It started with a simple question from my 18-year-old daughter. “Mom? Did Dave get me some tampons? I put it on his list.”
See, my devoted husband does 99% of our household’s grocery shopping. But only for things that are on the list. The refrain at our house is, “If it ain’t on the list, it don’t exist.” Mind you, poor grammar is generally forbidden in my home as I consider it more offensive than just about any obscenity. But I allow that phrase because it’s protected under a “poetic license” exception that I created (and that no one else can invoke without my prior well-written consent.) If we were to say, “If it isn’t on the list, it doesn’t exist,” we would sound like uppity Ivy League-types and we just aren’t quite that classy. (No offense to Ivy Leaguers. As if anyone who went to Harvard or Yale would be reading this drivel.)
The other 1% of the “grocery” shopping covers my trips to Target to get my own moisturizer, mascara, and feminine hygiene products. Along with any clearance-rack bargains and home décor items I never know I need until I find myself blissfully pushing one of their big red magical plastic carts. Oh, how I revel in those rare escapes when the planets align with the clock and the kids’ schedules and my gastrointestinal irregularity. Not to mention my serotonin levels. (That I just mentioned. Mentioning the words “not to mention” is a bit like saying, “it goes without saying” and then saying. But I digress.) Anyway, the alchemy that yields a perfect blend of joy and power and saving money by spending it only happens to me at Target. Maybe once a quarter, if I’m having a good year.
I responded to my daughter’s question with a glowing, starry-eyed report about her intrepid stepdad’s recent virgin foray into our local grocery store’s feminine hygiene aisle. A place so foreign to most men that they avert their eyes as they dart toward the nearby condom and lube shelves. A minefield fraught with complexity and teeming with unfamiliar jargon. But this is no ordinary man. He is a retired Navy veteran. He spent years in a submarine. He’s the hands-on, involved father of five children plus the two I added to the mix about four years ago. He’s the dad who packs the kids’ lunches (including my daughter’s) every school day morning, and always includes a thoughtful note or quote written on the napkin. His sensitive side has elicited accusations that he has a mangina, but don’t let that fool you. He rides a Harley. (Not a really big one, but still.) He manages nurses for a living, for Christ’s sake. That’s how bulletproof he is. As a nurse himself for the past 20+ years, he has witnessed his share of trauma and disease and death. He’s all-too-familiar with every sort of solid, gas, or liquid that a human body can harbor, expel, or spill. So the idea of fetching supplies to deal with a little menstrual blood certainly didn’t pose him any cause for alarm. Until he realized what he was up against.
My brave husband is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. In his quest for the specified brand of feminine protection with all the required characteristics, he did not take it lightly. He was not going to discharge himself of the task at hand or let it cramp his style. He was not afraid to spread his wings and put forth the super effort necessary for this chore. I’m not padding this story when I say that he was out for blood. When he failed to pick up the scent of the requested product within a reasonable time period, he applied his stick-to-it-iveness with admirable fluidity and called me with a code red for help. I was reluctant to insert myself into the situation, but I knew that it would go more smoothly if I did. The matter was weighing ultra-heavy on him like a curse, but he remained active and breathable. I knew he would spot the right box and snatch it up eventually. I’m not going to string you along with a lot of extra one-liners for you to absorb. Suffice it to say, when his search was finally wrapped up and disposed of, I was so bloody proud that I needed a rag to wipe the moisture that was leaking from my eyes. He earned his red badge of courage that day. I was reminded that it’s a plus to have him do the grocery shopping. When I dripped praise on him for such gallantry, he forced an exhausted smile and just soaked it all up.
“So, where are they?” my daughter asked.
“Oh, I guess I put them in my bathroom cabinet,” I replied.
She said, “Just because we have synchronized cycles doesn’t mean you can use my tampons.”
That was the pivotal moment. I looked at the calendar and realized that I hadn’t had a period in about three months. Time sure does fly without those landmarks. Since my mid-forties, I had been feeling pretty safe about using my age as a legitimate form of birth control. Even though doctors, nurses, and lab technicians would scoff at me over the years and shake their heads as they told stories of fertility nightmares and surprise pregnancies in women around my age, I was fairly confident that it wouldn’t happen to me. I’m 52 now. We already have seven kids between us. An eighth would be enough. Enough to put me in a long-term mental-health treatment facility.
A pregnancy for me would not only come as quite a shock to us and our entire extended families as well as our local community in general, it would also be a true miracle that would quite possibly signal the second coming of either a new messiah or (more likely) Rosemary’s baby.
See, aside from its advanced age, my wrinkled and crusty uterus has served as a dank and dusty home to a couple of unwelcome fibroid cysts that we fondly refer to as “the twins.” By the time they were discovered with an MRI in 2012, “Damien” and “Malachi” had grown to the sizes of, say, a tennis ball and a slightly smaller tennis ball. Or maybe an average orange and a medium tangerine. But after seeing photos of real fibroids when I made the mistake of doing a Google images search, I can tell you that they look more like lumpy uncooked meatballs or bloody cauliflower. So yeah, let’s say that Damien is the extra-large meatball and Malachi is his younger, less flavorful side dish. Anyway, in 2013, I had this procedure done in hopes of starving them out. It’s called uterine artery embolization. It was supposed to cut off most of the blood supply to my once-fertile womb and make it incapable of sustaining life, so the cysts would suffer a slow death in a harsh and barren environment. Not unlike my creative writing career while I keep practicing law. (But I digress.)
On top of the fact that I’m 52 with a uterus that probably looks like a mattress you would find in a dumpster behind a crack house, my otherwise virile husband has been through testicular cancer and has only one good nut left. My middle stepson once asked his dad, “So, after they took that nut out, is it just like an empty pillowcase on that side, or what?” Mind you, this question came up at the dinner table, in a restaurant, in the presence of my then-future-in-laws and probably a handful of other relatives (including our two younger kids). As they all waited for my husband to offer up an age- and dinner-conversation-appropriate answer, I managed to say, “Well, actually…” before he managed to chime in and save me from further embarrassing chatter about his scrotum.
All this to say, for me to get pregnant, a healthy-enough sperm from an irradiated nutsack would somehow have to find its way to a healthy-enough egg to create an embryo that could survive for several months in a rather arid climate with a couple of hostile neighbors. (Plus, I would have to figure out how to stop drinking and taking so many prescription drugs at this point in my life.) Clearly, any resulting baby would be born with survival skills that could put your average Navy SEAL to shame. That kid would perform its own C-section and march out in combat boots. It would be sporting a full head of dreadlocked hair, a mouth full of crooked teeth, and a really bad attitude. And it would probably glow in the dark. As my bloody, post-partum, elderly shell of a body rested on the hospital bed, this creature (whose resemblance to a midget carnival worker might call its paternity into question) would climb up my torso, stare me down with its one good eye, poke a stubby finger in my face and yell through chapped lips, “What the FUCK was that all about?” Its bad breath would send me reaching for an oxygen mask with one hand as I try with the other to take the cigarette out of its mouth. That one would be the bully of the nursery. “I’ll give you something to cry about, you little crybabies!” It would snarl. And, of course breastfeeding would be out of the question. This one would be making its own coffee and cocktails before hospital personnel could even call security. And we could forget trying to strap that kid into a carseat. “Gimme the keys!” It would demand as we cower in the hospital parking lot. These thoughts give “pregnancy scare” a whole new meaning.
“Wait, what?” I asked my daughter. “What month is this?”
With fear in her eyes, she took a deep breath and replied, “It’s April, Mom…OK…When was your last period?”
“I’m supposed to be asking you that.” I snapped. “But January, I think.”
Next thing you know, we were on our way to CVS for a home pregnancy test. My husband and the other kids weren’t home, so at least no one else had to witness this unfolding mother-daughter drama. Not until we brought the CVS clerk into it, anyway.
As my daughter and I entered the store, we were greeted by a cheerful young man whom we later came to know as Kevin.
“Welcome to CVS, ladies! I hope you’re havin’ a great day. Let me know if I can help you find anything,” Kevin said from behind the counter. The store was a ghost town. I could tell that poor Kevin was bored and starving for some lighthearted human interaction. Little did Kevin know what was coming.
After we said hello to our new friend, I considered grabbing a cart and filling it with a lot of random and unnecessary items so as not to call too much attention to the pregnancy test, but I was in no mood to waste time and money in my fragile emotional state.
My daughter led me to toward the back wall of the store where they have all the items related to improving sexual intercourse, preventing pregnancy as a result of sexual intercourse, and finding out if you did get pregnant as a result of sexual intercourse. At the time, I didn’t think to wonder how my daughter knew right where to go. Maybe she could just read the store’s signs better than I could. Then I made the mistake of telling her, “I haven’t been this scared since college.” She reminded me that she would be going to college soon. Suddenly, my joke wasn’t so funny anymore. We spent too much time choosing the right test. Is the store brand going to be accurate? Would the cheapest one be good enough? We opted for a mid-priced store-brand. A twin-pack, in case I might need to confirm the first result (or hope for a better one).
We took the box to the counter where Kevin had been anticipating our arrival. He scanned it without making eye contact and hastily dropped it into a bag. I said, “I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t for her,” as I pointed to my daughter.
Kevin laughed nervously and said, “Hey, I see all kinds of people come through here buying all kinds of stuff. No judgment, here, man. I’ve seen it all. I could tell you some stories. Maybe this test is ‘for a friend,’ right?” His air-quotes were subtle and conveyed a level of compassion that I had never felt from air-quotes before and probably never will again.
That’s when my daughter had to pipe up and say, “Nah, it’s for my mom. So we can see if she’s pregnant or just starting menopause.”
“Keep your fingers crossed for menopause, Kevin.” I said as I read his nametag for the first time and drew him against his will into our little secret.
As he handed me the bag and the four-foot-long CVS receipt, he winked and said, “Good luck to your ‘friend’ ladies!”
As we returned to the car, we laughed and congratulated ourselves for giving our friend Kevin a funny story to tell his buddies. “Get this shit, y’all,” he would say. “This old-ass lady came in all scared that she could be pregnant. She shoulda been buyin’ some Depends, but there she was, thinkin’ she might be knocked up! I was like, what the fuck, grandma! But I had to keep a straight face in case my manager was watching. Pregnant granny. That’s some fucked-up shit right there, man.”
After we got home with the test, I was afraid to take it. My husband returned a little while later and listened to our story. Surprisingly, he didn’t find the humor in it. He sent me to the bathroom with orders to pee on the stick immediately. After a bit of stage fright, I did as I was told–fighting flashbacks of being scared in my twenties and being hopeful in my thirties.
As my daughter waited in the kitchen, she heard my husband let out a sort of cheer. At first, she thought it was a sign of a negative test result, then she thought, “But he does like kids, so….” We kept her in suspense for a few minutes before we let her know that she wouldn’t need to give up her bedroom for a new sibling just yet.
So, yeah, I guess I tested positive for menopause. I look forward to giving Kevin the good news.
It has taken me 12 years to write this. Not because I’ve been keeping any painful secrets. Not because I’ve let grief paralyze me. I’m not sure why today became the day I would finally share some memories and release some of the words that have been tumbling around in my aging head all this time. The number 12 has some cosmic significance, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to Google up all that crap right now. Maybe it’s just because the older I get, the younger my dad was when he died at 64 on this day 12 years ago. But my heart is telling me that it’s because today I am literally 12 years away from turning 64 myself.
My dad’s Texas bar exam results from 1978. Apparently, he passed by only three points. This explains why he high-fived me in 1991 when I passed it by only one point. “You studied just hard enough,” he said. I love this not only because it’s a special piece of my dad’s history, but because it has his fancy signature on it. His hand held those papers as he smiled with pride and relief. As I hold them today, I feel that energy through my bones and miss him beyond words. And then I smile, too.
I was temporarily impressed to discover that my dad had been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Then I did some research and found out that just about any attorney who knows a couple of members of that bar can get one of these if they simply apply and pay the fee. I’m sure my dad did it to impress his clients. Now it hangs in my office to impress mine. Thanks, Daddy.
His scent is still on my hands as I write this. Not ready to wash him off just yet. I have bits of his fur on my sleeves from the final hugs. We all crowded into the tiny exam room at the veterinary hospital. His parents, his step-parents, and his brother and sister. Six sad family members surrounding an aching elderly dog who certainly wondered what all the fuss was about. They put him on a blanket and gave him the injection. We said more goodbyes, held back tears, then let them flow. He was asleep and then he was gone. I cried with occasional bursts of loud, ugly, heaving sobs of gut-wrenching grief. I hugged my crying children, knowing I was helpless to ease their pain. I leaned hard against my husband’s shoulder, trying to quell my trembling. His father, usually so stoic, wiped tears from his flooded eyes. I hugged his stepmother (probably his favorite parent) and thanked her for taking such good care of him. She thanked me for sharing him with her.
I was a writer until my life interfered with my writing about it. Over the past two years, I haven’t written much of anything other than about 523 clever Facebook statuses or Instagram captions. And maybe a grocery list or two. And of course work-related correspondence and briefs. And there was that one nasty note I put on the windshield of a car that was parked by a douchebag who thought his (clearly leased) BMW deserved to take up two spaces. (The note said something to the effect of, “Thanks, asshole.” I would have continued the vitriol, but decided that less was more, as if to telegraph that I wasn’t going to waste any extra time on the likes of him. I’m sure my words gave him the epiphany he needed and he changed his ways after that.) My few snippets of writing, while sometimes creative and always well-crafted, did nothing to feed my hunger for opening veins at the keyboard. Instead, I starved.
If only other families could swap insults with impunity the way mine does, there would be no petty or protracted estrangements and Jerry Springer would never have had a successful show. While we looked forward to Thanksgiving that year, we all were a little apprehensive as well. It was the first one without my dad. Before we all got to my mother’s house, my sister e-mailed me and my brother to say, “I’m looking forward to y’all getting on my nerves this weekend.”
My parents were always amazed at how different their three children were. We still question my sister’s paternity, but then she is quick to remind us that she has the upper thighs of our maternal grandmother’s side of the family. Bless her heart.
(or How to Spend $600 After Almost Killing Your Dog)
Before my then-husband left for a deployment to the Middle East, he fully briefed me about all the things he did outside while I was in the house watching A&E or Bravo marathons and pretending to do laundry. The only indoor item I needed to worry about was the humidor. Apparently, it needed watering not unlike my thirsty houseplants. One spring day, he spent what seemed like four hours or so giving me detailed instructions on the use and/or maintenance of: the riding lawnmower, the gas-powered Weed-Eater, the leaf blower, the septic tank, the water softener, the sprinkler system (which I incidentally had theretofore been unaware that we even had), the propane tank, the soaker hoses, the Miracle Gro plant feeder, the weed killer, various insect killers, and, of course, the humidor. He checked me out on all of these as I took notes in hopes of remembering what should be done twice a week as opposed to what should be done every two weeks.
Maybe it’s bad karma. Or a disability. Or raging pre-menopause hormones. Maybe it’s my meds or lack thereof. Or this unnecessarily dramatic midlife crisis I nurture. Maybe I should consult an astrologist or a hypnotherapist. Or a pharmacist. Either I am easily overwhelmed, exhausted, and spent, or I just whine about it more than anyone else does. Others seem to manage life so much more deftly than I do.