My Mom - Mother Teresa

...This post is a continuation of My Mom The Giant

To my knowledge my mother has never lied. I know she never smoked, drank alcohol, never gambled, and never tried street drugs. Even now, when she has pain, she takes only one aspirin for relief and that's very rare. I only know of one incidence I can remember when my mother cried and even then she did it hiding in her bathroom while us kids were outside the door listening and pointing blame at each other for making our Mom cry. We were good at that, blaming each other. When Mom asked us kids "Who tried to glue the dogs together?" each of us would say , "Not me!" and "I didn't!" while giving a look to another of our siblings to try and get them in trouble. We were stinkers. That's when Mom would say, "Well, then, do you expect me to believe a ghost did it?" That was our cue to giggle and run, so we did, leaving poor Mom standing over the dogs who were covered in white school glue, wagging their tails as if they did something good and deserved a treat for their glue deed.

Mom had plenty of trouble with us kids. My little sister started running away from home when she became a teenager. My Mom was beside herself. She and Dad went through so much to adopt us (it took ten years of applying and proving themselves to the Social Services before they were able to adopt their first child, my big brother). Mom was probably a bit over protective but understandably so. She didn't want anything to happen to us, she wanted us so bad and finally got us, she was determined to make sure we were always safe.... At least the best she could because when each of us entered the teen years we really went wild. Oh yea, and my big brother signed up for the Special Forces division of the US Army during the Viet Nam era. Lucky for my brother the war ended before he graduated from his training. Good for Mom too because I don't think she could have handled worrying about my brother if he were sent to Nam. She had enough going on at home with the rest of us.

While my sister was doing the running away , coming home, and running away again (I'm talking for months at a time) my little brother all of a sudden decided he couldn't go to school anymore. Social Services was already involved because of my sister (she got caught shop lifting and the whole story came out about how she was a run away) and then they started blaming my mother for all our troubles. They said it was her fault my sister ran away from home and they were holding her responsible for my little brother refusing to go back to the seventh grade. We tried to get him there, believe me. The times when we got him there successfully he'd wait till no one was looking and run right out of school. I think something at school happened to him. I don't know what, probably never will but his fear of going back was so intense it caused him to throw up every morning he was supposed to go. Our next door neighbor was the dean of students at my high school and helped Mom and I get my little brother to school but he never stayed. We even brought him straight to the principal's office and sat him there in front of the head of school. My sneaky brother asked to use the bathroom, was excused for that purpose but my brother kept going and walked himself right out of school. We tried different schools, even an expensive Christian school but always had the same result. It's puzzling still but my little brother did fine for himself without his public school education. He taught himself everything he knows and is extremely smart.

So by this time Mom was exasperated and busy with my two younger siblings and didn't have a lot of time for me, the boy crazy girl in the family. She didn't pay attention too much to what I was doing, she hardly had the time or energy. There were so many things that happened in my life I thought she didn't know about - until she confronted me about some of them while holding my secret diary in one hand and shaking a finger with the other. I couldn't believe she found it, I had it well hidden in my secret place. It's amazing what lengths a mother will go to...


Today Mom is sleeping in her chair next to me. It is becoming more and more difficult for me to see her weakened by her cancer and Parkinson's and heart disease. My Mom the Giant is slowly being reduced to being totally dependent on me for her needs. She's not there yet but she will be someday soon and I'm not sure I can step up to that challenge.

Years ago I promised Mom I wouldn't allow anyone to put her in a convalescent hospital, and that I'd make sure she could die in the home she's lived in for fifty years now. I have experience in the medical field, especially with geriatrics. I was in the registered nursing program for a few semesters and have some knowledge and experience in basic nursing skills. When I made that promise to Mom I felt fully confident in myself to be able to keep my word and take care of Mom in her last days (or years).

Now that those last days (hopefully years!) is upon us, my confidence in my abilities has become doubtful to me. I don't think it's my skills I'm worried about, it's my emotional health. I didn't know just how hard it is to be with a parent everyday, almost twenty-four hours a day, and watch them as their health deteriorates. I guess I'm still coming to terms with the fact that even my Mom is not immortal and there will come a day when she'll pass on to a better life and be with my Dad in Heaven.



I do what I can to take care of her which doesn't require much, really. She's still ambulatory, can dress herself and doesn't require feeding. All I really do is try to keep the house clean, fix healthy meals for her (except for the occasional banana split we have instead of dinner), do the shopping and her laundry, and help her in the shower. Being here is the most important thing she needs. Her Parkinson's causes her to fall now and then.