An Ordinary Day

An Ordinary Day

When you have lived long enough to know a truly bad day, most days are pretty good. My 91 year old mom always says, “Today is a good day”. I say, you always say that mom, everyday can’t be good… She replies, “Well, today is an ordinary day and since most of our life is made up of ordinary days, today is good.” This is an attitude that can only come from living long enough and experiencing truly bad days. My mom is a Sage. 

Recently, my mom reached out to her 5 children to tell us that she needed more help and wanted some aid in finding an assisted living place. It happened fast. We all worked together and made it happen quickly. I have awesome siblings and luckily we all have a different skill set. My sister is a task master, a researcher and a problem solver and good with money. My brother, a fixer (can literally fix or build anything which is how my mom was able to live in her house for so long by herself) and is the ultimate optimist. My other brother visits, provides company/support and brings her food/flowers and other things she needs. The other brother arrives and does whatever needs doing and can do it all with focus and with no complaint. It’s taken me a while to figure out my role and skill set but I know it now. It is a kind of guide or companion into the unknown. Let me explain, when my dad died of cancer in June of 2007, I flew back from New Zealand where I was living at the time with my husband and three kids, to see my dad for the last time while he was dying of cancer and on hospice. At the time, my parents were living outside a rural town in Wyoming.  My siblings had all been pitching in with their various rolls when I arrived and they were exhausted. My siblings all had to go back to work to their various states across the country. My dad lived 3 more weeks with a double colostomy and eating no food. My mom and I cared for him (with a hospice nurse visiting a couple of times a week), cleaned him and took visitors and phone calls to him. He couldn’t speak much during the last couple of weeks and so it was my job to translate what I thought he might want to say to people he cared about. I gave him foot rubs and tried to joke and speculate who might greet him in heaven even though he (and I) are humansists and never really discussed the concept of heaven. It was excruciating to watch him die, and yet I was so glad I was there with him and my mom. I would check on him and then go for a run on a dirt road through the ranches and fields. I would run and sob. I drank tea but could hardly eat until he finally passed in the dark of the night with my mom and I listening to all of his last breaths. My job was the boots on the ground, in the thick of it kind of job. We were literally heading into the unknown together and. I guess you could say I was giving emotional support but it felt more like facing it together with calmness and honesty. Hospice gave us information about the stages of death which. It required a kind of endurance I didn’t know I had. To watch someone you love die slowly definitely gives you a certain kind of “on the job experience” that ya can’t get just anywhere.

So, when I arrived to help my mom leave her beloved house and move into a very unfamiliar place where literally everything was different, again, I felt I was her companion into the unknown. My mom is in a wheelchair and has been dealing with terrible leg pain, on top of a multitude of other issues, we arrived with no clue what to expect. I spent 3 nights with her on her couch, greeting all the caregivers all night who come in to help her go to the bathroom every two hours. We didn’t get a wink of sleep and were running on empty. Mom can’t hear or see well but has brilliant mental clarity. We would go to the dining room to eat and I would meet people and introduce them to mom and try to facilitate conversation and translate for her. I found out what events were happening and escorted her there. We tried to memorize names and wrote them down in lists. Finally, it was time for me to leave her. I wrote a thank you card to everyone who worked in her wing who had helped make her feel welcome. I did all I could. Before I left, mom told me a story in hopes to comfort me (she is always thinking about others) that I did not know about when her mom died. She said that on her way back from Illinois (where her mom died), she was so down and grieving for her mother.  They had been cleaning out and selling my grandmother’s house, my mom and dad were traveling home on the road in Finney county and came upon a little white dog. They stopped to check on the dog and it had been abandoned on the side of the highway. She was so friendly and sweet and my mom brought her into the car on her lap and hugged her all the way home.  Mom named the little dog Finny. She said that in one of the darkest times in her life, this little dog brought her joy, light and comfort. We decided that mom just needed to find her little Finny in this new place. I have learned that in my darkest times, I have found purpose and strength. I now know to look for a Finny in the hardest, darkest of times. 

My journey did not end with leaving mom. I had to fly home to have surgery on my back, a serious issue that has been getting worse and worse.  My surgery went well but I have a lot of healing to do. It’s been a really difficult couple of months. However, today is still an ordinary day, a “good” day and I’ll take it! 

Thanks mom.