2020 & Loss

For a long time I had made been making plans for a short but much-needed getaway for my husband and I to Los Angeles for Valentine’s Day. After tons of research and online scouring, I had secured cheap airfare, a cute AirBnB booking, a Valentine’s reservation at the Hard Rock Cafe, and tickets for a Conan show taping; however, seeing how things were unfolding with my mother-in-law’s health and our time/financial restraints on top of that, I eventually canceled the reservations.

As I mentioned in a prior post, my spunky mother-in-law was diagnosed at the beginning of the year with an extremely aggressive type of brain cancer, GBM (glioblastoma multiforme). January was difficult—full of the scheduling of imaging procedures, waiting for test results, her being moved from one facility to another, and our vacillating from hopes of her recovery to struggling to accept the probable. Despite an overwhelming workload and financial strain, my husband took off a lot of days of work at his shop to be with her and hold her hand, talk with the doctors and specialists, help his dad navigate the whole healthcare process, and eventually, make “arrangements.” I would make the drive too and take my daughter along, even withdrawing her from school one day when it looked as though my mother-in-law might soon become more obtunded, permanently. I didn’t want to have any regrets. It was also cookie season with the Girl Scouts. In the absence of other volunteers, I opted to be the troop cookie manager. Big, big mistake. That mess is still ongoing and has been an unceasing source of frustration and you-can’t-be-serious situations. In early February, my husband returned from another trip to see his mom, walked into the kitchen where I was cooking, wrapped me in his arms, and choked out the news that his mom was gone. He had been there by her side when she took her last breath. Valentine’s Day came and went quietly enough, silently acknowledging that even if we had kept our Los Angeles plans, we’d be in no frame of mind to enjoy the vacation, and painfully aware that my father-in-law was mourning the loss of his Valentine (they were married for 57 years). A few weeks later, we marked what would have been her 78th birthday. There were many nights after going to bed, I’d turn to see my husband weeping silently or staring unblinkingly into the darkness, lost.

March was also a very memorable month. March 6, I met up with my dad for breakfast on the 9th anniversary of my brother’s passing.

Three days later, I got news that my maternal grandmother, my last living grandmother, had had a massive heart attack and was in ICU. COVID-19 precautions were in full swing at the hospital and they had it on a lock-down of sorts that night. I managed to see her anyway; she was on the ventilator and kept seizing ever so often. I talked to her and rambled on as I smoothed her hair with my hand, even though she couldn’t hear me and didn’t know I was there. She died the next day in a room full of people who loved her. Seeing my mom’s reaction to the loss of her mother underlined the fact that their relationship had been complicated and my mom’s own childhood, traumatic. I felt sad for my mom. I will miss my Grandma; she made me feel special. Among other precious memories I’ll cherish, I’ll forever remember the time she wilily pointed out to me where the prize Easter egg was hidden one year long, long ago.

A few days after the funeral brought a horrible phone call—news of the tragic, unexpected death of my boss’s daughter—a young adult who had been overwhelmed by anxiety and life. She was beautiful and talented—her passing just felt very, very…wrong, twisted, unsettling. I had only seen her once and didn’t know her very well, but her dad had talked about her all the time and pictures of her were on all the walls of the family-owned business.

That following weekend, I got another phone call. I saw on my phone’s caller ID the name of a man that I hadn’t heard from since, well, the last bad news he had given me about a mutual friend—the friend that I mentioned in my blogpost “Betrayal.” My stomach sank and I answered the call knowing something bad had happened. He informed me our friend had been walking and been hit by a car in an accident early that morning. She died instantly. I was in disbelief. I had just received a message from her two days before, via Facebook messenger, requesting a video clip from a long time ago that was sentimental to her. I had sent it to her and she had thanked me, telling me she loved me and that I was the best. Due to COVID-19, there wasn’t to be a memorial service until everything blew over.

In April, my family remembered the birthday of my grandma who had just passed—she would have been 86 years young.

My friend who passed away in March—well her mentally unstable mother who was posting as her after her death—logged into her Facebook account and unfriended me before Facebook memorialized the account; it was a sickening blow. There’s no undoing it now that it’s been memorialized in the manner it was. One of my longest-running friendships (20 years), it survived divorces and deaths, and now, boom, I can’t see things she shared on Facebook. I guess it’s good that I took as many pictures of her and our times together as I did. Her passing was extra painful in that I had been hopeful that things would turn around for her—as long as she was breathing there was always that chance her life could get back on course, and we could regain ground of mutual trust, get closer, and make more memories together. I didn’t press charges against her when all the mess went down last year because I knew the one thing she was desperate to see happen above all else was to attend her son’s graduation and that couldn’t happen if she was in prison (which was a for-sure thing because the incident would have revoked the deferred adjudication of a felony charge); however, it occurs to me now that if I had done gone ahead and been the villain with some “tough love” at least she’d be alive now. Wow, yeah, I don’t know what do with that. The inner critic is relentless and so quick to take full responsibility for anything that goes wrong, as though any relationship dynamic were solely my doing. If I had sent my friend to prison, she’d still be alive. or If I hadn’t divorced my ex-husband, maybe he wouldn’t have committed suicide a few years later. or I should have visited my grandma more often when she was alive—she lived close enough; why didn’t I make the time?

Also in April, COVID-19 changes started taking their toll. My daughter’s online school courses and her ballet and karate classes via Zoom quickly lost their novelty and became overwhelmingly frustrating with complications and all the glitches associated with technology. Day in, day out—always some new obstacle or problem; I’d iron out one issue and start to think I may just have it all under control finally, but no, another issue would pop up. I can tell that although they are much better than nothing, the online classes just aren’t the same and my daughter is not achieving the same results. I am so ready for the remaining few weeks of this school circus to be over. Both my husband and I have jobs that are considered essential, so while we’ve kept our income, it’s been difficult trying to field calls at work and do my job all the while my daughter is calling in via FaceTime saying she can’t get her log-in credentials for such-and-such assignment to work or there’s no internet connection or she can’t figure out a math problem. I’ve bottled a lot of stress inside, trying to keep everything going at work and home, knowing that in times like this when so many people are scared and have lost their “non-essential” jobs, that my problems pale in comparison.

So far May has been fairly calm in comparison to the rest of the year as we try to find a rhythm in the daily grind; however, my husband faces his first Mother’s Day without his mom in 52 years tomorrow. As for me, the holiday compels me to take another look at my complicated perspective on my childhood and caregivers and also reflect on what kind of life I’m providing for my own daughter. More on that some other time.

There have been other struggles to which no one can be privy, but I’m sure what I’ve written here fills in at least some of the blanks and explains the silence I’ve kept even with family and friends so far this year. I had also intended to write about how the New Year’s “Reflected Best Self Exercise” played into all this, but my post is already long enough as it is. I’ll save that for next time.

Yours,

Scheffy