slow going

people have been asking how i've been doing. well, mostly, they've been asking marty how i've been doing, but some do ask me. the short answer is, all things considered, i'm holding it together surprisingly well.

i'm someone who believes what we do with our time and our lives is a choice, a choice we are able to control to significant degrees. i'm also someone who believes the thoughts possible through our minds have immense potential and something we have quite a bit of control to nurture and train. given these two beliefs, i recognize i have the power to drive myself to complete dysfunction or to embrace the fortunes that came from my time with my mother. the choice of how i direct my mind's energy is mine, and right now, days are a balancing act between those two possible extremes.

the notion i'm most struggling with is that i can't pick up a telephone, punch a series of buttons, and hear my mother's brightened hello at the sound of my voice. that there is not a phone on this planet that can make that call happen leaves me, at moments, feeling panicked, desperate and more alone than i've ever thought possible.

but when i step back and employ an ounce of empathy, my thoughts are more sorrowful for others. i feel sorrow for my mother whose life was cut far shorter than it should have been. i feel sorrow for the many children, adopted, fostered, and natural, who had bad to horrible childhood experiences in the homes they landed in. i feel sorrow for the children with ailing parents caught up in long, drawn-out scenarios that are draining and full of sadness. and i feel sorrow for my father who still after waking from a nap in his living room chair, will start talking to his wife before looking over to find her rocker empty and still.

i haven't even scratched the surface

for those who doubted i was one of the most impeccably dressed little people in whatever zip code we occupied


but it was such a infinitely small price to pay in exchange for her diligence, love, consistency, and lifelong dedication.

mom as mom

nyla the newlywed


nyla the new mom


and if there was a burden of being my mom's only child, it was shouldering her love of dressing me in smart and fancy outfits.
i assure you i have more photographic evidence of this, not that you'd need it, but for now, this will need to suffice.

for me.

here's a recording of me reading my mom's eulogy. i recorded myself reading it hours before the service out of fear that i wouldn't be able to get through it when the time came. for my own irrational reasons, it was important to me that my words be delivered in my voice. my intention was to ask the funeral parlor to pipe the ipod feed into the room when it was time, but i only learned minutes before the service they didn't have the ability to do this so i ended up having to read it after all.

shockingly, i made it through. i attribute this unlikely success to something marty told me. when marty's father passed two years ago, marty was the one (of the seven children) who gave the reading, the reading that they all prepared together. when i asked her how she ever made it, she said she realized if she didn't do it then, she'd never get another chance to honor her father in this way. something in the importance of this moment resonated with me. and i'd be lieing if i said, my mothers close proximity to me didn't urge me on, just as she has her entire life. i was glad this last push culminated in a show of my gratitude and infinite thanks for all she did for me.

while i'm glad i was able to deliver the words in person, i'm also glad to have this audio record that was made just hours earlier. i'm posting this here more for me than for you, but as always, you're certainly welcome to step into my world and partake.

eulogy for nyla kern (rutman) dearmitt read by her son, troy lane dearmitt october 7, 2010 13:49 / 8mb

mom in youth

south carolina


saturday bath


school photos


may day


atlantic city, nj


mom and brother


mamma oakley


senior picture

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. October 2010

not prepared

my mom died on friday.

those of you who know me well have a sense for what this means for me. for all others, you may imagine what an infinitely dedicated mother might possibly mean to an only, adopted child who, in youth, had a distant and strained relationship with his father.

she passed away in the hospital of the town i grew up in. she and my father were passing through on a vacation. i arrived at the hospital an hour after she died. the last time i was in that building i was seventeen and my mom made me visit the quarterback of my high school's football team who broke his leg in a game the night before. i asked why we had to go. she said it's what friends did. when i told her this boy and i were no longer friends and hadn't been since the sixth grade, she scoffed, called it ridiculous, and never broke stride. i vividly remember how dull and vulnerable that winsome, popular boy looked in the dim hospital room, alone and unkempt, his leg unnaturally raised beneath the sheets. i don't know which of us looked more surprised to find me next to his bed with a bundle of supermarket-flowers in my damp fist. but, that was the last time i was in this building. this time i was there to say goodbye to the woman who on that day stood in the darkened wings urging her boy to do the right and proper thing.

in our last moments with my mom before the hospital staff took her away, my father, his face hovering over hers, his hands holding her cheeks, sobbingly uttered, "she only thought of others. she only thought of others." these were the last words he said to his wife of forty-five years and a truer thing has never been said of this woman who i was undeservedly fortunate to call my mom.

if songs were graded by their first lyric, this one would do well

my boss was harassing me about my inconsistent use of serial commas, sometimes referred to as oxford commas, to which a student in our suite, overhearing the jocular ribbing, quietly emailed me the following video which stands as one of the most entertaining music videos i recall seeing.

please note there are some naughty words in there so if you're easily put-off by such offenses, i'd suggest this old room-pleaser instead.