Fixing Things. Or Not.

 

Okay.  I am at my wits end.

 

For the record:  I understand that my problems are relatively minor compared to 95% of the rest of the world’s problems.  I know that I should be grateful that many of my problems are fixable; after all, I am fond of saying that if a problem can be fixed with money, then it isn’t much of a problem.

 

It’s easy to say.

 

Frances had to buy a new car last week because her old one was totaled while her mother was driving it.  Our refrigerator just died, and since we weren’t home to tend to it in its final hours you can imagine the stench and mess that greeted us when we came home.

 

My car is acting up and it has 160,000 miles on it and I really don’t want to have to buy a new one.

 

As I see literally thousands of dollars slipping from our grasp in a week, at least I know that we are better off for having fixed things.  Oh that we could just offer up thousands of dollars to mend our hearts.

 

We are heading in to the first holiday season without my mom and her favorite holiday – by far – was Halloween. Our family gathered to bake cookies in her honor last weekend, and the mom-sized hole was a gaping wound that I hadn’t really understood was even there.

 

Frances is back to work after a week of being sick, and that’s wonderful, but I still have lingering concerns about her heath. My nephew has been out of school for almost a month with a concussion – which seems odd to me - and my niece is having some health issues too. So I am concerned for them and for my siblings.

 

A friend is going through a difficult break up.

 

I have too much homework to do for school.

 

Kids are mean to substitutes.

 

Some things aren’t fixable.

 

I know I am ranting. 

 

Thanks for reading.

Heavy on My Heart

 

 

I had to take Frances to to the emergency room this week.  The trip  was hellish.  She was miserable and throwing up and unable to walk, so that was terrible.  But I could have gotten over her symptoms.  The REAL problem, of course, is that it placed me back in a previous trip to the ER when I took Molly for a psych evaluation.  With Molly, we spent the better part of the day waiting to be seen and I was sort of hopeful that we would get a magic pill and all of her problems would go away.  Painfully, I know better now.  I know better.

 

This more recent trip was efficient (in that we were only there four hours), but every second was spent breathing the air of my past naiveté, re-living the fear that we felt as Molly failed and re-anticipating the loss that we ultimately endured.  Just too much.    

 

When neighbors came to visit Frances, who spent days immobile on the couch in our family room watching TV, different memories hovered.   My neighbor, who died last summer, spent the last six months of her life on her couch.  In her family room.  The connection was obvious to our visitors who had also visited her; our houses, after all, are basically the same.  With every visit, there was joy, but no doubt I was re-living the pain, the awkwardness and the stark loss of last summer.

 

Of course, since I spent two months of this year taking care of my dad after the accident that killed my mother, this more recent nurse maid role brought all of that back too.

 

Frances is actually getting better…. after a week away, she’s back to work, and her vertigo is evidently treatable.  I am still reeling.  I have been thrown back into memories that trigger mourning and ignite fear. 

 

After these last three and half years, I am no longer naïve.  I know that the worst that life can hand out will not pass me by.  Most days – most days – I can leave the burden of all of it in God’s hands.  But there are some days – and today is one of them - where there seems to be nowhere for the pain and the uncertainty of life except heavy on my own heart.