2012

Years ago – I was about 8 – we spent a couple of days in Lisbon before vacationing by the sea. A gypsy woman somewhere in the streets close by a farmers market wanted to read your palm and tell your future. I was mesmerized, I so wanted to know my future, even if it was a dramatic one. The memory is all tangled with one of the "Sissi" movies. You denied me my wish and explained how important it is not to know what lies ahead of us. I didn't understand. It was so much more exciting to know!

Imagine we had known in 2011 hat this year would be your last. The year you'd die. What if I had known since I was a kid that I would loose you before my 40th birthday. What would I have done differently? Everything! Nothing?

For New Years last year Tom and I had decided to live an utterly uneventful year. Since we met in 2009 so much had happened. We moved in together, we took our first trips together. We lost a baby together. We got engaged and married. We moved and we welcomed Tonie. So much had happened, we decided to simply enjoy and relax and concentrate on the present. Claim of certainty. You get in in almost every movie. It is one of my favorites.

I will never wish for anything on New Years ever, ever again in my life. Never. Ever. I love you and I miss you, please come back.

PS All these thoughts running thorugh my head while on the slopes by myself today. Reason enough to suffer in style once again: I bought a peplum Proenza Schouler jacket in lapis blue, black and bordeaux (outlet: half prize, it's no fun any other way). You would love it!

I'm not me

It has been 16 weeks since you have been diagnosed with brain metastasis. I miss you. It can't be true. I  will never speak to you again, see you again, touch you, shop with you, drink with you, blablabla. I don't know who I am without you. There's such a big whole right in the middle of me.

We are in Austria. Skiing. See below. I miss you and I love you, please come back.

Distance

My dearest Mom, we survived Christmas, it wasn't as bad as expected. Will tell you later on. By now I understand it's usually the before and after that's tough not the event itself (burial, memorial, Christmas, death). We finally managed to start our winter vacation today. Everything I want to do takes so much longer at the moment.

Just watched "The Lake House". First time I watched the movie I downloaded the soundtrack. It was so quiet and moving, touching something, peaceful still longing, I cannot describe. A kitschy story. But still. I really remember it.

Anyway. I miss you, I love you and it makes me very sad that today and for the past days, I am sometimes thinking of you without the dreadful jolts of pain. This is new. It's a relieve and at the same time I hate it. It means you've stepped into something past. Soon it will be 2013 and it will be a year in which you are not alive. A Million kisses.

Christmas

Without you. First Christmas without you ever in my life.

I was at your grave today. I never thought about how many people go to the graveyard on Christmas, very many, really. It is warm, much too warm for December, a bee was flying around the flowers on your grave. People are weeding and they bring little Christmas trees. Usually it is very quiet. Today the parking lot was crowded, coming and going. Your friend Jay has been here before me. She lighted a little candle. I can't believe you're not with us anymore. I can't believe it. Can NOT believe that you won't appear tonight. Wouldn't Christmas be reason enough for you to come back? All of us being here? I wish you were here.

Our Christmas tree is the same as last year. Lots of orderly colors, this year I also sorted the sizes. Small to small, big to big, pink to pink and fuchsia to fuchsia. I like it. It looks very summery on the pictures. The sun is glinting into the living room.  Last year: the first Christmas at Tom's and my place and the first time you were a guest on Christmas since forever.

The tree at your house is a mix also. As it will be the last time for a tree in your house as it used to be, I decided to give all your Christmas decorations a chance. One area is for pink and bubbly ornaments, one is for clean, classic silver things, one is red, one part of the tree is full of ice cones and cats and tulips in any color. And at one point I just stopped, not caring for the perfect tree as you wouldn't walk around it to point out "wholes". So I will be the only one to see the imperfections anyway.

I miss u terribly. If you won't be here tonight, it must be true. You are dead.

Bracelet Week

My beloved Mom,

I haven't counted how many little envelopes with bracelets I packed in the course of this week. The dining room has become a crowded, chaotic, mailing center. I believe 500-600 bracelets left by mail this week. I am soooo tired, every night I tried to keep track of emails, orders, transfers, packaging, wrapping, colors. I thought having something in a magazine like Instyle and receiving thousands of orders was an urban legend. But it isn't. Not a thousand orders though, but I wouldn't haven been able to handle more than I received anyway. Orders finally slowed down Thursday and I am relieved and sad... since yesterday the crushing pain is back.

Tonie constantly tries to get her hands on anything. Or she gets mad because she is bored crawling under the table not being able to make a mess with her little tiny octopussy fingers. If she is suddenly very quiet... she probably has found something she can unpack. Every DVD of Season 5 and six of "Friends" has been removed from its case. Once she has emptied every case she goes looking for my handbag. Ah, the wallet. And all the receits have to go and the change goes into my boots.

If you were alive I knew you'd been here every day, helping me with something, anything, packing or doing a post office run, buying envelopes and stamps, labeling orders, sorting emails. Like you did for me when we prepared my exhibition in the studio, hanging everything, preparing the bar and the music, hoovering the floor the last minute or helping me finish 400 tiny felt-loveletter-clutches. The entire process made me miss you even more and realize how much I counted on you as my emergency assistant-partner. At the same time I didn't miss you at all this week, because it felt as if you were there. As if you were right by my side and we were doing all this together.

"Time is a rubberband"

I wish you were here. I wonder where you are. Thinking about time. The time we had. What time felt for you when you knew you would die. Now there is no time for you. Waiting for the urn to crash or whatever an urn does to disintegrate.

I was about eleven when I played around with a selfmade towel doll. Awa, about maybe... 63 at that time – younger than you – watched me and explained how the experience of time changes while growing older. And I used to feel time speeding up, days disappearing and weeks rushing by. But since my pregnancy time became slohoowwwwww. Waiting for Tonie, 3 wks, 4 wks, 12 wks, 20 wks, waiting for her to grow, to be born, we moved... waiiiiitin for her arrival for hours on end, our first exciting months. Your diagnose and waiting for your death and waiting to learn how to live without you. My time feels like eternity. Probably a good thing.

All I wish for Christmas is you. I miss u. Come back. This is no fun.

PS the quote is from "Girls". I gorged through the first season last weekend. I hated the first and the second episode while knowing I was hooked. You will be shocked and you will wonder whether live's like that for twenty something. Gawd, they are awkward. I remember.

Paris Photo

After taking a break last year for Tonies birth I could meet with AC at Paris Photo again this year. First trip all by myself. First time flying again without worrying about a crying baby just reading, looking, sleeping. I didn't even spent a whole day there. I basically arrived at the Palais Royal around six. Looked through all the photographs and loved it. Had a glass of champagne. Went for dinner in the same restaurant. Talked and talked back in the appartment. Which is funny as AC and I used to be roommates in exactly this appartment 15 years ago while we studied at Parsons. It always feels like time travel in a good way. I haven't really thought about how different our topics were than ever before this year. With Tonie in my life and you gone. Very, very different than 2 years ago.

Robert Morat Gallery Strange I could find every photograph except for the House of Cards...

see the website & original here Jessica Backhaus

Christopher Guye Gallery Rarely have seen photographs that capture the power of nature.

Danziger Gallery Christopher Bucklow left & middle, Susan Derges right

I like the gallerist mirroring the image in the back

Happy Things

My dearest Mommanimal,

today is the first day I can lift my head up again. Sometimes the pain feels unbearable. Though I really know heartbreak I never experienced this crushing pain.

Anyway. Looking ahead. A little pick me up:
The week you died, Instyle Magazine emailed and asked for images of my bracelets and my tattoos! They wanted to feature them for their January issue. I didn't think about it as you never know with magazines – and I had other things on my mind. But yesterday my tiny onlineshop arose from it's beauty sleep and several orders tumbled into my mailbox... Yay! I spent yesterday morning in your place waiting for a delivery and quickly brought the shop up to date. Now it is a Christmas Shop. Look below.... I really like the colors. Ooh, I will upload all the Christmas Card designs I just finished for clients....

The bracelet & tattoo disaster really is a story in itself. And it was about time something positive happened to this doomed endeavor. I have often wished I had stopped the process the minute we knew about your diagnosis. On the other hand it probably kept me afloat thinking through the designs, finishing the illustrations for the tattoos... I just prepared the different orders and I remembered how you wanted to help me to tie the bracelets. You had always helped with all this little handy stuff of my different products. Only this time your hands were shaking just a tiny bit and you couldn't really hold them still. We just went on and you worked slowly and it broke my heart. Breaks my heart right now and all the pain is back with a blast. My dearest, best and greatest Mom. I miss u so. I don't know what to do without you. I hope you are well wherever you are. I love you I miss u I wish u hadn't died.

Family time

My sweetest & cutest Mom,

I miss u. Today felt better. I met with my brothers. It's tough to establish a new bond. Without you. We are just so very, very, utterly different. We went looking for a gravestone. What wonderful to-dos! Yay.

Now you are there for real. I think I have to get used to it. But unexpectedly I do like the idea that I can visit you, even if it's nothing but your ashes. Whereas before I never liked the concept of a graveyard.

Talked about the house. What to do with all your things? What to do with your home in the mountains? And at this point I don't care about anything but your bedroom and dressing room. I like to got there, to look at your clothes, flip through them and to lie on your bed while Tonie makes a mess on your bedstand. Boooh, the image of me browsing around is spooky. But what can I say, it helps me feel close. And once your clothes and room are gone your smell will fade away also... SPOOKY!

Anyway. I try. I started the Grief Recovery book – which I will explain to you – but there are assignments to do which I naturally dread. Lighter stuff... The night before your burial, Tonie and I changed the sheets to get my mind of things or in order. Or whatever. She happily freaked out, me too. With a strange mixture of happiness and sad tears.

RIP

My dearest, sweetest Mommanimal,

today you found your final resting place. The day after you died we went looking for a family grave. And the three of us all liked a small space beneath a birch tree surrounded by hedges. This is where the rest of you resides for now and ever. Your ashes fit into a tiny metal box and we have chosen the simplest, purest ceramic urn for you. You can't imagine the ugliness of urns. Urn designs are very, bery strange. I don't think you would have wanted a dolphin jumping into the sunset airbrushed onto your biodegradable plastic urn? See. I figured. Your urn looked beautiful. Your death date was wrong on the metal box inside... they wanted to place the ugliest cross onto your grave with a black veil around it. argh. Really strange, again. But your friend and I came prepared, a very sleek and simple grey slate bears your name for now, until we find the perfect gravestone.

I love u. I love u. I love u.

And it doesn't get better. Everyday I wish you were with us. I wish I could hear your voice and I wish I could tell you everything that happened these past weeks.

We went for lunch afterwards. I left Tonie with the sitter. She slept through your burial.

It is late in the afternoon now and I am waiting for them to return from there walk right now.

I miss u. I miss u. I miss u. Come back. Come back. Come back.

I love you. Now this process of dying and burying is behind us. Today I saw you for the first time since your death. The last I saw of your face, bedded in synthetic sheets with a cross, roses in your hands. Have you ever imagined yourself in a coffin in your living room? I believe not. And I am sorry the coffin was so... wooden. The images of our last weekend together are anchored into my mind. Sometimes they are hard to deal with, sometimes they help.

The day draws to a close. Thomas is back. Tonie is asleep. This was the last of the ceremonies. The last step of knowing you will die. Beginning in August when they found the metastases in your back. Knowing you will die.Waiting for and dreading your death. The weekend you died. Seeing you dead. The funeral service. The first weeks without. Your burial. The lunch after. Now the weekend after.

I love u and miss u.

Birthday tunes

My dearest, dearest Mom...

I miss u. It's Thomas' birthday today. What a beautiful, what a painful day today. Tears welled up as I prepared the cake yesterday – your favorite recipe. As I sang a your favorite birthday tune... I bought his presents in the department store where we went in spring and you bought a pair of jeans for me. Because I didn't know what to wear once the pregnant pounds faded but left my body totally different and strangely reshaped. Even though my weight really isn't the issue anymore. I fit into the smallest sizes. I can see my rips and for once in a longtime have almost spindly legs. And I don't do a thing for it. I am not sick. I just feel sick most of the time, because I miss u. Naturally death is final but how can I understand. You were with us a minute ago. So many moments pass in front of my inner eye. And I wish it was last summer again. We knew you would die but I couldn't grasp in the least what it meant.  No forum for breast cancer I visited, no book about dying or grief prepared me for what's happening now and how my life changed. I hate it. I don't want to be the me before your death and the me after your death. Especially as I have no clue who this  latter me is. To be defined.

I love u & I miss u and I would give anything to talk to you. Please call soon. I hope you are well and happy wherever you are and say hi to grandma Awa if you can.

A million kisses, Gi

PS I will upload pictures of tiny Tonie later on. She wore the cutest outfit for the day.