My grandmother died last week. She was 91 1/2 years old, and I have to admit, there's a little part of me that didn't think she would die, that in a hundred years, she would be featured in a documentary about the world's longest-lived woman, and the documentary would be streamed via antennae implanted in people's molars.
I think that's what she would have wanted, too. The end came fairly quickly, from her normal level of functioning to deceased in about 2 weeks. (Granted, there were many downward steps on that normal level of functioning preceeding her death.) The week prior to her dying, she lamented that she needed to cancel the STA bus to the next day's bingo session. As her family sat vigil, taking turns so that someone was by her side twenty-four hours a day, the oxygen machine whooshing in the background, she vacillated between feeling rotten ("I'm just not getting any better!"), feeling lazy ("I'm just laying here like a bump on a log!"), and feeling withdrawn ("I'm sorry, but I just don't feel I can socialize right now..."), as her family stared at her. What part of this is she not understanding?
There's something about death that I find particularly intriguing. How is it that in the mental transition one goes through from "person exist-ing" to "person exist-ed", we take our doubts, fears, and insecurities about how we interact with other people, and place them on our memories of how we interacted with the deceased?
For me, I doubt that I am very patient with people who aren't as quick-witted as me. I fear that I treat some people like they are very stupid. And I am insecure about people liking me. I almost prefer they not like me, because then there are no expectations that I will fail to meet.
With Grandma now gone, I hear this tiny voice in my head saying, "You excluded her from many of your conversations - you talked to the people around her rather than with her. You treated her like she was too dumb to get what you were saying. And you didn't try to build a relationship with her, because then you might have been held accountable to...something. Someone."
It is awfully difficult to not listen to that voice. There's a part of me, purely emotional, that wants to nod my head vigorously, tears in my eyes, and say, "It's TRUE! I'm an awful human being!" But that voice is not named Reality. Its name is Grief.
Grief passes eventually. However, the potential for allowing inaccurate thoughts, frameworks if you will, into your subconscious, is hideously strong - and permanent.
I'm trying to let Grief talk, to say what it needs to say, without talking over Reality.
Sometimes Grief has prettier things to say than Reality. It's easier to blame yourself than it is to be realistic. "If I had done X, then Y wouldn't have occured." Yeah...maybe...but probably not. That "probably not" holds a truism that human beings don't like to admit: We are Insignificant. If I had (been on United 91 and known how to fly a plane), then (it wouldn't have crashed). If I had (been a slave owner and converted to abolitionism in 1700), then (civil rights would have been achieved earlier). Maybe, but probably not.
My examples seem preposterous due to their scope. I'll apply it to my grandmother, then.
"If I had (been more patient with her/included her more), then (she wouldn't have been so self-absorbed/would have shown more interest in the lives of her family rather than what the retirement community was serving for dinner)."
"If I had (been thankful for her taking me to the orthodontist), then (she wouldn't have made me feel like I owed her for her kindness)."
"If I had (not been so self-reliant as a child) then (maybe I would have let her feel more needed.)"
"If (my birth father had not died shortly after Grandma moved in with us), then (we would have been one big happy family where no one ever disagreed with anyone because my dad liked Grandma all the time and she wouldn't have gone psycho control-freak on me and my brother)."
Maybe, but probably not.
My Reality says I usually ignored my grandmother, but sometimes I made an effort to change my speech pattern, volume, and subject matter to something she wanted to converse with. I was usually bored with her complaints and imaginary maladies, but sometimes I tried to hide that boredom. My Reality says that we were never very good to each other, but in the end, I held her hand and kept a cool washcloth on her forehead.
When someone dies, we need to be honest with ourselves, knowing that we didn't second-guess our interactions at the time so there's probably no reason to second-guess them now. We need to be honest with our memories, letting Reality tell them, rather than Grief.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Abra-cat-abra
Truman had to pee. For once, he told me, rather than just lifting his little leg one inch and watering the inside of my house. I headed for the back slider to let him out, when I caught movement from the corner of my eye.
Above my kitchen table is a recessed light. From it, a spider was slowly dropping itself down...down...down...toward my cat, Lincoln, passed out on a placemat.
The spider swung gently in the air, and then I saw it - a very red spot in a sea of black, and a very large, very impregnated backside.
Shitshitshitshit where's the damn bug spray? shitshitshitshit
I threw open the cabinet underneath the sink and dug around. Trash can, 409, fire extinguisher. I hesitated, considering the wisdom of using a fire extinguisher to kill a black widow spider, especially when there would be a cat in between the spider and the extinguisher.
Common sense overrulled my panic, and I resumed my search. My darn father probably put the bug spray in my garage, next to the wasp killer and Ortho Home Defense. Sure enough, there it was. I grabbed it, hoping I wasn't too late.
I ran back into the kitchen, and saw the spider dangling inches above my snoring cat, oblivious to the danger that was about to befall itself right into his fluffy coat.
Crap, no time for bug spray. I set the can down hard on the counter and turned back to the cat. "Link, Link, wake up, MOVE."
The cat stirred, but returned to sleep.
"Sorry Linkie..."
I gripped the placemat he was asleep on, and dug my fingers into it. I took a deep breath, and yanked the placemat as hard as I could.
The spider dropped to the table. The cat flew several feet and bonked into the cabinet doors.
I killed the spider, cleaned up the carnage, and went to survey the collateral damage. Link wound around my ankles and looked up at me, his big green eyes gleaming: "That was fun! Let's do it again!"
Above my kitchen table is a recessed light. From it, a spider was slowly dropping itself down...down...down...toward my cat, Lincoln, passed out on a placemat.
The spider swung gently in the air, and then I saw it - a very red spot in a sea of black, and a very large, very impregnated backside.
Shitshitshitshit where's the damn bug spray? shitshitshitshit
I threw open the cabinet underneath the sink and dug around. Trash can, 409, fire extinguisher. I hesitated, considering the wisdom of using a fire extinguisher to kill a black widow spider, especially when there would be a cat in between the spider and the extinguisher.
Common sense overrulled my panic, and I resumed my search. My darn father probably put the bug spray in my garage, next to the wasp killer and Ortho Home Defense. Sure enough, there it was. I grabbed it, hoping I wasn't too late.
I ran back into the kitchen, and saw the spider dangling inches above my snoring cat, oblivious to the danger that was about to befall itself right into his fluffy coat.
Crap, no time for bug spray. I set the can down hard on the counter and turned back to the cat. "Link, Link, wake up, MOVE."
The cat stirred, but returned to sleep.
"Sorry Linkie..."
I gripped the placemat he was asleep on, and dug my fingers into it. I took a deep breath, and yanked the placemat as hard as I could.
The spider dropped to the table. The cat flew several feet and bonked into the cabinet doors.
I killed the spider, cleaned up the carnage, and went to survey the collateral damage. Link wound around my ankles and looked up at me, his big green eyes gleaming: "That was fun! Let's do it again!"
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Saying Goodbye
I'm not an intimate person. I don't especially enjoy hugs, except from my "inner circle" of my mom, dad, and brother. I keep a solid bubble around me at all times, psychically and emotionally.
Some may say that's a sad way to live one's life. "You're missing so much, the wonderful roller coaster ride that is true love." "You're missing so many amazing experiences, all because you're afraid you'll get hurt!" I can barely get over the pain of losing my favorite ten-cent Bic pen, and I'm supposed to be okay with a man showing me love and then taking it away again?
To fill the void of "other-ness" in my life, I have pets. Lincoln is my little buffalo of a cat, Trumie is my little silly-monkey Dachshund, and Ellie Bean was my sweet, sweet black purr-bucket.
For the two years that our family was complete, I felt like Lincoln enjoyed me, Trumie needed me, and Ellie truly wanted me. Wherever I went, Ellie Bean was on my heels. She treasured our Mom-and-me time whenever I was in the restroom. She loved having alone time with me (neither of the other fur babies were hardy enough to follow me into the restroom). Whenever I took a bath, she sat on the edge of the tub and dangled her tail in the warm water. She occasionally slipped, giving her hind end a dousing. Despite being sopping wet and desperate to get out of the tub, she never scratched me, my vulnerable skin lying inches away from her frantic feet scrambling for purchase against the porcelin.
She had it tough in the beginning. For the first few months of her life, she lived as bribary with a young, single mother and her child who can only be described as a serial-murderer-in-the-making. To get the child to sleep in his own bed at night, she got him a kitten. The young mother fed Ellie (known simply as "Black Cat" to them) dry kibble from the dollar store. She had a plastic cat box full of litter that I wouldn't use to gain tire traction in a snow storm.
The young mother would tell her coworkers stories of the funny things the son did to the kitty - locked her in the toy box, put her in the toilet and closed the lid, pulled her tail...Finally I said, "I'll take her."
Those three words gave me two years of joy watching the kitty flourish into a sweet, gentle soul with a luxurious black coat that Lincoln occasionally helped clean.
We all know that life is a zero-sum game. You start with zero, you accrue, you lose, you build, you gamble, and no matter how successful you are, you will always end back at zero. So what do you have to show for your journey on Earth?
Feelings, I guess. And Ellie Bean gave me feelings of pride, happiness, and love.
I miss you, Bean.
Some may say that's a sad way to live one's life. "You're missing so much, the wonderful roller coaster ride that is true love." "You're missing so many amazing experiences, all because you're afraid you'll get hurt!" I can barely get over the pain of losing my favorite ten-cent Bic pen, and I'm supposed to be okay with a man showing me love and then taking it away again?
To fill the void of "other-ness" in my life, I have pets. Lincoln is my little buffalo of a cat, Trumie is my little silly-monkey Dachshund, and Ellie Bean was my sweet, sweet black purr-bucket.
For the two years that our family was complete, I felt like Lincoln enjoyed me, Trumie needed me, and Ellie truly wanted me. Wherever I went, Ellie Bean was on my heels. She treasured our Mom-and-me time whenever I was in the restroom. She loved having alone time with me (neither of the other fur babies were hardy enough to follow me into the restroom). Whenever I took a bath, she sat on the edge of the tub and dangled her tail in the warm water. She occasionally slipped, giving her hind end a dousing. Despite being sopping wet and desperate to get out of the tub, she never scratched me, my vulnerable skin lying inches away from her frantic feet scrambling for purchase against the porcelin.
She had it tough in the beginning. For the first few months of her life, she lived as bribary with a young, single mother and her child who can only be described as a serial-murderer-in-the-making. To get the child to sleep in his own bed at night, she got him a kitten. The young mother fed Ellie (known simply as "Black Cat" to them) dry kibble from the dollar store. She had a plastic cat box full of litter that I wouldn't use to gain tire traction in a snow storm.
The young mother would tell her coworkers stories of the funny things the son did to the kitty - locked her in the toy box, put her in the toilet and closed the lid, pulled her tail...Finally I said, "I'll take her."
Those three words gave me two years of joy watching the kitty flourish into a sweet, gentle soul with a luxurious black coat that Lincoln occasionally helped clean.
We all know that life is a zero-sum game. You start with zero, you accrue, you lose, you build, you gamble, and no matter how successful you are, you will always end back at zero. So what do you have to show for your journey on Earth?
Feelings, I guess. And Ellie Bean gave me feelings of pride, happiness, and love.
I miss you, Bean.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
My cat is a nazi
Poor Ellie Roosevelt.
For several months, she's been straining to pee. Then, one evening while I'm taking a bath, I watch her jump onto the bathroom sink, climb into the porcelin divot, and use it as a bidet.
I took her to the vet, and he thought perhaps she had a urinary tract infection. Two weeks of twice a day antibiotics ("bubblegum flavored" - sure to win her over) and minimal blood loss on my part, she wasn't any better.
Back to the vet. The morning of the appointment, I can't find the cat carrier. Crap. I'm running late. On my way to the car, I call mom and ask if I can use their cat carrier. Sure, no problem. I start to back out of the driveway, and realize I forgot the cat.
I go back into the house, grab Ellie, and chuck her into the front seat of the car.
Not my smartest move.
Her feet never touched the seat, but rather stuck out every claw she still has and dug them into my dashboard. She hung suspended between the dashboard and the lip of the passenger side window. Good thing my parents, and the cat carrier, were only a block away.
I stick the cat in the carrier and prepare to back out of the driveway, when I notice something small rolling toward me, like a bug or something.
I wish it had been a bug.
Miss Ellie, in her stress and fear of levitating over the dashboard, peed. And the pee was rolling in-between ornamental crevices which were making me swear at Ford's interior designers.
At the vet's, she has an xray, and a not-good diagnosis. Bladder stones. Approximately 20 small, rock-hard spindly things that aren't unlike droplets of starfish.
She had a couple of surgeries and a week in the "cat hospital", and facing another surgery, before I could bring her home.
I let her out of the cat bag (newly acquired from Walmart), and she stepped carefully into the livingroom. Her body was shrunken from the stress of the hospital and from not eating well. Her long legs stepped gingerly to the sofa where she started to rub the antiseptic smell off of her.
It was then that I noticed her legs. At about where a human's elbow would be, she had two bright white bands shaved into her lush, black fur. She walked stiffly, each movement obviously causing discomfort. If cats can grimace, she was doing it.
The stiff legs, the bands, the grimace...I had a sudden urge to watch a World War II movie where good prevails over evil, and kitties prevail over bladder stones.
For several months, she's been straining to pee. Then, one evening while I'm taking a bath, I watch her jump onto the bathroom sink, climb into the porcelin divot, and use it as a bidet.
I took her to the vet, and he thought perhaps she had a urinary tract infection. Two weeks of twice a day antibiotics ("bubblegum flavored" - sure to win her over) and minimal blood loss on my part, she wasn't any better.
Back to the vet. The morning of the appointment, I can't find the cat carrier. Crap. I'm running late. On my way to the car, I call mom and ask if I can use their cat carrier. Sure, no problem. I start to back out of the driveway, and realize I forgot the cat.
I go back into the house, grab Ellie, and chuck her into the front seat of the car.
Not my smartest move.
Her feet never touched the seat, but rather stuck out every claw she still has and dug them into my dashboard. She hung suspended between the dashboard and the lip of the passenger side window. Good thing my parents, and the cat carrier, were only a block away.
I stick the cat in the carrier and prepare to back out of the driveway, when I notice something small rolling toward me, like a bug or something.
I wish it had been a bug.
Miss Ellie, in her stress and fear of levitating over the dashboard, peed. And the pee was rolling in-between ornamental crevices which were making me swear at Ford's interior designers.
At the vet's, she has an xray, and a not-good diagnosis. Bladder stones. Approximately 20 small, rock-hard spindly things that aren't unlike droplets of starfish.
She had a couple of surgeries and a week in the "cat hospital", and facing another surgery, before I could bring her home.
I let her out of the cat bag (newly acquired from Walmart), and she stepped carefully into the livingroom. Her body was shrunken from the stress of the hospital and from not eating well. Her long legs stepped gingerly to the sofa where she started to rub the antiseptic smell off of her.
It was then that I noticed her legs. At about where a human's elbow would be, she had two bright white bands shaved into her lush, black fur. She walked stiffly, each movement obviously causing discomfort. If cats can grimace, she was doing it.
The stiff legs, the bands, the grimace...I had a sudden urge to watch a World War II movie where good prevails over evil, and kitties prevail over bladder stones.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Leapin' Lizards!!!
Portland was my latest stop on my seemingly endless quest to garner myself an agent for my books. Mom came along, never one to miss an opportunity to buy unique fabric here-to-for unseen in this neck of the woods.
We came home loaded with bags of fabric, boxes from Ikea (that is a dangerous place for fairly-new homeowners!), and bags of books from Powell's. Mom dropped me off at my house, and went home to examine her treasures.
She sat on the floor of her sewing room and spread the fabric out around her. Cute swatches of teddy bear fabric, Christmas elves, kitties and pawprints, next to coffee prints, from under which shoogled a nasty little florescent blue lizard. It shimmied across the floor and found repose between the television and a fabric cabinet.
Mom flew to her feet and ran upstairs. "Doug Doug Doug there's there's a a come now!"
Doug figured out that something icky, and alive, was downstairs, so he donned his leather work gloves and brought a towel.
The lizard was still sitting in its hiding spot, further defining why it's an insult to be called "lizard brain." Doug reached down with his gloved hand and grabbed the squirmy bugger.
The lizard freaked out and dropped its tail. The tail bounced around on the floor for several moments, curling and straightening and curling again as it tried to make sense of being displaced from its body.
Somehow Mom's foot ended up on the glove which still held the very-much alive lizard body, Doug having removed his hand at some point prior. She stayed standing on it, fear paralyzing her.
"Are you going to move your foot?" Doug prompted her.
"Not until I'm sure it's good and dead."
"I think it's dead."
After Doug took care to shake out each piece of fabric individually, I ventured downstairs to see Mom's new stash. I was a little disappointed there was no chalk lizard outline on the carpet.
"Well, I suppose we got lucky," Mom said.
"How so?"
"Can you imagine if it had gotten loose on the car ride home?"
We came home loaded with bags of fabric, boxes from Ikea (that is a dangerous place for fairly-new homeowners!), and bags of books from Powell's. Mom dropped me off at my house, and went home to examine her treasures.
She sat on the floor of her sewing room and spread the fabric out around her. Cute swatches of teddy bear fabric, Christmas elves, kitties and pawprints, next to coffee prints, from under which shoogled a nasty little florescent blue lizard. It shimmied across the floor and found repose between the television and a fabric cabinet.
Mom flew to her feet and ran upstairs. "Doug Doug Doug there's there's a a come now!"
Doug figured out that something icky, and alive, was downstairs, so he donned his leather work gloves and brought a towel.
The lizard was still sitting in its hiding spot, further defining why it's an insult to be called "lizard brain." Doug reached down with his gloved hand and grabbed the squirmy bugger.
The lizard freaked out and dropped its tail. The tail bounced around on the floor for several moments, curling and straightening and curling again as it tried to make sense of being displaced from its body.
Somehow Mom's foot ended up on the glove which still held the very-much alive lizard body, Doug having removed his hand at some point prior. She stayed standing on it, fear paralyzing her.
"Are you going to move your foot?" Doug prompted her.
"Not until I'm sure it's good and dead."
"I think it's dead."
After Doug took care to shake out each piece of fabric individually, I ventured downstairs to see Mom's new stash. I was a little disappointed there was no chalk lizard outline on the carpet.
"Well, I suppose we got lucky," Mom said.
"How so?"
"Can you imagine if it had gotten loose on the car ride home?"
Monday, August 9, 2010
Officially Unamerican
While in NYC, Jon and I saw the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and of course, Macy's at Herald Square. Nearly everything about the city is iconically American, and our itinerary reflected it.
Except for Ground Zero. We never did get there, and I feel hideous admitting this, as if I'm renouncing my own mother, but: I'm not sorry that we missed it.
Why do we feel compelled to pay homage at sites of extreme sadness? We know it happened. We're in a city celebrating our freedom to move freely about the country. Why make a point to stop somewhere that is only going to make us feel awful for having fun? Heck, it'll make us feel bad for even being alive.
My hypocrity is further evidenced by my planning for my next big trip in a couple of years - I want to go to Germany and Poland, and do the World War II thing. Is it that Ground Zero is still too fresh? The wounds too raw to hold up to examination?
We went to the NYC Police Museum. I'm especially drawn to things I cannot do, such as police work, spy work, and cook decently. What should have been a bit of a lark on the itinerary ended up being both Jon's and my favorite stop. The artifacts on display were fascinating, heartwrenching, inspiring. Coming face-to-face with the twisted metal remnants of the lights of a destroyed police car was hard. It brought immediacy to the experience that, before, was something that happened clear across the country from me. Standing in a warehouse building, looking at the blackened shoulder radios and dirty work boots, I began to understand what a devastating violation 9/11 was.
While Jon and I didn't journey to the actual site of Ground Zero, we left NYC with a renewed respect for emergency service personnel. Politics aside, the remembrance of sacrifices that were made that day was tucked into our suitcases alongside our books on the history of the Empire State Building and NYPD T-shirts. We brought those sights home with us, and our world became a little bit smaller.
Except for Ground Zero. We never did get there, and I feel hideous admitting this, as if I'm renouncing my own mother, but: I'm not sorry that we missed it.
Why do we feel compelled to pay homage at sites of extreme sadness? We know it happened. We're in a city celebrating our freedom to move freely about the country. Why make a point to stop somewhere that is only going to make us feel awful for having fun? Heck, it'll make us feel bad for even being alive.
My hypocrity is further evidenced by my planning for my next big trip in a couple of years - I want to go to Germany and Poland, and do the World War II thing. Is it that Ground Zero is still too fresh? The wounds too raw to hold up to examination?
We went to the NYC Police Museum. I'm especially drawn to things I cannot do, such as police work, spy work, and cook decently. What should have been a bit of a lark on the itinerary ended up being both Jon's and my favorite stop. The artifacts on display were fascinating, heartwrenching, inspiring. Coming face-to-face with the twisted metal remnants of the lights of a destroyed police car was hard. It brought immediacy to the experience that, before, was something that happened clear across the country from me. Standing in a warehouse building, looking at the blackened shoulder radios and dirty work boots, I began to understand what a devastating violation 9/11 was.
While Jon and I didn't journey to the actual site of Ground Zero, we left NYC with a renewed respect for emergency service personnel. Politics aside, the remembrance of sacrifices that were made that day was tucked into our suitcases alongside our books on the history of the Empire State Building and NYPD T-shirts. We brought those sights home with us, and our world became a little bit smaller.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
