Saturday, September 29, 2018
It was nearly a year ago, during last year’s Kinship Fall Board Meeting in Alameda, though it was a different month, a different date. Then it was the third weekend in October, Saturday afternoon, in the middle of a board meeting session, when I got an email from my childhood BFF. Her adult daughter had been very sick for the past year, in and out of hospital intensive care, rehab, and home, only to repeat the cycle. She had seemed to be getting better when she suddenly took a downhill turn. Then she was in hospice. And then I got the email.
“Diana died at 3:03 p.m.”
I was stunned. We had prayed so hard for a miracle! I blurted out the news right in the middle of board meeting. I thought the women would want to know since they had just met Diana’s mom in July during the women’s retreat in San Diego. And they did.
That evening for supper, we all walked up the street several blocks to what used to be a Japanese restaurant. Now it was a Chinese restaurant, I think. The food was okay but not spectacular. I just made sure it was as low-carb as possible.
Later that night, I got terrible stomach cramps. I lay down on the bed upstairs, on my left side, hoping the pain would go away before morning. But it didn’t.
Still, I got dressed and went downstairs. I tried to take notes for the Meeting Minutes, but the pain grew too intense. I asked Debbie if she would take notes for me. I gave her my laptop and went back upstairs.
I was still hurting when the meeting was over that evening. We packed our things and people helped us get our way-too-much stuff into the van.
What do you say to someone who has just lost a child?!? It’s something so horrible, there are no words for such deep grief of someone you love. Whether a child dies before they are even born or when they are almost 50 years old.
I had not seen Diana since she was a small child, although I had seen many pictures of her and her “wife” over the years. I talked to her on the phone once during the time of my coming out in 1993. Diana had come out several years before that.
Now I was so glad we had visited Diana in the hospital last summer, even sneaking Barley in to meet her. Diana, who loved chihuahuas. We didn’t know then that Barley, too, would be dead in five months.
I thought a lot about Diana and her still-grieving parents in the weeks before this year’s Kinship Fall Board Meeting, held the last week in September. This time last year, my chronic neck pain had become so intense that just one week after board meeting I had called HelloMD, had an online doctor’s visit, and—finally, after years of wishing for one—got a medical cannabis card.
It’s been almost a year, and I have had a very full journey in my struggle to live with chronic pain. I’ve gone through Pain Management at Kaiser and searched the internet endlessly for any information that might give me any clues on what else I could do. I have pursued (and still continue with) acupuncture and physical therapy; I even had one session with the Pain Psychologist. I have seen five different doctors and three Pain Clinic Pharmacists to get the right dosages of four prescription pain medications, in addition to the CBD/THCA tinctures that have all but eliminated my chronic migraines that I’ve had for the past 35+ years. I’m almost beginning to feel like I might be able to have my life back. I even thought maybe I could make it through Fall Board Meeting this year. In Castro Valley, six miles from our home.
And then I got the email. In the middle of Saturday afternoon’s board meeting session.
“Ron died.” Again, I was stunned. Because I had had no clue. I had not seen Ron since he was a teenager, but had some email contact with him in the early ’90s. He was, I think, the closest that David had ever come to having a son. Ron had been David’s star organ student at Mt. Vernon Academy in the early ’70s. I don’t even know what he looked like as an adult! I’m glad David sent pictures.
This year, I used more discretion and did not blurt out the news in the middle of board meeting. No one here knows Ron. Some know David, but that is not important now. However, I thought maybe I should fast instead of eating supper. Anywhere.
The rest of the group had leftover pizza and salad for supper. I caved and had three strawberries. But I do not have stomach cramps. Instead, my blood sugar has skyrocketed from the stress and I’ve had to shoot up insulin. My chronic neck pain is back and I’ve taken extra pain medication.
Now it is midnight on Saturday night. Linda and Emily are sleeping, and both of them are snoring.
Perhaps I, too, shall sleep soon.
