by Band Back Together | Oct 18, 2010 | Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Hospice, Loss, Sadness, Stroke |
Cancer sucks. My grandma, barely sixty years old, died from breast cancer when I was four. Even though I was so young, I still remember watching her suffer. I remember watching my mother and her sister suffer, too. Even though I was young, I still remember thinking if there was really a God, why would he put my grandma through all of this?
She never hurt a soul…and I loved her.
Cancer claimed my mother-in-law, too. I loved her as though she were my blood. Maybe even more than that because she never said a harsh word to me, or as far as I know, about me.
She had lung cancer and yes, she smoked. “I shot myself in the foot,” she said to me when she was diagnosed. She fought like the feisty Scottish lady that she was. She was diagnosed around Thanksgiving and lost her battle that following June.
Just about six months. DAMN! It was so quick! I know it didn’t seem so quick to her.
She went through chemotherapy and all of the horrible shit that went along with it. She did everything she was supposed to do. She did everything right. And then they found cancer in her brain. The woman never took a fucking pill in her life and here she was having fucking brain surgery! She made it through the surgery. My sister-in-law and I went into the recovery room and damn it if that lady wasn’t sitting up and talking right after having her skull busted open.
While she was in rehab, she had a stroke. It was a kind I had never heard of. It was progressive so it started out slowly. She knew what was going on.
Chef and I went to visit her in the hospital and at that point she said she had had enough. She said to us, “if they find any more cancer, I don’t want to be treated.” If she had known that she only had six months to live, she would have said, “Screw chemo,” and gone to visit her grandchildren in Wisconsin.
I know that because she was an open book. She had no secrets. What you saw was what you got.
The next day she could not speak.
We were the last of her children to carry on a conversation with her. When the doctors finally determined that she had had a stroke and that it was progressive, my sister-in-law decided to bring her back home. The doctors said she had less than a week to live, so she would come home to be surrounded by her children, grandchildren and her beautiful antiques.
My husband and his sisters took care of her for that week. Because my children were so young, I stayed home and came for the weekend. My two year old daughter stood by my mother-in-law’s bed and spoke to her. She called her “gammy.” My mother-in-law would grunt occasionally. Sure enough on day seven – just a week after we had our last conversation with her – my mother-in-law lost her battle.
I ask the question once again, forty years later… if there was really a God, why would he put my mother-in-law through all of this?
She never hurt a soul…and I loved her.
by Band Back Together | Oct 17, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Sadness |
My sister and brother-in-law are getting divorced.
You know on video games when one piece explodes and all the other pieces around it are shaken? I feel like one of the other pieces. Shaken. And, sad.
I feel overwhelmed by my sadness. I stood up for this marriage at its beginning. And, now I’m watching it crumble. I go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, unable to sleep, unable to read, unable to move. My husband says nice things to me like, “Get some rest,” and “Are you okay?” and it makes me cry. Then Rosey Grier’s song “It’s Alright to Cry” starts running through my head – and that’s just annoying. (Don’t get me wrong, Rosey. I think you have an awesome name for a guy. I think it’s awesome that you were a huge football player who knit and taught the boys of my generation that it was okay to cry. But, your hokey song is messing up my breakdown – not awesome.)
I empathize far too well with their 6- and 9-year-old girls. I want to make sure my sister doesn’t fall for my older niece’s act that she’s so mature and she understands (an act I myself perfected at the age of 12). I don’t want my sister to make her her confidant or tell her more than her young heart and head can handle (I don’t think she is doing that. I just really, really don’t want her to accidentally do that). I’m glad my sister is taking them to a counselor.
I just really wish I didn’t feel like a 12-year-old girl right now. Talk about someone who needed counseling. Could I really have 24-year-old emotions with which I’m dealing? Probably. The best counseling I ever got over my parents’ divorce was one session with a lady who told my mom I needed to go to a Christian summer camp for a month. I guess she thought Je-sus (please read that in your best evangelical voice) could solve all my problems.
(And, don’t get me wrong, I think He’s a great guy who has blessed my life immensely and saved me a place in heaven. But, I don’t think He was the guy to let me sit down and vent about how much my parents f*%#ed up their marriage and my childhood.)
So. That’s that. Pray for my sister and brother-in-law friend and their kids. Don’t worry about me. I’m a grown-up who can take care of my own emotional well-being now.* I really shouldn’t take someone else’s crisis and make it about me. But, when I blog, I’m selfish that way.
And, sad.
*I was smart enough to marry my best friend. He’s strong when I’m weak. Also, thanks to this crisis, we’ve both looked each other in the eye and sworn we’re in it for good. We’ll always talk, always be honest and always do whatever work it takes to keep our marriage together. At least I have confidence in my “forever” when so many other “forevers” are ending all too soon…
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2010 | A Letter I Can't Send, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Parent Loss |
Dear Lucas:
The last time I saw my parents alive was the day after my wedding, Sunday, August 5, 2007.
My sister and I choose to remember them most on October 15, the day we were both notified of their passing.
Sometime between Friday, October 12, 2007 at 8:00 PM and Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 8:00 AM they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They were 61 and 58 respectively. Too young to die.
My parents lived overseas and dedicated their lives to working at American international schools around the globe for 28 years. My father was the principal of a kindergarten through 12th grade school in Tunis, Tunisia and my mother was a third grade teacher. They died in Tunisia.
For those of you who don’t know, carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless and is the second-leading cause of poisoning deaths in the country. Carbon monoxide poisoning claims nearly 500 lives and another 15,000 require emergency room treatment. It can kill you before you know it because you can’t see it, smell it, or taste it. A water heater vent was damaged in my parent’s kitchen and it emitted carbon monoxide into their home.
It’s hard to be the one left behind to pick up the pieces and ask the unanswerable questions. It’s stupid to walk around angry at an inanimate object. Most of the time I just feel robbed. My parents were anything but done with this life. One week to the day before their lifeless bodies were found, they had decided to retire and return to the United States. They were anxious to see my sister, who had recently graduated from college, start her life and begin building a career. They looked forward to us both having grandchildren (they would have been amazing grandparents and would have completely adored you, not to mention spoiled you rotten!) and had a long list of things they wanted to do to their Arizona home and trips they were excited to take. It’s unfair that they were taken from us too soon. I miss them every single day and ache to hear their voices again.
I’m mostly sorry that you will never get to meet them in the physical sense.
I hope that among me, your dad, your aunt, and everyone who knew them, we will help you know them too.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but I will forever believe that the best is yet to be.
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2010 | Child Sexual Abuse, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault |
I joke about it. I try to keep it light. I can tell when I mention it that it makes people uncomfortable, and they offer their remorse, their sorrow. It’s not that I don’t mind, I just don’t want it. It’s easier to joke about it, to laugh it off as something that just happened, not something that changed me into who I am. Sometimes, it’s harder to laugh. There are too many broken and damaged parts.
When I was fifteen, something was stolen from me. Something that was mine to keep and give out to whomever I chose. That right was taken away from me in a flurry of rage and hatred by someone I knew long ago. He stole it from me viciously and without remorse.
He raped me.
This shouldn’t have happened to me. I lived on a Marine Corps base. I was a good girl. Things like that don’t happen to girls who go home before their curfew, to girls who are saving themselves, to girls like me. It just doesn’t happen…or so I thought.
He followed me on my walk back home one Saturday night, and I, thinking I was safe, took a short cut through the woods near the train track by my house. He attacked me when we were surrounded by trees, knocking me down into a nearby sandpit, nearly breaking my already weak back in the fall. Held me down. Hit me. Hurt me. He used pressure on the damaged parts to keep me there.
A train passed, and I prayed there were passengers.
I started waving, frantically, trying to scream as he covered my mouth, I could taste the blood he was forcing back in. “Please, God, let someone see me, let someone notice.” We were so close, I could feel the wind rushing past covering my body with cool air on that stale, summer’s night. And then. Black.
Not long after, I woke up. Damaged and broken. My head hurt and was bleeding, my clothes were torn and strewn about. Next to where I laid was a brick splashed with blood. I limped the short distance home as quickly as possible. I was terrified, I had no idea if he was still around, watching me. I didn’t want to take long enough to find out.
My house stood, the only house in the area, the porch light shining a welcoming yellow glow. I tried to run, but was in too much pain. Inside, the lights were off, my parents had gone to bed. I quickly limped to their bedroom, and hidden by the cover of darkness reported I was home and going to take a shower and then bed.
In the shower, I tried to scrub away the pain, scrub away the smell and the shame. I cried. I tried to cry it down the drain. I discovered that pressure on the damage parts relieved stress. I pressed. I contorted my back to make it hurt. I sighed and was reminded I’m still alive, no matter how much of me felt dead.
In between then and now doesn’t matter. He went to jail, but not for my pain. My story was discounted by the charm of the man. I grew up. I learned that the best way to hurt him was to let him know I was stronger than him. I quickly learned to joke and laugh at it, about it. It’s the easiest way to talk about it.
Sometimes, when we’re in bed, my husband will ask me questions, partly out of his own curiosity and to try and help. I laugh, I joke. I speak softly protected by the darkness of our bedroom as he puts pressure on the damage parts to help relieve the pain that stays.
He puts pressure on the damaged parts to remind me I’m still alive.
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2010 | Fear, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Sadness |
My little girl, Jillian, due Christmas Day has been diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.
I feel like everything has caught up with me today. Emotionally and physically, I’m just worn out. I’ve tried to be strong for the last six weeks but… I feel like that’s slipping away.
I’m starting to realize that I need to be honest with myself: Yes, I’m optimistic. Yes, I’m hopeful. Yes, I believe we’re making the right decisions. But I’m also hurting. Deep down, this just hurts.
Through all of this, I’ve had amazing people come forward in support for us. I’ve met some people who have gone through this and other things parents shouldn’t have to go through, too. And while all of that makes me feel better, it can’t heal the hurt. It doesn’t get rid of the guilt I feel and it doesn’t ease the pain. It doesn’t make it go away and it doesn’t answer any questions. I’d like to say that my heart is broken, but I’ve been shown now, twice, what a truly broken heart is. I’d like to say that something positive has to come out of this, and honestly I do feel that way, but why does there have to be so much pain first?
I’ve asked myself a million times why this is happening? Why does this have to happen to my family? Why do all of my kids that have to go through this? Why does it have to be MY kids? Why does it have to be JR? And why does it have to be me?
It’s not like I’d wish this upon anyone else. But I wouldn’t wish it for myself, either. It all just seems so unfair. I hate to host my own pity party- truly I have tried my best not to- but really? Two babies with heart conditions? Wasn’t one enough? And why three or more surgeries this time?
What did I do to deserve this? Was there something that I was supposed to learn after Ethan’s surgery that I didn’t? Some lesson that I was blind to; that maybe if I’d understood would have changed all of this? Did I want a little girl too much? Did I wish too hard for another baby to make my family complete when I should have been happy with what I had? Why do I have to excitedly yet apprehensively count down the weeks until she is born? Why do we have to try to put on a happy, brave face everyday when really we’re mad and scared and hurt inside?
Why do we have to face the fears that our baby might not come home with us?
I just don’t get it.
The rational side of me says that it’s just something in our DNA. One of those crazy things where you have to have two parents who carry a recessive trait and twice now that recessive trait has been expressed.
But then there’s the other side of me. The side that asks all these questions and wants answers that aren’t based in science. Who cares if it’s genetics? The fact still remains that this is happening to MY family. The truth is, it will be MY baby that I have to watch fighting for life- again. Something so many people take for granted. I don’t blame them. After all, that is how it’s supposed to be.
A newborn shouldn’t be required to fight for their life. Ever.
