The Slice

It was a long, boring week. We finally had a weekend off after three weeks straight of work, and they made up for it last week by barely getting any work to us. I taught the new folks amendments and reprints. I did another round of teaching to our backup crew who helps proof when they can. Almost every day, the majority of the typists were out sick. (At points in most of the week, we were without typists at all, a rare occurrence.) Still, there wasn't much to speak of in the way of exciting things happening. We're waiting on another deadline that will hit on Friday followed by first house passage on the 23rd, which is usually the worst deadline in terms of "Hey, it's 4 a.m. Please come back at 7:30 a.m." infamy we've had to deal with in the past. Given the ridiculous backlog of work we've had to push out in the shortest amount of time I recall in my eight years of working for the state, I can only hope that's not a trend that will continue the whole session, but I also have my doubts. I've never been as aware of the cadence of session and what lies ahead before as well as having so many opposing waves of worry and apathy. Perhaps having so many personal things going on at the same time has something to do with it.

Thursday, I got a text from my mom asking how I was doing. I knew she had dropped by after my dad's appointment at the VA to get a check from Mike, and Mike said she had mentioned that my dad might need spinal surgery. They had been awaiting MRI results on his back because his legs have been bothering him and he's been losing his balance and falling a lot recently, so I was a little surprised it might require surgery. They were also supposed to get an update on the new medication my dad has been taking for his memory for a few weeks, but Mike didn't say anything about that. Still feeling exhausted from the workweek, I finally got up and called her after exchanging a few texts and seeing that she was writing something for quite a while.

She said she hadn't wanted to bother me since she knew Mike was leaving for the final four trip the next day. (Did I ever mention he won that through work? Maybe not. Humph, I'm always a little behind, but it's pretty neat. He took his friend Nate, and a customer got to go as well.) Anyway, I wanted to know how the appointment went since she's been worked up about not getting the MRI results for almost a month. It turns out he has a few disks in his spine that are slipping near his tailbone, and the spinal column is narrowing, causing the nerves to get squeezed (or something? I only sort of understand). Since this means inflammation isn't the cause of his pain, the next step is they've been referred to a neurosurgeon to see if he needs surgery or if there are other steps they can take first. Also, my mom was able to convince him to get a walker for stability when he's out and about, and also, it qualifies him for permanent disability placards for the car, which is probably helpful since he seems a little wobbly when he walks now.

Regarding the medicine, she said, "You ever read 'Flowers for Algernon'? This kind of reminds me of that." I said I had but didn't remember how the story went. She explained, "Well, there's a man who gives medicine to a mouse, and the mouse's memory improves for a bit. So the man starts taking the medicine, and his memory improves for a bit. But then he sees that the mouse declines, and he knows his is going to decline again too."

My dad has Alzheimer's disease.

The doctor didn't give her a stage, but he said that's what the medicine is for. My mom says it has improved his short-term memory over the last couple of months, and his memory seems to be pretty stable. The medicine sometimes causes nightmares, but those have subsided. My dad seems pretty happy, she says. It's made him much more pleasant to be around, she says. He thinks it is a miracle drug.

My selfish first thoughts were, "What if we're finally able to have children, and he doesn't remember them?" followed by, "I should have seen this coming. Granny didn't remember me right before she died either, and that was devastating."

My parents have been in the process of trying to figure out some of his projects. She's been after him for years to sell the radio station and find someone to take over the Irish-English dictionary he's been working on for almost forty years, since we won't know what to do with it. He's supposed to have someone from the Irish government coming by soon to take a look at it and see if they're able to take the whole project off his hands, which would be the best place for it. They also have someone interested in the radio signal and station, even with its outdated equipment. He's also expressing interest in selling some of his ham radio equipment he doesn't use and is headed to a swap meet in Visalea next weekend to see if he can get rid of some stuff.

While I am somewhat relieved that they are taking care of these loose ends, I am worried that all of this happening at once is a bad sign of things to come. I asked my mom, "What is he going to do with his time if he doesn't have those projects to work on?" She said he still has his other hobby of framing computer components for his "museum" he keeps in the house. That'll keep him busy for a while, she thinks. He has to have something to do, after all. He can't fade that quickly, right? Really, who knows?

My brother called last night and said my mom had told him. He then launched into all these things that he should be doing now that dad's on "borrowed time." He said realistically, there's probably about a year before dad declines completely, and it was probably up to my brother to start cataloguing stuff for my dad's museum. He expressed sadness that he didn't spend more time with him before now and said he'd need to do more.

I got angry at him immediately. I told him to stop.

Yeah, I get it. I really do. It's a scary prospect to think that one day, Dad won't recognize us. It's terrifying to wonder about the future and how things are going to change. I had my own selfish thoughts. I had my own wonders about where my mother has been now that she's decided to be my dad's advocate when she hasn't even really seemed to like the man in many, many years. (And Mike's right here too. When I said this, he said, "You can't blame her. At least she's here now.") I've thought about how much life has changed since we've left home, and even now as I sit here, I wonder why I didn't go out to eat with him more often like he always said we should.

Still... As I told my brother, we can't change what we've done in the past. We can't predict how long we have left. No one knows that. We don't know how his memory will go or what kind of quality we'll have or the length we'll have before it's all gone. Don't put a timeline on it. Don't stop living your life. Things are changing, but it doesn't mean life is over already. Dad's still here. His memory is still here. It could be years before it goes away entirely. Live in the present. Do your best going forward. That's how life goes.

I say these things to him hoping I'll remember them myself when times are dark and when hope seems lost. Live for today. It's all we have.

Where do I begin, the beginning? Where did this begin? It seems like this has been failing to start for so long that I'm shocked it's over already, but I'm also already getting ahead of myself.

We'll start where we left off last time, with numbers:
Last Sunday: Another test in morning, first faint positive.
Tuesday: Another test in evening, second faint positive.
Wednesday: A call to the doctor; a blood test; slight spotting.
Thursday: A doctor's appointment; an ultrasound showing fluid and thickened lining but nothing else; slight spotting.
Friday: Word that blood test was screwed up by lab, but HCG reading of 33; increased spotting over course of day; another test in evening, third faint positive; still, passage of tissue and clots in evening.
Saturday: A trip to the emergency room for five hours; another blood test, with a HCG reading of 11; a third diagnosis of miscarriage, one year and a week since the first; another rhoGAM shot.

I've been searching for this one for what feels like an eternity. To be gone so soon after finally confirming it is a shock to the system. Mike said it just never felt right, like something was wrong from the beginning. He is probably right. I sit here awake with my stomach and organs trembling, rolling over and over themselves in some sort of attempt to clear my system of this potential. Whatever it was. Whatever it could have been. Whatever it will never be now.

I thought maybe if I didn't speak to it, it might be okay. If I didn't acknowledge it, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad. Surely something had to work. Some part of me hoped that by not repeating what I've clung to in the past, it would somehow save things, like running in the opposite direction would stave off this deja vu of a loss. It would have to be different this time, right?

Of course it would, but not in that way. Each loss is different. I knew what to look for and waited for the signs, but they were different, recognizable but distinct enough to cause confusion and leave us clinging to a small smattering of hope. That optimism that only dies in the wake of the reality of a loss even faster than the others. Barely known before it's waving goodbye.

I keep trying to fit this into a narrative, to justify what's happened and make sense of it, I suppose, but there are no words that can convey the depths of my sorrow. There's no finality to any of this, only a deluge of unanswerable questions: What did I do wrong this time? Is this just what happens to us now? Is anything different ever going to happen? How do you contextualize that? How do you square yourself with the fact that this only happens to a small percentage of people, and you're now among them? Where do we go from here? Do we even bother trying again?

I couldn't even bring myself to memorialize the last one in paint, and now there are three. I wish I would have had longer. I wish the tremors in my belly were signs of life. I wish it weren't two days before Christmas. I wish I could just crawl into a hole and be done for a while.

I don't really know what else to say.

A tornado of emotions hit with little to no alarm, or some other natural-disaster based metaphor where everything is left utterly destroyed in its wake. No warnings, unless you count the ones I probably chose to ignore. I find myself sitting in the closet after I've undressed for the day feeling tired and on the verge of tears. No reason for this I can speak of. Life is okay enough. I check in anyway. I think about the date. I think about several dates, and I remember what time of year it is. Of course.

I did not expect to feel this sad.

I look at the fun-sized Krackle bars in the Halloween bucket and remember how weird they tasted. I unwrap one and eat it, but it doesn't taste the same now. I dig all of the bars out of the bucket and hand them to Mike, saying, "Please eat these. They're making me sad." Coincidentally, no one comes to trick or treat at our house. I turn out the light and head to bed early.

I did not expect to feel this sad.

I get angry at work, convinced that people are doing things on purpose only to find the same people are doing the same things they always do. I wonder why I can't just get over it, why these things bother me just that tiny bit more this time, why it seems to always be my problem and conversely try to convince myself to change my attitude about it all, to let the feelings wash over me and pass by. I think again about employee assistance and contemplate how much is too much to bear alone.

I did not expect to feel this sad.

But I remember. Of course I remember. Why would I not, given the importance I place on specific dates and rituals and how I feel from season to season? I remember where I was, where I hoped I'd be. All the dreams and wishes and entire lifetimes spread out before us before we even got a chance to temper them with these kinds of what ifs. Lives changed forever and yet still seeming the same now to the untrained eye. Because we have to. Because there's nothing else we can do.

I did not expect to feel this sad.

Yet here we are. Two months on today since the most recent passage. A year on tomorrow since we first found out. So close together and yet whole worlds apart. The absences a distant memory for those who don't have to live with them. The devastation ripped open afresh, and the guilt still tender from not being quite so devastated by the second one, like it was all going to happen regardless. I can't shake the feeling that I could have done something differently though I know intellectually I couldn't. It's gone now. Wringing my hands of all this. Still reeling. Still hurt. Still broken. But still getting out of bed and going to work, trying to act normal because no one wants to hear it this far on. We move on for the sake of it. That's what you're supposed to do, right? What else are you going to do?

I did not expect to feel this sad.

It has been a rough six months. Friday, I was elated because we had finally gotten everything we need to finish codification, a project that has unfathomably taken longer than the eight months it took us last cycle, and I was preparing to work this weekend to see where we could get on the last few documents before Monday. With a little over two hours left in the day, I heard my phone vibrate with an incoming call from my younger sister, who hardly ever calls unless she needs something.

The call was short. She said Stephanie had called. Grandpa Gabby had died. No further details.

I tried to keep it together but couldn't. I made arrangements with my boss. I apologized and said goodbye to Heidi, since it was her last day and we were having a going away party that started in ten minutes. My boss said we were in good shape and not to worry about the weekend since they weren't going to make it mandatory to work. "It'll be okay. I'm sorry you're hurting."

Still, I left feeling guilty. Also devastated. Numb. Shocked. Full of regret. I hadn't called on his birthday in April. Why couldn't I get myself to do even that? What had we talked about the last time we called anyway? Oh right. I couldn't understand what he was saying because I had woken him up or he was drunk or something. Grandma said he had fallen recently and been in the hospital, as had she, but they were out now. She asked if I had put in an order for a baby.

Right... That's why I didn't call often. He was usually the one who couldn't go one phone conversation without bringing that up, or he'd start teasing me about something though I'd asked him multiple times over the years to stop. There were consequences to these calls, and it was easier to avoid them if I could.

Still, what kind of justifications are those now that we'll never speak again? How had I managed to make things so complicated?

We grew up across the street from them. They basically helped raise us from the start. My whole childhood, they were there, and they didn't move until I was in college or just fresh out. Every time my mom needed someone to watch us, they were there. For every major event, they were there. I can't express how intertwined our lives were or how many happy memories I have alongside the not-so-great ones that seemed to increase in the past decade. That's what happens with people who you're closer to than even your actual grandparents. How do you even begin?

One of my earliest memories of him is the smell of pipe tobacco. To this day, I only associate that smell with him and my mother's father, though he smoked straight cigarettes up until the time he was put on a ventilator. I remember his row of pipes on the mantle of their fireplace, though I'm still not sure when he stopped smoking completely. He was the only man I've ever seen smoke a pipe, which seems relegated to the past and whoever grows a hipster handlebar mustache and insists it tastes better that way.

Then there was the food. He grew up in the depression era and had so many stories. One about how he used to love mayonnaise when he first got to Texas and once ate a whole jar of it as a kid. After that, he said, he didn't like it as much, and I never saw him put a lot on sandwiches. They used Miracle Whip, though, which I never really liked either. No matter what, whenever we'd drop by, he'd ask if we were hungry and load up a plate of whatever Grandma had around: fideo or conchitas with lots of hot sauce and pepper, carnitas, tamales, homemade tortillas stuffed with refried beans and cheese or eggs or cheese or peanut butter and jelly or straight up melted butter. The food was almost always homemade, as they had owned a restaurant in Arizona before moving here. Anything put on your plate had to be eaten or you were wasting it, even if you weren't hungry to begin with. Food was love, and that was that. I still dream about their food and miss it fiercely.

Usually whenever we'd be there, the TV would be on. Reruns. Talk shows. Nascar. Boxing. Disney shows for the kids, like "The Three Caballeros". He'd sit in his easy chair or on the floor and ask us to do things for him. Or crack his knuckles and grab your bare toes and pop the joints. (I hate this to this day. That's how I found out I hate anyone touching my feet.) He'd lay on the floor and ask someone to walk on his back to relieve the pressure. He'd ask if you wanted a knuckle sandwich then show you not to put your thumb inside when making a fist because, "You'll break your own thumb when you're punching someone." He'd laugh and tease, saying how pretty and ugly you were in the same sentence or how smart and how much he loved us. He gave me the nickname "overqualified" in later years after I was valedictorian and got my bachelor's degree. He always asked if Mike (or whoever I was dating) was treating me right, echoing the refrain of "Boys are stupid" that he'd said my whole dating life. He'd tell me not to put up with anyone calling me names, hitting me or mistreating me in any way, which is a little ironic.

He called popcorn "parcan". Also, Pepsi was "Pexi". My siblings and I would try to correct him, and he'd say it several times before getting it right only to say it the other way again later on. I always chalked this up to him always joking around and a little bit to a language barrier, that the Spanish he also spoke got in the way somehow. I didn't know until my mom mentioned it a few days ago that this is why they called him "Gabby" though his name was Savino. She said that he had trouble speaking and they were making fun of his speech impediment he'd had since he was a child growing up around migrant workers.

His birthday was on April Fool's day, and I remember him tricking us multiple times on his birthday, turning out all the lights in the house and saying the power was out only to laugh when we'd go and try the light switches. There were candles that wouldn't blow out. Cards that wouldn't open. All the usual pranks. One year, my mom frosted a brick and gave it to him as a birthday cake. We all laughed as he tried to cut it, and she eventually brought out a real cake. I don't know that I ever actually wished him a real happy birthday without some sort of trick to it.

He had a primitive snake tattoo that curled up his arm, one he gave himself with pen ink and a needle but always said he wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. He always had family around, with his three biological kids along with one adopted runaway. Their grandkids were our friends and near cousins. We met many of their actual cousins as Grandma and Grandpa babysat us and took us to many meals and ice cream the next town over, places to visit, parades to watch, people to see. They had two adopted cats named Bimbo and Stinky, so-named because they found her at the dump. He worked landscaping for my mom while Grandma watched us and translated for the local court.

So many memories. Grandpa used to smile and say in later years while they still lived in Smith, "Thank God for Jeane and Patrick. Otherwise I don't know what we'd do." I wouldn't understand the context of that statement, or his daughter Mila turning to my mom and saying, "Thank God you will take care of them," at the 50 year anniversary party they threw, for a really long time. Grandma would say they needed to watch the house whenever we were gone. Even as teenagers, they didn't want to leave us alone and said they'd watch us whenever. It all seemed cordial and mutual, though my mom griped over the years about grandpa overwatering or Grandma not letting us go outside when it was hot.

It wasn't until I was an adult that it entirely went south between them and my parents. My parents owned the house Grandma and Grandpa lived in across the street, and for many, many years, they had traded babysitting and landscaping services for rent money. My mom did the math and said they hadn't paid the rent in years though we'd been out of the house for a long time and landscaping services had slowed since Grandpa's knees and health weren't stellar, so she asked for it. That one is not my story to tell because I know it's much more complex than I'm making it seem, but I know not too long after it all was settled, Grandma and Grandpa made arrangements to move back to Arizona, where they'd lived before moving to Nevada and so they could be closer to other family who had moved there.

I've seen them only a handful of times since then, and I've never gone down to visit. I've never had time or made the time. It'll be awkward, I reasoned. I don't even know the family much outside of facebook, and there have been slights on both sides, I've said. The last time I saw them together was our wedding, and as happens at weddings, we were only able to talk for a little bit before being pulled away for other things. I didn't know that would be the last time I saw him entirely. I didn't know the last conversation I'd have with him, which I avoided as long as I could after the miscarriage because I knew what his questions would be, I'd barely understand. I didn't know.

My mom said she found out from talking to Stephanie that he had Bell's Palsy the last few years, and my not understanding him suddenly makes a lot more sense now. Being partially paralyzed will do that to you. I feel bad that I assumed he was just tired or drunk when I talked to him and didn't get what he was saying, though he also liked to talk about whiskey and tequila and ask if I was at the bar. I didn't know. After his birthday in April, I got an invite to a last-minute surprise birthday party for his 80th birthday being thrown by his daughter. I declined because I had other plans that weekend, but my mom said that Grandma had found out about the party and shut it down because his health was already declining and he was not himself then. She said she's heard that he had an infection in the time since then that they weren't sure they could clean out or operate on or something. He had been in the hospital but had been moved to rehab and was doing better for a few days before his blood pressure dropped. They took him to emergency and said it might have been a stroke. Details are spotty, but he died there. He's gone now. Probably out of pain and in a better place.

I keep feeling waves of emotions: guilt over the things I couldn't make myself do, sadness over his passing, numbness in between. Memories keep washing over me, and I realize that I'll never hear him sing "Happy birthday, mijita" seguing into "Gloria, gloria halleluja" again. I know I told him I loved him last time I talked to him because we always ended the conversation that way, but I wish I was able to hug him one last time, to let him know I really meant it despite everything that's happened over the years.

I don't know how to end this entry, so I'll copy what I wrote after I found out:

Time sure moves fast, even faster than it feels sometimes. The older we get, the more it seems to speed up. One day out of the blue, something happens where you'll realize while looking through old photos how few you have with people you love, how much you would have liked to spend more time with them but kept making excuses, how even when it's hard, you should have made time because now there isn't any left. I'll cherish the many happy memories I have, but I also have a few regrets.

I had a dream that I was back in college and dating Chris again, only I figured out later I'm married and felt really bad about it. My dream self then decided to debate who was the best out of him, Austin and Mike, and of course, Mike came out on top for several reasons, which made me feel even worse for kissing and having feelings for someone behind his back.

I woke up alone. Of course. Mike's in Livermore.

I realized today that it's been close to if not exactly ten years since I've seen Chris. If I felt like digging, I could figure out the precise day, but it doesn't really matter. As far as I know, he's long gone from here. Not too many months after that, I started up with Austin, and that relationship remains the longest I've ever been in, but not for too much longer. (May of next year will crush that record if you're curious.) Austin lives closer to me, but I haven't seen him in maybe four and a half years? Just after I started working here but before I moved, I think.

I've known Very Pretty for almost fourteen years. (How's that for weird, eh college roommate?) Certain other friends have come and gone in that period. Before her, my longest friendship lasted twelve years before I severed ties. Most of the people I grew up with I either don't talk to or don't know anymore outside of facebook, and that's okay.

Recently, I've been downsizing my friend's list there. I had a strong reaction to seeing pictures of someone I went on one pseudo date with after breaking up with Austin which didn't go anywhere because he had some derogatory things to say about gay people at the end of it. I literally know more about him through his facebook than I do from the time I spent in real life with him, and I decided I didn't care at all about him. Then I looked around and decided I didn't care about a lot of people, and suddenly I was below 120 friends on facebook.

I've probably spent a little too much time thinking about how social contacts used to work. I seem to recall in pre-internet times being able to entirely fall out of touch with someone over the course of your life, to the point where you hardly (if ever) think about them if they didn't mean anything to you. Also, it was a lot harder to look someone up if you ever had a passing whim about them, let alone a search engine at your fingertips begging you to find out, hey, that person lives this sort of life now! Isn't that interesting and not at all ultimately useless? Perhaps this sounds cruel and weird of me, but I've been feeling like that antiquated process would be preferable to the many slow deaths of relationships you experience over social media--people ghosting out of your life instead of reminding you every once in a while what they ate for dinner and how much you've both changed and disagree now. Lives coming together then drifting apart. The same old story told by different players.

I guess I'm mostly tired of caring about people who wouldn't notice if I suddenly disappeared. Yeah, I guess that makes me an asshole.

My dad was here yesterday and looked at one of the paintings I have on my wall. He said it was amazing because my Uncle John painted one almost exactly like it, down to the circles and color scheme. My mom said I was my uncle's niece. I wish I could have gotten to know him as an adult. He's been gone for fourteen years. I miss him.

But here we are, and time is short. It seems to be getting shorter all the time.

I wake up late these days
mornings spent staring at the ceiling
after another night of cold feet
(and thoughts of you) rousing (me)

another night of my eyes flicking open
dreams of painting (me) into a corner
of bandits breaking in while I lay helpless
(or you frowning as I catch the bouquet)

my eyes train on the red numbers
willing time to slip on by
effortless as dawn seeping in
small slivers of light through the blinds

I hide under the covers, waiting
or lamenting the loss of (us)
building sand castles of meaning, only
to have the sea of (me) wash them away

how to forget the thoughts of (we)
what a tragedy to be alive
to pare it down to only (I)
oh, that hope would die with goodbye

and here, snapping the pieces apart, breaking
over and over my own small beliefs, I sigh
If this is losing it, then
you don't know what it is to survive

Well, hmph.