Category Archives: Stages of grief

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Qia and the dark

This story is part of a series about a Balint group for angels. Balint groups are groups for physicians to get together and talk about cases that bother them. This often means facing their own biases and discriminatory feelings. I wrote this in January 2022. The current estimate of Long Covid is 10 to 30% of non hospitalized people. Which is huge and terrifying.

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“And really, it looks like at least half the population will get Omicron. The question,” says Qia, “is how much Long Haul it causes. If it causes 30-50%, like Delta, we are in serious trouble.”

The angels are silent.

“Do you think it will?”

“I am hoping for under 10%.” says Qia. “But of course I do not know.”

Silence again.

“Why do you go to WORST CASE?” snaps Algernon. His wings rustle.

Qia blinks at him slowly.

She thinks about it. “It is the safest place to start.”

Algernon frowns at her. Another angel slowly nods.

“If I start in the worst case scenario, I can face it. I have to think about it, work through it, plan for it. Then I can back off and hope for one of the less horrific scenarios.”

“You are WEIRD.” says Algernon.

Qia is annoyed. Her wings go bat and blood red.

“Word.” whispers a very young angel.

“WHY?” snaps Qia, “WHY NOT face the worst?”

“Most people never do,” says the moderator.

“What?” says Qia.

“Most people never face the worst. They don’t want to. They are terrified. They are scared. They do things to avoid thinking about it. They skip that step and just go straight to hope.”

Qia glares at her. The moderator smiles and her wings go black as pitch.

“We aren’t PEOPLE. We are ANGELS.” says Qia, nearly snarling.

Algernon laughs. “Yeah, well, some of us do not want to think about the worst either. That is Gawd(esses) job.”

Qia is doubly pissed off to be crying. “No, we have to think too.”

“Qia, I agree, but it is hard.” says the moderator. “That is why you have the job you have. Because you are willing to go straight to the dark.”

Qia has her face in her hands.

The angels surround her, soothing, and start to sing.

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We want to believe

My cousin said to me once: “We want to believe what we want to believe.”

This was right before Mr. Trump was elected President.

After my cousin said that, I was unsurprised that Mr. Trump was elected. He was elected out of fear and anger and shame and grief. He was elected by people who are afraid that people rising out of discrimination will take things from them. Lower their standard of living. They are afraid that they will have to give things up.

A friend was working on my boat. He said that if I paid in cash, it would be less. Because, unspoken, he would not report the income. I thought about it. I said, “My medical practice is mostly medicare and state insurance. That is paid for out of our taxes: yours and mine. Therefore I am giving you a check and I don’t care if it costs more.”

There is a big culture here of not paying taxes. Cheat the government. Pay cash to each other, nod, nod, wink. It is tempting, takes a percentage off what I pay. But…. the people who I know are doing this are mostly conservative. They say drain the swamp. They say the government is cheating us. But THEY are cheating all of us.

I asked my cousin why he and my maternal family believed a story masterminded by my sister. That my father and my neice’s father and I were villains. One of the villainies was the our grandmother’s money had paid for MY graduate school but not my sister’s graduate school.

But that is not true. My grandmother paid four years of medical school tuition. 21K. I paid my own loans.

After my grandmother died, and then my mother died, my father used “my grandmother’s money” to pay off my sister’s graduate school loans. 36K. My parents also cosigned on a house, that my sister walked away from. They wrote 30K off thier taxes that year selling it. My father bailed her out of 7K on a work credit card. My father called me crying when she bullied him out of another 30K for another house. And that is when I said to her ENOUGH. I refused to visit for a year: until she went into hospice for her cancer. I visited three times while she was in hospice. We made peace. But she did not tell anyone else the truth.

I said to my cousin that I could send the bank statements showing that my father paid for my sister’s graduate school. That is when he said, “No. We want to believe what we want to believe.”

I thought really? So you want to believe my sister because she is dead. We will not speak ill of the dead, so you are ok with me and my father and my niece’s father being villainized and you will not even look at the lies.

VOTE and VOTE against FEAR, SHAME, DISCRIMINATION, ANGER AND GRIEF. We have to stand up. I loved my sister even when she was dishonest and bounced 1000$ worth of checks in my small town with people I knew. My father got threatening phone calls and he paid. That was the last straw for me.

So guess which politician stirs up fear and hate and discrimination and anger and grief? Well, honestly, both sides are guilty of that, but I stand against discrimination. We all shall rise up.

Love and Blessings and Peace you.

The photograph is on one of the last three visits to my sister. She died in March 2012.

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Arty’s warning

Trigger warning: non graphic mention of child abuse.

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I don’t notice that things are frozen at first, because the cats aren’t frozen. I do notice the light. Also I notice the change in sounds. The car outside in the street is not moving nor making sound. Uh-oh.

I go to the front door. Might as well if everything is frozen. I just finished putting on make up, which always means a dangerous mood.

She lands first, on a white flying horse. Who smiles at me, showing fangs. Smoke is coming out of the Pegavamp’s nostrils. Eeeee.

Arty herself is in silver and black today. Silver cloth with black embroidery that seems to be writing a little.

“Good morning, Goddess.” I say, bowing. The other horses and dragons and flying motorcycles and pterodactyls are landing as well. Sol Duc is in the window. Elwha has gone to hide, quite sensibly, I think.

Arty stomps her staff on the ground. “I am really pissed.” she says.

“They named a rocket after you.”

“That penis toy? That is supposed to please me while they are killing virgins who refuse to tent their heads?”

“Sorry.” I hang my head.

“And do you know how much the smoke is going to shorten the lives of my birds and stags?”

“A lot, I think.”

“Do you all want to starve in the dark?’

I look up at her then. “No. I want grandchildren and a healthy earth.”

“Work harder.” she snarls. The rest of the dangerous crowd is muttering and snarling and the local cats have come out. They are sitting very respectfully at a distance. Rooftops. The ridge above my house three blocks up. The tree tops are frozen too.

“Do you need prescriptions again?” I ask. “I see that there have been a lot more rapists jailed. Thank you, Goddess.”

She looks tired for a moment. “We are hunting them everywhere: cities, countryside, hovels, palaces, movie sets, where ever.”

“You don’t turn them into stags any more?”

“Yes, sometimes. My hounds love to tear them apart. But sometimes prison is slower and crueler and a better punishment.”

I kneel. “What service can I do, Goddess?”

She touches me with the staff. I feel a hard bright shock, pain that roars through me and is gone.

“Write this. Write my warning. If this continues, it is death in the cold dark of nuclear winter and we will begin again.”

“Is that the only choice?”

“Oh, no, we are all being very creative. One suggestion has been the sperm banks. There is nothing that says they can’t be used to make one gender only. The one that rapes less and doesn’t kill young girls for what they wear.”

“Thank you for your warning.”

“Stand up.” she says. “You and every abused child, male or female, are under my protection. Yet the cycle must be broken and the abused must not become abusers. Write this.”

The Pegavamp drops one knee and she steps up easily. The other riders start to roar and shout and howl. Her winged creature jumps in the air and the whole group follows. There is a snap and they are gone.

The car in the street is moving and the treetops as well. The cats stand and move away.

I keep writing.

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October 22, 2022

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happy

Ok, this is a weird little poem to my sister Chris, who died a decade ago. My father died thirteen months later. My mother was already dead. Mother and sister of cancer and father of emphysema, damn the Camels. There was no family slaughter, unless it was by cancer. There was a family meltdown on my mother’s side. Sometimes you have to let people go.

Sister sister mister miss her
look, Chris, I’m happy

Cancer cancer crabby dancer
look, Chris, I’m singing

Daughter daughter family slaughter
look, Chris, I’m healing

Healer healer wheeler dealer
look, Chris, no drama

Wombing wombing quiet blooming
look, Chris, I’m growing

The photograph is of a family cabin in Ontario. It is called “The New Cabin”, “Helen’s Cabin” (after my mother) or “Chris’s Cabin” after my sister. As you can see, it is suffering through neglect worsened by Covid-19. I put those screens up a decade ago, but they are not surviving the winters and the porch roof has a hole. It was a lovely porch to sleep on. I was last there in 2018, and up on that roof trying to tar holes as a temporary fix. We did not dare go on the porch roof, too late for that. Things change and fall away and sometimes we have to let them go. Especially if they are beyond repair. The photograph is taken earlier this year by the people who care for the cabins when we are not there.

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always on your mind

This is a compilation poem from more than one song and more than one person I’ve dated. A friend and I really dislike a song her husband sings that has the “I wish that you had told me” line. We make faces at each other and whisper, “We wish that you had listened.”

Sometimes I am treated as an admiring audience by a male. At least, that is the role he would like me to play. I get pretty bored pretty quickly. If he doesn’t give me reasonable floor time, if he doesn’t listen, well, goodbye. Find another female slave. One male tells me that my poetry doesn’t matter. I think, oh, I guess it doesn’t matter to YOU, but it certainly matters to ME. There is a certain wicked enjoyment in writing poetry that references his words, heh heh. Enjoy!

October 8, 2022

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always on your mind

the songs you sing
I was always on your mind
you wish that I had told you

isn’t that a lie?
you told me never to ask you
to do anything. Ever.

what was always on your mind
you told me many times
you could read mine

what was always on your mind
you said you could read mine
I wish you had. Even once.

what was always on your mind
was your fantasy me
who obeyed your every wish

what was always on your mind
was that I would wait at home
available to listen or for sex

what was always on your mind
your terror of the ball and chain
that I’d entrap you into marriage

what was always on your mind
had nothing to do with me
I tried hard to tell you

what was always on your mind
had nothing to do with me
I tried hard to tell you

what was always on your mind
was a fantasy. Not me.
How can you be surprised I’m gone?

you wish that I had told you
you say I was always on your mind
I wish that you had listened even once

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I took the photograph on Marrowstone Island a few days ago.

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Civility is not dead

I am attending parts of the online Collective Trauma Healing Summit, led by Thomas Hubl. This morning I listened to two speakers, each about an hour long. The first was by Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, an African-American buddhist teacher and the second is by Tristan Harris, who is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.

Mr. Harris gives me hope about humans learning to live with social media without continuing to be polarized and angry. He speaks about the way that many platforms work. We tend to click on things that worry us and that we are traumatized about, and the platform immediately starts feeding us more of that. In a way, Facebook and other platforms gas light us: the algorithm figures out what makes us upset and agitated and promptly feeds us more of it.

He advocates moving to more humane platforms, that aren’t built on feeding us trauma, and especially for schools and parents to do this collectively with children. He co-hosts the podcast “Your Undivided Attention” each week, so I will be looking in to that.

However, I have a second reason to be hopeful about social media. I am in more than one group now that has rules and that has administrators that enforce them. Kindness. An insect group that forbids people saying “squash it”, because it’s a group of people that are interested in insects. A physician mom group. A pacific northwest rock group and a women’s pacific northwest rock group. I am now one of the administrators for a local group and am fine with it.

Even though Facebook is still feeding us more trauma and horror if that is what we click on, people are starting to see through this and refuse. They are forming groups where insects and people aren’t squashed. Rural farm groups. Music groups. In these groups I feel that people are coming together and are working to be supportive and help each other, identifying rocks, discussing child behavior, singing together.

Each time that technology makes the world smaller and more connected, we have to relearn how to get along. With our family, then our small tribe, then a larger tribe, then cities, countries and now we can see each other the world over. If all we see is what we fear and what horrifies us in our feeds, then we need to turn it off, breathe, and look for something to calm us down. Knit. Silly cat pictures. Flowers. What gives you a feeling of peace and hope? Whatever it is, do more of it and share it.

Blessings and peace you.

I don’t know who the person in the tintype is. I think that it came from a box from my Great Aunt Esther Parr, when I was in my early teens. My sister and I divided the tintypes and used them as portraits in our china doll houses.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: obituary.

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down

I’ve let myself come down again

it’s not really quiet down here
whales
the earth shuddering
new mountains being born
the ebb and flow
as the earth makes love to the moon
and small bubbles

I am quiet
when I let myself
go all the way down

the ocean is not quiet, but it is dark
dark as a dungeon
damper than dew
I keep sinking

and my eyes slowly adjust
my lungs adjust too
it hurts like knives at first
but I adjust faster than i used to
like the sea lions
I can go down and get back up
no bends
I have learned from them
I hold the oxygen
and let the nitrogen out slowly
through my gut

my eyes adjust
and then they come
the glowing ones, slow and fast
like ghosts swimming towards me
maybe they are my dead
someday I will join them

I expect to return this time
maybe
or not
I don’t know if I will find pearls
or a leviathan
who will swallow me whole
and barely notice

this time I walked in
myself
I don’t blame you
or family or past or circumstances
it is time for me to go down
I go
down and down and down
deep

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only when I’m hungry (1)

sometimes
I still miss you
then I have to check
if I am hungry

I’m doing well, you see
I only miss you when I’m hungry

I’m moving on
but sometimes I still get hungry

hunger is tied up with fear
in childhood
and grief and abandonment

When you fed me
that was huge

You don’t feed me any more

Sometimes I still miss you
but only when I’m hungry

I think you’ve joined the dead
the angry dead
who didn’t feed me
and didn’t love me

or loved me during anger
and wouldn’t feed me

Sometimes I still miss you
but only when I’m hungry

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Photo taken by my friend JB.