I got pregnant with my son when I was twenty years old, far too young and immature to be responsible for another human being.  I remember dancing in a bar one night with some guy, thinking, "When was my last period?" and I couldn't answer that question.  That summer I was filling my time before I started college in Edmonton by working as a nanny for a sweet little girl.  I had been accepted into a lab tech program and I was looking forward to moving to the big city;  I was also terrified at the thought of living in a new city where I didn't know anybody.

But that night as I danced and drank that missing period kept thrusting itself to the front of my brain.  I must have made a doctor's appointment at sometime but I can't remember.  I do remember the doctor being as surprised as me that I was pregnant.  It was my secret.  I  went through with moving to Edmonton, knowing I would be pregnant and alone in a strange city.  I wanted so badly to believe that I could have this baby and go to school.  That I could just take a day off and have the baby.  That life would continue on.  Real mature.  My mum figured out I was pregnant the day I moved.  I can't even remember her reaction.  I remember the apartment but not what she said to me. 

The morning I was supposed to start school, I drove all the way back home to my small town, crying all the way.  I think I phoned the program and withdrew.  Student loans were returned.  I packed up the apartment that I had moved into and moved back home with my parents.

My mum insisted that I get an abortion.  There was no other option in her mind.  Adoption was not an option, nor was me having the baby by myself or marrying the father of my child.  She made an appointment for me to see the doctor and I was approved to have an abortion.  The morning that I was scheduled to have my abortion, I picked up my boyfriend and we drove to the hospital.  I couldn't do it though.  I couldn't stop at the hospital, couldn't have an abortion.  I do remember saying to my boyfriend, "You have to understand that we may not spend the rest of our lives together.  Just because I'm having this baby doesn't mean that we will get married."  He said he got it.

So I had to go home and tell my mum that I didn't have an abortion.  And then she told my dad that I was pregnant and then I got kicked out of the house and stayed with a family friend for a week.  My dad cooled off and I was able to go back home.  Nobody was happy that I was pregnant.  Nobody was excited.  There were no congratulations.  It was all bad.  I was twenty, single and pregnant. 

I would not marry my boyfriend.  My best friend thought I should, something which shocked me more than finding out I was pregnant.  My sister got mad and took it out on my mother which I still don't get.  I became the black sheep of the family.  My mother was worried what the neighbors would think.  Worried what her friends would think.  None of them cared. 

And so began my first pregnancy.  Anger, shame, disappointment.  I wish I could have been there for my young self, to have told her it would be okay.  That she would make it through this.  That babies are nothing to be ashamed of, that they are a blessing in this world.  I wish I had felt loved at this time of my life.  I remember crying a lot.  I'm still crying for that young woman.

I'm stiff and sore today.  Yesterday there was a Code Blue in the parkade and we're the closest department to the parkade.  I ran faster than I knew I could.  The man was at the far end of the parkade and thankfully he was only dizzy and fell down, not dead.  My boss was the third person to arrive.  He asked how I got there so fast and I thought, but this is my job.  This is what I do.  I care about my patients.  They mean something to me.  I remember their names.  I remember their tattoos.  I remember their faces.  This is what I do.

Two days ago we had a woman come in by transport from a small town.  She was in horrific pain and vomiting.  We got her pain and vomiting under control and she had her MRI.  She has leptomeningeal disease;  it's a rare complication of cancer in which the cancer spreads to the meninges of the brain.  I've only seen it once before but it is memorable, the symptoms, how the patient presents.  It's also terminal.  I sat in the control room while she had her MRI, watching the O2 sat monitor.  The tech showed me the tumor in her brain, the leptomeningeal disease, the part of her skull that had been eaten through by the tumor and I wept. My poor lady is dying much more quickly than her family and friends realized.  Her husband is trying to get his crops in before the snow hits.  My lady was admitted and then came down again yesterday for an emergency central line insertion.  I stayed late to help.  It won't make a difference but both my lady and her family need some hope.  They can't let go yet.  I can understand that.  Acceptance comes at different times and in different forms for everyone.  She's four years younger than me.

After work last night we visited our granddaughter.  It was her birthday yesterday.  Babies are good for the heart.  Baby hugs.  Baby laughter.  My stepdaughter has a dog as well so I also get dog love when I go there which is almost as good as baby love.  We came home and fell into bed.  My god I'm tired lately. 

My middle daughter is coming for Thanksgiving next weekend, just for a night or two, depends on school and work.  I miss her still.  It's been four years since she moved out to Vancouver.  Our relationship is much better now.  She's almost twenty-five and it seems she has let go of her anger towards to me.  Looking back I understand now that she was angry at me for leaving her father, although I didn't understand that at the time.  She was seventeen when I left him and I was only thinking of myself and my own survival.  I imagine she thought I was selfish, ripping our family apart.  She lives with her dad now and has a much better understanding of the reasons I left.  I'm looking forward to her visit.  I'm hoping we'll have time alone, just the two of us. 

My son will be coming too for dinner.  We haven't talked much since July when he got very angry with me for calling him on his lies.  He did apologize but I still don't trust him.  His lies now tend towards lies of omission.  I'm tired of lies.  Tired of pretend.  I love him but I don't trust him which is a hard thing to admit about one of your children and an even harder thing to hold in your heart.  Love means trust in my mind but apparently not.  I don't think he understands this and wonder if he ever will.

The weather has cooled here.  It truly feels like fall.  Two days ago I walked in the river valley, admiring the fall colors, the yellow of the poplar leaves standing out so beautifully against the blue, blue sky.  And then last night the wind came up and the temperatures dropped and most of the tress now stand naked, ready for winter and their long sleep. 

And me?  I don't know.  I'm older and wiser, a little.  I keep my mouth closed more than I used to and listen more.  I still feel so deeply the pain of others that it wrecks me some days.  I'm still trying to understand suffering, still trying to accept suffering I guess. 

MOREOVER by Jack Gilbert

We are given the trees so we can know
what God looks like. And rivers
so we might understand Him. We are allowed
women so we can get into bed with the Lord,
however partial and momentary that is.
The passion, and then we are single again
while the dark goes on. He lived
in the Massachusetts woods for two years.
Went out naked among the summer pines
at midnight when the moon would allow it.
He watched the aspens when the afternoon breeze
was at them. And listened to rain
on the butternut tree near his window.
But when he finally left, they did not care.
The difficult garden he was midwife to
was indifferent. The eight wild birds
he fed through both winters, when the snow
was starving them, forgot him immediately.
And the three women he ate of and entered
utterly then and before, who were his New World
as immensity and landfall, are now only friends
or dead. What we are given is taken away,
but we manage to keep it secretly.
We lose everything, but make harvest
of the consequence it was to us. Memory
builds this kingdom from the fragments
and approximation. We are gleaners who fill
the barn for the winter that comes on.



Thank you to Erin for sharing this lovely poem with me.

 

 

We had a lovely weekend in Jasper with my cousin and her husband.  On the drive to Jasper though I had a huge meltdown beside the Pembina river.  The big guy gave me my birthday gift early and I'll probably never use it so I asked him if he would mind if I returned it.  He got huffy and then I got mad and started crying.  It went downhill from there. 

 

I don't like receiving gifts.  I am often disappointed which sounds so awful and self centered.  I remember being a kid at Christmas time and I often felt disappointed on Christmas morning.  Except for one year.  Our dog was sick that year and needed an operation.  My parents told us that we wouldn't be getting gifts because they couldn't afford the operation and Christmas gifts.  I was ok with that.  And then on Christmas morning there was a brand new Easy Bake Oven under the tree for me.  It was the best gift ever.  Not only because it was what I wanted but because it was such a surprise.  I expected nothing. 

 

And that's where my disappointment comes in, right behind my expectations.  Except there's more and I can feel it just outside of my consciousness but can't quite grasp it.  I don't like telling people what to get me or what I want because that feels fake and uncomfortable.  And to be honest I pretty much have all that I want already.  Expectations always bite me in the ass.  The gap between how I want the world to be and how the world really is. 

 

The big guy let me have a good cry and then told me that I was a wonderful person.  I didn't feel that way.  I've pretty much always felt like the difficult, prickly, hard to get along with person.  Turns out we had a lovely weekend.  It was probably the nicest holiday I've had a long time.  I had a chance to get to know my cousin much better and really get to know her husband who happens to be a very down to earth, warm, funny, kind man. 

 

The strange thing is, I love giving gifts.  So why am I such an ungrateful gift recipient?

 

 

 

We're off to the mountains again today to meet up with my cousin and her husband.  The renos are almost done as the big guy's daughter and her family move in a week and a half.  No stress whatsoever.

Yesterday I had a patient two years younger than my son.  This young man is dying.  His skin is yellow, his liver is shutting down and he is so thin.  His poor father is watching this, unable to accept that he will have to bury his son who is forty-two years younger than him.  Who would be able to accept this?  It broke my heart.  The radiologist had to wipe away her tears and gather herself before she could go back out of the room to talk to him.

I've been so tired this week.  I'm very thankful for a few extra days off. 

Things I'm thankful for today.

My children are healthy, even Miss Katie.
Miss Katie is well cared for and even loved by her caregivers.
Stones on a beach, stacked up by someone else, left for others to come across.
The big guy figured out what was bugging him.
My birthday this weekend.  Although getting older is difficult because of the losses that accompany aging, it is a gift that not everyone is given. 
A glass of iced tea and a few moments to sit and write.
My children coming for Thanksgiving dinner in a few weeks.

What are you thankful for today?

Things I'm thankful for today.

This little bean.  She's so sweet.  She prefers tools over toys.
Rain.  We need it.
Renovations are coming to an end thank goodness.
My birthday in two weeks.  I'll be fifty-three.  I'm thankful I am able to get older.  I buried two friends this year who will never hit fifty-three.
My son called me and talked to me.  He was mad at me in July because I called him on his lying and he wouldn't talk to me. 
Taking Miss Katie out for lunch today.
I sold a photo!  Not the first one I've sold but this one is printed on canvas. 
The big guy and I are going to print up a calendar as well for sale.
My mortgage will be paid off in two weeks.  My ex husband convinced me that I was bad with money.  So there!
A long weekend to cook.  I'm making tuna noodle casserole for Katie right now which reminds, time to go.

What are you thankful for today?

I'm tired.  Tired of bullshit at work.  It's stressful in the long run.  This day to day bullshit that seeps into everything, makes everything stink.  We have managers that can't manage, not even a little.  I asked to work one less day every two weeks and was refused so that's going to the union which is not something I've ever done before but I'm tired.

I want more balance in my life.  When Katie lived at home it was her care all the time.  It consumed my life.  And now my life is being consumed by work and I don't want that.  I turn fifty-three in less than three weeks and I'm tired.  My knees hurt when I climb stairs.  My feet hurt when I stand up.  I keep gaining weight because I'm too damn tired to exercise. 

Everyday I care for people who have had the rug pulled out from under them.  People my age.  People much younger than me and people much older than me.  People who had to retire.  People who were set to retire.  What's the point of continuing to work at something that makes me so tired for money that I may or may not live long enough to need or enjoy? 

I have a beautiful little granddaughter whom I want to spend more time with.  I want to help out my stepdaughter with childcare.  I want to garden again.  I want a dog and I want to walk a dog. 

I want to get off this treadmill because it's not fun anymore.  I love my patients but I work in a toxic work environment.  We are asked to do more every month but without more resources.  We now have to recover patients in a room which is used for storage.  There are no curtains in the room that holds up to two stretchers so no privacy.  Last time I recovered two patients there were seven of us all together in the room.  Me, patients and family.  The patients are wonderful about it but I am appalled that this is considered acceptable. 

I work with a nurse who to be honest couldn't tell the difference between a real problem and an imaginary problem.  She spends an enormous amount of time making mountains out of molehills and it wears me out.  She doesn't pay attention to anything.  I can't imagine how she manages to drive to work everyday without incident.  She is oblivious.  And if I say anything to management, I am "bringing the whole department down with my negativity". 

I'm tired.  It will pass but tonight I am so damned tired of bullshit I could scream.  The writing it out helps.  The screaming would probably just upset my neighbors anyway.