This Week’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I just said yesterday that I really don’t like Christmas. And this year is harder than most.

The youngest of all of us is my granddaughter, Grandgirl Maya Mae. She’s been very quiet about her grandfather’s accident and death. She has six grandparents, thanks to my being divorced from her father’s father, and both my ex and I getting remarried. So she’s had an abundance. Michael is the first one for her to lose. Maya is eleven years old, very quickly moving on to twelve, and at times, seeming like she’s already an adult. She’s always been such a responsible kid.

When she was around two, and in the midst of potty-training, I brought her back to her house one evening, after I’d been babysitting her. I went to use their bathroom before going back to my house, and she asked to come with me. While I did my business, she did hers, on her potty chair. Then, to my amazement, she got up, emptied the potty chair, stepped up on a stepstool, washed out the bowl of the chair, dried it, set it back, and then washed her hands. When we left the bathroom, she hung up her jacket on the peg and headed upstairs. “Maya,” I called. “Where are you going?”

“It’s time to put on my pajamas and go to bed,” she said.

And she did.

A few years ago, in the pandemic, she was in, I believe, the first grade, and she handled the switch to online schooling well. She asked her dad to order her an alarm clock, so she could make sure she was up on time and ready to go.

She amazes me.

In Facebook memories a few days ago, the time came up that I took her to see Frozen II. Afterwards, we went to lunch and discussed the movie. We talked about how Elsa had to learn that she was strong and smart and could do just fine on her own. This confused Maya. Sitting across from me at McDonalds, she raised her bare arms (Maya always dresses Maya, and that winter day, she was in a sleeveless dress with a ballet skirt) and made muscles. “I knowed I am strong,” she said. Then she patted her head. “I knowed I am smart,” she said. She smiled at me. “I’m going to be just fine,” she said.

I was delighted. And I hope, as she moves into these stormy waters of adolescence, that she stays that way.

But now she’s lost a grandfather.

Last year, sometime in the fall, Maya was at our house. She and Grandpa were goofing around, and somehow, they came up with a story about a potato. A living, breathing superhero potato, mind you. I was working upstairs and I could hear them whooping with laughter as this potato’s adventures got bigger and bigger.

Later, when Michael was shopping for our Christmas meal, he’d already gotten in line when the idea hit that he should get a potato and put it in Maya’s stocking for Christmas. He said something about it to the woman behind him, and added that he’d have to load the stuff in the car, then run back into the store and get the potato.

She got out of line and ran to get one for him.

So on Christmas day, Maya found a potato in her stocking. You’d think it was a pot of gold. And it was their special thing.

I thought about that as I worked on my Christmas shopping list. I wondered if I should get Maya a potato this year. I wondered if it would make her sad, or if it would help to have a great and unique memory.

But I also wanted something that would stay. Not something that would either have to be cooked and eaten, or that would eventually rot and have to be thrown away.

And then I thought of Mr. Potato Head.

Remember Mr. Potato Head? The big brown plastic potato with holes in it, so you could put in eyes and ears and a mouth and glasses and shoes and all sorts of things?

So I went on a search. The only ones I found were pretty  modern, or had too many potato people. I didn’t want the complication. I wanted just a Mr. Potato Head, the big guy, with parts to stick in him. Not pirate parts. Not Star Wars parts. Just big goofy eyes and a red nose and a big smile, and blue shoes and maybe a mustache and glasses.

And I found him today. He’s supposed to arrive here by the 12^th.

I’m still having second thoughts. Will it make her sad? I don’t know, because, as I said, she’s been quiet. But, as she moves into these teenage years, I want her to remember the gentle grandpa who held her when she wasn’t even a day old, who looked at her adoringly, who called her “Flirt,” to which she replied as a toddler, “I not a firt!”, and who spent an entire afternoon, making up an unlikely story with a potato hero.

Michael wasn’t her only grandfather, but she is our only grandchild. He adored her. And so do I.

It made me happy to find Mr. Potato Head, and to find a way to remind Maya of a wonderful afternoon. And how special even a potato can be.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Today is the 5^th of December. 20 days til Christmas. And my response to that is, “Blech.”

I used to be a huge fan of Christmas. My house was decorated from top to bottom, necessitating the moving of furniture and the packing up of everyday knick-knacks, followed by the hauling out of boxes and boxes of my collection of Santa tree toppers, and Christmas music globes, and doorknockers and wreaths and…you get the picture.

But somewhere around the millennium, that all went away. We still had trees and such, but during the pandemic, I just went out to Walgreens and bought a small tabletop tree and teeny ornaments and let it go at that. My Facebook profile picture became the Grinch. I was, and am, a very busy person. Christmas mostly became about work.

A couple years ago, Michael and I came across a six-foot tall, very skinny, rose gold Christmas tree. It fit exactly in the spot between my piano and the wall, and so it required no moving of furniture or anything else. Because the condo doesn’t have a basement to store things in, this was a huge plus. But truly, standing there, looking at this unusual color and its brightness, I was enamored. I also kept hearing Lucy from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, saying, “Get the biggest, shiniest aluminum Christmas tree you can, Charlie Brown. Maybe painted pink!” This tree wasn’t pink. Michael called it champagne. I stuck with rose gold.

We brought it home and it’s been up and decorated every Christmas since. I remember that first year, Michael looked at me as I sat in my recliner and stared and stared at the decorated tree, and he said, “Who ARE you?”

Well, that’s always been the question, donchaknow.

But this year is different. At first, I really wanted the tree, and all of the family ornaments. With Michael gone, I still wanted the familiarity, the joy, the memories that each ornament brings. I have an ornament for each first Christmas of each of my four children. I have ornaments representing our cats and our dogs, and ornaments representing Michael’s and my shared love of rhinos, which came from our first official date (that’s another story). It seemed really important to have these up.

But…there are these two cats. Young cats. Still kittens, really, though more adolescents now. And both orange, and I’ve been told that orange cats tend to be a little…crazy.

Oliver arrived in April, after first, my 14-year old cat, Edgar Allen Paw, passed away in February, and then my 20-year old cat, Muse, passed away the day after her birthday in April. I went to the humane society to find an older cat, but came home with a 9-month old kitten who needed me. His middle name quickly became Dennis the Menace, and I at times tore my hair out, wondering what I’d done. Then, a few months ago, I adopted a buddy for him, Cleocatra, who was…4 months old. Ohmygod, even younger. Oliver is now a year and a half old, Cleo, 6 months. Both orange.

At first, I thought we’d still do the tree. I schemed with my son, and we came up with a way to put a hook in the rafters above the tree and tie it, so it wouldn’t tip over.

But the ornaments. I could so easily see the cats getting on the piano and just batting the ornaments, one by one, off the tree.

I pictured the shattered mess. I saw my favorite ornament, one that was my grandmother’s, in pieces. I saw my ornaments from the Walton’s Mountain museum, broken. And the faces of each of my babies, on their first Christmases.

I realized I just couldn’t handle any more loss this year. So I gave up on the tree.

Instead, I found a tabletop ceramic tree, with little lights all over it, and a silver star on top. It’s new, but it’s like the ones we all had in the 80s. It sits on my island, and can be seen in the kitchen and the living room. During this year, I visited St. Vincent’s, and I found an unusual and lovely nativity set, carved out of wood. Joseph was missing an arm, but that just increased the charm for me – I have a thing for giving damaged goods a home. Just ask my clocks. So I had that here, in my closet, and I brought it out and set it around the Christmas tree, even though I’m pretty sure there weren’t any lit evergreens in a stable in Bethlehem.

And I thought it would do, though it still made me sad to look at it, and then at the corner where my rose gold tree was supposed to be, with all its memories.

Then, I made a trip to Walgreens. As I left, I walked through the Christmas aisle. And I was drawn to a cone-shaped, tabletop, clear plastic beveled Christmas tree. It lit up. And while it was plastic, it looked bejeweled. I put it back on the shelf. But then picked it up again. And then picked up a matching mate. I brought them home.

At first, I put them around the ceramic tree and the nativity set. But they glowed brighter, and made the nativity look like a Hollywood set, complete with a disco ball. I drummed my fingers on the island, and then looked over at the piano, where Michael’s urn stands. Because of a little wall partition, that corner is pretty dark. The lights from the ceramic tree didn’t reach the urn, as the lights from the rose gold tree would have.

So I picked up the two new trees and placed them around Michael. He is now doused in Christmas light. Should the cats jump up there and smack these off, they weren’t expensive. They aren’t filled with memories.

But they surely helped last night, when I turned off all the other lights, except for the ceramic tree and the two plastic trees, and I sat and looked at Christmas.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

It pretty much just happened. I’m still glowing.

On Wednesday afternoons, I teach an on-site group in the AllWriters’ classroom. The group is called the Wednesday Afternoon Women Writers Workshop. Historically, this is the class I’ve taught the longest, coming up on 30 years now. It started at Waukesha Park & Rec as the first class I ever taught. Then, it was called SeniorScribes. It was on Friday afternoons. And as my very first class, it was the one that taught me that, while I might be the teacher, I’m also the learner. I’ve learned so much from this class.

Eventually, the class came with me when I opened AllWriters’. I switched it to Wednesday afternoons, and I took out the “senior” requirement, opening it to anyone of adult age. It was also opened to all genders. But as time went on, the class slowly became all women. I enjoyed it so much that when a man attempted to join, I pushed him off to another workshop and changed the name to the Wednesday Afternoon Women Writers Workshop.

I’m not sure what it is about Wednesday afternoons, but somehow, this class not only drew in wonderful writers of all genres, some just starting out, others with publications already under their belts, but it drew in compassionate, caring people. People who reach out to others.

Including me.

As I said when I decided to return this blog to once a day for the month of December, I am over my head in grief. Way over. And the thing is, it’s not just about Michael’s death, though I hate to put a “just” in that sentence. It’s about the trauma of how he died. It’s about the five months he spent struggling to come back into himself, ultimately to lose himself in his brain injury and then die. It’s about the absolute wrongness of what happened to him, yet knowing that the perpetrator was able to fork over $73 to pay for a single citation and then move on as if nothing happened. And it’s about how I have absolutely failed in trying to correct this. No matter what I’ve done, no one in authority listens, even though there are at least 4 different versions of what happened on that day.

Michael was the one person in my life (that I know of) who believed I could do anything. But I haven’t been able to do this. For him.

So just yesterday, I was talking with someone, and I told him that I felt like my energy was just totally gone. I said that it was even difficult for me to walk into or sign into my classrooms. “All I’m feeling is sad,” I said. “And like a really, really huge failure.”

And then I walked into my classroom today.

I have a new student in the Wednesday Afternoon Women Writers Workshop. An amazing poet who has absolutely no idea that she’s an amazing poet. She’s scared. She’s worried. But she knows she wants to write.

Today, she presented the opening pages of a book. “I’m only going to read 3 pages,” she said. “That’s all I can handle.”

And boy, did she handle it!

After class, she stayed for a few minutes. She looked right at me and said, “I just read some pages from my book to a whole room of women. To a whole room of women writers!”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “And you did it so, so well.”

We both cheered. The smile on her face…holy cow. If I could have taken a picture of it, I would have framed it, hung it in my classroom, and put a caption under it: “THIS is why I teach.”

Then, just before she left, she turned back. “I wrote a poem about you,” she said.

About me?

“Well…it’s like about what I would be like if I was you,” she said.

Like me?

“Is that okay?” she asked.

Oh, yes.

This is why I teach. This is why I’ve done what I’ve done for the past almost 30 years. This is why AllWriters is what it is, and has been for 20 years in January.

This is who I am.

And this Moment showed me today that, despite how I feel right now, despite the grief, the depression, the feeling of letting the person down who I loved the most, despite the lack of energy, the fatigue, and this sadness that I feel has taken over for my skin, I am still here. Somewhere. I am in this temporary skin, but skin sloughs off and new skin appears, and in this case, the skin that will appear is the person that is me.

Whew.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Sometimes I crack myself up.

I have a long, long history of sleep issues, meaning that usually, I don’t sleep. Insomnia has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But all of that suddenly changed after Michael’s accident. I began to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I always set up a guided meditation on my phone before crawling into bed, but often now, I don’t even remember the first sentence.

I’ve begun to crave sleep. Before, I could take it or leave it. Now, it’s the highlight of my day. Or my night, I suppose.

Some developments have been a bit disturbing. I’ve begun sleepwalking again, which I haven’t done for years. Several times now, I’ve found myself at the head of the stairs, leading from the third floor to the second. I don’t remember what brought me there, what I was planning to do. So I simply turn around and go back to bed.

I’ve woken several times now in the night, opened my eyes, and believe that I see that my bed has been turned sideways. I literally see it that way, and I freak out, because I can’t imagine who or what would turn my bed sideways in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. The image remains until I get out of bed and stand up. Then I realize that all is normal…and I climb back in bed and go back to sleep.

Often, when I wake up, I turn toward my alarm clock to see what time it is, so I can figure out how much time I have left before I have to get up. But lately, when I look toward my alarm clock, I don’t see numbers. I see pictures. Often, they are of people I don’t recognize. I blink, rub my eyes, sometimes turn away and then turn back, and then the numbers are there. I do my calculation and then go back to sleep.

My dreams, which disappeared from January to June, from Michael’s accident until his death, are now back and are very, very vivid and realistic. Last night, I had one of those dreams which continue, even after I’ve awakened, taken a bathroom break and crawled back into bed. It’s like I’m clicking pause on the streaming screen, and then hitting play.

So in the dream, I was in Lake Geneva, with my son, Christopher, his wife Amber and my granddaughter, Grandgirl Maya Mae, my son Andy, and my daughter Olivia. We were running around the town, collecting Mario Brothers memorabilia (for those who don’t know, Mario Brothers are a many-game series on Nintendo and other Nintendo game systems). I just found a 12-foot tall stuffed Mario, which I slung over my shoulder, when Christopher, Amber, Maya, and Olivia decided it was time to go home. They ran out to their cars and left, leaving me and Andy behind, and neither of us remembered where I parked Barry, my Chrysler 300S. This led to our running fruitlessly through long, long hallways in a variety of buildings to try to find our way out to the car, me with the 12-foot Mario wrapped around my neck and shoulders. Andy, annoyingly, kept running ahead out of my sight, and of course, I would come to a hallway that split into several choices and I didn’t know which way he went. Eventually, I would find him again, usually sitting and chatting with someone while he waited for me to catch up. Then we’d start tearing through the hallways again.

This went on for HOURS. One long dream, all the way through.

We’d just found our way to a doorway, and I could see my car parked outside, when I began to wake up. I don’t know what woke me – it’s my day off today, so I didn’t have an alarm set. But while my eyes were still closed, I could see my car. We started to walk toward it and I said to Andy, “Well, at least I’ve gotten my exercise in for today.”

Then I opened my eyes, saw that I was still in bed, all that vigorous exercise only performed in my head and my sleep, and I burst into laughter.

It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to wake up laughing.

(As I said, sometimes, I crack myself up.)

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

In May of 2023, I started piano lessons. It was something I always wanted to do. Most of the music I listen to, the various bands and such, are heavy on the piano. My brother plays the organ, and we had the mighty Hammond in our house, preceded by the not-so-mighty Wurlitzer, but I just wasn’t interested in the sounds that came out of the organ. I loved the piano.

I’ve had a piano in my house since the summer of 2018. For a while, I played with the idea of getting a player piano, so that I could have piano music in my house at the tap of a button. But I wanted to feel the music beneath my fingers. I wanted to create it. When I got the piano, Olivia, my daughter, was a few months shy of 18 years old. But her first grade teacher was looking for a home for her beloved piano, so she could change her music room into a nursery for her grandkids. The connection with this teacher went back even further than Olivia – the teacher’s son was my son Andy’s best friend for many years, from elementary school on. Andy is fourteen years older than Olivia. When I saw that this lovely teacher would give her piano away to anyone who would haul it, I felt like it was just calling my name. So I arranged for movers, and up into the living room, the piano came. Karla not only sent the piano, but she asked me about the colors in my house, and the piano arrived with a handmade bench cover and runner for the top.

And so there it sat, from 2018 to 2023. I touched the keys now and then, playing what I remembered of Heart & Soul. But otherwise, it was silent.

And then…I finally became brave and began lessons. I played from May to January, and then there was Michael’s accident.

And so I stopped. There was too much going on. And now…I’m back. My piano teacher, Eileen, and the staff at White House of Music, have been huge supports during this time. When I could come, I was welcomed and hugged. When I couldn’t, I was excused with compassion and offered hope and prayers.

Michael’s urn sits on top of the piano, and I apologize to him every time I sit down to practice. I smile whenever I picture him laughing and pretending to put his hands over his ears.

I practice mostly every day, after lunch. I have my morning clients, I eat lunch with a good book, and then I sit at the piano before I return to my office to write. I’d gotten to a point in my regular music book where the music was getting quite difficult (for me). Well, really, I don’t know how difficult it was, but my brain simply wasn’t having it.  It was like I was so full of hard stuff to deal with, that I just couldn’t handle dealing with hard music too. I needed something that wasn’t work, that wasn’t hard, that I could enjoy. When I found myself crying at the keyboard, I knew it was time to say something to my teacher.

And so, at least for the month of December, we have stepped backwards. I’m playing in a Christmas book that is a lower level than my regular book.  And while the songs are easy, and not a challenge at all, I am enjoying myself again. I’m making music that I can recognize. And that isn’t turning my head inside out and my fingers into knots. This week, I’m playing Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Go Tell It On The Mountain, The First Noel, and Up On The Housetop.

I am having some trouble with Up On The Housetop. The bass clef is killing me. I just don’t understand the thought behind creating two musical staffs, one called Treble and one called Bass, with identical-looking notes, but different names. Ridiculous.

When I started playing, back in 2023, all the animals would leave the room. At that point, it was Ursula, our dog, and Muse and Edgar, our cats. I’d sit down to an audience, and when I finished and turned around, the room was empty.

During this last year, both Edgar and Muse have passed on. So now there are Ursula, Oliver, and Cleocatra. But still…an empty room when I’ve finished playing.

Then…Cleo stayed. She curled on the floor and looked at me with open adoration, despite the noise I was making. And a few times, she’s joined me on the bench.

Then Ursula began to stay.

And now today. After playing the first three Christmas carols more or less flawlessly, I stumbled and swore my way through Up On The Housetop. Damn reindeer. Ho ho ho. Did you know that “Up on the housetop, reindeer pause,” is p-a-u-s-e? As in, they wait? I always thought it was reindeer paws. Which doesn’t make sense, I guess. Reindeer have hooves. So I may not have learned to play the song, but I’ve learned that.

I finished, sighed, apologized again to Michael, swore that after my lesson this week, I will never play this song again, and then spun around on the bench. And there they were.

All three animals. Ursula on the floor, Oliver on the loveseat, Cleo on the couch. All eyes open, all staring at me.

“Wow,” I said. “I did okay?”

Ursula came and rested her concrete head on my lap.

This could be applause. Or it could be a silent, rolled-eye appeal to please stop.

But I’ll take it as applause. I laughed and hugged the dog.

Lessons are on Thursday. Let’s hope I can play it without swearing by then.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

The last time I wrote these words was on January 2, 2018. I started this blog in late 2016 on my Facebook page, and then I moved it to my blog on my website in March of 2017. By then, I’d vowed to do it every day for a year.

2017 was a very dark year in my life. I started the blog after I was assaulted at the end of 2016, and then had my life and my family’s life threatened repeatedly, because the man who assaulted me wore a red MAGA hat and the assault made the national news. I became afraid to leave my home, to go anywhere to do anything, because of all the messages left in my email, my social media pages, and in my real mailbox. To try to break myself out of it, I began to post on Facebook a moment every day that I smiled involuntarily – when I felt happy. My Facebook page flooded, and so in March of 2017, I moved it to my blog on my website, where I continued to write a Moment every day for the full year. In retrospect, I’m glad I did, as the year went on to have my husband lose his job twice, my daughter was bullied so extremely, we had to move her to a new high school, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It got me through the year, and when the year ended, I continued the blog, but once a week, until now.

Today, I’m returning to the once a day blog, for the month of December, because I’ve had a new worst year of my life. My husband Michael was struck and run over by a passenger van on January 17^th, 2024. He struggled for five months, then passed away on June 19^th. The horror of his accident, the lack of concern from the City of Milwaukee (the driver only received a $73 citation), and Michael’s death has been a trauma that’s been difficult to deal with. I didn’t realize until Michael died how much I’d been on automatic pilot. It was the only way I could keep up with my own responsibilities and my new responsibilities of taking care of Michael.

And then suddenly, there was no Michael. What we were working so hard for – his ultimate recovery – didn’t happen.

I’ve had so many people tell me how strong I am. My daughter Olivia at one point said, “I’m so sick of being resilient.” There have been many times, privately, I’ve not been strong. I’ve not been resilient. I keep waiting to do something right, that will cause time to rewind and my life to go back to normal. Which, of course, is never going to happen.

It has been five months since Michael died, which I know isn’t long. But I feel like I did back in 2017 – I have to do something to get me back on track. I am in a tailspin. So I’m reaching for what worked for me then.

Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News.

And so:

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I woke up this morning to the sun in my face. I don’t have curtains on my bedroom window, but plantation shutters on the lower half. The sun likes to poke fun at me by rising above the shutters and shooting beams against my closed eyes.

We’ve been having gloomy cloudy days though, so the sun wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

I got up and staggered into my office, to turn on my computer. I stopped. And blinked.

Everything was clean. The sun bounced off dust-free surfaces. My concrete floors were free of pet hair and whatever the cats tore apart that day. The area rugs were bright. My desk was clear of papers and detritus. My plants stood up, freshly watered and as happy as I was to see the sun.

I turned in a slow circle. The third floor of this condo is a loft, and it holds our bedroom and bathroom and my office.

Well. I need to change that, don’t I. It holds MY bedroom, MY bathroom and my office. This space, which I shared most intimately with Michael, is now only my own.

And it was clean.

The last time the house was cleaned was sometime before Michael’s death, and then it was done by two lovely students who stepped in to help. I don’t remember the last time I cleaned the house…until yesterday.

Yesterday, I cleaned this floor. The third floor. I dusted everything in sight, and sneezed to prove it. I vacuumed. I bought a new tool, a sort of rake that is for removing pet hair from carpeted stairways and furniture and rugs, and I attacked the stairs leading from the second to the third floor. I put things away.

The biggest thing I put away – a 7-page single-spaced letter from the police investigator who looked into how Michael’s accident was handled when I put in a complaint against the police department. This 7-page letter described, literally in second by second detail, what was on the security camera video that recorded Michael’s accident. I steadfastly refused to watch that video, but now, thanks to this investigator’s excruciatingly detailed report, I could see every second of that video in my mind. Including exactly what Michael did, what his body did, as he was hit.

Yesterday, I folded the letter neatly, opened my credenza, got out the folder I put together a couple days after the accident, and put that letter in with all the rest of the stuff. From the ER. From the hospital, the rehab, the in-home healthcare, the hospital again, and the hospice. I put the letter away, closed the folder, set it back into my credenza, and shut the door. It is no longer in my sight, in a spot behind my desk where I could see it, every single day. Where I could remember what was in it. And see it all again. Over and over.

And this morning, the sun shone in my face and woke me. Then it shone all around this space. My space. Neat again. Organized. Even the plants look relieved.

I took a deep breath, hugged myself, and smiled.

Next weekend, I’m cleaning the second floor.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

PLEASE NOTE:

THERE IS A SPECIAL NOTE AT THE END OF THIS WEEK’S BLOG.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, here in the States, it’s Thanksgiving Day. But I have to be honest. I’m not feeling particularly grateful. When I originally began to write this blog, back at the end of 2016, though, I deliberately did not make it a gratitude list. To me, it’s too easy to go rote with gratitude lists, because we all know what we “should” be grateful for. I’ve known too many people that start filling out their gratitude lists with the same things, over and over. I’m grateful for my kids. I’m grateful for my spouse. I’m grateful for my home. I’m grateful for my job. And so on.

For me, it was more important to show a Moment when I involuntarily smiled. When I didn’t smile because I was supposed to, but I smiled because I honestly felt something.

And so here we are, near the tail end of a year when it’s been particularly difficult to write these Moments, and to feel those sudden involuntary feelings.

In 2017, I thought I was having the worst year of my life. It started in late 2016, when I was assaulted while walking my dogs. Then, throughout 2017, Michael lost his job, not once, but twice, taking our health insurance with them, Olivia was bullied so extremely, we had to move her to a new high school, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I no longer think 2017 was the worst year of my life.

On December 2^nd, 2017, I was waiting for Michael outside of the MetroMarket where he was working at the time. He opened the car door, leaned inside and said, “Who wants to see something pretty?” And he handed me a Christmas cactus in full bloom.

I gasped. And then I wrote that day’s blog about it.

That line, “Who wants to see something pretty?” is from the TV movie, The Homecoming, which launched my favorite television series ever, The Waltons. At the time, Olivia, the Walton mother, was played by Patricia Neal. Near the beginning of the movie, she’s in the root cellar, picking out apples for her applesauce cake, when she turns and sees her Christmas cactus, in full bloom. She goes into the kitchen with it hidden behind her back, and she says to all the children seated around the table, “Who wants to see something pretty?”

And in 2017, Michael brought this cactus, and this line, out to me, where I sat glumly in my car, waiting for him to come home from work.

I didn’t just smile. I laughed out loud.

So this year, this new “worst year”, I was forewarned by many people that the holidays would be hard. And I’ve found this to be true.

The Christmas cactus that Michael gave me in 2017 sits in the window of the AllWriters’ classroom. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed it was loaded with buds. But I was feeling too sad to really stop and pay attention.

There was one late night/early morning, when I took our dog Ursula out for her final potty break before I went to bed, that I stopped with her at the top of the stairs. Looking down, I said, “Do you know the last time your dad took you out was the morning of January 17^th? It’s been all me since then.”

She looked at me and wagged her tail. Every morning, when she and I go downstairs for her first visit outside, she comes back in and sits down in the living room. She faces Michael’s recliner. She sits and she stares. And sometimes, I stare with her.

And then one morning this week, I brought her inside and stopped dead by the window.

The cactus was in full bloom. Bright hot pink blooms spilled everywhere, and there were even more buds about to burst. And I heard Michael say, “Kathie! Who wants to see something pretty?”

I did.

And I smiled and laughed out loud.

There’s another line from The Homecoming that I’ve been hearing echo in my head lately too, though not in Michael’s voice. In Patricia Neal’s. In the movie, the father, John Walton, has not made it home yet from the job he’d taken pretty far away, and there’s been a bus accident. One man died, and Olivia (Patricia Neal) was worried that it was John. Near the end of the movie, Patricia Neal says, “The only thing I want to see is your daddy walking through that door.”

Me too.

But in the meantime, I will look at my Christmas cactus, and smile.

By the way…there’s a reason why our daughter Olivia is named Olivia.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

SPECIAL NOTE

I don’t think it’s any surprise that I’m having a great deal of difficulty. Dealing with Michael’s horrific accident, followed by five months of his trying to recover, followed by his death, and now the five months after, has been really, really hard.

The last “worst year of my life” was in 2017, which I wrote about in today’s blog. This is where this blog came from, when I decided to write one moment a day that made me smile, in an attempt to show myself that there was more to my life than sadness. I wrote the blog every day for a year, only missing one day, the day Michael lost his job for a second time. And it kept me going.

After that first year of everyday writing, I’ve kept it up with the once-a-week blog, and in its entirety, the blog has been going for eight years. And it’s changed my life.

No, I am not quitting.

Instead, because of where I am now, which is in a tailspin, I’m going to return, for one month, to writing the blog on a daily basis. For the entire month of December, I will write and post every day.

It got me out of a tailspin once. I’m hoping it will do it again. I need uplifting, and that uplifting has to come from me.

So starting on Sunday, December 1^st, the blog will return to its original daily posts, until the last day of this truly awful year.

Fingers crossed that it will help. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

It had to happen.

Without a doubt, I knew it was coming. But I wasn’t ready.

It just ushers in a whole new season. A whole new chapter. A whole new…EVERYTHING.

My 11-year old granddaughter is now taller than I am.

I mean, come on. I should have at least one more year of granddaughter smallness.

It happened last night. Grandgirl Maya Mae had her very first orchestra concert, where she plays the viola. I sat through a lovely rendition of “Hot Cross Buns”, which they called  the “Long Song”, and two others, and I kept my eyes trained on that girl, sitting in the front row, carefully and studiously moving her fingers and her bow across her instrument. Her intensity reminded me exactly of my daughter Olivia at that age. Olivia went on to play all through high school, and then, in college, since her school didn’t offer orchestra, she auditioned for a professional orchestra and played there for several years. She’s only recently put her violin down, as she works her way through grad school and internships, and all of that fun stuff.

But now, here I was again, sitting at a middle school orchestra concert.

So much lately has been making me feel old. But I really enjoyed this, and looked forward to watching another member of my family become immersed in music. I played the trumpet and sang in chorus at school, and now I’m taking piano lessons. My sons played the trumpet and drums, respectively, while my daughters played flute and violin. My three kids from my first marriage also took piano lessons, and Olivia has taken lessons in guitar and ukelele as well.

And now, little Grandgirl Maya Mae, with the viola.

So much for the little.

After the orchestra concert, we waited in the school cafeteria for Maya to make her appearance. I gave her a hug and a kiss and immediately noticed I was not reaching down. She walked past me to go hug her grandfather, my ex-husband from my first marriage, and as she did, I said, “Wait a minute.”

She looked at me.

“You’re looking me level in the eye,” I said.

She nodded and grinned.

“No, she’s not,” said my ex-husband. “She’s looking down at you.” (There’s a reason why we’re divorced.)

And there it was. My son told me that Maya has shot up 6 inches over the last several months.

For goodness sake, STOP!

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a grandmother. My vision of a grandmother was Grandma Walton from my favorite television show, The Waltons. I don’t bake cookies. I don’t wear aprons. When my oldest son got married, I wasn’t even fifty years old yet. I told him on his wedding day that if he made me a grandmother before I turned fifty, I would remove the apparatus that made me a grandmother before I was fifty.

I was fifty-four when Maya was born. My son is a good boy.

I actually saw Maya before she was born, when I was invited in to watch an ultrasound. And that’s all it took to wipe away any negative thoughts I had about being a grandmother. As I watched on the grainy screen, I saw that little face and she was already smiling. I melted. I might even have considered wearing an apron.

Well, no.

I was also present in the delivery room, and I watched Maya slide into this world. Oh, the glory of that moment. It’s not something I will ever forget.

I’m not your usual grandmother. And I think Maya is just fine with that. She’s not the usual grandkid. I relish being with her.

As she looked at me last night (or as she looked down at me, as the ex would say), it was like time stopped for a minute. And the thing I noticed was the evenness of her gaze. Steadfast. Strong. Level. And I gazed right back at her.

Heading into this uncertain world with its uncertain future, my granddaughter is growing up as a strong woman. She’s doing this because she is being raised as a much beloved child, a much beloved grandchild. I simply can’t imagine loving anyone more.

As we all separated last night and walked to our cars, and then drove away, I had a moment of feeling intensely bereft. Everyone else walked away with somebody. My son left with his wife and my granddaughter. My ex left with his wife. My daughter-in-law’s parents left with each other.

I walked alone.

Michael would have been there on this night, if he could. He attended more of Olivia’s concerts than I did, because I was often teaching on a night she performed. He called Maya “Flirt,” and from the moment he met her, he was in thrall. Three days before he died, Maya visited him in hospice. He leaned over the bed rail and said, “Flirt, you keep on being a great girl.”

She has. And she will. I could see all of that in that solid gaze.

Last year, when Maya was at our home, she and Michael began to make up a story about, of all things, a potato. It became a joke between them. When Michael was shopping for our Christmas celebration dinner, he bought Maya a potato, a real potato, and stuck it in her Christmas stocking.

I think it might have been her favorite present.

I think I will get Maya a potato for Christmas, and put a sticker on it that says, “To Flirt.”

I will be so happy to look up into those eyes when she opens it.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I both watch for and dread an anniversary that happened this week. I don’t write it on my calendar. I don’t circle it in red or program it into any of the online calendars I have at my disposal. Instead, I wait for Facebook to remind me.

On November 11^th, 2016, the event happened that caused my original blog to be born. That was eight years ago. Eight years of writing a Moment. The first year, I did it every single day, except for one. Then it became This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, and so I’ve managed, me, the skeptic, the person who was once told by a therapist that I have a “negative cognitive bias”, to come up with a Moment of happiness every single week for 7 years.

How about that? But how did it happen? And what was the very first Moment?

A couple of days after the 2016 presidential election, my world started to unravel. I was taking my two old beagles for their after-lunch walk. As I rounded the corner toward home, I saw a man walking toward me. He wore a cargo coat, large sunglasses, and a red baseball hat which had gold stitching on it, reading, “Make America Great Again”. I tried to move my dogs off the sidewalk so he could pass, but at their age, the dogs moved slowly. To my great surprise, I saw the man draw back his leg and prepare to kick one of my dogs.

I got in between them and he kicked me instead. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me off my feet into the grass. “It’s time to get back into your place now, woman,” he said. And he stomped off.

I made sure my dogs were okay, got myself up, and we went home. I didn’t recognize that I was in shock. I got myself a drink of water (why is every solution to every problem a drink of water?) and then went upstairs to my computer. I posted what just happened on Facebook, and concerned friends told me to call the police.

The incident ended up on the news. It went crazy on Facebook, shared, the last time I saw, thousands of times. And then the real trauma began. Absolute strangers from all around the country began to send me hate emails and private messages through Facebook and Twitter. I was the topic of a hate-talk radio program. They accused me of lying, saying that since I write fiction, my assault must be made up. They said I wanted to smear the president.  And they gave me death threat after death threat after death threat. The worst message was a note put into my snail mailbox that said, “We know where your daughter goes to school.”

It was a very hard time. It threw me into a deep tailspin.

I began to realize that I needed to find positives. And not just one or two that would last me a long time, but a positive out of every day. I needed something to hang on to.

Now, I’m a natural skeptic. I don’t talk rainbows and unicorns, I’m not a fan of Hallmark cards, I don’t watch Lifetime TV movies. And I hate gratitude lists. For me to say that I needed a positive was almost as hard for me to take as all of the negativity around me. But it felt like what I needed to do. And I also felt very drawn to do it publicly.

Because if I could do it, anyone could.

Where did it come from? I think it came from one of my mentors, years and years ago. Ellen Hunnicutt was a fantastic Wisconsin writer who took me under her wing soon after I graduated from college. She told me I had the voice of a novelist, she told me that what I was writing was literary fiction, and she told me that I was the most dedicated, disciplined, determined writer she knew. I loved her. If I had doubts, Ellen brushed them away. She didn’t do so with unicorns. She told me to buck up and keep going.

When I was offered my first teaching job, leading writing classes for our local park and recreation department, I called her in a panic. I had no idea what I was getting into. She told me that no matter what, no matter what manuscripts I read, no matter what I thought, I always needed to lead my critiques, oral or verbal, with a positive. “If you give someone something positive to hang on to,” she said, “they’ll hold on to it tightly while they listen to the rest of what you have to say. That one positive will get them through.”

And now, years later, it was me that was in need of that one positive. One a day.

So I started, on Facebook, posting Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite The News. The response bowled me over. Facebook suddenly began sending me messages, cheering how many likes and comments I received. Facebook never cared before. I saw responses from people I knew, people I didn’t know, people who were well-known, people who I admired from afar. And so…I kept on doing it.

Let me tell you, it was a challenge. Again, I am a skeptic. I tend to look at the world through shades, not rose-tinted glasses. But I managed to come up with something every day (except one) that made me happy. Some things were goofy. Some were funny. Some were poignant. And same come out of nowhere and blew me away.

I didn’t write these as The Professional Author. I wrote them as me. Just Kathie. They’re personal and they’re heartfelt. They are deliberately raw and unedited; I never intended to submit them anywhere else. I was asked if one here or there could be used in a publication. I said sure. But that was never the intention.

I vowed to do it every day for a year, and I did. I had no idea when I started how difficult a year this was going to be; I thought it was the hardest year of my life. And now, of course, I know that 2017 was not the hardest year. This year, the one we’re almost through with, has been the hardest year, with Michael’s accident and death.

And yet I kept up with writing This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News. It has saved me, over and over and over again.

No one is more surprised than I am. And my skeptical self is forever grateful (though I will never write a gratitude list!).

So what was the first Moment? You may be amazed to see it, because it was so small. I wrote the Moments as Facebook posts from January 30, 2017 to March 10, 2017.  On March 11, it officially moved to my website, though I do still post the Moment on Facebook as well.

So here, for today, to celebrate the anniversary of that awful first event that led to something absolutely wonderful, is the very first Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News.

 

JANUARY 30, 2017

1/30/17 And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news:

I just went out into our unexpected snowstorm to check the exposed three-story straight-up ramp I need to use to get my car into the parking garage. The ramp is, of course, completely snow-covered – there will be no getting Hemi (my car) out of the way of our condo’s snowplow tonight. I walked back, cursing.

But then I noticed how quiet it was. So quiet, I could hear the snow land on itself.

I stopped to listen, and then saw how snow glitters when it falls into the beam of a streetlight.

Snowlights.

Lightflakes.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

Indeed it does. Thank you for reading me for eight solid years. Let’s keep pushing ahead.

(Did you know, by the way, that the first year of the blog was made into a book? Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News; A Year Of Spontaneous Essays is out there! On Amazon, it’s available at https://www.amazon.com/Todays-Moment-Happiness-Despite-News-ebook/dp/B07FK45MKH/ref=sr_1_6?crid=21VK10OO40K4A&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oAUSYUHHByRRgDRTiv8d4S4a3xIvF1kImc89-auAjPooaJuAFGLjuBJVotgrcKW1huu55GQM62hfMncEcKa_ntTfVKDIYJ3NyXrBkYfs4Y-MjYMsmN2QNQfCk0OODgcujrbgFG42IHYHdAh6TansGRM96hjEY56y-2mTuMwAzSrkQuQ0WYwK2OIzKEzCNugyN35FTdcDgBxUeBYuu6nNOwLIOgwmKqxI-u8VgCqUkIM.VdHX0-P7qobGQcxIFcW1qCOMSJ28iUj24cF1lN1wJA8&dib_tag=se&keywords=Kathie+Giorgio&qid=1731606982&sprefix=kathie+giorgio%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-6

But please also support your local independent bookstore.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Honestly, I wasn’t going to write the blog today. I was going to put up a message, saying that because of the election, I was going to take a week off because I just couldn’t find a Moment.

But you know, this is what the Moments are for. I don’t just wait for them to happen; I watch for them to happen. And before Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, there was a huge chunk of week that happened since the last blog. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And so I peeled my memories backwards and thought of my world pre-Tuesday night.

And then I laughed out loud.

From Friday through Monday, I was in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to teach a class in creativity, The Labyrinth & The Creative Spirit, at Kinstone in nearby Fountain City (https://www.kinstonecircle.com/). I’ve taught this class many times, and I’ve been to La Crosse many times, and I love being there, right next to the river. I get the same feeling from the Mississippi River as I do from the Pacific Ocean. But I was dreading it this year, because Michael often came with me. And even when he didn’t, he was waiting at home for me. This year, well, there was no Michael.

I so need familiar that is fully familiar. Not familiar with a hole in it.

Years ago, when I was appearing in the Wisconsin Book Festival, Michael and I decided to stay over in Madison, even though it’s only a little over an hour from where I live. But hotels that weekend were hard to come by, and so we ended up in a hotel in close-by DeForest. Little Livvy was with us. As I drove down the freeway, watching for our exit, I saw the sign that said DeForest. And so  I laughed and spontaneously shouted, “You can’t see DeForest for de trees!”

Michael stared at me. And then he said, “Oh, my god,” before bursting into laughter. Olivia, in the back seat, didn’t even try to understand. She already knew that her parents had odd senses of humor.

There were several exit signs that said DeForest before we actually got to ours. By the time we got to our hotel, we were both singing it out. Of course, as we went back and forth to the book festival, we saw the signs many more times. It became a litany.

And then it grew. Over the years, as I traveled in that direction for a variety of reasons, I would pass the DeForest signs. No matter where Michael was working, no matter the time of day, I would call him, and when he said hello, I’d crow over the phone, “You can’t see DeForest for de trees!” and then melt into laughter. Which was always, always echoed.

The last time I did it, last year, Michael was at his new job at MATC (Milwaukee Area Technical College). I was on my way to La Crosse and I watched and watched for the sign, then grabbed my phone and called him. I didn’t have his new work number, so I called his cell, and he had the phone on vibrate. Still, he looked at it. He was in a meeting with his new boss.

“It’s just my wife,” he said to her.

“Isn’t she traveling?” she asked. “Go ahead and answer it, in case something is wrong.”

Michael knew what time I left. And so he knew where I likely was. But his boss said to answer the phone. So he did. “Hello?”

I shrieked, intending to burst his eardrums, “You can’t see DeForest for de trees!” and howled with laughter.

“Kathie,” Michael said, “I’m in a meeting with my boss.”

I swallowed my laughter. I was about to say sorry and shamefacedly hang up my phone when I heard his boss begin to laugh. “De trees!” she cried. And then so did Michael.

“Explain it to her,” I said, and then disconnected. Several times over that weekend, I would think of that moment, and then laugh all over again.

Now, this year, I tried not to see the signs for DeForest. There was no one to call. But even though I averted my head, I saw them. I knew where they were, for heaven’s sake. I’d driven this route so many times. Quietly, without reaching for my phone, I whispered as I passed each one, “You can’t see DeForest for de trees.”

I drove the rest of the way in silence.

The weekend was wonderful, with a great class and a comforting walk on the Kinstone labyrinth while I taught. I thought of Michael several times, as I passed things that we would normally do together. The Mississippi River, of course, and Pettibone Park. Granddad’s Bluff. I soaked in the hot tub where we soaked and I slept in the hotel where we slept. He was around every corner.

Like the labyrinth, it was a comfort. Even though he was missing. And there. And missing. And there.

Driving home on Monday, I began to steel myself for the DeForest sign. But I didn’t feel the dread I felt on the way there. Instead, I felt a bubble building in me. It took me a bit to recognize it as the bubble of laughter and anticipation.

The sign came. And I didn’t whisper. I opened my mouth and I bellowed, “MICHAEL! You can’t see DeForest for de trees!”

And the bubble exploded. I swear I heard his laughter blend with mine.

Oh, Michael. It may not be Paris. But we will always have DeForest.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.