On Waking up Today

What to do when you wake up heartbroken.

My comic from yesterday, which folks seemed to resonate with. Now we know the outcome of the election, so I have different thoughts than yesterday.

I don’t know if this story will help. I hope it does.

Over four years ago, I woke up to awful news. It was a text from my friend, Annie. We’d been texting the night before, well into the morning hours. For months she’d had vague and unpleasant symptoms, but now it was getting worse. Her body hurt. Her eyes were turning yellow. She could hardly get out of bed anymore. After talking to doctor friends, she had her husband drop her off at the hospital in the middle of the night to see what could be done.

This was peak COVID times, so she didn’t let anyone stay with her in the hospital. Too risky, she said. I tried to stay up with her over text, but I ended up sleeping right through it.

She was alone, in a hospital room when she got the news.

The next morning I texted her right away.

“I hope you found some answers, and that you got some rest!”

She said she needed to text the group thread. It was awful, that text in the group thread. “I probably won’t be growing old,” was what she said. Pancreatic cancer.

Isn’t that awful? To read some of the worst news of your life on a bright little screen first thing in the morning? The room tilted. I felt like I was falling. My world was like a shoebox being tipped and emptied over a bin. It took months for that feeling to wear off, and by that time, she was gone.

That chapter in my life was a lesson in unrelenting devastation. We waited for answers, for reassurance that things weren’t as bad as they seemed, but each revelation about Annie’s illness felt like the worst case scenario. It wasn’t just pancreatic cancer, it was a particularly fast-moving strain. She didn’t respond to this treatment or that treatment. Chemo did nothing but take her appetite and her hair. She got sepsis. She lost part of her digestive tract and couldn’t eat anymore.

Then it was hospice, then it was over.

By the end of December, I felt like I’d been knocked over by countless waves of grief and disappointment. Each time, a new wave would devastate me beyond what I thought was possible. And they kept coming, knocking me over and over until all I could do was hold my breath and hope that some day I’d find myself standing again.

It was terrible—the fear, the grief, the aimless anger. I didn’t know where to put all these roiling emotions. They felt too big, and I felt too small to feel them.

But I wasn’t.

I was made of stronger mettle than I realized. I didn’t know that—even in all that bleakness, there was beauty, too. I didn’t know that I’d be OK, and that peace wasn’t as far away as I thought.

The next morning, after the news of Annie’s cancer, I went outside barefoot. The earth was still there, untilted beneath my feet. I drank water. I texted my friends. I cried—again and again and again.

This time around, the election doesn’t feel quite like that. I’m less astonished than I was in 2016, and beyond that, grief has taught me not to panic over things that haven’t happened yet. It doesn’t look good, but how bad it will be remains unseen. Let’s hope that the man’s incompetence foils the worst of it, and that humanity’s goodness takes care of the rest.

Maybe it’s hard to see that goodness right now, but it’s there. I promise.

Last night as I watched the election map melt from gray to red, I thought of all the thousand miracles that must be taking place all over this world, in spite of this ugliness.

Somewhere in this big, battered country someone just woke up beside a person they’ve only just begun to fall in love with. Perhaps they leaned over, kissed their love on the shoulder for the first time. Perhaps they slipped quietly from the bed and turned the kettle on, careful and thrilled, their heart full of little favors.

Somewhere else a man dressed in the dark. He knew it would be colder today, so he tugged an old cap over his ears and slipped his hands into gloves. Now the dog is awake, and he opens the door for them both, their breaths coming in little clouds as he stoops over, hooking its leash for their morning walk. Colder today, he thinks. That means holidays coming, and family will soon fill his empty little house.

And somewhere else a parent fell asleep in their child’s bedroom, watching for monsters in the dark. It was a restless night, with tears and promises and many glances at the little clock on the nightstand. Now, they’re waking up to the reassuring rise and fall of their child breathing, a sweep of curls pressed to their little forehead. They’ll sleep for hours, now.

No more monsters.

Still breathing.

Still here.

We don’t know what’s going to happen. Plenty will not change, which is both terrible and wonderful. I hope some things do. This world is haunting and beautiful and I still wouldn’t want to leave it, despite all the heartache.

Take care of yourself today. Drink plenty of water. Don’t skip meals. Put your phone down. Let yourself be assaulted by the one thousand miracles, all lined up for your notice.

The rest are just waves. They’ll pass.

All my love,

🖤Becca Lee, Haunted Librarian🖤