Spring Comes Again

I haven't written in five months, almost to the day.  It feels in a very real way like I've been dead or sleeping since October.

Something huge happened with a member of my family's health, and without even meaning to, I somehow shut down all the non-essential functions.  I was like a tree when the winter came.  I dropped my leaves and pulled inside myself to ride out the season.

The last big part of what was going on ended this week, and even though there are still many things we know are coming and other things that may develop, it's as if I felt the world shift again, all those things that had gone out-of-balance slipping back into place.

This week, I cleaned my house.  I took care of online tasks I had let go for ages.  I replaced several items that had gotten so damaged that they no longer functioned.  In short, spring has come, and the world is full of green again.

Everything got put on hold except the absolutely necessary. Life had been a cycle of work-home-sleep-repeat.  I've neglected everybody terribly.  I have had one conversation I am more or less ashamed of and will have to set right.

Wilco said it best:

How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust like we've discussed?
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there
You're gonna need to be patient with me

How I hope people, especially those I love, will continue to be.

When It's Too Late

After a busy day, I checked my messages.  I had a text from my mother.  My uncle had died.

He was the last of my father's brothers, the one we hadn't had anything to do with for years and years.  The estrangement began when my grandmother passed away.  His wife and her child put on quite the show.  After that, years passed.  The last time we saw each other was about fifteen years ago when he was doing coast-to-coast trips driving an eighteen wheeler and stopped in Bloomington to see me.  I remember that visit being a good one, and I had hope that maybe my family would pull itself together. Then my grandfather died, and insanity on a level not even Hollywood could imagine occurred.

My feelings are in conflict.  On one hand, a member of my family is gone.  I feel that I should feel something profound.  On the other, so much ugliness and sheer crazy resulted from almost every encounter with his wife and stepchildren that absence was not just the best policy, it was the only rational one.  I didn't have the overwhelming sorrow I had when Dad's other brother, the middle son, passed away.  Instead, this strange confusion came in.

I always thought there would come a time somehow when the two brothers would pull together again.  I don't know exactly how I imagined it happening or why I thought it would after so long a time of separation.  Deep down, I guess I believed that one day something would heal the rift.  Isn't that the way families are supposed to work?

Maybe some wounds don't heal.  Maybe sometimes, no matter what the beginning connection, actions sever the ties clean.  Cause and effect.  Karma.  Something....

Or maybe the chance is always there until the time runs out.  I wonder, although I am not going to ask the question, if my father ever thought they would reconcile.  Was it ever in the back of his mind?  Was it in the back of my uncle's?  

His family continues their ridiculous behavior even after his death.  They deliberately left out his two brothers in the obituary.  They listed everyone else down to the family pets and the military branch in which he served, but they refused to acknowledge that he had not one but two brothers.  As my students would say, "Just petty."

And maybe that's fine.  It is now in every way too late for mending fences, after all.

Tired

Unexpectedly, Dad was able to come home this evening.  I am thrilled to have him out of the hospital, but getting him in the house was more than challenging.   Who ever would have thought that four simple stairs would create a problem of that proportion?  It took my uncle, my cousin, my mother, and me to get him in. God as my witness, if I ever build a house, it will have at least one entrance that is flat on the ground or easy to "ramp" by throwing a piece of plywood across low, low stairs.

Part of it was because no pressure can be put on his chest.  That means he can't be pulled by the shoulder, can't grab and pull with his arms, can't really do much except hold his heart-shaped pillow and let us get him up by creating a type of sling using his shirt.

He did the first step from the car and the first of the four steps fine, and then the day caught up with him and his knees went to jelly.  We managed to catch him, something that isn't easy to do if you're trying to dodge a giant chest wound, a huge wound on one arm, and so on.  We managed to get him up the stairs to the deck rail, and after that, into a rolling computer chair.  Eventually, we got him in the house.  Then we sort of reversed the process to get him from the computer chair into his big comfortable living room chair.

Once we'd gotten him settled, Mom had to go back to town to pick up all his prescriptions. He came home from the hospital with four pages of medications, some old, some new, and some to be stopped.  All total, he's taking 21 medications right now.  Some are AM meds, some PM; some are once-a-day, some twice, and one annoying iron pill has to be taken three times a day.  It's all so complicated that I sat down and made a checklist/flowchart for it all, and then I sorted the meds into four different boxes/baskets.  Hopefully that will make it all a little bit easier.

We worked on trying to get Dad to eat, but we only managed to get a tiny sliver of toast and a cup full of applesauce in him.  He swears he will do better tomorrow.  I hope he really will.

Five hours after he first rolled into the yard, I had reached the limit of there was that I could do tonight.  I'd made two documents/charts (thank God for my mad teacher Word skills) to track his vital statistics and the aforementioned med chart, sorted out all his old meds and put them in storage so nobody gets confused, helped him change clothes to what he plans to sleep in, worked to transfer him to the bed with the help of Mom and our handy-dandy computer chair (CRAP, but we are getting a wheelchair tomorrow even if I have to rob somebody for the money for one), assisted Mom in pulling together the elaborate mosaic of nighttime meds and treatments, eaten three pieces of toast for dinner, and checked all his gadgets to make sure they're charging for when he might want them tomorrow.

This is what I came back home for.  I knew this time would come, and I knew I'd need to help pick up as much slack as I possibly could.  I just don't think I was prepared to be as tired as I am right now, especially since this is not even really "day 1" at home.  Hopefully, he will continue to improve.  If we can just get him semi-mobile again, then a lot of the physical side of things will slow down.  If not....well....I always need a workout, right?  The only important thing is that he is getting better and in a comfortable place to do that.

After

You know you've been at the hospital too much when you know which vending machines have "quirks" about taking quarters, scanning cards, and holding certain items.  You know you've been in the CCU waiting room too often when you know either by name or by face all the other "long-term" family members waiting for visiting hours, when you share a smile between you as one of you enters the room, when you contemplate the "new people" waiting on someone in surgery as a temporary phenomenon.

It's hard to believe it has only been a week.  It feels like years and years.  While it's not quite over yet (we're waiting for all the final bits to finish so Dad can come home), the worst part seems to be behind us.  Dad is chomping at the proverbial bit to come home, and they've disconnected most of the IVs and machines.

He already seems like he's doing better.  I don't know if it's increased blood flow, stress relief, or changes in medication, but he seems much more focused.  We've heard doctors and other people who have had bypass surgery talk before, and they've talked about having a "new lease on life."  At the risk of this post turning into a mass of cliches, that is exactly what it seems like.  I'm so excited for him.  I know how much it was bothering him mentally that he wasn't able to do the things he wanted to do anymore because of the pain and exhaustion caused by the blockages.

Even though I did not go through any physical changes myself, nevertheless, I do feel different.  Some things that seemed terribly important to me before all this began just really don't matter at all now.  Other things have waxed even as the others waned.

What I expected to be a fairly placid summer has turned into something transformational for my entire family.  It is always hard to tell whether the changes will be good or bad when they come so suddenly and on such a massive level.  I guess we will just move forward into the after and see what comes next.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow....

Today, I got up, grabbed an air tank, dodged a highway worker making a poor choice on a narrow bridge, filled the tank, dodged the same stupid guy on the way back over the bridge, and filled the leaky front wheel on my lawn mower.  Then I spent the next three hours riding in increasingly small circles in various sections of my yard until all the ugly upthrust seed Vs of the Bahia grass were gone.  My shoulders and back got too much sun, and I'm hoping they will decide to stay at "freckle" and not move up to "sunburn."

I had to do something, and mowing can be very meditative.  I turn up a random playlist on my phone and because my mower is pretty old, I have to put most of my attention on making sure it is actually cutting right.  It's not go-kart fun, but it will do in a pinch.

Finally, late this afternoon, Dad called to say everything has been cleared for tomorrow.  The surgery is officially on.

So now, I'm making lists, laying out clothes, packing up things I'll need during the interminable wait.  In a few hours, I'll go lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling.  Then tomorrow will be today, and we will see what we will see.

Retro-Eco

The really fabulous thing about living out here in the country in a house various members of my family have lived in for more than 50 years is that many of the tools of the past are still around ready for use.  Sometimes, they break down due to natural age, and I have to make the decision as to whether or not it is worth it to replace them.

One item I have never had a moment's qualm about keeping in repair is the old-fashioned clothes line my grandmother had situated in the back yard.  She had hers originally strung through huge old fence posts and cedar trunks more than head high.  Even cedar gives up eventually, and the second year I lived here, I had to figure out what to do about it.

The vocational center at school has a welding program, and my dad had them build me a new set of posts, huge steel Ts, to hold updated line.  We set them in quick-setting concrete, strung them with the plastic-sheathed steel cable, and it was ready to go.

Until Katrina dropped a tree on it.

Some time later, we dug up the pole, took it back to school, got the top bar rewelded on, and reset it in the ground.  Since that time, it's been standing sentry like Granny's version did for so many years.

I don't use it all the time, but when I wash all my bedding, quilts, comforter, sheets, all, I use it to sun dry all of that whenever possible.  Today, I got up, stripped down the bed, took the feather mattress out and draped it over a porch stair rail, and began the process of laundering all the fabrics.  Then I carried each load out to the line and hung it up.

Even though it's an old-fashioned thing, I like it for several reasons.  First of all, it keeps me from having to run my dryer and heat up my house unnecessarily.  Even though the laundry area is out of the way, there's no reason to make things harder on my poor old air unit than they have to be.  Second, it's nice to feel like I'm somehow saving electricity.  It never ceases to amuse me that so many of the things that people now embrace as "eco-friendly," my grandmother did on a daily basis because that was all there was.  I suppose there really is nothing new under the sun. Finally, I love how it feels to sink down in the bed at the end of a day of cleaning and smell that freshness that only comes from something dried outdoors.

The only real drawback comes in the form of a never-ending worry that it's going to rain.  It's always a sort of lottery.  Today, for example, I went to Wal-Mart earlier, and I carefully checked the weather forecast before I left.  Nothing but clear skies.  While I was wheeling up and down the aisles, my phone chirped at me, and when I looked, a severe thunderstorm warning had showed up.  At that point, there was nothing to do about it.  I just sighed and moved on to the pet food, hoping I could get my shopping done and get home before the bottom fell out of it.

Well, the skies are still sunny although now and then a threatening cloud passes by.  In a couple of hours, I'll go out and gather everything in, make up the bed, finish up the chore.  When I do, I will feel connected to my Granny.  I remember going out to the clothes line with her to gather in the towels or Grandaddy's overalls.  I remember the little bag she'd made that fit on the clothesline that held wooden clothespins.  It's a small thing, but they are the ones that matter.

Uh-oh.  Even as I typed that, I heard thunder.  Time to get the clothes off the line, I think.....

New Year's Eve and Cookies

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm celebrating with my usual flair.  I have lit the candles that will take me into the new year, and everything I could be in charge of as far as cleaning (which isn't much, actually) is done.  The house hasn't been scrubbed and polished to the nth-degree as I usually do on New Year's Eve, but I did sweep today (bad luck to do it tomorrow), and I washed all the pans and bowls I used during today's manic baking spree.  They're quietly drying in the new little stainless steel drainer in my sink.

Usually at this time of the year, I'm full of introspection, full of thoughts of the past and worries about the future, but not this year.  I'm watching Criminal Minds in my comfy pajamas, and there is an absolute minimum of navel gazing.

And that, of course, is because I made oatmeal raisin cookies today.

This seems like a total non-sequitur, I know, but bear with me.  I'm going somewhere with this.  I promise.

I remember when I had my myomectomy while I was still in Indiana. There was a period after that when all things in my life sort of fell into focus.  I stopped caring about a bunch of things (and one notable person) who I'd allowed to cause me absolute woe.  I started doing things I had always wanted to do instead of smiling wistfully and saying, "Someday."  To use a phrase that is endlessly new-agey and trite, I found myself.  Rather, I found a new version of myself.  I really liked that person.  (Of course, one of the things that happened during that time was going to a meeting of the kendo club, and so the evil T came into my life and things sort of took a hard left for the worse....)

I feel that clarity of purpose again now.  I've been sick for...  God. I don't even know.  Between the migraines and the Topamax and this other, I've been sick for years and years.  I'd say that in just the past calendar year, I've had less than two weeks a month where I felt like doing anything other than surviving.  Now, though, even with the limitations currently on me with recovery, I am finding that other person I lost again.

There were so many things I'd lost along with that other me.  Many of them wouldn't mean a thing to anyone but me, but I guess that's what life is made of, the things we endow with importance for ourselves.  From the time I was in high school, I used to make a batch of sourdough bread every week.  I started it with the idea of giving a loaf (or so) to my grandparents.  That ritual got even more important to me when my Granny got sick.  She couldn't eat a lot of things, but she could eat my sourdough.  I had starter that I kept religiously fed for years.  It died when I went to Japan, clearly, but when I came back, I tried repeatedly to get my routine back again.  As my health declined, so did my resolution.  I just mixed up batch two of the bread today.  Every step of the process made me feel good.

It wasn't just the bread.  The cast iron skillets that are the legacy of both my grandmothers came to me shiny and well-conditioned.  Yesterday, I decided to make cornbread from my Granny's recipe for the first time in what I guess is probably three years, and when I took it out, even though I'd taken pains to store it properly, it was in need of care.

That was one of the moments (and I've had several lately) when how much I'd let go and how much of myself I'd lost really hit home.  My life before the surgery had become about the quickest possible solution, the easy path to finish the necessary before I fell down.  Now it doesn't have to be.  Oh, there's nothing particularly complicated about the foods I'm making.  My grandmother's cornbread is fabulous, but cornbread isn't a recipe requiring Cordon Bleu training.  The aforementioned oatmeal cookies I put together today weren't complex, either. The thing is, I CAN make them now. I don't have to run for the couch and collapse.  Pain and weakness aren't pinning me down. I have the energy and the will again to do something that I enjoy because it connects me to my past and allows me to share with my family.  Somehow, oddly, ironically, by losing something, I have managed to become more whole.

It's not just the cooking.  My house has been full of projects that I was "going to get around to" but never have.  I have been systematically fixing, changing, and moving.  I've been making things I pinned on Pinterest for someday happen now.  It's not perfect, but I'm making progress.  I have two great piles left to tackle, but as I look around my living room now, this house reflects me again.  (And maybe those two great piles are representative of me, too, heh....)  It feels like home.

So I'm back to the salad days.  Maybe it's the baking days for me.  Whichever.  I can't say that there aren't moments of difficulty and sadness, and I'm not such a sunshine-dazzled fool that I believe everything is always going to be fabulous, but right now, I have to say, things are pretty good.  That's a nice place to be as I get ready to leave 2013 and head into 2014.

And now, I'm going to have a cookie.  Happy New Year to you wherever you are.

Little Red Blooms

I saw them when I got out of the car at Wal-Mart.  Their blue vests and hats marked them as did their gesture of trying to hand something to the people passing by.  I could see the little flickering of red in their hands.  I felt something inside me tighten up, and I reached for my wallet, gritted my teeth.  It was Memorial Day, and the Buddy Poppies were out again.

As you can see from the picture, I do not object to the Buddy Poppies.  I buy at least one every year.  Whenever I see the American Legion or the DAV handing them out, I always contribute.  The thing that made that little spring inside my clockwork heart wind tighter was what these tiny red blossoms mean to me.

Almost every male member of my family has served in the military.  Both my grandfathers were WWII veterans, one almost freezing to death in Italy while the other went all over the place loading bombs onto planes.  My dad was sent to Vietnam while he was in the Coast Guard. My uncles were Vietnam-era Marines; one of them also served in the Coast Guard after his tour with the Corps ended.

It has been just a little less than a year since I lost the uncle who served in both branches, my Uncle Gary.  He spent the last years of his life in a veterans' care facility in Kosciusko after having a major stroke that left him partially paralyzed on one side.  For whatever reason, even though there are so many veterans in my life, those little red flowers always make me think of him.

I miss him.  Even though at the end, his condition and his medication kept him from being mentally sharp, I miss going to see him and talking with him.  Today, seeing those little flowers again brought the end of it back, the long hours in the hospital waiting room, the last time I saw him.

I believe in donating to the men who hand the poppies out.  They are men who served our country and who continue to serve it still by making sure our veterans are taken care of.  They are men like my grandfathers, like my dad, like my uncle, like my friends, like my students, like all those men and women who have left behind comfort and safety to do what was needed.  Their sacrifices deserve to be remembered, whether those sacrifices were physical on the field of combat or those much-harder-to-spot renderings of psychological health, family closeness, peaceful dreams at night.  I cannot do much about most of these things.  I can, however, do this one little thing, show my respect in this one way.  Maybe it means something.

So, Yeah. Thirty-Seven.

One of my students came by and hugged me in the hall today and said, "I won't ask you how old you are.  Women aren't supposed to tell."  I smiled to myself.  I claim every minute of mine.

I woke up this morning draggy and totally preoccupied with an order of 136 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts that were coming from Columbus today.  After checking Swackett, I saw how cold it was going to be, and I pulled on my new Hamlet sweatshirt from Out of Print.  I finished the outfit with black pants and my new blue Chucks.  Having thus fortified myself, I walked dogs, sacked trash, and headed out.

School rolled in as usual.  Everything was business as usual until 2nd block started.  I noticed that they were all a little twitchy, but I didn't think much about it.  Suddenly, my administrator walked in the door carrying a cake.  They all sang and even had those little blowout party favors.  I was so surprised!  They gave me a wonderful little book of Peanuts "wisdom for life" cartoons and a card that plays the main theme from Star Wars. They dressed me in purple glitter glasses, Mardi Gras beads, a birthday badge, and a pink princess crown.   We ate cake, took pictures, and had a great time.  Fourth block came in, and suddenly, they burst into song, greeting me with a card all of them had signed.  It was all so sweet and so unexpected.  This batch of students is so sweet.

The doughnuts came, and I took my 4th block class down to unload them.  They seemed tickled to meet my mother who was driving the "delivery van" for us.  We got it done quickly and went back upstairs.  After school, several of my NHS members showed up, and we tagged and sorted the doughnuts for distribution tomorrow.

At last, my big day was done.  I sat in the quiet of the empty library waiting for the students to take a load of doughnuts out to their car, and I popped open one of the boxes I bought.  I bit into that fresh Krispy Kreme, and suddenly, all the effort was worth it.

I went by my favorite Thai restaurant on the way home and got my traditional massaman.  Mom and Dad came by and led me out to her empty van.  Only, as it turned out, it wasn't quite empty.  In the back was a MIG welder in a box.  I've wanted one since I took that brief welding course years ago.  It was the only kind of welder I did well with.  I have walked past countless pieces of metal and sorted them into other forms and combinations wishing I had something to make that happen.  Since a MIG welder is a bit like a glue gun for metal (yes, a gross oversimplification, but still), maybe I'll finally be able to make some of those idle fancies come true.

Added to all these things have been the constant notifications from FB filled with well-wishes and kind words from my friends and family.  It has been so good to hear from everyone. It's nice, just sometimes, to be on the receiving end of it.

And so 37 has arrived.  I am fairly certain it will have its share of joy and change like its fellows, but at least it has started sweetly.

My Ring

From this Etsy listing by Meg:


"Etched into a genuine, natural, beautiful deep purple amethyst stone is a gilt flower and in the center of that lovely painted flower is a Salanger or 'rough cut' diamond (pre-dates the rose cut)

These rings, known as Rose of Sharon, were very popular in the Mid Victorian Era. They were used as love tokens, sometimes betrothal rings....or just as a romantic gift. It was a symbol of unfailing love.

In the Victorian Era, the language of flowers was as important to people as being "well dressed." For example, the recognizable scent of a particular flower, plant or perhaps a scented handkerchief sent its own unique message. Roses symbolized love, but even different colors meant different things."
_________________________________________________

When I was in my first year of college, I went to one of the first antique malls to be opened downtown.  Part of the sprawling space was a venerable jewelry store, one of those institutions that had been in town forever and was now a part of this larger enterprise.  In addition to the contemporary pieces they had an entire case of estate pieces.  

I looked down into the case idly, and among the lockets and diamonds there was a ring with a giant, glorious, dark purple amethyst.  It was near my birthday, and amethyst is my birthstone.  I dithered, knowing it would be beyond my slim budget, but I tried it on.  My mom was with me, and as we looked at it, she told me that I should get it.  My Granny wanted to get me something for my birthday, and Mom said that she and Dad would also chip in.  I put the first payment on it that day.

It's been on my hand every day.  I always wondered about the carving in the middle.  Was it a violet to accompany the February birth month?  Was it a tulip?  It sort of looks like one.  Was it a rose?  I didn't know.  Not knowing didn't make me love the ring, which I had come to see as a symbol of my united family, any less.  

Today, I found this ring on Etsy.  It's so much like mine that the two have to be sisters.  The cut is the same.  The setting is a little less elaborate than mine, but even the design is similar.  The I finally have answers to my questions.  As always with things with a past, knowing what it really is makes it even better.  Every time I look at it, I can know that it represents everlasting love.  Even though it wasn't a romantic gift, it is totally fitting. 

The Hard Part

I haven't felt much like writing lately.  Or really, like doing much of anything.  No reading.  Little internet.  No cleaning.  Less contact even than usual for me with others.  It has been far easier to blank my mind with trivial TV or absolute stillness and quiet.  Finally, though, reality intruded.  Yesterday, we loaded up early and headed north to Kosciusko for the very last time.  We needed to go and clean out my uncle's room at the VA nursing home.

On the way, we were all fairly calm, cheerful even.  There was sun, something all too rare these days when you have to dash out and do everything between rain storms.  Everybody had gotten rest.  We chatted amicably in the vehicle as the miles passed.

The closer we got to Kosciusko, the more the tension built.  When we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel it like rope sliding through a slipknot, tightening everything inside me.

We were met in the lobby by the facility's social worker.  She had been working to close everything out and help us get things together on that end.  She and others in the office told us how much he'd come to mean to them in the 10 years he'd been living there.  Whether it was simply kindness or genuinely meant (the latter is what it felt like), it was appreciated.

Going down that hall toward his wing was when it really started to hit me.  I knew that he would not be there.  He was not going to be sitting in the cafeteria as he so often was when we arrived.  He was not going to be in the smoking room waiting for a cigarette break.  He was not going to be in his room waiting for them to come and get him out of his bed.  He simply wasn't going to be there at all.

We went into his room, and his stuff had already been mostly sorted and boxed by the facility staff.  We spent the next two hours deciding what to keep, how to pack it, how to get it in the van.  It was possible to turn off the mind about it to a great degree, to retreat into the movement of it.  Sometimes, though, an item would just shatter everything, a collection of his beloved baseball caps, the inexplicably vast quantity of packaged Spam in the refrigerator, a shirt with a giant Halloween pumpkin on it.

We didn't take a lot.  Most of it will be donated to whoever needs it at the facility's discretion.  The wheelchair - specially designed and the last in a long line - we left.  We left the clothing, the medical supplies.  It was good to think that maybe someone else could get use from them.

After we loaded up the few items we decided to keep, we went back inside to finish things up.  The social worker had told us that some of his closest friends there had asked to see us before we left.  One gentleman had been so sad that he wasn't eating well.  I let Mom and Dad talk with them.  I just could not have those conversations.  I sat down quiet and still on the big sofa in the lobby and waited for it all to be done.

Dad and I had been asking each other at various times, "Are you okay?  Are you going to be okay?"  Both of us, I think are good at "containment."  As I sat there on that too-soft sectional working to compress it all and keep it manageable, though, I kept thinking, "This is the last.  This is the last time I will sit on this sofa.  This is the last time I will look down that sunny corridor and the last time I will see all those flags from all the branches of military service blaze with color as I walk under them.  This is the last time I will sit here and watch this aquarium of fish.  This is the last."  And it was painful and I wanted to run because of course, none of those things were the point at all.  Not at all.

This was the only memorial, really, that we would have of him.  By his own very strong wishes, there was not to be another.  He had donated his body to medical research, and so we did not even see him after everything was done.  There was only this horrible absence.

My parents had decided that they wanted to provide for a big pizza night to be given to his friends.  They apparently used to love to order lots of pizza and have a good time talking and carrying on before he got so sick.  This way, there will be one more celebration of him.  He was always so generous with everyone, and I know that he would have been happy with this idea.

When the last of the protocol had been attended to, we set off.  We were quiet as we rolled past the huge metal sculpture they erected earlier this year to honor the Veterans, POWs, and MIAs.  The black steel soldiers stared back from their abstract eyes as we left the grounds.  We left them and the seals of the various branches behind along with the gazebo where we used to sit beside the pond and talk with him.  I cannot speak for the others, but I did not look back as we left it all behind us.  I could not.

What I Will Remember

We got a call from the VA today. My uncle had developed an arrhythmia, and they were trying to handle it. Mom told them we were coming this afternoon anyway and asked if we needed to come on then. We were told "time is of the essence" and "decisions would have to be made." We were preparing to leave and another call came saying he was gone.

Just like that. Gone.

It doesn't seem possible that life is both as tenacious and as fragile as it is. My uncle had fought so long and so hard against so many things: diabetes, a stroke, blood pressure, two amputations caused by infection and poor circulation. The list goes on and on and on. Yet he continued to fight it and deal with all those issues until just an hour ago. Then, the thing he couldn't fight came.

I don't want to remember him the way I saw him last, although in truth that is never going to leave me. I don't want to remember the dim grey light of the hospital room, the window that looked out onto the massive flag flying outside, the vast array of equipment and medicine he was hooked up to, the way he tried to wake up from the sedation because he could hear our voices. I don't want to remember the way he was struggling for every breath.

Instead, I am going somehow to perform a feat of mental deception. I will remember how he was years ago instead. I will remember his quirky sense of humor, that he liked Diet Dr. Pepper and Mexican food. I will remember that he had the same wanderlust that plagues me, went everywhere, did incredible things. I will remember that he was a nurse, a chef, an expert marksman.

I'm going to remember the uncle who used to say "flutterby" to me to make me laugh when I was just a little kid. The one who loved the Fourth of July because he loved to do fireworks in a huge display as well as set off bottlerockets as much as or maybe even more than we did. The one who took care of my Nana and my PeePaw during their illnesses.

This is the man he was before all the other began, before the long fight with his own body began. Even wheelchair-bound, this is who he remained until very recently. I choose to keep that picture with me, and as much as it is possible, I am going to try to lay the other aside. He will be much missed.

More of the Same

If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is mostly on the road between here and Jackson.  My uncle is not really improving.  He remains in the VA MICU, and we don't really know when that will change.  Friday, Mom and I went over to see him.  Yesterday, it was a family trip.  When we don't go over, we call to get updates.  There is little change.  He's still on the ventilator and sedated.  

When we're not headed to Jackson, Mom and I work on my house.  It's been a full week as of today that we've been trying to get all the "big jobs" done as far as cleaning, and we're almost done now.  It's amazing how much stuff has piled up to take care of.  The two storage rooms in the back are in better shape than they probably ever have been since I have been living here.  My pantry has been cleaned out, and tremendous amounts of food from as far back as 1994 (what the actual....) have been discarded leaving only that which is usable.  My craft room has a new set of industrial metal shelves and massive organization.  My kitchen cabinets are rearranged, emptied out, and made useful.  My guest room is actually ready for guests instead of only being vacuum and luggage storage.  It's so fabulous to open a cabinet or go through a door and see order where previously there was only chaos.

There are still small pockets of clutter and jobs left to do.  It will all finish up with a massive housecleaning.  I guess it will get done about the time school starts, which, perhaps, is as it should be.  I can't tell you what a relief it is to me already to know that these messes won't be waiting for me at the end of a long day.  

It also gives me something to do instead of think of my uncle.  The busier I am, the less time I have to think about the "what ifs."  I guess I can keep finding tasks to take care of.  I don't really know what else to do.

...and Back

Crises always come when everything is calm.  I don't think they give advance warning.  I think they lurk around corners and look for the least-suspecting individual to walk by before they pounce.  One struck us today, and it certainly came in a time of clear sailing and peaceful waters.

Mom called me this morning, and I knew from the tone of her voice that whatever it was would be bad.  She has a tone that I have come to think of as "holding it together" or "carefully handling something that will go off."  At no time that I have heard her use it have things been good.

The news was about my uncle.  His health is poor anyway, and the doctors thought he was having a heart attack, that perhaps he'd been having it for hours.  They were sending him to Jackson for special care.  We loaded up and headed out for the hour-plus drive.

When we got there, it was time for the waiting game.  Hospital waiting rooms, whether they are large or small, are excruciating.  Everyone there is filled with dread, fear, grief, or pain.  No matter how cheerful or soothing the decor, there is always the sensation of the imminent disaster, the doctor who appears in the door with the expression that speaks louder than the nondescript wording.

A lot of people want to chat in the waiting room with everyone who is around, share the common burden with even the strangers near them.  I just don't.  I cannot.  I try not to be rude, but I just need to hold on, maintain.  It does not help me to share miseries.  I need to concentrate on keeping it all locked down, held in.  The conversations comparing statuses, illnesses, prognoses only serve to escalate what is usually near panic in me.

When we got to see my uncle briefly, it was horrible.  I am fairly sure he didn't even know we were there.  I hope not, anyway, because if he knew we were there, then he knew far too much of the world, far too much of his pain.

We sat and waited for a timeless time in the dim grey light of the ICU waiting room, and finally, the doctors came for us.  We were escorted to a private consultation room, and we waited to hear the news.  I hate those spaces, too, couches in which you sink too far, Kleenex everywhere because they will be needed, the doors with the blinds that protect your private moment of fear.

The news we got was mixed, but essentially he didn't have a heart attack.  He has a lung that isn't working and that put his heart under pressure.  They are going to be giving him massive medicines and treatments to try to restore his ability to breathe on his own.  While he is still in critical condition, there is hope, hope we didn't really have when we left the house this morning.

I don't know if he will recover from this, but for the moment, the panic is over.  He is being sedated as long as he is on the breathing tube, but the word "stable" has been used.  When you have been in hell, this is nothing to take lightly.

When Everybody Else Notices, Too....

Last night, I was at Mom and Dad's after a long day having dinner with them, and they asked me how I was doing.  I stopped and thought about it.  Usually after a day as long as I'd had, I'd be exhausted.  I'd be barely awake, dragging myself along trying to make it home so I could collapse.  

I wasn't, though.  I felt good.  I had energy.  I was (for me) chatty.  That is more or less what I relayed to them.    Their response was that they had noticed.  They seemed....relieved.  Apparently the changes in me lately are significant enough to be marked by others, and that made me pause.

I knew the 200 mg dosage of the Topamax had profoundly affected me internally.  I was constantly tired, always fighting to get through what I call the "glass wall" between me and the universe.  I had no energy and my couch was my friend.  What  I didn't realize was that I was doing so bad a job of winning.  I haven't been myself, not for awhile.  I only feel like I'm starting to come back to myself now.  I just thought more of it was internal than it was.

This also makes me wonder again what it will be like to be totally free of this stuff.  I long for the day when it's not in my life at all.  How deep are its roots into me?  What other changes has it made?  I have been on it so long now that I (quite literally with its help) no longer remember what I was like before.  That's more than a little scary, but sort of exciting, too.  I mean, I wasn't exactly an axe murderer before, right?  I hope the changes that continue to be revealed as I step down the dosage keep being good ones.

Wonderfulness

Something horrible happened to me yesterday.  In the way of such things, I can't fix it until Tuesday, so today, I did things that were designed to distract me and make me feel better.  I got my hair cut (already scheduled conveniently).  I picked up some supplies to work on a craft project I've had in mind for awhile.  I found a jacket that I love that I'll wear for Easter.  I made plans to see my best friend Monday.  I spent long hours in my hammock reading.  I took a couple of pictures.

Tonight, I went to Mom and Dad's for dinner, and while I was there, one of us made one of our usual family in-joke references, this time to the Bill Cosby comedy albums they had when I was little.  I used to listen to them all the time.  We all did.  I knew "Chicken Heart" and "Noah: Right" by heart almost.  When I moved to other forms of media, tapes and then CDs, I left those big 45s behind.  They still have them, but I don't think any of us have anything with a turntable that still works.  (Well....I might have one that still works, but it's on an ancient  console entertainment center in the back of my house.)

The longer we talked about the routines and the pieces of them we always quote, the more I wanted them.  I decided to look on amazon to see if they had been converted to mp3(because hasn't everything?) and get them if they had.  There they all were.  The three of us could remember having Wonderfulness, but it took some time to remember which one of the others had the ones I wanted on it.

I'm looking forward to hearing them again.  They're finishing up downloading to iTunes from the amazon Cloud now.  Once again, I have to say how much I love technology and all the instant gratification it allows.  It's a wonderful, beautiful thing when it works right.

Bluestocking

I have the oddest sense of having gotten a lot done today for no good reason.  It's deceptive, this.  I suppose the reality will come crashing down on me tomorrow....

I did get some things done, true enough.  I found a silly little freeware program that allows me to put electronic post-it notes on my computer screen, and my GOD, what a brilliant thing that is.  (Yeah.  I know.  It's been around forever, but I just thought to install it now.)  I have a post-it fetish anyway (it's a teacher thing.  you wouldn't understand.), and now I can make these little reminders that are right there in the way of every electronic thing I try to do.  It's a good thing.  It's a very good thing.  Thanks to them, I have gotten three or four nagging little tasks taken care of and others will get done either tonight before bed or first thing in the morning when I arrive at school.  My goal will be to clear away all the post-its each day.

I find my fingers itching to get more done, though, things I can't even start yet.  I want to start working on the collaboration between my classes and an international teacher's class, but that's not something I can control from my end.  I've sent the email to IREX, and I'm waiting to hear back from them.  I hope that will actually happen.  It's exciting to think I might be able to present my students with that opportunity, and I want to start getting the logistics out of my head and into reality.

And then, of course, there's the Fulbright.  I keep thinking about it, about the countries they listed.  My three haven't changed.  I keep thinking about what it might be like to spend three to six months in any of those places, actually to be able to wake up and know I was there in the morning, and I swear I absolutely am ready to pack my bags and get on the plane tomorrow.  Every conversation I have where members of my own family look at me with that sort of blank, uncomprehending stare when I try to talk makes me want to go faster.

I don't understand why that's happening, or why every time I try to express how happy or excited I am about something related to Brazil or even to the trip to Washington I just went on, I have to be told that "You have to remember it's not like that for everybody," or "Not everybody would enjoy something like that," as if somehow it's wrong for me to like traveling, going, seeing, like I'm doing something shameful.  There's no point in even trying to share what I see or what happens on my trips anymore.  I get a dim smile, a disinterested "that's nice," and then the conversation is deliberately turned away to something that happened at church last week.

Why is it so wrong for me to want this?  There are always a million question trying to pick holes in everything.... This could go wrong, or this, or this, or are you sure they're really going to take you?  Are you really sure the program is reliable?  Isn't three months a long time?  It's never, "Wow!  You got picked for a program that's nationally competitive?  Great!"  or "You're living out a dream to see the world?  Go for it!"  It makes me feel small and bad, like they think I'm stupid or gullible, worse not to have anyone to share it with when I come home.

I guess I am officially that embarrassing bluestocking "spinster" daughter who doesn't have enough sense to be ashamed that she didn't manage to catch some man, ANY man, and have children.  Everything about me seems to be humiliating, my friends, my hobbies, my clothing, my need for travel, my love of tech, my penchant for grabbing my camera and disappearing on my own schedule, since all of it causes a change of topic if I start talking about it, or a not-so-subtle comment that I'm getting "too into" whatever it is.  But, really, haven't I been this way all my life?  What's changed now?  Why is it just now that everything about me is wrong?

What is they want me to do with my life?  It didn't work out to be "happy families" for me.  That doesn't mean I can't be happy.  That doesn't mean I have to sit my entire life on the sidelines waiting for an escort or a savior, does it?  I by God won't.  Nobody should have to wait for someone else to help them live.  We're complete in and of ourselves, aren't we?  If we're lucky enough to find somebody who will come along for the ride, then we're blessed.  It's not that I don't want that, but until I find that, if I ever do, am I expected to sit twiddling my thumbs or building clumsy mantraps with my inadequate skills at coquetry?  There are so many other things out there so much more worthy of my time.

Truth be told, even though it hurts me, I am tired of trying to figure it out.  I don't think I can.  This is who and what I am, at least in this present iteration.  I'm sorry that it doesn't apparently measure up to what they wanted.  I guess every family has to have one oddity, right?  Look at me as fulfilling that roll, sit me in a corner at the next family gathering with my iPhone so I can check in on the digital world where there are at least a couple of people who can be said to "get me," and I guess we'll all just keep rolling along.....

Distance Covered

I didn't get to go anywhere today, but it was a different kind of day, anyway.  I woke up to a clock telling me it was 8:00 but a sky as dark as daybreak.  I checked the radar for Natchez on my phone, and when I saw that their weather was even worse, I made a judgement call, cancelled my trip, and rolled back over.  Roux was most appreciative.

When I finally got up, I scraped almost the last spoonful of Nutella out of the jar, had breakfast, and took care of the electronic universe.  I spent a little time thinking about dinner with my parents the night before.  We have started having dinner late on Sunday nights since I'm not playing the organ anymore.  I don't know how our routine will change once it gets repaired, but right now, these late evening meals are nice.  As I was leaving, Mom came out and told me that she and Dad want me to go on the trip to England over Spring Break and that they want to give me the money for it.

I told her no.  Every time they have to give me money for something, I feel a little less like a grownup.  It's bad enough when it's necessary, when there is some kind of financial emergency that I cannot control, but for something like this that is purely a luxury, I feel really...like one of those people who just lives in their parents' basements and calls themselves an adult but is really only sort of a glorified child who never leaves home or has any sort of independence at all.

She told me to quit being stubborn, basically, and that they want to do this for me.  They know how much I want to go, and they want to make this trip possible.  She told me to go ahead and sign up for the trip.  I haven't.  I'm still turning it over in my head.  I still am not sure about it, about how I feel about doing that.  I have some time before I have to decide for sure one way or the other.

Just them offering, though, made me feel better.  It made me feel like somebody understood how much it had meant.  Not only that, but today, we went to get groceries since I quite literally had nothing but ramen, half a loaf of bread, and some canned goods left in the house to eat, and she asked me about the leaks in the roof.  The holes in my ceiling are the reason I don't ever have anybody over to the house anymore, the reason I stopped throwing parties, having my annual get-together with my friends, and it's a source of sickness to me every time I walk in my living room.  I tried to do something about it, but I couldn't.  There is no frustration like watching a situation you know you must correct continue because you are powerless to do anything about it.  Today, Mom said she and Dad are going to find a way to help me to something about the roof and the ceilings.  I thought I was going to cry.

I don't care that my house is old.  I don't care that it will never make the pages of a style magazine.  I just can't stand the fact that it has been slowly being damaged because I haven't been able to afford to do anything to stop it from happening.  If I can get this fixed, then a weight so heavy I cannot even put it into metaphorical terms will be removed from me.  I won't have to feel like I'm failing my Granny anymore by letting her house fall down around me.

So, yeah.  Even if I didn't get to travel, distance was covered.  I will have to wait and see what happens next. I've had a good meal for supper, cooked with my own hands, and now I'm going to have some ice cream for dessert.  Maybe I am coming to the end of a season of loss, lack, and despair.  God, but isn't it time?

Fireworks

It's almost the Fourth, and I just read an article on Mental Floss about fireworks and how they've changed through the years.  That got me thinking about family picnics and memories from the past.

My uncle would always go out and buy about an extravagant amount of fireworks, usually several hundred dollars' worth, every Fourth of July.  He loved them.  We'd gather at my Nana's house, have a big meal that invariably involved some of PeePaw's five million watermelons (every year he had enough that we couldn't give them all away fast enough), and we'd wait for dusk to fall and the heat to taper off some.

It always started with sparklers, with writing our names in the gloaming, tracing shapes, pretending they were fairy wands, fascinated by them and just a little afraid of them as they hissed and spit for their brief moments.  Then there were the other "little" amusements, cardboard tanks that spat tiny colored balls of flame as they rolled, paper tubes that shot parachuting soldiers along with their bursts of sound and light into the sky, bottle rockets that screamed across the yard from their makeshift launching pads.  When it got really dark, we'd all be handed Roman Candles, helped to hold them as they kicked slightly.

Then it was time for the children to sit down and the "big kids" to take over.  My uncle was never happier than when he was setting up the huge fireworks and setting them off.  One after the other, they'd go up shimmering in the dark Mississippi night.  Green, gold, red, blue, fountains of color and big cannons of sound echoing over the empty pasture and the little pond.  We were a rapt audience sitting on blankets watching with murmurs and excited cries until the very last ember faded from the sky.

I miss those times.  I miss the family togetherness of them and the sense of wonder there in the darkness.  I miss watching my uncle and my dad in those moments of pure happiness as they lit the fuses and ran back laughing.  While I still love fireworks, still love to watch those flowers unfold in the heavens, something is always missing even at the most elaborate of the professional shows.  I suspect it's probably a mixture of too much watermelon and too much family.  Maybe someday I will be able to find it again in my own back yard.

Family History

I finally had a chance to talk with my Dad about my family's history some tonight.  I told him I had read The Grapes of Wrath, and that led to a conversation about Steinbeck and then into about Dad's father and his family.   PeePaw, Dad's dad, grew up during the Great Depression in Oklahoma, and actually lived through the Dust Bowl there.  My great-grandmother raised eight children in Delhi.  Some of my questions got answered.  My family did not leave.  They found a way to survive.  I can't even imagine it.  Dad said PeePaw told stories about going out to get the sand off the cotton.  He said that PeePaw often talked about the difficulty of the work they did when he was growing up but that he never talked about his family going hungry.  I wish I knew more.  I wish I had been paying attention enough to have asked him about it myself before that opportunity was gone forever.

I also learned that my great-grandmother rode into the opening of Oklahoma in the back of a Conestoga wagon.  Dad said she was somewhere between 12 and 14 when the Oklahoma Land Rush happened.  Their first home was a sod house.  How did I not know these things?  There is so much history that I don't have.  It's amazing, like a lap full of jewels somebody has unexpectedly poured out for me.  I hope I can keep finding out more.  I also want to go and see these places more urgently than ever before to see where my family comes from and what forged them.