moments that stay with us

This is my favorite spot in my house. I sit here often, Chappy by my side. It is where I work when I am remote without distraction, even if people come and go. It is where I sit with a glass of wine and write. It is where I balance my checkbook or sort bills. When we have people over, it is where we congregate with cocktails and appetizers. Many people strive to have a room to call their own. A place where they can just be. For me, it's this spot. My spot. A spot that is shared but is also secretly mine. It is a kitchen island. It's not big but it doesn't have to be. I sit and I look to my left. I see some of my favorite items, ones that have meaning even though people who may see them don't know their personal value.

When I cook I stand on the other side of where I am sitting and I am still able to zone into the present and create. I may change my vantage point but it is still the same space. 

At the moment I am focusing on the new plum candle that is next to me alongside a vase containing a plant I am trying to root, actually two. They are pictured above. One is a geranium I affectionately call Momoo. I call her that because my grandmother, Momoo, gave her to me over 28 years ago. Yes, I still have her. She has traveled many miles, has lived in many homes and has been through many challenges. There have been more times than I can count that I thought I was going to lose her, yet, she still hangs on. She's still with me, even though I know that she will still be with me even after she's gone. We are going through one of those moments of uncertainty right now which is why I am trying to root some cuttings. This is one of the very few times she hasn't been flowering. When she does, it is a bright Barbie pink color. 

I remember the day Momoo gave me her plant. Vividly. I was driving back to Washington, D.C. and it was hanging on her front porch. We were saying goodbye. She explained that she wanted to give me the pink geranium for my apartment as a housewarming gift. She had gotten it ready and it was there waiting for me when I left. She hoped I liked it. It was so casually yet generously gifted as was always the case with her. 

For some reason, I am able to stand back in that exact spot in my mind. I revisit that memory often actually. I stand there and I look lovingly at her. I observe the beautiful perennial garden she planted and nurtured in the distance, the modest but meaningful home that held more love than is even possible between walls. I look at the surrounding neighborhood and the childhood that accompanied it. The persona history that allowed my spine to stand straight into the person I am today, each vertebrae a different root that grounds me yet allows for continual growth and renewal. Just like the plant next to me. It's a process, this beautiful life. A process, indeed. 

Put on Wildflowers by Tom Petty and let's get cooking. 

Wildflowers - Apple Music

Wildflowers - Spotify

Today, go into the Meal Index and find a new recipe! One you haven't tried before! One that will awaken the senses and enjoy the process of creating a meal. 

Choose kindness. Every gesture counts. Peace and love always.

-Amy

Morning Still Breaks (part 2) - Maximus Vaccarino

I haven't been able to write down many thoughts over the past couple of weeks. Max's passing occurred and it shook me. To my core. It gave me pause. It gives me pause still. That coupled with my beautiful daughters going back to college and I have crawled back inside myself for a bit. Sometimes that happens. I don't view it as a negative thing actually. It's not worrisome. I view it as my way of relying on myself to figure out my feelings. I think it actually is a sign of strength. I need to allow myself to feel the feelings. Like, that's okay. It doesn't mean I am miserable and depressed. It means I am working through some things and that is actually good. Better than the opposite.

I often don't sleep that well but I do dream. Vivid dreams. Last night's dream has stayed with me even if I only remember bits and pieces. Snapshots. I am outside. It is a beautiful setting. Warm, not just because of the season but also because I am surrounded by love. I look in different directions and I see people nearby and at a close distance enjoying themselves. Mostly I see family and a few friends. I turn around and my dad is standing there. Smiling. My dad. We talk. We laugh. It feels so good. I look to my other side and my grandmother is sitting on a black metal bench. At one point my dad, my Momoo and my daughter are sitting on a bench chatting. I take some pictures. We are all smiling, taking in this beautiful simple moment. Snapshot.  I don't know how to explain the setting except to say that it just feels right. Comfortable. 

Then...

I realize, finally, this can't be right. This scene isn't possible. I mean, it is happening of course, but my version isn't possible. I stop and look around. Snapshot. I am still at this event. Outdoors. In this beautiful setting. I go to my uncle. He has been a second father, and I whisper, "This is going to sound really odd but dad passed away right? Like, he's no longer here."  He looks at me with gentle eyes and says yes, he did. He died in October." I look at him, I nod knowingly and laugh it off. "I know, I know. I just had a bizarre moment. I'm good." 

I walk away from him feeling incredibly filled with emotion. Snapshot. I find someone. I don't remember who it was in my dream but when they say, "What's good?", I confide about what I have just experienced. I know it seems impossible but I feel validated because “I have proof. I have photographs." I scramble to pull up the photos on my phone. "Look. Here." Except, the bench with its seats filled earlier, are empty. I slide to the next picture and it's the same thing. Empty. They are gone. Just the photograph, no people in it. And then I wake up.  

Crazy dream, right? When I briefly woke up in the middle of the night I remember saying to myself - don't forget this dream. I scrambled to remember each detail before I felt my mind drift off. I knew it was important. Maybe it was because it felt so amazing to see my father smiling a genuine, present smile. Maybe I loved linking arms with my Momoo who has had such an incredible impact on my life to this day. Maybe I loved feeling the sense of community in a garden filled with light, trees and flowers. I’d like to think Max was there too smiling Max’s beautiful smile.

And. And. And.  

Maybe I needed to realize that even though there is loss, deep loss, and life continues, it doesn't mean we lose them. The loved ones that have left our world are still nearby, along with our current lives. They are inside and alongside us. They are inside and alongside me. They live with me, in my heart, in my memory and are a part of me. No matter what happens next in my life, they remain present and affect me, us. They have to. There is purpose in their being here and there has to be purpose after they have left. They are present and that is comforting. 

Understanding this makes the loss feel a little less sharp, cutting. Understanding this provides a bit of perspective and it gives life a little more meaning. Maybe I needed this to test the air again. Crawl back outside for a minute. Feel the sun on my face, even briefly. Loss is hard. So fucking hard. It comes in many forms and everyone feels it differently. But like all of life's moments, we need to live them to their fullest. We need to feel them, find strength and beauty in them and take the next step, bird by bird.

Time to put on Lay My Love by Brian Eno and John Cale on repeat and let's get cooking. 

Lay My Love - Spotify

Lay My Love - Apple Music

Martha's Vineyard is my special place. It is one of the places in the world where I am able to experience a bliss I haven't found in many other places though I have come close a couple of times in Europe. My sister in law and I often share recipes (though her talent runs circles around me). We have very similar taste (literally) and will often order the same dishes at restaurants. So this meal - summer in a bowl - came from a hidden gem of a website. I substituted the steak for shrimp but shit, I really loved this. 

Sirloin Tip Steak with Summer Tomato-Fresh Corn Dressing, Feta, and Arugula

Choose kindness. Every gesture counts. Peace and love always.

-Amy

Morning Has Broken - Maximus Vaccarino

 

There is a point in the deepest part of night when all the nocturnal animals and insects that have been active all evening begin to quiet. What sounds like a very loud conversation, among many, slowly becomes one voice. The night owl has to finally finish what he has to say and then it is quiet. Still. Silent. The moment is brief but poignant. Beautiful even. It is the moment before morning breaks and the birds begin their songs of the day. It is that singular moment when night becomes morning, when a new dawn is about to break. It is one moment. Then. Morning has broken. 

Sleeping with the windows open feels like a dream of late and yet it was one I lived this week. Experiencing how the night moves through a different lens was unexpected but provided a perspective difficult to reach lately. 

A week ago Sunday, time stopped and I have had a difficult time moving past that singular moment. The phone rang. Shock. Desperation. Disbelief. Desolation. A beautiful child. 

Maximus James Vaccarino. Max. A rock star before his time. A term I have given only one other soul who left this world too soon. He held more emotion and love than fit in his beautifully growing body and mind. Gone. Peacefully in his sleep. 12 years old. 

Realizing through the time it takes to blink an eye that he is gone. A long second. That moment between knowing and not knowing. I am stuck here. I can't go back to not knowing but am not really able to move forward to fully accepting it either. Stuck. 

Max was Kelley's godson. An honor that meant more to him than he can or will ever really express in words. We don't have the honor of being a part of their everyday and there is always the feeling that we wish we could do or be more but the love is there. Always. We pick up as if we just saw each other yesterday.

The feeling we have on that Sunday night is to just get up to Massachusetts. In a fight or flee world, I flee every single time. But this time - I am fleeing to be there. Just to be able to share the same air, let the Vacs know we are there. Just there. Even if we don't even see them. We don't just just want to be there, we need to be there. We live 900 miles away and we love them like family. The whole family is our family.

The week following Sunday is a blur. We go through the motions of life - work, cook etc. We do life but there is something very heavy that weighs our shoulders and hearts down. Kelley and I frequently just sit in a room throughout the week and we don't speak. Speechless. Quiet. It takes a lot for me to be speechless but I really don't know what to say. Again, I am stuck. 

I book airline tickets. Kelley rents a car. Saturday, August 5. It can't come fast enough. That morning, we pack and prepare ourselves for what's to come. Thirty minutes before we are due to leave for the airport we realize I booked our tickets for 2 weeks from the departure date, August 19. The fact that I didn't even realize that until that day speaks volumes. I am a detail person and that's a pretty big detail to miss. Fuck. After 2 hours and lots of time on screens, our problems have been resolved. We book a 6:30 p.m. flight but that quickly becomes 8:40 p.m. due to a delay. After a very long evening, we are in bed in Medfield, Massachusetts with the windows open, the breeze blowing, the night noises discussing our presence late in the evening at 2:30 a.m. I didn’t sleep much that night, though that’s not unusual. I witnessed that moment I described above. 

We have one goal for the following day. Be there. Be present. If and when we are needed. We drive to Scituate. A town that already feels like a true community is amplified by the Heritage Days that are occurring in town. They have held a candlelight vigil in honor of Max at the high school that Thursday. We hear stories of the first responders and how they reacted on Sunday. We go to a local nursery and they have heard about the boy that has passed away on Northey Farm Road. A beautiful and amazing family, the owner says. Truer words never spoken, I think.

We feel slightly better being there. In their town. Kelley and Timmy connect and we are gifted with some time alone with him. Moments that I will be forever grateful to have shared. Max is ever present and it feels comforting to feel him in his absence. It hardly feels real that he is gone. Monday's visitation is overwhelmingly beautiful. To see the love, support, community and outpouring of emotion speaks volumes of the impact that not only Max, but the entire family has had on so many. Hundreds of people see the artwork, the beautiful photographs, the tik toks while paying respect to a family that is going through its worst nightmare. The Vacs handling this impossibility in the most graceful and human way. 

After the wake on Monday, they arrive home to personalized notes through lanterns lining their streets. Moving, to say the very least. It brings tears to my eyes as I type even now. The strength of community. The love. The support. I have never witnessed anything close to it and it was more moving than I will ever express in words. 

The Vaccarinos are an incredibly special family. They draw people in. They connect and they build community. They are magnetic, incredibly grounded and the world is simply better with them in it. I think that is what I struggle with the most. We will not be the same world without Max. We all would have been better because of him. He provided joy and he challenged us at the same time. The world is less kind without him. Why did it have to be this way? I am not sure there will ever be an acceptable answer to that question. 

Max was original. He was unapologetically himself.  He had an old soul, and yet he was finding himself too. He was beyond his years and his level of creativity and depth far surpassed his young age. He was adventurous and he loved hard. Like his father, he was always creating. He lived in a home where he was able to be himself and that is a testament to his loving family. He had a family that was filled with love, adventure, laughter, tears and humanity. His parents loved him and will continue to love and honor him every damn day. 

The service and funeral held many moments that will live with me forever. The constant change of weather from rain to sunny skies as if Max is trying to keep everyone on their toes. The image of the Timmy, Stephanie, Kelsey and Riley walking down the aisle behind Max's coffin. Heartbreaking. Close. Together as a family. Seeing Riley holding Stephanie's hand. The strength Tim showed standing beside Steph sharing the most emotional eulogy I have ever heard, honoring his son. As Kelley said later, we heard Tim's love, understanding, wisdom and grief in the most personal way. He comforted us when all we wish we could do is comfort them. The strength, the resiliency, the love, the connection filled every corner of that cherished room.  

So I go back to that moment. The moment of silence before dawn. There is so much beauty there. I am reminded by Timmy that even in our darkest moments there is beauty. While I am stuck in the moment of disbelief, I know that life will continue. It has to continue. The sun will come up. Every single day. I owe it to Max, to Tim, to Steph, to Riley and to Kelsey to move forward. We all do. One foot in front of the other. Bird by bird. To realize that kindness conquers everything and that love is what is important. Love each other. Be there for each other. Treat everyone in the world as a friend. And live in the moment. Live in that moment. It is everything. 

Rest in art. Rest in passion. Rest in laughter. Rest in argyle. Rest in adventure. Rest in theatre. Rest in power. Rest in everything that is good. Rest in peace, beautiful Max. We love you.

Play Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens and pay it forward in kindness today. 

Apple Music - Morning Has Broken

Spotify - Morning Has Broken