Giving Sorrow Words

Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart
and bids it break.
~ William Shakespeare, in Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III

Yesterday evening, I overlooked a group of about ten young men huddle up as a group to take a picture with the camera at their feet, an upshot of their faces. I smiled as I looked on--they didn't know I was watching them as they crammed together to make sure everyone fit in; it seems like such a cool thing for these boys to do in celebration of the moment.

It is hard for me to imagine that the seniors whose graduation I witnessed last night began as freshmen the same year I began teaching at my current site. Most are taller, more worldly, more mature. It is my hope that all will go on to lives that are rich in joy, fulfilled by what makes them happy. There are so many unique and strong individuals comprising this class; they've endured so much together. Though through all the hardships they've had to weather, I have always been impressed by their ability to recognize the moments that deserve to be celebrated rather than focus on the despair.

Even though school officially ended for them last night, I will see many of these graduates tomorrow at yet another memorial for a classmate from 2011 who left us too soon. I am proud of my students' ability to make this a celebration of the young man B---- was when it would be so easy to focus on the loss of the man he would have been had he lived.

I don't know how they navigate it so well, these young people; I never knew how to find happiness one moment while grieving in another when I was their age. Somehow, they manage. I wish they didn't have to.

I console myself with the memories I have of this young man; the after class chats with his two close friends, "The trio" Canadian Bacon, Burrito, and Lasagna; the Cubs shirt he loved; the book talk where he told me The Alchemist was the best book he'd ever read and he gave it to his friend to read because the idea that he had a personal legend to fulfill was true.

Tomorrow, I will celebrate that this young man's personal legend is reflected in all those who will come together to say goodbye and remember the impact he had on each of us. There are so many mourning his loss and wishing he had stayed longer; it is a reflection of the happiness he brought to us all as a friend, son, brother, student.

How Johnny Cash got stuck in my head during labor

"Are you sure you don't want to reach down there and feel her head?"

"I'm sure."

"Don't you even want to look with the mirror?"

God, am I freak for not wanting to pause during pushing and check out my crotch in the mirror?

When we checked into the hospital, I was already halfway dilated. Since I had reached my pain limit and wanted to run off the pain from each contraction, I gave in and requested an epidural. I wasn't crazy about the idea; I really wanted to be able to say I gave birth naturally but I know my limits and the limit was met. Laboring for 24 hours at home to only be halfway AND it was nighttime (which means I would want to sleep) meant that it was only logical to do something about the pain. 

But of course the epidural didn't work. This is my life, afterall. Something weird is bound to happen. 

The doctor and nurse did say I was remarkably calm for having someone poke around in my spine. I'm keeping that compliment close because I'm not normally told that I'm calm. 

The epi only numbed me enough so I could sleep but I still felt the contractions. My left leg went completely numb like a wet noodle, the right was still very much able to feel sensation. When it came time to push, the little relief I did feel from the epi was gone. Also, I itched like I had spent the night rolling in poison ivy, then poison oak and then went swimming with some jellyfish who stung me all over. A product of the basically useless epidural, the nurses said. Neat. 

At 6:30 AM, it was time to push. I had previously told Jerry that I didn't want him to be near the scene of the action because that's gross and he's a bit woozy. I had vain hopes that he wouldn't see "down there" and would then only think of "down there" as a husband does his wife. This was not possible because I grossly underestimated how much space there would be around the delivery bed because even if he wanted to avoid the action, he couldn't have escaped the first row seat.

At 8AM, Cora was head out. At least, that's what they kept telling me. 

"Her head is showing! Oh she has hair!"

"She has hair?! Why aren't you pulling her out?!"

I must have missed the part in birthing class where they explained that "head out" means her head is showing. I assumed head out meant her head is ALL the way out so I didn't understand why the rest of her wasn't coming out quickly like they said she would. 

The pain was beginning to become so severe that I started to panic. I couldn't do it, I cried. 

A midwife I've never met appeared out of nowhere, her face in my face. 

"Yes, you can. You are! Just keeping doing it. You're going to feel a 'ring of fire' and I want you to just push through that ring of fire. I know you can do it!"

What the hell?? Did she just allude to Johnny Cash as I'm about to give birth? 

Now, what most people don't understand is that "Ring of Fire" doesn't conjure up classic Cash for Jerry, our friends, or me. "Ring of Fire" means drinking pitchers upon pitchers of cheap beer and drunkenly eating fries while Steve Langdon sings his version of Cash's classic; his with the lyrics changed to something about a burning STD.   

So, that's what I was singing in my head while my mother and my husband held my legs during each contraction. 

Burn, Burn, Burn, that ring of fire...something something something...gonorrhea! 

After one particularly intense contraction, the nurse told me again that her head was out even more. Exasperated, I cried, "Get!!! it!!!! OUT!!!" 

And for that, I owe Cora her first apology. I'm sorry that I referred to you as an "it." You don't seem to hold it against me. 

Finally, at 8:15 AM, Cora was officially born. I don't remember a whole lot about right before that because I basically blacked out from the pain. Survival-mode is probably the best description of the situation. When the doctor lifted Cora up and placed her on my belly, the first thing I said was:

"Oh my god; she's huge!!"

Because she was, for me. I was small the entire pregnancy and my doctor had estimated Cora to be about 7 to 7.5 pounds. Cora actually weighed in at 8 and a half pounds and 21 inches. No wonder she was always kicking the crap out of me; she obviously didn't have any room to move around! 

Jerry followed up my exclamation with, "Holllllyyyy shit!" The next time I saw him, he was sitting in a chair, all color gone from his face. He says as soon as he realized Cora was alright and that I was, too; the grossness of everything hit him and he started to pass out. 

And with that, everything was perfect. Cora nursed like she was mad at the world for bringing her into the it and her little head went right to a nice round shape right away. 

In the nearly seven weeks that she's been here, every day has only reaffirmed for me how absolutely grateful I am to have been given the chance to experience motherhood. Thankfully, Cora makes up for the hellish pregnancy by being a remarkably easy baby. She eats well and she's so mellow I have been able to shower every single day since her birth. She's so much of Jerry; when I look at her I'm not sure what resembles me. Maybe her lips, but that's debatable, too. I hope she keeps his temperament though I hope she has my nose. 

But most importantly, she's made an already overstuffed house absolutely whole. 

I already knew Jerry was going to be a fantastic and attentive father but I wasn't prepared for when he looked his best friend and said, "If I had known having a baby was going to be this awesome, I would have had one years ago." That's even after he's had poop on him, lost sleep and gotten punched in the eye by a tiny fist. Watching him gingerly navigate changing her into pajamas or read her a story before bed (complete with voices) is a whole new reason to love the man for whom I already have a thousand reasons for loving. 

And giving birth to my first born has allowed me to love our first daughter in ways I previously tried but didn't know how. I feel so much more maternal towards Vanessa, because I see her be a sister to Cora and I love her so much more than I was able to before. 

The cats are protective of her. I can't keep Mithrandir away from her. The second I sit down to feed her, he's in my lap. Today, I caught him on the monitor sneaking in to her crib to snuggle at her feet. 

Unlike the poor "Ring of Fire" metaphor, she's perfection.

On April 4th, I learned a lot about opossums.

Waiting to go into labor is a strange event. Every out of the ordinary bodily function sends you Googling “Is __________ a sign of labor?” and every text message you receive asks if there is any change. Suddenly, topics that would never have been discussed within earshot of your father are fair game: “How does your uterus feel?” “Any more bloody show?”

I experienced most every labor symptom possible starting on April Fool’s Day because what kind of a kid would I be having if Cora didn’t play a trick on me before she even took her first breath? So at 7 in the morning April 4^th, I just figured it was more false labor.

Of course those contractions coming every 7 minutes don’t mean anything.

Then around ten AM, one of our dogs, Holly, started making the most unusual bark. Holly has pretty distinct sounds depending on what she is trying to tell us: high-pitched and whiny when scared, deep and guttural for  when she thinks danger is near, and obnoxious for when she’s too dumb to know what she’s barking at anymore. This bark, though, was something else. When I went outside to figure out 

what the hell she was doing, I found this:

Dammit, Holly. I’m in the middle of a contraction and you’re trying to snack on a baby opossum. This is why you’re only “Jerry’s dog” and not “our dog.”

I called Jerry who told me not to touch it (like I was going to!) to leave it until he gets home (8 hours later!).  

“I’ll just get a shoebox and put it in there like we used to do when my cats caught birds back in Bakersfield. Then, I’ll put it on the side of the house out front where it will be safe and Jerry can do whatever it is you do with slobbered on opossums when he gets home from work. I’m a genius.”

After another round of contractions, I decided the poop-scoop was probably my best bet to get the mangled marsupial into the box. Once I finally got it secured on the side of the house, I went back into the backyard to let out the shepherd and Sammy, our schnauzer, both of whom I’d locked in the garage during the fiasco (Lucy, the lonely lab, hangs out in the dog run by herself because she and Holly don’t get along).

Damn, I was proud of myself. I know putting a small but gross opossum in a shoebox for safekeeping until your husband gets home from work is nothing to brag about but dead animals and could-have-a-disease animals are not something I mess with. Rescuing and socializing feral kittens? I’m a pro. Catching tiny bouncing mockingbirds so they also don’t become dog food is pushing it but I will in a pinch. Snarling, spitting, opossums are solely Jerry’s responsibility. Snarling, spitting opossums while also contracting now every 6 minutes now should definitely be Jerry’s problem.

My slightly inflated ego only lasted about 3 minutes. When I let the two confined dogs out of the garage, Sammy made a bee-line for the corner of the yard. That’s when I saw it.

“It” was a much bigger version of the baby I had just wrangled into the shoebox. A very large, and very stiff version.

“Son of a bitch”, I groaned, half because another contraction began and half because I realized that big, rigid opossum was accompanied by five other babies that were roaming around my backyard, all going 

various directions. My two dogs were in heaven. 

I shuffled the dogs back into the garage and inspected the mama opossum.

Dead or playing dead? No idea. Looked bona-fide dead to me. I looked around and the five little guys and called Jerry, crying.

“Come home now, please!”

“What’s up? Are you in labor?”

“No (uh, yes!), but that opossum I found has a bunch of friends and I think the mom is dead! The babies are just crawling around it and it is so sad! I need you to come home and get rid of her.”

“Maybe she’s playing dead. Leave her alone and I bet she gets up and walks away later. I’ll come home in a few hours before my meeting tonight.”

After I composed myself, I put Lucy in the house because that opossum would never get up and wander off with Lucy barking at her.

So, I went inside and decided to move the couches around and put slip covers on them. Excellent idea, woman in denial over being in labor.

Several hours later I went back outside to inspect the opossum. The flies buzzing around her led me to believe she was in fact, very dead.

Some Googling taught me the following:

Opossums are the American marsupial hanging out in my backyard. Possums are the Austrialian version and theirs are much cuter. See?

(Photo courtesy photolaps) 

An opossum can have up to 22 babies but only 13 will survive because that’s how many nipples she has.

They are usually not rabid because their low body temperature protects them.

If you come across a dead one, you should check the opossum’s pouch because often times, her babies can survive in her pouch for several days.

There was no way in hell I was going to rummage around in that possum’s pouch for the other 7 babies. I don’t care how low of a body temperature they have, I’m not sticking my fingers in there.

My only hope was Animal Control because it was after hours by this point. I figured they’d tell me no since prior experiences with them taught me they will not remove a dead animal from private property. Thankfully, DJ the dispatcher was super cool and asked me to round up the remaining babies and they’d send someone out to collect them.

So, eventually Animal Control arrived and took the live babies out of my eager dogs’ reach to the rehab (yes, rehab) clinic at Project Wildlife and three hours later when Jerry got home, my contractions were so bad that I actually tried to get up and run it off. It was then that I decided it was time to go to the hospital. At ten PM that night, we headed to the hospital where I was promptly admitted for delivery…

(April 5^th to follow)  

Ebb and Flow

Many things have happened since the start of the school year--not necessarily things that have happened to me but things that have had an impact on me. The words are there, but I can't get them out in a way that does anything justice.

I have felt an enormous question mark lingering above my head when it comes to teaching since last Spring. I am having the closest thing to a crisis of faith that is possible for a person who doesn't identify with faith to have. This has been a difficult year for me--NOT because of my students; they are as awesome, quirky, and hard-working as ever; it is just me. For the past 5 years, I've funneled the majority of my energy into teaching and I suddenly feel like something has broken, like what I'm doing isn't enough. I'm struggling to maintain at times. I would love to blame it on pregnancy hormones or chalk it up to being distracted by my upcoming responsibilities as a parent, but I know in my heart that isn't the case. If I'm being honest, I find myself wondering if I could do a better job at something else. Something emotionally easier.

Only I have no idea what that something else could be.

And then, there are the little things that save you. On a day when I considered calling in sick but couldn't convince myself to go through with it because I wasn't sick, a normally very quiet and reserved senior boy volunteered, unprompted, to act out the witch scene in Macbeth. In his best witch voice. Just because. A small thing, yes, but he inspired me to keep teaching at a time when I wasn't sure I wanted to be there at all. 

And the many, many junior girls who write to me, privately and separately from one another, that they are glad we read The Bell Jar because a) They feel just like Esther at times b) it helped them understand someone they know or c) it is simply nice to read a book representing a small aspect of the female voice for once. They inspire me to keep trying when it would be easier not to and maybe someday those girls will feel empowered enough to use their voice in a public forum instead of only a private one. 

Or watching my students stand up for one another in a respectful manner on the class blog when someone crosses the line between a passionate opinion and a disparaging remark. Or seeing them remind other students on public Facebook pictures not to be disrespectful or crude, just because it is the right thing to do. 

And even now, on Thanksgiving break when I am so grateful to recharge, I am excited to go back to the classroom next week because we will be starting Inferno and the students always ask when we read it. Their excitement fuels my excitement. We need more of that. 

And there it is. This slight change in perspective makes me forget what I was questioning in the first place. 

****

My first year teaching at my current site was like many first years for brand-new teachers. I look back on that year and hope the people I was charged with teaching learned something, anything because how and what I teach now looks nothing like what I taught then. In all honesty, my teacher's assistant kept me sane--filing oodles of papers, grading vocabulary checks, organizing my desk and life in ways that allowed me to focus on planning lessons and not bursting into tears from the sheer overwhelm of it all. He was also my student that year and while he flatly refused to do any work outside of class, he was a stellar student inside the classroom. He was brilliant in a unique way. 

And, he took his life this fall. 

I regret not keeping in better contact with him after his graduation. I don't pretend that doing so would have made a difference in the scheme of things; I don't have the ego for that. I do wish that the connections teaching allows you to make with many students didn't feel so severed after graduation. No matter what, teaching leaves you feeling pulled too tightly--all the supports we provide in high school vanish too quickly for some after the cap and gown ceremony--once a group of students leaves, a new batch comes in and they deserve all the attention you gave to previous years. I don't have a solution for that as we are only human with limited energy; I just wish I'd thanked that young man, after the fact, for all he did that first year because it allowed me to continue to grow into the teacher I wanted to be when he was my student.

****
I've tried, at times unsuccessfully, to keep the balance in my life from becoming one that centers only around pregnancy. However, thinking about all I need to accomplish in order to be ready for the baby girl's arrival (Type A personality) coupled with the fact that sometimes people seem to forget that I am more than just my uterus makes keeping that balance tricky.

I've discovered that considering yourself a strong individual does mean you are a strong candidate for growing a human. I have hesitated to write anything about the first 17 weeks of my pregnancy because I was so ill I thought I was growing a poisonous demon instead of a baby. In all seriousness, though, I didn't write because, after everything it took to get pregnant in the first place, it felt a lot like complaining about finally getting what we've wanted most.

The irony in my situation is that, even before I wanted to be a mother, I wanted to be pregnant. I thought being pregnant would be glorious. Rainbows and sparkles and THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.

Being pregnant has been, instead, the most unnatural thing I have experienced.

I've had the opportunity (ahem, obsession) to read a variety of information about getting pregnant, being pregnant, struggles with pregnancy, etc. and I am thankful that I've been able to find realistic and honest material about what is normal physically with pregnancy because I know previous generations more or less pretended the unpleasant aspects of pregnancy weren't real. And that isn't necessarily a complaint about all the physical "experiences" I've had. I mean it more as an observation of how I wish more people discussed pregnancy as something you can want to put yourself through even if you don't enjoy it. I want to be pregnant and I am so glad I am because of what it brings for the future, but I'm not joking when I say that I don't know that I can do this again. Baby girl might be the only baby.

I think I was well-prepared for the physical aspects of pregnancy. While the severity of my symptoms definitely caught me off-guard, they themselves didn't surprise me because I knew they were normal. What did, and continues to surprise me, is my emotional reaction. Up until now, it has been difficult at times to find the joy I think I'm supposed to feel in pregnancy. Society tells me I'm supposed to think being this is THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD, I should be glowing, and I should want to show off my belly on Facebook but, aside from knowing my daughter is healthy and thriving, I have not experienced a ton of bliss. A ton of puking and migraines and disgusting side effects from anti-nausea medication, yes; but pure maternal euphoria has somehow evaded me.

In discovering my own physical weaknesses and perhaps perceived emotional ones, I've also discovered the depths of Jerry's emotional strength. While I was spending evenings memorizing the pattern of swirls on the bathroom tile surrounding our toilet or being in a medication-induced haze, Jerry worked his typical 60-70 hours a week AND cleaned, cooked, took Vanessa to school and appointments, managed six animals and reminded me to drink as much water as I could manage. And he never once complained. I don't mean that in a flippant way. I mean he never once even sighed a heavy sigh. Not to me, not to his mother, not to anyone, to the best of my knowledge. The only thing he ever said was, "What can I do to help?" Men like Jerry don't get enough credit because they are a quiet presence but I imagine this pregnancy has been harder on Jerry emotionally and physically simply because he has had no choice but to do the work of two people while I just incubated. I know it was a lonely time for him, even if he didn't say so.  Bad jokes aside, I could not do this without him.

So, if anything at all has given me a sense of joy over the last 21 weeks it is the realization that, even though he may have never changed a diaper (yet!), Jerry has already demonstrated that he will be equally as excellent a father as he is a partner.

And on that note, I leave with the most recent ultrasound picture of the baby girl (previously thought to be baby boy but clearly not so as of Nov. 8th). She must already have a sense of humor because while she wouldn't hold still for any cute "typical" profile shots or adorable feet pictures, she held perfectly still for this close up of her iris and skull features (and also the big gender-reveal but you're going to have to take my word on it). Already going for the unusual, my girl.

Remembrances and Revelations

I’m starting to lose the memories I have of my grandmother. This January, she will have died thirteen years ago—or will it be fourteen? I remember the morning she died; I still get sick to my stomach thinking about how I didn’t get to say goodbye because she didn’t want me to see her so ill. January eighth. I last saw her fifteen days prior. Did she know then that the battle with her tumors was lost? Did she regret smoking all those years after watching her first husband die of the same cancer that suffocated her?

These are not the memories I’m afraid of losing. I’d gladly give those up if it meant I could hold onto feeding blue jays in her big house on Elm. I can remember-fuzzily- the cupboard where she kept the short can of planters peanuts to throw to the birds from her porch.  Sitting out there with her taught me how to be content not doing much of anything.

She kept a bowl of Werther’s Original candies below the cupboard but I cannot recall anyone but me actually eating them. Around the corner, by the garage door, she kept the dust buster I’d use to collect non-existent particles of dust off her immaculate floors; the same floors on which she followed me around, wiping scuffs my patent leather Christmas shoes left behind when I was very small. Whenever I cook, I clean as I go; I cannot stand a pile of dirty dishes because that’s the way Grandma taught me to work.

And her den—brown carpet and a set of bulbous, yellow glass grapes on the coffee table. This room is where I was teased for not being able to tell my Uncle Bob and Uncle Dick apart one year. I lost a game of hangman to my cousin Allison when I was young. Her husband joked, “Really, what’s a kanana?” for __anana.

My grandmother’s car was a luxurious Lincoln Continental with enormous cream-colored, leather seats and power everything. We’d back it out of the garage into the alley and go to Rosemary’s for sandwiches and sundaes. I have always hated the way that ice cream shop smells but I still go there because it reminds me of her.

My grandmother kept a beautiful garden: roses of all kinds, fruit bushes and trees, cacti everywhere. It was my grandma who made me love persimmons and taught me how to eat them properly. It is nostalgia that makes me sneak into my parents’ neighbor’s garden to take persimmons from the abandoned backyard.

What I cannot remember, though, is the sound of her voice, or the smell of her perfume, and –worst of all—I cannot recall what she looked like without the aid of a photograph. I see my grandma reflected in my mom and especially my aunt, but I can no longer close my eyes and see her. Even when I recall in detail the blue jays, the kitchen, a dozen other memories from my childhood, all I see is the memory of the event—her face is hazy, her words echo in my own voice instead of hers, and her perfume eludes me. And this makes me sad, guilty. How have I forgotten these crucial elements about the woman who influenced so much of my life? When did she slip away from me so unnoticed?

A woman—a stranger at a jewelry store my grandmother loved—told me that my grandmother was one of the last true ladies in the world. It is true; she was a regal, worthy woman. It would please her to know that I still remember to talk from my belly and not my throat like a ninny. It would displease her that I sometimes express my anger in a string of dirty words. I hope that despite my poor choice of angry vocabulary, she would be proud of me, of my life, of my beliefs. I know we’d disagree on politics but I hope she’d be happy I have conviction.

I would hide my tattoos from her.

And I know she’d be so proud of my husband. She would think him a fine man, a gentleman. She’d be happy I chose a man with “no holes in his face” or “pants hanging around his ankles.”

Now, I find myself oddly grieving her death again after all these years. She would be 90 this September and I regret that she’ll never know my new child—currently no bigger than a raisin. I grieve for my new baby, for the absence of his or her great-grandmother on my side. I wonder what she would want to be called.

So this woman who once forbade me from naming a future daughter Lois (her cousins apparently called her Low-ass, makes me giggle every time) might just have to resign herself to the idea that this present baby of mine—husband agreeing and assuming said baby is a girl—will bear some kind of family name in memorial to the woman who had such a role in molding me into the woman I am today. My maybe-daughter won’t have the opportunity to know this woman but she’ll know she carries the name of a woman who would have loved her so much. 

I think I finally stopped shaking from giving this speech...

(In honor of two of my best friends, Kevin and Amanda Johnston, now married.) 

For the past seven years, I’ve known Kevin and Amanda separately; I met Amanda in a creative writing course at SDSU; I met Kevin around the same time because he was my now-husband’s roommate. Eventually, Amanda and I discovered that Jerry’s house was a mere three houses down from where Amanda was living at the time so it was only natural then that all of us began to spend time together. With the Grist house across the street and many other people in the mix, we have made many memories that most of cannot remember. 

Kevin and Amanda seemed like a perfect fit from the moment they first met. Kevin would say something smart and Amanda immediately gave it right back but both of them always claimed they were just friends. Our friends spoke many times about the not-so-secret crush Kevin harbored for Amanda and how if they’d just work out some particulars, they’d be amazing together. I think the most common response to the news that Kevin and Amanda had started dating was, "Finally!"

My favorite author, Paulo Coelho, wrote: “When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” Amanda taking that very uncreative creative writing course, Kevin moving in with Jerry, the decision the two of you made to dance together at my own wedding, giving long-distance love a try; all of these can surely be written off as coincidences; however, I choose to believe in Coelho’s claim. The decisions we’ve made in the past seven years appear to have carried you both to where you were always supposed to end up.

And now,this decision you’ve made, this wedding, this love--seeing you two finally unite as husband and wife has been better than I could have ever imagined.

And so I toast to you, together, Kevin and Amanda: May this decision’s strong current carry you to many more wonderful places.

I saw my dad today.

The first was while stopped at a red light. A man, unshaven and in need of a haircut, stood by a bus stop at the intersection of 70th and El Cajon. He was clutching the small brown paper bags you get at liquor stores, the lid to whatever he had purchased gone. He was thinking about something; I could tell by the way he gripped the chain link fence with his weathered left hand; his forehead scrunched and lips in just the right way--not a pout, instead a cross between a pucker and a purse. At just the right moment, this man waved his hand away as if to say --I'm through with this bullshit. And there he was. My dad isn't unshaven, in need of a haircut, or --thankfully--drinking from a paper bag in broad day light, but I saw him. For a flicker of an instant, I saw my dad when he's angry.

Then, at the grocery store. He was my dad's age--old enough to feel aches and pains he didn't have ten years ago, but not old enough yet to retire. This man wore a Harley shirt, something my dad would never wear in public; I didn't notice him at all until he walked by. Then it hit me. I'd recognize that scent even if I hadn't encountered it for a dozen years. The aisle of pasta, the salad dressing, the olives, they all vanished and I found myself doing my makeup back in my parents' bathroom (I never used my own for this--better lighting in theirs). I'm leaning in close, the mirror fogging a little as I exhale, applying my Maybeline with precision. The blade of my father's razor is scraping the overnight whiskers from his face, the sound seems painful because-- he had a beard then-- he wasn't using shaving cream to get those two tiny patches on his cheeks. It was a disappointment when I realized I was still in the grocery store; stupidly staring off into space in the pasta aisle.

Most startling today was seeing my dad in Super Cuts. I went in for a trim, a little reshaping before my friend's wedding next week. My hairdresser wore a tight purple dress; it showed more of her cleavage than necessary as she leaned over me to suds up my hair. She threw the towel over my face, rubbing as much water from my scalp as possible. With the towel still over my head, she led me to the chair at her station. More toweling off. A straight comb dragging down my scalp. I looked up and there he was again. I watched as the hairdresser in the tight dress combed his hair-- never thin but never thick; and his eyes, a dark blue with eye-lids that will be heavy with age, looking right into the mirror, reflected back as me.

And there I realized, no matter where I am, my dad is with me because so much of who I am is a gift I received from him.