Past Tense

Sometime recently - I'm hard-pressed to say when exactly.  I know it was after Vicki died and before... let's say before this week, because I'm pretty sure it was a few weeks ago.  But I honestly don't know.

Anyway.  Recently.

I was having a conversation with my mother about missing Vicki, and she was lamenting about Vicki's smile.

"I just keep thinking about it, Pahla," she cried.  "We're never going to see that smile again."

I nodded in agreement about how sad that was, even though I'm pretty sure this conversation took place on the phone.

Of course I was sad about missing Vicki's smile, but it's not the thing that I miss most, which is one of Vicki's hugs.

My sister and I are huggers.

We hug hello, we hug goodbye, we hug when we're happy, and we hug when we're sad.  We hug congratulations.  We hug condolences.  When the camera comes out, we wrap our arms around each other and smile.

Hugging is how we express ourselves.  And yes, I am aware of using present tense.  It's a Vicki-in-present-tense kind of day.  Parenthetically, do you know what I find to be completely infuriating about death?  There's no real sense of finality like you expect.

I saw my sister die.

I watched the hospice nurse check for a heartbeat and pronounce her dead.

I was there when they covered her body and carried it downstairs and out to the service van.

But somehow...  Vicki still seems very close by. 

When I was puttering around this morning, doing recognizably "Sunday morning" things, I had a quick flash of relief that tomorrow will be Monday, because I see Vicki on Mondays when I take her to get her blood drawn, and it feels like it's been too long since I've seen her.

Because it has.

Because she's dead.

But somehow it's still very easy to feel like she's on vacation and I'm going to see her when she gets back.  Or she's at work and she'll text me later.  Or she's busy and we'll catch up when we go for our normal 5 am walk.

There are dozens of scenarios that I can conjure up for why it's "been awhile" since I've seen her or talked to her, but none of them - not a single one - are that she's dead.

What the fuck is that all about?

Diagnosis

March, 2017; Thursday at 5 am; out for our regular weekly walk

"I think I pulled something, like my ab muscles.  I blame you."

"Of course you do."

Vicki was being serious but sarcastic, and I was deadpan and flip.  This was an old sisterly schtick, a familiar and loving way of speaking to each other.

"What hurts?  What did you do?" I asked more earnestly, putting on my fitness trainer hat.

"One of the seated workouts that we always do.  It's right here," she said, pointing to her ribs and waving her hand back and forth over a large area.  "I told Kathi I couldn't work out yesterday.  It hurts."

"Okay.  Taking time off of workouts is all you can do if you've pulled something.  We'll just walk slower today.  You'll be fine."

April 13, 2017; Thursday at 4:30 am; on a long walk, training for the Bay to Breakers

"The doctor said it's pleurisy."

"OMG, that's so painful!  Remember when Dave had that?  It was awful, he couldn't breathe and he was in so much pain!  I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, this sucks."

"We can walk slower.  It's okay."

Late April, 2017; Thursday at 4:30 am; walking

"I feel really bloated and uncomfortable."

"What's going on?  Are you drinking enough water?"

"I drink...  I don't know.  Like five or six of those big" - she pantomimed with her hands, indicating a huge serving size - "like, Big Gulp sized cups at work.  Plus one or two more at home."

"Holy shit!  Are you serious?  That's waaaay too much water!  Victoria!"  My voice was rising and I was getting worked up.  "You know you can DIE from drinking too much water, right?"

Early May, 2017; Thursday at 4:30 am; walking

"It just feels like I can't catch my breath.  I can't breathe in all the way."

I didn't know what to say.  I didn't know what could make her feel like that.  We kept walking and I listened while she fretted.

"It hurts, but it's not like a sharp pain.  It feels like it's everywhere" - she waved her hands over most of her torso, and then suddenly stopped walking.  "It feels like this."

She wrapped her arms around my ribcage and pressed against me.  Not hard, but firmly.  Unrelentingly.

"It feels like I'm constantly being squeezed."

I didn't reply, but I put my arms around her shoulders and hugged her back.

"Pahla, I'm just afraid that it's going to be cancer."

"What?"  Finally, I had something to say.  "That's ridiculous!  What makes you even think that?"

"I don't know.  I'm just worried."

May 15, 2017; Monday at 8 am; getting ready for the day

"fuck" read the first text.

"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK" came the next one immediately, followed by the screen shot of the email she had received from her oncologist with the results of an ultrasound of her liver.

"... enlargement of the liver, consistent with cancerous growth..."

"... innumerable lesions, consistent with cancerous growth..."

"... recommend biopsy to confirm..."

I called her, and she answered right away.

"Fuck."

May 18, 2017; Thursday at 5 am; walking slowly

"Pahla, there's no way I can do the Bay to Breakers."

"I know.  I already put it out of my mind.  I know."

"Next year.  For sure."

"Definitely."

May 21, 2017; Sunday near noon; walking into my mother's apartment

"Mom, I'm about to drop a bomb on you and then leave.  I'm really sorry."

"Okay.  What's wrong?"

"Vicki spent the night in the ER.  She was in a lot of pain and could barely move.  Wally is bringing her home right now, and I need to borrow the wheelchair you used when you broke your leg."

"What?  What's going on?"

I looked her right in the eyes and delivered the bad news the same way I would do it again and again (and again) over the next seven months:  like a punch to the gut, swift, merciless and without hesitation, because this shit was happening and if I started to cry now, I probably wouldn't stop.

"They think she has cancer."

"What?" she cried, sitting back onto the arm of the couch and wailing, "No! No no no no no!  What?  How?"

"I don't have more details," I said, hugging her.  "And I need to go so I can be there when they get home.  Can you handle this?"

There was a long pause while she wrapped her head around my words.

"Yes," she finally said.  "I can handle it.  Go take care of your sister."

May 21, 2017; Sunday near noon; walking into my sister's garage; she is in the front passenger seat eating Taco Bell and has rolled down the window

"No.  I don't want to see you.  You're going to make me cry."

I plopped down in the wheelchair to wait and rolled over to the side of the car.

"Go ahead and eat first.  Then we'll cry together."

May 21, 2017; Sunday near noon; sitting in the swivel chairs in Vicki's family room

"Nate and Julia will always have a home with me."

"They shouldn't have to!" she wailed, sobbing.  She was bent over at the waist with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.  I was crouched in front of her, holding her as tightly as I dared.  She was in pain, but she was also sad and not hugging her was not an option.  My legs were cramping, and sweat was pooling behind my knees.  I wanted to change position, but I stayed where I was, rubbing her back and helplessly listening to her cry.

"Okay.  I have to stop crying.  It hurts to cry."

May 24, 2017; Wednesday at 6 pm; with concerned family and friends in Vicki's living room

"The doctor today confirmed what we already knew," Wally announced.  "It's metastasized breast cancer in Vicki's liver, which they are saying is incurable."

Vicki and I were silent.

There was no comedy routine for this one, nothing to say.  So we sat across the room from one another and listened to Wally relay the information about chemo, prognosis, pain meds and other details from the doctor's visit.

Early June, 2017; Thursday at 8:30 am; sitting on the barstools in Vicki's kitchen

"You'd better not fucking haunt me.  That is not okay with me."

"Whaaaaaaaat?  I am totally going to.  It'll be fun."

"Fun for you, maybe.  Not for me," I said, lightly.  "And fuck you for leaving me alone to take care of mom.  You suck."

"Nyah, nyah!  I finally get my revenge.  She's all yours."

I rolled my eyes.

"You are such a bitch."

"Right?"

Marking Time

I've heard the expression before that when somebody you love dies, time seems to stand still.  I have not found that to be true at all.  Instead, it frequently feels like time is behaving abnormally - speeding up, slowing down and occasionally just not existing at all in the way that it did before Vicki died.

As she was dying, her last few days seemed to stretch on much, much longer than normal.  Minutes expanded out to maximum capacity, waiting to hear another breath, watching her still-thudding heartbeat, but knowing that she'd already said her last words and moved voluntarily for the last time hours and then days before.

Dying was slow.

Death came more quickly, but in a different, more deliberate way.

When Vicki's breathing changed and it became obvious that the time was now, she seemed to be gone instantly, too soon, too fast.  Slipping, flying, zooming away from us.  Fifty-one years gone in the blink of an eye.  But remembering it later, it must have taken longer than that.

I had time to walk downstairs and gather the family.  Her daughter Julia had time to drive home from a friend's.  We all had time to sit next to her, touch her, tell her we loved her.  I had time to ask if I should give her morphine, go into the next room, measure it out, bring it back to her and say, "No more pain, baby, no more pain" then replace the syringe, return to my place at her bedside and still watch her die.  Was it seconds, or was it hours?

When she took her last gasp in - huhhhhhhhHHH - then sighed her last breath out - AAAhhhhhhhhhh - and her softly fluttering heart came to rest, I looked at my watch.

I already felt it before my brain could formulate the thought:  this was the moment - 12:12 pm - that would forever divide us all into BEFORE and AFTER, and it was so ridiculously fleeting, gone before I could wrap my fingers around it and hold it tight.

Much too quickly, I took my next breath - the first in my entire existence on this earth without a sister - and my heart pounded again and again with fear and sadness.  She was gone.  Time stood still for her, but for me it was hurtling forward, rubber-banding me into a future I couldn't comprehend.

*blink*  The hospice nurse was there to declare her dead and it was already over an hour after she was gone.

*blink*  Another hour later, the crematorium people were there to carry her body down the stairs and load it into the back of their van.

*blink* I closed my exhausted eyes for a second and woke up the next morning.  My sister had died yesterday.  I had been alive without her for nearly 17 hours.

I took a picture of the sunrise the morning of December 16th.  There was no part of my skeptical, practical brain that truly believed it wouldn't come up, but it was somehow still a surprise.

Time was passing, and my sister was dead, stuck.

I have actually tried since that day not to take too much note of the time.  I don't look at my watch during the noon hour because I don't want to see those same numbers.  I don't pay attention to Fridays, thinking that it's been another week.  I closed my eyes and pretended like New Year's wasn't happening, because how in the world could it be that she died last year?

I'm smart enough to understand that I have to acknowledge time at some point, but when I do it means that in addition to looking back at what has passed, I'll look forward.

I will live without a sister for the rest of my life, and as a healthy 48-year old there's the slim but not unrealistic chance that I could be missing her as long as I had her.

That's ...

I don't have words for that.

So instead I'll focus on right now.  This heartbeat, this breath, this moment.