I sleep like a baby. A newborn. On a good night, I get four hours sleep. On a not-so-good night it could be three, sometimes even two measly hours. I’m like one of those infants who make their parents regret not using birth control.
It’s been this way since I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. She’s now twenty-nine. Add nine months and you’ve got roughly thirty years of interrupted lousy sleep. And I’m really tired of it. Enough already.
I’ve tried all kinds of things in my quest for a solid eight. Everything from booze to baths.
I’ve practiced fastidious sleep hygiene. And nightly rituals. Body parts are always carefully washed and brushed. I’ve tested sundry things to eat. Or not eat. Or when to eat. Or what. I’ve tried exercising before bed. Lightly because the strenuous kind is too stimulating. And we don’t want that. I’ve tried relaxing nighttime yoga. This stresses me out when serenity can be so fleeting and fugacious. Bedtime meditations. These make me want to get out of bed. I’ve practiced mindfulness. I can’t get my mind off the fact that I’m wide awake. I’ve counted sheep. And all the other farm animals. It gets very noisy inside my head.
I’ve experimented with different bedtimes to find the optimum, the most perfect time, to hit the hay. I have considered a mattress made of hay. Is this not the ultimate in au naturel? And hey if it’s good enough for horses. They seem to have no problem sleeping. In the end, I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter when I go to bed. If I go to bed at ten o’clock, I wake up roughly four hours later. Same thing happens at nine or eleven.
Over the years, I’ve explored and re-explored various natural sleep aids and supplements. M&M, for example. Melatonin & Magnesium. I take this combo occasionally with a warm milk chaser. I do like to take a walk on the wild side sometimes. The thing is, Melatonin puts me to sleep in much the same way a shot of Writers Tears does but it fails to keep me in dreamland. I like Magnesium but too much and I’m up in the middle of the night letting loose and not in a fun way. I’ll skip the details and let you use your imagination.
I’ve detoxed the bedroom. All things digital and annoying have been removed. So, no television, iMac, iPad, iPhone, laptop, or anything that snores or cries out in the night. There are, however, a few items that I refuse to remove from the bedroom. Books. Reading in bed is my magnificent obsession, my glorious lifelong habit that I will not surrender, abstain, nor abandon. I admit. I’m a novel junkie. And I surrender all.
And here’s a little paradoxical conundrum. I have absolutely no problem falling asleep. Staying asleep is the issue. When I wake up in the middle of the night, or during the hour of the wolf, the challenge is getting back to sleep. Sometimes I’m successful. Sometimes not. Regardless, reading helps. Typically, a page or two, maybe three, into the current book on the nightstand and it’s lights out. I’m dead to the world. Put me in front of the television set and I’m a goner. On movie nights, I tell my family, “It doesn’t matter to me what we watch. Pick something, anything. You all know I’m going to fall asleep before the opening sequence ends and the movie begins.” That is a fact. Of course, I’m wide awake as soon as the closing credits start to roll. But I did have the magnificent two-hour sleep. Just like a newborn.
I started getting migraines when I was eleven years old. The first one was a horror show, which morphed into a terrifying recurring nightmare. Over and over. Year over year. Decade by decade. Ma used to say, it was my cross to bear. We all have them.
As a kid, I remember asking if I could pick another cross. This one sucked. Big time.
According to Cat Stevens, the first cut is the deepest. He was talking about love, but I think this applies to other “firsts” as well. They are always the most memorable. At least for me. They stand out, well, because of their firstness, their never happened before essence, not been done heretofore novelty, never been seen until now wonder or their brand-new experience amazement.
My migraine experience was kind of like that, only it was the worst first. Ever. It was the beginning of living with migraine dread, fear, and trepidation. A curse. When they first started, existing in this constant state of anxious anticipation and high alert was often worse than the migraine itself.
Picture this. It’s an unusually quiet, peaceful Saturday afternoon in the middle of April, in Nowheresville Northwestern Ontario. On a quiet street, lined with wartime houses and Manitoba Maples is my childhood home, affectionately referred to as 204 in all my stories. At the kitchen table sits my second oldest brother Del, aka Doob, the News Chronicle is spread out in front of him, he’s pouring over the sports section completely unaware that in mere seconds his kid sister is about to interrupt his serene, anxiety-free tranquility with mayhem and chaos. For the next few hours, she would literally turn it into a madhouse. Even crazier than anything either of them had ever experienced during one of The Old Man’s drunken benders.
She bursts into the kitchen screaming, “I’m blind! I’m blind!”
He looks up at her with an expression that is equal parts confusion and disbelief, and says, “What do you mean?”
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” she cries as she stabs at her eyes with her little eleven-year-old fists.
“You can’t see me?” he asks.
“Yes, I can see you. But not see you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have a big black hole where your face is. And there’s really, bright flashing zigzag lines over my eye.”
“That’s crazy,” he says, as he gets up from the table and cautiously approaches her. “Close your eyes.”
“I tried that. It doesn’t help. It’s still there.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I want Ma,” she cries. “I want Ma!”
“She’ll be home soon,” he lied. “Just calm down, for God’s sake.”
“I can’t, I can’t. I’m so scared. Am I dying?” she caterwauls, dropping dramatically to her knees.
At this point, they are both quivering like maple leaves at the onset of an October storm. Foreshadowing. Winter is coming.
“You’re not dying.”
“Now my hand is going numb. I can’t feel my hand. And my arm. I think I’m dying. Help me, help me!”
You’re not dying,” he repeats, attempting to reassure himself more than her. He has no idea if she is dying. She could be. What did he know. He wasn’t a doctor.
“God-oh-God, what is happening to me,” she whimpers pitifully.
“Ma will be home soon. She’ll know what to do,” he says dubiously. He had no idea when their mother would be home, much less what would happen once she got there.
But thankfully, he was right.
Within minutes Ma and The Old Man walked in the door toting bags of groceries. I wrapped my arms around her, sobbing hysterically, pleading with her to help, to make it go away. And within an hour, as if by some medical miracle, the mysterious numbness went away, the blindness and flashing zigzag lights cleared up completely and my sight was restored. And then, the pain started.
Pounding. Pulsating. Putrefying.
The pain was so bad I threw up. Non-stop for hours. I spent the rest of the day and night in bed and woke up the next morning pain-free but feeling “weird.” It would be years before I’d have a term for that weird disorienting feeling. Migraine hang-over.
No one knew what caused this random out-of-the-blue and inexplicable episode.
Ma said I was “bilious.” I was eleven. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Apparently, this was something she experienced from time to time. She didn’t refer to it as a headache, much less a migraine. But from that day forward, I too suffered from this strange and painful affliction called bilious.
I relive that day every single time I get a migraine. Every time. Without exception.
With the first flash of light, I panic. Anxiety builds as my pulse races, my body shakes and my mind goes to all the dark places. I see Doob’s eyes fill with fear, his face turn to ashen snow, the overwhelm and helplessness pushing him to the precipice of passing right out. It was unfortunate timing on my part because, like me, he was highly sensitive, anxious, a worrier and of my two brothers, the least equipped to deal with something like this. We’ve never discussed it, but I often think I may have traumatized him for life.
The good news is I became my own medical researcher, which wasn’t easy back then in the prehistoric days without computers and this thing called Google. Very little was written about Migraines. Ma brought me to the doctor when I was thirteen. He was useless. Said it was my “nerves” and prescribed Valium. Valium. To a kid. It was crazy making.
Throughout high school, I mostly kept quiet about this baffling disorder. Everyone gets headaches. But not like this. I couldn’t explain them in a way that was fully comprehensible or that didn’t sound overly melodramatic, foolish or downright insane. If an “attack” came on while in school, I would struggle through the pain and disorienting symptoms until the day was over and I could find relief and refuge at 204. I battled this thing, this arch enemy that attacked out of the blue, in the middle of gym class, science lab, band practice, lunch break, or giggle fit.
Through it all, I learned a lot about shame, secrets, loneliness, isolation, and bravery. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had this disturbing thing wrong with me, that nobody else did, so I kept it a secret, just like The Old Man’s alcoholism. But I also learned how to be brave, to feel the fear and face it head-on, walk right through anxiety and challenge it – like the schoolyard bully it was – call its bluff. And I learned that shaking trembling legs would get me there. I did not fall.
That said, I cried a lot. Bargained with God. Tried to make a deal. I’ll take anything but this shit. Please and thank you.
The good news is, I developed coping skills that grew with age. The biggest thing was that I started to talk, to confide in people outside of my family, and most importantly to trust that it would be okay to do so. By sharing my story, my deepest fears, and darkest secrets I discovered that I wasn’t the only person who got these headaches. I wasn’t alone. There were other sufferers out there. It was a relief to unburden myself. For years I felt broken. Like damaged goods. Defective. Factory flawed. Not like anyone else. A freak of nature.
I learned there was a name for these mysterious headaches with their perplexing prodrome. I learned that those zigzag flashing lights I was seeing were an aura, the warning signal that a migraine was headed my way. I learned about triggers. Some the hard way. It took me years to figure out that red wine was one of them. I learned about the things that helped and brought some relief. Like quiet dark rooms and a comfy bed with a bucket close by to throw up in. I learned about nutrition, healthy eating, vitamins, and natural herbal remedies. By seventeen, I found yoga. It was a life changer. I learned poses that I could do at the first onset of the aura that would bring relief from the pain, but more importantly, the anxiety. I found solace in the wise words of spiritual leaders. I learned to meditate and control my breathing. I started running every morning and walking and biking instead of driving. I embraced the theory that movement is medicine and continue to take daily doses, rain or shine. I learned to grow my courage and compassion muscles. I learned to love my little warrior heart and to call upon it in the hour of the wolf or whenever I was overwhelmed by the enormity of life. I learned never to give up. I learned that life isn’t always fair, and that Ma was right.
We all have our cross to bear. Most days, I’ve learned to carry mine with grace. And choose not to be nailed to it.
My Old Man was obsessed with lottery tickets. Every week he bought one (or more accurately, more than one, more like a fistful). He would rub his hands together and gleefully declare, “when my ship comes in, I’m gonna.” Do this thing or that, buy this thing or that, travel to this place or that.” Fill in the blank and he was gonna.
Problem was, his ship never came in.
When I was a young kid, I believed him. Completely. With every fiber of my being. I too would rub my hands together gleefully and declare, “Oh boy, can’t wait Dad!” This was prior to 1969 and the start of lotteries in Canada. So up until then, he was purchasing Irish Sweepstakes tickets. He never won. But I did.
My ship had come in.
In 1965, The Old Man bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket for me, which I don’t think was even legal. But that didn’t stop him. The fact that I was a minor was a minor detail. I won 1400 pounds, which was about the same in Canadian dollars back then. So not a lot. But it was the jackpot for this starry-eyed girl and her Old Man.
The beauty part with this ship-coming-in-event was that he never expected, no wanted, any of that money to go to him. It was mine. I won it fair and square. He made that abundantly clear. I think there was a part of him that knew he was never going to win the Irish Sweepstakes. Just like he knew I was the one with the luck of the Irish. At least back then.
One of the first things I bought with my winnings was something for Ma. I wanted to give her something beautiful, something simple, a keepsake to remind her of my undying love for her. So, we did what winners do. We embarked on a meaningful retail experience. We took the bus downtown to Eaton’s where we headed directly to the jewellery department. It was there that we found the perfect item to celebrate, not only the sweepstakes win, but more importantly, our mother-daughter bond.
A pearl ring. Beautiful. Simple. Genuine. The stone of sincerity. And there was nothing in this world more sincere than my love for Ma. She was the mother of all pearls.
From that day forward, she wore it whenever she went out. Not being one for formal affairs or fancy gatherings, Ma would slip the ring on to go shopping, for walks, visits with family, church, to the park, to the bank, to Dominon, on the bus, in the car, on ferry boats, airplanes and just sitting on the front steps at 204. I loved seeing it on her finger. As the years weathered her beautiful hands, the ring graced her finger. Like her, it grew more divine and more brilliant with time.
The Old Man’s ship never did come in. Once Canada introduced lotteries, he went berserk. His weekly obsession was uncontrollable. The edge-of-the-seat anticipation, the rising excitement, the prized purchase, the held-breath waiting, the hair-raising announcements of winners, his momentary disappointment, the better-luck-next-time-keep-at-it-keep-trying pep talk, and ultimately, the one-day-your-ship-will-come-in mantra.
My Old Man gave up on all kinds of things in his lifetime. Himself mostly. But the one thing he never gave up on, never lost hope, never declared defeat, was that one day his ship would come in. He died waiting. Sad ending.
Flash forward 55 years to October 1, 2022. This is the day my daughter M got married to the love of her life. She was gorgeous in every way. Flawless. Dress, shoes, necklaces, hair, makeup, nails – all on point. Picture perfect. Truth is, she didn’t really need all the bridal finery because her genuine beauty radiated from within. That was apparent to everyone.
There was one accessory my daughter was wearing that day that few people would have noticed, and even fewer, who knew the backstory. But for the mother of the bride, it was the most precious treasure. The quintessential finishing touch. More exquisite than the Crown Jewels.
On M’s right pinky finger, looking every bit as magnificent as it did when first purchased, an entire lifetime ago, was her grandmother’s pearl ring.
My Thing About God 