but sometimes it stands still. While this seems like a Saturday over and over again, kind of like the Groundhog Day movie, it really is just Thursday before Christmas. The eve of Christmas Eve. I never really did any shopping this year. Nor do I have anything out other than my tree and the manger. I thought this week would be when the Christmas spirit swoops in and helps me find renewal. Instead, Pop ended up back in the hospital.
This time it's heart failure exacerbated by another pneumonia. At least this time everything moved quickly and he was discharged tonight. I hate hospitals. They give me headaches. We added up the hospital stays of our parents a while back and it came to something like 9 months of the last 10 years we've had a parent spending the night in the hospital. Yuck.
So I am tired. Thank goodness Jill is game for shopping and has done what little I had her do. And thank goodness my in-laws had Christmas last Saturday before Derek and Gaby headed to Peru. Tomorrow will be a strange Christmas. Jill will help me make spaghetti... the kind we like making together. We even hand crush our tomatoes. And we use pork and sirloin. And the bread crumbs soak in milk. And the fresh basil off the window sill. Anyhow, it's an all day production but is a wonderful comfort food. We'll sit in the dining room and probably open a bottle of wine. I hope we can enjoy the evening. I haven't figured out where Church fits in this year. I'm just tired of everything -- church included. Christmas Day will be quiet. Jill's bf will stay overnight with us for some odd reason. We aren't having gifts that morning. I suppose I can make a big breakfast. Mostly the day will be spent making my grandmother's dressing to take to my parents.
It's strange how things go. Every year my sisters and I made a big hoop-dee-do about taking family pictures for funeral cards. This year we probably won't do that. Death seems imminent. Though my Dad is more likely to succumb the soonest, my mother is the most miserable. It hurts to know her existence is such and I wish I could help her. But I'm afraid she's becoming mean spirited. I know it isn't her fault and she doesn't mean to sound and say what she does. Dementia is a cruel thing. What bugs me though is how she can be so very lucid and then in the next breath completely looloo. Tonight my Dad told me in private that he doesn't know how much more of her he can take. He's to his breaking point and had only been home a couple of hours.
My parents have always been my rock. These last 11 years since her first stroke, my mom has thanked me for being the grandmother to my nieces and nephews... the grandmother she'd always hoped to be but that a stroke robbed her of. I wonder now if she is resentful of me. Sometimes it feels like it. Heck, most of the time it feels like it. I don't understand why she is so angry at me. But I suppose I am strong enough to handle it if I can keep myself thinking that it spares my Dad and sisters. I don't think that's the case any more.
Where oh where did a regular life go? Why do so many people get off easy having parents who live to a ripe old age and then keeling over? Why do some families have so much suffering? I think what causes me the most disillusionment is knowing that my parents worked very long and hard jobs to provide for us and passed on to us a strong, invincible work ethic. Yet others who have none seem to have an easy path. I know, I know. Life isn't fair. But damn it, sometimes it'd be nice to not have the end of a stick. All I want is for my mom to see again. God, is that too much? Can you give us a little break here? She prayed hours on end for a miracle to be able to walk and what she got instead was another stroke that took her vision.
It's hard to have faith some days.
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