Before It's Too Late

My mom died shortly before I turned 21.  I had already moved out, living with my grandparents for many reasons, but mainly because it was closer to the university where I attended.  Mom was my best friend, my confidante.  We shared an obsession to reading, writing, and the theater.  We loved to shop and visit historical places.  We both loved animals and spending time together.  We also had only each other.  My brother was gone to the military and happily married.  My dad, well, he lived his own life, even though my parents were still married.  Mom was the most important person in my life.

But, you see, Mom and I fought bitterly as well.  Hateful, nasty things flew out of our mouths.  Unforgivable things that, somehow, with the mother/daughter love would be forgiven anyway.  The fights started because she disliked my fiance, and I didn't want to see that she was right about him.  He was--and is--a good person.  He could be kind, generous and loving, but he wasn't for me.  He was too quiet, too self-absorbed and too different from me.  In a phrase, he was too much like my father, and Mom didn't want me to marry a man like that.  She was miserable, and she didn't want me to be.  (But that's a story for another day.)

My head and my heart burned with confusion and a desire to be an adult.  I longed to be independent, but I couldn't live on my own; I didn't have the money.  Mom wanted me to listen to her, but she'd taught me to be a strong, independent thinker.  I struggled to figure out when to make my own decisions and when to listen to someone who knew more than I.  

Unfortunately, I didn't listen to the one person I should have.

I fought against her advice.  I ignored her because I felt I needed to do what my fiance told me to do.  I wanted to be the future-wife he and his parents wanted me to be--even if that was not who/what would give me contentment.  I constantly struggled to appease them.  To change my thoughts, my actions to try to make them accept me.

Mom, I knew, would love me unconditionally forever.  She was, after all, my *mom*.  My biggest cheerleader, my guide and the wise woman in my life.

It was all for naught.

Mom had been in the hospital already, and the doctors said she could go home the next day.  Instead she died on that bitterly cold, early December morning.  The Catholic sister who was the chaplain and I were talking about how God wouldn't take a mother from her child when my grandfather came up the interminably long hallway and said, "Your mother is dead."  I lost the ability to feel.  My mind, my heart, my body were numb.  I couldn't breathe.  I wanted to throw up.  Everything had a white cast to it; color didn't exist in my life.

My mom was dead, with no warning, at age 42.  I would turn 21 in just a couple of months.

God had answered my grandmother's long ago prayer, but given no leeway at all.  When I was born, Mom almost died because her kidneys failed, and she went into a coma.  She had the worst case scenario of toxemia and uremic poisoning.  Gram prayed, pleading that He would let her live to see me grown.

He granted that wish.  But He took Gram at her exact words.

Ignoring that the need for a mother doesn't end when a child is grown.

After the funeral, a couple of weeks later, for Christmas, I went to his parents' house for dinner.  My grandparents had fled to Florida, my dad was somewhere with his friends, and I was in limbo.  Living alone in my grandparents' house filled with memories, and numb to it all.

It was late when I left my fiance's parents' house.  His parents and sisters were kind to me, and, yet, I knew, through no fault of anyone's, I would never fit in their family.  I drove home on autopilot.  The clock turned midnight, and I turned into the cemetery where Mom was buried.  She and Dad had picked a place far away from everyone else, near a row of mature oaks, quiet and peaceful.  I got out of my car, bundled against the slight wind, and followed the path of the moonlight.  The snow crackling, crispy under my feet, broke the silence.

The weather had been too cold to put up her tombstone, but the pungent smell of fresh dirt told the story.  Mom was gone.  It didn't matter to me whether it was Heaven or nowhere.  She was gone.  And I had so much left to say.  So much we'd planned on doing.  My wedding--to someone--my children, graduating from college, picking out curtains for my first home.  Calls to her in the middle of the night because my newborn baby wouldn't stop crying.  Laughing in the kitchen making Easter eggs and Christmas cookies.  Seeing her enfold my children in her arms just as she had tenderly held me.

I stood there, numbed to and by the cold.  The only ghosts in that cemetery were the ones pummeling my mind.  I don't know how long I stood there.  In the 21 years since then, I've only been back 5 or 6 times.  She wasn't there.  Then I didn't know where she was.

A few weeks after Christmas, my fiance and I broke up for the last time.  We continued to go out when we needed some company, but the calls dwindled off, and eight months later, I met Doug.

One day, in June, I was driving on an on-ramp and I thought, "I need to call Mom about..." and the numbness, the shield around my heart dissolved. I doubled over and sobbed until the tears dried.  They were the first, but they wouldn't be the last.

Slowly, after the anger faded away, I eased into the ache, and I allowed my mind to think about what had happened.  What I never had the chance to say.  Mom had asked to borrow a copy of our favorite novel.  I told her I would take it to the hospital for her.  I never did.  I never had the opportunity.  Later, I considered taking it to the cemetery and leaving it on her grave.  But, somehow, that seemed so futile...

Today, when I hear people saying ridiculing or decrying their mothers, I fight down the red I see.  I struggle against the words in my throat, "Don't you realize how lucky you are to have her?  Do you know what I would do to have mine here to fight with?"  Sometimes I can't stop myself, and the words come out.  I also know they don't understand.

I didn't.

As my daughters and I fight now, and we do sometimes, I see the fights from my mom's point of view.  They hurt, they keep me awake at night, wondering what to say to make my daughters understand. As proud of them as I am for being strong, I can't help wishing they would understand me.  But just as my mom never stopped loving me, I won't stop loving them.

You see, Doug and I have raised our daughters to be independent, questioning women just as Mom raised me.

I just hope they listen to the two people they can always count on--their dad and their mom.

Before it's too late.

Alzheimer's: The Scourge of Old Age

I sometimes worry that I'm going to get Alzheimer's. It's not a distant, "Oh, what if" kind of worry. It's alive and knocking on the door, reminding me that I'm not getting any younger, and I can do very little to stop it from stepping into my life. You see, I'm 41, and it's already here.

No, heaven forbid, I don't have it--at least I don't think so. But it's a big part of my life. My grandmother, 85, has it, and it is like watching an old friend walk away, slowly and quietly. Gram has always been a major part of my life, and this change is in some ways heartbreaking, but in others, it's made me appreciate her all the more.

My mom has been gone 21 years, and Gram (Mom's mom) has been the maternal figure in my life since then. I was an adult (almost 21) when Mom died, but as anyone knows, sometimes you need a "mom" to answer questions that just don't make sense. Gram and Gramps filled the lack I had in my life. (My dad died a few years ago, but that's another story for another day.) So taking care of Gram is left almost exclusively to me and Doug.

(My mom's sister lives in North Carolina, and my brother lives outside of Seattle, so they can't help with the day-to-day, but they help a great deal with emotional support.)

Getting groceries, taking her to the doctor, taking her to get her hair done, making sure her bills are paid, making sure her dog has food, and that she has toilet paper are left to us. Day-to-day chores that seem so commonplace we rarely think about it--we just do them--suddenly become *very* important and a major obstacle to overcome.

Gram takes care of herself and her dog at home, feeding herself, taking her pills. Her dog, Max, is vital to keeping her active and happy. Her neighbor walks Max for her almost every day, and that is good for two reasons: 1) Max gets to walk with his buddies. 2.) Someone is looking in on Gram every day, even when Doug and I don't get over there.

A couple of days ago, I took Gram to the grocery store. The little restaurant located inside the store serves tasty food, quick and inexpensive. We've been going there since it opened more than thirty years ago. Although it has changed, the basic layout of the store is the same.

I helped Gram into the store, and we walked to the restaurant. She laughed and said, "A baby [Drake] on one side and a big baby [Gram] on the other." I laughed, but I thought how true that is.

Deciding what to eat is always a chore for her. Having too many choices is overwhelming. So I narrowed her choices down to a couple of items, and she chose for herself from those. She kept asking me, "What do I like?" It tears at me to know that she doesn't remember.

(She told me today, "My memory is about this long." She put her fingers out with only millimeters between them. I laughed and said, "Sometimes mine is like that too." I try to not deny it when she says things about her lack of memory, but rather laugh it off. I searched her eyes to see if she believed me. I think she did.)

Then after eating, I thought we'd go to the restroom before we shopped. She came out of the restaurant and headed the wrong direction. I said, "No, Gram, this way, by the front doors." She got her cart, and she walked on past the restroom over towards the front of the checkouts.

All these years of going to the store, and Gram couldn't remember where the restrooms were.

Throughout the store, she constantly asked me, "What do I like?" "Will I eat that?" "Have I ever eaten this?"

It took us almost four hours to painstakingly go through seemingly each and every item in the store. Too many decisions for her to make. Too much for her to handle. However, I refuse to take that bit of independence away from her. I never let her out of my sight because I was afraid she wouldn't make it to the next aisle.

Perplexed, she stood in front of the freezer and tried to choose what she would buy. Even just the contents of one freezer were too much for her to pick and choose from.

I fought back my tears.

Finally, we got through the checkout and out to the car. Gram said she was exhausted. After trying to keep the baby happy (he fell asleep in the cart for awhile) and making nearly all of Gram's decisions, I was exhausted too.

It's ironic--and wonderful--that Gram does well at home. She is more confident and knows what to do. Even putting the food away, she knew where she wanted it. She's fine there. It's her home, the home that she shared with my grandfather for nearly 60 years. I will not take her from there unless I am physically not able to take care of her. Fortunately, my husband and my kids understand that. I know it won't be easy, but it's what I must do.

After taking her home, helping her get her food put away, making sure that she had her evening meal and pill, paying the bills that were due right away, then heading home myself, it was all I could do to drag myself and the baby to my car. But my day wasn't done. I had my own groceries to put away when I got home--and doesn't it figure that Aleyna couldn't help much because she's getting over mono (although she did a great deal), Lance helped (but would rather eat the junk food that I bought instead of helping . We badgered him into doing the cans.), and Ky and Doug weren't home. *sigh*

Before I finally stumbled to bed, I changed and nursed the baby and cuddled with him until he fell asleep (I know I shouldn't, but tough! ). Calming gratitude filled my heart for the blessings and the challenges in my life. I understand why Gram is still here...she is teaching me the patience I've always lacked, the compassion I need and the heart to appreciate the joys I've been given.

I just hope that I can always *remember* them as well......