You are a brick - 2023 05 03

Today

 

I woke up to a wordless yell from Mom’s room. It was 3:15 am. I rushed in to check on her. Her eyes were open and she looked distressed. 

“Mom, did you have a nightmare?”


She nodded her head.


I held her hands as I sat on the side of her bed, “It’s ok. You are ok. Have a sip of water.”


She sipped from the glass I offered and then sat up straight. Looking me right in the eye, she said, “I know I hurt you when you were young. I’m not going to do that anymore. Starting from now.” She lay back on her pillow.


“It’s ok, Mom. We are doing great.” She still looked miserable. “Mom, would you like it if you had a teddy bear?” She nodded her head. “Ok, I have some stuffed animals in the attic. Tomorrow I will bring them down. Would that be nice?”


Mom nodded and then laughed, “Oh, Jenny. You have something for everything.” “Now I have to go pee.”


Mom slowly struggled out from under the covers, onto her feet and took the few tottering steps to the commode. After she was done, she stood up, pulled up her pants, shut the lid of the commode and turned to me. 


I couldn’t help but notice that she looked smaller, less tall, more precarious on her misshapen feet. 


She looked at me with sorrowful eyes and I gave her a big hug. She turned back to the bed and climbed in. I tucked her in and kissed her forehead.


“See if you can get back to sleep, Mom. We are doing great. All is well.”


“Thank you, darling. You are a brick.”


I climbed back into my own bed and settled down to sleep. I lay there for sometime staring out the dark window.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An empty room - 2024 10 23

Image
  Yesterday we tackled the task of removing Mom's personal possessions from her room. I did not realize how hard it would be. Luckily my son, Knoll, and my sister, Holly, were here to help with the work.  The day before, I had a good day. Good energy, able to set myself a modest goal and work throughout the day to get it done. Yesterday my energy was very low. I just felt tired, drained, out of gas. Every question took a great effort to answer. Every decision felt heavy and hard. Knoll started by sorting the drawers from Mom's desk. Every drawer had an assortment of different things in it, they were all a mix. Knoll was able to set up a collection of containers and figure out categories for what should go where. The last drawer on the lower right was physically heavy to open. This drawer held all Mom's hand weights. She loved to get her exercise lifting these weights while she sat in her chair or lay on her bed. She had extraordinary arm strength and it came in handy as she...
Read more

What love looks like - 2024 02 01

Image
  2024 02 01 - Jenny Notes 844 am Thursday morning. Mom is still asleep. I took in her dentures, refilled her water glass, and brought her glass of cranberry juice. The kettle has boiled, ready to make her cup of tea when she wakes up. It is a strange place to live. Knowing that we don't know how many days she has left. Knowing that the next time I walk into her room she may not be breathing. Hearing the slap, slap of her slippers as she shuffles out from her bedroom to the big green chair. Finding my last nerve plucked like a raw piece of wire when she sings through her recitation of nursey rhyms for the umpteenth time. Finding my brain misfiring as it tries to make sense of her insistence that she needs a new envelope from her desk so she can write the word "Cop" on it. Then putting a chocolate bar in the envelope and telling me to put it in the mail. Laughing with her when I put the envelope with the chocolate bar in it in the freezer and say, "There, I mailed it....
Read more

Gardening with Mom - 2024 05 15

Image
  My life with Mom is constrained to activities around home. It is ok for me to go for a 20 minute walk with the dog off the property and leave Mom in her chair or on her bed, but I start to feel uneasy for any longer period than that without knowing someone is looking in on her and making sure she has what she needs. In November, 2021, Mom was put on the palliative care registry and we organized ourselves to 'let nature take its course' on a six month timeline. Had we ever done this before? No. Did we know what to expect? No. We set aside our regular life routines of planning trips to visit grandchildren, or planning renovations, or planning to rescue a second dog, or install a new chicken coop. We put our lives on hold to organize and manage for Mom's needs, thinking this was a short term, acute situation that needed our full attention. At the end of the first six month period, we consulted with the Palliative Care nurse and extended the palliative care registration. Mom ...
Read more