Helplessness

July 12th? . . . 13th? Sunday? . . . Monday? Hard to figure what day it is when the only thing I can anchor to my memory is the afternoon I drove my husband to the VA hospital. He was short of breath and feeling poorly. It was a tense, four-hour drive. He wanted to be behind the wheel, I know, to give himself some sense of control, but he admitted he didn't feel very well.
And he had reason for it. I don't want to go into details, that's not my intent here. What I want to do is process this feeling of shitty helplessness. There was and is nothing I can do except wring my hands and pace. I try to read but can't concentrate. I think I want to talk to others but can't find any words worth saying. I have a sinking feeling in the middle of my stomach, and my head swims. I am told I need to find and have one solid thing to hang onto.
I tried making the floor of the hospital ER my piece of solidarity, but it meant I had to maintain contact with it. I didn't want to leave it, which was not healthy, and clinging to it put me in the way of nurses and doctors. So I ended up visualizing any horizontal surface beneath my feet as my grounding surface and made my legs into grounding cords. When I felt rocky and out of sorts, I diverted my attention to my memory of being on deck of the Crustacea, a friend's 40-foot sail boat on which we toured Alaska's inland passage a few years ago. It helped.
Another friend who lost her husband last year suggested I eat grounding foods: protein, chocolate, or whatever felt like it helped to maintain that connectedness. “Take showers,” she said. “No problem,” I said. The tears flow better when I'm underwater.
Holding a stone from the parking lot and keeping it in my pocket acted as an emergency treatment for weightlessness. So did laughter with family and strangers.
Some kind of control over anything helped: like deciding to leaves voice messages rather than be asked questions I couldn't answer. Emailing and texting are handy. Methods of forgetting what's happening are Soduko and crossword games and action-packed novels. TV doesn't seem to involve my attention as well.
I continue to dig deep for any bit of sanity I can find, appreciating prayers and the small ceremonies of gratitude I usually practice. I am my own antenna between Earth and Sky and attempt to circulate the energy available from both through my body. Using my Reiki hands keeps me in place too. There are parts of the day when my husband is dependent on me to be the rock he can lean on, a person who is real with a sense of humor. Other times, he serves the same purpose for me. I'm grateful we are alternating our positions for each other on an as needed basis.
We can't take away the fear of the future for us. I can only make this moment right now, memorable, and then this one, and now this one . . .