April 11th, 2003 & 2016

April 11th, 2003

Farmer Ken worked last night.  Thank God, because the nights suck.  No other way to put it.  I know Farmer Ken from church.  He is a Neuro Nurse at night and by birth and passion, a farmer.  His family has farmed land near here for generations.  And Ken’s love is the best love.  Ken has a maple sugarhouse on the farm.  Doesn’t that sound amazing?  When I was little, my Dad took us to a place deep in the woods.  The sugar maple trees were great sized.  The barns where the sap was boiled were filled with sugary fog.  The maple syrup was liquid gold   Maple Syrup

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It all sounds idyllic.  But I believe that Ken really does this, when he is not here at the hospital with us freaks.  I believe that where he goes, there is sugary fog and Ken can make syrup.  He has that power to transform tree juice to the golden liquid.  And I need to dream of that for a moment.  I think of him, there, and I escape me, here, for a moment.

He is my angel for so many reasons.  When I met Ken, in nurse form, I didn’t know what was coming into my room.  He doesn’t turn on the light.  He has a pen light and holds it in his mouth. So all I see is a light in the night coming towards me and I know it is Ken.  I asked him why he does this.  He said he didn’t want to wake and disturb his patients with lights and clattering about in the dark.  THAT is amazing.  He seems able to do what I can’t.  He understands the point of view of the patient. Holy Cow!  I certainly don’t understand 99% of what is going on around me and in me lately.  I can’t figure out how to act, feel, move or think.  Nothing is known and reliable anymore.  But somehow Ken has figured it out. He knows.  It is so obvious that sleep must be elusive in the hospital.   The patients aren’t well and therefore aren’t likely to be comfortable. Rest is healing.  On the off chance that a patient is sleeping, Ken isn’t going to mess that up.  I am not one of those patients. But wow! What a caring and compassionate gift to us, to me.

Ken doesn’t work days, only nights.  This fact does two things.  HE makes the nights safe for me.  I trust him to keep me safe. And a darkness that has Ken can’t be as bad as I thought.   It has to be ok, somewhat because Ken chooses it.  In this thinking, I can make an ounce of peace with the night.  It can’t be all bad.  It has FARMER Ken.  The second thing about nights, they are so much quieter than days at the hospital.  There are far less people about.  The doctors certainly aren’t on the floor.  The lights are dim.  There is no hustle and bustle.  We are all supposed to be resting.  There is no one here that demands the spotlight.  There is an absence of the strong egos that surround the Doctors and medical Gurus.  There is no adamant, dictated diagnosis coming down from them. So Ken at night is humility.  He is grace.  He is comfort.  He brings me peace.  I can breathe.

Tonight Ken comes in early.  He walks in while the lights are still on.  He is carrying a large jug, a large brown jug.  He lands the jug on my bed table, stationed just above my legs.  The Jug lands with a decisive, solid thud.  The big label reads Ken’s Pure Maple Syrup.  Yup.  I can’t swallow, not even my own spit.  And he brings me a Large Jug of Maple Syrup.  Tis sugaring season after all!  He says not a word.  And with that he leaves my room.  It’s me and the jug.  Really? I stare daggers at this vile thing.  It is evil and Ken brought it in.  It is the challenge of a serious Red Sox loving man.  Ken is at bat, scraping his cleats through the dirt.  Daring me!  Daring me!  SWALLOW.  I have rage.  I mean I am finally angry: jaw clenching, cussing bull sh** rage.  I mean what kind of a crud crazy gift is this? SWALLOW. I can’t.   Rachel, SWALLOW. The challenge and dare of the jug of maple syrup enraged me.

(But Somewhere inside me, instead of a challenge, somewhere deep in my cold frozen heart, I felt Ken promise me.  The syrup, the jug, Ken was promising me I would, swallow again. And I trusted in Ken.  I believed in him when I could not believe in me.)

 

April 11th 2016

The day was busy and stressful.  Living life on life’s terms, doing too much, and trying to be nice, not nasty to the loved ones I live with, is not easy. After supper I am trying to stop the almost-panicky-hyperventilative breathing that has been building.  Eating the yummy food I made, while breathing like this, and trying to carry on a conversation is also not easy.

Dishes done, I go into the living room with a mug of my Candy Cane Green Tea.  Trader Joe’s makes it and only has it out for the month of December.  I am obsessed with it and so I hoard and stockpile it for the other 11 months.  This is definitely a nite to use one of the sacred tea bags.  It will help me calm down.  I sit with Jason in the living room.  We start to chat and then hear the thundering hooves above our heads.  It is not, of course, Santa with reindeer on the roof.

It is Rondo, probably with a bat, in the attic.  You see, our Rondo is special.  I got him from a student at school 5 years ago.  I wanted a kitten.  I asked Tim, if my students and I raised $500 from our loose change collection for the rescue league, could I get a kitten.  The amount of money was astronomically ludicrous to achieve.  He agreed.  We raised $800 and thus when a student said his kitty had kittens, we got Rondo.

He is significantly Bengal in appearance and behavior.  Kitten crazy for life, loves heights, climbs the walls, has nocturnal parties, and important to tonight’s events, hunts in the attic.  Under the insulation in the attic, there are sleeping, hibernating, lovely mosquito eating bats.  There are 5 less than there used to be.  Over the years, Rondo has jumped up, ripped down the insulation from the attic eaves, grabbed a sleeping bat and brought his trophy down to our kitchen for us to admire and praise his prowess.  The bat is never dead.  It is often not even losing any blood.  The squeaks bring out the only girly screeches I ever make.  Lots of these screeches match the bats squeaks in a bizarre melody.

We get Rondo and clear the other 4 leggeds out of the kitchen.  Then the bat removal begins.  It is a tried and true procedure.  Take the stainless steel spaghetti pot out and turn over on top of the bat, thus trapping the bat under the pot. Step two is to slide a piece of cardboard under the pot.  Flip the pot with the cardboard lid over.  Maintain secure pressure on the cardboard lid.  Escort the pot downstairs, out the back door and over to the back of the yard. Remove cardboard.  Release bat.  And hope for the best for the bat.

So at the sound of Racing Rondo, I run for the attic.  Jason follows.  I call for Rondo, repeatedly and he emerges from behind the yarn storage.  At the sight of flapping in Rondo’s mouth, Jason yells “he’s got a real live one tonight!”  Rondo and his prey take the running start back downstairs.  I follow, praying Rondo runs down to the outside and not actually into our house.  Jason brings up the rear.  Rondo heads for the living room.  And there, in the evening lamplight we see the prey.  Rondo releases a winged beast.  Not a bat. It is a quite grown Starling.  The bird flies and lands on the top molding of the living room windows.  I grab Rondo and lock him in the bedroom. (his usual secure holding cell)  Then I head for the living room window.  As I open the window and screen for the starling, shall we call it Clarisse from Silence of the Lambs?  As I open the window, Clarisse flies to the dining room and lands on top of the built-ins, up by the ceramic flying ducks that we got from our Don last summer.  Maybe Clarisse thinks they will help her.  Jason has left the building while the bird flies around.  He seeks shelter downstairs in his Grandmother’s house.  With the window up, Clarisse quickly flies out into the night.  I try to regain my breath and composure, heading to the kitchen for paper towels to clean bird “scat” (Jason says) from the window molding.  I wash my hands, release Rondo from lock up, poke Ciro to see if he even woke up for any of this excitement, find Jason and explain the lot to Tim.  And my mug of Candy Cane tea is still warm.

 

 

 

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