Mom, Me, and a year
A year ago today, mom died right about where I'm sitting typing this. Her ashes are on the shelving behind me. My sister and I have still not decided on a container for them. We were planning on dividing up her ashes between us, but now I don't know if we still are.
It's only been a year and yet it seems a whole lifetime ago, a different life between then and now.
A year ago, we were looking for a place to put dad, my sister was looking for a buddhist monastery for me to go to, and my therapist I had just started with was looking for long term placement for me. [Read that as institution or group home situation.] No one thought I could take care of myself much less look after my dad and keep a house, do bills, etc. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to do it.
It took me two weeks to be able to ride the bus to visit the therapist and that was with me on the cell to her and clutching Franklin, my teddy bear, the whole way.
But there was paperwork to do, and we had just moved into a new place, and dad wasn't stable enough to be without me or my sister and she couldn't stay up here, she had a job and a kid and a husband who needed her as much as we did. So, I did what needed to be done, with lots of help, until the paperwork was finished. Then it was christmas, and we couldn't very well do anything drastic then even if any agencies had been open which they weren't. So, we waited until new year's. and somehow by new year's, we weren't talking that much about me going anywhere or dad being put someplace. And there was still paperwork to do, and I was getting the bills taken care of, and getting the rent paid on time, and all those other things, and with less help than before, although I was getting my dad to do his part which was a good thing.
And now we've come to the end of the year and I'm talking about getting my driver's license, and I've flown on a plane by myself for the first time, and I no longer have to carry Franklin with me in public so much anymore. [I still tend to take him with me to governmental offices, although I'm not sure they'll let me take him with me on the driving test. I wonder if they even have a code for that -- like instead of 'must wear glasses' it's 'must have teddy binky in passenger's seat'.] I also regularly take the bus places, and sort out my dad's medicine at the pharmacy. Two years ago I couldn't even talk to anyone at the pharmacy; a year ago I would whisper or write notes and not look at the person while trying to deal with them and get flustered if something went unexpectedly; and now, I know the pharmacy guys by name and they know me, and I have no trouble helping them figure out what the stupid insurance computers have done to my dad's insurance this week.
All of this probably sounds good. I mean isn't that what we all aspire to -- to live independently, be somewhat responsible for ourselves, make our own decisions? And yet, I have only achieved any of this from the necessity caused by my mom dying. I know deep in my heart that if she were still alive, I would still be her baby, unable to do anything without her doing it with me or for me. This is the conundrum I come back to no matter how I try to answer it: I am more fullfilled, even more happy in my life than I was in those last years with mom, even before she got sick; and yet I wouldn't have these changes in my life if she hadn't died.
I didn't want her to die, don't want her dead, and yet, what would my life be, how much more of it would I have missed, if she were still alive?
And yet, I know she wanted/wants me to be happy. She never meant for me to be unhappy with her, and I wasn't, I just wasn't as happy as I am now.
I can't spend the rest of my time on earth mourning her and wishing to be dead, but I am living out the rest of my life as someone she never knew because I couldn't be that person around her and she couldn't let me.
This be the Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
---Philip Larkin
I know she did the very best she could for me, I know she never meant for things to turn out the way they did. I needed her for lots and lots in my life and I'll never forget that. Or how she fought for me when others wanted to limit me even more than I was limited already. She gave me many of the tools that I use now to get around my disabilities to do things. I guess it was just easier for both of us to not challenge me to do them when she was there to do them for me.
Can you love someone and want them back so much, but not want things to return to how they were?
It's only been a year and yet it seems a whole lifetime ago, a different life between then and now.
A year ago, we were looking for a place to put dad, my sister was looking for a buddhist monastery for me to go to, and my therapist I had just started with was looking for long term placement for me. [Read that as institution or group home situation.] No one thought I could take care of myself much less look after my dad and keep a house, do bills, etc. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to do it.
It took me two weeks to be able to ride the bus to visit the therapist and that was with me on the cell to her and clutching Franklin, my teddy bear, the whole way.
But there was paperwork to do, and we had just moved into a new place, and dad wasn't stable enough to be without me or my sister and she couldn't stay up here, she had a job and a kid and a husband who needed her as much as we did. So, I did what needed to be done, with lots of help, until the paperwork was finished. Then it was christmas, and we couldn't very well do anything drastic then even if any agencies had been open which they weren't. So, we waited until new year's. and somehow by new year's, we weren't talking that much about me going anywhere or dad being put someplace. And there was still paperwork to do, and I was getting the bills taken care of, and getting the rent paid on time, and all those other things, and with less help than before, although I was getting my dad to do his part which was a good thing.
And now we've come to the end of the year and I'm talking about getting my driver's license, and I've flown on a plane by myself for the first time, and I no longer have to carry Franklin with me in public so much anymore. [I still tend to take him with me to governmental offices, although I'm not sure they'll let me take him with me on the driving test. I wonder if they even have a code for that -- like instead of 'must wear glasses' it's 'must have teddy binky in passenger's seat'.] I also regularly take the bus places, and sort out my dad's medicine at the pharmacy. Two years ago I couldn't even talk to anyone at the pharmacy; a year ago I would whisper or write notes and not look at the person while trying to deal with them and get flustered if something went unexpectedly; and now, I know the pharmacy guys by name and they know me, and I have no trouble helping them figure out what the stupid insurance computers have done to my dad's insurance this week.
All of this probably sounds good. I mean isn't that what we all aspire to -- to live independently, be somewhat responsible for ourselves, make our own decisions? And yet, I have only achieved any of this from the necessity caused by my mom dying. I know deep in my heart that if she were still alive, I would still be her baby, unable to do anything without her doing it with me or for me. This is the conundrum I come back to no matter how I try to answer it: I am more fullfilled, even more happy in my life than I was in those last years with mom, even before she got sick; and yet I wouldn't have these changes in my life if she hadn't died.
I didn't want her to die, don't want her dead, and yet, what would my life be, how much more of it would I have missed, if she were still alive?
And yet, I know she wanted/wants me to be happy. She never meant for me to be unhappy with her, and I wasn't, I just wasn't as happy as I am now.
I can't spend the rest of my time on earth mourning her and wishing to be dead, but I am living out the rest of my life as someone she never knew because I couldn't be that person around her and she couldn't let me.
This be the Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
---Philip Larkin
I know she did the very best she could for me, I know she never meant for things to turn out the way they did. I needed her for lots and lots in my life and I'll never forget that. Or how she fought for me when others wanted to limit me even more than I was limited already. She gave me many of the tools that I use now to get around my disabilities to do things. I guess it was just easier for both of us to not challenge me to do them when she was there to do them for me.
Can you love someone and want them back so much, but not want things to return to how they were?