Good-bye and Hello

I'm sending this to my loyal followers -- all six of you -- to let you know that I'm discontinuing Teddy's Playground.  It started out to be a writing exercise, and became a place for me to vent and work through some feelings when Dave was so sick, and I thank you for listening.

But comes the time to move on, and I hope you will move with me to a new blog I've started: Happy Dahlia Quilting and Cheesecake Society at tuxedomom4.blogspot.com.  I hope you enjoy.

Learning to Live Among the Bears

If you attended Maloy Elementary School in the Sixties, you played Bears at recess.  I've never encountered anyone outside the environs of the Maloy gym who ever heard of Bears, and I don't know its origin, but we loved to play Bears.

The gist of the game was to run around avoiding the three bears who if they captured you would take you back to their den, situated on one end of the gym.  There was a safe zone, or base, at the opposite end where you could catch your breath, reconnoiter, or wait till recess ended if you were exceedingly slow or mortally afraid of bears.  If you happened to be seized by a bear, hope was not lost.  You could be rescued by anyone fleet of foot .  All someone had to do was grab your hand and you both were granted free passage back to base.

I remember flying around trying to avoid capture, but, being a chubby kid,  I can't imagine I avoided it for long, and I wonder how much time I spent in the safe zone, and I wonder if that's where I learned to play it safe.

My mom was not a woman of extremes.   Her famous line if I or my sisters went to her crying was "You're not bleeding; you're all right."  (I honestly don't remember what she said if we were bleeding.)  Her philosophy, which she wasn't shy about sharing, was that there was always someone worse off than us.  Skinned your knee?  At least you still have your leg.  Lost a leg?  Well, you still have the other one.  Both legs fell off?  You're got your arms, haven't you?  True, we were never hypochondriacs, but I never felt I had the right to feel sad or mad about anything.  If something makes me cry, I apologize profusely.  Nothing makes me mad until I go off like Yosemite Sam, hopping up and down in a rage.

Of course the flip side was just as dangerous.  Never let a joy go unpunished was the unspoken rule around our house.  God had his finger poised over the "smite" button for girls who thought too highly of themselves or were actually skittish with happiness.  Even now when I say the words out loud -- "I'm happy." -- I duck.

It's so cliche to blame your mother for these things, and, quite frankly, I think the fault lies with my grandmother, but I learned these lessons somewhere, and I learned them well.

Life is so much safer at base camp.

But it's a very numb life.

After fifty-odd years and a point in Dave's illness where I thought my head was going to explode, I sought therapy.  "High time too, " I can hear some of you say.  I couldn't agree more.  It's way past time I learned to live, unapologetically, off the flat line.  Both sides of it.  Zany, wild and free or sad, mad or downright mawkish.  The only problem with this philosophy -- it's fucking scary!

It ain't easy trying to change the behavior of a lifetime, but I've got to somehow because I'm tired of standing in the safe zone watching other people fly around, laughing and shouting.  It's time to let my fingertips brush the back gymnasium wall one last time and then step out among the bears.

"A Reason for Everything"

A friend of mine hates that expression.  She thinks it's one of those panaceatic expressions that people  use when they want to be sympathetic, but don't know what else to say -- a meaningless, throwaway expression that gets them off the hook and on with their own safe, normal lives.  It makes her angrier than it should, which makes me think it hits a little too close to the heart of her spiritual confusion.  She suffered breast cancer; her mother died of Alzheimer's, and she can't see the reason for either.

I understand why she's angry.  Why do little children have cancer?  Why are dogs left tied up in the heat to die?  Why does a draft horse wander out of the fog onto the interstate, causing a crash that kills an entire family?  None of that makes sense.

The truth is -- shit happens, striking with a cliched vengeance -- out of the blue, from out of nowhere, like a ton of bricks.  And when it happens, you're left stumbling around in a different kind of fog, looking for any semblance of your old life to cling to, and sometimes all you can find is "There's a reason for everything" because if that's true then maybe there's a way through the miasma back to normal, back to a place where your brain stops pounding through your temples, and you believe you might actually want to live again.


William Carlos Williams wrote one of my favorite poems, "The Red Wheelbarrow":

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens. 

It's about finding order in the chaos -- isolating details that ground you in a moment, just that one moment perhaps to catch your breath and find the courage to carry on.

If the way a person creates order is to find a reason amidst the madness, then "There's a reason for everything" isn't meaningless; it's a life preserver -- a red wheelbarrow, a white chicken.

A reason.

A Message from the Universe

I find dimes instead of pennies on the sidewalk, and the Universe sends me tuxedo cats instead of faded calicoes or rangy, wounded black toms. I've long been pondering the significance of both.

It's kind of unnerving to continually find dimes. By this time it's beyond coincidental. When I was sweeping our new porch, what did I find by the corner post in the dirt? A dime, of course. It's rarely a penny, never a nickel. It feels like the Universe is trying to tell me something. A quarter would be too ostentatious; a dime is definitely a message. But what?

Same thing with the tuxedoes. My friend Brenda would love to have a tuxedo cat, but apparently she attracts tortoiseshells and toms with bucket heads. I feel blessed to be sent graceful black and white shorthairs dressed for a formal affair. But why me?

Our latest addition -- the tiny snickerdoodle in the photo -- was a spooky little blessing. Scooter, the larger of the two, had been moping and needy because he was lonely. Teddy, the infamous Elusive Teddy Boots, the first tuxedo, can't be bothered with mere cats even if they do look like him, so Scooter needed a friend. The idea of which I mentioned aloud and the next morning, I found Mitten sleeping on the porch pillow.

The two are now fast friends, despite the difference in their sizes. In fact, I looked out today and saw Mitten draped over Scooter's body sound asleep. They have rousing wrestling matches, the latest of which resulted in a ripped paper sack and a very loud thumping that I can't quite figure out.

I heard it said that the Universe sends you the cats you need. Teddy, at the furthest end of the cat neediness scale, was wonderful company this winter while Dave was in the hospital. Scooter has such a sweet, trusting nature -- once he decided he could trust me, he was all in. And Mitten is such a comic. I'd forgotten how enraptured kittens are of the world -- how endlessly fascinating are pebbles, bugs, and shadows.

Maybe the cats and the dimes are connected. Maybe the Universe just wants to keep reminding me that I'm richer than I realize.

Or maybe the dimes are just to pay for the cat food.

Reboot

I haven’t written a word, other than grocery lists and questions for doctors, for seven months. That’s a lot of days gone by without producing a salient thought or interesting detail. That’s a lot of hours between where I left off and “Now what was I trying to say?” Bottom line: I don’t know how to start again.

Do I slog along until it just feels right again? Or do I just start over with something completely different? Or do I just sit here writing drivel on the page until my fingers start to remember where the proper keys are? Is there a blueprint for “I haven’t written a creative word since my husband slipped into a coma”?

I have pages and pages of “stuff”, but my dimmest memory was that most of it wasn’t going to work in the long run so there’s no real point of going through it all. That feels really depressing.

OK, depression is not an option. Depression is not going to get me writing more quickly. Depression is only going to send me diving into the Blue Bunny again. So, depression is out. Definitely, out. O-U-T -- out! Definitely!

Now where was I again?

The One I Shouldn't Publish

When Dave's stroke first happened, I wanted everyone I could think of around me -- for support, for prayers, for kleenex, but now, after months, I feel myself wanting to push them all away. Ultimately, despite everyone's best intentions, no one can go through this for me -- as much as I might want them to "tag in" so I can have a respite, they can't. And no one's going to volunteer for that anyway. It's my lottery, and aren't they all relieved?

That sounds less bitter in my head, but it's still true. I know what they're feeling; I've felt it myself. You hear about someone being diagnosed with cancer and you feel bad about it, but isn't there that moment of relief -- "If it's them, it's not me."? That's human nature.

It's also human nature to want to help, and people have been wonderful to me, but this has all gone on too long and everyone has to get back to their lives. "It really sucks that this has happened to you and Dave, but, really, what do you expect of us? We have offered our shoulders and told you to 'Hang in there.' What else is there? I mean, come on -- give us a break, goddammit!"

It's fine. It's gone on too long for us too. Dave fights on, for which I'm so very grateful, but we're tired and, quite frankly, I don't need to assuage other people's fears. Because our trauma is not resolved yet, you see. We won't go away and be healthy again. We will insist on dragging this out, remaining a constant reminder that this shit can happen to anyone at any time. I understand the fears, but I don't have the energy to be reassuring nor the power to make it all right.

Part of me wants to push people away to see if they come back. Most won't. I don't expect them to. People have busy lives and there's no reason they should be at my beck and bawl, but there's always a surprise -- there's always one you think you can count on and you find out -- you can't. But there's the flip side to that as well -- the surprise friend who is level-headed and constant, who offers you not a shoulder and a platitude but just what you didn't even know you needed.

I'm lucky enough to have many wonderful friends. Forgive me if I push you away for awhile. Please come back.

If Only SOP Wasn't CYA

I finally snapped and bit a nurse.

Not really. I just wanted to.

Yet again, I got a call about an "incident" regarding Dave, and it would have taken the customary three minutes to get to the part where Dave is fine had I not burst out over her professional spiel to make sure. It's the third such phone call where I've had the shit scared out of me, and it always seems to come as such a surprise to the reporting nurse that I might like the good news up front. This nurse specimen had the misfortune of being last in line, and I would have apologized more heartily if she hadn't said, "I'm sure this is stressful." Instead I laughed heartily, or more accurately, maniacally. "Stressful . . . you think?"

I'm not lumping all nurses together. Dave has had some excellent nurses all along the way. The amazing ICU nurses at Methodist held us both together at a time when we both needed it. Now I don't need nurses to hold me together; I just need them to not provoke me to violence.

I need them to listen. Besides Dave, I'm the only constant in this journey. And even Dave doesn't know the whole story because he slept through the first few chapters.

I need them to listen to Dave. He's had a stroke not a lobotomy. Too often they assume his mind is muddled or he's still unconscious and don't ask him direct questions or they patronize him like he's in a pre-school reading circle. The truth is, even in this state, he's probably smarter than they are.

Don't judge my decisions or my actions. On Friday, I had a nurse question why I hadn't moved Dave to Methodist Rehab from the beginning. Well, the fact that the first two people I approached when moving Dave back to Methodist didn't know a rehab floor existed might have played a role. Then one questioned why I didn't find someone to stay with in Omaha so I didn't have to keep driving back and forth and could be there every day. I wanted to say to her -- "Trust me, you don't want me here every day."

I'm sure I've made mistakes. I'm sure there were times I could have made more enlightened decisions or braved the weather more, but I have done and am still doing the best I can. At all times, Dave is my priority. No one knows what this feels like for me. I wouldn't even presume to know how another woman in this situations feels. So, feel like judging me? Piss off.

Don't make "cover your ass" the default when common sense would serve. In our litigious society, I know this last one is unrealistic, but, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful? Then Dave wouldn't have to go back on soft food or have those stupid "landing pads" by his bed. And I wouldn't have to get those oh-so-professional reports.

It's possible I just need to take my anger out on someone. It's also possible that this is the fourth time I've had to entrust the most precious person in my life to total strangers, and it's getting harder not easier.