introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- pray god you can cope making sense of thingsco - 17 july 2014 "i know you have a little life in you yet; i know you have a lot of strength left....i know you have a little life in you yet; i know you have a lot of strength left."~kate bush on tuesday, my uncle was moved to francis house. my aunt wrote us yesterday to let us know that they're taking excellent care of him and that he rallied a bit since sunday but that they're cautioning her to expect that he will decline and fast. she is able to stay with him there if she wants and says she's spending as much time as she can with him. i would give a lot of things to be able to be there with her, to help. i'm worried about how she will cope with everything, how she will adjust to being on her own again after all these years. i've had strange thoughts over the last few days of that time when i lived with them. i've remembered things that i've buried deeply and would rather not revisit. i've tried to focus on the support i want to give my aunt. i was thinking of their wedding. it was the only wedding i've ever been to that took place at night and there was something so romantic about that to very very young jones. i remember visiting them with my sister and being put to work cleaning the nicotine from a classy mirrored wall in their little apartment with newspaper and vinegar. i remember how disgusted i was to have that chore while they smoked and smoked and watched. i remember the smell of my hair when i left the apartment. i recall my aunt making lovely dinners served in my grandmother's part of the house. when we were done eating, my aunt would invariably sit at the little breakfast bar and have an after dinner cigarette. there was something sort of glamourous about the cigarette smoke in that setting that was wholly different from the smog of the smoke in their part of the house. even as she smoked, she would tell me that if she ever caught me with a cigarette, she would kill me. i smoked for nearly 15 years before i put it behind me with an occasional cigarette here or there in times of great stress--when my grandmother was dying, when jobs i've grown to love have closed--or when i've been out in with the right group of friends and nothing would go better with the drink in my hand. hand-rolling bali shag cigarettes in college and huddling on the porch in the winter with a steaming hot cup of coffee was as good a breakfast as any. the ashtrays overflowing with butts and ash after night after night of infinite writing and note-taking and organizing papers to go along with the pots of coffee that were fueling me to stay awake. i hate the thought of it now and i'm thankful. my aunt has told me that she has never gone a day where she missed the smell of it, the taste of it. when toby would come in from the cold when we'd visit her, she would smell his coat for the smell of the cigarette he smoked...which is where i saw most clearly the plight of addiction. i was always able to put it down when i wanted and for that i am thankful. i never got so deep into those sticks of paper and tobacco that i couldn't quit it when it was getting to be a problem. i've been smoke-free for more than two years now. my lungs feel better, my bike rides have been better, my taste-buds aren't dulled by the cigarette smoke. my aunt and uncle have been on oxygen machines for so long now that i barely remember them without the tubes of air running all over the house. they are reverse divers, fish out of water and sustaining themselves on the oxygen that just never seems pure enough for them to catch a good breath. over time, it has all compounded for both of them. the oxygen machines, the portable oxygen tanks--first in the little carrying cases, then even bigger still, full tanks with their own strollers. cancer. congestive heart failure...which is likely going to be the final score in my uncle's life. they're making him comfortable and i'm thankful for that... i've never blamed them blatantly like my father did for years. addiction is addiction and we all have our vices, do we not? what is mine? i could probably spend an afternoon listing them off but assuring you that i've got them all under control... there have been so many things on my mind while i ponder a life. i feel so far away and so useless but i know that there isn't much i could do if i were there, either...just waiting, doing the few little things that might otherwise keep her busy and ease her mind a little. they're all getting so old...my parents, my aunts and uncles. i feel like i have kept my grandmother with me for all these years and i know i will harbor a spot in my heart for all of them. i'm not sure how much death i'll be able to manage at once...and balancing this with the new life inside me is a strange exercise. i'm told there will be no funeral or memorial service for my uncle--i don't understand why my father's family does this. do they not realize that people need a way to grieve? it isn't about a casket or a grave site so much as it is an opportunity to think, to feel, to find solace with others who are also mourning? i'll never understand. so now i wait for the news. i call when i can but don't want to wake her if she's getting the rest she needs. i expect her to be with him most hours, anyway. i don't know what to do with myself or all these thoughts so i just wait them out. in inspect each memory and set it back to flight on the bubble from where it came, letting it go. the things that make me most sad and that make me question whether i had it all wrong keep coming back to me and i'm determined to let those memories pass with him because to speak them would be to give them life at all. so i wait. that's all i know to do...and i wish strength for my aunt. from a great distance, xo, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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