The Writing Moment
Back at home with individuals not driven to write, the conversations awaken my muses. They gather to watch people, and think about their lives and times. A common concept about pain, end of life, children dealing with Mom and each other, begins evolving.
Aspects emerge. Donuts being thrown against the side of the house one frozen December Sunday. Children running away and returning. Marriages and divorces. Many marriages and divorces. Enduring secrets. Diseases that strike and tear our family apart and bring us back together.
The first stories I remember hearing about Mom was when she was fourteen. She lived in Turin, Iowa. Small town. V-E and V-J were just a few years before. The children habitually walked the streets over to watch television through a window. The window belonged to the hardware store, which was also a cafe. It had the town’s only TV, as television was then so new. The hardware store/cafe also had the town’s only phone. If a call came in for a resident, the owner’s son ran to fetch them.
Then there is Mom’s tale about the Sunday chicken. Her mother was leaving and warned Mom and her older brother, “Don’t you get this house dirty while I’m gone.” They heard the iron in their mother’s voice and the threat it carried.
But they were siblings and started teasing each other. It escalated until Mom grabbed the roasted chicken and threw it at her brother. He ducked. The chicken slammed into the wall. They watched it slide down, fixing the wall with a greasy trail. Looking at one another, they knew Mom was going to beat them.
Yes, there’s stuff to be told, as there is in many families.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Mood: thwumpy
Thwump thwump thwump thwump
The helicopter — there’s just one, despite the traveling, echoing sound — continues its cleanup action. Good news: it isn’t black. No one rappels down from it.
Other than the chapter, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 in Ashlandia, offers up a mild and attractive spring day. 55 F, hunting for a 68 F high. Scanty clouds are mixing it up with the blue sky and sunshine.
Depressing news on the Mom front. She returned home but is suffering a lot of pain. I’m flummoxed. After days of being mostly upbeat, she’s in pain, angry, snapping at everyone.
Why is she in pain again? What’s the source? It seems to be a culmination of issues. She’s eighty-eight. Systems, muscles, joints fail. Pain ensues.
I try mounting context around her situation. She wasn’t allowed to go to my nephew’s eighteenth birthday party. Arrangements were made so she could join via Facetime to sing happy birthday. She was a no-show. When contacted, she said she saw how she looked on the screen and didn’t want anyone to see her like that.
Meanwhile, there were miscommunications and misunderstandings when she returned home. The facility offered her a wheelchair. Mom said, no, because she has one at home. The sister with her didn’t say anything but the rest of us responding, “What wheelchair? She doesn’t have a wheelchair.” So that opportunity was missed.
Her home stairlift quit functioning. Turns out that it needs a new battery. There are claims that it’s been beeping for weeks. Why didn’t someone notice that and do something about it? That would make sense, wouldn’t it?
Mom’s live-in boyfriend and my two sisters who live near Mom are emotionally exhausted. They’re struggling with their health and life matters. Mom calls for them to come help her but their balance is broken. It’s become harder for them to rise to the moment. They’ve been doing so for about five years.
A third sister leaves near Mom. Her husband has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. No other details are being leaked. They’re a secretive couple.
My fourth sister, the oldest sibling, now 70, lives in Georgia. She works, but her finances are tight. Going to help Mom would be a huge financial challenge for her from what I know.
And I, I sit across the country in my world, frustrated, guilt-ridden because I’m not there to help. I feel selfish. I want to go to help them.
I am selfish. I’m trying to pursue my long-delayed writing dreams. And I have my wife, house, and cats to take care of, along with a bunch of other issues. If I go back to help Mom and the rest, that puts a lot on my wife. She’s dealing with her own matters.
I feel like I know what I must do. Sacrifice and go. But also load it on my wife. And that causes more stress, more guilt, more depression.
Bit of a rant, wasn’t that? I know so many others have gone through like situations. I watched and helped as my wife went through this with her mother for several years. Other friends and relatives have gone through it or are going through it. This is part of modern American life.
On to music, okay? The Neurons have loaded ELO’s 1977 song, “Turn to Stone”, into the morning mental music stream (Trademark overdue). I get that. I feel paralyzed by demands, choices, and the need for decisions. Yeah, I’m turned to stone. Need to suck it up and move.
One other matter on my morning agenda. A toast to Voyager 1. NASA has restored contact with it. Launched back in 1977, a friend of mine was involved with its mission planning with NASA. He passed away from a brain tumor a few years ago. He said that he was only involved in a small degree. His expertise was measuring plasma composition in different regions of space. But even a little involvement is something. So, to Voyager, NASA, and Ed.
Be positive and keep strong. I know it can be a struggle. I’ve already launched some coffee into my body but I’ll probably add another round. Here’s the video. Cheers
