Adjusting

Funny thing, this.

Ever since a few days before the anniversary, I feel like I've adjusted.  I've become an adult with only one living parent.  It's just been me and Dad and my siblings for a year.  I'm no longer counting the months; now it's "over a year ago" or "last year."  Next you it will be "two years ago."  In time it'll be, "when I was thirty" perhaps because I can't smoothly calculate how long it has been.  I'm now free to make "big changes" per the recommendations of Hospice's bereavement team suggestions.  All of the "firsts" have been hit, as far as annual events.  The world has moved on and though I'll always miss her, I'm ready to, as well.  I feel that I've adjusted.

Grief isn't really linear and there will undoubtedly still be times of soul-crushing sorrow and angst, especially if/when I get married and have babies.  But--for the moment--I feel that I'm "used to it" now.  I feel that I've adjusted.  I feel free to carry on and my motivation is returning.

I lost my cats.  I lost my Mom.  I may soon lose my Grandparents.  Dad still has a statistically higher probability of dying in the next year, but please God forbid.  My business is doing better than it ever has.  I just paid off a major debt, and that gives me hope for the rest of them, and my ability to climb out of personal poverty in the next year or two, maybe!  All of this, without my Mom.  It makes me sad... but I'm okay.  That's how it goes.  She is not gone, she just isn't here.

Moving on.

She went into her glory

Dear readers,

This post is not going to be for everyone.  This is an account of my memories of my Mother's passing.  It is mostly for my own benefit, my own record, so that I can remember and have it available, but you are welcome to read.  It's somewhat graphic at the end (not gory, just detailed) and may be upsetting or triggering.  Don't feel like you -need- to read it, but you are welcome to do so.  Thank you for your love and support in the past year.  Peace be unto you and unto us all.

======================

One year ago was a busy day.  We'd held Mother's Day a little on the fly just the Sunday before because we weren't sure she would make it the remaining three weeks.  My sister and our second-oldest brother and his husband were able to join us, with our oldest brother calling in from back East.  Mom was still fairly lucid so she could see and hear from all her kids, though she wasn't able to come upstairs and join us.  I had bought a book just the day before, and read a little bit that night, hoping that I would have time to delve further into its insights and make this time easier for everyone.

My sister and her family had come again on Wednesday afternoon because we knew that time was shrinking rapidly.  Mom's frailty seemed to advance at an increasing rate, with her able to move around the house with help one day to barely able to move to her own bathroom the next: from mostly lucid to barely communicating in just a few days.  It was as though she saw the end in sight and was willing herself toward it.   None of us could deny it of her; she had earned it.

Mom's Hospice nurse came in the mid-morning.  I helped her to move Mom in the bed that was the only place she remained, helped her be in as comfortable a position as possible.  She showed no signs of leaving us immediately and her nurse said it would probably be a few days.  There were discussions of how often the bathing lady would need to come, who was coming for the very first time that day because it was the first time she would be needed since Mom could no longer get to the shower.  My nephews and baby niece came to say good-bye about half past noon, since my brother-in-law had to take them home for one of the boys' practices that night.  They planned to come back on Saturday.  My sister stayed behind with us.

When the bath lady came about an hour later my sister and I helped her.  We worked together, washing her body and her hair. Mom seemed mostly insensible to it, not really reacting much at all.  We were nearly done, we just needed to turn her to wash her back.  I lifted the towel we had placed under her to roll her toward me and her head and shoulders fell off the foam wedge where she lied.  Her eyes popped wide open and she gasped!  The sudden shift in her position and orientation had jarred her body into a panic of gasping, even when we rolled her back into place.  We waited and watched for her breathing to calm, a process that took about forty minutes.

When her breathing relaxed, Dad took a minute to go return a call he'd gotten shortly before.  My sister and the lady remained in the room with Mom as her breathing continued to slow.  Her nurse had spoken before of a rattling sort of breath; sometimes it signified the end, sometimes it could last for days.  When we heard it, I spun around and yelled "DAD!  COME!"  He hung up the phone and got back into the room just in time to sit beside her and hold her hand as her breathing slowed to its final.  He checked her pulse and told us she was gone.

The peace that entered the room at that time was profound and unexpected in its depth.  We gathered by her bedside to say good-bye, and I felt the presence of her spirit beside me, and I felt her take my hand, which closed on its own.  The feel of her in the room lingered for a minute or two before fading away, leaving solace and sorrow in her wake.

Eternal perspectives

I have two things to talk about: My Mom, and men.

Mom

The way I miss her isn't the way I thought I'd miss her.  I went to visit her grave tonight for the first time since her memorial............. has it only been three weeks?  Damn.  It feels... longer.  Much longer.  And that's the thing.  It's like I've entered a new life since her death.  Rather than living a singular life in which there is now this gaping, unfilled hole left left behind in the mortal absence of my mother, another lifetime began in which she simply isn't physically present.

It's a little like moving away from home.  The memories of home are still with you when you move away, you still love it, it's still the root of everything you do and everything you are and ever will be; but you are in another place now, and in effect, another time.  You have another purpose, and while you will always and forever love your home, this new space you're in is the right space to be.  There's a feeling of being homesick, of thinking back on the life that was, but being present in the life that is.

I think that's why I haven't been feeling as devastated as I had anticipated.  As a family, we released Mom, because it was the right thing to do and the right time for her to go.  We told her it was okay.  There's no sense of unfinished business: nothing left unsaid, nothing left undone, no injustice in her passing.  She completed her purpose on this Earth, and it was okay.

Granted, I am loudly sobbing and crying my eyes out as I'm typing this, but I'm also laughing at myself a little because I am typing while I'm wailing loud enough to make me glad my nearest neighbors are a few hundred yards away.  It's just release.  I'm super practical when it comes to letting it out, and even though I likely sound to the world like I'm an emotional mess, it's mostly physical.  Inside, I'm pretty peaceful.  And now I'm done crying.  It just needed to get out.

(Tangent: Mom's buried next to a guy that was in my class in high school who died in a car accident between our Junior and Senior years.  Always wear your seat belts.  Just saying.)

Men


A large part of my reason for being a feminist is a strong belief and hope for equality.  When I find this running up against the strong cultural dogma of male superiority in Mormonism  (however benevolent its stewardship may supposed to be) it puts me in some dismay about the eternal order of things as we're presented with them.

I have a really big, freaking problem thinking that two equally worthy, covenant-making-and-keeping people, bound together for eternity would be bound to being anything but equivalent to each other for eternity.  If it's not so, I have to look forward to eternity as Second in Command, instead of Co-Captain.  Eternity.  Forever.  Without end.  Never, ever, ever ending second citizenship.


How is that just?  How is that good?  How can that be acceptable and justifiable based upon the relative femininity or masculinity of an individual if all are alike unto God and God is no respecter of persons?  How can being (a beloved and cherished) Second for the rest of all out-of-time be okay?  It cannot.  It cannot be okay.  A man wouldn't stand for that being his lot, yet it's an implied expectation from the women.  Such a concept deeply, deeply disturbs me, to think that I could bust my butt through this super critical mortal probation we're all in, perhaps even out-righteous my Hypothetical Husband, and still end up as the Silent Partner, the Heavenly Mother that never talks to Her children and whom Her children are discouraged from addressing.  I find that idea incredibly unappealing, and it puts me in a position to wonder whether the effort is worthwhile if I have no guarantee of autonomy and personal worth outside the man I'm married to, forever.  This a big scary question for a woman who has been pretty dang invested in aiming for goddesshood her entire life.  So I have to think that we really just don't have the whole picture yet, that there's more, that the equality of the sexes will be seen as a central point of eternal doctrine at some time in the future, may Heaven make it soon.

But what if... what if I'm wrong.  What if God moves in (to me) truly mind-boggling and seemingly hypocritical, unjust, mysterious ways and eternity is sexist?  What if being more feminine than masculine lands you a spot just behind the shoulder of your more masculine eternal companion, to be protected and shielded and effectively silenced because you're somehow more sacred than anything else?  It's an idea that sickens me to my stomach, and the only way I can conceive of it being a tolerable system is if I could find a man who would not treat me as anything but an equal.  Where any "head"ship would be in token only, and irrelevant in practice.  If he must have the title, he can have the title, but that's all I could tolerate.  If I had to. If that's really the eternal order of things.

I don't think it is, though.  It just doesn't make sense.

Mother's Day

sigh

Well, I did say I wanted to get it all done with at once.  Everything.  Death, memorial, Mother's Day...  That should make next year easier.  It also makes this year really, really hard.  Finally, it's beginning to sink in that she's beyond the veil, that life is different, that it's just Dad and I at home and that while she might be around in spirit.... she's not there in body.  At least it's really starting to hurt.  Today is really going to suck.

So I have two Mothers beyond the veil whose presence I can know no more of than to feel, if I'm lucky.  I might have three, if my birth mother hasn't survived this long, but I don't know much of anything about her, so I can't really feel attached, there.  How do I honor these women this day?

Well, for one, today I am only saying my prayers to Heavenly Mother.  Father can listen in, but I'm talking to my Mom.  I will take any opportunity to speak about Her.  I would be wearing goddess earrings and my tree and/or labyrinth pendants if I had them with me, but Dad and I are with my sister's family out of town.  I will cuddle my niece and hug my sister.  I will listen to and hum or sing women's songs.  I will treat my father kindly and sit beside him and scratch his back the way Mom used to do.  I will honor my sisters who are mothers and console, commiserate, or celebrate with my sisters who are not.  I will hold space with those also missing their mothers today, and mothers missing their babies.

And I will mourn honestly and openly and in whatever way I damn well please, be it weeping or donuts or seclusion or walking out of Sacrament meeting if I hear the phrase "We/You are all mothers" and it upsets me because I'm sick of that platitude and it's insulting and patronizing.  I will be grumpy if I feel like it because I miss my Mom.  And I'll be happy if I feel like it because I had my Mom.  I'll be and do whatever gets me through this day.

Peaceful Mother's Day to you all.

Milk after meat

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. 
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms
....
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
--William Shakespeare


I wanted this to be a super smart post contrasting two observations; the first being that after a long life of eating "meat", my Mom now survives on a primarily liquid diet of Ensure, jello, water, and milk, and never very much of any; the second being that many times, after a long life of living on spiritual "meat", we all still need the milk at times, that sometimes we need rest from being bogged down in the "thick of thin things" of culture and society and practice vs doctrine..

I wanted it to be, but I have to leave it at that for now and trust my readers to make their own contemplations on the matter.  Time is too short now to do much that I don't feel like doing, and I don't feel like a long post today.  The confusion has set in.  She's hardly eating.  She spends the majority of her time in bed.  She surfaces sometimes, but other times, she doesn't understand what's going on, why there's so many cards and flowers and visitors.  She wonders who's sick and what people aren't telling her.


We celebrated Mother's Day yesterday (Earth Day = Love Your Mother = We do, but she might not be here for the official Mother's Day) and she got to talk to all of her kids.  My sister was in town this weekend, and my brother and his husband came to visit yesterday, and our other brother called in and will be here next weekend.


Today, we had to tell her that she (and her brother, who was visiting when she last asked) are sick with cancer and that it's taking over her body.  She still didn't understand, and wanted to know what we were leaving out.  I had to tell her she was going to go see her mother and father soon.  She looked at me with a little surprise, but she understood.  She knew that meant the time wouldn't be long.  Then she observed, "This is totally strange."


It is.  It must be, to realize that you're quickly coming to the end of your journey, and you're having to say goodbye to everyone you love.

suckitude...

Tired...

It's a quarter to four in the morning.  I'm tired and I have work in about seven hours but I don't want to go to sleep.  I haven't been wanting to sleep lately.  My diet has gone to crap.  I seem to be punishing my body.  This is what I do to dull the pain.  Some people cut, some do drugs, some drink; apparently, I stay up and eat.  I know it's not healthy and it doesn't even feel good, but I can't seem to find the will to rest.

I'm tired.  Generally, genuinely tired.  I know I'm depressed.  I'm not handling this well at all.  I didn't even Facebook Fast last weekend.  My life activities seem to be pulling into a singularity: Be around for Mom.

Thing is... Mom's pretty much gone.  Not entirely, but she's definitely not there like she was.  She takes too long to answer questions most of the time, if she answers them at all.  She's begun arguing over taking medication.  She barely has the energy to get herself to the bathroom.  I'm going to help her shower in the morning, another reason I should be asleep instead of blogging.  I want her to try medical marijuana so she'll freaking eat something.  Dad and I wonder if she'll starve herself before the cancer gets her, she eats so little--not even a full glass of milk or bowl of jello or soup in a full day.

As Dad said, I don't want to pray her through the veil, but I don't want her to suffer, either.  I haven't had time to release everything pent up inside of me in weeks, and my doctor is concerned about my latest blood tests.  I don't have time for this, but I can't seem to stop it from happening.  I've already withdrawn from most of my life for the time being.  I know that's not healthy, either.

This was never covered in school.

I don't know what to call this post

So.... my beloved cat, Topsy, died on the First of the month.  I'd had him/He'd had me since some time about 1999 or so.  He was an outdoor cat, semi-feral, very friendly and sweet, though clearly with a past of having been abused by someone.  Something happened to him neurologically--his body was still healthy--and he deteriorated rapidly to the point where I had to make the decision to end his suffering and have him euthanized.

As if that didn't suck enough.

Today (yesterday now... it's after midnight) the results from my Mom's latest PET scan came in.  Today-today is exactly six months since I first posted about her cancer, and almost five months since musing in grief that she could be gone in six...

Now, it's everywhere.  God in Heaven, it's everywhere.  It's everywhere inside her.  There's too many spots.  It's in her bones, in her muscles, her organs... and even a tiny spot between the hemispheres of her brain.  There's nothing more that can be done except to make sure she's comfortable and take as much advantage of the time we have while we can.

She has hardly gotten out of bed since Sunday morning and she has a horrible time concentrating or remembering... or communicating.  She'll start to say something and stop after a few words, and just go silent.  Half the time she forgets that she spoke at all.  When something's really on her mind, she repeats and reaffirms it over and over again.  "I'm okay."  "I love you."  "He [my Dad] needs to be strong."  It's very similar to the way my Grandma (Dad's Mom) is now with her dementia.  She has been in a care home for a year and a half now.  Mom won't have that long.

The last "big" things she did on Saturday before this began was having a Five Guys burger for dinner after the PET scan (having such an appetite has been a big deal, lately) and standing by to support me as I buried Topsy in the yard.  Her oncologist says she likely has months (rather than weeks and rather than years) and there's talk about bringing in Hospice soon.  Hospice has been mentioned for my Grandpa as well, who's living with congestive heart failure and has been in and out of hospitals and care facilities since Christmas.

We probably won't make it over to my sister's for blessing my baby niece, so they may come here instead.  If it can happen in our home ward and Mom feels up to go to Sacrament meeting, wonderful!  If she doesn't, we will do it here at home.

I'm sure there's many philosophical and spiritual things to be said here about life and death, change, transition, and the eternal nature of the soul.  There is.  I just can't say it right now.  I can't.  I'm numb with spurts of anguish.  I'm adjusting to the loss of my cat okay.  I hope I can do comparably well for the coming loss of my Mother and Grandfather.  I hope I can find or be given strength to let my Dad be weak when he needs to be weak.

Oh God, what am I going to do....

I need my Mother

Fairly early on in my Daughters of Mormonism episode about the Mother Fast, as part of recounting my history with the Church and my life in it, I mentioned that I was adopted at birth.  Sybil then asked if I thought part of my reasoning behind starting the Fast was because I was adopted and whether I felt like I was reaching out for that lost connection.  At the time I answered no, and I still think that answer is true (though who knows what motivations are triggered in the subconscious?  That's why it's subconscious.)  I feel far more affected by my adoption than my sister does--she forgot to even mention it to her husband until their first tithing settlement and he noticed the sealing date on her record--and while I often think about my birth mother, I truly am happy in the life and family that I have and I can't imagine a better one.  It might be a tiny contributing factor, but maybe.... there's a more obvious one.

I alluded before (is it allusion when it's pretty much straight up?) to the fact that my mother has cancer: melanoma to be precise.  And it sucks.  We've been dealing with this in some way, shape, or form for almost two years now and it's just... not getting better.  The treatments she just finished may still take another month or two to really start showing results; meanwhile her most recent scan indicated significant tumor growth since the scan that told us the cancer was back.  They're talking about radiating one of the tumors, but even then there's two more, one of which is in her lung and she has already done all of the chest radiation her body can take.  Ever.  It's no longer an option.  Neither is surgery.  Chemo isn't very effective for melanoma.  She wants to live past the time when my niece is born enough so that no one ever thinks, "It's her birthday, and this is the time we we lost her Grandma."  My niece is "due" in early-mid January.  In theory, my Mom could be gone in six months.  I wasn't thinking it could be that soon.

I need my mother.  I need my Mother.  I conceived the Fast not long after Mom and Dad told us about the cancer's return.  Maybe part of my motivation for this search for Heavenly Mother is because I can't stand the thought of losing my Mom.  We already lost her Mom when I was seven.  I lost a woman I saw as something of a second Mom in my teens.  I've never known my birth mother.

One of my best friends lost her Mom when she was a young child, only three or four years old.  I can't even imagine that kind of loss.  I can't.  Even when my Mom passes on, at least I'll be an adult.  Still, I don't know what I'll do.  I feel badly because people lose their mothers every day.  People go through this grief all the time.  I don't want to be one of them, but I will be and I don't know how I'm going to endure it.

I had planned to start saving to move into town right before we found out.  Now the idea makes me sick to my stomach.  I don't want to go away, but I need to.  My adultness needs to, and I know she understands that; but my childness needs all the time it can get with her.  And if I fail to move until after she's gone?  I'll leave my Dad alone in an empty house that he just might feel the need to sell at that point, and with it would go over two decades of memories.

My thoughts have just come to a screeching, messy stop with stuff tumbling over itself out of order and scattering across the floor.  I guess it's time to stop.  I just really... I need my Mother.  I need my Mother.

Cancer sucks.  Patriarchy sucks.  I need my Mothers.