death

unforgetting…

Published on October 17, 2022 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Last week was one of those weeks… you know the kind. The ones where your schedule is lined out perfectly, and if it weren’t for the very worst week of awfulness the week before, you’d be in great shape–but then… THEN it turns out you’ve rescued a very high-needs kitten, have a new puppy who keeps needing medical attention, and suddenly your great-shape week becomes a string of sleepless nights and cancelations…

Thank God for a new week.

And so far, for Monday, it’s been pretty ok over here. I slept great, managed to tackle a few small areas in my crazy-neglected house, and knocked some stuff off the list. I was feeling pretty accomplished and proud of my productivity and time management when the mail showed up. I was already taking Elenor for a quick walk so I grabbed it on our way into the house before the chilly sprinkles turned into full rain.

We all get the same mail these days… Bills, junk, ads, more bills, and “special offers” that really aren’t that special at all. Mixed in the middle of all of that nonsense was a card addressed to me from a return address I didn’t know. Curiously I opened it to find a beautiful card with a note from my mom’s hospice provider. Suddenly I was right there again, this time last year, sitting vigil at her bedside waiting. Always very soon the nurses said, but waiting for death can truly take forever.

It’s weird to sit here, nearly a year later, and realize this oddly-orphaned feeling will celebrate its first major milestone next week. If you’ve read my book, it may not even make much sense to you that I just then felt like an orphan after the journey I’ve had. Life is funny like that… It’s like my mother’s lack of mothering gifted me neglect and abandonment issues, but it wasn’t until her Alzheimer’s progression that I really felt the true, unreachable depth of that. Once she took her last shallow breath it sealed the deal. Things that, to the mind, shouldn’t feel one way often surprise us.

Over these past six years I can recall these stepping-stone moments that altered me to my core. Each one reminded me that I would, from that point on, never be the same again. Sometimes this was a very good thing, while other times it was simply the way life works sometimes.

In the card from my mom’s former hospice provider was a seed packet for Forget-Me-Nots. Perfection. I’ll tuck them away in my potting bench, for when it is time to sow them. I’ll be tucking the card away too. It may have caught me off guard, but I don’t need it to remind me she’s gone, and therefore a part of me left too.

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the whole package…

Published on November 4, 2021 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

When we moved into this little lakeside cottage those three years ago, we questioned how the padding feet, laughter, and voices of visiting loved ones would fit. We didn’t know, as we unpacked boxes and found creative ways to make this space our own, that those were questions we wouldn’t have to worry about. With one tumultuous Christmas and several months unraveling beyond that, this family size would shrink. No more little bare feet mornings or laughter-filled family moments.

Woven throughout the unfolding of three years, this space has become so much a home. A home shared because within its walls dreams have come true and lives have been lived. I think back to the two people we were that day, tired from driving and anxious about life. I think of who we are today–stronger, confident, capable.

Even with the unraveling of a family and over half of our time here being consumed by a pandemic, we’ve had so many loved ones in this home. We’ve had friends and relatives fly out to visit, friends drive over from the west coast… We’ve held wine nights in our sunroom, movie nights in our yard, and game nights around our table. We’ve created space here, with new people. Around candlelight, women have confessed struggles, meditated, told embarrassing stories, and connected.

Nearly from day one, we’ve had to consider the possibility of my mother joining us here. With advanced Alzheimer’s and wheelchair-bound, this small, cozy space was not a fit for her. The conversations went round and round during the intense seasons of legal battles, as we tried to think of how it could possibly work if it had to.

It couldn’t.

As impossible as it would have been, a secret part of me deep inside may have wanted her here. I wanted to hold her hand and love her without facility walls. I wanted to brush her hair and put her to bed. I wanted to play her favorite records and make her favorite soups. I wanted her to remember a home.

This afternoon a delivery man pounded on my front door, despite the sign urging him to go around the corner the door we actually use. I moved furniture to carve a path to get to him. I knew he wouldn’t wait.

I knew why he was here.

He came to bring my mother… to bring her home. Not to any place she’d ever laid eyes on, but this space is a home (and one that I deeply love) all the same.

Work had been busy, so it was a slow cooker dinner consisting of chicken and pasta. He and I sat across from one another as we ate. Conversation danced around the overwhelming reality that my mother sat there too, neatly tucked into a box stamped CREMATED REMAINS on every inch of available space. It is a strange thing to hold the hand of someone breathing, and then moments later bathe them in your tears because they no longer are. It is entirely another thing to hold them, dressed in cardboard and postage, one week later.

I remember her struggling to breathe, fighting for her life while also fighting to die.

I remember her months back, trying to place how she knew me, and giggling like a child at my jokes.

I remember her one year ago, finally able to have visitors, even if it was on the other side of a COVID SAFETY tent. Her there–present, happy, and all too aware of the fact that I was recording the visit. I knew I’d want it someday. Now that I do, I struggle to find it.

I remember her many years ago… hours of Triple Yahtzee, Dr. Pepper, old stories, and jokes.

I remember her when I was small enough to pick up. I remember the “fun mom” who’d pull me from my bed at 2 a.m. so she could teach me how to bop to old Sha Na Na records.

And now I remember her in a box I haven’t quite found the strength to open yet. A box that claims to weigh only six pounds but feels like it holds the weight of the world.

Within the walls of this house there has been so much loss. Beneath this cottage roof rest the ashes of my parents now. Lining the stairway walls live photos that haunt me of a family that is no more. Even with that sadness though, these walls have held the best and most beautiful bits of life–bits of US. Us traveling this gypsy path of life together, dreaming in unison and also supporting one another fervently as we carry out solo dreams of our own…

moments…

Published on October 7, 2021 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

these days find me in Michigan, suspended in time. Michigan has always been funny to me because, at least in the small, suburban town we lived in, change and growth happen but also they don’t.

So much of it lives frozen.

Back in Idaho (my real home) growth plays out like explosions of development, extravagant new neighborhoods, and a continual flow of new residents migrating to the Gem State. Every visit feels like the first half is devoted to comprehending the changes with the last half being a little dedicated to mourning the loss of farm land and nature.

Michigan isn’t like that.

It is the same gray skies. The same odd people, speckled a bit here and there with genuinely good souls. It is the same restaurants (mostly), same shops, same traffic lights and imbalanced feel. The same.

Within that suspension is my reason for being back–my mom…

My mom is living in her last days. This path began with her unresponsive, the hospice team certain she’d only last a few days. Then, when covid restrictions allowed for (finally) in person visits, it seems the hair brushing, foot massages, and in person reality reached deep inside and pulled her back.

She’s still dying, but that journey has become more than a matter of days, and those days have begun to look like laughter, silly stories, precious memories, and old school karaoke performances. Some days she eats and drinks nothing, other days she downs three glasses of apple juice in a matter of minutes. It’s unpredictable.

On one hand, I want to be by her side as she goes. If she keeps this revival up, that won’t happen, and I’m really sad about that. I don’t want her leaving alone, feeling abandoned, even though I’m not even sure either of those things are where she’d be. On the other hand though, I am DEEPLY loving these moments with her. As her hands and feet ombre into deeper shades of blue, I continue memorizing how they feel in mine. When her Alzheimer eyes find me, recognizing the girl they see, I feel myself hanging there in that lifetime that exists between us.

She was never the perfect mom, but she has been my mom. For better or worse, I’ve never lived a second of this journey without her breathing somewhere, beneath the same moon as me. Even though the last several years have felt like this eternal grief of losing her to a disease ravaging her presence, she was still here. (until covid restrictions anyhow.) But now, now…

I can’t even begin to process it.

And so, while I am sad that it is looking more and more like I won’t be by her side at the end, I am so thankful that I’ve been here collecting these moments.

To be honest, I am also terrified to leave because I want all of the moments.