Today was a little better. I picked Mom up about 9:30 and took her to church. She had lost her hearing aids and glasses at Sunrise Creek and it took us a while to find them. The staff there told me that she kept saying that she was looking for heaven and so she didn’t need them, anymore. She started in right away, discussing her insanity and now that she was sure that I was insane, also…and that Craig, my husband was in charge of everything and had been the doctor to declare us so. I began by trying to put her mind at ease and to reason with her. Many times I’ve been able to reach her through the back door by asking questions that could lead her to reality. But, she’d have none of this, this morning. So, we rode in silence for a while and finally, she and I agreed that she’d do her best NOT to talk about all of the depressing and negative things that were whirling around her brain, today. It is really disturbing to everyone, especially the girls and I have such mixed emotional reactions to it all. I’m angry. I’m devastated. I’m depressed. I’m so…so saddened as I watch my mother, looking and sounding mostly just like herself, having worked so hard to get this far, finally easily functioning physically…and then she speaks…and my heart sinks.
Anyway, we attended the services at Delta Christian Church. I tried, but I couldn’t sing. For the first half of the service, Mother sat, looking at the floor with a very disturbed look on her face. She kept moving in her seat as if she was about to get up or as if she was very uncomfortable. After the children left for Children’s church, I moved next to her and began writing in my journal. She was snoopy beyond description and read absolutely every word that I wrote…So, I wrote my prayers. I asked God to quiet her fearful worry. To allow her to be peaceful and filled with faith. I asked Him to guide us through faith and love, for through these things we find hope. I asked Him to allow my entire family, but especially Mom, to turn worry and the anticipation of suffering over to Him. I thanked God for all of the wonderful blessings that I have been fortunate enough to have in my life and then I listed them.
Thank you God for:
- another day with my mother
- my loving, kind and healthy daughters
- my supportive husband
- this lovely autumn day
- that Mom can walk and talk and laugh and love
- the people of all of the churches that have been praying for us
- the fact that we have some means to have choices concerning what to do with Mom
- music in my life and the fact that I can express myself through song
- Jeanne and John Precup and so many other faithful and loving friends
- and last but definitely NOT least, for God’s loving grace and the fact that I can turn this all over to Him…if I only WILL!!
By the end of the service, having taken communion, listened somewhat to the sermon and read my journal, Mom’s wrinkled brow was less so. We ate lunch with Jeanne and John at the Sundance and then came home to the house for a couple of hours. Mom colored a picture with Stefi and did a couple of Math pages and the girls and I made a lemon cake. I cleaned the kitchen and we watched part of a Hallmark Channel movie. What simple blessings. What a miracle that Mom did pretty well at trying to fight the urge to be fretful. It was visibly a challenge for her. But, I kept telling her that I’d take her back to Sunrise Creek if she really wasn’t having a nice time and she kept choosing to stay, though she was counting the minutes until we could drive back to Montrose and I could prove to her that she does indeed have a bed to sleep in there in a safe and warm place.
I sang for nearly an hour to several of the residents and to Mom and Mother sang along on several of the songs. Everyone clapped after each song and even shouted out “downtown” at the right moment during my performance of “Downtown”. One confused woman asked me at least 3 times during each song if I’d ever taken guitar lessons and I think that Mom finally saw the fact that not everyone there has a clear and functioning mind.
She kissed me many times and told me with tears in her eyes how sorry she is that I have to deal with all of this. She just can’t believe that we’re living this “hell on earth” and she sincerely told me that she’d try very hard to think clearly. She asked to go home with me, but she didn’t ask in a desperate tone, only as a question to be answered with what was expected of her.
I cried on the way home and have been fighting tears most hours of the day. When I got home, I found that she had left notes on the table at the house for the girls letting them know how much she loves them and asking them for prayers for her “insane wonderings”. And though she told me, yesterday, that she didn’t think there was a God and that any God that she thought she had knows could never have created a creature such as herself…she left me a note, today, telling me that she loves God and that the church service was “great” this morning.
Goodness, this IS exhausting, and I do pray that God will either shorten our suffering or give us strength and a loving heart to get through it all…