Lost Love (Revisited)

Kaitlyn and Lisbeth, 1986
mixed media on Rives BFK, 1986
Kaitlyn and Lisbeth at Mount Hope, 1986
mixed media on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"
Lisbeth and Alec, summer 1986.

Lisbeth and Alec, 1986.

Lisbeth's 3rd birthday, October 27th, 1984.

The Millers, summer 1984. Clockwise from Lisbeth (center front): Kaitlyn, Andrew, Garry, Eben, Martha, Alec.

Feeling some sadness this morning. Lisbeth is in the midst of a rugged seizure cluster. I am grateful that she has dedicated helpers who take good care of her through these hard spells, and I'm grateful that I no longer have to observe every one of Lisbeth's seizures. Even though I have seen thousands of them, there is a level where I have never gotten used to this.

I've often remarked that I had no idea we were living a charmed existance before Lisbeth became ill in 1988. Life is like that, isn't it?

In my junior year at MECA in 2005, I took a memoir class with professor Claude Caswell, and he gave us many powerful writing exercises, including several "free writes." One morning Claude told us to do a free write on the topic of lost love. "Write about lost love for 30 minutes," he said, and he set the timer...

Lost Love

My heart is beating
fast
scared.
Write about lost love
he says.
All I can think of
is Lisbeth
and how
I lost the little girl
she was
that day
in sparkling summer.
She'd been ill
and was feeling better
then awoke
that morning
saying
Mommy
I don't feel good.
I laid her on the couch
and gave her some Tylenol.
Twenty minutes later
It happened.
She was grey
eyes rolled back
the whites of her eyes now yellow, moist
a faint clicking in her throat
her body stiff
jittery
I yelled to Garry
to come.
Call 911
he said
and somehow
I did.
Waiting on the front steps
for the ambulance
the word epilepsy
playing
in my head.
The ambulance.
The men carrying her out.
Garry rode with her
I followed
in our car
praying
oh god
please
this is not
how I want to grow up
The ER.
Lisbeth
on the stretcher
they'd cut
her pink summer shorts
in half
tubes
down her throat
And Garry.
leaning over her tiny body
her shiny white blond body
her perfect pink six year old body
her blue eyes
shut.
What
(The Fuck)
was happening
wanting to turn and run away
Garry saw it in my face
and said
gently
c'mon Mart.
I walked to the cot
where she lay
and I
began
to sing to her.
I sang all the lullabies
I'd sung to her
when she was a baby.
I knew what my job was
now.
Years later I would dream that Lisbeth's head

was just an egg
an egg that I held in my hand.
The doctors came in and said
that they
could re-attach her head

to her body
but
I saw them look at each other
worriedly
doubtfully.
I saw them do that.
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put Lisbeth together again.