Springfield Family: Mack and Laura

The Springfield Family Girls: Laura, Maggie, Nell, Mack, Mandy, Savannah

I had the incredible fortune to raise my girls within a loving inner-circle of friends in Springfield, Illinois. There were ten adults and ten children in our close-knit group. Standing Friday night dinners at D’Arcy’s Pint, frequent Saturday nights hanging out in each other’s homes and backyards, annual New Year’s Eve celebrations, and occasional weekend excursions filled our calendars with good and clean fun since 1995. The close relationships we formed over the years also afforded moral support and encouragement in achieving personal, academic, and professional goals and provided emotional support during times of illness, disappointment, and heartbreak. We laughed together, we played together; we shared time on bleachers together, watching our kids play sports; and we communed over shared interests in politics, literature, food, and the high hopes for the future of our kids, our families, and the world. Our Springfield circle was not just a close group of friends. It was an extended family for all of us. My girls not only had two parents and a sibling who adored them, but they also grew up in the loving embrace of eight adults who loved them as if they were their own children, and they came of age among eight kids who were as close to them as siblings.

In the past few years, this Springfield family of ours has become somewhat geographically disbursed. Yet the bonds have remained ever strong. It is upon this twenty-year-old group of friends—this extended family— on which I now so mightily depend. WE lost OUR Macko. She is our first shared loss. Together we grieve and together we search for solace. Over the past several months, I have focused much on my amazing Springfield family, seeking comfort from them and providing it where I am able. I have been buoyed by the knowledge that each and every member of our tight-knit Springfield family carries Mack within their hearts, remembering in their own ways her life and the imprint she made upon them. In their loving hearts, Mack lives on, and this knowledge brings me some comfort.

Laura, Savannah, Mack in purple, and Laura’s brother Matt

I have been thinking lately that I want to write about Mack and the members of our Springfield family, to tell funny stories about her time with them, to share details about their relationships, and to reflect on how they enriched her life and how she influenced and inspired them as well. Last week, a member of our Springfield family faced a devastating medical diagnosis, a difficult surgery, and a lengthy recovery. So it is with Laura that I will begin an intermittent series of essays about Mack and these wonderful and special and amazing people who shaped her growth and development and gave her twenty years of unconditional love and support.

Laura was just nineteen months old when Mack came into the world. For a very brief time, Laura was a little jealous, and she heartily objected when her father paid any attention to Mack. “NO, baby Kenzie,” she would scream, “MY daddy!” But it was not long before these two silly little girls were friends. They played basketball together, they gorged on candy together, and they spent hours playing the board game “Life” together. At Friday night dinners or Saturday gatherings, they were inseparable as toddlers and as kids. They shared babysitters when the grownups went out alone, they shared each other’s clothes, and together they conquered the Nintendo snowboarding game SSX Tricky. Laura and Mack also became famous for their undying devotion to the movie My Cousin Vinny. They laughed hysterically every time they viewed it, sometimes viewing it multiple times in one night. They recited the lines as the movie proceeded, and they frequently acted out the best scenes, even when they were way too young for some of the content of the dialogue and, of course, the profanity!

Laura was a year older in school, and she and Mack had mostly separate circles of school friends. So, naturally, as they grew into their teens, they spent less time with each other. In high school, middle school, and college, they sometimes went for a few weeks without seeing one another, but they remained in touch through text messaging and they never stopped caring for each other. They always made an effort to schedule “dates” to catch up on each other’s lives. If it had been a couple of weeks since she had seen Laura, Mack would say, “I need me some Laura time.” Then she would summon Laura to our house, and the two of them would bake some terrible cookies or pig-out on unhealthy snacks and stay up all night watching My Cousin Vinny. In 2014, Mack was at Truman State in northern Missouri and Laura was at Milliken in central Illinois, and it had been some time since they had seen one another. So in April, Laura spent a couple of days with us in St. Louis, because Mack needed some “Laura time,” and I am so thankful they had that last special time together.

Mack and Laura, who is wearing one of Mack’s soccer team shirts.

Sugar coma? Or all-night SSX-Tricky marathon?

For eight years, Laura has suffered from Crohn’s. The disease interfered with her adolescence, subjected her to long stretches of horrible pain, and forced her to endure numerous hospitalizations and inconvenient medical treatments that sometimes thwarted her ability to live the life of a normal kid. After the most recent flare-up of the disease, Laura’s specialist in Chicago told her that medicinal treatments would no longer provide any remedy or relief and that the removal of her colon was the only option. A twenty-two-year-old kid should never have to face such a serious diagnosis. She had to consent to the drastic surgery or risk losing her life. It took several days for Laura to process the news, but she decided to have the operation.

Last Saturday morning before her surgery, Laura was resting in her hospital bed, scared as she waited for the nurses to take her to the operating room. She turned on the TV, and after flipping through the small number of channels that were available, she found My Cousin Vinny. On a Saturday morning on one of just a handful of channels, her favorite movie and the favorite movie of her lost “sister” quieted her fears. Mack and Laura were together again. As Laura told me later, “I felt so much more at ease, feeling Mack’s spirit.” Laura went to surgery with a calm and hopeful attitude, and her surgery was a success. She will face a long recovery and adjustment period, but the doctors are very hopeful that pain and suffering are in Laura’s past and that health and happiness await her. One thing is absolutely certain, Mack was in Laura’s heart at the very moment she needed her most, and those two girls had a family bond that will last forever.

Laura and Mack, two special members of the Springfield family that consists of the McDermotts, the McKinneys, the Ericksons, the Mutman-Doyles, and the Parsons-Mosers. I love them all!

Permanent Mack

Even though she is physically gone, Mack’s spirit lives on in the hearts of those whose lives she touched. She really did make a permanent mark upon many of us, and we are better people for having known her and loved her. Mack was an extraordinary person, and she made an enduring impact on my life and on my soul. She is in my daily thoughts. She continues to inspire me. And I am still, always and forever, her momma bear.

Since losing Mack, I have searched for ways to honor her, to celebrate her life, to keep alive her memory, and to emulate her spirit. I am writing this blog to share stories of my life with her. Her father and I have put in place a memorial scholarship in her name at Truman State University so that she can continue to make a difference in people’s lives. And I am striving each and every day (with varying degrees of success) to be more Mack-like—to be more gentle and less judgmental, to be more patient and less persnickety, and to take some joy each day in at least one of life’s simple pleasures (like gummy candies, a conversation with a friend, or a silly television show). All of these efforts—big and small—have brought me varying degrees of solace.

Yet there is one simple act that lifts my own spirits as much as it gives wings to Mack’s spirit as well. Talking about Mack—sharing a memory, relating a Mack-antic or a Mackism, or chatting about my love and respect for her—helps me breathe, helps me smile, helps me survive in the world without her. Remembering her is key to my mental health, and putting voice to my memories is a soothing elixir to my grieving soul. Of course it is easiest to talk about Mack with my family and my close inner-circle of friends. Most of them are eager to share their own stories or to reminisce with me about “our” lost girl. I love to talk about Mack with people who knew her best of all, but I also want to talk about Mack with people I will encounter in the world for the rest of my life. I want people who will never know Mack to know she was here and to know that she was a significant inspiration in my life. I want them to know that to know me is know that I was her momma bear.

For several months, I have toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo that Mack herself never had the opportunity to get. She often talked of a small, simple shamrock on her foot or ankle to celebrate her Irish heritage and her St. Patrick’s Day birth. Yet the more I considered it, the more I moved away from choosing for myself a small, discrete tattoo that most people would never notice. I began to think that an honorary tattoo in a visible place would not only be my own personal memorial to Mack, but it would also serve as a conversation starter. It would provide opportunities for me to tell the world that I loved and raised and lost my younger daughter.

So, I have done it! There is now a memorial inked on my right wrist. It is a permanent homage to my indelible Mack. It is a conversation piece, inviting people I meet to ask me about my wacky and wonderful daughter. Like Mack’s spirit, it is bright and bold, a stylized Celtic clover made up of four leaves, for luck, in the shape of hearts, for love. The rich greens represent Mack’s Irish heritage and charm, the purple shadows pay homage to her favorite color, and the fierce “M” in her name above the clover reflects her confidence and her courage. I am delighted with my personalized memorial to Mack. It promises to provide me with many random opportunities to tell people I meet that Mack was here in the world and that she mattered to me. It will offer me many chances to share an apt or funny story about my girl. And, most importantly, it will give voice to her memory and lift my spirits in the bargain.

Dreams at 11: Addendum

In my recent “Dreams at 11” blog, I featured a letter that Mack wrote about her basketball dreams. In that letter, she noted that Diana Taurasi was her favorite college and WNBA player. And in the photograph I included of the 11-year-old Mack in front of that giant basketball, she is wearing her Diana Taurasi jersey.

Of course, I had no idea how timely this post would actually be…

Yesterday, the Phoenix Mercury, Diana Taurasi’s team, drafted Mack’s friend and former basketball teammate Alex Harden as the 18th overall pick in the WNBA draft! Mack played recreational ball with Alex and they were teammates at Franklin Middle School. Mack thought the world of Alex as an athlete and as a top-notch kid with a great deal of character. Mack would be absolutely over the moon about this exciting news. Mack’s best friend Justice Collins agrees: “I mean Alex gets to be Diana Taursi’s teammate'” she said, “doesn’t get much better than that. Mack would have been stoked.”

I cannot help but believe that Mack’s spirit will be on the sideline when Alex takes the court for the first time as a teammate of Mack’s childhood idol.

Talk about basketball dreams!

Congratulations, Alex! I am so proud of you; and Mack would have been so proud of you, too.

http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=7500&ATCLID=210028009

Dreams at 11

Among Mack’s school mementos, I found this sealed envelope inscribed in her handwriting:

A few weeks ago, I opened it. And within it, I found the dreams of an 11-year-old girl written in her handwriting, addressed to her future 21-year-old self:

4/8/05 I am 11 years old. I am triing out for the Predators B-Ball team I want to go to UCONN, and then play in the WNBA. My idol is Diana taurasi, that’s why I want to play for UCONN. My good friends are Elyse, Ashley, Amy, Nytro, Laura, Maggie, Nell, Bridget, Hana, Sierra, and Elya.

This is just one of those silly school assignments torn out of a printed activity workbook, but it really does capture the brave hopes and wide eyes of my child. It allows me to know Mack’s dreams at a fixed moment in time. At 11. When the most important thoughts in her head centered on basketball and her friends. What a special memento this is to me now. I wonder if Mack would have remembered writing it. Would she have recognized those dreams of her eleven-year-old self?

Mack worked very hard to achieve the innocent goals she had put into this letter, making her first competitive basketball team just days after writing it. After joining the Predators, Mack dedicated the remainder of her childhood to honing her basketball skills and improving her basketball knowledge. She lived her life with a basketball in her hands so much so that it became a natural extension of her. She bounced it at all hours in her bedroom, making us all crazy. She walked everywhere she went with a basketball tucked between her torso and her inner bicep. And on those rare occasions when Mack was standing still, she loved to entertain with her fancy, ball-handling skills, spinning the ball expertly upon her long fingers. For years there was a basketball rolling around in my car, so Mack could seize every opportunity to bounce it, spin it, or shoot it. She lived in basketball shorts, she gave up her evenings and weekends practicing with her team and shooting hoops in the backyard, and she kept her basketball dreams alive. Mack worked hard and sacrificed much, and we spent so many weekends and so many summers driving her all over the Midwest with her competitive teams that it is sometimes hard for me to think of the young Mack as any other than a basketball player.

It is so sweet to me now to know how important it all had been to her at the tender age of 11. When I think of that kid, full of basketball dreams and sporting the apparel and swagger of an athlete, I cannot help but smile. Here she is at the Fieldhouse in Indianapolis one summer weekend when we attended a WNBA game, where she was in awe of Tamika Catchings, the Indiana Fever point guard. In this photo, she is 11, wearing her Diana Taurasi jersey and her Predator shorts and high-tops. She is, indeed, a basketball player.

Mack, Mariah Bond, Corrine Brent, and Justice Collins.

Mack played competitive basketball for three very successful competitive traveling teams, playing point guard and winning numerous local tournaments, several regional championships, and one international event. She played in two Gus Macker summer championship title games, winning one and lifting what was always her favorite trophy. It was winning Gus Macker with four of her very best friends that left her with her proudest and happiest basketball memory. Mack did well in school ball, too. She was a two-time all-star player at Franklin Middle School, she earned MVP honors of her 8^th grade team, and as a freshman she made varsity at Springfield High School, which went to the Illinois state tournament each of Mack’s four years. Mack had fierce dribbling and ball-handling skills and was a lights-out three-point shooter with a sweet, long stroke. By all accounts, she succeeded in the game. Her hard work served her well.

But like most childhood athletic dreams, Mack’s basketball dreams faded as other interests crowded into her busy life. By her junior year of high school, Mack was losing the desire to put in the hard work needed to play to the best of her abilities, and instead of dreaming of UConn and the WNBA, she was dreaming of college and of her intellectual future. When Mack returned to the Fieldhouse in Indy with her last Predator team the summer before her senior year of high school, she already believed the time was coming for her to leave the game she loved behind her. Posing in the lobby of the arena this time, Mack is 17. This time, that basketball is not quite so big in comparison to my nearly 5’10” girl; nor is it so big in Mack’s more grown-up imagination, either. That weekend tournament was more about hanging with friends than playing ball, more about making memories with her teammates than about improving her jump shot against Indiana’s best players.

By senior year, Mack knew in her head and in her heart that she had lost her desire to play competitive basketball, and a tyrannical high school coach made her decision to give up the game even easier. She toyed with playing at Oberlin, a Division III school; but in the end, she was ready to hang up her high-tops and ready to focus on her intellectual skills instead of her dribbling skills. I questioned Mack’s decision to stop playing, and I applied a great deal of pressure on her to make her change her mind. I had a hard time understanding why she would put in the years of hard work and then stop short of playing in college. But I soon realized that Mack was ready for a life without the game, she was dreaming about life without the game, and she was open to a future beyond it. It took me some time, but I ultimately accepted her choice, and I was proud of her for having the courage to make it.

You know, Mack never regretted her decision to stop playing basketball, but she never regretted the sweat and sacrifices she had made for basketball, either. I think Mack would say that she had not failed to achieve the dreams of her 11-year-old self, but rather the dreams of her 18-year-old self had changed. Basketball dreams had inspired a wonderful childhood journey, and pursuing the game played an important role in the young woman she had become. She was proud of that, and she knew that basketball had served her well. But basketball did not define her, nor did she want it to define her. She wanted to be more than just a basketball player. And in her mind, and in the minds of everyone who knew her, Mack was oh so very much more than just basketball player.

Mack on Sexism and Sports

I miss Mack’s goofy grin. I miss her humor and her charm. I miss her joyous approach to the simple things in life. I miss her freckles. And I miss her intellect, too. Mack’s outward demeanor may have been silly and light-hearted, but she possessed a quiet intelligence, and I loved to engage her in serious conversation. At Truman State, she was blossoming into a social philosopher and a writer, and I lived for our late-night discussions about her coursework in gender studies, creative writing, and literature. I always relished our debates about social issues and pop culture. She was witty and so damn smart. I cherish the conversations we shared. I grieve for the loss of the conversations we will never have.

In the last six months without Mack, there have been untold moments when a news story, an NPR interview with a new author, a Buzz Feed quiz, or some crazy highlight on Sports Center has made me yearn to text her or call her and ask her opinion. I have even, in my head and under my breath, had discussions with her about Ferguson, about the Rolling Stone rape story, about Hillary’s emails, and about the abysmal officiating in the Indiana-Wichita State game in the opening round of this year’s NCAA tournament. In each of these moments and in so many others, I have closed my eyes and tried to hear Mack’s voice. I imagine her serving up an intuitive quip or providing an insightful reflection, because I know that is exactly what she would have done. I valued her opinion in all things, and I am now deprived of her keen insights on all things.

One of Mack’s most admirable traits was her fierce sense of equality and justice, and her sensible feminism always inspired me. Last week, the NFL hired eight new officials for the 2015 season; and one of those new hires is Sarah Thomas. A woman. This news is precisely illustrative of one of those times when I craved Mack’s opinion. I mean, I think it’s great that the NFL has hired a female official, but I want to know what Mack would have thought about it. I want to know how she would respond to the critics who accuse the NFL of political motivations based on a year’s worth of bad publicity. I wish I could talk to Mack about the issues of gender and violence and responsibility surrounding NFL football, a sport we both loved and enjoyed together. If Mack had come home from Spain, she would now be mid-way through her second junior semester and she would have resumed her columns for the Truman State Index. I suspect she might have written about Sarah Thomas. And I have no doubt she would have offered insights born of her intense sense of equality, informed by her personal experience as a football player and a female athlete, tempered by her deep skepticism, and infused with her wit.

In missing Mack’s intellectual voice, I have read and reread her social commentary in the form of her college newspaper columns and class essays and research papers. I have taken some comfort in reading her words, in remembering her voice, and in reflecting on that quiet intellect that I so admired. Mack was still learning and growing as a writer, but she was making an impression on her peers as well as on her momma bear. In remembering Mack, her editor at the Index noted: “She always was a lively participant during our weekly meetings, unafraid to interject her opinions. Mackenzie enjoyed writing about feminist issues, current events, and social issues. She was a skeptic at heart—an important quality for a writer and a thinker.”

I saw Mack as a budding philosopher and a blossoming writer. Mack’s editor valued her opinions and her writing. And I think many others appreciated her wisdom as well. In the absence of Mack’s analysis of the hiring of Sarah Thomas, I am honored to share the following piece of Mack’s work with you now. It is not the cleanest writing she ever did, and it reflects the casual character of a hastily written weekly column by a college kid who always waited until the last possible minute to meet a deadline. But Mack’s voice is there—strong and principled and a bit sarcastic—and I think it provides a window into her smart, feminist soul.

“Sexism is rampant in sports,” by Mackenzie McDermott, Truman State University Index, 11 April 2013

My mother subscribes to the NFL Sunday ticket and watches every game of every season. I also grew up playing almost every organized athletic sport known to man, including tackle football and Taekwondo. Because of my involvement with and knowledge of sports, I never saw or understood that most girls don’t get the same opportunities I did while growing up. It was unusual that I got the opportunity to try my hand at anything I wanted. It was lucky the boys’ teams I joined had supportive and open-minded coaches, children and parents. That’s usually not the way it works. Sexism might be waning slightly, but it certainly still is present and visible when considering sports.

Stereotypes associated with women in sports create a hostile environment. Girls have to break social norms and be subjected to scrutiny to be involved in many of the more “boyish” sports. Because of lack of interest, there might be fewer opportunities for girls to get involved with sports even if they want to. Fewer opportunities perpetuate the idea that girls don’t have a place in sports. These ideas mean NBA players out-earn WNBA players by 200 to one, according to a May 2012 USA Today article. These ideas kept the stands of my high school basketball games empty and those of our male counterparts filled to the brim.

Anyone who says sexism is a thing of the past has never been to a women’s basketball or softball game. Sports should not be dismissed as forms of sexism, but should be observed as a model of the way society regards women and men. A society willing to pay hundreds of dollars to watch a men’s football game obviously has some opinions about the status of men in society. Athletic prowess is characteristic of a strong male, but somehow it is not admirable when seen in women. Male athletes are adored and deified to a ridiculous extent while female athletes are barely recognized. When women are considered, it is with a small shrug and the thought, “She’s good, I guess, for a girl.”

Brittney Griner, a star basketball player for Baylor University, for example, is one of the best female players ever to play college basketball. This isn’t what you hear about, though. Instead, she is criticized for being “manly” by sexist fans. An amazing athlete, who would be looked upon with awe if a man, is instead subjected to discriminatory criticism because she is a woman. This blatant sexism aside, there are undertones even in the language of sports. Everything positive is related to masculinity. You want to be physically strong and emotionally tough, traits seen as positive for men but unladylike for women.

I didn’t know about this type of discrimination until later during my life and for that I’m lucky. I got to have fun the way I wanted to and define myself as an athlete without scrutiny. That opportunity should be given to every girl the way it is given to every boy. Also, boys shouldn’t feel the need to define themselves as athletes just to stick to the status quo either. More opportunities increase interest and thus more understanding about the way women too can be strong, tough and entertaining. Until the stigma about athleticism disappears, sexism will stay alive and well, thinly veiled by the excuse that the men’s game is just more fun to watch.

My Kid in a Candy Store

To say that my sweet Mack adored candy would seriously disrespect the intensity and commitment of her devotion to refined sugar. Candy was a way of life for that kid. Mack was a sugar fiend and a candy monster. If something was sweet and sticky or dusted with glistening sugar, she was all about it. Better yet, if it was sweet and painfully sour, she gobbled it up with glee. She was a shameless consumer of sugar and never apologized for her lack of self-restraint when candy was within her reach. She always said, “I’m that kid in the candy store that people are talking about when they say ‘like a kid in a candy store!’”

Mack loved candy, but her sweet tooth was not sophisticated by any means. She eschewed fine confections like Belgian chocolates and French pate de fruit in favor of sugary candies packaged and marketed for American children. Warheads, Sour Punch Straws, sour gummy bears, Airheads, Skittles, Nerds, Twizzlers, Runtz, and Laffy Taffy were some of her favorites at the age of ten. And they were still her favorites at the age of twenty. Her preferences did not improve with age and, in fact, I think she may well have consumed far more of her childhood favorites after she went away to college. Whenever Mack was home from Truman State, she almost daily visited the little bodega across the street from our loft in order to purchase candy. The week before she left the United States for her study-abroad program, she ate two huge bags of Warheads, because she feared they would be unavailable in Spain. For that indulgence she paid the price, destroying the roof of her mouth. She had to admit then that perhaps she had finally eaten way too much candy. But that was a very rare confession, and she was not really all that sorry about it anyway.

While doing my household shopping over the past few weekends, the bright Easter candy displays have triggered my tears. The yellow marshmallow chicks, the purple jelly beans (her favorite), and the gummy bunnies swathed in sparkling sugar hurt my heart. They are salty reminders of the sweets I can no longer bestow on my candy-crazed kid. Mack enjoyed candy-centric holidays like Easter; and I delighted in showering my sweet girl with her favorites. It was a pleasure for me to collect interesting and colorful versions of all the candy she loved and then present it to her in an overflowing basket. Mack’s reaction to the Easter candy abundance I presented her every year never disappointed: she always bugged out her eyes, sucked in her breath with excitement, and dove into the candy cornucopia with zeal.

Seeing all the beautiful and delicious Easter candy this year has been bittersweet for me. It is sad to know that I will never again fill an Easter basket to maximum capacity for my little candy monster; and it is unbearable to accept the fact that Mack will never again enjoy her favorite candies. But all of that pastel-colored candy and all of those sugary bunnies remind me of my happy girl and her voracious appetite for sugar. She was such a sweet kid, and I suppose it was quite fitting that she loved sugary sweets so well and consumed such large quantities of them. Maybe all of that sugar is what made her so sweet in the first place. Or maybe it is true that the sweetest souls among us are the ones who love candy with the passion and pure delight that Mack did.

A tweet from her summer at home from college and proof of her frequent trips to the bodega across the street.

Savannah

Savannah Arya McDermott is the one thing…the one person…who inspires me to get out of bed every morning and face another day without Mack. She is my amazing older daughter, and she was an amazing big sister as well. Today is Savannah’s 27^th birthday, and I want to brag on her a little. She is an intelligent, feisty, and adventurous young woman, and she really does inspire me. She was an inspiration to her baby sister as well. Mack was very lucky to have had Savannah as her “Sissy,” and here are just a few of the wonderful reasons why…

Unconditional Love: Savannah was an only child for six years, and for most of that time she begged for a baby sister. She was a precocious child (talked at nine months!) and she was an adorable little drama queen. She skipped and twirled through her life, always playing the role of a Disney princess. She was the center of my attention, spoiled rotten, and happy. But she was lonely for a sister. So Mack’s arrival in the world was a big day for Savannah, and she was the happiest little Kindergartner in the world when Principal Hathaway came to her classroom to deliver the news that her sister was born. Savannah cuddled and loved her new baby sister and looked after her like a little momma; she was thrilled to play the role of big sister.

Mack—a goofy comedian and a tomboy with a quiet disposition—grew into a very different person than Savannah—a studious girlie-girl with an outspoken personality. My girls were as different as night and day. Yet their love for each other never wavered, and the guidance my big girl provided my little one never faltered. They fought and fussed like all siblings, but Savannah always loved, respected, and accepted her sister for who she was, what she wanted to do, and who she wanted to be in the future. I have no doubt that a large part of the reason Mack was so accepting and tolerant of others was because Savannah was so accepting and tolerant of her.

Studious Role-Model: Growing up, Savannah was a conscientious student, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer. She was always writing poems and stories, and one of her stories won her a trip to the prestigious Illinois Young Author’s convention in 1999. As a young adult, Savannah was a shining example of the importance of a life-long commitment to reading and to learning. Mack’s dad and I provided evidence of that, too, but a sibling’s example in this regard had much more impact. Mack grew up with a sister who placed importance on school work, always had her nose in book, and at the dinner table and on long car rides enjoyed talking about what she was reading and learning in school. Mack spent much of her life focused more on sports and less on academics, but Savannah was a persistent (non-adult) reminder that there was a world beyond basketball and softball.

Savannah often chided me for letting Mack coast in academics because she was so busy with sports; and she always pushed Mack to choose more challenging books, to study harder, and to take full advantage of her academic opportunities. I am sure there were many times when Savannah believed that her advice was drowned out by the incessant dribbling of basketballs. But by the time Mack finished her freshman year of college, I clearly saw the impact of Savannah’s example. Whenever she was home from Truman State, Mack talked with me about her coursework with the same enthusiasm that Savannah always did about her own. I frequently heard the cadence of big sister’s tone in Mack’s voice, and I well recognized the keen argumentative style she had clearly learned from her as well.

Musicals Make the World Go Round: Two days after Mack was born, Savannah auditioned for her first play. Neither Kevin nor I could bear the thought of missing her audition, so we schlepped the brand-new Mack and all of her brand-new baby accoutrements to the Springfield Theatre Centre in the early morning hours on Saturday, March 19, 1994. Mack spent that second full day of her life in that theatre, and at the end of that long day, her big sister landed a coveted role as a bean person in Jack and the Beanstalk, a musical. I guess all of that singing got into her brain, because Mack, like her sister, adored musical theatre and musical movies for the rest of her life. Every summer, Savannah attended a theatre camp program at the Springfield Theatre Centre, and as soon as Mack was old enough to attend, she joined her big sister. The girls had a blast singing, dancing, acting, and preparing for the final show at the end of the summer session. Savannah was always the ham in these productions, but one time she convinced her sister to audition for a solo part. That summer, Mack sang “Build Me up Buttercup” all by herself in the 1950s-themed final show. We were all proud, but Savannah was particularly thrilled.

Savannah’s influence did not stop at theatre camp. From the time she was tiny, Savannah loved musicals. In fact, she WAS Ariel from The Little Mermaid almost every day of her toddlerhood; and for many weeks when she was just two years old, she scooted up the stairs on her little butt, just like Gretl did in The Sound of Music. “The sun has gone to bed and so must I,” she sweetly sang, as she went off to bed each night. Savannah was happy to have a sister with whom to watch her favorite musicals; and my little girls watched and re-watched, always singing aloud. As Savannah grew up, she added to the rotation more adult shows—like Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge. Together my girls spent hours and hours watching these shows, sometimes singing way into the night. Mack’s interest did not stop when Savannah went to college. After that, she became a devotee of the TV show Glee and she was crazy for the Book of Morman and Next to Normal. Yep, Savannah was single-handedly responsible for Mack’s love of musicals.

Inspiration for Travel and Adventure: Savannah started dreaming about studying abroad and living overseas when she was in junior high school. She worked very hard in her Spanish classes, was always reading about new places, and talked nonstop about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to see. When she left for Indiana University to major in Spanish and International Studies, we all began to realize that she was dead serious about pursuing her dreams. As a college junior, she made the bold choice to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was proud of her, but worried; and Mack thought it was cool that her very own sister was brave enough to live in a place that was so different and so far away. After Savannah graduated from college, she applied for a teaching program in Spain; and once she was accepted, she never looked back. Always determined, prepared, organized, and courageous, my little mermaid left in July 2010 for the adventure of a lifetime. After a month-long trip with a college friend, she moved to southern, rural Spain and began her life as an ESL teacher.

By the time it was Mack’s turn to consider studying abroad, Savannah had lived in southern Spain, spent eighteen months living and working in southern Thailand, and was back in Spain, this time in Madrid. At first, Mack talked about the UK, because she was obsessed with British culture and television. As she told me on many occasions in the months preceding her decision, “I already speak the language, momma bear, and besides, I got that accent down.” But when Savannah weighed into the conversation, challenging her baby sister to choose a location where there would be a language barrier and real culture shock, Mack listened. And you know what? I was not surprised when Mack decided to go to Spain. Savannah had been an inspiration to Mack for her entire life, and it was only fitting that big sister’s influence here would win the day. Savannah was right, and I am pleased that Mack chose Spain. It was the correct decision. And I am so very grateful that she had that short time in Spain, living an adventure, just like Sissy.

So you see, Savannah was an amazing big sister. She made an indelible mark on the life and character of Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott. So much of the person Mack was pays tribute to the sister who loved her and helped her grow into the amazing young woman she became. To know Mack was to know that she was lucky in the sister department. Savannah always loved and accepted her, challenged and inspired her. And I am so proud to have raised them both.

Happy Birthday, Savannah. As Mack would have said, “yous the best.”

Mack Day

Twenty-one years ago today, a leprechaun came dancing into our little family, bringing Irish magic, charm, and shenanigans to our lives. Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott loudly introduced herself at 3:05 in the afternoon on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1994. She was wearing a full head of dark hair, weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and was 21¼ ̎ long. She had perfect skin, sparkling dark brown eyes, a sturdy frame, and a strong little grip. It was the capacity of her lungs, however, that was most impressive to me. As I wrote in her baby book: “she has a lusty cry…temper, temper! Alert from birth, looking around.” I took one look at her little Irish face, all scrunched up in a powerful yell, and I immediately knew that I was in big, fat trouble.

After Mack arrived, St. Patrick’s Day for us was never the same, and I suppose we should credit to some extent the magical day of her arrival in the world with her zest for life and the mischievous quality of her zany personality. The more Mack grew and the more freckles that emerged on her face, the more we all knew that she was a force of nature as vigorous as the Irish surf crashing on the Cliffs of Moher. She was a terrible toddler who engaged with gusto in constant mischief. She was an active and exuberant kid, always running and roaring and making a mess. And throughout her teens, she was a one-girl comedy act, always successful in making everyone who knew her laugh and laugh and laugh some more. Mack played hard, lived loud, and was impossible to ignore. From infancy to toddlerhood and from elementary school to college, she was a bundle of energy, she was a spirited sprite, and she watched for folly and fun around every corner. She was, indeed, our family’s Irish mascot, our own little leprechaun, our jolly little elf.

My Irish imp was ever a handful of trouble, but her sense of humor was infectious and her giggles had the power to melt her momma bear’s heart. Mack learned early on that she could make as much mischief as she wanted to as long as she finished it off with an Irish jig, or a silly joke, or a dimpled grin. Mack was always quick to remind me that she was an Irish daughter who came by her mischief naturally. She embraced her Irish heritage, and she gleefully used it as an excuse for any trouble she caused. She loved the Irish cadence of her full name, wore her freckles with pride, and always believed that having a St. Patrick’s Day birthday was the coolest personal detail of her life.

Throughout the year, Mack was always happy and ready to play the role of our family leprechaun. One year for Halloween she even dressed herself for the part. After school, she went into her bedroom to prepare for trick-or-treating, disappearing with a tub of holiday props I kept underneath my bed. When she emerged, she was wearing what I think is the best Halloween costume she ever had. It was so damn good, in fact, that I was not even mad that she had cut up a perfectly good shirt to make the vest. That night, she skipped and jigged through our neighborhood, collecting her candy and having a blast.

At Barrelhead, our favorite neighborhood bar and grill, where Kevin and I raised our girls on whole, deep-fried catfish and burgers and fries, there was a sign just inside the entrance that counted down the days until St. Patrick’s Day. The sign had chunky wood block numbers that sat in a frame, and the staff religiously updated the numbers each day. We ate at Barrelhead about once a week for something like fifteen years, and every time we entered the bar, Mack would go over to that countdown sign, turn around with a big grin, and shout “275 days until my birthday!” or whatever the magic number was that week. Mack never tired of this ritual; and I always laughed at her, so I guess I never tired of it either. Mack owned St. Patrick’s Day. It was uniquely hers. It was more than a birthday for her. It was a celebration of her Irish self, her inner child, and her devotion to all things silly.

For everyone who knew her, St. Patrick’s Day became Mack’s day. Mack made sure of it; and everyone seemed willing to oblige her. I miss my leprechaun oh so very much. I miss her every…single…day. And my sorrow today, on this first birthday without her, is overwhelming. But I find some solace in knowing that for all of us who loved her so much, St. Patrick’s Day will always be Mack Day.

The Power of a Photograph

Dear Mack,

This would make you crazy, I know, but I have surrounded myself with pictures of you. They give me some comfort throughout each day without you and provide a warm sense that you are still with me and watching over me. Ok, you can stop making fun of me now, young lady. But seriously, I wanted to tell you that there is one photograph to which I have become particularly attached. And, more importantly, I wanted to tell you why I love it so much.

I picked up this cute little metal frame at World Market; it looks a little antiquey and it has a small metal hook tied with a rough-hewn rope. It is a two-sided frame. On one side, I placed one of your wallet-sized senior pictures. I adore this picture, because it is so casual and shows you wearing your favorite Chuck Taylor high tops. In the photo that I placed on the other side of this little frame, you are all dolled-up ready for prom, and I am a privileged interloper in the shot. The two photos provided the contrasting images of you that I deliberately sought; one casual and one fancy, together in a convenient portable frame. This frame I carry around with me like a security blanket. It spends time in the kitchen when I am cooking, sits on the arm of my favorite leather chair when I am reading or watching a basketball game, and spends the night on my bedside table.

Lately, I have noticed that it is the prom picture side that I choose to more frequently display; and this is the picture that has become so important to me. I noticed myself getting lost in that photograph, and I determined to give some serious thought about why I was finding is so compelling. I stared at it for a long, long while, and I embraced the powerful way in which it encapsulates so many of my memories of you.

My dear, sweet Mack, I love this picture of us because:

You look absolutely beautiful. Even though beauty was not important to you and it is the least important reason why you were so special, I always thought you were beautiful. Gorgeous skin. Adorable freckles. Silky smooth and shiny hair. Statuesque physique. Here you are in this photo without a speck of makeup; and here you are looking absolutely perfect. You said you felt uncomfortable in that dress, but you do not look awkward at all. You were a natural beauty.
It shows the ridiculous size difference between us that you always found so amusing. I think I might have been standing in a bit of a hole here, but in the interest of full disclosure I will remind you that you were wearing flat sandals so you would not be taller than Abhinav. Yet even if I would have been standing on that concrete ledge next to my feet, you still would have towered over me. This picture reminds me that our size difference made your special mom hugs possible. I loved it when you would rest your chin hard on the top of my head, squeeze me, and call me a “small huggable person.” You did it the day your dad took this photo, just before you left our front yard for dinner and the prom.
You are holding your damn phone! Even there, all dressed up for prom, the phone is present. I am pretty sure I did not notice you were holding it when we took the picture. Surely, I would have chastised you and made you put it down for two seconds. But now, seeing it in this context, it makes me smile.
Our favorite family hosta plant is bursting out of the ground behind us. It was only spring and there it is already well on the way to its annual takeover of the flower bed. We used to laugh and laugh about that stupid plant, because you said it epitomized our silly employment of the term “from the Pleistocene Epoch” for everything we saw that was abnormally humongous. You made me laugh, Mack. You even made hostas funny. I loved that about you.
In this photo, I am one happy mom. Being your momma bear was a tremendous joy and watching you grow and participate in the important events of your life were the happiest days of my life. You and Sissy were my best accomplishments. You and Sissy provided the most important pleasures in my life. I am so grateful for the experiences you gave me; and I am grateful now for photographs like this one that help me relive the best twenty years of my life when I was the mother of two precious girls.

Singing to Lamps

Mack was born a professional procrastinator. She waited until the absolute last second to do everything that needed doing. She penned school papers the night before they were due, crammed for tests on the day they were scheduled, and met important deadlines on deadline and not a day or a week beforehand. She never worried about unfinished tasks that were in front of her. She was never anxious about the consequences of putting them off too long. She never lost sleep because of them. And she certainly never let them interfere with the silly things she wanted to do instead. From her first days as a little elementary school kid to her days as a college student, Mack made a sport of putting off things until tomorrow.

Mack was no ordinary procrastinator, however. She possessed a very particular skill; and it was that skill that separated her from the amateurs. Mack had a talent for knowing exactly how much time and energy were required to successfully complete an undesirable task. In her mind, there was certainly no good reason to spend three hours writing for literature class an essay on, say, The Scarlet Letter, the weekend before it was due if in fact it could be done in an hour and fifteen minutes at 10:45 p.m. the night before it was due. Fortunately, Mack was a naturally good student. She would finish that essay at midnight or later and, usually, receive an “A” for her minimal effort. It was impossible to teach Mack about the potential consequences of procrastination for us mere mortals when the goddess of procrastination seemed impervious to them.

Maybe because of her amazing triumphs in procrastination, Mack was not a quiet or accidental procrastinator, either. She actively celebrated her willful procrastination and she encouraged her friends to join her. It was during the times when Mack and all of her friends should have been studying that Mack was the most ridiculous. Whether she was on a school bus with the basketball team coming home late from an away game, or working on a group project at Barnes and Noble, or studying with one friend on the floor of her bedroom, she was a goofy distraction to herself and to everyone in her vicinity. It was during these times when she told her silliest jokes, made up absurd poems and songs, and regaled her friends with her foul language and her unique sense of humor. Why keep your nose in a book or stare at an unfinished essay on your computer when you could dance in your bra and over-sized sweatpants, make a seven-ingredient omelet (eggs, onion, olives, mushrooms, cheddar, basil, and hot sauce) at 10 o’clock at night, play a game of who-can-text-the-silliest-word-or-combinations-of-words with Maggie, or sing a love song to a lamp?

Even more than the perpetual messy state of Mack’s bedroom, my younger daughter’s procrastination made me crazy. You see, I am the antithesis of a procrastinator. I complete unpleasant tasks as soon as it is humanly possible to do so in order to put the unpleasantness behind me; because as long as it is in front of me, I will do nothing but wring my hands and worry over it. On this point, Mack and I did not understand each other very well at all. She probably said to me a million times: “Don’t worry, Momma Bear, I’ll do it tomorrow.” She made me even crazier when instead of studying she would clomp up the stairs to my loft office with her computer to show me fifteen videos of giant baby pandas going down slides. The next thing I knew, an hour was gone and neither one of us had accomplished a damn thing but to fall deeply in love with those baby bears, to coo with syrupy sweetness over their adorableness, and to discuss a plot to steal one the next time we went to a zoo.

Mack was a genius when it came to sucking everyone around her into her personal plot to practice the fine art of procrastination. No one, not even me, was immune to the inappropriate timing of her amusements. She always put fun and laughter ahead of chores, and I think she always understood when the people around her needed a little levity. As far as she was concerned, everyone needed to be silly and to have a little fun when they were working on something serious and not fun, like schoolwork. And if singing to a lamp might provide the humor that was needed both for herself and others, then she was more than honored and thrilled to oblige us all.

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Being Mack's Momma Bear

A blog in honor of a beautiful life.

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