bread and wine

My mother-in-law is dying. I know I've said that before. But this time, it's for real.

Here's what it's like, right now...

For twenty minutes every day, you stab little watermelon chunks with a fork, swirl them in the juice at the bottom of the bowl, and wait for her to open her mouth, the sign that she is ready for the next piece. The rest of your day is go, go, go, but during this time, you stop. You are present. You stare at the lines in her face, the colors of the blankets, the shape of her body under the covers. You try to memorize it all: every color, every curve, every sound.

How ignorant I was then! How could I possibly have thought that artichokes and strawberries somehow constituted some sort of "Last Supper"?! People who are dying don't eat artichokes and strawberries! People who are dying eat...watermelon.

 People who are dying say things like, "a loaf of bread and a jug of wine", and expect you to know what they're talking about. Last Supper, indeed! The only thing your small mind can conjure up is Jesus, until she gives you another clue. You have to ask for it three times, until you finally make out her whisper: "The Rubaiyat...... Omar Khayyam".

And then you mention that you wished you had your computer, because you'd look it up. The dying person knows what he/she wants, and tells you to look it up on your phone. She may be 86 years old, but she knows that you can find anything you want on a phone!

 Thank goodness the caregiver has a smart phone, even if you don't.

 And so you begin to read (I highly suggest you read this aloud.  Just do it.  Please):

 Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight 
 The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
 Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light. 

You scroll down to see that there are "CI" verses. So you go to the middle, somewhere at random, and read aloud some more, filling the room with rhythm and rhyme:

 And we, that now make merry in the Room 
 They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom 
 Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth 
 Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom? 

 Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, 
 Before we too into the Dust descend; 
 Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie 
 Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End! 

You succeed in barely not choking up and crying. And then, in the scrolling, you see it. And of course you read it. Aloud.

 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, 
Wilderness were Paradise enow! 

We're getting close, friends. This person is gone.

two things and more

My husband has been gone these past two evenings, leaving home around six-thirty, to be up at his mother's before seven, the time at which the shift of "Bill's Girls" ends...
But that's another story.

Having this time "alone" with my boys, I forget to:
1. think about Dinner,
2. prepare Dinner,
3. clean up after Dinner, and
4. clean up after cleaning up after Dinner.

Don't get me wrong here, my husband appreciates everything (just about) and anything (almost) I manage to get on the table. And likewise. And I really do enjoy it when we all sit down to Dinner, and light the candle, and say nummy-nummies, and talk non-stop about our days. Or at least try to. Usually the conversation does a degenerate doublebackhandspringdismount off the table and into the sewer by the time Dinner is over. Such is family life with three boys.

For the past two nights, though, it's been dinner. Frozen pizza. Michelina's microwaveables, single-serving yogurts, Wheat Thins and cream cheese, juice....whatever else they can scavenge for themselves in the kitchen that requires the bare minimum of preparation. Can't say as I blame them.

Meanwhile, I take a bath. When Bennett interrupts my bath to tell me he wants to listen to Christmas carols, I ask him to ask Grant to put on the Traditional Christmas Carols Pandora station for him. He wants the music on to help him finish up his GT geocity project that's due tomorrow. Grant robotically does what is asked, then returns to his Manga book, which he borrowed from his friend Mika who borrowed it from a friend. In the back of my mind, I think, "That's what makes a book truly good." Even though I could never read it.

You people who have no kids, yeah, I'm talking to YOU! You have NO EARTHLY IDEA what parents and teachers go through during the weeks before Christmas. It's just one deadline and due date after another. Book Project? Check. Final GT project? Check. Scrooge Musical? Check. Orchestra Concert? Check. Concert Band Performance? Check. Poem Memorized? Check. Goodies baked for teachers? Check. Goodies packaged and labeled for teachers? Check. Goodies in backpack to take to teachers? Check.

And those are simply the activities that my family experiences outside the bounds of The Little School. LSV has its own built-in stressor (not counting The Ball and Medieval Day and Robin Hood Family Book Club!): The Beta Quadrant Show. In Three Days. I know what overwhelming satisfaction and happiness will come after we've successfully pulled it off, so it's worth it. But the working up to it....... it's just so much.......work.

After my bath, I plan tomorrow's LSV schedule with an attention to detail that would make someone with ADD proud (because they do, you know, pay exasperating attention to detail. When they want to.).

What was the main idea of this story again?

Oh yeah, I got to spend time with my boys this evening, just helping them with projects, and hanging out. Which brings me to the fact that all I originally started out to say in this blog post is that I would like to share two funny things that made me laugh tonight, one involving each of my sons.

Bennett's gem: Up in his bunkbed, while hugging me good night, he asks, "What, exactly, is the meaning of humbug?"

"It means when you.....you know, when you feel.....well, it means...it means humbug."

Seriously, that was my answer. Good thing the boys thought it was hilarious. Remember when you first realized that some words truly have no definitions? They just ARE? And that to know the word, you have to know so much more than the word? You need its context, its story, its period, its character. Having just played the young man Ebenezer in Scrooge, and actually getting to say "humbug", well... he realized he already knew what it meant.

As for Grant, tonight he finished writing the entire Desiderata in calligraphy. Of course, it's not in any kind of font I tried to teach him, like Carolingian or Gothic. No, of course not. Instead, it's his own script he "invented". Then he refused to use lines under his parchment (ugh!)..... , and refused to start over if he made a mistake (ugh!), but damn! he wrote THE WHOLE FUCKING DESIDERATA in calligraphy! By candlelight. And now he wants to make copies of it, bind them, and sell them at SPQR on Thursday night during the Medieval Fair portion of the show.

Only one small problem while trying to make the copies ... the printer wouldn't work. Grant had just replaced the ink cartridge, and something was wacky. Right at the point when he was most peeved at the printer, I casually, only a bit cruelly, said, "You know, there's a low-tech answer for every high-tech question."

He turned on me as if I were a vampire and he had a wooden stake in his hand. "No. Way. I am so NOT copying this whole thing over ten times. No Way."

It was at that moment, I think, that he truly got the whole "Writing During the Middle Ages" thing. Oh, he knew it on an intellectual level, how monks spent years of their lives copying manuscripts, and about the importance of words and the significance of access to them. But this was visceral. And it was terrifying.

And it was very, very funny.

a letter that turned into a poem

cornered
your pants down
while from your mouth, pain
ricochets
from the wall to the mirror to your second son to me
like khet
with the eye of horus
splitting your 84 years of shit into angry lasers


no longer will i
after 5 pm
endure the bombardment of
vodka-laced two-way tasers
killing
your anubis

a bath and an artichoke

I wish I could express to you how honored I felt to bathe Phid, with the help of the CNA, of course, in the monster jacuzzi tub they have at Pikes Peak Hospice. It is an amazing piece of machinery. To see it in action made me momentarily super grateful to be living in the first world in the twenty-first century.

While I was washing her hair, trying to be gentle, she said, "Oh, Sue, give it a good scrub!" So I dug my fingertips into her scalp, and massaged the heck out of it. Then I rinsed off the shampoo with the shower nozzle and watched the water cascade over her face and neck and shoulders and I could imagine how cleansing that must feel. After a good long bubbly bath, and a washing of the feet, we swaddled her in about a dozen warm blankets, wheeled her back to her room, and applied lotion all over her 83-year-old body. The CNA (also named Sue) and I worked well together, as she is one of those people who recognizes that she is not just doing a job, but performing a sacred duty.

After Phid was all tucked into her fresh linens (the bed seemed to miraculously make itself while we were in the tub room) and about to slumber off, she opened her eyes, looked straight at me, and asked, "What about my arteechock?"

Crap!

She had mentioned wanting an artichoke twice before, and we just hadn't done it yet! I told her I'd go right away and make her one. I'd be back at 6:30. I bought three artichokes at Safeway, while a friend explained on the phone how to prepare and cook them. I had never cooked an artichoke before.

At 6:15 I called her and she answered with a smile behind her voice: "Artichokes take longer than you thought, don't they?" Yes, they do. I told her I was picking Sarah up at 7:15 and I would be there at 7:30 with her artichoke and her daughter!

Sarah and I "set the table", placed the mayonnaise and melted butter nearby, and let her at it. It was a pleasure to watch her hands, as they nimbly performed the duty they had obviously done so many times in the past. Sarah and I shared another. Then John and the boys showed up with grilled Korean steak from a neighbor's barbecue. I tore some of the tender meat into little pieces for her, and she devoured them ever so slowly. Then the strawberries she had ordered three hours ago finally arrived!

After living on toast, a few bites of tomato soup and a few spoonfuls of pomegranate applesauce for a couple of days, this meal was a veritable feast!

why i love my mother-in-law

Nurse: Are you in any pain? Do you need any medication?
Phid: Only emotional pain... and morphine won't help that.
Nurse: You'd tell me if you were in any physical pain, though, right?
Phid: By George, I'd raise the roof!

phiddy

Phillis Watkins Spengler is dying. I am honored to sit beside her, doing nothing. If I even try to gently cover her exposed left foot with a warm blanket, she quips, "Oh Sue, stop fussing!" There is nothing left for me to do but sit and wonder.

I wonder about the secrets she is taking with her off into her afterlife.

I wonder what she sees in her mind's eye.

I wonder what it feels like to know that you are dying.

I wonder about the cruel, beautiful irony of crossing over just as the apricot trees blossom here on earth.

I wonder at the miracle of being able to stand on two feet, and then to walk, and then to run.

I wonder how long it will be now.

because when i say "bunker's cabin", i want you to know what i'm talking about

summer, '09:










It's where John proposed to me. One of the tattered old log books still holds proof of that Labor Day weekend, 1995.

It's where I asked him, "If a bear came and attacked me, what would you do?" and he answered, "Run like hell!" Which at first I misunderstood entirely to mean he would run away, but after a thorough explanation from him, I learned that he meant that he would sacrifice his life for mine.

It's where we took my mom once when she came to visit Colorado. Before she got cancer. We cross country skied for several miles up Burnt Creek.

It's where I spent Thanksgiving, 1998, with friends I don't see much any more, but still hold close in my heart, because they are friends who have known my husband longer than I have.

It's where I baked a pumpkin pie from scratch when I was six months pregnant with my firstborn for previously mentioned Thanksgiving dinner.

It's where we passed the Summer Solstice of 2009, after I had just finished a year's worth of cancer hell. (pics above)

It's where the latest log book now holds entries from my sons.

It's where, during Spring Break of 2010, we froze our butts off at night, skied while the world was advesperating, and tried to forget (for a little while) about all the life changes coming our way very, very soon. (pics below)

spring break, '10:












It's where, next summer, we will return with fishing gear, and the boys will catch some trout while I rest on a log beside Cliff Lake and do nothing but watch and listen to them.

You know, sometimes it's good to question statistics. To closely examine the method behind the numbers. To be a critical thinker. But when somebody I love (Hi, Nancy!) sent me these percentages recently, I just took them on faith. Sadly enough, they just felt correct.

During my father's years on this earth, our nation was at war 13.5% of the time.

During my years on this earth, our nation has been at war 17.5% of the time.

During my son's years on this earth, our nation has been at war 37% of the time.

During my grandchild's years on this earth, our nation has been at war 63% of the time.

To think that our nation has been at war for almost two-thirds of my children's lives is just so..... so..... so..... fucking crazy! And now Obama is committing more troops to Afghanistan. Thirty billion dollars and a year and a half later, where will we be?

As many of you know, my husband spent much of his childhood in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the son of a diplomat. I love to sit at his mother's table and listen to her and John remember. I marvel at the adventures of a young family in a foreign land. Unpronounceable (to me!) names of people and places roll off their smiling tongues and then, somewhere between the first and second martini, it all turns into one gigantic sigh.

I experienced this same phenomenon last month, when my family and I went out for dinner at Rumi's Kabab to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. By the end of the night, Shams (the owner) had pulled up a chair, and the boys and I listened to more stories of the glory days of Afghanistan. Again that happiness, as John and Shams shared stories of markets and travels and mountains. And then, eventually, that same heaviness, the profound melancholy of something lost.

I know we can never get the Bamiyan Buddhas back, but I just hope, one day, that the people in that region will know some sort of relative peace. And when they do, I am fairly certain that it will have nothing at all to do with us.

happy frickin' anniversary

June 23, 2009
Last day of a 30-day course of radiation. No Problem! Piece o' cake compared to chemo! Feel great! Garden sprouts! Hair and a Tan! New pink bicycle! Summer! Dancing!

REWIND (cue scratchy backwards record sound)

July 24, 2008
Husband informs me (as soon as I am all happy-dreamy-post-orgasmic) that he felt an abnormal lump in my breast while we were having sex. He shows concern. I choose to go into instant denial, and don't even dare look at or touch myself until the next day.

July 25, 2008
Leave for a two-night camping trip near Princeton Hot Springs for the weekend. Spend the time soaking and hiking and trying not to touch it or to worry. It's the weekend, and figure can't get in to see the doc 'til Monday anyway. Still in denial.

July 27, 2008 - late Sunday night in my own bed after two nights of camping
Cry. Because I know.

July 28th - early Monday morn
Call to make an appointment with Dr. Zirkle, my young and handsome PCP. He's not there, so I see a woman NP who fondles my right breast with a questioning look on her face. Don't remember her name, but she makes an appointment straight away for a diagnostic ultrasound the next day. Call Sara on the way home. Cry. Pick up boys at the Burkles for what they thought was a playdate.

July 29, 2008
Diagnostic ultrasound. Suzanne shows up. I thought I wouldn't need anyone. It's just a little test, after all. Glad she's there, after all.

"Right breast diagnostic ultrasound dated July 29, 2008, shows a dense breast parenchymal pattern with an abnormality corresponding to a 2.1 cm cm in greatest dimension, hypoechoic lesion with irregular margins." Oh crap, a whole new vocabulary to learn; the exact one I never ever wanted to learn. They want to schedule a needle biopsy next week... the only way to know for sure if it is cancerous or not.

Hysterically, tearfully, tell whoever will listen that I DON'T HAVE TIME! BY THE TIME MY MOTHER WAS DIAGNOSED, SHE WAS AT STAGE 4! DON'T YOU GET IT PEOPLE?! I DON'T. HAVE. TIME! Get biopsy scheduled for 31st.

Dammit, I think to myself, here we go...

July 30, 2008
Wait.

I decide to tell no one else until I get the biopsy results...no sense worrying others about something that may turn out to be nothing. There's a pretty good chance, I keep telling myself, that it might be, you know, like a cyst or something.

Get mad at husband for telling his mother, because I don't want her to worry about me. Then quickly realize that he needs someone to tell as well.

July 31, 2008
I return for an "uncomplicated" ultrasound-guided needle biopsy. John comes with me this time. I learn another new vocabulary word: Axilla. Think it would make a great name for a Sci-Fi badass female character or a Derby Dame. Learn it's really just a complicated word for "armpit". Still think it would make a great name.

July 31-August 5th
Wait.

Try to do the laundry and talk with friends and read to the boys before bed. Every day is an eternity. I remember a band called 'Til Tuesday. I just have to make it 'til Tuesday. Because that's the day I'll get the results.

Spend my waiting days with a 2 cm secret, a stoic smile, a welcoming kitchen table and an even-keeled telephone voice. I am not one for holding in anything, so this is a particularly difficult time for me. For once, I ask more questions of others, instead of talking about myself. Lying in bed at night, I barely hold on to my sanity. Give me chemotherapy any day over this hell of not-knowing!

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
The second anniversary of my mother's death from breast cancer. I'm invited to what sounds like a lovely garden party, but I just can't make myself go. I can't believe that the world keeps spinning, that people keep going to work and making love and having parties. It just doesn't seem right.

Morning of August 5th, 2008. Tuesday.
I know the moment the nurse opens that door into the waiting room and calls my name. I can see it in her face, hear it in her voice. John and I stumble through the door, take a thousand steps down the hall, and are ushered into a tiny conference room on the right. The wonderful, motherly, optimistic ("this doesn't really look like cancer") radiologist who performed the biopsy all those years (6 days!?) ago isn't in the office today, so a man who knows absolutely nothing about me presents me with a huge white binder and these words: "You have invasive ductal carcinoma." Just like that. They don't even say cancer. Bastards.

Afternoon of August 5th, 2008
In order to occupy my mind, I try and accomplish some menial household tasks. I empty the dishwasher, slowly, dish by dish, taking note of each one, how it feels in the hand, how it shines in the light. After that, I simply end up pacing the house or lying on my bed. Doing "normal" things takes on a surreal edge. A hyper awareness permeates my every move, every step, every breath, every word. I am restless, and in shock, and don't know what to do with myself.

Evening of August 5th, 2008
I call Mike Carsten to see if he is working. He is. I ask him to make me a Cosmo and tell him I will be there soon. John stays home with the boys. I predict this will be the first time I ever sit at a bar alone and tell the bartender my problems. When I walk in to 15C, I am somewhat relieved to see Bettina and Aaron sitting at the bar. I sit down in front of my drink, and ask Bettina for a cigarette. After a slow sip and a deep inhale, I look at Mike across the bar and utter, matter-of-factly, "I have breast cancer." That singular moment will be etched in my brain forever.

Sara shows up. I drink another pink Cosmo. Bettina tells me I have a "pass", so I smoke one more, or maybe several more, of her pink Camels.

August 6, 2008
My first day of school. I am hungover and miserable and sitting in a meeting at 8 am. At least my boss knows, as Sara had the forethought to call her from the bar last night and tell her.

I want to drink and throw beer bottles out into the street and hear them crash.

July 31, 2009
So you see, here we are now, exactly a year later. From the end of radiation until about a week ago, I felt like a million bucks. Reborn. Then last week, emotions (but not necessarily memories) began surfacing, unbidden, and at inopportune and unexpected times.

Perhaps I felt them more because we were on vacation, relaxed, and I was more in tune with myself and not engaged in the daily duties of home.

In the "tummy of the Earth" (as Grant called it-otherwise known as Wind Cave), my body went into shock, and I cried for the stillness and the darkness of it all, yet happy in the knowledge that our complex planet has no concern for our trivial human problems.

My anger resurfaced for no apparent reason one morning at the Coach House (John's childhood vacation home in Wisconsin). In the process of making scrambled eggs, I went out onto the porch and threw an egg at a tree with every bit of strength I had. To hear it splat gave me great satisfaction!

While riding on country roads, I felt again that hyper awareness, that surreal edge. I felt as if I could ride forever among the cornfields and silos and old cemeteries.

Now I'm home. The summer is coming to a close, and another school year is about to begin. My mind and body are sorting out the events of the past year.

Welcome to Year 2.

bennettism #101

In an honestly frustrated, nearly angry voice: "But I just don't get it, why is it named after a magazine?!"

Bennett - while discussing whether or not we should go see Battle of the Smithsonian this afternoon.

Grandma's influence on my children will be everlasting. At our house, they read Horrible Harry and Harry Potter; at Grandma's house, they read The New Yorker, Tintin, National Geographic, and, yes, Smithsonian..