Preparation

It's a rare quiet morning here in the Milkweed household. Mr. Milkweed doesn't have to be at work until this afternoon and has taken the kids out for some "Daddy time," and I'm sitting in the living room listening to the blended sounds of rain and a Chopin nocturne.

I'm supposed to be folding laundry. I seem to remember, way back in the dusty corners of my brush with literary criticism, either Heidegger or Marx tossing around the phrase "always already." Its former usefulness is now lost to me, but I like to think of myself as always already needing to fold laundry.

Generally, I don't.

I'm moving slowly today. Like most people, I enjoy a restful night of sleep, but lately there have been more than a few instances when it's been me, God, and the little glowing numbers on the alarm clock. That sense of God's companionship in the middle of the night is pretty high on my list of the innumerable benefits procured by a life of faith. No doubt I'll only continue to enjoy it as this surgery approaches.

There are a lot of practical preparations to be made: as I type this, I have open a thread on a local parenting forum about freezer meals. I want to lay in a supply of dinners to make things easier on Mr. Milkweed. I read through recipes knowing Silas won't eat most of it, and make a mental note to stock up on chicken nuggets. My darling son-- this morning after breakfast, he noodled about dragging a blanket all over the house and shouting "HEY! PIPE DOWN!" As far as I'm concerned, he can eat vegetables in college.

The other night as Mr. Milkweed and I were getting ready for bed, I spent a good ten minutes watching the children's baby faces, which-- if I squint my eyes and cock my head-- I can see reemerge as they're sleeping. Eventually this won't be the case, but for now I can sit in the darkened upstairs of our house and spend time with the babies they used to be. It hurts as much as it's wonderful.

"You know, I'm going to be really pissed at God if he takes me away from my children," I said when I came back downstairs. I said this even though I don't believe God works that way.

"Meaning what?" asked Mr. Milkweed, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Like maybe pissed enough to deny him completely," I said. "I don't know."

"Nah," he said as he spit, "or maybe you'll just spend a week in Purgatory and then change your mind." And I was comforted, even though I don't believe in Purgatory. Frankly, the in-betweenness of the whole thing scares me.

And so, a snapshot from 3am: what happens to me under anesthesia? Not what happens physically, but where am "I"? I don't worry about going to sleep at night, because then my subconscious naturally takes over and I dream, but where do I go when I'm medically rendered completely unaware of everything? When I'm just on pause?

It turns out doctors don't really know. There was a Fresh Air interview where a surgeon tried to explain it, but much is left up to conjecture.

Here's what I do know:

I want to make a list of friends and then take a bunch of scraps of paper and write one memory on each scrap. I want to hand them out and trust those friends to hold some part of me in their heads while I can't hold myself in mine.

It sounds a little bit crazy. It sounds a little bit childish, and I don't really believe selfhood works that way.

But it sounds comforting, too.

Maybe I'll do it.