|
2006-12-02 || 8:23 p.m. || in december || dreams: 1. we are visiting an old west ghost town. we keep losing my mother but are only vaguely annoyed when we realize she is missing and then find her. she is older. she hasn't combed her hair. she moves slowly. 2. my mother is staying in a motel in a truck stop. she keeps wandering outside in the cold in her pajamas, circling the parking lot, standing in the door way of the gas station minimart. she complains of smoke from a fire nearby, that it disrupts her oxygen. she seems older. she isn't supposed to be walking, so we tell her to go back to her room. i get a bad feeling after number 2 and call her the next day. i dial the number and quickly realize i shouldn't be calling then because i am already choked up and upset. she answers and i ask her how she is. she says she's "breathy." some days she's fine and some days she's breathy. it's gotten to the point where i know what kind of day it is by how she answers the phone. she says it's not so bad; it's 10:45 and she's out of her pajamas. i tell her i had a bad dream and try to explain it. she asks if she has hair in the dream. i went christmas shopping this morning. i woke up early and walked into an antique store just as it opened. i looked for presents for my mom, and the ugliest thought hit me: any trinkets i buy for her now will most likely be returned to me at some point by my father. and the regular mom presents - clothes, cooking things and gardening things - are no longer appropriate because she can't use them. presents are suddenly a weird concept. here are things you can't use or here are things that were intended to make your life a little brighter, meanwhile you're taking 22 pills a day and monitor your hair loss daily and can't stand up some days and don't recognize your body in the mirror when you accidentally catch a glimpse of it when you hadn't prepared yourself and consider it a triumph when you are showered and dressed by 10:45 a.m. guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land |