Okay, so our memories weren’t really misty nor water-colored, but they were memories. BrightStar and our other friend (who used to be our drummer back at the old church) came over for dinner and catching up after way too many years of not seeing each other. I hope that we can get together more often when BrightStar is in town.

We spent a lot of time with those “girls” all those years ago and it’s really a blessing to see them grown up and successful and (mostly) happy. And I think it’s very cool to be able to sit down together as adults and talk about our lives and jobs and kids and families and so forth. Don’t get me wrong - I loved those teenage girls a lot, but there is a whole new dimension to our relationship in being together as adults with all sorts of life experiences behind us. And yet, it felt like it hadn’t been many years since we had seen each other. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to pick up a friendship and feel like you can still share important things with each other even though several years have passed.

And I think it was right and fitting that our evening ended with sharing music together. I believe we all agreed that we missed the choir community that we had all that time ago - the sharing and creating of music - something that we all love.

So, thanks BrightStar and Drummer Girl (I’m sure she would probably hate that nickname, but it’s late and it’s all I got) for the visit. May the next visit be much sooner than the last :)

I have a post up about Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe over here.

So now that LG is old enough to go trick or treating and actually get it, we’re trying to figure out what to do with her. See, here’s the problem. We don’t live in a neighborhood that is really conducive to trick or treating. It’s all acre (or more) lots without 1) street lights, 2) a good path to take to get to a lot of houses and 3) very many houses to go to anyway. Nobody trick or treats in our little neighborhood. We’ve lived here for 4 1/2 years and we’ve never had one single trick or treater in our little area.

We could take her to the neighborhoods a few blocks away, but we really don’t know the people who live in those neighborhoods, so I’m not really all that comfortable doing that.

The last two years, we just took her to her Grandma’s and a few friends houses and that was plenty, but now she’s old enough to do a little more and really enjoy it. So, I’m trying to figure out what to do that I feel comfortable with and she will enjoy.

We shall see. We shall see.

I’m going to talk about who won American Idol last night in this post, so if you don’t know want to know yet, stop reading now.

Okay, that was your warning. No more warnings! (Read on …)

When I was growing up, Muhammad Ali was a superstar. My father, though, always refused to call him by his adopted name and would only refer to him as Cassius Clay - his given name. So, in my house growing up, there wasn’t a lot of respect for him. They had issues with the fact that he changed religions. But those were different times. As for me, I was always entranced with Ali, his poetry, his boasting that he was the greatest (which he always backed up), his verbal sparring with Howard Cosell. He fascinated me.

In 1996, when Ali lit the torch at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, I sobbed. It was an electric moment, and even though I was only watching it on television, I will never forget it for as long as I live, because I have felt a little bit of what those people who were actually in the stadium must have felt.

Several years ago, my friend C managed to score tickets to a Phoenix Suns game. They were playing the hated Chicago Bulls that night, so the atmosphere was already pretty exciting, what with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the house. But, for some reason that I can’t remember, that night someone else was in the house as well. That someone was Muhammad Ali.

He was already showing the devastating effects of the Parkinson’s Disease that he has so valiantly fought these many years. He didn’t walk. He didn’t speak. He was driven around the court on a cart and just sat and waved to the crowd. But from the moment he entered the arena until the moment he left, the atmosphere was different. There was electricity in the air. The magnetism, the charm, the charisma that he exhibited his whole career were still strongly in evidence, even from the nosebleed seats where we sat. I got goosebumps, and I will never forget being in the same building as a legend.

Last night, he watched his daughter Laila, who is competing on Dancing with the Stars. The thing about Mr. Ali is that you can’t necessarily see emotion on his face because he can’t move very well due to the effects of Parkinson’s. But if you look into his eyes, you can see that the brilliant poet is still alive and well inside of him. And you can see how proud he was of his beautiful, talented daughter. And you could tell that the crowd in that building felt the same way as every crowd in every building must feel when he occupies it.

There are few who have ever been able to command attention and adulation just by being in the same room. Muhammad Ali is one of the few. A legend, a superstar, an icon. And I will never forget my small brush with his greatness.

I have one child and I am an only child, so the concept of how a parent loves more than one child is foreign to me. It’s not that I don’t think it’s possible, it’s just that I haven’t had first-hand experience with it. I can only rely on my observations, and whereas I’ve seen many families where it’s obvious that all children are loved as close to equally as possible, I’ve also seen other families where it’s clear that one child is favored over the other(s). I’ve also wondered if adoptive parents love their adopted children the same way as biological parents love their biological children. (We’ll ignore, for the sake of this argument, the fact that there are many biological egg/sperm donors who do not care one little bit for their children - I’m talking loving parents here.)

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t believe that adoptive parents, etc. can love their children as much as biological parents, it’s just a curious thing to me that stemmed from the bond that I formed with LG as soon as I knew of her existence in my womb. I loved her before I knew her, so to speak, because I felt her inside of me - she was a physical part of my being, and I just wondered how an adoptive parent could have that same sort of bonding with their child.

And so, I’ve questioned it, and driven my friends crazy at times I’m sure. It was just something I had a hard time grasping. But the last couple of days, via conversations, and a blog post, (thank you Marlene!), I finally know the answer to my question.

The answer is no. Adoptive parents don’t love their children the same as biological parents love theirs. And step-parents don’t love their step-children the same as the biological parents love them. And you don’t love your first-born the same way you love your second-born or your third or your fourth.

Because you can’t.

You can’t because it’s impossible to love any one child the same as any other. I love everyone I know for a different reason, because they are different people. And so are children. They are different. And therefore, the love you have for each of them is different. Not necessarily more, or less, or stronger or weaker. Just - different. And in the end, that is the only answer there is.

As a very wise person said to me yesterday, “what really binds a family together are the moments they share”. Being a family is not about blood or DNA, being a family is about togetherness and love - in all its shapes and forms. It’s not about sharing the same name or the same color eyes or the same address, it’s about the experience - it’s about the living. And it’s about the memories. My mom is still my mom even though she’s not here anymore, and not just because she is part of my DNA. She is my mom because we shared part of our life together. That’s what makes a family. That’s what binds us together. That, in the end, is what love really is - not quantity, not even quality really - but a common thread that weaves our moments and memories into the tapestry of our lives.

So yes, I finally got my answer, and it’s greater than I ever imagined.

Music has always been the thing in my life that I go to when I’m at my lowest points. Certain songs will make me cry like nothing else, and sometimes I listen to them just because they do. Music will often comfort me when nothing else can and it always amazes me how someone else can put into words and notes exactly what my heart is trying to say. I wish I had that gift.

So, it’s been really difficult for me the past few weeks because I’ve been feeling very burned out musically. Between weekly mass, the monthly religious education program and the high school choir we are directing, it was just really getting to me. And when I realized that I couldn’t even remember the last time Mike and I just sat at the piano and played music for fun rather than because we had to learn a song for something, I thought I really needed a break.

It’s funny, though, how totally unrelated things in your life can come together and renew your strength in a way. (Read on …)

I receive an email each morning called “This Day in History” that tells of something that happened historically on whatever date it happens to be.

Today’s email talks about Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard as well as 11 people on the ground.

I vividly remember this event, although I didn’t remember that it happened so close to Christmas. I was 22 years old when it happened. It was suspected to have been an attack against the United States in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya or a 1988 incident in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf. Either way, the images we saw on television of the aftermath were incredibly horrific and poignant.

In the summer of 2000, I was able to visit Scotland and England on a singing tour along with a friend. We drove past Sherwood Crescent in Lockerbie where most of the plane’s wreckage ended up and what at least in my memory is now an empty field.

What I remember as we drove past that site was how the buzz of voices on our tour bus ceased and the only voice we could hear was the voice of our tour guide telling us the story of the crash. And then silence as we all were lost in our own thoughts and allowed ourselves to simply feel.

What did I feel? It’s hard to explain really. It’s not like we stopped the bus and got out, but even just driving past the site of such a horrific disaster, you feel something. Whether it’s the spirits of those who have died, or just the energy of their terror still there, or maybe the peace their souls have found in the time since it happened, I don’t know. But you definitely feel something. And I won’t ever forget that feeling.

So today, on December 21, 2006, I remember Lockerbie, Scotland and Pan Am Flight 103.

Grief is something that comes in waves. At the beginning it’s just a continuous overwhelming tsunami that sweeps you away and consumes you and you have to fight your way to the top again and again. Sometimes it pulls you back down for awhile, but you manage to fight your way back up. Then slowly, slowly, the waves begin to lessen and you go under less frequently, until one day you stop going down and you float along on the gentle lapping waves toward the shore. And finally, you are deposited on the beach and there you spend your days, digging in the sand, building sand castles, sunbathing, and collecting seashells until another great wave crashes onto you and drags you back out to sea. But now you’re a master swimmer and you can fight your way back to shore a little faster. There are no more tsunamis, no more tidal waves, just the occasional big wave that tries to drag you back out into the sea of grief, but you don’t let it anymore. You fight your way back. Faster and faster every time. But no matter how often you fight your way back, there will always be a wave that pulls you out now and then. The time between the waves gets longer and longer, but they still come crashing onto the shore every once in awhile. And sometimes they are just small little tides that cover your feet but don’t pull you all the way in. Such is grief.

My mom has been gone for almost seven years now. And for the most part my grief is quiet tides covering my feet. But now and again, there are loud crashing waves that threaten to drag me back down into that sea of grief.

This weekend amidst all the joy of my daughter’s birthday, I missed my mother terribly. The older she gets, the harder it is not to have my mother here to share it with me, because I know how very much she would love that little girl - almost as much as I do.

But, I cannot let the grief overwhelm me, because she wouldn’t want it to be that way. And really, she is here. In every smile, every laugh, every jut of the jaw and wave of my daughter’s hand. She’s here in a molecular way because of mitochondrial dna, of course, but she’s here in the spirit of a little girl who I know my mother sent to me to keep me from drowning in the waves of grief for the rest of my life.

I miss my mother every day, but I delight and rejoice in my daugher, who is my physical bond to my mother. Sometimes my grief is loud, but the loudness is fleeting and the quiet grief is what remains. My mother is in my heart and in my daughter. And therefore, she will always be with me.

Her name was Janet. She was my choir director when I went to community college many years ago, and again when she started an evening adult choir and pulled in several of her old students from the “good old days”. I learned more from her than probably anyone else in music I’ve ever worked with. If I ever had such a thing as a mentor, she was it.

Janet died in a car accident on the Friday after Thanksgiving of 1998 driving down to Tucson for the annual Arizona State/Arizona football game. 15 months later I lost my mother, so the two women who had the greatest impact on my life were gone within such a short space of time. I still miss her. I still think about her.

I especially think of her at this time of the year, as Thanksgiving approaches. And now as we begin working with these high school students we have been blessed to meet, I think of her even more. When I co-directed the children’s Christmas choir at church with Mike every year, I know she was sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, and helping my non-trained conducting hands move in the way they needed to get the children to sing the way we wanted them to. And I know she’ll be with me next week as we do our first mass with these teenagers.

There are people who touch your lives in such deep ways that you never forget their face, or their voice or the way they moved. She was one of them. I can still hear her voice and see her face and picture exactly how her hands moved as she conducted us. I can see the lift of her shoulder, the tilt of her head, the raised eyebrows and the smile on her face as she brought out the best in our voices. I know her sense of humor and her love of music. And I hope that I can pass on just a little bit of what she taught me.

A truly great teacher doesn’t just teach her students. She teaches her students’ students and those whose lives they touch. A truly great teacher never really dies because her legacy lives on in her students. Janet touched my life. She taught me. She helped me to grow. She brought out the best in me. And the best way that I can honor her is to do the same for these students that we will be working with, and I will Janet. I will keep your legacy alive. I will believe in them, because you believed in me.

To teach is to touch tomorrow…

I’ve started 2 posts about my birthday today. And tossed them both. I can’t say that I’m thrilled about turning 40. I kind of liked my 30s. They were a time of searching and pondering and growing and learning and changing. But now it’s time for the next phase of my life. I hope that I don’t stop growing and learning and changing, but I also hope that I’ve searched and pondered my way into a maturity befitting someone entering her 5th decade of life. I also hope I haven’t lost my sense of wonder and joy and fun.

My 30s contained the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with (losing my mother) and the most joyous (the birth of my daughter). I’d like to think things can only get better over the next 10 years.

Either way, I thank God that I’m here and that I’ve got my wonderful husband, my amazing little girl, my family and my friends (both “real life” and “internet”) to be my companions on the journey.

If age is just a state of mind, then 40 can’t be much different than 30 right? So bring it on!

P.S. This is set to post at 4:10 a.m. Arizona time - the moment of my birth!

I have stopped writing about television here for the most part because I have another blog that I’m writing about television in. But last night’s ER season premiere hit me in much deeper places than most tv shows do. There will be some spoilers here, so if you are planning to watch it and haven’t yet, you might want to skip reading this post until you do… (Read on …)

I feel like my life at the moment is revolving around music…and of course Little Girl, but lots of music. There’s the unknown quantity of the high school mass music that we’re waiting to find the outcome of. There’s the restarting of our monthly church gig which we like to call GOF which is short for Generations of Faith. There’s weekly mass. There’s the fact that the other music director at church quit this week and Mike has to step up and cover more masses for awhile until they find someone to take over the other masses. And then there’s the fact that I’ve been fiddling around with writing music - something I’ve always aspired to do, but never seemed to be able to do much with until lately.

Usually I write stuff out of necessity. Like when it was suggested we do an Agnus Dei for Lent. Well, all the Agnus Deis that we could find sounded too chanty and traditional for the type of music we normally do at our mass, so I wrote a contemporary one. Or to be totally factual, I wrote the melody and then Mike made it into a real song.

Mike had a meeting with our pastor this afternoon to discuss what his expanded role will be now that the other music coordinator is gone and Father mentioned that with our parish’s 25th anniversary year coming up, he wanted a mass written for the jubilee. So Mike and I started playing around with a Memorial Acclamation and a Holy and I really like how they are turning out.

It’s amazing to create a piece of music. It’s really always been my heart’s desire to be able to do so, and although I’ve not been able to write amazing lyrics that will tug at your heartstrings, I still appreciate the fact that I’m able to write things that we can use.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m more able to do this now than I was before. I like to think it’s because Mike’s DNA mingled with mine while I was pregnant with Little Girl and some of his skills rubbed off on me. Mike says it’s because I don’t have as much clogging up my brain as I used to when I was working. I have more time to let things float around in there and evolve. I think it’s probably both of those things, plus the fact that I’ve been singing church music for almost 20 years and I know what works and what doesn’t.

Whatever the case, I’m enjoying it and I’m going to keep writing and challenging myself to do more because that’s the only way to get better. I used to tell my students that the top ten ways to become a better reader were to: read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, and read. So it follows that the best way to become a better writer is to write, write, write, write, write, write…well you get the picture.

Life is for living. If you want to do something, then do it. The results might not always be great, but at least you’re getting results. I imagine a lot of what I write will get tossed into the rubbish bin, but there will (hopefully) be a few gems along the way as well. Of course, I couldn’t do it without my hubby. We are a team. One of the reasons we ended up together was because we communicate musically. And it’s kept us together through some tough times. Even when other things are not going so well, we can always communicate through music. And our precious precocious daughter is showing all the signs of following in our footsteps. You can’t beat that can you?

I never really know what to write on the anniversary of September 11, 2001. There will be many remembrances and tributes written today, the 5th anniversary, by those who are much more eloquent than I.

I didn’t lose anyone on September 11. We did have a friend from church who was there that day and who was supposed to have been in the Twin Towers that morning, but he decided to go to breakfast first. And that very well could have saved his life.

But the hardest part for me was walking into my classroom and facing all those little 7 and 8 year old faces and knowing that I had to be their strength. That I had to find the words to tell them they were safe and that everything would be all right even though I didn’t know that for sure myself.

I remember that morning so very clearly. I got up to send Marlene an email because The Princess was supposed to be born that day. And as usual, I had the radio turned on to the news talk station. When I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, my first thought was that it was a small plane that had grazed a tower on top or something. So I quickly turned the television on. And what I saw made me say, “Oh my God” loud enough that it woke Mike up. We all know what transpired that morning, so I won’t go into all that.

I do remember driving to work, hearing about the plane that crashed into the Pentagon and thinking, “Dear Lord, what is happening? What is happening?”

And then we had an impromptu staff meeting right before school started and our principal said we needed to talk to our students about what was going on and reassure them they would be all right. Several of the students at our school had military parents because the school is near an air force base. And you could see in the eyes of the older ones that they knew that mom or dad might have to leave.

I don’t remember all that I said that morning. I do remember telling them that there were bad people in the world and they do bad things but that they were safe and nothing was going to happen to them and praying I was telling them the truth. All of the students I had that year were churchgoers, so when one of them brought up God and praying, I didn’t brush it off or ignore it like I normally would since we’re not allowed to talk about God in school anymore. Not that day. That day those kids needed to know that God was there and that praying was a good thing and that I was praying too. Sometimes you need to ignore the rules.

It’s still so vivid to me. How when any of us had a break, we’d turn on our tvs or radios and then whisper to each other in the halls as we passed to catch the latest news. Really all I wanted was to be at home with my husband in his arms and be able to cry it all out.

Hearing about that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania that day still makes me cry. They knew they were going to die. It was a matter of whether they died fighting or not. And they chose to die fighting. I hope I would choose that as well.

The firefighters and the police officers who went into the twin towers knowing they might very well not come out still blow me away. They put other’s lives before their own. And yes, it’s their job. But this wasn’t just another day on duty. This was a day that would make firefighters and police officers heroes again.

I often wonder if the fact that we make a big deal out of September 11 every year is a good thing or not. Are we playing into the hands of those who would smite us by drawing attention to it year after year? Maybe. But, all of that is overridden in my mind by the loss of almost 3000 lives. Lives that should not be forgotten. Those were fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and husbands and wives and brothers and sisters and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends. And fellow Americans.

We must move on, and we have. But we must also never forget.

So I’m trying to catch up on the tons of email I got that I couldn’t keep up with on vacation. One of my emails was a link to a survey. So I go to the survey. And one of the questions is:

“Have you used the internet in the past 30 days?”

No, seriously, they actually asked that. In a survey on the internet that came through an email.

But wait, there’s more.

The answer choices were:

“Yes”

“No”

and…are you ready for this?

“I don’t know”

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW IF YOU ARE USING THE INTERNET????

And if someone doesn’t know that they are using or used the internet, do you really want them taking your survey in the first place?

I don’t make this stuff up, people. I really don’t.