Tag Archives: loss

Not forgotten. Gratitude Experiment: Day 16

I raced to get home after grocery shopping this morning to arrive before my step dad dropped off my Mom.   This is part of our routine.  He drops my mom off on the way to his weekly doctor appointment and I watch her for a while.   My mom has Alzheimer’s and is only 71.

Mentally, I have to gear up for visits with my mom, even though it has gotten easier since they’ve lived nearby for the last year and a half.   I used to be mentally drained for at least a day or so after every visit.  Sometimes it still really takes it out of me to see her this way while knowing that there is much worse to come.  But as I have worked through my grieving process for my old mom, I have learned to try to find a bit of  joy in our moments together as I search for her old self within her.  I like to think maybe my real mom is in there and it will just take me doing or saying just the right thing to get a piece of her back, even if just for a minute.

I looked out the door as she was getting out of the minivan. He usually lets her come up the sidewalk by herself .  Thank God she had her teeth in — my stomach sank at first when I couldn’t tell. Any casual observer would  think nothing of this.  Until she gets to my door.  She reaches for the door, then she stops and stares at me blankly.  Then today, in response to my hello, she said “hi” in her familiar mom tone.  (Hearing her old voice at the beginning of a conversation used to make me think maybe I just dreamed this whole thing.) At any rate, this was much better than her usual shoulder shrug.  I breathed a sigh of content.

As I walked her into the kitchen, the family history notebook she put together years ago was on the counter.  Secretly I was hoping she would recognize it. Maybe it could be the spark for today?  She spent a few years compiling it about 20 years ago and it is ever so thorough, with ancestry charts, old letters my grandfather sent home from WWII, newspaper articles, birth announcements and the like.

I point to it and explain to her that it’s the family history book that she put together years ago.  I told her how helpful it was for my youngest son’s school project last night.  She looked at me puzzled and said, “I did?”  I pointed out photos of her parents and her sister and she gave me a look that was both puzzled and blank at the same time. But I wasn’t giving up.

I motioned for her to sit down as I helped her understand the chair.  I let her thumb through some pages on her own. Maybe the pages would feel familiar?  I showed her the  photos of all of the houses her parents had lived in.  Photos have worked a little before. I narrated as I walked her though the book .  She was more intent than I have seen her in months.  I told her that I would be right back and I ran upstairs to answer a quick email for work.  I do this occasionally with ears perked in case she opens the front door in search of my step dad.  She is always looking for him when she is at my house, as though she thinks he’s in the house or just outside. She is much more at ease when he is at her side, which warms my heart like an old love story.

I started getting anxious and quickly jogged down the stairs, worried that I had taken too long.  To my surprise, I found her still sitting in same spot very intently thumbing through each page over and over and back and forth.  She looked content and engaged.

When my step dad arrived to pick her up she pointed at the picture of herself in a newspaper article when she was one of the beauty queens at her college.  She told him “That’s me” and smiled her cute little smile.

My heart sang.

On the second page of this 200 page family history notebook of my mother’s ancestry, it reads:

“I wish I had been more interested in what my parents told me about their families and early years.  I put this history together in the hopes that the knowledge and memories I have would not be forgotten.”

And for this I am grateful.

36 Windows Open and Counting. Confessions from an Extreme Multitasker. Gratitude Experiment: Day 15.

This is a definite trend with me.  Taking multitasking to an almost dangerous level.  It gives me some kind of adrenaline rush I think.  Maybe I should be worried?

I just counted and I have 36 windows open on my computer right now.  At least nine pertaining to work including several Word docs and Adobe PDF files, plus a few blogs that I follow, Amazon and Steve Madden shopping carts open with things I am on the fence about,  and several emails that I don’t want to forget to act on –  about work projects, writing, kid school stuff, kid sports stuff, you name it.  Oh, and I’ve got a painting behind me that I’m working on every time I walk by it.

My family has a feeling this is what the inside of my brain looks like.  And it frightens them. My husband jokes that he will never have memory issues as long as he’s married to me because I change topics so much it keeps him on his toes.  And my boys love to make fun of me for the random unrelated comments I make all the time, out of nowhere.  I’m so very glad that I give them such great material to work with on a daily basis.  I should charge them for it.

Any friend of mine will tell you that every time they walk in my house the furniture is rearranged or a different wall is painted or the chairs are recovered.  Something will be different.  They’re probably checking to see if I switched my kids out for ones who like me more. Maybe it’s a condition, keeping things moving and changing and happening. I’m not sure but it would make great fodder for reality television.  “Brain Seize. Extreme Multi-tasking” — new this fall on TLC.

Speaking of extreme, I’ve also been known to take my multitasking feats to extreme levels.  Many will tell you (as they choke back their laughter) that I’m not the most graceful person and especially when I’m multitasking. I’ve been known to trip and fall and bruise myself  regularly.  Usually it happens when I am watering the plants, talking on the phone, jotting a note down and checking my email on my phone or something — all at the same time while balancing with one foot on a step stool.  This must be inherited because my sister was the exact same way.  My dad tells me I just like to get things done fast.  He also regularly tells me that I need to slow down.

And as a true stacker type personality (if you are one you hear me), I must have these things visible – windows, files, papers, notes, husband, kids, you name it.  Things on most days are orderly at some level and grouped by category, but they’ve got to be out where I can see them.

The average person would find either of my desktops – physical or computer – enough to drive them mad.  And being around me when I’m on a multi-tasking high just plain exhausting.

So today I am grateful that my computer hasn’t shut down on me.  And my family hasn’t locked me up.

Never say never. Gratitude Experiment: Day 12

Sometimes it’s the people who you would never expect to surprise you that do just that.  I’m sure I used the word never more than a few times in high school, during my self-focused adolescent furies.  Mostly about my stepdad and how I thought we would never get along, much less like each other.

My stepdad entered my life in the early eighties. I was part of the package when he married my Mom – the youngest kid still at home, very bummed that big sis had moved on and left me there stranded. I think my stepdad and I both started counting down the days until my exit as soon as the vows were exchanged.

I wasn’t his biggest fan in those days and he certainly wasn’t mine (I shudder at the thought of what a jerk I probably was). For the most part, we managed to mutually exist in order to keep the peace for my Mom. I didn’t touch his stuff and he didn’t touch mine.  My mother had to pay the price if we did. And I’m still convinced that my cat’s disappearance wasn’t as random as it was said to be.  She had a way of throwing up on his bright white Buick Regal with a navy blue vinyl top at precisely the moment he finished waxing it and walked away.   I would have high-fived her little white paw if I could have.

Those were not fun days. And luckily I ended up with a boyfriend who was equally as thrilled about his new step parent situation as I was. It was a perfect match at the time and it got us both through high school relatively unscathed.

As the years went on and my mother faced her own struggles in the face of losing my sister, my stepdad was there for her like no other. I gained a whole new level of respect for this man and for the size of his heart as he stood beside her. Over the years we became part of team Mom, working together instead of against each other in support of my fragile and hard to understand mother.

Her Alzheimer’s diagnosis many years later launched our improved relationship into overdrive, forming a strategic alliance with the strength of a small army.  At my suggestion, we moved them closer to me so that I could help, and he has taken my lead on just about everything.  I try not to let that thought keep me up at night as I don’t feel grown up enough yet myself to have someone look to me for so many decisions.

I never understood what my mom saw in him back in the day, but now it’s quite clear. I witness it every time I help out with my Mom. Just Friday I noticed he had to remove all of the knobs from the stove.  He’s had to install all key locks on the doors.  And he’s had to get good at hiding things he doesn’t want to disappear (we’ve learned the hard way). He has adjusted to their new life without a complaint.

This man — who had most likely never cooked meals before, never cleaned a house, never handled organizing doctor and vet appointments, probably never dressed or bathed his own kids — now does all of these things for my mother.  I am in awe of his grace and strength.  We have a silent, understood mutual appreciation for each other.  We recognize each other’s capes and the irony of our new found closeness.

They say hard times can make people shine brighter than any star.   And for this I am grateful.

Invisible Capes Unite. Gratitude Experiment: Day 8

I’ve seen these words about beautiful people crop up lately and I truly appreciate what they say.  It is this very concept that I’ve thought about for years – mine involves invisible capes.

We’ve all had friends or loved ones who have experienced traumatic loss or hardships.  And as most of us know, issues like death or divorce or hardship are truly uncomfortable concepts.  But there are those who really just don’t know how to process it at all.  In turn, many times they shy away from supporting those in need of support for fear of saying the wrong thing or being uncomfortable.  Or they put it on their list, and get busy and forget.

The remaining population, in my estimation, are usually members of the invisible cape club.  They wear an invisible cape which they have earned from evolving through whatever loss or hardship they have endured .  A cape  that can only be detected by others who are wearing one.  A cape that enables them to sense when someone might need support, and to know what to do and what to say (or at least be willing to take a shot at it).  A cape that makes them nicer to the Walmart checker who accidentally overcharges them or the waiter with the late food, at least most of the time. A cape that makes them a little more human.

Not all who experience  loss or hardship are lucky enough to get a cape.  Only those who have learned from their hardships, evolved as humans, and deepened their compassion for the human condition.   We all shut down after tragic events, it’s expected.  But those who choose to make it all the way over to the other side get the cape.

They’ve put aside anger and resentment (and I know from experience that part isn’t always easy).  And they’ve learned that each of us has a choice of what and how we want to be every minute of every day.  And that there is no time like the present to make positive changes, or to write that letter or pick up the phone.  Or volunteer for that committee they’ve been thinking about for years. Because life will always be busy and as a previous post of mine discussed, if it’s important, you make it happen.  Plain and simple.

I’ve made a new friend who has a very sick sister who she may have to lose to Cancer soon. She has the cape and we talk the cape language.  My niece who lost her mother at age 12  has a cape. My friend who lost her father has one, and my dad who lost his brother at a young age and then his own daughter has a big cape which offers me protection when I need it.   Many of my friends who have suffered through painful divorces have capes.  And my friend who lost his wife and whose children lost their mother to Cancer have them (the kids have junior capes for now but they are just as powerful).

Also my dear friend who suffers depression and my neighbor who lost her husband after years of suffering, but whose beautiful smile greets me each day.  And my second Mom (my stepmom) who is one of the most selfless people I know who has herself experienced pain and loss.   She is the epitomy of a card carrying cape member – a woman who sets aside her needs for others more times than I can count.  Who forgives, who doesn’t get angry or feel sorry for herself – who is there for you when you need her before you knew you needed her.   This is all part of the cape language.

Cape members can usually spot each other or at least recognize others of their kind when real conversations can take place.  And once you experience cape language, it’s hard to go back to surface level conversation and falsities except in short doses.  Afterall, we have to recharge our capes at some point.

Today I am ever so thankful for my cape.  And I think I’m going to throw it in the wash more often and remind myself of its powers.