Somebody should be writing this down, and, since I'm the only one left, I guess I should get going.
Ann Patchett's latest book "Whistler" has a little woo-woo -- a very little woo-woo -- in it: As a girl is immobilized, dying in the snow, having been thrown by her ordinarily devoted horse (who got hysterical and dislodged her rider when lightning arrived), she is visited by several beloveds who have already died. They keep her warm until help arrives, give her encouragement, and disappear in the tree line when the child is found and rescued.
It's a really good book and I won't give any more away; I only bring it up because it showed up in my life just when I needed to begin to ponder life/death/and the whole damn thing.
I have to say that I have been considering suicide lately, or if not suicide then I've been yearning for the peace, relief, massive love, great understanding not to say complete connection with those who have passed and whom I miss every day. Some days the missing is so great I am nauseated by it.
These things happen, don't they? These signposts, if you will, telling you you're on the right path, keep going, don't be afraid. (Ann Patchett is such a gentle writer that I wasn't really afraid all the way through it. I would like to be unafraid when the time comes and I am allowed to die.) My niece Betsy was visiting and when we were setting up her bed, she reminded me to get her one more pillow: The Hugger. I knew exactly what she was talking about.
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BTW, being "allowed" to die is a whole nother blog and I might get to it one of these days.
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Anyway, I like the idea of conversing, praying if we need to call it that, with the late four people whose love for me I never once questioned, even when I was mad at them, even when they betrayed me, even if the betrayal was in fact succumbing to their own death. I know they loved me, love me still, and that I will see them (and about four dozen animals I have known and loved) when I die.
A year or so ago, I finally got my bed arranged to give me perfect comfort; when I slide down inside it, I feel as safe and loved as I ever have in my life. I like to sleep with a firm pillow under my head, and one on each side (Huggers). One night when I was having a little trouble nodding off, I decided to not only name but personify every pillow, adding in the coverlet. I "pray" to each of them every night, and my sleep is now blessedly calm, sweet-dream loaded, and sufficient to keep this worldly body cranking away for another day.
I have yet to come to a firm, inarguable conviction that I have invented a huge, soft, welcoming Ouija board that I can run by myself when I most need it. But it feels like that. None of these entities has spoken back to me (so far -- now THAT would be scary), but I do feel as if I have at least asked for help, as specifically as I can, and at some point in the praying, I fall asleep.
My head pillow is a very convoluted shape, but it holds its contours very well all night and, since I'm a side-sleeper, fills that gap between ear and shoulder whichever side I'm lying on. This pillow is Mother, my mother -- Emilia Belknap Cresswell. I ask her for comfort and restoration of my faith. She accommodates any thrashing I might do (I've always been a thrasher), and she really does comfort me. I haven't yet found the right pillowcase for her, but I'm sure Amazon will come up with something. I think often of riding home in our Buick on her lap, my father driving as wildly as ever, and Mother's calm acceptance (except for really close calls) lulling me to sleep. Usually we were visiting their friends in Quantico, when we were living at 8th and I in DC. Mother invariably wore a dark green suit, made of sadistically rough wool. I have changed that sensation with Mother Pillow -- 2-3 years of scratchiness is plenty for one lifetime.
My left-side Hugger is Auntie May -- Ella May Cresswell (never married, would never have given up the political and personal power she held as a single white woman in the wilds of the Mississippi Delta -- these were the darkest of ages for women, remember). She was my father's only surviving sibling (out of eleven live births -- yet another blog that needs telling); she was a girl of fourteen when my father was born. Their mother Ella, probably maddened by grief and exhausted from all those births, was in no condition to raise that willfull, spoiled, over-indulged brat, so Auntie May stepped up to the plate and made that boy right. When my parents met each other, Auntie May was going to be the hurdle Emilia had to clear, and not only did she clear it, she and Auntie May were the firmest of friends until Auntie May died in (I think) 1971. At night I ask Auntie May's counsel, for surely she was the most savvy member of our family, and she had showered me with attention, great love, and a lot of wisdom. I was her favorite and I don't care who knows it.
My right-side pillow is Dave -- David William Cox, to whom I now refer as my final husband. He was much younger than I -- fourteen years, the difference in the ages of Auntie May and my father -- and he was exactly what I needed at the time. He had a terrific sense of humor, a magnificent and seductive baritone singing voice, a really big strong body, and commanded respect wherever he went. Dave really was one of those people who sucked all the air out of a room just by walking into it. In our material relationship, he made me laugh, he got my jokes, he had enormous respect for me. He was also a perfect shit when it came to other women; I don't know that he ever in life came to know the unrelenting, visceral pain he caused me with his cheating. He might have, because he was basically a hugely sensitive guy, but when he was "thinking with his dick" (a quote from a friend of his and mine who was all too familiar with that tendency), didn't give a damn. Testosterone will be, has always been, the death of us all.
GET ME OUT OF HERE.
Sorry. Where was I? Oh, Dave. Another deathless description from Patchett's book: we would have been perfect partners if only we had been two completely different people. Anyway, I have long since forgiven him; he died in 2014, but he's the one guy I have to include. I pray to him for perspective, and to find my long-lost sense of humor for me. (It disappeared a couple of years ago, and I'm damned if I can remember how to get it back. Really, really damned. If we can't get access to our sense of humor we're assuredly lost.)
The coverlet's name is Ariel. I can't really explain Them (Ariel insists on the first and third person plural) without another, agonizingly long blog, probably a book and I just don't have that kind of time. I ask Ariel to protect me, and so far They've done a pretty good job.
My heart is a little wonky, but Ariel has arranged a special relationship for me with a small but brilliant Electro-Physiologist (that's what they call elite cardiologists these days), named Hirak Sen. He was on call when Mary, enduring a chemo infusion in 2014, nearly lost it and, Hirak, trailed by a dozen mouth-breathing residents and interns, saved her goddamned life. Hirak was also on call (whaddyaknow?) when I had my own heart attack in 2019, and he did the same for me. In June of 2020, the timing was less than perfect for me to have a cardiac ablation but it was critically important; Dr. Sen created the tiniest wedge in the terrified hospital system (COVID), squeezed me in there, did the job, got me the hell out of that disease-riddled building an hour later. His attentions and skill continue to keep me going. Early on, in a bit of a failure of judgment, Hirak gave me his cell phone number. I do not hesitate to use it; he does not hesitate to respond quickly with good sense and reassurance. Sometimes I'm grateful; sometimes I'm pissed because sometimes I really don't want to live anymore.
There's no question in my mind that Ariel set up the whole thing; that's why he gets the honor of my nightly coverlet.
