This Monday is on the other side of grey--on the side closest to white. The rain pours through fog, hitting the office windows undercover, like a mortar attack in broad daylight, when the fire of the missiles is not accented by night.
There has been more bad news from Ohio--from that family that feels estranged, and yet, chokes around me like a vine. There is never a convenient time to pare, to cut away the outer flesh of myself where the vines have cut into, to escape.
I take baby steps in days, leaps in weeks, and sometimes there is a lapse of a month or more until there is a tightening around me with a phone call, an email, a letter from some institution or another--venerable or otherwise. Then, I am pulled horizontal again, sliding against my will into the center of this living, breathing mass of depression, disease, and dysfunctional-ness; and now a new word: dementia.
My brother sends me badly written poetry that is poignant, nonetheless. His images are dark and bone-bare. They are a malignment against life. They contain a desperation and a tiredness that is painfully familiar to me, and despite the familiarity, I write back the most trite of responses, shifting somewhere between consciously and unconsciously, my responsibility over him. In my words, I invoke the necessity for him to seek help, to ask for help, to talk to someone, while in the same moment, I close my eyes as I type, praying that he doesn't turn any further to me.
And yet, if he turns to someone else, or he doesn't turn at all, but rather remains where he is, descending, there will be blame to cast, and I will be the one to catch it. I am always at these intersections with my family of the choiceless choice: be strong now or be strong later, it doesn't matter where the strength comes from, even if you're faking.
And in the foreground, or the background, depending on which eye you've kept open, there's my mother, newly admitted to a hospital. Dementia confirmed, recovery denied and words of a nursing home. Three weeks ago, she was speaking normally and now, it's too much to ingest, too much to worry my lips around just so I can swallow. I cannot, however, pick up the phone and dial a number that would reach some institution or another--venerable or otherwise, that could possibly give me more facts to chew on, to taste, to make the diagnosis easier to consume.
It comes like this, you know, with force--like a mortar attack in daylight or rain through fog.