Tag Archives: life

First Friends

In the fall of 1993, I took my sweet Savannah to kindergarten at Dubois Elementary School in Springfield, Illinois; I signed up to be a classroom mom; and Mack “met” her first friend. Well, kind of, because Mack had not quite arrived in the world, and neither had her first friend. You see, there was a sweet boy named Ian in Savannah’s classroom who had a mom who took him to kindergarten and signed up to be a classroom mom just like me. This other classroom mom, Cynthia, was petite like me; she had long and straight brown hair like me; she was strong-willed and sassy, like me; and she was pregnant, like me. My Mack and her Elyse spent that school year in kindergarten “together” growing into the adorable babies who would be born in 1994 on March 17 and April 12, respectively, while Cynthia and I organized the hell out of all the other classroom moms.

kindergarten bio
Mack’s kindergarten bio, in her hand, in her school memories book I made for her (and frequently had to force her to complete)

Now it turned out that Mack and Elyse ended up in the same kindergarten class at Dubois exactly six years later; and they became great friends. It was always a running joke with the two of them that they had known each other in utero and they even frequently succeeded in convincing people that they were sisters. Elyse lived with her family in our historic neighborhood north of Washington Park, coincidentally, in a work-in-progress old house full of animals just like ours; and those two girls had two funky, fun, and familiar homes to grow up in together, and they had extra parents and siblings in the bargain. After school and during the summer months, they rode their bikes and walked back and forth between each other’s houses, often stopping at the Hometown Pantry along the way for giant slushies and sour candies.

Generally speaking, Mack and Elyse were good kids and good students and steered clear of illegal activities. However, there was one time when they were supposed to be playing on the Dubois playground just up Lincoln Avenue from our house, when a Springfield police officer called to inform me that Mack was in big trouble and I should come collect her immediately. I arrived at the school to find the officer, perhaps playing the stern cop a little too seriously, standing beside a very wide-eyed Mack and a sobbing Elyse. Also standing by, looking very worried, were two male co-conspirators, twin boys who were classmates of the girls. One of them was named Chris, but I’ll be damned if can remember the name of the other one. And I really should remember it, because surely those twins were the first two boys to lead my Mack and Cynthia’s Elyse astray. Mack, Elyse, and the delinquent twin boys had climbed on top of a small maintenance building behind the school that the kids called the “smokehouse,” because it had a steam pipe that always billowed smoke into the air. Mack always adamantly swore that they were not kissing, but just hanging out on the flat roof of the two-story building when the Po-Po (Mack’s word, not mine) spotted them, assessed the situation as potentially dangerous, and then decided to scare the little criminals onto a more law-abiding path. I decided that the Po-Po’s stern warning was punishment enough for Mack, as it was the first time I had ever seen that kid rattled. Elyse’s punishment was more severe, as I recall, but all of the bad parts of this misadventure faded. No harm done, and it became one of those wonderful life-bonding moments for the girls, a forever memory of their shared wicked and fun childhood.

Poor Willie, in between Elyse and Mack!
First Friends, First Hugs
Where this is, I do not know. Field trip, perhaps?
Mack’s head was a good armrest for Elyse

After elementary school, Elyse and Mack went to separate middle schools; and Mack’s heavy sports schedule reduced the time the girls had together. Yet they always stayed connected and maintained their unique “first friend,” growing-up-together bond. I guess they were really more like sisters or cousins than friends; and that is one of the reasons that Elyse is stuck with me forever. I was an extra Momma Bear to her during hundreds of hours spent in my house, on my front porch, and in my backyard and eating my food and listening to me gripe about Mack’s messy room or legendary procrastination. Elyse is simply one of those kiddos I am happy to have adopted and to whom I have pledged a lifelong commitment as an extra mom.

For her first big-girl job, Elyse recently moved to St. Louis near where I live, and we planned a little reunion. And would you believe that sweet young woman happily joined me for an early Saturday morning walk through the Missouri Botanical Garden? Of course, I bribed her a little, with Starbucks before and French pastries at my favorite patisserie afterwards. We spent three perfectly lovely hours strolling through the gardens and talking about the past, the present, and the future. She shared some worries, I offered some mom advice, we laughed over some Mack stories, including the infamous Smokehouse Incident, and posed for a Big-Mack hug in the luscious greenhouse. Most importantly, though, we allowed our kinship, the flowers and the trees, and the gentle spirit of the gardens to push aside our sorrows, to refresh our spirits, and to appreciate the bond we have because Mack was here in the world to love us.

Yeahhh, It’s Brrroken

A couple of weeks ago on my lunchtime walk, it was hot, my bare shoulders burned in the direct sun, and I was a little sweaty. However, the stunning architectural view looking east up Market Street toward the steely Gateway Arch, glistening in the afternoon sun, negated any physical discomfort. The sky was brilliant blue, my brain was taking a much-needed break, and my eyeballs were relieved to see something other than my computer screen. My cellphone buzzed in my brown and black Coach satchel, strapped across my shoulder, and shattered my serene respite from the workday. I stopped walking and dutifully pulled the phone out of the bag and squinted at it in the bright sunshine. Nothing important. Of course. Just a junk email. As I began to replace the phone into the usually convenient side pouch of the satchel, it slipped from my sweaty fingers and crash landed, face down, on the smoldering sidewalk. It was one of those times when a few seconds unfold in slow motion right in front of your eyes, but you are paralyzed, unable to intervene, powerless to prevent the unfortunate consequences you know are coming.

I stared down at my poor little IPhone, Snoopy on the back of the phone case starring back up at me, beaming cuteness that belied the shattered glass beneath it. I cringed as I replayed the sound of the cracking the phone had made when it smacked down so hard on the pavement. I just looked at that damn phone, unable to face the truth, unable to rescue it from its pathetic position at my feet. And then I heard Mack giggle. And then I heard Mack quote Monalisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny as she was finally admitting to her fiancé that the drippy faucet in their crappy hotel room was not functioning within normal parameters. I heard Mack’s voice loud and clear, cutting through my stunned silence, mocking my failure to keep my cellphone safe from the cruel world on a hot and sweaty day in St. Louis. I closed my eyes, I shook my head from side to side, and Mack, in her best, oft practiced, nasally Brooklyn accent, said: “yeahhh, it’s brrroken.” And then she giggled at me once more.

In 20 years or whatever it’s been since I have been using a cellular device, I have NEVER, before now, lost or broken a cellphone. Mack was the lucky beneficiary of my good cellphone record; because that kid had more broken and lost phones than working and found ones. Mack was the kid whose cellphones were always cracked, scratched, disfigured, missing parts, or on the fritz. Mack was the kid who dropped a cellphone off the railing of our front porch into the late summer foliage below, where while preparing the yard for spring plantings months later, I found it, crusted with soil, rusting, and wedged into the dirt among the Hosta sprouts. Mack was the kid whose friends provided backup phones because she had lost or broken yet another of her own. Mack was the kid who used every single one of my cellphone upgrades and her dad’s cellphone upgrades (as well as her own) for nearly a decade. I mean, seriously, during Mack’s reign of terror on her cellular devices, I used one flip phone for SIX years!

For those of you who did not know Mack and may suspect that I am engaging in gross hyperbole or perhaps even slandering my dear sweet girl, just read the following series of Facebook posts from one year in the life of “Mack with a Cellphone”…

February 11

March 22

August 22

October 17

As you can guess, in 2009 (and every other year, really), I yelled and screamed and carried on about Mack’s irresponsible cellphone ownership. I also frequently set myself up as a model example of responsible cellphone ownership, bragging about my perfect record and flashing a pristine cellphone screen and a shiny cellphone casing with all of its corner’s and its back intact. Yet Mack was never impressed. In fact, she thought it was absolutely ridiculous that I was so careful and so perfect and so smug. And do you know what? I think maybe that little imp nudged my phone from my sweaty and precarious grip that day on a St. Louis sidewalk when I so spectacularly shattered my phone as well as so spectacularly shattered my superhuman streak of responsible cellphone ownership. But, whatever and no matter. By the time I had found the strength to pick up my phone and to inspect the carnage, I fully understood why Mack was giggling at me; and I had to giggle at me, too.

Here is my phone and my girl. Don’t you think she at least looks a little guilty?

 

Mack, Me, and Dorothy Parker

For nearly twenty years, I have had this funny set of four coasters. White ceramic. Annoyingly useless for absorbing condensation formed and dripping from tumblers full of icy beverages. No matter, though, because I did not keep them for their utility. Rather, I kept them for the quatrain printed neatly upon them, one line of the punchy verse per coaster. Since I received the set, a gift from a close friend, I have kept them stacked, in order of the verse, easily accessible on prominent tables in my home for the enjoyment of any visitor who dares to use or to inspect them. Over the years, I have often been delightfully rewarded for my brazen display of these coasters; because so hilarious have been the scenes of unwitting visitors, especially innocent teenagers, who have picked up the stack and shuffled through each coaster, reading each one out loud:

I’d like to have a martini.
Two at the very most.
At three I’m under the table.
At four I’m under the host.—Dorothy Parker

While I always enjoyed the shocked, wide-eyed and gaping-mouthed horror of teenagers who walked right into this little trap, Mack enjoyed it even more. For surely we were the me and mackonly house with children that kept such scandalous literature out for all to see. As soon as a friend would pick up the stack of coasters or take hold of the top coaster to employ it, Mack would issue a deep “heh-heh-heh-heh” and wait for that friend to start reading. If necessary, she would encourage the visitor to inspect the verse, and then she stood back and let the magic happen. I was witness to several such encounters in which innocent teens read the verse loudly and dramatically, belting out each line; the rhyme taking hold of their good sense and rendering them powerless to stop the punch line from passing across their lips. These scenes sent Mack into fits of giggles, and she and I shared knowing glances. That stack of coasters was a shared prop of plotted good humor in our old Springfield house. An inside joke with Mack, me, and Dorothy Parker.

Today for me that stack of under-performing but delightful coasters is a humorous artifact of my life with Mack; and that erroneously attributed ditty printed upon them has become something of a little legend in my mind. A legend of Mack. A legend of Dorothy Parker. A legend of a couple of smart and witty dames who made me laugh…who make me laugh. You see, when Mack and I enjoyed our coasters and used them as a prop for evil, we believed that Dorothy Parker wrote those delicious lines. We had no reason to doubt. It certainly sounded like something she would have written or said. Besides, Dorothy Parker’s name lent credibility and elevated the brow of the joke, which made it all the funnier to us both. We were not pushing dirty limericks. We were dealing in fine literature. And that made us laugh all the louder.

A couple of months ago, I picked up a musty old first edition of the Viking Portable Library’s Dorothy Parker, published in 1944. I paid $1.95, and I’ve certainly gotten my money’s worth, as I have been toting it everywhere I go. It’s about four inches wide and six inches tall, the faded brown, hardcover binding is pliable from wear, and the pages when flipped fill the air with the pungent yet pleasing fragrance of a used book store. I’ve been carrying around this little book, reading the poems and prose within it, laughing and crying, imagining Parker holding court at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, and imagining Mack holding court in our Springfield living room with our coasters. In the reading and through my emotions in that reading, I have been feeling connected not only to Dorothy Parker, but also to Mack. Because I don’t think Mack read much if any of Dorothy Parker, and I am so very sorry about that.  I think Mack would have loved Dorothy Parker. Mack would have understood the quiet reflection and hint of sadness under the brash style and sharp wit. Mack would have marveled at the melody and tone of a charming and imperfect woman who lived life. She would have appreciated Parker’s ability to cut to the heart of a matter and not waste a person’s time with frivolous details.

I think Mack was a little bit like Dorothy Parker, who was intelligent and wise, an astute observer of humanity and the wonder and absurdity of life. I have been hearing Mack’s voice within Parker’s words on the page. Spending time with my worn little volume of Parker’s work (and learning that Parker did not write that quatrain on our coasters!), has made me see that I have actually been reading as much for Mack as I have been for me. Sometimes the life experiences we have—in this case my discovery of Dorothy Parker’s poems—can, indeed, be shared with the dear people whom we are missing. So if you’ve wondered where we’ve been, Mack and I have been away together on a little journey with Dorothy Parker, drinking martinis and talking about life.

And here is a little Dorothy Parker for you:

My favorite for Mack…
Inventory
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

My favorite for Dorothy…
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying—
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

My favorite for me…
On Being a Woman
Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I’d give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth, I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?
And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me—then
I scream to have you back again?

And, while Dorothy did not pen the verse on my coasters, she did, in fact, pen this:

News Item
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

coasters

Our delightful coasters!

Mack Day Pledge

Just three months after losing Mack, I made a pledge to honor her by being more Mack-like. I made that pledge, in the form of a New Year’s resolution, in the early fog of my grief; and it proved far too ambitious for someone struggling just to breathe. But today, I am a stronger, less devoured by my sorrows, more resilient against the anxiety and hopelessness and self-pity that settle deep within the bones of a grieving mother. I am not now, nor will I ever be, whole again without my Mack, but I am a million miles away from the place I was in January 2015.

Therefore, today, March 17, 2017, on what would have been Mack’s 23rd birthday, my third Mack Day without her, I am renewing that pledge to be more like her, to emulate her best qualities, and to honor her life by living a better life. Happy Birthday, Mack. You are missed. You are loved. You are an inspiration.

The Be-More-Mack-Like Pledge:

Enjoy life: Mack possessed a happy and joyous spirit. She lived in the moment, never letting worries or doubts interfere with living. She cherished time with her friends, saw humor in the darkest corners, and always experienced her favorite pastimes with the enthusiasm and wide eyes of a young child. She delighted in life’s simple joys like food, for which she was always appreciative, paying her special kind of homage with a perfect, memorable last bite. Her philosophy was to slow down and breathe in what you love, never wasting a moment that might turn out to be your very last one.

Be a good friend: Mack did not just make acquaintances and good friends, she collected amazing people who became best friends. I think that people were, in part, drawn to Mack because she exuded a quiet, unpretentious confidence, but I think they held on tight to her because she accepted people for who they were. Once you were in Mack’s heart, you were in there forever, and she never judged, second-guessed, or questioned your worthiness to be there. She made good use of her beautiful open mind, her tender and open heart, and her capacity for a whole lot of unconditional love.

Try something new: Mack was fearless, and she either hid all evidence of her doubts or she never harbored them in the first place. At six, she played tackle football with boys. She signed up for discus in middle school track unconcerned that her noodle arms might fail her. And in a final act of courage, she moved all by herself to remote Burgos, Spain, where she knew no people and absolutely no Spanish. Mack was brave and bold, unafraid to put that fresh, freckled face out into the world.

Relax: No one who ever took a nap in the history of the world was better at relaxation than Mackenzie. She wrote the book on kicking back and taking it easy, and she suffered no serious. Why worry when you could lay flat on your back, eat junk food, and watch Sponge Bob? Mack was calm, cool, and collected by nature; and she passed out prescriptions for her own medicine like candy. Her presence in a room kept the nervous and restless demons at bay for everyone. Mack always told me to “simmer down and chill out” and frequently reminded me that it is hard as hell to enjoy spicy Thai food if your insides are riddled with ulcers.

Laugh: Mack laughed, chortled, snorted, chuckled, cackled, tittered, hee-hee-ed, and guffawed constantly. She was a professional giggler who understood that laughter is nature’s tonic for almost anything that ails the human heart. She was a master of the bad joke, she saw humor where most might only find tears, and her goofy wit was an important quality of her charm. Her laughter cured the world around her, medicine to all who had the privilege to hear it. I believe that laughter, more than any other gift that she left us, is the one she would most want us to keep.

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I have survived to take another stab at my pledge to be more Mack-like because I have my sweet Savannah to give me peace, perspective, and perseverance. I have my supportive husband and family to give me love and strength. I have my dear friends to nurture me, my puppy dogs to calm me, my writing to ease my suffering, and the scholarship at Truman State to carry Mack’s legacy far, far, far into the future. As well, thanks to Mack’s best friend Justice, I also have the gift of Project Mack, which makes being Mack-like look so damn easy…and fun. Just like Mack.

Mack would call me lucky. So on that good note, you good people, I am celebrating this year’s Mack Day by renewing my pledge to be more Mack-like. I am asking all of you to be more Mack-like, too. Go ahead, now; make a pledge to enjoy life, to be a good friend, to try something new, to relax, and to laugh. Concentrate on one or two of those plays out of Mack’s own good-life playbook or dive right in and tackle them all. Mack would call this an easy-peasy request, and Project Mack would agree. And if you find being more Mack-like makes you feel too good to keep it all to yourself, free to make a donation to Project Mack to spread the love.

For my Springfield, Illinois, friends, there is also an opportunity to combine your own Mack Day pledge with a special “2K17 Mack Day Celebration.” On March 25, from 2-4 p.m., Project Mack is hosting a party at Southeast High School to recognize thirty high school students in District 186 who are making a difference and living a life of impact. There will be music, cake, and a memorial balloon launch. I will be there to honor my girl, soak up the health-giving love of Project Mack, and publicly acknowledge the pride I have for my Mackenzie Kathleen—my joyful, impish, dancing, Irish leprechaun—and the breathtaking imprint she left on the world.

Mack Day Celebration

Mack Memo #5: Just Be Cool

A very cool math teacher Mack had in middle school assigned his students to construct an item that he could stand on without breaking. He was a big fella with a big sense of humor, and Mack thought it was just about the coolest homework she ever had. It was one of those rare school projects that she did not procrastinate, and she immediately engaged her Papa Bear and his carpentry skills to meet the challenge.block I cannot now recall the particular details of the assignment, but there were rules about dimensions and weight and solid objects did not qualify. Mack and her dad dug through the scrap wood in the basement, did some measuring and sawing, and came up with a hefty little step (measuring in at 11¾” x 5.5″ x 2¾”) with a big hole in the middle of it. Not satisfied that the bare wood did the successful design justice, Mack personalized it in Irish-green spray paint and some stick-on letters.

That green, math-teacher-holding block of wood sat around in Mack’s bedroom in Springfield for years (responsible for at least a couple of stubbed toes and a few creative screams of obscenities) and got packed up and moved to her bedroom in St. Louis, too. She displayed it on her desk, a funny reminder of a cool teacher. Now it occupies a corner of the bureau in my bedroom, a funny reminder of a cool kid. Every day, this unique artifact of Mack’s life catches my attention, and memories of her cool persona make me smile. When Mack applied those letters to write “Mack is Cool!” on the block, she was just being silly, putting her witty mark on a witty school project. But now those letters preserved on that green block of reclaimed wood forever encapsulate the spirit of Mack’s cool. Mack really was always so damn cool. But not just the too-cool-for-school kind of cool. Mack was also cool in the cool-as-a-cucumber kind of cool. And it was the refreshing combination of those seemingly contradictory cools that contributed so much to Mack’s charm and magnetism. It was also that healthy combination of cools that gave her astounding inner and outer peace. Mack exuded a cool confidence and lived her life with the easy calm of a warm, ocean breeze. Mack’s be-cool-because-it’s-all-cool attitude kept her even-keeled and happy and it also rubbed off on the people in the room with her. Mack-cool had a way of diffusing tension, lowing blood pressures, and making fast friendships.

This morning as my eyes rested on that green block of wood and the “Mack is Cool!” lettering, I said out loud: “You know what, Mack? Everyone in the world could use a whole bushel basket full of your brand of cool in 2017.” I could picture a crooked smile forming on Mack’s lips as she said: “Well, then just be cool, Momma Bear. It’s super simple. Just. Be. Cool.” But while cool came naturally to my sweet girl, I do not possess that gift, and I have lived long enough to know that it does not comes so naturally to most people, either. Because it is, actually, very difficult to be cool when the disagreements between people are fundamental. It is very difficult to be cool in the face of the political, economic, and social chasms that divide us. It is very difficult to be cool with people when there is no foundation of assumed facts and shared values to build bridges across such wide divides. I believe that all of these difficulties will become increasingly harder in 2017, because the incoming president thrives on those divisions between us and seeks so readily to maintain them. Since November, I have found it extremely difficult to keep my cool. But anger stands in where cool should be, and as is so very often the case, anger has accomplished nothing. In fact, my anger has settled into my bones and it has been making me sick. I really do not wish to spend 2017 angry and sick, so I need to get me a whole bushel basket full of Mack-cool. Like me, Mack would have been disappointed in the 2016 election and the divisive words and actions of the president-elect would have startled her. But Mack would have stayed cool. She never would have let anger settle into her bones and make her sick. “Just be cool, woman,” she would have told me. “Just. Be. Cool.”

So being Mack-cool in 2017 is gonna be my goal. I will no doubt fail at various points along the way and occasionally scream an obscenity or two at the news or Twitter, but I promise to emulate Mack as best as I can. I will try to get me some cool and keep the anger out of my bones. This does not mean that I will accept the political propaganda, the divisive rhetoric, and the hateful lies that have been so successful in robbing me of my cool. It just means that I will try to manage my responses the way Mack would have managed hers. Because holding onto anger really does make you sick; and all I really want to do anyway is just be cool like my Mack. I suppose it is entirely possible that if I find a little success in this cool endeavor, I might be able to make some small difference in the world. But at the very least, though, my weary bones will thank me for giving them a lighter load to carry.

Mack Memo #5: No matter what happens, no matter what is said, always be cool. Cool looks good on you. Cool influences friends and wins restful slumbers. Just. Be. Cool.

Life on the Monkey Bars

In the fall of Mack’s second grade year, she fell off the monkey bars during recess and broke her arm. When I arrived at the school to pick her up, she was sitting on a plastic school chair in the office, and the playground monitor, a woman named Rachel whom I had known for many years, was supporting Mack’s arm on her clipboard. Mack was not crying and, in fact, she and Rachel were giggling, no doubt sharing some sports-related playground secret. But I almost cried when I bent down to inspect her arm. Although the skin was not broken, Mack’s poor little radius bone was grossly protruding upwards, clearly snapped free from the wrist. Mack looked up at me with those deep, warm, and brown eyes of hers and said, “Can I get some candy for this boo-boo?” Rachel looked at me, shook her head and said, “Not a tear. Just plans for candy.”

Mack never cried about that badly broken arm, not from the physical pain nor from the disappointment of the premature end to her tackle football season. She did not complain about the discomfort of the cast, and, in fact, she bragged about her colorful choice for the first large cast and wore the smaller purple cast that followed like a badge of monkey-bar honor. With the exception of a good punching of her sister, who laughed at the woolly arm that emerged when the purple cast came off, Mack kept that broken arm perfectly in perspective. As was typical, she never dwelled on her problems, big or small. And, perhaps most importantly, as soon as that cast was off, she was right back on those monkey bars. It was always her inclination to take in stride inconveniences and disappointments, and she never allowed life’s bumps and bruises to replace her joy for a thing with fear.

I recognized those qualities of Mack’s character at a very early age, and I admired them, partly because they were so unique in a little kid and partly because I was incapable of naturally emulating them myself. Mack always was a bigger human being than her Momma Bear. She put her seriously injured arm in her stride. She kept calm and carried on with her life as if the pain and the inconvenience was of no consequence. She never hunted for sympathy or felt sorry for herself. In contrast, when an old, rope-hung window smashed the three middle fingers of my prominent hand, I wailed like a baby, demanded sympathy from anyone who would listen to the story of my injury, and complained at the inconvenience during the entire healing process. It became a family inside joke for many years afterwards that I sure did talk a lot about those smashed fingers of mine.

This fall, I suffered a serious professional and personal disappointment that knocked me off of my feet. Earlier in the year, the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield seized control of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project for which I had worked for twenty years, and forced me out of my scholarly editing position in November. True to form, I cried, ranted, and raved about how unfair it was that being a long-serving, exemplary employee with a project I had helped to build ended up being worth so little. My appointment is with the University of Illinois Springfield and not with the Library, so I was not losing a paycheck or benefits, just being reassigned. Instead of feeling lucky that I still had a job, I took to feeling very sorry for myself, moping around, casting blame, and holding a whole hell of a lot of negative energy in my soul.

Then I thought about Mack’s broken arm, or rather her gracious handling of the injury. I pictured that sweet little kid sitting there on that school chair, her grotesque wrist quietly  balanced on that clipboard, and those big brown eyes, free of tears, as she asked me for candy. I remembered how Mack happily cheered on her football team from the sidelines during the Super Bowl victory from which that broken arm had kept her, never moping or feeling sorry for herself for missing the opportunity to play that day. And I remembered how she popped right back up onto those monkey bars just as soon as her arm was healed, because it was not in her nature to do otherwise.
broken-arm-4

Mack understood that life’s bumps, bruises, and disappointments were a part of the journey, and dwelling on them and sucking the people around you into the vortex of your self-pity is a really rotten way to spend a day. Given what I have learned about unexpected tragedy, genuine personal loss, and the cruel companion that is grief, I should not need a refresher course in perspective. But, alas, I do. Frequently, I admit. Unlike my precious Mack, my sense of calm and perspective is an ugly and imperfect work in progress. I needed the memory of Mack’s arm and her incredible grace, and it was just the slap upside my head that I needed. Now instead of moping about my lost position, I am pouring my enthusiasm into my new challenge at the University, helping develop a plan for a campus institute for Abraham Lincoln Studies. The example of Mack’s brave endurance and fearless resolve also inspired me to take a risk and make a creative application for a part-time, scholarly editing position at the Jane Addams Papers Project. On December 9, I accepted the position, which offers the exhilarating challenge to study a different historical era for me and explore a new professional path. Mack no doubt would have made a crack about how it was past time for me get out of Lincoln’s grill, and I can hear her vociferous approval of my new scholarly focus on an important humanitarian and feminist.

What I had at first interpreted as a nasty, unexpected, professional curve-ball, I now see as a big, fat softball coming in across the middle of the plate. Mack is, as always, coaching me to hit the ball out of the park. My latest Mack-reality check helped me to not only put the disappointment in my stride, but also to get back up on the monkey bars. Of course, I am uncertain about what the future of my new professional opportunities will hold, but I know I have the heart to give them my best effort. And with Mack swinging on the bars next to me, smiling from ear to ear, I will endeavor to keep the bumps, bruises, and disappointments along the way in the proper perspective.

monkey-bars

monkey-bars-3

Mack Memo #4: Nothin’ You Can Do About It Now

One Sunday many years ago, Mack, her dad, and I headed home from a youth basketball tournament just like we did on so many Sundays during Mack’s competitive basketball career. We passed through the University of Illinois campus, where we had spent the weekend. We traversed nearly the entirety of the twin towns of Urbana and Champaign. We drank leftover Gatorade and engaged in some small talk, perhaps about the basketball facility, a bad ref, or a Mack-crazy assist to one of her favorite inside targets. But soon we settled in for the ninety-minute drive home to Springfield, and then Mack tuned out with her headphones, ear spray wafting up to me in the front passenger seat. It was a typical afternoon in our basketball lives. But as we were cruising at 75 mph on Interstate 74, nearing the town of Monticello, a soft little voice, quiet and matter-of-fact, whispered from the back seat: “Hey, mom, do you have my basketball bag?”

Of course, I did not. Of course, I yelled a few obscenities, demanding answers as to the said bag’s whereabouts. Of course, Mack feigned investigative effort, leaning over the back seat of my Honda Element to search the trunk, but knowing full well that the bag was sitting on the sidewalk outside of the recreational center on the University of Illinois campus, so many fucking miles behind us. As I loudly recited a list of the bag’s contents, offering appraisals as to each item’s monetary value, Mack maintained the resting heartbeat of a person who was sleeping. As I frantically, and maybe even a little hysterically, called coaches who might have stayed behind after we were gone, Mack was cool and composed in the face of the unfortunate situation and in the path of her Momma Bear’s wrath. While I raged at her about responsibility and warned about consequences of the lack thereof, Mack’s easy breathing in the vicinity of my stress over her lost basketball apparel, would have been the envy of even the most secluded Buddhist monk. As she always did in unfortunate situations, Mack remained perfectly relaxed and serene even in the knowledge that she might never again see her beloved and perfectly broken-in Nike high-tops. As she frequently said, and certainly uttered in some form or another on that day as well, “Oh, well,” shoulders shrugging, “nothin’ I can do about it now.”oh-mack

As it turned out, Mack’s basketball bag made its way into the car of a coach of another team who recognized the Predator logo upon it. There was no hard lesson for Mack to learn and, in fact, the good luck only reinforced Mack’s perspective on the whole sordid affair. When the bag with the entirety of its contents returned to her, Mack sweetly reminded me of how much energy I had expended in the car that day. Mack knew that sweating and fretting and carrying on was of no use. It could not change the fact that Mack, distracted by giving hugs to parting competitors and teammates, had left the bag sitting on the sidewalk in the first place. It did not cause a coach who knew Mack’s team to recognize the bag and pick it up for safekeeping. And even if the bag and those beloved Nikes had been lost forever, Mack knew that sweating and fretting and carrying on had no power to change that either.

For years, this Mack story was just one of dozens of illustrations of the peaceful and lackadaisical quality of her nature in striking contrast to the frenetic and worry-wart quality of my own. But during this past year, I have been practicing meditation and the basic principles of mindfulness in an effort to quell my anxiety and to lead my restless mind to some peace. In this personal journey, Mack’s natural sense of peace has been my guide, and this particular Mack story is now an inspirational one for me. Though I am still very much a novice, my practice is beginning to make a positive impact on the health of my mind, I now understand better how Mack possessed such a healthy and happy spirit, and I am finding some clues about how to make my spirit happy, as well. While I know I will never achieve Mack’s level of calm, because of her and with her as my guide, I am working very hard to one day be the kind of person who might inadvertently forget a bag of necessary and favorite items on a sidewalk somewhere and shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well, there’s nothin’ I can do about it now.”

Mack Memo #4: Let it go, people. Relax. Have some Gatorade. Nothin’ you can do about it now.

 

A Beautiful Life

Two years ago this day, the sky plunged down from the heavens and the truest soul that ever drew a breath left the world too soon. Two years in, and I am no less lost without my Mack. Two years in, and I am still far from well. Two years in, and I cling for dear life to my happier past all the stronger. But for me, starting today and going bravely forward, October 7 on my calendar will no longer mark Mack’s passing from this life. Rather, it will mark the significance of her life.

Two lovely, random, and unconnected human encounters inspired within me the courage to reinterpret the meaning of October 7 in my life. First was a delightful yet unexpected letter I received late this summer from Dr. Goodman, a kind man I hardly know. He is a past president of the Springfield Sunrise Rotary Club, the organization that sponsors the “This I Believe” essay contest for which Mack was a winner back in 2012. In November of 2014, this same rotary club made a generous contribution to the scholarship fund we established in Mack’s honor at Truman State University. This sweet gentleman was writing to tell me that he remembered Mack and her essay so fondly that he was planning to propose that the Rotary make another contribution to the scholarship in order to reaffirm his and the club’s “everlasting memory of Mackenzie,” adding that she was “a blessing to all.” Second was a conversation I had with Jeanne, a dear and wise woman I have gotten to know in my volunteer work at an historic home in St. Louis. She and I are fellow travelers on the road without beloved children. Having lost her young son fifty years ago and buried one of her two daughters some ten years ago, she always recognizes the sadness in my eyes. Recently, we talked about how I was feeling, we shared a few stories, and she gently reminded me that life is for the living.

Life is, indeed, for the living. Mack understood that simple truth better than anyone I have ever known, better than anyone I will probably ever know. She lived every single day like it was her last one, always laughing, always doing the things she loved first, always positive and happy, and always true to her heart. She loved every friend like she might never lay eyes upon them again, and that was the real purpose of those big-Mack hugs. Mack would not wish us to grieve on this day. She would want us to remember the laughter. She would want us to live. Mack’s good and gracious life should inspire us all to live well. To be patient and kind. To hug harder and to laugh louder. To be generous with our spirits, as Mack was. The assessment of my kind correspondent is perfectly true; our Mack was a blessing to all. And the best way to pass this October 7 and every October 7 is to reflect upon her beautiful life and to try a little harder in our own to emulate the qualities we admired in her.

Life is, indeed, for the living. To my mind and to my heart, there is no greater means to honor a beautiful life than a memorial scholarship, which supports the dreams of students who have so much living to do. Therefore, I want to establish October 7 as a day not only for spending extra time with our precious memories of Mack, but also to carry her beautiful spirit forward into the future. Establishing the Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott Memorial Scholarship Fund at Truman State University brought me an enormous sense of peace, and it continues to feed my spirit. I know well that Mack would be honored and humbled (“aw, shucks,” she often said when anyone paid her a compliment) to know how much people loved her and to know the high regard in which even passing acquaintances held her. And although she would no doubt be quiet and humble about it, inside she would beam that a scholarship in her name at Truman State, where she went to discover the writer within her, is helping students achieve their own writing dreams.

The scholarship is fully endowed, so it will be perpetual. Preparing for this 100th blog entry reminded me that it was the generosity and tremendous outpouring of love for Mackenzie—from friends, from family, and even from strangers—that made endowment possible in just two short months, back in December 2014. (https://macksmommabear.com/2014/12/09/honoring-mack/). There has already been one recipient (https://macksmommabear.com/2015/08/15/magical-medicine/), and the university will soon name a second. Right now the annual, endowed scholarship award is $750, but I am on a mission to increase the endowment so that it returns an annual award of at least $1,000. Truman State is still a relatively inexpensive college, but tuition is always on the rise and student needs today are ever greater. Truman—a small, public, liberal-arts college in northern Missouri—is a quality school with a quirky edge, a magnet for kooky and smart students, which should be enough to illustrate why Mack chose it in the first place (https://macksmommabear.com/2015/05/22/a-purple-bulldog/). She loved Truman, and I have come to love and respect it a great deal myself. It is a true gem, just like my Mack.

I now beg forgiveness to ask you to consider making a contribution to the Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott Memorial Scholarship Fund as you pause to remember how Mack’s bright light lit up the world. Perhaps while you reflect on the blessing that Mack was to you, you might also consider making October 7 the day to make an annual contribution in her honor. Might we all reinterpret the meaning of October 7, so that it will no longer mark Mack’s passing from this life, but that it will mark the significance of her beautiful life.

The Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott Memorial Scholarship Fund
(for creative writing students)
Truman State University Foundation
205 McClain Hall, Kirksville, MO 63501
800-452-6678
http://www.truman.edu/giving/ways-of-giving/
(No matter the format you use, please direct your gift to The Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott Memorial Scholarship Fund, and all contributions will be applied to the endowment.)

true-bulldog-5

The Essence of Our Mack

I know that if my Mack was here, she would want me to enjoy the warm, early-fall weather. She would chide me for defining this comfortable and colorful season as the beginning of winter, instead of embracing it as the beautiful end of the summer. I know that if my Mack was here, she would want me to enjoy a few pumpkin-spice lattes. She would yell at me when I looked up the nutritional info on my phone, because didn’t I know that those seasonal beverages at Starbucks are special and don’t have any fat or calories? And I know that if my Mack was here, she would insist that a 50th birthday should be a happy affair, instead of one spent counting wrinkles. She would have denied that the gray hairs at my temples existed (even as I stretched them out before her eyes), arguing that 50 is the new 30 and that I should shut up, sit down, and watch a few episodes of Sponge Bob since I was feeling so damned old.

But my Mack is not here to hold my winter at bay or to aid and abet my consumption of too many sugary coffees or to employ her goofiest humor to keep me from turning…from feeling…old. But my Mack was here, and it is this magnificent fact on which I am determined to focus. Her time spent on the Earth was short, but it was bounding with joy and bursting with meaning. I was lucky to have shared life’s journey with her, if only for twenty short years. Mack’s spirit lives on in my heart, in my soul, and in my memories. It lives on in the hearts, in the souls, and in the memories of all the people who knew and loved her. Yet while Mack’s radiant spirit is always in the air around us, this week it must be particularly present. This week her laughter must ring a little louder in our ears. This week, the heartbeat in her gentle soul must resonate more deeply within our own, as we face this dreadful two-year anniversary of our lives without her.

Mack was a force of nature in my life, and now her spirit continues to guide me. As I have gathered up my courage to face this difficult week with resolve and at least a little grace, I have drawn from more tangible reminders of Mack’s good life than just my treasured memories. I have been reading Mack’s poetry and essays, watching videos of her playing basketball, and listening to recordings of her voice. So here I offer a sampling of beautiful material evidence of the essence of our Mack: a couple of lists in her own words, two delightful videos that depict her cheerful disposition and irreverent wit, and the precious sound of her voice.

In a Facebook game in high school, Mack offered these nine things about herself:

  1. Basketball and softball are the best.
  2. I act like a five year old.
  3. I have a freckle moustache.
  4. I like being a freshman.
  5. I enjoy music.
  6. I’m putting off homework right now.
  7. I’m good at math.
  8. I try to be nice.
  9. I need to work on my language, it’s becoming a problem.

Wish to recall something that Mack said? Here is funny little list she offered on social media of thoughts that frequently crossed her mind: 

  1. Man, I could go for a corn dog.
  2. Why’d I wear this?
  3. I hate schooooool.
  4. That was a really stupid thing to do.
  5. Yep, I failed that.
  6. When’s summer?
  7. Is it almost lunch?

Remember those silly faces she always made?
Mack’s unique way of telling me she cut off her hair

Remember the way ridiculous ways she danced:
Mack dancing a jig in a prom dress and posing for one of my favorite photos, below

And…oh my god…do you remember Mack’s sweet voice:
Encouraging Pepper to jump and “speaking Spanish”

Reading her “This I Believe” essay on the radio

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And now, Dear Mack, I’m on my way to collect my first pumpkin-spice latte of the season. Iced. Grande. With whipped cream. And, no, I did not look up the calories!

Shut It Off

Anticipation of the impending two-year mark of my life without Mack has infiltrated my bones and made me unsteady on my feet these past days. In an effort to regain some balance and to face the grim week ahead, I need Mack to guide me. So I have taken yet another journey through Mack’s beautiful brain by spending time with the precious book that Mack’s adoring father assembled just months after we lost her. The spirit of our Mack dances (Irish jigs, actually) off of each of the priceless pages of Mack: Her Life & Words (http://mackmcd.yolasite.com/), reminding the reader of her quirky wit, her gracious and kind character, her uncompromising belief in equality and justice, her love for life, and her uncommon wisdom.

This morning, I was reading out loud her poetry. It is undisciplined, and it is raw. It is not the stuff of literary giants, but it has a beauty and a quiet wisdom that is uniquely Mack. One particular poem might in some ways now seem prophetic, but this morning as I repeated it half a dozen times or so, it was, very simply, pure and human truth. A sage epistle from my sweet girl. A gentle reminder to find the sun.

Shut it Off
By Mackenzie Kathleen McDermott

It’s all okay
The sun is out
But hidden behind generous clouds
On a lazy day
Soon to be replaced by lazy stars

Then all at once
The world collapses
The clouds turn mean
And the sun retreats
To mourn the ashes of kin
A touch is in order
Some simple relief from the gripping reality
As the world dims
But there’s a head on those shoulders
So give it all you’ve got
Then shut it off

Move quickly
And hold tight to false hope
Cling to the smallest of rocks in the stone
Just make sure you don’t look down
Because letting go is much harder than pretending

Shut it off
There’s much more pain that love can bring
Than just a body in a box
So shut it off

And then it’s almost okay
The sun is out
But hidden behind generous clouds
On a lazy day
Soon to be replaced by lazy stars
Shut it off
It’s not that hard

freckle

As I myself cling to the smallest of rocks in the stone, I can assure you all that under some of life’s cruel circumstances it is, actually, quite hard. But for my Mack, I will always try harder to find the sun.