I thought for sure that once the carpet was laid, and we started to put the house back together that my listless feeling would go away. There were literally nights when I tossed and turned b/c my bedroom was packed full of stuff from the un-carpeted rooms. I don't function well in chaos. I did have "up" points today such as seeing my daughters atop a fire truck riding w/ their volleyball team in the Homecoming Parade. I borrowed Ron's digital 35 mm camera to document Kenzie's senior year so after I snapped a few pictures I left. I left a parade early......who does that? Is this an indication that I'm slipping into another bout of depression?
When I got home I downloaded the pictures onto a flash drive, and in doing so, I found pictures of Mom that Ron still had on his camera. These were pictures from the last year of her life. I could see the steady decline in her health through the pictures, but I never saw it in person. Why didn't I see it? There's one picture of her and Dad that looks like it was snapped after the formal pose was over. They're sitting on the loveseat on the front porch. Dad's hugging Mom. She's grimacing in pain, and he's flashing a worried glance out of the corners of his eyes. I missed those grimaces and flashes before. Why? Because I didn't want to see them? Seeing that grimace now made me think of the story Mom used to tell about when her ovarian cancer was first discovered 42 years ago. Dad had given her a big hug in the kitchen, so big that he lifted her off the ground. When Dad was working for the town, he always carried a big key chain on his belt. Those keys dug into Mom's side, and she spent the night in serious pain, sitting at the kitchen table. Shortly after that she had a complete hysterectomy b/c they found ovarian cancer. Dad's hug and keys had nothing to do w/ the cancer, but Mom always marked that as the beginning of her first battle w/ cancer.
That hug 42 years ago is what I thought of in seeing Dad hug Mom on the loveseat. During her lung surgery, the surgeon had to spread apart some of her ribs causing a couple of them to break, but rather than removing them, the surgeon thought they would heal on their own. They never did and eventually broke off. So many times Mom would press her elbow to her left side and mention that the floating rib was in a bad spot. I was always cautious of hugging her after that for fear of hurting her and causing that floating rib to poke her. I think that's why Dad's face flashed fear b/c he was worried that another of his hugs had brought pain instead of comfort.
No comments:
Post a Comment