convalesce

Posted on by sheri

story #10 in my “23 stories for a fried chicken sandwich” project.

when i walk the halls of the convalescent hospital, i can’t help but wonder which kind of resident i will be.

will i be the woman with the oversized, cage-like walker who can’t stop walking. she does about fifty loops a day. or more. she can’t stop. what does she think will happen if she stops? i can only guess. it’s quite possible she thinks she’s getting somewhere too, one big loop at a time. she sometimes stops and goes into other people’s room. maybe she thinks she has finally arrived. it’s probably very hard to get going again when she finds out she hasn’t.

or maybe i will be the tiny barefooted woman curled on her side in an afternoon nap on top of the blankets.  does she feel at home there? will i? even now, i can’t take a nap without a blanket over me. how tired do you have to be to feel at home there?

the woman a few rooms down is tucked in a tight cocoon, her big eyes looking out into the hall. is that who i will be?  too tired to fight, arms tucked inside the safety swaddle of an end that takes forever to come?

nine

Posted on by sheri

story #9 in my “23 stories for a fried chicken sandwich” project.

there was a time when i would have thought it a strange coincidence that i’m writing story #9 right as i celebrate my 9th sobriety birthday, but those days are gone. now i know better. the right things happens at the right time because life is perfect.

i started this post a couple days ago, on my actual 9th sobriety birthday, only to be pulled away with news of my 89-year-old grandpa being taken to the hospital. and so i dropped the perfect post at the perfect time in order to do the next thing that would wind me up amid another helping of life on life’s terms. and although old age can be cruel and things are not good for my grandpa right now, although not as bad as they could be either, i am glad i could show up for him.

it’s scary in the ER late at night. the bright lights, fast pace, bodies broken, minds lost, big words, rules. i touched his white hair, and he acted like everything was okay when it really wasn’t. i will never have the words to describe the look in his eyes, and at some point, he said to me, “you’ve gotten away from me lately,” meaning i haven’t seen him in several weeks, meaning i cried all the way home.

all of this just seems too intensely intimate and soon to talk about. i want to stop. i want to hold it all inside. life. death. love. loss. fear. but then again, i want to share the intensity because the foundation of the intensity is so incredibly real and good.

the circumstances in life are not always perfect, but the part of us that grows and changes inside in response is always perfection in its finest hour.

we are here. i love you. you love me. and nothing else matters in this moment.

being there

Posted on by sheri

story #8 in my “23 stories for a fried chicken sandwich” project.

i never knew how to talk to my grandmother. not really. i always felt like i had to keep a huge part of my real self hidden, the part she might not understand or approve. i realize now that this might not have been true, but that’s exactly how it felt until the few weeks before my grandmother died.

feelings are complex. we all know this. so then, why does it feel so wrong when you feel emotions that aren’t quite in line with the experience? i struggle every day with the emotional complexities of parenthood (i.e., newborns are tiny tyrants sometimes. i hate playing. i actually enjoy leaving my kids behind for overnighters with friends; so much that i usually forget to call home.). and the weeks, or maybe slightly less, in which my grandmother died brought a strange joy that makes me feel guilt to my core. not a guilt for the feelings, mind you. but a guilt for believing deeply that these joyful feelings, which seemed awfully strange, were authentic, real, and exactly how i was meant to be feeling.

joy in death, you ask, what is wrong with you?

well, for one, i loved the cozy family cocoon. the coming together. the taking turns visiting. sharing, at times in weeping turmoil, about the velocity of her decline once she was admitted to the convalescent hospital. the circle around her hospital bed. the hallway meetings. the walking back and forth between the hospital and her home where my grandfather was living and sleeping alone. the planes flying in. the sleeping and talking all night alongside her lifeless but still breathing form. the last time she opened her eyes and how we all wept and spoke the words we needed to speak and how i held out my oldest son for her to see. she was always a sucker for the little ones.

in the days before we admitted her, i stayed over a night or two at my grandparent’s house to help my grandpa get some sleep. my grandma kept saying she wanted to go upstairs. their home was a one story. i’m not sure where we were supposed to be. i didn’t know quite what to say. she smiled. i smiled back. in the morning, i brushed her fine white hair, looked into her white blue eyes, kissed her cheek, and made some silly joke in order to make light of the intensity i was feeling. she pursed her lips and shook and breathed in deeply, reaching out to me — all of these motions her way of oozing a love she could not fully express. or maybe that i could fully accept. i’m not sure. we held hands for a little while.

two days into her stay at the hospital, she left her body for the most part, fell into a slump and decided she was done. she would not go on anymore. i walked right by her in the hallway. over one night, she fell from being so firmly alive into sweet surrender. she was stronger than i ever knew. i tried to lift her, said, “come on now, grandma. stay with me.” walked her out into the bright sunshine, tried to get her to eat, to drink. i talked and talked and talked to her so freely, in a way i never could before even though i know she was listening. she whispered that she loved me without opening her eyes. those were the last words she ever spoke to me.

and the family, we cocooned and we waited and i wanted to stay inside that moment forever. the together moment. the being there moment. there was a joy in the being there for her. really there. being with a person who has lived a long and happy life when they decide let go and to die is a gift. and it felt like a joyful happy gift. that’s all i’m saying.

the not writing

Posted on by sheri

story #7 in my “23 stories for a fried chicken sandwich” project.

getting back into writing practice is a chore, especially on day seven when you think you may have peaked on day three. and it’s really a chore when you will do anything except write, like tell yourself over and over that you can’t write and that you have nothing to write about, which leads you to wonder if you might have already written the last thing you’ll ever write. and then you try to remember what that last thing was.

i busy my mind with all the other important considerations too. perhaps, i’ll do an interview with myself. maybe i’ll write a life list. i tell myself i only hold few stories inside anyway, ignoring the reality that stories don’t actually become stories until you let them out and until you set them free.

i feel like a bore. i pet the cat. i wonder if i am enough. i bury my cold feet in pillows off the couch. i search for inspiration in television commercials because i’m too busy “not writing” to go turn the damn thing off. i think about work. i go off and find the URLs and add links. that takes up some time in which i could be writing. i worry about the big picture: death, failure, stories never told. [insert fretting here.]

i can’t even come up with words to describe the awesome, super-good, way neat, fun fun, great things i plan to write in the future.

this is the busymaking of the not writing.

because if i were to, you know, write tonight, i might tell you secrets. or things that make me uncomfortable. i might fumble. i might not get the words out right. i might hate every word. or i might find resolution, answers, options, beliefs, understanding, hope, sweet release. scratch those last thoughts. they are depressing me.

stop, my head says, you are too tired to write tonight (making words italicized also takes up some time and creates some time-sucking chatter that rumbles over the voice that’s saying you can’t, you can’t, you can’t).

who knows where my fingers might lead me if only i could turn off the head full of fear. i think about breakfast. i imagine my boys tucked in their beds. i try to bite my fingernails, but stop because i have painted them red. i listen to the clock tick (literally, we have this really loud clock). i sit in the dark, in the blazing hot spotlight of the computer screen. i am on stage, and i can’t perform.

oh, woe is me, if only i could string a few words together tonight…if only, if only…