All My Children

All of your children leave home, eventually. If you are lucky, they leave home for the "last time" before they turn thirty. Recent statistics show that the average age a child leaves home for the last time is 28. At least, those were the statistics before the current recession. When some statistician recalculates the numbers ten years from now, the average age might well be even higher.

I ran into a couple who have been my long-time friends of some thirty years at a classical music concert at a local community college recently. Their two "boys", who are quite intelligent, are now 29 and 26....and, after years of college and graduate school, both are currently living....you guessed it, at home.

Nothing

Tim is dead.

There I said it, I wrote it in black and white. But it still does not seem real.

Every time I see the Fremont High School home page, and see Tim's photo, and the "news", I am taken aback. Every time. I just keep thinking if I read "the news" often enough, it will sink in, but so far, it hasn't.

The words are incongruous. Tim is...working in the auditorium, mowing the lawn, brushing the dog....but not, "dead". Being dead is not doing something; being dead is doing nothing. And how can Tim be doing nothing?

I asked him once, when he was staring off into space with a far off look on his face, what he was thinking and he said "Nothing". You can't be conscious and be thinking about "nothing", unless you're dead.

So now, my dear friend, I guess at last you truly are thinking about nothing, nothing at all.

Why?

When someone dies, we want to know certain things, like "how" and "when" and "where". When someone dies at a very young age, we also want to know "why".

Why him or her? Why did he/she leave us at such a young age? Of all people, why did she get cancer? Why did it happen to him and not to the guy next door? Why did I survive when others died?

We can get factual answers to the how and when and where. But there are no answers to the "why".

Is Tim Truly Gone?

I cannot believe that Tim is truly gone. I went down to the high school auditorium today, after the school day had ended, and spoke with some of his stagecraft students. It seemed as if Tim was just in another room of the school, perhaps checking his mail in his office, about to stride into the auditorium from a lumber run or from talking to Sue, the Assistant to the Principal, at her desk just down the hall. The students asked me to come back in a few days, during Stagecraft class, and maybe I will. If Tim doesn't show up then...maybe his absence will make his death seem more real. But right now, I keep asking myself if Tim is truly gone.

Animals

Do pets know when their masters have died? Do they sense when someone who had been taking care of them is not coming back?

I'm not so sure that your pet snake or goldfish is affected when one owner leaves and another takes his place. As long as they are fed, they seem to hold up quite well emotionally. But what about your cat, or your dog? Do they feel something if you, their loving owner, has been away for a long time? Do they sense the fact that you will not be coming back?

Cats are pretty independent and very territorial. Any cat I've ever had was content to be petted by strangers, fed by strangers, and seemed very happy as long as she was paid any attention at all. As independent as they like people to think that they are, cats really do need "people attention". I'm just not sure they are especially sensitive as to who gives them that attention. All the cats I have ever taken care of were highly and willingly adoptable, and most thrived on the attention of my friends, neighbors and passersby.

Dogs on the other hand are a different story. Their loyalty is definitely with with their masters, not to the place in which they live.

Tim's dog, Truff, has been left by Tim before, when Tim went on vacations. Truff is an older dog who has difficulty walking. Tim has been his master for a very long time. Tim's son Greg or the next-door neighbors or friends have taken care of Truff when Tim went away before. Tim has only been "gone" for two weeks so far. But I sense that Truff knows something is different this time, even it he isn't quite sure of what is going on. I have been over to the house several times since Tim died, mostly to prune flowers or bushes that needed a little bit of TLC before Tim's family arrives from the mid-west later this week. The dog seems to sense that something is amiss, that something is different his time, as he goes in and out and in and out the door, walking around and around the yard, as if looking for a missing toy or bone.

I think Truff is missing Tim, the one steady person who was always there throughout his short dog life. Do dogs "know"? I think they do.

Candle Burning

There is a candle burning on my dresser tonight, a candle burning in the dark, with a small flame that I can see clearly when I open the door a crack, illuminating the photos of Tim and Sean that sit next to each other on my dresser top.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is coming up in less than a month. How to spend Mother's Day has always thrown me for a loop, at least since my son Sean died. My mother died when I was only 13, Sean died shortly before his 18th birthday, nearly ten years ago, and my step-mother died less than a year after Sean was gone from my life.

I was never big on celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day, but it was important to me to encourgage my son to remember the two fine people who had showered love (and toys) on him since the date of his birth. Even though these two days are artificially created "Hallmark Holidays", I thought it was important that Sean think of someone besides himself occasionally. We are such a child-centered society in the U.S., especially when a couple has only one or two kids to dote on, and when the economy is booming. Children of my son's generation never wanted for anything, at least until the recent recession.

After both Sean and my step-mother had died, nine years ago, I have pretty much been at a loss for what to do with myself on this day. Most friends of mine either have mothers, or sons and daughters, or sisters who are mothers, and they celebrate the holiday with them. I do have a sister who is a mother, but she lives on the east coast, and while I will call her to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, what do I do with the rest of my day, while most other families are taking their Mothers out to brunch or dinner?

Well, this year, I have a plan. I have two friends who are young mothers. One lives nearby and is a first time mother of a three month old; the other lives in Los Angeles, and has a toddler and an infant. I can't get down to LA for Mother's Day, but, with the help of cell phones and Facebook and YouTube, we can share photos, and even toddler babble. (Sometimes, I love high tech.) The other young mom I can visit, if not on Mother's Day, then perhaps the day before. And there is a third thing I am planning to do. I have another friend who is also a Mom, who I have not seen in quite a while and who I am unable to visit at the moment. She has two young childen. I am going to send her something on Mother's Day to enable her to share some quality time with her children, or possibly without her children, so she can be a better mother to her kids once she has de-stressed from her day.

This year, I have good reason to look forward to Mother's Day. Three good reasons, and I am thrilled.