Here I am, sick again. I was sick in February. Now April . . . relegated to the couch, bored out of my mind. Starting to get angry. What am I angry about? The paper I want to start, or Aunt Christy?
Between then and now, I've read all of Kathy Reich's books, and 3/4ths of Patricia Cornwell's. And decided that I want a parrot. I've been to St. George's Island and biked in a sandstorm. I watched Ed cross the Louisville Marathon's finish line in 3:35. Rick and I have semi-heard about appointments and have ordered robes. I now own Jill, the amazing GPS. Rick and I spent a glorious, expensive! day at Keeneland. I am now on Facebook and reconnecting with people from my past.
I am afraid of the future. How do I run a church? How do I deal with death?
Somedays I feel like cryin' . . . doesn't matter if it's rain or shine . . . feels like my heart is breakin' . . . at least a million times . . .
Between then and now - I've experienced heartbreak. True love. Wedding planning. Marriage. Future plans in a new place.
Just keep focusing on the happiness ahead.
But if I do that, will I never "deal" with death? How long can I push it away? It's been around every corner I turn these past few months. Aunt Marian, Clara, and Dotie have all passed on. Aunt Marion and Aunt Christy will, soon. I wrote my case study on death. And the the books I've chosen to read? I had nightmares for awhile. And then on the other hand, it's like I'm trying to surround myself with life. A baby lovebird (when I know that I can't guarantee that we won't kill it, with our non-stick cookware and candles)? Plans for kittens and puppies? Daydreams of lovely summer afternoons spent with toes in the sand, hearing the surf and wind?
Monday, April 28, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Flu
I guess it's more of the flu, less like a head cold. I don't have much energy. But somehow I made myself pull out the couch, vacuum behind it, redd up the family room, balance the checkbook, take out the garbage, and basically, order everything around me.
More or less to keep myself busy? I doubt that I'm organizing everything I can to compensate for what I can't control. To keep myself busy. The trip down and up the stairs sent me reeling to the couch, to tremble there for the next 3 hours.
I want to go the gym, get on the elliptical, and purge my life of everything. Just push push push until I've sweated everything out and washed it away. The frustration, the anxiety, the fear, the sorrow. The sickness.
Not mine, hers.
More or less to keep myself busy? I doubt that I'm organizing everything I can to compensate for what I can't control. To keep myself busy. The trip down and up the stairs sent me reeling to the couch, to tremble there for the next 3 hours.
I want to go the gym, get on the elliptical, and purge my life of everything. Just push push push until I've sweated everything out and washed it away. The frustration, the anxiety, the fear, the sorrow. The sickness.
Not mine, hers.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Broken Wings
It's been 3 months since I wrote. I didn't want to write. I didn't want to think about it. I clung to that slim thread of hope that everything would turn out ok and then I could resume normal journaling activities. But it's not ok. The chemo and radiation didn't even touch the tumor. It spread from the pancreas into the liver.
Aunt Christy is terminal.
We don't really know what that means, in terms of how long she has. A few weeks? Three months tops?
It's surreal. I'm down with a cold (maybe the flu), stuck on the couch, with nothing to do except think. I take my mind off of her for a few minutes, begin to feel happy and like everything's "ok" then I remember and spiral downward. Some minutes I can't believe it, and other minutes it's too true. I'm still in the numb phase. It hasn't started to hurt yet - not that true ache that we will carry within us for the rest of our lives. The ache of missing someone so bright, so lively, so special, so loved.
I spent a week with her in January. It was the best week she's had, physically, since Thanksgiving. Mom and Uncle John were amazed. She and I had a great three days. In between going back and forth to the hospital, we ate breakfast (Eggs Benedict!) at Eat 'n Park, made meatloaf, watched the snow gently float past their bay window and alight on the pines, we had long wonderful conversations in front of a fire, drank rum and cokes. We looked at pictures of Burke, Cassidy, and Katie, Aunt Christy reminisced about the time she colored Easter eggs with the girls in Georgia, fastidious Cassidy and dive-bombing Katie (No Katie! My egg! My egg's in there!), the time when she explained "putting down" Houlan ("we understand Granny Goose, you had to kill her" - "my granddaughters think I'm a murderer!"). We had an unbelievably dinner at a fancy, yet tiny, restaurant. We splurged on a fried cheese wheel. I had some sort of pork and root vegetables entree with a deliciously creamy risotto. We celebrated Uncle John's birthday with a pie from Eat 'n Park. Aunt Chris hadn't even bought him a card - she completely forgot. And that could be his last birthday with her. We took calls from Kelly, getting regular updates on Cassidy's "pussy eye syndrome." Katie came down with the pink eye a day later. We walked Maggie May around in the snow, while she took her fine time sniffing around for the perfect place to pee. Aunt Chris rescued a trapped baby bird, and we watched as he limped off into the snow. His wing was broken, our hearts were broken watching him. We knew he wouldn't last the night. But to take him inside would only prolong his death. I wondered if that's what the chemo was doing to Aunt Chris. We gave him up to Mother Nature.
She read some of my BOOM paperwork and asked great questions. We talked about my heart for social justice; helping people get out of the church and into the community. She thought that was fantastic. I watched her as she napped, radiation being like one big sleeping pill. She looked so beautiful, so peaceful. I knew most of her days were, are, wracked with pain. I watched the digital picture frame flicker from photo to photo, filled mainly with Burke. There was a lovely shot of Aunt Chris and Uncle John, Burke cradled into Aunt Chris' arms. The girl who will never know her Granny Goose.
Will Cassidy and Katie even remember her?
They finally told the girls. The school called yesterday to tell Kelly and Sean what a horrible day Katie was having.
I called last night, everyone was gathered in her hospital room. They were waiting for the latest CAT scan results, to see if the embolism in her lung had dissipated. Mom gave her the phone. She didn't even get out a hello, choking through her tears, "It's bad, Lins."
"I know."
I didn't know what else to say. We both cried silently, connected through space by a phone line.
"I know I'm in your thoughts."
"Every single minute, Aunt Chris."
"Aww."
We both relished our time together in January. She voiced what I had been thinking, that we hadn't had time with each other in a long time. Probably since I was a teenager visiting her in GA. I wanted the tumor to go away. Either by chemo or surgery. I wanted her to bring the girls out this summer to DE, to have a week of fun and sun, wind, water, waves, sun, time to rejoice and praise God for the breath of life in our lungs.
But she's dying.
Quickly.
Aunt Christy is terminal.
We don't really know what that means, in terms of how long she has. A few weeks? Three months tops?
It's surreal. I'm down with a cold (maybe the flu), stuck on the couch, with nothing to do except think. I take my mind off of her for a few minutes, begin to feel happy and like everything's "ok" then I remember and spiral downward. Some minutes I can't believe it, and other minutes it's too true. I'm still in the numb phase. It hasn't started to hurt yet - not that true ache that we will carry within us for the rest of our lives. The ache of missing someone so bright, so lively, so special, so loved.
I spent a week with her in January. It was the best week she's had, physically, since Thanksgiving. Mom and Uncle John were amazed. She and I had a great three days. In between going back and forth to the hospital, we ate breakfast (Eggs Benedict!) at Eat 'n Park, made meatloaf, watched the snow gently float past their bay window and alight on the pines, we had long wonderful conversations in front of a fire, drank rum and cokes. We looked at pictures of Burke, Cassidy, and Katie, Aunt Christy reminisced about the time she colored Easter eggs with the girls in Georgia, fastidious Cassidy and dive-bombing Katie (No Katie! My egg! My egg's in there!), the time when she explained "putting down" Houlan ("we understand Granny Goose, you had to kill her" - "my granddaughters think I'm a murderer!"). We had an unbelievably dinner at a fancy, yet tiny, restaurant. We splurged on a fried cheese wheel. I had some sort of pork and root vegetables entree with a deliciously creamy risotto. We celebrated Uncle John's birthday with a pie from Eat 'n Park. Aunt Chris hadn't even bought him a card - she completely forgot. And that could be his last birthday with her. We took calls from Kelly, getting regular updates on Cassidy's "pussy eye syndrome." Katie came down with the pink eye a day later. We walked Maggie May around in the snow, while she took her fine time sniffing around for the perfect place to pee. Aunt Chris rescued a trapped baby bird, and we watched as he limped off into the snow. His wing was broken, our hearts were broken watching him. We knew he wouldn't last the night. But to take him inside would only prolong his death. I wondered if that's what the chemo was doing to Aunt Chris. We gave him up to Mother Nature.
She read some of my BOOM paperwork and asked great questions. We talked about my heart for social justice; helping people get out of the church and into the community. She thought that was fantastic. I watched her as she napped, radiation being like one big sleeping pill. She looked so beautiful, so peaceful. I knew most of her days were, are, wracked with pain. I watched the digital picture frame flicker from photo to photo, filled mainly with Burke. There was a lovely shot of Aunt Chris and Uncle John, Burke cradled into Aunt Chris' arms. The girl who will never know her Granny Goose.
Will Cassidy and Katie even remember her?
They finally told the girls. The school called yesterday to tell Kelly and Sean what a horrible day Katie was having.
I called last night, everyone was gathered in her hospital room. They were waiting for the latest CAT scan results, to see if the embolism in her lung had dissipated. Mom gave her the phone. She didn't even get out a hello, choking through her tears, "It's bad, Lins."
"I know."
I didn't know what else to say. We both cried silently, connected through space by a phone line.
"I know I'm in your thoughts."
"Every single minute, Aunt Chris."
"Aww."
We both relished our time together in January. She voiced what I had been thinking, that we hadn't had time with each other in a long time. Probably since I was a teenager visiting her in GA. I wanted the tumor to go away. Either by chemo or surgery. I wanted her to bring the girls out this summer to DE, to have a week of fun and sun, wind, water, waves, sun, time to rejoice and praise God for the breath of life in our lungs.
But she's dying.
Quickly.
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