To the Girl I Was Seven Years Ago...

To the girl I was seven years ago:

Hey! It’s me! Actually, technically, it’s you, because you are me. But that’s just simply a technicality, because we are not actually the same person at all.

Yes, we may look very similar. Our voices may sound the same, we may still have the same laugh, and we may have a TON of the same clothes because, well, we can’t get rid of anything.

But inside, we are very, very different. We are separated by seven years worth of experiences and heartaches, laughter and tears. Because you, Me Seven Years Ago,(this is getting really confusing, so we’re going to start calling you/me MSYA.) are naive, and you think your problems at work with employees or your frustrations with your peers or your bosses are bad. You’re not exactly sure how you feel about that boy you’ve been talking to or if that kiss in the classy Orena parking lot meant something (let me just reiterate...very, very different.) But you really don’t know what a bad day looks like, because you had it so easy. 

You didn’t have to watch your mom turn into a confused version of the free-spirited woman you know her to be; you didn’t have to watch her lose her hair, or so much of her memory that she didn’t even know it was her own birthday (her last birthday) as people were gathered around her singing. You didn’t have to watch your dad and your brother lifting her up on the count of 3 because she lost the use of her arms and legs over the course of a week, and you didn’t have to hear that horrible f***ing coughing sound from the thickit we had to put into all of her drinks so we could spoon feed them to her during those last weeks. You didn’t have to watch your “little” brother (her baby boy) look up at you with tears in his eyes and say “no matter how many times I tell her I love her, it’ll never be enough.” Or watch him struggle to get through one last reading of their book, “I’ll Love You Forever”, and you didn’t have to watch her take her last breath a few hours later.

But you also didn’t get that hug from your dad a few minutes after she died, the one where he pulled you in and told you “I always loved your mother.” As if you would have had any doubt, because while you may have only known about all the times she stepped up to take care of him, you’ll never know the way he stepped up to take care of her, long after their marriage had ended. 

You didn’t get to sit in the same room with all of your cousins for the first time in ten years as they helped you write your speech for her memorial. You didn’t get to know what it felt like to have people show up for you when you didn’t even know what you needed at any given moment. You didn’t get to hear all the stories people remembered about her, or watch proudly as your little brother read their book to all the people who were sitting in a giant banquet room at the North Park Ice Skating Rink to celebrate her (yes, you read that right—you knew her, and you knew how much she loved it there...I’m sure you can’t imagine a more perfect send off either.)

You probably remember, MSYA (stupid name, by the way), how scared you always were to lose both of your parents; how you genuinely wished the world would just end in December of 2012 so you didn’t have to live without them. It was always your fear. Maybe you had a feeling they weren’t ever meant to stay here with you for very long, and maybe that feeling was closing in on you. Whatever it was, the irony is, the world DID end for you that year (and not just because you are Me Seven Years Ago, and not Me Six Years Ago, or Me Five Years Ago...)

But I’m here to tell you that somehow, the world started over again, and that I’m okay. I’m different now, and in the time that separates us from one another, I fell in and out of love (with WOMEN! Bet you never saw that coming...), and I lost my dad, too. Can you believe it? Your worst nightmare came true. I lost him suddenly, almost without warning, but I got to be there with him. And that fear you had of being there and watching someone die? It was unfounded. Because believe me, watching each of our parents take their last breath were two of the most peaceful and significant moments I’ve ever witnessed, and I never would have wanted to miss them.

I’ve conquered a lot of your fears. I’ve done things you never thought were possible, and I’ve met people along the way that you didn’t even know you needed. And with all due respect, I’m stronger than you ever were or ever thought you could be. I had no say in the matter, and I suspect most of that strength came from the two people who love us both the most. 

I hope you know how lucky you are, and I wish time could stand still for you and that you could just take it all in, because in a few short days, it’s all going to come crashing down.

Oh, and one more thing...I have a REALLY handsome dog, and you would totally make fun of my complete and total obsession with him.

All my love,

Present Day Noelle 

Thank You

Sometimes, there are mountains that show up on the road ahead that seem insurmountable; too steep to climb, too painful to endure. We think there’s no way around them and wonder how we’ll ever make it to the other side, and maybe sometimes, we wonder if we should even keep moving at all.

For me, that “mountain” was losing my mom. The brightest light in my life and my best friend. I got to bask in the glow of the light she so effortlessly radiated, and for a long time, I didn’t even know the magnitude of its impact because I’d never had to experience the dark. 

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know how the story goes. You know the light didn’t last forever and eventually, after slowly dimming a day at a time, it burned out. 

Without that light to illuminate the way, that mountain that was suddenly right in front of me became even more of a hurdle. 

I’m writing this to thank everyone who has shown up in my life with a source of light; be it a flashlight, a lighter, a candle, a sparkler, a glow stick, a string of Christmas lights, a dead lightning bug smashed onto a sidewalk on a warm summer night, a lightbulb in a fixture that I don’t know how to change, or anything else that’s helped me along the way. I spend a lot of time reminiscing about my parents and trying to keep their memory alive. But I know I am not alone, and I am thankful to be reminded of that every day.

I hope all the people who have played a part in helping me climb that mountain every day recognize your significance and contribution in my life. One of my favorites told me the other day that they don’t know how to be my friend through all of this because they have both of their parents. I hope you all know, whether you can relate on a more personal level or not, how much I appreciate you for loving me through this and just for sitting with me and being present with me as I continue to navigate this world with the memory of my parents’ light tucked safely in my mind and heart. 

Whether you are still in my life now or we’ve gone our separate ways, I will always be so thankful for the people who didn’t let me stumble and fall off this mountain. 

”There isn’t one of these lines that I would erase, I left a million miles of memories on that road...”

I went to a place this weekend that I haven’t been to in a very long time.

Physically, I’ve been back there several times since my parents have been gone. But mentally, I haven’t allowed myself to truly be there since we drove out of town after my dad’s funeral, which in and of itself was a blur. I remember thinking that even though State College wasn’t going anywhere, I was leaving it forever...at least in the form that I had always known it to be.

Now that I’m living back in Pittsburgh, I’m 2 and a half hours away from the people I went to school with, had porch parties with, and made memories with for almost 15 years of my life. I’ve always called Pittsburgh home, but I can’t deny that I grew up in State College. That little college town that I couldn’t wait to get away from will always be the place with all the people who raised me. That house on Devonshire that we moved into when I was going into third grade may have been any old house, but its location on that street provided me with lasting friendships and memories. It was surrounded by adults who were involved in our lives for the simple fact that we lived on the same street and occasionally sat out on the sidewalk with their kids until 1am. It wasn’t in good condition by the end, and at that point it seemed like just a storage place for my parents’ belongings once they were both gone. The last time I walked out that front door, I looked at it as a place that no longer meant anything because the nuclear family that once resided there—the one I barely even recognized as my own at this point—had been cut in half. And so I tucked it safely in the back of my mind, and I watched from afar as my brother packed and sold everything inside of it, and then the house itself. I never went back inside, and I never thought twice about that.

When I found out one of my best friends was going to be visiting there from Savannah this weekend, I knew I wasn’t going to miss seeing her and spending time with her. I knew it was going to be hard, but the reward of time with friends was going to be worth the difficulty of taking the steps to get there.

I put the address in my GPS and was relieved that it was taking me a different route than we always followed with my dad. I thought maybe it would make it easier, and perhaps I could just avoid all routes that took me down any potentially sad paths altogether. 

About 30 minutes into the trip, I passed Grove City, and it was then that I completely lost it. I remembered my dad and Aunt Mardie taking us shopping there for back to school clothes. Phil would always find great bargains for Neal, while I generally came with a higher price tag to keep me completely relevant and fashion forward (if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, please refer to the picture of me in my cutoff flannel shirt, stonewashed jeans with holes in the knees, and basketball shoes for all the zero times I played basketball.) When I stopped daydreaming (and crying), I pulled my attention back to whatever hit 90s song was playing on the radio. Just kidding, it was actually a church service I didn’t even realize I was listening to for a half hour. I flipped through the stations to find something more upbeat, and tried to think about something else. Shortly thereafter, I looked up at the beautiful blue sky (the same one my mom would look at and say “the sky is the same color as your eyes”) and saw a cloud that looked so much to me like a duck running with its wings back to catch up with its other duck friends (probably with really cool names, too.) 

I smiled when I thought about how much my mom loved her ducks. Brownie, Baby, Stretch and Hercules (like I said, cool names.) She took empty nest syndrome to whole new level, and it was almost a requirement for me to acknowledge each of my four feathered siblings (over the phone, by the way) before she’d even think about continuing any conversation we may have been having. She used Facebook to keep everyone updated on their active lives which entailed eating gross things, swimming and adventuring all over the place, and defecating everywhere (not unlike her human son, actually.) She also completely ruined everyone’s day when she shared with all of her Facebook friends that three of them had been claimed by a vicious weasel, leaving poor Stretch as the sole survivor. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries about a week later. It’s okay if you’re laughing, because I am, too. RIP, duckz. (She also thought it was incredibly creative to add a “Z” to the end of the noun to pluralize it, since her married name also started with a Z...hence how her nickname “Jazazzle” was born.) That twinge in my heart, thinking about how quirky and adorable she was about those ducks, eventually subsided. But it was followed by an exit sign for Clarion and Cook’s Forest, where my parents took us several times as kids. My memory of Cook’s Forest is fuzzy, but I do specifically recall a slide on which you had to go down kneeling on a mat, and to this day I remember how faded their colors were and just hope they were using a solid disinfectant on those and taking them out of circulation once they really started disintegrating. I’d also be lying if I said I’m not at all curious about their green tagging process.

I passed a crushed up guard rail and thought about the time I side swiped one of them while driving to Raystown, with my cousin Kim and my brother as my passengers. I thought about how forgiving my mom was about that, considering it was her Sebring convertible I was driving. Then I thought about how forgiving she and my dad were when I side swiped his Ford Windstar while backing her big conversion van out of his driveway, causing minor damage to both vehicles. I like to think that was before my friends and I decorated her van with car paint for junior prom and then decided it’d be a fine idea to clean that paint off with dish washing sponges. (Spoiler Alert! We were wrong.) But despite my horrible driving skills and general decision making, she never seemed to get mad. She just liked to see me enjoying life with my friends, while keeping her close as I was growing up. She was always quick to remind me that they were just possessions, and as long as I was safe and unharmed, everything was going to be fine.

The next exit sign that sparked a reaction was the one for Bellefonte. The little town I played soccer for through high school, my mom never once missed a game. I remember one in particular (and I’m sure my coach does too) in which she stormed out onto the field because a storm was rolling in and we were still playing. She summoned my friend Katy and me to grab our things so we could leave, and I remember golf ball sized hail falling out of the sky a few minutes after we got into the car. But it was a tied game, and we just wanted the W. (Did we have any Ws at all?)

When I finally got into State College, I had finally accepted the simple fact that I had been fighting for days leading up to Saturday...and that was that this was not easy, and it wasn’t going to be no matter when I finally faced it head on. I remembered that being in Pittsburgh was difficult too at first, but now it’s such a source of comfort that makes me feel closer to my parents every day. Just accepting that made it so much easier to drive through town and really look at and see all those landmarks and sights that hold so many memories of the two of them. Being with my friends was also the jackpot, because they reminded me of stories I had forgotten about. And just as I suspected, my time with them made it completely worth the discomfort and the emotions that came with this (very short) trip. 

Memories are one of the only things I have left of my parents, and it’s ironic that I seem to fight so hard against things that end up uncovering a goldmine to so many more of them. 

But there’s still one thing I wasn’t ready to do this time, and that’s okay, because I’ll save it for next time when I plan on showing up at my former neighbors’ house for a long overdue porch party...and that is drive down that old street and look at the house; the one I’ve never had to look at as anything but my own. 

Grief is a never ending process. It ebbs and flows and it’s something that must be faced every single day; even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s inconvenient, and even when it’s hard. I’m thankful for the reminder of the importance of moving forward and remembering there will always be bumps (or potholes...so. many. potholes) along the way, but I’m also thankful for the opportunity to look back at the road behind me and recognize how far I’ve come. 

(***I’m sorry to all those in State College that I didn’t see this trip....but I’ll be back soon enough.***)

April (But Nothing to do with Light Rain or Pilgrims)

One more day of March, and then it’s here.

April. If I had to describe the month in terms of taste, I would say it’s like eating an orange right after you’ve brushed you teeth; it’s bittersweet. And unlike being able to just acknowledge how dumb it was to eat an orange after I just brushed my teeth, I don’t get a choice on this one. There’s not something I can change or avoid doing that’s going to take away the bitter and just leave me with the sweet.

April brings me back to 27 years worth of happy memories spent with my mom. It was always the first true sign of spring in Pennsylvania (Thanks, first winter back home, for reminding me that March is a giant tease), and the month in which we always celebrated ourselves together, with our birthdays falling exactly a week apart (and, you know, a few years.) I think back to Aprils in which we went to Florida, or in later years, when she would visit me there. 

With each passing year, April always marked the progression of our mother-daughter relationship. In earlier years, I guess it was probably the difference between baby gibberish and actually being able to communicate in word form back and forth. Then several years later, the difference between me kicking in her windshield when she told me I couldn’t have a pet rabbit, and dealing with my frustrations in a more productive and less expensive manner, like throwing a hairbrush at Neal’s face. But my favorite was the evolution of our relationship into my twenties, when we became the best of friends in addition to being mother and daughter. The age gap started to close in, and we were suddenly two adults sharing our stories and navigating the world together. 

It was then that I really met and got to know my mom as the friend and the woman that she was beyond “just” being my mom. I saw her vulnerabilities and I started to understand things about her childhood and upbringing—as well as my own—that I was too young to understand before. She’d open her entire heart up to me about everything that was breaking it at the time, and I’d remind her she was perfect on her own and she needed to recognize her own value and be content with being on her own. She’d tell me I was so much smarter than she ever was about relationships and sometimes life in general. But the truth was, I just hadn’t been tested yet at that point. I hadn’t yet experienced what it was like to be so in love with someone that you just couldn’t walk away from them and throw in the towel, even though it was the right and necessary thing to do. I hadn’t yet experienced making myself completely vulnerable to someone and then getting my heart shattered, only to go back for more. I hadn’t yet been in a situation where I somehow tied my own self worth around what someone else thought of me, because I thought they were all that mattered. But when I did? Damn, did I miss my best friend and my mom simultaneously, and damn did I want to call her and say “I understand it now, but please just make it better.”

Our relationship was special and it was profound and it was so many other things, but my favorite part about it was that it was so incredibly fun. It was years of me getting playfully made fun of for misreading the word “guitar” as “guter”, because THAT’S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. It was skinny dipping at night in family pools and on one occasion, at Whipple’s Dam. It was flaring our nostrils at each other because it always made her laugh. It was me wakeboarding while she skied right next to me off the back of her boat. It was blowing up a giant rowboat and paddling out in Clearwater bay to see dolphins, only to get stuck rowing against the wind and have to be towed in by a friendly yet somewhat odd gentleman sunbathing nude off one of the islands. It was meeting her at the Arena for her traditional Tuesday beverage and cigarette when I was home. And it was finally going on a “bar crawl” on Main Street in Dunedin, where we played darts and laughed hysterically, planning the next five years when she’d move to Florida and we’d start our own shuttle service (that was her idea, I was just along for the ride....get it??) She talked about the possibility of trying to buy my grandmother’s condo, because that charming little town had become so meaningful to us, and a place full of so many memories. Ironically, it was our last adventure I can remember, and there we were, talking about the future together—a future with more adventures—that just wasn’t in the cards for us. 

And while her birthday is extraordinarily difficult to celebrate without her here, I think I may actually struggle more on my own birthday (especially now that BOTH of the people who gave me a birthday are gone.) It’s a day on which the absence of my 12:25am birthday call is felt to my core, and when I’m reminded that I’ll never get another off-key Happy Birthday song from her again. Neal summed it up really well on his first birthday without them both: our parents had many birthdays before we came into the picture, but we are just getting used to having our own birthdays without them. If it’s even something anyone can really get used to. 

Despite all of the memories that may make me sad to think about now, April still holds so much happiness for me, and it still makes me feel closer to her. 

April may never be the “perfect” month again, but it will always be ours.

Steel City, I Love Thee

The other day, as I was driving through the tunnels and caught the most perfect view of the city of Pittsburgh, I realized that I've finally forgiven this city for breaking my heart.

It was here, at UPMC, that my world shattered like glass underneath me as we learned the results and the outlook of my mom's brain tumor biopsy. It was a sunny day in Pittsburgh as my mom wrapped her arms around me and my brother as we walked out of the Hilman cancer center and promised us that with whatever time she had left, she was going to make sure she told us and showed us over and over again how much she loved us. She apologized that day for what we had to go through, as only a mother would do after she was just diagnosed with terminal cancer.

It was her old neighborhood and the house she grew up in that my dad took her to see, shortly after her diagnosis, to remind her where she came from. She'd still have her moments where she couldn't remember what she'd just told us and we had to remind her to take her pills, but she was lucid enough to remember that house and tell us stories about living there. I didn't realize at the time that my dad probably did that just as much for us as he did for her.

It was that skyline that we'd see from the window as we got closer and closer to the hospital for every doctor's appointment. I remember thinking about how this city that was always home to me, no matter where I lived, was going to be so different after all was said and done. It was always going to be the place where I started to watch my mom fade away.

It was on her sister's front porch that we sat outside and I asked my mom if she remembered where I worked. She told me she was pretty sure I was a waitress. I laughed as my heart silently broke, realizing my own mom didn't remember such a huge part of my life. I told her I worked at SeaWorld, and her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas, in awe of how "cool" that must be.

It was in North Park where we'd walk with her best friend Mary Ann, as they'd been doing for years before that, and they'd recount stories of their childhood. My mom remembered them and contributed to them less and less as the time went on, but she'd always go along with it. I still remember the last story time, on her brother's deck, when my mom was too weak to even respond. But she still mustered a smile and a head nod.

And it was in her brother's dining room that we set up a hospital bed for her, and would feed her and bathe her lay with her and talk to her, even when she was too tired to respond. It was in that room that we all said our goodbyes and thanked her for everything she was as she slipped away from us. I remember my aunt asking if it would be too difficult for us to be back in that room in their house after that. I often find Radar laying in there on the couch, and I just assume she's in there with him, petting him and thanking him for being my heart bandaid. It's my favorite room to sit in.

After we lost my mom, Neal and I tried to keep up the tradition we'd started of going to the Grand Concourse for dinner around Christmas time. It didn't last as long as I would have liked, since her diagnosis came two years after we decided it should be a tradition. We went as a group with some cousins, aunts and uncles and my dad, the year before we lost him. 

After losing my dad, I spent over a year away from Pennsylvania, and as much as I missed my family and talked about making a trip back up, avoiding coming back to all the difficult memories seemed easier than facing them head-on. So I put it off, and I put it off, and I put it off some more. I came back home for over a week around Christmas time with Radar, and was reminded how much I miss being here, surrounded by people I love so much. It started to sink in that the place that I may have been avoiding is the place that I can best find pieces of my parents in all their friends and family when I'm missing them more than usual.

The beginning of the summer had me more miserable and homesick than I've ever felt before, and I realized that my years spent avoiding taking time for myself in all the chaos of sickness and loss and funeral planning had finally caught up to me. I had made it a point to jump right back into work the second the dust settled, but in doing so, I never gave myself a chance to just absorb it all. I didn't let myself feel the sad moments in the difficult places because it seemed easier to just stay away from them.

At the beginning of the summer, I took a flying leap out of my comfort zone and left my job to figure out what it was that was missing from my life. I've spent a little over two months, on and off, in Pittsburgh, spending much needed time with family and friends. It has reminded me that THIS is home, and always will be, and my Pittsburgh roots were only strengthened by the life-altering events that have happened here. The moments and landmarks I thought would be so difficult to face are among my favorites, because I've conquered them in a sense. I've been reminded that the people in this city trump any and all demons that I ever thought resided here.

Thank you to the people who have helped me to fall back in love with the city of Pittsburgh. We'll probably be making it Facebook official soon. 

Fearless

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Have you ever been scared?"

"No, not really."

I asked my mom these words about a month before she passed away. I laid down with her that night, next to her body that she had little control over by then and her face that went from being care-free and always smiling to a face that was beginning to look exhausted. Tired of fighting this disease that took over her brain and now her entire body. Tired of oncology appointments, tired of chemo, tired of it all. It was that night that I first uttered the words "When you get too tired, it's okay to let go. Neal and I will be okay. We'll miss you forever, but we'll get through it, I promise." She cracked a smile and softly said "thank you."

Today I'm laying in my backyard in a small inflatable boat filled with water (quite a topic transition, I know. Ps, did anyone else just realized it's spelled "segue" and not "segway"? Hence why I opted out of using the word completely.) It's the first time since I've lived in Florida that I have not had access to a pool. I forgot how relaxing it is to just be outside in the quiet while also not sweating to death. It's only 90 degrees, which means it will soon get a lot worse. Still, it's hot. As I was laying here trying not to die of heatstroke, a breeze swept across me and immediately, without even thinking about it, I hear my mom's voice saying "that breeze is heavenly." She used that word to describe many things; a cool breeze, the sun beating down on her face, and yes, let's be honest, probably while skinny dipping too. She used it to describe a smooth day out on the lake, when the water was smooth like glass and she could gracefully stay on her waterski until she just didn't feel like it anymore. She used it to describe the rare occasions when Neal or I would give her scalp massages or rub her back, and she used it when she tasted one of her favorite delicious foods...M&Ms, chocolate mousse, French Silk ice cream from Brusters, etc.

My mom always celebrated "mini miracles" in every day. Sunshine after days of dark clouds. A good find on the 3 dollar clearance rack that she'd later take back anyway. The duck that almost getting killed by a weasel but survived, even though she (?) didn't make it in the end. (RIP Stretch.) Getting to spend time with a good friend she hadn't seen in a while. Someone sharing one of their cigarettes with her on a Tuesday night, because everyone knew on Tuesday nights she'd go play darts and smoke one cigarette with her SoCo and lime.

She always described herself as "spiritual but not religious." Our nightly dinner prayer growing up was a line from her favorite Godspell song. "All good gifts around us...." We were raised Catholic, went to Mass a lot of Sundays, and both of us went through CCD (until Neal decided he wanted to be Presbyterian), but I think most of that was my dad's influence. I didn't go to communion for YEARS after my First Holy Communion in second grade because I didn't know which way the sign of the cross went. YEARS! She supported that. She didn't know it was because I was just a dumbass, but she didn't care. I didn't want to do it and she wasn't going to make me. She was also raised Catholic, but also often talked about what a contradiction it was to sit through Mass on a Sunday and then treat people like crap the rest of the week and think it's okay because of that one hour (an hour and a half with Father Bender, let's be honest) they spent in church every week. My mom chose to spend her entire week treating people well and being a good person. I never once doubted that she believed in God, because that was never a secret. But she found solace in that relationship when she was outside walking, not inside a church. 

My mom talked about death freely and openly as well. She always used to tell us "when I die, there are two things that I want you to do for me....I want to be cremated so you can scatter my ashes on Raystown lake, and I want you to make sure to get my gold tooth, because that could be worth something. It's pure gold." (For anyone wondering, yes we asked the people from the funeral home who came to the house after she passed if they could remove the gold tooth, yes they did look at us like we were crazy, and no the gold tooth was not extracted.) Neal told my dad, while we were talking about my mom's memorial service, "Listen, Phil. Since we're on the subject, we should probably ask what you want, too." My dad's response was "Oh, I don't care, I'll be dead anyway. Just cremate me, put me in a shoebox and set me out on a windy day." Pretty good summation of both of my parents, actually....my mom, frugal and always worried about saving money, and my dad, a complete smart ass.

I'm thankful that both of my parents believed there was something else beyond this. I'm glad my mom never made it a secret that she was at peace with whatever happened to her and I'm glad she spent her life with a constant awareness that tomorrow is never promised. And I'm thankful my dad always found comfort in religion, and that when I asked for a priest to come give him last rites, 4 priests showed up within 20 minutes of each other, which was comical in a very unfunny time.

Neal and I talked at one point early on in her illness about what would happen if my mom forgot who we were. We both agreed that we could deal with that, as long as she wasn't scared. 

We are so lucky to have the peace of mind that neither of our parents were afraid.

I'm sure my mom was delighted to be reunited with Stretch, and I'm sure they're frolicking through the meadows up there. And I'm sure my dad is there, rolling his eyes and trying to keep his distance, because he never did care much for birds.

The Kind of Friend I Want to Be

So first and foremost, I'm changing the voice of this blog back to the way it was in in the beginning, because now that my parents are both gone, I have more and more trouble writing TO them both and not leaving one of them of the conversation. Is that weird? That's weird, isn't it? Also, it's kind of depressing to write to people who are gone and probably don't even have internet access where they are now. Moving on....

"Thank you for the joy you have given me."

Mary Ann's last words to my mom still pop into my head just about daily. They had a lifelong friendship that stood the test of time for these two incredible women who were both free spirited and also a little scandalous. They'd spend hours having breakfast together, which turned into lunch, and maybe sometimes even dinner...but it always ended with an order of Chocolate Mousse for my mom. Unsure of Mary Ann's dessert preferences, but I'm sure they each ordered their favorite, because, well...YOLO. My mom was the middle child and a rebel by trade. She didn't follow the rules even when she was younger, and that carried over into the perfect mom she became. "Clothing required" sign? Yeah, that's totally optional. Coed sleepovers for your daughter and a bunch of her teenage friends in your basement where you'd give them complete privacy? Totally okay. Claiming that all 12 players on your daughter's soccer team are your children so they can all see an R rated movie? Seems fine. When I was in preschool or Kindergarten, my teacher told her I was having trouble coloring inside the lines. (Is anyone really surprised about my lack of artistic talent since basically birth? Didn't think so. Please send requests if you'd like me to draw you a nice stick figure version of your family.) My mom talked to me about it after she gave the teacher a piece of her mind, and told me nobody could EVER make me color inside the lines. When I got older and she told me the story again, it was so much more than a bunch of purple crayon outside of the grapes that were outlined on the page to fill in. It was the motto for her life, and she wanted me and Neal to follow suit and be who we were and not who the world expected or pressured us to be. But I suspect the reason she was comfortable with who she was, even if it wasn't mainstream, was because she knew she always had her best friend next to her and I'd bet money on the fact that they always inspired and encouraged each other to be the person each of them wanted to be.

Mary Ann was a part of our life since I was born, and when she was with my mom around us, they were the same unapologetic trouble makers they were when Neal and I became adults. They didn't try to behave in front of us when we were young kids to shield us from stories of their younger days when they were (still) breaking the rules, they just were who they were, and along with my dad's lifelong friendships, it set the foundation for Neal and me to want to have the type of friendships both of our parents did.

When my mom got really bad toward the end of her battle with stupid F-ing brain cancer, Mary Ann sat with her on the back porch and recounted all of the memories she could think of from all the years they spent together. Sometimes it was me who asked for them. Because I wanted to hear those stories when they were both sitting next to each other, even if my mom could barely form sentences by that point and even though she was no longer able to provide her own memories to add to the stories. Mary Ann would tell a story and say "Remember that, Jul?" God, did they love each other in the most genuine of ways. If my mom were still healthy, she would have laughed her loud and perfect laugh that I probably got from her and said "I sure do, Mare!" And flashed that dimple on her left cheek as she smiled that smile that went all the way up to her sparkly blue eyes. Instead, she just shook her head yes with all the effort she could muster.

Mary Ann visited my mom often, even though each time broke her heart more and more. She and my dad became closer than ever, because I think she of all people knew how much he loved my mom and how special it was that he stepped up to take care of her, even after they had been divorced for 20 years. He always said, "I'd do anything for your mother except marry her again." And damn, did he prove that to be accurate. My dad and Mary Ann both kept brave faces on and tried to smile, probably for my mom and for me and Neal. But I know behind closed doors, they were both broken and struggling with seeing her transformation over the course of a year. By the end, it was even harder to see such a drastic change in speech and cognitive and physical ability in such a short time. But as hard as it was for Mary Ann to see, she came to visit her every chance she got. At one point, I asked her to scratch my back when we were sitting next to each other. My dad looked at her and said "wow, that's quite an honor. Usually her mom is the one that always scratched her back." She was in living room with all of us when the hospice nurse was called over because we were recognizing some of the signs she mentioned we would see and when we saw them, we were to call her immediately. I don't remember what time it was, but it was late and I remember all of us apologizing for calling her at that time. She showed up in beautiful leopard print clogs, a royal cinderella! She took one look at my mom, who hadn't woken up all day, and noticed her purple knees and said "I'm glad you called."

She didn't want to talk about my mom in front of her, so she pulled us all down into the living room. She told us if she were to guess, we were probably looking at about 48 hours, if that. We knew it was coming, but I remember feeling like I had just been throat punched and judging by the looks on everyone else's face, they all felt similarly. We were told to call anyone who needed a chance to say goodbye to her immediately. Mary Ann returned early the next morning, walked into the room my mom was in, leaned down to her bed and said quietly "Thank you for the joy you have given me." Mary Ann pulled up a chair next to Neal as he sat right next to her bed, wanting to spend every last second right beside her. He looked up at me and Aunt Lirda at one point and said "no matter how many times I tell her I love her, it will still never, ever be enough." Mary Ann hugged him and put her hand on his shoulder and then tried to help him through "I'll Love You Forever" as he read it to my mom. It was the book my mom always got him for any momentous occasion, and how much life emulated that book for them, with the boy saying the poem to his sick mother...one last time...at the end of the book.

Mary Ann gave the eulogy at the memorial and it was perfect. She stuck by us through all the difficult days that followed the day my mom finally let go and stopped fighting. She told us more stories about the trouble they got into together. And she opened my eyes to the fact that friendships like theirs are still something I will always strive for; that I'll always try to be the friend they were to each other, and that when my own time comes, someone will be standing next to me, thanking me for the joy I hopefully will have brought to them. Or at least for having an awesome dog....