My earliest memories with my mom are in Boulder.  I was probably 2 or 3 years old.  I remember Uncle Wayne was living with us in Boulder and he drank out of the milk carton with the refrigerator door still open and I tattled on him to my mom and said, “Mom - Uncle Wayne drinks straight from the carton!”  And I remember her saying, “Oh, that’s because he’s a bachelor honey.”  

 

I remember getting chicken pox and laying on the couch with Danielle when she got it at the same time and we both got stuffed animals - I think that Nona sent them to us because we were so sick but I’m not sure.  

 

This might be an implanted memory because I think my mom told me this story, but when we first moved to Boulder I was - I think 3 - and she took us out on this hike and she didn’t bring any water and I sat on a boulder and refused to walk any further until I got some water.  I wouldn’t go up or down or back to the car - I wouldn’t go anywhere.  And my mom was like “I kept begging people for water for you and everyone is saying no” and then a woman stopped and helped us out and said you always have to bring the water, it’s dry up here.  She was very nice.  I’ve hated hiking ever since.  

 

I have very clear memories from being in Alaska.  I remember our street was just lined with Aspen Trees, and you couldn’t even see any of the houses.  And in the winter there were just huge snow banks three feet high on the side of the street.  I remember seeing moose twice on our street, and once on our driveway.  This big male moose came into the driveway and our black husky, named Dusty, was barking at the moose and my mom was just so nervous and so anxious and had to go outside to get Dusty in, and then after that happened our friend who was like 7 years old down the block was coming over with her dog, and her dog was doing circles around the moose legs and the moose started pawing it’s hoof on the ground and lowered it’s head and my mom was really nervous and opened the door and said “Janelle, get in this house right now!”  And she was so worried about the dog.  I remember that being really intense, and exciting.  

 

And we were really allowed to just go out by ourselves and play in the wilderness.  Like my mom would be in the house and we’d be down the street with a little friend playing in the snow and romping around.  

 

I remember my mom picking us up from daycare  in Alaska in this light blue Subaru station wagon.  Apparently at her work she had a vending machine and so everyday when she picked us she’d have a little candy bar for us.  And I remember when we moved back with her when we were in Denver and I was now 8 years old, and after a week of that she didn’t have candy for us and I was like “what happened to you bringing candy for us after school?”  And she was like, “oh, no I did that because I had a vending machine at work.” 

 

Also in Alaska, I distinctly remember her picking us up one day and saying “I have a live animal in the car – guess what it is?”  And I was guessing these huge wild, African animals - like “elephant, giraffe, hippo” and she was finally like “No! It has to fit in the car!”  And I kept guessing and eventually she was like, “No - it’s king crabs.”  And when we got home she put a big pot of boiling water on the stove and tried to put the king crab in and it got loose and started running around the house and I can’t remember if it was me or my sister, but one of us was standing on a chair screaming and the other one was chasing the crab.  And then the crab would stop – and it was HUGE – and it would stop and snap it’s giant claws at me.  And then my mom scooped it up with the tongues and tossed it in … that was very exciting. 

 

I remember our paw-paw sent us a VHS of Dirty Dancing and my mom was watching it with us and was like “What?!” - couldn’t believe he had sent that to such young kids - and then she told us she lost it, and Danielle climbed up on a chair and found it above the freezer and being really proud, like, “Mom, I found it!”  

 

We were really into movies and He-man and Shera, and my mom would take us to Blockbuster like once a week and we got to rent a video.  And we rented this he-man and shera one so many times that the guy behind the checkout was like, “Lady, you’ve paid for this ten times, I’m just going to give it to you.”  She always figured we’d change our mind and choose something else, but at the end of the day she always let us get whatever we wanted. 

 

I remember another little boy down the block and his grandfather coming over because Dusty had bit the little boy.  And the grandpa was obviously really upset but my mom was like, “You know, your little boy comes over and terrorizes the dog and throws stones and sticks at him.”  She had this habit of always taking our side, or even the dog’s side.  

 

I remember picking up Danielle from the hospital with my mom after she had walking pneumonia.  I remember seeing her hospital room, I feel like she was in there for at least a couple of days, if not more.  And I remember seeing her hospital room and being like, “You have your own TV?!”  And Danielle seemed so chipper and they gave her a VHS of Land Before Time and she watched it a lot, it became one of our favorites.  

 

I remember going on a cruise with my mom and Nona and Danielle and seeing puffins and a humpback whale.  And on that same trip we stayed in this house in a remote area and it had an outhouse and we were too scared to go to the bathroom, so my mom pulled out a pot in the kitchen and Danielle and I peed in the pot.  

 

The way I remember my mom in Alaska is just very caring and nurturing.  Like I remember her hammering a towel to the windows when it was 24 hours of sun so that we could sleep in the dark.  I used to LOVE chewing gum and would always fall asleep with it in my mouth and wake up with it in my hair and my mom would have to painstakingly clean it out with peanut butter – it helped with the stickiness apparently.  I also wet the bed a lot and would go and wake her up so that she would go and put a towel down and I would go back to sleep over the towel.  Eventually I would get up and just do that myself.  But she was NEVER angry.  Whether about the gum or the wetting the bed, I don’t remember her getting frustrated.  Even when I would lie to her about not having gum in my mouth and wake up with it in my hair, I never felt scared of her or nervous about getting into trouble.

 

I think my last memory from Alaska I was looking at this book that my mom had to read to us a thousand times and there was a picture of all these animals balancing on this ball and on the next page they all fell down.  And I said, “they all fell down!” and Danielle was like “Mom!! Lauren can read!” because I guess those were the words on the page even though I was just narrating the picture from memory and I remember my mom being like “Oh, yeah …”  And in my mind I knew I couldn’t read but I didn’t want to tell Danielle because she was so proud of me but I could tell my mom knew by the way she responded. 

 

I think I would have been 5 when Danielle and I left Alaska for Texas. I don't know if this was THE plane trip where we left Alaska to go with my dad but I do remember being put on a plane by my mom and being on it with just me and Danielle and I just started crying, sobbing because I missed my mom so much.  And the flight attendant came over and was like “Is she okay?”  And Danielle said something like, “She just really misses her mom, but it’s okay, I’ll take care of her.”  Early on in our move to Texas, I just felt so heartsick for her, and then realizing that I could call her on the phone and so I called her and it just felt so relieving.  But those were the days of paying for long distance so I don’t know how often it happened. 

 

There was probably a Gulf Shores trip with my mom while we were living in Texas, or I would see her at Christmas, but I can’t really remember or they’re mixed in with other memories. 

 

I remember going to Denver during the summer to be back with my mom and being in the house near Wash Park (short for Washington Park -it’s also the name of a neighborhood, I think).  I remember the first night getting there we went to the grocery store because I opened the fridge and was like, “Mom, you have no food.” And I remember her taking us to the grocery store and her being like, “We’re only going to get healthy things, okay?”   And we were chucking in cookies and ice cream into the cart and my mom was like “Guys! … oh … okay.” 

 

Our next neighbor Beth took care of us during the summer.  I remember my mom had an exercise video and Danielle and I were doing the exercise video in the living room with her, but we were eating Oreos while we were doing it, and she said something like “that defeats the purpose, I think.”  

 

I remember Chris Plott from that time.  He came over a few times and was just really kind.  I don’t remember being introduced to my mom’s friends and I don’t know if she had a lot of friends, but I do remember when she started dating Mark because he would come over and would always bring a movie so we’d have a little movie night.  We liked him and we used to call him Batman because he’d bring it over to watch.  I remember being there when Mark proposed to mom.  We had driven up to this overlook and I remember Mark being like “I think I saw a cougar over there, why don’t you guys go check it out,” and so we left them alone and then I heard my mom yelp out of excitement.  Then I remember being bratty and wanting to go home and we were walking back to the car and they kept stopping to hug and kiss each other and I kept complaining that I wanted to go home, and my mom was like, “honey - he just proposed to me!”  And I was like “so?” because I had no idea what it meant!  But I remember her being very happy.  

 

And then we moved in with Mark and I have a lot of memories about the house on Logan Street.  My mom was traveling a lot for a period of time. I mean looking back on it, she always made things look - not effortless - but certainly less effort than I think it actually was.  I mean having two kids and having a full time job … she used to walk us to school with these tennis shoes and like a female power suit and then she’d walk to work.  She looked like someone out of “9 to 5.”  I just don’t remember her being stressed very often, and she was just very lax as a parent.  Like, we would wake up early and Danielle and I would get stools and make french toast in the kitchen while she and Mark still slept.  So we were working the stove and the griddle and we were probably 8 and 10 years old.  And then when I was older I learned how to grill barbecue chicken on the grill outside and I would grill outside and cook that for people.

 

I do remember one time seeing her stressed because her identity was stolen by somebody in Alaska and she was on the phone nonstop. But seeing her like that was very unusual. 

 

Mark in particular was very industrious so he built out this back patio and this new bathroom.  Our space was really nice and they took advantage of it and we spent a lot of time outside.  He built the cabin and I have a lot of memories for that.  

 

They would pack everything up for a weekend all the way up to a week that we’d be out in the cabin, hosting one or two families, and they’d just really enjoy it.  That was even while the cabin was being built because there were so many people Mark would have come up to help.  I remember one time sitting with my mom at the dining room table at the cabin and just getting to talk with her, and then her friend called and she was like, “Oh, I’m just chatting with Lauren – it’s so great and she’s at an age where she can have a really great conversation.”  I just really loved spending time with her and being physically close to her.  It just felt really safe and warm.  

 

She had this really great laugh.  And I loved making her laugh.   I remember looking through a photo album and pointing to her high school picture and being like, “Look!  This is a picture of when mom was YOUNG,” and she cracked up and was like, “So you’re calling me old?” 

 

We’d watch Princess Bride and a lot of movies together.  

 

I remember her coming back from a work trip and just being SO excited to see her.  I remember her buying us lunchables and we were allowed to have one soft drink a day, at lunch, and it was Dr. Pepper.  And I just thought that was so cool.  And every Thursday we got to have either Burger King or McDonalds.  I was a BK fan and Danielle was McDonalds.  And I just remember feeling that my mom was relaxed and fair. 

 

I remember having the feeling that I really wanted to take care of her.  Like she’d give me an allowance and I’d put it back in her wallet.  That was because I could sense that she made less money than my dad, and I didn’t want her to spend money on me or give me money.  I remember either for Mother’s Day or for her birthday she took me to the mall to go shopping and while she was in the dressing room I tried to pick out earrings and buy them for her as a surprise.  I didn’t have enough money and the woman who was checking out at the cash register behind me was like “Oh, I’ll buy them for you.”  And these other women in line just thought it was so sweet that I was getting them for my mom.  And then I showed them to my mom and I’m pretty sure she didn’t like them but she was just like, “Oh, that’s so sweet of you - thank you honey.”  I actually don’t remember which term of endearment she’d use, but I know she’d always use them.  And whenever you were watching something you’d lay on her and she’d pat you absentmindedly or rub your back.

 

I remember I went through a period of having nightmares and my eyes were playing tricks on me and I thought I saw people in our house and would get so scared.  I feel like it went on for a few weeks and I would sleep in my mom’s bed for the first couple of nights, and then Mark was like, “nobody’s getting any sleep” and my mom set up a little mattress for me so I’d come in and wake her up and tell her that I had a nightmare and she would just let me sleep next to her and I’d feel very comforted by that.  

 

I also remember they had an Armoire and I was obsessed with the little key, but they’d put all Mark’s clothes in it.  And I would lock it and take the key, and he’d be like, “Where’s the key?”  And I think I did it like three times and the last time I lost it because I had put it in my pocket and it went into the laundry and couldn’t find it.  But I lied up and down that I hadn’t taken it and was just besides myself and sobbing and Mark was like, “I know you took it,” and my mom was like, “Okay, that’s enough - she said she didn’t take it.”  

 

I remember that we just had one bathtub and my mom loved to take long baths and so I would just come in and sit on the toilet and just talk to her for long periods of time.  She was just so easy to talk to.  She would just listen without there being any sign of her rather being somewhere else or her mind being somewhere else.  Or even really her having any opinion.  She would just calmly engage with you and ask questions.  Or answer your questions.  

 

Another memory I have from Denver is when my mom made me a poodle skirt out of felt and I was really impressed.  I was probably 8 years old and she made it as a halloween costume because our class was obsessed with the movie Grease and everyone was having Grease themed birthday parties.  And I just remember feeling so proud of that poodle skirt.  

 

I remember her gardening a lot in Denver and just being in love with being outdoors.  Summer dinners and just having a beer and every now and then she’d smoke a cigar.  And then I remember that I liked the taste of beer so she’d buy me non-alcoholic beer!  So that I could have a beer, and I was probably 9 years old.  

 

One time my best friend came over and we decided to fill up the tub and get in with our clothes on and my mom got really upset.  But then a different time I used my mom’s razor to shave my arms, and I told my best friend, and my best friend told HER mom and then my best friend was like, “My mom said that if you don’t tell your mom then she’s going to tell your mom.”  And then I remember telling my mom about it and she was like, “That’s okay!  Why didn’t you just tell me?  If you want to start shaving because you feel uncomfortable, you can do that.”  And Danielle FLIPPED OUT because Danielle had to wait so much longer - like two years longer - to start shaving and my mom was like “Yeah, sure you can do it.” And Danielle started yelling at my mom about how it wasn’t fair and my mom was like, “Well, look at Lauren’s legs, they’re so hairy and the hair is so dark.”  And I was like “Gee, thanks mom!” and she was like, “Well – if it makes you uncomfortable!”  But she wasn’t mad at all, she was just like, “There’s a right way to do it and you need to use shaving cream or soap,” and things like that.

 

I remember her wedding with Mark and she did all the centerpieces herself and she sewed these little outfits for these teddy bears – one was a bride and one was a groom and they were the “ring bears.”  I remember being in the basement and her teaching me how to use a hot glue gun so that we could glue moss to a styrofoam ball and create these fake plant centerpieces.  I remember her being really happy and really calm at her wedding.  And they did so much of the wedding themselves – paid for it themselves and so did a lot to cut costs.  We got to be maidens of honor and the whole family showed up.  We stayed downtown in a hotel the night before the wedding and Uncle Charlie got out onto a lower level roof somehow and wrote “Gail” in the snow.  I remember that being funny.  

 

I think in those days it just took a lot to make my mom seem stressed.  Like, nothing kind of stressed her out and she was just very go with the flow.  So, for example, the church they got married in was like three blocks from our house and the reception was at a restaurant on the corner from the house in the other direction, and there had been a big snowstorm and we just walked from the church to the restaurant through the snow with my mom holding her dress up and I think she was just laughing.  That was my mom.  She was the opposite of “high maintenance.”  

 

She LOVED animals and I remember – in terms of how low maintenance she was – my dad and Catherine came into town and during that visit they bought us a cockatiel bird and they were just like “Oh, we brought the girls a pet, here you go!”  And my mom was at first like, “What?” but then she freakin’ loved that bird.  And she let it fly all around the house and it would poop in the back of the couch but she didn’t care.  And she would let it sit on her and she would baby-talk to it and we named it PJ after Pearl Jam, because Danielle was into Pearl Jam.   But that was kind of classic my mom, like first she was like trying to set these rules, like, “Okay, you’re going to have to feed it and take care of it in such and such ways” and then in a week the bird’s just flying around, pooping everywhere and she didn’t care. 

 

I do look back on that period in Denver really fondly.  Although later on, when we were visiting Denver for the summers, after Helen was born, I remember my mom sleeping a LOT.  But she was pregnant and going through miscarriages. I think she had two during that time period.  The year after Helen was born.  I remember I was in 4th grade when she told me that she was pregnant again and then she told me on the phone that she wasn’t going to have a baby.  She was really depressed after that and I just remember seeing how much she slept and I think I felt like I really wanted to take care of her.  With the returning the allowance and buying her flowers and that kind of thing.  If she gave me money I wanted to spend it on her.  I remember her just being a little more distant during certain periods and that was one of them.  I think that’s how she handled stress.  She didn’t get angry, she would avoid the conflict and then sleep.  

 

I remember telling her once that my tummy hurts on the way to school and she stopped off on the way at a 7-11 and she got me a ginger-ale and I just thought that was SO WILD and that I would never get that if I was with a babysitter or with my dad or something.  And I remember when I was around 8 years old telling her that my lips were chapped and she was like, “Okay, here, just use my lipstick.”  It was always like, if you had an issue she was going to address it in any way possible and there was never like a “Can I ask for this?  Should I ask for this?” with her.  And I remember being in Houston later asking Catherine if I could have her lipstick because my lips were chapped and realizing from how she responded that it was not a normal thing to ask people for their lipstick.  

 

I do remember one night when she came home from work and it was late and you could tell she was really tired and we were like, “mom, mom, mom” and she was like “Is ‘mom’ everyone’s favorite word tonight?”  And I was like “Mom, what’s for di—--” and she gave me this LOOK and I was like, “Are … we … eating dinner tonight?”  And she was like “Good question!”  So seeing her actually stressed or tired kind of stuck out because it was unusual.  But even that was sort of a funny memory, like it turned quickly into more laughter than anything else. 

 

I was the one to break the news to my mom that we were moving to Belgium.  I was like “Mom, guess what!, we’re moving to Belgium!”  And she was like “No, you’re not.”  And that was one time I can remember her getting angry.  And I knew she wasn’t angry at me, but she got upset that I started crying and Danielle took the phone from me and was like, “Stop mom, you’re making Lauren cry.” 

She was a really good letter writer.  And she wrote me this letter … I guess eventually they decided it would be my choice if I wanted to move back with my mom or move to Belgium, and she wrote me this letter saying “I think you made the right decision to move to Belgium and I think it’s going to be such an amazing experience.”  She wrote me a three page letter giving her support.  

 

So the summer before we left for Belgium we were doing this basketball camp and there were these two girls in the camp that were sort of ostracized.  And we gave them very unkind nicknames and I remember telling that to my mom and her being like, “That’s not right.”  And I was like, “Well, we don’t say it to their face!”  And she was like, “no, that’s unkind - that’s not right.”  She didn’t do it in an angry way … it was like … she was judging the action.  But it really stuck with me.  Like, unkind versus kind is VERY important.  

 

So we went to Belgium to live back with my dad and during that time she would send a card for EVERYTHING.  Like every holiday, no matter what holiday.  And she would record our favorite shows for us.  And at that point you had to be at home, put in the vhs, press the record, and she would tape entire seasons for us and send them to us when they were done.  And I remember getting calling cards so that we could call her. 

 

So I was in Belgium for two years and then I felt really excited to be with my mom again, but I really missed Belgium.  I was kind of sad and depressed for a lot of high school. And I didn’t totally lean on my mom during those years either.  I’m not sure why that was. I think it was probably time and my age.  And she worked a full-time job and so did Mark and she had a little one in Kindergarten and peers were more important to me at that point.  So we really didn’t spend a lot of time together just the two of us.

 

I do remember that the summer before I had started high school we went to Denver and I had taken golfing lessons in Belgium and then my mom and I would go to the driving range together, because my mom loved golfing.  My mom was just kind of down for anything and really decent at anything she did.  She was fairly athletic. 

 

I’m pretty sure I was a sophomore in high school, so this would have been 2000 or 2001. 

And I remember Nona came up because mom was going to be in the hospital.  She was getting a hysterectomy.  I remember that she got home from the hospital but that they took her back to the hospital in the middle of the night.  Because it turned out that in the process of trying to scrape the scar tissue off of her colon (from the endometriosis) they had nicked her colon without realizing it.  So she was getting septic poisoning for over 24 hours, which normally would kill you.  And it was a few days before we got to go see her in the hospital.  Nona would come every day, and then come home and we’d pick up Helen from school and then she’d cook us dinner.  And I remember talking to my Uncle Wayne and saying, “We’re just waiting for her to get better,” which was what Mark was telling us, and Uncle Wayne having a surprised reaction to that and saying “Really?  Because that’s not what I’m hearing.”  And I think Mark eventually told us that things were much worse than what he had said - but we only found out after she was stabilized.  And I remember visiting her in the hospital and Nona trying to prepare us that she has a breathing tube, and won’t be able to recognize you and she’s very sedated.  And I thought I would be fine but I walked in and just lost it. I broke down.  She was in a medicated coma when I saw her.  

 

When she finally came out of the coma, she was so thin and weak.   My dad came up after she got out of the hospital and once she was back home.  He stayed with us for a night or two.  He came to check on my mom.  The poor woman needed to have a bag.  They severed her lower intestine from her colon, and rerouted it so that she had a bag where all of her digestion would spill out.  And this was for months.  And then she needed to have another surgery to reattach her digestive track to her colon.

 

I remember she had this huge bathtub IN her bedroom.  It was like this open concept bedroom with a huge tub in it.  And I remember the same thing, like talking to her while she was taking a bath.  And I remember she would always be like, “Come give me a massage.  Come stretch my leg.”  And she’d give us massages and say things like, “all your tension is in your butt,” and she’d dig her elbow into my glute and it was so painful!  But she loved getting massages and went through a phase where she had a weekly massage.  I remember she was in a book club and I would always read whatever books were in her book club and we shared this love of reading and we’d swap books.  She’d get really into it and stay up late to finish a book.  We got into a puzzling phase and we’d chat after dinner and do a puzzle together.  And she’d be as obsessive as I was, and I remember her one time being like, “It’s 1:00 in the morning and we have to go to bed!”

 

She’d always review my writing and read my papers for school and I’d be so upset at the feedback she gave me.  Although one time I wrote a paper for library class and I got an F on it and I was failing the class, and I had to rewrite it for the next day and I was hyperventilating in a tizzy.  And the majority of it was that I didn’t follow directions about it being double-spaced or in the right font and my mom was like, “Just go to bed,” and she wrote the paper for me.  Kind of crazy but it made me feel so taken care of.  And I never asked her to do it again.  

 

I was so excited for her to go to my parent-teacher conferences so that she would hear all the good things about me.  And she was kind of like, “Really, I have to go to those?”  She was VERY laissez-faire with us.  And I think she could be because we had good grades and she didn’t worry.  

 

She taught me how to drive on that same light blue Subaru station wagon and she’d take us driving in the mountains when we were first learning and I learned to drive stick.  And I remember one of my first lessons I was on this hill on a very busy intersection and freaking out and just remember her being like, “You can do it, you can do it, it’s going to be okay.”  And I just kept stalling and getting worked up and getting mad at her but she would just be so calm and like, “You can do it, it’s okay, you’re just learning.”  

 

I remember going back-to-school shopping with her.  My mom loved to shop. And she’d keep clothes forever.  She never got rid of things.  And we were shopping and Danielle was buying five items in every store we went to.  And my mom was like, “Lauren?” And I was like, “I don’t want anything.”  And we got to the last store and Danielle was like, “I want these and these.”  And my mom was like, “You can only buy something from this store if Lauren buys something too.”  So Danielle shoved me into the dressing room with like 8 different things and was like, “That looks great.”  But that’s when my body issues had hit an apex because I had gone through puberty and my body and totally changed.  

 

My mom and I went on diets together in high school.  We went on “the zone” where we could only eat cottage cheese and blueberries.  We did Atkins together for a very long time.  We did weight watchers together.  We went through a period where we’d wake up at 5 in the morning and go to the gym together before work and school.  She had a lot of body issues, too.  She was always upset that she was too fat.  And she also always felt pressure by the men that she was with to be thinner.  

 

The only fight that we ever had was when I had gone to the doctor and the doctor had told Danielle that I shouldn’t gain any more weight.  Because Danielle and I both went for our physical and the doctor told Danielle instead of me.  And Danielle told my mom and I came home to eat something and my mom kind of said something about “maybe we should talk about this” and I got so upset and was like, “Just send me to fat camp!” And I left and spent the night at my friend’s and was like, “I just won’t ever talk to my mom again and then we’ll see how she feels.”  And the next morning she called me and was like, “Hey, I just wanted to pick you up to see if we could go to lunch.”  And I was like, “I don’t want lunch.”  And she was like, “I think we just need to talk.”  And we went to lunch and I just remember having a good talk with her.  She just was able to give perspective in a very gentle way.  She would always say something like, “Well, you know, sometimes …” and then whatever the pseudo advice was, and it just landed very softly with me.  Instead of “what you NEED to do is” or “actually, THIS is how it is.”  

 

I remember her one time telling me that I was prettier than she was.  Almost as a prideful revelation.  But then somehow it turned into how she was better in the sack!  Even though I hadn’t had sex yet.  She was very open about sex.  I remember saying something to her once about how I would never have sex in a car and she was like, “Talk to me when you’re 30.”  One of my earliest memories when I was 4 in Alaska, we asked my mom what sex was, and she just said “It’s when a man puts his penis in a woman’s vagina.”  She said one time, “I don’t know - I think Lauren is either going to be a lesbian or a nun, she doesn’t really like men.”  I was probably 17 or 18.  But when I was 18 she was like, “I know Lauren does drugs,” when she was talking to Danielle and I.  Danielle was like, “Mom, Lauren does NOT do drugs.”  And my mom was saying, “Oh, I see her coming home with those red eyes,” and Danielle was like, “Mom, I am the one that smokes weed, Lauren doesn’t do drugs.”  And she was like, “well, maybe it’s ecstasy or something.”  Like she was so casual about it!  It was wild to me.  And I was like, “I’m allergic to my friend’s dog, THAT’S why my eyes are red!”  

 

I remember getting ready for homecoming and proms and she would always mend my dress.  Like sew something to help it fit better.  She was also REALLY good at Halloween costumes for herself.  And I remember one year being very surprised that she went as a pregnant prom date.  And she went with a bunch of friends and she went bowling for the night.  She was into Halloween.

 

When I was in sixth grade she took me to an eastern medicine naturalist and they were like “no gluten, no dairy, and take these pills twice a day.”  She was very early on into “no gluten and no dairy.”  She used to drink this gross rice milk and buy this cardboard bread.  And I remember having a fight over “organic” and she taught me what organic meant.  And I was trying to tell her it was a scam and she was like “No, it’s not!  It’s grown naturally and it’s better for you.”  

 

She coached Helen’s soccer team when she was in kindergarten, and she had my friend and I co-coach as part of our community service requirement for graduating high school.  I just thought it was so cool that she was coaching Helen’s team, and the kids just kind of ran all over the place but she was very kind and patient with them. 

 

Helen always seemed to be there with my mom and Mark.  She was always along for the ride.  She had been little when they started building the cabin so they spent so much time building the cabin together.  They built Helen a little swing on the back of the cabin and got her a trampoline she loved. 

 

There was one time in high school when they went out of town and I asked her if I could have a low key party at the house and she said “Sure, just make sure nobody drives drunk.”  And I said, “Can you buy me some booze?”  And she bought me a tiny little thing of tequila.  Which I then couldn’t find during the party and I thought ‘Oh maybe she did hide it from me.’ So I broke into a tiny portion of their liquor cabinet, but then I found out that I had just left in the car and Danielle and I were sharing a car at that point and Danielle had taken it. I think I ended up confessing to my mom and she didn’t really care.

 

She loved taking walks in the cemetery that was very close to our house and so I would go with her on walks and she would just let the dogs run wild, she made me really uncomfortable.  And I remember her just being like “It’s fine - they’re fine.”  And one of the dogs ran up to an old man visiting a grave and I was MORTIFIED.  And the man just turned around and said, “I’m glad someone else is visiting her too.”  And I was like “Oh, maybe mom was right - maybe it is fine.” But she kind of did have this way about her where she wasn’t totally concerned about offending people … or maybe she just had enough self-confidence and awareness and a strong enough moral compass where she wasn’t too put off if strangers judged her in some sort of way.  

 

When I was deciding what colleges to go to I decided on Loyola because they gave me the most money and I didn’t want to ask to see it even though I kind of did want to go see it. And I remember her saying, “I’m not going to let you go somewhere without visiting it.”  So we took Easter vacation and flew out to Chicago to tour the campus and walk around.  Which was really nice of her.  But I just remember being scared more than anything.  Just moving away from college was scary.  But I wanted to do things that scared me because I thought it would help me grow and force me to find myself.

 

I really had set in my mind that I wanted to drive out to college so that I could pack a TV and all this other stuff.  So we set up a little mattress in half of the backseat, got the trunk filled to the brim, and then me, my mom and my sister headed to Chicago.  We took turns driving.  If I wasn’t driving we were sleeping.  And we stopped at the Fontenelle Forest and I slept through that and I really regret that.  And then we got to Chicago and spent the night in a hotel, and my mom was like, “Danielle I know you smoke weed.”  And Danielle gave her some of her weed and my mom was just coughing and saying “Oh, this is terrible shit, I should give you money so that you can at least buy good stuff.”  And that was the first time I had ever seen my mom do drugs but I thought it was funny that she was making fun of the quality. 

 

I would go back for summers during college but I would just prioritize my friends.  One day I was out with my friends and we went to brunch and we were hanging out at someone’s house and my mom called and said, “Do you want to come home and make some gumbo with me?” And I said “no,” I wanted to go to someone else’s house, and it wasn’t fun, and I got home and my mom had made gumbo and I just felt so sad that I had missed that opportunity to spend time with her. 

 

And when the stress was kicking in with Mark, I came home one summer and she was like, “I know you have cigarettes.”  And I was like, “I don’t know… what?!”  And she was like, “just give me one.”  So we sat on the back patio and had a cigarette together.  

 

In my sophomore year of college I had decided that I wanted to study abroad and my counselor said that I was already way behind the curve and needed to spend all my time doing internships in order to get into a good grad school, and that I wouldn’t be able to study abroad.  And so I called my mom really upset.  And she just talked me down and was like, “You know, studying abroad is a different kind of education.  And it is worthwhile in its own way, and it will give you a different perspective in life.  And I wouldn’t do anything to give up the year I had in France.  And so if that’s what you want to do, that’s what you want to do, and you can go and come back and then figure out what you want to do.” So she gave me permission to disrupt a certain course and actually do a really fulfilling experience that was what I actually wanted.

 

I remember my senior year, I would call her once a month but a lot of it was – if I wanted to talk to her I had to call her.  I remember my freshman year in college she hadn’t called me on my birthday and it was getting pretty late.  And I remember telling my friends how much I idolized my mom and how great she was, and I remember my phone ringing and my friend was like, “Oh, is it your mom?”  And I was on the phone with Danielle and just started crying and of course she called my mom right away and she was in Jackson Hole with Uncle Gary’s family and Mark and Helen and she called right away to say, “I was going to call, it’s just still early here and we just got off the slopes.” 

 

I called her senior year and she just sounded so defeated, like I had never heard her sound.  So I asked her, “Is something wrong, is everything okay?” Which is something that I had never asked her before.  And she just said, “Mark didn’t come home last night.  He’s been out partying a lot and using cocaine with his friends and last night was the first night that he didn’t come home.”  And I just remember being stunned and crushed that the person that was my rock and on the highest pedestal for me was going through something that was going to shake her to her core.  And not knowing the effect it was going to have on her - it scared me a lot. 

 

And so then in those upcoming years, when I was transitioning from Chicago to Arizona, I wouldn’t call the house because I was afraid Mark was going to answer and I felt like I didn’t know how to handle it.  And when I came home one of the summers that I was back in Denver, I felt like I had to babysit him.  Where he was re-doing the closet and so I decided I was going to have a project too and I’m going to reorganize the bathroom closet and clean up the different closets.  And so I would wake up and say, “Hey Mark - have you started yet?”  And then I would report to my mom and say, “Oh he did such a good job with the closet today.” And then I found myself lying to my mom because I didn’t want her to worry, but that would feel kind of shitty.  But I would tell the truth to Danielle and Danielle wouldn’t hide it from my mom.

 

I also remember we were all together and watching a movie about Edith Piaf with my mom and Mark.  And there’s some drug use in that movie and Mark was making a crockpot meal and he was like, “Oh, I’m heading out and going to go to a meeting,” like a narcotic’s anonymous meeting.  And I was like, “Oh - should we wait for Mark to get back to eat?”  And she was like, “He’s not going to a meeting.  He’s never been to a meeting.  That movie probably triggered him and he’s going out to use. I should have known better …” like she was blaming herself. 

 

His first Christmas out of rehab - I think it was my senior year of college - and we all went to New Orleans without him and then he had just gotten out of rehab, and my mom was looking at her bank accounts and she was like, “Yeah, he just took out a thousand dollars from my account.”  She knew he was going off to use while we were away.  And she was dropping me off at the Langlois Christmas party and she was like, “Is it okay if I don’t come in and say hi, I just really don’t feel like facing people right now.  I think I just need a week in bed to be sad, and then I’ll be okay.” 

 

I remember she came to my graduation from college and she came with Nona and Helen and Mark wasn’t there.  I remember my mom didn’t come to dinner the second night.  And she called me and asked me if it was okay.  She said she didn’t want to be around people and couldn’t deal with it tonight and didn’t want to be told where to sit.  

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On a more positive note, I remember showing her my essay for my Teach for America application and her reading it and saying something like, “This is so impressive. This is like something I would read from a graduate student” and it just made me feel SO good.

And I remember talking to her after I had started TFA and I was in Arizona and her telling me, “It’s a disease and I wouldn’t give up on him if he had a heart disease so why would I give up on him with this disease?” and I just remember thinking how strong she was.

 

For the three years I was in Phoenix for TFA, I would still go back to Denver for vacations most of the time I had a break.  And I remember one New Year’s Eve I was going out with Catherine Elston and Mark was going out on another bender, and my mom was in bed a lot those days, and I asked my mom if she wanted me to stay with her.  And she was like, “No, this isn’t your burden to bear.”  So I really just kept living my life, completely separate.  I didn’t know how to handle it, and so I felt really uncomfortable.  

 

I remember when she called me and told me that she had been fired because she couldn’t remember anything.  At that point she was going to doctors and would share with me that she was forgetting things and couldn’t keep track of things.  And her boss would have conversations with her and my mom would completely forget them.  And she would say - “My boss is telling me that she told me these things but I don’t remember the conversation.”  And in my head I was like, ‘oh maybe the boss is overwhelmed and just saying these things to cover her own ass.’ But we could tell that she was forgetting things.  And she said that her doctor was saying that she was depressed but that the anti-depressants were not working because of the hormonal shifts of menopause.  And that her memory was being affected because of the depression.

 

By this time Danielle had moved back in with her because she was going to school in Denver and living in the basement.  And she started going to doctor’s appointments with mom.  

 

This was while I was still in Phoenix.  And she was just determined and so she started teaching a religious studies class at Helen’s school and started working at a garden center.  At that point she was in survival mode and there was no job that was below her.  It was a very scary and sad time. 

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I remember my mom calling me while I was in Arizona and she called me during the day and left a message, which was SO RARE, that I knew something was wrong.  So I called her back and that’s when Uncle Wayne had died.  I didn’t know the things happening behind the scenes, like that he was trying to help her get a divorce.  

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I look back now and I think my mom was just kind of a shell of herself just trying to survive in that period.  And I remember being really angry with her for losing her memory, for not being able to stand up to Mark.  For not being able to be there for me anymore.  

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After TFA, I moved to Brooklyn and she could NOT remember that I moved to New York.  She would always say that I was living in New Jersey and it made me so upset.  But after I moved to NY and that first summer I went back home to visit and Tom came and we went out for Danielle’s birthday and took to her a movie, and we went up to the cabin and she let us take Murphy, and she wrote me a really sweet card.  And I think that was the last card I ever got from her … that was like … of her own volition.  

 

I think I blocked out a big swath of that time because her sickness was progressing but it wasn’t diagnosed and I was still in denial over it and I wasn’t treating her very well.  This was the time that she moved to New Orleans.  I think I was angry and impatient with her.  And then I started trying to include her in things I thought she could do, like I would send her coloring books and coffee pods – she drank so much coffee - but then I remember asking her to help me address the save the date invitations for my wedding and that’s when I realized she couldn’t spell anymore.  But then I was like trying to include her in decisions and I was stressing out about something and she was like, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it for you,” and she ran into her room and came out with a quarter.  And she was like, “Here’s your wedding decision maker.  Just flip it and let it make the choice for you.” 

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Around 2017, I had finally read a book about Alzheimer’s and got perspective of where it was going, and kind of how good this moment was for her.  That it would get much worse and there was actually a lot to appreciate about what she had now.  And that I needed to capitalize on it.  And think when I came to terms with that I was able to engage with her and just be with her in the moment and not needing her to be different.  Just allowing myself to be different with her.  Which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, and it was still very hard and stressful, but I think I just wanted to be there and take her out and do things with her that would give her a little reprieve from the monotony.  

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I started going to see her more regularly.  After the summer of 2017 I started flying down to see her every 4-6 weeks.  And I could actually still feel like I was spending meaningful time with my mom.  I’d visit and we’d go to an art museum together, like NOMA.  And that was really soothing for her.  It was great to watch her enjoy things.  

 

It felt a lot like engaging with a toddler in some ways.  Where if you could just accept her for where she was and who she was, all she wanted to do was have fun.  And I remember just being able to make her laugh a lot.  

 

She could remember that I had moved to Rhode Island and she would say, like, “I really want to visit you there.”  And one time before I was leaving she was like, ‘Do you think if you lived here that would be really great or that we would be at each other’s throats?’  And I was like, “I don’t know mom, I think it would be nice.” 

 

So I made a decision to bring her with me back to Rhode Island for a visit.  And I flew back with her and remember her initially being like, “I feel like I’m in a whole different world,” and just being nervous that it was a mistake.  But I remember sleeping in the same room with her.  And that she helped me cook dinner and cut tomatoes.  I remember Tom playing the piano for her and she would just sit in a rocking chair and close her eyes and just really enjoyed the music.  I remember taking walks with her through the forest near our house and her commenting on the trees and the leaves and the colors because it was the fall in New England.  

 

I think that’s as much as I want to share.  For now.