Afraid of Sleeping

Unsleeping, I read about childhood forgetting, but how it is not-forgetting. It is Alice In Wonderland because we try to describe the Cheshire Cat when all we have seen is the end of his smile, disappearing. We don't know about children and memory, not much at all. We have taped together studies that we lick our fingers and stick to the door, until they dry, and fall to the floor, and end up under the refrigerator. My physical issues always get better at night. My emotional issues always get worse. I've always been that way, as long as I can remember. I am afraid at night. I say anxious, I am afraid. The fear is an egg. A round, hard, egg that wants to live with me until I do not. Always. I remember being so small, maybe eight, or nine, and lying in bed, unable to sleep, afraid. I remember in my late teens, two years straight where I regularly had insomnia so badly that I could not sleep until the tippy top of the sun's rays unfurled and like a universal hand had pressed my sleep button, I would instantly close my eyes and be out. And now, here I am, 42, often anxious, sometimes with the egg of afraid in my gut, expanding, and I wonder what came first. The chicken or the egg. 

Upon Finding A Very Old, Unanswered Email

did i let you down?
i am so sorry that i did.
my face turns red
remembering.
you emailed me in
perfect faith
of my internet identity:
all encompassing understanding
that would definitely not
preclude you.
though i open myself
to public speculation,
opinion, gossip, expectation,
i forget again and again
the enormity of people.
the vastness of our needs,
the skein of face
over a hundred blue veins,
the hand on stomach,
aches in anxiety-
the hand over chest,
constricts in loneliness-
the foot in front of foot,
as if we could walk forever.
i am not sure of the realness
of your face
the way movement changes 
the surface, 
exactly like water.
i am not sure of the sound
of your voice
the way i imagine it
surely wrong.
i just know that you are here
wherever this is,
and your words were written
months ago,
and you probably think
i am an asshole.
did i let you down?
i am so sorry that i did.

Do Not Be Ashamed

"Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever."
--Leonard Cohen

Thanksgiving, On Planet Earth, They Tell Me

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and this is one of the most surreal Thanksgivings I remember. I don't remember another. Just this. This, with the Native Americans we are 'celebrating our friendship' with tomorrow getting water cannoned and having their arms blown off at Standing Rock. This, with our President Elect Donald Orange Trump waiting in the wings to step into the White House. I was with Ever in town and boys and men waving large American flags were chanting BUILD THE WALL and yelling Trump and fucking liberals and I got back in the car and drove home crying. This, strange new world. This, when two of our children are not children at all, but men of 20 and 22 years old. How? Time, of course. Forward. 

I am going to lessen my Zoloft. I feel too distant from my body. I am not anxious nor having panic attacks and I fall asleep at night, instead of laying in a light sweat and weeping over babies crying in cribs, as I have spent many nights doing, BUT. But I don't feel much. Detached, dissociated, drugged. American?

Tomorrow I will cut 25% of my oblong blue pill and along with the adrenaline I summon my tears, raucous laughter, love, lust, easy orgasm. 

Tonight, I sleep.

Veteran's Day

i have often wondered

if you had any idea 

when you pulled your boots on.

now that my youngest

son is in Texas,

i know you did not.

Thank you, for your service.

It's My 42 Birthday

the saddest birthday i can recall with only the exception of the year my Grandma Elizabeth, Ever Elizabeth's namesake, died. that was the saddest birthday of my life and i did not celebrate nor desire to. this year my mom will take us all out to dinner and while i may not celebrate raucously i will celebrate gratefully. i am glad i was born, glad to be alive, and yes, glad to be American.

i wrote a long fb post after Donald Trump was elected. here it is:

I'm heartbroken and scared. And I know that nothing great ever comes easily; certainly, absolutely not a great nation. No great principles or beliefs, no profound and meaningful changes ever happened briskly and without suffering and enormous setbacks. The progressives and intellectuals and moral authorities in our country are nothing without backbone. "Faith without action is dead": a democracy without a struggle is a dictatorship. We don't get to choose that 'Trump is not 'my' President': but we do get to choose what we fight for, speak out for and vote for every day. That's a democracy. Personally, If Trump takes away the only insurance possible for my husband and I, I have two diseases that would like to ruin my life. If Trump changes abortion laws, I have two daughters who could be affected. If Trump tanks our economy like he has many of his businesses, we will suffer. And of course I have friends who might suffer much worse, if Trump moves to enact certain laws. 

But we had Nixon. We had Eisenhower. We have had presidents who were so ineffective and flummoxed and overwhelmed and ill intentioned and in over their heads that they were dangerous. From the second our country was born we were bathed in blood and injustice. The miracle of our country is not that we were 'good'- we weren't- but that we always get better. Inch by inch. While we were butchering natives, there were those who cried out and risked their lives to do so, there were those in the government who risked their position and money and power to fight for native justice. And with every social ill you can name- against women, cultures, with slavery, with LGBT rights- you can name alongside those ills, thousands on thousands on thousands of Americans who fought for those ills to be healed. 

Only a hundred years ago our country was a completely different place. In the eyes of Europe, America has just learned to walk. So many people have suffered such unimaginable loss to bring us to where we are now, and often, those people suffered in ways that were horrific and yet so common they were barely news. Now, those kinds of gross injustices are headlines, and we rally in hundreds of thousands of social justice organizations to push for changes. America is complicated and ugly and flawed and powerful and beautiful and dammit, we elected a black man, President Obama, who had what I believe will be the most successful presidency of my lifetime. We elected him TWICE. We are not hopeless. We are far from. We are a body of many cells and we are changing at such a rapid rate that it's no surprise at all that there is this backlash, this grouping of cells that resists change. 

Obama's presidency brought out the deepest fears of the silent, often white, but not always, fundamentalists in this country: those the media (including my fellow writers) like to mock and name call. This was about race and gender but it was also deeply about class. Those people are listening, they see how their beliefs are mocked, and Obama did a stellar job of appealing to and showing respect for those Americans, something Hillary just did not do. Those people wanted their power to be heard and felt and this is how they did it: the way of democracy. Historically people like this make themselves heard through blood baths and terrifying violent uprisings, which we still see in many countries today. We are not those countries. I think if we demonize 'folks' (as Obama says) who voted for Trump we are digging our own grave. We need to work, heal, connect. Work, heal, connect. Ignoring and mocking and despising didn't work, so try something new. We have so much work to do and we cannot flail about and retreat and say 'i give up' and 'America has failed us' because a president was elected whom we fear and dislike. If we do, it is the greatest gasp of privilege we could exhale. We live in a working democracy. It is our moral obligation to do everything we can to ensure that the change we have will be ripped from us only by the last nail in our last working hand. 

I have total confidence that Obama will speak to us soon and tell us to take a breath and believe in our country and get back to work. So I write this, most of all, as you may have guessed, to myself. So that I can go to sleep. So that I can sack up. So that I can mourn for the first woman president I was happy to vote for, and fear the man we have elected, while also recognizing the privilege of my ability to write this post, to publicly cry out without fear of being jailed or beat, to effect change through protest and writing and movements and love, and to continue working for what many others around the world continue to die reaching out for.

and all i wrote, i feel, i believe. i am depressed and scared but i am also frustrated with progressives and liberals who seem to have really cushiony ideas on what it means to create an equal society in a glorious democracy. i mean can any adult person really expect something like that to happen in an organized, palatable, orderly flow of voting and quiet arguments on C-Span? i was always taught that democracy is something you EARN. something we created, built, and work to sustain through voting and law abiding and peaceful protest and participating in our governmental processes and fighting back with your time and energy and talents and money if you have it when things get hard. 

blah. i'm tired of myself. i'm tired of all the talking including my own although it's incredibly hard to shut my brain up right now, something i guess many of you can relate to.

meditation.

sunshine. the leaves moving. the sun. the enormous, bone chillingly enormous, sky. especially the night sky, with it's coldness, stars, membrane that occasionally shimmers as if an alternate reality is actually right in front of our noses, and we simply choose not to see it.

tomorrow i was Scorpio born. i will be 42. i have four children and one husband who is the love of my life and the best friend i have ever known or expect to. i have extended family that i love very much. my mom. i have two dogs and one cat that i love. i am not very healthy but it's not from lack of eating well or taking care of my body. i am mostly poor. i have become what i always dreamt of being: a writer. a working writer who earns regular income- not much, but going up every month- from doing so, and not commercial jingles. i am editing the last bits of my novel. i am exhausted, anemic, peri-menopausal, often anxious, sometimes feel dull and emotionless. i am grateful, happy, hard working and intensely aware of my privileges. 

my right breast hurts. i am naked while typing this. i worked out, then showered, and am swishing with coconut oil. i keep thinking about botox in the line between my eyes lately. feminist? yes no? i miss running. i've been too constantly anemic and struggling with my endometriosis to run: my muscles burn with fatigue just from holding the steering wheel of the car. running is impossible, but walking is not, and working out is not. 

i am tired now. goodnight. love you all.

Time and Feet and Crying and Love

I wanted to tell you that when I wrote this and said everything will be fine when the schedule changes,
I was right. The schedule changed, and everything is fine. SO MUCH BETTER THANK YOU BABY JEBSUS.

This is us a few weekends ago. We drove to Dana Point to see Dakota and I finally got to see his new apartment and meet his new (totally sweet) roommate. We hung out and drank healthy smoothies and it was wonderful. Dakota is 22 and Ian is 19 and I still almost on a daily basis find myself suddenly, after just glancing at an old photo or recalling a memory, filling with tears and holding back a good cry because they are grown, so grown, and everything changes, and everyone grows and what that means and looks like you never know, you don't control. And the love is so huge that to fit my human sized body around it can often be painful. 

I am so sentimental that looking at a photo of my foot from a week ago can make me weepy. Seriously, it's pretty bad. I have serious existential issues with time. Meditation is something I do almost daily and I usually think about what is the point of being in the moment when I'm not sure that anymore I believe 'the moment is all we have.' In fact, I'm almost sure I don't believe that. At least, it doesn't feel that way, my brain doesn't perceive time that way. It feels more like we have all the moments that were or will be, floating around on some other dimension as ghosts, and we can feel their existence. What does time mean when someone we love dies, for instance? Is the moment 'all we have'? Then what of that person's life, all the love we have? The moment of now is incredibly important in human life, no denying that. But.

All my friends have big butts.

My Piece On Donald Trump and Lola's Freshman Year

It's amazing how powerful the word pussy is. I think you can read this:

I shaved his dick

and feel less surprised than reading this:

I shaved my pussy.

Why does, at least to my ear, the word pussy sound so much more. Pulpy. Vivid. Exposed. Vulnerable. Intensely private. Although we see more nude women than nude men, the pussy remains for me more private, more mysterious, less available. You can see a woman fully nude, standing in front of you, and still not really know what her vagina looks like. Only when she is vulnerable, legs open, exposed and trusting, can you see the details. Whereas dick, penis- this is unavoidable, in your face, the second a man is naked. Unless I suppose, his back it turned to you.

I like being a woman. I like having a pussy. I hate that Donald Trump ever gets to utter that word: pussy. He doesn't deserve it's tender, ferocious, private power.

I wrote about this at The Establishment. 

gratitudes and pleasures of today

writing Christmas lists; electronically making Christmas lists: Amazon

Mr. Curry pulling me onto the bed with him to snuggle; smelling his armpits.

Lola and friend jumping from behind pillar and screaming BAZINGA at Mr. Curry, Ever and I 

my body, strong despite disease, still able to exercise, have sex, run, dance, pee and poop

getting published at The Development Set  my first long form piece, very proud

starbucks doubleshot

my dog Katie, Katalini, Tortellini, Torta, Space-Bat

talking to Dakota on the phone for an hour

Ever putting makeup on only one eyebrow

Facebook

Rubios salmon tacos, guacamole and chips

my bookshelves full of books

when people say 'oh sweet baby jesus'

the feeling of getting to lay down and sleep when i am exhausted, which is often

the weather today, pointedly, that it was not 98 degrees again

the feeling when i've submitted a story or an article that i worked hard on, which i did today

face peels

facial serums that 'drench' and 'quench' and 'renew'

oils: coconut, avocado, olive

flea combing Katie and washing the fleas off the comb down the drain, every night. sometimes i do Wolfie too, but he doesn't sleep in the bed. they still have a scattering of fleas, even though i bathe them, comb them, and vacuum every day.

Ever, Lola, Ian, Dakota

my husband is my best friend and my person and we continue to be so lucky to be hot as hell between the sheets, such luck, and i am still, even more, in love with him than ever, so in love, butterfly in stomach when i see him unexpectedly in love, and he with i, and luck, luck, and hard work and endurance and courage on both our parts, and love, love, love

Body Works

long ago in girlhood
i found my body could be a place
of escape

my home.

my body, a place where i could make marks
divine, worship, leave scar, adore. until i learned, loathe
the gathering of fat on side of thigh
saddlebag, a word for horses
the shame i was supposed to accept
infuriated me:

i saw something beautiful
and i was pleased that it was mine.

in eighth grade i read
dr. ruth's book of good sex

in ninth grade i wrote
my own erotica

in tenth grade i cut my arms
and slept with a boy

starved myself, vomited food
gave head.

a very American story.

long ago in womanhood
i found my body could be a place 
of escape

my home.

my body, a place where i could make marks
divine, worship, leave scar, adore, be adored,
create babies, cum

slice through the great Pacific with the sharks
jellyfish dangling from my hair
move into the mouth of my lover
my husband
feel myself as divine underneath his gaze
his hands
his body.

feel myself as divine four times,
babies pushed from my sliced sex
three alive, one dead.

swim naked in the hotel pool, a thousand tongues.
walk naked through my house like a goddamn queen,
for this pleases my daughters,
i can see their proud chins. 

scars of surgery, chicken pox, motorcycle pipes,
the cut of cesarian 
a plethora of living 
blooming across my skin
cellulite rippling the wind on top of waves,

the white ghost on my wrist where once
a young girl lit a cigarette and grabbed her blue jeans
to cut into the thin, white skin 
within
couldn't cut deep enough.

run, run, run.
my feet pound the pavement, i feel
bounce of my ass, gravity tug up and down
my tits,

banging against their bindings.

i love to be a woman, 
i love this woman's body,
i will allow my husband to grab my stomach from behind
though it rolls soft and loose in his workman's hands,
though it doesn't please the cultural eye
though it doesn't work for Playboy
it works, it works, it works,

it works; my body works just right.

The Time When Ever Licked Lola Suddenly & In Between Captures

If Anyone Recommends Reading Pema Chodron, I Will Cut A Bitch

When your feelings match up with your expectations of your feelings, or others expectations of your feelings, life is much easier.

The amount of stress I feel daily, moment to moment, is overwhelming, and I cannot seem to get it under control.

Ever is overwhelming. I love her beyond what I can express. She is interesting, hilarious, one of the smartest little people I've ever met, quirky, kind. She smells delicious. I cuddle her constantly. We laugh together every day. I tell her I love her over and over. I play games with her, take her to the park, draw with her, play out back. She is lovable and one of the cutest kids I've ever seen, and relentless. Of all our children, the most relentless.

The facts are that Ed is bipolar depressed right now and doing 100% everything, every single thing he can do to get better, and I have enormous respect and love and devotion to him for that. But he can't really help right now. And Lola, Lola is in freshman year. And my mom works sometimes six days a week and is tired. And that's it folks. That leaves me and one five year old that never, ever EVER STOPS TALKING AND NEEDING INTERACTION and a puppy that I didn't ask for that poops and begs and cries and a shitload of work I adore and want to do and a messy house and a messy kitchen and endless papers to sign and meetings for school to attend and older boys that I miss so very much and who always call during the three hours that I am working and of COURSE i take their call because DUH but yes, so many THINGS THAT MUST BE DONE.

Right now this is  my schedule

7am wake
7:45 walk Ever to school
8:20 arrive home, clean up stupid dog poop from puppy that I love but never meant to be responsible for-this was Dakota's dog. Begin working.
11:45 Leave to get Ever
12:30 After feeding Ever lunch and putting her in front of a movie, work.
2: Leave to get Lola, Ever in tow. Sit in a ridiculous, never-ending row of traffic that barely moves, in 100 degree heat, with a air conditioner that barely works, and a rowdy five year old, and often the puppy, who guilts me tremendously every.single.time. I leave the house if I don't bring her. She has a language she speaks when she can see I'm leaving. It's half dog half human and horrible. She begs and whines and jumps and talks in her language. Guilt, guilt.
3:15 arrive home after dropping off the carpool. Hang out with kids, feel incredibly stressed out realizing how much work I have to do still.
4:00 Ed arrives home, takes over sometime later after he's had much needed time to relax, just a half hour or so. The man wakes at 4:30 every morning and has been working 50 hour work weeks.
6:00 Dinner as a family
I try to work after this. Every single time I work I am interrupted an average of ten billion times. There is nothing inherently awful about this schedule expect I have six to eight hours of work a day to do and about four hours that I can actually do so. Ever told me 'all you like to do is sleep and work' on the phone and I burst into sobbing tears and hung up.

My nerves are so frayed that my arms actually hum, the hairs quiver.

I hate everything.

I am pleasing no one, doing nothing well.

I stay up late to finish work and then cannot function the next day.

I don't stay up late, my work gets behind, and my stress gets off the charts.

Even writing this, which normally relaxes me, is making me furious.

I have no breaks.

I love my children AND Lola is fourteen and in high school and actually walks into walls she is so absent minded so you can imagine how well she does the things I ask her to. I typically have to remind her of things four times. If I give her a consequence I feel badly because she's a great kid. Besides consequences seem silly for things like bring in the underwear from the dryer, I asked you four times, except for that the second time I have to ask her, I feel like I'm going to start screaming and never stop.

I hate everyone's underwear. I never want to see another fucking sock as long as I live. We can all eat crusty GMO pizza and dead animal patties for the rest of our lives for dinner every night for all I care. I'd rather eat a lizard tail than yell up those goddamn stairs one more time for Lola to get off her phone. If the puppy barks hysterically out back at 10pm when I take her outside to pee I will leave her out there for the coyotes. She barks, wakes my husband, who then can't go back to sleep AND then the neighbors can complain. Everyone wants something. If I ever have to stand in a school and talk about the merits of walking x way to school vs. x way I will chop my hair off and hold it in the air with a war cry. If I ever have to have aggressively cheerful conversations outside school gates again it will be too soon. I hate everyone's cups. We don't have cups! they cry. THAT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL IN YOUR ROOM GROWING MOLD OR IN THE BACKYARD WHERE EVER HAS USED THEM FOR HER RECIPES. I hate toilet paper. Everyone can wipe themselves with their bare, puritan hands and then wash them in microbial, gut imbalancing, brain killing soap. If I ever see another school paper I have to sign again it will be tomorrow. I hate everyone's hair. I'm shaving the girls heads. They can have dreads, or a shaved head, that's it.

Ever asks for a snack an average of four times per hour.

Ever is not happy to be listened to. She must be ENGAGED. If you happen to say 'hmmm' in response to something she's said, she actually says, 'Mom, could you please use words when you answer me? When you say hmmm, I feel like you aren't listening.' SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD. She talks approximately 98% of her waking hours.

When I go to the bathroom I am followed, every time, by Robert B. Parker, the cat, Katie, the puppy, and usually Ever. Ever is five. I thought she would be over this. But no. She stands there and wants to know what I'm doing.

What am I doing?

I am running. I am breathing. I am taking gratitude lists. I THINK gratitude, but I cannot FEEL it right now. I see it all around me. I see my children, my husband, I'm not stupid! I know how lucky I am!



Interrupt, interrupt, interrupt. My entire life is one long interrupted stutter. When my kids were very small I expected this, I relished it. I did not think I would be here with a five year old and fourteen year old. This schedule is killing me. I never want to touch another human being as long as I live. I can't work, I can't relax, I'm not working well or mothering well and I'm supposed to do this for another six weeks until Ever's kindergarten gets out at 2 and I can actually get some work done in one long stretch and not have to work off and on all day feeling guilty and being guilted and hating everything.


ps 
everything will be fine when the schedule changes. 
everything will be fine when the schedule changes.
everything will be fine when the schedule changes.

Some Things I've Had Published Lately

The Guardian- I finally got in The Guardian and then it went a little roughly. I had to comment in the comment section to explain why the story didn't end up making a lot of sense. Still, there it is, and I'm happy it's there. It's the short story of my medical debt.


TOGETHER- I'm proud of this piece on contempt in relationships. A huge topic that I was able to say something real about.


The Fix- I am SO proud of this one. The incredible life story of my good friend, Lacey. Redemption.

On The Fourth of July

When the thing happened, I was filled with the realization of all my wanting. I want, I want, I want. I am not enlightened although I was much closer, once. I lost the work. I stopped working. Light, is work. Directing your energy, over and over, toward the pathway, is work. I was busy. I had four children. I stopped working so hard on enlightenment. I worked on important things, my marriage, my mothering, my job, my writing. But the state of my soul, I let rest in the flash of sunset in my eyes, I let-in other words-something enormous rest in tiny increments, where it could not be kept alive. Expansion requires more space than moments of recognized beauty and awe. It requires work. Reading, prayers, meditation, journaling, time, hours, daily. 

When the thing happened, I was filled with wanting. I want so many things for you, I want so badly that it consumes me, it trills through me like warning bells, it hums through my neurons and I am so devastated with wanting for you that the bottoms of my feet hurt. The doctor would, If I asked her, surely name it something for me, and provide the malfunction of my body with a physical source. But I know that this is simply my emotions blackening the physical workings of my body. 

I'd give up 25% of my current happiness for you. I think I could survive there. I think that's a fair amputation that will allow me to remain functional, afterward. 

When the thing happened, I wanted many things at once. Some of them are:

for you to be free of fear.

for God to trade my arm, even my good arm, my right arm, my writing arm, in for your healing. i would give it in a painful way. i would cut if off myself. 

for you to accept your particular ill. we all have one.

for you to accept that you are killing yourself.

for you to accept that you are worth everything.

for you to accept that you are unconditionally loved and worth being so.

for you to understand how being a person who makes horrible mistakes but rectifies is possible and different than being a bad person.

for you to know, know, know, that you are not a bad person.

for you to know peace.

for you to know grace.

for you to accept help.

for you to accept help.

for you to accept help.

When the thing happened, I felt nothing all day. The fireworks happened, the screaming children at the fountain, sweat pouring down their faces, balloons bright red, blue, silver, gold, enormous salted pretzels, baby's yowling in strollers, large dogs on leashes, small dogs in sparkly outfits, banjos, guitar, fiddle, stomping, dancing, the American way, 
I felt nothing all day.

Until around the time when I did.

The feeling then was a terrible, tsunami panic, and a small death. A quick smothering and snapped neck. I am old enough to feel when a part of me dies.

When the thing happened, I thought many useless thoughts, and some helpful ones. Some of the things I thought were:

I hate myself for not being better.

I don't hate myself.

I might hate some part of myself, I"m not sure.

I hate that I notice all my thoughts.

This isn't about me. 

This is about me.

This isn't mostly about me.

My thoughts are self-absorbed and insufferable.

Why is life full of so much suffering?

Why do horrible things happen to good people?

Why do horrible things happen to anyone?

Why can't I stop this?

Why didn't I stop this?

What should I do?

Is this my fault?

The next step is to talk to X and then Y.

I'll do anything I have to do.

I will be strong for my family.

I can do anything I have to do.

Did I do enough?

What is the meaning of life when there is so much pain?

Why can't I stop this?

Why?


When the thing happened, I saw everyone I loved in highlighter, like the sun rubbed it's juicy face all over them. Bright and bold and beautiful. 

I saw every person in the crowd on the Fourth of July, their faces lit up like fireworks, their eyes full of pain and love and joy, black, brown, white, tall, short, thin, large, medium, nice, rude, sick, healthy, all the people, and I saw their faces alive and moving and the worth of each life passing on to the next life and how each person shone from the same source as the next and how much I loved them each and every one, because when the thing happened, I took the love I have for you and grabbed sit hard and shone it outward to the crowd in spotlight and screamed over their busy beautiful heads that I love you, I love you, I'd do anything, I'd do anything to find your unhurt face in that goddamn crowd.

Endometriosis: Naps

Lola snapped this of me during my now daily afternoon nap. I am in pain all day, and the fatigue goes from being manageable to being bone-deep and grinding. You can see here the swelling in my hands, my veins, my facial tissue and under my eyes. I also get intense, hot swelling in my abdomen and legs and arms. The worse the swelling is, the worse my fatigue. It's nice to have these guys around for company.

I am eating the healthiest diet of my life. I am pescetarian now, as is Mr. Curry. I intend to do a blog post about our transition to a plant-based diet. I know from being this ill before that my diet, while it cannot cure me, can and does absolutely make this less awful than it could be. Eating this way ensures that I do have some good days, and that my overall brain fog is not as pervasive. When I eat to live, I can feel a clear separation between my healthy body and this illness living inside of me, vs it completely overtaking my system. It's empowering and helps keep the depression and anxiety that comes with all this at bay. 

Grandpa John Nash's Obituary/Eulogy

I was honored to write the remembrance for Ed's Grandpa Nash, a lovely man married 67 years to his sweetheart, Grandma Donna Nash.

John Robert Nash

John Robert Nash was born November 2, 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio. Some of John’s great family left behind include his beloved wife of 67 years, Mary Donna Nash, his three children, Scott Nash, Trenna Curry, and the much loved daughter Cindy Jan Fitzmaurice, who died young, leaving behind the legacy of her beautiful spirit and gorgeous laugh, as well as her cherished son, John and Donna’s grandson, Scotty Fitzmaurice, and her husband Greg.

Other grandchildren include Kari Gagne, Lori McDowell, Johnny Curry, and Kristi Christenson. John was blessed with many great-grandchildren, including Julia, James, Kayleen, Dakota, Ian, Lola, Ever, Christan, Reef, Jacob, Austin, and baby Carson.

John joined the Navy at age 18, and he left as Seaman First Class, E6, USNR. He worked and traveled for General Dynamics, putting in missile sites. He went to night school to obtain a diploma, while working during the day. Everytime his family was moved for work, John took his children’s hands in his own and found a new church. A devoted Christian, John found great solace in the church fellowships that anchored his family to each new town. Regardless of life circumstances–his own or yours–John was always happy to see you, and had that knack of making a person feel that he was specifically glad you were there. He is deeply missed by family and friends.

As a young man, John met his wife-to-be, Donna, where she was working at a movie theatre. They had a little bit of a romantic entendre, where Donna thought maybe John didn’t really fancy her, and John thought maybe she didn’t fancy him. John finally came up to Donna and said, “Would you go out with me?”, and Donna said yes. It was soon after that John proposed. Donna wasn’t sure, but John was, and “thank God he was” says Donna, because they were married in a loving partnership for 67 years. John and Donna were not only romantic partners, not only parents and grandparents, but they were best friends. They truly enjoyed each other’s company, and spent most of their free time together traveling, camping, attending church, going to lunch or dinner with family and friends, and enjoying their other family–their Boston terriers. Sparky was the dog left behind at John’s death, and Sparky joins Donna at home in grieving the loss of their beloved John.

John was an active, engaged, smart, brave, and hard working man of faith. He could be a snazzy dresser, as well, and often wore a smart cap and cardigan to family gatherings. He took great pride in providing for his family and  He loved camping with his beloved wife and grandchildren. From the time they were old enough to hold a marshmallow on stick, John took the grandkids desert and mountain camping. Not only were these times special to John and Donna, but they also created irreplaceable, life long happy memories for the youngest of the generation.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were also particularly special times in John’s life. After John’s children were grown and had children of their own, the family celebrated Christmas Eve with a “progressive dinner” which included the entire family going to two or three different houses, eating at each house and looking at Christmas lights on the way. Eventually they’d all end up at John and Donnas where the grandkids would usually act out skits or read from Christmas stories or sing songs. The house would be decorated to the nines, and John loved all of it: the stockings, the photos, the candy dishes, the tree, the joyful noise of a large and loving family.

John’s grandchildren were blessed to have a involved, fun loving grandpa who was a steady, dependable presence of love in their life. John had a mischevious grin and a love for a great laugh.The grandchildren were all delighted with his turqoiuse Toyota pickup truck that was outfitted with a special horn, a horn he’d be sure to honk every chance he could.

John loved to cook and was the main cook for the sweet twosome of he and his wife in all their later years. Waking in the morning, Donna would be greeted with John’s cheerful smile, asking, “What will we be having this morning?” meaning, what can I make you for breakfast? His omelets were especially delicious. On the holidays he would cook an entire feast for the family, refusing offers of help as he prepared each dish.

John and Donna loved to visit Laughlin, California and gamble, and John seemed to have an extremely lucky hand, because he usually won! Some trips would be John and Donna alone, and other times they’d be accompanied by one or more of their children and their spouses. Those trips hold many special memories for John’s family.

In the last years of his life as he grew ill, John was quieter, but he maintained the twinkle in his eye, and his playful spirit would shine through. He continued attending family events with Donna, and would often sit silently as the party transitioned, with a smile and a contented look on his face. The last family gathering at Easter, Donna asked John if he had anything he wanted to say. It is telling of the man and his spirit that he simply placed a kiss to his hand and waved it outward to the circle of his family, and said only, “Love.” John loved deeply and is deeply loved, and deeply missed. His life was a testament to faith, family, hard work and love.