Living in a "Tilted World"

I guess it is time to blog.


It has been a very long time …


… I think.


I crawled out from my bed today and truly didn’t know what month it was – I have been down for the count for more than a week – I lost track of how many days. I thought it was October something – until I consulted my trusty computer calendar.

The last time I blogged was over two weeks ago. It might be a record … it might not – I am too tired to figure it out.


I was waiting for the words to come ....


... the right words. The proper words. The respectful words.


... but they never came. So this will be a clumsy, awkward post. But I felt it was time. I have avoided writing about silly, trivial things since it felt, well, so silly and trivial. But I feel it is time - me ready with the correct words or not ...

In my previous blog - way back when - I mention that I am a firm believer in the random “Shit Happens” theory of why bad things happen to people. I was never a ‘Why me?’ type of gal – more a ‘Why not me?’ – what made me so special that bad things should not happen to me?

I realized sometime this month, well – probably last month if I am honest with myself that my world has shifted on its axis and I am now living in a topsy turvy world where I am at a continual incline – struggling just to stay on and not slip slide right off the edge. I am unsure what is over the edge, but I have a pretty good feeling that is isn’t good – not good at all – thus I struggle, and grasp, and reach and try to stay … here. With umpteen chronic illnesses now – I need to get my world back on level since the effort seems to be wiping me out …


Why did my world shift? Because I realized that the “Shit Happens” theory of mine has a teeny tiny exception …


… who knew?


As I said – I would always ask myself why I felt that I was so special that bad things shouldn’t happen to me …

… still the case. But all of a sudden I realized that there ARE two people in this world that I feel ARE SO SPECIAL that bad things should not happen to them. They are my parents. Can’t seem to change this feeling no matter how hard I try – and I have tried really hard – hoping that my world would flatten out … if you will.

The day I wrote “The Petals and My Mother” on 2 August 2012 – I had received an e-mail – one that I knew was coming, from my father with results of my Mother’s tests. Yes, he wrote, she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And even though I had seen the ‘signs’ and knew it was coming, it was like an anvil smacking me upside the head. And after reading the e-mail multiple times …


wishing …



hoping …



praying …



that THIS time when I read it, it would say something, anything other than what it said. But oddly – it always said the same thing.

I have received some really shitty communiqués in my lifetime, but this was a first – the re-reading something hoping for a different outcome. It felt very surreal and sort of ... not like me - I am generally more - grounded than that.


And then slowly my world started to tip …


My parents are the two most wonderful people in this world (OK – two of three – Gary included) and I cannot abide that this is happening to them. And I feel so helpless.


I don’t know what to do.


I don’t know what to say.


So I just weep and hide.


I have NEVER wanted to take something away from someone more than I want to take this away from my mother. My friend. My phone buddy. My mentor. My nurse. And no matter what I do …


… or where I turn


… I know that I will never be able to.


And for some reason, right now I just cannot live with that …


I remember at some point breaking my 'Never Say Never' rule. Someone was discussing a parent with Alzheimer's and I thought the unthinkable:


"I could NEVER do that."


I went on to think - thank heavens we are a family of stroke deaths! Faculties intact, one day a hand to the head, an 'Oh!' and keel over dead. The way to go. This is a first on either side of our families - so no preparation, no examples - all just new to us.

Sometimes - during those dark, lonely, painful, sleepless nights I wonder - irrationally - but yet ... still - did my "Evil Guardian Angel" hear me and decide that "Why yes, Lori, you CAN do that." and set things in motion? Ludicrous I know, but I am rather superstitious about saying that I could 'Never' do something since after, oh, about 3 or 4 of these thoughts and then the EXACT thing coming to fruition - I decided to be on the safe side and go with the 'Never Say Never' stance. It had done me well ever since.

Do I really think that I brought this on my mother?


No.


I do not.


But it still stands: I feel as if "I could never do that" ... so things are at a sucky impasse ...


My heart breaks for my parents, for lost conversations, for changes that will happen …


not tomorrow, or the next day – but sometime …


and I just cannot go there.


But one day - I will have to and I hope by then that I am over this immature snit, and more, what? Prepared? Can you really prepare for something like this? I really need to be, but know in my heart that I won't be - I will do what I have always done throughout trials in my life - hang on for dear life and make it up as I go, fly by the seat of my pants ...


... I really know nothing else in the way of coping skills - how pathetic is that?




And since I mentioned it in my last blog - there is a wonderful song that I recently heard from Matchbox Twenty's new album North. They explain that it is about a couple that has been married for 40 or 50 years and that the wife has Alzheimer's. Yes - a wee bit too timely for my taste - but it is absolutely beautiful. That I cannot listen to it without sobbing uncontrollably puts a bit of a damper on it though.

The chorus has a line:

"When you don't know, I will" and they explain that the husband is telling her that even if she has forgotten, he remembers so everything will be OK.

Why, oh why did they have to write this beautiful song? I cannot stand to listen to it but it is so beautiful and haunting - I cannot bear not to ...




Note: As I mentioned in my previous post - my mother has given me permission to share this.