Flu.
Something so mundane, yet something that will righteously kick your ass.
As it has mine over the past week plus. Today was my first day back to the office, yesterday my first day on email--something that never, never happens. Hell, the whole month I was in Europe I was online and in touch, wired and ready for sound, practically every day. It was more fun checking in after a day in the Alps, though, than it was last night still sweating and miserable thanks to a tenacious round of aches, fever, major killer cough, malaise, headache, head-stuffed-with-cotton ache, dizziness, a touch of nausea cum diarrhea ... well, you get the gist. On the other hand, I was only seeing the Alps (if I'd had a bucket list, they would've *pun alert* topped it) because my dearest friend Sabine was then dying of cancer and had invited me (and paid for me) to spend a month with her as her family and friends said good-bye--so that part was NOT fun. It was beautiful, because of the way Sabine had arranged everything--and, thus, fun did occur, as when we celebrated Christmas in German style with her family (actually, no blood relations there, but family nonetheless) who would adopt her adopted daughter after her death).
So, obviously, things could be far worse--but tell that to a body racked with flu. So, back at work, my "To Do" list has had an increasing "Should've Damned Done That!" category, and let me tell you it is not much fun to lie around hoping to die at the same time you're stressing about who's going to lay into you at work for something you should've done already, the whole time kind of praying that everyone lets you slide because the flu is the flu, an equal opportunity ass slayer.
In fact, not to make light of a sad subject, the flu killed my grand-daddy whom I never knew when my own daddy was only four years old. At least that's how I've pieced things together, my father having been born in 1915. [MY, I am truly old myself, as that statistic lays bare. But I like when, where, and to whom I was born, so I really don't care that this grand journey has cranked along quite a while. Frankly, I'm lucky on a variety of levels that I've come this far!]
My dad told me that his father died in a gutter in the city, and from that I'd gathered he'd been a drinker or, more accurately, a drunk.
But in later years I learned about the 1918 flu outbreak, which lasted more than that one year, into the year when Dad would have, in fact, been four, and the fact that hundreds, thousands, were dying in the streets of Washington, DC, and suddenly my grandfather became a hero in my eyes. He dared not bring his illness home to his wife and little boy, so he died in the streets with the masses though I've no doubt my grandma (from whose name the "Dell" of the Mary Dell Show is derived) would have tucked him into bed and brought him tea and homemade soup to ease his dying days had he actually gone home.
I learned that and saw photos of the dead bodies in Influenza--a hell of a book, by the way, though not quite as masterful as And The Band Played On, but the message of both was that a major pandemic of any kind will turn society upside down, and not only the disease itself is ugly. One day I'll get around to ordering my paternal grandfather's death certificate from Vital Statistics.
On my mom's side, I already know that her dad died of an aneurysm of the aorta in his 50's--maybe a year or two older than I am now. I remember that because my brother and I were kids when she told us that. He might have been all of twelve, and without thinking he laughed and said, "Wow, that's sounds cool! An aneurysm of the aorta!"
Of course, I knew that immediately as the words came out of his mouth he'd realized they weren't exactly the right thing to say to your mom just after she's told you about her father's death. And so I cringed when she said, "Well, I don't think that's something to laugh about" or something equivalent. I hope Mom also realized immediately after she said that that my brother would have figured this out out and already felt bad about having said that--my brother J was quite sensitive.
In other words: AWKWARD!
But I know the cardiovascular system on both sides ain't the greatest. MY dad died of a myocardial infarction, MI for short (clever, huh?) just shy of his 70th birthday this very month .... uh, in 1985. I was 25, and he'd gone with Mom to their ocean getaway and died in the shower the morning after a night of dancing to Big Band music, the music they'd danced to the night they met in 1947 at the Spanish Ballroom in Glen Echo Park.
TO BE CONTINUED
Something so mundane, yet something that will righteously kick your ass.
As it has mine over the past week plus. Today was my first day back to the office, yesterday my first day on email--something that never, never happens. Hell, the whole month I was in Europe I was online and in touch, wired and ready for sound, practically every day. It was more fun checking in after a day in the Alps, though, than it was last night still sweating and miserable thanks to a tenacious round of aches, fever, major killer cough, malaise, headache, head-stuffed-with-cotton ache, dizziness, a touch of nausea cum diarrhea ... well, you get the gist. On the other hand, I was only seeing the Alps (if I'd had a bucket list, they would've *pun alert* topped it) because my dearest friend Sabine was then dying of cancer and had invited me (and paid for me) to spend a month with her as her family and friends said good-bye--so that part was NOT fun. It was beautiful, because of the way Sabine had arranged everything--and, thus, fun did occur, as when we celebrated Christmas in German style with her family (actually, no blood relations there, but family nonetheless) who would adopt her adopted daughter after her death).
So, obviously, things could be far worse--but tell that to a body racked with flu. So, back at work, my "To Do" list has had an increasing "Should've Damned Done That!" category, and let me tell you it is not much fun to lie around hoping to die at the same time you're stressing about who's going to lay into you at work for something you should've done already, the whole time kind of praying that everyone lets you slide because the flu is the flu, an equal opportunity ass slayer.
In fact, not to make light of a sad subject, the flu killed my grand-daddy whom I never knew when my own daddy was only four years old. At least that's how I've pieced things together, my father having been born in 1915. [MY, I am truly old myself, as that statistic lays bare. But I like when, where, and to whom I was born, so I really don't care that this grand journey has cranked along quite a while. Frankly, I'm lucky on a variety of levels that I've come this far!]
My dad told me that his father died in a gutter in the city, and from that I'd gathered he'd been a drinker or, more accurately, a drunk.
But in later years I learned about the 1918 flu outbreak, which lasted more than that one year, into the year when Dad would have, in fact, been four, and the fact that hundreds, thousands, were dying in the streets of Washington, DC, and suddenly my grandfather became a hero in my eyes. He dared not bring his illness home to his wife and little boy, so he died in the streets with the masses though I've no doubt my grandma (from whose name the "Dell" of the Mary Dell Show is derived) would have tucked him into bed and brought him tea and homemade soup to ease his dying days had he actually gone home.
I learned that and saw photos of the dead bodies in Influenza--a hell of a book, by the way, though not quite as masterful as And The Band Played On, but the message of both was that a major pandemic of any kind will turn society upside down, and not only the disease itself is ugly. One day I'll get around to ordering my paternal grandfather's death certificate from Vital Statistics.
On my mom's side, I already know that her dad died of an aneurysm of the aorta in his 50's--maybe a year or two older than I am now. I remember that because my brother and I were kids when she told us that. He might have been all of twelve, and without thinking he laughed and said, "Wow, that's sounds cool! An aneurysm of the aorta!"
Of course, I knew that immediately as the words came out of his mouth he'd realized they weren't exactly the right thing to say to your mom just after she's told you about her father's death. And so I cringed when she said, "Well, I don't think that's something to laugh about" or something equivalent. I hope Mom also realized immediately after she said that that my brother would have figured this out out and already felt bad about having said that--my brother J was quite sensitive.
In other words: AWKWARD!
But I know the cardiovascular system on both sides ain't the greatest. MY dad died of a myocardial infarction, MI for short (clever, huh?) just shy of his 70th birthday this very month .... uh, in 1985. I was 25, and he'd gone with Mom to their ocean getaway and died in the shower the morning after a night of dancing to Big Band music, the music they'd danced to the night they met in 1947 at the Spanish Ballroom in Glen Echo Park.
TO BE CONTINUED
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