Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession (34 page)

In August,
I was taking a
class
at UCLA, in their Westwood building.
I saw a homeless woman com
e
toward me, talking to herself.
She might have been drunk or drugged.
I passed her in an intersection, and immediately felt bad.
Later, on
a
break, I saw her again, lying on the sidewalk with her eyes closed.

“Excuse me ma’am.
Ma’am?”

S
he opened red-rimmed eyes set in a
cross-hatched
face
.
I
pressed five dollars into her
palm
.

“Thank you,” she said, surprised.
The act surprised me too.

I also
find
, post-cancer,
that
I actually
listen
to people.
Before, when I was at work
and my Mom called, I heard
only
the surface of her words.
Now, I
focus
and really
listen
to what she’s saying.
She’s a very
witty
person
.
When we were both jammed into a dressing room, not exactly at our ideal weight, we contemplated opening a Short And Wide store. The entrance would be about the height of a hobbit, and if you couldn't fit through, you
weren’t allowed to come in. 
About her doctor, a member of a group they both attend:
“It’s
a little
awkward seeing Dr. Cohn at a
function
after he’s had his hand up my
tuchis.”
As I said, I come from a funny family.

I started to reconnect with other relatives.
When my cousin’s wife
relapsed with
cancer, I emailed him regularly, checking up on her condition.
Pre-Tribulation
, I never would have taken the time.
When I was sick,
I gained
solace from uplifting emails sent by my cousin Janet; appreciated that my
Uncle Harvey and
Aunt Rochelle had show
n
up for my surgery.

As far as Rachel, things have improved
greatly since our Locked-Horns-Over-
Finances days.  There was a
one
year-period whe
n
she never visited me, and I voiced my displeasure to my parents. Lo and behold, when I recently
moved
to
T
he Conejo Valley, she not only showed up, but bought me a brand-new bed!  Do you know how important this is after you’ve slept on an inflatable for over three years? 
My
lumbar tuchosis
is practically gone
! Now that I’m not in
perennial
Crisis Mode, I understand
that she has her blind
spots, and obviously, so do I. 
I haven't tried to sugarcoat my behavior –
much of it bordering on lunacy
– during the course of this book.
  I hope that when Rachel is able to slow down, and not work 60 hours a week and chaperone 1,000 kids to Carnegie Hall, that we will be able to reconnect and do the things that sisters do:  maybe meet up for coffee; or
window-shop
at the Mall.  It’s been decades now since we’ve gotten a chance, but anything is possible.

At work,
I
find I
am
mor
e patient with my colleagues
.
Before, I would not suffer fools gladly,
but now, I just smile and explain
the same thing again.
I underst
an
d that not everyone
is Steve Jobs, and
that some require
more time.
My newfound humanity must
peek
out somehow.
I’ve had two colleagues confide in me, and I don’t know them well:
one that he was leaving; the other that he
is returning to his
old position.
Something about me must let them know that it’s safe.

I have
no time for bullshit.
What I
say is
sans
artifice. At work, I am
open about my breast cancer, sharing with
the
other
women about why
they
should have a mammogram.
It has
saved my life
–
T
WICE
.
Wome
n
Reader
s
,
take note: m
ake an appointment
now.

I have
more sympathy for Nigel.
Now that we know he has
Asperger’s,
his behavior becomes
more understandable
.
Even though he still reads my email and throws things,
I let him stay with me
for the endless court dates,
paying for his train fare, dinners, dry cleaning
.
I know
that
this sounds crazy,
but
I gave him
$1,000
so he could hire a private attorney.
I don’t want him
to reunify
with Aurora, but I
do
want him to clear his name so that he can get a job.

As far as Aurora.
This might be the most surprising thing of all.
I didn’t hear from her for
three
months
after
the
y took her away
.
Suddenly, last
October, she called.
“Hey,” she said, characteristically laconic.

“Aurora?” I
could hardly believe it was her.

“Hey, I wanted to let you know:
I know how bad I was to you last time.”
Her voice broke with
tears. “I
had a really good thing.
And I just threw it away.”

For some reason
, I believed her.
“Yes, you did.”

“I want to see you again.
Do you think you could come visit me?”

And that’s how it began
.
I
visited her
three times
in
Estrella Vista
,
until
we got
what I call
a “hall pass
” to go outside the facility. I
wanted
to get her out of
lockdown
so she
could
s
ee a movie like a normal person
; eat some decent food.
Aurora, with her
R.A.D
, saw it as something
more
:
she started calling, three times daily, begging me to take her back.
I was tempted
–
I even reached out to the DCFS
.
Pity and
reason
battle in my psyche
as surely as Aphrodite and Athena.
On a deep level I love her
, and consider myself her Mom.
When she was moved to a lower-level group home in the Valley, I visited her every Saturday, and we even started
weekend
sleepovers. 
The eventual, tentative goal: reunification.

Unfortunately, Aurora’s timetable didn’t
quite
jive
with
the Authority’
s. Dropped
off at Valley College
for a class
(
without
supervision –
thank you
, DCFS!)
she AWOL’
d again.
After
being nabbed and
escaping from
another
group home, she
slipped
onto the
streets of Hollywood
to join the
faceless
crowd of
runaway
s
. I’ve worked in Hollywood – the Town, not the Myth – and I can tell you that it is one Circle removed from Hell.
I’ve seen things that would put Roy Batty’s memories to shame. Aurora
had many adventures there, most of them involving drugs, sleeping in the bushes, and guns.  BUT…she still called me every week to let me know she was
OK, even though she wouldn't
tell me where she was
.
  Just two weeks ago, I got
The Call I had been hoping for:
she wanted to come home.
So yes, we are together
now
, in a new place that is
much
bigger than 400 squa
re feet.
I feel incredible relief that she is off the street and safe.
We make an incongruous
pair – one
zaftig
overeducated Jew and one street-smart smartass
--
but it really doesn’t matter. Where there
is love, there is possibility.
Maybe, just maybe, we are headed for a Happy Ending.

As far as Nigel’s Great Obsession:
like Celine Dion’s paean to her heart, it just goes on and on.

A
fter raising
his
hopes
last
June
,
Aurora
dashed them
in September
when she decided
to stay in
the system.
She
is afraid that he will show up, unannounced, at any time,
so she has taken out a Restraining Order.

As you
undoubtedly
know
, Restraint is not in his
lexicon
. He regularly files 90-page
briefs
to the court, which are denied,
then denied by the Appel
l
ate
judges. He has hired a series of private lawyers – courtesy of his parents – whom he
keeps on firing.
The current one’s egregious crime:  he didn’t show up for court since
his wife
was having a baby.

So t
he Masochistic Journey continues
.
He
refuses to
get offstage
though the audience has
left
long
ago
.
His parents
bought him a condo,
and give him a monthly stipend to live on
.
He is
48
years old, and
the tragic figure o
f this book.
Like Lear on the heath, he rails against the el
ements
and players
, but
they are deaf to his cries.
Like Lear, he’s been
grievously
betrayed, but what he doesn’t understand is that the ultimate
b
etrayer is himself.

It’s
late
2012, and m
y
Cancer World
has faded to a blip
.
Last
August, I ended one
year
of
Herceptin
.
The next month
, the
dreaded
port was
removed
. In December, I had a six-month mammogram
/ultrasound
check
and – hurrah! –
there were no changes
.
Most of the weird blood pumping
vanished
along with the port.
I’m sure
I’ll have tingling
in my arm
forever
,
along with
half an esophagus
; I
can’t ever
use a public
spa
(risk of lymphedema) and when I
fly, I have to wear elastic
arm
bands
tha
t remind me
of my
Grandma Bubbe.
 
But as they say,
it beats the alternative.

There ha
ve
been further
indignities
from the wacky world of healthcare.
I recently received a bill for
$1,600
. This was for
the
biopsy
of my tumor
directly
after surgery.
Per the
lady at the insurance, this is why the claim was denied:
I had not
authorized
the surgeon to
submit
my
flesh to the lab
. Now, considering that I was lying,
anesthetized
, on a table (like the poor o
ld sun in “Prufrock”),
would
I
suddenly
rise
like Lazarus and instruct, “Dr. Candle, you may
biopsy
my
carcinoma
!” before falling
back
unconscious?
To such depths of idiocy has this
great
nation sunk.
Obamacare? Bring it on!