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All of my brothers, their families, and many, many relatives, friends, and business associates attended my son’s memorial service. Each of my children, except Jessica, who became too overcome when it was her turn to speak, wrote and read a eulogy to their brother. Rachael sang a song accompanied by one of my longtime friends and band members, and Stephen sang a song he had composed specifically for Michael. Everywhere you looked, there were beautiful flower arrangements, hundreds of them, sent by people I love and who knew how much I love my kids. I was touched so deeply by people in the entertainment community who reached out to my children and me with letters of sympathy, beautiful flowers and cards, or generous
donations to Children’s Miracle Network. To get warm messages from Oprah, the Jacksons, Bette Midler, Olivia Newton-John, Gladys Knight, Mary Hart, Barbara Walters, and Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, and so many more friends I’ve worked with over the years reminded me how much show business is a “family” business, even if we may not see one another often. Flowers and cards arrived from hundreds of Children’s Miracle Network connections. Two large boxes of cards arrived from all of the Paul Mitchell school students and customers who raise thousands of dollars for Children’s Miracle Network. However, I think I was most emotionally overwhelmed by the thousands of cards from people around the world who just wanted to send us their love, some of whom shared with me their own story of tragic loss and ways to cope. I have kept every card in a large chest. I know that one day my children may want to see them all again. At the end of each day, when my heart would be breaking all over again, I would stop to remember, in gratitude, how blessed I am to have so many people who thought about and prayed for my family during that time. I know those prayers strengthened my faith and carried me through. I truly understand the power of prayer.

It was the power of prayer that sustained me to return to the
Donny & Marie Show
at the Flamingo the day after Michael’s funeral. I know many of my friends thought it was too soon to go back to work, and I heard that there were many criticisms of my choice from the public. But I have to tell you, I prayed about it a lot to discern what would be the best thing to do for the children and for me. My perspective on every
aspect of my life had shifted. What seemed a burden to me before no longer mattered; other things seemed way too light and trivial in the lonely light of losing a child. I became very concerned that if I didn’t go back to a regular routine, I would never want to appear in public again. My emotional side wanted to hole up in the house with my children, close the blinds, unplug the Internet, and just dwell in our sadness. My younger children were already telling me that they felt they couldn’t go back to school and face everyone’s sympathy or their questions or remarks. They would cry and ask me how life would ever be normal again. The answer to my prayer was for me to lead the way for my family. I had to show my children that we had to continue on as a family. It’s the only way.

The first night, it took all I had to make it through the show. I would get through a number, run offstage for a costume change, and fight back the tears. There was my solo section of the show, which I closed with
“Pie Jesu,”
a challenging operatic-style requiem that I sang from an elevated platform on the stage. At the end of the song, the platform descends behind curtains in billowing fog. I somehow made it through the song, but as most singers will tell you, singing in that style resonates with every emotion and brings them to the surface. By the time the platform reached the backstage floor, my legs had gone out from under me and I had collapsed, staring at the blurry stage lights above me. I couldn’t breathe from the sorrow and started to hyperventilate. Rachael and one of the backstage crew literally had to prop me up between them to get me to my dressing room.

I lay on the couch in my dressing room as Donny went onstage to perform his solo section. My heart was in so much pain, I thought that if I only closed my eyes and relaxed, I would die. Nothing mattered to me. My business manager and the show producer were standing nearby, and I told them that I was done, that it was impossible for me to ever do another show.

Rachael took my forearms and forced me into a sitting position. She put her hand under my chin and lifted my face to look at her. “Mommy,” she said, “do you know how much more it would hurt Michael if you stopped doing what you love to do?”

I took into my heart what she was saying to me.

She continued. “He would never want us to stop living, even if he couldn’t go on. You can’t quit. You have to show everyone that we have faith.”

I wrapped my arms around my daughter. Here she was, cut to the core by losing her brother and best friend, yet somehow she knew exactly what to say to sustain me. And I knew it was what Michael would say to me, too.

She was my rock that night and every night for a while until I could find solid ground for myself.

Still, not a day goes by that he isn’t my first thought in the morning and my last thought before I fall asleep. I hear his cute chortle when we go for a family night to a funny movie. I see his eyes light up when we try a new restaurant and the menu is full of delectable choices. I felt him near my shoulder when I married the love of my life, Steve, again. And we chose to get married on May 4, the birth dates of both Michael and my mother. He is the gentle hand on the back of my younger
children, steering them safely to school and back home each day. I hear in the voices of my older children how he has changed their lives, as they make new decisions, set new priorities, and honor the blessings of their individual gifts. And on days when I think it’s too much, I see his forehead scrunched up in “the Face,” and I laugh, because he would want me to. I know that he’s still with me and that I will see him again.

But it doesn’t ever get better. I’ve come to accept that.

These words are on the page, not for me, but for you. Look at those you love. There may be a Mallard in your family or among your friends. You have to look closely because they are often the ones who seek no attention at all. On the water, mallards look so serene. They appear to glide effortlessly. Yet right under the surface, their feet push the water, twisting and turning, steering them over the waves that might drag them under. They have to paddle continuously just to stay afloat. Give them a safe nest. Please, don’t wait. Remember, depression doesn’t wait until Monday.

In Los Angeles, Mike’s first week of college. With his extremely proud mother, 2009.

My youngest, Abigail, loves to sing. The day of her first-grade presentation, “Stone Soup,” where she was the featured singer, 2009.

M
y first grader had followed me out to my car as I was leaving for work. It was January, one of those 40 degree evenings in Las Vegas when the wind whipping down from the barren hills surrounding the city forces me to wonder why any pioneer ever thought to settle this land. It’s a thought I know I will have again when it’s July and the winds are 118 degrees of gusting hot air. And I’m not talking about Donny.

I’m talking about blazing summer heat. I’ve had soaking-wet pool towels dry to a crisp so quickly that they look more like some freaky terry cloth sculpture that can stand up on its own. It’s a small price to pay, those two or three uncomfortable months, because the rest of the months of the year in Las Vegas are desert bliss.

I quickly hugged my daughter good-bye and encouraged her to hurry back into the house because she was barefoot and without a jacket. When I got into the car I noticed that she was still dawdling near the front walk, trying to pick up small decorative garden stones with her toes. To most adults, it probably
seems like everything distracts a six-year-old from the request at hand. But after going through seven six-year-olds before Abigail, I had figured out that they aren’t distracted; it’s more that everything in their world can be turned into a daring challenge to be conquered. My challenge was to get her out of the cold. Her challenge was to grasp pebbles with her toes and lift them as high as her leg would allow before they fell.

I have to admit, I wasn’t so sure that her challenge was really a worthless “distraction.” After all, “grasping with the toes” is a skill I’ve used myself many times. I’ve slipped off a shoe to grab tubes of mascara that have fallen under the dressing room table, recover pens that rolled under desks, and even napkins that slipped off my lap at a restaurant. I’ve got some arthritis in my neck, but, hey, my toes are pretty limber!

Halfway down the driveway, I stepped on the brake and rolled down the window. “Abigail Olive May! Please get in the house right now! It’s too cold out here for you.”

Abi looked up at me with a bit of a frown and then took a deep breath in and closed her eyes for a moment.

Oh, no, I thought to myself. She’s way too young to start in on delivering a deep, exasperated sigh capped off with an eye roll. My other kids had been at least eleven before that preteen trait kicked in.

Thankfully, this time she proved me right. After taking a deep breath, she thrust her foot one more time into the pebbles along the path and squeezed her toes, picking up a rounded stone.

“Mommy! Watch this!”

With her sturdy little “Fred Flintstone” foot, she flung the stone about two feet down the sidewalk. She looked up at me, her hand raised in the air, as if she had just qualified for the Olympics.

These are the times when having to go to work is so difficult. There are such a limited number of years when a child is exhilarated by unself-conscious discovery of the world at large. As a working mom, I feel like I’ve missed so many of those fun or silly moments with all of my children. Not that “toe grasping” is a rite of passage that should get any special attention, but it’s wonderful to be a part of those years in a child’s life when everything is a game to be played. Those years pass by so quickly, soon giving way to the double-digit age when everything I ask them to do is an “imposition” on their free will. I can tell that they think that I am being ridiculous in almost all of my requests even though they never say it out loud.

Disrespectful back talk was never allowed in my parents’ home when I was growing up, and even though I want to hear what my children are thinking, it’s not allowed in my home either. I’m willing to discuss almost anything with my children, as long as the discussions are civilized. Learning how to have a discussion is a really important life skill…maybe a bit greater than “toe grasping”! Still, it doesn’t stop kids from saying “volumes” through their nonverbal cues.

I’m now on midteenagers number five and six and early teenager number seven, so I can recognize these unspoken signals better than a member of the Audubon Society can recognize a blue-tip hummingbird in flight.

As an amateur student of quantum physics, I love to read any article on cause and effect, perhaps because my daily life with eight kids is a metaphor for the chaos theory. You may have heard of “the Butterfly Effect,” which proposes the scenario that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can become the impetus for a tornado in Texas. I can do my own personal home study on that effect. I can feel the ripple effect of a child sighing and rolling his eyes in the upstairs corner of his bedroom two floors down to where I am at the kitchen counter. It usually follows one of my
way
-over-the-top requests like “Isn’t it your turn to feed the dog?” or “You’re the one who left your permission slip in the car. Go get it and then I’ll sign it.” The storm of frustration slowly begins its swirl, released by the sigh and the eye rolling. I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be a natural physiological response in the adolescent body. A deep sigh causes the muscles around the eyes to relax, rolling them toward the top of the head. This releases the frustration and prepares the adolescent (the same child who can walk a shopping mall from end to end on a Saturday afternoon) for the insurmountable task of walking the short hallway to the garage to get his or her own permission slip.