History
The backspace key on my computer is degenerating piece by piece, until I will have no second chances and with only patience to save me. First it was the plastic covering, and then the rubber knob under it went away too. Now there's only this diminutive dot in the middle of where the key would have been. I poke at it lightly and it listens, sometimes. I'm sure I'm wearing out my welcome, though, literally.
(Aside: If only I had a good dose of patience in these next few days!)
I find it awfully strange, the inter-connectedness of it all. Looking back on what I wrote just a few weeks ago about life unleashing something unbearably heavy on me.
In the first few days after coming home, we took a walk together. It was probably one of the more memorable walks we've taken together, simply because of the stories she told. I found that in the months I was away, she had learned where all the dogs in the neighborhood resided so that she could purposely avoid them on her daily walks in the evening. But why this irrational fear of dogs, I asked? Her mouth tightened and a steely look came into her eyes. You don't know the half of it.
It was during the Japanese occupation, back when everyone still lived together and her family all lived together then, in misery for lack of basic necessities. A distant relative of her grandmother's (an uncle, of sorts) lived at her house, and went out to beg for food each day. One day, he went to beg at a fairly well-to-do family's house, and was promptly attacked by the family's dog. After what must've been a struggle, the dog ended up claiming a substantial piece of his calf, tearing tendon and muscle alike. The rich folks were so shaken up by the gruesome scene that they sent him home with a big bowl of white rice. It was the last meal he managed to obtain himself. After he got home, he took to his bed, and never got out again. Occasionally, her grandmother would feed him some rice porridge, change his bandages (no more than rags, I'm sure), but there was nothing else anyone could do. Since the Japanese had put a halt on the transport of food and other supplies, there was not even salt to eat, let alone to sterilize the wound. And of course, no alcohol anywhere. But he held on for a few months before the infection finally claimed him.
Such a long time, I exclaimed, trying not to think too much about what it must've been like to wither away slowly on that cot and wishing only for the delirium of fever to take away the pain. She closed her eyes and nodded knowingly, mildly savoring the reaction her story has garnered.
The thing she remembers the most, she said, is the smell. The smell that, by the end, had wiggled its way throughout the entire house. So you see, that is why I have never liked dogs. As if it all made perfect logical sense, and she was simply explaining it to a child. I remember thinking in that moment, that it was what made her worthwhile, even after all these years. Especially after all these years.
How was I to know that, only a day or two later, I would come home to find her in the kitchen, babbling nonsense about some recipe she couldn't read? The recipe that she herself had copied by hand only the night before? That was before the weakness set in. Fast forward through four hours, many frantic phone calls, three health care facilities, and altogether too many people who are supposed to know what's going on but don't, the doctors tell us it's called a "hemorrhagic stroke".
Suddenly finding myself sitting for hours and hours on end in the hospital, I picked up two books to read. And how strange it is that incidentally, one book tries to encapsulate an entire narrative of human history into 400 pages, while the other is a diatribe against the human tendency to rely on narratives rather than empirical evidence, to establish causality where there is none, and in general, to oversimplify important historical events and fail at using them to predict the future. In between feeding her multicolored goop (the preferred diet of "level one dysphagia patients") and adjusting her pillows, I found an intellectual war waging on in my head.
On one hand, it would be wonderful to look back on the entirety of human civilization's growth and development (or perhaps on a more micro level, one's life) through a tunnel and see everything in a neat, linear fashion. A cascade of telescoping events. On the other hand, what if all of what we tell ourselves is really just a way to organize things in our weak little minds so that they don't implode from all the randomness that actually exists in the world? Could we ever own up to it?
She has never had high blood pressure in her life. No major health problems. Healthy diet and probably walked at least a mile a day. No major surgeries, history of previous strokes. No falls in the days leading up to that fateful day. The doctors say that it could simply be the effects of aging, but I have a feeling that's what they call everything they can't quite explain.
She spent today lounging and napping on the couch, and dropping food on herself at mealtimes. I laugh at her and jokingly tell her she's cheating when she puts her mouth to the bowl instead of using her spoon, but inwardly I just want to scream. She humors me and laughs along. I wonder how long before this game gets old.
Next week it'll just be the two of us during the day. No bustling nurses, annoying "sitters", dieticians, physical therapists, Dr. X, Dr. Y, Dr. Z, discharge planners, social workers, or patient technicians.
I'll need a revelation to keep my sanity, to be sure.
(Aside: If only I had a good dose of patience in these next few days!)
I find it awfully strange, the inter-connectedness of it all. Looking back on what I wrote just a few weeks ago about life unleashing something unbearably heavy on me.
In the first few days after coming home, we took a walk together. It was probably one of the more memorable walks we've taken together, simply because of the stories she told. I found that in the months I was away, she had learned where all the dogs in the neighborhood resided so that she could purposely avoid them on her daily walks in the evening. But why this irrational fear of dogs, I asked? Her mouth tightened and a steely look came into her eyes. You don't know the half of it.
It was during the Japanese occupation, back when everyone still lived together and her family all lived together then, in misery for lack of basic necessities. A distant relative of her grandmother's (an uncle, of sorts) lived at her house, and went out to beg for food each day. One day, he went to beg at a fairly well-to-do family's house, and was promptly attacked by the family's dog. After what must've been a struggle, the dog ended up claiming a substantial piece of his calf, tearing tendon and muscle alike. The rich folks were so shaken up by the gruesome scene that they sent him home with a big bowl of white rice. It was the last meal he managed to obtain himself. After he got home, he took to his bed, and never got out again. Occasionally, her grandmother would feed him some rice porridge, change his bandages (no more than rags, I'm sure), but there was nothing else anyone could do. Since the Japanese had put a halt on the transport of food and other supplies, there was not even salt to eat, let alone to sterilize the wound. And of course, no alcohol anywhere. But he held on for a few months before the infection finally claimed him.
Such a long time, I exclaimed, trying not to think too much about what it must've been like to wither away slowly on that cot and wishing only for the delirium of fever to take away the pain. She closed her eyes and nodded knowingly, mildly savoring the reaction her story has garnered.
The thing she remembers the most, she said, is the smell. The smell that, by the end, had wiggled its way throughout the entire house. So you see, that is why I have never liked dogs. As if it all made perfect logical sense, and she was simply explaining it to a child. I remember thinking in that moment, that it was what made her worthwhile, even after all these years. Especially after all these years.
How was I to know that, only a day or two later, I would come home to find her in the kitchen, babbling nonsense about some recipe she couldn't read? The recipe that she herself had copied by hand only the night before? That was before the weakness set in. Fast forward through four hours, many frantic phone calls, three health care facilities, and altogether too many people who are supposed to know what's going on but don't, the doctors tell us it's called a "hemorrhagic stroke".
Suddenly finding myself sitting for hours and hours on end in the hospital, I picked up two books to read. And how strange it is that incidentally, one book tries to encapsulate an entire narrative of human history into 400 pages, while the other is a diatribe against the human tendency to rely on narratives rather than empirical evidence, to establish causality where there is none, and in general, to oversimplify important historical events and fail at using them to predict the future. In between feeding her multicolored goop (the preferred diet of "level one dysphagia patients") and adjusting her pillows, I found an intellectual war waging on in my head.
On one hand, it would be wonderful to look back on the entirety of human civilization's growth and development (or perhaps on a more micro level, one's life) through a tunnel and see everything in a neat, linear fashion. A cascade of telescoping events. On the other hand, what if all of what we tell ourselves is really just a way to organize things in our weak little minds so that they don't implode from all the randomness that actually exists in the world? Could we ever own up to it?
She has never had high blood pressure in her life. No major health problems. Healthy diet and probably walked at least a mile a day. No major surgeries, history of previous strokes. No falls in the days leading up to that fateful day. The doctors say that it could simply be the effects of aging, but I have a feeling that's what they call everything they can't quite explain.
She spent today lounging and napping on the couch, and dropping food on herself at mealtimes. I laugh at her and jokingly tell her she's cheating when she puts her mouth to the bowl instead of using her spoon, but inwardly I just want to scream. She humors me and laughs along. I wonder how long before this game gets old.
Next week it'll just be the two of us during the day. No bustling nurses, annoying "sitters", dieticians, physical therapists, Dr. X, Dr. Y, Dr. Z, discharge planners, social workers, or patient technicians.
I'll need a revelation to keep my sanity, to be sure.