Long Goodbyes

I met you at a time when I needed you more than you could possibly know. My life was crumbling. I was newly divorced, and fresh out of the nut house. I had moved to a new town where I knew almost no one. Those I did know were not only bad companions, they were actively dangerous to me. But somehow, you were there. Amazingly like me. A childhood so much like mine we marveled at the similarities. And you were a little bit crazy in exactly all the same ways I’m a little bit crazy. We’ve always seemed like the only two sane people on earth to me.  

We’ve always joked that we were each other’s real sisters.  The other ones,  they were mistakes at the hospital.  You’re my real sister.  My real family.

You are the bravest person I’ve ever known.  Also the best.  Everything you do is founded in kindness and love. And you can make me laugh when the world is crumbling around me.

We became so close that we end every conversation with, “I love you to infinity and beyond and back again.” And I do. I love you that much.

When you moved away, I wanted to lay down in front of the moving van. It’s been 8 years and I’m still not entirely sure how I live without you.  There’s email.  There’s unlimited long distance. Unfortunately,  on neither side is their money for air fare. But we write and we talk, and we talk, and we talk.

You’re health has never been good.  About a year ago, it started getting worse.  And worse. You went to doctors who sent you to other doctors who sent you to other doctors, and no one really helped.

A couple of months ago, it all started picking up steam. You were weaker and weaker. Able to do less and less. Suddenly your twenty hour a week job was requiring almost heroic efforts to perform. I started making plans to move up there. To help. To just be with you. You’re the closest thing to real family I have. And I had such wonderful dreams of us doing stuff together again.  Playing scrabble and cards.  Cooking.  Poking around the junk stores.

And then one morning it happened.  You couldn’t even whisper to your husband, “Help me.” You just felt your heart stop, and then a few minutes later it would beat wildly and then stop again. A heart attack. You slipped into a dangerous sleep,  and woke up weak as a kitten. It took days to get into a doctor. More days to get diagnosed. And then more days to put you in the hospital and survey the damage.

What they found, no one counted on. You had two sets of veins and arteries leading to each of the chambers of the hearts. A heart like no other. I could have told them that. That your heart was unique.

They did their tests, and told you the damage was minimal, but then it happened again. And again. So they put you on a 24 hour heart monitor, and finally they saw it. The upper chambers of your heart were beating like crazy, while the lower chambers of your heart didn’t beat at all.

You were lucky enough to die in the doctor’s office. They revived you. Got you into a hospital. Called in specialists from near or far. No one was really sure how your heart worked. No one was really sure how to fix it.

They put in a pace maker and for a day you were like your old self again.  Except then you kept dying. Even with the pace maker,  you’d flat line.  You began to be covered in burns from the defibrillator.

You kept fainting, kept flat-lining. They put you back into surgery, adjusted the pace maker. No good. You were fading fast.

They flew in an electro-cardiologist from New York to work on you. He was interested in your case. At least you have that going for you. You’re heart isn’t just bad, it’s interesting. All the top dogs want a chance to look at it. The electro-cardiologist did some surgery, and again, for a day you rallied. They sent you home.

Since you’ve been home, we’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve lost consciousness. Your blood pressure fluctuates wildly. Your pulse is all over the map. You slip in and out of consciousness and are so weak that the only way you can turn over in bed is for your husband to help you turn.  All you can manage to say on the phone is “Do you know how much I love you?  Will you remember?  No matter what?”

I will remember.  No matter what.  I promise.  I swear it by all I hold holy.

Finally today, I said aloud what I’ve been thinking since the first surgery. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

You don’t understand baby. You can’t leave me now. I need you too much. If you’re gone, where do I go? Who will be my family? So I sit here at this computer, and I pray - which I’m not terribly good at – and I exert every ounce of my energy into willing you to live.

Because I love you.

To infinity and beyond and back again.

And if your heart stops, mine will break.