The Unfathomable

What is life like after the unfathomable has happened to you?

It's March 11th and being home along I decided to read my Christmas cards. Several years ago, before Jeff died, I started reading my Christmas cards after Christmas. December is so nuts with work and shopping and such. I am constantly stressed most of the time and I found myself reading my Christmas cards and notes very quickly at the end of a tiring day. Not even reading them. Scanning them. So I decided one year to reread the cards after Christmas. I took a night when the kids were asleep and quietly and contemplatively read about my family and friends and felt their love of me and of each other. Much nicer way to catch up than cramming in the reading at the end of a harried day during a time in the year when there is never enough time to do much of anything...

So it just happened that tonite was the night this year.

Truthfully, Christmas was hard again...

For the first year since Jim left in 1997, I didn't go to Mass on Christmas Eve.
Why? Because I was and still am quite angry at God for Jeff's death. Why God? Because there really is no one else to be angry at. In fact at times, if I really really think about it...I don't simply feel angry, I feel furious.

Why in God's name was my beautiful blue eyed boy taken from me at age 14? What did I do to deserve it? So I didn't go to Mass on Christmas eve and I am, indeed, having a hard time letting go of the anger I feel at everyone for Jeff's death.

When you see -- when you witness -- the unthinkable occurring in your life NOTHING AND NO ONE IS SAFE FROM HARM'S WAY.

I think about the past year for me. Can't help but think about this since I just spent an hour hearing about all of the (mostly) wonderful events in the lives of my family and friends. And I have looked at their family pictures also.

When I was first divorced, I remembered looking at the Christmas pictures and focusing on the parents in the pictures -- two parents, and the dog or kids. Now I don't focus on the parents anymore. Instead, I look at how happy or busy the family members are and then I think about how hard it is to imagine that I will ever send in any Christmas card (if I ever send Christmas cards again) a picture of MY family...because I can't take a picture of one of its members.

Jeff is still with me. I believe that with my whole heart now...but as much as I know that his spirit is with me -- it doesn't lessen the pain that exists when I wrap my head -- as I have to each day -- around the reality that his body, Jeff as I want to know him, is gone.

I see James playing lacrosse as I did last weekend and I wonder how tall Jeff would be. James scores -- I think about how many goals Jeff would have scored in his first game. What college would Jeff be attending? He would certainly be in Division I lacrosse program. Would his hair be buzzed like James' is? What courses would he be taking? Would he be texting me ever or would we be going through a period of infrequent communication so he could better grow his own wings?

My heart is so broken right now.

I know it has been so fragile of late.

**

Two weeks ago Saturday, I am awaken at 2:15 a.m. by a "zing". John wakes up too. We are both wide awake as it occurs again, and a third time, and a fourth time, and a fifth time. John gets out of bed to go into the kitchen saying "I think it is your phone."

I feel nothing.

He walks back into the bedroom and says "It was your phone. It was Doug." He hands me the phone and I see that Doug has sent 5 texts with no words in the message line for any of them. He sent them one after the other. My heart starts beating quickly. My mind simply freezes in time. I text him back: "Are you ok?" I get no response from him. I think about him telling me about his friends going back to the house from a bar downtown and getting mugged. Then there was the time a group of kids who were in the bar got into a fight with his friends. The other kids were kicked out of the bar. Several hours later, his friends left to walk home. They walked across an alley when a car full of the kids who were at the bar descended upon them. As I recall, one of his friends has his face bashed.

It seems like hours have gone by and I am simply at a loss. I have his roommate Paul's phone number but I am at a loss as to what to do.

I tell John that I don't know what to do. John now is in bed beside me as I text Doug again. "ARE YOU OKAY?" I text again.

Minutes seeming like days go by.

Finally, I see a text has come in. "Sorry. It was an accident. I am ok." he text me.

I text him back "Call me."

The telephone rings and I hear his voice and I start hyperventilating. I try to talk but have trouble with my words. I hear Doug say "Calm down, mom. Mom, I am ok. Calm down, Mom." He explains that it was a "pocket text". I hang up the phone not remembering what I had said to him minutes earlier knowing only that I feel on the brink.

I lay my head down again on the pillow and sob. I keep sobbing. The sobbing keeps on coming.

John and I were awake for quite some time afterwards.

That night, my heart ran through many of the same emotions it had done "that night" April in 2007.

..

This morning I woke up and when I got out of bed I saw white bright "donuts" so it seemed in front of me. The "donuts" blocked part of my vision. Having heard the term floaters, but never really knowing much about them, I thought "These must be floaters." As I started out of my bedroom I continued to see these "white donut floaters". I walked down the hall and they were still blocking my vision. I walked into the kitchen to the window and they were still there. Then I said a quiet prayer "Please God, have me be ok."

Since Jeff died, my biggest fear is that I will die prematurely and that Doug will have to live with the death of his brother AND the death of his mother.

I turn from the window and the "donut floaters" remain. Can't see the oven clock cuz they are still there. Can't see the whole bulletin board in the kitchen either. The white "donut floaters" remain in my line of vision as I walk down the hall and when I enter the bathroom they do to. Then they disappear.

I go about my morning routine. I think to myself "If this is serious, too bad John is gone for a couple of days." Once at work, I am encouraged to call the ophthalmologist which I do and make an appointment for this afternoon. I try not to worry but of course trying not to worry in a situation like this is like trying not to think of pink elephants after someone has told you not to think about pink elephants. I look online and decide this was not a wise activity for me to have done.

In the doctor's office the nurse queries me and I ask her if she thinks it is serious. She tells me that she is not a doctor but she doesn't think so.

The doctor enters and I can feel my heart racing. He asks questions. He places a small light behind his finger and tells me with my left eye to look directly at his finger with the light behind it. Then I must look at his lighted finger with my right eye. He directs a small light towards my eyes and tells me to look at it first with my left eye, then with my right eye. He takes out yet another instrument with several lights and tells me to look with each eye directly into the first light then the second one a bit bigger. He jots down notes in between checking my eyes with the different lights. He checks my peripheral vision and he jots down more notes. He asks me whether or not I felt nasious this morning, about any headaches, about whether I have seen these donuts since this morning. He goes to his pad and jots down a few more notes. He asks me about my sleeping patterns last night. How did I sleep? I remember that I had a miserable sleep last night - woke up in the middle of the night several times and had trouble falling asleep thereafter. Then woke up in the morning tired. He goes to again jot something down and I realize I simply can't take it any more.

Finally I say "Am I ok? This is a very bad time for me. My son died 4 years ago around this time and I am very very emotional. When your son dies, anything can happen at any time and it can be real bad."

He expresses his sympathy and then proceeds to tell me that everything around my eye looks great. Then he says that what concerns him in this case is why something like this happens. He mentions that if it is not your eye, then the next thing you think about it your brain.

I could feel my heart start again. He mentioned that he wouldn't at this time require me to have pictures of my brain.

At that point I interrupt him to say that in fact several months ago I had a MRI and a MRA for a possible cerebral aneurysm. He asks if everything was ok. I say that it was and he says that if that was the case then my brain ought to be ok because that was what he would have suggested as a possible next step.

My heart continues to race but not as fast as it was racing a minute ago.

He explains that what I was experiencing sounds very similar to what some people experience at the beginning of a migraine. That sometimes people experience auras sometimes they have a ringing in their ear. The same trigger for these things triggers a migraine which is actually a blood vessel bursting. He tells me that he was asking me about the other things (my sleep patterns, etc) to see if this could be related to stress.

He says he doesn't have to see me again.

I drove home this afternoon barely able to see in front of me. Couldn't read the street signs. For starters, I had to take my contacts out and I can't see (nor am I supposed to drive) without them. I also noticed when I was driving home that when I looked at the headlights of the oncoming cars, my eyes hurt. So I thought that it was related to the aura problem and that maybe it was more serious than the doctor thought. But what the heck, I needed to get home anyway. Half way home, I remembered that the stuff used to dilate my eyes requires me to wear sunglasses afterwords thus explaining the painful glare I was seeing when I looked at other people's headlight. Even though we had grey skies and it was lightly snowing, I put on my sunglasses and made it home ok.

I wondered tonight what the survivors of Hiroshima felt like.

How did they cope with the remainder of their lives?

Once the unfathomable enters your life, can you ever stop from imagining it will happen again?