On Thursday, August 7, 2014, I post in my blog: it's Day 51 of the 100-day quarantine. That Sunday, Day 54, someone at church, (I'm grateful I don't remember who it was, so I harbor no ill will towards anyone specifically), tells me to cheer up: we're more than halfway through.
On Tuesday, August 12th, the blood work looks good: the white blood cell count has risen from 2 to 3.7. But that evening the transplant doctor, Dr. Chen, phones after hours (always a bad sign). 30% of the cells are leukemic blasts. (Spoiler alert: exactly one year later, to the day, David will be dead.)
August 9, 2016
Dreary, slow morning. Mourning. I’m not conscious of thinking about David as I wake up. Even when I think, “oh, this is grief”, it’s diffuse. It seems like the flu, like a physical illness that has no emotional cause; it just is.
Yesterday I added David’s obituary to FamilySearch, the online family history website, as well as his May 6, 2011 photo, taken at Peter’s and Xiomara’s NYC wedding, where he pronounced himself “extremely presentable”. When I get on my computer this morning, there’s his face, smiling directly at me. I have to close the file; he looks too alive.
Last evening someone asked me, “How are you doing?” I sense that she doesn’t really want an emotional weather report; she has major concerns of her own. But I decide to give voice to my feelings, or at least my situation. “Well, David’s death anniversary is this Friday.” She says she’s sorry, and I’m sure she is, but I feel awkward, revealing my wounds.
August 1st, I go to a Compassionate Friends support group. In July, just before David’s 11th monthiversary, I google grief support groups. When I see that they meet only once a month, I’m relieved: they won’t expect me to be ‘over it’ after the first year.
The small group is intimate and comforting. There’s a range of experience. (I won’t give specifics, since all that is said in the meeting is confidential, but suffice to say, there are parents who aren’t ‘over it’ years after the death and feel no shame in that. Really, how do you get over a life cut short?)
I had read, in the grief literature the Good Shepherd Hospice has sent over the months, that there is a desire to speak the loved one’s name, tell his story. I haven’t felt the urge around other people, but it feels good to tell some of our story as a man across the wide table pushes the box of tissues across to me.
Today I take the T to Harvard Square and have lunch at Uno with my good friend, Anna. It’s only 90 degrees (it’s been a hot summer), so I walk home. Not a half marathon, but 9 miles. The bike path is primarily leafy and pleasant and I remember to bring a kitchen towel to wipe my face from time to time. Good honest sweat.
Humorous postscript: I email my family to be sure and quote David accurately. Yes, he pronounced himself extremely presentable back in 2011. Matt writes: "While we're on the subject of funny things Dvu said, I believe he described the marrow biopsy as "the worst pain in America." You had a blog entry last month with it as "the worst pain in the world," which it may well have been, but David was not one to talk up his pain, yes? [ed. note: July 13, Eleven Months In]
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