Jun
1
Last stop, crazytown
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Last Sunday we drove a few hours east in search of sunshine and death-distraction (did I tell you how our 15-year-old Lab has been diagnosed with a failing heart and a mass in her throat that may or may not be cancer? Did we want to subject her to a biopsy and treatment, they asked us, and we chose Shitty Answer #2 of the Potential Shitty Answers to that question and said no we did not) and we found ourselves in a place called Moses Lake. It turns out that Moses Lake is where every single person on earth goes on Memorial Day weekend in order to camp in the gritty sand dunes and ride ATVs, but we found some quiet, lovely spots too.
I love that the boys are getting old enough so that we can do spontaneous trips like that. I mean, I know it’s technically possible with babies and toddlers but the logistics alone always preemptively drained me of my will to live. Traveling with the two of them isn’t exactly a soothing spa journey complete with a hot stone massage, but it isn’t quite the clenched-jaw white-knuckler it used to be, either.
I do have a question that’s somewhat related to the recent experience of sharing a small hotel room—for the fellow parents in the crowd, how do you deal with Extreme Kid Craziness? Riley and Dylan constantly get in this mode where they’re playing and giggling and having fun but the chaos and volume control is off the charts. They’re screeching and carrying on and generally acting like rhesus monkeys on bathtub crank, and I find myself saying the same useless things over and over: Come on, guys. Calm down, now. Hey! Guys! I’m serious, you two need to quiet down RIGHT THIS MINUTE! and eventually I yell at them or do the 1-2-3 thing and send them to their rooms and later they come out all contrite and it all starts up AGAIN.
It’s like they don’t even listen until I totally lose my shit, and half the time I am nearly crazed with frustration because they aren’t paying attention, and the rest of the time I wonder if I’m the one that needs to chill because jeez, they’re just playing.
I don’t think I’m wrong in wanting to be able to curb the insanity, but I sure can’t seem to find an effective way to do it. I’d like a solution that doesn’t involve my eyeballs detaching themselves from my skull with the power of my mighty bellow, so if you have ideas, I am listening.
Not that I can hear anything over this goddamned racket, that is.
May
31
1937-2011
Filed Under Uncategorized | 98 Comments
Several months ago, JB’s uncle Jack was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Jack endured the radiation and chemotherapy treatments, losing his hair and his body weight along the way. He had a heart attack, and a stint was installed. He battled a horrible hospital-acquired infection. A tough sonofabitch by any standard, Jack told JB life kept trying to knock him down, but he was by god still standing.
We all hoped he was out of the woods, but last Monday Jack’s wife dragged him—as he was famously reluctant to complain—to the emergency room with debilitating pain in his back. A scan revealed that the cancer had spread to his bones. A grim diagnosis was given, 1-3 months.
By Thursday he was gone. I don’t even know how it happened so fast. I suppose there is some cold comfort in the fact that he didn’t continue to suffer. I don’t know if there is any comfort to death, though.
JB talked to him right before he died; a family member held the phone to Jack’s ear and JB spoke blindly into Jack’s labored breathing and those words are between the two of them but I believe Jack heard him. I believe that even as he slipped away, he knew he was surrounded by love.
Maybe there is comfort to that, if nothing else.
Jack has always been a big part of my husband’s life and it feels like a critical branch has been torn from the family tree. I keep wishing I could say something, the right thing, that would help ease the loss, but this is what happens when someone is loved so dearly: they are missed.
He was a good man, and he is missed.
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