Sunday, April 16, 2017

What I did past midnight tonight



I certainly didn't sleep. I was just closing my eyes, though, lying on my side, like I do, when I heard her beginning to seize in her room down the hall. I say down the hall, but it's only a few feet. I can hear her, even when she takes that first breath or perhaps it's an exhale because it becomes a groan, but first it's just a breath and I hear it, even when I am just there, falling to sleep. Falling. We fall into sleep and we fall over. Onto the ground. We fall under a spell and out of a trap, away from harm and backward in shock. We fall in love and also out of. I have fallen in and never out -- of love. I am in love right now. Can't you see it? Sophie has fallen, over and over, fallen under a spell while falling into sleep. Seizures often happen at the threshold of sleep, the place where eyes are closed and the thoughts are threads, a fish tail flicks. The liminal. The measure of my hatred for them is their resistance to falling victim to -- what? Anything. They've fallen victim to nothing so my hatred is everything. I know, even so, that I've fallen for it, delusion, illusion, maya. Things have long since fallen out of place. I have no control. I sat on her bed and wiped her hair away where it had fallen into her face. I wiped her palms, the drops of sweat, the drool, fallen away from her mouth. I told her it was okay. I wanted her to fall back to sleep. I wanted it to all fall away.


Things fall apart.



Nonetheless, there were no more diapers in Sophie's closet, and after a seizure, she needs a change. The case is outside at the back of the yard in the shed.



That's what I did past midnight tonight. I wore my long black nightgown and swung my phone's beam of light, let it fall right then left. Please, no creatures, I whispered. I walked down the steps from my bedroom and fell into night. Feet on gravel, a distant siren. I reached for the box, let it fall off the shelf, paid no mind to the corners there in the dark where the light fell away and I walked back to the house with the box up on my bare shoulder, the lace of a spider-web fell and caught on the lace of my gown.

We are brave people. We are strong.

17 comments:

  1. I'm with you. So many times. So many nights. So many seizures. 18 years on. Stay strong. x J

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  2. Oh wow, Elizabeth and still you stay strong. You the mother of all this grief and pain, this endless endurance. What else could you do, other than to run away? But how could you do that? You do not do that. You, Sophie's mother. Her hope and light. You are an inspiration.

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  3. Sitting in my car between clients. Holding space for you and Sophie the n my heart. Seriously. I think of you a lot. Several times a day. Because I can do nothing, I just hold space.

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  4. I'm here. Bearing witness, trying to know the right words. I don't know them. Perhaps there are no right words. I send love.

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  5. Thinking of you and Sophie this bright morning. Hoping for brightness for your day. Sending love.

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  6. There is nothing quite like watching your child have a seizure. The helplessness and the fear. And the sadness.

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  7. I want to believe that all the creatures of the night were watching over you as you stepped out to reach for the box. They surely did.

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  8. You, Elizabeth, are a new woman since you have found your love and it is beautiful to watch. It has changed you, not changed how wonderful or beautiful you are, but changed the way you carry things - all the things that were always there that go bump in the night, and the way you walk through the world on those bare feet, it's changed you. You fell back into waiting arms, and they were the right arms.

    This makes me so happy, because I love you and all your little world.

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  9. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- you, Elizabeth, are a fabulous writer.

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  10. A Mother's Love endures much... I have inadequate words, so will extend instead a Virtual Hug... Dawn... The Bohemian

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  11. You are an amazing writer, person, mother, everything. No one else could have conveyed your feelings the way you did. I am so proud to be your (cyber) friend after all these years.

    On another note, you have a handsome chap there (previous post). I can identify with your parental pride, I'm going through a similar stage with my son now. My eyes water for no reason whenever I see him smiling, laughing, living. Just to see him and his new girlfriend, so happy (look, what did I say? I'm a wreck right no).

    Greetings from London.

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  12. You are brave, strong and beautiful, Elizabeth and Sophie <3 <3

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  13. Isn't it uncanny the way each new seizure punches us in the gut with the same force as the first ones did decades ago.

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  14. Stunning writing. I am there with you, in the pain, in the struggle, in the exhaustion, in the strength and in the love.

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