My least favorite holiday is coming up, and as I'll be traveling soon enough and cannot manage yet another thankless drive to NJ for a visit (so far I haven't seen her at all this year; last time I saw her was in December). So I mailed off another mea culpa package. It's a formula at this point. A few books, hand lotion, sugar free hard candies and cookies. Bundled up and mailed off WITH a mother's day card. And it's been delivered. And nary an acknowledgment (yet).
Despite her precarious health, she is still here with us in the land of the living, almost despite her wishes and a true testament to the advances in medicine. It's not a testament to a zest for life. Heck, I don't even know what trips her trigger anymore.
To date, she has not left her house since Mother's Day 2014. TWO SOLID YEARS without going outside to get some sun on her cheeks or fresh air in her lungs, or even to make a trip to Wallyworld or even to go through the drive-thru at Wendys or Dunkin Donuts.
Two solid years of seclusion.
Add to this the fact her phone is unreliable. I cannot tell if it's a problem with the phone line itself or the physical phone. She seems content to bitch about it, with "it" being how no one calls her. But we do call her, and half the time the calls don't go through. And she's an adult and allegedly living independently, and she can manage this, I'm sure of it--yet she does not.
I've been to her house visiting, and the phone rings and it's a telemarketer, and she keeps them on the phone entirely too much. I cannot tell if it's a cat-about-to-eat-the-mouse type of move or if it's utter desperation, as I know many days go by where she does not interact with anyone at all.
It's an isolating life, and depressing no doubt for her. Hell, it's depressing for anyone who visits! And that in and of itself is depressing.
I've been grappling with this weirdness, this thing where I have normal impulses for someone who's clearly not normal.
Thanks to her neglecting herself and now this seclusion, what little time we have left together on Planet Earth will never, ever involve: dining out, going out to get our hair or nails done, visiting other people, going to the boardwalk, going out to shop, or even going for a joy ride in a new car. None of these simple little pleasures are ours to enjoy. So what is left? A finite amount of visits in that house of hers that bears no sentimental value to me. Being in that house, reminded how dad's not here anymore, and hasn't been here going on eight years. Visits which will always involve take-out style meals or meals I've prepared at home, meals that aren't appreciated.
I'm sure a lot of what's going on is just a projection of her own unhappiness, but it's palpable. You can feel it and smell it.
Another Mother's Day is almost upon us, and I'm in this no-man's land, where she's still alive, and yet I feel this grief and loss, and know there is no way I can turn this around myself. I can't. I won't. I'm totally unable to do this. I wish I could change it, but I can't.
