Sunday, March 02, 2008

• Bucket List - Featured Grown Ups

  Currently Listening: Monster Ballads - Platinum Edition, 2 Disc Set

  In honor of the movie Bucket List, Featured Grown Ups asked us to examine our own bucket lists. This was actually a topical that was difficult to write about, having experienced a major health scare at a very difficult time in my life. Like everything I write, this has a little bit of me and my life in it. Unlike everything else that I have written for these challenges, this is probably the most truth to events that I have been.

  "We called you in for a consultation today to go over your results from testing a few weeks ago," Dr. Meier said.

  I knew that it was never a great thing when you were called in for a face-to-face instead of being sent a form letter that simply stated the name of said test performed and a positive or negative following.

  "You have COPD."

  Those words rang in my ears, echoing over and over again. I looked at him, watching his lips move, not hearing a word he was saying.

  "Amanda?"

  "Yea. I know what COPD is." COPD is what murdered my mom. It had stolen her life, robbed her from everything she loved, swindled from me the mother I needed, and ripped off the mother I wanted.

   

  "Everything Ok?" Bryce had asked, knowing me well enough to catch the hint of sadness in my eyes.

  "I received some pretty bad news today regarding my health," I confided in him, finally admitting it out  loud to someone other than myself.

  A look of concern washed over his face. I could tell he was contemplating whether or not to ask any more.

  "I have COPD.

  "Dude, I'm so sorry."

  "It's a little hard to think of everything I need to be thankful for this Thanksgiving with this looming over my head," I said, with my signature snark and roll of my eyes.

  "Do you want to go get a drink after work?" he asked.

  He was being the one thing I needed most - a friend.

   

  Valentine's Day had come and gone and we had been seeing each other, I think we were anyway, for a couple of weeks when I found myself in the ER, unable to breathe without pain and unable to sleep because the coughing would not stop.

  "They are going to do an EKG. I'm scared. Can you come?"

  "I'll be there, " he assured me. I sat back, watching the clock, waiting for him. Once he was there, everything would be alright.

  "Take me to Amanda Mahlum's Room!" he demanded of the receptionist doubling as that night's intake clerk.

  "Are you family?"

  "No. Take me to her!" Bryce demanded again, raising his voice slightly.

  The door opened, I saw his face, and instantly the fear disappeared. He sat beside me and rubbed my cheek with his index finger. Everything felt like it was going to be ok.

  St. Patrick's Day was a week away and despite my Irish heritage, I wasn't feeling all that lucky. In the past few weeks I had seen the doctor more than I would have liked, was dealing with an ex-husband that wouldn't go away, and a job that was creating more frustration each day that I was there. He was my salvation during those days - my saving grace.

  "I'm having surgery, " I broke the news to him.

  I went on to tell him the high risks involved and the benefits and how I was going to do it alone. Heaven forbid someone see me in a vulnerable position and I would not put anyone else in a vulnerable position. I had been in that position myself.

  "Will you be my Power of Attorney?" I asked.

  His eyes looked sad. He looked at everything but me.

  "Yea. Yea, I will."

  I had a little over a month to cram in as much woulda, shoulda, coulda into my life. Each day brought the surgery one day closer. Each day he and I grew closer, too.  In one of the rare moments that I was left alone, enveloped in the quiet of the night, I sat down and wrote. I had come to terms with everything the doctors had told me, the warnings they had given, and the risks that could occur. I had also put high hopes on what success would mean. Either way, I was going to be prepared. I wrote Bryce a letter, emotionally slicing my wrists and letting how I felt bleed all over the paper, and thanking him. I wrote Meghan and Amanda, letters full of wisdom, wit, memories, and finally our good bye.

  Lastly, I wrote a letter to myself, granting me permission to do everything I had always wanted to do and experience, but always told myself I couldn't because it didn't make sense, it wasn't practical or because it wasn't realistic.

  1. Learn Italian
  2. Learn Gaelic
  3. Live in the Irish countryside and just write
  4. Move to New Orleans
  5. Become a writer again
  6. Kiss under the fireworks
  7. Slow dance
  8. go to Disney World
  9. See the Grand Canyon
  10. Take a karate class
  11. Play blackjack in Vegas
  12. See Springsteen live
  13. Have an amazing library again
  14. Find my Lloyd Dobler
  15. See a boxing match in Vegas
  16. Learn to play guitar
  17. Have great friends
  18. Have that one great and passionate love that I always read about but never believed. Something new to me. Something grand.
  19. Sit under a tree with the man I love, reading a book, out loud.
  20. Own a pub, coffee house, and bookstore all in one.
  21. Get my degree
  22. Watch my kids graduate from college
  23. Write on the beach
  24. Live well
  25. Go on a road trip
  26. Run another marathon
  27. See more live music shows
  28. Experience marriage for the right reasons
  29. Learn how to forgive

  I put my pen down and look over at him, smiling. My children, which had become our children, were sleeping and the house was quiet except for the murmur of the television. We had just celebrated our first anniversary by going on our first date - dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in the French Quarter. He came over to me, crossing the living room of our Irish built barge board home, and kissed me."

  "There's only been you." he said, looking into me through my eyes.

  It had been seven months since an emergency room visit and ten months since I was supposed to have a surger that could have taken my life just as easily as it could have saved it. A cocktail of ten medications a day, adding a few milligrams of this or adjusting the number of times a day I take that, saved me from that.

  There are a lot of things I have been able to take off of my list and there are some that remained unchecked. I haven't played blackjack or watched a boxing match in Vegas, but I did consider getting married there. I haven't ran another marathon or own my own pub, bookstore, and coffee house all-in-one, but I live in New Orleans and have slow danced and kissed under the fireworks. I have great friends, gone on a road trip, became a writer again, and have learned how to forgive. I have done all of these things with my Lloyd Dobler, that one passionate and great love that is both real and grand and also new to me. He's the guy that has been there through better and worst, sickness and health, and was prepared to be there until death did us part, without taking these vows and without promising these things to me.  His name isn't Lloyd, though, it's Bryce. Soon I get to cross one more thing off of my list - marrying for all the right reasons.

   

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