Things Forgotten

One of the best gifts I’ve ever received is little more than an inch long, a fragile thing made of metal and plastic. It arrived on my doorstep two weeks ago, the hard work of a cousin who spent the last several months converting old family reels into digital files.

I knew so very little of my father’s childhood. His mom died when he was a little kid, and his dad passed not long after my father went away to college. What I knew of the years in-between was a very sad time, coping with the loss of his mother and dealing with an abusive stepmother.

My dad spoke of it sparingly, but he would occasionally make the passing remark about how he wished his dad was still around. About how he wished he’d had a chance to meet my siblings and I. I knew he played the saxophone in a band. I knew he was a railroader who was away from home a lot, and he eventually kicked out the woman when he realized how badly she was treating his three youngest kids. I knew he sometimes took my dad and his brothers on trips to lakes “up north” but never realized how frequent or full of joy those trips were (nor how far away they sometimes traveled to get there). I never knew he was the source of my dad’s silly demeanor until I saw him wipe away fake tears and pretend to be devastated when my dad was leaving for college.

Or perhaps he wasn’t really pretending.

All of my childhood, I would hear about these old family reels, tucked away at my dad’s brother’s house. But we never got to see them. Never got to see my grandfather smiling and laughing. Never got to watch this footage with someone who was there (my dad passed away three years ago, as did the brother who had these reels).

It’s been a rough three years. So much death I can hardly stand it. And most recently: a beloved aunt who was like a second mom to me passed away on Christmas.

This past week when everyone was waiting to learn whether or not a groundhog would see its shadow, I whispered a “happy birthday” to her and told her I missed her. Like all of these other recent losses, she was gone too soon. The life expectancy is dropping, and I’m seeing the data that proves it in real time. In real life.

And then we had another bittersweet day yesterday: my dad’s birthday. I had a few reasons to make a trip home to Indiana — baby hand-me-downs for a family member, a birthday present for a niece, etc. What better weekend to plan the trip than on my dad’s birthday? My entire life, no matter where I lived, I made it home for his birthday (or called that day and visited soon thereafter).

As luck would have it, we wound up staying in a lake house “up north” thanks to a friend and her kind family. It was our first time visiting this town and this lake, but being there reminded me of the reels: Was this one of the many lakes he visited with his brothers and their dad? Had they ever stood where I was standing?

I will never know for sure, just as I will never know the names of most of the people in these reels. But I know they are smiling; laughing; enjoying life. I can see they loved my father. That he was happy.

And that, as it turns out, is enough.

The Missing Pieces

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It’s been a year.

12 months since I last heard my mother’s voice. 

365 days since I last felt an iota of hope.

I marked the occasion at her home, where I’ve spent the last few months digging through boxes, unearthing parts of my parents that had been tucked away for decades. I’m realizing that as much as I love and miss them, the fact remains that I knew them first and foremost as my parents, and not entirely as the people they were.

I’ve found a treasure trove of letters my mom saved from her time as a school bus driver: notes from students telling her how much she meant to them. Because of her kindness. Because of the interest she showed in their lives.

I’ve found old report cards and citizenship awards: some moldy and ragged at the edges.

I found invitations to their wedding, cards from those who attended and endless mementos whose significance I will never have the chance to understand.

I’ve found photos of them young, happy, smiling: photos of them together, photos of them with family, with friends.

I saw my paternal grandfather’s handwriting for the first time in one of my dad’s high school yearbooks: a brief message that made it clear he believed my dad would be the first in their family to go to college. He lived just long enough to learn he was right.

Elsewhere in the book was a message from my father’s youngest brother. He also died in 2020: just three months after my father and three months before my mother. He was in junior high when he scrawled his message: TO MY DUMB BROTHER.

I laughed out loud when I read those words, knowing that was likely the closest they ever came to swapping terms of endearment.

In other boxes, less pleasant memories – ones I witnessed in real life and in full horror – are also to be found. Old test results. Brain scans. Liver scans. Half-empty pill bottles. Unfinished crossword puzzles.

And the part that really stands out to me — the part I don’t fully understand — is that I feel the same gut punch whether I’m opening a box full of sad memories, or a box full of happy ones.

They are all pieces to the same bittersweet puzzle: a reminder of hope reduced to ash. A reminder of life’s frailty and time’s cruel passing. A reminder of those we are missing.

A reminder that, when they were here, our puzzle was complete.

And the realization that it never will be again.

The Impossible Journey: Overcoming Loss in a Post-Pandemic Future

Waiting for “Do You Believe In Madness?” to begin, just a couple days before the state of Illinois went into lockdown.

Waiting for “Do You Believe In Madness?” to begin, just a couple days before the state of Illinois went into lockdown.

A year ago today, I went to Target to find empty shelves but somehow managed to grab one of the last packages of toilet paper. I felt like I’d won the lottery.

A year ago today, my mother-in-law was in town for a rare visit, and my three-year-old daughter eagerly escorted her to a beloved store: a rock shop with dinosaur fossils in the basement. My daughter, now four, hasn’t been inside of a store since.

A year ago today, I was coming down from the high of a rare post-child outing: my husband and I caught a show at The Second City. It was their last revue before they, like other theaters, shut down.

A year ago today, we were realizing that adventure would be our last for awhile. That even though we had so many plans for places to take my mother-in-law — and places to go at night while she babysat our daughter —  our options quickly narrowed to nil.

In fact: she had flown in on my birthday a couple days prior, a time now forever marred in my head as “the beginning of the end.” We were worried about her flight, the airport, all of it. The virus seemed to be airborne but much was still unknown, and masks weren’t yet the norm.

She quarantined in our home for two weeks before going to stay with my mother, who was chronically ill but refusing to move in with us no matter how much I pleaded. She welcomed a visit from my mother-in-law, however, and saw it as an opportunity to get to know someone previously separated by a continent. At the time, we saw it as a light in the dark. My mom, still grieving from the recent death of my father, would have company for a few weeks. But not just any company: a talented chef who knew how to cook a liver-healthy diet so we could hopefully slow my mother’s decline while we battled to get her on a transplant list.

My mother, like us, had so many things she wanted to share with my mother-in-law. People to get to know, waterfalls to observe, antique stores to shop. We had planned on spending weekends and holidays with them, but everything shut down, social distancing was a mandate, and all of those options drifted away. They were alone in a house. We were alone in an apartment 160 miles away. Everyone was alone, and though we video chatted every day just as we had done before, we longed desperately for it all to end.

We thought that if we wore our masks and kept our distance, the virus would have nowhere to go. That after three months of hardship the world would re-open and normal life would resume. But we hadn’t accounted for widespread resistance to safety measures, and this thing just dragged on and on and on and...

It was discouraging, but my mom never gave up. I continued to coordinate her transplant evaluation appointments, though many were postponed indefinitely and others were switched to telehealth visits (a true obstacle for my technologically challenged mother, but she was determined). When in-person appointments resumed, I drove her to several but kept my distance (and my mask on). And then she made the transplant list and the world felt so much brighter again. We were on the right path, and we made plans to move our bubble and stay with her post-transplant. But the light was a mirage, and the closer we got to reality, the more it dimmed. My mother never got to hug my daughter again. The last time she saw me, I was wearing a KN95 mask under a cloth cover. It was red with white birds, their wings spread mid-flight.

Her last conscious moments were with strangers in an ambulance. Their objective: to take her home to die. I asked to ride with her, but it violated COVID protocol. They told me she asked for water but they couldn’t give her any. She fell asleep soon thereafter and never woke up.

 I see her face every time I wear that mask. I think of how thirsty she must have been every time I take a sip of water. I think of her, and how desperately she fought to outlive the pandemic (“So I can hug my grandkids again”), every time I look at the box that holds her ashes.

Some day, we will have a funeral for her and a proper burial for both of my parents. Some day, we will gather again with the people who remain, but we will do so knowing that a return to “normal” is a luxury well beyond our reach. That while the world slowly re-opens and the universe breaths a collective sigh of relief, those of us who suffered loss during the pandemic will be tasked with rebuilding our lives like a contractor building a house without nails.

It is essential that we continue on – and we will – but our world will be new and unfamiliar. We will be charting foreign land in our own backyard, every step forward weighted by memory and lifted by hope.  

"Good Health" Makes a Bad Decision

The front of the old bag (Mickey, left) compared to the new bag (Monster, right). Click to enlarge.

If you, like me, are always looking for ways to sneak vegetable-like substances into your picky-eater’s diet, please note this massive bait and switch from “Good Health” with their “Veggie Chips.”

SOME VEGETABLES AND ALL VITAMINS HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND A CANCER WARNING HAS BEEN ADDED 

I repeat.  

SOME VEGETABLES AND ALL VITAMINS HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND A CANCER WARNING HAS BEEN ADDED 

And yes: I know. Dehydrated vegetables are no substitute for fresh ones. But the struggle to get my kid to the fresh variety is very real, y’all. So whenever we opted for a processed food for snack time, we turned to things like Good Health Veggie Chips because their nutritional profile blew away the competition. They were loaded with actual dehydrated vegetables and herbs; and since throwing a bunch of vegetable powder into a processed snack doesn’t pack the nutritional wallop of eating fresh veggies, they previously added a host of vitamins to help mimic the impact. In fact: their previous formula included nine types of dehydrated vegetables and herbs (I’m not counting “dehydrated potato” in that number for obvious nutritional deficits) and six different vitamins.  

So when I saw they were marketing a new monster-shaped chip just in time for Halloween but didn’t shout “new recipe!” on their packaging, I wrongly assumed the fun shape was the only thing that was different. We were running low and I was looking for “healthy” Halloween-themed treats for my lone trick-and-treater, so I eagerly threw them into my cart without a second thought.  

The back of the old bag (left) compared to the new bag (right). Click to enlarge.

Until I got them home, that is, and I realized the word “veggie” was suspiciously missing from the small-type description in the lower left-hand corner of the bag. So I flipped the bag over and realized the “ingredient” list was significantly shorter on the new packaging. Normally I’m all for processed foods having as few ingredients as possible, but not when the ingredients are a variety of vegetables and vitamins. So I looked more closely and was pretty appalled.  

The new formula has three fewer dehydrated vegetables/herbs (I’m giving them a pass on the missing “dehydrated garlic,” as the new formula replaces it with “garlic powder”). It’s missing beets, carrots and broccoli and ALL SIX ADDED VITAMINS.  

They’ve also added a few things, including 62% more fat, rice flour, potassium chloride, potassium citrate and citric acid. And last and certainly not least: a cancer warning. Yes, that’s right: a cancer warning.  

There’s a lot to unpack here, and I will admit now: although I primarily write in the healthcare space and am no stranger to related research, I’m not a doctor, scientist or nutritionist. But when I see the presence of more fat AND a cancer warning tied to acrylamide – a chemical that can form in some foods due to high-temperature cooking – I can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection. The presence of more oil/fat leads me to believe the new formula is being fried at a higher temperature (and thereby introducing an unsafe chemical into the finished product). 

It’s worth noting that many potato chips and fries (and even some coffee) are required by the state of California to include an acrylamide warning due to high cooking temperatures. But it’s also worth noting that the previous formula didn’t require such a warning, and the need to include one now, to me, is an enormous contradiction to the brand name: Good Health.  

As for the potassium chloride and potassium citrate: these are sometimes used as salt substitutes and to regulate acidity, respectively, and aren’t necessarily alarming. But this formula also still includes “salt” and the exact same amount of sodium as the previous recipe, which leads me to believe they felt the flavor was lacking and wanted to add more “salt-like quality” without increasing sodium levels. This results in a negligible amount of potassium (2% of the RDA) appearing in each serving, which can be a good thing. But with the appearance of potassium in the new formula comes a reduction in the amount of iron from 2% to zilch. So in a way, it’s a wash.

In any event, it seems these additions are intended to make up for what the new formula was otherwise lacking. We haven’t tasted them yet – in fact, we plan on returning them – but after I realized these chips were markedly different from the originals, I took a peek at online reviews and noticed a remarkable decline in ratings between the old and new formula. Seven months ago, every Target reviewer gave Good Health Veggie Chips 5 out of 5 stars. But starting about three months ago – presumably about the time these were introduced – the ratings dropped. 50% of all ratings since then have been 1 out of 5 stars, with one reviewer calling them “oily and gross” in comparison to the prior version. Multiple reviewers comment on the texture, with one noting: “The [previous formula] felt more like baked chips, while these monster ones are more air-y and feel like they're fried.”

If this reviewer is correct about the change in cooking method, that would certainly explain the addition of a cancer warning. I plan on reaching out to the company to confirm and will update this story once I know more, but given the timing of the new chips’ release, I didn’t want to delay sending this alert out to regular buyers.

My hope here is that these monster chips – as difficult as their cuteness is to resist in the days leading up to Halloween – are a temporary thing. That once Halloween passes, they’ll go not just with a different design, but also return to their original formula. But whether this is a short-or-long-term recipe, the fact remains: to market them as the same chip is deceptive at best.

If this is a long-term switch, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a cost-saving measure. But I think Good Health might find their sales negatively impacted by this move, with the previous formula’s nutritional value having been the reason many of us chose them over other brands. For me, this deceptive switch has significantly damaged their brand, and I suspect it will have a lasting impact on their sales. In which case: saving up-front now might cost them in the long run.

The Gift of Light

My daughter’s high-pitched voice is typical for someone her age: it drips like honey so damn sweet, some days I could eat her words. But when she recently said, “I want to make a gift for Grandma and Papaw,” it was the resolve in her voice—a drive well beyond her years—that really caught my attention. “I want to make something they can see from heaven,” she said.

The words hit like a gut punch that re-filled my body with the same sadness I’ve been pushing down for what feels like eons. Think of a video game character low on life force receiving a sudden surge of energy; now, imagine that energy is fueled entirely by grief that never truly diminishes.

And no: this sadness isn’t rooted in my mother’s recent passing, nor my father’s passing just a few months prior. Rather: if really pressed to trace its origins, I’d say this melancholy Big Bang sparked when my father first started losing his balance and dexterity, and then multiplied exponentially with every new symptom, every fruitless medical exam, every horrifying prognosis (and so on). These things pulled me toward the event horizon, and their deaths pushed me the rest of the way in.

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There is no turning back, and most days I feel like I’m floating weightless in space, witnessing life at a distance and just waiting for cosmic forces to do what they will. But occasionally my daughter pulls me back down and wakes me up, a 33-pound anchor with just enough force to tether me momentarily to this planet.

“OK,” I said, looking down as she strained her neck to make eye contact. “What would you like to make for them?”

I expected a lot of hemming and hawing, but her quick reply indicated she’d been giving this a lot of thought long before she vocalized her request.

“A rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw,” she said without missing a beat.

I told her we would make both, or we could possibly even make a rainbow sun-catcher—a single gift they could share—but it would be a few days, because we needed to think about the best way to approach the project(s). So we studied rainbows and light, and I explained how, in a way, a rainbow is a sun-catcher: that it is a refraction and dispersion of light cast by the sun. 

And so one day while watering the flowers at my mother’s house, with the sun beating down from over our shoulders, she hatched an idea: “We can make a rainbow for Grandma to see right now! You make the rainbow, and I will catch it for Papaw!”

And so I did. And she did. And I thought our project was complete.

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“No, no, no,” she said when I intimated as much later that day. “I still want to make a rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw. Something they can see forever. I want to draw the rainbow, but I don’t know how to make a sun-catcher.”

I told her I would research ideas. A few more days passed, and she grew increasingly insistent.

“Mom, I really need to make those gifts for Grandma and Papaw,” she said. “How else will they know I love and miss them?”

There was no denying the urgency in her voice. I gathered the necessary supplies and we got to work, the only real hiccup being the lack of proper “indigo” and “violet” markers (she was insistent we make the rainbow exactly according to prism specifications). But we improvised with what we had, and she beamed with pride upon the completion of each project.

And then even more so a couple days later when we turned her drawing into a t-shirt she can wear whenever she wants to send a message to her grandmother. And I suppose she’ll beam again when we frame the original, but that is a project for another day.


Somewhere in-between the first arch of the rainbow and the finished shirt it hit me: we were completing these gifts on the eve on my parents’ wedding anniversary. Their first one since my father passed away. Their first one since my mother passed away. Their first once since my jaw became inexorably clenched in its current position.  

I gaze at the sun-catcher, now irreverently taped to our window, and notice a puff of air eke out of my lungs. It travels up through my trachea and escapes from behind my teeth. A sigh.

I try to focus on the light but find myself succumbing to the push and pull of gravity and inertia—of nothingness and everything—all at once.

My feet rise from the Earth and then come down again, every hushed step and terrible stomp a battle between unseen forces. 

I go where they take me.