Mom and Margaritas

Mar 9, 2011 by Sara

My mom had a signature drink, the Margarita.

It’s simple, refreshing and perfect any time of year but particularly on a hot and humid New York evening.  And it can get you totally lit.

Mom opted for the no-frills José Cuervo mix from the supermarket with lots of kosher salt, on the rocks, and Sauza tequila.  When her final cancer diagnosis came down, she was often heard saying: “Denial and a Margarita!”

That was how she coped… with a sense of humor and a little tequila. We even put it as a slogan on our Race For the Cure t-shirts one year.

While my current favorite cocktail is a vodka martini (straight up with extra olives), when it’s hot in the summertime, when I’m hoping for warm weather, or when I’m just missing my Mom – there’s nothing more satisfying than the perfect margarita.

There are lots of recipes out there and I’ve even recently tried a little taste test… you know, just to be sure. But I still come back to the Real Margarita recipe by Ina Garten, a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa. It’s simply the best. Profiled in her cookbook: Barefoot Contessa Parties!

If you haven’t made these Margaritas then you are missing out. Here’s the recipe:

So this year, like every year, I will be raising a frosty, salted glass poured from a pitcher, yes that’s right, a PITCHER, of Real Margaritas and saying a toast to my Mom.

Miss you Mom. Denial and Margaritas!

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Mommy why is my fish doing the backstroke? R.I.P. Holla

Mar 6, 2011 by Sara

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Today we said goodbye to Holla, my 5 1/2 year old daughter’s goldfish. He She was more than just a party favor from my nephew’s birthday 2 months ago (just wait dear sister, just you wait…) he she was our pet.

I was shocked this morning when I noticed the fish belly up and bloated in the tank; she had been happily swimming the night before.  Anna immediately burst into tears and sobbed when I stupidly blurted out: “Oh honey, I think your fish has died.”  Clearly I was not prepared for this moment, although I probably should have been.

Because we’ve always spoken openly about “Mommy’s Mommy” and how she’s in heaven now, I thought we had established a good vocabulary on the subject.  Losing a little goldfish wouldn’t be traumatic… right?  But I couldn’t have been more wrong and quickly realized that a 5 1/2 year old has a lot more questions than she did when she was 3.

After LOTS of cuddles and finally dry eyes, we started talking about Holla and how she went to “fishy heaven.”

But when she asked through the sniffles, “Why did Holla die?” I again stupidly said: “Maybe Holla was sick…”

The little voice on my shoulder screamed: “Survey says…WRONG ANSWER!”  Apparently, the first rule in talking to your kids about death and dying is don’t use the word ‘sick’ or else you are going to freak them out the next time they or you come down a runny nose!

Clearly I was botching this explanation so I ran and got one of my new favorite parenting books. I needed a script to follow here as this was just too important to screw up. Luckily I had heard a great child development specialist, Betsy Brown Braun, recently on a Parent Experiment podcast.  She was so compelling that I immediately bought 2 of her books, the first being: Just Tell Me What To Say. It’s become my go-to manual as she has great advice and actual scripts on how to talk to your kid(s) about death and other tricky subjects.

So I literally read from the book, and then went a little off-script and mentioned that Holla’s little fishy body had stopped working and her soul had moved on.  Wait… Her WHAT?… Mommy, what’s a soul?

Er… Ahh… Ummm…. Hold On… <fervently flipping the pages ahead…>… let’s see… ah yes…

So I went on to explain to her, in 5 1/2 year old terms, what a soul is. That it’s the part of you that you can’t see but is what makes you – you. Not an easy concept to explain. The best part was Betsy Brown Braun had a little hands on demonstration you can do with the kids.

1. Find a clear plastic or glass cup.
2. Fill it three-quarters of the way with warm water.  Ask your child to taste it and confirm that it is indeed water.
3. Fill a small cup with granulated sugar. Ask your child to taste it and confirm that it is indeed sugar.
4. Mix several tablespoons of the sugar in the water, stirring until it is dissolved.
5. Ask the child where the sugar went.  Hopefully, she will say that it has disappeared, it is gone.
6. Ask her to taste the sugar-water. She will say it is sweet.
7. Ask her why it is sweet. Hopefully, she will say because there is sugar in it.
8. You will reply: So, the sugar is there even though you can’t see it? It’s like a person’s soul. It is there, but you just can’t see it.”

Genius right? Anna got it and liked the fact that we had done a little experiment too. We moved forward with our day and planned a service to say good-bye to Holla in the backyard. Her four year old little brother, Jack, could have cared less, he kept saying that Holla had already been flushed. Nice, right??

Anna made a card that said “I love you Holla” that we buried with her in the rain.

In the end, I was the only that got teary-eyed over the fish – it was such a sweet and touching moment, but then again I’m the mush.

Following the service, Anna immediately asked when we can get another fish.  Um… ok… I guess you are ok…

So tell me, how do you talk about these trickier topics with your kids? Any good scripts to share?

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Into the Deep Blue

Mar 2, 2011 by Sara

 

 

Into the Deep Blue

My mother passed away in July of 2000 and for the next three months I wondered why the world was still turning and how I could possibly assimilate with any of it. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I knew I just needed to escape.  So my boyfriend and I put our things in storage and I ran away to Nepal, he to Costa Rica.  One month later, we reunited in Vietnam, continued on to Thailand and then broke up in Bali; but that’s another story.

On my journey, all the foreign sights and sounds around me demanded that I surface from my haze and take notice of where I was.  But despite the beautiful scenery and people, I refused to acknowledge why I was there, or what had brought me there.  For three weeks as I hiked with a group of Australians across the Annapurnas not once did I mention my mother or her death 4 months earlier. I quietly trekked and lived in my grief.

When my boyfriend and I made it to Vietnam, he suggested I try scuba diving. It was a short tandem dive and we only saw the sandy bottom of the sea.  By normal diving standards this was a complete bust, but to me – it was amazing… The idea of existing underwater brought every mermaid fantasy to light.  I was instantly hooked.

At our next stop in Thailand, we immediately got deep dive certified and jumped on an 8-day live aboard. This is not scuba ‘light’- this is serious.  The boat took us out to the Andaman Sea where we did nothing but dive 3 times a day and then pass out with exhaustion at night.

On one of the deep dives, my scuba guide took me around some amazing coral reefs, they were teeming with schools of fish, eels, turtles, mantas and sharks. The water was crystal clear and the most amazing shade of blue everywhere. Colors were bursting from the fish and coral and the only sounds I could hear were the bubbles from my aspirator and my own rhythmic breathing.

We were deep, deep down on the sea floor… It was beautiful.

Soon enough, we were running low on air and out of time. As he signaled me to follow him to start our ascent, he led us away from the reef.  We swam out and away until we could no longer see the reef behind us and there was nothing but blue in front of us. We rose 20 feet and then stopped. I was completely enveloped in blue.

There is a moment in diving called perfect buoyancy; when you no longer have to work to stabilize your body in the water around you and you are perfectly suspended using just the air in your lungs and weight of your body. You float effortlessly.

He swam off horizontally and left me in my own sphere of blue. I could not see another person, the surface, or the ocean floor.  I worked until I achieved perfect buoyancy then… just floated.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. Blue. Nothing but beautiful, beautiful blue.

I started to feel why I was there. What had brought me there. Why I was in Thailand in the middle of the Andaman Sea. I had lost my mother. My best friend.

In this beautiful blue I floated surrounded by the warm water.

I started to feel again. I allowed myself to feel.

Slowly, I started to shed my skin of being the dutiful and grieving daughter.

I took one more look around me and slowly started to kick my fins.  Slowly, slowly, I started to ascend, never going faster than my air bubbles above me… slowly, I rose up through the blue.

Then finally, with one last kick I surfaced and saw the bright sunlight that was waiting for me.

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Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Mar 2, 2011 by Sara

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today, March 2nd, is Dr. Seuss’s Birthday and Read Across America Day.  The kids are going to be celebrating at school with guests reading them the classics like The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

This morning we had our own little celebration with green eggs and ham while I read Oh, the Places You’ll Go!. Then they got a special treat to watch the Cat In The Hat on PBS.

Here’s some pics from our little party:

 

There are some GREAT resources at www.seussville.com for ideas to celebrate Dr. Seuss today and any day.

Enjoy! And Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

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A New Memoir (is that an oxymoron?) – The Long Goodbye

Mar 1, 2011 by Sara

Today I was introduced to an interesting author, Meghan O’Rourke via the New York Times article title: Why We Write About Grief.  The article intrigued me not only because it discussed Ms. O’Rourke’s new book, The Long Goodbye: a memoir,  about losing her mother to cancer which obviously resonates with me, but also because the topic is personally relevant as I try to continually refine the purpose of this blog.

My intention with Periwinkle Papillon is to have posts that are both a mix of memories of my mom as well as topics that interest me in my daily life.  I don’t want this blog to feel heavy but I do want it to accurately reflect what it’s felt like to be both a “motherless daughter” and now a “parentless parent“.  See, just those terms feel sooo heavy…

In The Long Goodbye, Ms. O’Rourke writes about losing her mother at the age of 53 when she was 30.  Pretty much the same age for me and my mom: she passed away at 53 and I was 25. She writes about the aftermath of this loss at such a pivotal age and trying to understand how to grieve in the modern world around her. When I read this interview in the New York Times, I was struck by this quote:

Memoir is usually seen as an internal psychological exploration. But I felt that I wasn’t just writing about the personal loss of my mother; I was also mapping the intimate contours of this mysterious transformation we all experience, because that’s what I’d wanted when my mother died: a more resonant description than “the stages of grief” could offer.

- Meghan O’Rourke

It’s like she read my mind.  Elizabeth Kübler-Ross is the authority on death and grieving – but the 5 stages of grief just didn’t sum it up for me. Still don’t.

I’m really looking forward to this book, it’s available now for pre-order at Amazon (due out in April):

Let me know if you read it and we can do an on-line bookclub.

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