A Season of Waiting

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From Chocolate is a VerbReading around a few other blogs (Chocolate Is a Verb, for instance), I find that I am not alone in feeling frantic and wishing 1) that I had more time and 2) that Christmas were over.

This is a season of waiting. My daughters can’t wait for it to be Christmas. Can’t wait to find out what’s wrapped in those presents under the tree. I can’t wait to be done with all the cards and decorations and busyness of the holiday. On Thursday, maybe in an effort to check-out from the busyness,I left my cell phone charging in the car while I had coffee with a friend; when I returned to the car, I saw–my heart pounding–that I had 3 missed texts and 2 missed calls. I grabbed up the phone and the last message (all from my sister) was “Call me! Mom’s had a stroke!”

By the time I called, the paramedics were there with mom, and so was my sister. Mom had maybe had a stroke, but definitely a violent seizure. I was able to help make the decision not to transport her to the hospital. There were tears and not a little anguish. In between calls, I sent texts to my friends. But then, Mom began to feel better. Her speech wasn’t slurred any longer. She was put to bed and my sister sat with her and held her hand.

I had begun my day with a million things to do. I mentally crossed most of it off the list. I went to the gym (I was already dressed!), I went to the school to wait for Emma (who turned out to have other plans), I went home and showered and packed. I took a plate of spaghetti to my friend who had surgery yesterday. I got in the ferry line. I waited in the ferry line for an hour and a half!!! (I had a book; no worries.) A little before 8 p.m. I rolled into Allyn. My sister was able to go home. I slept in the recliner in Mom’s room; or, I didn’t sleep (good British movie on the telly; and the amazing caregivers who woke us every two hours to check on Mom and reposition her in the bed).

The next morning Mom was her chatty self. She told me that my uncle lives there, too, but that she hasn’t seen him for awhile. She wanted to know who is taking care of Dad while she’s there. “Can’t you just take me home?” she kept asking. She ate almost all of her breakfast (which was a surprise) and she was no longer complaining of a headache. Her blood pressure was good.

Before I left, Debra, who owns the Haven (and is a gift, herself) arrived and took me in hand. We sat downstairs in her office and had a long talk. It’s so easy to get into a mindset of “waiting for Mom to die.” A mindset that makes every moment agony. Or, at the least, unpleasant. If you are waiting for the next moment, rather than being in this one, then you can’t really enjoy this moment. You can’t bask in it. “Your mother is dying,” Debra told me. “But not right now.” I told Debra the story of my grandmother’s last three years in a nursing home, and how Mom used to say, “Don’t you let that happen to me.” Debra said, “But is this like where your grandmother was? Is your mother, your grandmother?” Her best advice was, “Make new memories.”

Mom is in a good place where she has her own bedroom with her own pictures on the wall and her television playing the deer at havenChristmas music station. Deer and rabbits visit. The caregivers are good to her. One of them calls her “Grams.” My youngest sister is able to see her almost every afternoon after work. I can be there in two hours, and have been able to visit almost every week.

What I am going to remember is sitting and holding her hand. I’m going to remember reading Agatha Christie novels aloud to her. I’m going to remember the ride on the ferry and seeing gray whales and eagles and flocks of surf scoters.

I’m going to try to enjoy this week before Christmas when my to-do list is almost completely crossed off and the tree is lit up and presents are (mostly) wrapped in anticipation. I’m going to try to bask in the anticipation.

I’m going to try to enjoy this time before my novel rewrite is finished (it is so close) and everything is still possible.

I’m going to try to enjoy being able to visit my mother while she is still in this plane of existence with us, in whatever condition.

And I’m going to reread Cherie Langlois’s blogpost, “A Christmas Question,” which says everything I have been thinking, but says it better.

3 Ways Writers Can Stay Creative and Protect Their Mental Health

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3 Ways Writers Can Stay Creative and Protect Their Mental Health.

I enjoyed this post from Lauren Sapala’s blog and thought you might, too.

One of the ways, of course: KEEP A JOURNAL.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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1955My mother will be 82 years old tomorrow; I’m going to visit overnight, and three of her sisters and a niece will be meeting me and my sister in Allyn, at Mom’s new home, to have lunch–and cake!

Here is a picture of Beverly with some of her sisters, a sister-in-law, and a niece, and five of their young children. My mom is the young woman in the middle, looking right at the camera. In this picture, she is pregnant with me.

With my mother now in care, I’ve been thinking about my grandmother’s illness toward the end of her life, when she was still being cared for at home, and of this poem (originally published in Calyx, a Journal of Art and Literature for Women).

*

To Carry On

My grandmother’s name was Arada–
In another language, “fertile field.”
I am the second child of her eleventh
And grew up next door

On the old creek road. When Granma
Was old, she took six pills a day,
Thought she saw babies
On the chair, on the pillow, on the floor

Beside her bed. “Careful,” she said,
“Don’t sit on the baby.”
Her daughters cared
By turns, departing after

Like moons into the dark of planets.
From the threshold once
I heard her call, “Don’t forget me,”
But I had already turned into the hall,CAM00421

To a time before names were spoken.
My aunts moved aside invisible bundles,
Clucked their tongues
And counted pills. “She’s never been sick

Except to have babies.” They smoothed
A blue blanket under her chin,
Smoothed back her black hair.
When I dream of my grandmother, my dream

Is a word from a wordless deep,
A shaft of light. She is tiny
And wrinkled. I wrap her in my arms.
I bear her up the stair.

My summer of ______________________.

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from The Pen and the Bell

As Robert Vivian said in his book The Dignity of Crumbs: “The strings tying us to each other are everywhere.” This sentiment becomes more obvious when in the presence of birth or death, when all the portals are open. – See more at: http://www.penandbell.com/writing-practice/#sthash.8TlEYC11.dpuf

I subscribe to The Pen and the Bell, a website (and a splendid book) maintained by poet Holly Hughes and essayist Brenda Miller. As you will see if you drop by there, Brenda recently fostered a young dog who gifted her summer with puppies.  Each letter from Hughes and Miller ends with a writing challenge, and this one was to write for 15 minutes on “My summer of ____________.

The Summer of my Mother’s Stroke

This was, for me, the summer of my mother’s stroke. On July 6, a Sunday, I drove from my home in Edmonds to see Mom in Chehalis and found her not feeling well. It was a record warm day and I thought it might be just the heat. We had planned to go out for dinner; I suggested that she put her feet up, and I go find us some dinner, but she said Nothing doing. She insisted on having our dinner out, one of her great pleasures in life.

Dinner didn’t go well. She did not have as much appetite as usual and, uncharacteristically, spilled food all down the front of her shirt. I finally got her home. I set up the DVD player and put in an episode of Monk to watch (another of Mom’s pleasures being television mysteries). A few minutes into the program she was in distress. She began slurring her words. Her mouth tugged to the left. I said I would call 911 and she insisted that I would not. Well, Mom has always been the boss. After calling my sister, I decided that I couldn’t let Mom call the shots on this one. I got her out to the car and drove to the ER in Centralia. By the time we arrived, however, Mom was 100% recovered. As we talked to the admitting nurse, I felt as though he thought I had made the whole thing up.

So why didn’t we get to go home? It was one o’clock in the morning–MRI, observation–waiting and waiting–before a doctor  sat down with us and explained how TIAs work (Transient Ischemic Attack). I hadn’t imagined the whole thing, and Mom wasn’t going to be sent home. Big strokes often follow a TIA, the doctor explained, but if they could get to the bottom of what caused this one, they could prevent further damages.

Long story short, Mom was put on a blood-thinner, discharged after two days, and back at home (my sister was with her, fortunately), she fell and hit her head. Back to the hospital, she was immediately taken off the blood-thinner, and then, on Thursday morning, she had a major stroke which paralyzed her left side and left her (us, too), reeling mentally. We thought we would lose her then and there. My brother and sister who live farther afield came, and many of Mom’s grandchildren, too. But after a few days in the hospital she was well enough to be discharged into a skilled nursing facility.

Four weeks later, despite physical therapy, Mom remains much the same. She no longer enjoys eating, though she will eat a few bites at each meal. She no longer seems able to concentrate on television. But she has good days as well as bad. Her children have tried to keep her company and she always knows us. She lights up when her grandchildren come. I’ve driven to Olympia (to the skilled nursing and rehab) two to three times each week, often staying overnight in Mom’s apartment so I can see her two days in a row. One of our jobs this summer has, however, been to clean out the apartment (finally accomplished completely as of this past Monday).

Two days ago we moved Mom to an Adult Family Home near my sister’s house on Hood Canal. As the lead caregiver there explained, for Mom, it was like moving from one world to another, and of course it was further disorienting. But they promise that they can deal with whatever Mom brings with her (a catheter for instance and the complete lack of mobility). It’s a large but homelike setting and we love the staff. It is a few minutes from my sister, and (if I catch the ferry at the best of times) only an hour’s drive for me. We are hopeful that this idyllic spot (with deer grazing on the lawn outside and woodpeckers in the trees) will continue to attract visits from grandchildren and from Mom’s nieces and sisters.

In Brenda’s letter she frames her writing challenge with these words:

So, for me, this summer will always be known as the “summer of puppies.” What name would your summer have, if you could name it? What has marked the season? Have you been able to take a real break from your “ordinary life?”

In this article from the NY Times, author Daniel Levitin writes about the importance of hitting the “reset button” in our brains, in whatever ways that might manifest. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as a herd of puppies yapping for your attention. It can be as simple as absorbing yourself even for just a few minutes a day in something you love—a book, a craft, a special picnic breakfast outside.

Write for 15 minutes starting with the title “My Summer of _______. ” Capture on paper whatever has been capturing you.

I have had moments, even this summer, when I hit the reset button. Walks with our dog, with one of my daughters and our dog. garden gateReading aloud from an Agatha Christie novel to mom (she napped, but Mom’s roommate enjoyed it and so did I). Watching Mom with her grandchildren. Watching my nephew brush her hair. Spending time with my niece from Arizona and my nephew from D.C. (as well as the ones from Idaho–all visits MUCH appreciated). Sitting at a coffee place in Du Pont or Federal Way (which I did frequently) and writing in my journal. Meeting my friends to write at the public library in Everett or at Caffe Ladro in Edmonds. Kayaking with my sister. Camping at Twanoh State Park with my girls.

Mom isn’t dying, not right now. But this summer with her health issues has, indeed, been a moment in time when, as Brenda put it, all the portals were open.

So what name would your summer have, it you were to name it?