Unintential Baggage



Warning! Content is raw and transparent.

My mother did not have a child psychology degree or even a full four-year college degree, so I’m certain she did not realize the scaring results she instilled in me of inadequacy and guilt where my sister was concerned. LeeAnn is a “rubella baby,” born blind and deaf, with a heart and immune defect. She has some degree of mental retardation and who knows what else, really. Mother’s over protective instincts popped out in her life like a threatened porcupine and I, unfortunately, became impaled by the quills. As a child and the older sister, I was told in no uncertain terms I was responsible for her safety above and beyond my own and zero tolerance with anything short of that was Mandatory (capitalized for extra emphasis).

Mother at her last Birthday,
March 2, 2014

   So, now as I process Mother’s passing, I am faced with the child within who is terrified of not pleasing the super-human expectations of said mother. While I am confident in my own abilities to “take care” of my sister for the remainder of our natural lives, and I have no doubt in myself to “handle” her financial affairs appropriately and effectively, the child within chews her lip and worries any decision I make will be misinterpreted by the mother-who-doesn’t-approve-but-doesn’t-say-anything.



LeeAnn @ 49th Birthday,
February 20, 2014

I journaled for two days about my feelings, siting examples of Mother’s shortcomings, which I do not judge, I simply point them out to level the playing field. I had a shortcut to the journal document on my desktop and accessed the file easily through it. Two days ago, I accidentally opened the file twice and when I saved it, it went somewhere else and was no longer on my desk top. Shrugging that off, I located the file and re-saved it as a shortcut on my desktop and went on about my business.

Yesterday, as I drove to or from the grocery store, the Lord spoke to me and said, “But, who is to judge you?”

The answer to that question is: Him and myself.

It was profound and epiphany-level understanding for me. I decided to open the journal and write this as a conclusion to all my worrying in the previous 6 pages…



L-R, back row: Mother, LeeAnn, Me, Nisa (my daughter),
Front row: Emily (my daughter), Crimson (Emily's daughter)

Only the file was gone. Everything I wrote over the previous two days, all five pages of new entries, were no longer there. Only the first page of two entries when Mother first came to live with us (three years ago) remained in the file. Mystified! I took it as a sign from God that it was no longer needed in print because the question God had given me resolved the issue. Poof!

Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, essentially, “I’ve got this. Relax.”

He does. I will.

 

Do you carry unintentional baggage from your childhood? I can't imagine anyone who doesn't! Come sit on my porch and let's talk about it. Please, leave me a comment telling me your story, feelings, reactions. I'd love to hear from you. It's validating to know I am not alone!

Am I Muddying the Water?

The Bible says, ² “Son of man, take up a lament concerning Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: ‘You are like a lion among the nations; you are like a monster in the seas thrashing about in your streams, churning the water with your feet and muddying the streams. Ezekiel 32:2 NIV

The daughters loaded up and left today.  With them went … happiness, I suppose you’d say.  Yes that’s it, happiness.  While they are here, I feel happy; tired, worn out, ready to have my house back, ready to not wash so many dishes, ready to take a nap if I want, but happy all the same.  Now that they are gone, I am alone to deal with my feeling, or lack thereof, for my dementia inflicted mother.  I love my mother, I hate my mother. I feel nothing for my mother.  Somehow in her dementia fog, she knows it.  She keeps saying things like, “honey if I’ve done something to upset you…” 

I look at her with my best practiced confused look and say, “Mom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  And I either get up off the couch to go do something, like it’s the most important things I need to do at this very moment, or I pick up my Kindle and begin reading, like this is so much more important that talking to her about this “misunderstanding?”  In reality even if I discussed it with her, reassured her I am not upset about anything, which I’m not really, I just don’t enjoy interacting with her, talking to her.  Partly because of the dementia, partly because I just don’t feel like talking to her.  The dementia has reduces her ability to converse to topical, cliché, canned conversations anyway, but even if I did reassure her I was not upset and went into great lengths explaining how I am not upset, she wouldn’t remember my explanation nor the conversation in a few minutes and would probably start the whole thing over again in a few hours. And I really do not like having the exact same conversation about the same subject which I did not want to discuss in the first place.

Yes, I could take the time to reassure her I was not upset with her and that I love her, and in a few hours, she’d say, “Honey, I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but I want to tell you I’m sorry.”  For one thing, that’s not an apology.  I hate it when people apologize by saying, “If I did anything wrong, I’m sorry” because that means to me, “I did not do anything wrong but apparently you are mad at me for nothing so I will tell you I’m sorry and you will feel better and be nice to me.”  Yeah, well that doesn’t make me feel better or want to be nice to you.  It makes me madder because you obviously to do recognize what you did or acknowledge your responsibility for what you did.  Either way, you are not apologizing, you are “making nice” and that doesn’t do it for me.

But I say, “Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about?” 

”Well, I don’t either, but I thought I said something that upset you.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, I thought I said something … silly”

“Well, I don’t think you did.  Maybe you had a dream and thought you said something…But you did not and I’m not upset”

“Well, ok then” she says, maybe ready to put it to rest.

“Ok.” Lord, I hope we are done with this.

And then the next day she will be sitting on the couch watching her favorite TV Channel which has Gun Smoke and Bonanza reruns.  I will have just sat down from puttering around the house, doing whatever needs to be done, like dishes, laundry, straightening up, or checking my e-mail, and she’ll say, “Honey, I wanted to talk to you…”

Oh God here we go again!

I look at Paul for help, but he just gives me a blank glance up from his computer in which he is vehemently playing solitaire, since he’s seen the Gun Smoke episode so many times he could recite every line not to mention it’s not his nor my favorite TV channel.  It’s on that channel for mom and mom alone.

“If there’s anything I’ve said or done.” She starts in.

“Mom, this is the third day you’ve said something about this.  There is nothing that you did or said.  We are alright.” Mic check. Mic check 1…, 2…, 3..., God I hope I don’t sound harsh!  “I think you dreamed this and now you are confused. Don’t worry about it.”

Lord help me love my mother, comfort her, just be nice toward her!

In my mind, I see me putting my arm around her shoulder and comforting her and she feels much better.  But outside of my mind, in my physical reality, I just cannot do it.  So I pick up my Kindle and begin reading, or go outside and check on the tomato plants.  Very important thing I must go do right now, I’ll be back.  Pull some unwanted grass, count how many tomatoes are currently formed and wish I could be a better person toward my mom.  I walk back in the house and tell mom there are three tomatoes and I can’t wait for them to ripen up.

She sounds happy when she responds agreement to the idea that the tomatoes will be wonderful once they are ripe!  She seems happy again.  Thank god.

Random Thoughts

Oh My Goodness! My thoughts are all over the place today!  I want to say Goodbye to Neil Armstrong!  He has taken that final one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...corney but true.  He has taken that final trip into the greatest unknown.  And I, we, shall miss his presence here on our planet earth.

I woke up without a voice this morning!  Coughed all night! My husband loves it, not really, we just tease about the wonderful world for a man whose wife has laryngitis!  HAHA!  But it also made me realize how little I talk to my mom.  Remember, she has Alzheimer's.  She hasn't seemed to even notice I cannot talk to her.  I whispered Good Morning and some other salutation-type greetings.  It made me feel bad, so when I saw my goofy dog, Charlie, laying upside down on my bed, I went and got Mom.  We laughed about how stressed out he is!  (Pun!)  And how cute he looks all stretched out, on his back.  Okay, now I feel better.

And then, I see my garden is dying.  Now I'm sad, but then again, it means that Fall is on its way and the temperatures are coming down!  YAY!  I'm happy about that!  My really, really dried up cucumber plants made me think about our own spirits and keeping them watered with the word...well you know, without preaching.  It made me think about my own reading of the word, faithfully, every morning...but have I been paying attention?  Actually, I've been reading to get-r-done.  Opps!  I've gotta stop doing that and read to get what God wants me to get.  That makes me feel better just thinking about it!  :)

And, last but not...well you know the cliche', my two-and-a-half year old grandson is on my mind!  He made me cry Tuesday when he and his little brother and momma (my daughter, Nisa) left our house to go home.  I snapped him into his car seat and talked to him about being good for momma, like I always do and he quietly says, "Okay." It's so cute.  Then I spoke from my heart and had to whisper because the words choked me up.  I said, "I love you with all my heart." and he whispered back, "I love you with all my heart." (recognize it was in his own limited articulation, but I knew what he was saying!) and THAT BROKE MY HEART, in a good way!  I'm so in love with my grandchildren!  They are so dear to me!!!  I turned and tried to tell Nisa what he said, but my octive was so high she could barely understand what I said!  Silly Grandma!  I cried about that for two days!  *Sigh*

What do you think?  Let's sit on the proverbial porch and visit...

Alzheimer's Steals History

My mother has Alzheimer's and is now living with us.  It's so sad to watch her memory deteriorate.  It's not just that she has trouble with short-term memory, she is forgetting our history.  I can't say to her, Hey mom, remember when...  Because she doesn't.  She remembers way back when she was a young girl, which I understand is typical of this disease.  Their long-term memory is intact for a long time.  It's the latter thing to go.  But she doesn't remember my childhood.  Or people we knew and loved during my lifetime.  She asks me if I remember when her daddy did this and that.  Well, her dad died before I was born.  So, No, I don't remember him doing any of those things.  Our conversations are related to something happening on TV or the weather, or something our dogs did that was cute.  But nothing about our history.  It's very sad.
What do you think?  Lets talk about it.