When a Diva slams the door on your face. A true story.

Have you ever had the worst interaction with someone-- only to realize later it was the most perfect gift you could’ve asked for?

Lately I’ve been noticing the strangest phenomena going on in my life, maybe because I’m walking around so raw and opened up. Maybe because I’m living these days on the edge of the unknown, so fresh into my grief that I’m unguarded and too broken and vulnerable to have an ego anymore.

But all of a sudden I'm aware of these interesting moments that the Universe has been delivering to me. Or maybe the truth is, we’re all receiving these little invitations to go deeper in our daily lives… and we’re just missing them.

I don’t know. But I thought I’d share this in case you need to recognize how this happens in your life too.

It all started with my “great idea.”

And it ended on one of those balmy, 69-degree afternoons in January that Southern Californians take for granted, with me standing underneath a white trellis overgrown with leafy clematis, and watching a screaming blonde in skin-tight yoga pants slam her front door in my face.

Although to be fair, she did have to stomp-up-three-steps to get to her door first, so it wasn’t exactly a ferocious whoosh in my kisser, but loud enough for the mailman on the corner to look over.

Also, to be honest I don’t generally use words like ‘diva,’ because I find them so emotionally-loaded they keep us from seeing the real person inside.

But after my brief run-in with this woman, this word literally popped into my head.

So ok, I’m going with it.

The most surprising part of being the focus of this Diva’s loud yelling, bulging eyeballs and intense finger-pointing was my astonishing lack of a reaction.

I didn’t scan the street afterwards, pink-faced and mortified by this public outburst.

Nor did I feel my typical “how-dare-you-I’m-just-trying-to-help” outrage.

I just left.

Although later I did see the warning signs from the minute I tapped on her glossy black door, and heard an irritated ‘Wait a minute!’ coming from inside.

Suddenly, the door had swung open. And I had a quick glimpse of an interior designer’s room before a full-figured woman filled the space. Her body was squeezed into black yoga clothes that hugged her tiny waist and her giant boobs. Her blonde-tinted hair that was frizzed and grey at her temples, was shooting from her head into a tall ponytail.

I smiled but she didn’t say a word.

In fact, she just stood there, her dark eyes, blinking rapidly. And for a quick second I remember something strange and milky about her face. The carefully drawn eyebrows, the taut skin around her eyelids and her puffy Angelina Jolie lips, frozen and half open.

“Hi, I just want to introduce myself. I’m Leslie. I used to visit the 80-year-old woman who lives behind you. And well, it’s a long story. But she just got evicted and left before she could get her two beloved cats.”

She was still staring.  “So, I’ve been checking back, trying to feed them and catch them for her. Ah. Do you know the cats I’m talking about?”

Wham-bam. She came to life. A flaming, wild-eyed Medusa right in front of me.

 “Yes! I knooow those cats!! Those people should not be allowed to have animals! I should’ve reported them a long time ago. Those cats have been coming into my yard, leaving their hair and their shit and I am sick-sick-sick of it.”

Gulp.  I tried to reassure her. “Well, the woman lost her husband (sympathy maybe?) and she’s moved now. And so have the people in the front of that duplex. And I heard the owner is renovating the whole place now….”

“Don’t you DARE tell me about that owner! You know nothing about him. That man has been letting that property go for years!! I won the 2018 Newport Beach Landscaping Award do you know that?! And I know a thing-or-two about property. And that man has been letting that place go for ages! And wait-a-minute. Are those the people that left their trash out front?

She stepped outside and her face was red.

This was not going well.

The funny thing is, Jim had warned me when I told him about my idea. I had been making two trips a day trying to catch Tiger and Smoky Joe before the weather got bad or the coyotes got them. As an animal lover I couldn’t stand the idea of them being out in the cold all night when they were used to being inside.

But with my fatigue and grief, the whole situation was starting to drain me.

I knew that Smoky Joe was too old to jump but Tiger was always hanging out on the roof behind his yard. Because it was impossible to see from the street—I had a great idea.

I told Jim. I think I’m going to ask the neighbor to let me put a little cat shelter on top the flat portion of their garage. Just in case it rains until I can catch Tiger.

He gave me a weird look.

Leslie. Not everyone feels the way you do about animals.

I was honestly shocked. What? I didn’t understand why he was sounding so negative.

Turns out that The Diva is the owner of Tiger’s favorite hang-out spot, and apparently not only does she have a hatred for cats, she happens to have one of the most immaculately landscaped yards in the area.

All of a sudden, she was eyeing me suspiciously.

“Wait. What do you want from me? Why are you here?!”

I swear I had visions of the green-faced witch waving her crooked fingernail in Dorothy’s face. Only I was Dorothy.

Maybe Jim was right. A cat shelter on her garage roof wasn’t a good idea.

I remember mumbling something about property lines that made no sense at all as I walked towards the gate.

In fact, the mention of property lines antagonized her.

“Property lines? Don’t you even think about catching those animals on my property! I’m ready to call animal control right now and have them picked up.”

I was already under the trellis when I turned around to see her jabbing her finger in the air.

“I don’t need this shit! Do you know that?! I just lost my husband at Thanksgiving!”

And Ka-BOOM. That was it.

In that second my heart softened. So she had lost someone too. Ignoring her shrill voice, my mind flashed over the days since Patrick’s loss in September and how excruciatingly fresh it all still felt for me. And I thought of how painfully recent a Thanksgiving death would feel.

 I waited for the next pause and I said in a quiet voice, “I am so sorry about your husband.”

But she looked back at me with disdain.

 “No, you’re NOT!!! You don’t even know me!” Then she turned toward her front door and yelled over her shoulder, “Get those animals off my property. NOW!”



And there it was.

The moment that American Buddhist, Pema Chodron calls the perfect teacher.

I knew something vitally important had just happened before I turned the key in my ignition and pulled away from the prettiest house on the street, with the screaming lady now inside. Only I had to see all the ugliness for myself, for the message to crystalize into these precise words:

I will never let grief destroy my life. Ever
And I will never let grief do that to my family.

I realize now that meeting the Diva that afternoon—like a lot of blow-ups that happen with others—had nothing really to do with the topic we were talking about. Instead, it was my eye-opening lesson about grief and suffering.

At the most tragic time in my life when all my certainties have melted away, and as I struggle to cope with the catastrophic effects of Patrick’s passing, I needed to be reminded of the most important choice in my life right now.

It’s a choice we all face every day. But I think heartbreak knocks us down long enough to glimpse the truth.

The reality is that life is always presenting us with opportunities to either open up or shut down in the face of scary, aching, uncomfortable situations.

I have a choice to be open and real and experience the fullness of my heartbreak even though it’s a suffering that feels completely unbearable at times. Or I can choose to shut down. Collapse. Over-medicate, deny the feelings inside me. Or hurl anger and blame at others without ever looking deeper.

Becoming bitter instead of a better person.

Thank you poor, suffering Diva for the gift of reminding me of who I plan on becoming.

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My first post after Patrick's accident.

The other day I told Michael I was thinking of returning to my blog, but whenever I think about hitting the 'publish' button on a post now I feel insecure.

He looked curious so I kept talking.

I said what I really need is to be completely truthful and raw and unafraid with my words because I realize this kind of writing will help me heal. But what I mean specifically, is that I need to write about the accident. 

I need to write about the knock on our door at 7:30 that morning. And the horrific feeling in my gut when I threw open the door and saw a female officer and man in a brown tie and wrinkled shirt, standing there holding a clipboard, looking grim. Asking us to verify if we were Patrick's parents. Please. Please tell me he's OK I remember pleading. But instead of an answer the dark-haired officer asked to come inside.

I need to write about these moments because they happened. They are real and heart wrenching but I know that telling the truth will  mend my brokenness. And god knows I need mending. Even with the strange disconnection I feel with my body lately, I know there is trauma lodged inside every cell in my physical self. I see the signs of trauma inside my mind and in my heart spilling out in my ragged sleep and in the graphic images that invade my thoughts.

In case you don't know yet

The worst thing that-could-ever-happen-to-Me, happened.
And now, every second of the day I'm just trying to keep moving. Putting one foot in front of the other. Trying to string coherent thoughts together. Using distraction to ease the pain. But it's always there, this whirling vortex of disbelief and despair that's ready to suck me out of the present moment. And when I'm least expecting it, hurl me into a devastating new reality I just can't believe. 

Honestly, we're all still stunned.

I used to believe that God would never allow anything to ever happen to one of my kids because He knew I would never survive it. I think I actually uttered these words out loud, even allowed my Mama's tender heart to feel comforted by this sweet logic--so much that not once, ever-ever-ever did I prepare for the possibility of losing my child.

Anything else dear Lord, I'd quietly whisper.

I can handle anything but THAT.

And then it happened. 

On September 15, 2018--not even four months ago-- the unfathomable loss I said I could never survive happened and now my beautiful son Patrick is gone. Our brightest light. The most completely irreplaceable-bigger-than-Life person I've ever known, the one person I thought I could never live without.  Gone.

Taken in an accident that was so profoundly, deeply unfair.

Maybe you already know this. If you follow me on IG, I've slowly dripped out this shattering news in an effort to keep myself grounded in reality.

But even now as I tap out these words on my laptop they appear bizarre on my screen.

Even though I see the basket on our dining room overflowing with condolence cards that I've carefully read and cried over, Patrick's absence from our lives is still so achingly raw, so emotionally unbearable that I can't fully grasp the realness of it.
Patrick gone from our lives?

I just can't believe it.

Sometimes when I'm driving alone or walking to my car in the grocery store parking lot, I hear myself repeating those words.
Probably out loud, who knows? The odd thing about a heart that's been ripped wide open is that the boundaries between your inner life and outer life become blurred.

Was I sleeping or am I awake?
Was I talking to myself or talking out loud?

Either way it doesn't seem to change the words that spill from my heart. "Oh my God. I just can't believe it."

But then I feel Jim nudge me in the dark. Les, his voice tells me. You're moaning in your sleep again.

This is where I am right now and it's a surreal experience. One minute I'm trying to endure the worst kind of suffering my motherly-self can imagine. Being in a world without my son. Trying to justify my own breathing when I know Patrick's has stopped.

And the next minute I'm having an amazing conversation with Michael, and I'm being flooded with the kind of gratitude that shakes me softly by the shoulders and penetrates my pain just long enough to remind me of my blessings.

We were sitting on the sectional in the living room--Michael and I-- right next to the Christmas tree that had surprised Basha, my grief counselor. On that afternoon, bright sunshine had been pouring through the branches, saturating the ornaments in a yellow glow and Basha had blurted out,

"Leslie I don't think you realize how good you're doing. Just so you know. There are some mothers who wouldn't be able to get out of their beds at this point."

I think I offered a weak smile. I tried to appreciate what she was saying but since I know I am one of those mothers who could easily be in a dense pile on the floor--just not today--I say nothing.

This is something I've learned from these darkest days following Patrick's accident, and it's what Anne Lamott says about grace.

She says "grace meets you exactly where you are, at your most pathetic and hopeless, and grace carefully loads you into its wheelbarrow and tips you out somewhere else. In ever so slightly better shape."

I like this humble description of grace.

I have no other explanation for how I'm functioning besides being lugged around in a mystical wheelbarrow, leaving behind a trail of simple tasks. Christmas decorating. Visiting my 80-year-old friend. Going to the office even-when-I-cry. Writing these words.

It's a mystery I can only explain by Love. As hokey and clique as that sounds it's been the one consistent truth through all this crazy grief, all those unsolicited acts of caring and compassion--gifts of grace--that keep coming from everywhere, our families and friends, and Patrick's friends. People that Patrick touched from so many places. People that loved him and want to share stories of him. In person, by text messages, by mail.

This is how we've been surviving. How we made it through our toughest Christmas ever, swaddled in the love of Patrick's tribe. Now ours.

I always knew that love was powerful, I just never knew it could sweep you up and carry you along on those days when your feet can no longer hold you up. 

I never realized that love--in the form of an early morning text--from hundreds of miles away at the exact moment you're being flooded with heartache, could have the power to get you out of bed.

It's amazing really. So many inexplicable happenings that I consider to be small miracles since Patrick's accident.

I tell Michael I'm thinking of writing about these things on my blog but then I think about the kind of blog titles going through my feed and I start to feel doubt.

I stare at the fashion and beauty tips. The how-to style-your-home-after-Christmas tips that I used to care about, and I realize the absolute last topic that any woman especially mothers, want to hear about is the D-word.

And I don't blame you if you're one of those people.

I totally understand if you want to get as faraway as possible from the idea of losing a child.

In fact, I remember that feeling.

The overwhelming agony you feel for the mother in that situation and the relief and gratitude you feel about your own kids, and then the guilt about feeling so relieved that this horrific thing that happened to this mother didn't-happen-to-you-thank-god. And before you know it, you're texting your kid again just to exhale that relief all over again.

You can only be where you are 

The conversation with Michael that day helped me shed a layer of my self-consciousness. It's so crazy how we do that. How we look around at others for some kind of confirmation. Do I fit in here or do I fit in there?

Well I've decided that the real lesson I'm supposed to be learning has nothing to do with what to share and where to share it. On this blog or on another platform. 

The deeper lesson I'm supposed to be learning is that we can only be where we are. Right now.
Without any apologies, or denial or shame for whatever might be causing us pain. We have to keep living from an honest place and that's how we find our way through uncertainty and darkness.

I think that's why comparing ourselves with others can be so wounding, because we can end up feeling like where we are right-at-this-moment-in-our-lives is not good enough.

I don't know if you can relate to anything I'm writing about in this post, but maybe something I say here might help you feel less alone. That's my simple hope.

Because I don't know if I have anything to offer you. 

I used to think I had some meager wisdom to share, but after watching my big, handsome son walk out the front door on a sunny Friday in September, never to see him again, I feel the full weight of Socrates' words:

"I know I know nothing."

This is me. I know nothing now. I'm not saying this to put myself down or to make you feel a certain reaction, I'm just trying to express how outrageously upside-down and completely shattered my entire life appears to me as I write these words.

I used to think I knew what my future looked like. How my life would be. I once thought I had some control. I once was afraid of death.

Now none of those things are true anymore.

For Me, a woman who used to say to her friends over a nice glass of Cab, "as long as my kids are OK, my life is great," there is nothing more traumatic that could have happened in my life.

Do you wonder how you would go on living in the face of such an unbearable loss? 

Well, I do too. 

This is where I am right now. This is my journey.


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