Breaking the Silence

I haven’t written much lately.  I think I’ve just been lost in my own head about things and there’s been too much going on around me to stop and write things down.  Right now, I’m procrastinating.  I have another phone call I don’t want to make, but have to.  Today, my dad went to the doctor to get the results of a full body CT scan he had done; I’m assuming there’s nothing really wrong because if there was, they would have had him in the office much sooner. (I learned that the hard way with my mom.  The day of her CT, her doctor called and said he wanted to see her first thing Monday morning.  It was Friday.)  But still.  It could be ‘something’ and I don’t know how to handle ‘something’.  Yes, the days are easier now that my mom has been gone for six+ months, but they aren’t ‘easy’.  I don’t know that they ever really will be.  People I know, women, who have lost their moms have told me time and time again that they still cry 8 years, 10 years, 15 years later.  I don’t cry every day, even when I want to.  But still.  It’s never going to be easy again and I’m just not ready to deal with not easy when it comes to my Dad.

I still find myself looking for my cat’s water and food dishes every morning, and almost every time I walk into my kitchen.  It was such a habit to look, to check and make sure he had enough, that it’s hard to break myself of it.  I miss him, too.  I miss the way he used to head-butt me, rub the top of his head on my nose. Sure, I don’t miss when he had teeth and used to bite my nose.  Damn that hurt.  But still.  I do miss him; I noticed the picture of him on my desk today.  I haven’t actually looked right at it in a while.  He was much younger and healthier in that picture, which is how I remember him.  Having a good memory like that is helpful; it helps to stop me from crying anytime my daughter runs up to me and says “MOM…kitty!” and I have to explain again that he is not with us anymore.

I know that there are certain things that we should probably do now, that we haven’t done yet.  Like help my Dad go through some of my mom’s things, like go through her jewelry, her books, her clothes that he still has.  But I’m not there yet.  In my head I know that it’s what needs to get done and all that jazz but the rest of me, just doesn’t want to.  I think that there’s still a part of me that’s in denial and that’s how I get through the day-to-day.  Denial probably isn’t a good place to be and to stay at, but it’s an easy place to get comfortable.  Some days, it doesn’t feel like anything is different because it isn’t – I didn’t talk to her often, I didn’t see her all the time so I don’t necessarily ‘miss’ her every day; I don’t feel the void every day because I’m not forced to see it or hear it. I think it’s only because I don’t have to think about her every day like my Dad does.  If I did, I would miss her every day and I would probably cry a lot more than I do.  When I pass the blue sign for the hospital in the morning, many times I look away so I can pretend its not there and it doesn’t represent what it represents for me now and forever.  That’s the last place I saw my Mom alive, if that’s what you want to call it.  and I try to remember that fact, too.  She wasn’t really ‘alive’ when we turned off the machines.  That wasn’t a life; she wasn’t conscious – even without medication, and when we knew that was the case, I knew it was time to let go.  They stopped the morphine and lowered the pain medication as much as they could and yet, there was no response from her anymore. She wasn’t there, it was just her body.  But still. That body was my mom; it yelled at me, it laughed with me, it smiled at my daughter, it made idle threats to my dad and sometimes it was down-right hysterically funny.  And I miss that body.  I hope that her spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is out there somewhere enjoying its new existence.  But I miss her, and I wish that I could turn back time just a little bit so I could appreciate the spirit and the body just a little bit more, for just a little bit longer.

Where's My Self-Importance Gone??

Just shoot me.  Really, put me out of my misery and shoot me.  Someone.  (okay I’m not really serious but on a serious note, I’m really freaking tired and I hate hearing my dad being upset and saying the things that I just heard so I would – in the least – appreciate it if someone would slam my head in a door to distract me from the stuff that IS my life right now.)

I’m exhausted.  And I have too much on my mind to do my job today, but guess what?  I have to.  I have to be here, I have to train a bs class that I HATE training, I have to try to focus on this when all I want to do is sleep and try to figure out my life. My dad said to me this morning, in reference to possibly replacing his pacemaker with a more powerful defibulator, “if I was younger I worry about it but I’m 81 today, I don’t know if I care or if I want to go through it”. As if I need more stuff to add to my already rather large pile of anxiety over potentially losing both of my parents within a year of each other and/or before my daughter can develop memories with them that she will always have.  Today, I just want and need to cry.  I need to be alone so I can cry my eyes out until I can’t cry anymore.  I need to go to the cemetery and cry.  But I can’t.  I need to be here, doing a job that is far from satisfying these days, supporting my family and facing the possibility of becoming the sole supporter of both my family and myself because my boyfriend has plans of quitting his job and opening a business.  When do I get to feel like I’m being supported?  WHERE is my support???  Do I have to scream from the rooftops I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!!  I don’t want to do this job anymore, I don’t want to be a single parent, I don’t want to put my life on hold so he can move forward with his, I don’t want to sit by and watch my other parent die just as I did the last one.  But I feel like my entire life – every single little piece – is out of my control right now and, as a huge control freak, I’m having a serious problem with it all.

And if I did happen to come across a roof top where I could gain access, stand up and scream – what would I actually scream, what help do I need?  I have no idea how anyone can help.  I have to have a job, this job for the time being.  I have to care for my toddler and, unfortunately, it’s predominately on my own in the next few weeks and possibly for a very long time in the future (the one and only reason I am supporting this whole idea is her; if I didn’t think this could be successful and make us a whole lot of money that would allow us to send her to private school, I would have put my foot down).  I can’t take off from work for an entire day just for shites and giggles; I don’t have many days left this year so I need to hold onto them in case I need them for real emergencies.  Although, wait.  Why isn’t my personal well-being an emergency?  Why is it that everyone else’s stuff is more important than my need to be alone and vent my insane frustrations, anger, anxiety?  When did I stop being important to the most important person in my life – me?

Bite Me

So far today can bite my bippy.  In fact, this whole week can bite me and if things don’t improve I may send myself to a deserted island or at least to the closest Amish community. 

Last night, while playing, Emily thought it was funny to bite me on the shoulder.  It hurt so much that it brought tears to my eyes and I actually had to walk away.  This morning she thought it was okay to hit me in the face as I was putting her into the car seat because she wanted to get something off of the seat and, apparently, I was moving too slowly for her.  I’m starting to get really frustrated by this feeling – I feel like I am her personal punching bag and I just don’t get why I get the brunt of it all.  She doesn’t bite her father or hit him the way that she does me.  This morning, I feel like I am doomed to have a daughter that hates me because I hated my mom for so long when I was growing up.  I hated her for being an alcoholic and for all of the insanity and chaos that came along with it.  I will always hate her, to some extent, for what she did to me and for what she made me endure.  That wasn’t my fault but somehow, I feel like this is some sort of karmic retribution even if none of that was my fault.

My job frustrates me every day and I am tired of my only challenge being things such as forcing myself into the loop on topics I need to be aware of in order to do my job.  I’m not challenged on a professional level; my skills are not improving, my resume isn’t getting more impressive as the years go on.  I’m doing the same exact work I was doing when I started here and it’s been four years.  I’m a little bored and frustrated by the same ol’ same ol.

My life frustrates me.  I do so much for that toddler, I am the one that is alone with her most often and yet, I’m the one she beats the crap out of and disrespects on a regular basis.  I worry about my Dad every day and I miss the hell out of my mom every day, some days more than others – I think today may be a ‘more’ day.  I miss my cat and I’m angry that he had to die within 6 months of my Mom; two days after my sister’s birthday and just a few days shy of the 6 month anniversary of my mom’s passing.  I hate walking into my kitchen and automatically looking down to check his food and water, and it not being there. I hate that I know I didn’t give him the quality of life he deserved over the past few months because I just couldn’t take him laying on me after my daughter had done the same for an entire day.  I hate when I open the refrigerator and Rob has decided to place his things in the front and the things that I need in the morning – like the milk for Emily – are pushed to the back so I am forced to rearrange things in order to get things done.  I hate coming out of the bedroom in the morning to find that there was food left out on the coffee table the night before, or food left out on the counter from the night before; it’s as if I should somehow magically know that it was there and it was my responsibility to clean it up even though he’s the one that put it there.  He’s being passive aggressive and I don’t like it.

My whole demeanor is one of frustration and irritation; I am pretty positive that I am  not pleasant to be around and I just can’t shake it.  I’m sad.  So sad that even as I type this, I am fighting back the tears.  I welcome the time in the future when this doesn’t happen anymore.  When bad days don’t just creep up on me, slap me in the face and ruin everything I do and prevent me from being happy for more than a few minutes or even moments at a time.  Anything ‘not good’ – like the face hitting in the car by the toddler – ruins an entire morning that was previously pretty good and happy.  I can’t get past that moment, or the biting incident last night, and it’s stupid, I know that.  I know that it’s ridiculous to let something so small ruin my morning and possibly my day, but that’s the way it’s looking. I can’t stop feeling like a crappy mom, and I can’t stop feeling crappy about myself today; I can’t stop feeling like its my fault that she’s hitting me and biting me – which logically I know makes no sense, but that’s how I feel today.  I feel like something is lacking in my parenting that is causing it and who knows, maybe there is or maybe I just suck at being a mom.  And all of it is stemming from this inability to put my emotional issues about having a dead mom to the side.  I can’t pretend that I’m okay all the time; I just don’t have that in me, especially not since she died.  I lack the patience I once had, I lack the stability that I once had inside me that helped me to maintain my composure when I was upset.  I lack a lot these days, the biggest one of all being my mom.  She wasn’t supportive, she wasn’t a cheerleader by any means, but she was my mom and I miss her every single day and her poor parenting and her poor choices make me look at myself and wonder what poor choices am I making to make my child act out the way that she is.  I didn’t act out; I sat silently in the background until I found my voice as an adult.  But my child is finding her voice more and more every day, and yet again, this feels a little too much like karma or at least some sort of cosmic intervention sponsored by my dead mother.

Reaching Out

As I was enjoying my morning coffee today, I noticed that a friend posted on Facebook about having a heavy heart and needing a hand to hold.  I don’t know her circumstances right now but for her to say that aloud in a public forum raised a flag for me; I don’t do that kind of thing as a rule.  It’s very rare that I put anything out there for the world to see and if I do, it’s practically anonymous since I put it on Twitter where only a few of my real-life friends can see it.  To some extent, I can understand her public announcement of her current state; I’ve had a rough few days and would have given anything for an outreached hand or a phone call where someone asked “how can I help”.  I’m seen as a strong person, so it is rare that I get offers of help; everyone assumes I can handle whatever is handed to me.  I’m proud and stubborn, so I never ask for help unless I’m really desperate.  And that isn’t often either.  Even when my mom was sick, I took care of whatever I needed to with help from Rob – who thankfully just stepped up and did things without asking.  But there are times, like Friday or yesterday, when I just feel isolated.  Grief does that, so does being alone and being a mom.  I was alone with Emily this weekend again, and although my father and sister came by for a little while Saturday, they didn’t ‘help’. They sat and talked, my sister played with Emily in the backyard, but no one changed a diaper, no one made her dinner or a snack, no one entertained her while I ran an errand alone; being a mom sometimes means that you feel like you have to do everything for your kid, and it means that sometimes you feel like no one understands why you feel the way that you do – meaning, all alone even when you have this little person following you everywhere.  I had wanted to go to the cemetery last week, but couldn’t do it since Rob was out of town; our babysitter was busy this weekend so she wasn’t an option.  I was alone and sad.  I missed my mom, I missed my cat; it feels so strange to walk into my bedroom and not see him there or to get up in the morning and look over to see his food dishes gone.  I was alone in my house with my daughter and I was alone in my head, alone in my world.  Sad because I felt so alone, sad because I felt like I had lost so very much this year and because sometimes when I’m alone I feel like I am losing a part of myself because I can’t be who I want to be and I can’t do what I want to do because first and foremost I am responsible for this little person.  A part of me wanted to scream out loud for help – anywhere, to anyone.  But again, my pride got in the way.  Sometimes, I just need someone to say “why don’t I come by and give you a hand” or “how are you” and genuinely want to hear how I am – the good and the ugly.  It’s rare, way too rare, that either happen.

I'm Dwelling & Can't Stop

I told myself I wouldn’t dwell, but it’s seemingly impossible to not think about it.  To think about where I was at this moment and what I was doing.  We were at the hospital, it was the first time Rob had been there with me since she went in and it would be the one and only time. We knew it would be that day; my sister wanted to wait until the next to give my dad more time, but as my dad said before he left “what’s the point”.

You never know how you’re going to deal with something until you’re faced with it.  On the outside, I’m sure I appeared relatively calm and maybe even cold at the time.  I knew for days that we would have to turn off the machines; my sister was grasping at straws for days, had me call the Cancer Institute to see if they would review her file for one last chance at possibly getting her off the machines – I still struggle with the idea that they didn’t even attempt to do anything with the cancer, try to stop it from growing.  My dad was in denial, praying for a miracle that I knew wouldn’t come.  And as sure as I was that it was coming, that day, I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I paced, I rung my hands quite a bit and played with my hair nervously, I shifted in my shoes as I stood up against a wall and stared at my mom trying to think of something else other than I was watching my mother die.  And when it came, when I had to tell the nurse, when they came in and took all of the tubes out, and when she was gone, I didn’t know what to feel or what to do.  I didn’t feel “peace”; I didn’t feel much of anything except for “oh, she’s gone”.  We sat with her for over an hour before the nurse came in and said “she’s getting ready to pass”; they told us it wouldn’t take long but she held on for as long as she could.  She didn’t want to die – which is something that plagues me regularly.  There’s a part of me that continues to feel responsible, and I think I might always feel like this.  I didn’t force her to go to the doctor earlier, and when I did it was much too late.  I ordered the morphine, I told my father and sister we were keeping her alive for us.  I talked to the doctor, I talked to the rest of my family.  I feel responsible for letting her get as sick as she did, for watching her get sick, and doing nothing.

I don’t know if I could have saved her, if some doctor could have saved her, or if I could have prolonged her life – and I know that if she had been in treatment, what life she did have probably wouldn’t have had much “life” in it.  I wish that I could know, but I never will.  I will live with this doubt and this guilt for the rest of my life. And today, as I am forced or force myself (depending upon how you look at it) to relive that day, the guilt and the feeling of responsibility are greater than they usually are.  And I miss her more today, because it’s been more than 6 months since I last saw her smile, last heard her voice, last saw her in the kitchen cooking and complaining about my dad/the stove/the fact that too many people were in the kitchen, and it’s been too long since I saw my daughter smile at her.  6 months go by quickly, even if sometimes it feels like an eternity.

Uncelebrated Anniversary

Today, I'm trying not to think about it. Today, I want to go about go about my business like it's any Friday that I'm working and taking care of my kid. I don't want to listen to the voice in my head that's reminded me a few times already what day it is. It was 6 months ago - January 11th - that we turned off the machines and I sat with my mom as she passed away. I try not to think about that day often; now, it seems like it went in the blink of and eye but at the time, it felt like a very long and dramatic movie. Or at least a Lifetime special presentation. It's a day and a time that will always be with me, and I know the pain of that day will fade with time. But today, it hurts to the point that I feel numb. I can't really feel anything right now.

I will sit here this morning, at 7am, and I will watch the birds eating on my porch, and I'll wait for the ducks to come around. I'll get the toddler up and start the day. And I will think to myself, as I already have a few times, how much I miss my mom and how much I wish she was here for things like the silly stuff that my daughter does and days, to tell me how to cook the beets we got from the farm, and to celebrate my sister's birthday this weekend with the rest of us. Today, I'll miss her a little more than usual and I will do my best to think of how she was before that day in the hospital and before she was really sick. I'll try to focus on the times we had, good and bad, and not just the times that I had with her sleeping body in a cold, sterile hospital room. I'll try to remember her smile, as long as it doesn't make me cry, and her laugh and the really good food she used to cook. What I would give to have her back so she could make some eggplant parmesan! I miss her, and I hope I can do her memory justice today and every day.

Goodbye, my friend

This weekend, my cat died.  I took him to the vet on Saturday to see if they could give me some guidance; I knew he wasn’t well and he most likely would not get better. I walked in thinking I was putting him to sleep, but after talking with the doctor, I knew that I needed to know more.  So we agreed that a blood test was the way to go, so I would know I was making the right decisions.  Saturday night, he seemed okay – even though I was warned that he might be “off” due to the stress of the appointment.  Sunday morning, we woke up to find vomit and some poop on the bedroom floor; when he wasn’t in bed with me during the night I knew something was wrong.  He was laying in the hallway outside of my daughter’s room; Rob thought he was dead.  But not yet, he picked his head up when I reached down to pet him.  He laid there for a while, rolled around a bit, slept, responded to me when I petted him and almost held my finger when I put it under his paw.  But, somewhere around 11:00, he stopped breathing and he was gone.

It felt very strange to have him in the house, but he wasn’t really “there”, much like how it was to sit by my mother’s bedside knowing that she wasn’t really there.  My sister came over after work, picked him up and took him to the office so I wouldn’t have to do it this morning.  It was strange to hand him over to her; I put him in the carrier and put a towel over him – I thought it was the right thing to do.  That’s what you do when someone dies, you cover them with a sheet.  I cried when I picked him up and put him in the carrier, and I cried when my sister took him from the house.  It feels very strange in my house today.  I threw most of the day-to-day things out – his litter box, the mat under his food dish – and the rest got cleaned up by the carpet cleaner.  It’s as if he wasn’t there at all, much like my mom.

I’m trying to sequester myself a bit today.  I’m sad and I don’t want anyone to know why.  It’s okay if they think I’m just being bitchy or whatever; I don’t really care.  I just don’t want to have to say that my cat died.  Saying it out loud makes it more real and just harder overall.  I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter if they walked on two or four legs, it doesn’t matter if you were prepared for them to go or not.  If they are a part of your family, your immediate family, and they are suddenly gone, it still hurts just about the same.  I hate thinking that my mom is laying in a coffin, in a drawer. I hate knowing that at some point this week, my cat will be burned in a fire until he is just ashes and that fuzzy little face with that little tuxedo on that made him look like he was formally dressed for all occasions will be nothing but a pile of dust.  I  miss him terribly and I hope that, just like my mom, he is healthy and happy again and can run and jump and have fun like he did before he got old and sick.  Getting old sucks for the one getting older, but watching someone age and get sick – at least in my opinion – sucks even more.