Friday, December 9, 2011

Wearing Grief

Grief may be a thing we all have in common - but it looks different on everyone. We all have our own way of wearing it.  There are 5 stages of grief.  Everyone handles them differently, but there are always 5.

It isn't just death we have to grieve, its the life after the death.  Its the loss, it's the change it's going on living without the ones you love.

I am blessed that I was born to two parents who divorced.  Yes I know that sounds weird, but if they hadn't they wouldn't have both remarried, given me my amazing siblings, incredible step-parents and a vast circle of friends, extended family and loved ones with whom I grew up secure in the knowledge that they loved me. Family isn't always determined by blood, genes or legal documents.

The flip side of the coin is when you have so many loved ones, you have so many to lose.  I actually have some friends - god bless them - who have not yet been to a funeral or buried a loved one.  Either they are fortunate to have not lost family or close friends or were to young when they lost grandparents or someone in their family, to young to remember.

I have not been so lucky.

Last night I was snuggling with my beautiful perfect nephew, he was asleep on my chest.  His parents were out for a well needed few hour break and I was getting my fill of "baby smell".  You know that smell newborns have that has some sort of intoxicating quality to the ones who love them?  Mom came in to kiss us goodnight, and I turned back on the TV.  It was a blissful moment of peace.  Moments later I heard my mom crying out my name as she came into my room sobbing with the news.  Life went from serene and contented straight to anguish and pain in the time it took for me to hit pause.  I realized it's always been that way.  Whether it's a prolonged illness or a sudden accident, every moment of my life when I get the news it hits out of the clear blue sky - ripping apart everything in seconds. Then one of the 5 stages of grief begins and you begin to wear it in your way.


45 plus years ago at a fraternity party at Villanova my dad introduced my mom to Evelyn Porecca, a young woman dating one of his fraternity brothers whom dad thought may get along with his artistic / fraternity loathing fiance.  He was right, and they became best friends from that day on. More then that - they became family.  Mom was an only child and Ev was so much like a sister to her and such a part of our lives that she was my Auntie E from the get go.  I honestly think I was several years old before I realized she was not in fact blood family, but it didn't matter.  She was my Auntie E and I was her "baby girl". Last night mom picked up her messages to find my "Uncle Jim" letting us know that the previous afternoon at 3:45 - the precise time I was arguing with mom in Publix - rather childishly - that no I didn't want brisket for my birthday dinner on Sunday - my Auntie E had passed away, just several hours after she had been admitted to the hospital for what they thought was Pneumonia.  Just like that her lungs gave out on her - and she was gone.


I just did a search on the Internet - and there is no obituary up for her yet, which doesn't surprise me as she was the writer, so really I don't know who would write it for her.  She was a columnist for the Washington Post for this past decade (maybe more) with the byline "Teacher Says"  and an educator most her her life, writer, published author - she also has been battling cancer for the past 25+years.  Fight, Survive, Live - repeat.  It was her existence for decades - so much so that it didn't dawn on me that she one day wouldn't go through the entire cycle again. 


As I sit here and think back on my life, the last time I spoke with her.  The last time I saw her on a trip she and uncle Jim took to Los Angeles.  The first time I ever came to Florida to visit her when I was 10.  Her loud crazy infectious laugh.  Her wrist full of dozens and dozens of gold bangles (which I coveted since childhood) that made her jingle and sparkle when she used her hands to talk - an Italian trait we share.  Her stories, her exotic smelling perfumes and her persistance my whole life that I should be writing at all times.  She encouraged me as a child to write.  To write in journals, to write stories to write about the feelings I had that upset me.  Always a teacher, always a writer and most importantly always a fighter.

I will miss her dreadfully, and I know my mother is heartbroken. She lost one of her oldest friends, and life will never be quite the same.  I feel terrible that it takes death for me to remember to appreciate life.  I know Auntie E would be right pissed at me if I didn't appreciate what I have and every moment I am given.  So in honor of her that's my birthday resolution.  I know it won't always be easy but it's my plan. To do my best not to wear my grief, instead to take a page from her book and to wear life.  She always wore it with such style.

Dedicated to Evelyn Porecca Vuko.
December 7, 2011
Rest in Peace my dearest Auntie E



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