Category: Uncategorized

The possibility has come up that I might be done with therapy, at least for the time being, and I honestly don’t know what to think of that.

I never thought I’d be someone who would seek out therapy, much less find myself a little sad that it might be ending. But live through the last five years like I did and all sorts of things that never seemed possible suddenly become everyday. So, here we are. My therapist says that we have three sessions left before the insurance stops paying, so we have to figure out what to do.

Now, he hints that it might be possible to continue. My family doctor certainly thinks it wouldn’t be impossible to find a way to convince the insurance company to keep paying. I don’t know. I’ve never quite understood the rules for what the insurance will and won’t cover. When I decided I might want therapy, I started looking around for English-speaking therapists. Then the insurance company said ‘no silly’ and told me that they would assign one to me. I didn’t get along with her well, started referring to her as “Morticia” and then, when I asked if I could find someone on my own, the insurance said ‘sure.’

That was in 2017 and I don’t know how many sessions I started with and how many I could potentially still have if I hit the right bureaucratic levers. I’m not sure if therapy begun to discuss the way your child’s potential death could affect you needs to change, billing-wise, once you transition to the actual death of the child.

But I think it’s also a bit besides the point. I can’t decide if I still want therapy or not. The truth of the matter is, I don’t think there’s a “fix” for me. I’m behaving thoroughly rationally. My son died because life is unfair and our number came up, so I react by suffering a background level of anger higher than I ever imagined possible for me. All things considered, I think being a little more prone to anger than I was before isn’t the worst reaction to what happened. Especially since, as my therapist points out, I recognize the problem and try to keep it under control.

So, therapeutically, I feel like I’m in a dead end. There’s no therapy that’s going to make me stop missing Colin or stop feeling it was all so unfair or keep me from having a twinge every time I see a little boy who would be his age busily not dying. This is just what I do now.

To me, going to a psychiatrist is, essentially, talk therapy. I sit down. I lay out the mess that is my life. And he nods his heads at the right points and occasionally points things out from a different viewpoint. I get upset that I grumbled about going up to Colin’s room in the hospice the last night he had his eyes open. Dr. Kehrer points out that, no matter what, it showed Colin loved me that he wanted me up there one last time before he never opened his eyes again. It works for me.

And I know there’s any number of friends who will sit and listen to me or share emails with me or even read this blog. I know there are other non-professional resources out there for me. I don’t question most people’s willingness to help. But there’s also the truth that I don’t want to be that depressing guy who talks about his dead kid day in and day out. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to bum my friends out. I don’t want to suck all the joy out of the room every time I show up. So, I’d like to talk to my living friends about non-depressing matters, even if the state of the world makes it hard to pick out non-depressing things to talk about these days. And that’s why I’m not sure I’m ready to give up a therapist. At the end of the day, I like having someone around who’s paid to listen to me whine so I don’t have to lay this on other people morning, noon and night.

I suppose it’s also a bit of a double-hit, because the coronavirus crisis has also made it that much harder to attend the monthly meetings with the bereaved Dad’s group. Those were cancelled from March through May. They managed to resurrect them in the hospice garden for a month or two and I made it to one of those. But now they’ve moved back inside and, when I had the chance to go to one last week, I opted out of it, simply because sitting in a room with a handful of other guys seemed like too big a risk. This from a guy who’s worked up the courage to go a restaurant amid all this and sends his daughter across town by public transportation five days a week so she can attend her new high school. I know, none of it makes sense. And it’s probably based somewhat on the fact that I’m still on the fence about the Dad’s group. They all seem like nice guys, but there’s the fact that, no matter how good my German may or may not be, sitting around talking about my feelings with a group of people I barely know would be difficult in English. Throw in the hurdle of a foreign language and I feel I spent half the meeting not understanding what’s being said and half being frustrated because I can’t package my feelings into words in my second language half as well as I might like.

And, just like that, I’m going from having one professional support system and one non-professional support system to a world where I have neither. And I’m not panicky about that. As I said, I know I have people to whom I can speak. I’m just aware I might be starting a new chapter in this miserable story. And I’ve never been particularly great at change. I guess, if nothing else, I can start blogging even more. I guess, what it really came down to is that I wish I was the one deciding to give up my security blankets instead of the one having rugs being pulled out from under me. Then again, if I’ve learned nothing else from this experience, life seems to be far more about having rugs pulled out from under you than one would ever really like to think about.

Several months into the coronavirus, a friend pointed out that a) I liked writing and b) I had ample time for it during the lockdown, so why wasn’t I?

There was no way around it. Writing was probably healthier for me mentally than going through old clothes. And, honestly, I’d developed a bit of an unhealthy obsession with crosswords after a friend got me a trial Wall Street Journal subscription. So, I started writing a story I’ve had knocking around in my head for years. And then, because I still have this dream of being paid to write novels, I started poking around to find out how one would look into getting published.

A friend I asked suggested writing essays. This came only months after another friend had suggested a book about grief.

And I don’t know what to do with those suggestions.

It’s not that I don’t have things to write about. Honestly, give me a topic and I can probably whip out 750 words without trying too hard. I like writing. No, it’s not the actual production that’s the problem. It’s the marketing. Myself. The story. Colin’s story. I don’t know how to turn this mess I’m in into something that people would want to read. Which is where I stop and think “Well, of course, no one wants to read about a dying kindergartener.” So, it becomes a question of thinking of how to write something that people should read.

To me, if I was to embark on an essay/book about grief strategy, I feel I should have something useful to say. Here’s how this problem hit me. Here’s how I got through it. Here’s how you could get through it too. Or, here’s a problem wound up in the whole situation. Here’s a possible solution. There has to be, in my mind, a journey from this awful point to a place where I don’t necessarily solve the problem, but get us somewhere with a view of something helpful.

I don’t have that. I can write you up 25 essays tonight if you want, but the morals of the story will be “Childhood cancer is really awful,” or “It’s terrible watching a 5-year-old die” or “Nurses who sign up to help families with sick children shouldn’t quit without notice.” I kind of would hope that those lessons are self-evident.

I mentioned this to Christina and her response was to think about how everyone has reacted when we tell them the story. All the details about the diagnoses and the doctors who expect you to somehow keep a child calm while they’re sticking a needle into their skull and the nurses who disappear on you and the lady bringing you a wheelchair for your dying child, who asks right in front of him “So, how long does he have, anyways?” Everyone is horrified. And it’s not that we don’t expect this. But having lived through it, it’s almost like a twisted, bittersweet memory. We can sit on the patio and talk about the one awful nurse at the hospice or the other mother at the hospice who made the really good lasagna. And it’s not as if we look back at this fondly or have forgotten the pain. I think it would be how two tornado survivors would say to one another “And remember how the roof disappeared?”

And she’s right. If I wrote down the whole story – OK, I’ve done that already – it would probably terrify anyone who came into that cold, but it’s not like I take us anywhere. It’s not like I bring us to a place where we’ve learned or achieved anything.

Would that be enough? I can’t say I feel it would. One of the first things I did when I got back to work was to try to convince the health reporter to do a larger story about the problems with Germany’s home health care network. He seemed interested. Then Covid-19 came along and health care reporters haven’t had a lot of time for extra projects since.

So, that would leave me to tell the story. And I’m stuck with nothing other than the thesis of “Well, that was terrible.” If he had to die and I have to write about it, then I want it to be something good. If I’m forced to accept that life handed me some of the worst lemons there are and it’s now my job to make lemonade, I’d like it to be something useful, not just “Hey, look at this horror show.” I have to fight the fact that there’s a part of me that wants desperately to get published, but I can’t use my child’s death as an excuse to make that happen. I’ve got to find something to say about it that matters. I feel Colin deserves that much. So, until that point, I guess that’s what this blog is for.

I attended the second virtual funeral of my life last week. The story is not mine to tell: Suffice to say a relative I don’t know very well died and I felt I should be around to support the surviving spouse, if at least virtually.

The first virtual funeral was my Mom’s. She died while Christina was pregnant, which would have made getting out to the States for the ceremony difficult at the best of times. Upping the ante, Christina was pregnant with Colin and had just broken her ankle after a fall down the stairs, so I really wasn’t going anywhere. My brothers set up a Skype channel so I could watch the ceremony and then they took turns carrying me around the reception. At some point, the video went wonky. I could see people but they couldn’t see me, so any conversation I had involved them asking me questions and me typing answers. It was precisely that surreal.

As I remember, I turned it into a decent story about online funerals for my employer. And then the German service translated the story and there was a kerfluffle about the fact I’d written it in the first person. If I remember correctly, the end result was a story in German with someone else’s byline in which I was “interviewed” for the parts where I discussed my mother. And then I think they had to change the name, because of rules against employees being interviewed by the surface. If nothing else, it made the experience memorable.

This funeral also had several Colin connections. First of all, it was at the cemetery in Texas where my relatives set up a memorial bench in his honor. And the bench is surrounded by a playhouse that has a wi-fi connection, which proved important because – and maybe I’m wrong about this – the wi-fi connection was helpful in allowing this funeral to be livestreamed. Honestly, Christina and I had forgotten about the wi-fi until we were reminded about in during a conversation about the funeral. If nothing else, it was a good chuckle. Say what you want about Colin, but the boy appreciated a good, strong internet connection.

Additionally, the surviving spouse … let’s put it simply and say that this person and I don’t agree on anything politically. And, back in 2016, when Colin first got his cancer diagnosis and it seemed like a good idea to me to vent my anger by getting into Facebook fights, this relative and I went around and around a few times.

So, when I found out about the spouse’s impending death, I reached out. It was cancer, of course. I feel that cancer just surrounds me sometimes. But that’s not the reason I reached out. I figured this person knew their loved one was about to die and that was too similar to what we went through with Colin that I figured I needed to reach out and try to help a little. I really felt that I would have this. This might be something I would be good at. Maybe losing Colin like I did would help me be able to reach out to other people suffering.

Well, it turns out I’m not a natural at this. One of my first interactions almost resulted in a new Facebook fight about the coronavirus, but we backed off. And we’ve had some good emails. It’s not mine to say if they’ve been helpful or not. I’ve no idea if this is going to be a regular thing or not. I’m certainly not a smotherer: I really like my distance from people. And I think it wasn’t such a surprise to me that I had no words to salve the pain because, honestly, what do you say to someone watching their partner die? There’s no combination of words to take the sting off that.

I think all I got out of it was another realization that none of this makes you stronger or smarter or better. You just need to keep moving on, if not for yourself, then for the other people who rely upon you. Or perhaps there’s no message at all. I know I was glad for everyone who reached out to me when Colin died. I suppose it’s the least I can do to return the favor or pass it forward when I find the tables turned from now on.

This Sorrells household had its first coronavirus scare over the weekend. It turned out to just be a scare: The test came back negative. To be honest, we were never terribly concerned that the virus had hit us, but it seemed like it wouldn’t be responsible to ignore the one warning, so we hunkered down for the weekend (regrettably, with Christina’s nephew, who instead of seeing Berlin got to spend a lot of time enjoying our plot of land) and watched movies and played games. All things considered, there are many worse outcomes.

But it keeps making me think about this stupid virus and all of the responses people are displaying to it. We’ve commented to one another more than once what we would be doing right now if Colin were still with us and on a breathing machine. I imagine we’d be one of those families dipping every new purchase in hand sanitizer before we brought it inside the house. I imagine we’d be on edge every moment of the day.

But I try not to think too much about that. I suppose the pandemic has made me, yet again, more aware of Emma and Noah’s health. It’s not that I’m overly worried about them, but, if nothing else, Colin’s tumor taught me that there are no guarantees in life. Just because I lost one child to cancer doesn’t mean the other two get the consolation prize of a risk-free life. The goal is to see them to adulthood. But who knows if the next truck, virus or case of botulism doesn’t have one of their names on it?

More specifically, I wonder sometimes what happens if one of them ends up in the hospital. We can explain to them what’s going on, a luxury we never really had with Colin. We could count on them submitting to some medical procedures that Colin never allowed. We could count on somewhat less drama. But there would be no drama-free life. They’re 10 and 12 and both acting like they’re about to be 16, so just about any topic is an invitation to a fight or a debate or a round of 20 questions. And, having seen a lot of this up close, they ask questions. They are shockingly open about cancer and other diseases. Death is not an unfamiliar topic to them.

So the goal is to keep them out of the hospital. And I wonder what it would be like for me if none of this had ever happened. If I had three healthy children, would this be nothing more than an annoyance to me? Did it require me watching a child spend nearly a year with breathing assistance to make me certain that this isn’t what I want for me, my children or, really, anyone? Christina has threatened more than once to show a picture of Colin on a ventilator to people on public transportation not wearing a mask, a kind of cautionary tale against treating all of this nonchalantly. She hasn’t done so, to my knowledge. But then you ask: Why would a person need to be told this? Isn’t it intuitively clear that losing your ability to breathe is a dead end? Do you have to go through what we did to get it?

I know the majority of people don’t need the situation to be so bad before they get it. But I do wonder what’s going on with the rest. Personally, I think if I was in the same room with a breathing machine, I’d have some kind of flashback. I just wish I could get a few other people to have a small dose of my healthy fear of these things. Honestly, if I could lose the images in my head of a pre-schooler struggling to breathe and foist them on someone who doesn’t see the problem, I’d do so in a heartbeat.

I’m back at translating for the hospice. My main translation project, of their website, has been put on hold because my original contact for that project has left the hospice and the new people in charge of the website say they have an entirely different concept in mind for its design. One can only hope that its merely a graphic resdesign. If they start rewriting all their text, everything I translated earlier this year and late last year will have been for nothing.

However, Claudia, one of the nurses there, gives occasional tours of the facilities in English and had asked me last year if I would go over her notes to tidy up the language. I agreed and then never heard from her again. But, while I was dropping the kids off for their summer program last week, I ran into her and we exchanged email addresses and, just like that, I have a new project.

From a translating perspective, it’s not so tough. It’s only four pages, her English is good and, since this is going to be spoken, it’s not as if every comma has to be in the precisely right spot. There are a few medical terms I have to figure out how to say (I can’t believe we say “artificial feeding” in English) and there’s a spot or two where I have no idea what she’s trying to say. Otherwise, it’s all easy.

The tough part is the memories. She’s telling how the patients’ rooms are outfitted (they says ‘guests,’ not ‘patients’), and I’m thrown back into the room with him. She describes the mourning ceremony and I’m right back there last September, laying a candle in a paper flower on the pond. She talks about the rooms for parents and I remember waking up in that bed every morning at 5 a.m., thanks to the combination of an awful mattress, the roar of the first flights of the day coming in overhead to Tegel, and the knowledge that I had to get upstairs to him so he had one of his parents with him for those first few hours of consciousness. He almost never slept past 5/5:30.

Christina and I talked about pictures of him recently and how and when we look at them. I still avoid them, although there’s no escaping him. We all agreed to put up pictures around the house, so he’s there, in just about every room downstairs. But I don’t look through the albums and the photo files on the laptops like Christina and the kids do. It’s a lot to take in.

And maybe I don’t feel the need to do it, because I’m still so wrapped up in the memories of that hospice. I think the killer is that it’s so hard to remember the good times with him. The first memory I usually snap back to is a day in the summer of 2018. I just wanted to read a comic book and had the kids set up in front of the TV so I could. And Colin came over to me to play and all I could think was “Can’t you watch TV so I can read.” Not a great memory. The second one that pops back is him in the hospice, on the last day I remember him opening his eyes. I’m sure I’d spent the bulk of the day with him, reading stories and watching Curious George. After dinner, it was usually my job to get the other two settled down and make sure they weren’t watching CSI Miami or something. Christina would get him ready for sleep during this time. And then we’d meet up in our room afterwards and prepare for the next day of hell.

Except this night, Christina didn’t come down. And I remember getting annoyed, because I just wanted to have five minutes of conversation with my wife and get to sleep before the next round began. And I was convinced she was fussing over him and not letting him drift off, when the text came that he was asking for me. So, I went up and said hi, but I was grouchy about it. And eventually he went to sleep and Christina came down and then I went to bed … and I don’t remember him ever opening his eyes again. And I wish that last memory was happier or at least put me in a better light, but that’s the memory that keeps popping up. Doubly so when I translate what his room was like in the hospice.

It’s hard to get to the hospice on the best of days and that much more so with lockdowns. I missed the men’s group meetings the last two months, so we’ll see how August goes. I am so grateful to everyone there for what they did for us. I just wish I had better go-to memories when I try to think of him. I wish we didn’t live in a world where there’s a virus that could, theoretically, mean one of us lands in a hospice-like situation again (and I know that’s not terribly likely) and all I can remember is the hell it was trying to comfort a kindergartener through all of those medical procedures. Pretty much every day of virus news makes me think about how hellish it was in the hospital and hospice. So maybe I shouldn’t be forcing myself to confront the hospice on such a regular basis. Then again, it helps to think maybe I’m making their jobs a tiny bit easier. That is also something.

I think it was good to get away on vacation and away from a job where I sit and read news stories eight hours a day, especially since, nowadays, the bulk of the stories are about this damned virus. It was nice, for four weeks, to barely think about the virus and it was jarring to come back to the job and go straight back to virus, virus, virus. I can tell that I’m already getting more nervous and worried about the health of me and my children. And I don’t think it’s unwarranted to think about the ramifications of this disease, but it’s a big step from being aware about it to reading about it almost non-stop.

And it feels like it’s getting closer. A kid in my neighborhood had to come home from a summer camp because a bunch of kids there suddenly came down with fevers and coughs. And suddenly, here it is, right on my street (maybe).

Today, the kid’s Mom came by and said they were running to the clinic for the test. But it wasn’t practical to take the kids younger sibling along to the clinic and this kid, understandably, wasn’t wild about sitting home alone for an hour or so. Also, understandably, it’s not a great idea to call grandma or grandpa in for such a situation.

So, would I mind keeping half an eye on the child. The kid was old enough to keep busy in the backyard and Emma and Noah were prepared to play host in a socially distanced and safe manner (as in, playing badminton while face-masked).

But that’s not the part I minded. I think, as I listened to my neighbor’s request, with an hour left on my shift, my main thought was that there was no way this could work because this kid was Colin’s age and there was no way Colin would ever play quietly outside for an hour while I worked. How was this going to work.

Except, this kid wasn’t Colin’s age. This kid is older than Colin will ever be. This kid starts first grade in a few weeks. Even when Colin was around, there’s a decent change they weren’t mentally the same age, since we were all pretty sure Colin got stuck around 3 years old mentally for a lot of his life. This was not the same as watching Colin because Colin is stuck at this point in amber in my mind while all the other kids on the street are growing up and advancing towards adulthood.

I’m not saying I froze. I’m not saying I had an attack. I’m not saying I had a moment. I’m just so tired of the way this grief sneaks up on you from the side and says “You’re not having daily crying jags about your son’s death? Well, try and see how this feels.” Because even if I wake up every day and think about every eventuality that could get me down and brace for it, there’s always one angle I haven’t thought about just waiting to stick me between the eyes and say “Your kid is dead. That must suck.”

I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of my son being dead and I’m so tired of knowing that millions might still die before we get this virus under control … and there are no guarantees that me, my wife and my children won’t be among those millions. I witnessed an argument about Portland online today that, essentially, degenerated into one side asking why there wasn’t more sympathy for the injured protesters and the other asking why there wasn’t more sympathy for the injured policemen. And all I can say is that I’m pretty tired of anyone getting hurt, for whatever reason.

So, here’s hoping the neighbor’s kid just had a cough. And here’s hoping this other guy I know whose girlfriend has a cough finds out that she just has a cough. Let’s just hope for a while. I think it will feel better than the alternative.