drama potpourri

I visited my practicum site today. Started to get in touch with the idea that I'm actually going to be *doing* this work in a few weeks.

Whoa.

Spitfire and her boyfriend headed out into the Wild West this morning, on their roadtrip to New Orleans.

When I came home from school last night, they were lounging in front of the television, eating Thai food. It is the strangest experience to come home and find someone here. Especially looking like they live here. In fact, these past two nights have been the only time in more than a year that I've walked in and found someone (human) "home."

It occurs to me how much I like the feeling.

Spitfire and I ended up having a pretty meaningful talk -- the second in two days -- during which she told me some stuff about The Notorious M.O.M. that gave me some new insight. (Unfortunately, nothing in her favor.) But the focus of the conversation had just about nothing to do with my mother. It occurs to me that, however young and (a little bit) wild Spitfire is, she has so much of her mother in her, particularly with regard to her mindset and her uncanny empathy.

In what just seems to be "family" week, my sister called me this morning. I was, when she phoned, ruminating over a sad experience from last night. But as soon as she said my name, my thoughts about others came to a screeching halt. I said, What's up? and before there was a breath to be found, she tumbled out, "You remember when I was there for you? Well, now it's your turn to be there for me. ... I'm sicker than we thought."

What's wrong with you? I asked, always using the most courteous wording.

She spilled "the doctor's differential diagnosis" out on the table for me. I was floored. None of the possibilities mean anything less than a life of chronic, debilitating illness; at least one of them is highly fatal within a few years.

So how can I be of assistance?

My sister told me she was struggling *not* to think about the situation, not to spend any time feeling concerned about which diagnosis -- among this devastating list -- it was. She was afraid, and she was annoyed that she couldn't stop making herself feel afraid.

Look, even though you've got a taste for the mystical, you're a cognitive, linear person. You want the world concrete. You want spreadsheets. You're trying to talk sense to yourself about statistical odds, I told her. Although our brain and our physical body and our emotional systems are completely integrated, we like to think we can separate and master each of them independently. You often use your cognitive fortitude to temper your emotional experience, but there are some emotional experiences which will almost always overwhelm our brains. One of them is the madness of being in love. Another is when your life is threatened. Do you really believe you're supposed to be dispassionate and go on with life as normal when you feel like shit and your doctor has told you it may be deadly?

Although I'm prone to worry myself -- and thus would be happy to normalize it for just about anyone -- I feel reasonably certain that it would be very hard *not* to be concerned about the outcome of these tests. Especially when the possibilities range from the "that sucks ass" to "deadly."

For whatever reason, this was very helpful to my sister.

As a complicating factor, this list of possible diagnoses has tripped out my brother-in-law so much that he and my sister can barely speak about it. It reminds me of a sad fact about illness and terminal diagnoses: So often, the people who are sick never really get to talk about their feelings.

Spitfire told me about so raw feelings my uncle has about the videotapes I made of my aunt. In part, he wanted to know why she spoke to me about things that she didn't bring up with him. In my estimation, it's because there was a silent denial about the terminal nature of my aunt's illness, and so some of those important conversations were very hard to bring up. I, on the other hand, put a video camera in my hand ... and asked.

Death is a hard thing for people to contemplate. We are all working so hard against it. It seems, irrationally, better for everyone to ignore it once it's been seen breathing down your back. There seems to be a belief among many that talking about it will somehow hasten it, perhaps by causing the person to give up hope. In my experience, this is absurd.

People may not want to talk about their life and death -- they may prefer to ignore things. But my experience and some reading I've done indicates that people often *do* want to talk but fear upsetting their loved ones by bringing up the conversation themselves. Everyone gets into a little catch-22 there.

I suspect that was happening in my aunt's home, because she was easily and directly forthcoming with me about these topics about which Spitfire referred. There's no one to be blamed; there's just the cycle of people loving each other a lot and not wanting to talk about painful things for fear of upsetting the other so much. Makes sense. But it leaves everyone feeling isolated on one of the most important topics possible. Hopefully, my brother-in-law will figure out how to be strong *and* talk about it. My sister really needs that right now.

Of course, we *all* need loving people who can be strong and honest with us. It's just that sometimes, the need is more obvious and pronounced.

Oh, and before I sign off I want to wish a safe journey to Spitfire and her boyfriend. May New Orleans be the home you once knew it to be.