Friday, June 05, 2009

Well, now...

There are certain life landmarks you're doomed to always remember. June 5 is one for me. We really should've donated what was left of my dad's body to science, because his aorta was a testament to the incredible skills of the doctors at Yale New Haven 27 years ago. We were told when his aorta began dissecting the 2nd time, 2 years back, that it was happening in an area away from the original graft. That sucker held fast while the rest of the aorta gave up the ghost. Never mind the number of people who actually live through an aortic dissection. No wonder we love on Meara so fiercely...it's kind of amazing she's here at all.

I was 12, starting to feel the pangs of puberty, and only semi-looking forward to a day of errands with Dad. The guy softened a lot as he got older, but back then, he was quite awkward and hard to talk to. We lived 2 lives, the life when he was traveling and the life when he was home, and the two didn't exactly mesh. You were always on guard for a verbal explosion. In his defense, the guy had cyclical headaches that he only treated with aspirin back then.

I've told this story here before...Dad has seizure, we meet EMT or floating RN lady at the Chuck Wagon, where the three of us huddle in the car in a rainstorm while she checks his vitals and assesses his stability. Ambulance arrives, we're transported to New Milford Hospital, I give them as much info as I can in my bewilderment, we can't track down Mom because she's on a Cub Scout field trip with Cyril...Marnie, my best friend's mom, comes to get me. The things you remember in one of these situations...the sarcasm I felt when they said that Father Smith was the pastor on call and would Dad like to talk to him? Father Smith was a hell-and-brimstone reverend, our least favorite of the three priests at that church. Marnie drove home propped up on pillows, because when she came to get me, Bill and Christy were out in her car, and she couldn't get Bill's seat to move forward.

I thought I understood mortality back then. Instead I understood the fear associated with impending mortality. Is that redundant? I guess it's not possible to grasp death until you're presented with it in someone truly close to you. I went to plenty of funerals, it seemed, when I was a kid...there was a stretch there where there was always one person or another dropping. I'd see the person in the open casket, move my lips along with the rosary or the Stations of the Cross, but something didn't sink in. At that age, I suppose it's normal...brain only takes in so much. Open caskets don't help either...I remember just touching Popie lightly on the forehead with one finger...it was cool and eerie, but it also just seemed like he was sleeping, so there was an unreal quality to the proceedings for my 9 or 10 year old mind. When Popie went, that hurt, to be sure, and I was sad and missed him, but it didn't have that "wait, you mean, I'm NEVER going to see him again in this life" finality that death has on me now. I remember experiencing confusion when I saw Nanie break down at Popie's casket when they started lowering him. I was so young.

June's hard. There's today, Dad's birthday on the 10th, Father's Day later this month, and in between, these stretches of truly gorgeous weather as summer kicks it up a notch and hangs out in all its green glory down here. Something catches in my chest as I remember Dad can't appreciate any of it anymore. But beyond that is this anger welling inside me that I don't take better care of myself. I have this stranglehold on life, don't have any intention of leaving this plane of existence for at least my alloted 90 years or so, if my genes continue to cooperate, so why do I insist on trying to shorten it with too much food and not enough activity? I think about how Dad enjoyed the outdoors, how every weekend took him outside to putter in the garage, mow the lawn and edge, with his straw hat on and his determined posture. He knew his time had been shortened, that he was on a damn tightrope now, so he plowed forward with life the only way he knew how. It wasn't running away, it was coping. I used to think he was so afraid of life, but now I see it differently, because I've inherited the same personality trait. Something comes up to block our paths, we assess it, set it aside, and move forward, because dwelling on it ain't gonna make it go away. So ok, it's there, what's next? There's a level of acceptance there that has nothing to do with giving up. The difference is I still have plenty of tools in my possession to change my fate. I won't expound more on that, because it's been done here, ad nauseum, until I feel like a failure before I've truly started.

So...this weekend. Man, I love Fridays. There's a bit more cleaning to be done, some more reorganizing. I'm thinking of hitting Chamblin's this weekend, because I'd like to look for a copy of the Pagan Book of Living and Dying. Plants have been neglected a bit, so I'll water and trim the herbs, try round #2 on the wildflowers, and ponder starting the veggies again. We'll stay close to home this weekend, because money's tight, but I'm poking the husband with a stick more. It hurts that I can't afford to go up to Ohio to the memorial they're planning for Aunt Sandie. It's why we need more than just a savings account; we have to start truly saving. I emptied it for Husby's birthday, and that's OK, definitely needed to be done, but it's time to really start planning and budgeting, because between baby trying and move planning, these next 15 months are going to fly by.

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