Feckless

More rain.

Light Rain
49°F
9°C
Humidity 83%
Wind Speed N 18 MPH
Barometer 29.79 in (1008.81 mb)
Dewpoint 44°F (7°C)
Visibility 10.00 mi
Wind Chill 43°F (6°C)
Last update 07 Jun 11:54 AM MDT

Lots of dreams, cats wandering through many of them. Eleanor chasing through a meadow that used to be at the arboretum. And I rode back and forth on a sort of short skateboard along the center axis of a house, an amalgam of this House, Aunt Alma's, on flat floormats. Once, my mother reached a hand around as I rolled past, and I took it and swirled around and hugged her. Not a warm happy, but not bad either. Weirdly neutral.

I sent my niece a b-day text yesterday, and got a friendly enough reply. I'm not sure why I did this, but it felt like the right thing. I try to respond when an internal prompt says, "do this, it's a correct action" without overthinking it. I can always overthink it later. I always have remembered her birthday. But when I tried to think of my other niece, her sister's, birthday, I had no idea. I looked it up, and it rang not a bell in my memory. I knew neither of them well, and only as small children, intermittently, as they are 13, 15 years younger. Teenagers are wrapped up in their own drama, especially when the drama is real. Then the bad marriage. Then lived thousands of miles away. And never had a feel for kids. Or family feeling, rather the opposite, more of an anti-family impulse.

Rains poured down last evening, and my rain barrel out front toppled, missing the newly planted grasses. I set up again this morning. I've looked into stands, and they get terrible ratings. The concrete tiles and blocks are sitting on dirt that I recently dug up to remove the shrub and defunct sprinkler controller, which is why it failed. Ah, well, there is supposed to be more rain today and tomorrow as well. The weather seemed to keep most of the helicopters grounded, which made sleeping easier. Tired of the racket, can only imagine how stressful living with that over years would be.

The rainbow flag went up this week. Took me three tries, the wind took it down, so I put up a new nail, wind took it down, I added gear ties, it stayed. I want to do something for Black Lives Matter, as well. It all seems rather important, but also important to do it right, and I'm not clear what that will be.

Found a knit, all cotton, long, shapeless, dress that is working wonderfully as a nightgown. Not at all flattering, so I won't be wearing it out and about, but it's lovely to sleep in. And it was 60% off. PJ pants were getting more and more uncomfortable, riding up and digging in. I don't like sleeping without any clothes, and sleep shirts wind up at my waist, bunching at my back. I like when I get up being able to walk around more or less decently, again for my own comfort. Sit down and have fabric between me and the chair sort of thing. My changing shape, more like a pear, and fluffier, wants clothes that waft, slip and breathe. I get that women of my mother's and grandmother's generations would sometimes only wear slips about the house in hot weather. Haven't owned a slip since I'd've had to buy one myself, and I've never done that either.

Waiting for the elm seedlings to declare themselves definitively as elms, then plucking them, or even digging them if possible. Everything seems to have grown by several inches overnight. On a half inch of rain. Also picked a fair amount of trash off the front garden, blown in by gusty winds or dropped by feckless pedestrians.

Long long ago, I saw Apocalypse Now in a theater with my roommate. Driving home, I made some sort of flippant remark, which seemed to shock her. It was my way of coping with that disturbing movie. Dark humor is my first and last refuge in the face of horror and loss, probably in the middle as well. All the welling up of ages old injustices with a light froth of current injustice, rattles me to my bones. I have to get up and go to work, so I quip and let it break over me. Or it will take me under.

Yanked

Pulled umbilical
Mother yanking back from death
unique agony.


A friend has just lost his mother. Her age and illness aside, as this changes less than one would think. Oh, it's worse when a younger mother dies suddenly - the shock, but there is a certain minimum of grief that still overwhelms and must run its course. I have a sense of what he might be going through. My own experience is on this spectrum of grief. It's not the same as the immense relief when my father died, and even that was damned odd. Nor it is at all the loss when Aunt Evelyn died, and I still miss talking with her, wanting to invite her into my house, still cry occasionally. With my mother, my body seemed to feel her death, and still does, even as my head and heart stood by looking embarrassed and awkward, unable to explain.

That incongruity makes it worse, even as the absence of loss and regret make it easier.

Obit

My eldest brother sent our mother's obit, and it's what you'd expect. A whitewash, clunky, inaccurate, full of dates, previous deaths and survivors. Dates and names history, the kind my mother hated, preferring funny stories. But the sort historians and genealogists will eventually love. Brother's casual misogyny shows at the edges.

Mary was born on (date redacted) 1925 in Windsor Ontario Canada to the late Frank (Francis) and Alice(she preferred Mary Alice, but her daughters thought this an affectation) K-, (nee M-). She was the youngest of eightª, five brothers and three sisters. Mary graduated high school in 1942 and worked until she married R- S- in 1949. They later moved(across the river) to Detroit, Michigan where she lived a content(contented?, hardly, but) life until R-’s passing in 2008. In 2009 Mary moved to (Texas town redacted) to be closer to her son* and daughter-in-law, David and J-. Mary was an exceptional homemaker†. She enjoyed reading, working cross-wordÓ puzzles, playing games, especially cards, and baking∏. She will be remembered for her contagious laugh, and her love for her family.

Along with her parents and her husband, Mary was also preceded in death by her siblings; and her granddaughter, H-.
She is survived by her sons, David S- and wife J-, W- S-; her daughter, J- W-(misspelled); her granddaughter, K- F-; three great-grandchildren, A-, E-, and S-; and numerous nieces, nephews, family and friends.

-In italics, edited for privacy and my editorializing.
ª Nine, three died in infancy, the eldest son drowned as a teenager, three sisters and two brothers survived into adulthood.
*Only remaining family, not including me for obvious reasons.
†She kept a clean house, but took no joy from that, hated the work.
Ó Of the TV Guide variety, at least when I lived in her house. Maybe she got into the better ones.
∏ She always apologized for how bad her baking looked. She used margarine and walnuts, and mixes. I do not bake.

So I added this, still positive, leaving out all the hurts. Focusing on her, though.

She was a devout and faithful Catholic, a voracious reader with a soft spot for real stories of adventures on the high seas or Great Lakes, a mean euchre, pinochle and 500 player, and an excellent driver who relished going just a smidge over the speed limit. She was a good neighbor, always willing to do a little extra shopping or shovel an extra stretch of snow off the sidewalk. She once took a sledge hammer to a troublesome wall in her house that her husband wasn't getting done, but had to deal with once he got home. And at least one winter, when a broken water main left foot thick ice in her parking spot, and she being only 4'11' (&3/4") got out a pick axe and chopped it into submission.

She told it with a bit of pride that she hated school, and when she got a job not long before graduation, she simply quit. She worked as a seamstress sewing trusses. She would sew most of her own clothes, and many for her family.

Born Canadian, she only took on US citizenship for legal reasons, and stayed Canadian in her heart. She loved National Parks, the sweeping vistas of the Badlands and mountains, any boat or train she could get on. She took photos with her Brownie camera, and had an excellent eye for composition.

I left off this line.

She was devoted and dutiful to her mother and sisters. She forgot anything unpleasant.

It seemed a bit too much to the point. I begin to forgive.

Turning

Yesterday we ran two rooms, and had two nurse interns and a new hire RN. The new hire was an excellent scrub with us, then got his RN and worked at the Main Hospital ~6 years for the experience and hours, and we finally got him back with our lure of no nights, call, holidays or weekends, but All Orthopedics All The Time!

The interns are newish nurses who want to work in the OR, so they get on the job experience at the various ORs in the system, a month at a time. One of the interns will be staying with us, the other will go to the Main.


You do the math.

Ok, I'll do it. Three interns in two rooms, and our new hire gets priority in the higher technical and longer running room. And I had the trauma doc's two fractures, and the hand doc's two. So, I shepherded the pair of interns, one to do the core circulation. The (the bright one that I wish we'd hired, but she'll need the trauma skills at the Main more since she's young and high-speed) I threw stray lessons at ad hoc. Showed them how to use the big C-arm x-ray, which is a whole other skill that most places don't even allow RNs. Showed her how to scrub, don gown and gloves and had her help open. To-be-hired-intern I let fly, and just kept her up in the air. Too much me-talking for my preference, and utterly exhausting, but I wanted them both to have a good experience. They seemed pleased.

Once I got home, I was pretty much done, fell asleep on the sofa next to Dylan twice, and crawled into bed at 1930. Eleanor instantaneously hopped up on me, and was my velcro cat for the night. Got up aching, thought it was about 0200 or 0300, but it wasn't even midnight. NSAID drugs, crawled back, slept until 0730, woken with a one-two cat paws to both my eyes. It's sweet, but unnerving. Eleanor happy to have me stay in bed another twelve hours, but I nudged her off. She's been chasing with Zeppo ever since.


My niece sent me a message, wanting to get in contact. My instinctive reaction to genetic kin is to throw up every defensive wall and be ready to hurl stones. Drawing up compassion for a woman who has lost her grandmother, and is running low on other family, is also automatic. Kindness in, dump out.

Such a trait of my FOO, to say Love! before there is any connection. It's a big red button that reads "Overheat! Remove from Service!" to me. It's the stuff marked "Love" that is full of artificial ingredients, and not one drop of real love in it. But, I don't know her, except as a child, when I was myself young and troubled.

It brings up some of the worst years of my life, from the side, some of the ways I coped. My brother and his family lived close enough to my parents' house when I was in HS that I could ride my bike there. My parents objected to my necessary route, but their desire for me to be closer to my brother and nieces, cancelled their objections to mere grumbling to be careful. I just needed somewhere to be that was out of that house. My SIL was very much in the "But faaaaaaamily!" cult. She simply didn't believe my father was unkind to me in any way, that he didn't actually love me or certainly not that I actually hated him.

This era stretched into my awful relationship and wedding. They liked the ex, which contributed to my self doubt about my own muted alarm buttons.

A miserable stretch that I've worked hard at processing and forgetting.

And the two niblings were, well, children, and I've never particularly liked children, part of the reason I've never born any. There is simply no relationship there, only a distant acquaintance. Maybe if I think of her as a cousin, I can give her some of what she needs, without draining myself.

Grief is a dredge, all sorts of half rotted crap emerges, and the stench is awful. Shoes float up with detached feet inside. Lost ships may be better left lost.



My brother sent the obituary. The photo of my mother was one I'd never seen before, I don't know how old she was when it was taken. She was cute, though. And I'm definitely her daughter. It says she graduated high school, which she always told me she didn't, because she always hated school, and quit shortly before finishing because she got the job as a seamstress making trusses. My brother also spelled (Dylan and)my last name wrong. It's not that spelling is important for itself, but careless spelling suggests a certain carelessness of other detail. Especially when it comes to names, it implies that the person isn't important enough to make sure the name is correct. Once is funny, a pattern speaks volumes. Especially since his paternal family name has two I's, two L's, two E's and one R and a total of ten letters. If you can spell that one right, and know how important it is for paperwork to make sure it's right, then not spelling others' surnames properly is hard to justify.

I don't mind that he misspelled in this case, because I already know that any "love" from them is so-called, empty of nutrients, over-sweetened and leftover.

Niece/cousin? I don't know. So, I responded with neutral kindness, and sent her the link here as a sop. The younger brother read here for one or two posts, then never again. No one else of the FOO has done as much, and that will likely be the case again. I have my own family, and enough friends, real love and wonderful cats. Which also means, I have enough left to slosh over and seep where ere it shall drip.



This is the impossible task for any of them, the path to the Golden Fleece. The fleece doesn't care if anyone finds it.

Maternal

Brother

When the phone rang, Dylan checked the caller ID, as one does in these days of constant spam assault.

"It's your brother..."

I said, "It must be a death."

I missed picking up, called right back. I listened, I apologized, I thanked him. I asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?" I was gentle and I cried with him a little. He checked that he had our right address, told me there would be papers from the lawyer about her estate. I stayed patient, quiet and accepting. Because his relationship with his mother does not need my bad memories. Ring theory of grief.



Taking some comfort in my ability to be kind in that moment. I've been preparing for it long enough. I didn't add to "thank you for calling" the thought "this time." I didn't add to "I'm glad you were there for her" the phrase, "because I sure as hell couldn't be" I didn't mention my conflicted reactions to being in the inheritance, not the time, there may never be a time. He told me she was at peace and out of pain at the end*. I did not contradict, in part because I don't know. In part because he isn't to know how nurses tell everyone that.

And that inheritance does bother at me. Depending on how much it is, and it really can't be very much, it's more a burden than a boon. (Although I know my father bought a lot of insurance when my eldest brother was young. My father did take care of money, to the extent he had any. Fiscal responsibility was ground into all of us.) I may send some of it back to my brothers. I also have to remember to keep enough to pay the tax at the end of the year. Give some to Planned Parenthood, again depending. A windfall is something I immediately want to deal with, shield myself from, not squander, but apportion out. I want to share it, too.

When Granny moved to an assisted living place, I was with Mom at her apartment as the aunts and cousins fought over the things. Nothing valuable, just ordinary stuff. But as Dylan says, the politics were so ugly because the stakes were so low. Mom pointed out that you really find out about people when you share an inheritance with them. The same true of divorce.

I may have to watch The Wrong Box again, and maybe The Quiet Man too.

“Being kind is a matter of altruism, being good is a matter of morality, and being nice is a matter of etiquette.”

*I had no idea just how comforting that phrase is to those left behind after a death. I mean, I said it often enough to patients' families, But, wow. A good death, ease after suffering, in a state of grace. It doesn't have to be factual to be true.

Smoothed

This morning I ironed the cotton hats for work that are comfortable, but wrinkle into a wad after being washed. Nothing to it, but I resist pulling out the iron for that, and let them sit a while. I also ironed the table cloth I brought back from Saudi - from Pakistan if I remember correctly. Hung as a curtain, at least for now. And as I smoothed the fabric, I talked with the mum in my head, as she praised me for keeping my skill.





"Skill? Some skill. Putting in an IV, or a catheter, that's a skill. Assembling a cysto scope, that's a skill. Scrubbing a liver transplant, that's a skill."

But I kept thinking, well, that attention to detail, completing a job, that is where I first learned this. No, I don't iron clothes anymore, save a few hats and perhaps once a year for something special, or D's shirts in the summer when he has to be a bit more nicely dressed at work. Intermittent, let us amend.

Not a skill, exactly, but an attitude. Done when I was a kid for an unlikable father, most often. At work, for cranky and ungrateful surgeons - which takes nothing away from my own satisfaction - should I chose to be so satisfied.



Moby takes satisfaction napping on my ankles.

Wobble

As a child, I wore this locket. It's actually a bit strange - having these photos of my brothers inside. I did idolize them, true enough, but the photos in the locket were not my idea, but my mother's. My prayers for them, maternally encouraged nightly ritual, blowing a kiss in their general direction, took on a sense of praying to them. Fantasies of them rescuing me, then simply coming to visit, eventually reaching out to me even, atrophied - didn't die, not quite dead. Until the father died, and they made no functional effort to contact me. So many reasons why not, none I would have excused myself with in the same situation. Not that I mind, it tells me what I need to know. Aha. Truth, I can handle that, it makes sense.



Still, it nestles among other no-longer-worn trinkets and single earrings, not because I've carefully kept it, but out of simple inertia. I held it today, as I packed the deep storage, nothing wanted for a month, or a year, and felt a momentary urge to cry, then started to laugh. Really laugh, satisfied joy. This overwhelming image I had of them, long forgotten, is now actively let to float away. The charm will stay, it takes up no room, and who knows what insights might be gleaned next year, next decade.


My mother often used the word grudge. She railed against those who held grudges for years, her sister, other relatives. I had to agree that holding a grudge was a bad thing, but I often thought that the word was loaded, and often wrong. Sometimes people just don't like each other. Sometimes we see a fault we cannot endure, a malice, a bigotry, or a long pattern of a shameful weakness or willful ignorance, and separate ourselves from the poison, made more difficult if there are family obligations. Anyone genuinely holding a petty grudge is probably the kind of person to use the word on someone else. Those who accuse everyone else of rudeness or lying, are often the ones most guilty of being rude and lying. Not always, but it is a word that judges, admits no kindness or compassion, no understanding, dismissive.

I sit tight with my still young sense of kindness & serenity. This has shaken it, I admit, but not badly, not fundamentally. Testing it, and it's holding. Wobbling, but not sliding.





I have no idea. I assume it's a "cat thing" and I wouldn't understand.

Numbed

Brained, numbed, too many hours, a very late day, after waking at 0430 for the third day in a row. Sleep disturbed. Haunted by the living. Realized, not really for the first time, that I who have the least family feeling, but the strongest sense of duty, am the one who has made the most effort in making contact. Well, I have done. I will respond in kind, but never initiate again. I have lived up to my own sense of responsibility and more, which is enough. More than enough. Their deficits are their own karma. They are not my job.

Got home about 8, after a very hard day. Not bad, just, hard. Very, very tired.

Escapes

Everyone in their places, safe and well. I had to make the call, wound up with mother and both brothers on a kind of conference call. Weirdness ensued, much dissonance for me. Rolled out the jokes, and for the first time really, viscerally understood the theory of comedy as socially acceptable hostility. And I killed! Jokes rolled out unstoppably, slipping out on the beer. Oh, no, I really don't want to talk to them cold sober. Oh, how they laughed.

When they started talking about sending the ashes, I went silent. I did not mention The Big Labowski, I did not say I wanted to be left to a body farm, I did not say I was glad le bâtard est mort. Many things I will never say, not to them. No, I'll say all that here. Don't you feel special?

After way too much frustration and miscommunication, and some technical glitch on brother's end, I sent some photos via email.



"Why are you making such a face?" asks mom.

"Why not?" I say, not rising to the slight.

"Are you going grey?" says mom.

"Oh, gone, really gone."

"And your hair is so long" she adds.

"Yup."

"I keep mine so short because the color is so ugly," she adds. (Meaning red.)

The negativity sucks at me, but I stand back and it can't touch me. Second brother and I have each other's email, which could be good, but we are largely unknowns to each other. He was the gentler soul when I was a small girl, the listener, and when he left, he left thoroughly. His subsequent story is very sketchy. Older brother reminds me too much of his father, but I take the kid sister's privilege of bashing him with insults - as long as I keep it funny.

I will do my duty as long as I can. The option of disappearing again is in my hands. Knowing I have an escape from a social situation makes it doable. Just like parties, I can enjoy myself if I know I can leave* at any time. Means I have choices. Like any good OR nurse, I have, at core, a bit of control freak. Lots of niceness over a steel armature - necessary for standing up for patients, and not being run over by surgeons. I can only be pushed so far.




*D and I have a deal at social events, both of us have a veto, one wants to leave, we leave, no questions, no more than very short delays. It's worked very well over the years.

Obligation

Two full on days, when home is sweetest, so long as love is there. Here, three souls who love each other.

And having my mother back in contact means I hear her voice again, the one inside my head. That animals are animals, not people. As though that excludes them from real love. Her disdain for those who think too much of a mere cat or a dog. I find myself explaining - again, only inside, why we really do love Moby, and he, in his cat way, seems to love us. We rely on each other, are kind to each other, make each other laugh, provide comfort and joy. If that's not love, what is? (As Tevye would ask.)

Then a lyric prodded me, and I listened to Graceland.

And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now

I let go, live in my moment of home, my small, complete family.

We are doing Thanksgiving here with D's parents. My idea. We are planning, and looking forward to this very much. In our tiny apartment, snug and warm.

Gentleness

My mother called, D didn't recognize the number so didn't answer, but I called right back. Better that way, with voip I don't pay long distance, which took a bit to convince her. She told me when she'll be moving to Texas, near her oldest son, next month. And I spoke to her as I would a nervous patient, kind, calm, lightly joking, reassuring. As we spoke, I began to realize my only decent choice was to use this as an opportunity for grace, for both of us. Expect nothing, pour out gentleness.

I do think she should get online, if only because it has become nearly as important as having a telephone was when I was small. A way to keep up with her grandchildren by email. I could send her photos. But there is time, and no need to run ahead. Let her settle, find her new reality for a while, first. I'll have to get SIL & brother ok with it as well, since they will have to do the hook up and support, although I will send the macbook if so.


No one's fault. No one to blame. Nothing needing to be done. Nothing owing, everything entire.

Out

Out of tea, out of beer, out of pistachios.


But I do have more of all three.


So, a question. If my mother does insist on a relationship, pushes for contact, I have this idea. Not meant to be cruel, but will likely not feel good to her.

One requirement, she has to get to know me, not as I hid from her since I was small to refrain from alienating my only semblance of protection. Or dissembled later to protect her sensibilities and out of habit. But me, as I have lived, with my agnosticism, sexuality, tattoos, swearing, love of beer and Moby, - and criticisms of her. How? By reading this blog, a substantial, representative sample. IF that doesn't put her off, IF she still likes me after that, then, well, then I'll put whatever effort in to get to know her, as she is now. Call every week, even go out to visit as time and finances allow.

My SIL can set her up with internet, she's on fecesbook so I know SIL's at least that computer savvy. I will send mother my old MacBook, if necessary. OK, so this has to include her dealing for the first time with computers, but that's just an unintended benefit to her (she probably won't see it that way.) She is 84, as far as I know never even had a debit card - only uses checks.

Is this unfair? Impossible? She may never really push, she has every right to refuse. But, if she can't bother to get to know who I am, I'm really not up to putting in the effort to placate. Do I open myself up to her so completely? Well, I'm fine with that, and it will be a bit like asking her to look at me naked. I'll stand naked before anyone, if necessary. She can mind what she sees, but I'm asking her to prove it with her version of love, thrown into my version. Can a mother and daughter find love in bare truth? I doubt it, but if she wants it, and is willing to get to know me, I will meet her more than halfway.


Will I take her equally naked? Yes. If she is game, I will.

Too much to ask? Only she can absolutely decide, of course. But for me to ask this, as a condition for future contact? I'm not threatening estrangement, just knowing it will happen, and informing her. I will not, cannot, pretend and perform, again. It's truth from here out, or I walk away.

She's the one who taught me that if the other kids were playing mean to just walk away. She's not been playing fair, and I walked away. I have no problem doing it again.