I'm the Last One...

My mom had a fairly good day.  She was clear and able to change the simple TV remote control that we have set up with regular over the air TV broadcasts.  It works out great for her, giving her the sense that she's improving.

I did my mom's hair this morning, using new rollers that I picked up on Sunday.  Her hair came out really great.  The new rollers made her hair much curlier; she loved the curls and her new hairdo.

After lunch, I promised her that I'd take her out, I needed a few things at the market for dinner.  We had a nice trip around Whole Foods.  My mom pushed the cart all over the store, she was exhausted when we were done.

We got home and I decided to do some laundry before making dinner.  The phone rang.  I didn't hear it until I heard a voice, it was Blaire House talking to my mother!  My mom picked up the phone and then I picked up an extension.  I began talking, my mom was listening. 

I went upstairs with the phone and my mom had placed the extension phone on the table next to the chair.  She began to walk around me, not taking her eyes off me, keeping her distance.   She was scared... OF ME!

Blaire House wanted to know why my mom hasn't been there.  I told them that she's been sick.  I also told them that the bus ride scared the shit out of her and she doesn't want to go. 

My mom, from whatever she heard, she believed that I was calling "the nut house" to have her admitted.  She went from cool and calm to a total nut case. 

Today I needed patience.  It took a lot to be calm and talk her off the ledge she put herself on with wild thoughts.  It is my fault, I opened up the proverbial Pandora's Box, my mom's greatest fear is going to a nursing home; this week I brought those words up several times.  She thinks that she's going tomorrow.

My heart is heavy and it aches.  Tonight, for the first time in my life, I saw my mom cry because she was scared.  It was like no sight I have ever seen.  Her lip quivering, eyes welling with tears as she blubbered out, "I'm the last one, it's my turn to go to the nut house.  My mother, my sister, my brother and ... NOW ME!!!!!!!!!!  Booo Hooo tears that I have never seen, poured out of my mom's eyes.

My eyes filled and I climbed in bed and laid next to her.  I hugged my little mom, who laid crying in bed, shaking from the fear of the thought of going to a nursing home. 

"Susie, do you know what they do to people in those places?"  she cried.  I cried.  I sobbed along side my mom.  I felt her give up on living.  She started to tell me to leave.  I wouldn't.  I stayed.  I reassured her that when she sees me she's home.  I told her that she's staying home tomorrow.  I gave her Reiki and prayed.  I said the Hail Mary, I prayed to Mary with all of my heart.  I prayed for my mom to have peace.

My mom wouldn't stop crying.  I started to sob, sitting up in the middle of the bed, crying.  I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to calm my mom.  Nothing was working because I wasn't calm... I was stuck in a bad place, I needed a miracle.

Crying got through to my mom, she heard her daughter crying, she embraced me and told me to stop, that everything is OK.  We stopped crying.

Tonight during the craziness of bedtime, my mom told me that she was sad because she wasn't going to see anyone anymore.  I asked her what she meant.  She couldn't tell me.  She cried.  Her face was white as a ghost.  She believes that tomorrow she's going to a nursing home to live.

My mom, she's horrified to go to a nursing home.  She's seen them all her years, with her mother, sister and brother all in a convalescent home; she's scared.  She's afraid of abuse.  She's afraid of all the scary things associated with a home.

She's not going to a home, not tomorrow. 

Tonight, I went upstairs for water and saw my mom awake.  She saw me and ran around the corner to hide.  I went to see if she was OK.  Well, I gagged.  The clean sheats and mattress pad that I JUST took out of the drier and put on her bed, soiled.  Oh well. 

My mom, she was scared when she made a little mess, for years I told her that when she can't control her bowels, it will be time for a home.  God... what awful timing for her bowels to let go, tonight of all nights.

Of course I was gentle with my mom.  Not making a fuss and getting clean sheets on her bed.  I sprayed them with lavender scented water and dabbed lavender oil on the pulse points of her wrist and behind her ears and one at the base of her throat.  She drifted back to sleep as I smoothed her hair behind her ear and told her that everything will be OK.