She was always there even when I was not. It was my safety net, my one true thing. When I lost her, I could not ask her if it was all right, if I did what she wanted, if she will forgive me, if I didn’t. I try not to think about it, but the memories are tormenting me. Bad choices or fate, it cannot be separated. I realistically know I could not control the doctor being gone, my son having a medical emergency, the pain my mom felt. Emotionally I am broken , transfixed on what could have, should have been.
There is no looking back. We are not going that way. It is my mantra to move beyond useless conjectures. I need to focus on the light my mother brought to this earth and try to shine a little of my own. I cannot bring her back, but if I give some of her sparkle to life, her spirit lives on.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Before I knew
I have been trying to remember what it was like before. Before I was a grown up, before marriage, before children. Before I knew that life was not television, neat and happy. I was certain my childhood was just an anomaly, and the rest of the world lived in Technicolor contentment.
When I grew up, it would be the Cleavers meet The Waltons with a twist of Partridge Family for coolness sake. There would be hors d'oeuvres on white platters bordered in pink flowers, clean linoleum floors smelling of bleach mingled with pine sol. No one would yell. Gone would be the inebriated scenes that left the smell of urine and beer locked in the air, no more waiting,worrying, cautiously testing.
There was a flaw in my perfect life. I had absolutely no idea how to create this panacea of existence. My only guide was countless hours in front of a black and white box, a lesson in frustration as I applied my video education. Appetizers and short, cotton dresses work in the short term, but with the introduction of our own dynasty, rules had disappeared, planning an afterthought. Real children do not have scripts. They do not become the happy adults you imagined,overcompensated with love and whatever money could be supplied is not enough.
Acceptance of this is near impossible. There must be something to fix. There must be something to buy. There must be something to do with this maternal ache.
When I grew up, it would be the Cleavers meet The Waltons with a twist of Partridge Family for coolness sake. There would be hors d'oeuvres on white platters bordered in pink flowers, clean linoleum floors smelling of bleach mingled with pine sol. No one would yell. Gone would be the inebriated scenes that left the smell of urine and beer locked in the air, no more waiting,worrying, cautiously testing.
There was a flaw in my perfect life. I had absolutely no idea how to create this panacea of existence. My only guide was countless hours in front of a black and white box, a lesson in frustration as I applied my video education. Appetizers and short, cotton dresses work in the short term, but with the introduction of our own dynasty, rules had disappeared, planning an afterthought. Real children do not have scripts. They do not become the happy adults you imagined,overcompensated with love and whatever money could be supplied is not enough.
Acceptance of this is near impossible. There must be something to fix. There must be something to buy. There must be something to do with this maternal ache.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Flashback
I don’t know why I have been having flashbacks of that day in March. That day that I held my son’s head in my hands while white foam covered his lips, his chest rattling that sound of eminent death, and then nothing. The breathing stopped. I could only whisper or maybe it was a yell, a feral cry of grief and bewilderment, “We’ve lost him”
I had imagined losing this son, this middle child, this boy of excess, not on the floor of my cluttered computer room, not writhing amongst the papers with a grand mal seizure, not with my sister, the provider trying frantically to dial 911 on our new phones, not with four dogs blocking the door from the EMTs, not when my mother lay dying in the hospital.
We had just returned from visiting my mother. It was a Sunday. She was having a good day and the three of us had walked home together. We were there just a few minutes when my sister came and got me “There is something wrong with Paul”
He was sitting by the desk staring. I thought he was just overwhelmed with everything. He had lost his job, his friend and coworker had died two days before and he knew that his grandma was not going to get better. I put my arm around him to comfort him when he turned his head like Linda Blair in the Exorcist . He was yelping and flopping. He flipped over in the desk chair. He was now wedged among my ridiculous amount of furniture slamming his head on the floor and bookcase. I yelled for my sister to call 911. She could not get the phone to work. I could not tell her how. She dialed from her California cell phone. They asked questions she could not answer and asked if he had epilepsy. I yelled no, but I do. They said they did not care about that. Somewhere in my tangled brain it seemed important for them to know that he could have epilepsy, and not a drug overdose, or withdrawal from alcohol.
I asked or screamed at him “Did you take something?”
Of course, he was not conscious, but he was thrashing so much. He is six foot four inches tall and all I could think was to protect his head so I cradled it in my lap as his body continued to dance electric. When the emergency team came, they would not enter the house with four dogs barking at them. We had my son’s and other sister’s dogs as well as our own two. Everyone was visiting my mom. Melissa could not get them to go out. I refused to let go of Paul’s head. One brave EMT came in and took over so I could get the dogs out and the rest of the medics could come in. When I returned he asked me why I hadn’t told them he had broken his leg. I said I didn’t know. Paul finally stopped seizing, but he was incoherent and swearing. They cut his pants. He was going in and out of consciousness. The ambulance was at our house a long time. I called my husband who was with our other two children. I was standing outdoors watching the ambulance when they came.
He was alive, with a leg broken in two places from a violent seizure that lasted over fifteen minutes. He was alive when the hospital called that he had been in a horrific crash that had lacerated his liver. He was alive after he crashed his car into a tree and it burst into flames. My dear, sweet boy who rides the ghosts of death, not willing to accept he is still alive.
I had imagined losing this son, this middle child, this boy of excess, not on the floor of my cluttered computer room, not writhing amongst the papers with a grand mal seizure, not with my sister, the provider trying frantically to dial 911 on our new phones, not with four dogs blocking the door from the EMTs, not when my mother lay dying in the hospital.
We had just returned from visiting my mother. It was a Sunday. She was having a good day and the three of us had walked home together. We were there just a few minutes when my sister came and got me “There is something wrong with Paul”
He was sitting by the desk staring. I thought he was just overwhelmed with everything. He had lost his job, his friend and coworker had died two days before and he knew that his grandma was not going to get better. I put my arm around him to comfort him when he turned his head like Linda Blair in the Exorcist . He was yelping and flopping. He flipped over in the desk chair. He was now wedged among my ridiculous amount of furniture slamming his head on the floor and bookcase. I yelled for my sister to call 911. She could not get the phone to work. I could not tell her how. She dialed from her California cell phone. They asked questions she could not answer and asked if he had epilepsy. I yelled no, but I do. They said they did not care about that. Somewhere in my tangled brain it seemed important for them to know that he could have epilepsy, and not a drug overdose, or withdrawal from alcohol.
I asked or screamed at him “Did you take something?”
Of course, he was not conscious, but he was thrashing so much. He is six foot four inches tall and all I could think was to protect his head so I cradled it in my lap as his body continued to dance electric. When the emergency team came, they would not enter the house with four dogs barking at them. We had my son’s and other sister’s dogs as well as our own two. Everyone was visiting my mom. Melissa could not get them to go out. I refused to let go of Paul’s head. One brave EMT came in and took over so I could get the dogs out and the rest of the medics could come in. When I returned he asked me why I hadn’t told them he had broken his leg. I said I didn’t know. Paul finally stopped seizing, but he was incoherent and swearing. They cut his pants. He was going in and out of consciousness. The ambulance was at our house a long time. I called my husband who was with our other two children. I was standing outdoors watching the ambulance when they came.
He was alive, with a leg broken in two places from a violent seizure that lasted over fifteen minutes. He was alive when the hospital called that he had been in a horrific crash that had lacerated his liver. He was alive after he crashed his car into a tree and it burst into flames. My dear, sweet boy who rides the ghosts of death, not willing to accept he is still alive.
Monday, January 4, 2010
New Year
2010 Hello, Hurray let the show begin. I am ready! That is what I start this year with enthusiasm, excitement, and hope. Hope that I will embrace this year more positively with the strength to continue this path when life doesn’t turn out how I want it to. I have unfettered my brain from its prison of medication and with this decision comes the possibility of unleashing the beast in the temporal lobe. Foolish perhaps, but my life was not my own. My thoughts covered in a thick layer of brain-slowing pharmaceuticals. My spirit buried under the pink and white caplets. No longer suspended in a state of nothingness, I can feel the air again, see the sun, and listen to the joyful noise of the earth.
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