What is happening to our skies?

Sobering Thoughts

The map pin marks the Kelliwood Greens home my mom, dad and I built in the early 1990s.

The red X marks the same Kelliwood Greens home as viewed from satellite via NOAA's flood map on Aug. 31 after the Barker reservoir failed due to Harvey's record precipitation event.

Last Sunday night we had my mom and her partner over for burgers on the grill. A long time writing project along with good old fashioned reminiscing lead me to ask my mom questions about our life in one of my childhood homes. I could almost anticipate verbatim what she was going to initially say about it: "I hated that house." A house is just a human organization of materials. The real value, the meaning is what transpires as a result of those who dwell inside this structure.

I wanted to know specifically about our morning routine. My memory has faded and even though my mom has three decades on me, people tend to recall different things. Admittedly, I'm not generally one for the details, and I find importance in them now.

As it turns out, my mom could only recall what time she had to be at work along with my brother being a pain in the ass to get out of bed during high school. The latter I well recall, unfortunately.

My mom will be 73 come October, and has been living with a stage four cancer diagnosis since the summer of 2014. She is under the care of the head of oncology at SCCA and has been off chemo since May 2016.

The conversation at some point shifted to the recent solar eclipse. My mom's partner speculating about when the next one would be. My husband guessed and I interjected it would pass through Austin in seven years, and that we should go. Suddenly I realized that future time may be one absent my mom. An agonizing feeling gripped my heart along with the realization of how few others, who were part of my collective consciousness growing up, remain in my life now. Aside from my husband, my mom is really the only immediate family I have left.

Harvey hit last weekend as well. My mom and I reminisced a little about our time living in Houston. All week I've been obsessed with news coverage of the storm and subsequent, unprecedented floods.

The strange thing is, I don't really have anyone left in Houston either, not directly that I'm still connected with. Even so, I still feel for all the tens of thousands of people whose lives were disrupted and certainly even more so for those who perished as well as those left behind.

When I look a quarter century back, I am filled with feelings of joy as well as regret. My dad moved my mom and I to Houston at the start of my junior year in high school. My brother went off to California for his first year in college. I almost wrote that he was the more fortunate of us, and now I'm not so sure.

One of my nearest and dearest from my time in Houston, she and I have been distant for years and years. She had reached out to me ages ago on Facebook. I've since tried adding her as a friend. My request has yet to be accepted. Yesterday I wrote her a note just to acknowledge she's still in my heart and how delighted I would be if she wished to connect.

Yesterday I also discovered the home we built in West Houston, which my mom loves to remind me how I redesigned the front elevation so it would look more stately and unlike any other similar floor plan home in the area, was flooded. Our old neighborhood of Kelliwood Greens was under mandatory evacuation orders.

My past feels like it's being washed away and eroded. I take full responsibility for my part in that, for allowing connections I failed to hold dearer to wane and fade to nothing. Maybe this is what a mid-life crisis is? An existential quandary of soul to remain connected, healthy and relevant. These types of psychological upheavals tend to affect the male of our species much more than the female. Males tend to go a little bonkers, buy a nice car, have an affair or pretty much do anything to help anchor them to their youth or slow their prospect of aging. I would like to embrace where I'm at. Being able to revisit my past may be key to this. I don't know, this is uncharted territory. I've never been middle aged before and in this mindset.

Last night my husband and I had yet another quarrel about my illness, and the adverse impact it's having on my work/production. To say it feels so disenfranchising to be nearly five years ill with Lyme disease and co-infections and be expected to function at the level of a person with reasonable health is a gross understatement.

Most heavy this week was extraordinarily tragic news from my mom. Her great granddaughter of 15 months (on her partner's family's side) was rushed to the ER a couple days ago. She had been vomiting and had a history of seizures. At one point the baby's heart stopped and she was revived. The family slept at the ER Tuesday night in hopes that when the baby awoke all would be OK. At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning the doctors pronounced her brain dead after receiving her MRI results. They took her off of life support at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. All family members who were present held this sweet, innocent baby girl in their arms one final time to say goodbye.

In all my blubbering around my challenges, nay, annoyances in my life, I cannot fathom the immense gravity of suddenly loosing such a young, innocent life. Her parents did all they could for her. The baby received good, regular medical care. They took her to the right place immediately. And yet ... These are the stories that put life into perspective for us. A soul perishing who had but a sliver of a history to wash away and has left dozens of people reeling in grief.

People suffer grief and loss from their parted connections. The deeper the connection, the greater the loss. The connections this child formed with those she touched were incredibly profound. I never met or knew this child, and yet my heart breaks for her, for her parents, her family and her community.

Talking with my mom about this on the phone today, I started to break down, imagining how beside themselves the child's parents must be during this time. It would be natural to second guess what else could have been done. There was nothing else. It was a seemingly senseless, callous act of life. Maybe her soul was just too good and too pure for this world.