Aging

My confirmation, Temple Emanuel

I think this picture was taken around 1975. My mother is the woman on the far right. Her mother, my grandmother, is the woman standing in the pantsuit in the center. Her husband, one of my grandfathers, is beside her.  It's funny that my dad kept his sunglasses on for the photo. The man on the far left is his father, the other of my grandfathers.My siblings are also in the picture along with one of my aunts who is my father's sister.

It brings sorrow to me that all have passed on except for my siblings and my mother. It is sorrow for love gone by. The deaths in my family of which I was a part were not long and drawn out. My beloved Nana Anna passed very quickly. I lied about my age in order to see her in intensive care. My Poppa Jack also passed away in the hospital. I got to see him one time, too. My father never woke up from what turned out to be his final heart surgery.

My mother is turning 82 on Tuesday and it is getting harder to be around her. Whenever she spoke of the final years before her mother passed, she would reminisce about how mean she was to her. My older sister witnessed it but at that time I lived halfway across the country and had my own issues.

I am looking at the picture and realize I am flanked by my grandfathers. I remember Poppa Jack making sure he was next to me. It was a protective act.

I am losing my mother as her brain changes with age. She was never the milk and cookies type of mom and our relationship was rocky but these past few years she tried. We had fun together and would laugh. Being with her now is a lesson in patience and reminding myself that her hurting me is a symptom of what is going on with her physically. Apparently this is heredity. My older sister, not joking, reminded me the other day on the phone that we have a pact that if one of us gets mean when we are old to say something.

With each new visit, I hope that the time spent with her is without me getting my feelings hurt. This probably sounds selfish of me especially when I know she is oblivious to the effect her actions and words have on me.

I have started to mourn my mother. She is leaving me very slowly. Little pieces of her are breaking off and crumbling never to return. After each visit it is taking longer for me to recover my balance because she is getting worse.

I was going to write about Lolly today, our (Poppy and me) new girl. She's a 5 year old Chihuahua that was rescued from euthanasia. I'll have to talk about her soon. Until then, here's a pic.

On Turning 56

I just woke up from a nap and it's raining. One of those typical rains with big drops and slanted. It has been a hot and rainy summer and it's fall now and I would like cooler weather. It's mid-October, for Pete's sake. It's normally cooler by now. Thank you global warming.

This Tuesday I turn 56. Around my birthday I usually write about how I feel.

Today I didn't feel like spending any money...so I didn't. Instead I took Poppy to a local park and we walked the path that encircles it. Here's a pick of Poppy I took by accident during our walk. I was trying to turn the camera off:

Here's a pic of a family of ducks that live on the pond in the park. I took this one on purpose:

 

Each year around my birthday I take stock of my life. This year I

1. Left my old job for a new job
2. Was let go at my new job by my supervisor. Not the one that hired me. She was fired from her position after I was there one week. I was let go by her replacement.
3. Was unemployed for 4 weeks
4. Landed safely and happily where I work now. 

This is one of my mother's rabbit statues with a gecko in the middle of its face. I took this yesterday as I have gotten in the habit of spending my Saturdays with Mom. This was also taken on purpose:



 Speaking of my mother, I introduced her to the new very large Goodwill store down the road. I have been getting rid of things I no longer want or need so one Saturday she and I went there to drop off my donations. Afterward, Mom wanted to see the inside of the retail store, which is next door. I plead guilty to introducing my mother to her new drug - Goodwill shopping. It is located in an upscale neighborhood so you can imagine how nice some of the things are there. 

Getting back on point, I can't take stock of my life without including her and her changes. She doesn't wash her hair often enough now. She thinks it is okay to just pull it back into a comb or barrette when it is clearly not.

My mother has always hated to cook even though her cooking is close to gourmet. This past Tuesday, she invited my younger sister and her family along with me to break the Yom Kippur fast. Beforehand we discussed the different dishes she could make. Mom decided on chicken in wine sauce. This is one of her specialties. She used to make it often and it was always mouth watering.

I got to her house a half an hour early and she took the dish out of the oven to turn the chicken over. She had used large chicken breasts instead of fillets and the chicken was clearly pink. I told her we needed to raise the oven temperature to get them cooking faster and that they wouldn't be ready on time. Mom cursed a blue streak and exclaimed how much she hated to cook. Her rant ended on, "So we'll eat late." I answered with, "I'm sure none of us have fasted anyway." We can talk about how bad of a Jew I am another time.

 Here is a pic of a racoon mom and her baby keeping an eye on me while I walked to my mailbox. Mom climbed high in the trees and her baby followed:



Getting back to my mother. Her cooking one of her go-to dishes incorrectly was a road sign flashing in my face. 



Yesterday I spent the day with Mom. Her behavior was not the norm. For the past few months I have gotten used to her sometimes having a hard time following conversations and being able to call up a word but yesterday her personality was different. On top of that, once we got back to her house after all the running around we did (I always do the driving now), I laid down on the couch with Poppy and fell into a light sleep. I could hear Mom puttering around cleaning her new treasures and deciding where they should go. Then, it was silent. I opened my eyes to see her sitting on the couch doing nothing. No book. No TV. No newspaper. Just sitting staring straight ahead. I asked her why she was just sitting there. She said she didn't want to wake me up by turning on the TV. Mind you, there are two other rooms with working televisions she could have watched without disturbing me but that didn't cross her mind.

I am starting to lose my mother. For those of you that have experienced or are experiencing an aging parent, it feels like a part of you is disappearing. Trying to hold onto a wisp of smoke as you watch it disperse and disappear.

As I turn 56, it is bittersweet. So much of my life is finally on track. Now the part I could always count on is starting to get offtrack. As a former Russian co-worker would say, "Not nice."