Motherhood – michelle roth

Three Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Having a Transgender Child

Published on October 1, 2021August 5, 2022 by michellerothwrites3 Comments

#1. Emotionally supporting my transgender child is a life-and-death decision.

Really. Truly. Honestly. And statistically–– with lots of actual data to back it up.

If I choose not to support my child (and/or my child is forced into environments where they are not supported), the chances of her harming herself goes up to 85% or higher. The chances of her attempting suicide if she is not supported are anywhere between 40% to 60%. All studies agree that the self-harm rates are very high for gender-creative kids who are not in supportive environments.

But a transgender or non-binary child who is supported and loved just as they are? Their chances of suicide and self-harm go back down to the same low risk of their cisgender classmates, which is 4%. You read that right. The chances of self-harm go down to 4% merely by being validated as they are.

Supporting our kids is not a whim we as parents are catering too. It isn’t cute or funny or that we “let our kid dress how she wants.” We are not giving in on some typical parent-child battle where we “should be standing firm.” We are listening to our child and honoring who she consistently tells us SHE IS because if we don’t, there are astronomically high odds that she will eventually hurt herself. If we simply love her as she is, those odds go down to a much lower number.

Supporting my child is not a decision for me––it’s a necessity for her survival.

I have to believe that most parents would be supportive of their kids, if they were presented with the same information.

#2. In a young child, there is no medical intervention at all.

Young children like mine undergo “social transitions,” meaning the only things that (possibly) change are clothing, hairstyle, names and pronouns.

Read that again. THERE IS NO MEDICAL INTERVENTION FOR TRANS KIDS AT ALL.

Our daughter has annual visits to our local Children’s Hospital pediatric gender clinic but only to gather resources and make sure we are doing all we can emotionally for her. And even though we have no issues or concerns right now, we also see a therapist who specializes in gender. We want our daughter to build a relationship with someone safe so when hard times inevitably come, she has someone to talk to. Other than that, there is no medical component to our lives. The only meds my kid takes is vitamins.

Medical transitions or interventions do not happen until the second stage of puberty, and then the first step is a blocker, which is essentially a puberty pause button for a few years. At this point, everything is still completely reversible. It’s not until after all of these steps (and lots of testing) that cross-hormone therapy comes into the picture. And as for surgery, laws vary by state, but all require patients be at or very near adulthood.

What I’m saying is that no one is “altering” their children at their first suggestion of gender variance. Years of counseling, medical doctors, and testing are required before ANY medical treatments occur. And again, nothing medical occurs until the second stage of puberty.

Ultimately, it will be up to our (much older) child to tell us what steps she wants to take to be content and comfortable in her own body. And that is the goal, her own acceptance of her own body— not society’s ideal, not some version or perfect or even “passing.” The goal is whatever keeps her safe and happy in her own skin. And that choice will be solely hers when that time comes, with the assistance of trained and affirming medical professionals.

#3 Gender is in the brain and the heart, not the body parts.

Nearly all of us have been conditioned to believe that there are only two genders (male and female) and they are defined by our body parts. Penis equals boy. Vagina equals girl. XX or XY. No exceptions. End of story.

But that isn’t true. First of all, the population of humans that are intersex, and thus literally and biologically a combination of both female and male, is nearly 2% of the population. That’s the same as the population of Russia. To say that there are no variations besides male and female is completely, utterly, and scientifically false.

And it isn’t nearly the whole story. We just haven’t been encouraged ––or taught–– to talk about gender as a spectrum, instead we’ve been heavily taught a false binary. If anything, the topic has been made to be taboo here in America and secrecy has been encouraged.

For lots of us, like me, our body parts match how we feel inside about ourselves- otherwise known as cisgender. I have always known myself as a girl, and eventually as a woman. No one ever had to tell me or remind me. I have always possessed this information and my body has always felt like my own.

But that isn’t true about my daughter. Despite being born with parts generally thought of as boy, and despite being raised as a boy from birth (because we just assumed based on body parts), the first thing she told us when she started to talk was, “I’m a girl.”

Like each of us, her gender is built in as WHO SHE IS. It isn’t something I taught her because it can’t be taught. Equally, it’s not something I can unteach her.

Who taught you that you were a girl? Or a boy? Did you have to be reminded lots of times? What kind of corrections did your parents make when you got it wrong? How old were you when you finally knew and made the decision? Or was this knowledge always there, inside of you?

As many as 1 in 500 people are gender-creative. Some studies suggest that percentage is even higher.

It is outdated thinking to believe that body parts need to “match” societies idea of the gender binary to be valid.

And regardless of what kind of parts anyone has, they know who they are just like you and I know who we are. All of our perceptions of ourselves are equal, valid and real. Even if they are different from your own experience and comfort zone.

The idea that there are only two genders and that that gender is based on body parts is an urban myth that has been perpetrated for generations in our culture. It is an injustice to our entire society that we haven’t been taught the truth about gender.

For anyone interested in learning more, this is from the American Academy of Pediatrics website and it’s full of information.

https://assets2.hrc.org/…/SupportingCaringforTransChild…

I also highly recommend the documentary Gender Revolution with Katie Couric, and the book The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals by Stephanie A. Brill

**Respectful questions and comments welcome. Close-minded haters and ignorance-spreaders can take a hike/will be blocked.

Two Years

Published on October 11, 2016October 11, 2016 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

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It’s the crunch of the leaves and the smells of this season. The cold bite of the wind through a warm day and the dark blue of the sky. It’s how the steam rises from rooftops on crisp mornings when the sun hits them, and how the vines that grow all over my house are changing color. All of it signifies this season of fall.

It’s my favorite season. It always has been. Though I’ve always loved the hot days of summer, there is something about the way autumn shows up. How beautifully it is able to let it all go.

Which is precisely why, though I would still call this season my favorite, I’m kind of disenchanted with it at the moment.

My mom fell and broke her pelvis two years ago today. In the busiest period of my life, amidst the crunching leaves and beautiful changing colors. Like so many pivotal moments, time stood still and I noticed. I noticed so clearly the colors and smells and feelings of that fall. Because I was clinging to some normalcy outside of the everyday life that was taking away my mom.

As soon as I found out about her pelvis, I knew that it was the end. I recalled her doctor telling us the previous winter that she probably had one year left, give or take, unless she fell and broke a hip, in which case she’d be gone in a month. As it turns out, she lasted almost 2 months after her injury. But she was not the same, and in so many ways, who my mother was left her after she fell. She was heavily medicated, still in a lot of pain, and her whole body was shutting down. There was a handful of very lucid moments that almost gave me hope, but mostly she used those times to settle her affairs and say her goodbyes.

But it’s two years later and I so badly want to enjoy this lovely season. To feel happy about it, but mixed in is the bitterness of those terrible 2 months. Because we are creatures of habit who look to the past to guide us. And this lovely autumn makes me think of falling in love when I was 16. It also reminds me of the lovely October day that I met my husband, and when my niece Addison was born, and trick or treating as a kid. And my mother dying. Autumn has become all of those things for me.

I tell myself, because it’s true, that we are beings that get to choose. We can only think of one thing at a time. Our brain does not have to run the show. We can choose our thoughts, but like all things, this is a practice. And a work in progress.

I will have to choose the joy-filled moments, over and over, for the rest of my life. There is no one-stop-shop where I can purchase a bag of something and be fine about my mother’s death. The hard stuff, like the great stuff, is built in as a part of our foundation. We would not even be us without it.

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So I will take today, with the lovely autumn light and the wind blowing brightly colored leaves off the trees, and I will miss my mom. I will let myself be sad right now. And then I’m going to remind myself of a better memory every time the breeze tries to pull me back to sadder times. I will bring my mother with me through my life in search of what is beautiful and worth remembering. I know that this is how she wants me to carry her with me.

Who My Son is Supposed To Be

Published on September 22, 2016 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

My son Lincoln loves Frozen. Not so much the movie anymore, now that everyone in the house has it memorized. But he loves to play with his purple Frozen bucket in the sand box. And his pink and blue Frozen pajamas are such a hit that it’s a holy battle to get him to take them off. So when we went shopping for new shoes last weekend, he picked out fuchsia Frozen Crocs with Anna and Olaf on them. He looked around the whole store at all of the shoes, but these were the shoes that he clutched to his chest and carried proudly to the checkout.

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Lincoln loves dinosaurs and dragons, and he likes trucks. But he gets lost for an hour playing in the doll house that we found on Varagesale. It’s not unusual to find he’s carrying the set of babies that came with it around in his chubby little hands.

He gets excited about the real construction equipment that is working on the next block, but he could mostly take or leave the trucks at home. He does like to play with Optimus Prime on occasion, but I think that might be more about getting his big brothers undies in a bundle.

I spent a lot of my life doing “should be” things, for myself and my kids. Girls “should be” dressed a certain way. I “should be” a certain way. Boys “should” only play with certain toys.

Some of the norms we teach in our society are necessary, like manners, and hygiene. But some of the things we teach are not that important. Like what color our shoes are, or how we like to spend our spare (or play) time. They are small stuff but sometimes we talk about them until we convince everyone they are actually big stuff.

I’ve learned that some of the things I was brought up to believe (though taught to me with the best of intentions) do not fit me. I was not given the whole story, only the parts that our society and my particular family thought best for me. This is true for all of us.

We don’t have to take on all of the “supposed to be’s” in life. We don’t even have to pick them up. We are beings that get to choose. It is what makes us human. That, and the fact that we are all alike, but different.

Lincoln is just Lincoln, with his own set of unique fingerprints and his own multitudes of personality. A small human being with his own likes and dislikes. And fuchsia shoes.

I have no idea who he’ll “turn out” to be. But I’m going to do all I can to let him figure it out.

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A Year Without My Mom

Published on December 2, 2015December 2, 2015 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

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I’ve been thinking back about my mom. It’s been almost a year since she died, and the weather and the start of Christmas and Thanksgiving and all of it reminds me of her. And how even though I saw it all coming, it still managed to shake me so completely that she was gone.

The thing about looking back is that it’s really only helpful briefly. We have a tendency to give our pasts (both the good and bad parts) a lot of weight and importance. And it’s good to reflect, to learn from our past, to give it space and respect and reverence or whatever it deserves. The problem starts when we set up shop and start to live there. This seems especially common with the death of loved ones.

We wrap ourselves up in the memories of those we lost, like some warm cozy blanket. And for a moment it is all warm and cozy, but only until we remember that the past is all wrapped up into one. The jagged, pointy, barbed-wire part of our past is still in there too. And still hurts.

But we reason that at least the hurt reminds us of the one we lost, and so we stay wrapped up in our cozy-spiky blanket of the past, not realizing that there is a whole world we’re missing that is going on RIGHT NOW but that we’ll never see or find this from our blanket.

It’s hard not to do this. Grief is a process, just like life is a process. But I don’t want to lie around in that blanket anymore. Mom wouldn’t want me to either.

There is this stupid app called Timehop. Have you heard of it? I shouldn’t call it stupid because I actually really like it. It’s always felt harmless, fun and sweet, and I thought it would bring nothing but good memories to enrich my life. It’s like the Facebook Memories thing, only Timehop did it first, so I’ve had it running on my phone for years. I see cool old photos and blog posts and where I was at and how far I’ve come. But then the damn thing updated and changed the settings and thus started to include old text messages that live on my phone. From my mom, cause that’s who I texted mostly. Messages from my mom. That’s what Timehop, and technology in general, started sending me.

At first, this was maybe August or September when it changed, the messages were welcome. She bought pumpkin cream cheese for Steve and a coloring book for Brice and a hat for Lincoln. The message were sweet because they were ours, just setting up rides for her or visits, conveying our days and lives. Lots of “I love you’s”. So many “I love you’s”.

So I let the messages stay. But I knew what was coming. I knew she was going to fall on October 11^thand break her pelvis and that I would find a message that she needed help. I knew that it was coming but I didn’t shut the messages off.

Because, how could I? My mom’s last words to me every morning when I woke up. Like a gift, but with barbed wire inside waiting to show up.

Because now, looking back to a year ago this week, the messages are just really, really sad. Just heartbreaking. And this icy morning and the cold and everything suddenly feels so much like that time. Only she’s been gone almost a year and I don’t want it to feel so close anymore. I don’t want to remember the, “Dropped buzzer and can’t breathe. Call nurse for help?” anymore. I don’t want to keep reliving her death, but it’s hard not to. Even without the messages, it would be hard not to.

My calendar for this weekend said “No matter how hard the past, you can begin again.” I love the Buddhist proverbs for their simplicity. Not easy, but simple, nonetheless.

I will always miss my mom. This I know now. This will be a truth for the remainder of my days. Our parents bring us to life and then show us our own mortality in their passing. The show us the way.

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But I don’t always have to think about the bad parts though. I don’t actually have to think about that at all. I choose it, just as I choose to think of happy memories. Or to try to focus my thoughts on my current moments or some happy thoughts of the future. It’s up to me. I don’t have to let my thoughts run wild like a toddler.

So here’s what I did today instead:

I wrote to all of you about it. Because it’s the keeping it all in that gives our sad and heart-achy thoughts their power.

Then I changed the settings for the Timehop app on my phone so that I don’t get old messages anymore. I don’t want it to keep bringing it back, and though I didn’t invite it, I was letting it in.

Then I made salt dough handprints with the boys. Because my mom did that with me, and it seemed a much nicer way to remember her.

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The Mom at Chuck E Cheese

Published on November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

We went to Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party yesterday. This sort of breaks one of my big rules in life – going to Chuck E Cheese at all – but we were invited to a cousin’s birthday party and it seems like a good idea to have the boys grow up with family. I grew up this way, and Steve did, but as we’ve gotten older, our families have scattered and we often “do our own thing,” like so many families these days. We’re all so busy, right?

I used to call Chuck E Cheese the worst place on earth. But I’m older now and I have new definitions of the worst place on earth. Watching my mom die in a sad old nursing home and spending any time at Children’s hospital pretty much made me realize that Chuck E Cheese is a breeze. So, we went.

The boys ate pizza and cake and watched the little show they put on with the big furry robots, which Lincoln loved at a distance and hated close up. Incidentally, this reassured me that he is smart. Then the boys ran wild with the games and the coins and the tickets, having fun with all of the noise and the chaos and being allowed to act accordingly. Hence why I hate it. Because I’m a control freak, you know? Plus, I’m also a germaphobe and there are a million kids there eating and playing all at once with their snotty little noses and I’m pretty sure we could start the Bubonic plague again out of one of those places without trying hard at all.

On this note, I used the bathroom there, which also kind of breaks my rule but it was necessary. A young mother came into the bathroom as I was washing my hands. She was holding a big chubby baby of maybe 6 months old. The mom kind of peeked around as if there might be somewhere to put the baby and then went looking for a stall. I realized she was just going to do her thing with her baby in her arms.

Go ahead, freak out about the gross factor here but let me tell you that every mom has had this moment. Where you just have to pee or whatever and the baby is with you so you make the most of it. I almost didn’t ask her if she needed my help, but then I did, because I’ve been practicing using my instinct and not my crazy questioning mind.

So I said “Do you want help?” over the sound of the hand dryer. But she didn’t speak English. She cocked her head and raised one hand as if to say she didn’t understand, and kind of like why was I talking to her when she had to use the bathroom.

So I said, “Help?” and I held my arms out to her in a gesture to take the baby. And her face fell in relief and she rushed over and handed me her most prized possession. Her most prized person and her most precious anything. The one she made from her body but needed two minutes away from to take care of herself. She handed me her baby and I took her.

Big, dark, dark brown eyes and big dark lashes and the sweetest little head full of dark hair. So very different than my light-skinned, fair-haired babies, yet she had the same lazy, chubby baby body of my 3^rd baby. And that amazing baby smell that every baby on the planet has. She warmed my heart from the second she hit my hands.

I thought briefly that she might cry when her mom left her sight but she didn’t. She let me hold her and looked at me like I was new but not scary. I said, “Well hello, little friend,” and she looked at me for a few moments and then laid her little head on my shoulder. I leaned my cheek into her dark hair and I was so thankful. Just bursting from top to bottom with thankful. Because this baby felt safe with me. And thankful for being a mama and knowing how to make a baby feel safe. And thankful I could help this mom, who didn’t know me but knew that I was offering help and not more problems. Just… Thankful.

It was a little moment. A blink. A fraction of the day and speck of sand in the grand scheme of my life. But it meant something to me. To know that there is trust out there. To know that there are mothers willing to take each other’s hands for help. To know that we have a connection that goes deeper than language or words. Some magic that speaks merely between the beats of a mother’s heart.

6 Months

Published on June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 by michellerothwrites1 Comment

My mom passed away 6 months ago today.

I’ve thought about this day. I’ve thought about what it would be like when my mom had been gone for 6 months. I guess I thought, or hoped, that it would be some magical point where grief gets easier.

It turns out its true. It is easier.

Or maybe it’s just that this balmy, sunny June day felt like it had very little to do with that cold December day 6 months ago. This anniversary is a marker, a sign on the road to show how far we’ve come. The only connection is the one we give it.

The memories of her painful and difficult end of her life, they have become less vivid. They don’t haunt me like they did at first. I remember her now in better times.

I send love her way. I tell her my stories while I garden and do dishes and wash chubby baby fingers.

I have finally set down the trauma of that time.

But I still miss her. I still think of things I want to tell her and text her. I do it less now, but I still do it.

I’ve realized what a hole is left in my life without her. I have a very full life, but she was my touchstone each and every day. My entire life long. It was rare for me to not talk to her at all in a day, ever. I didn’t realize this missing piece at first. I couldn’t see it until the dust settled. It makes me realize how much I miss having someone to talk to during the day. We always made time for that.

So tonight, after the end of a very long day, Steve and I drove out to the cemetery, right down the road from my house a few miles. It’s lovely out there, and lovelier still for the green and the temperature. I felt far away we are from that cold December day that I had to say goodbye.

I’m glad for the growing time in between.

Happy 1st Birthday to Lincoln!

Published on May 15, 2015May 29, 2015 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

My Lincoln.

One year old today.

It’s surreal, this fact.

This is us, one year ago this morning.

7 pounds 6 ounces, my biggest baby by over a pound.

My longest labor by over a mile.

Lincoln felt like a baby horse inside of me rather than a baby human, so I wasn’t surprised to see how strong he was right after birth, lifting his head off my chest while we laid there skin to skin. Eyes open, taking it all in, not even crying. So much like he is today. My mellow fourth baby who got the memo that he is not the center of the universe, just an equal part like the rest of us.

Lincoln is all smiles. He cuddles with pillows and pets and people. He is a charmer, a sweet, daring little soul who cruises the staircases in this house like a pro. He crawls from room to room, chasing cats and the puppy and dragging trucks along with him, calling for Brice. He thinks I’m the funniest person in the house, which is nice. All my other babies thought someone else was funnier.

I noticed a family of four out on a bike ride in front of our house this week while I was working in the yard. I counted their kids and thought, “Four kids. That’s nuts!” And then I remembered that I, in fact, have four kids and I felt kind of ashamed for judging, not to mention silly for not remembering. My life is just my life and I think that I get caught up in the living of it that I forget to keep track of details. Like how many children I have, apparently.

I remember when I was leaving Georgia to go to the hospital and deliver Holly, I was just convinced that I could not love this new baby as much as I loved Georgia. How could I? It didn’t seem possible, because we learn a whole new kind of love when we become mothers, don’t we? But when Holly was born, I realized- our love multiplies in direct proportion to how many kids we have, like magic. There is always more than enough. Even with four, there always seems to be at least enough. I may forget how many kids I have, but there is lots of love.

And though it feels that I am lacking sufficient time for it all, I try to remember that my life is supposed to be full of needs right now. Lincoln will only be a baby so long, and babies fill your days with moments. Messy moments, needy moments, tender moments. A baby fills your life and your arms. There is room for little else. As they grow, they play and explore more on their own. They reach out to the next room and then the yard, to friends’ houses and school and sports and activities, and pretty soon they have moved right out of your house and life. They create a life of their own. It happens in the blink of an eye. I know this.

So I play with the baby and tend to his needs and this fills my life. And I write a paragraph or few pages here and there. The book I’m writing waits more patiently than a hungry kid. Some moments this is easier to take than others. Writing is part of who I am. I miss it when I can’t get there.

But before I know it, the time will be there for me to write without interruption. I have done this whole baby thing enough times to know that the fog and storms of life with small children do eventually lift.

So for now, the computer sits open to Word, waiting for me to finish something. Lots of things. And it will wait. I nurse my baby. I celebrate the gift of his presence in my life. This little everyday miracle that I lug around on my hip. My fourth. Dare I say, my last? Watching him leave babyhood right before my eyes feels nearly bearable, even though it truly feels like it’s time to be done. The tradeoff of no longer having a baby in your arms all the time is that you no longer have a baby in your arms all the time.

Happy first birthday, Lincoln Thomas. I love you with my entire being and you fill my heart with joy.

A Little More Homework

Published on February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 by michellerothwritesLeave a comment

“…I’ve been looking in the back of the book for the answers

Hoping the bell wouldn’t chime.

I’m not ready to put down my pencil just yet.

There are too many answers that I didn’t get.

I need a little less pressure

and a little more time.

I am trying to follow

I am trying to lead.

I am trying to learn what is true.

I’m trying to be what you want and I need

but we all have

a little more homework to do.”

We played this song at my mom’s funeral, because it fit her in so many ways. She was someone who gave people the benefit of the doubt, and a lot of space to be who they were because she believed that we are all works in progress. And this was the last song that she saw the girls perform in our high school auditorium. That was back in August, the closing number of the FOG show. After so many dozens and dozens of times that we sat in that auditorium together over the years watching the girls grow up one performance at a time, that was the final time. The last song. I was holding her hand and we were all crying, Steve included. It was Georgia’s last performance on that stage before she headed off to NYC for school. It was the final number of the first show that Georgia ever directed. It felt like a big moment. I remember that so clearly. I felt like a wreck for reasons that I didn’t fully understand in that moment.

So the song has lots of meaning already. I listen to it whenever it shuffles through on my music player (we bought some music to play in the background at my mom’s visitation. A funeral playlist, my girls called it. Sigh.) I realize the song means more now than just those memories. It’s interesting how time and space can give us so many ways to look at something.

The end of my mom’s life was hard. She was in pain and sick and suffering for the last 2 months of her life. She was having a pretty hard time before that, too. But those last months, I spent so much time going to see her in the nursing home. Taking her what she needed, brushing her hair and trying to help find foods she could eat. Paying her bills, making sure her medications were right. But mostly, watching her die. I knew that she wasn’t going to make it, even though nearly everyone had their hopes up. But I didn’t. She’d been talking about dying and her wishes for when she passed in detail for quite a while before she fell and broke her pelvis. I knew when it happened that we were in the final part of her life. We had reached the back of the book.

And that is how it felt, like I was trying to gleam some closure from that time, as if there had to be some answer there if this horrific thing was going to take my mother and make her suffer. But I didn’t see it, and time was running out.

I spent that time trying to follow her lead and let her feel what she was feeling, trying to take the lead and keep her spirits up and do everything that needed to be done. And then, when it was clear she was dying, trying to openly talk with her about that, since no one else really could handle her talking about her death except myself and my daughter Holly. And the dying need to have their say, I’ve found. Even if it’s just to talk out loud without saying much of anything except to acknowledge it all.

So I spent that time trying to be strong for her, telling her it was okay. Trying to figure out what the hell to do and how to make sure her wishes were followed. This is easier said than done with the current system we have set up for the dying elderly in nursing homes. To say they are cast off to die out of sight is an understatement. So I jumped through hoop after hoop and wished I had more time to spend with my mom and less on the phone screaming to get doctors or hospice or insurance to listen. Two months have passed since she died, and I realize now that my shoulders were pretty much attached to my ears during time, in a constant state of stress and anxiety. And how death, as sad and terrible and frightening as it was, turned out to be a relief.

I went out to my mom’s grave today. It’s her 69^th birthday. The entrance to the cemetery wasn’t plowed so I just parked on the road and looked at where she was buried. I figured it was a sign that I wasn’t supposed to go stand there in the bitter cold in a spot where she isn’t and be sad. She told me that so many times. Don’t stand around feeling sad at some cemetery. I won’t be there. I’ll be with you, always. I have to believe her, and believe that she blocked that drive on purpose. So I told her happy birthday, I let myself have a minute to be sad and I turned my van around to go on with my day. I will make her favorite dinner for my family tonight. We’ll have cake and celebrate her life.

I still struggle that there has to be answer in all of this. We all try to avoid death so completely, as if getting too close may rub off on us and we’d rather just indefinitely dodge the inevitable.

But if there is something to be found in the back of the book, it seems to me that watching a parent die is a glimpse. We are all mortal. We have limited time here to live our lives. How do we want to live them? What are we doing with our day? Right here, right now, since that’s all we have anyway. And of course, the not-so-subtle reminder that we in fact have a life. And we should not stand around some lonely place feeling sad over what is gone. We should go out and live our lives.

Happy Birthday Mom! I hope there is cake.

My Mom

Published on December 15, 2014December 15, 2014 by michellerothwrites7 Comments

untitled-0290 It was 46 degrees this morning. The snow has all melted and every standing object is covered in dew. The frozen lake is a slick layer of glass with ice heaves and broken pieces of concrete jutting up along the shoreline. The fog is so dense that I can only see the world in pieces, nearly everything hidden from sight in the dull gray light. It’s mid-December, but it feels like no season at all.

My mom died almost 2 weeks ago. And like this weather, it makes no sense. It makes no sense that life can go on so completely without her, or more so, that I can.

This was not sudden or surprising really, my mom passing away. She’s battled health crisis after complication for 15 years now since her initial heart attack in 2000, and she’s had lots of good times in between. But we saw her cardiologist last February and he told her she only had maybe a year left, more if she got very, very lucky. There was nothing more he could do for her. It’s been a downhill slide since then, with an increasing number bad days where she could barely move around her tiny apartment because she was so weak. But then she’d bounce back and I’d try to forget what was looming.

I worried a lot that she would fall, as she had blood clots in her legs and such severe arthritis that her legs bowed. I called and texted half a dozen times a day to check in. Ironic, since she fell in October anyway, and she did it at 4:30 am when I was asleep. I woke up at 7 am to a phone call that she was at the hospital and she couldn’t walk. Then they found the fracture in her pelvis.

I knew then that it was the beginning of the end. Not just because hip and pelvic fractures tend to point toward that in the elderly, but more because I just knew her body could not handle one more big problem. She already had so many. She really wasn’t even doing well before the fall.

I stayed positive for her and told her she was doing so great and how proud I was that she was working so hard in therapy. And she was trying so hard. But she just declined anyway, adding more problems to her list like pneumonia and severe anemia and the inability to keep food down. They found what looked like lung cancer, but since there was no way to treat it in someone so sick, she refused the invasive biopsies.

It finally become clear to her too that she wasn’t going to walk out of that nursing home. And when she realized, she had me help her choose Christmas gifts for everyone and order them online. Then she wanted to be moved someplace else, and to be put in hospice in hopes that they could better control her pain and suffering. It took longer than I wanted to have her moved, a little over a week, with me on the phone for hours trying to get her help, and then going over to see her struggle to breathe and be so sick. I finally got her signed up for hospice and moved to a new facility. It was the last day of her life. My only wish is that I could’ve gotten her there sooner so there wouldn’t have been so much suffering at the end. I am truly glad that her last hours were peaceful.

Like this warm foggy December day, I’m not clear about what I feel. Sad, of course. I miss her. And I kind of don’t know what to do with myself after so many months (and years) of doing things for her. But the past two months have been so very dedicated to her. Daily visits, of course, but also buying what she needed, paying her bills, doing her laundry, taking care of her cat and her apartment, dealing with her insurance and banking. Living her life, basically, plus talking to doctors and nurses and hospice. The list goes on and on.

Then it was planning her funeral. And now, she’s gone. And all of that is gone too. The space left behind feels huge.

But do you know what I feel most of all? Relief. Because I don’t have to watch her clutch at her chest because she can’t breathe and can’t even get a word out. Because I don’t have to watch her so ill from trying to eat. Because she is not disappearing before my very eyes anymore. And I have to believe that she is in a better place, even if I don’t believe in the traditional version of heaven.

Still, I wish she was here for me to talk to. For me to send texts and photos and to tell the stories I keep thinking of that I know she’d enjoy. I keep forgetting that I don’t have to check in on her. I wonder when that will stop.

But what I do believe is that she is with me. Not only because my mom believed that and told it to me many times over the years, but because it’s true. My mother grew me inside of her, and the very fabric of my body was knit together out of pieces of herself. I am her, at least in part. That is just science.

No matter where I go, she’ll be a part of me. In the songs that remind me of her, in the stories and memories we share, in all that she taught me that helped shape who I am. In my children who I made from myself. I truly don’t believe that anything in this world just goes away.

My mom is still here, I know this. Like the world covered by the fog, she’s just beyond where I can see.

Rest in peace, Mom.

Patricia Ann Roth

February 9^th, 1946 – December 4^th, 2014

Thankful for the “to do” list

Published on October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 by michellerothwrites1 Comment

I woke up today with a “to do,” list a mile long. A shower to caulk, which I’ve never done before and didn’t have the supplies for, so add, “learning to caulk,” and going to Menards with a 20 pound 4 month old baby to that list. A yard full of bushes needing to be dragged to the back yard. A sink full of dishes and a dishwasher that is thankfully clean, but full. Laundry on the steps and in the washer and dryer, another three loads waiting to be folded. Three kids going four different places today that need me to pick up and drop off. A party here to get ready for this weekend. Georgia to get organized, to take shopping and help pack and reserve a hotel for, as she leaves for college on Tuesday.

And then there is my job, which I sort of think doesn’t exist because I work from home, but it is still work. There are always photos to edit and send to customers, emails to answer, or phone calls to return. And my book to promote. But the book is not on fire so the poor thing gets neglected the most. I do what I can til I’m exhausted. Then I start again. And it’s okay, because I love my life. But it’s a lot some days.

Do you see why I’m all set to feel sorry for myself this morning? But then something happened and I couldn’t really do that anymore. The whole big freaking list I just made suddenly became small and insignificant, full of blessings brimming beneath the responsibility.

A woman in our town passed away suddenly. She was the mother of some friends of my girls. Just like that, she was gone, leaving kids behind to mourn her passing.

We live in a small town. The degrees of separation almost don’t exist. We are all connected. Our kids are in the same plays, the same school, the same choirs. I was not friends with that mom and we barely spoke but our lives travel the same concentric circles around our kids. She may not be someone I know, but in a town this size, this hits too close to home. Makes me feel like I dodged some random bullet flying by. Because in the blink of an eye, she’s gone and her kids are motherless. And I am still here, with my to do list a mile long, caulking my tub and hauling bushes through the garage with my four year old, dragging the baby nearby in a stroller. Thankful.

I have to believe that there is a lesson and a purpose in everything. It’s harder to do in the face of such raw horrific sorrow. But in the moments when we have to face the tragedy of fleeting mortality, we get to see that we are still alive. That we get to do dishes and laundry and change diapers and run errands. We get to kiss skinned knees and put crabby kids down to nap. We get to learn something new and collapse at the end of the day against a husband that we love.

We get another day to be thankful for.