Did I say in my last post that I didn't expect any more drama? Famous last words as they say. End of typical Bliss-household day: Sassy ran out the front door near ten. Black Sassy, ran out onto a street with no streetlamps, with lots of bushes, where many driveways have access paths to the trails. Problem was that she ran out without anyone seeing her - she snuck out at some point. So for about fifteen minutes while we were all looking for her, we were all thinking this was it, she was going to really disappear into the suburbs.
Thank goodness A has bat eyes - he stepped out the door and yelled, "I see her!" We all ran out, me with the leash, M with the flashlight, D with a dog biscuit, and J with the judgment of everyone involved.
Fun, fun, fun.
Near three in the morning, J woke D and I with his tics. Total insomnia then for the three of us. Didn't get back to sleep until five. More fun.
We did finally see a neurologist today for the tics and got a new medication to try: Keppra. I keep wanting to call it Kreppa...a la Crappa...because the poor kid has had no luck with the other four medications he's tried. However, I am actually seeing an improvement. Seriously...fifteen minutes have passed since I last heard him and he is nearby. Can see him out the window here, skating back and forth, hair pulled back.
He's funny though because if I ask him about it, or comment about it, then he'll tic. Very suggestible. So shhhh...ixnay on the ic-tay.
How boring is this blog post? I clearly need connection with the world outside the one I'm living in because I've been wanting to post, wanting to write...I plop myself at my laptop at the dining room table because J has taken over my office. I find though that I'm lacking the energy to spread in any detail the thoughts across the page, too lazy to sprinkle and arrange and fold and toss letters. I really wanted to submit something to qarrtsiluni since Brenda and Dale both did (me too, me too!) but nothing comes when I try to get creative, try to put out something fictional or unreal or beautiful.
Cabbage. J wants me to cut up some cabbage for him, purple cabbage with lemon, a splash of oil, and salt. My mother used to make that for us when were kids and she always did it without question. I complain, put it off. Not now, in a minute, get off my ASS! Okay, cabbage. Cut, chop, mince. Put the stuff into two bowls for the two boys. Pour the lemon dressing.
In an earlier post of mine a commenter used the word, "lonely." I realize that I didn't know loneliness until my mother died. I can be surrounded by my family now but deep down, deep within, I still feel lonely and that feeling did not exist when my mother was alive. Is that coincidence? Did my mother's death coincide with the death of passion in my marriage or with the birth of my third child? Is tiredness cloaked in "loneliness"? I don't know. A couple of weeks ago I had dinner with my sister and her friend JC, and I was upset about the deal with my brother and I remember weeping a little at a stoplight, eleven at night, and feeling terribly alone. Nobody to call, nowhere to crash on a couch, the bed I'd crawl into would be a bit cold, and not heart-warm but even if it was, it wouldn't be the warmth of my mother.
My grandmother had told me, tried to explain to me, that I should not feel lonely ever because she is here and I am her heart. But...but..I keep her at bay because death does cut off the connection. The end of grief has cut off the connection. I no longer cry for my parents and with that cessation a thread has been cut.
Cabbage...purple, lemony, crunchy, filling. Yes, yes, I'll do it. Here, my sweet, in the blue striped bowl. Just for you.
4 comments:
Eventually they grow up and forget all about you - my son (19 now) seems almost to have... & then there's yet another grieving on top of all the others. My Dad was the person who I could talk to, who was always there for me. The last 22 years without him, yes lonelier, definitely yes. But a richness within, too.
And qarrtsiluni, oh, it wasn't easy since I feel like such an outsider with that group (the editors are a pretty tight-knit bunch), but I wanted to submit something, and couldn't write a story in a sentence, or under 100 words, but then they published a poem, and then it just happened. And I did a word count: something like 93 with the technorati tag poem. And they took it, amazingly enough, along with the later submission of the painting.
Bliss, c'mon. If I can do it in under 100 words, so can you.
Look, it's a way of bonding.
Snuggling like shiny pebbles on the beach on the Short Short qarrtsiluni page.
Set the intent, I want to submit a short short, and it'll happen. You'll write, revise, polish something and email it off.
See you there!
To me your last paragraph is a slam-dunk refutation of the assertion that death cuts off the connection :-)
Not to deny the grief -- but minds are very porous, and their contents flow into each other all the time. We lose all the containers, eventually, including the one we call "me," but that doesn't mean the contents are lost. Was that you or was it your grandmother chopping cabbage? Whose volition started that action? Does the question even make sense? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
I know, it's not the connection we yearn for -- because we think the containers are real and the contents are ephemeral -- but really we're mistaken, if anything it's the other way around.
I totally hear you, bud...about the loss of family once the parents are gone. You still have grandparents around to kind of take over that 'head of family' role, I guess. But I know in mine, there was a definite change in everyone and everything once both Dad & Mom had passed. They were the common thing that held everyone together when nothing else would. So it was like, cutting a string with beads on it...the beads (that's the rest of us...lol) just rolled away and scattered. We weren't nearly as close as we were when Dad was still around...and now that Mom's gone, it's like we have no more obligation to hang around each other. So for the most part, unless it's a major holiday, we don't gather anymore.
I'm not sure exactly why that is...I mean, some of us (like me) can't really be with the fam, as we live so far away. But most of them are still in driving distance of each other, and still they hardly hang. I guess maybe they're just tired of the whole obligatory hanging out after so many years...but I also think it speaks to how self-involved most people are these days. They just don't think about it, 'cause they're all too busy being wrapped up in themselves. Kinda sad.
Brenda, I think about them growing up and AWAY often in order to counter my feelings of "when will you grow up and leave?!!" LOL Yes, yes...there is richness in the loss. I'll have to work on that short...and if not a short, then the next topic. :)
Dale - I suppose I was being ironic there at the end. I understand the more subtle connections from one loved one to another that transcends the container. Your comment is wonderful. Thank you.
Lori, you make me sigh. The image of beads on a string is beautiful and true. I think of all the beads on my side and I think it's sad, too. I suppose there's an element of "choosing your friends but not your family," so the common threads that bind us are fewer. And yet...some say we choose our family, so how does that work, then? Ohhh...such complexity.
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