Chortling In My Soup by B. Lynne Zika

    Okay, there are a coupla things to establish right off the bat. First of all, I’m in bed. A lot.  Not because I’m lazy (which, maybe, I could be), but because there are a few more layers of health problems than my body can handle standing up. Second, I don’t want this getting back to my family, all right? So, puh-leez, just don’t mention it if you run into concerned parties at CVS or something. Deal? And if you’re starting to feel coerced or resentful about being told what to do, maybe you oughta come back to this later. Like…after you’ve had a family catastrophe and need to get a few things off your own chest. Just saying. I’m not wishing anything on you. Third: What you’re about to read (should you choose to accept this commission) is not necessarily in good taste. 

I’m lying in bed (as usual), starting an unadvisably flat-on-my-back meditation. My thoughts? Chattering monkeys who are not interested in shutting up. I do some yogic breathing, a little visualization, send a coupla questions to the big WhoAreYou. I try to key in to some existential answer about why this thing is going on between my daughter and me.

I’ll try to make this succinct, but, you know, this is family stuff. Are families ever succinct? Think about the last rift that happened between your Uncle Joe and your Aunt Mary’s cousin. How would you explain that to a stranger in a tidy paragraph? Well, sure, there’s the bottom line, but, really, the devil is in the details.

Okay, so, my daughter’s husband dies. He was kind of an SOB. But that’s not the point. On top of his mortal coil crashing to the floor, she’s got Covid. I’m in bed, ill in all caps. I cannot go to her. She does not need her mother croaking, too.

Day before the services, I finally admit to myself I’m not gonna make it there. This makes me really pissed off at my body. Come on. It couldn’t give me a break for one day?  Then I get to feeling really sad about it.

When you live with a health condition for 30 years, you develop something of a philosophical acceptance about it. What, you’re going to spend 30 years complaining to whatever god you do or don’t believe in that you don’t like having this thing?

On this day-before-the-services day, though, it got to me.

You know how when you’re sad, it feels so dense that it’s like you’re sad about twenty things? Or, when it becomes too ponderous, it’s like you’re sad about the whole world?

You might have a favorite dog lying at your feet, the white tip of her tail dancing whenever you speak her name. Or a meadowlark could be twittering outside your window, or a friend just brought over your favorite cheesecake. Yet all you feel is heavy, dark, and that heavy darkness is the roof above you, the weighty air pushing down on you, the bleak absence within you.

On the day I admitted to myself I was not going to be with my daughter the day she buried her husband, me siento derrotado.

Then an unequivocal voice in my head said, “This is not about you. This is about her. So stop grieving for yourself and focus on supporting her in whatever manner you can.” So I did.

The what of that isn’t important. I did a few things. 

Then I call up my daughter and choke out, “I’m n-n-not g gonna be able to come tomorrow, and…I j-just waaaant you to know…” And so forth. She suggests I do a little deep breathing so she can maybe understand what I’m saying.

The services are held. My husband, my son and his wife, my grandchildren, etc., attend. I do not.

Afterwards, my husband tells me various people took home the five floral arrangements I had ordered. Most ignobly, I silently mutter, “Wish someone had thought to send one to me.” This is not a thing to be proud of. No white-tipped dog tail wagging at me. But maybe you know from personal experience: We do not always feel noble around death.

The next morning, I receive a text from my daughter saying, “I am very upset that u didnt come. I feel like how could u NOT be there. I am going to bed.”

Of course I text her back. Perhaps she doesn’t recall my calling her that day before the services. I believe I did wake her when I phoned. I’m deeply sorry she’s hurt. I regretted not being there, but I really am quite ill. She does not respond.

So tonight, as I’m lying flat trying to meditate instead of think, it occurs to me my daughter has not once inquired, “Why are you so ill? What’s going on?”

The internal dialogue continues (O my magpie, how you do natter on). My daughter is very self-focused. Pause. More thoughts. Then: And you’re wondering (I say to myself) where she gets it from? 

I allow as how she is her mother’s daughter. And then:

You’re lying alone in bed 24/7. How could you not be self-focused?!

Pause.

And I burst into laughter. Big-time, side-splitting guffaws. I’m laughing at the absurdity, the inexorability, the incomprehensible insanity, the kaleidoscopic wonder of it all.

B. Lynne Zika’s photography, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary and consumer publications. 2022 publications include Delta Poetry Review, Backchannels, Poesy, Suburban Witchcraft, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug 2020 and 2021Top Creator Awards in photography. Website: https://artsawry.com/.