would love to have this hat, and I'd gladly give it to her because I know how much it would mean to her. 

But she won't talk to me.  

No reason.

Saying Goodbye & Unconditional Love

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan . . . "

 -Irving Townsend

Said goodbye to my girl last night. "Just a dog" you say? I know not. 

When everyone, family and supposedly close friends turned their backs on me, she looked at me with love. When I was weak, she was strong. She never left my side, never lied, never manipulated, never gave a false compliment, never competed, never abused or took for granted our friendship. She was my teacher of unconditional love. She was a piece of me and always will be, though right now I feel empty. I can only rest in the thought that she is pain and cancer free. The struggle is over. 

Why do souls so good and pure occupy our world so briefly? And war addicts, criminals, ungrateful, mean people stay for so long? We have a lot to learn. Our teachers are all around us. So many locked up in shelters sleeping on concrete floors whilst the arrogant manipulators sleep on plush beds. These animals who ask for so little are our true teachers, our true friends. And of those teachers, Audrey was the best. I'll never forget her. 

She Won't Eat.

I just want her to eat. 

Something. Anything. 

 

Just a few years ago, I was saying the same thing about my mum. "I'll make you anything you want, Mum. Anything. Is there anything you could imagine eating?" Everything we tried, she just couldn't. And she was 88 lbs. when she died in January of 2012. 

My best friend for the past 10 years had a cancerous tumour removed in July. After several tests and stains, etc., the doctors couldn't give an exact answer as to what type of tumour it was and whether or not it was the type to spread. We hoped the removal of the tumour and supplements would do the job, as chemotherapy was not something I would put her through. 

Her normal weight fluctuates between 95 and 100. Just before the tumour was removed she had lost her appetite and she lost 20% of her body weight. Post-surgery I was able to get her weight up to 90 lbs. and then two weeks ago her appetite again was lost, she began losing weight, so I took her to get an ultrasound. 

Could the cancer have returned?

"Unfortunately, her stomach lining has thickened again and we found some nodules in her liver. Looks like the cancer has spread and there may be a new tumour in her stomach." She said. "You may want to talk to the oncologist and see what options you have to treat her. I'm really sorry for this bad news." 

Audrey, my best friend, is a Great Dane I adopted 10 years ago. She had been severely abused before I met her, and so had I. I suppose we rescued each other. When I was sat at the rescue organization looking at potential fur kids to take home with me, a couple was also there adopting a Great Dane puppy. 

"Can we see the mother?" They asked. 

And out came an extremely thin, hesitant black Mantle Great Dane who looked as if she would dart away if anyone were to stand up or perhaps sneeze. Her bones were protruding. She had scarring on her back legs. What was her story? She walked straight over to me and lay her head in my lap. I felt an instant connection, cried, then signed the paperwork and took her home a few days later. 

I had just recently lost a Great Dane puppy I had purchased from a breeder. Jude, a gorgeous Merlequin with crystal blue eyes, was 14 weeks old when he died due to a reaction to his immunizations that caused his immune system to attack itself. Jude went from vibrant, cheeky pup who enjoyed the crazies every now and again, chasing a ball, and jumping up on the sofa and peeing on it (grrrrr!!!) to a limp, lifeless puppy who couldn't even lift his head in the blink of an eye. He died within days at the vet's office despite treatment. "But I did everything right!" I thought. My partner and I at the time were completely gutted and still, years later, I can't hear The Beatle's "Hey Jude" without becoming emotional. 

Audrey came just in time and we had a lot of work to do. She was deathly afraid of men. She needed to put on weight and had an infection in her teats that needed treatment. When my partner took her for a walk the second day we had her, she escaped her leash and ran out to Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica (a very busy street) and the police had to shut it down in order for a woman who worked for a dog rescue to gently coax her and catch her. The pads on her feet were bloody and torn. She was a mess.

And then we managed to live together as best friends. She traveled with me on location when I was shooting the film Evan Almighty in Virginia. She supported me through a rough break up in which she was also separated from her "dad" and brothers, a Great Dane/Dalmatian mix named Bouj and Chihuahua, Man Lee. That was hard. It's still tough to think about.

She moved with me and healed with me in my little sanctuary in Malibu, where we lived, just the two of us, staring at the ocean and growing up together. Healing. Feeling and accepting peace. Enjoying life on our own for the first time. Hiking, walking the beach, waving to dolphins, building new friendships. 

She moved with me to Philadelphia when I moved for another job. She completely accepted my new partner as her friend and new dad. And accepted a new sister, Greta, a Coonhound from Delaware, and her brother Man Lee who came back into the picture. 

She loved and supported me through a two year bout of deep depression and the horrible death of my mum. She's never left my side.

She's become the best dog and friend I've ever met. I love her more than life. And now, here she is, thin again and won't eat. It's tearing me apart tonight. 

I'm frustrated. I'm sad. I'm angry at her for not eating. I'm angry at the still unknown cause of this disease. I don't want to lose her. I don't want her to be in pain. I don't want to lose her. 

We're trying turmeric, Essiac tea, L-Arginine, L-Glutamine, Ginger, Milk Thistle, Salmon Oil, and other alternative methods. Everyday I read something else online, run to the health store and add to our protocol. 

But she needs to eat. 

Have tried raw, organic meat of all sorts, cooked organic meat of all sorts, cooked chicken, organic canned wet food, fresh eggs from our hen, cut up veggies - she's gone from eating bits to eating nothing today but two or three bites of kibble. 

So I'm writing this blog with no other point than to let my feeling explode onto "paper" while listening to Bob Dylan and eating chocolate chip cookies in a weak effort to comfort myself, just hoping and praying she'll suddenly want to eat the house and all its contents.  

The more you love the more it hurts, I find. I don't want to let go. Not this time. Not now. 

And I'll never be ready. 

What Causes This Type of Cancer?

Better days. 1978.

(Written February 17th, 2012, edited October 6, 2013) I can't help becoming selfishly annoyed when I read posts on social networking sites by well meaning friends in regard to my relationship with my recently deceased mum.  “Your mom was such a sweet woman.” “Her love for you really showed.” “You were so close.” Ugh. Do these people remember at all the many nights I cried because I couldn’t give my mum a call to say “hello” without her screaming at me, saying, “What do you want?!” or “Goddamnit, why do you always call me when I’m eating?! Can’t you call me at a better time?!”? I couldn’t have a conversation with her for more than ten minutes, as she’d turn something I said into a “judgment” coming from me, though judging was never my intention. She’d scream, not allow me to speak, then hang up, where I wouldn’t have the opportunity to right my supposed wrong, explain my intentions, nor apologize. I was always an annoyance to her, at least 80% of the time. An inconvenience. She had me at the very young age of twenty-one – I presume that could be quite inconvenient when you want to be a famous singer, or painter, or model, or . . .

I was always the “good girl” in my eyes. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs. Read, read, read. Save money, pay bills on time, have no outstanding debt. Eat healthy. I don’t know who I was trying to prove myself to as Mum would have much rather had me as a drinking buddy that could bitch about not having money, not being able to afford the bills, how my stomach hurt all the time, then grab a burger and fries at McDonald’s—to wallow in the mud together as unfortunate swine.  

In this very moment, I am missing her so much that I half wish I had spent some time with her in the manner, as she wished. However, I know in my heart and mind that these activities are what ultimately took her life.

As she was wheeled in to surgery on December 7th, 2011, my step-father Bill, my grandparents, younger sister Kelli, my husband Shyam and I walked her to her room. The nurses let us in to hug her and wish her the best of luck. We were told she’d be going in to have a hysterectomy as she had ovarian cancer – though they wouldn’t know until they went in at what stage her cancer was. As we were walking down the hall leaving her behind, trusting they would treat her well, she called out for my husband Shyam. She wanted to give him a hug. She always took a strong liking to him and it brought tears to my eyes that she had made that effort.

“She should be done in about four hours, so sit tight.”

Twenty minutes after she went under, Dr. Rodriguez entered the waiting room where we were anxiously awaiting the “good” news. Kelli had left for work, Shyam had left to run some errands, so it was just Bill, my grandfather, and I.

“We’ve discovered it is not ovarian cancer that Donn has, in fact her ovaries are fine. We’ve discovered stomach cancer. There is a large tumor in her abdomen and it has metastasized to other organs in her body, including her intestines. This does not look good."

After everyone began to hug, sob, and curse the heavens, I somehow gathered the brain power to ask, “What causes this type of cancer? Is it hereditary?”

“Well, there are mainly two causes. Either you’re of Asian descent, which your mom is not, as far as we know, or heavy drinking and smoking.”

All this time, I’d been the bad guy when asking my mom to please stop drinking and smoking. She hated me for that. Hated me. She wouldn’t talk to me for months on end because I even mentioned the word “drinking” over the phone. I distinctly recall standing in front of her when I was 12 years old after catching her snorting a powdery white substance, saying to her "If you don't stop, it will kill you one day." I was right, and now I was livid.

*Disappointment, Please.

“We’ll be OK Mum, you can go, we’ll all take care of each other,” my sister and I sobbed. We repeated this nonsense to her over and over and over. Could she sense we were lying? In death, surely one gets closer to the spirit world and can finally see through bullshit lies being told, I thought. I didn’t agree with our promises at all, especially knowing the state of cold separation our family had retained for years apart from the past few months when we were forced to come together and care. My dream of being a close, caring family had finally come true, but under these set of circumstances I’d gladly take the disappointment I had come to know so well. I hoped we would take care of each other, that the family environment we’d built the past few months would remain—that I could continue hosting family nights with dinner and board games—but it wouldn’t be the same without her infectious laugh, her charismatic draw, and her special set of dysfunctions she unapologetically brought to the table.

Excerpt from chapter one | wild horses | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Mr. Braveman | A True Story

The Lovely Chestnut Hill at Holiday Time

Mr. Braveman.

He was our next door neighbor in the charming Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia in 2009-2010.

I moved to Philadelphia to work on M. Night Shyamalan’s film, The Last Airbender. Prior to arriving, I researched the neighborhoods online, seeking a quiet, beautiful, and perhaps historic place away from the city to call home. Chestnut Hill proved to be the perfect spot; a quaint village of parks, shops, and cozy cafes.  

My rental home was directly across the street from the stunning Pastorius Park where neighborhood dogs would convene and make plans to take over the world. I watched the seasons change there, for the first time. I grew up in California and had never watched the snow melt with daffodils peaking up from under it. I’d never experienced a real thunderstorm. I’d never shoveled snow. It was exciting. And I miss it now. So in my nostalgia tonight, I pulled up my old address on Google. Who lives there now? Does it look the same? Is the house for sale? How’s Mr. Braveman?

Mr. Braveman had cats. A republican, he had a large American flag displayed in his front porch window and a McCain sticker on his front door (let’s just say, I didn’t vote for McCain). He was a lawyer. He smoked sometimes, and when it was cold out, he’d smoke in his basement and the smell would seep in through my vents. I’ve always hated smoke. It was annoying, but I never said anything about it. He loved to garden. His backyard was something to envy, attracting birds of all sorts. He had his very specific routines, and was completely predictable. In fact, whenever I hear the song “Well Respected Man” by The Kinks, I giggle, as certain words in the lyrics always make me think of him.

Cause he gets up in the morning,
And he goes to work at nine,
And he comes back home at five-thirty,
Gets the same train every time.
Cause his world is built round punctuality,
It never fails.

And he's oh, so good,
And he's oh, so fine,
And he's oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He's a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively. 

[ . . . ]

And he likes his own backyard,
And he likes his fags the best,
Cause he's better than the rest . . .

I was afraid of Mr. Braveman, at first. I had made up a story in my mind that he surely found me to be a commie or a dirty hippie as I’d play Ravi Shankar through the house and attempted to learn to play the sitar. And I’d better not mess up or he’d complain. “Keep it down!” I’d tell myself. I’d scold the dogs if they made even a tiny peep.

He never once complained.

And then, somehow, little by little, we began talking. About cats. About dogs. My dogs loved him. He loved them back. He loved that we rescued them. We spoke of gardening and how he purchased the house in 1975 for only $15,000. How he’d hiked the Appalachian trail. How he’d served our country while in the Marines. We spoke of his travels to exotic destinations. He had some amazing stories to tell. 

He took the train to work and would walk to the station both ways, every single weekday. We had a horrible winter (at least, that’s what all the east coasters were calling it. I called it ‘fun’), so the tall steps to our homes would have a few feet of snow on them at times. When we could, we’d shovel Mr. Braveman’s steps for him so he wouldn’t have to do it when he returned home from work. He became a wonderful friend.

Just before we headed back to California, Mr. Braveman had just finished a highly anticipated addition to his home. One wall was exposed brick and he asked my boyfriend (now husband) and I to come over and “autograph” it. It was a beautiful wall signed by others with loving and humorous notes. We felt honored that he’d include us in this piece of history. He’d become such a sweetheart, such a gift in our lives there. I found it hard to leave him. I cried. I hoped the new renters would befriend him as we had. 

We missed the place so much, we returned in November of 2010 to take a stroll around the park, poke about the neighborhood, and pop in to say hello to Mr. Braveman. There he was, on his front stoop, doing a bit of gardening, as usual. We didn’t have his phone number, just showed up. And we asked if we could take a photo with him. He agreed to it, thankfully. 

Nov. 7, 2010 - Future hubby and I with our dear friend and neighbor, Mr. Braveman.

So, in my sentimental Google search this evening, I pulled up the street view of our place. Yep, looks the same. Same blue door. Oh, how I loved eating spaghetti out on the porch during thunderstorms. Wow, I can’t believe that plant survived. Then I panned over to Mr. Braveman’s house. Hmmm. No flag. Where’s the McCain sticker? That’s odd. I then put his address in a Google search. Zillow. For Sale. What? Mr. Braveman would never sell that house! He’s been there since the year I was born . . . 

Obituaries. Chestnut Hill Local.

David Braveman, lawyer

David Braveman, 72, a lawyer who specialized in trusts and estates, died Jan. 5 [2011] at his home in Chestnut Hill.

Mr. Braveman had focused recently on health care litigation in his work with the law firm of Pepper Hamilton.

Raised in Corning, N.Y., he was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School.

He had served in the Marine Corps for three years.

He was an avid gardener, hiker and camper and had been an active member of the Friends of Pastorius Park.

I’m crushed. Was he alone? Was he ill? 

And at the same time, so happy to have known this incredibly kind man. 

I found another article, on Philly.com, an interview with his son, William, which revealed details about Mr. Braveman I never knew.

He was a devoted Quaker; he was attracted by its philosophy of peace. He maintained a longtime correspondence with jurist and philosopher Richard Posner since their days at Harvard Law School. They spoke mainly of their love for cats. He started college at the young age of sixteen. He was a total smarty pants. 

Imagine if I’d allowed the story I’d made up in my mind to win? An entire rich piece of life would have never existed. We are often too quick to believe our own stories, even though they prove time and time again to only get us into trouble. Our own stories are what keep us from loving others, and especially loving ourselves.

I’m grateful, so grateful, to have had the wonderful Mr. Braveman as a friend. I’m grateful, so grateful, I didn’t let the story win. 

*A Brow, Unfurrowed

[That night . . . ] Mum’s face had drastically begun to change. This woman who started out a gorgeous model (often mistaken for actress Farrah Fawcett), a David Bowie impersonator, then famed paranormal investigator, lived her last years with a face hardened by the guilt she held within and affected by the substances she used to try and forget it. She’d gone full circle.

“Look. Her face has no wrinkles at all, it’s totally smooth,” my younger sister Kelli said. I agreed, although I didn’t particularly want to as I was reminded of the only detail Mum had revealed to me of my grandmother’s death the day she had passed many years before. I hadn’t seen that brow un-furrowed since I was five.

We decided to tell her these details in case she could hear us. We spoke aloud to her the entire night. Sometimes I’d look up above me so that if her soul was hovering over us, as I’d heard from countless accounts of near death experiences, she could see my face and could know I loved her and that I really was smart and paid attention to what folks said about the afterlife (a last-ditch effort at impressing the unimpressionable).

“See Mum, see. I do love you.”

Excerpt from chapter one | wild horses |Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*Are You There "God"? It's Me, "Weirdo".

I had met the famed “God” once, in a roundabout sort of way, when I was about six years old. Behind our apartment complex on Juniper Street, and about fifty yards from the enclosure in which all the children in the neighborhood would study a colorful assortment of porno magazines, was a quiet medical building, which contained within it a circular courtyard with a tree in the center and wooden benches that circled the tree. It was a hidden sanctuary, one of the first to be called my secret place. Vibrant flowers surrounded the lonely, prosaic, brown and white building and I had picked the most beautiful one—its colors resembled a deep amber sunset. I set my gift on the bench and spoke to Him. 

“God, if you’we weally weal, this flowo is fo you. I pwomise I won’t tell anyone I saw you if you take this flowo fwom me. Wheweva you awe, just please appeaw. I just want to see what you look like because I need to see you in my head when I pway and wight now it’s weally hawd. I can’t see you and I don’t believe the dwawings of you; I think people awe just guessing what you look like but I weally need to know. Sometimes I see you as a big face with a white beawd and utho times you look like Jesus with long bwown haiw and it’s just too confusing. Please, please, please come and sit with me. Please.”

I waited and waited. Looked around, kicked leaves, broke up a couple of dirt clots with my hands, sat on the bench and swung my legs. 

Darn it. No God. 

Mum had a way of getting us kids in the house, and quick, with a construction worker’s type whistle, two fingers in her mouth and everyone in the neighborhood knew it was dinner time in Apartment 10. I heard the familiar call and was disappointed that despite my plea and generous gift, God never showed. 

“OK, I know you’we busy, God. I undostand. I’m gonna go eat dinno and I’ll come back and see if you’we hewe. If the flowo is gone, I’ll know you took it, but I’d weally watho see you. I pwomise I’ll nevo tell anyone, even my mum, unless, of couwse you want me to. I pwomise. I just weally need to see you. Please, please be hewe when I get back.” 

After the usual wholesome Hamburger Helper, iceberg lettuce salad, and slice of American cheese cut into four pieces and placed on the plate ever so artistically, I returned to the barren bench only to find that the beautiful flower was still there, only now limp, lifeless, and wilted. I was at first saddened by God’s apparent neglect, then was faced with the thought that I might have uncovered a paramount truth: God was, in fact, only a myth. But slightly hesitant to give up all hope entirely, I stared at it for several minutes, then suddenly recalled a conversation I had recently with Frank about what happens to people when they die. Then it came to me: God dutifully took the soul from the flower and left the body. 

Genius.

I gasped, and somewhat satisfied with God’s cryptic, brilliant response, I looked up into the sky, smiled at Him, then buried the limp remains under a bit of loose dirt in a nearby flowerbed, skipping home before dark.

Excerpt from chapter twenty-one | shambala | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Untimely Expiration Dates

Today I’m re-organizing my home, cleaning and putting items on the ‘free to good home’ listings for my town. It feels good. Any clearance of clutter is healing. These once treasured items (or, perhaps, not so treasured) will go on and serve a higher purpose than taking up space in a storage closet. My older, smaller aluminum dog door will be giving a neighborhood pup a bit of freedom; my ceramic pots will be proudly displayed in someone’s garden; my random, strange Christmas basket-type thingy will be given as a gift, as it was given me, and will undoubtedly be placed on the free to good home list after December (that is if anyone ever picks it up from my front porch).

And then it happened. I came across an unmarked white envelope. Once I had it in my hands, I knew what it was, so I carried it with me to a comfortable seat on the sofa and opened it, knowing I’d not only be opening up the envelope itself, but also quite possibly the floodgate of tears behind my eyes.

Mum’s California driver license. 

In the photo, her head is slightly tilted to the left, with a slight smile and those tired, tired eyes. No matter what the past has held, all I could think of was, “What I wouldn’t do to see that face again.”

Shortly after wondering why her number started with an N and mine with an A and whether or not the DMV has some sort of secret code for ID numbers (“Give it an A. Better keep our eye on this one.”), I saw in red capital letters above her photo: EXPIRES 07-12-14.  

Her driver license hasn’t yet expired. It’s still active, but she’s not.

And when it does expire—that’s it. No further licenses will be issued. Ever.

On June 30th, 2009, the date this license was issued, she was still drinking more than seven beers per night. She was still working at an incredibly stressful job, consuming large amounts of processed foods, smoking cigarettes, and quite possibly enjoying the occasional bit of speed (she’d never admit it to me, though I’ve heard stories from others). She would have had no idea that her oldest daughter would be in possession of her driver license, sitting on her sofa in Ojai on June 9^th, 2013, crying tears of disbelief that her mother had expired before the DMV’s officially provided expiration date. She had no idea that the lifestyle she had chosen was giving her a rare form of stomach cancer and there would be no tests, no renewals.

What am I doing today? Will I be here tomorrow? How many more driver licenses will I carry before I expire?  Will I expire first or will it? I have no message to share here, other than to just say with tears in my eyes that we really have no idea how short life really is. And whether we have disabilities, aren’t able to relate to people, are in a strained relationship, working at a dead-end job, have no job prospects at all, are not able to have children, are worried about finances, stressed about retirement—it’s all going to end. When, we don’t know. And what’s important? What’s really important? I can’t tell you. We have to be able to admit to ourselves what is important and take it off of that false societal scale made for us when we were just wee children.

Maybe a long life wasn’t important for Mum. Perhaps alcohol and the feeling it gave her was. Who am I to judge? But I’ve hated it. I’ve hated that it took her away from me. I’ve hated, more than anything, that we were never able to form the mother-daughter relationship I had always dreamed of. But that was my dream, not hers. And what I’ve learned in recent times is not to attach dreams to people. People are utterly unpredictable emotionally, spiritually, and just like in the case of Mum leaving the planet at the young age of fifty-seven, physically. William Shakespeare said, “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” I totally get that one now, Bill.

So I will return to re-organizing and making my life what I want it—free and clear. Free to be me, and today, clear of clutter. I can dream and hope and pursue without having those dreams, hopes, and pursuits attached to a heart and lungs and brain—other than my own. I can miss Mum, and I will when I hear her laugh in my mind, and my heart will ache a little when I come across bits and pieces of her life in random boxes and envelopes—and I can know it’s because I want what isn’t. And I can be OK with that. 

And a note for my fellow pathetic fallacy friends: the sad, Christmas basket-type thingy has, indeed, found a good home.