Monthly Archives: May 2011

Dear Mr. G.,

I don’t want much for Mother’s Day. I absolutely positively do not under any circumstances want to find myself in a restaurant with proper linens.

Maybe instead of taking them to a tennis lesson the four of us could just hit some balls? Maybe we’ll just sleep in a little?

I’d really like a compost tumbler. I don’t really want to have to dig through a compost bin and I’ve always wanted a tumbler. There are a few options for them and I’m not convinced that a $300 tumbler is two and a half times better than a $130 tumbler. I’m pretty sure the big box stores have them in stock. I like the ones that look like an old oil barrel, in fact in a perfect world we’d make our own from an oil barrel, but I guess we both know that our lives aren’t perfect. Damn near, but alas not perfect.

Can you also help me get the kids all situated for school on Saturday? I’m so pissed about the amount of work they have that I’m afraid I’m too grumpy with our general academic outlook to be a good mom. It’s only a few more weeks, and I’m trying to hold it together, but I’m not much of an actress.

So yeah, the compost tumbler would be amazing. I know it’ll be expensive and I could totally lie to you and say there’s some sort of education wrapped up in it somewhere, but we’re both pretty sure that’s just not true and that I just want it for myself.

I plan on being incredibly selfish Sunday (more than usual). I finally have a plan. Go me!

Jessica

This morning I went hiking with another blogger and we both lamented the amount of time blogging takes from life. I have no great need to write. I could walk away from writing at any time, or so I tell myself.

She has a need to connect and to create. I have a need for solitude, blogging is good for solitude. I want to be with my friends and my family. I don’t necessarily want new friends, I’m cautious that way.

Then this morning Drew shared this link with me. It begins with:

Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

It is a beautiful tribute to family and to fatherhood. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the blog, but anxious about it too because there is a clear ending.

When my Grandmother died my mother wrote her obituary and she felt conflicted, because sometimes my Grandmother wasn’t happy or kind. My Grandmother broke the day her brother died in World War Two and although she was pieced together, rage simmered through the cracks. The Rabbi, the very kind Rabbi, told my mother that we write our own obituaries. The people left behind are simply sharing it with the world.

I don’t know that this will make me better, kinder or gentler. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be more introspective or generous. I do know that I’m living the life I’ve painstakingly created, and it’s good. I can make it better because ultimately we all write our own obituaries.

Maybe I have spring fever, maybe I’m burned out, maybe I’m just a mother that doesn’t really care about her kids. I’m done with school. I’m done with homework. I’m done with lost backpacks, missing uniforms, substandard homework and spelling words. I’m done with waking up early. I’m done paying tuition. I’m done with sports. I’m done with girls being mean to each other.

I am absolutely positively finished with school.

I realize that my week in New York didn’t leave me free of my kids, it left me free of my kid’s unending schoolwork and hideous days.

I’m worried that we’ve robbed them completely of childhood and instead we’re trying to get them to learn State Standards instead of giving them some good old fashioned common sense.

I spent the morning yesterday with a group from Katalyst and Intel, they were talking about the flipped classroom. They do homework during the day, and watch lectures on DVD at night. Although it’s probably better than the existing system I’m wondering why our kids have to work a longer day than we do.

School is from 8 to 3 and then they’re supposed to come home and work another two to three hours? When are they supposed to be kids? When are they supposed to apply their knowledge? When are they supposed to have a childhood?

I hate school. I hate them all because they’re set up to feed themselves, they exist to benefit adults, not children. I’m ready to sell the house, pull them out of school and hitch hike around the globe with them. Maybe then we can all learn something and actually enjoy our lives.

Recently a reporter from CNN contacted me and asked a few questions about sharing other people’s information online. Most specifically my children’s.

You can read the article at CNN but I think we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Jane won two goldfish at a carnival this weekend.

My father kept them alive all day Sunday. Sparky would like to thank him for that, apparently they were delicious.

The kids and I have been glued to the television for the past hour. I was ecstatic that Bin Laden has died.

Our president told us that Osama Bin Laden has been killed and the body is in US Custody. The kids didn’t really understand my glee, Jane wasn’t yet three and Alexander was only six weeks old when the World Trade Center was attacked so they don’t remember a time that we weren’t at war with Al Qaeda.

I’m jealous that Mr G is in New York City right now for what surely must be the grandest celebration of our lifetimes. But I also feel embarrassed for my blood lust, and a little conflicted because I might have enjoyed his imprisonment as I’d come to enjoy Sadaam Husein’s all those years ago.

Now I worry that Al Qaeda will get all grumbly and attack again, and I’m not prepared to wait another 10 years to end their reign of terror. I worry that this won’t actually bring the troops home.

Mostly I worry that I’ve become the person who would celebrate another person’s death and I don’t want to show my children that this is who I have become.

How do you feel about this news?