four months

Four months ago you left us. Last week as I slept in a hotel room just outside Chicago, I dreamed of you and I wept in my sleep. I wept so hard in my sleep that I audibly cried out until I awakened myself. You were so vivid in my dream that it took me several seconds upon waking to recognize that the reason I was weeping was that you were no longer here. You are no longer here. I have boxed up this reality for several weeks now. I have put it away and avoided thinking about it because it is the only way I can get through the day. But lately I have missed you so much.

All I can think about is how hopelessly I miss you. I miss your friendship. I miss getting your input on the simple, daily things – should I cook this or that for dinner? Should I buy that new coat or wait until I get paid again? What did you think of the most recent episode of Grey’s? Have you listened to that song I told you about yet?

I really, really miss the ability to share new things with you. When I was at a Starbucks up north last week I took a book from a free basket of books that they had. It is a story about a man who suffered from severe abuse as a child, and I know you would love to read it. You were always a sucker for stories about the underdog, stories about the abused who grew up to become strong and resilient members of society. That was your story, and you identified so closely with it. The stories of their plight nudged awake the sleeping child in you, and you were that vulnerable little girl all over again. You held close to your heart all those other sweet little children who suffered unspeakable harm at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them. You held in your heart those who came from nothing and struggled to have everything, life always beating them back into their place. It is why you loved Princess Diana and Anna Nicole Smith. It is why you watched every depressing murder mystery show about some nobody woman from some nowhere town whose corpse led to a challenging and troubled investigation that culminated in justice for her. Yours was a heart that bled often and profusely for the downtrodden.

I wish I had realized the asset I had in you before you were so near the end of your life.

I will never be “normal” again, whatever that means. I am coming to accept this as a fact of my life. There will always be triggering moments that buckle me at the knees, songs that sucker punch me, moments when I suddenly become inconsolable seemingly out of the clear blue sky. Right now we are in the midst of firsts: my first promotion without you here to share in my joy; the first time I had to euthanize a pet without you to talk me through it; the first time we have to handle birthdays and holidays without your presence.

One of your grandsons had a birthday not long ago; another one will have one in a few days. Lately I have not only missed you terribly, I have also felt terribly bitter about what I know I won’t get to experience with you. If I have children, you will not be there in the hospital with me. This is a reality that I have mulled over and held onto tightly in recent weeks. My professional life is going well and I know you were proud of me, I know you would continue to be proud of me, that you do continue to be proud. But I have found myself growing resentful at my reality, at being twenty-nine and having no prospect on the horizon of marriage and family any time soon. These are things that I only realized I wanted in the final months of your life. A year ago I was set on not having children, so certain I was that I would only screw them up. It was in no small part due to your gentle coaxing that I realized I will definitely screw up my children, and that’s okay. We all do it. We do the best we can with what we have, but no child escapes their childhood unscathed. You taught us that no parent makes perfect choices, but as long as the main focus of our existence as both a parent and a human is to love with all we have, to be honest, to be both gentle and tough and to know when which is appropriate, then that’s the best we can do.

It seems bitterly ironic that I would yearn so deeply now for something I wasn’t even sure I wanted, but that yearning is underscored by your absence. I struggle with the choices I have made, I fight to retain the stance that those choices have helped shape the person I have become, that it is better to be where I am than to have gotten tangled up with the wrong person. In some sense I came out of the womb fighting for what I wanted, but it was you who nurtured that and very carefully fostered it so that I would see obstacles as challenges and learn to persevere in my pursuit of goals and aspirations and dreams in this life. It is a strange feeling to be in a place where I cannot fight, a place where I need to coast for a while so that the things I want might fall into place. You and I talked earnestly about this before you died, a time when you were so tired and I was so self-absorbed that I couldn’t tell just how worn out you were. There are nights when I sit quietly in the dark on the floor, the dog pressed against my leg, swilling an over-full glass of red wine, wondering if I will ever forgive myself for not being more conscious during your final months of life. I want to forgive myself, and I know you would want me to, but I find it difficult to do without you here to tell me how.

My sisters and I don’t talk every day like we thought we would. None of us anticipated the weight of the every day or the sheer exhaustion we would experience just from trying to keep up with basic tasks. We don’t keep our living spaces as clean as we used to, we struggle to bother with hair and makeup and appearance. We don’t sleep well. We wake up in the middle of the night. We fail to go back to sleep. We have nightmares with you in them. We box up the raw ache of loss in our waking hours and you slip out of that box at night and that pain torments us in our dreams.

I should have expected that we would retreat and that we wouldn’t experience this loss as a unified front the way we initially thought. I have been through this before to some degree. I have known what it was to become familiar with the extremely personal nature of loss and grief and mourning. It is not that you want to go through this alone, or that you withdraw by choice. It’s just that getting out of bed and brushing your teeth and putting on clothes and interacting with the world outside the four walls of your own space is so taxing that you are lucky to be able to drag yourself inside the house before you collapse into a heap. When you have to care for anyone or anything else? Forget about it. By the time you get to the end of the routine and complete all the basic functions of living, by the time you are able to actually sit down for a minute to yourself and take a breath, you are already in the red. It’s not that you have nothing left. You have less than nothing. And you have to somehow scrape those bits of nothingness together and get yourself ready to do it all over again.

handshakes and hugs

This week I am at a conference for my job. My industry is very small, and I am younger than most people in it by at least a decade. It is also dominated by dudes, mostly of the older and white variety. This was my second conference, and I would by lying if I said that I got much out of it besides doing some serious networking. The sessions were not applicable to where my particular business is in its life cycle, and much of what was being purveyed was fundamentally and philosophically different than what works for us. The networking was good, though, and I learned a lot on that front. I did sneak away numerous times to strip off all my uncomfortable clothes and work quietly in my hotel room. It is moments like these that make me think I am not cut out to be in an executive position where I need to be “on” for fourteen hours a day, schmoozing and socializing. Shove me in a room where I do my work and make my own hours as long as my work gets done. Meeting new people and explaining ad nauseam who we are and what we do and where we are makes me want to curl into the fetal position after just a few hours.

I have been mulling over a blog post about hugging for a while, and my experience with handshakes at this conference has given me even more fodder to consider. The two are different but similar. But with both hugging and shaking hands, there is a right and a wrong way. Let’s start with shaking hands.

Many women do it wrong. Many men do it wrong in a different way. The way you should shake hands is confidently and firmly without trying to play mercy or holding it uncomfortably long. Don’t be a cold fish with tightened fingers that don’t actually grip the hand of the person who is shaking yours. Don’t let your fingers go flacid. Don’t let your wrist go limp. It is also imperative that you do not put a death grip on the hand of the other person. If you are so firm that you almost snap my metacarpals, you’re doing it wrong. Also, it does not reflect positively on your manhood that you can aggressively squeeze my hand. Congratulations, you’re a dick.

For some reason the percentage of people who shake hands incorrectly surprises me. This is not a challenging concept. I did not grow up in an environment where learning to shake hands appropriately was a skill that was bestowed upon me. All it takes is a time or two to sort it out. This isn’t rocket science, folks. Basically, the same rule applies here that applies in every arena of life: don’t be a douche. Just be a normal human being. Confidently put your hand forward, slide it into someone else’s, move it up and down a couple of times, and voila! you’ve just successfully completed a handshake. So many people I encountered this week have been in the professional sphere for so long and have presumably been shaking hands the WRONG way all this time. This makes me curious – is it acceptable to call someone out for this? Can you at least make a face? I make a face. I cannot help myself. These people need to know that their handshaking technique is abysmal and needs serious overhauling.

Hugging is a little different, though not completely. One of the main differences with hugging is that you can ostensibly call out someone who is a bad hugger. If your relationship is intimate enough that you are hugging, you can tell someone they suck at it. After my mom died, one of my sisters asked that people share stories that they remembered about our mother. One of my dearest and oldest friends said that it was our mom who taught her how to hug. That was the way our mom was – she was “a hugger” in any and all circumstances.

Going on a trip? Hugs!

Going out for the evening? Hugs!

Running to the gas station real quick? Hugs!

Going to the basement for a minute? Hugs!

We girls are also “huggers” as a result. When people try and say silly things like, Oh, I’m not a hugger, I have to admit that I want to stab them in the face a little. My reaction is, Oh, really? You don’t like to engage in one of the most basic human interactions? You don’t like to indulge human affection, literally the basest of our needs as mammals?* Then I hug them anyway.

The thing is, just like with shaking hands, there is a right and a wrong way to hug. I’ll go ahead and speak for every woman who has ever wanted to have sex with a man and vice versa – if you want to communicate that you do not want to have sex with someone, pat them while you’re hugging them. Unless you are in a serious, committed, confident relationship with someone, or unless you are their pastor, it is never appropriate to pat someone who you are hugging.

Patting signifies dismissal. Thaaaaat’s niiiiiice, mmmmmmmk, hug’s over.

Patting is the placating move we use on baby bottoms. What makes anyone think it is appropriate to use this on grown adults, especially grown adults with whom you might want to fornicate at some point? Patting someone on the back while you hug them is awkward.

Also awkward in the hugosphere is the one-arm. Unless you have groceries, a child, or a flaming bag of shit in your other hand, you’d better go ahead and use both arms when you hug me. What is the value in letting your other arm lie there all stiff and weird? Are you afraid that if you use both arms you might have warm human feelings? Does.Not.Compute.

Seriously, the one armed hug makes me want to Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris snap that other arm. I’ll give you a reason not to hug me with both arms!

If someone has a legitimate reason for the one-armed hug, I’m all ears. But in general, there is no valid reason. Because you do not feel comfortable being a vulnerable human is not a valid reason. Get over it. We’re people. We touch each other. Sometimes we hug each other and we both have bewbs and those bewbs have to be all up in each other’s grill. Get over it.

Sure, sometimes people are weird about hugging and they get freaked out because they have sexual hangups or issues with affection. Let me say it again: GET. THE FUCK. OVER IT. We are human beings. If someone is hugging you, there is a 99%+ chance that they are doing so because they care about you, you care about them, and you have a mutual desire to facilitate one another’s comfort and happiness. All the baggage that you’re carrying around on your back and dangling from your neck and strapped to your ankles and weighing down your shoulders? Don’t let it stop you from feeling the love emanating from another human being who wants to share with you their kindness and warmth. You deserve better than that. You deserve better than to be defined by the lurid past over which you have no control. You’re in control now, so go ahead and use both hands and don’t go pat-pat-pat.

If someone is hugging you without your permission, that’s a different story. Stab that motherfucker in the throat. And then kick him/her in the groin for good measure. And maybe another quick throat stab before you run off into the night.

But if you are engaging in a consensual hug? Do it right. Throw your arms around the other person with abandon and pull them close to you and hold them for a spell. Life is short, y’all. And my reality differs from yours very little in that all any of us really wants is to love and to be loved. All the other shit is just static. Bonuses. Pluses and minuses on a scale of love. Career? Fantastic if you have someone to celebrate it with. Beautiful home? Great! If you can fill the space with loved ones. Lots of money? Fabulous if you can sometimes spend it bringing a smile to the face of someone you care about.

*I recognize that some people don’t hug because of issues related to OCD or touch and I respect that. But sometimes people just aren’t huggers because they are twats who don’t like to acknowledge their humanness in a way that might make them typical or vulnerable. And that’s rubbish.

crawl forward

Most of what I write has some deep life lesson embedded in it, which is rarely intentional. But in twenty-nine short years I have learned more about life, love, and loss than many people learn in a lifetime. Pondering and processing loss tends to lead one to think about life and love. The three are inextricably intertwined in a way that makes our lives as humans uniquely beautiful, and this tightly woven fabric of our existence is a concept that many choose – to their own detriment – to overlook. We don’t want to think about loss as a real part of our lives. We especially do not want to consider death honestly and analytically. It is much easier to shove our heads deep into the sands of denial, and then to be incensed and outraged when death comes like a thief to take what we love.

I am a good person. We tell ourselves. I don’t deserve this. As if the most natural and inevitable conclusion of life is somehow dictated by an arbitrary measurement of our intrinsic or attempted goodness.

The concept of bargaining is natural in the grieving process. We believe that because we sustained this loss, it would be inhumane for any more trauma or tragedy to befall us. We have enough on the plate of our fractured life; we cannot take anymore. Surely God or the Universe will understand that and take pity on us.

Recently as I lamented the unceasing shitstorm that has been the lives of my sisters and me for the past several months, as I complained about how I must have been Atilla the Hun in a former life, a dear friend suggested that perhaps everything does not happen for a reason. Perhaps the Universe or God is not trying to teach me any sort of lesson. Maybe our lives are simply a collection of happenings and what kind of human beings we are depends upon how we choose to handle those happenings.

Do we carry ourselves with grace in the face of adversity? Do we whine and kick and scream and refuse to accept our reality? Do we take the bad things that happen to us as lessons learned and move forward with greater wisdom? Or do we use our sorrows as a crutch, an excuse to refuse to engage fully with the world around us? When our dreams unexpectedly burst into shards in front of our very eyes, and we don’t have a backup plan, how do we respond? Do we allow the setbacks to make us bitter? Do we become resentful at the people who try to hold us up? Do we lash out at those closest to us, taking out on them the demise of the future we had planned for ourselves? Do we withdraw? Do we give up and stop trying or loving altogether? Do we become bent with sadness, ultimately shutting out everyone and everything to varying degrees? Or do we stop, take a breath, step back, and renegotiate with ourselves how to move forward? Do we find a new path, or do we sit down in the middle of the darkened forest and simply give up?

We are all faced with choices. Life abounds with misery and heartache. Sometimes around every corner is a grim reaper, lying in wait, prepared to steal from us all our carefully constructed plans and dreams. Our grades aren’t what we expected. Our careers stall. Our houses fall apart. Our cars stop running. Our parents die. Our children become sick. Our pets run away. Our marriages fail. Our finances falter. This is not to be despondent or overtly pessimistic. Not all of these travesties will befall every single one of us in that particular order. Or maybe they will. The truth is that the only certainty in life is uncertainty, and death.

At some point in our lives, anguish will gut both you and me. The torment of your crushed life will reach inside you and hollow you out like a pumpkin, leaving nothing but agony. It is how we respond in the face of inescapable suffering that defines us as human beings. It is how we move forward even when we swear that one more blow will bring us to our knees and incapacitate us that determines our legacy. Even when that blow comes, and you hit your knees, what choice is there but to crawl forward?

This weekend I had to put my rats to sleep. Both of them. They each had been struggling with illness, and it seemed that they both were dealing with pituitary tumors. They each retained their personalities, even as their bodies failed them, which made the decision that much more agonizing. Oliver was severely underweight with a bulging swollen eye, unable to eat except through a syringe. Fenton was paralyzed in his back legs and unable to move around unless he dragged himself. It was not an easy decision, particularly in light of the past few months.

exhausted and sickly brothers

Fenton got sick first, and after going to the vet and being on antibiotics for a couple of weeks he was doing much better. He even started coming out of his cage again, playing and snuggling with me. While I was nursing him back to health, Oliver was getting sick and was unable to eat, and I didn’t notice. He still went to the food bowl, food disappeared, and I didn’t think much of it. Turns out his teeth overgrew out of nowhere – something that has never happened in his almost two years of life. They punctured the roof of his mouth, so he had both overgrown teeth and a festering wound. It goes without saying that I felt awful about myself for missing this.

baby food from a syringe

Then, despite both of them being at the vet less than a week prior, they suddenly started to fall apart almost overnight. It is a strange feeling to shift from a sense of urgency, a compulsive desire to fight for whatever is necessary to save them, to a sense of resignation. When you realize that saving them is no longer an option, that all you are doing is prolonging for a brief moment what is inevitably going to come to pass very soon, you have to ask yourself who benefits from that. My mom and I talked earnestly numerous times before she died and even before she got very sick about euthanasia for humans. Though she was too afraid to allow it to be enacted upon her, she believed in the concept for those who were sure of it. Death is a certainty. Suffering doesn’t have to be.

snuggling after being treated by Dr. Mom

Meanwhile, Josie started having problems with her ears, as she often does. Normally I have a running supply of her various medications so that when allergy season descends upon us, I can manage all of her skin ailments with little interruption to our daily lives. The only problem this season is that around the same time my mom died, Joseph’s normal vet also died. I did not find this out until several weeks later, and that’s a story for another post, but the result is that we had to find a new vet. Luckily a guy I work with is married to a local vet, and she is lovely. But we do not have rapport the way I did with the old vet, so I need to schedule an appointment and leave work early and run around. In doing so, I also found that I will need to clean the dog’s vulva at least once a day for the rest of her life.

Then, last week, as I was preparing for the difficult decision of euthanizing the ratties, I was also rushing the dog back and forth between home and the emergency vet at the university. She suddenly became unable to walk again, crying out in pain and collapsing onto her side in the front yard, even when I’d carried her out there. I spent one whole evening and the majority of the next day sitting, waiting. The prognosis is ultimately uncertain. She will be on three separate pain medications and subject to cage rest for six more weeks. If it turns out she ruptures another disc in her spine, she is not a good candidate for surgery. I will likely be faced with putting her down. And if she comes out of this, the rest of her life will need to be considerably less active. No jumping or running or rough playing. No hiking with Mama, one of the most grounding activities of my adult life.

Simply keeping all of us fed and bathing myself and going to work every day has been an almost insurmountable challenge these past few months. And suddenly I have three special needs pets. Then, I have to euthanize two of them, while I stare down five and a half more weeks of waiting to know exactly what will happen with the third. I have to be honest – I am on my knees. And I do not feel like crawling forward. I feel like lying right here and letting it all burn down around me. I am struggling to care at all, about anything. I know that this is a defining moment in my life.

Assuming I live that long, I will look back on this in a decade and critique the choices that this version of myself made. Maybe I will write about her, maybe I will be able to cover in detached detail the process of putting the rats to sleep and the frustration I felt at the dog just moments after bringing her home from the vet where I had cried inconsolably at the prospect of putting her to sleep. Maybe I will be proud of that twenty-nine year old who sustained the loss of her mother, her vet, and her pet rats in a three month span and didn’t give up or become a raging alcoholic. Maybe I will want to give her a hug and tell her that it gets better. Maybe in ten years I will have a decade of work in my field under my belt. Maybe I will be happily married with a child or two – something I am afraid to want as hungrily as I do. Maybe I will want to hold this broken twenty-nine year old and promise her that sometimes life truly is sweet more often than it is cruel. Maybe I will tell her that even though she is battered and disheartened, though she feels vanquished by the inhumanity of this often calamitous life, there is no choice but to crawl forward.