September Solitude

I missed blogging in September. For some reason I think it's because of the tie to Willie Nelson's song "September" http://youtu.be/lkB_d0oFAaM  it leaves me with a melancholy feeling, as if "the days I have to spend with you are few." It's now October and I'm thinking... Solitude, as in Evanescence's song http://youtu.be/-Z7p3abL_P0 a very haunting melody. I usually try to post positive blogs on my care giving experience; but it would not be a realistic blog if I didn't occasionally post how this experience is effecting me emotionally.

As the line in the song says, "I lived through you, you looked through me." I feel like I'm living through you and your experiences, and you look through spectacles that are fashioned by me.

"When will the hole in my heart be mended?" I feel as if I will always have this hole in my heart, even after you are gone. "Who now is left alone, but me?" Evanescence sings.

November has come and gone and now we are six days into December. The days are getting shorter and yet longer at the same time. I drag myself through the motions of getting up, fixing breakfast, doing the dishes, giving mom her bath and putting her down for her morning nap, as if she were an infant. Mom is up for lunch and memories of cutting food for my daughter come to me as I use knife and fork to cut the pork chop into small edible pieces for mom. Mom has forgotten how to use the knife and fork together, I have caught her trying to cut meat with just the fork when the knife has been present. It is hard to watch a woman who was once so brilliant, struggle with such a mundane task.

December brings your 90th birthday, and I struggle with what to do. You sleep through much of the day now, yet you look forward to your Birthday Party, as a child. You've asked for cake and ice cream, and it brings me back to the days when you and dad invited family down to the farm and we made home-made ice cream. Dad is gone now, the farm is gone too... it's just me and you. Solitude.

Christmas is coming. Where is family? Where is the church? Where are friends that said they would never leave your side? The tinsel hangs on the tree like memories of by-gone days. The traces of my childhood scattered amongst the branches of the evergreen. Your fingers remember the Christmas tunes of the piano and we sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Oh, Holy Night". For but a little while our hearts lift with our voices and we remember days of old.

________________________________________
Update: I wrote this in September of 2012, it is now 6 years later, and my heart is still sad. I have now lost mom, my daughter to marriage, my home, my livelihood and almost my life. Again I say, "Where is family? Where is God? Where are the friends that said they would never leave? Why are some lives harder than others? Is it a gift or a curse? What are we to learn from the trials we face? Why do they repeat? Is it because we don't learn the first time? or the second, or the third? Where is the purpose? What is there to gain? Does the journey ever end? These are just a few of the questions I ask myself each day.