SKIPPING AHEAD WITH A PROMISE TO GO BACK AND FILL IN THE BLANKS

Today, I am going to jump ahead a bit to an experience I feel strongly up to writing about for some reason - my mother's death. I promise I will go back and write about the events between running away to California and this soon.

MOM'S LAST CHRISTMAS

Around Christmas time, Mom came down with the flu. At the time, it was no big deal. We had all gotten the flu several times before. I was spending a lot of time with the person I was dating, spending many nights away from home. It was sure more fulfilling than staying home and being yelled at and put down all the time! I wound up spending Christmas Eve over there. Mom was very upset that I didn't stay home on Christmas Eve. But I had planned to come back in the morning. Unfortunately, due to staying up most of the night, and car problems, that didn't happen. I wound up returning late Christmas evening. Mom was very emotional and hurt.

SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG

Two weeks later, she still was sick. We thought it was odd that a bout with the flu should last this long, and suggested over and over that she see a doctor. Mom had no problem taking us to the doctor, but she would never go herself. She had a very unnatural fear of doctors. In fact, she hadnt been to see a doctor since she had to in order to get her marriage certificate. Of course, she refused to see a doctor. Shed be fine soon enough. One of a number of things I had picked up from my mother was a tendency to be in denial of being sick. But this time would cost her and all of us dearly.

THE FIRST REAL SHOCK

I hardly ever got to see her out of bed because I always got home late from my job at Leo Burnett - a well-known advertisement company in downtown Chicago.

Close to Easter, I finally saw her out of bed to get some of her frozen raspberries - one of her favorite treats. I was shocked and appalled at how much weight she had lost. It was frightening. Her skin was just hanging there off of her bones. I now realized this was something very serious, and pleaded with her all the more to see a doctor. She would get more and more defensive. But, oddly, she wanted to do something we hadn't done since early childhood decorate Easter eggs. I wondered what made her want to do that all of a sudden. Later that week, on the eve of Good Friday, I overheard a heart - shattering argument between my parents in their bedroom. It was similar to many recent arguments they had about her refusal to get help. But there was something haunting about this one. My father was yelling that the next day, he would MAKE her go to the hospital whether she liked it or not. She began to cry and plead. He would have none of it. She broke down and agreed to go, but pleaded for him to wait until after Easter. Even though she had been unable to provide and coordinate all the music this year due to her illness, she still at least wanted to ATTEND mass. He shouted that if she didn't go, she might not make it till Easter. She just continued to cry and plead. It was both shocking and eerie to hear that, and it saddened and frightened me.

THE DAY I'M GLAD I MISSED

The next day, I wanted to stay home. Something told me to. But Dad wouldn't let me. He said I had to go to work, and my sister had to go to school, and was very adamant about it. I later found out why. He was trying to spare us the scenario that was about to take place. (I heard all about it later.) True to his word, he called the paramedics on my mother, and didn't tell her. He then secretly called Auntie Frisbee and Mrs. Poteracki, my life-long best friend and neighbor, Michele's mom, told them what he had just done, and asked them to come over right away. When the paramedics arrived, she was terrified, and furious. At first, they weren't sure what to do, because she refused her permission to let them treat her. She then called the police on Dad for calling the paramedics on her. Auntie Frisbee and Mrs. P. arrived in the middle of this fiasco, and tried to help Dad convince her that she HAD to go. Eventually, both the paramedics and the police determined that she must be taken to the hospital even against her will. By this point all the neighbors were outside our house watching the whole thing. As my mother was carried out to the ambulance - strapped down in a stretcher - she was screaming at my father, Auntie Frisbee, and Mrs. P. that she would NEVER forgive them for this, and that she wanted a divorce from my father after it was all over.

THE FALSE CALM

I was horrified to hear everything that had happened when I got home. Needless to say, we all went to the hospital to see Mom. What happened when I stepped into her room will stay with me forever. I walked in and there she was - all tubed and wired up - looking pathetically weak, but at peace, in a way not at all like what she had been earlier that day. I had never seen her look that weak, and suddenly, I realized that this was not a dictator - bitch - from - hell lying there. This was a real person my mother. Suddenly, all the resentment I ever held against her my whole life fell off me like an incredible weight. I silently finally forgave her for EVERYTHING right then and there. I thought of all the good times (Yes, there actually WERE a lot of those on and off.) all the things we had in common and loved to do together: we both loved roller coasters, staying up late to watch scary movies, playing Broadway songs and singing along to them, we both had the habit of sucking on ice cubes, eating half-popped popcorn kernels, having all our meat well-done, lime Popsicles, and an appreciation for Opera and classical music to name a handful of things. Yes, this was my mother, and the thought of losing her now especially when we finally had hope of getting along - was unbearable. The second that incredible weight of resentment fell off me, tears suddenly flowed from my eyes like never before. In the middle of my sobbing, I managed to somehow babble out to her how sorry I was for my part in all the fights and struggles we had had my whole life. She looked up at me tears in her own eyes, weakly took my hand, and barely whispered, "Please don't cry." There she was suffering and weak, and she was the one telling ME not to cry. That was it. Those words and the emotions behind them had the very opposite effect. I excused myself and literally ran to the nearest restroom. The second the door was shut and locked behind me, I fell to my knees on the floor, and let twenty one years - worth of tears come pouring out. I was crying so hard, I felt like all my insides were contorting, and I was almost in actual physical pain. I was in there for nearly twenty minutes. Jeannie had to come and knock on the door looking for me. I finally managed to pull myself together and return to Mom's hospital room. The doctor said that they were still taking tests to determine what was wrong with Mom. She said she was being well taken care of, and that she would cooperate with the staff so that she could try to make it home for Easter. She did seem very calm, so we were filled with hope. Mom was a very determined woman, and we began to believe that she would be alright fairly soon. We visited her often over the weekend, and she seemed to get better and better. They didn't release her in time for Easter, which she wasn't happy about, but she understood the need to restore her health. We visited her late Monday night. She was watching "Hunter" on TV - a show she usually couldn't stand, but she seemed in decent spirits. She asked me to get her some candy from the vending machines. I checked with the nurse. She said it was okay. It felt good to do this tiny, little errand. However, when I came back, it had turned out not to be the candy she had wanted. I know it was only a candy bar, but I felt badly about it. I offered to get the right one, but she said not to worry about it. Then we kissed her good- night, and went home.

THAT TERRIBLE MORNING

The next morning, I awoke to a strange noise resounding throughout the entire house. I looked at the clock. It was 4am. It was still dark. Was I still dreaming? What was that horrible noise? It sounded like some kind of creature howling. I knew it couldn't be little Benji, my loveable little miniature schnauzer. It got louder. I finally got out of my bed to investigate. When I took my first step into the hallway, I heard not only the strange sound, but my sister freaking out as well. It was coming from the family room near the telephone, and I realized the howling sound was coming from my father. He was crying something I had NEVER seen or heard him do before in all my life. It was actually worse than crying. It was more like hysterical wailing. I hadn't made it halfway down the hall before I figured out what had happened. The most God - awful feeling came over me. I walked out into the room to confront the confirmation of what I already knew. Mom was dead.

She had died peacefully in her sleep. If it had to happen, I was glad it had at least happened that way. It turned out that around that last Christmas, she had gotten a sudden burst of cancer that quickly spread throughout her body over the last few months. The real heartbreaker was that if she HAD seen a doctor right away, it could have been removed, and it would have been stopped, and she would have still been alive and healthy. That made it obvious that she must have known that she was dying, and had been lying to us all along. But, knowing my mother, aside from her terrible fear of doctors, she probably felt that she could WILL herself back to health on her own.

MOM'S WAKE

Over the next couple of days before the funeral, my father was a wreck. I wasn't sure how to take this. Throughout my whole life, he had never shown any real emotion outside that of anger. He was just a pure German disciplinarian. Now, all of a sudden, he was almost suicidal with grief and regret. Jeannie was taking it hard as well. Meanwhile, I realized I had to put aside my own grief and be the strong one here. I had to hold my family together. This was why my path had taken me back from California for the time being. I had to be here for this.

We went to the funeral home before the wake started. At our first sight of my mother in her casket, my father lost it completely. He rushed over, and feel onto his knees with such force that it shook the whole casket threatening to knock it over. He sobbed and kept saying, Why? over and over. The whole sight was such a shock for me that I couldnt let myself lose it like I wanted to. People from our family, neighborhood, and both churches began to pour in. Auntie Frisbee had said that on her first visit after Mom had been let go from St. Mary's, she felt like no one cared about her. How wrong she had been! There were so many people that came to see her and pay their last respects, they had to open up two more rooms at the funeral home to accommodate everyone.

Everyone came up to us and told us how sorry they were. I can't count how many times I heard, "If there is ever anything I can do...". I deeply appreciated that, but I couldn't think of anything they COULD do. I handled myself with as much grace as possible just like Mom would have wanted me to.

A GHOSTLY SOUND

The night before the funeral, I couldn't sleep. I got up and watched TV. Of all things, I was amazed at the only thing interesting that on - "Poltergeist II". Part of me thought that was a pretty inappropriate thing to watch, but there was nothing else on, really, and I remembered that Mom and I enjoyed staying up to watch such movies. If she were alive, she and I WOULD have been watching it anyway. So, with that thought, I continued to let myself watch it. About halfway through the movie, I heard a sound coming from the basement that sounded like a vacuum cleaner being run. At first, I figured it was just some house noise I had never noticed before. Then it began to get much louder. Though I am not easily scared, it gave me the creeps. It kept getting louder by the minute. Finally, I ran to wake up Jeannie. Because of all the pranks I had pulled on her before, she thought it was yet another one, and she yelled at me - telling me how sick and twisted I was to be trying to scare her at a time like this. That upset me, actually. I WASN'T pulling any kind of prank, and I would NEVER do that now. By this point, the sound was nearly shaking the house. Even Dad woke up, and asked me what the hell I was doing. I told him the sound had started in the basement. When the noise finally stopped, we went down there, and checked all the appliances, the pipes, pumps, and everything else. Absolutely nothing was wrong. We all had a hard time falling asleep after that. We never did figure out what that was.

MOM'S FUNERAL

Once again the folks at the funeral home had to open up more rooms to fit everyone. It was a good thing they had no other wakes going on the past couple of days. Aside of my fathers grief, the most heartbreaking thing was Little Grandma's reaction. We had taken her out of the nursing home for this. But, having Altzheimers Disease pretty badly, she thought she was seeing Mom dead for the first time about every ten minutes. Thusly, she reacted like she was seeing her dead for the first time every ten minutes. She would go up to the casket, put her hands on Mom's hands, and cry, "My daughter, my daughter".

Finally, it was time to go to the church. Dad, Jeannie, Little Grandma, and I got to go up to see her one last time. She looked beautiful. Her hair was permed, her face was made up well, and she had on a fancy pink dress. Though, unlike Little Grandma, I never had any inclination to touch a dead body at any wake I had attended before. But this was Mom. I couldnt just walk away. I was the last one to leave the casket. Before I left, I finally began to sob a little. (I had made such a point to hold myself in check throughout the past two days for everyone elses sake.) I kissed her on the forehead. It was such a shock to feel the cold of her skin. Maybe it hadn't quite hit me that she really was dead until that moment.

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION

After the mass ended, we put Moms casket into the hearse. I gave it the last push. I guess that was the first REAL sign of finality for me. All I can say is thank God Michele happened to be right behind me at that particular moment. I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I turned around and buried myself in her arms, crying like a baby for at least five minutes non-stop.

When I finally regained my composure, I looked around. It was amazing to see the amount of cars in the funeral procession. I had never seen anywhere NEAR that many for any funeral before. To anyone not in the procession, we must have seemed never - ending. Indeed, the sight of all of us heading to the burial ground after mass inspired one woman to try to beat the line while she still had the chance. She darted out so quickly, that she ran right into the hearse! That pissed me off. Total disrespect for the deceased! Poor Mom! She couldn't even have a peaceful ride to her grave! The entire procession had to stop while the driver, my father, and the woman got out of their cars to settle the dispute. My father was screaming at the woman. I wanted to go out there and yell at her, too, but I was stopped. The police showed up, and we took up the entire street and more for quite awhile.

I lost it again when Mom began to be lowered into the ground. It was then that I realized that every once in awhile for the rest of my life, I was going to see, hear, or even smell something that would remind me of her, and cry for a few minutes. Then I would feel better. That made it easier to accept from that point on. Then we all went to the luncheon.

THE DREAM THAT WASN'T JUST A DREAM

When we finally got home, it just didn't feel the same. There was this foreboding emptiness and gloominess about the house. Even Benj (What I called him - short for Benji) seemed to know what had happened. In fact, though he had been a perfectly healthy, playful puppy, full of boundless energy and enthusiasm throughout his entire fourteen years, he now seemed to be depressed and even began to take sick. Little did I know that within two weeks, he too, would suddenly and mysteriously die.

But that night after the funeral, when I finally drifted off to sleep, I had what I still believe, was a real visit from Mom in my dream. I dreamt that I came home to find her in the house, looking like she had when she was a beautiful teenager, and happier than I had ever seen her. We had the greatest time, talking and laughing. Jeannie was there, too. All of a sudden, I remembered that she had died. It dawned on me that she had no idea that she was dead. She was so playful. I had NEVER seen her like this before, and it was what I had always longed for - to be able to spend time with her like this. I hated to ruin the experience, but I knew that I had to be the one to take on the awful task of telling her that she was dead. Not knowing was keeping her from moving on. I had to tell her. I couldn't do that to her make her hang around and later discover the truth and be lost and miserable. Finally, I got up the courage to tell her. She was stunned, but then she shrugged it off not believing me. "Mom", I said again, "I'm SO sorry, but You ARE dead. You died a few days ago in the hospital. God knows I hate to have to tell you that, but it's true, I swear." This pitiful look of shock and sadness came over her face. She sat there stunned for a few minutes before she reluctantly nodded her head in acceptance - seeming to remember now. She took our hands and slowly got up. We all walked outside and down to the bottom of the driveway. She turned to us and told us that she loved us. She gave Jeannie a long hug, then me. We couldn't seem to let go of each other. "I forgive you, Mom", I said. "I love you." She smiled, stepped back, and put her hand under my face. We hugged each other again. All three of us cryed our eyes out. She again, told us she loved us, and stepped off the driveway. Instead of stepping onto the street, she disappeared. Jeannie and I mournfully looked at each other, took each others hand, and walked back into the house.

LOSING BENJI, TOO

Again, Benj was acting strangely all of a sudden. He had no energy. He stayed under my parents' bed nearly all day and all night. He seemed very sick. I argued with my father to take him to the vet. He kept insisting that he just wasn't used to not having Mom around, like the rest of us, and that he was fine. I wasn't comfortable with that. I worried about him everyday when I went to work. I'd get onto the floor every morning and every night to check on him. I'd reach out and pet his head for long periods of time, assuring him that I'd get Dad to bring him to the vet, and to hang in there - whatever was wrong.

One night, I felt a sense of desperation about the matter and begged and pleaded with my father to take him to the emergency vet's. He still refused. I checked on him the next morning. He seemed to still be generally okay. I had determined to myself that I would take him to the vet's myself that night if I had to. It was another typical day at work. People were still offering me their condolences over Mom's death. It had been two weeks since she died at that point.

When my dad came to pick me up at the train station as usual that evening, he told me he had bad news. My heart fell into my shoe. I was hoping he wasn't going to say what I suspected he would. But he did anyway. Benj had died earlier that day. He said he came home to find him lying on the floor. He went to tap him awake. He was stiff as a board, as Dad had put it. I began to cry. Dad said he had already taken him in to be examined and cremated. He didn't want me to see him dead. He felt it would be too much for me. The vet had said that Benj had suddenly developed some strange condition. (I don't remember the term.) I was very angry with Dad for not taking him to the vet in time. Hadn't we learned what could happen that way with Mom? I didn't want to talk to him for several days, but I had to because he would break down about Mom about every half - hour, and I had to talk him through it.

RESEARCHING MOM

I began to understand my mother from every angle now - good and bad - though I focused on the good. Yes, now it was too late. But I developed an intense interest in her life. I began asking everyone questions about her to find out anything I didn't already know. I thought about someday writing a book on her life. It wouldn't be vengeful. It would have to tell the truth about things she had done, yes, but it would, like me, wind up understanding and forgiving her in the end. I haven't done it yet, but it has always remained in the back of my head.

AUNTIE FRISBEE'S ENCOURAGEMENT

I visited Auntie Frisbee often - especially after Mom died. We would always have lengthy conversations that I treasured. On this particular day, we eventually wound up on the subject of my natural parents, and my previous unsuccessful attempts to uncover any information on them whatsoever.

I told her that throughout my life I had asked Mom and Dad, in the most diplomatic ways possible, for any information on my natural parents. They always took it personally, and refused. I had even just recently asked my father using the medical reasons approach. He had told me that he remembered I didn't have anything to worry about but conveniently didn't remember anything else! I had called the hospital I was born in as a child. They told me to contact them again after I turned eighteen. I did so. I was then told to contact them after I was 21. I did so. This time, they told me it wasnt their policy. I went to Chicago's city hall. The man I wound up being directed to there said that I had to have both my adoptive parents' signatures before he could release anything. I argued that I was now an adult and that my adoptive mother was deceased. Like a robot, he kept repeating himself. This went on for a couple of minutes. Finally, I shouted at him, "For the last time, I am over the age of 21, am an adult, and my mother is deceased! What do you want me to do? Dig her up, put a pen in her hand, and make her sign?!" He again, repeated himself verbatim. Outraged, I stormed out. I again tried the hospital. According to them, I don't exist under my adoptive name - only my natural mothers name. Since my birth certificate does not include either of my natural parents names, (It just says, "Adopted" on it.) I have had nothing to go on.

I had only one hint from back in the summer of 1983. My sister, Jeannie, our next-door-neighbor, Vanessa, and I rode our bikes to the mall to pick my "Star Wars" masks from a novelty shop there. The company that my parents were expecting had arrived in the meantime. I didn't want my parents to know yet that I had bought the masks (I still have my Darth Vader one!). So, when I got back, I snuck through my bedroom window to drop the masks off and hide them before going back out and making my entrance through the front door.

I overheard one of the people ask my mother why she hated her cousin, my godfather, so much. I was just about to crawl back out my window when I heard my mother reply that at a party celebrating my birth, he had gotten drunk, and kept running around shouting that my parents had adopted a bastard. I was definitely affected by that announcement, but not shocked by any of it. My godfather had ALWAYS been a jerk, and I never liked him, either.

Many times, I looked through ALL of my parents' things when they werent home to try to find my adoption papers. My parents kept every single document, every copy of every check they had ever written, every receipt, everything possible. (My mother was in charge of all that, and was extremely organized at least as far as THAT went.) We found my sisters adoption papers. The names of her natural parents WERE on them. But she never cared to find anything out on her end - at least not at that point yet. (Remember we were adopted from different families, and were four and a half years apart.) MY adoption papers were NOWHERE to be found. I found that to be very, very strange. There was NOWHERE I hadn't looked - not an INCH of that house that hadn't been searched. And NOTHING turned up.

So, I was telling Auntie Frisbee all this. She told me she didn't remember much, but she believed that my parents were young and that I was an accident, but that she thought she remembered that at least one set of my parent's families considered me to be a scandal in their family, and they all but forced my natural mother to give me up for adoption. That's all that was "remembered". Auntie Frisbee, from then on always encouraged me to try to find them.

BIZARRE DREAM #1

Yes, I know, it's another dream. But I pay attention to the ones that I remember and that stick out in my mind. This took place shortly after Mom's death. I was running through this seemingly endless mausoleum. (Mom was buried in a cemetery, though.) It was a straight corridor all light marble - with short steps in sets of three or four every few hundred yards or so. They led nowhere. Just a few steps to run up and right back down. Off to both sides were stone platforms. On top of these platforms were bodies in sleeping bags. Many of them would turn over as I ran past them - as if there living people sleeping in them. I just kept running and running and getting nowhere.

The next thing I knew, I was in a graveyard in the deep of night. I was with a group of live skeletons, and we all had shovels in our hands. I was helping them dig up coffins out of the ground for reasons I did not know. We got to one grave in particular that was unmarked or at least I didn't remember seeing a name on it. There was something about it. The skeletons began to put their shovels into the ground to start digging again. I blocked them with mine. "No", I heard myself saying. "Stop. Not this one. Leave this one alone." They obeyed me. Then I woke up.

BIZARRE DREAM #2

This happened sometime later. But nonetheless, my mother was in it. It was in the strangest way, though. She showed up wherever I was in the dream. I dont remember exactly where I was supposed to be. But I DO remember that when she appeared, she knocked on the front door, and when I opened it, I saw HER head as I knew it growing up, on a younger, svelte body in a sky blue / white, flowing, sparkling gown. She was very comforting. We got into many conversations at length. I found myself telling her all about my life even though she knew much of it. I suddenly got this feeling that this was NOT Mom, but everything about her still felt like mother, and more so than even my good moments with Mom. I felt even closer to this woman with Mom's head. There was a much deeper connection somehow. In that instant, I looked up at her again. Her face and head changed before my eyes. Now the head and body matched. This was a very young - looking, woman. She had blue eyes and a beautiful face. She had light ash blonde hair that ended at the top of her shoulder blades. She never revealed who she was, but she commented that I had special abilities that were getting stronger. She said she would teach me something. She walked a distance away, faced me, and closed her eyes. I heard her speaking to me without her lips moving. I started to respond, but she told me to close my mouth and say it with my mind again without her lips moving. I thought my response. She answered me without speaking. I responded in the same manner. We began to have an entire conversation without a word actually spoken.

Eventually, we stopped. She walked back to me, and hugged me in congratulations. She looked at me and said, "Now you know all you need to be able to reach me until we meet." She never told me who she really was. But I think I know.

MY UNCLE'S BITTER BETRAYAL

My mother's other cousin (Not my godfather, but my second favorite uncle - besides Uncle Joe, my first favorite.), Uncle Al suddenly began telling everyone that it was MY fault that Mom had died. I had indirectly driven her to her death because we didn't get along. I knew this wasn't true. But I had been so close to him and his family growing up. Our families did almost as much together as we had with Auntie Frisbee's family. In fact, sometimes all our families did things together. This was a terrible shock to me and it hurt me deeply that he would say such things. Then he began to say that Jeannie, my sister, was a druggie. That was not true at all. She was rebellious, yes, but she did not do drugs. I was sure of that. He loaned my father $2000.00 to help with Mom''s funeral telling him he could pay it back by the end of the year. (Dad was suffering financially due to Mom's medical bills.) All of a sudden, he demanded it back immediately. We felt utterly betrayed. Dad gave him the money back as requested. We went through a very tight financial period for months afterward. Uncle Al left my father alone after awhile. He also stopped badmouthing my sister. But he still insisted that I had killed my mother. We never spoke to the Reidel's again. Auntie Frisbee and family also broke away from them.

THE NEXT  NEW UPDATE JUMPS AHEAD IN TIME FROM JUST AFTER MY MOTHER'S DEATH IN 1991 TO 1994 WHEN I JOINED THE ARMY. IT TAKES YOU THROUGH DETAIL MY RATHER UNIQUE EXPERIENCES IN THE ARMY TO MY MOVE TO PHOENIX TO MY MOVE TO LAS VEGAS WHERE THINGS GOT REALLY INTENSE (I HAD GOTTEN A TASTE OF MY DREAMS COMING TRUE THERE)! THIS UPDATE THEN TAKES YOU THROUGH ALL MY EXPERIENCES THERE TO MY UNEXPECTED RETURN TO CHICAGO TO AID MY FATHER IN HIS RECOVERY FROM A STROKE. FROM THERE, IT GOES INTO MY PREPARING TO FINALLY SETTLE HERE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, WHERE I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN I WAS MEANT TO SETTLE! BASICALLY, IT IS IN THIS NEW UPDATE THAT THINGS REALLY GET INTERESTING AND FULFILLING!

AS FOR THE GAP BETWEEN 1991 AND 1994 AND A FEW OTHER MINOR ONES, I PROMISE I WILL SOON GO BACK AND FILL THEM IN! I JUST NEED TO CONTINUE FINISHING THE BRIDGE IN TIME I AM PRESENTLY WORKING ON - MOVING TO LA AND ON UP TO THE PRESENT!