Hiatus

This is the longest I've ever gone without updating the blog and I'm sorry for those who have been following it closely.  My mother-in-law, Carol Battocchio, died a few weeks ago after a two and a half year battle with breast cancer.  Although she was an actress, and the more social one in her relationship, I never filmed her giving me advice for the website.  We made a few attempts but she was always in and out of chemotherapy and it never seemed to work out smoothly.  This is a lady who protested for the better treatment of Ruby the elephant at the LA Zoo...even when she had to stand alone, sign in hand.  She petitioned for the ban of gestation cages in California and it passed, so farmers now have to provide enough room for each animal to be able turn around and extend their limbs.  She was so caring and sweetly naive, that when I crank called her pretending to be from an organization which is raising money to provide heart-shaped cookies for lonely dogs on Valentine's Day, she gave me her credit card number to donate.  If you'd like to do something to honor her, please donate whatever you can in her name to a breast cancer charity, or to one of the many animal rights groups she was a part of.

Her husband and my father-in-law, Roy Battocchio, gave me advice over a year ago.  If you've never seen it, you should definitely check it out (Just click on his name to go to the link).  Recently, selections from this blog screened at the LA ITV Fest and it went over really well.  But Roy's video clip went over the best.  He's a man who always kept his sense of humor--even during the tough times--and people respond to that.  And now's the toughest time of all for him.

We imagine our lives will go a certain way, and when that's ripped out from under us it's hard to reconfigure.  But we've been pushing Roy to go back to his old routines: the gym, his theater group, writing his plays, and lunches with friends.  They remind him of the aspects of life he enjoys.  The hardest thing for him--and most of us--is allowing for change.  His life's changed so drastically that things will never be the same.  And when that happens you have to do the hardest thing there is to do--roll with it.  Even try some new things.  My mother (as well as all of us) went through a drastic life change after my dad died at age 50.  She was 48 and had to figure out a new life for herself.  She was forced to "throw out her plans," and start over.  It's scary as hell.  But even though the loss of a spouse (or parent, etc) will affect you for the rest of your life, it is possible to find a new kind of happiness.  My mom went back to school and became a social worker on the oncology floor of South Miami Hospital because, after caring for my father, she knew that she could make a difference in other people's lives as a result of what she went through.  And, she did make a difference.  She recently retired and took up volunteering at a program for teen mothers.  Her most difficult hurdle was getting up the courage to date another man.  My dad was the only man she ever loved.  She couldn't picture herself with anyone else.  It took her fourteen years to finally go out with her new boyfriend, and though he'll never replace my dad (to her or me), they have a new relationship which makes the both of them happy.

I know Roy will find his way.  Humans are resilient people.  But I'm sorry for the pain he (and my wife and sister-in-law) feel right now.  And although there's nothing I can do to make it better, I can remind Roy of his own advice to me which is: Even in the worst of times, "keep a good sense of humor."

In Memory of Carol Ketay Battocchio
1944-2010