Memories

Chad Hasting read this at a wake for Deirdre
  at Henry's in Fort Wayne on Sunday, 3/19/00

If there is one quality that was foremost about Deirdre, it is the way she was willing to give. Deirdre gave to all comers. If she did not know you, she gave a friendly greeting. If you were an acquaintance, she gave you a sunny smile and a funny line. If you were her friend, she gave her time and a listening ear. If you were her family, she gave her all.

Sometimes she gave so much of herself one wondered how much she had left to give, but there was always more.

Deirdre really had no idea how much she charmed those around her. At gatherings, reunions, parties, she was invariably the most popular one there. She was full of wit and grace. She had the common touch, carried no pretense and was generous to all. Yet, when I commented how she was often the belle of the ball, she always demurred. It came too naturally to her for her to notice.

So the biggest tragedy of her passing is that she can give no more.

We're all here concerned for Nate and her mom, and all others who were blessed with her presence. But if you are lucky enough to get the chance to give her son Nate a hug someday, you can breathe in his scent, feel his hands on your back, hear him speak in your ear, and you will recall Deirdre just as surely as she is standing there.

What We Might Have Said

Two days before my sister DR died of an aneurysm we could have talked on the phone, but we didn't. She was in a lot of pain. We would have talked, though, had we known. And I think our talk might have turned deep, because we always talked about everything...

"Wink, do you think there is anything more than this life? You know, Heaven, reincarnation - that kind of thing?"

"You know me DR, I think the universe is unfathomable! There's room enough up among the stars and down among the molecules for anything you can imagine, and anything you can't! Sure, there could be more. But if there isn't, why worry? You wouldn't know it, you'd just not be."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess I shouldn't worry. But still, I just know there's a design to life, you know, a God in Heaven and all. Don't you really?"

"I just don't know DR."

"I wish I knew for sure. I don't want to die. And oh, I don't want to leave Nate! He'll be okay, right? And I'll be okay, right? When I die? I didn't go to church much or anything... but I do believe and I am a good person."

"Nate'll be okay, and terrible, and wonderful, and everything in between all mixed up in one - he'll be human. We'll watch out for him. Don't worry. It'll all be okay. You're a very good person, DR."

"Thanks. I try. It counts, doesn't it?"

"I think so. I'm thinking DR, that sometimes you have to take your faith on faith."

"Yeah. But, heaven. Out among the stars. Where every living thing would be accepted and loved. I could do that. Cool to think about ...""Yeah."

"A different where."

"A different how."

"All the whys known.""At peace.""Into the mystery.""Yeah."

"Good bye, Wink."

"Good bye, DR."

Waking up one morning at the lake, about a month after DR's passing, I found a Natey-heart snuggled up close to me. He fidgeted, and fidgeted. He just couldn't get comfortable. Suddenly, he sat up and started to re-arrange me. "You see, when my Mom wakes up she's like this," he told me while trying to move my limbs into the right position and not having any luck.

He sat back and thought awhile, then said, "Make an S." I curved into an S and Nate curled into my curves. The fit was good, but I knew it wasn't a perfect fit: only the mom would do for that type of snuggle.

How we both ached for DR at that moment! I lay there, loving that guy and missing DR so much and for so long my heart felt like it would burst from the pain of my loss and joy of my love for Nate combining so closely.

DR always planned the year's April fool joke on Tim with me. Our best? April 1st , 1993.

DR planned with me from the lake, I executed the plan.

We had Josh come to my house on this April 1st with a packed suitcase. Had him stay until Tim came home, then very, very awkwardly mutter something like, "Well you guys have stuff to talk about…" while sorting through his suitcase to grab something, then take his leave.

With Josh gone I put out the fiction:

• Andy and Josh had just broken up;
• Josh didn't have a place to stay,
• and Tim, we can't have him sleeping in the street.

I laid it on, DR and I's script, perfectly!

• I have it all figured out, honey, he can sleep in the front room,
• we'll put down Dr's old mattress
• he can have his Mom's old dresser
• it won't be very long, maybe six months or so, just until he's on his feet
• he can help with the babies, honey, and he doesn't eat very much…

By the time I'm done I'm in tears of fake anxiety and Tim's voice is in the inaudible range it's so low. He's saying, "Ah, jeez." And "Gosh, Wink, if the guy really needs a place to stay…" and "Well, of course, we'll help, but…" and he can't finish any of his sentences because he really, really, really doesn't want Josh to actually move in.

And just when I really start crying, I gasp, "And you know the worst part? The very worst part? This is all just an April Fool's joke!"

And Tim doesn't get it, but then finally he does.

Gotcha!

He tickled me relentlessly.

I called DR the split second I could talk again. Between our idea and the reality fell no shadows… we got Tim, oh yeah, we got him, and we got him good!

The year that DR and I were in High School together we were inseparable. We met each other at lockers; we came to school together and left together. We hung at home together and we went out on the week-ends together. I have a million and one memories from this happy time. The two times I remember the most was the day Josh was born, and the day we devised a way to torment Mr. Knight as much as he had tormented me.

Josh was born on April 1st. I was told both DR and I could go home mid-day for the occasion. The only thing was, when I told Deirdre of the glorious news she wouldn't believe me! She was just sure I was pulling an April Fool's joke on her. I had to drag DR all the way home, with her saying, "Come on, Wink, we're really going to get in trouble for this!" smiling half in glee, half in horror the whole time.

Mr. Knight was a wicked man that made my life heck in his class. He would call on me continually for days, ask me what I was looking at often, and always made me walk down to the office with him on the days I got to miss his class because of a glee club concert, he won't believe me. I hated him and so DR hated him. One day he took over as lunch monitor for one of our favorite teachers. DR and I were aghast, until we thought of the perfect revenge! Every time we passed Mr. Knight I'd say, "Opposite of day?" and DR would say, "Knight!" I doubt Mr. Knight ever heard our exchange, but in our minds each time we played out our revenge we were proud and brazen rebels for justice!

Whenever I think of Deirdre,
  I think of her at 12 years old,
    wearing my purple velvet bikini doing flips off the dock.
Your dad would get so mad at her for wearing it,
but the bikini fit her personality so well.
I remember the freckles on her nose and her beautiful brown eyes. I miss her.


-Lindsay Parkhurst

What can one say of death? It happens. It is the natural progression of life. It comes to us all. I'm at peace with the general topic, but when it comes to specifics, when it comes to DR, I find myself at odds with the whole set up. Her life, her wholeness, was way too precious to be lost to a mere 'she once was'. I will celebrate her spirit, which is still living within me, for the rest of my days. She was a soul mate.

So then on to another memory… I am - what? 10 maybe? and she is 8? - Deirdre is mad at me, very mad. I get to go on a canoe trip with Aunt Janie and she feels left out and left behind. I try to console her, but she will have none of it. I leave her swinging despondently on the swing-set in the backyard in Huntington. I run to the kitchen to see if I can talk Mom into letting her come. Somehow I succeed - which is where the very good memory comes from. I run from the kitchen in pure joy! I have to run outside to the swing set as fast as I can! I get to tell my best sister, who's also my best friend, (at least that summer) that she can come on the canoe trip after all! Oh, how happy she will be!! And she is! Oh, how we dance and dance, holding each others shoulders in our excitement. When we settle down a bit we both grab a swing to see if we can reach the sky with our feet while we plan out our mighty adventure.

Lots of people don't think of their childhood past childhood, but DR and I did. We both had an inner view of ourselves as continual works-in-progress. We talked about this a lot. We knew we were wise to be true with where we had been, because it made up a whole bunch of who we were.

We went through a lot of growing up in our time. We did most of it, especially the mom stuff, together. We talked about everything about our youth, at one time or another. We talked about the good and great times, the sad and bad times. I felt a sense of peace with my past knowing DR. Knowing that she had been there in the past and known me, and in the present was there and knew me. She knew me the best and I'm honored to be one of the lucky ones who knew her the best - because DR, at all levels, had something special. She was wise in a way that I've never know in anyone else. With Drly gone, I won't miss the times of physical togetherness nearly as much as I'll miss that sense of peace I felt around her.

I remember around my birthday last year - I had turned 40 - DR and I talked about getting older and how it didn't seem that we had grown up at all. Yes, we agreed, we were Moms with lots of responsibility and day-to-day adult things going on, but inside we were still 20 year olds at most - and holding.

In The Company of Cats

Calm, cool, and collected facing the eye of her fate: her only chance was how her end played out. She held on in pain, she held on filled with remorse of mistakes made and not made, she held on to what she loved most dearest and knew the deepest until she could hold on no more.

She let go peaceful and fast. She went to another where. There she found her past loves, those dearest waiting. Itsen Bitsen, Christopher Robin, Oliver Boliver, Gwendolyn - not formed yet whole… surrounding her, holding her, guiding her to that other formless place. To where her father waits. To where love given returns. To her reward. To heaven. She's living another how. A space where the whys are known. At peace. At last. She is home.

How do I know all of this? A breeze caressing my face told me so.

Dogger-bites, if dare was won fing Deir woved da most, it was panken' bad tats. 'Course every tat has the potential for badness built right in, so's you don't dare wait, you gotta panken right away den just keep on panken 'um. I just tant tand it, all dat panken and lovin' tats need.

Deir grew up in the company of cats. The cats she knew formed a lot of who she was. She was a 'cat are people too' person and saw each cat as the unique being it was. Cats are cool, when well loved they have a gentle, loving spirit. They can always be counted on to give you unjudgmental, unconditional love - no matter what. The cats she most loved: Itsen Bitsen, Christopher Robin, Oliver Boliver, Gwendolyn, Lover, Clare, became part of Deir's personality - or was it Deir's personality that became part of theirs? All I know is that her cats were always kind, generous, happy-go-lucky, and just plain happy souls - just like her.

I didn't play big sister to DR often, we were chums: but I do have a couple of good memories of being the big sister.

Like the time I surprised DR and Gretch with a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve when they lived on Fourth Street. We had smiles from ear to ear on that one, and tears of joy. (Ya just gotta love when that 'ole Christmas spirit fills ya full!)

Or the time I felt maybe I should be keeping a closer eye on DR and Gretch, when they lived on Delaware Street. One night I stopped by around 10 o'clock at night. They had a cat missing and were combing the not-so-safe neighborhood yelling, "Lover? Lover! Where are you Lover?"

For me, and I know for DR, the high point of the day Dad went into the hospital for the last time (if such a thing as a high point could have been said to happen that day) was with DR, Dave, and I. We were standing in the hall off the Emergency room. DR was crouched on the floor with Dave on one side of her, me on the other. We were full of nerves and fidgety with no place to put our emotions until a hospital worker helped us out. She was a small wiry woman with her full hands and an attitude you could read plainly on her face. She came out one automatic door and started for the automatic door directly across the hall. A kind Hispanic gentleman had just walked through the door she was headed for and was keeping the door open for her.

"Please, close the door," said the bad-tempered woman.

The gentleman holding the door looked blank and invitingly at the woman. Obviously, he didn't understand her and was patiently trying to help.

"Please, close the door," repeated the woman, and made a gesture with her full arms indicating the closing of the door.

The gentleman resigned his effort at kindness and closed the door. The woman waited until the door was fully shut before hitting the automatic door release herself and going through the door.

DR, Dave, and I laughed at the exchange. I think Dave said something like, "Well, alright then." DR gave a, "What was that all about?" comment. We went back to our tense waiting.

After some time we were still out in that hall and still waiting, when Dave and I saw the woman coming our way through the ER door's window. Dave and I took one look at each other and without a word spoken connected on what we were going to do next. Dave waited a beat, then nudged the automatic door knob on the wall next to him, while already in the process of walking away down the hall. I, of course, was already walking as fast and inconspicuously as I could the other way, leaving DR crouched and bright, red faced as the bad-tempered woman walked through the door. We howled! All the years dividing the three of us seemed to dissolve when faced with such a splendid opportunity for a good one. It felt good to have the release of laughing in the midst of all our worrying.

When I think about how Deirdre passed, it seemed that God really had it all in place, Nate's teacher lost two of her children when they were very young, they both got electrocuted, one trying to save the other. What better a person to be understanding as to what Nate might be feeling. Deirdre explained death through the loss of your Dad, and by reading that book Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury. It all seems so bizarre to me. There is a song I came across that I listen to and think about her, it is by Babyface, it has a line in it, actually quite a few lines. One is "And it hurts when I smile, because I still remember when you were around" .... it's all about being friends and being there. Music has seemed to get me through a lot of things in my life. It gets into your soul, like poetry to music. -Jean Ahlenius, an Ancilla Friend

My guys were the fussiest babies ever to be born. Ever. When the doctors figured out at five weeks that Michael had been born with an undiagnosed sliding hernia my confidence in my mothering abilities got a needed boost. Until that time, I had DR and mom on the phone to talk to. Their help was my lifeline in the midst of the madness of that time. Eventually, I broke down and talked DR into coming down to help me sort the motherhood thing out, even though she had a one year old of her own.

DR walked into pandemonium. I had barely gotten an hour's sleep a night. The house was destroyed. Tim and I were wounded zombies that hardly talked. The twins screamed up a storm both day and night.

On her third day with us, DR, now zombie-like herself, and I - moms extraordinaire - made a plan. We would keep the twins up in the afternoon, then they would sleep that night; hence, we would sleep that night. Sounded good in theory.

It didn't work. From four in the afternoon until four in the morning DR and I (then when Tim got home, DR, Tim and I) walked not one fussing child, not two fussing children, but three miserably-tired, cranky kids.

DR settled down in the front room downstairs for a long night with Nate, while Tim and I took the middle room up and shut the door for fear of keeping Natey-heart up. For hour upon hour Tim and I walked and walked those crying children around and around in that tiny room that seemed to shrink by the minute, and just when I thought I couldn't stand any more Tim stopped abruptly.
"Look!" he cried, pointing at Ben's head.
"What!" I cried back, concerned.
"There, on his head - he's growing horns!" He cried. "My God! We've spawned the devil's children!"
Laughter broke the curse of the fuss: once the parents settled down a bit so did the babies.

DR and I laughed and laughed at ourselves all the next day for the 100% sure confidence we had had in this plan. Through the years we both used this memory to stop one another when one of us was not thinking thoroughly through a problem, by saying in the way we said that day, "Really, not a good idea!"

The year or so that DR and I lived down in Columbus, Ohio were trying times. DR worked with poor kids at a center. She loved the work. She wanted to make it on her own. I, who thought I had a job before I moved down just to see the job dissolve before my eyes when I got there, was a burden and unhappy with the role. I could not find a job in that college town for anything.

I remember going out to restaurants with friends and DR ordering the bagel with cream cheese for money's sake. We ate the left over meals DR brought home from the kid center daily, and our highlight was having enough money to buy eggs and potatoes to make hash browns. DR made the best hash browns ever.

We liked going to High Street on Friday nights to people watch, and we looked forward to the visits Dave made more than he will ever know. I think of Dave at that time and I'm reminded of the Three Stooges song that played on the radio. That song was so Dave! Of course, I missed the big adventure everybody talked about for years having to do with the old man saying, "Don't kill her!" to our family being wild in a store, because I stayed at our apartment feeling scared and paranoid, especially within the family. I wonder if DR didn't take pity on me more than she let on back then. It was such a surreally strange time. It's like we got the chance to work out the underneath stuff of our youth by going through them again. I was to-my-core-confused, and lacked any confidence, and ended up hurt, again. In short, I was a mess! And she was an angel for seeing me through it. I thanked her often for that through the years. She'd just say, "Cut it out."

In the Company of Friends...

I did not lose my sister, my best friend, but my best friend, who is not my sister, lost her sister who was her best friend. I feel the loss, not as acutely, but just as deeply. So does my sister, who is still alive. How do you separate that? 4 lives, mourning...living, just among us... not counting our other sisters who are still alive and who feel the loss, but cannot express it. I don't really believe in god, heaven, but where did our DR go... somewhere... yes, but that somewhere is alive in my heart, my memory... not at some pearly gate. Yes, it would be easier to place her there in perpetual grace, but D.R. wouldn't be happy there, instead, I accept that she impishly haunts my mind popping up unexpectedly...making think about life and how to live for the moment. I think that's where she would want to be. It might not be a politically correct way of thinking, but I dig it and I'm sure D.R. does too!
-Lindsay parkhurst

Nothing made me laugh more than DR in a "What?" mood. She was coy (with the blushing) and brazen (with the more-than-direct eyes and attitude) at the same time. Her ears always told DR's mood. Always. If she was mad or embarrassed, they were red. If she was flustered, they were pink. If stressed or jealous; they were pinkish. I think DR's ability to blush is an essential key to who she was. She was real. She felt what she felt, when she felt it. And although she'd try to hide emotions from time to time, it never, ever worked for her - at least not with me. I could, and did, call her on things so often, that she developed an attitude about it and that is where the "What?" would come in. Once pointed to she never backed away from what was going on with her, but laughed at herself for the attempt to cover. God, I loved her so much.

I'm thankful I can articulate my struggle with the that that is of losing. I have such a desire to be heard at this time in my loss. DR is sitting in the middle of my mind's eye, egging me on, as she always did in my searching and writing. She helped me so much. Thoughts on paper take a different touch than other thoughts, they move at a different rate. DR encouraged me more that any other to keep at my search for my tempo, my words, my voice. Most have thoughts that rattle around solely in the mind's domain, which is where a true thinker's realm remains, untainted and struggling, and pure. Words are such feeble attempts at understanding that wilder range. And for each of us the degrees of sight given us for delving into that murkiest of places offers differing challenges with the sharing.

And so, only in bits and pieces have I heard what I know of Mom and Lissa's stories of Deirdre's leaving.

And so, only in bits and pieces I give it to you: I was on the phone with Mom at the start of DR's last minutes.
What I heard was a questioning, "Mom?" from DR in the background, then a thump.

"Wink, I'll call you back. Deirdre has fallen!" cried Mom. Then nothing. What a terrible nothing that was for me.
For me it was a time of panic. I remember a strangled 'oh' escaping my lips. I remember trying to figure out how to pack, get the kids and take them to Tim, and go. I remember the urgency of the moments. I remember the confusion. I remember the slowness. I fell down a hole. I knew she was dieing.
For Mom I image her thoughts: Oh, my good god! She's fallen! Oh, oh my! My dear. My sweet. My sweet, sweet child. What should I do? What can I do?
What she said was:
"Sweetheart, are you okay?"
And calling…"Liss, Deirdre has fallen!"
And I think finally most our minds in deep crisis speed up too fast for any of the reality to really spread before us to take hold. And the moments slow to the love in the gaze and the will of the fingertips to keep the fallen with us. And I think I can feel Mom's fingers on DR's cheek as she coos her "It's okay, it'll be okay."
And Lissa, so calm in a crisis, for her I image actions: She calls the ambulance.
And DR? DR opened her eyes a bit. DR says "sorry" a couple of times. That was so DR.
And they wait. And I imagine the comfort of those moments… and the panic… and the pain…

And at the last of her moments…
DR smiles a tender crooked DR smile as she pushes back a strand of her hair and says, "Mom, I don't want to die."
and Mom caressing that dear, dear face, smiling down into those dear, dear eyes replies, "I
don't want you to die."
and then Deirdre's eyes glaze…
and she stops…
and she is gone.
And the most truly heroic person I know, who is my sister Lissa, well she picks Deirdre up and carries her to the couch. That Lissa leans Deirdre's forehead up, and opens her mouth, and puts her mouth on Deirdre's mouth, and breathes, mingling their lives and taking in her loss so concretely that months after the fact the reality of this moment still burns her raw to the core. Oh Lissa, how wonderfully you carried yourself in those moments! What grace you have. I applaud your courage!
Over the years I have tried to imagine what Mom and Lissa have had to contend with in their memory of those five minutes. I know what I've contended with. I still regret the timing of my phone call, for talking to Mom when she could have been at Deirdre's side instead. I can't help but hear over and over DR's panicked tone of voice as she called out to Mom, and the thud of her fall.

But when I put my regrets aside and focus on that that was, Deirdre died the best death I have known of in my life. She was locked in the warm, smiling embrace of her Mother's love. peaceful is the way Mom describes her death. peaceful.

The night before Dad died. We drove home from the hospital late.

There is nothing like being smack dab in the middle of a life changer situation to feel closer than close and realer than real with another person.

We shared a beer while we sat on the bed Tim had made up for us on the living room floor and talked about what life would be like without Dad among us. We were both so frightened and worried, but at the same time strangely at peace. We talked about death, how it was the end of the fight (a good thing to be a peace when you'd been through as much as Dad had gone through), but also the end of the joy (a very bad thing to miss out on so much)

Life, DR was never afraid to talk about any part thereof. That night we talked into the mystery. She was on as good of terms with the big 'D' as anyone I knew. She considered life the lonely part; that as close as we were to others that ultimately we were each of us alone in our journey. She considered death a coming home, a peace, a joining.

Some will think that we talked about all this because of my prodding, my deepness, my needs; but DR had just as much need of her truths, she just didn't have the same need to share them with others like I do.

We cried and cried that night, and we even laughed a little that night too - in a melancholic way.

The closest times: The day DR and I got our bunk bed. I think we stayed in our room for the whole day, if not a couple, checking that baby out! We did flips holding on to the brackets. We laid on opposite ends of the top bunk and bicycled with our feet. At night I missed the closeness of DR next to me, I remember when we slept together I sometimes patterned my breaths on hers, thinking how very close that made us - almost the very same person! But my loneliness wouldn't last, we loved that bunk bed! I'd kick the mattress up to bug DR, she'd bring little toys with her to the top bunk to shoot down at me at night. Yep, we sure loved that bunk bed.

The night Sam and Dad had a fight and Sam opened Dad's bedroom door and the door hit Mom. I can still hear her plaintive, "Wink?" as she popped down on my bunk in a flash. We held each other and cried, and cried.

Teen-age cruising adventures. We had many, many adventures - or is that misadventures? We'd get so silly our sides would hurt from laughing and I'd have to stop the car until we stopped. She could always get me going by repeating the "ums" I'd do after every big laugh. We pretended to be French exchange students in plymouth and would not be able to get a French word out after "Bonjours!" because of our laughter. Nothing was serious: reality was for the weekdays, or for those other poor suckers with an agenda to follow - like finding a boyfriend. Our imaginations ran wild, and we of the mightiest sillinesses were never, ever bored. Boy, did we log in some good laughter! Dr. Carter has just been stabbed on the TV show ER. I'm half way to the kitchen, bouncing from one foot to the other, waiting for the last tiny bit of ER to finish before rushing to answer the phone call I know I'm just about to get. Sure enough, I get to the phone just as the call comes through. I answer saying, "Holy smokes, DR!" DR is already speaking as I speak, saying, "Man, can you believe that?" Yes, we did ER. And yes, we did the Light and Star Trek and Oprah. And yes, we did MYST and Fallout and pocoman and Hubie. And yes, we wasted our time. And yes, we had fun.

The night tornadoes were playing around Culver, and DR and I were staying at Lissa's house. I was setting up mattresses in the hall for kid movement to a safer place, DR was outside scopin' them out. And the next day driving around to see the damage, which we couldn't find, so each time we saw even the tiniest branch down we'd yell, "Ohmigosh! Oh no! The horror!"

Mom and Dad are coming back from Italy - today! I'm in the basement doing laundry. I'm angry that Deir is not helping. I yell at her. She yells back. She runs away for the day. For the whole day! I worry about her anger, which is a quicker, fierier, longer lasting, and more all consuming emotion than any emotion of mine. I worry about what I have done getting mad at her and so opening the pandora 's Box of her anger. Most of all I worry about where Deir could be! Is she hiding in the jungle behind a tangle of branches, alone and afraid? No, I look and she's not there. Behind the garage? Down at Schiebers? I look everywhere. She is not to be found. My worry grows. When she comes back, mere moments before Mom and Dad get there; she will not tell me where she's been, no matter how hard I plead. She is calm. She is contained. She is aloof. She will have nothing to do with me. I love her so much! I'm trying to understand! But I don't.

Tim and DR and I, fearsome threesome-ing it when Tim and I lived on Berry St. Gosh, there are so many times! I remember the first time I knew how close DR and Tim were. I had gone to bed early, but hadn't fallen asleep. I lay listening to them talking into the night, about the family, about themselves, about me, and about Tim and I's relationship. I was so at peace listening to those two, so comfortable and warm. I remember thinking to myself that their love for me was the force that painted their tones tenderness and affection. Then there was the time DR came by with really short, really curly hair. The first thing she said to Tim was, "Don't you dare say a thing!" Tim just smiled this beaming 'boy, but I've got you good!' smile and went over to pat her, ever so gently, on the top of her head. Cracked me up, how those two loved to tease! Once, I took Lissa's kids to the movie and Tim and DR stayed at the cottage. Tim came upon DR unknowingly combing her hair with the dog's brush. For years and years and years after whenever Tim saw DR the first thing he'd do is touch her nose to see if it was warm. Of course, DR got in some good ones with him too: all she had to do was start singing Delta Dawn to have Tim running the other way. And then how about the time DR stopped by without realizing it was Valentine's Day, and Tim and I would hear nothing of her leaving. We took her to DeJours with us instead, I bought the wine (A terrific piper) and Tim and DR went together on the meal and they watched me order Sweetbread without warning me, and only after I had thoroughly enjoyed my meal told me I'd just eaten calf's brains. We made such a ruckus with our laughter that we had to leave before dessert. It was the best Valentine's ever. Tim agrees.

DR, John, and I fearsome threesome-ing it. Getting snowed in at his Berry street apartment and walking through the deserted streets in the deep crystal whiteness to Charlies. DR loved that place! It was full of human drama, it had a Tom Wait-ish feel, and it had the best darn hash browns we ever tasted. Or sitting at his apartment watching MASH and playing solitaire and making toast in a skillet. She was so at ease. DR was so happy. Life was good. Driving to the lake, the three of us stuck in the front seat of a small truck while John and DR do their 'It's my theory, and my theory alone' Monty python imitation, over and over and over. We laughed so hard we had to stop a couple of times.

There are too many memories … I could fill a book! Two! Three!

I tried to get DR down for visits to my house as much as I could. She didn't come often, although I'd use every excuse in the world to get her down. Okay, I downright bugged her about it. When she did agree to come for a week end my life took on a festive mode.

DR and Nate staying with us for even one night was the biggest deal in the world for me and my family. The guys would get in their countdown-of-days mode, Tim would stock up chips and dips and beer and talk about what movie DR would like to see, or game we should play … I would just be up in the air happy. I loved being around DR. Just having her here, for any reason, doing anything, at any time was my high. We were so relaxed and at home with each other -- my casa was her casa.

One particularly fun time we had recently was the time she came down last fall to do her math. She was having trouble with sets - Unions and Interceptions and Joining thereof - and she thought I could help her. Of course, I said nothing about my total lack of ability working with sets, I would have told her I had a masters degree in Set Theory to get her to come! We did laundry and poured over her text book, then at night drank a Corona Light each with lemon wedges while we poured over her problems. We were terribly stuck on some aspects of certain problems but worked through all difficulties and felt great on the other side. I'm happy to say she knew set theory pretty good when she left.

I'm so glad I got to have time with DR. I'll cherish the memory of her ever growing confidence in herself as she finally, finally, finally realized how intelligent she was! Man, was she going to make a kick-youknowwhat teacher!

We had a swell time! We always did when she came down, even with the string of visits when the kids were younger where one of our kid(s) would inevitably infect the other one's kid(s) and each time we'd part someone would be saying, "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry? Sorry …"

Losing DR. Two Weeks After, the Continuing Saga.

I had known there was something wrong with DR for at least two years. My Lord, they were really hard years. Of course, back then I lived the denial kind of knowing: now I have to live the hindsight kind of knowing that I knew. It started around the time Dad died - the something wrong. She started getting high blood pressure and incredibly bad headaches. She worried about it, but then as self-appointed care giver of family and friends she worried about everything and her illness rarely took precedence over the other crisis's to be found. And there was Dad's loss to be gotten through. At the time, I believed her headaches to be brought on through her unwillingness to grieve openly, and her high blood pressure the result of stress brought on by lack of control. Goes to prove how wrong you can be. As I said, they were some really hard years.

When I talked to people after she died I realized how very, very little she had talked about how absolutely physically ill she felt. I hadn't known. I really hadn't known. I console myself with the knowledge that I did my best to help her: I was the life line to the one who was the life line to many. I nagged her to get to the doctor if she admitted that her prescriptions had ran out; begged her to change her lifestyle; listened to her as she dreamed of speaking up around mom (an Oprah inspired taking control of her life kinda thing), reassuring her that if she did the sky would not fall, that the worst that would happen was that she would grow and take control of her own 'stuff', that Mom would be fine and even welcome it. She never did talk to mom, but it wasn't such a big deal to DR and I (unless we were listening to Oprah), she knew mom loved her and she loved mom and that is what counts in the balance.
In the end, I doubt anything she might have done would have changed her outcome. Oh, the internal webs we weave: I'm sure I'm taking the coward's way out with this kind of thinking.

Anyway, she started getting particularly ill at the same time Ben was starting to feel better from his tonsillectomy. In fact, he went to the Emergency Room two days after his surgery with a nose bleed his Doctor's wanted checked, and it was on this very same Sunday she took her first trip to the ER. Mom told me about it right away, but I didn't get involved for days after, when Deir called out of the blue and asked me to research her illness on the web. I did and as I called her up for more detailed explanations of her symptoms and dug deeper the more afraid for DR I became. She didn't have migraines, I knew that for sure, but after that it was a toss up between a stroke brought on by hypertension or an aneurysm, although I didn't think too much of my web-based diagnosis: I don't profess to be a doctor, or even play one on TV.

On the very next day, I got stopped cold by a bread-dough ornament on my bathroom shelf. The ornament was a gentle little bird that Letitia made for me one long ago Christmas, that I'd glanced often, though fleetingly, as I went about my life, and imaged to be my spirit soaring. I came upon the ornament on the floor, broken in half. Now, I'm not a superstitious person by nature, but when I caught that broken bird out of the corner of my eye, well, I just knew DR was in really big trouble. Amazing how something so little can focus denial into a concrete entity you must acknowledge. I knew.

Sure enough, within two days her doctor had diagnosed an aneurysm, and within the week DR had died and left me with the hardest moment of my life which is driving to the lake's hospital and walking in and seeing her gone, but I can't, just can't, write about that right now - you see Michael and Emily had their tonsils out two days ago and I must remain mom-together. (But, I could write volumes around her death while my patients watch videos, if you'd like. I need to release the grief.)

Losing DR is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Bar none. Her loss is the tops, the pinnacle, the uncontested winner among all the hard things I have done in my life. She was my best friend; but even more, she was my best sister. We shared almost everything for all the time she had of her life. Now, I'm trying life without her. It's very, very lonely. I didn't fix the bread-dough bird. I doubt I ever will. I propped each half on small pretty rocks I've gathered through the years, which sit in a candleholder base. I propped them up so the bird is a whole made up of broken halves, with each meticulous feather on the wings pointing upward. Someday, I'll feel better. Someday, just living won't be so hard.

One night DR was down we had Chad over too. He came around lots when DR was down, if he wasn't in love at the time. We put the kids down, then talked and played music.

At some point somebody, probably me, asked everybody what their most embarrassing moment was.

Tim's was when he got kicked out of Boy Scouts for listening to a buddy when he said it was fine to chop down some Cherry trees.

Mine was a time mom made me wear long underwear to swim practice. I felt strange about the other girls seeing them so I arrived late and hid them behind a heater. Well, they were discovered and a cry went up, "Who lost their long underwear? Who put these here?" I was mortified, but it got worse. An older girl had been behind the 'cage' while I was undressing and had seen me with them on. "Why, those are Katrinka's!" she declared. pretty embarrassing.

Chad's had to do with a girl in college and his awfully awkward attempt at seduction. pretty good story, but Chad was laughing so hard through the telling it was hard to follow. We all howled through the telling of these tales, but when DR's turn came to tell all she would not come clean. The next time we took a break for a smoke she told me hers: a gas attack while performing at a gymnastic meet.

That was all it took! I didn't tell a soul, didn't even threaten to (much) but her ears were red for the rest of the night!

'You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead' -The Beatles
Best friend? No prob! Drly, you is the bees knees! You crack me up with your 'what' attitude and your instant blush that extends from ear to ear. For all my quiet wit and flamboyant humor, you always come up with the best ones; "On my birthday, Wink? You don't have to get me anything big, just expensive!" You're funny, DR! I like that about you. In fact, I like a whole lot about you. In fact, I like absolutely everything about you!

You are always there for me, DR. Always. There when life gets tough, and even tougher, there when life gets mind-numbingly dull. I can be everything I am with you: so mad I rant for days, so deep I make references to Jupiter in making a point about the neighbors, so sad I can't think straight through my tears, so happy-go-lucky self-confident I'm bouncing-off-the-walls obnoxious, so full of self-doubt that I question my every act, tone, motivation, and word. Our knowledge and trust of each other is strong enough that you take it all in stride, and dish it right back. And me? I do the same for you, babe. Always. There for you, DRly. Forever.

Ours is a true Firesign Theater kind of relationship: if I'd call out "Olympia!"
You'd automatically return:
"Oh Sirius, my friend, what has happened to your nose?"

After that, what more is there to say? Our friendship is perfect. There is one more thing I will say though, "DR, you have touched me deep in my heart more times than I can count. Then, smiling, I'll add, "You DR, you, I love you."

- written for the AOL's Best Friend board in September, 1998

The absolute, very best thing I ever did for DR was getting her reading. It was when she was around 14, or maybe 15 that I finally bugged her enough that she tried her first novel, Starship Trooper by Robert Heinlein. A truly terrible book (I didn't think so at 16) but from then on she was hooked. What book we were reading at the time was always a hot topic for us. We'd fill each other in on the good ones, steer each other away from the bad ones. We both agreed reading does you all sorts of good as a human: making you more aware of your day-to-day by broadening your horizons, giving you humility by giving you knowledge of humanity beyond your own, increasing your empathy by reading about inner stuff, giving your brain and imagination exercise… I'm happy I helped her become an avid reader. Her favorites? Well, she had too many good authors she liked to list here. Her tops? She did love a good Anne Rice, Martin Cruz… and she loved John Le Carre. I loved her for that.:

There is so much of life that is so unexplainable. I hope Nate does well.

There is a book the school (Ancilla) puts out and it has poems and short stories, There is a page in it that is dedicated to Deirdre, it has some of the memories we shared with your family during the memorial, I could get you a copy if you would like one?!

Some of us from Ancilla, got together and got some Nate the Great books for the Culver Elementary school library. We wanted so, to do something in her memory. I remember her everyday. She really can't be forgotten, she was so much fun.
-Jean Ahlenius

I performed an American Indian grief ritual the other day while turning the compost. I'd read about the ritual several months ago in a web search I was playing with in a dull, direction-less haze. Then yesterday, I thought Now just as clear as anything. Feeling a present oneness and with clarity, I:

-Drank in nature; the newly-leafed trees swayed in a slight breeze, the heavy brown ripeness of the compost pile and the earthen smell of its warmth, the bluebells Nat had planted for me were blooming, as were, clumps of daffodils. The squirrels busily scampered about their day. A broken toy laying on its side. My neighbor's house. My house. The cloudless sky. The stars that lie beyond. Life. The universe is the language of God. I listen.

-Dug a hole within the compost pile. Imagining that the grief I put into the hole would someday fertilize my humanness just as surely as the weeds and vegetable scrapes I add will someday fertilize my plants.

-Turned to the north and thanked DR for all she had taught me. My lord, it was a lot! Most of all she taught me who I am by allowing me to be who I am. And I did the same for her. Always. We were never cheap facsimiles there-of, unless for a joke.

-Turned to the east and thanked DR for all her faults. Ah! She was human! I lose sight of this in my longings for her! Only human myself, I hold on tighter to her good as my memory of her fades. But she was a whole and would feel very uncomfortable up on the pedestal of rightness; although, jokingly, she'd have had a great time playing with the idea of others putting her there.

-Turned to the south and thanked DR for all the good times we had. Memory upon memory upon memory upon memory came until I found myself on my knees crying like it was the first moment I knew her to be gone. Oh, my DRly - how I loved you!!

-Turned to the west and thanked DR for the lessons of her leaving. I have resolved so much with DR leaving. I am now more firmly who I am. I no longer am walking the edge of acting on my need to be liked. I resolved so much with Mom and Sam - I feel I gained them back. I am resolving the inner turmoil-filled dichotomies of my life of 'seeming' with T and Gretch. I embrace each of my family in there weaknesses and strengths now. And know -- I know -- that their hows and whats and whos are theirs to work on and work out. My job is myself. In regard to them, my job is simply to be there, and to love.

-Turned back to the north, I thanked the world for existing.

-Then I filled the hole, with my gathered leaves and grasses, with the moisty-half dirt of the part-done compost. With each shove full I breathed in nature, and wiped my tears, and thanked all that was present for witnessing my grief.

I felt at peace. A sad peace, but peace. I had learned a way to go on. Grief is a spiritual journey of one. I felt that I had given my grief to everything, and that I received in return the balance which everything had to give back. We are, each and every one of us, never alone - when we embrace the strength of our humanness.

I've dreamt of you more this week than any other single month since I lost you. And my dreams of you all have Chicago in them.

In the first one, I found out that you were living in some guy's inner coat jacket in Chicago. Wild. You were hanging around with some women of ill repute and they were trying to turn you into one of their kind. I tried to get you to come home and had almost talked you into it when the people that had spirited you away from home put your apartment's coat (with you in it) in with a whole closet full of identical men's coats. I looked and looked through all the coats but could only find satin lining. None had stairs, or apartments, or you. I sat down in the middle of that enormous closet and cried and cried and cried. I awoke from this dream thinking of a field filled with clovers, and a certain elephant, and Whos who can't be seen or heard.

Two nights later I dreamt I was at the lake just messing around outside when Deirdre came up behind me and goosed me. "DR!!!" I cried. "But, my God, I thought, I mean we all thought, I mean… But where have you been?" She laughed and said she'd been hiding out in Chicago for a while. We smiled. We hugged. We talked. At one point I asked her how she liked the new roof, she replied, "Awesome! Wow, we finally got it done! But why didn't you paint the place before I got back while you were at it?" I laughed, same old DR! The dream was gloriously long and DR and I spent a whole day together. It was wonderful, even when I woke up.

And then, on yet another night we were at the lake. You were taking a swim before you had to catch a bus to Chicago to die. We were both quite calm. In my dream I watched you swim under water and very nonchalantly thought how full of life you were to be ready to die. You smiled and scrunched down to drain water from your suit as you came up the ladder. "Ah, good to get a last swim in!" you said, and then I awoke to find my eyes filled with tears.

I had a good time with DR online. We would buddy chat and go look for public chats. We once crashed the chat room The Zen Garden as anonymous strangers ( DR and I didn't admit we knew each other). It was hosted by a woman DR called Sepha-hefha-hopona-polis. I remember spilling out my views black on white, letter upon letter, to the computer screen - picking my deepest and most outrageous theories - and DR backing me up with replies in a 'say wait a minute, maybe she's on to something ' sort of way that one stranger might to another. We kept it up until her and I, virtual strangers in the garden, turned into fast pals typing things like, "I never thought I'd meet a person who thought like me!" and "Where have you been hiding?" High School-ish, we knew, but fun for all that. Our private chats were the best. Sillier. Much LOL'ing. And even some ROTFLOL'ing. We had the lingo, we played with the sounds, we cracked jokes, and pretended moods, and generally let it all hang out online. I wish I would have kept each and every log of our chats. I could use a good Drly JAJ right now.

Her fate was not cruel. I believe that. There was no fair or unfair in her death. That that is is, death comes to all. That that is not now is work for the living. But still I ask myself, how? How? How?

It can't be. Six months after her death I'm still longing to hear DR's voice, to watch DR's precious hands doodling or breaking twigs as we talk, to look into her beautiful light brown eyes once more and say, "Drly." In no other voice did I speak to DR but the voice of love. And I always heard her love for me in the simple act of her saying my name back. We could have stopped there and been fulfilled. Just names. Just our tone of voices. Validation. Love. Oh, how I loved that DR! And oh, how she loved me!

It can't be. It simply can not be that I will live the rest of my life without her! I feel emptiness as large as a cavern in my soul. The future seems drained of color, for it was in large part she who colored my world each day with her love and understanding, and most of all hope. I ask myself, did I appreciate what I had? Did I realize in the time of being with DR our love and closeness? Did I know the preciousness of what we had? Yes, I answer myself. I drank her in fully, moment by moment, always and forever. It's but a small comfort not to have regrets on this theme, no matter how you use your time with someone, once you use it it's gone.

Oh, how we synced! We were for each other. We shared with each other what we didn't share with anyone else, because we were help-mates, and companions on the road of life, and more-than-just-friends. Every once in a while we'd kid around about wanting to each other's wife. "Every mother needs a good wife," she'd say. And I'd say, "I do," in a somber voice. Oh how we laughed!

We laughed. How maudlin the words are now! The fullness of their meaning is gone forever! Oh, the sheer power of feelings!

She was. Now, she is not.

It can't be.

For a time, fate will be unkind to me. Fate handed me with her death a sorrow filling me to overflowing. With her loss, fate has planted within me a place that's so dark and lost and without hope, and so full of pain there is no getting around it - at least not today. This place within me shrinks and grows, but never, ever leaves me. Each and every day, right in the middle of my day-to-day joys, that mourning space stops me and I remember my Drly.

Once when we were young, I stole some money from the older girls. DR then liberated the money from me. She was not so good at being bad, she took off for the corner store up Guilford street with several neighborhood friends and generally made a show of her new found wealth. Of course, Mom and Dad found out. DR got in serious trouble. I remember laying on my back on Gram's bed in the front room listening to the punishment DR was getting upstairs in Mom and Dad's room and wondering when she was going to come clean that I was the one who stole the money originally. She never did. I was dumbfounded. I wanted her to squeal me out, I knew Mom and Dad would leave her alone and focus on me with the punishment if she did, but she didn't. I lay there for hours hitting my stomach as my punishment for allowing DR to take my punishment.

Farewell Kiss

Deirdre, I missed my chance to give you a farewell kiss when your eyes still shone, and your mind still co-ordinated your you so you-ishly in your flesh so yieldingly warm. No matter. Today, I smile and imagine the smile upon your brow for I can't be sad without you. Not today. Today, rich, cascading memories of our lifetime together fill me full. Our lifetime. I never lived separated from you for long my Drly, our lives were connected deep within our knowledge of each other.
I miss you Deirdre of my childhood; slight, blonder of hair each summer with freckles adorning your childish face, longer hair than you'll ever have again, elfish smile. You who were so full of fiery passions made me in large part who I am. We are connected in this, even though I stand separate now, you are here within who I am. I remember you, my arm-in-arm playmate, my bunk bed buddy, my antagonist of the clean room. I remember you in every variation. And in every variation you were loved.
I miss you Deirdre of my adulthood, miss you more than I can say. We gave up our frustrations of each other growing up. You mellowed, I mellowed. We were true blue and honest friends. We were authentic selves to the core, and to the core loved one another. Deirdre, who knew, but didn't know, her beauty. Short haired Deirdre, full of action and on the job (slave-dog deluxe), or comfy letting-it-all-hang-out relaxed. I remember you in every variation. And in every variation you were loved.
Lord, we had a great time of it! What a run of love! We were the best!
I celebrate you today DR! For now I know I need never have given my good-bye kiss. You will always be here with me. Always.

March 17th, 2001


Simply put, I miss you - miss you with all I am. How can this be? My Drly, my sister in goodness, my sister in crime… how can this be that you are not here to reach out to, to connect with, to love?

I had a dream the other night, where you were to die by laying down on one of the iron lawn chairs at the lake. You were so calm about dying. I was furious with you! "Don't you love me? Don't you know how much I love you?" I shouted. Then, when you wouldn't react, "Don't you leave me!!" "It's okay," you said. And, "Don't worry, Wink, I want to die. It's my time. It's meant to be." I tried to stop you. I held you back. Oh, how I struggled with your dream self! But your strength of purpose was too strong, and you laid down, and then you died. All of my grief came back to me afresh.

Liss told me she thought the dream was your way of telling me to let you go. My brain hurts thinking of attempting this! How? How can I let you go? How could I ever let the love we felt leave me? Impossible. It would be a diminishment of myself. I go on, I must go on, I want to go on. But I go on with you, always. Forever.

Dr of my memory, you want to know one that would crack you up? If there is a next life, and if we get a choice - pretty big ifs - then I want to be the next door girl to your next door boy (or maybe we could be lesbians? Don't know if I want to do that guy thing... and I know you wouldn't…) and we'd know each other the best from the start and get to live together for all of our lives, raising our babies together. You see, Tim I love deeply and dearly - he could be my closest friend - but I've always loved your spirit the best of all. Okay, so I'm nuts. You of anybody - Drly who knew me best, Drly now of my memory- already knew that. ::smile::

September 19, 2001


I have lost the poignancy of you. I don't remember you as a you. Your photographs have become flat shots of a real groovy gal I once knew, but for the life of me I can't fathom who you were - fleshed out and three-dimensional - anymore. I have lost you as a known. My God, I truly have lost you! My DR! My heart breaks once more! Good-bye!

And yet…

On the phone from time to time we'd do this: "Okay you say good-bye first." "Okay. Good-bye." "Okay. See ya … Are you still there?" "Yeah." "Okay, then good-bye." "Bye." "I'll talk to you tomorrow?" "You betcha, babe!" "Okay, then good-bye." "Good-bye." … "You didn't hang up, did you?" "No… did you?" (laughs) "Come on, Wink. Say good-bye!" "Okay, DR. Bye!" "No, say a real good-bye!" "Only if you do first!" "No, you." "Okay. Good-bye." "Okay. See ya." … "DR, are you still there?" (giggles) "…yes…" We'd laugh and say our good-byes for a good long time.

Oh, how I pray memories of us will visit me always! Bringing me bright, vivid you-ness like the sun sharply swaying in and out of summer branches. DR, I never could say a real good-bye to you.

Gretchen sent the next two items to everyone along with some DR pictures she had copied and/or scanned…
"In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember." -Author?

The rugged old Norsemen spoke of Death as Heimagang - Home going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death's arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit, waited on, watched over, noticed only by their maker, each arriving at its own heaven dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sun beam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life's feast - all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. Our lives are rounded with a sleep.
- John Muir

Some stuff Lindsay sent:I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. (Hang ten!!)

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. (believe in yourself...you're worth it!)

Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy. (DR has a piece of our hearts)

Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood. (sisters are not only blood relatives)

Many argue; not many converse. (in the name of the child what do we claim for ourselves)

Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her. (DR would want you to continue to be Wink)

I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
Be Thou my guide until I find
Led by a tender hand,
The happy kingdom in myself
And dare to take command.
-Lindsay parkhurst

In Dealing with Loss, I Write

More than any other life happening loss is a life short story. Loss has a beginning, a middle, and an end that each of us that lose must live, for as long we must live it. How each loss story unfolds is as unique as the twinning of the self and the lost other. We start in common though, we who have loss, for at the beginning of each story is an end...

I drove on in shaky blind panic. I shouted deep and insistent, over and over to the universe what must be, "No. No. No. She can't go! She can't leave me!" Then the call came and my husband's words piped thin by the car phone's speaker marked the start of my loss, "Honey, you need to pull off the road." But I didn't stop. I couldn't. I drove hard on through my dread. My best friend, my sister, was gone. I drove on in a tunnel of dulled aloneness -- a place apart from all I had been. My best friend, my sister, was gone! Colors slipped by in gray, my focus was ashen. Never have I known such pain of spirit. I thought, "How am I doing this? How can I breath, see, be, with such a great part of me gone?" I could not imagine ever finding a way to live outside of grief again. My DR! How could you be gone? We were each other's lifeline. We were soul mates. We were; now we aren't. I drove on. I was numbed by nevermores. I thought, "In marking my life, everything leading to this moment is before, everything to come is after." Everything. Before. Everything. After. I drove numbed by the finality, the immensity of her loss. After miles sunk earth deep in sorrow and heaven high in questing, I stopped and cried the bottleneck of my grief then took deep breaths and continued. A boundless time later I was there with her.
With her.
With her gone.

Oh, how precious was the spark that fueled my sister! She was gone! My heart sank into the loss, as my knees sank to the floor. My sister, my best friend - the best in my life for all my life - was gone! Not one second ever, ever, ever again would we have! She had left me! She had gone! Too soon, oh, too, too soon the door to her entirety was shut.

In the middle of the story the plot thickens; shock leads to anguish, anguish to numbness as loss is assimilated.
The first days passed fast, filled with plots and sub-plots and differing needs and past slights while each and every one of the family worked through her death by directing their attentions firmly on Nate, eight years old and motherless. Why? Why couldn't we have just grieved DR? She deserved her own time to be remembered and loved and said good-bye to within our hearts, within the family. I had even thought in my confused yearning and yielding and searching as I drove away from the last moments with her that her spirit might mend the old hurts - DR's fondest wish - but with one sister's sadly displeased, "This is how she lived?" as she looked around her room, I knew that wish would never, ever be realized. There can be no healing were there can be no change. On that very first day, another sister said, "I just can't grieve DR until I know concretely what is going to happen with Nate." My anger rose! How could someone not grieve you who truly loved you? My grief was immediate! My grief was all consuming! My grief threatened my very existence! Oh, my sister, I loved you! How I loved you! There is no memory of mine I can bring up that doesn't have you intertwined! If you weren't there for the actual event, your reaction was gained shortly thereafter. We shared everything! Everything! How could you be gone? Oh, how could you leave me? "I just can't grieve DR until I know concretely what is going to happen with Nate." How could someone who knew you not realize Nate was with the ones who loved him the deepest and knew him the best. In the end, isn't that what counts finally? The greatest of these is love. He was where he belonged. Oh, I was lost to it all! My grief, my anger, my anguish, they consumed me! But then nothing mattered those first few days - except for Nate, except for Mom, except for Lissa - because she was gone. We who knew her day to day knew this only, exclusively, and above all: she was gone. I felt I'd never find meaning to anything ever again. Her life and mine were too intertwined.

When I returned home to my children and husband, I lived my days in a dream world of shock. I'd catch little shots of her essence: not memories exactly, more like glimpses. DR gets out of her van with a 'you-who'. DR, dressed in sweats and uggs and holding her coffee cup opens up my back door to go have a smoke. DR sprawls on a cushion on the living room floor watching a video. DR hugs Nate. DR wrestling Nate. DR tickling Nate. DR kissing Nate. These glimpses of her kept pace with me through out the days, until all I wanted was to lay down and give in to them, revel in them, and eventually revile them for their hold on me. Oh, I know I will go on without her, but what a cold world it will be that does not have her in it! I feel I have to tell the world about its loss, to yell who she was to the farthest corners of existence! This was DR! This treasure of a friend! This lovely, kind, generous, giving, forgiving, hating, loving, true-to-life, making her mistakes and living with them and making them again, honestly beautiful, and wise woman was gone! She was gone! Her essence was much too precious to be left to a mere 'she once was'! Much, much too precious! Life is at its rawest with death; what you live you inevitably lose. And if you live by opening up to another so deeply you become a part of something bigger than yourself and the other combined, you run the risk of becoming irreclaimable altered with the loss of that togetherness. I lost DR, and I lost myself in the process. To this extent did I love my sister, my best friend, my DR.

Here my loss story pauses, several weeks from her death. What grief will I grieve in the days to come? My desolation lingers. I'm deprived of vitality losing her vitality. She was so human, so real, so DR. In pain, I'm sure my sorrow must last the rest of my days, but in my writing I feel a twinge of healing already begin.
But, oh, what direction will I find without her? There is a past who that I was, and will never be again. Forevermore, she is gone! And a present me whom I don't want to be for my anger consumes me! Why must we fight, when we should grieve?

The end of a loss story is the beginning of everyday life returned. I know from experience the end of loss creeps up slow and indistinct, in bits-and-pieces and all-at-onces you are happier today than the day before. Then, finally, a day comes where your emptiness is replaced with a quiet ache, another badge of humanness to carry for life.

Looking into the future I see hope peeking through my grief. Life will reassert itself, which is the way it should be. What will remain from my loss is what I have learned knowing my dearest friend and sister. At the end of my loss story I will be left with this: whatever else I may be in my life, I will always be kind and generous, playful and full of laughter. I will always be DR's sister.

Quotes ~~~

Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated. -Allphonse de Lamartine
~~~~~
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough. -Seneca
~~~~~
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you just like everybody else, is to fight the hardest battle there is to fight and to never stop fighting. ~ e. e. cummings
~~~~~
"O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?" - W.B. Yeats
~~~~~
"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." - Cicero
~~~~~
Pain penetrates me drop by drop. -Sappho

12/12/01
I was thinking today of the past. The Millennium craze. How 2000 came and went without undue societal upheaval. That it took one year, nine months, eleven days, and several crazed humans to make real the panic we all felt back in the last days of 1999. I was remembering the little things back then: how I wasn't really panicked but did put in a supply of canned goods and water. I was remembering the feeling of dread and being on the edge of something, and as I remember back now I never did have a 'whew, it was nothing' reaction after the New Year came and went. The world did not spiral out of control; nothing terrible happened at the start of the new century, life went on as normal for most. As for me? 2000 was all my worst nightmares realized. I lost you.

Once, when little Matt was little, Mom and DR were watching him. Mom and Deirdre were out in the kitchen. The scanner was on. Across the scanner came Matt's little voice, 4140, 4140, when you coming home Mom? We use to say this to each other when we felt a little lost ourselves.
-Fran Hatton

3/22/05

Another dream:

Your face, smiling.

I turn to you, smiling.

I place a palm on each cheek, cupping your precious face.

Slowly and lovingly,
I say,
"DR! What a treat!"

I cherish being able to say the words.

You smile crookedly
and your ears turn red under my scrutiny.

Then I wake up.


I miss you.

Maybe our goal should Not be to arrive safely in heaven with an attractive and well preserved body, but to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "W00 HOO! What a ride!"
-sent by Gretchen 3/2005

Sunset

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, on sinks to earth,
  leaving you,
    not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs - leaving you
   (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
    your own life,
timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out
one moment your life is a stone in you,
   and the next,
     a star.

- Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die,
be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

- Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation

you always seemed to find a way to love without conditions
your heart open to every joy
ready for the chances to be filled with life
present in the moment with love
you are alive in my life
even though i swear i don't deserve it
but despite myself, my life is blessed
with your love in my heart and my mind
JH
04/15/15

"Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are."

- St. John Chrysostom.

When I die if you need to weep
Cry for your brother or sister
walking the street beside you
And when you need me, put your arms around anyone
And give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something
Something better than words or sounds.
Look for me in the people I've known or loved
And if you cannot give me away
At least let me live in your eyes and not your mind.

You can love me most by letting hands touch hands
By letting bodies touch bodies
And letting go of children that need to be free.
Love doesn't die, people do
So when all that's left of me is love
Give it away.

-Merrit Malloy

For the last 19 years, Mothers Day has been my least favorite holiday. Actually that doesn’t come close to describing it, I dreaded this day every single year. Every card I saw at the store, every commercial on tv made me bitter. I would shut down and block everything out. The pain would come back and I would think to myself “why did this happen to me”. Why did my mom have to leave when I was so young, there was so much she had to teach me.

She wasn’t going to be able to see me grow up, to see the games, the school plays, the concerts, or to see me graduate from school. She wouldn’t see my struggles, going to college and making mistakes all over the place. She wouldn’t see me find a profession and have successes in my professional life. Or see how lost I got. She wouldn’t see me find the love of my life and see me become a dad. All these things constantly ran through my head. All that I was missing or that she was missing.

A few weeks ago we had something scary happen to us and I won’t go in to detail about it(we’re all okay now) but we are leaving the hospital and I plug my phone in to play some music, which is usually Kortney’s job, and the first song that comes up on shuffle is 7 by prince. Ever since I lost my mom, that song is the one thing I most associate with her, it always makes me think of her and comforts me. I told Kortney the significance of the song and we both cried and drove home.

Looking back that song playing could have been just random chance, I mean I only have like 200 songs on my phone so it’s a 1 in 200 chance that was going to happen. But I think it was something more than that. It was my mom telling us she was there for us and that she was with us the entire way. It made me think of everything that she had missed and it made me realize that she hadn’t really missed anything. She was there for every single moment in my life. Every triumph and every setback, she was there.

There’s a bigger plan out there and I truly believe that God needed my mom somewhere else on that March day 20 years ago. It’s taken me a long time to get to that point and some days are harder than others. I think that’s what happens when you lose someone close to you, the pain doesn’t go away you just find ways to manage it. It’s been 20 years since I last saw my mom. It’s starting to get harder to remember what her voice sounded like, but I do remember how great of a mom she was. I remember how kind she was and how every single person who met her loved her.

This Mother’s Day I’m celebrating my wife, it’s the first time since 1999 that I can truly say that I am celebrating this holiday. I’m so thankful for that. I can look back now and see how lucky I was to have the people I have had in my life. My Aunt Liss, Gram, my dad, all my other aunts and family members have stepped up in some way for me and have filled the void that was created 20 years ago. I’ve been bad at expressing gratitude for that. I l owe so much to so many people, especially my Aunt Liss.

My heart goes out to all those who are hurting on this Mother’s Day and I hope that you have people in your life that can make you appreciate this day and will give you the chance to celebrate it. I know I do. -Nate Niswander

To my mother-in-law in Heaven,
Happy Mother’s Day. Although we never met, I owe you all that I have. Thank you for everything you did to give me the husband I have today. I have listened to his stories about you, and I have read what others said after you were gone. You sound so amazing. I know you are the reason for Nate’s calm and loving spirit, as well as his spunkiness.
You showed him how to love me the right way. You showed him what it means to be an amazing parent. He is the best dad that Harrison could ever ask for, I know you see it. I pray that one day God gives me the opportunity to make him a dad all over again.
I hope that I am able to carry on where you left off, but I have some big shoes to fill. I promise to show your son all the love you did during the time you were on this earth. I will hold him close and be there for him, always. I will not take your work for granted.
Today is a hard day for my husband, your only son. It’s not easy without you and he misses you so much. I will never be able to take your place because nobody ever could. You are Nate’s foundation and a driving factor behind all that he does. I am forever grateful.
To the mother I never knew, Deirdre Niswander, I love you. See you on the other side.

When I think of my little sister I think of love! Love of life, love of food, of her family and LOVE of her son Nathan!
My but Deirdre was an incredible cook! She could put flavors together that would never occur to me and we had many wonderful meals together!
There are so many memories I could share here, Our standing Sunday night bowling date with Nate and my Matty both little tikes then, memories of growing up with her etc. etc... When I read Katinka' s encouragement to add a memory here, one specific memory came immediately to my mind. Two days after giving birth to her son Nate, Deirdre came to live at the lake.
I couldn't wait to see her and when I heard she was there I went rushing over. Deirdre was in her bedroom feeding new son. I entered the room and stopped short, "Oh! Deirdre" escaping from my lips. She looked up and she had tears in her eyes. She had a look of such joy and love on her face! A look I had never seen on her before. All I could do was to studder " Thank you so much for giving him to us"! She slowly nodded her head in agreement and went back to peering at him. When I think of my sister now I know she is still as always there with him.

Facebook Gathered Memories

• We were snowed in and the roads were slick. We pulled each other down the road with no sleds, just sitting or on our backs. We giggled like crazy on a beautiful evening.
  -Sheila McGrath
  
• The St patrick’s Day parade in Chicago with a view from a building!! The kids loved it!!
  -Claudia Huth McGee
  
• Finding out her dream name as a kid would have been Darlene. priceless. -Tim Dixon
  LOL Tim! I had forgotten this! -Liss Niswander
  You've got to admit: Deirdre Darlene has a heck of a ring to it. -Wink
  Did then...still does! I remember Matt heard the name when he was little and would occasionally call her Deirdre Darling.-Liss Niswander
  
• I always loved her laugh.
  -Henna parkhurst
  
• She and Gretchen taught me and my brother how to ski off the ole Blue Century. Oh so many years ago.
  -patrick Walsh
  
• I think of the secret language we all had *annnt*! The amazing photos she took with her camera. The way she cooked by straight up intuition, including fresh salad dressing with me following her putting things away as she cooked only to say hey where did that go? Me: I'm helping and laughing. Venturing out sailing with her and tipping the Hobbie cat and it nearly sinking to the bottom of the lake because we forgot the plugs for the hull and being saved by Joe Schaub. Me promising her that I would personally kill spiders when we lived together. Why were there so many centipedes? Walking the neighborhood calling Lover!! when our cat escaped and ran away... God I miss her.
  -Gretchen Nichols
  

More memories, love, Wink

We ride our bikes up and down the cobblestone street on a sunny August day, singing Simon and Garfunkel's 59 Street Feelin' Groovy, "Slow down, you're moving to fast, you got to make the morning last…" All is right in the world, as long a chain doesn't slip and Mom doesn't call us to do chores.

We run as fast as we can across our big backyard. Suddenly, I leap into the air, pitch forward. My right hand reconnects with the ground for a bare split second then rejoins the sky, my left hand does the same. My body twists. My legs moving together to create more momentum. I come down to earth with more force than when I left it. Landing in a slight crouch, I straighten to a solid stand while my arms fly out in a 'V'. The power and joy of a well executed round-off again and again and again… and again. DR and I logged days of fun of cartwheeling and round-offing. Deir took her round-off on the road and made the gymnastic team in her middle school years. I was in awe of what she could do on the balance beam and uneven bars. She flipped and soared and (mostly)always landed squarely where she meant to. It was a great self esteem booster for DR.

We are in a contest to see who can ride their bikes the most times around the basketball court. My secret weapon is the oranges I have in my bicycle's basket. I won't even have to stop for lunch! (Of course, the court is small enough that the circles our bikes take us in will make us dizzy way before lunch, but a good plan beats reality each and every time I relive this.)

Mom plugs up the drainage hole on the basketball court and fills it with water. Splashing, pouring, muddy fun in the summer- skating, slippery, snowy fun in the winter. What more could a kid ask for?

We play at the dinning room table. Mom has allowed us kids to take it over for days of block forts and forests, doll houses and adventure. Our imagination fills the whole table.

I'm sitting expectantly at the top of the staircase, in the middle, because we wait to come downstairs on Christmas morning youngest to oldest. Deir is sitting just below me. The winding stair case is wrapped with pine fir roping and our stockings are hung starting on the third and fourth rung. If we peek over, we can catch a glimpse of what Santa has brought us. Sometimes dad marches us through the living room with our hands set to not peek on the wrong side. How I loved those stolen glances at the presents under the tree! Christmas was filled with magic!

I climb in the highest branches of the redbud tree. Fearful of falling, I persevere because the seed pods are 'money' and if I pick the last few I will be the richest kid in the world.

Dad throws his arms around mom from behind for a 'while-she-is-cooking-dinner' snuggle. She giggles and says, "Oh dear! Now, you stop that!". DR and I share a giggle. I feel warm and safe in the glow of their love.

In keeping the good of our childhood close I keep the joy in life. Such happy times (and not) with my childhood buddies: DR and Dave and Matt and Gretch.

And yet more memories, all of them you and I doing, doing, doing:
In (sort of) order of when we where very young to older,

Mud pies made in pie pans mom would give us. We even tried one, yuck!

Our contest to see who can follow what the other does when we slept together. Raise your left arm, raise your right hand only with your arm across your stomach, raise your left leg and flex your foot, put your arm above the other's face and hold it while lifting your right leg... we could play for hours. Especially when it was summer and it was too bright to sleep.

All of us neighborhood kids having parades through the yard in Huntington. You had to have a picked flower to be a part of the snakey train of marching fun. Biggest stalk lead the group. Mom not only approved, but helped by cutting the flowers. Did she teach us this game or did we make it up and she came to her gardens' rescue in helping us? Can't remember. I do remember when Gretch would join she was so little we had to tiny step march. The older boys never joined, their loss! We'd sing, "I love a parade, love a parade, love a parade!"

Tumbling across the backyard in Huntington. Somersaults, forwards, backwards, sideways, diving on the ground. Running cartwheels and roundoff. You doing backbends I was so proud, and a little jealous of.

Red Light, Green Light among the fireflies on summer nights.

Dancing wildly in the Huntington house's, on the two painted antique chests in the living room. We have Ray Stevens, "Gitarzan Man" on the record player. "Shut up, Jane, I'm trying to sing!"

The water gymnastics routine we perfected in the pool:
Stand facing each other holding hands. She slides feet first and back to the bottom under my legs, I wait a beat then dive over her into a front somersault.
We end back to back, sitll holding hands. Then...
I slides feet first and stomach to the bottom under DR's legs, in doing this she pulls me into a open back flip when the first is part through.
We end face to face, sitll holding hands. Then...
Repeat, or stop and smile at each other for a job well done. Fun!

I remember more, more, more I'll save for another day because reality beckons!

I leave having fun imagining all of us walking arms locked on shoulders, crossing leg walking throughout our days.

Still miss you. Still love you. My DR.