Friday, May 29, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day Nap-a-thon coming to a close.



With all the activity and stress of the last few weeks, I really needed some recovery time - and boy did I get it!

Average schedule in the last four days:
8am: Wake up
3pm-5pm: Nap
11pm: Bedtime

Add that up and you'll see that I got about 11 hours of sleep everyday. It was magical. Glorious. And best of all, I had nearly every meal with my husband and spent many hours laughing, doing fun things, and relaxing and being happy.

Awesome weekend.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

From one hero to another.


Little known fact about me, that even I forget: my hair did not get curly until I hit puberty. Did you know that hormones can mutate your hair folicles? Well now you do.

On our way back from the airport this afternoon, my sweet husband and I were talking about our respective trips: mine to my grandmother's funeral and his to his dear friend's graduation.

I told him about spending time with my family - how nice it was to be together and how great it was to be able to be together, laugh together and cry together. I adore them and feel such gratitude for their constant support and love. I feel much less raw than in the last post, much more at peace, having given a very sweet woman a very sweet send-off. With much respect and love.

So Charles had a similar weekend - the same joy of sharing the nostagia of childhood and the same happiness of being with people who love and adore you.

ONE EXCEPTION: he met someone FAMOUS.

He was telling me about meeting all these wonderful people doing good work in Public Health - which is what his friend will be doing with his new fancy degree. He mentioned meeting someone from the Harvard School of Public Health. I mentioned that my uncle just graduated from there. He said, "Well, you should ask your uncle if he knows Paul Farmer."

PAUL FARMER. PAUL FARMER.

I nearly fainted. Good thing he was driving.

I sputtered off an explanation of how amazing the work he has done is. At his remarkable drive to heal people that most people do not care about. At how I feel he is so similar to my own remarkable aunt and uncle - and their continued commitment to the field of medicine. Model doctors. Model world citizens.

I made him drive me to the bookstore to buy a copy of Mountains beyond mountains for him to read - so he could be impressed by the sweet guy, who just happens to be a trustee at his friends new alma matar, and who now knows him as "Charlie Chaplain."

Gosh, I love my husband. Although I did joke with him that he was the worst husband in the world for not taking me with him. Just jokes - he's the best in my book.

So I left one hero back in Michigan to be greeted with storie of another. Unbelievable.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

M cubed.

It's late and I should be packing for a funeral. But instead, I want to try to return to the time, back 400 posts ago, when no one read this blog. When I could write whatever I wanted without the knowledge that I would have to be comfortable talking about it in the future, back when it was like a tree falling in the forest when no one was around...

... I'm gonna keep writing, but I don't want to talk about it.

First, I hate the feeling that I have to go to work tomorrow. That because the woman that passed was old, that I should be able to keep my shit together. Well, I just don't know if that's true. And I'm not sure I want it to be.

I've been feeling - since my last visit with her - that she was profoundly underestimated her whole life. That she was dismissed too often by all of us. That we did not value her to the extent we should have. I want to delete that sentence to protect myself from it, but I'm not going to.

I didn't learn to make her pie crust. I don't remember which flowers you snap the heads off of and which you let dry out. If I write her maiden name right now, will I mispell it? How many sisters did she have, 5?

She worked so hard to love us all. She worked so hard all the time to make a house a home. To make the simple delicious. To make us happy.

And she was there. She saw me. She noticed me. She wouldn't let me fade into the woodwork, instead she kept me close and had me help. And in helping her, I learned something different.

Some people you miss because they told good jokes or because they had wise words or because they were important with a capital "I". I will miss watching her hands peel apples at the speed of light. I will miss long walks, swimming classes, and puzzles. I will miss her teaching me to enjoy the subtle parts of life.

Why do I know that her Buick salesman was named Al Hugly, but I don't know her mother's first name? Why do I know how much she loved her neighbor Kermit, but I don't know how she felt about her sister Jane? I can tell you the exact layout of her garden: first tulip and daffodil bulbs along the deck, then petunias when they fade, Tiger lilies in a bunch around the birdfeeder, honeysuckle around the back of the house. Divide the bulbs when they get too close together, pinch the petunias but not the tigerlilies, scare the squirrels away, but not the finches and the humming birds.

Pick strawberries in June. Pick blueberries in July. Pick cherries in august. Pick apples in september. Dust the tables before you vacuum. Fold the clothes before they wrinkle. Keep everything and discover the use for it later. Love your husband.

This must sound like nonsense, but this is the limit of language. These are the only words that convey what I want to remember.

I want to delete this post. I want to keep this personal. I don't want to talk about it. I should not be writing right now.

"My grandmother died" sounds so lame. Like an excuse to sleep in. Where is the weight? Where is the pain? What sentence does that live in? Where is my protective cloak to get me through the day tomorrow? My bubble? My shield?

You probably won't get to read this. It will probably just sit in my drafts folder until I delete it. Until the pain fades. Too bad. You may never know how to wind a cuckoo clock. You may forget the comfort of too many figurines in a display case. You might not get to drink your coffee out of a happy-face mug, or steal some cookies from the industrial-sized margarine tub. You might forget to add the boric acid when you are pickling. You might not figure out the perfect placement of a family photo. You might not get a check on your birthday.

Next on news at 11... a local woman falls into hysterics as she realizes that she will no longer receive a check on her birthday. Paramedics responded to the scene, but the woman could not be consoled, until she caught sight of an elderly woman powerwalking in beige pants and walked away mumbling what sounded like a shopping list for the produce section. She is not considered dangerous, and it is reported that she can be lulled into a submissive state by the ticking of a large clock, but only if she is also wrapped in a large, hand-knitted afghan and a given a homemade peanut butter cookie.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Sleeping is beautiful



I had a terrible migraine last night, so I came home from work and went straight to bed. Five hours later, I woke up briefly to talk to my husband and return some messages, but then was back asleep for six more hours.

Boy, am I feeling good today. Sleeping is quite magical, isn't it?

I did have one terrible dream about a baby drowning, but I will blame that on the migraine.