Breath

Am I sad enough? Should I be sadder? I know I am not happy. I’m just not the opposite of it either. I’m more likely indifferent specifically because I think I should be sadder but am not happy. I’m confused. If sad, I should cry. No? It’s the corresponding reaction to this emotion. But I cry when I’m happy too. I also laugh when I’m sad. I make jokes. Morbid humor. It’s why I don’t like funerals, it’s not all the death and feelings in the room of how to deal with the death, it’s that I deal with it by saying the wrong things and laughing. Because what do you say? “How’s the kids?” “How are you holding up?” “Do you miss him?”

I say things like “man who let him pick that to be buried in?” Or “how are you doing?” Then laugh hysterically at the thought that this person could be anything but fine or might be fine and afraid to say I’m fine. I shouldn’t be invited to funerals. I won’t even be at my own. There won’t be one. I will need to be used up in any way I can be then made into something to be used as an amendment for soil to plant a tree. Or just sprinkled in the woods. I will be high in calcium I suspect, which I’m not sure what trees do with. It’s not always readily available in soils naturally. I wonder how many people are sprinkled in the woods or the ocean? Just casually dumped amongst the living things to go back to earth. Or one last swim in the ocean.

I can’t even be sad about this. I’m really now just full of morbid curiosity. I have a lot of end of life questions. The answers are all likely speculation from the living since the dead can’t speak. That moment before there is no whisper of the secret to dying right before you leave life to enter die. It’s a last breath. I saw it. He inhaled and never exhaled. Filling his lungs with air to take with him. Like when you go under water. Did he know to do this? Was it softly spoken to him “one last big one, you’ll need it for the ride.” I didn’t say it I know that. My mom was pleading for him to keep breathing. I was pleading for her to stop pleading. This is what happens when I sit with the almost dying. I also shouldn’t do this. I will be haunted for ever with the last moments of life until I get to my own.

I watched the news on accident yesterday. Not the regular news the one that shows the strange news. A boy was video taped struggling to breath to show the world he was struggling to breath. I’m not sure if I would be able to do this. Not a privacy thing just that if my baby was struggling to breath I would just sit there with my baby and make sure they stayed breathing. Watched each one. I’ve done it. I’ve sat with a baby who wasn’t going to keep breathing. I’ve been tormented with a baby on a ventilator. I’ve counted breaths. I’ve breathed for her. With her. Over her. Once on her thinking it would help. What if it was her last one you accidentally video taped? Then your memory is that you missed it because your thought was on sharing. She had a reason. I heard it, somewhat, I just didn’t listen to it. She wants the world to know anyone can get sick and suffer. This is true shared or not. This is true virus or not. No one is immune to death. We all struggle to breath in our own way. Everyone has just enough air until we don’t.

This single video will torment me all day. I wish I could tell her now I’m worried about him, but mostly her. Was this her goal? To make an impact on the ones who won’t be able to stop seeing him breath through a screen for days. I will recall this several times in the next month or even longer. I will struggle to breath for him. I listened to my daughter breath last night. Like went and got her and put her in my bed so I could be certain she stayed breathing all night long. Like a meditation it was soothing and rocked me right to sleep. I woke panicked I missed her last breath. I’m tormented by the last breath.

I can hear my cat breath. When she was an infant her larynx or throat was crushed when she was found and taken to the rescue pet place. She breaths so loud. Across the house loud. She chuffs instead of meows like a tiger. She struggles to chew food and chews it up into tiny pieces and spits them out. She always takes one single food and sets it on the floor. And leaves it. I often wonder if she is asking me to cut it up for her. She is showing me it’s too big and needs to be smaller. I’ve tried soft cat food but she stares at it like she isn’t sure what to do. She ends up with it all over her cat face and whiskers. She doesn’t like to be watched when she eats. I have to do it from afar. Her breathing across the house is somewhat soothing even though I think she is actually struggling to. Like we all do.

I’m told to take deep breaths. I’ve been told to breath with my belly. A big deep belly breath. Except I seem to feel like all I am doing is breathing and then pushing my stomach out to show how full of air I made my stomach only I know my air doesn’t go into my belly. There is a layer of something that keeps the gut and the air area separate I think. So I’m expanding my lungs pushing on that layer to then make my belly look full of air? Or did I just move my back forward to protrude my belly? My therapist is never listening when I ask her about anatomy with breathing. She is too focused on trying to just get me to breath and not on the anatomy.

I always feel a little better if I hold my breath. Not super long just long enough to feel my heart beat in my neck and feel it slow down. I do this after I hike for miles. Or run. Or am anxious. I feel it in my ears and back and neck. When I get exerted I hold my breath and force my heart to slow down. And then slowly let that air out. It can make me a little light headed at first. You aren’t supposed to hold your breath. Your supposed to breath. Unless under water. Except I’m in the air holding the air I’m afraid to let it out. Not sad. Not happy. Tormented to breath.