Well, it seems that life has pulled out another stop or two, and also resulted in me realizing something I don’t believe I had realized before. And outside of that one fact, it sure has me wishing that life would switch to a different, happier piece.
The first stop which life pulled out today to add to the recent cacophony was a post from a SCA friend from Indiana. Her daughter, who is not yet 21, has been fighting a battle with a form of cancer since before she was a teen. As my friend wrote “We’ve had eight and a half years that we shouldn’t have had. It isn’t enough.” And it isn’t. What I got with my Mom wasn’t enough. What I got with my Dad wasn’t enough. What I got with my first BFF Lisa was not enough. And for my current BFF… I won’t go into details about the fears, but will say I will gladly take what I can get, but it will not be enough be it measured in months, years or decades, regardless of where things go with us. There are certain people who are in our lives and whose souls and ours are like velcro and cotton balls on both sides… our interactions are such that when we are parted, parts of our cotton balls are stuck in their velcro and pulled away, and parts of their cotton balls are stuck in our velcro and stay with us.
But for me, in reading about my friend and her daughter, I could not help but to also think of her daughter, as well as to recent events with my BFF, and go back to an event in my life… which was the month of October 1974. Yes, the month, in its entirety, and just after my 11th birthday. A period which started with my commenting to my gym teacher about what I was clearly certain was blood in my urine when I had to go to the bathroom during gym, and which immediately saw me waiting in the school office while somebody retrieved my stuff from my locker while Mom was on her way to pick me up. And from there, Mom and I went straight to a doctor who did a quick exam to rule out things like a hernia, and confirm the blood, and not even stopping by the house as we drove past it, driving into the hospital. The next few days were lots of tests to rule out things like kidney infections (which included my having an allergic reaction to a x-ray dye which was like injecting liquid fire into my arm and burning all my veins out of my body, which in turn had me unable to speak for days), and then a surgery which had my legs in stirrups for so long that my legs cramped for the next week, on top of me being forced to sleep on my back for that same week. And spending several weeks going through more treatment and recovery, finally getting the catheter which I had been stuck with removed and getting to go home on Halloween. And all the while, I never quite knew what all was going on, and when I had time to think about it, I was quite terrified, even without knowing that it was cancer (I found that out very late in my stay). So much so, that a few years ago, I ended up having a PTSD flashback to the vents of that month.
But I got better… I got the “OK… come back in 6 months”, followed by “Come back in a year”, to where I did not need to come back at all. It was as if I had broken my arm, burned them, or had pneumonia… not something which was constantly lurking, like this girl who is just a few years younger than my own daughter has had to go through for more than a third of her life. This girl, which got to look at pictures of her kitties with her mother, who got to have her mother comfort her with strokings, holding hands and kisses. And who may not be with us tomorrow.
We never are promised tomorrow with those we love… indeed, we are not even promised our next breath, or the ability to complete saying/typing “I love you” to that special someone. So many times, we can be there, doing what we do, and the next thing we know, Atropos cuts the string and our puppet bodies drop to the floor. It is part of why being alone bothers me so much… (Now, I know, many friends will say things like “get out more” or “make more friends”, but that is so, so difficult for me.) I am left to wonder how many days would pass before someone besides work would think to check on me, and notice that my strings had been cut. Or how many people would notice that I was gone, how long it would take them to notice, etc. It is probably something I should not worry about, at least from my perspective… after all, when my strings are cut, I move on to whatever awaits (which is, with lots of hope, wishes, etc., a reunion with the half dozen or so most important “souls” in my life… Mom, my maternal grandparents, Dad, and most importantly at this moment… my first BFF), and this world fades behind me, supposedly. But I do worry about that, just like I worry about those most precious souls in this life. But, to not be able to wake and see someone I love across the bed from me, either watching me, or just breathing as they sleep… to have those caresses, hugs, moments of holding hands while either watching a thunderstorm, the stars or a movie…
Now, the thing I realized… it is really a meaningless, stupid fact, but all the same… it occurred to me that my second ex and I were were in that hospital during that month I spent there… given that she was born at that hospital while I was going through my month-long nightmare. Like I said… meaningless… stupid… trivial… but still…