(no subject)
So I had this interesting experience this past week where I was terrified that my grandfather was going to die.
I got an email from my Dad telling me that Daddy Bert (my grandfather) was having some pretty severe blood pressure issues, and nobody was quite sure what was happening. He was seeing a neurologist in Houston soon to see if it was...I don't know. Cancer or Alzheimers or lymphoma or parkinsons. I don't know. These were all things I thought it could be from my oh-so-extensive medical knowledge.
The thing you have to understand about Daddy Bert is he's the most energetic man I know, be they 7 or 70. He is 76. In the last 6 years he's been to over 20 different countries on archaeological tours and sightseeing trips and once he was climbing through the grand canyon when something fairly important burst. He almost died then too, but I only found out about that until we all knew he was ok. He took Eric and I to Italy after I graduated and woke up at the crack of dawn to go walking through whatever city we were in so he could find the place that opened the earliest because he's convinced they always have the best bacon. To his credit, he's always been right about that.
Anyway. This last week, while they waited to go to Houston, Daddy Bert was too tired to leave the house and get the paper. I was terrified. Nobody close to me has died. Ever. People I've known who are related to me somehow have died, but because we live here and they live there, it didn't matter. But this is Daddy Bert. This man is the frustrating, loving glue that at the moment keeps our family together.
All week long, I couldn't stop crying when I was alone. And when I was around people, I was angry and bitchy in a way I haven't been since...right after 9/11, I guess. I sent him an email telling him I loved him, and got one back saying he loved me, and I was sure that it was going to be the last thing I heard from him. The next day was overcast and cold and really really windy. Trees were bending over like crazy and the ducks on the lake were having trouble staying in one place. I walked around all day long thinking it would be the perfect setting for me to get a phone call saying he was dead.
He's ok. Turns out it was a lack of salt, which he cut back on after the stroke he had 4 years ago. I was so relieved when I found out. Thinking he was going to die brought on all this guilt that I haven't felt in years about the fact that we don't live in the states. It really shook me, though. I don't know what I'll do when I'm confronted with actual death, as opposed to imagined death. Kind of a freaky train of thought, but one I haven't been able to get my brain off of for a while. Sam might have noticed I've been playing a lot of Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine and Evanescence, which usually means I'm in the mood to wallow in some morbid and angry frame of mind.
Some guys who used to live on this floor are running up and down the stairs, drunkenly yelling at each other and banging a piece of wood they got from god-knows-where on anything that happens to be handy. It reminds me of why I'm so glad they've moved to the other wing of Burgmann.
Sorry for the morbidness (is that a word?) But when you don't have any phone credit to call your usual morbid-buddy, where else are you supposed to turn but your blog?
I got an email from my Dad telling me that Daddy Bert (my grandfather) was having some pretty severe blood pressure issues, and nobody was quite sure what was happening. He was seeing a neurologist in Houston soon to see if it was...I don't know. Cancer or Alzheimers or lymphoma or parkinsons. I don't know. These were all things I thought it could be from my oh-so-extensive medical knowledge.
The thing you have to understand about Daddy Bert is he's the most energetic man I know, be they 7 or 70. He is 76. In the last 6 years he's been to over 20 different countries on archaeological tours and sightseeing trips and once he was climbing through the grand canyon when something fairly important burst. He almost died then too, but I only found out about that until we all knew he was ok. He took Eric and I to Italy after I graduated and woke up at the crack of dawn to go walking through whatever city we were in so he could find the place that opened the earliest because he's convinced they always have the best bacon. To his credit, he's always been right about that.
Anyway. This last week, while they waited to go to Houston, Daddy Bert was too tired to leave the house and get the paper. I was terrified. Nobody close to me has died. Ever. People I've known who are related to me somehow have died, but because we live here and they live there, it didn't matter. But this is Daddy Bert. This man is the frustrating, loving glue that at the moment keeps our family together.
All week long, I couldn't stop crying when I was alone. And when I was around people, I was angry and bitchy in a way I haven't been since...right after 9/11, I guess. I sent him an email telling him I loved him, and got one back saying he loved me, and I was sure that it was going to be the last thing I heard from him. The next day was overcast and cold and really really windy. Trees were bending over like crazy and the ducks on the lake were having trouble staying in one place. I walked around all day long thinking it would be the perfect setting for me to get a phone call saying he was dead.
He's ok. Turns out it was a lack of salt, which he cut back on after the stroke he had 4 years ago. I was so relieved when I found out. Thinking he was going to die brought on all this guilt that I haven't felt in years about the fact that we don't live in the states. It really shook me, though. I don't know what I'll do when I'm confronted with actual death, as opposed to imagined death. Kind of a freaky train of thought, but one I haven't been able to get my brain off of for a while. Sam might have noticed I've been playing a lot of Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine and Evanescence, which usually means I'm in the mood to wallow in some morbid and angry frame of mind.
Some guys who used to live on this floor are running up and down the stairs, drunkenly yelling at each other and banging a piece of wood they got from god-knows-where on anything that happens to be handy. It reminds me of why I'm so glad they've moved to the other wing of Burgmann.
Sorry for the morbidness (is that a word?) But when you don't have any phone credit to call your usual morbid-buddy, where else are you supposed to turn but your blog?