I got a card from one of my fab. aunts (they're all fab., actually) and she offered in the card to talk with me anytime and she had heard that I was still having a hard time with my dad having passed. My two thoughts after reading that were 1) that is a very sweet and nice offer, and 2) aren't I supposed to be having a hard time? I mean, isn't the point of loving people so much that if they die it feels like you just kicked something underneath a parked car and upon closer examination it looks like it might be your heart or at minimum some entrails? And, I suppose you'll want to pick up and dust off whatever it is and put it back inside your body for the time being? That's been my experience, anyway.
Nice thing is that I think I am feeling a bit better. Granted, I wrote this last week before my Saturday From Hell last weekend, the day before Mother's Day, where I was exhausted and grumpy all day and took two naps, which I never do, and felt like if I was a turtle I would just keep my head in my shell until nighttime. That said, I don't know when or how it happened, but things aren't as extreme as they were a few months ago. Not that this is easy or fun every day. But, I like that things are better, and I think if I died my Dad would want to gradually move forward with his life, and I know he wanted me to move forward with mine given the current circumstances, as I've said before.
Two people asked me one day how my mom is doing. I suppose it's courteous that they asked, but neither one of them knows her, both are work people I don't know all that well. What am I really supposed to say? A roommate of a friend mine who was struggling really big time with a drinking problem turned temporarily to baking instead of drinking and tried like hell to get sober for a couple of weeks and stay that way but turned out it lasted only for those couple of weeks. Though I've lost track of both of them so maybe there's a happy ending. Anyway, one time when I was at my friend's house before the baking turned back to drinking, I asked her roommate how she was doing. In the midst of mixing up some banana bread, and without missing a beat, she said dryly, "Just killing time until all my dreams come true." While I can't speak for my mom and sister, I speculate our family can relate, though I won't start using that as my answer to how my family is faring. And, my mom is a major trooper/survivor with the most generous way of existing in the world whose face should be printed on the backs of 100 dollar bills.
So, in case you hadn't heard, Osama Bin Laden was killed. I wish I could talk to my dad and ask what he thought about that - how it happened, what the impact will be, that kind of thing. Usually we thought different things about different things. Actually, that's putting it mildly. We cancelled each other out in pretty much every election that we voted in and my mom forbade him from talking about health care reform with me and my extremely conservative and beloved Grandma prior to Grandma's visit last year. I liked talking to my dad about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell recently, though. He thought that it was time for that to happen, and he also thought that there would be gay bashings as an unfortunate result of the repeal. (Have there been? Did they even enact the repeal yet? I've lost track of that stuff even though I should know.) I would love to talk to my dad about this kind of thing - he was always up on what was in the news. I am mad that I have to go the rest of my life not asking him what he thinks about current events (and everything else since I'm on the topic). Sad, sort of confusing, too, like, where did he go, and when is coming back? Should I go lay out in the driveway with the dog and look towards the road and wait for him to return? Did the dog used to do that even before all this? I think she did, but can't remember. And, no, I don't want anyone to suggest that I can still ask him what my dad thinks about current events. I had anticipated being able to bicker or talk with him for decades to come about all those kinds of things we never saw eye to eye on. And, being able to enjoy common ground where we found it, which got to be more often as we both got older.
A friend of mine, J., sent me a book called The Year of Magical Thinking by the author Joan Didion. I liked reading this book even though it is chock full of tragedy, and medical tragedy at that, which always winds up stirring the pot for me and convincing me that I have cancer or someone else I know is going to die some tragic death. So once I got used to the medically scary parts of the book, I got into the story about a woman whose husband dies simultaneous to the time when their adult daughter is in the ICU in a coma because of an infection that becomes septic shock. And I know from watching Grey's Anatomy that septic shock is a full body infection. Didion starts the book saying:
Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity.
She's right about life changing quickly. I have relived the phone call I got in December of a year ago when my mom said that the next day my dad was going to get the results back from a biopsy of a tumor in his esophagus (esophagus? what?). And it was just so totally out of the blue. Like if something happens just like that when you're standing in left field and then something arrives out of the blue all at the same time kind of "changing in the instant." And then a year and five months later here I am and here my dad isn't.
As far as Didion and self-pity and me - well, I suppose there is some degree of self indulgence in talking about this and writing about it but it's sad and difficult stuff so I don't think I've crossed over into self pity. And if I have, at least I have a good sense of humor? Maybe I visit self pity from time to time but not really officially and not often enough to get my passport stamped. It's like going to Cuba. ;)
At one point, Didion mentioned how she absolutely wouldn't get rid of her husband's clothes because she thought that in order for him to return, he would need his clothes and shoes. She was there (at dinner, remember, sitting?) when he had a massive heart attack that resulted in his immediate death, but she still had these irrational thoughts. And so hence the name of her book ... Magical Thinking.... This makes me feel like I'm in good company when I my brain goes and lives in some dark version of La La Land for a while.
I feel like I might reread that book. It was very good.
