Sunshower

How we process and keep going.

A sunshower is a meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the Sun is seen shining.

How do you experience a sunshower? Do you see the sun but focus on the fact that you are getting wet? Or do you notice the rain but can see the sun ahead?

The happening.

My mother had a health event. One that had me dropping everything and running for a plane, bus, train, and finally, a cab straight to the hospital. She (we) was there for a week when they discharged her with few answers and zero resources. At first, we were told it was one thing, but were then led to believe it was something much more detrimental, which required multiple tear-filled conversations with my husband, family members, and her. After five days of fearing the absolute worst, we were gobsmacked to learn it was not a death sentence and was indeed what they first suspected—something that will take time to heal and recover from, but not death.

Forgive me for being vague at this time.

I understand that doctors get things wrong and that not everything is straightforward, but being on this side of it is a special kind of hell. When it comes to the medical world, I know so much, and I don't know nearly enough. I withheld a lot of information from my mother for her sake, and I also needed to learn more and process it all.

I am still with her. She is well enough to be out of the hospital but not safe enough to be home alone at this time. I am also putting out many, many fires that she had flaming in her life that I was completely unaware of. She has been slipping through the cracks, and when someone lives alone and is as stubborn as all hell, this happens, and it seems like it happened in the blink of an eye. My husband then flew in for a few days, which turned into eight, to ensure I didn’t slip through the cracks as I held her life together. Barely.

Had this health event not taken place, I am not sure how long I would have been in denial that my mother was completely independent and capable of living and thriving on her own. While neither of us is happy we found ourselves in this situation, I am grateful I could catch her before she slipped through that large crack so many people her age find themselves in.

These last three weeks have brought up so many questions and concerns I have for my own life and how I want to live it and inevitably leave it. I am turning 49 this summer, and so aging, purpose, meaning and what I am doing with my life, and all the fun and fuckery that goes along with having the big 5-0 breathing down my neck have already been top of mind -or maybe top of nervous system (and musculoskeletal system) would be a better descriptor of this reality.

What I know for sure right now is I don't want to die alone. I want to have a community of people around me. Of course, I want my husband to be by my side, but I am referring to family and friends. My own, as well as the ones my husband and I share. I want a community that I can count on and one that can count on me. And I am not just talking about the listening community. I am talking about people showing the fuck up. We don't have kids, so we will need people showing up later in life. And on the flip side, we don't have kids, so we will be the ones showing up for our people.

At the last retreat I hosted, a dinner party question was prompted - What dream have you given up on?

My answer — to live on the same block as all my old high school besties (girls and guys) and have all our homes open so the kids can grow up together while the adults can hang out like we used to—our own little commune.

I am not embarrassed to admit that I want people I can count on in my life, and I want my people to know they can count on me. Always and forever.

The Four Seasons is another new series on Netflix. We watched it expecting to be delighted by it. However, we were only laughing at how terrible it was. But it did introduce me to the original (and much better) Four Seasons with Alan Alda and Carole Burnett, also on Netflix.

"I don't want to be one of two people alone in the world at the end of my life. I want to have friends. When I get old, I'd like you all to still be there."

I tensed up when Kate (Burnett) said this to her husband (Alda) and their group of friends. The men in the group had been bickering, and you could feel the fissures being made amongst all their relationships. I have felt those unnecessary fissures in my own life as Joe and I find ourselves more and more on our own. The older we get, the fewer people we have around. We are not totally isolated, but not totally not isolated. We haven't done this intentionally, but as they say, "life happens." Well, I don't want to look up one day and not have anyone in my life!

This week brings more testing for my mother and more time with medical teams. I hope we will have a better idea of the road ahead. My time here may be spotty as we figure this all out.

In the meantime, call your parents, call your children, pick up the phone, and call your old friends. Make a dinner date, and don't freaking cancel it. Plan a game night or ask someone in your life if they could use a helping hand. Or maybe even sign up for that backgammon club you have secretly pursued online - oh wait, that’s me.

PS - I am currently feeling the rain, but I see the sun ahead.