Nobody Ever Dies When I'm Around: a lifetime of feeling left out

Plato says that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I say, "I know you will enjoy Jane Baker's 'Plato approved' self-examination and journey through her full, challenging, love-filled life. Jane is one of the funniest and most deeply feeling gals I know. You will laugh, you will cry, and you may feel it’s time to begin examining your life in much the same way. ~Monica Horan "Jane Baker made me cry. I first came to know Jane while reading her script The Parker Tribe. I was choked with emotion by the end of the first page. She has power and beauty, strength and empathy, wisdom and courage. If you like that sort of stuff, being touched and in touch with humanity, you will love spending time with Jane" David Koechner In 2002 my mother passed away. I realized then how little I knew about her life before we seven children came along. I had been focused on remembering the highs and lows of my life, but my mother shared very little. Not wanting to leave my children lacking for backstory on their mom, I decided to write about my childhood as a record for them. As often happens, life got busy and my writing fell to the side for a bit. In 2006 my eldest son, Sam, was diagnosed with stage 3b Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had read that one of my favorite authors, Roald Dahl, wrote James and the Giant Peach while he attended to his son after a terrible car accident. It was then that I returned to writing about my youth, more this time to keep my sanity through Sam’s treatment and to keep Sam laughing. No one who has heard about my childhood has had an easy time believing me. I think the saying is “True dysfunction is stranger than fictitious dysfunction.” Something like that. Spoiler Alert: my son is fine, healthy, and happy, and what came from my writing is what you have before you. I always felt that at the heart our family was very much like the Walton’s, if the Walton’s had a lot of dysfunction and humor was their only coping mechanism. I think you will feel the same! It’s in the memories and the writing about them that I see how many different roles I have played in my life. Sometimes I’ve been the hero, sometimes the asswipe, usually somewhere in between. These roles have been in tragedies, comedies, farces, and mysteries, and the roles have been varied. Daughter, Sister, Cousin, Aunt, Friend, Girlfriend, Mom, Director, Teacher, Cancer Mom, Employee. If my life were my acting resume, I’d be pretty accomplished. The result of all my memorizing and analyzing and dwelling is what is written here. These are my memories and my thoughts, as disturbing as they may be. Enjoy.