A is for Alive - by Nan Brooks

 

Each light, a memory of kindness

I remember making Thanksgiving dinner for friends and family. I remember that they all went out for a walk and I stayed to clean the apartment kitchen. I remember lying down, so tired that I said goodbye to my guests through thick fog.  From there, it was a long journey back to health. This Thanksgiving of pandemic virus and loss and unexpected gifts in quarantine, I remember those who saw me through it all.

There was the nurse from my doc’s office who called to say I had mono and offered this advice for my care: “You will be sick until you don’t need to be sick anymore. Why do you need to be sick?”  I found this less than helpful. 

But my friend, Ann, a no-nonsense woman and registered nurse came to see me and said, “Listen to me. Mono is dangerous for you because you are middle aged. Don’t mess with it. Do not go to work, do not push yourself. Rest and eat well and drink a lot of water.”  She looked me in the eye and said it all again. Then she opened the cooler she had brought with her and put all sorts of small containers of food into my freezer. “Eat something three times a day, no matter what,” she said, “call me if you need anything. Do Not Push!”  I am still grateful for Ann, her common sense, her intelligence, and her fine cooking. And mostly her compassion.

I asked to borrow against the next year’s sick and vacation time from the law firm where I worked so that I could heal.  R.D. Jones granted me that boon, a kindness I still appreciate. I don’t appreciate another lawyer in the firm who felt it necessary to tell everyone I was lying and not really sick at all. How she benefitted from such cruelty, I fail to imagine. I hope she has more peace with herself now.

By January, I was well enough to go back to work, though I sometimes fell asleep standing at the copier waiting for it to spit out pages. So, maybe not well after all. I helped Deb Clark and Gail Fairfield on a Saturday or two at their new restaurant, pouring coffee and clearing tables, loving their success. Then one Sunday on my way into the restaurant, I was dizzy, couldn’t catch my breath, and almost fell in the parking lot. It wasn’t my first dizzy spell and I was too out of it to be frightened. But Gail convinced me to go to the emergency room.  Deb called her sister Suzie, a nurse, and asked for a recommendation for a cardiologist, just in case.

No one could figure out what was wrong, but over the next eight hours, I got dizzy again every time I walked to the bathroom.  A nurse named Margaret said, “You can’t tell anyone I told you this, but if you were a man you’d have been in cardiac care hours ago.”  Oh, those nurses! Finally the doctor came in with the results from lab tests, all normal, and told me I was deconditioned from the mono and needed to start an exercise program. He was sending me home. Deb, who had been there all day, watching and guarding, stood blocking the doorway to my room, her arms extended to make a big X with her body and said, “I cannot let you send her out of here. She needs a cardiologist.”  Such nerve. To his credit the doc looked at me and said, “What do you think?” Remembering Margaret’s advice, I said, “Something is not right; I need help.” Deb gave him the name of the cardiologist (Dr. Fix, of all things), the ER doc called him and Dr. Fix said, “Admit her overnight.”  He had never heard of me in his life, but he helped anyway. And Deb, who went on to her own struggles, Deb who cared fiercely for her family and friends, Deb who loved to make things happen, died of Covid a few months ago. I send her my gratitude often, figuring that spirits are eased by our love even beyond this world.

At the hospital the next morning I was struggling during a treadmill test when the tech ordered me to stop and I said, “I can keep going.”  “No you cannot,” he said and with his hand on my chest, pushed me backward into a wheelchair. I was whisked back to cardiac care, not realizing that everyone was rushing to get me back into bed and onto a monitor.

Diagnosis: episodic atrial fibrillation. An irregular heartbeat that came and went, often kicked off by exercise. Sometimes I was fatigued because my pulse was so slow, other times the fatigue came after my heart had raced much too fast. Sometimes my heart rate was like bad jazz.  Over the next four years, one new anti-arrythmia drug after another failed to work, but I had to try them all so that insurance would eventually approve a pacemaker.  

My memories of the next years are like tiny candles lit in the dark, some faint but still glimmering, each candle an act of kindness. Some of those kindnesses look almost insignificant, but they were mighty for me and my heart. 

My new housemate Annette recognized a pattern, knowing that when the weather changed, I would get worse. Her kindness and patience helped me stay alive and even hopeful.

When I had no income at all, my friend Sandy told me that she had always wanted to try stand-up comedy, so she was organizing an evening to perform. I was too sick to go and startled to hear it was a benefit for me. The next morning Sandy came to my door and handed me an envelope with $600.  She said, “This is from your friends and people you don’t even know who love you and want to help. Don’t give up.”  “Did you have fun?” I needed to know that most of all; stand-up is risky business. She grinned, “Oh yeah, I had fun. They laughed.” 

Diane, who would drive by on her way home from rehearsal and, seeing my light on, stop to tell me theatre news. She still does that and more from afar. Sometimes Patricia would come with her and we would discuss our theologies - she was articulate, I was not, but she listened anyway.  My co-worker LeeAnn, who came on Christmas day with her sweet teen-age daughter and just sat with me as I faded in and out.  We called each other Thelma and Louise at work – allies against the meanies. Gail, who offered astrological insights and keen listening even through tragedies in her own life. My brother, John, who understood too well when I said that sometimes I was so tired I just wanted to lie down on the filthy grocery floor and sleep.

Spencer and Matthew, my beloved sons, who were – and still are – steadfast in their gentleness and patience over the years and the miles.

The risk of mentioning those who saw me through in so many ways is that I have failed to mention so many others. I pretend that we are all gathered around a giant table, a big feast of giving thanks, and in the crowd I catch a glimpse of those dear faces. More faces will become clear as I sit with the vision and I will keep wrapping those souls in my gratitude.

If you are one who remembers that time, please refresh my memory in the comments. Or even call me on the phone. Or we could Zoom – that new verb for this Thanksgiving.