The Reincarnation of Paco to Spirit to Light

SPIRIT

Throughout the years, my mom had many pets.  She took in strays all the time.  She had a teacup poodle named Paco, a parrot named David, a Cockatoo named Jerry, tropical fish, and too many cats to name (not all at the same time).  Mom also took in stray children.  She fed the children in the neighborhood whose mothers did not feed them, and she took others under her wing and made sure they were safe, sometimes giving them room and board.  Mom could not turn away any living thing.

When she decided to leave New York to live in North Carolina, I inherited Paco, a white, five-pound, Zen little guy, sweet and loving.  I adored him.  Paco had quirky behavior.  Whenever I was reclining, he immediately made himself comfortable on either my hip or my chest. He would never pee and poop in the same place.  He was house trained and street trained.  If he went in the apartment, he peed on one piece of paper and pooped on another.  If he went in the street, he’d pee anywhere, but he would only poop under a car.  He was tiny and could easily walk under a car.  He was fussy about what he ate and would not eat dog food.  Paco could not jump from the floor to the couch or even from the coffee table to the couch, no more than a foot away, without a lot of hesitating and numerous attempts.  He would eventually succeed, usually out of breath but triumphant.  Paco sashayed when he walked and looked as if he were dancing.  People on the street used to comment on his walk, which was really cute.  One time a businessman, briefcase in hand, came up behind me and started talking baby talk to Paco, because he was so enthralled with Paco’s gait.  That’s how cute Paco was.  Paco never licked me or anyone else, but I wanted kisses from him, so I put a lollipop in front of him one day and he sniffed it and then licked it.  That was the unwitting beginning of an obsessive compulsive licking disorder.  After that, whenever anyone picked Paco up, he licked the person compulsively, making both the person and me uncomfortable.  The licking was so intense that it seemed almost sexual.

I took him for his first grooming to a place called "People Training for Dogs," located on the upper west side of Manhattan.  They tortured him in that grooming.  The owner bragged about not using electric clippers and said that they only used scissors and an implement that looked like an afro pick to get knots out.  I dropped him off in the morning on my way to work and picked him up in the evening.  I was horrified when I saw him.  They had pulled his hair out from the follicle with that implement.  He had no hair at all on his body.  He was pink, just skin, no hair.  Only his face still had hair.  He was angry and snarled at me.  I was horrified and refused to pay them the $75 they wanted.  I put him inside my coat and immediately took him to the vet, who was also horrified and asked me what had happened.  He was in disbelief.  He gave Paco a shot and said that he hoped his hair would grow back.  It never did and that meant that Paco had no undercoat.  He developed terrible skin conditions without that protective coat and eventually his heart weakened. 

Paco lived only two more years, still fairly young.  I woke up at 3 a.m. one morning to find him hidden behind my bed, struggling to breathe.  I called a neighbor, who immediately agreed to drive me to the Animal Medical Center.  During the drive, Paco was gasping for breath and his body was limp.  When I arrived, they took us right in.  The vet told me to go home, that Paco was critical and they were not sure that they could save him, but they would do all that they could.  I left distraught.  The next morning I received a call from the vet, telling me that Paco had passed away during the night, that he had rallied, and then finally gave up. I was devastated and felt responsible for his death because I chose the groomer and was convinced that the tortured grooming he received caused all of his health issues thereafter.  It took me almost 18 months before I stopped spontaneously crying every time I found something of his around my apartment.  I decided then and there that I would get no more pets.  It was too painful when they died.   


Some years later, my mom moved from North Carolina to Florida and immediately went to the pound and adopted a cat she named Precious.  About three years later, mom called and asked me to take Precious home with me to New York.  She explained that my brother, who had moved in with her, had two seventeen-pound-cats, Ebenezer and Babette, and Babette, the female, constantly attacked Precious.  Mom had to keep Precious in a cage whenever Babette was around and she said that was no way for a cat to live.  I hadn’t been to Florida since mom had moved there and a visit was way overdue. 

I flew to Florida, and when I entered my mom’s place, I was immediately drawn to Precious, who was sitting in the window.  She was beautiful, petite at five pounds, with a long silky white coat and gold eyes.  She was a Persian and looked like the Friskies cat on T.V.  I said, “Mom you didn’t tell me she was so beautiful.”  Mom said that she had, but that I wasn’t listening because I was afraid of cats, which was true.  For some reason, I was not afraid of this cat.  At the end of the week, I went home with Precious in hand.  I paid $50 extra to carry her under my seat on the plane. When I brought Precious into my apartment, she ran and hid under my bed.  It was a new place and she was frightened.  I called to her repeatedly but she would not come from under the bed.  Finally, I thought, “I really do not like that name, Precious.  I just can’t call a cat of mine, Precious.  So what can I call her?”  Suddenly I said, “Spirit, come here,” and immediately she came out from under my bed and sat at my feet.  From that point on, she responded only to Spirit.  

Life with Spirit was intriguing.  She was a Zen cat, who never meowed, and whose poop never smelled.  When people entered my apartment, they had no idea I had a cat even though Spirit’s litter box was in a corner of my living room.  She never regurgitated hairballs, which was highly unusual since she was a longhaired cat.  She responded to commands such as “lie down” or “sit,” even though I had never taught them to her, and she came whenever I called her, which I understand is unusual for cats.  Whenever I reclined, Spirit sat on my hip or my chest.  She liked no brand of wet cat food (I fed her baby food for wet food, but she ate any kind of dry cat food), and she exhibited no cat-like behavior.  She was more like a dog.  She was a "licker," and whenever she wanted to jump from the couch to the coffee table, she hesitated, contemplated the distance, hesitated some more and then finally jumped.  She did that no matter where she needed to jump.  I would always remind her that she was a cat and should know how to jump.  Over time, with sheer concentration and determination she learned to jump onto my window seat and my bed.  

One other interesting thing about Spirit was that people who were allergic to cats were not allergic to her.  I had a friend whose allergies were so severe that she had to stay at a hotel whenever she visited her cousin, who had a cat.  Yet, when this friend came to visit me, she slept with Spirit.  I was at a psychic seminar once and another of my friends asked why she was not allergic to Spirit when she was allergic to every other cat.  The psychic, who was channeling at the time, said that Spirit could control her dander and duplicate the vibration of those around her.  I believed it because even my nephew, who has asthma and is allergic to cats, was not allergic to Spirit.  I was also told that Spirit was an “Adjuster in dwellings.”  I had never heard of such a thing and it never occurred to me to ask what that was.  About three years later, I overheard a conversation about a book called The Urantia Book.  I was curious about it and a friend said that I could have her copy.  When I received the book, I was overwhelmed by its size.  It was almost 2100 pages and the print was miniscule.  One day, while thumbing through the book, I randomly opened it to a chapter entitled “Thought Adjusters Indwellings.”  I couldn’t believe it.  Here’s some of what it said, “Adjusters are encountered in creature experience; they disclose the presence and leading of a spirit influence.  The Adjuster is indeed a spirit, pure spirit, but spirit plus.”  So much more is written, but it would freak some people out.  Let’s just say it is no coincidence that I named my cat Spirit, although mom was not too far off when she named her Precious, for she was a Precious Spirit.  

One day, as Spirit was sitting on my hip, a thought came to me, “Spirit was a lot like Paco.”  She was the same color, weighed the same, and had the same habits (all that hesitating when she wanted to jump onto something, always sleeping on my chest or hip).  I was convinced that Paco had returned as Spirit.  When I asked Spirit if she was Paco, she looked into my eyes and then put her forehead into the palm of my hand and left it there for 45 minutes, as if to say, “Finally.”   Spirit was a tiny cat, and her entire head fit into the palm of my hand.  I felt an even flow of energy run from my palm to my heart whenever she did that.  I had long conversations with Spirit and whenever I did, she placed her forehead or third eye into the palm of my hand for extended periods of a half hour to 45 minutes.  I would always receive a thought or an idea when she did that.

Over the years, Spirit occasionally disappeared in my apartment for long periods of time up to eight or nine hours.  I would search for her with no luck.  I live in 782 square feet, so the possible places for her to hide were few.  I checked every closet, behind every door and piece of furniture, in every nook and cranny, but she just was nowhere to be found.  When she did show up again, I never understood where she had been, but she always looked refreshed and new, like a kitten.  Many years later, my mom came to live with me.  She too got used to Spirit’s lengthy disappearances.  One time, we were both sitting on the love seat talking about the fact that Spirit had not appeared for about nine hours.  I was concerned.  Mom and I were looking toward the front door when suddenly Spirit popped into the foyer out of nowhere.  She literally hadn’t come from anywhere.  She was just there and it happened in front of our eyes.  Mom and I looked at each other, and mom finally said, “Did you see that?”  I said, “Yes,” and she said, “She just poofed out of thin air.  Don’t tell anyone.  They’ll think we’re nuts.”  I knew we weren’t nuts.  Spirit was special.  Over the years, Spirit disappeared for hours and sometimes days and I stopped worrying and looking for her because she always showed up, usually looking younger and cleaner than when she disappeared.  Mom and I used to say that Spirit went to another dimension for a lube job.

Spirit rarely, if ever, got sick, but when she did, her sickness always seemed tied to me in some way.  One time, she had been vomiting excessively, was hiding behind my bed, and would neither drink nor eat.  Four days had gone by before I decided to take her to the vet, who said that he could find nothing wrong with her but that she appeared to be dying.  He told me to take her home and if it continued, to bring her in again.  He might have to put her down.  I was heartbroken.  I took her home and after the seventh day of hiding and no eating or drinking, I asked a friend to do an automatic writing to determine what was going on with Spirit.  The writing indicated that Spirit was trying to show me what would happen if I did not get off the couch and go outside.  I had retired and found myself staying in the apartment and rarely if ever going outside.  I was healing from a lot of small physical problems I had while I was working.  The physical symptoms had cleared up about a month after I left work, but I was not motivated to go outside and do anything.  Anyway, the next day I went to the park for about an hour, and when I returned, Spirit came out from behind the bed, drank some water and returned to her hiding place.  The following day, I went out again for about two hours, and when I returned, Spirit came out from behind the bed, ate some food and drank some water.  By the fourth day of my going out, Spirit came out from behind the bed for good.  All the vomit that had been caked up on her coat was gone, as if it had never been there, and she was acting “normal.”  She seemed like a kitten in every way, a very Zen kitten though.  Each time that Spirit got sick, I took her to the vet and all her tests came out normal, but if I changed something I was doing for myself, she got better quickly.  After a while, I stopped taking her to the vet when she appeared “sick.”  Instead, I examined my behavior, and when I discovered something that needed to change and changed it, Spirit got better.  That is not to say that she never seemed to be truly sick.  She was prone to upper respiratory infections, something that had nothing to do with me.  I could never figure out why she had them until years later.

I found out that Spirit had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia.  All her organs were in the wrong place pushed up against each other behind a hernia that seemed to take up her entire body cavity.  On an X-ray, you could see none of her organs, except for her small intestines.  By all accounts, Spirit should not have lived as long as she did.  She had lived over 27 years with the hernia and had somehow acclimated to it.  Some would say that the hernia was probably responsible for all of her “sicknesses,” but I know better.  That hernia was responsible for her upper respiratory infections, her meager appetite, her diminutive size, and her inability to breathe properly, but not the mysterious “illnesses” that seemed tied to my behavior. The only time Spirit ever vomited was when she was hiding behind my bed that one time, waiting for me to go outside.  Spirit passed away in June 2011.  The hernia finally compressed her heart and lungs to the point where breathing was laborious.  She had lost weight, was weak, cold not stand without falling to the side, and could not eat enough to keep her alive.  I was floored by the fact that despite her weakened condition she was able to somehow jump onto the window seat in the living room and onto my bed.  I woke up at 3 a.m. the night before I took her in to be put down because she had jumped up onto my bed and howled in my ear.  I asked her how she was able to do that.  She just sat at the foot of my bed.  When I finally got up later that morning, she was sitting on the window seat in the living room.  When she saw me, she jumped down and started to walk but fell over to the side.  I knew it was time.  I had no choice but to have her humanely euthanized.  The experience was heartbreaking but kind and gentle too.  The vet assured me that I was making a compassionate decision.  She explained the entire procedure, had someone bring in a quilt to make Spirit comfortable, and left so that I could talk to Spirit alone.  When the vet came back into the room, she explained that Spirit would receive anesthesia, as if she were having surgery, that it would knock her out, which it immediately did, and then afterward she would be given the drug that would send her peacefully into another realm of consciousness.  As the final drug entered Spirit's little body, her breathing ceased and she was gone.  I always have this vision of those who die leaving like a shooting star into a boundless sky to more happiness than we can imagine.  

I grieved for Spirit about as intensely as I did for my mom when she passed over in 2006.  The first night after Spirit left this plane of consciousness, I was in bed and felt a huge energy envelope me.  Then I felt a small impression on my bed.  I knew it was Spirit checking up on me.  The next day my neighbor gave me an orchid plant as a gift of condolence.  It had not yet blossomed.  It was two long stalks with buds on it, beautiful in its nakedness.  I set it upon the dining room table and turned to go to my living room.  As I bent to sit on the couch, I had a view of the orchid plant.  All the buds had opened simultaneously in less than 30 seconds.  I smiled broadly.  “Spirit,” I said, “Thank you for showing me that the spirit truly is eternal.” 

Our pets love us unconditionally.  They never complain about our behavior and they forgive our every omission and indiscretion.  They are the epitome of what this journey is all about—LOVE, pure and unadulterated.  Some would say that I can never replace Spirit, but I believed that she would come back to me ready to continue the journey, just as she did when she finished as Paco.  Mom, if you’re listening, I expect you to send me another Adjuster when I am ready, but this time with no hernia and in a body that I can recognize. 

In June of 2011, I adopted a cat I saw on the Internet.  She was a rescue.  I watched her on the petfinder website for a few weeks, haunted by her striking resemblance to Spirit.  I had this gut feeling that it was indeed my girl.  I thought perhaps she had walked into another cat body, because this cat was two years old.  I inquired about adopting her, but was told that the woman who rescued her never sends her cats out of state.  This cat was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  It was no coincidence that Spirit was rescued in Ft. Lauderdale too.  This cat was a doll face  Persian (just like Spirit), had a silver coat, and was the same color and had similar markings as Spirit.  One of my clients, feeling that this cat was Spirit, said that he would pay the adoption fees and for the flight to New York.  So, on June 10, 2011, I went to Newark Airport to retrieve this beautiful formerly abused cat that I named Light because she had so much fear.  I thought the energy of the name would help counteract the fear.  She responds to Light, and Spirit, which I absentmindedly call her every now and then.  When Spirit was alive, the same channeled entity who told me that she was an adjuster in dwellings, told me that she was "on vacation" this lifetime.  That meant that Spirit entered this lifetime as pure spirit with no fear.  It was true.  She feared nothing, no human or animal, including dogs, and she sat in the lap of anyone who entered the apartment.  I was told that she would return to me, but this time she would do the third-dimensional journey and travel from fear to love.  Light is fearful because she was an abused cat and her trust level is lacking.  She is fine with me but at the time of this writing she is still fearful of strangers.  She has all of Spirit's habits and idiosyncrasies though.  I know that she will come around fully because we are in the middle of a Shift in Consciousness, and Light is bound to find her Spirit. 

My New Cat, Light

Momisms

These are Some

of my Mom’s Thoughts

on Different Subjects            

                

Her Life:  “I’ve had a pretty good life.  I’ve had real experiences and I learned from all of them.  Now, I’ve got my health, I’m free, and I have no worries.”

On Discipline:  I got beatings when I was a kid and I thought I’d never hit my own kids, but I did.  I even hit my grandkids when they misbehaved, but when I knew better, I did better.  I learned to change my behavior in my mid-sixties.  It’s never too late.”

On Love:  “There is nothing else.  That is what we are all here to do, to love.  I love everyone even if they don’t love me.  Love can’t end and it can’t start.  It just is.  What most people call love is really just infatuation or need, because when someone’s need is not met, they suddenly don’t love anymore.  That can’t be love.  Love isn’t a decision.”

On meeting a friend of mine from Texas:  “I think I’ve known you . . . you know, before.  We have the same spirit. We’re like two women in a dream.”

Movies rated with adult language:   We were watching T.V. and I hit the info button on the remote control to see what the movie was about and mom noticed that there was a warning about “Adult Language.”  She said, “What’s that mean?  I said, “Cursing,” and she said, “Who said cursing is adult language.  Isn’t that adolescent language?”

As the doctor gets ready to drain the lymph node under her arm, he tells her to place her hand on his shoulder and she says, “If I do that, I’m going to hug you.”  The doctor did not respond and when he left the room, she said, “Too much schooling and not enough spooning.”

As concerns my calling her “Old Woman” as a term of endearment:  “Don’t call me old woman.  It feels heavy.”  I said, “Well, how does it feel when I call you “young lady?”  She said, “It feels like I have wings and can fly.” 

On a Bus going to the doctor’s office:  A woman boarded the bus.  She was shaking, either from Parkinson’s or some other disorder.  Mom whispered to me, “Gee look at that woman shaking.  I sure hope I don’t shake like that when I get old.”  Mom was 90 at the time.

Visiting Nurse visit:  The nurse asks mom if she is having any pain and mom says, “No and I’m not inducing any either.”

In hospital after knee surgery:  Mom was on the phone speaking with a friend from Florida.  Her end of the conversation went something like this:  “Yeah girl, I deserve this.  I paid my dues.  I get all my meals in bed, and every morning they wheel me to the shower, hose me down, dry me off, powder me up, and dress me and then they wheel me back to my room.  In the afternoon, a handsome young man from Australia takes me on walks around the hospital (part of physical therapy).”  I think Dr. Phil is right.  There is no reality, only perception. 

On Angels:  “I saw three at the foot of my bed.”  I asked, “How did they look?”  “They had wings.”  “Did they say anything?”  “No, they just stood there staring at me.”  What did you do or say?  “Nothing, I went back to sleep. Angels protect us or guide us home and I figured I must need protection because I wasn’t ready to go home."

On angels generally:  I read that angels fly because they take things lightly.  That’s not true; I take things lightly and I can’t fly.  Angels fly because they have wings.”

On Love, Death, Anger: “Don’t love me to death; love me to life.”  “Anger is wasted energy.”

Things mom loved:  ice pops, strawberry and vanilla ice cream, pretzels, hard candy, plantains, codfish, candied yams, fried chicken, French fries, and collard greens.

             On Being Catholic:  “I don’t know why they go to confession.  It’s as if they think God doesn’t already know, like he wasn’t there when they were doing whatever it is they’re confessing about.  And who says God needs help!  To tell you the truth, I don’t think God gives a hoot about most of the stuff they confess.  He’s got bigger fish to fry.”

On Her Philosophy of Life:   “I don’t have one.  I just take what comes."

On Looks:  “Looks don’t count for much.  It’s the spirit that counts.”

On Death:  “You know, every time they put someone to death, people think they’re giving out a punishment, but I think they’re actually setting them free.  I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m not ready to die either.  I like Earth and the people on it.”

On the Body:  “I like mine just the way it is.  It’s still going and it’s the reason I’m here and you can see me.” 

On Men:  Mom loved men.  Whenever one came to the house, she'd ask, "Are you married?"  If he said yes, she'd say, "Oh crap."  One time my friend, Bill, came by for some energy work.  He got onto my massage table, and while I worked on him, mom, who was sitting on the couch, came over to the table, looked down at him and said, "May I put my head on your chest? It's been such a long time since I put my head on a man's chest."  Bill obliged her and she put her head on his chest for a few seconds and then gently kissed his cheek and sat back down.  After he left my apartment, mom said, "He's cute.  That made my day!"

One time we went to the hospital cafeteria after a doctor's visit and as we were leaving after finishing our meal, mom saw two young men sitting near the exit and she blew each of them a kiss and said, "There now, you just got something for nothing."

Going with the Flow:  Mom loved reading, but she got glaucoma in her sixties, and as she got older, she'd forget to put her drops in her eyes.  So by the time she came to live with me, she couldn't see well enough to read.  She read the first Harry Potter book, but it took her a long time given her failing eye sight. I bought her the second and third books in the audio version.  One day, I put the tapes in a recorder and put the headsets on my mom's ears.  When she finished listening to the first tape, I removed it from the recorder and replaced it with what I thought was the second tape.  I left mom in the living room while I went to the kitchen to tend to some cooking.  When I returned to the living room, mom was still listening to the tape, only this time her head was bobbing up and down and her feet were swaying back and forth.  I went over to her to investigate.  I couldn't imagine what part of Harry Potter she was listening to.  After all, I didn't recall any music in the storyline.  I removed the headset from her ears and listened.  As it turned out, mom had been listening to Rod Stewart's Greatest Hits.  

Aunt Linnette -- In Memoriam

Mom (Linnette)

My first conscious awareness of my “Aunt” Linnette goes back to the 1940’s. I was a child of seven years old with a desperately sick mother and younger siblings. My daily routines included feeding, bathing, medicating and pottying my mom, and also my youngest sister, then getting out to school on time.

I remember “Aunt” Linnette coming by our abode to lend her support. She was kind and unassuming. She came knowing that my mom never liked any kind of company at all. Mom was basically an introvert. “Aunt” Linnette’s soft and loving ways brought an aura of warmth to our home that was different from any I had previously known. She had the patience I missed in my demanding routines. She had a kind and loving touch. She would hold your hand, smooth your hair, or give a needed hug. Her eyes looked softly and directly at your soul and knew your need. She was an oasis for me. She took the severity out of the day’s chores and put in some wonder, like learning to knit (she taught my mom) and we had wonderful things to wear, although we were poor. “Aunt” Linnette also had fun kids to play with. There was Ronnie (I was in love with him at 7 years old). There was Barry and Leon and Daryel and baby Dierdra. When they came to visit, I got a chance to roam with Ronnie and play with Daryel’s wonderful hair. It was a wonderful break for me. I never, ever heard a harsh word from “Aunt” Linnette. I did not know until I was 12 that my “Aunt” Linnette was not truly my aunt at all. I was appalled until I figured out that now I could marry Ronnie. That made it all better.

Life, however, had different plans for us all, and we went our separate ways. Linnette and I wrote each other occasionally while she was in Florida, in Queens in the summers, and in upstate New York. Ironically, we lost contact when she was at my relative’s home in the Bronx. Aunt Linnette is now, and will forever remain, in my heart, my mind and my memories as one of the most profound experiences of my childhood. Throughout many bad experiences, I relished the knowledge that there were people like her somewhere out there. I just had to find them and do better. I did. God bless Linnette and her devoted daughter. Give them peace and give her rest.

Love, Sandra.

Duda and the Angel

While my mother was living in Florida, she had a Boston terrier named Duda, a serene, Zen-like dog, atypical for a terrier. Duda was so calm that I used to call him Duda the Buddha. He was a beautiful lean and stocky dog, whose paws were white up to the ankle. He had a patch of white that ran from his jowls up the front of his face to the bridge of his nose and up to his forehead. Duda wanted nothing more than to be petted and to curl up in your lap. One of my brother's friends gave him to mom and told her that he would be responsible for all vet bills, a wonderful gesture, given mom’s fixed income. Mom loved that dog. She took him to the vet faithfully for his shots and his heartworm medication each year. Duda and she walked the grounds of her mobile home park three times a day, every day. He was good company.

All went well for about two years; and then one heartworm season, a new vet gave mom medication for Duda that was calculated for a fifty pound dog. Sadly, Duda only weighed fifteen pounds. Mom hadn’t noticed the dosing information. She simply followed the vet’s instructions. After dosing Duda for a while, mom noticed that he started having seizures. She took him back to the vet, but the vet could not find a reason for Duda’s seizures, although he noted that the heartworm medication was the incorrect dosage for a dog Duda’s weight and cautioned mom to stop giving it to him. Mom was convinced that the seizures were caused by an overdose of the heartworm medication, something to which she was sure the vet would never admit.

Anti-seizure medication did nothing for Duda’s seizures. They got so bad that mom eventually started pulling him around in a little Red Flyer wagon, because he couldn’t walk long distances without having a seizure and collapsing. Whenever I spoke with mom on the phone, she lamented about Duda’s seizures and wondered whether she should put him down. I encouraged her to either put him down or get another opinion, because Duda was suffering. Mom said that she just didn’t have the heart to put him down.

During that time, mom had to have minor “female” surgery and was due to spend a night in the hospital, so a friend and I went to Florida to be there with her. Mom lived in a small single-wide mobile home that could not accommodate more than one person, so we made reservations at the Holiday Inn across the street from where she lived. We arrived in Florida early in the day, checked into the Holiday Inn and then went to see mom. When I entered her mobile home, I took one look at Duda and told her that he needed to be put down. Mom trusted me and asked if I would take him to the local humane society. I said that I would. We took Duda that day. I explained to the vet there that he had uncontrollable seizures and that we thought he should be put down. The vet examined him and agreed. I was escorted to a room in the back of the office and was allowed to hold Duda while he was euthanized. As I stroked his head, he was looking up at me with huge black eyes. The doctor injected him with lethabarb, a popular euthanasia barbiturate. Duda was gone in seconds, his eyes still wide open. I closed his eyes and wept. The vet tech wept too. Mom was waiting for me outside the room where the euthanasia occurred. When I came out of the room, I told mom that Duda was gone. Her voice cracked as she said, “He’s better now.” I thought about what a burden this would be for mom, who was having surgery the next day. I worried that it might affect her recovery. As if she could hear my thoughts, mom said that Duda was ready to die. She felt that his seizures were his way of letting her know that he had done everything he came here to do. Mom seemed at peace.

That night in my hotel room, I lamented over whether I’d done the right thing, whether every opportunity to extend Duda’s life had been examined. My travel companion suggested that I ask the universe for a sign that I’d done the right thing. So, just before I went to sleep, I asked for a sign. I awoke in the morning feeling more relaxed than I had since I arrived in Florida.

My friend and I went to the hospital to visit mom, who was out of surgery and resting when we got there. As we entered her room, she was being tended by a male nurse named John. He doted on mom, repeatedly coming in and out of the room to either bring her something or fluff her pillows. When he spoke to mom, he rubbed her head and smiled. We were about an hour into our visit, when John, who had entered the room for the seventh or eighth time, faced me and smiled. I smiled back at him, wondering why he was facing me smiling and saying nothing. I made idle conversation with mom, occasionally looking at John, who was still facing me smiling. I glanced at him again briefly and noticed that, just underneath his first name, which was printed in big block letters, was his last name, printed in smaller letters. I leaned in and squinted to read it and then gasped. It said Duda. John’s last name was Duda. I excitedly told him the story of Duda the Buddha. He said nothing and suddenly left the room, still smiling. I had gotten my confirmation.

The next day I called the hospital to find out where I could write to nurse Duda to thank him for being so attentive to mom. I was told that no such nurse worked at the hospital. I insisted that he took care of my mother the day before and I even indicated what floor he was on, but the person to whom I spoke insisted that no nurse by that name worked there.

Mom spent most of her adult life fiscally poor but rich in so many other ways. Never did she face a difficult time without an angel who showed up to ease a burden. Duda was one of those angels.

Mom and Rasputin

One early fall evening, I took mom, who was 90 years old at the time, to a channeling session with me. This was her first experience seeing a channel, so I had no idea how she’d respond. For those who’ve never seen a channel, the person who channels goes into meditation and brings through an energy from another realm, sometimes a person of note from another generation, such as Albert Einstein, or Buckminster Fuller, or a guide, an angel, or even a master, such as Jesus or Buddha. The person doing the channeling that evening, whom I’ll refer to as GD, was explaining about what the evening would entail. As he spoke, mom kept nodding off. I nudged her with my elbow, telling her to stay awake. My nudging was to no avail. She repeatedly nodded off, her head dropping forward. We were sitting in the front row directly in front of GD, so I was embarrassed at her seeming disinterest in what he was saying.
Eventually, GD went into a brief meditation and Rasputin came through. Despite all the history about Rasputin’s mysterious and sinister relationship to the Russian royal family (Czar Nicholas, et. al.), those of us familiar with him through the channeling, got to know about his energy as a healer and mystic and we loved him. He was irreverent and outspoken, yet, loving. When Rasputin came through, he said, “Hallo” in a thick Russian accent. Mom immediately came to attention. She lifted her head and leaned forward in her seat as he spoke. I don’t recall the details of what Rasputin was saying, but it was an opening statement, during which mom blurted out, “I feel that I’ve known you before.” Rasputin, amused, paused and said, “Oh yes, we’ve known each other for about eight billion years.” “Oh,” mom said, “I didn’t know I was that old.” I sat there shocked, because mom seemed to know the difference between GD’s energy and Rasputin’s, and she was no longer disinterested or bored.

As Rasputin lectured on the beauty of love, mom said, “What if you love everyone?” Rasputin knew she was asking about herself and said, “Yes, we know you love everyone. That is what the people here are trying to learn. They want to know how to love everyone.” Mom said, “Just do it.” Rasputin laughed and said, “Yes, just do it. You heard her.” As he spoke about judgment and how it related to duality, mom blurted out, “Oh I would never judge anyone.” Rasputin said, “We know. You are here to heal the people on this Earth with your love.” Then mom said, “Sometimes I feel like the mother of the Earth,” and Rasputin said, “You are the mother of the Earth. You are Earth mother.” Mom sat through the rest of that channeling without falling asleep, hanging onto every word Rasputin spoke.

At the end of the session, GD came out of trance and mom seemed to know the difference, because she said, “What happened to the other guy?” I explained that he had left GD’s body. She said, “Oh” and went over to GD and hugged him, thanking him for a lovely evening. A couple of other people went over to talk to mom. GD moved aside and excitedly called me over to him. I asked what he wanted and he said, “You have no idea who you have with you.” I said that I did and he said, “No, no. You don’t know what I mean.” I said that I did, that I knew my mother was open, which was why I brought her to the channeling. Then GD said, “You don’t understand. I couldn’t tell the difference between your mother’s energy and Rasputin’s.” He explained that any time someone asked a question, he could always see the polarity in the other person’s energy as it related to Rasputin’s energy, which was not polarized. GD said, “This time, I couldn’t find a line of demarcation between Raz’s (those of us familiar with Rasputin’s energy called him Raz) energy and your mother’s.” I said that I wasn’t aware that she would come across that way energetically, but I knew she would make an impression.

I knew that mom had a way about her that was healing. People who spent time with her always felt better afterward. In fact, whenever someone I knew was not feeling great emotionally, I’d say, “Come with me to see my mother.” They’d always ask why and I’d say, “You’ll feel better” and they always did.

Mom was open to everything and she was filled with wonder. She even used to let me do energy work on her. She’d get on my massage table and say, “Do that thing you do,” and then pretty quickly into the session, she’d be gone, out cold, asleep. Mom trusted me without reservation and was open to anything I wanted to do for, with, or to her. She experienced a lot of alternative healing in her later years, and I think it, along with her own ability to love, was responsible for her complete healing from cancer without the benefit of chemo or radiation even though the doctor felt that she should at least have radiation.  I said no. She was already 89 years old and I didn't see the point.  She had CHF, so chemo was out.  She had a lumpectomy, and eventually a mastectomy of her right breast.  The doctor was certain that the cancer would return without the radiation.  It did not.  She recovered quickly from bypass surgery and a valve replacement. She never experienced pain during those times either.  In addition, mom’s short term memory was bad, and that, coupled with her lack of pain, she quickly forgot that she had cancer and heart surgery, so she never focused on those things. Instead, she was busy enjoying life.

It’s a wonderful thing to have a mind opened by wonder rather than one closed by belief. To mom, everything about life was wonderful or interesting. She used to say, “I love Earth and the people and animals on it.” I always thought that was odd phrasing.  It was as if she were from somewhere else and knew that she was only visiting this plane of consciousness for the experience and to share her love. I’m not saying that mom was perfect all her life. She wasn’t. She made some mistakes, but she learned from them, and in doing so, she aged her soul. You age your soul over a lifetime, but it takes only a moment of knowing to reach full realization of your own divinity. Mom’s moment of knowing came in her late sixties and she had the good fortune to live within that fullness until her death.

Morty

I was eighteen when I met Morty (short for Morton). I had just gotten my first job and was working for the Professional Placement Center at the New York State Employment Service. Like every office, we had professional and support staff. I was part of the support staff. The professional staff were all employment counselors, whose job it was to fill openings in myriad professional fields. Morty was the supervisor of the “psych” unit, which sought to fill job openings for psychologists and psychiatrists.

Morty, a stutterer, was of short-to-average height and somewhat overweight, with a slight double chin and graying hair. When I first met him, he tried to ask me my name but couldn’t get past the first word. He said, “Wha . . . wha . . . wha . . . wha . . . .” I came to his rescue and said, “Spit it out. Come on, spit it out.” He burst out laughing and said, “Most people get uncomfortable when I stutter. I like you.” I smiled. It never occurred to me to be uncomfortable. He knew he stuttered, so what was the big deal? We became fast friends. Morty’s stuttering was unpredictable. He could speak uninterrupted for a couple of paragraphs and then suddenly “wou, wou, wou, wou wou, wou, wou. . . ld you like to go to lunch?” 

I didn’t know it at the time, but Morty, who was almost twenty years my senior, saw me as someone he could “educate and mold.” In his mind, he was the Henry Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle, but, unlike Eliza, I spoke well, which meant my education would involve all things cultural as far as he was concerned. One day, as I approached Morty’s desk with a file, he said, “You know, you would be real pretty if you wore makeup and lost a little weight.” Neither issue was on my radar, but both ideas seemed manageable (I was young).  I bought makeup and had the salesperson teach me how to apply it (foundation, mascara, eyeliner and lipstick). As for my weight, I had no idea how to diet. The idea of dieting had never entered my consciousness. I did what seemed logical. I ate half of what I usually ate and I quickly lost thirty pounds. One day, I walked into the psych unit and another counselor said, “Wow, Dierdra, you’re a mere shadow of your old self.”

From that point on, Morty took me to all my firsts–first ballet, first play, first musical, and first plane ride. The first play/musical he took me to was Golden Boy with Sammy Davis, Jr. I was thrilled. I had never been to a live show before and I thought Sammy Davis was the greatest entertainer who ever lived. He could sing, dance, act, play several instruments, and impersonate other famous people.  He was also black and I’d never seen a black entertainer up close. I was in minority heaven. Morty also took me to see Hair at the Public Theatre off-Broadway, the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet at the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center, and the operas, Tosca, Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, and Antony and Cleopatra at the Met. Each time we went somewhere, he asked me, with great anticipation, what I thought of the performance and the theatre where it was held. It was as if he chose the particular show in anticipation of my response, which was always positive if not overly exuberant. “I love it (referring to the performance). It’s all right (referring to the theatre).”

One time we went to see the Whirling Dervishes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For those unfamiliar with the Dervishes, a dervish is a mystical dancer who stands between the material and cosmic worlds. His dance is part of a sacred ceremony in remembrance of God. The dervish rotates in a precise rhythm, representing the Earth revolving on its axis while orbiting the sun. The purpose of the ritual whirling is for the dervish to empty himself of all distracting thoughts, placing him in trance; released from his body, he conquers dizziness. (www.gregangelo.com). I knew nothing about the Dervishes then, and Morty had not educated me. Had I known that the whirling was a sacred dance in remembrance of God, I might have tried harder to control what happened as the Dervishes started to Whirl. Their skirts slowly lifted, fanning out like a dish spinning on a pole. A profound silence fell over the theatre, when I suddenly heard my watch ticking. “TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK.” It was the loudest sound I ever heard. Even Morty heard it. I suddenly felt this wellspring of emotion rising in my body. I couldn’t keep it down. It bubbled out of me and suddenly I was laughing hysterically, tears streaming down my face, and I couldn’t stop. I looked over at Morty. His shoulders were rising and falling and his face was red. Suddenly this awful high-pitched sound shot out of him. He too was laughing hysterically. I put my hand over my watch, but I could still hear it ticking. To top it off, it was a Mickey Mouse watch, which made it even funnier. In a flash, a bright light was shining in our faces and an usher was asking us to leave the theatre, which, of course, we did. We ran up the aisle unable to control ourselves, heads turning to watch us as we left. I could barely walk because I was wetting my pants from laughing so much. I had to find a bathroom in a hurry. That was a memorable evening. One of the things I enjoyed about Morty was his sense of humor. It was like mine. He had an appreciation for the ridiculous. We spent many an evening laughing hysterically over silliness. 

Morty had peculiar eating habits. Whenever he ate ice cream, he dumped a mountain of sugar on top of it. He added sugar to most of his desserts. He found out many years later that he was diabetic. Whenever we ate out, he left the table littered with food. He ate quickly and food flew out of his mouth as he was talking or chewing. It was like a food war zone. I found myself bobbing and weaving to avoid morsels of food. By the time he finished eating, our table looked as if we’d had a food fight. In the beginning, I used to try to clean up the table before the waiter came with the check. After a while, I got used to having food all over the table, the floor, and occasionally the wall, so I left the cleanup to the busboy. 

For the most part, when we went about town, people didn’t notice us. However, one time, in Greenwich Village of all places, a deranged black man approached Morty, throwing punches and repeatedly screaming, “You stealing black women, you son of a bitch!” Morty was the nervous type and didn’t respond well to any sort of confrontation. He fumbled and stuttered and tripped. I suggested that we run in the opposite direction, which we did. We never talked about what happened that evening and it never happened again. 

In the summer, I spent my weekends with Morty on Fire Island in the Pines. The first summer he rented a house. Every subsequent summer, he rented a condo. We traveled to Fire Island by train and ferry. The Pines is an upscale, essentially gay community, with beautiful homes and condos along the boardwalk and on the beach. Morty seemed asexual to me. I think he chose the Pines because it was less hectic than the other Fire Island communities and he liked to be part of the upscale scene, even if only temporarily. He liked interesting people, places and events, and was willing to spend money on all of them. (Yet, he was frugal, and lived in a small Brooklyn Heights apartment, where he cared for both his invalid parents until their deaths). He was curious about everything and loved to be surrounded by beautiful people. When we first went to the Pines together, people thought we were a couple, albeit an odd one.

The first house Morty rented was a big red structure that looked like a barn. It was on the bay side of the island. The interior was dark and musty and a swing hung from the ceiling in the living room. The back walls of the living room opened up so that you could swing out over the bay. That swing was the best thing about that house. We never ate there. It was too creepy and at night it was spooky. After that first season, Morty rented a condo on the ocean side. It was a bright and sunny studio apartment and we each slept on a separate couch-bed. I cooked our meals in that apartment and cleaned the place spotless before we left each weekend. I did such a thorough job of cleaning at the end of the summer that the people who owned the condo held it for us each season. Cooking and cleaning seemed a small price to pay for weekends outside the hustle, bustle, and humidity of the city. I loved those summers. Morty liked people, and in spite of his stuttering, he did not hesitate to introduce himself and me to anyone who struck his fancy. I learned to open up to people during those summers.

Morty also introduced me to a world of words and entertainment that had alluded me prior to that time—the works of Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and other great authors. He and I watched David Susskind, William F. Buckley (both of whom I thought were snobs) and other conservative and not so conservative pundits, entranced by their intellect, but not their politics, which were diametrically opposed to ours. I had a natural gift for words, but, thanks to Morty, my capacity for self-expression and vocabulary grew. On the other hand, Morty had a bad habit of making me feel as if he always expected less of me by acting surprised when I performed better than he expected. For example, while at the performance of Hair, another patron, who was a friend of Morty’s, said, “Are you Dierdra?” I answered, “Yes, I’m she.” Morty loudly complimented me on my grammatical savvy. It was not unusual for him to register surprise whenever I said something grammatically sophisticated. I wasn’t ungrammatical generally. I had a natural gift for grammar, so his surprise suggested snobbishness on his part and I grew to resent it. 

As the years passed, Morty and I took trips together, which he always paid for. One time, we went to Puerto Rico, where he stayed at one hotel and I stayed at another. I have no idea why we stayed at separate hotels, but we did. We’d meet in the mornings, have breakfast together and then spend the rest of the day either roaming around the island or sunbathing. Our relationship was strictly platonic. To Morty, I was a work in progress. However, one time as we were parting ways on the subway after an evening out, he said, “I’m going on vacation for two weeks. Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?” I was taken aback and then kissed him on the cheek. He seemed satisfied and never asked me to do that again. 

Working at the Professional Placement Center was a gift. As a rule, the professional staff did not fraternize with the support staff. However, where I was concerned, fraternization was the rule. In those days, I had a quality that I was unaware of. It drew the professional staff to me. I surmise that they saw my potential. They were invested in my growth. A couple of the professional women taught me how to coordinate my clothing and my accessories. Another became a good friend and invited me to dinner with her and her husband at their apartment. I stopped accepting those invitations when her husband made a pass at me.

When I reported for work on my 21st birthday, my desk was filled with miniature stuffed animals. I used to collect them and each counselor bought me one for my birthday, something one of the other clerical staff told me had never happened to any support staff member before. The next year no one remembered that I had already had my 21st birthday, so I claimed to be twenty-one again. I didn’t want to grow up. I was enjoying being taken care of. 

Eventually, my boss, Mr. “B,” convinced me to go back to school. He felt I was wasted doing clerical work. “Dierdra, you should be doing more than greeting people at the front desk and filing application forms. You make filing mistakes because you’re bored. Go back to school. You’re too smart for this job.” After six years of telling me the same thing, I took his advice to heart and applied to college through an anti-poverty program. I scored high on aptitude tests and was immediately accepted into the regular college program, meaning I needed no remediation or special help. I received a stipend and free tuition, books and supplies. 

I left the Professional Placement Center when I entered college, and over time, my friendships faded. I got busy with my studies, moved out of my mom’s place, took jobs cleaning apartments, and had little time to socialize or keep in touch. I eventually lost all contact with my friends at the Professional Placement Center, including Morty. I graduated from college summa cum laude and applied to law school, not because I wanted to be a lawyer, but because I did not know what else to do to make money.  My goal was never to have to live in the projects, which is where I grew up.  I was a lawyer the next time I ran into Morty. He was working as a hospital administrator, and, as was his practice, had formed friendships with the black support staff there. Much of our conversation was about the support staff—who they were, what they were like, etc. I think anyone who was not like Morty fascinated him. I wondered whether he had changed in any respect. He seemed stuck in time. We went out to dinner on a subsequent night and on the way to our table, I saw someone who had been hired by my boss to restructure the law office at the Board of Education, making office assignments that were more efficient and collegial.  I went over to the table to hug and speak to the person, and then I introduced Morty to him. When we finally went to our table, Morty said, “I can’t get over how sophisticated you are. You’re so glib and articulate.” Nothing had changed. We eventually drifted apart for good.  

It is said that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do. I believe Morty entered my life for a reason and a season. When I met Morty, I was shy and had never been anywhere. He helped fulfill my unexpressed desire to be worldly, to see things I thought I’d never see, and to show me that I was smarter than I believed. As I evolved, our season together slowly came to an end. In some sense, he is with me for a lifetime too, because the things he brought into my life shaped me and will never leave me.  I love him, but I never told him so.  I wish I had.

Michael, Daddy Ken's boy, as a baby

Daddy Ken

In the late 1940’s, mom had been divorced from my father for at least four years. Their marriage was born out of necessity, not love, and it was doomed from the beginning. So, she was raising five children on her own without assistance from my father, who never sent her the court-ordered child support. Mom had neither the desire nor the resources to seek enforcement of the support. She was just glad to have my father out of her life. We lived in the projects in Long Island City and were on the dole for a few years after the divorce. Mom eventually found work in a factory.

On a bright sunny day in June 1949, mom was on the subway, returning home from work when she met someone who would change her life. She was 37 years old and looked 25, vibrant and petite. She had mocha colored skin, dark curly hair, and a face  punctuated by high cheekbones and arched eyebrows.  In other words, she was eye candy.  Mom was preoccupied with what she would make for dinner that evening and thought she had missed her stop.  She craned her neck to see exactly how far along in her trip she was, when her eyes met a young man’s. He was holding a cake box and leaning against the subway car door. He smiled and mom immediately lowered her head, a slight smile on her face. The young man, who was tall, lean and handsome, with dark wavy hair, sharp features, piercing dark eyes, and a crooked smile, was twelve years mom’s junior and was either Italian or Spanish. He slowly moved toward mom, grabbing the strap hanger just above her head. He was about to speak when the train pulled into the station and stopped with a lurch, sending the cake box flying.

The box opened and the cake spilled out onto mom’s dress. She jumped up, catching the cake, which broke into two pieces. The young man apologized profusely, gathering up what he could of the cake and putting it back in the box. Mom brushed off her dress and said it was okay. The train pulled into her stop and she rose to exit the car, with the young man in pursuit. As she headed for the stairs, the young man ran behind her, asking her if she would let him pay to dry clean her dress. Mom smiled again and said it was all right, that he didn’t have to bother. The young man persisted and followed her down the stairs, introducing himself: “My name is Kenneth Pietra.” It was a long walk from the subway to the projects. Mom and the young man walked from Queensboro Plaza to 21st Street, and all the way through the projects to Vernon Blvd. All the time, the young man pleaded his case to pay for the cleaning of the dress, while asking mom what her name was. Mom said, “Linnette,” her heart beating rapidly. He touched her arm and said, “May I see you again or at least call you?” Mom’s body reacted to his touch and she hoped that it didn’t show. By the time they reached our apartment building mom relented and gave the young man her phone number, but refused money to dry clean her dress. She knew from the moment she set eyes on him that she loved him and she knew that he loved her.

This young man, Ken, called the next day and appeared at our door the following weekend. Mom was excited and nervous about her first date with Ken. When he arrived at the apartment, he had a bouquet of flowers and mom invited him in. She introduced him to us kids and we all ate dinner together. After we went to bed, mom and Ken sat in the living room and talked for hours. He kissed her passionately good night at the end of the evening. He returned almost every weekend and sometimes during the week. We were always thrilled to see him. Mom was a changed woman. Suddenly, life was full in a way it had not been up until that point. She had found someone who loved her as a woman. She was feeling mature love for the first time in her life. She and Ken had a tender yet passionate relationship. It was a love affair that would fill mom like nothing had before. It would also bring a new life into the world along with tremendous heartache.

We kids called him “Daddy Ken.” We loved him. He was kind, generous and loving. My sister thought he would have made a wonderful father for us. He paid attention to mom and gave us kids just as much attention. He was fun to be around and seemed to genuinely love us. Mom smiled a lot in that relationship. She walked differently, with a skip in her step. I saw utter joy in her expression and I loved it. I loved Ken for putting that expression there. Ken often helped mom cook and introduced her to Italian cooking. He played games with us, took us to the park, ate mom’s cooking, and brought us kids toys and other gifts. He read us stories and treated us as if we were his own. “Daddy Ken” was an appropriate title for him. Ken knew mom was having a hard time making ends meet, so he always gave her money instead of gifts. Mom was mortified that he would give her money. I think it made her feel less than, even though that was not Ken’s intention. My sister and I had never seen mom as happy as she was then. It was the best time of our lives.

Mom and Ken had been dating for about a year, when, one night, in a moment of passion, mom did not use her diaphragm. She told me that it was the only time she ever had sex with Ken in our apartment. That night would result in the longest lasting memory of Ken mom would ever have.

In the meantime, things were in turmoil in Ken’s life. His mother was lobbying against the relationship, not because mom was black, nor because of her age, but because she already had five kids. Ken wanted to marry mom, but his mother was against it. She sabotaged the relationship. Under tremendous pressure from his mother, who feigned illness and threatened to kill herself if he didn’t stop seeing mom, Ken reluctantly broke off the relationship, not realizing that mom was pregnant. Mom was stunned and confused. I could hear her sobbing in her bedroom at night. I felt lost. I missed Ken and I longed for my mother to feel better. I was convinced that I had done something to drive Ken away. After all, my father abandoned the family too, leaving my mother destitute with five mouths to feed. Now it was happening again. I bore that burden all of my childhood, and, to make up for mom’s loss, I became my brother, Michael’s, caretaker, so much so that mom used to say that I raised him.

Michael was born on October 9, 1951. Mom had him at a time when having a baby out of wedlock was still taboo. Nevertheless, she doted on Michael, who was the spitting image of his father. She dressed him in the best clothes and kept his shoes polished. Mom went back to work when Michael was about three years old; so he attended the nursery school in the projects. I was a latchkey kid and used to pick him up after school and bring him home. My mother never stopped loving Ken and sent him letters, along with Michael’s baby pictures, his first pair of shoes, a lock of his hair, and all of his school pictures, but Ken never responded. Mom’s heart was irreparably broken, but the flame still burned. Michael was a constant reminder of that lost love, and mom’s love for him, like that for his father, was undying.

Ken found out that mom had a baby about three or four years after Michael was born. By then, mom was in another marriage. She had married my stepfather on the rebound and paid a heavy price, but that’s another story. One day, Ken showed up at the apartment, looking for my mother and his son. My sister, who was 12 1/2 years old at the time, answered the door, but wouldn’t tell him where my mother worked, and informed him that mom was married. My sister was afraid that Ken would take my brother with him, so she would not say where Michael was. She stressed that he was not in the project nursery school either. That was enough to convince Ken that that was precisely where he was. So, on his way out of the projects, Ken stopped off at the nursery school and asked to see Michael, explaining that he was Michael’s father. The director of the nursery school, who was an old friend of my mother’s, denied his request. Ken left a broken man, never to return. Mom found out about the visit, but thought better of trying to contact him. After all, she was married and was trying to make that work.

Mom had given Michael my father’s last name, even though she and my father had divorced almost five years earlier. Michael had no relationship with my father. On the rare occasion that my father did show up, he completely ignored Michael. The man my mother married after Ken left was a drunk and a brute, who showed no affection toward any of us, including my mother. Michael still carries the scars from not knowing his father. He was a lost child in many ways, acutely aware that his “real” father was missing from his life without explanation and that he was unloved by the man whose name he carried and the man who was supposed to be his stepfather. Thirty years after Ken left, mom received a call from a woman who said she was Ken’s sister. His family was looking for him and thought he had been with my mom all those years. They wanted to let him know that his mother had died. Apparently, Ken found out what his mother had done (hiding all the letters and other mementos mom sent him), had a falling out with his mother over the fact that she had interfered in his relationship with mom, and caused him to lose the love of his life and his child, so he cut off all ties with her and the rest of his family. He had been estranged from them all those years.

Ken’s sister told my mother that their mother had not destroyed mom’s letters, but had hidden them from Ken. They found mom’s phone number, which hadn’t changed in thirty years, in one of the letters. Mom informed them that she hadn’t seen Ken in thirty years. That was the last contact she had with any of his family. A few months before mom died, she said that she knew that she’d see Ken “on the other side.” She reflected on her life and said that she “had a pretty good life.” I was floored by that comment, because I knew that heartache was a theme that ran through her life. She simply didn’t see it that way. She saw each painful event as an opportunity to evolve and she did evolve. She died a loving, joyful and much loved woman.