Soup and Storms
What I really wanted was a quart of Rosa Marina soup from this great little family restaurant on the corner by Mom's house. It's rich with veggies and orzo in a tomato base; comforting on a crappy rainy day like today. However, I'd forgotten that this restaurant closes early on Mondays. I forgot this when I went there with Mom too, because to me it's strange to close early on Mondays but...there I was in an empty parking lot, the open sign dark.
I drove home with the radio off, passing Mom's favorite places, her most happy places where we went to calm down from doctors visits or a conversation about not driving anymore. The nursery or the craft store, or Pier One, all filled with color and possibility.
Tears streamed down my face half the drive home. I miss her. I got through Mother's Day without a tear and it felt weird. She began slipping away years ago and the Mom that was my Mom - that's complicated and sad and wonderful and loved and gone. All while she was sitting in front of me. So, I cried on not the Hallmark holiday. Seemed less cheesy.
I cried because I crave Rosa Marina soup on rainy, stormy crappy days as a way to comfort myself when I knew that stormy rainy days would be so hard on Mom. It was how I prepared both of us for a difficult Sundowner's night. The kind of night when she thought 5:00pm was 5:00am and that meant breakfast. She'd insist on going to Big Boy so we could have breakfast for dinner and then be confused about it being morning or evening. It got worse when it got darker instead of lighter when she thought it was morning. We'd return to her house and she couldn't sleep. She'd hallucinate my dad in the family room, sometimes fallen out of his recliner and she'd think he'd passed out or had a seizure and want to call 911. Dad died in 2004. So in love with him that she couldn't stand the thought of him being sick or in pain, in what was for her a very really situation, and feeling relieved when I'd tell her he passed away. She always wanted me to tell her the truth about him being gone. So she didn't worry about him being lost or hurt somewhere without her.
Before we placed her in a dementia care facility, she'd get really anxious and want to go home to see her husband and tend to her young children when the Sundowner's was at its worst. It took everything I had to keep her calm and in the house instead of wandering. Then, one night she went looking for home while I was sleeping at my house.
Alzheimer's caregiving has a way of making you strong in the same moment in which you are breaking and falling apart on the inside. Strong for your loved one to handle WHATEVER comes your way, to keep them safe, calm, healthy, loved. And yet crying so hard on the inside you have no idea how you are still standing and functioning as an advocate for your loved one.
