The summer weeks wore on and on. My mind began practicing exercises in torture, as I like to refer to them. I would make myself think about what it was really going to be like once she was gone. I wouldn't do it for very long--I couldn't. But the thoughts would surface here and there. We would be at a party or some other joyous occasion. My Mom would say something funny or laugh her ridiculously loud laugh at something only she found funny and the thought would creep in, What's it going to be like when no one laughs at your brother making fun of the man he sat next to in the theater yesterday? What is it going to FEEL like when someone knocks on your door at nine o' clock at night and instead of it being your mom jumping out from behind the door and trying to scare you like she is a five year old, it is just some crack-head mistaking your house for the neighbor's? What will it be like when--STOP. Please put your pencils down and do not move on to the next test until the administrator gives you the go ahead.
It was truly an exercise. Just as a body-builder can only do so many repetitions before his body cries, "Stop!" the first time he tries, I could only imagine the world being devoid of my mother for so many milli-seconds before my mind would shut down and crawl back into the comforting shadow of the denial that had consumed my entire psychological schematic. The denial was a safe place. A stranger pulling over to offer you a ride home as you are walking alone in the rain. And here, have some candy and a pop while you sit next to me in the front seat. The entire time you are driving, you feel safe and thankful that the stranger saw you walking all by yourself and was nice enough to pull over. You feel safe and thankful until the car stops and you realize you aren't in front of the address you gave the man behind the wheel.
And so, I would find myself thinking about not having my mother around, and at the same time NOT thinking about it. And some days I would be very, very good at forgetting the exercises completely. There would be extremely good days, when she would be over her sickness from chemo the week before and we would have a few days before she had to go back in for more. We would go shopping or to the movies, or just have the whole family over to the house for pizza and rentals at home. And we could forget... for awhile. The exercises didn't seem so... relevant. She was ok! Look, she is even EATING. She hasn't done that in a couple days. Surely, the doctors were wrong and she has more time! And we could smack that little gnawing pest at the back of our skull and it would submit and go lay on the carpet in the corner of our minds for a little while and leave us alone.
I am sure you all can relate to that gnawing feeling of which I write, even if you haven't watched someone suffer through a terrible disease. It is similar to when you KNOW you have forgotten something at home while on your way to a beach for vacation. Or that feeling you get when you realize that the name of the person waving wildly and running up to you has completely escaped your memory. That feeling that something isn't quite right, but you can't put your finger on it yet. That feeling you get when you are out having a great time with some friends, when you really should be somewhere else. You just made up some lame excuse so you could hang out with your friends. Recall that feeling and multiply it a few times. THAT is very similar to the feeling of having a great time with someone you love, and then suddenly remembering that they are not going to be ok.
But that feeling is really reserved for us lucky ones, isn't it? At least we KNEW in advance that everything was not ok. We had time to prepare, time to say good-byes... right? After all, no one's time here on earth is guaranteed. Any one could go at anytime. We were lucky to have at least that awareness of what was happening, as hard as it may be to deal with. We had been given the time to refocus our energies on spending time with those of us we loved. Our perspectives had been forever altered. It was like being given a super-power you didn't want. You could suddenly see everything that was truly important, and cast away all the things that weren't. Too many people around us were losing loved ones unexpectedly with no warning. That had to be worse... didn't it?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Home
Mike and I settled into married life. Well, I don't know if "settle" is the right word, but we definitely made a go of it. We had stupid arguments about where to put the wet towels and how to arrange the cabinets, but eventually we figured it out. I laugh now about being brought to tears over the first argument we had as a married couple. Literally, the fight was about where wet towels should go!
I had a few more weeks until my senior year of college began. I had just one more year to finish before I would be a proud graduate. The 2004 Olympics were on, and I spent most of my time laying on the couch feeling sorry for myself and watching the U.S. team win medal after medal. When a boring sport was on I would find myself watching Ellen or Finding Nemo, which would ultimately depress me since we had been calling the tiny little bundle of cells growing in my tummy Nemo for three months. It seems so silly now, but at the time I would just lie on the couch and cry and think of all the wonderful things we were going to miss out on now that I had miscarried. I would cry so long my eyes would turn red and puffy. I had no energy. I had no desire to get up and do anything. I thought to myself, "This must be what depression feels like... Wow it really does suck as much as the commercials say it does."
After lying around like that for most of the day, I would get a burst of energy around 3:00pm and try to scurry around the apartment, cleaning and organizing as I went before Mike got home from his new job. I would start dinner around 4:00pm so it would be hot and ready by the time he got home. He had staples in his diet I tried to accomodate, and I had certain things I would NOT eat under any circumstance that he learned to work around as well. He was definitely the better cook of the two of us, but I couldn't expect him to work forty hours a week, come home to a weeping wife, cook AND clean, too... could I? Well, no of course not. That wouldn't do at all. So, I tried my best to domesticate myself. The nights we were invited over to my parents or his parents for dinner were the best! My mom said she couldn't get used to cooking for a smaller family anyway, so we may as well come over and help them eat so there wouldn't be as many left-overs. It was a welcome invitation. Who knew how many family dinners we had left, anyway? While thinking this, my mind would suddenly flash back to the waiting room at the hospital where mom had her surgery...
"It will be ok," my cousin stroked my shoulder. She was doing her best not to fall apart herself. I kept thinking the tears would start falling from her almond colored eyes at any minute, but they never did. They just glazed over as she spoke. I stared at her, unblinking. Unthinking. I urged my mind to think. I urged it to try and process the events of the day, but it refused. I shifted my gaze back to the double swinging doors the surgeons had just gone back through. Two or three years. That is what they said. They had left the surgery earlier than expected and they had said, "There is less than a 1% chance of her beating this... she has two or three years left. That's it. Sorry." They were so robotic. I felt hatred and pity for them all at once. I wanted to slap them and hug them. Can you imagine having to tell an entire family that their matriarch was dying? I felt my knees give way and my limbs start to tingle. I hung on to my father as if he were a flotation device keeping me from becoming lost at sea. I don't remember how the chair appeared underneath me, all I know is that I was sitting in it out in the middle of the hallway when Amber was talking to me. Everyone else was gone. I don't know where they went. I just know that I was sitting in the chair, and Amber was kneeling in front of me, wearing a worrisome expression. It couldn't have been easy for her. But she looked so strong and sure that I almost believed her, "It will be ok. She's going to be ok. Bec--are you all right?" I couldn't even cry. I just sat there motionless and unresponsive. There was nothing to say...
"Could you set the table, Bec?" my mom called from the living room.
"Sure. Which plates? Strawberries?" I would ask, knowing full-well that we would use the twenty-four year old stoneware strawberry plates.
"Yes, that will be fine. Dinner will be done in a few minutes."
"Ok."
And I would set the table. I would wait for dinner. I would understand that I would always feel at home in my parents' house no matter how long I had been married. I would find out that it doesn't matter what you fight about-- it matters how you handle the fight and what happens afterwards. I would realize that it isn't about how much time you spend IN a house that makes it home-- it is WHO you spend that time with, and how you adapt that makes a house or apartment or condo or box on the corner a REAL home.
I had a few more weeks until my senior year of college began. I had just one more year to finish before I would be a proud graduate. The 2004 Olympics were on, and I spent most of my time laying on the couch feeling sorry for myself and watching the U.S. team win medal after medal. When a boring sport was on I would find myself watching Ellen or Finding Nemo, which would ultimately depress me since we had been calling the tiny little bundle of cells growing in my tummy Nemo for three months. It seems so silly now, but at the time I would just lie on the couch and cry and think of all the wonderful things we were going to miss out on now that I had miscarried. I would cry so long my eyes would turn red and puffy. I had no energy. I had no desire to get up and do anything. I thought to myself, "This must be what depression feels like... Wow it really does suck as much as the commercials say it does."
After lying around like that for most of the day, I would get a burst of energy around 3:00pm and try to scurry around the apartment, cleaning and organizing as I went before Mike got home from his new job. I would start dinner around 4:00pm so it would be hot and ready by the time he got home. He had staples in his diet I tried to accomodate, and I had certain things I would NOT eat under any circumstance that he learned to work around as well. He was definitely the better cook of the two of us, but I couldn't expect him to work forty hours a week, come home to a weeping wife, cook AND clean, too... could I? Well, no of course not. That wouldn't do at all. So, I tried my best to domesticate myself. The nights we were invited over to my parents or his parents for dinner were the best! My mom said she couldn't get used to cooking for a smaller family anyway, so we may as well come over and help them eat so there wouldn't be as many left-overs. It was a welcome invitation. Who knew how many family dinners we had left, anyway? While thinking this, my mind would suddenly flash back to the waiting room at the hospital where mom had her surgery...
"It will be ok," my cousin stroked my shoulder. She was doing her best not to fall apart herself. I kept thinking the tears would start falling from her almond colored eyes at any minute, but they never did. They just glazed over as she spoke. I stared at her, unblinking. Unthinking. I urged my mind to think. I urged it to try and process the events of the day, but it refused. I shifted my gaze back to the double swinging doors the surgeons had just gone back through. Two or three years. That is what they said. They had left the surgery earlier than expected and they had said, "There is less than a 1% chance of her beating this... she has two or three years left. That's it. Sorry." They were so robotic. I felt hatred and pity for them all at once. I wanted to slap them and hug them. Can you imagine having to tell an entire family that their matriarch was dying? I felt my knees give way and my limbs start to tingle. I hung on to my father as if he were a flotation device keeping me from becoming lost at sea. I don't remember how the chair appeared underneath me, all I know is that I was sitting in it out in the middle of the hallway when Amber was talking to me. Everyone else was gone. I don't know where they went. I just know that I was sitting in the chair, and Amber was kneeling in front of me, wearing a worrisome expression. It couldn't have been easy for her. But she looked so strong and sure that I almost believed her, "It will be ok. She's going to be ok. Bec--are you all right?" I couldn't even cry. I just sat there motionless and unresponsive. There was nothing to say...
"Could you set the table, Bec?" my mom called from the living room.
"Sure. Which plates? Strawberries?" I would ask, knowing full-well that we would use the twenty-four year old stoneware strawberry plates.
"Yes, that will be fine. Dinner will be done in a few minutes."
"Ok."
And I would set the table. I would wait for dinner. I would understand that I would always feel at home in my parents' house no matter how long I had been married. I would find out that it doesn't matter what you fight about-- it matters how you handle the fight and what happens afterwards. I would realize that it isn't about how much time you spend IN a house that makes it home-- it is WHO you spend that time with, and how you adapt that makes a house or apartment or condo or box on the corner a REAL home.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Back Out to Sea
I laid there still for a long, long time. My eyes fixed on nothing. My mind racing and shuddering like an engine that is about 10,000 miles overdue for an oil change. I did not want to leave this place. I did not want to return to the world that awaited me 450 miles northeast of here. I wanted time to stop. I wanted it to be possible for Mike and I to live out the rest of our days drinking expensive wine and tequila, fishing for our dinner in the Taneycomo, and watching the sun come up over rolling, tree-covered hills as far as the eye could see. Maybe we would even pick up a funny accent and learn how to play the banjo so we could star in our own country show on the strip. We could become natives and laugh at the tourists taking pictures of things we saw everyday. Yes, I thought. Let's do that. Let's stay here. If we stay here, time will stand still.
Of course, most newly-weds are a little disheartened on the last day of their honeymoon-- even if they could only afford to go to Branson, Missouri. But for us, it wasn't just the end of a wonderful memory. It wasn't just time for us to "grow up." For us, it meant setting back out into that damned black water. It meant giving up the rafts and sailing away from the lights onshore. There was nothing to look forward to. There was nothing to keep our mind off the inevitable. There was just... nothing. And it was all hitting me as I curled into the plush comforter of the king-size bed. That stupid voice was coming back. She is going to die... and now you aren't even pregnant. What if you can't even HAVE kids. What then? You have to deal with it now. There is nothing else to deal with. No happy interjections to get caught up in, no baby showers or homecomings to prepare for... You have to go back to your life. And guess what? Your life really fucking sucks.
I wiped at the tears. This was becoming all too common. How many pillow cases was I going to ruin with mascara stains? Better build that into the monthly budget. Or learn how to get mascara stains out of pillow cases. Yes, that would probably be a much better option. We packed up our belongings, threw them in the car and headed away from our tiny oasis. It was time to go back to our problems. It was time to quit pretending that everything was fine. The honeymoon was literally over. It was time to begin dealing with everything that had happened in the last three and a half months. Sink or swim, we were going back out into the water.
Of course, most newly-weds are a little disheartened on the last day of their honeymoon-- even if they could only afford to go to Branson, Missouri. But for us, it wasn't just the end of a wonderful memory. It wasn't just time for us to "grow up." For us, it meant setting back out into that damned black water. It meant giving up the rafts and sailing away from the lights onshore. There was nothing to look forward to. There was nothing to keep our mind off the inevitable. There was just... nothing. And it was all hitting me as I curled into the plush comforter of the king-size bed. That stupid voice was coming back. She is going to die... and now you aren't even pregnant. What if you can't even HAVE kids. What then? You have to deal with it now. There is nothing else to deal with. No happy interjections to get caught up in, no baby showers or homecomings to prepare for... You have to go back to your life. And guess what? Your life really fucking sucks.
I wiped at the tears. This was becoming all too common. How many pillow cases was I going to ruin with mascara stains? Better build that into the monthly budget. Or learn how to get mascara stains out of pillow cases. Yes, that would probably be a much better option. We packed up our belongings, threw them in the car and headed away from our tiny oasis. It was time to go back to our problems. It was time to quit pretending that everything was fine. The honeymoon was literally over. It was time to begin dealing with everything that had happened in the last three and a half months. Sink or swim, we were going back out into the water.
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