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.

This Time Last Year

Trepidation. I think that's how I would best describe the attitude with which Gwennie and I approached Thanksgiving this year. As we crept through October, without our even realizing, emotions became more and more fragile and tears a regular occurrence. There's always a certain sadness that comes with the leaves changing. Someone more well-studied than I might disagree, but "back to school" always reminds me that I'm one year farther away from my youth, when things were simple. And now fall has new meaning: it's when Mom became a hospice patient. Crunching over leaves reminds me of navigating her wheelchair along the paths at McLean this time last year. I went to open a trunk full of blankets the other day and burst in to tears, because there was the prayer shawl my mother started wearing daily this time last year. Now I'm pulling out holiday decorations, that in almost two weeks from this time last year, I will have packed up from her room. This time last year, I was celebrating Thanksgiving with my mother.

My days are compartmentalized in to what exactly I was doing this time last year. This time last year I was hunting for socks that wouldn't make her feet swell by day, and writing her memorial program by night. This time last year I was hanging on by a thread, desperately seeking answers I would never get. It is all such a blur to me.

Now that I've realized my rocky days are related to my "this time last year," I've embraced it. Because in a few short week, "this time last year" won't exist. And I'll welcome that more than you can imagine.

And Thanksgiving was amazingly easy, perhaps because Gwennie and I have so much to be thankful for.

We've settled on a memorial weekend to celebrate Mom. Gwennie and Chantel are coming to Boston to spend the weekend with Matthew and I. We'll shop, we'll brunch, we'll listen to the electronica New Age holiday tunes of Manheim Steamroller that Mom loved. We'll no doubt watch White Christmas multiple times, and maybe even throw in A Christmas Story, to which she always responded "garbage in, garbage out." We'll make our traditional politically correct holiday cookies and eat fondue. And because she would love to hate this... we're getting memorial tattoos. Oh yes. Mom, I am getting a tattoo.

And then perhaps, I may lay this blog to rest. I think it's time. There will be no more "this time last year." Thank goodness.

Thanksgiving, 2009

A Week in Haiti

I just got home from a week volunteering in Haiti at Bernard Mevs hospital in Port au Prince. Enough colleagues of mine had gone before me that I had an idea of what I was getting in to, and we've all seen the pictures of the tent cities and piles of rubble, so even that was no surprise. I knew it wouldn't be pretty or easy. But I'd wanted to go since January, and now was finally my opportunity.

There was no shortage of losses, both young and old. Even that, I was prepared for. It's not the United States where we feel compelled to do everything in our power to save every person from death, in Haiti you have to be far more realistic because resources are so incredibly limited.

So I was pretty surprised when my tears finally came, and they only came once while I was there. I was walking to my 4th of 7 12-hour night shifts in a row, when a woman appeared to have a seizure and hit the concrete outside the emergency department hard. I checked her breathing, I checked her pulses, I checked her pupils: all fine. She just wouldn't respond to me. And out of nowhere, she started sobbing and screaming and shaking on the ground. It wasn't until a security guard came to me and said that her mother was inside the emergency room. She'd had a heart attack and was very close to death. By this point we had an audience and people were trying to put her on a stretcher and put a c-spine collar on her and check vitals signs... all these steps and motions we just automatically go through because we're trained to. We got her sitting up and cleared the crowd, and after some convincing, responders backed off the need for an exam, and brought her some water. In my rusty french, I offered to bring her inside to be with her mother, but she didn't stay at the bedside long, and outside I sat with her and couldn't help but put my arms around her. That's when they came, a flood of tears so unexpected I almost started laughing. Because I saw many lost and many suffer that week, and all I could do was support these families and parents, but for once, I really knew how this woman felt. It didn't require my stethoscope or critical thinking or medication, but it may have been my finest nursing moment while I was there.

The older I get, and the more challenges I face, the more astounded I am with how poorly some people handle adversity. They cop out, they run away, they disappoint, they make excuses, they point fingers, and blame everyone else except themselves. These people, from what I saw, are made of the most tough stuff a person can be made of. Mothers would lay down sheets on the hard ceramic floor of our pediatric ward and share with the mother next to them, stranger or not, while their children lay on cots. They shared food, stories, and clothes. They sang and cried together. And it reinforced everything I took away from losing my own mother: life isn't about the stuff we acquire, or the paycheck we make, the or the clothes we wear, because that can all disappear in the matter of minutes. It's about what we have inside that makes us bounce back.

It was such an honor to be part of their world for a week, and no doubt I gained more from the experience than I offered. But I, with the help of the night staff, did do one hell of a job cleaning and reorganized the unit. So that's a bonus.

Here are some pictures from my trip. To learn more about the organization I traveled with, check out Project Medishare.

4 hours old, 37 weeks gestation 1.96 kgs

 This little girl was hospitalized for dehydration, but her 10 year old brother never left her side, so he slept under her crib, and she inevitably always ended up under there with him.

Miss Sephora also preferred the floor with her mom. 

 Baby Girl Charles and Macinlove.

 Miss Christina and her amazing mother.

 My little Sarah gave me a run for my money during what will probably be one of the longest shifts I've ever worked, but who was acting like a cranky little 2 year-old in no time.

Mr. Macinlove's very first bottle.

Mom's Graduated from Yale

Written July 31...

Long before she was even diagnosed with cancer, my mother made her wishes clear, that she wanted to be an organ donor. Because of her cancer however, she could no longer be an organ donor, and being the forever generous woman that she was, she donated her body to Yale Medical School for anatomical research.

Not everyone has the luxury to plan out their wishes ahead of time, but in our mom's case, very little was going to go unplanned, terminal prognosis or not. She even had a document drafted by her atourney appointing me responsible for her remains. If she were still with us, she would have written, "Preparing for Your Death, 101." Because she was strong and thought of the unthinkable, we didn't have to make any decisions in the wake of losing her. I'd communicated with Yale Medical School ahead of time, she'd signed all their paperwork, and we'd even arranged for her "ride" through Carmon Funeral Home to Yale.

When I got the call last Friday that Yale was "ready for us to make arrangements" to pick her up, it was if she'd died all over again. I was devistated. I think somewhere in my head I'd let her go away on vacation for these last 7 months, but then all of a sudden, here she is again, and oh yeah, she's dead.

It was completely unexpected, both that they'd call so soon (they'd originally said anywhere between 6 months and 2 years), and that I fell apart all over again. It's hard to express what thoughts consumed me without coming accross grusome, but you must understand, I was responsible for every bump and bruise,  every calorie that went in, and knowing what came out. Taking care of her body was my life. And I just had the incredibly overwhelming desire to know exactly what they'd done with her, who worked with her, where she was kept, if everything was put back where it belonged. It's hard to admit, because I can only imagine how this can come as crazy, but I wanted to see her. I just felt like I had to see her. Just as I was always there when she came out of surgery, I just wanted to be the first person to hold her hand and say, "you did great Mom, you did great, it's all over now."

I called Carmon Funeral Home and was greated by their lovely receptionist, Erin, who knew me right away, and had me on the phone with John in a moment's time. You can imagine my embarrassment when I lost it. I'd talked to them countless times before she passed, and when they picked her up at McClean in December, they were greated by smiles, and cheers, and well-wishes. We tried to make my mom's death as positive as it could be, but somehow, in discussing plans to cremate her remains, the finality sunk my heart. He was, in only the way I can imagine a funeral home director can me, so kind and patient. He even entertained my questions about viewing her body with the most diplomatic and non-judgemental answer you could imagine, followed by a gentle but strong, "however I hightly discourage it." No kidding. What was I thinking?

In speaking with the director of the full body donation program at Yale, he was able to tell me that my mother was part of a full body anatomy class for first year medical students. She had 4 students, and proved to be a wonderful teacher. He expressed what a gift donations are, especially younger people, because it's rare that a donor isn't pushing triple digits. He also shared that the students had a memorial at the end of their semester, and each one shared an expression of thanks to their "teacher and donor" for allowing them to experience the human body first hand. And I was immediately put at ease...

Relenting control for these last 7 months was extremely difficult. In the beginning, I had urges to call Yale and ask what her status was. I had nightmares that she was scared and would wake up not knowing where she was, but I tried to stay strong and focused because I know that's what she would have wanted me to do.

And despite the hardship that came with the news that it was time for cremation, my unsettled fears turned to feelings of gratitude, that my mother was such a generous, strong, and giving teacher of these students. Professionally, I recognize that every life-saving procedure I participate in is directly impacted by the gifts of those who didn't survive.

Talk about the gift that keeps on giving.

Mom has some company

Gwennie here.

When many of you came to visit my mom at our house, you may remember being greeted by a barking but harmless dog named Casey. We adopted him in the middle of my 7th grade year from the Humane Society... he was timid and emaciated, but he had a big smile on his face and convinced us that he was to be the next member of our household. He quickly became a central personality of our neighborhood and the mascot of The Talbot Group, despite some unnaturally pungent flatulence.

I've been taking care of him since my mom passed, and I know he's felt that loss ever since. Despite Paul being the one who fed him and everyone passing him biscuits on the daily, he developed a special relationship with my mom. He never left her side, from when she ordered her first business cards from the basement of his first house to when she was landing A-list clients in the beautiful office of his second house. And when she got sick, he only took breaks from lying next to her bed to go outside or receive a biscuit from one of his many providers.

Today, I had to make the incredibly difficult decision to lift him up to doggy heaven. He's been eating less, he developed an irritating skin condition, and that tail just wasn't wagging anymore. Aside from that, I'm moving into an apartment complex that doesn't allow dogs. To get him adopted at his age (13!) and throw him into a completely new environment would've been unfair to him. So it was either put him to sleep today in my arms, with someone he knows and loves, or for someone to adopt him, where he in all probability would've declined even more rapidly, just for someone else to have to make that decision, and to die in the arms of a complete stranger. It was perfect timing, really... I moved into an apartment on my own for the first time shortly after my mom died, and I couldn't have asked for a better roommate than that old, devoted, overgrown puppy-dog. I truly believe he held out for his final duty: to keep me company while I slowly grieved and processed my mom's passing. I spent countless nights curled up next to him on the floor, bawling my eyes out while he just lay there and let me cry. Now that I'm okay and moving on, I think he knows his job is done.

Holding someone in your arms while they take their last breath never gets easier. But I'm comforted by the fact that after he passed on, the vet left the room saying "you made the right choice". No less, he is reunited with his one and true owner, my mom. I know that he's getting a whole bunch of love from my mom right now, and passing gas that makes everyone around him plug their nose.

Rest in peace, my sweet puppy Casey. I hope we gave you the life you might never have lived if we hadn't adopted you, and that my mom feeds you all the chicken you can eat.

Remember the Green Chair

I have been meaning to blog for months, but just haven't been able to execute it. There is so much to say, and I wonder what's worthy of sharing, what's fleeting, what's too much?

There have been natural cycles of good and bad days. As time goes on, the nature of our missing her changes and takes on new meaning. Where initially there were times we purely forgot, and would dial her number only to find it disconnected, we're now inundated with unmeasurable sadness with the loss of knowing we can't talk away two hours with her. I could have never anticipated how difficult Mother's Day was going to be. The week leading up to Sunday, I was constantly cleaning my email in box of "Buy Mom a New (Choose Your Material Good Here)," and couldn't figure out why I'd burst in to tears over the littlest thing, couldn't sleep, ate a steady diet of cheese and chocolate, and just could not seem to get a grip. What seemed obvious to everyone around me, was that of course I was a wreck. The world was reminding me constantly that I don't have a mother to celebrate, in the traditional way at least.

I spent the weekend celebrating my dear friend Maura's wedding. My mother loved Maura. It was just a few months after we graduated college that Maura lost her father. In a way, it was the safest place I could have dreamed to be. Surrounded by friends, celebrating someone my mother knew and loved, who understood, survived, and was creating her new family. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I spent Mother's Day evening at a small burger joint in Boston with Matthew, pouring tears in to my my cheeseburger and onion rings (two of her faves), reminiscing about the mother's days past, and how truly wonderful they were. I realized I wasn't upset because I didn't have a mother to celebrate, I was upset because I'd had the most wonderful mother ever, and had celebrated like crazy with her- I just missed her.

Then it was a week of recovery before Gwennie and I ventured to our aunt and uncle's basement in Canton, CT, for what we fondly refer to as "Remember the Green Chair 2010." After my paternal grandmother died, my father, aunt, and myself flew to Virginia to clean out her things. I was a sophomore in college, still a bit shell-shocked, and handed a box of sticky dots and told to put one on anything I wanted. Needless to say, I wanted EVERYTHING. What I didn't realize, was what I wanted was my grandmother. Instead I ended up with a huge storage space jam-packed full of old lady (sorry Piggy) furniture. When my dad and I went to clean out this unit, he slid the door up, and there, staring us in the face, was the green chair. Leather, shiny, monster, which held my grandfather for years before I existed. I looked triumphantly at my father as if to say, "aren't I the most considerate daughter you ever dreamed of for keeping your beloved father's green chair for you?" But I barely had time to gloat as I realized my father was lugging said chair straight towards the dumpster.

I learned the most important lesson to date that day, one which has served me every day of my life: people are not the things they leave behind.

So, when any debate came whether to keep a certain item of my mother's, Gwennie and I would get dad and speaker and he'd say, "remember the green chair." And we'd remember the green chair. It added much needed humor to a task which could have been painfully depressing. But oh, what she saved...

Gwennie's baptismal candle?
My teeth?
The manual to my graphing calculator from 1995?
A VHS of Bill Cosby stand up?

The Canton Town Dump is in for a rude awakening. We did however, relish going through baby clothes, pictures, cards, etc. But because enough time had gone by, and we remembered the green chair, we were able to separate all her keepsakes from her, and know what was worth holding on to, and what was not.

Gwennie and I unwound after the mass exodus with tuscan salads at Maximia and a soft serve from Carvel for dessert: two standards whenever we were home visiting Mom. We talked about how we missed her and when, and how as much as we know we can figure things out for ourselves, we still wish she was around to act as our sounding board. For as different as Gwennie and I are, we both agreed that she was hands down, the least judgemental, most accepting, impressively patient mother, two children could have ever asked for. For all the things she may have struggled with in her own life, big or small, she was always able to be so objective and walk along side us in our personal journeys, but never tell us where to go.

So speaking of journeys, Gwennie and I are managing quite nicely on ours if I do say so myself. Gwennie's gotten in to every college she applied to for the fall, but is still waiting to hear from UCONN, which has turned out to be her first choice. She toyed with Boston, Austin, California, North Carolina, all for good and different reasons, but when the smoke cleared, she realized that at this point, the idea of completely uprooting and starting over sounds way to overwhelming. Connecticut, although not where she wants to spend the rest of her life, is still home to her.

I am back in school full time, working part time. I presented my master's research work last week, which has been a two-plus year long endeavor for me. I am officially, one year from Monica Talbot, MSN

Thank you for keeping us in your hearts and thoughts. We enjoy the check-ins and shout outs, although even now the effort to respond to all of them is overwhelming, they do not go unappreciated. Spring and sprung around here, and we're looking forward to fresh beginnings.



Still River Cafe, Mother's Day 2009

Circle of Life

If the title of this post evoked memories of the Lion King, with baby Simba being raised above his village of animals, in front of a background of vibrant orange (Disney) African sky, with Elton John chanting those lyrics we've all come to know and love... then bingo.

That is precisely what I was going for.

I have been wanting to post for weeks, but really am at a loss of words (insert your own joke here) for what to say. I thought keeping up the blog would be easy; a way to let people know how we're doing, what we're doing, how we're coping, etc. But that's really quite boring because it is the same thing every day: some days are amazing, some are unbearable, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Since losing my mother, there have been 3, maybe 4 occasions during which I was sure I wouldn't survive getting off the floor. Not without a paper bag at least. This is when I owe an especially impressive amount of gratitude to my boyfriend, Matthew, who is often the one to peel me off said floor. But lately, I've been able to do it myself. My last "episode" you might call it, was during a time when I so desperately needed to hear my mother validate me, assure me, that I have made the right choices. It's never about anything in particular, but just during a juncture when you know you can go one of many ways, you make a choice, and you need to know Mom supports you. In the midst of sobbing through a roll of toilet paper, I stopped. If she were alive, there was nothing she could tell me that I didn't already know. She had spent the last 28 years helping me through times just like this. Although it would have been good to hear it out of her mouth right then, I already knew what she would have said to me, and I picked myself up. I have the confidence, strength, and sense of self, that she'd been nurturing all along, it is just up to me now to muster it up when I need it most, rather than dial her number.

Since then things have been a bit easier. I take comfort in knowing she raised me, and when I feel I need her, all I have to do is look within.

My energies are otherwise focused on being back at work, rebuilding my home, slowly unpacking boxes from her house, and finding new nooks for her favorite things.

I think of my loss, and thank the fortune on which it came to me. We lost our mother, sure, but with time to love her, thank her, and say goodbye. Not in the face of catastrophe or natural disaster. What the country of Haiti and its people is experiencing is unimaginable. I am one of thousands of nurses who have volunteered to aid in the relief effort, but in the meantime am left here to feel helpless and hopeless. I think of how I would feel if that was how I lost my mother, and am grateful.

In the face of suffering, I learn the most precious news of all: two of my dearest friends are expecting their first child. Tears of helplessness and longing turn to those of hope and joy. With loss of life comes gift of life. Thank you Elton John, for the Circle of Life.

To read more about my efforts abroad, go to Children's Hospital Boston for Haiti through Partners in Health. PIH is a phenomenal Boston-based organization that has been in Haiti for over 20 years, and is sending health care providers and supplies to Haiti as quickly as possible. They were there first, and won't leave. If you haven't already donated, please consider doing so.