eternal

I heard some very hard news about a friend.  The kind of news that snatches the breath out of your lungs mid-inspiration.

Three to five years with intensive treatment.

Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Silence.

How can this be?  How can this have happened?  But of course, it can be and has happened because life is like that.  No one is immune.  It is an undocumented contract we sign with our first cry outside of the womb.  As long as you are still breathing you may be subject to terrible things or incredible things at any given moment.

We all know this.  At least, at some point in time we figure it out.  It took the death of a much wanted son to convince me of this truth.  But everyone eventually reaches the same conclusion just via different routes. Some are just fortunate enough to breeze through longer than others.  Yet even knowing this we go about our days in usual fashion; eating frosted cereal from a too-big bowl while reading the puzzles on the back of the box.  We slurp down the leftover sweetened milk from our cereal and then brush our teeth.  We iron our clothes and do the dishes.  We watch bad television and write about silly things like baking a cheesecake.  We go to work at jobs we don't really like.

I wonder if why she wanted me to come with her was because we both learned about the inevitable conclusion to life in the same way.  I've known for almost two years.  She's known for nearly thirty.  We both can sit with the shadow of tragedy looming large in a room and not pretend that it isn't there.  A skill set possessed by few.

If I am totally honest with myself, even with a tiny little box of ashes sitting on my dresser and knowing death the way I do, I still feel eternal.

When it comes down to it don't we all?

it's croup

It's croup.  You know, The Croup, as people call it.  Oh, and bronchiolitis too.  Babies get it all the time.  Especially now.  Tis the season.  No need to worry.  But if it gets really bad put her in the car and drive, with your windows down, to Huntington Hospital.  Why with the windows down?  Because that seems to help relax the airways.  Why Huntington Hospital?  Because that's the nearest hospital with a pediatric ICU.

I give my patients ER precautions all the time, even when I am confident there is nothing to worry about.  It's just to be cautious.  It's just CYA.  You know, cover your ass.  But still...

I wonder if he can see the panic in my eyes.  I seem calm.  I have always been very good at projecting whatever exterior I want people to see but I wonder if he can see the fear underneath.  If he does he probably chalks it up to first time mother anxiety.  I want to tell him that I have reason to fear.  I want to tell him that I had a son who should have been fine.  That what happened to him was so rare that even in a county with nearly ten million people what happened only happens to a handful of people a year.  I want to tell him that I'm scared because statistics are no friend of mine anymore.

I don't say those things.

She gets steroids to help with the inflammation.  I soothe her with a pacifier and soft strokes to her head while I wait for the test to come back and tell me if she has RSV.  She doesn't.  That's very good.

She continues to cry and to cough and to gasp.  I continue to swallow back my own tears.  This is my fault.  I brought this home to her from work.  I've been sick and I have kissed her too many times.  Selfish kisses.

No Christmas dinner and opening presents with family this year.  CONTAGIOUS.

Now she's asleep on my chest, face buried into my shoulder.  It is the only way she will sleep.  I run my lips across her smooth cheeks when she stirs and it seems to calm her back into slumber.  She smells like milk.  Her skin tastes like all my hopes and all my love and all my fear mingled with the salty film left behind from her many tears.

hot pink

Did I ever tell you all how when I was pregnant with Clio I did very little in regards to getting her room ready until I was nearing the end of my pregnancy?  I felt superstitious (not a normal state of being for me) about getting anything prepared for her because a huge part of me really thought that she wasn't coming home with us.   It wasn't rational but I felt like if I were to invest too much energy on dreaming about her homecoming that the universe was going to kick my ass again.  Because, you know, why not?

So I prepared the bare minimum for her arrival; a crib, a co-sleeper, a dresser, and a carseat.  Everything else, aside from the curtains, was pretty barren.  It only took nearly four months but I finally finished the rest of her nursery.  It isn't exactly as I had wanted it but I have gotten to a place where I am content with how it looks and overjoyed that its little inhabitant is here with us.  Mostly, I feel like it fits her personality, if that is possible for a four month old.  It even has old photographs of our relatives and, specifically, my grandmother the pilot (Clio Irene's namesake) to watch over her crib.  I hope Clio has as much spunk as her great-grandmother did.  George aslo has his own little mark on the room in the form of a mobile of rainclouds and hot-air balloons.

On a whim I decided to enter it into a contest on Apartment Therapy just for fun.  If you are interested in seeing what it looks like (and/or voting for it) you can see it here:

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/family/hot-pink-hodgepodge-small-kids-big-color-entry-49-162593

endurance

I used to be a swimmer in high school. I was pretty good at it too, although by no means the best.  Probably had something to do with the long limbs and the searing heat of my hometown summers.  If you weren't in the pool during those long months than you were inside with the airconditioning, probably watching television.  I preferred the water.

I swam distance races.  The kind in which someone sat at the opposite end of the pool from the starting blocks and counted laps.  Nearing the turns I would, through my goggles, see a hand gripping a lap counter suddenly appear in the water to keep my mind focused on the course of the race.  It was important in those events to know where you were at in the lap count because you had to be conscious of your energy expenditure; when it was ok to lag behind the other swimmers, when to start a relaxed picking up of the pace and when, in the final stretches, to tap the reserves and swim the last 50-100 yards in a sprint.

I've always been more physically and mentally attuned -in sports and in life- for the long haul rather than the sprinting events. Endurance is something I have in spades.  This is partially why I chose the field of work I am in -many challenging years of education- and certainly how I managed to snag my most awesome husband -many months of patiently waiting for him to realize he was as into me as I was into him.

There is noting quite like the feeling of accomplishment from finishing a race long run.  It is euphoric.

I'm seeing my therapist again today, the second time since Clio was born; the first was when she was only three weeks old.  Things have been that good.  Excellent, really.  Since Clio came into my life I have been feeling like the fully fleshed out person that I used to be two years ago instead of the shelled out version I've grown accustomed to.  I'm laughing and smiling and generally feeling pretty content with my life.

These last few days have been difficult though.  Well, actually, the last week but I've been staving off the inevitable emotional meltdown for awhile.  I've avoided anything that could possibly suck me back into those overwhelming periods of grief I've experienced since George died.  I haven't looked at his pictures since Clio was born.  They are now sitting in George's box, along with all of his other things, in our bedroom. Lately I've been putting her down for naps on our bed for the sole reason of making it impossible for me to go in there and pull out those photographs. I rarely even talk about George except with certain trusted people.  I glance over his dust-covered urn like it is just another piece of bric-a-brac on my dresser.  Next weekend we are going, along with my family, to a candle-lighting ceremony for honoring children who have died and I am not looking forward to the experience.  Yet I still want to go.

I don't think that any of that is healthy behavior.  Not that I think shrouding ones self in grief indefinitely is healthy behavior either but this avoidance of feeling any kind of emotion regarding George is really bad.  Really bad.

In a little over three months it will be two years since I held George and kissed his face.  That is a really long time to miss someone so intensely, especially ones own child.  That is a really long fucking test of endurance, one that only continues to stretch out into the future.  Grief doesn't have a finish line, no lap counters to help you pace yourself, no feeling of euphoria at the end of a race well-run.  It gets easier, yes, but you never really finish the race.

I know this is a decidedly pessimistic post and I feel kind of shitty for writing it as I have some sort of self-imposed feeling of responsibility to all the people just starting this race to only write about how things get better (they do) and to not give the impression that I am not forever and eternally grateful for my daughter (I am).  But here it is, my truth as it is today; Grief is hard and I am just so very, very tired.