More Room in a Broken Heart

So....how's your mom doing? So often the question people ask because they care, but sometimes the hardest question to answer.  My pollyanna self always wants to answer - 'Well, she's happy.' But the truth is I'm not.  The past couple of weeks have become harder for me to call her.

As I mentioned in previous posts, her money got seriously screwed up and as a result so have her medications. So her hallucinations are larger rabbit holes to get lost in.  One rabbit hole - 'It's so good to be back in this house.  Our other house is just....' fill in the blank - one day it's across the street, another day it's down the block.  We moved into her current home in 1976 - from the city into the suburbs.  The other day she told me her dad gave her something from the other house.  He died.  1976.  Each time she says something like this my heart jumps into my throat.  Not yet.  I'm not ready yet.

But she's still my mom.  We laugh on the phone, she listens to my troubles and my joys.  She gives me advice.  And more often she weaves into the conversation I can move home if I want.  Breaks my heart every time she says that.  She knows I won't move back, but she misses me and I think that the filter that would normally stop her from telling me to move back is gone.

People say Alzheimer's chips away at who the person is.  I don't know, what I'm experiencing with Mom is she speaks her mind more, our conversations are more real. She doesn't have much to talk about, but what she does talk about is love - how much she loves Voyageur and spending time with her, how much she loves me.  What else is there really?

The Carly Simon song Coming Around Again is so much how I feel lately.  The Itsy Bitsy Spider woven into the song reminds me of simpler times, and yet isn't this one of those times?  She's simpler, I'm more complex.  As my heart breaks for what no longer was, it's open for all the new possibilities, open to Mom's humor, open to love more.

Back at ya sis.