Today I reached total saturation. Or maybe it was yesterday. Sitting with my mom as her brain crumbles I've been so good at it, like walking on the beach, the water catching your toes but then receeding it's ok cause I rolled my pants up but just like when I'd take the kids to the beach in winter in their clothes, thinking ohhhh look they're rolled up past the knee they'll be fine and then in no time everyone's soaked
I learned when they were 4, at the water, take off the pants
No matter the weather
I seem to do immersion or nothing and it runs in the family
Anyway nothing was seeming funny. My head was full of water, I was sinking in my own self. It's nothing new, the dementia has kicked off her fat shoes and been sitting on our couch eating chips and spilling chips dust all over everything for almost two years
But then I read how this is a disease and my mom's not faking and I saw pictures of how her brain looks like a raisin compared to a healthy cauliflower and the daughter in me will still NOT GIVE UP like she rages like Mom
Stop this bullshit
Make me some creamed chipped beef
Laugh loudly again
Be like you were
She still looks for me but her words are less. Where
she will say when I'm in the other room after awhile
Stay
she will say sometimes
She is a connect the dots book where all the answers are erased
so she's not looking to solve them. In fact there's no meaning to doing that at all
The only thing that matters is that we are here. She is a lone penguin. If I left her in her chair by the pool she would stay there day and night, wind rain until she died. The proportion of personal responsibility is outlandish. I guess the babies were the exact same helpless being but you could hook their waistband with your finger and sling them over your shoulder and be gone
I don't like this wild ride. I only liked Titanic til the iceberg. I'm a fairweather daughter.
I will try not to break any more bones for awhile. Because no exercise or riding makes for a blog like this. I did make one out of three Christmas stockings.
I'm gonna survive it, the odds are good, and I'm gonna keep her til she has to hit the iceberg.
It's the listening to the pain of loss, sitting with her and hearing her humming and missing connection and knowing maybe someday I would kill to hear her humming again.
It's hard to be a human and have your own needs and then have your little mother who can not meet any of her own needs. No matter how desolate my feelings, I still can't help offering to help her up. She's my team. Even invaded by enemy forces. You would do the same.
You would.
I try to think of her in better days. When I wanted to ditch school, I would call her from the school payphones and she'd come pick me up. She took time and nurtured, and I see it passing down into my kids. She would definitely strip tiny pants off kids at the beach.
She took the time.
It's good to live near water, my mom would always say. It changes every day.
She also said pizza was the most important thing. And family.
Sometime I'd like to have a future. I'd like to have a gay Lewis and Clark tv series. Like I know you wanted too. It's a pretty universal dream. But maybe I'm here just to bring comfort to people. The writing is just fortune cookies.
