Eugh

If ever, ever, ever I felt guilty about how I have dealt with grief, I hereby release myself. Because no matter what happens, Keith Richards handled it worse.

A River I Can Sail Away On

This will be the first Christmas my dad doesn't make Santa calls to families with young children. It will be the first Christmas that I'm not ordered to get rid of my father for a few hours so my mother can work at the house. I mostly don't think about it, but I still need to get the top off the Festivus Pole Dad decorated two years ago and it made me remember.

We're leaving tonight for Christmas. We're going to the Fatherland, a land flowing with lard and sorghum. We'll stay at a swank resort and allow ourselves to be transformed into veal (fed, massaged, soaked in hot swirling water...).

I'm starting to feast on the memories. Seeing the Festivus pole doesn't bring the stabbing pain to my solar plexus that it would have months ago. I won't dare pretend that I leave this year with more than I came in. I've lost a lot. But I've gained a better appreciation for my mother, I cherish friends a bit more, and when we hit the road tonight, we'll make all the restroom stops we want.

Merry Christmas, internets.

We Shall Overcome Someday

I just saw the most beautiful but haunting and depressing PBS special on Woody Guthrie.

There's a thousand things to discuss; the inherent darkness of creative genius, the pitfalls of art becoming commerce, the political nature of art and the audience response involved, the weaving of this music with US history--the stuff about people...but mostly I just heard the songs I listened to growing up with dad.

They're playing it back to back with a concert of Bruce Springsteen doing his Pete Seeger album, also full of dad music.

I bought the Springsteen album this spring while he was in the hospital. I listened to it in the waiting room and promised dad that I'd loan it to him someday, maybe burn him a copy. It didn't happen.

Sometime around the time of my father's death, a dear older woman told me in the middle of a comforting hug that I could "feast on my memories of him for years to come". I hope to. I really, really, hope I can do that. Tonight, I'm choking pretty hard as I try to get them down.

Obligatory Election Day Post With This Year's Obligatory Twist

For my sister, it was impossibly hard to watch the Cardinals, the family baseball team since at least my great grandfather, win the World Series.

For me, it's election day.

I took today off and had a very clear picture of what the day would have been if Dad were still with us. I'd have picked him up and taken him for coffee. We'd both go vote, probably me first and then we'd head to his polling place. After that, we'd have lunch at one of the dives that no one else in the family would go to. We'd joke the whole way about the two of us canceling the rest of the family's votes. Then I would take him home and we'd laugh about the Food Network (All my theories on how the other Food Network stars make fun on Sandra Lee behind her back or how I want to smack Rachel Ray and tell her to pipe down are bits I tried first on him.).

In real life, I voted, made all those jokes in my head, went to Target, and drove around the cemetery trying to remember just where in the damn we left him. I never found him, can't remember if it's the Garden of Everlasting Life or the Garden of Memories or the Garden of the Clean Plate Club. I wanted to tell him what we'd have done today and how we're doing now. I wanted to tell him about my classes and my month in Massachusetts.

I saw Helen Mirren in The Queen this weekend. At the beginning of the film, there is a scene in which Queen Elizabeth ceremonially asks Tony Blair (played by Michael Sheen) to form a government. I had never thought of such a scene and it was fascinating to me.

In the United States, we are the ones who get to ask that question. It was hard to ask today, but I am glad I did.

Dead Dad Girl's Club Meeting Minutes

I could name a thousand things that have gotten me through the last few months. Chief among them, however, is my band of friends who have also lost their fathers. I'll listen to you if you have a father, sure. But there's something about someone who can say "Yeah, I might be nearly as pitiful and insane as you". I call these kind souls the Dead Dad Girl's Club.

I have also coined the term Dead Daddy Year. I am allowing myself many wild acts or acts of slackery in honor of the Dead Daddy Year.

I've been down this week. I needed to meet with a member of the DDGC . I called Mme. Crib for solace. As are all our conversations, it's punctuated by interruptions from the kids.

"What? What? The door is closed here, I need you to go ask your father. You
have a father, go."

"And I don't!!!"

"Wha? Oh, no, not you. You don't have a father."

"Right, but not what I meant. You should tell the kids that. 'You have a
father and I don't! Go to him!'"

"I might just do that!"

Funny That I Read This As A Cough Sets In...

Maybe you can understand how good it is to hear someone say this. Real Live Preacher speaks today about grief. He's put words to the thoughts I have tried to form at the graveyard when I am told "he isn't there" and to the people who offer me comfort with "He's in heaven".

I am down with the Apostle's Creed. I believe it. I believe in an afterlife. I struggle, however, with this picture of some sort of "All Dogs Go To Heaven" reward. If this thing is real, it can't be like anything we know. I like to think it's better than what we'd know.

Somehow, during all of this, I have faith. I am more shocked than anyone to find it's still there. It doesn't cover as much ground as it used to, I believe fewer things than I ever did. It's somehow just deeper. Those few things I believe, I believe deeper and with less explanation than ever before.

Most of all, I believe in people. I am so very wildly grateful to the people who have let me, as RLP puts it, "cough this fucker up"*.

*If this language seems grossly out of context, you didn't read to the end of the RLP entry. Go back to the link and read. We'll all be quiet so you can concentrate.

A Non-Daddy Post Is Coming, I Swear

Soon, my complicated reflections on Jesus Camp (the movie, not a trip to Falls Creek). But first, Shakespeare and Dad. Two favorite topics of my friend and I right now.

Living Large

Today sucked. Suuu-ucked.

The air went out at school and I was forced to wrangle fifteen ADD Sophomore boys in a windowless classroom. The unexplained nagging pain in my back stayed around for another day and I officially became weary of requesting that young men pull up their pants so we could no longer see their panties.

Yeah, I said panties. I found out today that at least two other teachers outside of my school say that to young men, so again I say panties.

I also started tutoring today and therefore couldn't leave work until 5:30 and so off I went, steeped in the lingering teenage funk of my classroom and ready to just be home.

And for a second, something in the mailbox saved me.

The director of my blessed summer Shakespeare camp sent a copy of the letter he written for my administration.

First, I cried a bit for the vivid reminder of our sacred Green World. Then for the complimentary nature of the words---this guy misses me? Lastly, for the list of names. I remembered looking at that list before I left.

Sitting in the hospital waiting room all those months ago, I read their names and worried. I worried that I wouldn't be as good as them. I worried that the huge burden of my Dad that I carried would be too much for them to take from a stranger and I wouldn't have friends for that month. I was scared. I was scared of Elizabethan dance class, scared of keeping up with the reading, scared to live big. Living in a hospital for two months had made me small. I'd learned not to show emotion in a public waiting room when everyone else had tragedy. I'd learned not to show emotion to my dad just in case he was conscious enough to be worried by our tears. I lived curled up in a ball, invisibly small. Those names scared me. In the end, they probably saved me.

My month in Massachusetts helped me find a way to live big again--impossibly big. I was so big there I could dance horribly and laugh about it. I could sing impossibly loud in voice class, I could enact the huge and public murder of Julius Caesar.

It was very big.

I'm living medium about now. I aspire to big and I'm working on it, but sometimes the brown world I know here makes me shrink up a bit.

It was so good to get that letter and be impossibly large again.

Long Lost Normal

I have gotten so used to abnormal that somehow I learned to accept it as normal.

First there was testing and my administration's pre-testing Festival Of Panic. During the week of testing, my family began the hospital ordeal, which plodded into summer, which only seemed like summer because it was hot but even then I spent most of early summer in the air conditioned hospital.

Then it all caved in.

Then I left town with kids, then I came home for two days then I left again. For a month. For that month, I became accustomed to a poetic, honest, hilarious, intelligent normal. It was a glorious break, and I spent the month both relishing it and bracing myself for the new normal I would find at home.

And then I came home. And somehow, I am a teacher again.

Starting school has been walking through jello. Today, though, there was a moment. I was with the kids I'd had for years (along with some new ones) and as they settled into a quick reading and I sat down at my desk to do attendance, someone asked a question and I looked up and--without thinking--smiled. I felt it again. Normal. The normal I've missed since April.

It left me later on, but I was glad to have it visit today. I'll be hoping it comes back for another visit.

Just Because This Is The Best Soapbox I Have...

...it seems that this is a good place to say something.

When you send someone a sympathy card, it's not a good time to send pictures of yourself. Just in case this is the first time you've heard this, let me repeat. Don't send pictures of yourself in a sympathy card.

She did, however, give me a laugh. Perhaps it's good for that.

The Entry I Thought I Would Write, Then Didn't, Then Did Again, Then Just Wished I'd Not Have To.

Dad left us today around 11:30am. It was so very peaceful. Please expect a period of gushy reflection, followed by silence followed by I cannot imagine what.

Thank you.

Today In Waiting Room Oddities

Right now, there's a family sitting near me in Critical Care Waiting. They are feasting on Krispy Kreme donuts that arrived right after a massive Olive Garden meal was consumed. I either admire their ability to have joy (and an appetite) in the face of grief or I wish their loved one a speedy recovery from their nose job.

I'll not judge which.

They're talking about how much they hate The Dixie Chips (not a typo, pals and gals, The Dixie Chips) and the conversation is being led by a man who has all day carried a copy of a Joel Osteen book in the front of his windpants. I am not sure if sitting is very comfortable for him right now.

That's all. No story. I just wanted to get the chance to type the words Joel Osteen pants and publish it on the internets.

Joel Osteen pants!! Joel Osteen pants!!!

I Am SIT-ting on my LAP-top 'Cause The WAIT-ing Room Has Wifi

Ok, enough. I've had it with being morose on the blog. Granted, we are still in ICU and it's been nine and a half weeks of ugly, but I don't live this sad all the time.

And a friend just reminded me of that.

The Crib Chick gave a lovely tribute to me today (and yes, those are real live, direct transcripts of two different phone conversations) and when she called to tell me about it (although I do read her blog, a phone heads up never hurts) I waiting-room-whisper-screamed to her "Get to my blog and watch the lettuce!!!!!

I have laughed at a few things...

Yesterday, we were returning a wheelchair (because to add to the party, there's a sprained ankle among us!! Get your rubber chickens, people. We are a tribe-full of Shecky Greens!!), a kid who couldn't have been more than six stood nearby waiting patiently on the wheelchair.

"You're waiting on this, aren't you?" I asked

"Yeah, if it's one of the big ones."

"It is, you can have it in just a second."

"Good. My dad needs it 'cause you know what a boil is?"

"Yeah"

"Well, he has one right here" and he points to his
genitals.

There's more funny, and I promise to try and share it.

Happy Father's Day

I watched the original last night and was crying before the lettuce came out. Thank God for that lettuce or I might have been a puddle on the floor.

We'll do dinner another day. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Take Your Blessings When You Can Get 'Em

Imagine four people singing along with a tape recording of Sweet Sweet Spirit. Four there-because-they're-needy, unsure of singing too loud grown up worshippers.

I attended the Sunday service at the hospital chapel today and am in the middle of this endeavor. The tape is playing the song in some completely unsingable key...

There's a sweet, sweet Spirit in this pla-a-a-a-ace,
and I know that it's the Spirit of the Lo-o-ord.

There are sweet expressions on each fa-a-a----

At this moment through the stained glass up front of the chapel, I see the unmistakeable blue of a hospital gown and the familiar reflection of an IV tree. There's a patient with a slightly deranged look and sweet heavenly dove if he isn't making faces at us through the stained glass!

And you can't really laugh in church when there's only three other worshippers today, but oh! When I could laugh! It still gives me a giggle every time I walk by the chapel.

A-a-and for these blessings,
We lift our hearts in praise!
Without a doubt we'll know that we have been revived
When w-e-e-e sha-a-a-all le-e-a-ave this pla-a-a-a-ce!

I've Discovered...

• That although I have never shown animals in any sort of Future Farmer like event, sitting with my dad waiting for the medical team might be similar (Ok, dad, they're coming! Keep your blood pressure up! Show them how pretty your teeth are!).
• Applying makeup to really tired eyes doesn't make them appear bright and happy. It makes them look like a tired French whore (as opposed to the wakeful ones).
• When people tell you "Oh, this will just make you stronger!", they don't really take into account the idea that you might not want to be stronger. Perhaps you are strong enough.
• A song called Knitta, Please. Go here. Download and listen.

Prayer. Maybe The First In A Series.

I have a lot lot more to say about prayer right now, but time is scarce and my mind not so good so I'll just tell you about one woman.

A woman came into the ICU Friday night. She had a big crowd with her and they seemed to only be waiting for surgery but as night came and the surgery crowd thinned out, they moved a sofa bed into the waiting room and it became clear they were in, like many of us, for the duration (except with furniture).

She never really assimilated with the rest of us. When anyone would speak to her, she'd declare loud and long that she was here for a miracle! That there was no way that God could take her son because she'd lived a good life!! She claimed that her family was in talks with the Oprah show to showcase their miracle!!

Saturday in the middle of the night, I was walking back from a visit with my dad. I saw her in the hall and looked her in the eye with a smile. She returned the smile. "I have someone I want you to meet."

You know where this is going, don't you? How do I get around this? If I refuse to meet her son on the grounds of respecting their privacy, then I seem rude. But going to see someone else's child in ICU?

I went. It was one of those split second decisions and who knows if it was right, but there I was. I washed up, went in, and stood silently beside the bed while she told me his story. He's a man my age with the stunted growth of someone with lifelong kidney issues. He barely made a dent inn his bed and had recently suffered a battle with cardiac arrest. After the story, I thanked her for sharing the story of her strong son, patted her arm, and left uncomfortably.

She didn't get her miracle. Or maybe she did. Her son passed away last night and it's been quiet in the waiting room. I wonder if somehow that woman's prayers for a miracle could somehow be translated into grace and peace for this family.

And I hope they are.

I've Started Praying Every Day For A Laugh. The Other Day, It Was This...

Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning. He told Bush that three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. To everyone's amazement,all the color drained from Bush's face, then he collapsed onto his desk,head in hands, visibly shaken, almost in tears.

Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, "Just exactly how many is a brazilian?"

This Still Isn't A Real Entry. Give Me Time

We just love the ICU. We love it so much we can't seem to leave. If you're keeping track, it's 2.5 weeks there. We could be much better, we could be much worse. I just spent some time reading old entries about dad, though, and wanted to reflect on them here.

So go here. And then here. You'll want to go here also. Don't miss this either. And I love this one.

He offered us fifty bucks for a Diet Coke tonight, so I guess we're swinging uphill.

The Adventures Of Educat And She Who Asks One Question Too Many

School today was as good as it could have been given everything. I have worked out a part time schedule so I can be around for my parents. The best news is that the hospital has wifi so I can share with you!!

She Who Asks Too Many Questions is the hospitality committee chair and she craves information. I wouldn't normally mention this, but she's a larger woman in her late 50's. This matters later. File it. I knew I'd see her sometime today and so I prepared myself with a simple answer for her questions.

SWAOTMQ: How is your dad?
Educat: We're taking it a day at
a time.
SWAOTMQ: But is he better?
Educat: Well...no.
He's pretty stable.
SWAOTMQ: So what's wrong with him??
Educat: (sigh) There's a lot of things. Swelling, kidneys, just a
lot.
SWAOTMQ: How did this happen??
Educat: (now a
bit fed up) Obesity, Question Lady. It all comes from obesity.
SWAOTMQ:
(coming down a bit but still questioning) How old is he?
Educat:
(knowing exactly the effect her words will have) He's young. He's 58.
SWAOTMQ: (subdued) oh.