Tuesday, twice

Why does no ever call and tell me these things? The house is dark, Joel is on the computer, and the kids are playing happily, noisily. I passed Mamacita on the road in.

...I hate not being here.

They're old. I know it isn't just me; so many things are, but the photographs will back me up on this one: my grandparents were young ten years ago, even five years ago, and Grandma wore her hair piled high and curly and Papaw did all their yard work and everyone else's and tinkered with the pontoon. He never finished it. But now Grandma doesn't dye her hair as often; it isn't nearly as red, but dark, rusty-dark, like a horse after a summer in the sun. And they look so tired, all the time. It isn't the new cynicism I've found this past year -- they are old.

And Papaw is in the ICU tonight, reasons undetermined or unexplainable over the hospital phone. I come home from a first day at Dancehaven - it's a lovely place, and Abby was a darling, but first weeks are always awkward and I'm not quite as rested up as I thought I was - and sit down on the couch and try to fall asleep. The phone rings. "St. Mary's," the caller ID claims; I have an appointment there on Thursday, and they always call for one last confirmation a day or two ahead, so I answer. "Katharine?" Yes, the voice is hushed to the proper degree for an office. Glad I was able to work the schedule out with Julie this morning, and don't have to cancel. "This is her." "It's Aunt Susan..." - oh - "is your mom there?" "No...I don't know where she is...what's up?" "And Gary isn't home yet?" "No..." Two beats. "What happened?" "Oh..." No one told you. Her voice gets even gentler. "Well, hon..."

No one really knows what's happening; it's all random and strange, and the doctors have been running tests since noon only to realize that they don't know. Papaw should have gone in yesterday, but they couldn't get him out of the house. But no news can be bad news, and they want to put him in the intensive care unit. Aunt Susan carefully explains that it isn't intensive intensive care; he won't necessarily be hooked up to every machine they have, they just want to keep a close eye on him. About five beats. "Katharine...are you alright?" "Oh...yes...yes. I'll try Mom's cell phone and let her know, okay?" "Alright..."

...I hate not knowing, being denied even that little semblance of control, unable to even turn the information about in one's hands and nod gravely and say that indeed, things will be best this way, and we just need to keep a stiff upper lip. I can't say it's alright, I'm okay with it, when I don't know what I'm handling.

Bad Katharine.

Bad Katharine...


Edit, 11:23 p.m.


Yes, bad Katharine. I have a letter to be writing, but I'm much too muddled and gray to be writing letters (poor blog!) but I must stay down here 'til Momma and Daddy get home from the hospital, which will be after 1, and I can't sleep on the couch...maybe I could. Bethy and I fell asleep on the couch last week, watching the fireplace with my head on her shoulder. But, again, I'm much too muddled and gray to drop off like that. Ugh, I say...

...blogging again is nice. Smack me if I begin to enjoy it too much and make it a stream-of-consciousness complaint. That's very easy to do, you know...

I've been beating my head into Psalm 78 all day...isn't verse 25 terrible? "the bread of the mighty"? And am I not that, though? - take just Ephesians 1 as the short list of everything I have in Christ, not angels' food but the mysteries they long to look into! - and here I am complaining about the cold, and the tired, and only getting to sit in the back of the room and watch. Oh, God, I know I have all that stuff, but I want human things! aren't we allowed to want human things?
- No.
I know all of these things in the back of my head, that it is sun vs. fireworks and He is Everything and I won't want anything else if I only let Him come rushing in...but I'm not so good at the waking up in the morning and narrowing my vision with said principles, or lying down at night and mollifying the cold with macroscopic truths. I frustrate myself, that way...I can wrap my head around anything, but to live it, well! - that's a new head game entirely. Some days I suspect everyone else is like that, too, but at 11:23 at night I feel like an anomaly of big head and little feet.

Hehe...there I go again...remind me why I'm writing this? if it's something I couldn't manage to say? Ugh...

...bad Katharine.