Still sick at work, and a visit to My Hole in Brazil

 I'm on my second watch now since returning to work. The flu that I left with last week when we flew to Brazil has come and gone, and in its' wake I caught a hell of a cold. Or maybe it's just a long bug, I dunno but either way it's been a miserable almost 2 weeks of being sick, and I'm not a sickly person normally. I'm pretty tired of feeling like ass. 

         Last night we were bunkering a small chemical tanker, and thankfully they were about the same size a the HQ, so when I was talking to the engineers and crew, they were only maybe 8 feet away so I didn't need to yell, as I have a hellacious sore throat as well and talking hurts. So I was grateful for that. Tonight promised to be busy but the Office People (Long may they complain, long may they Shit Light on the heads of the damned) changed all out plans and in a fortunate turn of events, the next move was pushed back to the 3am tide later tonight, technically tomorrow, at the tail end of my watch. 

        I wish I had felt better last night. the engineering crew on the chemical ship were cool guys and I apologized for not talking more. They were all Poles, and I have always found Polish engineers to be pleasant to work with. There's a reason why they're one of the better regarded castes of engineers I think, between work ethic, personality and skills.  Plus, I'm a huge Jan III Sobieski fanboi, so learning more about him from someone who grew up with a greater knowledge of his history makes me geek out. 

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    Since I still feel like hammered shit, I will throw some pictures up from last week's trip to Brazil. Bear in mind that this is a poor city on a high plain in an arid area. It's not beautiful to any but the discerning eye, but it's a place I very much enjoy visiting, mostly for the people, enough so that I'm building a house there, which, last time I wrote about, was mostly a series of pillar foundation holes which the building crew were inordinately proud of, as I wrote in "Please Admire My Hole. "

Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I out for a walk

The Hole is now that building on the right. The tall walls around the yard are 15 feet for privacy and shade. 

The main house, as seen from what will eventually be a 40' pergola running from the main gate. 

The dining room, eventually. 

Part of the purpose of the new house was that it was going to be a place for my mother-in-law to live as well, along with her maid and a nurse. As such, with her gone,  there will have to be some repurposing done I think in order to breathe some life into the place.  Against her will, inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, with all the organizing, planning and help she has given between her mother's care and  coordinating reunions and events to reunite the whole family, has been more or less appointed matriarch-in-exile since she's in the middle of the 5 generations of family among the hundreds of them all and the one person everyone takes a holiday to visit when we're in town.  So it appears that my house, since I had planned to be able to feed 40-50 at a time from just the outdoor kitchen alone, will be a social hub when we're in town... and we're hoping to spend a month or more in town every year after we finish building it. 

    At any rate, it's a more pleasant thing to contemplate at the moment than how shitty I feel with this stupid cold. 

I'm home again, for the day

 Wow, crazy week.  I flew to Brazil on Tuesday, and flew home on Saturday, arriving just now, Sunday morning. My wife and son are dead asleep, as they couldn't sleep on the plane, and we never slept more than 4-5 hours a day the whole time we were in Brazil.  We buried my mother-in-law on Wednesday, and it was an all-day affair, 24 hours, a vigil from sundown on Tuesday to sundown on Wednesday. 

           How to explain? Brazilian funerals, at least the Indio ones, are emotionally exhausting, and cathartic as well, moreso than I've experienced here in the US.  Deeply moving, dignified, beautiful in a way ours are not, in that many more of the old world traditions are still upheld. The traditional diamond-shaped casket, the body completely covered in flowers except for the face and chest, and the whole casket with a gauzy piece of white lace to soften her features.  The interment was done in the family crypt, and she was laid to rest next to the bones of her great-grandmother, and above the bones of her husband, dead these many years. We watched as a mason bricked up and mortared the casket in place, where it will lie for 20 years before being opened and the casket discarded, when her bones will join the pile of bones from her great grandmother.  

 I'm spent. I feel like too little butter scraped over too much bread. I have so much to do and so little time before I have to fly out for work, and I'm jetlagged and having a post-stress reaction I guess. I spent the past 5 days doing my utmost to keep my family safe and supported, and my Brazilian family, all 300+ of them, were there with us the whole time. 

 I guess I will write about it more. I also got to see my new house under construction, hung out with the builder, who is married to one of my wife's cousin's aunts' I think, and got my wife hammered drunk along with another cousin when she struggled with processing everything, which actually turned unto a nice story.  The hangover I woke up with, along with the night I spent talking with her and letting her cry things out and laugh too, were worth the price. 

 Anyhow, I got her in bed about 30 minutes ago, and have hours of shit to do before I can rest yet. 

 What a ride it was. Some great moments, I have never been hugged and kissed and made to feel included this much, ever. The pain was awful, the heartache worse, but as that started giving way to the laughter and the stories and shared memories, I know we did it right, and by me, I mean my wife, who deserves her nap for sure. 

Pictures and some of the better stories to follow. 

Bereavement flight

 

 

  Of all the places I expected NOT to be at 0430 on a Monday, the airport in Newark NJ is certainly one of them. And yet here I am.

 

  My mother-in-law had been ill for several weeks, culminating in a systemic infection and a blockage in her one working kidney. Once I wired pretty much a car’s worth of money to the hospital in Brazil last week, they unblocked the kidney, but found a tumor in her bladder while they were headed uptown, so they removed that as well as the blockage.

  Given the language barrier, a certain hesitation to pin down the attending physician and question him, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I never felt like we really had a solid grasp of what was happening, despite arranging 24 hour care over and above the hospital care, which is a thing in Brazil.  Over the past few days, my MIL’s recovery waxed and waned, though in truth I assumed the infection was under control before they performed surgery on her.  Yesterday when I got up, she was talking about going home in a few days. She started vomiting around 10pm last night, and at midnight I got a text that she had vomited again and was on oxygen, and 10 minutes later, the shitty call that we all dread, after she passed away.

 

  I went through my parents’ deaths a few years ago, and it was painful, even though it was expected.  I knew my Mother-In-Law wasn’t doing well, but I tried buoying up Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, and trying to keep everyone optimistic, and at 8am our time she was going to talk to the hospital and decide whether or not to get a flight to Brazil, as her mom seemed to be rallying the past 2 days. 

 Ugh. I can see just as far through a brick wall as the next guy, but boy howdy I am kicking my own ass for it now.

 

  I got to say goodbye to both of my parents at the end, and it was still awful. My father cheated death so many times that one of my brothers and I both have a weird phobia about calls between around 9:30PM and 6:30AM, which is when we'd always get the notification.  So when the phone rang just a few minutes after midnight, and 10 minutes after my wife said her mom was vomiting and on oxygen, I knew;  of course I knew. Nobody calls with good news after midnight. 

 But my God, when I picked up my phone, the absolute wail of pain was something I’ll remember forever I think, even knowing what was happening. My wife does NOT cry. I have never heard her hysterical before, and if God is kind, I never will again. My heart is absolutely broken for her. In a crisis my wife is an absolute rock. Chokes me up right here, remembering it. 

  Turns out, it’s worse, much much worse, when it’s not you, but your spouse, who loses a parent.

             Like as not I’ll be going to Brazil tomorrow for a week or so. It's the least practical thing I could possibly do, and I absolutely have to.  In talking to my wife an hour ago, she's regained her composure and we talked about telling my kid about his grandmother in a few hours, as he was working overnight at his own job, and we didn't want to blindside him. He talked with his grandmother every other day and my idiot ass talked to him about 8pm last night, saying that he didn't need to worry so much, that she was holding her own. Ugh, he's going to get home 2 hours before my plane lands, and my wife will have to tell him without me there. 

   And why the fuck am I sharing all this? I'm sick myself. I have a flu-like bug, ironically enough. Started about 36 hours ago. Not  covid, turns out, as I checked, but I feel like hammered shit and the runny nose thing just came in as a little fuck you just for me a couple of hours ago. Awesome. 

   I dunno. I'm not myself here. Gotta get my shit together.