Amnesty

This entire month, in truth the whole year, has been a constant 'this time last year' experience.  My mother died last year in the early hours of October 21st.  The last two years of her life had been a long, painful slide but I still wanted to believe she might pull it off one more time.   A fall had broken her arm but not her spirit; she had an amazing will to live.



Her last few days were spent in and out of consciousness, and I came to understand that she was preparing to leave as  I sat by her bed;  I had been there almost constantly since the accident.  I held her hand and, without ever opening her eyes she said in a quiet voice, "I saw Mom today.  She was sitting on the back porch.  She wanted me to go with her but I didn't."  I could tell the effort it took for her to speak at all.



"Momma, if you want to go with her you go ahead.  I'll be along in a little while, and we will all be alright.  I love you mom," I said with all the control I could muster.  Less than two days later she was gone.



At 89 Mom was frail.  Two years before a broken hip had healed, but in the process it had sapped her strength, her health and eventually her mind.  She was unable to drive, unable to live alone, she couldn't attend church any longer and slowly she retreated deep into a shell of illness and age. 



I tried to keep her engaged, tried to get her to move.  My efforts were met with "you don't understand" and eventually with the recitation of her long list of fears that held her captive  in her small, handicap accessible apartment.  She seemed absorbed with the twice a day pill schedule and the morning and evening eye drops that were now necessary.  She both resented and appreciated "those girls" who came in every day to help with medicines and bathing.  She had never required help and she certainly didn't believe she needed it now…It was frustrating for both of us.   Try as I might I could not take care of her in a way that would comfort her now and later give me peace;  I still wrestle with regrets and "what ifs" at times.



This last of many falls put  her into a downward spiral nothing could stop;  it was as if I was trying to hold the tide back with my bare hands.   After Mom's death I put my sadness in a compartment in my head where it couldn't overwhelm me and, when I was ready, I could take it out and look at it.   There was nothing more to be done.



Time marches on, and in the first part of this year my husband and I found a house we loved and we decided to make a move.  The move added physical stress to both our bodies, and my hip and his back declared a mutiny.  The day before the movers arrived his back attacked.  To keep the move on track I doubled my efforts; the lifting and stairs took their toll and my already challenged hip gave out.  We moved into our new house with the help of our children, some good movers, and dear family friends.  Eventually we both ended up in surgery…a less than auspicious beginning in a new home, I might add. 



In my effort to keep moving I had pulled out Mom's walker and cane to use until my scheduled surgery.   A routine trip to the eye doctor established I needed to use prescribed eye drops, morning and evening.  If I was able to go out to shop at all it was in a wheel chair or electric cart; I was unable to walk far or drive.  I less than six months I was becoming my mother! 



Finally at home recovering from the hip surgery, I relaxed in the family room  in my recliner.   The time had come to open that compartment; I sat thinking about how much I missed my mom.   The past few months of my life had given me a much greater understanding about her last months.  I now knew how it frustrating it can be to try to recover from surgery in unfamiliar surroundings; nothing you need is where it ought to be.   I learned shopping in a wheel chair isn't really shopping…it's moving and stopping at someone elses pace.  I remembered how difficult it was for me to take mom's car away, but now I understood how hard it was for her to be dependent on someone to not only drive, but get her in and out of the car and wheelchair.  The drugs, the eye drops, the endless doctors appointments…all things that she had come to dread because of her physical and mental deterioration were now mine to cope with.  The irony was just too big to step over.



As I replayed those last days in my head I remembered the tough times when either or both of us would lose what few patience we had left; but I also remembered the laughter.  I recalled doing her hair, taking her things to try to tempt her to eat, laughing about things that were too difficult to be taken seriously.  I realized we had both done our best under some very difficult circumstances.    



My mom couldn't come back from all the medical challenges at her age, but I am on the mend and  I am grateful for this last few difficult months.  It's given me a better understanding of what mom went through, and it's given me some peace.  I realize I did everything I could do to help make her last days comfortable, and I'm granting myself an amnesty for the things I didn't do.   It's what she'd want me to do...because she was my mom.



Now the first tough year is over; there will be no more 'this time last year' to deal with.  Our family laughs and jokes about the character who was my mother.   We all miss her…we all love her…all we'll all be along soon.



                                                            Life is Good

Surviving the rain

                                  "Into each life a little rain must fall"

                               I think I may have just survived the monsoon.

If you've been following along you know my hip replacement that took place July 27th was going along quite nicely till, five weeks to the day from the surgery, my new hip joint tried to get away.  At least that's how it felt when it came out of the socket.   After a day at the hospital having it put back into place my surgeon he told me I would have to wear a brace for six weeks.

Taking my prescription to the prosthetics office  I soon learned the "brace" was a plastic and aluminum contraption that I had to wear 24/7.  It wrapped clear around my midriff, clasped in the front, bars and plastic and foam rubber went down my right side to hold me into a position that (theoretically) would keep the hip in place till some healing could take place.  Velcro straps held the plastic plates in place around my right thigh, strapped in place like some high tech gunslinger.

A wide, hard piece of plastic that nestled into the small of my back was curved, arching my back as I lay in bed.  Struggling to find a semi comfortable position in which to sleep I realized I must resemble a large obstacle on a miniature golf course. (Putt through the tunnel and get a free Pepsi!)  Outside of bed I was locked in an 80% slant that wouldn't allow me to sit straight up,  the metal parts sticking out on each side stubbornly stuck under restaurant tables and trapped me in chairs with arms.  The right side is so big that I've come to think of it as an arm rest, and I can hang my small purse on a rather large hook that comes out under my ribcage.  I would love to get a peek at the design for this thing.  I'm sure it was created at the Marquis de Sade school of brace design, the most uncomfortable pile of parts in all of brace-dom.

This morning I prepared to return to see the surgeon; I dressed and strapped on the brace for what I hoped would be the last time.  My six weeks were up, and hoping for good news we headed out to see the doctor.

As the surgeon peered at my new xrays I held my breath.  After we had established that I've been a good girl, and everything looked good he said the magic words, "I think we can come out of the brace".   Yes!!  Six weeks of wearing  the lobster suit and walking like a penguin had paid off!!!   Woo hoo!!

I think my joint replacement odessy is nearly at an end; I couldn't be happier.  If I take it slow for the next couple of months, that includes not bending at more than a 90% angle, not twisting or reaching down and to the side, the odds that this won't happen again get better.   I will do everything I can to keep from ending up in that brace or an operating room again.

My experience has taught me that this can best be handled like any other challenge in life.  If you have a good support group, a positive attitude and a sense of humor you can get through most things.  Oh…and a little wine doesn't hurt either.

                                                          Life is Good

        

Reunion....Whatever happened to the class of 1965??

Fifty years.  Fifty. Years.  Combine those words and you give recognition to a big chunk of time that should have produced a great deal of wisdom just with it's passing.  At least that's what l'd like to think.

At the end of my senior year in high school in 1965 I was poised to take on life and everything it had to throw at me.  I was eighteen years old, worldly and indestructible.  Drawing on my huge storehouse of wisdom I had chosen my life partner at the age of fourteen; now we were getting married to start our great adventure together.  With no clear goals in mind, I worked part time in the boys department at Montgomery Ward stuffing chubby little boys into pants labeled "Husky".  After surviving high school without any great accomplishments or upsets, I didn't know what I didn't know.  Now, in September of 2015, I was driving to my 50th high school reunion to re-visit those days. 

In spite of the fact that my husband had just had back surgery the week before, and I was sporting a huge leg brace to keep my newly acquired hip in place, we persevered.  The registration line stretched out the restaurant doors and onto the sidewalk.  As Larry and I stood waiting I mentally superimposed senior class pictures over faces, struggling to recognize my former classmates through the lens of our fifty year separation.   Some looked very old (gosh, do I look that old, too?)...some looked unwell (This darned brace makes me look pathetic!)...some looked pretty darned good ( shoot, I didn't look that good fifty years ago!)...but no one looked familiar.

I must admit I've kept up with only a few people since  graduation.  I've connected with more of my classmates on Face Book than I ever did in the halls and classes of my alma mater.  I was not the Homecoming Queen, or a cheerleader, nor did I sit in the "M Section" or work on the school paper or yearbook.  In fact I didn't engage in any extra curricular activities that might have marked my high school years as "the best years of my life"  Instead of being a joiner I marched to my own drum  accompanied by a smattering of friends and acquaintances who, like me, kept busy going to school days and working nights and weekends.

Like every high school student I was aware of the cliques:  the rich kids, the pretty/popular girls, and the tough kids who were always in trouble for smoking (gasp) across the street from the school.  The rich kids lived in big houses and went south for spring break.  The pretty girls had perfect eye brows and porcelain skin.  They wore angora sweaters, circle pins and dated football players.  The tough kids glowered intimidatingly from under their grey cloud of cigarette smoke and kept to themselves.  The much less obvious group I fit into was often awakened in the night by the clackity-clack of a train; the tracks ran through our back yards and we lived on the wrong side of them.  We mostly just felt invisible as we went about doing our educational duty.

I guess that feeling of invisibility is one reason I found it fascinating to peek in on this fifty year "fast forward".  As the evening progressed it was obvious some of my classmates had become doctors, lawyers or Indian chiefs, while others worked day to day and seemed happy just to have made it to retirement age.  As youngsters many of these people possessed advantages and talents that others of us did not, but fifty years later drive and tenacity seem to have played just as well for many of the class.  As for me, I turned my desire to be 'on the radio' into a broadcast career that covered thirty six years and kept me from having to get a real job.  At the end of the night I didn't walk away from the reunion with an epiphany, just the quiet thought that time and effort are great equalizers.

My old yearbook, The Manhigan, is a moment of time frozen between leatherette covers.  There aren't a lot of opportunities for us to see how things turned out for so many people, but a fifty year class reunion is just that.  I didn't talk to everyone I'd have liked to, but I left that gathering with the hope that all of them have enjoyed this fifty year ride as much as I have.

It didn't happen without a lot of work and a good dose of struggle, but the marriage that started when I was eighteen has somehow lasted fifty years.   My husband and I have watched our three amazing kids become three amazing adults who now manage their own careers, kids, and chaos.  It's all been worth it, and it ain't over till the fat lady sings.
 
I bet there were a lot fascinating stories in that room last month and I truly wish I could have heard them all.  Having said that I know one thing...I wouldn't trade places with any of them.  Long live the class of '65.

                                                           Life is Good