The Last Thing I Can Give

 

Isn't it ironic that in a month (October is when I'm writing) when everyone wants to watch scary movies and read scary books and dress up as scary things, I should find myself caught in fear, and deal with the things that have haunted me repeatedly all through my adult life?  And yet, I hope I have found some resolve in all of this.  

We'll begin in mid-October.  Still struggling with grief over John, missing (and happily) the first trip planned for this month, being hit by too many things that wanted to go wrong, needed decisions, required money and time I'd hoped to use to travel to Florida at the end of October, overwhelm at the workload I saw growing and growing here at home which seriously does need to be attended to, feeling alone and weary, and then something came along that threw me into a headlock, battered me hard and refused to let go.

Mama fell.  She wasn't hurt other than a bruised knee.  When and where she fell, we don't know.  Why she didn't have her phone nearby is unknown.  She fell and managed to get herself into a chair and there she sat until my niece went in for her usual first of the week visit and found her.  I'd spoken to Mama last on Saturday evening, about 6pm.  She said she was doing okay at that time.  I mentioned my unanswered texts from the week behind.  She admitted she just hadn't bothered to reply.

I wasn't concerned that I heard nothing from her on Sunday or even on Monday.  Not replying has become more the norm than otherwise.  Ashley visits twice a week.  Mama takes it in turns to contact me or my brother.  Unless of course, she doesn't.  If I don't hear from Mama for three days, I call and if I get no answer, which is also normal, I check with my brother and his daughter and discover Mama is just fine.  

I didn't know until late Tuesday afternoon that Mama had fallen.  I was told she was fine and settled for the evening and I said I'd check in on her on Wednesday.    Others were already there when I arrived the next morning.  I suggested Mama needed to go to the doctor or the ER and at least be checked out, especially since she was unable to stand and move about on her own.  I worried slightly less about broken hips and legs as I watched her cross her legs, as she tends to do when seated.  There was obviously no pain.  But I found it worrying that she couldn't stand.

My suggestion of a check-up was hostilely met.  A lot of fussing, reasoning, pleading, arguing, and upset ensued.  I did my portion of all the above.  I cannot be excused.  In the end, Mama went to the ER where she was x-rayed, examined, declared to have a UTI, was dehydrated and was eventually admitted.  She fought medication, exams, doctor suggestions, etc.  I did not resort to yelling or fussing as I'd done earlier but did make suggestions which were seen as bullying and forcing her to do things by both her and others.   

The day went badly overall.  There were accusatory texts later that night.  I did not argue nor respond.  I let the texts stew.  There was enough truth about my behavior that day in them that I had to do some deep self-examination.  I didn't particularly care for my own conclusions which were not in my favor.   

And the next day we repeated the same process, of suggestions when she refused things and if she accepted them, me being resented for 'bullying' and more accusatory texts that evening.  And again, just enough truth to make me look deeply and honestly at myself.

But those two days took their toll.  FEAR and fear rose up in me and sent my brain into mental spirals that were devastating and dizzying.  It felt like every ounce of all the good healing that had occurred over the last 45 years through God's Good Word and honest self-examination had been for naught.  

I was dealing with blood family, people whose good and loving opinion I have tried hard to earn over the years, and I was in the same hurt places I'd always been.  I felt tortured from the inside by my own thoughts.  I was caught in the traumas and dramas of the past.  I lay awake at night and went over and over and over every incident. I replayed my own role in the debacles and excused and then shamed myself depending upon how truthful I was being with myself. All while continuing to deal with family and tiptoeing about messy feelings, mine and others.

It took me more than a week to get back to 'normal'.  In the meantime, I went through my own personal hell and I'm not just being dramatic. For me, dealing with my family is fraught with mental torture.  I don't like it a bit, but that's what happens to me. 

This is not meant to be about me being hurt or victimized or any other thing.  It is not meant to be about making anyone else the enemy, the villain.  It's not about my fear of being unloved or not favored or who was hurt most.  I dealt with that as honestly as I could in the previous post.  But it is part of my story and part of why it took me so long to recognize what this was really all about.

This is about an adult Terri who didn't recognize what was at the root of everything she was dealing with.  And that root is grief.  New griefs.  Fresh griefs.  

My first inkling of new grief came when I realized I am not physically able to give my mother the care she needs.  It is very sobering to admit that.  

I cannot get around the fact that I am aging.  Or that I do find many things beyond me, though I keep trying to do something, rather than nothing.   I cannot physically deal with her care.  

I cannot get over my feeling that I ought to be doing those things, even though I've always known, and had it proven to me in a very real way just the week before that emotionally, relationally, I can never be the one to care for her.  It feels like a major failing of mine to admit that, more than the physical care.  It feels like a failing spiritually as well as emotionally.  True or not, there we are.  It's the truth of how I personally feel.

My mother has given up.  She does not want to get better.  She does not want even the slightest intervention that might make her feel better.  She is 89 and she's done.  I'd known that she was doing less, seeing fewer people, going out infrequently, but after John died, I didn't pay as close attention to those things as I might have.  I spoke to her on the phone more than I visited.  I was withdrawn into my grief.  I failed to see what was happening with my mother.  I saw her only a few times since March.  

At the hospital she continued to refuse medications and treatments, though she did reluctantly take an antibiotic.  She kept saying only that she was tired and wanted to rest.  The first day she'd close her eyes and try to rest, but then she'd ask questions, the sort of questions that indicated she was worrying.  "Did I pay my rent?"  "What is the heat set on at home?"  "Is anyone checking my mail?"  

And then she stopped asking.  She stopped engaging with us as much.  She kept her eyes closed more often.  She became a little vaguer.  My niece mentioned that Mama had eaten only a few bites of her meals.  We assumed she was just fighting off the effects of her dehydration and infection.

I was puzzled.  Mama really had nothing wrong with her.  Yet she didn't seem any better.  

I felt a nagging at the back of my brain and on the way home that day, I began to recall my work in the Nursing Home as a Social Worker.  We'd admitted a woman, along about Mama's age who was still ambulatory and had all of her mental acuity.  Physically there was nothing wrong with her.  Mentally she was sharp.  She didn't declare depression or any emotional upsets.  She just didn't want to keep living.  And she did die within a few months of her admission to the nursing home.    

Mama is tired of living.  She wants to be finished and done. At this time, she has the right to refuse any including the most basic of care.  One of the nursing home centers and their sister rehab center have refused to admit her.  Her refusal of intervention care they have determined is a 'behavior issue' and they don't want to deal with that.  Admittedly it was a very sticky issue 40 years ago when I worked in my position as well.

She's been placed in another center, but if she refuses rehab, she will be discharged soon. She will be going home with my brother and in his care.  This is what she wants.  It is what he wants. I admit that determination also brought about more self-examination, truthfully and honestly.  That has not been pretty nor fun.

I have had to accept that whatever resolution there is to be in our relationship has already been. I can fight her and my brother every step of the way, but in the end, I am denying her the last thing I can give her, her right to peacefully live out her last days.  I've had to release my judgement, my fear, my hurt, my anger, my past history with my blood family, (notice all of this is mine!), and afford them the only peace that can be had in a tough situation and agree.  I've had to accept that this is a new grief.  It is not for what I lose, for what I will never have.  It is for the knowledge that my mother is dying, however slowly, and accepting that the woman I knew is already gone.

While I've had my share and then some of angst in our relationship there was much that I admired about my mother.  I do have fond memories.  I do recall wisdoms that I shall always be glad she gave me. I remember the good things as well as the bad ones and the sad ones and the times we laughed  together.

I shall miss the woman I saw before I saw flaws and cracks and developed hurts.

She was a beloved nurse.  Bluntly honest sometimes but her former patients would come up to her in public for years afterward and give her a hug and tell me how glad they were to have had her treating them and helping them.  I recall those moments, those encounters with pride in her.  

I recall her energy, her tirelessly working at a full-time job, then coming home to be a homemaker, a gardener, preserver, seamstress and whatever else she saw needed doing in any given day.  Into my adult years, I have always believed her to be a sort of super woman.  

When I was a married woman with children, she went back to college and earned a second degree while working full time as a nurse.  And passed with flying colors.  And then she took that degree and worked for years with still more patients in a well-known rehab facility.  Again, we'd run into family members in public who'd come to hug her, to tell her how much she'd helped.  She touched lives for the good.

I might have missed some things growing up, thinking I hadn't enough of her time or attention in good ways, learning to see the flaws and the brokenness that she denied and yet used to hurt her family with, but I saw other things, you see.  I saw a facet of her that wasn't broken and hurting and striking out to hurt others.  I saw the parts of her that were whole.  I saw where she'd found her true calling and she did it well.  

And I've told her those things.  All of it, in the past and recently.  I've thanked her for her overwhelming generosity when we were struggling, and the kids needed more than we could give.  I've told her how proud I am of her.  I've told her what I considered to be the best of the best in her wisdom.  I have offered my love, but it's not the sort that she needed.  That's okay.

I do not know when she will die.  It might be in days or weeks or months or a year.  But I wish her the greatest peace in the days ahead.  I pray for her to have a gentle passing.  Because it is the last and most loving thing I know to ask for her.