Friday, April 20, 2012

March 2011

I found it.  That crappy book, Oliver's Story.....the worst sequel to the corniest novel every written, Love Story......I am in an old, venerated hotel, the Sanderling, in the OuterBanks....it is sunny outside, cool, and the water bounces off the ocean with the promise of Spring....I love March for that light that appears - like the Emily Dickenson poem that describes it so well - that certain light in March...

Anyway, I pull the book off the shelf, listening in amusement to the old folks in this old library of the hotel figure out the tides and talk about cards.....Oliver is through his first relationship post widowerhood...and he remembers a time when Jenny was alive...when he was alive as well......AHA, typical Segal, Oliver is dead inside, he hasn't moved on, hasn't gotten beyond it....ok, as expected, depressing end to his always somewhat depressing books...why I had to know the end escapes me, and isn't it odd I see the dumb book at a historic resort.

"Hey short thing!"" A deep,warm voice interrupts my revery..... I look up to sparkling hazel brown eyes looking down at me with a smile,tenderness and desire that makes my heart jump with ...hope?  "Find anything good to read? "   I put the book back on the shelf, "Naw, just an old,tedious novel I wanted to read the last page of ...done looking through old novels today!"
He reaches out his hand to me, "Shall we move on then my sweetheart? Explore this place, go take in the beach, watch the sunset....."
I smile right back and him and reach up for his hand as he pulls me into a hug and whispers, "You know how glad I am that I found you? "   I hug him tight, "Nice being found, and yes, I"m done here....let's move on and see what we can find!"

Hand in hand , we move on.............

Friday, December 31, 2010

2010....How it ended up...I know at last...

For decades, the last line of a very forgettable sequel to a bad novel (Oliver's Story, the bad sequel to the schmaltzy Love Story), Eric Segal writes about Oliver's thoughts following the breakup with his first girlfriend after Jenny's death...."Oliver sometimes wondered what his life would be like if Jenny had lived and not died.   He realized, he would still be alive."

My question....did Segal mean that Oliver would be alive regardless and compelled to  live his  life? Or did he mean if Jenny were alive, he would still be alive, because now he is dead (inside)?  The choice of "would be" implies that he may not be alive...

I always wanted to write to Eric Segal and ask him about what HE intended that line to mean...that Oliver was a survivor, or that he had died in spirit with his beloved.....I never did....he died.

I thought there would be time.

Last year, I wanted to know what life would be like at the end of 2010......would we have a miracle, what would the miracle be anyway.,remission, cure, or loving acceptance of the end of our  beautiful  Love Story.....

But now I know.

Bobby would die.

I am still alive.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Horror to hope, December 11 2009 and 2010

A year ago today,I called out from ICU and our lives ended.  It was our turn. The ONLY thing guaranteed in life is that if you love someone, one day, you're going to say good-by. That's the deal......oh would I shut up with the platitudes!!!!  What a sucko year!  Not just our house, but lots of loss in this town this year......

And here it is..... finally, this year, which I knew would be hard to endure, is almost over....and life goes on....incredibly, miraculously, seasons seem more vivid, friends and colleagues are more endearing, laughter is MORE intense - hugs are stronger.....and I look at everyone like I might not seem them again....and everyone looks better....

In September,on encouragement from the unlikely family formed by Valerie Waters (RedCarpetReady), I met up with the women of the forum I help moderate....

Monday, June 28, 2010

July 1 and Hollywood in Sept...Haven't we Done this before?

Here it is June 28th....I am determined to have a summer of peace....and have been anything but peaceful to accomplish it!
Alexa had prom,graduation,enrollment in Cosmetology and a new car....she started to whimper about trading in Bob's Sport - which has no condom airbags...saying, "but  I feel like I'm trading DAD!" Well that soon changed on driving her new Yaris....she put Bob's army/golf beaniebaby (Bob had a collection of toys I'm finding,scattered with golf tees and jolly ranchers everywhere) on the mirror.....she's working 2 jobs, going to school and learning to work out and eat right...
Connor - dealing and not....on going process....wonderful friends....their parents all involved and as oppressive as me...thank God.

Me! Going to put together my own Challege for Hollywood...,my weight is ok..but I'd take 5 lbs down for Santa Monica standards...but I thought I was ok 10lbs heavier too, so not stressing weight...BUT going to get MORE into juicing and cooking and imposing it on the kids!!!!!

More to come....and learning to knit Yoga socks....I may get rich yet!!!!!

Here are some pics of graduation and Reunion at GCU.......as we plod ahead....
Prom princess off to work the next daySuit came off the second he could get away with it!


Who would've thunk it.....


With Nanna Nancy..No one mistakes my mom for anyone else's mom....wonder why????At lunch after graduation!


Storm blew up,but the meaning of the light in the storm kinda grabbed me,being menopausal and mourning and all that!


Rose and me with the daughters we dreamed of having all  those years ago....


The 3 Paris-Jr Year Abroad girls...on scholarship,poor but plucky, they accepted all 3 of us...and we done good!!!!


With fellow Paris girl Mary,now a knitter and manager of the geniuses at Genetic Alliance (check them out on Youtube)....re acquainting me with the healing creative energies in textiles!!!!


Me and Alexa, on the Ferry home...

A Rush of Friends, and Church becomes Live....

The kids sleep in...Mom and I rock each other and cry.....we've been here before....

The kids wake up...They see my face...Connor walks out and publishes on Facebook," Robert A. Schmitt, RIP, may you find lots of golf and beer in heaven Dad,"......Alexa is calm, how can she possibly accept or process this loss...she's been his Princess all her life...they had something really special, and stuck up for each other....this will take years.

We go to lunch,we laugh,and return home to teenage boys and their moms, women I've seen in passing, at our door....I expected to be alone.....and their open hearts melt me........the boys are soon shooting hoops....neighbors arrive with food, the Mormons show up with flowers, food and offers of help...the Chapel shows up offering sympathy and shoulders...

I've always been alone......I'm not anymore.....

We will have a service for Bob, Mark and Jen will do a video....I am seeing a holiness in people I never saw before.....I am seeing God in losing Bob....

His sister, my dad and his family are all coming for the memorial....

Bob's golf buddies are shocked....they expected he'd be back to work.....

May 7th....always a reliable soldier....Bobby was about 6 months on the dot...

So this ends my Blog of Cancer.....now we know how it turned out.....The memorial I will get uploaded here as soon as I figure out HOW - simply because our passionate chemistry explodes off the photos! When Bob and I were in a room, no one else WAS, so great was our powerful attraction....so you all will have to have a peak...

Grieving - there are lots of sources, I"m not going to journal my walk in grief...nor detail the influx of the hundreds of cards we are to receive (writing this in June now!), nor the mourning of a town, a community, a neighborhood or a family who lost someone too young....

And a word.....one of the Docs told me, its just not fair....and in this I sadly disagree....

Bob came by this honestly... he smoked and drank for years,in his "Pre-Mish years" as he called them  and in his own words , "didn't CARE to live a long life..."  not realizing that one day he WOULD care, and would have a life he cherished.......I am a better nurse/fitness/yoga teacher  for this...and I tell that to people.....don't write yourself off too soon.....life might surprise you and GET REALLY GOOD one day.......Be healthy and READY for it!!!!!

Here's me a few days before Bob's diagnosis,worried about him,but made him take some pix in one of Val's T-shirts for her web site....Looking fit and healthy.....less than 6 months later....as the WIFE of a man with cancer, I had to take this picture as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror:


The picture of what cancer does to those left...I wouldn't be honest if I didn't show you how I looked in the days following Bob's death......

And at Alexa's graduation,feeling the empty seat beside me..but knowing Mom and the kids are with me, and we are still alive.


God's Grace and Peace Everyone........

May 7th...the end.....

Writing this on May 9th, publishing it later.....

He was mottled and coughing loosely on Friday morning....took the kids to school and called palliative care, "Its over, what do I do?!" She took over, and they said they would have us taken care of in hours....then Dr.P called, said to bring him in to ER..they would scan, if this is "just chemo" we'd treat the hell out of it...if the cancer was unchanged, we'd go to hospice or home tonight....

In ER....folks gathered...the chest xray was catastrophic...was it fluid? Blood? Cancer? The ER doc said, "who the Fuck knows..." I appreciated her bluntness...truly, her sorrow was on her face as well.....
Doc P offered to dump in blood, fluid, bipap.....I asked, if the chemo is still working, it will destroy the blood right? And he's not clotting now....he interjected, "michelle, he might be terminal..." I smiled....I knew that....I knew he was trying to buy time for me....but I've been grieving for months....
ICU called, said to drop everything and send us up.....
My friends hug me, cry with me....Bob's last words....
"is there room for MIsh?" I lunge into the bed and pull him to my heart...."OH my Beloved!!!!! Mish is right here and will hold you here forever!"
He smiled and drifted off, murmuring...oh what an adorable child he must've been, " Well good...because she's my LIFE"........I nod to Michael who pushes IV morphine and I whisper, "let the medicine work Beloved....you are on that golf course overlooking the River.....where you made the hole in one and your first thought was making love to me...remember???? I think your Dad is there ready to t off and Mikey wants to learn....oh what fun you will have today...take yourself there and I'll have your back and manage things here ok"......his eyebrows lift and he smiles as I talk....then he takes a quick breath of surprise as though he's really seeing something wonderful.....Oh God, please EXIST. Please have a heaven and let him be with all the loved ones we've lost.....so many gone Lord...Please EXIST...Please show me you exist!"


I drift off to sleep exhausted, my mind still working......my inner Michelle speaks to me...."you already have seen Him....this experience has show HIm to you all along....his kingdom is within all you've lived through this year..."  


Mike joins me, strong soldier, loving man....and Bob quietly died.......

I don't stay and hug and kiss that body....that cancer filled shell is not Bob.... I join my colleagues at the desk to get myself together to go home to the saddest day of my kids' lives.....

The phone rings, the Lions' organization....a deep voiced man expresses his condolences....then states, "But Mrs. Schmitt, I am pleased to inform you that in a few hours two people will have phone calls letting them know that their lived of blindness are over..."   I got chills, and a rush of comfort...so many people feel "wierd" about their eyes...not realizing they get plucked out/sewn shut or burned....but Bob's would light the way.......Unexpectedly......through fulfilling his wishes....I receive comfort......

I finally leave to go home....the sun is coming up....and I finalize the next plan....
I am donating Bob to medical science......if someone learns something...maybe all this isn't for nothing......

Maybe this all wasn't for nothing.........


Feeling part of a greater sisterhood of women who have been widowed,  I pick up what's left and begin the ride home......

Easter,Late April....and the gentle breezes arrive...and I lose it.

Mom called me into her room..."Mishy, I'm starting to think he might not make it!" I smile...."I told you months ago Momma, its going to get him..there's faith, and hope, and then there's small cell cancer..."

Bobby isn't coming back mentally...and I am so happy.  He is thrilled to be next to me, wants tiny snacks and to nap.

We went for Chemo this week.....maybe this one will be the one to take down Satan....or will it take my Beloved down.....

The multiple myeloma man is there today too....he is now wheelchair bound and so intense is his sadness/pain,discomfort, he doesn't make eye contact...his wife is decades older now and her perky walk long gone...Bob is on a walker with me holding firm to the back of his pants, my trained rehab nurse experience keeping him upright...we nap through chemo as always.....3 days.....and the full strength neulasta shot......

But his week.....his wbcs are gone...the neulasta didn't bring them back...no wonder he didn't suffer...his bone marrow is too beaten....I haul him on my back to the chair to sit up awhile then haul him outside to sit awhile...

Then Bob took the notion he HAD to get up to his bed....so I walk up stair by stair with him, he is ataxic, he lists from side to side...his breathing is labored...oh what an idiot I am......we are one step from the top....he stops....starts to slide down, I grab and hold him up as my bone on bone shoulders SCREAM in pain...."Bobby, you MUST get up that stair love, you MUST"  He says feebly, "Can't do it hon,just let me sit here...."
I yank him up, "Bobby, listen, you CANNOT lay on the stairs...just ONE MORE honey please...come on  I will help you...ALEXA! CONNOR! I need your help!!!!"
The kids come running,we surround him and he refuses to budge, "I am not going to ...I CAN"T" he says with a surprising force......I enRAGE with a fury that his most insistant fight of the past months has come to " I can't, I won't!"  I lose all sense of sanity and BELLOW AT Him....
"You get up NOW...get up that stair now!!!!! You go down now and you go to hospice, do you GET IT!!!!! I can give you all I am and all I have but I CANNOT GIVE you the WILL!!!!! "  In horror, I hear my voice break as tears once again blind me,my voice begins to drop to a stammering gasping sob........"I can't make you live!!!! I can't MAKE you live! I'm trying ...and I can't Make you live!!!!" I stop myself......I am the most loathesome human on earth....I have hollered at my beloved....he can't......so I WILL.....

The kids and I pull him up and I load him onto my back with a kid on each side and slowly bring him back downstairs where Mom appears... 5'2 with bad joints,she wordlessly heaves half of him onto herself and tsks at me, "about time you let something out honey, he doesn't have our life force, but not for your lack of willing it to him."  There's no comfort...I deserve all the pain that life has to give....I don't deserve to live....I deserve all of this and more......go ahead God...I don't blame you....
Bob meanwhile gratefully accepts being tucked in and I blanket my body over his...he says, "You see? I just needed to be up here in my own bed." He snuggles happily and pats my bottom...."just you and me...Bob and Mish....perfection".....no worse for my ranting, he blissfully drops to sleep with a smile....

Home from ICU,cyberknife and round 5 of chemo.This picture makes me shudder..WHY won't this MONSTER BACK DOWN AND LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!!!

It took me and Mom to haul him from the bed to the chair,and we fill him with anything he wants.Mandy does not leave his side and keeps trying to lick the right side of his abs...as his belly swells, and I see his lfts,despite the chemo and drugs....I know this monster is taking over...and Mandy knows it too and has pinpointed the spot.....


Spring at last,the dogs are vigilant around Bob....The yard is cleaned up,the house in repair....debt paid off in time to pay the thousands in co-pays coming our  way....


Peace and comfort..I will keep him thus. He will not suffer.....I think we will not do more chemo....Can't be without melding myself into him for long...how I still get goosebumps next to him!