Thank you all. For everything. The support. the shoulders, the punctuation, the advice, the gentle reminders. Mostly for being here for me. I am so very lucky and grateful that I found the Buffistas and especially the Bitches. And that you all found (or, as the case often is, created) this community.
[Substantially x-posted from LJ but not a straight cut-and-paste. It’s the Director’s Cut of x-posts.]
At 10 o'clock, I came into the nephlet’s (technically guest) ((but more importantly, computered and interbunnied up)) bedroom and read some really nice things you’ve all been kind enough to say. They made me feel better and less alone.
It started me thinking and sometimes I think best while tapping out the keys. That way my brain can just say everything now and then I can go back, read it and realize what I meant or was feeling.
I wrote for an hour, was done for the time, and breathed that sigh of relief you get when you do something that was important and you did it well. A soul-baring post that was painfully honest, though not in a bellybutton way.
It was, in part, what feels like an honest look at what is going on and how it is affecting me and others and what I want from the whole experience. I actually realized reading it that much of it would be worth reading at my grandma's eventual memorial service. And then just writing out some of the drama of the day *and* minutia of the day so I could set the memory and get some feedback, alternatives or just
I reread it, shuffled two paragraphs, edited maybe three sentences and went to clicky the post button. The power went out in the house. The whole neighborhood was bzzzzzz-free according to eyewitness reports of me looking out of a couple of windows. I would have walked outside but it’s raining in a way that makes me want to collect two of whatever critter I see next. And with the power out, the baby moniter base unit is stupid and only runs off of an outlet.
I mentally pictured where I thought a flashlight I might have seen earlier was, actually found it too. I lit a couple of candles that I found so we could see and hopefully calm my grandma if she woke up - as the dark is just no longer her friend. I went out to the couch in the Great Room to wake my mom and ask if the morphine pump was running off of batteries or an outlet (Go team batteries in damned important medical equipment! And fuck team outlet only and no battery backup in the baby monitor), calmed mom down since she's terrified (understandably) that being woken up means something is wronger with her mother and convinced her to go back to sleep. I grabbed a couple more candles, lit their sparkly waxy hearts, and then I just sat down and waited.
Any minute I expected the lights to come back.
Grandma slept though most of it but was far more agitated than she had been today. I didn't have quite enough candle light to read or write, so I reclined the chair and tried to just listen to her breathing and talk her through any fear or confusion or pain. She was mostly just mumbling and wasn't even really awake. I was considering getting the Ativan in case she became too disoriented and panicky. But the dark nap imp lured me too and I felt the siren of teh snooze. I dozed just enough that it was a Violent Jerk Back to Awake each time when she starting talking or crying.
Then, after an hour and a half blackout, someone musta said that, “there be light.” And there was. And it was good.
There was however no music because I did not yet know how to mess with the satellite radio. Grandma is calmer when the soft light is on and the Sunny station is playing on the radio. One down, one to go.
I heard mom rustling (it is just the most telling thing about our society that actual silence feels askew? A house reawakening to electricity is loud.) so I went out to check on her and report on grandma. I said she was acting agitated so I was going to grab the Ativan from the fridge in case she woke up and we needed it to help her. She pooh-poohed (Is this an AA Milne thing?) the idea. So we just went into gram's room. (continued...)