Feels Like Forever -- and Yesterday

Hello, my friends. It's been five months since my last post. How can that be? How are you all?

This is my update.

My mother, who was admitted to a nursing home on May 31, has had a series of health issues, some caused by living in a group setting and some caused by age. Her cane was taken away because she was using it as a weapon to resist care. (She was given a walker instead.) She continues to pine for her home, and doesn't understand where she actually is now. She can articulate clearly that life as she is living it is only existing. Her ability to express that blew me away and also made me feel very sad for her. I try to listen, empathize, and distract her with other topics, but her constant requests to go home make visits hard. Far too often, I dread the visit so much I literally cannot make myself go. When I do not visit, I feel guilty. So I have a choice: dread or guilt. We have been working on selling her house over the past couple of months. We will not tell her, as it would cause her even more distress.

I lost both of my companion cats in September, in less than two weeks. Lucy, my calico, began having breathing problems. After one week of medication that should have helped, she was getting worse. It was awful to see her laboured breathing. I had to make the decision to have her euthanized. She was thirteen years old, loved on her own terms, and was such a stoic cat. Then, my beautiful all-grey diva cat Meredith, sixteen, who had had kidney disease for several years, deteriorated so much that I knew it was time to let her go too. 

The dread I had before each of their final visits to the vet was overwhelming. I knew the grief that would follow, and I didn't know how I could face it again. Grief is exhausting, and losses are cumulative in their effect. Every loss reminds me of the ones that preceded it. I went into hibernation for a month and a half after that. I did the least I could to get by. Gradually I started functioning better again.

My mother-in-law was very ill this fall too, with Covid and other things. She has recovered fairly well, although she has slowed down. She also states that she feels she has some memory loss since her illness. We hope she will gradually get back the abilities that she lost.

One of my favourite aunts, who lived on the other side of Canada, passed away in early December. She was receiving treatment for cancer for nine years. There were no more treatments for her doctors to try. She wrote to me weekly for more than a year after my husband's death. She had early dementia and I preferred writing back so she could re-read the letters, but I often put it off because of the things I was busy dealing with, and because I wanted to take the time to do it well. (Perfectionist tendencies are a bug, not a feature, and don't let anyone tell you differently.) I was able to call her before she deteriorated too much but it didn't make up for all the times I put it off.

Christmas and New Year's have come and gone. I was able to see my newest grandson, finally. He is seven months old now. They only live ninety minutes away, but there was one thing after another that kept me from getting there, including some of the above, plus work, heatwaves, vehicle troubles, snowstorms, and clearing out my mom's house. It was good to finally see them over the holidays.

The fourth anniversary of my husband's death has just passed. Like so many other major changes in life, it feels like both more and less time has gone by. I feel like I am doing better than I was. A neighbour who lost her husband in a tragic accident a couple of years prior to my husband's death told me that it took five years before she started feeling like herself again. I think this may not be an unusual timeline, perhaps especially for a partner or spouse.

My brother, son and I have been working at clearing out Mom's house prior to the closing of the sale. It has been a big job. I'm about to start cleaning it now. I haven't even cleaned my own house in ages because of all the other stuff happening - and also because I have been sad and stressed. It has been an education to me over the last few years how much energy it takes to deal with heavy feelings. 

Anyhow, that's my update. I haven't been in blogland very much even for reading, let alone commenting. I'm sorry for that. But I'm starting to feel more like getting back to it. 

How have you been? I hope 2025 treats you well. Tell me your hopes for the new year, if you'd like.

I'm hoping for my life to become more stable again. Fewer crises and difficult feelings would be good. Less of the feeling like a leaf in a flooded stream, being whisked downstream at frightening speed, going under from time to time.

Yes, floating slowly, able to absorb some of the good things in my life again - that's what I am hoping for. I think my next post should be about those good things.