We went over to have pizza with my mother tonight. I sat with her in the living room while she cried. She and Ernie visited my father today and there he sat slumped in a wheelchair with all the other residents. She started talking about getting their homecare person in five days a week and bringing him back home. I think she knows she can’t but she just cries.
I gotta say that at the end of the day sitting while your wheelchair bound mother cries to you "I love him so much, I want him home. I can’t believe I put him in that horrible place. I should have taken better care of him" is not the easiest thing to do. I don’t blame her a bit…..I understand her pain. This is far more painful than I expected. I knew it would be hard but I have to admit that I didn’t think it would be this hard.
Anyway, after dinner Ernie and Owen went to the Urbana Library to see Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion. Yesterday I told Owen we might go to a concert and he let out a big sigh and said, "FINALLY!" Leo and I came home though. He did his homework and is now working on a house in the Lego Digital Designer.
Me, I’m just sitting here looking at my filthy house wondering where on earth I would find the energy to do something productive and wondering when I’ll get rid of this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Maybe I’ll write something cheerful tomorrow.
I admire how you and your family focus on love and connection.
Your mom wants your dad home and can say so. You sit with her and hear her fully.
There seems to be tenderness everywhere — even in the illnesses and the Legos.
Courage, friend. Your life and your loving matters a lot.
Oh, that brings back so many memories of the time my mom was in the nursing home. Really, really painful memories. One time I passed by this couple in the lobby. She was living in the home and he wasn’t. They sat together on a bench, and he was holding her hand and saying, “You are my princess.” Talk about rip your heart out and throw it on the floor. And I know how your mom feels. I blamed myself for not checking harder into the idea of my mom staying at my house (and still do, 7 years later, at times), yet I know in my heart of hearts that the level of care she needed was too much.
There was just so much crying during that time, and a strange, slow-motion feeling to everything. You’re in an unbearable situation, but you have to somehow bear it.