Because that was Gary

Around 3 a.m. yesterday, as we huddled in a family counseling room full of dirtied tissues and red eyes, the conversation made it around to Facebook. To me, it wasn’t real yet- the fact that my 40-year-old brother was gone, his body in the next room- it still isn’t.

A few years ago, my siblings and I discovered that one of our uncles had died via Facebook, so my sister very quickly issued a request to the stunned group mourning my brother. We decided to give it a day, to make the calls we needed to make before anyone posted anything about his death to Facebook.

Dealing with death has always felt to me like a very strange contradiction. Everything around those moments, those days, after you lose someone is always simultaneously a blur and a strangely, detailed, moment-by-moment slog. I will now always remember the midnight phone call from my sister telling me he was gone, followed by dressing quickly (and forgetting to brush my teeth), an hour drive to pick her up, and another hour to the hospital. It didn’t seem to like we were going to see my brother’s body. For two hours, we just assumed we were going to figure out what the heck was going on, and how my brother, who would inevitably be apologetically hanging out in the ER, had managed to so badly mangle a Friday night that his wife somehow thought he was dead.

But he wasn’t apologetic. This forty-year-old man, who had less than a week prior been golfing with friends and planning a trip for his one-year anniversary, was gone. And I resented that we even had to discuss when the news would flow onto people’s Facebook feeds, along with the dog photos and requests for recommendations and other inane activity that seems to trite in comparison.

Six hours later, my sister-in-law’s sister (so I guess also my sister-in-law?) was calling to tell me, among many other details, that our conversation was for naught. The local police blotter had posted information about the ambulance call that took my brother to the hospital, and some of the younger employees at the restaurant where he worked had identified him and his wife by name in the comments. I muttered much profanity, and we rushed through our last calls so we could post the information along with a request that people stop flooding his grieving wife with phone calls.

I spent most of the day railing against things- crappy maternity clothes options for a funeral, some work stuff that was requiring a lot of detangling before I could take some time off this week, and mostly how ludicrous it was that people couldn’t respect privacy or the dead and keep information off of Facebook. Last night, though, as I tried to sleep, I scrolled through the comments on my wall, my sister’s wall, and my brothers. I stopped railing. I smiled, I cried, and I gawked that the number of people posting their own tributes to Gary.

I also realized something- I didn’t really know my brother as well as I thought I did.

In our cramped “family counseling” room at the hospital, my sister-in-law had apologized as she told her family that she knew my sister would take it harder than I did. I told her not to apologize, it was simply true. Gary was my big brother, and I loved him, but he was my sister’s good friend. I never had the kind of relationship with him she did. All of the Facebook posts drove the truth of that home, and filled me with regret that I had never tried harder.

I come from a family of five. My dad and brother are a lot alike, and share some personality traits that I struggle to understand. I guess I should say were… they were a lot alike. Shit. That is going to be hard to adjust to. Either way, they both keep their emotions near the surface and were quick to anger and quick to forgive and forget. Gary was non-confrontational always. I used to wonder if he just didn’t notice behavior around him that would make me crazy, but when you got him talking, he absolutely did. He just wouldn’t ever address it.

I’m more like my mom was- my feelings are there but I keep them deep and don’t like people seeing them. I might get annoyed, but making me truly angry is quite a feat. However, once I am there, I am not quick to calm, forgive, and forget. I don’t like that about myself. However, I do like that I will tell you to your face if I am upset, generally calmly, so we can talk it out and move on.

I wonder if Gary thought of me like a robot, too logical, too cold, and too in-your-face. A week ago, I wouldn’t have cared. Now I do.

My sister is the only one that bridges the gap between all of us successfully. She is more pragmatic, like me, but her feelings are on the surface. She can’t handle confrontation at all, but moves on from anger too quickly usually for it to be necessary anyway.

And so Kara knew our brother. She knew the side his friends saw, the side I was aware of but didn’t experience often. She knew the generosity there, how liked he was, and how broad his social net was. I guess that’s another way we were just different- most of my friends I’ve known for 20 years, because I making new friends doesn’t come easily to me. For Gary, it was as natural as breathing.

As I scrolled through last night, Gary’s loss started to become real to me in a way beyond just realizing he was gone, that he would never again pass out on the couch immediately Thanksgiving dinner or show up with a bizarre potluck contribution that you couldn’t help but smile at and then eat. I lost my brother, and I lost the opportunity to know him better.

If I am being honest, I was mad at him, my slow burning kind of mad. He was a very involved uncle to my sister’s three kids. He planned ahead and took off for their birthday parties, took them trick-or-treating every year, and knew what they were interested in. He missed both of my son’s birthday parties, hadn’t seen him in eight months, and most recently skipped a cook out my sister threw us to celebrate the impending arrival of our daughter. All the love and generosity he showed his vast social network didn’t apply to my kids, and as a protective mom, I was pissed.

I know there are a lot of factors. He lived 20 minutes from Kara, and 90 from me. Kara’s kids are older and easier to form those relationships with. And, Gary and I just weren’t as close, so I couldn’t, and didn’t, have the same expectation of effort with my son. I knew part of it was on me, but I was still pissed.

And yet, all of that vanished when I looked at his body on the gurney. Gary could do that- you could want to throttle him, and then he’d made some joke or shrug something off in a way that would have you laughing and forgetting about how annoyed you were.

I saw this so clearly last October when he got married. Gary was so excited about this wedding, as w

e all were. He worked tirelessly to plan it, despite the glaring obstacle of Gary being very, very bad at planning things. And so, after the rehearsal dinner, Gary asked if some of us could spend “20 minutes or so” setting up for the reception. He directed us to the massive venue with a vague explanation of how to get in, didn’t account for the need to get 11 of us through security before we could set up, hadn’t organized the tent cards, didn’t have a plan for what we were doing, and on and on. His “20 minutes or so” ended up being nearly 3 hours. As a mom of a toddler, every extra minute was one less I got to spend alone in a hotel room, which was a rare treat I had been looking forward to.

But, try as I might, I couldn’t really get mad, because every time I started to, I would look over and Gary would be busting his ass to make everything perfect. I would notice the ten other people that got roped into that set up clusterfuck were all just going with the flow, laughing with him, because they understood that this was just Gary. He worked so hard on that wedding, on making it a day that would make Connie happy and be memorable for his guests. And it was.

After the wedding, we were all rehashing stories from it, and I was floored again by how he just knew people. We could mention anyone, even using the smallest detail, like the color of their tie or their hair cut, and Gary could instantly tell you who it was from among their nearly 200 guests. He had a story for all of them. Because that was Gary.

That was the Gary I will never get a chance to be closer to. He was my brother, and I loved him, and I am heartbroken, but the best side of him was one I didn’t know or understand well enough. That was the Gary that filled Facebook last night, driving home to me that losing someone isn’t just losing what they were in your life- it is losing what they could have been.

The great RSVP debacle

I love to plan parties. Honestly, if I planned every party I thought of, I would be broke and my house would be in a perpetual Gatsby-esque state of recovery. For me, though, half of the fun is planning. I find delight in looking for ideas, coming up with crafts, outlining a menu and day dreaming about how the event will culminate.

I have been working on my son's first birthday party since he was about 3 months old. We're throwing it in a private party room... at a bar/restaurant... and there will be kid-friendly activities as well as adult-friendly food and a case of champagne. We don't want people to bring him gifts-- goodness knows we spoil him enough-- we want people to come toast with us and delight in our awesome little man and how amazing it is that we kept him alive and healthy.

But now I have reached a conundrum. It is the conundrum of my usual variety... I can't decide if I am being ridiculous or not. I am finishing up the invitations (so I can sit and get all antsy to mail them for the next two months). There is the "definite" stack, and then a handful of invites that I am on the fence about sending.

Are these people I am not sure we are close enough with to justify inviting them? Nope.

Are these people that live far away and will not be able to make it so I am worried about looking like a gift grubber? Nope... remember, no gifts.

Are we at capacity in the room and I am worried about a crowd? Nope. We have plenty of space.

These are the people that never f*ing RSVP.

Sound harsh? Allow me to explain.

A week before my bridal shower, I was swamped with full time work, part time teaching, and wedding planning. I got a very polite email from one of my bridesmaids asking for phone numbers for a handful of women that were on the invite list for the shower. Seems that the restaurant needed the final head count and these women hadn't replied. I didn't think anything of it and send the numbers, though I did grimace that they needed 8 phone numbers for a guest list of 24. But hey, I have forgotten to RSVP to things myself. Shit happens. Everyone gets a pass now and then.

But then there was the much longer list of people who didn't send back their response for the actual wedding. OK, shit happens, but this one had a self-addressed stamped envelope. And most people are aware of how catering and seating charts work, right? So, again, one week before the wedding I was calling people to see who was coming, and noticed some recurring names.

Then there was my baby shower, and the same meek request from a planner for some phone numbers. That one was at my house, so I was surprised we needed to follow up. Yes, they had to plan food, but how big a difference could one or two non-responders make if they showed up? Except it was more like 10 non-responders, and the difference between planning food for 15 and food for 25 actually is kind of substantial. And again, some of the same names...

There have been other events in between. Every year, my sister and I have a ladies' brunch in August. Two years ago, six of us stared at each other around a table for 10 after four people said they would come but then didn't. Last year fourteen of us crammed around a table for 10 because several people never responded but then came. This year we moved it to my house to lower our stress level about it.

Every time we plan something, I talk to myself in advance and make a self-promise to not get annoyed. I know some people just don't respond. A few isn't that big a difference. Except its rude. And that pisses me off.

Again, shit happens. I do not judge people who miss a response deadline here and there, or accidentally deleted that evite. I have missed RSVPing for things. But this is not the norm for me, it is the exception. However, if the same name was in every "follow up because he/she didn't RSVP" list for every major event in my life for the last five years, then it isn't a "shit happens" thing. It's the norm. And it is not a personality quirk- "oh you know me, I can never remember to do that on time." It's inconsiderate.

And so here I sit, with a small stack of envelopes addressed to people that I love, even though this particular behavior really bothers me. I am torn. I want to celebrate with these people and don't want any hurt feelings if one person gets invited but someone else doesn't.

BUT.

The fall is busy for me at work, plus I am teaching part time. I will be slammed in October. We have to order food for this party, and thus can't have a margin of error as big as this stack. Do I just swallow my annoyance and know that I will have to work in some time to follow up with these people because I know they won't reply? Or is it fair to exclude someone based on past inconsideration?

Am I being ridiculous?

Also, question 4- is not getting invited to a first birthday party really some kind of consequence, or will these people feel they dodged a bullet? But remember this party really is a pretense for day drinking...

6 Reasons I am Jealous of Formula Moms

Before becoming a mom, I never realized that the personal decision on how to feed your child could devolve into a public fight reminiscent of some kind of Hunger Games arena.  You hear horror stories of poor, sleep-deprived moms who can’t escape the formula aisle at Target without some bitchy onlooker muttering “breast is best” as though Mom hadn't heard that before. Seriously, the tributes from District Breast can be such dicks.

And what does that even accomplish? Is one obnoxious stranger muttering a painful cliché going to make a woman who has chosen formula (for one of any number of very legitimate, compelling reasons that are all none of your damn business) suddenly going to realize the error of her ways, throw that Similac back on the shelf, and shove a boob in baby’s face at checkout?

Personally, unless you are filling your child’s bottle with Diet Coke, I pretty much don’t care how Junior gets a full belly. My son was breastfed, and there were things about it that I loved, and things I did not love. I was very fortunate that breastfeeding was (mostly) pretty easy for us. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but feeling moments of jealousy towards the formula moms I know, because…

1.       They got more sleep. Hey, you, breast feeding enthusiasts, yeah, I noticed that you forgot to put this in the f*ing manual. Not only does formula put your partner on the hook for night feedings, but babies apparently take longer to digest formula. While I was still up every 3 hours when my kid was eight weeks old, my friends that fed their kids formula were blissfully sleeping 6 or 8 hour stretches (though I am sure there are exceptions). Thus, as a reward for breastfeeding, I got another month or two of looking like Pigpen and feeling like I was losing my damn mind from lack of sleep.

2.       They traveled easier. I thought breastfeeding would be the simpler choice- my son would always have food as long as I was with him, right? Well… yes… but particularly in the beginning, I pretty much couldn’t feed without a boppy and a chair with arms. This made going anywhere an ordeal. Meanwhile, formula moms just dumped formula in a bottle and voila. There were no strangers ogling them, and no screaming baby who couldn’t quite latch on while propped up against the counter at a sushi place.

3.       No one stared at their chest. And I am not talking a “I was sitting in a public park with my boobs out and people looked” situation. I mean people would ask if I was breastfeeding, and then stare directly at my chest for the rest of the conversation. 

4.       They didn’t have to sit at work… topless… There aren’t enough door locks in the world to make this feel OK. Pumping at work is just strange. I get bonus points for forgetting to mute my phone on a call with 80 people. Nothing says “embarrassed” like listening to your bosses’ bosses’ boss say “what is that noise? Does anyone else hear that whirring?” and knowing it is you and your milking machine vibrating on speaker phones throughout the country.

5.       They never wondered if their kid only loved them for their boobs. To be fair, babies are blobs of goo and I am sure formula moms also sometimes wonder if and when that blob of goo loves them. However, as a woman, it undermines your self-esteem when your kid gives you the cold stare until face to face with your nipple and then grins. We’re raised to think we’re worth more than just our racks… until we spend 3 months watching the thing we love the most only care about said rack.

6.       Most importantly, the caffeine! If ever I needed 10 cups of coffee to survive, it was when my son was up all night screaming. However, if I drank more than one cup at 7 a.m., he would be up the entire next night dancing. I don’t know how we have pills for everything but keeping caffeine from entering breastmilk. Someone needs to get on that.  

Despite all of this, the decision to stop breastfeeding was one of the hardest of my life. I am also very sure that my formula mom friends have a list similar to this one about why they sometimes wish they could or would have breastfed (like the "eat everything and not gain weight," thing). All in all, those first months are so wonderfully difficult (or difficulty wonderful) no matter how you feed. 

As long as we all have happy, healthy babies, we’re cool… right?

Perhaps the one thing we can all agree on is to not be the asshole at Target muttering “breast is best” in the formula aisle. 

A little less old ladyish?

I read an article the other day about the health benefits of crocheting. Apparently, spending your time with hook and yarn in hand lowers stress and can add years to your life.

I KNEW IT.

I really crochet to keep my hands busy while watching TV with my husband. In the last three years, I've definitely gotten more crochet crazy, cranking out blanket after blanket. I love giving these handmade items as gifts, as I think giving such a keepsake is a good way of saying "you are special enough to me that I spent the time to make this for you!"

The only issue is that I really struggled to find patterns that didn't look like something your great grandma would have thrown over the back of her plastic slip-covered couch. I did some fun stuff with bright patterns, and then I discovered appliques!

These baby blankets are three of my favorites I've every done.

I really think these retain the "keepsake" nature of a gift, but also allow for something very personal and more modern looking. As an example, the bottom blanket was for a friend who used a pond theme in her daughters nursery.

All of these patterns are available on Ravelry saved in my queue. http://www.ravelry.com/people/CrochetShauna