Each year after all the
drama and chaos that comes with end of the year holidays and associated
festivities we anxiously look forward to the do over/fresh start of the New Year. We think
back on the year remembering all the good times, not so good times, what we
did, didn't do, and wish we did. We then vow to make changes so that the New
Year is even better than the last. It is
will also be the year we follow through with all our resolutions.
My 2013 was beyond hectic
and crazy, not only did the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem
incredibly short, but my brewer-husband, Kevin, was consumed with all the plans,
permitting, equipment, and construction that was (is) needed for the brewery in
addition to working his full time job. He
had little or no time for our everyday home life responsibilities. The majority of responsibilities we used to
share then fell on me to do (..and still does) along with me working my full
time job. I was more than ready for a New
Year.
After all the Christmas
presents had been opened and I could finally sit back and relax, I too started
reflecting on things that had happened over the year. It was then I declared that 2013 would be
“that year “. You know the year, the one that when your
old and you and your spouse will reminisce and laugh and make comments like “
it is a wonder we survived without killing each other”. Unlike 2013, 2014 would be the year that I
would finally be organized, it would be less chaos, less stress, laundry done
routinely, I would blog regularly, and of course I would do the obligatory lose weight, exercise, and get healthy. Goodbye
chaos and stress, hello carefree, organized and sexier me (from the weight
loss, exercise, and getting healthy).
It became very clear 90 days into 2014 that
2014 had no intention on allowing 2013 to take “that year” in my history
title. Not only did 2014 trump 2013 for
chaos and stress, but also knocked 2000 (the year my father died) down to being
the second worst year of my life.
I
should have been aware of 2014 plotting against 2013, when the week before Christmas
I found out that my Uncle David had a mass on his lung that was most likely
cancer. My Uncle David was only 10 years
older than myself and was more like a brother to me than an Uncle. The thought of him having cancer and possibly
dying seemed implausible. David
possessed a young carefree soul like Peter Pan and the man never seemed to
age. David had just reconnected the
previous year with his son he had with a former girlfriend. She had moved away with their son when he was
three leaving no way for David to find them. His son was now in his early twenties and
married with a family of his own. David
and I had grown even closer since I moved to Savannah, now that we only lived few
hours away. More importantly he was
going on his twenty year anniversary with, Janet the women that gave his life the
love and the stability he didn’t have as
a kid. David’s life was finally in a good,
happy, and content place, he could not possibly die now!! Surely modern
medicine could get rid of the cancer or at least give him a few more years.
As 2013 counted down its last few remaining
days it attempted a last ditch effort to secure its “that year” title.
David had to be hospitalized due
to breathing difficulties and along with that came the confirmation of cancer, one
that was very aggressive with very low survival rate. The doctors however gave us the hope of more
time with a medical research trial that he qualified to participate. The doctors were excited to have him in the
trial since he was younger and otherwise healthier than the majority of people
with that lung cancer. He was released
from the hospital and sent home on December 31.
David’s best friend from childhood, his remaining surviving siblings an older
brother and sister, his son and his family, along with my family including my
brother and my mother (his sister In-law) all converged upon him. Each of us brought there by our family bonds,
love, and the fear of losing him. We all
knew we had let too much time pass between seeing those familiar smiles from
our past and guilty of getting too caught up in our own lives to notice. The same loving family bond that brought us
together also dissolved away any hard feelings or strangeness that may have existed
by living such different lives so far apart for so long. The house he returned to that day was filled
with an atmosphere of hope, love, memories and gratitude for time. During
those days I know time passed yet it felt like we were exempt from it, as if we
were somewhere between 2013 and 2014.
It was if we were in a time that did not belong to either year. It would be 3 days before 2014 would find us
in that time void and force us to return to our own daily lives and for cancer to
also claim the man I thought would live forever.
Despite losing David to 2014, I still held on to the belief that 2014 would still be able to become a great year of great things. It was just off to slow start thanks to damn cancer and 2013. Besides how bad could 2014 be, after all it did let us linger in that time void with David. It had help us to come to terms with losing him a little easier.
Apparently 2014 was just
setting me up. It didn't let us linger
in that time void. 2014 was too busy plotting blindside devastation
and heart break to not only secure its place in my heart of records to be “that
year” but also its place in the heart of many others.
April 1, 2014, my niece
Brianna, only 17 days away from that monumental 21st birthday, died
suddenly and unexpectedly in a hospital in Texas. My niece had joined the Army and was
stationed at Ft. Hood. She had called me on a Thursday complaining she was sick
with a cough and fever. Friday she
called to let me know they were admitting her to the hospital ICU and they were
going to put her on a ventilator to help her breathe. Saturday she still had a fever, but it was
lower and her blood oxygen levels were getting higher. Sunday
the fever had broken, her lungs were clearing and healing. The doctors felt she was well enough to be
weaned from ventilator starting the following morning and we all felt she was
on the road to recovery. Except on
Monday morning her heart would stop, and then would stop three more times, then
on the fourth time the medical team was not able to get it beating again. Every test they ran from A to Z when she was
first admitted had come back negative. It
was not a case of Legionnaires disease or the flu. The heart ultra-sound and heart catheterization
procedures that had been performed to figure out why her heart was stopping did
not reveal a cause or show a problem.
There was no reason, no cause, and nothing to blame. There was no time void, no cancer, only
questions. Maybe we will know more later since they
continued to search for answers after she was a gone, but I don’t think they
will find a reason.
Her Mom and Dad, despite
being divorced since Brianna was around 8 months old, had both been there with
her. They did not have the chance to see
her blue eyes open wide with shock to find them both standing next to her at
the same time. Her parents both lived in SC and had arrived
at the hospital after she had been placed in a medical induced coma while on
the ventilator. Brianna’s husband of less
than 9 months, also in the Army, had recently been deployed to Korea. He was sent home through the Red Cross as
fast as possible, but was unable to get to her before she passed away. Her death
came as a shock to everyone, including the doctors and nurses.
The relationship I had
with my niece was one that I struggle with words to describe. The word special does not convey or begin to
touch on the connection. I loved her
unconditionally. There was nothing that
she could have ever said or have done that would have ever made me not love
her. Even in death I could not hate her
for dying. My heart harbors a lot of
frustration, hurt and anger for feeling like she was stolen from us. It is these types of feelings when someone
dies with so many questions, that people
will direct their blame and hurt toward God.
God let her die. Everyone I knew and some I didn’t had prayed
for her to get better, but she didn’t. Did
God ignore us? Shouldn’t I blame God?
Brianna left behind so
many that loved her that needed answers, needed to blame, and just needed to be
angry. There was her younger sister
that had driven Brianna to madness when she was little and then become her
closest friend that she worried about and missed horribly when apart. There was the friend she had known since was
five. The same friend who she loved so
much that the hurt and frustration of her being in relationship with a guy that
did not value, respect, protect, or appreciate her had them on temporary nonspeaking
terms. There was her friend that had traveled
across the country twice to be with her once when she completed boot camp and
again when she needed a piece of home with her in Texas. There was so many new friends and old
friends whose lives she touched, each in different ways. There was a new husband and his family who had
also fallen in love with her. There
was Grandparents, Step Dads, a Step-sister, Cousins, Uncles and another
wonderful Aunt that helped guide her through this crazy world. There was Maw-Maw, and for her, Brianna was
her sunshine. There was her Father who
Brianna thought had hung the moon.
It was my brother, her father that made sure
many of us didn’t turn our angry hearts and blame to God. After doing all that he could for Brianna in
Texas, unlike the urgent and anxious drive to get to her the drive home was
just a long drive. The drive gave him
time to think and when he got home he posted the following to Brianna’s Facebook
page.
“…..Well like most everyone I have talk to we
are all mad Brianna was taken away. But on my 19 hr drive yesterday all I could
do was think. So I thought of all the joy and love and laughs Brianna gave me.
So I instead of cursing God I thanked God for giving me such an amazing time
with her. Don't get me wrong I want her back but now I am just glad I did have this
time with her. She had a lot of conflict but now it's over and we have an angel
that will look after us like she did when she was here.”'
How could I blame
God now? My Brother was right, God put her
in my life and I hers. I could be mad at
the hospital staff, but they did everything they could to keep her here. In a conversation
I had with a friend after losing Brianna, they had made the comment that it was
going to be a rough year. It was then I
realized it was 2014 that deserved all my hurt, blame, and anger. It made perfect sense, at least to me in my
own way of managing grief and irrational thoughts. 2014
had planned this all along, so as not to be out down by 2013 and to secure its
place as “that year” to never be forgotten.
It could have been left to 2064 to take her away, but instead it was
2014. Asshole.
2014 to date has yet
to care about my pain. Instead it continues to create even more chaos
and havoc as in some sick act of triumph, by making time tick away a faster.
2014 has kept Kevin even more tired and busy by making sure brewery construction deadlines, schedules,
and projects are barely made or pushed back, thus leaving me often alone to learn how to live without Brianna, while
trying to keep up with three kids, my full time job, laundry, bills, appointments…
You know those annoying everyday life and responsibilities. My once idealistic New Year resolutions of
organization and flat abs have given away to merely surviving 2014.
Every time I laugh instead of cry and every morning
I get out of bed to defend those I love from what
else 2014 may have in store, I like to think that I am giving
2014 the middle finger , with a big ol’ Fu*K
You !!
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Brianna Fleshman Baxter 1993 - 2014Brianna's Memorial Video David L. Fleshman 1963 - 2014 |
