I remember being at home, my house. Zelda was there and many people came to visit before I went to what was certainly my doom. Bart was not there. He had an opportunity to peddle products in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. He was going to make a lot of money. Well, goody for him. BIG mistake. I guess I was the only person mourning. My baby, our baby, was gone, dead and inside my body. Not a good time for a trip to Mardi Gras even if you make a million dollars in one deal. My opinion.
Numb is the best word I have for the days between doctor and hospital. I felt already dead. As dad drove mother and me to the hospital on Friday I said goodbye to trees, cars, dogs, people on the street, buildings, grass, birds anything I saw. I just could not picture making the ride back. Death awaited me I just knew it, I feared it and in a way, I wanted it.
I have no memory of checking in. I remember being taken to a room with 2 beds in it on the women's floor. Happy new mothers on one side, miserable old women having their womanhood removed on the other. I was with the crones. I went through all the pre-op tests and they brought me my last solid food for a few days. I didn't eat. Mom and dad were there hovering. Bart's parents were there too and Bart finally made it. Just in time to announce that he was hungry and would really like a chicken fried steak. I laid there while they all made dinner plans hoping I didn't jump out of bed and slap them all. Bart's mom was tiny and I might hurt her. My mother said she would be there in a minute, she wanted a word with me.
She stood by my bed and said, and this time I quote verbatim, Oprah, "This could be the best thing that ever happened to you". WHAT? Do not kill her, do not kill her. "I mean, being a mother is really not all it's cracked up to be". REALLY?? "Thank you......MOTHER, that means so very little. Go home, Pollyanna".
"I thought I might come stay with you tonight". Bad plan. "No, mom, I can wallow in my misery all by myself".
I wish. Shortly after everyone went to get dinner they brought in my roommate. She was there for some bladder surgery and some other thing. I hate to sound judgmental, (not), but I am pretty sure her family, all 18 of them, must be in the parking lot waiting in the single wide. The first thing she got was a huge container of barium for some nasty test. She then vomited the barium all over the room. Walking around vomiting. On me, on the floor, on my bed. This was not going well. Staff members came in and cleaned everything up and took her away on a gurney. "Please lose her", was my only thought.
My friend Sunshine came in to see me right at this moment when I felt so awful. She understood I was grieving that this was much more than just the sadness of cancer. I had not know her long but loved her soul. She was a wise, old soul. Calm and reassuring. She took my hand and said, "you cannot pray and be afraid at the same time". I decided not to rail against God at the moment. That one phrase brought me some peace. I hoped that was true. I would pray to anything to take away my fear. My grief would be handled later.
Roommate came back and complained how awful the hospital was, how the staff was terrible. She asked me why I was there. "I am having a hysterectomy tomorrow". "I guess the nigger boy will be here soon to shave your pussy" Said Miss Manners. Now, the word nigger I would never print or say. It makes my skin crawl., It reeks of ignorance. I had spent years explaining to my mother that the "colored people" in tiny town Kentucky weren't really happy when they smiled and called her Miss Dorothy as they moved off the sidewalk out of her way. Miss Manners was going to suffer. "That word offends me", I sneered. "Pussy?", she asked. "NO". Well, she said, just wait some nigger will be coming in soon. That pussy is gonna be shaved by a nigger".
I would have to plan her punishment later. Right now I was going to try that praying thing. "God, energy, light, source of life, superior being, someone, please be stronger than I am. Please don't let me die unless that is what will be less horrible". Sunshine was right. As long as I focused on some one, some thing, some power greater than me I was not afraid.
I was however still mad.
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