Monthly Archives: October 2014

Trick or Treat

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Jackie and I threw a Halloween bash complete with a pumpkin carving contest.  We were two months into our new jobs at First City National Bank in Houston following grad school. It’s hard to top the years we spent in Austin, but those first months in the training program at First City were a close second.  It was a twenty something’s paradise. Camaraderie, intellectual stimulation, nightly happy hours and a paycheck.  What more could you ask for?

We rented a house close to Memorial Park.  It was our first year as grown ups in the working world. But we still had one foot in our youth, unwilling to take ourselves too seriously.  We didn’t need much excuse to throw a party and gladly shared our spacious digs with friends and acquaintances.  On Halloween, we had a party and invited all of our friends, old and new.  There were UT friends living in Houston, friends who came in from Austin and Dallas, and of course, all of our new First City friends.  It was a wild party. Risher won the best costume, coming as Beethoven’s fifth. He wore tails, with a fifth of bourbon attached to his head.

The next day, our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Howdeshell, rang the doorbell. My first thought was that she was there to complain about the party. Then I saw the pie in her hands.   For us? How sweet. We chatted a while. The usual neighborhood gossip, and I thanked her for the pie. She told me she was glad to do it. After all, we were the reason she had so much pumpkin. She had found the discarded  jack ‘o lanterns from our carving contest. They were in our trash can by the side of the house.  I tried to keep a straight face. It was, after all, pretty resourceful. You know how that generation is.  Having lived through the depression and all.

halloweenparty1982

For Better or Worse

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We’ve been through this drill a dozen times before.  Don’t eat or drink after midnight. Get up before dawn.  Do not drink coffee. Do not eat bagel. At least for me. ugh.  Rick drives us ten minutes to the Texas Medical Center. We valet.  It’s the only way to go. We head straight to Dunn Tower, tenth floor.  We’re on auto pilot. We know the way. Rick even gives directions to an older lady pushing her husband in a wheel chair.  And so it begins. The hurry up and wait.

I’m a lucky girl in so many ways.  So many countless ways.  I live down the street from three hospitals that each have world class heart tranplant units.  We have good health insurance.  We have enough money.  I have few responsibilities to worry about.  I have emotional and spiritual support.  And I have Rick.  My secret weapon.  My everything.

He was already trained for the job when I met him. It was one of the things that attracted me to him, but also something I never dreamed I would need. Along with his brothers, he nursed both of his parents through prolonged illnesses when he was in his early twenties. Most of the heavy lifting was before I met him, but seeing him interact with his invalid mother convinced me that this is the man I want to spend my life with.  He showed compassion without pity. Not many people can do that. He also demonstrated something else that I value, a keen sense of obligation and duty. That is necessary when the magic wears off and anyone who’s been married longer than ten minutes knows that it does wear off.

Yesterday was a day of tests.  Artery pressure tests and a myocardial biopsy in the morning and an echo cardiogram in the afternoon.  Mostly it was the in between parts. The waiting in one room or another.  It’s boring.  But Rick does not complain.  He takes off work and he sits quietly by my side.  We are not big talkers. Never have been.  But he’s there. With me.  He tells the nurse not to start the IV in my hand.  I prefer the forearm.  It hurts less. He warns them about my low blood pressure.  He writes down verbatim what the doctor tells him about my tests. He waits.

And it fucking breaks my heart.  This man does not deserve to go through this again. He’s already served his time. But he does it and he does not complain. Ever. In addition to doctor duty, he has had to adjust his life to living without me. He’s lost his best pal, his drinking buddy, his hiking companion, his golf partner.  He watches TV at night because I’m not interested in going out. But he does not complain.  He will hear nothing of it. He’ll get mad when he reads this post.  But I don’t care.  I hate it.  I hate what this disease is doing to him as much as I hate what it’s doing to me.  But this is what life has dealt us.  And we take it.  One day at a time. Together.

 

 

Heaven is a Fat Black Woman

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As part of my journey in living with heart failure, I have been open to all sorts of suggestions. So far, I’ve gone back to my therapist, I’ve attended a support group, I am working out three times a week with a trainer. I am trying to eat well, thank goodness I already quit drinking, I am praying and being prayed for, I am trying to do a better job at staying in the Word, and I have dabbled in meditation. It is actually quite effective if I can just do it.

Today the meditation exercise was to envision an experience which conjures up heavenly feelings that you can go back to when you need to go to your happy place. (I’m assuming without the aid of mind altering substances.)  It gave numerous suggestions and I went through various alternatives in my mind. First, I saw myself hiking up a mountain on the coast of the Monterey Peninsula, triumphantly looking out over the coastline. Next, I sipped a glass of wine while eating new lamb in the English Lake District. Lastly, I basked in the glow of the sun, something I haven’t done since we found out about skin cancer, while listening to live music. These are all things I’ve done in the past and can no longer do. While they are incredible experiences that I miss like crazy, none quite embodies the sense of nirvana I was going for.

Then it hit me. It was two years ago.  It was more of a sensation than an experience. It was a place of comfort and safety and compassion that I’ve never felt before or since. A feeling I wish I could bottle. And it happened, of all times, on the very day my father died. And the bearer of all these heavenly feelings was a woman I barely knew….Dorothy.

She was one of Dad’s two sitters during his last ten days when we brought him home to die. These sitters are gifts from God. Angels who know what death looks like and they help not only the patient, but the family, transition from this world into the next. Rick has an expression he uses to describe pleasantly plump people – they are built for comfort, not for speed. Dorothy was built for comfort. She had the 7 am to 7 pm shift. The shift while we were all awake. Janice had the nighttime shift. It worked out well, because Janice was not a people person. She cleaned out the refrigerator and talked on the phone. Dorothy, on the other hand, instantly became part of the family. She was fat, talkative, motherly, comforting, unafraid and funny. She told hysterical stories of other families that she had worked for that made us look like the Cleavers. When we were no longer on speaking terms with Dad’s girlfriend, she ran interference for us. She’s seen it all, the obnoxious stuff that happens when a family’s fiber is stretched beyond the breaking point.

Okay, back to heaven. When I heard the guys from the funeral home ring the doorbell, I ran down the stairs to say one last good-bye to Dad. By the time I got there, they had already zipped him into a body bag. I burst into sobbing, heaving, snotty tears and collapsed into Dorothy’s arms. This woman I had known for only ten days. I don’t have much experience with fat people or with hugs, but I tell you what, being enveloped in those arms and burying my head in her hefty bosom was a feeling I will never, ever forget.  It was the safest place I’ve ever been. It was heaven.