Cry

More than three months out and I still find myself crying daily. I assume that’s normal and not a bad thing, but I’m not a fan. What starts it isn’t always some trigger (a song, a picture, a video, a line in a TV show or movie, an offhand comment made, etc.,) though of course it often is.

No, sometimes I just suddenly remember what the reality is, as if I’d somehow forgotten for a bit what had happened. These sudden reminders are not asked for and come out of the blue, and when they do there are tears.

Again, all perfectly normal, I assume. 

The sadness is brought about by a myriad of things or reasons, and if I’m somehow able to wrap my head around one of them, another rears its ugly head like a mutli-headed hydra (is there any other kind? Must research). Here are the reasons, the ideas, the realities that cause me such despair that the tears flow (“…. the Policeman Said.” H/T Philip K. Dick) in no particular order:

1. I cry because I miss her so
2. I cry when I think of what the boys are going through.
3. I cry imagining what the boys went through that morning.
4. I cry for the hardships my daughter had to face daily.
5. I cry because at times I think I failed my ONE JOB as a parent, to take care of my child and make sure she was safe and healthy and okay.
6. I cry because I see a future emptier without her and am afraid to face it.
7. I cry because I’m 13 years older than Cindy and fear that now there will be no one to take care of her when she’s older. Adri had promised me she’d look out for her for me.
8. I cry when I realize we’ll never be able to do X for her or take her to see Y or give her Z
9. I cry thinking about how she’ll never see her boys grow up to be adults.
10. I cry for her mother. I cry for Stephen. I cry for her grandparents. I cry for her friends.
11. I cry for myself.
12. I cry imagining what she went through that morning, hoping that it was painless, hoping that she didn’t feel alone, hoping that she saw some peace, but not knowing and crying some more.
13. I cry when I think of how Kathy and Elaine and Alisha and countless others felt and still feel.
14. I cry for time lost with her these last five years.
15. I cry for the future memories promised that will never be made.

I know this all has to come out to survive and go on, but if this was a reality show I’d vote these feelings off the island in a heartbeat. They are the weakest link. They weren’t posed in the from of a question, and they have been eliminated from the Amazing Race.

If only. 

Disney World 1998

 

On the bus to the Magic Kingdom

My grandparents gave us this trip: the airline tickets, park passes, hotel room. It was wonderful and I was so glad we got to do this together.

I still have a disposable camera full of pictures she took that I never got developed (it was misplaced for years). I'm anxious to see the photos.

Cindy and I always wanted to send her and her little family there when the boys were about the age she was here (10), but it never happened.

It was a great trip; I wish she could have experienced her boys' experiencing it.

Ambigram Bracelet

 

Adri / Love ambigram bracelet from Cindy

Cindy got me a bracelet with the Adri / Love ambigram that I designed engraved on it, the same one that Adri had tattooed on her wrist. It's solid and substantial. ♥️

The Clock

 

For some reason, the pendulum stops swining

After working fine for several years, during these last three months this clock just stops working a couple of times each week.

The pendulum just stops and thus the hands stop moving, even though it's leveled and wound fully, and I have to reset the time and restart the pendulum.

For years this didn't work at all, and I had the hands set to the time that my grandfather died since this was his clock as a sort of homage. Then a few years ago I got it fixed at a local clock shop and it's worked flawlessly.

Until now.

I'll restart the pendulum, time progresses and the hands move to the rhythmic, comforting ticking of the clockworks for a day or two, and then I'll look up and notice it has stopped and gone silent.

And I know intellectually it can't be related to the new reality without my daughter that these last three months have brought, but the intensified search for meaning and purpose for all that has happened is occasionally causing me to project causality and intention where it of course doesn't exist.

Still, it’s disconcerting.

February 2024

Adri snaps a photo of us.

I never talked about Adri’s hospitalization last year here, mainly because I was terrified and too busy in the moment when it was happening, and after there didn’t seem to be a point. But I’m going to talk about it now, as it was a preamble of what was to come, a warning sign that wasn’t ignored but yet wasn’t enough, either.

February of 2024 while helping Wesley with his homework at the dining table after dinner, Adri fell out of the chair, unconscious onto the floor. Wesley at first tried to wake her up, but then quickly found his dad in the other room and they called 911.

When I was talking on the phone with them that night the EMT paramedics were still working on her with CPR and defrib equipment to revive and stabilize her. They’d been at it for over 10 minutes with no luck. I didn’t want to be “in the way” so I got off the phone and waited, for what was the second time in the history of my daughter, for a return phone call that would either tell me that she had survived or that she hadn’t. This is as bad as you can imagine, the wait for the phone to ring that will potentially bring life-changing information for everyone.

Stephen called back about 10 minutes later. They had revived her after 20 minutes of working. She wasn’t out of the woods, though, and they transported her to the ER at the hospital. I got in my car and drove there as soon as I hung up.

It was now around 9pm or so, and the boys and Stephen were exhausted and there was really nothing to be one but wait in the ER waiting room, so they went home so they could go to bed and get ready for school the next day.

I waited in the ER while they continued to work on her. Finally, at around 1am and after being in the ER for almost 5 hours they were ready to transport her to ICU. I don’t know if it took that long to stabilize her or if they were waiting for an available ICU room. I didn’t ask, my brain was a mess.

I went upstairs to ICU, at which point I had to wait in the waiting room up there another two hours until almost 3am before they’d let me go into her room and see her.

She was alive, but unconscious, intubated and on a breathing machine, with what seemed like a thousand wires and cables attached to her and terminating at their respective monitoring machines. There were at least half a dozen or more monitors for things like heart rate, respiratory rate, potassium levels, blood pressure, O2 levels, and others that I didn’t understand at all, along with several different IV drips.

But she was alive. I was relieved. At this point I really didn’t understand the severity of her situation, and no one was really telling me much since it was 3am. I didn’t even realize she was still listed as in critical condition. I was overwhelmed.

I told the staff I was going home to sleep for a couple hours and shower and be back around 8 or 9. They acted a bit oddly, and I know now that it was because they didn’t expect her to survive the night, but they had never told me. So I went home.

I got back early that same morning with supplies (crossword puzzle books, tea bags, phone chargers, Kindle, etc) and was told that I didn’t have to wait in the waiting room, that I could stay in her room. I camped out. She was still unconscious, and I’d watch the monitors to make sure the 02 levels stayed high, that her heart rate stayed stable, her blood pressure didn’t fall below 50 or 60, to look for any signs she was okay.

I asked if I could talk to her, if that would bother her recovery or not, and they said I could. So I’d hold her hand and talk to her, softly, like I used to when she was a little girl and had fallen asleep. Telling her I loved her, that her mom was calling, and that her boys wanted to see her soon. She didn’t move.

They told me the next day that they were going to turn off the breathing machine and see if she could breathe on her own. They had no idea if she could. If she couldn’t, they’d turn it back on and we’d know. So I had to wait for that, for a flip of the coin to see what the rest of her life would be like.

But when they stopped the machine, she could breathe on her own! I was so happy and relieved, and only then let myself think of what could have been the alternative reality.

She was still unconscious, and they still didn’t know if there was any brain damage, or the extent of that

damage if it existed. So we had to wait some more. 

At one point when I was holding her hand her eyes suddenly opened for the first time, and she looked terrified and tried to sit up a bit. She calmed down, finally, and then stared right into my eyes. She still was still intubated, however. Her eyes looked incredibly sad, and I noticed tears forming and slowly rolling down her cheeks. I squeezed her hand tightly, and she closed her eyes and her vitals went back to what was her baseline.

The next morning when I got to the room she was sitting up, no longer intubated, and with a lot less wires and connections. She was tired, but could talk, and she seemed okay. She asked me what had happened, she asked if the boys were okay, she asked how long she’d been there. Her brain, miraculously, was fine.

The cardiologist had examined her, and her ejection fraction was 25%. This number refers to how efficient the heart is, the amount of blood pumped out of the lower chambers with each contraction. Normal range for a female is 55 – 75% or so. There are several ranges, but the last is called “severely abnormal” and that is anything under 30%. She was at 25.

I realize now (and did a bit then as well, but tried not to think about it) that the techs and nurses there assumed she wouldn’t make it. There were many signs: how they looked at me when they thought I wasn’t noticing, all extremely sad and despondent. When I asked if the boys could see her, the main nurse suggested against it saying “I think it’s better for children to remember their parents as strong and healthy,” that “the last image of their mother should be a good one,” etc. Stuff like that, but worded carefully.

I knew she would be okay, somehow. It wasn’t even a worry for me, once she could breathe on her own and there was no brain damage. I didn’t really understand ejection fractions, though I could tell from my father’s wife response to the number that it wasn’t good (she had been an ICU nurse over the course of her career).  Still, she kept improving.

Her blood pressure recovered, as did her heart rate and other vitals. The ejection factor was in the high-30s when they started physical therapy, and after a couple of days she could walk the length of the corridor by herself. I could tell the staff was a bit surprised at the speed of her recovery, but she was always strong physically for such a small person.

She got to leave ICU finally and spent another day in a regular hospital room, and then she was discharged. She’d been in the hospital just under a week.

She had appointments set with a cardiologist, I bought her one of those blood pressure measuring machines, and her insurance (Medicare) promised that she was allowed a home visit from a nurse three days a week for a month and then weekly for a few months after that.

The nurse never came, I learned later.

But she improved, her numbers getting better, the first cardiologist appointment I took her to a month later had good results. She seemed more normal. Her texts to me and posts to Facebook seemed more normal, not scattered, with attention to clarity. It was like my old daughter. She seemed happier.

I made sure she kept her appointments, made sure she filled the first round of prescriptions that the hospital provided, and drove her to the cardiologist so I could also answer and ask questions. The doctor seemed pleased with her progress.

During the whole week or so I had been terrified. Terrified that the paramedics couldn’t revive her. Terrified that she would never breathe on her own. Terrified that she’d be brain damaged. Terrified of a life without her, terrified for her boys and how they would respond to the loss of their mother. I’d cry when no one was around and then be mad at myself for not being more positive.

But then there was that reprieve.

I’d imagined all these horrible outcomes and scenarios for nothing. 

She was a survivor.

Acts of Kindness

Adrianna didn’t have the easiest of lives, but then maybe no one really does. Still, I think she had more than her fair share of struggle and despair. Much of it was brought on by decisions and choices she made along the way, of course… but not all of it.

I think those who are the happiest are those who feel that they’re in the most control of their lives, that what they do and how they do it matters, that if they “keep their nose clean” as my grandfather used to say they can avoid heartache and despair and stress and disaster. You make your own luck. You are in control of your destiny and fate.

Of course, I doubt anyone thinks that they are in 100% control of their lives, and likewise hopefully no one thinks they have no control at all. It’s where one falls on that continuum that matters, and I think Adrianna definitely felt that she occupied the lower part of that range for most of her life.  Much of her behavior and life choices, both good and bad, were probably directed at regaining or maintaining as much of that control as she could.

I’m going to talk more at some point about her personal demons and the life-long struggles she had with these issues, but right now I want to talk about her luck, because I think this also affected how much she felt in control of her life.

She definitely had bad luck, and often anything that could go wrong would go wrong. I understood this and commiserated with her, for my early life felt the same. An important job interview? You have a flat tire. Waiting for an important piece of mail? The sender addressed it incorrectly and you thus miss a deadline. You finally save up to fix the dryer and get it done, and the next day the washer breaks. The only car key you have falls out of your hand, bounces twice on the pavement before falling down a storm drain. That sort of thing. She attracted such events, and there really is little one can do to change such luck other than expect the worst and plan accordingly, and believe me, both of us did this. Anything for a perceived sense of control.

So any random acts of kindness she received were godsends, and they actually happened with some regularity. She felt the angels at such times were looking out for her. That’s the one good thing about living a life that isn’t easy: when good things do happen, they can seem impactful and you really notice and appreciate them.

It happened many times, but one typical example that she shared with me happened at McDonald’s. She’d take the boys there occasionally so they could play in the play area, and if she had enough money, she’d get them something to share. Never for herself, of course, but maybe an ice cream cone or an order of chicken nuggets that she’d cajole the boys to eat after they came down the slide or what have you.

One day an old couple came up to her and told her they’d seen her with the boys many times and wanted to buy them a happy meal. They obviously saw in her someone struggling with life, trying to grab a few nice moments when she could, and wanted to do something. She declined, but they insisted, and she finally accepted.

Other times she’d be at the grocery store buying some staples and come up a bit short and the person behind her would offer to make it good. Once someone left a card on her apartment door saying that they’ve watched her with her boys and that she’s doing a great job. One day when she was short of money for a bill that was due, a piece of paper that was being tousled by the wind in a parking lot finally came to rest at her feet, at which point she noticed it was a $100 bill.

These things didn’t happen that often, but they happened more than you’d expect. I’m so grateful and thankful for every nameless stranger who ever did something kind for her, and we try to play it forward whenever we can. Such little things can make a huge difference in tipping the scales, at least for that day, towards the positive, towards feeling that maybe you’re gaining just a bit more control of your life. 

 

Scary Movies

When Adri was around 6 or 7, she used to like watching “scary movies,” and that didn’t mean stuff like “Halloween” or “Scream” or what have you, but rather selections from the old Universal Monster movies oeuvre of the 1930s and 40s. An hour and twenty-minute black and white stuff such as “Bride of Frankenstein,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “The Mummy,” etc.

I had enjoyed these films as well when I was her age, watching them every Friday night on Creature Features on WGN in Chicago during the summers when I was allowed to stay up late enough to view them, usually on a small black & white 10-inch TV in my bedroom with the lights out. It was fun. It was fun to be scared just a bit watching these over-the-top movies that relied more on atmosphere and lighting rather than gore and terror.

One of her favorites, the one she wanted to watch the most, was “The Wolf Man,” starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and his scenery chewing performance. I think what drew her in was the transformation from man to wolf depicted in the cutting-edge special effects of the time: a slow stop-motion sequence that showed the sprouting hair and brow ridge form under the dangerous moonlight.

However, at one point her granny in Louisville told me that she shouldn’t be watching such movies, that they terrified her and she was having bad dreams. It surprised me given my interactions with her and discussions about this when she was with me, but I promised to address it the next time Adri was with me.

We did, because literally the first night she was back after dinner she asked if we could watch “The Wolf Man.”

“But I hear that it is scaring you too much, that you’re having bad dreams,” I said.  “Maybe we should watch “The Aristocats” instead.”

“Well, sometimes I’m afraid that the Wolf Man will come and get me, that’s all,” she countered.

I reminded her that it was just a movie, and she agreed, but then countered with “…but you never know.”

We watched something else that night and I told her we’d try something the next day.

I had an old gaudy ring that I had found as a kid at some second-hand shop. It was brass with a coiled dragon on top with “ruby” eyes… and it opened up with a secret compartment! It was great. I showed her the ring and told her it had magical powers, that it was able to ward off werewolves, mummies, and various other creepy ghoulies.

She looked at the ring with extreme skepticism, took it in her hand and examined it like she was some grad student working on her doctorate thesis in archeology before looking up at me slowly shaking her head and replied,

“But daddy, there’s no such thing as magical rings!”

“True,” I agreed, “but then there’s no such thing as Wolf Men, either, right?”

She sat for a few seconds in pensive silence, then slowly nodded and put the ring on one of her fingers, and that was that.

We watched “The Wolf Man” that day.

Adrianna always faced her fears head-on. She’d use reason and logic when necessary to tackle issues and problems she might have faced, but was also willing to make room for emotion and intangible factors when trying to explain and assimilate with the world she found herself in. She had both a complex brain as well as heart, and I miss her.

The Look

2001, Dallas

Adri writing something at the computer, summer of 2001, pre-911 before everything changed. The Pandemic in 2020 would also be another huge dividing moment in history, one that definitely was a turning point in her life and for our relationship and dynamic (for the worse) which I believe greatly contributed to her fate.

It's so hard to look at pictures like this, unposed shots where she's staring right into the camera, my eye, looking out from a past that is gone forever. Yet I struggle to look away, to stop staring at this picture and others like it. Not out of some sort of masochism, but rather, I think, because I don't want to sever that connection.

What was she thinking here? And how can there be consciousness one moment and then suddenly it's gone?

One Headlight

Music is such a powerful mover of emotion, for better or worse, and has always been so important to me, an integral part of my life. I'm paying the price for that now, and will probably the rest of my life because of so many built-in emotional triggers in so much music that directly ties my thoughts to Adrianna.

"One Headlight" by Jakob Dylan / The Wallflowers was playing over the store speakers as I was grocery shopping today and it nearly destroyed me while in the produce section.

Example #47 in a continuing series.

"So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well, they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees.

I seen the sun coming up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face
I wondered why she hung around this place.

Come on, try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We'll put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight..."

Tired

I’m so tired.

Tired of being angry at life,

Tired of being angry at death.

Tired of venting,

Tired of hiding the pain.

Tired of being triggered, 

Tired of forgetting.

Tired of apologizing to myself,

Tired of feeling I’m bothering others.

Tired of wondering why,

Tired of wondering how.

Tired of the dull pain, 

Tired of the sharp.

Tired of ephemeral hope,

Tired of despair.

Tired of fearing the future,

Tired of regretting the past.

Tired of endless introspection,

Tired of moving on.

Tired of knowing the boys’ sorrow,

Tired of feeling helpless.

Tired of crying 

Multiple times an hour,

Multiple times a day,

Multiple times a week.

Tired of missing her,

Tired of living without her,

Tired of knowing she’s gone - 

And yet it’s just begun.