Memories are weird with me. Perhaps with everyone else too. Sometimes I can be having the time of my life, and, if that happy occasion included drinking, well, poof...goodbye memory of that event. I have to hear about it from someone who was there who didn't black it out. How sad. Other times, it can be the smallest of occurrences...a glance, a bad thought, a snippet of a shocking story...these can linger, year after year, unerased and unfaded by time or desire, for the rest of my life.
The most recent example came up during last week's staff meeting at work. Helen, the CEO, was, as always, chairing the meeting and, as such, doing the majority of the talking. She was making a point about the importance in communicating when staff would need to call out sick or get last-minute approval for PTO. After some of the management staff conveyed recent snafus that they themselves were involved in (an unusually rare bit of opposite direction contrition, but totally in-line with Helen's "no sacred cows" philosophy) Helen mentioned that she also had made a mistake in the past regarding a managerial decision in dealing with unexpected absenteeism. She recalled that years ago, she and Susan were working as administrators at a hospital facility (TIL: I totally did not know that she or Susan had a hospital setting background or that they have worked together before here) and one day a nurse who was usually very dependable with attendance didn't show up on-shift. Helen knew she lived alone and worried that she may be very ill, asked another worker to go to the nurse's house to check on her. Unfortunately, that worker arrived only to see through the front window of the nurse's home that she had committed suicide. (Helen didn't elaborate on what form of suicide that worker witnessed but for it to have been visible through the window, it must have been very obvious like hanging or shooting, no?) And that was it. She didn't go on about it, just that she regretted unknowingly putting a subordinate staff in that traumatic situation. But now, since that discussion, I can't get that image out of my head. That poor staff member. What did they see? How horrible.
A lot of these hardwired horrible memories stem from my mother, actually. I remember vividly the time when I was about 9 or so and I was cranky in the back seat of the car at Labonte's Liquor Store (mom was getting dad's supply for the week, of course) I snapped at her saying I can't wait to be old enough to move out of the house. She snapped back a little quip that I took totally seriously "When you're 18 and leave my house you'll leave with nothing but the shirt on your back." I thought of all my possessions, my desk, my pillows, my toys and games, my books, all taken from me as I trod out alone into the cold dark night of my early adulthood. Suddenly I was none too anxious to grow up but also I was horrified that this person who I thought loved me could be so heartless and cruel. I broke down into a crying fit that I think went on for hours.
Another memory is as seemingly meaningless as her mentioning a quirk of hers that for some unknown reason she felt was appropriate to mention in passing to her son. While she and my father were living in Pascoag, on the lake, I had been visiting one day and she mentioned, somewhere in the conversation, out of the blue, that she couldn't poop and pee at the same time but she used the guttural terms of those bodily functions which in this context just seems too gross to type down verbatim. This was really weird and gets stored in my Awkward Audibles section of memory in my brain. WTF! Why did she tell me this?
One of the last horribles relating to my mother wasn't anything she said, or actively did. It's really my father who's to blame for this one, but since my mother has a ton more of these horribles implanted in my head, and many very disturbing, this one gets lumped in her file. What's more, during the incident, I think she may have glanced into my eyes and for a second I thought I saw embarrassment. If she was conscious and aware, I know that's what she'd have seen in mine.
My mother was lying in her hospital bed at Florida Hospital in DeLand and she's been struggling to recover from her second leg amputation due to uncontrolled severe phlebitis. The blood vessels in her upper legs had become clogged with clots and gangrene had set in. The amputated leg surgery went successfully but her body was failing to recover adequately and infections were setting in. The doctor had a grave prognosis and recommended hospice care. My father and I arrived to visit her and she was "out of it." Too drugged up on her morphine drip to really know what was going on. She looked at least 30 years older than she was, emaciated and sickly in pallor. And tiny, of course, since essentially she was just a torso with two sticks for arms.
My father, checked her out saying he hoped "it didn't happen again" but when he pulled back her blankets he realized "it" had. "It" was a poop in the bed, and he said he'd begged the nursing staff to make sure this didn't happen again the last time he'd been here and discovered this. Distraught, he left the room to find the nurse. I glanced over (why?! why?! NOOOOOO!!) and saw a couple of flabby stumps, one with nasty black staples holding the oozing, bloody flap together. A patch of bright orange fluid (Betadine solution or puss?) was staining the white sheet underneath it. Her grey-hair covered vagina lay limp right there, out in the open and a small brown log of shit was neatly deposited in the midst of this scene.
Why did I look! This image is burned into my memory banks. It'll never go away.
I could go on and on. I have a ton of them. Most not nearly as disturbing as the last one described but still. It just goes to show you, dear reader, if you're still young and naive. This is what growing old means. Lots of memories. But like some sick Twilight Zone episode, those memories are probably not the "On Golden Pond" sweetnesses you've been told life would store up for your old age viewing pleasure. Unless you're into horror movies, that is.
This has been a public service message from a middle-aged fuck to any younger fuck. It ain't always pretty strollin' down ol' Memory Lane! The More You Know!
The most recent example came up during last week's staff meeting at work. Helen, the CEO, was, as always, chairing the meeting and, as such, doing the majority of the talking. She was making a point about the importance in communicating when staff would need to call out sick or get last-minute approval for PTO. After some of the management staff conveyed recent snafus that they themselves were involved in (an unusually rare bit of opposite direction contrition, but totally in-line with Helen's "no sacred cows" philosophy) Helen mentioned that she also had made a mistake in the past regarding a managerial decision in dealing with unexpected absenteeism. She recalled that years ago, she and Susan were working as administrators at a hospital facility (TIL: I totally did not know that she or Susan had a hospital setting background or that they have worked together before here) and one day a nurse who was usually very dependable with attendance didn't show up on-shift. Helen knew she lived alone and worried that she may be very ill, asked another worker to go to the nurse's house to check on her. Unfortunately, that worker arrived only to see through the front window of the nurse's home that she had committed suicide. (Helen didn't elaborate on what form of suicide that worker witnessed but for it to have been visible through the window, it must have been very obvious like hanging or shooting, no?) And that was it. She didn't go on about it, just that she regretted unknowingly putting a subordinate staff in that traumatic situation. But now, since that discussion, I can't get that image out of my head. That poor staff member. What did they see? How horrible.
A lot of these hardwired horrible memories stem from my mother, actually. I remember vividly the time when I was about 9 or so and I was cranky in the back seat of the car at Labonte's Liquor Store (mom was getting dad's supply for the week, of course) I snapped at her saying I can't wait to be old enough to move out of the house. She snapped back a little quip that I took totally seriously "When you're 18 and leave my house you'll leave with nothing but the shirt on your back." I thought of all my possessions, my desk, my pillows, my toys and games, my books, all taken from me as I trod out alone into the cold dark night of my early adulthood. Suddenly I was none too anxious to grow up but also I was horrified that this person who I thought loved me could be so heartless and cruel. I broke down into a crying fit that I think went on for hours.
Another memory is as seemingly meaningless as her mentioning a quirk of hers that for some unknown reason she felt was appropriate to mention in passing to her son. While she and my father were living in Pascoag, on the lake, I had been visiting one day and she mentioned, somewhere in the conversation, out of the blue, that she couldn't poop and pee at the same time but she used the guttural terms of those bodily functions which in this context just seems too gross to type down verbatim. This was really weird and gets stored in my Awkward Audibles section of memory in my brain. WTF! Why did she tell me this?
One of the last horribles relating to my mother wasn't anything she said, or actively did. It's really my father who's to blame for this one, but since my mother has a ton more of these horribles implanted in my head, and many very disturbing, this one gets lumped in her file. What's more, during the incident, I think she may have glanced into my eyes and for a second I thought I saw embarrassment. If she was conscious and aware, I know that's what she'd have seen in mine.
My mother was lying in her hospital bed at Florida Hospital in DeLand and she's been struggling to recover from her second leg amputation due to uncontrolled severe phlebitis. The blood vessels in her upper legs had become clogged with clots and gangrene had set in. The amputated leg surgery went successfully but her body was failing to recover adequately and infections were setting in. The doctor had a grave prognosis and recommended hospice care. My father and I arrived to visit her and she was "out of it." Too drugged up on her morphine drip to really know what was going on. She looked at least 30 years older than she was, emaciated and sickly in pallor. And tiny, of course, since essentially she was just a torso with two sticks for arms.
My father, checked her out saying he hoped "it didn't happen again" but when he pulled back her blankets he realized "it" had. "It" was a poop in the bed, and he said he'd begged the nursing staff to make sure this didn't happen again the last time he'd been here and discovered this. Distraught, he left the room to find the nurse. I glanced over (why?! why?! NOOOOOO!!) and saw a couple of flabby stumps, one with nasty black staples holding the oozing, bloody flap together. A patch of bright orange fluid (Betadine solution or puss?) was staining the white sheet underneath it. Her grey-hair covered vagina lay limp right there, out in the open and a small brown log of shit was neatly deposited in the midst of this scene.
Why did I look! This image is burned into my memory banks. It'll never go away.
I could go on and on. I have a ton of them. Most not nearly as disturbing as the last one described but still. It just goes to show you, dear reader, if you're still young and naive. This is what growing old means. Lots of memories. But like some sick Twilight Zone episode, those memories are probably not the "On Golden Pond" sweetnesses you've been told life would store up for your old age viewing pleasure. Unless you're into horror movies, that is.
This has been a public service message from a middle-aged fuck to any younger fuck. It ain't always pretty strollin' down ol' Memory Lane! The More You Know!