Peephole

 

I am still struggling daily, hourly, with coming to terms with the reality that my daughter is no longer here and never will be. It’s the unthinkable and unacceptable true reality that forces itself into my brain uninvited multiple times per day, hour. It’s feels like a kind of torture. I imagine it’s akin to how they sleep-deprive prisoners with loud music and bright lights, but sadistically make it worse by letting them drift off to sleep for a second or two before then waking them up again with a slap to the face or dousing them with cold water.

This on-again, off-again state sprinkled with small moments of teasingly tantalizing sleep that is then yanked away again and again is worse than just totally depriving them of sleep and letting them become used to that state. Not allowing them to adapt to their situation but rather remind them of what they’re missing is multiple times worse on their psyche.

That’s what it feels like to me. My brain will allow myself to forget or at least not think about this reality for small swaths of time only to then have that temporary respite brought to a shattering end with a flood of thoughts, images, and memories that smack me down like a bucket of cold water or slap to the face, loudly proclaiming that Adrianna is gone forever, seeming to punish me for forgetting for a moment.

When I “remember” I often try to soften the blow a bit by imagining she’s still here, in the space that I currently occupy in this house. I can see her in the kitchen, on the stairway, in the entryway, in what was her room. I can hear her clearly as well, always talking to the boys the way she did.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when it’s bad I will go downstairs to the entryway where I can usually sense and feel her presence the strongest. I sit on the stairs and watch and listen to her talking to her boys, looking at me with her big bright eyes and smiling. It breaks my heart but is almost real.

Whenever they’d come over for a visit I’d start to get impatient waiting for their arrival and would park myself in front of the door in the entryway, peering out through the peephole full of anticipation for her car to pull up. When it finally did it would take all my self-control to not open the door immediately. Instead I’d wait for what seemed an eternity for them to get out of the car and start towards our door. The boys usually running with Adri watching them and smiling.

I’ve found myself these last couple of days going to the door and staring out that same peephole, hoping and waiting for Adrianna to arrive, allowing myself this little fiction, letting myself pretend that, any minute now, the car will pull up and the doors finally open and she’ll start walking up the cobblestone path to my door.

This time I won’t wait. I’ll open the door as soon as she pulls up and I’ll run out to her and hug her and never let her go. 

Adrianna's Memorial Book

 

Here's a page-by-page video of the book I made for Adri's memorial for those who didn't get to see it.

Adri and Ashley and Brandy

I got lucky when I moved into an apartment in the early 90s and shared an entryway with Nicole and Brenda. Brenda had two daughters, Ashley and Brandy who were about Adri's age, and for years afterwards, through several moves, they remained friends.

It was great for me. I was her dad, and she was definitely a daddy's girl when she was with me, but I always worried that she'd feel isolated when she was with me. These girls made sure that wasn't the case.

They swam and did each other's hair and nails. Played video games, rode bikes and just hung out. It made it easier for me, took some of the worry away that I wasn't giving her everything she needed.

I mean, I did try to do her hair and such, but there are some skills that other little girls are just better at.

Last week I learned that Ashley and Brandy's mother passed away, and though I had been thinking about them a lot these last six months, I made a concerted effort this time to find them and thank them for all they did for my daughter, as well as give them my condolences.

Both girls are of course now full-gown women with children of their own. I'm extremely sorry for the loss of their mother and hope they and their families get through this as well as they possibly can.

And I want to thank them again for being such an important part of my daughter's early life. You guys made her life just a little brighter.

Newbery Books

Adri's Newbery books 

 

As I’ve previously discussed, books and reading, both fiction and non-fiction, has always been a big part of my life and it was for Adrianna as well. One of the things I would collect for her were Newbery Medal books.

This award has been given annually by the Association for Library Service to Children to the author of “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children” since 1922. The other big award for children’s literature is the Caldecott Medal which is awarded annually for the most distinguished picture book, and together these are the most prestigious awards for children’s books in the US.

Ever since she was born, I’d hunt through the stacks of children’s books at Half Price Books across the country, at first in Austin but later in Dallas, San Antonio, Madison, Wisconsin… anywhere where there were books, I’d be searching with my printed-out list of Newbery books and cross them off as I found them for her. It was a never-ending treasure hunt as those who scour used book stores in a similar manner can surely relate.

Later, when I actually worked at HPB it was almost like cheating, because I’d get to see all the books even before they were sorted, priced, and shelved as they came through the buy area. Plus, I got a 50% discount. It sort of took the fun out of the hunt… but only sort of.

The thrill of the hunt was a secondary to actually sharing them with Adri, of course. Before she could read, I’d read them to her, and later she’d devour them herself. There were other great books that were not Newberys, obviously, such as the entire oeuvres of Judy Blume, Louise Fitzhugh, and countless others, and we enjoyed those books as well, but you could never go wrong with blindly buying a Newbery. The ALSC knew what they were doing.

Once Adri was about 13 or 14, however, I started to slow down. In the end I’d found 56 Newberys for her, which was over 70% of all Newbery books extant at that time.

I had built her a desk/hutch/bookcase when she was about eight which had three adjustable shelves as well as a fold-down door that served as writing surface. She loved it and always wanted to bring it over to her apartment for the boys, but there was never room. I put all the Newbery books on those shelves for her, as well as some of the other special books and of course “Where the Wild Things Are” front and center.

When we purchased our house almost twenty years ago, we made one of the bedrooms hers, and the bookcase/desk lived in a corner. Years later when we converted her room to a guest room, the bookcase remained, waiting for a time when Adrianna would have room for it in her own house. That of course never happened, but now that room has many remembrances of Adri, the collection of Newberys on her desk as well as an entire wall of photos of her with her boys.

I took this picture today of the Newberys, a gloomy overcast rainy morning that is brightened up just a bit by all the spines of the volumes on the shelves and memories of our time together reading them. Books that were the pinnacle of children’s literature the year they were released. Books that brought joy to my daughter as well as myself. Books that live on for others even though she does not… yet another melancholy happy-sad reminder of my daughter.

Six Months

Today is six months without her, which is crushing but also just the start. Soon it will be a year, then five years, 20 years, then a lifetime. I can’t… I just can’t get myself to accept that or come to peace with it.

In some respects, though, we may have received a bonus year of Adrianna. As I’ve discussed before, she had a heart event in February of 2024 that required a week in ICU when it was touch and go as to whether she’d survive. But, against many odds she somehow did survive, and we all breathed a small sigh of (temporary) relief.

In many ways, however, Adri never fully recovered. During the ensuing 15 months prior to the finality of May 22 of this year she told me many times that she felt different. I asked for clarification, but she had a hard time putting it into words:

“I don’t know, dad, I just feel weird. Like out of synch with life. I feel like I shouldn’t be here right now… I think I was supposed to die last February. Sometimes I feel like I did die, and this isn’t real.”

I still didn’t fully understand, but that was the best she could do to explain what she meant. I did know that this was concerning, this overly fatalistic and deterministic view of her existence.

Other times, many times, when she’d see an old picture or video of herself from 15 or 20 years ago, she’d say something like,

“I miss that person. I miss myself. I don’t know what happened to her. I wish I could get her back.”

I tried to be there for her, but was aware that sometimes it’s not easy (or helpful or healthy or productive) to talk to a family member about such things, especially one as empathetic as Adri who didn’t want to worry anyone.

She had Medicare and sometimes Medicaid (depending on the age of her boys at a given time,) but as we all know these programs, especially the ones dependent on the given state providing most of the help, are woefully insufficient in their support of mental health care. Let’s just say that Texas especially isn’t really concerned with such things.

Still, she’d somehow find a therapist who’d accept her insurance after a lot of work and effort with web searches, phone calls, visits, and emails. But it was limited care, at best once a month for an hour, and then she had to get there. Occasionally she’d find teletherapy and be able to do it from home, which was easier, if perhaps a bit less effective.

However, without exaggeration, at least half the time the therapist would cancel a day or two before, and she’d miss that entire month… and they’d never be able to reschedule before her next month.

And worse, about once a year the therapist would opt to leave the Medicare system entirely and she’d have to start the hunt all over again.

At one point last year after seeing this happen again and again and again, I told her that we’d pay for therapy, without relying on insurance. We’d pay for a monthly session and she could still do what she could with Medicare/caid. She was worried about having to make us spend money, so I told her we could use some of the school money we still had waiting for her if it made her feel better, and that we could replace that later.

I told her she wouldn’t be able to finish school, anyway, until she got herself healthy. It was the same theme that I always tried to make clear to her, that she had to make herself healthy in the present before she could help others, and that included her future self.  The old “Parents, put your oxygen mask on first before doing so for your child” idea that you hear prior to every takeoff in an airplane.

But it never happened.

“I feel funny, dad, like I already died and shouldn’t be here.”

She said that the last time just a month before it became true.

Did we really get a bonus year… did reality somehow break in February of 2024 and Adri sneaked in an extra 15 months?

All I know is that I’d have used any cheat code to make sure she was still here, and I’d have given anything if she could have felt in synch with her world and found her place in it, living happily ever after.

 

Out to Lunch

Adri loved food… she loved trying new and interesting items and ethnic cuisines, enjoyed trying out new recipes, exploring new flavors and sharing all of this with her family, even when she was little.

She was an adventurous eater from a young age, willing to try almost anything, even things that many if not most children would frown at:  anchovies, blue cheese, olives, escargot, lamb, rabbit, weird hybrid fruit occasionally found at Central Market, and even chicken feet once when she was out with her nonna and a client at an Asian restaurant.

She’d be anxious to prepare meals as well, and in those days when I had not much money I’d teach her how to frugally stretch a dollar at the grocery store and to be creative with what you found in your pantry.

One day when she was about seven, she insisted on making dinner for the two of us. She used a box of mac n’ cheese, some to-go hot sauce packets from Taco Bell, a can of diced tomatoes and garlic and onion powder to prepare it. Other than starting the stove for her, she did it all, and though I may have questioned some of her ingredient choices silently, I let her do it all.

She was one who would definitely believe that one of the great joys of life and made it worth living was the food.

However, her eating disorder as well as meager income level as an adult made it difficult for her to actually enjoy food personally anymore. She couldn’t afford to buy proper ingredients on a regular basis, but still would scrounge and save to buy and prepare her family duck one thanksgiving, for example. She still got enjoyment by the planning and prep, but the actual eating: not so much.

Still, as is usually the case with people like her, food and meals were always on her mind. At least 80% of her Facebook and Instagram feeds would consist of food related topics: recipes, new restaurant openings, grocery store ads for some special, food memes, etc.

She’d often tag me and say stuff like “You need to try this!!”, or “This place sounds really good, you should go there!!”, or “remember when you made this for me?”, or “I really, really want to make this for the boys”, etc.

She’d live a great deal of her culinary adventures now vicariously through me, but I wished and hoped that she’d be able to enjoy some of this herself. I’d buy her cookbooks, usually of the type that showed you how to cook healthy meals on an extreme budget, but also sometimes just cookbooks with beautiful photographs, since at that point she enjoyed looking more than partaking. I’d bring over special ingredients that I occasionally bought specifically for her, but also extras I had at home. She’d be excited to receive them, and text me asking for recipe ideas in general or specific info on the item.

She would save money for the occasional treat, of course, such as kababs at a small hole-in-the-wall spot (that we later used to cater her memorial service) or some sushi plate for Wes and herself, or a hibachi dinner out for the boys’ birthday… but I know it was always less than she wished she could do.

Cindy and I subscribe to Blue Apron, a home meal prep service, and we get one box a week with three meals in it, mainly because we both got tired of trying to think of new things to prepare each week. The meals are proportioned correctly as well, and also makes more financial sense at times. We don’t have to buy a $15 jar of romesco sauce for just one tablespoon, for example. The meal kit has one tablespoon in a packet for you.

Once Blue Apron accidently sent an extra meal, so I brought it over to Adri. She was thrilled and loved everything about it. She and Wesley had a great time preparing it for dinner that night, but of course she didn’t allow herself to be constrained by some dogmatic recipe instruction card that came with the meal: no, she said she made changes on the fly and said everyone loved the results. She told me that maybe one day if she was “rich” she would love to do that more often.

One of the more common things she shared in her feeds was for a particular type of seafood restaurant that has become popular as of late, at least in the DFW area. These places put everything in a large plastic bag and steam it. There will be potatoes and corn on the cob in there, and you choose the shellfish (clams, crawfish, different variety of crab, shrimp, etc.) as well as sauce and spice level.

The photos always look fantastic and delicious, but of course they’re expensive, usually starting around $25 and going up. There was no way Adri could try any of them, especially since the rest of her family probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it and she wasn’t about to spend that much  money on just herself.

Looking at and posting the photos on Facebook would have to do.

I saw these in her feed, and one day decided I was going to take her to one as a surprise. I asked Stephen first if he could watch the boys for a couple of hours, and then went to pick up Adrianna. All I told her I was taking her to lunch, but not where.

She was hesitant; she didn’t want to leave the boys or Stephen, but we all finally convinced her and off we went, just she and I, just like the old days.

As we made the 15-minute drive (because nothing is close in Dallas) I could tell she was excited. I looked at her next to me in the passenger seat and remembered all the road trips we’d taken, all the time in the car driving from one class to the next in the summers, or to the library, or Six Flags and the Discovery Zone, and the trips to the airport. Drives that were filled with laughter and music and heart-to-heart talks about boys and life and dreams and the future.

I was a bit overcome in the moment, realizing for the thousandth time how quickly time passes, and how that little girl all those years ago so excited to be going somewhere was now an adult with a family of her own, and that such moments together were getting rarer and rarer. Like most parents, I suppose, part of me wished I could have held on to that little girl forever, but another part was excited to see what her future would bring as she created and maintained a life with her own family.

I was just glad to be able to share such moments with her as rarer as they had become, realizing that it was the best of both worlds. Looking at her that day next to me in the car I knew she thought the same.

When we got there and she saw what it was her excitement overflowed. She of course kibitzed and fretted about how expensive it was (this is what I get for teaching and modeling frugality to her all those years), but that was all forgotten when she broke into the bag of seafood and the steam and associated aromas escaped into the dining area. She smiled and started in.

It was a good day, and as it turned out our last shared happy moment that was just the two of us.

I wish she could have enjoyed food guilt-free, with enough financial security to share wonderful food and meals and experiences more often with her family, but I know she did the best she could. I know the times she was able to do this for herself and her family were some of the highlights of her life. Considering how much the boys talk about the meals she made and the food adventures she shared with them, I know they thought the same.

The Walk and Talk

A couple of times a year Cindy has a busy season for two to three weeks, and she’s in the middle of the busiest right now, requiring her to go to the office seven days a week for 16-to-18-hour days. No one is happy about it, but I try to make lemons out of lemonade (or whatever) by cooking stuff for dinner she doesn’t like (lamb, scallops, etc.), listening to music she doesn’t care for really loudly, and now, my lunchtime walk around the neighborhood alone where I “converse” with Adrianna.

It's a walk and talk in typical Aaron Sorkin fashion, though there’s just one of us. I actually talk out loud, not in my head, and I don’t have to worry about looking like a lunatic: the iniquitousness of people conversing on their cellphones in public wearing earphones has brought one good result, I guess. No one gives me a second glance.

I walk as quickly as I can, trying to maintain a mile pace of under 16 minutes, just enough so it’s a bit labored to carry on my conversation. I do stop if I near a lawn service doing someone’s yard, a dog walker, or someone checking their mail, however.

I talk to Adri, pretending she can hear me, but knowing she can’t. I sometimes will try to call out some omnipotent being as well, asking Him or Her for some answers, also knowing that there is no Him or Her regardless of the capitalization of their pronoun. But I let myself pretend for the twenty minutes or so it takes to circumnavigate my route, anyway. I allow myself for a bit to imagine or hope that just maybe there is something else, somewhere else, even if it’s outside of our own time or space, where consciousnesses of our loved ones still exist. Still are. Still be.

Of course, I spend most of the time apologizing to her. I apologize for her having to grow up as a child of divorce, spending the better part of her life in two different places. I let her know how important she was to me, and how almost every single life decision I’ve made since she was a part of it was about her, and that this is exactly how I wanted it to be.

I apologize for not being able to either ease her life more or better prepare her for it herself. I tell her that I know she knows I tried, but I’m sorry none the less. I tell her I’m sorry if I did too much or too little, and that I was constantly trying to get that balancing act correct.

I apologize to her for not trying to force the issue more these last four years or so, and for making her work for everything and not making it easier for her sometimes when I could have. Instead, I’d keep the safety net I’d always provide in case of emergency unstated, unmentioned…  hoping that she’d figure stuff out for herself. Trying to make her 100% self-sufficient so she’d feel proud of her life and accomplishments and not feel so helpless or dependent on others.

I apologize to her that if instead this simply added more stress or made her feel like I didn’t care and that she was alone.

I remind her how I always used to tell her, “I saw you being born!” and how sorry I am that I couldn’t be with her when she died, holding her hand and trying to bring her some peace, letting her know she wasn’t alone.

I also tell her that I was always proud of her, for trying so hard and overcoming so many obstacles and never giving up when yet another roadblock or disaster came her way. I tell her that I hope she is at peace now, outside time and space, and let her know that she was and is loved, and that we will all make sure her boys thrive.

This is usually when I have my aside with who I’ll think of as “God.” I’ve let myself to have a conversation with my daughter who is no longer here, so why not that? I’ll allow myself that once a day or so, to buy into the whole Judeo-Christian concept of God. What’s it going to hurt?

So I tell this God to please take care of her, to please bathe her in light, please surround her with love.

And then I chastise this Being for taking out any sins of the father on the daughter, that no matter what I’ve done or haven’t done, I’ve tried to do what’s right even if I’ve failed sometimes, and that if they punished my daughter in order to punish me how dare they. Take any beefs that have with me out on me, not my daughter and her family.

Then I shake my head at my folly here for talking to some imaginary being, and then go back to talking to my daughter, like that’s different somehow.

I apologize again for not being able to offer up enough to ensure that she survived the challenges of her life, and tell her how much I miss her.

And that I love her.

And that I’m so, so, so, very sorry. 

 

Life Worth Living

For most of my life I loved life, loved being here, loved the highs and even tolerated the lows, knowing that these troughs were still evidence that you were living, and whose contrast with the crests would make me appreciate the latter even more.  

I was not a morning person but loved the mornings, especially during the winter when you’d wake up to the first snow fall. I loved dusk and with its accompanying Golden Hour of light, even though I didn’t know that was a thing then. I loved the twilight, when the sun had just set and some stars would start to make their appearance while the western lower skyline would be ablaze with brilliant oranges and reds. I loved the night, especially when my young eyes could still make out the Milky Way and I’d marvel at the infinite expanse of dots of starlight.

I loved spring with its rebirth. I loved summer and the lazy days it afforded playing outside until dusk and spending the late evenings in my room with the windows open hoping to catch a breeze, the room bathed just in the flickering light provided from the small black and white TV that had on a Cubs’ road game. I loved the fall and the wonderful colors associated with the changing leaves, and listening to the gentle sound of the leaves falling and swirling in the wind. I loved winter, walking in the stillness hearing the soft crunch of my boots walking on the snow and becoming entranced with my visible breath with each exhalation. 

I loved my friends and loved my family. I loved the Saturday night CBS TV lineup. I loved books, their content and their form. I loved my dogs, and cats, and occasional pig. I loved a surprise dinner of breakfast cereal from a box, and I loved spaghetti. I loved The Cubs and The Blackhawks and The Bears. I loved going to school in order to get to see whoever my current crush was, and lived for whoever that was smiling at me. I loved music, I loved magic. 

But mostly I just loved life, and I wanted to live forever. Not because I was afraid of what happened after; that undiscovered country did not worry me one whit. When I was younger and extremely religious, I knew what came after was glorious, and when I gradually moved away from traditional religion and I did wonder what if anything came next and of course wanted to hold on and appreciate all of this now, in the moment.

My daughter was the same, it seemed to me, when she was younger, if not more so. Where I loved life internally, I was a bit withdrawn and would not often go on and on about it. Adri, on the other hand, was extroverted and made no bones about her love of life. I’ve written about her at the roller-skating rink already that illustrates this, but she was always openly in love with life, and it became the biggest thing I loved about my life, seeing her life and how much she appreciated it.

However, I sensed a change when she was at the latter end of high school, and though she’d still have moments, many moments of unabashed love of life, there was still a sadness evident in her, and over the years this grew larger, and life, I feel, began to throw more than her fair share of curveballs her way. She endured, but it was a struggle, and as close as we were, I still feel there was perhaps a depth to this sadness that even I couldn’t tease out of her. 

The last years since covid were the worst, and this accelerated. She had many issues thrown at her, some her doing but many if not most out of her control. I tried to be her constant, someone she could turn to and lean on, but it got harder and harder for both of us. 

She said this to me more than once:

“This is hell, dad. I’m living in hell. I mean that literally, I think this is hell.”

She’d always follow that with something that tore me up and destroyed me every time, and still does:

“God thinks I’m a joke. I’m just God’s big joke.”

I would try to remind her about our shared love of life, and tell her that she wasn’t alone, and that she couldn’t be anyone’s joke, else what would that make her boys? But I could tell nothing I said or did would really make a difference at that point. But I kept trying. I kept trying to remind her of how glorious life could be, especially if we got out of its way.

I’ve not talked about her cause of death, but reading between the lines one can probably get a good idea what happened. However, I realize that some of the things I’ve said, and especially what I just disclosed about how she thought of herself, might lead people to the incorrect conclusion. I want to stress, therefor, that she did not commit suicide. Life in general still held some promise for her, and she was still planning and trying to reach goals she had set for herself. And her boys, especially her boys, were important to her and she’d never do that to them. And she didn’t.

Still, I wonder about life, and wonder the reasons it's worth living, if the joys and crests of a lifetime are worth the sorrow and troughs that accompany it. So, I want to ask those who are still reading at this point (almost 1000 words in) if they could tell me:

What makes life worth living to you?

Gram's Blanket

Gram and Adri in deep conversation, 2003 at Talahi

A little over eight years ago, on the Ides of March, 2017, my grandmother died. She was 96, yet it still was unexpected as she was healthy and her normal self, but at least she’d had a full and happy life. We were very close, each understanding and really knowing the other. I can count on less than one hand the number of people in my life who truly knew me and understood me, and she was one of them. My daughter was another, and maybe because of this it wasn’t surprising that my daughter and my grandmother, her great grandmother, were extremely close as well.

Adri often referred to my grandmother as her best friend. They’d talk often, little private confabs in person or the phone. She and her boys would go visit gram more often than I did towards the end. I was happy that two of my favorite people had such a strong connection.

So when my sister called that March 15 to tell me the bad news, I knew I had to go to Adri and tell her in person. I could not do it over the phone.

She opened the door and immediately knew something was wrong (maybe it’s not a surprise that I’m not great at hiding my emotions, for better or worse.) We were in the boys’ room and I struggled mightily to say the words that had to be said.
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“Grandma…,” I began, “Grandma….,” and then broke down.

She immediately hugged me and asked for verification, “Did grandma die?,” and I nodded and we both cried as we tried to escape the moment in our strong mutual embrace.

Suddenly she stopped. She ran out of the boys’ room and I heard her furtively going through something in the other room. She returned with a large baggy, and inside was a tangerine-colored crocheted blanket. She shoved it into my hands.

“Gram made this for me, and it smells like her, so I put it in this bag so the scent would never go away. Open it and smell it, you’ll see.”

My sense of smell is easily the weakest of my senses, and I never noticed or associated a scent with my grandmother, but I did as she suggested, opened the bag and smelled and was greeted immediately with my grandmother’s scent, something I hadn't even noticed my entire life consciously.

But Adrianna had, and she’d kept something so she could be near her great-grandmother whenever she wanted, whenever she needed her.

“Take it, dad, you keep it. You can smell her and be reminded whenever you want.”

“No, Adri, this is yours,” I replied. “It represents your special bond with her.”

But she wouldn’t have it. She insisted I take it home with me, so I did.

I still have the blanket, of course, but I don’t have anything that smells like Adrianna that can evoke thoughts and memories of her via scent. Each time I open the bag the scent seems to be weaker and weaker, but now each time I not only am reminded of my dear gram but also of my wonderfully empathetic daughter who was willing to give away this special remembrance of her great grandmother and friend to her grieving dad.

I love her so.

Mother's Day Balloon

Photo in background of Adri and Bryce by Emily Gianadda

My last Mother's Day gift to her was a box of Tiff's Treats with a hackneyed balloon that in retrospect I'm so glad I elected to include. She put it here on her fireplace mantel, where it still sits. At least she was able to see it for about 10 days.