DEARMAIZIE

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy to pick up hospice medications for my husband, who is in his last peaceful hours. His beloved family envelops him, he’s in no pain. We are very fortunate.

I’m so tired I can’t walk straight. I’m so exhausted I can’t think straight. My body is so fatigued I’m in another dimension – the kind of tired that comes with the sensation that if you had to stop suddenly you couldn’t and you’d just plow through whatever was in your way and not even look back.

Coming out of the grocery store where the pharmacy is located and taking out my keys, the only fob that unlocks my old car’s doors broke off the key chain and landed under the only other car in the parking lot. Damn. Without that fob, I cannot unlock the doors. Damn. Without the doors unlocked, I cannot drive home. Damn. I did not need this today.

It was 9:30 a.m. I live in a college town and the grocery store is near campus, so thankfully there were no little snowflakes out that early to irritate the living crap out of me because none of them know how to drive. Also it’s summer break.

I tried to wedge myself under the other car and reach the fob, but couldn’t.

So I pushed up on my side and leaned on my elbow – like I was lounging on my bed reading a magazine or posing for an art class – trying to think what to do. This took a while because my brain was stuck in slow motion and about 45 seconds behind actual events.

Instead, I turned over on my back and just laid there. It felt so good I stayed there about 10 minutes. No one around and it was early enough that the concrete was pleasantly warm and yet cool at the same time. And amazingly clean. It felt wonderful. I could have fallen asleep.

Then I thought, here I am enjoying a little loll in this lovely grocery store parking lot and my purse is full of drugs some people might kill for and I’m like okay whatever, wake me up in an hour. I started to laugh at the situation and thought how true it is that there’s humor in everything, even death. I wondered if my husband would laugh.

I managed to stand erect after a while, went back into the grocery store and a nice man with a broom retrieved the wayward fob. I hugged the nice man, unlocked my car and laughed again. I can do this.