My mom deserves better

When you have a blog, sometimes you sit in front of the blank screen wracking your brain trying to think of something to write. Sometimes, your brain is so full of thoughts to share you think your head is going to explode. I'm of the latter mentality tonight.

However, one thought keeps going through my head regularly and that is my mom deserves better. She's done so much for other people her whole life. She took care of two husbands, two children, a mother-in-law with Alzheimers. She devoted her life to charity work during the good and the bad times.

My mom was always there for me no matter what. To this day whenever I hear the song, "Loves me like a rock" by Paul Simon all I can think of is my mother smiling, hugging me close, and rocking me back and forth wildly while she sings along. I remember her making the car "dance" by swinging it gently back and forth.

One of my fondest memories of my mother was when I got into trouble for something, I don't even remember for what. Probably for something dumb like not doing my chores or talking back. She scolded me then grounded me for a week without any television and sent me to my room. An hour later, she tiptoed in and whispered, "Elvira is on. You can watch this one movie, but then it's straight to bed missy. I don't want to hear you say your too scared to go to bed because I'm not letting you stay up." Of course, I got scared and begged my mom to stay up and watch MASH afterwards. My mom, being the punisher she is stated, "Well, okay, you can watch MASH, but then that is IT, you have to go to bed."

Every mother and daughter have a unique relationship. My mom and I were bonded by the fact that we were two women (three if you counted my grandmother who we lived with for a few years after my mother left my father) who were taking on the world together. I don't doubt for a moment that my mom loved me...adored me. I was her only child for 17 years. Her baby...as she still says.

My mom's eyes still light up when she sees me. She gives me a big hug and then apologizes for taking me away from my hectic schedule. My mother should've been jewish, she doles out guilt like it was air.

Now, my mother's life hangs precariously on the precipice of the unknown. Her body is inundated with fluids...her heart, her lungs. Her kidneys are close to failure and they'll be performing a mild dialysis soon in the hopes that it will improve the situation.

And here I sit. With my cold. Unable to even visit her. The one thing I could do. The one thing I could control.

I emailed my mom tonight. I know she won't read it for quite sometime. But it was something I could do. I'm hoping she'll come out of this. That a few weeks from now she'll read that email and shake her head at the insanity that we all went through. Hopefully someday soon, we'll all laugh at how she barraged the nurses with stories about her cat and how my aunt, a nurse, drew a bucket of KFC on the whiteboard under Special Instructions.

It's the unknown that drives you nuts. Not knowing if tomorrow you'll walk in and they'll be perky and begging for chinese food, or if you'll get that dreaded call any minute asking you to rush down to the hospital...even if you are sick.

Hang in there mom. We're all pulling for you.