How did I miss that?

If you've stayed with me this long, you are obviously a glutton for punishment. I have done nothing but burden you with emotional baggage for three months, Reading my drivel is the equivalent to slowing down to catch a glimpse of a car wreck. 

Or, maybe you are among the few who have been with me for awhile and have realized that someone is missing from the story.

No. Not Brad Mosiman. Most of you are astute enough to realize that if Amy Mosiman is still standing,  it's because Brad Mosiman propped her up and tied her shoes. Brad Mosiman is always there. And for the last few months, he's been in agony because he, too, could see that we were on an unalterable course. It's tough for Brad Mosiman to not captain the ship he's on; especially when it is so clearly heading toward the shoals. So he did what he could. Adjusted the sails. Scrapped off barnacles. And...when all else failed, grabbed a bucket and began to bail.

No. The person you are looking for is strangely absent from this story. 

She had appeared  a few years ago, at the introduction of one crisis and then vanished with the arrival of this most recent one. 

Where is the girl who hid in a mulch bag fort at the grocery store? Who wept in restaurants and stood, paralyzed with fear, outside of automated doors? She was severely agoraphobic...embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid.  Where did she go?

"That's what I was wondering," my friend Deb said, shrouded in the shadows of her darkened kitchen, mid-crisis, "but then I figured it out."

Enlighten me then, oh wise one. Deb had witnessed my panic attacks. Watched me wipe away the tears that humiliated me. Waited for our food orders as I fled the building. I was shackled to that frightened girl. As much as I despised her, she wasn't going anywhere.

"I've sat here and listened to you describe how the Lord has been working in your life," Deb smiled, "but you missed the biggest one." I waited, hopeful, because those small glimpses of God were the only things sustaining me. "During Covid, God made sure that Brad was there to support and protect you, yes?" I nodded. "But where is Brad now?" 

Prior to my Dad's fall, Brad Mosiman had been spending months preparing for the opening of his gym in January. We could not hit the pause button on that. Brad was working a full-time job with overtime, working at his gym, and scrambling to help my family all he could. "That was God," Deb told me, "He knew it was time to take Amy's crutch and hand her a sword."

I couldn't breathe, staring at my friend across the table. I felt numb as I considered her words along with my actions over these last few months. I have had to be demanding, persistent, obnoxious (which was never much of a stretch for me), and sometimes downright ugly. I have had to pretend to be strong for my parents. I have had to pretend that my world was not imploding for my students. I had assumed that that other girl was still with me because, despite all of my pretending, I was always so afraid.

But I was wrong. Without me noticing, she had quietly packed her things and left...like a morbid Mary Poppins...her work with me was done.

I've lost a lot during these last few months. But along the way, I gained part of myself back. I can walk into a grocery store by myself and not feel like warped walls are closing in on me. I can make simple decisions without having a melt-down. I can go out to eat at a restaurant without traumatizing the waitress with a flood of tears.

I smiled at my dear friend. "Let's go out for breakfast tomorrow," I said, "My treat."

"I wouldn't miss it," she grinned.

 

No...I do not need therapy. This IS therapy.

This was a picture taken on a "good" day.  January 16th. When I was still blind as to what was coming. I didn't realize how truly skeletal my dad looked until I sent the picture to my girls in California to "reassure" them and instead, ending up horrifying them with his condition. Two months later, he wouldn't even be able to sit up straight in bed.

I have a LOT of anger.

My friend Sarah is a good "feel your feelings" type of gal as I struggle to process the nightmare and residual effects of the last three months. Knowing that I can barely light a candle, she took my threats to raze buildings very lightly:

Sarah:  Arson is a very healthy way to deal with grief. Is it possible that under the mad, you are just so sad? But I mean, definitely burn shit down if you want to and I'll be your alibi.

A week later...

Amy:  It's time for you to remind me that hatred and fury can't power me forever.

Sarah:  Well, actually, it's still the first week after the funeral so this is the "Any idea you have is therapeutic and a healthy and normal expression of grief and I support all of your ideas except the ones that violate federal law" zone

Sarah:  Anger is Step Two in the grieving process. So really, you're just quite advanced--moved through Step One in a matter of days.

Amy:  I fucking hate the steps and refuse to be categorized into phases of grief. I am NOT the moon, for Pete's sake.

Amy:  What was Step One?

Sarah:  I think Step One was "angrily railing against prescribed psychological paths established by experts in the field."

Sarah:  Or denial. You aren't really much of a denial person. You are a big "meet whatever comes head on" person so I didn't actually expect that step to be a long one for you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am angry.

I'm angry that all the confusion, uncertainty, and choreographed control of Covid so frightened my parents that they used it as a reason to bar my entry from their home for nine months because I'm a school teacher...robbing me of precious time to be annoyed by my Dad's political posturing as we played euchre. I am angry that, upon leaving the hospital after his fall, my dad was able to walk, supported, 50 to 100 feet, but the fourteen day Covid protocols made it so he couldn't leave his room at the rehab center...fourteen days that would set him back irreparably. I'm not sure if my dad ever actually left his room in the rehab center.

I am angry that it took an outside source, an in-take nurse from an assisted living facility we were considering, to review Dad's condition and point out a host of problems that we should have seen for ourselves but we foolishly, naively, trusted the "experts" instead to address.  Sound familiar?

I am angry that, instead of visiting my dad and trying to brighten his day, I entered his room like a military staff sergeant, taking inventory of his surroundings, his bedding, his curtains, and his waste basket...right down to the color of his t-shirts to see if it had been changed recently. Was his bedding wet? Were there any empty calorie-boosting drink containers in the trash? Were his socks on? Was he wearing pants? I would paw through his tangled sheets like a prairie dog, to get at his feet to check his heels. I became obsessed when I noticed his ankle bones grinding against each other. I'd raid the linen closet, disgusted each time because it was spelled wrong, to place a rolled up towel between my dad's poor painful feet.  I'd rub lotion on his feet and massage them when he admitted that he couldn't feel his toes.

I'm angry that my dad was not always afforded basic human dignity. When I noticed him chomping his partial like a bit, I asked him to pop it out into a container of water and about retched at what immediately rose to the surface. As I cheerfully scrubbed it in the sink, singing, "Splish, splash, Dad's partial is taking a bath," I casually asked my father when was the last time he'd brushed his teeth and he couldn't remember. I immediately added that to my inventory list. 

I'm angry that a doctor would question how I knew that my dad was experiencing frequent and excruciating back spasms when I expressed strong concerns about my father's quality of care. I'm angry that being appreciative and kind wasn't working and that my use of the work "fuck" increased exponentially. I'm angry that the same doctor would point to a one pound weight gain as proof of improvement. "My dad is not a fucking infant," I snarled in response. 

I'm angry that I was invisible. Which meant that everyone who was in need of care or who was advocating for the care of others was probably just as ignored. I poetically fancied myself a gunslinger, standing in the dusty, deserted street at high noon, demanding pain killers for my dad who was begging for relief and often, death. Gandalf, on the bridge with his staff planted, bellowing, "You shall not pass," as the promised twenty minutes turned into thirty, then forty as staff slipped silently past me in the hall, like I was a ghost.

I'm angry that my mother, who was letting my dad crush her hand as he battled spasm after spasm ("Are you SURE it's a spasm?") watched me fight my way off the floor where I was kneeling by Dad's bed, to stand and video tape his torture before stomping into the nurse's station to hold my phone in front of them, tears streaming down my face, as I begged them to come. "How much longer does my mother have to witness this?" I screamed, thrusting my phone forward. I'm angry that my mother had to wonder what I was doing afterwards, when we'd gotten Dad settled for the night, after I'd helped her into the car, and then paused behind it to throw up, before getting in to drive us home. 

I'm angry that I can't delete that video from my phone.

I'm angry that my father would dismissively wave his food tray away and that they would sometimes just turn to carry it out with me chasing after them.

I'm angry that I didn't trust that my father's pain was just too great to attempt a "transfer." As I helped the PT to bear my dad's weight, holding my foot firmly in front of his as we worked to move him from the bed to the chair, my heart disintegrated as he sobbed, whimpering for help. My father cried the entire fifteen minutes that we tortured him and I could hear that fucking doctor's smug voice in my head, "Well, that's what you asked for." I never demanded physical therapy again. 

I am angry that, despite notes that I posted, staff would close my dad's curtains so that this man, who lived by the clock, grew confused and disoriented, never knowing whether it was day or night. I am angry, that in his fear, he would call my mother at 2 in the morning, asking where she was. Where he was. 

I am currently being crushed beneath the weight of my anger. But that is okay...because the anger eclipses my profound grief and guilt. Because, in the end, the one that I am angriest with is me. 

A missed call

I had a moment yesterday. A Moment. An out-of-the-blue, sock-you-in-the-stomach moment.

For the past five years or so, I have explained to my in-coming 4th graders that Mrs. Mosiman's cell phone is always on because my Dad's health is a bit precarious and people cannot direct-dial the classroom. So...for five years or so...on the rare occasions that my cell rings, kids will race to it, see if it reads "G'ma & G'pa" and, if it doesn't, press ignore. 

Not once in five years has it EVER read "G'ma & G'pa."

Yesterday, my phone rang and every one of my 4th graders froze.

No one raced to the phone.

I took a shaky breath and one of my sweet honeys rose out of his seat to offer a hug, whispering, "You don't have to worry about him anymore."

Dang.

This is tough.
 

Not sure what air mattress to buy? Maybe you should sleep on it first.

 It was a seemingly simple task. "Sydney Lynn," I said, "Could you please go pick out a small air-mattress for you and your sister to take turns sleeping on at Grandma's?" Savannah and I would spend the night with my mom Friday into Saturday for the funeral and Sydney would stay with me from Saturday into Sunday. Sydney disappeared into the bowels of Stuff-Mart while I was stationed with Savannah in the pits of hell (the photo kiosk). 

Finally finished, we dashed off to camping supplies to find Sydney. But where was she? "I'm in bedding," she announced over the phone. I reluctantly left the twenty dollar air-mattresses behind to join her only to be faced with overpriced options designed for dignitaries. "We don't need an inflatable headboard," I insisted while the girls described the PTSD that they suffer when their pillows slip off the air-mattress cliff into the great unknown.

"I wanted a twin," I stated. Sydney held up her phone. "Dad said that he's sick of you sleeping like a Taco Bell gordita in Grandpa's chair," she smiled. "She looks more like a chalupa," Savannah said helpfully. "Either way," Sydney explained, "we need a bed to accommodate two comfortably."

"The pump is built in?" I exclaimed, reading the box as I began filling out the loan papers to afford this monstrosity. Thinking longingly of the twenty dollar air-mattress in camping, I helped the girls wrestle this white water river raft into the cart.

Later, my mom and I watched, with no small amount of concern, while her living room disappeared as Savannah plugged in the pump and the air-mattress quickly inflated the space like foam insulation. Somersaults, back-flips, and assorted acrobatics were now employed to take us from one side of the room to the other. "I feel like the Princess & the Pea," I muttered to Savannah, realizing it would take very little effort on my part to touch my mother's ten foot tall ceiling from my prone position. "I meant for our presence here to be unobtrusive and subtle," I whispered to Savannah as my mother escaped to her bedroom; obviously soothed and comforted by our camping out in her living room like homeless squatters. 

"We could have just used sleeping bags," I complained, floating on my cloud of comfort. "You know what they're called, don't you?" Savannah asked me as I curled like a cantankerous kitten into a ball. "What?" I hissed. "Sleeping bags," Savannah repeated, "They're called nap-sacks!" "You know, then," I countered, "that a person who sleeps next to a close relative is called a nap-kin." 

I tried complaining about the air mattress to Sydney the next day but she insisted that I was blowing it out of proportion.

Again...it was a simple task.

Buttons are a bitch

 For three months...I have been fighting EVERYTHING. Nursing homes. My dad's unwillingness to eat. Opinions (Turns out, everyone has one...or two...or three...). Covid restrictions and protocols. My mom's dementia. Fate. Time. And...buttons. Buttons are KILLING me.

ATTENTION, would-be inventors:  Want to make millions? Design a universal television remote with only THREE buttons. Power switch. Channel up/down. Volume up/down. You are letting the duct-tape people OWN you, my friends. Walk through any nursing home or assisted living community and you will find hundreds of remotes strategically covered by duct-tape to reveal only THREE buttons. 

Buttons are kicking my ass. My mom's elusive memory enjoys playing games with me. I spent hours trying to teach her how to use speed dial as punching all the buttons to call my dad would often result in a fun chat with a remote village in Zambia. Speed dial. Two buttons. Count them. Two. But we couldn't master the skill. Until...

Imagine my delighted surprise when my mom's number flashed on my phone as I worked late on a Thursday evening. The delighted surprise quickly turned to shock as I found myself on the receiving end of my "mother's" rage. I have finally come to terms that, during these episodes, I am not actually dealing with my mother. As she spat swear words, accusations, and blame at me, I sank to the floor of my classroom and thought, Now you remember how to use speed dial? I glanced at the clock. "Mom," I interrupted, "Isn't Wheel of Fortune on?" Little did Pat Sajak and Vanna realize how much I had come to rely on them. "This %$^&*$-ing TV isn't any good," the demon possessing my mother informed me. I gently explained that I was going to hang up to rectify this matter and she not-so-gently offered her opinion about my plan. I hung up anyway and alerted her front desk who were well-versed in emergency remote control calls.

Buttons.

The TV even spiraled out of control during my stay with her. My sister-in-law has a doctorate in remote control comprehension but even she was powerless to help us. I swallowed my dignity and asked the staff to help us but they didn't have the remotest idea how to fix our problem. I sighed. It was either puppet shows or the Chrome Book. I am noticing, lately, that blessings turn up in the most unlikely of places. I plunked my mother in front of my miniature monitor and went to YouTube.  We enjoyed a few Wheel of Fortune segments as well as a few rounds of Family Feud. God bless Steve Harvey who can make my mother smile when I can't. Remembering my mother's fondness of music, I brought up Elsa belting out "Let It Go," a sentiment my mother immediately adopted. "Why is she screeching?" Mom frowned, squinting at my small screen. Okay. We watched Shirley Temple tap. Ginger Rogers waltz. And then...the epicenter...Elvis. My mother happily watched The King in his prime for over an hour.  It was pure bliss.

One of my mother's few remaining pleasures is drinking her tea. There is a soothing, elegant ritual involved in tea that us coffee drinkers will never comprehend. It is a dignified past-time. But now the buttons on the microwave baffle my poor mother. And my placing explanatory postie-notes on it infuriates her. She, understandably, hates being treated like a child. But I hate that my mom can't enjoy her tea. The war was on.

Buttons.

This battle, mothers versus daughters, has been fought since the inception of time...a time that is eternally blinking inaccurately; no doubt because of a recent power outage.  My own children, seeking to improve the lives of their parents ("improving"), decided to upgrade my own microwave, affectionally named "Old Sparky," this past Christmas. Brad and I were perplexed. We love our microwave. It has been with us, almost from the beginning. Sure, it occasionally puts on an impressive and somewhat alarming laser light show but that is part of its charm. When our cave-people ancestors ventured from their lairs for sustenance, wasn't there an element of danger to their quest? What is reward without a bit of risk?

Savannah and Sydney were quite displeased to discover their gift being used, in its original packaging, as a handy side table in my dining room when they arrived last week-end. "Christmas was almost three months ago," my disgruntled daughters announced, digging out the new microwave and callously re-packaging our tried-and-true kitchen companion. "It's so clean," I complained. "The time display is blinding," Brad observed, shielding his eyes. "Oh my goodness, does the interior light up?" I yelled, "Shadows shield the splatters!"

Ignoring our lack of gratitude, my daughters stepped back to survey this "improvement" to my kitchen while I stomped off muttering, "Those girls know how to push my..."

Buttons.

Psalm 91:1

My husband, the widely-renowned sage and philosophical genius, keeps gently telling me that, right now, we are choosing the very best of the bad options laid out in front of us. He's a big comfort, that one.

I am not blessed with Brad's capacity for deep thought and profound logic.  For good or bad, I look for God in EVERYTHING and search for signs (the more obscure, the better). Most of the time, shockingly, my interpretations tend to favor me getting my own way. I like to say that God protects fools and Amy Mosiman. My calorie count often takes a hit because I am certain that the Lord placed that sweet little snack-er-al in my path for a reason. But there are times when I absolutely know that God is with me.

I didn't sleep the night before we moved my mom out of her house. I paced the floor. Refused to take a pain reliever for my pounding headache as my self-inflicted mental flagellation for causing my mother distress. Cried. Searched, for the thousandth time, for another solution to this colossal mess we were in. As usual, I forgot to pray.

As I cut a deep trail across my mother's kitchen floor, I happened to glance out the window. Squinting, I was startled by the shadow that lay across her garage door. I hurried to put on my glasses to be sure. Yup. There, big as life, was the letter "V." I laughed, comforted for the moment. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...thou art with me." I forgot. But of course, God didn't.

My mom's name is Evangeline. Her friends call her "Vee."
 

PART VI: Whereupon Amy is summarily kicked out of an Assisted Living community by her mother and then immediately sneaks back in

My dad has been predicting his demise for, at the very least, the last fifteen years. These dark declarations can be ranked in the top five of his favorite hobbies which also include: reading instruction manuals, unnecessarily saving and categorizing every receipt known to man, complaining about his neighbors' offers to help with small yard chores, and getting on ladders every chance he can. 

So it was not surprising to me AT ALL when I was visiting him on Wednesday and arguing about how many bites of applesauce that he would be willing to eat, that he would interrupt our daily dietary debate with his latest prophesy. 

Dad had these conversations down to a science. I'm pretty sure he had the script meticulously written in one of his millions of little notebooks. I am imagining that it may have looked a little like this:

Step One:  Clear your throat (so as to indicate something of Great Importance is about to be stated).

Step Two:  Patiently explain to your loved one that they are NOT going to like what you're about to say but they are just going to have to deal with it. It is, after all, your life...I mean, death.

Step Three:  Announce your intentions, allowing for a dramatic pause for audience indignation and/or protest.

Step Four: Conduct a lengthy question and answer session.

"Amy Sue," he said, batting my hand away as I attempted to slip an unauthorized spoonful of applesauce into his mouth, "I have something to tell you."

He cleared his throat.

"You're not going to like it."

I settled back into my chair and glanced around for a program. The show was about to begin. I wondered if I had time to pop some popcorn.

"These past few months have been tough," said my dad, for once the master of understatement. I nodded. No argument from me. I had never witnessed someone in as such excruciating pain as my poor dad...one nightmarish evening found me on my knees shoveling ice chips in my dad's mouth and Lamaze breathing with him as his back seized up in regular contractions lasting anywhere between 45 seconds to two minutes in length with, if we were lucky, a couple minutes break in between. Brad Mosiman would hold my dad's shoulders to the bed as the rest of his body attempted to levitate away from the pain that was paralyzing him. But my dad had the pulse/ox device clipped to his finger and we'd learned that below 90 was bad. It was explained that, if Dad could control his breathing by pulling air in through his nose and blowing it out of his mouth, we could get that number to rise. And he did. Earl DeLong, "the human earthquake," breathed with me as we fought to control that number through his pain. My dad was tough.

"I think my body has had about all it can handle," he went on as I debated stuffing another spoonful of applesauce into his mouth. He delivered his dramatic pause like a seasoned veteran of the stage. I decided not to ruin his moment with a mouthful of pureed pectin. I glanced over to his cupboards to see if he had any orange Jell-O there. Bingo! I stood to rip off the lid.

"I am going to die on March 16th," he gently informed me. I sat down and he nodded at me sympathetically. It was a lot to take in. I offered him a soothing bite of orange gelatin. He swallowed, waiting for my reaction. "Well...ya better get cracking there, buddy," I told him as I slipped an ice chip between his lips. He raised his eyebrows at me questioningly. I leaned in to him and grinned. "Dad, TODAY is March 16th!" He laughed out loud.

My dad is going to be so pissed that he'd miscalculated by three days.

Go with God, Earl DeLong.