How did she die, and why do I care?

There are many obsessions in my life, chief among them finding great cups of coffee, outstanding chocolates, and off-the-beaten-path yummy eateries. These obsessions are socially acceptable.
What bothers people, namely my husband and children, is the obsession I have over figuring out how  young people die. My husband and daughters tell me that I am moribund and waste my time investigating the deaths of people I do not know, nor have ever met.
Look. I read obituaries with the same kind of interest that others hold when they read biographies of famous people. It is my life's philosophy that every person, no matter how long he or she has lived, has a story to tell. As such, I truly enjoy a well-crafted obituary. The Sunday Kansas City Star is my favorite source, as no fewer than seventy-five death notices are published then. Between discovering interesting names (Syd Sidebottom) and amazing achievements and/or actions ("When she was eleven years old, Melinda cut the word impossible out of the dictionary."), I am generally inspired to go out into the world and Do Something Important by the time I've read the final obituary. Besides, by the time I'm finished with the listings, my coffee has run cold.
 
This obsession isn't a fun one. I get depressed when I read the obits of children who have passed, especially the ones who die during their teen years. Having raised three children into adulthood, it strikes me as particularly crushing and soul-wounding, to have loved a child into his high school years and then  lose him right before it's time to graduate, to head to college, to realize childhood ambitions. At its core, I believe it is wrong for a parent to have to bury a child, no matter how old that child is. I am reminded of a saying: You bury a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, in the ground. You bury a child in your heart. There is not a day goes by that I do not worry about my children, that I do not have anxiety over all the What-ifs that befall young people. I pray to God that they are safe and out of harm's way.
Still. Young people die. Parents bury their children. I have a close friend whose son died riding his beloved motorcycle on the Fourth of July. A brand-new high school graduate, he and a friend were taking a quick bike ride before heading over to a relative's house for a celebration. A drunk driver turned right in front of him on a country road. He died instantly. The drunk driver walked away, unscathed.
My friend has never, will never, be the same. Her marriage ended and her joy dwindled. Three years later, I cannot look at her without thinking that she is a mother who buried her child. It is my first thought. I wrote this young man's obituary and typed through my tears. I also wrote my dad's obituary and my mother's. When my sweet aunt died a few months after my mom's passing, I said to my sister, You have to write Aunt Jannie's. I can't do it again.

Still, I read the obits. In a way, I feel that readership is necessary, that it is important to read about the people who were here on a Tuesday and gone on a Wednesday, and that by reading about their lives, their lives have meaning and they will be remembered. For many people, the only time their name is in the paper is in an alphabetized fashion on that page of remembrances.
I am particularly sad when I read about a young mom taken by breast cancer, who leaves children of the home, or a young father who fights for his country and never comes home, or for the young father who drowns in a lake on a Saturday night and is survived by two boys, ages three and six.
Sometimes, I experience anger, when an obit of a three year old is sandwiched between the obits of a ninety-one-year old named John and a ninety-four-year-old named Josephine.  Little Allie Fisher never started kindergarten. Where is the justice for her? Why do some people get to be so old and others die before they've barely begun to live?

There are cancers and accidents and house fires and military deaths (Army Staff Sgt. Jesse L. Thomas Jr., 31, of Pensacola, Fla.; Army Lt. Col. Todd J. Clark, 40, of Evans Mills, N.Y.; Army Maj. Jaimie E. Leonard, 39, of Warwick, N.Y.) There are deaths from natural causes, like with the Johns and Josephines of the world who get to be in their nineties, and, hey, let's face it, that's pretty damned old. There are homicides and suicides and heart attacks and folks who die peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by family. Usually, the cause of death can be determined by the context of each obituary: "The family requests donations to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers" ... "Contributions may be made to the American Heart Association."

And then there are the obits that don't make any sense, the ones that make me go all Nancy Drew trying to figure out why the person died. Someone like Andrea Beerman, a thirty-four-year old dentist of Westood Hills, Kansas, who passed away June 11, 2013. She wasn't old, that's for sure. We can rule out natural causes. Newly married, Andrea Beerman had a thriving dental practice in the Kansas City area.
Why is she gone? She was educated and ambitious and had her shit together. She volunteered in Honduras and El Salvador to provide dentistry to the underprivileged. She ran marathons and practiced yoga. She served on the board of the Timber Creek Retreat House.
There's nothing in the obituary that explains her passing. She is pictured, young and beautiful and healthy-looking, an enormous smile on her pretty face.
How did she die?
Why do I care?
***
I don't know the answer to that last question. I guess I want to try to make sense of things, to intellectualize that thirty-four-year-old yoga-running women don't just die randomly. It's something I need to make sense of. I've got children in their twenties. I want to think that if they lead healthy lives and make good decisions and stay away from drugs and crack houses and abusive relationships, and always wear their seatbelts and never drive drunk, they'll be okay. They'll live to be old people and they will bury me, not the other way around.

Oldest love, sweetest love

Last night I dreamed, again, of an old love. Since turning forty, this guy in my past drops by in my dreams with wonderful regularity. It is though he is telling me, Hey, I'm still around. We had a good thing when we were kids, didn't we? Don't forget me. Don't forget us. My psyche agrees: You need never to forget him; you are not too adult to discount the most romantic relationship you ever had. Enjoy yourself, Kathleen. Wrap yourself in the memory of that love.
Yes, we did have a good thing. He was my first love, and therefore my sweetest, most uncomplicated love. We were young and unencumbered. We never fought over money or children or his golf club purchase or yet another expensive face cream showing up on a bathroom counter. We didn't have middle-aged spare tires and aches and pains. We had each other's youth and ambition; we had endless summer days and nights when school was out. We had hand-holding and stolen kisses and the occasional titillating grope sitting next to each other in the dark of his basement. We never had sex, which tends to ruin things, complicate matters. We had childhood innocence and the kind of kid happiness that is prevalent until the realities of adulthood start to wear on the natural joy of being alive.
If we ever fought, I don't remember why, or when, or how we might have made up. All of my memories surrounding my first love ~ when we were together ~ are positive and happy. When he would leave, for a summer afternoon, or a holiday event with extended family, or even for a nightly baseball game with his father, I would pine and wallow in a private misery that would have no audience. I didn't have the most supportive family, and had they known of my heart's allegiance to this backyard boy, they would have teased me mercilessly.
As many first loves go, this relationship ended in no official manner. There were no I-don't-like-you-anymore-leave-me-alone declarations. Neither of us stalked the other. There was no public tantrum complete with name-calling and tears. Our love withered on the vine of adolescence, and although we saw each other every now and then through the years, we were only socially polite and pretended that the love we'd shared was an immature alliance and nothing more.
We each married other people and became parents. I put my first love on the back burner of an old stove in a basement and pledged undying love to my husband, who is my best friend and my lover and my life partner. I am happy in my marriage. (Well, mostly happy, as is anyone who's been married nearly thirty years.)
These days, I do not put too much brain-time into analyzing why it is that my first love comes to see me so often in my dreams. I know with certainty, however, that I awaken 100 percent of the time with a heart happiness that makes me feel fifteen again. As I approach fifty ~ my goodness, I am getting old ~ this nighttime nostalgia hits me in my solar plexus, a sweet reminder that I have given, and received, love.

Bye-Bye, Time Sucks

Well, one could guess. It's Facebook that's distracting me from writing and reading. Here it is, nearly June, and I've only read six books. Grr. At this rate, I will not meet my goal of reading 50 books by December 31.
And then there's this little game called Bakery Story, a sweet little app the little guy I nanny for introduced me to several months ago. It's a virtual bakery, and for the chubby girl inside me who could eat coconut layer cake every day for the rest of her life, Bakery Story is a daily dose of deliciousness. I'm pretty damned good at this game, based on my Four-Star Rating, and dozens of other players who requested I "add" them to the "neighborhood."
By the time I bake croissants and cinnamon rolls and brew espresso and whip up chocolate soy shakes, it is no hyperbole to state that I probably spend anywhere from ninety minutes to five hours a day attached to my iPhone and "Kay's Place." (Speaking of which, I just opened the app, only to find that I earned 14,368 coins while I was away ... having been absent for about one hour.)
Although I have never met BigMama or Aleisha in person, they send me virtual gifts daily (chocolate cake and cappuccinos). I tell you: Bakery Story is a Time Suck like none other. At least with this game, though, I feel good about myself.
Facebook? Different story. I need to get away from this sucky social app because every time I read about someone's awesome job, or amazing raise I get a little jealous. And, I get A LOT jealous when I read about a friend's new publishing contract, or her newest book release. Of course she's earned her Writing Life and isn't spending hours a day in the "kitchen" turning out celebration trifles and black forest cakes.
In a (candy-coated) nutshell, Kay needs to get away from her fake bakery and facebook page. Soon. Like, maybe, today?

Rejection: The New Yorker (not as bad as I thought)

March 6: I sent "F & M," a short story I'd written at MacDowell, to The New Yorker. I knew it was a long and ambitious shot. Wasn't holding my breath for a bite, although I did entertain several fantasies, on days the TNY landed in my mailbox (I'm a subscriber), that before my August birthday I would see "F & M" in print.
Thursday: A rejection email came. (We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it. Sincerely, The Editors)
Friday: I spent the day glued to CNN watching the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt. Forgot about my New Yorker rejection.
Today: While Suspect No. 2 is hospitalized and the city of Boston returns to the streets (and beats the Kansas City Royals out at Fenway), I slogged up to my writing room, where I sit now, at my desk, processing my rejection. Here's what I feel, truthfully: Big Effing Deal. Three people died watching a race on a bright sunny Monday, other spectators lost limbs and loved ones. People in West, Texas, died when a fertilizer plant exploded. Hundreds injured. Homes and lives destroyed.
***
It would be inhumane and pitiful, really, to mourn the loss of a story that won't see print in a magazine that has far more important pieces to publish these days.

Meeting Anne Lamott and a black-blazered man

I have loved Anne Lamott's writing since I first pored through Bird by Bird, which was probably about twenty years ago. Currently, I cannot find my copy. Probably gave it away, a gift to someone who I thought needed it. That's how I operate with the books in my life that change me from the inside out: To Kill A Mockingbird, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Girls from Ames, God's Psychiatry. I buy multiple copies and hand them out, unsolicited. I like to think I am being helpful, but knowing how people disappoint each other, I might be wrong.
Meeting Anne Lamott has been on my bucket list for a good decade. My chance came Thursday night, April 4, at the Community Christian Church near the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. One of the last independent bookstores in the nation, Rainy Day Books, of Fairway, Kansas, sponsored the event. (Ohmigod, I am writing like a reporter. Five W's and an H.)
As I am a big fat weenie and afraid to drive after dark into the "dangerous part of the city" (not really; my fear is imagined), my husband took me, dropped me off at the door, and then came back three hours later, our cocker Millie in the front seat to greet me. (I swear, if only the people in my life were as enthusiastic to see me, what daily joy would there be!)
In between my drop-off and pick-up, I spent three hours in a writer's fantasy land. Unfortunately, as I had gone by myself (why do the people in my life who love Lamott as rabidly as I live out of state?), I had no one to talk to, which about drove me insane. Generally, I strike up conversation with anyone who's breathing, but the seating arrangement inside the church didn't contribute to that happening. Granted, there was a woman about my age three seats away, but she was there with her daughter, and the two of them giggled and poked each other in a fun way and chit-chatted and I didn't sense a way in. Ditto for the gals in front of me, my mother's age (66), the three of them awaiting Anne's presence on stage with an exciting fervor that matched mine, only they had each other and seemed completely unaware of my enthusiasm and desire to share. I was jealous.
Demographically speaking, there were about 500 people in attendance, and 490 were women, ranging in age from about fifty-five to seventy-five. Fewer than a dozen men attended, and with the exception of one in particular (*), the men were there with women, who appeared to be wives or girlfriends. I saw not a single person of color, which disappointed me tremendously, given that Anne Lamott loves everybody, wears her hair in dreadlocks, and preaches from the altar of extreme liberalism.
*This man sat two rows behind me, and although I am not psychic per se, I sensed that he was interested in me. (Stop laughing.) Know how sometimes you feel like a person is staring at you, and you quick-look to see if you're right? Well, that's what happened with the two of us. I would ever-so-subtly turn around to see if he was looking at me, and, well, yes, he was, although this might have been because I was too-often turning and he was growing annoyed with me.
Except that's not how I felt about the situation. I felt that he and I would have enjoyed great camaraderie, the two of us singletons sitting there, feeling alone and unloved and so ... so ... single.
He was about my age, wore a dark blazer, had two copies of Anne's newest book, a tattered copy of Bird by Bird, and a copy of Traveling Mercies. This I was able to ascertain when I returned from a faux bathroom trip; also, he was not in the beginning stages of balding. (My next husband will have a full head of hair. Also, he will talk. And he will read Anne Lamott and go with me next time she comes to Kansas City.).
As I, too, had brought along Traveling Mercies, I felt that was a sign that this mystery man and I needed to talk. While I waited for Lamott to take her stage, I entertained how my life would change, had I the courage to get up out of my lonely seat and head two rows back. I would introduce myself in some quirky-cute way and then sit beside him for the rest of the evening. I imagined that our knees would touch in that adolescent our-parents-dropped-us-off-at-the- movie kind of way and I would feel bolts of electricity and the next day I would announce to my (silent and balding) husband that I was leaving him for a man in a dark blazer who not only read Anne Lamott and went to see her but highlighted certain passages that he found endearing or life changing. This man and I would then spend the next month hanging out at bookstores and coffee houses; we would marry in a small ceremony in his arts and crafts style house in midtown; we would invite Anne to the matrimonial gig, and of course she wouldn't come, but we would share the story of how it was Anne Lamott who'd brought us together, and all of our friends would sigh in unison and coo, Awwwwwwww.
Alas, I have the courage of an anti-social ant, and my fantasy fizzled.
I ended up sitting alone, silently, throughout the event. Anne came on stage wearing an extremely casual outfit (mismatched, if you ask me, but, hey, that's Anne Lamott). Her trademark dreds were evident, only shorter than I had imagined. And her voice was deeper that I had thought. Did she smoke? (This thought gave way to my next fantasy, that Anne and I would hit up a barbecue joint ~ Kansas City, duh ~ after the speaking and signing, and she and I would have a Big Life Talk while we smoked American Spirits and drank cold beer).
Needless to say, that fantasy failed to ripen, and so I clung to every word my favorite writer spoke, and I took notes, and I loved her even when she misspoke and referred to Anne Frank as the girl at the well who finally understood "water" (later, she got it right), and felt sad that the clock was tickingtickingticking and it wouldn't be long before the night was over and my husband would be picking me up, only to whisk me off to our boring home in the suburbs where neither Anne Lamott nor the man in the black blazer lived.
***
My signing number was 401. I watched hundreds of women approach Anne at her signing desk, lean in, say something, hug, or pose for a picture because they had someone with them to snap the damn thing. Again, jealousy.
Occasionally the event coordinator, a kind, professorial type named Bob, would announce that ticket holders numbered blank to blank could line up (fans were approaching the signing desk in a line of 50). It made me happy to note that Black Blazer Guy stayed seated, even as the 300 to 350 call went out. Finally, the 400s were approaching. And then Mystery Man and I stood up, and my pulse raced at the thought of standing in line with him for ten to twelve minutes when all of a sudden another man, this one not nearly as mysterious nor attractive, got in line between me and the object of my affection. Shit.
Talkative, this guy was, and in the space of three minutes I learned that his first wife had died of breast cancer, that they'd been unable to have children on account of her illness, that Anne's writing had helped him wade through grief, that his current wife was the lead soprano in the evening's performance at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, that he and his wife were in town from Massachusetts, and that he'd heard about Anne's signing on NPR that very day.
In fact, Mr. Talksalot distracted me to the point of losing what I was going to say to Anne once I got to the table. So much so that here's what I remember saying: "Thank you for coming to Kansas City. Thank you for your writing. Your words have brought so much joy into my life." And before she could even get her you're welcome out completely, I asked if she'd ever gone to The MacDowell Colony, and she said, Why no, no I haven't. And it was then that I noticed that her sweet face looked old, way older than what you see on the book jacket, and although I am quite sure I did not announce to her how old I thought she looked, I have no fucking idea what I said next, although my mouth was moving and she was nodding her head and a few seconds later I was walking off the stage, my face feeling flushed and hot.
Once again, my crazy-ass neuroses effed-up what was to have been a perfectly wonderful evening meeting my all-time favorite author (after Anne Tyler) and, let's not forget, my future perfect husband.

Some good advice

Don't know where I got this list of what-to-dos, but I'm sharing it this morning.  (A handwitten list, on two pages of spiral-torn note pages, discovered in the hutch, as I was looking for a cookbook.)Kind of a CliffsNotes on how to live happily and healthfully.

1) Spend at least one hour each week with a close friend.
2) Eat seafood twice a week or more; also, flax seeds.
3) Play with a dog a few minutes every day.
4) Take 600 millligrams of chromium picolinate a day (check with a doctor first ~)
5) Eat a bowl of fortified cereal every day (400 micrograms of folate)
6) Get a twelve-minute massage three times a week.
7) Pull an all-nighter.
8) Eat a whole-wheat English muffin smothered with jam.
9) Just bang on something!
10) Take a ten-minute walk three times a day.
11) First thing in the a.m., lie on your back with your head hanging over the edge.
12) Drink one or two cups of coffee each morning. (Duh.)
13) Look in the mirror and force your lips into a smile.
14) Sleep in a different bedroom.
15) Go easy on yourself. Give yourself permission to be a human being and not a human doing. (Am I mentally berating myself for some supposed failing? Replace negative thoughts with this phrase: I am doing the best I know how to do. When I know a better way and can do it, I will.)
16) Break out of my routine.
17) Get a day of vigorous exercise outdoors!

I got out of bed

I didn't want to. It was already 10:45 a.m. A Sunday, my husband in the kitchen rattling pans. Frying up bacon. The cocker, up and down on the bed, standing on my chest, her tongue hanging: Get up, Mom. I have a ball, right here, on Dad's pillow, and if you get up, you can throw it, and I can chase it and we can start our day.
I pushed her away, rolled over. Checked my iPhone. Checked facebook. Other people, up and moving around. Already back from church, back from Costco, back from the grocery.
Me, still in bed and not wanting to get out of it.
Me, depressed. Bad breath and greasy hair and a creeping anxiety, already. Not even standing and there's the anxiety. The pain in the center of my chest that makes me think a heart attack is forthcoming.
Trying to laugh at myself, make light of the situation, think something else, anything else.
Ordering myself: Get your ass out of bed, Kathleen. Take a friggin' shower. Put on powder and deodorant. Brush your teeth. When you're done, you can get a cup of coffee.
So I did. I listened to myself and headed to the shower. Turned on NPR while the water heated. Oscar talk. Oh yeah, tonight's the Oscars. That's something to live for.
Inside the shower, I perk up: there's a bar of Zum, patchouli. The water relaxes shoulders that have already tensed. Awake twenty minutes and tight there, like I've been at the laptop for ten hours. Patchouli relaxes, a hippy scent that tells me I need to chill.
Downstairs, there's my son. It's his birthday. Oh my god, it's his birthday! There's something to live for. He's twenty-five today. Born in 1988, my post-partum depression so severe that I would call my parents, ask them to please come over, for just a bit. Me, taking long showers, driving around in my Monte Carlo, Fleetwood Mac blasting. Getting medicated, knowing that I needed it. Loving every inch of that sweet baby boy, nurturing him, nurturing myself.
My adult life, then, all of it, lived with depression lurking, anxiety hovering. It's a damn heavy cross to bear, I'll tell you that.
What helps: talking to people, eating oranges, drinking coffee, listening to music, driving aimlessly, windows down, air wooshing in, cuddling with my dogs, hugging on my husband, my children (all adults now), teaching, connecting with others, reading, writing, blogging, shopping at Walgreen's for cheesy you-can-only-get-this-as-a-special-television-offer items.
And getting out of bed. That's where it starts. Pulling back the covers and standing up.