Silent No More

I ran further than I have ever run before today. My friend Jess and I were supposed to train. She did. I was, well, preoccupied.

I ran today in memory of my mom, to publicize the silent symptoms of ovarian cancer and to hope for a cure so that other kids don't have to lose their moms.

Please take a moment to look over the symptoms of ovarian cancer. Do it for the people that love you.

Now, sleep.

Two Dimes

All day, I have been fixating on two dimes.
Twenty cents.
How can one number mean so little and so much?
Today is the twentieth anniversary of my mother's death.
Twenty cents,
twenty years.
One number, you would barely bother
to reach down to pick up.
The other, you can barely get up
out of your grief.

Grandma NJ

"Selma."

Not really the answer I wanted to hear. The question? I asked my beloved husband what he called his grandmother. After some hemming and hawing, he reluctantly spit out her name. No "Grandma Selma." No "Bubbeh Selma." Just Selma. It betrayed the gulfs between him and his grandmother.

She died twenty years before Dave was even a glimmer in his parents eyes. Understandable. But, for me, the revelation was crushing. On the eve of my own mother's twentieth anniversary of her death, I just kept projecting fifty years into the future and hearing Spence call his grandmother "Norma."

So I lick his nose and tell him about how his Grandma NJ used to do the same thing to his mom. As we touch the beautiful flowers in the many neighborhood gardens, I tell Spence about how his Grandma NJ used to grow the most beautiful cala lilies. We cozy up to Grandma NJ's picture and talk to her about our day. She will be his grandmother, not just my mom.

And because she can't pull out a photo of her grandson and brag, let me..


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