In Recognition of Those Who Keep Going
She was the strongest person I'll ever know.
I don't have appropriate words to describe my mother. It wasn't that she was determined, because that implies an overall plan of action. She just kept going. I wouldn't call it perseverance, because that invokes the idea that eventually she prevailed. She didn't; she just kept going. She was not quite persistent or tenacious, and certainly not resolute or steadfast. She woke up every day and did what had to be done all day long, no matter how difficult or unfair or unpleasant. She was not energetic or particularly positive or even hopeful. She just kept going.
When the car broke down on the side of the road, she walked with the groceries in her arms.
When the electricity was shut off for a week, she heated my bath water on a Coleman stove in the kitchen and carried it to the tub.
When my chronically unemployed father couldn't put food on the table, she visited the local food pantry in the next town as often as the rules allowed.
When I had a school project due, she called my friend's mother to borrow money for poster board.
When the trailer entered foreclosure and was dragged away, and I went into foster care, she hopscotched from one place to another -- and sometimes slept in the car -- until she found an abandoned trailer to live in.
With no running water, she filled the trunk of the car with empty gallon jugs, topped them off with her neighbor's water hose, and lugged them back into the house one by one. Weekly, for about three years.
When she finally -- finally -- received disability income and moved to proper housing but her small trailer was drafty and cold in the winter, she stapled construction-grade plastic around the exterior by herself.
When she got too sick to live alone, she moved in with my brother and his family.
Even the doctors don't know how she held on so long, and I don't know why. She just kept going, right up until she didn't.
In the end COPD won out, but numerous health issues took a devastating toll on her body for decades. Lifelong depression and anxiety, fibromyalgia, chronic back pain from damaged disks, malnutrition and wasting away from lung disease. She was 60-something pounds and needed a walker by the time she died. She no longer had the strength to wash her own hair. She was 56.
The below entry was originally posted on MySpace (remember that?) on September 25, 2006, less than five months before my mother died. I offer it today, on the anniversary of her death. It has been 10 years now. This was my own detailed plan on how to just keep going.
What to do while your mother is dying: A how-to guide
I don't have appropriate words to describe my mother. It wasn't that she was determined, because that implies an overall plan of action. She just kept going. I wouldn't call it perseverance, because that invokes the idea that eventually she prevailed. She didn't; she just kept going. She was not quite persistent or tenacious, and certainly not resolute or steadfast. She woke up every day and did what had to be done all day long, no matter how difficult or unfair or unpleasant. She was not energetic or particularly positive or even hopeful. She just kept going.
When the car broke down on the side of the road, she walked with the groceries in her arms.
When the electricity was shut off for a week, she heated my bath water on a Coleman stove in the kitchen and carried it to the tub.
When my chronically unemployed father couldn't put food on the table, she visited the local food pantry in the next town as often as the rules allowed.
When I had a school project due, she called my friend's mother to borrow money for poster board.
When the trailer entered foreclosure and was dragged away, and I went into foster care, she hopscotched from one place to another -- and sometimes slept in the car -- until she found an abandoned trailer to live in.
With no running water, she filled the trunk of the car with empty gallon jugs, topped them off with her neighbor's water hose, and lugged them back into the house one by one. Weekly, for about three years.
When she finally -- finally -- received disability income and moved to proper housing but her small trailer was drafty and cold in the winter, she stapled construction-grade plastic around the exterior by herself.
When she got too sick to live alone, she moved in with my brother and his family.
Even the doctors don't know how she held on so long, and I don't know why. She just kept going, right up until she didn't.
In the end COPD won out, but numerous health issues took a devastating toll on her body for decades. Lifelong depression and anxiety, fibromyalgia, chronic back pain from damaged disks, malnutrition and wasting away from lung disease. She was 60-something pounds and needed a walker by the time she died. She no longer had the strength to wash her own hair. She was 56.
The below entry was originally posted on MySpace (remember that?) on September 25, 2006, less than five months before my mother died. I offer it today, on the anniversary of her death. It has been 10 years now. This was my own detailed plan on how to just keep going.
What to do while your mother is dying: A how-to guide
- Get angry. At everything. At anything. At nothing, because there is nothing.
- Cry. More than you thought you could. Long after you thought you ran out of strength and tears.
- Wail. Loudly. Until the neighbors wonder if you're dying, too.
- Sleep. Go to bed at 8 o'clock on Saturday nights. Sleep until 11 the next day. Then take a nap in the afternoon. Repeat.
- See how many "ologists" you can meet. Bonus points if you can remember each of their names.
- Accept your ability to do nothing to change the situation. Embrace your helplessness.
- Pray. Once you figure out whether to pray for healing, or release.
- Investigate diseases and ailments you never knew were caused by cigarettes. Refrain from filing class-action lawsuits if possible.
- Learn what a Living Will is and why your mother needs to sign one while she's still lucid. Sort of.
- Try to remember whether she wants her ashes spread over the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Ocean or Mount Rushmore... Investigate laws pertaining to the spreading of creamatoria. You'd be surprised.
- Buy more Kleenex. Scads of Kleenex. Trust me.
- Call every day. Weigh the pros and cons of yelling, begging, or feigning ignorance.
- Inform your boss that you may have to take flight at any moment. Hope he doesn't take the cost of that pricey R.I.P. flower arrangement out of your next paycheck.
- Cry. In the fetal position in bed. Curled on the couch. Leaning against the shower wall. Crumpled on the kitchen floor.
- See how many hours you can go without leaving your apartment. Bonus points for every hour over 60. Subtract points for every person you talk to on the phone.
- Don't shower. It's your own personal protest against mortality.
- Tell no one, or tell everyone. Feel empty either way.
- Mourn for the things you'll never do together. 30th or 60th birthday parties. Weddings. Baby showers. Grandparents Day.
- Devise a generic reply to the question, "How's your mom doing?" Suggestions include the ever popular flat-out lie ("She's okay"); the semi-lie ("She's hanging in there"); or the duck-and-run ("Is that your car on fire?")
- Perfect the fake smile. See #19.
- Cry. In an empty conference room at work. In the employee restroom. At your desk, in front of God and everyone. It's your right.
- Wail some more. Let out noises that can only come from someone in agony. Realize that person is you.
- Get angry again. Hit things. Swear often.
- Accept defeat. Give up. Give in. Try to ignore the nagging feeling that you're dying, too.
- Learn how to be the one who has to stay behind and live.
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