Patton Oswald recently tweeted that “Anne Frank spent 2 years hiding in an attic and we’ve been home for just over a month with Netflix, food delivery & video games and there are people risking viral death by storming state capital buildings & screaming, “Open Fuddruckers!”.   He was rightly excoriated by opposing tweeters who understood that the protesters were concerned about their job and ability to eat, not go to Fuddruckers.  While I am not personally out protesting (except by mounting my own form of resistance to the lockdown by going anywhere I can), I am concerned that we are forgetting what Anne Frank wanted most, to live.

I have long been saying that there has to be a middle ground.  Assuming that social distancing is working, if we can social distance at “essential” businesses (grocery stores, hardware stores, nursery’s, etc.), we should be able to social distance everywhere else.  Increasingly though, governments appear to be waiting for a path that all but guarantees the health of every individual and in so doing are killing our collective souls.

Let us recall that the original goal of the lockdown was not to prevent the spread and/or death but to slow the rate of the spread so as to not overwhelm the hospitals.  To this day, no one really knows how many people are infected. The Stanford (Stanford Antibody Study) and USC (USC Study) studies suggest that the actual infection rate is much higher than once believed. If the infection rate is that much higher than anticipated, can we conclude the lockdown was for naught?  Maybe. Maybe not.  What we can conclude is the so-called “experts” may not have (if ever) enough information to plot a path forward.  The only thing they know is that there is a virus, it is contagious and particularly deadly to certain groups of people – although thankfully not as deadly as originally anticipated.  We don’t (or shouldn’t) have to be doctors to know that viruses are rarely if ever eliminated.  If they were, we wouldn’t need vaccines or the yearly flu shot.  So why are we waiting for “THE” answer before lifting the lockdown?

As I was thinking about the resurrection over Easter, it occurred to me that our response to this pandemic had turned us into a worldwide colony of lepers.  Jesus’ life and death were supposed to teach us to conquer fear and here we were hiding behind modern technology.  While Jesus waded into the leper colony, we have isolated. Is it really necessary to avoid all personal contact with family and friends, to eye each other suspiciously if we are not standing at least six feet apart with a mask, to “snitch” to the government about those not following the “rules”,  to publicly shame anyone with the temerity to venture beyond their exact home boundary for a change of scenery or to dismiss protesters as weak fools?  And, in the greatest act of fear, did we really have to let our loved ones die alone?

A month may not seem like much for a person like Patton Oswald, who has his health, his video games and is having his food delivered.  I remember like it was yesterday, that a week between our son, Gus’ cancer diagnosis and his first treatment felt like a year, that eight years between his first diagnosis and his relapse seemed like only a few short months and that in twenty-four hours Gus went from being in remission to losing his life.  Which is to say that a lot can happen in a month. Yes, this virus is deadly and we sadly do not know enough about it to fully protect ourselves, but this month we’ve given up much more than the well-being we were after.  Existing in a perpetual state of fear and inaction is worse than death, it is a selfish squandering of the very breath denied to those that died.  Lifting the lockdown is not just about the economy, it is about acceptance.  Life is not guaranteed but needs to be lived to have meaning.  As my brilliant husband said yesterday, we can either take a risk and live, or do nothing out of fear and die anyway.  I choose life.

I have two children closer to thirty now that son number two turned twenty-five in August. Outrageous! I am not old enough to have children that old am I?  I certainly don’t feel it and on a good hair day may even get away with not quite looking it (at least that is what my magic mirror tells me).  While I am not quite presiding over an empty nest yet because son one doesn’t live too far away and spends some afternoons foraging for food in our refrigerator and son two lives over the garage, the boys are rearing to go and I am anxious, eager and confident all at once!

My first two children were an unplanned – let’s say -“surprise” .  Mid-way through my first year of architecture I fell for a handsome guy at a bar and lost my good sense. We did the “right thing” getting married six months before our first son was born and then it all went to hell. Thankfully, he and his TV disappeared one day about a year later leaving me with an empty wall, an infant son and another on the way. I have no regrets for how it all began because the universe in its infinite wisdom gave me boys knowing that girl drama would be too much and that my future husband would be the best father and friend they both could have.

When the boys were small, before I understood that I was more of a tour guide than director, I allowed myself to imagine a single aspect of their future.  Although I dared not determine an actual career path because I did not want to be that kind of controlling mother, I did assume that one day I’d be dropping them off at university, (preferably Ivy League) festooned with academic and athletic scholarships. I reasoned that since I had been a good student, I could easily produce even better ones.  My dreams of academic genius where further buoyed when my now husband of twenty years joined us forever on my oldest son’s third birthday.  He too was academically gifted and disciplined and together our boys would have access to the best education and enrichment activities within a construct of positive reinforcement we could afford.  I could not have been more delusional.

It turned out that son number one was dyslexic with some sort of processing disorder, a fact that would take years and a long list of “specialists” to uncover.  By then he was floundering in school with reading torture and writing a near impossibility.  Son number two, eighteen months his junior did not share his brother’s “processing” limitation but he had his own, he loved to socialize far more than he liked to compete against his peers. Between a child who couldn’t and child who wouldn’t we spent a good number years exhausting all manner of tests, psychologists, tutors, bribery, achievement charts and even punishment to achieve less than mediocre grades and a chaotic household.

By the time Gus was born, ten years after son number two, I had begun to put aside the ill conceived notion that the greatest measure of our children was their academic and/or athletic success.  One day it occurred to me that I was driving myself and our boys crazy trying to turn them into little clones of ourselves for the worst possible reason – approval and acceptance from other parents.  I finally recognized that I although I claimed that they should fit the mold “for their own good”, I was embarrassed by their academic failures as my own parenting failure. What would my peers think if I did not get them into the “right” high school followed by a prestigious college?

I decided to trade the pressures of academics and athletics for a happy home and Gus’ short but well lived life would prove that I had done so at just the right time.  Instead of all academics all the time, we would choose a couple of days in the year for movie day, vacations over summer school, joy over stress. Gus had battled cancer and won, or so we thought when the older boys were graduating from high school. As a family we refused to make that final year more stressful than necessary and skipped the SAT, college application rat race.  Instead on a random day in January we signed them up for the local community college that best suited their interests and declared them “college” students. Gus was only the fourth grade when he passed away and ironically had expressed more interest in doing well academically than either of his brothers, I no longer cared I only wanted him to live.

In retrospect, I am forever grateful that the boys never went away to college.  Perhaps it was the universe’s way of keeping the brothers together for that final year, the three of them playing X-box until the very end.  In the four years since, they have each started to embark on the path that was their own from the very beginning; son number one an extremely honest and helpful automotive technician and son number two a recent graduate from a state university in finance and waiting to see where his love of speaking will take him.  They are both kind, generous, patient, loving, funny, creative, helpful and so many wonderful things that I can only stand back and marvel.  So far so good….

I made it to Paris Abuelita!

Except for the three years we lived in Puerto Rico for my dad’s job, my parents did not take us on any exotic vacations over-seas, extended road trips around the country or even a few miles from our Southern California home unless they were taking us to the movies.  Then and only then would we travel north to the San Fernando Valley, east towards San Gabriel or even as far south as Torrance from our mid-LA home in search of the perfect double feature.  My siblings and I would dutifully sit through two whole movies with only a ten minute bathroom/popcorn break in between in the venue of their choosing and nothing was out of the question. A top of the line drive-in theater with multiple screens that projected the sound through the car radio was just as good as the gravel pit whose car mounds were ground down with use and whose window mounted speakers produced only static; and the brand new state of the art movie theater with Dolby surround sound was easily substituted by a musty theater with sticky seats.  I did not really mind this singular form of diversion because it was a way of making a mental note of where I’d like to visit one day.

If there is a “travel bug” I must have caught it from my grandmother with whom I journeyed each summer to visit the family in Mexico City.  I never thought of these trips as actual “excursions” because I’d been going there since I was a baby and it seemed so commonplace.  Even my grandmother must not have considered the yearly trek a “vacation” as she spent much of the time listing the many places she’d like to visit one day.  She most wanted to visit Paris, France because she suspected she was French deep down although I never knew why.  She suggested that I become a flight attendant (stewardess back then) when I graduated from high school because she’d heard family traveled for free.  When I told her I hoped to go to college, she patted my hand and asked me to give my future more “serious” thought.

My grandparents moved back to Mexico City in the early eighties fulfilling a thirty year dream of returning to their beloved country.  It was then that our visits took on the aura of an actual “vacation”.   With summer the only time my mother could visit her parents and with our visit the only way my grandmother could get my grandfather to leave the limits of Mexico City, we suddenly had a reason to take bus trips to neighboring parts of Mexico like Puebla, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, and Acapulco.    For my high school graduation in 1986, my grandmother cajoled my parents into sending them and me (and my younger sister last minute) to Hawaii for a week.  It was during that trip that the “bug” became a virus.  My grandmother and I had great time.  She’d donned on a grass skirt and danced on stage as I laughed and took pictures while my grandfather and sister looked on in dismay.  We went on a luau, a bus trip through the hills, we walked around town and drank mai tais (it was the last year the drinking age was eighteen).   I made friends, went dancing, and got a deep tan. It was the first time I could really understand that the movies kept me a spectator while traveling made me a participant.  I politely rejected the USC and LMU acceptances and scurried off to Mexico City after our jaunt that summer with the intention of never coming back to Los Angeles.  I was “seriously” thinking of becoming a stewardess.

By October of that year, three months into my self-imposed exile, I was working at an office in the nicest part of Mexico City.  I had new friends, gone on a few “interesting” dates and was just about to apply to a Mexican airline when I got a phone call.  My grandmother had fainted and was being rushed to urgent care.  When I arrived at the hospital she had regained consciousness but was very dizzy and nauseous.  I held her hand in the back seat of the car as we drove across town to a specialist for a diagnosis. She held smelling salts to her nose to keep from vomiting and I held a bucket in case they failed. The doctor told her she was lucky to be alive, an aneurysm had burst and she needed an emergency operation.  We were walking into the hospital to have her admitted as a large family burst into tears having gotten some terrible news.  I took it as a sign that I was about to lose my grandmother. The operation was postponed from Friday to Monday, confirmation that it was the end because it gave my mother time to get there and be with her.  I remember telling her to get better so that we could travel together.  She smiled and nodded as they wheeled her away. She never recovered from the surgery and passed away a few days later just seconds after my father arrived with my siblings.

Without my grandmother, the new life I was considering was no longer appealing.  I came back to LA, went to college, met someone, had two boys, got divorced, met another someone, fell in love (real love) and despite our recent loss have been happy together for nearly twenty-three years.  I look back on my life and realize that my grandmother has been right there all along.  Not only is this man, my saint, my best friend and the love of my life, we’ve been fortunate to travel together nearly everywhere my grandmother ever wanted to go.  I’ve made it to France, Spain (twice), England, Italy and Greece. We’ve visited many states within the US, gone on cruises, and been back to Mexico many times.  I don’t know where our next adventure may take us but I do know my grandmother (with Gus’ added help) is making it all possible.  Participate in your life don’t watch it go by.

The “faults” that surround me.

The room is white and sparsely furnished. I don’t recognize it but it doesn’t seem strange or inhospitable. I get the sense that I am in this room with everyone I know.  It is only a sense though because as a look around I can’t focus on anyone in particular, people appear and disappear from my periphery in wisps like ghosts. I finally focus on someone I know, it is the one person I miss the most and want to be with. It’s Gus! I see the back of him, his hair is soft, straight and sways a little as walks.  He seems at ease but busy weaving through the room as though it is his job to take care of every body. I call to him and as he turns to look at me the earth begins to shake and I know that it is an earthquake.  We take cover in separate spaces and while I can see he is as safe as am I, a sense of panic overcomes me.  I feel an urgency because I realize that Gus is still sick and I don’t know how to cure him.  The earth stops shaking and as I reach out towards him I snap awake, breathless. I am disappointed and upset, he was inches away from me and yet I couldn’t reach him. I didn’t get a chance to hold him in my arms and they ache for him.

I read on-line that dreaming of an earthquake highlights your fears and sense of helplessness. It signifies a big shake up in your life (you think?). The on-line site asks “Is there something in your life you feel at fault for?” UM…YES!  I let Gus die!  My brain knows that it was not within my power to save him and that my only job was to love him BUT my ego just can’t seem to let go of the sense of responsibility.  Did I do something to cause the cancer? Did I fail to recognize it soon enough to make a difference? Did I fail to be more vigilant about what he ate and drank thereby allowing him to become septic unnecessarily? The dream stayed with me that day, it made me sad and anxious.  I asked the universe for a sign; for permission to bury the feeling of guilt that overtakes me every so often like a tectonic shift and rattles me to the core.

All day I tried to focus on other things, my work, the plans for the weekend ahead but my mind kept drifting back to the dream.  After work, I vacillated between going to my spin class or walking up and down the one and half mile road that rises nearly five hundred feet to what is known as the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook near our house. I chose the road because even though it was hot and windy, I needed to feel my feet firmly beneath me, to take one emotional step forward and then another.  I had gone up and down twice lost in my music when I found myself walking behind two boys and girl from a local Catholic School’s track team (according to their t-shirts).  I normally would have just walked past them but something made me look at the back of one of the boy’s head.  He was a typical boy, long, lanky, talking animatedly with his friends.  He appeared to be about 13, Gus’s age today had he lived.  Aside from his age, nothing else would have struck me as “Gus-like” except for one glaring similarity – his bright blue hearing-aides.

I promise that part behind the ear is bright blue like that boy’s.

Thank you world for giving me this sign.  Was it enough for my ego to completely let go of the inappropriate sense of guilt? Likely not – but I am impressed with the immediate response to my emotional need. Through my tears (and two more times up and down the hill) I managed to “Smile” a little.

My husband recently made an observation that I found profound and worthy of spurring a change to this site. He objected to my description of the many things we do (post Gus) as “diversions or distractions”.  He flat-out said “I don’t like those words, I prefer to say that we are keeping busy”.  He is right (but nobody tell him please), there is no real way to distract or divert ourselves away from Gus’ loss.

We had Gus ten years after our youngest son for a reason; as a couple we’d only ever known the “busy”-ness of parenting having had our first two when we were in our early (very early) twenties.  We anticipated that as “parenting” our older children was slowly reduced to moments of advice and spectator support, we’d need another child or two to fill up our time, command our attention, motivate us to work and plan for the future. When Gus was diagnosed with cancer at two and a second child never materialized, we focused on being grateful for just the one, our Gus.

Time seems to be in short supply for parents of school aged children but when Gus was abruptly gone, time appeared to multiply like Gremlins.  Suddenly, we had time to read, travel, exercise, dine, sleep, binge watch TV, walk, try new things or nothing at all. All this time however seems to come at a hefty price and we always experience it only in terms of what we’ve lost.  “We would have never done this if Gus was still here” (Our Camino) or “Gus would have loved this trip” (cruises through the Panama Canal and up and down the coast with his cousins).

I titled my blog “The Upside(s) of Grief, Diversion, Distractions & Motivations after a great loss” to highlight that activity and joy after loss is a choice; a choice between living with grief or living through grief.  The only mistake I made was thinking that the time we’d be occupying could be a distraction, diversion or even a motivation.  It is not, it just time that we choose to fill with activity. “We” find meaning in this activity because it bring us closer together as a family, as a couple and inspires us individually.  For this reason I’ve made a slight change in the title of my blog – it is still “The Upside(s) of Grief” with what we truly are doing – “keeping busy after a great loss”.  I hope you don’t mind….