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permanent solutions to temporary problems
05/23/2009 = 01:27 PM

Phil Donahue is credited with having said, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

I'll buy that.

My gramma loved Donahue. She, incidentally, said, "This, too, shall pass." I imagine I could challenge that she was nowhere near being the first person to have said that, but, knowing her, she'd have retorted, "It's more true when I say it."

Mother Teresa once said, "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."

That is one of the reasons I really liked Mother Teresa, but I'm not always so down with the God she believed in.

This spot was originally going to be filled in with something lame and trivial, but life, or rather, death, got in the way.

I have had some rough times in my life. The main reasons I'm still alive are that a) I have too much of a conscience to leave a mess for someone else to clean up; b) I'm too nosy to leave the party and risk missing the best part; and c) I'm living proof that the words "This, too, shall pass" are completely true: "this, too," always does pass.

If you know Heidi, either in real life or online, please go give her what comfort you may. The universe, as it is wont to do to her, has served her a steaming platter of More Than One Person Ought to Have to Handle Alone.

When you like someone as much as I like Heidi, any little bit of pleasure or self-improvement when she is hurting feels like I'm betraying her.

I cried in the shower yesterday because I knew she hadn't yet brought herself to remove the blood-stained bedding from the bathtub where the coroner had left it.

I told That Man of Mine he might as well take the overtime and go to work today instead of taking me to see Star Trek, because Heidi had been planning to see it today too, as a special treat for herself.

I took all my pills and vitamins and hoped Heidi would remember to take care of herself in the midst of her chaos.

I made really good chicken and cole slaw for dinner last night and wished I could fix a plate and bring it to L.A., where Heidi either didn't bother to eat or didn't properly taste anything she did manage to choke down.

I lose myself in the NCIS marathon for a little while, then it comes back that this holiday weekend is now one that Heidi will never be properly able to enjoy for the rest of her life.

I just wrote a bunch of stuff about burdens and parenting, and things that I have no business having an opinion about, because I have no children and don't know what it's like. (It's a blessing that blogs aren't done on manual Smith-Corona typewriters. My posts would be loaded with X-overs. Three cheers for backspace.)

But I do have parents, and I am grateful that they help me bear my burdens, and that they try to keep me from having to help bear their own.

I feel so guilty for having that, right now.

And I hate that I'm helpless to solve any of this.

What do I do to make life pause for a moment so Heidi can catch her damned breath? Do I pray to Mother Teresa to intercede? Do I wish on a star? Do I throw a Frisbee into the air and hope the ghost of George Carlin catches it?

What do I do, to help Heidi know what to do?

Tags: parental suicide

drinking: ice water
listening to: Pauley Perrette, Fear
later: i will do laundry and feel guilty that i don't have to throw the sheets away and buy new ones