I haven’t posted in a while. There are so many reasons but mainly I haven’t felt like it. Lack of time. Lack of interest. But primarily it’s exhaustion because for the past 5, almost 6 weeks, I have been in and out of hospitals & rehabs trying to help my mother who in mid-May fell ill. It’s been a frustrating experience not really knowing for sure what was wrong with her, having countless doctors poke & prod and none of them giving a correct diagnosis. She’s been shuffled to and fro and not once has she been able to understand what was going on with her. Her frustration has turned to fear and in the interim it has spiked her blood pressure, then dropped it. Spiked it. Then dropped it. It was a cruel trick played on the body and the end result has put her yet again in the hospital and this time enduring the effects of a stroke that has pretty much shut down the part of her brain that provides her her memories. Oh, it’s only the most precious part, if you ask me. Sure we can sit back and say that at least she’s not paralyzed. For the most part her debilitation could be so much worse and I guess it could be. But it’s heartbreaking to see this. A few days ago, as frustrated as she was with this process she was still MOM. I could talk to her and she could look me in the eye and talk back. When this all started she would tell me how upset she was that her body was failing her and I told her, “Yeah, but you still have your mind! That is so much to be thankful for.” I can’t help but resist the urge to shake my fist at the sky and ask “Oh yeah? You think losing this last thing would be a fun challenge too, eh?”
I don’t do that of course. What’s the point? I KNOW that no one brings on these things. They happen. They happen because the body is designed to do it. It fights off what it can and succumbs to what it can’t. They also happen because our lives, however they end up are consequences for the choices we make. It seems to be human nature for people to blame others for their misfortune. On so many levels this is wrong and makes me mad. It goes with the saying, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Could Mom had taken better care of herself? Of course. Hindsight, ya know? I reflect on my own life and as difficult as the past 2.5 years has been, I wouldn’t change the decisions I have made because I know that I wouldn’t have what’s most important if I didn’t make the decisions I had made. What if I hadn’t pursued Mike when we met online? Well, I may have not moved to Tennessee. I wouldn’t have married him. I wouldn’t have my daughter. Would my life be better without those things? NO! I am sad he’s not here but I am more HAPPY to have known him, had him in my life, even if it was for a short time. As much as it’s easy for us to second guess, we shouldn’t.
As a bystander watching this happen to Mom is frustrating. It’s maddening and to be honest, for me it’s deja vu. I understand how people could think that dying quickly is merciful. Yes. I do believe it is. Usually the person doing the dying doesn’t know what hit them and those who have to endure the aftermath don’t have to go through the process of watching the suffering. The suffering is terrible. Some could argue that Mike’s death was a quick one and to those who weren’t around him on a daily basis, I would say that yes, it probably was. But the reality is that I had been watching him slip away for quite a long time. I was seeing his choices pull him further away from his family. His choices, in the end kept him from making the ultimate choice and that was the choice to seek help, accept help and admit responsibility and the consequences for his past choices. In many ways he had reached the point of no return – the point where hope is overcome by fear. Mom is quickly approaching this point, too.
Let’s get real. What has happened to her is scary. To all of a sudden have virtually no eyesight, to be told that a fall could kill her and to not remember yesterday is frightening. She has strangers coming in and telling her what to do, when to do it and how. It is oft times painful. It is frustrating. It is frightening. She is, I am sure thinking that none of this is worth it. Perhaps it’s time I just give up. I am heartbroken to think that this could be so. I remember so vividly Mike telling me that he didn’t want to even try – that he couldn’t do it. In the end he said he would but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. I see the desperation in my Dad’s eyes as he looks for any glimmer of resolve from Mom. I used to have that look in my eye too. It hurts.
This may sound like a foreshadowing of what is to come. It’s not meant to be. I am not predicting an end to the road. This will certainly be a long and bumpy journey. Mom’s still here. She is resistant to facing the difficulties ahead but she must. And just as I didn’t give up on Mike, I won’t give up on her.
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