Knocked Out: But A Christmas Baby Keeps on Singing

by Guest-Nancy McLoughlin

My son Collin McLoughlin was born on Christmas Day, which was not at all my plan.  There is nothing like that holiday birthday to ensure that your child doesn’t become a diva. But as the very first grandchild in our family, there was much fanfare leading up to the event. The Christmas holiday that year dovetailed with the arrival of my two sisters, who did a lot of “what does it feel like?” during the labor.

Although I failed, I spent life determined to spare any offspring the doom of a December birthday. My own is December22nd. I know what it means. All my own childhood parties were combined and shared with sister’s Lee and Megan in their birth month of May. When the grass is green, no one is as exhausted, strapped for cash or busy. It was like being a birthday foster child. No one really took it seriously and sometimes people forgot to bring the third gift, because honestly, why bother?

But having a December birthday builds character. I see that now. It breeds fighters and lowers expectations about what the world owes. It is one more secret weapon for life’s journey. And so when our Christmas baby Collin landed a slot on the current Season 3 of “The Voice,” NBC’s #1 rated show, it was cause for celebration among us.  The challenge brought the old feeling a child has when Santa Claus just might be coming.

Collin, Lee & Nan

After 100,000 singers tried out, Collin made it through two NY City auditions and then on to a pre-audition in California before an invitation to the blind auditions in L.A. There were lots of hurdles to jump through. Ultimately he made it on, and selected Adam Levine as his coach. Later he was stolen by Blake Sheldon before exiting the show.

The program format includes a taped series of episodes, (two thirds of the season) followed by the live portion which will end sometime right before Christmas. In other words, it is a LONG time. For months during the tapings I waved away discussion about “what’s to come” for my son Collin.

Fort Knox I am not known to be and it was challenging to keep the secret, for the better part of a year. My two sisters, proved a trusting place to park such valuable information. They were my vault and by confiding in them, I could still adhere to the “only family can know” interpretation of the rulebook.

During the tapings in L.A., we understood that we might be monitored, even taped at all times. With no way to confirm when and even if big brother was listening, my sisters and I developed a simple sister code phrase that only we could break. We were gone for nail biting weeks at a time, and the sisters were eager for updates on Collins progress after each challenge. We settled on our own phrase, equivalent to a “thumbs up, he made it to another round.” It hails from a time in our history, an era of elephant bell bottoms and Bonnie Bell lip smackers.

A neighborhood baseball game went sour when the batter drove a hit right down the line and it slammed into my younger sister Meg’s forehead. The term traumatic brain injury hadn’t yet been invented and neither had the MRI. But the word concussion had.

The pediatrician instructed my parents to wake Meg up at intervals during the night and ask a pre-arranged question to which she was to deliver the correct pre-arranged answer. If she seemed confused and did not recall the phrase, then the family Buick Skylark was going in gear to the hospital for observation.

For our secret sister Voice updates, we used the same phrase from Meg’s concussion night. My nerves were fraying from several nine hour audition marathons and a west coast time difference, but I dialed the phone and uttered the code into the voice mailboxes of the sisters. After that it was their problem to keep the secret as they went about life in a small summer town where everybody knows everything.

Sister Lee and Collin forged a bond very early in his life because he belonged to all of us in the way that very first children do.  I am glad we named him Collin, avoiding the advice of some who thought Christmas Day was a great naming opportunity for “Nicholas,” or “Jesus” or “Noel.”  Collin was a chip off the old aunt block and had terrible colic, (like Lee did). It was so intense, Lee was the only one we could trust to babysit without beating him, or overdosing him with cold medicine as one baby nurse did.

Blood curdling screams and infant barf were her reward for harrowing hours that felt like a gift for us to safely run away from. Surely it curtailed Lee’s initial desire to rush in and start a family of her own, especially since our mother always lamented how horribly colicky she was as well. Thanks to Bob’s gene pool, none of her kids suffered with it. Just mine.

At Lee and Bobs wedding Collin wore his very first suit, making a celebrity appearance as only the first grand-baby can. It was a large scale social event at which Collin showed early promise as a performer. We had to leave early, rushing off before the bouquet was thrown, exhausted and disheartened after Collin refused to quiet down. At the time we could have cared less if his commotion would someday morph into a healthy set of vocal pipes. We were barely getting through.

Collin, Nan & Lee

The day after Hurricane Sandy hit our home, we huddled in darkness hoping only for a glimpse of that evening’s “Voice episode. The town was without power or cable TV but the universe eased up enough to comply with a mother’s desire to witness a son (for the last time) on his network T.V. journey.

Trapped by fallen trees we snuggled under blankets. With an hour to spare, my husband drained the last of our gasoline into the portable generator and discovered a way to rig our ancient satellite box to receive just one TV channel, (and in some quirk of electronics, it would have to be the last one viewed before the power was lost)!

NBC was what we wanted and that was what we had. After a full day of jaw dropping storm coverage, Brian Williams took a break from his extended news report and turned the airwaves over to the singers. Despite rain and wind and the stuff that makes disaster on TV hard to turn away from, NBC made a local programming decision to suspend the sadness for a showing of that evening’s episode of The Voice. We all knew what was going to happen for Collin but there is a huge difference between “knowing” and “seeing.”

Collin watched his Knock out round live (no one has a preview of how things are edited) and made a graceful exit from the competition after Michaela Paige a feisty high school rocker with a pink rooster comb was designated the winner of their elimination round. Their battle was like pitting Kermit the frog against a popular and trendy Pokeman character. They are both so different.

Despite the sputtering generator and spotty service, Collin fought to send the obligatory “thank you” twitter to his fans, timed appropriately and coordinated by the show along with his exit. ”Darn, it isn’t going through,” he said concerned it might appear that silence indicated a case of poor sportsmanship rather than storm constraints.

Collin Mcloughlin at The Voice

The Voice is not over for our family. Sequestered, gagged, and gossip-neutralized for months after the taped shows, we can now sing to the rooftops because anything can happen in the live shows and we have no more secrets to share.

What a wonderful experience it has been, a fantastic way to tap into America’s continued fascination with its newest top sport. The McLoughlin family has by no means lost its Voice. We have lots of new friends left to root for in the competition. I can still join in on the e-mails of other cluck clucking moms on the show, some of who have singers that are finished and others who still have some distance left to run, and Collin is headed back to L.A. to spend some time rooting for his friend at the end of the Voice from backstage.

On behalf of every mother that sat through years of school shows or singing pageants that made their ears bleed, I say “thank you” to shows like the Voice who give the aspiring musician a way to be heard. It does take a village. And “thank you” to a home town, and to an extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters who embraced an opportunity to cheer from the sidelines, making every play feel like a wonderful holiday celebration.

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GIVING THEM THE BIRD

Most folks are eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving, talking nostalgically about family recipes and pumpkin pie. But I just can’t get excited about the turkey.  This is not simply because I have to prepare it.  It’s because I hate turkey.   Frankly, there must be a bunch of us, secret turkey subversives, who just nod and keep our faces even when folks salivate about the big bird on its sacred day.

If Ben Franklin had gotten his way, and the turkey had been selected as our national symbol, gracing coins and crests, maybe it would have been off limits as a food group.  No one I’m aware of eats American eagle. But somehow the turkey has become the edible symbol of our most fundamental American holiday. 

I’m daydreaming of assembling a holiday dinner this week that would be an all-inclusive, anti-turkey Thanksgiving.  What could be more America in the 2000’s than a melting pot meal?  A little sushi appetizer, some Chicken Tiki Masala (now practically the national dish of Great Britain), rice and beans… you get the picture.  Shouldn’t we create something that better reflects the cuisine of our country’s present demographics rather than retreading what some starving immigrants trash picked one late November in Massachusetts?

Sure, go ahead and toss your recipes at me, your turkey deep fryer, your perfectly browned breast draped with bacon, your whole garlic clove in the cavity.  You won’t convince me.   These Band-Aids are the equivalent of throwing a little KY jelly (or better yet Zestra) at the real problem; beneath that sultry skin, turkey is a mostly dry bird.  Even the alleged juicy brown drumstick mostly disappoints.

 

Maybe I dislike turkey because it’s the kissing cousin to chicken, which was forever ruined for me by my mother’s weekly skinless boneless breast dinners, incinerated and dehydrated under the broiler with a dab of margarine.   And then, if I had any hope of reconciliation with chicken as an adult, it has been beaten out of me by the countless frozen breasts with fake tattooed BBQ stripes that rest on lumps of rice or lettuce at every ballroom event lunch, banquet or conference meal.  Chicken is the go-to entre, the little black dress of mass meals.  

But, look, you say, look at all the fab accompaniments there are for turkey!  There are sauces and gravies, herbs and cranberry goop and citrus reductions.  Save your breath.  These only mask the issue, like feminine deodorant spray.  Be honest, a basic slice off the breast is like chewing through gypsum board.  The only possible way I enjoy turkey is a Thanksgiving leftover dark meat sandwich with fresh bread and lots of mayo (my husband would argue here for Miracle Whip.)

I don’t like picturing the farm to table journey of my bird.  We Americans don’t fancy the idea of getting a gander at where our food really comes from.  We’re more comfortable with the concept of shrink-wrap, dry aged, butchered cuts or ground meat.  But with a turkey, you can’t avoid imagining the living animal, even though by the time it gets to you, it more resembles an open casket viewing.  There it is, nude and embarrassed, hunched in forgiveness on your platter, minus a few extremities.  A turkey on the table is so… whole…. so intact. 

We all grew up with illustrations of hatchet-wielding pilgrims clomping around in those buckled shoes after the turkey.  As a child I was scarred by the tale of my mother’s family cook in Arkansas who wrung the chicken’s neck bare handed or chopped it off on a block while the rest of it flopped around a few seconds longer before collapsing.   I think of this image when I pull that old candy-cane neck out of the bird’s body cavity, where its been stuffed like some mafia message from “The Godfather.” And where do the feet go? What the hell happens to the feet?  Do they get shipped to China where they are considered a delicacy? Forget I asked, I don’t want to know.   And I don’t want to contemplate the image of mechanized plucking. Turkey feathers must be the poultry equivalent of a woman’s unwanted facial hair. 

 

Rolling my cart down the grocery aisle during the holidays, I am both repelled and drawn to the jumbled cases of plastic wrapped white skinned turkeys of varying weights, their knees drawn up in a yoga child’s pose. They look like a horror version of those Anne Geddes photographs and greeting cards, the ones with the naked babies in groups or dressed as single flowers and ladybugs.  Unlike the babies, the turkey skin has a mottled, bluish cast, all pimpled and dimpled.  It’s when I reach into the case and see the tiny pool of blood in the packaging that I ask myself what’s wrong with stuffed shells for a change of pace?  Why not honor the contribution of Italian Americans this Thanksgiving season?  Anyone?

By most accounts, the turkey is a mean, ugly bird.  And dumb as a stone.  Maybe anything that dumb deserves to die.  Evolution and natural selection haven’t helped it out any.  We have a pack of wild turkeys in my suburban NY town that claimed the median of a highway strip as their “hang turf” last year.  A hundred yards further and they could have had a nice little stretch of woodland to themselves. But no, these dimwits spent months playing chicken (pardon the pun) with the cars as they exited the interstate.   About every other week there would be a mound of feathery road kill on the off-ramp.   Honestly, any animal whose cry is “gobble gobble” is asking for trouble.

But like the turkey, I’m a big talker.  I dream about a turkey-free Thanksgiving, but I’ll never really take action.  My family wouldn’t allow it.  If it were my call, I’d eliminate the other colorless foods that have become a tradition in our family, my mother-in-law’s corn and oysters casserole, the stuffing and mashed potatoes, which will sit like wallpaper paste in our stomachs, the rutabaga, the white rolls and then the gravy made with parts that have been sitting inside the turkey’s ass in a bag (don’t get me started about the word “gizzards.”)  Once it’s been cooked to perfection it all looks like nursing home steam table food.  No teeth required. 

 

In the end it’s the ritual.  It’s about all of us coming together.  It’s about tradition, no matter how much I might daydream about a more sumptuous menu.  And regardless of the time invested to plan, shop and prep, my loved ones will clean their plates in roughly 20 minutes following the word “Amen.”

They will stand up, groan and stretch and return to their touch football game, their headphones and texting, their X-box war game or their custom couch indentation in front of the flat screen TV.  We sisters will clear and soak, load and dry, and lay out dessert, as unquestioning of the routine as the wives in the Bin Laden complex.

 

 

But none of us complain.  We love one another’s company, the addition of a displaced person at the table, the stray college buddy, the big city boyfriend, the sense of completion that all of our chickees are back in the nest for this long weekend and we get to mother the whole lot.  And for one day, at least, turkey and all, the world feels in its place.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

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Remembering a Friend

I cannot fall back asleep.  I am stuck on the dentist, the mechanics of how this works, identifying a person by their dental records.  Does he get a call at 2:00 AM, when family members and loved ones are awaiting an answer?  Or does he come to work at a reasonable hour?

 

I am struck by the term “lost his life,” as if it was simply an object he misplaced and someone will find again. As if you could walk out a door, never to return and then somehow walk back in again.  What an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase.

 

I am thinking about his last minutes and hoping that there was no suffering.  As a wife I would need no suffering.  I would want to know there had been that moment of being there and then suddenly not there, before you could even flicker through the fullness of your life, before you had time to tell yourself that it was abundant and well lived and that you had more than you even deserved.

 

I am remembering what that call feels like—to go from a before to “after” with one piece of news, a few words that ripple out to change the lives of an entire clan.  There is the cool ceramic shock that follows, the membrane that appears over your brain to prevent the truth from sinking in all at once.  The information digests slowly, as you toggle between numbness and disbelief at the oddest times. This is the only way a wife can absorb the enormity of that kind of loss, you cannot otherwise compute the circumference of such a thing. 

 

 

She will still expect to hear his shout out from the front hall, see his lopsided grin and wire glasses askew, his full head of ginger hair.  She will listen for, but not hear, his footfall and the familiar sound of his briefcase being hefted up on the counter where they will eat.  “You’re dragging the dirt of Manhattan onto our table,” she might say and now she smiles to think of it.  Impossible that someone could be there one day, taking up all that space and then simply vanish so fully that the dentist must be called.  “Never” is a difficult word for humans to grasp—we are creatures who crave.

 

In the early days following his death, the kitchen is warm and bustling with covered dishes and deli food. The fireplace crackles, the doorbell rings, flowers arrive and then more food.  In these early days there is way too much food.

 

The household spins with industry, the cluck clucking of the community of women and the spiked laughter of his pals, yes laughter, because this is still unreal.  She will not sleep, at least not without pills and aids, because the images both imagined and real and the questions and “what if’s” will swirl in her mind like a thick pudding.  She will replay the film loops of the past, the time they first saw one another in Manhattan, how he held himself, so sure and confident, a boy from a modest home who was determined to make a mark with his good education.  She sees a freeze frame of them in the maternity ward, holding their daughter, how they thought their hearts would burst with so much love.  And then more children, more love. 

 

She thinks about his passion for all things outdoors, of hiking and biking and being out on the water in the Adirondacks.  She pictures him coaching hockey and wakeboarding with his boyhood friends and their children on the lake.  He was a person always in motion, whose presence bulged, so that he seemed to occupy a larger space, in a way that made the people around him feel more alive.  He had a childlike sense of wonder and enthusiasm that made those of us in his presence smile.  He was the leader, the aggregator, the congregator, the do-er.  He was where the fun was.  He was the “Fun Dad.”

 

 

He always said exactly what he thought and he was forthright, never cruel.  Even when he was goading or teasing you there was something still appropriate, still loveable.  He was loveable.  He jibed and joshed and his self-deprecating manner made us all feel we knew him better than maybe we did.  We smile just remembering it, each of us reviewing our own cache of highlights.

 

But then there will come that period in the house when the activity will slow and sag.  All the plates will stop spinning.  The hugs, the calls and the people dropping by will diminish.  The cars that have occupied the driveway will pull out and friends will go back to their lives because that’s what people do.  And then the real life part begins.  The living with it part.  And this will be the difficult part for the family. 

 

In the quiet of their home, grief will settle around her like an unwelcome arm on the shoulder and she will ache for the sound of that briefcase hitting the counter, the small dog’s incessant bark, rejoicing that her husband is home.  I want to say to her, do not fester over recreating your last moments together, the fact that you might have discussed the credit card bill that last night instead of something more weighty.  Do not worry if you can’t recall exactly when you last embraced him or told him what was in your heart.  Do not punish yourself if the last night you slept together - and how could you know that - you didn’t spoon him or kiss him passionately, but instead poked him when his snores woke you.  None of that matters now.  It was a marriage and he adored you.  I saw it.  We all did.  You made each other stronger and more complete in the weaker places.  And that’s simply what the best of couples do.

 

And when you are ready to feel us, we will all be woven strong.  Each of your varying and diverse communities, all of the places you have lived and worked, played and learned, will be interconnected, like the reeds in a basket.  Although we will never come close to replacing him, we will hold you up, and cradle each one of you.  We will be here to remind you how well you are loved.

 

 

In memory of Tighe Sullivan—devoted father, husband, friend, brother, Colgate University alumnus and lover of Silver Bay on Lake George. 

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