Never-ending Loss

My mother no longer recognizes me. She sits across from me at a Mother's Day celebration at her assisted living home and stares at me in confusion. My sister, Ann, who was sick most of her life starting when she was ten years old and I was seven, passed away in February this year, 2023. But I really lost her in bits and pieces over the last ten years.

Many people deal with never-ending loss every day. How do I know? I know because I talk to people. There is so much pain and grief around us. Some days the positivity messages we see everywhere - Be Grateful - Appreciate Life - You Woke Up Today and That's the Best Gift - make me want to scream. And, on some days, I love these kinds of glass-half-full notes of encouragement. I am up and down, and the losses seem never-ending.

Never-ending. To me it shows up in unexpected bursts of realization. Mom does not know how to drive home today. Ann won't answer her phone and I have not spoken to her for two months. Then, sometimes, I am slogging through it, stuck in the muck and mire and heaviness of it for hours at a time, days at a time, and so on.

About Mom

She was completely independent, until she suddenly was not. It started with confusion about how to drive home from her neighborhood Walgreens one day when she was 87. I have been losing her a bit at a time since then. These days, she does not know who any of us are, and can still have a conversation with us. She calls her caregivers at the assisted living home "sweetheart". She hugs them and tells them, "I love you" every day. I did not hear those words from her until I was 18 years old. Who is this women, who will be 94 in July? She seems to be happy, so that is good. I am happy for her happiness.

I do not know what it is like to lose someone who is important to you abruptly. I cannot imagine the pain in those situations. Except when I lost my dog, Sammi in 2016. That is fodder for another post. I do understand the pain of never-ending loss. As soon as you feel like you are on top of the grief and things are...not really normal, but predictable, something changes. You are constantly adjusting.

With my mother, her name is Audrey, it seemed traumatic events pushed her mind farther into the world of things forgotten. After that first incident, referenced above, she readily turned over her car keys and we took her to a neurologist. This occurred soon after my mother-in-law, a good friend of my mother's, passed away. The more we delved into my mom's life, the more shocked we were. Did she take her medication today? Who knows? She certainly does not.

I was dumbstruck that suddenly my mother had dementia. I naively believed she would get better. (See any reference you can find to the denial stage of grief.) The next year, several deaths occurred in quick succession: My beloved godmother and my mom's best friend, Bette; MaryAnn, a friend of my mom's since high school; Vernon, my brother-in-law who lived in the flat below my mother with my sister, Ann (who died in February this year); my wonderful dog, Sammi, who was as much a part of the family as any human. These events seemed to push her deeper into her blocked-off mind and we suddenly realized she was incapable of making her own meals. So, my nephew, Josh, who also lived in the flat below, took care of her. He brought her two meals each day, checked in on her, and gave her the medication in the morning and the evening.

Each time a new traumatic situation occurred, my mother's dementia became worse. And each time, I would need to reset my expectations and identify that a new layer of grief had emerged. Meanwhile, my sister became more ill and was hospitalized returning forever with a new accessary to lug around with her - portable oxygen. Reset. And, usually toward the end of the year and the beginning of the next year, she stopped answering her text message and phone. I was losing my best friend and primary confidant slowly and painfully.

Grief is a dark gnarly cloud of smoky goo. Sometimes vapor, sometimes solid, sometimes liquid. It contracts and expands inside and rises up randomly to remind you of its presence and its power.