many forms of mother

May 1, 2014May 6, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 10 Comments

"I am mother," a painting of my mom's — “I am mother,” a painting of my mom’s

My mother died this past December. I say “died” because “passed away” is too gentle. Too sweet. She was snatched out of life; she was ripped from us; she was stolen. There was nothing passive about it.

Since then, I’ve had my first Christmas without her. My first New Year’s without her. Her 57th birthday. Without her. And I’ve managed to survive each one.

But May . . . May may just be what does me in.

I open my email each morning and every subject line is “Tell Mom You Love Her,” “Perfect Gifts for Mother’s Day,” “Don’t Forget about Your Mom.” The in-store signs are equally dangerous. And the greeting card aisle? I’d rather be back in the hospital with her than trying to walk down it right now. I can’t even peruse the latest issue of Real Simple because mom is everywhere.

Everywhere, except here.

Needless to say, this Mother’s Day is going to be different for me. And so I’ve decided to do exactly what my mother would want: to stop grieving, stop aching, stop breaking, and to celebrate the many forms of mother.

Like my sweet sister, who strives to find mom-like things to say. Who let’s me call her when I’m hysterical and patiently calms me down. Who talks to me on my drive home so I don’t get lonely. Who buys me plane tickets to visit her and my own bottle of Design perfume. Who draws “Corkscrew.” Who tells me to write more poetry.

Like Grandmom, my mom’s mom, who asks how I’m doing and really means it. Who calls and emails and Facebooks–whatever it takes to touch base. Who offers love like only the mother of my mother could know how to do.

Like my best friend Amy, who knows everything I need before I ever say it. And would do anything for me without ever thinking twice. And makes me believe I’m the best person in the whole world.

Like my dad’s wife Rana, who made a point to send extra flowers to the funeral because she knew there could never be too many flowers. And offered to buy us even more Christmas presents. And hung my mom’s paintings in her home.

Like David’s mom, who welcomes me into her family unquestioningly. Who offers empathy without ever becoming overbearing. Who, even though David and I are 27 years old, sent an Easter card with money. Just like my mom would.

Like my friends from childhood and adolescence and college, Robyn, Tiffany, Leiko, Taylor, Brittany, who held my hand before the funeral, sent me the best care package I’ve ever received, kept me company on New Years Day, and made sure I knew they will always be there when I need them.

Like my Charleston friends, Madeline, Sarah, Joni, Kimberly, Stephanie, Amy who were waiting with hugs when I came back. Who are always ready to listen when I’m ready to talk. Who surprise me with capes and scarves and mustard blouses and good advice. Who buy me brunch with more biscuits than is humanly possible to eat.

Like my supervisors at work, Heather and Amy, who could not have been more human when I missed so much time. Who sent text messages full of hope and strength every day I was away. Who provide such a sense of comfort just by being the incredible women they are.

Like my aunts, Sandra, Sarah, Susan, who made the worst week of my life a little better by being extensions of mom. Who held me when I needed it, made sure I had something to eat and somewhere to sleep, and did all the things that mothers always do.

Like my extended family, Melanie, Gayle, Phyllis, Candace, Celeste, who remind me how lucky I am to be a McCollough-Shelnutt. And always know what to say to lift my spirits.

These women are proof that there are many forms of mother. And my mother would be the first to say so.

So to all the email blasts and commercials and radio spots and banner ads reminding me not to forget about mom, let me be clear: there will never be a Mother’s Day for the rest of my life that I forget about my mom.

But this year, this May, this Mother’s Day, I want to celebrate these women.

And say thanks.

Thank you for being a new form of mother in my life. Thank you for filling a gap in my heart. Thank you for weaving the seamless network of love and support and kindness that has kept me afloat for five tough months.

You are precious to me. Happy Mother’s Day.

lessons over coffee

April 30, 2014May 6, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 25 Comments

When I first moved to Charleston after graduating college, I took an unpaid internship for a small advertising agency. To make ends meet, I worked nights at a coffee shop.

That particular coffee shop was situated between an organic food supermarket, a yoga studio, and a day spa. So I never quite understood why it became the gathering spot for members of a local AA support group, consisting mostly of rough-edged men, many of whom were warring with addictions to drugs much heavier than alcohol.

Each evening, among our customers sporting yoga pants and toting canvas grocery bags, the AA crowd gathered on our patio. They smoked cigarettes and slurped coffee and tipped with heavy hands.

There were those who had been sober for longer than I’d been alive. And white-knuckling twenty-somethings just trying to survive rehabilitation by holding their breath. More than once our tip jar was stolen by customers who’d relapsed. One night a regular was found on the steps of the neighboring public library, dead from an apparent overdose.

Some of them opened up to me, their cheerful night-time barista with no lifelong struggles to overcome, no scars on her arms worth hiding. Over the sounds of steaming milk and singer-songwriter tunes, I heard stories of triumph and failure; I witnessed victory and defeat firsthand.

One of my daily encounters was with a man named Damon. He had eyes as stormy as swirling shots of espresso and a jagged voice. His skin was tanned and calloused and thick from years in the sun and bad decisions and worse consequences. I longed to peel back all his layers and see what stories lived inside.

It took months to win him over, but eventually, he let me in. I went from serving him coffee over the counter to bringing it to him at the end of my shift. We discovered each other in between sips of iced americanos.

Damon was the first man I connected to after the conclusion of a painful six-year relationship, the majority of which was spent struggling to get out of it, only to fall back in. I realize now it was my own sort of addiction.

Even though my time with Damon only lasted a few weeks, he restored a confidence in me that was shaken by countless infidelities. He assured me my lack of scars didn’t make me lackluster.

We talked every day until one day we just didn’t. And one day became two. And two became three. When I finally heard from him, he confessed that he’d messed up and had a beer.

I suspected it was probably more than that.

Damon continued to spiral in the only way an addict knows how–down and quickly and out of control–by lying and stealing his way to oblivion until he was finally arrested. And that’s how it ended.

I’ve now hung up my green apron for good, but I miss serving coffee to all those warriors. I miss seeing the fight in their eyes. I miss the connection I had with Damon.

Thinking back, I wish I could have done something to return the favor for the way he filled up my rehabilitating heart that spring. For making me see that some scars are beneath the surface, addictions take many forms, and not all support groups are held in Sunday school classrooms. For helping me break free from my own struggles, even as he was sinking back into his.

And most of all, for showing me how to love not in spite of flaws, but because of them.

Photo credit: LaurenLemons via Etsy

gargleblaster: have all your clocks stopped?

April 27, 2014June 20, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 35 Comments

I’m late! I’m late! Her insides screamed,

as she kissed white rabbits hoping for white knights.

But the glass slipper never fit;

fairy godmother never appeared.

So she walks the plank toward midnight,

a punctual crocodile waiting beneath.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Photo credit: StayGoldMedia via Etsy

Gargleblaster #159: Answer the question “Have all your clocks stopped?” in exactly 42 words.

semifiction

April 22, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 20 Comments

It was sophomore year of high school, Ms. Hager’s American literature class, when I learned one of my favorite words: semisubnebulous.

It was used in a short story, but I can’t remember which one. Probably something by Faulkner. Maybe Chopin. What I do remember is a footnote at the bottom of the page provided the definition.

It means walking around in dreamlike state. Half asleep. Half awake. It’s basically sleepwalking, but it sounds so much cooler than that.

Or at least that’s what it means to me. Because to this day, I have yet to see it defined anywhere else. It’s a ghost of a word, but I love it just the same.

There are plenty of non-ghost words that start with semi. Semiannual. Semicolon. Semisweet. Semitruck. Semicircle . . . But semifiction isn’t one of them. There’s just no such thing.

That’s because writing is not some two-lane road paved thick in black asphalt with reflective yellow lines that clearly divide the fact from the fantasy. Or if it is, we’re weaving in and out of our lanes like drunk drivers fleeing the scene of a bar fight.

The truth is even our most imagined tales are steeped far too long in boiling kettles of reality and history. And our most honest stories are fuzzied by slanted perspectives, by blurry Polaroids thumbtacked along the walls of our minds.

It’s unavoidable. And poor James Frey had to learn the hard way. But to this girl, there’s no difference between a million little truths and a million little lies.

It’s all in what we remember. In how we remember. In how we write what we remember.

It’s the emotions that seep out of our pores. It’s the words we make up during our high school English classes. It’s the scenes we try to capture–in fiction and in memoir–each one rooted in fading recollections, sepia-toned facts, and yes, even semisubnebulous memories.

So go on. Write your heart out, storytellers. Let all the semitruths spill from your veins.

The world will probably only believe half of them anyway.

Photo credit: ForgottenCharm on Etsy

gargleblaster: tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?

April 21, 2014April 21, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 16 Comments

gabriel garcia marquez

As the LCD ticked away the time she had left, Joseph took her speckled hand in his.

“You’ve fought a good fight, old friend,” he choked. “But don’t you stay for me.”

“You never did before . . . And now it’s much too late.”

Gargleblaster #158: Answer the question “Tell me something, old friend: Why are you fighting?” in exactly 42 words.

infinitesitale – two

April 17, 2014April 24, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

Mema was just 22 when her dad died. The two were close; quite possibly, she was the favorite of his four children.

As my granddad, who we call Pepa, drove her home from the funeral, he warned, “You know, everything you see is going to make you think of him.” To which Mema responded, “You’re right; it will. And everything will be a beautiful memory.”

That’s the story as Pepa retold it to my sister and me 60 years later, as we drove him home from a new funeral. Now he was the one left with all the beautiful memories.

Infinitesitale: An extremely small story. 100 words or less. This was a second attempt.

gargleblaster: do you see her much?

April 14, 2014April 14, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 26 Comments

“Do you see her much?” she pecked, returning with tea. “Or is she more like a pretend girlfriend?”

“Yes, mother, I see her,” he responded, teeth clenched.

Every night, he thought. But it was complicated now with the restraining order in place.

Photo credit: Hone yPotPhotography on Etsy

Gargleblaster #157: Answer the question “Do you see her much?” in exactly 42 words.

infinitesitale – one

April 10, 2014April 10, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 3 Comments

Forever had always seemed impossible. But as they tore away from the chapel, high on champagne and confectioner’s sugar, he began to believe they could actually make it.

He admired her from the passenger seat, wishing it hadn’t taken him this long to figure it out. So many infidelities. So many lies. So much lost time.

A sudden acceleration followed by a sharp turn shocked him back to the present.

Crashing through the guard rail on the bridge, he looked at her with panic-stricken eyes: “Forever?” they pleaded.

Hers narrowed in response: “‘Til death do us part.”

Infinitesitale: An extremely small story. 100 words or less. This was a first attempt.

running from bagels

April 8, 2014April 8, 2014 ~ GennaClaire ~ 19 Comments

Sheltered behind my cubicle walls, I heard her voice above the typing of keys, the slurping of coffee, the early morning chatter, as she agonized over a breakfast spread set up just outside a neighboring conference room.

As others came by, grabbing scones or muffins or fruit cups or coffee–definitely coffee–she chatted them up. Hello’s and how-are-you’s and an occasional introduction.

But those little chats were just circles; they never ventured far from where they started. And they always came back to the bagels.

“I’m thinking about having a bagel,” she’d declare to no one in particular. “I ran this morning, so I think it’s okay.”

Minutes would go by. Others would come to stake their breakfast claim and again, she’d pipe up: “I already went for a run today, so I can probably have a bagel and it’ll be okay” or “Six miles is enough to cancel out a bagel, right?”

Part of me mentally smacked myself in the forehead each time I heard her seeking out justification for her food choice. We’re talking about a bagel for heaven’s sake, not deep-fried challah french toast. Not to mention it wasn’t even nine ‘o clock in the morning and the woman had already run half a half marathon.

Part of me wanted to stand up, peer my head over the wall of my cube and say, “YOU’RE GONNA BE FINE. EAT THE DAMN BAGEL ALREADY!!”

But part of me was all too familiar with the circuitous journey she was on. A roundabout road toward health and happiness and self-contentment with the occasional toll of sanity that must be paid along the way.

I’ve argued myself in and out of many a morning run, a tiramisu, and yes, even a fresh-baked bagel. I’ve measured out two tablespoons of hummus to accompany my carrots, just to make sure I didn’t accidentally overdo it. I’ve brought my own packed lunches to untrustworthy dinner parties, so I wouldn’t be trapped without a healthy option. I’ve sopped the grease off my pizza with a paper towel. I’ve had my fair share of low fat and no fat and low sugar and no taste.

I’ve fallen victim to the endless pinwheel of longing, indulging, guilt, and regret, and I’m acutely familiar with the same empty hole that waits in the middle . . . whether you eat the bagel, or you don’t.

Somehow, I found my way out of the loop. I’ve stopped running from bagels or running for bagels. I’ve stopped counting calories and fat grams and minutes until lunch.

But I still recognized the dread and doubt and indecision in that woman’s voice. And I hated every moment for her.

I’m not sure if she decided to eat that bagel or not. And really, it doesn’t matter. It would have plagued her either way.

I do hope one day she sees the justification she needs can’t come from her coworkers at the breakfast buffet. Or her husband. Or her children. Or parents. Or friends.

I hope one day she stops running in circles and makes peace with herself. And all the bagels she has yet to consume.

Photo credit: Pretzel Bread Bagels via Miss Munchie on Etsy