My life as a sloth

I have a standard stress reaction- it times of high stress, I sleep. My stress reaction has jumped into overdrive this week. I will be flying to Michigan by way of Dallas with my children on Friday. Ah, the convolutions demanded by the use of frequent flier miles. Packing, going to the airport, and getting on a plane, especially one bound for Dallas, the most hateful airport in America, all stress the hell out of me and they have only become marginally easier as I have been traveling more. I find I really don't like the process of travel at all. I am stressed about going to my brother's memorial service and worried that I will fall to pieces during it. I have been terribly distressed about his death since it happened on April 30. Maybe the memorial will bring me some closure. Ironically, as soon as I return on the 16th, I must finish preparations for my woman's club award dinner, scheduled for May 17th- Pat's birthday. He would have been 46.
So I have been sleeping. I slept all day today. Poor Mama. I made her oatmeal at about 10 AM, and promptly fell asleep on the couch where I slept until 4 PM. I made her dinner, and dozed off again. I am such good company. Granted, I was feeling under the weather today, but I know what is going on. I can't face what is coming.
I have a recording of his last call to me on my cell phone. It was recorded after he got home from the hospital after his last surgery, roughly two weeks before he died. He sounds wonderful. His voice is strong, his mind is clear- he is Pat. I have been saving and resaving that message, unable to let go of the sound of his voice. I went to Verizon to see if there was a way to save it permanently but they have no such service. Play it into a tape recorder, they advise. Isn't that ironic? We have devices that can save the image of a person, save the sound of a person, long after that person ceases to be and those images and sounds become unsatisfying icons of the person we have lost. I know from experience if I record his message to a tape, I will never listen to that tape; I also know I cannot allow it to be deleted from my cell phone, not just yet. So every 5 days, I am reminded by my service that the message is about to be deleted. I listen to it and resave it because I cannot do otherwise. This is the way people are really haunted. I'm going back to bed now.