What if I maim a garbage collector?

In 7th grade home economics (yes it was really called that and yes we were required to take it) we learned how to properly dispose of broken glass. If you broke a glass or a mirror or anything glass you were to put it in a paper bag, tape it up securely, and mark it BROKEN GLASS.

To this day I still do this whenever I dispose of broken glass.

Because if I don't? I may maim the garbage man (or woman).

I cannot have that on my conscience. Even if most garbage collection is automated these days and most garbage collectors never handle the garbage themselves. Because what if behind the scenes there is someone sorting through garbage that I don't know about? What if they are sorting my garbage and I haven't placed my broken glass securely in a paper bag and clearly marked BROKEN GLASS? What if they reach in my garbage and my broken glass slices off their hand? What if they are alone in the garbage sorting area and they bleed to death because of my improperly disposed of glass? No. Cannot risk that. I better wrap up my broken glass and write in huge letters on every inch of that paper bag CAUTION: BROKEN GLASS. Just once is not enough. I need to cover every side of the bag. Just in case they only see one edge of the bag and think it's just a bag. Nope. Gotta make it clear. Someone's life might be riding on my broken glass. I cannot fail them. Their life depends on me. Whoever they are.

A Tale of Two Grannies

Last year, I lost both of my grandmas in a span of 3 months. In some ways it was bittersweet, but in some ways it presented me with some serious moments of reflection and grief. 

Janet "Alice" Gatlin
April 4, 1931 - July 12, 2014

My mom's mother, Grandma Gatlin as we called her, died in July. It wasn't a surprise. She had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in January. She smoked off and on (mostly on) for 60+ years of her life. She had been having some additional health issues in late fall of 2013. When she was finally diagnosed it wasn't a huge shock. She had a reasonably good attitude about it. When we talked after her diagnosis she said felt like a) duh, she had lung cancer, she smoked her whole life so what did she expect?!?! and b) that she had lived a long, plentiful life. She didn't feel like she was being ripped off or losing so many years of her life in some grand tragedy. She was as at peace as you could be with impending death.

I made it out to visit her in late June. By this point she was in hospice care and my uncle Matt had come to stay with her for the end. In many ways I felt guilty for not visiting her before this point. But in many ways it was understandable. She was a very complicated woman. Many of my family members were alienated from her at this time. Some for years and years and some for only the past few months to a year. To say she was difficult personality to deal with is an understatement. She could be hilarious and fun and lovely. She could also be biting like a rattlesnake and generally was very narcissistic person. And depending on who you were, you got more of the sunshine or more of the rain. My grandma played a game of favorites. It wasn't always stable, it wasn't always super clear, and it was not based in any kind of objective reality. I was almost always one of her favorites. I got mostly sunshine from her. But even then I would get bitten on occasion. Many more of my family members would get her stormy side. And the pain she caused to a great many of people in our family affected me even if it wasn't directed at me. I put off seeing her for so long because I knew there were many fractured relationships in the family with her and I didn't want to be in the middle of all of it. There was also part of me that was scared that in her illness she would be more stormy than normal and I didn't want one of my last visits with her to be shrouded in bad memories. In the end, I feel good about when I saw her. She was very ill and was in and out of sleep most of the time Andrea and I were there. But when she was lucid she was on her best sunshiney behavior. We talked, we laughed, we sang. And I got to say goodbye one last time and carry sweet memories with me.

The day she died I was notified when I was at a party with friends. I excused myself to go to the bathroom for a few minutes to absorb the information. I had so many conflicting feelings. Relief that she was out of pain. Relief that she couldn't cause anymore new hurts for anyone in my family. Sadness that I'd lost my grandma. Sadness that so many of her relationships were broken and unamended before death.  Happiness that I had made peace with her before she died. Gratefulness that my examination of my feelings around her death helped me to understand my own life and struggles more. Andrea and I listened to my and my grandma's special song, Forever in Blue Jeans, all the way back to Chico and up into the foothills so I could look at the stars and grieve in the quiet darkness above Chico. It was sweet and beautiful and I was so glad Andrea was by my side.

Having compassion for someone who was so complicated and difficult was hard. So many times I just wanted to be angry at her for the way she treated her family. But from the little I know about her childhood, I began to understand that her childhood was not great. And that the way she had been treated as a child invariably affected who she was as a person and how she treated her family. And how my family had been treated by her had affected the people they were and how they treated their families. And that was one of the biggest seeds of compassion I had for her, for my family and for myself. Mental illness and personality disorders are abundant and apparent in my family. She was both a root and a symptom of this cycle. In her last months, her death and after I learned to love her completely while not excusing all the hurt she caused. And now in her death, I can focus on the fond memories and the good times I had with her and not feel as conflicted and confused with recognizing that who she was to me was not who she was to everyone, and that faults and all, I believe she did the best she could with a very limited skill set. Everyone else is entitled to feel about her as they want. I would never ask them to make peace with her or her memory because their experience of her was much different. I choose to have compassion and love for them as they make sense of their feelings about her whatever they may be.

Mary Ann Briggs
October 30, 1927 - October 7th, 2014

I lost my last grandparent, my dad's mom, Grandma Briggs in October. Her death was also not unexpected. She had Alzheimer's, and in many ways, had stopped being my grandma before she died. She was my grandma, yes, but Alzheimer's had robbed her of so much that it was more of a long process of saying goodbye to the person she had been my whole life. Even when I saw her in the summer for the last time, there was still so much of her sweetness, humor and loving kindness even though she was very sick and wasn't quite sure who I was anymore. She was also in hospice care for the last few months of her life.

The Tuesday she died I didn't feel much. I had the vague feeling of sadness because she had died, but in many ways, also relief that my family wasn't waiting on her death anymore. And that closure could finally begin. So many of my family members had been paralyzed by their grief since she went to live in senior home when her Alzheimer's had gotten bad enough that she could no longer live on her own. Now that her life was over I hoped they could move through their feelings in a more permanent way rather than bobbing like buoys with each new change in her condition. I didn't even cry that first day, which actually disturbed me more than her death. I had cried when my Grandma Gatlin died and yet, here at the death of my sweet, sweet grandma I couldn't cry. I felt terrible. As if I had loved her less or something.

The next day I woke up and felt like I had absolutely no energy to teach. And that feeling was made worse by the fact that I taught a once a week 3 hour block class. Cancelling class would make making up the work way more difficult, but making it through 3 hours when I felt so hollow seemed impossible. I decided to find a documentary related to the day's topic to show and I decided to bring snacks for my class. My grandma LOVED to feed people. It was her greatest joy in life. It felt like a good way to remember her by feeding my class. As I started to explain to my class why there were snacks at the front of the room and that we'd be watching a documentary instead of our regular discussions and activities I started crying. Public crying has always been hard for me, but crying in front of my students felt a little horrifying. At the same time I thought "Oh, well there are those tears that didn't come yesterday." So many of my students came over to hug me and express their condolences before they got their snacks and we started the movie. That was actually more horrifying. I am not a touchy-feely person. I really hate touching people besides my closest, most intimate people. But I also felt like I couldn't be a jerk when I had just made several of my students cry from my raw emotion. So I hugged them all and thanked them all.

As I processed the feelings and events that week I realized why I had such a delayed reaction of grief. My Grandma Briggs was probably one of the sweetest and kind people to ever grace this earth. I didn't have a single bad memory of her. Every single memory I had of her was happy, joyous and funny. In contrast to my Grandma Gatlin, my Grandma Briggs' death felt almost "easy." It was sad, yes, but not complicated or problematic or overwhelming. I had a lot of time to make peace with her vanishing memory from Alzheimer's and I had absolutely no sorrow for how she had loved her family and the relationships she had. Even in death I was comforted by her sweetness. There was no bitterness, no hurt, nothing unresolved. And until I fed my class I didn't realize how much of my sweetness and gentleness came from her. My tears were more about how I'd lost a loving role model in my life, but how much of an impact she'd had on her family in a positive way. I had nothing to resolve and in that I found my ability to grieve her.

It was a rough year for loss, but I made it through and have come out the other side stronger, 

more stable and with a clearer sense of self than ever before.

Sharp Memories

LOL. I was looking for a picture about how scary knives are in the kitchen...but I was being very careful not to google search any terms that would bring up graphic pictures that would scare the bejesus out of me. This was one of the first ones that popped up and it's actually perfect. Whew.

Knives terrify me. Not just big, scary, hunting knives. But even little weenie kitchen knives. I don't know where my knife obsession started. I think I've been scared of knives as long as I can remember.

My family tells stories. We are a family of story tellers. Sometimes I remember the story vividly because I was there, but sometimes I remember the story vividly because I've heard it so many times that it feels like I was there. Sometimes I can't remember if I was there or not, but I've heard the story so many times it doesn't really matter.

My Grandma Gatlin was a complicated lady. But one thing for sure was that she was a clumsy, blundering oaf with a wicked sense of humor (when she wasn't being flat out wicked). Some of my favorite ridiculous stories are of her in her essence, just being her. One of those stories involves knives. I wasn't there; I think it happened before I was born. But as the story goes, she got a new set of knives. She was excited and bragging about them (as she was wont to do). She held up the box to show them off and she happened to be holding the box upside down and the knives came tumbling out and into her feet. Ouch. But also? Sorta hilarious. Maybe that's where my fear of knives started, but I'm not sure.

I remember being younger and trying to help cook. The knives always scared me. I'd have visions of me slicing off my fingers on accident. I still have visions of doing that. I am a lot like my Grandma Gatlin (hopefully nicer). I could never be one of those chefs that chop things a thousand miles a minute. I shudder just thinking about it.

When I see those minimalist knife strips in people's kitchens I purposely go NOWHERE near them. I'm always afraid they'll fall off and slice my feet off. Dear god I would never have one of those in my kitchen. Nightmare.

My first partner was an alcoholic. I've dated several alcoholics. Alcoholism runs through my mom's family like blood runs through everyone else's. It was my first serious adult relationship. It was also my first out lesbian relationship. She was and is a good person; we are still in contact. She was also a crazy alcoholic. I was with her for three years but had been breaking up with her continually for the last two. I'd break up with her and kick her out. She'd beg for me to take her back. She'd wear me down because I was too busy, too crazy, too emotionally underdeveloped to keep saying no. Things continued to get worse and worse. I continued to get meaner and meaner. I didn't know how else to convince her to stay away. We would scream horrible things at each other when she was drunk and me at her while she was hungover. She was habitually losing or quitting her job and I was the one who managed our finances.




One night she had plans with her asshole friends. I hated her friends and they hated me. Our relationship was truly dysfunctional. I gave her $20 for the night and a new pack of cigarettes (she was also a smoker). I was studying for finals (I was in my MPH program at the time). She came home that night drunk and belligerent. She came into the office where I was studying and demanded I give her money so she could go buy more cigarettes. I said no way. How she had smoked 20 cigarettes and spent $20 in 4 hours was not my business. She'd have to wait until tomorrow. She was pissed. She kept trying to argue with me. I told her to shut up and leave me alone because I was busy. This went on for several minutes. I was getting more and more angry that she would not shut up and just go pass out in bed. She came over to where I was sitting and drunkenly tried to grab my book that I was studying from. She missed and clumsily punched me in the jaw. It didn't really hurt, but in my anger and frustration and years of being worn down, I snapped. I jumped up and pinned her against the wall and told her she better never lay a hand on me. She lost it. She was kicking me in the shins and shrieking. I let her go. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed the cordless phone and turned and hurled it at me in the doorway. The dogs scattered. I told her to calm the fuck down. She was absolutely hysterical at this point. Screaming and crying and threatening. She walked over to the sink and leaned against it. Then she started grabbing knives from the knife block and hurling them at me like she was a ninja or something. Luckily she was so very very drunk. I strode across the room dodging her knives and grabbed her by the waistband of her jeans and dragged her to the front door. I opened it, threw her on the porch, closed and locked the door. She stood outside screaming that she was going to call the police and press charges.

I called first.

They came and found her hiding in the bushes at the neighbors house with a steak knife. They arrested her and took her to jail. This was not the first time I had called the cops or the first time she had been taken away. But it was the first time they took her to jail. Previously they had taken her to the local public hospital and locked her in the psych ward until she sobered up. And because she didn't have insurance they would let her out the next day and tell her to follow up with a therapist for treatment. She never did. And we'd start the cycle back over. But this time she went to jail. I didn't actually want her to go to jail. I wanted her to move out and stay out. I wanted her to go to rehab. But mostly I just wanted her out of my life. I bailed her out the next day on the promise that we were absolutely and positively done this time. I had a temporary restraining order against her mandated by the judge until her hearing. A month later, she was still out of my life and walked into court and I dropped all charges. The DA's office tried to bully me into not dropping them. But I knew jail wasn't going to do her any good. She needed rehab and it wasn't going to happen there. She went to rehab many times after that, and then was arrested many years later and spent some time in jail. She got sober for good then. Maybe I should have pressed charges and she would have gotten sober earlier. Or maybe she wasn't ready and it wouldn't have mattered. She's sober now. And her life is good. She's good person.

The knife block stayed. Her dogs stayed. I had 4 dogs and me in the house. I was spiraling down into the worst period of my OCD in my life. I started worrying that I might lose my mind. I might lose my mind and have a psychotic break with reality and might stab all the dogs to death. Every time I walked by the knife block I worried I was nanoseconds away from losing my grip and I would slaughter all my dogs. I had vivid visions of the blood bath. It was terrifying. This was before I knew anything about violent, harming obsessions and scary intrusive thoughts. I just thought I was fucking nuts and a latent homicidal maniac. I loved my dogs more than anything in the whole world. I would never kill them. But I was worried I would. I was so worried that I ending up hiding the knife block in a far back cabinet. I knew they were there, but if I didn't see them every time I walked by the kitchen it felt better. I convinced myself that if I went nuts I probably wouldn't remember where the knives were. When my roommate moved in I got rid of the knife block and got a different one. I was more convinced that I wouldn't go on a murderous snap now that I had a roommate. Why? I don't know. I suppose I thought he'd notice if I started acting like a psycho losing grip on reality. I stopped thinking about killing my dogs. My brain moved on to different obsessions.


But I'm still scared of knives.

Words Have Meaning

When I was 11, my "cousin"/close friend's dad was killed in one of the high profile postal shootings that gained media attention and led to the coining of the phrase "going postal."

Her aunt was her mother's sister and my dad's brother's wife. So we weren't actual cousins, but we shared an aunt and uncle and our families grew up in the same neighborhood and were long time friends so cousins worked for us. We were also the same age and enjoyed each others company which made for good friends and a lifelong connection.

When her dad was murdered I remember my parents telling me what happened and that she would need extra love and compassion as a friend. I remember her confusion and sadness, I remember my family avoiding the news when the children were around for a while (there were many news reports, and not all of them positively covered her father so my family wanted to keep the negativity away from the healing experience), and I remember my confusion and sadness. At 11, it's hard to comprehend murder, anger, workplace violence, mental illness and loss.

As a person with OCD, it becomes an unimaginable worry that lodges in your brain.

This event was definitely one of the roots of my obsession with murderers and my family dying.

I worry about murderers a lot. Not always related to the workplace, but sometimes. It's taken me a long time to manage that fear so it doesn't disrupt my life on a daily basis, but it's a thought/worry that passes through my head several times a week (or more).

Worrying about my family members dying is rarely an obsession anymore. But in my early 20s, when my OCD was at its worst, I was plagued with worries, dreams, thoughts about my family dying. It wasn't always from shootings, actually rarely from shootings, more likely from car crashes. It seemed more likely I suppose. Not that OCD needs a reason to be rational. I woke up crying sobbing for months on end. That obsession gradually faded away and only once in a while does it crop up.

"Going postal" isn't a hugely popular slang phrase. But it's popular enough that I hear it every once in while. It's weird to have an intimate connection with a popular phrase, especially when people use it offhand and have no idea the power behind the phrase, particularly for me. Every time I hear it I have a flash of memories from childhood that pass through my brain. It's not unbearable, it's not even really something I'd call painful, but more this weird feeling of "Oh, you just said that. You have no idea of its weight." Sometimes I educate people about it, sometimes I just let it pass because I know that they didn't mean anything by it and it would cast a shadow over the conversation at hand.

It makes me think about how words have power, even if we don't know it. And it also makes me particularly sensitive to people's requests to not use language that is hurtful. Whether it's the "n word," the "r word," the "t word" or any other word that wounds someone, I don't assume to know why nor do I ask. It's not my business to know why or how it hurts them; I just note it, apologize and pledge to do better. The English language is full of amazing words. Using words that don't hold long histories of pain and personal suffering is a good idea. It can have a tremendous impact on our world if we'd all just try to be a little nicer.

365: Old Man Scare

We had a little bit of a scare today with Old Man Moses. He woke up not feeling well and looking pretty run down. He's 13 years old and possibly has cancer so we know that at any time we could lose him. He refused food and water all morning and was having trouble getting around. We steeled ourselves for a long, hard weekend. And like he is wont to do, he seemed to turn a corner around 1 pm and is bouncing back. I got him to eat some Scooby Snacks and he started getting thirsty. By dinner time he was behaving almost like normal again. We still have it in the back of our minds that our time left with him in little and precious, but for now I'm glad that he seems to be perked up again. We just love this old guy.

On Death

The end of 2009 brought three deaths into my world and each of them affected me in unique ways.

First was the death of the father of one of my elementary through high school best friends. Christy and I became good friends when we were in 5th grade and continued until I went away to college. Although we are not as close now, we are still in touch and when her dad was diagnosed with cancer I was saddened to hear the news. I am friends with Christy, her mom, and her half sister on Facebook so I was able to keep up with news about Len through the past year and a half. Things took a very bad turn for the worse this fall and it seemed imminent that his death was near. He died a few weeks before Thanksgiving and Ange and Heather and I went to the calling to support Christy and her family. After chatting with her for a bit we walked around to look at the picture memorials they had put together around the mortuary. At the first picture I was suddenly struck by an overwhelming sense of sadness. Of course it was sad that a friend's father had died but at that moment I was reminded of how close in age her father and my father are. When you are a kid much of your "hanging out" with friends revolves around being at home with someone's parents and depending on them to get you where you need to go since you can't drive. I have lots of memories of Christy's dad and find a lot of similarities between them. His death made me realized that I've entered the point in my life where I have to start worrying about the health of my parents and other older family members and that is not something I am prepared to deal with. Her dad's death affected me much more than I expected and I very nearly lost it when I looked at that first mural of pictures. Luckily I was able to pull it together and not be a total wreck mess, but it was something that stuck with me for quite some time.

In early December my "grandfather" died. I use quotes because although technically/biologically he was my mother's father which makes him my grandfather, I did not have a grandfatherly relationship with him. I'd probably only seen him a handful of times in the last 20+ years and the last time I saw him (several years ago) he called me by my cousin's name the entire time. When I got the news he died the only feeling I had was one of apathy, which I thought was interesting. I literally didn't feel anything. Not happy, not sad, not mad, not anything. How do you grieve for someone you have no relationship with or no attachment to? I felt like I should feel something, but honestly, I didn't. It was like reading a news story of a stranger's death. And to make it even stranger, the night that he died I had a very creepy dream about him that woke me up with a start. I looked at the clock (4 am) and thought to myself "If he died tonight I am going to be so freaked out" and went back to bed. The next morning when my mom called I nearly passed out when she said he had died in the middle of the night. I am NOT into supernatural/other worldly things, so I still don't know what to think of it, but I've tried not to dwell on it because it gives me the hee-bee-jee-bees.

Finally, whilst I was gone to Africa for two weeks my 17-year old cousin died in his sleep. This was the most disturbing to me of all of the deaths. First of all, the entire situation was terrible. Dominic was a completely healthy teenage boy and his death came as a very unexpected shock. He died peacefully in his sleep and 3 weeks later they still don't have any idea why he died. Of all of the people who died, I felt closest to his death, because although we were not close, I have spent some time with him, and more importantly my aunt. We were Facebook friends and I was more peripherally involved in his life than the other two. On top of the death itself, the manner in which I found out created a very strange situation I've never had to deal with.

We have a generally unspoken rule that when I am traveling outside of the country and fairly inaccessible, all bad news should be held until my return. We figure, why make me worry when there is nothing I can do about it? I had called my mom to let her know we arrived safe and sound and apparently about a half an hour later is when she received the call about my cousin. She debated calling me back but didn't want this news to worry me while I was in Africa. Now, here comes the strange part. Normally when I am in Africa I don't have much (if any) access to technology. However, Dr. Nagengast (the man who I was assisting on the Africa trip) is on sabbatical this semester and is spending the semester teaching at The University of The Gambia and therefore needed to find a place to live for 6 months. Also his wife and son are coming to live with him for the semester so it needed to be a fairly decent place. The apartment turned out to be very nice and included wireless internet. He had brought his laptop along and asked me to set up his network since he is not very technologically savvy. I said no problem but we were pretty busy for the first few days and didn't think much about it.

Finally we had an afternoon off and Ange fell asleep on the couch so I decided to set up the computer and once I had it all up and running I was cruising around the net and checking email and Facebook. When I opened up Facebook and was browsing my updates I saw one from my aunt that said she was proud of her daughter for going back to school knowing that so many would be grieving her brother. I literally could not comprehend what the hell she was talking about and it never crossed my mind that my cousin would actually be dead. I clicked on my aunt's page and started scrolling down through all of the sympathy posts and comments from everyone until I got to the status update from my aunt announcing that my cousin had died in his sleep on December 31st. I don't think I have ever literally been in such stunned shock before. For about 10 minutes I sat staring at the page just trying to wrap my mind around this new fact. I started scrolling through the comments and other posts on her page as it sunk in that this terrible news was very real. I called my mom just to see what in the hell was going on and she confirmed that yes it was true and she didn't think that I would have internet access and was going to tell me when I got home (as mentioned above about our unspoken rule). After I got off the phone I just broke down crying. I was so shocked and saddened and I just felt so helpless being so far away from my family. Ange woke up and of course was like "What the hell?" and we spent the rest of the evening in the apartment because I didn't have the energy to go hang out with the students for dinner.

The news of his death stuck with me the entire trip. Because I now had internet access I was able to follow the news from home (almost obsessively) and at the same time that it made me feel connected to home it also reminded me of how far removed from everything I was. It was probably one of the most difficult things I've had to face...knowing that my family was gathering half way around the world and I was in lala land trying to go on with my day to day activities while still having this immense news weighing in the back of my head the entire time.

I realized how technology had impacted my life in so many ways. Without Facebook I would have never known this information but I also wouldn't have been able to go through the grieving process semi-connected to my family. The whole thing was very surreal and I'm still processing it all.

2009 ended on a very sad note, and though these three deaths allowed me to grow and reflect on my life I hope that 2010 will be better and less filled with sadness. RIP Len Cressman, Dale Gatlin, and Dominic Riolo.