Sadly; I am my Mother's Mom
(word count 361, allowed 400)
Mother sold her house to move in with me. Our planned adventures were many, including painting with watercolors, exploring art museums, and traveling to Niagara Falls.
Her decline started with a fall, she tripped on her bedroom carpet, stepping from her newly purchased chair, away from her computer.
I still wonder if I had understood her crumpled resting body the day we had finished painting her bedroom, could I have taken her death easier? She was pale, I thought her to be tired, if I had facts of congestive heart failure earlier, and I may have been warned.
Her years of chemo therapies after multiple cancers that “lurked in her body” made her bones brittle. Between fighting the cracks in her vertebras and the congestive heart episodes there was no time or energy for our planned activities.
We spent time putting puzzles together, much like she had done with her own elderly mother. Eventually her eye sight took that activity.
Oxygen was necessary, failing eye sight and a car accident while parking in the handicapped space was enough to show driving was not a good idea. The day of the accident I walked past the door and lifted the keys off the hook.
Furiously Mother shouted, “Give me back my keys!” Her eyes told more than her worn out body showed. Eventually anger turned to tears, wishing she had not move from her little house she loved.
Our planned adventures clouded the understanding; she arrived to my home by ambulance, after a heart attach, the heart specialist explained that her harsh radiation hurt her heart and that her years of chemo therapy had reduced her body’s strength. My nights were visiting her room several times while she slept. Making sure her oxygen was working and the she was breathing.
I had taken her car keys away, I listened to her to make sure she was sleeping well, and each day a new challenge brought out the fact she was in need of me more than I was in need of her.
It was a very sad day; I can mark it on the calendar when I became my own mother’s mother.
