Smiling, remembering four calls I received yesterday from Peter, who sounded so much better than he did on his call Friday. The specialists are agreed that his blacking out spells are due to an enlarged thyroid, rather than a growth. He expects to be in surgery early this week.
I don't really understand it all, but it seems that when they go & see what it is, either one type of specialist will be needed or another, so two teams have to be standing by. Peter joked, "Guess the other team will head out to a bar."
He called four times over one hour, once just to share that he'd been served a very tasty-looking pasta salad with his supper.
Of all the magical moments I've experienced over the past years, perhaps none were more incredible than those four calls or the floating feeling that was over me all night, the joy of having the sublime satisfaction of being a real, honest-to-goodness, 100% certified SISTER.
And I found myself thinking about how easily I could have blown it, seven months ago. Felt like I camethisclose.
Much to my surprise, Peter was apparently completely unprepared for Mim's 07/03/15 death. I assume she was as upfront with him as she had been with me, from the first phone call after she was admitted to the hospital through the emergency room. The doctors were clear that her condition was terminal; that due to an inability to process nutrients, she'd be gone in 7-10 days. She certainly was open with all three of us - Peter, John, moi - when we visited on Friday, several days after she was admitted.
When we went back for another visit the next Friday - she was in Toms River, NJ & I was without a car - she was resting peacefully when we walked into her room. Except she wasn't - she'd died less than 25 minutes before we arrived.
John & I were stunned, but not surprised. It turned out that Peter was taken completely unawares. On the drive home, when he shared his shock at it being so fast, I was amazed. Mim had been so upfront about what was happening, what to expect.
When I said that, Peter went off the deep end, experiencing my surprised comment as me criticizing him. The more I tried to set things right - that I wasn't being judgmental, just taken aback - the nastier he got, a brother I recognized from the past that had set my world on edge, someone who could easily have triggered all sorts of retaliation.
Praise be, 25 years of being married to healthy, whole John had made it safe for me to feel & process all the wild emotions coming at me. Something deep inside knew that how I reacted would be respectful of my sister's death or just the opposite. Instead of reverting to ancient family patterns, I took a mental/emotional pause. Then, I calmly drove into a parking lot, pulled the car over, looked at Peter & said, "Excuse me for being emotional. My only sister just died. I am upset."
I wasn't able to console Peter in his unexpressed grief, but at least I didn't make matters worse. The three of us made the long drive home in quiet.
Thoughts about those potentially devastating moments came back to me today, thinking about the laughs we shared last night on the phone, what a relief it was to hear from Peter himself that they don't expect to find anything more than an enlarged thyroid.
This is a new, delightful role for me. When he was hospitalized before, the rest knew about it, not I. Not even when they expected him to die.
It gives me chills, thinking how different things would be if I'd let a thoughtless response by me to Peter's misdirected grief blow up into a relationship ruptured beyond repair, if I'd shut him out instead of turning in toward compassion & caring.
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