The Biswolds

Writing is very cathartic for me and today is no different. Last Thursday, January 18^th, we received news that my Uncle Jimmy died. My brother texted me as I was walking into Christian’s aftercare asking where I was and then I missed a call from my Aunt. I knew something was wrong and when I called my brother I braced myself. “Jimmy died today” and then my brother broke down.

My mom is the oldest of 5 in her family, Jimmy was the youngest. He was 10 years old when I was born…I made him an uncle. But growing up he was always a bit more like my older brother. He was cool, funny, handsome, athletic, and had a larger-than-life personality. I was probably like an annoying little sister the way I followed him around, but he never made me feel that way. I remember growing up he came to watch my dad race cars on the weekends, came with us to our community Pool in Southdown Shores. I was young, maybe 6, but I remember how panicked and upset my family was the day he got into the horrible car accident. He broke his jaw in 3 places and was flown to Shock Trauma hospital. He had to drink his meals for months after that. My family always talked about that accident and how it was a miracle he even survived. I remember my mom bringing us to his lacrosse games where we watched him play long pole defender. He was very easy to spot on the field, not only because he was one of the tallest guys out there, but also because he had some serious chicken legs. I remember his butterfly collection in his room. I also have a distinct memory of stopping by to see him during his senior year beach week. He’d been arrested for something dumb that kids get arrested for at beach week and I think my mom wanted to check on him. It’s funny the things you remember…a bunch of guys running between hotel rooms drinking beer.

I had crushes on his friends and he always teased me about wanting to marry his friend Matt Zeyher, who to me looked like Tom Cruise. Jimmy and I had an easy playful relationship because we are both smart asses. As I got older, we would find ways to secretly flip each other the middle finger, he bought me beer when I shouldn’t have been drinking it.  My mom and Jimmy were close when I was growing up. 105 Stewart Drive (my childhood home) was always his first stop on the way into town from North Carolina. And our car made many a trip south to visit him.  He was my confirmation sponsor in 9^th grade. I was so proud to have my cool uncle stand up there with me. We had a special bond.

Now that I have a ‘youngest’ of multiple siblings I understand a bit more the role they play in a family. I think it’s natural for them to be big personalities and demand attention. They are people others gravitate towards. Jimmy was no different. He had a big booming voice that carried much further than the ordinary person, a roaring one-of-a-kind laugh, and he was funny as shit. Some people have to pay for tickets to a comedy club, we had Jimmy. I remember one Christmas when he did ‘impressions’ of our whole family which basically consisted of making fun of each member of our family for several minutes before moving onto the next person. This went on for an hour or more, everyone was crying laughing, tears streaming down their faces, our jaws hurt from laughing so hard.

He also loved telling the story of when he and LT took my brother Charles and me downtown Annapolis to have ice cream when we were little kids. We were literally 3 steps out of the ice cream shop when Charles licked the ice cream right off his cone and onto the sidewalk…many tears followed. I don’t think my brother has ever lived that story down. If I posted a picture of my kids eating ice cream he would jokingly ask if they ate it like Uncle Charles did or it actually ended up in their bellies.

We got older and watched each other through life’s phases. He found the love of his life and got married. Most of our family was there when he got engaged and I don’t think a single person could have been happier he ended up with Sandy. First, we’d met all his other girlfriends (baha) and most importantly, if you’ve ever met Sandy you just know. She’s a fucking rock and the best person we could have imagined for Jimmy. They started growing their family and had 2 baby boys…who are now two awesome grown-up boys. I graduated college, lost my dad, got engaged, unengaged, started dating Liz – not exactly what my family saw coming. But slowly family members, including Jimmy, began to realize this wasn’t a phase and that she was likely in for the long haul. And also, Liz did what Liz does…she stayed steady and consistent, she showed up for things, especially the hard things. We got married and started building our own family. We didn’t see Jimmy’s crew often with the distance between North Carolina and Maryland but I managed to find myself in Baltimore a few years in a row when his son’s Matthew and Michael played in lacrosse tournaments there. I have some very sweet memories and pictures from those days of teeny tiny McKay and Gabe 3 & nearly 1 year old, being held by their giant Uncle Jimmy.

We were boy parents and as years passed we began bonding over lacrosse, even as we moved further away to California. He was always so good about responding to posts or stories on Instagram or Facebook. And it wasn’t just the ‘heart’ or ‘Like’ button he was pushing. He would chat me and we would go back and forth about it. “Tell Christian Uncle Jimmy wants those pink swim trunks, but in a much bigger size of course”. “Tell Gabe I liked the way he was cutting, making himself big for a pass, as a coach I would like to see that.”

I texted him the first time McKay picked up his long pole and said, McKay just picked up your stick this weekend but we might need some pointers! We video chatted him on our way to a tournament 18-24 months back and he jumped right back into coach mode with McKay. “Be aggressive, keep sliding, be a leader, talk in the back, don’t get down on yourself if the other team scores a goal…it had to make it through everyone else before they beat you.” He talked for 30+ mins about defensive strategy and field leadership and I know he ate it up that we called and asked for “Coach” Uncle Jimmy’s advice. I regularly texted him pics of the boys at tournaments and he told me to hold onto those days because he missed them with his boys. The last text I have with him is from a lacrosse tournament this winter. McKay stole the ball on defense, carried it all the way down and scored. His first ‘coast to coast’ long pole goal and I sent Jimmy the video. “That is so awesome. Give him a big hug from Uncle Jimmy.” I cherish my old texts with him.

I had the privileged of seeing him for my brother’s wedding in April of 2022. Sandy and the boys were there and my boys had so much fun hanging out with the Lyons fam. We talked about how nice it was that our families got that time together, and about how fast life goes. I gave a speech at the wedding and started it with a line about being a shitty fill in for my dad who should have been standing up there. Another one ripped from our lives far too soon. Jimmy was one of the few who truly knew my dad and appreciated him. He pulled me aside later that night and said I wasn’t a shitty stand in, that my speech was special, and that my dad would have been proud of me, and that he was proud of me. You always knew where you stood with Jimmy because he didn’t exactly keep his opinions to himself. He was brutally honest but he also loved hard and was not afraid to tell you how much he loved you. It’s what makes it all even harder.

This September at my cousin Alex’s wedding in North Carolina is the last time I saw him in person. I stayed at his house two of the nights. He was in a lot of pain because of where the cancer was and he’d had a heart attack the March prior. I was worried about him. But he always had a positive attitude. He kept his faith and kept telling us he was going to keep fighting. He said it with such fervor that we all believed it, and if we are honest with ourselves, we wanted to believe it. In October my worries manifested into a terrible dream about him. I’d driven my older boys to a lacrosse tournament in Santa Barbara. I woke up at the hotel in a sweat because of a dream he’d died. I texted him that morning checking in, asking him how he was doing, letting him know that I was thinking of him. This was pretty normal check in because I was at a lacrosse tournament after all. But I didn’t tell him why I was thinking of him, I didn’t feel it was right and I told myself it was probably just my own anxiety about it playing out. Being faced with the untimely loss of so many loved ones has done that to me. I’m always worried something bad will happen. But I question that decision now. Should I have said something? Was it a sign? The thing about death is that it slows all the decisions down and you re-hash everything.

I’m traveling back to LA from his funeral as I finish writing this. It just doesn’t seem right or fair but it never does when someone dies so young. I still can’t wrap my head around it. I remember when he first found out about this cancer, he was just about to or had just hit his 5-year cancer free mark from Kidney cancer. I came to see him in the hospital when they discovered multiple tumors in his body. They removed a tumor on/near his spine and I flew into town on the same day he had the surgery. I know he appreciated me being there. Sandy told me in the hallway that evening, he’s going to be ok Ange. This is a cancer he can live with, he is not terminal, we’ve got this. Jimmy was always convinced he was going to beat cancer and he remained positive even with the setbacks. Cancer after beating cancer didn’t seem right or fair either, but he said he just wanted to see his kids graduate from high school and college, he wanted to watch them get married. He saw them graduate high school, and Michael graduate college but I know it would have hurt him so much to know that he wouldn’t be there for Matthew’s graduation or Michael’s wedding.

Jimmy, I hope you and Pop and my dad all found each other. Thanks for helping to mold me into the person I am today, for showing me how to have fun and not take life too seriously, for loving me, and for loving my boys. I will miss our talks over Facebook or text. I will miss your big laugh and big personality. And I promise to look out for your boys the same way that you always checked in on me after my dad died. Until we meet again, your annoying little sis, Ange

I am heartbroken and my eyes are swollen. Our sweet, gentle Sammy crossed the rainbow bridge yesterday, Jan 12th. Two Novembers ago when we put our other dog Bondi down, I promised to pour all the love we couldn’t give her into her sister Sam. I know we made good on that promise. Liz told me she thinks Sam hung on so long because she wanted to help heal our hearts. 

We got these two pups 15.5 years ago from a farm in Maryland. The ride back to Baltimore was maybe 30-40 mins and Sam threw up during the car ride. I had to hold her the rest of the way. She may have been preparing us for Gabe and we didn’t even know it (big throw up in the car guy). We named her Samos after our favorite Greek restaurant in Highlandtown in Baltimore City. If you know, you know. 

Sam & Bondi were the sweetest, most loving dogs we could have hoped for. But first, they were wild lab puppies who ate numerous dog beds, chewed through our drywall, rolled in mud, and drank an entire pot full of oil (followed by days of oil diarrhea). Sam lost the dominance battle to her sister Sam she put up a good fight. Sam, the more white of the two yellow labs, the one we called our platinum blond, wasn’t the smartest of the two but what she lacked for there she made up for in heart. She loved us and these boys unconditionally.

She was just the best, most loving, and softest soul I’ve known. These boys showered her with love and you could see the love she had for us when you looked at her eyes. It was right there.

She loved snuggling up with her stuffy or snagging the double dog bed whenever they were piled up. She loved peanut butter but took 5 minutes to finish a lick bc it would be stuck to her tongue. She was all white so she didn’t show the likely gray hairs that had formed but she had a little bit of brown at the end that the boys called her “coffee tail”.

She was a slick escape artist. We spent one Thanksgiving evening driving around the Bay Hills community in Maryland. We lived on the 13th hole of the golf course there. Sam took every opportunity she had to sneak off to the golf course, jump into the ponds, & roll in goose poop. The groundskeeper quickly learned that the white lab lived at 404 Golf Course Dr 

When we moved across the country she found ways to get out of our gate and wander the neighborhood. Luckily for us Culver City has the best people ever and our neighbors found her while we hurried back from a concert in LA one night. She even escaped off of our deck the first night in Manhattan Beach. Liz found the MB police department on night one after animal control swooped her up. 

She was such a freaking survivor: she had Parvo virus when she was just a puppy and almost died, Lymes disease, & she tore her knee and was never fully able to chase balls like before. And a few years ago she lost her hearing. But she persevered. I know she would have tried to hang on forever if she could have. 

But she was in so much pain and her body was breaking down so we made the excruciating decision to have a vet come to our house. We wanted her to be here where she was comfortable surrounded by the people who loved her. 

The boys all said their goodbyes and each stayed for the parts they were comfortable staying for. Liz and I were with her when they gave her the meds to stop her heart, each of us holding one of her paws. The boys each came out after her heart stopped to say a final goodbye. Christian had his hands on her holding her soft fur and asked me if she could feel him. I told him she couldn’t because she was gone but that she feels his love and he would carry her love with him forever. He completely lost it and crawled into my lap to cry. Gabe has been stoic about it, but I know he processes everything differently and internally. He will talk to us when he’s ready. And McKay is devastated. He says it doesn’t feel like home anymore and that he feels alone. He’s most like me, unfortunately. I said that to Liz last night and she said, it’s not such a bad thing to have big feelings. Liz and I are trying to process through losing the last of our first babies. They have seen us through almost every single phase of our relationship. It feels like a part of us is gone too. 

She was just 2 months shy of turning 16. That’s a phenomenal life for a big Labrador. But I wish we had more years. The time you have never feels like enough when it’s time to say goodbye. I will miss her sitting under our feet every dinner, wagging her tail and thanking me for a good meal, eating watermelon off the rind like a human, and watching her get loved on by our boys. 

She and her sister were inseparable…they laid on each other, they licked each others ears, they chased after each other in their younger years. I know Bondi has been patiently waiting for her and I can only hope she met her at the rainbow bridge yesterday. I know if the sunset was an indicator it definitely happened. I hope Bondi greeted Sam…licked her face, jumped on her, and then picked up a stick and said: I’m ready to chase after you, grab that tennis ball. I hope they run until they are exhausted. And then drink water sloppily like they always have. 

Samos, Sammy, Sam Bear….we love you and will miss you every day. We will keep you in our hearts and I promise to pour all the love I have for you into your brothers. Rest easy sweet girl. I’ll see you at the Rainbow Bridge 

Three weeks ago, Liz and I had one of those parenting moments that paused us in our tracks and made us question the next right thing to do. Most of the time we go about parenting in the best way we know how, without much second thought to our actions, realizing that sometimes we are going to screw it up, sometimes we will be acceptable/passable, and occasionally, we will crush this parenting game. I would say recently we’ve felt more like we are screwing it up than crushing it. Christian is 5 now and hasn’t quite outgrown his hostage negotiation situations with our family. Gabe has been having night terrors on and off since February and has been sleeping in our bed for 2 months. And McKay, who is mainly our steady eddy LOVES to tease and antagonize his brothers. Most dinners involve burps, farts, and talks of butts, poop, or balls. And recently we haven’t been able to go places without them turning said event: picnic, concert in the park, beach trip into a WWE match.

Back in March we signed McKay up for a Jr. Lifeguard prep class. While Liz and I grew up swimming on swim teams, maybe a very east coast thing, our boys have never really learned to swim strokes. This prep class had 6 sessions of swimming and was a crash course in qualifying for the Jr. Guards (JGs). The swim test for JGs consists of a 100m swim (4 lengths of the pool) at 1:50 or less. McKay’s first prep class he swam a 2:40 or 2:50. His 6^th class he swam a 2:05 so we knew he had to use some adrenaline to shave the remaining time. The day of the test we arrived and he was nervous so they offered to have him practice a bit in another pool. He put his forearm on the edge of the pool during practice and got stung by a bee. The odds did not seem in our favor. Liz convinced him to swim despite his weepiness and he qualified at a 1:45! He qualified, but just barely.

I should say, I’ve been the one pushing this Jr. Guard agenda. I wanted him to get this experience & to learn to ocean safety. Once we knew he had qualified Liz started following JGs on Instagram and became full blown obsessed. McKay seemed into it too because a bunch of his friends were also signed up, but I don’t think he fully understood what he was getting himself into. He missed the first 2 days of JGs because of when school let out so his first day was Friday June 17. Liz dropped him off and I picked him up.

At pickup I was super excited to hear how it went. “How’d it go babe?” “Was it so awesome?!” “Did you love it?” Not leading questions at all… He seemed to have had fun but told me that he was scared during the ocean swim, tried to go back at one point, and sucked in a lot of salt water on the way back in. They do these ocean swims every day where they swim out past the sets of waves to a buoy and then back in.

We very much underestimated how he would respond to these swims. After all, he’d been swimming in the Pacific since we moved here when he was 4, he surfs, boogie boards, and dives under waves. But it’s WAY different to swim, knowing your feet can’t touch the bottom for an extended period of time. We were at a lacrosse tournament all weekend on June 18-19 so there wasn’t much time to think about the looming ocean swim at JGs on Monday. But the Sunday scaries set in big time that night. On Monday morning he couldn’t eat breakfast and was mopey. Liz dropped him off and texted me: “I don’t know if he’s going to swim today.” Liz and I knew that refusing to swim meant he couldn’t participate in all of the events and that he wouldn’t graduate.

Liz went to the beach (in her hat, sunglasses, and mustache – ha!) to see if she could watch from the Strand and she saw him go sit with another set of kids instead of going in the water with his group. So we knew he hadn’t gone through with it. She and I talked about what to do and how to handle it at pickup. She joked that she wasn’t as good at these moments as me and that she was worried “Joe Drennan” (her dad) would take over. On one hand we didn’t want him to quit because quitting begets quitting and all that. And on the other hand, we didn’t want him to have regrets and not know what it would feel like to conquer a fear. On another hand (yeah, so 3 hands), we didn’t want to push him if his internal decision-making system was telling him ‘no, don’t do this, it’s dangerous and I don’t want to do it’.

I was at war with myself and Liz with herself …on one side we are athletes who don’t quit (and we don’t raise quitters, we raise winners — haha – Just kidding Megan L). And on the other side, for me at least, is a soft mom who has Glennon Doyle’s voice was in the back of my head. During her book Untamed she talks about how she got pissed at the jewelry store worker who was piercing her daughter’s ears because they told one of her daughters to ‘be brave’ like her sister and just get her ears pierced. She writes “That is not the understanding of brave I want my children to have. I do not want my children to become people who abandon themselves to please the crowd. Brave does not mean feeling afraid and doing it anyway. Brave means living from the inside out. Brave means, in the every uncertain moment, turning inward, feeling for the Knowing, and speaking it out loud.” So I struggled with, is this McKay’s “knowing” and should we trust his gut on this?

Liz and I stopped work early that Monday, we packed our beach stuff, and we went into the water with McKay. We brought Gabe, McKay’s ocean buddy for as long as I can remember living here. We ducked under waves. I thought the key was to get back onto the horse, to not let the next time he braved the ocean be at another scary JG swim the next morning. But McKay was not himself, he didn’t go in very far, he said he was cold and wanted to get out. This boy, the one who spent a million hours in the Pacific, wanted to go get his towel and sit on the blanket. I didn’t know what to do.

Liz and I decided we weren’t going to make it a big deal anymore and we were just going to tell him we loved him and that we would love him no matter what he did and we would figure it out together. We told him that the decision had to come from him. Before bed I told him I believed in him, I said: you are the kid that taught himself to skateboard, that learned to surf, that picked up the long pole 1 minute before a lacrosse tournament and gave it a shot, you’ve never met anything you couldn’t do. But the truth is I was scared that we were pushing him to much and not nudging him enough at the same time.

I barely slept that night. I had to leave at 5am the next morning to catch a flight to the East Coast. I went into his room and kissed his head and told him I loved him knowing that he sleeps so soundly that he wouldn’t hear me. I felt even more helpless from the air, but I was in constant text contact with Liz. I texted McKay twice that morning on his Gizmo watch that I loved him so much and that I was proud of him. And I texted him a Michael Jordan quote. He never responded to either.

Liz texted me after she dropped him that he had called her crying saying he wasn’t going to swim and that the instructor was going to need to talk to us. Then he called her back 10 mins later, no longer crying, and said, Mama, I’m going to swim. Then there was nothing, no contact for 2 hours, maybe less, but it felt like 10 hours. She texted again from pickup and said she saw McKay on the beach standing back near one of the instructors and that his body language “didn’t look promising.” Ugh, we wanted this so badly for him, but we can try again next year (if he wants). I also had a lot of mom guilt and remorse thinking I pushed this on him too soon and that if I had waited it wouldn’t have gone this way for him.

I was on my layover in Atlanta, waiting to board again, when my phone rang. It was Liz’s number and I answered apprehensively. “Hey babe”. Then I heard McKay’s sweet little voice on the other line: “Moooommmmmy….I did it!” And then, despite my best efforts, security did not come escort me out of the boarding line. “oh my God, oh my goodness….McKay!!!! I’m so proud of you!” as I cried and fist pumped. He said, ‘I didn’t want to regret not trying Mommy’, so I just did it. McKay, always our old soul.

The truth is, I don’t know what made him swim that day. It could have been our parenting…the way we resisted our natural inclination which would have been to tell him to suck it up and just do it. It could have been that he always knew he could do it and just needed to prove it to himself. It could have been his instructor Mona, who seems firm but supportive, or the other kids encouraging him. We may never know. What I do know is that he showed himself what he was capable of on Tuesday June 21st. And I know how happy he is every day we drop him off and pick him up now. “I saw a ray swimming below me today.” “I came in 15^th today in the run”, “we did the horseshoe swim today”, “the cadets said this today mom.” I love picking him up and hearing all about it. Yesterday he swam under the Manhattan Beach Pier and didn’t flinch. Today is his last day and he’s sad for it to end but he’s already talking about how next year he’s going to show Gabe the ropes. I’m so grateful he’s had this experience.

Liz ran across an article the other day about a kid with Down Syndrome who became a LA County Jr Guard and she sent me the quote from the article that couldn’t sum it up any better: “The first JG summer serves as a right of passage, severing the tethers to their parents. The ocean most of their parents are afraid to step foot in becomes first their testing ground, then their playground.” (Kevin Cody, Easy Reader, July 2015). I think McKay will remember this forever. I certainly think Liz and I will. In a time where I feel like we are failing more than we are winning, I’m taking this parenting win to the bank. I hope that when McKay is faced with a scary uncertain situation, he reaches deep down into himself and he knows what he’s capable of, and trusts his “knowing”.

I want to thank everyone who made the trip here to celebrate Charles and Lindsay. For those of you who don’t know me I’m Charles “slightly” older, much wiser sister

I am standing up here today in a place I shouldn’t be, in shoes I shouldn’t be filling. The person that should be speaking today is our dad, and really a shitty substitute for him. But standing up here, I know with 1,000% confidence that this is exactly where he would want me to be, representing him. We’ve been robbed of many moments with him but today would have been at the very top of the list of things he never wanted to miss.

My brother is 5 years younger than me and I’ve always felt my role was not only big sister but also protector. That worked for most of the time…except for when I chipped his tooth or shut his arm in the door or hit him in the mouth with a lacrosse ball. Maybe its an older sibling thing or a maternal instinct but it’s always been there. We have a running joke we call “The ducks” bc there’s home video of me at maybe age 8 and my brother at 3 and I’m telling him not to feed the ducks too much bread. Charles McKay, don’t feed the ducks anymore, they’ve had too much! He was my first gig at being a mom.

Charles was an incredibly active kid, I remember him not being able to sit still much. When he got too wound up my mom would send him outside to run laps in the yard, he drew giant scenes on rolls of paper and set up his army guys in front of the landscape he created. He never loved school but he was one of the smartest people I knew. From a super young age he could do complex math without a pen and paper.

One day he found my great grandfathers old golf clubs in the garage and put a few golf balls down on the back lawn and it was all over. His love for golf was rooted. Much to our neighbor’s dismay he started hitting bombs into their yards.

Whatever he did he did with passion and energy. I always knew he’d try to do his own thing, break the mold. He had an entrepreneurial spirit, starting his own business during college for those who remember Barhopolis, and still does today. How many of you have received a text from him talking about opening his own coffee shop, brewery, etc…

When we were growing up we competed in everything. I remember hours of 1 on 1 basketball in our front driveway. I don’t remember when we started running together but it became our thing. We have run maybe 8-10 10ks. I think I’m being generous when I say he’s beat me twice and I’m not sure if you can even count the Redondo Beach 10k that was basically a fake one where we paid to have some woman give us a number at the start and a 100 calorie snack at the finish. The last one we ran together in October I was at the end waiting for him with a bottle of water.

We’ve been through a lot together…stuff that only we can understand. “To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.” – Clara Ortega

We were each other’s people, the constant in the storm of life’s obstacles…losing family pets & grandparents, our parents divorce, of the incredibly crushing grief that made life feel like it could never go on when our dad died suddenly at 48 years old.

He is my person, and I think I am his. Some girlfriends, who I won’t mention by name today, prior to Lindsay took issue with that, with how close we were. Lindsay has embraced it. She thinks it’s special and it’s one of the reasons I love her so much.

My “coming out story”, when I told Charles I was gay, is one of his favorite ones to tell. It’s filled with embellishment and a strange southern accent that I apparently developed. But it wasn’t an easy moment for me, and he handled it with the love and care everyone should be so lucky to experience. He was 21 when he met Liz (my now wife) and he embraced her like a sister. They got along too well sometimes, and spent many late nights crushing cans and blaring Dirty Diana on the speaker in our house in Baltimore. That memory stands out because I was very sober and very pregnant with McKay.

He does have an interesting pattern I should point out…the guy literally can’t stop following me around…wherever I move, he moves. Annapolis – Richmond, back to Annapolis, Baltimore, back to Annapolis, and then the biggest move, California. Most of the time he’s right behind me within a year of my move. But 20 months ago I finally followed him. He bought a house in Manhattan Beach and when I saw one less than a mile from him on the same street I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I felt like my dad has had a hand in all of those moves.

I met Lindsay on Liz’s birthday 4 years ago I think, and she hugged me immediately. I was like, ok, either you are trying to get in with the big sister or you are genuine but I’m not sure just yet. She met our boys a few weeks later on Friday movie night when we watched Home Alone. My brother introduced her as Aunt Lindsay to the kids and I thought, well, that was fast. He must really like her. I soon found out why.

Lindsay is hard not to love. She is kind hearted, hard working, & beautiful inside and out. She is young, which she reminds me a painstakingly awkward amount of times, but she is an old soul. She’s most at home when she is crafting or watching a movie and eating takeout in her pjs. And she loves my boys and they love her. She’s such a good balance for the now big kid who still can’t really sit still and who’s Scottish temper is alive and well.

I have been eagerly awaiting being an aunt to Charles and Lindsay’s kids. I joke with them all the time that I cannot wait to sniff their babies. Honestly, someone should figure out a way to bottle that shit. I hope you are blessed with many baby girls because I would be hard for any boys you had to compete with how good looking your three nephews are.

Marriage advice -I’ve been married for an eternity, right Liz? We are coming up on 13 years. I certainly don’t have all of the answers to a successful marriage but I’ll tell you what’s worked for us. In our house…the woman is always right. That may be a little more easily applied in your house! Find a way to meet each other in the middle…the biggest part about marriage is being aware that you are no longer a you, you are an us, you are a we. You need to bend your needs and wants to the needs and wants of your spouse. It will be a constant give and take. Your love will not be the same today as it is in 2, 5, 7, 10 years from now. Let it to change and grow. Because one day you will watch Charles make your baby giggle and you will look at him in a totally different light than you do today. Charles, you will watch Linds gently holding your baby at 3am when she has a 104 temperature and you will be bowled over with love for her that you never knew could reach those depths.

On behalf of my mom Sheila and my dad Charles who couldn’t be here I wanted to thank Cliff and Lisa for bringing this beautiful soul into the world so that she could one day become my brother’s world, and our world. Linds….we couldn’t be happier to have you apart of the Bisland family.

Last night we had to say goodbye to one of our labs and I’m gutted. 14.5 years ago Liz and I drove out to a farm in Frederick, Maryland and brought home 2- 8 week old Labrador retriever puppies; sisters from the same litter, one yellow; one white. I’m certain even our closest friends thought we were crazy. We were moving in together and getting not 1 but 2 puppies at once. We had only been together for 7 months at the time.

But these 2 girls have been with us through it all. They were our first babies and they helped prep us for these 3 boys. They moved with us from our first home in Baltimore to Arnold, Maryland across the country to Culver City, California and then to Manhattan Beach. They have welcomed their brothers home from the hospital one by one, probably wondering when it would stop…haha. They have been inseparable until today when we had to say goodbye to our yellow lab Bondi doggie.

It took a little while but Bondi established herself as the dominant dog in our house. Years ago, and maybe a when our dogs were still only a year or two old, we were watching an episode of Dog Whisperer and he said you should never get two dogs from the same litter, especially sisters. Whoops, too late. That sibling rivalry prepped us too. She wasn’t much of a retriever but always had a stick in her mouth when her sister chased the ball. She was a true watch dog and we joked that she didn’t sleep after we had kids because she was always sleeping with one eye open to protect them. She didn’t get along with a lot of other dogs except her sister and my moms dogs. She preferred people. She spent hours at Patterson Park running up and down the hill by the Pagoda when we lived in Baltimore City. She regularly explored the Bay Hills golf course with her sister. And our Culver City neighbors started recognizing her out walking the nearby streets and would secure her behind our gate again.

She loved her brothers fiercely and they adored her. She let them lay on her, steal her bed, ride her back, pull her tail, and worse…Christian once sat on her and put his finger inside of her eyelid. She wagged her tail rapidly and looked me straight in the eye and basically said, “seriously? get this kid off of me mom!” In our new house she was their first stop coming in the door from school or sports where they’d announce “Bondi – “Bonnie”, how was your day?!” and give her ears a rub or a big hug and kiss. They were closer to her than our other dog because she always wanted to be near them. She went out back if that’s where they were playing, she laid at the door of their room if they were in there, and she planted herself at the top of the stairs when we watched a movie.

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The Covid shutdown was shit for a lot of reasons but it gave us so much time at home with our dogs without the rat race of work and school. Pre-Covid they were left at home for 9+ hours a day. But during Covid we were all home, together. I know the love and attention she got during that time extended her life beyond what it would have been.

But recently she took a turn for the worse. She wasn’t able to walk well, hadn’t eaten for a few days, and stopped wagging her tail. Her eyes were sunken and she was shaking. We knew it was time and scheduled the vet come to the house last night. We knew it would be traumatic to bring her into an office because she HATED the vet. So we kept her home where she was comfortable on her bed with all the people around that she loved the most. The boys said their goodbyes. Gabe got more emotional that he had let himself get the whole day. He told me earlier in the day it feels weird to cry when other people are crying but that he was still sad. Christian quite literally said: “goodbye Bondi” because his little mind couldn’t understand what was about to happen. The younger two went into their room.

McKay stayed and listened to every word from the vet on how it would happen and waited for the catheter to be in, then he told Bondi she had been the best dog ever and he would love her forever. I do believe that we never forget our first dogs, Liz and I still remember ours.

I held onto Bondi’s head and Liz held her paw as they gave her the medicine that puts her to sleep. She hadn’t rested or slept well in days or months maybe so I imagine her body was beyond ready to be in that state. Then they administered the second one that stops her heart. I know it was the best gift we could give her, to help her no longer suffer, but I felt like I’d been stabbed in the chest. I am no stranger to death but I sobbed and sunk into Liz as I held Bondi and felt the soft fur around her head and ears.

How lucky are we that we’ve felt a love that makes this hurt so much? I walked into the boys room and told them she was gone. To my surprise they all wanted to see her. She was on a little stretcher and had a nice blanket on her. She looked peaceful and just like she was sleeping. The boys said final goodbyes and we walked back into their room. Last night was a hard night. It was one of the hardest I’ve had as a parent both because we lost our first baby and because I felt the need to support my human babies through this.

I’m also grieving because it’s an end of an era. Liz and I adopted our fur babies when we were still babies ourselves without much real world responsibility except showing up for work and paying our bills. Young and madly in love, they were our first parenting gig. They have been here for all of the seasons of our life up to this point. They have gotten older, we are getting older, our kids are growing up. Life didn’t appear to move this fast when I was a kid.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Bondi has been waking us up for months to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The house felt extra empty without her in it at 3am and again this morning. Gabe has nervous energy he’s channeling into artwork and writing. Christian keeps asking where Bondi is, and McKay is sad and upset but trying to be the good older brother by telling the other two we are sad. We bought our Christmas tree this afternoon and Christian was being exceptionally difficult. Don’t be fooled by FB and instagram, he’s always difficult, but today was the worst. I finally said, let me give you a hug. He wrapped his arms around me and started crying hard and said: “I miss Bonnie, I miss Bonnie.” Me too buddy.

Thanks for 14.5 wonderful years of unconditional love Bondi…Bondi-Ondie, Bondi Bubs, Bonnie…We will do our best to pour all the extra love we gave you into your sister now.

See you at the rainbow bridge 🌈

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My love of sports was built on the soccer fields at the Naval Academy with my dad; we would play for hours. It was fostered in our driveway at 105 Stewart drive where my brother and I would play beyond competitive basketball games against each other, and on lacrosse fields in Annapolis where my first coach asked us, are you ready? and we would yell back “We were born ready!” I never realized where sports would take me, I just played because nothing else made me as happy as competing on a team.

But the truth is that I walked onto this campus without a whole lot of confidence in myself as an athlete. I had a coach in high school that tried to convince me to play D1 lacrosse. I wasn’t convinced I was good enough to play at that level and soccer had always been my heart. RMC gave me a place to play 4 years of soccer and lacrosse, to captain both teams, it gave me a small community of teachers and coaches who cared, it no doubt molded me into the person I am today.

Soccer here meant I got a 2-week jump start on the campus – I wasn’t a freshman when the freshman arrived. It meant 3 a days in the heat and humidity during preseason, the smell of the grass during morning practice, extreme soreness for the first 2 weeks, running 17’s. Coach Woods took a lot of joy in running us in those 17’s because he thought we hated them. I loved them.  It meant lots of superstitions around Tropicana trains passing through campus, and a cheer that had to be said really fast in order for no one to actually hear the expletives words being said. I hope that cheer is still alive and well. It meant learning early life skills such as calendar planning around the 48 hour rule in order to schedule our nights out.

My freshman year we made it to the ODAC tournament in soccer and we were tied at the end of 90 minutes of the semi-finals. We went to PKs and somehow Coach Woods picked me to kick last. I had to score in order for us to advance to the championships. I remember hitting it low and to the corner and turning around to a charging group of teammates and a pileup. It was an amazing feeling and one of my favorite moments of college sports.

My dad died in ’02, the same year I graduated college, which was 19 years ago now. And while some memories of him have faded, I’ll never forget turning to the sidelines one game we were playing on the boys field and seeing him eagerly watching. I didn’t even know he was going to be there that day but he had snuck out of work early and there he was. He loved watching me play as much as I loved playing which is hard to top.

The irony of all of this gushing over soccer is that I’m up on this stage today is because of my success on the lacrosse field….It was lacrosse that actually connected me to my wife…my best friend from High School, Megan, who is here today, played lacrosse with my wife at Vanderbilt.

I came to college thinking my lacrosse skills were hard work and a sidearm shot I could put in the upper corner. But my lacrosse coach, Missy, saw something different in me and in how I fit on the team, how my skills could best be leveraged. She turned me into the quarterback. She drew up plays upon plays and was religious about running them over and over until we got them right. When I started in my new role I realized I loved it even more than scoring and I was pretty good at finding someone else’s stick to finish the job.

Our senior year took an awkward turn. Based on a crazy combination of factors we didn’t have enough girls to field a team. This was not an ideal situation for my last season of college sports. So we did what any reasonable team without players would do…recruited them from the soccer team, gave them lacrosse sticks, and hoped for the best. I remember a lot of rough practices where these amazing athletes, who had never played lacrosse before, struggled to even catch the ball. We had a hard time making it to 20 throws in row during shuttle drills. But slowly and surely things came together.

I met Erin Riedy when we were freshman. I remember not being sure if I liked her because she was from a rival school in Maryland. At some point, and I can’t tell you when, we started to click on the field and became very good friends off the field, and still are to this day. She was the easiest person on the field to pass to. Mandy and I paced each other for the timed 1.5 mile run….we could run 6 minute miles regularly. Riedy on the other hand was literally the last one on almost every timed run. But for that 5 second cut and sprint…no one had a chance. Whenever she cut she gained a quick 1-2 feet on her defender and had her stick in the air and eyes imploring for the ball. Riedy and Feedy, Biz and Wiz, as we were called during our Senior year because we had almost an equal number of goals to assists. The local news came to our practices and did a story on us, the paper wrote about us…I guess that was our 15 minutes of fame. That year I found her stick roughly 80 times for scores. I had 88 assists that season. I wouldn’t be up here without Missy’s vision and Erin’s ability to put the ball in the goal.

We took that team of athletic misfits and put ourselves in a #1 seed spot, we were going to host the ODAC tournament. We advanced to the championship against W&L. We were playing terribly, and our coach let us have it at halftime. I think Riedy and I specifically were asked to remove our head from a place that was making it difficult for us to see, much less play. But she was right. We were losing by 7 goals with 7 minutes to go. We came back with a vengeance and scored unanswered goal after unanswered goal. We tied the game with :02 seconds on the clock and won in OT. Many of our the men’s teams – soccer, football, lacrosse and alumni were in the stands watching us that day. I’ve heard from most of them it was the single best sporting event they ever saw. It was definitely the single best game I ever participated in.

That 2002 women’s lacrosse program taught me an incredibly important life lesson….you don’t need to have the perfect or most talented team but relationships, bonds, and heart can take you further. I remember the last bus I boarded after we lost in the NCAA tournament to St. Mary’s College. My dad was giving me a hard time and telling me to get on the bus before they left me. But I knew the minute I walked onto it, playing at this level of competition was over. It was a hard day.

I will never forget this school and all that it did for me. The friendships I forged on the fields here are unforgettable…Erin, Mandy, Lisa, McDade, Proulx, Alice, Ricketts, Rita/Eric, Emily, DP, Brei, Brown…I can’t name them all but you know who you are. I’ll never forget my grandparents coming to tailgates and my grandfather making me marinara sauce for my carb days. I’ll never forget the recruiting trip that my mom brought me on where she bragged about me being a ‘finesse player’ to Coach Burch as I blushed in the corner. Or the countless trips she made back and forth with me, sometimes in hailstorms or when I had to be rushed to the hospital for a very serious soccer injury. I’ll never forget coming back and coaching soccer when I was an alum. I’ll never forget looking over and seeing my dad standing on the sidelines, having unexpectedly shown up for a game just because and telling me the keeper was off her line and I should look to chip it over her head. Always look for the keeper off their line.

And while I’m now just a sideline warrior at soccer, lacrosse, and baseball fields for my 3 boys who are here today, my hope is that they experience something in life that is as special as this place was for me. Mckay, Gabe, and Christian…I love the 3 of you so much and hope you do something you love as much as I loved playing soccer and lacrosse here at RMC. 

I’m grateful for this honor and I couldn’t possibly thank everyone I need to thank during this speech. Congrats to all of the other inductees today, thank you Randolph Macon for this incredible honor, and thank you for giving this freshman that lacked confidence the ability to grow into a Hall of Famer.   

Nancy Gocke was born in Morgantown, West Virginia the daughter of a doctor. She was a proud West Virginian and a loyal WVU Mountaineers fan. In 1953 she was crowned Queen of the Mountain State Forest Festival. https://www.forestfestival.com/past-queens-1930-1954/

She graduated from University of Maryland Nursing School (class of ’55) and married a doctor, Stephen Barchet. In her first marriage she had 3 girls, the oldest is my mom Sheila. They divorced after his infidelity and as a single mom of 3 she moved to Annapolis, Maryland in the early 60’s for a fresh start. She met my grandfather, remarried, and they had 2 more kids. This only begins to describe her grit and determination.

As a nurse she did many jobs but most noteworthy were her years as a hospice nurse, nurse at the detention center, and nurse at a ballet school in Florida. She was a story teller so I remember lots of tales about putting the prisoners in their places and the young girls at the ballet school only eating popcorn after hours of workouts. She was well trained to spot the signs when I toed the line of an eating disorder in high school. She wasn’t a beat around the bush kind of woman. “Ange…are you barfing (pronounced a little more like ‘barthing’? Are you starving yourself? For Christ’s sake I can see your bones, eat something.” I remember my cousins and I playing with her stethoscope when we were little but I don’t remember realizing how important her work was or how she had been a trailblazer getting an advanced degree in the 50s.

I was her first grandchild, growing up she adored me and I knew it. There has been a lot of drama in my family but as the grandchild I was able to have a buffer from it. She spoke her mind, was unapologetic, opinionated, and blunt. She wasn’t afraid to tell you how she viewed a situation and how you screwed up. And it didn’t normally begin with: can I give you some advice? Haha! “What the hell were you thinking?” “Why aren’t you helping your mother more?” She made some comments that likely kept me in the closet for a few years longer than I stayed there. To know her was to love her and understand her; while she criticized fiercely but she loved just as fiercely.

We had a special relationship. She hand wrote letters to me when I was little, she was my first penpal. I adored the red hearts and gold stars that she put in the notes and I still remember how she signed her name. She often said, “Oh Ange, don’t ever change. If you do I’ll have to move out of the country”.

We used to plan ‘movie marathons’ at the local movie theaters. For those of you who always stay above board or follow all the rules you wouldn’t know about this so let me explain. Basically you buy a ticket to a movie you want to see and then plan out your next movie based on the duration. If you were good you could hit 3-4 in a day (on one ticket of course). It was one of her favorite things to do.

She once dragged (I say dragged because I think some of us were more willing than others) me & my cousins to WV to see where she came from. We spent hours in the car through the West Virginia mountains. When we arrived at the house where she grew up we knocked right on that door and asked if we could see inside. That about sums her up…don’t wait for an invite, take the bull by the horns.

When I got my tonsils out at 16 I left the hospital puking blood. Nana was not shy about yelling at the Doctors and Nurses as we were leaving the hospital for their audacity at releasing me under those conditions. She stayed with me for the next few nights to make sure I was well taken care of…my own personal nurse. One of those days she went back to her house to pick up some things and the sun had set by the time she was returning. She started driving the wrong way on Rt. 2 heading back to our house. I remember her telling the story with self deprecation and us having quite a laugh about her losing her marbles.

I still recall exactly where I was when she dropped the news on me that she had breast cancer. I was standing in the parking lot of Bates Field just after a high school soccer game when she told me about the diagnosis. I sobbed and hugged her and she assured me she planned to fight like hell and that she was too tough to go down without one. She was right of course, that cancer stayed in remission all of these years. I remember going to some of her follow up appointments in the first few years after her treatment. One day she made me peach pie and we sat in the lobby at University of Maryland and talked.

Another time she won tickets from a radio station to see the Rockets at Radio City Music Hall. My cousin, my grandfather, me, and Nana were on the train heading north before we could blink. It was one of the more memorable trips I’ve taken.

When my dad died very suddenly in 2002 she and my grandfather were at the hospital within minutes of hearing the news. It was another bond for us although I can tell you neither of us wanted it. She lost her dad at a young age too and I know it haunted her. She consistently said “you will never get over it”. She didn’t mean it in a dwelling on it sort of way, but in nod of respect for the weight of the grief.

She was the world’s worst present giver which had nothing to do with the actual gifts she gave and everything to do with the fact that she could never wait for the event (birthday, Christmas, etc…). “Hey, come back to my room, I want you to see something” and there she would give you the present she had for you, sometimes days ahead of time. The funny thing is I don’t remember what she gifted me many of those times. But I do remember the sports games she attended cheering me on all the way into college, I remember the way her house smelled, the way she was never on time for anything including picking us up from school, how she’d make up for it by stopping for a Rocco’s pizza at an unacceptable time before dinner. I remember loving to get my nails done but being too nervous to tell her she was squeezing my fingers too hard. I remember the contents of her purse…she always had an emory board, honey lemons (cough drops), and probably a small bottle of basic H in there. I remember how she loved a good meal, especially from Mama Lucia’s or Adam’s Ribs. I can still taste her banana bread and still don’t do it justice when I try to make it. I remember how much she loved holidays, especially St. Patty’s Day and Valentines Day, which she referred to as ‘Hearts Day’. All of this is just more validation for me that life is rarely about what you physically give others and way more about your presence in it and the memories you build.

About 5 years ago she had a very bad stroke. They operated on the clot on her brain but she was never the same. This vibrant German/Irish firecracker of a woman who literally never ran out of things to say or feedback to give could no longer communicate. She couldn’t call you out for being a ‘piece of work’ or say ‘oh, come on!’. She could no longer tell me how much she loved me or how wonderful my boys were. She was never able to meet Christian. My aunt Suzanne took care of her better than any of us could have ever done from before the stroke until she passed on Thursday night into Friday morning.

When they were living in Florida after her stroke I visited. I honestly wasn’t sure if I would ever see her again. The day my flight left I laid on the bed next to her and held her hand. I talked to her about life, which was one of her favorite past times. I played the saved voicemails I had from her…5 of them from 2012 until 2015 and told her how much I missed talking to her. She looked directly into my eyes and I could tell she heard me. I cried hard ugly tears. She never minded tears and always encouraged us to get them out because ‘tears were cleansing’.

I still have those voicemails and I sat and listened to them the other day after I learned that she had passed and the mourning came right back. I miss her voice and her pushy but always practical advice. I miss how she ended phone calls with “Love you, God Bless, Sweet Dreams” no matter what time of day it was. And after not being able to verbally communicate for years, those of us who knew her best know that Pop and my Dad are in for it because she’s gonna have a lot to say! I feel grateful to have had her as our matriarch for the years we did. I know for certain that I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without her influence and for the grit and determination that she passed to me I am forever grateful.

“Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price” -Glennon Doyle

May 10, 1932 – October 9, 2020. Rest easy Nana, sweet dreams.

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I realize this will seem like a deviation from my typical writing for most of you reading this blog. I have been writing on and off on this forum for 3 years now and have reserved most of it for stories about our kids. On September 5, 2019 Liz and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage…I thought it was only right to take some time to toast my bride.

I won’t pretend that it has been an easy breezy 10 years but it’s been life and the ups have far outweighed the downs. Marriage is hard work…most things worth their salt are. Things have been especially challenging over the last few years…we made a cross country move, Liz quit her job and started a brand new career, we had a new baby (with health issues you are very versed on already), I travel all of the time, Liz has a demanding job, and we put our kids first. But you learn to adapt to the changes and challenges that life throws your way. Liz and I have done it together and sometimes we suck at it and have to reevaluate how to tackle the next challenge, but we always find a way. I know (and I think it’s safe to say that Liz knows) that we are in the ‘thick of it’ right now. And although we don’t have time for ourselves on many occasions, we both agree that our most important job is to raise these 3 boys to be good kind humans.

We started dating in our mid 20’s when we were in the infancy stages of our careers and learning to be grown up’s without much responsibility. 2 dogs, 3 kids, career changes, promotions, life/death, sickness and health, and many moves later…life is a bit more complicated. But as I reflect back on the 13 years Liz and I have been together (10 of those years married) …there are things that no one else in the world will ever experience with me or could ever experience with me. These memories bring tears of joy and sadness, smiles, and belly laughs. I hope they do for you too Liz, and I hope our kids look back on these things are moved by the same emotions. McKay, Gabe and Bear…I want you to know how we lived our lives to the fullest and always loved each other while we were doing it.

I remember:

The first time that we hung out together after we started dating and both of us were so nervous that we split a whole case of beer before we went out.

That apartment in Mt. Vernon…you sitting on your kitchen counter while we talked about what we wanted out of life.

Lots of Sunday Funday’s at Mother’s in Baltimore and going back to that same spot where we first kissed.

The little house I lived in with Greg and how you came over after my soccer game. Those tight white soccer shorts worked.

First walking into 18 S Chester together and knowing it was our house (ok, so it doesn’t evoke those same emotions today as our lemon rental property) but I still remember the feeling back then.

The trip to Italy for Scott’s wedding and the 2 weeks of traveling we did afterwards.

The night I asked you to marry me, Christmas 2008 and how terrified I was to do it.

Our babymoon to St. Croix…probably the last time we slept well in our lives. Ha

Laying in our bed together in Baltimore after a scary anatomy scan at 20 weeks pregnant when we thought there might be something wrong with McKay. Feeling the conviction in your voice when you willed him to be ok and asked me to trust you.

The feeling I had when we became moms the minute McKay was born…to have him lay on my chest and to see you hold him.

Bringing McKay home to that little house and having 3 months together as a new family of 3. I think I’ll always look back at those days as some of the most precious of my life…no agenda, no must do’s, no work. Just us as new parents learning how to maneuver through it.

All of the projects we did to rehab that house (18 S Chester)…putting wardrobes together, redoing the kitchen, pulling all of the bushes out of the front yard with your mom and dad, turning the guest room into a nursery, redoing the bathroom (a few times).

You and McKay sharing big bowls of cereal in the mornings before work when you were pregnant with Gabe.

Beer Olympics with our friends…waking up to a slice of pizza on the fence and missed calls from the alarm company…we were overserved.

BSSC Football games with friends….throwing touchdown passes to each other because it was worth 2 more points than a regular touchdown.

Saturday burger day at Claddaughs Pub…I can still taste the blue cheese.

Snow-mageddon when I worked at Target and I had to be on 6 hours of calls a day and you would pass food under the door at each meal. Then walking in the snow to meet our friends in Canton Square.  

Our ‘Countries’ house crawl with all of our friends when we were “Australia” (by the way, worst country to plan for ever).

Our two bachelorette parties – the first at Lake Anna and the next in Dewey Beach. I’m happy to say we survived them both and actually made it to our wedding day. Holy hell they were fun.

Witnessing and celebrating so many of our friends weddings together – Bart, Big Kat, Megan, Blob, Mary, Billy to name a few.

The excitement I felt to walk down the aisle to you on the Choptank River. Literally feeling the love pour in from our family and friends as we exchanged our vows. And the party, the epic fucking party afterwards.

Our Honeymoon in Spain…Sitting at the pool overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in the afternoon with our books and a pitcher of sangria.

GNO’s in Annapolis and the hilarious string of emails that came after a night out with those girls.

Losing Kellie suddenly and our heartbreak over how to move on with our own lives.

The Tuscany Trip with McKay when he was 9 months old.

The documentary we agreed to make about the vote for same sex marriage in Maryland. Still the thing I am most proud of us for.

Buying what we thought would be our forever house in Arnold. Hosting Holidays and kids Birthday parties there in our big yard.

Losing the dogs on the golf course…and finding Sam covered in Goose poop…constantly.  

Watching you give birth to Gabe and being unable to tell you he was a boy because I was so emotional and crying.

Bringing Gabe home to that house as a family of 4. Telling your parents and my mom to keep it down because they were drinking wine and having too much fun the first couple of days we were home.

Walking Gabe up and down the driveway when he was screaming his head off and couldn’t sleep.

Potty training kids, singing the pee pee on the potty song, eating ice cream at 10am because someone learned how to poop on the potty.

Going sledding in Arnold with the boys and Gabe being too much of a scaredy cat to go down the hill.

Our trip to Captiva, Florida for spring break in 2015. Our exhausting decision to drive there with both boys but what an amazing trip we had.

Spending every night for 3 weeks in December in our basement playing Santa and turning it into a playroom for the kids.

Making the difficult & risky decision to move to California. Learning to explore our new city and state…beaches, parks, hikes galore.

Riding bikes to the beach with lunches and towels and nothing else.

Pre school graduations and Shabbat services at Akiba.

McKay starting Kindergarten and then Gabe starting just a year later.

Welcoming a 3^rd kid into the house and the unbelievable feeling of meeting our 3^rd boy. I could have 10 more kids and never be numb to the intense emotion of child birth.

Our spring break 2018 trip to Mexico.

Saying goodbye to your dad.

Playing musical beds when a kid or 2 can’t sleep through the night.

Taking turns rushing a kid to urgent care or the ER. McKay’s broken arm, Gabe’s broken arm, Christian’s breathing issues, McKay’s dehydration, and on and on.

Our many trips to Bald Head over the years…the evolution from just us at first with a 6 pack of Corona’s on the beach, then the dogs, then McKay, then Gable and Mckay, and now all 3 boys.

The feeling of watching Christian being wheeled back into surgery, there are some things that no one on the planet could even attempt to compete with and that’s one of them.

Sitting at Gabe’s bedside after his surgery and willing him to wake up because it was taking what felt like an eternity.

Concerts…Jenny Lewis, Dave Matthews, Kenny Chesney, Grace Potter, Dolly Parton, NOLA Jazz Fest to name a few…

And just like that, a decade gone and a whole lot of life lived between the beginning and where we are now. I hope you never stop having a “favorite part” to every song and telling me exactly what it is, wanting to travel and concert go with me, having dance parties in the kitchen, putting up with my penny pinching ways and tiger claws, working through the hard stuff together, and celebrating the birthdays, anniversaries, and the milestones in between.

I re-read this Maya Angelou poem again every Anniversary because it’s just so perfect and it reminds me of our wedding day when Matt read it from his phone and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Thanks for agreeing to live this life with me side by side…here’s to many more decades Lizzer.

Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

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When I picked my kids up from school today I paid careful attention to their faces. Their expressions revealed slight excitement to see me and a bit of reservation to leave the play they are always wrapped up in at this time of day. My heart hurt looking at the innocent, happy faces of my older boys. Sure, we’ve had our share of hurt feelings, rough mornings, sibling fights, kids picking on them, mommy/mama yelling but all in all their innocence has not been tainted. And I knew that would all change very soon.

This morning right before I dropped them off to school I booked all 5 of us on a flight out of LAX that leaves tomorrow. We are heading to Philadelphia to say goodbye to Liz’s dad, my father in law, and the boy’s Pop-Pop. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a few years ago and over the last year they properly diagnosed him with Progressive Super Nuclear Palsy (link) which is far worse than Parkinson’s. Quite literally, it was a death sentence. We knew once he was diagnosed that he didn’t have more than a few years to live.

Some parents may choose to shelter their kids for as long as possible from death and other scary situations. I want to be clear that if you have chosen that path I do not judge your approach, I’m only explaining my why. While I’m certainly not out there looking for ways to expose them to these situations, I welcome them into our lives as an avenue to talk to our kids about the inevitability of life. I know that my own experience of losing my dad young has done this to me. I wish he would have talked to me about death, about what he thought happened after, about how to carry on if anything ever happened to him. But he didn’t and when he died my heart was not only ripped from my chest but I was left asking myself questions about his feelings on all of the above. I would spend time desperately cataloguing our conversations for talks of an afterlife or advice on moving on.

Today at pickup I told my kids not to get onto their skateboards because we were going to have a family meeting at the park across the street. I led them over to the park and they both apprehensively sat down and looked into my eyes. These are the moments they don’t prepare you for as a parent. There’s no “What to Expect When You Have to Explain Death to your Kids” book to lean on. Or maybe there is but I should have read it much earlier than this moment.

Nonetheless I felt the weight of the world sitting in front of their big hungry eyes. And I felt unworthy and woefully unprepared for this conversation. “Boys, you know we are going back to Philadelphia, tomorrow right? (heads nod in agreement) You know Pop-Pop is really sick and isn’t doing well…guys, we are going home to say goodbye to Pop-Pop. We think he is going to die soon, probably when we are home with him. The body cannot go on forever…remember just like the butterfly who had a hurt wing, everyone/everything dies. But their soul is something different. Even when he does die Pop-Pop will be with us forever in our hearts.” I doubt it came across as smoothly as is written here and I cried when I told them, but I tried my best to hold it together. My tears and emotion…that’s another thing I try not to shelter them from. Raising boys, I believe it’s even more important they know its ok to cry.  

Our older boys are so different in the way they process things…15-20 seconds into our conversation McKay had put his head down. His eyes were wet with tears that welled up but didn’t fall yet. Gabe looked at me nervously wringing his fingers and said with innocence: “Mommy, can you not tell me when Pop-Pop dies? I don’t want you to tell me.” I apologized to him for not being able to make that promise. I told him part of the reason we were flying home was to be there with Nonna and the rest of our family so that we could comfort each other when Pop-Pop died. I assured him that even if I tried to hide it from him he would find it out. I hugged them both hard and told them how much I love them. I also told them how much their Mama would need to feel their love when we got home and when we went back to Philly.

We travelled from LA in the late afternoon and it was 2am by the time we made it to my mother in law’s house outside of Philly. The next morning, we did our best to get up, shower, eat and hustle over to the hospital. One of our biggest fears in all of this was that we wouldn’t make it home in time to say goodbye. Joe had been put into the Hospice care building on Monday and the doctor told us that he believed he only had 7-14 days to live. He had stopped eating and stopped drinking water a few days prior to that. We’d prepared the boys for seeing him by telling them it would seem like Pop-Pop was sleeping and that even though he couldn’t talk to them he could hear them perfectly well, especially with his bat ears. He could always hear a baby crying long before anyone else in the house could.

The hospice setup was better than one hopes for with hospice I guess. Joe was in one room with an adjoining sitting room that had a door to the outside grounds. There was lots of green grass and a place for the kids to play. The boys all went in to see him and tell him that they loved him. Gabe, processing in his own way, would go into his Pop-Pop’s room and then come out and color furiously, reenter and hang up his picture. Rinse/Repeat. He must have colored 10 different pictures in a few days’ time. The first day was tough to watch but Joe was squeezing our hand at times and even smiling on occasion. The hard part was when we could tell he wanted to say something to us. He would start moving his lips but no words came. As we sat by his bedside Betsy told me that day that the previous day had been their 42^nd Wedding Anniversary. Josh Grobin or Michael Bubble were alternated in the CD player. Liz picked up the CD’s desperately wanting to play something different and grabbed Rod Stewart. Her first choice, the Big Chill soundtrack seemed too upbeat and not the right setting.

We dragged ourselves home after about 7 hours at the hospice and stopped to get the kids some real food for dinner. It had been a long 36 hours and we knew the next few days wouldn’t be any easier. Liz and her sister went together early the next morning and I took the boys to a nearby park with a pond and a walking path. We felt like they could use a break from the hospital. They spent time pointing out frogs, geese, birds, water striders, butterflies, fish, and every other creature possible. With spring had come new life, green grass, flowers. The yin and yang of life wasn’t lost on me.

We arrived back at the hospital and Joe’s decline over just a day’s time had been dramatic. He was colder to the touch and he couldn’t squeeze our hands or interact with us much more. The doctor had come by that morning and said 24-48 hours. We stayed with him for hours. I found myself willing him to let go, to end the pain he was in, to end his fight. I told him that Betsy had an amazing support system and that we would look out for her. I promised him that I would love and take care of Liz and his grandson’s for the rest of my life. I told him it was ok to let go. Joe’s physical stature and sheer strength was working against him in the end. Some of his brother’s came to say goodbye that evening. The kids were brought candy and played football and ran around in the grass. If you let yourself forget for a minute, it almost didn’t feel like we were at a hospice facility waiting for someone to take his last breath.

When I left with the boys around 10pm the night nurse had just done an exam of him and told us not to leave Betsy alone because death was imminent. These nurses were wonderful and I thanked her for taking such good care of Joe. She looked me right in the eye, and said ‘it’s my honor’, these men protected us and put their lives on the line, it’s the least I could do.’ I believed her; what she said was so simple and so powerful. I said goodbye to Betsy’s best friend Bev and thanked her for being with Betsy during this time and she said, ‘it’s my honor, it truly is.’ And I knew she meant it too…Betsy and Joe had been by Bev’s side when her husband Jerry died 10+ years prior.

Liz was struggling with whether to stay or to come with me and the boys. The juxtaposition of the moment was very apparent…on one end she had this family that she’s built, and her responsibility lies with us now. I knew she wanted to just come with us, to cling to us, to put the kids to bed, to feel normal for a little while. On the other end this man that raised her and made her the person she today is was lying in a bed about to leave this world…and the mother that had nurtured her needed her there. In the end she stayed. I don’t know how she feels about it now…does she wish she came with us? Is she happy she was there at the end? The events of the days leading up to her dad’s death and his death itself will forever change her. I know they will and I knew when we got onto that airplane that they would change all of us.

I fell asleep with the boys and woke up at 2am to a phone call. I hurried into the hallway outside of the bedroom so I didn’t wake our boys and Liz’s voice echoed through my head “He’s gone”. She told me how she was sitting by the edge of the bed when she thought he’d stopped breathing and asked her brother Billy to see what he thought. They decided to go get the nurse. Betsy had been asleep on the little chair in the corner but woke up. The nurse told them he was still breathing, but barely and that they should say their goodbyes. They all stood around him and he exhaled his last breath.

Liz crawled into bed at 5am as the sun was rising and making the room bright. When the kids woke up early I hurried them out of the house because I didn’t want them waking anyone who had been with Joe the night before. I drove McKay and Gabe to get donuts knowing that I would have to tell them the news while we were there. I let them sit and enjoy their donuts and play a game of eye spy first. When I told them McKay made a fist, punched his hand down on the table, and cried (Bisland’s have tempers and big emotions). Gabe looked sad and worried and silently crawled into my lap. I held him and cried and said “Pop-Pop’s body isn’t with us anymore but…” Gabe finished my sentence “but he will be in our heart always”. I nodded in agreement, unable to vocalize the words and cried tears onto his curly hair. 

When we came home everyone was awake. I did what my Italian roots told me to do and made everyone breakfast sandwiches. I told Liz that I had let the boys know. We talked about him a little bit and McKay said, Mommy, ‘he can meet your daddy now.’ I burst into tears and Liz came to console me. Not exactly how this should have worked…after all, her dad is the one who just died.

The next few days were filled with all the stuff you busy yourself with when someone dies. Betsy took out a folder she had of old letters, newspaper clippings, and magazines highlighting Joe’s career in the banking industry. Liz met with the funeral home and wrote the obituary. We went to our nieces’ ballet rehearsal and the kids all ran around together afterwards. I know it helped everyone to see them together again. The next day we went to a horse show that was in town. Christian made everyone laugh with his dance moves. My mom has always called my brother and me her ‘lifeboats’. The analogy was never lost on me, but I never fully understood it until now. That’s how life works though isn’t it? Appreciation comes later in life with understanding.

We took the long flight home knowing that we’d be coming back for the funeral in a few weeks. This cross-country stuff isn’t for the weak. Emotionally and physically spent was an understatement.

The kids missed 4 days of school and as timing would have it they both had dentist appointments for cavities that I couldn’t move day 1 and 2 of being back. The morning of McKay’s appointment I dropped him off at school late. When I walked into the office I saw Ms. P. She knows McKay and Gabe because she happened to be the assistant in McKay’s kindergarten class and now she’s the assistant in Gabe’s kindergarten. She immediately hugged me and said she was so sorry to hear the news because Gabe had just shared it with her. I felt immediate relief that he told someone, that he’s talking about it, and dealing with it in his own way. McKay looked at Ms. P and said, yeah, the same thing happened to me (as in, I lost my grandfather too) and then he put his head down. Ms. P didn’t flinch: “I know sweetie” and then she embraced him.

When McKay went to off to his classroom I asked Ms. P more about Gabe. I told her that he and McKay had been dealing with it very differently but that I was worried because Gabe wasn’t really talking about it. Ms. P said that he told her that his Pop-Pop had died and that he was sad. He told her that he was able to say goodbye to him and that he couldn’t talk but that he knew we were there. She told Gabe that it was great he was able to see him and that she knew he loved his Pop-Pop to which Gabe responded, “yeah, and he loved me too”. Gabe knows he was loved by his Pop-Pop. He can still feel it.

One of the things I find toughest about moving on is that so many people around you are mulling about and living their normal lives. For you, time feels suspended. Mundane, unimportant things feel like an even bigger waste of time. You do your best to keep moving and keep talking about the person you lost. Here’s what I know about Liz’s dad: he was wonderful to me, he always accepted and welcomed me into his family. I called him one Christmas in 2008 and said, I know we aren’t really the prototypical couple and that this may feel old fashioned but I’m going to ask Liz to marry me and I want your permission. “That’s wonderful Biz, we are so happy, we love you sweetheart.” I called him when I had a job offer with CarMax and talked with him about the equity and stock options and all the things that his mind was so sharp on. I remember sitting on my deck out back in Arnold and listening to his views on stocks and what he’d been able to do for his family as a result. I learned how to mess with him, without pissing him off, which if you knew Joe, you understood it was a delicate balance. When we were on Bald Head Island or Joe and Betsy visited us I knew how he liked his coffee and poured him a cup in the morning. I made him a killer breakfast sandwich or a parfait that he always enjoyed. I would bring it to him, tell him I loved him even though he was a pain in the ass, and kiss him on the head. Without my own father in my life anymore and only one grandfather for our boys I made sure to cherish the time and take plenty of pictures. I will miss his laugh the most, it was this bellowing laugh that came from deep inside and his mouth was always open wide when he did it. There are a few pictures I have of him where I can still hear it. I’ll tell you this, I’ll do my best to honor you Joe. I know that we will keep your memory alive in my house because Joseph Thomas Drennan just happens to live in all of my kids: McKay Joseph, Gabriel Thomas, & Christian Drennan.

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I started writing this blog in February and put it aside. I’m picking it back up today at the beginning of April because of some recent developments in “Why are my kids growing up so fast?”

Recently we were shopping at Trader Joe’s. An entirely different blog could be dedicated to my love of T. Joes. We have been coming to this store religiously since McKay was born…maybe before then. McKay politely accepted the stickers the cashier handed out after they were finished bagging our insane amounts of groceries. But today after we made it to the car he handed those stickers to Christian. He’s too old, too uninterested, too cool for the stickers. Sometimes I can’t put my finger on how quickly time is moving. Other days it hits me like a freight train.

He tried out for machine pitch baseball in February. He’s been working hard and I would have been proud regardless but his hard work paid off. He caught a pop up fly into the sun and hurled it into 2nd base, fielded a grounder, and kept his eye on the ball and hit it 3 out of 4 pitches. I remember pitching him a little wiffle ball to his plastic bat at 18 months old and being so proud he could connect with the ball. 

Now, when it’s bath time in our house Gabe and Christian eagerly hop in. McKay reluctantly gets in after multiple requests but takes up 1/2 of the bath with his long body. He almost doesn’t fit inside it any longer. Recently we’ve been giving him the shower option which he more willingly agrees to. Last night I sat in the bathroom with him while he showered & listened to Queen songs on the waterproof speaker. It seems like yesterday I was giving him his first shower when he was only a few weeks old. I have a distinct memory of being a brand new mom, clutching this little baby, afraid to drop him while I showered in the old claw foot tub in our Baltimore house.

During our flight back from visiting Liz’s brother over spring break the flight attendant came by with a coloring book and crayons for all 3 boys. McKay looked at her and politely said “no thank you but I think my brother would like those”. Ugh. Well, if nothing else we are raising a polite kid.

The other night Gabe sat on my lap and read a book…fighting through hard C’s and soft c’s, blended letters, and outright English nonsense that I just told him to memorize…but reading all the while. How is my baby boy reading? I remember him struggling to sleep when he was little and being up for hours in the middle of the night playing with my hair. 

Tonight he sat on my lap and worked out a math word problem. He has 6 100% spelling tests displayed on our fridge. He is devouring Kindergarten but it feels like a train is blowing through town and forgetting it’s stops. Isn’t this the same boy who would say “mommy, I wish to be a bird so I could fly”. 

Recently he has been so independent. He wakes up in the morning, gets himself dressed and makes himself his own oatmeal in the microwave. Sometimes he gets Christian a diaper and an outfit all picked out and often times he wants to help dress him. Wasn’t he just this little boy who was holding my hand as we took a walk through Arnold, looking up at me with his giant wide eyes?

He also draws elaborate pictures and writes little notes to our whole family. He drew me a rainbow bird when I had the flu so I could hang it next to the bed since he was banished from the sick ward. The other day McKay was sad and crying about something. He promptly went inside and wrote him a note “I love you McKay” and gave it to him. He’s always had such a good sensitive heart. I hope he stays that way for as long as possible. 

Somehow the topic of college came up a year or two ago and we told the boys that when you go to college you normally live there and come home on breaks and during the summer. Gabe peppered me with questions about why kids live away from their parents until I finally said we have a long time to figure all of this our and told him he could live at home and drive to school each day. That seemed to satisfy him enough at the time. I’m scared to talk to him about it again though…just in case he says he’s excited to go away to college. Because I don’t think my heart can handle that now…I’m counting on him to be my home body for a while.

And then we have Christian who is now 2 years old. 2! That can’t be possible because I think I’m still pregnant with him, no? He’s no longer saying “I want my milka” or “I want to read a booka”. He has a sense of humor saying things to us like “no way” and switching the words around in songs…”Twinkle twinkle little (mama) hahaha” or “Hush little baby, don’t say a Christian”. He uses the word “poop” incessantly and thinks he’s hilarious. His brothers try to straight face…’that’s not funny Christian, poop is yucky’ but sometimes roll over in uncontrollable laughter. 

He is in full terrible 2 mode and is fighting us at every turn. He has a set of pipes that can damage eardrums and he uses them. He also has a hot temper. Don’t mess with him or you will end up punched in the face or have a (convenient) sharp or blunt object hurled at you. If we are looking at the positives…McKay and Gabe will never have to worry about another kid bullying them. Christian will be the muscle in the family for sure.

He talks up a storm and is one of the more well spoken 2 year olds I’ve ever come across. Sometimes the sentences he pieces together blow me away. He also does things I don’t want to forget like when you ask him a question he’s uncertain about he touches a finger or two to his cheek in a nervous habit, as if it will help him remember the word his brain is searching for. When he wants to be picked up he says, “I hold you”.

He still has remnants of soft baby feet but I know they will become a little less soft with every week that passes. I was holding him cradle style two nights ago and he said “mommy, I’m not a baby”…holy freaking heartbreak. Enter tirade…”What do you mean? Of course you are a baby, you are my baby, you will always be my baby.” Liz walked into the room having heard the conversation from the bathroom and looked at me with sympathetic eyes. Her look seemed to understand the real, lasting damage that comment will do to my psyche. 

Life feels hard sometimes. I’m running off to catch flights to (insert destination), Liz is hurrying off to work in the dark to make up hours, we are at sports events at all times of the weekend, and all the while trying to keep up with chores and groceries and homework and health issues. We were in the car this weekend heading back to the baseball fields again for game #2 of the day. Between games we had just enough time to go home, make lunch, mow the lawn, and fold laundry. It was a struggle to get everyone back in the car and we had just worked through a Christian screaming fit, getting Gabe dressed into his uniform, and begging McKay to put his shoes on.

We felt gassed and totally burned out and in one look with no words exchanged we both knew it. Then Macklemore came on and although the volume was low, the lyrics echoed in our car.
“I wish somebody would have told me babe. Some day, these will be the good old days. All the love you won’t forget. And all these reckless nights you won’t regret. Someday soon, your whole life’s gonna change. You’ll miss the magic of these good old days”.

Thank you to whoever sent us that song. Thank you for the reminder that we are raising these incredible humans who look up to us. And even though they are growing at the speed of light they still genuinely want to hang out with us. I want to embrace and slow down these years even though they are hard. 

This morning I carefully woke McKay at 7:30 (he’s our sleeper)…his face was wrinkled from his sheets and his eyes had trouble opening all the way. He knew it was day #1 back from spring break and the first thing he said was “I just don’t want to go back to school, I want to stay here and hang out with you guys”. There’s my baby boy. Ahhh, me too McKay…until our next weekend or vacation…

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