neither birdmad here nor there 020108 ... tender_square his uncle in florida left the hospital against medical advice. he went to the er believing he was having a third heart attack when, in actuality, his sodium levels had dropped precipitously. the hospital kept him overnight, but his diagnostics continued to fall. and because he was in hospital, he contracted covid, though he was asymptomatic, and they transferred him to a covid ward where he had to share a room with someone else, a sheet dividing them. the doctors and nurses pleaded with his uncle for four or five hours not to leave their care; he was anxious, he didn’t want to be there. but eventually they signed the paperwork which released him against their warnings. last night, his sister called, said that he may want to reach out to their uncle because it could be the last time they’d ever speak. their uncle had heart issues and diabetes; low sodium levels were life-threatening, to say nothing of having covid as a high-risk patient. their aunt, who had done her best to play big-sister enforcer, was unable to convince her brother to stay at the hospital either and said, “it’s in god’s hands now.” in response to his sister her husband sighed. “it never stops. it’s always something.” he was angry. “i don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, i just thought you should know so you could think about what you wanted to do overnight,” his sister said. “i think he’s just overwhelmed right now,” she interjected on his behalf. she rubbed his shoulder with her free hand as she held her cell phone in the other while they lay in bed. after they got off the phone with his sister, he remarked how alone he felt again. “when you say that, do you mean that you feel alone because no one understands what you’re going through; or, do you feel alone because you think that i’m not there to support you?” he said it was neither. this was the family that he grew up with, and one by one they were being “taken from him.” two years ago it was his mom to lung cancer; six months ago he stopped speaking to his brother when he wouldn’t take meds for his mental illness; now his uncle was sick and his grandmamma was not far behind. “the way they live is rooted to the south in a way that i am not. they are my only connection to the past.” she didn’t believe that, but didn’t feel it was her place to insist otherwise. couldn’t the past be a place that always existed in your heart through the memories you kept and through your bones because it splinted you strong? “are you saying you feel alone because you’re losing more and more of your family members in some way?” she asked. “yes.” he recounted a story about his uncle. when he and his brother were ten, their uncle wanted to take them hunting, which is about the age that boys learn how to shoot. his uncle had never had sons. his uncle had hunting land in florida and alabama that had been in their family for generations. but his mom had said no to the excursion. “i was kept from doing so many things because of someone else’s fears,” he said. “after mom died, there was some relief, because i didn’t have to worry about her every day anymore.” she had forgotten about how unsettled he was, how the worry paralyzed him, how living with discomfort was the only task he could manage from bed. “do you ever wonder if you’ve taken on your mom’s worrying?” “oh, of course i have. that’s what happens when you grow up with an anxious parent.” she wanted to challenge him on that. just because that way of living was modelled for you, didn’t mean you had to adopt it. now that his mom was gone, it wasn’t for him to take up her worry mantel—what good did it accomplish? she held him, she kissed him, she listened to him as he reiterated just how hard things were for him, repeating, “i’m sorry, i’m here for you.” she felt like an actor on stage who had forgotten her lines, who was improvising poorly. finally, he released her at 11:10: “you can go to bed if you want to.” that night, she dreamt that she was walking from one home to another, both of which she shared with him. at the first house, some of their furniture was out of the street, either for a passerby to take or for the city to collect with trash pickup. as she left the first house, she noticed there were other furniture pieces mixed in that weren’t theirs, and she realized someone had snuck in their unwanted furnishings so that they’d become responsible for disposing it. as she walked to the second property, she noticed the same scenario: some of their furniture was out at the curb, but someone else had dumped their own unwanted items in with theirs. she complained to a neighbor, “this isn’t our stuff!” when he woke that morning, she relayed her dream in the hopes that it may prove to be a lesson for the both: to not take on the worries for other people’s choices. yes, it was terrible that his uncle had left the hospital when he needed care, but he was exercising his right to his bodily autonomy. not so long ago, he had said to them after his second heart-valve replacement that he felt he would be lucky if he had another ten years ahead of him. he was only in his early fifties. he would not go through a third surgery, it was too arduous to recover from. and she wondered if maybe he left the hospital so that the woman he loved could care for him; she wasn’t allowed to visit if he had stayed in the covid ward. her husband had every right to disagree with his uncle, but ultimately, he had to respect his decision. and no amount of worrying was going to change the outcome. “maybe you could adopt what my therapist recommended to me,” she said. “you could set aside a certain amount of time per day for worrying, and when that time is up, you don’t allow yourself to engage with it anymore.” “don’t you think that if it were that easy, i’d be able to shut it off?” “i get that, but it doesn’t mean that you certainly can’t try with some effort.” “why are you trying to solutionize a problem that i didn’t even bring up this morning? we were having a serious discussion last night and now you’re trying to minimize it with practicalities.” she argued calmly. “that’s not what i was doing at all; i thought i was offering you something that was valuable.” then she second-guessed herself, allowing for the anger she so often refused. she didn’t soften her voice: “how am i supposed to predict how you are going to react to something?” she stormed out of the room muttering, “jesus fucking christ.” 220129 what's it to you? who go blather from