Everyone’s Trying to Croak

A couple of weeks ago, my best friend died for a second. It was only for a second though.  She was outside of her hotel and  about to get in an Uber when she passed out and passed away. 

It was only a second of death, not enough for going towards the light or seeing one’s life flash before her, but  it was death. Her heart stopped and the implanted defibrillator jolted  her back to this world. She didn’t wake up until she was on the way to the hospital. To add insult to near death experience, she received a bad concussion when she fell. Life is a bitch, indeed.

Meanwhile, the man feeding her cats, is also trying to die. It’s basically certain that he has lung cancer, but is only taking radiation for it. The doctor told him he could outlive the cancer, but the doctor is probably lying, especially since he’s doing minimal treatment.

Me, I’m avoiding doctors like the plague.

Fires, Death, Renewal

A new year and per usual, I’m filled with the perpetual optimism of existential dread.

Will this be the year I die alone, unloved, unneeded, forgotten?

Will my best friend die and leave me alone? Her kidneys appear to be failing along with the sarcoidosis.

Will I become homeless from a fire or being thrown out?

They offered a renewal. This year they’re only going to raise my rent by 100.00. I know I’ve been extremely fortunate, always finding a soft place to land in the end after my mother’s death, but when will my number be up and I will truly suffer?

While I feel that I was cursed from the moment of conception, having a brain that is mostly useless and a body and voice that further underscore the uselessness of my brain, I have actually been blessed compared to so many others.

There was another fire, but this one was in a house in the next neighborhood. Cops everywhere. I walked to see. I never actually got close enough to see anything, but the smells morphed depending where you were. In one place, it was smoke. In another direction, a noxious smell, but nearest the fire the almost pleasant smell of pine.

I’m so scared of it happening to me. It seems I’ve seen so many fires in my life and yet it hasn’t been me yet. While I have insurance, I’m still scared of everything going up, of never being safe again. The rare times I’m not home, I want to leave a window open just in case for my cats to get out.

I’ve seen a couple of fires started by grills, including one here. My old apartment went up a couple years after I moved, talk about dodging a bullet. If we had still been living there what would’ve happened to us? I think that was old wiring, which I imagine is what will happen here if it ever happens. Then there was that homeless guy who blew himself up with his kerosene heater. Or the time I came back from the drugstore and the building across from me was going up and threatened to take my apartment. There but for the grace of God.

Anyway, here’s to 2024!

An Afternoon Out

I’m waiting outside of my apartment, anxiety building as I wait in the heat for a cab. I have to get to this doctor’s appointment or lose the money the state gives me that makes me barely able to afford this shithole apartment.

Then, I see him coming, slowly because he’s old. Cat Man, my would be groom. I weigh my options. If I run back into my apartment, he’ll know I’m ducking him and that would be wrong to do. The memory of his ‘ proposal’ fills me with revulsion, much as I much like every time my friend tries to pawn me off on her horny elderly friend or when someone offers to buy me a male escort. I am momentarily struck with the feeling of utter hopelessness that I swallow before he is standing next to me and I have to pretend that I’m a nice person.

He is offering to give me a kind of cat food if his cats won’t eat it and I thank him.

“I’m sorry, I need to see why my ride isn’t here,” I say and run back inside.

And I’m not even on the schedule apparently, though Medicaid transportation assured me I was. “Someone will be there in a few minutes,” says the cab dispatcher. Great. Brilliant. I’m supposed to be there in five minutes. Right at 2 pm, the cab comes, but at least he’s here and it’s not that far.

The nurse is taking my vitals. She asks about my summer, and I tell her I’ve just been staying home. She’s taking my blood pressure and telling me how it might be for the best, since they’re shooting everyone nowadays. She tells me about someone messing up a pizza where her daughter lives and getting shot for it. Then how at our local mall rivalling gangs shot at each other.

“Eh, they shot someone at my apartment complex a couple of years ago. Drug deal gone bad. He lived though,” I said.

My blood pressure is normal in spite of the nurse trying to turn me agoraphobic. Being shot is probably not the worst way to die as long as the bastard gets you in the head properly. I’m more afraid of dying slow from a disease. Now if I saw someone with a gun, I might feel differently.

The nurse practitioner is on to me about having a mammogram and a blood test. They’ve gone from insisting on probing my lower anatomy every year to every 3 years because doctors are fickle and change guidelines every week or two.Not like I have much of a chance of ever be doing anything to get HPV anyway.

I explain why I can’t have anything done right now, thanks anyway. “My friend has sarcoid and I can’t afford finding out if something’s wrong with me while she needs me.”

I don’t say how bad my friend made me feel the last time I needed her at an appointment at a time when she was in perfect health. I’d be completely alone, so it’s better to not know.

I’ve lost 9 lbs since my last visit to the doctor, but no worries since Burger King is just across the street beckoning me like an old friend and it’s Whopper Wednesday. My friend calls me while I’m indulging in my vice, ‘chasing the Whopper dragon’ if you will. I answer, though, I know she’ll scoff at me if she finds me snorting flame broiled perfection. I’m trying to always answer her timely, because otherwise she’ll get mad and think I don’t want to hear about her problems. The other day I had to prove that my one phone broke and the other isn’t charging right because I didn’t answer her for 15 hours. If I don’t answer until the afternoon I get a facetious ‘Good Morning’ and I have to pretend it doesn’t make me angry. I sometimes just want to fucking scream. I have absolutely no problem with her unburdening herself on me at anytime, but the constant nitpicking at my faults gets me at my core.

Since I’m out I decide to go to Roses Discount Store. There are some things that can be had at Roses that are cheaper than even Walmart. I should make a haul video and try not to stutter.

New Year, Same Old

How can I feel in any way hopeful for a new year when I’m shredded to pieces a few hours before midnight. The night previous I went with my friend to the emergency room and marinated for 8 hours in God only knows what kind of pathogens during a pandemic. I foolishly believed this alone would give me a pass for whatever near future transgressions I would commit. I was wrong.

The nurse practitioner suggested something was elevated by 300 points, which could indicate congestive heart failure, but people have had readings in the hundreds of thousands. “Follow up with your primary,” said the NP, who was eager to go off duty. My friend wanted a covid test and the RN was pissed, so it seemed she used just a bit more vigor than necessary, as though she wished to hit my friend’s medulla. Some tech practically dug into her veins and didn’t get blood at first. It was a farce, the whole thing. And it didn’t help that my friend’s sunshine disposition was showing itself.

There was an old man with dementia who continuously made noises and she said in a jesting voice ( but not really) “can’t they give him something?”

The intake area was filled with all sorts of people young and old passing through. A psych patient kept asking everyone who passed by if they were a nurse. Some tersely said no, others completely ignored her. One tech took her purse and put it at the nurse station because she was afraid someone would steal her meds. When she finally got a nurse she begged to be put somewhere else because she was afraid to be out here with all these people. My own paranoia whipped up and I was afraid she was scared of me. She had changed seats, but during Covid that’s understandable. Finally someone came for her and they ushered her along as she told them she had talked suicide 30 times. “Tell the nurse,” the escort said.

Another fellow with an injured arm who could barely walk or hablarse íngles almost got served by a cop, but since he couldn’t understand, 5-0 went in search of his family.

A woman, likely a hoarder, had brought a bunch of stuff with her, and an EMT helped her carry it to a sitting area. The last I saw of her, she had commandeered a wheelchair and was arranging everything on it. I surreptitiously snapped a photo.

But to my sin. I asked my friend the next day if she got the results of the covid test. They were negative. We had hoped it would be positive, because the elevated fluid or whatever it is can be brought on by infection.

I was trying to figure out what I was going to do for the evening, and I was afraid if I didn’t ask her if she wanted to do something for New Years Eve that she’d be upset. So I asked her if she wanted to do something. I didn’t hear back, so I ordered a pizza.

And then it happened. As though I lit kerosene. ” The proper question would’ve been, how are you?”

The conversation followed a similar trajectory to the other times she’s been mad over me not doing something right. I lack empathy. That I’m missing a chip upstairs. Wait until I’m sick and it won’t be pretty.

I try to apologize, that I thought she only felt bad if she exerted herself. I wish I could convey how upset I was by what she was saying. I kept wishing I was dead intermingled with rage. I risked my health to be with her. Not many would. She knows I’m pretty sure my mom got the pneumonia that killed her in a hospital waiting room.

There were reminders of death as we waited. Two code Sepsis rang out, a protocol not started until almost a year after my mom’s death. I suppose Oscar probably heard his Code Sepsis over the intercom. We also heard two people code blue.

I’ve always hoped I’d be the first to go since I’m huge and not needed much. I don’t want to be alone again. Everyone leaves one way or another.

Ten Years Later

It was 10 years ago today that my mother died. I only had one purpose in life and that was being her daughter. That morning I lost the only person who actually needed me. From that day on, I switched to survival mode. Ten years without a family and the knowledge that I only exist to take up space. It is what it is.

Everyone leaves or dies, or both. This year, the cousin who let me know I was disowned after Mom’s death, died. He lived to be almost 80. Did his conscience ever get to him? I’ll never know because I’m too much of a coward to contact his sister. I don’t want to be rejected again.

Also, this year, the last person who loved me unconditionally, died. Died in an accident with a drunk driver. I feel so guilty.

I can’t believe I’ve made it 10 years and am relatively independent. My life may have little meaning, but I’m still alive. I keep expecting worse things to happen, but I’ve always felt I was on the precipice of fate. One step forward and I could plummet.

Will I catch covid and die in a similar way to my mother? Will I step in front of a bus or will I just collapse one backday? Would anyone notice or care?

My friend is mad again because I didn’t notice a text. I sometimes wonder if she would miss me if I died or if she’d just find someone else. One thing I’ve learned is never to expect the same amount of compassion you give, and in one way or another, everyone leaves in the end.

The holy rollers at my primary school used to say that God strikes down useless people ( more or less) and that God only gives a few chances. It must not be true because I’m still breathing, useless or not. My mediocrity and lack of intelligence or beauty notwithstanding.

Two Deaths

The First

From time to time, I google my second cousin Charles. Charles, my maternal grandmother’s sister’s son. Charles, who grew up next door to my mom. Charles, who let me know ever so tactfully, that I had no more family when my mother died. There was his obituary. He lived to a reasonable 79 and died sometime in March. I don’t know how he died, but dead he is. I’m ambivalent. Was he the bad guy in this story, or was my mom, and Charles did what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances?

My mom had died that morning. That afternoon I found the old phone book with his number written in it by my long gone grandmother. I called and got his wife, who was really kind, and she got Charles. I swear, he must’ve been rehearsing for the day I’d call, that my mom was already some dead stranger in his mind. I told him how my mom died of sepsis and that could I have the number of his sister, Diane, who I knew a bit better than him. His voice was sickeningly sweet, patronizing, as though he were talking to a dim child. It went something like, “Ohhh” when I told him of her death, and said equally saccharine, that Diane had gotten remarried and he didn’t know her new number. It might have been true, but he acted as though he had no clue about my mother or me either. I couldn’t accept that I had been disowned, so I tried calling again the next day just in case he really was ignorant of who I was. Same saccharine tone, but no sorry for your loss. I kept hoping he’d tell Diane, that he’d remember he was a “good Christian” and that I was family.

I look back on that time of my life, and I still grow anxious, wondering how I managed to survive, my mom in the hospital morgue and I facing the loss of our home. All I know is, there must be a God, but I’m still ever vigilant that my luck might run out any day now, and that I will lose everything.

Here is the possible vindication of Charles. Straight out of high school, at the age of 17, my mom got the hell out of that tiny mountain community, trained to be a registered nurse, and joined the air force. She came back, , but she didn’t feel like she belonged there. We visited as long as my grandparents lived there, and we saw family who visited as long as my grandparents were alive. But the moment my grandparents were both gone, my mom didn’t keep in touch with the rest of the family. Out of sight, out of mind was my mother’s mindset. I remember vividly at various times asking my mom to call relatives, so that we weren’t totally alone.

We ended up selling the house we had lived in with our grandparents after they died. We couldn’t afford the upkeep. Mom didn’t bother to tell them where we lived now, but Diane searched for us. She found out I was on disability for “my nerves.” I didn’t want to go into my full mental health issues. We were told to keep in touch. Mom didn’t and I was too shy.

So you see, my mom asked for it, and after she died, they gave it to her through me. Maybe it was deserved, but someone once asked me would I have done that to a mentally ill family member. Honestly, no I would not.

Second Death

I’m scrolling through Facebook and suddenly I see my first grade teacher, with ‘Remembering’ over her photo. She’s dead, but not naturally. She was driving one Sunday night and a young drunk guy hit her head on. She died at the scene. I still can’t fathom it. No one is saying whether she died instantly or lingered a short while. I unfortunately have a wild imagination, something she could have attested to when I was a little girl. I pray she didn’t know what happened.

I’m struck with massive amounts of guilt. Guilt that I tried to limit our interactions because she would beg me to come stay with her. She had wanted to adopt me when I was little and she still wanted me some 35 years or so later. I was such an unremarkable, ugly little girl that the principal and previous teacher wrote me off as too dumb to learn to read. It was probably my lack of luster, funny way of walking, and withdrawn way that made her determined to teach me and love me. My own mother couldn’t even understand why she liked me so much, and was afraid she was going to kidnap me. Mom thought maybe she couldn’t have children. That was definitely not the case, because she went on to have six children! Yet after all these years, she still saw me as her favorite student ever. Me of all people. She wanted to come see me in February , while her brother was recovering from a covid related amputation. I don’t know what happened. Did she not come? Did she sense I was more than a bit concerned that I’d catch covid? I wish she understood why I didn’t want to move far away and become beholden on someone ever again. I cuss, while she marked curses out of books. She believed liberalism was against God and that one should turn from it. I would have been miserable hiding my thoughts all the time. I hope she forgives me wherever she is now. Still, I yearn to be as kind and giving as her. She was loved by virtually everyone who knew her. She was probably the last person on earth who loved me unconditionally.

My Neighbor is Dead

We probably said about 100 words to each other the whole 8 years I lived here, but I am sad about it. He died Sunday at the hospital. One of his daughters told me. She said he kept to himself.

The fact that it’s September, that he died in the same hospital as my mother, and that they’re mourning his loss while trying to remove things from his apartment, all reminds me. Things in general feel pretty hopeless these days.

I saw him as I saw all my neighbors: as someone who could get me in trouble or talk about me. When someone new moves in, I will be convinced  that this new neighbor will be the one out for me.  You’d think I was psychotic as paranoid as I am. 

His life followed a trajectory I hope for. Only be removed from home when I’m dying. No nursing home. No muss, no fuss.

He did me a solid when I first moved in. I locked myself and my Dondee out of our apartment.  I was scared, too shy to knock anywhere, so I sat in the hallway with my cat debating what to do. Fortunately, my neighbor came home then, and had a maintenance guy on speed dial. I think he always made friends with maintenance, all 500 of them who passed through.

I knew he had been in the air force and a retired cop from his Facebook, that he liked soul. Most of what I knew about him, though, I knew from overhearing over the year. He was probably Domino’s’ most loyal customer, ordering every other day sometimes. I. Knew he wasn’t very mobile and had a lot of pain, was due for another stint in his heart. He didn’t like sounds in the hallway and hated solicitors. He kept up with friends a lot on the phone.

I’m going to miss him in a strange way.

I Made It Through

I didn’t cry for my mom, but it hit me hard about Oscar suddenly.

My friend, his girlfriend, talks about him almost every day. Sometimes she even shows me pictures, but yesterday’s photo did me in. He’s in front of his family’s Christmas tree, proudly holding up a Guns ‘n Roses t-shirt he just opened. My brain then seemed to just then fully understand how dead he actually is.

I’m ruminating about a dear online friend who I offended and he never got over. If only I could take it back.

I’m worried that there are bedbugs. It may be fleas. I’m itchy everywhere. I honestly couldn’t take it if that ever happens again.

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Dear Mom,

In a few minutes, it’ll be 9 years since you’ve been gone. I sometimes wish the cold I had, had taken the same course as it did with you: pneumonia, sepsis, death. But what can you do?

If only you had seen the things that happened since you flew the coop. I can honestly say it’s better I stay away from people. They smell the vulnerability. It’s happened a couple times now. They act like you’re the best thing ever, and then…

I’m happy for my independence, but I don’t feel the same kind of safe as I did with you. I feel like everything and everyone is transient now. I’m afraid of so many things. It’s almost a given that I’m going to die sooner or later alone. Not many, if any, care about me to the degree I care about them. It is what it is.

I’m still so sleepy. Going back to bed. I will try to be a better person this year, but not right now. Now I sleep.

Love,

Lisa

Funeral

Who knew when I met you in November, you’d be dead in May. Or that you’d die like my mother. That was a slap in the face.

It’s the morning of your funeral and I’m at the Walgreen’s by my house. I grab boxes of soda and candy for your family, a plastic plant, and a scented candle for your mother. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I want to do something with limited time and resources.

My friend, your girlfriend, picks me up at the store and we go to the mortuary. It hasn’t changed much over the years, with the notable exception that the old undertaker who opens the door, wears a mask.

There’s twelve of us in the sanctuary. Your parents, uncle, a cousin, and siblings. Your ex-girlfriend is here too, all the way from Florida. Everyone is spread out, socially distanced, and wearing obligatory masks. You’re up front in a rented coffin, dressed in your familiar flannel jacket. That’s all that’s familiar. You’re bloated up to your father’s size. I wouldn’t have recognized you had we met in the street.

Apparently, during a pandemic, the funeral home runs low on Catholic Spanish speaking priests. Instead, there’s a budget pentecostal woman with a man to punctuate her loud preaching. I understand the sermon in words and short phrases here and there. Something about you being in the arms of Jesus. Your mother weeps and asks people to come up. We are last. My friend tells your corpse that I was willing to give you part of my liver. I feel tears coming. It is what it is. I can never save anybody.

On the way to your house, we stop by Family Dollar to get some prayer candles. The cashier tells us they’re very useful to have in hurricanes. Your mother has a giant shrine at the family home, flowers and candles everywhere. There’s you as a smiling baby, as a grinning teen, and finally a photo of you at 33. No one would know you just had a couple months to live or the secret habit that led you to become septic.