Matters of the Racing Heart

I'm not a coffee drinker. But lately my heart has been beating so hard and fast against my ribs one would think I have a six cups-a-day habit. My niece suggested it's most likely anxiety. She's most likely correct. It comes on suddenly, even when I'm lying quietly in bed, exhausted and ready to go for that solid seven hour stretch of desperately needed sleep. The rapid thudding strikes without warning.

I have one little Xanax pill in a bottle by my nightstand. My doctor had prescribed to me three pills for a minor out-patient surgery I had recently. I had only used one prior to the procedure. The night Mama passed I took a second one. It gave me the first real sleep I'd had in about four days. Each night since the passing of my mother I contemplate taking the final one.

She is seventeen. He is twenty-eight. Madly in love and expecting their first-born.

I lie awake in the dark and imagine my parents near me. Together. But now they also have their first-born baby boy with them. Albert. My father's name-sake. April 12, 1956. Born too soon; at least born before modern-day medical advancements were around to most likely keep their black-haired baby with them. He lived for four days. Neither of my parents got to hold him. That wasn't "protocol". They only could gaze at him through the nursery glass window. His tiny body. That beautiful jet-black hair. The color of Daddy's, and their only child that would be born with so much and so dark. Every now and then I'd lie on their bed and Mama would get out her treasure box. She'd pull out Albert's birth certificate. I'd trace my fingers around the tiny little inked foot-prints with awe. She'd quietly tell me how she never got to hold him, but what a most beautiful baby he was. She said she felt his presence in our family, especially during times of strife. Our guardian angel here on earth.

Everglades National Park (photo: Terry J/iStock Outside Magazine

Albert was born in Florida. My father was stationed with the National Park Service, the Everglades National Park. This would be only a temporary position, and there was a space set aside for the family of my fraternal grandmother at the cemetery at the Grand Canyon. She had worked for years for the National Park Service, providing for her children as a widowed mother. They would bring their baby back west to be buried. The grieving newlywed couple loaded their belongings and their tiny baby's coffin into their car and made the drive all the way across the United States to lay their infant to rest. I just cannot even imagine. Mama has told me many times that my father cried the entire drive.

1972. Our family was living in Dumas, Texas when my father got the call that his mother had passed away. Cancer. This time the drive to the Grand Canyon was made with five children now in tow, in a Volkswagen Bus. I don't remember much about that day. There was no funeral. Just a graveside service. The only photos from that day show us kids dressed in coats standing against a bank of snow, smiling big cheesy smiles with arms draped around cousins we barely knew. I had never met my grandmother. My grandfather died when my father was four years old, and Daddy was her only boy. The sun rose and set on him. Her "Sonny-Boy". He lay her body to rest near his infant son.

Daddy spent a lot of time on his bed after work. I wonder if his heart was racing against his ribs.

Through the 60's, 70's, 80's and much of the 90's Mama and Daddy would argue. And if memory serves, it was over really important things. Like what to make for dinner, what channel the TV was on. You know, the critical stuff. No one ever talked about clinical depression. Probably because no one had ever even thought about the concept. Psychiatrists were for "crazy" people. And therapists.....well was there even such a thing? After arguing about something really "important", Daddy would get up from the dinner table, set his jaw, and walk out the front door. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Daddy would walk. And walk. And then, often several hours later, turn to come back and finally enter through the front door. They wouldn't speak to each other. Sometimes for several days. I would walk past their bedroom and peek through the cracked door. Mama is on her side. Daddy is lying right up next to her, his arm draped around the small of her waist. All is well. At least it's good enough for us to keep going.

Several years and re-locations later, Daddy had a car accident while on the job. His work truck hit black ice and rolled down a small cliff. He was banged up pretty badly. A broken hip, six broken ribs, a punctured lung. For the first time in his life, he met with a doctor that analyzed not only his physical health but his mental health. He took an early retirement. We moved from New Mexico to Arizona to be near my mother's parents.

As a child, I could never understand how my dad could get so weepy so fast when talking about his dead baby boy, or his mother. I would personalize his sorrow, and wonder why I couldn't be enough to make him happy in the moment. I'd crawl up on his lap and bury my face in his neck and try to distract him from the tears. Maybe it mostly helped me. The same way my little kitty recently has crawled up onto my chest in the middle of the night when my grief has woken me and the tears flow and I cry out. She places her paws on my face. Maybe she does it to ease her own distress at not understanding and she's just trying to stop the sounds coming from me.

Today marked one week from the day my mother entered the hospital. Never to leave again, except for her body to be taken to the funeral home. We placed her mortal body in the same plot as my father's. Daddy had always wanted to be buried at the Grand Canyon with his mother, sister, and infant son. Mama said that would be too far for her to be able to visit him. Their bodies rest only a short distance from our home. The home which Daddy took his final breath.

A few years ago we took Mama and Daddy to visit the grave-sites of their son and his mother. It was a good, very emotional day.

It's been a good day. I caught up on laundry that has been left un-done for a week, and sorted through piles of items brought back from the funeral home and hospital. Small tasks seem more tiring than usual. Dave and I took an late afternoon nap. My heart started to race and I couldn't sleep anymore. I'm going fit some more yoga in this week. More breath work. Meditate. Try to slow down the racing naturally. The weather has turned over-night. It's windy and blustery, and snow is predicted. I think I'm going to put on some warm clothes and a wind-breaker and go for a brisk walk. I might as well give my heart something to race about. I'll walk, and walk, and walk. But of course I'll turn around to come back.

Everglades National Park (Photo: Boogich/iStock Outside Magazine)