September 20, 2009

Release

One day when my husband was very sick I just couldn't stand it anymore. I had just left the pharmacy for what seemed like the tenth time in less than a month, picking up yet another prescription. As I drove along the winding road behind a strip mall, the pressure began building up inside of me to the point I thought I would explode into a million pieces. So I screamed as loud and long as I could. My throat raw and the blood pounding in my head,I felt like I had discovered my secret pressure release valve. Suddenly, I understood why angry young men threw bricks through windows, or teenage girls took razors and cut themselves, the release, the blessed release. During the last year of my husband's life, I screamed in the privacy of my car all the time. Sometimes, I even screamed a bad word over and over. Every day was a damn emergency.For ten years, I felt like a rubber band stretched between thumb and forefinger, ready to shoot across the room, or the world.

After the final chemo that sucked all but the last inch of life from him, Dan hung on for two more months, by the pure tenacious grit that defined him. His mind denying the inevitable, his body succumbed. Our daughters, old enough to know what was going on, and young enough to want to hide away, watched the misery of their Daddy's death. I've yet to reconcile that cruel fact.

The end of life ritual began and ended. The last of the relatives were crushed with heartfelt embraces and drove off in their rental car to the airport. We waved goodbye, closed the front door and went back to a different life.

The next few weeks were spent letting daylight back into the house. I purged every room that screamed or even whispered evidence of illness or death. I destroyed cancer's shrine. Then, spread out on a bed of fresh sheets, I melted like hot wax, into corners unihabited for a decade.

September 12, 2009

Turn the Page

I'm good at moving on once the crisis or long ordeal has passed. I sigh a big sigh, wipe my brow, and finally breathe that fresh new breath. That moment is always different that what I had imagined, but I embrace it anyway. The possibilities of hope start knocking down the walls built of misery.

July 14, 2009

Lighthearted, with reservations

The other day I was driving along and I felt a curious sense of well being. I say curious, because I cannot ever remember having such a feeling. Lying on a narrow gurney in a dim lit emergency room after I had been given morphine for a kidney stone is my closest experience. After everyone had left me alone, peaceful silence followed, and as I looked through the doorway to the central command station, I thought to myself that I could just lie there, forever, and be happy. But no, this state of well being was not drug induced nor carefree. It was a gift from heaven, unasked for and undeserved. With it came the feeling that life, even with its troubles did not stretch out before me as a journey full of burdens.

My heart throbbed wild with worry during the dark days of my husband's illness. There were too many compounded problems that went along with living with cancer. Both of us tried to be happy and live with the disease, rather than let it take over our lives. Trying to be happy and brave in spite of the grim outlook took it's own toll. Cancer filled every corner and affected all aspects of daily living. I imagined that both of us had revolvers pointed at our heads ready to go off at any moment. Sometimes the safety was on, but the guns were always loaded. One day the one pointed at my husband's head went off, but it didn't kill him immediately. Cancer doesn't work that way. It chews at you, consuming you bits at a time. Finally, between the harsh chemo and the gnawing cancer, he died. The gun at my head dropped, with a thump, to the floor. I heard it fall, but distracted with the immediate circumstances of my husbands death, I ignored it.

Days, weeks, months, a year went by, before I remembered that the gun wasn't there anymore. Lightheartedness does not come easy to me. I took that fleeting moment of well being and stashed it away in my box of hope.

May 17, 2009

Band Aids

I liberally apply band aids to all aspects of life. Metaphorically they can be considered a temporary solution to a problem and realistically they can protect and cover up a wound until it has healed.

My house is covered in band aids. When my husband and I bought this house the only band aid that had been applied by the previous owner was a hastily splashed on coat of eggshell paint from top to bottom. They stopped at the oak woodwork. Thankfully. I perused decorating magazines and lusted after perfect kitchens and pale blue and white bathroom sanctuaries. Our bank account did not support my ideas. Hence the temporary decorator's band aid, applied to areas that need to be repaired, replaced, or just plain ugly. Just plain ugly are two bright orange armless upholstered chairs that make a perfect window seat in the dormer of the master bedroom. Draped with one of my grandmother's quilts and some pretty pillows and no one knows their hideous secret. An added bonus is that I can hide an Imelda Marco's shoe collection underneath. A few well placed old fashioned advertisements for Campbell's Soup in my kitchen cover up some cracks in the plaster. I'm getting good at this, but have many more band aids to apply.


When it comes to passing out the band aids that cover up the bumps and bangs that life hands out, I try to be careful, but I do use them. The comfort that kisses and band aids bring to a small child that has a skinned knee is different than a broken heart or an frustrated soul. A distraction is the best kind of first aid when worries or sadness threaten to take over every thought. When my daughter's first boyfriend broke up with her I pulled a trip to the mall out of my first aid box and by the time we hit the second shop she was ready to forget him.

Band aids do not work for everything. My porch needs surgery and it will just have to wait. All the pretty plants I have placed around the crumbling bricks do not cover up that it really needs a major face lift. And when my husband was dying of cancer there wasn't a temporary fix in my first aid box. We just had to let those wounds stay open to the air and wait for the scar tissue.

April 30, 2009

Man Plans...

My daughter woke up with pink eye this morning. Of course she did, next week she is to go on the trip that she has been anticipating for the entire school year. She will be fine, most likely, because we caught it in time. What I am worried about is her sister, who is going on a trip with her school next week, too. Will she wake up on the day they are to leave and have pink eye? All we can do is wait.

Pink eye, strep throat, and norovirus chase us around before and during every special event we plan. Whenever we went on vacation my husband would get sick every single time. While he visited the bathroom and stayed in bed, the rest of us hung out at the hotel pool. Once we basically flushed half a weeks pass to Disney World down the toilet. We always left home feeling great and always came back home defeated. Yet, every year my husband planned our vacation and couldn't wait to go. I pasted a smile on face and nodded and agreed to hotels and amusement parks and landmarks we would pay for but never get to see.

I once spent an entire week sewing a Halloween costume for my younger daughter to wear to the school party. She was five years old and enchanted with the costume and couldn't wait to walk in the parade and show off her swirly skirt. On the morning of the party she came downstairs and threw up on the living room carpet. It was her first lesson in things do not always go as you have planned.

It must have been meant to be, is the attitude my older daughter has taken when plans have to be abandoned due to illness. I appreciate her understanding, but it makes me sad that she has to say it so often.

I never hold my breath.

April 22, 2009

Soft Rainy Morning


It was the scent of lilacs that woke me up, drifting in through the open window. The white priscillas billowing out on a breeze suggesting rain, carried their soft scent. I moved my face to a cooler spot on the pillow and ignored the clock, pretending that I didn't have to get up soon. I love a rainy spring morning. I allowed myself to not answer the beckoning of morning duty. The newspaper rested on the front porch in it's plastic rain proof wrapping. The dogs still slept, the puppy warm against the old Labrador, on their tattered and chewed dog bed. My daughters, dreamed on, their mom alarm clock had not gone off. The green kettle sat on a cold gas burner. Soon enough, soon enough, the morning would begin. I smelled the lilacs, I watched the curtains blow in the wind, and listened as the sound of soft rain was out voiced by a clap of thunder.


April 17, 2009

Yack, yack, yack

Finally, I succumbed and agreed to adding unlimited texting to our wireless plan. Succumbed is the key word here, because I have no desire to type out words on little bitty buttons when I can open up my mouth and accomplish the same task. My fourteen year old daughter has been begging me for a week to get texting, promising all sorts of exaggerated promises. Promises, promises, the real reason I relented, is because she really is a good kid, and doesn't ask for much.

It is spring break in our neck of the woods, so she got a lot of practice using those little bitty buttons on her phone. Her friend Mindy texted her from the beach in San Diego and Matt from the ski slopes in Colorado. I watched as she typed in all the mundane info of her day and waited to hear about what they had for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner. She typed as we walked through the zoo and sent pictures of the manatees to everyone. Back and forth...all week long.

I was curious about just how many messages a teenage girl could make in five days. So together we looked up the online day to day tally. Before I loaded the page I said to her that I bet she sent 800 messages. She didn't believe me. I loaded the page...841 messages sent and just as many returned. Now, I know that it is a new toy to play with and that she was home all week, but really...

I thought about it awhile. Just how many little blurbs do all of us send out each day in every form of communication? Most of my communication with my daughters is in a word here and there. A few times a day, meals, for instance, we have longer conversations. My mom calls me several times a day. Sometimes she leaves messages on my answering machine. I talk to my sister and a good friend almost every day. What about the gal at the grocery checkout? The people you work with, etc. I wonder if we were to type in all those messages, rather than speaking them, just how many we would have at the end of the week? Maybe not as many as a teenager, but quite a few. Hmm.

April 10, 2009

The Perfect Purse

I needed a new purse, or at least, I thought I did. The perfect purse that I was carrying around at the moment wasn't so perfect anymore. Large and black, with a pretty pink lining, I was happy with our relationship in the beginning. I could slide a magazine in a side pocket and still have room for my courtesy card stuffed wallet. And yes, I lost my keys and cell phone ten times a day, but I like to carry around a lot of stuff and it was accommodating. Its suitcase like qualities were at a disadvantage in areas occupied by other people. I was constantly knocking little old ladies off balance, and clunking waist high children on the head. It was time for a new purse.

My first stop was Macy's. Past the perfume and cosmetics, there before me was an archipelago of purses. Thirty little islands displayed their goods each in it's own designer name kingdom. Macy's clearly knows the importance of the perfect purse. I wandered around a bit, lusting after several budget busting beauties. Temptation, didn't win this time, and I left Macy's, almost bored with the desire for a new purse.

I slung my suitcase of a purse in the backseat of my car and headed for T J Maxx. There, I found several like minded bargain hunters. We all unzipped zippers, hung straps over our shoulders, and stood in front of the mirror, all in search of the same thing. Not only does it have to hold all of our junk, the perfect purse has to look good, too. A powerful looking purse, some killer shoes, a good hair day, and all you need is a pair of jeans and a simple top.

We participate in this hunt, season after season, hoping to finally find that purse that has all the requirements. They are all the same, even in different colors and sizes, they hold our keys, phones and credit cards. I think it is all in the desire to satisfy that allusive eureka.

I didn't find the perfect purse, that day, but I'm still searching. I just went home and reached into the jumble of my closet and pulled out one that will do for now.

April 5, 2009

The Monster in the Basement

One day, after we had just packed the bags of the first monster that came to live at our house, another one set up residence. We had been laughing and enjoying our babies, happy to have survived what we thought was at that very moment the scariest time of our lives. The second monster was lurking, and he was laughing, too.

This monster was like a big fat, slimy green toad with evil gold eyes. His name was once whispered under a cupped hand, for fear that he might hear you and come your way. Cancer. Shh. He oozed his way around the house, leaving his slime everywhere.

We pushed and shoved the monster until we had him locked in the basement. We could hear him pounding on the floorboards beneath us, but we chose to ignore him, and went on with raising our babies. Unfortunately, he took a big bag of our money with him, and we had no choice, but to make do with what remained. We sighed, and went on with living. Sometimes the monster escaped, but for a while we managed to shove him back into his slick hole.

Then one day, ten years after he came to live at our house, he came upstairs and swallowed my husband whole.

April 4, 2009

The Attic

The view from my attic window is sky and the tops of old oaks and maples. In the spring I fling open the demi-lune and let the cool green scents of the new season whisk away the dull dry smells of winter. The summer brings in the sound of crickets, kids, and the smoke of patio cookouts. Window wide open to the last of the warm days, autumn is the best. Winter provides watercolor sunsets against black pen and ink branches.

This room, one of two on the third floor is what drew me to this house. I had dreams of putting in a studio where I could be creative and leave the mess behind, ready for the next snatched moment from the real world. The real world took over, which is how it should be, but I never forgot my original plans.
I did forget, on purpose, the idea of a perfect sanctuary. One day when babies became teenagers and puppies grew up and stopped chewing on shoes, I went upstairs and claimed the room as mine. I accepted the unpainted walls and the water stain on the ceiling and was thankful for the lovely half-moon window with the ever changing view.

I moved the junk from that room into the next and threw out all the old ideas that I never pursued. Finally, I surveyed the room and decided that it would do, until the next burst of energy. I sat down in a rocking chair and it was peaceful and almost quiet. I could just barely hear the sounds of my family, two floors below. I rocked and I thought, letting the world take care of itself for once.