MEMORIES AND MEMENTOS
It's been a long time since I posted here. I decided I'd better become more active, maybe do a post every week, on Wednesdays, which is my day off. It makes sense to use part of my free time to unload my feelings, whether good or bad, happy or sad. Of course, posting will also allow me to catch up with my flist and get back into the comings and goings of everyone else's lives.
My particular life in the past couple of years has had its ups and downs. Sean is now 5 years old and is thriving at school. His autism affects certain areas of his behaviour, mainly his concentration, but he is doing very well despite that. In particular, his socialization skills have come a long way. He is communicating very well with the other kids and has made friends. It turned out that speech therapy was not needed. We had to wait so long for an appointment that when we finally got one his speech had come up full force to the age-appropriate level during his second year of school.
Olivia, my daughter, has packed up and moved to Vancouver. It's hard for me to get used to this. I miss her a lot. But we are planning a trip together to Europe in the spring, which should be really enjoyable.
My son Jamie, ever the slacker...no change there...has been studying Graphic Arts in Advertising at college, but has decided to drop out because it's just not "him". He plans to go back to work full-time until next September, then enrol in a trade, like carpentry or something, because he says he is a "hands-on" person. *sigh* He is 21 but he makes me feel like I'm 100.
I guess the worst thing for me lately concerns my mother. A year ago she suffered an accident (she is 81) where the sliding glass door of her patio came loose when she tried to open it from the outside, and fell on her, knocking her backwards onto the patio. A couple of women out for a stroll found her lying semi-conscious, the glass door lying on top of her. Bruised and broken, she was rushed to hospital where she stayed for the next 3 months. She had hit her head on the stone floor of the patio, resulting in profound memory loss. She couldn't remember us (her kids), my dad who passed away in 1998, her pet cat, or her condo. From the hospital she had to be transferred straight into a nursing home where she lives now. Because of her dementia, she can never go home again.
Only part of her memory has since returned and she says she does remember us, her children, now, but when questioned about her past life with my father she remembers nothing. Nor her past life, her childhood, her parents, just nothing.
There truly is nothing sadder than old age when all the past is forgotten. She and my father were so much in love and that she doesn't remember him anymore is like a blow to my pysche and has completely affected how I now regard life.
We sold her condo in September (last month), partly because we knew the economy was in a downturn and it seemed useless to keep it. Olivia had been staying there before she moved out west, and we didn't have the heart to rent it out to someone else. As sad as my mother's memory loss is, it was heart-rending to have to go through all her possessions and decide what to discard and what to keep. She remembers nothing about anything she owns, but we all kept a few mementos, and we took some things to the nursing home to surround her with.
Olivia kept a tiny ceramic Buddha figurine that had been given to my father, who was an architectural engineer, on a trip he made to Rio de Janeiro long ago. It is supposed to bring good luck to travellers and Olivia has always loved the little thing. Among other things, I kept some old love letters that my Dad had written to my Mum when he was away in the service. (He was with the RAF.) They are wonderfully written, beautiful things. He had wanted to be a newspaper reporter for the longest time, because his Dad, my grandfather, had been one, and then became an editor.
Of course, I cried when I read the letters. They were so tender and passionate, without a word of smut. So full of love and so emotional. So full of life at the time and concerning lives that existed, but are no longer remembered.
My particular life in the past couple of years has had its ups and downs. Sean is now 5 years old and is thriving at school. His autism affects certain areas of his behaviour, mainly his concentration, but he is doing very well despite that. In particular, his socialization skills have come a long way. He is communicating very well with the other kids and has made friends. It turned out that speech therapy was not needed. We had to wait so long for an appointment that when we finally got one his speech had come up full force to the age-appropriate level during his second year of school.
Olivia, my daughter, has packed up and moved to Vancouver. It's hard for me to get used to this. I miss her a lot. But we are planning a trip together to Europe in the spring, which should be really enjoyable.
My son Jamie, ever the slacker...no change there...has been studying Graphic Arts in Advertising at college, but has decided to drop out because it's just not "him". He plans to go back to work full-time until next September, then enrol in a trade, like carpentry or something, because he says he is a "hands-on" person. *sigh* He is 21 but he makes me feel like I'm 100.
I guess the worst thing for me lately concerns my mother. A year ago she suffered an accident (she is 81) where the sliding glass door of her patio came loose when she tried to open it from the outside, and fell on her, knocking her backwards onto the patio. A couple of women out for a stroll found her lying semi-conscious, the glass door lying on top of her. Bruised and broken, she was rushed to hospital where she stayed for the next 3 months. She had hit her head on the stone floor of the patio, resulting in profound memory loss. She couldn't remember us (her kids), my dad who passed away in 1998, her pet cat, or her condo. From the hospital she had to be transferred straight into a nursing home where she lives now. Because of her dementia, she can never go home again.
Only part of her memory has since returned and she says she does remember us, her children, now, but when questioned about her past life with my father she remembers nothing. Nor her past life, her childhood, her parents, just nothing.
There truly is nothing sadder than old age when all the past is forgotten. She and my father were so much in love and that she doesn't remember him anymore is like a blow to my pysche and has completely affected how I now regard life.
We sold her condo in September (last month), partly because we knew the economy was in a downturn and it seemed useless to keep it. Olivia had been staying there before she moved out west, and we didn't have the heart to rent it out to someone else. As sad as my mother's memory loss is, it was heart-rending to have to go through all her possessions and decide what to discard and what to keep. She remembers nothing about anything she owns, but we all kept a few mementos, and we took some things to the nursing home to surround her with.
Olivia kept a tiny ceramic Buddha figurine that had been given to my father, who was an architectural engineer, on a trip he made to Rio de Janeiro long ago. It is supposed to bring good luck to travellers and Olivia has always loved the little thing. Among other things, I kept some old love letters that my Dad had written to my Mum when he was away in the service. (He was with the RAF.) They are wonderfully written, beautiful things. He had wanted to be a newspaper reporter for the longest time, because his Dad, my grandfather, had been one, and then became an editor.
Of course, I cried when I read the letters. They were so tender and passionate, without a word of smut. So full of love and so emotional. So full of life at the time and concerning lives that existed, but are no longer remembered.