Letters I never wrote home : Maudlin

This is a letter I wanted to write while I was away from home. It is a bit sad and deals with the loss of a family member and some personal issues.

MAUDLI

Letters I never wrote home

Maudlin

Jaco, Costa Rica

  

I watch the blue dot pulse as it crawls, in slow motion, across my screen and along the winding roads that are under what appears to be constant construction. I zoom in, hoping that a larger scale and shorter distances will speed up the pace, and in some mysterious way, speed up the remainder of our drive. The dot doesn’t seem to notice my anxiety or my constant refreshes. It continues along its path unbothered. 

I am reminded here, between the emptiness of the blinks and within the tinted windows of this bus, that the idle mind wanders. Sometimes farther or faster than you want. First, I wonder about my health and how long I have until things start to break and hurt. The intrusive thoughts have nothing to repel them, no distractions.

 

My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant, deciding that we do want children and we want them now. There have been struggles, diagnoses, surgeries. I am aware that my body wants different things than me. I am aware that things can be taken away from you before you have the opportunity to hold them. 

 

I think of things I’ve already lost, the family members and friends that are no longer here. Realizing how limited our time is and how abruptly it can all end. Each second hinges on so many uncontrollable variables that it’s amazing some of us make it as long as we do. The possibility of accidents or disasters is ever present, and perhaps more so at this exact moment, as our bus struggles to climb the muddy slopes of the Costa Rican rainforest. 

 

I reminisce on how much life has changed in the past year, since you left. Our social lives were disrupted and pulled apart, meters forced between people, the entire world shut down, and losing a person whose life was intertwined with mine. The lingering feelings of loss and how suddenly a life can vanish are not new, not untethered, but they send me into a quiet spiral. 

 

This trip was planned as a mental break, a few days to unwind, unravel, and allow our emotions to dissolve back to their usual forms. My insides and my heart are still disjointed. You passed away suddenly at the end of last year, five months ago now. You were sitting across from me at my dining room table just days before it happened. You were smiling and sharing with me the fresh fruit you bought from the seasonal market at the end of our street; four apples, three peaches, and a quarter of a watermelon. They were all still sitting on the shelf in our refrigerator, untouched, when you had the stroke. 

 

A few months earlier you were diagnosed with pneumonia and atrial fibrillation, treated and sent home. A few weeks after that you were diagnosed with double pneumonia, and a few days later, stage four lung cancer. Each diagnosis was sudden, followed immediately by another, and another, until one evening, when you video called from your hospital bed. You were chipper and energetic. I remember you saying how great you felt, the best you had felt in months. This was a few hours after an invasive procedure that drained all the fluid from your lungs. You were smiling, sitting up with pillows propped behind your back. You looked happy, and you told us you would be coming home soon. When you ended the call to eat your dinner, you promised to call us back when you were finished. 

 

That call was the last time anyone would ever hear your voice. The last time you would be capable of opening your eyes, of lifting your hands, of moving, or communicating. The last time you would ever be able to share your happiness with anyone. 

 

Forty-six minutes after that call, in the middle of our own dinner, a nurse called Aaron’s cell phone. I still remember the feeling in that instant. Those first words, how the whole world stopped. She informed us in technical terms that you had suffered a massive stroke. They were arranging to airlift you to a better hospital within the hour. 

 

Without thought or hesitation, without knowing where we were going, we got in our car and started driving toward you. Once we were in that room, holding your limp hands, my throat swelled shut. I could not find any place to put all of those feelings so they clogged the only way I knew how to breathe. 

 

We told you how much we love you and that everything would be okay. You would be coming home soon, remember? You were feeling better than ever. You had just said those words, only an hour and a half ago. Though, in that moment we didn’t know if you could hear us, or understand us, or if you could feel our hands squeezing your arms. 

 

We stepped back as they strapped you to a stretcher and watched as two paramedics wheeled you through the parking lot and lifted you into the University of Michigan helicopter. The sky was pitch dark that night and there was no wind. The sound of the chopper was deafening. I wondered how much of that you were noticing. How much you would remember. 

 

12 days later, I picked up your ashes from a funeral home. The same quiet building I was in a year earlier for my ex-boyfriend’s funeral. It felt surreal, or prophetic, or maybe just overwhelming and uncomfortable. It was the same funeral home I called before you were really gone, while you were laying in room 221 with the tubes removed and the plugs pulled. 

 

For me, this past year has been intense and painful, but I feel selfish saying that. I was the least impacted by your death. Aaron lost his mother and, in the process, the caregiver for his disabled brother and ailing father. I only lost a mother-in-law, some hyphens of separation that might make this less tragic for me. 

 

After you left, our lives were sent into a spiral of chaos and checklists. Our days overflowed with running and maintaining Aaron’s business, carrying out the constant tasks that came with caring for your oldest son and your husband, planning your funeral, winding up your life and your estate, filling out healthcare forms and nursing home applications, and attempting to find a way to compartmentalize all the pieces. 

 

Now, five long and exhausting months later, after things have begun to settle down, I am sitting on this bus in Costa Rica exhaling all of those days and all of those feelings. My mind still wanders around the loose ends and the details, around how quickly life can change, or start, or end.

 

You always wanted to be a grandmother and for us to have children. Now, I feel this painful guilt and sadness that you will never have the opportunity to wear that title. You left before you had the chance. You will never know the feeling of holding a grandchild, and for that, my heart shatters.

 

For a few seconds, I fantasize about what would happen if I was able to have children of my own. I think of my parents, potential grandparents. The highlight moments and all the firsts. Then, I imagine all the same tragic scenarios with them; the hospitals, the tubes and wires, the nursing homes, the feeling of missing out on time. Inside, I am racing against the clock. 

 

I unlock my phone screen and stare down at the blinking dot, a few millimeters closer to the ocean, even further from home. The pulse of the dot is steady, like a heartbeat, like those machines in room 221, fading in and out. My eyes feel warm and heavy, a soft pressure building behind them. I blink a few times and I wrap my hand around Aaron’s arm and squeeze all of my thoughts into him.

 

I have no idea what he is thinking about, where his mind has wandered on this drive. But I know that I am fortunate to have him next to me, and I know that I can’t say these things to him yet. I do wish I could say them to you.

 

We miss you. Everyday. I think about you in the strangest moments; when I see a patterned scarf you would have loved, or when someone says mum instead of mom, just like you always did. I miss you and I wish I would have spent more time sharing my happiness with you. 

 

I suppose this trip is working, in some weird way I am unwinding. Unfortunately, I am doing so on a long, shaky bus ride when I have no other distractions. The same thoughts keep coming back to me and I am forced to hang on to them, hoping they will break open and reveal something that helps me.

 

I can’t stop thinking about how fragile life is, how short and unpredictable. Everything we love should be protected at all costs, wrapped up, held tight. But I know I don’t believe this. Life is too short, too unpredictable. We need to fill our days with things that make us smile, the people that matter, and the things we want to write home about. 

 

You would’ve loved to have this conversation with me, about life and how to balance out the sides. You always loved sipping on a strong cup of tea and listening to us recount our favorite stories and our wildest rides, but I know the thing you loved most was that we were at home, sharing our life with you. But lately, home hasn’t felt like it should. Nowhere has really felt like it should.

 

I slide my phone inside my backpack and stare out the black window, even though I can’t see anything. Watching that blue dot isn’t going to change the time and it isn’t going to tell me anything I don’t already know.

Author's Note

I would like to add a 'Letters I Never Wrote Home' section to my travel writing. This is the first letter I wanted to write. I would love feedback on whether it is too personal, if it is even interesting, and any advice on making it better. Thank you.