Mother’s Day has always been kind of a tough holiday in my family. Mom’s got an early May birthday, so it seems like there’s virtually no breathing room between her birthday and Mother’s Day. It’s kind of like if your parent was born shortly before Christmas. You get the idea.
This year, however, it was much worse than a regular Mother’s Day: my mother fell at her ALF right after her birthday, and had to be hospitalized for the second time in two months, once in April, then again in May. She’d already fractured a couple vertebrae, and the birthday fall worsened those fractures.
My wife and I visited my Mom on Mother’s Day. She was considerably worse off than she’d been just a couple weeks before—in and out of consciousness, barely talking. She couldn’t hold her own Mother’s Day card, so my wife held it up in front of her so she could read it.
When we left the hospital, my wife cried.
Yeah, that’s how it’s going this year so far.
Mom’s in a skilled nursing facility now. It’s going to be a long haul. She’s lost not only her independence, but now it looks like she’ll be too weak to make it back home to her ALF.
I saw her today, and she was marginally better—at about 25% as opposed to 10%, that is.
So, worst Mother’s Day ever? No doubt other people have had worse, but this was my toughest one yet. I didn’t plan on blogging about it. However, I’ve got nothing else in the tank today. I’m exhausted, trudging along doing what I can for her, while taking the best care of myself and my wife that I can.
And I know this isn’t an uplifting or helpful blog post. People, I got nothing more to give today. Tomorrow (and next Monday) is another day.
