Nightmare

Early this morning, I had a dream that I was in charge of some sort of tribute to my paternal grandmother. Now, since she died a very long time ago and my mother just died recently, I think things got a little fuzzy there. But the horrifying thing was that I had rented a hall for the celebration and people kept filing in...hundreds of people and outside of my immediate family, I did not know them.

Now, I was one of 17 cousins. One passed away while quite young, leaving a daughter who went to live with another cousin. All my cousins married and had children and probably grandchildren by now. But still, that wouldn't be hundreds!

So, this morning I went on the old desktop and plugged in the last name and asked for a list of all those sharing this last name living in the US.
To my shock and surprise, there were a couple hundred.

I know that there were 17 cousins in the old country. I know that there were clans in upstate NY (I checked that years ago) and some in California. I have no idea how many stayed in Europe, nor how many came to the US.

But it could have been enough to fill the hall of my nightmare.
Yeow.

I think that all the folks listed on the computer page are related to me.
Oh, my God.

Acting Class

Remember that I have always wanted to be quotable? I've wanted people to pull an Irene saying out of thin air and have people nod their heads sagely and say, ah, yes, how insightful and true?

 

Well, I happened to think of something today and thought, maybe, just maybe, it might be THE ONE.

 

"I can't stand the drama, especially if I have the starring role."

 

Or, conversely, it could read "I can't stand the drama, especially if I don't have the starring role."

 

Can't make up my mind which I prefer.

 

Or do they both mean the same thing?

 

 

Words in my head

Sometimes, a word just pops into my brain and I think and think about it, wondering why I thought about it. Sometimes I wonder what it means. Sometimes, I wonder what brought it up. Somewhere, in the recesses of my brain, I must store these oddities and just to screw with me, they float up to the surface.

Today's word was "Doncaster". Now, I really don't know what it that is, but it came to me in the shower that it is the name of a race track in England.

Why?

Why did I dream about an immature cobra that walked on its tail the other night?

How messed up am I?

And the worst part of it all is that I can't call Mom to tell her how weird these things are.

I miss you, Mom.

Motherhood

My mother passed away this morning.

She's been in hospice at a nursing home since October.

The past two weeks, she's been completely out of it.

 

When we saw her on Thursday, she was a corpse,

just skin and bones, unable to move except she did manage to squeeze our hands, which meant she knew we were there.

 

I could write volumes about my mother. She was generous, kind, loving and practical. She coudn't cook worth a darn, but we all got fat enough. She was scrupulously clean, kept her house sparkling and her laundry white in the sunshine.

 

She loved our father. She loved her three kids and she adored her six grandchildren. She always had candy and little presents for the neighborhood children and she held court on her front porch on summer evenings with many of her wonderful neighbors.

 

But Mom was basically shy and reserved. She did nothing to put herself forward or stand out from the crowd. I think she had low self-esteem, but I knew she was pretty damned smart and beautiful. Beautiful enough to marry my good-looking father!

 

I will miss her. Everytime something happens, I want to run upstairs to call her and tell her. I won't be doing that any more.

I just hope she's listening....

 

                        Together again, at last.

Ages ago, my dear uncle known as Bourbon John, taught me the difference between a pessimist and an optimist. The story he told still remains in my head. According to John:

 

A mother of twin boys was worried because they were so different from each other. She feared there was something wrong with both of them, so she took them to a psychiatrist to see if he could figure out what it was that made them so different. After all, they were twins.

 

The doctor examined each boy, gave them numerous expensive tests for several weeks before coming to this conclusion.

 

"Madam, you have one son who is an optimist while the other is a pessimist."

 

The woman didn't really know what that meant, but she begged the doctor to come up with a cure for both of them. "Please, doctor! Help my sons! Can you do anything for them?"

 

The doctor scratched his chin and thought for awhile, then abruptly nodded his head. "Yes, madam, I can think of a possible way to cure both boys." And a date was arranged for the next, and supposedly final, appointment.

 

He arranged two large rooms. The first, he had brought in all the wonderful things a boy could want--new toys, cake and ice cream, balloons, you name it, it was there. Into this, he put the pessimist child.

 

In the other room, he had a farmer lay down a carpet of horse manure, nothing else. He loaded the optimist into this room.

 

After two hours, he went back to the first room. It saddened him to find the child sitting on the floor, crying. "What's wrong? You had everything a boy could want in here. You should be happy!"

The boy wiped his snotty nose and replied, "The balloons all popped. The cake wasn't chocolate, the soda pop was flat, and all the toys broke too easily."

The doctor harrumphed and nodded sadly.

 

Going to the room full of manure, he opened the door and found the optimist child laughing and prancing around the room, searching everywhere. To him, the doctor said, "Child, what could you possibly be glad about? This room is dismal!"

 

The boy looked up from his search and said simply, "Well, doctor, with all this horse shit on the floor, I figured there had to be a pony in here somewhere."

 

And that, my friends, is the best definition of optimism and pessimism I've ever heard.

I pass this on to you at the start of the new year.

I hope 2018 is full of manure and you keep on looking for that pony!

This is supposed to be a joyous time of year. All the lights, the magic, the thought of Christ's birth and the renewal of all the delights of my childhood.
These things are all crap to me.

My mother is dying.

She has been in hospital to rehab center to nursing home to hospice in the past two months.

It hurts so much to see her slowly dissolving--fading--losing her Anne and becoming a mindless vegetable. Sometimes she remembers stuff. Most of the time, she doesn't. She's not eating. I think she may be trying to starve herself.

She has a DNR. That means do not resuscitate. In other words, nothing will be done to prolong her life other than making her comfortable with drugs and changing her diaper.

Can you believe a person can slip so far downhill in such a short time?

Her memory is about the same as a goldfish's about now and that hurts. It appears that she can start to say something and before it is out of her mouth, it is gone.

My mother has always been so good to me--to all of us in the family. She never put herself forward, never took from us what she felt belonged to us. She gave up luxuries but made sure we had what we needed and wanted.

And now this wonderful spirit is gone.

The past 97 years she has spent on this Earth are only represented by us.
We'd better now screw up our lives so she can be proud of all we achieve.

Waiting

 

 

In the rehabilitation center or nursing home, so many people are in bed, sitting in wheelchairs...waiting. They wait for someone to take them to the bathroom. They wait for the meal tray or to go to the dining hall if they can wheel themselves there. They wait to see the doctors. They wait for their loved ones to come visit them.

They wait.

 

There's another kind of waiting.

 

The people who are ready to die, but seem to be waiting for someone or something else to visit or happen. Most of them really are just hanging in for fear of disappointing their loved ones and the trouble that their deaths will cause.

 

But then, I think, there are those who are waiting for a love long passed to come get them.

 

I think my mother is there now, waiting for my father to come to take her away.