Fact and fiction - or fiction and fact

July 29, 2009

I was back in college, but Jeremy and I were married too. And I was ill. I knew I couldn't keep up with my classes any more. I had missed so many already. But I didn't know what to do. I thought it was past the drop/add date, so if I dropped out, I would still have to pay the thousands of dollars I already owed. But what could I do? I had to drop out. So I made my way back to campus.

I couldn't find my dorm. The whole campus had changed. It was dark out. There were new buildings everywhere and the old ones were no longer in the right places. "Do you know where Edgren is?" I asked a young kid walking around. He pointed me in the direction, only the building didn't look familiar to me. What if they didn't recognize me? What if they didn't let me into my room? What if they wouldn't let me get my belongings?

As I entered the dorm I began a conversation with a Resident Assistant. She would not let me in the dorm. "Could I speak to your Resident Director?" I asked, feeling that I had trumped her answer with an unexpected question. She wasn't happy, but she got the RD for me.

"You don't understand!" I tried desperately to explain. I told him about losing Harper. There was a group forming to listen now, but I didn't care. Maybe the crowd would take my side and help me plead my case to the RD. "So you're saying you won't let me have my belongings?" I was crazed. After all I had been through, I just wanted my things. No one seemed to understand, but the crowd that had gathered wanted to hear more. As I went on explaining to them what had happened to me and why I was unable to complete my classes or come to the dorm, I realized that I couldn't even remember what belongings I was fighting so desperately to reclaim. I was sobbing as I told them, "And then I had my entire colon removed." I was about to explain to them what life with a colostomy was like when a young man entered the room and the bottom of his shirt flipped up just above his waist so I could see that he had both a colostomy and a urostomy. His entire midsection was covered with ostomy bags. I decided I didn't want to talk about how bad it was because I didn't want to discourage this young man.

All day the residual feelings have been with me.

I co-facilitated our parent education class for divorcing parents at work this morning (this part wasn't a dream). As my co-worker (and friend!) Tami talked, her words caught my attention: "As parents we . . ." I thought to myself, I don't think I could say those words comfortably in this class. Yes. I think of myself as a mother, but I couldn't relate to the challenges of parenting that these folks are faced with. And as I sat there, for a brief moment, I felt like Harper was alive. Like it would have been the most natural thing in the world for my almost one year old daughter to be sitting there on the floor playing while I kept an eye on her and taught class. I could picture her there with me. And then the reality that she wasn't there hit me. And it hurt.

All day I've been carrying this sadness with me.