A New Pest Has Come Around

Wednesday, 12:50pm... sent my sister a meme of dancing in the street in New Orleans. She and her husband flew in there from Utah for some festival. They are meeting up with friends. I wrote, "Have fun and be safe."

Same day, 4:58pm... she sent me a cute picture of herself on one of the city's colorful corners. It said, "Look here are the shorts we bought at the dollar store in Arcadia." (She had spent nearly three weeks with me before flying back home to Utah, only to fly back with her husband to New Orleans.)

5:06pm... I replied, "Cute outfit. What color is your hair now?" (She had gone from platinum to pink to kind of green trying to bleach it out again, so I needed to ask because the picture she sent looked hazy.)

7:01pm... when she got around to it, replied, "Drab not quite strawberry blonde." And added an emoji with its tongue sticking out. (Btw, Boomers have no idea what emojis are trying to say...)

Thursday, 3:45pm... Kitty, my sister sent a group message to me and my brother and a picture of the steamboat, NATCHEZ. Her message, "I'm at New Orleans at the French Quarter Festival. Is this the boat we were on when we were all in N.O. with Aunt "Cile in like, 1969?" Suffice it to say, I was 15, they were 8 and 5...who knows, but it brought on a few more laughs and memories and some recall of seasickness aboard some steamboat there. Just don't know if it was the old, Natchez or not.

Friday, 12:45pm... I am still thinking about hair color and have found two old pictures of myself from 2002 and 2003. In one, I have black hair; the other one reddish-brown. I include these in my text. At the same time, I post one from September which includes my brother in the picture...we are both grey-haired now. I write the caption, "Talk about hair color." And I go about my business, filing this conversation deep into my memory bank.

1:15pm... from my sister, "Is Leck (our brother) with you?"

2:19pm... "No. Is everything ok?" "You are freaking me out a little. Please, please let me know if something is wrong."

There is no immediate reply, and this sends me into a tailspin of anxiety. I'm normally not this affected and irrational. But the unexpected death of my son a few months back has my brain slowed and rewired beyond reasonable explanation. Why would she be asking if my brother were with me? Was he on his way to my home? He would be if something were wrong, my mind races...

The next step I do is text my daughters to see if the family in Mississippi is okay. No replies. Uggh. So, then I call my brother. I hate to call him at work, but my heart is pounding. He answers and hears my concerns. He knows of no problems or concerns and implores me to just call my sister. I follow through with that, but no answer.

So, I wait. I deep breathe. I pray. Please God, not again. Repeat this process until...

2:47pm... from my sister, "I'm fine. I was just asking because you sent a picture of you and Leck." (the grey-haired ones)

My heart and my head reconnect. I recognize another new pestilence of grief...anxiety. Now I feel so dumb and dumbfounded. But I want to cry in relief that my world is not going to collapse any further. So, I answer her text:

2:49pm... "Oh...ok...I was panicked a little. Every time I think I'm going to lose somebody else."

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Grief has many facets. Anxiety is one of them, as I found out. That one kind of snuck up on me. All of these emotions are like being on a carload of hungry teenagers with twenty miles left to go before the next McDonalds. But it's the quiet ones that surprise you.