I guess I haven't written in here because who wants to hear this fucking story, seriously. But I read this lady's blog on instagram about her alzheimer's husband and I'm like man, she's a shitty writer but I still want to know how it's going. She just got on hospice. I'm like dude, it's been a year on hospice. Hospice is nothing. Hospice just gets you free diapers.
They should make hospice for the dementia daughters. If they had hospice for me it would have free massages and someone spontaneously grabbing my hand and patting it, and scratching my head and back. It would have people with Irish accents saying wouldja like a cuppa tea, dear. It would have someone shaking their head while I talk. It would have someone who raised my kids for me while I shove my mom closer and closer to the grave.
The hard part is, you want it over but you're so so sad for all the stuff you're going to miss, that's already missing now. It's all still subtracting, and I think that's why she's crying all the time because getting erased is a painful and sad feeling even if you don't know what's happening. She's so sharp in some ways like if I say you're not listening she says I AM! And then follows it up with a completely nonsensical sentence. I used to listen to it all until I realized lately that she's not keeping score. She doesn't expect me to do say feel anything. Except she does, on that other level, the very basest one. She knows she is safe, and loved. She laughs and hugs. She is forgetting why we eat, exactly. She talks nonstop and cries.
I remember reading a Little House on the Prairie book, The Long Winter. Where they had no heat except for these corn husks they had to twist twist twist so they'd burn slower so they all took turns twisting, like all winter, that was their iphone. They twisted with cold fingers every minute for six months so they didn't freeze to death and lose the fire.
I'm in the Long Winter.
Except where we live it's hot and there's Pollo Loco and a terrible wind lately blowing more hot so my lips hurt, and my horse has hives from the confusion. She's wearing her best fur expecting the Ice Capades and it's the Sahara and so she's trying to rub all her body off to be nude again, summer nude.
I miss when the kids were small and this wasn't happening. When they were small my life was happy, so busy, no time for me, there was purpose. Little people are the best way to fill up time. So curious, gleeful, screeching, loving, good for sleeping during the day with snuggly company. They are still the best company.
I miss myself, I don't want to be just all this grief and sad. This is so big, the loss I face every day. I'm trying to juggle but I'm losing. The stomach flu did me in. I'm forgetting how to make doctor's appointments. You know, like follow up calls. Everything seems too hard and confusing. I'm not myself.
My time out alone was at the doctor and I read two books while I waited for him in the little room. One was about middle ear infections and the other was about diabetes. They were both board books so they felt heavy and hopeful like kid books til you open them and they weren't floaty, but serious and sciency cloaked in fake fun. I learned that if you get a perforated eardrum from too much infections it will actually eventually heal itself. Also diabetes makes sores on your feet.
I think I am just huddled in there in my Laura Ingalls Wilder scarf over my shivering head. I want my mommy. She should be doing all the twisting of the corn husks. I was raised where she did all the laundry and the work and I just made her laugh. She also didn't seem too worried about my going to college or doing anything worthwhile. I guess she left that up to me, which seems weird. I'm worried I don't know where she went to high school before senior year. I think she was in Alliance Ohio. I'm sad there's no one to ask. I asked her about it today. She didn't know either. She didn't even know what high school was, or that we just had thanksgiving or that I have a lump in my throat that won't go away. I told the doctor about that. The doctor basically told me I should be stretching for everything. Maybe I can stretch away grief. I read that grief is just unexpressed love.
That makes grief a flower girl at the very saddest wedding.
Sadness is thick like molasses in Vermont in winter.
It's okay to be sad and crying about your life ending, and taking so long to do it. Nobody wants their life to be ticktocking the very worst clock, where you don't get to enjoy every minute til you're ripped from your body. The crying is because it's too short, who would want to leave the earth, this miraculous place, your body keeps you safe here, and with the people you shined up to be with you on the journey. We had so many adventures, mom, when you were a kid and I was a kid, and we got to overlap cause I came from your lap. I'm sorry I can't take away your pain and help your crying and snap you back to yourself. I'm sorry for all of it changing so much, and the word decline
I'm hurting too, and crying all the time. This is the nature of love and caring for. This dementia crowds us all out of the house, it is so manically selfish.
I came into this thinking I could cure death. I am perky enough and I can lift hay bales. I'm strong.
I can't cure anything.
I told the doctor I was having grief and sadness. Love is so important it hurts when it's going. I guess. Grief is just unexpressed love.
