Salon.com > One Person's Trash

How my son’s ashes finally found their place

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:01:00 +0000

My son was young, 20, when he died, and it was unfair, as unfair as things in life go, which is to say no parents should ever see the sight of their dead child's body. And we talked as much as you can talk within a three- or four-day period after a death about whether to bury him or cremate him. In the end, we cremated him, though as parents, what would suit you? What would make it easier for you to sleep at night?

It's a dilemma.

But we cremated him and we kept his ashes. They are now in one of my favorite vases that a friend gave me years before we ever thought we'd use a pottery vase for such a task. And where is the vase? It sits anyplace we like, even for a time in a friend's living room when we were moving. Anyway, it makes you think, maybe not daily, but certainly weekly or monthly, about the event of ashes in your living room and what exactly you're doing with them.

When we were strippers

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:30:00 +0000

They came from a trashy store on Hollywood Boulevard, the shoes, but the first sight of them spun me back to an infamous strip club in San Francisco. Clear Lucite platform heels -- a stripper wardrobe staple, they were comfortable and, in a sleazy way, quite practical. But it was the pink glitter accented with the sparkling white heart appliqué that sold me. They looked like something an O'Farrell girl would wear.

The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, in San Francisco's rundown Tenderloin district, was most widely known as a post-Flower Power bohemian hangout, where Hunter S. Thompson and other margin-dwelling luminaries would drop by to smoke pot and play cards with owners Jim and Artie Mitchell. I was never invited into the boss's office with Jim and Artie, though -- Jim was in prison for killing Artie with a rifle blast by the time I signed on to dance there.

My broken marriage in a shoebox

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:05:00 +0000

Outside the courthouse, signed divorce papers in hand after a yearlong custody battle and proceedings that left me in financial ruins, Larry, my new ex-husband, asked a stranger to take our photo. I was shocked, and though I hated him for what he had put me through, for some reason I stood still as he put his arm around my shoulder like a football buddy. It was raining; I wore a blue cashmere sweater. A woman with maroon lipstick snapped a shot of us on the courthouse steps.

That we could stand together even for a moment was miraculous, given the lawyers and the lies. Given Exhibit A of the property settlement agreement, an Excel spreadsheet detailing what was his and what was mine. And Exhibit B, the visitation schedule for our three children, age 1, 4 and 5 at the time.

That was nine years ago. I think of that photo as I pluck items from the memory trunk I keep in my office. I wonder how we might have looked, in those moments after the divorce, when our life was a drizzle, and the rain fell like so much broken glass. I wonder if Larry still has the snapshot -- and why he ever asked someone to take a picture in the first place. Maybe that was closure for him, a seam on the day once the camera clicked.

Why I’m awful at golf but still keep these clubs

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:30:00 +0000

I don't remember the first time my father and I played golf together, but it was a mismatch made in heaven. Two angry sons of Ireland ill-suited to the game, we tore up more sod than a spud farmer in Killarney. We hit the links and the links hit back. Civil defense sirens alerted schoolchildren to duck and cover. In our wake, we left a battleground scarred by mortared lob shots, wayward woods, zinged worm-burners and caromed ricochets off innocent cars in the parking lot.

Dad's gone now and I don't play anymore, but I can't bring myself to get rid of my father's battered golf clubs. I've had them ever since he gave up the game over 25 years ago. I'm not fooling myself that I'll ever use them. If I decide to take up the sport again, I'd have to buy new clubs. They were, to say the least, well-worn when he donated them to me and by the time I put them away, crooked and bent as Irish blackthorn walking sticks.

Despite our shortcomings on the green, my father and I managed to approach each round of golf with a sense of carefree optimism. The five hours of topped irons, shanked woods and sand showers between the first swing and the defeated trudge to the parking lot brought us back to earth.

The wig I hope I never wear again

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:45:00 +0000

Breast cancer is stored on the top shelf of my closet, inside a box, where I don’t have to look at it. Most days I don’t even think about it.

It comes in the form of a wig.

Not just any old wig, a beautiful, custom-made, human hair wig that fit perfectly over my smooth bald head for nearly a year, giving the false impression to the world that I was in good health with my own mane of beautiful blond hair.

When a friend was diagnosed (the first in a series of six friends in four years since my diagnosis), I offered it to her as a gift that she could keep, pass on, throw away or burn, for all I cared.

She gladly accepted it. I was exuberant to let it go, like excess weight falling off my body, making me feel lithe, agile and aloft.

Within days it showed up on my doorstep with a note. "Sorry, it didn’t fit."

I held it cautiously like a snake I might pick up with a long, sturdy stick to keep it far from me until it could be tossed back into the woods where it belonged.

I could donate it to the American Cancer Society or just stuff it in the trash can, for that matter. I don't have to keep it, but old wives' tales run through my head like, "If you get rid of it, you’ll need it." Or, "If you keep it, you’ll never need it again."

What he gave me before he died

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:01:00 +0000

I'll never forget helping John die.

No, I didn't kill him. Cancer killed him, but I helped him die by telling him what to expect, how to protect his functional independence for as long as possible, reframing and contextualizing the whole beautiful and awful business, giving him drugs, calling cancer a bitch, and holding his hand.

I was a hospice nurse for two years, and in that capacity, I helped many people die. People die all the time, and for some reason, I am excellent at helping them. Some people play a mean guitar. Others roller-blade. Me? I'm an angel of death. Everyone assumes being a hospice nurse is depressing, but it's not. It's no party, but it is life-affirming, bittersweet and painfully precious. Being with someone when they die is nothing short of a gift.

When people get sick and die, family and friends tend to bat around canned phrases: "Things happen for a reason"; "God has a plan"; "I believe in miracles and the power of prayer." I hate inauthentic sayings as much as the next person, but I don't begrudge people clichés like that in times of crisis. Even though death happens to everyone, when it strikes, people are shocked stupid. They will repeat anything they've heard before and anything they've seen in movies; a strange vacuum forms in the wake of terminal illness that renders words inadequate. So grieving people often lean on stock answers for support. In turn, I try to speak authentically and honestly because these types of words are a little sturdier.

Why I still keep my maternity clothes

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Why do I still have maternity clothes in my closet? My oldest is almost 7, I'm in my 40s, and the baby factory is most decidedly closed. Plus, it's not like there's a lot of room for those old clothes around here. Do I really need a "formal" black velveteen-and-satin smock? Or those colossal striped tank tops? Or those jeans with the big stretchy panel around the waist?

Of course I don't. But for some reason, these clothes are as precious to me as my baby's first six pairs of shoes. (Which I also still have.)

I know we're supposed to hastily shed our maternity clothes in shame because -- the horror -- we used to be fat. But I'll confess: I loved my pregnant body. I probably loved it more than I loved my 20-something single girl body, or even my teenage body. Shopping at Motherhood Maternity was more exciting than shopping at Nordstrom in those days. Seriously.

For one thing, pregnancy is the only time in a woman's life when a big belly is considered an asset. I'd spent my entire clothes-shopping career trying to minimize that belly. But in pregnancy it was tight, round, ripe and gorgeous -- bare in prenatal yoga class, peeking from tank tops on the beach. Even under a plain old maternity T from Target, it was a good look for me.

The toy cat that escaped Cuba

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:01:00 +0000

I was born in Cuba in the midst of the fall of one dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and the rise of another, Fidel Castro. My father was a sergeant in the army of the former and an enemy of the state of the latter. Through a shuffling of paperwork that was uncommonly fast for a pre-digital age military bureaucracy, my father's army discharge was expedited and he retired to take over the family business. His retirement was without benefits since regimes that overthrow other regimes have a problem honoring their enemies' pension plans. But at least my father was able to leave alive, intact and without having to spend time in one of Castro's prisons.

For some time things were OK. My father took over his father's butcher shop, and my mother took care of me and my older sister. I took to what babies did best: eat, sleep and soil my diapers. Accompanying me in my crib, I had many stuffed animals, but I took a fancy to a small rubber toy cat. When I could talk, I named him Hebertico. No one is sure why I came up with that name but it stuck.

The hideous sweat shirt I can’t throw out

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:07:00 +0000

When I sold my deceased parents' small row home in Philadelphia and moved to New York 22 years ago, I took very little with me. My husband and I were beginning our marriage in hospital housing where he was a resident. He had already decorated the place with his leopard sofa, platform bed, kilim and an inherited mid-century desk. There was room for me in his heart, but not for my parents' rickety formica kitchen table.

I knew that once I settled in New York, I would become assimilated into his family -- a large, Jewish, Ivy League-educated, highly bonded collection of people with no shortage of opinions or emotions. By contrast, I had two brothers, each addicted to his own brand of drugs and a widowed sister. My mother had gotten as far as fifth grade; my father, who died of alcoholic cirrhosis, was a graduate of trade school. I was ready to move on and begin a new life with nothing but a stuffed suitcase.

The box I can’t bring myself to open

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:30:00 +0000

There is a box in the northwest corner of the garage. I have never opened it. It is large enough for me to sleep in if life should ever come to that. But that is not the reason it remains there, sealed with duct tape. Cats have been on it. They jump from it to the window ledge and paw against the pane to let me know I once again trapped them. Mice have run across it. I see turds and tracks in the dust. Maybe they found a weak spot along an edge and made nests inside. Maybe their tiny gnawing teeth tore up what is inside so if I ever have the guts to open it, there will be nothing left recognizable. I hope so.

My mother's possessions are inside the box. Not all of her possessions. She wasn't poor. It is what she saved for me. My father told me about this after her funeral. I pretended not to hear. And he said nothing more about it. He may have been afraid too. He was the one who read me stories. Pandora's Box was my favorite. I always listened for a new ending. I wanted her to leave the box alone and save us all.

My dad is gone, but I can’t let go of his things

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:01:00 +0000

The night before my 33rd birthday, we found my father cold and dead in a room rented to him by the Veterans Administration.

My brother, sister and I quickly went through the things he left in the room, hasty to do so before our own feelings kicked in. We made quick work of throwing out garbage and paperwork he no longer needed, depositing his clothes in the bins outside of the Salvation Army. I kept only a small bottle of his cologne, which let me break down for the first and only time in that room, and has remained tightly shut ever since.

My garage holds the rest of his stuff. Photo albums, his answering machine, suitcases full of clothes and shoes that we had tossed so easily from his room. It's all of the things that he stored at his friend's house, the place he'd planned for his next step. After he died, his friend Peter called after a polite amount of time, asking me to unload Dad's things. I filled my minivan, and then my garage. A card floated from a box, unwritten on. It was a Christmas card from a father to a daughter, either for my sister or myself. I kept it.

The wedding bouquet I can’t throw away

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:22:00 +0000

The bouquet lies inside the little pearl-topped basket tucked in my bottom drawer. There they are, dried and carefully arranged: the yellow roses from my wedding day. All 25 -- the age I was when I married and nearly the number of years before he left. Twenty-five little promises, preserved and vibrant still, for my two daughters and my two sons. He left all five of us one night six months after his own father's death and in fear for his own -- or at least his sanity. That was his excuse.

He didn't leave at once. He left in pieces. At first it was almost imperceptible: an absent laugh, a lack of eye contact, that odd pull at the corner of his mouth, a feeling of disconnect. He blamed it on fatigue, work, stress. Then his color began to go and he looked almost bruised. He started coming home late and he, a man who never drank, began. And finally there was the terrible reality he did not love me.

And how, the marriage counselor asked, are you going to handle it?