Country Road, Take Me Home.

Oh God, it is SO NICE to be home.

This place loves me, this I know.
The mountains and the water tell me so.

Time to go help the spiritual fam rebuild the sweat lodge, although I am totally bent that I'm missing the CSPC's rummage sale...maybe I could sneak by there ever so quickly beforehand. That's horseshit, of course, shopping is never done quickly, especially when it comes to novel kink fashion. WHHEEEE!!!!

Oh and can I tell you how much I love my cousins? In spite of this ridiculously traumatizing event that my whole biologically adopted family of origin has been dealing with over the past month, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard and so genuinely with Mike and Charlie. And I had so many beautiful talks with Christy Lee. That woman is an amazing blessing and we are damn lucky she's been willing to put up with this fam's antics for so long.

It was hard to leave. I was sitting there with Mike, knowing I should've been out the door ten minutes ago for the hour-long drive back to Chattanooga. I asked him, "What do you want me to say?" I figured he might be getting sick of all the "Stay strong"'s and "Be well"'s and "We're praying for you"'s, etc, so I thought I'd give him the option to hear something he'd really want. Bless his heart, he wrote to me, "Say you're staying." For the first time since this whole thing happened, my eyes flooded with tears. ~*sigh*~ Felt THAT love.

So, to Mike: There is always a part of me who is praying for you, watching over you, calling in every guide and ancestor and spiritwalker and angel that is willing to show up to support you and hold you safe. You blew prayers into my prayer beads on my wrist, and I have seen in the past those prayers coming true, so rest assured your prayers too will be answered. My love and support for you is eternal, and I am so blessed to have you all in my life. You're a rockstar and an angel. Thank you for LAUGHING and for your sense of humor: I have no doubt that, with your humor intact, you will heal completely. I love you so much.

Carolina on my mind

So, I'm out here in the sunny (read: hot) moist Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina with the fam. We've all been chipping in taking care of Mike and giving my uncle a break from all the care that needed at this time. Honestly, I think Mike's doing real awesome. He's definitely frustrated at times, and sad some other times, and uncomfortable still other other times. But the other day, my uncle and my mom took him out to WalMart, just to get out of the house. He really wanted to, and I don't blame him. It's got to feel good to reconnect with reality after being holed up in a hospital for a month.

Today, two nurses came by to clean him up and check him out. The service they work for donated four visits from them, which is sweet. And my uncle's getting the ball rolling for Medicaid to kick in. Hopefully it will be soon. Mike needs nursing care and my uncle needs some sleep, as well as getting back to work. That's been the harderst, I think. My uncle supports himself as a real estate agent, and he hasn't been out selling houses over the past month. So one of my many prayers involves a compassionate, supportive, qualified nurse who would like to volunteer some time with these guys.

I opened up the box that contained all my new medical equipment. The tools of my trade, the instruments I will use for the rest of my life in service to humanity. Mike was sitting with me, and I was describing them to him. He pointed at me, nodded, and pointed around his face. "You want me to fix your face for you?" He nodded yes. "Well, I will love it to pieces, that's for sure."

Mike is funny, man. He's really had us cracking up. His sense of humor is still intact. And, surprisingly, so is his voice. I can understand about half of what he says, which I hadn't expected at all. He's so sweet, too. When I walk him around the house, I'll put his hands on my shoulders, and he'll give me a little shoulder massage as we toodle around. He ruffled my hair and was surprised to find it so short. He wrote on the wipey board, "It's hot."

I can see him smile at me. I can see when he's crying, too, even though there aren't any tears.

I am getting used to his new face, his work in progress. I am forgetting the old face, because it is a face of the past. There will never be another face like it, and I won't see it again except for pictures. In this new face, there will only be one eye, and the nose and rest of the jaw will come later. But the sweetness is still there and the laughter, and I'm grateful for that.

I realized today that I brought with me my best medicine. It wasn't the homeopathy kit or the tinctures or my patchwork foundation of pharmaceuticals. It was me: my body, my hands, my cooking, my patience, my love. I took the time to give Mike a foot massage, and I realized that I would be getting to know my cousin even more intimately now than ever before. The layers of ego and guarding and false safety are silently stripping away, and now more than ever I am meeting my family with my fullest available force and honesty. It's still a bit lonely, but it is definitely me who is here.

I watched as he drifted into a peaceful nap, his one eye darting beneath his purple lid. I am grateful for him: his experience is teaching us all deep lessons about ourselves. For example, Christy Lee and I decided that Charlie should be a nurse or a physician's assistant or something. He's got a lot of confidence with the equipment and a friendly bedside manner. The other night, a woman brought all of us a huge homecooked meal, so everyone was at the table, eating, except for Charlie and I. We were back in the bedroom with Mike. We didn't want to leave him back there alone, especially while we all got to eat. Eating is something Mike won't be doing for a while. Anyway, Mike was insistant that we go out there and eat, and we were just as insistant back. Mike wrote, "The food's making fun of me." I told him we would stay with him, besides the Simpsons were on. Finally, Mike demanded we take him out to the dining room, so we could all be together as a family. We brought him out and got him comfy on the couch. After Charlie and I loaded our plates, Christy Lee's son, Bradley, wanted to say a prayer. He had really only wanted to say it for himself, but we all dropped and held hands. Even Mike was folding his hands from the couch. It was a unique and personally touching moment for me, to have my family gathered in prayer.

And me? I'm learning that I can't save anyone. I can only help me be the best me I can be, and allow others to reap the benefits of me being a whole person. And with the help of letting go of needing to know, without needing to know what kind of impact I'm making, I can coast through this life unattached and happy.

Perspective

This is Mike. He's my cousin. About a month ago, he was accidentally shot in the face with a hunting rifle during an argument with his wife about taking care of the kids. They're putting his face back together now. First they sewed his lips back together. They reconstructed his tongue and put it back in his mouth. Next they built him two new eye sockets and two new cheekbones out of metal and grafted skin from his back to cover his face. He won't have a roof in his mouth or a nose for another few months at least. His feeding tube and stoma will suffice.



Mike and I got our first tattoos together. That one on his arm. It's like two shooting starts intercrossing, except that it's two moons. Two shooting moons, greeting each other, holding each other. Mine is some Chinese letters on the inside of my forearm, saying "Life is created in each moment"



I can't even begin to imagine what life purpose this will serve for him. Good thing I don't have to know. I haven't been asked for that information. I really just want to be a little numb to this for just a little while longer. I will see him on Tuesday. I will feel it then. I will want to feel it then.




Mike and his older brother, Charlie, practicing throwing knives at a watermelon in our Oma's kitchen.



Us having swimming races and Easter egg hunts.



The matching red scooters for Christmas one year.



Me slamming Mike's fingers in the door when he tried to walk in on me taking a bath once.


Mike holding his baby daughter this last Christmas. I had never seen him so caring or peaceful.


The pot we'd smoke. The stories we told each other of our dark sad lives. The goodness and peace we wished for ourselves and our future.



I will feel it then. For now, I exist in Seattle, in my bathrobe after a shower, a long mess of trust issues and medical blather and piles of paper and mounds of books and yarn and dishes and laundry and House DVD's and nerves and hopes and dreams.



Do people ever fully integrate all their multiple roles and egos and sides of themselves? Perhaps only the simple ones. But is life ever simple?