how apropos-When I thought of this title to this blog, never would I have envisioned the double entendre that it would represent.  It was only today as I talked with my brother that I realized something---I can remember being with my brother all the time, playing everything imaginable with him-he was always there for me, always willing to share, always willing to drop anything for me.  He is still always there for me and I thank my mother for forging that bond between us.  Kevin, thank you

Clarification

I feel as I should explain a few things to put my blog in perspective.  As a litte girl, I constantly wrote in my diary and that continued as an adult.  The one thing my mother used to tell me is that my diaries were so depressing and it seemed that I was so sad.  I usually love to write when I am feeling extreme emotions.  I let my emotions write for me, that is why I never check over what I write. When I started this blog, it was a way for me to keep track of my mother and let others feel what I am feeling.  While those feelings are constantly changing, I wanted people to see the true feelings. Rather than lie and make people think all is ok, I wanted them to see the real struggles, thoughts, feelings, and difficulties as well as the joys and pleasantries that we received.  By never rereading what I wrote, it made it easier to say what I felt at that moment.  Do I feel this way all the time-Goodness no if I did I would be a horrible mother, wife, sister, brother, friend.  Rarely do I display sadness and even more rare is it shown in front of others.  Which is why I write....at night....late night....when the pitter patter of children have disappeared and the house is completely quiet.  Well as quiet as our house on a busy street can be.  I open up my lap top and let the words tumble out faster than I can type.  I let myself feel and grieve which may be why my emotions are so strong.  So  I thought I should blog once duirng the day while the screams of laughter echo through the rooms and my children jump up asking what I am doing.  While the bird screeches at me for attention and the door knocks for the eleventh time today.  I wish I could say that my life became less busy but that is not the case.  Yes school is done for me (I am thinkin of going back for more lol) and my mother is no longer here. But I am consumed with my teen parents, my young adults, my children, our new house, our non profit, spendin time with my father and brother, visitin our widows, and whatever else God throws my way.  I do not disclose all that I do because it would make your head spin but it is enjoyable, adventerous, and always fills me with peace.  I am happier, less worried, and generally calmer in the last two years than at any moment in my life before.  But I also went through a lot with my mother and it affected me in regards to my previous relationships.  I am praying that I let the past go and move on.  I have had some people come to me and apologize for not being there  and I have forgiven them.  It is just hard to rebuild the relationship or restore it because all I am thinking is what if it happens to me.  Will I be forgotten too. I am quite blessed with amazing friends, fantastic children, a strong and phenominal brother, my courageious father, my supportive and wise husband, and a Heavenly Father that directs my life the way He sees fit.  I stubble often but He is there to put me back on track.  It is for Him that I live and I forget that sometimes.  I grieve but if you were to see me and meet with me, you would find that it is not as I blog it.  Picture your grief and picture your worse moment.  THat is when I write.  So please do not think of me as this person consumed with sadness that my life has no meaning or that I cannot function.  I will remember this when I write and curtail the strenght of my emotion as I write. 

One last amazing blessing that has occurred in my life.  My brother has become part of our team again and the awesome threesome is back!!!

Things the grieving should never say but I am

Life goes on and we constantly adjust to the monotonous life without my mother's presence.  I have no idea how people can say that it gets easier as time goes on.  That seems such a lie and I cannot fathom how that can be.  At first, when she passed, I was relieved.  Selfishly I was glad that I could finally enjoy my family and not have the responsibility of caring for someone.  The numerous phone calls, the last minute emergency, and all the time that I spent away from my family were over and I was free.  Ironic how the realization that caring for someone is not as much as a burden as it seems at the time never dawns on you until you have all this time and no one to care for.  Then I was relieved for my mother, that she no longer had to suffer and watch herself disappear.  Finally I felt relief for my dad and brother.  They could move on with their life and start over.  How strange for all of us to realize that she was our life and we do not want to start over.  I believe all of us were so tired and burnt out that the first few months, we cried our share of tears, but we were OK. We missed her but were OK.  The days dragged on, weeks passed, and months went by.  The sound of her voice singing still fresh in my year.  Her contagious laughter but a moment away.  On the rare moment that I stopped my life to think of her (because to think of her meant agony-literally from crying-those headaches are the pits) I would have my sadness and move on.  I could detach and talk about her, call the autopsy doctors, talk to friends about her, and stay unemotional. 
It started very slowly at first...The teamwork of three, my dad, my brother, and me started to dissipate.  Kevin in his own destructive world alienated from us. Dad into his lonely despair. Me into my chaotic craziness of constant people. Each traveling down our own path trying to make sense of everything.  Not only did mom leave us, but our own worlds were no longer colliding but traveling to separate solar systems.  Then the triggers, the constant stupid things that brought you to your knees with emptiness and sadness.  The songs that she sang, a movie title, April fools day (that I could not even bring myself to acknowledge) my daughter getting her ears pierced, a mural on a building that was the same as a picture my mom once painting.  All of a sudden, every thing in every day reminded all of us of mom.  I could not escape her, thinking of her at a moments notice many times throughout the day. So much of our life has changed both emotionally, financially, mentally, physically; my entire life took such a twist.  It was not just the death of my mother that rocked us so hard.  It was the death of relationships with family members and friends that long forgot mom assuming that since she had Alzheimer's she no longer knew them.  One time, my mother was talking to someone and said who is this, I do not know you.  They took it literal thinking that because my mother had Alzheimer's she did not know them.  I wanted to rip the phone out of her hand and yell "She knows you, she is still her sarcastic little self telling you that she has not heard from you in so long that she no longer knows who you are"

Side note here:  my mother got her autopsy report completed and for those of you who did not hear, she had a Subset of Alzheimer's known as "hippocampal-Alzheimer's disease.This form generally affects the parieto-occipital and temporal regions, as well as Ammon's horn, are invariably severely involved by the pathological process (p.11). Delay & Brion also described "atypical" cases of AD that have more severe cortical involvement, mainly of the occipital, occipitoparietal or frontotemporal areas, which were either forms with diffuse involvement together with focal reinforcement or focal cortical forms (p. 90-91). These atypical cases are reminiscent of the hippocampal sparing cases described

What does this mean.  Well for those of you that have no idea about Alzheimer's, generally Alzheimer's affects the hippocampus.  How does that affect a person.  Well the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing. It is a limbic system structure that is particularly important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, such as smell and sound, to memories. So most people with Alzheimer's forget which is why people assume that all people with Alzheimer's forget.  Those with this rare subset, hippocampus sparing" do not generally forget memories and people.  Their body slowly shuts down and they are aware of this until they die. 

My mother knew she had Alzheimer's until she became unresponsive the last few days. She knew that every friend and almost every family member abandoned her and it crushed her.  It crushed us watching this people person, helper, and friend to anyone die without one friend still in her life.  She kept asking what did she do to make everyone turn from her and I became angry.  I am still angry because of this.  I am tired of watching what I say in case I hurt someone or make them feel bad. Well they should feel bad.  We had to feel bad watching those tears roll out of her eyes because she noticed people calling my dad instead of her. Ironic that she was the one with Alzheimer's and yet she was forgotten by others.  So to those of you who could not bear to see what my mother was turning into when you knew what she had. For those of you who it was too difficult to watch.  You not only gave up on mom, you gave up on us.  You left us without a shoulder to cry on, an ear to comfort...You turned your back on us.  There are some that gave up on mom before we knew what she had.  I do not blame you one bit.  Heck I almost did myself because she was that unbearable.  Please release the guilt you have.  And should I be writing any of this...nope but at 4 in the morning, I am not worried about it.  I am no longer angry, I am indifferent .  That is what I mean when I say so much has changed in who I am and in my life that I no longer recognize any of it.

Not to say that there have not been many many blessings and great thins happening in my life, there have been.  And on another day when it is not quite so late, I will devulge them.  Night Night

So hard

So I have disappeared for some time and for that I am sorry.  I had no words to really describe what I was going through because it was mostly an inward thing.  I am so bad about sharing my feelings and I do not like to cry in front of others.  It would be in the wee hours of the morning that I would release my tears and let them fall like the rainfall of a heavy thunderstorm.How can you express the feeling of complete and utter confusiona, sadness, heartache, and longing.  How can you convey the emptiness that you feel when you look for someone and they are not there.  Every day flies by and I continue my role as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, mentor, and confidant but do not let that fool you.  My heart burns with the desire to see my mother one last time, to hear her singing some sweet melody, even to hear her scream at me and destroy me with her words.  Anything would be better than the silence that surrounds us. 

I stay busy not necessarily by choice but by design.  I find that I actually do not have time to mourn my mother.  In so much of what I do, I see her and hear her.  Yet I cannot give more than a few moments or I am surrounded by sadness.  I detach my heart from my brain and flounder one.  News like they are so close to a cure destroys me and sends me spiraling down.  I guess I am in shock of it all, like it really is not true and any moment she will jump out and say just kidding.  Some crazy new practical joke like she liked to play.  And then reality hits in and I see the last night with her gasping for breath.  I remember seeing the numbers of her blood pressure and the temperature reading of 105.5.  I remember seeing so much from that night and next day that I cannot excape it. 

I still find joy and laughter, smiling often and enjoying moments with my friends and family, but htere is this hollow feeling that always is in the background.  When the children accomploish something or I want advice, I find myself wishing I could call her and talk it out.  That is something that women are good at because it just isn't the same with men.  I try to talk with my hubby, my brother, my father, and they all say the same thing-they dont care for the details or every tidbit of information.  In fact they find it kinda annoying.  So I keep things to myself.  Where as with a woman-especially my mother, she wants you to paint the picture and give every detail possible.  Daily accomplishments that I do or my kids do are shared with only my mother in law now when she can.  Over the years, I have lost some close friends-those friends that you build so many memories with you can finish each others sentences.  With Mom gone, I mourn the loss of those friends as well because as an adult, it gets harder to find friends that you hang with like you did in high school or college.  There are less opportunities to build memories and close relationships.  I lose the ability to talk freely and open up with newer friends. 

It is in the times such as this with all the family around that makes this so difficult.  I have not broken like this in so long but Man I miss her.  She should be here to see everyone and be a part of this.  Mom, I love you somuch and wish for just a few moments I could holdyou again.