A Sampling of Texts About Her Boys

Many of Adrianna’s texts to me over the years were about her boys. She’d marvel at them as she tried to live in the moment as they grew up and became individuals, each with their own strengths and personality traits. Her boys were everything to her, and I culled about thirty pages of wonderful and funny stuff she said about them: little insights, little joys, little hopes. I plan to combine them all in their own little book, but I also want to include just a small random sample here as well.

10/5/2017 6:26:58 PM

When Wes cuddles me he’s so light, it’s like nothing is on my chest. I love it. I want a picture of me and him, like the one you took of me and Bryce. When we sleep like that Bryce lays next to me and holds my hair, LOL. I love our naps! ok xoxoxox

10/14/2017 1:21:19 PM

It’s kinda cool ONLY because Bryce is growing and being active THAT stuff makes me happy, little things throughout the day. He said I was the best mommy ever again this morning.

Had never hear him say that except that first time couple weeks ago when he found me finishing crying. I had said I can’t do this and he opens the bathroom door and was like YES YOU CAN YOU’RE THE BEST MOMMY EVER.

That changed me that day.

10/23/2017 7:18:56 PM

About lay them down tonight. Wes told me he loved me and I’m best mom ever, and I think he knew what he meant because of his timing, and also I said thank you, and he said, “You’re welcome, mama, I love you.”

10/28/2017 11:37:32 AM

Wesley just said, “Hey mom, I see a rhombus!” I love that nerd.

We are driving.

Bryce goes, “Wessss oh my gosh you talk too much!” lol Ha

12/2/2017 5:23:50 PM

[I had just told her things would get better, her reply:]

One day!

Until then I’ll keep on pushing, and hope. I cannot keep letting myself be stuck. My kids deserve to know the real Adri.

1/16/2018 2:57:16 PM

Best day ever. Bryce to school, alone time with Wes, and I had alone time with Bryce this am. Then school, indoor play place, then at Chick Fil A we met Kareem just to play, then karate.

Love life today.

4/24/2018 10:35:18 AM

[out with Wes at the mall to do a survey for extra cash]:

There’s a little boy here, he's playing. I’m happy, because normally I take him to the park after I drop off Bryce. I have a dollar cash and am going get him a chicken sandwich at Sonic and water with the good ice, and I also brought a yogurt for his lunch.

4/26/2018 6:29:25 PM

I told Bryce one day I want a small house with a small yard. He said “No, I don't want a new house, I love my house, we have one.”

Made me happy.

He's been to other people houses and he still loves ours. I really thought he would want a yard or like his own room plus a play room like his friends. It made me happy that he said he was happy.

Me and Bryce have long talks when we turn out the lights. Stephen wants us to be quiet, but that's when he talks a lot and about how he feels, and I'm not giving that up. I keep on talking and Wes answers, too, sometimes but mostly just does flips and summersaults and sings. Lol

5/30/2018 5:48:53 PM

Omg I just can’t take how big my boys are. Bryce is like a little man, and Wes is like a boy now, not a toddler. It's really freaking me out, and I keep seeing the book “Love You Forever” where at the end it's the son carrying the mom.

And it makes me cry, like at night when I can stop and actually stare at them and think and relax and calm down. That's when it all hits me.

I'm happy they are growing, but I'm sad it’s going so fast, and that I am not ENJOYING EVERY SECOND RATHER than sometimes sweating the small stuff.

Ugh sometimes it's like they hold me at night rather than me holding them.

6/15/2018 12:14:46 PM

[her boys]

I love them together, pretending and playing. So cute. I love seeing that bond. I never seen it all up close and real before, and I do get to see it through them and it’s amazing, their unconditional love.

I LOVE IT. I’m tired, but they wanted to pretend. They like to act out movies, so I said ok, one thirty minute one just so I could watch it.

6/29/2018 6:42:21 PM

Omfg!

Bryce said he wants to get gold teeth like “that black guy at the Dollar Tree.”

Omg

I said, “Stop using color!”

Jesus.

He’s trying describe people, but ugh, just say “the guy at the Dollar Tree.”

Me: What’s wrong with saying “gold” ?

Adri: LOL ok Dad

8/10/2018 9:23:38 PM

So tonight Bryce asked me when the lights were out,

“What color am I?”

I asked why he asked that, and at first I was upset and said, “You’re not a color, you’re a person. You’re a boy. You’re Bryce.”

Then he kept asking me. Finally, he said “No, my skeleton.”

I said everyone’s bones are white, and we are all pink inside.

I like our late night convos. 

12/14/2018 2:40:11 PM

Omg, so I gave the teacher a bunch of the boys’ McD toys and then guess what: Bryce drew from the prize bucket at school and got his toy back, LOL, and said to me, “Hey, we got the same one!”

10/26/2018 10:13:25 PM

These two older girls kept him [Wes] the whole time, they didn’t want him to leave. Bryce made some new friends. An older boy kept putting his hands on Bryce and Wes went up to him and grabbed his shirt and said, “Don’t touch my brother again!” lol

12/18/2018 2:22:49 PM

Bryce just said he wanted spend the night at your house. I said, “and sleep there?” He said, “Yeah, and jump on their bed.”

Bryce still loves Coldplay. Wes still loves mainstream rap. LOL

4/25/2019 7:44:18 PM

Wesley is getting very sweet again since he’s home more. For real, when I went to school he was becoming not as nice. I swear he's back to himself and very sweet.

Last night he said, “Mom, you're never leaving, right?” and I said no. Then he said, “Just don't leave. I don't want you, Brycer, or dad to leave. I don't want to be alone.”

5/10/2019 6:09:51 PM

[The boys had been misbehaving]:

Wesley said, “Mama, I'm sorry, I went too far.” I don't know where he got that but I believe him because he didn't say just “sorry.”

5/29/2019 11:47:22 AM

Wesley is so very smart with critical thinking and problem solving. He watches “Blue’s Clues” and “Leap Frog” and they ask questions but he answers before they even ask.

Tornado warning here. Wes said is it going to be "a tomato that spins in the sky." LOL

I said “tornado,” he goes, “Yeah, that spins in the sky, a tomato!”

7/1/2019 8:37:06 AM

I love power tools, and I told the boys if you have a girl you have to teach them to do tools and how to change tire and oil just like my dad did for me.

Bryce said, “But YOU’RE a girl!”

7/29/2019 8:34:35 AM

Wesley was watching YouTube, and a mom and baby dinosaur had a song, "You’re the permanent marker in my life and love forever even if I die."

I come into the room and Wesley is crying, and I was like, “What's wrong, baby?” and he hugged me and kept crying, like a quiet cry, and after I said, “What made you upset?” He said, “Umm… if you, my mommy, dies.”

It made me so sad, I was crying and I was like awww. Both of them are so, so sweet. Wesley just acts tougher. I told Wes I wasn’t going anywhere.

It was cute to see his vulnerable side because he's so strong.

8/19/2019 8:21:44 AM

[first day of school]

Bryce told me, “Mommy, I can't play with them, I'm too big, they’re babies, I will hurt them."

It made me sad but I said, “You’re six, last year you were five and you were the youngest. This year you’re the oldest, and there are both five- and six-year-olds."

Then he said, “I miss my old friends.” I said, “They aren't your old friends, they’re your friends. These are your NEW friends. You are always friends once you make friends. "

Wesley walked in class, said “bye,” and told me to go.

8/26/2019 8:16:13 AM

Bryce did good. He started to cry but counted and calmed down and actually said, “Go, mom, I'm ok” while he held back tears.

I got to see what Wes does. He goes to the cafeteria and then he goes to the hallway and I don't know after that.

10/8/2020 2:00:37 PM

So Bryce was just asked by the teacher, "Who was the president before Obama?," and he said, “Obama,” and she said, “No, before,” and he goes, “No, he ran two times.” LOL

She laughed. I love her. She said, “Yes, but before that?” and he goes, “Who cares.” 

11/3/2020 7:23:28 PM

[This was election night 2020, and Wesley was mad that he couldn't stay up to watch the returns. (He was five).]

Wesley came out looking like you, and he definitely reminds me of you. I guess since I missed out, I get you daily through him.

2/18/2021 8:41:14 PM

About to fall asleep, but they are watching the real person Jungle Book and Wes goes, “That’s a monkey.” Bryce goes, “No, that is actually an ape.” Lol

I was like I have to text even though I took night med but did later. We played a game before the movie. It’s just so funny how kids can be so different from each other and each parent but be so similar, too.

5/18/2021 1:01:25 PM

Omg Wesley repeated a YouTube video and said, “Hell.”

We said, “What did you just say?”

He said I don’t know. We asked again and he said, “It’s ok, I said it in a British way, “ell.”

6/4/2021 5:42:49 PM

Omg Wes goes, “See, dad, I told you money does go on trees.”

Stephen said, “No it doesn’t.”

Wes goes, “Yes, it’s paper.”

Stephen said, “Ok show me where, Wes, I’ll pick it,” and Wesley yelled, “I’M NOT TELLING YOU!”

Haha. Just a normal night conversation/debate with Wes.

They literally brighten my day. I can’t wait until this stuff is better and they come and stay the night or y’all hang out. You and Wes will be debating, no joke, and he gets so mad and Bryce will be next to him trying to calm him down.

His personality is like you. He is right and he will have some kind of proof and reasons and he will not let it go until everyone hears. LOL, which is good.

Bryce is more “polite” as in he will stop talking and and will let stuff go, LOL.

Wesley is the spitfire.

7/11/2021 6:02:06 PM

Bryce said, “I wish grandpa had kids, he’d be a good father.”

I said, "Hello, I’m his kid!”

7/16/2021 9:09:46 AM

[blowing bubbles with the boys]

Wes said the bubbles are going up to heaven to bring everyone back.

7/17/2021 1:08:10 PM

They saw husky’s puppy and were playing with it and its nails were like long and Wes got little scratch, and he said, “Mom, don’t put anything on this, I’m remember this forever!”

They want dog, I said no we are in apartment and we don’t have money or room, but we are moving next door to dog park. They can go play with them there.

7/23/2021 11:13:28 PM

Going to sleep, but I found grams sweater. I opened the bag, I normally don’t, and it STILL smells like her. I keep it sealed to keep her smell, but I just wanted to feel comfort.

9/16/2021 12:57:37 PM

Wesley told me I’m his person. LOL, so cute, but where did he even learn that?

He goes, “Mama, I’ll never get another person. You’re my person.”

9/10/2021 9:02:15 AM

Bryce cried, I said you were going to New York and he thought you were never coming back. Then he said he had a nightmare that your twin put you in a picture frame with a spell, and the evil twin of you came To Nonna’s instead of you, and he said he made himself wake up.

It was cute.

I told him you're coming back, but you need a trip.

Bryce told me how the dream ended. He said that aunt Toti had heels on and the evil grandpa took them off and Toti stole his wand and threw it at the picture frame and freed the good grandpa and the evil grandpa disappeared. 

11/6/2021 11:05:37 AM

Bryce is about to be done and then y’all can play for bit before y’all go for lunch. Maybe he will tell you what he was singing.  I woke up to him singing, but he says he doesn’t remember.  I wanted to record it, but I wanted more to just live in the moment.

4/1/2022 1:49:17 PM

Wes just had this convo with me:

“Mom, why do we have speed limits?”

I said because if we didn’t people could crash or get hurt.

He said, “But what if people didn’t get hurt?”

I said they would, that’s why we have rules so people can follow them and be safe.

He said, “But what if God made us so we would all be safe?"

I said he tried, but we now are able to make decisions, good or bad, and for the bad we get consequences (bad outcomes), so now we can choose two roads: One which is good choices, and one which is bad, and we have to deal with bad outcomes of doing bad things.

He has always talked about God. We are reliving the why stage again.

I wanted to tell Wes it’s because Eve made Adam eat the apple, but I don’t know if he will get it.

8/11/2024 6:58:40 PM

I’m loving how the boys are asking for apples or carrots celery or fresh green beans for a snack!! Love it a lot, I just don’t get why they have to price healthy and fresh food so high and the junk food is cheaper.  It’s dumb!!!

11/9/2024 10:13:01 PM

The boys’ games keep playing music that makes me have memories of times with you.

Certain songs, like driving to your jobs with the window down and then the kids thinking you were cool because the songs, you know, and just a lot of little things I remember that I really miss and that make me so sad.

I saw you try so hard my whole my whole life, and I kept becoming a problem. 

The End of the Novel

I finished going through the entire huge 4585-page document that is the collection of saved texts between Adri and I a couple of minutes ago.

All day I saw the page number that I was currently on increase in tandem with the calendar days quickly falling away one by one as her final day and final text kept approaching relentlessly. I felt hopeless, unable to make it stop, unable to freeze the snapshot of time and her consciousness that was represented on the page, little conversations about the important and the mundane that simply kept marching on towards the dreaded finality that was to come.

It’s odd, and was surprising to me, that these conversations that read like a multi-act script spanning a decade could create such a connection to her.

More than a photograph. 

More than the inscription within a greeting card. 

More than a voice mail. 

More than a video.

Somehow, these texts drew me in and totally captivated me and I relived those moments as real moments that were still with me instead of what they really were: echoes of a life that is gone forever.

While I was reading it was now, it wasn’t last May or the summer of 2021 or Bryce’s first day of school. It was now, an experienced past relived in a present that often feels empty without her. The echoes reverberated inside my head, and it was as if she was still here, that past not past but present once again, and I got a little respite from missing her.

It was odd, and unexpected.

But since I was so drawn into that world again my brain was tricked a bit into not remembering the real reality, and when I saw those pages mount up and approach the final page number, I was filled with dread at coming to the end.

It was like when you are in the middle of reading a great book that you simply don’t want to end. You know you’ll miss all that the author has created: the characters, the tone, the wordplay, the settings, the plotline… but you can’t stop, and you let the inevitable happen, because you don’t really have a choice. You let the book end.

And so I did, and as I read her final text to me on page 4585 I of course wished and hoped and begged that there would be another text, that this wasn’t really the end, that this could continue. I wasn’t ready to let it go yet.

But it was the end; there’s no more. And of course I broke down.

It was my last hurrah, really, with her, and I’ll miss her tremendously the rest of my life.

Dissociating

I’ve apparently reached a strange stage in my unwanted and crushing journey of life without my daughter, one that I wasn’t familiar with despite that psychology degree or these recent months of forced attendance in the school of hard knocks. It would appear that my brain, in yet another last-ditch effort to protect and shield me from the actual harsh reality, has begun to dabble in a bit of dissociation.

My internal narrative has occasionally shifted to a third-person omniscient point of view, where pronouns such as “he” and “him” dominate and create some distance, one assumes, from what has happened. 

I sit there and feel sorry for “that guy,” who will receive a phone call on the morning of May 22 that will change everything forever. 

“That poor guy,” I ponder, “living his life that week, going to bed the evening of May 21, not knowing what was about to happen,” 

Or, “Man, that guy will have a lot to work through the next months after that, and he’ll write stuff too painful to contemplate yet still for some reason express them, anyway, and share them with anyone willing to slog through that despair; I don’t envy him having to call forth all those emotions, and I don’t envy those who care about him having to watch that.”

Or, “I can’t imagine this happening to me, and can’t imagine how this guy will make it through all of that.”

Or, “He’s waiting for it to get better; who’s going to tell him that at least for the next several months it will not get better?”

You get the idea. It’s really kind of disconcerting, because over and above this occasional third-person narrative there is another one in the first person that’s wondering why the hell we are thinking like this. Or why I am thinking like this. We? Who knows

I’ll cry for this guy as much as I’m crying for her, but then of course much like the realization that you’re dreaming while within the dream itself breaks that pseudo-reality, the third person suddenly becomes first again, and I lose any potential benefit from the buffer that the dissociation may have provided.

It’s odd, but perhaps a bit understandable and not unique to me. I hope so.

And so does Hank.

Another Adri Text: Idol

We had a bad time for a couple of months in late spring of 2021 with the apartment she was living in. There was lots of drama with neighbors, and at one point one of them busted out the window that just happened to be the boys' bedroom. She was afraid for them and herself, and the management didn't care and were trying to evict both tenants even though Adri and family were the victims, and had pictures and videos that documented everything. It was just easier that way for the apartment complex.

And all during covid, but they didn't care. And she had a section 8 voucher, so an eviction would make her lose that forever. And she couldn't just move anywhere; the new place had to take the voucher. And she had to jump through all these hoops created by DHA, and all the while the complex was threatening to lock her and the boys out of the apartment.

I was losing my mind with worry; it was a non-stop problem consisting of a multi-headed hydra of issues and challenges. I hired a lawyer, which of course isn't an option for 99% of people in Adri's situation due to money, and the apartment management knows that.

In the end, we got her out of that apartment and into another one, but there was a two-week gap where they had to be in an extended stay type of hotel and all their stuff in storage, which we of course had to pay to move twice.

Anyway, she was hanging by a thread, which would be understandable for anyone in that situation, and I really thought I was letting her down by not being able to fix it easily, so I told her that I wish I could do better for her.

Her reply was special to me and helped me. Like she said about her kids sometimes holding her, she lifted me up when she was on the ledge herself. I was lucky that she told me these things, I know some are not lucky enough to hear them. I'll always know that I was her "idol.":

            6/13/2021 6:20:30 PM

What? You do way more than you’re supposed to do. Seriously, you do way, way more for me and the boys than anyone could or should do.

              Please don’t say you’re sorry.

              I wish I could do better for YOU. And the boys.

You have always done everything and always put up a fight and have always done everything you could do, ALWAYS, no matter what, or who said what, or what was going on.

I love you. I hope you realize you’re my idol, and I moved Bryce here to be by you so he can be like you. And I know I’m a lot, and I come with a lot, and I am like you a lot, and we butt heads, but I’m so grateful for the person inside you taught me to be.

And Wes came, and he’s just like you, and I want them around you. I’m so lucky to have had and still have you as a father figure, and I want that for them.

Texting the Beautifully Mundane

Reading all her texts is hard, but at the same time revisiting them, especially the mundane and the ordinary, the non-life or death or messages dispatched from the abyss, just the simple every day conversations allows me to remember her as if she's still here.

I get lost in the conversation, an observer to my own past, and our relationship comes alive once again as I get taken back to that moment.

Here's an example of a text thread we had one afternoon. She'd plan meals and discuss them with me several times a day, and on this day she was making shish kebabs. It's a dull conversation, it's like watching paint dry, and I love it. I don't expect anyone to read it, but I post anyway.

6/23/2020 1:14:57 PM

Adri: I'm making shish kebabs again for dinner.

        Me: Everyone likes that right?

Adri: Yes, my fav.

        Me: I used to make all the time

They like it, too. You gave me a kit for the oven, remember?

        Yup.

CHILI lime chicken, pepper, onion, celery, tahini seasoning. 

        Sometime you should use good steak. Even better then.

I use steak sometimes that looks tough but is on sale.

        I like bell pepper and mushrooms, too.

Yessss!

        Red yellow green.

Me and Wes like regular bell pepper and ranch. That’s one of our snacks at the lake.

        Sometimes little potatoes

I make potatoes on side.

Mushrooms: yess. Wes asked me not steal his veggies. LOL

        Cherry tomatoes

I wish I'd kept the little grill, but the thing you got me for the oven helped. Plus I have chop sticks that I used to make me VEGGIE ones.

        U use broiler or bake?

Depends on the stick. The broiler for potatoes and steaks, bake for the veggies.

        Ah

Because otherwise they burn. But I like burnt everything, they don’t. So it depends.

        With the broiler u have to be careful and constantly check so it's a hassle
        but taste better that way I think.

Yeah, tastes more like from the grill.

        Soak wooden sticks in water first.

Yes, I do, I use chop sticks for me and metal for the shish kababs. CHILI lime chicken for tonight with VEGGIES. I did steak on Father’s Day on the kebabs.

        If they liked rice u can serve on rice.

Wes does, maybe soon Bryce will, too. I just got Bryce to like Mac N cheese. He doesn’t like the norm.

Normally I make fried or baked potatoes and corn on the cob with it. Bryce is obsessed with regular corn. Wes likes Spanish corn but I use ranch instead of sour cream. Wes loves ranch, Bryce likes ketchup… yuck.

Love you.

        Love you, too

 

The 4500 Page Conversation

Before Bryce took over Adri's phone, I downloaded all of our text messages between us that were still on the Apple server, which in this case went back to 2017, but no further. Still, when saved to PDF that amounted to over four thousand pages of texts.

It's a lot to wade through; she texted multiple times a day for almost 20 years. There's a significant number that are not pleasant, times when she was at her at her wits' end on a given day, or complaining about this or that, but there is also the mundane, the daily checking in and questions and well-wishes and observations about little things. It's a lot, and again, much of it I don't want to necessarily revisit, at least not right now.

But I decided today to go through them, anyway, trying to cull out all the great things she said about her children so I could compile all of that for them. I think it's something that they'll enjoy reading one day... their mother's thoughts on them: her love, her devotion, her  pride.

I'm on page 445. Almost 10% done after working on it all day.

I'm also culling out some stuff she said to me that is insightful or meaningful and saving that to a separate document for me.

I'm going to share some occasionally (I mean, you knew that was coming, right? 😉 )

Here's the first one:

10/5/2017 6:26:58 PM

 

When Wes cuddles me he’s so light, it’s like nothing is on my chest. I love it. I want a picture of me and him, like the one you took of me and Bryce. When we sleep like that Bryce lays next to me and holds my hair,  LOL.  I love our naps! ok xoxoxox

Words to be Read

Last night we went to a book release event for a friend for her first published novel. Not the first (or last) novel she’s written, but the first published after decades of writing, because talent and awards and effort are not always enough. Sometimes it takes time and luck and just a confluence of events for real writers to get published by a real publisher. It’s always been that way, but more so of course since the advent of the online world, where anyone can put up anything at any time. 

There are less filters now to differentiate the good from the not so good, and less incentive for publishers to invest money into new or untested writers with little chance of recouping their investment in a world where everyone’s aunt can post a rant online that you can read for free.

I’m a case study in that of course. 😉

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. The more chances and outlets for the free expression of ideas, the better. But it does make it harder for the real writer, the traditional writer, to separate themselves from the crowd, from the aunts and neighbors who all have something to say, and to prove that they’re worth the investment (both financially and temporally) required from the reader.

What I really want to talk about, however, is something that she said at her talk, lovingly curated and moderated by a former student. At the very end of the Q & A, the author said something that I’ll paraphrase thusly:

“I want people to read my characters. I want people to come to know the characters that have been given life in my writing. If I never received any monetary compensation at all for writing I’d still view it as a success and still continue doing so if only so my characters find life and are known by others. I’m proud of them, and I love when they get to live and be experienced by people other than myself. “

Again, this is a crude paraphrase of words spoken, off the cuff, by one to who language purity is an overarching goal of her communication. But you get the idea.

And, of course, here comes the Adrianna link: I totally understand this and is the driving force about what and why I write about Adri. I’m sure many if not most view what I’m doing here as a sort of self-therapy, where writing about her helps me deal with the profound grief I’m experiencing about her loss, and of course that’s true, that’s part of it.

But I could achieve that by writing all that I’ve written in a private diary, right? But I don’t. I post it all here for everyone to see. And the reason I do so is exactly for the reason that this particular writer, at least, writes in the first place.

I want people to know Adrianna. I want her life and experiences, be they good, bad, or indifferent, to be known. I want her life to touch others as it has touched mine, and I want this for several reasons. 

There’s some universality in all our lives, moments and events that we all can recognize and relate to, and sometimes that recognition can help others who might otherwise feel alone or different or out of synch. Some can see and recognize things in Adri that they see and recognize in themselves or those they love. Also, of course, talking about her does have therapeutic benefits to me as it helps settle and quiet my thoughts and focus my memories, both good and bad, rather than allow them to scatter and bounce around within my head like a million red-hot BBs. 

But, moreover, knowing that people are reading about her and her life allows me to think of her consciousness as a sort of an immortal thing, that in a sense a part of her is still alive and not really gone as long as people are still thinking about her. 

She’s not a character in a novel, of course, but rather one of the main focal points of my life and her children’s lives, but the sentiment is the same.

And if that’s a good enough motive for written expression of a published novelist, it’s good enough for your aunt. Or me, for that matter. Thank you for allowing me to do this and being so supportive and understanding.

It’s been nine months today.

Song For Her Boys

This started with her posting on this date 7 years ago a song for her boys, for what she wanted for her boys, to simply be human and complete and content (Some song I've never heard of by Lynyrd Skynyrd called "Simple Man").

 She said:  

"this song is for MY BOYS MY BOYS that's it love it bryces type of music but this is to both of them this legit all I want if they find this they can be more than simple but be REAL HEARTED INDIVIDUALS and have it all"

She then asked for a link to the song I used for her 30th birthday video compilation and I obliged.

She was so emotional and connected to life, and music was so powerful and resonating to her. Of course this was during one of her melancholy moments which were exasperated when she was drinking, but the emotions were always real and raw no matter what.

Downsizing

My mom is downsizing to move to one of those 55+ complexes, going from a 3/2 1800 sq ft to a one bedroom about 600 sq feet. Almost 50 years' worth of stuff to go through and donate, sell, or trash. It's a big job as many know.

Anyway, my mom is the type that likes to get "the best" actual brands of stuff, so for example she has several Le Creuset pots, and I mean like 10 or so. Not knock offs. Cindy and I, for example, have just two, and they're knock-offs: One by Lodge, one by Rachel Ray (ha).

She has a lot of such high-end kitchen stuff, and she doesn't need it or have the room at the new place.

Now this is now yet another reason for me to be all boo-hoo about Adri no longer being here, because she would have been ALL OVER this process. She loved to organize, she'd have been such a big help, and more importantly she could have had her pick of all this stuff, and I so wish she would have had that opportunity.

She loved kitchen stuff, but finances never allowed her to have any good stuff. For her 25th birthday we got her a nice set of pots and pans: not a high-end set by All-Clad or anything, but maybe about $200 set that was much better than the odds and ends she'd assembled from the dollar store or garage sales.

She was so happy to get them, she beamed as she said to me, "Wow, I feel like an adult now with proper cookware!"

My mom has several (and I mean several; did I mention that she's also fickle towards stuff like this?) dish settings. Adri could have replaced her 6 or so plates and bowls with stuff that matched, and could have had eight settings to boot.

Instead of her $10 hand-held mixer she could have had my mom's KitchenAid stand mixer, and the good one, nicer than the one I got Cindy years ago.

She could have replaced the Target special clearance microwave that doesn't even have enough space for a dinner plate with my mom's top of the line Sharp.

Instead of having to jerry-rig the washer or dryer ever couple of years, she could have had my mom's newish washer and dryer with stands.

A high-end coffee grinder. Stainless steel set of measuring cups and matching measuring spoons. Not one but two different sized Instapots. A milk frother. Cookie sheets not made of cheap aluminum. A dehydrator. Yoghurt maker. Not one not two but three types of air fryers including a stainless-steel Cuisinart. About 20 different types of tea pots. Food canisters, matching mugs.

And then there's all the office supplies, another thing that both my mom and daughter loved. Staplers and filing cabinets and three-hole punches and laminators and binders and pens, markers, paper clips, enough highlighters to highlight a thousand copies of "War and Peace." Sheet protectors. Paper cutter. Several dozen of those Japanese character erasers. Calculators. On and on.

When I'm over there helping my mom go through this stuff it just breaks me that I'm not doing it with Adri. She'd have been so excited, both to help and to find so many treasures from her nonna.

And I know that it might seem to some that I go looking for new and different ways to be saddened by Adrianna's passing, but I assure you that this is not the case, they just occur. I really do try to not make everything about her.

But, at the end of the day, so much was about her.

Time Travel

We’re currently watching “12 Monkeys,” a series that originally aired on the SyFy channel in 2015 based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam movie, itself based on “La Jetée” from 1962. Cindy and I both love time travel stories, and after reading generally favorable reviews we decided to give it a try.

So far, so good. It diverges from the source material after several episodes and is interesting and relatively consistent and logical in its use of the various time travel tropes and potential plot contradictions that are so inherent in this genre of science fiction. Reviews also promise a satisfying conclusion to the series as well. Fingers crossed.

One of the major story threads involves the lead scientist who made the original breakthrough in time travel. We learn that the driving force behind her quest to conquer linear time was the death of her daughter during the plague that ravages the Earth ‘s population about 25 years in the past in 2020 (This series was a bit prescient.) She hopes to send time travelers back from her present in 2043 to stop the plague and save billions of people, including her daughter.

In her past, the scientist is with her young daughter in a hospital in a world with extreme lockdowns that has already lost billions of people to a virus. She sits in her daughter’s hospital room unable to do anything to save her, and the severe triage rules then in place do not allow any medical resources to be used to help the daughter, who dies within a few days of getting sick.

The two main characters are sent back to the week of the daughter’s death.  They try to save the daughter several times in several different ways, but in doing so create paradoxes and temporal loops and are unsuccessful each time.

Eventually, however, in one of the repeat loops they learn that her daughter didn’t have the plague after all, but rather a run of the mill infection, and thus her death isn’t a foregone conclusion. They save the daughter, she doesn’t die. But they realize that her mother, the lead scientist, must believe that the daughter did not survive or else she never has the breakthrough that allows for time travel.

One of the time travelers asks the scientist while in the past,

“Is a little bit of happiness better than a lifetime of anything else?”

The scientist answers in the affirmative.

So they save the daughter but keep that info from the mother, realizing that the scientist cannot know that her daughter is still alive if time is to remain unbroken. They bring her to a group of women who have survived the plague and have them take care of and raise her. The lead scientist is removed from her daughter’s hospital room and told that her daughter has died.

The scientist, therefore, lives out the next 25 years believing that she lost her daughter, and of course that feeling of loss is the impetus for everything that follows in her life and for time travel, but at the cost of decades of pain.

The time travelers return to their present and decide to reveal all of this to the lead scientist. They tell her that her daughter, now an adult, is living with the group of women known. The lead scientist says that this can’t be true, that her daughter died 25 years earlier.

“But did you see her?” they ask her. They remind her that she was just told that her daughter had died and that she never actually saw her again due to the plague protocols in place.

There is a reunion between the two, the parent who has been grieving for over 25 years and the daughter neither of who knew the other was alive. There is a little bit of happiness finally.

“Is a little bit of happiness better than a lifetime of anything else?”

I don’t know.

All I know is that I couldn’t bring myself to see Adri at the hospital that morning when I arrived. I didn’t want to see her that way, still intubated, lifeless, cold, lying in a HRP that the nurse had to unzip in order for me to view her.

I just couldn’t.

I struggled, trying to determine what the future me would want that present me to do. Subject myself to that or not? What would I want me to do? What are the costs and benefits?

I just couldn’t. I didn’t think I needed that for closure, and I didn’t want that to be my last visual memory of her. So after 30 minutes of indecision and back and forth, Cindy and I left and went to see the boys and Stephen instead.

So I never saw her that day. The last time I saw her she was alive. I think that’s how I want it to be.

But maybe… just maybe? Since I never actually saw her? I allow myself that fiction occasionally, and I’m okay with that.