There has been lots going on the past few weeks which have been weighing on me, wearing on my soul. Oddly, none of it has to do with work. Lots of joking around and fun there, no outrageous pressure even though we are going into a busy (NFL) season. And the fact that I will soon have insurance, that I get paid holidays and two weeks vacation, and got to use some of it back over the 4th of July, to meet my BFF for the very first time in 15 years of knowing her actually makes that front rather great, and another area not quite as bad… But its bad enough that I asked to have my meds dosage upped.
Now, before I get to the main item, here is some of the other craziness I have dealt with the past few months… really mega past due property taxes, which finally are caught up, so I no longer worry about them filing in the court for being delinquent. Rent and other areas are generally caught up, and money is not a huge worry (especially given how I was raised by two parents, one of which grew up during the Great Depression, and the other who grew up in VA during the 1940s, and later events in life). And while I was about to start paying some friends back, I am now preparing to move in the next few months. I had kinda been taking it a bit easy on that front, trying to decide where, plan things out, etc., and slowly trying to pare away the junk in the garage left by my 2nd ex, her GF and such… but in a week or so, I figure to have a dumpster and start going through things, since two weeks ago, the landlord stopped by to give me a heads up (thankfully a bit premature), that they were in the process of selling the house, and I would likely be getting the 60 day notice. Premature, since the buyer did not manage to secure the financing, but I am still going to move… maybe in the timeframe of 90 days rather than 60, however… Thankfully, since I work remotely, the where is a little less of an issue, and I have friends looking for places up in the Pittsburgh area, and I am thinking about possibly going up there over a weekend here in the next few weeks. That way, I will have lots of friends much closer, and can try to remedy some of the issues of it just basically being Destiny and myself, and being mostly totally isolated like my Dad was his final couple of years, which is something I was phobic about happening at the time, and which really weighs on me every day now.
(Quick aside… why Da’Burgh? Why not SLC or ATL? Because with planning, I can drive a moving van up there on a Friday evening, unload over a weekend and be working on Monday. And I have friends up there to help me find places to possibly live, I know the mental health system, and might just be able to go to the same providers. SLC has a much more limited network of folks to help, and it would take me a week to drive the critical things out there… and ATL is just too far south and hot/humid for me!)
Now, to understand the really big one, which I have been avoiding, because of the pain, requires me to go back to 1995, and indeed do some summing up of years leading into that. Mom had been fighting breast cancer for a number of years, and was coming to the end of her unsuccessful battle. I still feel I did so many things wrong, not seeing signs where she all but told me, like the day she told me to make sure to get the savings bonds which she had bought and were in her and my name, were something to happen, so that Dad did not see them and get upset. But in February of that year, she had been told that it had spread to her esophagus, liver and bones. And the port which they normally would only leave in for 6 months, take out for 6 and put back in, but which she had had in for well over a year… it was taken out. On a trip down here to VA to talk to her sisters, who began their own battles within a few months of Mom’s… to tell them she no longer had what it would take to fight it… she was worn out physically and emotionally. That was about 6 weeks before Mom walked out to sit at the picnic table with me, to talk, and in the process mention those savings bonds as if she had been mentioning the shape of a cloud, because of my blindness. But over the next few months, we would talk about other things, including the difficulty Mom was having eating, and we had an early birthday party around the 4th of July at my brother’s for my daughter. I did not ask why over 6 weeks early, instead of just a few days after, which would have been the case because our annual Pennsic vacation also included my daughter’s birthday. Nor did I clue in on the fact that we were talking about Mom and Dad taking my ex, daughter and I with them on a trip to Hawaii, which was something we had talked about for probably close to 20 years, but had never done. I was asked if I would have enough vacation for it (more than enough), could I get it off (yes), and all. It was for her what we today would call a bucket list item. But that was never to happen.
What did happen? Well, we went to Pennsic as planned. And I would have someone from camp come to me while I was out on the battlefield after a day of fighting that Saturday, telling me that someone had stopped by to tell me that my Dad had called. And so, I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying to reach him, to find out that Mom was in hospital, and had been since the previous weekend, because of her being unable to eat. I was also told not to tell her that Dad had called while we were on vacation… but… while it was not necessary for me to pack up right then and there, drive home, or drive down there directly, going down in the next couple of days would be very wise… I was still not aware of how long it had been since Mom had last eaten solid food, or how bad things were. I think I went to the annual gathering to listen to a friend of mine tell his night-long story of stories around the campfire… I vaguely remember packing, the drive home, unloading… And I do remember going to work that Monday morning, and being sent home as soon as my boss Brian heard what was going on… being told not to come back, not to worry about if I had the vacation days, etc… go be with her, and leave my pager (which I even carried with me on vacation) with him.
Well, later that day, we had done some laundry, and were down to visit Mom… she was 5ft4in tall, and normally weighed around 120lbs… and if I had to guess, she was maybe 70lbs… and our Chiricahua Apache heritage was quite plain to see. There is a picture of Goyaałé (Geronimo for those less knowledgeable) in his 70s, with the nose, cheekbones, eyes… and they all stood out on Mom’s face because she was so underweight. But that day was so upsetting to both of us, on top of Grandma Wade, Aunt Jean and other family members being there to visit. And during the visit, I found out from Aunt Jean a bit about just how bad it was, but not the full story… and part of about the visit back in February/March after the news from the doctors… but Mom also told me that it was upsetting to her for me to see her that way, and that she saw how much it was upsetting me, and said she did not want me to visit her until she got out of the hospital… Only the Creator knows why I agreed, or perhaps thought she would get better and get out of the hospital. And so, I went back to work (Brian’s first words to me were “WTF are you doing here??!!”, a question I was asked by a number of coworkers until word made its way around to everyone), and it was right about this time in 95 when Mom got out of the hospital to go to the hospice one last time… and between my visit and that day… I hardly spoke to her, because it upset her, she did not feel like talking… and I never got to say goodbye to her… she slipped into a coma which was helped along by the fact that they had to give her so much morphine that they constantly ran the razor’s edge between her being in massive pain and her breathing stopping. And rather than going down to the county fair, which takes place every Labor Day weekend… I went down and spent the week and weekend following it with Dad, spending time at the hospice/nursing home, and starting off the days with phone calls to see how things had gone the night before. And after being there all day on the 10th, listening to her fight for every single breath against the pain, and painfully exhale, I am really not surprised that on the 11th, that that morning call was instead that the doctors would call us right back.
Well, that has been echoing through the past with something currently going on in my life, which has me all mixed up inside… part of me wanting to book a flight, but knowing that I very well could face the same response of an individual not wanting to see me. And when I knew they were going to be scoped to see what was going on, and a relatively short procedure which was supposed to have someone telling me that this individual was in recovery or back in her room did not have me hearing anything until I reached out that night to someone… I had an all day panic attack from the PTSD, which my meds did not touch… and I have to fight to not max out and pass my max dosages for my anxiety meds, which are really addictive. And given how I lost my Mom without getting to say goodbye, lost my first BFF (with whom, it looks like things were shaping up to perhaps have us trying to be happy together) with so many questions unasked, things unsaid and all… and now what is going on which has me fearing losing someone who means more to me than any other friend I have alive… some days it is a blessing just to go through the day hiding under a blanket, since I cannot be there…