A Fine Balance

I have an eight-year-old friend who had a big, cuddly, white cat named Jasper. A little over a month ago, Jasper's family made the difficult decision to have him euthanized. He wasn't well. He was sick, in pain, losing weight. He'd stopped purring. He looked sad. It was clear that Jasper was dying, that it wasn't pleasant for him, and that helping him along was the right thing. For Z - my eight-year-old friend - losing Jasper is her first heartbreak. She asked me, the other day, how I coped with the loss of my mother. She was hoping I could give her some clue as to how to mend her broken, little heart. I believe any question a kid asks is worth answering honestly, whenever possible. I told Z that the sadness of missing Jasper will probably never go away, but that she would get more and more used to it. I told her that she would never forget Jasper, and always love him, but that a time would come when remembering him would be more about remembering how great he was, than about how sad it was to be without him. I told her that being as sad as she is makes sense, because Jasper was a really important part of her life and that, because he's gone, her life is different, now - different forever.

What I didn't tell Z was that this heartbreak is only the first in what will be many losses, that life is all about loss and that the losses only become more frequent as we get older. She doesn't know that recently, when I was transferring my contacts from my old phone to my new one I was shocked to find so many people in my world - or at least in my address book - are no longer alive. Should I have told her that I still have the last two messages my mother left on my voicemail? Or that I don't have the heart to remove my favorite cousin's name and number from my address book? Should I have told her that as recently as last week I saw something that made me laugh and started to pick up the phone to call my friend, Heidi, who has been dead for over a year, now? I wonder if she'd understand how sad I am that the plan I had, with my old schoolmate, Joseph, to meet for a shot of bourbon when I finally get to Alaska, will never come to pass because Joseph died a few months ago?

It seems to me that we start out in life with a set of scales that are weighed down on one side by the people we have around us. As time passes, and these people leave - move or switch schools or divorce us or die - they jump onto the other side of the scales, weighing that side down a little more. Most of the time, I pay these scales no mind. For this reason, it's shocking to me to look over and notice that the two sides of the scales are closer than ever.

I'll probably never get rid of those voicemails or my cousin's phone number. Audaciously funny things will always make me think of Heidi and wish she were around to laugh at them with me. One day, when I finally get to Alaska, I'm having that shot of bourbon, and toasting to Joseph and a life well lived. I don't even like bourbon. I don't like cats, either, but I'll never forget Jasper.

  

Cosa Nostra

This morning I woke up with a sharp pain between my shoulder blades.

It felt - still feels - as if a long, jagged knife had been stuck into the middle of my back while I slept.
It felt - still feels - as if the handle of that knife at some point snapped off, leaving the sharp blade inside of me.
It felt - still feels - as if that blade cuts a little deeper with each move I make.

Let me be clear: There is no heavy lifting going on, no jumping jacks. What I mean to say is that, when I inhale, the expansion of my chest to let air into my lungs causes the constant pain to become sharper, clearer, more intense. It hurts to breathe. Other things that hurt include:

Lying on my side
Lying on my back
Lying on my stomach
Sitting up
Standing up
Putting two slices of bread in the toaster

You get the idea.

I love mafia movies. Invariably in these movies, there's some WASPy, rookie cop who asks what "cosa nostra" means, to which the older, seasoned detective always answers, "It's what the Italians call the mafia...it means "our thing.""

Words and phrases lose a lot in translation. "Cosa nostra" shouldn't be translated in such flat terms. The phrase is charged with emotion - love, even. It's not "our thing." It should be something more like, "this thing of ours" or "this thing we share."

The pain of crumbling bones is not one of the things I thought I'd end up sharing with my mother. It's certainly not a thing I ever hoped to share with her, or that she ever would have hoped to share with me. But here it is. This thing of ours. This thing we share.

When I wake up on a morning such this one, and feel that knife in my back, I can't help but imagine my mother: 22 years old, pregnant, suffering from asthma so severe the doctor worries she might die in the same way her sister died - gasping for breath. He has her come in every morning for a shot of steroidal drugs. Drugs that keep the asthma at bay and allow her to breathe, and her baby to grow. Drugs that also, over time, turn her bones into brittle pieces of chalk. I imagine this as I roll out of bed. And, as that rolling movement makes the pain between my shoulder blades sharper, clearer, and more intense, I imagine being that baby who was not yet born when those life-saving, bone-crushing drugs started flowing through our shared blood stream.

This thing of ours. This thing we share.

When I put it in these terms, it's so much easier to bear.

Law #116

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1944

It's necessary, they said.
You'll sleep right through it and you won't feel a thing, they said.
We know what's best, they said
It's for your own good, they said.

A boardroom on the U.S. Mainland 

It's necessary, they said.
These women are simple, they said.
They don't know what's best for them, they said.
It's for their own good, they said.
There are already too many of them, they said.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1944

I'm not sick, she said.
But, you're a doctor, she said.
You must know what I need, she said.
I trust you, she said.

She slept through it, just as they said she would, but it did hurt. The next day it hurt. And for many days after. It hurt more and for a longer time than giving birth to her son had hurt. And it left a scar. And she stopped bleeding every month. She was 34, and she'd stopped bleeding. But, then, so did the other women she knew: her sister, her cousins. They'd all stopped bleeding. She, at least, had her son.

A Gynecologist's Office, New York City, 1963

When did you have a hysterectomy? the gynecologist asked.

I don't know what that is, she said.

You have no uterus, the gynecologist said.

I don't know what that is, she said. 

When did you stop having periods? the gynecologist asked.

After la operacion, she said.

Who performed the operation? the gynecologist asked.

The American doctor, she said. 

Why did the American doctor do this? the gynecologist asked.

Because, she said.

Because? the gynecologist asked.

Because it was for my own good, she said.