Be Grateful

It’s been a while…and then some. I wish I could tell you all sorts of happy updates but then I’d be lying and I try to keep it real here. It has been a month exactly since I last wrote. I was looking back at my post today. I wrote about hope. Can I just be honest … there are times when this stupid disease feels so completely hopeless. It’s like looking down the barrel of a gun – there is no good outcome here. Some days that can be so completely over whelming and depressing. We try to be positive. I try to focus on the good days, the good moments, but sometimes when it is quiet and I’m alone (which truly is VERY rare) I find myself just weighted down by the heaviness of it all.

Mom is doing okay. Conversations can be hard. She is starting to forget some people. She has forgotten a lot of “skills.” She forgets conversations and sometimes she flat out makes them up. It’s an interesting dichotomy. Sometimes I feel like I have a 2 year old and a teenager. People just don’t understand. You just can’t, honestly, until you live in this situation – you never could understand. I never could have either – but I thought I could. I thought I could look at people and tell them I knew what they were going through. But I was wrong. Dead. Wrong.

There are good days. Don’t get me wrong. Dad visited a man who is living with his wife in their home. His wife has Alzheimer’s.  She weighs 73 pounds. She spends her days in her bed with hospice looking after her. We are far from there … so there are good days. But this disease is brutal. It has taken my mother for me and that is a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mother’s Day coming up. I know I am lucky. I have friends who have had to bury their mothers. I have mine. I know I do … but there is still a part of me that is just so angry because I don’t have her. Not really…the mom I had for 32 years is not the same woman that I live with now. She still loves me and most days would do absolutely anything for me, but the lady that throws a fit when I try to sneak out to the grocery store for just an hour of alone time, that lady is not the same. There are days that sit back and I think mom would be mortified if she really knew she was saying that. I guess that’s where the consolation comes in.  It’s not her saying it … not really.

I had a great mom. Seriously. She loved both my brother and I with all she had. She would do anything for us. She worked hard to provide for us. She was smart. Like seriously smart, in a way that I am not (Don’t tell him, but I think Cody got that gene from her!). She could fix any problem. She would listen to me whine and moan for hours about whatever thing I thought was going wrong in my life at that moment. I had the market for drama cornered and she put up with it – lovingly. So much of what I have learned about how to be a mom – I learned from her. I learned to listen. I learned to hug. I learned to love. I had a great mom.

…and I still do. Even though it’s different and even though she’s not the same, she’s still a great mom and I would go through all of this and more if it meant I got to have her longer. I hate it for her though, I really do, because this is no way to live out the rest of your life.

If I’m being honest, one of the main reasons I haven’t been writing lately (except for the occasional fluffy post) is because I’m angry and I don’t know how to move past it. The anger in me started small, it was a twinge, just a taste of this isn’t fair, but I let it grow and now it is a beast of a monster that seems to take over my entire being most days. It bubbles just below the surface. Where I once felt peace and happiness, I know feel this brutal anger that consumes me. And I hate it. I don’t want to feel this way, I want to let it go. I do try. I start each day giving that anger over but it doesn’t take long before I’ve taken it back and it’s eating away at me again.

Lately I’ve had some family that I’m close enough to call friends really stepping up to help me. They are forcing me to get away, forcing me to get out, forcing me to take time away from the ugliness that seems to be all around me. I’m thankful for them, so much. Even though usually I get annoyed at their persistence, they are probably literally saving my life right now. So for that I’m grateful.

I know I’m not alone … and that helps, more than most people realize. On the days I feel like I am drowning I have a friend I can text and say quite simply life sucks. She supports me … she may not always agree with me, but she gets it. She knows I’m in a place as we like to say and instead of trying to get me out of it – she is just loving me in it – and that helps so much. I know I can’t get out until I’m ready…and I think she knows that too.

Well this post has taken on a life of its own. I’m not really sure where I was headed, but here we are. I’ve sat staring at the screen for a while trying to find a nice happy way to wrap this up, but there isn’t one. And that’s okay. Life is messy sometimes and everything is not always so touchy feely lovey dovey. If there is any take away today – cherish your moments with your mom. Even if they are crummy. Even if she hasn’t always been the best. Find the good and embrace it. Or if it’s not your mom, find someone who loves you like a momma loves and cherish them today. I’m going to focus on the good things today and I’m going to be grateful for the good moments. How ‘bout you?