It's 3 am and I can't sleep. No one is awake to talk to and the pranayama didn't help much in fighting off this oncoming panic attack so I'm calling you. Can I talk to you?
My mom was taken out of the ICU this morning. The relief washed over me early and then the anger, worry, depression, and general despair set in. The shock has yet to clearly subside. I had the wind knocked out of my life. I have no fight left. I don't even know what to say.
In a few days I will offer you a chronological, detailed story of what I went through this week. Let's just say it was living hell. I saw things I will never ever forget and I will be reborn many times over in a desperate attempt to try and burn these images out of me: wiping thick grey mucus away as it oozed out of my mother's mouth and her skin was ice cold and she was a tiny, scared human thing under heaps of alien abduction chords and tubes, grabbing my hand, trying to speak, looking to me to help her. Then there were convulsions. Then she shit herself. Then the nurses said a lot of things I didn't understand. Then I realized my entire life has been spent in a state of strange desperation with a side of violence and there is no safety anywhere. And that was just one day of it.
On the way home, completely exhausted, defeated, done- I run in to a so called friend and the first thing out of his mouth: I don't mean to be an asshole, but are you done sewing my jeans? He didn't ask me how she was. He didn't ask me how I was. When someone you love is in danger and you are that vulnerable, strangers have the power to completely make or break you with their kindnesses and cruelty. A friend's complete disregard of your soul sends you into a deafening existential panic and you have to swallow a few pills just to be able to stop seeing your mom's fear stunned eyes staring up at you from under the heavy possibility of death. Swallowing the pills is a particularly humiliating act considering the nature of your mother's "accident" but jeans? What? Shifts at work? What? Someone makes a comment that I am stealing her shifts and I hear about it after dragging myself up from my one hour of sleep in the last seven days to rush to work and I realize that I have no friends. I realize that I have surrounded myself with strangers who say nice things when we are drunk and/or trying to be epic and/or playacting and/or pretending to be close because it sounds so nice over the shit-talking. I stand at work and feel the hurt of these people and am about to run from the building and off of the planet when I remember my girl, my best friend of twenty plus years, praying over my mother that morning, rubbing my mom's arms and back, praying sweetly, powerfully, country- praying to Jesus that my mom would walk from this hospital tomorrow, if it's your will, Lord and I cry. Her love delivers me up from the dead-zone (the place my mom remembers being before all of this. She can't remember much, but she remembers that.)
That's been it all week for me- swift, fast oscillations between heaven and hell like in a dream where you're stuck on a big swing and it's making you sick, but you can't wake up. Everything is new to me. Today, every cherry blossom tree is a beautiful thing I will share again with my mother. Yesterday, every little smiling girl I walked by on the Avenue was my mother before all of this. Every person my age is a spoiled fool with normal parents and nothing traumatic under their belt and this is their blindness. This is my blindness painfully magnified and the alienation doesn't help me.
Then I just find myself staring at the wall, zoned out, eyes a blur, just feeling so sad. What next? Why all of this?
In a sad ass attempt to make money, I subjected myself to a pharmaceutical study and was given a big dose of hormones which has upset my menstrual cycle so bad that I have been getting my period every two weeks which means I am premenstrual every two weeks which means I am a complete mess.
All of this without mentioning the needles in veins that carry blood I love so much, but can't even consider me when he's dopesick.
Let me just scream FUCK and tell you I'm thankful. Let me hate everyone and tell you I'm startled by the subtle beauty of every finger, every pulse, every body that breathes on its own. Let me tell you that a little flour moth landed on my wrist while I was in the bathtub after the first night and I cried thinking it was a good sign (my mother's going to live) or a bad sign (she's dead already and this is her last touch) or a no-sign (there is nothing called love in this universe, there is nothing called universe in this darkness.) Let me just tell you that we should all be nice to strangers because we never have any idea what hospital hell they just walked out of.
Thank You So Fucking Much For Your Prayers and Kind Words. For Real- you have no idea how much it meant to me.
11 comments:
I'm sorry you had to experience people's superficiality like that, especially at a time like this.
You're a better person that I am. I would have done bad things to those jeans and sent them in a box to homeboy.
I hope your mom recovers quickly and completely.
I'm just a reader, Davka, one set of eyes that hears prayers when the universe is busy elsewhere with disasters.
And I've got no influence with the boss, and I can't promise the message will go through, but I can promise this: I hear you.
And I wish I could wrap my arms under you and take over the holding on, just for a little. Just enough so you could sleep without fear of waking up buried.
And, you know, make you tea and stuff.
My prayers for her, they're still coming.
My prayers for you are ever present.
call me anytime-
Thomai
310.621.2022
and in case you aren't up to a call-
know that I recognize grace in this. I recognize learning in this.
I recognize you
and your mother
learning, growing, be-ing
pain stops and most of it is forgotten, what's left is a lesson...
there is no death
only change.
I recognize compassion here.
Blessed be
I'm holding both you and your mother very close to my heart. I pray that your mom continues to recover and grow strong. I pray that at night you can sleep peacefully so your body can recover from the shock. When you lie down to rest,imagine angel wings covering you like a warm, feathery blanket.
Be well, little deer girl. Sending love and light from afar.
moonwisdom
Oh, Dav. I'm so sorry and I'm so proud of you and then totally amazed by you every day. And I'm still sending goodness and burning candles for your mom. Wild love.. (oh, and call me anytime)
Being a new subscriber to your blog and having lost power and phone and internet connection for 2 weeks I was so sorry to hear of your pain. I will keep you both in my prayers. It is your pain and your eloquent expression of that pain that makes you one of the best writers on the blogosphere. Just know that. Know that you are strong and you will get through this. It's been 11 years since my mother died suddenly right in front of me. I can still see that "oh, shit" look in her eyes and can still remember every aspect of that day just like it was yesterday. As close as the two of you are, she will always be with you regardless of the outcome of this recent struggle. Please remember to take care of yourself. It might be such a cathartic release to take it out on homeboy's jeans. I can just visualize the relief washing over you as you cut those jeans to shreds :)
salt water bath
oat straw tea
sitting alone and humming for several minutes
run or walk the parameter of the hospital (outside)
with a mantra in your head the whole time
Where Melissa is god is
(god as in non dual, omnipresent, universal compassion)
strength, peace, ease and grace emanates from deep within both of you.
Your welcome, dearest girl, hope it provided you some comfort.
I only had to read the one post (got here by way of hobostripper) - your current situation, it's an interesting initiation to a special little club that I already belong to.
It's ok to become a little antisocial, I would have lost it on that guy.
And don't stress about the no friends thing, you're going to find new ones in strange places. Just take care of yourself. You're going to need all the health and energy you can muster....these are the things that temper the soul. But I can promise you that you will be changed after it all, and it will be.....ok.
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