On Relationships, Past and Present

As I prepare myself to travel to be with my parents, I remember something I wanted to discuss with y’all. It’s something many others have blogged about, most notably Stumbling Gracefully. But I was able to observe at close range a good case study.

We all know that once you have children, couples report a decrease in happiness, while couples who don’t have kids are more happy. I would be curious to see a study done asking those who had gone through infertility on both sides how happy they are. But, I think in general it’s probably true that the relationship between partners suffers when children enter the picture.

When Darcy and I lived in London (in a grimy flat) we became friends with another couple. (The woman lived in the grimy flat below our own.) This couple, I’ll call them the “Fabs” because they are, now live in an incredible magazine-worthy penthouse filled with spiral staircases and other deathtraps for parents. You see, the Fabs have decided to be childfree by choice. They have never TTC, they have no desire to even try. They want to travel, live together, and be fabulous.

I stayed in their penthouse for two days and the main thing I noticed was how attentive and sensitive they were to each other’s needs. They were very careful to take each other’s gym and travel schedules and work commitments into account. They worried about each other: “Mr. Fab has an early morning, so he should go to bed early.” Or: “Let’s make sure to park nearby because I’m not sure Mrs. Fab has her umbrella with her.”

Uh, I can’t remember the last time I asked Darcy if he even OWNS an umbrella. OUR conversations are rushed, kinda harsh in tone, as if the load of responsibilities on both sides is too great to add being solicitous into the mix. Often I feel like we are two workers on a factory assembly line on different shifts, briefing each other on the crucial tasks that need to be completed before one of us steps out for a break. To be honest, I was quite envious of the Fabs’ relationship. Because Darcy and I used to have that kind of relationship. Before infertility, anyway.

Did you have a more connected, solicitous relationship with your partner before infertility and/or parenting? Or have you been able to maintain that? If so, HOW?!? I really want to know.

Upon Jet Lag, Being Among the World and Finally, Bad News

My unexpected trip to Europe was like dropping an Amish person among the “English.” I didn’t realize how isolated and sheltered from the world I have been. I once directed campaigns and events for world players in business and politics. I had actually totally forgotten that part of myself. My friends in London and Europe are tasked with leading parts in managing the debt crisis. Their decisions matter tremendously. It was eerie to be among my peers who are in a sense making history.

To be on my own, making my own business decisions, was, I’m not going to lie, exhilarating. Peers respected me. London feels to me, much more than when I lived there like a major world hub. And I loved being there. Me: the suburban hausfrau. It’s the first time I didn’t feel that way.

I cam back exhausted from jet lag, but in another way refreshed. Until my parents called. My dad has been diagnosed with more cancer and has a big operation on Monday. It’s devastating. The procedure has a good rate of success, but it’s scary. My poor dad, who leads the healthiest lifestyle of anyone I know, has had so many
medical complications in his life. He’s such a wonderful father and grandfather.

So I’m headed out on Friday to be with him (he lives in the South) and it will be the second time the kids will be without me in less than a week.

Oh, life. Would that I could be more like bamboo and blow with these events as they happen as opposed to being the mighty oak: stiff, resistant to changes. Brittle. Broken.

Insert Lame Tuesday/Belgium Joke Here

Once, many years ago, I traveled alone abroad for work. That was back in the days when I had competence and self-confidence. And my stress levels were much, much lower. I didn’t have kids and I saw travel as an adventure.

I have to go to Belgium for a family obligation for a week. I know, I know. No one wants to read about someone HAVING to fly to Europe to eat chocolate and waffles. The family obligation is no fun and will be very stressful. But, I need to suck. It. Up.

I hate flying. I used to love it, but then there was the plane ride where the pilot kept getting on the intercom to tell us that they had to dump a bunch of luggage because we might NOT clear the mountains in our way. Flying scares me and I had a nightmare about my upcoming plane trip to London. Let me just say that if I see Kurt Russell boarding my plane, I will run a mile.

Mostly the thing that bothers me is I have only had three days to make this happen. I’m a planner, I like planning for every eventuality. I absolutely HATE the idea of being away from my kids for seven days. And not just in another town a few miles away. I’ll be 3,000 miles away. It makes me feel helpless. If I had had advance warning, I would have adapted to this in my mind, and best of all, gotten the twins ready mentally for the fact that Mommy is going away. They are super-attached to me and I have never left them for more than three days, and that was when they were much younger. I am worried that they are going to be traumatized by my leaving so suddenly.

I’m sure this trip will help me develop self-confidence, independence and moxie. I have no moxie any more. But right now I want to hide under a rock and ignore the whole thing.

Do you find that your sense of adventure is not the same since you have become older and more responsible? Or do you thirst for greater adventure in a life that may seem full of structure and routine?

On Being A Mediocre Parent

There is a promo for “The Next Food Star”, a show I have never seen, which regularly interrupts my enjoyment of “House Hunters”. The promo features many quick shots of people frying, wokking, wearing white hats and crying. Then there is a woman who briefly interrupts the action to say: “I am in NO way mediocre!” She seems very emphatic and angry.

I’m going to shuffle out an old chestnut and tell you how Webster defines mediocrity: “Ordinary. Of medium-grade quality. Neither bad nor good.”

I recently read an essay about Dan Savage (I would link to it but the NY Times pay wall is now up) and in it, women are taken to task for idealizing their male partners. Savage doesn’t want women to think of their husbands in a romanticized way: he specifically states that he doesn’t like women bloggers who code-name their husbands after heroes in any Jane Austen book. Right, so I call my husband Darcy. Guilty. However, I MOSTLY think him similar to THE Mr. Darcy because he in no way censors his opinions. You get the truth from him, even if it’s ugly.

So last weekend we were having a rather heated discussion with friends about SAHMs, parenthood and other troublesome topics. The tone was fairly defensive: many parties were deflecting sore spots by attacking others’ choices. Finally Darcy declared:

“Jjiraffe and I are mediocre parents. I have accepted that and moved on.”

I was rather flabbergasted by this statement. ‘Tis true, I am struggling with aged three, daily and nightly. I often think I am failing. But to be declared mediocre? That I was NOT expecting.

I have asked him to explain himself in detail over the last week. He thinks exemplary parents wouldn’t yell ever, would play more games, read to the twins more, be more engaged, be more patient, do more one-on-one activities with both and most damning of all: they would have potty trained their children already.

It is my deepest, most embarrassing secret that I haven’t been able to accomplish this. The twins just don’t CARE. It’s not that they can’t do it: they can. They just don’t want to. And nothing I’ve tried (rewards, M&Ms, the entire Toy Story character kits, special underwear, peer pressure, “naked weekends”, potty dolls, special potties, big special potties) works. Also, I don’t bathe them everyday. Three times a week if I’m really on a roll.

As an infertile, I vowed to never be a bad mother. I would NEVER yell at MY kids in a Target, I would never let them watch TV (ha!), I would never let them eat anything non-organic (double ha!). I have been so worried about not being a bad mother that I never realized that I was in danger of being something else: a mediocre one.

I get why the woman on the “Food Stars” promo was bristling because someone called her mediocre. It’s a loaded word: one that brings images of George Costanza, Michael Bay, Nicolas Sparks and The Olive Garden to the brain.

My mother was an extraordinary mother. I never remember her ever losing her patience with me. She made tasty, well-balanced meals, she took me to the park and library every day, she taught me manners. When I was sick she would drop everything to make my chicken noodle soup, keep me comfortable. She expected a lot, but never made that seem daunting.

I fail to live up to this standard. Every. Day. The twins’ demands, the yelling, the fighting: it frazzles me easily. The pickiness around food, the rejection of all types of dietary matter except five things: it drives me nuts. I shrink into myself, I get on my iPad, I tune out the noise. This doesn’t make me a bad mother, but it doesn’t make me a good one, either.

Justine said something that reverberated with me a week ago: she said there are mothers she looks up to, whom she aspires to be like. I aspire to be like HER: she makes yummy-looking, healthy food for her son, involves him in the process and is generally very thoughtful about being a SAHM. Then there’s Mel, who goes on geo-caching expeditions with her kids and got a really famous businessman to encourage her son’s love of computing. Then there’s Lori, who is extremely open and accepting and delighted about being a mother. And Esperanza, whose joy in her daughter shines on everything she does and thinks. I could go on and on…and there are so many wonderful mothers, whether they have had children who have passed on, or their children are yet to be. There are so many extraordinary mothers in the ALI community.

I need to work on being one, too. I owe that to the ALI community.

Who are mothers you look up to? If you are going through infertility, do you think that when you become a mother you will hold yourself to a higher standard?

More Harry Potter Discussion And Top 50 Mom Bloggers on Babble

I do believe this is the first time I have engaged in a popularity contest. It will probably be the last. But this is a big one, and I’m hoping you all can help

Babble is having a voting contest for the Top 50 Mom Bloggers, and I am (barely) in the running. So, I am asking for your vote. Mostly because I think it would be awesome to have an infertility voice in the mix. To that end, I’d like to ask that you also vote for the other ALI voices also in the running. Some of them have a real shot.

Here’s the instructions on how to vote:

Go here

Click on the “alphabetical” tag

Scroll to the bottom

Click on the 9 button on the list of pages, then click on the 17, then the 19.

My blog is called “Too Many Fish To Fry”, so it’s towards the end of the list. Other ALI blogs in the running are: Creating Motherhood, Four of a Kind, Here We Go Again, Once a Mother, Stirrup Queens, The Kir Corner, Write Mind Open Heart. Please let me know in the comments if there are any other ALI blogs also in the running.

OK, onto to the Harry Potter Discussion!

In my last post, I was discussing what I loved and didn’t love about Harry Potter. One thing I really didn’t love was that Fred perishes. Fred is one of favorite characters. I mean, how can you not love a character who exits Hogwarts triumphantly by blowing up the school with firecrackers that spell the word “Poo” repeatedly? Mommy Odyssey rightly points out that this wasn’t in the movie and that stinks.

Anyway, I saw a tweet from Amy the Bookish hinting that Fred maybe did not meet his end at the battle for Hogwarts. I was intrigued. Herewith follows her five part theory about Fred. It’s too fun not to share.

@2manyfish2fry There are many theories involving Fred's non-demise. 1. Sub "Percy" for "Fred." Easy fix.—
Amy the Bookish (@ArtsyBookishGal) July 13, 2011

Hee!

@2manyfish2fry 2. George illegally uses the a Time Turner to save Fred. (Someone wrote a fan fic.)—
Amy the Bookish (@ArtsyBookishGal) July 13, 2011

This one has real promise. I’m going to have to look up that story.

@2manyfish2fry 3. Fred only appears dead like Hermione did in the Ministry of Magic in HP5—
Amy the Bookish (@ArtsyBookishGal) July 13, 2011

Inneresting.

@2manyfish2fry 4. F&G cannot be separated because it's mean, cruel, and stupid.—
Amy the Bookish (@ArtsyBookishGal) July 13, 2011

Word. And I say this as a mother of twins. I can’t bear to think of twins separated.

@2manyfish2fry 5. It's literature in the fantasy realm. Any wacky thing can happen…right?—
Amy the Bookish (@ArtsyBookishGal) July 13, 2011

I like this. For more, read Amy’s brilliant post. I really like the way she explains how we become emotionally invested in characters and tie them to events in our own lives.

Do you read Harry Potter Fan Fiction? What would you like to change in the books, plot wise? Would you rescue any characters from death?

I Now Interrupt Regular Programming To Obsess About Harry Potter

Photo Credit of Shell Cottage: Russ Hamer (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

If you’re not a fan, or you’re sick of all this talk about “Deathly Hallows,” skip this. Also, Spoilers A Plenty!

I remember when I dismissed the “Harry Potter” series as a fad before I ever read one of the books. I lived in London at the time, and Bloomsbury had redesigned special covers of the first few books to look less childish, so adults wouldn’t be embarrassed to read them. Every other adult riding the tube was reading one. I was in an insufferable book snob phase (it was the year we decided to not have a TV) and was working my way through “The Famished Road”, which…most incomprehensible book ever? (Sorry, “Ulysses.”) I went back to the states for a wedding, and I remember telling my friend about the adult book covers. Her response? “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”

So I bought “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” at the airport and put “The Famished Road” in my carry-on luggage. And thus began my love affair with all things Harry.

Mommy Odyssey is writing a bewitching (sorry) series for “Key Pulp,” which details how the movies stack up against the books: mostly, unfavorably. It’s a must-read for Potter-philes.

I don’t want to talk about the movies, but rather what I loved, and didn’t love, about the books.

LOVE:
- The messages J.K. Rowling imparted throughout the series. It is our choices that define us, not our talents. Courage Matters, whether through small gestures like standing up for a friend or facing down a major fear, like fear of spiders or by reliving our past mistakes or worst memories. Love is what makes life worth living.
- Hermione. She’s a fully formed, flawed, likable main character who is involved in the main action of the story. She’s a girl/woman who often saves her heroic friends with her considerable knowledge. She’s smart but works hard to be the best in her year.
- NEVILLE! Neville is a nerdy, kind boy whose parents were tortured to the point of madness by Voldermort’s supporters. He’s an unlikely hero, who mainly demonstrates courage in small, non-showy ways. But the courage he demonstrates makes a crucial difference.
- Luna. Wise, unearthly, kind Luna. She’s spiritual, yet strangely practical and is the yang to Hermione’s yin. She reminds me of CookedHeads
- Fred and George. Maybe I’m predisposed to pay particular interest to twins, but I hearted them before I even got married. Their sense of humor, charm and mischief is wonderfully portrayed and they have the best lines: “Seriously evil wizard coming through!” Poor Fred. Sob.
- Mrs. Weasley. I know she’s somewhat controversial, but now that I’m a mom I’m simply amazed by her parenting skills. With limited resources, she raises seven superstar children, who achieve much success as adults. (Except for Fred. Sob.) She’s bossy, nurturing, a good cook, manages her household with aplomb and darns everyone’s socks. We all know how important socks are in the Harry Potter universe. And she has arguably the best line in the whole series: “Not my daughter, you BITCH!”
- Snape. Rowling had me guessing about his motives until the very, very end. I suspected that he MIGHT have feelings for Lily, but I didn’t see how important they would be. He’s deeply, seriously fatally flawed but he’s a romantic hero in the end.
- Historical echoes from World War II. I noted when I lived in the UK that World War II is a much greater part of the fabric of literature, movies, TV programming and even what’s covered in the news. It’s understandable: the UK stood basically alone against the greatest military power the world had ever seen. So many people died, the country was physically attacked and bombed and WWII is a great, pivotal point in the history of the country. Obviously, Voldemort is inspired in part by Hitler and his creepy “blood” policies were inspired by Hitler’s racist policies. The scariest scenes in all of the books to me are the scenes in “Deathly Hallows” of the Ministry of Magic. The Dark Lord has taken over, and his followers are free to persecute witches or wizards based solely on who their parents were. And Umbridge (shudder) runs a propaganda bureau in a Goebbels-esque fashion. Truly frightening stuff.

Don’t Love
- As much as it pains me to say, the books are not perfect. (Although they nearly are ;P.)
- GINNY – Among all of the heroes, she’s my least favorite. I personally think it’s weird that Rowling needed to pair up every member of the trio at the end. And while I know a few people who met their husband/wife in high school, most people don’t. I like Ron/Hermione a lot. But why the need to couple up Harry at age 16/17, too? And Ginny is a cipher to me. She’s MOSTly (but not entirely, as Mommy Odyssey pointed out to me: see the Ministry scene, book five), defined by what others say about her. She’s shy in the first two books, gets possessed by Voldemort in the second so we are unable to decipher who she is, seeing as she’s POSSESSED by, as Fred and George would say, a seriously evil wizard. Then we get a lot of telling, not showing, comments from Ron, Fred, Hermione in the next couple of books. Like: guys think she’s hot, she LOVES Quidditch, her boogey hex is the BEST, blah blah blah. Even when she is showcased, finally, in the last two books, I guess I just didn’t LIKE her. She didn’t seem very multi-faceted or real, but rather a conglomeration of characteristics that Harry might like in a girl. (Like being hot, liking Quidditch, being feisty, etc.) I even preferred Cho, who came across on the page as a real person. I have to admit that if I could trade Fred for Ginny, I would. To me, she is a Mary Sue.
- James Potter. OK, this one is going to get me in hot water. But I think he’s kind of a jerk. At least in the flashback scenes. I’m sure he must come around and be nice, otherwise Lily wouldn’t have fallen for him, but in the flashback scenes with the Marauders, he comes across exactly the way Lily describes him: as a toerag. I know that’s the point, and obviously he becomes the father who sacrifices himself for his son, but…I don’t know. Maybe Rowling will write the story of how he and Lily fall in love someday.

And, that’s really all. Before I read the whole series, I would probably have said that the whole S.P.E.W. subplot annoyed me, but the house-elf liberation front becomes crucial in the last book, and I like the underlying message of why the treatment of house-elves (and goblins too) comes back to bite wizards in the butt, so to speak.

What do YOU love about the Harry Potter series? And what do you NOT love?

Memory: Necessary Ingredient to Life or Hindrance?

By Tangopaso (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Darcy and I had a discussion about memory over the weekend. I am someone whose memory is prompted by places I go. I live where I grew up, and my parents were outdoorsy people. We hiked every weekend it didn’t rain, and if it did rain, we went somewhere whether it was a museum, the library or church. I like to go to the local forrest or lake. It reminds me of growing up and my parents and brother. (Both my parents and my brother now live across the country.) I also lived here for most of my battle through infertility so there are also some negative places in my neighborhood, mostly a local supermarket and pharmacy. I don’t like to go to those places. Once I had my kids, I tried to visit them triumphantly, to put the past behind me. It didn’t work. Mel has a great post about how she studiously avoids places where there are bad memories attached.

But I love bringing my kids to the local beach where my father and I looked for sand dollars when I was young, the county fair where I hung out as a teen and ate caramel apples and the pizza parlor where I played “Miss Pacman.” It makes me feel like I am revisiting my childhood, yet in a new, fresh way.

We went to the sand dollar beach over the long weekend, and I annoyed Darcy by constantly pointing to landmarks and talking about my past experiences. Around that bend in the road is the bird sanctuary I went to as a third grader, that beach house was the one my Dad’s friend owned, where we went to parties on the Fourth of July, that restaurant is the one where my mom let me order a Shirley Temple. Darcy has had some really exotic and unusual experiences: he traveled Morocco for a month by himself and almost got caught up in a smuggling ring, he went to Albania in 1994 to see for himself what the conflict was like and got mugged, he lived in Hong Kong for two years. Growing up, his parents took him to three star restaurants in Paris. Yet, he doesn’t remember those experiences that well. I really have to ask a lot of questions to prompt his memories.

So I feel silly talking about my tame, mundane memories, but they are very important to me. As I pointed to the bar seat at the restaurant and relayed how I once asked the bartender for a maraschino cherry to top off my shirley temple, Darcy asked why these memories were so necessary to me. We had both seen a “60 Minutes” special about a very small group of people who remember in agonizing details every day of their life: from the trivialities of what they wore and the weather to the emotions they felt when someone cut them off in traffic or when their boyfriend fought with them.

Darcy is unable or unwilling to use his memory to relate to places we have been to in the past. He thinks of memory as adding depth to life but dangerous: people can live in the past, and that is a dangerous place to abide. He pointed out that there have been artists who essentially stopped living, full stop, in order to recreate the past. Proust famously lived in a cork-lined bedroom room, blocking out all noise to mine his past in great detail, thereby producing one of the greatest works of literature. Have you read it? I read “Swann’s Way” during my early pregnancy with the twins (I had hypermesis and was bedridden), because I wanted them to be smart. Of course, that doesn’t explain my obsession with “The Hills” at the same time, but I digress. “Swann’s Way” was the only novel that actively changed the way I saw the world. The dreamlike, detailed prose prompted by “involuntary memories” was sublime, and yet real. In reality, our thoughts are rarely linear and move in and out of the past and present, while contemplating the future. Yet, Proust’s writing was not confusing like James Joyce. I hated “Ulysses.”

What was at the heart of this discussion is this: Darcy worries about me living in the past, not moving on from the negative experiences of infertility and miscarriage. I admit that I am worried about this as well.

Do you find yourself triggered by “involuntary memories,” whether it’s going to the local pharmacy where you bought pregnancy tests that turned negative, or by the taste of a spicy tuna roll that you ate on the night you decided to live it up after getting a BFN? Or the smell of a particular soap you used at your fertility clinic the day of a retrieval? Or seeing photos of a celebrity who was pregnant when you desperately wanted to be?

Would you rather give up these memories, or do they make you who you are?

Casey Anthony, Nancy Grace and Ayelet Waldman’s “Bad Mother”: What Do The Three Have in Common?

If you were on Twitter, you may have noted that at 2:15 PM Eastern Time it exploded. That was approximately the time that Casey Anthony, the so-called “Tot Mom”, was found in a Florida court of law not guilty of murdering her two year old daughter, Caylee. There were many, many declarations of outrage. So many that I got the Fail Whale. I love the Fail Whale.

I admit that I avoided the trial and the case with a ten-foot pole. Why, I wasn’t really sure, but it just felt, for lack of a better word, icky. Since becoming a mother I can’t really bear stories about children in jeopardy or who have gone missing. When I was going through infertility, such stories stoked an almost unbearable anger: I couldn’t get pregnant, and yet many neglectful women didn’t understand what a miracle children were.

But finally this weekend, after seeing countless tweets about the subject matter, I broke down and read about the case. It is a drab, dreary, sordid case, filled with difficult to explain photos of a mother partying while her child is missing, strange inconsistencies of statements made to people, allegations of incest and molestation. I don’t really want to get into all of the details, because I don’t understand the case that well. But the media have made a lot of hay with the story. It was on the cover of People magazine. CNN’s Headline News has gained tremendous ratings off the trial. Primarily, Nancy Grace has been a particular beneficiary of the story.

Nancy Grace is a controversial figure, albeit a popular one. According to Wikipedia, she became a prosecutor after the murder of her fiancee. Later, she became a media figure on Court TV. She seems to focus on cases like Anthony’s or the Natalee Holloway disappearance: violence against women or children. From what I can tell from the limited viewings I’ve seen of her program, in Nancy Grace’s world there is black and white. With no shades of grey. I think this comforts a lot of viewers, who have suffered their own tragedies or just know that a lot of bad stuff happens in life. Grace makes them believe there can be Justice for victims of crimes.

The Casey Anthony case was nagging me, and I finally realized why: it reminded me of Ayelet Waldman’s book, “Bad Mother” which is a provocative, reassuring and sometimes maddening read. Definitely recommended. She writes about the magnifying glass put on certain “bad mother” cases like the Anthony’s or Susan Smith, and WHY this happens.

“While women have always, historically, been the enforcers of acceptable social conduct, even when it was to their detriment (remember Abigail Williams, the lead accuser in the Salem witch trials?), an hour or two surfing the myriad of mommy blogs provides compelling support for the notion that, in this area at least, we women are primary authors of our own subjection.”

Waldman adds:

“And why? Because the Andrea Yateses and Susan Smiths, the ‘crack hos’ and the welfare moms provide us with a profound personal service. By defining for us the kind of mothers we’re not, they make it easier for us to stomach what we are.”

In other words, my kids are currently watching Caillou and eating McDonald’s (Michael Pollan, look away!) and this makes me feel like a slug. But, this doesn’t make me as bad as say, Britney Spears circa 2007, or the mom I saw at Target who was talking on her cell while her five children terrorized the aisles.

I think this is why the Casey Anthony verdict has caused such a stir: there are such pressures on us now to be perfect mothers. Especially after infertility! Organic food, never yelling, no TV, breastfeeding only, no C-sections, etc, etc, etc.

Again from Waldman:

“The question becomes: How does one find consolation in the face of all this failure and guilt? One way is by reveling in the dark exploits of mothers who are worse, far worse, than we are. We obsess about these famous bogeymamas; we judge ourselves for a little while not against the impossible standard of the Good Mother but against the heinous Bad Mother.”

Do you think Ayelet Waldman is right? Is Casey Anthony a “bogeyman” that the media has built up to make us feel better about ourselves?” Or is it not that simple?

“She Will Always Be Young. She Will Always Be Beautiful.”

Major bonus points if you can match the movie with the above quote.

When I was in college, I was very, very poor. I would ferry my friends to the bars, and sip my coca colas, content to accept fees for being the designated driver. Those fees paid for my meals for a week. I was so poor that I once sold flowers at restaurants. That’s a terrible job, BTW. Please be nice to those women when you see them.

Somehow, I ended up in a sorority of women who were my superiors in many ways. All of my friends were pretty and well-off. Luckily, they were all really kind as well. They accepted me, my 1982 Chrysler LeBaron and loaned me their pretty clothes for parties.

There was one girl in my sorority who shined brighter than all the rest. She reminded me of Grace Kelly: she was radiant, she had a boyfriend who was gorgeous and really into her (who later became her husband), she came from a devoted family who lived on a fabulous estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But what I mostly remember was how nice she was. When she said hello to lowly me, and laughed at my jokes, I felt elevated in spirit and in self-esteem. I imagine it was like speaking to Kate Middleton, if she was kind and witty. I was never good friends with her, mostly because I never felt worthy of being her friend, but I held her in high esteem. Whenever anyone speaks of enchanted golden girls, I always think of her.

She went on to marry her college sweetheart, she had three children and founded a successful business. Then, I heard that she passed away last year.

I don’t know too much about it, but she was diagnosed with melanoma and fought valiantly, but ultimately succumbed to the disease.

I have thought about her every day since I learned the news. I have been told by a mutual friend who knew her very well that she was always the one who put on sunscreen, wore hats and didn’t tan.

I don’t know that I have much of a point here, other than to ask, yet again, why is life so unfair? I don’t know how to explain awful things like this. The passing of a young, vibrant, beautiful mother who had everything. I thought of her today and I realized that I am now officially older than she’ll ever be.

All I can do to honor her memory is direct you to this song. It is unworldly, it is ethereal, it is golden. It reminds me of her.

Bless you, Grace. The world was a better place because you were here.