Another Sunday

Still trying to snap out of the end of summer blues.  I’m getting there, but still grieving.   Emily and I took a walk down a trail in the woods that we heard lead to a creek farther in.  Not bad, but the dog got covered in burrs, which I chopped out of his fur with scissors.  Now he’s all choppy looking.  Could not find the creek:  we ended up coming out into an open field near the used car lot just down the highway from us.

I can at least say I got myself out of the house.  Later I read on the swing in my back yard.  Earlier this summer, even though it has a canopy overhead, I parked the swing under an apple tree for some added shade.  It was nice reading outside today, warm and breezy, and I’m loving the book I’m reading:  Plainsong.   But the apples are ripening and crashing down on the canopy just above my head, occasionally scaring the shit out of me.  They crash down hard.   And now rotting apples are collecting on the ground, and if I walk out with bare feet, they squash underfoot.  I may have to move the swing.

This winter, the deer will come and eat the apples out from under the snow.  Cola will try to chase them because he is too dumb to understand he can’t catch a deer.

There are five stages of grief, and I can’t remember them all for sure.   Denial, acceptance, bargaining. . what else?   So, I jumped right into acceptance today, or maybe yesterday, and realized I must have been in denial because I kept working my way back toward bargaining.  I’m such a pussy.   My guess is that means I’m somewhere between stage one and five.

But everything will be alright (rockabye), as long as the sun shines once in a while and you have a swing in your back yard.  And a good book.  I’ll grieve when that’s over.

Fall Semester

Transitioning from summer to fall was derailed by a stomach bug.  Had to cancel classes the first week.  I feel like I need to start over, but must pick up where I left off.

Transitioning from summer to the start of a fall semester has always been difficult, but this one particularly bumpy.  With the exception of my ten year marriage, my life has always been dictated by the academic calander.  Summer ends a year, fall semester begins it.  This particularly summer was crazy fun, exciting, care-free, romantic.   Still, I was anxious to get going, get back to work, and the tail end of summer was dull, a let down, a whole week or two of Sunday before Monday.  I was grieving the summer’s end.   I came down hard from the high I was on most of the summer.   Bam.  And then after the first week of classes, came down farther and harder.   Stomach bug got me wrapped up in my physical and emotional self, could hardly look out to see the light of day, the end of the summer like the end of the world.   Spent most of my labor day weekend feeling sick at heart and sick to my stomach.  Poor, poor me.

Felt well enough to go to Mt. Pleasant on Sunday evening, and my dad and I took my mother out of the nursing home to a back yard party of former art faculty and bridge club members.   It started out rough:  the “taxi” to load the wheel chair was late and lost.  We watched the driver circle around the Isabella County Care Facility while we waved our arms over our heads and yelled.  She was lost.  Finally, a half hour after pick up time, my dad was frustrated and vowed to never try to take Mom out again.  A young woman got out and started to load mom into the back of the van with a chair lift, and took another 20 minutes to strap the chair in place.  Slow.  My mother was quiet and seemed sad and depressed.  Dad was beside himself.  Finally, we got her in, and I followed Mom and Dad over in Dad’s car, getting there a full fifteen minutes before the taxi/van does.  I warn the hostess that my dad’s already in a foul mood and exhausted.

Finally we wheeled mom in through the house, and lifted the chair down a step to the back patio.  We pulled her up to a card table, and she began to cheer up a bit, smiling at those who greeted her, but puzzled about where she was, or who anyone was.  We got her a Sprite, which she liked and she tried some guacamole and chips, which I dipped and handed to her (later, she put her fingers right into the dip.  Hand wiping time.  I didn’t tell anyone her fingers went in.   Vitold K greeted Mom, patting her hand, and said,  “Remember me?  I’m the Polack!” and Mom laughed out loud.  a beautiful moment.   Good one (I had a very nice visit with Vitold myself:  a very nice man).   A younger couple showed up with a puppy and a little girl and Mom seemed to enjoy watching both.  Dad got loopy on wine.  Me too.   And Mom’s face looked a little brighter and she smiled more.

We fixed mom a small plate of food and she ate quite a bit, without any major messes, and Dad and I managed to eat a plate of food ourselves before the van/taxi returned to pick us up.  The poor girl spent another 20 minutes loading mom in, and as she was unloading confessed that this was her first time lifting a wheel chair into the van and that she was quite nervous about it.  I told Dad, who had since softened a little and was quite pleased with how lively mom was at the party.  She’d been asleep and seemingly depressed for a few days before hand, so we considered it a successful outing.

Not sure when Dad will get the energy to try again.  And we may go with another service (Isabella’s service was not running on Labor day).   Still, I think it was worth the trouble, and the young taxi driver got her lesson in loading wheel chairs.