2020 has been a shit year, and I make no pretense about how I wish it would just end and never come back. I also know that many of us likely have the same hostile feelings and thoughts about this year...so none of my comments are meant to detract from the pain and suffering of others, I just need to get some of these rotting thoughts out of my head before they consume me. Many of you know the recent struggles that have been impacting both my mother and myself. However, when it rains it pours...and it seems that the deluge has no end. I wish the fingers of suffering had a limited reach but sadly they do not. Here’s the damage report as of 8/6/2020 at 11:28am.
Mother suffered a severe TIA at the start of July which closely resembled symptoms of a stroke. I wrote about it previously so I don’t feel a need to reestablish that trauma but it’s ever present.
Mother has since been in the hospital again, this time for a UTI so severe that she got sepsis and needed IV antibiotics. While in hospital it was discovered that she also has kidney stones. She continues to feel weak, out of sorts and mentally exhausted.
A close family friend, who has been in my life since I was probably 15...her husband recently died due to cancer.
Father has been needing a hip replacement but that continues to get pushed back due to heart issues. He has been diagnosed with heart failure and now is scheduled to have surgery to get a pacemaker implanted.
I’m struggling with my mental health, mostly because my physical health has taken a rapid turn for the shits. Despite losing about 35 pounds over the last year, I’ve been dealing with severe, unexplained back pain that nothing seems to resolve.
I work two jobs, 6 days a week. I am thankful for the employment and benefits, yet live in a constant state of perpetual exhaustion.
So those are the main points of life right now. Things could always be better, but they could always be worse and I am thankful for the small mercies that I am graced with on a daily basis.
With all that being said, I’m barely hanging on.
Sometimes the things that break me the hardest are the quiet whispers, the almost shed tears and the pained look in the eyes of those around me. Specifically the burden I carry at this moment is knowing my mom is grieving the loss of her youth, her health and her independence. I can see it heavy on her shoulders, weighing her down, making her question even the simplest of tasks and leaving her a broken shell of who she used to be. I know she is ill right now, there’s a lot of medical issues going on, but she has always had such high expectations for herself...I too carry that characteristic and it has unraveled some of my most cherished moments. Mom has been the sole care provider for me, and it has always been she and I battling side by side. As a single parent, she slayed every beast that haunted me, chased every bad dream from my mind and lavished my worried heart with undying love. She was and is my superhero.
So it pains me greatly when she doesn’t fly as high, doesn’t run as fast and hides from the bullets that fly about our world. I try to shield her, like she has done for me so many times, but I feel my efforts will never be enough. How do I repay the woman who gave me life? How do I make right all the wrongs she has experienced? How do I remove kryptonite from her when it takes the form of her very own blood...tainted with infection as it courses through her body? I can literally feel the sands of my mother’s life, the beating of her heart as it slips through my fingers. I’m watching her slip into an abyss that threatens to suffocate both of us...it just takes different forms. For mom the suffocating act is pulling her from what she wanted retirement to look like, the goals she had and the health that others take for granted. For me, the suffocation is in my inability to give her strength, health and hope only made worse by the fact that I can’t take this from her. I can’t make this life easier for her, and it kills me inside to feel this helpless.
If I could, I would with no hesitation give my life for my mother. I would do anything, give anything and risk anything to rectify any number of the ills that she has and continues to experience. I would give her my last breath, the beating of my heart...the flicker of any number of my brain cells if only to give her peace. Sadly desperation alone isn’t enough, because not a single of those things am I capable of doing. So here I sit, willing to do anything while the reality of life's constraints keep me wrapped in a hopeless, endless loop of incapability with a burning desire to curse the heavens.
When I pray, for as far back as my memory can go, I have always thanked God for my mother, for our relationship, our love and her endless support. And I have always thanked God for every single moment I have with her on this Earth because the alternative is something that will literally and figuratively break my heart and soul. It is only at this moment, feeling my heart heavy with sorrow and selfishness do I question my intent…
In the moment she spoke, a cancerous worm was given life...coiling itself around my heart, constricting and biting and laying waste to my security, my hope and plans. In that moment, my thoughts for some level of normality were replaced by thorns and barbed wire fencing. Her words, still echoing in my head...bouncing and warping with every vibration...linger. “I’m so tired of feeling like this, so tired of being sick and feeling weak. I don’t think I’m going to make it to Christmas.” I wonder if she saw the moment my heart hitched and my happiness evaporated. I didn’t expect to hear it, but I did suspect she thought it. Yet, once the words were in the air being carried on wings of despair, there was nothing I could do to swat them down, only giving up once I realized they had taken up residency in my brain.
I wish I had some overly dramatic sentiment to share, some gained insight that could make us both feel better about where life has deposited us today. I feel guilty for feeling sadness, after all, I have my mother in my life on a daily basis...when there are so many others who walk this earth without one. But I can’t help how I feel, and I can’t stop the emotional tailspin that grips me when I think about trying to live my life without her as she has been. I can do nothing to change the course we are on, long ago set forth upon...the destination pre-planned, the only control we can exercise...a few pit stops and scenic routes.
I had hoped that after writing this, I wouldn’t feel so hollow but I don’t find that to be the case.
My heart remains heavy.
My mind remains disorganized.
My soul remains adrift.
Today, no solace can be found and I have no choice but to live with it.
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