I don’t usually make resolutions, but I feel like trying to write more in the new year might be a good plan. I thought about it a lot since my last post, thinking the new year might be a good beginning for more of the things I enjoy like writing and painting, reading and decorating.
Tim and I took a really fun trip in early December and I thought that would be a good subject to start back blogging about. And I will, some day. Life was hectic, coming back from a trip, catching up on work I needed to do and getting ready for Christmas so I once again decided the new year would be a better time to start.
I’ve said before that my favorite part of Christmas is the Christmas Eve service at our church and the years I get to serve communion at that service are some of my fondest Christmas memories. This year I had signed up to serve and was looking forward to it. I had had a very trying day, getting a Christmas surprise for Tim handled turned into an extra errand that was difficult and unexpected and I was trying really hard to be prepared for the 10 people I was serving dinner to the next day.
Let me say here that I love to set the table, cook and clean. I love thinking through every aspect of having company so that everyone is comfortable, has everything they need and lets me have fun as well. I have zero confidence that I can ever actually pull that off.
As usual we watched Christmas Vacation, trying to stay awake and ready for church at 11 pm. We recited the lines we now know by heart and talked through the movie since it was just Tim and I at home seeing a movie for the 40th time! We had been to see White Christmas at the Alabama a few weeks before for the 40th year in a row but didn’t say (or sing) a word since we were in public.
About 10:30 I received a text that my younger brother, who had been in the hospital for several weeks, was not doing well. I have to stop here and say that my brother and I have a complicated relationship to say the least. This is not the place to go into that other than to say we were estranged. His choices in life took him away from the family in general, me in particular. Although we had spent a good 30 years out of contact, the last few years I had seen him more than I had in the 50 years prior. I could spend days talking about how things were between us, but since I don’t really know how I feel about it all, I would not know what to say. He was my only sibling, the only member of the family I grew up in that was left.
I told Tim about the text right before we headed to church. I moved through the service as if sleep walking. I was tired and a bit preoccupied. I tried to focus on the people in front of me as I held the chalice and spoke to each person. In the faces that turned up towards me I was overcome with the emotion that fills me at that late hour on Christmas Eve each year. Being in that place, with those people, many that I know but more that I don’t, fills me with a calm and peace I can not describe with mere words. Serving with the staff that has held me up all year, listening to the music that fills me with joy and being a part of something bigger than myself helps to keep me calm through the busy days ahead.
After the service, Tim grabbed one of our closest ministers and asked him to pray with us. Again, I felt fortified for what was ahead- a house full of people and my lack of confidence in being the hostess I wanted to be. I honestly felt that my brother would be fine. Through all of his health issues over the years he seemed to always pull through. And besides, he was almost 3 years younger than I am! He would be fine!
By the time we talked to a few people, walked home in the drizzle that was falling, and I put on my pajamas as I headed to bed, there was another text. The nurses needed to talk to me as soon as possible. It was around 1 am on Christmas morning.
I called the hospital and after going through several people since my brother had been moved back to the ICU during the day, I finally had his nurse on the line. She told me what had happened over the course of Christmas Eve, that he had coded and been brought back around, that his blood pressure had bottomed out and that he was septic. They had moved him back to the ICU mid day. She asked as his only relative if I was prepared to make decisions for him. I had been called on to make life and death decisions for my mother since my father would not, I had been called on to make life and death decisions for my father and now this. Each time I think to myself that a human should not have to make these decisions for another human. It doesn’t feel right, it is too much.
As I spoke to the nurse asking what decisions had to be handled and what medical knowledge did I need to make such decisions about his care, she stopped me and said, “I’m so sorry, I thought that you understood. Your brother died about 5 minutes before you called.” The decisions she needed me to make were completely different from what I thought I was being called on for. At a bit past 1 am, after a long day, the detour in my thoughts was overwhelming. The nurse needed to check with her supervisor about some things and I needed to talk to Tim, get my head straight and then call the hospital back. We hung up as I promised to call her back shortly.
About 3:30 am, when I had discussed everything with Tim, talked to the hospital again and made the decisions that were needed, I finally laid down in bed although sleep did not come. About 7:30 on Christmas morning the funeral home called to give me condolences, assure me they were handling things and that they would call the next day to set up an appointment to make arrangements. I made the decision as I sat in the early morning quiet of my living room that I would tell my son, but then not mention it again until I could get through Christmas dinner. No one that would be at the table knew my brother, I felt that I barely knew him. Putting a dark cloud on the day for the others did not seem like the right thing to do. Since I was unsure about my feelings, there are many layers to this story that I am not sharing, there was no need to discuss it during this holiday meal.
I will say that putting on a happy face and acting like everything is as it should be is much more difficult and exhausting than being on stage as a different character. It is easier to be someone totally different than be yourself pretending to be totally different. By the end of the day I was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. I had served a meal, kept my composure, and powered through. I should have felt accomplished to get it all done under those conditions, but somehow I felt drained and like a fraud.
I kept working, doing dishes, wiping the table, returning chairs we had moved to their rightful place, vacuuming. I knew if I stopped, which I kept promising Tim I would do, that I might fall completely apart. I felt that once I let the mask slip, I would be in trouble.
Since that day it has been a process. I have handled what I needed to, trying to keep it all close. I don’t know how I feel about everything still. I think sometimes that losing a person close to you is extremely difficult, but losing someone that you should have been close to but never were is a whole different level.
The main thing I wanted from this post is to say that we are all handling things that others don’t know about. We are all grieving in our own ways. Life is short and what might happen next is beyond what we can imagine. I don’t know how I could have changed anything that happened. It takes two people to have a relationship. It is just sad.
A text last Friday shocked me when one of my son’s friends and colleagues died unexpectedly and it all came flooding in again. It started me thinking again about how fragile life can be. All I can say is (and I guess it is a cliche but so true) be kind to each other. You have no idea what burden someone might be carrying. You have no idea how long the people in your life will be around and you don’t know how many days you have.
