Silence

The house is empty of all people for the first time in a while. The Girl is organizing the leaflet for her father's funeral, The Boy is off with a friend on their motorcycles (they are starting their own club called The Dead Dads which is, perhaps a step forward from the t-shirts we were thinking of printing with "How the F... do you think I am????") and I am here, on my own.

A friend came this morning and, in her grief and frustration with this unbelievable new reality, complained about her partner. Another friend called - somehow not being caught in the web of emails and phone calls - to ask how The Senior Boy was doing. The taxes must be paid. There are beautiful floral arrangements all over this house. We need to get a box. And new ink for the printer. I have a new hat: black organza with a wide brim. If I were 6' instead of 5', it would be striking; as it is, I look like a smallish black umbrella with a flower for confusion. It will be my black armband in this world which thinks that grief is unseemly and to be done with as soon as possible.

How am I going to do this?

One breath, one moment at a time.



I keep waiting to hear the bike roar around the circle and into the garage, to see blue eyes, the moustached kiss.

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

What is there to say? We (The Jr Boy) and I are back from the hospital and I am drinking a beer for dinner. (TY dear Coleen for the Barley Soup designation - any port in a storm) TJB is keeping those of you for whom we have emails connected on the electronic string and I am having a small ramble at the moment.

There are several of you out there whose words I read on a regular basis and those words are keeping me going right now: the words of your particular everydayness. Mine has changed almost beyond recognition except to those of you who have had a sudden shattering of the ordinary. For the first time, I understand Saul of Tarsus but not in a good way.

The Sr Boy is seriously injured and we are living that reality. I am finding the necessity of order driving small, focused tidying - the sun room table, the sink counter - b/c everything else is so disordered. At some point, I will have to get with the financial program but not for a few days. TR and I start the day with multiple phone calls (do we need another line?), head to the hospital for rounds, take a break between 1300h and either 1500h or 2000h (depends on my sleep the night before) and go back to say good night to my sleeping darling. And come home to more phone calls. Knitting happens in small random moments.

I am tired. TR is exceptional.

Pray for healing of my darling's brain.

How I am spending my children's inheritance money

I am writing this from a public computer in a private hospital in Reno NV while The Boy has a(nother) snooze. Here's the scoop so far: Courtesy of a miscalculation in the driving habits of Jeep owners, Himself has a Nasty break (bilateral compound) of the R lower leg and Break (sore but not so nasty) of the R hand and the Vincent is languishing in a locked storage cupboard somewhere in E California. After an ambulance ride, an initial assessment in Susanville (?), and an air medivac to Reno, Ger had surgery y'day to clean things out and affix external rods for immobilization. Of course, we did not get any extra insurance so ICBC is working on getting him back to BC as soon as it is safe to move him. He is dopy with morphine and I have spent almost the whole day on the phone running down who does what and how we move forward.

Thank you for your prayers and don't stop as we are not out of the woods by a long shot. Tomorrow is another surgery for further cleaning (the doctor says lovely things to shocked patients and their advocates (i.e., Himself et Moi) such as "a 30% chance of infection with subsequent necrosis and amputation" - someone should have washed his mouth out and he may have to go to "how to talk to patients" school) and there will be at least 2 more after that one of which will involve a major graft of tissue from his back to replace that which no longer is where it used to be!! I am hoping he will be stable enough after tomorrow and that there will be a bed for him at Vancouver General so we can get out of Dodge!!

The staff has been great and b/c this is a private hospital, everything is clean and (best of all) quiet. I spent last night on a cot in G's room and expect to do the same tonight unless the hotel which is in this building offers free rooms!!

Gotta go as they are locking this place up.