I wanted to start this by answering some of the comments I didn’t have a chance to respond to.

Susan, I can think of no higher compliment than you taking your time to read through my archives. Thank you.

Kristen, the fact that you left a comment, “Haunting, beautifully so. ” is amazing, especially considering that’s how I feel about your writing.

K, you have been reading from the almost beginning, and I am lucky we found each other. I will hold my father’s letter close to my heart.

Bokker, I am happy to hear that you found me, especially through Thursday.  I appreciate your comment , “Thanks for writing- I know how hard it is to articulate loss, but I think it helps people.” A lot of people have questioned me for speaking out through my writing, but the world is a lonely enough place without thinking there’s no one out there who can relate. Do stop back in if you wish. I’ll put the kettle on.

Josh, I don’t know why woman have a thing for gnarly looking men. I like men to look like they’ve lived. If that involves a bad case of acne and alcoholism, so be it. I’m thinking of Charles Bukowski here. Very handsome man. As for penises, I hate to think men wouldn’t take the extra seconds to wash if they’re not circumcised, but I know better. So I am not going to think about it. Lalalallalalala. Has anyone heard any good songs lately???

***

One more statement about why I choose to write about my father’s suicide and the effects it has had on me: I have seen this from both sides now. I have been that 12 year old child who lost her father and I have been a depressed mother thinking about suicide. My point is this: The pain for the survivors never goes away. The guilt, the feelings that you should have saved the person, loved them better, all still there. For me it has lessened, but it’s in there, and sometimes I feel that sharp pain in my heart, that feeling of not being able to breathe, and it comes back. My Dad gave me life with my mother, and then over and over again in showing me the consequences to families when someone takes their life. I credit my mom for holding us together in the only way she knew how.

***

I have been working the day shift and the night shift. On the day shift they have a meeting every single morning before the restaurant opens. I realize that it is a good time for the kitchen staff and the servers to get together so the specials of the day can be described. The one part that gets more than a bit old is when the managers talk about the wines and beers. The good point of this is we get to sit down for a minute and they offer samples of different drinks so we can try them. The down side is the descriptions of the wines and the beers are so lengthy, including an at depth discussion of food pairings , that I find myself wanting to get back to the kitchen so I can get finished and go home. I would like to offer my services for this part of the morning meeting, even though I do not fit the wine connoisseur label. I would be straight to the point, “This is a Pinot Blanc from California. It is a very dry white wine. Too dry, in fact. (sips water) It is being offered at $9.50 per glass, and they don’t even fill that thing the whole way, can you believe that? You should know what to pair it with, you’ve been working here for months. Otherwise, just let the customer pick, because they’re paying after all.”

Anyway, work is good, even though I am getting bored. I need to make something new. I never want to see another hoagie or hamburger bun for as long as I live. The only thing that looks promising is that I can create artisan bread every week, the flavor is my choice, as long as we have a white and a wheat or rye variety because it looks better on the plates, and the promising thing is it’s pumpkin time. I saw that the cans of pumpkin were in and I hope I will be allowed to create some dessert specials for Fall.  I also have some sweet potato recipes that would work well.

I had my 90 day review, two months late, and got a raise and a lot of kudos. I was also told what I need to improve on. This is the first company I have worked for who has had the official reviews where I have to fill out paperwork listing my strengths and weaknesses. This was way harder than I imagined it would be. I fretted over that stupid paper and even asked my boss if I could punch out, have a beer or two, and then fill out the papers. I was that nervous. Apparently they pay you to fill this shit out so I sat down with a smoke and a coffee and just did it.

This entry isn’t getting any longer, despite my having started it days ago, so I am going to post it and try again soon.

Currently listening to: Joni Mitchell.

For whatever reason, I wish for this to be mostly a stand alone entry. I would say to those of you who haven’t been longtime readers, or those who weren’t willing to pick through the archives (and I can’t say I blame you. I tried to do it once and almost decided to delete 99% of it) that it might help to read this entry first.

Anyway, I’ve been off work for a few days so I have been trying to tackle a portion of the paper that exists in my life. I started with the cleaning of the side of the desk that I share with Alex ,to the drawer I have in the file cabinet. I use this drawer frequently, mostly by opening it, shoving papers inside, and shutting the door. I did this the year my mom decided to give each of her children a copy of her new, updated will for Christmas. I glanced at the front page and then shoved it into the drawer.

Deep down in the archives of my years I came across a folded piece of paper. It gave me pause immediately. It appeared yellow with age and perhaps a slight bit stained by water. I have no idea how it came into my possession, no recollection of ever having read it before. It was written by my Dad.

“Tammy is eight years old. I am her dad home from work and very tired. She tells me of her day at school. How Sister, her teacher, has some prayers for her to learn. I hold her list as she recites. She reads from her book and I learn how Africans spend their day. I look on as she does her Math. We talk of our fishing trips and of her thrill at using my pole. I hope that next time she will catch a fish. We play a card game called Fish. I try to make sure she ends up with more books than me. She snuggles next to me nearly asleep. I feel good and not tired at all. Now it is time for her to go to bed. I watch her slowly slowly fall asleep. How beautiful she is to me and how great it is to be a Dad.

.4 (152/16 + 2 100) = .4 (9.5+1.32) =.4 (10.8) = 4.32

5 long sentences”

You see, Pammy Sue, it’s not always sad. But it’s always there inside me, somewhere.

Currently listening to: Beck “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”

Friday I had a doctor’s appointment that I had planned on canceling but had forgotten. I got dressed and went even though I didn’t want to talk about my back, or my depression and anxiety, or my should I keep it? uterus. When they called my name I walked in and after passing through the doors I was immediately asked to step onto their large digital scale. I took my coat off as it was my heavy winter one still soaked with rain from the last downpour I walked through umbrella-less and I hung it and my purse on the hook. As I was slipping off my shoes I remembered what my Mom always says before she’s weighed; the joke about needing to take off her 100 lb. shoes. She did it every week when we were in Weight Watchers together and she’s done it at every doctor’s appointment and ER trip I have accompanied her on. My Mom has maybe a dozen lines like that which she laces into her conversations. Decades old and worse for the wear, they are the jokes I used to roll my eyes at and groan with embarrassment over, now I smile just because they are a part of her and she refuses to give them up, even though everyone has heard them all before.

The CMA led me back to the room and after I had sat down on the paper covered exam table she took my vitals. I apologized for wearing a long sleeve shirt, but the young girl said it was okay, she could put the blood pressure cuff over it because it was so thin. I studied the girl’s face as she carefully recorded the numbers. She looked to be about twelve, her hair in a ponytail, her face a mixture of perfectly tiny features that made up her sweet little face. I imagined that I could be old enough to be her Mom, if I’d given birth to her in high school. As she was checking my pulse the sleeve of the long sleeve shirt she wore under her pink scrubs slid up and I saw that her arms were covered with scars from cutting herself. I imagined that she had to wear long sleeves on even the hottest days, and I thought about her cutting into herself, wearing her pain on the outside too. She told me that I had to get undressed and that I couldn’t even leave my socks on. “When I go to the doctor, I always want to leave my socks on because it makes me feel more secure.” she said to me. I nodded in understanding and wanted to hug her but she was out the door, gone, not my girl to save.

My doctor had large dark puffy circles under her eyes. I had never seen them there before, but although she sees me naked, inside and out, we are not allowed to break through the doctor patient relationship and talk about her. She scolded me gently for not having done the two things she had told me to do, go to physical therapy, and get blood work done at the lab. I told her that I knew I should have, but when the woman had called bright and early from the physical therapy department I had listened to her chipper over enthusiastic voice and deleted the message without writing down the number. The doctor laughed at that. I have always been suspicious of people who are genuinely cheerful, especially so early in the morning, because I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode enough as it is without surrounding myself with constant happy banter.

The doctor gave me three new prescriptions and I showed her the zit that had sprung up on my chin. It was one of those that lingers, red and throbbing, but there is nothing you can do about it because it refuses to break through to the surface. I told her that it was my worry about going back to work zit and mentioned that I had read in a trash magazine that celebrities have cortisone injections to eliminate their pimples. She said that she had never done a pimple injection before and she wanted me to hold a warm compress on it three times a day.

She flipped through my charts after we had talked for awhile about my back and my crazy brain and exclaimed that I had lost fifteen pounds in a month. She asked me how I had done it and I, having not been aware of the weight loss, said that I had been drinking lots of water and walking my dog. I didn’t mention that I was trying to flush narcotics out of my system. She warned me again about the ramifications of taking any job that required lifting and I nodded solemnly as I thought about telling ChefHisName that I could lift up to one hundred pounds, no problem. She told me she wanted me to find another psychiatrist because she felt like what she was doing, the drugs she was prescribing me, the medication monitoring, she felt it wasn’t working. I knew she was right but I felt weary at the thought of trying therapy again. I told her I’d look for a doctor who was accepting new patients, and inwardly felt nauseated at the thought of sitting in another office with the stranger taking notes and the tissue box pushed closer to my seat as I was told to tell the story of my childhood. Again. Over and over again, just for me, just for them, until one day something in the wiring of my brain reprograms itself perhaps? Until I can retell the morning of March 27^th 1985, walking into a house to find my father had chosen to die, was I supposed to tell that story until I could tell it with dry eyes?

I went downstairs to fill my prescriptions and the café next to the pharmacy was packed with lunch eaters. After comparing prices between the café and the vending machines I bought water from the vending machine, letting that be an opportunity to use up all of the nickels in my purse. I sat staring at the numbers on the pharmacy screen. It currently read 71; the piece of paper in my hand read 85. There was a woman in a wheelchair telling everyone and no one that she had lost her husband of thirty years to cancer. People moved tables to avoid her, and she maneuvered her motorized scooter, carefully zipping up rows in between the groups of patients and employees trying to eat their lunches. Everyone seemed to be avoiding eye contact, not wanting to get caught up in someone else’s grief, and I looked directly at her, committing her face to memory, noticing the long thick grey whiskers growing from her chin. She didn’t come near me. She forced her pain on the other people, the people in the circle that I actively tried to sit outside of.

Finally, unable to stand sitting a moment longer, I made my way outside to the one bench that has been designated as a smoking section at the hospital. Rushed employees trying to hurry and inhale as quickly as possible linger there, as do patients who come outside to smoke, some with their IV poles still attached to their arms, some with oxygen tanks hooked to their faces that I imagine to be flammable.

As I lit my smoke I remembered my cell phone, which I had turned off due to hospital regulations. I turned it on, wondering if ChefHisName had called with the appointment time for my UA. I pressed the 1 on my speed dial and his voice was there, different than before.

“Hi, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner. Uhhhhhhh…….After giving it, uh, further thought, I uh, have decided to uh, um, go with someone less experienced, so ah, um, the position has been, uh, filled with someone else. I, um, uh, will, however, keep your resume on file, and it will, uh, be the first one I pull if I am looking for a Chef or a Baker.”

I hit the 4 button on my phone and listened to the message again. I felt a pang of disappointment, then a rush of anger. He had told me the last time we spoke that the job was mine; I just needed to take the test. Pride came to my mind and joined regret and anger in the party and my ego said, “ChefFucker, you just made a huge mistake not hiring me.”

As I stood there and studied the sky, the people taking advantage of the free valet parking, the old people bringing their even older looking parents into the hospital, (at least they were parent child in my imagination), and the most amazing thing happened.

Usually I am prone to fretting and fussing, over thinking every scenario until it’s beaten to death, bloody and limping, feeling and feeling some more. This time? This time I just let it go. I let it all go, and I actually felt the weight of it leave me. I wondered if that was the secret of the chipper people I so try to avoid, the ones whom I feel so irritated around, the ones who can put on the face and pull out the happy voice.

I walked back inside and the number board read 84. I was next.

I have been asked, countless times now, to describe my depression. I was never able to articulate it. Today I was thinking about it as I loaded yet another load of soiled clothes into the washer and I remembered that line from John Irving’s amazing book “The World According To Garp” “Beware of the Undertoad”. It sums things up quite nicely. I feel as if I am being pulled under water. Sometimes I fight and fight when I feel this horrific sadness, this horrible weight wash over me, and still other times I just submit. There is comfort here anyway, in this sadness, in this fatigue.

I appreciate everyone who took the time to comment on my last entry. The one part that I left out was that the cousin I mentioned was this one, the one I had been so incredibly close to. I emailed him and he hasn’t answered back, although he wrote my mom to thank her for her hospitality. I think that if I was being completely honest with myself I would say that as much as I have missed him, I don’t want him to see me, not like this.

For those of you who can commiserate about the tendency to hide I am sorry. I wouldn’t wish this on another person. For those of you who thought that I wouldn’t be obviously mentally ill in person I guess it would depend on the day. I go up and down.

Jane asked about whether or not I was reluctant to work on my phobias and the only answer I could give is I am tired of working on it. I have had three doctor’s appointments in the last week alone. I am on a few more prescriptions so now I have an even longer list and I am starting to forget the names of the pills. I just make a little pile in the morning. I quit going to my psychiatrist awhile back. He was a nice man, but he spent most of the sessions telling me stories about his life and his mental illness. I was appreciative that he was open and honest about his life but he soon started to tell the same stories over and over and I would sit on the couch listening. My insurance pays for 20 visits in a 24 month period and I am afraid that I wasted them telling a man that I understood why he freaked out that one time and whipped his dog. I really didn’t understand but I didn’t know what to say to that one. I need to go through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy again. I did it in the 90s and I need to do it again, never mind how much I hated it, it helped in the end.

Spring break is over today and I dread waking the kids in the morning. I think they had fun. Nathan spent the majority of his time hanging out with his girlfriend, asleep, or on the phone. Polly went to a variety of sleepovers, as well as having a few girls stay the night here. That involved meeting some moms I hadn’t met before, and although I dreaded and fretted I made it through those meetings and they let their girls stay the night in my home so I must not have done too badly. I’ve noticed that I don’t know what to do with my hands when I am talking. I need to remember to wear something with pockets because sometimes my hands shake and seeing them shake makes me even more nervous.

We had Maggie spayed this week. She is recovering nicely. Except for her shaved belly and the strip of fur missing from her arm where they put the IV in you wouldn’t know it to look at her. The first day she was sore and very sleepy and now she is back to chasing cats and birds around with glee.

The 23^rd anniversary of my dad’s death passed on the 27^th. Unlike last year I didn’t write about my feelings. I did talk with him in my mind, but I do that everyday. I used to be so angry at him for leaving me. Now that I understand more how sick he was I will ask him how he made it to the age of 57, ‘cause I am 35 here and I don’t know how to keep going. I think though that I am selfish and egocentric. I want to create at least one masterpiece before I go. Just one.

For the past several days Alex has been on vacation. It was easy to feel as if I was on vacation too, except for the pesky things like dishes still piling up and the kids calling out that we were out of clean towels, again. I could really get used to having a second pair of hands around here. It was so nice to have the “what’s for dinner?” query of every night answered when I got home by Alex cooking away. I went several times to do the dishes, only to find that he had already done them, and wiped down the counters. When the kids were hitting me up with question number 2409 for the day I could say, “Go ask your father.” Trying to be a parent, a really hands on parent, is very difficult while working graveyard shift and sleeping during the day. I know; I tried to do it for years. It is easy to feel as if you are part of a different world as a day sleeper. Alex and I also were able to spend lots of time together, which was nice. We cuddled up and watched movies; made love, talked and just spent time snuggling. There are usually only a few times per month that we even share the same bed. We spent last week going to bed together, which was wonderful. It has been very cold here lately and I felt totally at ease stealing body heat. We did have a few nights where Alex would steal all of the covers from me and a resulting tug-o-war would ensue. He claimed total ignorance in the mornings. He isn’t used to sharing the blankets anyone. Now we are both saddened by the fact that he has to return to work tonight and we are back to the hustle and bustle and the separate schedules and the days when we have no time to talk .

Also, last week, as I was reveling in the goodness of a man who awoke earlier than I and made my coffee perfectly with a beautiful head of frothed milk on the top and delivered it to me one minute before my alarm was set to go off so I could relax and sip myself awake instead of being jolted awake by a horrible buzzing sound; we heard the news from Australia that my grandmother, my nanny, as I call her, was going downhill quickly. My mother quickly tried to get a ticket to NSW. Last minute tickets were in the $4000 range and my mom was so determined to go and sit by her bedside and so frazzled by the idea that she might not make it that she couldn’t even think straight. She went round and round over the planning until I reminded her of a travel agent friend she hadn’t spoken to in some time. My mom was hesitant, but she called her, and the lovely lady who also happens to be a transplanted Aussie like my mother was able to find my mom a ticket that was significantly cheaper. My mom booked it and started packing. Saturday morning her brother called to let her know that their mom had died.

My mom drove over to my house and we sat together. We talked and cried and remembered. We shared stories of this beautiful, strong woman who made it to the age of 96. We laughed as we both recalled that nanny always had more done before 7 am than we could ever accomplish in one day. It wasn’t that everyone wasn’t expecting this death, it was the fact that being so many thousands of miles away, we were all hoping for more time, and just one more opportunity to see her.

My grandparents came to visit us here in Portland in 1980. Neither of them had been on an airplane before. I remember Mt. St. Helens erupted soon after their arrival and my grandfather commented on the welcome party. My grandfather died in 1991. A lot of people thought my nanny would follow quickly, but she continued on, keeping busy with her art and enjoying her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I had a photo of her that I wanted to share here of my nanny, but Alex’s computer died last night and most of our things were on there with no backup. Yes, we know how foolish that was.

My mom decided to cancel her flight after being notified that she wouldn’t even make the funeral in time. We are going to get together here and have a celebration honoring her life and a mass held in her honor at the grotto, which was one of her favorite places here in Portland. My mom is still dealing with the fact that she was unable to be by her side when she passed. I want to believe that she knew we were all with her in her heart, and that she knew how much she was loved. The day she died would have been her 77^th wedding anniversary. I can see why people turn to faith during times like these, as it is so tempting to believe that she and my grandfather and their son who died before both of them are all together now, sipping a cup of tea.

It’s October, 2006. The time before we must have my mother’s house empty has dwindled to hours. There is no longer time to sort through the boxes and repack them. I have started merely dumping the old boxes into new ones, taping them shut and scribbling misc. on them. The only reason I am bothering to place the stuff in new boxes is because these boxes have been sitting for decades and the bottoms have deteriorated to dust. There are mice in several, awakened from their nests as their shit rains into a new box. There is no more time to care. My heart is racing; the weight of all of this is on my shoulders. My mom is ill and hasn’t slept for days. She is starting to speak in nonsensical fragments not even close to coherent sentences.

There are people around now. Two years have passed since I began preparing this house for sale and the people have arrived at the last minute, offering their help, their cars and trucks, their backs and arms. My mom doesn’t want them there. She whispers to me to get rid of them, but I can no longer do this alone and so I ignore her wish. Why is my mom sitting in the kitchen with her computer on a cutting board emailing Tokyo? People are asking what is wrong with her. I ignore them and try to come up with a system. Only I will deal with the boxes in their raw, dust covered state. After they are repacked and labeled (an absurd term for what I am doing) I will allow people to begin to load them into a waiting vehicle.

My mom is a hoarder, a packrat. It is her secret shame. I am trying to protect her from anyone else finding out, but family members and her best friend are witnessing what can no longer hide in a basement larger than most people’s homes. Some whisper about how things ever managed to get this bad. Fewer look to me. Is that blame in their eyes? So many dumpsters, trips to goodwill, yard sales, items on craigslist, trips to the dump and yet somehow, so much left is here.

I am dumping boxes as fast as I can when I see it, an envelope. It is a letter addressed to my brother in my father’s handwriting. I look around to see if anyone is watching me and quickly shove it deep into the pockets of my jeans. I say nothing to anyone.

Later that night at my house I pull it out and stare at it. It is thick. I knew about this letter before, but it hasn’t been mentioned in years. In 1983 my mom put my brother Matthew into a foster home. She did this for his safety, as he and my dad were coming to blows now that Matthew had started fighting back when beaten. My mother feared for his life. He went to live with a wealthy family with several kids who were grown by that time. My father wasn’t notified of his whereabouts. I was jealous. I wanted to be sent to live with a different family too. I missed my brother. Sometimes we would meet him at secret places (usually fast food restaurants) for a quick visit. He would hug us all before he walked out the door first and I would blink back tears as he headed in a different direction than our home. Walking, he was always walking, no matter how far he had to go, no matter the miles wearing out his shoes or the fact that he had bus fair in his pocket. It might have cleared his head. I’m guessing, of course. Years later I started walking to clear my own.

During that time when my brother lived in another house, in another city, my father begged, pleaded and cried for his son’s return. When that didn’t work he punched us. No one ever divulged the secret of his whereabouts. We were good secret keepers. My dad wrote this letter to my brother and asked my mom to deliver it to him. My brother refused to even glance at it. After a year my brother came back home to live with us. Another year or so and my dad was dead, having walked down the basement stairs to make a noose and end his life. There was no suicide note. My mom and I tore apart the whole house looking for one. It was weeks before she would allow anyone to take the garbage out for fear that it might be thrown away.

A few more times over the years my mom tried to deliver the letter to my brother, but he always refused to accept it. My mom said that she had read it and she felt he should too. I said nothing. I was jealous. This letter was not mine to read.

When I found the letter in a box filled with junk: twist ties, expired coupons, disposable napkins, photos that had gotten wet at some time and were stuck together, ruined, old magazines long since molded, I said to myself that I was just going to keep it safe.

Of course I read it. It is nine pages long and filled with details about my father I was never aware of. He explained his decent into mental illness and alcoholism, his feelings of failure for having ended up being an abusive drunken husband and father. He wrote of his time spent in church praying for the lord to save him. He asked my brother to relay messages to my sisters and me; messages of love and apology that no doubt would have fallen on deaf ears in the early 80s, but now, now they make me weep. I never got those messages. Would they have helped? I don’t know anymore.

I hid the letter in my locked file cabinet and pretended that I wasn’t doing anything but waiting for the right opportunity, maybe after my mom was settled in her new house.

I pretended that I wasn’t mad, not at my mom for not taking better care of the letter and for choosing not to tell me the words that were written to me, but most of all I tried not to be mad at my dad for not writing me a letter like that one. I tried not to be mad at him for not trying harder to make it through his illness.

Finally I admitted to my mom that I had found the letter during the move and held onto it for her. She has demanded it back and I shall return it because it’s not mine to keep. I am glad that I had an opportunity to read it now as an adult. I was ten when it was written. I never would have understood the words then. Now I do.

My dad would have turned eighty over this past weekend. It’s hard to imagine. In my mind he hasn’t aged a day so he still has a full head of hair and a strong build. I remember the way I felt when he hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear that we were the last two members of the family who were blond and we needed to stick together. His hair was gray, but he never tired of that little joke between us.

My Mom asked me last Friday to go with her to place flowers on his grave and I said no. I only want to go alone. It is three buses and a walk and I still want to do it alone. There is no one in my life that I can talk to about the conflicting feelings I have about loving someone so much and losing him, someone who also had a side where he hit me and said horrible things to me.

Grief. It never goes away fully for me, it changes. I am now 35; my father is forever stuck at 57. I couldn’t have saved him from his fate then anymore than he can save me from myself now. But I am glad that I found that letter and that my dad took the time to write it. Even if it never ends up in the hands of your only son dad, it helped your youngest daughter. Thank you.

Recently, I have found myself gripped by a story The Oregonian has been covering about a woman named Lovelle Svart; a woman who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer five years ago. I am usually not a big reader of the local newspaper, but for some reason we have been getting one delivered to our house every morning for free. My mornings start out even earlier than they used to now that I have Maggie. When she wakes up she has to pee immediately; that means there’s no time for me to use the toilet or to (oh how I miss it) linger over a nice cup of coffee while the whole house is still asleep.

Having a puppy means that I also have to be careful about the clothes I wear to bed, or the lack thereof, because I may have to run out at an ungodly hour in a see through nightgown because I’ve misplaced my robe and it’s awkward enough that I met my new next door neighbor when I flew out the door with a puppy on a leash as I was pulling on jeans that I’d yet to button or zip. He smiled and nodded in hello, and I nodded, no smile.

Now I have come to expect my free paper every morning. My mom guessed that they might be doing a free trial and soon they will contact me and say, “Hey didn’t you like that. Don’t you want to sign up?”

Here in Oregon we have legal doctor assisted suicide. I have voted many times on many different issues. I take the matter seriously, doing research if necessary, and thinking carefully before I cast my vote. I have even called my sister Monica over ballot measures; asking her advice about one or two that I’ve read over and over again and I still can’t figure out, only to hear her flipping through her voter’s manual and saying , “Yeah, I don’t get that one either.” My mom usually offers the helpful “If it raises taxes, vote against it.” As far as the matter of doctor assisted suicide I didn’t have to think about it long before deciding that I agreed that it was not my place to tell terminally ill people they should have to go on suffering if it is their wish to end their lives. I have seen people who were dying from cancer and it is a horrible thing to witness.

I have thought about my vote off and on over the years. I have wondered about the people who filled the prescription and actually used it. Through Lovelle’s account, I was able to hear the story of a dying woman who decided to fill her prescription for the medication that would end her life. She made a statement, “I am not brave.” I think that judging the suicide, assisted or otherwise, of someone who is dying isn’t a place I would even dare to tread. Nor do I care to. I do believe, however, that by letting us into her life as she neared the end of it, Lovelle was undeniably brave. Whether people agreed with her or not, she brought death and dying right to the front page and opened up communication about a subject that remains largely taboo to many people. She sparked controversy and debate and for that I thank her. I highly recommend checking out the link to the story, no matter which side you’re on in this controversial issue.

The conclusion to my search for answers regarding Brett Reider can be found at Brett Reider Is Alive and Doing Well.

I had an entry all planned out for today, complete with photos that I took on Alex’s camera, but he was too tired when he got home from work and I don’t know how to upload them, so this will have to suffice for now. Speaking of cameras, I called the shop that’s had mine since May and the woman who answered the phone acted all shocked when I said, “Uh, yeah, I am calling to check the status of my camera that I dropped off a long time ago”

“Oh my God!” she responded, after typing my name into the computer, “You should have had your camera back a long time ago!” No shit. Apparently the part they need is on backorder and it should be ready by next week. I am so excited, because I will actually be able to take pictures and put them up by myself without asking my husband to do it for me.

As I’ve mentioned, I have two older sisters, Monica and Maria. I have detailed the closeness of my relationship with Maria here, but I don’t think I’ve talked much about Monica. When we were growing up we didn’t get along. Even as adults we have had huge arguments that have involved yelling and then not speaking to each other for months. Today though, she did me a huge favor and took Polly to see the new Harry Potter movie. She has two daughters, ages 13 and 12, and they get along well with my daughter, so for the sake of the girls I have tried not to fight with their mother. I really do appreciate her taking them to the movies because me, I wasn’t looking forward to it so much. I wanted to wait until the hoopla died down a bit before we went. Monica bought tickets online in advance. So today has been quiet, with Alex sleeping and Nathan just hanging out and talking on the phone or watching TV.

My medication has been upped even more than it was, so I am now taking three times the amount. Every doctor I’ve seen has tried this with my antidepressants to see if they can eliminate the panic attacks and anxiety and reduce my reliance on benzodiazepines. The side effect is more panic, a constant state of anxiety and insomnia. Last night I was up until 6:30 this morning. I had a quick nap on the couch and then woke at ten. These side effects do go away in time; you just have to ride them out.

When dealing with insomnia I usually try very hard to go to sleep before I just say fuck it and either get up or watch TV or something. This morning I was flipping through the channels and I came across a documentary on HBO titled “Brett Killed Mom”. I was totally sucked in. The lives that my siblings, my mom and I lived in the years before my father’s suicide are not ones that I have ever been able to convey to anyone. A psychiatrist once asked me how bad the abuse was, and I told her that it was bad. Really bad. She asked me if my father had ever broken any bones. I said yes, and she explained that the abuse scale put physical abuse into two categories; one with broken bones and a less severe form with no broken bones. I never knew there was a scale, and I personally think that the emotional abuse has left the most crippling scars. I have spent many years in therapy and I am frankly tired of trying to make sense of my past. I want to deal with now. I know, I know, I can’t move on until I deal with what happened.

One aspect of being an abused child that I’ve had trouble coming to grips with is the fact that as the years moved on and the abuse grew worse and my self esteem was nonexistent I used to spend a lot of time thinking about killing my father. I honestly felt that someone was going to have to do it or we would never be safe. I imagined how I would do it and I knew that I would go to prison for it. I felt that it would be a fair exchange; my freedom gone, my father’s life taken and my mom and siblings would be free. I never acted on those plans because I physically was not strong enough to fight back in self defense and I knew on some level that if I did I would only manage to make things much worse. After my dad died it was years before I admitted this dark secret of mine. When I told my psychiatrist she said that it was a normal reaction, a matter of self-preservation. She said that it wasn’t uncommon for the abused to contemplate killing their abusers. On different occasions I spoke with my mom, my brother, and both of my sisters about it. They admitted that they too had thought about killing him. My mom went so far as to say that she felt that it was her duty to protect her children by any means necessary. She too felt as if she would one day have to kill or watch her children die. Somehow none of this makes it any easier, or maybe it does, I don’t know.

When I was watching “Brett Killed Mom: A Sister’ Story” I literally felt as if it could have been me there on the screen being interviewed from prison. I wanted to hug him; to tell him that I understand how it had happened. Brett Reider’s story is one that I feel everyone involved in the system should see; whether it is police officers, social workers, teachers or just people who can’t understand the results of a life where the one who should love and nurture you becomes the one who you have to get away from to save you.

Tomorrow: A deep longing that I have had for years will be fulfilled by my husband. I’ll have to get pictures of tomorrow to share with you. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I received my first hate email from this site two days ago. I guess it is to be expected; I have been doing this for about a year now without any. This particular email made me very angry, and I logged out of my email account without responding. I wanted more time to think it over first and to decide if I should respond. This particular person didn’t attack my writing, they attacked my character. When Alex woke up and began to get ready for work I told him about this woman and what she had said about me. Hey broke into a huge grin and said, “Your first hate mail! That’s great. You should create a page on your site just for hate mail and post it there.” His idea was intriguing; I have seen other journals with hate mail and responses that have been quite humorous. It wasn’t the course of action I really wanted to take though. Instead I waited until I had calmed down enough to respond, and I did so with kindness. I did not hear back from her. This got me to thinking about email. My former best friend used to tell me that email gave people false muscles, like alcohol. He was of course commenting on the fact that there were things that I would never have said to him in person that I confided via email. An even more dangerous combination is email or the phone with the addition of alcohol. Obviously I am not the only one who has used a computer screen to hide behind while communicating. I do try, however, to ask myself if I would feel comfortable saying whatever it is I am trying to convey via email directly to the person’s face.

My Mother recently sent me an email with the subject line “Your Cousin”. I currently have a cousin who is in the Army stationed in Afghanistan. One might think that he would have popped into my head first, but before I opened the email I already knew who the subject matter would be.

Back in 1983 my mom took her four children to her homeland of Australia. There I spent an idyllic summer surrounded by aunts and uncles, grandparents and countless cousins. It was the first time in my life that I felt free. My father stayed here in America; without him nearby I blossomed. I wasn’t so afraid. I didn’t feel the need to constantly walk on eggshells. I felt a sense of belonging, a feeling of being home for the first time, and more than anything I was surrounded by so much love that my heart threatened to burst.

During that time I met my cousin Steve. We hit it off immediately and spent hours together talking, walking around the abandoned railroad tracks of the sleepy little town my mom had grown up in, sneaking cigarettes and making plans for the future. We were both dreamers, you could say. We made plans to be famous musicians (him) and highly successful writers (me). We built each other up. Youth gave us the belief that anything was within our grasp. When I left that summer I ended up crying my eyes out at the airport, begging my mom not to take us back to America, back to a place where daily beatings at the hands of my father were the norm for us all, back to the place where we slept with one foot on the floor always ready to jump up and run at the first noise in the night.

The next trip to Australia took place under very different circumstances in 1985. My father had died. I had decided to take my inner rebel and run with her. I was shaving parts of my head, wearing tons of makeup and smoking a pack a day. I was nervous about seeing Steve again, afraid that the connection would be lost. We ended up discovering that although we had had zero contact since our last visit we were now wearing our hair the same, dressing in a similar way, and listening to the same bands. He had fulfilled his promise of learning to play the guitar, and was now quite good at it. We picked up where we had left off. When it was time for us to leave the country this time I tried to beg my mom to let us stay there. I felt that there was no life for me in America. My mom informed me that Steve and his mom and sister would be returning to America to live with us. I was so excited.

We spent the next several months spending all of our spare time together. He knew that at times I would gab on like a maniac and at other times I would sit in silence. Sometimes I would cry for seemingly no reason and he made it clear that was O.K. too. He tried to teach me to play guitar and we practiced together. We wrote music together, me working on the lyrics mostly, him carefully jotting down the notes. We agreed to meet in NYC when I turned 18. There we would start our own band, become famous, and live happily ever after, rich and free. Ah, to be young again.

When the time came for him to leave we considered running away. It seemed like the only solution until the reality of us having less than two dollars in coins and a half pack of smokes between us kicked in. We promised to keep in touch through letters. That promise lasted about 18 months, not bad considering our ages at the time.

My 18^th birthday came and went. I remembered the young woman who had been so naive to have thought that everything would be O.K. if only I could make it to NYC on this date. I had children; he had children. He married; I didn’t, until later. In 1993 I flew with Nathan to see my family once again. I saw Steve twice during that trip. I met his wife and kids. I had heard from family members that he had become successful as a guitarist; I wasn’t surprised. We didn’t have much time to talk during our visits, but he did ask me if I was still writing. I said no. He told me that I had a good head on my shoulders and a story to tell. “You should do it, kid” and he smiled. He asked me if I was still practicing the guitar chords he had taught me. I had to tell him that I had tried to, for a long time I tried, but without him there to guide me as to the finger placement I had given up. “It’s O.K. I can teach you again!” I laughed. It was too late. It was ridiculous. We parted, promising to write, although I think we both knew we wouldn’t.

Three years later a letter arrived in my mailbox from him. He was congratulating me on the birth of my daughter. We wrote back and forth for a while and then moved on to phone calls from time to time. Sometimes long stretches of time would go by without a word and then one of us would reach out. The time never seemed to matter; we picked up right where we had left off. During the period of time when his father was terminally ill and his marriage was headed for divorce we spoke frequently. When he met and fell in love with his second wife I didn’t hear from him often. I was admittedly the same with him. We were the opposite of fair weather friends in many ways. When I was in the darkest hour of depression it was him I called late one night, collect, no less. He accepted the charges and chatted with me until he had me laughing. He once calmed me down from a severe panic attack over the phone by going through his cupboards and fridge and naming everything he had that I, a vegetarian, could eat at his house. It worked for some strange reason.

More time passed with no contact. Last year his name popped up in my email inbox. I was surprised and pleased. We had never done the email thing. We started out with daily emails. In time they became weekly, and then monthly, then they stopped. I wasn’t sad or confused or surprised. I understood now that this was the way it had been since 1983 and that was O.K.

My mom’s email titled “Your Cousin” was about him, just as I had known it would be. While on vacation in Thailand he was riding a motorbike and was hit by a truck, which ran over his body and then fled the scene. He survived. He is now in the hospital in Thailand with too many broken bones to fly home. I ran through a whole series of emotions and ideas after I read the news. I went from wondering if I should call him at the hospital, wondering if I should send a card to him in Thailand or have one waiting for him when he returns home to Australia, to one crazy moment where I felt as if I should fly there and sit by his bedside to make sure he is O.K.

Right now I realize that no matter what I do, even if I decided to skip even the simplest gesture of a get well card, it would be alright. He would understand. Some relationships can transcend the restrictions of whatever means of communication are available to us at any given time. In a nutshell, I know it in my heart that I don’t have to say or do anything at all. He knows. He already knows what I would say.

I have been working a lot, which is good; it keeps my mind off of things. I was glad when June called and said that she had some things she wanted done around the house. I have shampooed all of her carpets, weeded and weeded some more, planted so many different flowers I couldn’t name them if someone put a gun to my head and what else? I can’t even remember.

I have worked everyday except for Monday, which is officially my “feel guilty for not going to visit my Dad’s grave” day. Sometimes my Mom asks if I would like to go with her on what would have been his birthday or on Father’s Day, but it’s always a Memorial Day request. I would like to say that it doesn’t bother me, going up there, but I’d be lying. My Dad is buried in the Veteran’s Cemetery (he was in the ARMY during the Korean War) and on Memorial Day they put a little flag on every grave. The cemetery is hundreds of acres and I guess it might be an enjoyable, peaceful place to visit, but I don’t want to go there with my Mother ever again. The last time that we went we took my kids, and Polly wanted to buy some flowers to put on my Dad’s grave. I asked my Mom four times if we could stop somewhere to buy flowers, but she just kept driving, ignoring me. When we got to the cemetery we had a hard time finding his grave because so many new people had been buried that everything looked different to me. When we finally did find it my Mom marched over to a garbage can, pulled some dead, slimy, withered flowers out, marched back over and threw them on the grave. “There”, she said, “now he has flowers on his grave.” I truly understand her issues with the man, hell, I am the queen of holding onto anger for years, but the way that she acted in front of my kids freaked them out. When we got home Polly cried because Grampa’s flowers were “yucky and gross” and it took me forever to calm her down. Plus, our friend, the one who recently died, is buried up there, and I would like to be alone when I go. I was relieved that my Mom called me to say she was too sick to go this year, we’d go later… But I am going to take the bus by myself. Alex has no desire to go; he doesn’t understand visiting people after they’re gone. I look at it as something for those left behind, a type of closure, a place to say goodbye.

That reminds me of the time my sister Maria was flipping through my phonebook and in the front I had written DAD’S GRAVE and the plot letters and numbers so that we would never get lost trying to find it again. My sister gave me a funny look and said, “Uh, Tammy, why do you have Dad’s grave in your phonebook?” I told her that I sent him a Christmas card every year and she totally believed me.

It is so hot today. When I got home I was so happy to see that Alex had cut the grass for me. He never cuts the grass. I was all ready to offer him sexual favors but he was curled up asleep. He hates fooling around when it’s this hot anyway. I had forgotten about that. I wonder if people with central air conditioning have more sex in the summer than those who don’t.