Mom

Four years ago I joined the ranks of a sad group.  Motherless mothers.  I think that term though is often used to describe women who lose theirs before they have children of their own.  But to be honest I feel like that description applies. 

My Mother's downward spiral picked up speed when my son was born.  She'd been acting odd for years but once Paulo made his entrance, she left the building.  I think she held him twice.  Once on the day he was born, which I fortunately have a picture of, and once more a couple of months later.  She was supposed to hold him so I could eat but he was "too heavy" and I ended up eating with my baby in my lap-like every other night.  I often told my husband while I was pregnant that my Mother was going to drive me crazy after the baby was born.  My older sister had to put her on a visitation schedule, if she hadn't Mom would have been at her house daily after her girls were born.  I assumed I'd have to do the same.  I was wrong.  Her dementia had already taken root and she was not interested in my son.  I was really angry about that!  I thought my Mommy would help me when I became a Mommy, I was wrong.  When she and my Father would visit within minutes she would ask Dad if it was time to go.  Uh...nope, dude's retired, got nothing else on the schedule except visiting me!  I struggled with her behavior for months.  Dad and I tried to talk to her about going to therapy, taking better care of herself, exercising, etc., etc., etc.  She'd sit there and appear to listen but nothing changed.  I know now that nothing could change, the Mother I had was gone.  Taken from me when I needed her the most, stolen by a terrible, terrible disease. 

When Paulo was about 9 months old, and after a very stressful holiday season filled with Mom's bizarre behavior, Dad took her to OHSU to be checked for Alzheimer's.  They didn't find Alzheimer's but instead diagnosed her with Frontotemporal Dementia.  At least then I understood.  She really was acting differently.  She really was incapable of bonding with my son.  She really wasn't in control of herself when she slapped my father in law on the butt on Thanksgiving and tried to tickle my brother in law on Christmas.  She really was already gone. 

Her physical decline picked up speed at that point.  I look at pictures of the Christmas before her diagnosis, 2004, and the one prior to that, 2003, and I am stunned at the physical changes.  Her hair changed.  Her skin aged.  We didn't really notice because it wasn't overnight but it is as if her biological clock was wound too fast and she aged 10 years inside of one calendar year.  But the aging that happened in the 17 months between diagnosis and death?  It was worse.  By the end she could no longer care for herself.  She couldn't walk unassisted.  She hardly talked at all.  I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was when I visited her a couple of weeks before she died.  My Dad took my toddler outside to play and I sat and watched Animal Planet with my Mom, I chatted on about life and what we were watching.  There was a parrot on the show, her sister had a similar bird when I was a child.  I mentioned Bobo and how Bobo would say he was a pretty bird and mimic the doorbell at Aunt Bernice's house, and she looked at me with a sort of confused smile on her face, similar to the look I give Paulo when he's going on and on about Pokemon and talking as if I should understand who these creatures are!  That was the last time I saw my Mother alive. 

My sister and I went to her house after she died, before they took her body away.  It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.  To see what she'd been reduced to.  To see what the disease had done, stolen, robbed, destroyed, it was nearly unbearable.  I get angry sometimes at the injustice of it all.  Why her? Why my mother?  Why my son's grandmother?  Why not her is really the better question.  She had all the risk factors.  She didn't take care of herself physically or mentally.  She abused her body for decades.  She consumed toxic pills in attempt after attempt to lose weight.  She drank.  She ate garbage food.  She never loved herself enough to take care of herself.  I wish she had.  I wish she'd had another chance, like a cancer patient can sometimes get.  I wish dementia was manageable, curable, or at the least manageable so she could have had a couple more years and a chance to get to know my son-because believe me, she missed out, he's a great kid.  And he missed out too, because she was a much better Grandmother than Mother. 

I do take some comfort from my belief in reincarnation though.  I think she was a very troubled soul, I hope she's spent some time really looking at what happened to her on Earth and what part of it she was responsible for.  Why did she allow so much pain and suffering?  Why didn't she take care of her physical self?  Why did she make some of the terrible choices she made?  I picture the time when our physical body dies as a sort of debriefing.  Older, wiser, souls are there to help us analyze the life we've left behind.  Our souls can rest for a while.  They can process, learn, make peace with what happened during the physical life.  And then, when they are ready, they can come back to try again.  Don't ask me why I believe what I believe, I just do.  It just makes sense to me, it rings true to my heart.  Perhaps there is an element of wishful thinking too, I hope she has another chance so that she can live a happy life.  Regardless, it comforts me.  It comforts me to think that her soul might be back and someday we might meet again. 

On this sad day though I stop to remember her.  I remember the good-fresh baked bread waiting for us after school.  I remember the bad-unchecked depression.  And I remember the ugly-the temper.  I remember all three though because we cannot deny the existence of any of those things, they all three combined to create the woman that created me, who loved me to the best of her ability, and who I loved.

Good bye, Momma, I miss you.