Saying goodbye
I can't believe SNL has been on 40 years - that it started right after the last pullout from Viet Nam. I see the former characters creators and actors looking so old and it's rather sad. When did they get old? When did I get old? It was just yesterday I was in my 30s and fit as a fiddle, my kids were little and still needed their mommy.
Tonight I watched the passing of so many listed on the Oscars. I looked at each face and they smiled, happy in the day and not knowing when they would cease to be. Isn't it the same for all of us? We go each day not knowing if tomorrow will come. For some of us it causes sleepless nights - wanting to spend every second "knowing."
Glen Campbell's song sung by Tim McGraw was ever so sweet and boy did it hit home. I have progressive memory loss due to a botched surgery and it's painful. The other day I had to ask my son what his birthday was. When I worked, I would go to log in a program I'd used for years and stop in my tracks, blank, empty, confused. It's a scary place to be - silent, different, strange. We make jokes about me watching a movie and then forgetting it within a week. It's okay to laugh, it takes the seriousness out of it. You feel ridiculous when you try to say something and the sentence won't come out - it just leaves you and you spend your time trying to remember what it was you were going to say. Everybody has had the time when they leave the room to do something and forget, but it's worse to forget you were ever in the room. You constantly go behind yourself to see what you might have forgotten.
It's better when you have a task to get lost in, such as bills, checkbook, etc. Even with that, you run things over in your mind regarding what's due, did I pay it?, did I forget something coming out?
I have recently begun again to get my photos in order so the kids will have them. I don't know how much they are interested in. I wish they'd take more of an interest in the family, the ancestors. Such a story to tell and one I'm afraid will die with me. You look at these things and your books and things important to you and wonder will anybody else even give them a second thought or will they be donated to some charity. Will they pick one thing because it reminds them of you, and what would that one thing be?
You try to keep busy, to be relevant, to be remembered as somebody who was a hard worker; but then again wonder will you be remembered at all. As my health declines and I live with such pain, I wonder if today is actually the best day I might have. I have told my children to not let me go to a nursing home. I don't want to live out my days in a room with a stranger and staff who has no interest in the vital, smart, intelligent person I was, and no interest in the lost, staring, confused person I've become. Such a horrible awareness of what lies ahead. Some people I wonder if I will see again as I lost those dear to me, and some I wonder if they have any second thoughts of seeing me.
And so I will lie down tonight once again with the physical pain, once again trying to retain all that I've done today and what I need to try and remember from yesterday. When I fall asleep I'll wake up with a partially blank slate, not remembering all things, some important things, some not; but mainly days from long ago, mom, grandparents, sisters, children, hearing echoes of what was and the silence of future uncertainty.
Tonight I watched the passing of so many listed on the Oscars. I looked at each face and they smiled, happy in the day and not knowing when they would cease to be. Isn't it the same for all of us? We go each day not knowing if tomorrow will come. For some of us it causes sleepless nights - wanting to spend every second "knowing."
Glen Campbell's song sung by Tim McGraw was ever so sweet and boy did it hit home. I have progressive memory loss due to a botched surgery and it's painful. The other day I had to ask my son what his birthday was. When I worked, I would go to log in a program I'd used for years and stop in my tracks, blank, empty, confused. It's a scary place to be - silent, different, strange. We make jokes about me watching a movie and then forgetting it within a week. It's okay to laugh, it takes the seriousness out of it. You feel ridiculous when you try to say something and the sentence won't come out - it just leaves you and you spend your time trying to remember what it was you were going to say. Everybody has had the time when they leave the room to do something and forget, but it's worse to forget you were ever in the room. You constantly go behind yourself to see what you might have forgotten.
It's better when you have a task to get lost in, such as bills, checkbook, etc. Even with that, you run things over in your mind regarding what's due, did I pay it?, did I forget something coming out?
I have recently begun again to get my photos in order so the kids will have them. I don't know how much they are interested in. I wish they'd take more of an interest in the family, the ancestors. Such a story to tell and one I'm afraid will die with me. You look at these things and your books and things important to you and wonder will anybody else even give them a second thought or will they be donated to some charity. Will they pick one thing because it reminds them of you, and what would that one thing be?
You try to keep busy, to be relevant, to be remembered as somebody who was a hard worker; but then again wonder will you be remembered at all. As my health declines and I live with such pain, I wonder if today is actually the best day I might have. I have told my children to not let me go to a nursing home. I don't want to live out my days in a room with a stranger and staff who has no interest in the vital, smart, intelligent person I was, and no interest in the lost, staring, confused person I've become. Such a horrible awareness of what lies ahead. Some people I wonder if I will see again as I lost those dear to me, and some I wonder if they have any second thoughts of seeing me.
And so I will lie down tonight once again with the physical pain, once again trying to retain all that I've done today and what I need to try and remember from yesterday. When I fall asleep I'll wake up with a partially blank slate, not remembering all things, some important things, some not; but mainly days from long ago, mom, grandparents, sisters, children, hearing echoes of what was and the silence of future uncertainty.
Comments
Post a Comment