A Quiz

What do you do when all three of your kids are sick with consistent temperatures hovering around 101, and your mother, the person who is taking care of your kids, calls you and staes “I’m getting sick. We'll need help.” (and where do you put the quesiton mark, inside the quote or outside the quote?

Do you:

a. ask for someone to come over, expose themselves to the ‘house of ills’?

b. sacrifice yourself (that’s what mothers are supposed to do right!) and go back home to immerse yourself in the ‘germ pit’ understanding that you will be unable to support your husband through the hardest part of this journey until his white count goes up? (Anywhere between the next 4 – 15 days)

c. do your best impression of Gumby (damn it) and hope your plastic being will stretch just a bit further...again?

d. throw your hands up, get in the car and drive till you run out of gas and make a new life here ever that place may be?

e. admit yourself into mental hospital (hopefully, it’s germ free) knowing when the kids are older they can sell their story and have it made into a Hallmark movie?

f. take all the anger at the cancer, at the kids, at your mother, at your husband and mostly at yourself for not being able to handle a situation that is clearly unmanageable (when looked at objectively, of course) and use the energy to find a way to instantly clone yourself?

If you picked b or c, you are what is known as a “over giver” and need to learn to set boundaries.

If you picked d, you are a coward and will never be able to make close connections with people and live a life with limited emotional pain. Wow, right now that sounds good.

If you picked f, let me know what you learn ASAP.

If you picked e, does it have a nice lawn with a big oak tree to sit under? Private rooms? A cute doctor?

If you picked a, call me.

Humor is the only thing I have left. When I’m not laughing, I’m crying. There is no middle anymore, no sanity. I didn’t know it, but it left a few weeks ago.

P.S. Art is the same. No better, no worse. He's consistent even in illness.

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