Coyote Beautiful

Last night I left my office, ran an errand, and got to the cemetery just at 6pm. The heavenly-gate sized gates were half closed and the sign on the gate said hours were "8 a.m. to 6 p.m." On the inside of the gate I could see a security type guy, standing beside a security type car, talking to a man who was sitting in the driver's seat of his car. It looked like the security guy was explaining that it was too late and he'd have to leave. I burst into tears.

How could I have been so irresponsible. I had plenty of time. I'd stopped at CVS to get a birthday card for Louise. I'd bought a lipstick. I'd picked up a Reese's peanut butter cup. I noticed it was late when no flower sellers were on the side of the road getting off the 134. I should have realized cemeteries don't stay open all night. They have a closing time.

But, eternal optimist that I am, I drive in anyway, drive up to the guy, wind down the window. Sobbing, I explain that I just want to visit for a few minutes, that I live across town, that I want to see my son, that I screwed up on my timing.

He interrupted me, calmly, and said, "Sure, ma'm, there's a wedding in there tonight. Stay as long as you like." I started crying more, in relief. God, if we could collect my tears and desalinize them I could hydrate southern California single handedly.

So I drove in and wound my way passed families clustered beside their loved one's graves, watching the sun sink toward the west. Some sitting in folding chairs. Bouquets of flowers everywhere. I parked at Abiding Love and climbed the hill. I greeted Ky, apologized for my lack of flowers, tried to figure out how I could share the Reese's without drawing ants, and settled on eating the insides and folding the wrapper carefully and tucking it inside the vase's lining. I didn't think he'd mind.

It was beautiful there. Peaceful, cool. The sun was sinking and the colors of the sky were changing. Then, off to my left, I spotted a coyote prancing down the hill. He stopped not far from me, our eyes met, and luckily he continued his path down the banking, across the narrow street, and into the next field of graves. He seemed sure of himself and quite dignified. I knew for sure it was a coyote. We have a lot of them in Los Angeles. His snout was long, his ears pointy. He looked quite at home, so I hoped he was comfortable sharing the grounds with us grieving folk. Comfortable enough to leave me alone. I tried to take a picture of him on my cell phone.

I love Ky's space. Our space. It's hard, but essential, to visit him. I cry, tell him again how much I love him and miss him. Clean sticks off his grave. Look at the sky. Watch the birds and the squirrels. And last night, I met a coyote.

Today: Red Sox 3 and Tax Return 2

Well, the Red Sox clearly established themselves as a real contender, eliminating Anaheim in 3. The game was kind of sad; the score was 9-1. Not much of a contest. I felt bad for my young friends who scored the tickets, drove, parked, put up with me and put up with visiting or transplanted Chowdaheads and Mahssholes blocking the view the entire game (two were eventually thrown out of the stadium--one with a Davy Crockett style coonskin hat, complete with tail).

So as I'm listening to the Yankee Cleveland game (Yankees have pulled ahead) I'm back to the taxes.

Baseball has been a nice distraction. The taxes stir me up though. Partially because it just takes forever for me to go through my check registers and envelopes of receipts and figure out my mileage (bought a second car last year) and remember which meal receipt with whom to what restaurant was legitimate business and which meal receipt should have been thrown away.

And then--since I don't throw away paper, I bump into things like this:

Chart House receipt
where I took Ky for his birthday
complete with what we ordered

shopping list for TJ's
with foods to buy because Ky
was coming home for Memorial Day

Loan Payment notices
for loans for Ky's college
what AM I supposed to do with those?

and the Puss, the cat that Ky loved so much, sits beside the computer, staring up into my eyes, as if he is missing his best friend.


P.S. But, I suppose, this is projection.

Go Red Sox 2

I just posted this on Mir's blog in a comment (she was dissing baseball) so I thought it bore posting a second time:

Mir, you'll be excited to learn that the Red Sox have now beaten the Anaheim Angels in the first two games of the division playoff. Manny, Big Papi, Youkilis, and others are hitting great and the pitching is sublime. Now the teams travel from Fenway out here and on Sunday I will be root, root, rooting for the Red Sox midst billions of Angels fans. The stadium will be awash in red because the Red Sox AND the Angels colors are both red and white.

AND Cleveland has now trounced the fuckin' Yankees TWICE, which means if they can keep up the good work and if the Sox can keep from shooting themselves in the foot or otherwise wrecking this lead, it'll be a sweet time in old Bean Town and on Sweet Street.

Happy Birthday, Donna

It's my sister Donna's birthday. I'll be calling her later. I can't take time away from my Taxes to do much of a tribute, but I'll just say this:

Donna has always been very loving to me and she - along with Frank whose birthday is next week - have raised 3 of the most wonderful kids (okay they are all in their 30's) you could hope to meet. Full of fun and love and more fun and more love. Katie and I keep in touch via email and pictures and she is a light in the life of all who know her. Peter and Tim were with us the weekend of Ky's memorial and it was terrific spending time with them and comforting having them to represent Donna's family. Congratulations, Don, on another year, and thank you again for the precious wooden sculpture of a mother with her curly haired toddler son. It sits on my sideboard, among the framed pictures of Kyle, on the blanket he brought me from Africa and which adorned his casket for the burial. I am so glad I have you for a sister.

With love and hope you have a wonderful day . . .

P.S.

And the Red Sox won! 4 - 0. First game of the series against Anaheim. Yea!!!! But with apologies to dear friends who love the Angels. I bear no ill will (easy when you're ahead) because they were born and raised in Orange County. They have no choice, really. So I take no pleasure in their pain.

But of course I've always felt sorry for the loser, when I win at games.
Just a bleedin' heart.

I MUST DO MY TAXES

but here is a blogette. the past couple of days i have been feeling better.

for two weeks, with the ambulance bill and the marker selection and seeing more people at work as the bi-monthly Grand Rounds bring me face to face with Those Who Know and - even harder - Those Who Don't Know, i was drained from the sadness and the sobbing and the pain.

when i don't see people or i don't have anything come in the mail that's distressing or i don't spend time looking into ky's eyes in pictures or i just don't let myself "go there," it can be easier.

and yet also, last saturday i saw a dear friend i hadn't seen in years who knew kyle during his junior & high school days, a mother of his good friend. we spoke for a long time about kyle, i told the story again, and being with her was lovely and comforting and i was full of peace afterward.

so the roller coaster has come to a stop. the passengers are debarking. but look, they're forming a line. no doubt it will take off again all too soon.

but, to the taxes!!!

Go Red Sox

Okay, I live in Los Angeles, but I spent my first 25 years in Massachusetts or New Hampshire and I am a Red Sox fan.

When I was a kid, when we played ball in the yard, my brother got to "be" Ted Williams, while I "was" Jimmy Piersall. Of all the other Red Sox players, I find it ironic that I - a clinical social worker working at a psychiatric hospital - played a guy best remembered for his mental breakdown.

Following baseball and other sports - even golf - was the way I could connect to my dad. I wasn't a boy. I wasn't an athlete. But watching a game on TV or talking about scores, I felt close to my dad and felt his respect. So I grew up loving the Red Sox and the Celtics, and Arnold Palmer. I read Bat Boy for the Braves, Fear Strikes Back, and a biography of Ted Williams. I even used my early writing propensity to start a story about a tomboy who impressed boys with baseball statistics (Ted Williams, .406, 1941 - I still remember it).

When we moved out to L.A. in 1975, it took a while to convert me from a Celtics fan to a Laker fan. Although I can't remember the year that I changed whom I routed for, I guess it was around the time that the Celtics stopped being brilliant and the brilliance of Kareem and Jamaal Wilkes and Norm Nixon and Michael Cooper won me over.

I tried to like the Dodgers, however there was an incident at Dodger Stadium on the 4th of July, that kind of soured me on Los Angeles baseball. A redneck tow-headed family, led by a twanging-talking shrew of a mother/wife, threw firecrackers at me, my black husband, and our friends--also an interracial couple. The incident was terrifying. The woman and her nasty little children, sneering insults, kept lighting and tossing firecrackers in our path as we approached our car. The husband stood smugly against the trunk of his car with his arms crossed. We didn't want to know what might be inside the trunk.

The story is one I don't repeat much. It took us a long time to safely get to and into our car and then to back up out of our space into stop and go lines of other cars trying to vacate. It caused tension among the four of us, as each responded in a different way. Our older black friend had grown up in a time when he knew that not responding was the safest tactic; while his white wife took a more confrontational approach. Years later I went back to Dodger Stadium for a couple of games with the kids and still later to see the Rolling Stones, but I never felt good about it.

But Fenway Park was another matter. I loved Fenway Park. I was in the crowd the night the entire campus of BU poured into Kenmore Square when "we" won the pennant in 1967. I remember fondly the few games I went to with my dad and brother, where I learned to keep score on those little cards, and how I couldn't understand my dad leaving before the final out in order to get us to the car to beat the traffic. How could he give up on the Red Sox before the final out in the final inning? I remember the great green monster and the Citgo sign and the hand-operated scoreboard. I remember seeing the lights, the same ones that Ted Williams shot out, as I recall reading as a kid, with the rifle he was using to kill the problem pigeons.

And of course I remember season after season of hope and disallusionment until that wonderful day in October 2004 when the Red Sox won the World Series. I remember being in a sandwich bar next to UCLA and walking to my car parked on campus. The moon was huge and full and I called my brother and Kyle called me to tell me congratulations. I could never get Ky interested in the Red Sox. He was a Dodger fan, and usually he responded to my "Guess what, Kyle? The Red Sox won" with "Mom, I don't CARE" . . . That night he was glad for me.

And here it is, another October. The Red Sox have won their division and are going into a series with the Anaheim Angels (I'm sorry, I just CAN'T call them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). The first two games are at Fenway. The third game is in Anaheim. And, midst a sea of red, I will be there.