Magical Thinking

 I just finished listening to Joan Didion's "Year of Magical Thinking," read by Vanessa Redgrave. It's become my morning ritual these past few months, to listen to an Audible book as I walk Mitzi. It helps motivate me to get out on these early mornings, when it's already getting hot, when part of me would just like to stay in bed all day. As I would think many of we elders ARE doing as somehow society has no call for our participation. As COVID shrinks participation of so many people.

But getting out so early in the morning means that I get to witness the beautiful sunrises, the hummingbirds flitting, hawks hunting. And I get to meet briefly with Dick and his basset hound Shaggy, with Jeanie and her mutt Finnegan (some boxer in him but only in his nose, the rest is small), Joanne and her chocolate lab Kia, and Bev and her hound Penny. Lots of brief encounters with wide-ranging discussions about Trump and the state of the U.S. (bad, Dick and I agree), family history (Jeanie), church (Bev), Zumba and exercise (Joanne). I may not be going out and about but at least I am socializing in a small way. 

Back to "Year of Magical Thinking." I was mesmerized, caught up in Didion's story about her husband's death, and her daughter's serious illness, and later death, that happened at about the same time. Vanessa Redgrave read Didion's words beautifully. An old woman even in 2005, with tragedies of her own looming in front of her--her daughter Natasha's untimely death in 2009--I felt she captured through her reading exactly the kind of confusion and bargaining that Didion went through.

In Didion's definition, "magical thinking" is a kind of bargaining with the Fates. If I do/do not do such and such a thing then this tragedy that has occurred can be wiped out, can never happen. I found it so poignant that she calls the Los Angeles Times from New York to report her husband's, a famous author's, death a few hours earlier and then thinks, "Wait, it's not yet our time out there. Maybe he's still alive in Los Angeles time. If I could catch a flight out there...." Thinking that I can completely comprehend. Bargaining with God. If I am a very, very good girl, maybe my mother will get better, he will love me, he will come back to me.... Trying to hold on, to be strong so that others won't recognize you are falling apart inside. Because there are still things to do, a process that needs to happen. And maybe, maybe, if you do those things and follow that process then things will be alright.

Listening to this book brought back my experiences in 1999. I knew, that Christmas in 1998, that I was probably seeing my father for the last time. Visiting with him in the hospital, talking to him about death ("I am so looking forward to seeing your sister again, I keep dreaming about bridges....") while still holding onto his hand, looking at his eyes, hearing his voice. And then leaving Ottawa, leaving Canada, dropping Laurie at college in Virginia and driving that long, long way, alone, out to Richland, Washington.

It was in February, as I was shelving books as a volunteer in the library that I heard his voice in my head. "I'm going now dear, I love you." And I rushed to the office phone and called home to the landline, to hear the voicemail from the doctor's office "Please call our office as soon as you can." I knew as I jumped into my car to hurry home--no cellphones back then--that he WAS going, had gone. But, maybe, maybe, as Didion had said, because there was a two-hour difference in time zones, I had time to say goodbye. So I spoke to him all the way home, telling him of my love. And, when I finally reached the doctor, the confirmation of death. Then the phone conversations with my stepmother in Ottawa ("Oh, you don't have to come, we can have the memorial later in the year, it's winter") and with Laurie in Virginia ("We have to go NOW, Mom, so we can say goodbye NOW").

More consultations with my stepmother and with my brother-in-law, the decision to have the memorial service in a few days, in Ottawa. Flight arranged from Richland to Buffalo. Laurie taking the bus from Virginia to meet me in Buffalo. Friend in Hamilton picking us up. Willing to drive us from Hamilton to Ottawa. The memorial service in the crematorium, Laurie giving a eulogy about Papa and weddings (weddings?) and missing him. Later she asked me how love feels and I knew that there was someone at college although it wasn't the time, wasn't the place to talk about him. Our conversation was filled with memories of Papa. He's gone, my mother's gone, almost no one left now. "I" am the senior generation, the one who carries the memories.

And then, just a couple of months later, the phone rings in the middle of the night in Richland, Washington. I answer it groggily and a male voice says, very calmly, very smoothly, "This is Dr. ... calling from Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington Virginia. Your daughter has just been ambulanced here with a ruptured spleen. We have her stabilized but our hospital isn't equipped to treat her so we will be ambulancing her to Charlottesville to the hospital there...." 

What? What? Who are you? My daughter, my daughter? I just spoke to her yesterday. She has mononucleosis, not a ruptured spleen. Did she fall off her horse? How did it happen? On one side of my mind I am asking all those questions but verbally I say, not wanting to keep the doctor from Laurie's side, "Okay, where did you say you are taking her? It's midnight here, I don't know when I can get a flight...." And the doctor, again calmly, says that she IS stable and that her college friends are with her, would I like to talk to one? And all of a sudden I am talking to someone named Mandy who sounds scared but is trying so very hard to be grown up. We talk and I tell her that I will arrange to get on the first flight I can from our small airport in Pasco. 

The hours between the call and the flight, which was at 7 a.m. I was in a state just like Didion describes. Automatic, speaking with the airlines reservation and then, an hour later, calling back because when I called Mandy and told her I had a flight to Richmond she quickly told me no, no, get the flight to Charlottesville because that's where they are taking her. I don't know my geography, but I trust Mandy and so I call the airline and reroute. Arrive at the small, tiny, minuscule, airport in Pasco and wait, alone ("No, Richard, it's fine, you go to work, I'll be fine....") for the flight to be called. I see a family from my church, all smiles and waves. They are heading out for a vacation to Disneyworld, it's the end of March, March Break. "And where are you going?" they ask. Not wanting to upset their holiday, still thinking automatically, and maybe, as if, if I don't tell them, this isn't happening, I tell them I am going to visit my daughter in Virginia. 

I fly all through the day, arrive at Charlottesville, rent a car and find my way to the UVA Medical Center. Oh good, it is a University teaching hospital, just like at McMaster, back "home." It's 10:30 p.m. Virginia time when I approach the ICU. The medics on duty assure me she is doing okay. The doctor doesn't want to operate at this time because of the mononucleosis, they tell me. So they have her on drips and she is stable. They are hoping the spleen will heal on its own over the next few days. Oh, and some of Laurie's friends are in the waiting room if I want to see them. I go into the darkened room and there, sitting on the floor, are four very tired, very anxious looking young people. A dark haired girl jumps up and introduces herself as Mandy. And then, pointing to a young boy holding a Cookie Monster stuffed toy--that's Laurie's stuffed toy--she says "This is CJ." THIS is CJ? The boy Laurie has been talking about since my father's funeral? He looks about 12 years old. He acknowledges me with a nervous smile. 

But we are all so very tired and they leave shortly. I lie down on the couch and sleep for a few hours. When I wake up, I go back to the ICU and they let me see her, hold her hand, give her some water, brush her teeth (why are her teeth black? something about one of the drips.) Later that day she improves so much they move her out of ICU to her own room. She is awake and she is Laurie. I thank the Fates that, it seems, this time, they aren't going to hit me too hard. She's going to get better. I will watch any number of Lifetime TV series' "Wedding Story" and "Baby Story" if she gets better. Another bargain with God. I will stay in the University's family housing, sharing a room with a woman whose husband is there for dialysis. Bargaining with God again, I count my blessings.

A few days later, the doctor says that the spleen HAS healed and an op won't be necessary. No horseback riding though. 

She has to go back to her college in Buena Vista, Virginia, to finish her year. And to attend her prom. I had said "No prom, you're still too sick," but she cried so hard in her hospital bed, looking so frail, that I relented. I slept in the spare room of someone's house for a week near the college campus, eating at the cafeteria with the kiddos, but still not really getting to know CJ except that he was quiet and sweet and adored Laurie. My host for the sleeping arrangements, who was bishop of the students' church, said that if Laurie had not been determined to support CJ in his upcoming mission, they would probably be getting married.

But marriage was three years away, CJ's mission to Spain, Laurie's sojourn in Aberdeen being a stable hand, riding instructor, intervening. And now, all these years later, they celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary yesterday and their eldest child celebrates her 16th birthday tomorrow.

And I remember THAT event too, staying on the phone as much as possible with CJ as Laurie went through an extremely hard labor. Willing God once again that I would be a better person, that I would do ANYTHING as long as Laurie comes through it okay, that the baby was born healthy. 

But that's a whole other story, more stories in the book of life.