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| 21 Weeks |
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| 21 Weeks, 3 Days |
2/28/2015 4:14pm EST
“I’m gonna do the next square.”
“No, Danny. Keep going! You’re about to win!”
“But the square.”
“No, Danny, look! You’re winning!”
“OK. [Danny pushes more buttons. His screen makes more noises.] I did it! Look! Yay!”
“Yeah Danny! Yay! You won again! Good job!”
“Again?”
“Yeah. Mom? Yeah, Danny, again. Mom? Mom. Can I have a coke, Mom?”
Approaching the airport charging station, I see a colorful family of five and remember where I’m headed—Texas. Dad, nice watch, nice iPad. Mom, coiffed, blonde head dotingly tilted on her husband’s shoulder. She scrolls through text messages while ignoring every other “mom” she hears. Big sis oversees little Danny’s game on another screen in his lap. Four-eyed middle kid sits afar with crayons and blank pages. The tower of electricity hovers uselessly over his head.
I park my overstuffed shoulder bags next to a young woman and her dagger nails. She types on the device in her lap and speaks into the device in her palm. “She’ll get sick if there’s too much chicken. Don’t, yeah, don’t do too much.” Dagger nails moves her coffee and her iced tea so I may spread out and plug in. Dead batteries: the new equalizer. I attach my computer to the neon totem and my cell phone to the computer. I make sure the energy symbol starts to rise then sit across from the oasis and wait. I stare at the floor for a while. Stare at the screen above my head for a while. Chuckle when I hear an announcement that the flight we are waiting for has not left—“there’s an error on the monitor and the system needs rebooting.” I wonder about the question that prompted the announcement and what came after. “No m’am. We are not flying right now. You are at the gate waiting to board the plane. I know it says the plane has left but it hasn’t. The system is rebooting. REBOOTING.”
I need rebooting.
My mother needs rebooting.
I blink and watch the little boy exclaim another joyless, loud, “yay” for his newest victory. I’ve been sitting across from him for a total of 180 seconds and I’ve heard this same “yay” at least every thirty of them. How exciting can it be to win every single game? And why is it so important he continue to do so? Is he accruing frequent flyer miles for the flight his entire family is about to board? “Hurry Danny. One of us has to stay behind if you don’t win another round! Go Danny! Win Danny!”
I think about Ren. Will he be a swiper or a scribbler? I secretly hope more of the scribble. By the time he’s old enough to do either, will there be something else? Will we all be sitting around a telepathy station when we fly?
Ren. When do I need to pump again? I check my itinerary that Greg prepared for me only hours ago.
Thank goodness for a husband who cares about details. At home, I felt like a Washington executive as he handed me a credit card and a stack of clipped paperwork, complete with highlighted maps. I continue stuffing random clothes into any bag I can find and run downstairs.
“How many bottles in a day?”
“I think… eight?”
I pull more baggies of frozen breast milk out of the ice box and start calculating the ounces Sharpied on the outside. More good fortune—I’ve been collecting extra breast milk for months now. Ren can do without my presence for at least a couple of days. Me, I will still have to pump every few hours to trick my body into thinking he’s still around.
I blink again. He’s not around. I’m sitting in an airport hundreds of miles away from my five-month-old son. I haven’t been hundreds of seconds away from him since he was conceived. I shake it off. This, what I’m doing, why I’m doing, is important.
Hang in there, Mom.
2/28/2015 7:08pm EST
I think I have HELP ME written into the lines in my forehead. I got a first class seat on the first leg of my journey, I was moved to economy in the exit isle for the second, and because the credit card machine was down, I got a free meal on a plane. What is this—1985? Thank you universe for the air travel kindness. Even the pat down at security felt nice. I haven’t had a hearty vertical back rub since before we became parents. Now, I get a sleepy pat on the neck once a month before Greg and I start to snore on each other. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a glorious neck pat. It’s filled with love. Exhausted love.
The last time I sat on a plane typing away my fears it was six years ago and I was headed to Dallas to check in on my brother. I was worried he was doing a few too many drugs and a few too little family hugs. If I could go back to that visit and show him a vision of today, I wonder if he’d do anything differently. It’s amazing how quickly things can get ugly.
“Take care of your body, you only have one.”
I keep thinking I’m going to pronounce this somewhere of perceived importance. An obvious message to anyone who will listen:
“Be nice to yourself and love yourself because you are your only you and you are only truly responsible for you. You only have yourself to be with you for the rest of you that exists. No one else and nothing else will give you the love you need that has to come from taking care of yourself. Don’t leave it up to other people and other things. Don’t be lazy and don’t be afraid to appear selfish. If you take care of what you need to make yourself happy and healthy, then you’ve done all you can and you will be as happy and as healthy as you can be. And then there is the added bonus of passing on happiness and healthiness to others around you. It’s good for us all if you are good to you. Be compassionate to yourself as well as the other people and things you love. It will be hard. There is no easy fix or path that will give you the happiness only you can know in your gut. Don’t pretend to be happy for the sake of others. It won’t work. Don’t pretend to be happy because you are ashamed of what makes you happy. It won’t work. Don’t lie to yourself and don’t hate yourself. You won’t survive. Find your love of you inside of you. Close your eyes and know what it means to have nothing else but you to be there for you. You are really all there is. And at the same time, that you, that you need to love, is also everyone else. If you practice this and pass this on to others, especially those you teach, you will find the secret to happiness. Loving everything through yourself is the secret to happiness.”
It’s that simple. Very. Simple. So difficult, it’s simple.
Plane is landing. So is my free dinner.
3/1/15 12:34am CST
Oh right. It’s the end of February. The short month.
Muzak plays in a cold parking garage lined with hundreds of brightly lit rental cars. “Pick any car in the economy lot. The keys are in it.” I wonder what would happen if I open doors and start all the cars. What if I take that BMW? What if I drive off in another company’s car? Then I remember everything is automated and loaded with computer chips. Even if I managed to get in the wrong car, they’d probably send a drone to zap me out of my seat. Why is the economy seat desirable on a plane but the cheap chair on the ground? Inches are relative.
I pick out a silver mini something, get in, and look at a map. (Later my brother called it a “suppository.” It fits.) I realize I’m headed to old stomping grounds. I don’t even need directions. I drive past the smiling man in a booth and abruptly stop at the electronic arm blocking me from the road. In my rear view mirror Mr. Smiles is frowning outside his little house and waving both of his little arms. I back up and apologize, blaming the novelty of my experience.
“Your mind is somewhere else.”
“It is. It is.”
“Unusual this snow, yes?”
“It is. It is.”
“Were you supposed to be here yesterday? Did the snow keep you away?”
“Oh no. I was supposed to be here today.”
Unfortunately.
I head to the hotel in the ice and snow. I have never seen a snowflake in Dallas, Texas and my mother is dying.
3/1/15 9:14am CST
Leaving for the hospital.
I’m afraid.
3/2/15 7:32pm CST
Mom
Voice Mail
Listen | Close
In Chicago, we taxi toward take off. I look around, quickly remove the airplane setting on my phone and hit listen. In the silence, I remember. This isn’t going to be her. She can't speak. I hear her voice in my head. I'm already haunted. I want to be haunted. I want her to come back and tell me her secrets. I hear a familiar voice: “Heeeey. It’s your— Hold on. It’s— Hey. It’s your brother. I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before Ms. Thaaaaang. I need a hair model for my interview tomorrow. It’s you! Be my hair model. Call me if you’re back. It’s at 1:45p.”
We all grieve differently.
I left the hospital last night with my brother. We held hands over mom, with mom. A twisted ‘ring-around-the-rosy.’ Then Matt and I looked up and into each other’s eyes and giggled. I’m not sure why. He told me about his new boyfriend and pulled on my hair, telling me how awful it looked. “It’s called a comb.” I look at the time and see there is about ten minutes left before they will ask us to leave. No visitors after 10pm. I had gotten there at 9:30am. I went to say goodbye and I did. I wanted to stay and I didn’t. I’ve got to get back to Ren and Greg and figure out how to do this—this weird thing of being around death from afar—with my son and my husband near me and with actual luggage and clean underwear. I had packed for this trip in twenty minutes. I’m now carrying a garbage bag full of breast milk. I begged it, sans the breast milk of course, off an O’Hare porter in the ladies room after a TSA inspection busted a few of the Ziplocks I was using to for milk storage.
I am a walking Saturday Night Live sketch on the Devil’s TV.
3/4/15 6:59pm EST
I woke up in the middle of the night last night dreaming my body was covered in yellow jackets and each of them penetrated my skin. It didn’t sting, it ached, and when I woke the pain was still there. Then I remembered why. This is what a broken heart feels like. This is grief. Dark and sticky. The stuff of vomit and a numbness not worth the experience.
Ren was born five months ago today. He never met his Grandma.
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