The Illusion of Control

I realized today that part of why I haven't written here is that the thoughts I have are either totally fleeting - and lost before I'd post them - or they're huge, rich, deep - and way too tangled to write about. But part of my goal for 2010 and beyond, is letting go. While I know that has to happen on many levels, as I go along I'm realizing the depths of some of the issues that keep me hanging on for dear life.

Life lessons. That's what I think we're here for. Mine are so twisted. . . and when I think I've figured something out it just seems to end up going deeper.

Things seem unsettled right now in an odd way that I can't exactly pinpoint. But then on the other hand, as I feel like I figure certain things out, things seem more settled than before. So as I work on letting go - and as my first instinct is to freak and grab onto life tighter - things seem to be getting more comfortable with the acceptance that control is totally an illusion. And I feel like a young child teetering on my two-wheeler for the first time without training wheels. Will I succeed and ride along forevermore? Too bad in reality the first time I had my bike out for a spin as a child, I took a bad spill. Left my bike around the corner from our house to run home for some nurturing, and my bike was ripped off. I have a hard time now realizing that life doesn't always turn out that way.

I want to hold on tight and pretend that as long as I hold all dear to me very close in my arms, all will be well.

This morning as I took my 14-year old to a friend's house to head out snowboarding, I had a thick, but kind of brief conversation with his friend. His sister died tragically at age 17, just three months ago. She was killed in a car crash when she skidded around a corner and rolled her car. I asked if it would be okay for me to ask a few questions, since her death is one that keeps creeping into my head. I wonder how it would be to be her parents. His parents. Maybe if I can write some of these things out, I can help myself figure some of these things out. I got stuck along the way and while I feel like I had let go years ago, I'm realizing that until I really fully do, I will be trapped forever by that illusion of control.

For me, the story starts with the crystal clear slice of a vision that will be forever trapped in my mind. My bedroom door flung open and my dad frantically yelling "Go do that emergency stuff to your mom!" He, standing there in his Jockey boxer shorts. Me, suddenly just half awake wondering what the hell he was talking about. "That stuff you learned in school!"

In a heartbeat I went from fast asleep to another world. I flew out of bed and ran into their bedroom where she lay on her bed. Quickly, I moved for the next however long, trapped in some kind of a time-warp that seems like both a matter of minutes balanced with a life-time.

My mom really should have been moved to the floor, to a hard surface, but he had been awakened when she rose from bed and fell to the floor, so he put her back on the bed. I didn't have the heart to tell him that CPR needed to be done on a hard surface. He had sweetly put her back on her bed, to comfort her obviously dead body.

As I heard him in the other room fumbling to call for an ambulance, I started to do what I had been taught the year before in health class. What was pretty routine on a plastic CPR dummy was another whole thing on a real person laying in their real bed in your real house. And especially when it's your mom.

The pre-cardial thump, I think they call it. You slug the person. But how hard? If you slug them too hard you can break their ribs. But if you slug them just right you can bring them right to life! Much easier on the dummy, it just didn't seem natural to slug your mother. My heart was racing and I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. The vision of my dad and his skinny legs in his boxers. . . the pain in his eyes. . . the way he called out "Momma! Come out of it!". . . all still haunt me.

As he spoke in the other room, I began. The thump. The clearing of the airways, my fingers in her mouth and throat. I pulled up on the back of her neck to open the passageway. Listened for breathing and heard nothing but an ugly gurgle which I pretended may be life. I checked for a pulse again and again not sure exactly what I should feel and thinking that I hopefully just wasn't doing something right, and then I began.

Alone, my scrawny legs in my red and white striped footie pajamas, knees knocking. I found the spot which I thought was below her sternum and started compressions. Again, on a dummy it was easy, but in real life found this surreal. Too hard, they had told us, and you puncture the lungs. Too soft and you do no good. I am not sure if I went through the actions or if anything I did was doing any good - but I went on for what seemed like eternity.

Time couldn't move any slower in that blur which was eventually broken up by the sound of the neighbor's dogs howling. My mom used to laugh about the fact that they'd hear sirens long before anyone else and I was grateful to hear their piercing howls. Seconds later, I think, there were paramedics by my side. I was happy to turn the work over to someone else, but was thinking suddenly that the house was a mess and was unhappy to be hosting them at that moment. They got her onto a stretcher and pulled out all sorts of things that I had seen on TV. Bottles and needles and hoses. They needed more light, so my dad grabbed a lamp and pulled it over for them. It all happened so fast. Within minutes she was outside and was being loaded into the back of the ambulance. My dad climbed in with her and off they went, lights flashing and sirens soon to follow, off into the dark of the night and into a deep, deep fog.

I was standing alone in the dark in the middle of 79th Street. And I stood there for a minute. Or forever. Wondering if that was all real. Knowing it was, but wondering how. And what to do next.