It is not the same.

This is a long post, months in the writing. Bear with me, y'all.

Back in December, Shaun was sick again.

A week and a day after Thanksgiving, I took the girl to school, and came home to my beloved in a literal pool of vomit on the sofa. I pushed a towel under him, handed him the bucket (which he already had beside him), and started making arrangements to miss work. It is not a good time for me to miss work: essentially the day before finals week for me, I had 8 conferences scheduled. But there was no other option.

By 10 am he agreed we needed to go to ER. I helped him into his chair, and helped him get dressed. We pulled into the ambulance bay at 11, and they wheeled him into the back. I sat in the waiting room and called Myra to pick V up from school.  I hoped they would admit him, but if they didn't, V didn't need to see him this sick.
~~
When I was 12, my father had a massive stroke. I was in the seventh grade, and when Carol, our school secretary, stopped by the gym to tell me during laps in phy-ed that he was in the ICU, I felt the earth fall from beneath me. My childhood ended on January 10, 1986. The first time I saw him after the stroke was 2 days later. Riding the elevator up to Shaun's room, I kept thinking of that day, of walking down that cold hallway in St. Ansgar's, of turning the corner into his room and seeing him, my giant, my daddy, hemipeligic and in one of those awful hospital gowns.

This is not the same as that, I said to myself, over and over.
~~

As the elevator opened on his floor, I crumpled up the slip with his room number and shoved it in my pocket, and went straight to the Nurses' Desk. "I'm Shaun Languishing's wife," I said (except, you know, that's not our real last name), "and I need to see his nurse." After a few minutes, she ambled up to me, and smiled. I took a deep breath. "So, okay, I don't know if you know this, but his vomiting is not really viral or bacterial. It's mental and anxiety-driven, and you should stay on top of his Xanax or whatever he's allowed to have here. And I am available if you have questions, but his therapist is leaving on vacation tonight, so maybe you should do a psych consult, but I don't know how he'd respond to that. And also, I don't think he wants to see me, but I brought his CPAP machine and this NintendoDS and the new issue of Sports Illustrated that came today, in case he wants those. So can you bring these to him and tell him I'm here if he wants to see me?" (When Shaun's in the hospital, he tends to throw up at the sight of me.) Her smile had faded some at "viral or bacterial," but she took what I gave her and nodded. "I'll be in the waiting room," I said.

I'm sure I seemed like the craziest wife on earth, because he'd only been admitted an hour earlier, and for all his poor nurse knew he just had a bad case of the stomach flu. But to her credit, she listened carefully, and when she came to the waiting room to tell me that indeed, he did not want to see me right now, she answered all my questions patiently with no discernible eye rolling. His heart is fine; he's on a constant EKG-type monitor to make sure. His admitting diagnosis is dehydration. They have a script for Xanax three times a day, and they'll give it that often.

V was at Grandma's for the night. I had no where to be. In my family of origin, when someone's in the hospital, you go to them, hold their hand, watch lame cable tv alongside them. I sat in the waiting room and cried.
~~
After Dad's stroke, his brother and both sisters came straight to the hospital, from Hendrum and White Bear Lake and Arizona. They rented a spare room down the hall, and slept in shifts, so Mom could be home with us at night and Dad wouldn't be alone. My mom's brothers and sisters came too, and bought us ice cream from the vending machines downstairs, and asked us about school. I felt surrounded by love and completely terrified at the same time. In the first few days, a handsome doctor told us Dad would surely walk again, and would probably speak just fine after some rehabilitation. He's young, the doctor said, and very strong.
~~
After a lonely night with the dog & Big Bang Theory reruns, I stopped by the hospital mid-morning, and the nurse said Shaun would see me. I was so scared, but I missed him, and kissed his face when it was clear he wouldn't vomit at the sight of me. We talked about how he felt, how the nurses were treating him. He was still sick, hooked up to machines and an IV, feeling very weak, but I stayed for 45 minutes. I told him how lonesome I was, and he said V and I could come for awhile the next day, if we wanted to. This was huge progress over his last hospitalization, where he couldn't see us for days.

In the elevator on the way down, I thought, "See? This is not the same."
~~
A week after the stroke, maybe a little less, Dad fell asleep and the nurses couldn't wake him. At least, that's what they told Jess and me. After a day and a half, it was clear he was in a coma. "He's so young," the handsome doctor said, "his brain hasn't shrunk like an old person's, and there's no room in his skull for the swelling. We'll try to bring the swelling down, and then he should wake up." A day and a half later, he did. We were so glad to have him back, or the part of him, anyway, that the stroke had left behind.

He never walked on his own again, and he never spoke clear words beyond "yes" and "no." He lived for another fifteen years, though, and I was glad for almost every single day.
~~
V and I went to visit Shaun on Sunday. We bought him a silly smiling helium balloon in the gift shop, and the shop lady gave V a sucker and me a sample of hand lotion. We walked to the elevators hand in hand, and rode up with several nurses and doctors. V skipped up the hallway, and climbed up beside Shaun in bed, minding the tubes and wires.  We talked about how much we missed each other, and how much fun V had at Grandma's, and when Daddy might get to come home. She looked out of the window of his 5th floor hospital room in awe. He put his arms around her and they watched a little Spongebob and laughed at the silly balloon.

When we left, I asked V what she was thinking of, and if anything worried her. She said "I get worried that you'll get too tired taking care of me by yourself." Oh, sweet girl. I promised her that if I got tired, I'd get Grandma or Auntie Jess to help, and we would be okay. Besides, Dad would come home in  few days, and we'd all go back to normal.

It is not the same as it was when I was a girl. It is not the same.

Tuesday evening, after I talked to Shaun on the phone and we figured he'd be coming home on Wednesday, I was folding laundry and thinking of how relieved I was for him to come home. How good it would be to be back in our little family routine.  How thankful I was that he was feeling better. How glad I am that his anxiety is not the same as my father's stroke.

Except it is.

Shaun's not paralyzed, and doesn't have aphasia. Hopefully V will never have to help him dress, and will never need to know how to fold up a wheelchair & slide it into the trunk of our car. But Shaun's anxiety, his profound, crippling anxiety, is a part of him, as much as that injured brain was a part of my dad. Shaun has learned to manage it better, in the last few years, and he continues to work to manage it, every day. But if I'm really honest? It will never go away. He will miss social engagements that I really want him not to miss. He may lose jobs because of it. I will need to clean up his vomit again. Sometimes, V and I will have to go to the hospital to see him, incapacitated. Sometimes we will be lonesome for him because this illness keeps him from being the kind of father and husband he wants to be.

It was a awful realization. For thirteen years I've been telling myself it's not that bad. For thirteen years I thought if we just went to more therapy, if we just got him on better medications....but in the end, his diagnosis is as permanent as a stroke. He may recover, in bits and pieces. But it is a part of him, and so a part of us. It had been two years since the last breakdown, and almost 6 years since the last hospitalization. It's chronic, but not usually acute. But it is the same.

In a strange way, after it really sank in, I felt better. It sucks. I wish it weren't true. But pretending isn't going to make it go away. I will gather my mom and sister closer to me, and his family, too, and our dear friends, and together they will help me, and V, and Shaun. I will try, for all of us, to be glad for every single day.

Death, be not proud

with apologies to John Donne, et al.

So part of my mean reds, by no means all, but a good portion, has to be related to the fact that today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of my father. Ten years. More than a quarter of my life now, without him. It takes my breath away to even think of it. I...ach. I could blither on, but I decided months ago that I wanted to reprint an article from the paper version of Languishing (Winter 2004, Issue 1, Volume 8) today. I wrote it just a month or so after he died, and I print it here mostly unaltered.

Mighty and dreadful indeed.

Death Be Not Proud
One woman's story of losing her daddy.

Wednesday, 24 July 2002: 7:30am: Mom called this morning. Seems dad's chest pains from last night didn't go away, so I'm heading over to Hillsboro. I talked to Jess, told her not to come. I know she feels so far away in the Cities, but this is just chest pains. She'll be home this weekend, and can see him then.

8:30am: Dad looks gaunt, almost skeletal. He always looks this way, though, in his hospital gown, when he's had a ride in the ambulance. How many times have we been here? Since I was twelve, after those first 6 months of rehab after the stroke, I've seen him like this....half a dozen times? A dozen? Too many, but it's not like any of us chose this life. It just is. I smooth his hair; what I feel towards my father, what I have felt for almost 17 years, is very much typical father-daughter love. But also motherly, because he needs care. I clip his fingernails, clean out his ears when they're dirty. I cut up his steak for him. Rustle my fingers through his beard when I try to convince him to trim it. But he is always my father. He wheels his chair out with me to the parking lot, checks my tires, makes sure the headlights work, makes me use my seat belt. He is comforting, familiar, strong. He tells me everything will work out, that I can do what I am afraid to do, that he loves me.

In this little hospital room with uncomfortable chairs and a television mounted on the wall, I talk to Jess again. Should she come? I ask Dad. No, he says, shaking his head emphatically, as if to say, Don't be silly. The nurse is in the room with us, and after a few minutes, he starts coughing, waving his hand at her, raising his voice. She doesn't understand him, and I'm still on the phone with Jess. "He's going to throw up" I snap at the nurse, frustrated that she doesn't comprehend our secret code of gestures and inflection. Jess says, "I'm on my way" just before I hang up on her, because the black bile is seeping through Dad's beard onto his faded gown. The nurse apologizes, and I do, too, because she couldn't know that this time "Deelo...deelo!" meant "I need an emesis basin."

9am: The doctor comes in. Mom is really worried, but I'm not. Jesus, he survived a massive stroke, the amputation of both legs: some little heart palpitation's not going to kill him. The doctor is short, shorter than me, and other than that he reminds me of my cousin Chad, with olive skin, dark, thinning hair, and a laid-back way. His news is not good. There's been a heart attack, of significant size, it seems. Dad's asleep now, because the nurse gave him medicine to help with his nausea. We stand over him, talk around him. Mom strokes his bald head. I ask what we should do. I get frustrated, because I feel like the doctor and we are speaking two different languages. "It's up to you," he says. Yeah, we know that. What should we do?? "Well, he has a DNR order..." Yeah, we know that too. What does this mean. How bad is it? WILL HE DIE? "We don't know yet. We could find out the extent of the damage, but he'd have to go to Fargo for that." He's sleeping now. I don't think he wants to go to Fargo. I don't know. So if we don't find out the extent of the damage.... what happens? We know strokes, we know gallstones, we know prostate and cancer and bladder infections and amputations, but we don't know heart attacks. "He could recover. The next 24 hours will be important." I'm glad Jessica is on her way. I call her cell and tell her so, and tell her that Dad's comfortable now, snoring lightly. She's scared, but our Aunt Shirley, Dad's sister, is with her. I'm glad of that too. They just left the city, and it's almost 10 am.

12 noon: Brenda, our friend and the wife of our pastor in Hendrum, stops by. She's an RN, and looks at Dad carefully. I show her his vitals, which I've been recording in my journal. Blood pressure: 90/40; pulse 120; temp 99.2; oxygen 84%. She talks to Dad, although he's not really awake at all. Tells him she's here, says a prayer with us. The Lord's Prayer hurts my chest when I say it. "Our father, who art in heaven." Brenda does a healing ceremony, instead of communion, and it involves anointing with oil. It feels too much like last rites and Mom and I both cry.

Dad's kidneys aren't working much. He's been in the hospital since 7:30, and he's made no urine. This is very bad, Brenda tells us. Her seriousness scares me. She takes mom out for lunch, and I sit with Dad, tell him about work, Shaun, our dog, our house. I tell him I love him over and over and over again. I know he knows: it just helps to say it. Beverly, Dad's other sister, who lives in California, calls. She wants to know how he is, and I tell her, as he sleeps. Dad and Bev were so close as children, practically twins. As she's about to hang up, he opens his eyes, and I say, wait, here he is. I hold the phone to his ear, and though he's groggy, I tell him it's his sister Bev. He hears her voice, and responds. He knows it's her: I don't know what she says to him, but he says "yeah," a few times, tells her he's okay, I think. I take the phone and tell her he knew it was her, and she says she knows. She's looking into flights to Fargo.

2pm: The doctor stops by again. The kidney thing has him worried. Why aren't they working, we ask.  His blood pressure is so low, they're not getting enough blood. His heart has been damaged, so it's pumping where it can. Will that get better? Maybe. Let's inject him with some saline, and some medicine to make him urinate, and see if that helps. Okay. C'mon kidneys. Mom is really quiet. I don't see why everyone has to be so solemn. It's been bad before.

3pm: Jess and Shirley arrive. They stopped in Moorhead and picked up Shaun. Dad wakes up and knows Jess, certainly, and she kisses him and cries and cries. He's hardly awake at all any more, from the medication or the effort his heart is making to pump what little it can. Mom, Jess, and I talk with Dad, who won't wake up, about how we won't resuscitate. No breathing tubes, no surgeries. If the kidneys work, they work. If not, we'll have to let him go. Dad agreed to this years ago, but we tell each other again that this is what he wants, what we all know should happen, if it has to.

The doctor comes back, and as the saline and medication have not jump-started the kidneys, he recommends we bring family in. This is the first time I'm really startled. He says "If there's family thinking of coming, you should tell them to come. Now." We use Shirley's cell phone to call relatives. I call three of mom's siblings: Bev, John, and Sharon. "This might be it, the doctor says," I tell three people, and for some reason it gets harder every time. I can't call any one else after that. Jessica calls the others, and we let Shirley call Dad's side of the family. We are very, very tired.

6pm: We go eat supper in shifts. Shirley and I and Shaun go first, to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Hillsboro. It feels like a VFW hall, kind of, with industrial tables and chairs. I eat fried shrimp, and the three of us talk, and sort of look at each other, surprised, kind of, by what seems about to happen. i feel like my eyes are wide open, insistently watching, waiting. Shaun feels helpless, afraid for us, and doesn't know how to help. When we get back to the hospital, Uncle Harry, Dad's older brother, is there. They have been fighting with each other for about 10 years, or maybe 15. It feels like forever, but we're glad he's there. Even Dad, I think, knows how much Harry loves him this summer night.

7pm-on: Through the evening, we have lots of company; Pastor Tim comes, and Shaun's dad, and Carla and Darrell and Janice, friends of our family. Lots of people, it seems, and we are all grateful. Most everyone is gone by 11pm, when the nursing shift changes. Our night RN must've been in the military, I think. She is all business, and her gruffness worries me a little, because Jess and I will push back if we need to, but we're not exactly strong right now. Instead, she insists on just a few things. "He must be kept comfortable. Tell your mother to get some sleep. I'll let you know if it gets close to time." Now I know there's no going back. This nurse makes no pretense of recovery, and it is just the waiting. Because the hospital is nearly empty, we get the room next to Dad's, and mom goes to sleep for a few hours. She's been up, by our count, nearly 40 hours straight. Aunt Shirley dozes in the lounge, and Jess and I stay with Dad.

The next few hours will remain forever some of the most memorable of my life. Sitting with my father and my sister, knowing that time is so literally almost out, I feel desperate to stay awake, to soak in every second we have left together. Jess and I cry, even sob, at times. Finally, we decide to make the best of it. First we talk about our favorite memories with Dad. She remembers things I'd forgotten, and vice versa, So we tell him we love him, and why, and tell him what he's taught us, and what we'll remember. At some point, we shift, and talk about the future. Jess tells him what she hopes to name her children, and I do the same. "We promise to tell them about you, Daddy. We promise to take care of each other, and of Mom." We recognize out loud that if we'd been a TV movie, we'd have changed the channel by now.

2:30am: After taking Dad's pulse, Army nurse says we should wake Mom, so we do. But Dad has no intention of dying yet, so we sprawl around his room...in hospital chairs, across the foot of his bed, on the floor, and take turns dozing. When morning comes, he is still with us, and we joke, wearily, about his stubbornness. Sometime in the morning, Brenda comes again. She tells us an amazing story about letting go, about the path toward death as a journey, and we all cry. Brenda, Mom, and Jess go out for lunch, and Shirley goes to pick up Bev at the airport.

While they are gone, Dad's breathing gets more sporadic. He has a kind of apnea, it seems, and stops breathing for a second or two or ten...and then breathes again. Brenda told us this would happen, And that it would indicate the end was coming closer. She said it would get worse until finally the space between breaths was greater and greater...and eventually, he would just stop.

2pm: Mom and Jess come back from lunch, and walk in with Uncle Harry. Harry says, "I'll go," and we tell him he has to say good-bye. So he does. "We'll see you, Dewey," he says, shaking Dad's hand. It is one of the saddest moments I've ever seen.

Jess has to run to the bathroom, just down the hall. Mom and I sit, listen to Dad breathe, then stop. Breathe, then stop. When Jess gets back, Mom has to go. While she's gone, Jess and I watch Dad wince twice to draw breath: it really seems to hurt him. Finally, mom gets back. She sits with Dad's good hand, on his left. I sit on his right, and Jess sits on the foot of his bed. We tell him we love him, that he can go...and he does. He just...stops.

Again, if it were a TV movie, it would be too ridiculous. But that's how it happened, how we got to say good-bye, and be with him. How we watched him die. I don't have a moral to this story, and I'm not telling you this for pity, or to make you sad. It feels good, somehow to share it. It was a gift he gave us, being able to be with him. He was a good man. I miss him.

The Mean Reds

I know it's been a long, long time, gentle readers. I'm sorry. I think everyday about blogging, but each idea seems to have already been done, or seems to require more energy than I have to offer. Today I decided I've had a bad case of the Mean Reds, and now that I've diagnosed myself, I can hopefully figure out where to go to calm myself down.

V likes to hang on bars in a dress her grandmother brought her from Mexico. She's quite the little gymnast lately, and has conquered monkey bars from here to Duluth.

V also likes to be pulled behind a kayak, preferably one paddled by her other grandmother. Lake Belle Taine has been a source of much joy for us this summer, even more than usual.

There's no real reason for this latest funk (aside from it being how I'm wired and all): we are all relatively healthy and Shaun starts a new (non-gas station, hopefully not only overnights; not that there's anything wrong with either of those things...) job on Monday. My summer class is the kind teachers dream of: 13 very diverse students, each one committed to learning and engaged in the work we're doing together. V is loving every second of summer and even Seven seems to be having a good time. It just is.

I'll work on untangling myself, and keep taking V swimming (above, at Great Aunt Linda and Great Uncle Ken's hotel in Fargo this week), and keep thinking about blogging. May your own mean reds stay far away, or come take mine on a vacation of some sort.

Kickety kick ball

April. 5th grade. It must've been raining, because my class was playing a heated game of kickball in the gym. Mr. Timmer was our teacher, and I was the catcher. William Wainwright, my nemesis, was on third base, and after a decent kick from his teammate, he came toward me with determination. Though I had the ball, and was standing on the base, he put his shoulder down and knocked me up in the air. I came down on my left wrist, and broke both bones in my arm. Ow. That's what...28 years ago now? My mom was teaching at the time, but couldn't very well leave her classroom, so she had her sister Beverly take me to the doctor in Halstad. My arm had quickly swelled up to twice its normal size, and as we waited to see Doc Brown, he decided to spend 45 minutes visiting with an octogenarian in the next room. Aunt Bev and I learned all about Mrs. Alfredson's ferns while we waited.

When the doctor finally saw the x-ray his nurse had taken, he quickly decided it was beyond his expertise: with both bones broken, one badly, I had to go to St. Ansgar's in Moorhead. There I was put under general anesthesia, my arm was set, and I woke up to crabby nun nurses taking my blood pressure in the middle of the night. When they came to pick me up from the hospital, my parents took me out to Nine Dragons, our favorite Chinese restaurant, which I couldn't really enjoy because I was still queasy from the anesthetic.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was, with an 8 week cast, I turned eleven at the end of May and could not ride my brand new blue ten speed bike until mid-June.

It was, at least up until then, one of the great tragedies of my life.

Iceberg, straight ahead!

Regular Languishing readers know that my childhood was full of small-town-ness, and personally I've always been drawn to cemeteries, for some reason. On more than one occassion, Shaun has referred to my childhood as "Little Ghoul on the Prairie."

A large part of that comes, certainly, from my father. He loved country death songs, and sang several heart-breaking melodies to us regularly in the car, on the way to or from home, on trips. By the age of seven, I was obsessed with world records and circus freaks, and by 8, I'd read A Night to Remember by Walter Lord, about the sinking of the Titanic, three times. I traced the names of the survivors, the recovered, and lost at sea long before James Cameron thought of making his fancy movie.

Today is 100 years since Titanic first set sail. In four days, it will be 100 years to the day of the sinking of the Titanic. Imagine a centurian anniversary for something you were fascinated with as a child: it's kind of a big deal, right? I mean, I wanted to name my firstborn child Carpathia, for crying out loud. The sinking of the Titanic was very much like that generation's September 11: it changed the way people thought about ocean travel, it caused widespread spiritual crisis, and was used for all sorts of political purposes by the people in, or struggling to gain, power in our country.

What interested me most about the disaster, thirty years ago and today, were the class distinctions that defined so much of the ship, and the survivors, and so much of American society, one hundred years ago. And today.  Cameron's love story was never very compelling to me. But the microcosm that was the Titanic, and the ways in which our world still plays by those rules, keeps me interested in that mighty ship, and mightier ice berg, and history in general.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Winter quiet

Hello, gentle readers. I know Languishing's been quiet this year so far. Things at Casa Languishing have been especially difficult, and it's been hard to think of what to write on the blog that wasn't either a complete lie, or so depressing that my gentle readers would just weep at the heartache.

Well, okay, maybe it's not that bad. But Shaun lost his job almost three weeks ago, now, and it's become a major focus for us, of course. Procuring a new job is a lot of work: polishing a resume, scouring the classifieds, finding non-elastic waist pants...

We don't have any savings to speak of, so within a month, either Shaun needs to have found work, or we try to find a way to cut $1,000 a month from the household budget.

I know that we have more than so many people in the world, and I'm not going to whine about what we don't have here. But the unknown freaks me out. I make plans, and back-up plans, and I try to help Shaun however I can, and still do my own work, and we both take care of V, and...it becomes too much sometimes.

It's only been three weeks. He's had two job interviews (we're still waiting to hear on both), and there are other positions he can apply for. But every day that goes by without work makes the fear in my chest tighten just a bit more.

We try to talk to V about it in an appropriate way so she understands why we're both anxious, and why we cry sometimes, and so she knows none of this is her fault, and no matter what we'll take care of her. She's too smart for us to pretend nothing's wrong, anyway.

So we talk about it, and try to stay calm, and Shaun fills out applications and wears non-elastic waist pants to his interviews. I'll try to blog more often about other things. But if I can't or don't, please be patient. I'll be back soon.

Holiday philosophizing

After a lovely trip to look at the holiday lights and enjoy some Mexican Village food as a family, V and I found ourselves alone in the TV room with a little "Kung Fu Panda." She had some questions.

V: How did the world begin?
Me: Um, well, some scientist believe in "The Big Bang Theory..."
V: What do humans believe?
Me: Uh, scientists ARE humans.
V: Oh.
Me: ...and some people believe that a God created the whole universe and...
V: Yep, that's what I think. I think he made the whole world.
Me: You think there's a god, and that he's male?
V: Yep.
Me: Oh, crap.

Apparently I've not been doing my job as well as I'd hoped. Sigh. Parenting is harder than it looks.

Edited to add: The point of this post is that despite the fact that we are raising V outside of the church, she soaks it up somewhere anyway. I was raised Lutheran, and Shaun was raised Catholic, and as an anthropologist I am respectful of a wide swath of beliefs. I just hadn't expected my own child to adopt such a mainstream point of view without me teaching it to her. I didn't really say "oh crap" out loud to V, but instead told her she could believe what she liked, and everyone had a right to decide for themselves what they believed. But it's hard when your child believes something you don't. That's all I'm saying.

And then, out of the blue...

My last post detailed rich memories of home, but it was surprisingly not hard for me to let the place go, really. Unlike so many people, who have to say goodbye to their childhood home because of a divorce or death, my mom is in relatively good health and chosing to leave, so I'm sure that helps make it seem less like a loss.

My dad died back in 2002 (holycrapIcan'tbeliveit'sbeenalmosttenyears), but even then, he had lived in the nursing home for ten years before he died. Sorting through his stuff was difficult, but not in a home-based way. Our loss was palpable and awful, and when the Salvation Army guy asked me if I wanted a receipt I sorrowfully said "Sure, if you want to put a price on my father's life, go right ahead." (I'm their favorite donor, I bet). But it wasn't entirely unexpected, and we had grieved parts of him since the stroke in 1986.

So I was taken aback when, in cleaning out the last nooks and crannies of Mom's kitchen, I found Dad's keys. I mean, I wasn't surprised they were there. It was the kind of thing we'd set aside after the stroke, in case we needed them again. Nearly 26 years later, here they are: keys to buildings that have long since been torn down, to PO boxes we no longer rent, to paddlocks misplaced or cut off years ago.

 Below, the laundromat keys, I think. Certainly those round keys went to the washing machines we had in our basement my whole childhood.

I remember him letting me hold this ring of keys. He showed me the bolt with the tightened nut, which kept his keys lined up the way he wanted (I don't remember what the broken key went to. Maybe the old Pontiac? Probably from before then.). The front one, with the words almost worn off, was for the lumberyard's north door.

 He carried these keys in his pockets for over 30 years, and they, along with a few dollars of loose change, made him jingle when he walked. They are worn so smooth, now, they feel almost soft. Polished metal, made so solely by my father. They were a part of him.

I slid to my knees on the kitchen floor and wept, for him and for all of us.

I miss him so.

For Kari Jane

I first met Kari in the summer of 1991, on a visit to Morris. Her laugh was infectious, and when I learned we'd be floormates, I knew we'd soon be friends. She was the kind of friend that I would've lived with, the kind of friend I could call out of the blue after two months and it would feel as if we'd never been apart. I can still hear her bubbling laugh.

Sixteen years ago, Kari was in a terrible car accident. She survived for nearly a month on life support, and at first we all hoped...but while her face and bones healed, it became clear in that month that her brain would not. She died January 9, 1995.

She would've been 38 today. I miss her so.

I wrote this poem for her in 1997.

ELEGY
   for Kari Jane, 16 March 1973 to 9 January 1995

I am with you in the windy light
when the voice of our last tear is silenced
with nothing to remember
nothing to remember us by.
             --Mark Vinz, "Elegy: from a North Country Journal"

You braced for the impact.
It crushed both your wrists
and left knee, snapped both ankles.
Thrown against the windshield,
your body yielded,
let the bones around your left eye
shatter in eighteen places.
The glass tore your cheek through
to your teeth inside.
Your corn silk hair
soaked up blood
until the rescue squad wrapped your head
in a towel to hold the skin in place.

Six months after the funeral
I woke up, sobbing, dreaming
of your body, frozen, embalmed.
Three weeks before the accident,
you taught me how to roll down hills.
I held your hand and promised
to always love you,
swore I would be godmother to your children,
would room with you in the nursing home.

Instead I was your pallbearer,
not your bridesmaid,
thankful they let me escort you to your grave.

Spring break

So I'm on spring break and I have a mild to moderate amount of grading to do (about 70  three page essays), and a dining room table to clear off, and crafty things, and oh this always happens during spring break, when I start to feel stressed that I'm not getting enough out of every moment or doing enough around the house or accomplishing the things I always hope to accomplish on break. And this year it's even stranger because V's just getting over strep and Shaun just completed his 2 weeks in partial and it's so good to have us all together and feeling well but it's also so strange it's almost confusing and I should be blogging more and taking more pictures and so it goes.

When your beloved has anxiety.

Tomorrow, Shaun will enter the outpatient psychiatric program at our local hospital for anxiety. He’ll go from 9am-3pm, for as long as it takes to make him better. I’ve been thinking all week about how to post this: how can I tell you, gentle readers, about what it’s like to be married to a man with significant anxiety? How can I present it in a way that is true to our experience, but doesn’t hurt Shaun, or minimize (or overstate) the impact of his illness? In my head, I kept returning to this form, which I’ve used once before, about what it’s like to teach. In some ways it's a copout, but I don't know any other way to say these things. I’m glad to answer questions, and I’ll probably write more about this, especially considering our current journey. For now, this is the best I can offer.


This is the way you cross your fingers before you get out of bed and pray today is a good day. This is the way you hope the diarrhea will stop, and if it doesn’t stop his therapist will be available sometime today. This is the way you hold his head in your lap, and brush his hair back from his forehead, as he weeps and begs you to help him, even though you don’t know how. This is the way you call his doctors over and over and beg them to help. This is the way you cook toast and scrambled eggs and rice and buy bananas and applesauce and Gatorade so as to not upset his tender belly. This is the way you drive him to the ER or the walk-in clinic, again. This is the way you choose your words carefully in front of the daughter you share, so she doesn’t learn more than she needs to about anxiety and illness and how terribly afraid you are most of the time lately. This is the way you change the sheets on the bed, again and again and again. This is the way you tell your colleagues at work that no, he’s not better, and no, thanks, you don’t want to talk about it. This is the way you call his family and tell them, as gently as you know how, that he is still sick, that you don’t know when he will be better, and that yes, you’re all trying very hard, and no, there’s not much they can do. This is the way you hire a professional organizer, and go to marriage therapy, and do anything you can think of to ease his fears, and this is the way you sometimes feel none of it matters. This is the way you miss class after class when you need to be teaching. This is the way you think and rethink who will pick up your daughter from school, and who will stay with her until you can get home, in case he’s not well enough to parent today. This is the way you try to remember how things were before he entered this most recent spell, and try to believe, everyday, that things will go back to that semi-normalcy again even though it seems this will never end. This is the way that you take deep breaths, and try to ignore the nightmares, and talk to the people who love you just to hear them say “I’m sorry it’s so hard right now. I hope it will get better,” because there is nothing else to say. This is the way, in the end, that you love him, as well as you know how.

Anniversary passing

25 years ago yesterday, my dad was in a rehab center in Grand Forks. I recall it as the day he moved there from St. Ansgar's, but that memory is questionable: I do know it was 18 days after the massive stroke that would change us all forever. I remember January 28 because it's the day the space shuttle blew up, and though that day holds memories for many people around my age, for me it is inextricably connected to my father's stroke, and the early days of that journey for my family.

Mr. Carlson, our 7th grade science teacher, brought a television into his classroom and set it on one of the orange counters, and then he wept. He wept while a roomful of twelve year olds watched the shuttle explode over and over and over again, and he told us we would always remember this day, as he remembered Kennedy's assassination. Most of us thought he was crazy. I knew he was right.

I called my sister on January 10, and said "Dad's stroke is old enough to rent a car."
She said "We should've bought it a drink 4 years ago."

I realized in college that, given the power to go back and change things, I don't know that I would. Without my father's crippling stroke, I would be a different person, and my whole town would be a different town. You can't screw with history like that, as Michael J. Fox showed us. And we all loved the parts of him the stroke left behind, and he thankfully lived another 16 years.

When he died, the stroke was old enough to drive.

Dammit.

I'm so tired.

I don't want this to be a whiny blog post. But it might end up that way. Consider yourself forewarned.

First of all, the art show was a terrific success. We had 150-200 people attend, which is phenomenal, and our students were out-frickin'-standing. I was as proud as I've ever been, as a teacher.

Tomorrow, I give my last 2 finals, and then I grade until my eyes bleed, and I'll try to turn grades in by Friday. Please, god, let it be over by Friday.

Meanwhile, my mother-in-law has completed 5 of 8 chemo treatments; I haven't seen her since the beginning of September, and I miss her terribly. She's over halfway done, though, and we're all hopeful for the future.

Shaun, V, and I are all recovering from bad colds, and V and Shaun got the stomach flu over the weekend. For V it was just an awful 12 hour deal, but it's so much harder for Shaun with this happens. Hopefully he won't need to be hospitalized, but it is excruciating to see him suffer and not be able to help more.

V went in for testing last week with a neuropsychiatrist. You remember V from such uplifting posts as Our Out of Sync Child and the one about the Holiday Party last year, right? So, she's still got those issues, although in slightly different forms. She seeks structure, she doesn't handle routine changes well, she...she struggles, often, with things that other kids take in stride. One day a couple of months ago, after an especially difficult car ride home, she started sobbing in the backseat. Exasperated, I said "What is it now?!" She said "Mama, am I ever going to feel better?"  We sat in the driveway and cried together. I don't know that she knew what she was asking, but we're trying to find the best ways to help. On Monday December 20, we'll presumably get a diagnosis. So I've been thinking of this a lot, lately, about labels and what they mean, and about how Monday will not change who V is one tiny bit: she will still be our goofy musical actress who can read like a 4th grader. Yet...today, I can still pretend she might outgrow it. After Monday, when this quirkiness goes beyond quirkiness and gets an actual name, well, then it's here to stay, I suppose. Of course, it's here to stay if it's not diagnosed, too: as my friend Todd pointed out, 10, 20, 30 years ago kids like V went to school undiagnosed all over the place, and many just struggled through, got left behind in some ways, and excelled in others. Shaun and I both remember things in our childhood that could have gone better had we had some of the interventions V's had. And so I wait for Monday, and hope I can remember that she's still our V, and not a diagnosis, and so much much more than we'd ever dreamed.

Shaun continues to watch his diet, though he's dropped off in his excercising in recent weeks, to help his heart heal. We're scheduled for a second echocardiogram on January 24, and hoping for good news. And if it's not good news, at least it hopefully won't be terrible news. He feels pretty good (aside from this damn flu), so I'm optimistic. I was going to say "we're optimistic," but Shaun has never, to my knowledge, been optimistic in his life. So I am.

And there's 37 other things occupying my brain, keeping me awake at night, causing the muscles in my neck to bunch up. My mom, for example, has been having new, excruciating pain in her hands these last three days. We're hoping to find some kind of diagnosis for her, or at least pain relief that doesn't lead to hallucinations. V's supposed to bring snack on Thursday. And start kindergarten next fall. And eventually graduate from high school. See? See why I'm tired?

I know I have so, so many things to be thankful for. I know many people have it much worse than I do. And still, I find the time through all this to write a whiny-ass blogpost.

Here's to happy diagnoses, longjohns, and Christmas cookies. And blog readers.

Amen.

Forced heterosexuality and other American ways

"Dear America, when you tell gay Americans that they can't serve their country openly or marry the person that they love, you're telling that to kids too. So don't be shocked and wonder where all these bullies are coming from that are torturing young kids and driving them to kill themselves because they're different. They learned it ...from watching you."

~Sarah Silverman

As a co-advisor for our campus's LGBT group at my college, and as a longtime supporter of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students (and non-students), I've often had to talk to homophobic people about their point of view. Usually in class it comes up as a student says something is gay, as in "That movie was so gay." I generally start by asking them what they mean: does that mean the movie only finds other movies of its same type attractive? Does that mean some movies are so straight? As an English instructor, I tie it back to the power of language, and how if we're going to use a sexual orientation term to say something is stupid or lame, it will by association suggest that the sexual orientation we're referring to is also stupid or lame. Students learn quickly that I don't let those comments slide in my classroom.

But recently in class, I had a conversation that I'd never had before. We were talking about V's birthday, and how she was turning 5. One of the students said "Just wait until she's turning 13, and obsessed with boys." Much of the class laughed in agreement, but I said, quite honestly and without thinking, "or girls." The entire class gasped (except for the lesbian in the front row, who quietly applauded). I've never shocked an entire room of students so thoroughly and unexpectedly! We talked about it a bit more, and aside from pointing out that sleepovers would be a whole different deal if she's a lesbian, the students listened to my thoughts on the matter and no one stormed out, so I'll call it successful.

I always find it disturbing when parents or any one, espeically if they've never met my daughter, assume they know V's sexuality. I mean, she's freaking five years old. Maybe she does know which sex she'll want to marry, but I certainly don't, and I don't want anyone telling her that what she feels is wrong one way or the other. And I've seen it play out over and over and over, among my friends and my students, that a big part of the heartache of being LGBT is the family expectations, and the feeling that they are letting their family down. I don't want V to be sorry for who she loves. I want her to make good, affirming choices, and find loving healthy partners, and be comfortable in her own skin.

Last year, I had a gay student in the PSEO program, meaning he was a senior in high school, taking college courses. When we talked about V over a year ago, and I said I didn't care if she was gay or straight as long as she was happy, he said "But you'd still rather she was straight, right?" I get this a lot from people, but from him I was a little surprised. No, I said. I want her to be happy and love whomever the hell she wants, as long as they're good to her. Huh, he said. As a man who'd been aware of his own homosexuality for years, he was still astounded that a parent could say this about their own child. His family is a type of "christian" who view homosexuality as a sin on par with child molestation. They are very good, though, at loving the sinner and hating the sin, and when he came out at 15, his family and church supported him, provided he didn't act on his "sinful urges." When he got his first boyfriend at 17, his parents kicked him out of the house.

This young man was not a rebellious student. He loved his family and his church, but he also knew unequivocably that he was gay, and he couldn't change that. He lived with his non-denominational aunt and her family for awhile, and his father threatened to yank him out of classes, and took away his car. They stopped paying for his cell phone. Eventually, he had to move out of his aunt's house, and got an apartment with 6 or 7 other students. He worked hard at his part time job. He ran out of money over and over. He missed his family. He and his boyfriend broke up, and within another month, he moved back home. He promised to give up his "gay lifestyle" and petitioned to get back into the church. He dated a woman, but whenever he told me about her, it was obvious to me that his interest in her was tied to pleasing his family: I've never forced myself to have sex with someone to impress my parents, but that's what he was doing.

The last time I talked to him, he was hopeful that his church would change, and come to see homosexuality not as a sin. I couldn't bear to tell him that it's unlikely to happen in his lifetime.  I told him that he was in the highest risk group for suicide, and made him promise to call me if he needed me. In another class, one of my colleagues told him she hoped, despite the rejection from his parents and his church, that he had someone who loved him unconditionally. He said he did. He said my name.

He's transferred, now, to a different college, and he still lives at home. He was engaged to marry his girlfriend, and I could see a light fading in him (though I've since heard that they've broken up). He doesn't want to leave his church, but he will have to, eventually. Or he'll live a lie.

At first when I started to get to know this student, I was furious. I wanted his parents & church brought up on child abuse charges: how is this not profound emotional abuse? But I know that will never happen. Most of the churches in America take a similar stance on homosexuality. Just look at the ELCA, who, when they agreed to allow openly gay and lesbian clergy (but only if they were in long-term relationships, which I find crazy), lost many congregations. I don't understand how much fear and hatred can be tied to an essentially private, personal matter, but I have seen more than once the ramifications.

I know V will feel pressure from the rest of the world to be a straight girl. And I know if she's not that her life may indeed be more difficult than her straight friends. But I don't want an ounce of that difficulty to come from her family of origin. In the meantime, I will vote for people willing to overturn "Don't ask, don't tell" and offer marriage rights to any two consenting adults. And I will allow V to figure out what sex she finds attractive. Because it's not up to me, or anyone else.

Another one of THOSE posts

In my family, cancer goes back for four generations. We've seen colon, prostate, uterine, breast, nasal, bone, lung, and brain tumors. So we know our cancer in this family.

Perhaps, then, I was less surprised than others when Shaun's mom and dad, Mary & David, called at the end of August to say that Mary had breast cancer. But less surprised does not equal less devastated. In the last ten years, Mary has become one of my very best friends. She makes me laugh, inspires me in all sorts of ways, and we can commiserate over what it's like to be married to a Ganyo.

 (here's Grandpa David, making a leaf house for V this past weekend).

She had a mastectomy at the end of August, and her first chemo was 2 weeks ago tomorrow. Her next chemo is scheduled for Wednesday of this week. Her hair will start falling out, likely, in the next few days. But she will survive this round, and we are all so, so thankful for clear margins and good odds.

My grandfather died in 1979 of colon and prostate cancer, and since I was six, I have no real memory of him before cancer. He was already bald when I was born, and 78 when he died. But I remember my mother's heartache at his illness, and I remember being in the St. Ansgar's waiting room for hours at a time (back when children under 12 weren't allowed to visit patients).  I would've been almost exactly V's age.

My parents didn't talk to us much, that I remember, about Grandpa's cancer. We knew that's what he had, and we heard words like chemo and restraints. But I don't remember direct conversations about what was going on. We're trying to do things differently with V. We want her to know that Grandma had  a tumor in her breast, and that's why she had surgery to remove it. V knows that microscopic cancer cells were found in one lymph node, and that that's not as bad as we'd feared. She knows that chemotherapy is the medicine used to make sure the cancer goes away, to try to keep it from ever coming back.

She knows that the chemo is why grandma is so tired, and why she'll lose her hair. V also knows how crazy it is that medicine, that is, stuff that's supposed to make Grandma better, is totally going to make her more sick first. We try to focus on good things, like how lovely it is to lay down next to Grandma and watch cartoons, and not talk so much about why Grandma's not making cookies on this visit, or why we have to hug her gently until the surgeries (from drains and ports, besides the obvious) have time to heal. We draw pictures for Grandma, and send her postcards, and talk to her or Grandpa on the phone sometimes. Sometimes we go out for a short visit, like this weekend, when we were there for about 17 hours, which was just enough to wear Grandma out but hopefully also cheer her up.



We celebrate our time together everyday, and hold on, and try to ride it all out together. It's the only thing we know to do. 

Crushing guilt. As usual.

So I've always been good at feeling bad. I still feel bad for dumb things I did in 1st grade. What is wrong with me? That can't be normal. See? I feel bad for feeling bad.

Shaun's illness has offered lots of new opportunities for guilt. Guilt for serving sodium-laden food all these years. Guilt when I crave (and can eat) carry-out pizza. Guilt when I forget to start the sodium-free pot roast, so he has to have a salt-free peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Again.

Then there's the generalized guilt: Guilt for not blogging more, guilt for posting whiny blog posts like this one, guilt that V watches too much tv, guilt that I don't get my papers graded faster, guilt that I don't write more letters/eat more vegetables/go to the library more.

And I know all the stuff about forgiving myself, and moving on, and taking steps to let go of guilt. And I feel guilty for not doing them.

Mostly, I'm posting about all my guilt so that I can get it out of me, air it out, and move on. We'll see how well that works.

Father's Day

Shaun is sick. He had pneumonia about ten days ago, and still wasn't feeling better yesterday. The doctor at yesterday's walk-in said "Well your heart is enlarged..." as if he should have known that. We didn't. Shaun was admitted to the hospital last night around 6:30.

Cardiomyopathy. Do not look at any links I don't put here, people. The internet is a terrifying place.

When I was 12, and my dad had the stroke, I remember the distinct feeling that nothing would ever be the same. I got pissed off at Connie Chung for prattling on about celebrity news. I feel that way now (except for the Connie Chung part). It's not an especially fair analogy, but still I am trying not to hyperventilate.

It's been a hard year for us. A terrible year. We decided to have a second baby this winter, which drove us straight to marriage counselling this spring, trying to remember why we loved each other, and whether or not we could figure things out. Just this month, we both started to feel again that maybe we could work through this, that we could actually still make a life together.

Now he's in the hospital, and it's father's day, and I'm trying not to freak out. I want to call someone, someone who will tell me this will be okay. I want to call the Mayo Clinic. I want to shake the doctor who read Shaun's x-ray last week, who didn't tell us/notice/mention that his heart was already enlarged. I want someone to fix this. I want my husband, and I want V to have her father, for a long, long time.

"I don't want anything for Father's Day," he said last week. "It just reminds me how I'm not a father of two like you wanted me to be." My sweet holy moses, man. You are above and beyond the father I wanted you to be, and you have been since September 7, 2005. I don't need a second baby. I need you, and me, and her, as healthy as we can be, together for as long as we can make it.

I want our old life back. I don't think it will ever be the same.

(Edited to add: Shaun's feeling pretty good right now, just a little short of breath. We haven't met with the cardiology team yet, and don't know much at all about what our future will hold. I don't want to scare anyone unnecessarily: I'm busy doing that to myself.)

Ach.

I haven't spent much time thinking through this post, so bear with me.

Tenessa, my dear friend, called yesterday to tell me her father died. It was unexpected, and he was only 57, and they are understandably heartbroken. He was a kind, loving father and grandfather, and the world is truly a darker place without him.

And it sucks, knowing someone you care for is hurting on that profound level. It's hard going about my day, making grilled cheese sandwiches, thinking of Tenessa and her brother picking out funeral songs. It's hard listening to my student explain that he's just too busy to come to class when someone I love is writing an obituary.

I really think we should talk more, as a society, about how hard it is to lose a parent. Grandparents are hard, too, but they are people you expect to lose, really, before you yourself are old. But parents, gak. There's just such an ache left behind, a feeling of something missing, and it doesn't seem to ever go away. When my dad died, I kept thinking "Why didn't anyone tell me how hard this would be?" Maybe people had, but it's one of those things you don't really understand until you experience it.

When my Grandma Beulah, my mother's mother, died, I was 16, and I remember being genuinely sad, but also relieved. She had been ill, near the end, and her suffering was over. I pointed this out to my mom soon after the funeral. I can still hear her response. "I know, Jenny, but golly, I miss her."

I'm so sorry, Tenessa and Tommy and everyone else who is hurting today. I'm sorry, and it's awful, and I'm glad I got to know your dad, just a little bit.

"To whom much is given, much will be required."

When I first heard of the Haitian earthquake, and all the devastation, all I could think of was in Star Wars when the planet Alderaan is destroyed, and Obi-Wan Kenobi shudders, feeling a giant cosmic sob of grief. It is the only reaction that makes sense to me. But then, on the second day of class, I made the mistake of bringing Haiti up to my students, some of whom had a very strong reaction.

"Why do we have to be everyone's big brother? We don't belong there." But, but, I said, there are so many hurt, someone has to help them. "There are homeless people downtown, and we're not helping them." Really? I said. You want us to help our own homeless while the bodies rot in Haiti? "Yeah, well, it doesn't always have to be us. Besides, Haiti used to have a functional democracy, and the people let it fall back into corruption and chaos. This is what they deserve."

That question, "Why do we have to be everyone's big brother," rings in my head. It implies that somehow, Americans should be separate from responsibility to anyone else. I didn't think of it at the time, of course, but I should've pointed out that we as 5% of the population consume 25% of the world's resources. That we throw out 200,000 tons of edible food EVERY DAY. That daily, Americans use 6x more water than over half of the world's population.

The depth of suffering on that little island exhausts me. So does the bureaucracy that keeps people from getting the help available. But even more devastating, to me, is the idea that my students expressed: that somehow these people don't deserve help, and that Americans need to focus more on taking care of our (already spoiled) selves than those suffering the most. I don't know what to say in the face of that idea, because it is such a cold and foreign thought to me.

I hope somehow all who can be saved are saved, and those who cannot suffer as little as possible. I hope people get safe, and fed, and learn to bear their grief. And I hope my students can learn to be more compassionate, and never suffer such devastation as this.

All quiet on the Western Front

Sorry for the Veteran's/Armistice Day title. I haven't been posting this week, because I can't think of what to say. My cousin Deron died on Sunday, and my whole family has a broken heart.

I wrote about him here and here. I could've said more. I wish I had.

I'll be back, probably after the funeral.

Go on now, and tell your cousins you love them.