ninanevermore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninanevermore) wrote2007-01-09 04:55 pm
ninanevermore) wrote2007-01-09 04:55 pm
Tuesday - Calling Me From Tennessee
Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the latest phone call from my cousin Leslie in Tennessee. I love it when she calls. She makes me ride an emotional roller coaster of laughter and pain that has a way of grounding me when I step off of it. I always spend the next few days mulling over everything she tells me after we say goodbye, or, as was the case on Sunday, when the battery in her cell phone runs out and abruptly ends the call.
"Nina, you'll never guess why I called you," she said 15 minutes into the conversation. She had been telling me about the keychain LED flashlight that her old man, Wren, had bought her. She swore it was possessed by demons, because it would come one and make her purse glow when no one had so much as touched it. Still, as interesting as it was, this haunted blue light was not what she called me about at all.
"Why?" I asked.
"You'll never guess who is staying in my house right now. Never, never, never guess. Not in a million years. So I'm just going to tell you. Because there is no way you would ever guess on your own."
"Who?" I asked. When Leslie calls, I don't have to do much talking. For the most part, I only have to provide the one-and-two-word prompts she needs to keep up her monologue.
It turns out that Leslie's stepdaughter had dropped off her 7-year-old son and his 14-year-old stepbrother at Leslie's house that weekend. Leslie and Wren are to take care of until "some issues are resolved." For the first time in 17 years, Leslie is raising kids again.
"Nina! Do you know what I'm doing tomorrow? I'm registering them for school! Do you know how out of practice I am at this stuff? Do you? I'm taking care of them, and with Cam in the hospital, too? How am I going to handle this, Nina? How?"
There was a pause. Apparently, I was expected to answer this rhetorical-sounding question.
"One day at a time?" I suggested, and flinched even as I did. Leslie is a veteran of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she knows the mantras inside and out. She also knows how the weave them into a rope and flog you with them as punishment for throwing one at her.
"One day at a time? Girl, are you shitting me? One day at a time doesn't even cover it. It doesn't even begin to cover it! Try sixty seconds at a time! Or one paragraph at a time!" she said, adding, "I read a lot of magazines these days. I like that. One paragraph at a time! That's how you have to take it. Do you have any idea how many things can happen in a whole day? A day is too much time. You've got to live from one minute to the next, because you never know what they're gonna throw at you. I know, because I am now taking care of two boys."
She told me about the them. The little one she loves dearly, but this is the first time he has ever been away from his mother for even a night, much less the month or more until she will be able to visit him again. The older boy reminds Leslie of some of the teenagers she used to work with back with she was a counselor in a drug-treatment facility; he is kind of sulky and withdrawn and he takes medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. A 14 year old is a tough task to handle under the best circumstances (such as when you have raised him since infancy). Taking on someone else's 14 year old who seems to have issues is not a task I would be glad to take on. Wren is a truck driver, and he's away for days at a time. For the most part, she's going to be taking care of these new charges on her own.
"Nina, what the hell is God thinking when he drops shit like this into my lap?" Leslie asked, "What?"
There was a pause again. That's a funny thing about conversations with Leslie: when she asks questions about things like the weather or how I'm doing, she doesn't expect me to answer and quickly moves on to the next topic. But when she asks me what God is thinking, I'm supposed to come up with something.
"I have no idea," I admitted.
"Me neither!" This was a relief; I didn't want to be alone in the dark on this question.
"What the fuck am I going to do? How am I going to do this?"
"You'll either rise to the occasion, or fall apart," I suggested. "You being you, I think you'll do fine, because you're tough as nails."
"No shit! But I don't want to be me anymore, Nina. I don't want to be tough. I want to be able to fall apart! Just once, why can't I fall apart like other people get to do? I want to go crazy. Why can't I? " Her voice cracked a little.
I understood. Sometimes lunatics seem to have it easy. When reality gets too rough, they pack up and leave it behind. While there is no dignity to shouting at lampposts and thinking that you're Napoleon, in some ways it looks like a nice vacation from actually coping. I've been jealous of lunatics a few times in my life, and my reality is nowhere near as hard as the one Leslie lives in.
She changed the subject to her son, Cameron. She thinks the end is near for him. "I feel it in my mother's gut, Nina, he's got 90 days at the most."
Cam has been at death's door so often and for so long that by this point I don't even get excited about it anymore. I have been mourning for him so long while he is still alive that his actual death will be anticlimactic for me. Maybe this time it's for real. Last Spring she thought is was for real, too.
"How am I gonna cope with that, girl? If Cam takes a turn for the worse and I'm supposed to be taking care of these other two boys? Look, I know that everything happens for a reason, and there's a reason these boys have been left with me. I'm just trying to figure out what The Good Lord's got in mind this time, you know?
"You have to understand, Nina, I'm not used to schedules or any of that crap these days. My life has taken a turn for the Zen. I eat when I'm hungry, I sleep when I'm tired, and I don't let someone else tell me when that is anymore. I do not get along with alarm clocks, Nina. I never have, but I really don't now that I haven't had to use one is so long. I'm not used to them any more. And now I've got to wake up and make sure two kids make it to school on time?"
It occurred to me that maybe this might be a positive thing for her, for her to concentrate on two living boys instead of her son who is hanging on by a thread. Maybe Cameron, struck down by an aneurysm 14 years ago just as he prepared to graduate high school, really will die at last. Leslie is like a bundle of energy, and energy must be directed somewhere or all hell breaks loose. If Cam dies, she will no longer have keeping him alive as a goal to focus on, and the result could be nothing except a scorched earth and destruction. But now she has two boys who need her care, to draw that energy toward something positive.
I thought this, but I didn't say it. It's not what she needed to hear. She didn't need to hear anything from me, in fact. She just needed to vent.
"Nina, I need you to pray for me, okay? Because we've got some powerful angels gunning for us, you and me. One in particular that we share. You're mama isn't going to let us get overwhelmed, no way. She doesn't take crap from nobody. She never did."
The idea of my mother kicking ass in Heaven made me grin. I pictured halos sailing across the sky and downy white feathers violently ripped from angel wings drifting to the ground because some heavenly being tried to give Leslie or me crap.
"So you pray for me, okay, Nina?"
I told her I would.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ # ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
"Nina, you'll never guess why I called you," she said 15 minutes into the conversation. She had been telling me about the keychain LED flashlight that her old man, Wren, had bought her. She swore it was possessed by demons, because it would come one and make her purse glow when no one had so much as touched it. Still, as interesting as it was, this haunted blue light was not what she called me about at all.
"Why?" I asked.
"You'll never guess who is staying in my house right now. Never, never, never guess. Not in a million years. So I'm just going to tell you. Because there is no way you would ever guess on your own."
"Who?" I asked. When Leslie calls, I don't have to do much talking. For the most part, I only have to provide the one-and-two-word prompts she needs to keep up her monologue.
It turns out that Leslie's stepdaughter had dropped off her 7-year-old son and his 14-year-old stepbrother at Leslie's house that weekend. Leslie and Wren are to take care of until "some issues are resolved." For the first time in 17 years, Leslie is raising kids again.
"Nina! Do you know what I'm doing tomorrow? I'm registering them for school! Do you know how out of practice I am at this stuff? Do you? I'm taking care of them, and with Cam in the hospital, too? How am I going to handle this, Nina? How?"
There was a pause. Apparently, I was expected to answer this rhetorical-sounding question.
"One day at a time?" I suggested, and flinched even as I did. Leslie is a veteran of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she knows the mantras inside and out. She also knows how the weave them into a rope and flog you with them as punishment for throwing one at her.
"One day at a time? Girl, are you shitting me? One day at a time doesn't even cover it. It doesn't even begin to cover it! Try sixty seconds at a time! Or one paragraph at a time!" she said, adding, "I read a lot of magazines these days. I like that. One paragraph at a time! That's how you have to take it. Do you have any idea how many things can happen in a whole day? A day is too much time. You've got to live from one minute to the next, because you never know what they're gonna throw at you. I know, because I am now taking care of two boys."
She told me about the them. The little one she loves dearly, but this is the first time he has ever been away from his mother for even a night, much less the month or more until she will be able to visit him again. The older boy reminds Leslie of some of the teenagers she used to work with back with she was a counselor in a drug-treatment facility; he is kind of sulky and withdrawn and he takes medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. A 14 year old is a tough task to handle under the best circumstances (such as when you have raised him since infancy). Taking on someone else's 14 year old who seems to have issues is not a task I would be glad to take on. Wren is a truck driver, and he's away for days at a time. For the most part, she's going to be taking care of these new charges on her own.
"Nina, what the hell is God thinking when he drops shit like this into my lap?" Leslie asked, "What?"
There was a pause again. That's a funny thing about conversations with Leslie: when she asks questions about things like the weather or how I'm doing, she doesn't expect me to answer and quickly moves on to the next topic. But when she asks me what God is thinking, I'm supposed to come up with something.
"I have no idea," I admitted.
"Me neither!" This was a relief; I didn't want to be alone in the dark on this question.
"What the fuck am I going to do? How am I going to do this?"
"You'll either rise to the occasion, or fall apart," I suggested. "You being you, I think you'll do fine, because you're tough as nails."
"No shit! But I don't want to be me anymore, Nina. I don't want to be tough. I want to be able to fall apart! Just once, why can't I fall apart like other people get to do? I want to go crazy. Why can't I? " Her voice cracked a little.
I understood. Sometimes lunatics seem to have it easy. When reality gets too rough, they pack up and leave it behind. While there is no dignity to shouting at lampposts and thinking that you're Napoleon, in some ways it looks like a nice vacation from actually coping. I've been jealous of lunatics a few times in my life, and my reality is nowhere near as hard as the one Leslie lives in.
She changed the subject to her son, Cameron. She thinks the end is near for him. "I feel it in my mother's gut, Nina, he's got 90 days at the most."
Cam has been at death's door so often and for so long that by this point I don't even get excited about it anymore. I have been mourning for him so long while he is still alive that his actual death will be anticlimactic for me. Maybe this time it's for real. Last Spring she thought is was for real, too.
"How am I gonna cope with that, girl? If Cam takes a turn for the worse and I'm supposed to be taking care of these other two boys? Look, I know that everything happens for a reason, and there's a reason these boys have been left with me. I'm just trying to figure out what The Good Lord's got in mind this time, you know?
"You have to understand, Nina, I'm not used to schedules or any of that crap these days. My life has taken a turn for the Zen. I eat when I'm hungry, I sleep when I'm tired, and I don't let someone else tell me when that is anymore. I do not get along with alarm clocks, Nina. I never have, but I really don't now that I haven't had to use one is so long. I'm not used to them any more. And now I've got to wake up and make sure two kids make it to school on time?"
It occurred to me that maybe this might be a positive thing for her, for her to concentrate on two living boys instead of her son who is hanging on by a thread. Maybe Cameron, struck down by an aneurysm 14 years ago just as he prepared to graduate high school, really will die at last. Leslie is like a bundle of energy, and energy must be directed somewhere or all hell breaks loose. If Cam dies, she will no longer have keeping him alive as a goal to focus on, and the result could be nothing except a scorched earth and destruction. But now she has two boys who need her care, to draw that energy toward something positive.
I thought this, but I didn't say it. It's not what she needed to hear. She didn't need to hear anything from me, in fact. She just needed to vent.
"Nina, I need you to pray for me, okay? Because we've got some powerful angels gunning for us, you and me. One in particular that we share. You're mama isn't going to let us get overwhelmed, no way. She doesn't take crap from nobody. She never did."
The idea of my mother kicking ass in Heaven made me grin. I pictured halos sailing across the sky and downy white feathers violently ripped from angel wings drifting to the ground because some heavenly being tried to give Leslie or me crap.
"So you pray for me, okay, Nina?"
I told her I would.
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kicking ass in Heaven
Re: kicking ass in Heaven
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She probably HAS had her chance to fall apart and go crazy at some point (might have been a while ago, but hitting rock bottom usually included that)and karmikly ( I have no idea how to spell that) owes one or two to the world to hold it together and rise to the occasion.
While she was falling apart and screwing up, I am sure there was someone in the family willing to stand by her and help her back up (and certainly many in recovery) so... y'know... pay it forward and all. . .
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That would have been my mother (now an ass-kicking angel). When Leslie's own mother turned her back on her when she was 17, it was my mother who helped her out and taught her to manage on her own.
Leslie bends and gets tied in knots, but she never breaks. Surviving is the only thing she knows how to do; even if she decided to try failure, she would have no idea how to go about it.
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This so could've been me speaking a year ago (and a few times it was) - especially when I found out I was pregnant. I can hear my thoughts resonating with her words. "Where's my me time? I've been doing so much for others for so long, I'm ready to rest and let ME decide when to cook and whether or not to clean. It's not fair!" Wait, I still say that, don't I?
Hmmm. Sure it wasn't proxy me speaking?
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I like the image of your mother as an ass-kicking angel! Had LC called me, I might have reminded her of another angel she has watching over her -- one who knows all too well the insufferable pain of losing a child one has worked so hard and for so long to save. If Cameron is destined to leave us, these two boys could be a special delivery from her Uncle Bud -- one for each beloved son this family has lost!
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Rest assured, there are things she says I'm not telling you, either. BTW, you never read anything about her from me. :D