Turn and face the strange

So I did get walloped with a virus and it could have arrived later or not at all as far I'm concerned. As the day progressed yesterday, it set up shop and went to work on me. First came the tightness in the chest (it had really begun on Sunday, but only as an advance scout) which was followed by severe chills and aches. I lay in bed last night shaking uncontrollably, painfully aware that exactly a week ago at that same time, my father was going through a similar struggle.

Did I expect I'd repeat the same fate as my father. Not really, but it did cross my mind. The whole experience was very strange. I listened to Ram Dass lecture about death and felt better about things. He spoke about our unfortunate relationship with death as a society and shared a funny story about going to his mother's funeral tripping on acid. Prior to that, while she had been withering away in the hospital, he had been frank with her about the situation, that she was soon going to pass. Rather than shield her from the truth, he prepared her for the transition. All of this buoyed my spirits, helped remind me what I was dealing with, but it was all very strange, as I mentioned above. I stayed up all night, pretty much, thick in the delirium of fever and the pain and wonder of my new, fatherless reality (O' Dad, why did you go?).

My plan was to move on to The Tibetan Book of The Dead, an audiobook read by Richard Gere, but I was in no condition to make much sense of it. I slept between shivers and wondered if indeed I was going to make it through the night. The probability that I would was high, I suppose, but I would have said the same thing about my father's situation. Oh, the mind does like to frighten. I was so out of it, however, that I wasn't afraid of anything.

Today was spent mostly in bed. I watched Life Is Beautiful and continued to battle the shivers and other symptoms. To say it was a fun-filled day would not be an accurate assessment. It sucked, it still does; I'm a little pissed at the Universe for leveling me with this bullshit in the middle of my grieving. What's next? I'm afraid to think upon it.

But then Janelle called and made things better. She announced that she had dropped off some soup on my front porch. It took me about twenty minutes to gather the will to make the trip downstairs (at that time, I was shivering like a motherfucker). The soup helped immensely. So did the card, so did the cookies, and so did the pictures of my Baby Boy Z. I don't overstate the matter when I say what Janelle did for me was an act of heroism. And just in time.

I ache. One day at a time, I tell myself. If I allow myself to cater to thoughts about being sick and melancholy on Christmas, I become depressed. It's a slippery slope, one I've slid down more than a few times lately.

One day at a time.