Tiny stitches

After the excitement of the reunion, we are returning to our routine of daily visits, weekly dinners.  Daily comments about wanting to die, followed by my retort about living every moment one is alive. Weekly visits from the hospice nurse.  Daily checks of toilet paper, sore toes, clock accuracy, and making sure the shakes are pre-opened. We are both somewhat tired of it, yet she still treasures my presence, and expresses appreciation.

Today we had a little hiccup.  She had hallucinations this morning, probably due to a recent change in a medicine or perhaps a UTI, but a rush of anxiety and concerns about its implication.   Medicines are being adjusted, and we expect to return to our normal.

After the flash of adrenaline, I returned in my customary visit routine, but really wanted a fresh view.  And it occurs to me that the daily visits, though insignificant individually, constitute those tiny stitches in a petit-point piece of embroidery, a mother-daughter portrait perhaps.  Each stitch isn't really much, but is carefully made to ensure the end product is achieved.

My mother's friend Mayme was making a needlepoint pillow, and on the day when Pearl Harbor was attacked, she added a special stitch, perhaps red, to mark the moment.  How a single stitch captures such an impactful event.

So I continue to count the threads, pull the needle up, push it back down, straighten the thread, count the threads, pull the needle up, push it back down, straighten the threads.  Work until the needlepoint is done, in tiny, nearly-invisible individual stitches.

What's next ... in my very-alive After-Life

Is it wrong to peek around the corner when I'm firmly planted here, helping my mother? Is it disloyal or evil or even just plain tacky?

No.

It's like when you're planning a vacation.  You know you're not THERE yet, the departure is some time in the future, but it's nice to look at websites or travel books to imagine what you'll see and where you'll go.  It's part of the pleasure of the adventure, that anticipation factor. Do a little shopping, get your passport in order. It brings a measure of fun to the days now when in fact life is filled with the routine of life.

So, in today-time, I'm fully here for my mother.  I visit every day. I don't push her aside for my next adventure.  But while I'm doing that, I'm also planning and hoping for my next adventure in life - a move, perhaps to South America.  Or Italy.  A new life. Retirement. A very very different life.

Am I less committed to my mother?  No, not at all.  I will be here for her until her end.  And if you've read earlier posts, you know that she is more eager for her own end than anyone else.  That makes me a little less guilty, perhaps.

But I'm still planning for ... after.  After.  After her death.  After her estate is settled.  After her apartment is cleared and I am not needed by her.  After.

I had an interesting exchange in another blog, Kickboxing In A Wonderbra, about this subject.  It's really not about running away from anything, but about running toward my next adventure, the next (risky, thrilling, challenging, frightening-but-rewarding) adventure.  A simplification of my life, a moving toward community and volunteer opportunities and a much much quieter life. Less insulated, less choked by layers and layers of possessions.  Like the delicious feeling the breeze on one's skin for the first time in springtime - more alive, more connected.

But since such a drastic change - the After - a move out of the country perhaps - requires a great deal of work, I admit to spending considerable time now preparing our house for sale. Getting rid of box after box of books, stuff, getting ready for a mega-garage-sale. Painting walls, upgrading faucets. Handing over family heirlooms and ancestry artifacts to the next generation.  Planning how to handle furniture and paintings and a lifetime of photographs.  Figuring out how to reduce our big, noisy, fully-stuffed life down to a few suitcases.  Walking away from the big footprint of our lives here. Walking away.

And it strongly occurs to me that I am greatly reducing the footprint of my own life, just as I observed about my mother's life as I began this blog three years ago.  Am I disappearing?  No, I am creating an essence of what is really important, and immersing myself in that.  Choosing the fullest life possible. 

Waiting for death - whose problem is that, anyway?

I like that title for this post, but I don't even know why.  I may change it, or, I'll discover why as I write.

After writing the last post, about Mom wanting to die even in the midst of loving family and laughs and warmth, I felt like I should write something about the efforts we have made to ensure she has a rich life.  I wanted to write about what we've done to help her want to live. A great assisted living facility with loads of activities and personal attention.  A number of nice folks up and down her hallway and at meals.  Frequent phone calls.  Daily visits. Books for the Blind.  On and on.  But she chooses to sit and flip TV channels and wait for death to come.  It's a source of great frustration to me and my sister.  We nag, we scold, we cajole, we make deals, we offer ideas.


And then it hit me.  This is not about me or my efforts.  This is about her and her life.  


This is NOT about me being a good-enough daughter.  It's NOT about my needing to create purpose or joy in my mother's life.

I only need to offer what I have available.  She accepts it, or not. But either way, she is responsible for her life, her own happiness and meaning. Her engagement - or lack of engagement and meaning.

My sister and I have talked about this a lot.  She is angry and frustrated, I am sad and frustrated.  She said she would like Mom to be more like a friend of hers who is a wonderful exemplary strong odler woman who remained interested in life and engaged and inspiring through very-old-age.  She wants more for Mom.  I also want more for Mom, but I tend to feel that she is doing all she can, probably, or at least all she is willing to do.  More accepting of 'as is' rather than what I'd wish for her (or wish for me, at that age).  My sister's eagerness to make Mom into more may be really good for Mom - or it may be just frustration on all sides.

And we can grieve that she is not that amazing woman that others turn to for inspiration. She is quite ordinary.  She's tired and wants to die.

Our reactions to this situation play out, to some extent, an old family story.  When I was about 7 or so, (and my sister a bit younger and my brother about 4 years older), my brother bought a little chick at the grocery store just before Easter, a gift to my mom.  (Yep, they did that back in the 1950's. Bad idea.)  The chick followed my mother everywhere, peeping constantly.  One day my family all went out for a few hours, and we put the chick in a box, and we put our puppy in another box.  When we came home, both boxes were upturned and all that remained of the chick was a foot and a feather.  The personalities of the 3 kids are what have played out to this day, to some extent.  My little sister was furious, I was crying, and my brother shrugged and complained about "Sixty nine cents down the drain".  And even now, we find ourselves in similar reactions - my sister's anger, my sadness and depression.

Frankly, I think I will approach old-old-age better, thanks to this experience with my Mom.  I intend to squeeze every bit of life out of the life I still have, right to the end.  I want to stay engaged, curious, purposeful.  I want to contribute to community and Life.  I don't want to die before I'm dead.

So Mom's waiting for death - whose problem is it?  It's hers.  I can help but I can't make her into someone else, not now, not ever. She is herself, and I am me. It's freeing.  I can breathe.  But I only need to breathe for myself.

Holding her breath until the reunion... then, exhaling and waiting for death

My mom had been eagerly awaiting a family reunion in November.  She turned 90 in September, and basked in the glow of attention and fussing over her.  In November, she helped everyone (19 in all) to get here and to spend time together.  She has been extremely focused on the reunion ... the reunion...  the reunion.  That's what we talked about for a couple of months.

And it went off GREAT.  All had a wonderful time.  Everyone fussed over her.  And it was blessedly short (just a long weekend), short enough that we didn't kill each other.  I was able to distribute some family artifacts that I'd been holding onto.  She distributed to her children and (adult) grandchildren some jewelry items but at a time when she could tell them directly the story of each one, rather than waiting until her death and people shrugging, not knowing what these things represented.  It was a great success.

And smack in the middle of a dinner together, where all were having a lot of laughs, she announces, "I just want to die".  OK, I'll be honest, she said that at least 10 times during the weekend.  Or, I just stopped counting at 10 times.  Yeah, that'll quiet a room.  And, to say that during a great family dinner is just ... odd.  Sure, maybe during a colonoscopy or over a dinner of liver and onions.  But, at a meal surrounded by your loved ones, and everyone having such a great time?  Sad.  She's just tired.

Then the morning came when the reunion was over.  Everyone had gone home.

And I am there with her, every day, back to just the two of us, and Groundhog Day resumes for each of us.  Tick tock. Waiting.