This piece is about my mother.

Her family.

Her grief.

My mother was 9 years older than my father.

He has two brothers. She *has two sisters.

*had.

My mother is the eldest, my father- the youngest.

When my mother’s biological father left her mother, and began a whole new family, a large chunk of foundation fell out from under her little girl feet. He hardly visited. She helped raise her twin baby sisters.

The first twin, my fucking wonderful aunt, died when I was pregnant, about 13 years ago.

I won’t write about the rest of that world because SHE is the writer, and there is quite literally a book all about her experience with her sisters, and other things that shook and removed pieces of foundation beneath her.

What I CAN say is that last week she took my son and me on a pricey vacation to Oceanside for his Birthday. On the second day, while said son and I were playing Marco Polo in the pool, and she sat on a lounge chair, she frantically waved me over, pointing at her phone as though it was on fire.

Making my way to her chair, she shook the phone towards my face. Her last living sister, whom she has been estranged from for the past 13 years, sent a text. This isn’t some love island “I got a text!” kind of text.

Imagine the opposite of that.

Her sister has been battling brain tumors for years. It’s what led her to reaching back out to my mother after telling her she was basically the devil (she’s not, that’s me.) Out of fear and need for help, she reached out soon after my dad died.

My mom- desperate to have any family left- Reached back out to try and help. Big sister til the end.

After years of back and forth texting, and a recent phone call where her sister claimed she “wished to be as brave as Michael,” she finally decided to do Medical Aid In Dying.

This text was letting my mother know the date she had chosen.

I looked at my mother. She was white. She was holding back puke. Her back spasmed, her eyes rolled back, she slinked to the side of the pool chair and I lifted her back up.

She had recently let my Aunt know that after so much pain and suffering, she should at least LOOK INTO getting the medication for if and when the time felt right.

But once it was clear that she was no longer needed for help, or support, her sister had gone silent on her. We heard rumblings about her children visiting, and various other people, but there was no clue if she had acquired it, let alone if she would drink it down.

This text confirmed all of the above.

My mother wrote back something very very beautiful.

That would be the end of their text exchange. Forever. No response. The ultimate “ghosting,” if you will.

She wasn’t asked to be at the bedside, she didn’t get a phone call goodbye, and we are the only living family members not invited to the funeral.

The night before she lost her last little sister, I asked my mom if she wanted to try. Just try one last time and reach out, make contact, E.T phone-home type shit.

“No” she replied as stoic as possible.

“It would add stress to her. She is my baby sister. I can’t do that.”

So she didn’t.

But she checked her phone with such thirst and desire that it was like watching a baby bird waiting for scraps from its mother.

That next day my Aunt died. My mom was in my son’s small blue bed. We cut our vacation short. I bought tequila. A lot of it. She wept, and wailed. She told me she won’t survive this.

I know she will.

But for that day, it seemed she would not.

I sat with her that night until she fell asleep. I told her Daddy could have a chat with her sister, and I can take care of the rest down here. She was hysterical, her eyes shut with grief, her words on a long ramble about the life they once had, the seizmac shift that changed it all, and the eventual realization that a goodbye would never come.

It fucking sucks.

Want me to say that in a more poetic way?

I won’t. I can’t.

What is it that religious people say? “God only gives his hardest challenges to his strongest servants?” Or some shit like that? I could Google it, but, no.

Well, GOD, this was it. This is it.

Claudia Sternbach can’t take any more.

She’s strong as hell, but this one takes the cake as far your little challenges go.

So, let’s leave her be for a bit now.

Because, at this point, she’s floating.

Nearly as ghost-like as her sisters.

Essentially nothing beneath her to keep her steady.

But I’m here to try and keep her upright,

Handle things earth side.

Or if all else fails-

I’m here to clean up if she falls from such great heights.

Ava pleads…

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It’s actually very fortunate if you have the means and time to blow it up. Even if other things are at play, poking and prodding at your shit, guess what? You’re fucking lucky if you have the time and space to poke and prod back.

What am I going on about? Who knows.

There’s a mug at target that pisses me off. “Go ask your dad,” that’s what it says. Go ask my dad? How? Where? Ok!

I’m gunna buy that mug after Father’s Day- heavily discounted- and smash it against the ground.

I want to shave my head, but what if my shape of skull is funky-doo? What if it has wiggles in it? How long would it take to grow back, and will I look like that doll from rugrats? Cynthia doll.

I broke up with my partner of almost 4 years, and that shit is layered and personal and I care so much for him, and I love him, and it was the toughest match to strike in this particular life-blow-up. So that’s all I will say about that. Ever.

Another ex partner just lost his dad. Unexpectedly and tragically, and what a giant loss. I can’t stop thinking about it. “Go ask your dad.” Stupid fucking universe. Stupid target.

In the midst of the torching of my life, my regular mammograms came back irregular. Uh, they always do. My bewbs be fatty. But this time, after 3 hours of ultrasounds and MRI’s and squeezing tits into a George Foreman grill contraption, a woman took me to a dressing room with a broken lock on the door and told me something “suspicious” was found.

Baby’s first biopsy.

I’m writing about it NOW because the results came back today! Benign. How lucky am I? There are two more suspicious things they need to take a peek at, but for now I just have a bruised tit full of migrating scar tissue, and so for today…. Cancer isn’t something that’s going to partake in my life explosion.

A raccoon invaded our backyard for the past week. Ate all my pillows and pool toys. It seems to have left now, but, how lucky am I- to even have pool toys that can be snacked upon!? To even have a POOL with random animal turds around it!?

I’ll go up North next week to clear out my parents home. I don’t know what I will find- both physically or metaphorically. I think it’s going to make me sick. I can envision a vomit sesh or two in the Ivy my mother once planted. “Shouldn’t we just set it on fire?” I asked her. She…. Didn’t seem into that.

But I’m a pyromaniac, mama!

So, I haven’t wanted to write. Haven’t wanted to share. Haven’t wanted to speak on things until I could see more of the results. Results of the destruction. Results of the tit. Results. And while the embers still burn all around me, I wonder, am I doing anything “right?”

I dunno. I guess I’ll just “go ask my dad.”

Dear Daddy,

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I was 19 when I moved to New York City. I went to a Drama school, that to this day my son refers to as “that school you went to for dancing” (?) I babysit people’s bundled up little children through the dead of winter, and I hostessed at Cafe Lalo- home to such films as: “You’ve Got Mail,” and, I think no other film.

Cafe Lalo was a dream job for me. Open til 4am, serving every flavor of cheesecake you could dream up. I sat people at their tables. I watched Alec Baldwin eat dark chocolate muddy cheesecake at 2 am with a woman who I believe was… for hire, who told us “yes it’s him! And don’t take a picture!” Wayne Brady came in at the height of Wayne-Brady-ness, and I stole his spoon after he used it. I think I planned to sell it on eBay. Who knows. One night I sat with a woman until we closed, as she told me she had just come from her fiancé’s funeral. They had been kayaking and tipped over. She made it. He didn’t. I sat outside with her on a bench after Lalo’s lights were off. She just wept and wept.

I think of that job fondly. The perverse kitchen staff, the free matchboxes and cake slices, the print outs of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks adorning the front windows.

Jaime Lalo, the owner, would park his SUV in the middle of the street whenever he chose. Custom license plate: “LALO.” He would come in and make sure all the waitresses and hostesses were attractive enough. He would take a whole cheesecake. He would leave. Cafe Lalo is gone now, and when I was in New York visiting my mom this week, she let me know that one time Jaime Lalo gave me a ride home. “Daddy and I did not like that” she told me. I have no memory of this. I actually don’t even believe it. But perhaps after stealing a c list celebrity’s spoon, and listening to a tale of a man drowning while upside down, I sleepily hopped into the car of an old rich sleeze and made my way back home. It’s best I don’t recall.

I left New York after 8 years. I returned to it when my son was two week’s old for his father’s job. That was on and off for two years. I plant myself back in LA, happily DRIVING places and enjoying a 85 degree “winter” and then suddenly it’s all happening again. New York is the destination on my flimsy little boarding pass. This city will always rope me back in. It doesn’t matter if I thought I cut the damn rope. I’m tethered.

My mother has always had a love affair with New York. She would spend large chunks of time there throughout my teen-hood, and when I planted my feet there she would often come visit. My dad usually stayed back home. He had work, he had bike rides and waves to catch. But most importantly, my New Jersey born Daddy wanted nothing to do with hustle and bustle of NYC. These chunks of time apart probably kept their marriage as healthy as it was. He fell deeply in love with the West Coast, but her heart was always in Manhattan. So, as a compromise, once they both retired, the plan was to spend large chunks of time on the East Coast.

But, make a plan and God tee hee’s or whatever, right!? My dad dies mere weeks before retirement, and suddenly there is a widow living alone in my childhood home.

My mother spent one year in our haunted house in Aptos. The home I grew up in. Never moved from. The home my parents shared for 40 plus years. And then one day, like a punch to the nauseous gut, the realization hit her: this doesn’t feel good anymore. So, at 74 years (young?) she went online, applied for an apartment in NY, hired some furnishing company, packed some boxes and bags, and away she went. Bold and brave, but let me remind you: as certain as I am that I should retire at the Americana in Glendale, and have my ashes scattered in the fountain; she was just as certain about where her home was.

If my son and I want to visit my last remaining parent we now must venture to LAX (hell hell hell) and hop on a 6 hour flight. We watch reruns of kitchen nightmares, and our eyes widen as we land looking at the skyline, that simply doesn’t hit the same since 9/11 (no pun intended.) My son lets me know that we can’t see stars in the sky because there are too many large and bright buildings. This is a fact I have forgotten as well as I have the Jaime Lalo driving me home story.

We do the Holiday’s in New York. In an apartment my Dad has never stepped foot in. (Something about that makes the whole experience a little less knife-to-the-heart painful.) It snows. We borrow a Parisian woman’s sled for one ride for my son. My dad would have loved watching him fly down this hill. His California boy soaking up the East Coast magic. Every once in a while we talk about my Daddy. I love to talk about him, most of the time. We cram in as much as possible, and then hug my mommy goodbye.

We fly back to LA. The turbulence makes me want to upchuck, but I focus in on “Die Hard” and slowly sip my ginger-ale, as JetBlue informs me via email that, oopsie, my luggage is on a separate flight landing 6 hours after we do. I panic internally. Go over everything that is in that overstuffed stupid suitcase and determine what I can or can not live without. It all makes me feel sick.

Im currently wearing my son’s deodorant and brushing my teeth with “strawberry sparkle burst” toothpaste, while I wait for a suitcase to arrive “sometime today.”

I’m incredibly weepy today, and I can not pinpoint why. Is it because I slept without my emotional support stuffed animal dog who’s stuffing is falling out of it’s asshole!? Is it because of jet lag, and stomach aches from magnolia bakery’s perfect banana bread pudding!? Or is it because the moment we were landing in LA I asked my son a poignant question, and received the most gut-wrenching answer.

“Hey. When we land in NY and you can see the whole skyline and everything…. And when we land in LA and you see all of this right now… do either of them feel more like ‘home’ to you?”

“Um. Santa Cruz.” He says. By which he means “Aptos,” and “San Jose airport.”

Santa Cruz, by which he means my parents home. Where pops can toss the football to him, and he can dramatically roll and tumble as he heroically catches it. Where Mimi is inside listening to Andrea Bocelli and making some home cooked meal. Northern California out his little window, that’s what feels most like home to him. But that’s no longer our view.

If you know me, you know I’m Jewish. If you know about my gut health, you know I’m really Jewish.

It’s the Holiday season so I won’t give too many details, but mainly: I don’t like how much I shit.

Apparently at age 38, one is deemed “too young” for a colonoscopy. But, if you’ve read my previous writing, you know I don’t take no for an answer.

I demand and plea and demand and be cute and demand and be a demon.

It gets scheduled for Dec 8th 2023.

I get my colonoscopy/endoscopy BOGO special and from what I can recall- Mariah Carey Xmas music was playing, and, likely, I shat on the doctor.

I’m certain they will find some volcanic tumor, or a tunnel of subway rats inside me. But, on December 12th I get a call to inform me that the inflammation they saw is “likely stress related.” And, so, water boarding my insides with that jug of poison the night before was for nothing I suppose. But I’m relieved and I can’t wait to tell my parents- no tummy troll, no cancerous mass with teeth.

Thumbs up for bums up!

It is the 12th day of December when I get my clean bill of health, and my son and I are at a friend’s house. They have a gorgeous tree, and we put tinsel all over it. This is not something I am accustomed to- but I find myself obsessed with the shine, the flutter ability, the way it instantly takes me back to the 60’s when I was negative 25 years old.

She hands me a packet of my own tinsel to take home and put on my own tree.

The sun is setting and music is blasting and the kids are cherubic and my phone rings. It’s my parents. They are probably wondering if I have ass or tummy cancer. Let me answer and assure them that all is right in the world!

It’s my daddy on the other end. “You busy?” He asks.

“Yes. We are at a play date. I’ll call you back,” I attempt to finish my sentence but he can’t hear me. His question was rhetorical and needed no response. “I have cancer” he blurts out.

His voice is sturdy but laced with fear. He sounds soft. I am confused because… wasn’t I the one who just had a colonoscopy!? But, ok. Maybe he’s just guessing he’s sick. Maybe he’s losing weight or feeling feverish and some doctor friends suggested it’s MAY BE, cancer and so he’s just giving me a heads up that that might be an option. Yeah, that’s probably what’s happening.

I know I instantly felt sick. I cried, I think? I repeated “what?” And “how?” And my friend looked over at me like she had just seen a ghost. (Me. I’m the ghost!)

My daddy had been having hip pain. I knew this.

My daddy was getting scans and x-rays and MRI’s. This I did not know.

My daddy got a call that it just wasn’t looking good. Even though nearly everyone in my family has had some type of cancer, and most have survived- I just knew immediately:

This is how we lose him.

We hang up and I think I fall over. The details are unclear, but I know I immediately took my son into his friend’s bedroom, and surrounded by bunks beds and robotic dinosaurs I told him “pops has cancer. That’s why I’m crying. It will be ok.”

My son is the last person to believe this will kill my dad. He hears me, lets it settle in as best as a 9 year old can.

He hugs me, and then frolics off to tackle more tinsel.

From that point on, everything moves so fast. It’s a runaway train, and the destination is Fuckedville.

Every time I worry that I am losing my one and only Dad, my boyfriend reminds me “but you can call him right now!” I think I’m on FaceTime with him at least 5 times a day before I decide to just live with my parents.

I still have his phone. I know some people will call or text their dead loved ones devices but if I did that- then- would I have to answer? I’m not trying to talk to myself.

I had to change his outgoing message about two months after he died so that telemarketers or hospice people who didn’t know he died could stop calling. “Uh hi, this is Michael’s daughter. Unfortunately he passed away so if you need something…. Call me?”

People still leave him messages like he’s not in an urn in my fucking living room.

Once upon a time, I bought my son a punching bag. A real legit one that a friend had to fill with so much sand. I mean…. a whole beach is in the bottom of this thing. We had tried other punching bags, a kid-sized one, an inflatable clown that is meant to bounce back up, but my son would be wanted for murder if you saw what happened to those things.

A few days after Dec 12th, my son is having a very very big meltdown about Pops being sick. I mean, he can’t see straight. He’s so angry. We are so angry. I frantically rush him to our garage area, lace up (Velcro) his gloves, and set him up at the punching bag. He goes apeshit. He screams about how cancer isn’t going to win. We FaceTime my parents and I show my dad…. “This is what you are going to do to your cancer!” My son says as he fully hulks out. It’s therapeutic and cathartic and traumatizing and all four of us are gut punched as he wails on this thing.

We hang up. I take him back inside. “He’s not gunna die, right?” He asks me with such hope in his little prepubescent voice.

“I. I really don’t know” I THINK I say. Honestly, I could have said anything, because I’m telling you I was on another planet at this point in time, but if I were to put money on it (I won’t! I’m poor!) I think that’s what I said.

Him asking me that question always haunts me. I can hear it floating through our house. “He’s not gunna die, right?”

Tomorrow is Dec. 12th.

Two years since the call that flipped my world. Our world.

I opened up the box of Christmas decorations this year, and, just like last year, there it is: the tinsel my friend gave me. Still pristine in its packaging. And I’ll never use it.

But, I’ll never throw it away.

I park in the wrong lot, so we have about a half a mile walk to and from the building that smells of claustrophobia and jello. Piss and warm breath.

It’s finally a little chilly out. Leaves c…

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Written by Kira Sternbach

“Do you know what this medication will do, Mr. Sternbach?” a Stanford doctor asks.

“Yes. End my life.” My father replies.

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