I finally decided to embrace working from home, since it seems I’ll be doing it for a while, and set my desk up so it’s a little bit better, though I’m still sure I’m going to need massage therapy at one point to make up for the fact that my home office is not one tiny bit ergonomic.
I have a ton of stuff on my desk. There is actual useful stuff, but there are also projects on hold and pictures and knick-knacks. It hasn’t been helped by last month’s attic-cleaning project, which means I now have the US Army award I got in first grade for a poster project that my brother Markus totally drew for me down here on my desk. Ditto the keychain that was also the ticket to my junior prom (Markus did not make that).
And I also rediscovered the pen. Which is kind of a lie. I knew it was there the whole time, I just kept stacking stuff strategically in front of it. But there’s this pen. It probably cost about 69 cents and the spring is missing, so it’s useless, so I should probably just throw it out.
Except, I bought this back in 2016, right after Colin got his first diagnosis. It’s probably for the best that I can’t fully remember that time. My brain was firing so much, trying to process all the information, trying to sort through new German words I’d never wanted to know, trying to figure out how to care for Emma and Noah while doing what I could at the hospital, and I reached a point where I knew that I just wasn’t going to be able to keep my act together and I knew stuff was coming at me far too fast to enter it into my phone in any useful fashion. So I found an old notebook and bought this pen at a kiosk in Alexanderplatz and that’s where I kept my brain for about two months, reminding myself of everything from special events at the kids’ schools to lists of things I needed to get to Colin in the hospital.
And now he’s dead and my brain is still a mess, but I’m more functional, and I have all the time I need in the world to get projects done since I barely leave the house … and here I am with this stupid pen.
It’s at least a memory I’ve chosen to keep, unlike say:
- the 2,000 euro hospital bill from 2018 that still sits here while insurance processes it;
- the US stimulus check that arrived here in Berlin (I know…), with extra money for each of my three children;
- and the bank statements that keep showing up from his college account, because the bank can’t seem to get that shut.
Those I could do without. So, I’ll take the pen. So what if it’s broken? So are most of us on some level.
I am sorry you have those not to keep items with which to deal. It is cruel, and I wish I could make those stop for you.
But I am glad you are holding onto the pen for as long as you wish.
When I take Eliana to museums, she always looks for the items that are damaged or incomplete, because I taught her that if a museum displays something that is broken or damaged, it means that it is something very important. A statue missing feet; an illuminated page from a long-gone book, a pottery shard… it matters; it is beautiful, anyhow; it is evidence.
My perspective: You won’t be, can’t be, and shouldn’t be the same as you were. But I dispute your being broken. I think you are hurt, changed, and healing. But not broken.
That said, I love the thought of most of us being a bit broken in our own ways. I just prefer to think of it as damage not breakage…
Sending love.
The pen seems like a pretty profound metaphor for where you have been and where you are — there when you were needed, battered for your experiences, still showing up even though you’re not feeling fully functional. I’d say that’s a keeper. (Wish I could say the same for the bills and bank stuff. How dreadful.)
The pen is an amazing metaphor for most of us who have had family impacted by the big “C”. I am sure my spring is missing or at the very least sprung! I’ve been lost then I found myself again…I think. The hardest part now is watching someone else that I love going through the same thing…only worse…how is that possible? We are all the sum total of our experiences….good and bad. That makes us who we are.