The End. For Now.

Well we made it. Today came and went without extremes.

Last night Gwennie and I sat on my bed and both got a little teary thinking about how we'd no longer be "within a year" of our mother. We're now officially "a year ago." Although today comes with a sigh of relief, knowing we've mastered what's considered to be a challenging milestone in mourning, there's also a sadness that because we're beyond the one-year mark, that we need to somehow be less sad, be less connected, be less frequently impacted. Mourning, remembering, and paying tribute to our mom this year as been just as much about processing the loss as keeping her close to us. So now that her death is a year less fresh, there is a fear that we need to be a year less vulnerable and a year more collected. In reality, today is just a day, like any other. There's no schedule to recovery. Expectations are a dangerous thing, and the less we expect of ourselves with respect to how we should or shouldn't feel, well that's just about the best gift we can give one another.

We started today by chowing an impressive percentage of the holiday cookies we'd made last night with Matthew and Chantel. It's a Christmas Eve tradition that Gwennie and I did the few years before Mom got sick.  There was nothing unusual about it: multiple casualties, too much red icing, not enough white, the annual "Christmas is Gay" cookie, all to the soundtrack of the 4-disc box set of Mom's beloved, Manheim Steamroller. After we sufficiently digested, we brunched at Bon Savour, a french bistro in the neighborhood that I frequented with Mom during her weekly trips to Dana Farber Cancer Center.

Then, the post-brunch ink fest took place...

We did it. Mom was forever memorialized by burning off a small layer of flesh by a dude named Lucky who's parlor was decorated with bald eagles and where Playboy is standard waiting room reading material. Lest I say, I was a champ, considering this was my inaugural sail. Gwennie is now a seasoned veteran.

About three years ago I took a series of classes in integrative health practice, largely at the encouragement of my mother. At the end of our Reiki I class, the Reiki masters had us sit in an outward-facing circle with our feet on the ground and eyes closed. They weaved in and out of us, placing their hands on our shoulders, moving from student to student, as if to share this new energy that we'd each been empowered with. Quietly and lovingly, one of the masters then opened my hands, scribed a reiki symbol on my palms, closed them together, and brought my hands to my heart. I sat there in silence, with my hands on my heart and tears rolling down my face.

For all the eye-rolls I'd given my mother about her trips to the New Age Spa, I found my attunement as a Reiki practitioner, unexpectedly emotional. I love Reiki because it is something that surprised me. It meant something to my mother, which she taught to me. It's something I share with my patients and their parents. It's something I brought with me to Haiti, when I had very little else to offer. It's something I can do to myself when I need to breathe. And above and beyond all, it's something I practiced on my mother that she loved.

I remember, after her Ommaya port was placed, doing that very symbol on her bald, sutured head, and whether she said it to make me feel better (as mother's often do), or because it really worked, she said it made a world of difference in her pain. My tattoo will remind me of my mother, of what we shared, and that I want to remain dedicated to the simple power of touch between one human and another, as a means of connection and healing. Not to mention, it ups my badass factor by at least a solid 25 percent.













Gwennie's tattoo is simply: maman, which is "mother" in French. It's what she called our mother, and what our mother called her mother. There's no long explanation to its meaning or mystery to the importance of the word. She traced the letters from one of Mom's journals so it has her touch, and there it will be forever, even though she is not.

And there you have it: a year that started with the loss of the most phenomenal, influential, and significant woman of our lives, and ended with croissants and tattoos. If there is anything I take away from these 365 days, it's gratitude. For my friends, young and old, from all walks of life, who despite my not returning their calls/emails/texts because school had me trapped in the library, thank you. For my father, who is now fielding way more "I'm not sure what to do with my life" phone calls then I think I even dumped on my mother. For my teacher, who despite seeing me almost fail repeatedly, kept reminding me that I am good at what I do, and thanks to her, I am one semester away from graduating. Thank you, to my manager and co-workers, who've made countless switches and accommodations for me to be with my mother, and even in the year following when I needed. My family, who keep my mother living in their daily lives and never shy away from reminding us of who she was, thank you.


To my Matthew, who met me not two months before my mother's condition became terminal, but who never swayed, never flinched, never broke. Thank you, for not taking me up on the countless number of outs I tried to give you in the beginning, for spending hours hugging me and catching tears and snot all over your shoulders, and for being the partner dreams are made of.

And my dear, wonderful, absurdly amazing and strong sister. I asked her once to please, just take care of herself, make smart choices, and not give me anything to worry about, because I couldn't handle one more mess to have to clean-up. She's exceeded my every expectation and I would have never survived this without her.