deep in the ocean, there lies a wave for you

It’s nice to tell funny Clark stories. Last night we remembered the time I showed him this Katt Williams video:

which he obviously thought was hilarious. He went to work at the Historical Society and tried to chum up to one of the security guards with his newfound knowledge of black culture. The security guard had a Katt Williams DVD ON HIS PERSON, which he lent Clark, who brought home and watched it repeatedly. I just love how he thought he was imparting this cool, new knowledge to someone who obviously already knew about it. And owned the entire DVD.

So we’re laughing about this, and I was so overwhelmed by the bittersweetness of it. We pick through memories, and try to think of the good ones so that every mention of him doesn’t turn into a sob festival, but when we recall stories like this, it’s like we’re talking about someone who’s gone away for just a little while.

It’s getting harder to distract myself, which I think I’ve been doing for a long time, because these buried-away memories keep unearthing themselves at unpredictable times. I have to remind myself what we went through in order to deal with things that are going on in life today.

There was a time when the doctors kicked us off of the trial we were on because someone had cut the number of participants that were allowed to be in it, and Clark wasn’t ready to start yet because we were still waiting for him to heal from his last surgery. He was in a hospital bed at NIH after just getting a stent put in to clear the pathway being blocked by a tumor near his ureter. The doctors told us that they were going to try something different from what they’d been promising us — the trial with the highest success rate. This is the email we composed and wrote to the head doctor:

Hi Doctor,
Today we were told that the plans have changed. We were most excited about that particular protocol because it sounded perfect for me, and you told us it had the best results available and would be the result of every step we’ve taken so far. We were wondering if that particular protocol would be available to me and if not now, when? Because of my new pain, I am most prepared to follow through and get fighting. What is our best option? If we can’t move now, how can I qualify for the next phase of the TIL protocol with radiation with my kidney? I’m just very anxious to start fighting before my cancer spreads even further.
Thanks,
Clark

That email rings with desperation. Clark and I were sitting on the couch trying to maintain our composure as we typed it. I was near ready to call some lawmakers, Department of Health and Human Services, whoever. I lived through that. It’s so crazy to me that I am that person.

Last pose of the class is pigeon pose, which releases all of the tension in your hips. The space between big breaths starts to decrease. Then, straight into savasana, or corpse pose, which always ends practice. This combination always digs deep into my insides and pulls up some hidden memory, and then I cry while lying on my back, splayed out like a dog waiting for a belly rub. Today I traveled immediately back to the day we transported Clark from home hospice in his mother’s basement to the facility. We had started to give him a type of drug that would help his nightmares and visions, but it made him incredibly sleepy, which therefore frustrated him because he couldn’t get any work done or receive guests. He was in and out of consciousness and wasn’t making any sense. The nurse came and told us we were hours or a day or two from the end. Joe came over to hold my hand. The ambulance arrived to transport him, and Joe and the two EMTs helped carry him into the back of the vehicle. I was belted into that ambulance today, post-yoga, sweat dripping down my face. It was so hard to maneuver him at that point, he was in so much pain, and I got so snippy with the EMTs because they weren’t minding his leg, which I held tightly in just the right position to relieve any pressure. I hadn’t thought about that ride down I-66 in a very long time. Yoga is scary like that. I never know what it’s going to dig up next.

I thought one of the reasons that I’m able to function is because I don’t repress too much. I’ll cry in public (daily), and talk about Clark when anyone asks. I’m not afraid to bring him up. If someone asks me how I’m doing, and if that day I’m not doing so well, I am not afraid to say so. I realized over the past two weeks, though, that I still haven’t been letting everything out.  Last Saturday, Lauren brought me home after I’d put away a few beers and I cried big, gulping sobs on her couch for a few hours and said a lot of things I’d been afraid to say out loud. Once I formed the words, they didn’t seem so scary or ridiculous, especially since I had someone nodding in agreement that yes, these thoughts are legitimate and no, I am not insane.

This past weekend, my videographer friend Liz was shooting footage for her new project, “A Drunk History of Love.” You’d start the interview out sober, and over the course of 40 or so minutes, you’d get drunk. She interviewed couples, those who didn’t believe in love, single people, and me. I drank an entire bottle of champagne in about 20 minutes and released a ton of gunky stuff that’d been clogging my brain for the past seven months. Liz was filming, and couldn’t stop crying, so her friend Matt who was helping her asked the questions. I told this stranger, and the video camera, a ton of private and funny and sweet stories about our struggle and relationship, and it felt great. She’s going to edit all of our stories into a short film, and give me a copy of my audio.