not anywhere

Day 3

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

I don’t want to be here right now.

And by “here” I don’t just mean at the computer, fingers strumming the keys, talking to an empty page. I mean that I don’t want to be anywhere. Not in my bed with the covers pulled over my head; not near the garden overlooking the ocean’s foggy banks; not in front of the TV zoned out; not in the hazy wake of taking pills; not in the throws of binging on a whole pizza; not sitting next to a friend; not even curled up with my dog, feeling her heart beat against my skin. I don’t even want to be in this skin.

I don’t want to be anywhere.

This afternoon I walk out of the rehab facility, balancing the bags of dog food my mom has given me, along with the other shit I’d picked up in my last three hours visiting my grandfather, and push myself out the front door. I stop for a second, shifting the things in my arms. Beads of rain collect on the outdoor furniture, pool together in puddles where the pavement meets the grass. I look around for the hibiscus, their great papery leaves a dark magenta, holding themselves open to the rain, but they’re on the other side of the building. My grandfather asked how I knew its name. You taught me all the names of flowers, I told him. He just looked at me for a moment, then nodded and smiled. Outside the air is cool. In jeans and a long shirt I am grateful for this.

I stop walking just short of passing my grandfather’s window, because I can feel my throat close and my breath hold itself in. I know what’s coming because I can feel my body tighten against it.

I shift the two bags of dog food into my other hand, swing the strap of one bag over the bulk of the other, force a deep breath, and keep walking. The shades in his room are down but the blinds are open. There he is, lying back in his bed, the Mary Oliver book I’d given him within reach. Even though I can’t see it clearly, I know his finger holds open he page we’d just read together.

I’m so mad at myself now because I can’t remember the poem… something about the dangers of climbing trees… he’d pointed to the first few lines and we laughed because I’d just told him about this picture I’d recently found: a little boy high in a tree with a tall man on the ground looking up at him: Richard, it said in blue scratchy ink in the white space beneath the photo … it must be you up in that tree, I’d told him, and the man standing beneath you your father.

I keep waving at him through the window, blowing a kiss with the hand that’s holding a bag with this morning’s uneaten bagel. He must be waving back but I’m not sure I can see. Are my sunglasses on? No, I remember now. They’re still in my bag. After I pass my grandfather’s window is when my eyes give up fighting, and down my cheeks stream the tears I’d wanted so badly to hold back. I‘m walking faster now, what’s lying beneath the tears threatening to rip away at my insides if I don’t unleash it soon. I tighten my lips and curl them inward; pressing them against each other so hard it hurts, because I can’t let this happen, not yet, not until I’m in my car.

There’s the woman from lunch in her hot pink shirt, wheelchair parked near my car, looking at her phone. The tears make their way to my chin but I keep walking no matter what, because now I can’t stop it. I’m crying. I almost let my face collapse, let myself go with it; I am being dragged down, my arms suddenly heavy. What is all this stuff? Why do I need any of it right now? I am moments away from losing my shit.

A woman calls out to me and I stop abruptly. She’s asking for directions. I swallow, tightening my hold on the dog food, and direct her to the main entrance. Keep walking keep walking keep walking. In my car when I know I’m alone I let go of everything I’m carrying. I take a breath. I’m ready. With nothing left in my arms this is the moment I want the tears to come. But now I feel close to nothing.

Twenty minutes I pull into a parking space, shut off the car, and stare straight ahead of me. Instead of wiping my face I let the tears dry themselves, tightening the skin on my cheeks, around my eyes and mouth. I pass one hand across my face before I open the door to the vet’s office. I go in, my face says nothing. I pick up my dog’s meds. When I come outside again the grief is buried. I get in my car, find some music on my phone, and start driving home. Whatever I’d begun to feel has crawled back into me, somewhere I can’t reach just because I want to. It’s gone. And it won’t return until it’s ready.

Now I’m home and I feel lost. I can’t cry, but the emotion is there anyway, waiting for my permission to come back, to be felt fully and then let go again. I’m too tired to try and force it, to haul out the photo album, listen to sad music, coax the tears out of their retreat with soothing words and promises of comfort. I’m too tired for any of it. I feel nothing, nothing but a big disappointment in everything around me, and a deeper disappointment in myself. I don’t yet know why. I don’t really care why.

Nothing significant has changed between yesterday and today. My grandfather is still dying; the decision is still being made whether or not he can go home (with the understanding that this will not be the sustainable solution).

I woke up this morning feeling like a terrible human being. I didn’t want to see dad. More accurately, I didn’t want to be part of this “care team meeting”. And I didn’t want to see him in the context of this “rehab” center. Around other old people inching their way toward death. Within the first ten minutes of sitting down in a circle with my mother, uncle, the nurse and social worker, and several others, my grandfather asks the woman sitting on my right who she is. I know I should know you… but I don’t. His eyes widen and he smiles at himself. The woman is Sarah, the nurse in charge of my grandfather’s care these last two weeks.

His confusion comes and goes; maybe it’s like my illness. Unpredictable, incited by unseen forces. My uncle came to see him early this morning, while dad was standing up by his bed, pants down, leaning over the side table, asking what am I doing here again?

How could I forget my grandfather has dementia? Did I even know this? Maybe I just took in the information and stored it somewhere beneath layers of other things to think about, more immediately worrisome things, and the memory surfaces only when he is this vulnerable. But my uncle said it this morning: dad has a diagnosis of dementia. In our family, information like this usually gets filtered through my uncle, goes to my mother; and then comes to me. The complicated dynamics of their brother-sister relationship need not be unearthed right now. This side of my family, my mother’s side, has its history of mental illness, manipulation, sexism and favoritism, neglect, and even some cruelty. Some people have moved on, others have died; and then there are those who are still stuck in patterns established when they were children. I live on the perimeter of all this; I’m more of an outsider than I used to be. But I am still a part of this family. This means I must learn to navigate the pain of other people’s experience and how that pain manifests in their actions and words.

I’m reminding myself here that seeing these members of my family takes more energy than merely spending time with my grandfather. This was the dread I woke up with today. Tonight I am tired and I am numb and maybe both those things are okay right now. Actually, they have to be okay. What other choices are there? Escape and oblivion are only bandages.

Running away doesn’t work. But it’s okay to be distracted.

This might just be what’s on my agenda tonight. Tucking myself into bed early with Minnie, my dog, a book, and my computer in case I want do lose myself in Netflix for a few hours. The only reason food isn’t part of this equation is that these last few weeks of antibiotics have taken my hunger and buried it.

My goal is to enjoy the time I have left with my grandfather, not to linger in the premature grief of losing him. The time is coming, I know. But I hope that while I’m with him, I can actually be present with him, soaking in all the details of each moment. I hope that I will allow the sadness that comes from losing him to visit, pass, return, and to work it’s course through me, leaving me more open and awake to living. I’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.