Sad

I'm sad.

Every day at least once and often more than once I'll receive a phone call from Mom. She'll start in with a concern of some sort; a jumbled, mixed up crazy soup type of issue. I've learned not to dispute whatever it is she's saying and simply listen and reassure if I can. Usually that works just fine. Lately "the car" has been the focus. Where is the car? Is it locked up? Is someone going to drive it back to the house and put it in the garage? These are the easy calls. Quick to be assuaged, our calls are brief and hopefully providing her a sense of ease, at least for awhile. Sometimes she will put Dad on the line and he'll just have a brief quip or two; "good to hear your voice today" and "I'm doing fine; don't worry about me". Then we hang up.

Sometimes the calls are tougher to handle. This afternoon she was mixed up, distressed and fearing for her safety after some sort of incident. Extracting the details is like trying to get a an accurate time table from a toddler about exactly what happened when all hell breaks loose. Impossible. I'm left with threads and wisps and not much of substance.

Today I had to call the house phone and ask the caretaker to please check in on her. I could have jumped in the car and made the 30 minute trip to check things out myself. I know my presence would have helped both of them but I decided to let those who are in charge do their work. And, they will. I have confidence.

It's just that I miss my Mother. I truly miss her. I've lost her somewhere in the tangled interior of her mind. If she were complacent and carefree, pleasantly off in her own world, it might be easier. But her world is anything but calm; always thinking, creating stories and scenarios that frighten and deceive her or that take her back to decades past when she was free to come and go and make her own decisions. She knows on some level that things aren't quite making sense and the innocent distress, the lost look in her eye, and the query in her voice all make me mourn the loss of the wonderful person she was.

I'm sad.