I did a whole lot of otherwise unthought-of and unimagined things at around three am this morning. To borrow a metaphor that a dear friend totally unrelatedly texted me this morning, I was “shot out of a cannon to begin the day’s madness” when I woke up to a crack of thunder and then some wind blowing rain sideways, I thought, and I lay in bed knowing that I should get up and check on Sophie in her room, make sure the trach and the plastic mask over it that is connected to a compressor pumping a cool mist into it was still on, still over her trach because she moves a lot in the night, keeps her chin and her hands curled under it. I sometimes lie next to her as she’s falling asleep and then fall asleep myself but now that I think about it I had fallen asleep in my own bed. So, thunder, rain and a cascade of guilt that I needed to get up and check on her. Which I did. And she was sprawled across the bed, head at the foot and the mask was off the trach, blowing cool mist into the air around her and there was just the strangest smell but I repositioned her, went back to my bed to get my pillow and the blanket from my bed and went back to Sophie’s room and lay down at the foot of the bed. Sophie kept moving though and so I turned on the light and noticed the front of her pajama top was wet and also smelled weird and then noticed that her g-tube clip was unclipped so some of what was evidently in her stomach had leaked out and so I did what I needed to do to clean that up which involved water and syringes and flushes and changing pajamas and diapers and settling back. All throughout I just did these things fairly calmly where the night before when I found out the nurse wasn’t coming in the morning I’d wept about our future and wept for Sophie and me and anyone who loves us and helps us but somehow in the early hours of the morning, now 4 am or perhaps after there was no weeping nor gnashing of teeth nor rending garments nor tearing at hair as there might have been should have been and instead I kept thinking of things for which I was grateful. Now that I think about it, well into the day whose advent was so wrought — now that I think about it I was possibly being fed these thoughts of gratitude because lord knows I’m no gratitude expert or practitioner in the way of capitalist wellness advocates but they just kept coming. I’m grateful that I have such a strong sense of smell. I’m grateful that there’s clean water so that I can flush Sophie’s g-tube. I’m grateful she has a big enough bed that I can curl up at the bottom of. I’m grateful for Carl who helps me so much. I’m grateful for this soft blanket that I bought impulsively but it’s so damn comfortable. I’m grateful for this steady rain. I’m grateful that my father helps me and Sophie financially. I’m grateful for my strength both physical and mental and I’m grateful for calm and for the sense of absurdity that descends upon me. Again, now that I think about it, this gratitude was weird and out of character in its gentle insistence and now that I think about it if I were a trapeze artist in a circus with the crowd oohing and aahing at each daring feat the expressions of gratitude were like the rings passed from one to another that you only have to grab at the exact right moment. So thrilling. Death-defying, now that I think about it.
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Bare minutes ago I was transcribing from a notebook poems I'd written more than three years ago. One line included this exact combination as yours – "oohing and aahing" – and I wondered as I typed it if anyone ever even says such things. And here we are saying them together on the very same day.
I'm grateful to be plugged into the same universe of words as you, because you are obviously kind and full of love, and that is the same universe I want to live in, one where people still DO imagine others "oohing and aahing" when the spirit takes them.
I have been thinking of you both quite a bit. 💛💛💛
In the midst of all that you are facing, this feels inconsequential, but I just love your writing so damn much.