absence

At work, I keep getting asked how I’m doing. Well, I’m still here, though what “here” means is always different, of course. Last weekend we moved into our new place with the much-appreciated help of my mom, brother, and sister-in-law. At this point we’ve unpacked enough to function--probably more than many people would expect us to have done considering we’ve been here a week, but then, we’ve had practice.

I have a chiropractor appointment on Monday with the chiropractor I went to somewhat regularly before we moved to Pennsylvania. I was thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve seen her: four years. That may seem long, but then I thought about what I’ve done since then: 3 different apartments, 2 different houses, 1 baby. It feels like a lifetime ago. And even though I know I’m supposed to be happy about our new house (which *is* wonderful, by the way), I cannot seem to stop feeling sad.

Of course I’m sad: I’m mourning my father. But the new house is making me feel kind of lost, more so than any of our other moves. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and I think it has something to do with feeling incredibly disconnected from my dad. When P and I went back to clean the apartment and hand back the keys this week, I felt a pang... not because of the apartment itself, for which I had no strong feelings, but because it was a place where my father was. I’m pretty sure the last time he was there was when he put together the tricycle my folks got for baby-j. He wasn’t there much. But he was there, not here in this new space. He will never be in this house.

In the last couple years, my father worked a lot. He had irregular hours and irregular days, and he often had to work on weekends, so when we got together with my folks, it was often just with my mom. He wasn’t there for many of the trips there or the trips here, and so when I try to comfort myself by thinking of the last few years with him, I’m frustrated. In this way, his death has created sort of an absence of absence, and that thought is so horrible, I try to push it down each time it surfaces.

my dad

My father died last week. Even though he'd been in the hospital for a few weeks, his death was unexpected. He went in voluntarily on December 30 because he had difficulty breathing. He had a range of health issues that the doctors couldn't quite get a handle on, even after he was helicoptered to a better-equipped university hospital last Wednesday. They think he'd had chronic lung disease and had also gotten a recent infection. Add that to diabetes and heart disease, and ultimately, his heart and lung complications were just too much. We all (my dad included) did not realize how serious it was until the last few days. I am grateful, though, that his immediate family made it to the hospital in time and he passed peacefully with all of us there. 15 minutes of his heart slowing to a stop, and we were all in the room. I will never be able to forget that moment.

I’m assuming that the day he died--Friday, January 11, or 1/11--will be a date that I will always remember. Is it a common thing, to remember the date of a loved one’s death? I’ve also been doing calculations since he died... weird, inane calculations, like I spoke to my dad for the last time 4 days before he died, or, upon seeing the impressive ages of centenarians on the Today show, that man got to live 43 years longer than my dad. Not fair. And the numbers keep coming. My dad lived for 60 years and 27 days. My dad died 4 minutes before 9:00pm.

His death and funeral have been a heart-wrenching experiences, ones that I cannot quite put into words, though I hope to do so in the next few months, whether here or privately. On some level, it will probably be good for me to do so, but I just can’t do it all right now. I was so thankful that I got to see and hear from so many good friends and family over the last week. For those who read here, thank you all so much. I am so grateful to have you all in my life.

man for me (ode to barack)

I've had this song on my MP3 player for a few weeks now; it's the leading song on my "mama/baby-j dance playlist." And now, it's a YouTube video. The singer is a friend of a friend, and I'm interested to see if it gets any press coverage. Enjoy!

more moving

Here's an example of the kind of moving boxes we have stacked around the apartment. You know you’ve moved too much in the last few years when you can’t even figure out what's in the box you just packed.

We moved half of our things--the “easy” half--last week. It was about 20 degrees the day we moved, which was great for P. He didn’t sweat too much, and the temperature seemed to enable him to move quickly. I think the cold was numbing. Definitely something to keep in mind the next time we move--oh, wait. We are never moving again. Ever.

This week, P and I will move the rest, including all the furniture. Fun times, especially if I’m as good as I was last time at helping him move the gigantic couch up and down stairs. I’m strong enough to do it, but I don’t really have a mover’s instinct.

My dad is still in the hospital, still trying to recover enough from the pneumonia so they can do surgery. I’m worried that he cannot seem to get enough oxygen despite assistance. He cannot speak for more than a few minutes before getting winded, which is a pretty scary thing. However, P and I went to visit him yesterday and he looked much better than he did a few days ago. It seems that this will be a very slow recovery.

obama's victory speech

Though I missed it on TV, I found it online just now.

It's a very good night:



“...we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America and in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.”

not exactly what i intended, but ok.

This is the hair that was attached to my head this morning.

So I intended to get about three inches taken off my hair this afternoon when I went to the fancy-pants salon. I don’t frequent these kind of places often, though I realize that’s not a very good explanation for how I entered the place with waist-length hair and left with shoulder-length hair.

Fancy-Pants Stylist* (holding my hair): You know, you could donate this.
Me: Yeah, I’d thought about that at some point...
Fancy-Pants Stylist: You could donate this to Locks of Love.
(LoL is one of several organizations that provide hairpieces to children suffering from medical hair loss.)
Me: Yeah. But I don’t think I’d have enough hair for that and still be able to pull my hair back in a ponytail.
(They had a sheet I had to fill out when entering the salon about how much time I spent on my hair each day. I wrote down “five minutes,” knowing full well this was a generous lie. My hair regimen--pulling my wet hair into a ponytail--usually takes less than a minute. It was crucial that I exit the place able to continue this regimen, lest I have to shave the rest of it off rather than learn to use a blow-dryer properly.)
Fancy-Pants Stylist: No... I think you only need 10 inches to donate.
Me: Do I have that up to my shoulders?

FPS left to go get a ruler. When she came back, we realized that I had at least that up to my shoulders. When she informed me that what would have been a $50 haircut would be free if I donated my hair, it wasn’t a difficult decision.

I got my free haircut and styling, which looks pretty decent. It is *just* long enough for me to pull back, but it will grow quickly. So they handed me my hair in a plastic bag in two ponytails because it was too thick for one, and I promised the salon I would donate the hair to Locks of Love. After researching my options, however, I donated it instead to Wigs for Kids. I won’t get into all the reasons here, but as an example, Wigs for Kids doesn’t make their families pay for the wigs. You need 12 inches to donate to Wigs for Kids, which I realized that I did indeed have after I got home.

I’ve been growing out my hair (with a few cuts here and there) for almost four years. I’m toying with the idea of growing it out again and again to donate (and get a free haircut), which some people apparently do, according to Fancy-Pants Stylist.

* Please note that Fancy-Pants Stylist is referred to as such here because she works at a fancy-pants salon. She was not actually wearing fancy pants. Or pants, for that matter: I believe she was wearing a dress. She was also quite lovely, and did a nice job on my hair. Thanks, FPS!

happy new year

...and we're back from the holidays.

Our trip in numbers:
1,850.1 miles in the car
4 different bedrooms
1 wedding
3 trips to the urgent care place in Michigan (1 for baby-j, 2 for P)
2 bouts of conjunctivitis (1 for baby-j, 1 for P)
2 trips to the hospital (for my dad in PA)
1 visit to the ER (for my grandmother, who was conveniently taken to the same hospital as my father after slicing her head open this morning. She is now home and doing pretty well.)
1 recurring cold (for me, unfortunately--it was gone for our trip and has now returned)

All this made for a very happy return home late this evening. It was really wonderful to see all the family, but overall, it was an exhausting trip. My father is still in the hospital trying to recover from pneumonia so the doctors can address some heart issues he has--they will most likely put in a pacemaker. We'll probably head back there at the end of this week or the beginning of next week, if not before.

Yikes: pretty depressing first blog entry of the year, I guess. My hope for the new year is that it's all an improvement upon this day, which has been a rough one.