Road Side Catharsis

I began writing this post about 3 weeks ago and obviously had a hard time posting it. The truth is, if I do not acknowledge all that is going on, even in my blog, it makes it feel not sincere to myself (this being my only journal these days) to just write about my family of 5 and all the wonderful ways that Major is acclimating to our family. And boy has he acclimated. He is remarkable and loving and C*U*T*E. But yet I can not bring myself to write so happily about him just yet in this “story” of my life without properly acknowledging other stuff going on. If I do, it feels like I am not being truthful to the story at large — me being Major’s mom but also being my father’s daughter. This is what I began 3 weeks ago and I have tweaked it where necessary.

It has been a very long time since I have written. The idea of writing each day became overwhelming as I thought of all that has been bubbling under my surface. Much has to do with my dad as his illness has been a huge part of my life of late. Should I be writing again about my dad on what was primarily supposed to be a blog that chronicled my adoption thoughts and journey? Or is this blog a place to write about the story of my life and all that it encompasses? If that is the case, then this surely is the forum for my thoughts, hopes, fears and dreams about all that is going on in my life. In whatever way it manifests.

The last 5 months have been some of the most difficult in my life while there was also much joy. In recent weeks (a particularly bad week or two) I have yelled at my daughters more times than I care to admit while also relishing hugs and kisses and quiet moments laying in bed with them. I have been short with my husband while also craving his hugs. I have lost hair in clumps and missed my period from stress (finally got it — woohoo!!) and I have also laughed joyfully and enjoyed the company of good friends. I have stared at my son and thought he is the smartest and most handsome little boy I have ever laid eyes on. I have slept way too long in bed with headaches real or perceived dreading the thought of getting up to start my day. On other days, I jumped out of bed bright and early to head on a day trip with my family. I have hosed down my kids in the yard until we were all laughing hysterically. I have lain next to Eden in bed counting her freckles on her nose and have braided Emma’s hair and watched her talent shows. I have eaten ad nauseum from stress and eaten very little from stress. The dichotomy of what I have been going through as I simultaneously fell in love with a little boy and found strength in his hugs and kisses, balanced time for the girls and Gary and also cared for my ailing father while becoming well versed in his therapies, medications and needs has been an unbelievable stress that I only now feel I can write about. I have visited him in the hospital or nursing home up to 5 times a week, from 1-5 hours at a time, depending on what time I had available. (I am thankful I am not working now as I could never do what I have done.) This pales in comparison to my mom who sits with my father for up to 12 hours a day at times.

In all however, there has been joy … though joy is not always wrapped with a bow. Sometimes I feel that I have managed to compartmentalize all that is going on and shut off thoughts of one while I dealt with the other. Somehow, I can find joy and play with Major and not think about my dad for a while (not as true, these days, a few weeks after I wrote this.) When I am with my dad, I am very present to his needs and catering to him as a nurse would and chatting with my mom and I do not think much of what is going on at home as Gary puts all three kids (always successfully, God bless him) to bed. The crushing blows of bad news about my dad’s heart and kidneys and then the huge joy at small and sometimes all too fleeting improvements in his health only to be erased by more devastating news and then joy at two steps forward has wrecked havoc on my heart and mind in what feels like real physical ways. I have been devastated and then hopeful and then fearful again in a span of mere hours. The joy of seeing Major’s progress has filled my heart to overflowing. The balance of wanting to spend more time with my family of five in general while desperately desiring to eat breakfast and drink my hot coffee in peace without one @#$%& person calling my name has been delicate. Driving the 30 minutes in quiet to visit my dad at the hospital became peaceful despite the stress of wondering how my dad would be when I arrived.

I often think about how life might have been different in terms of me being able to help my parents better if I didn’t have a new child to care for and spend time with socializing and teaching and loving and holding. How much better and faster might I have bonded with Major if I wasn’t gone hours a day visiting a hospital or nursing home and tucking my dad into bed? Yet these moments I could not have and would not have traded. In each instance, I needed to be where I was. This is life, this is the life I was given at this time, and there is no way to wonder what if. In fact, given all these factors, I have managed to bond amazingly well with Major while simultaneously helping out my parents as much as I can. During this time in my father’s life, I have absolutely shared with him everything I ever wanted him to know about how I feel about him. There is not one doubt in my mind that he knows how truly loved he is and this has offered me solace. Though I have used babysitters at times, I am forever grateful for Gary and his lighter work schedule because often if I am gone in the evenings, at least it is still Daddy home with the kids. Or if I go to visit my dad in the mornings, Gary is still home with Major while the girls were in camp. Somehow, we have made all this work given the circumstances we are in. I have managed to feel a stronger and growing connection with my parents while also building a wonderful mother son relationship with Major. Admittedly, I’d like to find time to spend more one on one time with Emma and Eden in the coming weeks as we had always enjoyed a little extra girl time. I do it in small doses here and there but really would like to make a day of it with them. I also want a day in nature all by myself. Or even just three hours.

Though I touched on it a little bit in my last post, and surely talk about my dad’s diagnosis and status with friends, I kept a lot of the magnitude of this bottled up inside me for too long. Not because I wanted to, but because it was sort of stuck in me, like a tickle in your throat you can’t quite cough up. I don’t think I was in denial but I might have been. The truth of the matter is, in 4 months time, I had never cried much about my dad and the struggle he has been going through on a daily basis as he struggles to do something as simple as breathe. Through all this, and the pain of watching his struggle and the fearful look in his eyes, I could not for the life of me cry. I didn’t even want to be around anyone crying over my dad. Sometimes I could eek a tear or two out in the shower, but that’s it. Nothing. The well was dry. Until a month ago.

It began innocuously enough as I made a left turn where I wasn’t supposed to as I headed to the hospital. Seconds later, red lights flashed behind me and I pulled over. I had just been speaking to my brother in California (on my headset) updating him on my dad’s new diagnosis of pneumonia (on top of his heart failure) and was not paying attention. As I was thumbing through my wallet for my ID, all of a sudden, I felt this heavy breathing begin in my diaphragm and I began to cry. Big, heaping, huge sobs that came from the depths of me. I had not cried like that in four months of being worried about my dad, and perhaps not cried like that in years. The cop backed away and told me “Get a hold of yourself! Calm down! What is the matter with you??!!!” Perhaps he motioned to his waiting vehicle. Seconds later, his fellow cop emerged from the cop car behind me to check out what was going on. Drivers at the red light stopped to stare at me.

“Do you think you are the only one who cries and expects me not to give them a ticket?” the cop bellowed.

“It’s not about the ticket. Give me one if you need to. I am so sorry. It’s something else, I can’t believe this, I am so sorry, this is unlike me,” I said.

The cop asked what was going on and I told him my dad was very ill and I was on the way to the hospital and was completely distracted. He gave me the third degree — what hospital, diagnosis, etc. Who was I talking to on the phone? Show me that the phone number was from California.

He told me I was distracted and unsafe. “You are absolutely right, you are absolutely right,” I kept repeating. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The end result was that he didn’t give me the ticket. The better result is having that cop stop me was the impetus I needed to get the cry out of me that had been building up for months. Once his car pulled away, I stayed in the spot and cried some more. When I finally finished crying and continued the drive to the hospital, I felt free and light and joyous and felt like laughing. Although mortified in many ways, I was also grateful for that cop who incited such a catharsis for me. In fact, since that day, I have been able to cry freely about my dad. For a few days after that road side catharsis, I had felt better than I had in a long time.

The truth is, my dad is extremely sick. The truth is that he is the strongest person I have ever known. Three weeks ago when I originally began this, there had been progress. He walked a bit and was getting better, he was alert. I had felt hopeful that there is still a future. Tonight as I write this, he is back from another week long hospital visit that has him weaker than I have seen him in months. He is mostly sleeping. Two days ago, on his 73rd birthday, my mom and I sang Happy Birthday to him while he lay in bed, a ceremonial piece of cake on his tray. He was too weak to sit up. Three years ago, at his 70th, he danced the Lindy with me on my back deck with crowds of people cheering us on.

Am I depressed? I don’t feel depressed the way one might think of “depression.” Or rather, the way *I* have always thought of depression. I am able to go about my day, make calls sometimes (I never was great about phone calls), do errands, shop with the kids for school clothing and supplies, play in the yard with them, make play dates, have visitors. I have enough of an attention span to watch a movie or read my books daily. I don’t cook much at all since Major has been home, but when I do, I have recently made really nice meals (soups and stews, easy and good.) But what is depression really? Am I depressed? Some of Gary’s friends have thought so. Surely, I am below the “status quo” for what I’d like to be. But I also would like life to be what it was, with no worries about anyone’s ailing health. Is it normal that I am going through this given the circumstances? I’d like to be oblivious some days and take for granted that I would always have in my life all that I needed, all those I loved, healthy and safe and by my side. Reality is surely a splash of cold water on my usual “glass half full” self. For me, definitely, there is a pallor that shades everything I do these days. I sleep with my cell phone clutched in my hand at full volume. It is not the way to live but yet it is the way it is these days. I canceled and then never rescheduled any family vacation this summer because it was never the right time to go. I was always afraid that if I left, I’d be called back. I feel like I am living in limbo in many ways due to the situation. I never planned Major’s Welcome Home party because I wanted him to be able to be calm, a little older and enjoy his party. Now that he has grown so much, I can’t plan his party because I need to make sure my dad would be well enough to attend and now is not the time. I visit friends in amazing suburban towns and I’m itching to have all that convenience and space and natural beauty at my fingertips but will not even consider it at this time because being near my parents is paramount right now. It was paramount when I wanted to be near them when I had young children and now paramount so that I can be of service to them. And it’s because being able to be near them now is my greater want. Once again, there will be time in my life, other chapters, for all else.

Life is just a bit topsy turvy these days. And it’s been good to let these thoughts stream out of my brain and through my finger tips clicking at the keys right now. I figure getting this out of my system, warts and all, might help me move through this a little and enable me to be able to write about the good stuff going on in my family. Surely, there is good and wonderful stuff too and I try very hard to stay present to it. But the truth is that this is happening too. It’s been a rough road for me, but not as rough as it’s been for my dad and not as rough as it’s been for my mom. The truth is I am scared of what is to be. The truth is my dad has some major things going on with his heart, his kidneys and his lungs. The truth is, despite his weakness, he must have an unbelievable strength to endure what he has gone through the past 5 months, not to mention, since his first open heart surgery at age 14 and then beyond. The truth is that my dad’s “bad heart” is one of the BEST HEARTS I know. The truth is that feeling hopeful, but acknowledging my fears, feels a heck of a lot better than having no faith and living in denial.

I hope that getting this out of my system will enable me to write next time and focus on Major. So much has happened in his own progress and I look forward to sharing the great news and recent summer photos in my next post.

XOXOXOXO