Gardening by Neglect ~ Random Reflections of the Growing Season

Every year I buy a few plants at the end of the season. I troll the home improvement centers for the bargain racks, the"buy it or we trash it" sale at the back of the garden center.  I know it's risky planting trees or perennials in July; the plants take a lot of watering and tender loving care to survive the hottest part of the summer.  But these plants are, after all, survivors.  They have usually had all their top growth die off and are struggling to produce new shoots from the root ball.  I snatch them from their impending doom and say, "Hey, this one wants to live!!  I'll save you, little tree! You can come live with me, scrawny scabiosa!"  Then , if they survive the hottest part of the summer and endure throughout a winter, I deem them worthy of living in my garden.  I call it "Gardening by Neglect."

When we bought this corner lot, it had a four century maples and a few tiny foundation plantings. Over the last 16 years we have planted screening trees, ornamentals and shrubs, and converted hundreds of square feet of perfectly good lawn into expansive borders and flower beds.  The good news is that we can no longer see nor barely hear the car wash behind our alley, we have shaded the house from the hot afternoon sun, we have perennials and re-seeding annuals that bloom in succession all around the house, there are four magnificent rose bushes that border our patio with majesty, clematis climbing all over everything, and bees in abundance.  The bad news is how much weeding and mulching and feeding are required throughout our extensive growing season in this part of Missouri.. Honestly, I just don't have the "spark" anymore to keep it up like I used to.  That  is why I call my technique: Gardening by Neglect.  In other words, if it survives, it survives.  If it doesn't, it doesn't deserve to live in MY garden.  It's a lot like my greenhouse technique.... which means that my houseplants have to be incredibly tenacious to survive my episodic, spasmodic care.

Another thought has perplexed me lately, though.... and that is the tenacity of undesirable plants. I hesitate to call them 'weeds' because one woman's weed is another woman's focal planting. We have a yard FULL of wild violets and clover.  Now, those of you who have battled violets know that they spread tenaciously by bulb.  There are no weed killers known to be effective against them and the recommended treatment is 'pulling."  Yea, in your DREAMS.  Of course, like eliminating any successful invader, if you leave one single bulb, you have lost the battle.  These amazing plants have given me a new respect and possibly a new definition of what exactly is a "weed":  a plant that can grow anywhere, in any light condition, with or without water.  A desirable, on the other hand, must be planted in EXACTLY the right spot with precise amounts of light and water and food. The violets, by contrast, live under shrubs, in full sun, on the dry slope and the bogs, in clay or loam.  They grow literally everywhere, in the cracks of the sidewalk, under the porch, in every lawn and planting area.  Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  The 'lawns' I have over-planted with Dutch Red-Clover and now require no more than one or two mowings a month and, now that the clover is established, very little watering.

A lawn care specialist stopped us the other day as we pulled up alongside our front curb and told us he could take care of our weed problem!  I almost ran him off the block!  What, kill off my clover?  You can call them weeds if you want to, but I call it my lovely, gently waving meadow.  Hey, we live on a corner and nobody has to worry about my meadow encroaching on their boring single leaf lawn.  So do not judge.

I also have learned through observation, that the flower bed always looks less weedy on the other side of the fence, but, if you slow down and walk the neighborhood, as I do every morning with my two dogs, those borders look a lot different upon closer inspection.  The nearer I get, the more weeds I see.  And I do mean, WEEDS.  No one, in their right mind, wants mulberry, black walnut, red bud or elm trees growing up between the zinnias nor do vetch or crab grass belong in the mulch! I am satisfied with a smugness that consoles my urban conformity.  And justifies my claim to having an English cottage-style garden, seemingly random, care less and care free.  Some might just say messy.  To each his own.

So, taking a much more relaxed, laid back kind of attitude works for me.  Sometimes.  Most days. After all the rain we are getting this week I think I will probably have to spend a day or two ripping out the red buds in the seams of the patio and whack along the fences and maybe even 'weed' a flower bed or two.  I'm actually concerned about too much water at this point.  My neglected garden does NOT know how to handle that!

Confessions of a Gaming Grandma

Caleb said he got into the building by using his biotic jumping ability and clambered over the shipping containers and crawled in through an opening.  Since I didn't invest in biotic legs, I had to find a way in by my wits.  That involved dropping down through a hole into an underground hallway that clearly led into the building but I was stopped by a flooded passageway that was charged with electrical current.  After much trial and error, I tossed a couple of empty boxes down that hallway to discharge two explosive mines that barred my way.  I picked up a container, crawled onto a large pipe that ran the length of the hall above the water line, all the while carrying that container.  I got to the end of the passage, dropped the container into the water and scrambled across it onto a barricade.  I reached around and retrieved the container, climbed over the barricade and edged along another pipe on the opposite wall, down the hall and around the corner.  And so forth until I was able to pass beyond the flooded area onto dry footing.  What a rush of excitement and a thrill of accomplishment!  I texted Caleb immediately to tell him how I had gotten into the building.

I was playing Deus Ex - Human Revolution on the XBox.  The game was a Christmas present from my son Ben and I had convinced my grandson Caleb to play.  Of course, Caleb had sped past me on his own XBox and finished, even though he had started weeks after me. Over the next three days I also finished it, choosing the ending option to NOT lie about the twisted manipulation of biotically enhanced humankind and let humanity decide whether or not to proceed with man-made evolution.  Very satisfying conclusion to 40+ hours of gaming.

So, you might wonder why someone like me, a 60 year old woman, is a gamer.  I ask myself that all the time.  I have been slowly and inexorably won over by the medium and there's no turning back.  At first, it was just a lark, mostly to please Ben.  He said, 'Watch this, Momma!  You'll love it!"  And as entertained as I was, I had NO CLUE what it was that I was doing.  Actually, he did most of the playing and handed me the controller once in awhile and I would entertain HIM trying to learn to navigate.  If you have never tried it, don't laugh.  People who have grown up with controllers in their hands have NO IDEA how difficult it is to learn to control two joysticks and a D-pad, two buttons and two triggers, all the while trying to accomplish a goal, solve a puzzle, or the worst, shoot or be shot by some wretched looking alien.

The above boring video is me, ooooooh ages ago (like last year even) when I really sucked at playing.

Ben started me out by letting me play coop with him through the Halo franchise.  We played through so fast I almost remember nothing.  But I eventually grew to love the characters and the story line and began to care about the outcomes.  Then he and I played Portal 2 all the way through on coop.  Then I played through it on single player and I actually began to get a handle on moving around in the virtual world.  Next came the Half-Life franchise.  That took a long time but it was really fun, albeit a lot over my head.  When I came upon the tough scenes I'd just hand the controller over to Ben who would deftly execute his way through the perils for me.

Then I started the game that changed it all for me: Mass Effect 2.  I never played the first one, just jumped right into the second installment.  Ben kept telling me, "Mom, you're going to love this.  You'll start feeling as if this is really your ship and your crew."  If you aren't familiar with this type of first person shooter game, they are incredible entertainment.  Imagine taking a well written novel, turned into a well crafted movie that YOU are in, and you interact with characters and make choices that determine the outcome of the game, reflecting your morals, ethics and loyalties.  You bet you get involved, and you care!  You pursue your crew and win their affection and prove your loyalty and in the end, these choice effect the outcome of the game!

So, this was the first game I ever played without someone leading me by the hand.  I took my time, began it on 'easy' (and eventually moved up to a more challenging level of difficulty) and became "Jane Shepherd, Commanding Officer of the SSV Normandy."  I even painted myself in uniform at the command post of 'my ship.'

I took most of the game to get better at shooting while strafing and running and dodging enemies. Some of the choices that I made I regretted later because I lost the loyalty of one of my main characters and was never able to completely win Miranda's trust.  I never indulged in any of the romance scenes but I hear tell they were pretty intense.  I just don't need that in my imagination.  When 2 ended I was, like millions of other gamers, on the edge of my seat waiting for the last installment.  Of course, when it came out, I spent every spare moment playing the game, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning.  

Halo 4 came out and I played that through on my own, as well as playing multi-player with Ben, Caleb, and eventually my younger grandson, Jordan.  I have to admit it's gratifying to see their admiration at their grandmother playing their games.  But I also have to insist sometimes that they "let me" play with them because they are so much better that I slow them down.  I run out of cover and get killed, wait to get respawned, run out of cover and get shot.  "Hey guys, cover me, will ya?  Oh well, I'll catch you all later!"

Depending on the game, there are brainteasers and puzzles to solve.  I love the games that give you lots of different ways to succeed.  Deus Ex did just that for me.  I was able to use a combination of skills to advance, not just shooting my way through.  In fact, this game has bonuses for people who play without being discovered or raising alarm.  I can't imagine how long it would take to solve that game without ever having an encounter with the antagonists.  

Anyway, by the time I'm 3/4 of the way through with a game, I'm flowing good and feeling competent and enormously PROUD of myself.  Then the game ends.  Sometimes it is three or four months before I begin another game and honestly, it takes me forever to get my skills back and feel confident.  But I hate to start another game immediately afterwards because I like to spend some time relishing it.  It's like finishing a good book or movie; I never like to plug in another movies as soon as I finish one or pick up another novel the minute I close the cover.  If I would jump into another game, I'd be a more proficient gamer by now.  But that's okay, I'm proud of what I've accomplished and I do have a wonderful time playing.

Does anyone know of a good first person shooter RPG that I can play that doesn't have too much blood and guts and too much cussin' and stuff?  I sure need another game.

On Faith

Recently, my son and I were talking about faith and doubt. His observation was that people who strap bombs to their backs and blow up busses are very secure in their faith. I told him that I doubt and question my faith at times but I keep coming back to a certainty that what I know is true and reliable. But when he asks me (and I ask myself) on what I have based my faith I am hard put to give an answer. Or should I say that, what I would've answered just a few years ago, no longer seems sufficient. His different worldview challenges me to examine my beliefs in order to believe more authentically as well as to communicate those beliefs in a more convincing way.

My faith has been based on a series, perhaps an accumulation, of life events that led me to a moment of realization. It resulted in an awakening, an aliveness that, for lack of a better description, culminated in being "born again". I was in my late teens/early twenties. My brother, Bud, and his wife, Ginger, were attending a Christian Bible study. When they started telling me about it, my mind started percolating. I got excited. In a short time I was seeking, crying out even, for the things they had shared with me to start making some sense. Ginger said, "Read the book of John." So I did. It sounded familiar and foreign and confusing but I persisted.

One story in John particularly caught my attention. In it Jesus was talking to a woman while she was drawing water out of a well. He offered her a different, better kind of water than she was getting from that well. He claimed that his 'living' water satisfied and never needed replenishing. His offer of deep satisfaction made me aware of the cravings in my soul that apparently remained unfulfilled.

In another part of the Bible written by Isaiah I found a portion that read, "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which doesn't satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." This also made me aware of that emptiness inside of me. I wanted some of that satisfying water and wine and food!

Slowly things started to fall into place. Passages from the Bible that had previously seemed impenetrable were becoming apparent, as if a blindfold had been removed from my eyes. I was greedy for more knowledge and understanding. I became a sponge.

But, now I wonder, what if I hadn't grown up in a Christian environment? What if I hadn't gone to Vacation Bible School every summer and hadn't a preacher for a grandfather and hadn't been in and out of different churches all my childhood years? Would those passages have leapt off of the pages and ignited a fire inside me? Some of the stories seemed familiar and comforting, almost a homecoming, but was this more than just familiarity? I had acquired an appetite and an awareness for things that had been completely incomprehensible to me a short time before, as if a switch had been turned on. I had a sense of being deeply and profoundly loved. And I had changed, as surely as night into day. I can not say anything plainer than that. And I became a very different person in my attitudes, appetites, desires and delights.

To ME my faith is reasonable and logical. I believe in a creator that loves his creation and interferes to the point of becoming part of it in order to win back his own creatures that had rebelled against him. To my son this is a quaint spin on an ancient mythology rewritten by a small tribe of people who claimed to have a special relationship with this God. He would say its a product of my culture and upbringing and neurons and emotions. He and a lot of other agnostics believe in nothing or, at most, an impersonal clock-maker type of deity that built the world, wound it up and does not intervene in the affairs of men. My son is utterly confounded at the notion of a "benevolent" god that would claim to love his creatures and at the same time allow them to suffer. He is repulsed by a theology that secures the rights of a preferred people to the exclusion of others. Those are things which cause me to doubt, especially the preferred status part. And here is why that bothers me: because I have never questioned it.

Today in church our wise young pastor said, "Doubt wisely; ask honest questions." The question forming in my mind is, if I had read the Bible BEFORE becoming a believer, how would the passages of exclusivity have impacted me? I don't think this blog is the place for an exegesis on election and definitive calling (too many others have done so exhaustively that I wouldn't presume to discourse on it) but suffice it to say that the Bible makes it pretty clear that people are going to eternity either with God or not, and those who are not will be suffering. Some of these texts indicate that God knows who will go to either 'heaven or hell' and other verses go so far as to say that he chooses who goes where. Alongside this, Jesus commanded his followers to spread abroad the love of God, which extends to all his creatures, and that he wants "all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. " I have read these passages since the earliest part of my belief, inserting myself into the family of God. I found them to be of great comfort and encouragement, a precious gift I had received which I did not earn. For thirty five years, through eyes of faith, or child likeness or egotism (depending on your outlook), I have read the scriptures exhaustively and found them to be consistent, cohesive, progressively revelatory and inherently, ultimately, 'mine.' My story. My belief. My tribe and my God.

But stepping back, and looking at this from an 'outsider's' perspective, I can see how one might be offended, feel condemned and rejected. Only a stone-hearted person would not be angered or distressed over the injustice of people being 'left behind." That billions of people have lived and died on this planet without the influence of the enlightenment of the good news of Jesus and that billions more have known about and rejected him, is devastatingly sad. But what about the billions of people who have lived reasonably successful lives without the influence of Yahweh or Jesus and haven't felt any loss?

Part of me says I can't "unring the bell." I DID grow up in mid-20th century America. I have framed my worldview on Judeo-Christian ethics and culture. I did grow up under the influences of religious grandparents. I am completely unable to frame a single thought outside of the sum total of who I am and where I've grown up. Even though I strive to reject error and prejudices and to think outside the 'Christian Ghetto' that I have lived in most of my life, I cannot think as if I came from another continent, culture, or time or space.

I have asked some difficult questions. I hope my reader isn't disappointed that I will not attempt to answer them. To do so would diminish the magnitude of the importance of these doubts which, if held lightly, will simultaneously strengthen and challenge my faith in Jesus Christ. I don't think I am bigoted or small minded or unthinking or uncaring but in the end, I will have to question all of those things, too.

Poppa at 90

Poppa made it to 90.  For weeks leading up to his birthday, he often seemed anxious about the date and when I asked him why, he replied that he didn't want to miss his birthday! My sister, Kacy, flew in late Thursday night and surprised him by waking him up the next morning. He was a little confused but when she told him she had come to celebrate his birthday with him, he was pleased. Poppa seemed to feel well and was mentally in the moment most of the time, slipping into fuzziness now and then, as was his custom.

Because Kacy had to leave on his actual birthday, Sunday, August 5, we planned his party for Saturday. Not wanting to buy gifts for the man who had at least one of everything, we bought a half-dozen silly musical cards, streamers, balloons, confetti, party beads and a helium fish balloon as well as party plates and napkins. We comisioned two dozen gourmet cupcakes from a friend and Tim cooked Pop's favorite dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

The meal was festive and Poppa ate a lot of everything.  Afterwards, we gave him the cards to open.  He couldn't actually hear the silly songs in the cards so he missed the humor but he smiled graciously.  Everyone was later shooed into the living room while we tidied up and got the cupcakes ready by placing a couple dozen skinny party candles in them and setting them ablaze. Poppa's face was alight with joy as well as from the candle glow.  It was a precious time.  I think we watched a movie but Pop tired early and went to bed.

The next day, Sunday, he slept all morning, as he had been doing more and more often. When I told him that Kacy was going to be leaving soon he finally got up and sat in his chair.  Kacy hugged him and cried, Pop telling her how much it meant that she had come for his special day.  We drove her to the airport and sent her on her way, knowing that she would most likely never see Pop again.

Poppa fell back to sleep in his chair.  It was later in the day when he finally woke up enough to receive his birthday phone calls.  I overheard him saying something to my brother, Bud, like, "Oh, I guess I'm 91. I don't know where the time has gone...."  I think he was confused that Bud was wishing him a happy birthday again, and he figured a year must have slipped by somehow.

The week following his birthday Poppa passed in and out of dementia.  One day he would sleep, the next he would seem fine.  His pain didn't seem to be unmanageable.  He would be better by bedtime and would invariable ask me what adventures lay before us the next day.  After Friday, though, he never really came back into the present.  He became increasingly confused.  Even though he still knew us, he couldn't reconcile that he was in his own home.  His thought we were in a hotel and it concerned him that all of the "people out there" needed looking after and he couldn't decide what needed to be done about it.

His last week was not an easy one.  He lost contact with reality and became fretful.  Finally he deteriorated to the point where he was upset and angry that someone had placed all of his things "here."  But he was adamant that it was not his home and that made him very unhappy.  By the following Thursday he was slipping into total dementia and needed round the clock care.  Thinking that this was the way things were going to be for some time to come, we hired Angels on Duty to fill in the hours between 11 PM and 7 AM and also on Saturday to help with bathing and his personal needs. The hospital bed was installed on Friday.  About the only thing that would wake him was the urge to go to the toilet but by Saturday he was too weak, even with assistance, to make it into the bathroom. The visiting nurse and I cleaned and changed Pop around 11:30 PM and I left her with instructions to call me if there were any changes, no matter what the time.

Sunday morning I tossed and turned from two o'clock onward.  I finally woke up enough around six to realize that I needed to get up and check on Dad.  When I got in the room his breath had deteriorated into a rattle and I was so shocked that the "nurse" hadn't realized that it was a sign of impending death.  I woke Tim and Ben immediately and called hospice. The on-call nurse came until our nurse, Anita, arrived. I called Cara in Springfield and she drove down as quickly as possible.

I spent most of the day on vigil by the bedside, holding Poppa's hand and cooing to him, telling him it was okay to leave us, that we would be fine.  People passed mugs of steaming coffee to me and hugged my shoulders but, except for a few moments, I don't think I left the room.  Poppa passed away early in the afternoon. I cried, selfishly in my grief, "what will I do with myself now?" because caring for my father had become my full-time employment, my sole focus in life.

He was so much more ill than we had known.  The cancer had gone crazy in his body and done terrible damage in just a very short time.  Had he known or was it God's mercy that he had increasing dementia so that he wouldn't understand?   We will never know.  The end came so amazingly quickly.  Just when I was feeling like this part of my life was interminable, he was gone.  And right up until almost the very end he was still wanting to go out for some adventures, he and I, shopping, going to lunch, messing around.

Thank you, God, for the opportunity to serve my dad.  Thanks for the time to get to know him in this special way, to love on him and spoil him.  And I am grateful for every day that I had to call upon Your strength to get through it because it has made me stronger.  Nothing else would have stretched me to such a degree that I, coming to the end of myself ten times an hour, would gasp and grasp the hand that sustained me.  So that when all was said and done, I'd know that it was He in me and not myself that gets the glory. But Poppa made it to 90.

How Not to Win Friends

There are plenty of instruction manuals on how to win friends so I thought I would write one on how NOT to make friends.  I speak from years of research so I feel as if I am quite an authority on the subject.  It certainly helps to be an introvert.  People may laugh when they hear me say that I am one because I am a compulsive talker.  The two are not mutually exclusive:  I am a communicative, overly-analytical, cerebral, closet introvert.  I have always been taught, and know from life's experience, that one must be a friend to make a friend.  But, if you are sure you want to go to the next level, just follow these simple steps.

 1. Make sure your life and work are completely consumed with people in the public sphere. For instance, until last year, my life consisted of working in retail and teaching and, as such, I received all the social stimuli that I could process (and then some) from my work.  Also, make sure that you spend most of your evenings involved in these activities so that you can't even imagine "going out" or inviting folks "in".  Instead, you stumble home at 9:30 or 10 PM on average, four nights a week, satisfied but exhausted.

2. Ensure that your life is so busy that you LITERALLY (and I do mean "literally" literally) find yourself running from task to task.

3. Invite your aged parents to live with you.  Spending "quality not quantity" time with one's parents uses up any "spare time" you may have.

4. Slowly disengage yourself from your work, becoming more and more involved in the caregiving of your aging, ill parents, until it is all you do.  This is a useful tool in that you always have an excuse for not being able to go out or have friends in.

5.  Nurse your parents in your home as they die.  This is the best way to lose touch with the few acquaintances you have and makes it almost impossible to stay in touch with former students or associates.

There you have it!  Simple, isn't it?  I know not everyone has the advantages that I have had but I am confident that with a few modifications, you TOO can learn how to not make friends in five easy steps.

GOOD LUCK!

Life with Poppa

It was a year ago, to the day, when Poppa's radiation was began. Today we found out that not only is the cancer growing again but it is very active.  

It had been bothering Pop for a long time, but being a typical male of his generation, he didn't mention it to anyone. Well, actually, he DID complain of chest pains that, it turns out, were radiating from this mas. Several times over the last two years Poppa has been rushed to the hospital with these symptoms which were mimicking heart attack symptoms.  When the connection was finally made, we were sent scurrying to a surgeon who removed as much of the mass as he could, but left what was attached to the chest wall.  The biopsy resulted in the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma.

41 trips to the radiologist.  Eight and a half weeks (one half week off for rest) of daily trips to the cancer clinic. Pop and I would head out in all types of weather, enjoying the time together in the car, stopping to do errands on the way, called it our "adventures."

O my, what a year!  So many life-altering events have taken place in the last 12 months.  So many, in fact, that I had to write it down, fearing that no one would believe me.  I don't know how many trips we made to the hospital.  Starting with Pop's lumpectomy, followed by radiation, weeks of kitchen remodeling, Mom's emergency surgery which caused her heart failure and move into hospice care, closing our studio (Tim packed it all up by himself as I was caring for Momma) and emptying it with no place to move it to, Mom and Pop's ranch in Alabama selling and Tim and I going to get their stuff, moving our renter out of the cottage, renovating the cottage into our studio and moving into it, waves of relatives coming to spend time with Momma during her last days, Mom's passing July 26, and after her cremation we hurried to Alabama for the memorial before my brother Bud moved to Arizona, Poppa had cataracts removed from both eyes and a cancer removed from his left eyebrow (turned out to be squamous cell also) and extensive repair to his brow, and lastly, during a follow up for that procedure, the cancer on his right eyelid was found, biopsied and the basal cell carcinoma that was removed was even larger than the cancer on his eyebrow and required extensive skin grafting and reconstruction.  

Pop has endured it all with grace.  He misses Momma, his life partner of 68 years, but hasn't grieved inordinately or fallen into despair.  It has aged him, changed him and worn him out.  At least when Momma was alive he had a purpose which was to look after her and spoil her, as he always had done. Now he lacks purpose. The once formidable, robust man is frail.  He is still mostly independent but needs me to make sure he gets his meds and checks his blood sugar and injects his insulin.  I make his meals and encourage him to eat because he has so little appetite. He leans on me when we walk and depends on me for his companionship. Recently I've noticed that he's made the cognitive leap from being the man in charge to the one being cared for.  In all of this he says he is as happy as can be expected, given the circumstances.  He says he could never have gone through it all if he hadn't been here with us.  We still see flashes of his lightning wit. 

In the morning we take Pop to the oncologist to decide what, if any, treatment he will pursue in regards the tumor growing under his arm.  As it is, it presses on nerves which cause him intense pain that radiates from under the arm across the chest, mimicking heart pain.  We manage the pain now, but know not what will be required when the tumor grows.  The plastic surgeon has tried to repair the damage caused by the cancer on his face, but his appearance is drastically altered.  What will be required to stop the outrage of cancer growing in this 89 year old body?  How does one make the choice to poison the cancer with drugs,knowing that the side effects might potentially sicken him to death but at the same time, how can one choose to not fight back, knowing that if he doesn't he will surely die of it, not to mention the increasing pain? 

More and more often I find Pop sitting alone in his living room without the television on, no newspaper in his lap, head down.  I think he is praying.  He doesn't talk about his faith but he is calm and prepared.  I know he is battling despair, as am I, come to think of it. Yesterday I read in Psalm 46 that "God is our refuge and strength and a very present help in trouble."   We need your help, Lord, this day. Bless my Poppa.

  

  

The Caregiver

I found it in the kitchen drawer. Cryptic notes on a page from a tiny tablet, dates, times, and amounts of liquid morphine and the other medicines I had given Mom her last few days of life. I'd had to write it down to keep it straight in my mind.  July 24, July 25,  right up to 11 AM on 26th, the last time I gave Mom her meds.  She opened her eyes and her tiny little breaths, short and gasping, ceased.  She quietly passed from this world at 12:06 PM.  I am unwilling to part with this little piece of paper.  It means something but I don't yet know what it signifies.

By placing myself here, at the keyboard, I'm feeling a heavy weight bearing down on me.  I don't want to write, haven't written since February.  I have been telling myself to channel my grief and sadness into my paintings, into the non-verbal discourse of art.  But that's not happening.  I'm sort of stuck, plugged up, corked (I think they call this "denial.")  I'm wondering if I've even begun to grieve.

Sadness and grief are partners but they are not the same.  I am sad, most certainly.  But there are feelings buried inside that I don't even begin to want to explore. Perhaps it's like returning from a trip or retreat or "mountaintop" experience; not wanting to talk about it too much for fear the telling of it is remembered more than the experience itself.  Are these memories too precious to be spoken of or too painful to admit?

Maybe I should begin by telling you that I was my mother's caregiver.  What a dignified title, "caregiver."  I didn't seek it but I  accepted it and I think I eventually learned to do it well.  Finally.  In the last few days of my mother's life.

I had really hoped that when Mom and Dad moved in with us they would be able to enjoy life in Saint Charles.  I dreamed of Mom and me going shopping and enjoying painting together.  I hoped Pop could walk up and down Main Street, smoking his cigars and flirting with the shopkeepers.  But by the time we convinced them to move in with us, Pop was recovering from triple by-pass and gallbladder surgeries and Mom's leukemia and congestive heart were advanced.  She was already dying, had been dying, by inches for a very long time and we just couldn't see it.  That sounds paradoxical because we had thought she was dying, expecting it for years but she had this amazing knack of recovery.  Total rebound that made us question each episode that preceded it.  Now, looking through the lens of the last few months, I see it all much clearer.

It didn't happen the way I'd hoped.  Mom lived here pretty much the same way as she had before coming, mostly in the bedroom and sleeping much of the time. We did a couple of shopping trips, a few lunches out, and maybe one or two times in the studio.  She expressed much regret and a lot of desire but never had the physical or mental energy to get out and do things.  But the one thing that I regret the most is that Mom was disappointed in our relationship.

Mom had anticipated life here as an extended vacation, much like the times that I had spent with her in their home in Alabama when we came to visit.  At the time they moved in with us, Tim and I were still teaching classes two-three nights a week and had a studio and gallery to run.  Even if I had had nothing to do, I still wouldn't have wanted to sit beside her bed all day long, to the exclusion of all else, drinking coffee endlessly and waiting on her needs (this was pretty much how my visits to Alabama went.)  But not only that, we found ourselves butting heads over almost everything, especially the dispensing of drugs.  And as the caregiver, I took that business very seriously.

If it was a matter of giving something other than the doctors had prescribed, I could not be swayed. My mother met her match in me.  Mom, who had spent her entire life governing herself and making up her own mind about which drugs to take and how much and when, now had a daughter telling her what she could and couldn't have.  We argued about this and other things, and Mom lamented that I was not the "Chrissy Jane" she thought I was and that even though she was so thankful to have my care and to be living with me, it was not what she had anticipated.

Now for my moment of self-justification:  even when I did take the time to sit with Momma, she would pick up a magazine or watch tv or most often, take a nap.  I would slip away and return to whatever I had been doing.  I thought that between mealtimes and coffee times and bedtime snuggles we had shared a lot of times but Mom said she thought it would have been better if she had stayed home.  At least, she thought, the boys checked in on her now and then.  No matter Dad was in his chair just outside the bedroom door.  No matter that she had been desperately lonely on the farm before she came.  No matter that we were living together, not visiting a few brief days a year.

She was dying and needed lots of love and reassurance.  Because I was suffering from caregiver fatigue, and because she'd rallied so many times that neither I nor any one else believed she was ever going to really die, and mostly because it happened so gradually that I didn't believe the evidence before my eyes, I withheld the last bit of energy and love that I could have given.  Until she was really and truly dying, and then I gave her my all.