A letter to my son

Dear Ozzie,
Wednesday, May 9, marked six months since you left us. The six-month mark has a kick to it: Mother’s Day is just a few days away. It will be my first Mother’s Day without the little boy who called me “Mom”. Hallmark cards is running a commercial in which mothers say “Tell me you love spending time with me; Tell me I’m ready [to be a mother]; Tell me I did something right. . . “ and I think “Tell me you’re coming home tomorrow. Tell me you’re alive. Tell me you’re o.k.” I do hear you telling me things, sometimes. In the days after you died, I heard your voice clearly saying “I’m o.k., Mom.” You told me that so many times, even when you clearly were not. How was I to believe it? The day of the memorial, I was running over errands in my mind, one of which was picking up balloons at the grocery store, which I didn’t really have time to do. I thought “I’ll just have Ozzie do it,” and I heard your laugh in my mind, “Yeah, good luck with that, Mom!” I felt you near me so strongly in those first days. After all these months, I still think of you constantly, but I don’t FEEL you the way I did then. Maybe I just don’t allow it.

Your best old friend has invited us to Mother’s Day brunch, and Dad and I plan to go. I think you’d approve (for all I know, you put him up to it). You’d find the irony in the situation, as you always did: The son without his mom and the mom without her son having brunch together on Mother’s Day. I appreciate his offer more than I can say. Mother’s Days with you were unconventional and unexpected. If we went out to eat, it was more likely to celebrate one of your grandmothers than for me. You were always about the gift. When you were very young, it was a kiss, a hug, a flower from the yard. As you grew, you had money to purchase things you thought would please me: a chiffon scarf from a yard sale (“Isn’t it beeeyoutiful?” you asked.), or a very nice wallet, also from a yard sale. Knick-knacks and candy gradually changed to other items. In the past ten years or so, you had discovered the ultimate Mother’s Day gift, not flowers, but plants for the garden. For a while, it became a tradition for you to take me to the greenhouse to choose the colors that would surround us for a season. On the days you had to work, it would be a card and money for plants, and always a note that made me smile and cry at the same time. I still have many of the cards and letters, and they still have the same effect.

In all these months that have passed, I wonder a lot about the afterlife. What can you know, from where you are? Do you know that when the radio plays songs you sang with your bands, Dad and I hear them in your voice? Did you know that your voice singing “Steady as She Goes” was stuck in both our heads in the days after you left us? We thought it was from you, reminding us to keep our heads, to hold each other, to be strong. Do you know that the improbable has happened and all your bills are paid? I know you would be very proud of that. Do you know that our pride in you goes into infinity? Do you know how we, your family and your friends, ache for you every day?

Do you know how many lessons you taught me? I went into being a mother in the same way I’ve gone into so many things in my life: full speed ahead, blind as a bat, hoping everything turns out alright. You came into the world with so many challenges for the two of us; I nearly had to let you go several times before you were even two years old. We toughed it out, you and I. The amateur mother, and the expert kid. I look back and I feel so much guilt for not being able to do more, and relief for having done what things I could that mattered to you. I think I failed you in the last couple of years, back to my pattern of blindness and hope. In the early hours of a very dark day, you taught me a last lesson that I carry with me each day. Life turns on a dime. You are here, living, laughing, thinking you’re all right, and in a heartbeat, everything changes. None of us can be prepared, no matter how much we try or think we know how we will react. Our minds can’t really fathom the unthinkable. Even now, after all these months, I still can’t quite believe it’s our reality. I wonder if I ever will. I know it’s true, it’s real, it’s a fact, but I still don’t understand how it can be. Maybe I’m like your dog, who still picks up his ears when he hears a booming trunk bass rocking a car as it passes, ever expecting you to pull in the driveway, apologizing for being loud, “but you know I LOVE that song.” Clyde looks at us with liquid eyes, and doesn’t understand why his Ozzie never comes for him. Neither do we.

What’s a little obscenity among friends?

In the early days with his band “Right Arm”, Ozzie struggled with propriety. There were free-wheeling bar gigs, where he could make off-color comments or tell dirty jokes between songs, and then there were the private parties, such as weddings or corporate gatherings, where he needed to censor himself. He had a thirteen-year-old’s love of obscenities, and found it hilarious when they showed up unexpectedly in movies or songs. Amy Weinstein’s lyric “what kind of f**kery is this” made his day the first time he heard it. When I dropped a sack of flour and it burst on the floor, I said “Oh f**kedy f**k” he laughed himself to tears. Thus, Cee Lo Green’s “F*ck You” song was right up his alley, and he sang it with gusto.

For their first corporate gig, the band wanted to play the song because it was enormously popular, but they felt it should have the inappropriate lyric “f*ck you” replaced with “forget you”. Ozzie practiced the new lyric over and over, but he was afraid he would slip, say the forbidden word and be banished from the band or the gig or from planet Earth altogether. (He had a tendency to be dramatic.) The tension leading up to the event was awful. It didn’t help things that he had gotten lost on the way to the gig, or that he was intimidated by the location; by the time he got there, his nerves were frayed to the breaking point. His band mates tried to calm him, but he was having none of it. “I know I’m going to f*ck it up,” he told them.

Despite his misgivings, the band played the song, and Ozzie sang it, without swearing. At the end of the song, in the lull between numbers, Ozzie’s voice boomed into the microphone “Wow, you guys, I made it all the way through and never once said f*ck.” Did he say it in innocence or was it an irreverent poke at his audience? We’ll never know. It got a big laugh at the time, and, entertainer that he was, that was always the big payoff.

What’s in a nickname?

My son, Jason, was so pleased when his employer let him put his nickname, Ozzie, on his name tag. After years of struggling to get EVERYONE to call him Ozzie, it was a nice victory for him. Now that he has died, the world has gone back to calling him Jason (except for his friends). It’s a letting-go I hadn’t thought of, but it comes to me as I fill out forms and take care of other final business for him; in death, he has lost the identity he loved.

I had a different nickname envisioned for him, when I was pregnant, but I should have known that with Oswald as his surname, it would only ever be “Ozzie”, as it was for my father, my uncles, my brother, and even me. The in utero nickname, J.T., was only ever used by his grandmother and me.

Ozzie thought the story of how he got his name was ridiculously corny, but it’s OUR story, so I will share it. In the summer of 1972, my friends and I often went to the Bitter End West nightclub in Hollywood, CA. We were all recently graduated and were currently “between gigs” (our euphemism for desultory efforts at finding jobs, applying for school, and other more productive pursuits). The club was divided into two distinct rooms for different types of entertainment. The stage and large dance floor at the front of the club made a perfect venue for bands to perform, and the smaller stage in the room in the back of the building offered a quieter, more intimate setting for the duos and trios who presented mellow pop or folk music. It was there that I discovered J.T. and Mandy, whose songs I can still hear, all these years later; sweet harmonies and fierce solos. J.T. was tall, with long blond hair, and a devastating smile. I couldn’t begin to tell you what Mandy looked like, although I think she, too, might have been blond. I had an awful crush on J.T., and even though I only spoke to him a few times, to gush over his music, he was kind and friendly, and I felt a connection.

The name “Jason” came from a disposable diaper commercial. “Kimbies” was a short-lived brand, but I’ve always thought that the 1974 commercial in which “Jason is making his first trip home” was responsible for all the Jasons born that year. Seeing the tiny baby received by the large family gathered on the front porch, with all the great-grandparents, grand-parents, and cousins cheering, had to have brought tears to many expectant mothers’ eyes, as it did mine. Thus, Jason was the first name, but I needed a middle name that started with “T” and I never thought to look in a baby names book. I tried “Thomas”, “Tyler” and even “Toby”, but nothing seemed to roll off the tongue like “Jason Timothy”. The only misgiving (which, it turns out, I should have entertained) was The Buoys’ song “Timothy”, which dealt with cannibalism by setting it to a bouncy tune. I hated the song, but I kept the name . . . and years later, my musician son would hold me to task for it.

I held onto the nickname “J.T.” for years, even though only Grammie and I ever used it. The boy would answer to it good-naturedly, but it was as if he always knew it would never really catch on, so he didn’t develop any real attachment to it. “Ozzie” was bestowed on him by middle school friends, and he delighted in the departure from Mom’s stupid old crush guy, and the name so many schoolmates shared. Ozzie he was, and Ozzie he will remain, in the hearts of his friends, on the lips of his parents, in the tributes and memorials from the people who loved him.

The mushiest card

It was Valentine’s day. I was digging through the clutter that occupies a large part of my “to be filed” desk, looking for the papers I should have filed in a nice, organized place so that I could do our taxes this year without wanting to tear my hair out before I even open the W2 forms. Right now, the clutter is all “Ozzie stuff”, from his desk and boxes of paperwork, song lyrics jumbled with old letters, bills and contracts. I was sifting through papers I’ve been through a hundred times in the three months since Ozzie died, and I found a greeting card in an envelope that says “To Mom. The mushiest card I’ve ever given you. I just want you to know.” It was taped shut with duct tape, and I wanted to ask him “Ozzie what’s with all the duct tape on everything?” because that ubiquitous metallic gray stickiness has been on everything from his drum heads (which I understand) to his song lyrics (some of which are hopelessly stuck together). I opened it to find a very sweet and mushy birthday card, a $20 bill, and a note signed with his name and those of an ex-girlfriend and her son, dating the card to nine or ten years ago.

It was an eerie moment—how did this just appear at the bottom of the clutter pile? Was it possible that Ozzie had forgotten a card with $20 in it in his desk for ten years? (Unlikely—he remembered two things with unerring accuracy: anything to do with music and how much money he had at any given moment.) It took a few minutes to jog my memory, but I did remember the card, if not the money in it. I had been going through some file folders in the days after the accident, looking for photos and mementos for the picture boards, and had left some cards on the desktop, where they got buried under the Ozzie pile. A perfectly reasonable and logical explanation . . . except that I can’t shake the feeling that there is more to it than meets the eye. What prompted me to open the card right then, when I needed something to settle me down and pick up my spirits?

As I thought about it, I took myself back to the day he gave me the card (the first time, for those who might wish to believe that he arranged for me to find it again, as a Valentine). I loved the pretty pink ribbon and roses, and the greeting card sentiments were wonderful and meaningful, but the note he wrote is what touched me and brought tears back then, just as it did on Valentine’s Day. “. . . I’m going to make you proud. Thanks for waiting and believing. I owe everything to you and Dad. . . I would be lost without you. I love you both so much.” That is how a $20 bill got left in a card in a folder in my filing cabinet; I had already received the best gift a mother could get, and I wanted to make sure that I put it away before it got lost or someone spilled something on it.

The card I will put away and maybe it will surprise me again someday. The money? I might just leave it in there. I simply can’t think of a way to use it that would be as special as finding it has been.

Memories of Mischief

If it were to happen today, I’d probably be spending time in jail and my son would be in foster care. In the 1970s, however, in the small town where we lived, letting a four-year-old ride his Hot Wheels cycle around the neighborhood was the norm. Our neighborhood was experiencing the doldrums that occur when all the children grow up and move away, leaving their empty-nester parents in the family home. For Jason, it meant that his only contact with other kids was at nursery school, the park, and my friends’ houses. On the days he became bored with me, he would go out to ride his cycle in search of friends. I think this period had a lot to do with his social development. Our neighborhood was filled with grandmas who patiently listened to his songs and stories, baked cookies for him, and enjoyed his company enough to let him keep coming for visits. Over time, I learned that he had a regular route of ladies he visited, many of whom stayed friends long after he grew up.

One day, I noticed that the neighborhood streets were unusually busy. Cars were parking around the church across the street, and it dawned on me that there was a large funeral taking place there. I looked over at the church and felt a surge of panic. Jason had attended an Early Childhood program in the basement of the church that year, but the program had been moved to another town soon after their session ended. I hoped he hadn’t gone inside, looking for his classmates. When I found his Hot Wheels parked nearby, I headed into our house to call around to his friends before disrupting the funeral. Of course, by then, Jason had already taken care of the disrupting—when he found all the toys missing from the basement, he went upstairs to ask the guests to call the police about the theft, going from pew to pew until someone followed his advice and called the police . . . to remove him. I was just hanging up the phone when the squad car pulled up outside. I could see Jason in the back seat, pointing to the house. Fortunately, the officer had a great sense of humor about the incident, and just advised me to keep Jason home for the duration of the funeral. I believe that was the first time he was officially grounded, and I didn’t let him out of my sight for a week.

A few years later, he had found friends in the area, learned how to ride a bicycle, and spent his childhood much as I had, riding around town with his friends. I was later to learn that one of their regular stops was a local café, where they enjoyed old-fashioned sodas, and the free matches offered near the cash register, with which they burned pieces of paper they took out of the dumpster behind the café. One day, a large piece of paper got out of control and one of the boys picked it up and tossed it back into the dumpster—which resulted in a major conflagration. In those days, the volunteer firefighters were summoned by a whistle mounted on the water tower, a sound which generally brought every kid in town to the site, and which kept the three perpetrators at the scene of the crime, even though they had created the excitement themselves. Witnesses pointed to the guilty parties, and they were ushered into the backseat of the squad car and taken to the police station, where their parents would be called to collect them.

In one of the twists of fate small-town living affords, the officer who responded to the fire was the same man who had brought Jason home from his adventure at the church. When I arrived at the police station, the officer asked me to step out into the hall where he explained what the boys had done. After I had the facts, he smiled and said “It took everything we had not to laugh. Once the boys got into the car, your Jason turned to the other two and said, ‘aw, this is nothing. I’ve been in THIS car before.’” All the bravado of a seasoned criminal at the age of seven!

At home, after a stern lecture and promises from Jason never to play with matches or fire again, I decided to let him choose between two punishments. The movie “The Fox and the Hound” was playing at the local theater that week, and Jason was very excited to see it. In the days before videos and DVDs, once a movie played in the theater, it disappeared for years, so it was a big deal to miss one. The choice: miss the movie or do without a bicycle for two weeks. I held my breath, since I wanted to see the movie, too. He chose well for both of us. We saw the movie, and he survived without his bike—relatively easy to do, since he was also grounded . . . again.

How many do you remember?

If you count the one on which I was conceived, I have rung in 58 New Year’s Eves, with varying degrees of celebration. Once you’ve partied the year in with the explosion of cell division that occurs after conception, you’re hard-pressed to find a better way to greet a New Year, but lord knows I tried. I hope the fact that so few New Year’s celebrations stand out in my mind is due less to the alcohol consumed on those nights than on the fact that the memorable ones were so unique. Out of all those New Year’s Eves, only two stand out in my mind: the year I found my husband and the year we slid into oblivion (or what seemed like it on a dark, cold night).

I had met Chris in October. He was dating a friend of mine, but she had met the man who was to become her husband and Chris was now up for grabs, so I did. We got together a few times, and then we lost touch (easy to do in those days of no cell phones or computers). On New Year’s Eve that year, I was out with a group of girlfriends, stopping in our local bar for a few cheap drinks before we headed to Somerset, where the bars promised lots of bands and boys to dance with, but the drinks were more expensive. Chris was sitting at the bar, head in hands, staring into a 25-cent tap beer as if trying to divine his future. I sauntered up and patted him on the shoulder and he turned to me with a bleak look, “I lost my job, gotta be out of my apartment tomorrow, got nowhere else to go . . . some new year this’ll be.”

Now, I’d only had a couple of root beers at that point, but it has to be said that the root beers in question contained a shot of vodka, a shot of Galiano liqueur, and a spritz of Coca Cola; I may not have been thinking quite as clearly as I should have, as I gallantly saved his day. “That’s no biggie,” I crowed. “You can move into the extra bedroom at my place.” With that, he ordered another beer and my friends spirited me off for a night of dancing and flirting and kisses with strangers at midnight.

I had forgotten about that part of the evening until Chris showed up on my doorstep with a duffel bag . . . and a carload of his things. Ever striving to be the perfect hostess, even with a sizable hangover, I showed him to the extra bedroom, and went off with friends to watch football. Later, we discussed our arrangement, agreeing that being platonic roommates would be best, that he would pay rent, buy his own food, and we would stay out of each other’s hair. It sounded so adult and practical—but the platonic part only lasted a few days—I was already smitten, but playing my cards slowly and carefully (boys being easily startled away, just like timid deer), and he turned out to be not that far behind me, and has stayed for 33 years.

The year we slid carelessly into the darkness still ranks as one of the best New Year’s Eves ever. Our friend John had been working on the hill behind his house since before the first snowfall, and he had created a magical place for snow tubing. The roughly hundred-foot track wound down the hill with built-in snow ramps that flew riders into the air and banked curves that kept them from flying off into the woods. At the bottom of the hill, the woods gave way to the partially frozen Willow River, and John had built a circular stopping place a few feet from the bank. With the addition of snow stairs leading back up to the top of the hill, it was a perfect place for sliding. I don’t recall who had the idea to do it on New Year’s Eve, but we all jumped at it, showing up at John’s in layers of warm clothes, our snowmobile suits, and boots. I believe that our Jason was 15 or 16 at the time—an age where spending a night out with his parents (especially New Year’s Eve) would have ranked pretty low on his list of big fun, but he was surprisingly enthused about it.

Our host took the first ride, so we could see what it was like. Although much of the trail was lit from above, it dissolved into darkness near the end, so it was hard to see where he ended up. Still, we heard no crashes, screams or groans, so we eagerly stepped up for our turns. We decided to make our maiden run as one, keeping the tubes together by gripping the boots of the rider behind us, moving like a giant centipede as we plunged down the hill into the woods. John’s circle at the bottom caused us to end the ride in a little ring, and we lay back on the tubes, laughing hysterically and shouting “Let’s do it again!” We tried every configuration of single, double, and group rides down that hill, and we lost track of how many rides and how many hours we had been sliding. On one of the rides, we slipped over the bank at the bottom and ended up on the ice of the river, but we just laughed all the harder. We had no fear of anything that night. Jason and I kept saying “We’ve got to do this EVERY year!” and I had the presence of mind to absorb the joy in his laugh on the way down and on the way up (the snow stairs were STEEP and at one point or another each of us needed spurring on with jokes and teasing). My friends had always appreciated his sense of humor and ability to talk to anyone about anything, and I was proud of how he got along with the grown-ups that night. Later, Jason went to a friend’s house to play video games, and the adults went downtown to officially ring in the New Year. One local bar had ordered a few cases of champagne, expecting a big party, but when we walked in the door at 11:30, there was not one other patron in the place. Part two of the Best New Year’s Eve ever was sipping free champagne in the company of our dearest friends and two bemused bartenders. Unforgettable.

May your New Year’s Eve be likewise filled with unexpected joys and wonderful memories.

Music: The remedy

I was driving down the road, listening to an 80s music station, when I wondered why I found the music of that time period so familiar and comforting. I had thought of the 80s more as my son Ozzie’s music period than mine. During that decade, we got MTV cabled into our small town; Ozzie sang a flawless version of Billy Joel’s “You May be Right” on a tape recorder at the tender age of seven; he discovered Michael Jackson and Prince, and his appreciation for them continued all his life. It was his decade of growth from grade school to high school, why would it be my music, too?

I had always thought that my music was the rock of the 1970s: Traffic, Alice Cooper, The Who, Bad Company, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, which it is, for that period of my life, and it never fails to bring back memories of those days. It is the music of my youth, my middle school to high school.

In 1974, I was pregnant at the most unfortunate time on earth: Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby” was a hugely popular song. There was no escaping it, and I hated it with white-hot intensity. In 1976, I danced to Paul McCartney and Wing’s “Silly Love Songs” with my baby on my hip and singing the part of the chorus that said “I love you”. I can picture it so clearly, his curls bouncing as we danced, the smile on his face, and the joy I felt in that moment. Music brings it all back with startling clarity. As we moved into the 1980s, Ozzie and I shared that music, just the way my brother and sisters shared the music of the 1950s and 1960s with our mom.

As I thought about it, I realized that the 80s music was to me what the 50s were to my mother: the music of our “happy days”. We were young homemakers and mothers, we played music while we did our chores, we hummed or sang along with our favorites, and the music became a part of us and our best memories, and those of our children. So Ozzie and I had the 80s, and then he dragged me into the 90s, teaching me to appreciate Metallica, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Guns ‘n Roses, much as I got my mom to like Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Joni Mitchell.

The first time Ozzie played Metallica’s “One” for me, I loved the guitar solo at the beginning of the song, but by the time they got to the lyrics “darkness imprisoning me, all that I see, absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die . . .” and pounding beat, I was scared. “You can’t listen to that,” I told him, garnering one of his all-out belly laughs. “It’s depressing,” I told him. “It can’t be good for you.” “It’s just music, Mom. All music is good.” I remembered playing a Bob Dylan song for my mom and being so disappointed when she said he sounded like “a creepy old man,” so I tried to let Metallica’s music grow on me (which it eventually did).

From infancy, when he was enthralled by the sound of his wind-up “lambie” toy, it was clear that music was going to be important to him. As he grew, music became Ozzie’s muse, his bliss, his first and longest love, and sharing all aspects of it brought him his greatest joy. People in our old neighborhood still remember his days as their paperboy, riding by the houses in the pre-dawn hours, Prince or Heart blaring from the boom box mounted on the handlebars—ever playing dj to the world. My memories of him are so entwined with the music he loved, it’s hard to hear it right now, when we are missing him so much; each memory brings back the depth of our loss. But listening to that 80s radio station the other day was the closest I’ve felt to normal in six weeks. Maybe he was right. All music is good.

. . . and his little dog, too.

Our son’s death left an Ozzie-shaped hole in our hearts. A little wiener-shaped dog named Clyde has opened another part of our hearts and he is helping us to heal in ways we never imagined, just as he often did for Ozzie. Taking our son’s dog into our home was a decision made on the day Ozzie died; Clyde and his well-being was always a high priority for his owner, and thus it became one for us.

Clyde had had two other owners before he found Ozzie and adopted him; he is a dog accustomed to change and he adapts well. When Ozzie used to visit his previous owners, Clyde would climb into his lap and stay there until Ozzie left, and then would whine at the door after he was gone. He is a stubborn little guy, like others of his breed, and he had set his heart on the man who seemed to understand him. When the other family decided that Clyde was one dog too many for them, Ozzie agonized over the expense and responsibility for about a day, but in the end, Clyde won his prize.

Clyde was the perfect dog for a man inclined to focus on the dark side of the cloud and miss the silver lining; he is happiness itself, with his wagging tail, big smile, and enthusiastic kisses. He demands attention in the most endearing ways, and he is empathic in a way few animals can be. I know he saw Ozzie in his darkest moments and soothed him in those ways he knows best, starting with a gentle kiss or two, then more kisses, and then an all-out kissing assault on the face, into the nose and mouth, leaving his victim breathless and laughing. Clyde is one of the few dogs I’ve known who studies his humans carefully, looking directly into our eyes, not in challenge, but with scrutiny. It’s as if he is trying to read our thoughts, and although he may only be watching to see if we are in the mood to give him a treat, it seems deeper than that.

Clyde did not understand the concept of “fetch” when he first came to Ozzie. The toys we bought him were sniffed, tasted, and then abandoned. A toy thrown across the room would sit there, never to be chased or even acknowledged. Raised largely in the company of other dogs, he had apparently never played “people games”. It took a while to teach him about chasing balls, working puzzles (such as taking apart his chewy bone or finding hidden toys), and other doggie fun. Now, when boredom strikes, he finds a toy and teases us with it, enticing us into a game.

Clyde embraced the life of a “rock ‘n roll doggie” as if he’d been made for it. Ozzie’s life was music, listening to it, creating it, living on it and for it. Clyde rode in a car with the music turned up loud, a booming bass unit vibrating from the trunk, and ear-shattering treble tones; it never seemed to deter him from leaping into the car. Clyde attended band rehearsals and sat behind Ozzie’s drum set, occasionally howling along with the music, but mostly seeming to enjoy the experience. Clyde attended parties, was a regular patron at Ozzie’s favorite bar, and indeed, was an almost constant companion.

Clyde, the happiest little dog on the planet, is also grieving for Ozzie. I see it in the way he sometimes rests his chin on my chest and looks with dark liquid eyes into mine; he needs a close hug and whispers of love. When he hears that unmistakable boom of a trunk bass in a car going by, he runs to the window, and his little ears sag when the car doesn’t pull in the driveway. We soothe him in much the same way Chris and I are soothing ourselves: we go for walks or rides, we hold each other close, we find things that make us laugh, and we go on with our lives. The Ozzie-shaped hole will be there forever for us and for Clyde, so we will share our home, our love, our lives, and we will do our best to fill the hole with memories.

Navigable waters

Twenty days into the grieving process, I alternate between basket case and a person who is a lot like me. Yesterday, the basket case made an appointment with the doctor, sending the person who is like me to talk to him. I filled out a form, a depression assessor, which addressed many of my symptoms, and in filling it out, I discovered that I am not as broken as I had thought. I have what is called “situational depression”, or grief. My doctor, who has also suffered the loss of a child, was incredibly helpful and understanding, and I left feeling better than I have in days.

I know the waters in the land of grief: my father died when I was twelve, and life for my family was never quite right after that. Over my lifetime, I have lost dear friends and family members and grieved them. Now, however, I find myself in a treacherous territory parents are not meant to travel. I can navigate through the sadness, which I expected, but I find myself unable to understand or deal with the anxiety. “This was the hard part,” my sister whispered as she held me, after we had let Ozzie go, trying to give me some hope for the days ahead. It turns out, there are many hard parts and they take me by surprise when I find myself in the midst of them.

My son was a deli clerk in the job that paid the bills and a rock star in the job he loved. While you might imagine that the deli job took a very low priority to the rock star gig, his work ethic was such that he was as hard a worker in the deli as he was on the stage. People who had worked with him at the deli told me that he was a joy to work with; customers commented on his friendly, knowledgeable service. Thus, last Wednesday, when I waited for an employee to notice me at our local market’s deli counter, I was taken by surprise when the tears came. I am a short woman, and deli counters are very high; it’s hard to get noticed unless there is a bell to ring, and there was none. The thought “Ozzie would never make a customer wait like this” came to me as I tried to catch someone’s eye, and the basket case made a brief entrance. What could a deli clerk think when her customer is in tears over cranberry relish?

I can’t understand how in the days after Ozzie died, I laughed, told stories, comforted his friends, and even went out into public and made no mention of what had happened when I ran into my old boss and other acquaintances who hadn’t heard the news. “My son died on Wednesday,” was a conversation I couldn’t have in the ethnic foods aisle . . . or anywhere else, for that matter. Now that it has been weeks, I feel a flight instinct kick in while talking to people, no matter what the topic; I have zero tolerance for violence or fast action on tv; it is hard to listen to music; Christmas lights blink too fast. I find myself forgetting things: Why am I standing at the pantry cupboard? Did I return that phone call? Was I just saying something? It feels like full-on basket case is in charge, but apparently, this is what grief does when it is done with the crying.

My doctor has given me hope that the waters are navigable after the river of tears has ebbed. There is medication for the sleepless nights and intolerable anxiety, support groups for grieving parents, activities that will take my mind to a safer place. The flashbacks to those last tragic hours in the ICU will gradually fade, replaced with the happy, beautiful memories (and my wonderful, talented, quirky son has blessed me with an abundance of those) that will last me a lifetime. I can’t see around the bend in this river; indeed, I’m nowhere near the place where it turns, but I know that it is there, and I will paddle my way toward it. I have it on good authority the view will be worth the effort.

Thanksgiving Cereal: Legendary

It is the day before Thanksgiving. A turkey is soaking in brine (the first time ever for the Hubbells). My mental list of things I have forgotten from the grocery store is in progress (who forgets to buy stuffing crumbs the weekend before the big meal? . . . someone with a lot on her mind). This will be the first holiday without our son. It will just be the two of us for dinner, which sounds pathetic beyond comprehension, but Thanksgiving has always been done on a small scale at our house. The times we have had guests, it was friends Ozzie (aka Jason) invited; people far from their own families, or those who had no family at all. When it was just the three of us, the huge meal seemed like overkill, but we always sent Ozzie home with more leftovers than he could eat in a week, and we loved making sure he had enough food. Last year, we laughed ourselves to tears playing Balderdash, and the memory is still so sweet and fresh, I have to smile. In honor of the holiday, I will share publicly a story that has been family legend for over thirty years.

At three, Jason was very self-sufficient. He knew how to make his own cereal in the morning, and would eat it at the coffee table and watch cartoons, letting me doze as Tom and Jerry blared in the next room. That year, my friend Carrie and I had gone out for a few beers on Wednesday night, and she had decided to stay over, sleeping on the couch. Jason brought his cereal to the coffee table and sat on the couch, next to Carrie, who woke to the sound of crunching, and saw Jason spooning cereal into his mouth.

“Whatcha eating, Jason?” She asked.
“Thanksgiving cereal,” he answered, proudly.
“What kind of cereal is that?”
“My mommy bought it for me. It’s only for Thanksgiving.”

She rose and went to the kitchen, where, sure enough, there was an opened box on the counter, with a big turkey pictured on the front. The words “what’ll they think of next” popped into her mind until she took a closer look at the box and realized that Jason had put milk and sugar on the stuffing croutons meant for dinner and was enjoying the special treat, despite the unusual flavor. Carrie and I laugh over this story every year, and Ozzie rolls his eyes at us, but laughs along. Thanksgiving Cereal is the legendary story of a little kid who believed his mom would do anything to make a holiday special. This year, I hope I can live up to his expectations.