Bittersweet

Following is a guest post written by my sister Nancy:

Bittersweet...

I've often heard that word but have never felt that I had an appropriate time in my life to use it, until 6 weeks ago. 

Giving birth on March 24, 2013, to my firstborn was hands down both the most amazing and the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  I had envisioned the moment of his birth in my head many times over the previous 9 months and it always played out perfectly, except for one crucial part ... my dad wasn't present.

The day I found out I was pregnant, even with as much excitement as I felt, I remember thinking to myself, "This sucks - it's so unfair that my dad won't be here or ever know his 7th grandchild."  I tried not to let myself dwell too much on that fact over the months ahead, but always in the back of my thoughts I felt very bitter.

On the day of my son's birth, I tried to keep it together so as not to make the special day sad, even though Dad wasn't there, but to make sure it was memorable.  I grasped tightly to one of my dad's handkerchiefs (or "hankies," as he called them) during my entire labor process.  I kept hearing my oldest sister saying to me "Remember this, remember this!" and I wanted to focus on especially that.  My whole life I strived to make my dad proud of me and he always told me that he was, and I know without a doubt that he was with all of us in that delivery room that day at the exact moment of my child's birth and that he was so proud of me, my mom, and my sisters knowing that life really does go on - just not always the way we envisioned that it would.  There was complete joy and happiness, and there were big smiles again in our lives and yet another legacy to carry on the family name. 

The nurses allowed Nancy to wear her Brain Cancer Awareness bracelet during the entire labor and delivery process.

I look forward to having Crosby's aunts, uncles, cousins, and Gran-Gran telling detailed stories in honor of his Gramps so that my son will know my dad.  I've decided that I'm not going to waste precious time being mad or even bitter that Dad wasn't physically there for that big moment in my life; instead I will embrace the fact of all the people I love most on this earth were by my side. 

Bittersweet...

The Hospital Bed

I had a dream last night about the hospital bed that my dad was in when he died.  Actually maybe it wasn't that bed; maybe it was just a generic hospital bed.  Oddly, nothing was going on in the dream; it was more like a still photograph than it was like a movie - there were no characters and there was no plot or script.

But that started me thinking about hospital beds and the one that ended up being the last bed my dad ever slept in before he went on ahead.  I think that most people, including me prior to the end of my dad's illness, consider a hospital bed to be a white flag of sorts, a surrender of lots of things, the most obvious of which is one's independence.  The day that the hospital bed was delivered and set up in my parents' house, though, in preparation for my dad's being able to come home from the hospital so that he could spend his last days in a more familiar, more comfortable setting, that bed represented so many other things for my family; it was obviously a consolation of sorts, but one that brought with it the power to give Dad what he so desperately wanted and to release him from the jaws of the downward spiral of pain and anxiety that just kept getting worse in the awful environment of the hospital.  

The bed itself seemed alarmingly flimsy, I thought, insubstantial but sadly adequate to hold my dad's then-frail body.  The frame seemed almost like it was made of wire that was wound together, fabricated without regard to aesthetics, as far as possible from a piece of furniture that would otherwise have been allowed in my parents' house and just sturdy enough to get the job done.  Its defining feature was a rickey little hand crank at the foot of the bed that could be used to adjust the head of the bed up or down.  It was a shitty little crank, really, and thinking back to the cheapness of it makes me both sad and mad - sad for our situation and for the way we had to handle every damn detail in the whole chaotic situation ourselves except for a little help from the hospice company at the very end, and mad for the shittiness of the crank itself: for god's sake, couldn't the insurance company drum up a few bucks more to send us a bed with an electric crank?  Wasn't the situation itself torturous enough without one of us having to use such a rudimentary apparatus, like it was the 1950's or something?  

But we were grateful for the bed with the old-timey crank; we were grateful that hospice had arranged to have it delivered, and we were as grateful as we could be that we were able to arrange for Dad to come home as he had been urgently requesting, actually begging, from his higher-tech bed in the hospital.  

I only vaguely remember the scene of when the guy from the medical supply company came to pick up the bed when Dad was done with it; in fact, I don't even remember if there was only one guy that came or if there were two.  I remember thinking, once they had taken it away, that my parents' bedroom suddenly seemed heartbreakingly empty, even though the hospital bed had only been in there for less than a week and even though my husband and my brother-in-law had moved my parents' king-sized bed back over to the center of that part of the room as it had been before we'd had the hospital bed set up beside it; things we set up like they had been before, but nothing was as it had been.  I remember standing in the space where the hospital bed had just been just minutes before, with tears running down my face, looking down and noticing that there weren't any indentions from the wheels of the bed left in the carpet and wondering how in the world a visible mark hadn't been left where something so big had happened.

Anger - Part Two

To read the first entry on Anger, click here.

I recently came across this quote by Maya Angelou:  “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”   That started me thinking about what the difference is between bitterness and anger.

The dictionary defines bitterness as a state of being angry, hurt, or resentful because of one’s bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment, and anger is defined as a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. 

Hmmm.  I’m not sure that helps me.

I think there definitely is a difference; it seems like it’s ok in society to be “angry” but not to be “bitter.”  Maybe they start out the same but end up differently:  anger can be expressed and, in theory, decreased or eliminated, and bitterness stays the same or gets even worse over time.  

I’m still not sure which one I am at this point.  Maybe both.  I want to say I’m not bitter about my dad’s illness and death; I’m not so self-absorbed as to be unaware that illness and death happen to someone (and someone’s loved ones) every minute of every day.  I get that our story is unique to us, but it’s not really unique.  I’m still mad, but I’m trying to get it out, to turn it into something productive if that’s at all possible, to look for a Silver Lining in all of this, to count my blessings in addition to feeling the burn of the anger.  Hopefully that puts me in good standing in the Anger vs. Bitterness contest (Have I mentioned that I’m a tad competitive?), because it’s really all I know how to do right now.

Someone asked me recently what it is that I’m so mad at, besides the obvious loss of my dad.  For me, it’s also the statements that people make, to me, to others, and in general, about cancer, death, and grief.  I don’t know why that infuriates me so much, but it sure as hell does. 

Someone I know recently posted a link on Facebook to an article about how people should take control of their destinies with healthier lifestyle choices.  The author even went so far as to imply that those who did would – you guessed it - avoid cancer.  Um, no.

I had to duct tape my hands together for a few hours to keep from typing a blistering response to the posting.  I realize that kind of stuff is meant to be helpful, I really do, but speaking like that author did and then seeing people give him credit for putting out info like that (Thanks, Captain Obvious!) pisses me off.  I want to yell, “You don’t know what you are talking about!”  It would seem like this would translate into me feeling protective or advisory towards people who say things that I now see as ignorant and uninformed:  “Be glad you don’t know that no one is safe!” but I don’t; I’m just mad.  Mad that I have to know that claims about how cancer can be avoided are ridiculous and that I have to know that there are no guarantees, even when we follow “the rules.”  

It also upsets me when people try to shut down grief, presumably because the emotions or memories or perspective of those that are grieving make them uncomfortable.  Sorry!

I spent lots of time running with my dad when I was a teenager, and he was always a better runner that I was.  Sometimes when I was lagging on a run, he would speed-walk beside me in step with my slow-jog pace.  Every time he did that, it made me mad.  I felt like he was taunting me and that he didn’t understand that I was just having an “off” day.  Most of the time, I responded by speeding up my pace, maybe in annoyance and maybe even to get to the end of the run faster so I could dodge him for awhile. 

I feel like something similar happens fairly often in the grief process for me these days, not with Dad of course but with lots of other people I know.  So what if I’m at a slow-jog pace in grieving?  I tell myself they can walk alongside me (or away from me!) if they so choose, but I cannot let myself speed up the pace in response to what they are doing, feeling, or thinking.

I hope that I can just go about my business, wading through my own grief, without that anger entering into any more relationships than it already has.  I need support, or, failing that, peace and time.  Like that expression we heard so much as kids, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” except I want to substitute the word “supportive” for the word “nice.”  

I want to push through the Red Door of anger; I want to focus on feeling fortunate for what I had and what I have instead of what I have lost over the past year.  I want to find a way to, as we say in the South, make sense of this mess!

I hope that I can keep myself together, especially through the next few months when the one-year anniversary passes for Dad’s diagnosis, surgery, last birthday, last holiday season, and for the time when he went on ahead.

I hope the anger burns clean. I hope I don’t get stuck in this process. I hope I can keep my perspective and avoid bitterness.

The Question to Never, Ever Ask

Everyone knows this is the Question to Never, Ever Ask: "Could things get any worse?"  I want to go on record to say that I most certainly am not dumb or brazen enough to say that and I definitely did NOT utter those words anytime recently.  However, I am starting to wonder what the HELL is going on!

I drove to a neighboring suburb Saturday morning and parked my car in a parking lot on a busy street  near the trailhead.  I locked my purse in the trunk and took off on my run around the lake.  It was already hot, and so I only ran for about 40 minutes.  When I rounded the last corner on the trail and saw the car, I thought about how great it was going to be to have already gotten the run in and how I was looking forward to having some down-time that day.  I decided I would stop to get a drink on the way home, and so I took the car keys out of my shorts pocket and popped the trunk to get my purse.  

Except it wasn't there.  The trunk was empty.

For a few seconds I was confused, and then it hit me.  Some asshole had stolen my purse!  At first glance, the car looked untouched though - no broken glass.  I actually wondered if I'd had a lapse in thinking and didn't lock the car doors earlier, but when I thought back to before the run I distinctly remembered doing that.  I called the police and then called my husband.  While talking to him, I paced around, which is how I noticed the passenger-side door lock had been pushed in so that there weren't "key teeth" in the edges of the lock anymore.  Ah-ha.  And damn.

Of course I felt violated, but mostly what I felt was stupid and MAD.  It was a safe part of town!  And it was broad daylight!  And I HAD locked the damn car!  I told all of this to the officer who chucked a little and said, "Oh, it happens all the time around here.  They watch as people get out of their cars, and the ones who look like they are going to run, walk, or bike on the trails always leave their purses or wallets behind, so they know who to target."  WAIT A FREAKING MINUTE!  For some reason it seemed like he was bragging when he said this!  If my job is to "serve and protect," though, I certainly wouldn't be spilling the beans so easily about a crime that happens "all the time"!  How about stepping up the patrol and/or installing video surveillance and/or at least posting signs warning people about the frequent break-ins???  

So Officer #1 calls for the Fingerprint Officer, who does a little precursory fingerprinting in slow motion while discussing his Saturday night plans with Officer #1.  In the meantime, my husband calls to tell me that he logged in to our online banking account and sees that my debit card is being used repeatedly at a gas station just around the corner.  I relay the info to both officers, they discuss it for a good 5 minutes, and finally I ask if they are going to check it out or if I should (heh!).  Fingerprint heads over to the gas station while #1 sticks with me so he can ask me for every number I have ever had to memorize - social, date of birth, checking, phone numbers, any other credit card numbers, etc. etc.  I kept waiting for him to ask for my IQ, my annual income, and my bra size, too.  It felt like another violation and made me feel even dumber and madder.

I tell him I am getting a migraine and very unfortunately all of my migraine medicine was IN MY EFFING PURSE.  My insurance only covers a few of those pills per month (a whole 'nother topic!) so I am going to have to pay full price for more or take something else that may or may not work and will probably knock me out.  Not that the latter sounds too bad at this moment in time.  #1 tells me all about how his wife gets migraines too.  Thanks for sharing, now GET TO FREAKING WORK!

Fingerprint comes back about 15 minutes later and says he got a DVD with footage of Asshole Thief using my card to fill up his gas tank (they got the model/make/color of the vehicle but no license plate) and then casually trying on sunglasses, picking himself out some treats inside the gas station store, and making those purchases also.  Dude had on a white linen shirt and pants.  (I'm so glad he dressed up for his day of crime!)  The two cops shared some laughs over how dumb the guy is, wrote down my "case number" on one of the tiniest scraps of paper I've ever seen, and advised me to call the station with that number on Monday morning to get an update. 

I got in the car and drove away so I could try to make it home before my head split in two, and then it hit me:  in the little zipper pocket of my purse were a couple of sentimental things of my dad's, and they are now GONE.  Damn.  It's everything I can do to keep myself from asking the Question to Never, Ever Ask.