Tag Archives: family

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Living

He takes a deep breath, screaming

Birth.

Kicking, crying, claiming the air

Life.

Hands clenching at nothing, and everything within

Reach.

Feet kicking, pushing at air and obstacle

Movement.

His face turns left, then right seeking

Suckle.

Eyelids opening then closing, pinching against

Sleep.

New mother holds her human deep and breathing

Relax.

Her work complete

Rest.

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Family Circus (continued)

It was Sunday. Maddie awoke to give her son his seizure medicine and couldn’t sleep. She sat at the east window and watched the sun rise. First the glow of grey turned into yellow, then the bright white. She got up and started the coffee. She should sleep but she can’t. Too many shortened nights of sleep made her feel like she had to keep going.

The house was quiet. She liked these moments best. It gave her peace. It made her feel like she could do what she wanted. She pulled out a book she had been reading for weeks. Her library let her borrow it again and again. She was close to finishing. She opened the book and began to read.

A distant beeping cut through her concentration. The pulse oximeter sounded, beeping through her pleasure. She waited. It continued. She blinked slowly, closed her book and walked to her son’s bedroom.

He was sitting up, facing the door when his body dropped into the bed as if he lost consciousness, then sat up again and laughed. Maddie checked her watch and began timing the seizure. He was having clustered seizures and began trembling, first on the right side of his body and moving onto the rest of his body. She grabbed the magnet to magically end this torrent. Nothing changed. His body continued trembling. She reached for his other medicine, her heart rate increased. She looked at her watch and noted the time. She tore the package and put the nasal spray inside his nostril and squeezed the contents.

His body stopped moving. His eyes closed and he remained peaceful. She looked at the clock again. She began to feel the tears climb. She let them come quiet down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes, then took a deep breath. She slumped into the rocking chair, closed her eyes and listened to the house noise.

Nothing. No one but herself was awake. Everyone slept. Alone again, she slept.

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Family Circus

Maddy entered her fourteen-year-old’s bedroom, bracing herself for what she might find. When she opened the door to his room, she was aghast.

“How do you plan to complete this?” she asked looking at the clothes on the floor, and the dirty windows of her son’s bedroom smeared with finger smudges.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, thinking he should probably give her an answer so that she can go away.

“I want a plan of some sort because otherwise I know you’ll forget to get it done. Besides, it’s a good idea for someone else to know what your basic plan is so that you can be held accountable for what you plan to do, and it helps you to have someone keeping you focused.”

“Ummm….I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, what about setting an alarm or a timer to give you a chance to think about possible ideas?” Her hands were moving to her hips as if her arms were getting too tired to be at her side or she was having trouble standing straight (possibly losing her focus).

“I don’t know. I do know that I have to be finished with everything before the end of the month. Can you leave me alone now. Let me think about it. I promise, I’ll come up with a plan. I’ll get it done.”

“I don’t think I should leave here until you give me some sort of idea about how you plan to complete your room cleanup.”

“ I’ll use the Windex, I’ll take the laundry to the garage. I’ll change my bed and I’ll take out my bottles of Gatorade.”

“That’s not everything that needs to be done, but it is a good start.” She watched him pulling at his hair from the front toward the back. He kept looking at the computer, watching for something.

“Who are you waiting to see?” she asked, thinking it might be his friend, Asia.

“Do you have to pay any money?” hoping her son hadn’t started gambling. Her grandmother was always found at the local gambling hall, but seemed to have control over her spending. There were rumors that she spent much if not all of her save for a rainy day cash on Bingo.

“No, I just have to be there when Asia and them sign in.”

“I really think you should focus on getting your work finished first, then focus on that. Wouldn’t it make more sense to you?”

“No.”

“It makes more sense, really, because you learn to plan your time better and make sure you have all the work completed and out of the way.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“When you learn to do the work first, then play; you value your time better because when you become an adult, the work has to be done first.”

“Well, I’m still a kid. I think I value my time and will do the work when it is time to do the work. You’ve seen me. I always do my work.”

“I want you to get your work done first, then play. I see it too often, you playing then never getting to the work you are supposed to have done already.”

“No, that’s not true.”

“It is true. I noticed, when you start on the games first, you don’t stop to take care of other things.”

“That’s not true. I get my other things done.”

“Not without me repeating over and over again. I need you to complete these things now.”

“I will. Just leave me alone and I’ll get my stuff done.”

“But you’re going to play and the clothes will still be on the floor, the trash will still be scattered about the room and your bed wont’ be changed, which will make things smell very badly in here.”

“No it won’t.”

“Why is it that no matter what I suggest or tell you that needs to be done, there is always a contradiction from you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Why is it so hard for you to say, ‘Sorry, mom. Okay, mom, I’ll do it.’”

“Okay, mom. Can you go now?”

She walked back into the kitchen, noticing the mess of dishes in the sink she started but hadn’t finished, and resumed her task. Her identity wrapped up in her daily routine without excitement except when it couldn’t be completed because of complication or need to care for her youngest son due to a home health nurse not arriving. She took a deep breath to drive back some crazy tears wanting to surface while sudsing the plate.

It was quiet. Her son, Lou wasn’t his noisy self. She suddenly put the plate down to check on him. Sometimes the seizures prevented consistency in the routine schedule, which made the calm schedules a welcoming comfort. Lou was in his wheelchair, his body slumped to the side, his hand touching the floor. She grabbed a short stool with wheels and lifted his body into her lap, carefully caressing his face with her hands.  She reached for the nearest earlobe and pinched it. Nothing. His eyes kept shaking side to side in his sockets. She pinched his earlobe again, this time harder. His body resumed its liveliness. She checked her watch; thirty seconds from when she noticed his body limp. How long was this going on before she tuned in? She inhaled as deep as she could and talked to her son.

“Hey Lou!” she said with forced excitement. “Welcome back, buddy. Where have you been? Next time, tell me where you’re going.” She kissed him on the forehead. He looked at her and smiled as if her kiss was the magic to bring him into the present.

She fought the resurgence of tears pushing their way to the surface. A total circus she thought. How will we all survive?

*To Be Continued…..

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LynetteVillegas is a blog that documents the author’s journey through life. Don’t forget to follow me on:

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Still the New Year

When looking at the calendar, I find it still time for new endeavors and renewed enthusiasm for the goals made previously.

This year is an interesting start. Sometimes I think of other authors and how they journeyed towards their work. It reminds me of Charles Dickens. He wasn’t a poet in the formal sense but his prose had so much “poetry” in it.

Holiday hustle and unending bustle, I worked on achieving some zen.

Calls were made with “business as usual”, all to ensure that daily activities were not delayed by holiday hurry.

Its brilliance is the universal truth of reflection. I can’t help but think that Dickens put himself into all the stories. He had several children, and worked while in their presences. He would have to have some Scrooge-ness. His ability to hyperfocus is too much to believe. Let his example be my challenge at this traveling phantom year.

As I write, I’ve attempted writing while in the presence of family.

Qué susto! So much harder than when I’m alone. I read the same sentence two and three times. I got up from my work and came back for another attempt. Better. I wrote more. Stop. Scratched my head and twitched my mouth. The words come slow but sure. I think I can do this.

If Dickens did, why not me. I think with practice, I can improve on my writing schedule, utilize every time and day. Strategize, not for efficiency, but for more words on the page. I remain hopeful. Each new moment spent dancing my fingers along the page strengthens my endurance.

Progress makes its best success in small moments that keep occurring. Yeah that’s it. Frequent small moments that keep occurring will give me more stamina for longer sprints.

Progress arrives with practice. …and tenacity.

Dickens and his family.
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Tristeza

Recent news; the school’s out for summer. What! it’s not May. We usually look forward to May and the finalizing of closing up classrooms and telling friends we have to meet during the summer so that the kiddos keep up the social contact.

Not anymore.

Not anymore of the playdates or pool parties or gaming nights, boys form of pajama party.

The past three weeks my teens are on their computers from 10 and until 10 pm. Claims of doing homework and schoolwork get slipped into unwanted tabs along with their screens. When I sneak up to check the screen tabs, there are always more tabs than seems necessary.

“Are you working on your schoolwork?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Really? I’m going to check.”

“Okay. I’m doing it!”

“No, really! Why are your teachers calling and writing to me in emails if you were doing it?!”

“I don’t know…They like to bother me.”

This is truly an excuse to join the fifty percent dropouts in the county because Florida is a “right to work” state.

I’d like to think if I took the computer away, it would change them. I’d like to think that this situation is temporary and a miracle vaccine will show up so that there will be no more threat to all human life by sneezing, coughing or touching. But this nightmare to get my sons to realize that this working online is an incentive to make a better show of what they know and turn their grades into something so much more spectacular. They’re thrown off and seem like they’re trying to find a normal in all this.

I get it. I understand they’ve lost all contact with their friends. They don’t have extracurricular activities anymore, not to mention sports. They are upset at what life is throwing at them. It’s war, but there isn’t bloodshed like other wars of the past. Yet, people are dying.

It’s a scary world for them. No wonder they want to play computer games all day. No wonder they want to boost their emotions through cortisol. But the outcome will be harder and abstract until a new normal is established.

Meanwhile, I grab hold of my patience tighter than my tolerance for the hormonal whiplash that arrives every morning. I give them love through the Mom acts of favorite muffins and new activities such as learn a card game, hoping they’ll grab hold of the lifeline they need to swim through these chaotic waters.