Dad (a.k.a. Strachan Donnelley a.k.a. “Potsie”) March 22, 1942- July 12, 2008

It’s 6:34am on Monday, July 12, 2010. I sit here, at my cluttered desk, saddened by reality, soothed by the vigorous hum of the air conditioner. I sit here at the beginning of another day of my life. A day that’s not just another day.

Two years ago today, Dad died. I don’t tell you this to be a downer. I don’t tell you this to garner sympathy or to ensure a slow trickle of sweet comments into my existential orbit. I tell you this because it is true. A fact. One that I can’t change as much as I’d like to.

Sometimes though, I play that game. That game wherein I could trade something in my life, offer up an aspect of my good life to the cosmos, to have him back. It is often in those damp moments before falling asleep at night when I remember Dad in his broad-shouldered fullness, his irreverent and brilliant musings, his dancing mustache and biting wit. It is in those moments that I, unconsciously or no, fight back tears. In those moments, I think, sometimes, of what a kick he would get out of watching me pursue my passion, of how much joy my kids, my rough and tumble and good creatures, would bring him. It is in these outwardly quiet moments when I decide – feverishly and foolishly – that I would give almost anything to bring him back.

And it’s a silly and cruel game because I can’t have him back. This is not the way life works. Or time. I must move forward, treading paths carefully paved and those exquisitely unseen, toward that thing called the future. And Dad? He will never be in that future. And, depending on the minute of the day, this simple reality kills me. Something that helps? Writing about him. Remembering him. Taking stock of my life in his absence. Tracing the contours of the stunning shadow he has cast over my landscape. All of this helps. And so I do it.

I do it today. Because I need to.

Two weeks ago, while spending time at Dad’s childhood home, Husband, the girls, and I drove a short distance to the cemetery where Dad was buried. We did this last year too. Last year, I was scared to go. But then Mom went to the cemetery and though I wanted to go with her and be there for her, I stood there and watched her go, frozen with fear, and cried. But then I bucked up and had my good man drive me there. And last year, upon returning from visiting Dad’s grave, I scribbled the following words I never published (words edited only to keep things about my kids anonymous):

July 2009

Today was one of the saddest, most magical days of my life. Disorientation. Headache. A baby crying. Pictures of you everywhere. The smell of your past and mine and ours together. The candy green grass and gentle wind. The coy sunshine. Suddenly, I felt it. The “it” I felt? The hole. The hole you have left in my life. In my heart. In my mind. In my future. In my happiness.

Mom said goodbye to go to the cemetery.  And the tears came. Furious and fast. My little girl asked if I had a boo-boo. Yes, I told her. A big one.

We piled in the car and there I was trapped between the two creatures I love most in this world: my babies. They laughed and cried and fussed and played with stale French Fries and toy telephones. We all sang Happy Birthday. Husband drove fast, with purpose. That route I traveled almost one year ago, padded and pregnant in the back of a vast limo.

The trees were green. Too green. Mocking green. And then there was the arch, the big Gothic arch I didn’t think I remembered, but I saw it and it all came back. We drove through and parked the car.

I pulled Baby from her seat and walked over the fresh-cut grass shielding her bald head from the impossible sunshine. I looked down and there it was.  A small rectangle with your name and the dates. The dates of your beginning. And your end.

And behind my big white sunglasses I cried. And placed Baby down on the grass. She reached for the letters of your name, traced them with her chubby little finger. Crawled toward you, blue eyes squinting, and let out a hearty giggle.

I said: “Hi, Dad. I love you and miss you everyday. Everyday.”

And then I said: “This is Baby.”

And then because I am a coward or because this was too much, I scooped her up. The little girl whom you never met, who slumbered and somersaulted in my belly as you left us.

We walked back toward the car where Bob Marley crooned sweet instructions No Woman, No Cry.

We drove away. We had lunch. We went to a toy store. We went home. To your home. Your childhood home.

I love you and miss you everyday.  Everyday.

I read these words from one year ago and, yes, there are tears in my eyes, but more that that, there is realization in my mind. I am, slowly and imperfectly, moving on. This year, Husband drove his three girls to the same candy green, idyllic cemetery. And this time, I plucked Toddler from her car seat. I didn’t tell her where we were (she has plenty of years to learn such things), but we walked over to that plaque. And my girl, my big girl, crouched down and recited the letters of Dad’s name. And this made me smile and cry. And then I said to her something simple and something true.

“It says Donnelley. You are a Donnelley too, you know.”

And she smiled. And said something. Something perfect. “Donnelley. Like Old MacDonald!”

I scooped her up and hugged her tight. Over my little girl’s shoulder, I looked down at that little rectangle of stone and whispered something, Hi Dad. I love you, and told myself that somehow, someway, he saw me there, cradling my growing girl, shaky with sadness and strength, love and longing, moving on.

And then we hopped back in the car, two Donnelley girls, and we drove to the same lunch spot from last year. We sat outside on the patio. We laughed a lot. The girls mashed macaroni and cheese all over their faces and crayons all over their clothes.

And today. I am here. Back here. At my desk where I do so much of my writing. And thinking. And missing. I sit here, hearing the sweet pitter-patter of little feet outside my door, listening to Verdi’s Requiem. Dad’s favorite. An intense and glorious piece of music Dad cherished. An intense and glorious piece of music we played at his funeral a little more than two years ago when we collectively uttered that formal, but incomplete goodbye under the big trees at his childhood home.

Today, I still feel that hole in the linen of my life. Today, I feel it more than most days. But that’s okay. For this hole is one that is now part of me. Of who I am. And I embrace this hole, tiny on some days and vast on others.

Some holes are meant to be acknowledged, not patched.

A tiny girl in watermelon pajamas just burst through the door. “Hi, Mommy!” she crooned. Simple and not so simple words that remind me that there is more than that hole.

So much more.

Thank you all, seasoned readers and newer visitors of this blog, for allowing me to write and feel and heal here. For me, words are the profound means by which I recognize and revere aspects of my life, good and bad an in between, that need recognizing and revering.

Parents teach in the toughest school in the world —

The School for Making People.

You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher,

and the janitor.

Virginia Satir

Until moments ago, I was sitting at my desk pouting that I didn’t know what to write. Some days? I have a dozen blog posts ready-made in my mind just waiting to be unwrapped and popped into that efficient microwave of creation. Some days? My mind is a blank slate.

(Like today.)

But then. I checked my email. As I so often do when there is a lull in my thinking and doing. And there it was. An email from my good friend’s husband. From late last night after I had gone to bed. I saw the email and smiled. For I knew what news was one click away.

A new person.

Last night, my friend, one of my very oldest and best friends, and her husband welcomed their first daughter. And they gave her the most whimsical and lovely and fitting name that it is not my place to share here. But trust me. It’s gorgeous. And at this very moment it is only 7:36am, so I will force myself to wait a couple more hours before I call my friend and offer my congratulatory words and welcome her.

To the school. The School of Making People.

We humans are not just in the business of producing tiny infants who cry and coo. No, we humans make people. Once we become a parent, we are automatically awarded tenure in the most challenging university of all. And our work matters immensely. We are shaping and sustaining organisms. We are raising and rearing people. And our job is not all glitz and glamor and professorial monologue. We must make the hard decisions about curriculum of childcare, we must fashion prizes and punishments, we must teach the basics. We must clean up the messes in the hallways of our homes and heads and hearts.

This is not an easy job. No, it is a hard and humbling career. One from which there is no summer vacation or retirement.

But, in my estimation, it is a profound and priceless post to have. Daunting, but deep with importance. Exhausting, but stuffed with significance.

For what is more important that making people, the people who will grow to goodness and maybe greatness, the people who will, if we do things right (whatever that means), one day thank us for being good teachers, for making them who they are?

Apologies for the jagged nature of this post. At the moment, that pout is gone and I am just overwhelmed, happily overwhelmed, with the idea and reality of the teacher role I play along with so many of you. With the fact that the two little girls inches from me on the floor eating honeydew in pajamas are little people whom Husband and I have made.

Whom Husband and I are making.

Congrats, S, on the arrival of your sweet little person. Welcome to the School. I have no doubt you will be a wonderful teacher.

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• Do you agree that parenthood is the toughest school in the world?
• Do you agree that parenting is a continuous exercise in “making people”?
• Does it freak you out at all that it is principally up to us to teach our kids?
• Looking back, were your parents your most involved and interested teachers?
• Do your words flow freely every day or are there days when you get stuck?

**The lucky winner of Emily Giffin’s latest novel Heart of the Matter is… Heather of the EO!**

May 18th, 2010 was a really big day for me. Yes, because Life After Yes was published. But it was also quite monumental for another reason: It was the day on which I allowed myself to start thinking about babies again.

And boy did I start.

For those of you who are new to ILI, let me give you some quick background. I love babies. I want a billion of them. Okay, actually four. Husband is open to the idea of three. What’s important to know is that I have two babies. And I want more. I told myself that I wasn’t even allowed to think of thinking about Baby #3 until my book was born. Because, yes, publishing a book was in so many ways like giving birth. There was the wild anticipation and build-up. There was the due date. There are the postpublication hormones ravaging my system. There might even be a touch of PPD (postpublication depression). The point is that it made sense to wait. And, like a good girl, I did.

But now.

The topic is on that proverbial table. Husband and I are having the conversation. The hard one. The really hard one. The one about timing, mostly. Is now really the right time to grow our brood? Our girls are young and we already have a tough time shrouding them with what we deem to be adequate attention and affection. The chaos quotient in our lives is rather high. We are about to move into a new home. The economy is misbehaving. Husband and I both have career ambitions. Does it make sense to wait a bit until things settle? Do things ever settle? Isn’t it best to pop ‘em out while I am still young?

I don’t know.

What’s amazed me is how the conversation has veered. How the question has changed. Husband and I have talked – and seriously – about whether it makes sense to add to our family at all. We already have two healthy and happy girls. We love them fiercely and have so much fun with them. Will adding another sister (I assume it would be a girl) potentially entail a problematic fracturing of our parental focus? Do we have infinite love to give and spread around or is this a crock? Will adding another creature to our ecosystem threaten its harmony?

I’m so confused.

Anyway, this is my dilemma du jour. And it’s a big one. And I know this is all a matter of personal choice. I know that this is our decision to make. That there is no one right way to approach these things. But. As long as this is a conversation on our family table, I wanted to bring it here to my bloggy table. Because I know you guys have experiences and ideas and insights. Even if you are not all parents, you are all products of parents. Parents who presumably once had this conversation about how many kids to have and when to have them.

So. Spill it. What are your thoughts on all of this? Have you faced a similar dilemma? How many kids do you have or want (if you do want kids in the first place)? Do you think there are more or less ideal spacing and structuring schemes for families? How have you enjoyed the spacing and structuring in your family of origin and your family now? Have you moved away or toward the way your parents did things? Ultimately, is this question, like that of how integral lust is to a successful marriage, something that is purely idiosyncratic and defies generalization?

(Help.)

Last year, right before Mother’s Day, I wrote a blog post. One I loved. One I never published.

Today, I muster the courage to do what I couldn’t bring myself to do a year ago.

May 5, 2009

Mother Nature’s Day

Three years ago, I was mere days from what was supposed to be my first due date.  It would have been a lovely time to give birth to my first girl (yes, I knew it was a girl), a few days shy of Mother’s Day.  But, alas, Mother Nature had other plans.

I had gotten pregnant so easily, on that very first try. And I was both nonchalant and thrilled.  We’d seen the heartbeat at seven weeks. Things looked good.  At ten weeks, two weeks short of that proverbial safety zone, I broke down and spread the good news.  Ever the modern woman, I announced via email: I was expecting! Now I was among the very first of my friends to go the baby route, so people were surprised and excited and showered us with congratulations. I lapped up the well-wishes.

One week later, Husband and I moseyed into my OB’s office for our next checkup.  In the waiting room, I waited, giddy with anticipation to get another picture of our baby.  I flipped through baby name books.  I peed in a cup like a good girl.  And when the nice nurse called my name, I hopped up and followed her back to our little room.

And even though I was trapped in the fog of my own excitement, I remember my doctor’s face and how it turned that ominous shade of white as she ran that wand over my belly.

There was no heartbeat.

Utter surprise.  Anger.  Devastation.  Embarrassment.  I got to go home and send another email.  An update.

At the time, I was so mad at myself for jumping that good old gun.  But, now, I look back and think: sending that email was one of the best mistakes I’ve ever made.  Why?  Because my pain was raw and real and good friends knew about it.  And, no, they didn’t know what to say (because no one ever does), but they helped me through.

Today, covered in my second baby’s spit up, I can talk about my miscarriage without shedding a tear.  Of course it was sad.  And still is. But Mother Nature had her way and things are okay now. Better than okay.  I have two little girls. My two little girls.

But back then, I felt confused and alone.  I didn’t know miscarriages happened all of the time, even to young and healthy women.  Why? Because no one talked about it.

So, here I am, talking about it.  Why?

Because one of my best friends just texted me that her epidural is in and she is about to welcome her first girl.  Because my third Mother’s Day as a mom is coming up. Because Toddler just handed me the stunning and sweet card above. Because this is life. Because words, however impulsively uttered, or clumsily expressed, can be cathartic. And helpful.  And true.

And maybe, like I did when I sent that first email three-plus years ago, I will regret this.  And regret it deeply.  And knowing me, I probably will.  I will file it away as another big, bad cyber-mistake.

But I have a feeling that this too will prove one of the best mistakes I have ever made.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day 2010. Husband was in North Carolina attending his sister’s business school graduation. He returns this morning. Yesterday, my girls and I had an amazing day. We spent the morning in pajamas watching cartoons. We had a turkey bacon breakfast on the deck. The sun was bright and the wind was bold. We ended up at my own Mom’s house for dinner. The day was good. Because I was here. In my Now.

With my girls.

Today, as I reread my words from one year ago, I am able to go back. To the heavy silence that should have housed a heartbeat. To the suffocating confusion. To the sting of goodbye and its inscrutable aftermath. Today, I reread my words and forgive myself – and fully – for not publishing them when I first wrote them. Because I wasn’t ready. Today, I reread my words and am struck by a realization, at once simple and far from it, that blogging and parenting and living? These things take constant courage. To put selves and sentences out there. To tell our stories, little and big. To love our creatures even when they are ideas in our brains and cells in our bodies. To love them unconditionally once they are here. To move through our days with an appreciation of their simultaneous fragility and force.

All of these things take courage.

Today, I am struck by another realization too. That it is so important that we do just these things.

That we allow ourselves to tell our stories – divine and difficult – on blogs or in private. That we talk. That we reveal the suffering and struggle that do not need to be kept secret. That we permit ourselves to acknowledge the stuff, the hard stuff, that unites us. If we let it.

That we parent with open wounds. Open minds. Open hearts.

That we live consciously and creatively and courageously, embracing our heartaches along with our happy days, revering the fact that all of these things, all of them, comprise the lives we are lucky to lead.

So, today. Today I follow through on last year’s vows.

Today, I talk. I tell.

I have two girls whom I love impossibly. Fiercely. But once upon a time, I was expecting a different girl. One who didn’t make it. And today, as I sit here flanked by the two blue-eyed girls who did, so healthy and so happy, I am ready to talk about it. Because it happened. It did. To me. And maybe to you or someone you know?

This year, I got a new card. A few, actually. The first was a beautiful card Toddler made at Preschool with the help of her wonderful teachers. I am struck by the joyful candy apple green, the imperfect globs of glitter. The purple glitter. Purple is her very favorite color.

And inside, there are words. Words that Toddler dictated. Inside, it says: Dear Mommy, I love you because you are fun. I love playing with you and getting ice cream together.

And then. This morning, as per Husband’s instructions from afar, the girls and I opened the gift he left. In the box, there were two little cards on top.

One from Baby. Full of artful scribbling, a regal red heart, and the outline of a chubby eighteen-month-old hand.

And one from Toddler. Decked in whimsical watercolor swirls, the outline of a three-year-old hand, a rectangle of paper ornamented with scissor cuts, and more words. Dictated this time to Daddy. I love you so much. Words a certain little girl whispers in my ear countless times a day.

And last, but not least, there was a card from Husband. A card that made me giggle. It has a little arrow-toggle-thing on the side and when you rotate it, the Wife’s tee-shirt changes from Hottie to…

…#1 Mom to…

…Super Mom!…

And I’m not sure whether I qualify as that Hottie/#1 Mom/Super Mom hybrid, but boy oh boy do I try.

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day. I wish you all the courage to show your cards and tell your stories.

[This post was inspired by the Courage topic of Momalom's Five for Ten. Click over today and tomorrow to find links to many more posts about courage and to learn more about how you too can participate in this wonderful writing challenge.]

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• How did you spend your Mother’s Day?
  
• Did you give or receive any particularly meaningful or amusing cards?
• Do you have any stories that you have a hard time mustering the courage to tell? Any blog posts you love that you haven’t been able to publish?
• Have you or those close to you kept quiet about a pregnancy until twelve weeks? Why or why not?
  
• Do you agree that many of the most important things in life take continuous courage?

So. I met a man. And we’re not talking about Husband.

Calm down. Many months ago, I met a fellow intrepid in these blogging waters and it happened to be a man. A husband. A father. A writer. I’m not sure how he found me, or me him, but finding did occur. I remember that we had a meaningful email exchange after I wrote a birthday letter to Mom. This man told me he loved this letter and that it made him cry. This man is the kind of man who would not care that I am telling you this.

John Cave Osborne.

His story is remarkable. Truly. He was motoring through life, a good life, as a bachelor. He spent a decade in the white-collar world before striking out to pursue his dream of being a writer. (Don’t you love this story already? It gets much better.) He met a woman who had a young daughter. He fell in love with this woman. They married. They decided to have a baby.

But then they got three. Yes, three. Triplets.

And so. This once-bachelor was suddenly awash in tiny creatures. A family man. A family man with a unique and exquisite story to tell. And so he told it. John published his book Tales from the Trips: How Three Babies Turned Our World Upside-Down in the past month. After spending months reading his words – heartfelt and hilarious – on his blog, I was thrilled when John sent me a copy of his book. And so. In no time, I lost myself in a story, his story, which is at once so personal and so universal.

One little part of the book struck me. Stayed with me. It’s toward the middle of the book and John compares his wife’s delivery of healthy triplets to a marathon he once ran. (No, he was not equating the two! That would probably not have gone over very well, huh ladies?) Anyway, John talks about something in these pages that resonated profoundly with me. He writes,

I left my daydream and opened my eyes and stared at my beautiful wife — the one who had just run the marathon of a multiple pregnancy. Against all odds she made it thirty-six weeks, shattering her initial goal of thirty, and had done better than anyone thought possible… And now she, too, was in a funk.

Granted [she] had a total physical meltdown that aided and abetted her funk, but even before the physical element came into play, she was nowhere near as euphoric as I would have expected her to be the day after crossing her finish line. Why? She was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be relieved. She had done something incredible, something great. Why didn’t she feel that way?

It’s seldom if ever the obvious tells you who you are. That’s too easy, too surface, too shallow. The obvious usually gives you nothing more than instant gratification. It’s what you do when the spotlight isn’t on you that tells you who you are – that shapes how you feel about yourself. If you rely on the big-ticket moments, you’re relying on the wrong thing…

What do I love about this selection? Well, many things, but two in particular. First, there are “spotlight moments” in our lives when we feel this immense pressure to smile, to celebrate, to be euphoric. (Engagement, Wedding, Birth, Job Promotion, Book Publication.) But the reality is that it doesn’t always work this way. We are complicated creatures and sometimes our purest joy manifests at odd and unpredictable times (bagging apples at the grocery store, PJ dance party with little girls, waiting on line at Starbucks). Second, who we are and how we feel and act in our “spotlight moments” does not truly define who we are. Rather, and as John points out, it is who we are between these big milestone moments of grandeur, the more subtle moments, that matters, that defines who we really are.

Ultimately, John’s book, well-written and moving beyond measure, is a love letter to the family he never he imagined he’d have.

And what a beautiful family it is.

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• Do you agree that it is not our “spotlight moments” that define us?
• Have you ever experienced moments when you felt you should be happy, but were instead in a funk?
• Fellow mothers – how did you feel immediately after the birth of your children?
• Has life surprised you in any way comparable to the way the triplets surprised John?
• Do you agree that the world needs more men who are not afraid to gush about their families?
• Is John’s family maybe the most adorable family you have ever seen? (Next to your own, of course!)
  

****GIVEAWAY: Please leave a comment here before 6am EST tomorrow (5/7/10) for a chance to win a signed copy of John’s new book Tales from the Trips! or if you are not inclined to leave a digital trail of words, just go ahead and order it! Come on, guys, this good man has four little mouths to feed ****

ILI DAILY CHARM: WANT FRIENDS?

Whether new to blogging or a veteran in this world, you can never have too many digital connections and comrades. I met so many of my lovely and loyal blogging buds via a wonderful event called Five for Ten over at the incomparable blog Momalom. The fantastic news? This sister duo is at it again! Please click here for details on Five for Ten (starts Monday 5/10, so sign up now!) I will elaborate on the amazingness (nope, not a word) of Five for Ten tomorrow, but head on over today to check it out. Just do it! You won’t be sorry.