Ramblings of a pseudo intellectual

I have what might be an abnormally conscious fear of death.

It’s sort of hard for me to describe.  There is more than one facet to it.

First of all, I simply do not want to die, and I fear dying young.  I don’t want to abandon my children before they are old enough to know I loved them with all my being, and before they are mature enough to not be psychologically scarred by my absence.  I love life, I love being alive, and I don’t want it to end any time soon.

Then, there’s the fear of dying itself.  I am a secular humanist so I don’t believe in heaven or hell, or limbo, or reincarnation, or any other sort of existence beyond life as we know it here.  I believe that life just ends, that consciousness just ends, and that’s it.  Part of me really wishes I didn’t; if I could believe that when I died, I’d be reunited with my mother and grandparents and all my other loved ones, it would be so much more comforting.  I wish I could find something about death that I could look forward to.  I suppose it is fortunate that I have no reason to believe that death would be better than the life I’m living now.  Still, I dwell on it occasionally, and quite honestly, it terrifies me.  What will it feel like, to slip out of consciousness like that, never to return?  Will I know it’s happening?  Am I going to spend the last few moments of my life scared out of my mind because my greatest fear is happening to me?

I got wrapped up in all those thoughts last night, as I laid with Lane trying to get her to fall asleep.  Oh man, it is not a good or comforting thing to be so aware of one’s own mortality sometimes.

I was laying with Lane tonight, trying to get her to fall asleep.  I was stroking her soft blond hair and singing her favorite Disney movie songs to try to lull her to sleep.  And as I lay there, I thought of my mom.

I thought about how she died, nearly ten years ago.  I thought about how she was only 47.  I thought about how, if I live as long as she did, that means I still have 15 more glorious years of life left, to play and cuddle and love and laugh and cry and squeeze every bit of joy out of every moment that I can.

I thought about what it would mean if I died when I am 47.  Lane will be 19, Jake would be 16.  I was 22 when my mom died, and I wasn’t nearly ready for it.  Of course, I had no warning.  She just died.  No real rhyme or reason, just slipped away quietly in the middle of the night.  And I wasn’t ready.  I wanted more time with her.  I needed more time with her.  I had only been an adult for a couple years at that point, really, and our adult relationship was really blossoming.  My brother was only 15 when she died, and I know he needed more time too, way more than I did.  Our dad sort of dropped the parenting ball after mom died, (not that he was great at carrying it before she died) and my brother was left to flounder.  In retrospect, I knew that would happen.  I knew it, but I wanted to believe it wouldn’t.  I wanted to believe my dad would rise to the challenge and be the parent that my brother needed through his formative years of high school.  But, it didn’t happen.  Part of my denial was self-serving — to admit my dad would shirk his parental duties would obligate me to move back home, to drop out of the graduate school program I’d just started when mom died, and make sure my brother became the man I knew he was capable of being.

Not to imply he’s turned out poorly.  Now, he’s 24, and he’s doing OK.  Career- and education-wise he’s a bit of a ship without a sail.  He knows he wants more for himself, but he’s not sure what and not sure how.  I feel like he harbors a lot of anger.  But he laughs a lot, and smiles a lot, and has healthy (from what I can tell) relationships with decent girls.  He has artistic pursuits that bring him contentment.  I love him to death and no matter what, I’m really proud of him.  But I think with better, stronger, and/or more present adult guidance after mom died, maybe he’d have his bachelor’s degree by now.  Maybe he wouldn’t ache inside quite so much.  Maybe he’d have more direction.  I don’t know.  I just want him to be happy, and I know for a long time he really wasn’t… and I probably could have helped make that happen but I was too involved in my own world, 300 miles away.

Anyway, that was a tangent I didn’t really mean to go on but I just feel like spouting some emotion for a bit, even if it’s a bit incoherent.

I guess it all comes back to that I feel like a lot of how I define myself sort of goes back to losing my mom when I was still pretty young.  I read a book a few years ago called Motherless Daughters which helped validate those feelings.  (If you have also lost your mom, especially early in life - through death or abandonment - this is an excellent read.  I can’t recommend it enough.)  I do wonder how much of who I am today would have been the same even if she were alive, and how much was shaped through the lack of her presence and the process of grief of losing her.  It’s a riddle I know I’ll never have the answer for… but it really doesn’t matter.  I am who I am (or, “I yam who I yam” if you’re a one-eyed sailor with a spinach affinity).

And I guess more than anything, I want more than the cards my mother was dealt.  I want to meet my grandchildren.  I want to live long enough to use my retirement savings.  I want to get old enough to have lots of wrinkles.  I want to celebrate all those metallic wedding anniversaries (my parents only made it to their 23rd).  But if I do go early like my mom did, I want to have been a good enough mother that Lane and Jake will miss me terribly.

So, Heath Ledger died and this certainly isn’t breaking news for anyone at this point.

I’ve been pretty bummed about it. I have really enjoyed every movie I have seen him in. He really does did troubled and brooding and passionate better than just about anyone. The Patriot? Amazing. Brokeback Mountain? Intense. Monster’s Ball? Oh. My. Goodness. Jawdropping.

But — and this is both embarrassing and liberating to admit — I do think my favorite movie of his was 10 Things I Hate About You. It came out in 1999 and I was 23 then; pretty much past the target demographic that the movie was going after. But it was such a well-done teen angst love story. The script was smart and funny and the cast was awesome. How can you not love a guidance counselor writing a steamy romance novel and asking students for synonyms?? Larry Miller as the dad? Hilarious! All the Shakespeare stuff? Super! And Heath? Gorgeous and charming and practically elegant in all his brooding, intense glory. I couldn’t watch the movie on a leather couch for fear of sliding right off.

It seems trite and silly to jabber on that he would have been an iconic actor, how the world will miss him. He was one artist in a sea of many. But to me, he stood out, and I am sad he is gone.

Now, please, can someone make sure Jake Gyllentaal takes care of himself for the next 40 years? I need my eye candy!

I haven’t heard too many details, but my dad and brother talked, and given what they heard from the veterinary surgeon, they have decided to not go forward with the surgery.  I haven’t heard anything about how much time Ginger might have left, but they seem to be operating on the belief that they have a decent amount of time, a few weeks or months.  My brother has plans to take her to their favorite park as much as he can, and to make sure she gets some chances to swim.  They just feel like it’s such a big expense, for an outcome that probably won’t buy her a ton of time and certainly could reduce her quality of life.

I don’t blame them one bit, but it’s still sad.  She’s a great dog.

I talked to my dad yesterday about Ginger. He’d talked to the vet, and what he found out isn’t great. Not the worst news imaginable, but not great.

The lump is definitely a malignant tumor. It is definitely in her jawbone. It is, however, a non-aggressive cancer, which the vet explained meant that this cancer wouldn’t get in her lymph nodes and spread all over her body. It would isolate itself on her jaw. There is definitely a viable treatment, which is to remove part of her jaw. They aren’t sure how much they’d need to remove just yet, but it sounds like we’re talking a substantial bit, like a third of her jaw or more. The vet says she should adapt to this just fine and lead a normal life. However, she naturally will be disfigured, missing part of her jaw and all, and there’s no guarantee that the cancer wouldn’t come back. And, since she’s ten years old, fairly on in years for a Labrador Retriever, there’s no guarantee something else couldn’t hit six months from now.

My dad is going to talk to the surgeon who would do the operation in a day or so, to really get some details cleared up, and ask some additional questions. Right now, he’s left with the tough decisions that many dog owners face: where does he draw the line? Should he go into debt to prolong Ginger’s life by what may be only a few months or a year? How much cost is too much cost? And is all of it fair to Ginger?

I’ve told him, were it Bailey, my dog, chances are, unless the costs meant Lane or Jake couldn’t go to college, I would probably do the surgery… but if the tumor came back, in three months or three years, I would not do it a second time. And at the same time, I told him Ginger’s getting on in years, she’s had a good, happy life, and if the surgeon tells him this surgery is going to cost more than his property taxes, that no one would blame him for deciding not to do it, and just letting Ginger live happily for the few weeks or months she might have before the lump starts to interfere with her ability to eat and drink.

Ugh, this is the part of dog ownership that nobody likes.

I’m so incredibly bummed about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  It shocked me, nearly as much as any news story can manage.  I read the story on CNN.com with my mouth agape.  I guess mostly because it’s such a violent, awful end to what seemed like such a possibility of hope for Pakistan.  I’d been following her return to the political landscape of that country, and it was inspiring.  She brought a sense of hope and optimism to a place that seemed, for a long while, to need it a great deal.

Plus, she was a woman on the political forefront in a pretty major country.  That’s inspiring, regardless.  I mean, if a woman can lead a country like Pakistan, there just might be hope to someday have a US president that isn’t a male WASP.

Heh, two political-ish posts in one day… I promise this probably will not be the norm.

I send cards.  Since having kids, it has become a slightly costly affair.  I get these special spiffy cards printed up, which will include pictures of my kids and my family’s blog address and it does make me happy to do it.  I love having these two little people in my life who are so important to me that I want everyone else to see pictures of them at least once a year. 

Yes, it’s my choice that it’s so costly.  I get the extra-spiffy bona fide greeting cards printed, not the single layer postcard-esque cards.  I may have to find a more frugal solution next year, since this year I opted into stay-at-home-mom-hood, and our disposable income just got amputated by that choice.  But really, the cost part of it is but a small piece in the inequity.

There are about a half dozen glaring non-card-returners on my Christmas card list.  And I’m not quite sure what to do. 

These are all relatives of my mom, who passed away about ten years ago.  These are aunts/uncles, stepsiblings, and first cousins of my mom, who I’d spent a good amount of time with growing up and are people I think of fondly.  I don’t feel like I have a ton of stuff in common with most of them, but I like and love them a lot.  And every year since the year after she died and I sent out my own cards, they have gotten cards from me.  The first couple years I’m sure I got cards in return.  Now… nada.  I know for sure I haven’t gotten cards from them in at least four years.  Normally I could write this off to “well, maybe they don’t send cards” but I make the rounds at Christmastime and with the exception of one, I have seen that these people do, in fact, send cards.  Cute cards with heartfelt messages inside, cards with pictures of their kids. 

And they choose, despite getting cards from me, year after year, to not send me a card.  Either that or my mailman is extraordinarily incompetent.

I mentioned my mom passed away a number of years ago.  I’ve talked to my younger brother, and we both feel like lots of my mom’s family just isn’t sure how to interact with us comfortably since then… and thusly might simply choose the easy way out by not interacting with us at all.  Fair enough… not nice, but whatever.

But my dad got cards from some of the offending parties.  And my grandma - my mom’s mom - will almost certainly get cards from nearly all of them (with the exception of my uncle, who was my mom’s stepbrother from when my maternal grandfather remarried and acquired for my mother two stepbrothers.  Really, is there any person in the world that sends a Christmas card to their stepfather’s previous wife?).

So maybe that leaves me the black sheep, and damned if I can figure out why.  It makes me feel vulnerable and foolish and silly to continue to send cards to these people, when by all outward indications these people don’t care if they get them or not.  Yet… I will probably continue to send them.  Try as they might, I am still quite fond of these people, and even if my mom’s death inserted a permanent and immutable rift in our relationship, I will just hope that these folks will continue to enjoy getting a small indication that my life had turned out well, I have a couple beautiful kids, and that I hope they have a nice holiday.