Chicken And Cheese

For Susan

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:21:16 +0000

The blogosphere is a strange place.

In the course of my online life, I’ve met so many women. Wonderful women, some of whom are now my flesh-and-blood friends.

I never met Susan in the third dimension, but I know with all of my heart that Susan Niebur was my flesh-and-blood friend.

Several weeks ago, Susan left a comment for me. Her words surprised me, and I know they were some of the most sincere ever left in this virtual home of mine — and they both saddened and worried me.

I can’t claim her — I won’t — the way Marty and Jean and Kristen can. But although I never wrapped my arms around her body, my heart has been right there with her until this afternoon when it stopped, stuttered and painfully began to beat again after I heard Susan died today.

I was home with my 3-year-old son. He’s sick and we’re tired. I set aside my work and daily chores today in a way that I usually don’t. We played and snuggled and hugged each other, my Henry and me.

Susan’s sons are 6 and 4. Today they said goodbye to their mama. And I know she gave those boys as many loving memories of her as she possibly could, because she knew she would die before they grew into men.

It seems the universe was telling me something today when it whispered in my ears to put my comfortable clothes on and be with my boy on this gloomy Monday.

Susan was telling me goodbye, in her own way.

A long time ago, I asked Susan to post on my blog while I was on vacation. It was shortly after she was diagnosed and today, Feb. 6, 2012, I am re-posting her words as the only way I really know how to honor my dear, dear friend.

My heart is just broken for her little boys and her husband, Curt.

Susan, we — and all the stars — are weeping for you, today and for a very long time.

I love you, my friend. You are missed, already.

—

July 7, 2007

Whymommy was recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, and we know she is going to beat it. How do we know? Because ever since her diagnosis this woman – who isn’t just as smart as a rocket scientist, she IS a rocket scientist – has used her cancer and her blog to educate the rest of us.

So listen to her. Because she’s going to kick cancer’s ass, and if you don’t do as she says, she’ll kick you ass, too. Thanks for being here today, Whymommy. It was an honor.

*****

A year ago, I had never read a blog. But then my friend Canape introduced me to hers, and I started reading. I clicked here, I clicked there, I couldn’t stop.

I found Chicken and Cheese, and I felt immediately at home. (Hey, wait! I like chicken! I like cheese! And some days that’s all my toddler will eat too!) I liked Mrs. Chicken and the Poo instantly. So I kept visiting.

Today I have the honor of being a guest blogger here, and as much as I’d like to give you a real thinky post, I want to just share with you a few quick facts about a topic that has recently (really recently) become close to my heart.

Breast cancer.

Now wait – don’t click away – I’m not saying that you’re at risk for breast cancer. But maybe someone in your playgroup is. Or that nice woman you see at the park on Tuesdays. Or one of “the girls” you eat lunch with. Or maybe a cousin or bridesmaid from your wedding.

Because, the first shocking fact is this: – 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes.

That’s a lot. I had no idea there were that many. But there are. In fact:

• 1 in every 229 women between the ages of 30 and 39 will be diagnosed with breast cancer within the next 10 years; • More than 11,100 women under 40 will be diagnosed this year in the U.S. alone;

• There are more than 250,000 women living in the U.S. today who were age 40 or under when they were diagnosed with breast cancer; • Young women’s cancers are generally more aggressive and result in lower survival rates; and

• This year, more than 1100 women under 40 in the U.S. will die from breast cancer.

So, are you doing your breast self-exams each month? You remember how, right? If not, click here for a primer from the American Cancer Society.If you find a lump, call your doctor.

Today.

If you don’t find a lump, take just a few seconds to consider the shape, size, and texture. Are they both the same? Is either one particularly red, inflamed, or warm? Do you feel a funny thickening of the skin, dimpling, or see a retracting of the nipple? (Dear Mrs. Chicken, I am so sorry about the language I used today. I will do penance any way you dole out if the spammers begin to deluge your email box. But this is important, so I’m going to use the real, grown-up words today. Now go back to your beach reads and don’t worry about us, okay?)

There’s a rare form of breast cancer out there called IBC, inflammatory breast cancer. It is characterized by mastitis-like symptoms and a change in texture of the breast to resemble an orange peel. It also might itch, or just “feel funny.”

Mine did. That’s right. Mine did. Just two weeks ago. I went to the OB to have mine checked out, and bam! Ten days later, I’m told I have breast cancer and must start chemotherapy immediately.

So do me a favor, eh? Take five minutes tonight and go check yourself. Then drop your best friend a line and remind her too. Yes, even if she’s pregnant. Even if she’s breastfeeding. You just might save her life.

Wild Boy

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:42:40 +0000

Henry has grown three inches since school began in August.

I swear I can hear it at night when he sleeps, a creaky groan over the baby monitor I can’t seem to part with. I like hearing him in the night, his little coos and sighs, his snores and babbling. Sometimes, he says my name.

Mama!

He’s such a big, wild boy now in his underpants and crewcut. Every month his father takes him to the barber and he comes home shorn, a little sheep, a cadet, a seal pup. His eyes get exponentially bigger as his hair gets shorter. His face is changing, morphing from baby to boy and back again in the same frame of film.

He winks at us from the other side of the dinner table and dabbles in potty humor. Brushing his big sister’s hair while he watches in the morning, I ask her, rhetorically, what happened overnight to tangle it so.

Maybe, he answers me, it was a HAIR-icane!

He is built like a whippet and swims like a fish, jumping off the high diving board into 12-foot-deep water and the arms of his swim teacher with absolutely no hestitation. He trusts her to catch him.

He trusts.

At night when we cuddle he is all mine, the door shut on all the distractions and the new complications of raising a 7-year-old girl. She is beautiful, complex and tender and I handle her like glass, fearing that I may break her.

He is wiry, wiggly and still close enough to his primal self to see me simply as mother — softness, safety and solace. During the daylight hours he mimics the big boys but alone in the dim glow of his nightlight he is my baby again.

Every day as he leaves me I give him a kiss for his pocket and he gives me two in return.

I use them both before I drive away, and pine for the end of the day when we two are together and quiet, his wildness tamed.

Mama, he says, Mama I need a tight snuggle. Mama, when I am big will you still snuggle me and read me stories?

Yes, my wild boy, for as long as you will have me.

She Wants To Be A Writer

Oh! Hey!

Mrs. Chicken — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:36:51 +0000

So 2011 can suckit.

And you know what? IT’S OVER. OVER OVER OVER. And I could not be happier. Granted, my buddy 2011 signed off by leaving me unemployed (and remind me to tell you about how I resigned and they FIRED ME ANYWAYS) but it’s alllll gooooood, as the kids say.

Is that what the kids say?

Anywho.

I have a lot of stuff to get done this year. I’m trying to be more organized and shit by keeping lists so I’m kicking off my 2012 blogging with a few scratch notes and reminders to myself.

1. Get a proper bra fitting. Like, seriously, my low-hanging, 40-year-old boobs need all the lifting and separating they can get.

2. Cut my hair off. Oh, wait, I did that.

3. Install shelves in my kids’ closets so I can get their toys the fuck out of my family room.

4. Stop whining.

5. Get my funny back.

6. Watch more TV.

7. Get a massage.

8. Wear makeup once a week.

9. Find a way to make some money that follows this philosophy:

10. Sleep more.

11. Write every damn day even if it sucks.

12. Get laser hair removal before the world ends so that I can be completely smooth and hairless at least for a day or two.

And you? What’s on your list?

Gifts, Simple and Not

Mrs. Chicken — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:19:38 +0000

At 0800 hours this morning Operation Dismantle Christmas got under way.

Getting that dead tree out of my living room felt like taking a giant deep breath. We had a nice enough holiday, seeing everyone we wanted and needed to with a minimum of traveling but still, my heart wasn’t really in it this year.

The kids just didn’t seem excited about their gifts and the weather was too warm to feel cozy. When our last set of guests departed early yesterday morning you could hear the entire house sigh, and then settle.

Also, about two weeks before we left for the East Coast, we got a card from the priest who married us, buried my dad and baptized both of our children.

He retired.

I was honestly crestfallen. All year I’d tried to hold on to the feeling of spirit and light that filled me up last Christmas Eve, and failed. I wanted to drink from that fountain again, to feel faith solid beneath my feet.

I wanted to feel at home.

***

I lost my job on Dec. 22.

It is the third job I’ve lost this year, mostly due to circumstance. This time around it was a mutual parting–and a relief. I need to go back to doing what I do best. I need to be writing and editing and engaged in hands-on management of my business.

The person I worked for was a friend, too. Now that she’s not my boss anymore, I like her a whole lot better. I have to say though, as far as the timing goes, it was pretty sucky.

Merry Christmas!

***

You’re so gifted.

You’re a gifted writer, so talented.

I see myself in your words.

You tell me these things. You send me emails, tweet at me, leave me comments here. You hand me these gifts disguised as simple words and I don’t always know what to do with them.

As precious as they are, I am so afraid to break them. I don’t know where to put them, how to display them. I don’t know how to thank you.

I don’t know what to do with my gift.

Writing here is one thing. Writing out there is something different. This autumn, I decided I was going to tell my story — or some story, I didn’t care which one. But every time I sit down to write something that isn’t just a silly little vingnette about the nosedive of my life I feel gagged.

I am as blank as the screen in front of me.

You tell me I write so prettily about pain. What does that say about me?

***

The first time I set foot in the church where I was wed, the sermon was about forgiveness.

I’d been very angry that week, steaming really, about something awful that had been done to my family by one particular person. This person was someone I’d long been furious with. I’d harbored hate and resentment for this person.

As I sat in the pew while our soon-to-be beloved priest spoke calmly and quietly about the power of forgiveness, I felt my heart bloom like a rose in the summer sun.

I forgave.

This month I was confronted twice with works of art based on the theme of forgiveness. A film and a novel, both with the same theme. Letting go of hatred and anger.

After the film I had to excuse myself to the restroom, where I sobbed for 15 minutes. I had an early epiphany, one that me led to understand why I’ve been so angry, so twisted up…so upset. And not just for the last 12 months. I’ve been so sad and so pissed off for so long that I didn’t know what it felt like to not be those things anymore.

It got so bad that I looked for help.

I believe the work I’ve done to help myself over the last four months crystalized in that dirty movie-theater bathroom. Something inside me finally broke.

And dissolved.

I forgive everyone. I forgive my dad for getting sick and dying on me when I still needed him. I forgive my family for coming apart at the seams when he did die and for knitting back together in an unfamiliar way. I forgive my husband for uprooting me when I was still grieving, messily.

I forgive myself.

These are my gifts this year, gifts so simple and so not.

Seven

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:12:47 +0000

In an hour, I need to make cupcakes.

The girl who was once my baby asked for them, homemade and chocolate, for her birthday celebration at school tomorrow. Because tomorrow, she is going to be seven.

Seven!

The night before she was born was frosty cold, my long maternity skirt catching flakes of snow in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant that has been out of business for three years now. My mom, husband and I–a lonely trio, newly bereft–stared, pie-eyed, at each other across the table.

The day we brought her home to our apartment, it snowed.

I sat in a recliner and held her, watching the white fluff fall. The trees swayed and she hiccuped softly.

She made me a mom.

Tonight she is tall and sturdy, reading a novel and chewing on her finger. When her hands get tired, she props her leg on the opposite knee and holds the book between her big toe and the smaller one next to it. Her hair is a fabulous tangle, her character outstanding.

Her little brother adores her. Her father dotes on her.

She is, simply, my own heart beating outside of my body.

My Em, Emmie, Emmeline.

Happy birthday, baby.

Anthem

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:42:22 +0000

“And liberty she pirouettes
When I think that I am free”

No related posts.

Good

Mrs. Chicken — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:09:07 +0000

Today is my dad’s birthday.

Each year since he passed away the day has gotten easier. What I remember most about the first Dec. 6 without him is the hideous juxtaposition between that birthday and the one he celebrated just the year before. We threw him a surprise party in the midst of the urgent treatment to shrink the tumor on his pancreas.

That night he was so vivid. He toasted the group, people who really and truly loved him, and declared it his mission to live through his 54th year.

You see, that was a magic number. His mother and brother both died at that age.

He didn’t live to see 55, and this year he would be 62.

We try to do something fun on that day each year, me and my little band of merry makers. We usually go out to dinner, someplace a step above the usual burger joint. This year we were all too tired and weary of restaurant food to leave the house. I had an errand after work and the kids ate early.

I drove through the darkness to fetch my eyeglasses from the doctor’s office and felt tears well up in my eyes as I thought about my dad.

But the tears, they did not spill over.

***

This year hasn’t been easy for me. Some of it was my own making–or, if I am honest, a lot of it was. But I’ve found a rope to the future and I’m slowly but surely pulling myself into that brighter moment, session by session.

This fall, during a particularly difficult hour with my headshrinker, she pressed me and pressed me about something, I don’t even remember what. I do remember telling her this story:

Just before Christmas in 2003, I went to my parents’ house after work. My dad had just undergone surgery for prostate cancer (yes, he had two kinds, he was an overachiever) and he was wearily wrapping gifts. I don’t remember why I was upset, but I do remember weeping a little and telling my dad that I didn’t deserve all the blessings in my life.

He took me by the shoulders and led me to the sofa. He was still heavy then, full and round in a cheerful kind of way. He pulled me into a hug and said, “But you’re the best person I know.”

I shook my head and brushed it off as hyperbole.

But in that session, it came back to me, that sincere, loving and spontaneous compliment.

My dad thought I was good. And that is good enough for me.

***

I didn’t write my dad a letter on his death day this year. August 26, 2011 passed without comment. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say to him; quite the contrary. But this time, it finally dawned on me that he isn’t going to answer.

At least, not in the literal sense. As Joan Didion said, grief leads to a lot of magical thinking. And because of my complications, I was still mired in that grief as recently as this fall.

But after being gently forced to face those feelings, to pull up the new carpet to reveal the rotting boards beneath, I could see what happened.

When someone is suffering from complicated grief, it usually centers on a regret: A moment in time, a decision made in the eye of the storm, something you did or did not do with, for or because of the deceased.

In my case, I thought it was because I didn’t go out to the Mayo Clinic to see him in the two weeks he was there just prior to his death. That’s what I told her, but after thinking more about it on my own, I know what my regret is.

I did not–in fact I refused–to acknowledge that my dad was dying. He knew his death was near, he even said it directly to me, and in my heart I knew it, too. But I sidestepped that critical fact because I was already thinking magically.

That the chemo would work, that he would be well.

It didn’t and I knew it wouldn’t. But I did not take that opportunity to talk to my father while sitting side by side with the fact of his imminent death. I did not ask him the questions, tell him what I needed to. I didn’t get to tell him how profoundly I loved him and how much he had influenced my every thought and action.

How I was a better person, a good person, because he helped make me that way.

I know today that he knew that. I know he knew the depth of my love for him. I know that he understood my fear of the way his face and eyes looked in those last months, and why I turned my own eyes away.

And so today, the tears, they did not spill.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Powertrip

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:12:06 +0000

We had to meet in a coffee shop.

She has a new job, and I’m her only private client.

(Client? Patient? Friend?)

I have a cold. Actually, an infection. Bronchitis. It’s as if my body threw up its hands and said, “You won’t stop this crazy shit, so I am shutting you DOWN, lady.”

Shut down I am. But I went out in the dark and cold to drink a bitter cup of tea with honey in a little pastic packet to talk to her. Or, rather, so she could talk to me.

I can barely speak above a whisper and for once, I was well-served by my silence.

You give other people your power, she said.

She said it over and over and over in 20 different ways. She illustrated her point using her natural gift for verbal punctuation, a thimble of half-and-half, two jelly tubs and three packets of artificial sweetener.

You are more than you give yourself credit for. You have to quiet those voices in your head that tell you that you are bad, wrong, weak, silly. You are not a ninny. You are strong. You are talented.

Stop giving away your power.

All I could do was nod as she moved her makeshift chess pieces around the sticky formica table top. I was speechless. Mute, dumb if you will. I looked at my hands, and my mug. I did my best not to look at her. She dipped her head so I had no choice but to see her eyes.

Stop it, she told me.

I don’t know how, I replied.

And I don’t. Buy maybe, I can learn.

You Might Gag While You’re Reading This

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:27:21 +0000

You know what’s totally embarassing?

Having a midlife crisis in public. I mean, how cliche can you get? I turned 40 and shit hit the proverbial fan. See? Another cliche. What the hell is the matter with me?

A lot of stuff has happened since my trip to the big city. The upshot is that my hand has been forced in some ways and, frankly, for the better. I’m going to have to use my time working more strategically, more productively…and the net result will be more time for me.

MEEEEEEEEE. Me. Me me me. And me.

Just me.

All of me.

There is no I in team, but there is a me!

All that me-time is going to be put to good use nurturing something I helped to make and have neglected for a long time. And some of it is going to be spent taking better care of myself.

Or, as my headshrinker likes to call it, “self-love.” Which always makes me laugh like a 13-year-old boy. What she means is that I need to do the basic things that separate us from the animal kindgom, as in…regular bathing.

She says when you feel good, you can’t help but look good. And looking good is a clear signal to the world that you are healthy, focused and ready to face what comes.

I do not look good lately. My skin is a mess and I have new spot of alopecia on the left side of my head, the sinister twin to the large one on the right that has been slowly growing new hair over the last several weeks. And in a cruel twist of irony, I also need to add “full-body laser hair removal” to my Amazon wish list.

I look like I feel: Groggy, confused. Like someone who might need some help.

***

Today, the kids had off school. The teachers claimed it was “randomly selected” for a teacher workshop day, but I smell a candy-scented trail that leads directly to the fact that Halloween fell on a Monday night. They don’t want all those sugar-addled kids at school. Leave that to their mothers.

I called my crackerjack and mostly unemployed babysitter and she took the kids out all morning. I worked my required four hours and then, I did something most magical.

I turned off my email.

Oh yes, I did. And it felt as naughty as a pair of crotchless panties in a convent. I did all this crazy shit, like “laundry” and “dishes” and “floor washing.” I bathed, put on pants without a hole in the knee and a pretty top. I put on mascara.

I know. It’s incredible.

I also did a lot of work for my business, clipping off those loose ends I’ve been tripping over while I was running toward some crazy-ass goal that I cannot achieve. What I want is security. I want what my parents had in their lives, at least what looked like security to me back then.

And guess what? Money does not equal security. Just ask the people Bernie Madoff defrauded. Lightening can and does strike, and sometimes, twice.

I am slowly, slowly understanding what makes me tick. I know, I know, no one gives a rat’s ass about what makes my head so messed up. But I need to, if I am going to get what I want. Which is contentment. Not happiness, not security, not a heated pool with a lightshow and fountains (but if you’re offering one, I wouldn’t want to be rude and refuse).

I want to live each day as it comes without freaking the frack out over what comes next. I’ve lived in the future far too long and my legs are really, really tired from peddling the bike that powers my time machine.

This is my long way of saying that I may be coming close to achieving this:

You’re welcome.

Still Standing

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:38:42 +0000

I always thought I was the poor boy, but as it turns out, I’m the fighter.

No related posts.

Chicken And Cheese

For Susan

Related Posts

Wild Boy

Related Posts

Oh! Hey!

Related Posts

Gifts, Simple and Not

Related Posts

Seven

Related Posts

Anthem

Good

Related Posts

Powertrip

Related Posts

You Might Gag While You’re Reading This

Related Posts

Still Standing