I've actually been back for a while -- I was pulling three and a half weeks of pictures together, getting ready to write a wonderful "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" post, and then...well, let's just say I should have thrown that expired bottle of Yellow Thai Curry Sauce in the garbage instead of using it as a dipping sauce for my pork tenderloin Sunday night.
As it was pouring onto my plate, in the back of mind I was thinking "Huh. That isn't as thick as usual," but went about my dinner anyway. The good news is, I only brought the misery (and oh, what misery it was!) upon myself. The bad news: I don't bounce back nearly as quickly as I used to -- it took almost five days to shake it completely.
Eight pounds lighter and about 87 hours of sleep fresher, I was all set to write my post on Friday. I turned on the computer, and opened an e-mail from one of my oldest and dearest girlfriends out West. It starts in the way no e-mail ever should:
Rick had a cerebral hemorrhage yesterday.
Rick, her husband, is only in his mid-forties, a doting father of two little girls, an active and avid rock climber with a great dry wit, and a loving partner in life to my dear friend. He was an orderly in the hospital where her mother lay dying of cancer fifteen years ago; their meeting was like two puzzle pieces clicking together to form a bright and hopeful picture amid a boatload of sorrow.
The bleeding in his brain was coming from a golf ball-sized mass in his right frontal lobe. A day later, a scan turned up another mass in his lung. They have to wait until next week for biopsies.
The unfairness and uncertainty of it all has me reeling. Suddenly my problems, complaints, and annoyances seem terribly petty and inconsequential by comparison.
My gut reaction was to jump on a plane, but she assured me she has a support system in place to at least get her through the next few weeks; flying to her side would only be another body to accommodate and create more chaos. This is going to be a long haul, and there will be plenty of opportunities to be there.
My other reaction, for some unknown reason, was to sew.
This has happened before: in the days after another friend's mother died, I made a quilt with her mom's favorite colors. Something that was not entirely me took over, and I was pulling fabrics and cutting and had a quilt before I knew it. I'm sure the mindlessness of it all has something to do with it, but to me, quilts mean comfort, and if I can't be there in person to provide it, I'm sending a quilt to do it for me.
So I pulled out all my flannels yesterday and started cutting because it's all I can do. For now.
