Echoes

3.27.18

I have to wonder: What kind of clock does the emotional brain have? What could it possibly matter if it’s been 365 days since a trauma, or 219, or 457? There’s no calendar in the land of pure emotion; just color and sound and touch.

And yet as I get closer to the anniversary of Jonathan’s death, I find I’m reliving – with remarkable detail – certain elements of the event. I was driving on a night highway yesterday, thinking about just how badly my hands shook AFTER I called 911, but not WHILE I called 911. That’s odd, isn’t it? It’s not like the adrenaline dump happened after I switched off the snowblower, idling beside him at the shed door, so I could hear the operator. And yet – no shaking until after she answered. I guess that’s when I had to say it out loud and it became real.

Or how hot and dry his hand felt when I slipped my hand under his at the hospital, to no response. Or how he did the “chain” breathing (Cheyne?) – a gasping, three- or four-part inhale followed by a continual exhale, which is apparently the sign of a body slowly shutting down. Or how Rusty decided he didn’t want to stay for the dying and went home and I opted to be with Jonathan during his dying instead of with my son during his father’s dying. Or how my sister Twig refused to leave my side for the 24 hours it took, and how much that still means to me, crying as I type.

Jonathan died on the 29^th, and was then revived at the hospital, to certain brain damage. I made the choice to pull life support (which he most certainly would have chosen himself, and did through an advanced directive, still in my fire safe at this moment for reasons that must speak to lingering guilt), and he died for the final time on the 30^th.

Today is the 27^th. I don’t know; maybe it’s the quality or angle of the light in the garden. Something is causing echoes. I think I’m fine and then I’m smacked by a memory. I think I’m getting over being so mad at him for dying and then I’m every bit as furious as when I found him and said “Oh, you son of a bitch – you did it. You managed to kill yourself.”

It’s not a very cheery or readable subject matter for a would-be entertaining blog on trying to get fit – and so I think I’ll be blog-silent for a bit more. Back in a week or so!