The latest in the Lincoln Rhyme series, The Twelfth Card is a good suspense/thriller. There are a couple of nice misdirections and plot twists to keep you guessing.
Rating: Good page turner
Today has been a particularly tough day. I feel defeated on all fronts, and it feels like there is no where to turn for relief or even respite.
After lunch I took one of the team leads aside at work and admitted to him that due to my emotional situation I was not making much progress on my assignments. Keeping focused for more than a few minutes is almost impossible for me now, and finding motivation in an environment my seemingly healthy colleagues find stressful, is not happening. He was very understanding and we agreed that there are some more rote tasks I can tackle while people with a spark left in them take on the more creative tasks. I felt utterly defeated to admit that I’m not getting my work done. Moreover I feel like I’m letting a lot of people down. Michele would counsel me that it took a lot of strength and courage to face this truth and share it with others, especially at work. While that mitigates my pain somewhat, I still can’t help but feel like I’ve failed.
A few minutes ago I spoke to my father and learned that my mom is losing ground faster now. She slept most of the day yesterday and is unable to get around with the cane anymore. She can get by with the walker but only just. Hospice is coming in the morning to evaluate her and to lay in a supply of pain medications to combat the increasing levels of pain mom is having. I’m too tired emotional and physically to make another trip this weekend, which means I have to accept the possibility that last weekend’s visit was the last time I might see her alive. I’ve known all spring that one of these trips would be the last one. While I am prepared to accept that, and I have made my peace with her, I am not at all ready for the new onslaught of emotion that will come with her death.
I just want to collapse in bed and cry. I don’t want to talk to anyone and yet I want people to call so I won’t be alone. I need the structure of work to keep me going but I can’t stand being there, and I feel like I’m breaking all the rules when I just sit and stare at my screen for hours at a time. I want to go to Decatur to be with my mom, and I don’t want to see her like this anymore. I want Michele to be here to comfort me and hold me and make it okay. I am spent, worn out, and exhausted.
Rating: Good suspense, nice plot twists, worth a read
Last month I blundered and ordered a new phone from Amazon before determining if I could transfer my existing cell phone account to it. The terms of the offer, when I bothered to read them, specifically said the phone was for new service only. As soon as the phone arrived I return shipped it to Amazon; without even opening the box. It turns out that returning the phone and canceling the order did not trigger a cancel transaction at Cingular as I got a bill for the new phone number in the mail today.
Calling 611 resolved the issue but not until I had been subjected to over fifteen minutes of marketing propaganda while on ignore. To my way of thinking there are several levels of “Please wait for the next available service representative” hell.
Level 1: Dead Air While you can’t always tell if you’ve been inadvertently cut off, at least you don’t have to listen to incipient music, or worse marketing hype.
Level 2: Music This level really breaks down into two sub-levels: music that you can at least tolerate, and music that should be used in those illegal torture locations the US has scattered around the world. If I had wanted to listen to crappy elevator music I’d have gone to Wal-mart.
Level 3: “Please continue to hold as calls are answered in the order received” This really isn’t a level as much as it is an extra lobbed into the other levels just to make you think a human has come on to the line to assist you. Every 15 or 30 or 60 seconds the dead air/crappy music stops and you think, “It’s finally my turn!” only to realize you’ve been duped again.
Level 4: Propaganda The worst of the the levels of “I’m-being-punished-for-needing-your-services” hell is the marketing loop. A cheery voice tells you over and over again about all the great services they offer and how you can solve all your problems simply by visiting their web site. Over and over again. Usually the loop has randomly placed gaps to make you think the connection to a live person is going through; but it’s just the propaganda reel restarting.
Marketing hype, crappy music, and stupid please continue to hold messages do not equal customer service.
When I was still active in the martial arts we had a saying to describe those people who joined, attended a few classes and then stopped coming to the dojo. We said that the dojo was an organism, and like all living organisms it rejected that which was foreign. This was not to say that the people who tried karate for a few weeks and then stopped were in any way bad or less than, it was merely a verbal shorthand to recognize that not all people fit into all situations; that there are times when you feel like you belong and times when you don’t.
For several weeks now I have been attending two different suicide support groups. The first one I discovered is located about forty minutes drive from where I live, the second one is much closer; perhaps only ten minutes away. While I felt immediately connected and welcome at the first group, I have never felt entirely comfortable at the second. It’s nothing specific I can put my finger on, but I am never satisfied after attending group two the way I am after being at group one. Each group has it’s own flavor, distilled from the values, ideas, emotions, and verbalization’s brought to the group by its members.
Knowing that groups are living organisms I understand that in the case of the second group I am the foreign body, and that the organism is rejecting me. Not the people, but the sum of the group’s attitudes towards suicide, grief, and the road back towards sanity. I compounded this issue by allowing myself to become involved in the larger mechanics of the organization behind the group. I’m not at all ready for commitments like creating a website for the group. Further I feel it creates a “dual relationship” for me as the driving members of the organization are the group moderators. I need for the group to be just the group, not the group and the organization. I didn’t attend the meeting two weeks ago, largely because of my outstanding commitment to the organization, and I am already planning on not attending this evening for the same reason. Allowing the organization to interfere with my return to better mental health is not a good idea.
So I have contacted the group/organization leader and withdrawn my support for creating a website for the organization. Having at least acknowledged this part of my reluctance to attend is a good step forward. Now I can focus on whether I truly feel good about being a member of the group and decide to continue attending, or not, based solely on how my emotional needs are being met.
Every night, before we would go to sleep, MIchele and I said good night to each other. Over the course of our marriage this ritual became a bookend on the day. Even on those rare occasions when we didn’t go to bed at the same time we shared our good nights with each other. In the months since her death I have continued to say out loud, in the dark, my portion of the good nights. In my mind and sometimes in my heart I can hear her good nights to me. I have found comfort in this simple ritual, the context is from a time when I wasn’t grieving and filled with sorrow. For a few seconds I can escape the pain and torment that follows me around like a my shadow.
Some nights I don’t hear her response, something about the context I’m trying to recreate isn’t right and so the memory trick doesn’t work. It is always depressing when this happens as I feel farther away than ever from her. I know that over time, no matter how hard I try to keep the context fresh in my mind, that the sound of her voice will fade and I will lose another part of her.
The death of a loved one is merely the first step on a lifetime path of little deaths. Everyday you remember something that brings the loss back into sharp focus. Everyday you forget something, or lose touch with a piece of your missing loved one. Each of these events is another death. Another instance where your loved one dies for you. Your memories of them die, your connection to that part of you that was alive around them dies. A friend of mine who quit smoking once said that every so often a situation would arise that brought back the urge to smoke. She would stumble across a context where that habit had played a part. She went on to say that after popping the bubble of that context by not indulging the habit, that it would go away and not return when the context did.
My fear is that my memories of Michele, the contexts where I still hear her voice, or see her beautiful smile are going to go away too. It has been thirty-three years since my sister died and I have almost no recollection of her. Not of her alive, just pictures, and memories of memories. Knowing that eventually my memories of Michele will fade and disappear too, is awful to realize.
As expected the oncologist discontinued my mother’s chemotherapy today. The regimen was only killing her blood and not impacting the tumor. Or should I say tumors, as the latest CAT scan revealed at least two.
The transition to hospice begins now, perhaps with slight detours for radiation treatments to ameliorate pain. No one knows how long she will remain alive now.
Time is both precious and cruel.
Lately I’ve been feeling tired all the time. For the first time in years I am having trouble getting to sleep. In the weeks that immediately followed Michele’s death I was having trouble sleeping through the night. I’d get to sleep without any difficulty only to wake in the early hours of the morning, unable to get back to sleep. I never had to resort to sleeping aids but it did leave me feeling run down all the time. Eventually I started sleeping through the night and I began to feel less tired all the time.
All of this has changed in the past few weeks as I’ve started having insomnia again. This time I fall asleep only to wake up in twenty or thirty minutes. This cycle repeats itself over and over until I get frustrated and just get up. Usually sitting up for an hour or so makes me drowsy enough to fall asleep and not wake up. Unfortunately, between the sitting up and the sleeplessness prior I am only getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night now. I’ve tried napping in the late afternoon when I get home from work, thinking that an hour’s sleep will leave me less exhausted when I want to go to bed, and more apt to sleep without waking. This doesn’t always work, and the accumulation of sleepless nights is starting to take its toll. I’m achy and tired all the time, with no energy or drive at all.
So tonight I’ll dip into the Tylenol PM supply and see if I can’t get a full night’s sleep for a change. I hate to have to take drugs to sleep but if I don’t get caught up soon I am afraid that my physical condition will deteriorate leaving me wide open for colds or other maladies.