Snow covered mind
I woke up this morning knowing I was going to have to throw up to get on with the day but it wasn't going to happen quickly. I was first going to have to spend a few hours swallowing hard. Breakfast came. It was eggs, sausage links, cereal, milk and juice. I found myself back at the big glass doors again where I fell completely apart with sunflower over seeing a dog that a woman brought in for the patients to pet and the door symbolizing to me freedom. I could look out the big glass doors and see a part of the world. It was a part that I wasn’t able to be a member of right now. I just couldn't stop crying. It was mythic.
I was amazed how sunflower handled it. She spoke to me with a voice of love that she had for me as her broken dad who she knew made a lot of mistakes but who also never stopped trying to get better. At some point she said "dad think of what you have been through. Five operations that none of us thought you would live through and everything else. The MRSA and all. After all if that are you going to let this place do you in?"
Of course my answer was no. I needed the cry. I needed to fall apart In front of her. By doing so it tore down all of my walls and defenses.
Here I sat at the doors again. It had been a good day and I was doing my laps around the building. Sunflower brought WyWy over today and we had a great visit.
I ended up ordering Greek food that turned out to be a wonderful meal and a new breaking point for me. I was at this place right now to receive rehabilitative care so as to learn how to walk again or to learn how to function in my current state. It was time to start looking at this as the opportunity that it is and as sunflower said, "You need to get a better attitude."
I don’t know how I will ever be able to show my appreciation to my dear and loving daughter for being there as I go through this.
No slumbers
12:57 am, Sunday, January 26, 2014. It's cold. Around 8 degrees with wind chills around 30 below. Been this way for a while now.
I watched a ridiculously wild and fun gore fest flick called "Stitches" on Netflix which was about a killer clown. It was fun but now I am wide awake.
I remember when all of us boys used to stay up and watch Chiller Theatre. My favorites were the Vincent Price movies especially if they were adaptions of Poe's stories. Most of the Friday nights would be me alone because the rest would wuss out and go to bed and I would usually get away with it till around two when dad would come out barking his terrible language and threatening me with death if I didn't go to bed.
It was always that way. I remembering listening to the countdown of greatest songs of 1969 and hiding under my covers listening so he wouldn't come in. He wouldn't just come in and yell. He would come in and yank the transistor out from under the covers and throw it across the room justifying that it was all my fault. Dad did not handle things with any kind of finesse and especially with me. Dad didn't like me and I didn't like him and that was just the way it was.
I don't know why people seem to think that there is a requirement that families always like each other. Families are by accident and we are tied to the blood and love but we don't have to like each other.
I don’t want it to sound like there was no love for my dad. There was a lot of love on both sides but we just could not get along or agree on much of anything. I was the rebellious hippy and dad was desperately trying to find where he fit into this new world of rock and roll music and the psychedelic evolution of music, art, people and technology. My dad was a factory worker and part time farmer. He made a decent wage and always took care of us. He had many faults but the one thing I will say for Tommy Todd is that he fought hard, he never gave up just like his boys. It’s the most heartbreaking thing about us sometimes. We fight hard, we work hard and yet it’s still not quite enough.
Winter always reminds me of the time on Middle Pike when we had snow that was deeper than us boys were tall and it rained ice on top of it so dad and us boys were able to build tunnels and igloos in the back yard. It is one of those times when I remember dad being a delight to be around. He was out there with us and wasn’t screaming or threatening me with some form of violence.
Back in bed alas the night seeps through the cracks in the wall that was so meticulously constructed to keep all the bad things out but the night, the night itself is comfort. It's what follows the night in that we must always be ready for.
You hear stories of people hearing or even seeing their loved ones after they have left this earth. I have not seen or heard from dad at all. I’ve had dreams of him plowing an enormous field with a John Deer B and one dream was me and him in a parking lot for a bar I frequented in Newark but that never really happened.
Sometimes dad’s part in the family seems like a bad sitcom. If I don’t think about him it’s like he really never existed at all and this makes me weep because he was here. There was a time when Tommy Todd Cheeseman ruled his corner of the world. Dad… Where have you gone?
I wonder how many people wonder where I have gone off to since I have been holed up in all of these hospitals, nursing homes, rehabs and specialty palaces.
To all, Hello, I am still here!
I wonder if I am really saying this so that I hear it.
You know I spent years and who knows how much damage with stroke level high blood pressure and now they worry sometimes about it being too low. Ah this journey through the caverns, caves and cracks in the world is full of accomplishments, achievements, near misses and compete failures. Death is the great secret.
How does one become ok with this? Like my roommate. He appears to be healthy enough to venture out into the world yet he is here and very happy I think.
We are all baby here that is what the nurses aids and patients call each other. I haven’t got there yet. I think the ironic reality of us all being called baby is when you finally give up and accept where you are.
cool peace
hippy mike
love
spirit
groovy times I tell you...