When daddy had a stroke in 1993, when I was 17, none of us thought he'd make it even 5 years. He lived for another 17. There were arm spasms and a seizure and subsequent hospital visit, and he was left almost paralyzed on the left side of his body. He could walk, but very slow and with a quad cane. No driving, and he didn't go out much. But nothing major happened until this past December.
A couple of weeks before I arrived in DC for Christmas, daddy had a mini-stroke and lost the ability to read or do his beloved crossword puzzles. We both wondered what he would do with himself without these things. But he regained those abilities two days later. By the time I saw him, though, he was fine. Last Sunday, he had another small stroke and again lost the ability to read or write. The major stroke that eventually killed him happened sometime on Tuesday afternoon (19 January). The doctors did a CT scan and saw massive bleeding in daddy's head, as well as the damage from the other strokes, which was more extensive than we thought.
By the time I got to DC and saw him on Wednesday morning, daddy was still holding on, but he couldn't (technically) see, hear, or feel. I asked him to squeeze my hand if he could hear me, though, and he did. He even opened his eyes and looked at me for a nanosecond, and I am positive he saw me. However, when we went back to see him that night, he was super agitated and trying to take out his catheter and fluid tube and get out of bed. This time he couldn't hear or see me, and he kept trying to let go of my hand so he could get out.
Thursday morning, we met with the palliative care doctor and his nurse. The prognosis was very poor, and even if daddy did make it out alive, he would be a vegetable. I honored daddy's wishes and let him go. I watched the nurses take out his feeding tube along with everything else. I freaked out. He was moved to another room, where he got a morphine drip to keep him relaxed. He held on, and when he awoke from the haze, he would moan. Just short moans. But mostly, he slept. We went home and I called the phone company to have his phone disconnected. I called the Washington Post to have his subscription cancelled. I called the cable company. Wrote his obituary.
Friday, I went to daddy's room to meet the hospice care worker, Betty, a very nice lady from Georgia. She told me that they would keep him at the hospital for a few more days on the morphine drip, and if he survived until Tuesday, today, he would be moved, morphine and all, to a nursing home where they often tended to terminal patients. After Betty left, I stayed with dad and held his hand. That night, my mom and I decided I would go back to NYC and then come back for the service and the "administrative" stuff, like the bank accounts, the house, etc. Throughout all this, I was terrified that he would die alone. I didn't want to leave him. But I had to continue my life. He would have wanted that. So I bought my bus ticket.
On Saturday, I went to the hospital to say my goodbyes. I cried a lot and I prayed with him. I held his hand. Noticed how his fingers were like mine, short and chubby. His hands looked like crinkled paper. His cheeks were sallow, but he looked so young. When I left, I gave him a kiss on the cheek, told him I'd see him again, and although medically speaking, he was completely out and couldn't feel anything, I saw his head turn towards me, the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. I know he was smiling, and if he could have talked, he would have said something like, "Don't worry about me. I'm OK." He always said that. Mom and I went to his house to start the clean-out process. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but I surprised myself.
I went home Sunday. Sat on the couch and watched TV with my cat, JP. I eventually fell asleep. At around 5 am, I woke up to find JP sitting next to me, staring up at me. I had a picture pop into my mind. It was just for a second, but I remember it clearly.
Daddy was in his hospital room, lying in bed. He wasn't moving, but his eyes were wide open, looking to his left. He had a slight smile on his face. His cheeks were full and young. Standing at the left side of the bed were a huge group of people: grandma and grandpa were there, as well as aunt Ida, Ruth, and the rest of my grandma's brothers and sisters. I had never met grandma's family, but I knew Ida and Ruth from pictures. Grandma's parents were there too; I recognized them from pictures. Great-grandpa was wearing his dark hat and thick mustache. My grandpa's parents, who had died when grandpa was 14, were also there, and I recognized great-grandma from a picture. Uncle Walter, also known as Big Sonny, was there with aunt Patty and their son, Little Sonny. I didn't recognize the others, but I knew they were family. Grandma and grandpa looked as they did in their fifties. Ida looked as she did in her thirties or forties. Grandma wore a white dress.
Then I got the call from daddy's nurse that he had passed on. He was calm and comfortable, she said. I thanked her and called my mother to tell her.
I surprised myself again, and I got out of bed this morning. I breathed in and out. I cry every so often, when I see his picture or listen to his favorite songs or read letters he wrote to me. I missed having someone to talk about the new senator from Massachusetts with. I never got to discuss with him the biography of RFK that I've been reading. I want to know more about Jimmy Hoffa "pleading the fifth" before the Rackets Committee in the '50's, but I can't call him. These things I cannot discuss with my mother. Daddy and I did not just have the typical father-daughter relationship. We were best friends. We were supernatural. We were devoted to each other in a way that few people, including my mother, understood. No one could ever make my eyes light up with pure happiness just on sight like daddy did. And I just really miss saying, "Hi daddy", and hearing him say, "Hi Maria", in his slight southern drawl that made my name sound much longer than it is.
Yesterday, I had to sign the authorization form to have daddy cremated, and it was the most surreal thing I'll probably ever do. As I walked home, I laughed to myself and thought, "Just like daddy to kick my ass into adulthood."
martes, enero 26, 2010
jueves, diciembre 03, 2009
When I grow up.......
This is a running list of things I plan NOT to do when and if I get pregnant:
-I will not complain that chivalry is dead because no one on the train will give up their seat for me when I'm eight months along. Yeah it sucks. But I already know chivalry is taking its last gasps, ESPECIALLY in NYC. This might not have happened if the stupid feminist movement, in which all women, like it or not, gave up their right to be treated like a fucking lady, had not taken place. Equal rights is cool, but militant women burning bras is not. Fact is, we still have tits. They were not given to us by a man to further subjugate the meek.
-I will not assume that strangers will carry my stroller up and down the stairs at the subway station.
-I will not use my kids stroller to a) carry groceries while the kid walks, or b) to make everyone get the hell out of my way (tempting as that is).
-I will not be oblivious to my surroundings and not hurt people with my stroller or sit around looking stupid while my kid yells at the top of his lungs for no reason on a crowded train. Speaking of the subway, I promise to use a snuggly thing to carry the kid around as much as I can. The MTA doesn't allow stollers on the trains that are not folded up. They just turn the other cheek to be all PC towards mothers. That doesn't mean the rule doesn't make sense and should not be followed.
-I will not subject the general public to my mothering ways, or lack thereof.
-I will not breastfeed in public. Since I wouldn't normally walk around topless, I'm not going to use my kid to justify my doing so. If a bare boob is not acceptable in public, a bare boob with a kid attached to it should not be acceptable either.
-I will not neglect to discipline my child. Newsflash, mommies of today: this is the big issue everyone has with you ladies. Your kids scream and yell and carry on, having fits at every turn, because you are too squeamish to do your job as a parent. You should really learn to be a parent before you become one.
-I will not complain that chivalry is dead because no one on the train will give up their seat for me when I'm eight months along. Yeah it sucks. But I already know chivalry is taking its last gasps, ESPECIALLY in NYC. This might not have happened if the stupid feminist movement, in which all women, like it or not, gave up their right to be treated like a fucking lady, had not taken place. Equal rights is cool, but militant women burning bras is not. Fact is, we still have tits. They were not given to us by a man to further subjugate the meek.
-I will not assume that strangers will carry my stroller up and down the stairs at the subway station.
-I will not use my kids stroller to a) carry groceries while the kid walks, or b) to make everyone get the hell out of my way (tempting as that is).
-I will not be oblivious to my surroundings and not hurt people with my stroller or sit around looking stupid while my kid yells at the top of his lungs for no reason on a crowded train. Speaking of the subway, I promise to use a snuggly thing to carry the kid around as much as I can. The MTA doesn't allow stollers on the trains that are not folded up. They just turn the other cheek to be all PC towards mothers. That doesn't mean the rule doesn't make sense and should not be followed.
-I will not subject the general public to my mothering ways, or lack thereof.
-I will not breastfeed in public. Since I wouldn't normally walk around topless, I'm not going to use my kid to justify my doing so. If a bare boob is not acceptable in public, a bare boob with a kid attached to it should not be acceptable either.
-I will not neglect to discipline my child. Newsflash, mommies of today: this is the big issue everyone has with you ladies. Your kids scream and yell and carry on, having fits at every turn, because you are too squeamish to do your job as a parent. You should really learn to be a parent before you become one.
miércoles, noviembre 11, 2009
Veteran's Day
What is this about "Let's thank the veterans because we wouldn't be able to live peaceful lives without them," blah blah blah? This is completely valid for the veterans of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, most wars up until Vietnam, because that's when the US started going to war for stupid reasons. So instead of thanking the veterans, I want to tell them that I am so sorry for the time they've wasted fighting unwinnable wars so that some politician can escape feeling like a failure for losing (this is why Johnson didn't pull troops out of Vietnam). I want to tell them that they're fighting for a country that will never welcome them home properly. They will not be fully compensated for their efforts. They will not be taken care of. This is the tragedy of it all, and the reason I can't celebrate Veteran's Day.
He dicho.
He dicho.
lunes, septiembre 28, 2009
It Might Get Loud
When I was 10, I was given a 2-3% chance of survival.
Let me explain. I sustained a head injury, in which my cerebellum was damaged and started to bleed, and doctors performed an emergency operation to take half my cerebellum out and relieve the pressure on my brain. They told my parents that IF I survived, I would be a vegetable. IF I survived, I would be in the hospital for months.
I got out of the hospital in one month.
I am here. And I am writing this.
Over the next few months, I taught myself, with some help of course, to crawl and then walk, to speak clearly and to feed myself all over again. The anger I felt then and would feel for the next 4 years was unbearable. I kept thinking that I would rather have died, and I lived that way everyday. I hate to say, but my mother got the worst of it. And when she remarried not even a year after I left the hospital, I got even angrier. Stepfather did not help the situation at all. He only made it worse. I lashed out, I was violent. The more my mom and stepfather slapped me around to try to keep me in line, the more violent I became. My mother made me go to a shrink for it all, but it didn't help. It just made me feel worse, and I know it contributed to the bad feelings between me and my mom. There was no doctor-patient confidentiality. She knew everything I told the shrink and would sometimes say it back to me almost verbatim, as if she was trying to make me feel bad for saying it, so there was no point, because the purpose was to have someone to talk to that would be objective.
At 14, I got myself thrown out of the house. I was actually already packed to leave by the time the huge fight between me and my stepfather, and eventually my mother, even started. They took me to my dad's house, and that's where I stayed until college. I would not be here today if I had stayed with my mom and stepfather. I know that.
At school, I became good friends with this British kid. You know, the cooky, geeky kind who looked like Piggy from Lord of the Flies (or what I would imagine Piggy to look like) and wore shorts in the dead of winter. Anyway, one day he gave me the first 4 Led Zeppelin albums on cassette. I took them home and listened. That music was the first thing that made me happy in a long time. It sounds silly, but Robert, Jimmy, John and Bonzo brought me back to life. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I concentrated on that music. I studied it. I loved it. I knew the timing of each and every one of Page's riffs and Plant's wails. It put positivity back into my life. There were songs that made me sad, but they were still hopeful, like the Rain Song or Ten Years Gone. They unplugged my insides so I could release all that anger and put other emotions in there and move ahead. They are lifelong favorites. Daddy saw my interest in this new music, and immediately took me out to the used record shop and bought me Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits. Then we went home and he showed me the rest of his music collection, mostly jazz but a lot of classic rock - CCR, Allman Brothers, Canned Heat, old Elvis, the Beatles, Velvet Underground, The Who..... "I want you to take anything you want," he said, and sat by me and recommended things. Dad rescued me in so many ways, and that's why I am so attached to him. Rock does indeed say "Here I am, and fuck you if you can't understand me." I needed to hear that. I needed someone to tell me it was OK to feel that way.
This past weekend, I went to see It Might Get Loud, a documentary in which Page, The Edge and Jack White sit in a room and play each other's music and discuss the craft of playing guitar. They also each go over how they got started and what music is to them. It could have been 6 hours long, and I still would have sat through the whole thing, completely mesmerized. I remembered all the things Jimmy did for me that he doesn't even know about and most likely would have trouble understanding. He saved my life. Music saved my life, and it still does everyday. It holds my hand.
"These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion - I seek the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient - Upon us all a little rain must fall...It's just a little rain..."
PS - Out of all my friends in the world, only one person will understand this post, and he was actually there for some of the story. Ranjiva - this post's for you.
Let me explain. I sustained a head injury, in which my cerebellum was damaged and started to bleed, and doctors performed an emergency operation to take half my cerebellum out and relieve the pressure on my brain. They told my parents that IF I survived, I would be a vegetable. IF I survived, I would be in the hospital for months.
I got out of the hospital in one month.
I am here. And I am writing this.
Over the next few months, I taught myself, with some help of course, to crawl and then walk, to speak clearly and to feed myself all over again. The anger I felt then and would feel for the next 4 years was unbearable. I kept thinking that I would rather have died, and I lived that way everyday. I hate to say, but my mother got the worst of it. And when she remarried not even a year after I left the hospital, I got even angrier. Stepfather did not help the situation at all. He only made it worse. I lashed out, I was violent. The more my mom and stepfather slapped me around to try to keep me in line, the more violent I became. My mother made me go to a shrink for it all, but it didn't help. It just made me feel worse, and I know it contributed to the bad feelings between me and my mom. There was no doctor-patient confidentiality. She knew everything I told the shrink and would sometimes say it back to me almost verbatim, as if she was trying to make me feel bad for saying it, so there was no point, because the purpose was to have someone to talk to that would be objective.
At 14, I got myself thrown out of the house. I was actually already packed to leave by the time the huge fight between me and my stepfather, and eventually my mother, even started. They took me to my dad's house, and that's where I stayed until college. I would not be here today if I had stayed with my mom and stepfather. I know that.
At school, I became good friends with this British kid. You know, the cooky, geeky kind who looked like Piggy from Lord of the Flies (or what I would imagine Piggy to look like) and wore shorts in the dead of winter. Anyway, one day he gave me the first 4 Led Zeppelin albums on cassette. I took them home and listened. That music was the first thing that made me happy in a long time. It sounds silly, but Robert, Jimmy, John and Bonzo brought me back to life. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I concentrated on that music. I studied it. I loved it. I knew the timing of each and every one of Page's riffs and Plant's wails. It put positivity back into my life. There were songs that made me sad, but they were still hopeful, like the Rain Song or Ten Years Gone. They unplugged my insides so I could release all that anger and put other emotions in there and move ahead. They are lifelong favorites. Daddy saw my interest in this new music, and immediately took me out to the used record shop and bought me Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits. Then we went home and he showed me the rest of his music collection, mostly jazz but a lot of classic rock - CCR, Allman Brothers, Canned Heat, old Elvis, the Beatles, Velvet Underground, The Who..... "I want you to take anything you want," he said, and sat by me and recommended things. Dad rescued me in so many ways, and that's why I am so attached to him. Rock does indeed say "Here I am, and fuck you if you can't understand me." I needed to hear that. I needed someone to tell me it was OK to feel that way.
This past weekend, I went to see It Might Get Loud, a documentary in which Page, The Edge and Jack White sit in a room and play each other's music and discuss the craft of playing guitar. They also each go over how they got started and what music is to them. It could have been 6 hours long, and I still would have sat through the whole thing, completely mesmerized. I remembered all the things Jimmy did for me that he doesn't even know about and most likely would have trouble understanding. He saved my life. Music saved my life, and it still does everyday. It holds my hand.
"These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion - I seek the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient - Upon us all a little rain must fall...It's just a little rain..."
PS - Out of all my friends in the world, only one person will understand this post, and he was actually there for some of the story. Ranjiva - this post's for you.
miércoles, septiembre 23, 2009
Dear You
Dear You,
At first, I was sad to hear that you were leaving. But now, good riddance. For the record, my friendship with you was, for my part, true. My friends are my family. I respect them, honor them and try to make them smile as much as I possibly can. When I make friends, it is, at first anyway, for life. So to hear you refer to your friendship with me as "transient" makes me want to throw up. Transient? Are you fucking kidding me? I deserted you when you needed me? I left you? I made no attempt to contact you when the going got rough? Really? You need to rethink that statement: How many texts and other messages did I leave for you that went unanswered by your Highness? By the way, I never took that as you disregarding me. I just attributed your non-answer to you being busy with all the things you had on your plate. And I thought that at least you would get those messages and know that I cared. If you ever come back to this city, I'll make good on the transient thing and disappear from your life. As a matter of fact, I'll do that effective immediately.
Just so you are aware, there are just some things in life that people can't agree to for it would make them The Chump. But you went and did exactly what you wanted anyway, no matter who you hurt in the process of getting your kicks. And something tells me that you are not hurting at all. If you were, you wouldn't have rejected 95% of the people who DID love you for who you were, or at least who we thought you were. So spare us your sob stories. Some people might believe you, but we know better. You are full of shit.
I know I am supposed to keep my mouth shut, but if you ever bothered to notice things about me, you would know that keeping my mouth shut is not my strong suit.
And so, good night and good luck.
Sincerely,
Me.
At first, I was sad to hear that you were leaving. But now, good riddance. For the record, my friendship with you was, for my part, true. My friends are my family. I respect them, honor them and try to make them smile as much as I possibly can. When I make friends, it is, at first anyway, for life. So to hear you refer to your friendship with me as "transient" makes me want to throw up. Transient? Are you fucking kidding me? I deserted you when you needed me? I left you? I made no attempt to contact you when the going got rough? Really? You need to rethink that statement: How many texts and other messages did I leave for you that went unanswered by your Highness? By the way, I never took that as you disregarding me. I just attributed your non-answer to you being busy with all the things you had on your plate. And I thought that at least you would get those messages and know that I cared. If you ever come back to this city, I'll make good on the transient thing and disappear from your life. As a matter of fact, I'll do that effective immediately.
Just so you are aware, there are just some things in life that people can't agree to for it would make them The Chump. But you went and did exactly what you wanted anyway, no matter who you hurt in the process of getting your kicks. And something tells me that you are not hurting at all. If you were, you wouldn't have rejected 95% of the people who DID love you for who you were, or at least who we thought you were. So spare us your sob stories. Some people might believe you, but we know better. You are full of shit.
I know I am supposed to keep my mouth shut, but if you ever bothered to notice things about me, you would know that keeping my mouth shut is not my strong suit.
And so, good night and good luck.
Sincerely,
Me.
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