“Through
Eyes Of Broken Glass”
March
4, 2012
To
my very dearest friends, and ever-loyal readers,
I
Sad. Sadness. I am so very, very sad.
I touch the sadness in the empty air.
I taste the sadness on my tongue and it makes
hesitant my words; it is a language written in silence.
It is not as all-consuming as is dark depression, that
catches the breath, and is depended upon every movement, every pulse beat.
I know so well that, ‘other’; a seeming endless
depth of despair which rises in the body to paralyze the arms and legs,
obliterating all thought as it devours the soul.
It is like a blackish and blood red tide which—in rising
up—sweeps all away before its relentless path.
There is a sickness of the mind that bends all senses to itself; making
even slightest movement difficult. Suborning the appetite; food becomes ashes
in the mouth.
The very body seems to collapse, seeking to become
as small as possible, to lie with legs and arms and body drawn up to hide in
the center of the bed, motionless, with stifling bed clothes pulled up past the
ears.
While deep depression seeks to destroy the very
soul, sadness—being less severe, somehow—is like a gentle and semi-sweet ache
that plays-about the heart.
Sadness is like sitting quietly before a window,
looking out through a blurred and rain-speckled window to an abstraction of
blurred and blowing trees outside the frame to a grey and liquid day; and yes—in
sadness—the heart feels exactly the same way: bleak, somehow foggy, distant, ill-remembered
and yet familiar.
Sadness is so ready, full-encouraged by the sounds
of all-day rain upon the roof.
Ever so lightly are played long ago, and almost
forgotten memories.
Sadness smells like a dusty attic into which have
been thrown boxes of old clothing, and neglected Christmas ornaments; of pictures
without frames, frames without pictures, dirty and fly-specked mirrors. Cards
and letters from absent or now long-dead friends.
Sadness has a taste of moth balls, ancient stuffed
toys, dusty heavy curtains, and faded flowers.
My sadness with its own pained sense of remorse and
regret plays around the edges of deep depression, lest it fall in. The sadness is—for now—enough to bear. More than enough, really; but the heart in
its sweet despairing manages to avoid the far-greater agony of depression’s
despair. Which I realize makes
absolutely no sense, but in my longing I find it to be true.
In the measured quiet of my cluttered, dirty and
neglected house, my sadness is a silence which still presses upon the ears.
Memories from some long-ago time ripple to the
surface, and the Present. In my too
quiet house I hear the faint echo of children happy, laughing. Sometimes I
think I hear a door pulled shut, or drawer pulled closed. A polite knock upon the door; the sounds of a
thousand black birds as they gathered in the back yard to eat pieces of bread
thrown to them by my mother and father.
And—yes—into the void of quiet suffering, I often
hear my name; my long-late mother and or father calling me. Even though I know it cannot be, still—in my
wearied sadness—I return their calls. And
then—with a force—realize how very much I love them, and need them, and miss
them. And that no amount of pleading or tear-stained prayers could save them.
Conversely, I recall a time when everyone I knew who
was so dear to me was still alive and well; the repetition of destroying illness
and death lay within an unknowable Future.
However—in my plangent sadness—when I might have
chance to see one of the very few toys that survive till this day (and some are
as nearly old as am I !), I do not see myself as I might have been then, but—in
truth—see no one that I even remotely recognize. I actually have—among a few
other things—a stuffed toy rabbit that my grandmother gave me for my 1st.
birthday (now, fifty-eight years ago). It has lost a lot of stuffing, and is
very dirty, besides.
How, ‘crazy’, would I be to dig it out of the dusty
box that it is in from the closet, and place it once more upon my bed, as if I
might find some slight comfort in doing so?
II
My sadness does not concern itself with a
largely-forgotten Past only, but extends to try—in full—to capture and to
embrace an almost unbearable Present.
Never mind the situation that I now find myself in,
for that is something already too often mentioned, and focused upon.
What makes me sad are the promises—so glibly made—but
that were never intended to be kept; the false smile…the ready lie. How quickly was I dismissed as some irksome
and unnecessary fool. The, ‘shadenfreunde’. The mendacity. The too-well-dressed Social Workers. The draconian Pain Management. The overflowing pile of pills that
collectively can never, ever take away the pain.
The situations that make me have to beg.
The situations that make me cry in fury.
The situations that have only, ‘one’, end, one that
I need hardly mention.
III
My dearest friends, I have no idea—whatsoever—why my
dear Daisy is still alive.
Her measurable decline began sometime last July; at
least, that’s when the veterinary bills started to roll in.
Her stomach is distended, and she has lost weight. Several of her leg joints are swollen out of
proportion by arthritis. She only picks at—well—those expensive, tiny cans of
food (3.2 ounces that cost as much as a regular can of dog food); The, ‘flavors’,
all have cute names, but I now know the ones that she will eat, and the ones
that provide scant-enough nourishment for her to survive.
It has become a horrible existence. Every time Daisy looks up at me it is though
a dull-eyed glaze of pain, discomfort, accusation, and—I fully believe this—a sort
of wearied, “Help me, Daddy!”
I imagine that some would accuse me of being
uncaring. Of being selfish. Of being…stupid; and in this, they might be
right, as I love Daisy dearly, and have had a most faithful, and loving canine
companion now for over thirteen years.
And that—somehow—I just cannot seem to, ‘just let go’.
Hardly anyone has encouraged me to have Daisy put to
sleep. The base-line truth is: I cannot
afford to euthanize her.
To have the vet come to the house, put Daisy to
sleep here, take her to the clinic to have her cremated and then returned to me
in some token, ceremonial urn costs $400.00!
Even to have Daisy put down here, for me to bury in
the backyard costs $248.00.
I can hardly afford Daisy’s medications; I most
recently ordered four of her prescriptions (including her pain medication) only
filled for half the month cost $135.00. I have even had to reduce the filling
of my own prescriptions to those most needed, and for half a month only.
The truth is (if there—in fact—be any truth to be
found) that even though I have been greatly ill, and in unutterably,
unstoppable pain, and that seeing Daisy so ill, tiny, and helpless makes me
sick, I am afraid. I cannot just
blithely kill her, as though she were—somehow—an inconvenience. I am saddened and afraid; afraid, maybe, to
be alone…isolated, cold, and alone, ever a prisoner in my own home.
As it is, I do try to keep Daisy as comfortable as
possible; I try to keep her dosed-up, especially in pain medication; and—at night—I
give her a small tranquillizer to her relax, and doze-off to sleep.
She is now quite unable to walk down the back steps
to the backyard. Sometime before, I had
to go, pick her up, and then place her back on the deck.
I have puppy incontinent disposable pads which I
place on the floor. And I really do not
care if she uses them.
Meanwhile, she still follows me from room to room,
but she now takes longer to get comfortable and lie down. Often, I will get
down on all fours’ to whisper in her ear, and to tell her that she is
beautiful, and that I love her so very, very much. And on some elemental level, I hope with all
my heart that she knows this.
And…that she forgives me.
I now look at her so many times during the day just
to make sure that she is still breathing; Dr. Weston—Daisy’s vet—says that the,
‘end’, will happen at any time, now.
And, my dear friends, each night, when I retire to bed for yet another
broken, pain—filled, nightmared and inconstant sleep, I might awake at any time
to find her dead on the rug beside my bed.
When that time does come, I will have her buried in
the backyard at the entrance to the wooden shed where—thirteen years ago, on a
November day in 1999—my late mother and I first found her. I will have Daisy wrapped in a special throw
I’ve kept for years which is pink, and all-over hearts.
Somehow…it just seems, ‘right’.
IV
Sad.
Sadness. I am so very, very sad.
There is no specific medicine that will take this
heavy weight of sadness from me. I awake in panic and to sadness, and it lasts
the whole day long, until too weary, I crawl into bed at night.
I over-take what meds I dare in hopes that restful
sleep will come at last.
For Daisy.
For me, and for all of us kept safe until the new day’s light.
“Sweet Savior, grant us peace and ever-respite from
all sadness seen through eyes of broken glass.”
Oddly,
the one thing that does make me happy is to see Daisy eat her food!
My very, very precious friends, please know that—although
I now post with marked irregularity—I think of you so often, and wish for you
no pain, or, if that is not to be, then of lessened pain.
I wish that you be kept safe, and secure, and free
from want or need. And that you be in full,
surrounded by family, and true friends (and…pets!) who love you, and who
treasure you.
And
I wish for you all the happiness your kind hearts can hold!
And
please always know that I love you dearly!
‘Zahc’/Charles
