It was a year ago today that my mother left this world. I feel her presence inside of me--what she might say or do, how much she enjoyed her life on Earth, how much she loved it when family or friends came to visit us.
Family will be arriving tomorrow for a spring break visit; after that old friends will come from afar for a visit in April, and after that, another friend. Life keeps delivering its pleasures and I am grateful for every joy, large or small.
I want to thank all of you who left your messages of condolence on my blog, or on Facebook, or by mail or phone a year ago. It meant a lot. We are all on this winding road together, and yet it can be easy to forget that. Thank you for reminding me.
I found a spider crab shell on the beach last week. Purplish pink with the horn-like protuberances seen in the video above, it was too weird (and too large--bicycle helmet sized) to pocket. I poked it with a stick and flipped it over. Alas, it was not a shell that had been molted, but a casket for the remains of a creature who perished. Not picking it up was a wise decision. Even after the waves cleaned it out, I didn't want it in my arms.
I feel like I'm molting. Dashing around to distract myself while there are bigger things happening as the second anniversary of Dan's death approaches. Yesterday it was as if I stepped out of bed and into chasm, dropping down into a place airless and dark. I lay on the couch and dozed, too stupefied to read or muster the good sense to go out for a walk, meditate, or do anything.
Today it felt as if the sun was pouring in despite the May-gray skies here, yet there are more dealings with the dead. Another beneficiary form to fill out as we close my mother's last bank account. And her supplementary insurance continues to send emails (despite my emails announcing her death and the attaching of a jpeg of her death certificate.) They're asking for her to sign the cancellation form, asking if she'd agree to serve on some patient panel and fill out questionnaires about how they're doing. While I'd like to impersonate her and participate with scathing commentary, I don't have the heart for it right now. Darn. I know an opportunity for a heck of a good time when I see one, right?
From the New Yorker
Meanwhile, I continue to tend to my health. Beset with swollen knees, fingers, and hands and in pain since I returned from final visit with my mother in Iowa in March, blood tests show no Lyme disease, no autoimmune diseases. I have paid my thousand dollar bill and have letters from my primary care physician and a rheumatologist proclaiming the good news. A week ago I took my swollen self to a Functional Medicine doctor. Of course he told me to change my diet. No dairy. No gluten. ( I used to be a gluten free vegetarian, but converted back to being a regular omnivore about a year ago.) My cynical self didn't want to believe that I needed to give up dairy and gluten, (I mean, c'mon, it seems like such a knee-jerk alternative thing) but my desperate self was, well, desperate. After two days the swelling in my knees and fingers was pretty much gone. My right hand is still deciding whether or not to go with the miracle. But maybe it's lagging behind because it actually poured the milk and put the toast in the toaster.
And back to the molting--my caregiver skin is nearly shed. Another form/email or two and I am something new. The ex-wife skin, while only able to be gotten rid of when either or both The Someone and myself meet the same fate as the crab I found on the beach, feels like there's been at least some exfoliation or a nip and a tuck. July holds its own treacherous anniversary. This year it will be nine years since my marriage ended with a three-sentence conversation. I lost my husband, my family, my house, my town. Three decades of personal history became a fraud. Half my life felt like a hallucination.
But I'm all right now. Quite wonderful, in fact. A new person, alive and well. There is that chasm. But I think I can remember to climb out.
I fell off a ladder on December 23rd while putting Christmas lights on top of the armoire in my dining room. I didn't do anything ridiculous like standing on the step inscribed with the warning, "This is not a step." The tree was already up, and there were Christmas cookies in the oven, and I had a friend over---and so I was excited to be finished with the lights, and I simply backed up to admire my handiwork. But I was still two steps off the ground. When I fell, I collided with a dining room chair which tipped over, and I planted my ribcage onto its edge, and the ladder planted itself on top of me.
The treatment for broken ribs is the same as the treatment for bruised ribs unless you can't breathe or are coughing up blood or you have a bone poking out (so says the Internet) so I didn't go to the ER. I did the things Dr. Internet said would help. Rest. OTC painkillers. I did a ton of OTC painkillers. My ribs got better, but the hip I'd landed on (the left one) still hurt so I took more painkillers. And it was Christmas so I ate five dozen Christmas cookies and special desserts, and I was tired from not sleeping well because of the hip and rib pain so I drank a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. And a lot of wine. So much wine. And after I did these amusing and entertaining things, I napped (on my right side, which is the side to lie on if you want to be good to your heart, but the left is the side that is good for your stomach.) And I didn't go to yoga and got fat.
All of this led to acid reflux (all the while my stomach felt fine) which irritated my vocal chords and little growths formed and my voice got huskier and huskier. I couldn't sing. Wait. I could never sing. The only songs I can remember the tune to are Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells.
The irritated voice was irritating. But then my knees swelled to the size of grapefruits and I was as stiffer than I'd ever seen my mom. And my fingers were swollen and stiff too. The knees and fingers are improving, but the confluence of the many symptoms led me to go to the doctor. The swelling and the stiffness is still a mystery in progress, but I am now officially on my first prescription med. And the medication can deplete your body of calcium so now I have to take an OTC med for that. It's probably temporary. But there you have it. Don't fall off a ladder. Because one thing leads to another. The next thing you know, you'll be taking drugs and more drugs.
And meanwhile, I've now had a total of three bad dreams about my mom. Two in which I woke up crying for help because 1) she was a zombie trying to drag me off 2) a ghost controlling things in my house 3) spending all my money.
The therapist from my bereavement group says I'm going through a kind of post-caregiving collapse. But I'm really okay as long as I'm not having a nightmare, and I'm doing more yoga (with a billion modifications) and following the lifestyle changes for acid reflux as best I can. Don't Google all the yummy things you're not supposed to eat or drink. The thought of giving them up will give you nightmares.
Read this quote by Rumi instead: This day of sunshine will not walk to you; you must go to it. And that's my rough paraphrase because I couldn't find it on the Internet. But the yoga teacher read it to us today at the end of class.
