I went to the garage for my sewing basket looking for elastic for the ac fan and picked up some picture albums and saw the Bible peeking out from beneath the vaporizer. My old pink women's devotional new testament. When i turned the vaporizer on it's side there was also a photo album there so i picked up both. I didn't find the elastic but when i came to the door, a couple of high school yearbooks begged to be picked up for some nostalgic reading on a cold grey day. It was amazing how heavy & cold they were.
Why was that little pink bible calling me? Why was God asking me to check it out? Of course, i did. A nice bookmark with a saying and a pack of pictures of Charlie Anderson. The pink satin bookmark that was part of the Bible begged to be discovered. It was on 'Thursday' today is Thursday. The title was 'Thanksgiving For All Things' and I had been feeling a little, well, cheated in a way. Hard to admit, but yes, i was feeling like 'I give and i give and i give' What a fool. I put it aside again until i had some minutes and reading glasses.
As I was washing dishes, i thought (or did God tell me?) I needed to get back to this blog and to write some things to the girls that a mom would want to pass on, functional as well as frivolous. I thought a couple of things would be that i never buy pre made whipped cream or cartons of ice cream anymore. It's cheaper, healthier (no chemicals), more delicious for sure, and aren't we and our loved ones worth it? Ice Cream - i have the recipe to end all recipes! a carton of heavy whipping cream and a can of condensed milk, that's it! These ideas and thoughts are another chapter or book. This is supposed to be about mom and living in her shadow.
Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and saw my mom with grey hair, the saggy face, the tired eyes.
I thought she was so strong until the end. i should have had more patience, understanding, i was annoyed over her slowness, sometimes i actually dreaded taking her out. and she loved me and depended on me and i wasn't there enough for her. i just always thought of her as mom, strong, able to do anything, and i n ever saw her babyness. like i see jen and amber and anna as adults, sure, strong, smart able to do whatever they want but then they do something to remind me, awww, you are still a baby, like i felt around my mom, i needed her, i need her, i miss her.
i was so young and full of beans. the world was great. every time either mom or dad got hurt or sick or even in the hospital, i disregarded it as major. nothing was major to me, it was all just something we have to go through and then come out of and then live on. how crass. how unloving. how uncompassionate, how distant i was from them at that time. i regret that. i cry for that.
Robert remembers things i don't. he was definitely a better and more loving son than i was a daughter. i can see that now. he was closer to both of them on that emotional level. he was the baby. he was the boy. i was jealous of that but in denial of it. i felt like i was competing my whole life to be, i don't know, to make mom n dad proud, yes, but they were always talking about people who were doing better than me, and i felt like a failure.
and i realized that even at the end, i thought mom was strong enough to go through the hip replacement surgery, amidst all the other things going wrong in her body, including her age, i thought she could go through it, make it through the therapy, come home, we could have a wheelchair if we needed, we ordered the shower for her, ...
again, not even thinking about the torture she was feeling, even that she didn't want to ever be an invalid or need to have someone take care of her, i thought it would be fine for me to live with her and help her but she never wanted that,
