Home and other Anxieties

 I came home today. 

I spent time with my children and instead of saying no to the things they wanted to do, I said yes. I played outside for a while, we went for a walk and we played baseball, a favourite past time of my youth, and all the while there was creeping anxiety that followed me around all day. I said see you later to my mom today, but the harsh reality is that I could have just said bye to her for the last time. I am home and I hope that she hangs on, but there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to dying. I want her to obviously, but it is more of a wish for her to hang on until I get back. I also realize that it is a selfish one. 

I talked to her about some of my favourite memories while I was there and told her why I loved my birthday and that she was a huge part of that. She always made it special. We had parties with homemade cakes, crafts, and different events... usually surrounding the weather because March babies have to deal with the unpredictability of the weather... will there be snow, will it be spring? no one knows but there were several birthdays bombing around on dads old Skidoo and somewhere we were outside in windbreakers (HEY! it was a different time) playing baseball. I told her how much I cherished those and how special it was to get a DQ cake when the Stapley family usually shut down the DQ in town during the winter months. She kept saying things like, Lindsey will be 37, WOW! in this soft and wispy voice. She smiled at me and held my hand. Even thinking about it right now brings me to tears. In that week and a half, we reclaimed our family time. I held my dad as he cried and we puttered as my father and I are want to do... we busied ourselves with busy work. 

As I sit here thinking about my birthday and trying to celebrate with the family that Doug and I have built, I am struggling with the notion that I might get a phone call at any time. I know that I was there for the hard stuff and I was there to support my sister and my dad and care for my mom... No one can deny I was there for that... but part of me is aching hard in not knowing what is going on with her. The changes are daily and I am terrified of what I am going to return to. That I will come home and she will no longer be awake or to wake for the few short hours she wakes. I am hurting, hurting greatly with no real path through. I am not really sleeping the way I should and I am finding it hard to just parent through this... Every movie my kids want to watch has something to do with a loss. A constant reminder of what we are about to deal with and soon. 

I find myself listless, I want to go to sleep. I really should as it is 1:30 in the morning, however, my dreams and memories end up on repeat when I sleep. I have a dream that I am out with Doug celebrating my birthday... and I get a phone call the moment I let myself enjoy my surroundings and suddenly the world spins and I am on the floor with no clear concept of what is going on. I know I shouldn't view it like that, I know my brain should just shut the fuck up, but I can't. My last birthday's trauma of a phone call that I thought was going to be my mother calling to wish me a happy birthday which ended up being her telling me she had a brain tumor, haunts me. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since that and we are about to lose her. FUCK... there I go praying again. 

Fun story because I can't focus on this... Grayson went to dance class with nana and came out to stand with the dance moms... turned to nana and said, "can we go to the car? It's Fuckin Cold!" Nana calmly without trying to giggle or react, asked Grayson where he heard that and he responded with "oh mommy say's it all the time". Kid threw me directly under the bus. Mom would have loved that. I can still hear her laugh in my head every time I called her to tell her about the kids' days and the funny things they have said or done. There is no escaping this. It is hard to fathom how quickly we have made it down this rabbit hole. It is shocking and surreal. 

It is a natural progression that we hope that we will never experience but inevitably we are deluding ourselves of the reality of the human condition. We are fallible. We will fail, and decline, and yet, it is something we put out of our minds for the here and now. To escape the realization that everything has an end. Endings are hard and painful. Ends to a career, to have children, marriages, and death are some of the hardest things we will go through in our little blip on the radar and yet we go through life with this idealistic approach to how it all should go down. It is the greatest lie we tell ourselves. 

It is something so simple as to say, I cannot imagine a time where I cannot hear her voice, or see her smile... her long red hair and her gold eyes. Even now as her flame dims, Those eyes are still there, ever-present... I cannot fathom not seeing them. FUCK. The tears are streaming down my face and all I can think of is that I am supposed to be taking a break and breathing, but there is no breath left in me, nor is there a reprieve from this. This is something I just have to carry and accept the fact that it is a part of me now.

As much as I wanted to deny that my mother was a part of me during my youth, she is still there... Her eyes, her steely stare, her laugh, and her grace under pressure... also that redneck side of her that would drive "Fred" (my grandfather's riding lawnmower) down the road with dad's plaid overcoat, ripped jogging pants, knowing full well that she looked like a "hot mess" down to meet us at the bus and truck on when Carly and I were mortified or the distraction technique she used on us when we would come crying to her, only to remember that "we forgot our dirt"

I have a lifetime of memories that I cannot seem to get down. Each one brings tears but also brings a smile to my face... I also have new memories too, like her giving me the "bouquet" of fingers and finding out she meant that as fuck off... or even just talking to her, holding her hand, and smiling. I will never be ready for this next part... but I hope, I hope that I am there to hold her hand through it.