Scribblings

I've only got a moment.

They've redone all the tests, including an excruciatingly painful bone marrow extraction & biopsy from the hip. We're waiting for the results, which could come as soon as in a few hours. We are exhausted. If any of us even so much as sniffles or sneezes, we know we will be banished from the hospital.

D-1 & D-2 decorated the room with extravagently Christmas-y stuff, surprising her when she returned from having a 'portal' implanted into her right clavicle, into which the chemo & other things will be pumped as soon as the order is given.

If everyone is well, then Christmas Eve dinner will be held in her room, and the opening of presents the following morning as well. The girls are getting a room an an inn around the corner from the facility.

It's been a week. Might as well have been a year.

I've already lost one Half. I may lose the other.

silent anguish

I am so alone. My therapist calls me daily. But I am alone, with noone to comfort me in all of this.

I hold and caress and smooth their hair, and the girls take strength. With the Queen, I encourage, I cajole, I tease, and she takes strength from this. She finally understood that the Issue of the last five months has to be put aside to get through this.

And I have no one. I am truly in my crisis of need. They have their support; I stand alone.

D-1 is staying with the Queen tonight, so I can be at home to get sleep. D-2 came to the house rather than spend the night at a girlfriend's house as planned. We talk, we go about our ordinary activities. She's out there watching TV right now, curled up on a chair with a glass of white wine.

I am in agony I never knew possible, an aloneness I could never foresee.

I thought last August was bad. I was wrong.

I know God. I trust God. God has put this here for us to deal with.

It is not based on merit. Or punishment. Or chance. It has been delivered to us here and our job is to work with it, and do it, and get through it. It's not just us. It's our extended families, the news rippling outward from the epicenter like nuclear shockwaves spread by phones and texts and Facebook. It's those we have worked with. It's our neighbors. Our fellow church-goers. Our lovers.

I am grateful for the blessings God has given me over the years. The Two Halves. The Girls. The Diva. Large extended families; peculiar relatives; prosperity and impoverishment. Education the likes of which others haven't the opportunity for. And because I know God, and therefore am sure there's a reason for all this, my job isn't to figure out why. My job is to sort through all this and guide everyone through it.

But what I wouldn't give for a shoulder to rest my head on. For a moment of support. For someone to tell me, too, that, "It's going to be all right."

Tuesday I learned the word 'leukemia'

She was transferred to a regional cancer clinic late yesterday. All tests have to be redone Monday. We still don't know which type of acute leukemia it is--AML or ALL. Prognoses are severely different between them. Her blast of chemo begins Tuesday.

D-2 was lured back into town last night right after her last semester exam. She was taken immediately to her mother's room--mask over her face & properly sanitized before entering--and learned the news. It was heartbreaking. All over again. Our freshly closed wounds burst open again. At the end, the Queen lay on the bed with her two daughters in bed on either side of her, each seeking comfort and support from the others two but all happy to be firmly scrunched together.

Then we had pizza and cried and hugged and looked at one another in wide-eyed anguish. But it all turned to jokes and humor, as the family trait that distinguishes us from others took hold: we deal with crises by making jokes of it. By the end of the evening, D-2 had corraled me into agreeing to pay her $5 if I ever said the work 'blood' different from the way Dracula says it. I've already paid her the first installment today on that regrettable bet.

Despite all the blood transfusions, the Queen is tiring easily now, and the faint rosy glow she had last night is fading as the disease inexorably grinds her red cells into nothingness and destroys her immune system.

The Lady or the Tiger

It's either O. Henry or Rudyard Kipling--I don't recall which--who wrote a short story of that title. It ends with a young hero being put into a pit with two doors on the interior sides. Behind one, the beautiful maiden of his dreams; behind the other, a man-eating tiger. The story ends just as the man makes his choice of which door to open.

The doctor this morning told us tomorrow morning we'll learn whether the Queen will ever leave the hospital. If the leukemia is one type, she'll stay there until the end. If the other, then after a period of treatment she would presumably resume a moderately regular life. Right now, they don't know.

The lady or the tiger. And we don't get to choose the door.

We told D-1 last night, and some friends. We are yanking D-2 home from college tomorrow after her last exam to tell her.

This should not be happening. This stuff is what happens in tacky hollywood movies.

As the Queen commented after wiping tears off of D-1's face, "I know, this sucks."

That it does.

Daybreak

The Queen lay there, in ICU yesterday, pale and with no color. Like wax. Her red count was below 5; her white was over 45,000. Her legs and hands were swollen; she could not walk more than a few feet without severe exertion and exhaustion.

This came on in the last few days; certainly since we got the Christmas tree on Saturday. It accelerated at breathtaking speed yesterday. After lunch, she was so bad, I took her to the ER at our doctor's insistence.

Lymphoma. Blood cancer. That's a few of the terms being bandied about by the doctors.

I've popped home for a few moments to pick up some items, having slept on waiting room carpet which I swear was made out of remnants of burlap.

. . . . . . .

I will post more, when I am able.

Tuesday

When something has been under a lot of pressure--or with people, a lot of stress--when that pressure is abruptly relieved, there are reactions, responses, to that sudden absence.

I'm human.

There have been responses.

But that's an entry for another year.

. . . . . . . . . .

Other than that, the holidays continue their inexorable sweep towards Friday of next week. Over the weekend, D-1 & her daughter, and the Queen and I, went and picked out a Christmas tree out in the country, Cooper's Farm. We trekked it back to the house, and upon learning that our eyes had been bigger than the ceiling of the den, promptly decided that the foyer was a far better place to put the tree this year . . . even if it did block direct access into the back of the house.

We went to the Courthouse again this year--this time without the aromatic drama of two years' ago--and a little girl was able to whisper secrets into Santa's ears.

As did her mother, with Santa pulling back from the young woman on his lap and loudly exclaiming, "Honey, I can't give you a boyfriend! You'll have to get one on your own!"

And then adding, as he glanced over at one of his helpers, "But, say--I've got an elf for you!"

Friday

Winter comes. Sunsets provide no warmth. The lake is encircled with leafless trees. Even the view from the dam is cold.

Wednesday

The winds of change continue to buffet, but they're manageable, albeit not comfortable.

I was a fool, and I admit this. It doesn't matter that I was deceived and misled in the beginning. I saw the truth, knew the truth, and nonetheless believed the lies that were being told to me. The amount of time I've spent, the money I've blown, the harm to others I have occasioned, simply cannot be justified. I am chastened and am disturbed by the amount of harm I have done simply because I ... believed that I mattered to someone. I did not have a rude awakening. Instead, it was like I woke up and fully understood that the only truth was the fact that I had refused to see what was in front of me. And so here I am, caught in cross-currents of floodwaters of my making, watching as the people in my life swirl around and slowly away.

Rules exist for a reason; disregard them at your peril. We really are the authors of our own misfortune.

Moving On

The Courtroom

I was there on time.

The Judge was late. The other attorney and his client were late. The court reporter was late.

I stood there, alone, in the silent courtroom.

I slowly walked around what I call the 'stage' area, that is, that open section between the jury box, the judge's bench, and the lawyers' tables.

This has been my world.

Where have the years gone? I have spent my life doing trial work. Like a producer of a play or opera or film, I have chosen casts, and written scripts, and winnowed out audiences so only those who would appreciate best could be allowed to watch, and perfected props, and put together dramas, all seen on the stage of the courtroom floor.

Like with Shakespeare, this was my Rose.

I close this out on Friday.

In Macon today, the judge I was before commented on how upset several of the other judges were at the news that I might be withdrawing.

You see, what noone will dare ever tell you, is that the trick to trial work--like with the theatre--is to entertain. To capture the attention. To fascinate. To make them take notice. If you cannot do that, then you cannot win cases. And your client loses.

My new job will have me in different settings. I will teach young lawyers how to use a courtroom. I will handle hearings in which there is no adversary of opposing counsel. I will give advice.

But like the toreador later in life, I will not face the bull.

Monday

I'm preparing for a hearing in the morning in Macon, Georgia. My room now has echoes, what with all the trappings having been removed the other day. The other guys here are curious as cats as to where I'm going; I haven't told anyone yet, as an announcement will be made Saturday at the other firm.

When paths cross . . .

A long weekend.

Thanks for all that has been bestowed.

Longing for that which has not been.

Wonderful togetherness of the immediate family with laughter and good times. Inclusion by friends in their celebrations.

And today, the dog off to the doggie salon to get that shedding fur removed . . . and the smell. By the office to remove twenty years of accumulated memorabilia and bric-a-brac and lamps and paintings and letter openers and ...

And the final acceptance that come Friday, two decades of my life will end. Not by my choosing. But coming into the job was not by my choosing either:

Almost 30 years ago I had an elderly female client who had a complaint against another elderly lady in their group about something which might be missing. I was hired to retrieve it. To my first demand letter came back a scathing, sarcastic letter from some attorney I'd never heard of, threatening me with the hounds of Hell if I did not cease and desist. I responded with a polite letter, and then proceeded full steam ahead. I do not recall now how the case resolved--I think perhaps my client disappeared or something.

But in July of 1989 I was interviewing for a job with a law firm, a job I desperately needed, and within the first few minutes, the man behind the very big desk leaned forward and said, "I suppose I ought to tell you now, before you piece things together after you leave here. Do you recall several years ago when you sued a woman on behalf of an elderly woman who'd retained you?"

"That woman was my mother."

I hesitated for the briefest moment over whether I should remain seated, or just get up and go on and leave at that point. This man apparently was the one who'd written that nasty letter back to me. I rose to leave.

"No, no," he said, waiving me back down. "Let's just go through this."

So I had my interview.

And he hired me.

He hired me because I had not backed down. He hired me because I had remained polite and professional in spite of his conduct.

The lesson I learned that day was that you never know when the person whose path you cross today may cross it again later on.

And I know in my deepest heart that the same is true right now.

My departure is for things I cannot even dream of, right now.

Wednesday

I hate it when you wake up and smell the coffee.

Not literally.

Figuratively.

When it suddenly dawns on you that there really is another way of looking at something, and it's not pretty. When someone points out something and you understand your perception of things has been a little . . . off. Or when a comment someone makes suddenly shines a spotlight on that little bit of discomfort your were feeling about a matter but were trying to gloss over it, to accommodate it.

Yeah, the Queen's been going through her 'coup de foudre'.

I got hit with mine yesterday afternoon.

Hers deals with the past, though. Mine involves how I deal with people. History versus behavior. So mine's a little more immediate.

And demands immediate attention. Today.

I'll write more about this later.

In the office, closing out files. Been here for hours. Now it's time to start cleaning out the personal stuff. First to go? The plants which have allowed others to call my office the greenhouse. Hey! It's free oxygen from them babies, and in this business, you need all the oxygen you can get.

The Queen and I talked about her post-apocalyptic world. I tried to give her a different vision than the grim Twilight of Life she was conjuring up for herself. As I have become stronger of myself, I find I am able to be a cheerleader for others. Very odd, that. I want to salvage as much as possible of our friendship and our good times. She's much better today. I think it's taking hold with her. As I told her, what other woman has ever been able to turn the heads of not just guys but of at least one gay?

A financial thought

A brief note about what to do with your money in the coming year.

I wouldn't buy stocks, if you're the type who like security and not a lot of excitement. They'll go up a little & then come down. Unemployment is going to get uglier and uglier in the next six months. But eventually, you cannot keep all your money in cash, because even cash is going to lose its value.

Gold? I was reading the other day that gold today is at the same equivalent price it was in 1300. Gold is a metal with no independent use to it other than the value which others place upon it. Yeah, the $ value may go up and down, but it's still the same old thing.

Bonds? Maybe, but with the government controlling not just the interest but how much of them there are ... well...not that appetizing.

Think local. Think critical.

Think local. Do you really want your life savings invested in a plant in Thailand, halfway around the world, with many middlemen between you and your money? Think local. Put your investments where you can see them. And get as close to actual physical ownership as possible. Warren Buffet is buying an entire train line, not mutual fund shares in it.

Think critical. When times get hard, people still need food, clothing and shelter, right? But when times get critical, what do they need? Critical necessities...and you can figure those out for yourself with just a little thought.

The problem which is befuddling most economic pundits is how to position wealth so that when currency becomes worthless and commodities lose their value, what is going to retain some worth, once the dust settles?

After all, Buffet's trains are still gonna turn a profit, regardless of what that business's street value is.