Wednesday, September 29, 2010

"Lay Lady Lay"

Warning: this post is a bit gloomy and bordering on "a little too personal to share on the Internet," but I have reached a point where I feel like I need to reach out beyond my immediate community, for my sake (catharsis) and my mother's (maybe someone out there has a new idea).

For the last 6 years, my mother, who is also my best friend and the one person who I have always been able to count on, has been living on her couch, writhing and moaning in pain. That sounds extreme. Because it is. When she first fell ill, her doctors thought she had the dreaded "Shingles" and I remember her crying because someone had told her that it could last as long as a year. But a year quickly came and went, and she didn't improve. She got worse. Her pain spread beyond her torso, where it had started and moved to her hands, which swelled to comically large proportions. Her hands... she'd always said she could take anything-- the loss of her legs even, but not her hands. She's an extraordinary knitter, seamstress, cook and gardener. She's the most well-read person I have ever encountered, hungrily reading two, sometimes three, books a week. But without the use of her hands, she could do none of those things. Not a single one of the things she most loves to do was within her reach (literally and figuratively). It was at this time that she began to slip away. She started to transform from the person in my life who could literally do anything she tried well into a person who could do nothing but lay, uncomfortably, on her couch and watch endless hours of television-- old, scratchy, black and white movies to be exact.

During the early years of her illness, I was always hopeful. I was sure something would magically make her better and bring the woman that I so looked up to back to me. We would one day cook together, the way I'd always thought we would. We would make things and do things and I could show her the world, the way I thought I would one day when I was able. She would come back and all this would be a bad, distant memory.

When I got married, three years ago, she was really in very bad shape. She said on more than one occasion, "I wish you would wait so I could get better and enjoy the experience of seeing you get married." Of course, I couldn't wait because who knew how long it might take for her to improve to that degree. But she would get better... certainly by the time I started having kids and she would be the most perfect grandmother. She would play endlessly with my children and support me the way I've always needed her to-- guiding me gently and without judgment. I imagined her in the delivery room and coming to spend weeks at a time to help me get my bearings, cooking for me while I recovered, knitting the most beautiful baby clothes. She would be better by then, for sure.

Now, I have two children and she's not better. She wasn't in the delivery room and she's not been able to spend more than a few hours over the course of the last two years at my home. And it wasn't her helping me. It was just her trying to appear to be a participant in her own life. She can't hold the babies for more than a few moments, without being overtaken, again, by the pain. She can't handle the stress of my toddler wreaking havoc, as they do, all around her. It's too stressful to bear. My visits to her house are short, stressful and utterly heartbreaking because somehow, I still go to her with a tiny glimmer of hope that each time it will be different: that she will be able to get down on the floor with Addy and play for hours; that there will be a pot of something cooking on the stove; that she'll show me something she's made for one of them (this has happened... just once. She recently completed a tiny pink baby sweater for the girls. It took five years, but it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I show it to everyone who comes over, beaming with pride. My mother, my amazing, wonderful, talented-to-no-end mother, made this!).

Of course, everyone always wants to know: what's wrong with her? Well, unfortunately, the answer is pretty unsatisfactory to most people because it's elusive and intangible. It's not a disease that's easily classifiable. There's no tidy explanation. We've found that people have a hard time when the can't put a recognizable name on things. In the beginning, they tested her for everything. There were litanies of tests and doctors and specialists and alternative medicine practitioners all trying to come up with an answer. Lyme Disease? Lupus? HIV? Cancer? Autoimmune disorder of some kind? None of these fit the bill. No treatments worked. The specialists eventually got frustrated and slipped away, defeated. The doctors tried what they knew to do and when everything failed to bring her some comfort, there was nothing left to try. Now, she has her one neurologist who is very devoted, but out of suggestions. So, after more treatments and surgeries than we can count, her only treatment consists of handfuls of narcotic pain relievers that make her days as close to tolerable as possible. That's just enough to keep her from putting a gun to her head, but she can't go anywhere or do anything. She can't drive. She can't be away from home for more than a hour or two. Ultimately, her diagnosis is this: somewhere along the way, she contracted a vicious virus that attacked her nervous system, leaving her tender nerves badly frayed and incapable of transmitting normal signals to her brain. So, her whole body hurts... all... the... time...

As an pretty unhappy side note to her main complaints, her teeth have begun to rot out of her head. All the pain-induced vomiting and the stress-induced grinding have taken their toll. Human beings are funny. I think that if she felt pretty, she'd have a little more power over this thing. But she looks into the mirror and all she can see are those yellow and brown teeth. She's a beautiful woman, but she's atrophied and withered away. Her teeth are almost hard to look at at. Her hair has thinned. And her already fair skin has grown transparent from lack of sun. She's a broken version of the woman who raised me to think for myself, take pride in even the smallest of my accomplishments, to be bold and independent. She's weak, tired and finally, utterly hopeless.

What does that mean? Well as hard as it is for me to write this, it means that she's contemplating ending her struggle, her life. When she first began to talk of suicide, I used to cry and beg her to stop being so cruel to me. "How can you say that you have no reason left to live?" I would ask angrily and indignantly. I couldn't understand what she meant by, "no reason left to live." She had me. She had my children. She had the world's most devoted husband and a mother who doesn't deserve to see her child die. She can't give up, I would think. There's got to be another way.

Now, I just don't know. Now, I can see what she means. While she has me and her grandchildren and her husband and her mother, she can't enjoy any of us. She looks at her life for what it could be and not for what it is and the only thing more painful than those frayed and failing nerves is the reality that her life may never improve. And of course, her question then becomes, "how long can I go on like this?" It's already been six years. SIX YEARS. I can't even believe it's been that long. I couldn't do it. I couldn't spend six years on the couch in agony without knowing when the end would come.

My family is moving to Europe. I am going away and I won't be there for her. That's the hardest thing in my life and I can't reasonably and authentically write about life in the Foreign Service without addressing this aspect of it: you leave everyone behind, which is difficult even when everyone is healthy, happy and well. A day doesn't go by without me wondering how I am going to feel someday about having been so far away from my mother in her darkest hours. I imagine many folks in the FS have similar concerns. It's really the dark underbelly of this great adventure.

Anyway, she may be without hope, but I'm not. I am still hoping that something, someone, might come out of the mist with a new idea, a new suggestion, that will change everything and make all of this seem like a terrible, distant nightmare. Because I want my mommy back more than anything in the world.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Falls Church Aint So Bad...

It's no secret that Falls Church is not my favorite place on the planet. Sometimes, I feel bad for feeling the way I do about it. It's really a perfectly good town. It's close to downtown D.C. It has every store you could possibly need to manage a family of four. It's easy to find your way around. It even has something of a charming downtown (sort of). It's close to FSI, meaning that Stefan is never too far away from home to save me from a baby crisis. It's fine. Totally fine. But it's not at all inspiring. I feel like I am one of those uninspired people who needs to be in an exciting place in order to feel interesting and that's my shortcoming, not Falls Church's. Anyway, point being, I often complain about living here, but this weekend, I actually had a moment of feeling lucky to be here.

We are a family of walkers, born largely from necessity. Having the dogs means that we have to walk and if we can combine that with getting something else done, it's ideal. We often walk to the various playgrounds in the area, which is what we initially set out to do yesterday morning. We also wanted to hit the Falls Church Farmers Market later in the day. In a flash of genius, we realized we could do all those things in one walk. So, we left the Oakwood and meandered through the back streets of town until we arrived at the market. I have to say, it's a pretty legit Farmers' Market. I think I recall seeing somewhere that it was named, "America's Favorite Market," by whom I have no idea, but it seems like it could be possible. It has everything you could possibly need without any "fluff." We bought croissants to snack on while there. I got a pile of wild mushrooms, the likes of which I haven't seen since Northern California. There's a happy bouquet of zinnias in our single, striped Oakwood vase. We have apples, pears and nectarines to last the week. And when we were done with the market, we made our way over to the Cherry Hill Barn and playground, where Adela burned off some Toddler energy. It was like, an absolutely perfect morning.

As I looked around at the families at the playground, with their bulging bags of produce and their super happy children, I thought to myself, "This is why people live here." And it made perfect sense to me.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

On Personal Heroines and Suburban Living:

Yesterday, I went to see Julia Child's kitchen at the National Museum of American History. It was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. It was tidy, but well-used and filled to the brim with every imaginable cooking tool known to man or woman. It bore no resemblance to the granite counter-topped, stainless steel applianced, utterly sterile kitchens one sees in modern-day American McMansions. It was lovely in its utility and proved once again that a kitchen need not be a glistening showroom to work well.

As with everything relating to the venerable Mrs. Child, the kitchen exhibit at the Smithsonian reflects the profound love she and her husband, Paul, shared. I was so moved by their partnership and how it served as the backbone for everything they did and accomplished. I'd like to think that Stefan and I have a similar type of respect for and devotion to one another. I would also like to think I too might be able to use my time overseas to advance my own culinary career. I am not, by any means, drawing a comparison between Julia Child and myself-- let me be clear-- I just would like to somehow capitalize on my experiences abroad and make them own, and not just my life as it relates to my husband's. I found the exhibit very motivating.

In other news, we got a preliminary housing assignment yesterday. It came in email form and all the anticipation leading up to it was nothing compared to the disappointment both Stefan and I felt once we'd opened it. It would seem, based on yesterday's email, that the only suitable housing for the Whitney family was to be found in a distant, Flemish suburb of Brussels called Steerebeek. While the house itself was perfectly adequate-- large enough for an even bigger family, with four bedrooms, a small garden and a garage-- the location is not at all what we'd hoped for. Not only does it represent an hour commute in either direction for Stefan, but the locals speak Dutch! Stefan will have spent 3 months "polishing" his French and I will have spent more than a few hours at the local Starbucks clicking my way through the French Rosetta Stone. How much sense does that make? None, I tell you.

When we filled out the initial housing questionnaire, we were very clear that we are willing to sacrifice space for proximity to the city centre. Really, all this means, is that we want to be on the metro line. Steerebeek is no where near the metro. Public transport to the embassy would include a bus and a train. The good thing about Steerebeek is that it's close to the American School, but with a 6 month old and a 23 month old, that means little more than nothing to us. I know that for some, this probably seems like splitting hairs because we are going to a wonderful city in a wonderful central European location. But, come on, what's the point of being there if we can't enjoy it on something near an every day basis.

We were given only one option and based on everything we knew up until this point, we expected at least two, if not three. So, we felt entitled to write back and say, "Isn't there any other possibility considering that none of our requirements are met with this option?" Our housing contact quickly replied that she and her colleagues will look into leasing something more appropriate. Let's hope they can find something closer to town in a French speaking commune, because if they don't, I foresee a LOT of bitching and moaning here on Devonnaire (and every where else in our lives).

Monday, September 20, 2010

I am still alive.

Despite a complete disappearance from the blogosphere, I am still very much alive and kicking. I let the summer get the best of me-- lakes, beaches, single-parenthood (largely), and family drama all made me feel like I couldn't get my head far enough above water to get to my laptop for 10 minutes. I have also been thinking a lot about my new (and forthcoming) blog, which I intend to be a much more professional and less personal type of blog covering what I hope will be my overseas career as a culinary observer. Details on that to follow later.

In the meantime, I have been thinking a lot about our journey to Belgium. The tickets are reserved, the dogs have their place as very special luggage on our plane, we have a good idea of what we'd like to bring as our HHE. It's all coming together and yet, here we are, in purgatory, waiting and waiting and waiting. Personally, I am ready to get there and get the next two years of our lives underway. While it's true that we have an abundance of great activities lined up here in Falls Church-- music, art and yoga, I am anxious to get Adela into La Farandoline, the french-speaking, co-op style preschool we're hoping will be her first formal place of education. I'm chomping at the bit to explore our new city and hopefully, find some form of daycare for Flora, so that I can begin looking for work as a cook. There's a lot to do that can't be done until we get there, so let's get there already! Here's to hoping that Stef's gift for languages proves itself and he passes his test with flying colors.

The waiting might not be so bad if we knew what type of house/apartment is waiting for us (because truthfully, that's the thing I'm most anxious about). But, despite all reports that the housing people in Brussels are the most attentive, we've heard nothing for weeks from them. I guess this is par for the course, but it's our first time, so we have no idea what to expect. There is so much variety, it seems, in the pool in Brussels, that we could end up in an apartment downtown (please, please, please) just blocks away from the embassy or all the way out in the 'burbs with no metro station for miles and miles. I just want to KNOW so I can both get emotionally prepared and practically prepared by locating the appropriate schools and figuring out of our new minivan will fit anywhere near our home.

Alas, these cycles of anticipation are just another aspect of our life in the Foreign Service, but as a sometimes blogger, I feel like I need big, momentous changes to write about to keep things interesting and for now, it's just a lot of waiting and preparing.