What a difference a Year Makes

 As another year comes to a close, the "year in review" posts will flood social media and make the rounds of the news. If I can impart anything on top of what will be written is that, as you toast to 2023 just toast to the here and now because tomorrow, no matter how much you want, can't be predicted or guaranteed. This is the first full year without my mother and Christmas this time around has been particularly poignant. Maybe because last year, the pain of losing her was too fresh that it all seem surreal. And, oh yes, there was that "surviving a shooting in Mexico incident" that forced me into a leave of absence from work. A job that I held for over 14.5 years, and where only one person contacted me to see if I were alright and ironically, that same person less than a year later, leading a toxic and hostile workplace incident that resulted in just one more thing to get through.

Since last Christmas, I've gone on Prozac, something I was initially ashamed at having to take, but realized this year, that NOT asking for help and not sharing your story does more harm than good. Once upon a time, I loved my job. Seeing the studio gates open, and driving onto the lot was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I told my boss at the time that I hoped that feeling would never end. And, my mom was so proud. 

"Is this THE NBC," a post office worker asked her one Christmas season as she mailed me a package.

"It most CERTAINLY is," she told him.

Working for the network gave me some of the best memories with my mother. It allowed me to take her on three trips to Europe. Showing her Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence, Pisa and finally London where we had some of the best times of our lives. Relocating to New York as painful as it was for me in the end, allowed me more time with her. More Christmas Days and more weekend trips to exotic locations like Maine! (And, if you had asked her, she was just as happy there with me as she was walking along the River Seine.)

So, when this job came to end this year, it was with a bittersweet recollection of all the memories I'd accumulated there. For, in the end, the company doesn't matter. It was how I looked at the employment that did. What it allowed me to accomplish is what I took from it. Not what it took from me. In the end, the people I worked with tried to break me. They tried to insult me and treat me as if we were all back in high school. Through it all, I held my head high. My mother had been the subject of taunts and insults all her young life and she came out the other side with a life that she never imagined was possible. 

Try as I might, I was met with resistance as I tried to make the career work. I came back from my leave of absence with a fresh outlook. I had worked on recovering from losing my mother and realizing that life, as I hid under a pool chair, could be taken from me in a split second despite a gorgeous setting and a blue sky. In all, the last two years, and I won't even mention the COVID isolation, have combined into quite a series of events that have made me look at the years differently. 

And, oh yes, the most important? I fell in love. Me. After ALL these years, after my time in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and New York and always thinking that it could be possible but why bother looking for it to happen at this point. Perhaps my attitude turned off what could have been before, or maybe, as I'm pretty sure, that it wasn't right until now.

I will always miss my mother. I will always miss our holidays and her laugh and her hugs. I have our memories and she lives in my heart and in everything I do. And, without a doubt, she brought a tiny Texan into my life. So, what will my year in review be this time next year? It makes no sense to predict. What matters is seeing what is in front of you. Holding on tight for the ride and making memories that will last a life time. And, above all, never forget that when the excitement of the gate opening fades, it is beyond time to exit stage left.

That Goddamn Yellow Bird and Me

My only hope when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2022 was that this year would be worlds better than the last. So far, and I have no wood to knock on, things are going in the right direction. Really, though, after the last two, is there any direction that is NOT the right way? And nothing in these past months could have prepared me for the ironic collection of Tweety Bird.

It’s no secret that my mother was obsessed by that goddamn yellow bird. I would travel back to Boston, walk into my childhood home and be surrounded by Tweety. From glasses to figurines, and notepads, pens to calendars. When I took my mom out, she’d put on her Tweety shirt and off we’d go with Tweety on her key chain. Half laughing, half serious, I would comment on how that bird was everywhere possible. I even expected Tweety toilet paper in the bathroom but thankfully, I think, Warner Bros. doesn’t make that product.  

And now, months in 2022 - in a strange twist of fate, that goddamn bird puts me in a place of calm. He makes me smile and he surrounds me with a sense of comfort. Perhaps, though, Tweety is something more.

Whether you believe in signs or not - it’s been a journey I could never have imagined. The day I was unpacking some of my mom’s things in my apartment, I was struck by the thought of getting a tattoo. I’ve always been fascinated by body art, but never felt the need to get one. Standing in my living room, unwrapping yet another Tweety Bird, I instantly knew what I was going to do and where I would get it painted. On top of it all, I am not a pack rack, I save nothing. Perhaps it’s because I have moved so much in my life that to make things easier, disposing of clutter makes each location easier. But, for some reason, in my stuff, was one - ONE - birthday card that my mom had sent me. And so, it is that signature that adorns my left arm along with that bird. 

Recently, on a trip to an antique store in Palm Springs, after spending some time in room after room with my brother, I’d had enough of looking at old dust collectors and told everyone it was time to leave. Passing a showroom that we’d passed over and over that day, I took a quick glance inside and there on the shelf were tea cups with that yellow bird. How many times did we walk in that space that day? Yet on the way out, that’s when that goddamn bird decided to make its prescence known? I laughed as I bought them, shaking my head at the irony in the moment.

And now, my collection of yellow birds is growing. T-shirts, a hat, slipper socks, even cards arrive in the mail with him. I wear a Tweety pin on my shirts above my heart. And, the baseball cap to cover my messy hair is always the one with the lounging yellow bird.

What I would give to trade my love of Tweety to have my mom back this Mothers’ Day. Yet, I know if that were true, that I’d be greedy and want her for yet another day and another. I have missed her more than I can possibly describe. Her laughter, hugs, the scent of her White Diamonds on her skin as I kissed her cheek and just the sight of her sitting doing nothing with me. I think back on last summer and the weeks and days leading up to her leaving us and I’m filled with a mixture of sadness, smiles, and yes, even laughter. There was no better way for us to say good-bye except to never have had to say good-bye. 

With her passing, Rosemarie has given me gift upon gift. The way I look at life, the way I conduct myself, the outlook I have on my job and the hope that I have for the future. And as this 2022 day for Mothers approach, I’m not sure how I will feel as the realization that she’s not here will make me feel. Yet, the one thing I do know, is that though she will not be physically with me from now until I see her again, when I’m feeling particularly lonely, I can flip open her White Diamonds body lotion, rub into in my Tweety tattoo and go to sleep with her scent surrounding my senses. I’ll open my eyes and I am comforted more than anyone can imagine that that goddamn yellow bird will be with me forever. 

Family and Fa La La La

This year, has been, to not even exaggerate, probably the worst one of my entire life. I've had too much time to work on myself these past few weeks. Sadness, depression, laughter, and then joy cruelly followed by falling into the darkness again and again. I've felt as if I've been lost in a forest, with a million trees in front of me blocking my path to the Emerald City. What next will jump out at me from the dark?

Yet, as I sit and work on getting better, yesterday, I found some joy. 

It's a story that is probably very familiar to some. My mother was a child of divorce in the 1930s, something that was taboo and because of the sins of the parents, the child was forced to endure the hatred and stupidity of the adults around her. For reasons that are semi-clear, and that I've pieced together from  my mom's stories and what history says about the times, neither her mother or father was granted custody in the divorce. Instead, she lived with her Aunt Nancy, in South Boston, the younger sister of her father. But was my grandmother, Lillian, an alcoholic? Or did she simply love her vodka, bars and men? Was she a "party girl," or worse, a "loose woman?" Whatever the case, my grandfather was not granted custody until he remarried. Was that the reason he married my mom's step-mother or was it also because that same woman was pregnant with my uncle? I surmise it was a combination of both and for those reasons, the woman who I thought was my grandmother resented her new husband's daughter. In a letter to me, my mom described her father's new wife as "the real and true evil step-mother."

"I was Cinderella," she told me. "She called me a dirty Lithuanain, I had to do the chores, I couldn't talk back. And the one time I did, she hit me across the face so hard that my nose bled. I was told to tell my father I fell down the stairs, which is what I did. I guess your father was my real Prince Charming."

Throughout it all, Lillian made an appearance in her daughter's life. Even, at one point, living with them. I don't know the reason for this, perhaps she had no where to go or my grandfather felt sorry for her. Whatever the case, it didn't last  long and she came home drunk one too many times and was told to leave. From that point on, my mother saw her only on weekends. Waiting on the South Boston stoop for her to show up. Often times, Lillian was late, but she always showed. 

Bringing my mother to places where she was dating her latest beau, Lillian would often times leave her for the day. My mother told me often that she was left in a Chinese restaurant while Lillian galavanted all day with the "really nice Chinese man who liked me." When the day was done, Lillian would say, "Now, don't tell your father what you did all day." This story made it clear to me while for as long as I can remember, my mother relished in going for Chinese food and could never get enough. 

Off she would go back to Southie, looking forward to seeing her mother the next weekend. One particular day, Lillian was late and my mom's step-mother looked at her and said, "Your mother's not coming, she doesn't want to see you. Go out with your brother." And so my mother left and when Lillian showed up, she was told, "Your daughter got tired of waiting for you, she doesn't want to see you so she left."

And so the game continued until my mother was 17 or 18, when the visits and communication ceased for some years. Growing up, the phone would ring, and my mother, visibly upset, would hang up. Letters would come in the mail only to be ripped up. Once at my cousins house, someone turned to her and said, "Now Rosemarie, what happened to your other mother?" and my mother covered as best she could.

"No, no, Nonnie," I remember she said, her voice shaking. "I only have one mother."

Years later, when we were in high school, my mother finally told us the truth. Looking back, it was a foreshadowing of my coming out. Like a rubber band, almost falling down in the doorway, supported by my father, she told me that "Nana is not my real mother." And so the unfolding of the story began and then it was a subject she said was in the past, yet as the years went on she would bring up wondering about Lillian.

It was nearly impossible back then to find someone. There was no internet, no Ancestry.com, no 23andMe. Finding records was a laborious process and each time I started, I ran into roadblocks. From my mother's birth certificate, I deduced that my grandfather went back to his full Italian name of Buccafusca after he re-married. My mom was born Bucca, she was never legally a Buccafusca. However, on her christening certificate after his second marriage, she is indeed listed as Rosaria Buccafusca. Did her step-mother refuse to be known as the second Mrs Bucca? Did she force her husband to return to his proper Italian name? It's a question that I will never have answered and one that will make me wonder for the rest of my life.

In any event, my mother made sure my brother and my childhoods were the very best they could be. She was always there when we got home from school, she was always on time, she constantly took us into Boston and never missed kissing us good night. Every Christmas, the gifts were overflowing under the tree and every birthday was full of presents and desserts, and every New Year's Eve - you guessed it - we had Chinese food.

As the years went by, my mother began to talk about Lillian. Wondering if she could find her. 

"I don't even have a picture of her," she told me once on one of Europe trips. "My step-mother destroyed them all."

I made a vow then to try and find, not only for my mom, but for me as well, what slice was missing from our lives. With the advent of technology, the world opened up. My mother shared a letter she got from her mom in 1996 (!) it had no return address, but it was postmarked Woburn, MA, and signed Love, Mother. 

"This is all I have left," she told me. "I'm pretty sure she had another baby and I think it was a boy. I don't know for sure."

This broke my heart, but for years, it was an impossible task to discover the truth. On my part, I put off joining Ancestry, and only renewed my search two years ago. It was then that my mother's health started to fail and I was like a madman sending emails to distant cousins with any hint of a connection.

I was able to tell my mother that Lillian lived to be 82 years old, passing away in 1997.

"We could have known each other," she said wistfully one time. "But it is what it was."

Somewhere along these years, my mother forgave her mother for whatever happened in the past, and her mother, I know, never stopped loving her. Did Lillian regret what she did? I'd like to think she did. Did she have another child? The answer is unequivocally, yes. From Ancestry, I discovered my mother's half brother was born in the 50s, and unfortunately died when he was in his mid - 70s. He was a musician, a product of my grandmother's third marriage to a Richard Martin. Unfortunately, my mother had passed away at the end of July and I got this information in November. I was overcome with emotion, but I looked at my mom's picture and I told her that she was right, and how I wished she would have been more sure of herself. She never gave herself credit.

The lesson in all this? I'm not sure, but it's the holiday, and perhaps it's that families are messy. They can be cruel, childhood can continue to invade your life forever, but if both parties want, forgiveness can be found. The past can never be changed, but from the point you come together, you can forge a new life and a new relationship. Over the years, I've learned the same lesson. It doesn't matter whose fault is the cause of a falling out or what communication got misconstrued, what matters is if you want it, if there was a strong bond to begin with, then finding a way to move on can open up a new path.

I feel I would have adored Lillian. And just recently, finding Lillian's great nephew on Ancestry, I was gifted three pictures of her. And to see her holding my mom as a baby was overwhelming and I  had to hold myself up from falling. There she was - the elusive woman I heard about all these years. The mother of the "Dirty Lithuanian," who was an outcast and a mystery. The joy in her face holding my mom is unmistakable, and the smile on my grandmother is the same one my mother had when she looked at me. It's a picture I will treasure forever.

What would I have called Lillian? Would it be grandmother in Russian? In Lithuanian? What language did she speak? But whatever it would be, we obviously, from the pictures, have the same things in common: Fashion, Vodka, and most importantly from finding out she had five husbands - men. Could we have had fun? Maybe. It's impossible to try and reason with the past. 

Yet at this holiday time, as I try to unsuccessfully navigate the sadness I know will come, I'm filled with the joy of family and dare I sing Deck the Halls with boughs of Holly and really feel the Fa La La? The answer is yes, because it's what my mother would have wanted. Don't let the past define the present, take the joy you feel in the moment and relish it, and if someone you truly love reaches out to you, take the branch and let it bloom.  

In an Instant

It has been only three months since I lost my champion- my mother- my light, and the one person who never doubted me or made me feel as if i were less than. And watching her slip away from us, I came face to face with my mortality. Something that was even more front and center this past week. 

On a glorious day in Cancun - as hump day had passed and the last two days of our perfect vacation were beginning to unfold, on a trip I so desperately needed to reset my life, I found myself under a pool chair wondering if this was the last view of the world that I would ever see. And under that chair - it was my mortality that was more than front and center - it was smack dab in front of my face.

As my friend Richard and I waited for his pool cabana to be ready, we heard a popping sound. Why was someone setting off firecrackers? I thought and then came the sound of broken glass.

"SHOOTER," - I heard screamed from somewhere and then in a stampede, the pool occupants were running through the water and leaping over the swim up bar any way they could get over it.  I was frozen - what the fuck was happening? 

I knew that I couldn't make it across the water and my friend Richard and I instinctively dropped to the ground next to the cabana. I pulled myself under the pool chair, sliding under it along the cement, as if it were some sort of bullet proof blanket I could wrap myself in. But, it was Richard who was completly exposed and I begged him to crawl under a chair next to me as best he could. As it was he had to stare at my ass for close to 45 minutes and that is something no man should have to look at for that long let alone to be the last thing he sees. 

And then we saw him. The shooter, clothed in a jacket with some sort of logo on the back, his weapon at his side - yelling something in Spanish neither one of us understood. He didn't seem interested in looking for anyone but we had no idea how many more would follow. He seemed oblivious to us as he marched forward to the main area.  What followed was almost worse than gun fire. 

It was the silence.

And then slicing the stillness, more voices - and from our vantage point under the chairs a man in blue across the pool. We had no idea who he was or if he was armed - what he was yelling and what it meant for us. I grabbed for my glasses,  scraping my arm on the cement and texted my cousin. 

Stay calm I texted hoping to take my own advice - there's a shooter and I'm under a chair. I sent her a picture of where I was sheltered. Was it so she would know where to tell them to look for us? I don't really know - but I needed someone on the outside to know what was happening. And then a hotel worker appeared, crouched down and motioning for us to stay put.

I am under a pool chair, I thought, how much further can I get down?

"There are no sirens," I said to Richard, unable to turn my head to see him. "Where are the police?"

And then what seemed an eternity, the worker was back, but this time speaking in English, commanding that we move and move fast. I scrapped my arm more as I tried to slide out from under the chair.

"Richard," I screamed, "I can't get out,  I can't get this fucking chair off me." And, before I knew it,  the furniture was thrown off me and I saw a man In dark blue in what looked like tactical gear. He commanded us to keep our heads down and run, to follow the worker.  I didn't know if Richard was behind me, and I lost track of the hotel worker as he disappeared into the building. 

"Where am I going," I cried out, " I don't know where you are."

I ran up the the stairs and a door was opened and suddenly there was Richard and one other guest behind me. We were safe in a room along with several of the frightened house keeping staff. One woman ran to get me a robe and slippers as I was only wearing my swim suit. I texted my cousin that I was in a room, safely out of the open space. 

Perhaps it was an hour later, maybe less that we were given the word to move into the hotel lobby. The shooter was apprehended. But in that crowd with so many without their phones we had no way to find the others in our group. My roommate was missing.  I asked a member of the hotel staff to help me and for once I remembered our room number. 

"Stay here," she instructed me, "We will search." But there was no sign of him - no person In medical with his name and no one in our room. I searched the sea of people and finally saw him emerge from the masses. All of us were accounted for now - every single one of us. 

As you can imagine the rest of the night was somber. And I sat on our balcony and remembered how under that chair - seeing a sliver of the pool water and the swim up bar I so loved - my first thought was of my mother. How for the first time since July - I was glad she wasn't here to have to see what was happening. I texted my cousin at that, and tried to find some levity - this would have killed her faster than any of the goddamn issues that ravaged her body. And I was grateful that no one had to break this news to her.

How did I and the rest of the guests who stayed get through the week? I don't really have a definitive answer. We bonded together as people do during shared times and collectively we knew that we had to go through the rest of the week. That no matter where we were sheltering - in a ballroom, in a stranger's room, in a linen closet - or under a pool chair - this was happening to all of us. But one thing I knew was certain when it was over. That I could not run from this place. I would remain to convince myself that the ugliness of the world will always be defeated by the beauty of it.  

How soon will I get over this experience? For that I can't say - I hear a loud noise and I jump - I heard a voice at the airport cry out in Spanish and I flinched and looked to see what was happening. It was nothing - just people. 

What I do know is that 2021 has been far worse than the covid ridden 2020. And collectively the two years can go straight to hell. This year has robbed me of my mother and I won't for one second longer let the fear of covid and the ridiculous fights surrounding it coupled with some low life drug cartel rob me of my life. 

 

The recovery from this will, without a doubt, take a lot of time on my part. But, right now, I can say that if there is a lesson in this - it is that life is precious. It could end in a second but I prayed that it would not end with my last view of this world being an empty swim up bar.  

So how do any of us move forward? One day and one plan at a time is probably my best answer. I will take stock of my profession, travel to places I want when I want because the next day of life is never guaranteed. If we are lucky to reach our goals - then when it is your time to leave this earth, you want to know that you have lived. I still have too much of living to do, I thought as I tried to keep focused under that chair. And, as I sit in my blue awning apartment, safely back home, I thank whatever power it was - my champion I'd like to think - who told the universe that my life would not end that day, not like this and not this far from home. 

There's more out there to discover and coupled with this past summer and the events of 2020, the old world is truly gone. And though the ugliness of the new world will always find a way to break into the beauty, I hope we can all fight back. That we can find our centers and take stock of the great gifts that this life has given us. But most of all, even though I was hardly hidden from view, and using my dark humor to get me to the other side, I'm happy that I can fit under a lounge chair.  

Objects in the Rear View Mirror

Exactly one month ago, because of something I heard while my brother and I talked to my mom's lead doctor at Mass General Hospital, I furtively booked a seat on a Delta flight landing in Boston at just after midnight. At this point, Rosemarie had been in the hospital for a little over two weeks, the promise of discharge to Winchester Rehabilitation Center earlier that week stolen from us like my mom's fear of her father's sea glass through the window by some juvenile hoodlums only she could see. The only difference now was that this was no hallucination.

These past few weeks, I have gone over that conversation almost daily - trying to figure out what the doctor said that lit my soul on fire - but if you were to offer me a million dollars or even the promise of getting to hug my mother one more time with the answer, I would, sadly have to admit that I cannot remember. All I can recall is telling my brother I had to get off the phone to book a flight, finding one that got me to the East Coast before daylight and throwing clothes into a carry on case that has always brought me to places of great joy. Where was it to bring me this time? What was I going to find? Did I have my night guard? Did I take enough pairs of underwear and what still gives me the worst feeling  to this day - did I pack the proper clothes for a funeral? 

It may sound harsh but I have felt as if the planner in me was finally getting his comeuppance on trying to plan. But deep down - not just deep in my soul, but far beyond the reaches of any realm of reasoning was the fact that I knew my mother was not doing well. That her stints in the hospital over the past three and a half years had not so subtlety laid the groundwork for the realist in me to push aside. To not look in the rear view mirror because that was the past. We had to look to the future and to recovery. But to tell yourself that you know what's coming is a lie - because when it comes - you are not ready.

Yet, in one fifteen minute phone call, my world - my brother's world  - in fact the entire world was changing. And no matter how I tried to push aside my fear, I was strangely comforted by mother's reaction to when she saw me, and I knew I would be right - because whenever I showed up on the east coast with no planning, she would look at me as sternly as she could and say, quite loudly repeating the word for emphasis. "WHAT? What are you doing here?" 

"Well someone told me you were sick honey, so what did you think, I would stay home? Besides, it's the Olympics and you know how I HATE working those so this was as good excuse as any to come see you." She looked at me sideways, laughed as much as was able and all was forgiven. 

But then we boarded what would be a two week roller coaster ride. From the lows of peeling back the covers and seeing with my own eyes, the steep decline since I last saw her barely one month ago to the highs of talking to her about our trips across Europe. She told us how she could STILL taste the French Onion Soup at a corner cafe we found across from Notre Dame. She was disappointed when I told her that on my next trip to the City of Lights, the restaurant was gone. Still, she said, that was the best soup ever. And, then she told my brother how we were just reminiscing about Europe. Reminiscing! She was on so much medication yet she could use a word that even escaped me when talking about our trips. She's doing better for sure, her mind is still sharp. But then, the roller coaster plunged down from the loop. There was a man next to her in the bed, chomping gum, wearing a hat. "Shhhh," she whispered. "He's back." 

"Do you want me to tell him to go?" I asked, wanting above all to validate what she saw.

"No, no," she lowered her voice to keep the man from hearing. "He will go away."

I wanted to find out who this man was? I peppered her with questions, was it someone she knew? Was it her father? All negative responses. Seems, he was just a man coming into the room and taking her spot on the bed while she sat in the chair next to it. It was then the hallucinations came fast and swift. A woman waiting to board a train.."Jimmy will help you, m'am," she said. "Hold on.  Hold on." And I would dutifully take the woman's fingers and lead her out of the room. 

From there, we were in a Chinese restaurant, where she got angry with my brother to move the food on the shelf. "No, not that one, that one," she instructed as Bobby blindly found the correct product to move out of the way. As exhausting as it was, we had to find the humor.  How else would we make it through the long day in this sterile hospital room?

Every day was a nightmare ground hog day, but in those terrible times there were still moments that made us proud to be her boys.  There were the nurses and the doctors  -  all telling us what a wonderful woman our mother was, how nice she is and how, even now, how accommodating she was when asked a question. For even seeing the grimace on her face that clearly told us she was in pain, Rosemarie didn't want to take medicine away from another patient who needed it. "You are the patient," we told her. "Take it all. Alfred's insurance is paying for it. Use every last vial." I'm pretty sure there was another smile there.

I think we forgot what day it was somewhere around day two, and the roller coaster wasn't quite done arriving at the home platform. Perhaps that is what the woman she saw was waiting to board? If so, I would have gladly given up my seat.

To write all this down isn't to yet again eulogize my mother - a strange enough sentence to write as it is - but as way, I suppose to remember that despite the roller coaster not stopping, the ride had given us consolation prizes. There was that horrible Wednesday when she was clinging to life and our grief poured out until there were no tissues left in the room. We said our good-bye. Could she hear us? Did she know what was happening. And, then, that horrible day was followed by a scene out of a Hitchcock movie. I was back at Carney St., too upset to go back up to that room, when a call came. She was sitting up, asking where I was, when was she coming home and sad that she was disappointing us by not making progress. I hopped in an Uber and made it to MGH in record time, telling her I was at lunch and work let me out when they heard she asked for me. 

"Okay, " she said. "Okay."

"Give me a kiss," I said, and she puckered her lips and said she loved me.

This is a great consolation prize. I will take it. Is the ride over yet? Ah, but theme parks are never what they seem, and another day of chatter was followed by another dip of the coaster car. More talks with the medical team, with terms too hard to understand without asking more questions, gaining more knowledge than anyone should ever know about what was happening to their mother. For no matter how hard a fighter she was, no matter how she found a way out of South Boston, and no matter how she made her world better, it was her heart that was controlling this ride. And as strong as Rosemarie was, the heart that always gave too much love out to others, was just not returning that same level of love to her. I suppose that's a writer's interpretation of a horrible phase in life to shed a new light into a dark corner. Because if you don't find the light, if you don't look for the sun that peeks out from under the curtain of the windowsill, you perpetually live in the bleakness.

So for this past month - often times unsuccessfully, I have tried to find my footing on ground that continually moves because the roller coaster just doesn't seem to want to put on the brakes. Jumping  out of the car will cause bodily harm and if I were hurt, that would not make Rosemarie happy in the least. But what I know will make me happy, and as surreal as it still is to hear people tell me that they are sorry for my loss, is seeing how my mother will always be here. 

My mother is in my kitchen - from her mixing bowls to her mixer to her measuring cups and pans. She'll be in the love I bake for others while I wear her aprons that she bought in Venice and Paris and in Williams-Sonoma because she loved that store when all she got there were pop-up sponges and aprons. She's on my walls in pictures from Europe and Los Angeles and memories of her gazing at the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Plaza before seeing her life long dream of seeing the Radio City Hall Rockettes. There are a million memories to erase those weeks of this roller coaster ride and there really is no need to pinpoint what in that conversation one month ago that told me to get on a plane. All you need to know, or maybe by writing this, all I need to know, is something inside told me and I listened. For even in the dark, we are able to find the light under the curtains and although the darkness finally won out - my mother will always be here. 

She's in the love she's taught me exists in this world, and, she will always make me laugh. She made us do just that with one of her funniest hallucinations.  She was in a speeding car driven by my brother, begging him to slow down, they were going to crash! I took her hand and told her the car was slowing, he was braking. She calmed down and fell back asleep.

For two weeks, what is without a doubt, an exhausting journey can also be seen as giving us the greatest gift. To tell your mother, over and over that you love her to the point where she even said - during one of her lucid moments - "Okay, Okay, Enough Already!" Now how can that not make you laugh? Let's annoy Rosemarie with even MORE love. And then, when we were faced with moving her to hospice, I know we made the right decision. I told her that she was making progress, to not be sad and the doctors wanted to move her to a better place. Above all, I wanted to be certain that she never thought she was disappointing us. We were all leaving this sterile hospital room together.

And today, on this four week timeframe, I look around my apartment, and my footing begins to take hold. No one wants to exit this stage, and as hard as that is to realize for all of us, we gave our mother an exit worthy of her life. Full of love, compassion and peace. We might cry over and over for our loss, I might forever wonder about that phone call, and I may have an ugly cry when no one else is around, but the girl who was told she'd never amount to anything has left the world a better place. And simply put, my mother - Rosemarie - not Rosemary - but call her that if you'd like because calling her is remembering her - Rosemarie will always be near because objects in the rear view mirror are always closer than they appear.

Ok Back

How do you begin something that you’ve never wanted to write? How do you encompass all that someone is in mere words? How do you paint a picture of someone that everyone already knows except maybe to tell you of the woman that only I know?

Rosaria Bucca – Rosemarie or on the rare occasion, Rosemary, may or may not have been the illegitimate daughter of a south Boston Italian father and Lithuanian mother. But the one thing for certain that no one can deny was that she was, and will always be, a mother of extraordinary strength, joy and love. She was my savior in a world full of bullies, a champion in a world full of doubters, the loudest applause in a room full of strangers and the one constant at the kitchen table in a house she made into a home.

When I decided to take her to Paris, I never dreamed it would be the first of a trio of trips across the Atlantic. The girl whose neighbors dumped wet bread on her head and who got her cross ripped from her chest by nuns who deemed her unworthy was walking through the city of lights with someone who not only saw her as worthy but also saw her as his shining star. For there would be no Paris without Rosemarie, there’d be no Rome, Venice, Florence or London. In fact, there would be no life at all. But is there a life without Rosemarie? At this moment, I cannot tell you a definitive yes, but I can tell you, like she told me when I moved in 1990, that you must follow your path and no one else’s. No matter if that path takes you three thousand or ten miles, your life needs to be lived. I thought I crushed her soul when I left but little did I know that I would give her a world beyond the reaches of South Boston, beyond Medford and beyond the backyards where wet sloppy bread was thrown on her head from a dilapidated triple-decker.

She can count so many as her friends and family - and not just those here today. There are drag queens in San Francisco, boys in Belgium, women in California and boys that grew up to be fine young men who still revel in the taste of her stuffed artichokes and chicken cutlets.

This was a woman who never gave herself credit, who always put herself down as uneducated and too stupid to understand how the world worked.But what you need to understand is she was the smart one, she knew how the world worked. It works with love and compassion and never questioning that to be a great mother meant to let her children live their lives no matter who they were or whom they loved.

I’ve wrestled for days and even months leading up to this moment if I have told her enough how much she meant to me. And then I take comfort in knowing that last week, I got to tell her over and over. And as we talked about things in her hospital room, it was obvious that I showed her, too. For whether it was a simple birthday card or a walk along the river Seine –a trip on the Provincetown ferry or the high speed train to Belgium - at a dinner in Ogunquit or the Tuscan countryside or lunch in San Francisco or at the Malibu coast, everything I am or ever hope to be is because of a maybe illegitimate daughter of an Italian and Lithuanian from South Boston.

Finally, this week, I walked by my old elementary school and it brought back the memory of when my mother dropped me off at kindergarten. She let go of my hand and didn't look back even as I screamed like a wounded animal for her to come back. It was only later, on one of our trips that she told me the principal told her to do just that – to keep walking and not turn around. That it was the only way to get me to stay and she said that it was the hardest thing she ever had to do. I now know how she felt, because these last few weeks have been the hardest thing I have ever or will ever have to face. And no matter how loud I cry - she is not going to turn around.

But I'm comforted - and I hope you all are by this last thought. In the days after social media, she got tech savvy and texted at all hours of the day, but always, always without fail - there was the evening text at 8pm pacific, telling me she was going to sleep. Ok, I would say and immediately she responded, “Ok back.” This back and forth between us would continue until I finally had to tell her to GO-TO-BED.

 

So, for the final time I wish her good night –to sleep well and not worry. Because although our hearts and lives will never be whole again, we will survive because that is what she taught us to do. Today, I get the last word and say, “okay back.”  

 

Where Has all The Common Sense Gone?

You don't need me to tell you what the past year and a half has been like, and if you do, then I envy how much you don't know about the world. However, recently, I got on a plane for the first time and I have to say, I highly recommend people board airplanes during this pandemic time. Why? Because you'll see first hand how these rules are idiotic and frustrating. 

I'm not here to tell you how to behave. The one thing I've learned is that people are going to do what they want. Should you wish to wear a mask all the days of your life, that's your choice. Enjoy it. Should you wish to remain in your home and forever get your groceries delivered? Enjoy it. Give someone a paycheck. And if you wish to never travel to see the world, enjoy the world you create. For me, it's a far different scenario.

From the second I entered the airport, even though fully vaccinated, I had my mask. Why? Because it's mandated and I do what I do because I'm being forced to. And what good does it do to argue, my common sense won't translate to anyone else. That's rule #150 that makes no sense, and you can argue with me til the sun retreats into the skyline. You aren't going to reach people who don't want a vaccine shot by telling them to wear a mask after they get a jab. Argue with me if you'd like, but you won't convince me otherwise.

Which brings me to the next step. The TSA check. Newly remodeled to have plastic barriers. Because everyone knows COVID doesn't go up and over plastic but only sideways. At the TSA check, I had to remove my mask for the agent to verify it was me. Because COVID doesn't come when you slide your mask down and breath in front of TSA. Walking to my gate, there are no more coffee shops open, however, you can buy lots of liquor and sit at the bar while you wait to board. COVID only comes to caffeine, not to alcohol. That must be why liquor stores have remained open. Essential liquor..Right. Got it. Since I didn't want to chug down a vodka stinger, I found a seat at the gate. Lo and behold, you must leave the seat next to you vacant to ensure proper social distancing.

And, then it was time to board. Line up according to your number. But - wait, what is this? No social distancing? I'm right next to the person I was sitting one vacant seat away just seconds earlier? I can board the plane with not one empty seat? And, only from the front of the plane! The benefit in boarding from the back of the plane is now gone. It seems COVID comes when you open the back door of the plane to allow better airflow and faster boarding. 

Getting to my seat, I hear a woman announce that she's "double vax'd," nothing to worry about. Well, I'm worried that you have to announce your status to everyone. I don't care, take a seat and shut up. I had a rash last week, do you want to know what cream I used to get rid of it?

Then, the woman behind me asked me to help put her suitcase in the overhead because she pulled a muscle and couldn't lift it. I guess she wasn't afraid that I might contaminate her bag, because COVID doesn't comes when someone helps your injured self. And, then the joys of flying kept coming. To order a drink, you had to hold up your fingers! 1- Diet Coke; 2- Coke; 3- 7-Up; 4- Water. No need to speak! The virus comes when you voice your choice, but it does not come when you pull your mask down to drink. Now, if you've flown and this wasn't your experience, and you were allowed to speak, tell me where is the common sense there? It's okay on one airline, but not the other? It's okay to sit two seats away in the boarding area but not in a metal tube in the air? Oh, right...the air is filtered on a plane, it's not filtered in wide open spaces.

Early on in this pandemic, I listened to all the views - I was as worried as the next person. But where was common sense when there was no toilet paper? Did COVID take a shit in your house and make all the paper disappear faster? Did it make you run to the bathroom more than you usually do? Did it take all the cleaning products because you needed ten instead of one? To this day, I have such flashbacks of empty peanut butter shelves that I keep two unopened jars at all time in my pantry.

As much as I want the world back, I'm craving for common sense to make its return. Or, maybe, what I've learned is, there was never any common sense to begin with at all.