I'm sorry about Robin Gibb, but I actually KNEW Pam Cook.

She was the sauciest Brit in the house. 

She was a lovely, funny, dear lady. 





She lived a long and fascinating life which ended this morning in that gritty St Elsewhere of the Twin Cities, Hennepin County Medical Center. 

Pamela Cook deserved better than that.  She had traveled the world, and she had seen sights I may never see.  She told us stories of what it was like to live in London during the blitz.   See "The King's Speech"?  Why bother?  She listened to him make the speech, live, over the air!  I didn't know her long enough or well enough, but I will treasure until the end of my own life the little time I did get to spend with her.  

She was an illegal alien, and yet she did not steal one American job or threaten the stability of our nation in any way.  If I remember correctly, she thought our political system here was "bloody bonkers" or something like that.



Pam was my husband's best friend's mother, and she outlived her son and her ex-husband.  It must have torn her apart to see her only son drink himself to death.  I kept her voicemail for the longest time, "Phil, John passed away in the night..." but I couldn't keep it forever because I couldn't bear to remember her that way.  The way in which I wish to remember her is smiling and laughing over dirty double entente's at Christmastime; the way she praised my simple little dinner, the way she raved over the cranberry sauce.  Can you imagine? Eighty-three years old, lived in the U.S. for years, and she never tasted home made whole-berry cranberry sauce before last Christmas.



Her last Christmas.



I gave her a whole quart to take home with her.  I can make more cranberry sauce any time.



In the past few years now since her son, John Felix, passed away, my husband Phil has been diligent about going to visit with her at her apartment, sometimes bringing his daughter Mallory along.  I never got over to her apartment.  Life moves too quickly for us all, and I have many friends I never see face-to-face.  In 2010 I caught up to one of my girlfriends from high school for the first time in 34 years, at her home in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  Friday night I ate dinner with a friend who lives right here in the Twin Cities not ten miles from me, who I had not seen in over two years.  Just never enough time for everyone, is there?

Once she went into the hospital, though, like most of us foolish little humans I realized that time was running short.  I tried to get over there as often as possible.  Many times it meant going from one hospital to another in the same evening after work, in order to see both Pam and our daughter-in-law Amanda (at Fairview, battling leukemia).



After the funeral service for my friend Deb Rapacz, I went to see Pam at HCMC, still in my dark clothes and "church-goin' hat".  I even had to keep my (very) high heels on because of the long dark skirt.  Pam loved the hat, and she was surprised to see me so early in the afternoon.  "Did you dress up like this just for me?" she asked.  Of course I told her I did.  And maybe I sort of did... for her as well as for Deb.

I want to remember Pam the way she was a few weeks ago, when she was her old spitfire self, sitting up in bed and saying in that lovely, well-educated accent, "I've decided I'm going to teach them all a lesson and not die."  I firmly believed she would, too.  She wanted the two of us to spend more time together.  "When I get out of hospital, I want us to become better friends", she told me, "we should have done, all along."

Quite right, old girl.  We should have done, all along.

Thank you for the time we did have, Pam.  We'll be coming to say a last goodbye to you soon now.  I'll wear the outfit (and the hat) for you as well.





Bonnie and Clyde with the tree, that last Christmas Eve of Pam's.  So grateful to have had that evening with her.

Where the Wilde Things Ate.

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak. 

And thanks for the wild rumpus and all.

Here is a delicious roast Thanksgiving turkey for you.

XOXO

Processing, processing...  one of the terrifying side-effects of a terrifying illness arriving at the doorstep is how, instead of pulling people together and bringing out their best, it can rip people apart and bring out their worst.  I for one had hoped to act only as a channel for healing and goodness and divine love to use in focusing its light, and maybe also to be a good grandma and stepmother/mother-in-law as well.  What is going on with our little group instead, has me baffled, as it is straight out of a soap opera of the first order.  Two plotlines converge at the intersection of Our Loved One and The Unwritten Rules.

I understand what it is to have a best friend for life; there are a very few extraordinary ladies in my life -- you can count 'em on one hand -- who go back many decades with me.  One of whom goes all the way back to 1969, which was a very, very long time ago, children.  I know what it is to have this treasure, and to fear that it will be taken away from you, and far too soon at that.  I myself went WA-A-A-AY out on a limb today and told someone I love the truth about her spouse, and I'm scared sh*tless that it may cost me her friendship.

This lifelong friendship thing (Plotline A), it can make you possessive, and protective, and I think that those qualities may manifest in different ways.  You might, for example, become quite hostile to unfamiliar family members during your friend's battle with a life-threatening illness.  You might disapprove, judge, look down upon, and listen to evil gossip.  You might drive away agents of love and light with your negativity, if only because they choose to do battle with you and your energy, by not doing battle at all.

I also understand what it is to be insecure (Plotline B), and to feel as though you constantly have to be proving yourself to a group who just won't see things your way.  I know from experience how it feels to be so entrenched in your own self-righteousness that you just can't make room for the other person's point of view... and how that feeling can lead to some powerful anger and aggression.  How you constantly feel in your head that you're always fighting with people who just don't see that you are the one who is Right.  What I don't know, is what it feels like to be so competitive for possession of an entire group that you will actually scheme, and do mean things in the guise of kindness, in order to shut out the ones you can't accept. 

I really don't get that one at all.  Maybe I grew out of it in time.  I hope so.

But I certainly get the competition for control of the sick person's world.  It's sad and ugly and fear-based, but it thinks it's borne of love and lovingkindness.  I've seen it before.  If it were on Star Trek it would be some kind of strange little creature-of-the-week.  It's ugly, and it's weird, and while I have pity upon it, that does not alter the feelings of pain and disgust it engenders within me.  It feeds on those feelings, too, because it thinks that it has power, thereby. 

It may not even know the hurt it's causing... or it may know, and be glad about it.  It can divide a family, and feel like it's done the right thing.  It'll tell you it only wants what's best for the one with the illness, and that the others weren't doing anybody good anyway.

It's smug.

Here is a turkey's ass.

And the person at the center of the vortex of this, the one who is working hard to overcome cancer, has no real idea that this manipulative bullsh*t is raging around her.  Gawd, I hope not.  I for one won't tell her.  I love her too much for that.  She has way too much on her plate for anyone else's personal problems to have any business poking noses in.  I'll just adhere to the new rules and stay away from the domains of those who have decided that I am unacceptable.  If some of us are not needed, well... love and light are pretty good about finding their own way in to where they belong.  If it's not my privilege to serve, then it's simply not. 

And maybe someday... when she is well... we'll see.

Because who gets to be smug and who has to detach and who gets to be in charge and who gets hurt in the process and how anybody feels about anything is completely unimportant.  All that matters, is that she does get well.

ALL that matters. Is that she DOES.  GET.  WELL.

"It Would Be So Nice if You Weren't Here" -- title of a book by Charles Grodin.

You wait a lifetime for a family, you go a bit insane thinking it will never happen.  You make your peace with that, and accept the other good things in your life, and remind yourself that not everybody has a family and it's not the end of the world.  Who needs primary relationships anyway?

Then one year, it apparently happens, you let your guard down, you think, "I give and receive love," and you permit yourself to feel comfortable within a new (to you) family unit.  Then, in the immortal poetry of Ralph Kramden, "POW! Right in the kisser."

How does something go from unbearably painful and ugly to uglier and more painful like this?  My heart has been breaking continuously -- moebius heartbreak strip -- since we found out our darling beautiful perfect daughter-in-law has leukemia.  All we want in this world right now is to help her, help this little family, in any way possible.

And it appears that what we are expected to do is to occasionally take the little granddaughters off of their Daddy's hands, but other than that, back off.  Your help is not needed with this, nor with that, nor certainly most of all with the other thing either; you are not welcome here; please, obey the boundaries you did not know were in place.

At first, I thought I was being paranoid.  The dirty looks from her friends when I would come to visit at the hospital.  The very nasty glance at my hands from my brother-in-law's girlfriend, with a hissed, "Did you wash your hands?" as if I were not responsible or aware.  The "Oh you don't have to do that" from my husband's son in response to every gesture, every offer.  The most painful, "Well thanks for offering, but you guys don't have to feel obligated..." 

We offered to help plan the benefit evening... not invited.  My husband offered to get some fellow musicians together for it, actual pros, for free... offer ignored.  I offered to emcee the evening (and I'm most definitely an actual pro)... offer met with hemming and hawing, the polite phrases an actor expects to hear when rejected for a role but never expects to hear when rejected by... family.  We offered to help with cleaning up and organizing the house... not invited.  I brought food -- good food, I'm one helluva good cook -- and while it is eaten, it is also met with the hemming and hawing, the thanks but don't feel obligated, the polite phrases so the old folks won't quite catch on that they're being asked to step off.

And now, a new website appears, and we are requested to sign up for an appointment to visit her in the hospital, no doubt to keep the wrong people from bumping into each other.  We are requested to sign up for when to bring meals, no doubt to demonstrate that there are plenty of cooks among preferred family and friends.  Attempts to open chat online are ignored.  And my brother-in-law has stopped talking to my husband, won't return phone calls or emails.

Wow, we must suck.

And what can you do?  Nobody wants to hear our feelings are hurt from being cut out of her cancer-recovery plan.  How selfish can you be, right?  Who the hell wants to hear that being edged out, made irrelevant to the first-life-and-death crisis this family has faced, may be painful to a couple of f***ing Boomers?  Immaterial at 53 and 54.  Not wanted.  Not.  A part.  Of this.

Nobody in this family has been out to hear my husband play a gig in six years.  Nobody in this family has ever seen one of my shows without us buying their tickets for them as gifts.  We hear about great parties where the other set of boomer parents were there, but we hear about it after the fact, never as an invitation.

The list goes on... we spent much of yesterday comparing notes and looking to see if (a) we were being selfish, hypersensitive jerks, or (b) a discernible pattern emerges.

Yep.  There's a pattern.  Without our even being aware of it until a cancer diagnosis brought it out into the light, we have been assigned a compact little role to fill, and no further.  What we thought was an embrace, is a holding-at-arm's-length.  So this is what it feels like to be an embarrassment to the kids.  Wowza.

  

The only one in this who seems not to want to dismiss us is the lady with the cancer.  But who knows?  Did she make requests that we be subtly encouraged to back off so that she wouldn't have to deal with both leukemia and with having to hurt us to our faces?

  

If you see a stunningly attractive, stylish older woman walking around the Warehouse District, with a look on her face like she leaned in to give a kiss but got gut-punched instead, she's me.

  

Also here are some pictures of a delicious dinner I made recently for the two of us, mainly by cleaning out what was laying around.  Yeah...

Why You Should Eat Up the Sweet Potato Pie.



Sweet Potato pies, ready to go into the oven.



Three months later, and once again everything in life has changed, seemingly. 

In the interim, I have made pots and pots of soups, and been so wrapped up in work and school that I completely forgot -- forgot, mind you!! -- to photograph them and share them here.  But I will be posting more now, and uploading pictures of delicious foods, because now I really need to blog and vent and rant and so forth.

I have a new job, a real one, with benefits and everything.  I love it.

My gorgeous beautiful lovely wonderful perfect daughter-in-law has leukemia.  I hate it.

Easter Sunday was the last night of normalcy, and we ate up every bit of the sweet-potato pie.  The next night she was rushed to the hospital.  Two days later the diagnosis came in, and life for our family was instantly changed forever.  Of course we are all pulling for her and she's getting the best of care, but there are no guarantees with cancer and we are all a wee bit on the terrified side.

I, of course, have been cooking for the family, in between hospital visits and rounds of granddaughters' laundry and, oh yes, visits to my other friend in another hospital, and the funeral of yet another friend who left us way before her time.

Yeah... it's a bit of a tough spring this year... I really should have photographed that beautiful yellow dish of tofu-vegetable curry I made Monday night.  You'd have loved that.

Remember to eat up all of the sweet-potato pie when it comes your way.