I keep my cool most of the time. I keep the naysayers and pessimists at arm's length. Every now and then, despite my careful guard, something tears in my outer defense and I am left wilted and dangling without hope of finding steady ground again. Saturday was one of those days. The confusion is almost as thick as the strain now, and I am seeing the tower of Babel revisited. So many voices adorn the air...so few of them make sense.
Finally, at wit's end, I knelt at my Mother's side and asked for honesty. I asked her for direction, I asked her what roll she wanted me to play. "Remember the good days," she muttered. "I don't want people seeing me like this," she continued. "We're kindred spirits, Laura. This conversation is silly. You know in your heart what I want. Don't listen to other people." She drifted off to sleep, the morphine taking hold, and I stumbled downstairs to sob.
Debbie tried to halt my progress with a hug...I batted her arms away. No comfort...I can't allow myself comfort yet. I can't give into that yet. I needed to rebuild my damaged wall because I knew the battle wasn't over yet and I still needed defense. Brenda came down after several minutes and asked quietly, a respectful distance away, "Are you ok?" I get that question a lot as of late. There is no answer. I'll never be completely ok again, but I'm as peaceful with life as I can be right now. Mom told me before she drifted off that I needed to throw the covers over my head and cry like nobody was there, like nobody could hear, like nobody could worry, like nobody could fawn. I wept my sobs dry.
A few hours later, when Dad came to take Mom back to their house, he came to me with understanding eyes. We could both tell that Mom turned a corner on Saturday. I rib my father a lot. I roll my eyes nearly constantly in his presence. Often, I groan in realization that half of my gene set comes from that dorky Norwegian. But another corner has been turned in these last months. My father and I have grown close. He is one of the most decent men that I know, always has been, but I'm beginning to see more of the man these days. More of the heart, patience, and kindness. He has been my dearest friend in the last week.
Today, Mom is in the hospital again. Her pained body is filling with fluid. Dad called me throughout the day with updates and to let his thoughts free. I told him that he sounded tired. He said the same of me. I told him that he sounded weary. He said the same of me. We're all living in a heightened state of fatigue. There's a thread of discord that frays relentlessly, preventing peace, preventing rest. It is a discord with the way life is supposed to go...the good health, merrymaking, laughter, love...and the sense of forever.
