In The Living Years

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die

To admit we don't see eye to eye

-from In The Living Years by Paul Carrack 

Yesterday was actually quite nice, if I omit discovering that we were listening to the pinché motherfucker's playlist in Jenny's car.  It was obvious. Jenny isn't musically adventurous. Deep cuts from Aretha aren't something you happen upon.  It was aural assault, but I am a big boy, said nothing, and kept on keeping on.

Jenny and I had breakfast with my sister Jane and her husband at Bluewater Bistro on Lake Washington.  It was pleasingly low key and nice. Jane has stepped up like no one else to show unmitigated love to Jenny.  She asks for nothing in return, and is always wanting and willing to help her, help the kids, and help me. She arranged the brunch.  She made it happen.  

I spent the rest of the day working in the yard, and Jenny is feeling well enough that she cleaned out the fridge and handled our laundry.  One thing I am grateful for is our kids have been responsible for washing, folding and putting away their own clothes for years.  It simplifies everything, and I don't have to play the guessing game about whose unmentionables belong to whom.  

Today is dreadfully slow.  Jenny had an acupuncture appointment at 10:00.  Its 1;00 and she isn't back yet.  That's a lot of needles.  I'd ask her what took her so long, but that would be poking the bear, and I wouldn't want to needle her.  I guess I will just stick a pin in it.

On a less tedious and far more serious note, a life and death note, Jenny's sadness and physical and emotional pain are made manifest daily. I don't know how to comfort her when she is in such despair. She told me yesterday, and this wasn't a fit of histrionics, that she just wants to die, for this to be over.  She was incredibly uncomfortable on the most comfortable bed in the world when she said this.  Later in the day, she told me she wished she had never been born, and there was conviction in her voice.  She managed to maintain her day's busy schedule despite the--at times--unquenchable despair, even going out last night to see her best friend Amy.

My thoughts turn these days to Leiney and Abby. There will be a time when they are without their mother, and given the course of the disease, much sooner than most kids they know will lose a mother.  My concern about Abby and her bitterness toward Jenny has abated some, but the relationship is a 16 year stretch of pothole riven highway.  How do I (or we) help her with the pending loss?  Nothing can prepare you from being swallowed by the maw of despair that comes with the loss of the person that brought you into the world. Nothing.  But, surely there must be things I can do besides repeatedly having a heart-to-heart with her talking about the need to repair the relationship.  

On the other side is Leiney, who at 19 I was, until recently, describing as a barnacle attached to the Good Ship Jenny.  Since she landed this job and has a housesitting gig, she isn't around much.  Super healthy, and I am relieved of the devastation putting all of her emotion into holding onto Jenny. Still, her attachment is great and will make this very difficult, when the worm turns. 

Truth is, I have no idea how to help.  I suppose there are books penned on this subject, and Amazon is only a keystroke or 6 away.