Category: Life

Of Goodbyes, Long and Short, and Birthdays

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Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. Three years ago it stopped being a happy occasion.

On his birthday three years ago, we stood next to each other, all lined up in fancy clothes, alongside his father’s casket. Pop had passed away two days before after a short and unexpected illness. Some of the people at the wake remembered that it was my husband’s birthday and awkwardly wished him a happy birthday along with offering their condolences.

It was weird, and a pretty crummy way to have to spend a birthday.

The other day we gathered with my mother-in-law, as well as my husband’s sister-in-law and 3 nieces, to attend a Mass for Pop. After that we got some pizza. No one made sure there was a cake, or candles. No one even sang or suggested the idea of it. You don’t commemorate the anniversary of a death with a birthday cake and a rousing chorus of “Sto Lat*.”

My mother-in-law did not call her son yesterday to wish him a happy birthday. I don’t know if she remembers that his birthday was Sunday; during the past couple of years it has become apparent that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s. On Friday evening, after we got home, my husband confided that it’s really hard for him to see his mom like this.

Hard as it was to lose Pop, his illness was mercifully short. In early August of that year, we were arguing with him that he should see a doctor because of a few symptoms he was having. By the 24th he was gone. In between those two points were a horrible couple of weeks in which my husband spent his time shuttling between his job and his parents so that his mom could get to see Pop in the hospital. There was no time to think about what might happen, what it would be like with Pop gone. There was no time to think about anything.

Now, all he has is time. He knows that he is losing a little bit of his mom with each passing day. It’s just a question of how many days will pass before a family agreement must be made, because the time will come (sooner rather than later) when she cannot continue to live on her own. In many ways, already, she is no longer “on her own,” depending on my husband and his sister-in-law for things like errands, food shopping, paying the bills, doctor visits and filling her medication organizer.

This is an awful way to lose someone.

Right now, what is lost is the short-term memory stuff: the “where did I put my keys” and the taking medicine as scheduled and the writing out of checks to pay bills. But we know what’s coming. And the hardest loss of all, I think, will be the loss of the relationship: the time when she no longer remembers her son, when she cannot recognize her grandchildren.

One way (out of many) in which my husband and I are opposite is that he is a relationship person and I am a logistics person. It’s something that I admire and am frustrated by, sometimes in the same minute. But while I worry about his mom largely in terms of the logistics, he is grieving, in advance, the loss of the relationship with his mother, even as he must deal with the logistics of her physical needs.

And that is a pretty crummy way to spend a bithday.

*”Sto Lat” is a Polish happy-occasion song. The lyrics, loosely translated, mean “May you live 100 years.” In my husband’s family, it is always sung at birthdays.

 

To love, honor and obey

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Every January, my Secular Franciscan fraternity celebrates with a ritual called Extraction of Saints, in which we are assigned a patron saint for the year, a virtue to develop, a maxim to live by, and another fraternity member to remember in special prayer.

This year, my virtue was Obedience.

I knew I was in for it when that one came along. Ask God for a virtue and He’ll generously respond with a challenge to help you get there.

This is not to say that I think God is in any way responsible for the medical condition (endometriosis) that led to my recent surgery. I don’t think that’s how things work. But that surgery is an opportunity for me to use God’s grace to grow in virtue.

It’ll be another three weeks, at least, before I’m allowed behind the wheel. I can’t be running down the basement stairs, hauling laundry, mopping, vacuuming, and bending over to get heavy pots and pans out of the cabinets.

They sent me a babysitter in the form of Mom for this week, to make sure I don’t do anything I shouldn’t. Next week, my husband will be working from home with the same end in mind. But I admit, I’m not super-tempted to cheat at this point. Thought about it on Monday, then reconsidered.

The resentment about not being able to do my usual things is evaporating. Offers of help from friends are accepted, tough though it can be for me to let someone do things for me. Grace has been busy, I guess. And I am very blessed, and very grateful.

 

Hello, yes, it’s been a while…

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Here I am, hanging out on the couch at home. I am recovering well thanks to the insistence of my family that I spend this time resting. They even sent for a babysitter in the form of Mom, because I definitely require that kind of policing.

My house has never been so clean.

Middle Sister held down the fort in the after-school hours quite admirably last week. She cooked, cleaned up, and fussed at the hygiene-averse Little Brother.

Once I recovered from the Evil Epidural from Hell, which kept me semi-anesthetized and completely glazed over for several days before I said no to drugs and kicked the double vision, I was on my feet quickly. My incision is smaller than what I was led to expect, and it’s held together by Crazy Glue. (Don’t go there. Yes, it’s probably appropriate.)

I got very good care at the hospital, but a separate rant about facility design is in order. But the staff? Top notch.

Awaiting My Marching Orders

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A tale of woe, told in as many cliches as I can dredge up.

I’m in a bit of a holding pattern these days.  After nearly 2 years of post-hysterectomy complications, which have resulted in (in no particular order) regularly-scheduled pain and bleeding, visits to 2 different GYN-oncologists, 2 MRIs, 1 CAT scan, innumerable ultrasounds of the invasive variety, a few rather unpleasant tests at the urologist’s, 1 burst ovarian cyst resulting in 1 missed Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, and 1 cyst drained “just in time” of 1/2 liter of fluid, my GYN has finally decided that it’s time to shut down the rest of the system.  The plan is to remove my ovaries to cut off the estrogen supply that’s feeding my endometriosis.

I have a cyst larger than my own fist in my left abdomen (they always show up on the left.)  It’s painful, and it takes up a good amount of space.  Hence the wearing of the sweat pants (or, as Little Brother insists on calling them, athletic pants) as much as possible unless I have to actually get out of the car, in which case I suffer through the wearing of the jeans.

Frankly, I’m going to be glad to get this over with.  Even though it means going to a hospital with “Cancer” in its name.  I have not been diagnosed with cancer, but my GYN says that this doctor is the best surgeon to deal with the type of problems I’m having.  I keep telling myself that when I freak out a little bit about the name of the hospital.  I keep telling my husband that when he freaks out about the name of the hospital.  And I hope that none of my kids check the caller ID on the phone, because the word “Cancer” comes up in the name when I get the robo-call to confirm my appointment.

On Tuesday afternoon I’ll see the surgeon and receive my marching orders.  Until then, I have no time frame, no plan.  Anyone who knows me knows how crazy that makes me.  I’m guessing that something is going to happen soon, because my GYN said that they’ll want to take care of that cyst before it explodes on its own.  It could be done separately, or together–whatever the specialist decides.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or more accurately, back at the split-level), I’ve got a part-time writing gig that would have to go on hiatus, I’ve got arrangements to make for leadership at Secular Franciscan meetings, I’ve got kids to drive around, I’ve got “work to be done–an estate to be run–a boy to raise.”  Other than laundry and cooking, the bare minimum is getting done around here because physical stuff like scrubbing, vacuuming, mopping and taking down curtains is painful.  If I feel good enough, I do it.  Otherwise, I let it go.  There’s been a good amount of letting it go lately.  There have been afternoon naps, probably because I’m a little too keyed up to sleep well at night.  There’s been a lot of comfort eating.

I don’t feel like baking cookies, I don’t want to start up another sourdough starter, and there’s no use making a meal plan for April when I don’t know what April’s going to bring or when it’s going to bring it.  Other than Instant Menopause–I know I’m going to get that after the surgery.  Won’t that be fun for everyone lucky enough to live with me?

Meanwhile, I wait, and I worry.  I go to the high-school musical to take my mind off things (50 kids tap-dancing on the biggest stage in the county will do that for you).  On Tuesday, I’ll drive to Philly and find out how things are going to go.  And then I’ll drive home in rush-hour traffic and get on with it.

You Just Never Know

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The Leaning Tower of Beverages

It was a rough night last night at the Tech Week Dinners.  Nothing bad happened or anything, but through a perfect storm of my usually-barely-controlled social anxiety, a heavy introvert tendency, and my current hormonal state, I really wasn’t dealing with even a small disturbance in the force field I prefer to generate around myself at all times.

And that force field was breached when the sweet and energetic mom who coordinates these dinners asked me to bring the muffin trays to the table where some other moms were setting out bagels.  Instant Mom-timidation ensued.  I was wearing a red t-shirt, tan capris and running shoes (after all, I was carrying 5-gallon jugs of lemonade, mixing iced tea, and standing for three hours on end.  I was dressed for the job, apron and all.)  They were wearing fashionable wrap dresses, strappy sandals, and coordinating jewelry.  But that’s not all.  The Mom-timidators launched into complaints about a lack of tablecloths, centerpieces and matching balloons.  For a pancake-and-bacon dinner for 75 teenagers in a high-school cafeteria.  Then they started lining up the butter, syrup and jelly in perfectly straight lines.

To be fair, these moms did nothing and said nothing that should have bothered/upset/intimidated me.  Really, they didn’t.  I’m sure they’re perfectly lovely people, but I can’t know that because I couldn’t stay there.  As soon as I could, I got out of the Mom-timidation Sector and went to my Cozy Corner with the big stack-o-beverage coolers and got busy pouring lemonade and iced tea.  I vented a bit on Twitter, just to blow off a little steam.

A friend came over at one point to tell me some funny stories of things that had happened to her that day.  That was well-timed, though I’m sure she doesn’t know it.  (She may have seen those Tweets of Desperation, though).  It gave my brain a break from dwelling on my completely irrational response to the Mom-timidation that I was completely aware I was imagining, but couldn’t stop myself from feeling.

When dinner was over, I cleaned up the drink stuff and headed home.  It took a while to wind down from my strange emotional response, which I’m seriously hoping didn’t show on my face all evening.  And this morning, I got a quick email from the lovely Tech Week Dinner coordinator, thanking me for showing up, stepping up, and jumping in and getting things done.  She’s very faithful and very sincere about thanking people.  And boy, that 3-sentence email could not have come on a better day.

Yet another friend saw those Tweets of Desperation and tweeted me this morning to make sure I was OK.  (yes, and thanks!)

The moral of the story is:  you probably never know the effect you are going to have on people.  So if you have the chance to do so, have a good effect on someone.  Send them that quick “thank you” email.  Give that compliment.  Tell that funny story.  Especially if someone has that Deer-in-the-Headlights look, like I probably did yesterday.

To the folks who came to my rescue, intentionally or not:  thank you!  I love you!

Stuck in the Middle with You

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It’s the Sandwich Generation Blues.  We are, quite literally, right in the middle of it.

Two out of three of our kids can’t drive yet, and one’s not old enough to be left at home alone while I run to Shop-Rite.  So I’m still in the middle of the Mom’s Taxi Years.  Between the hours of 3 and 9 PM, it’s hit or miss whether you’d be able to find me at home.  You’re more likely to find me in the jughandle at the intersection with Route 130 on my way to or from the high school.  And that’s OK.  It’s where I expected to be at this point in my life.

But now, my husband is grappling with the dilemmas his family faces; his mom, a widow, is no longer able to drive due to deteriorating health.  Her ability to live alone is quickly waning–more quickly than she or other family members are willing to admit.  And we live 75 miles away.

It’s frustrating and difficult.  I’m juggling kid-transportation, attempting not to think about some unresolved health issues of my own, and generally trying to keep all the wheels spinning here at home while he works hard, manages his mom’s finances, and runs a 50-boy Cub Scout pack.  Oftentimes, his head is not in the game when he’s here, because he’s worrying about other things–important things.

There’s a lot of “woulda, coulda, shoulda” going on, a lot of conflict with family members who aren’t on the same page.  He keeps most of it to himself; he almost never wants to talk about work, but today he did unload some of the burden of what’s been going on within his family.  We had breakfast at the diner, which we’ll have to stop doing soon, because this is about to affect our budget in a big way, so we could get out of the house and talk through some of this.

Sometimes I get that guilty feeling because I think I should do more, but I don’t want to.  And I don’t think it would work out well if I did.  I know he’s hurt, though, that I don’t.

Meanwhile, I try to keep those wheels spinning here at home.  I try to be flexible (whenever possible) about his extremely erratic arrivals for dinner and sudden changes of plans, though I often fail to be gracious about them.  That’s a part of his burden that I should be willing, as well as able, to shoulder.

We’re stuck in the middle right now, and he’s going to need to be able to lean on me.  I have failed in so many ways.  Now, I pray for the strength he will need, and that I will be strong enough and generous enough to be his support.

Rejected

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Opposites might attract when it comes to spouses, according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, but I don’t think it works that way in mother-daughter relationships.

Right now I’m responding in a completely irrational manner to my daughter’s announcements that, 1, she’s going vegetarian for Lent, and, 2, that she doesn’t want what I was going to make for dinner tonight either. Completely irrational. Because I’m feeling rejected by this. She doesn’t get that. Not only does she not get it, she’s mad at me.

But I have lost all steam in the dinner-prep process after she started making herself a bean burrito. We can’t both cook in the kitchen at the same time anyway–the room is too small for that. So I left the room. I’m being ridiculously oversensitive and I can’t seem to stop it.

Cooking is a big part of the way I nurture my family. I work around the silly preferences (she’s off soy sauce; Big Brother doesn’t like corn) and the dietary needs (husband with gout, Little Brother with lactose intolerance). I make broccoli that they like instead of Brussels sprouts that I like. I enjoy cooking and making meals that my family likes. And then TheDad skips dinner every Spaghetti Night and Middle Sister (and now Little Brother) announces that tonight’s meal is not a favorite.

I cannot believe I’m sitting here losing it over the dinner plan.

 

Break It To Me Gently

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Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for our inability to bring you the Finale that we promised.
–Leading Player, Pippin

In the play, the promised Grand Finale cannot take place because the title character has chosen something better.  Sometimes it works that way in real life, too.

The production of Pippin in which Little Brother was one of a troupe of only 12 actors has had its two final performances canceled–for good reason.  One of the lead characters (the Leading Player) is mourning the sudden loss of a close family member.  The director wisely decided that the best course of action is to cancel the remaining performances, out of love and respect for this actor.

There are times, and this is one of them, when the show must not go on.

A cast of 12, as you can imagine, gets pretty close-knit after three months of rehearsals.  Most of the actors have known each other for quite a while already.  Definitely, the right thing to do is to close the production and focus on supporting this actor in his time of loss.

This is not the Finale we were promised.  It’s not the semi-happy ending you expect for a musical comedy.

The hard part is still ahead.  One actor has to get through this time of grief.  The others will grieve for him.  Cast, crew and band alike will miss the opportunity to celebrate a spectacular Closing Night.  It’s not the way they want to say goodbye to each other.

It will be difficult all around.  Little Brother doesn’t know yet; I’m putting it off until after school.  I didn’t learn of the cancellation until it was almost bedtime last night, and I figured that it would be better not to try to send him off to bed or school right after hearing upsetting news.  (I did tell him that the actor had a death in the family, but that’s all he knows at this point.)

Little Brother invests himself very deeply in the cast of a show.  I’ve seen it happen with The Wizard of Oz and MAME.  Even with this show, after opening weekend was over and there were no more rehearsals, he was sad that he’d have to wait Five Whole Days to see everyone again.

This afternoon I’m going to have to disappoint a little boy.  That’s nothing compared to what one actor is going through, but for a nine-year-old, it’s still a pretty big thing.  I hope that I can help him put aside his own sadness at closing the play early and focus on someone else’s sadness.

When we discussed the question of whether Little Brother would be allowed to audition for this role (the theatre is quite far away and it would be a huge time commitment) my husband observed that being in a play would be a very enriching experience.  At the time, we believed that all it would mean for Little Brother would be growth in confidence and exposure to culture.  We did not expect–surely we should have, but we didn’t–that it would also prove to be a time in which he would learn important life lessons.

Rivers belong where they can ramble,
Eagles belong where they can fly.
I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free
Gotta find my corner of the sky.

In your kindness, remember S. in his time of loss.

Just for the Record

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I’m not taking away the refrigerator magnets.  Other than this one time, they’ve been a source of fun for the kids and I do want to keep it that way.

But before the teens reappear next week, I’m open to suggestion for what the next message (posted by me) should read.

An Empty Nest, an Apology, a Reprieve, and a Thank You

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This week, the only kid we’ll have at home with us is Little Brother.  The other two kids are off on vacation with their friends who generously invited them along.  Lucky kids!  I won’t miss the all-day, everyday consumption of Dr. Pepper, Ellio’s pizza, and pretzels that seems to happen when my teenagers are around, but I’ll miss their company nonetheless.  So will Little Brother.  (I’m trying to plan a little extra fun into his week).  That’s the Empty Nest part.

The young man with the colorful vocabulary has come forward to apologize.  We’re glad about that.  And he was rather eloquent about it as well, expressing his regrets for his lack of respect to my daughter, to me, and to my family.  That’s the Apology part.

And now we’ve got six more days before there will be any teenagers around here.  That will give everyone a chance to cool down, and–I hope–a fresh start next weekend.  I’ve got a big sense of relief right now.  I’m glad that a confession and an apology took place before Middle Sister departed for the shore.  I’m glad for the opportunity to take a bit of a break so I can start fresh next week.  And I’m glad we stuck to our guns on this issue, even though my daughter doesn’t “get” what the big deal was.  Hopefully, one day she will.  And that’s the Reprieve part.

Finally, the Thanks part, in which I express my gratitude to you for your show of support in the comments, and for the prayers that I am certain strengthened me through the rest of this week.  Thank you ever so much!