Joey was in much better spirits today and even apologized for her nasty behavior yesterday. You have to love and adore a child who will apologize for making you crazy.

For some reason I was thinking earlier tonight about the last weekend I spent with my mom before she went to the hospital with the heart attack/stroke that killed her. It was President's Day Weekend 1995 and Amy's best friend Karin was getting married. We drove up in the pourng rain--what a terrible drive! I had planned to leave Joey with Ed while I went to the wedding with my mom but she wanted to bring Joey along so we did. It was an ok wedding. Joey was 18 mos. old and got bored with the ceremony pretty quick so I had to scramble to keep her from making noise.

After the wedding we went back to the folks' house and had dinner and put Joey to bed. Mom and I sat at the dining room table and played cards--cribbage--and chatted. I was bothered by the fact that she kept talking about all the things that were ailing her--her fistulectomy surgery was healing very slowly, her diabetes wasn't under control and she didn't want to go on insulin, and there were other little nagging things. Inwardly I scoffed and thought she was making a bigger deal out of her illnesses that she should have. I tried to steer the conversation to other topics and kept thinking she was to young to be sounding like an old woman. I even mentioned it to Ed later. It was unusual for mom to be so vocal about how she was feeling like that and I knew it was out of the ordinary but I was in some kind of denial and tried to ignore it.

Just 3 weeks later, in the airport after their flight arrived from Las Vegas, she had chest pain massive enough to warrant a visit to the hospital so they went directly there. And it went downhill from there.

I haven't thought about that for a long time but it makes me sad to remember how callous and unfeeling I was in her time of need. I didn't let her talk freely--I tried to shut her up. I didn't want to see that she was ill. I didn't want to see that she was scared or that her body was failing her. She had to be scared, knowing her cardiac history (heart attack at 49 followed by septuple bypass surgery). She was trying to prepare me for bad times to come and I, like an ostrich, put my head in the sand hoping it would go away. Well, it did go away. Along with her.

I wish I hadn't been afraid to talk to her. Or to let her talk. I wish I hadn't shut her down. I did the same thing when Grandma M had cancer and I was there to care for her for a week. I didn't want to face the reality that she was dying so I brought my computer along and worked for several hours every day instead of using that time to talk to her; to memorize her stories; to ask her how she felt--really felt, emotionally not just physically. I took one of our last days together to visit my alma mater with my cousin's wife. I didn't want to face the inevitable--that she was terminally ill and this would likely be the last time I'd see her. So I pretended like it was just any other kind of visit, except that I had to cook for Grandpa and take care of Grandma's feeding tube and other meds.

I don't think I'm alone in my denials. I think this is the American way of dealing with death and illness. We try to ignore it until we can't anymore. We don't talk about the painful and the inevitable. I could have said so many things to my grandmother that I didn't say. I could have thanked her for letting me live with them for 2 years as I finished high school. I could have thanked her for all her financial help over the years. I could have told her what an important example she was to me. I could have thanked her for being a friend and supporter and parent and advisor. I could have told her how very much I loved her. I could have let her talk about her fears. I could have let her tell me again about her uncle who died in WWI and her brother who stormed the beach at Normandy. I could have let her tell me again about her childhood and her beloved mother and her late sister. I could have had one last chance to hear and remember all that she had to say. But I didn't. I didn't do anything like that. I pretended that she would get well or that some how the last months or year of her life would be painfree and normal. Who was I kidding? Only myself.

I regret that I was so afraid to feel the pain that I didn't take the opportunity to connect with her and acknowledge her pain and her fear and her frustrations. I regret that I didn't learn better from that experience to behave better when Mom obviously needed me. I provided no emotional support there.

I won't do that again. I won't be afraid to feel the pain because you feel it anyway. I won't be afraid to be there--actively--for whomever needs me next. I will learn from my mistakes and I will be there, body and soul.

--L