June 9th
What for years was a day of celebration in our family has transformed into a day of echoes tinged with melancholy. Today is MK’s birthday. While I miss her intensely every day since she lost her war against brain cancer, her birthday provides deeper senses of loss.
MK was complex, but not complicated, which has a lot to do with why I loved her so! It took me awhile to get in the groove with this, but once I did, I came to appreciate it. She understood and was comfortable in conflict, while I, coming from a typically dysfunctional, alcoholic family, spent my life avoiding conflict at all costs. When we were first married I would often say to her ‘honey, with you everything is a crisis.’ This was especially true when she would get on a tear and really be talking with her hands!
But soon I got it. She didn’t hide her feelings, ideas, thoughts, desires, and dreams. For us that made for a solid foundation. It certainly wasn’t continually smooth or easy, but I always knew where MK stood and we always were in it together – even if knee-deep!
During MK’s Celebration of Life, our son explained to those gathered how he viewed his mom as ‘living her life for the experiences of it.’ He was spot on! Often in her life she’d shoot the moon and be happy no matter how far her trajectory took her for any particular adventure.
You might be inclined to think this made MK somewhat soft or distractible. She was anything but.
Her children were her most precious undertaking. She consistently managed allowing them to share in her experiences. Rarely was the business trip she didn’t arrange having our kids and me join her. Sure, they might have had to sit through some boring meeting time in the lobby, but then there was always a trip to a bead store or special meal to make up for it. They got to meet loads of interesting people early in their lives and partook of an untold number of experiences far advanced for their ages.
She was unrelenting in her pursuit of perfection when it came to her work in interior design. Her innate design talents constantly amazed me. I recall the first time she said ‘we’ should redesign our living room. She showed me a tiny paint chip, inch squares of fabrics, a magazine photo of the arm of a sofa, and a tuft of carpet. It looked like a mishmash to me! Saying “trust me, Scott,” and as always it was fabulous. I was impressed with how frequently she was significantly ahead of approaching trends. Only one time did I ever knew her to say ‘I can’t do this.’ It involved a client who insisted the design centerpiece had to be their large, velvet painting of Elvis. No lie!
MK was fanatical in her commitment to her friends. She steadfastly refused to suffer fools, but if you were a friend to MK, she returned that friendship tenfold. I quit counting the number of times she would go out of her way, far, far out of her way, for a friend in need. She especially loved entertaining for friends. Creative participation dinners, themed gatherings, and even hosting a Mystery Prom in her 30s since she missed hers. Plus when it came to her formal dinners, each course would outshine the prior, topped off with her unending stories, jokes, and ability to meld a disparate group of strangers into friends in a single party.
Extended family also featured importantly in MK’s life. She was 100% Italian and accepted my Cornish/Czech combo. If you were family, MK automatically gave you a generous set of mulligans for any lapses, misunderstandings, fights, etc. It took a lot for someone to cross that line to ‘goodbye time’, but I knew when someone did step over, that was it! Intensely proud of her deep Italian roots, MK enjoyed my fanaticism with genealogy, relished her multigenerational connection with the wine-making Mondavi family, and even embraced those cultural idiosyncrasies in my background including a few dishes she viewed as antithetical to good eating, such as baloney & onions, for one.
Her internal strength was as intense as every other aspect of how she lived. She taught me to be far stronger than the hot mess I was when we met – and I still ask if the onion rings are homemade no matter where I order them. She taught me the importance of keeping strong friendships and carefully attend to the ‘care and feeding’ they require to remain such. She taught me to be true to my beliefs, especially when they fly in the face of what is expected. She taught me how to be strong for others, such as the times we had to organize interventions for friends struggling with alcoholic family members.
Above all she lived a strength beyond imagination from the first moments she regained consciousness following her brain surgery. Day after month, years following years, never taking a day off from her fight. Giving every ounce of strength she had no matter the amount she could muster at any given time, and consistently illustrating to all her determination to brazenly face each day neither knowing how many might be left nor how daunting the day dawned.
She would have relished being here at Pallino for her birthday. Most likely spending it on the beach with book and wine in hand. Family surrounding, and certainly interspersing her day with visits to the sauna.
I love and miss you so much MK! This day’s for you!
Happy birthday