September 18, 2016

I think it’s a little bit of survivor’s guilt.  I was a sensitive child, sure, but it was that I awoke after my coma, that I walked away from my hospital visit (well, after I re-learned how to walk) that brings this guilt.  I walked into her hospital room, saw her on the monitors and machines and tears flew out of my eyes…I couldn’t look at this young woman whom I had JUST SEEN at a flag football game.  When my head hits the pillow at night I see her, body shaking uncontrollably with tremors as her brain was trying so desperately to communicate with body parts.  And then to get that text Saturday morning, that her body had given up.  I want to wrap the family in my heart and cry with them, because this isn’t how it was supposed to be, and yet it happened.

I had a house-full, or to be more honest, a trampoline full of girls who had spent the night last night (which is the reason why I wore a nightgown).  I needed to get in there to get my coffee started, but I’m in this nightgown-thing and am wearing my glasses.  My boobs are all floppy – is this appropriate to wear?  That’s when my inner-me kicked in and told the outer-me that hey!  These are young females – they could 1) give a flip less what you are wearing 2) they have moms too, who have floppy boobs in the pre-bra morning and 3) well, I guess I only two basic points.  Coffee started, soon it was ingested and the girls were all so focused on their smart phones anyway that I’m not sure they even saw me.

I needed to get the garage started – which I did.  I went through my Montessori stuff and am dropping it by a pre-school tomorrow.  I’m not getting rid of the sound-box materials, that was way too much work and I can use the items for sand-tray in therapy, but everything else is thrown away or donated.  If I ever do teach again I’ll start over with many things.  I then went through my past.  Dammit, there is too much here that will have to be thrown away by my kids.  I did get rid of a lot of stuff, but some of my memories can’t be thrown away…they made me who I am.

I wrote out some resources and support groups for the family – I will bring it to the football game tomorrow.  All day long I’ve been Giving My Life Purpose – I finally got those two items from my letterman’s jacket – the letter and the stitching with my name – reunited after being separated how many decades? I got the kids school pictures sorted (mostly) and together  – I’m not even sure I ever gave them to any family…oops.  And then I cooked dinner, which the kids and I enjoyed sitting, talking, and you better believe I sucked in every moment.

While digging through the garage today, I came upon something I haven’t seen in a long, long time.  Long ago, when I was a child, my dad’s cousin climbed high into the Austrian alps and picked two Edelweiss which he gave to me.  He died shortly after bringing the flowers to America.  I was also reminded how a schoolmate of mine lost her daughter nine years ago yesterday and she noticed today that we share the same middle name.  It isn’t that I am making or attempting to make these deaths about me in any way shape or form –   I’m not.  Death is a part of all of us.  We are all affected by it, are all given a grim reminder that one day, we shall meet it, too.  When I cross paths with death, I feel it, trust me.  It hurt when my dad passed away almost 6 years ago, but I also knew that my dad had lived a full life, even if it was cut a little shorter by the choices he made.  It is the deaths like that of Sabrina, who was twenty, or the death of Oliver, who died the day before he was due, or the death of my own Ryan, who died because he wouldn’t have made it to his due-date and could have killed me in the process that leave me numbed to the core.  I talk about death to my kids.  They know and are pretty excited about the fact that I’m going to become a tree when I go.  So why do I get so affected?   I wish I could answer that.

Pictures: The girls playing volleyball in the street;  my girl and my faux-girl honor their  school’s coach.