Past Venting moved for posterity

September 17, 2010

Today fucking sucks. I am in so much pain there is no nice way to candy coat it or be all poetic...its like getting stabbed repeatedly while having a pillow held over my face so its hard to breathe. That's what it feels like today. The nerve pain is getting worse down my left side and what am I doing? Jumping through medical hoops like a poorly trained poodle. And then the seizures that aren't quite seizures with no real explanation...and the leg spasms that are keeping me from sleeping well at night...the face tingling and burning....the intermittent reflux that nothing can help where it is hard to even drink water...I am slowly losing the sight in my left eye...and the list (incredibly, pathetically) goes on. If I were not (a) a total wuss and (b) afraid to die and (c) needed by my children oh, and (d) only too painfully aware of the aftermath of suicide...I would consider taking myself out. But luckily all of the above apply and I am too stubborn to give up even when I am face-in-the-dirt-pissed-at-all-beings miserable. But it is sapping me. The day in and day out. Forgetting everything, watching my life slip away without even a sigh, not even able to remember my babies being born anymore, driving everyone around me bat shit with my personal misery, driving myself bat shit with my misery...I dont know how much longer I can keep up the lying smiling face. Its trite to ask why me, but I gotta whole lotta "why me" bottled up inside.




So if I miss a play date because I forgot just like I now have a hard time remembering birthdays and you decide to be snarky to me...well go fuck yourself. If I can't come to a game and sit in a lawn chair because I am in extreme pain and you think I am a bad parent....screw you. If you want everything on your terms and never once pause to think how difficult it is sometimes for me to just get out of bed or even lie down and sleep...I hope you are swept away in a freak bird of prey incident. And when you find the need to imitate me when I stutter over a word because I am having a cognitive hiccup, well I hope you get stuck in the back woods of Alabama with Ned Beatty and a bunch of lonely banjo players.



Not pretty, but its my insides right now. I warned ahead of time...move along, nothing to see here.

February 26th, 2010


I had one of those moment today...where you see your missing loved one but it is really a stranger with familiar features. I was waiting to check into the clinic for a blood draw. While I was waiting in line the respectful privacy distance away from the front reception desk I looked up and there was my Dad. Plain as day across the room. Dressed like my Father, hair combed back like him, that high brow, easy smile. I stared in open longing at this man, not wanting either of us to move and break the spell. I wondered briefly if my grief was naked on my face as my ravenous eyes could not look away from this glimpse of Dad. The man made a small joke with the receptionist, forehead creasing and teeth showing just like his as he reached into the interior pocket of his jacket with a gesture I have seen a thousand times. Precious...every movement more dear in the absence of the man whose face I long to see. Of course the moment broke. The man finished checking in and turned into the waiting room under the full lights and I could see it wasn't him. I slowly let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding...holding in some secret hope that it would really be my Dad. That he would turn to me and in that slow easy drawl say, "See sugar-bear, it's ok. I'm right here."



Just like on some days I think of my intense fear of my own death and I can almost hear his voice in my ear saying, "I did it for you...it wasn't a big thing at all. Nothing to worry about." As he winks at me and fills his pipe with the toasted vanilla cavendish that I carry a small pouch of in my purse when I need to feel he is close by. I still remember how homesick I was my first semester of college and that one of the professors in my main building smoked a pipe with a similar tobacco. In those days, professors could smoke in their offices. There was a small study are near his office and I used to purposely hang out there because the smell of his pipe made me feel like my Dad was right around the corner. Now no one is around the corner but strangers, phantoms, and sometimes a little luck when they all coalesce and I find an image of my Father on the face of a stranger.




Feb 17, 2010


Memory and Time



What is our memory really? Times, events, a remembered day, look, feeling...is it somehow hard-wired into our being or is it really boiled down into the functioning of tissues and body chemicals? As my memory becomes more of a landscape of dips and valleys, I wonder about this more and more. My recall fades. I get flashes if I try really hard. Sometimes certain stories come with ease and the mental image briefly flickers around it at times. Is that normal? It that because I am losing my cognition just a bit as my brain takes more abusive pressure from the relentless pull of my spinal cord? To keep saying "it is the Chiari" just seems so flimsy because really...it is all me. It's my body destroying elements of myself...who I am in memory and spirit. Spirit that is locked as it is in this fleshy cage called body. If Spirit is so powerful, then why am I slipping away? Why is it so hard to recall my childhood with real clarity? I remember things, sure...I know who my family is, places we lived, even remembered snap shots of scenes from my life....bright sunlight pouring into my grandmother's kitchen as the old percolator coffee pot drips and bubbles. The pot was a green that in the appliance world is called avocado with a steel mesh insert for grounds. The windows are open and her lace curtains move lazily in the breeze and children are playing outside in the playground around back. If I follow those images and really concentrate, more will come but not always orderly or easily. So I worry. If it is like this now, how will I be at 60? 70? *sigh*



I know the practical and soothing thing to think is that those ages are too far away to worry about now. But when is the best time to be concerned about future events? And this is my memory we are talking about here...struggling to hold onto images of my babies being born, holding little hands and kissing tiny toes...trying to see my father someplace other than a coffin. As it fades, I feel like I have less to think about. Perhaps that means that one day soon I will know the happy carefree life of a witless fool. I know, I know...a little extreme but I can't help myself. I don't which is worse, knowing it is going or the days when I am unaware until I try to access my memory and find another piece gone. Just chipped away and melted like so much ice under the sun.

Feb 6, 2010


Surgeries, Fear, and other twaddle



So I saw this mystic the other day and we really connected. Had a lot of uncommons in common you could say. I felt very relaxed and safe in her presence. (By the way...I really don't care what anyone else has to say about mystics, religion, psychics, Dion Warwick...letting you know in advance in case someone wants to give some misguided advice or ribbing. I don't want you to be surprised when I casually rip you a new asshole then smile sweetly back at you.) But I digress....it was a nice session and good to confirm some things I had been perceiving in my personal atmosphere if you will. While I won't make a long boring commentary on all we discussed, I will say that she picked up on me old brain stuff and started talking about the surgery I will have. Yeah. I go back to Dr. Frim in a few weeks and I will be discussing surgery for this summer. I am trying to put out the brave front, stiff upper lip and all that drivel one says in a perky British accent...but i am frightened. However, I am also miserable more days than I am well so there has to be a trade off. I have gone as far as I can and have been avoiding some heavy duty medications the whole way despite doctor advice. I just can't see covering it all up in a drugged stupor. I have to be able to take care of myself, my kids, and be functional. Especially since I am by myself so much. Hard to do that in a drug induced haze. The small amount of narcotics I was taking (Vicodin) I was cutting the pills in half and only using them when I was really hurting...but now those are not agreeing with me as I have developed a super sensitivity to medications like so many others with Chiari. No one know why that is but it seems to be a commonality among us. The best I have felt since all of this started was when I was seeing the naturopath and an acupuncturist on a regular basis. But insurance doesn't pay for those things and I couldn't keep paying out of pocket. Now I am looking down the barrel of the surgical procedure. *sigh* As I said, I have gone as far as I can go without it.



I am not too keen on the idea of being knocked out....less keen on the idea of having the back of my head opened up like a can of baked beans. Its hard not to think of things like...what if something goes wrong? What if I just made a decision that robbed my babies of a mother? I keep telling myself what should I care at that point if the worst case scenario happened. I mean really then my worries are over right? But actually, to me the worst case scenario would be living but having my brain scrambled in some way. At that point, just wheel me onto the train tracks and don't look back....you could rest easy knowing I sighed with relief on impact.

Feb 5, 2010


And another day



I finished one of the books I recently checked out of the library...The Girl With No Shadow. It is actually a sequel to Chocolat...which incidentally is much more complex and interesting than the movie. As I have not been sleeping well lately, it has seemed a fine time to take advantage of my library card and pick back up at least one piece of me that I've always enjoyed. I promise...there is more to come. I am taking people at their word to me and I intend to dive headlong back into myself. I hate the way I describe myself these days in "used to". I used to paint. I used to write. I used to be involved in theater. I used to enjoy, used to love, used to, used to, used to Elaina without end Amen. So I am going to search for a local writing group. I actually know of a few that meet regularly. But this means I need to brush the dust off of some abandoned projects or start some new ones. I just can't see myself taking my dabbling in romantic fiction to a writing group. Its not that I am ashamed of my guilty writing pleasure...ok...perhaps a little shy. And I also want to be taken seriously, especially since I will be the outsider coming in for the first time. Writing makes me vulnerable. Whether I write about personal experience or create something new, there is always an element of self exposed. So I really want to approach this the right way...sort of like a first date if you will. No food in my teeth, hair in place, the right mix of casual and attentiveness. But no kisses please, a hand shake will do for now.



I also feel I need to make a good list. Ok, I always feel like I need to make a good list...but really it does help to sort oneself out on paper. Then you can check mark things or make notes...the act of writing it down sort of cements it in some way on the subconscious. Everything can be made into its own ritual...from goals to love. But I don't want to talk about love. Not right now. I have been wallowing in the finer feelings lately and it has left me bruised and feeling rather delicate. So another time perhaps. Today, I am simply writing to keep myself in practice. I can feel that this is a day to disengage and simply get things accomplished in the physical. Though I do have an interesting appointment later this afternoon with a talented mystic. I can't wait! It's always good to have a little outside perspective just as long as you don't let it overcome your own instincts....which is something I tend to do from time to time. It is a rather odd sensation to realize the person you trust the least is you and yet the only person you trust is you. I liken it to riding a teeter-totter alone...you are precariously balanced in the middle...you want to enjoy the ride but you really can't as you are responsible for both ends and sooner or later you will fall off. The only way to get down is to carefully shift yourself to one end or the other. I am trying to slide toward the self trust but it is a wobbly board, cracked and splintered and I am almost certain I will fall. I suppose sometimes we need the view from the ground.

Feb 4, 2010


Strangers Again



So odd to speak to someone you know with your own soul as if you are but companionable strangers. The visceral shock of hearing their voice and you are thrown against the sound like a ship running in shallows...wondering if you will run aground or perhaps ease through to safety. So much not said in low tones of mundane greeting. I have to remind myself I chose this. I made the arrangements, sent the flowers, booked the table...this is my party. So I can cry if I want to, right? The timing was wrong (but is it ever right?), I was still worn thin from my out pouring last night and the rebellion of my body. It's a mutiny of tendons and muscles drawn so tight all I can do is writhe in pain when what I want and need is sleep. That is only my physical body...it will pass. Never as quickly as I like, a bit more frustration these days but it will all pass. I repeat this to myself in a silent mantra as I try to scald my legs into relaxed submission under the running tub faucet having already balled my hands into fists and beaten the offending leg until my wrist hurt too...brilliant idea but something had to give. Sometimes its as if this silent stranger that has invaded my flesh senses my moments of vulnerability and chooses its moments to strike when I am weakened in other ways. Harder for me to fight back then. Harder to shine a smile and brace yourself in the dark watches of the night so that is when my body is at its worst.



Last night I had serious words, my heart throbbing uselessly in my mouth with my tongue trying to translate but nothing came out as I hoped. Except the anger...that seems always at the ready now. Anger at my body. Anger at my father. Anger at myself. And I found myself agreeing to useless terms...things I don't believe just to have a moment's illusion of peace. Too broken to care anymore...perhaps that is why my body rebelled so vigorously last night. Some spark of indignation and self twitching to life if only in my useless legs. I know I think too much...romanticize. There are times where what I think of as my inner writer's voice takes over, it is managing the scene and the dialogue and what's being said in my head sounds like it is coming straight from a book. Sometimes influenced by whatever I happen to be reading. Maybe I don't have any true voice of my own and I just beg steal and borrow what is handy or striking to me at the time. Perhaps I am incapable of true emotions on my own, so I craft a scene, a novella, a book and myself and those around me are characters. This is a safe way to feel and not hurt. That's how I felt this morning. Brief words jarring me into a deep motion, mulling over the lighting and the inner dialogue as if editing my work. It did not take much of that before I began (as usual) to question my authenticity, my sanity. Is wholeness as simple as deciding it to be so? I say it so mote it be? Perhaps certain aspects really are as simple as thinking "stop" or just not thinking. How is it that the simplistic is always so complicated? I am fairly certain this has something to do with human nature and trappings of the flesh but I still don't have it nailed down. But I digress. Last night and this morning are flowing into one another and I find it not quite distracting but slightly distressing. Perhaps. So I am here to write it out.



At least last night had some release no matter that it was minuscule. I am still fucked up over my father's death. No shit, someone might say, its barely been a year. I know, but don't we always think we are somehow different from the norm? That part of me that sighs and thinks, "We are still hung on that" in exasperation. I found myself crying over his last days...the wistful vulnerability in his voice as he tried to offer me and my brother-on-law money to make up a special evening for my sister's birthday. The evening that would be his last family event before he took his life a few days later. Seeing myself, trying to be gentle in refusing the offered funds and keenly feeling ...what? shame? discomfort? regret? pity? realizing that in so many ways the children had surpassed their parents at least in terms of the material which seems to make this world go round. That we both felt it as he guested from my sister's home to my own...both far nicer than how we had grown up. More cars, furniture that matched the carpet that accentuates the drapes...well appointed pantry...good food on the table and enough of it to allow childish waste from the little ones. We, the only souls on this planet to whom he may actually feel responsible for and owing to, didn't need his help. At least from the angle he chose to perceive. I still needed him. I wasn't done yet. And I was angry with him...still am but for some different reasons now. And I am guilty and angry with myself for letting the distance grow between us these past few years. Now I have to resolve it all on my own. I don't want to ...I don't want to be in a rage with him. It made me crumble to see how his life was reduced to boxes tossed haphazardly onto her basement floor, contents spilling out as she had ransacked through it all. The life of another human being should be more...is more...than a handful of outdated suit coats and boxes of magazines. It broke my heart. I cant seem to figure out how to put the pieces back together and even pretend it is the same. And then the numbing thought of he left me. He knew I was sick and he fucking left me anyway. Not difficult to see how the rage cycles back around. All I can do is ride the waves and try to get across to dry land eventually with my soul intact. I am questioning all that I believe and how I believe it.



I try so hard not to shake a pissed off fist at the sky and scream at God and the Universe...WHY? What is the meaning here? Why so much? Even Job gotta break in the end! Lay off me for awhile will ya? Those emotions are futile and yet the more I resist they persist...lingering like a dark shadow at the back of my mind. If not me, then who are these things supposed to happen to? What figment character full of delicate suffering and beautiful longing made pure by her trials is all of this shit supposed to happen to? So why not me? What makes me so special that I shouldn't be singled out for torment? The answer...not a damn thing. I'm just as much a part of this human experience of suffering and chance as the next person...there is no tax exempt status. So then where do I find God? Where is the light? Where is at least some holy peace of mind and spirit unblemished by my shameful wallowing? I keep praying for that peace and that light. I know it is here and I need to focus on the smaller picture in order to magnify the Grace in my life. But it is so damned hard right now. I was so full last night, my head ached, my eyes ran,...I mean I beat my own fucking leg for God's sake (he...sort of a pun if you will)...and still...silence.



So I lay in the dark and tried to think up a story or scene to put myself to sleep....just as I have done since childhood. Perhaps envision myself as a new character in an old favorite story. But nothing would come. Only thoughts of what I might be missing across the lines of self and distance. A long eternity of a blank wall stretching out infinitum. Then the songs over my new favorite internet station....sigh. I have 66 more years to go until I am 102 and that is a damn long time. (Its not meant to make sense...that is for me alone so don't be bother gentle reader with what mystical symbolism that little nut might hold. You will never guess...I still keep my secrets). And so that final poke in the eye lulled me into a restless sleep which was punctuated by painful drawings of my legs curled against the blanket in a spastic caricature, as if running in my dreams as a claw-footed animal. Finally, the pain pushed me out of bed while the winter sky was still blue shadowed in its own sleep. As I hobbled around my kitchen trying to make breakfast, having laid out the kid's clothes for the day, I decided to make an early morning call and found myself voice to voice with a stranger. And that broke my heart too.


Feb 3, 2010


Need to Write



I have to say, I do again wonder why there are "blogging categories" ...am I really going to have a post on here about "Fashion and Shopping" seriously. Anyway, no one come here much anymore...we have all fled to Facebook and that is fine by me. So now maybe I will keep up with this blog as a place to dump my thoughts in a tangles mess of wires, Christmas lights, rusted nails, and other assorted feelings. Writing is part of my survival mode. It hurts, then write it out. You can't keep the secret anymore but you can't share, write it out. No words to describe or perhaps you are hiding from humanity in general...write it out. But I have stopped writing over the years. I used to keep journals. Keep is not really the right word...pour into, splash myself in ink across the page, fill and then set the little books free to be tossed around the seas of my living space. Sometimes appearing on the bookshelf like small reference encyclopedias to my inner workings. Always packed away in milk crates or liquor store boxes to be moved to the next incarnation as I drifted from one state to another. Now I have incomplete pages. Journals gifted to me over the past few years until people stopped buying them as I stopped writing. These are all half finished...incoherent as I kept losing them and would start another out of the surplus pile only to then misplace or lose interest in that one and start the cycle again. Writing never really leaves you but it is a difficult beast to reclaim once you have neglected it. It is surly, angry with you for the abandonment....sometimes refuses to come when it's called. It prefers to punish you, bite at your outstretched pleading hand so that you feel the pain you pushed aside into other things as you denied your true nature of the page. But it can be coaxed out from under the bed. It can be gentled...with the punishment comes understanding and a softened sympathy at your anguish as you beg for a return. And so slowly, it slips out and engulfs you in that old familiar until your fingers itch with the need to hold a pen, caress the keyboard....write.



So here I am writing it out...again. I do wonder if I am alone in using writing as some sort of dissection tool to cut myself open and look inside. Sometimes it works and I come to grand epiphanies of self...other times not so much and I wind up meandering into random thoughts and observations. Today I am trying to observe myself...my current happening....how things tick. I have taken them apart but can I put them back together? It is always hard business to dismantle one's self and try to decide what needs to be discarded, what needs tuning, what is worth creating anew. I thought knew where I was going but apparently, I was mistaken. I keep being fooled into thinking and believing that I am driven...courageous...dedicated. Even I cannot ignore the truth...that perhaps I am lazy...aloof...withdrawn...a coward. How to swallow waking a coward in the midst of your own life I have yet to figure out. It is hard to be the one always charging in on the white horse, breathing righteous fire on behalf of all and sundry but find yourself unable to muster enough power to blow out a candle in your own chapel. I have to laugh at myself as I read those last few lines...I love to play with words and description...to try to get others to see a feeling or thought I am having at a deep level but at times, there just needs to be plain speech. Today that stripped down language is escaping me...perhaps it is easier to dance around my own pain and discomfort if I dress it and drape it in beautiful alphabet strings. Perhaps. But I doubt it. Nothing is easy anymore....so write it out ...right?




Dec 11, 2008


Where did the time go?



It doesn't seem like it has been four whole weeks already. I was sitting down with my kids and hubby last night, oddly enough for pizza, and it hit me...four weeks ago to the day I had sat down at Quatros for pizza with my Dad. That was the last night I saw him alive. It just doesn't seem possible. There is so much I think about...how if I known it would be the last time I would have hugged him longer. I would have had more to say. In the end its is simply that I wasn't done yet. I know we never are but I feel robbed. I have always been very close to my Dad up until about 7 or so years ago when I sort of started to pull away a bit. Yes, there were reasons and I can't say why I didn't bring it up to my Dad over the years but I never did. Maybe I was waiting for him to notice. Maybe I was waiting for some "right time"...who knows. But now the chance is gone. My sister keeps saying, "Well he knows everything now"....I guess so but it still feels hollow sometimes. That is part of my ache. If I have any advice to impart to others it is resolve it now...whatever it is...don't wait because that moment may never get here and it will hurt all the more.


Feb 3, 2008


Sometimes, you just want to poop alone.



Some of you may have just stopped in to read this because the headline made you stop in shock and curious horror. But I would bet money that anyone with children just nodded and gave a little sigh because something so simple and personal a moment as going to the bathroom is a luxury. Who knew? Who knew that one day I would find myself sneaking into the bathroom so as not to set-off the amazingly sensitive radar of one of my children, slowly shutting the door and just as slowly locking it so that my quest for a few minutes of personal time wouldn't be betrayed by the tell-tale metallic click? Not me, let me tell you that. I have found that in a house with children every shut door is an instant signal that you need companionship desperately, in fact, the need is so urgent that the silent call will be answered with a violently opened door...knob viciously twisted and wood thrown open hard enough to rebound off the wall in their childish triumph at having "found you". Whether you were hiding or not is irrelevant. And locking the door...well children consider this a grievous affront, a purposeful wounding of their most tender feelings by your grossly inconsiderate attempt at privacy. Now, I have come to the realization that I will most likely not have a personal moment alone, be it to wash my hair or pee, for at least another 16 years. That my friends, is a steep realization. There can be no greater zen, no enlightenment or understanding of a higher calling more profound than the realization of the time that must pass before alone, you can pass.



And yet I continue to try to outwit my destiny of constant company by locking the door to the bathroom every once and a while. The simple reason, sometimes you just want to poop alone and I don't think that's too much to ask. A function that everyone does and that most people don't even give a second thought about in terms of the basic privacy desired. Yet, my 2 (yes a week shy of 2 already!) year old daughter was so aggrieved by my transgression that she threw herself to the floor outside the door in a one-woman protest of the insensitivity of her mother. It is funny to think that this is where it begins. So many things we have years to disagree over and right now me wanting to be alone in the bathroom is the end of her being. It made me sigh and shake my head as I opened the door (I had to immediately open the door once I had washed my hands so she could rush in and "pretend" to also go potty) thinking how much I took my previous freedoms for granted, but it also made me thoughtful about how much we mean as to our children. For now, they are both small enough that every minute they are awake (and even a few sleeping ones) all they want is to be as close to us as possible. They are insatiably curious about the mysteries of adult life and all of the items that being grown up entail. This is a trait that can, at times, exasperate the best of us but also inspire deep awe at the realization of such open trusting need coupled with the certainty that you, the parent, will always come through...always satisfy that need, always be there. It is cliche to say that this world is full of uncertainties because we all know that. So I will say that the world is also full of certainties (taxes, death, more taxes) some good and some bad, but none of them so powerful or fulfilling as the certainty that your children need you. (And see, you thought this was going to be some post about just going poop!)

 
 
Jan 23, 2008


Home



So I went back home for another funeral this weekend. Before we all get into the collective "awwwww", it was my great aunt who passed away at the age of 86. She had been ill for the past few years and was not doing well. Not saying this makes things ok, but there are mitigating sympathy factors so save your condolences for later in the blog (I might need them).



While funerals are usually awkward things by nature, this one was especially so...at least for me. This portion of the family are the ones I grew up around, so when I say aunts and uncles I am most likely referring to my grandmother's brothers and sisters. There were seven of them and now there are three. Spouses are gone as well, my generation of cousins has moved to various placed far removed and it was painfully obvious this weekend. My Aunt Bessie was truly one of the kindest people you could ever meet and while I don't necessarily subscribe to the whole Christian business (and certainly not of the Southern Baptist variety), I can say with some fond sentiment that Aunt Bessie was a good Christian woman and not even have a hint of sarcasm in my voice. I like to think that what being Christian might have meant sometime in a pre-Republican past insofar as giving to others, being kind and caring, etc...is the epitome of who Aunt Bessie was. I will miss her.



The whole weekend coupled with being back home gave me some things to think over. I occurred to me that I did not cry at the funeral of either of my great-grandparents, both of whom died when I was in my early teens. However, I wept for Aunt Bessie. It was as if some gossamer thread holding all of my family together had finally snapped...the last of the Good Ones was gone. I realized that I was too young to have appreciated what the death of my great-grandparents set into motion. I couldn't yet appreciate their lives and how their deaths ended an era I was barely aware of, let alone realized I was actually a part of to a degree. As we drove all the way out to New Salem, past Creal Springs, past the family farm that had seen generations of my family;I suddenly wanted to come home. It was this craving that washed through me and caught at my chest as if I might start crying again. I was taking in the sunshine on the bare trees and ground, the peaceful quiet and just as suddenly as I had felt the pull to come home I knew that what I was yearning for was that intangible idea of home. The careless feeling of abandon, safety, off-handed joy that we sometimes get to experience during the innocence of our childhood. Nothing can ever make me that innocent again except for perhaps my own death. I continued to turn all of these thoughts over as we met for the traditional post-funeral luncheon at the church.



I remembered the last time I was at that church and it was for the luncheon after my Uncle Chester's funeral, my grandmother's brother and Aunt Bessie's husband. Another one of the Good Ones who never had an ill word, was always reaching out his hand. He always made me think of the quiet gentleman farmers you might read about in a James Harriot novel or even something by the the Austin sisters. The church basement had been crowded with family, Uncle Chester was one of the first to go. But today we all fit into one room, and no one had made Aunt Bessie's zucchini bread which had been at every family gathering, including her own husband's funeral, for as long as I could remember. I kept meaning to get the recipe and then maybe even collect recipes from all of my elder relatives and put together a simple family cookbook that we could all have, illustrated with family photos. I never had the time. I wish I had made more of an effort.



Just as we had after Uncle Chester died, we all went out to the farm to "visit" at my cousin Dale's request. The thing to understand about Dale is that he is in his late 40s and has Down's Syndrome, so now being without both of his parents is difficult for him. My mother, my grandmother and I were the only people who showed up at the farm besides Aunt Bessie's children and two remaining grandchildren. This made me so sad, I knew it would have broken my uncle's heart to see how shabbily his children and grandchildren were treated by the rest of my family. Besides Dale's problems, all three of his brother's children developed the same brain disease and now only two are alive and severely mentally and physically handicapped. So their sister decided not to have children given the odds. So with them our branch of the family name ends.



I walked around the property, taking all sorts of photos complete with cows and horses. It was so still an peaceful...it made me sad to think that the farm might be sold. Before I left, my mother and I helped put away the copious amounts of food sent over by well meaning highly perfumed Baptist ladies from the church. For now, Dale will continue to live on the farm with his older brother and his children so I am glad for that much but I wish I could do more. I can't claim to have not been involved in my own life and corner of the universe with nary a thought about my cousins or Aunt and Uncle. Now that time seems wasted on the wrong things but I suppose that's what realizing you are all grown up is about.

My Father

So what wasn't I done with and what does this blog have to do with death? My father. My moral compass...my hero...my greatest champion took his own life in November of 2008. Throughout the immediate days surrounding his death I found myself saying over and over, "I wasn't done yet...I just wasn't done." And I still am not. These hours, days, months that mark the time without him have been overwhelming and at moments, unbearable and yet the clock marches on with cruel purpose. I have always been a writer...words are important...solid. But my words have flown away with him. Wherever my father is, there too is a pool of all of the words I needed to say, wanted to say all drowning together far from my pen. I have spent the past year and a half trying to piece myself back together...trying to determine just what I believe and how I believe it. Trying to come to terms with questions no one can ever answer for me and not lose myself. So here I am. I do not promise poetry. I do not promise fine prose. I promise nothing except that this blog will be honest no matter how dirty the feelings. I simply am not done.