Waiting for Disaster
Maybe it's just me, but I am always holding my breath, waiting for disaster to strike. My kids are all healthy at the moment, but sometimes I look at Babygirl and I think of my friend's mother whose 12 year old daughter said, "My arm hurts" and then died shortly thereafter from bone cancer.
My husband will be a little late coming home with my boys from some adventure and the thought will scroll across my mind: "Perhaps they were in a terrible car crash and they all died."
I think of when I was a young bride and everything seemed to be going according to my perfect plan and then my dad invited me and my siblings over to dinner. During the meal, my sister said, "So, what did you want to tell us?" and that was my first inkling that he had anything to tell us. My stomach clenched up and I looked from person to person and thought, No. No, no, no. My dad smiled and said, "Let's clean up the dishes first."
We sat in the living room afterwards--I can still see the pattern of the sunlight on the carpet, neat rows of sunlight sliced by the mini-blinds--and I can hear my dad explain that he'd gone to the opthamologist for his eye trouble and that the opthamologist sent him right to a neurologist and that the neurologist did an MRI and that's how he found out he had a tumor in his brain.
And, oh yeah, they predicted he had four months to two years to live.
We cried and then ate a party-sized bag of M&Ms.
For awhile there, things went badly all around us. On my husband's side of the family, a brother was diagnosed with colon cancer, another brother went to prison for a fatal DUI. His mother's apartment burned down, his brother died, his other brother had a heart attack, a different brother divorced his wife. My dad died, my sister did drugs and dropped out of high school, we had our bout with infertility, our cars broke down, money was tight and the dog bit the kids. And that was just for starters.
Right now--right here--things are good. And still, I wait. I wait for the phone call, for unexplained physical symptoms, for a freak accident, for sirens, for heart-wrenching loss. I read the obituaries every day in the newspaper and I check the ages and I think, That could be me. That could be my husband. That could be my child. That could be my mother.
Is it that I am accustomed to tragedy? Is it my fatal flaw? Or am I just trying to buffer myself against inevitable loss? I mean, no one lives forever. No life is trouble-free. I have no guarantees. None.
Since I was a child, wishing to be a teen, I've been looking forward, scanning the horizon for another life which would soon be mine. I've counted the days until high school graduation, looked beyond my college dorm for "real life," paced impatiently until my wedding date, endured my years of working until babies came to me and now, am I just puttering around, half-aware, waiting for the next thing? This, after all, will be what I miss when my nest is empty. (Should I live that long.)
I need to stop and to be. And I need to put aside worry. Because the thing is, tragedy has a way of finding you, even if you aren't by the side of the road, flagging it down. In the meantime, close the drapes, lock the front door and party on! We have this moment, now. That's all that's guaranteed. That must I know for sure.
My husband will be a little late coming home with my boys from some adventure and the thought will scroll across my mind: "Perhaps they were in a terrible car crash and they all died."
I think of when I was a young bride and everything seemed to be going according to my perfect plan and then my dad invited me and my siblings over to dinner. During the meal, my sister said, "So, what did you want to tell us?" and that was my first inkling that he had anything to tell us. My stomach clenched up and I looked from person to person and thought, No. No, no, no. My dad smiled and said, "Let's clean up the dishes first."
We sat in the living room afterwards--I can still see the pattern of the sunlight on the carpet, neat rows of sunlight sliced by the mini-blinds--and I can hear my dad explain that he'd gone to the opthamologist for his eye trouble and that the opthamologist sent him right to a neurologist and that the neurologist did an MRI and that's how he found out he had a tumor in his brain.
And, oh yeah, they predicted he had four months to two years to live.
We cried and then ate a party-sized bag of M&Ms.
For awhile there, things went badly all around us. On my husband's side of the family, a brother was diagnosed with colon cancer, another brother went to prison for a fatal DUI. His mother's apartment burned down, his brother died, his other brother had a heart attack, a different brother divorced his wife. My dad died, my sister did drugs and dropped out of high school, we had our bout with infertility, our cars broke down, money was tight and the dog bit the kids. And that was just for starters.
Right now--right here--things are good. And still, I wait. I wait for the phone call, for unexplained physical symptoms, for a freak accident, for sirens, for heart-wrenching loss. I read the obituaries every day in the newspaper and I check the ages and I think, That could be me. That could be my husband. That could be my child. That could be my mother.
Is it that I am accustomed to tragedy? Is it my fatal flaw? Or am I just trying to buffer myself against inevitable loss? I mean, no one lives forever. No life is trouble-free. I have no guarantees. None.
Since I was a child, wishing to be a teen, I've been looking forward, scanning the horizon for another life which would soon be mine. I've counted the days until high school graduation, looked beyond my college dorm for "real life," paced impatiently until my wedding date, endured my years of working until babies came to me and now, am I just puttering around, half-aware, waiting for the next thing? This, after all, will be what I miss when my nest is empty. (Should I live that long.)
I need to stop and to be. And I need to put aside worry. Because the thing is, tragedy has a way of finding you, even if you aren't by the side of the road, flagging it down. In the meantime, close the drapes, lock the front door and party on! We have this moment, now. That's all that's guaranteed. That must I know for sure.
posted by Melodee at Tuesday, August 17, 2004
2 Comments:
I have to laugh at your post. You are a GREAT writer. You have a great blog. The reason I laugh is I get that fear, that I call 'impending doom and gloom' from time to time.
I, too, suffered serious losses when I was 18 and I used to wonder if that caused me to be the same way you are -- fearful. At 18, my dad was driving my car on the highway, unemployed, to try to get to the airport to fly out of town and get a job -- when my car blew up in flames and was totalled. Luckily he was okay.
Our summer cottage pipes froze and flooded the place. Then our boat sunk while parked at the dock -- it went completely under! Then my moms best friend, my honorary aunt died at 46. Our house then got struck by lightening and the power went out in half the house. My parents couldn't afford the electrician but had to accept a payment plan when we couldn't even afford to eat. Then my dad finally got a job 800 miles away where he had to commute out of town for five days and was only home on the weekends until the company relocated to where we lived. Then our house burned down to the ground!! We thought we were all going to die of a nervous breakdown. My mom nearly collapsed after that and I had to take over because she couldn't handle it anymore. I nearly lost my job. I had to confess to my boss why I called in sick so often --thankfully he understood.
My parents then told me they spent my savings so they couldn't afford to pay my tuition which was due, and I was stuck in a relationship with a guy who was abusing me. Then the insurance didn't want to pay us, and we ended up in a bunch of legal nightmares!! Finally the insurance paid our builder and he took off when all our money before the work has even half complete. We were then forced to live in the shell of our house with no interior doors, no floors -- only plywood -- for 1 year. Talk about hell? Oh and my brother eloped in Las Vegas and told us to get lost when we told him that, uh, we couldn't come because we were living in temporary housing and had too many things to resolve. Hello!
That did a number on me!
The stranger thing is that I found out years later that my fears are not due to the past -- though it does affect you nonetheless -- but rather due to an allergy. When I eat the offending foods, I get stuck in cycle of total fear. The world gets scary. I have your exact morbid thoughts. I fear for everything and everybody. I wonder and worry just like you. When I discovered the allergy due to a host of other symptoms, and cleared my system -- that cloud lifted. When I eat enough of the offending food, it all comes back. It's amazing.
I've read articles on this and it is a documented fact that allergies can do this to you! You may want to start investigating why you aren't feeling well. It may be food related. I'm allergic to sulfites...
I always fear the worst things first too. I used to think I was the only one planning how I would handle things in the event of........ There are many ways to fill in the blanks depending upon the situation.
~Tina
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