Table Manners

When I'm not crying, I'm writing - emails, texts, facebook, posts on the Breast Cancer discussion groups. But my writing is not flowing. It is choppy. It is all over the place.  Even so, I'm going to post it.  I can tweak it later when life becomes simple again. It will get simple again.  It will.

I am awake. The room is dark. My laptop is downstairs. My cell phone is downstairs. I am upstairs in the cats room.

I have made a deal with myself - do NOT, under any circumstances, look at the clock.  Do NOT go downstairs.  Do NOT check your email.  Do NOT engage your mind.

I lie on my back and straighten my body - I am like a corpse in a coffin.

I relax my body. I breath deeply. I talk to Kerry. Please help me Kerry.  Please help me to sleep.

I close my eyes and the nightmares rush in...

I am in the operating room.  A nurse hands me a soft, malleable, mass and tells me to swallow it.  I put it in my mouth, but its too big to swallow.  I try to chew it but it is rubbery and tart.  "What is it" I ask. "It's your heart" she says.  I spit it out.  I hold it in my hand.  It is beating. Strong.  

I wake up screaming.

My hearing has become doglike.  It's more than just being sensitive to noise, I am hearing sounds from the condo below me - three stories below.  We have cement walls and floors and ceilings.  The people below are old and gentle toned.

I hear their phone ring.  I hear their laughter.  I hear their microwave beep, beep, beeping.  I want to yell, "you're food is ready!" but I know they can not hear me.  They are three stories below.

At first, I thought I was losing my mind.  A friend (and lucky for me, a therapist) tells me this is not uncommon for people who are in a depressed state, such as me.  I was worried I would need to be institutionalized. Okay, for a moment there, I was looking forward to being institutionalized. What a nice break that would be.

It is almost 2:00 am.

My father is dying.

We are all dying.

My husband is in our bed and I am in the cats room. It is quieter here.

My eyes are tired but my mind is awake.

I saw the squabbit today - a black, half squirrel, half rabbit.  You say squirrel without a tail, but Jackson and I say squabbit.

He was scurrying across the road, a bit too carelessly. Carefree and bouncy be.

I am happy he is alive. I thought for sure he was dead. I thought the hawk got him.  The same hawk that mistook Miss Lucy - my five pound pup - as prey.  In the middle of the day.  Right outside my office window. While I was only a few feet away.

That hawk swooped and I screamed.  I screamed the hawk away.

That squabbit made me smile!  I saw him right before I picked up Jackson. Jackson and I have resumed our Wednesday morning ritual of breakfast, at the diner, before school.

That squabbit gave me the "what's new" answer that Jackson asks for when he greets me. "What's new Nanny?" is always the second thing he says.  He begins with a bright, beaming, "HI!!!"

"I saw the squabbit!" is so much better than catstir, or yet another biopsy, or any of the other new things that swirl around me.

In the booth in front of me are two business men dressed in freshly pressed suits, crisp white shirts, bright ties and polished shoes.  They talk about their jobs - about profits and loss, about sales tactics and trends.  They both order egg white omelets and whole wheat toast - no butter. One adds spinach, the other adds onions and tomatoes.  "Got to look after my health," says the one. "My wife is the healthiest person I know," says the other.  I hate these business men.

Chocolate chip pancakes are Jackson's favorite.  He had three today.  Along with bacon and a tall glass of "white" milk.

"What have I taught you?" I asked Jackson.

"Most of my table manners." he said.

"Anything else?"

"Umm.. nothing I can think of."

I need to teach Jackson more things.

I need to prepare my fathers eulogy.

I need to find his safety deposit key.

I need to take care of me.