Some things, when they happen, after it's over, make you feel sorta sick. You know that whatever you do, you need to move the shitty energy right out of you. Or you stay feeling sick.

Carlan was upstairs, getting ready for a bath...or a shower; he's old enough that it's his choice. We did discuss "shower safety" again, though, because showers are kinda new for a slippery 6 year old. Mom was upstairs in her room. She's not been feeling well lately; a bit of a head and chest thing, the same that's going around everywhere. She hasn't eaten properly in at least two days and this has been going on for at least a couple of months this time, and for at least a couple of decades in general. She has been drinking though to some degree almost every night for weeks. And getting weaker.

I hear loud crashing thuds. My gut dropped and I bolted out of my room, through the kitchen and up the stairs, by 3's....really in a matter of seconds. The sound only means one thing; one of them has fallen hard. Carlan screams for me....really screams...but it's a terrified scream, not a scream of pain. Literally, in one second, I think "he's hurt, no, he's scared...mom's hurt, no, please, please not mom, it's Carlan, but he's okay...because he could scream....fuck it's my mom.

She is laying prone in the middle of the upstairs hallway, her head barely lifted, and bobbing slightly...she doesn't respond to me, but she's conscious. Carlan starts to cry, and I send him for the phone. She still doesn't respond and seems disoriented, strokelike and attempts to move, but can't.

I have never shaken so badly in my life, and I'm shaking now...

911. "My mother's fallen and she's just out of a halo after 7 months from a serious neck fracture"...we do the 911 dialogue, and then I hear mom saying quietly, "what...what?" "I didn't fall....I didn't fall...I'm okay"....still with her head barely raised from the ground. Like the victim of a car wreck stumbling around in the street looking for their car keys but missing a limb...my son is almost in hysterics.

I can't do this anymore.

Against my pleadings, she got up. She sat up, then stood up, still disoriented, and walked into her room. Sat down on the bed.

It's 6 hours later now. She's apparently fine. My son thought she was dying. He wrote to Santa and Mrs. Clause tonight "My grammy is very hurt; I am very sad", and said, "I am not going to let this happen; I am not going to let go of my grammy, this is not going to happen again". A burden too heavy.

I told my mother tonight that I knew my disease had progressed because of the incredible stress of her accident in February. That I knew, within hours, that I would have a recurrance, or progression. I told her about the utter breakdown I experienced. And then I underwent two surgeries.

I am no prophet, but my intuition speaks to me, as it does all of us. When you are injured, you know...if you listen. And my body is screaming at me, has been screaming...

And I think tonight I felt, and feel, for the first time, truly...that I am hanging on, and have been...by very thin threads, and that those threads are fragile, and weak....and all I have.

I want to feel some peace....of soul, of mind, of body....and some rest. To rise and feel rested. To feel safe, safe to my core...just for a few moments. It's been so long really.. This business of dealing with it. It's cumbersome...laborious.

I volunteer every other Thursday at Carlan's school for a couple of hours. While correcting papers this morning, I noticed that one very bright, young girl in my first reading comp group (we'll call her Aurora, because that's her name) had drawn and written nearly 4 times the work of her peers, so I was moved to read out of curiosity. Six pages of "wanting to get up", being told "no", of vampires, and liars, and holding signs to make friends, and dancing, and cages, and mean moms....I feel one can only absorb so much intensely negative energy, but I also know that we are where we are supposed to be at any given time. Do I lack humility so much as to say I believe I've begun to learn the meaning of suffering?

My body aches to breath without restriction and pain...my wounds are deep and lasting. My smiles have becomes winces. I am biding time...and it hurts.

I don't want to hear anymore, be strong, stay positive, fight hard...because to assume I've done anything else is offensive, insulting, and implies there's something more I could do...be more hopefull, have more faith, count my blessings, smell the roses...

Faith remains each day that I am here, hope is not living today, my blessings cannot be counted, and I tire of the smell of roses...