letter #72 Breathing

My dear friend

This opening sentence will sound dramatic: the news about Adrian’s accident was delivered to me by two police officers. One of them carrying Adrian’s bike. It’s the silence that carries the news—words confirm what the silence has already said—and I could tell from the way he carried the bike more as inconvenience than as a burden that although it wasn’t good news, it wasn’t the worst. Also, I knew the news wasn’t the worst, because I’ve heard the worst before.

The police officer was kind but it was four o’clock in the afternoon, a busy time of day. He said, ‘We tried to ring. Your husband told us you never answer your phone.’

They took a photo of the bike then left.

A phone call would have been worse.

#

My father was a committed atheist. Even as he reached the end, his atheism never wavered. In one of our final conversations, the presence in the shadows surely undeniable, I said, ‘You’re so stubborn, so dogmatic. Even if there is something more you won’t come back and tell me, will you? Just to prove your point.’ He laughed.

It wasn’t the final joke we shared, but it was close.

#

On and off throughout a life, we enter little worlds we didn’t know existed. We arrive and there it is, a world we didn’t know, fully formed. Each one is well-defined by protocols and conventions. Each one is filled with words and phrases used with nuance we haven’t known before. We know only what we’re told.

In the context of what might have been and given the long list of tests and scans and screens to rule things out, the diagnosis of two broken ribs (delivered by an emergency department intern, confirmed by registrar) doesn’t sound that bad.

#

When my son was six years old, I watched him skipping down the hall from his bedroom to the kitchen. As I watched, I felt myself at six years old, the ball of my foot pressing against the floor as I lifted myself off the ground and into the air. Landing, soaring, lost in the lightness of life. As I write this to you now, I remember having that sensation; but the sensation itself is lost to me. I don’t feel it as part of this memory of feeling it. It is a copy of a copy of a time when I could fly.

#

Something I do like about hospitals is the cafeteria at morning tea break. Patients and their visitors at these tables where we have never sat before; interns, nurses, registrars at those, the tables where they meet every morning. My uncertainty is softened by the visibility of the gentle rhythms and routines of their day.

#

Back at home, Adrian looks at the scratches on his hands and the chips in his fingernails. He touches his face, presses his palms against his limbs as if to reassure himself of his unbroken bones. Over and over again he says, ‘I feel so lucky. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been.’

#

When my father’s complications began, emerging one by one in the days following his surgery, I thought, ‘But that’s not fair! He’s already had one thing, and now another. And another?’ But as I learned about this world, I came to learn that this is how it works. This has happened because that happened, and then, because that happened, this became more likely. That’s how things unfold.

#

Last year (or perhaps the year before) I overheard a conversation between two friends in which one said, ‘You have to be good with your own company. Because when it comes to it, we are all on our own.’

This is the kind of thing I might have said on a drunken night at university. I might have waved my cigarette in the air, quoting Sylvia Plath or Simone de Beauvoir, believing myself to be both elegant and profound.

Now, in my fifties, I would never say such a thing out loud. I’m not superstitious, but you never know which fate is in the shadows listening.

#

A few days later (at 3am), we begin to learn that two-broken-ribs is the tip of the broken-rib-iceberg. Seeing Adrian’s shallow breaths and pale skin I said, ‘Do you want to go to the hospital?’ He said, ‘I don’t know what to do. Can you decide.’

One day in the future I will say, ‘Fancy leaving me in charge!’ We will laugh, but not for a little while yet. Adrian has six broken ribs. No wonder it hurts to laugh.

#

It looks the same, but it isn’t. What happened to Dad and what happened to Adrian. It isn’t the same. I know this. But as Adrian reports each new symptom; as the GP sends him off for scans and tests and then to specialists; as the causes of these symptoms are uncovered; as I hear the familiar words and diagnoses, I feel a waterfall of memories. They are cognitive and physical. Pictures flashing in my mind, sensations carried through my veins. I cannot sleep. My body and my soul are restless. I know that I should leave my phone out in the kitchen to stop myself from researching and scrolling; but as I lie in bed, listening to his shallow, jagged breaths I think I need my phone. In case I need to call an ambulance again. It’s three am—please forgive my dramatics.

#

It’s not the same. The medications go to work; time begins to weave its promised magic. We laugh, but not too loudly. You never know which fate is in the shadows listening.

#

My phone is still not in the kitchen and in the middle of the night I wake and use the online booking form to make an appointment with my doctor. I want to check the symptoms of a recurring condition that I have been ignoring.

In the safety of the doctor’s room I said, ‘I dreamed I could feel the very cell that was in the centre of my heart. It was sparking. My chest felt tight, I tried to breathe, and that made the spark explode.’

###

I will write again soon, but in the meantime I will think of you often and with love.

Your friend, Tracy x