Lately I have been deluged with stories of untimely passing.
Of course, the most prominent one was the tragedy in Boston at the marathon. I used to think about that event as such a whimsical, terrific party. Runners in their "Wicked Pissah" shirts from a past race year worn as a badge of honor. Crowds of Red Sox fans leaving that day's game to walk down the street and cheer on the runners. A few people staging their own type of marathon in the local bahs. What a wonderful way to celebrate Patriot's Day, now marred with shrapnel that finds its way into the tissue and sinew of the tradition, maiming it. Loved ones hurt terribly, limbs amputated, or even dead, just for loving their runners and loving the run.
But that wasn't the only instance. Just Sunday, I ran across a post on Facebook--I think it was "liked" by a friend, but I can't even remember which one--about a mom and dad who were spending the last days with their five-and-a-half-year-old son after he was pronounced brain-dead. I started reading their story, and I just couldn't stop. He had a number of health issues related to a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy, and at this point in his life he suffered from major cardiac arrest. His mom and dad held him, still breathing, for several days while they found recipients for some of his organs. What a wonderful vigil--holding, caressing, and sleeping next to your son up until the very moment that he can be a hero to some excited, hopeful family. On Monday, at 2:45 (as in just minutes before the Boston bombing) their Facebook page reported that they walked him down to the OR, where they said their final goodbye. Doctors, nurses and social workers clapped.
The Friday before, another one of our SMA angels in Texas got her wings, a beautiful little girl named Savannah. I didn't know her parents personally, but I knew about their daughter through posts from Families of SMA about a run held near Houston every year that is named after (Savannah Smiles) to raise money for SMA research. She was just a few months older than Dylan and would have turned three in June.
There have been others, too, since Dylan died--but the dates were spread out. I at least had time to reflect, to pray, to collect myself in between. But these latest events occurred in a three-day span that also preceded my participating today in a class exercise on death and dying with first-year medical students. So I have felt immersed in my topic. And, I met yet another mom today--a participant--who still grieves her three-year-old angel.
I guess what I think is salient here--what I don't want to forget, and what I wish everyone knew--is that there is a literal army of parents handing their children up to God and falling to their knees, every day. Simultaneously at any given moment, someone is saying goodbye to their child, either because of a tragedy with no warning, or a disease that affects your child's genes and severely limits their lifespan and abilities, or a number of other reasons, none making any sense.
In my case and those like mine, I wonder every day, what happens to dragon moms when their little ones no longer require their fierce protection?
That's what grieving is all about, it seems. Finding a new purpose. I have struggled with this one for almost six months. Sure, some of them are easy to identify--continue to be a friend, a wife, and if you're lucky, a mother to the survivors. Heal yourself and your loved ones, for the day when joy returns and you can breathe differently. Thank God for the exquisite experience, even though you're sad and angry as hell. Pray for the dying and their mothers, their siblings, their fathers, their children. Donate the clothes that are left, the medical supplies, the time you now have.
I don't know what else I will do yet to carry on Dylan's memory. But today I offered my story, breaking down and sniveling, to twenty-something med-school students in their pristine white coats, so that they may possibly be the least bit prepared for the first time a parent weeps and snivels in anguish on them.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Stronger than you think
I was nursing nasty bruises, skinned surfaces and scabbed-over cuts for more than a week.
I took a self-defense class at one of the local Krav Maga studios a couple of weeks ago, which is where I acquired my wounds. One big cut on my elbow, bruises up and down my arms, big string of bruises on my left leg, some scratches. Oh, yeah--I also had a big scab on the heel of my right hand, which I got tripping on the sidewalk in front of my work three days earlier. It got opened up pretty nicely again at the class. I looked like I had joined a fight club.
This class was a three-hour session that worked my every muscle. We learned how to break a chokehold and bend back an attacker's wrist; how to protect your face while throwing a palm or elbow at your attacker's nose; how to grab your attacker on the meaty part of his tricep and shoulder, dig your nails in, and pull him toward you to knee his groin; how to take advantage of the mere milliseconds a man needs to unzip his pants, before raping you, to scoot back and kick his face. We practiced these moves with our partners and with bags typically used for martial arts and boxing training. Then we had to fight off attackers in staged scenarios.
I didn't get cut or bruised because these men were unusually rough, or because the class was conducted recklessly or irresponsibly. I got cut because I went to town on my pretend attackers.
If we had to hit a practice bag with the heels of our hands, I hit the bag until one of my hands was bleeding and needed to be wrapped up. I elbowed the bag until my skin was raw. I banged my attacker's head into the ground (again, the bag) violently, my whole body straddling the bag, hair flying, until I dripped sweat into the pretend attacker's pretend eyes (if, of course, by some miracle they would still have been open). On my three staged attacks, not one of the men took me down to the ground.
Rape survivors are encouraged to take these classes to regain a feeling of power over their own bodies. Many were there that day, sometimes having to turn, shaking and in tears, to counselors in attendance from the Rape Crisis Center after a drill.
I am lucky enough to say I have never been raped. But Lord knows I have felt powerless.
It has been too long since I have felt powerful. I wouldn't even to try to recall it--the last time I felt, frankly, like a bad-ass. Maybe never. And it wasn't an isolated feeling--it was mixed with fear, and hypervigilance, and adrenalin, and anger, and fatigue, and sadness for the women around me who had survived unspeakable violations. The combination of those feelings actually concocted my power. I have experienced these feelings, in various combinations, more than my share of times over the past couple of years. But never did I feel empowered.
This time was different, because self-defense is based on the idea that if you just keep fighting, you can change the outcome. That's what creates the power--influence over the outcome. That is what made those bruises such badges of honor, what had me so ramped up with excitement after the class. Over the last couple of years, power had been drained from my body because all that I did was useless to change the outcome.
The class restored me. And it opened me up, much like my tiny injuries.
When you have survived something tragic, like the loss of your son, you kinda want everyone to see those bruises and know that you're still walking around.
I took a self-defense class at one of the local Krav Maga studios a couple of weeks ago, which is where I acquired my wounds. One big cut on my elbow, bruises up and down my arms, big string of bruises on my left leg, some scratches. Oh, yeah--I also had a big scab on the heel of my right hand, which I got tripping on the sidewalk in front of my work three days earlier. It got opened up pretty nicely again at the class. I looked like I had joined a fight club.
This class was a three-hour session that worked my every muscle. We learned how to break a chokehold and bend back an attacker's wrist; how to protect your face while throwing a palm or elbow at your attacker's nose; how to grab your attacker on the meaty part of his tricep and shoulder, dig your nails in, and pull him toward you to knee his groin; how to take advantage of the mere milliseconds a man needs to unzip his pants, before raping you, to scoot back and kick his face. We practiced these moves with our partners and with bags typically used for martial arts and boxing training. Then we had to fight off attackers in staged scenarios.
I didn't get cut or bruised because these men were unusually rough, or because the class was conducted recklessly or irresponsibly. I got cut because I went to town on my pretend attackers.
If we had to hit a practice bag with the heels of our hands, I hit the bag until one of my hands was bleeding and needed to be wrapped up. I elbowed the bag until my skin was raw. I banged my attacker's head into the ground (again, the bag) violently, my whole body straddling the bag, hair flying, until I dripped sweat into the pretend attacker's pretend eyes (if, of course, by some miracle they would still have been open). On my three staged attacks, not one of the men took me down to the ground.
Rape survivors are encouraged to take these classes to regain a feeling of power over their own bodies. Many were there that day, sometimes having to turn, shaking and in tears, to counselors in attendance from the Rape Crisis Center after a drill.
I am lucky enough to say I have never been raped. But Lord knows I have felt powerless.
It has been too long since I have felt powerful. I wouldn't even to try to recall it--the last time I felt, frankly, like a bad-ass. Maybe never. And it wasn't an isolated feeling--it was mixed with fear, and hypervigilance, and adrenalin, and anger, and fatigue, and sadness for the women around me who had survived unspeakable violations. The combination of those feelings actually concocted my power. I have experienced these feelings, in various combinations, more than my share of times over the past couple of years. But never did I feel empowered.
This time was different, because self-defense is based on the idea that if you just keep fighting, you can change the outcome. That's what creates the power--influence over the outcome. That is what made those bruises such badges of honor, what had me so ramped up with excitement after the class. Over the last couple of years, power had been drained from my body because all that I did was useless to change the outcome.
The class restored me. And it opened me up, much like my tiny injuries.
When you have survived something tragic, like the loss of your son, you kinda want everyone to see those bruises and know that you're still walking around.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Dylan's Room, 10:30 p.m.
The most gaping void I feel now, with Dylan gone, opens wide at night.
I know that if I've gone too long without allowing myself to really feel how much I miss him, I'll end up in his room. I can still picture the crib, the oxygen concentrator at the door, humming. I can still see the wheeled cart where we kept his IPV, cough machine, suction machine and nebulizer. I can still picture him sleeping peacefully, unmoving, with his Pixi on (his nose mask for the bipap respirator) and a faint blue light emanating from the bipap. And the numbers on the pulse oximeter above, sitting on the dresser. Those ever-present numbers. Heart rate, in red, well under 100. Oxygen, in green, well above 96. That was the sweet spot.
But the room is nearly empty now. Dylan's most cherished belongings are neatly packed in a plastic tub of green, his favorite color. A few cases of Pediasure await donation, as soon as I can find a home. There is nothing left but a rocking chair, some Snoopy decals on the walls, and his favorite dolls--doggy, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet--sitting on the empty dresser. The ticking of the wall clock, which we hung so that we could time his treatments, is deafeningly loud, something I never heard when all the machinery was on.
I feel the need to stand in those places, to remember the steps I took. Every night I set the syringes of medicine and a water flush on the nightstand, wheeled the feeding pump in, bag loaded, and plugged it into the wall. I would place my phone at the head of the crib so I could play Words With Friends with one hand and hold the face mask in place with the other during the IPV treatment. I plunged the meds into his feeding tube, then flushed it with water, then started his slow overnight feed. Next were his respiratory treatments--IPV for 15 minutes with saline, then five sets of five coughs. Then we were done, and I replaced the Pixi mask, kissed his forehead, and turned on the bipap and O2 concentrator in a series of swift movements so that he would go back to sleep quickly. Every night without fail, he would take an audible breath in when I replaced the Pixi--a sort of reverse sigh of relief--because he knew he was safe to fall back asleep. The numbers of the pulse oximeter would fall into the sweet spot within a few seconds as I stood at the door.
Those times were just his and mine. He slept through most of it; he would whimper a little when I removed his mask, acknowledging that he knew what was about to start, but then settled down as soon as I started the IPV. I admit that some nights, as I prepared the feeding pump and drew the meds while catching a few minutes of TV, I felt ambivalent about the duty. There was so little down time between Colin's bedtime ritual and Dylan's nighttime treatment that I felt as if there was to time to breathe myself. But once I got in and sat down by his crib, all of that stress-induced irritation went away. I could just be with him, quietly caring for his lungs, giving him his nutrition, repositioning his body, kissing his forehead, getting a whiff of his shampooed hair and skin. My favorite work.
Since I can no longer reach in to his crib, remove his mask, kiss him, hold his feet in my hands, or smell his smell, I sit down in the rocking chair to hug his Pooh Bear and cry hard, purposeful tears, my penance for emptying his room of its contents.
I know that if I've gone too long without allowing myself to really feel how much I miss him, I'll end up in his room. I can still picture the crib, the oxygen concentrator at the door, humming. I can still see the wheeled cart where we kept his IPV, cough machine, suction machine and nebulizer. I can still picture him sleeping peacefully, unmoving, with his Pixi on (his nose mask for the bipap respirator) and a faint blue light emanating from the bipap. And the numbers on the pulse oximeter above, sitting on the dresser. Those ever-present numbers. Heart rate, in red, well under 100. Oxygen, in green, well above 96. That was the sweet spot.
But the room is nearly empty now. Dylan's most cherished belongings are neatly packed in a plastic tub of green, his favorite color. A few cases of Pediasure await donation, as soon as I can find a home. There is nothing left but a rocking chair, some Snoopy decals on the walls, and his favorite dolls--doggy, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet--sitting on the empty dresser. The ticking of the wall clock, which we hung so that we could time his treatments, is deafeningly loud, something I never heard when all the machinery was on.
I feel the need to stand in those places, to remember the steps I took. Every night I set the syringes of medicine and a water flush on the nightstand, wheeled the feeding pump in, bag loaded, and plugged it into the wall. I would place my phone at the head of the crib so I could play Words With Friends with one hand and hold the face mask in place with the other during the IPV treatment. I plunged the meds into his feeding tube, then flushed it with water, then started his slow overnight feed. Next were his respiratory treatments--IPV for 15 minutes with saline, then five sets of five coughs. Then we were done, and I replaced the Pixi mask, kissed his forehead, and turned on the bipap and O2 concentrator in a series of swift movements so that he would go back to sleep quickly. Every night without fail, he would take an audible breath in when I replaced the Pixi--a sort of reverse sigh of relief--because he knew he was safe to fall back asleep. The numbers of the pulse oximeter would fall into the sweet spot within a few seconds as I stood at the door.
Those times were just his and mine. He slept through most of it; he would whimper a little when I removed his mask, acknowledging that he knew what was about to start, but then settled down as soon as I started the IPV. I admit that some nights, as I prepared the feeding pump and drew the meds while catching a few minutes of TV, I felt ambivalent about the duty. There was so little down time between Colin's bedtime ritual and Dylan's nighttime treatment that I felt as if there was to time to breathe myself. But once I got in and sat down by his crib, all of that stress-induced irritation went away. I could just be with him, quietly caring for his lungs, giving him his nutrition, repositioning his body, kissing his forehead, getting a whiff of his shampooed hair and skin. My favorite work.
Since I can no longer reach in to his crib, remove his mask, kiss him, hold his feet in my hands, or smell his smell, I sit down in the rocking chair to hug his Pooh Bear and cry hard, purposeful tears, my penance for emptying his room of its contents.
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