The Kundera Effect

“Man passes through the present with his eyes blind-folded. He is permitted merely to sense and guess at what he is actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is untied can he glance at the past and find out what he has experienced and what meaning it has had.”~ Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves.

Last weekend was a doozy. I knew it would be rough, giving a deposition to a bunch of lawyers didn’t sound like a walk in the park but I was happy to get it over with.  I was nervous to revisit that moment in time, although I have recalled it in my mind a thousand times since then.. Three and a half hours later I emerged from the deposition room feeling shaken and dazed. I hadn’t fully comprehended what I had just experienced. Pouring over pages of my personal psychiatric records and  family dirt. I was even asked to describe my mother as she lay lifeless, colorless and cold as the blue lights flashed when her heart stopped.

My dad was even more shaken than I, a naive and sad man who  lost the woman who did everything for him.  A woman who took  on the burden of being both a mother and father to me for as long as she was alive.  My father had given up all  responsibility to my mother, a strong-willed woman in the poorest of health who believed she had do it all to be needed. To be useful. To be loved.

And now she is gone.

He is in shambles. He is in debt. He  has lost his companion, his life. his love.

I felt so  alone. No no, not lonely, alone. I felt like I was completely invisible, a feeling I have never experienced before to that degree. Abandonment in its fullest form. The heart of my fear.

I wanted to call him. I wanted to allow myself to need him. I wanted to be strong. So I sat in silence, closed my eyes, and wept so violently into my pillow I thought my insides would burst.

And then something happened. The splotches I was seeing from clenching my eyes faded into a memory of a night out about a week earlier.

I walked into the restaurant and there he was, waiting for me. He stood up from the table and embraced me so tight and I felt so warm. So safe. So loved.

I snapped out of it and realized my tears had dried up and I had the residuals of a slight smile on my face.

We’d had a lovely dinner that night but during the walk to the car. I burst into tears. I had wanted him to say something to me. Share something with me. Anything at all that would have shown that he could be vulnerable too. But he did not and so I barked at him with questions of , “WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE?” and “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” Like I was accusing him of plotting this great attack against me.  I felt such shame for ruining a lovely dinner.

But now, sitting on the bed with my grip on my pillow not so tight now, It hit me. I knew the answer to the questions I was shouting at him but wasn’t allowing myself to see.

He brought me to that lovely restaurant because he wants to spend time with me. To be near me. To do something nice for me and to make me happy.

Regardless of our issues, his stubbornness, my craziness, he was there. Waiting for me. Looking forward to sharing a meal together. Just like a hundred nights before since  we first met. He had already shown that he can be vulnerable too.

And then the knot in my stomach unclenched its fist and I took a deep breath.

I am not alone and there’s no need for fear. I can allow him to care for me and spend time with me. All he has ever shown me is kindness and love. I can put my trust in him. I can have faith in myself.

The cloth is untied.

Revisiting the Death of My Mother

I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about my mom lately, my father and I are filing a lawsuit against the hospital that cared for her (or failed to care for her). I’ve got a lot of guilt about what happened that day, and although I am not a doctor and I’m not at fault, I still feel somewhat responsible for what happened. I was the only one there. I’m her only child. I should have looked out for her. I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking. But time isn’t healing how I feel. It’s just not.

My mother’s main coronary artery was 95 percent blocked. Right. I know. I’m not quite sure how this was not found sooner. And I don’t know how she was even managing to function at all. The doctor performed an angioplasty, and put a stint in her heart but there was a small problem that the doctors didn’t account for. They missed. Several times. They poked holes in her artery and she bled to death. Nobody seemed  concerned about this until it was too late. The nurses chalked it up to anxiety. The respiratory therapist kept giving her albuterol treatments for her asthma but they weren’t working. Of course not. She was not having an asthma attack.The oxygen she was breathing wasn’t getting to where it needed to go. She felt nauseated so the nurse gave her something to keep her from throwing up the gallons of blood that were accumulating in her stomach.She told me something was not right. I told the nurse she couldn’t breathe. I asked if he really thought it was anxiety. He nodded and said yes. She told me she wasn’t going to make it this time.

The doctor arrived just after her dinner came and just before he walked in she told me she felt full and wasn’t hungry. She didn’t tell the doctor. I didn’t tell the doctor. My mother had been ill for a very long time and she had always been so good at explaining her symptoms to the doctor. She couldn’t do it this time. She just looked at him with these pleading eyes and he told her she’d be fine. She needed me. I let her down. I should have told the doctor.

She begged me to help her.

The nurses came. I trusted them to know what was happening. It’s a heart hospital for god’s sake. That’s what they do. It seems to me  they would recognize the combination of all those symptoms. There was a shift change and one of the nurses brought her purse in the room. Her cell phone rang. That stupid thing ruined a perfectly good Nelly Furtado song for me. Whoever was calling must have tried three or four times. Sorry, she’s busy now. Leave a f****ing voicemail.

Her face was yellow and cold and she was breathing through her nose. I’ve NEVER seen her breathe through her nose when she was having an asthma attack. I asked her if she could hear me and she nodded. I touched her shoulder and told her that I loved her. I think those words might have been the last she heard. I walked outside her room. The nurses asked me if there was anyone I needed to call. They said I needed to call now. The blue lights flooded the halls.

I’ve told myself repeatedly up until now that the hospital did all they could. They did the right things.They worked on her all night for god’s sake. I didn’t want to think that they could have let her down. I didn’t want to think that I had needed to do more to convince them that something was wrong because she didn’t speak up. I feel that somehow they didn’t monitor her as closely just because I was there. I tried not to show my concern because they knew what they were doing. She was anxious. I had to stay calm for her so I wouldn’t upset her even more. That couldn’t have been further from the right thing to do. But maybe in the back of my mind I wanted her to go. I wanted the suffering to end. I know she was tired.

The guilt sticks to me like… something. I was trying to think of a clever word but I gave up. The guilt it sticky. Really sticky. And it sucks.

I know she was sick. I know there were risks. I deeply admire the doctors and nurses who fix peoples’ lives every day. Sometimes people are not fixable. They couldn’t keep my mother from dying no matter the outcome of this procedure. We all will die. This is fact. But she should not have had to die this way.

I don’t have many things that belonged to my mother. I have some jewelry and I wear her perfume. I dug through her purse and found her lipstick. I wear it sometimes and think about how I used watch her getting ready to go out when I was a child. I look at myself in the mirror and see her face in mine and think how lucky I am. She was so pretty.

I don’t know that I really miss my mother now. I know she’s in a better place where it’s quiet and there’s no suffering. But I’m sad. I’m sad that she can’t tell me again about the day I was born or sit with me and laugh and drink margaritas. There was so much in her head that’s been lost.Gone. Poof. She won’t see me get married or be around to ask for advice when I’ve got children. Somehow I thought she was invincible.

I feel sorry. I’m sorry that I let her down. I’m writing this to try and purge all those nasty feelings that have twisted and wedged themselves deep inside, so I can let her memory shine more brightly in my heart. I’m not sure that will ever truly happen, but such is the human condition. It’s bitter sweet. It’s life. It’s death. It’s relief. It’s struggle. Maybe the outcome of this lawsuit will help me resolve some of these issues I’m having, whatever that outcome may be. Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know. Regardless, I know she’ll always be in my mind forever and ever until the day I die.

The Secret Club Nobody Talks About

The loss of a parent is something that virtually all  have to go through at some point in our lives. Sometimes it happens during childhood and it’s difficult to fully comprehend. Sometimes families separate and loose touch, so the loss is not so apparent. But for me, the loss of my mother has been the biggest event of my life. When it happened, I realized that we’re all in this together. It happens. And just like giving birth to a child, nobody will fully understand until it happens to them. It’s especially so because of the relationship I had with my mother. I was her life, and she lived a lot of her life through me.

My mother had been ill from a very early age so she never really had much of what we would consider a normal life. She met my father at the age of twelve or so, and they were attached at the hip for life. My mother and I spoke on the phone nearly every day, and although we had our problems, we had a very strong and powerful bond. I watched her struggle and slip away that Friday night at 8:39 PM, May 2. It’s an image etched in my mind that I will never, ever forget. And although they worked on her through the night and early in the morning, I saw the exact time she left us.

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine recently; he lost his mother a couple years ago. He knew I was really having a hard time so he said to me, “Cari, you know you have a one year license to act like a crazy person sometimes. Your mom just died. Nobody understands until it happens to them.”

He’s right. I’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. All the calls and notes have subsided, the support I had at the beginning is waning. After all, it’s been almost two months for Christ’s sake. I should be getting on with it. Suck it up. Move along. I’m doing the best I can, but I’m not beating myself up for being sad. I’ve got good days and better days, and sometimes I just want to curl up in a ball and sob until my stomach is sore.

But never in a million years do I want her back. She was tired and ready to go, although she was so afraid. I take comfort in knowing that she’s freed from the body that failed her, and now she’s right where she’s always wanted to be. She’s here with me. She’s dusting me off when I fall down and holding me tight when my heart’s been broken into pieces.

I love you, Mom. Someday I’m going to have a family of my own. Someday I will have the chance to give them the life you so desperately wanted for me. I’ll tell them the story of how we found that stray dog on Christmas, and how we laughed so hard we shot Diet Pepsi out our noses. You were always so beautiful in my eyes, Mama and I’m not sure if you ever really knew that. But you always were and you will always be.

I miss you.