Words that helped today:


You know how life goes in cycles.
sadness comes and comes and then
happiness comes and comes.

I was just thinking this morning (in my morning shower)...

Thanks, my friend. To know someone I care about
but haven't connected with in some time was thinking about
me makes all the difference in the world.

More than I think you know.

I just have to do this.
I have to see this.
I have to relive it.
I have to try to move on.
I have to make myself remember some events.
I have to let go.
I have to hold on.
I have to write it down so maybe it's not always going round
and round in my head.
I have to understand that there may be a reason
I'm so exhausted and down and numb and sensitive.
So, timeline, here we go.

Sunday
March 26th, 2006:

8:30 p.m., Nashville, TN: I am in Nashville for a 4 day conference when I receive a call from Wes telling me that my father was on his way to the hospital and that my mom thought he had had a stroke

9:00 p.m.: In my hotel room packing my suitcase to come home when I get a call from my brother telling me that Dad needed to be flown to another hospital if he was to have any kind of chance of survival

9:45-10:00: Leaving the hotel and driving West on 1-24 like a bat outta hell trying to get home as soon as I can--still don't know about where or when Dad will be flying out of Madisonville

10:15- 10:30 p.m.: Get another call from my brother telling me that Dad had just boarded the medivac helicopter and was on his way to University Hospital, Louisville. Mom and my brother are told he has suffered an ischemic stroke and if he makes it at all, he will most likely be severely brain-damaged.

Around midnight: Arrive in Mad'ville and go to Mom's. We are all in shock and don't know what to do. For some strange reason, we thought it best that I get a few hours of sleep before we drive to Louisville as I had already been on the road for 2 hours coming home and had been on the road 2 hours going to Nashville. Went home. Could not sleep.


Monday

March 27th, 2006:

2:45-3:00 a.m.: My brother calls. We all agree we must go now! We get on the road in 15 minutes time.

5:15 a.m.: Arrive in Louisville. Are taken to the Neuro Intensive Care floor and told we would have to wait to see Dad. Go to waiting room and wait for a call.

7:15 or so: We go back to see Dad (only 2 at a time). Can't remember who went first. Dad was still on the ventilator. The neuro team talks with my mom. They tell her they are running tests to try to determine what has happened to my dad.

2 or so p.m.:
Dad is taken off the ventilator. He recognizes us but can't speak. He looks confused--maybe a little frightened. We are all so relieved that he is breathing on his own and his vitals are good.

3-8:30 p.m.: We go back and visit each time we can. I sleep on the loveseat in the NIC floor though it smells like stinky feet, shit, and other assorted bodily smells. So tired I didn't care. Found out they had Dad on Dilantin, lasix, potassium. He had a seizure in the ER in Madisonville so they thought he should be on Dilantin.

8:30 or so: We leave the hospital and drive four blocks to a Holiday Inn that will become our home for the next 8 days. We have a few drinks, order some sandwiches, choose our beds (Mom and I choose a bed--2 queens in the room--Jason sets up the roll-out). We crash.

Hold On

They hung a sign up in our town
"if you live it up, you won't
live it down"
So, she left Monte Rio, son
just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
she went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
hair like wind
She said don't look back just
come on Jim
(Chorus)
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on

Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
and a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
but you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
you dont meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do

Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to
Just hold on.

Well, God bless your crooked little heart
St. louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still
here with me

Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
you burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
you're falling behind in this
big blue world

Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on

Down by the riverside motel,
it's 10 below and falling
by a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
and started swaying
but it's so hard to dance that way
when it's cold and there's no music
well your old hometown is so far away
but, inside your head there's a record
that's playing, a song called

Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
and just hold on.

Tom Waits, Mule Variations

Yesterday


I got my walk in. Made a trip to the hospital first
to see Gene. The doctors are moving him to a facility
that can treat his wound.

I sensed his growing weariness
with life. So many complications from his surgery.
But, he still has a good sense of humor and he's
strong-spirited.

Pulled into my driveway and noticed someone sitting
in a chair near the back door. It was D. Didn't need
to deal with D last night and the paranoia and the stalking
and the delusions, but actually, she listened to me
quite a bit as I discussed my father's death.

So out of it, so out of it.
Start my criminology class tonight.
Stats is going well but I'm getting confused.
It's so hard to focus.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~Mary Oliver

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

June 1st, 1999

7:00 am. Sarah called to tell me Charlye was dead. She was hysterical
and told me I had to get there immediately as Billy was a mess.
2 weeks before, Charlye called me and told me she had just slit
her wrists. I asked where Billy was and she said, "In the livingroom."

I said call to him now or I am calling 911, which I did because she would
not call out to Billy. She refused to go the hospital, but she allowed
the paramedics to treat her wrists.

August 27th, 2006

8:30 p.m.

Had a phone call from B. She sounded far way or like she
was down deep somewhere beneath the earth calling
from under a floor or something (like Charlye did).

She told me she was calling to tell me goodbye
and that our call would probably be the last time
we would speak. She said she'd had enough of the pain
and the sadness. She told me her son moved in with
his father, and though she didn't say she couldn't
bear that, I knew that was what had brought
her to this desperate place.

I told her all I could think to tell her to keep her alive.
I don't know if it will work. I called a suicide prevention
hotline and talked with them about the conversation.

They told me that what I said was not only completely
appropriate, it (my words,my thoughts, my encouragement)
was the right thing to do. They said they felt
she sounded encouraged (she told me she thought
she would see things differently tomorrow).
They told me they would call her and check on her.
I told them I had called her best friend and was waiting
to hear back. Talked with A. today.
She is very concerned as well. She spoke with B today
and thought she sounded a little bit better.

I reminded B. of Charlye's death. Told her how those
of us left here to deal with it were so traumatized
and consumed with guilt thinking there surely could have
been something we could have done. B. remembers how
it affected me. Told her she needed to think about her son,
about how this would destroy him, how he would blame
himself because he would be certain it had to do with his moving
out.

I am so wiped out today. Little sleep last night. Weird images.
Some strange people.
I am asking the powers that be to help B. She needs help.
I already suggested therapy. She said no because she would
just lie to the therapists.

*deep breath*

I need to walk.