Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Working For Your Love

Went to see my old friend Lynn today.
She's not old, it's just our friendship that is. We met and became fast friends thirty-two years ago this month. We were both young, blonde hippie girls then. She was in school and I was barely pregnant with my first child. I was twenty-one, she was twenty-five and we've been sisters-of-the-heart ever since. She's been a major part of my kids' lives since before they ever took their first breaths. She's been Aunt Lynn to all of them.

When I met Lynn she was just the dancin'-est woman you ever saw. Music was what she loved best and she loved a lot of things- the sea, rum and coke, cute fellas, children, her friends. She was about the most joyful woman I ever met, too, and not afraid to work as hard as any man ever born to get what she needed.

She met a man and married him. He had two kids and she took them in like they were born to her. She couldn't have loved them more if they were. It wasn't an easy marriage, it wasn't an easy family, but she loved them with a powerful love. She worked hard at loving them.

She understood that sometimes you have to work hard for love. She knew that.
We went through so much together. Marriages, divorces, birth, death, good times and bad. She moved to Houston for awhile, but we were never really apart. We were that kind of friends.

And then about seven years ago she was diagnosed with a horrible degenerative neurological disease. She knew something was bad wrong. She kept dropping things and her hands didn't work right. Lynn's hands had known how to type a hundred words a minute; they could cut fabric and sew, they could spread themselves in the air as she danced like strong, quick birds. They could cook, and tend her son, they could carry and tote and now, all of a sudden, things were dropping out of them and they wouldn't work to put in her earrings or fill out a form. And her mind wasn't quite right. And she started forgetting how to do things like talk, go to the bathroom, open a door, turn on the CD player, zip a dress, button a coat, peel an orange.

So they told her she had this disease and that she would die eventually, a slow, painful death.

She's in that process now. Her words are mostly gone, although once in a while she'll tear my heart out by saying quite clearly, "I love you," or "Thanks for coming" when I've gone to visit her in the nursing home where she lives.

In the last week, she's forgotten mostly how to walk and has had several falls. She had to go to the hospital twice yesterday after she fell out of her bed and did a faceplant. She has stitches in her chin, a busted lip, a swollen eye, a cracked jaw. I can't imagine the trauma she went through, having to go to the hospital in an ambulance, the pain, the blood, the strangers. She was withdrawn today, she seemed scared.

I got in the bed with her and she beamed at me when I said, "Do you know I love you?" It was like the sun came up in her eyes. She knows.

I've loved her for so long. And it was so easy to love her when we were young and the path before us looked like a flower-strewn road of soft, white sand we could dance down forever, maybe ending up at the beach where the sun sparkled diamonds to jump and jitter on the waves.

It's harder now, that love. It's mighty hard to go see her in a nursing home where she lies in a bed and stares out of the window and waits for someone to come along to feed her, give her water, give her pain medication, turn on the Beatles for her to listen to. It's painfully hard to love someone and see them like this- caught in a nightmare where the only path is a hard rocky one that can only lead to a hoped-for light that will offer relief and release.

I fed her some lunch although she didn't seem to want much and who would with all that injury to her mouth? Her sister and mother were there. They visit her all the time and her sister brings cookies she bakes and quilts she makes and flowers she grows for the nurses and the aides and in that way she is making them pay attention to Lynn. She's put pictures up all over the room of Lynn at various points in her life and also pictures of things Lynn loves the most- Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Statue of Liberty, her friends. Mostly of Lynn's son, the boy born to her late in life, the child she never thought she'd have.

I don't even know if Lynn can see those things any more. She doesn't seem to. But she knows me and she knows I love her.

Bruce Springsteen came out with a new CD today and one of the songs is titled I'll Work For Your Love and I listened to that song after I left the nursing home.

I think we forget that sometimes we do have to work for love. For the love of our spouses, our children, our friends, and all the people who have tucked themselves up into our hearts. It's easy to dance down the soft road with someone with the lure of the sparkling water before us. It's a lot harder to trudge down the dark road with them where the rocks cut our feet and the destination is so final.

Hard work. But in the end, it's the work that matters most.

And work that we constantly need to remember is one we must be most grateful for, because that means we're human, that our ragged hearts are still working, working for love.

18 comments:

  1. Ms. M,

    Poignant post; brought me to tears.

    I see that you have a treasure in Lynn; and she in you. All that you both share will carry you through this difficult time.

    Miss T

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  2. Yep. Lynn's been a treasure to me for many, many years. It's just so very painful to see her this way.
    Life ain't fair, is it?

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  3. I cried and cried and cried. Still crying. Oh my gosh. Well told, very well told. I'm so glad she has you. Now I'm crying again.

    I'll send her good thoughts of strength and peace (and to you)

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  4. Thank you, Ample. She deserves all the good thoughts the world can send her and I am grateful for yours.
    What a strange journey and a real reminder that life is just not fair.
    And that we need to appreciate all the dancing we can do while we can do it.

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  5. You are a true friend to Lynn and it was obvious from her reaction to you that she loves you too. As painful as it was for you to see her like that, her troubles for the moment were lessened by your presence. You are really a very good soul and a very good friend.

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  6. Oh ho, Misfit! You have a name.
    Well, honestly, I know Lynn loves me. There is no doubt about that. Part of me thinks that if I were a really true friend, I would bring her here and take care of her but I don't think I'm even physically capable of that. Let's not even discuss the emotional strain it would be.
    But I can go see her and listen to some music with her. Hold her hand and tell her I love her.
    I'm grateful to be able to do that.

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  7. as usual, ms moon, your words touch my heart. i love you.

    unca b

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  8. I've just read this post again, so powerfully written.

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  9. Thank-you, Ms. A. This is such a heartbreaker. The greatest sorrow in my life these days.
    Sometimes death is not the worst thing at all, but would be the biggest blessing.

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  10. That's a tough one to read.

    I've had a handful of friends go by way of freak accident, but it's not often that I consider becoming an age where I start watching my friends die slowly of end of the road diseases.

    She's lucky to have someone who can sum her up in such an elegant way.

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  11. You broke my heart and inspired me to want to call every friend and remind them how much I love them.

    Thanks for that beautiful post.

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  12. BHJ and Anissa- thanks for coming by. You probably don't come back to check comments on comments, but Lynn passed away (okay, she died) last January. I wrote about her and it a lot in the months since I wrote this post.

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  13. Ms. Moon,

    That was beautiful and tragic..I'm so sorry this happened to your friend. So sorry for your loss. You wrote about this so beautifully.

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  14. That was a beautiful post. I'm so sorry about your friend. I'll have to go back through your blog and read more!

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  15. This made me cry, and at the same time feel grateful for my youth. You put things into words so perfectly, without any pretention. You are a gifted writer and I hope you know that.

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  16. Thank-you, Lady Lemon. I'm glad I got to spend as much time with Lynn as I could. I miss her so much.

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  17. Hey, I just wanted to tell you I stumbled upon this. Once in a while, I'll just pick a random post to read. I liked the title.
    This is beautiful.
    I know it is very late, but I'm so so sorry for your loss.
    What a tribute though, the way you loved and SAW her.
    Beautiful women, both.

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  18. Bethany- Funny you found this. I've been thinking about Lynn all day. A week from today is the anniversary of her death. I miss her so much.

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