Thank You, Lord- Legacy

Dear Nino,
     I woke up this morning to find a memorial post from your sister about the 26th anniversary of your death.  I can't believe it's been that long yet some days it seems like yesterday.  Your death was one of the most life-changing events in my young life.  At 27 you were just beginning to build your life with a beautiful family of your own.  You were running your own business and seemed to me to have the perfect life.  I was too naive to see how addiction was destroying your life.  All I saw was the smiling face covered by that grizzly mountain bear beard that greeted me whenever we were together.
    I spent a lot of time being angry with you in the year following your death. I blamed you for leaving your young family and for destroying the rest of your family.  The only times I could seem to shed tears for you were at your funeral and when I would visit with your mom.  Even then I think the tears were more for the people you left behind than for you.  It wasn't until I truly understood the struggle of an addict's life that I began to soften and to grieve your loss.  I feel this is one of the reasons I made so many poor choices in my early dating years: I was trying to "save" the addicts I dated like I couldn't save you and other men in my life.  But this is not your true legacy in my life.
    No, you brought so much joy and fun into my life.  I once wrote a poem about you entitled "Hero of Mine" which reflected how I viewed you as a child and young teen.  You could do anything in my eyes.  You taught me so much about sports just by letting me hang out while you were playing basketball or watching baseball (sorry, the football thing didn't catch on with me until your daughter convinced me to follow one team which turned out to be your team).  Anyone who knows me well knows that I love the Yankees, and that love started with me watching a few games with you.  You would patiently answer my questions and explain different aspects of the game. I was hooked after one season (I think it was 1976) and have been watching ever since.
    Another positive you helped usher into my life was the love of music.  You, my sister, and my cousins were all born in the wrong generation: you were hippies at heart and would have been better suited to have been teenagers in the 1960s instead of toddlers.  No evangelical, born-again Christian could have been more devoted to his God than you all were to yours,  Jerry.  I didn't share your love for the Dead's music, but we did share a love for another band, The Rolling Stones.  While I can't give you all the credit for me taking down my Andy Gibb poster and replacing it with my Keith Richards poster, you definitely help usher in a new kind of music to my life. You also introduced me to music that I would never even know existed like reggae.   Now I think about how much music has literally saved my life in so many ways and know that even your death had a big part in that.  I obsessively listened to Van Morrison's album that year you left us and always thought that the song "Memories of You" could have been written about you.  Music remains an important part of my life and a way to make me feel closer to people who have left my life.
     One last part of your legacy in my life is kindness and laughter.  Now, I wasn't unkind before you died but now when I think of you that quality is one of the first that jumps out at me.  You were forever defending the underdog and often getting more than your share of trouble for doing it.  You were a great big brother to your younger sister and to all of us younger cousins.  You never seemed annoyed with us for wanting to hang out with you and your friends on Saturday mornings.  When you became a father I saw this big, gangly man turned into mush with one giggle from his toddler son or one gaze from his little girl.  You also could make anyone laugh even my straight-laced mother.  She has trouble remembering things these days but still recites how you would scare the shit out of her when you would  sneak into our house and jump from the top of our basement stairs down the bottom. Like everyone else, she could only feign anger for a second and then just laugh at your goofy face.  I'm sure your great sense of humor was sometimes a mask for painful feelings, but it also showed the core beauty of your soul.  Your son has your laugh while your daughter has that quiet smile that would sometimes overtake your face when listening to some nonsense around us, and I thank God for the greatest legacy you left us all, your beautiful children.

    So on this 26th anniversary of your passing I choose to focus on the joy you brought into my life.  Right before writing this post I was rinsing out my coffee mug and looked down into it to find that the outline of water had created the image of a heart.  I thought that was the perfect sign that I should write out my feelings on this blog.  I love you and miss you so much, Nino.  Thank you for all the ways you showed me you loved me too.

The Sound of Your Memory

On this chilly yet sunny day, I went for a drive and started thinking about my upcoming week.  As long as I have been teaching, my lesson plans have been written for the week ahead by Friday.  Of course, as the week passes, some assignments get carried over until the next day while others are checked off.  I teach second grade so I like to keep the routine as stable as possible so that my students know what to expect.  When they know what to expect, behavior tends to be more calm and conducive to learning.  I admit that I tend to think better and make better decisions when a "normal" (i.e. according to schedule) day can occur.  Unfortunately, this week will not have many days like that.  Tomorrow alone we will have an assembly which pushes my ELA lesson (which is to be observed by my principal) to midday when I normally run my guided reading groups.  This means I have to either cut out my math lesson and meet with a few groups before Art and a few after the ELA lesson or I need to teach math before art  and meet only with two groups after the ELA lesson.  Which way would be less disruptive to the kids? Then I have a parent conference after school along with the Monday tutoring I do for 3 of my students. I've been trying to get this family into school and didn't want to say no when the most convenient time was the time I use for tutoring.  So, I made the decision to have the kids use the reading program we have online while I talk with the family.  This week also has a book fair and a goodbye party for my student teacher scheduled to take place which will cut into more teaching time. Anything but a routine week, I feared that my students' behavior would suffer because of the multiple changes.

As I felt the sun shining on my cold hands and I began to think about how I could juggle all the disruptions, I felt my grip tighten on the steering wheel.  Instead of enjoying the sights and sounds around me, I let my preoccupation with work steal the beauty of the day.  Luckily, I was able to table this overthinking mode until I got back home.  If this was last year or the year before, I would have let the worry suck all the joy out of this beautiful Sunday.  I would procrastinate making a decision due to my anxiety freezing the part of my brain that has been dealing with these schedule disruptions for the past 26 years with ease.  Anxiety and depression were my constant companions for a long time, and I felt more comfortable not making a choice than moving forward and getting things done.  I am so thankful for the hard times and the lessons they have taught me.  The old piece of advice that says to take the time to smell the roses resonates with me in a way it never did before.  I used to swear that if I took that time that I probably get hurt by one of the pointy thorns. Now I understand that taking time for self-care and for just "being" is essential to my health.

Now several hours later I have made the decisions for tomorrow's busy day and am thinking how much I wish I could use this same process of "tabling the overthinking" for other areas of my life.  It seems like I am at a point in my life that the routines that I have established in my personal life are no longer working for me.  I have shared my ups and downs with both relationships and adoption in this blog and as I am approaching my 50th birthday, I'm realizing that I am in almost the same spot as I was 10 years ago. No closer to having a healthy relationship or being a mother.  I've started thinking that maybe it's time to start imagining a future without me being a mother.  Many people have pointed out to me that I already have served the role of mother to my own niece (who I could not love more if she was mine). Others have told me that my work as a teacher has helped countless numbers of kids in ways that I will never know.  While I do believe that my Livvie and my students have enriched my life and been the benefactors of my innate nurturing nature, it just isn't the same.  I want someone to tuck in at night.  I want to help my own child with his homework and watch as he develops into the person he wants to be.  While I know that there would be times where I would be exhausted and overwhelmed with single parenting, I would rather be exhausted from caring for my child than from doing anything else.  But I do have to face the fact that my time to be a mother may have passed.

I'm trying to sit with this version of reality and imagine if there is anything that I could do which could fill that hole that not being a mother has left in my soul. At the same time, I'm thinking about decisions I've made in the past regarding both adoption and relationships. But the only thing this familiar walk down memory lane is doing is making regret weigh heavy on my heart.   I realize that breaking out of my routines and doing something different is what I need to do to get a different result.  What that means for my future, I'm not sure.  Is there a path to motherhood I'm overlooking? Maybe.  Are there other things I want to do that will be easier without a child? Sure.  While this could lead me to more overthinking, I'm choosing to follow the actions that Willie Nelson sings about in one of his great songs:                        
                                   And ever since I met you my life's been a song
                                   A sad song, a love song with hate in between
                                  You'd be breaking my heart, it was clear from the start
                                  But my pen and my paper will keep my mind clean.

Cleaning my mind to drown out the sound of bad memories? Sounds like a plan.