A little love letter....

Yesterday, the heavens opened and rained down love upon me, love dressed in the clothes of The World's Best Friends.


Just over a month since my sister's death, I found myself hard up against the deadline to clear out her apartment. 


I'd been through the rehearsals for this last August when she moved from a non-assisted senior complex into a wonderful assisted living facility, and the year before that when she moved to the senior complex from the house she'd shared with our mother.  Over the years, she had turned into - if not a full-blown hoarder - a person with a serious inability to part with stuff.  She wasn't a generalist, like the folks you see on reality TV, their spaces full of every item they've ever touched.  She was a woman with specific attachments.  While she was more than willing to toss things like family photos ("Why should I keep those? What's the point?" she asked as Young Girl and I pulled our history from the large green trash bin after my mother's death), she refused to part with a single book, be it a cheesy circa-1962 "annual" from the pharmaceutical giant for which my father worked (full of head shots of every intravenous fluid salesman in the country), one of four outdated dictionaries, or one of the dreadful romances or cozy-mysteries she favored. She had mock turtlenecks in every color L.L Bean produced in any given five-year period with fake Crocs to match. In the last move, I did manage to coax her down to 25 shapeless fleecy vests.  You get the picture.


Handling the tangible evidence of a lost life is always complicated, but doing so in an assisted living facility is exponentially more so. With every box or bag you cart down the hallway, you see realization of their near future on the faces of the elders you pass, regardless of their level of cognitive capacity.  They all know what it means when the furniture starts to move.  I did my best to work while people were in the dining room or at "Sit-er-Size" or bingo, but contact was unavoidable and painful all around. I told myself I was putting the task off because of my other responsibilities - funny how busy we become when we need to be - but the truth was I just didn't want to do it.  Too much finality.


I'd declined many offers of help. Part of me somehow felt I was doing some kind of penance, paying attention after the fact, and that such things needed to be done in isolation.  But the unit had been rented for August and it was Time.


I asked the fabulous women of First Amendment Friday if they could help me for a couple of hours yesterday.  I needed, I told them, help bagging up and loading the items I was sending to the Women's Crisis Center resale shop.  If we had time, maybe we could take some of the smaller stuff to my house in our cars.  Then we'd have lunch, and discuss a time when their teenage sons might be available to move the larger things.


Every one of them who was in town showed up at the appointed hour, and pitched in with organization and discernment that was far beyond my capacity. They knew what to do when I didn't and they did it. Before I really knew what had happened, my van was full of the resale bags and boxes, and their cars were packed to the brim with keeper things.  We dropped those at my house, delivered to the resale store, then rendezvoused for lunch.


Cue the cloudburst.


While we waited for our food, they announced that they'd decided they were going to take care of the rest of it that afternoon. Without my help.  They realized, they told me, that I'd reached my capacity and they took away the keys to my sister's apartment. After lunch, they came to my house and commandeered my van.


About an hour later, four chosen sisters, two of their husbands, and five assorted teenage sons and their friends descended upon me with everything in tow.  Everything.  Some went into the garage, some into the house. My van was packed with boxes of books I plan to sell a few towns away. I stood in my bare feet with my drawn, sad face and watched true friendship in action.


This post goes out to you, my friends.  My birth family may be gone, but your love and support hold me close in ways it never did.


Love,
Me

Resolution

Well, my goodness! It's been about 18 months since I've posted anything of substance. Maybe you even assumed I'd disappeared. Alas, I'm back.

Texas' state flower is the bluebonnet. A funny thing about this flower, way down here along our southern border, is its need for a harsh, cold winter. The seed coating must be scarified through repeated freezing and thawing for the flower to bloom. Some springs, after a mild winter, the bluebonnets aren't particularly plentiful here in NoTex; when the winter is brutal, they are spectacular.

And somewhere in there is a metaphor for my absence. With Young Girl's return to public school and the subsequent lack of long periods of solitude I had a mild season (not that it felt that way at the time). But over the last year or so, something has been lurking around inside, freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing, and being - in general - harsh. I seem to be sufficiently scarified to start the blooming process which may not flourish until spring, just like the bluebonnet.

Today, I find myself with nothing particularly profound to say, a pot of long-cooking Bolognese sauce on the stove, and a bit of time. So let's just gut out some bullet points, what say?

* Yes, I know it's the Iowa Caucus today. And you know my politics if you've read more than a post or two. I wish I could attribute this, but I've heard the Republican primary season characterized as a reality show. Who will be voted off the island tonight? About a year ago, I laid a small bet - based on several years of successful ticket-predicting - that President Obama would be running against a Romney/Perry ticket. Cold Mormon needs good-old-boy evangelical to go all the way. How could I have underestimated the stupidity of the man who has been my own governor oh so many years? Probably because the governor of Texas is not a very powerful position. It took a national stage for his stupidity to metastasize. I still think Romney is inevitable. But I'd like to see the race for number two be something like "Dancing with a Democrat" or "Flaming Kitchen Knives of Malice." There's some entertainment for you!

* Young Girl adjusted beautifully from classic Montessori instruction to whacko public school. Why whacko? The puzzling curriculum-of-the-day switches, the new social studies standards which are beyond bizarre, a GT program that is nothing more than Behavioral Segregation in most cases.....I could go on and probably will after I go Medieval on the school board in a couple of weeks. It is true. I plan to - publicly - speak my mind in Small Town Texas. As does The Man. Let the chips fall where they may. One highlight, though. Young Girl's 2010-2011 Future Problem Solvers team went to state finals, meaning a trip to Austin without parents. Whoo Hooo!

* My sister has continued to decline. The most recent scan showed her breast cancer has returned in her lumbar spine and ribs. She suffered severe side effects from whole-brain radiation, and when you mess with the brain and its messaging system all sorts of bad things can happen all over your body. When I went through WBR with my mother and my sister, we were told that there was really no way to predict who would suffer side effects or the severity thereof. My mother suffered minimally, my sister, maximally. Sis is now in an assisted-living facility, which has been a blessing beyond belief. And before you start screaming at me about cancer screening, let me just say I am on it with a vengeance. I had my ovaries and uterus removed last year, and meet with a breast surgeon twice a year. Both my sisters, my mother, and I were/are BRCA negative. But the cluster is just too weird to be anything other than hypervigilant.

* Thanks to the truly miraculous Couch-to-5K running program Young Girl and I have now completed four 5K races. I've met or exceeded my (extremely) modest goals in each. I'm what runners call a "penguin," but I'm a runner nonetheless. Even if you think you are too big/old/injured/jaded/whatever, I encourage you to look at C25K. If I can do it...

* Large Dog returned to the German Shorthaired Pointer rescue program in 2009, amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Small Dog adopted us in October 2011. One is missed, both are adored.

* I continue to be supported in Our Town by the fabulous women of the First Amendment Friday group. The circle has widened a bit, too. Who knew so many Leftist Ladies hang around these parts!

* I promise to be back tomorrow. Feels kind of great to have my fingers back on the keys.

Trees Aren't Always Trees

All around me, trees welcome spring. Normally I love to watch this process, but this year is different.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know of my mother’s amazing cancer journey and how it is drawing to a close. You may not know that my oldest sister died, at 55, of ovarian cancer in 2000. And now my remaining sister has discovered suspicious lumps; her doctors are rushing her through tests and plan to excise two lumps this Thursday for biopsy

I, thankfully, remain healthy.

Back to those trees. I’m stuck in a metaphor loop.

Dark branches against the sky are lungs. Bronchi. Bronchioles. Alveoli. All reaching toward the sky in a gasp for air.

Dark branches against the sky are the blue veins visible under the milky white skin of a breast.

Dark branches against the sky are the circulatory system.

Dark branches against the sky are the lymphatic conduits that run throughout our bodies.

Dark branches against the sky take the shape of a brain, tracing the folds and valleys, mimicking the neuron. Axon. Soma. Dendrite.

The tangled nests of squirrels are tumors. The small nests of birds are tumors. Fruit trees bloom with disease. The green buds are tumors, coursing their way though lymph, blood, and tissue.

The process of spring, which should mean growth and blooming and change, has become malignant.

Photo credit: Tiny Topaz

3/12/09 update: My sister's simple biopsy turned into a general anesthesia, tangerine-sized lump removal, chest drain kind of thing.  Pathology should be in on Monday. Send white light.

3/17/09 update: Both the tumor and the scalene lymph nodes were malignant.

The Light. The Tunnel.

I am now officially able to plot my departure for Oregon. At the oncologist's today, my mother received the bad news/good news talk that we've heard before. The tumors are growing again, and her tumor marker continues to rise. But two drugs remain in the arsenal, and she started one today. I was assured that the disease would make no radical downturns in the next two months, even if she did not respond to the first drug. 

As I told Mother today, "Don't forget: you had ten times this much cancer in you before you even knew you were sick."

The house is in high gear, what with route planning, Small Child's summer camp/activities selection (this all had to wait until we knew which state we'd be in), gear collection (where is my bike helmet?), and wardrobe organization. I'm paring down this year as there's a chance I'll be driving home in something less bulky than the Silver Minivan. If so, my cries of joy will ring from the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters.

My big decision? Dare I drive with Large Dog and Small Child? Or do I repeat last year's plan and find someone to fly out with her? Fuel prices are, alas, impacting the decision. I've been waiting all year long for those five or six days of solitary road bliss, with my dog's sweet sleeping head on my lap and the westbound road ahead.  Am I selfish because I don't want to spoil it with whining, even from the lips of one so dear?

Stay Tuned

I am still alive, friends....

I'm grading like a demon.

And, yesterday, my mom had a wee little heart attack.  No one is particularly concerned from a cardiac standpoint. The likely cause was oxygen deprivation due to low blood volume due to extreme anemia due to chemotherapy. 

Hopefully she will go home tomorrow.  

Friday, I'm off for my annual weekend with my local girlfriends.  Last year we painted.  This year we are going to make jewelry. We may even write.

All I know is that, barring tragedy, by this time Friday night I will not be blogging!

Between the slices....

Ah, reality. The mundane. The quotidian. Whatever you want to call it, I’ve hit the blogging version of what my friends and I used to call The Twenty Minute Lull. It’s the point in a conversation when anything interesting stops, and everyone wonders if it will ever start again. My daily comings and goings (none of which would interest 99.9 percent of you), combined with some personal surprises, have kept me from writing. And yes, I know, nothing should keep me from writing. I’m aware of that, so shut your pie hole (this last imperative applies only to certain readers, and you know who you are).

As you can tell from the date/time stamp, I’m enjoying my usual exciting Saturday night. Here’s what’s on my mind.

I used to laugh at those popular culture labels…that is until I found one stuck on my shirt: The Sandwich Generation. Perhaps the term would have been more precise if it had been coined thusly: The Shit Sandwich Generation.

Without revealing too much personal (i.e. boring) detail, I’m slap in between the slices and I feel like excrement. My mother, who is 85, has been holding her own against the inoperable Stage IV cancer that was discovered, by fluke, in her otherwise healthy body exactly a year ago. She was given three months with no treatment, maybe as much as a year with palliative chemo – that is, if she responded. She did. I hope every day that my genetic lottery card will reveal such vigor when I get around to scratching it off in old age.

But in a Groundhog Day flashback, at yesterday’s oncologist appointment – the one I was hoping would ease both of our minds so that I could hit the road to Oregon this Wednesday and she could hit the skies to California for her usual summer visit in July – we did not get the best of news.

That’s one slice of bread.

The other? My seven-year-old child, brimming with life, who missed the summer in Oregon last year as a result of the diagnosis, has been counting on this summer’s trip for 365 days, and who may very well miss it again this year.

What’s in the middle of the sandwich? Me, feeling alternatively altruistic and selfish, wondering where my obligations lie. Mother or child? Behind or ahead? And dare the poop consider her own needs?

What I wouldn’t give for a crystal ball. I suspect many of you are in the same boat.

Of course, the obligations toward Mother can easily be read as obligations toward Child, as well. Last year, when my mother apologized for our change of plans, I told her not to be silly. I told her that, in a way, she was giving her grandchild a gift through her illness. I very much remember the deaths of the two grandparents who died in my early childhood. I remember sitting in hospital waiting rooms. I remember seeing old people in extremis. Both of my grandmothers lived with us, at different times (I even shared a room with one for a while), and I saw what it was like to be old. I remember families coming together. I remember figuring out that life goes on, and that death need not be scary.

Now, many of my child’s friends’ grandparents live far away. If they live nearby, their aging has been managed and ameliorated, disinfected. Ill grandparents seldom come to live in a child’s home. Illness happens behind closed doors, ones behind which children are not welcome, usually in big scary hospitals where no one would dream of taking a child.

If we could manage to normalize death and illness, I told my mother, we would be giving my child an advantage her peers would not have. We could give her an idea of humanity writ large. And this indeed came to pass to a degree, but not with the drama I’d anticipated. We’ve been very matter-of-fact about everything. For one thing, my mother never spent a day in bed, not even during the worst of chemo. When she began to lose her hair, for another, my child and I took her to have the remaining patchy strands shaved off. It was a surprisingly upbeat event. We made what could have been traumatic commonplace.

My mother would be the first to tell you that she has had a long and wonderful life; she does not want to disrupt mine. If I am brutally honest, I don’t want my life disrupted. I could head west and fly home if things take a turn for the True Worse.

But that does not seem like the right thing to do.