Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

2020: This Impossible Year

As I sit here watching the clock move towards the final tick of this wretched year, so many thoughts are swirling.  And I am listening to the Panic! At The Disco song This Impossible Year on repeat.

 

There's no sunshine
This impossible year
Only black days and sky gray
And clouds full of fear
And storms full of sorrow
That won't disappear
Just typhoons and monsoons
This impossible year

I am thinking about this year that has been lost in so many ways.  Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations - all celebrated in isolation or not celebrated at all.  Funerals that went unhonored, unattended, unnoticed.  And tears, so many, many tears.  Tears born of disappointment, anger, frustration, yearning, loss.  This impossible year...

To every graduate - your efforts still count.  Your achievements are yours forever. 

To my daughter, Kendall, your bravery in taking life's unexpected offramp to Boston was an honor to witness.  The line from You'll Be In My Heart was written about you:  For one so small, you seem so strong... No step forward is ever easy, but you leapt and stuck the landing.  That we could not honor your endeavor with an in-person graduation at Harvard takes nothing away from what you did there.  And when the world regains its balance, there will be a celebration of you, one that will mean even more to all of us.  

To every couple who saw their dreams of walking down the aisle evaporate in the aerosol threat of COVID - your day will come.  Postponement is not a death knell for your relationship, rather it is the gift of seeing exactly what you both find important - your lives, the lives of the people you love.

To my daughter, Culley, and her fiance', Sean - the day will come.  And when it does, we will all be there, and it will be sweeter, deeper, and more meaningful for the wait.  I have watched as you both have absorbed the disappointment and uncertainty, and then as you cast it aside to get on with the beautiful business of living.  Your hearts are already married in every possible way that counts.  And I know when you stand together and finally say your vows, what is spoken will reflect the growth, struggles, and increased intimacy of this impossible year.

Quarantine has hit hardest for those who lived alone to begin with.  No matter how much you enjoy your own company, isolation reveals just how important is the gift of society.

Our son, Toby, has endured nine months, mostly alone, with his two cats and dog.  Having his wisdom teeth out in June was a welcome intrusion as it enabled me to enter his life, play Mom, and hang out for a week.  I am immensely proud of how he has coped, adapted, plowed through continued online classes, maintained a thriving commission business, and kept us laughing daily via Facetime.  Loneliness is hard.  Enforced loneliness even more so.

There's no good times
This impossible year
Just a beachfront of bad blood
And a coast that's unclear
All the guests at the party
They're so insincere
They just intrude and exclude
This impossible year

Nothing about this past year has been easy.  None of us could have foreseen where these months would take us, what it would ask of us, what it would take from us.  We are a country humbled by a microscopic foe, employment taken away, entire industries left in tatters, and political divides revealed to be canyons as we watch millions of our neighbors refuse to be part of the solution.  This impossible, impossible year...

It was early in the pandemic when my very learned daughter, Kendall, explained the toll of this experience.  Why is was important to acknowledge the most basic pieces of it and how we all may be separated, but what we were enduring was not unique to the individual.  She explained that this is a collective trauma and our bodies and minds are responding as they are programmed to respond.  Survival mode, as it were.  Extra weight?  Expected.  Our bodies feel under attack and are protecting us.  Depression, anxiety - normal reactions to stressors we have never experienced.  Then she said something that has stuck with me through these long months.  She said that even if all you did was get up, make the bed, and get dressed one day - that's ok. 

You did your best.     

Like countless others, I have struggled through this time.  Worry about my children, my parents who I cannot see despite living in the same city.  Isolation day after day - living for Facetimes, talking to my cats, taking my frustrations out on this keyboard.  Some days have been better than others.  Some days I work out, clean, write - and am inordinately proud of myself.  Other days, it is enough that I manage to get dressed, arrange my face, and clean the litter box.  On those days I whisper to myself, You did your best.

There's no you and me
This impossible year
Only heartache and heartbreak
And gin made of tears
The bitter pill I swallow
The scars souvenir
That tattoo, your last bruise
This impossible year

We are all looking ahead to 2021 with fear and excitement.  Those who have been vigilant and paying attention to this pandemic know the worst is yet to come and are rightfully afraid.  We are watching a toddler incite sedition and treason among his spineless party members, and we fear for what January 6th and January 20th may bring.  The words there will be blood are not born of hysteria.  They are born from watching, listening, knowing what desperate, ignorant, brainwashed people are willing to do.  We just saw it Christmas day in Nashville.  This hideous, impossible year...

We are excited at the thought of adults with experience in governance finally being back in charge.  No more son-in-law who knows fuck-all about anything; no more daughter whose main experience is stealing shoe designs and flat ironing her hair; no more sons who live only to bask in their father's orange glow; no more lackeys whose only interest is in suckling at the tangerine power teat.  We will have intellect, nuance, rational thought, a worldview, empathy, savvy, and solutions.

Joe Biden is a wealth of experience - both political and personal.  His connections in this world, his actual understanding of how our branches of government operate (hell, the ability to name all three branches) will serve us well.  As will his unimaginable pain from enduring so many brutal losses in his life.  He knows pain, he sees it in others, and he responds as a decent human being does - with sympathy, empathy, heart, and humility.  Kamala Harris brings so much more to us than simply being the first woman Vice President.  She is an experienced jurist, a woman whose employment background is as vast as her personal history, and both inform who she is and how she moves through this world.  She will be an incredible asset for this country, for Joe Biden. I am excited for them to begin.

They will do their best.

We are excited that two vaccines are in circulation.  And while I have zero hope of them being available to the general populace anytime soon, a new administration will marshal our resources and introduce a nationwide protocol.  As of this writing, only 2,794,588 people have received dose #1 - a far cry from the Pence promised 20 million by year's end.  Which is why we must hang in for a while longer.  

And we will do our best.

Well, most of us will.  

There's never air to breathe
There's never in-betweens
These nightmares always hang on past the dream

To all of you who have endured, been vigilant with masking, distancing, washing your hands - THANK YOU.  While we have lost 351,752 people so far, the number would have been much higher without your efforts.  Please stay the course.  You are making a difference.  You are doing your best, even as this nightmare hangs on.

There's no sunshine
There's no you and me
There's no good times
This impossible year

The song ends with those very visual, heartrending words.  A reminder that they are far too real for far too many who have lost someone to a pandemic we should have fought harder, smarter, better, and as a unified nation.  But we didn't.  My wish for 2021 is that we find the sunshine, that we rediscover one another and open our eyes to the realization that we need one another - that by proving it takes a disinterested, disconnected village to die, we now understand that it takes a cohesive, caring, unselfish village to live.

There will be good times again.  There will.  It is the cycle of things, of nature, of life.  Human beings are inherently aspirational, forward moving, face-to-the-sun creatures.  We will endure.  We will triumph.  And for those of us who have done our best, we will emerge once again, face-to-the-sun, older, wiser, bloodied but unbroken.  And determined to learn the lessons of this unimaginable, impossible year we have all lived through together.

Give it a listen.  Let some tears flow.  And then, face forward.  We have a new year with limitless potential.  A year where we will again see the possible as we leave this impossible one in our wake.

 

Living Here In COVIDtown

Well we're living here in COVIDtown
And they're closing all the businesses down
In ER waiting rooms they're killing time
Filling out forms
Dropping in line...

In 1982 Billy Joel introduced Allentown, what would become "an anthem of blue-collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century."   I heard it the other day on Sirius Channel 8 and have not been able to get it out of my head as I read story after story of where we are in the pandemic.

We are at once a populace aspirational about the vaccines, yet frustrated with the lack of a coherent, cohesive system for delivery.  Aspirational about taking precautions, yet frustrated with the continuing glut of dullards who subscribe to Qanon bullshit rather than science and facts.  Aspirational because millions of us know how it can be, frustrated because millions are hellbent on preventing any progress.

Well our fathers fought the Second World War
For us quarantine was just too much of a bore
Ignore the fact that out we shouldn't go
Take off our masks
Watch our spittle blow.

We are where we are because of the obscene selfishness that has become a hallmark of this nation.  No longer a country where self sacrifice, the greater good, and looking out for our neighbor hold any sway, instead we are a self indulgent, selfish, narcissistic, excuse making, hubris laden people.  Think not? For the fourth day in a row, Universal Studios in Orlando has hit capacity within TEN MINUTES of opening.  Because we simply refuse to stay put and work towards a brighter tomorrow TOGETHER by staying apart.  We want what we want and we want it NOW.

This morning we blew past the 20 million mark in terms of positive cases.  That puts us at twice the number of the 2nd place contender in this world, India.  And yes, I am well aware that testing is a logistical nightmare in a country with over a billion people, but the numbers still stand.  And ours are abysmal.  We have lost 347,713 people.  Since the morning of December 1, we have lost 71,065, nearly 20% of our total.  In the past week, we have set two records:  highest number of airline passengers since the pandemic began and most COVID deaths in a 7 day period.  That owes to our intentional, willful decisions to ignore all warnings and travel for Thanksgiving, thus condemning family, friends, and complete strangers to death because we just had to share a pumpkin pie.

That is not hyperbole.  Every thoughtless action taken in the time of COVID has an unequal and opposite reaction.  Think you are only one person, so what's it going to hurt to go hang out maskless around a table of your relatives?  Think again.  All it takes is ONE asymptomatic person - you, someone you traveled next to, someone in the next bathroom stall, Aunt May who promises she is healthy.  They exhale, sneeze, cough.  You inhale.  Two days later you travel back to your hometown, back to work, to the grocery store, unaware that you have contracted COVID, yet spreading its microscopic confetti to all and sundry. 

And then people die.  Again, not hyperbole.  How many weddings do you need to read about where people partied, went back to work, and killed multiple coworkers, friends, strangers who did not know the bride and groom?  The glut of Thanksgiving tales of happy times and then two days later 17 people come up positive?  Just a Google away.  (Yet another hospital story today - a husband and wife both died of COVID - they had hosted 30 people for Thanksgiving.)  Cautionary tales aplenty that should have been enough to keep people in place for Christmas.  Instead we saw the greatest numbers of fliers since March - 1,284,599 on Sunday alone.  Willful idiots who, when interviewed, spun in place justifying their actions.  They are different.  Or they trust Jesus will protect them.  Or the rules simply don't apply to them.  Or worse, they still don't believe COVID is worse than the flu.

News flash for those of you who still spout that garbage:  Our December death toll, which is still mounting, is greater than the flu's death count for both 2018 and 2019 combined.

Well we're waiting here in COVIDtown
For the herd immunity never found
For the promises our leaders gave
Rounding the curve
Right into the grave.

Since last night much attention has been being given to a 41 year old man in Louisiana as his COVID death was announced.  Poised to take his place in Congress, Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died Tuesday.  Only 41 years old, leaving a wife and two tiny children behind.  My heart breaks for the children.  My sympathy ends there.  Letlow was a Republican Trump lackey whose Twitter feed is filled with pictures of both indoor and outdoor campaign events where masks are nowhere to be seen.  Like Herman Cain before him, he courted COVID with his hubris and willful ignorance, and COVID laughed in his gasping face.

We are not "rounding the curve" as Caligulump likes to promise.  We are neckdeep in a nightmare of our own making.  And Letlow is just another cautionary tale.  A tale of arrogance and ignorance.  A healthy, younger man with no pre-existing conditions or comorbidities, he contracted COVID, was hospitalized, and 11 days after announcing his positive status, died of a massive COVID fueled heart attack.  His children are only 3 and 11 months old.  

Again, I save my sympathies for his children.  His wife Julia, who appears in many photos with him at events, maskless, is a PhD who should have been smart enough to follow guidelines, but did not.  I am not heartless, but I will not cry tears for someone who went out of his way to contract the virus, infecting God knows how many people along the way.  I save my sympathies for those who have done everything right, yet have still succumbed due to the behaviors of the Luke Letlows of this world.

Like Sarah Simental, only 18, who died the day after Christmas.  A healthy young girl with her entire life ahead of her, contracted COVID and to quote her mother, “It just took her so fast.”  Only a couple days before Christmas, Simone complained of a headache and congestion. Three days later she was dead.

18 years old.  This is not just an old person illness.  We are losing people of all ages, every single day.  Between yesterday morning at 930 am and this morning 24 hours later, we lost 4,120 people.  Think about that.  I have tried using stadium analogies, airplanes analogies.  How about this?  This is Jonestown, 1979.  The ground covered with 909 bodies.  I was only 13 but remember the shock, the incomprehensible story, the number that seemed too large to grasp despite having photo after photo showing the reality.

Now, multiply that by 4.5.  Imagine that photo but almost five times larger.  That is the past 24 hours.  Now multiply that by 383.  That is our death count.  Is the jungle floor even big enough to hold them all?  Because in the Jonestown pictures, what you don't see are the horrors discovered by the Guyanese military - the bodies were two and three people deep.    

This year's graduations were virtual
Degrees, diplomas didn't help us at all
Too many not believing what is real
Q Anon quacks
Conspiracy zeal.

We now have two vaccines in weak circulation.  Pfizer and Moderna, at the ready with millions of doses.  A government that promised 20 million of them administered by year's end.  Year's end is tomorrow and we have barely injected 2 million doses of a 2 dose-required vaccine.  (And even were mass vaccinations to magically materialize there are far too many 5G-Bill-Gates-Anti-Vax-Wetbrained-Implant-Tracker mouthbreathers who are grandstanding that they will not get the vaccine.)  Over 11 million doses have been distributed across the country, but there is no plan, no directive, no leadership to follow to get it to the people.  Not surprising that the federal government has zero idea what to do.  We have never had a national testing strategy, so why would we think leadership would be forthcoming for the vaccine's distribution.  This morning, before heading again to the golf course, the Biggest Loser tweeted this:

The states have been given no direction.  Yet he is happy to place the blame on them as he waddles off to the first tee yet again.  And do not look for the revered head of the Coronavirus Task Force to be helping.  Pence is off skiing in Vail.  And while millions go hungry, their unemployment drying up, Steve Mnuchin is ensconced in his Cabo lair laughing as meager $600 stimulus checks are being begrudgingly direct deposited to the paupers.

Our reality is about to get a lot worse.  In the next two weeks, the holiday travel consequences will come home to roost.  And we don't have anywhere to put the people who will get incredibly sick, incredibly fast.  LA hospitals are overflowing to the point they are triaging people in the gift shops.  They are running out of oxygen.  ICU beds are all taken in hospitals across the country.  And they are all making plans for the fast approaching point where they must decide who gets their medical attention and who is left to die.

Again, not hyperbole to make a point.  Those death panels Sarah Palin made up one morning on the toilet?  Very much our reality as doctors must face managing the number of patients against who has the best chance to survive if treated.  That means there are people who will die in ER parking lots.  People who will be sent home to die on their couches.  Think about that.  Your child, spouse, mother or father gasping like a fish on the dock, but turned away because there just isn't space and they don't tick off enough boxes on the Can-We-Save-You checklist.

Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But we allowed a failed reality star to win that race
Now death is the price we pay for that disgrace

Our country is in such peril and there is no one at the helm.  Trump has completely turned his back and is golfing away his final days in office.  Pence is skiing, as are the Kushner Klan.  Nashville sustained a terrorist suicide bomb attack on Christmas day and the mayor has still not heard from the IMPOTUS, nor has he even tweeted about the attack.  But then why would he?  The terrorist was a white male who loved the same conspiracy bullshit as Trump and his horde of red hatted horrors. 

And we're waiting here in COVIDtown
For the new administration that we will crown
And the MAGAt people will crawl away
Give science a chance
To save the day

21 days until Biden and Harris and their assembled team of Avengers are sworn in.  21 days until science and reason and math and data and empathy are in charge of this country.  21 days.  That we are faced with an Advent Calendar of sorts where each day's opening contains a new nightmare at the hands of this inept collection of criminals is sickening.  The days are creeping by, the hours filled with new outrages, offenses, and updated coronavirus stats.  We are on our own.  And for the Parler/MAGAt/lowIQs out there - no amount of treasonous, seditious acts and pants shitting by your heroes will forestall the inauguration of Joe Biden.  So, to quote you - Fuck Your Feelings. 

Every healthcare professional knows and is warning that the first months of 2021 are going to eclipse how awful all of 2020 has been in terms of COVID-19.  The virus variant first identified in the UK last week has now been reported in both Colorado and California.  Our two biggest enemies are the velocity of viral spread and our unwillingness to band together and do what's necessary to save as many people as possible.

I just hit refresh - the holiday stats are rolling in fast and furious.  349,121 now dead.  That means in the space of two hours when I began writing, we have lost another 1,408 people.  At this pace, another 5,000 will not ring in the New Year.  21 more days...

As we're dying here in COVIDtown.

May Your Day Be Merry And Bright

Christmas, like so many notable days this year, is different.  Despite over 6 million people clearing TSA in the past week, hundreds of millions of us have chosen to give our friends and family the gift of safety and health this year.  We are together in heart, in Facetime, in Skype, in Zoom, but physically apart.

For a mom who is the original Christmas ho (ho ho), this year is especially difficult.  My kids are all adults and spread out like melted butter on hot toast, but I am used to waking up on Christmas morning to have them all within my (to them, irritating) grasp.

This year called for a Facetime Christmas.  Kendall tried to set the time early.  I negotiated with the time terrorist and got it bumped back a half hour for those of us in the earlier time zone.  Upon setting that time (730am MST), the rest of us immediately convened behind her back last night and agreed when she initiated the group FT, that we all would begin typing back some variant of "Sorry, can't answer, I'm pooping."   

When the call came, I went with the more colorful "Riding the gravy train.  Can you call Dad's phone?"  One by one, she received an ASSault against her attempts to get us to answer the FT call.  Culminating in this text, we were laughing to the point of tears.

Yes, we finally relented, but if Christmas had stopped right there, with no metaphorical gold or frankincense, the mirth would have been gift enough.  Kendall got got.  And in this family, we live to get Kendall.

There will never be a substitute for holding your children close - I know so many of you were dealing with the same feelings this morning - but we had a wonderful time taking turns opening presents across the (s)miles.

In between reveals, I found myself thinking about all the people across the country whose Christmas day has been made so very much brighter because of your efforts with Yes, Virginia.  This year was exceptional - we purchased over $2,000 in gift cards for groceries and needed personal items.  Santa delivered hundreds of dollars in gifts to households that without your efforts would have been passed by the sleigh.  Clothes, toys, boots, shoes, books - lots and lots of books.  Stuffed animals galore for cuddling, soft comforters for staying warm at night.  You paid over $700 in utility bills insuring homes have electricity or gas today.  So many families will have a real feast today because of you.

In short, you made a profound difference for so many people.  

That is always the greatest gift I receive each year.  For 12 years you have all rallied and donated and cared.  You have made elfing efforts possible, touching people who have never heard of our little collective, but now who will never forget.  Elfing is tough and time consuming and as heartbreaking as it is heart lifting - especially so this year as we were allowed into the final days of Rachael who left this world far too early.  I did receive a picture of her and her precious daughter on her final day (not something I am able to share for privacy reasons) and want you to know that your blanket was front and center providing warmth and comfort and love from strangers who helped insure Rachael left this world knowing that what I always cling to is true - The good people outnumber the bad, the bad just get all the attention.

We all know the reality of our world, our country.  People are hungry, people are unemployed, our government continues to play games with our lives, and 337,845 families woke up today missing someone lost to COVID.  But my wish for you today, no matter how much you are missing them and having to settle for Facetimes and Zooms with your loved ones, is that you find the merry and the bright - even if they are only the flickers of light on your trees - and know that you matter, that I see you, and that my world - and the world of so many families you touched - is immeasurably brighter because you are in it.

Love to you all,

Linda 

 

 

Cutting The Line

Cuts.  We all know what it means.  We have all had it done to us.  Chances are we have all done it to someone else.

Cheating the process by slithering into line ahead of people, facilitated by knowing someone further up the queue is something we learn how to do as a child.  And while we become more proficient and less dicky about it as adults, it's hardly ever received well by those for whom the line just grew larger by the insertion of your ass.

Amusement parks rides, cafeteria lines, movie ticket queues - in most cases there's no true harm, regardless of how foul is the practice.  So we have to wait a few more minutes for our rectangle of pizza or for the next Pirates of the Caribbean boat.  We get on with it.

Sadly, the cutting we are seeing take place now at the highest levels of governance is not just irritating, it's infuriating.

For months and months and months we have watched as spineless GOPers blow off the pandemic.  From undercutting the importance of mask wearing to playing fast and loose with the reporting of numbers in their states to full on fellating the Tangerine Taint so they may avoid a scary tweet - the GOP have been the purveyors of bad information, lies, violent rhetoric resulting in actual plots.  They have paraded around unmasked, demanding restaurants be open, downplaying the severity of the virus.  They have championed hydroxychloroquine, called COVID a hoax, laughed at the CDC, derided Dr. Fauci, and accused doctors of faking COVID diagnosis for more money.

This is the latest example of GOPers' blinding stupidity, their "FUCK YOU" attitude towards others, and their complete dissociation from anything resembling reality.  

the Whitestone Republican Club in NYC apparently held a Christmas party this year without a care in the world about COVID pic.twitter.com/mHzW86d9M7

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) December 21, 2020

The behavior of those in Congress, the Senate, and the White House has all been disgusting and dangerous.  They know they are playing to a seriously dim crowd, a gaggle of armed twats who barely made it past basic high school science, a clot of ignorance just waiting for the chance to break free within the body politic.

One week ago we watched as the first nurse received the first dose of Pfizer vaccine.  It was a great moment.  Millions of doses stood at the ready in warehouses, just waiting to be deployed across the land to begin making a real difference.  Then we found out that Pfizer had not been told by our government what to do with them or where to send them.  Florida Man Ron DeSantis, also known as Trump's third ball, boldly stated that Pfizer was suffering a "production issue" and that the Sunshine state's order was “on hold right now.”  Pfizer immediately clapped back that, “This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them."  

Ahhh, but then the delay began to make sense when Moderna's vaccine was approved for distribution this past Friday night.  Moderna being a company in which Trump and his band of merry miscreants have stock.  Go figure.

So, here we are, two vaccines now available, countless frontline hospital workers waiting to receive their first dose of the required two.  Millions of elderly people, essential workers, those who are immunocompromised, people who may not be doctors or nurses but who have hospital or patient exposure like my daughter - all waiting.  All of them queued up to receive these first available rounds.

But look who's cutting the line.

Pence - which whatever.  I get it, he's the VP, chain of command, line of succession, etc.  But he's also the Coronavirus Task Force leader who co-owns 325,988 deaths.  SO FAR.  He's the dipshit who tried to declare the virus over back in June.  The asshat who entered a hospital to visit COVID patients and REMOVED HIS MASK.  The suck up who continually tells us how "proud" he is of Trump's response to the virus.  You know, all the while his own staff was contracting it, all the while he happily attends White House unmasked superspreader events. 

Mitch McConnell, who looks for all the world like an animated corpse on the best of days, jumped the line and got himself a shot after doing fuck all to help anyone in this country.  But fear not, he took a brief break from cramming more conservatives judges in to graciously toss $600 out in stimulus money to the unwashed, unvaccinated masses.  Compare that to the $2000 per month citizens of Canada have been receiving all year.  But hey, GO USA.   

Trump's personal buttplug, Lindsey Graham, cut the line over the weekend to get his first dose.  This is the same reprobate who refused to be tested prior to a debate earlier this year.  This is the same man who has facilitated Trump's reign of terror for four years, including this year as Trump held rally after rally spreading COVID everywhere he went.  He famously said of the attempt to shut down the country to contain the virus in the early days:  "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF."  Refresh.  326,331.  That's another 343 who would beg to differ with him.  If they were still alive.

Then of course we have Marco von Bibleverse, who never met a crisis that could not be solved by throwing up scripture on Twitter.  This Jello spined, mealy mouthed, sack of suck, who for the past 8 months has mocked mask wearing, politicized the virus at every turn, and refused to hold Trump accountable AT ALL, grabbed a child on the deck of the Titanic and begged his way to the front of the line for a spot in a vaccine lifeboat.  This same bag of bile openly whined last week about Republicans being referred to as "fuckers," clutching Lindsey Graham's pearls and decrying the lack of decorum.  Here's a Bible verse for you Rubio:  And on the 8th day He said 'Let there be Republicans, and there were, and he said Ooops.  FUCKERS.'  ~ We'rescrewed, Marco, Puke, and Don 11:03

And then there's this corn brained, useless husk - Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa.  She has spent the pandemic mocking mask wearing, distancing, downplaying the virus, and gleefully spreading the Qanon conspiracy that deaths were being inflated to make the president look bad.  And then she embraced and spread the bullshit that doctors were falsifying COVID deaths in order to pad their bottom line$.  Yet there she was, coiffed and wearing a go-clubbing leopard mask, taking a dose that should have gone into the arm of an ER doctor or ambulance paramedic or ICU janitor.  Suddenly happy to get a vaccine for a virus she claimed was a hoax, and encouraging all her wetbrained constituents to get theirs, too.

The hypocrisy is staggering to me.  The entitlement, the tone deafness, the lack of self awareness, the inability to think about what they have said and done to make this pandemic worse.  Yet they have zero compunction about pushing to the head of the line when those on the actual front lines still don't know when they will receive the first round.

Fuckers is far too kind.  They are takers.  They are venal, self absorbed, C*NTS who have been cutting the lines their entire lives.  Only this time, their selfish actions actually have deadly consequences.

Christmas is in four days.  12,000 more people will not be around to open a gift, sing a carol, Facetime a loved one because these feral pigs in the GOP did nothing to help them stay alive.  Feral pigs who are now doing everything to keep themselves alive.

 

100,000 People Will Be Dead Before Inauguration

Take that in.  That is not hyperbole.  That is not exaggeration to make a point.  That is a low end estimate based on our current rate of losing 3,000+ people per day to COVID-19.

Between yesterday morning and this morning - exactly 24 hours later - we lost 3,687 lives.  Using the airplane analogy I instituted last week, that is the equivalent of 22 full 737s dropping out of the sky and killing all onboard.

Last week, it was only 19 airplanes per day.  Then again, less than a month ago we were losing 1 person per minute.  Overachievers that we are, we have are now dropping 1 citizen into the ground every 30 seconds.

Our stats are horrifying and they have fuck all chance of improving anytime soon.

We have been abandoned by the government.  Hell, in truth we were abandoned long ago.  This week's disgusting revelations that they were actively wanting us all to become infected shows exactly how ignorant and lazy and venal those in power have been.  

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.  "Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…" 

We want them infected.

Their simplistic goal of herd immunity would require 6,000,000 dead Americans.  And the notion that young people have zero to little risk?  Tell that to the grieving families who have buried children and young adults.  

But let's play along.  Let all the kids and infants and teens and young adults, etc contract COVID.  They then will shed and spread it to their parents, their teachers, their grandparents, strangers they pass in the Walmart.  Result?  Thinning of the herd. A dead herd.

Because of their carefree attitude with your life, my life, all of our lives, coupled with the complete lack of coherent messaging about precautions, mask wearing, etc, this has resulted in 318,413 deaths.  So far.

Everywhere we look we see the result of this administration's failure.  Weddings that turn super spreader events continue because Why Not?  Maskless events have been nonstop in the White House, right up to this week with more holiday gatherings.  The Orange Orifice refuses to wear a mask lest he seem less manly (as if his lifts, girdle, and troweled on Maybelline scream He-man) so we are gifted with scenes like this one here in my state.  A Privilege of Karens and Chads oozing through a Target, unmasked, screeching about their freedoms and throwing in "retards" for good measure.

Anti-maskers in Arizona invade a Target pic.twitter.com/qMDsG6jjlA

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) December 18, 2020

All they proved with their stunt is that they are classless, selfish pricks who should be denied healthcare when they contract the virus and should be last in line for the vaccine.  Enjoy your freedumb, assholes.

This past week Texas Monthly magazine chronicled a wedding in which the photographer was casually told by a bridesmaid that the groom has tested positive the day before.  Whopping it up, maskless, spreading it all around, including to the photographer who came up positive.

A stellar example of parenting emerged from Ohio when two mothers chartered a party bus for 60 maskless teenagers.  

And 7 managers were fired from a Tyson plant in Iowa after it was revealed they had been taking bets on how many employees would contract COVID.  At least 1,000 have contracted it so far and 6 have died.  But hey, those employees are poor and mostly brown so let's make a sporting event of it.

This past week we have seen the administering of the first round of the vaccine in some places.  That is good news.  (My daughter receives her first shot tomorrow - she is a grad student with hospital exposure.)  The problem arises because this administration declined the offer of additional doses this past summer, putting us far behind where we could be moving forward.  And now we find out that Pfizer has millions of doses sitting in warehouses and zero communication from the government as to where to ship them.

Sadly, that last bit is coming into clearer focus today as Moderna has also been cleared for distribution, and Trump has a financial stake in that company.  (They literally have chosen profit over life and have left us to die, yet are pearl clutching because someone dared correctly identify them as "fuckers" in an interview.  I can't...)

Even when the vaccine rollout becomes widespread, we are up against a headwind of idiocy and science adverse dullards who refuse to get it.  Worse than just the laypeople who spout Facebook-Q-Reddit bullshit about 5G and tracking chips in the vaccine are the medical people who refuse to take it.  This past week Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of critical care at Houston Memorial told NPR that a full half of his nurses have said they will not take the vaccine for "political reasons."

I'm sorry, but if you are a doctor or a nurse, keep your fucking politics out of the hospital.  That these dimbulbs are exposed daily to COVID patients and see the devastation, yet they still won't welcome the vaccine?  They have no business in the halls of any care facility.

Vaccines work.  Think not?  Ask yourself why you don't have polio.  Why you don't know anyone who has/had polio.  The COVID vaccines have been built on the back of continuing coronavirus research that has been going on for YEARS.  Coronaviruses are not new, and these new vaccines have been developed to identify and attack the protein which distributes COVID-19easily in your cells.  It works to create the immune memory to kick in should COVID enter your body.  

Yes, memory.  I have written about this before.  In fact, my daughter's partner's father is a researcher at Harvard who has had a hand in identifying the memory our immune system develops.  His most recent discovery has to do with the way measles actually triggers immune amnesia of sorts.  Not just amnesia towards measles, but in the overall making you susceptible to any number of diseases.

This is why the glut of measles anti-vaxxers have been so problematic.  And now we have COVID anti-vaxxers on top of that pile of horseshit masquerading as choice.

The only choice you are making is to be an insufferable, selfish, willfully ignorant asshole.  

Which leads me back to those airplanes.  Since I began typing 7 more have crashed in this country.  7.325 actually.  That's right, 1,172 more people are dead.  963 out of every million have died since March.  94,743 more people have come up positive since 9am.  For his part, that orange affront to humanity has tweeted 729 times since the election.  ABOUT THE ELECTION.  None about COVID or the number of lives being lost daily.

100,000 people will be dead before we finally sweep that tangerine sewage from the White House.  But even more acutely, Christmas is exactly one week away.  Conservatively, 21,000 of us won't be around to unwrap a gift, or sing a single note of Joy To The World.

Why anybody thinks they are so special that it cannot be them is beyond me.  Do your part.  Wash your hands, wear a damned mask.  And as soon as the opportunity presents itself, get in line for your first dose of vaccine.  Otherwise you are setting yourself up for endless Silent Nights missing a loved one, or for you in the quiet eternity of the grave.

Yes, Virginia, She Knew

It has only been one week. 

One week since I was given the privilege of learning about someone facing terminal cancer, facing her own mortality and all that went with it - especially leaving this world with her beautiful 7 year old daughter in it.

One week since DGMS family member Debbie came to me with her story and the question if Yes, Virginia could make room to help this mom in her final days with acute needs, with last gifts she could give to her daughter, with items to comfort her in hospice.

One week since I was connected by Debbie with this woman's dear friend named Kat, who has been the kind of person we should all be so lucky to have in our worlds when our worlds go seriously off balance.

One week since I was given permission to share the story with you, to ask for your help through donations.  One week to move as fast as possible to ask questions about what the daughter loves, to shop for things to help ease the way for the mom, to provide gift cards to help in covering current and upcoming expenses like the daughter's 8th birthday in February.

During the first 24 hours of my writing about them, you all stepped up as you always can be counted on to do - with heart, soul, incredible compassion for someone you will never know.  To say I know unconditional love and trust through your actions is an understatement.  And thank you are two woefully small words for what I feel.

During this past week I have been allowed to read updates the mom had been making for her circle of friends.  Yesterday morning Kat shared the latest one with me.  Through them all shone a spirit that has humbled me to my core.  She was upbeat but reconciled.  She was positive but knew.  And she was far more concerned about everyone else than she was about herself.  Right up to yesterday when she was asking what she could do for them.

I know we can never know how we would each respond in the same scenario, but I don't know that I would be possessed of such grace, such beauty, such emotional philanthropy.  I selfishly look upward and hope I never have to find out.

One week.  When I wrote last Sunday introducing you to her story I said that she was not expected to make it to Christmas.  Even typing the words and being privy to details, my mind did not fully wrap itself around that. 

But none of us knows how much time we have, even when we know we are going to have less than other people.

She passed last night.

I am allowed to share with you that she did get to spend time with her daughter this past week.  That she was lucid and was able to celebrate Hanukkah with her.  I am also allowed to tell you that she did, in fact, know about you, about Yes, Virginia.  And that "she was blown away by the kindness of strangers and all of the love that was being shown to her and her daughter." 

I sit here in tears for an incredibly brave woman I will never know personally, for her young daughter who will be surrounded by those who will insure she grows up remembering her mother and how extraordinary she was, for Kat and all her friends and family who have lost a shining, wondrous spirit.  And my tears are also because of you and this amazing blog family who think first and foremost with your hearts.

Yes, Virginia, she knew what you had done.  And now, with permission from Kat, I want you to know her name.  

Please take a moment and send a thought, a prayer, a wish into the ether for her, her daughter, and all who must now move forward with only their memories of an extraordinary, vibrant, selfless woman who was taken far, far too soon.  A woman, a mother, a friend named Rachael.

Unmasking Our National Shame

November 23rd.  That was the last time I sat here and wrote about COVID.  It was a last minute plea about being prudent, staying safe, choosing to sacrifice shared stuffing and crescent rolls on Thanksgiving so that we may all be able to enjoy our friends and families even more next Thanksgiving.  It was titled This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things ... Like Christmas.

Taking the past two weeks off from writing about this pandemic has been as much about redirection of efforts as it has about self care.  For nine months I have tracked the numbers daily, multiple times a day.  My kids know that any Facetime is likely to include me being able to ramble the stats without looking at my tracking sheets.  There is an element of "not healthy" to the depths in which I have immersed myself. 

So the break was a breather.  

Yes, I still wrote down the numbers, but only once a day.  Yes, I read the news, but I gave my keyboard a reprieve from the constant beating.  I also used my time to work on this blog's collective Yes, Virginia effort, helping those in need, those who are hungry, keeping Santa alive for children, hope alive for adults.

That latter use of my time is imminently more preferable and satisfying.

This morning I again refreshed the World COVID stats.  The numbers are harrowing.  They are frightening.  They are shameful.  So here I am, all apologies to my poor keyboard.

We continue to lead the world by large margins:

Cases - 16,080,812  (2nd place is India with 9,814,064)  We are adding over 200,000 cases per day.  It was not that long ago that Dr. Fauci warned we could see 100,000 new cases per day if we did not take precautions.  He was laughed at, shouted down, and has around the clock security protection against the death threats he and his family receive daily.

Deaths - 300,363 (2nd place is Brazil with 179,801)

Active cases - 6,440,226 (2nd place is France with 2,106,368)  

Fun fact:  Coronavirus has now lapped heart disease as the official #1 cause of death in the United States.

In terms of deaths per million, when I last wrote on 11/23, we stood at 794 of every million Americans dead from COVID-19.  Today?  905.  Take a moment and let that leap sink in.  With each hour that passes, that number creeps higher, meaning the chances of you winning the coronavirus lottery increase - prize? solitary death, no family, friends to hold your hand.

We are now losing Americans at a rate of over one 9/11 per day.  Remember 9/11?  Think back to how horrified we all were.  How hard it was to stomach, much less digest, the number 2,977.  My God - 2,977 lives lost in a single day.  We cried openly.  We hugged strangers.  We came together as a country.  We mourned together.  

Now 2,977 is but a tiny sign in the rearview mirror.

We are either so inured to the devastation being wrought by the virus, or still ignorantly shouting conspiracy theories that we aren't even blinking.  We certainly are not crying together, mourning together, and for obvious reasons, we cannot hug a stranger on the street.

Back on December 3rd, the CDC was estimating we would see between 303,000 and 329,000 deaths by December 26th.  That was last Thursday.  We will see 303,000 by tomorrow morning.  329,000 by the 20th.  What a bunch of overachievers we are, huh?  Get out that "We're #1!" foam finger!

At this moment, there are 30,000 people in this country who will not see another Christmas, will not finish lighting the candles on the menorah.  How does that not merit the attention, the shock, the coming together of this national community?

Rhetorical question - I know.

We are a country divided.  We are a country trying desperately to make it through the next 40 days until real leadership, leadership with empathy, intelligence, skills, and no idea of its golf handicap to be inaugurated.  

Huh.  40 days, 40 nights.  You Bible adherents are familiar with that surely?  Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.  Hungering in both body and spirit - like this abandoned, abused, rotting-from-the-head country of ours. 

Combover Caligula has abandoned this nation.  Not a peep about the number of deaths (but a bitch won't STFU about the election HE LOST BIGLY).  Complete disregard for safety measures (see his bullshit rambling at his unmasked Hanukkah party earlier this week), no push from the Oval for the House and Senate to do something meaningful for the suffering, starving, financially ruined in this country (but he has all the time in the world to Tweet like an animated Bratz doll).

That President Mongo is still out on the stump telling the rubes that we are "rounding the turn" and that "we should open it up"?  I direct your attention back to This Is Why We Cannot Have Nice Things ... Like Christmas.  

We literally sit on the cusp of a vaccine beginning to be distributed in this country, and yet we are still too selfish to buckle down a while longer and give a damn about one another.  I am so tired of the enormity of greed, avarice, sloth, willful ignorance, and emotional depravity that is obviously the lifeblood of 74 million MAGAts.  It is because of him and them that we are where we are.  That hospitals are again at capacity; that healthcare workers are breaking down.  It is because of MAGAt nation that 200,000+ new cases are popping up daily - the youngest this week?  2 MONTHS OLD.

Yes, TWO MONTHS OLD, you selfish oafs.  Where's all your pro-life bullshit for that baby? 

We are still seeing literal mouthbreathers huffing, puffing, spitting, shitting their pants, and accosting innocent workers in stores, in banks, at the post office.  Those videos show up daily.  The mere act of asking them to put on a mask while they shop is too much for their lizard brains to process.  They rant endlessly about it being a hoax, a lie, a plot, a plandemic.  Somehow the truth is just too simple for their excitement addiction to process.  

Here's the truth, rubes:  COVID is real.  Regardless of how it started, where is started, IT STARTED.  COVID is deadly.  Not just to old people, but to all people.  COVID is sinister.  You can get it, have mild symptoms, get over it, and be struck down two months later when your lungs show up like crushed glass on an x-ray.  Hello, pre-existing condition for the rest of your life.  COVID is not some conspiracy timed to make mail-in ballots a thing.  (Sweet Jesus, that is their new argument.)  Mail-in ballots have actually been around since the Civil War days.  They are safe, they are legal.  COVID was not spread just to make your orange deity look bad.  I really hate to break it to you, but he does that all on his own.  And the idea that the entire globe got in on a plan to kill 1,594,063 citizens (so far) just to discredit the biggest loser in history?  My God, I hope you people stretch before doing those mental gymnastics.

A vaccine is coming.  However, thanks to your hydroxychloroQueen, it won't be coming fast enough.  He waved off the offer to buy millions of additional doses of it this past summer.  So when you see other countries way out in front of us, be sure to place your blame where it belongs.  (As if you ever would.)  Even with the vaccine in your system, Moderna warns, "the vaccine will [protect you from getting sick, or at least very sick, but it won't necessarily prevent you from carrying a transmittable virus that could shed and infect others."

Translation:  It is not a magic bullet.  (It is also not a Bill Gates-George Soros-5G-microchip implant-tracking plot, you pathetic low iQ clownshoes.) It is going to take time and the majority of this nation stepping up to be vaccinated.  More than that, it is going to take the majority of this nation to actually begin giving a shit about one another again.

Sadly, the latter is a bigger stretch than the former.

But back to our death count.  

We are essentially ignoring the number 3,000 per day.  Invoking 9/11 has done nothing to shake us out of our COVID ennui.  How about this?  The passenger plane most in use daily is the 737-800.  Most normal configuration seats 160 people.  Imagine you turn on the news or check Twitter and NINETEEN full planes begin dropping from the sky daily.  Would you be shocked then?  Would you demand something be done?  Or would you sit quietly by watching the Golfer-in-Chief continue to ignore the horrific reality?

That is where we are in this country.  NINETEEN passenger jets are crashing daily.  With those stats you certainly wouldn't be running to buy a ticket to Grandma's for Christmas, would you?  If that visual is enough to make you even hypothetically re-evaluate your behavior, then the cold hard reality of 3,000 people dying from this virus daily should be no different.

There is nothing so special about you that you cannot be in a plane crash, and there is nothing so stink free about your shit that COVID cannot snatch your last breath from you.

Our national shame is posted hourly as the numbers of dead grow.  It's past time to care.  Put on a goddamned mask and be part of the solution.

Feeding the Spirit - When Hunger Is More Than Physical

The past week, in Yes, Virginia terms, has been a lot.  So many stories over so many years have stopped me in my tracks, opened my eyes, reopened my eyes, brought me to tears.  But the one last week - the mother with cancer and her little girl has just left me gutted.  I know from your responses it hit hard with so many of you, too.

With your help, financial aid is on the way.  Money never fixes everything, but it will be able to help with acute needs right now and in the weeks ahead.  Your donations have insured the little girl will be enjoying special items of her favorite The Descendants character - Mal.  These gifts will be part of the fleeting time she will have to spend with her mother.

While this may seem odd, I want to show you the two items that were delivered to the mom today.  I had mentioned that when our DGMS family member Jackie was losing her battle with cancer, that in addition to filling her last wish to give gifts to her tiny grandkids, we provided the softest blanket I could find to help comfort her.  She loved it.  So I purchased this one for this mom.

Soft, white, able to soothe everywhere it touches.  

The other item the friend coordinating this assistance asked about was the possibility of stuffed animal for her to hold.  That part has had me staring into space a lot for days.  Yes, I found this guy and she now has him to cuddle.  (I have been assured he is "like a soft marshmallow.")  But I keep getting caught up on the fact that while buying stuffed animals is not new to the Yes, Virginia effort, they have always been for children.  A stuffed animal is a symbol of safety, comfort, security.  Realizing that it actually transcends age, that we all hunger for safety, comfort, security when we are scared - well, my heart breaks for her.  My hope is that he helps soften the time she has left, and eventually will be with her daughter to comfort her and remind her of her mom.

Again, this one has been hard.  I am always honored to be allowed into people's worst moments, but this is a nightmare with no happy ending coming.  I am profoundly grateful to you all for your help in reaching out while we can.

Last night, hunger was again brought home to me, in all its meanings.  Snuggled up with Rudy on the couch, my phone dinged and I checked the message.  With this mom's permission I can share a bit here.  It began like this...

Hi. If there is room for us, we could really use food. But please only as a last resort. We won't starve. Help others who need it more. I was doing really good this summer. Its only been since winter came that I find it hard to break even. Utilities and heat are increased now and with that, its back to paycheck to paycheck. Food is tight.

This is not a new refrain.  When I tell you the requests for food assistance are constant, I am not exaggerating.  But they always hit hard.  I take for granted being able to shop and not worry about the total.  I am guilty of standing in front of a full fridge and thinking "there is nothing to eat."  The reality is there is nothing that I am craving at the moment.  Privilege.

Her message continued...

I'm trying not to get down on myself and I don't even want to send this to you. Its disheartening. Ok. Stopping and resetting again. Trying to stay composed and not lose it. I have 14 dollars in my bank account until the 15th. And I think service fees will wipe that out soon.

This is the reality of our world right now.  Through no fault of their own, far too many have been thrown into financial peril.

Okay I'm going to send this now and stop stalling. I know there isn't any judgment.

No, there is no judgement.  There is no embarrassment to be found in my inbox.  Only the deep desire to stretch our Yes, Virginia dollars as far as we possibly can, feeding the bodies and spirits of as many as we can.

Through the magic of technology we were able to get food money to her immediately and hopefully some better rest last night.  (Again, I know money does not fix every problem, but without money, none of us can eat.  So in this respect, money does fix some things.  If even temporarily.)

This is what you do.  I get thanks yous all the time, but the reality is I am just a conduit for your generosity, your trust, your desire to make this world a better place.  I know we are not some huge Make-A-Wish-Salvation-Army-Toys-For-Tots endeavor; that we were crowdfunding before it was called crowdfunding; that the needs we touch are a not even a drop in the bucket, more like mist over the bucket, but the lives we touch are real, the changes you effect are real.  The hope you provide is REAL.

We are coming into the homestretch for our 12th year of giving here at DGMS.  There are more mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, smiles to make, so if you can donate, you know the drill.  Paypal>Send Money>[email protected]

Thank you again for feeding their spirits.  And mine.  I love you all.

~ Linda

 

 

Our Sleigh Runneth Over ... With Tears

I have written many times through our twelve Yes, Virginia years of the humbling nature of this endeavor.  From the generosity you all display each year, to the trust between you and I, to the emails themselves from people baring their worst moments - many a tear falls on my keyboard.

The past 24 hours have seen a torrent.

Many of the people we help find their way to my inbox by you - encouraging a friend to trust the process, to believe that a group of complete strangers actually do good work like this.  Last night a family with four children climbed into the sleigh that way.  With their permission, here is a portion of the email (as usual, protection of their identity is paramount to this process, so children's names and ages are never revealed)...

This past March, we (like most) had a tough time due to Covid. We had just gotten on our feet financially prior to the shutdown. Then he lost his job due to it all and it took a huge toll on us. Unemployment and stimulus were a HUGE help but we fell so behind prior that we didn't have time to save. We had to pay off all our outstanding debts and we're caught up on everything for a while. Made sure the children had clothes and anything else they needed at the time being.

  My fiance' has been looking for jobs, but has not heard anything. I've been looking for online jobs so we don't have to leave because we have a baby that has no immune system established...and I am having terrible luck myself. 

 We are so far behind in debt that we are trying to sell one of our vehicles just to pay rent. And even then, we will still be 200.00 short.

At this point? We just want to have some sort of relief and happiness for the children. They've had a tough year too.

 

I am so happy this person was directed to us by a long time DGMS family member.  And with the information about the children in hand, I will begin to fill wish lists so there is Christmas magic, as well as a gift card for basic groceries to help this family finally take a breath.

 

Since we began our efforts again over a month ago, your donations have already been used for over $1,200 in grocery gift cards.   While food always takes center stage this time of year, COVID has plowed through our normal requests for assistance, and filling refrigerators and pantries is the #1 request we receive.  Hundreds of your dollars have gone to clothing and toys and magic.  When necessary, we even provide wrapping paper.

 

Facing trying times is isolating.  Struggle, especially hunger, is embarrassing.  Adding COVID on top of normal challenges is simply paralyzing.  Good people who have Titanic-ed into an economic iceberg through no navigational fault of their own are hurting.  The last line in that email I shared above - the line about the children - has played on a loop in my head all day:  They've had a tough year too.

 

Children are not oblivious.  They know when their parents are stressed.  They know when their world feels in peril.  And no matter how hard the parents try, even the youngest can feel when things go off balance.

 

Which brings me to our next email.  As I even begin to type about it, I feel the ball in my throat, the threat of tears, even though I have let them fall repeatedly today for this mother.

 

Again, brought to our attention by a long time DGMSer, this mother's story is tragic in the way the Greeks only wish they could have written.  She is 43 years old.  Divorced for the last three years, her daughter is her world.  She is 7 years old.  Please cement those ages in your mind before I go on.

 

I am 54.  I remember now how young 43 felt.  I can also easily picture each of my three children at the tender age of 7.  I was the center of their universe.   We moved a lot, but wherever I was, well, that was home.  A 7 year old looks at their primary caregiver as magical, capable of anything and everything.  They are, without question, that child's safe place in this world.

 

Now, imagine yourself at 43 with a 7 year old, and your world is torn asunder by the words "stage 4 breast cancer."

 

This mother has fought valiantly.  Surgery, chemo, radiation - everything to shrink the tumors, buy her time to recover, possibly clear the hurdle.  

 

Only the hurdles got moved.

 

Her cancer has metastasized to her liver, her bones.  And last week she found out... well, I have been given several posts she has made through the months on Facebook:

 

October 23, 2020:Woke up with sharp, intense pain in my chest, on the right. Could be nerve pain or cancer pain, I’m not sure. Meds only help so much, and too much oxy makes me nauseous if I don’t time the balance between it & the anti-nausea med right. I’m 8wks out from the mastectomy. Chemo for the left today & should get results from skin rash biopsy today. Hurt my arm the other night just trying to extend it to put bathroom shower pole up, fucked me up yesterday. Yet I need to somehow get that arm to extend itself for radiation. Please send prayers, this pain has got to go.

October 23, 2020 update:

The skin rash I was hoping was cellulitis, is not. It’s the cancer.

November 1, 2020, while sharing her GoFundMe account:

I am a single mom fighting breast cancer, and it recently metastasized into a cancerous rash over my mastectomy scar & chest on the right, just as I’m beginning radiation over the same area. Further, I was admitted to the hospital Friday with shortness of breath, and have fluid in one of my lungs that is being extracted tomorrow. I have medical bills and I’m fighting to break a multigenerational early maternal loss pattern in my family. I want so much to watch my kiddo grow up.

November 28, 2020: The cancer is in my brain.

The cancer is in her brain.  I am not ashamed to tell you I crumbled upon reading this portion.  I cannot imagine facing my children and my mortality at the same time.  I have been made privy to the plans moving forward.  This mother does not expect to make it to Christmas.

Again, this mother's heart can only sit and think about my own children when they were so young - all my hopes for them, my dreams for them, my excitement at watching them grow through the years to come.  Hell, I cannot imagine this with them 28, 27, and 24.  They are my still my world.  And even on my own worst days when I feel useless, I know deep inside, I am still theirs.

Her friends are filling the GoFundMe to assist with her medical bills, but where we come in is being able to step up and take care of food, personal items, immediate needs, gifts for her child.  

Christmas 2018, as our DGMS family member Jackie Anderson was facing her own ticking clock with cancer, all she wanted to was to provide gifts one last time for her tiny grandchildren.  You did that for her.  And it meant the world.  You are doing that again this year in her memory.

The last time I sat here openly writing about death and asking for your help, was when Toni left us - her life cut short when she was hit in a crosswalk.  You all literally stepped up and carried her to her rest.  I am asking you now to step up and help us give this mother some small peace of mind as she prepares to leave this world and her little girl.

Five little children added to our sleigh.  None of them deserve the circumstances into which they find themselves thrust.  Their parents want only to provide some magic, if only short term, for them all.

I know we can do this.  Because it is what we do.  More and more, I find myself believing that THIS is what the universe intended when I first sat down and began typing here almost 13 years ago.  That this small space in this vast internet would find and bring together the best angels of our nature, the most giving of souls, the most beautiful of people who see, first and foremost, with their hearts.

The link is open,  Please help if you can.

Linda

When Love Just Isn't Enough - The Worst Part of Parenting

I love my children.

Anyone who has been around this blog through the years knows this.  My love for them is beyond reason, sanity, beyond description.  There is nothing I would not do for them, no mountain I would not climb, no valley I would not cross, no river too wide, Marvin.  They are the air I breathe.

Through the years I have watched as they faced struggles, heartbreaks, abuses, and unexpected challenges.  When I could, I tempered the pain, I fought for them, I faced down foes, and stood firmly behind them when they had to face them themselves.  It's what a parent does.

But when you cannot get between them and an emotional freight train; when you see what is coming and cannot stop it; when you would literally take a bullet to save them, but are faced with the horror of simply watching the pain come to pass - well, it is the absolute worst part of being a parent.

Roughly a month ago, I watched as our oldest daughter fell in love with a tiny kitten only to have him wrenched away by death three weeks later.  All the love in my heart could not protect hers.  All the words I could construct could not soften the blow, dull the pain, the shock.  And then when they adopted another tiny urchin two weeks ago, hearts lifted only to be caught once again in a vice as she was taken back to the shelter with a life threatening virus.  For those four days, I lived for each update, each photo as they visited her daily.  My mantra to my husband was "She has to be ok.  I cannot watch Culley's heart break again."

Fate deemed I would not have to.  Sophie is back home and thriving, being loved beyond measure, reason, sanity.

Today I sit here feeling the weight of failure again, however, as our middle daughter is states away from the reach of my arms, waiting for the vet to come to her home. 

Lola, one of our cats - in truth though, ALWAYS Kendall's cat - has made many appearances at this blog through the years.  She was our first foray into cat adoption.  A beautiful handful of shiny gray fur and immense green eyes, Lola set the stage for the four cats who would enter our lives behind her.  They say a cat chooses their person - I saw that first with Lola.  While she was adored and loved by all of us, she gravitated to Kendall from the beginning - two peas in a pod. 

For over thirteen years, she has been with Kendall - even when college separated them for months, Lola waited patiently for holidays, vacation time when Kendall would reappear and all would be right in her world, and Kendall's.  Two personalities so very particular about so very many things - they simply "got" each other.

When Ken graduated from college and got her first job, Lola moved to Dallas to be with her.  When Harvard came calling, Lola entered the highest levels of academia with Kendall, making the trip to Boston and earning that MPH alongside Ken.  She then endured the three day drive to head back to Dallas to begin pursuing a doctorate with her.  

Lola's life has not been easy.  The perfectly tiny kitten grew, and grew, and grew into a gorgeous cat whose frame was never meant to carry what her hormones insisted it must.  With each passing year her joints bore the brunt, her hips carrying her forward despite the struggle.  She lived for Kendall, she took care of Kendall.  When COVID and quarantine entered the picture, Lola was Ken's constant companion through the lonely months of isolation in Boston.

I know that part of the animal caring for the human may sound odd to anyone who has not welcomed a pet into their life.  Point of fact, I used to be one of those people.  "It's just a cat or it's just a dog" would be my thought when people spoke of their pets as people, or mourned them so hard when death eventually came.  Then we got Oreo, our Pomeranian.  And then Lola.  And Nugget, and Bebin and Rocky and Leo.

With Oreo I finally got it.  She was not just a pet.  She was family.  She lived for our every move, she nursed us when we were not well.  If one of us was down or sick, she knew and sat vigil beside us.  And when she grew ill beyond the reach of medicine and surgery, when I looked into her eyes and saw it was time - I finally, completely understood the pain of saying goodbye to what others merely write off as "a pet."  

Holding her as the drugs entered her system and she fell to sleep forever stands as one of the worst days in my life.  It was also one of the most beautiful.  On that day, the love that had kept her alive, nurtured her, played with her, sustained her, was also the love that stepped forward to help her as only it could.  

My heart broke in pieces as Toby and I Facetimed Culley and Kendall and Rudy to allow them to say their goodbyes to the first pet they ever had, the best friend they knew.  I could not protect them from that pain.  The only way out, as they say, was through.

Kendall stands at that juncture today with Lola.  In hours, the vet will come to Kendall's apartment and she will have to be stronger than she has ever been in her life.  I cannot adequately explain what Lola has been to my daughter, the pain that consumes her every breath as she sits with Lola right now, brushing her, talking to her, offering her her most favorite thing in the world - whipped cream.

As her parent, my heart is shattering because I cannot get in between her and this torment.  It is not a foe I can stand up to and face down for her.  I cannot make it not happen.  And in my world, where being a parent is my biggest accomplishment, where I am their biggest champion and defender, I am failing.

I know, I know logically that is not the case.  But the heart does not do logic.  The heart only does love, and today, all the love I have for my child simply will not be enough.

I am going to stop rambling now, dry my eyes, and try to stay busy until she calls.  Please, if you can, spare a thought for Kendall, for Lola, for Daniel who will be their rock and weather the storm of Kendall's grief.  And for this parent's heart that cannot stop the coming train.