Deathing, Dealing, and MLP

We are set up to cope, aren’t we, our emotional makeup can pretty well handle just about whatever comes along, within reason, if our mental state and physical condition are fairly stable, eh? But dear wives of two dear priest friends died this weekend, and it’s close. The death of Zoe Bush on Friday was a shock, she had fallen, her injury proved fatal, Zoe died in hospital in Birmingham. 

Saturday afternoon brought a call that Celia Floyd just died, and when I phoned Fr. Chuck he said she died in her sleep. This leaves me stunned in a way that is not only emotional, but in a physical way that on reflection is not foreign to me but quite close. My mind wouldn’t accommodate. Even with a long walk and a stop at MLP where I confronted my shock in 2012 when Norman died and again soon after when Bill died, and a sit-down on my steep front steps to look out at the Bay, shock wouldn’t subside, the news wouldn’t “take.” This morning I still need a think. So, this blog post is for myself.

The two other times this strangeness happened I shared with no one, but am inclined to be open this morning at the risk of giving a glimpse of eccentricity that I prefer to hide. Open but not maudlin, because it’s past, and I'll use a few exclamation points to show that I'm not taking myself overly seriously. As in !! Both other times were before my January 2011 open heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic. Both times, I learned the effect of shock in the body, of psychic pain opening physical pain. First time: September 2010, Morris died, a dear friend. Linda and I went to Dothan, where I assisted in the funeral. For my psychic and physical reaction to that, there had been a clear buildup, which I have discussed here before. All summer 2010 I had worked and supervised contractor work on the Bill Lloyd Building at HNES Cove School, most weeks six days, eight to ten hours, sometimes with tension quite high. I was dealing with a rapidly advancing heart issue that I had not decided how to confront! Throughout the summer I saw my heart condition worsening almost by the week, angina coming on more frequently and more severely, such that by the time August came I could no longer walk the length of the school hallway without stopping to pretend to read a bulletin board! Walking across Hamilton Avenue at the school, chest pain would come on so severe I’d stop and pretend to look up in a tree at a bird or squirrel or into the sky at a cloud! Stupid! More exclamation points. I knew what it was, because my grandmother’d had the same thing and I'd been researching on line. At the church in Dothan, going out down the aisle past Morris’s casket, my chest pain suddenly became so blindingly severe that I could not see, and could barely hold my consciousness! This is not a sad story, but an observation recalled by last evening's event. Making it out of the church, I groped to a notice board just outside the door, leaned on the building, and pretended to read notices before going to the car, which I could not see or walk toward, for the drive to the Dothan cemetery! 

It happened again the next month, October 2010, at Charlie’s funeral. At the church when angina came on, I sat on a bench at the memorial garden and pretended to be absorbed in the day. Later at the cemetery, parking my car, I headed for the gravesite. As I walked by the funeral car carrying the family, angina came on so severe that I couldn't stand, and so leaned on the front fender and pretended to be stopping to reflect!  

In 2012, the shock of Norman’s sudden death, and my fury at God for Bill’s dying, brought the same feelings and a long visit to MLP to settle scores with my psyche and my Deity, but it was after my surgery cured the angina, so pain was not physical. 

The intense shock last evening on receiving the call about Celia’s death was identical, the same feeling welling up inside. Psychic pain pressing to become physical. Long lasting before beginning to subside, it was a strange experience of life. Mind takes over body.

Whether I post this, or delete, or post now and later delete upon thinking better of making a fool of myself yet one more time again, the exercise of thinking through and jotting down has been therapeutic; explore psychic pain, remember when it brought on physical pain, and observe that yesterday it manifested without the physical element but not before trying. 

An epiphany, then, that may or may not help someone, even me. More likely, I’ll have second thoughts and realize that I'm terribly foolish and delete it before I head out to St. Thomas by the Sea to be with the folks there this morning.

TW 

Afterthought 1. Seldom or never do I use exclamation points, because they reduce the writer to a fool. Sorry!

Afterthought 2. MLP is My Laughing Place, after Brer Rabbit, because there are brambles there and because it's a place to hide psychically, so called because when I need to go there no place else will do.