As I start 39 and 2019, I am not even sure how to feel.

On one hand, I’ve discovered powerlifting. I’ve discovered therapy and anti-anxiety medication. I’ve stopped drinking. I wake up happy, I’m in the best shape of my life, and I’m learning how to be a better daughter, sister, and partner.

On the other, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer last year. It’s as if the news has tied my family to a train track with no hope of  escape. The train is barreling down on us this year.

So instead of a phrase to aspire to or a goal to accomplish, this year’s theme for my life is a promise to myself and my family. If I’ve learned nothing else from therapy and the gym, it’s that things can hurt like hell and you will still survive them. They even stop hurting. Eventually.

We will be ok. We have our tools. We have each other. “And even semi-OK can be a miracle.”

It was the best weekend because it was sunny, I finished all the top secret knitting and sewing, and most importantly, it was Doc’s birthday!

After nearly five years, I am finally accepting that he just doesn’t like being the center of attention (on a birthday or otherwise) so I will merely say that he is the best hiking companion, the best Toby chin-scratcher, and just really the best.

I always default to Carl Sagan with him because he reminds me of Sagan so much–deeply curious, unfailingly kind, enthusiastically rational–so here’s my favorite quote that applies to Doc: “In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch” with him.

It’s my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday today! I’ve always thought that she’d be the one to have around in the apocalypse–her skill set is vast and varied and covers everything from making rockets to growing medicinal herbs. She can grind wheat into flour, bake you bread with it, and probably set a bone if you needed it. My grandmother once said, “She’s a hard worker” and from a Midwestern farm woman, there is no greater praise.

She’s teaching her son all these skills but she’s also teaching him how to be a compassionate, rational human (like herself), and that’s wonderful to see. Being on vacation with them really gave me a chance to see her interact as a parent; watching someone you’ve known for a long time expand to fill the role of “Mom” is pretty incredible, especially since she’s doing such a good job with it.

She’s dry and funny and loves oddball stuff like I do, and is just so fun to be around. Happy birthday, Altair!

It’s my brother’s 42nd birthday today!

Like I wrote last year, he is extremely curious, extremely knowledgable, and extremely talented in the kitchen (he makes hamburger buns from scratch!), but what I’ve been thinking about this year is how strong his sense of “right” is–that moral compass you wish more people had.

Honestly, if you are prone to (over)thinking like a novelist, considering how one could see things this way OR that way, his sense of rightness can almost be overwhelming. He can’t understand why people don’t see it as clearly as he does; he just knows how things should be and whenever possible, he makes them that way. For example:

When my house was being built, we visited the site one evening. The general contractor had left a raccoon trap set. We both saw it, but before I could even start to wring my hands, my brother picked up the empty trap and tossed it into the construction dumpster.

I, who liked both the contractor AND the raccoons, worried that maybe the contractor would get in trouble with his boss and have to pay for losing the trap? Maybe we could just disable it? And the words weren’t even fully out of my mouth before he said, “No, Karen, traps are awful. It doesn’t matter if he gets in trouble, he shouldn’t have set it.”

And he was right.

He is strong and opinionated and has been right many, many more times. I’m proud that such a good man is my brother. Happy birthday, Alan. I love you.

Yesterday’s sea shanty post was mostly for my dad, who also knows shanties and sings them and has, his whole life, dragged a “great weight” of some kind or another: Being responsible for a brother. Being the family breadwinner. And now, the weight of taking care of my mom as she deals with cancer, chemo, and (soon) surgery.

My dad did not grow up in a time of sentiment, so showing any vulnerability or “weakness” is hard. I think it’s hard for him to even see it in other people, because, to him, you just deal with whatever great weight you’re dragging. Sure, you could complain about it, but you’ll still have to move that weight, so just keep going.

I know Mom being sick has been hard on him–it’s been hard on all of us, but he’s the one there with her the most. But in his mind, his job is not to complain, not to fail, not to be weak. To drag the weight, no matter what it is.

So I just want to tell him today, “You are doing a beautiful job, Dad. Happy birthday. I love you.”

It’s my little nephew’s seventh birthday today!

He has a lot of depth to him. I subscribe to the idea of reincarnation (as a dilettante) and I remember thinking when I first saw him, “Oh, he’s done this before.”

Watching him grow up has just reinforced that for me. Before he could talk, he was trying to communicate. (I still remember a pantomime when he was about two, “telling” me how he got a splinter in his foot and Grandma and Grandpa took it out.) Now that he can read and write, he loves books and keeping his journal. You tell him something and you can see him weigh it, digest it, judge it (and often dismiss it–you can’t put anything over on this kid).

At the same time, he’s fearless about a lot of things–not in the way little kids are fearless because they don’t know any better, but because he’s thought about the consequences and decided that whatever he’s pondering is worth the risk.

He’s curious like his dad and determined like his mom, which means you need to have a really sound reason and/or compelling explanation for getting him to do something he doesn’t want to do.

He loves his Grandpa especially, I think because they can be so silly together. I feel like I’m the coolest person in the world when he asks me to play with him and I treasure every note and card that says “I love you.”

In short, he’s just a delightful little human and we’re all so lucky to get a round at this life together.

I never explained why I started writing more detailed birthday posts for my family over the past year, but it’s because Doc and I had a friend who lost her mom to Alzheimers two years ago. During the funeral, our friend gave such a wonderful picture of who her mom was and what made her so special, and I thought, “I should do that for my loved ones while they’re still alive.” 

Let me tell you, though–after my mom got her diagnosis but before we learned that she could go through treatment, it crossed my mind that this actually could turn into a eulogy, and I told the universe that it better not. Thankfully, the universe listened, Mom turned 70 yesterday, and I’ll be writing more of these as long as I care to blog. 

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My mom is a born teacher. She taught me how to sew, she taught me how to cook, she taught me how to garden, she taught me how to take care of people. She volunteered at my elementary school for years and taught a lot of kids everything from critical thinking to how banks work. She knows so much and she tells you the right way to do it all. My younger self (and I bet her younger siblings) thought that was bossy, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that she just knows it all and I’d better listen to her, whether it’s what plants to grow or how to take care of cats.

She is, objectively, a beautiful woman.  You don’t realize that about your mom as a kid and then as a teen you’re more concerned about what the world thinks of you (teens are assholes), but she is stunning. People meet her and say, “She reminds me of Diane Keaton.” As she ages, that bone structure just becomes more and more apparent and she gets more and more striking. Even at the hospital last month, she had the residents and young doctors making excuses to come check on her and acting goofy.

She took such pains to make sure her kids could be creative: art supplies, acting classes, twenty years of music lessons. If you asked her, she would say that she isn’t creative at all, or that “your father’s the artist”–but if you looked at how she combines colors in her garden, or how she dresses, or how she decorates her home, you would see someone with an incredible eye for color and proportion. An artist.

She’s a remarkable woman. Much like “creative,” I don’t know if she would say she’s “strong”–but over the last six weeks she’s kept the family together, even as we try to step up and take care of her. When she thanks me for taking care of her, I can only tell her, “I learned from the best.”

I learned it from you, Mom. Happy birthday.