From the time I woke up this morning I had every intention of writing something light and airy tonight, a palate cleanser after yesterday’s speech therapy recap. And then this evening was disrupted by ‘Niles,’ who was triggered by a seemingly benign action of Muriel’s in a pattern so familiar by now that you can set a clock by it: I return from an appointment with a not-great update and the bubbling cauldron of Crankenstein’s depression or anxiety boils over, the latter scalding whatever’s in its path.
It’s exhausting to us both, but not to the indefatigable ‘Niles,’ who I’ve previously likened to Bill Nighy in Florence + the Machine’s “Free” video. One day, when we’re far enough away from the incident to fully appreciate its unintentional hilarity, I’ll recount the time I (accidentally) walked into oncoming traffic just to get away from him, but for now I do not feel funny or mischievous; I feel 200 years old. Instead, having introduced a loose thread into the conversation, I’ll tie up a couple of old ones to balance the scales.
We can start with my dad’s melanoma saga, which is over for now and hopefully won’t have a sequel. He has quite a scar on his shoulder from Mohs surgery but avoided lymph node removal, which will make for an easier recovery. Every six months he’ll have another screening with the dermatologist and if he drags his heels about compliance I’ll scare him with the story of an acquaintance who just had her seventh or eighth melanoma removed. For some lucky people, it’s a one-and-done occurrence, but for others these things pop up as often as Spirit Halloweens.
Moving on to Best Friend, another stubborn guy, I made good on my pledge not to pull away from him and resumed sending him daily missives. It turns out he’s also having a hard time or he would’ve checked in more himself. That’s one of the things I hate most so far about Parkinson’s, feeling like it steals my focus; I should’ve been more attuned to what was going on with him and not retreated in the first place. His depression, which has been in the picture for as long as I’ve known him, scares me as much or more than Crankenstein’s, which is no small feat.*
What else? I’m not allowing myself to feel too optimistic about this, but Youngest Sister is now open to the possibility of reconciling with her husband in the future if certain conditions are met, which was not on the table just a few weeks ago. I hope that happens, because he loves her a lot and he’s a wonderful father whose commitment to doing right by his family is rarer than someone of her age and (in)experience can appreciate.
If they can weather this storm together, they’ll emerge stronger individually and as a couple — something that won’t happen if she uses him as a scapegoat for problems they both created (and others they didn’t create at all but still needed to confront). Youngest Sister is the relative I’m wariest of writing about because she’s by far the most sensitive, even as she tries to act tougher than everyone else. But at the risk of annoying her if she ever sees this, I’ll say it’s obvious even through her frustration how much she still loves her estranged husband.
If she really lets him go, he’ll get snapped up so quickly it’ll make her head spin. She would do well to avoid that kind of regret by taking off the blinders now and acknowledging her role in their issues while there’s still time to work things out.
On a lighter note, when I opened a YouTube tab today the second season Reba theme was still up. It started playing and when it was over, YouTube automatically queued up Laura Branigan’s “Self Control,” which I’ve written about in the past. Naturally, I listened to it and annoyed Muriel by singing along. When that was over, Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted” started playing, which brings us back to Best Friend and his response when he learned of my somewhat embarrassing Abdul fandom: “I was a certain age when the ‘Cold Hearted’ video came out. You owe me no explanations.”**
* Occasionally we talk about moving closer together when we’re older so we can help take care of each other. It wouldn’t be a fair trade to him if I physically declined in such a way that I needed a ton of assistance, but if things remained manageable I’d gladly do my best to help keep him alive in exchange for him shoveling the front steps when it snows and grabbing groceries from shelves that are too high for me to reach.
** That’s the embarrassing part — he’s older and can use puberty as an excuse. I can’t; I genuinely loved her music.