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| Emesis Basin |
Date Posted: 06-21-2008 at 01:04 PM |
| March 1996. I am sitting ramrod straight in my hospital bed, legs thrown over the side, vomiting into a plastic kidney-shaped emesis basin suffering under the side effects of two separate drugs....Duramorph and denial. The Duramorph is potent which is pretty much why I don't give a rat's pattoot that I'm puking buckets. That's the beauty of morphine. You can stare at a bowl of your own puke and think "huh....that's a lottah of puke." But the other illness? Denial? That is what is driving me though at the time I am not aware of it; not aware of the haunting silence as I will come to call it some years further on. I am not aware that I am grieving two children even as I have just hours before given birth to my youngest daughter. But I am grieving them with every heave of my little body, every ounce of Janey spilling into that basin. Sometime just before this, after coming out of surgery, I have looked up at my mother standing by my bedside and said, "Mom, I can't believe that a girl like me could deserve this, could deserve tah be married and have a kid like decent women." I am under the influence of powerful narcotics and the rattling "shakes" of major surgery. Yet even in this state I can see my mother's disgust of me; of me and my desperation. She knows what I do not, not yet at any rate. That beneath the outward appearance, beneath the complicit quiet between me and my family, beneath that ego crap lies the truth. I am a woman who has lost two children and not even lost. No, I have given them up. And in doing so, I have committed the ultimate sin in my family, I have admitted defeat. I have surrendered. All of this though is in the background of my mind as I sit on my bed clutching my pink plastic basin. But my subconscious has registered what my waking ears heard and then dismissed. A nurse has informed me that I cannot take my baby home the next morning unless I have a car seat with me. I am immediately nervous because my husband (now ex) Zee* is nonchalant to the world. He is a dry drunk. He may bring the carseat; he may forget it and if he forgets it? Well, I will not be bringing my baby daughter home. It does not occur to me that I can demand he turn around and go get said seat. It does not occur to me to have someone drive to the baby store on the corner and buy one just in case. None of that occurs to me. My base fear is running me now. All that does occure to me is that I may lose another child. And this is when I panic. I begin to imagine what it will be like again leaving the hospital, passing the nursery, the ride down the elevator to the bottom....to the street. The street; a word with such powerful connotations for me. Inwardly I am screaming, "I can't! I can't! I can't leave my baby here!! I can't! I won't! I'll never let them rip her from me!!" The next day will find me in the hallway of the hospital, panic-stricken, yelling at hospital personnel that they will not be getting my baby! "DO YOU HEAR ME! NOT!" I am so out of control that next day that the nurses are looking at one another. And unknown to me I am near to them taking my baby out of fear of my mental state. Only my ex's intervention; only his speaking privately to them on my behalf stops this. But here at 5:00 p.m. the day before - three hours after my surgery? Here in my private room? I set down my basin, wipe my mouth and put my feet to the floor. I fight the ringing in my ears and the blackness rushing at me. I am about to pass out but I don't care. There is something I must do; some magic I must weave so that my daughter remains with me. I grasp my IV pole and drag myself by inches to my hospital bathroom. And then I do what me, Janey, has done for years. I begin to clean. I take wads of paper towel from the dispenser, load the towels with soap and water and get on my knees and scrub that bathroom...the sink, the shower, the toilet, the floor.... Later I will tell my sponsor what I have done. She will look at me, grab my arms and say "Let me get this straight. You had a c-section and three hours later you're on your knees scrubbing a bathroom!? Janey, if you do not start dealing with the grief of your babies, it will kill you! I swear to God it will kill you!" That is later though. For now if everything is clean, then all be will be right. I scrub that bathroom tip to top, holding onto my stomach, ignoring the terrible pain of my incision, kicking the IV pole along as I go. Anything to keep the world correct; anything not to remember; anything not to concede the terrible secret I hold inside. Janey *Zee - not his real name. |
| Lines on a map |
Date Posted: 06-21-2008 at 02:01 PM |
| This is all comes in no particular order...A lot like life I suppose. Today is June 21st. I started my search today. It was overwhelming. I wrote a post about it. So many names of towns and places some known, some I'd never heard of. Big cities like LA, small towns like Grover. All these people searching for themselves....searching for those lost to them or the other way around. Brothers searching for sisters. Moms searching for daughters. Daughters searching for fathers. I said in my post it was like standing at The Wall looking for a certain name; a needle in a haystack. But it's more like after 911....all those pictures stuck on fences with words written under them. Hi, this is Bob. I'm searching for my wife Cindy; a secretary working on the 78th floor of Tower 2............ Oh my God this is so hard!!! Janey |
| Note to my children |
Date Posted: 02-03-2009 at 02:56 PM |
Mood:  To my children, I can't traverse this place any longer. There's too much anger, too much pain, too many people hurting here. I hope that you find me some day. I will wait for you as long as I am able. I love you, Mom |
 Recent Comments: |
| Re: Lines on a map |
By ReOcB42008(08-02-2009 at 01:32 AM) |
| I know it is hard, love but OH THE REWARD if you find them! Don't give up please! hugs - PJ |
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