Waking up from a dream of my parents; they were walking like mobile wax figures, expressionless yet somehow disapproving. A new house with many rooms--each room with one or two washers/dryers and piles of dirty clothing. I'm telling Mom I'll make lunch for Dad. He's ill and old. She goes off with one of my brothers. But it's Christmas, and there's very little time before company descends like locusts with a yen for candied sweet potatoes. I have to run out and get presents for everyone, but the house isn't cleaned, and the turkey is lying on the kitchen counter, naked and pale...
Start down the corridor... something's wrong. I'm awake, but not walking a straight line, and I keep scraping my arms on the bookshelves. Thirsty...terribly thirsty. Can't breathe through my nose... and the dream pops back in for a few seconds: didn't set the long tables, white tablecloths, who's supposed to cook the turkey? I'm falling forward...
Wait. I'm facing the wall. Again. Fell back asleep while walking. Well, at least this time I'm not waking up facing a wall and then turning around to see Mr. Pseudonym facing me. I just can't bear that strange, Christ-Kicked-Over-A-Hurdle look on his face. Maybe Junket will make coffee. Pain's running up and down my spine in cruel waves. Go back...get medicine. Junket's asking what's wrong. Don't want to talk. Thirsty, so thirsty. Can't breathe. Air's too heavy - too stale. Junket's ready to talk agenda: what time is mammogram appt?, is Dad still going for his foot x-ray tonight?, do I still need the car?, if I need the car, can I be ready to take her to work in fifteen minutes? Just sit down for a minute and take deep breaths...
Voices - first of the herd of company - and I'm not dressed yet...not even showered. What presents was I supposed to buy? Why does house look so torn apart? Who's going to do all of this wash? Why is the turkey lying on counter like a sodomized backwoods trail hiker? Falling again...
Something's wrong. Just breathe. What do I need? Junket's asking what's wrong again. Phone's ringing. Find remote control - maybe t.v. will divert from pain. Click remote control...click, click, click... . Junket's saying Mr. Pseudonym wants to know if his foot x-ray is still on for tonight. Wave of guilt (was supposed to have arranged for referral to be sent to radiologist on Wednesday - forgot - oh, SHIT! SHIT!)
Waving away phone at Junket's exasperated, "It's DAD!" pronouncement. I really don't care if it's Jesus inviting me out to the diner for steak and eggs and an x-ray of hubby's foot with his eyes when we get back to the house. I gotta go stand on the back steps and look at the sky for awhile. Just BREATHE!!!
This is a bad day, as so many of them have been recently. Trouble sleeping, trouble waking, physical torment, nightmares, guilt, telephones ringing, lost hours... ah, GOD! Junket has to call Kathy, our friend and next-door neighbor, a middle-aged lady who is also at a stuck-point in life. Neither of us can get away from our increasingly-distressing family situations. My girls are breaking free of their "this is all I deserve" relationships, and I feel pain when my kids feel pain. My neighbor cares for an end-stage Alzheimer's mother without much help or understanding from her all-male family.
Kathy flies over in record time, having loaded her mother onto the daycare bus just minutes before. I've stood by her for the past sixteen months or so, since she's been providing care for her mother entirely by herself. She's done the best she can with the situation, Alzheimer's being almost as cruel as money-hungry relatives. Her sister - who had shared caregiving responsibilities with Kathy ever since their father's death three years prior - waited until she could legally get her sticky hands on her share of their father's estate and then, on the magic, legal date, bailed out on caring for their mother. The sister screeched up to the Heritage Dairy store where they traded off Mom every other night, yanked their mother out of her car and shoved her into the back of Kathy's car, yelling, "I hate the f***ing bitch! I don't care WHAT you do with her!"
So, I became Kathy's sister, because if your own family bails on you, then you have to make a new family. Kathy needed a sister, I never had a sister - VOILA! I got a spare Mom out of the deal, my own mother having died in 1995. The spare Mom smiles at me, holds my hand, and speaks in long, rambling, rhyming sentences about dogs and her father and little kids being cute and helpless. Even in end-stage, curse-word shouting, nose-picking, crayon-munching, milk-spilling, cell-phone hiding, talk-to-mirrors, bead-playing, trashcan-browsing, rawhide dog-bone licking, crap in your giant diaper Alzheimer's, Marie is kinder, gentler and more thoughtful than many "normal" adults I know. And Kathy and I have grown much closer in the past sixteen months. We raised our kids together, but now we share things we never touched on in over 20 years of friendship. And when one of us is in trouble, the other is right at her side.
Kathy makes me stand on the back steps and breathe the cool morning air. She pats me on the shoulder and tells me it's just Panic (which I already figured out), makes me a cup of tea and takes over the world for me when I can't think one more thought. I'm so grateful to have her.
Friday, June 09, 2006
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9 comments:
I had no idea what panic was like until you and Kathy explained it to me, so I hope you'll forgive me for seeming detatched/too in your face when that was going on. In the World of Panic, I'm like the auto mechanic who's never driven a car. Or the male gynecologist. You know what I mean :) I'm just glad everything worked out and that you have someone right next door to help when no one else is here, and that she's got the same thing.
I used to think that I was a complete loser for actually enjoying interaction with Marie, but I think you hit the nail right on the head several times- her favorite activites may include eating napkins and smearing jellied toast in her hair, but I've very rarely, if ever met other people who will be that kind and thoughtful. She'll give you anything that's in front of her, and when you say that you like it, she just lights up. And despite how demented she is... I always worry about putting my "presents" back in front of her too soon, or while she's looking.
Wow, Mom, this is your best post yet! It's so effectively descriptive and emotion-evoking! What a very cool and well-thought post.
Maybe this doesn't belong in the comments section, but while I'm here... perhaps you should change the Town You Live In to something else? Such as Crumbsville, NJ or the like? People can Google that shit. And the Town In Which You Live combined with your neighbor's name and Alzheimers... voila, we've been discovered. I'd change the neighbors' names to Karla and Mary so YOU can keep them straight.
But then, I'm just paranoid.
Mom, don't listen to that paranoia! Sar's not worried that people will discover her posts and harrass her and her neighbors- she's worried her NEIGHBORS will find her posts and string her up like a chicken, coat her in chocolate-flavored cool whip and practice with their double-sided wheels of doom on her. In our sleepy ghetto-wannabe neighborhood, I severely doubt that anyone would be much interested in our lives if they happened upon our sites. Actually, with some of the people around here, I very much doubt that they would be able to decipher what we write. "WHAT? FERD, Y'ALL UNNERSTAN' DIS HERE LIL' GAL WHAT TALKS ALL THAT DOCTOR-BABBLE? AH DON'T! AH TELL YA WHAT, THO- IF'N SHE COME AROUND *HERE* Y'ALL SET THE HOUNDS ON 'EM, CUZ IT SURE SOUN'S A LOT LIKE THEM VOO-DOO FOREST PEOPLE TO ME!"
Mom, your posts are awesome just the way they are :)
Thank you, my sweeties, just for caring enough to comment. I'll listen to any advice offered with good intentions.
I enjoy the hell out of your blogs, too. You girls are so full of life, and I'm seeing amazing things happening with all three of my chickens.
All of you are confronting demons that have been at you your whole lives, and I believe all of you will emerge from your cocoons as the beautiful, free creatures you were meant to be.
Never give up, and never settle for what's immediate or convenient. Reach for the gold ring - always.
-Yo Momma-
I didn't say that Mom's posts weren't awesome- I implied that they were incriminating. Jul also maintains a level of anonymity- that's why JQ is JQ and her Husband has been named only ONCE by my count.
You are their mother???? Oh my heavens, I don't whether to congratulate you or give you my kindest sympathies! I do see where they get their wicked sense of humor and their writing skills. I am hoping their table manners are due to being far away from your influence and not from your modeling. I shall be stopping in again soon.
Oh and don't forget loving rats. I love your profile picture and what child wouldn't love to grow up and put someone who looks just like their mother in a cage?
Ah mama, you have my sympathy about the public publishing of family woes. I would be upset if I were you also. Although no one I know in real life reads my blog, still... must be a mama thing. Hugs to you, it is so hard to see your kiddos hurting. I just always want to scoop them up and make it all better somehow, like when they were small.
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