mindful

We remember where we were "when". By this time of life, one's life is full of them. I remember the instance and where I was April 12, 1945 when told that President Roosevelt was dead - - though only nine years old, my disbelief and alarm that we were at war and beloved leader dead, would the Germans and Japs now win? 

Thursday afternoon, January 23, 1947, mama was at work. I had just walked home from Cove School and was standing at our kitchen counter, when the maid (yes, I grew up in that era of the South) asked, "Did you know your grandmother died today?" Eleven and my first experience of the physical side of grief, instantly overwhelmed into sobs and its sudden terrible ache in my chest and throat that lasted for weeks. 

November 1963, I remember where I was and what we were doing that Saturday morning in Yokolhama, Japan, Malinda and Jody watching Tetsujin on the black and white television when the phone rang and Bev, our friend across the cul-de-sac, told Linda that President Kennedy had been shot. My instant senseless reaction of jumping up to run across the room toward the radio, stopping to wheel around and run back to the other side of the room to turn off the tv, then running back the other way to turn on AFRATS radio. 

Nearly five years later, April 1968, a campground in Northern Virginia south of WashingtonDC, where we were camping when news came over the portable radio that Dr. King had been shot, had died, and WashingtonDC in a fury of riots, looting and flames that lasted for days. 

This is not a political blog, but waking up and turning on the television in our Gainesville, Florida motel room Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016.

More than just memories, and mindful that awareness is different to worry, at this age one is ongoingly aware that one never knows when Whom my father always referred to obliquely and deferentially as "Th' Ole Master" might reach in behind one's lampshade and pull one's chain. As I say, aware because one needs to avoid situations that might endanger others, whether one's chain is pulled to Off or just to Dim. As for example Pop not much older than I am now, always picked up a little grandchild and friend at school until the afternoon he had a crash and one of the children was hurt. After which he felt so bad and became so aware of himself that he swore off driving and never drove again. For the self-aware, such events, including remembering what happened to someone else, help one learn what to be mindful of as one ages. For myself, I am pretty much past driving a car after dark, or with a child as a passenger, because there are heart attacks and there are strokes and there is diminished sight and hearing, and lapses in judgment. And I remember Pop.

This week, one's mindfulness seems to be common throughout the community and not just to the aged but to everyone who experienced Hurricane Michael in one way or another. Linda and I, on this day in our history, October 8, 2018, it was Monday morning, drove Malinda to Pensacola for pre-op lab tests and pre-check-in at Sacred Heart Hospital preparatory to her predawn check-in tomorrow for her third brain surgery. With solid assurances, we had full confidence and no worries. Anxiety but not seriously worried. We went straight to the hospital and she had her lab work, we notified the surgeon's office that it had been done and to watch for the lab report, went across 9th Avenue to Red Lobster for lunch that included a basket of their deliciously flaky cheese biscuits, then to our rooms at the nearby Hampton Inn.

Predawn the next morning, Tuesday, October 9th, we were up for her 4:30 AM check in, she was whisked away to pre-op and we went to the surgical waiting room, thankful that before leaving Panama City we, as once or twice before with a hurricane close call or false alarm, had cleared both our 7H porches of everything as a precaution against the tropical storm brewing in the Gulf.

Much later, the neurosurgeon came in and briefed us that Malinda's surgery had gone well, quite difficult, much longer and more complicated than expected, but she was fine and we saw her in Recovery then followed as she was wheeled to her ICU room. A different ICU room from the one she'd been in those weeks in May and June for the emergency surgery to coil, and weeks later follow up open skull brain surgery to clip, after the burst aneurysm that had left her blind in her right eye but otherwise seemingly okay. This October visit was to clip another aneurysm before it burst. All this from a lifetime of smoking that started in her teens. As we know now: if you smoke, it's prima facie stupidity and lack of gratitude for your life.

That evening we were in the ICU conversing with Malinda when her speech suddenly went garbled, aphasia, clearly she's having a stroke. We summoned the nurse, who called the surgeon who was in the hospital, came instantly and sent her for brain scan. Yes, a minor stroke, deep in her brain in a remote spot, not related to the surgery. As it turned out, not so minor, substantial and lasting effects.

After she was stabilized and sleeping, and, phoning to verify that Kristen was safe with a friend in Fort Walton Beach, we went to our hotel room for the night. 

Waking early Wednesday morning, October 10th, I turned on the television, to Weather to check on the storm. It's one of those I Remember When moments: glancing at the numbers, doing a double take, looking again at 155 mph and profaning, "O my God, it's a goddamn category five hurricane". Starting a few minutes later in Malinda's ICU room, I watched online all morning as Hurricane Michael moved northward and about noon made landfall. Late that afternoon I watched on my computer screen as some good soul rode a bicycle around StAndrews filming and showing the storm damage. An early impression is of seeing on his video, St Andrews United Methodist Church, its east wall completely gone.

Because of the stroke, and because evacuees were not being allowed to return to Bay County until the roads were somewhat cleared and power lines moved, before water and electricity restored, Malinda was kept in hospital several additional days and overnights. By the end of the week, due to hurricane refugees crowding into Pensacola, we had to move from one hotel to another for another week, signaling the start of a ten month Exile before we could return to 7H, that the hurricane ruined and that had to be gutted and restored. During the Exile, which we called Hurrication, we lived in seven places. I'm in those memories this morning.

October 10 was Hurricane Michael, but for us it came on Wednesday, which is tomorrow. I remember. It did not "just happen". It was done to us. Triggered suddenly and when least expected, the grief and raging fury at what was done to my town are just beneath the surface of my Being.      

T