AT just phoned with a homework assignment for us all. Your mission: find and listen to the song “Hummingbird” by Wilco. It’s on the album entitled A Ghost is Born. The lyrics are as follows:
His goal in life was to be an echo
Riding alone, town after town, toll after toll
A fixed bayonet through the great southwest to forget her
She appears in his dreams
But in his car and in his arms
A dream can mean anything
A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her
But he never could
Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird
His goal in life was to be an echo
The type of sound that floats around and then back down
Like a feather
But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
No one could hear him
Or anything
So he slept on a mountain
In a sleeping bag underneath the stars
He would lie awake and count them
And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way
Would never let him
Die alone
Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird
Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird
A hummingbird
A hummingbird
AT, GAC, MastaG, Bos, October and myself went together to see Wilco play the Tennessee Theatre in spring. They played this song in the encore, with the whole of the audience singing along loudly. Find this song and sing along loudly as well.
Thats what I told Dr. Gavin as I walked away, after talking to him. I’m not sure where it comes from, it seems like I’ve always heard it (not sure from where), and that it means something like “what happens, happens”. Somebody back me up.
I’m preparing, again, for her to die.
The nurse and doc, Linda, and Dr. Gavin, talked to me after seeing her.
Well, let me start at the beginning. I am a communications student, after all…
Mom and I went in for the 10 AM visit. I went in first, as is my want, and she was there. Her BP was 91. Her pulse was 105. The cooling blanket was off. All of the factors that I’d cling to first were looking better. I said “hi”, whispered those sweet things that you say to your sleeping love, and went to talk to the nurse. She could only talk for a bit before she got an unrelated, but urgent, phone call.
I went back in to talk to BJ, and her parents, and sister. She was more responsive than usual. (this is hard to write today, sorry guys, bit of a delay between sentences) She was squeezing hands, and raising eyebrows. She wasn’t as sedated. She was near the surface, trying to open those beautiful eyes.
As an aside, let me tell you about her eyes. They change according to her mood. The DMV has them listed as ‘hazel’, but they’re brown, green, and blue. All mixed together in a hypnotic, tantalizing, amazingly beautiful blend. Sometimes the green is out. Sometimes the brown is out. The blue usually stays in the background. I don’t know what color they are now.
I digress. (i love saying that)
She was responsive. Her mom said something about wishing she had brought nail polish remover, because the paint on her nails was falling off. Her right hands fingers are black. She’s left handed, tho.
I started telling a story, and I’ll tell you here also.
“Before we started dating, we were friends. I really thought she was cool, but I had a habit of ruining relationships, and I didn’t want to run her off. Anyway, she’d talk me into ditching class at UT and hanging out. I didn’t need much encouragement. We’d hang out at the mall, or at places.
One night we were at Kroger, with my roommate Scott, and he was wandering off somewhere. She was piggyback riding on me, and stopped to paint my thumbnail with some pink nail polish.”
At this point, she started trying to tell us something. She was trying to talk so badly. Her mouth was moving, her tounge was moving around the vent tube. She had something to say. Her oxygen level started dropping, from the 94 down finally to 80 by the time I had her family out of the room. She was resedated, but she kept trying to say something.
As much as I love you, and as much as I feel her in every pore of my body, I don’t know what it was. My brain, and my heart, and my soul didn’t get the message.
god, that hurts so bad.
what was she saying?
…
MastaG knocked on the door right after I wrote that, while I was crying, so I dried up and let him in. We talked about how to kill barbarian archers in Civilization. Katy’s going home today, and he’s sad over that. I’m not sure what I should do with him.
Its also wrecked my train of thought. Seems like the story ends with Dr. Gavin asking me back, asking me all the same questions about anything she did thats odd. Wild animals, strange foods, pain, anything like that in the 48 hours prior. Last weekend.
Just last weekend.
Linda and Dr. Gavin wanted to point out that she’s getting worse. Her heart is showing problems. Her white blood cell count is still at 36000, climbing. Lactic acid is causing problems. All the pressors, and medicines, and everything.
They said “very slim chance”.
They said they’ll code her, tho, if anything happens. I asked for heroic measures.
And if she goes.
If she goes, if she goes, tomorrow ill be Tuesday, and Wednesday will come after that. Bills will be paid, people will be late for work. Wifes will love husbands.
I’ll have two boys. And family, and friends. You, when I needed you most.
GAC. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you. I love you.
I dropped Pigpen off at school today, and ran into a good friend of the family who didn’t know. He’s a big, limey dude, and he was tearing up. It feels not good, but right, to tell people whats happening. An acquaintance was working at the video store last night, he’s seen us go in there for years, and he happens to be in my Western Civ class, was stunned by it.
What would he tell me? The silence, and the “That’ll be $14.43″ was OK.
Anyway, on the way back from the preschool, I was heading up Outer, because I figured I’d call on Daco and his lil’ lady, to thank them for their support. We’ve recently become friends in ‘real life’, and GAC and I stopped by his house a week or two ago.  I started tearing up, tho, about 5 minutes before his house, and I don’t like people seeing me in grief.
Not in “real life”. I got myself back under as much control as I’ll allow, but then totally missed his house. I know where it is, but I think it was hiding.
Sorry Daco!
I’m going to talk to GACs school to see what we should do. Its a pretty safe bet, even in the best of scenarios, that she won’t be graduating with an associates degree in interior design. Its a shame, because she’s gifted with it, but its OK, because her job prospect was Home Depot, because the few times she tried to do ID jobs, the clients were total asses. Dog eat dog world.
Still, she was so looking forward to haveing two semi-professional incomes coming into the house, for the first time since we got together.
Sucks, doesn’t it?
…
Gonna eat, and then start the rotation of visitations. 10, 1, 3, 5:30, and 8:30, will forever be drilled into my head.
Feel free to come, if you think it would help you. I don’t know what would help me, and theres nothing we can do here on earth that will help BJ. We can pray, and I’m rusty at that, but I’ve been doing a lot of it. Pretty much with every breath.
Anyway, the day approaches, and I hide no longer.
I love you, GAC.
(Oh yeah, on the way to school, Pigpen and I waved at the hospital as we drove by, and said “Hi Mommy!”. A routine is born.
Seems like I had some sort of dream last night dealing with the hospital, children, and “God’s will”. Anything beyond that is lost. GAC has an amazing ability to have the freakiest, weirdest, goofiest-assed dreams, and remember them with great clarity.
It’d be so awesome to know what they are now. What if she’s dreaming whats really happening? She’s watching me sleep, or watching the kids roll around.
When I was a kid, I used to tell my little brother in the next bed that we’d hang out in our dreams (he has always been my little buddy). Maybe that happened, because altough the tears and the emotions that I was too tired for yesterday are back (hi there), I feel some dumb sort of peace.
I’m 6 minutes late for work. I would normally have left her sleeping body about an hour ago (OK, about 30 minutes ago, I’m a wake and dash kinda person). I used to write her an email first thing in the morning, just something dumb like “Hey baby, nothing much to say. Mornings suck. Bleah. I sure do love you, sweet critter.”
I haven’t done that in a while, because we’re so busy that we don’t have time to reply. If she sent me one (that wasn’t about how pissed she was at something), it’d be 2 hours before I’d see it, and by then she’d be gone. Monday is our busy day, we only spend an hour or so together.
Oh, BJ. I wish, I wish.
Just called Gary before he leaves. Somebody named Linda is taking over, I don’t know her, but he handpicked her, he says.
Her stats are still very much the same. Her arterial line did crap out on her last night, so they’re checking pressure with the cuff, but it can only do it when she’s palpated. They’re going to put another line in her, and I hope to God she’s stable enough to take it. Maybe today they’ll take that head CT and chest CT.  Gary told me yesterday that the reason that she can’t is because if they take her off the vent, she’ll lose a ‘ping’ or something. As a computer dork, I almost find that amusing, it has something to do with how the machine makes her lungs accept stuff.
“lungs accept stuff”? Yeah, theres some english flinging for you. She’s critizise the hell out of that. Last night I was talking about how GAC hates it when I take a turn too fast, or something, and Mom, jokingly, said “Yeah, she’s so critical“. Took me a second to get the unintended pun. Hope you laugh as much as I did.
This is her rough time of day. God, please keep her safe. Please help her heal, and guide her back to us. Today I won’t care “when” she gets back, like I was stressing about yesterday (and, that’ll probably end up being a lie by the end of the day), just as long as she comes back.
I want to watch the kids grow up with her.
Sweet, sweet girl. My little lost BJ, I love you with all of my heart. Have sweet dreams.
I really wanted to write that story about how we met.  Maybe another time. Today what has bothered me so much has been that this is going to take SO LONG.
That no matter how much I want her, need her, she isn’t going to open her eyes and be back home in a week.
There are so many thoughts I want to get out of my head. That the useless exploratory surgery, which anyone would have done, but which I signed off on, is going to hurt her for the rest of her life. God, the guilt I will carry. Was it necessary? Of course.
But I’ll always see that scar, and know it hurt her at the worst time for it.
Its dumb and irrational, I know.
Got distracted.
Point is, no stories tonight. In fact, I should be asleep, but I have to do this first.
I spent the time since my last post listening to Wilco (GAC really wanted me to burn another copy of A Ghost is Born after the first one got scratched up, and I never got around to it. Bos gave me his copy tonight) and reading the outpouring of support on the intarwebs. I haven’t gotten to email yet, but you folks in the blogs and the comments, my God, you do me a service I can never repay.
I’m very uncomfortable, because I don’t have a way to say “Thank you” as deeply as I feel. Just as the words elude me to tell GAC how much I love her before we go to bed at night, the words fail me to tell you what you all mean to me.
I will never see the world the same way again.
…
Enough with the hippy talk. (Joel, that was for you)
I just talked to Gary, GACs nurse. Stats are all the same. BP is in the 80s more often than not. They’re just administering platlettes (sp?) now in an effort to help stop the bleeding from her mouth. Yeah, I guess I didn’t mention that she’s bleeding from her mouth. I think I block this stuff out.