My role model

Here is my Aunt Helen, age 94. Isn't she beautiful? She's always been my role model. I love her energy and her calm demeanor. And in her youth she looked like Hedy Lamar.

Aunt Helen with two of her greats 

at the family wedding we attended last weekend in San Diego.

Go to the movies

As Oprah said tonight on the Oscar award show, if you need an escape from the hard stuff that's going on in your life, go to the movies. I call my escapes diversions. My long list of diversions have helped me through my hard times, as I describe in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On http://www.LuckyPress.com/madelinesharples.html.


Going to the movies is one of my favorites. I could go every night. I almost don’t care what the movie is about. It’s an escape from the reality of my life. For a short time I can sit in a darkened theater and experience another’s life. People used to tell me to avoid certain movies that are about the death of a child – seems like a slew of those came out right after Paul died or maybe I was just more aware of them then – but, I didn’t listen. I still don’t mind going to movies with that kind of subject matter. That means I can see how others suffer through it and learn from them. 


So be it a happy or sad movie, go. And congratulations to "The King's Speech."

One month already

At a formal wedding last Sunday (with scooter)

My husband fell and broke his foot one month ago today. And two weeks ago he had surgery to fuse his bones together with ten stainless steel pins. Now two weeks post op he's feeling healthy again -- his appetite is back, he's free of infection, and his spirits are up. All he needs to do is stay off his foot for another four weeks - for a total of eight weeks. It's a tall order for the patient and his prime caregiver (moi), but we're committed to his complete recovery - so that's what it will take.

I wrote a poem early on about the fall. So in honor of this month anniversary, here it is:

Even A Broken Foot                       

Accidents are just that

Accidents

Yet some can be avoided

like my husband’s the other night.

He walked willy-nilly toward a dark room

that the hotel should have had well lit.

And while groping in the dark

for a light switch

he fell down a short flight of stairs

and was rewarded with immediate pain

in his foot and ankle.

Perhaps a quick application of ice

gave us false hope that it would take

no further care but

elevation, an Ace bandage, and ice.

But more swelling, more pain

indicated x-rays were in order.

The prognosis, a broken foot

not to be walked upon for four to six weeks

Now enclosed in a cast

and crutches prescribed for mobility

there’s whining and demands already.

So I wonder

where it says in the marriage vows

for better or worse

and a broken foot?

Don’t go there. You don’t need to imagine it.

When people want to know the details about my son's death, I try to avoid specifics; not to protect myself, I already know all the gory details. No, I want to protect the asker, especially if he or she has children. I want to protect imaginations from going to a place where they have no reason or need to be. People can’t help asking these questions. They feel their interest is comforting to me, but I find it more of a burden. The tables get turned, and I feel the need to comfort them. It’s happened over and over. When they say they just can’t imagine losing a child, let alone losing one the way I lost mine, I say, “Don’t go there. You don’t need to imagine it.”

I love Anne Lamott's books. And she's a great public speaker as well. That's why I decided to use a quote from her book, Operating Instructions (Anchor Books, 1995), to start off my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On http://www.LuckyPress.com/madelinesharples.html. The death of a child is a parent's worst nightmare, and she put down her fears about that so aptly:

"When I held Sam alone for the first time…, I was nursing him and feeling really spiritual, thinking, please, please God, help him be someone who feels compassion, who feels God's presence loose in the world, who doesn't give up on peace and justice and mercy for everyone. And then a second later I was begging. Okay, skip all that shit, forget it – just please let him outlive me."

Using exercise to heal

I've worked out almost all of my life. After my son Paul died I became almost obsessive about. It just seemed to help me get through the pain.

Here's another poem that will appear in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On http://www.LuckyPress.com/madelinesharples.html. It was one of the first I wrote in Jack Grapes method writing class.

Making It Hard

The bright room is almost full.

All four walls of mirrors reflect women and men

in baggy shorts and sleek black tights.

The music is so loud

the woman in front of me stuffs earplugs in her ears.

Lisa G says, “work from the core;

your workout relates to your real life.”

I want to get on with it.

I don’t come here at 6 a.m. to listen to a lecture.

The neon sign on the wall says “sweat,”

and that’s what I want to do.

The woman behind me complains.

I don’t know her name, but here she is every week

always in the same spot, always complaining, always in black.

Black tights, black sports bra, black thong leotard,

black headband on her head of black hair.

Even her lipstick looks black.

A drill sergeant in baseball cap and high-top aerobic shoes,

Lisa begins her litany.

“If it were easy, everyone would be fit,” she shouts,

“Don’t come here and expect it to be easy.”

She doesn’t know my name. I like it that way.

I like the feeling of being anonymous here.

I don’t know anyone and no one knows me.

No one knows about Paul, that he died

or any other thing about me either.

Being anonymous is a benefit.

It keeps me in shape, calms my mind,

gives me the space to be myself.

It’s a mini-vacation from the horrors of my life.

So I thank Lisa G

for getting me moving,

for making it hard,

for making it hurt,

for showing me how to

trade one pain for another.

The wonder of "room air"

It’s been quite a week. From Bob’s first day home until today we’ve been on a roller coaster ride. He was very weak at first and experienced shortness of breath just walking on his crutches from his bed to the bathroom – a few feet away. But by the time he went to his cardiologist on Tuesday, his second day home, he was like another person – with it, no shortness of breath, and moving quite agilely on either his walker or crutches. And when his doc concluded, after an EKG, chest x-rays, and a controlled test of Bob breathing “room air,” that Bob no longer needed oxygen, Bob’s attitude and mood changed in a flash. By the time we got home he was ready to go back to using his scooter to avoid the wrist and underarm discomfort he felt with the crutches. No more worry over oxygen tubing gave him the confidence.

We both began to feel so confident about his health and mood that we talked again about attending a family wedding in San Diego – a two-hour drive away – this weekend. But we would go only for one night, the night of the wedding, and miss the planned festivities for tonight.

I even took his tux to the cleaners and asked the owner to undo the right pants seam about ten inches from the bottom so he could get his big foot into the pants.

However, yesterday he began complaining about pain, the first time all week. He had been controlling it with Advil every 24 hours so he knew this pain was different. We got an emergency appointment with his foot surgeon who agreed there was something to this new unusual pain – we had done the right thing by coming in. When he took off the bandages and dressing he found a slight infection in one of the two incisions he has in his foot. So now Bob is on two antibiotics and a pain medication.

And 24 hours later he is feeling much better.

We still think we’ll go ahead to San Diego, but we'll make a final decision tomorrow morning. I’ll hate to miss it – I have a new dress for the formal occasion, but it wouldn’t be the first or last thing I’ll have missed in my life.

I must say thanks to all the help we received this week. My friend Marlene brought in lunch and took us to the cardiologist on Tuesday, my niece Dara took care of him so I could go to my own medical appointment on Wednesday, Ben came over countless times and helped his dad take his showers, our massage wonder-woman brought over her table and gave us both massages last evening, and she and her mate are bringing us dinner tonight. Plus we had two visits from home heath nurses and a physical therapist. It’s been a hectic and heartwarming week. We are very blessed even in light of this bumpy time in our lives.

I left Bob for a short while this morning to walk downtown Manhattan Beach to the grocery store, and I couldn’t resist taking a look at my ocean while I was out. It rained heavily last night, and the sky threatened more rain today even though the sun was bright and warm. I never tire of taking photos of my beach – it is just one more blessing in my life.

Saturday morning about 9:00 am

Another sneak preview

Another poem that will appear in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. Please look for its release by Lucky Press LLC on Mother's Day.

Tonglen Practice

It's the mothers and fathers I care about.

When my son died, I grieved for him

and all mothers and fathers

who ever lost a child.

I breathed in pain

and with each exhalation asked

that no parent

would have to feel

the pain of such a loss again.

But I can't do it alone.

The mothers

and fathers

over all the world

must practice Tonglen with me.

We must take the pain into our bodies,

into our souls, into our hearts,

and cleanse it with our healing breath.

Then with our collective breathing out

give this world a chance

to be safe for all our children –

all our sons and daughters.

Breathe in, breathe out

now, forever,

breathe.