Category Archives: Family

This Mother’s Day marks our first without Dad, and it finds my Mom and me in New York, resuming our Broadway tradition in bittersweet style. I was sort of dreading the day when we would be able to do this again, because that would mean Dad had gone. Attempting to accept that, we return to the city as my gift to her for Mother’s Day, and we find joy in the little things, the way Dad would want us to go on. 

For all of my life, she has been the family member who has kept us all together, expanding our ranks to include Andy, the twins, Jaxon, and Landrie, and forming the stable core around which all our lives revolve. That’s not always easy – and Moms probably have the toughest job in the world – but she has done it with love and care, and our family is intact today because of her. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom – thank you for all that you do. Here’s hoping you have a wonderful day – and a better year ahead. I love you. ~ A. 

Our Kwanzan cherry tree is not a weeping form, except when it rains and its blooms are full. At that time, the heaviness pulls the blooms and branches down, closer to the ground, and it assumes weeping form. On a recent rainy day, the tree looked particularly downtrodden and sad, mirroring a stressful week at a time of the year when we’re usually celebrating. It’s ok, and I’ve expected such stretches in this first year after losing Dad.

Lately, he has been on my mind, and as much as that is a comfort to know he’s still here, it’s also a reminder of loss and sadness. This weekend Mom and I are making our first Broadway Mother’s Day weekend since he declined to the point where she couldn’t leave him for a night. The last time we were able to go was in 2019, so it’s been a while. When I think of that, I think of how long Dad’s decline was, and how the process of losing him was something that had been going on for years. There were some wonderful moments, and then there were fewer and fewer good days. 

Every time I feel myself thinking I’m starting to be all right again, whatever all right was, and whenever I find myself saying, ‘I’m starting to feel ok’ a bad stretch will result, reminding me that he’s not been gone a year yet. Time does tend to heal, and my healing usually happens when it’s least expected, when I’ve finally accepted that we won’t ever be the same. There is a little relief then, and then there’s not. 

My preference for structure and order has been challenged, perhaps for the better, with the process of grieving. I had thought, or foolishly hoped, that it would be the first year which would prove the difficult one, and perhaps that’s still partly true – but in that hope was the idealistic notion that it would only be a year. As much as I understood that was not how grief worked, I wanted so badly to have it be true, and part of me still holds onto that. In an effort to mitigate my disappointment when it doesn’t happen, because I know that it won’t, I don’t put off the sadness when it comes. Life, at its saddest points, won’t be bound or dictated by arbitrary dates or timeframes. 

And so I accept the sadness, finding whatever beauty there might be here, the way I find beauty in the weeping of a cherry that normally doesn’t weep. 

The twins finally joined me for our office’s annual ‘Take Our Children to Work Day’ and we all survived. Getting up at the crack-ass of dawn to make baked French toast is but one of the challenges that faced us, but it was all worth it. They seemed to enjoy their day away from Amsterdam, and it was fun having them join me for the office shenanigans. They also got praise from their group leader (thank you Betsy!) so they did us proud. I cannot say where they are headed in their future careers, as they don’t seem to have any idea on that front, but at least they’re aware of more options. (They may also want to get a job where they can safely retire at age 55 and not work into their 70’s to make ends meet, and if they follow a career with the state of New York and plot it out well, they could have that option too.) 

Fun fact: by the time they will be entering the workforce, I’ll be just about ready to retire. The circle of professional life. 

We finished the day, then Uncle Andy joined us for dinner. Firmly entrenched in the age of 14, they are just about to find us tragically uncool. As long as they know we will always be there for them, it will be ok. And I’ve embraced being uncool since I was their age, so this is a land I have come to adore. 

When the world spits rain and the night bleeds into the day, one look at my nephew Jaxon makes it all ok again. This post is just to remind you, and myself, of the joy that’s still here in the world, even if it’s sometimes hard to find or feel. 

Nothing beats an impromptu stop for a milkshake with your fourteeen-year-old niece, which is just what transpired on my last visit to Amsterdam. We’d both already had dinner, so when I proposed ice cream we drove around for a bit before realizing none of the little ice cream places took American Express before settling on a chain that made milkshakes (according to Emi, Five Guys did a decent job, so I was game – and Route 30 has come a long way since the days when Dunkin Donuts was the shining star of stops in Amsterdam). 

We sat in the window of the shop, each of us reminiscing about Polar Freeze – an ice cream memory we both shared from our respective childhoods – and I realized we fluently spoke the same language: the frivolous, heartbreaking, all-important and all-too-nonsensical language of a teenage girl. My tongue was a bit rusty, but I quickly found the rhythm, the gravitas and the drama of it all, punctuated by a few squeals and the occasional giggle. 

This was my homeland, and it was good to be back.

The day had been filled with spurts of rain and quickly-moving clouds. A preliminary medical appointment to gain me entrance to my first scheduled colonoscopy left me in contemplative state of mind, and the weather did nothing to abate any vague concerns. After attempting to find a gift for a friend’s birthday, and failing, I pulled back into the rainy evening, which was suddenly much darker than the gray day that had preceded it. An end-of-the-errands stop at Trader Joe’s, mostly to pick up a bag or two of their Savory, Sweet and Tart Trek Mix, seems like the strangest place to start crying, but that’s sometimes the way grief sneaks up on me these days.

I had just left the cheese section, and was headed toward the crackers to stock up for an upcoming visit from out-of-town friends, when I saw a couple that instantly reminded me of my parents, maybe fifteen years ago. The man was quietly pushing a cart, while the woman I assumed is his wife (from the easy and loving way they had about each other) circled around picking up items. They stopped in the ice cream aisle, where I surreptitiously (at least I hope) entered their orbit and watched from a distance, as I pretended to examine a box of Green Tea Mochi. The woman picked up a box of frozen cannoli desserts and placed it in the cart with a little smile. She watched as the man made his own sweet selection, smiling a little more, and then they advanced to the next section. Casually but nicely dressed, there was something about their manners and the quiet way they moved around the store unconcerned with anyone but themselves that so vividly recalled the way my parents used to be. 

I’d forgotten how long ago that was, and in that suddenly-empty aisle I felt tears come to my eyes as I thought of how much time had passed – how many years my parents lived their lives together – and how short and quick it now felt. And then I thought of how much love there had been too, and how that elongated their finite time into something that maybe knows no real boundary of time – because love, so tangibly realized in the rivulets of salty water down my cheeks, may just be the only thing that can topple time, rendering it meaningless in the end. 

My Dad has been gone a long time – much longer than his final physical ending here on earth, when he drew his last breath – and I still miss him. I also still feel his love, and my love for him, and I’ll carry that with me until my last day on earth. Time won’t take that away. 

Easter came early this year, and so our delayed posting schedule here means it’s going up here now. We spent our first Easter without Dad, in the last home in which he lived, and it was a good one. Mom put together a delicious meal, and Dad was present in his favorite lemon meringue pie – ideal for Easter. I made an extremely unpopular ambrosia (which I have come around to enjoying in spite of everyone else) and Andy brought an apple crumble, as favored by Noah. 

After our meal, we invited the twins for an impromptu sleepover during their spring vacation. At 14 years old, their interest in their old uncles wanes, but we still manage to have a good time. They are scheduled to join me for my office’s ‘Take Your Children to Work Day’ – their first time, and mine, to participate in such an event. They’re turning into young adults, and they make us proud every day.

Out of all my younger years, I think it was the year I turned 14 that was my favorite. In so many ways, it was the last year of real innocence, and the first year of many awakenings. It also seemed to mark the beginning of the age when memories solidified into the soul I hold to this day. The age of 14 was when I started to become the young adult I would end up being. For those reasons, this is a very special birthday for the Ilagan twins.

My niece and nephew, Emi and Noah, have celebrated thirteen of these days before, and given the promising section of life they are entering, it feels like a fine time to look back over those previous thirteen celebrations. Here we go…

#13 ~ In which a letter to Noah and a letter to Emi marked their entry into the teenage world. 

#12 ~ In which a dozen years have flown by like eggs in a carton. 

#11 ~ In which a full year of COVID wreaks its sustained havoc but there was still time to celebrate. 

#10 ~ In which a decade of the Ilagan twins finds us looking back again. 

#9, 8, 7 ~ In which a few years get away from me posting wise (and the best parts of life take place offline). 

#6 ~ In which a birthday celebration takes place in a children’s museum. 

#5 ~ In which the twins and their friends rounded the half-decade mark. 

#4 ~ In which a birthday double-header brings happiness to the family. 

#3 ~ In which a ride in the Radio Flyer signifies a Happy Birthday.

#2 and #1 ~ In which the birthday blog posts were part of all those lost in a revamp. We lived then, offline, and in all the glory that being off the grid entails. 

Happy Birthday Emi and Noah! See you for dinner tomorrow!

Whenever I needed my Dad, he was always there for me. Even at those times when I didn’t think I needed him, he managed to be the unexpected supplier of reassurance and unspoken love, and somehow I still feel that even though he is gone. The other morning I was realizing how much I still missed him, when this cardinal appeared in the front yard. I think there’s a family of them nesting in our front hedge, so this isn’t out of the ordinary, but I’m taking it as a reassuring reminder that Dad is still here, still guiding me, still a source of support even when I might think I don’t need it. 

The next day, during a meditation, the cardinal returned to perch in the one section of the Japanese maple that was visible from my vantage point, as if peering in through the front door to make sure I had seen him.

Grief winds its way through this winter, while the universe works in wonderful ways if you allow it. 

My Dad has been on my mind this past week. Maybe some recent time spent in Amsterdam rekindled a few memories. Maybe it’s that I’m finally realizing how much I miss him. Some small part of me is still expecting him to be there at an undefined point in the future. When he was well I would only see him about once a month or so, and in a way I’ve reverted back to that time, or the years when I was in college and saw him even less. It’s easier to think of him being away for some indeterminable length of time rather than gone from this earth forever; my head makes sense of it, but my heart holds out. 

On a recent lunch break, I walked up the hill to the church I used to sit in during his last days here. It offered a small bit of solace in that sad summer, but on this visit, as on my last, the doors remained locked. The day was splendid, though – one of the first sunny and warm ones we’ve had this year – so I made the most of my time outside. Later, after I’d arrived home, I sat down to my meditation and invited Dad to join me there. (Not out loud – I haven’t gone that crazy yet.) It is a comfort to think of him sitting silently beside me – it’s something that would never have happened quite in this way in real life (my father was not the meditative type) but there were many times when I would find him at a gathering or dinner, alone in the family room watching television, or sitting off to the side at a wedding, and I’d stop to sit next to him. We didn’t talk much, simply sat there together in the unease of a crowd, or the welcome semi-solitude of his favored family room. In that shared silence, we understood one another in a way that no one else could. 

The next morning I felt that familiar emptiness which has been part of our lives since last summer – duller and less pointed now, but still there – and as I looked out the front window I saw a quartet of cardinals going about their daily business – a few of their chirps cutting through the glass as they flitted away. It was the happy sound of spring on the way, the sound of hope, and maybe the sound of a lost loved one reminding me that he was still near.

At the bottom of the hill where my Dad’s ashes are interred, I always stop to get whatever bearings I might locate. It is the pause before the visit. Here is where I will get out of the car and walk to the edge of where the manicured grass meets the barbed wire fence where a more wild and untamed section of land begins. It is a wet space, damp enough year-round for cattails to grow and flourish. On this gray day in early February, I walk through a muddy mess just barely speckled with snow. The ground is uncharacteristically soft, the grass gives way beneath my feet and there are mounds of spongy moss lending a gentleness to my steps. Seeking some sign of my Dad, I wait and listen, then hear the running water. 

A little stream, hidden at other times of the year by foliage and brush, gurgles ever so quietly, the running water like a set of barely-audible chimes carried on the wind. A sign of spring. A sign of hope. Water and land – movable and immovable – constant and inconstant. I hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe the water wasn’t running the previous times I’ve been here. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it. On this day, I am listening, and the sound of the water is soothing. 

Dad had been on my mind the last few days, and it dawned on me that today marks six months since he physically departed our world. These pictures are from a memory on FaceBook which popped up from ten years ago, when St. Marys Hospital was honoring Dad for his years of service. I remember that winter evening well – it was a night of nasty weather, yet somehow we all made it to the dinner. Looking back, and seeing my Dad in this photo, I realize that the start of his Alzheimer’s was just beginning to slightly show itself that night. All I sensed at the time was a slight difference in the way he was engaging – something that felt like a softer focus, and something I just attributed to an extra glass of wine to help ease his nerves for the evening. Hindsight may not quite be 20/20, but it is clearer than what was seen at the moment. 

He accepted his award and made a few of his typical jokes, and everything that everyone else could so would have appeared normal. Only I (and likely Mom) could sense the smallest difference. Some part of me understood then that things were shifting, (something I would see more clearly in later years) and I hurriedly buried the thought away at the bottom of my mind, covering it with the smiles and camaraderie of the rest of the night. That was ten years ago – and ten years is a long time, especially when it means the progression of a disease that slowly robs a person of who they are. Luckily, most of Dad’s worst changes came in the last few years, and even during that time there were still glimpses of the man we knew and loved so well. 

This is the first winter we are experiencing without him. I thought it would be the holidays that were the most difficult, but Dad was never big on holidays, so they weren’t as sad as expected. Instead, the sorrow stings more on uneventful days like this, days when I might have spent a few hours with him in quiet and still companionship.