Long Journey Home

Time is the only healer and music a salve for the feelings of grief my family and I are feeling.

In Honor of my Mom: February 18, 1925 to November 8, 2007 - touched so many, loved by all.

Her strength, wisdom, beauty, sense of humor, capacity for love and forgiveness are unequaled. We'll miss her more than words could ever convey.

In the link below is the Robert Plant and Alison Kraus collaboration called Raising Sand. The whole cd is beautiful, YOUR LONG JOURNEY in particular seems to have been sent to us right about now. If you care to hear the song or any of the album, click "Listen to Album" after the jump.

Telephone

You know getting information funneled down in a large family can sometimes prove to be very much like a game of telephone.

But firstly - thank you all for your caring words regarding my Mom. She is in the hospital and so far nothing specific is showing up in the tests (MRI/catSCAN, etc.). She is having a stress test tomorrow and all things being equal (to what, I'm not sure), she'll be going home by Thursday. She has a hairline fracture in her forearm and of course, contusions on her face and near her eye. Answers as to why this happened may not be evident.

The truth is - this is one tough woman. When she blacked out, she fell down with the impact of a boxer being knocked out and got herself up. My brother and I joked that raising ten children can do that to you. She actually never went to the hospital at that juncture because apparently in Anytown USA, volunteer ambulance corps come and check you out and leave that option up to the patient. The patient in this case is 82 and has just passed out and looks like she has gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. My mother being stubborn as she is, called her sister to take her home instead. My sister was then called who took my mom to the hospital where she is undergoing the various tests.

By the time this information gets to me (#7) in the hyperbolic family game of telephone, she has jumped from an airlifted ambulance as she refused treatment, taking a doctor hostage in the process. Still home for a cup of tea though.

My family has a slightly warped sense of humor, but thankfully my mother can still appreciate our odd takes on life such as they are.

It's hard living far away (and having small children) as I can't just drop and run. But I will see her this weekend and she will be staying at my brother and SIL's house as she recuperates.

So thanks for your good wishes. I'll keep you posted when she invades Iran.

On parents aging and such...

I sit here alternately staring at the screen and then hopping links to other blogs. I have been so erratic about posting of late - both in timing and topic. I think back and recall there were a few pretty good posts - just about life, some pretty funny as I remember them, some not so funny.

I wasn't going to blog about this because sometimes Reality Avoidance Therapy works best for me. I'll deal with it, but in my own quiet terms. The topic today - Parents Aging.

As some of you know, I come from a large Irish Catholic family before I jumped ship to Judaism about 12 years ago. I am the seventh of ten children. My father passed away in 1989 and my mother has since lived on her own more or less (wayward sons and divorces disturbing the relative calm of what's on sale at Shop Rite).

Tonight my sister R called to tell me that my Mom had a "spell" in church this morning and went outside whereby she must have blacked out and fallen. A priest came to her aid and she was taken to a hospital whereby they treated her physical wounds and released her! Her face is badly cut and bruised and swollen which just makes me cry. This is a woman who has barely a wrinkle thanks to good genes and Oil of Olay applied religiously. That just makes me cry - her soft skin being bruised up in such a violent way.

Anyway, the big guns were called in (which is my sister Susan) and she came over and brought my mom to a hospital proper where she is indeed being held overnight for observation and some tests (CAT scans, etc) will be performed.

My mother does not live right around the corner so I cannot just hop into the car and run to the hospital. I will go tomorrow or Tuesday based upon what we find out tomorrow. I feel sad for my Mom as I see the signs of aging taking their toll. Her hearing has gotten worse and for various reasons, she has refused a hearing aide. She probably should not still be driving but she said only half jokingly when I mentioned something to her a year or so ago "they'll never take me alive!" This, as we imagined a scenario of her home being surrounded by police requesting her license over a bullhorn, which she wouldn't hear as she turned the television ever louder behind the barricaded front door.

I look forward to her quick healing and me being able to joke with her that I told her no good can come of her hanging out in church so often. We'll have a good laugh of which she'll only hear half. And we'll have a cup of tea.

Just like old times.