Lee

Acute Heroin intoxication. Those are the indelibly written words on
 my brother Lee Burton's death certificate and on my heart.  One year 
ago today marks the end of his horrible ugly addiction. What it doesn't 
mark is the continued sadness and guilt felt by those left behind. Those
 including myself who turned a blind eye to the symptoms and behaviors 
that were slapping me in the face daily. It took me 9 months to order 
his death certificate with cause of death included. My mother cannot 
enter the apartment attached to her home where she found him. Don't be 
mistaken my brother was a wonderful, loving, caring person who on many 
levels I still admire.Heroin however doesn't care who you are, how 
bright talented and amazing you might be. It can be injected into any 
socioeconomic class. You could say it doesn't discriminate.  Ultimately 
my brother made his own choices but when this black grim reaper gets a 
choke hold on you it chokes your ability to make rational decisions for 
yourself. This is where the guilt has it's staring role. When Lee was in
 its grip I was so incredibly angry at the mess that was his life I 
couldn't see that he was unable to cry for help. This monster literally 
choked the life out of him.  No longer angry I feel so cheated by this 
easy readily available vixen of a drug. I'm not writing to stand on a 
soap box and point fingers at anyone else I'm doing quite the opposite. 
Today I'm pointing the finger at myself for not being brave enough to 
fight for my brothers life. I'm also writing to declare my sense of loss
 for Lee and my love for him. He always stood up for me even if I knew I
 was wrong. He loved unconditionally. 
He didn't judge, anyone ever. I see him in every butterfly. Amazing, 
strong and fragile at the same time.

This New Year

On this New Year's Eve I am unexpectedly giddy with the promise of the year to come.  I find myself pushing past the intense heartache and pain that permeated  2014. and feeling an overwhelming rush of hope and love.  It is an almost perfect parallel to the feelings that have not faded  from  26 years ago.  I gave birth to my oldest daughter Katie just past midnight on New Years morning. The fear and pain...the unknown...the weighty reality of responsibility beyond anything I had ever felt, melted into inexplicable joy the moment she was laid in my arms.  I have dreams and plans for this new year that mirror those I had for that precious little baby.  I know I will have to crawl before I walk. That I will stumble and fall.  I also am certain that I will surpass my own expectations.  There will be more laughter than tears more celebrations than grief.  As this year comes to a close and I mean close in a very literal sense. I am thrilled  to step over that imaginary threshold of the past and fully embrace the possibilities this new year holds. Won't you take my hand and come with me? Think of all the extraordinary memories we will make..Happy Joyous New Year to all of my family and friends.  God has a great adventure planned for us! 

Sent from my iPhone

What I Realize is Important

Three months earlier............

Tonight’s been rough.  I have been alone for two days…I haven’t been alone really since before my dad died.  I didn’t realize how dependent on others I am.  More than that, I realize that even when I am with others, I am alone in my grief.  Not to say I don’t value my friends and families well wishes, company and comfort.  I am realizing this is an experience I have to go through alone. I have to own it.  I will need the shoulders, sweet words and understanding of many, but my experience is unique and I have to fight through it.  I grieve the love I didn’t have with my brother…I mourn the memories my dad didn’t have of my girls. I am desperately afraid my children will have to endure the loss of a sibling…they are so intricately tied to one another.  If I am suffering so deeply how will they feel at the loss of one another.  My head is swimming with tears and regret.  I am so grateful for my family and close friends,  but mostly my children.  Their relationships are so normal and beautiful unlike my own.  I pray they all grow very, very old together enjoying one another and all of their children and grand children.

When I hear them talk to each other, giggle, and give advise.  I know that God had a plan for me.  I’m not saying that I’m a martyr or that my sad situation with my own siblings was a horrible fairytale out of the Brother’s Grimm, what I am saying is that despite my circumstances there is light and hope and joy.  I have been able to, partly with God’s grace, and with the experience and help of two amazing women, my mother and my mother in law, raise three incredibly bright, sweet compassionate girls who individually are amazing but together as sisters are unstoppable human beings.  Everything that I wished I had in a relationship with my own siblings they have in spades.  I’m not sure if this was completely by design or if I just worked harder to correct my own broken relationships in them.  No matter.  As I struggle with a kind of grief I don’t wish upon anyone, I take great comfort in the simple joy of three sisters who genuinely love each other and are willing to fight for their relationships as family.  I know I will get through this.  I will feel alone among many.  I will question my relationships and wonder if there was anything I could have said or done..I will never regret my experience, my childhood, my family dynamic.  This is all a part of who I am.  Funny, ugly, fierce and dysfunctional. 

Not ready to say goodbye

  

  I suppose I'm the queen of compartmentalization.  If you need to get through something I can teach you how to put your emotions in a box, seal them up and file them away indefinitely.  God only knows what treasures lie buried in my subconscious and God knows no one needs to know. Scary I'm certain!  I find myself in a very awkward place. Drippy tears eak out at inappropriate times and places. While watching commercials or looking at my children's photos I am overcome with uncontrollable emotion.  Not good for the Q of C.  I do have a lot to cry about of late, but haven't really been able to let it all come to the surface. That is until the news of the very sudden and unfortunate passing of comedian Robin Williams.  Isn't it funny how someone whom I never met, didn't really know at all, could cause a wave of uncontrollable grief to be released.  I lost my father in April to heart failure and cancer which seamed to rage in and deplete him in an instant.  Then in late July I lost my big brother to a drug overdose. I feel like these endings were an inevitable scene in a very heartbreaking film, but I just am not ready to say goodbye.  To watch the credits scroll up, with a large part of my life too...The End....it's almost easier to wail and scream for someone whose life story hasn't amputated my own.  I know I will have to open these carefully closed boxes sooner than later and really deal with my loss, but for now, I will pause the story.. I'm just not ready to say goodbye.

Cousins

If there is one thing my family did well it was fostering relationships between cousins.  Although my  experience with my own siblings was strange and could have been the used as a doctoral thesis for a budding psychiatrist, my cousin relationship was filled with sweet summer play and was as normal as I think it should have been.  My dad was one of four kids.  His twin sisters each had four as well. Now we had three in our family, but I was the only one who went on extended "cousin cations".  Every summer I would take the greyhound bus from Phoenix to Tucson, a sometimes sketchy two hour ride, and stay for 2 weeks, sometimes 3, depending on how sick we got of each other.  I would start and end at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Burt's house and spend the middle of my trip at Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill's house.  This was truly the highlight of my summer. I could not wait to simply play all day with these wonderful creatures.  We fought too,  like normal kids do.  To disagree,feel sorry, forgive and move on , was a completely foreign concept to me. I hope I have instilled  this in my own children.  At Aunt Nancy's I got to play with "the boys".  Danny, Kevin and John...there was Colleen too.  We would swim, ride bikes, play at the park across the street for hours.... Colleen and I would ride the city bus all over Tucson! I watched little boys do little boy things.  My brother locked himself  in his room , I was forbidden to enter or bother him.  These boy cousins transfixed me.  They did things like, carefully tying  a string around the body of a cicada and then let the buzzing large black bug zoom around in circles. They would also put the bugs on Colleen and me and then run away.   It was almost like watching a beautiful story unfold before your eyes. I felt so tickled to be a small part of their everyday life. I've never felt so safe and free at the same time as I did those summer days.  My uncle Burt, after I'm certain, was an exhausting day at work, would sit down with a cocktail and be instantly bombarded with attention seeking children.  His tone seemed slightly agitated  but he would relent and finally listen intently to the trials and triumphs of the day.  He would fire back like only a seasoned attorney can do with his own set of questions.  Some seemed appropriate some seemed to just fuel a bigger discussion.  He wasn't what I would call warm and fuzzy but his care and concern were and still are very genuine.  He was strict but generous. My Aunt Nancy was and is still everything I strive to be.  Her diminutive size was only predicated by her huge heart, and amazing ability to command her "troops".  Gentle disciplinarian , champion for all, and I mean ALL.  She effortlessly was able to make meals for her crew, volunteer not only herself but all of us to do philanthropic things, more importantly, she had and still does have a unshakable faith in God and a fantastic sense of humor.  Beyond the love of my own mother, my love for this woman is unrivaled.  Colleen and I to this day are amazed that she was so trusting. To let us venture off with a promise to be back by dinner time is so beyond how we hover over our children monitoring their every move like a carefully played game of chess.  I suppose she just had more faith in society and us to do the right thing.
Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill's house was another adventure. They had four girls. So I just fit right in like another.  The girls shared two rooms.  Andy and Sally in one and Tina and Jenny in another. What I remember most about those summer days were the nights.  We would stay awake for hours it seemed and talk about everything. Boys, friends, school, family, scary stories. I couldn't imagine better "sisters". They we're definitely  not girlie girls.  Uncle Bill made up for not having boys by coaching his own team of girls. They were and still are pretty amazing athletes.  Uncle Bill loved to run and was so thrilled to compete and complete the Boston Marathon.  The Polson's are Greek.  Which meant being a fly on the wall for some pretty amazing parties... Belly dancers included.  The food was the most amazing part. I can credit my love for spanakopita  to my Polson clan.  We would swim and play all day, doing  crazy jumps and tricks off the diving board. I felt like I could tell those girls any secret and know it would be safe.  We all live very different lives now. Spread across the country and raising our own families.  Most of us are still in Arizona but I only see them on rare occasions.  I do stalk them on Facebook, and am delighted to see the next generations of cousins flourish.  As  my immediate family has become smaller I am reminded of how great an impact my extended family has had on who I am as a mother, wife, friend and even child.  When Hillary Clinton used the African proverb, " it takes a village" she wasn't kidding.  I will never be able to adequately express the gratitude I have for my cousins, aunts and uncles for embracing me, treating  me like one of their own, parenting me without reservation.

Daddy's Girl

On the Eve of my father's Birthday I am struck with a poignant, childhood memory of my relationship with my "Daddy".  One of my first memories of my dad is laden with so many senses.  I am sitting on the bathroom counter.  I couldn't have been more than two or three years old...Perched near the sink, legs crossed. I helped my father lather his face with sweet, silky shaving cream...I can still smell the clean soapy cream, and vividly remember how carefully I spread the white , fluffy, airy foam all over his face.  He would lean in close so I could "carefully" paint his stubbly cheeks, lip, and neck.  I then would sit and stare in amazement as he expertly whisked the razor across his face.  He then dipped the razor into a sink full of hot water, which I dipped my fingers in, watching the shaving cream float and then melt into the little pool. All the while he would listen to whatever I jabbered about as if it was the most important information he would ever hear.  I would ask him questions which I can no longer recall.  I'm sure they were earth shattering things like, "What are you going to do today?" "Do you love me as much as you love Susie?"  Each question was met with a constant, low reassuring tone.  To this day, when I call my dad, and, I often have frantic, earth shattering questions or concerns, I am met with the very same  comforting voice I heard as a child. The most recent memory is as poignant.  I called on the phone faced with an impossible situation.  I had to confess to him the most unbearable raw ugly truth that I had deceived my family and put them in financial peril.  The details are unimportant and the situation is well on it's way to being resolved.  It was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever or will ever have to do.  It is so easy to love your own children completely and unconditionally.  It is yet another to accept that kind of love from others.  Isn't it funny how we can marvel at our children's questioning our forgiveness yet we refuse to know in our hearts we are forgiven by our parents in the same fashion.  When I was finally able to choke the horrible words out of my mouth to my father's quiet listening ears there was no yelling, no silent disappointment.  There were tears.  Lots and lots of tears.  He was so sorry I felt I had to bear this alone.  He cried with me and for me.  It was the most reaffirming moment of parent child love I have ever experienced.  My Dad is far from perfect in his own life of failed endeavors and relationships.  He also is brilliant, funny, sensitive and proud.  Too proud to ask for help...gee I guess I come by that naturally.  Bursting with pride for his grandchildren and their accomplishments.  Proud of his children for simply being.  I am certain he doesn't see these wonderful qualities in himself because he is also terribly self deprecating.  I hope he will read this and know that I wouldn't be the parent I am if he weren't the wonderful dad he has been.  Happy Birthday Daddy.

Moments of Clarity

Moments of Clarity

Our individual realities are always shaped and formed by our varying circumstances and life experiences.  My sister had a profound effect on mine.

Growing up with an undiagnosed bipolar sibling was at the very least unpredictably terrifying.  Living with the reality that my parents were in total denial was devastating. 

From my earliest memory Susie emotionally hijacked our family.  I was sure the phrase “walking on egg shells” was coined expressly for us.  Susie was and still is one of the most intelligent, beautiful and funny people I know.  Her ability to turn a bad situation into something glorious was only predicated by her unpredictable, wildly aggressive temper.  One moment you were lured into laughing, smiling and letting your guard down.  Like a snake charmer she could will you to get comfortable, tell her your innermost secrets, ask you how you really felt about something personal and then SNAP!  It was an actual physical transformation.  Like a contortionist she took shape into another person.  Ugly, angry and venomous, she would strike out.  Using words and expletives beyond description she would verbally assault.  Physically her 5’3” 100lb stature changed into a hulk-like creature capable of taking down people 3 times her size. 

The undeniable fact that my sister suffers from a debilitating mental illness is not lost on me.  Her outbursts unprovoked and nonsensical were horrifying as a child yet my love for her always outweighed her episodes. I wanted so badly for her to

be the sister everyone else had.  The one who braided their hair, took them to the mall, helped them with boy problems.  I had glimpse of that sister.  She had moments of clarity.

She was fiercely loyal.  The one saying our family used still holds true.  “You definitely want her on your side and not against you”. 

Susie is the middle child.  A lot of her behaviors were written off to “being the middle child”.  I was so convinced that this was a viable reason that I was very concerned when I became pregnant for the third time that my middle daughter would be doomed to exhibit the same traits as my sister.

My brother, Lee, the oldest was usually the target for the more physical attacks.  He was under strict orders to NEVER hit a girl.  He was relegated to hitting the walls or doors in the hallway.  When we sold our home we spent an unusually large amount of money patching the drywall.  My clever mother mod-podged flowers cut out from existing wallpaper scraps on the holes in closet doors. 

Susie was great at psychological warfare.  She knew my brother hated peanut butter so everything she baked for home economics had peanut butter in it.  She didn’t eat any of her creations but she enjoyed torturing Lee by ruining any chance he had for eating yummy desserts.  Things would take “a turn for the worse” when Lee would ask her why she did that.  The result was usually a battle of words followed by punching and hitting, by my sister.  For me, it was the allure of “The Twilight Zone”.  It was a super scary TV show that was on Friday nights past my bedtime.  When my parents were out and Susie was babysitting me she would encourage me to watch the show promising a happy outcome.  The happy outcome never happened and Susie would then shut off the lights and chase me around in the dark.  Locking me in the hall closet was always an option too.

I'm not sure when or how the power shift happened from parent to child. 

I can hope and dream that somehow there's a special reason she's like this.  Maybe Motzart was like this.  Maybe her brilliance cannot be understood  or processed by me.  "Let go and let God" is given a whole new meaning when it comes to my sister.  It's so hard to stand by and watch someone seemingly unravel before your eyes and know there is not a thing you can do about it.  She won't allow it.  I just wait for the moments of clarity.