There seems to be a spate challenges going on around our circle of friends and I first of all send my thoughts and prayers down to Southern California where the sky is orange. I live in the woods and so the F word is not something that I take lightly. May your homes come through undamaged and may the winds blow in from the ocean.
Kerry, I send you strength to help you get through your mom's fight.
Here in the clearing in the woods, life has been more than challenging. I guess that I will have to commit the Serenity Prayer to memory and do my best to get through these days, one at a time. My mother has just not come back from this whole trip to the hospital and pneumonia. Yes, her lungs seem to be much more clear but she has not regained much strength after this thing put her to bed weeks ago. She has had a lovely home health care worker come to give her pep talks and exercises for both lungs and legs but after one day of trying to Be Good, (after NOT doing the work for a few days) she was flat on her back in bed for a day, once again. This morning she was trying to be good and got herself up and out to the breakfast table but looked SO bad that she went back to bed right away. I thought for sure that she was on The Big Banana Peel...seriously. I was shocked to see her up at the table when I came in from the dye room this afternoon but this evening she took her dinner in bed again. I go from being angry to sorry to sad to worried to worn out. I feel as though there is a giant anvil on my heart right now and I am sorry that my mom is so done with life. It has to be so awful to feel so tired all of the time and I have to tell you that this is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.
Sometimes it feels ridiculous to think of going ahead with building the cottage because I honestly can't imagine her being strong enough to ever set foot in the place but we will build it because it is in the works and it will house the studio. The architect has made the revisions to the plans, to accommodate a handicapped person and the elevations that have been drawn up are a perfect match to this house. I call it Mini-Me. It will be perfect. Mom does not want to see the plans. I understand. She sat with the woman who has helped us work through the design, two days before she was admitted to the hospital and surprised us with the news that she did want her grand piano in her house, after all. This gave me great hope for her future and happiness, even on the day that she was falling asleep mid sentence. Now, we will just go forward, one day at a time, even though my heart tells me that by the time the building is complete, she may not be with me anymore. Anvil? Try a bus in my gut. It is an enormous roller coaster each day and I never know from one day to the next...from one hour to the next, if she is going to get better or worse. The more that she stays in bed, the more she is deciding to leave.
In the meantime, here in the clearing in the woods, the air is crisp and the noise of the yellow leaves falling to the ground is fascinating. I finally live somewhere that I can HEAR the leaves banging into one another on the way down. I can hear the little frogs barking away. I can watch as Tank does his best impression of a Greyhound thudding up the back hill and then over across the dry creek after some hoodoo or whiff of a deer. The Chinese Pistache trees planted all up and down highway 50 are in a riot of color that drives me wild and in the full moonlight I can see the glowing yellow leaves outside of my bedroom window at 2 in the morning. I know that I will survive this and that my mother will thank me from the Other Side. In the meantime, we take her "you're a good egg" compliments as thanks on This Side. One day at a time...one hour at a time.