My grandma's abiding lesson about death

After two months of bed-ridden hospice care, my grandmother died on Easter morning as one of her children read to her. That child, my aunt, was diagnosed in that same two months with terminal cancer. Meanwhile, I'm watching photos of a former co-worker on Facebook as she goes through surgery and chemotherapy. And this weekend, I participated in the Brain Tumor Walk in Golden Gate Park in remembrance of my uncle-in-law, who died 2 years ago of brain cancer, and his mother, who died a few years before of the same disease.

To have made it to my mid-20s without a single family member dying is astonishing and, of course, unsustainable. It's made these deaths, and the concept of death in general, all the more terrifying to me. I feel utterly sideswiped. I'm trying hard to process the finality of it and it's just not sitting.

I'm lucky that, so far, my experiences with death have come with a finite countdown period, a time to say goodbye. But I worry about not using that time to its fullest. I worry that I'll miss my window. And worries beget more worries, until I'm a ball of fear: what if I get the unexpected call that someone I love has died? My husband, my sister, my parents -- it's all just a matter of time before they leave and I am alone. What if that time is today?

Instead of joyfully living big, I stay small and safe, and I beg my family members to do the same. For example, I have (more than a few times) fretted and cried as my husband goes biking or motorcycling. I'm already starting to worry about the physical safety of our children, who are hardly even twinkles in their father's eye yet. And if I'm honest with myself, all this worry about family is meant to mask the terror I feel about my own death.

But thankfully, amidst the paralyzing worry, the fear of being left alone, and the extreme discomfort I feel from not being able to control death, there's a saving grace. It's the feeling that my grandmother (her spirit? the memory of her? the aspects of her personality within myself?) is inspiring me to be a better person. In remembrance of her, I am sometimes set free of my worry: I am more active, I enjoy life more, I am more courageously vulnerable. It feels like her strength is there when mine fails. It feels like I'm not alone.

Waving goodbye until she drives out of sight

Growing up in a family of doctors, I've never been fazed by the word sick. If someone was sick, they needed only to visit [insert closest doctor-relative here] and they would soon rebound. Sickness was a temporary state, always bookended by health.

My grandmother is sick, or at least that's the word my family is using when I call up. But it feels strange for me to use that word, as if there's any chance of rehabilitation. She's dying. After a few years of declining health, she suddenly had a major stroke in February. Through prior arrangements with her doctor-husband, she declined going to the hospital and instead has been receiving hospice care at home. Bed-ridden for the last 6 weeks (the stroke left the left half of her body paralyzed), she's living out her days in a rented hospital bed planted in the middle of the living room my grandparents have shared for over 30 years.

I'm blessed with the ability to go and visit her from time to time, although it is hard to muster the courage each time to say forever-goodbye. Many of my family members are making the pilgrimage to her house in Los Angeles, and the reunions are strange in themselves, equal parts sorrow and Christmas. The room has always been the focal point of my 20-person family's gatherings -- a fireplace that's constantly on duty despite living in balmy LA, a dinner table with some puzzle or another in disarray underneath the tablecloth, and an enormous window with a spectacular view of the house's two-tiered backyard and the hills of Palos Verdes beyond. In recent years, my grandmother had taken to falling asleep after sundown in her favorite easy chair, in spite of (or because of?) the white noise of her family's hubbub all around her. So the optimist in me says that not much has changed, except she's in a bed now instead of a chair.

Every time I come to visit, I steel myself for the possibility that she is no longer 'really there.' This last time, she not only sang along with me and answered open-ended questions (my desperate attempts to get a few more lessons, like "What's the secret to a happy marriage?" and "What should you remember when raising children?"), she even taught me a song out of the blue, saying it over and over again until I could repeat it back to her:

M is for the million things you gave me
O is only that you're growing old
T is for the tears you shed to save me
H is for your heart of purest gold
E is for your everlasting wisdom
R is for the right you'll always be
Put them all together they spell mother
The one that means the world to me

She said her own grandmother taught her that, which prompted us to talk about old memories for a while -- her caring for chickens on her grandfather's farm, the color of her prom dress, getting hand-me-down clothes from her older sister. She told me that her sister (who died in the 90s) and her brother (who died in WWII) were waiting in the trees for her, and talked to her when she was asleep. She did all this while interjecting constantly with snippets of the Alphabet Song. It was surreal and lovely and sad, as this whole experience has been and continues to be.

Why is it so hard to find gender-neutral school supplies?

I went out to slay the gender stereotypes dragon today, and I utterly failed -- this time.

Some background: my company is hosting a back-to-school backpack drive (& you can donate here, if you like).

For those of us in the office, it works like this: first, you pick up a packet containing 1) a backpack-shaped card with a shopping list of back-to-school supplies on the back and 2) a luggage tag with a description of the child receiving the bag (e.g. 7-9th grade girl; K-1st boy).

Then, you go buy the supplies on the list, stuff 'em in a backpack, affix the luggage tag & bring it back into the office.

Being the over-achiever and the gender neutrality enthusiast that I am, I figured I'd buy two sets of everything, stuff 'em into bags, and label one for each gender. Simple, I figured!

Buying the office supplies wasn't too bad. I steered away from red and blue by going for highlighter green 3-ring binders and yellow, purple and black notebooks. Although it was an affront to the eyes, it appeased my sense of equality.

Then came the backpacks.

At the store I went to, these were my best options, and the ones I ended up going with. Take a wild guess which was "meant" for which gender:

All the other backpacks were either pink or promoted violence. Seriously.

What an eye-opening experience. We really are training our kids at an early age to fit into tiny boxes. I had half a mind to swap bags & give them to the "other" gender -- but stopped when I thought about the teasing that would ensue.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on stores and brands that do a good job of gender-neutral children's accessories? I'm not a mother yet, but the time will come, and I'd like to do a better job than this.

My sister Dani's ski wedding

After an unexpected tour of United's hub cities, I made it to Bethel, Maine this weekend to witness my sister-in-law's beautiful ski-inspired wedding.

But first, the travel. In the midst of last Thursday's rare San Francisco thunderstorm, I was supposed to fly out of SFO around 10:30. My flight was delayed for hours because both the plane before ours and the plane carrying our pilots were struck by lightning. The gate agents' computers were down because the central database had apparently also been struck by lightning. We boarded the plane around 2am, with instructions to hustle lest our pilots "go illegal" (meaning go over their maximum hours allowed to work in a day, per union rules). We hustled, but our wait time to take off was too long, and the pilots went illegal. We had to disembark and our flight was cancelled.

At 3 am, the line for the United customer service desk was over an hour long. Fortunately, Matt taught me a trick and I called up United customer service instead of waiting in line; they eventually got me on a 3-leg flight to Portland, ME. I had initially planned to arrive in Portland around 10 am EST. I ended up getting there, sans checked bag, at 7 pm, after stops in O' Hare and Newark. I got my rental car and drove another 2 hours to Bethel, freaking out at the "low battery" warnings my GPS gave me throughout the drive (I had had the wherewithal to pack the GPS in my carryon, but not its charger).

Finally, blessedly, I made it to the hotel, and my bag was delivered directly to Bethel the next morning by United. Matt had even scheduled me a massage. I had missed the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but fortunately made it and got my bag just in time for the wedding itself.

The whole series of events could not have reflected the bride and groom more. The ceremony took place on the mountain where the groom works as a ski patrolman. Wedding guests took the gondola up and sat facing downhill, then the wedding party -- in tuxes and ski boots -- processed. The bride and her father came in, also wearing ski boots. At the end of the ceremony, the fellow patrolmen gave a salute and the bride and groom drove off on a snowmobile festooned with a "Just Married" sign and PBR cans!

Then, the reception took place at the nearby ski bar where the bride is a bartender. The party was, as I heard said many times, the biggest party the county had ever seen. The bride and groom were definitely king and queen of the county for the night.

And now I have a new brother -- I gained two sisters when I married Matt, but Paul is my very first brother ever!