The Day the World Changed Twice
Remembering Tracy Lambert 1/7/1976-3/15/2020
Content Note:
This post discusses the death of a parent, cancer, hospice care, grief, family history, and chronic illness. Please take care of yourself while reading. Skipping a heavy post is always allowed in the Den.
Welcome Back to the Den
The lights are low tonight.
This is The Crippled Cryptid.
The little corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and survival stories live without apology.
If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional chronic illness and disability advocate, author, and creator.
Person currently piloting a haunted meat suit with a deeply suspicious warranty.
Most days around here involve Bed Jail™, medical chaos, and my medical alert service dog Luna politely but firmly informing me that gravity is not optional and I should probably sit down.
M&M is never far behind, always within arm’s reach with whatever I need. Because that’s what love means. It’s showing up when your person needs you and you need them. Being their rock. Their soft place to land. Their home when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.
But tonight’s post isn’t about any of that.
Tonight is about time.
Specifically, the strange, quiet math of grief.
How a single date can sit on the calendar like a stone in your pocket.
Because today marks six years since my mom died.
Six years since the last conversation.
Six years since the world quietly shifted under my feet.
It happened right before the world shut down in 2020.
Right before lockdown.
Right before this blog even existed.
Before The Crippled Cryptid had a name.
Before Luna.
Before a lot of the life I’m living now.
Grief does strange things to time.
Sometimes six years feels like a lifetime.
Sometimes it feels like five minutes ago.
So, today’s post is a little heavier than usual.
If you’re here to sit with it for a while, you’re welcome to stay.
Returning cryptids, welcome home.
New cryptids, pull up a chair.
The Lunatic Café is open. The Den is big enough for all of us.
The Den has weathered a lot of storms over the years.
Some louder than others.
Some that almost knocked the whole place down.
But somehow, the lights always come back on.
On today’s menu:The Strange Grief of Time &
The Way the World Changed Twice.
A Quick Pause Before We Begin
Before we get into this post, I want to say something important.
This one is heavy.
Heavier than a lot of the things we talk about here. If that’s not something you’re ready for today, it’s okay to skip this one.
Protecting your peace is always allowed.
I would never want someone to leave here in a worse state than they arrived just because I needed to tell a story.
But this story matters.
Because this is the story of the day my life changedtwice.
March 14th, 2020
I think most of us remember when the world changed in 2020.
For some people more than others.
I remember exactly where I was.
On March 14th, 2020, I left the house around 4pm for work.
My mom had made my lunch that day, the way she often did even though I was twenty-five.
It wasn’t anything fancy.
Just leftovers in the My Neighbor Totoro bento box that I loved. I still have it, if you’re wondering, even if it doesn’t make it off of the shelf very often- and not for anything more than dry snacks.
Spaghetti with meat sauce.
I remember it now for two reasons.
The way the sauce stained the pale blue plastic.
And because it was the last thing she would ever make for me.
Before I left, I said goodbye the way I always did.
“I’ll text when I get to work. Let me know if you need anything.”
At the time I was working at a gambling café. A job I thought I loved. A job I’d been at since 2017 and would stay at until 2022.
Behind the scenes it was toxic. Abusive.
They knew my mom was dying of cancer.
They knew I was one of her primary caregivers.
They knew I needed the hours.
So, days off didn’t really exist.
If someone called off, they called me.
If someone called off, I stayed late.
Closing the shop at 2am and reopening it at 6am wasn’t unusual.
They’d say things like “we’ll try to get you out on time.”
But they didn’t care.
Not about me.
Not about my mom.
Only about money.
But that story belongs to another day.
Tonight is about the night my mom died.
The Feeling Something Was Wrong
That night didn’t feel important at first.
The only big thing about it was that it was supposed to be my last shift there. I had already accepted a new job with better benefits and insurance. The gambling café knew, which is why they’d had my two weeks notice already.
Around midnight, something felt… off.
I can’t explain it.
But instead of staying open until 2am like I normally would, I closed early.
The gamblers weren’t happy. They rarely were when the machines stopped.
Still, I locked up.
And I sent the usual text.
“Hey, just wanted to let you know I’m locking up. Home in 30 minutes.”
No reply.
That wasn’t unusual.
Sometimes she texted back.
Sometimes she called asking for McDonald’s.
And when someone on chemo asks for chicken nuggets, you don’t argue. You get the damn nuggets.
But when I pulled into the driveway, something felt wrong.
The lights were on.
My grandmother and my little brother were standing in the living room.
They said they’d been trying to wake my mom since shortly after I left for work.
She wouldn’t wake up.
I tried too.
She had always been a heavy sleeper when pain medication hit too hard, so at first. I thought that was all it was.
But she wouldn’t wake up for me either.
Waiting for the Storm
I told my grandmother to call hospice.
She hesitated. It was the middle of the night.
I had M&M on the phone trying to keep me calm.
I called my older brother Matthew and told him to come over.
Did I know something was wrong?
I still ask myself that.
Because even while telling everyone she was going to be okay… I still told him to come.
He arrived with his best friend Ron and his now-wife Dana.
We waited in the basement together.
M&M stayed on the phone with me for as long as she could.
And somehow, through all of it, my mom waited too.
I want to be very clear about something.
I’m not blaming anyone.
Not hospice.
Not my grandmother.
Not medication.
Cancer had already taken so much.
This was simply the moment it took the rest.
When Love Shows Up
Less than eight hours later, M&M was on a plane.
She booked the first flight she could get and came to Chicago.
Because that’s what you do for the people you love.
At that point we had already been best friends for fifteen years.
And there has never been a moment when I doubted that she would show up for me if I needed her.
She always has.
Together we went to the new job I had just accepted and told them what happened.
My mom had died early that morning.
I would not be coming in for at least two weeks.
Because grief doesn’t run on anyone’s schedule.
When the World Closed
M&M was supposed to stay two weeks.
Then the airports started talking about shutting down.
Flights were being canceled.
People were scrambling to get home. But not her, she’d just gotten to me.
On March 20th, 2020, Illinois went into lockdown.
Non-essential businesses closed.
The new job I had lined up disappeared overnight.
So, when the world slowly started reopening, I asked for my old job back at the gambling café.
Familiarity felt safer than starting over.
Especially when grief was still sitting on my chest like a concrete block.
During the days, M&M and I did Instacart deliveries.
Groceries for strangers.
Groceries for the house.
Trying to build some kind of normal routine in a world that didn’t feel normal anymore.
But something in me had changed.
The Birth of the Blog
I stopped reading the way I used to.
Before that, I devoured books the way some people breathe air.
I stopped writing too.
At least for a while.
And then something strange happened.
This blog was born.
At first it wasn’t The Crippled Cryptid.
It was Dreaming of Dragons.
Because dragons are cool.
Fantasy is cool.
And honestly, most of us spooky nerds end up orbiting dragons sooner or later.
But over time it became something bigger.
A place where I documented:
My chronic illness journey.
My EDS journey.
My MCAS journey.
My CRPS journey.
The way I see the world.
It became the place where I documented Luna coming home and beginning her service dog training.
Where I wrote about Bear’s life, and my life with M&M.
Where I talked about disability without pretending it was inspirational or tidy.
It became my outlet.
Sometimes it felt like a hand reaching out of deep water.
Sometimes it felt like screaming into the void and hoping the void might scream back.
Tonight
And tonight?
Tonight, I’m making BBQ ribs on the grill.
One of my mom’s favorite dinners.
Is it the same way she would have made them?
No. Of course not.
If my mom were making them, she’d be out there with the old Weber grill she loved like a family member. The one that was older than me. The one that probably should have been retired years before it actually was.
Instead, I’ll be out on the screened-in porch with the Blackstone that I cannot get enough of.
Wind.
Rain.
Snow.
Doesn’t matter.
If it can cook food, I’m out there.
The ribs will be served with potato boats, the kind everyone in the family loves. The kind loaded with all the things that make life feel a little softer for a while.
Potatoes.
Bacon.
Cheese.
The holy trinity of comfort food.
Maybe we’ll sit around the table swapping stories about her. About things she said. Things she did. The ridiculous little moments that stick around long after everything else fades.
Or maybe we’ll just eat and watch a movie together.
I don’t know yet.
Grief doesn’t really run on a strict itinerary.
But one thing I do know for sure:
Sometimes when the world feels heavy, comfort food can fix an awful lot.
Before You Leave the Den
If today felt heavy, thank you for carrying it with me.
If it felt familiar, I’m glad you stayed.
If you’re here, you belong here.
Love you. Now say it back.
Because six years ago today, my world changed twice.
My mom died.
And somewhere in the wreckage of that moment, the first quiet seed of this blog was planted.
I didn’t know it then.
I didn’t know that survival would turn into storytelling.
Or that grief would eventually grow roots deep enough to hold something new.
But here we are.
Six years later.
The storms came.
Some of them nearly broke me.
But the Den is still here.
The lights are still on.
And six years later, the Den is still standing.
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
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