Birds of Paradise

In the month of June, Relay for Life events pop up like dandelions; they are everywhere. Rita and I were talking with one another at work, she is from our Sault Ste. Marie office and I am located in Sudbury. I had divulged to her that my best friend had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and I felt badly because I couldn’t go to Texas to be there for her when she went for her mastectomy. Rita suggested that was there was something I could do – I could walk in her honour. She said that she had a list of 37 people she was walking for and I knew that one of those people was…Rita. She is a survivor of breast cancer.

Sarah and I headed for the Sault at 8:00 on Friday night. She had been on a field trip that day and spent six hours on a bus. We were getting ready to spend three and one-half more and that day, everything tried to get in my way of going. First it was that the person that was going to take Sarah for the weekend bailed and I couldn’t go until later. Then we headed out and I had forgotten to fill the car up. That’s a big mistake in North Ontario. You don’t head anywhere out of Sudbury without a full tank. So, we were 30 kilometres down the road and had to turn around because I didn’t know where the next gas station was. It seems like I wasn’t supposed to go. Then I thought about my best friend. About how she taught me to go to any lengths and she didn’t stop and wait for a good time; she trudged ahead in spite of common sense and took me in anyway.

We arrived in the Sault at midnight-ish and there were still people on the track. Thank God that the Relays for Life go all night long because I would have missed it. I called Rita from the parking lot and Sarah and I snapped a picture.

I’m here to tell you that Sarah looked I felt. Rita greeted us at the gate and off we went. People were all over the place. She said that it had thinned quite a bit from the beginning of the night because there wasn’t room to pass another person on the track when she started. People were walking six lanes across in clumps. There were the signature candle tributes to people who had passed, who were in treatment, who were just diagnosed – who survived cancer. I remembered from the first RFL event I attended and I asked where the word “Hope” was located. This group had added additional instructions.


We stopped to read the tributes and I found myself biting the insides of my cheeks because there were children’s faces shining back at me.



Rita told me her story as we walked around the track; of her initial diagnosis, of the lumpectomy and of the chemo afterward. She told me about her hair growing back and the divine discovery of a Julia Roberts’-like blonde wig from “Pretty Woman.” What I saw on Rita’s face was sheer determination. She had seen her worst fears realized and walked through them – and past them.

The next morning I woke at the ungodly hour of 10:00 a.m. I don’t think I’ve slept until 10 (seriously) for five or six years, maybe longer. Something was answered for me that night and I slept without dreaming. Rita was already up and in the kitchen making coffee. Sarah was in the shower and we had about fifteen minutes to trade the opening exchanges of spirit that women do. I read her my favourite passage out of Richard Bach’s “Illusions” and she showed me two recent purchases…birds of paradise. Rita loves birds. She writes children’s books. One that she allowed me to see early on was about hummingbirds. Whereas my writing would send children into therapy for years; Rita has a way that she educates while she is providing warm instruction. She is a Mommy to her toes.

Ruth is Rita’s sister and I believe they have one sister in between them, Helga. The baby is Karin. Ruth arrived for coffee and we sat on the back patio in comfy chairs greeting the morning chattering louder (with more laughter) than the birds. Ruth looked over at Rita and said, “You have something on your cheek, here…” and she reached over and brushed whatever it was away. Then Rita said, “You’re really looking good. Getting ready for your daughter’s wedding?” I watched them together and the casual way that they took care of one another without forethought or embarrassment – sisters. I find that when women are gathered together we discuss the things that make everyone uncomfortable – the squishy, emotional things, the secrets. To me, that is a chief strength in women – our stories, our ability to give the knowledge away that we’ve earned and stumbled upon. When Ruth made to leave, I asked if I could take a picture or two of them. The first one was beautiful.


That’s Ruth on the left and Rita on the right. The second one was unexpected and it was more beautiful.


Ladies – this is what we do for one another. We are the birds of paradise.

Alone

Chris is away for seven weeks in New Brunswick. For the last eleven years, twelve in June, he is has been my constant companion. Constant through even fistfuls of fear pushing at him, constant through sludging through the past looking for seashells, constant through job loss, money woes, all of those things that make marriage a truly grand place to be. Before he left he asked me why I push him away when I am afraid. I'm working on that answer.

You know, I think frequently about the absolute silence I receive when I write and I wonder if my words are too self-pitying, or angry... or how is it that they make others so very silent. I've always wanted to be popular, hence the whole sit on Oprah's couch goal; but I remain awkward. I am alone in a room full of people. I am alone with people reaching out to shake my hand. I am alone in my writing, I can only hear my own thoughts. I'm quite certain the only fiction I'll ever write is self-delusion.

Why is that ok? For my entire existence I've sought the approval of other human beings. I can't even say that I think we all do, because I don't know that. I only know me. I think I've been afraid -- stark terror afraid -- of being alone because I am alone with me.

The veil of depression is that I never know when the veil is on and when it is off. I can sense frustration, anger, all of the symptoms of the disease of doubt. Is it really depression or is it that my husband is away for six more weeks and I don't know how to be alone?

I have a new friend. She has been extending her hand and I'm afraid to take it. I pass her by in the car and wave. I motion that I'm in a hurry. I can't go to meet tonight, Sarah needs me. I can't meet tonight I have to grocery shop. Gotta run -- I'm late, I'm late for a very important -- you finish the rest. I've justified in my mind that I am on retreat. The dog walks in front of me and runs circles around my legs; all I can hear is the sound of the sand crunching on the track and the prayers I am saying out loud.

"...release me from the bondage of self so that I might better know thy will..."

The Truth About Fried Things with Cheese

I realize that the things that I write make people uncomfortable. There have been many days when I questioned myself about the foolishness of letting the general public inside my head. Something about future employers and grandchildren sent up warning flags. Yeah, well, that’s nice.

Last Wednesday I went to lunch with my coworkers, gobbled down raw carrots and ate my Healthy-Choice steamer bowl of sodium with broccoli thrown in for colour and went back to my office to eat more stress. I stood up from my desk and I thought, initially, I had a carrot twisted sideways behind my breastbone, just below it. I pushed on the top of my abdomen like I had an infant foot lodged in my ribs (thank you Sarah for that reference). Nope, tubes are tied. My stomach had been swollen for months but I attributed it to discovering I actually had a bulging stomach after my breast reduction last January. My surgeon retorted, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

Audible grunting is not usually a good thing at work, so I walked into my bosses’ office and said, very abruptly, “I think I swallowed a carrot wrong, I have to go now. I’ve called Chris and he’s on this way.” God bless my employers – they are patient people. Then I stood outside on the front porch of my workplace and paced like a panther back and forth, back and forth, rubbing my belly.

I was certain I was having a heart attack.

“You have pain behind the breastbone, radiating toward the back?” the triage nurse eyed me and smiled. “Your blood pressure is pretty good. Do you feel like if you just threw up you’d feel better? How about if you took your bra off, do you feel like you are in a bear hug?” All of the answers were yes. “Yeah, it’s classic gallbladder.” Hallelujah! Ok, now make it stop hurting. I looked at the clock and it was 1:30 p.m. They performed an ECG to make sure that it wasn’t my heart but the pain was so intense they had to do another one because the nurse deemed the first one consisted of scribbles of an unreadable nature. The technician was massaging my arm, “Calm down, think of rivers and streams.” Look lady, I feel like I’ve got a sledgehammer hitting me repeatedly in the gut – YOU think of rivers and streams. Mumbling, “Rivers and streams, beachfront property... Glen Rose... calm, be calm, be calm.”

I thought to myself, “Ok, you’re crazy. You are not having a heart attack. You can’t even do an ECG right and they’re going to look inside you and find out that you’re lying.” My own voice makes my father’s worst days as my critic look genteel in nature. My book’s largest discovery was that I was my biggest abuser and the lesson was unfurling, again, before me.

4:30 p.m. and it’s time for Chris to go get Sarah from school. We’ve sat together in the waiting room. The attack or whatever it has subsided, the nurse asked me what the pain level was between one and ten. “It’s a three,” I countered. Ok, well, that’s it. I’m crazy, the pain is going away, I want to go home now. If I go home then I’ll go back to work and they’ll know I’m crazy. As if that isn’t already up for debate, right?

At around 6 p.m. there’s a cattle call and seven of the lucky contestants get to go to the next waiting room. I’m one of them. I stand up very quickly and realize that I am not doubled over but standing up straight. Maybe I’ll just go now. Twinge. I rubbed my gut, absently, thinking about the email at work that would be piling.

My kingdom for something to read. The nurse handed me a “William and Kate: The Love Story” magazine and I want to tell you that did absolutely nothing for the nausea. Chris had kindly bought me a People magazine but I ate it in ten seconds flat and completed the crossword puzzle shaking my head at probably grade seven complexities. I don’t really care if Catherine Zeta-Jones is bipolar. In fact, I’m sick to death of that word. Is everyone either bipolar or has Aspberger’s?

9:00 p.m. and the rumble begins. I’m now in a room waiting for the doctor to see me and I lean over a bit. This isn’t even a wave. This is an onslaught. “Nurse? Can I get something for the pain?” “Just a little while and he’ll be with you,” she retorts, resuming her conversation on the phone. She’s smiling.

10:30-ish and I’m grunting. I can hear myself sobbing and I feel like I’m four years old. My husband is at home because I’m too proud to tell him I’m frightened and it’s game seven of the NHL playoffs. He’s a Habs fan. “3-2b,” the text message reads. Okay... Habs at 3 and who the hell is “b?” Bruins? “OW son-of-a-bitch” and every expletive I know is chorusing out of my mouth. I’m not shouting, I’m whispering them. Above all else, do not show pain. DO NOT show pain. Ok, heaving and nothing is coming out.

What are these people thinking? I’ve been here since 1:30 this afternoon and I’m in pain. I’m not playing. I’m not looking for drugs. I don’t give a fat rat’s ass about diagnostic process, this hurts! These are the people who are supposed to fix it. SO FIX IT. “Chris? I’ve put my clothes on and we’re going to North Bay or Toronto or somewhere that they can help me. Can you come pick me up before I walk out?” My husband is on his way. The charge nurse is in my room at my request explaining to me that this “is emergency medicine in Canada these days and that there’s an 87 year old woman out in the waiting room...” His mouth is moving, but all I can hear is “Too bad, no soup for you.” He wants to know if I’ll put my gown back on. I’m eyeballing the IV pole in the corner and wondering if I heave it out the door if they’ll stick me with Ativan. I hear myself saying, “I couldn’t pick it up if I wanted to.”

Oh thank God, Chris is here. I’m yelling at my husband and cursing like a woman in labour who has clearly lost control of her senses. “THIS IS YOUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM?” THIS? I might pay for it out the ass but in the States I wouldn’t be standing here ten hours later sobbing. (Of course, the States cost us our home in medical bills but in the middle of that particular night the fact escaped my logic.)

“Please go tell them I can’t do this,” I’m begging my husband; confirming my four-year-old behavioural technique is in progress. Chris goes out and fifteen minutes more of ranting later the doctor appears. He’s asking me about my symptoms. Do you even have a chart? The pain is no longer rational. My mind is no longer rational – it’s just red. I can see the fuzzy edges I used to see long, long ago. Rage. “Well, we’ll send you for some diagnostic testing and...”

After I finished whatever I said to him (and I have to admit to you that I didn’t say it anywhere near what my thoughts were exclaiming); he sent the nurse back with pain meds. Torodol. The nurse rooted around in my right arm looking for a vein and I found that when you are in that much pain IV's no longer hurt. Your body just kind of creates this numbness. It was nice, actually. Switch arms, honey. Then the Torodol pushed me back into the gurney and I became a reasonable, if somewhat dishevelled, human being again.

So what’s the point? I was laying on my back on that gurney and sobbing as she looked for a vein. I realized that the tears weren’t going to stop no matter how hard I tried to hide them. And the tears were humiliation. It wasn’t pain. It was having to beg to be relieved of the pain. Greg’s voice echoed in my memory, “Ben, you never have to tell a fat person they are fat. They carry the weight with them every single day.” I couldn’t tell them I wasn’t a drug addict in search of pain medication. I was a drug addict, twenty-four years ago. What I wanted to scream at them was, “I’m a sober member of a twelve-step program that has spent the last twenty-four years of my waking life facing pain that I caused myself and others. When I come into an ER and I’m grunting – don’t play with me. Don’t shame me. Listen to me because I’ve come about as close to death as I want to and I’m pretty much incapable of harming anyone else but myself. I’m not crazy, I’m a human being.”

It was my gallbladder. Two stones later and four incisions – I’m going back to that ER with this story in hand and stapling it to a wall somewhere. If I still had the organ I would hand it to that nurse.

Made a Decision

I'm up at 1:59 a.m. and I have the kid upstairs to thank for it. I never realized that not getting my sleep was so disturbing to me -- until I wasn't getting it. Funny how perceptions change, isn't it? At 19 years old or 20... being up at 2:00 in the morning meant a really good party was going on. At 23 years old, it meant that Ben wanted his bottle and at 25 years old it meant that Katie wanted hers. I slept pretty well through until age 35 when Sarah came along and then I promptly turned her and her bottle over to her father. At 44 I walked into my employer's office rubbing my eyes going, "what the hell is this?" Turns out a lot of women in their mid-40's aren't sleeping, don't sleep...and they don't die from it either. Who knew?

So, at 45 -- I've made a decision. I'm going to use these sleepless hours to write. Warning: I might write things that make absolutely no sense to anyone but me. Well, hell, isn't that what blogs are for?

I've been reading this book by Iyanla Vanzant called "Peace from Broken Pieces" and when I wrote The Truth About Whales I really thought that my experience would help someone, anyone. When I didn't get the responses that I thought I should, I wondered what the purpose was in the writing, at all. Self-promotion was exhausting and unfulfilling, at best. Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I wrote the book for the one person who needed it the most -- me. This is what I am understanding from Ms. Vanzant's experience. All of the "victimhood" in my life to date has been voluntary and oh my God, if you only knew how shocked I am to have written those words.

In my spiritual journey for this lifetime I have chosen the victim role many times in my living. Sometimes I didn't have much in the way of choice -- until I was 10 or 20 years down the path still reliving what happened. That was my choice.

The greatest, kindest, most difficult and heartbreaking thing my son taught me was that I have no control whatsoever about what happens to another human being. I can be a part of their path, their living, their time here -- but it isn't my business to fix them. That belongs to them -- and in my belief, to God.

No one could have helped me if I hadn't sought it. Even in a stupor I was seeking. Twelve step recovery programs talk a lot about sobriety being a gift. I think that the grace I was given to be breathing up until the minute I found AA was the gift. What happened from 1986 until March 22, 2011 has been about choice. Today, this is what I have learned.

My husband just arrived and told me to go to bed. :)

The Walk

I have the stomach flu and I am irritable and grumpier than usual. I stayed home from work yesterday and slept all day long – it was wonderful and I needed it. This morning I got up, got my clothes out for work, opened the refrigerator door and just about heaved. Picked up the phone and called in sick again.

For those of you who don’t live in Canada, we have walk-in clinics that you can go to if you aren’t feeling well. They’re very convenient, but sometimes you might sit for two hours or more to be able to see the doctor. I just wanted to know if what I had wasn’t an ulcer. So I brought my book and picked up #89, waiting to be called like I was there for take-out.

People watching is my hobby because I believe that there are countless stories in conversations, in the way people sit, in how their bodies move. I watch them all the time and stories swirl in my brain. It’s great entertainment if you don’t have the stomach flu.

I should physically describe myself. I’m 5’1” and I weigh about 220 pounds. On top of that, my hair is spiked, I’ve got black circles under my eyes and when my face has no expression at all, I look surly. People often think I’m angry when I’m not even mildly peeved. It’s kind of embarrassing really because, inside, I’m a ball of emotion and I cry at the drop of a hat...or at least a good GE commercial, anyway.

Sitting in the chair as far away from the door as possible, away from any infants, with my back to the wall – I settled in with my book and was all snugly inside my blanket-coat. Before Christmas, my husband took me coat shopping at the French River Trading Post and I finally got the rainbow-colored sweater coat that I had eyeballed for two years. It’s particularly warm and cozy; and it is so thick that the coat requires its own seat at the movies. Reading, I heard this little boy. He was babbling and singing; fidgeting in his chair and generally being all of 3 or maybe 4 years old. I looked up from my book and smiled in his direction, letting everyone around me know that the surly woman in the gay pride coat was thinking that the little monster was cute. Smile!

Creeping silently back into my book, I tried to concentrate on a paragraph and I heard his mother say, “Stop being so bad! Stop talking to me like that!” He was standing in front of her and she had her hand around his wrist. The younger woman she had with her was trying to circumvent whatever was happening and pulled the boy away to put him on her lap. Then she placed him back on the chair and they played rock, paper, scissors until both of them lost interest. I went back to my book.

“STOP playing with those blinds! I told you to behave...” the mother leaned over him and was face to face, scowling. She didn’t even have the temerity to whisper. Personally, I always used to say to my kids – in a whisper – “If you haven’t realized it yet – you keep behaving that way and sooner or later we’re going to be alone.” Generally, that got their attention right away. The next question in your mind, did I make good on my threat? Stupidly, the answer is yes. More than I would ever care to admit, I promise you.

Ok, so now I’m talking to myself in my head and I’m saying, “SueAnn, this is none of your business. Yes, she grabbed his wrist, yes she twisted it. Yes, she got right in his face...” and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. It was the old fight or flight feeling of “I have to say something. I have to protect him. I have to stand up and deck her properly.” So I continued talking in very stern tones to myself, “You are a grown up. If you deck her it’s called assault. This is socially unacceptable behaviour. And besides, you are that brash American Yank living in Canada where the people are polite and don’t go up and deck bad mommies.” Back to the book... my stomach was doing belly flops in stress acid.

I could feel it. I could feel the little girl in me going, “Be good. Be good and she’ll be nice to you.” Well, yeah, that’s me, and it happened a long, long time ago. And I wrote a book and outted my bad mommy. That isn’t this woman, it’s not today. It’s a memory.

“If you don’t stop what you are doing, I’m going to take you for a walk.” She’s got him by the wrist again and he’s kicking his snow boots at her, not a full out tantrum but he’s scared and not willing to back down. Other people are coughing politely into their hands and looking away. I get up half out of my chair and then sit back down. I’m too angry to do what I want to do. So I sit and watch. I’ve put my book down and I’m looking right at her. I won’t break my stare. I smile. She has no idea what is smiling at her.

Finally, after what seems to be hours, they are called into the office and he walks past me. I want to grab him and say, “Listen – you talk about those walks, ok? You tell everybody within earshot about what happens on those walks. Ok?” And I don’t. I duck my head into my book and lament that I had my chance to say something and it has passed. Admittedly, I feel relief.

The woman, her friend, and that little boy walk out the door. I go into see the doctor and they’re gone from the lobby when I get out. So I’m walking toward the doors between the clinic and the pharmacy and here comes that mother – and she’s alone. I’ve got her now.

“Excuse me? Ma’am? “ My Texas is coming out. “Excuse me?” She turns to look at me and stops, even though she’s in a hurry. She’s young. Her eyes are light green... almost sea green. She has braces. “Erm... well, I couldn’t help but hear what was going on in there and I want you to know that you have a smart little boy. He knows how to push your buttons.” She smiled, “Yes, he’s a handful, he really does.” “Well, ma’am... boys like that will push every button you have if you let them know what they are...and he’s a smart little boy.” She nodded, still smiling, and my heart was calming. I smiled at her again. “But ma’am, one more thing, I have a suggestion. The next time he acts up like that – YOU take the walk by yourself, ok? He doesn’t need any more walks.” She stopped smiling and got the message.

You just never know who is listening in the clinic. You might just end up on YouTube... or at the end of the arm of a 220 pound woman who is walking down memory lane.