Moving On...Literally [TMI]

7 years ago today my mom, Marcia Goldstein died of Multiple Myeloma. On the day of her  death-aversary, I LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT THE SHIT I'M GOING THROUGH, in the hopes it might help anyone else who's going through shit too. 

We had just moved to Park Slope in early 2007 when things started to get really bad with my mom. I was a newlywed, recently returned from an Italian honeymoon to our charming Brooklyn Brownstone apartment...and two months later my mother died. 

Needless to say, this time is forever etched in my memory.

But in the years since, I got used to the feelings of sadness that would inevitably come over me when I was in the back of the cab getting driven to JFK from Brooklyn. Remembering all the times I made this very same trip, staring out the window at the crumbling, ugly buildings and confronting the scary truth that my mom was soon going to die. 

I had grown used to the pang in my stomach I'd get when exiting the subway at 9th street, on the days I'd let my mind wander back to when my husband called me right as I exited that stop to say: "your brother called...it's the end. We're booked on a flight leaving in 2 hours." 

And when walking up and down the leafy streets on the UWS, I would often think about the days afterwards...when I would force myself to get on the subway to go to my shrink's office--and then sit on her couch and cry for a solid hour. 

And while those geographical reminders sound bleak and depressing, in a strange way they weren't. Those things were all familiar to me...and reminded me of my mom. And despite the fact that I would still feel pangs of sadness when I visited these landmarks on my Mourn Tour, I still felt in control of it. all. I could identify them on a map. I was very used to dealing with my mom being dead while I was living life as a New Yorker. 

But then I moved. 

I now live in Los Angeles, where there are palm trees, and pressed juiceries and nary a sign of any sort of vortex...except for maybe a fake boobs one. I anticipated how different life would be here and planned for many things related to our move: new furniture, a new driver's license, a car, but "new and unexpected ways to mourn my mother's death" never made it to any of my todo lists. 

But here I am and here it is. I realized that I was actually an old pro at living my life as someone with a dead mom in New York...but now I've got to deal with this shit in a new place, in a new way, with unexpected triggers and, shockingly, it's totally fucking different.

This move has brought things back to the surface in truly bizarro ways. Like, this isn't a newsflash to anyone who lives outside of NYC, but when you drive everywhere, you spend a shitload of time alone in your car. Listening to the radio...sitting in traffic...passing a billboard for Wendy's (which my mom LOVED)...annnnnnd then sobbing uncontrollably during the entirety of a Miley Cyrus song. I can't help but think about how much my mom would have loved sitting out on our deck in the sunshine looking at the mountains, or how happy she'd be with all the flippin TJ Maxx's! My gawd that woman loved an afternoon at TJ's. 

So now I'm in this new place, and all of my old geographical markers are completely gone. I guess I'm slowly but surely building new ones as I begin down the road of  trying to become an old pro at living my life as someone with a dead mom in California. 

It kind of feels like I'm starting all over. 

That's the crazy thing about death: before you experience it and lose someone you love, it seems so damn final. Many of us who deal with this shitty situation, have lost a loved one to a virus...or an incurable disease, cancer, yadda yadda yadd. But, ironically, this mourning for me--it's kinda the same thing. It's like this ever growing, non-curable virus that moves, and shifts, and changes unpredictibly, but never ever goes away. I wish there was a cure, but there's not. And so now, it feels like I'M the one with the incurable disease, but the disease is "your mom died when you were 34 before your entire life started, and now you have to deal it forever. Go."  Sometimes it lays dormant for days, weeks, or months at a time, and then sometimes it's like: "yo, pay attention to me. I'm here to fuck up your life and make you miserable."

This shit is the opposite of final. 

And so here is the speech I read at my mom's funeral...during a moment that I thought would be the final one I would ever spend with her. Little did I know it was actually it's own gigantic, frustrating, sad, sweet, angry, grateful, challenging, empowering, melancholy new beginning: life without mom. 

Thank you, Mom.

 

Thank you for teaching me to always say please and thank you, to put on socks with the line right over my toes and that little white lies are ok sometimes if you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. 

 

Thank you for teaching me to always be kind, to believe in myself and to speak up when I feel like I’m being wronged.

 

Thank you for making predictions that have come true such as: “you’ll find a great guy one day,” or “you might hate your brother and sister now, but someday you’ll be happy to have them”

 

Thank you for teaching me the importance of chocolate, how to make the perfect roast beef sandwich, and how to call for takeout.

 

Thank you for always making me laugh, for teaching me that there is more than one way to do just about everything, and that if I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

 

Thank you for supporting me at times I may not have even deserved it, for being there for me every time I needed you to be, and for telling me you loved me constantly.

 

Thank you for being proud of me.

 

Thank you for being there during almost every important moment of my life and for teaching me that family is everything.

 

Thank you for letting me know that after a big shopping spree, its usually a good idea to leave most of the bags in the trunk of my car and just come into the house with one.

 

Thank you for saving the soap opera I wrote with Jodi Levine in fourth grade and for embarrassing me with it on several occasions.

 

Thank you for Dad, Ted and for Robyn.

 

Thank you for encouraging me to be independent, teaching me that I can accomplish absolutely anything if I set my mind to it, and to dream big.

 

Thank you for being a mom who was different from all of the others.

 

Thank you for all the special days and for all of the boring ones too.

 

Thank you for your love.

 

Thank you, Mom.

*The above pic is of me and my mom on visiting day at my old sleepaway camp. Just out of frame was my stash that I asked my parents to bring: 9 boxes of devil dogs, 2 cases of diet coke, 4 cans of squeeze cheese, and about 168 mini kit kats. #myfatass