You Can Count on Me

I started counting recently. Sometimes counting. Sometimes timing. Just keeping track of the time. For instance, six seconds seems like much longer when you’re rushing out the door. Really? Only six seconds to put your shoes on. When I count, I don’t scream at Lily to HURRY UP. What is six seconds in the grand scheme of this journey?

Now, I haven’t always been a counter. In fact the concept of counting to ten before verbally decapitating someone has always been foreign to me. I scream, feel immediate guilt, apologize and then carry the shame around for…well, I’m working on it.

Anyway, I started counting at the elementary school. At morning drop-off, people zip in and out of that parking lot as if they are rushing a hemorrhaging gunshot victim to the ER. If someone stops, holding up traffic to let the buses exit, said person gets unfriendly hand gestures. People. Lose. Their. Minds: throwing their hands in the air, flipping you off, pounding their steering wheels, etc. Now, I remember what it was like to have to rush to a job, so, one morning, I took out my phone and timed the buses leaving. It took 35 seconds.

Perhaps if you do have a gunshot victim in your backseat, that 35 seconds would be the difference between life and death. If not…1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10…calm down.

I counted to 10 so I didn’t say calm the f#$k down. This counting business WORKS. Let’s take it on the road!

Today, I took my mom grocery shopping. She has been home now for a few weeks and doing much better. Still, I don’t want to just set her loose on the road after our recent scares. She is still moving pretty slowly. Lots of people move slowly at Walmart and not always because they’re 83 and recovering from a hospital stay. Sometimes they are inconsiderate and rude and don’t even realize that they’re standing in the middle of the aisle blocking everyone’s progress while they decide which cereal to buy. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8. Not so bad.

In the past, I scooted my mom through the store, apologizing repeatedly to everyone whose hurried progress we impeded. Today, I helped her navigate through uncrowded aisles and gently pulled her cart out of the middle of the aisle.

We made it through without incident.

I guided her to a non-crowded checkout line with a cashier I know–because I’m at Wal-Mart all. the. time–is very sweet and patient. My mom always writes a check, and it takes longer than it takes to swipe a card. Normally, I rush her through this process, “Mom, you can just give your check to the cashier; you don’t have to fill it out.” But today I realized that at 83 having lost her husband of more than 50 years, two sons, most of her hearing, many friends, a lot of her independence, and nearly her life a month ago, she could write a check if she wanted.

Then I counted. 1.2.3.4.5…the woman behind us rolled her eyes. 6.7.8.9.10…she sighed loudly and looked at the person behind her for commiseration. I stared at her and felt my blood pressure rising and angry words catching in my throat. 11.12.13.14.15. the guy in the next line lobbied for my agreement on something, “Isn’t that right, Blondie?” Shut. The. F#$k. Up. Start again: 1.2.3. Oh she’s done.

It took her 18 seconds to write a check. I apologize to the woman behind us in line if she was 18 seconds late for her next important appointment, or if the gunshot victim in her car died during those 18 seconds or the subsequent 6 it took my mom to produce her id. I met her glare with a smile.

I can’t tell you how many times I’m surprised that what seems to be taking so long is often just a few seconds. It’s often something Lily or my mom is doing. I’m trying really hard not to rush them anymore. I feel like I’ve been hurrying Lily since she was born–even before she was born–and the other day I watched her swinging effortlessly across the monkey bars. She no longer needed me to walk beside her or catch her when she jumped down or just “be there.” A big old lump rose up in my throat as I thought…Oh no…I rushed it all away.

So, I’m counting instead rushing today. Because sometimes those seconds seem so long, until you’re on the other side looking back and wishing you had just a few more.

This mountain that’s in front of me…

About 13 years ago, my baby Peyton had to be hospitalized for pneumonia and RSV. Which begs the question: What happened to RSV? You never hear about it anymore. Did they come up with a vaccine? Anyway, I was so afraid. I held him the whole time he was there, only occasionally setting him in that scary cell-like metal crib to go to the bathroom. I held him in the chair all night, waking every two hours as the respiratory therapists misted albuterol into his tiny lungs.

Several years later, I lay next to his hospital bed tossing and turning on an awkward and uncomfortable plastic cot as he tossed and turned in pain awaiting an orthopedic surgeon to re-set his horribly broken and displaced arm.

Those were my two worst hospital memories.

Then, a week ago, after several days in the hospital, I had to take my mom to a nursing home. Although, she is only there for short-term rehab, it’s still a nursing home. While it has clean rooms, beautiful surroundings, a state-of-the-art rehab facility and some very kind employees, the halls still smell of urine and people moan and yell unintelligible things. The food is delicious, but many of the patients and residents still drool and spill it all over themselves.

When we walked into the room, I watched my tiny little mom’s eyes grow wide and fearful as we surveyed the room occupied by one other person who stared vacantly in the opposite direction of a blaring tv. For what seemed like an eternity the unfamiliar and unpleasant smells and sounds and reality of the situation silently settled over us before my mom piped up, “Do you think she needs the tv that loud when she isn’t even watching it?” I swallowed the vomit that was rising in my throat, and my sister found a remote and turned it down.

It has been a few days. Her roommate was sent back to the hospital. She is kind of settling into a routine. The dining hall is reminiscent of a middle school cafeteria. The more…aware…female patients eat at one table–they are the cool girls. The next table is filled with men who aren’t drooling. Then there are a few more tables with people who are.

My mom sits with the cool girls (plus one’s husband.) They ask every day, “Do you remember what we ordered for lunch?” “No, do you?” “I think I ordered lobster and shrimp.” “It’s a surprise every day!” The couple is 96 and 91. The wife told me in her thick German accent that they met during the war, when her husband was a handsome army captain. Then she implored the nurse’s aide to give her a little booze in her coffee. They’re adorable. In the twilight of their life. She said, “You’re sooooo young!!” When I tried to slide the menu to her to see, she said, “Oh honey, I’m blind.”

Yesterday, one of the gentleman at the men’s table attempted to lure me to his table by telling me how delicious his apple juice was. I smiled and told him that was wonderful. He said, “If you come over here, I’ll give you a kiss, and you can taste it.”

“You’re a rascal,” I said, “Does that line work on many girls?”

He nodded his head so vigorously that his teeth came loose and tumbled onto his plate, and I had to look away. But every time I looked up he winked at me. I told my mom to keep her distance as he was evidently a ladies man.

In the past two weeks, my daily schedule has changed in a way I never imagined. My house is so quiet, and I miss my mom giggling and gossiping on the phone. I wish that she would pull into the driveway with a car full of groceries just when I sat down to eat. I reassure her that she is getting stronger every day, and that she will be coming home soon, but I’m scared and worried and wish that someone could reassure me in a way I actually believe.

My friends ask if they can help, but I don’t how to ask or even what I would ask for. Could you please, ummm, maybe try to be me for awhile so I can curl up in a ball in my bed and cry and pretend this isn’t happening because I don’t want to be a grown-up and deal with this shit? How do you ask for that? And even if I could find a way to ask for it, who the hell in their right mind would say yes? The only person I know how to ask for help is my husband, but somehow even those requests sometimes get lost in translation, and the help he offers is not what I really wanted or needed.

Today, I cried for a long time. For a really really long time. Ugly self-indulgent sobbing. The cats watched me, heads cocked to the sides, like What. The. Fuck? I cried for myself and for my mom and for my friend who just lost her mom. I cried for my other friends who are going through similar situations or worse and for all those who are gonna go through it. I cried for the fictional characters on Parenthood. And then I got dressed and put on lipstick and more mascara so I can flirt with that old man. And I remembered what it’s like when the first step in your makeup routine is putting Preparation H on your swollen eyes.

Peaches and Pain

It feels like fall today, which simultaneously makes me happy and sad. Happy because I love fall. Sad because winter follows, and I don’t like winter. I love so many things about fall: football, fires, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin everything, fresh apples, hoodies, snuggling under blankets. When I was little I loved going to the Harding football games with my dad. We usually left at halftime, after the bands performed,which was my favorite part. I held onto his pinky because my hands were little and his were big. We walked through an area of Warren, that most people probably wouldn’t walk through at night with their kids now, but I never felt afraid.

Yesterday, Chloe told me she missed my dad. I missed my dad too. It was funny–weird, not haha–though not really because Chloe and I are always eerily connected. Once, I woke up in the middle of the night really worried and uneasy. I prayed for about two hours and finally went back to sleep. She told me the next day that she had wandering through the streets of Pittsburgh at the time. Missing my dad is one of our few sad connections. Fortunately, Chloe hasn’t been dealt a lot of sadness since she carries so much of mine.

My bff lost her grandpa earlier this year, another dear friend lost her grandma last week, some of my closest friends lost their stepdad/father in law a month ago, a dear writer I adore and admire lost her mom yesterday, my mom lost two more friends in the last month. Often in empathizing with others, I’m drawn so far in that I relive my own sadness. A few months ago, I had a dream about my dad, and in it, he told me that my mom was going to die. I had longed to dream about my dad for quite some time, but this wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. In the dream, I wasn’t sad or upset and kind of fluctuated between dreaming and logic. Course, I guess that’s where I usually am: fluctuating between dreaming and logic.

For as long as I can remember, every time I went into my parents’ playroom, I sat on my dad’s lap. When I was little, when I was grown, when I was happy or sad. Sometimes I sat on his lap with one of my own babies on my lap. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we laughed, sometimes I cried and sometimes he did. When I was really little I used to do his hair. He sat patiently while I did. It was so hard to walk into that room after my dad wasn’t in his chair.

This morning, I ate a peach, and it reminded me of the peach trees and raspberry bushes in our yard growing up. I used to eat fruit until I was sick, coming into the house sticky and stained. My mom made delicious jam. Then one year, in an aggressive fertilization attempt gone awry, my dad killed the peach trees and the raspberry bushes. The bushes were a total loss, but the trees still grew, though they never again bore fruit. A few years ago, in a super romantic move, Brad bought me a peach tree. It died. Last week, I drove past my parents’ old house in downtown Warren, and the peach trees had been cut down. Guess I’ll stick with farm market peaches for now.

I think the point of all this is reminding and retraining myself to focus on the beauty, the memory, the what was and what is and what could and will be rather than the pain of the loss. Tomorrow isn’t promised, but part of the beauty in this life is the fleeting nature of everything we hold dear. So my sweet friends who are sad today, I am holding you close to my heart and lifting your cares to God.

Loose Connections

Last year, at this time, I was kind of waiting for my nervous breakdown to begin. Chloe was leaving for college, Lily was going to kindergarten, my mom was moving in with us, and I was turning 40.

I cried. A lot. I missed Chloe. A LOT. But life went on, as life has a way of doing, and my girls shoved off to college and kindergarten, my mom moved in, and I turned 40, but the nervous breakdown didn’t come. My precious baby boy became a teenager, and the nervous breakdown threatened again, but it didn’t come.

Recently, we spent a week in Florida celebrating my best friend’s 40th birthday, and spending time with her, I gained some perspective on 40 and life. See, my girl is a FIRECRACKER. Once, upon thinking I might have been in danger, she pulled a big knife on an even bigger guy. We were 14, and it was a kitchen knife. But the point is: She don’t play.

She is the most fun, exciting, ALIVE person I know, and if she is what 40 looks like, people will line up for that birthday. But she’s different now. Our friendship is different. She’s calm and confident. We don’t fight with people. We don’t gossip about people we don’t like. In fact, we mostly like everyone. We no longer need to go out and party to have a good time. In fact, the best times I have with her are just sitting and talking.

Similarly, my relationship with Chloe has evolved. While she still needs me to mother her in some ways, in other ways, we connect as women. Last weekend for the first time, I went shopping with both my girls, we had a great time, and no one had a meltdown.

Having such big gaps between my kids has forced me to adapt and change my mothering style to meet their unique needs. It’s hard to switch gears among parenting an adult, a teenager, and a kindergartner, and I have to try harder to listen, understand, and connect to each child at his and her level. The very few times I get it right are extremely gratifying.

Before I turned 40, I made a list of goals. While I’ve accomplished some and strive to reach more, some just don’t seem so important any more. Instead, of reaching feats, I feel guided to make deeper connections. To renew connections that have been severed for one reason or another. To replace some connections and tighten a few loose ones.

Every morning, I pray that God will lead me where He wants me to be. I pray for God to guide me, but I usually have a direction in mind. He rarely leads me in that direction. And this morning I realized that wherever I am as long as I’m loving God and loving His people, I’m right where I should be.