{"id":541,"date":"2009-11-14T21:56:51","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T01:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/?p=541"},"modified":"2009-11-14T21:59:54","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T01:59:54","slug":"better-living-through-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/better-living-through-chemistry\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Living Through Chemistry."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 I should have known.\u00a0 Maybe I did-but did not want to hear it.\u00a0 I should have known when I got the first phone call indicating there had been a significant decline with my mother.\u00a0 I should have known when the Chaplin repeated the\u00a0same sort of statement in her calm and\u00a0monotone-with a hint\u00a0of grace\u00a0way.\u00a0 I am smart, alert and aware. Can it be that daughters know, just know when something is wrong?\u00a0Yet, even with the carefully laid out statements to prepare me- it was not easy to actually see the decline.\u00a0 My mom sitting there, catching her breath, looking so much like her own daddy when he became so sick.<\/p>\n

“How are you mom?”<\/p>\n

\u00a0I hug her boney body,\u00a0releasing the\u00a0scent\u00a0of\u00a0her recent Marlboro Light.\u00a0Damn death, she will smoke as much as she likes-though now, she tends to hold the cigarette, in that way she does, more than she actually lights it. \u00a0She seems shorter, slower and on the fringe.\u00a0 My daughter hugs her, tighter even, and notices none of this.\u00a0 The joys of being 7.<\/p>\n

And then, with her\u00a0mental script that loops through her mind she says<\/p>\n

” I am doing great!” with all the\u00a0optimistic cheeriness of Marjorie Morningstar.\u00a0\u00a0And\u00a0then she begins the\u00a0loop of her self preserving well scripted text.\u00a0 Repeat.\u00a0\u00a0Repeat. Repeat.\u00a0 Her blue eyes don’t light up anymore.<\/p>\n

There in the back seat of her car she and my daughter continue on with their ritual upon seeing each other.\u00a0 The home health care worker tells me mom is having trouble breathing-except you’d never know it listening to the conversation in the backseat.\u00a0 My 70 and 7 year old.\u00a0Thick as thieves. \u00a0As many times as my mom asks\u00a0my daughter\u00a0the same questions, she answers as if it were the first time. From time to time I get asked a question as I\u00a0drive the thirty miles or so back to the island my mom loves so well.\u00a0 I know this will be the last time she will make the trip in to meet us at the airport.\u00a0 I\u00a0turn my thoughts from\u00a0things like the words last and time and concentrate on what needs to be done while we are visiting.<\/p>\n

My mother takes a pill to breathe, a pill to remember, a pill to strengthen, a pill to distress, a pill to whet her appetite, a pill to take away the anxiety, a pill to take away the cough.\u00a0 Where is my better living through chemistry?\u00a0 The all knowing, sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet pill to get through it all and remain in tact. My pill to be mindful, my own pill to remember, so I please, please don’t let me forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I suppose the saddest thing-apart from knowing I am losing my mother is knowing I am losing a part of my own life.\u00a0 Is this the\u00a0defining moment in adulthood?\u00a0 Am I all grown up now?\u00a0 Am I to be medicated to make it through these next few months? To maintain-and up the emotional\u00a0bandwidth of taking on death and then redefining a\u00a0family.\u00a0 To be there. To be prepared. \u00a0Do I continue on with the skills I have-some handed down by my mother-and stay busy until I get that phone call?\u00a0 That phone call that even now, when the phone rings early in the morning or late, too late at night, I feel my throat tighten.\u00a0 In\u00a0my compartmentalized world, I am not sure where to store this, until.\u00a0 Until.\u00a0 The\u00a0 until with my mother is in the day to day and the week to week.\u00a0 Until.<\/p>\n

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