I know before she does but maybe not maybe she knew that last year
brave front while soliciting money on the internet as the cancer progresses
she describes new treatments I forget how many rounds of chemo she endured
eight years from diagnosis to death
I stop visiting for a year after she bullies 30K more from our father
and he calls me crying
I give myself permission to change to be a physician more than a sister
because as a sister my sister is cruel
she destroys my reputation with my mother's family
or maybe they already don't like me because I think the family rules are ludicrous and stupid
and I won't follow them
I suppose each generation has someone who says wait these rules make no sense
why are we following these?
I think she will die by February 2011 but there is another death unexpected
the death of my hope for a sister who loves me for a sister who treats me well
for a sister who loves me
and I let that hope die and I rise from the ashes and I choose not to visit
and she uses this tells people I won't visit though I don't say I won't
people sent me checks
I sent them back with thanks saying
it is too soon to leave my nascent business
my sister stays in touch this year
at last in February 2012 she calls me
my oncologist referred me to hospice but I am not going
yes, I know you are refusing to go
I don't saybut the cancer is progressing and like it or not
you will go
my sister applies for a clinical trial miles away
and at last her enthralled circle refuses
they say we are so tired we cannot drive you there
daily
I fly down for a long weekend and the hospice interview
I am excluded but ask to step in at the end
I ask the nurse is this like where I live that if there is a stroke
or a blood clot or bleeding or whatever horror
hospice will keep her comfortable
but will not treat it?
yes
says the nurse
my sister stands pushing away from the table NO she says
I AM NOT READY
yes, I knew that
you are not going
I don't say but you will go willing or no
I fly down a second time and as I leave she cries
I am surprised
we have not talked really
there are so many people in and out and I've been portrayed as a villian
there is still time
I fly down a third time
she is angry, angry now in hospice angry that she is dying
I start to sing a lullaby and she says NO
I study her I sing Samuel Hall
To the gallows I must go I must go I must go
To the gallows I must go with my friends all down below saying Sam I told you so
damn their eyes damn their eyes
saying Sam I told you so damn their eyes
she smiles a vicious secret smile
she is in renal failure strange says
I have to take a trip
I say yes you do
I don't know how
You will figure it out
How will I find you?
I am surprised again the connection is still there buried deep
You said I can take the dragon home the one I made in college and gave you
You are born in the year of the dragon you will have wings find the dragon
and you will find me
oh, good she says relieved
she speaks of a bad pig
I say maybe it isn't bad maybe it's done some bad things
she shakes her head
I say shall I take the bad pig away?
she still is not satisfied
I guess: do you want me to keep the bad pig from hurting anyone else
yes she smiles yes
again we are alone
I am Bad she says
You are not bad I say You have done some bad things
Very bad
She is crying
I say I love you anyway
and she blooms like a rose soft in a dark orange blanket with matching lip gloss
forgiven and reconciled
flying home I name the dragon Bad Pig
and gird myself for death
three days later she dies
and then the fallout and the aftermath begins
_____________________
I will attach this to the Ragtag Daily Prompt "escapade", though I think of escapades as fun. The escapade is the photograph. She and I were dancing before my wedding, in 2007. I am the short one and clearly I was teasing her about something.
Every day I am thankful for clean water water to drink water to wash I am blessed by clean water
Every day I am thankful for food Good food to cook to eat to share I am blessed by good food
Every day I am thankful that I can stand that I can walk that I can carry things up and down stairs I am blessed that I can stand
Every day I am thankful that I can hear voices of friends voices of my family all the music my cat and birds I am blessed that I can hear
Every day I am thankful that I can see all the faces all the smiles the trees, the ocean, the birds the ever changing sky I am blessed that I can see
Every day I am thankful that I can touch my cat purring a vegetable for lunch clothes and doors friends to hug I am blessed that I can touch
Every day I think of those who cannot touch who cannot see who cannot hear who cannot walk who do not have food who have no clean water and some of them are children
Every day I am thankful and grieving at the same time
And I try to do a little it’s not enough yet
Some day I will be gone or we will all have done enough
I am thinking about thinking. What do people think about most of the time?
This partly comes from my ex. He thinks out loud a lot, an external processor. My daughter and I wanted to know what he thinks about. My son asked. “Dad, what do you think about?”
“Golf.”
“Golf?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?” says my son.
“No.” says my ex.
I have no idea if this is true or not. Sounds hella boring to me, honestly, but he seems entirely happy with it. De gustibus non est desputandem.
I had lovely winter holidays, celebrating EVERYTHING. I went to my son and daughter-in-law’s out east. My daughter and her significant other came out and we did presents on December 27th. Then we went to see my two aunts and uncle for a couple days. They are in their 80s and delightful! Back to my son’s and we saw my kids’ remaining grandparent, my ex-husband’s father’s significant other. Got that? And one of my kids’ paternal cousins with her significant other. I stayed with old friends for the last three days, which was also delightful. We went to the Smithsonian American History Museum and read every single thing. But only in two exhibits because that place is huge.
Now I am back to my current home and hello, cat! Back at work as well. More about that next time. The sands are shifting and I may be in another clinic. Monday a patient asked if I am their new doctor or am I a floater? I said I prefer “Temp” to “Floater”. She laughed.
Taken in Echo Canyon in the Colorado National Monument, Thanksgiving, 2024.
Austere choice
Why do I still feel sad when I think that I am best off with my cat and that I should eschew dating. Why do I feel like I am rejecting love? I don’t have that sort of love. It’s not like I am rejecting anything. I am rejecting looking for it. I am rejecting active interest in a partner other than my cat. What is wrong with that?
I do not ever want to reject hope. I am not trying to reject wanting. Hope and want are the deep and terrible ache for the Beloved. I do not reject that. I am still open, Beloved, to what you send, though getting more particular in middle age. A writer says that he uses a pencil and a pad, because no better tool has been invented. I take the same approach to wanting love. If the relationship is more work than my cat, for less love, why bother? It seems silly and until I go home to the Beloved, so far, I am best off with my cat.
____________________________________________
The first thing Sol Duc does when we go out for a walk, is roll on the sun warmed dusty sidewalk. The house faces south.
What will peace look like? People
will still disagree often
but like my parents they will appreciate
evidence and science. They will listen
to each other with interest, with respect.
They will bet a penny or a quarter or a million
imaginary dollars and one will go to look up
the correct capital of Azerbaijan, while
the other argues that they MEANT back in 1478,
really, so they do not owe one million imaginary
dollars and they both start laughing again.
_______________________________
The photograph is of the ice in Echo Canyon, two days ago. Or maybe it is angels, waiting.
I took this on New Year’s Eve on a walk with my kids and old friends in Maryland. We fooled around in a park. I like the low fog hanging in the trees, always further away when we walked to it.
Seesaw, Margery Daw, Jackie shall have a new master
He shall have but a penny a day, because he can’t work any faster.
That is the version of an old nursery rhyme that I learned from my mother. There is more about it here.
I am going through and starting to delete old blog posts and photographs to make room for the new ones. Not one of my stronger talents!
I’ve chosen incomparable for today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt. Yesterday I posted one version of the song Waterbound. Rhiannon Giddens does the traditional version, but then I come across this song. Wow. And yes, such courage in people enslaved and there is still slavery in the world.
Traveling from Washington to Colorado, Elwha did not like the car and the unfamiliar places. I took the cat carrier apart in the hotel room and he decided that it was safer inside it than out, even if it was in pieces. Sol Duc did not enjoy the car but is less worried about it all.
And here is Sol Duc in a virtual cage, a shadow cage. She likes the back yard a lot. I have had the house closed up because of the smoke for the last two days, but there is less today.
Do you know the poem by Ogden Nash, The Tale of Custard the Dragon? The chorus is as follows:
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears, And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs, Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage, But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
I love that poem! And I love the lines:
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda, For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Ogden Nash was perfectly happy to bend words to fit the rhyming scheme and to heck with spelling!
I still have not heard about Elwha. I hope that he has moved in with an older couple and spends most of his time on their laps. I can see him crying for a nice safe cage.
I thought there must be a song of it, but so far I like this tenth grade rap version best!
It is difficult to screen for ACE scores for the same reason that it is difficult to screen for domestic violence and to talk about end of life plans. These are difficult topics and everyone may be uncomfortable. Besides, what can we DO about it? If growing up in trauma wires someone’s brain differently, what do we do?
I don’t frame it as the person being “damaged”. Instead, I bring up the ACE score study and say that first I congratulate people for surviving their childhood. Good job! Congratulations! You have reached adulthood! Now what?
With a high ACE score comes increased risk of addictions (all of them), mental health diagnoses (same) and chronic disease. Is this a death sentence? Should we give up? No, I think there is a lot we can do. I frame this as having “survival” brain wiring instead of “Leave it to Beaver” brain wiring. The need to survive difficulties and untrustworthy adults during childhood can set up behavior patterns that extend into adulthood. Are there patterns that we want to change and that are not serving us as adults?
This week a person said that they blow up too easily. Ah, that is one that I had to work on for years. Medical training helps but also learning that anger often covers other feelings: grief, fear, shame. I had to work to uncover those feelings and learn to feel them instead of anger. Anger can function as a boundary in childhood homes where there are not adult role models, or where the adults behave one way when sober and an entirely different way when impaired and under the influence. There may be lip service to behave a certain way but if the adult doesn’t behave, it is pretty confusing. And then the adult may not remember or be in denial or try to blame someone else, including the child, for “causing” them to be impaired.
What if someone had a “normal” childhood but the trauma all hit as a young adult? I think adults can have trauma that changes the brain too. PTSD in non-military is most often caused by motor vehicle accidents. At least, that is what I was told in the last PTSD talk I went to. Now that overdose deaths have overtaken motor vehicle accidents as the top death by accident yearly in the US, I wonder if having a fentenyl death in the family causes PTSD. Certainly it causes trauma and grief and anger and shame.
I agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics that we should screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences. We need training in how to talk about it and how to respond. I have had people tell me that their childhood was fine and then later tell me that one or both parents were alcoholics. The “fine” childhood might not have been quite as fine as reported initially. One of the hallmarks of addiction families is denial: not happening, we don’t talk about it, everything is fine. Maybe it is not fine after all. If we can learn to talk to adults about the effects on children and help people to change even in small ways, I have hope that we will help children. We can’t prevent all trauma to children, but we can mitigate it. All the ACE scores rose during the Covid pandemic and we are still working on how to help each other and ourselves.
The photograph is one of Elwha’s cat art installations. He would pile toys on his bowl. Two bowels because I need to keep out the little ants. Sol Duc would do it too but not as often. I fed them in separate rooms. They would pile things on the bowl whether there was food left or not.
Elwha is still missing, sigh. That is a wound. The photographs are from March 2023.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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