Honestly - how do I feel about all this?

I had an interesting chat session (AIM) with my sister Marilyn (oh I really love and appreciate her support).  (I have never told her about this blog, and I think it's time.)  And, the chat session brought up something I haven't dealt with so much here ...

How do I FEEL about this whole Mom thing?  About ... Mom?

I've written here in my secret blog about the frustrations of all ... this.  About being overwhelmed with tasks.  About resenting my mother's self-absorption. About just practical details of being an elder's 'person'.

But how do I feel about ... my mother?  About my life?

Honestly, I can't wait until she dies.  Is that shameful thing to say?  Well, there it is.

I want my mother to die.  To stop being so needy.  So craving of my presence.  Just to die.

I'm tired.  I'm done.  (sadly, no, I'm not done.  not yet)

Further, being really honest, we were never close.  She wasn't ... nurturing.  She has always been self-absorbed. Her own mother wrote in a diary that if she (my grandmother) was in some crisis, she (my mother) would finish her bridge game before she came. My childhood as I recall it was filled with my father's anger, my own fear and silence, with my father's rigid obsession with being perfect. I feared him and she never really was much of a presence.  I'm only glad he is already dead, and there is not a single day that I mourned him.  Or even thought about him or regretted his being gone.

I left home 3 days after graduating high school.  At 17 years old.  Moved to NYC.  Never looked back. My sister stayed another two years, and has been a loyal support to my parents for all these years. Marilyn has been there doing the routine boring support things for decades.

Now it's my turn to pitch in, and I'm doing it.  I'm doing it. 

And after I left home at 17 I found friends and nurturing and recovered from devastations I suffered previously.  And, I am really REALLY good now.  Many years of therapy, three (four?) hospitalizations and decades of great friends and a spirituality that has brought me tremendous joy and peace and... context.

But let's be really honest.  This is not a case of a grateful daughter giving back to a wonderful, nurturing mother.  This is a case of a woman choosing to take this on.

I hope this doesn't come across as my being some kind of a martyr.  I'm not.  Really. It's just my turn.

And, from a selfish point of view, I wanted the opportunity to develop a side of myself that I hadn't stretched as much. I had protected myself for years from having much direct contact with my parents ... by design.  And now it was just a good time for me to develop that side of me.  A giving-in-spite-of-everything-else side.  I have become strong, and I have learned how to say No, absolutely NOT, I learned how to feel like I was SAFE, now it was a time to CHOOSE to say Yes - not of duty (lack of choice) but of pure choice. Because I was ready. (I wonder if this makes sense.)

and if I'm going to do this, I want to do this with joy.  I choose joy. I want to find the positive side of it.  If I'm going to spend "x" amount of time, I may as well do it with gusto. With full awareness.  Without reservation (to the extent possible - honestly this all sounds a little.... much).   But I am really working at it, trying to stay in each moment, not resent the incursions in my life, in my schedule. To release 'outside' stuff when I walk into her building. Try to remember that old folks just want to gaze into the eyes of a loved one.  Time, gazing. Like infants.  And trying not to fidget remembering the things that I really wish I was doing.  Not to be coiled, ready to spring out the door when my time is up. Just allow myself to be in that moment. The joy of a Wendy's Frosty.  Of grapes. Of warm feet.  Of a good BM.

(and I do NOT remind her - as I sometimes wish to do - that she was a crappy daughter to her desperately lonely father, seeing him maybe once a year until he died in a urine-smelly nursing home). 

And I can be honestly say I've had moments when I've truly enjoyed some moments.  I've been surprised to reflect, "wow, I am really enjoying this moment, this laugh, with her".

She is grateful. At least once a week she remarks how amazingly lucky she is to have me.  She says "I couldn't have done this without you."  and that means a lot to me.

And yes, I am also very very aware that this is an enormous honor, a very intimate thing, to be called on by another human to be their 'person' as they face death.  Whether I was working for a complete stranger as a volunteer in hospice or doing this for my mother... it is something so very ... intimate.  Talking to someone about how they want their death to happen.  To be that person that someone else relies upon to ensure a death that doesn't offend or violate them.  Intimate.

But oh. lordie, I wish it would happen soon.  Her death.  And, I know from our conversations that she wants that too.

And, I am sad that when others look at us, they assume a wonderful history that has preceded this last era of her life.  I am sad, I grieve that we didn't have that, that she didn't give that, that I didn't get it.  I am not defective.  Our relationship was defective, and it is not my fault.

But I am just doing what I now choose to do, to be her 'person',  Until she dies.  Every new disease, new symptom, every fall she has, every weak episode, I wonder, is this time?  Is this her last winter?  Her last weekend? Her last Wendy's Frosty?  Will I get that call from her caregivers, "You need to come".  When will she die?

I hope soon.  Honestly.