ACCEPTANCE

ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE

ACCEPTANCE.........not possible for me.

Time changes nothing, only how long it has been since you died.

I think that I have accepted all that happened to you.  Getting MS.

Your deterioration. Your sadness, disbelief, then stoicism.  First, there was hope.

Then, there was war.  After, came , not acceptance, but coping.  And then, came death.

I have marked each month and year since you died.  I have lived each holiday, watched each season pass.  Seen your children adjust, grow, mature.

I have seen your Father and I age.  But, I have not ever accepted your death.

You refused to accept the life that MS, Miserable, Misbegotten, Suffocating MS

would have created for you.  You said that acceptance was defeat.  You chose not to accept, but to move on, to an unknown place or to nothing.  You would not accept.

I do not accept.  I know that you are dead.  I hate that I may never see you again as you were.  I loved your voice, eyes, gestures, walk, physical handsomeness, spirit and all that was you.  To tell me that I will find you in some nebulous form, I do not accept. I yell at the sky each night.....I DO NOT ACCEPT.

Part of me is broken.  I don't care to fix it.  I accept that.  I speak to you every night, implore you to give me a sign that you hear me.  Cry when nothing but the wind, or a cloudy pink sky are my only companions.  I watch the birds settle for the night, dragonflies swoop by.  My ears strain to hear anything that you might say.  Nothing.  And so, I tell you, I DO NOT ACCEPT.

Much of my inner thoughts are focused on you.  I try not to remember the horrors of your illness, deterioration, loneliness.  But, the wound is there, waiting to fester.  And, it does often.  I look at your photos, read your words, hope to remember good memories.  Not always possible. 

Time has passed, continues to pass.  I only know that I miss you beyond comprehension.  Love you, love you, love you. 

NO, I DO NOT ACCEPT.

Four years tomorrow.
That is how long you have been gone from us.
You chose to die on a beautiful Sunday morning at 6:37 a.m. on March 3, 2013.  You always were an early bird from the time you were born.

I never know how I am going to react on the day, days or weeks of the month that you died.  Just as I didn't really know how I was going to be after you died.  I was so caught up in your struggle as well as being in shock, so when a hospice worker asked how I would be when you died, I said, "I don't really know".

Well, after four sometimes blurred, sometimes too clear years, I know.

Being a mother, for me, was the prime mission that I have had in life.  Once you children were born, I was only in this world to make it good and loving for all of you.  I think you all got this
message.

Life doesn't care what our goals are.  It just is.  And so, when my daughter Alexia was born, after I had been ill for the nine months that I was pregnant, I mourned for years every March 18. Until finally, I woke up one day, and realized that I had not even noticed that the day had passed.  Not so with March 3.

We all mourn alone.  I write this blog through my tears, and my husband turns inward and cannot even look at me as I cry.  It is too painful for him.  I get it. No one, even the most understanding, can get into my head to really know how sad I am.
I have strange thoughts and rituals since you have died.  I still have a uterine "memory" that pulls at me when I think of giving birth to you. It's like cell memory, a place that is personal and not explainable.  I sleep every night with that awful pillow that you loved and wouldn't let me replace for you.  I greet you every morning and every night with a song that we used to sing. And, I go to sleep hoping you will visit me.

Next to my bed, is a tiny glass container with a lock of your hair.  It was starting to get some gray strands.  You would have been a really distinguished looking man as you matured because you had a stately stature and a very handsome face.  Not just my opinion.

None of these rituals bring you any closer to me.  Today, the last day you lay dying, I remember the constant groaning that were the only sounds you made for thirteen days.  A hospice chaplain, not your typical religious image, said that you were sorting out your life as you lay dying.  He told me that he could see you already walking in a field, with your dog by your side and that you were ok. He believed that he had a gift that allowed him to go into your mind, and that you had allowed it. Since you loved being in the outdoors, I wanted to believe him.

Once the morphine had been pumped into you, you never opened your eyes again.  When the hospice doctor woke you and asked if you wanted to stop the dying process, you adamently shook your head and said "NO"! Dying wasn't easy for you, George, but neither was watching your life fall apart from MS.  Aside from the fast progression of your disease and your physical disability and pain, you had to deal with emotional pain.  For a man with a huge heart, you learned that people can be weak and unthinkingly cruel. So many never called or visited you.  You needed to feel the love and friendship, and many just didn't take the time.  Your world got so small, and I cringed at the injustice of all that was inflicted upon you.

So, as I wait for tomorrow, the "day", I try and decide where I am in this valley of grief.  I have not accepted your death, a word you abhorred and said it was giving in to MS.  I am no longer in shock and certainly not in denial.  I am a different person and do not cling to this life and earthly existence since you have died.  My perspective has tilted.  I still feel love and pain for your children, and yes even your wife who did the unimaginable and was divorcing you.  I think of all the wonderful events you will miss and have already missed.  Graduations, football games, achievements of your beautiful children and eventually walking Stacia, your clone, down the aisle.  I am thankful for your two beautiful sisters and worry for my husband who has had many health issues since you died.  So, where am I in this life?

RESIGNED...a word that means I've had my core being hollowed out. What is left is a moving, talking woman who partakes of daily existence with half a heart.  Resigned...and not looking forward to seeing this anniversay come for years and years.  Missing you and always, always LOVING you.

Love,
Mom

Lamentation of a mother

One year ago on this date,
George was alive and miserable in his bedroom in our home.  
Today, I am alive and miserable remembering each day last year, even though much of it has become a blur.
Anticipation, not filled with hope, but with dread. 
Little did I know then, that in less than two weeks, our beloved son would be dead.

Oh, he had told us in no uncertain terms that he was NOT going to live in the state that MS had placed him.  That he would not want to live to continue to deteriorate, become more dependent, lose more function, remain isolated from all that made him who he was; children, a loving woman, work, physical strength, friends......PURPOSE.

Now, he saw himself as an imposition on two aging parents, dependent on a caretaker to wash and assist him in his most intimate functions.  He saw a man who would never have a woman hold him intimately, care for him as a husband, share all his life with him.  He saw no future hope in all the drugs being touted by the pharmaceutical companies and the MS Society.  He saw that he could not live with his four children, guide them, play with them, understand and participate with their changes and maturing.  

He envisioned nothing but pain, deterioration and dependency.  
"This is NOT who I am, Mom, and you know it". Yes, I knew it and understood his every word.

Now, I am a shell of who I was.
I walk, talk, smile, socialize.
I knew that I loved George.
I knew that we had a special bond.
I was willing to care for him for the rest of my life.
I never really knew how much I really loved him.
I never fully comprehended how much I would miss him.

The world expects that I move forward.
That I remember all the good times and find peace that George is no longer suffering.
It doesn't work that way.  I have sat all this month remembering the terrible February last year when he suffered, realized his life would never get better and knew that the future held only more pain, suffering, loneliness and decline.
He worried about us caring for him.  He didn't want any more ambulance rides, hospital visits, fighting for doctors to help him, sadness over his loss of love and friendships.

I can't explain how the light has gone out of my life.  I try to be uplifted with love for my grandchildren, but then I am so sad that they are growing and becoming so wonderful and beautiful and George is not here to see them.
Nothing makes me really happy.  I smile and participate, resemble the old me, but still feel like a ghost.  I am the ghost, lost in this world and wanting my son to be with me.  

I don't know if I will ever recover, find meaning in this life.  Look forward to anything.  I cry when I think of George's kids, their lives going on and he is not with them. Sadness prevails, and no matter how good my fake face is, I am not there.


Just like George is not here or there.  I do not see him in the sky or feel him in the night or see him in my dreams.  He is lost, gone.  I do not want to believe that he is reborn to another life, as in reincarnation.  I do not want someone else to have his love, his beauty, his humor.  I am selfish.
I think he is just gone, belonging to the past, no longer any part of this world and not believing that there is another one in which he can exist. I hope I am wrong.


I just want him. 

I just want him.........



  (Photo taken early in George's diagnosis.  Symtomatic, still functioning, but struggling with treatments and adjustments.)