It’s the 24th today. It’s a Wednesday and there’s this cool layer of cloud cover over Mission Viejo skies. I had forgotten this was a thing that only appears in the morning before ‘burning off’ by noon to make way for a big bright SoCal sun.
I like the cloud cover. It makes the world just a little softer and quieter. It makes drinking my coffee out in the yard cool and lovely before everything’s in full swing. Today’s my last full day of overcast morning skies moving into full midday sun taking the 5 freeway south to San Juan and then maybe hitting the Pavilion for groceries before heading back home.
I came out to help my dad who had a hip replacement surgery. My brother came too and I’m so thankful there were two of us to tag team the to dos. Dad’s doing great and moving better each day and I go to visit Mom down in San Juan come 2:30pm.
Mom has Alzheimer’s disease and August 30th marks her one year of being at the Memory Care Facility. This time last year I was moving my oldest son into college and fielding phone calls from my dad in the Student Union in line for parking permits because Mom had fallen and they had to call 911.
One year ago I came out to help and figure out next steps and move Mom from the Skilled Nursing Care facility into a permanent residence. One year ago I’ve never been so tired and so scared and so unsure and so stressed out and so alone in my entire life.
Matt and I had visited the Memory Care facility down in San Juan on a previous visit and so we had done some thinking about next steps with our brother, Billy, and how the future would play out. Dad and I spent a couple days visiting other places and trying to get as much information as we could to make a decision and by August 30th we had.
By August 30th last year Mom changed her address for good and we took her to San Juan Capistrano. And now it’s a year later and I’m going home tomorrow.
Adult life seems to want to teach me how to hold two things at once all the time. Adulting has so much to do with being scared and brave at the same time, mournful and hopeful, frustrated and productive, fearful and resolved. Children get to indulge in overwhelming emotions one at a time while us grown ups cry while putting our shoes on and making their lunch. One foot in front of the other and one moment to give room to sadness and love, loss and change all in the same breath while taking out the trash.
I moved this summer. Did I tell you that? I moved. After 12 years in a place where I raised my preschoolers into high schoolers, went from youngish to oldish, we made the decision to move to New Jersey and start all over again at the ripe old age of 45. Mom won’t ever see New Jersey and she’ll never know where I live and leaving that house back in Nebraska was leaving her a little more behind than before.
And so going home this one year later isn’t even the same as going home was this time last year.
And Mom’s different than she was. She giggles but not as much, she talks but not as much, she used to know how to greet someone but not as much anymore. She closes her eyes more, she’s further off. She’s fading into the quiet cloud cover of an early So Cal morning just like we all knew she would.
And it’s a practice in holding two things at the same time: here and there, past and present, now and then, what is and what is gone, joy and sadness, love and loss.
She’s good at her home in San Juan. IN fact, she’s very good. Here are the gifts that Alzheimer’s Disease gave us (I’ve said this many times): It put an end to fighting. She and I didn’t get along too well. Wanna make conflict pointless? Get a diagnosis that makes fighting foolish. The war ended a long time ago and, at the end of it, all was left was me and her, mother daughter and the world spins madly on.
Mom was never one to sit still. She was notorious for sitting down with us to watch a show and then popping right back up again ten minutes later. She could not, would not stop. She did that her whole life and my guess is that stopping felt too risky, too open to have her mind start going places she didn’t want it to go so she just kept on keeping on. Alzheimer’s disease finally got her to rest. It finally got her just being instead of hustling for gold stars and merit badges. What’s left when we finally stop running the race? The soft audacious truth that we get to be here and be worthy of love and space just because of our one precious soul and our one beating heart. The illusion that any of us earn our place disappears and all that’s left is life. Wanna see how the hustle is fool hardy? Get a diagnosis that eliminates hustle as an option and spend the rest of your life contemplating life for life’s sake. Adults don’t like that. Children, the elderly, the otherly abled? They know a ton of shit I’m too crazy to see sometimes.
You can fight reality or you can coexist with it. I can fight the reality of being a daughter watching my mom fade away or I can allow my identity to be that too. That’s been my education since August 30th of last year (and also before that, but you get it).
And so I’ll get on a plane. I’ll leave Mom here in good hands. I’ve been writing her letters and so I’ll write her a new one. I’ll hold two things at once- joy and sadness, love and loss, and I’ll buy a new ticket, put dates in my phone, come back come October and be this version of me that I am.