worth celebrating

December 26th, 2008 by jackie

This was my second Christmas spent entirely alone.  And just like last year, I hardly felt lonely at all.  Hardly.  There were moments, but they were few and short lived.

It doesn’t hurt that I probably spent close to four hours on the phone.  With five different people, of course, not just one.  I talked to Mina this morning, Bossy in the afternoon and to both Pat and AE tonight.  I also talked to my brother, but only long enough to laugh at the retelling of his nephews’ responses to gifts.  “I only got forty dollars in cash this year,” said one.  And “This isn’t what I wanted,” said the other.

My forty dollars and the gift I didn’t want would have been taken away from me if I had pulled that on my parents.

It was a good day, though.

I had a stack of gifts from friends that I staggered throughout the day.  All were simple and some were hand made and I loved every one of them.  I particularly love that my friends always remember the dogs.  They did just as well as I did.  Poor Grey, though, gets forgotten.  But I knew that and went out and got her some little catnipped mice earlier in the week.  I even let her unwrap the tissue paper and loosely tied ribbon.

I cooked a lot.  Last night I made curry and samosas.  This morning it was was scrambled eggs, bacon (good good bacon) and some monkey bread.  I then snacked on the monkey bread and bacon throughout the day–so didn’t need any lunch at all.

Dinner was an event.  I made chestnut soup for the first time, and it was amazingly good.  I also made Country Style Steak a la Alton Brown, mashed potatoes and rolls.  (There were carrots and celery in the soup! That’s enough veggies, right?)  I messed up the mashed potatoes, though, by adding too much milk.  But then my own little Christmas miracle happend (I roll my eyes at me) and I remembered mashed potato casserole from an episode of America’s Test Kitchen.  I looked up the recipe and all was saved.  I added a beaten egg, stuck it in a small casserole dish and sprinkled the top with panko.  It was done in 30 minutes.  Which gave me time to eat the soup and wash some dishes.

I cracked pecans for awhile this evening, with the intentions of making two mini-pecan pies.  I never got to it, though.  I’ll make some hot cocoa to take to bed with me and use the pecans another day.

The best part about today, though, is that it was the first day that my back felt okay.  It’s not completely better, but it’s not at all keeping me from doing anything.  It’s just a little sore.  It’s amazing how good a mood you can be in when the pain goes away.  It’s certainly worth celebrating.

That’s wrong.  The best part about today is that it was a good day.  That I let myself take the time to do all the things I enjoy doing (cooking, talking on the phone, watching the Sex and the City movie extras, watching Jacques Pepin, and being with my pets (aka my family)) the things I love doing with no guilt and no but-I-should-be-doing-x thoughts.  And no feeling sorry for myself for being alone.   There’s no reason to feel sorry for me–I had a good day.

And now I’m going to make that hot chocolate and go get in bed and read–so I can also have a good night.

Healing

December 22nd, 2008 by jackie

When you lose someone you love it breaks you down.  There is so much grief and mourning.  So much is lost.

When my parents died, I didn’t just lose them.  I lost contact with most of my mother’s extended family.  I lost the house that was home for so long.  I lost my hometown.  I lost faith for a bit.  I lost joy for awhile.  I definitely lost focus and decision making capabilities for so long i ended up in therapy for two years.

And I lost part of my identity. I’m not anybody’s daughter anymore.  I am no longer a caretaker.  I’m not someone who drives two and a half hours home every weekend.  I’m not my mom’s little girl; I’m not my dad’s best friend.

All of that is so hard to deal with.  Because not only are you missing someone like mad and aching to be able to see/touch/hear them again, but you’re also becoming someone entirely different in the process.

But there’s good, too.  And you’re life is destroyed if you don’t look for it.  And my strongest faith is that when we look for good we are bound to find it.

You reform your identity.  For me, it’s meant I’ve become incredibly independent.  I’m stronger, braver than I was before.

Your love for them doesn’t disappear but it’s kind of left without a target and so you find other places to direct it.  Some people I’ve known have found second mothers, father figures, friends or lovers.  I’ve found the ability to love the things my parents loved.  I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors but now I love it passionately the way my mom did.  And I find that I enjoy music and foods that were favorites of my dad’s that I never thought twice about before.  I see the world through their eyes a bit and find I love what they did.

You become someone who understands.  When you walk with death you can’t help but learn a few things about life and about people.  For instance, if a friend suffers a loss I know not to ask, “What can I do?”  I know they don’t have a clue.  You’re asking the most overwhelmed person you know to think of a task for you.  And while it’s kind to ask to be assigned a job, it’s not fair to expect them to figure it out.  So, instead I ask things like, “Can I bring by some napkins and paper plates?”  Or “Is there anyone I can pick up at the airport for you?”  Being specific is a blessing.

I haven’t done this yet, but some day when someone I am close to loses a loved one, I’m going to offer to write the thank you notes for donations, food, flowers, etc.  That was the hardest thing I did after my mom’s funeral.  It was so hard I simply never did it after my dad’s.

You, or at least I, have a new appreciation for how short life is and how unpredictable it can be.  I’ve become more spontaneous and courageous.  Or I’ve become more impulsive.  However you want to look at it.  But I like it, and I like that I don’t let fear hold me back as much.  One shot at life and this is it.  That’s probably the greatest thing that has come out of all of this for me.

Suffering a loss breaks you down.  But there’s healing, and there is growth.

The pain doesn’t stop and it doesn’t necessarily ever hurt less, but you learn how to manage; how to negotiate with it.  If you don’t let it hold you down, you become better because of it.

Another Saturday night and I aint…

December 20th, 2008 by jackie

It’s 10:30pm on a Saturday night.

It’s not a typical Saturday night, but not highly unusual, either.

I am sitting in my pj’s, a sweater, thick socks, and my new brown, cuorderoy slippers.  It’s 30F outside, but will get down into the low teens overnight.
The dogs are outside, and probably wanting in soon or now.

Grey is alseep on the back of the sofa.

I’m drinking a cup of decaf.  This is atypical for me.  I’ve never really wanted/needed decaf before.  It’s, perhaps, a sign of age?  Or coldness.

I’m watching The Iron Chef.  Rick Bayless is competing against Bobby Flay.  As with most episodes of The Iron Chef I pay some attention, but not much, until they get to the end and serve the judges.  Rick Bayless makes me laugh.  And I want to eat Bobby Flay’s chile relleno.

I’ve got the Christmas tree lit up, and may not turn it off tonight. Should be dark and gloomy in the morning and it’ll be nice to wake up to.

The dogs want in NOW.

I spent most of the day either resting my back or doing laundry.  My washer and dryer are in a workroom/wash-house in the backyard, and I wanted to get it done before the weather turns colder tonight.  I changed my sheets and then washed all my blankets and all the dogs’ blankets.

I went to dinner with a friend and then to the Greek diner to pick up a last gift (a bottle of rosewater) for Hollywood.  She and I decided to do gifts this year with rules.  We can only spend $10 and must get more than 2 things.  I’ve gotten her a sausage, a pack of orange gum, a bottle of rosewater, a suduko (sp?) book and a coffee mug with a handle on each side and “the morning after mug” written across the front.  I think I had more fun finding/buying her gifts than anyone else’s.

After The Iron Chef is over I’m going to bed and reading until I finish the book or fall asleep.

Start to finish.

December 19th, 2008 by jackie

More of the tomatoes.
MayTomatoes early June
June

Tomatoes Early July
July

End of the harvest.
December

A good night.

December 18th, 2008 by jackie

Monday I spent several hours in the back yard picking up pecans.  We’d had a hard freeze and a lot of wind on Sunday, so there were a ton on the ground.

Yesterday I did a lot of cooking including three batches of marshmallows (plain, mint, and rosewater.)

Today I cut up and separated and bagged the marshmallows, ran a few errands and then made cheddar beer bread and a big fat ham with apples (Sugarcane Glazed Ham with Apples if you want specificity.  And by mid morning I realized that my back was officially out.  It hurts all the time, but is manageable until it’s time for me to stand up, and then it takes about five minutes for me not to feel 90 years old.

I’m going to take it much easier tomorrow, and if I don’t even do dishes it’ll be okay.  I do not want to make it any worse by pushing myself (more than I have.)

My group of friends had our Christmas party tonight (hence the ham and bread) and we did our Secret Santa exchange.  I got a lovely basket of goodies from Secret Santa (oh! another new friend in need of a pseudonym!) Red.  The basket was filled with gourmet goodies like salami, crackers, cheese spreads, cookies and a large bottle of French lemonade.  He does a lot of metal work and makes jewlerly, so he also made a beautiful bronze bracelet for me.  It’s too big and slides of my hand but he says it is easily adjustable.  So next time I go over (he, Iris and Hollywood live around the corner from me) I’ll be sure to take it with me.  I love it.

The party was wonderful.  We ate a ton of good food, exchanged gifts, chatted and joked and laughed until we couldn’t breathe and then ate a delicious chocolate mint cake for dessert.  More chatting.  And I’m finally home in my pj’s just before midnight.

I have two grade change requests to make tomorrow and then I’m completely done for the semester.  I’ll go in around noon so I can have lunch with Babs.  And then I’m going to come home and sleep and/or read and get up as little as possible.

It will be a good time to work on my cover letter (finished updating my CV on Monday.)

Allie is telling me its bedtime and there is a painkiller with my name on it in the bedstand.

Part 2ish

December 17th, 2008 by jackie

I didn’t mention before and should for clarity that between my father’s cancer diagnosis and my mother’s death my poor brother got divorced.  His wife left him one day in the middle of July.  Shortly after my mom was put in the hospital, he started dating a woman and they quickly became engaged.

After my mom died, my dad and I became much closer.  We were already close, always had been.  I was close to both my parents.  But after she died it was as if I kind of took her place as his best friend.  We talked every day, and I went home most weekends.  We even started going to the movies–something we hadn’t done together since I was in fourth grade (ET had been the last one.)

The holidays that year were odd.  He and I drove to Dallas to spend Thanksgiving with my brother’s fiancee’s family.  It was good that there was something different to do, I think.  It was weird and awkward–as neither of us cared for the fiancee or her family–but we had each other and it wasn’t nearly as sad as it would have been if we tried to do the big turkey dinner at home.

At the moment, I’m not remembering Christmas or Hanukah that year.  Hm.  It’ll come to me later.

In October my dad was complaining about a backache.  When I, or anyone else, suggested he go to the doctor he said it was pointless because they’d just tell him to exercise to build his abdominal muscles and he was too tired to exercise.

Then one day in late November, I think, he was at work–he was a machinist–and fell off one of the cement steps at the back of the building.  He tore his rotator cuff.  And as they did x-rays and such for worker’s comp, they found a mass behind his kidney.

His doctor didn’t like the look of it and sent it to his oncologist.  It was mid December at this point.  His oncologist didn’t like it, either.  They scheduled for him to be in the hospital for several days, right after the new year, to run tests.

My dad asked me not to tell anyone, particularly not my brother who was getting married on New Year’s Day.

I didn’t.

We went to the wedding, and I remember my dad having to get out of the way and go sit a lot because his back was hurting so much.  The drive there and back was hard on him, too.

And that Monday night we went to dinner with his GP and his wife.  He had been my mom’s GP and they were all friends from the synagogue.  We went and had Chinese food.  We talked about my brother’s wedding a little, but mostly about what kind of tests he wanted run on my dad and what we should expect.

The next morning we checked him into the hospital.  When my brother got back from his honeymoon that night my dad called him from the hospital and explained what was going on.  Tests.

A PET scan taken on Tuesday found tumors between each vertebrae in his spine.  A larger mass behind his kidneys.  Masses in his lungs.

The cancer had metasticized.  Quickly.  They believe now that the cancer did not originate in his salivary glands, but somewhere else deeper in his body that was hidden by organs during previous scans.

They started radiation immediately.  My brother drove down a day or so later.

Dad was doing well, though, all things considered and they sent him home on Saturday.  My brother and I both started back to school on Monday and so had to (had to?  Hell.  I fight myself about that all the time) go back–him to Dallas and me to Lubbock.

He had appointments on Monday and Tuesday with various doctors.  I was driving back on Wednesday night to go with him to get his prognosis from the oncologist.

When I walked in the door–just two days later–I saw what looked like a pharmacy on the kitchen counters.  One of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen.  There was oxycontin.  Morphine.  Steroids.  And a host of other things I couldn’t pronounce.  And each of them were labeled with sticky notes detailing when he was supposed to take them.

He was a little delerious that evening and not hungry at all.

I went into his office to check some things he asked me to look over.  Bills, to be sure he had gotten the amounts and dates right.  An e-mail he needed to answer.  That kind of stuff.  When I came back into the kitchen he asked me to look outside.  He said something went outisde that wasn’t supposed to and he couldn’t get it to come back in.  What?  He couldn’t remember.  There was nothing out there.

That night I could hear him talking in his sleep from the other side of the house.  I’d only ever heard him snore before.

That morning as we drove to the doctor’s office he kept talking.  To someone.  But it wasn’t me.  This had happened all morning, and I’d ask him to repeat himself or ask him who he was talking to and he’d snap out of it.  But in the car, when he said something (and I wish I remembered what it was), I said, “Dad?  What did you say?”  And he said, “I’m having a conversation and there’s just no room for you in it.”  And I laughed, then he laughed, and we laugh/cried the rest of the way there.

My dad was always the funniest person in a room.  Cancer didn’t stop that.

In the waiting room he saw a woman he knew.  It ended up being a woman they had met during my mom’s treatment.  She had MS, too.  She didn’t know my mom had died.  And I could tell she knew something wasn’t quite right with my Dad, but she didn’t say anything.  She was very kind.

His name was called and we went back in.  The nurse took his vitals and asked a ton of questions about how he was and how the medicine was doing and reminded us of what the side-effects were.

The doctor came in.  Two weeks.  He said if we did nothing, my dad had two weeks.

I was 31, sitting here with my dad who was 58 ten months after my mom died at 56 hearing that he had two weeks.  Two weeks.  If we did nothing.

Chemotherapy would extend that.  By how much, he didn’t know.  But we would get him checked back into the hospital that day and they’d start chemo first thing in the morning.  Because of his weakend state and because he lived alone they said he might need to be in the hospital for the entirety of his chemo treatment.

Not a problem.

He sent us home to pack up some things.  They’d call us when a room was ready.

We went home, called my brother and updated him, and as I packed his things I asked him if this is what he wanted to do.  He said it was his only option.  I told him it wasn’t.  That he could stay home and I’d stay with him and we’d deal with it.  But he said no.  That he had to try to fight.  And so I packed him up, we got the phone call, and I took him and checked him in.

That was around 5pm, I think.

I sat with him in his room until 10:30pm.

They had him on a lot of pain medicine, and he kept asking for more.  The oxycontin.  The morphine.  They weren’t touching the pain in his back.  And he became more delirious.

“I love peas and carrots,” he said in almost a little boy’s voice as he physically went through the motions of eating.

Later it was, “Let’s get this thing on the road and see how fast it’ll go!”

Later still he managed to turn sideways on the bed and sit up with his legs over the edge.  He asked me if I’d come over and see if I could figure out what was wrong with Word Perfect.  It wouldn’t let him indent the synogauge newsletter the way he wanted to.

And after several hours of that and the pain and still being in shock about hearing “two weeks” I started crying.  And in a moment of lucidity he looked up at me.  I told him I was sorry for crying, and he said, “I’m just so sorry you’re having to go through this again.”

And that’s the last thing he ever said directly to me.

One of the nurses came in and saw me crying.  She told me I should go home and get some sleep.  They’d call me if anything changed.

I got my stuff together and was out the door into the hallway, but went back.  “I love you.”  He didn’t hear me.  But that was okay.  I said it.  For the first time in probably ten years.
I went home at 10:30pm but couldn’t sleep. The phone rang at 11:30pm.  It was a nurse.  She immediately said everything was fine.  She told me they had to put him on oxgen.  It was helping him breathe and relax a bit.

That was the phone call, I figured.  You always get called from the hospital once during the night.  So I went on to bed.

And then the phone rang again at 12:30am.  He had stopped breathing.  They were doing CPR, but I should come up immediately.

I was there in about fifteen minutes.  I went up the elevator and down the hallway toward his room.  And a male nurse I hadn’t seen before looked at me, and I could tell he saw my resemblance to my dad.  He stopped me.  “Miss Rosenfeld?”

And I knew.  And I started crying.  And he hugged me.

They asked if I wanted to see him.

And I remembered how my dad said he regretted being there with my mom as she died.  That he hated that was his last memory of her.  So, I said no.

They took me to a seat and gave me a glass of water.  They asked if there was anyone I needed to call right away.

And I hope there is never ever a harder call to make than that was.  It was an hour and a half past my brother’s birthday when he anwered the phone.  I don’t know what I said.  Could I have just said, “Dad died”?  I think that’s what I said.

A two week prognosis became less than twelve hours.

My brother asked if I wanted him to come home right then.  No.  I told him to wait until morning.  Get more rest, get himself together before driving.

I went back to the house.  And got into bed for about ten minutes.

Then I got up and found my mom’s obituary on the computer and rewrote it for my dad.  While I did that I got onto The Usuals and posted.  And SJ was online and was so sweet and so kind and chatted with me for a little bit.

Then went through his closet and pulled out his suit.  I picked a shirt and tie and some socks.  A tie pin.  A yamulke.  His talit.

I couldn’t handle the silence and so called his best friend in Denver.  She didn’t answer.

I went through his drawers and began bagging stuff up to donate to the disabled veterans. I found his porn stash.  And like a good friend, took it to the dumpster.

I bagged up all his medicine so that my brother didn’t have to see the pharmacy I walked in on.  I found his life insurance policy, his pre-need contract with the mortuary, and his second mortgage insurance.

His best friend called back.  I talked to her for at least an hour.  Was hard to tell her, but not nearly as hard.  She was very comforting.

I think I fell asleep for a couple of hours after that.  I remember my sister-in-law calling to tell me my brother had left and would be there around 10:30am.  So it must have been 8am.

The phone rang again shortly after that and it was a friend of my dad’s from the synogauge.  She was crying and saying how terrible it was.  I asked how she knew and she said the hospital had called her.

That seemed strange to me as she wasn’t on any of the paperwork.

Then she said, “Both of them.  I can’t believe it.”

Through a lot of crying I figured out that she wasn’t talking about my father.  But instead his GP.  The one we had just had dinner with a week and a half before.  He and his wife had been at a conference in Dallas, but when he heard about my dad’s prognosis and readmission he and his wife started driving back.   He fell asleep at the wheel, and they crashed into a semi.  Both died.

And then I had to tell her my dad died.

And then hang up and sit in a house all by myself, and think about that night we all had dinner and how two weeks later I was the only one still alive.

Losing my dad was harder for all kinds of reasons.

I was completely alone.
I didn’t have him there to support me.
It wasn’t expected.  There had been no time to prepare.  Even as I had driven home that night I was worried about the chemo treatments, not about whether he’d make it through the night.
I had to tell my brother.
His dying wasn’t just “my father died,” but “my parents died.”  Within 10 months of each other.

The funeral was two days later.  By the end of February we had cleaned out the house, settled his will, and had all the various paperworks taken care of.  That summer I went up to Denver and became my 95 year old grandmother’s power of attorney, cleaned out her house (40 years of stuff to go through), and sold it (my dad had put her in a nursing home a few months before he died.)

And then life went on.  Because it does whether you want it to or not.

My mother died on 03/03/03.  My father on 01/16/04.

Almost six and almost five years ago.

I spent the first year or so afterward in a kind of paranoid fear that my brother was going to die.  Both my parents were only children, so he is really my only blood relative that I have contact with.  And to lose him might destroy me.  So with all that bad luck on my side, I just knew it had to happen.  Until the day I went to the doctor and he detected an irregularity on my EKG and sent me right to the ER because he was afraid I was having a heart attack. All was fine, it was a reoccurring heart murmur.  But then my greatest fear was what it would do to my brother if I died.

And I, of course, hated God for awhile.  And then decided that he hated me.  But I’m mostly over that now.

I know my situation and how I lost my parents isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to anyone.

My parents GP and his wife that died?  They had a 16 year old son.

I know that I was very blessed to have such good, caring, loving parents and to have them as long as I did.  I know that I am lucky to have my brother and that we made it through that situation together and stronger for it–and that doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes it tears families apart.

But I know it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.  The hardest thing.  The thing I worry I’ll never get over.

the hardest years I’ve known (part 1ish)

December 16th, 2008 by jackie

They were the hardest years I’ve known, 2002 - 2004.

My dad had a knot behind his right ear.  He thought it was a swollen gland or cyst.  Only it kept getting bigger.

After a few weeks he went in to the doctor.  They did a biopsy.  This was in March of 2002.  He called me when the results came back and said they were inconclusive.  A few hours later my brother called me, and I could hear my then-sister-in-law crying in the background.  My dad had called in after my mom fell asleep and told him the real results.  Cancer.  That they knew for sure.

And oh look.  I’m not wanting to write anymore.

My mom had been sick for sevearl years.  Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.  She was paraplegic at this point, but with minimal use of her arms and legs.  So, naturally my dad wasn’t quite sure how to deliver the news to her.  They had sent the biopsy to a cancer center in Houston for more definite results (not the ifs, but the whats.)  He decided to wait until that information came back to tell her.

After I talked to my brother I called my friend Richard.  I was in San Angelo finishing my BA.  We drove down by the river, sat on a picnic table, and shared a box of Godiva chocolates.   I don’t even remember if I cried.  I was shell shocked.

The next few months kind of blur by.  It was adenocarcinoma, and was found in his salivary glands.  He had the glands removed, but nothing was found in his lymph nodes.  He went through a lot of radiation, and since it was so close to his head he had to have all of his teeth removed.  My dad had great teeth–one cavity in 58 years.  And poof, they’re gone.  Though I am sure for him it did not feel like a poof.

I remember when I found out he had to have them removed.  I was on a post-graduation vacation.  I was out on the East Coast visiting friends and staying in a fancy schmancy hotel.  It was my 30th birthday, and I was alone.  I called my parents, and ended up with my sister-in-law on the phone.  And she told me.  And said that it was happening the very next day.  Which was his birthday.  I cried a whole lot that night.  Over teeth.  But not teeth at all.

He made it through the radiation and all was fine.  He kept all his appointments with his oncologist and oncology surgeon.  No problems.

I moved to Lubbock to start grad school.  Sometime over the Christmas break my brother and I were driving somewhere.  Couldn’t tell you now where.  And we started talking about my mom.  She was getting worse.  Was very almost quadraplegic and a great deal more depressed than usual.  And also very forgetful.  As in not remembering what time of year it was.  And was always repeating herself.  For the first time he and I talked about death.  Hers.  And how we knew she wouldn’t make it to old age.  Maybe another ten years?

On February 10 I was sitting in my tiny little TA office getting ready for class when my dad text messaged me.  He had never done that before.  It said something like, “Not an emergency.  Taking mom to hospital.”  I called him immediately.

She had a bed sore that had gotten really bad.  Her doctor wanted her to stay in the hospital for a few nights on a special kind of air mattress that would relieve the pressure on the sore.  No big deal.

I went home that weekend.  She was fine but on a lot of pain medicine for the sore, so she was kinda loopy.  I stayed with her in the hospital both nights so that my dad could get some sleep at home.  During the night she had a few hallucinations.  Completely awake she was convinced I had brought Allie (my dog) to the hospital with me.  Weird.  But whatever.

The next day she was sure she saw my cat Grey peaking out from behind the flowers…in the wallpaper.  My dad and I went to the cafeteria to eat and when we came back she said my brother had been by to see her.  My brother was still in Dallas.

That kind of stuff.

But, you know, pain meds.  Whatever.

I didn’t have a class until late on Monday.  So I was going to drive back after I took my dad’s dog to the vet I had worked for a few years prior.  They knew at this point that my mom needed to be in the hospital a few more days at least, and my dad wanted some sedatives for his dog for fear of separation anxiety.  So, I was there talking to the vet, and he agreed that might be a good idea.  Prescriped some doggie-valium.

And when I got back into the car I noticed my dad had called my cell phone.  They had moved her ICU.  She had stopped breathing for several minutes.  I called my brother and called people in Lubbock to say I wouldn’t be back until the next day at the soonest.

I stayed the night in ICU with her.  I had costume designs due in class that Thursday.  My mom was an artist and I knew she’d be able to help me.  She was on oxygen, but otherwise seemed how she had earlier.  And she did help.  Told me where I needed to make an arm longer and how to make the legs proportionate with the torso.  We talked a lot that night.  And I remember her telling me how proud she was of me and my brother.  And how even if we weren’t her kids she’d want to be our friends.

My dad came by when he got up so that I could go home and get some sleep before I drove back to Lubbock.  And she was telling me to be sure to drive safe and pull over and nap if I needed to when she suddenly gasped very loudly and then began to seize.  Only I didn’t know that’s what was going on.   She was just convulsing and making really strange noises.  I ran into the hallway and called for help and felt really, really strange.  The nurses came in and then a doctor and they confirmed that she had had a grand mal seizure.  That she was fine, but would likely sleep for the next ten hours or so.

I went home and crashed.  My dad called me a few hours later and said that she had woken up after three hours, but immediately had another seizure, and was asleep again.

She had gone septic.  From the bedsore that was no big deal.  She was on life support by the end of the day.

The next several weeks are kind of blurry.  I went home every weekend.  I talked to my dad every day.  He would go by the hospital on his way to work and again on his way home.  When I was there I’d go for him at night.  I’d talk to her and hold her hand.  I know there were appointments with social workers and nursing homes and all of that.  I remember finding out things about MS and the advanced stages that I still wish I didn’t know.  But it’s blurry.
Then it was Saturday, March 1st, and I heard the phone ring while I was in the shower.  I heard my dad’s voice but couldn’t hear what he was saying.  When I got out of the shower and dressed, he came back to my room.  It was her doctor.  He said it was time to make a decision.  That he didn’t see her be able to recover.  But that it was up to us.

There wasn’t anything to talk about.  We knew.  We knew what she would want.

My parents had always raised us to believe first and foremost in the quality of life.

I called my brother.

We’d do it Monday morning.  The funeral could be Tuesday.

We were supposed to meet the doctor at 6:30am before his rounds.  He had convinced my dad that he should stay through until she passed.  That it would be the closure he needed.

My brother would never go in to see her in ICU and that morning was no exception.

I went in with my dad.  The cantor from the synogauge was there.  Then the doctor came.  We talked, we prayed, he turned off the machines.  She continued to breathe.  After a few minutes I knew I couldn’t stay anymore.  I went back to the waiting room and sat with my brother.  Then my mom’s best friend came.  And she went in with my dad and was with her when my mom died.  We could hear her friend cry, and my brother reached over and held my hand.

And then we went to the grocery store.  That makes me chuckle a litle because it’s just like us.  All of us.  Not necessarily to turn to food, but to turn to domesticity.  To creature comforts.

The rest of the day I made matzoh ball soup, made all the family phone calls because my dad just couldn’t, and started keeping a record of all the food that was brought over and by who.  And then I wrote her obituary.

I’m torn between pushing through or stopping for now.

I didn’t want to tell these stories for the sake of the funerals.  I’m happy skipping them altogether.  I remember them with tremendous vividity.  Not going to forget them.  But I was scared that if I didn’t write it down I might not remember that the last thing I heard my mom say to me was that she wanted me to drive safely.  And that she was proud of me.  And loved me.

And there are things about the last week or two with my dad I don’t want to forget either.  But I’ve gone as far as I can go tonight.

And I’m sorry for the over-exposure.  I’m sorry if any of this has made anyone feel uncomfortable.  If it has, I hope you stopped reading and moved on to something happier or naughtier or cuter.  This one is all for me.

So, to be continued.

Gusty

December 15th, 2008 by jackie

Dust storm in Lubbock

We had our second dust storm in a week today.  This picture is the one from Monday.  We were expecting snow the next day, and I had visions of terra cotta colored flakes.

The South Plains of Texas is known for its wind.  Fast, hard, and either very warm or very cold.  Tonight I went out to run errands and the wind felt like one sharp icicle pushing into my skin.

Right now it is 20F but with 22 MPH winds it feels like 5F.

But the wind can make things very beautiful, too, I think.

Blowing in the wind.Blowing in the wind.

Blowing in the wind.

Getting to know me…getting to know all about me.

December 14th, 2008 by jackie

I don’t have any kind of “about me” stuff on this site.  I imagine if you are stumbling upon me for the first time, especially via Holidailies, then you might want to know something more.

I’m a 36 year old living in West Texas.

I’ve spent most of my life in this part of the state.  Where it’s flat, dry, and kind of ugly.  The people are friendly, generous and mostly kind.  They can also be ignorant, racist, close-minded and hypocritical.  Lots of cotton fields.  Tumble weeds.  Wide open spaces.

My choice to be here has always been deliberate but not always under the best of circumstances.

I love the great outdoors and want to live in the mountains some day.  Or on a farm.  Nature is the best painkiller, sedative, and aphrodesiac I’ve ever known.

I cook, garden, read and hang out with my animals.  I have two dogs and a cat.  Collectively I call them “the dogs.”  The cat doesn’t seem to mind too much.

No children.  Maybe not yet; maybe not at all.  Me and life haven’t figured that out yet.  I’m hoping I have another four years or so before my options run out.

No parents.  They died five and six years ago.  My mom from complications of MS; my dad from cancer.  Both were only children, and all my grandparents have passed.  i have some cousins in Denver (2nd and 3rd cousins) that i see every few years and am particularly fond of.  But really, my immediate family is my brother.  His wife and step-daughters have become a very important part of my life.  They’ve been married 2 1/2 years now.  She never knew my parents.  They would have adored her.  And her girls.  I adore her girls.

Single.  Perhaps terminally, though I hope not.

Green is my favorite color.  Avocados, tomatoes and cheese are the trifecta of perfect foods.  I hate the sound of metal scraping metal.  I get vertigo watching home movies and playing first person shooter games.  I have a weakness for smart, funny men.  I’m passionate about teaching, theatre, and animals.  Mushrooms are pretty, but gross–it’s a texture thing.  I’m Jewish, mostly.  Persistent.  Goal oriented.  I surprise myself by both being brave and being incredibly afraid.  There’s a small birthmark on the back of my left thigh.

I like all kinds of music but bluegrass, reggae, and folk rock are at the top of my list.

I cry when I’m angry.  I blush easily.

Dear Santa

December 12th, 2008 by jackie

Dear Santa,

There are some things I’d like for Christmas this year that I’m not likely to get.  I think that you should know the things I want from the very bottom of my heart.

First, Allie being healthy and back to her old self would be great.  She’s lived with arthritis and one eye for all but one year of her life.  But she’s been dealing with congestive heart failure and deafness for the last two years.  I see it slowly taking it’s toll on her little self.  And it’d be nice to see her be completely comfortable for even just one whole day.

If all records of my ever having taken out a student loan suddenly disappeared, it’d be swell.  Really swell.  But I’d have to be able to keep my degrees, of course.  So that I can keep my job.

The Daily Show needs to be new three nights a week every week.  I’d much rather it not be on four nights a week than go several weeks without any new episodes at all.  I’d also like to see it be required that Eddie Izzard be a guest once a week.  (Can you imagine?  Jon Stewart and Eddie Izzard in the same room?  Talking to each other?  I wouldn’t know how to contain myself. )

I could stand to be a few inches taller.

Can you bring Milk to Lubbock?

And get me out of Lubbock?

No more accidental spoilers from my friends about the book series I’m too embarrassed to admit to anyone but them I’m reading.

A whole semester with no plagiarism.  Maybe that is expecting too much.  A whole month?  Okay, a whole week.  Thanks.

Thanks, Santa.  I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Jackie

PS I’ll make you some cookies.

PPS  And leave a beer for you in the fridge.

PPPS Don’t blow out the candles on the menorah, they’re supposed to go out on their own.

PPPPS Yeah, I’ll put the tree up before Christmas.