Circle of Life

She teeters with joy and glee, full speed ahead, unbalanced,  side to side almost tipping,  arms out, learning to walk.  The hardest part is changing directions. She falls, resorts to her familiar and quite efficient mode of transport, the Mowgli walk, as in Mowgli from the Jungle Book. She is on all fours, back legs straight, bottom up, she scurries away,  bored with us, her captive audience.

He is almost upright for a moment, then stoops over, holds his thighs with straight arms, becomes a human carpenters square, bending over more, then finally squats to the ground hands steady in front of him, keep him from tipping all the way over and going ass over tea cups.  He neither likes nor appreciates an audience, and one politely asks if he is ok, to which he always replies, “just a little dizzy”. 

She walks and toddles to our clapping smiles and laughs. Looks for cheers to continue.

He stoops to silence make no fuss, he is after all, “just a little dizzy”.  The protocol then is to look away after making sure he isn’t going all the way,  unconscious fall on the ground down better get him to the ER for stitches, down. It hasn’t happened yet, he feels it coming he says, a strange vertigo sensation, floor rising, and falling away, the extra special effect played out in real life,  I wonder if it feels  anything like  Hitchcock made it look like in Vertigo…

She is taking first steps, soon running off  into the world,  ambulatory and free at last,  building up speed,  hard to catch.

He is taking some of his last, refuses assistance, wheel chair or scooter.  He will soon slow and will  maybe cease refusing. His illness is unrelenting, progressive and terminal. I think when he is reduced to doing the duck walk  to the bathroom, he will allow  some assistance.

She is weighed and patted and checked for progress, milestones marked cause for celebration.

 

He is weighed, and patted the progress of his disease is noted and  is always cause for concern. 

 

He suffers from Multiple System Atrophy,  a slow degenerative disease different from Parkinson’s, although it shares some of the same delightful characteristics.  

MSA is also called Shy-Dragers Syndrome, that’s what Griff calls his disease, or rather what he used to call it.

He started by calling it Shy-Dragon, which then morphed into Crouching Dragon since he spends the majority of his days crouched in a squat, a literal squat as in,  this is how a woman pees when camping,  squat.

The squat is his go to position for trying not to pass out. I have decided to count how many times a day he squats it must be at least two or three an hour, I’m betting 30 for the entire day. I am counting them, starting tomorrow for he never reports these almost passes out “spells” to the Dr. because he tells me, “Almost doesn’t count”.

Bullshit. I am counting.

The humor of squatting to remain erect isn’t lost on me.

Shy-Dragers became, Shy Dragon, then Crouching Dragon, and finally can you guess?

He now refers to his illness as Crouching Tiger Syndrome. 

I have long stopped correcting him,  whats the difference, Shy Dragon, Shy Dragers, Crouching Tiger,  MSA,  it is all the same and all terminal.

So yes Mr. Shakespeare a rose by any other name would still suck, totally.

I find myself circling around, returning to the ever vigilant newborn mother days, constant state of worry,  concern and caring because of his illness.

 

The ever listening, did you hear that? What is that noise, check the door, crack it open watch the falling chest, breath breathing, exhale, safe.

 

The ever watchful days of new gains,  the firsts,  breast or bottle, cereal, solid, watch the Cheerios fall in fistfuls to the floor,  days.

 

The exhausting constance of new motherhood that was balanced by the joy of watching them grow, tempered by the nine months of  wait to hold them…

 

How easy my return, how simple it is to slip on like an old pair of slippers our old roles and duties, my return to days exhausting constant caring.

 

Again the constant  listening,  what was that noise? Did you hear that? Is he ok? Did he fall out of bed?  The first open eyes wish of too-early mornings, please just a few more moments of sleep, the bargaining for added moments time to sleep, please please please don’t let him be awake just yet.

 

Again the ever watchful eye notes the water marks, not gains but losses, the confusion, he started to take the wrong pills, forgot the day, the time, the outing. He didn’t wash his hands, he didn’t brush his teeth, he didn’t shower.

 

Constant caretaking that is again unbalanced, full of watching and worrying, these not the first events of life they are instead the last, the burden of knowing it consuming.

 

It could be his last…fill in the blank.

She my granddaughter.

He my father-in-law.

 One is a new arrival, one approaching departure.  

I thought  they were coming and going, passing while going different directions, but now I see it is all giant circle, a giant turning, for everything there is a season turning returning from whence we came turning…a giant circle of life.