My heart just broke in two. The day we were all hoping would never happen, came. Mom didn’t know Dad today. He came up to tell me the minute I got home. I knew it killed him. I assumed it was just a small blip but tonight, while saying good-night to her, she asked me who that man was. She liked him and hoped he’d kiss her again but she didn’t know him. I ache most for my father. It would kill me slowly knowing that my lover and friend of 54 years forgot me! I am seeing wedding vows taken to the nth degree and it’s tearing me apart because I know he can’t live without her.

Things with my parents are progressing and it's clear that we'll need more help sooner than later. I keep praying for wisdom and, sometimes, even strength to handle whatever comes our way. I feel mostly for my dad since he's taking the brunt of it all. He's showed complete heroism as he daily takes care of my mother, who is now reduced to being a child. He doesn't look at the whole picture (though he is not unaware of it) because it brings him down. He'd rather deal with it one moment at a time than to focus on the inevitability. Sure, it's going to happen and it's going to get worse for both of them but, really, what else can you do?

We've got to focus on mom's vertigo. It makes her unsteady gait even more unsteady. I don't know what else to do. I guess I'll have to take a page out of dad's book and take it as it comes. She fell a couple weeks ago and I wanted to get a ramp up but that's proving a lot more expensive than hoped for so, I'll see if I can get some new stairs w/a railing. It's a start.....

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my parents. It’s been a hard year (yes…I know it’s only January) so far, what with trying to do my best for them, work in a very stressful environment and lack of sleep, and I feel like I’m starting to go crazy. Yeah…I’m doing too much but there’s no one else to do it so, I keep going. Anyway… My dad’s Parkinson’s is getting worse, as expected. That, of course, doesn’t make it easier to deal with and/or watch him struggle so hard. The feeling of helplessness is acute. Today, he had surgery on two hernias. He’s home after a grueling day. My hips/knees have been extremely painful and sitting for long periods of time aggravates the arthritis. Even so, I think what hit me the hardest today was something my mother said. Her dementia is getting to the point where, at times, she’s forgotten that I’m her daughter. Dad’s witnessed all of this and has had some concerns about her forgetting him but he never says much about it. Of course, he’s not the type of man who talks about his feelings and worries. My parents been married 54 years and the love they’ve shared is a rare love. They both, in their way, have worried about losing each other. My sister and I believe they will not survive each other long after one has gone. It’s just the way they are. Beautiful and heartbreaking. Today, mum leaned over and told me that dad asked her a question. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, or how it made me ache for them, as long as I live. I could not help my tears as she told me what my father said: “Mary, remember I love you, okay? Always remember I love you.”

Tonight was one of the hardest I’ve had in a long time. Nothing traumatic, life-threatening or end-of-the-world-ish …except that my mother, for the first time, did not remember me. She didn’t remember that I was her daughter. I thought she was joking when she asked me how I knew my cousin and, “are you really part of the family?” ….she was not joking…. I don’t know when something has hit me so hard. I can weather through crisis after crisis and crumble a little when no one is watching but this time, this time there is no end and there is nothing that will make it better. I kept telling myself that this wasn’t going to happen and hoping it was true. I cannot put into words the loss and pain I feel. Please, God. Please help us love her the way she needs it…no matter what!

new poem

Dead River

There’s a story told

Of long ago

When ol’Bill Haley snapped

He ran to debt

And couldn’t get

A job and so felt trapped.

At the end of his rope

He gave up hope

And went crazy, so they say.

He came home one night

His eyes wild and bright

With a danger held at bay.

Blackness came

And he began

To turn a hateful savage.

He looked down

To see the ground

Where he did most damage.

A bloody knife

That slain his wife

Laid nestled in his hand.

He couldn’t cry

He didn’t try

The wind howled cross the land.

A second look

He then took

And finally saw the gloom.

Because, beside her

Lay his daughter

And his son there in the room.

They caught him then,

The sheriff did

and slammed the iron den.

There’d be no sorrow

On the morrow

He’d hang until the end.

T’was not to be

For Bill Haley.

He escaped, you see.

But there he stopped

And gave a shiver

On the bank of ol’Dead River.

He had to cross

Or he’d be lost

So, he stepped down in her.

But…

The river claimed him on that night

No one knows just how

But she rose high and caused a fright

And took the town down with her.

She took revenge and took them all

With one fell swoop and then

She made ol’Bill step out of hell

To haunt her banks forever.

Be careful when you walk the woods

Down near ol’Dead River.

You’ll probly see, ol’ Bill Haley

With bloodied knife and driller.

mjr (copyright 2012)