Little Light of Mine

Friday, Dec. 8, 2017

I'm looking back at our family's picture files from the past year, trying to remind myself what has happened over these 12 months. They have have been a blur for so many reasons.

Tree decorating, Christmas 2017, 22 mo.

This video was taken Jan. 5, when our Christmas tree was still up and I was in the fresh stages of grief over my grandmother's unexpected death. Auden had started walking nine days before this, when we were on a beach in Belize, the day before Grandma died. He was a week shy of 11 months.

I know this is not a revelation, but it feels like one to me: The boy has grown and changed like crazy. We put our Christmas tree up again on Saturday. No longer the drunken walker, Auden helped pull ornaments from boxes and tried to hang them on the tree. His efforts mostly amounted to him to tossing them in between the branches, but I appreciated his attention nonetheless. He followed his sister's lead and took the decorating gig very seriously (though he refused to wear the Santa hat she kept putting on his now curly-haired head).

There have been points this year when the news just felt too dark to handle. But the light from this child and his sister -- it's just so bright. He's a snuggler, a joker, a runner, a climber. He carries his "bebe" doll around, feeds her, covers her in a blanket and kisses her goodnight. He loves to dance and climb, to swing from bars, to greet his sister in the mornings and to say goodbye to anyone (or anything) that is leaving. He is always talking about choo-choos and "AYE-uh!" He repeats all the conversations around him and is forever imitating us (the good and the bad) to the point of both hilarity and (our) shame.

So, yeah, it's been a crazy year. But, thanks be to God for the gift of this beautiful child, who has made me laugh and smile and experience crushing feelings of love a hundred times more often than I have felt panicked by the times.

My beautiful boy

The following was written at different times over the course of Auden's first year of life and was revised in the week of his first birthday. I have neglected writing about my life since moving back to New Orleans five years ago and I feel immense guilt for not writing - or completing my writings - about this amazing little boy who was born 22 months ago, changing our family in ways that I have yet to fully process (mostly because I am busy and tired). I adore this beautiful child completely. If I die before he can read the many words I plan to write about him, please tell him. 

February 2017

He entered the world with a head full of red hair.

I remember him crying a big cry as the midwife lifted his tiny, slippery body into my hands. His birth was explosive and quick. He arrived at 9:27 p.m., two hours after we'd left home for the hospital. No sooner had they rolled me into a delivery room in a wheelchair than I stood up, pushed one painful push and there he came, falling into the quick hands of my midwife and my husband.

Auden Flynn Myers, 6 lbs. 9 oz., 18.75 inches, was an adorable little guy with skinny legs, soft melon-colored sideburns reaching toward his cheeks and a cluster of white pimples just under the left side of his mouth. His hair was just light enough that we weren't at first willing to proclaim it as red, even as my best friend, Kathleen, insisted in the delivery room that, "That boy has red hair, people!" (She probably didn't say it that way at the time, but it's how we summarize her thoughts when we talk about it today.) The red so far has stayed, much to the delight of my Irish mother and her three sisters, all of whom have red hair and come from a long line of redheads. Each time I hold Auden, I find myself pressing my cheek against his soft, warm head, kissing his baby hair and stroking it with my face, my kiss, my chin, my hands. It's been a year this week, and still I have this urgency to feel his head against my cheek so that I don't forget how this feels.

His five- (now-six-) year-old sister, has been dancing in and out of his room, his face, his view since we first brought him home. Her constant motion, her volume and flare has served as a reminder how quickly he, too, would be speaking, singing, dancing, objecting.

Baby Auden wore a furrowed brow for much of the first two months of his life, at which point he started smiling and cooing when spoken to, melting my heart with each open-mouthed grin. He knew immediately where to find the milk and nursed with such skill for the first few months that he managed to climb up the charts from being in the 30th percentile for weight at birth to being in the 90th percentile, according to his two-month check-up: 14.1 lbs., 22.5 inches.

He spent his first two months sleeping on and with me, his arms sprawled across my chest, his legs tucked under him or splayed to either side of my belly. I loved being right there when he woke at night, feeding him and then falling straight back to sleep with him. Our naps together sometimes ended with a few strands of my hair wrapped around his sticky palms and fingers, the side of his face red and hot from where it was pressed against my chest and his hair moist from my body heat. By Easter, he learned to enjoy being swaddled and started learning to sleep on his own in his crib — a full room away from momma.

His eyes got larger and more expressive over time. Those first few weeks, he stared with wonderment and sometimes skepticism as his sister hung over his bouncy chair or grabbed his hand, speaking to him in a high-pitched voice, reminding him who she is. "I'm Aida! I'm your big sister," she would say, always laughing at whatever he does in response.

If he was skeptical, I didn't blame him. Our first three months together felt like they were haphazardly patched together with whatever last bits of scotch tape were on the roll. Steve was teaching on contract at Texas Christian University, so he felt the need to return to his duties there after being home for only the first 10 days of Auden's life. His weekly commute to Fort Worth meant Auden, Aida and I were on our own for three to four nights a week. Had it not been for my mother coming each night at bath and bedtime, I cannot envision how it would have played out. Aida needed my attention. Auden needed my attention. It felt like neither were getting everything they needed and I felt exhausted and inadequate with the gnawing sense of guilt that both children were suffering because of it.

Before I became a mother, I always thought I wanted several children. But after having Aida, the reality of parenthood left me wondering how exactly I could pull off mothering even one more. With Aida, I was all in, pouring nearly all of my attention into her and her development. I would regularly interview new mothers of two -- often strangers, even -- about about the experience of going from one to two kids. Sometimes, I got the big shoulder shrug: "You just do it." It still sounded hard. It was hard to see how I could squeeze in a second being who would require the same amount of devotion, attention and love. Yet, my irrational desire for a second baby grew over time from a low "what if" flame to a raging "gotta get pregnant" fire. I'm not sure Steve understood how badly was I longing for a baby. And I don't think he fully understood my grief over the prospect that it might not come to pass. I wasn't sure I would be able to conceive. I'm over 40. Steve was traveling. Life was already exhausting. Every monthly period felt like a reason to mourn.

But then it happened.

Auden. My sweet, sweet boy.

A Eulogy for Gloria Richardson, My Grandma (Oct. 7, 1926 to Dec. 24, 2016)

Delivered Dec. 31, 2016, at a memorial service for Gloria Richardson at Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home in New Orleans, La.

I’m Rebecca Catalanello. I’m one of the 18 people on this planet lucky enough to call Gloria Richardson my grandmother. On behalf of our large (and sometimes loud) family, I want to thank you for coming today to help us honor the life of a remarkable woman, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, and, of course, Vernon’s beloved wife.

Over her 90 years, my grandma accumulated many names and nicknames. I counted up at least 10 that I know of and there are probably more. She had the most perfect name: Gloria. But she was also Sugar, Sugie, Mama, Mom, MawMaw and, what I and the eldest grandkids called her, Grandma. She grew up Gloria Seemann, the daughter of dairy farmers. She married Joseph Catalanello, a local radio personality, and not only took his name but sometimes adopted his show-biz last name, Wilson. Years after Joseph – aka Larry Wilson – died and she decided to take the love plunge again with an old flame named Vernon, she became Gloria Richardson, a name that stuck for 44 years as the two of them shared a love and companionship that emboldened them to merge families, propelled them across countless dance floors, inspired them to journey all around the world, sustained them during unfathomable heartbreak and served as a model to their children and grandchildren of what a lasting, strong, loving marriage looks like. Richer and poorer, sickness and health, good times and bad.

The names we all use when speaking to and about my grandma illustrate, I think, the kind of affection she inspired. Everyone who drew near to her came to love her with a fierce loyalty. Because knowing and loving Gloria Seemann Catalanello Richardson was to be known and loved by her.

She was sweet and funny, kind and thoughtful, joyful and full of grace. She loved to sing and had a remarkable ability to listen and to make you feel as if everything you had to say or share was the most important news she’d heard that day, that week. She was immensely proud of her five children and, in conversation with me since becoming a mother myself, often referred to her kids – some of whom are now grandparents themselves – as “my babies” in a tone of utter love and delight. She loved her grandchildren and great-grandchildren mightily with open arms and listening ears, always making us feel special, safe, amazing.

But when I think about her life, it is impossible not to see the many tragedies she endured – horrendous saddnesses, any one of which might have been enough to break her spirit, leave her angry, embittered or joyless. She was 35 in 1962 when she was suddenly widowed with five children, the youngest just four. She was strapped, depending on her mother to help her raise, feed, cloth and educate Bill, Michael, Larry, Donna and Nancy, while she sought employment. Between 1982 and 2001, she went on to bury an infant grandson, Joseph, her youngest son, Larry, and her sweet, beautiful granddaughter, Lisa, each of whom she loved without condition and each of whom were taken from this earth before any of us were ready to say goodbye. In 2005, flooding from Hurricane Katrina destroyed the home my Grandpa Vernon built and shared with my grandma – and thus, our entire family. It changed their neighborhood and forced their community to disperse.

But my grandma, she didn’t break. She didn’t become angry. She wasn’t embittered or joyless. My grandma, it was like her heart grew bigger, her faith in God carried her through to compassion – always this boundless compassion and interest in others and their wellbeing. From her position of unfathomable loss, she extended her love toward others who’d lost loved ones, too. When her son died, she held her daughter-in-law, Ellyn, and she cried with her and for her, but she also stood as an example of strength and encouragement that a mother’s love can carry her children through. “Keep up the good work,” Grandma would tell Ellyn, as she watched Laura, Anna, Daniel and Meagan grow beautifully under their mother’s care.

My grandma would go out of her way to visit with friends and relatives when they were elderly, alone, sick or when they lost a loved one. Even when she herself grew frail, she would find ways to comfort and encourage others in need of comfort and encouragement. When family friend, Joycelyn, said goodbye to her brother, my grandma, unable to leave the house very often in her final days, months and years, made a point to go and sit with Joycelyn’s mother and share in her grief.

More than anything, I think the loss she experienced underscored her appreciation for what she had in the here and now. “I’ve never been one to worry,” she would say. “I put it in God’s hands.”

Gloria’s example of love and gratitude impacted us all, leaving each of us with countless memories from which we’ve found ourselves drawing our own comfort since she left our world on Christmas Eve.

My memories include these:

Riding bikes around Lakeview with her at summer’s end. Swinging with her on the neighbor’s backyard swing, talking about Gram, her mother, and death and people she knew and cousins and my worries. Holding her hand during beach walks on family vacations in Destin. Getting a "grandma talk" from her in the third grade after a boy named Kelly Aderholt gave me a necklace. Pulling homemade Easter dresses from the packages she would send to me and my sister when we lived far away. Sitting next to her and Grandpa at St. Dominic’s Church, the scent of Grandma’s perfume mixing with the aroma of incense rising in the sanctuary. Countless Christmas Eve parties she and Grandpa hosted, giving us all joyous opportunities to dress up and laugh and eat and drink and build memories together. Braving the cold afterward, bound for Midnight Mass, where St. Dominic’s white marble altar was always bedecked with poinsettias. Some years Grandma sat with the choir and raised what, to me, were the most beautiful “Glorias!” I’d ever heard.

The morning Grandma died, I woke before sunrise in Belize with a baby who wakes up too early. We were vacationing at the beach there. I was rocking him and looking out at the water and saw what looked like a light dancing on the water. At first, I thought it must be the reflection of the moon still hovering. But the moon was slight and it soon became concealed by clouds. Still, the light shone -- only fading from view as sunlight flooded in. A few hours later, my dad called with the heartbreaking news that Grandma had died. The next morning, I woke before sunrise again. It was Christmas. The beach sky was blanketed with clouds. No moon was visible. But there was the light again, shining inexplicably over the water until daybreak again erased it. By the third morning, the 26^th, the light was gone.

After getting news of grandma’s passing, my godmother, Helen, a very faithful god-fearing woman, sent me a message of condolence for our family. “We are sad for the loss of your grandmother,” she wrote, “but what a perfect time to go to heaven. Such a lovely lady.”

No, I thought at first, it was not a perfect time. I needed more time. I wasn’t ready. I needed to hold her hand some more, to talk with her more, to hug her again. This was not a perfect time at all. I didn’t get to tell her everything. I was not a good enough granddaughter.

But then I thought about all those Christmas Eves she gave us. All the times our wonderful, large, blended, imperfect family that she loved and loved so well, gathered together to laugh and how, afterward, she would go to church and sing the most beautiful Glorias.

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly, sweetly through the night
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their brief delight

Gloria, in excelsis Deo
Gloria, in excelsis Deo

Surely when she entered Heaven, she heard the voices, the Glorias rising. The angels and archangels singing together. And she saw the faces of those she loved so well and whose lives and deaths she paid tribute to through daily acts of gratitude.

May we all do the same as we walk forward remembering her and honoring her and giving thanks for all she gave us.

Amen.