Fasting, a migraine, an obituary

I fasted today, as you do in my church the first Sunday or every month, and which I don't usually observe because it sometimes gives me migraines. I had cranberry juice this morning, so it wasn't a complete fast, but I still got an awful migraine later in the day that would not be appeased by exedrin migraine. I no longer keep anything stronger on hand, and I quickly realized that the headache had gotten out of my control and I just had to wait.

I think of the time in a headache as dead time -- there is nothing you can do but wait for the time to pass, the only cure for headaches of that variety. I spent an hour sitting on the bathroom floor reading the Economist, and then watched "Martian Child" with my roommate and a plastic bag. I was urged to go lie down in the dark, which does ease the pain a little bit, but in the boredom of lying down, unable to sleep, my focus always turns undistractedly to the pain.

I helped my mother, today, with my grandfather's obituary. It described his education, his work, his family: he leaves his wife of 55 years, a son, Eric (who has never been called Eric a day in his life), a daughter, Meryl, and nine grandchildren. I have to admit that it made me think of W.H. Auden's poem, "The Unknown Citizen"; it could have described any number of boyscout-troop leading, Sunday School teaching, family man grandfathers.

If I had the chance to write an obituary, regardless of the likelihood it would be accepted by a local newspaper, it would have described a trip that my grandfather took me on in honor of my fifth birthday. He asked me what I wanted as a birthday gift, and I had something very specific in mind: a pink, gem-encrusted plastic snail, about eight inches tall, that was all the rage amongst my little friends. It had a shell that opened into a hiding place for the little treasures that only a five year-old has. I can't remember what those snails were called, but it was one of those eighties toys that was heavily marketed on television and which I desperately wanted.

My grandfather drove me to Toys 'R Us, and got a shopping cart, and we quickly found exactly what a wanted, much to my delight. We put the pink snail into the shopping cart, and then my grandfather surprised me by suggesting that we take a little walk through the store. I thought he was going to try to convince me that I may want another toy more, and I was entirely baffled when he led me down every aisle of the store, frequently picking things up and asking, "You know, this looks like a neat toy. Would you like to get this, too?" Even being five years old and having only the most rudimentary knowledge of the world, I was acutely aware of the extravagance of that trip, so much so that it made me feel shy. I don't remember everything we got that day -- we did get a "lite-brite," a my little pony, some small dolls whose hair changed color in the bathtub, a baseball bat, some gifts that my grandfather let me pick out for my other siblings. The cart was overflowing with toys by the time we left, and I truly felt like the luckiest girl in the world that night.

I wonder if he planned to get all of things that night, or if it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. When I was in college I wrote about that trip in a letter to my grandparents, and gosh, I'm so, so glad that I did. I wish I had written notes describing other fond memories, too: the memory of my grandfather pulling me out of knee-deep muddy water after I feel into a swamp in a hike that we took; my grandfather sneaking a doughnut to me after I had been sent to my room for misbehavior; my grandfather taking me and my siblings and my cousins to a frozen lake that was covered in six inches of snow, and playing the most fun game of tag that I think I've ever played.

Gosh. I just really want to value people the way the deserve to be valued, and to just show my appreciation more generously. I also feel my role in my family changing subtly, but in a real way. I felt this on my brother's birthday, which was the same day my grandfather died. My mother was in Florida and I ended up organizing a somber birthday celebration with my sister and my dad: we got the cake and candles, made the phone calls, organized the dinner, all things my mother would have done if she were in town. And I realized that I really don't do enough to help organize the time that I spend with my family. That sometimes my role in my family is too much just showing up, and that I can and should do so much more.

Any, goodnight. My headache seems to have gone, finally.