Eyes Wide Open

Naked as we came seems to be an Iron and Wine song about dying. It's kind of funny how everyone has a song about dying. What do we all know about it? Tamar came in last night. Picking her up was a minor fiasco - got lost getting to the airport and then we got lost finding the Pike. Tamar was having a fit over this situation, wishing she had taken a cab... Then I wished that too. She is so like our mother, I am pretty sure that's why they didn't get along. After we got to Nomi's place she seemed to calm down a tiny bit and Nomi got up and we talked, just the three of us, for a few minutes. We probably could have spoken for longer - but we were cut off by Karyn getting there to pick me up. We spoke of the mourning, and Ima's stuff. We also spoke about how people are perceived - Tamar mildly infuriated that Ima could be perceived as a sweet person (!), which is when it became clear to me that Tamar really had some deep schism with Ima. I am not denying that Ima could be very coarse to us, and I don't know what happened with Tamar's relationship that hurt her so. I think the key to dealing with Ima is to do it on her, on Ima's, terms - and that's probably hard for Tamar who is essentially a controlling person.

Ima's cleaning lady, Salvina, called me up, very sad to hear that Ima's health has deteriorated, and she told me that 4 years ago or so she lost her 13 year old daughter to cancer; she said she cried last night when she heard my message. Ima is too young to go this way - and Salvina's daughter at 13 was way too young to go. People are pretty resilient special things. Speaking of which, sounds like, from talking to Nomi this morning, that Sue is still waiting for a positive change to happen in Ima's health. But for me, the worst thing about this whole deal is when Ima becomes conscious; yesterday she was crying either in pain or sadness. That was an awful scene in the hospital when Ima was conscious and crying and there were piles of people visiting; it felt like a freak show. I don't really want to go back there for more of that; I know I'm a wimp. But what good are we doing? I don't want Ima to go alone and afraid by herself - and that's the real point of this all is: to be there for her in her time of need. Then it can all turn around, and we can start our healing out of this dark hole.