Not A Wanted Absence

I didn't want to leave you! I promise! Something went screwy with my computer, and I just finally got it fixed.

A lot of stuff has gone down the passed few days and it's .. yeah.. it's been a wild ride to say the least the passed few days.

My nephew, who my mom and dad raised, and is more like a brother to me than a nephew, wanted to help this week, so I let him go into the therapy room with my mom, so he can see how to better help her if I'm unable to do so. After he leaves there, he has this look and sense of accomplishment. My mom told me that she feels horrible, because she doesn't want her 15 year old grandson to have to rub her legs and such.

I guess, in a way, I can understand that, but for me, I see it as each touch is one touch towards her getting better.

She and I talked in the car on the hour drive to her doctors office, and she told me that she thought I was embarrassed to be seen with her. I love her so much, I never thought she ever thought something like that. I'm proud to be seen with her. I am proud OF her. She is forcing her body to move, despite the excruciating pain she's in almost every minute of her life. She is forcing herself to look passed the pain and to reach forward and to get the treatment she needs instead of sitting in her chair and crying.

In just these two short weeks, my mom has gone from needing to be literally shoved into the car, to being able to put one leg in on her own, which was an incredible accomplishment, and just this week, she was able to put both legs in herself, put on, and fasten her seat belt, adjust herself in the seat and everything without an ounce of help!

It's so amazing the things that people take for granted, such as being able to eat when they want, drink when they want, and simply move when and as they want.

My mom talked to Joey (Nephew/Brother) and I earlier as we were on our way back from therapy. I guess I never saw it the way she feels it.

She has to ask to eat. She has to ask for water. She has to ask for help to pick things up. She has to ask, sometimes, simply to move. All because with her legs and feet, she simply, physically cannot do these things for herself. She needs someone to get food and drink for her, someone to get things that fall on her. She cried in the car, and if I wasn't driving 75 miles an hour on the highway, I would have pulled over and hugged her.

It was the first time she had ever confessed how she felt. I never thought of it before. I never thought about what would happen if I was in her shoes. I get annoyed sometimes, because she'll call me, right when the climax of a suspense movie is about to happen, or just when I'm in the haze between being awake and being asleep.

I even yell at her.

I'm really not a horrible person, I just have little to no patience a lot of the time.

I don't like when her doctor calls me her 'caretaker', sometimes. It sounds like 'Undertaker' and my mom has far too much fight left in her to roll over and die. 'Caregiver' sounds as if I'm a babysitter or something.

Her therapist looks at me to be the responsible one, to make sure she's well taken care of. It's difficult for me.. not in the sense of not wanting to or not being able to take care of her, but rather, a few years ago... wow.. no.. It's now nearly a decade ago, that we got a call from my dad's brother's doctor. They told us that we should get to the hospital, because he wasn't going to survive the night. My dad drove all night to get there, with my mom, Joey, and myself in the car besides.

He made a miraculous recovery, and was able to go home. Shortly before he went into the hospital, my aunt, Shirley, his wife, had a double brain aneurysm, and she was in a hospice center. Anyways, they needed someone to take care of my uncle Rex, and without a thought, I told them that I would stay to take care of him. This was my first time ever being away from home, and it would be the longest time that I had ever spent away from my parents.

I stayed there for something like two or three weeks, and then I had to leave, so my aunt could come home. They wouldn't allow me to stay there to help them both, because my aunt needed intensive treatment that I just wasn't able to do...

Well.. I went home, and a week later, my uncle was gone.

I live with that guilt, despite the fact that there was nothing I could have done for him. My uncle needed a liver transplant, and because he was an alcoholic, they wouldn't even consider him for the transplant.

I was his 'Caregiver/taker' and I had failed him. I failed my father. My uncle Rex was his only brother, and despite the distance between them, they were best friends. My uncle Rex was the Cheech to my dad's Chong.

My Uncle Rex looked just like Cheech Marin, while my dad, when he was younger looked like Tommy Chong.

My dad doesn't blame me, no one does, except for me.

I'm afraid of being classified as my mom's caretaker.. because I'm afraid of failing her. I'm afraid of not doing something right.. I'm afraid of my mom dying.

That's probably my biggest fear, aside from losing my son. My mom is my best friend. I couldn't imagine life without her. And despite the fact that I know she won't be around forever, I don't want to be the one taking care of her, only to have her die.

I know that sounds incredibly silly.

So, I classify myself as a daughter. The Daughter to a woman who has Lymphedema. The daughter who loves her mother enough to help her when she needs it, and who tries to lessen my mother's pain. 

I love you, Mommy.