"Through Birds" 5/1/17
My dad died this January.
A half an hour after I left his bedside. I had just been there, as I’d been the
last three nights, alone, crying, and listening to his labored, irregular
breathing. When I got the call that he had died my immediate instinct was to
drop everything and walk, to pump my legs outside and circulate this reality
through every part of my body, allowing the grief to affect me the way grief
does, with its schoolyard bully blatant disregard, beating you up and
abandoning you, broken and confused.
It was nighttime, and I
remember the clouds were sort of wispy and transparent, gliding across the moon
in sheets and layers, and I kept my head up, tears streaming. It was like I was
looking for a sign from him – an owl, a shooting star, some night creature that
might cross my path and give me a sign that Dad had taken a new form. I walked
for 90 minutes and returned home wet-faced and needing the toilet.
One month after Dad’s death,
my dear mother, already chronically ill with lupus, had a stroke and wound up
in the ICU with bleeding lungs. The grip of shock took hold of me, swept me up
in its disorienting momentum, and forced me to intimately connect with a
plethora of doctors and nurses. Mom needed a tube inserted into her trachea to
assist her in breathing and slowly the blood was suctioned out of her lungs.
Additionally, because she had not eaten since the stroke, she was given a
feeding tube that delivered a custom paste directly to her stomach. The
reality of her grim prognosis would sit on my chest at night, when the busyness
of my day – teaching classes, caring for my two children, and managing my
mother’s affairs – was behind me, and my body was physically still. How can
she cope with those tubes down her throat? How can she smile, nod, and maintain
the sparkle in her eyes that tells me she is remarkably OK? And what can I do
for her to break up the monotony of day after day of jail-like imprisonment:
IVs in her arms, catheter in her urethra, and at night, constraints around her
tiny wrists that prevented her from pulling at the respirator during sleep.
I thought of Colin from
The Secret Garden and young Robert Louis Stevenson, both bed-ridden and dependent
on others for care and stimulation. I brought Mom fragments of the outside
world, and slowly – miraculously – she improved.
It has been two months since
Mom’s stroke and three since Dad’s death, and Mom is back in the hospital, as
frail and precious as a tiny hatchling. The terrifying part is I’m not sure she’ll
make it through the year, so my visits with her have taken on a new intensity. When
I enter her room I open my senses wide, expectant, ready to capture the nuances
of our every exchange. I talk to her about the things I’m doing – the
exhibitions I’ve attended, the projects I’ve worked on with my students – and I
listen to her responses - really
listen. I watch her glassy eyes, the way they shine and widen with interest,
the way they move to things she wants but can’t reach or can’t pick up with her
crippled hands – and I respond to her. I smile, I pick things up for her, or I
get up and ask the nurse for things I dare not fiddle with myself. The outside world is urgent and rushed, but
in here with Mom, time stands still.
I am 41 years old and my
hair is turning gray. I often feel like my nerves are bristling and my head
isn’t screwed on right. Sometimes I want more than anything to regress, to become
childlike, vulnerable, and needy. But I am a rebel by nature, and I’ve become
quite strong. So defiantly, I keep myself sane and self-aware, and with the new
wisdom I’ve earned I now see the well-concealed bright side of tragedy and
loss. After spending hours and hours in hospitals and nursing homes, talking
with the sick, the old, and the dying, and on the other end of the spectrum
working with hundreds of vibrant and creative children, I’ve been given the
gift of perspective. The lives that have touched me are powerful, and I’ve
learned to slow down and let it all in. What better gift can we give someone
than the gift of our full attention?
I unwind by walking the
trails by my house. I keep my head up toward the swaying trees, the busy birds,
and I look for signs of my father. I swear he visits me through birds. So when
a crow glides deliberately across my path, or a bird sings its heart out from
the top of nearby a tree, I say, “Hi Dad,” and my eyes fill up with tears.
