Category Archives: death

After the water park…

You know when you used to go to the water park and you’d play in the wave pool for countless hours. Then when you got home that night and laid down to bed you still had that feeling that you were still in that wave pool?

That is the best way that I can describe the feeling of living in the house now. I feel like I’ve been in a wave pool for nearly 2 years and I’m finally getting out..but there’s that fading sensation that I’m still in the pool.

As small as Kim was in stature, she made up for it in the way that she was such a force of nature. She definitely left her impact on that house. It still feels like she might be there. Just in memories, not in a ghostly way.

Just the other morning I was going into the shower and I could swear that I smelt cigarettes from the vents. It scared me shitless. I mean, it was like they were freshly smoked. I had to tell myself, it isn’t real, my mind must be playing tricks on me as I eased myself into the shower.

It is such an odd sensation to witness death so closely. Not like in movies or on the news, to see it up close and personal. I honestly still can not get the image of her corpse sitting in the bed with her mouth open and eyes halfway open as she turned to an ashy green color.
To think at one point in time the person that lived in that body was the source of all my rage some days. The source of utter frustration. Now it’s just a shell, already beginning to rot and all you can do is just look at it in horror. Just sitting there in a bed in the room that I grew up in and with your mom off to the side staring into space as a tear travels down her face.

I never thought I’d cry when Kim finally died. But when the time came I just lost it, right after calling my uncle to tell him. The act of saying it just opened the floodgates and Matt had to hold me because I just simply lost it.

There were a few more times since her death last Thursday that I would just cry because of a memory that surfaced. It happened while brushing my teeth, while driving to work, just discussing it with someone. Grief seems to know no boundaries.

Many people say to me, well she’s in a better place now, she’s at peace. I’ve even caught myself saying it a couple of times. But in reality, I have a really hard time believing it. Simply because I have no belief in any religion. I know it’s probably sad to some to know this but I just believe that we are fertilizer in the end. We are just a part of the cycle of life on Earth and that we just happen to be able to comprehend things more so than our ape counterparts. I myself actually find comfort that we just end. That we are unique to an extent and we only come around once. That there can only be one chance to try this thing called life and no way to go back or to live on in Heaven or as a newborn baby.

We all have a chance to make an impact on this Earth, negative or positive. The best part about this is, you can make that decision to the best of your ability. Unfortunately my sister Kim left mostly a negative one, mainly on people in her life. As far as the planet is concerned she probably didn’t make a dent in the fabric of society. She only lived life for herself, never saw past the tip of her nose.

I really hope that I’m looking past the tip of my nose. I hope that when my existence on this planet ends, that I did something meaningful for someone. Not for some postmortem vanity, but that someone benefited by my actions and were able to pass those benefits in some way to another person.

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The Howl of Death’s Arrival

5:30am
Flash crash bang boom roars the storm outside
Like a trigger it sets off the Howls
Howls from the underbelly
They call from the room down the hall
It’s the howl of death coming soon
In no more than three-five days
Death is coming
No one is ready

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Hand Easing Away From The Big Red Button

Life as of late as been extremely trying as stated in previous blog entries. What wasn’t said in the last entry because it wasn’t known, is that on Tuesday, Kim was told she was told by the doctor that they were no longer going to treat her cancer and that they would do their best to make her as comfortable as possible.

So my poor mother along with breaking her leg Monday evening found out the following day that her first daughter was not going to live much longer.

Basically the entire house is now an emotional fault line. I myself have lost it more than once in the past week. When I say lost it I mean, just utterly lost it, to the point of pulling the car over to the side of the road because I couldn’t see straight.

At times, every emotion is in me at once and sometimes at full force. It’s unworldly how they can control me.

Self Destruct

 

My hand seems to hover over the “self-destruct button” at all times. As though I’m about to set off the nuclear bomb in the form of emotions.

Thankfully I’m starting to slowly ease away from that button and turning more towards my to-do list and my red pen. The check marks of completion are starting to stain the paper while at the same time the edges of my mouth move towards the formation of a smile.

I feel significantly better in knowing that I am living a life guided by goals and accomplishments. I know I have plenty of friends and have never purposefully attempted to sabotage those friendships.

Everything is going to be ok, no matter what happens in the near future. I will be ok.

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MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)

It finally happened, the family went nuclear and not in the cute 1947 terminology. Yesterday evening after a long day at work and a trip to the gym and grocery store, I came home to see Beverly’s car parked in the driveway. I immediately knew that Matt would be flippant and pissed of and inevitably set me off too like a chain reaction.

Low and behold that would just be the start of the evening!

After finding out that Beverly’s car was overheating and that she was going to be staying overnight, I just knew it was gonna get worse. At that point I spent the standard hour with Matt trying to console and contain his rage to a tolerable level. When everything had finally calmed down a bit I was ready to finally get started on my homework (9pm). I go out to grab some ice and Beverly chimes up from the living room that my mom had fallen and hurt herself in the garage.

I go and inspect her foot and sure enough it’s swollen. I figure she just gave it a good twist so I go ahead and grab my keys and run up to the local CVS to grab some Icy/Hot sleeves to wrap around her foot and ankle. After that gets applied I think, ok I can get on my homework and then finally get some rest.

My mom proceeds to call my sister Donna to let her know that she’s done a number on her ankle and will not be able to limp around Parkland Hospital with my other sister Kim who’s dying of cancer. My mom calls me in her room and says Donna was being short with her about not going with them and I need to call her and let her know she’s not lying about it.

Sure enough Donna gives me lip too and I’m not exactly pleased but to tired at this point to get into an argument.

I’ve now officially given up on homework for the evening and just decide to wrap it up and go to bed.

**Knock Knock**, Beverly at the door, says mom wants to go to the hospital to get the leg/ankle  checked out.

FUCK!!!!

I get dressed, and for some reason mom has Beverly come up to the hospital with us?!? After sitting in a waiting room for a good hour and listening to Beverly and my mom talk about death and Kim dying and etc.. (reminder, never invite them to a dinner party if I have one, they’d totally bring it down). We are finally admitted to another room where the conversations continue and then they finally X-ray my mom’s foot. Doc comes back, it’s a fracture. Can’t walk on it for a month, here’s some crutches and a prescrip for pain pills.

We get back (1am), send an email to family explaining what happened, and also filled in Matt and he just loses crying and sobbing that he feels trapped and that he’s 25 and how the worlds ending because he’s stuck at my mom’s house,  because he knows that this means more Beverly around the house. More of her annoying hacking and smoking and just being there. I try my best to console him on my limited energy and just give up and try to sleep (somewhere around 1 or 2 am).

I get up at 6am and all I can do is just function. I head off to work and I’m progressively getting angry at the entire situation. Matt’s reaction, Donna’s reaction and the overall scope of the situation. Then I get into work and see a response to last nights email.

It’s Donna. [Quick backtrack: She's been on a anti-mom, pissed off rant about her lack of parenting, probably brought about by the fact that our sister Kim who is going to die this time from the bout of cancer.] Her response to the email was a bitchy one and that just set me off. I told my niece via IM to tell Donna to fuck off and keep her shitty ass comments to herself.

I’m so explosive today that I’ve bawled twice this morning.

I am done with my Mom and her selfishness, Kim and her cancer and Donna and her shitty attitude.

I’ve already phoned an apartment locater, Matt and I are gone in a month.

The family can take care of Mom and Kim.

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No Mask For Me On Halloween

Lately I’ve been trying to hold it all in, to act as though it doesn’t effect me on an emotional level. The reality is, yes, it is effecting me deeply.

My oldest sister, no matter how insanely irritating she can be with her selfish and stubborn ways is very ill. Each day she is looking as though she’s getting closer to deaths door. She’s still up and walking, talking, but she’s barely eating or sleeping. She’s rail thin and her hair is falling out. Dark circles remain under her eyes instead of going away like they used to.
I’m not blind to the reasons why she is dying of cancer. It could have been preventable. I know that even if she was able to go back in time and tell herself that if she continued on her path that she would end up ill that she would probably still do it all again.

Cancer is an evil evil thing that destroys your body in a way that your pain shows on the outside. No one should ever have to go through such a terrible thing, no matter how bad of a person you’ve been in life.

The worst part of all of this is having to watch two people suffer. Kim from the cancer and my mother from having to watch her daughter die.

She told me this morning in tears over the phone that “when your kids are sick, you’re supposed to be able to fix it”.

Life’s harsh sometimes and I know I’ll get on a happier level in time. But for now, I have to allow myself to bawl like a baby when I reflect on statements like the one my mom made this morning.

Kim's in the middle

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