Hope All Is Well

Hi friends...belated Christmas greetings. Sorry - I haven't been around and this is the first chance I've had to update. Christmas this year was a bit of a schmozzle...we tried to keep Mom at home but her condition had deteriorated so much that Christmas eve dinner was heartwrenching, to say the least. When we arrived, Dad & Dave had somehow wrangled Mom into her wheelchair and she was in the living room. Neighbours were over visiting and her conversation with them was as if we were back in the 70's - people who had long passed were spoken of like they were still here. She was completely disoriented and even thought that Ty (her grandson) was my ex. All night she kept referring to how nice it was that Keath could make it. I don't even think she knew we were no longer together....it's a big puzzle to her with the border pieces missing. Things just aren't fitting together and she wasn't "connecting" things at all, yet she was struggling to. Her "slumped" posture worsened as the night progressed and at one point she looked as if she were going to slide right out of her wheelchair. That was the point that I took her back to her room and the nightmare began. Let's just say that when you're unable to get someone on a commode that they need to use, it becomes heartwrenching. Dignity is thrown out the window as you try anything to "get the job done". Christ, who ever would've thought peeing could create such chaos. It was then that I broke down. I left the room for a minute and just lost it. Ty is very perceptive - especially when it comes to me and his protectiveness of me....he quickly tuned into something being wrong. I tried to shield him from the inevitable pain of my Mom's condition, but it was no use. He was already shook up from witnessing the little bit that he had. He had no idea what was happening in her room and thank God for that. In a matter of days, Mom's gone from sitting up smoking, drinking tea and having a perfectly normal conversation with us to not being able to sit up (she kept toppling over to her right, cigarette in hand) and not knowing where she was or what day it was. Devastating.

I hate to bring everyone down at this festive time, but that's my reality. I will probably always associate Christmas with this one from here on in and I'm just sorry that it was such a nightmare for all (especially the kids). Yesterday, after my ex picked up Ty & Linds to take them for the day I sat on the floor, put on Tripoli and cried my fucking heart out. I sang, too, changing the words as I went along...."strange how, you're not with us" and "where's my Mom gone?". My Mom is gone - the Mom I knew will never be again. We've snuck out to our last garage sale. The one who found every stupid joke hilarious now doesn't remember when to laugh. I don't drink, but the bottle of wine given to me by a customer was nearby. I grabbed it and swigged a couple of big chugs right out of the bottle (Eddie Vedder would've been proud of me). I then braced myself for what I knew I had to do. I went to Mom's and took her, by ambulance, to palliative care. I know I did the right thing, Dad's buckling and wouldn't have done it. He would've gone down with her. I cried all night but had comfort knowing I did what was right and that she'll get the proper care there. That just doesn't make it any easier, that's all. I sat with Mom a long time and couldn't tear myself away from her bed...but the kids were home alone Christmas day so I had to be a mother, as well as a grieving daughter. I composed myself and came home to try and salvage some form of "Christmas" for them. I played guitar hero with them and totally sucked, which was hilarious to them. I even laughed. Then we watched Linds' new Yeah Yeah Yeah's DVD and Ty's Pearl Jam one. Weird. This has been the strangest Christmas I've ever experienced....it certainly put a new spin on things and put everything into perspective. I didn't do very well at the shopping or decorating but we were all together and that's something sometimes taken for granted. Enjoy each other. Every single day.(This is Mom on our outing to the casino right before things went downhill)