Surrender Dorothy

     As personalities go, Mom and I are quite opposite...Polar opposites I'd even say. ..
   
     Mom tends to anticipate problems before they've arrived. Me? I focus on solutions like a heat-seeking missile even before there's a problem's to be had. (Makes for a good radio producer, but it also makes for twice the work as the mind has to anticipate first, what you're about to bring up as the non-existent problem, before the funner challenge of solving it is upon you~ It's become all but a game with us. At least I choose to view it that way.)

     Mom likes to tell you about her life...her travels...her encounters...her many accomplishments. Me? I like to ask about yours, after all, mine's rather redundant~(You can find it on Facebook:  Feed. Water. Hoe. Sleep. Rinse and Repeat next day.)

     Mom's a clean freak (not a neat freak, mind you ~ neither of us are that). Me? Well you see the many animals coming in and out of my life... Let's just say they leave their traces :)  There's a coaster on my coffee table given to me last week by a friend that reads: Cleanliness is next to ...Impossible. No truer words for animal lovers, can we agree? At least I gave up feeling guilty about that one years ago.)

     Mom's good with math. She prefers the left side/ linear half of her brain to the right, which makes her really good at bridge...and balancing her checkbook. Me? I avoid my checkbook at all costs and quite frankly think the right hemisphere/creative half of my brain may've EATEN the other half...I'm not sure I even have a left hemisphere anymore.

     Our noted differences make neither one better than the other, they are just differences spotted over time ~ things that delineate us and define our approaches to life...They encompass in us each, a world view ~ that outlook that we as our individual selves wake up with in our own respective worlds. In short, our outlooks are different. But our bond is our bond. This is also the stuff that reminds you how key the players who shape and mould you into the individual you've become and are becoming in the day to day living of our lives.

     But there's one arena in which Mom and I are ENTIRELY in lock step; in fact, we are downright identical. We are both fiercely independent in wanting to take care of ourselves, by ourselves, not wanting to impose or ask anyone outside of ourselves to DO for us what (on a good day) we've grown used to doing by ourselves. We both hate to inconvenience folks...Yet as much as we'd prefer not, on this one point, we have both been forced to rethink our lots.

     It is not lost on me, while care-taking a mother whose legs are not working that I'd take a fall just to experience what it's like to be immobile and unable to do a single thing about it. The evening of my fall (late night actually...it was the night of our last full moon and the dogs were howling louder than ever; I went out to the pen to bring one of the boys in, thinking it would break up the pack when my girl Rosebud spotted a cat and bolted, straight through my newly leashed connection with Hix, bringing all three of us into one massive and abrupt huddled heap, my knee taking the brunt of it all...) I had help on the farm that night (thank God)...a friend was here to see to the animals while I was tending to Mom's needs. Be it dogs or my screams that alerted this soul to come fetch me off the ground and tote me to my couch, I cannot say, but that's where I slept, not moving a muscle, with ice pack on knee until morning, when I discovered that the slightest effort to move the thing sent a dagger of pain the likes of which I pray never to experience again.

     The physical anguish was one thing. (NEVER have I experienced so much pain... When they asked "On a scale of 1 - 10" I asked "What comes after 10?") While attempting to change clothes just to get to the ER,  I confess I cursed saying "Screw it. (Or some version thereof) Take me in my PJs. I'm sure the ERs seen worse" ) Yet while lying there on that steely cold table as they brought the machine to me rather than watch me writhe any further, the mental anguish I had time to deeply reflect upon.

     THIS (and only this) could I do something/anything about and if I was going to survive this ordeal (at the time, convinced there'd be surgery) I KNEW I would have to release to whatever was about to happen to me as I had but one intensely focused thought and that was to walk again without crying.

     On this front Mom's different.

     Mom can't walk either right now without assistance. And I KNOW this is frustrating for her. (It frustrates ME knowing how frustrated she is. It is painful for a daughter to watch; I am now helpless to fix this one.)  But when your mind thinks one thing and your body says "No way..."  Guess what? Your mind better adjust, because the body (and those gosh-awful pain signals it has in its arsenal to control you) is gonna win. Every time.

     Today Mom is in an assisted living facility that provides "skilled care" (For those of you who've yet to live this chapter with your parents, get ready to bone up on your Medicaid manual for IT controls the bulk of these decisions, not you/not your health care provider.) Having used up her "acute care" days to the extent she was granted, this was the only possible next stop (for home is not an option for people who can't lift their legs to get in and out of bed).

     She is not happy. And I understand that. I hurt for her. Yet she wants no visitors. (I actually understand this too, though in my case, I quickly learned to embrace the comings and goings of my friends...They are not only my own life's support,  the kids needed them too...Kinda hard to tote water buckets on crutches.)

     I know my situation is different. She must look at me and say "Yeah, but you'll heal." (And yes, age puts me at a slight advantage.) But aging is a funny thing. As your body starts shutting down one area at a time you never quite know what to anticipate. But regardless even with these differences, I am sufficiently convinced "surrender" is still our best (if not only) option.

     I know it's not easy. It hurts exponentially for a person SO very used to living life on her own terms. Watching her has brought up a wellspring of emotional questions in me (after all, my kids have 4 legs, not 2; I didn't really think through this whole "last chapter of life when your body doesn't do what you ask it~" I dare say most of us don't).

     But like everything else in my life, it's again, brought up more digging...more soul searching...more deep conversations with friends and loved ones as I'm asking and writing and asking "So have you thought about what happens when..." not in a depressing way, but in a caring and compassionate way...A way that says "Let's talk about this now...Before it gets here...Before it's real. I'd like to know what you're thinking ...what you want...so that if I'm the one helping YOU, I get it right...and if you're the one helping me, you'll know my wishes.)

     Modern medicine is great for patching body parts, replacing our hips, our shoulders, our knees... sticking tickers in our chests to keep us going like Energizer bunnies. But sadly, modern medicine has done nothing to address what happens to our minds, our hearts and our souls while the mechanics of the physical linger thanks to duct tape and glue. Mom recalls her 40-something self when broken legs just mended as expected. But when aging takes the reigns and complications ranging from pneumonia to congestive heart failure to C-Diff to cancer to  ____ (you name it)  well, we alone are to blame for side stepping the deep and meaningful talks we should've been having long before now in order to know what matters most as our individual, unique selves face the inevitable.

     Without such talks--done with soulful compassion, preferably before the time comes, we are otherwise left to ponder these things, staring at the ceiling of some place we don't recognize as home anymore.

     The very thought of that notion.... is more painful than my knee.