The wind shakes my car as I round the curve
Autumns leaves twirl around me in symphony
Yesterday, the mountains were green
Today, they are a rainbow of yellows and reds
I hear the sound of children playing
They laugh as they whirl in autumn leaves
Yesterday went so quickly, today, in a flash is gone
I wonder if I even have a tomorrow –
Or am I just an autumn leaf?
Once, I was volunteering at school.
my youngest son was in Peter Pan.
He didn’t like drama much-
I was working with kindergarden girls-
singing…giggling
I was late getting home
and you were standing at the door-
smiling at me, in your ball uniform.
“Oh, you scared me!” I smiled.
I didn’t know it was the last time
I would ever open my door
and see you standing there, smiling
See you there at all…
For me, life ended that night,
I sat and watched you practice,
almost took your picture, but you
seemed so far away-I never imagined
how far away you would be
in a few hours. Again, I almost did it-
took a picture, but it was getting dark
I never imagined it would be my last chance.
You held your head, and ran to me,
collapsing ina slide as you fell to the ground.
I screamed “Call 911, Call 911!”
How can a parent call 911 and tell them to go
five miles away to some ball complex?
You killed my son-taking 12 minutes
to find their way there when a fire station
was right above us? Why, “nurse”,
did you not recognize heart failure, do CPR?
Why didn’t I pump your heart, even though
I didnt know anything but your breathing
was raspy and an ambulance came
and the nurse just stood there when I screamed,
Cant you do something?
Why didnt I realize no sirene
was coming from the fire station?
When finally an ambulance came in the back way,
they knew they were given the wrong directions.
“Bag him” an EMT screamed, as they pulled out
a stretcher-I ran to the front of the ambulance
and got in, I saw them rushing to send currents into you
because your heart had stopped, because 911
had gotten the wrong directions.
A chaplain leads me away, it will always be with me
slow motion hell that you were dying-
they were too late, because somebody screwed up.
A decade ago, a slow motion nightmare-
I wanted to die too-A lot of me did-forever,
I wanted all the people who begged you to play
to hurt like I did-to die like you did.
God forgive me, I have yet to change my mind.
I leaned on your little brother, till he grew up
and had to find his own life, you were
A vague memory, someone he should have had
to guide you,, teach you, love you,
And he has only flashes of memories,
looking in album,hearing us talk,
or maybe a sharp breath as he awakes
from his nightmare, again, and again…forever.
I see myself now as an empty soul,
robbed of my most beautiful memories,
because you didn’t want to disappoint friends.
Beni-hana, you will never know how much
it has meant that you did not beg him to play,
that you have listened to me, wrote songs for us,
that he is still alive to you as he is to me.
Some like to say these “God did this or needed that”
and I want to scream, “God wasn’t there!”
My health gone, the pain worse everyday,
People think time will heal that you were stolen.
Never on this side of hell will that happen.
I needed you, God gave you to me,
He did not take you away, negligence did.
I cannot pray, I cannot forgive, I need you,
and nothing will ever change that.
My beautiful son, you were so amazing-
different , special, your love was beyond compare.
One day, I will open a door, and
you will be there, smiling, and I will hold you,
and never ever let you go again.
WordPress Friends:
I am looking for PROMPTs to write about. I used to write for quite a few, but it seems they have all stopped publishing. If you know of anyone who publishes PROMPTS to write for, please, let me know! Thanks.
beebeesworld
The Heart of A Man
We can move like the waves on the ocean,
Or dance, with only the moonlight
shadows reflecting the land.
I can feel like I love you completely,
But, still, I cannot understand
why I always feel love is hiding
deep in the heart of a man.
Across hills, we can journey together,
our souls become one with the light.
The whispers of autumn approaching,
yet we lie like two strangers at night.
For miles, we have traveled this highway,
and still I do not understand
what keeps the emotions so silent
In the heart of a man.
reprinted from beebeesworld Fall 2012-one of my favorites. Its been a rough week, but I wanted my friends to know I;m still out here, new friends please read some of my old entries listed on my home page!
Today, he sits in the drivers seat as we listen for the rumble of the school bus, listen for the squeal of the brakes, and I watch him disappear into the bus as I scoot into the drivers seat.
If it were not for an error in the school drivers ed list, he would already e driving, so I am savoring these few extra moths when he has to be my chauffeur, my co-pilot.
Two or three years ago, it seems he played with Lego’s and played video games, this year his is studying computer coding and just finished an internship for the school system in this area. Where has time gone?
In three years, he has grown eight inches, and has almost caught up with his brother, who is 6’5” tall.
I miss my baby, we were so close. All of my children and I were close. The one I lost at age 15 when he collapsed while playing baseball, I dream of, eyes wide open , of who he would be, what he would be doing eight years later. I feel cheated, lied to. His death cost me more than words can describe.
I enjoy days with my daughters, chasing babies as I once chased them. They sigh and say, “I don’t know how you did it with six when two drive me crazy!” And I just smile and say, “Mom’s with lots of kids grow extra hands and endless hearts.”
The nus stop is beside my oldest son’s house, where he, his wife and three kids live. To see those little white heads running up to me and saying, “I love you, Beebee.” is a gift beyond compare.
Still, I have learned there is nothing like your own children. Grand kids as wonderful, but they are not yours. You and your own children have secret languages, know each others inner thoughts. You know how they like to be held, you can nurse them when they are fussy. You have your schedules, your speial subjects that you enjoy, things that arre privte between only you and yours.
Don’t get me wrong, grand kids are great, Not just because of the old addage that “You can send them home.” but that they are rather like a glimmer of your own child mixed with a gleam of their other parent. Sometimes you catch a familiar look or action that you remember from long ago-a smile, an impish grin, a silly giggle.
To see your last child. drive away in his own car, leave for college, get married, is so much more exciting to them that it is to the mom-left alone, feeling useless. A largely stay-at-home mom like me especially suffers when they have lost a child forever and have to watch that last living child spread his wings and fly. Your tears are filled with both relief and pride.
I was an only child. I learned about sibling rivalry from my own kids. I dreamed that my kids would grow up and be like the siblings I never had, but they didn’t. They are siblings to eachother-not to me, and I have to settle for being the mom who was once everything and is now, one who wove their being, but has found herself out of yarn.
I’m am surprised and proud of my youngest son. I was/am an old hippie, jeans and peasant shirts, leather sandals, guitars and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He dresses is suits and ties, has computer skills that make me feel illiterate, he worries that his teeth are shiny enough, that his shoes are clean enough. I wonder, sometimes, where I got him. Certainly, thank goodness, he is the opposite of his father-a Harley rider who enjoys road-side sales booths and collections of used clothing. At least my son and I think alike- finding joy in discovery, whether in nature, or in technology.
One day, it seems, a mother is looking into the eyes of a new life, never knowing what that child will become , And then, in the blink of an eye, that baby is a child, a teen, a young adult, a father or mother themselves. Life goes by much too quickly, sometimes bitter-sweet, just realizing that as they grew older, so did you.
Having to look in that dark glass of what might have been when we loose a child, is the worst pain a mother can feel, yet each moment spent with that precious child glimmers like a diamond. I don’t have another mother who is a close friend that has lost a child, neither can I can tell you how many times I would have liked to smack the well-meaning people who have , lost for words, remarked, “I know how you feel, I lost my sister, brother, friend,( fill in the blank). NO, they do not know and I pray they never will.
Next spring, watch the first pale leaves emerge from a flower, look at it each day as the green grows darker and buds start to form. Close your eyes and inhale the sweetness of the bloom, then let the flower go to seed and plant the seeds again next year. Life does not stand still, it must be protected and revered.
Read “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran if you want to get a beautiful picture of the phases of life. Read it to your children, sing to them, teach them poetry, and don’t be surprised when one day your grandchild repeats that poem or sing that song as he walks beside you along life’s path.
School Daze Haiku Set
Alarm rings out-wakens me-
That first, dreaded day of school .
Where did summer go?
My schedule is wrong-
Sleepy-eyed counselor visit
Schedule more sleep, please.
Tomatoes fall over
Pumpkins lay like huge balloons
Tears fall, goodbye summer
August-my birthday
All I want is more summer-
Less classes and bells
Yellow buses hum
I just want to go back home
Drink more cocoa with mom.
Morning comes again, as I struggle, sleepy-eyed towards the kitchen. First light has just begun to creep over the mountains. It does little to encourage me to fix that cup of coffee and start another day. I find myself thinking of a different song most mornings, I wonder if it came from a dream I had during the night or just why that song would be in my head. It will always be a song from the 1970’s or late 1960’s, it seems. I think perhaps it expresses a longing to have lived my life differently, to avoid the pitfalls, to have more confidence that I did.
Today, the song dwelling in my half-asleep mind is “If you’re Going to San Francisco, be sure to wearr some flowers in your hair.” By the time I am busy waking people up, leaving home as the light becomes brighter, I have usually forgotten the song.
I see the turkeys crowded outside in my yard, waiting for their hand full of sunflower seeds that I always give them. I have noticed that they have a “pecking order”, like most birds do. The dominant birds will chase off, wings flaring , if necessary, the birds who have little status. Even if I throw the seeds in a wide arch, the dominant turkeys will chase away the birds with little status. I feel sorry for them, always trying to find a way to get some food to them.
I look at the turkeys the way I look at people. Often, the people who are respected, have status or, perhaps are feared are allowed privileges and perks that regular people are not. No matter how hard we try, if we don’t have a higher-up willing to help us, there is little chance for success.
Life has not been kind to me for a long time. I seem to always be on the outside looking in. Sometimes, I take naps on my son’s grave. When I find dimes, I see that as a sign that he is with me. I see those around me making their way through career moves, avoiding trouble, getting new houses, while life remains stagnant and unrewarding for me.
The love, companionship, the glimpses of happiness seem to evade me. That has been my world. A few happy years, or months followed by periods of time when I wonder what I have done to deserve them. Some people seem able to take the same recipe and have a “who cares” attitude, while I can’t seem overcome the pessimistic attitude that being a realist has given me.
I watch the butterflies flit from flower to flower. Darting, carefree amidst the summer gardens. Their lives are short, precarious, yet they go about their calling without worry or fear. A half grown rabbit freezes on the front lawn, hoping I don’t see it, or at least don’t see it as a meal. I goldfinch lands on a thistle and meets with its mate in an apple tree.
Life, I suppose holds different joys for each of us, just as it holds different sorrows. I watch nature outside my door and the song in my head returns. “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” I pluck a daisy and tuck it behind the golden curls covering my ear. I guess I will keep hoping, looking, dreaming of that life that I had wanted, even if I am no longer young and it is only a dream.
William Bulter Yeats was born in 1865 in Ireland. He was a popular and accomplished poet, receiving the Nobel prize for Poetry at one time in his career. Brown Penny was written in 1910. It was published in a book of poetry called The Green Helmet and Other Poems. The poem tells of a young mans’ insecurity about a new emotion-love. He has seen others fall in and out of love and acknowledged both the joy and agony that could come from opening ourselves up to this “new” emotion.
Tossing the penny to make this decision is probably more an expression of his anxiety than of actually “doing” what the penny suggested, heads for yes, tails for no. I have always imagined that he had already decided to approach the young lady he had become enamored of.
One thing that I have wondered about the poem was how old the author imagined the young man in his poem to be. After all , he was 55 when he wrote the poem. In the world of 1865 Ireland or England, men were often much older than women when they married. They had established themselves in a career and it was important that he be able to show the young woman’s’ family that he could give her a good life.
Since Yeats spent a good bit of his life in England, he may have been subject to the custom of “The Season”, which was unofficially held in summertime in London and urban areas. There were many social occasions and opportunities for young woman, often in their late teens to meet young men who might offer then a good life.
Brown Penny
I whispered,” I am too young,”
and then “I am old enough.”
Wherefore, I threw a penny
to find out if I might love.
“Go and love, go and love, young man,
if the lady be young an fair.
Oh, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped by the loops of her hair.
Oh, love is a crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough,
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love-
Till the stars had run away.
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Oh, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
Photo from Google.com/victorian love scenes
reference:www.humanities360.com/index.php/peotry-analysis/Brown Penny by William Butler Yeats
Across the room, a picture of the two of you,
Its seems like yesterday, but its been 8 years,
in the purest hell. You- taken only four months later.
Your little brother now 6’3” and growing-
the girl who has his heart isn’t me.
I am alone in my heart-I’ve taken in my sick dad-
and the daily reminders of why I left home at 18
haunting my every quiet move, with doors down,
curtains up to accommodate walkers-hospital supplies.
Every time I think “life” can get no worse, it does.
I need you, I need your brother to be little again.
I want to teach 6 kids about bugs and butterflies
and play in the creek. I want to live, love, dream.
Tonight, if and when I close my eyes, please,
my beautiful young man, stolen for no reason,
come to me, be with me, let me remember life.
It seems I have helped care for elderly relatives most of my adult life. HELP being the operative word here. I would have a “shift” which I shared with my mom when we were caring for my grandparents at home. There was no Hospice/Solace. We were pretty much on our own. My grandfather had a pacemaker ( he was on his third one when he died at 91) My grandmother spent 5 years in a wheel chair, passing away at age 96. We took grandma to the toilet, one of up holding her up with her hands locked behind our neck, the other pulling down her pants and sitting her on the toilet, cleaning her afterwords etc. Grandpa was mobile, but sometimes, his heart issues would cause him to just collapse on the floor. He would “wake up” after softly sinking to the floor and we would sit him down to rest.
When my mom had a health issue that left her weak and needing help, or when she broke her hip and had a hip replacement, my father was relatively well, and again, I was the HELPER, not the primary caregiver.
This time it is different. We have had a lot of trouble getting doctors to work with my father, just as I had after suddenly loosing my teenaged son. It seems they just don’t want to deal with the patient-passing them off to some other doctor who does the same thing-”We don’t treat that>” We were often referred to a doctor whose specialty was so far from my fathers real problem, it was laughable. My father had used catheters to urine for years, but it had gotten to where he frequently couldn’t “cath” himself. He would keep trying and end up with an infection. The doctor would prescribe antibiotics after examining a urine sample and schedule a re-check in a week or ten days at which time, dad would be “clear” of infection. A week or two later, it would be the same thing all over again.
Finally, in mid-May, father, very ill and in pain finally insisted that I call his “regular” doctor and hand him a phone. When he finally got though the annoying recordings and go to talk to a person, he simply said, “I need to see the doctor NOW!”. And surprisingly they had me bring him right in. That evening, after supper, the doctor called me and told me that dad’s calcium levels were extremely elevated, and to get him to the hospital ASAP. My father was living alone at the time, so my husband and I went to try to borrow a wheelchair from my aunt, who lived next door to him. She suggested we call an ambulance, because then they would take him straight in, and we did.
MY father had chronic Lymphatic Leukemia, one working kidney and several other intestinal issues beyond the catheterizing, so it took four antibiotics to get him over what ever the “Extreme calcium rise was”. Even though various doctors talked to us, all we were really told is that they didn’t know exactly why the “rise” in his calcium levels had happened. Since they ordered “small needle biopsies” on his abdominal lymph glands, we knew that the condition had to with his chronic condition.
One doctor came and talked to my father and I about the what kind of doctor he was. He asked dad if he knew what a “onocologist/Hemotologist” did and dad said, “Yes, they treat cancer”. The doctor tried to explain that at dads advanced age (87) and health, it would be more dangerous to do a biopsy where they had to make an incision than to just see what they came up with in the needle biopsies. They told us that he was the oldest patient they had ever treated with all these problems AND STILL FIGHTING.
I guess that is good, but the continual passing from doctor to doctor, and after this hospital stay from nursing home to the hospital again for pneumonia was very hard on all of us. I have not been in good health since the sudden death of my son, so the constant “visiting was very hard on me.”When dad started out on every IV antibiotic hey could think of to fight the pneumonia, my daughter and I were literally courted by Solace, even given a tour because they thought he would not recover. Solace was in a nice, new facility, but they don’t give even the very amount of therapy the “nursing homes “ do. It is not in their protocol. I hate to be mean, and don’t intend to be insulting to Solace/Hospice, who have been very good to us, but when dad didn’t die right away, they began shuffling to another nursing home for so-called therapy.
This made 5 transfers within five weeks and it was talking its toll on dad and our family. We had other serious issues to deal with as well. The nursing home conditions were not what we were told they would be. He was in a double room with one chair (which was moved for some reason) and a room-mate who mumbled all the time and kept the window open which upset my dad a great deal. My father was miserable and the “nursing home smell was awful.
With my heart overriding my head, I decided to bring my dad to my home and care for him. By this time he had contracted another serious bladder infection which required shots twice a day because dad’s lymphatic leukemia makes him unable to fight off infections. My daughter an I had to really fight to get him released to my home, with a hospice nurse giving thee morning shot, and my daughter, an RN giving the evening shot. It didn’t take long for me to realize that doing the right thing, certainly didn’t mean doing the simple thing.
By the time the shots were over, I was so exhausted that I often simply collapsed on the bed after picking up my teen son from his I.T. Internship with the school system. My daughters were good to help with food, and of course the RN daughter helped with shots, but the burden was mainly on me. My husband helped, but was often not at home. I am sure Hospice is tired of our calls, but we were often confused and left with conflicting directions from the nursing home’s medications, Hospices recommendations and trying to get my father to doctor appointments that he simply was not able to go to. By day 6, I was a wreck. A family meeting was called to see what more could be done to help me as the problems with my father being uncooperative and his short-term memory minimal.
This is where I am right now. If you have read this much of my blog, you are probably feeling a bit of the exhaustion that I feel. We still have no answers. The biopsies that might have told us a little more could not be done. Dad could come down with a serious infection tomorrow, or go for weeks, we don’t know.
My point in writing this long diatribe is two-fold. Number one, you are not superman (or woman)even when the conditions at nursing homes are not up to your standards, home care planning should be made with more care BEFORE the parent comes home.
Number two-make sure that the people who say they will help have a schedule of WHEN they will help and that they are committed to do it. In my cause the girls all work and/or have children under two. One daughter-in-law now had a sick newborn at home to care for-along with two older, active boys. The best of intentions may be hard to fulfill.
In closing, I commend all of the baby boomers like me, who are caring for parents, children and grandchildren. We deserve some kind of heroism medal, but that wouldn’t help either. Plan carefully and don’t let guilt rule your decisions, you are only human. As for me, I will just do the best I can and hope my help comes through.
beebeesworld 