Along with editors Barbara B. Rollins, Becky Haigler, and Robyn Conley, Thelma Zirkelbach edited the anthology On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties. We posted an interview with Thelma last week about the process of finding contributors and publishing the anthology. This week, we are pleased to post an essay by Thelma from the 2012 book.

Parking Garage
by Thelma Zirkelbach

This afternoon I have my annual check-up with Dr. S., my gastroenterologist. I head for the Texas Medical Center and drive up the ramp to the entrance of Parking Garage 2. Immediately my heart speeds up and I’m overcome by a familiar feeling of dread. I slow down and notice there is a new parking system. I don’t understand the instructions at first and this adds a layer of confusion to my already jangled emotions. At last I figure out what to do and receive a yellow “smart chip,” that I stash away for my eventual exit.

The gate opens and I drive farther up and into the dim garage. For me, this is not a parking area but a cavern of memories. Garage 2 is across from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where my husband Ralph spent the last seven months of his life. I parked here every day. The year of his battle with leukemia, I spent over $2000 on parking alone.

The garage is large and gloomy and exudes the faint smell of automobile exhaust. In winter a stiff breeze blows through it; in summer there’s no breeze, just dense heat and humidity. It’s always crowded here. I can’t begin to estimate the time I spent the year of Ralph’s hospitalization, driving from floor to floor, up and down the aisles, searching for an empty space. As I make the same drive today, I recognize spots where I once parked. I remember the trials of maneuvering into the narrow spaces in the middle aisle. Backing up, straightening, backing up again before I could inch into a spot without scraping the paint off the car next to me. Many times I could barely squeeze my 110 pound frame out of my vehicle’s door.

When I left, usually around ten o’clock at night, the garage was eerily quiet. The only sound I heard was the robotic male voice from the machine where I paid for parking: “Please insert your parking ticket with the stripe facing up and to the right.” I rarely encountered  anyone, even a security guard, but I wasn’t afraid. I was too focused on my husband’s deteriorating condition, on the fear of losing him, and honestly, I was too tired to care if I ran into a mugger or some other unsavory character. I never expected to, anyway; people who park in cancer hospital garages have other things on their minds. Sometimes when I got to the car, I was so filled with despair that I would sit slumped in the seat, my cheek resting on the steering wheel, and let the tears come. Then I would pull myself together and drive home to an empty house.

I lost my car twice in the garage, once at night and once on a brutally hot afternoon two days before Ralph died. I wandered back and forth through the labyrinthine building from floor to floor. There were gray Toyotas everywhere, too many of them, but none of them seemed to be mine. Sweat soaked my clothes, my hair. My purse was too heavy; perspiration made my glasses slip down my nose. Tears mingled with the moisture on my cheeks. I had made an appointment with an estate attorney and I knew I would be late. I phoned my son as I trudged through the garage and he said, “Ask for a later appointment. Tell them you’re waiting for the doctor. Don’t say you’ve lost your car. They’ll think you’re a nut case.”

“Okay.” I followed my son’s instructions, but I knew I was a nut case, confused, bewildered, a woman on the verge of losing the dearest part of her life.

Back on the first floor of the garage, I picked up the phone to parking services and asked for help locating my car. A nice grey-haired man appeared a few minutes later and drove me back through the garage. “Could the dealership maybe have repossessed your car?” he inquired politely.

“No, it’s paid for.” I’m not a debtor; I’m a nut case.

Finally we found my car. I thanked the man, drove out of the garage and got lost on the way to the attorney’s office.

Loss permeated that year. Soon after Ralph’s leukemia diagnosis, I lost my mother. She lived a few months past her hundredth birthday and then on a November afternoon she died. The last link to my childhood was gone.

One day a few months later, I parked and dropped my wallet next to my car. I noticed it was missing when I opened my purse in Ralph’s hospital room. I was frantic, but when I rushed back to the garage, I found it untouched. I lost a lot of things while Ralph was sick: my keys, a folder from my office, my wallet again. I recovered everything … except him.

I parked in Garage 2 during Hurricane Rita.

Houstonians left the city, crowding the highways, running out of gas. Afraid Ralph would take a turn for the worse and I wouldn’t be able to reach him, I stayed at the hospital. Not surprisingly, the parking garage was full when I reached the Medical Center. What if I had to park on the roof? Goodbye, car. Fortunately, after driving up and down the rows for about twenty minutes, I found a space just down the last ramp from the roof. My suitcase, crammed with clothes, books, and important papers, had wheels; but I eat three meals a day no matter what the circumstances and I had a bag of food, which I had to lug to the elevator. My back hurt, a physical ache to add to my emotional pain. The hurricane turned out to be a non-event, but I kept an eye on the garage from Ralph’s window throughout the next two days.

I remember the first time I parked here, seven years ago when Dr. S. moved from the University of Texas Medical School to M.D. Anderson. Patients were welcome to follow him, and I did.

I felt squeamish the first time I parked in the garage and entered the enormous building that houses the cancer center. While I waited to be called into an examining room, a young man approached me and explained he was doing a survey for one of the hospital departments. Could he ask me a few questions? I nodded and he said, “Are you currently receiving chemotherapy?”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m not a cancer patient.” We were both embarrassed. He apologized profusely and moved on, leaving me to wonder if I should carry a warning sign, I Do Not Have Cancer, to prevent such uncomfortable encounters. By the next year I had forgotten. Cancer had struck, and I would accompany my husband through chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, and numerous terrifying procedures and mishaps.

When I drove out of the garage the morning Ralph died, I suddenly wanted to turn around and head back in. The garage, though nothing more than a dank, unwelcoming area of concrete, was my final connection to him. It seemed more significant, more memorable than the hospital. But I was already past the exit; the automatic arm had dropped down behind me. Too late to turn back. I drove home.

Five years have gone by now since Ralph passed away. Five more visits to this building that symbolizes the ugliness and pain of Ralph’s final year and the grief that followed. The cancer hospital has another garage, Garage 4. It’s newer and airier with a sky bridge that connects it to the hospital proper. Why don’t I park there, in a building untainted by memories? Because I am compelled to confront the demons of Garage 2, to remind myself I have survived and that whatever happens in the years to come, I am and will continue to be a survivor. And finally, I park here to prove to myself that I can.