May God Hold You in the Palm of His Hand

 

Erin, our art teacher Phyllis, me and Anita, Getty museum 2000

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It’s Saint Patrick’s day, and though I push away the painful truth that she is gone, I can’t get through a single moment of this day without thinking of Anita. Her beautiful Irish brogue, her gentle voice, her kind and thoughtful manner. These are the qualities that come to mind when I picture her. And the love that exuded from her.

We met in painting class 25, maybe 30 years ago. Every Monday night we’d sit together and paint for hours, and while we pushed paint around the canvas, our stories poured out of us. We talked about everything. Our pasts, our fears, our families, motherhood, our hopes, our worries. She told me so many stories about her children Ellen and David when they were little, the beautiful ways they had changed her and blessed her life, her hopes and dreams for them. And before you knew it, you looked up and the scene had come together on the canvas in front of us, just as it eventually would in our lives. She was a brilliant painter, her brush strokes exacting and fine. Her paintings were delicate and soft, and beautiful, just like her. Anita was also a ballroom dancer. She wrote poetry. She went back to college in her forties and studied psychology, to try to better understand herself, her complicated Irish family and the life around her.

Anita and Bill met as ballroom dancers and were married for 51 years.

Anita told me all about growing up in Ireland, the strict Catholic schools she attended where the nuns tormented her, and her phobia of nuns after that. Though Anita was a sweet-natured, gentle soul with a soft voice that registered just above a whisper, after surviving her second heart transplant (yes, she had two) her edge had sharpened a bit, and I thought she was even a tiny bit sassy. My friend Erin and I decided the new Anita needed a warrior princess name, so we dubbed her “Danitra.” Oh, how that made her laugh. She would always marvel at how uninhibited Erin and I were. “You two are so outspoken,” she would say, astonished. It was incredible to her that people could just come out and say whatever they thought, and yet that’s something “Danitra” was starting to do, more and more. 

Anita and Troy at Erin and Beth's wedding, where Anita read the Irish blessing.

I loved her musical, soft Irish brogue, and also loved to tease her about it. She’d ask, “What do you mean? What do I sound like?” I’d respond with an over-the-top, “Always after me lucky charms!” and she would laugh and laugh. Every once in a while, though, her edgier accent would pop up, especially when she’d call George Bush an “eejit.” Of course I loved that and would holler, “Tell it, Danitra!”

She loved Hummingbirds and had feeders lining all the windows around the back of her house, outside the kitchen and living room. I have never seen more hummingbirds in all my life than I saw in Anita’s backyard. They came in dozens to visit her. And who could blame them. She was the female equivalent of St. Francis, her kind and gentle ways drawing animals and children to her, easily.

Anita and I on our birthday, 2003.

Anita and I shared a birthday. We called ourselves birthday sisters, and would always celebrate together. At painting class, our teacher Phyllis would bring out a cake for us, and her husband Bernie would play Happy Birthday for us on his saxophone. We lost Phyllis and Bernie some years ago, but we still always made it a point to celebrate our birthdays and Christmas together, no matter what else was going on. One year, we spent our birthday at her hospital bed in ICU. Erin, Beth and I visited and as she lay there with a million tubes hooked up to her, unable to eat any birthday cake this time. We put a tiara on her head and sang anyway.

She lived through two hellish heart transplants and a year in ICU. She survived more procedures and surgeries than anyone I’ve ever known. No matter how gentle she appeared on the outside, she had a resolute strength that came from the fierce love she had for her family. She was going to survive because she wasn’t done loving them, and dammit, she was going to live to see those grandkids. And she did. Just two weeks before she passed, we had a wonderful dinner together, and she couldn’t wait to show me pictures she had printed of those grandbabies, and tell me all about every sweet thing they had said or done.

Bill never left Anita's side a single day that she was in ICU.

I am finding it really hard to end this piece, because I don’t want my precious friendship with Anita to end, and truth be told, I’ve been trying to pretend she is not gone. From the time between her death and her memorial service, I have kept myself busy, attempting not to feel the loss of someone so monumental in my life. I felt, and really knew, that Anita loved me. That is the hardest thing to let go of. And yet I know I don’t have to. Anita’s love, the way she lived her life, her quiet beauty and strength will always be part of me. 

And so I bid you godspeed on your journey home, Anita. You gave us all the very best of you, and you did it well. You lived your life so beautifully. You loved your family so well. Heaven is lucky to have you.

I was lucky to have you.

As you said to me at the end of every phone call, “I love ya, Missus.”

The Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

In Memory of Randy

This was our gang, a rag-tag group of rowdy kids. That’s me, the little squirt kneeling in the front row, and that’s Randy in the red and white baseball tee. Somehow our cohorts Laura, Dani and Bret didn’t end up in this picture.

We were a group of neighborhood kids who grew up together, played hide and seek and tag and kickball in the street. But more often that not, we were up to some kind of highjinks, and Randy was always the ringleader.

For instance, one night ( back then we were always out running the streets at night, a different era I guess) we wanted to see if we could stop a car with our sheer strength. So we laid a rope down across the street, then waited for a car – several of us on each side of the street, hiding. When the car came, Randy yelled “PULL!” and we each pulled our end of the rope like a tug of war game. Of course it ended in the car screeching to a stop as someone’s dad jumped out of the car threatening to tan our hides while we all scrambled off into the bushes.

Randy was an imp, a feisty kid who was good at sports and no matter what we did, he was always the team captain. Every day he would challenge Laura, a sweet, shy girl,  to “Punch me in the stomach as hard as you can!” He walloped Dani upside the head one day and she turned him in to the principal- which caused a rift they would laugh about years later.

Randy and I just happened to have the same last name (Holmes) so we always ended up sitting next to each other at every assembly, and later, in home rooms.

As we grew up, Randy and I lost contact. He went off to play football for a different High School, and  ended up moving to Texas. Through the miracle of facebook, we reconnected a few years ago. What fun we had retelling the zany stories from “back in the day”. Later, we got into real conversations about life, our families, our kids, and I got to know Randy in a way I hadn’t before.

He was married to the love of his life, Sarah, and they’d had two great kids, Katie and Riley. Riley was a football player, just like his dad, heading off to college, Katie still in High school.

Randy, a true Texas conservative since leaving L.A., would razz me on facebook about my love for President Obama- but always in good fun- the same kind of ribbing he delivered as a kid. He liked to tease, but always with a good heart. He truly had a good heart. He followed my blog, and would write to tell me when a particular post had inspired him.

One day in 2010, Randy wrote to tell me that his wife Sarah had been diagnosed with cancer, but they were fighting. He and Riley shaved their heads in solidarity as she underwent chemo treatments. Sarah kept a blog about her experience and I became one of her loyal readers, always commenting, sending prayers. Randy was so happy in 2011 when he wrote to tell me Sarah was declared cancer free.

Last July, when we got the contract for Dancing at the Shame Prom, this is what Randy wrote me:

Hollye,

Congrats on your contract. You are proof that hanging tough pays off. Don't abandon your memoir, the market will come around, and you will become famous, and people will want to learn more about you. I have to say that you inspired me - all the hardships overcome. While we were children I had no idea. Now, your life is clearly blessed. As is mine. Sarah was just declared cancer free for the second time! I have learned a lot from her perseverance, fighting, being strong, and being positive... she and you have a lot in common in that regard. Keep following your dreams, love the family, and don't let anybody get in your way.

Love, Randy

A few months ago, Dani was in Austin on a business trip and made plans to hang out with Randy and Sarah. When Randy came to pick Dani up at her hotel, he told her they’d gotten some awful news that day – Sarah’s cancer had come back, and she’d been given three months to live. Randy still wanted Dani to come over, Sarah really wanted to meet her and especially to hear stories about Randy’s childhood. Dani said, in spite of the circumstance, they laughed and told stories and had the best time that night and that Sarah was a great woman, a bright light. Dani planned to return to Austin this Summer, and prayed Sarah would still be around.

Dani and I made a pact that we would be there for Randy when Sarah passed- we were, after all, a touchstone for him.

A few weeks ago, I got a message from a family friend on Sarah’s blog that Sarah was close to the end. Yesterday, when I saw another email from this same person, my stomach tensed as I steeled myself against what I assumed would be the news of Sarah’s passing.

What I did not expect was to hear that Randy had passed away the night before, as Sarah lay dying in her hospital bed.

My eyes filled with tears, my mind spun in panic. Did I read that right?

I had to have my husband come and read the email, to make sure I wasn’t in shock. He confirmed it. Sarah was still clinging to life in a hospital. Randy had passed away.

Dani, Laura and I got on the phone, all of us in tears, in shock. How could this be? Inside, we still feel like we’re just that gang of neighborhood kids. How could one of us be gone?

My mind has reached the only conclusion it could: Randy could not live without his Sarah. I wish I could make sense of this. My heart aches for Katie and Riley - much too young to be without both their parents. I wish there were something we could do to ease their overwhelming loss. I hope they will read this and know what their dad meant to a group of neighborhood kids, long, long ago, in a life so far away.

A few months, ago, when Sarah got really, really sick, Randy stopped writing. He was trying every last ditch effort to save Sarah, experimental treatments…anything.

This was the last exchange we had:

(me)

Randy,

Just want you to know I am thinking of you and your family and praying for you. I am so sorry for how hard life has been on you all. I wish there were something I could do.

Sending love,

Hollye

(Randy)

Thank you, Hollye. Just keep sending the love. Sarah is amazingly strong and positive. She truly inspires me. We will get through this. We had a great visit with Dani last Friday, (I got her a little drunk on merlot, but she wont admit it). I look forward to seeing all the Rhoda street crowd.

Randy

All the Rhoda street crowd misses you, Randy. We will always remember your crazy antics, and your deep love for your family. We will continue to pray for Riley and Katie, and for Sarah as she makes her way to you.

We salute you Randy, for all the fun memories you left us.  I hope you are creating mischief and poking fun up in Heaven as you await your beloved Sarah.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Randy Holmes on right, Charles Holt blowing bubble, Lori Silverman with her arm around me, Beverly Nelson Peters poking her head out behind us. Vonda Shepard in front, Sherri Lamanuzzi back row. 

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Randy and Sarah's beautiful son Riley. Sarah passed away this morning. They say she died with a smile on her face.

Rest in peace forever, Randy and Sarah. May you be guardian angels watching over Riley and Katie for all their lives. God Bless You.

A Heart Breaks Slow

A heart doesn’t break all at once.

It happens a little bit each day. His tiny sock appears in the bottom of the laundry basket. I slam on my brakes and his sippy cup rolls out from under the seat. A sob catches in my throat at Target when I pass the diaper aisle and realize I don’t need to stop.

It happens on Easter morning when Evan, holding his Easter basket, says it is the saddest day because Ayumu isn’t with us.

A heart breaks like ice over a frozen lake. You step, and then you hear the  crack. The sound reverberates through you, changing you. The water below begins to warm and move, eager to pull you under. The hairline fracture gives way and you are submerged, nothing between you and the black water below. Nothing to protect you from feeling all of it. And you know this is only the beginning.

My heart breaks and leaves a hole where Ayumu once was. Grief now fills that space. It is everywhere. It colors the rooms of our house, hangs heavy in the air like rainclouds.

Gale force winds of anger and injustice blow through, and when the storm has passed and taken all it could, all that is left is a yearning love. Nothing more.

And what I know now is that much can be taken from you, but never can love be taken. My love for my grandson is mine, and it is his. Nothing, and no one, can take it from us. Nothing can tarnish it.

This, too, is mine; that I can’t hold Ayumu in my arms, but I can hold him in my heart, in my mind, with my words. I can wrap my love around him, send him my blessings, pray for his happiness. 

Belief is mine; to believe that loving him matters, to believe that one day love will pull him like a magnet, pull him back to us. I can choose to believe that love dissolves the five thousand miles between us. I can believe that love wins.

A heart breaks slowly, piece by piece, and a journey of faith begins.

And so I take my wobbly first steps…

 

The whole story is here: Love Is a Risky Business

A Prayer for Gabriel

For over twenty years, Troy and I have made music with Gabriel’s family. Together, we have filled ballrooms and venues all over the country with music and laughter and joyous sound. But before Gabriel’s funeral, I never knew the sound of four hundred human souls wailing with grief. Now I do. As my husband Troy said, so eloquently, “The deafening thud of the first bit of earth dropped from mother's shovel to son’s casket is a sound I will not soon forget.”

On this darkest of days, the January sun shone bright, the cloudless sky above was never bluer, as we watched our sweet friend Susan bury her twenty-four year old son, then stand tall and call herself a blessed woman to have loved him. Such unbearable sorrow, such devastating grace and beauty. What to make of it all?

Everyone wants to know how it happened. How could such a young beautiful man die in his sleep? We don’t exactly know yet, and that’s not the point. The point is – it has happened. But still the questions… How? How? It’s as though we think if we can just understand how, we can immunize ourselves from such a terrible fate. I understand this, as I’ve done it myself. But the hard truth is we are not guaranteed any such security in life. Tragedies befall each of us in different ways.

Healing lies not in the how, not in the why, but in the acceptance of what is. It may take us a lifetime or beyond to understand, but this much I know of life. No one gets to elude the difficult parts. There are those who say that happiness is our birthright, but it’s not our only birthright. Suffering, joy, pain, health, illness, disaster, miracles…are all our birthright, because they are all part of the human experience. Pain is what leads us inevitably to Grace. As in the story of Michelangelo, every one of us is David, trapped in the marble, waiting for our Creator to chisel away our cowardice, our ego, our pride and resentments, to release the true essence of what we really are. Suffering opens the door to these defining moments, our holiest moments, if we allow ourselves to be broken open. And once we are, yes, we will know pain. But each of us carries the most powerful antidote in the world to pain, that miraculous healing medicine - love.

Susan and her children epitomized love as they each delivered raw, honest, heartwrenching eulogies to Gabriel. As I watched through tear-filled eyes, I saw light emanating from them, and knew at that moment they were being held by thousands of unseen hands, cradled in prayers from all over the world. Love in action.

They spoke of the overwhelming love Gabriel showed in his life, and asked us all to love each other better, that his life would not have been in vain.

Driving my youngest son Evan home from school yesterday, I was lost in thoughts of the funeral, still trying to process it all- what can I do, how can I help? when out of the blue Evan asked,

“Mommy, how much do you love me?”

“Oh my goodness,” I said, “I love you so much I could never even say…”

“Just try anyway...” he said.

I closed my eyes and absorbed his words. Just try anyway.

Maybe we don’t always know how to love each other better, but we can try anyway. That is what I intend. I will tell my children and all of the people in my life how very much I love them. I will show love through my choices and my actions until my very life becomes a form of prayer- a prayer which I offer in honor of Gabriel:

May my thoughts, my words, my deeds be centered in love.

It may be difficult on some days, and sometimes I may fail, but as my baby boy said…I will just try anyway.

The sun was just beginning to set as the funeral came to an end. The rabbi asked us to form a human walkway for the family to move through as they left the grave to walk back into life. There were so many of us - hundreds and hundreds- it was an astonishing sight. Susan held her head high, making eye contact with us as she passed, acknowledging the love being shown.

As Troy and I left the gravesite, we saw our beautiful friend Terry Lenley. We hugged each other so tight and cried. With tears running down his face, he gave us a reassuring look, “Love’s got this,” he said.

No truer words…

Silence is the sound we hear now. Silence to reflect, to pray, to remember. But one day soon, the silence will give way to music and laughter as Gabriel’s family once again fills their world with the joyous sounds of life. In those moments, I will imagine Gabriel dancing among us.

Rest in peace, Gabriel. And rest in Love.

A New Beginning

I am up this morning before the dawn, taking inventory of this day, of my life and what it means to me. In the past, this was always my worst time of year. I struggled with depression, fighting off the darkness that returned to my heart every November as the days became dark and cold winds howled, reminding me that sixteen years ago today, we almost lost our lives in a fire.

On November 19, 1994, we were being released from the hospital in our blackened greasy pajamas. The nurse came into our room, removed our oxygen masks and cheerily told us, “Your carbon monoxide levels have leveled out. You can go home now!” Troy and I stared at each other in disbelief, as I held my four year old son Taylor tight against me, and looked at his sooty, tear-stained face. We had no home. We had no possessions. We didn’t even have shoes. Our daughter had been at a sleepover, and had no idea. We would have to tell her soon that as we slept that night, an electrical fire began in the walls of the house, that we were trapped by raging flames and had to jump out second story windows onto cement below.

Troy was on crutches. I had burns on my back and arms. After throwing my four year old out the window to Troy, I was the last one out before the explosions started. We could not get back inside to save our pets. Whitney, Lady, Munchkin, Angel and Bunny were gone.

Later, I wrote this poem about that morning.

November 19, 1994

The Destroyer

The destroyer has come

And left nothing in its wake

Men in plastic coats

Trudge through the ashes

Moving clumsily

Over the corpses of our dreams

That still smolder

And stink up the morning sky

Shell-shocked, charred and broken

We stand at the side of the road

Adrift

Tears resolve nothing

But only serve to wash away

The last traces

Of what we were

Changing us forever

But cleansing nothing

What was the meaning

of all that meaning

If only to be stripped from our canvas

Exposing a vast emptiness

Of all possibility and no possibility

Bleak

Open

Beckoning but not inviting

It awaits

I stand motionless, no palette in hand

Silence pervades

Even the angry voices in my head

Are quiet now

False optimism is offered freely

I swallow every last drop

Clutching it like a crucifix

I face the cold and distant unknowing

Wearing it like a warm coat

I take my first steps

Blind and shivering

as a newborn babe

I begin again

I am alive.

This morning as I woke, I didn’t feel depressed. I felt with every cell in my body that yes, I am alive. And after the nightmare of a year we’ve had, I am wide awake. I know this life is a gift, and I will not squander a moment of it. Today is a new beginning. I vow to step into my own shoes, and own this life I’ve been given. No more hiding behind insecurities and fear. I am stepping in, leaning into it with everything I’ve got.

From now on, November 19th marks the anniversary of my new life, my very best life.

No looking back, only looking forward...

So much beauty lies ahead, I just know it.

Goodbye Friend.

(Brandy and Stitch playing in the living room)

One late night, six years ago, I was driving Taylor and his buddies home from one of their first gigs, when suddenly a big dog ran in front of my car and laid down in the street. We pulled over and called to her. She was timid, and at first she hid in the bushes, but finally she ran to me, collapsing at my feet. She was emaciated and filthy and very weak. Her legs had deep cuts- possibly coyote attack. Troy picked her up and carried her to our car and we took her home. When we fed her, she devoured the food like a wild animal. In the morning I took her to the vet. They dressed her leg wounds. She had a bad upper respiratory infection, so we got her on antibiotics and within a few days, our mellow rescue dog was a wild out of control lunatic who demolished everything in the house.

It took time, but eventually we housetrained her, taught her to sit, stay and walk on a leash. And we taught her how to high-five, a trick she loved to show off to little kids.

Life with Brandy wasn’t always easy. She was a scrappy thing, our street dog. She was an alpha, and although she never hurt another dog, she would let them know who was boss. She often drove us crazy with her need to dominate everything and everybody. If she wanted to be pet, she didn’t just sit at your feet, she got inches away from your face and would put her head under your hand repeatedly until you got the clue. She and Stitch used to tear through the living room chasing each other, adding to the chaos of our already turbulent household.

It’s funny how the things that annoy you will one day be the things you miss the most. How I wished in these last few weeks that she would push up against me and beg for attention, or go tearing through the living room.

Early July is when I noticed her panting hard in the middle of the night. Although we did extensive tests on her, nothing showed up. She still hiked with us, and played with Stitch, and ate heartily every day, but she was losing weight rapidly. In four months, she had lost 30 pounds. A few weeks ago I put my palm up to her for a high five, and she couldn’t muster up the strength. That’s when I knew we were in real trouble.

She stopped hiking with us, which was her favorite daily activity. She’d just lay down in the field and quit. Then she stopped eating a couple days ago. And by yesterday, she couldn’t get up at all. Her breathing was labored, her heart pounding erratically.

Panicked, we took her back to the vet, and he told us there was nothing he could do. It seemed her organs were shutting down. They still didn’t know what had gotten her, but with that weight loss, he felt sure it was some form of cancer. He said the kindest thing we could do was to help her cross over.

Although we wanted her suffering to end, it is the still most counterintuitive thing in the world to make the decision to end your pet’s life. Saying goodbye was so hard. I swear she knew what was happening, and it broke my heart. I told her she’d be with Sky now, our black lab who we lost three years ago. Evan said goodbye and I took him out of the room. Troy stayed with her until she was gone. When he came out of the room sobbing, I knew it was over. We walked to the car in silence, Evan dragging her leash, telling us he was walking his invisible dog.

I woke up this morning before the sun and walked through the house. Her leash hung by the front door. Her dog dish sat empty. Brandy is gone.

Good bye friend. Thanks for protecting us, and making us laugh, and making sure we got out to hike every day. I hope we did right by you, Brandy. You sure did annoy us sometimes and we did get mad at you, but we loved you. I hope you are having fun romping through fields with Sky, your best buddy. You were the best high-fiver on four paws, and we will always cherish the memories we had with you.

You may be gone, but the love we had for you is still here. I hope you took that with you when you left us last night.

Heartless

So…Dick Cheney is recovering from Heart Surgery. I saw a doctor on TV the other night explaining the procedure. There’s this amazing little machine inside him that’s pumping his blood, which means that right now, Cheney’s doesn’t actually have a pulse. Really? I mean, did he ever? For a man who by all means appears to be heartless, he’s sure had a lotta heart attacks. Count ‘em …FIVE. But still he lives….and lives….and lives. And yet how many have died as a result of his decisions? How many American soldiers, how many innocent Iraqi children, mothers, fathers? But Dick lives. Dick.

Our friend Greg was healthy and fit, and died instantly from one unexpected heart attack.

I’m pissed off. Seriously PISSED OFF. Why does DICK effin CHENEY get to live and Greg gets to die? Why does God spare him over and over, and not Greg?

Why doesn’t Charles Manson drop dead of a heart attack? Or Mel Gibson, in the middle of one of his racist, mysoginistic raves? Why do those who take other’s lives, make others miserable, get to live? Where is karma? Where is justice?

Anyone have any thoughts on this? If you do, please chime in. Because I’m left with this question in my mind….

Is God heartless, too?