Out of my hands

Good cloudy Thursday morning to you all.
So last night my son Brian said, "Really Ma, two blogs in one day - is that necessary?" Oh my if he only knew that right now, without a real life to live, I would be writing 24/7...I am on the fence about my Grandmother's eulogy. Do I begin it - do I wait? Do I begin it now, because now she is alive, and presently I am not in the throws of a gripping and horrific grief - where it's very possible that the right words will not push through? OR do I wait, because maybe she won't die and maybe the truth is, that my best writing about loss, comes while I am treading water in my own pool of tears? I just don't know - so instead I blog and pour out what I can in preparation of whatever comes next. I am emotionally wrung the fuck out. I think I have a handle on my feelings about Nana and then I realize that I don't at all and then I get to a place where I do and then I return quickly to a place where I do not. It's exhausting.
The thing that really sucks about this kind of limbo is that it is terribly inconvenient. I don't mean to sound selfish and terrible, let me elaborate if I can accurately articulate it - What I mean is that I must live my regular life, right? Still gotta function as Mother, still got work to go to, still have an upcoming trip to consider, yada yada. Still have to live life as though it's live-able, when really, with a death looming over my head and heart - it just isn't. I want the clock on real time to suspend it's ticking too - while she is in health limbo, I think it's only fair that my life should also be.
It is that, "well is it going to happen or isn't it?" kinda pervasiveness - it's in every act I attempt to get through. It looms over the laundry pile....Do I get down the suit cases from the attic? Do I pack for the just in case? But if I do that, what will the open suitcase in the bedroom do for me - how will that effect me - how will that symbol of impending doom make me feel?
I am miserable to say the least.
I went to the pool yesterday afternoon with the kids, thinking that my private Dave concert and otherwise amused kids, were the answer to the looming - that there in my earphones, I may be able to detach myself for even a short time and find that when I re-attached to the thoughts I felt more prepared - but yeah no, the complete opposite happened. Laying there with my bare skin in the sun, the heat oppressively taking hold of my breathing, I felt beat and weak and helpless. And I stared up into the clouds when they eclipsed the sun, I stared up into the white/grayness and I saw Nana there - saw my times with her in the sky. I cried and cried like an idiot as Dave crooned and crooned and of course, I had chosen the Dave and Tim acoustic concert from Vegas and that album is tear inducing for me on the best of days as is. Dave said "the way the rain, the rain, the way the rain" and what he means is "the way the tears, the tears, the way the tears" and so they ran in a stream down my face and I had no reprieve from the looming - instead it settled down on top of my bare skin, my splayed out and weak body parts, like a heavy blanket of sorrow.
Sigh.
I could find no good place to escape it, it plainly said, is inescapable.
I thought about my relationship with my Nan. Do people get it, when I say my Grandmother may be dying? Do other people know what my Grandmother dying is to me? Did they/Do they have a Nana like mine? Did they/do they have a relationship with anyone of this specific significance?
Hard to explain what she is to me - hard to explain what she means - she means everything - she is my best friend, has been for all of my life.
The only person who calls me DEBORAH ANN and gets away with it - who will call me Deborah Ann when she is gone?
Fuck fuck fuck I hate this.
And yet, she has suffered so....God has she suffered so. And I hate her suffering far more than I hate never hearing her speak my name ever, ever again.
And I have no power - no power to do or change anything that is happening, not the illness, not the fear, not the timing, certainly not the inconvenient looming...
I am angry, yes, I am angry but I don't know why - at what - or at who?
I just feel a rage inside that this happens at all - I feel a rage that life inevitably equals death and death inevitably = pain for those left behind.
I would like to say, I have had enough of death - but the sad reality in that statement, is that really, if I have had enough - I must die to escape any more of it because there is an entire generation of up and comings in my life - really the losses have just begun.
I am not ready to die and so I wait...
And I hate WAITING more than I hate anything, except of course death. Waiting is the ultimate exacerbation of the lack of control I possess over everything that is out of my hands. I am not a great waiter. In fact I downright suck at it. I want to throw shit and cry and scream at the sky and say "REALLY - this is the best you've got - WAIT AND SEE?" Jesus Christ, for the love of God.
I want to pitch a fit like a two year old and writhe on the floor, kicking my legs and pounding my fists - I want to rage against the waiting, but I know, trust me I know - been there done it - it does little to relieve the anxiety or make the waiting any easier to cope with. Tantrums just wear you the fuck out and then make the debate concerning the laundry pile and the packed suitcase even more tiresome and cumbersome.
I wait and I hate it, and I hate that I hate it, but I accept that I am a wait hater and there is nothing to be done to change that.
I want to be in control and I am not, period.
I like to be in control.
Part of me wants her to die right now. Book my flights, pack my bags, write the words and get this done - for her sake. Part of me wants her to hang on until I get there, rebound and hold steady until July 5th - be her usual silly Nana self and dote on the kids - get to see her Emma Claire - her Deborah Ann, one more time, lecture me about my cleavage and hike my shirt up for old times sake.
Part of me wants none of this to be an issue at all - just someone please find the elixir to a youthful life and infuse it with her saline IV drip already and let me and my sisters keep our beloved Nan.
UGH - I am wreckage, plain and simply put.
Mary called me last night to remind me of who we are, cause momentarily I think we both forgot.
She said "So this is what will happen - my Grandmother will die at the beginning of the week, then your Grandmother will die mid - week and we will spend the book writing week in PH at wakes and funerals - what are we stupid to ever think we would get a week at PH in peace?"
And she has a valid point - we don't do easy. We tried that when she came here years ago to do the Washington DC experience - she was blown down the stairs at JFK's grave in the weirdest wind storm in history and as we sat at the Emergency room waiting to have her swollen ankle x-rayed - a lunatic went on a shooting spree at VTECH and killed a bunch of innocent students as we watched in horror and disbelief. And who can forget the Dave Matthews show where I was sexually assaulted by a security guard and when I fought back to defend my body, because it is MINE, I went out in cuffs, ejected from Leroi's last show....Oh and then there is puke fest 2010 which was slated to be a relaxing week of kid fun - just our families together doing family stuff - and then it happened Cameron barfed on the rink and then Nana, then Colby, then Shawn, then Matthew, then Emma, then Mary and me, well I did a few shots of tequila because everyone knows that tequila will kill any bug in your stomach - me, no puking, but a constant state of churning nausea - the entire house puked and ran fevers the entire week - changing barfed on bed sheets, washing puked on towels and changing the liners to a million trash cans that were set up like cones on a road throughout the entire house - puke check points. RIDICULOUS. We just don't do easy. Mary had to make me aware, in case I had forgotten, that nothing is ever as we planned - buckle down baby, prepare for the worst case scenario. Fuck me.
I don't want that this time....Selfish....I want the kids to visit Pam and have a great time with their Aunt, I want to go to PH with no stress and write the Canary Memoirs - no broken ankles or lunatics with guns, no sexual assaults, no puking, no death.
Is that so much to ask for once in my life?
Selfish - I know.
But damn it to hell, just once????? JUST FREAKING ONE TIME WITH EASE.
Thing is, I have more than enough material for the book - just gotta have the time to write it.
I want whatever is best for Nana and I don't possess the answer to that. My little sister Toto Bird thinks that she still has joy in her life and that she isn't ready to go - I am not entirely sure I agree, but secretly, okay publicly now, I hope her perception of Nana's state is the right one. If it is, I will get more of her and I always want more Nan, no doubt.
I apologize profusely for my rant this morning - I just have to get it out so my head does not explode, I have enough to clean up as it is.
I am doing my very best to survive this with grace.
I will say that for all the stupidity of my life, when it comes to Grandparents, my Sisters and I lucked out - we have been the luckiest three girls in the world to have had the very best Nana and Papa anyone could ever hope for. Funny and intelligent, loving and nurturing, caring and devoted beyond my wildest dreams and expectations - everything they did for us was perfection. I dare say, we three got the very best of them and for that, I am eternally grateful.
I plan to give it to my Grandchildren one day - plan to be the kind of Nana to them, my Nana was to me - plan to rock the role hard core. I have had the very best example.
I know she isn't reading this - but Thanks Nan for loving me so perfectly, I love you with everything that I am.
I hope she is peaceful today whatever the day may bring for her. I know without a doubt she is saying the rosary in her head, I think I may go pray one round too, maybe it will join us from a far.
Hail Mary full of Grace, the lord is with thee....